#i care about the inquisition she build

[twist-shout-and-shells]

They're gonna do the Inquisitor as dirty in Veilguard as they did Hawke in Inquisition, huh?

[bishicat]

*stands in your doorway (menacingly)* imma need a 5 from the touching prompts for your solavellan pls (i know i already sent one but that was before i knew about your lavellan also if you are not comfe with drawing them just do whatever!)

5. feeling their pulse

I AM SO COMFY WITH THIS!!!!!

(I just needed to practice drawing Solas again hehe)

<art meme here>

[blackberry-sage-tea]

"The Dalish gifted an Eluvian to the Grey Wardens so we can get in Weisshaupt" is just so emblematic of my problems with the game, because you can tell--it feels to me--that the thought process was "We need to have an Eluvian in Weisshaupt, Eluvians are an Elven(TM) thing, the Dalish are the Elven(TM) faction, so let's just say they were the ones who gave one to the Grey Wardens".

The Dalish have been established over all three games as a people who have spent the last thousands of years desperately scrounging for whatever scraps of their culture they can find, a struggle that has cost them dearly as typified by Merrill's plight trying to restore a single Eluvian which had previously Blighted two of her clan mates (an Eluvian that she can't open or use, and doesn't actually know what it's for by the end of her quest line). Multiple Dalish in Inquisition are killed trying to regain their history ("The Knight's Tomb") or trying to prove themselves by regaining even a talisman related to their culture ("Someone to Lose"). They are an insular and guarded people because outsider interactions frequently invoke a heavy toll in Dalish lives, up to and including entire clans. And yet, we are supposed to believe in a single throwaway piece of dialogue that in the 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard, the Dalish have (offscreen) gained enough access to Eluvians as a piece of technology that they can afford to just "gift" one to the Grey Wardens without explanation.

There are constant revelations of this kind where pre-established parts of the lore are just thrown out the window. Things that had great emotional weight or impact in previous installments of the series are used for cheap thrills or plot-hole fills without explanation, justification, or even gravitas from the game. You have a moment in one of Emmrich's quests where you stumble through a portal directly into the Fade that Hezenkoss opened in Blackthorne manor, and you're tasked with closing it again. All of this is done entirely without the Anchor or even an implied blood sacrificial ritual, and it is never commented as anything particularly groundbreaking (when going into the Fade physically through tearing a hole in it was a Big Fucking Deal in Inquisition). You encounter a Compassion spirit in a side quest investigating the deaths of citizens in Tevinter who were murdered by a demon of Despair, and it is strong enough to not only retain itself through sensing the (unanswered!) suffering that these people experienced, but it also resolves to protect others to keep them from the same fate (when Cole was so traumatized by a single person's death that he completely reshaped his entire being around them). So on and so forth. Don't even get me started on Bellara's comment that the ancient elves "made most of their buildings in the Fade".

I'm not asking for someone to hold my hand and spoonfeed me information. I frankly don't care if an obscure codex entry, a reddit AMA question, bluesky tweet, or headcanon exists somewhere to patch in or bandaid over all of the jarring details like this, because it doesn't change the fact that the game itself should be doing this. The game itself should be taking the time to explain this in a way that is not missable, the game itself should be taking these things seriously, it should recognize when it is doing contradictory things and rush to justify itself accordingly, because these are things the emotional beats of previous stories hinged on. Like, when the game has Taash say a line like "The Qun isn't a prison, you can leave if you want", it's the responsibility of the writers to show that this is Taash being misinformed, not because I'm too stupid to headcanon that this is the case, but because this line is a symptom of how the entire game's writing seems to have forgotten about the Ben-Hassrath as a thing that exists in this setting.

Previous Dragon Age games are no stranger to "We quietly removed Solas' network of agents and spies offscreen"-style writing, but it usually didn't feel like a constant deluge periodically uprooting my emotional investment and immersion. There's only so much I can take in good faith before I realize that this game was just not written with any care towards ensuring that the worldbuilding made sense and felt right to the player, leading to awkward backpedaling in reddit threads like "no the Crows haven't changed as an organization, these are just the unique Good Crows and we forgot to mention it".

I just can't look past this shit anymore.

[invinciblerodent]

This is going to be very ranty and disjointed, probably borderline incomprehensible post, but with the "return" of Dragon Age Discourse (and really, did it ever go anywhere?) and me repeatedly seeing the complaints and dismissals of DA:I as a "chosen one"-type of a narrative, I just.... I keep finding myself thinking about the relationship of truth and lies within the game.

Throughout the course of DA:I, the idea of a malleable, flexible personal identity, and a painful confrontation with an uncomfortable truth replacing a soothing falsehood, follows pretty much every character throughout their respective arcs.

There are some more obvious ones, Solas, Blackwall, The Iron Bull, their identities and deceptions (of both those around them and themselves) are clearly front and center in the stories told about them, but this theme of deception (both of the self- and the outside world) is clearly present in the stories of the others as well.

Like, for example, ones that come immediately to mind are stories like that of Cullen, who presents an image of a composed and disciplined military man, a commander- all to hide the desperate and traumatized addict that he sees himself as.

