#glad for the chance to actually write it!

[starsungwithamelody]

do you write for oliver aiku? :3

-yep anon!! feel free to send in more requests!

car sex w Oliver Aiku

afab! reader

context- you just got stood up at a date, planned by anri of course. you’re sad, upset, kicking the bed, but then… you get a text.

your ex fling, Oliver Aiku

a/n- ignore how trash my writing has been… sorry

warnings- car sex, riding, a lil cunilingus and my horrible “fluff” or “angst” I DIDNT DO A PROOFREAD

its 10:38 pm

you’re laying in your bed, sighing about some random guy who stood you up! you are never trusting anri again, who would’ve known she was horrible at choosing blind dates?

you’re just doomscrolling now, liking and commenting on every somewhat cute guy.

“... this is so STUPID!”

you push your head in your pillows, swinging your legs around. maybe you’ll be alone for the rest of your life!

bzzt!

“please! please tell me that’s a like back!”

you rush to pick up your phone, a text from oliver. your ex-fling..

“you up?” -10:40 pm

oh. it’s this guy again! some stupid strong idiot with some really good dick! i mean you did sleep with him enough… for the number to be in the double digits.

whatever, you’re done with guys! they’re nothing but stupid-

bzzt!

he double texted?! what the fu- you rush to open the chat again.

“c’mon now, don’t leave me on read.” -10:43 pm

okay.. no way he just double texted! that means he definitely wants to fuck right now! wait what are you thinking girl? just one last night stand? your fingers start flying on the screen typing the most perfectly written text message back!

“haha yeah heyy” -10:44 pm

did you come off too strong?! whatever! he just wants to fuck and you don’t mind that!

“come outside cutie” -10:44 pm

wait. HES OUTSIDE?!

you quickly head out to your window, oh my god! he’s actually outside?! you quickly brush your hair and clean yourself up before you rush out the door.

“hey there!”

wait did you even reapply lipstick? did you just forget your phone? you’re so flustered and nervous about a guy you’ve fucked so many times already.

“you were ready for this?”

he looks up and down at you, a cute elegant blue dress. it’s not too revealing, but it makes you look gorgeous!

“oh! well.. my date stood me up earlier..”

you pause, taking a deep breath in.

“whatever.. he was really shitty anyway”

you feel aiku pull you into his arms, one of his hands pressing onto your back pulling you closer.

“ooh! aiku.. i don’t think this.. this is appropriate-“

he quickly shuts you up with a kiss, his other hand holding your head, keep you locked into the kiss. you can’t help but reciprocate the kiss back.

he only lets go after you’re left panting. he watches your eyes, you feel nervous. but then he speaks again.

“i want you back.”

he pauses, his hold on your back moving lower.

“i don’t want to keep just fucking like this.. i want you”

he pauses again, this time he looks through you. you start to sweat a little, no freaking way! no way he just said that!

“i need you, i can’t let some other guy have you for himself.”

is he for real? no way! he has to be lying right?

“im not lying sweetheart, you are the missing piece in my life”

he understood you, he understands you. you feel a real.. genuine connection with aiku, you’ve never felt any spark or connection with any guy.

“so please? will you be my girlfriend?”

you snap back into reality, quickly processing what he just said. maybe you’ll give him a chance.

“a-ah.. shit!”

you grip on to aiku’s shoulders tightly, he just keeps thrusting into you! the comfy leather seats are stained with a mix of your juices.

“fuuuckk… you’re so good to me baby..”

you press your head into his neck, peppering small kisses along his collarbone.

“hah-ha.. is this your way of thanking me?”

you can’t help but smile at his words, his hands tangle into your hair pulling you closer.

“you’re so warm y’know?”

he slowly moves your hands to your hips, keeping you bouncing on his shaft.

“soo.. glad that date stood you up”

he softly pecks a kiss to your cheek, moving down to your neck. you can barely respond, he’s just wayy too deep inside you! his hand moves to your stomach pressing on the bulge.

“just.. too big for you hm, your cunt is just begging for me right now…”

he laughs softly squeezing your hips, lifting your hips up again.

“yeah.. you’re too b-!“

your insides are immediately rearranged with one thrust.

“ahh.. fuckk..”

you look up at him, holding onto his biceps.

“i- i want more aiku..”

in a few seconds, oliver presses your back against the car seat. his hands keeping your legs pressed up to your chest. he quickly kisses your clit, licking up your juices.

“let’s do more then.. shall we?”

he lines himself against you, slowly teasing you with his tip. thrusting fully inside you when you start whining about how empty your stomach feels without, his finger pressing on the bulge on your stomach.

its gonna be a lonnnggg night for you two huh?

a/n- can you tell when i got bored of writing lololol

[nervouswhizkid]

i. am so mad. i'm mad at season 4 and at every one of you that interacted with my last post abt vld season 3. i know u were all sitting there giggling at me as i walked into s4 knowing full well it was going to destroy me. no WARNING??? i don't even want to sit down and write about it, i'm gonna start crying all over again

i hate that keith left the team. i have to actually practice breathing techniques right now because it's making me so mad omg. i know i said last time that voltron without lance was unthinkable, but i didn't mean that keith should leave. THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANTED!!!! that also means that there was less keith (and klance) content this season, which i take personally. they did that to hurt me specifically. and on top of that, the team was being so mean about keith's wavering priorities. i feel like when anything goes wrong, with lance and keith specifically, everyone is so mean to them??? god forbid they make a mistake or have personal struggles, DAMN

i feel like this screencap says it all.

guys how about let's talk to each other instead of being passive aggressive and icing people out (i do want to point out though that lance seems more sad/disappointed here than anything. my little klance heart is breaking 😭) AND THIS SCENE??

the moment i realized keith was about to walk in my stomach dropped. they all look so angry and here comes Mister Puppy Eyes McGee. i actually can't take it that's my son everyone leave him alone!!! 🤺🤺🤺🤺 i know they had a big group hug after but that's not good enough for me, they should have tied keith up or handcuffed him to the ship, or something. WHY ARE WE LETTING HIM GO WITH THE BLADE OHMYGODDDD

look at this, like??

the camera setup is what gets me. you have keith smiling with all of his friends in the background and then it swaps to a dark, yawning hallway with the most heartbreaking frown on his face. that doesn't look like someone sure of their decisions to me. this boy is in pain!! i'm also just confused about shiro being able to pilot the black lion. maybe confused isn't the right word, but i'm not sure how to describe it. i'm not convinced?? black already denied him, so why now? i kinda feel like it would've been better had he not tried to reconnect with her at the end of last season, because there was no suspense for me this time. the moment he decided to go try again i was like "oh it's gonna work this time isn't it" i get that it's likely black could sense keith's internal struggles and feel him pulling away and maybe that's why she gave shiro a second chance, but shiro becoming the black paladin again gave keith the excuse to leave, because why do they need him now? they have a black paladin, and it's not him. but to me, it should have been. he went through all of that growth last season, and for what?? just to abandon them when things get rocky?? ugh, i hate this!!

