#…maybe i should anyway🤔

[dykepaldi]

twissy in da 80s i think i hauve covid

[shadovvheart]

new inky just dropped ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Her name is Lorraine, she's an innovator and reformer, a science wizard enchanter with an interest in inventing new practical ways of applying magic for everyday use to "serve man". A devoted andrastian with some religious trauma (tm) who thinks the circle institution under the chantry is outdated and needs to be changed.

She's reserved, observant, analytical, can be a bit awkward. Has trust issues, and forming relationships doesn't come easy for her, especially with non-mages. Kind of an "aloof, autistic scientist who can appear rude but is determined to improve the world with their inventions" archetype.

More ramblings under the cut 👇🏻

• Lorraine's fam were extremely pro-templar and raised their kids to be devout to the chantry. Magic was considered a dangerous burden, something to be hidden and kept away from regular people, so Lori has some internalised shame due to being a mage. Though she eventually does come to a realisation that her parents' views were unjust and that she shouldn't feel this way, and that her magic is a gift rather than a disgrace. Still, she does her best to put her magic to good use and invent new ways of aiding people through it, in part as a way to prove herself to the world. She believes mages should be allowed to contribute more to society, have professions and hobbies and more safe spaces to experiment with their gift.

• Before discovering her love for academic study and experiments, Lorraine wanted to be a templar. As the youngest child in her family with close ties to the chantry, she couldn't think of anything more fitting as she didn't want to be a cleric, and the idea of being a knight in shiny armour was compelling for a kid. Her magic manifested when she was 11 years old in the dead of the night when the estate was sound asleep. Waking up from a nightmare, she found herself surrounded by fire. She doesn't have much memory from what happened that night, only that she was dragged away by the templars from her home.

• The fire she caused was devastating to the estate, and Lorraine's parents and siblings didn't survive the night. She knows this, but due to the trauma caused suppressed her memories about what really happened. For many years being stuck in the circle she believed her family were so disappointed with her being a mage that they completely turned away from her, refusing to even write letters. That grew some serious resentment and shame inside of her. Her then mentor, Lydia, decided to spare the child more suffering and encouraged her delusions.

• Lydia was like a mother to Lorraine, and while she didn't have many friends at the circle, she considered her fellow mages to be her new family. She's often distrusting and cautious of non-mages, having a hard time believing that they can be accepting and caring about her - a mage - without having some ulterior motive. During the inquisition she bonds fastest with her mage companions. I also see her being closer to Dagna than any other non-mage companion due to their shared interests and passions.

• Eventually, when Lori received the vigil of trust and was allowed to make trips outside of the circle, Lydia told her the truth about the night when she was taken to the circle and encouraged her to reach out to her more distant relatives. Lorraine didn't see the point, as none of those relatives chose to reach out to her all these years either.

• Unlocking those memories for her was...ugly. There's still some unresolved trauma that she tries to learn how to live with. Naturally, the Nightmare demon in here lies the abyss quest takes full advantage of that because Drama. :3c

• I reckon Lorraine is interested in studying lyrium and finding ways for both mages and non-mages to work with it safely. She's also intrigued by the fade and the veil, so naturally she chooses the new, "experimental" fade rift magic later in the game. Apart from rift magic, she often opts for the frost element and spirit schools. She believes people shouldn't shy away from more sophisticated enchantments and other forms of magical crafts, taking inspiration from Tevinter and how they implement magical solutions to everyday problems.

• She would probably invent a magical fire alarm system enchantments to be installed in people's homes.

• While she's the kind of a person who would rather sit in a lab/study all day without interacting with a single living soul, she at one point got frustrated enough with her ideas being denied by the first enchanter that she decided to get into politics and push for reforms that would allow her to practice magic more freely.

• Speaking of politics, Lorraine spent most of her circle life in the aequitarian camp that generally tries to follow the chantry law. She always abided by the rule that magic should serve man in ethical ways, but also considered the system to be rather old-fashioned and limiting. She wrote drafts of reform programs detailing a secure and steady transition in which the circle would gradually provide more freedoms to mages, eventually letting mages govern themselves with as little chantry supervision as possible. When the mage rebellion started and fraternities split into two sides, Lorraine begrudgingly sided with the libertarians and supported the full separation from the chantry.

• Anyway, she has some serious personal issues but doesn't like letting it show and stays put. She's very focused on her work, determined and efficient, and is self aware enough to not take herself too seriously, so while she's not talkative and prefers to keep to herself, she doesn't sulk or dwell on her traumas, and tries to be friendly and accommodating to others. Although from her perspective, that equals to just being patient enough not to tell others to go fuck themselves fifteen seconds into the conversation.