Dorian grappled with the expectations of presenting the image of the perfect heir to his father's legacy, the prideful scion of his house, his entire life (he even introduces himself as the result of "careful breeding", like one might speak about a prized horse)- all while knowing that his family would rather see him lobotomized and obedient, than anything even just resembling his vibrant and passionate self.

Cassandra calls herself a Seeker of Truth, and takes pride in that identity- only to learn that in reality, she has been made a liar, a keeper of secrets, without her knowledge or consent, and it is up to her to either uproot the entire organization and painfully cut out the abscess it is to build it back from the ground up into something respectable, or let the information she had revealed sit, and continue to fester.

And this theme continues and reframes itself in, among others, things like Sera's own inner conflict between her elven heritage and her human upbringing, or in Cole being caught in this unconscionable space in-between human and spirit, between person and concept, etc.

The Inquisitor isn't exempt from this either.

I feel like this is where the core of the many misunderstandings of this plot come from, why so many people continue to believe that Inquisition is a "chosen one" or "divinely appointed" type of story, because I think many might just... not realize, that the protagonist's identity is also malleable, and what they are told in the setup/first act of the game is not necessarily the truth.

The tale of the Inquisitor is the exact opposite of that of a "chosen one" story: it's an examination and reflection of the trope, in that it is the story of an assumption that all wrongly believe to be the truth, and thrust upon you, even if you protest. The very point is that no matter who you choose to say that you are, you will be known as the Herald of a prophet you don't even necessarily believe in, and then that belief will be proven wrong, leaving you to cope with either a devastating disappointment if you believed it, or a bitter kind of vindication if you didn't.

There's a moment just after Here Lies the Abyss (when you learn of the lie you've been fed your entire journey in the game) that I don't often see mentioned, but I think it's one of the most emotionally impactful character moments, if you are playing an Andrastian Inquisitor who had actually believed themselves chosen (which I realize is a rather unpopular pick, lol): it's when Ser Ruth, a Grey Warden, realizes what she had done and is horrified by her own deeds, and turns herself in asking to be tried for the murder of another of her order. As far as she is concerned, she had spilled blood for power, and regardless of whether she was acting of her own volition at the time, whether she had agency in the moment, is irrelevant to her: she seeks no absolution, but willingly submits to any punishment you see fit.

And only if you play as an Inquisitor who, through prior dialogue choices, had established themselves as a devout Andrastian, can you offer her forgiveness, for a deed that was objectively not her fault- not really.

You can, in Andraste's name, forgive her- even though you, at that point, know that you have no real right to do so. That you're not Andraste's Herald, that Andraste may or may not even exist, and that you can't grant anyone "divine forgiveness", because you, yourself, don't have a drop of divinity within you. You know that you were no more than an unlucky idiot who stumbled their way into meddling with forces beyond their ken.

You know you're a fraud. You know. The game forces you to realize, as it slowly drip-drip-drips the memories knocked loose by the blast back into your head, that what all have been telling you that you are up to this point, is false. And yet, you can still choose to keep up the lie, and tell this woman who stands in front of you with blood on her hands and tears in her eyes, that you, with authority you don't have, grant her forgiveness for a crime that wasn't hers to commit.

Because it's the right thing to do. Because to lie to Ser Ruth is far kinder than anything else you could possibly do to her, short of refusing to make a decision altogether.

There are any number of criticisms of this game that I can accept (I may or may not agree depending on what it is, but I'm from the school of thought that any interpretation can be equally valid as long as there's text that supports it, and no text that contradicts it), but I will always continue to uphold that the Inquisitor is absolutely not- and never was a "chosen one".

They're just as small, and sad, and lost, as all the other protagonists- the only difference is that they didn't need to fight for their mantle, because instead of a symbol of honor, it acted as a straitjacket.

[ryssabrin]

i feel like people who don’t like solas or solavellan have such a warped perspective of what the romance is and how fans of it actually engage in it. like i’ve seen a lot of (most likely het dudes lol) on reddit say they tried it to see what the fuss was but felt it was “demeaning” and i’ve seen it described as literally a horror story where solas is manipulating and using and lying to a young impressionable lavellan who gives up her entire identity for him and becomes a complete doormat to all the awful shit he does. that’s never been my experience and i kinda just want to ramble about how i see it and what i find romantic about it?

so full disclosure, if veilguard had come out a few years ago with how they portrayed lavellan and solavellan i might have been pretty disappointed. i think there is a subset of the solavellan fanbase that likes the wolf/halla or student/professor thing and they play their lavellan younger and agreeing almost without question to everything solas says. i see the appeal but i never played my lavellan that way and i really like the dynamic of it when lavellan actually goes against his advice at times. solas is a character that needs to have his preconceived biases questioned. especially in inquisition when he’s still coming to terms with the fact that the modern people of thedas are in fact people lol. so i was concerned at the prospect of my lavellan being taken out of my hands and having to listen to her make excuses for him and submit to everything he says. (which tbf i don’t think is how she actually comes across in dav, but that was a worry.)