i can't even talk about episode 2 without crying, so just know that i'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face as i write this. i was really excited to finally get some closure on the whole pidge-missing-family mystery, considering that's been a subplot since the beginning of the show. as much as this episode broke my heart, i really did love it. they executed it so well. the scene where pidge lands on that planet with the graves? and they're running and pleading for it to not be true, all the flashbacks of cherished memories and images of matt? dropping to her knees in front of his grave in disbelief??

now that's fucking cinema. you best believe i was bawling my eyes out the whole time. i have a little sister and our relationship is very similar to pidge and matt's, so this was just excruciating. i'm very glad he wasn't actually dead, but part of me almost wishes he was? that sounds SO dark, i hope you guys get what i mean. they just put the audience through the absolute wringer and then they're like "oh, actually he's still alive LOL gotcha!" and that makes me really happy for pidge, but man, what a plot twist that would have been. they've been searching for their brother all this time, so you expect some kind of payoff for dedicating so much time to that storyline, but what if he was just dead?? and there was nothing she could do?? wow this is painful to talk about why did i start watching this show if there's a fic where someone explores that possibility then pls share, for some reason i want to torture myself again, i just love how they did this episode. it's very trope-y, but sometimes you just have to lean into it and enjoy, and this was one of those times

the classic fighting-each-other-unknowingly and middle-of-the-fight-identity-reveal? i'll eat it up every time!!

real talk though why is matt so attractive 😏

soo, zarkon is back. fantastic. do he and haggar just not care about each other?? they haven't mentioned the fact that they're married at all and haggar basically still acts like his loyal follower. i'd entertain the thought that maybe it's been so long that it just doesn't really matter to them anymore, but haggar sounded like she actually cared when she realized they were husband and wife last season. but now it's like nothing happened?? i don't expect them to act all lovey-dovey, but there wasn't even a single line of acknowledgment. and i still cannot understand what lotor's plans are. what is his agenda? he wasn’t bothered at all by zarkon reclaiming the throne, and even went to the trouble to make them think he cared. he got that comet and made a couple of ships, but i still don't know what he plans to do with them. also– i can't believe he killed narti!! i know, i was literally just talking about how she specifically frustrated me, but i was so not expecting their death. i get why he did it, but now the rest of his group doesn't trust him.

i'd say that the one bright spot in this season was episode four. that episode was just so silly and gave me so much secondhand-embarrassment i actually had to look away at times LMAO is this where we got the whole Loverboy Lance and Lone Wolf Keith thing from?? i thought that was purely fandom-made, i was not expecting to hear that in an actual episode. talk about whiplash. and we got this ICONIC scene:

he did that wayyy too naturally. lance, buddy, got anything to share?

i really would have loved to see keith with the team during that episode. i can just imagine how he would've reacted to having to do all of that stuff. god, that would've been hysterical!! the images of the parasite in coran's brain made me gag though, was that really necessary🧍‍♀️

i don't have a ton to say about the final episodes. i mean, it was two episodes of them fighting on naxzela. it was definitely a bit of an avengers endgame feeling with all people they helped in previous seasons showing up to fight, so that was cool! i'm curious as to what purpose naxzela served to the galra empire though. were they always planning to use it as a bomb? and couldn't they still do that technically? they only broke the witches connection with it, so all they'd have to do is get another ship out there and she could do it again. what do you even do with a planet like that?? just destroy it?? i also just want to point out that lance said they should get out of there immediately, and nobody listened!! and then five seconds later they were like "oh no, we need to get out of here!" justice for lance i stg ohmygod and LOTOR is on their side now?!?!?! i actually can't wait to see how this plays out!! total transparency, i love atla and i could absolutely see this being a zuko redemption arc situation. it's clear his parents don't like him at all (are they actually heartless or something??) so why not join the other side!! I'M HERE FOR IT

i have to be honest, this definitely wasn't my favorite season. we're getting into the later seasons and i've heard plenty about how the writing goes a little left-field (though i'm not sure when that happens. most people seem to agree season 8 is shit, but i've heard complaints about s6-7 as well) so we'll just have to see! i'm sticking it out as best i can🚶‍♀️‍➡️ onto season 5!

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

Been thinking lately about learning romhacking and animation exclusively because I need to bring to life this class idea that I have bouncing around in my head. I NEED a gladiator class. I have so many ideas. Would be swords/lances, based off a mix of murmillo/hoplomachus gladiators appearance wise to account for that. And I need to lean into the bit that this is like, all a huge spectacle or whatever as much as possible. The crits would have the crowd cheering, maybe the thumbs down(/thumbs up? we actually don't know which one was kill and which one was spare), some kind of flourish from the gladiator and a fancy bow. Absolutely maximize the bit. Even with class skills. For example, here are a few I've thought of (idk if they're good, they might be dogshit. this is all very conceptual):

Crowd favorite - for each ally 2-3 spaces away (NOT adjacent, there must be space between the glad and the ally), grants +2 hit/avo (max +20). if a lord is in the crowd, also grants +3 atk. grants +10 hit/avo while in the arena, but cannot obtain normal crowd bonuses.

Underdog - when opponent's current health exceeds unit's current health by 75% or more, grants +10 avo, +25 crit

Entertainer - (damage of killing blow/3)% chance to obtain gold on kill. also grants lck% chance to obtain 50% more gold from the arena.

Fortune favors the bold - grants lck +5 when unit initiates combat with a 1 range weapon

Don't touch me - grants +10 avo when foe initiates combat from long range while unit has a ranged weapon equipped

The verdict - this is more of a joke one, but hear me out. It would be a combination of bane and lethality, where bane is a thumbs up and lethality is a thumbs down. is that funny? i think that would be funny

The general idea is that this is a very flashy but kinda risky class that's more for fun than to be a super strong combat unit, but can be situationally strong?

most of the stylistic inspiration comes from the gladiator in for honor. Their whole personality is that they're very showy, with things like the recovery of a successful skewer sometimes having an extra flourish or how a lot of their win animations and emotes tricks of some sort. if I'm being honest though, it's mostly the executions (specifically carpe ventrem and fun & roses, where you can hear the crowd cheering. look them up if you feel so inclined).

Anyways thanks for reading my attempt to write down some sort of cohesive idea for this class I want to exist. Tell me if you think it sounds cool or if you hate it idk

👀

[mermaidchan05]

Vesuvia Weekly: Date with Disaster

This... got away from me lol.

Julian is all set to go on a date with Damian. But something is making him decidedly more anxious than he should be...

Featuring Julian, my apprentice Damian, Damian's familiar Oswald the bat, and some brief appearances by Asra and Faust.

Almost 3000 words, content warning for anxiety and claustrophobia, just in case. Don't worry, everything turns out just fine! :)

_____________

It was really a rather simple date, considering how long it had taken Julian and Damian to plan. But that didn’t stop Julian from being nearly beside himself with nerves.

He should have been excited. It was finally time for Julian to prepare for that romantic picnic that he had promised Damian over a month ago. And then they would be off, spending a glorious night out on the town. Julian had plans. Secret plans. Plans that he couldn’t wait to surprise Damian with.

