#(especially the ugly parts)

[peachirambles]

I'm doing these two together because of their similarities and figured it would just be best to answer both of them at once.

As a preface: Qiu and the MC do have a crush on each other but neither of them have acted on it. So right now they are Very close friends but Tamarack and the MC are best friends. I went with a more fem leaning MC but they are still using they/them pronouns and are still nonbinary. Just because of who will be showing up in this drabble 😭

With that out of the way, here's the drabble! Hope yall enjoy Qiu being a certified #asshole

Qiu wasn't a jealous person. In fact, they were quite the opposite, growing up as the residental young boyish heart-throb of the young population had other people jealous of them for many reasons. Popularity, good looks, funny, and with a perchant for being kind to everyone they meet; they had heard the rumors of how some of the "friends" Qiu had were secretly trying to push others away from them just to horde their affection. Of course, Ren and Baxter always snuffed out those particular people's issues. Though that didn't stop Qiu from finding out that they unknowingly made people jealous of them. For a while, they had grown accustomed to it.

But then they moved in.

With their sincerity, kindness, and love; they ruined Qiu so thoroughly, down to their very being. Yet, Qiu couldn’t even complain. They would absolutely let the MC do it again and again to them. They were everything to them, and all they had to do was look pretty and bat their eyelashes at them to get them to do anything. They were completely head over heels screwed for them.

And it's what led them here now, sitting at the lunch table, silently fuming on the uncomfortable bench.

Fuming because they were the reason they were completely and madly green with envy at the sight of the MC being so close with Tamarack.

"Tamarack, your hair is so silky and has such gorgeous curls!" The MC preened as they started to make a small braid with some strands of Tamarack's hair.

"Ah, are they really?" Was Tamarack's reply, soft and questioning. For a second, it would have sounded truly genuine, and it might have been, but Qiu knew better.

Tamarack had lost all of her boisterous energy and know-it-all attitude that she wielded back in 2010, replaced with insecurities about everything and anything about herself. It was like watching a turtle shrink back into its shell, and a part of Qiu understood why.

But as they watched the MC comb and weave their beautiful fingers through Tamarack's sparkling hair; a much louder, nastier part of them yelled and screeched.

She's obviously fishing for compliments, she knows her hair is her best quality!

Her hair isn't even that pretty to begin with!

Why is the MC braiding her hair? She doesn't deserve it.

Is my hair not good enough to be braided?

Why her and not me!

"Anddd done!" The MC squeaked, snapping Qiu out of their momentary spiral as the group cooed and awed at the small braid, dangling next to Tamarack's ear. Much to Qiu's utter displeasure, Tamarack had the nerve to be bashful.

"It's so cute!" Serenity, one of Tamarack and the MC's friend, piped up. "Now you have two braids!"

"It does look very nice." Vianca hummed in approval, which made Tamarack fidget in place.

"You did a good job MC." Renee or Ren for short, the only ally Qiu supposedly had at this godforesaken table and the only reason why they were even sitting there, smiled at the both of them.

Why the hell was she on Tamarack's side?Almost everyone here don't even know she's a girl! Why are we even here?!

Qiu couldn’t help but grit their teeth in pure frustration. They couldn't even lie, it was a perfect braid and it suited Tamarack perfectly. But, if they were being honest, they had rather Tamarack have no-

"Qiu."

Qiu, once again, snapped out of their thoughts and turned to the source of the voice. It was Vianca of all people, with a smirk on her face. Usually, they didn’t a single shit about her, but for some reason, that shit eating smirk made Qiu's stomach drop.

"Aren't you going to... you know? Join in on the conversation or compliment the braid? You havs been staring at Tamarack for a hot minute now." She sneered at them, and Qiu's eyes widened as they realized she was completely right.

Tamarack had noticed Qiu's stare on her. Otherwise, she wouldn't be fidgeting with the hem of her sweater, her smile dropping into an uneasy line, and her plucked eyebrows furrowed. God, she made them truly sick sometimes.

"Qiu probably thinks it's fine." Ren chuckled, though it was obvious that there was nervous energy coating each sound. They felt a small jab on their foot, and they looked up to see Ren's hazelnut eyes staring back at them.

"Right, Qiu?"

Qiu knew what was happening. They made Tamarack feel bad, and now they had to sit there and pretend that they thought her and her stupid mini braid that the MC made was cute to save face. Their hands balled up into fists on the table for just a second before they took a simple breath in and exhaled, and their hands relaxed once more.

The MC is in front of them for fuck's sake, they can pretend to be fine.

"Sure. It's cute." Was Qiu's stiff reply.

There was a collective breath of relief from most of the table's patrons, and Tamarack glanced up at them for just a second, her eyes searching for something before-

"I'm so glad!" The MC nearly squealed before pulling Tamarack into a close hug, giddy from all the praise, and all poor Tamarack was able to muster out was a solid squeak.

"I been practicing and practicing with Tamarack's hair the past few days after school. I love messing with hair, and once I get better, I want to do-"

There was a solid slam that reverberated on the table that not only silenced them but silenced most of the chatter in the cafeteria. Qiu's palms stinged and burned from the impact of the force, but they didn't care.

Why should they when all they been hearing was just bragging and idolizing someone that wasn't quite frankly worth the MC's time?

"I am sooo happy that you love to do Tamarack's hair and that you just loveee to do everything with her." Qiu laughed but it wasn't remotely happy or earnest, but instead filled with a deep malice.