however when i replayed my canon dai run this year, i realized i was closer to the age i always saw my lavellan as (early 30s), and as my lavellan is probably the bioware pc i’ve always played closest to my own personality, i took the opportunity to tweak her a bit and make some different choices. i’ve (hopefully lol) matured and grown a lot since i was 24 and so rather than going for the snarky sarcastic cool girl vibes i opted to play her with more diplomatic and caring choices. it made me see the solas romance in a completely new light. rather than some sort of student/professor dynamic or a pride and prejudice-esque rivals-to-lovers vibe where lavellan is fighting for his respect the whole time, what stuck out to me was how much their connection builds simply because lavellan is kind to solas. she hears him out when he wants to give his opinions and advice, she respects his expertise on the fade and spirits, and she offers him comfort and friendship when she sees he needs it. she impresses him because he finds himself wanting to indulge in her closeness. he finds a connection to someone he never expected to and it makes him rethink everything about the broken state he put the world in.

it’s worth noting that lavellan is always making the first move. she kisses him first, she pursues him. he tries to brush off the kiss as a spontaneous lapse in judgement and she doesn't let him. he only ever gives in to her advances, he doesn't make them himself. he calls their relationship "selfish" on his end. he knows he shouldn't be encouraging her but he can't help but long for her companionship. that being said though if lavellan shuts it down he respects it. he probably feels a little relief because the temptation is now out of his hands lol.

i feel like there’s also this perception that he’s constantly shitting on the dalish while lavellan just has to put up with it and that alone is reason enough to find the relationship demeaning. he mentions the dalish in one optional conversation chain where you ask him for his opinion on the state of the elves and then in the balcony scene where he realizes he’s misjudged the inquisitor after his personal quest. in both instances, lavellan can stick up for the dalish. in the optional conversation, lavellan can say that if solas had a bad experience with a clan once (which we know from dav is exactly what happened lol), that she’d like to correct that misunderstanding about her people.

it's worth noting as well that lavellan doesn't know solas is the dread wolf when he's criticizing the dalish. from her perspective, he's essentially a city-born elf who had some dalish look down their nose at him for not being a "true elf" like they are, something that not only happens in canon throughout the games and lavellan would be aware of, but literally happens to solas specifically, right in front of you. he doesn't say a single word to mihris and she doesn't know a thing about him other than his face is bare and thus feels comfortable referring to him with what is essentially a slur. but rather than confront her directly about it he just passive aggressively speaks to her in elven almost exclusively for the rest of the quest lol.

far from the dynamic being that lavellan is just putting up with someone talking down to her about her culture, i think it's reasonable to see her view is more that they're both members of the same marginalized group, but from different cultures. his position in criticizing the dalish is not punching down it's lateral. she loves her culture, but is able to recognize it has flaws and not every member in it treats other cultures well, particularly even when they're from the same marginalized group. (and it's also just really meaningful that the first "flirt" option you get in the solas romance is lavellan recognizing that solas has put himself in a very vulnerable position as an elven apostate joining the chantry-led inquisition and with whatever power she has she will make sure that it's not held against him.)

i do think the writing conveys that he does have his mind changed about the dalish at least a little bit, but one of his pet peeves is when people are ignorant and refuse any information that challenges their worldview. as a manifested wisdom spirit, it is a particular sticking point to him to not be listened to when he is providing knowledge. i think criticism of how he is towards the dalish is lacking without taking into account his nature as a spirit. obvs we didn’t know that in dai but we do now. when wisdom isn't listened to it turns to pride. "i told you so," "i'll prove i'm right," "you should have listened to me," etc. etc. he got his feelings hurt when the dalish didn't believe him (and according to dav, literally tried to kill him) and his ego's held a grudge ever since.

when it comes to the vallaslin, to me it’s less about solas wanting to dismantle part of dalish culture (he offers no actual opinion on the dalish during that scene) and more that it clearly bothers him a lot that he fought so hard to free the elves from slavery and the one community of elves that’s closest to the descendants of the people he wanted to free still wears tattoos honoring the very tyrants he wanted to free them from. if lavellan says she wants to keep them and that the dalish reclaimed them and they mean something else to her, he doesn’t argue. i actually don’t like that solas’s post breakup banter with cole implies that lavellan thinks he might have broken up with her over the vallaslin. it’s putting thoughts in the head of my character that i personally don’t see her having. the way the breakup plays out, there’s not a single indication that it has anything to do with the vallaslin. i like to pick the “i believe in us” option because it shows lavellan having some idea that there’s something solas isn’t telling her and that’s the main reason he’s walking away. and the irony of course is that we learn in dav that that was the moment he came the closest to just giving up everything to just be with her.

so when i played through dav with my solasmance lavellan and she talks about what drew her to him it all just felt so right. he was kind and wise and sad but he made her feel like she was the only thing that mattered to him. (and that was very almost true!) there was a passion and intensity to their relationship that made her think he was the person she wanted to be with forever. when she says "i thought i would have followed anywhere he asked me to" you could read it as her saying she would have joined him in tearing down the veil if he asked and depending on your lavellan that might be true (though in the next bit she talks about how she would have been trying to change his mind anyways). but you could also read it as what her mindset was while she was with him during dai. before joining the inquisition, she knew him to be someone that traveled the world looking for lost secrets and history. why would she not have wanted to join him in that? is that not something you do when you're in love with someone?