But for now, Julian was rushing around the little room above the shop, tripping over trinkets as he snatched up the last few things he needed.

Asra, who had promised to take care of things at the shop while he and Damian were out, watched with a raised eyebrow.

“Trying to wear a hole in the floor, Ilya?” Asra teased.

“Asra, as much as I enjoy our banter, this isn’t the time,” Julian called frantically over his shoulder. “Where is it, where is it, I told Damian I would pack a lantern, and I can’t do that if I can’t—?

“Did you mean the lantern on the shelf?” said Asra.

Julian ignored Asra’s playful smirk and looked at the shelf. Which was a very obvious place for a lantern to be. Of course, it was right there. In plain sight. Julian sighed and grabbed the lantern, carefully shoving it amongst his ever-growing pile of picnic supplies.

Asra’s smile slipped away. “Ilya? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” Julian burst out. “Everything is fine. Tonight is going to be perfect.”

Asra hummed thoughtfully. “Of course. Then I’m sure you have a reason for packing one of Damian’s old Masquerade masks.”

Julian froze. He stared at the mask in his hand. He hadn’t even noticed what he had been grabbing. He felt his face heat up.

“It’s, uh… that’s not for the picnic,” he said. “It’s for later. Tonight. We’ll be going dancing, you know.”

Asra raised an eyebrow. It was clear that even Faust, hiding in Asra’s outfit as usual, completely doubted every word Julian said.  

Julian gave up. He put the mask down with a sigh.

“I… sorry,” he said. “I’m nervous. I admit.”

“I noticed,” Asra quipped. “But this seems a bit… more nervous than usual.”

“Yes, Asra, thank you for your observation.” Julian sighed again. “I can’t help it. I must be going mad from the stress of work.”

Asra’s eyebrows crept higher. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s the lack of sleep, I’m sure of it,” said Julian. “Usual Devorak nonsense, isn’t it? Or just… doctor nonsense. Always excellent at providing care, but the worst patient… hard, though, to get a good eight hours—or even a halfway decent five—when the past three nights came up with nothing but nightmares. And they only get worse, of course. Just my… luck…”

He winced. He hadn’t meant to say any of that out loud.

“Nightmares?” Asra repeated. “And the time frame seems… specific. It’s not… has anything happened recently?”

It took Julian a second to realize what Asra meant. “What? No. No, no, no, it’s nothing like that. Nothing’s happened. Everyone’s perfectly fine. Thriving, even. And we’re nowhere near any, ah, anniversaries.”

Asra nodded. It was good to know—and to admit—that no part of Julian’s sordid past was coming back to haunt him. Not at the moment, anyway.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Julian went on. “Stress. That’s all.”

He thought he had managed to successfully brush it off. Then Asra’s eyes flashed.

“Damian’s been giving you magic lessons, hasn’t he?”

Julian stopped short. “He… well, yes, but what does that have to do with—?”

“Have these nightmares been about anything specific?” Asra asked.

“Nnnoooot particularly,” said Julian, frowning in thought. “Just general foreboding. You know me. Once a thespian, always a… wait.” He let out a nervous laugh. “Wait, you can’t be serious. You don’t really think this all means something, do you?”

“The veil between the mortal and magical realms grow even thinner in dreams,” said Asra. “You’ve seen it yourself, Ilya. You may not have been able to reach the Hanged Man otherwise.”

Julian ran a hand through his hair. “That’s… uh, well, that’s true, but… I don’t know… mystic dream veils sound a bit…”

Asra didn’t let him finish his awkward attempt at waving that thought aside. “Ilya. Dreams like that—particularly repeated dreams—can be considered warnings. And you’ve been opening yourself up to magic lately.”

“You can thank Damian for that,” said Julian with another awkward chuckle.

Asra was far from distracted. “Ilya, please. This could be serious.”

Julian shut up.

“If the dreams have been getting worse the past few days, and came to a head last night… it might mean some kind of danger is approaching. And approaching quickly.” Asra frowned in thought again. Then: “Ilya. Tell me. What is the worst possible thing you can imagine happening during your date tonight?”

For a split second, Julian wanted to argue. A bunch of nightmares couldn’t possibly mean all that. It didn’t make sense.

But if anyone knew the ins and outs of weird magic visions, it was Asra. And if something bad really was on its way, Julian didn’t want to put anyone at risk.

He had to take this seriously. Just in case.

Julian thought about it for a moment. Of course, he had already considered the hundreds of things that could go wrong on a date like this. But those were all small issues. Forgetting one of the ingredients, tripping over something on the way to their picnic spot and spilling everything, not getting to see absolutely everything they wanted to see, Damian falling into another barrel… those were fixable. Minor. Things they would laugh about later. None of it warranted a sense of impending doom.

Except, perhaps, for one thing…

“The worst thing I can imagine…” Julian said slowly. “Well, I suppose the worst thing I can picture is something bad happening to…”

He trailed off. Asra’s eyes had widened again. Julian shot to his feet.

“Damian,” he gasped.

Julian didn’t waste any more time. If something bad was going to happen to Damian—or maybe already had happened—then he needed to find him. Fast.

He knew Damian was in the forest, stocking up on some ingredients to help restock the shop. So that was exactly where Julian headed.

His fears were only confirmed when Damian’s familiar, trust little Oswald the bat, collided with Julian before he even set foot in the wood.

Damian never traveled anywhere without his familiar. Oswald was his constant companion. If they had been separated, then something was very, very wrong.

Oswald bounced off of Julian’s chest, landing in his waiting hands. Julian hastily checked him over. The little bat looked distinctly ruffled.

“Oswald, what happened?” Julian asked frantically. “Where’s Damian?”

Of course, Julian couldn’t understand Oswald. Not the way Damian could. But the sound the bat made was unmistakably one of alarm. Oswald hastily took to the air again. He flapped a circle around Julian’s head. Then he zipped off, flying deeper into the forest.

Julian immediately followed.

------------------

Damian tried to keep his breathing steady. It didn’t work. Gods, he never should have gone back here. He knew the caves in the forest could be dangerous. And of course the recent heavy rain would have caused problems.

He’d been so foolish. He’d thought he knew the paths well enough. He thought he could handle any magical trouble that might come his way. He’d thought that the rare and highly useful nettles that grew in this particular little cavern would have worth whatever risk there might have been.

Not this. It wasn’t worth this.

Damian couldn’t stop his mind from reeling. From berating himself over and over as the panic took over. He should have paid attention. He knew the signs of a landslide—or dirt-slide in this case. He knew that any rocks and rubble perched on top of the caves were a bad omen.

But he’d notice too late. It wasn’t until he heard the rumble. Until he saw the cavern grow dark.

Oswald had just managed to slip out before the cavern entrance was completely sealed off. Now Damian was stuck. In a space that was far too small. And felt smaller and smaller every second. He couldn’t see. He was too panicked to breathe. Any thought of using magic had completely left his mind. All he could do was scrabble against the rocks that kept him trapped. He cried out desperately, hoping someone, anyone would hear him.

