#but it would be unfair to his family

[dustofthedailylife]

you and your f/o(s) finally have time to relax and decides to take some extra days off this festive season! where are you going and what will you be doing? 🌴

no pressure in answering, and please take your time! <3

Hi Rin!! <3 I'm finally getting to this ask, sorry for taking so long because I absolutely knew I wanted to answer this when you sent it! 😭💕

Alhaitham and I would just spend the holidays at home. Just him and I (and maybe Kaveh, he's allowed because he is babygirl). We would spend the time before the holidays just decorating the house and baking cookies. Reading, watching our favorite shows, cooking some good food, or ordering takeout. Just... generally treating ourselves to some downtime. (the baking and decorating are mostly initiated and done by me... this man would not decorate on his own nu-uh but Kaveh and I would be all over it).

I tend to get really sad/depressed on Christmas Day for personal reasons so he would just be there for me and spoil me to get my mind off the sad things. Even though it will take some effort to do that but he will go the extra mile because it's me 🥺

Especially with Kaveh also there, there will be enough bickering and life in the house that I will have no time to even waste a thought on being sad.

I think I'd like to invite Cyno, Tighnari and Collei over for a Christmas Dinner as well. We could play card games and all sorts of fun stuff together until late at night. They all leave in high spirits and me and Haitham just tiredly fall into the bed after and cuddle until we both fall asleep. 🥺💕

Not me crying because I wish this was my actual Christmas, brb

Wriothesley and I would probably do the same in prep for Christmas. Baking, decorating, spending time together. We would go to the Christmas market, drink some mulled wine and he'd have to borderline carry me home after because I get tipsy from the stuff so fast but always insist on drinking some every year lmao.

On the day of Christmas we'd just spend the time together preparing some fancy dinner just for the two of us while listening to music and dancing in the kitchen (it's a whole concert). We're not stressing over anything and just go with the flow since we both didn't really celebrated Christmas as a child we just live our best life now and turn the holiday into what we would like it to be. We just chat the evening away over dinner and then watch a movie together on the couch while cuddling up to each other. I will eventually fall asleep because I know myself and he carries me into our shared bed and tucks us in 🥺💕

[star--nymph]

I think people forget with Cullen, and characters like Cullen, that indoctrination is a thing. We're lucky to live in an age where we have a surplus of access to resources that allow us to think critically on the structures around us, to the point where we overlook that most people won't and haven't. Cullen was raised in a backwater village where the main educators and leaders were Templars. He was likely taught scripture by Chantry Sisters, he possibly learned to read and write through them. From the day he was born, he was being taught to love and obey the Chantry with out question--and the Chantry teaches that Templars are a force of good.

So I ask you, how the hell was Cullen, at eight or thirteen years old, going to learn about the crimes of Templars? How was he going to unlearn propaganda that was fed him to him every day by people he respected and possibly loved? How was he supposed to be aware that this idolized image of Templars being the saviors of the people and even mages was a lie?

And then he gets shipped off, happily, to be trained a Templar. Again, he's put into this position where he's fed nothing but propaganda. He doesn't get a real taste of the Order being corrupted until he's out in Kinloch and he's not sure what the hell to do because what he's seeing isn't jiving with what he's been taught for nearly two decades. So yeah, he tries to justify it, he tries to have his cake and eat it too by reasoning that mages should be treated like people but also the Order wouldn't lie to him, so they must be right to act like this. The Maker always had a plan, right?

If Cullen had been lucky, maybe he could have realized earlier on that the Order was abusing mages, that he had been tricked, he could have gotten out and unlearned the bigotry that was planted inside him.

But then BAM! the Broken Circle happened and I don't see how no one gets how perfect this is for the Order? They now have a templar that is so traumatized by mages, he will literally do and say anything to justify their abuses because now? Now he's afraid.

And remember, after Origins, Cullen becomes so erratic, he has to be sent off to a Chantry to 'even him out'--where he was more than likely manipulated even further by the Chantry to be this blood thirsty agent for them. When he's shipped to Kirkwall, they could have not delivered to Meredith a better second in command.

So yeah, is it really surprising that he says shit like 'mages aren't people like you and me' when we meet him in Kirkwall? Man is sleep depraved by the looks of him, swallowing all Meredith's frenzied rhetoric on blood mages, he's seeing for himself the damage these mages are doing, he's isolated from his family, he has no actual friends, and he's living with C-PTSD among other issues. Even under the best of conditions, none of what he says or does in DA2 is surprising when you put it all together.