something else that i find really compelling about solavellan is how solas relates to the inquisitor (not just lavellan) as a figurehead stripped of their personal identity. he knows from personal experience exactly what that's like. in the romances (not just solas's), the inquisitor is able to find someone that knows and cares for them for who they are, not what they represent. this aspect of the inquisitor's arc is honestly why i like keeping the vallaslin. my lavellan wants people to be able to look at her as the inquisitor and see a dalish elf. it's one small act of defiance and in reclaiming her own narrative. so thinking about what she might want to do after her responsibilities to the inquisition are over, it's reasonable to think she might want to just go wherever solas goes? because she loves him and feels like herself around him. even her asking him to let her come with him in trespasser feels more motivated by the fact that lavellan sees solas isolating himself and closing himself off and she's sad about it because she cares about him. that was why she wanted to grow close to him in the first place.

and i genuinely don't think it's all that wild that lavellan still holds a torch for solas 10 years later. i personally was friends with this guy in high school i always had a crush on, and towards the end of senior year it looked like it could actually end up turning into something. but then he immediately left for a summer abroad after graduation and eventually moved out of the country full time for school. we kept in touch off and on and caught up when he was in town, but nothing romantic ever happened. for years after i would catch myself thinking every so often what could have been and what he was up to. for solavellan, they were actually together. they had mutually expressed feelings and though their time together was maybe a few months at most, it was intense and passionate. they split up not because anyone's feelings changed, but because of solas's baggage. it's really not unrealistic for lavellan to continue wondering to herself what would have happened if he had been honest with her sooner. if she could have convinced him to change course. and it's not like she has the luxury of retiring and just not thinking about him anymore. that's not a conscious manipulation on solas's part to string her along, that's just the reality of their situation.

and even with all that in mind, in dav lavellan is still able to have the self-awareness to understand that the good in him that she believes exists and all that they had together and what she meant to him could all just be wishful thinking on her part. that she's giving him the benefit of the doubt "imagining his broken heart" when he doesn't deserve it because it makes her feel less foolish. she's not blindly faithful to him. i just loved everything about that scene and every word out of my lavellan's mouth felt spot on and perfect for how i saw their relationship. i could not have been more relieved lol.

as for the ending, i really really dislike the bad faith read that the only thing that matters is mythal and that he somehow loves mythal more and if that weren't true then lavellan alone would be able to convince him to stop. varric says about solas that he wants to be a hero, but it's easier for him to play the villain because it means he didn't fail, everything bad he's done is a choice. once you've done one bad thing, betrayed one friend, manipulated and sacrificed some pawns, committed one lil genocide, etc. lmao, it becomes easier to do it again. you've already crossed your moral event horizon and now you just have to find an end that justifies the means of all your misdeeds. what i've said about solas before is that what's frustrating is that he does genuinely feel remorse about the shit he does, but he needs to believe it's necessary and he will keep doing it. he needs to believe it will all be worth it in the end. it's not that he thinks feeling sorry makes up for it necessarily, but that he had to do it. he had to be the one taking on all of the bad things to hopefully one day do a good thing and it will all work out.

(as a side note when solas says "i would not have you see what i become" in trespasser i always thought that meant he was going to resort to some awful corruptive magic or something but it turns out what he actually meant was "i'm about to be a real asshole and do some incredibly awful things and i don't want you to see that side of me" which is much sadder.)

so when rook says "you don't have to do this" solas counters with "i've betrayed and fucked over and killed so many people who trusted me and if i stop i will have done that for nothing." so then the inquisitor jumps in with "as one of those people, i'm telling you that you can stop." but then we get to the heart of it. he thinks he failed mythal when she died the first time and was unwilling to listen to her as flemeth. he needs to make that mean something. he needs to justify to himself what mythal made him into. so he needs to hear from his mythal, not morrigan's mythal who has the benefit of the wisdom and hindsight centuries of living among mortals gave her, but his mythal, the one closest to who she was when she died that what he is is broken. that she's the one that broke him and he alone doesn't have to bear the weight of everything he did because of her. it's not about loving her, it's about the specific relationship he had with her. with that baggage unpacked, he's not only able to let go of his prideful need to prove himself right by tearing down the veil, he's also free to choose what he always really wanted: lavellan.

and still! yet again! he does not ask or assume anything on her part. she offers! of her own free will. something that really rustles my jimmies about a lot of solavellan criticism is that people act like lavellan has no agency. that she couldn't possibly make the choices she does of her own accord and it has to be solas manipulating her. that has never rang true to me at all. she always made the first move. i think this more uncharitable read might unfortunately be encouraged by how many actual solavellan shippers play into the wolf/halla thing but i personally don't think that's the dynamic that weekes actually wrote. it is lavellan that pursues solas, not the other way around. and weekes was honestly so careful in how they wrote the romance so that when solas's identity and plans are revealed, it doesn't feel like he intentionally tricked you or took advantage. i actually really like the ambiguity of whether or not they slept together because to me it does feel like that's a line solas wouldn't cross, but i get why that doesn't matter as much to other solasmancers.