At last, someone did.

“Damian? Damian, love, where are you?!”

Hope rushed through him. Damian pressed himself even closer to the rocks. He privately thanked all the gods that Julian could be very loud when he needed to.

“Julian!” he shouted. “Julian, I’m here!”

For a brief moment, he was terrified that Julian hadn’t heard. But at last, a response. Julian called his name again.

“I’m here!” Damian called again, hopefully for the last time. “I was an idiot, there was a landslide, and—”

“It’s alright!” Julian shouted. “It’s going to be alright. Are you hurt?”

“N-no,” said Damian. “I’m fine. Just… just get me out of here, please.”

It wasn’t fully the truth. He was a little scraped up, thanks to making sure Oswald got out. But he wasn’t worried about that. Not when he was stuck here, with no light, with stone all around him… 

“Alright.” Julian’s voice, though still loud, was still wonderfully reassuring. “Just try to stay calm, love. We’ll get you out of this, not to worry. Just need to find the right…”

His voice faded into incomprehensible mumbles. Damian started to hyperventilate again. He could almost feel the cave walls pressing in on him. And the sound of Julian trying to find a good way to dig him out did not help. Not when Damian had spent so long trying to dig himself out, just for it to end in vain…  

Then Julian cried out in triumph. “Found it! Damian, darling, step back a bit, if you can. And keep your face covered.”

Step back? In this impossibly small space? There was no back to go to, he could reach out and hit the wall.

On sheer nervous instinct, his arm flailed out at that exact thought. The walls next to him were certainly close. Enough for him to bang his upper arm. But there was nothing behind him. Not that he could touch, anyway.

It had to be enough space.

He stepped backwards. Once. Twice. Then, on the third step, his back hit the rock wall. Damian’s breath caught in his throat.

“Damian?” Julian called. “Are you ready? Is everything alright?”

Absolutely no part of this was alright. But he had to get out.

“Ready!” Damian called, trying to keep his voice steady.

If Julian gave a verbal reply, Damian didn’t hear it. But he did hear the shifting of rock. Loud enough to make Damian wince. If something went wrong, if the lost even more space…

The world rumbled. The debris covering the entrance to the little cavern shifted. Damian’s arms flew upwards, covering his face of their own accord. He heard a horrible sound: all the rocks crumbling to the ground. A burst of fresh air rippled through his hair.

“Damian!”

Julian’s voice. Gods, Damian had never been so glad to hear it.

He immediately opened his eyes… and blinked against the sudden light. That didn’t stop him from dashing out of the cavern as fast as his legs could carry him. He collided with Julian, his feet nearly flying out from under him as he stumbled over the rubble. Julian scooped him up. He pulled Damian as far away from the cavern as he could in the split second before Damian’s legs gave out completely.

Damian was breathing heavily. He buried his face against Julian’s shoulder. Julian held him gently, rubbing calming circles on his back.

It took a long moment for Damian to catch his breath. To stop shaking. And even then, he didn’t lift his head from Julian’s shoulder just yet.

“Gods,” he mumbled. “I hate it when I get like that…”

“Get like what, love?” said Julian, his tone still soothing.

“I… I completely lost it,” Damian admitted. “I didn’t even think about using magic…”

Julian stopped patting Damian’s back. He froze in total surprise. Damian smiled sarcastically, even though he knew Julian couldn’t see it.

“Claustrophobia sucks,” he said. “I don’t recommend it.”

Julian stayed frozen for another heartbeat. Then he laughed. Gods, what a glorious sound.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Julian gently kissed the top of Damian’s head. “But you know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, don’t you?”

Damian mumbled into Julian’s shoulder again, a noncommittal noise. Then he finally lifted his head.

“How did you find me?” he asked. “Oswald?”

Oswald made a soft noise at them from his upside-down perch on the nearest tree.  

Julian went slightly pink. “Ah… well, yes, sort of. Oswald found me, really. But there’s a bit more to it than that.”

Damian gave him an expectant sort of look. So Julian told him everything. About the nightmares that he had refused to talk about for the past three days. About Asra figuring out that it might have been some kind of prediction. Talking about it made Julian look just as nervous and shaky as Damian had felt only moments ago. Now Damian was the one holding Julian steady.

“Hey,  Julian, it’s alright,” Damian said gently. “I’m sorry for worrying you so much.”

“I’m sorry you were caught up in all that,” said Julian. “If I had been there with you—”

“You still wouldn’t have been able to talk me out of going into that cavern,” Damian said with a little smile. “I had my heart set on those nettles.”

Julian’s eyes widened. “Nettles? That’s what all this was about?”

“Yes,” said Damian, unashamed. “Rare nettles with very valuable magical properties. You understand. I know you’ve done some dangerous things to acquire some of your medical supplies.”

“I… can’t argue with that,” said Julian, sounding very much like he wanted to argue with that. “But Damian, my love… we need to be careful. Especially around magic.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Is that what’s bothering you? The magic part of it?”

“I, uh… no?” said Julian. “Maybe? I don’t mind that you’re looking for supplies for your shop, love, of course I don’t, I only—”

Then, finally, Damian understood. “Julian… are you upset at yourself for not listening to your dream? For not trusting your magical instincts?”

“I didn’t even know they were magical instincts,” Julian said guiltily. “I never even thought to question them. Or, uh, to tell anyone about them, really. And thanks to that, I completely ruined our date.”

Damian couldn’t help it. He laughed.

“Julian, you did not ruin our date. You did the opposite, really.”

Julian stared at him, dumbfounded. “I… but, darling, that’s… uh…”

“You just heroically dashed to my rescue,” said Damian. “I can’t imagine anything more romantic than that. What better way to start a picnic? It’s like something out of those plays you’re so fond of.”

Julian looked taken aback for a moment. Then he started laughing, too.

“You’re just as fond of them as I am, love,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s physically possible for anyone to love theater as much as you do,” Damian said playfully.

“Touché,” Julian chuckled. “And speaking of theater… I have a surprise for you later.”

“Sounds wonderful,” said Damian. He wasn’t particularly surprised. But he would let Julian have his moment. He earned it. “Why don’t we start on that picnic first?”

Julian flushed. “Well, ah… there is a reason for that…”

“You left the basket in the shop, didn’t you?”

“I was worried about you!” Julian protested. “I didn’t have time to think about something like—”

He was quickly silenced when Damian caught his lips in a kiss. Damian smiled playfully at him as he pulled away. Julian was too stunned to respond.

“Come on,” said Damian. “Let’s go back together and pick everything up. We should tell Asra what happened, too. I’m sure he’s worried by now.”

“Probably,” Julian admitted.

They went back to the shop hand in hand… and quite possibly sticking a little more closely together than they normally did. Anything to make each other feel better.

Oswald, for his part, seemed very happy to be dropped off under Asra’s care after everything was said and done. He didn’t want to get involved with all the mushiness that was bound to happen during their date.

And it was quite mushy. But that was exactly what Julian and Damian had been looking forward to all this time.