And yet, the man still had enough of that idealistic child left in him to realize see that Meredith was going off the deep end and that he should be protecting the mages. That's text. That's in World of Thedas. The reason why Cullen is able to turn on Meredith in the end is because he was able to see, even clouded by his fear and hatred, that what she was doing was wrong.

And all this isn't to excuse Cullen's wrongs. It's weird how every time someone brings up Cullen's history, it's assumed that it's just a justification for his actions. It's not, it's an an explanation. Cullen was a victim of the Order that became an abuser, a tool, and he is responsible for his actions.

But the thing is, by DAI, Cullen is well aware of his sins and he actively works to better himself by leaving the Order and getting off lyrium (which for most people is a death sentence). People can argue all day about whether or not Cullen's arc in DAI redeems him or was satisfying, or if he did enough to 'prove' that he was sorry or--good god--does he deserve redemption in the first place (which is such a Catholic way of looking at shit by the way; no one 'deserves' redemption; you do it to be better or you fucking don't) but the fact is that Cullen says that he wants to be better, that he sees the Order as--at the very least--flawed.

That, yes, he's still unlearning all the bigotry he held as a younger man and he's ashamed that he was like that to begin with.

You can hate him all you like, and whatever, but Cullen's story--intentionally or not--is about a man born into an oppressive society, raised to uphold its beliefs, used and abused by it, and then awakening to those lies and trying to free himself from those beliefs so he could be a better person.

And sometimes I genuinely wonder if the reason so many people hate Cullen is because they themselves might have dealt with something similar in our own oppressive society where they also had to unlearn harmful bigotry and maybe, just maybe, he hits too close to home.

[dianartemiss]

i think what Jason wants (from Bruce at least) is to be loved transcendentally. he wants to be loved with earth shattering intensity, the kind that'll raze the world to the ground when lost and inspire greatness when present. Jason wants to mean something and to matter more than anything except for (maybe) another (worthy) human. Jason wants to be shown love in the way that he experiences love. but that kind of exclusive focus is impossible when your dad is Batman.

[nomsfaultau]

Philza Year Wrap

All my Philza designs for my AUs. Or the more interesting ones, limited space and all that.

From left to right:

Dragon + scaled is from Fault

Lab coat is from Where, then, do your loyalties lie?

Antlers is from Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Suit is from Mandatory Family Reunion

Lantern is from Lighting Lanterns to Bring You Home

Ragged Crow is from Golden Apples (Gilded Atrophy)

And silly little interaction page!

[theladyfae]

i think human nature/family of blood is a really good two parter in how it manages to show how full of shit ten is 🫶

[thelostgirl21]

Am I the only one that really struggles with the idea of Radskier's current relationship status being listed as "Ex-Lovers" in the shipping wiki, or...?

[mariocki]

Anthony Ainley guests as medical specialist Josef Kerston, a doctor but also (shock!) a villain, in The Adventurer: The Bradley Way (1.4, ITC, 1972)

[petrenocka]

"X is just a guy" is a popular phrase to throw around these parts when talking about blorbos, but I swear, and I am 100% stone faced serious when I say this, not a single character has ever done it quite like Geralt from The Witcher books.

[donde-el-diablo-parquea-la-moto]

Just personal thoughts about Bobby's... Goodbye today.

[love-hope-faith-feels-like-a-lie]

See this is what I hate when people know I’m off from work. It allows them to call me and ask me to do shit for them. Like no sir, I’m off so I can destress and sort out my own shit not yours. And yet, another call this week, another crap added to my plate. Which just throws that whole trying to destress part out of the way.

[llycaons]

also if you're comparing jc saving an innocent living human child to jc keeping a weapon used to murder someone then im a little concerned about your framing of this supposedly noble act. if he keeps the flute to have it in his rooms and obsess over how much he hates wwx and dwell in his bitterness and grief then how does that translate to how he treats the child he has under his care who also reminds him of wwx

[selfinflictedgunshotwound]

IGNORE ME I'M SORRY I KEEP TALKING ABT IT i'm just so not used to my cat not being around and it kinda kills me inside to not hear him walking around or meowing or sleeping at the bottom of the staircase anymore... it used to be like a nightly routine where i'd go downstairs and make myself a drink and give him some water and now i just. don't even wanna go down there anymore.

