#ascindio

Happy Artist Love & Appreciation day to these fantastic artists! I had too many favorites from these artists to share just one on this wonderful day!

Lou, you bring Daenarya and Mal to life in the most spectacularly gorgeous and moving ways. I ams o excited for our current commission, I can feel the feels already. 🥺 Thank you for always taking my partially formed ideas and making them perfection.

Nebs, you know your cheebs are my favorite things to exist. They are so perfect and fit the joy and love I feel for my babies. Thank you for all the dozens upon dozen commissions you've done for me over the years. And now you have keychains?!?! Ughh I love them so much! I'll have to get a Daenarya one next

My dearest Lily, I don't know how many times I can say it but it will never be enough. You are the most lovely, talented, kind, generous, inclusive, welcoming, and all around incredible person. You were one of the first people I met here and I could not have been luckier to have found you. You are truly a gift to all who know you. Thank you for all the art you've gifted me over the years. Love you forever!

RJ, where do I begin? You have brought such joy and beauty to the fandom since you joined. You've not only brought your trio to life int he most beautiful and heartfelt world of your drawings, but through your kindness and generosity you've brought dozens of fandom members MCs and OCs to life. You are such a star in our fandom and we are lucky to have you! (also your babies are the cutest thing to exist. also your F!gabe is the most beautiful thing. ilh so much)

Theo, you have one of the most gorgeous art styles. Your command of light and color is out of this world. Every time I think I've seen the most beautiful piece by you, the next one is even more magnificent. Talented is an understatement. I will never stop being absolutely inspired and amazed by the works you create, whether for Choices or other fandoms or original creations. Thank you for sharing your talents with us. I'm grateful to you for the art you've gifted me and those that I've commissiohned too. Thank you!

These are four categories that, like all categories, do not fully encompass the entire range of traits that characters can display. I guess it’s probably better to look at them from the perspective of what’s most similar to a character’s values anyway. None of the houses particularly scream “Szeth” at me, so this is pretty hard. There isn’t exactly a house all about “justice.” There is a lot of opinion tied in here as well, I’d need to think this through.

I think Slytherin is a definite no for Szeth, he does not view cunning or ambition as favorable traits, nor do I think he demonstrates them. I mean, he’s clever, I’ll give him that, and he’s resourceful. We’ve seen that in his fight scenes, he works with his surroundings and is really hard to kill, but I don’t think he views that as a good thing. Szeth is not ambitious, he puts himself in his entirety into service of others and other forces. He doesn’t have his own plans or ideas for how things should be, he’s mostly content to be a part of other’s visions. What I’m saying is he has enough Slytherin-brand smarts to pass, but none of the right values whatsoever.

Hufflepuff is actually a pretty interesting one to consider for him. At a glance, it feels very wrong, but I’m not sure it’s quite as wrong is it seems. Szeth is definitely humble and hardworking, selfless even. (He’s also better than you’d think at taking care of people.) I’m not sure whether I’d call him loyal or not. I mean, in the strictest and most definitional sense of the word, he is, he will follow orders and do pretty much anything that’s asked of him by his master. I don’t think that’s because he feels much of a personal allegiance to anyone though. Definitely not Nale, who he broke from, and not even Dalinar, who I’d argue he’s following because it was simply the best out of a finite set of options (there’s definitely no personal attachment to him beforehand.) There’s also the entire interpersonal or emotion-based aspects of Hufflepuff, and he does not fulfill those in any way. If you want to argue this house for him, though, I would base it in how Hufflepuff traditionally takes in anyone who doesn’t fit into the other three categories. I might buy that. He could definitely use some growth in Hufflepuff-based areas. Overall I don’t think he’d be a good fit though.

Looking at Gryffindor next. He’s got the mandatory Poor Life Choices™ aspect down, so that’s good. Gryffindor’s thing is bravery, but I’m not sure that applies to him in the traditional sense. Yes, he does throw himself into dangerous situations, but he’s simultaneously very hard to kill and lowkey suicidal, so I’m not sure courage is his main factor there. There have obviously been places in which he displays courage and nonconformism. I’m a little on the fence about whether that’s in a more Gryffindor-type way, where he does so because he thinks it’s the right thing, or whether it’s more in a Ravenclaw-type way. I’ll get to that in a bit. Gryffindor doesn’t seem to be the worst choice for him. He overthinks things a lot in his off-time, but when it comes down to actually taking actions, he can be kind of impulsive and reckless. It’s kind of ironic to say about someone like Szeth, but I think he also fits the bill of not caring about rules. Everyone kind of has to swear ideals, but Szeth’s are actually pretty full of loopholes. (I also want to mention that the only things Szeth particularly enjoys are flying and fighting. So. Yeah. Feels kinda Gryffindor to me.)

In terms of Ravenclaw, I’d almost say the same thing as Slytherin. He’s definitely smart and educated enough to fit in there. Szeth is competent and creative, but there’s the same issue that I don’t think he considers those to be important aspects of himself. He’s interested in learning, but I’d say that’s more for the sake of self-betterment than for furthering knowledge. As I said before, he does actually have the individualist aspect of Ravenclaw-although we know very little about his life before his time as truthless, he was a solitary voice speaking against the conventional wisdom of Shinovar. He also did the same thing with the skybreakers, splitting off and doing his own thing because he had looked at the evidence and determined that to be right. There is definitely an aspect to his character of truth-seeking and questioning that might be more important than I give it credit for being. If you interpret his core struggle less about actually doing the right thing and more about understanding what the right thing is, then Ravenclaw becomes a much more compelling option in my opinion.