[syruubi]

Man its been weeks and I’m still soured by the conclusion to Fontaine’s main story. I'll just rant here

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about it (Arlecchino's altruism being played straight, Traveler being out of character, the lore exposition ass-pull with the prophecy slates, the weird logic about how destroying a Gnosis could potentially wake up the Heavenly Principles but not fucking destroying an Archon Throne when Celestia forced everyone to fight a GODDAMN WAR TO ESTABLISH THEM-) but the biggest offense to me was how Furina was handled. This was marketed as the grand finale of the arc, the climax with Furina at the center of it all. And she got shafted. Big time. Furina had no agency in the plot whatsoever, nothing she did had any effect on how things turned out, and she didn’t even have the dignity of fully understanding why it all had to happen that way.

(Also I will preface this with yes Furina and Focalors are technically the same person with the same origin, but after the split Furina lost all her memories as Focalors. They are two separate consciousnesses with different experiences, and therefore I will treat their individual choices as their own)

I’ve seen people try to argue that no, she chose to take on this role knowing she would suffer, that she didn't HAVE to go along with it. And she was even working by herself to solve the prophecy without relying on Focalors, she wasn’t a puppet/pawn! But the thing is she was essentially in a hostage situation. If she didn’t do things exactly as dictated by Focalors people would DIE. Like there is a reason why criminal punishments are lighter when it’s found the perpetrator was coerced into it! And her researching how to avoid the prophecy changed nothing about the outcome, she could have sat around eating cake and the story would have word for word turned out exactly the same. All that information served to do was highlight her suffering and draw the audience’s sympathy. That's what I mean about her not having agency, it's not about her ability to act as an individual but how her actions had an effect on the overall plot. None of her choices outside of the role designated by Focalors did anything to change the situation for better or worse.

And to top it all off she didn’t even understand WHY this all had to happen. Why do people dissolve in the Primordial water? How does her pretending to be an Archon play into solving the issue? Why can’t she confide in anyone? What the hell is Focalors even doing? She doesn’t learn the answers to any of these until after everything was over, and not even from Focalors’ own mouth, it was relayed to her by Neuvillette.

Speaking of Neuvillette, I’m not gonna lie I’m sorta annoyed at his existence because it felt like Furina was shafted for him. Everything is very tilted in Neuvillette's favor. He gets his powers back, full control over Pneuma/Ousia, final say in trials, the ability to hand out Visions, and just straight up the ability to manipulate life itself. And okay all these things were his to begin with lore-wise, whatever, but he also becomes the "lore important" character after this at Furina's expense. Furina doesn't have her memories as Focalors, she can't tell us anything about how the world works, about Celestia, about what happened 500 years ago. Even though other Archons didn't give us much either for one reason or another, they at least HAVE that knowledge, and are therefore guaranteed to have involvement in future events with the Abyss and Celestia. Furina at the moment, doesn't. Neuvillette has it now. And all that talk about Focalors judging Celestia? Also Neuvillette's job now. And it feels like it was all stolen from Furina from a story-telling perspective because again, she didn't know of the plan to return his powers. She didn't even get to explicitly agree with her other self that he should have them back. The writers really seemed to go out of their way to place him on a pedestal at Furina's expense, which irks the hell out of me.

There are some opportunity for future interludes to turn the current state around, and they probably will since Furina is still being marketed as an Archon, but as it stands I want Fontaine to be over so we can move on to the next disappointment.

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

Throughout the entire game, who do you think are some of the most underrated or under-appreciated characters?

stumbling into the askbox whyyy hello there!!! it had been a while!!

OKAY SO. let's start from one fact: every. single. character has something special about them. so like the easy answer is... anyone, lmao. truth be told we (the whole community) has been around for llke, 18 years (WOAH) and some sides are completely unexplored. even just from the idea that... have you guys ever noticed how little content there is around about nerds and jocks, for exmple? and i don't only mean art but also writing, analysis, metas, thoughts and such. not to mention the townies, the townies, when, having some of them been given some actually adult attributes, there would be a lot to unpack.

i feel like this is a) mostly for the nerds, that the rightful fisgust for the horrible thing they did to mandy discourages a lot from engaging with them as characters too, and b) because they are quite overshadowed by the fan favorite preps and greasers. which, i mean, very legit. but i think that they do have a lot of potential, again, in terms of characterization and themes, and i feel like we are collectively missing out on a lot.

and there's also the fact that, even with the fan-favorites, there is so little tapping into the more serious and sometimes mature aspects. i wouldn't say christy is neglected by the fandom, but it's not often that i read someone talking about her repressed anger that explodes whenever she feels too much, that heirloom of her father that of curse she doesn't have, she isn't a problem boy like her brother, what do you mean with that, i could use this tie to strangle you goddammit! or vance, that we all love as the sunshine jokester of the greaser and heartbreaker queer icon, but how come none of us ever mention him having a canonical addiction, and what if his messy dating habits have to do with that, too? what if he's running from something inside himself, rushing to next best thing just so he can feel something?

but this is just me rambling as an introduction oops. so, just trying to list a couple of my favorites:

thad carlson (& dan wilson) (putting them together bc they're intrinsecally connected and while i do stand by the fact that he's wildly underappreciated in the fandom i would hit dan in the face with a brick): i would lterally give my first born for these two. they are what they actually wanted to write when they wrote about cain and abel. i'm not sure what is the exact reason why they have different last names, and i don't wanna enter headcanon territory here. what it does unavoidably indicate, though, is that they were doomed from the start. like it was written in their names. so, picture this: they were in the nerds together. they suffered the bullying, the abuse together. the humiliation tasted like blood in their mouths and shone like the stars they'd see with their heads smashed in a locker, but at least they knew their brother would've been there to hold them. there's something very visceral about suffering together with a brother. like the blood they share creates somewhat of a shell, one that can protect them from what is outside, that can give them the comfort that they will never be alone. whether they like it or not, their brother will forever be with them; it's inside them. except that thad had the rage of a wounded animal; dan had the fear of a small prey. so, while thad kept standing tall and proud and chin high against his bullies, dan started training and morphing until he could be accepted in the jocks. dan wasn't the bullied anymore. he was the bully. while his brother was still on the other side of the war- the side of the eternal losers, that is. the side that, no matter how many battles they will win, they will always be at a disadvantage. so thad has got all the hurt of having been betrayed by a half of himself, like the phantom pain of a lost limb. and the hurt makes him angrier and angrier and when he wants to take revenge on the jocks his brother is the first target he wants, because, see, he is the victim, his brother is cain who has killed abel. but also dan has got his head on backwards to look out for enemies and for anyone who might uncover him as the fraud he is, the way he just thought- they are just bullying me for what i am, so what if i become someone different? except that it's not like he didn't feel like a loser anymore, he just feels like a loser with a football sweater. so at that point you look at the direction of that violence, at where the anger and the resentment lies, and you stop there and wonder. who's cain there? who's gonna be the victim, who the executioner? like nathaniel orion said, "i want to kill him sometimes. i think sometimes he wants to die". i love them ur honor.

