#but it comes and goes

[arcandoria]

Prompt: Vhenadhal

for Veilguard30, featuring Serilyel (Mahariel) Lavellan and Elros Mahariel

When Serilyel reaches for the tree’s great trunk, her palm is met by healthy, living bark. Closing her eyes, she can’t help but feel a small smile shape her lips. It’s nothing like home - nothing will ever be like home - but it’s a memory.

She frowns. Aren’t we all?

Kirkwall’s vhenadahl is well cared for. Bright paint decorates the base of the tree, and boxes with candles and small offerings lay at its roots. It might just be habit rather than tradition, but the elves here tend to it, and in turn it cares for them.

The alienage on one of the cities they had last visited had cut theirs down at some point. It shouldn’t be something for her to care about, but seeing the stump had pained her heart.

But this one endures, and she feels life flowing under her hand.

She hears the elf’s approach before they actually speak, and though she allows herself a moment longer with the tree, Serilyel opens her eyes to meet a man about her age, his face curious but friendly, pointed ears just poking through thick black hair.

“Beautiful isn’t she?” His smile widens when she nods. “We take turns caring for her. Kept her safe even when the qunari invaded all these years ago.”

Stepping away, she casts a glance upwards. Indeed there’s some left over char here and there, and some branches clearly never quite recovered from the damage. The tree is scarred, but goes on.

Don’t we all?

“I don’t think we have met before,” The man insists, trying to get some conversation out of her. “If you’re hoping to join us, I’m sure-”

“I’m simply visiting, I appreciate your concern though.” Serilyel finally answers, and the other elf fails to hide the surprise on his face.

With her face bare, talking to other elves had become a gamble. If they were dalish, some would default to treating her like a child or a stranger. If they were city elves, they’d either take her for a foreigner - one time they assumed she was orlesian, and that one was actually a bit offensive - and simply carry on, or they’d recognize the lilt in her voice to be dalish, and it was a coin toss between pretending they didn’t notice or being curious enough to ask.

Before the coin could be flipped, though, another elf - a known one this time - approaches them with hurried steps. The markings on her father’s face gave away his origins, and their resemblance confirmed hers, so there was no need for the local to wonder.

Elros shoots an inquisitive but friendly glance at the stranger, who decides to be graceful and simply leave after bidding them farewell.

She looks back at the vhenadahl. It looked like it belonged and didn’t, at the same time - strangely out of place, but also like it was at home. Serilyel had more in common with it than she had thought, she realizes.

A gentle hand rests on her shoulder, and her father gives it a comforting squeeze. Serilyel smiles at the tree again. At least we got people who care for us, hm?

“How did it go?” She asks, finally staring at him.

“Better than I expected,” Elros sighs. “but Merrill’s never been unkind to me.” He shakes his head before retreating his hand. “Either way, she won’t come back. She’s got her people here now and wants to care for them. Clan life doesn’t suit her anymore.”

Serilyel sighs, then nods. Everyone is both in and out of place it seems.

Her hand reaches absentmindedly to where a wolf’s jawbone necklace sits under her clothes by her chest, and she steps away from the tree towards the alienage’s gates.

“Let’s go then. Varric’s waiting and the longer we take, the longer he has to come up with ways to pester me.”

[color-ns]

Sometimes tweeter people know their stuff- this is the right kind of toxic angst I want to read.

[squiddokiddo]

This is why I love Brains.

Though he's quite shy and timid, anyone who knows how skilled he is in his engineering listens to him.

He goes through several moments where he's had to stand up and be courageous and launch himself straight out of his comfort zone but his stutter never leaves, it's something that is never made fun of and it's never treated like a problem that needs to be fixed.

Brains' stutter is just another element to his character.

I hate that character trope where they're a severely anxious person with a "nervous stutter" and they have a big arc where they gain courage and cure their stutter so shoutout to people who just have a stutter as a feature of their voice regardless of how insecure they are I love you and if anyone ever tells you you just need to gain self-confidence I wish you the self-confidence to bite out their throat beast style

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[clarasoswinsoswald]

the unbreakable connection between me and a song I heard in a fanvid over ten years ago

[atalana]

but seriously i do find it so funny that ford was like OH GOD MY PRECIOUS REPUTATION after bill possessed him around other people for all of one night

and then he gets back to this dimension after thirty years and this is now the photo the press associates with his name

[platoapproved]

louis + cruelty

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[pangur-and-grim]

one funny thing is that after committing a crime, Belphie will lie down super flat and look up with his big wet eyes. not stressed out or scared, just accepting that he’s broken the rules and might’ve earned a time out in the kitten room. it’s the “I’m waiting for you to carry me away” position

[tiger-grace]

I think Alfred is constantly dreaming about retirement but is shackled by the knowledge that he is the glue holding this barely functional family together

Alfred: sir I really don’t think

Bruce: why not. why should I not invest millions into funding a therapy corporation that Jason will ACTUALLY be able to trust

Alfred: quite honestly sir I think if it says “wayne” on it he’s 10 times less likely to go

Tim and Damian kicking the hell out of eachother rolling around on the floor: (unintelligible screaming, glass breaking, various cartoon crashing sound effects)

Alfred: (stares into batcamera like he’s in an office episode with several decades worth of exhaustion)

[madootles]

"The Lonely's really got you, hasn't it?"

[hansoeii]

let time pass.

[eydilily]

i hope youre able to recover from artblock (and your wrist pain) i know how much that absolutely SUCKS lol

uhm for requests maybe some etho and pearl playing hungry hermits?

hungry hermits how i love you SO much

[spicybeefu]

What if Pokemon & Animal crossing had a crossover game? #9 Made in Blender, Cubone design by @okeypokes on insta!

[mobius-m-mobius]

The difficulty is to convince someone else he is really part of you.

DANIEL CRAIG and DREW STARKEY in QUEER (2024), dir. Luca Guadagnino