[fellhellion]

Hm. Something I’ve been thinking about (since I never shut up about Miguel apparently) is the idea that maybe there’s not supposed to be, to his understanding of what happened, a singular canon event that he breaks when dipping dimensions, it’s more the idea that he “breaks” canon by no longer being present to carry out his own canon events, by wanting something outside of what was apparently predestined to him, and the universe punished him for it.

I broke [canon] once myself, he says, but he doesn’t name the event even as the examples he pulls up are labelled.

Perhaps the “event”, as the characters perceive it, could just be something as simple as by virtue of replacing alt!Miguel he negated the intended effect of the man’s death upon the world around him.

But I just wonder. Because the way Miguel speaks of this to Miles portrays his own wanting for something different as being what he thinks invoked that destruction.

“We all want to live the life we wish we had, believe me I’ve tried. And the harder I tried, the more damage I did. You can’t have it all, kid.”

I wanted something more, but Spider-Man’s fate is set. Any and all events, regardless of their nature. And defying that fate, trying to live a life beyond what it asked of me killed people.

If you alter your course from canon in any way, you hurt people.

[deathwis-arc]

honestly, it's really interesting thinking about how the events of the desert dream in 1998 would get blown out of proportion in the coming years ; hell, it already kinda is twenty-four hours later. not only does the fbi get involved ( and they get involved quick ) but the entire thing is immediately labeled as 'the desert dream massacre' which is ... simply not true. if tyler doesn't kill joyce and michelle isn't shot then the total body count is four cops, with two on life support from the motel burning down. this is literally confirmed in game!

events get labeled as massacres if there's a huge body count, or if it's violent enough. the desert dream killings were neither. all the victims were shot, usually at a distance, or they suffered from burns ; which, while violent, it was more of an escape attempt on the holts' part than anything else. i also find it telling that, even if the holts kill a hostage or two, agent bradley doesn't bother mentioning that in private. all he cares about is the cops lost to the standoff. it's no surprise that killing an officer will get you a more severe punishment then if you kill a regular person, that it can sometimes send you straight to death row on its own, but the fact they don't even care about the deaths of any of the hostages ... it sure is something.

especially since the only hostage deaths in the desert dream can turn the only two kids in the game into orphans. or on the flip side, if the holts didn't harm a hostage, there's no mention of that either. or how the hostages were treated, which compared to usual hostage situations, they got it better than most. it's just the fact that they killed cops ( who were under the thumb of a corrupt sheriff, by the way ) that made this into a massacre. though i wouldn't be surprised if to the public the force would then heavily focus on any other victims, that's usually what happens normally, after all.

anyway, point is, classism does play a role in how cases and crimes are treated -- especially back then. the holts were poor, notoriously so, and they were a family full of drop-outs with nothing to their names. the very second they escape the motel, their names are plastered all over the country and their fates ( including jay's, who's merely an eighteen year old who was an accomplice at best ) are decided : they're going straight to death row. even if jay tries to do the right thing and come clean to agent bradley, tries to turn on his family, said guy immediately goes to pin all the murders on him, for seemingly no reason at all! it's very unjust, and ah ... shady!

the news and papers hype up their crime spree and i wouldn't be shocked that within a couple years, the holts would be presented as bloodthirsty rednecks who were simply greedy rather than a family that didn't have any help and got in way over their heads. the narrative would be twisted so much, especially if three of the holts were never found. there'd be no word from their side, no mention of the thugs who were threatening to kill them, just a true crime story where they were at the forefront of a very unfortunate situation and got away with it. leaving gossips to fill in the blanks as they please, and considering the police's and the fbi's behavior towards this case, they would only fuel the narrative that the holts were a family who did all this on purpose and relished in the aftermath, a family who loved doing the crime.

anyway, it's just something i love thinking about for post canon stuff when it comes to my adf muses. how wildly inaccurate the story's become in time, simply because people got bored or because of the classism back then that was so woven into the broadcasted crime that it's become impossible to separate the two. they'd paint the holts out to be wildly dangerous, cruel individuals and probably spin tales about unsolved murders and robberies and how it could be the work of a holt who had got away. their entire motivation would be obscured and would've gone unsaid, leaving random civilians and a force who hates them to speak for them instead. it'd be a whole thing! and the desert dream was dramatic, sure, but by the time everything is said and done you'd probably barely recognize what the media was talking about had you actually been there.

[pentaghast]

i finished origins again :(

[starlooove]

I feel like when ppl say tim is neglected it makes his story more boring but I also acknowledge my interpretation of it is like. More ‘what feelings would make sense based on what happened’ as opposed to ‘how can I justify the abandonment issues I see everyone else saying he has?’