otto tyler: i have no literal idea why there is so so so little about him. admittedly, content about townies is in gnereal harder to track down, since they have... no last names.... for the most part. but the otto tag is absolutely desolated. this boy is what you'd call too angry to be this young. his first response to anything is extreme violence and fantasies of it. playing his audios you will be met with die, kill, die, kill, kill, die, die. and all of his vitriol is poured on the school, like they have all come together specifically to hunt him down. and he's been canonically hospitalized, as well; when you walk in the asylum for the first time (galloway away i believe) he tells you not to "anger the watcher"- but who is this watcher? the composition of the scene seems to implies it is the statue in the courtyard; the most coherent correspondence would be the orderlies you will have to avoid as you walk past them; maybe otto himself has just been told not to anger the watcher by the people who are supposed to take care of him, but that are just playing with his mind to make him too afraid not to behave. which, incidentally, doesn't sound too different from what he might have suffered at school. otto will ask you if you have ever punched a wall. he will swear he hates everyone in the school, that everyone in the school hated him, he will threaten to destroy it. otto is a landmine, he's an unstable kid who just needed some ground to stand on, and instead they placed him all alone on a shaking earth. all is anger is desperation, it's having spent too much time without a support system, too much time bound -to a chair, in a cell, in a straitjacket- surrounded by people who couldn't understand him. who stifled his expression instead of channeling all the feelings he had all the time, exploding and intense in an overwhelming and violent way. i like to think of him as an artist. he mentions tattoos; i like to imagine he's learning to do them himself. that he's finding that as an outlet for his expression. and yeah overall. i am a lot fond of otto, and i think he would have a lot to say.

mr. wiggins: look, this guy is super unlucky. he's the only teacher with no class minigame; he's only ever walking around, and if you saw him you probably mistook him for the more familiar mr. matthews. but believe me when i tell you he's a real one. example 1: when someone snithces to him, he says something along the lines of "thank you, but i will never be able to trust you again". BRO. let me tell you, in 1968 this guy was OUT on his college campus and he was MARCHING and RIOTING with workers and students. he even mentions having spent a night or two in JAIL. he will walk into class and say the nastiest things about reagan while he keeps saying that as a teacher he will have to be politically neutral as if he didn't just have a fight with hattrick about socialism.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

it made me so happy, as ordinary things often do

“You smell like oranges.”

“I do,” Shouto grins. “Do you like it?”

“Mhm.” Hanta pulls his hand to their face. They make a big deal about smelling it, exaggerating the sniff as much as they can, then press a kiss in the middle of his palm. “Makes me think of home.”

[or, shouto wants to show hanta how much he loves them]

🍊2,840 words | seroroki🍊

[batfossil-fr]

I’ve been really thinking of reopening my art shop soon… I’ve been taking some practice doodles (hence all the posting lately) while I shake off my rust and I’m finding things I enjoy working on again. I miss trying my hand at more dragons/OCs and colors. my shop’s so broken rn lmao but that’s a problem for a later date it’s just nice getting back into art

[a-gay-bloodmage]

Day 31: Landmark 

(Morrigan x Orest Mahariel and Past Tamlen x Orest Mahariel)

Back in the Brecilian forest, Orest Mahariel tells his new friends about the places he remembers from his childhood. Some landmarks bring back good memories, some bad, and yet they all seem to be tainted by a sadness he can’t bring himself to speak about.

[masterofrecords]

Angstober 2024 day 1: Again

Ignorance

Decades after Joel’s death, Marianne found out she’d never truly known him.

Whatever plans he’d held to confess, confided only to his brother, were cut short by his death. Only decades later, finding out he wasn’t quite human helped her make sense of some things – those times he’d started to say something but didn’t, his precise sense of smell.

The glimpse of something vicious, animalistic, that she believed to have hallucinated the last time they saw each other.

She didn’t love him less for it – after all this time, after everything together, she didn’t think she could – but she wished he’d made up his mind sooner.

Would things have been different? Would he have trusted her more, with other things, too? Would it have saved his life?

Such fanciful, empty dreams.

Now, with a dirty sack over her head and voices all around her, they seem even emptier.

In the end, they were too alike, father and son. It wasn’t just the fox tail and ears that her Thomas had inherited, but the mischievous, meddlesome nature, too.

How naive it was of Marianne to think he wouldn’t make enemies.

How naive it was of Marianne to think she wouldn’t, once again, be the one to pay the price.

She hangs limp in the arms of some man she doesn’t know. She’s awake – barely – but knows best not to show it, and she’s always been a fantastic actress.

This time there are no tears. This time, she’s better prepared, has less to lose.

There is steel at her throat, scratching the skin but not quite breaking it yet. Through fatigue and dizziness she can’t make out the words, but the people around her sound angry.

She keeps hoping to make out Thomas’s voice, calling out for her in worry, or maybe snarling at her captors the way Joel had.

She hears nothing.

---

References the same characters and events as Lie, Lie, Truth and In Love and Dreams

The POV of the other hostage in Don't Get Involved

[boundlss]

@saburaito / starter call! ( anton chekhov )

It isn't pride that stays Anton's tongue and prevents him from asking what he knows he needs to. Relying on the strength of others had never been something he'd balked at, after all, neither then nor now. What makes him hesitate is the thought of payment---the promise that once he's made his request, he has no idea how much it will cost him. He's already paid more than his weight in information, after all.

Sabu is not an unreasonable man, at least. In any event, he's better than Dostoevsky. It's only that Anton had hoped to make it by in life without another promise made and debt owed.

"I need to ask something from you," Anton says, voice hoarse with recent disuse and tone wrong with still-unfamiliar syllables. Despite his despair and trepidation, his voice remains steady, and he's even still able to meet the eyes of his prior benefactor. "Protection. Whatever you need, I'll pay."

I would do anything. A sentiment that goes unspoken, but that weaves itself into his tone anyway. If living peacefully is unattainable, then I would do anything to at least live.

[wereh0gz]

I wonder why ppl interpret sonic not jumping at the chance to kill an enemy as him giving "second chances" to bad guys who don't deserve it like eggman

[mortellanarts]

I hadn't read the ztd prologue in a while but I'm midway through writing my fic that could benefit from that knowledge so I finally got around to it with some of my friends and I firstly did not recall Sigma losing his cool that quickly but also the only canonical interaction this Sigma has with this Akane being "Swear future you will not lie to past me about how the end of the world goes down" and her essentially lying about not lying is so good and Phi being just as mad at him as Akane but otherwise staying off to the side oough the dynamics at play there

[kazryuuu]

HELLO, I AM THE OP OF THE DAHLIA HAUNTING KRISTOPH POST. DID YOU SAY YOURE DOING A REWRITE OF THE SEQUELS WITH DAHLIA IN IT??? WOULD YOU LIKE TO ELABORATE PLEASE???? (it's cool if you don't; feel free to ignore this. it just sounded really cool hskdhdk 💞💖💓💝❤️)