i also think there's this perception that solavellan is a ship with an unhealthy power dynamic that needs to be "fixed" in some way or at the very least apologized for before you're allowed to like it. for me it's honestly kind of the appeal? not that there's some goofy dom/sub thing going on lol but that in spite of how "superior" solas may or may not feel to lavellan and the modern elves, he still falls hook line and fucking sinker for her. lavellan has so much more power in the relationship than she realizes. she changes his entire perspective on modern elves and his ultimate goals so bad he had a complete crisis of faith and had to run as far away from her as he could. how could he have broken the world so badly he needs to catastrophically break it again to fix it if it could create someone like her? someone he wants and cares for so desperately? it's the push and pull of him trying to stay away but selfishly indulging as long as he can that's so juicy to me! it's so good and i just wish other people could see that, even if they don't care for the character.

anyways. i don't have a conclusion. i don't want anyone to think i'm vaguing about them. this is honestly the result of some thoughts that have been brewing for a while and a lot of common criticisms i've seen over the years. i didn't want to respond directly to anyone in particular bc i learned my lesson about not doing that waaay back in the shenko fandom iykyk lol. i just really like the ship! i think it's tragic and romantic and lovely and poetic and mythological and all that good stuff. it humanizes solas as a character and makes me think about empathy and compassion and how much faith you can have in someone if you love them. or how it might feel to sacrifice love for something you think you need to do, only to ultimately realize you never did and find that love patiently waiting for you to get your shit together. or to love someone and know they love you back and that they love you so much they had to leave or they would have given up everything they thought they needed for you and then to be able to actually get through to them and get them back. "she could save him if he'd only just let her"! it's a very niche wish fulfillment fantasy and it's me! i'm the fan being serviced!

[idontevenlikedragonage]

Things I really enjoy about DA:TV - Companions and group dynamics

As a self-proclaimed RPG nerd™️, Veilguard is one of the few games that managed to create a group of companions I genuinely cared about equally—and who actually felt like a group of adults.

I know a lot of people love group dynamics where characters dislike or outright hate each other, but that’s like 99% of games, and honestly, I’m tired of it. Sometimes I just want my companions to be likable and come across as well-rounded individuals.

First off, my absolute favorite thing is the way companions wander around the lighthouse and build relationships independently of Rook. Not only does this add an extra layer of character development, but it also makes the group feel like competent, self-sufficient people. I’m obsessed with Harding’s character journey—just from her interactions with the other companions. You don’t need to talk to her directly to understand what she’s thinking or where she is emotionally. Additionally, when Rook is trapped in the Fade Prison, it feels completely natural and believable that the companions would work together effectively without him.

From a game design perspective, a lot of RPGs fall into the trap of creating companions solely for the player. This is true of Inquisition and even more contemporary games like Baldur’s Gate 3. In those games, companions just stand around waiting for the player to initiate conversations, and their relationships don’t really develop independently. There’s also little to no variety in personality dynamics—no introverts, no extroverts.

One criticism of Veilguard is that there’s no tension between companions, but that’s not true at all. Early on, most of the group is uneasy about Emmrich—Taash, in particular, struggles with his necromancy. Davrin and Lucanis also clash at first. The difference is that these issues get resolved almost entirely without Rook’s involvement, and I love that because it feels much more like how real people work.

I’ve always been fond of the “found family” or “friends forever” dynamic in RPGs, and this is the first time I’ve felt like I didn’t have to stretch canon to see it happening. This is my comfort ensemble of companions, 10/10, no notes.

[valenteal]

The story of Anakin Skywalker is about how anyone can break under enough pressure. It isn’t a tragedy about an inevitable doom, it isn’t about how power corrupts or about how caring is dangerous. It’s about how no matter how good and kind and selfless and seemingly invincible someone is they still have needs and they can still be hurt.

Maybe this is because Phantom Menace is my favorite Star Wars movie and so I have rewatched it a million times, but for me Anakin is the most genuinely caring and selfless character in Star Wars. He wasn’t just an innocent kid (kids can be cruel and selfish and they’re usually better when they grow up not worse) he was compassionate and kind and despite growing up surrounded by some of the worst scum in the galaxy he knew nothing of greed. That says so much about his character.

Anakin’s fall to the dark side took over a decade of carful manipulation that culminated in cascade of tragedy and loss. It wasn’t an accident. Every bit of the emotional trauma, physical trauma, and mental trauma from the moment Anakin met Palpatine and on ward was planned. We don’t see the decade he spent between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones but immediately in the second movie we see how much Anakin has changed. Where he used to be confident he’s insecure, where he used to bold and fearless he is now arrogant, where he was once inquisitive he is now cautiously enthusiastic, where he used to build he now destroys. Every change in his behavior and outlook is the result of either the teachings of the Jedi Order which are pretty much the antithesis of his entire personality, the result of Sidious’s manipulation, or the result of the toxic attitudes of many Jedi towards him.

Now I know a lot of people have… misconceptions about what the Jedi Order is and what they stand for. It’s understandable, since I guess a lot of people think of Luke as an everything a Jedi is supposed to be but he is NOT, he wasn’t even taught their philosophy! Yoda and Windu and Luminara are everything a Jedi is meant to be. They take an impersonal approach to justice, they treat others coldly, they believe themselves to be above petty things like emotion and pain and human connection. There are Jedi who take a more progressive stance like Obi-Wan and Quinlan and Qui-Gon but you have to understand that they are not model Jedi and have their own struggles with the Order and its teachings. The Jedi code literally says “There is no emotion.” That is what Jedi strive for. And that isn’t even getting into the genocide or the politics. Focusing on how this affected Anakin. That’s what I’m doing.

