#enjoy this while it lasts

[the-apocrypha]

illuminated manuscripts >>> part five of the cottagecore verse Hob Gadling/Dream of the Endless || G || 4k || Complete Alternate Universe - Medieval, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Old Married Couple

The thing is, Hob can read. Mostly. Sort of

Hob enjoys nearly a month of gratis storytelling before he's caught staring a little too intently at the page Dream is reading from—he'd been looking at the pictures thank you—when Dream suddenly pauses just as Culhwch is about to ask Ysbaddaden for his blessing and turns his glittering eyes to Hob. 

“And?” Hob asks, impatient. “What does he say?”

“You are reading,” Dream accuses. 

…Shit.

“Well that seems like a strange way for Culhwch to propose marriage?” Hob says weakly. 

Dream's eyes narrow. “You told me you could not.” 

“I can't.” 

“You can.” 

“I really can't,” Hob insists, and he can feel himself starting to flush. “I mean. Not like this, not like. Just what my dad taught me, which is—which is a lot for people like us, you know, and it gets the job done, but I can't. I can't read like you.”

And Hob had not known Dream long enough, at that point, to recognize the rush of starlight into his eyes that would have given him some warning for what he was about to suggest next, and indeed, the futility of protesting against it. 

“I,” Dream says, his whole face aglow, “will teach you.” 

Read on AO3

[quins-makeshift-menagerie]

Worked on line art today. Have a clean line baby stack

[bacchuschucklefuck]

typical tavern scene

[hinamie]

*catboys ur shounen protag*

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Learning to celebrate the little wins!

[baskeigh-ball]

Raph had to adapt pretty quickly when he swapped careers at the ripe old age of eleven

[trilobitepunch]

I want it to feel like autumn already...

[phrysic]

old destiel art back when I used to be a hardcore shipper of them

[tiarpopdind]

The way they both fumbled makes me giggle

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[egophiliac]

so excited for Kalim to save the day by swiper-no-swiping this dip. you can do it! I believe in you!

god I hope this reads properly

[featherfangart]

The Dance

Next part!! Is basically just a massive sketchpile. Only the first two pages, tho. Too much spice in the third one. So. Enjoy the dancing happy bois! <3

Part ONE | Part TWO | Part THREE | Part FOUR | Part FIVE | Part SIX | Part SEVEN | Part EIGHT | Part NINE | Part TEN | Part ELEVEN | Part THIRTEEN | Part FOURTEEN

[crescentfool]

reunion 🌸

[bacchuschucklefuck]

they licensed his ass

my finished piece of the FWMS (official name definitely 100%) thing we started a few days ago! I had fun I hope folks had and/or continue to have fun with the sketch as well.

[deerspherestudios]

Hello hello!! ✨

Dropping in to say I'm doing much better since getting sick last year and will be back to managing this blog soon. And! I just finished a ficlet (around 7.2k words) for my Patreon, the prompt being Days 1 to 3 written from Mychael's perspective. It's available here or in the link below for $5 tiers and above!

Thank you for the continued support!! Enjoy!! ❤️

[niyana-the-ambiguous-mobian]

When your sibling has had enough of your bullsh*t that you constantly put them through every day, that they call mom and put her on speaker so they can get your reaction live and get that vengeance.