YESSS!!!!! I AM! to be clear i REALLY love dd and soj, but everything seemed a bit.. lifeless or confusing after aa4 and i really wanted to include clay in aa4, so i decided im doing a rewrite of the second trilogy !! im gonna do one for the first trilogy as well - but ill focus on dahila and kristoph rq!! in the gavins backstory, they move to LA with their mother so kris can go to a college which happens to be the one dahila and feenie are at, dahila and kristoph meet waaay before feenie and her ever got together - kristoph, is a closeted gay and the two end up pretending to date one another to please kristoph's mother, kristoph is also close friends with feenie and dahila comments on how she knows kristoph likes feenie, kris denies it but she says she'll hook the two up. and what do you know! kristoph finds out after a break (because his mother isnt great and he cares a lot for klavier, so he was staying back home to take care of him) that dahila and feenie were dating. mean girls style ofc, dahila is the cause of the scar on kristoph's hand, a promise to just . ruin phoenix's life when he can, if you look at one of my drawings in a wip comic im doing, college kris has a bandage over his hand and feenie has the necklace dahila gifted him! anyways. story goes on as usual (mostly, still tweaking with stuff) and kristoph visits dahilas grave with klavier once he could. glances at the scar on his hand and it just. throbs. he cut ties with phoenix after college, and once he meets phoenix again, the scar that was just There throbs so much klavier and begged him to try and seek medical attention, one of the many reasons why kristoph is evil is because of the promise he made dahila, and every time he isn't doing said promise he only gets hurt in the process of it. that's sorta the gist of it, the pain lessens once the forgery happens and he 'wraps' a newly disbarred phoenix around his finger, he sees dahila in mirrors, thinks he sees her when he passes places he and phoenix used to hang out at, she's in his Dreams and every waking moment dahila is hanging Right over kristoph.

[etoilebinaire]

I've been meaning to ask for your thoughts about Rasha and Alistair but I somehow wrote it down as "Rasha and Zevran" and now I'm curious your thoughts about both variants. at first glance, Rasha/Zevran are a clear nOTP since Rasha is so paranoid and Zevran could very well be an assassin sent after her a la DA:O scenario... but would they be so incompatible? if Rasha knew that Zevran is an assassin from the start, wouldn't there be something... comforting in that knowledge?

You mean the Rasha that ended up with the Iron “nice to meet you im a qunari spy btw” Bull?

(this is the perfect ask thank you so much, a lot of rambling under the cut!)

Just kidding Rasha and Bull were outright hostile towards each other until they were convinced the other wouldn’t kill them on sight anymore and even then they wouldn’t be friendly until months later and they wouldn’t even start to trust the other a little bit until after a big yelling match after the entire demands of the qun nightmare. They got themselves caught in an enemies to colleagues to friends to lovers pipeline, even if the start was a bit one-sided. And I think it would be very similar for Zevran and Rasha. How to put these thoughts on paper. Zevran and Bull are essentially the same person. Listen. They are. The only real differences is different spy training (crows vs. ben hassrath) and that Zevran is younger. I’ll try to describe Rasha’s thought processes a bit because it’s important to get an understanding, but please know that I don’t think they’re healthy etc it’s just that Rasha is not dealing with things well </3. Ok so, three points about Rasha that need to be mentioned: First of all. Saying you’re an assassin/spy/whatever does NOT help. It only means that if you’re upfront about that you’re hiding something much worse. Rasha will find out if you’re an assassin/spy/whatever either way, you don’t have to tell her, you don’t get brownie points for telling her, she will not trust you more, she would have found out either way. She sees through that attempt at gaining her trust immediately. Second of all. Rasha is probably too morally and dutifully bound to kill or send away help if it offers itself. Would she kill Zevran if he was unconscious at her feet after a failed assassination attempt? Only if she didn’t allow herself a chance to think about it. Would she recruit someone from an order trained to assassinate people in her position if she knew that person would be an asset for the inquisition? Yes, if she was confident she could keep an eye on them, even if she would sleep worse for it. If anything, Rasha hates bad resource allocation and management and the inquisition needs all the help it can get. (also.. divine intervention because I as a player would never send a character away) Third of all. Rasha has incurable “I can fix them” disease. She’s an ass and it will take her forever to get over herself and not be mean to someone she doesn’t trust, but once she does.. She applies all the therapy that she doesn’t get to other people god bles. It’s all Shokrakars fault anyway. SHE was the one who got the ragtag group of tal-vashoth together (the Valo-Kas, Rasha’s old mercenary group from before she got dragged along in the inquisition, Rasha didn’t exactly join that group voluntarily but she somehow got stuck there) and THEY all needed therapy and Rasha was somehow the one person most equipped to deliver said therapy. Something about deflecting and being an outsider but still having somewhat of an understanding because of her parents also being tal-vashoth. You don’t need to trust people to still want to help them.

So all of that combined. With Zevran. Spoilers: I do think they make a great match but how it would happen truly depends on how and when and in what context they meet. - If they just happen to be near each other but not interact, Rasha would probably sniff him out as someone who’s a bit too keen on their surroundings, assume he’s an assassin sent to kill her and destroy the inquisition, and leave. This is her thought process with most strangers.   - Do they meet à la DAO after a failed assassination attempt and Rasha was a target? Zevran is dead, she would cut his throat, end of that. UNLESS her brain caught up with her instincts and she thought about it for a second. Then she would interrogate him, find that he’s very willing to give up whoever hired him, be annoyed at his flirtation attempts, and then accept his request to let him live and join their group. She’d absolutely 24/7 keep an eye on him and not eat food that was in his vicinity and have a constant guard on him and generally be awful. It wouldn’t be fun for any of them, but at least Rasha would have a focus for her paranoia, Zev would live, and their group would have another person to fight alongside them. Resource allocation. Zevran is pretty honest about most of his experience as a crow, and one would think there’s some comfort in that for Rasha. However, him being honest could also be a lie and then it’d just be a manipulation technique to get closer to her and let her get her guard down and she will not fall for that!!!! So her paranoia would get in the way there. The real comforting thing about Zev is that his go-to technique does not work on Rasha. She isn’t moved by flirtation and it’s pretty clear that that’s Zevs usual manipulation/deflection/distraction. I don’t think Rasha would lower her guard around him for a second.