Etc etc I think i could go on but I'm yet to complete a full playthrough with her and this is already a lot so maybe I'll yap about Lori more sometime later 🙈

[xf-cases-solved]

i am aware that this is likely not a new take at all, and i'm not like, claiming it as mine, but i never had the chance to have this opinion (or hear other ppl have this opinion) on a public forum before, so i just want to take this opportunity to say to another person, possibly for the first time with the exception of mb my mother, who is no longer here to agree with me, that "existence" came out when i was 8 years old, i watched it live, and literally the day i watched it i remember thinking to myself "why did they have a boy named william? they should have had a girl named samantha. OF COURSE they should have had a girl named samantha," like it felt so obvious to me

and tho i couldn't rly articulate it this clearly at the time, my little muddy 8 year old thought process was that the entire story of the xfiles starts with samantha, right? mulder has his beliefs bc samantha was taken; he says so in the very first episode. the whole reason he even thinks aliens are real to begin with is bc of samantha. the person he spent his whole life searching for was samantha. he MET SCULLY bc of samantha. samantha is the thread that ties the whole story together, so then how beautiful--how narratively perfect--would it have been to tie THEIR story--their love story (bc xfiles is, at the end of the day, a love story, fight me) up with a bow, where the beginning starts with samantha getting lost, and then ends with samantha there in their arms, finally found, just in a different iteration. (instead of naming the baby after mulder's dad who he doesn't even like? or scully's dad. or scully's brother. or mulder's middle name, which is after his father ik, but still, why are there so many fucking williams??)

like, imagine it. rly sit there and take a moment to imagine how the end scene in "existence" would have gone if mulder had said, "what are you going to name her," and scully had said, "samantha"

not only does it get the "ding ding ding, you're the dad!" point across, but how fucking Touched would mulder have been to have the woman he loves--the PERSON he loves--more than anything on earth honor the sister who took up so much of his soul for so long? who always will take up part of his soul, just in a healthier way. it would be scully saying, "we know she's gone from this world now, but she's not gone from our hearts" emphasis on OUR hearts, bc mulder's pain is scully's pain; mulder's quests are scully's quests. she never met her sister-in-law (they're married, fight me), and will never have the chance, but by naming their child after her, she would be saying, "i love her anyway. i love her because you love her, and because anyone you love deserves my love as well, bc we are intertwined at our core. our fundamental values, our suffering, our joy, it is felt in us both concurrently, bc i am your person, and you are mine, and together we made a whole other person who is a literal representation of our combined selves, and we are going to call her SAMANTHA, bc that little girl you watched get stolen from you however many decades ago has been the pillar that has kept us going as a team for the last eight years"

or maybe it would have been even simpler than that. maybe she would just be saying, "your sister is IMPORTANT, mulder, even in death, and her memory isn't held only by you. it is unrelenting, and preserved forever in our child"

i wanted that scene. i wanted to feel the heaviness of mulder's grief mixed with his elation and gratitude and love. i appreciate william for who he was in the scheme of things, but that moment in the bedroom, with their baby between them, shouldn't have been lessened for me bc they chose a name that made me pause and go "his dad was named william? oh yeah! forgot about that guy, it's been a few YEARS since we saw much of him, and what we did see of him wasn't like... awesome. but sure, name your baby that ig, if you must"

that scene should have hit so much harder, and if that baby had been a samantha? it could have hit like nothing ever has, and for all the mishaps that show took after that (and there were MANY), i think the thing i will always have the most resentment for is the fact that i felt robbed of something that would have meant so much to me as a viewer who had followed their journey from the start (or, well, almost start. i was born the year it came out, so i didn't start watching until 1998, when my brain came online, but i'd seen the past stuff at least)

anyway! that's all to say, 8 year old me was salty as hell about that, and ykno what? she was RIGHT and should have been able to say it. but, again, 2001, 8 years old, not old enough to participate in fandom, so that thought has just festered and rotted away in my brain like a piece of old, putrid meat. but! finally i can give my 8 year old self some catharsis by letting her bitch and bitch and bitch to her heart's content about how "existence" should have been the series finale, and how that baby should have been a girl named samantha, and how i climbed onto that hill 23 years ago, and how i will die there with my heels dug down deep

ty, internet, for coming to my extremely overdue tedtalk. somewhere in the past there is a small child (who definitely shouldn't have been allowed to watch xfiles as young as she did, but what can you do?) finally has a weight off of her chest. it's just a tv show, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but also, it's a tv show that i grew up with in my formative and unfortunately very traumatic years, and it genuinely feels like a loved one who has always been there to comfort me, and so yeah, it doesn't "matter," but the truth is, it Matters so incredibly much

that's all

-diz

[ifindus]