Anyway, Anakin is a deeply emotional person. This is not a bad thing. It’s the source of his conviction and his empathy (which a surprising amount of Jedi lack). Anakin feels deeply, so he feels love and anger and sadness more keenly than Jedi who have worked their whole lives to shut off emotion. And he was never taught how to deal with it. The most the Jedi did was tell him to meditate, release his emotions into the Force, focus on the present or other platitudes that do not help! I would know. I’m also a deeply emotional person who feels things very keenly to the point where I had a full psychological evaluation when I was 6 years old. When a person deals with this it NEEDS to be addressed. I have wonderful parents who did everything in their power to help me from a young age and I still ended up suicidal! Anakin did not get help and was instead shamed for feeling so strongly and he ended up bottling it up. People complain about how he was “whiny” and I (a person who has also been called whiny) just go what the fuck do you expect?? Expressing his frustration verbally is literally the healthiest option he has! And we know what it looks like when he chooses other forms of venting! Anakin vented to Padmé almost immediately after reconnecting with her because she is literally the only person in his life who will listen to him (other than Sidious but he makes things worse on purpose).

So yeah. Sensitive people need to be taught how to deal with their emotions in healthy ways. Really everyone does but especially people with strong emotions.

But when Anakin isn’t overwhelmed by emotions he doesn’t have the tools to deal with, or surrounded by toxic people, or being actively manipulated by an evil dictator, that’s when you see who he really is. Which means pretty much all of Phantom Menace, a good chunk of the time he’s alone with Padmé, and… nothing else really. (I’m just going to say here that I am not including Clone Wars Anakin due to the purposeful butchering of his character. I still consider the show canon in everything but Anakin’s characterization in a lot of specific instances.)

Anakin has never been a selfish person. The things people perceive as selfish are his needs. He needs unconditional love. He needs Padmé because she is the only person who gives him that. Even without getting into his psychology and bpd and what a splitting episode is, it isn’t hard to recognize that when he places Padmé’s safety above other people’s it’s an act of self preservation more than self interest. He knows that he would literally go crazy without her. After years of being systematically isolated and traumatized she is the only thing keeping him together. In his desperation to save her and consequently his own sanity he lost both those things. But it’s important to note that he tried to do things right, that he went to Yoda for help, that he told Padmé so she could take her own steps to ensure her health. He did everything he could think of before getting desperate enough to go to Sidious. Not to mention he did everything right after discovering Sidious’s identity. It wasn’t until he was presented with a false dichotomy that boiled down to choosing his mentor and confidant of over a decade and his wife’s life or the man who has scored and distrusted him since he was child that he made the objectively wrong choice. And that was after not sleeping for weeks and having a traumatizing realization that triggered a splitting episode so he wasn’t in a head space to understand what was going on in an objective way.

So yeah. That’s my rant about Anakin Skywalker. If you want to comment or debate know that I will reply with an explanation of my thoughts that could be just as long as this post and that I will not stop until you do. You will not get the last word. I feel very strongly about this and if you’ve gotten this far you have to know that I have thought very deeply about this as well. I have heard every argument. You will not change my mind. I have done research. Engaging with this post to disagree will only lead to me expanding on this even more because this is really a brief summary of all my thoughts and feelings on the matter. If you’re just curious about the rest of my thoughts and feelings just ask.

Don’t try to attack my own morals and character because of this, I am NOT condoning Anakin’s actions or behavior, I am completely aware that he is a deeply damaged and unstable person. The point of this is not to deny that but to explain why Anakin is not naturally like that. The scariest thing about Anakin’s fall is that it happened to Anakin, a paragon of compassion and selflessness. Anyone put under the amount of pressure he was would go crazy. I doubt many people would last as long as Anakin did. He was insanely strong to resist for as long as he did.

[thebenjiblackwoodexpress]

The Blackwood Knight: Troublesome Suitors

Description: In which the Blackwood Knight must fend off some troublesome suitors vying for his fair lady's hand.

Writer's Note: Hi all! Been a long time since I posted any 'Blackwood Knight' related content but this is an outtake/extra part of that story, if you will. It may be the prelude to another story/sequel (*wink, wink*). Not sure if this is still of interest to anyone, but had an idea so thought I'd run with it. There was a request from a very kind reader (@rebeccawinters) to write more in this series, so consider this a taste of more to come.

Warning: Brief mention of non con kiss. Female reader.

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose

A gentle breeze fluttered the golden leaves of the Brackentree, overhead, under which a lady and a Knight were ensconced. The lady looked down nervously at the tome open on her lap, still nervous that the Knight next to her would grow bored of hearing her speak of her favourite stories, though he had not yet, after a week of meeting at this tree. She little knew how fascinated Benji was to hear this lovely girl talk to him on whatever subject she chose, especially her stories, since they revealed so much of her character and interests. He admired the beauty of her mind as much as her person, and that of the ideal world she had built in her mind; a world in which loyalty and honour stood for something more than swearing fealty to the next usurper to make a claim for the throne. Perhaps they could build that world together, thought he, smiling softly down at her as she continued to talk about her book. He found her intermittent stutters and nervous avoidance of his eyes endearing and sweet, though he wished that she would feel comfortable in his presence. Benji frowned as he saw Y/N shudder slightly for the second time in a few minutes, realising that she must be cold.

