#and every time she closes her eyes

[bixels]

Posting a sneak-peak of this now because I'm about to be In The Shit school workload-wise, so this'll take me a while to finish.

Doing some character design exploration/expression sheets for Celestia and Luna. Figuring out Celestia's weird ass anatomy while I'm at it.

[catsoftheclans]

frostpaw

[mantisgodsdomain]

"Hornet is Void" theory, not in any sort of intentional, engineering-your-other-babies or whatever way, but in a "PK had awful policy with Void cross-contamination and it meant that Hornet came out with a handful of VERY conspicuously void-y characteristics that everyone tries to ignore because no one actually knows for sure where they came from and acknowledging them in any formal way could lead t a political shitshow" way.

[chappellrroan]

i am a mother (of my cats)

[rypnami]

she has a secret, can you guess what it is? ft garreth being So Normal

this beautiful girl is Prim, belonging to @galaxiasgreen and seriously if you are a garreth fan haven’t read Stay With Me yet wtf are you doing GO DO SO NOW

[fruiteggsaladit]

Question if Mukuro is based on Kushana, does that make Hiei Nausicaa?

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.

I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.

For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.

I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.

Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.

If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.

That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"

Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.

For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.

The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.

At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.

The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?

Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.

Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-

But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.

Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.

To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.

"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.

"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."

And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.

What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.

I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.

[mytho-nerd]

Dionysus: my number one rule is don’t tell Athena

Athena: oh?

Dionysus:…what to do. Don’t tell Athena what to do.

[brood-mother]

while i'm generally all for practical effects over cgi, can we as a society please agree to stop putting actors into those dumbfuck party city no-gradient one size fits all opaque plastic contact lenses to represent weird coloured eyes. they look like absolute dogshit. just do it in post. the time and more spent in the editing room is worth it so your gritty fantasy/sci-fi cool sexy guy don't look like a goddamned potoo

[danielnelsen]

things aren’t going well with peach. while i think my dad’s very right to be concerned that she hasn’t eaten anything in nearly 60 hours (obviously i am too), im becoming increasingly concerned that she hasn’t slept at all in around 36 hours and prior to that she was under anaesthetic, which isn’t exactly restful, so it’s closer to 48 hrs

like dad took her back to the vet today and we’ve got injections for her painkillers now because she’s not eating, and also injections for fluids (because she doesn’t drink; she only gets water from her food), so the not eating is Bad but also kinda under management, but if she doesn’t sleep soon i’m extremely worried. dad was like ‘if she doesn’t eat by tomorrow afternoon we’ll take her back because the injections will run out’ but like. if she doesn’t sleep tonight we have GOT to take her back first thing in the morning so they can sedate her or something

[spacedlexi]

skybound collectively unshitting their pants after acquiring the full rights to clementine, the coolest character in their own franchise

[jeezypetes]

PINHEAD ON CHOPPED!!! i said PINHEAD ON CHOPPED!!!

[vintage-brass-tc]

I miss the slightly more intimate moments we shared before she came along. Back when you had on-and-off girlfriends and I was a constant in your life…maybe as a student, but a constant: I was someone who actually cared about you and gave you my undivided attention, always. You’d look at me like I was special. Treat me so carefully, so kindly. Allow yourself to talk to me casually.

Now, those moments only come once in a blue moon, only within the moments that she’s gone. But she’s almost never gone…. because she follows you around like a lost puppy. Literally. Always lingers awkwardly when you’re occupied, just to swoop by you again when you’re alone. And you let her.

You recently shared a hotel room. You always share the same car on the rides to school. You always sit next to each other. You’re always talking. Smiling. Laughing. Joking. Relaxed posture. Similar characteristics. Standing in such a close proximity, sometimes leaning closer to the other’s face just to hear them mutter— it’s all so sickening. I’m unbelievably jealous. She’s HOPELESS. I’m hopeless.

She has no clue how lucky she is… and yet she still has the gall to glare at me when I walk over to him and she’s nearby. It ticks me off. Like, there’s NO reason you should be mad at a junior for approaching her DIRECTOR. You can NOT be mad about me wasting your time with him when you literally have THE WHOLE DAY!!! You follow him so much you might as well have a string attached to him. Constant, constant, constant interactions. Maybe he’ll get sick of it. God knows how long he can handle someone emotionally dependent like she seems to be.

She’s so dependent on him always and it makes my blood boil. I wish he’d one, admit to our class that they’re dating and just go ahead and break my heart, two, admit to me that her clinginess annoys him and he doesn’t want anything to do with her romantically, or three…. just BREAK IT OFF! Stop hanging out! Get away from her! Make some boundaries! ANYTHING to get her away from you!!! I just can’t stand it!!!!

ugh

[umilily]

waking up from a poorly timed nap to my friend once more making the worst possible life choices

[violetnaps]

thinkin about her

[red-dyed-sarumane]

3,4 and 20 for the proseka asks :0

3. Ult fave character?

mafuyu its mafuyu theres no contest just look at my profile i would hope theres no question about it

4. Favorite character from each unit?

saki, airi, kohane, emu, & mafuyu!

20. Favorite 4* you have?

my two favorite-est cards in the game <3