"Qiu-" Ren snapped but Qiu pressed on.

"But I quite frankly don't give a fuck enough to be caring about her damn braid to be complimenting it."

There was audible gasps and even some giggles from the other students who were listening in. Vianca, Renee and Serenity's faces were twisted in a state of shock and disgust. The nasty pit in them were reveling in it.

At least that was the case until their eyes wandered on Tamarack's face, flushed hot with embarrassment and shame. Her head was ducked down but they could hear her eyelashes furiously batting away the tears that were starting to form beyond the drumming of Qiu's heart in their ears.

And if that didn't make Qiu falter, then the look on their face certainly did. It wasn't shock, it wasn't anger; it was pure and unfiltered hurt and disappointment. That was easily enough for Qiu to stop, but as if feeling like they were controlled on strings, they spoke again.

"Now if all of you excuse me, I'm going to do something better with my time."

The poison in their words even shocked them, but before they could even process that, they felt their limbs run on auto pilot.

They snatched their bag and stormed out of the cafeteria much to the confused shouts of the group, but Qiu didn't care.

They had to get out of there! They had to!

Qiu felt the blood rush to their face in so many emotions, eyes stinging as tears filled their vision. As they side-stepped both faculty and students as they ran up the stairs, thoughts were running at them a mile an hour.

Why did I do that?!

Why didn't I do it sooner?!

Did you see the look on their faces!?

I made Tamarack cry!

It was so funny!

What is wrong with me?

It was great!

As Qiu barreled past the door and onto the rooftop, stopping to take a breath of fresh air, one single though ruminated in their head.

I hurt them. I hurt my best friend.

Qiu wasn't a jealous person. That's what they thought. But as they sat down on a bench, holding their head in their hands, that thought just wasn't true anymore.

They realized that maybe, just maybe something nasty had taken residence within them underneath their watch. Whatever that nasty thing was, Qiu thought, it had rotten them to their core.

Or worse, that nasty pit was there the entire time and Qiu was too tired to fight back anymore.

[phasewashere]

i need to write vdm

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Are there any companions you can't stand?

I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.

The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.

I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.

I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.

Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?

For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.

I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.

It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.

If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.

But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?

Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"

And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.

My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.

Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.

He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.

Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?

We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.

Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.

[isthoughts]

Regulus, Evan and Barty are such a fucked up trio. I'm exploring them a bit more, and there is so much resentment in here. They all need someone so bad, and they are awful for each other. They don't understand one another, and yet they are the only ones willing to listen. They are so codependent, especially Evan and Barty. They are best friends and they hurt each other so badly, accidentally and purposefully. They hate each other a little bit. They love each other a lot. They say neither, they feel both, even if they don't mean it.

Such wretched, ugly, desperate children curling up together to stay warm.

[sciderman]

I would say you’re more of a Mr peanut butter type yeah

doggy doggy what now?

[orcelito]

he's honestly unfairly pretty when he cries

[bananafishdepression]

Unpopular opinion: everyone was so fucking ugly at the beginning and torewards the ending of BF manga

[druidshollow]

"what would your character be like without their trauma?" is such a hard question for me because it makes me feel like a massive asshole LMAO

(im attaching a picture of a tundra literally to add context to my ramble in the tags because my posts are structured by a sane person) (you should read the ramble in the tags i talk so much about rivers fsr)

[skunkes]

I hooooope i get to have a fun halloween one day ive always either done nothing or had plans cancelled i just wanna dress up and look wacky in public with others... need the right environment and also creative friends to help out bc idk how people come up with or cobble together or pull off their costumes tbh

[minzbins]

best friends 🥺

[jeanvanjer]

every time I see these leaks for part two I want to know why they thought putting Kate in those atrocities was a smart idea?

[strangerwheelerthings]

Do you ever think about the fact that Max and Nancy are the only two for whom the Upside Down deaths have been personal? For Nancy, it's more than once, really. Like, ST has been absolutely traumatizing for everyone, but they are the only two to have lost. (Before the end of S4)

The way they dealt with that trauma is both so similar and completely different. Max shut down and completely pulled away from everyone. Nancy actually semi-reached out to both Jonathan and Steve, but THEY shut her down that first year. Otherwise, Nancy has repressed and hidden from it every year since. They are both so unimaginably angry, but despite outside perceptions, much of that anger is directed inwards. They never took that trauma and frustration out on others, not really, in an incredible show of goodness.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but my point is really... I wish they had real scenes together. They should be allowed to sit down together and talk and cry.

[fansonfansonfansonfans]

AOAOAOA Ep #95: Where have all those people gone? And who is going to find them? These famous true crime podcasters dig deeper.

[pigeonwit]

one day the world will wake up to the beautiful ship that is crutchtrack but alas today is not that day

[pnchy]

i need more yang and ruby interactions that isnt just surface level "were sisters and we have each others back" bc as someone whos been raised by my siblings like ruby, i swear theres more to it than that

[bitchthefuck1]

One little detail that I really love about Succession is the fact that it's explicitly confirmed in the show that Kendall, Shiv, and Roman have all been to therapy—and yet they've clearly still never actually processed or confronted the trauma and dysfunction in their lives.

They all acknowledge that on some level they need help and that what's happened to them isn't okay, but they're so deeply invested in the power structures that hurt them that no amount of talking will actually change anything. They can't really confront the reality of their father and what happened to them, because that would mean rejecting the myths they've been raised on and profit off of, and none of them are willing to do that. So the cycle keeps going.