Eventually, I do think they’d exchange assassin techniques and Rasha would be intrigued (and disgusted) by how the crows work. They would bond over being dual wielding bisexual assassins who deeply regret some of their kills. Remember, nr. 3, Rasha does have incurable “I can fix them” disease and she’s all for leaving oppressive regimes so she would absolutely encourage Zevran to leave the crows. It wouldn’t be until she can smell Taliesens blood that she actually entertains the thought of trusting Zevran, but you know, small steps. (I’m assuming, btw, that Zev wouldn’t try to assassinate Rasha unless he was still with the crows no matter the timeline here. This isn’t necessarily DAO with Rasha as warden but what a thought that is. Sten would still be in that cage. Rasha and Shale would be unstoppable together. Rasha would be like “we don’t have time for this there’s a blight to stop” every other mission while still trying to help everyone.) All Rasha’s friends are people who left the qun and are dealing with trauma from that so Zevran would fit right in. Again, they would bond over regretting past kills and I think in convincing Zev that he will have to live with that, Rasha would convince herself that she can live with it as well. Rasha’s true personality really shines through when she tries to help people, and it becomes apparent that she’s actually a kind person. I think that if you look at the bigger picture and her decisions, it already is apparent she’s quite compassionate but she surely doesn’t see it that way and on a small scale she’s usually not very nice, which is what people typically see. Anyway, I think Zevran is a good judge of character and would probably see through that all pretty quickly. Rasha wouldn’t trust him until after him leaving the crows, and even then it’d take some time, but I think they would get along very well after that. As I said, bisexual dual wielding assassins with a past they’re trying to not be traumatized from. Rasha still wouldn’t respond to flirtation because that’s just not her thing. But it very much is Zevrans thing and once Rasha realizes he’s maybe serious and he maybe IS offering she’d be like aight . And then she’d fall like a fucking avalanche. Listen. It takes her a LONG time to warm up to people, like a LONG time, but then it’s down in the deep and there’s no return. It’s like a switch in her brain and it is melted to the metal frame once it flips over. And then eventually Zevran would realize he caught feelings and freak out about it, around the same time Rasha would realize she caught feelings and freak out about it, and maker help the people around them. Zevran’s coping mechanism with being scared is becoming distant but Rasha straight up gets angry when she’s scared. Eventually she would see that Zevran’s scared, realize that she’s scared, and then be like “wait if YOURE scared and IM scared then who’s driving the bus”. She’d sit them both down and be like “there’s no use in us being scared of each other like this we should either be scared together or not be scared at all” and she’d be SO pragmatic about it that it would probably break any potential objection Zevran could think of and then they’d get together.

And they would be amazing together. They would be so annoying. They would call their weapons sexy all the time and do lockpick challenges that Rasha always wins and be SO loud and then deny all plausibility in the morning with a straight face. Rasha would suffer through Antivan poetry if Zevran suffers through Rasha’s spells where she overanalyses the seating arrangements in bars and accuses 5 seemingly random patrons of being shady (she’s right about 4 of them). They have at least 10 knives between the both of them at all times. They would be absolute menaces to their friends with PDA cause Zevran thinks that’s hilarious and Rasha would go along with it to see him smile. Also, Rasha would absolutely love destroying the crows from inside out and she’d excel at it too. No way she’s leaving that all to Zev. Rasha would do well in Antiva. Zevran would not do well in the Frostbacks. Rasha would obviously still get bouts of paranoia about everything including herself and Zevran and their relationship and I don’t think Zevran would know how to handle that and he’d just laugh it off, but if Rasha has any semblance of a support network she’d be fine eventually. Otherwise, they would work extremely well together.

- Do they meet during DAI where Zevran is an ex-crow and wants to help the inquisition? Then he’d be like any other companion and Rasha would be on his ass all the time and distrust him and take a long time to warm up to him (see point 1, Zev saying he’s an (ex) assassin doesn’t help). I think she’d test him a lot, see if he actually does just want to help without any agenda, see if she could sneak up on him without him noticing, see just how observant he is, see how much she could poke before she gets met with the sharp end of a knife. Again, flirting doesn’t work on Rasha so there go 80% of Zevs manipulation/deflection techniques. And again, they’ll eventually bond over being dual wielding bisexual assassins who are trying very hard to not let their past define them. Considering everything, Zevran is pretty well-adjusted so he would “pass” most of Rasha’s inane tests, then they’d hesitantly become friends and eventually they could grow close just like in the scenario above. TLDR: Rasha and Zevran are an OTP disguised as a NOTP just like Rasha and Bull. Rasha would be extremely standoffish to Zevran until he ‘proves’ himself in her eyes and she feels she can trust him somewhat, and then she’d immediately fall in love. Rasha is actually very compatible with the very people she mistrusts the most. -----

That was most of it I promise. Rasha and Alistair is a lot shorter. They definitely wouldn’t match as well as Rasha and Zev. - In a DAI scenario, where Alistair is either king or warden, I don’t think they’d really talk a lot. Rasha would be impressed with his achievements during the blight/his reign as king, but that’s about it. In most scenarios I don’t think they’d catch each others eye either. - In a DAO-ish scenario, where they’re forced to work together and Alistair is around that point in his life.. Rasha would be somewhat empathetic to Alistair struggling with his family, and him missing Duncan, and him not wanting to be king etc. I don’t think Alistair would trigger her paranoia in any significant way. I mean, look at him. He’s kind and overly genuine and even if he does turn out to be dangerous, Rasha could easily kill him before he would even realize what is going on. I don’t think Rasha would be drawn to him aside from her “I can fix them” disease where she’ll try to make him deal with his family/Duncan situation better. They don’t really share a sense of humor and she’d think he was a coward rather than endearing (I am so sorry Alistair I hate to say it). I also genuinely don’t know if Alistair would like Rasha. If they had to work together Rasha would try to be nice. But Rasha can be a little scary with how easily she kills and how violent she is. Plus if he ever stops to think, he’d realize she never shares anything about her own family or past, which is kinda weird? And then he’d ask and then she’d make sure he never asks again by subtly but firmly threatening him. HOWEVER. Alistair has that great thing where he does fall for anyone being kinda nice to him. At least in case of the warden (it’s always a surprise for me when I accidentally trigger his romance please send help). So potentially he could develop a crush on Rasha? Now that wouldn’t go over well. She wouldn’t reciprocate, mostly cause Alistair is just not her type, but also because she wouldn’t believe his affection to be genuine. This is where her paranoia would play up again. Rasha would absolutely think she manipulated him into liking her (she didn’t) and overcompensate by showing him how much of a bad person she is (she isn’t). Like the rose scene in DAO. If he would’ve given a rose to Rasha with a spiel about beauty in darkness and how nobody is grateful enough for all her work she’d question his sanity. THEN she’d be like ‘oh no I manipulated this poor chantry boy into thinking I’m a love interest’, then she’d show him why she isn’t a love interest. Thing #4 about Rasha I realized while typing this: she genuinely believes she’s a bad person (even though all her actions tell differently, it’s her paranoia) and knows that she’s capable of manipulating people, and I think she’d be really scared of manipulating her friends and allies? Which is why she generally prefers to be friends with headstrong people who aren’t that susceptible to manipulation. Which is also why while her paranoia gets triggered around spies, she actually gets along with them very well because they have inside knowledge of manipulation so they have a one-up on her. Like, she might not trust them but she might trust herself more around them, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t, Rasha’s way of thinking isn’t sensible anyway and I’m bad at explaining it. Anyway, I’m not saying Alistair has a malleable mind, but Rasha sure would think he does, and that would be enough to make her kind of steer clear of him.

[xawkward-ariesx]

Related to the discussion about commenting on older fics. I personally like it when people comment on older fics cus it also reminds me that that fic exists and gives me the chance to reread it divorced from the original stress of writing it, that allows me to remember why I wrote it for myself in the first place