Swiftly unclasping his cloak from around his neck, he gently wrapped it around her shoulders, holding her shoulders affectionately for a moment longer than he needed to. His heart stuttered as she turned her pretty face to look inquisitively up at him, and he found himself stuttering a reply. "Forgive me for my presumption, I thought you might be cold." He held his breath as she tilted her head curiously at him, fearing he had offended her, but she only rewarded him with a sweet, shy smile before returning her gaze to her book. He smiled to himself smugly as he noticed a light dusting of pink on her cheeks. Leaning back against the tree complacently, he shuffled slightly closer so that his shoulder could brush hers. Looking at her out of the corner of his eye to gage her reaction, he was further gratified when she did not stiffen in the slightest and only continued to tell him about her book.

After a few moments she grew silent and her brows furrowed together in a look of worry. Leaning down to meet her gaze, he questioned frantically, “what's wrong? Have I done something to upset you?” Y/N quickly refuted this, shaking her head and waving her hand as if dismissing the issue. “Oh no, not at all, I was only thinking about something displeasing. No matter”' and with that, she smiled up at him. Her quick dismissal of an issue, which was clearly bothering her, concerned Benjicot, demonstrative of a lack of concern for herself and a lack of belief that anyone would care about something worrying her. He would have to remedy this. Anything that concerned her concerned him, and he would fix it if he could. Speaking softly, or as softly as he could, he sought to ascertain the cause of her worry. “I would be grateful if you would tell me what concerns you, my Lady.”

She titled her head inquisitively at him, once again, as if surprised he would care, but answered him hesitantly. 'It is only that my Lord Uncle has been quite insistent in urging me to consider potential suitors of late and I would rather he was not so. I find it difficult enough being forced to talk to people I do not care for, let alone suitors who have no real interest in my person, just what a marriage between our Houses could do for their own personal gain.” She said all of this without taking a breath, her frustration barely concealed, but she immediately looked bashfully after she had finished, as if half expecting Benji to reprimand her for such openness. The dark expression on his face only seemed to confirm this fear and she stuttered out an apology. “Pay me no heed, it is a foolish thing to complain of. I know I will have to marry eventually, but I cannot imagine marrying a man I did not at least like or respect.”

As she looked away from the Knight beside her in embarrassment, she internally rebuked herself for her complaining. Her internal tirade was cut short by Benji interjecting in a soft, almost coaxing tone. She thought she imagined him moving his hand closer to hers on the ground so that their fingers could touch, a comforting gesture. But perhaps he had not realised how close they were, she reminded herself. “When you do marry, it should not be to a man you merely like or respect.” “No?” She questioned tentatively, surprised to see a warmth in Benji's eyes, as he gazed down at her, his face closer to hers than she had previously thought. “It should be to a man who adores you and loves  respects your whole person; not only the beauty of your outward person, but also your mind”. Y/N's mouth parted in silent shock at Benji's outburst before she turned away, growing bashful at his description of her as 'beautiful'. Benji gently turned her chin back to face him, determined that she should fully internalise his words. “For you are beautiful, in your physical person and your mind, which is like a diamond, clear and dazzling.”

 He bent lower to her face, noses nearly brushing as he half-whispered. “The man who you marry will not only see this, but do everything in his power to protect such beauty. I know I would.” Y/N emitted a nervous laugh before releasing herself from Benji's grasp on her chin, and turning away from him once again, though she nestled herself closer to him all the same. Benji satisfied himself that he had made his point and that if his lady did not entirely take his full meaning, the confession of love behind his words, she would at least understand her worth. A moment of silence passed before Y/N quietly said words which had Benji's heart soaring. “None of them are as polite and kind as you. They do not understand me as you do or even care to.”

Benji took a deep breath, feeling his heart swell at her sweet words. Perhaps Rob was wrong. Perhaps she could grow to love him and would one day accept his hand in marriage. His joy was cut short, however, by his lady's next words, muttered quietly under her breath, as if she was unsure whether or not she wanted him to hear. “I know that they mock me for my shyness and see me as no more than a bargaining chip.” Benji's next words came out stiff, through gritted teeth. “These suitors,” he spat out, as if the word was distasteful, “bother you? Are insolent enough to be rude to you?” His anger was rising in his chest, his fist clenching into a tight ball at his side as he immediately began planning how to despatch any man who insulted his lady. The next moment he found himself relaxing and assuming a dazed expression as the lovely lady next to him surprised him by turning her pretty features upon him in a look marked with the utmost concern.

Raising her hand to his head, she pressed the back of it against his forehead and he had to force himself not to close his eyes at the feel of her hand upon him. Instead he looked down at her speechless, as she urgently enquired into his wellbeing. "Are you well Benji? You look flushed, is something the matter?" She looked briefly confused at his lack of response, which she began to grow concerned was only further evidence of an incipient illness.