If you're still doing the ship opinions, what do you think of Egypt x Norway?

lol don't think I ever started doing ship opinions, it's just so happened that I tackled a lot of ship related asks after one another 😅 but always happy to contribute Norway related information regarding connections and relations to other nations! ✨

Can't say I've ever heard about Egypt and Norway as a ship before, so I'm starting all fresh with this one. Norway and Egypt don't really have a lot of relations with each other - most of the dealings between the two nations is regarding Norwegian ships and the Suez, as well as military collaborations, and some Norwegian companies have investments in Egypt. I won't say Egypt is a very popular tourist destination, but there are definitely Norwegians who go there on holiday. There's no major cultural links or other funfacts I can find about them in my very short time looking into this.

For me, I need a historical link or some other cultural bond to really enjoy ships, so I think I'll need a bit more convincing on this one ✨

[ends-of-the-wayward-storm]

(Click for better quality.)

[Original background and other game assets are from alchemivich, who had originally extracted them from the game. Edits and everything else are done by me.]

Aaaand here's my other TWST OC Azura Heron as well as a closeup of her coffin icon that I am very proud of! She, like my MC Mia, was also made in the Djarn Picrew, but I edited her hair to make it darker so it'd match her wings more. (I did my best to make her as close to how I have her in my head as possible.) She actually has feathers that function as part of her hair and are pretty much two-toned like her wings, so pretend she has them. (All avian fae have hair feathers that match their wings.)

Azura makes her 'debut' around the first Fairy Gala since she and three of her close friends were asked to attend in order to form better relations between the small fairies and the reclusive avian fae. Which means they see Leona and the squad doing their thing and are distracted like everyone else. This is also around the time that she meets Malleus again for a bit before the Gala actually starts, and then a couple more times after it's over due to a happenstance that I'll probably be posting about in the near future. But it does end pretty well. :3

Feel free to ask any questions you might have about her!✨✨

[theygender]

I've been having more Symptoms than usual lately but that's probably fine and cool right

[redrosydiaz]

man reeeaaaaalllly wanna write a patrick pov mark rebellato days era art tags along on the zweig family trip to the summer vacation home kinda fic ft. sunburnt cheeks and shoulders and salt dried tangled tresses and passing a stolen bottle of something strong back and forth and toes in wet sand and moonlit first kisses 😩

[orcelito]

I do love that doing any kind of monsterfucker smut will have you dabbling in speculative biology and going on deep dives into the animal kingdom to draw inspiration for your fictional dragon reproduction system.

Aka for my oviposition dragon vash au I was looking into wonderful subjects such as autogamy, parthenogenesis, and ovoviviparity. Among others.

All just for funsies !

[keirahknightley]

This was my films watch/rewatch streak of august-september (just before spooky season started)

Any ladies only gifset requests from these -except the animated films cause we don't post animation there- so i can post to ladiesofcinema (or do i get to roll the dice)

[xiaoxingguang]

i love that the english version of rafayel is so... this cuz thats at least not what he said in the chinese audio

the english translations are very interesting because its def not a 1-to-1 but raf's really adds something to the character

[neo-zone]

Hehe, face to face

[ifindus]

✨"Meet the Artist" ✨

Name: Findus Age: 26 (29.03) Zodiac: Aries Nationality: Norwegian Orientation: Bi/Asexual Gender: Non-Binary (they/them) Education: Masters degree in Archaeology

[icedille]

one of my toxic traits is that i can't stand writers as a class of people WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A FEW ONES ok some of them are also the loves of my life but. they're crucially a minority so apart from those they're all SO annoying to me. and the fact that i'm also one doesn't help. anyway if you're a writer and i don't know you personally you should die

[guinevereslancelot]

why is my ex boyfriend who dumped me suddenly helping me find cheap skis and inviting me to vermont and talking about taking a job where i work what is going on 😭. i know we're still friends but is he stupid 😭

[eternal-reverie]

got the posting anxiety bad tonight

[cinnabeat]

nothing like a giant bookshelf to make you incredibly aware of how many fucking books you own