In truth, the normally formidable Benjicott Blackwood was left utterly in awe of the beauty and gentleness he saw before him, hardly believing it was directed towards him. He very nearly forgot himself and swept the angelic creature before him into his arms then and there but, reminding himself that she was shy and probably did not reciprocate his love for her, he restrained himself, even if he did lean into her touch. Lowering his face towards her, pulled almost by a magnetic force he spoke in a soft tone. "No, my Lady, I am perfectly well, thank you. I am only unhappy to hear of your own troubles and would remedy them if I could. Would you...” He hesitated, seeking to indirectly gain her permission to despatch, remove, he corrected himself, these troublesome suitors for her. “Yes?” She asked in that straightforward way she always did. It was one of the things he loved most about her. She had an innocence, almost like a baby deer encountering the world for the first time, in how she perceived the world and communicated her thoughts. He could not understand how she had been mocked for such transparency in a world of vipers and lickspittles. He knew only too well what he would do to the people who had ever made her feel inadequate about the very traits he found so enchanting about her. He'd planned each of their murders in great detail. Not that he would ever tell her that. The aim was not to frighten her, but to win her love.

He'd have to be indirect about his approach to these suitors, lest the sweet creature next to him looking at him with her crystal blue eyes should grow suspicious of their sudden absence. He'd have to pick them off one by one. “Would you be opposed to these suitors disappearing, entirely coincidentally of course,” he added, hurriedly. He could almost hear Rob's patronising voice in his mind: “real smooth, Benjicott”. “That would be too convenient,” She sighed. Benji smirked slightly, that was all the permission he needed to remove these irritating obstacles from his lady's sight...and his path to win her hand to him.. He was snapped out of his malevolent thoughts, once again, by the soft voice of the lady next to him. “What are you thinking of Benji? You have that odd expression on your face you usually have when I talk about Edmund. Are you...angry with me? We don't have to talk about this anymore if it bothers you.” She spoke hurriedly, turning her reddening face away from him in embarrassment, clearly believing herself to be the cause of Benjicot’s ire.

Benjicot’s eyes widened with alarm and he grabbed her delicate hand in his own and held her shoulder gently with his other, before he could think better of it. Y/N's her head snapped up to meet his at his sudden touch, surprised by the almost tender way he had encased her hand and shoulder in his hands, gently turning her toward him. “Sweet...” Y/N's eyes widened at what she thought sounded like...but it couldn't be, she chastised herself. Why would Benji, a Knight who could probably had a vast entourage of ladies interested in him, possibly be about to call her 'sweet heart.'

After a moment of hesitation, Benji continued, only a slight tension in his jaw revealing his frustration at having allowed his love for the lady before him to nearly result in a misstep that may have had her fleeing from his presence before he could stop her. He could not risk losing her by frightening her with the ardency of his feelings when he was certain she did not feel the same. He sought to correct his mistake as quickly as possible, lest she realise what he had nearly said and flee. “You are very sweet, my Lady, but I wish you to know that you could never anger or annoy me. Everything and anything you have to say to me is of the highest importance to me and if I do appear angry, it is only on your behalf. These ignorant pups have no business intruding themselves upon your presence. I would chase them off if I could.” Benji was equally surprised and delighted to hear his quiet lady, usually so reserved and shy, even with him, break into playful laughter at his last comment - which he had meant in all seriousness. He could not contain the smile that spread across his features as she continued to laugh, her hand pressed to her lips as if to suppress her mirth. He playfully nudged her shoulder, before leaning down conspiratorially to her level. “And what, may I ask, is the cause of your laughter my Lady?”

Still struggling to contain her laughter, Y/N met Benji's gaze with a dazzling smile, like the light dappling a woodland, as she responded. “It is only the thought of you chasing those intolerable suitors off. I suppose one look from you would have them running”, she jested. Benji smirked at this, lowering his head teasingly, seeing her face redden as he drew closer, though she did not move away from him, much to his pleasure. Tilting his head, he whispered by her ear, “am I really so formidable, my Lady? I hope you do not find me frightening”. Sensing she was flustered by his close proximity by the way she was tensed, he reluctantly drew back, though he watched her expression carefully. She could little guess how important her answer to his question was to him. He thought he could hardly bare it if she answered in the affirmative...that she was afraid of him too, just like everyone else seemed to be, Bracken or otherwise.

To the rest of the Riverlands, even his own kin and bannermen, he was known as ‘Bloody Benjicot’, and not for nothing. He protected Blackwood lands from Bracken incursions with a ferocity that lent weight to the appellation. Nevertheless, he never wished for the gentle lady before him to view him as such. From their very first meeting and, even before that, when he had only watched her from afar, he had felt a deep desire to protect her. Much to his surprise and delight, she had appeared to view him as such since he had first defended her from her incorrigible peacock of a cousin who, he reminded himself, still needed a plucking for his crimes against her. Beyond her habitual timidity, she had never seemed to fear him. After he had watched her walk back to her home that first day of their meeting, he had feared that he would never see her again, but she had returned each day to the Brackentree, bordering his lands.

Never seeming surprised to see him waiting for her, she appeared contented at the sight, quickly nestling down next to him to discuss her books or her day or anything. It was all as interesting to Benji, since it concerned her - the lady he loved and adored more than anything in this life, even his own lands. She was the only person who had seen him not only for who he was, but who he could be: a Knight whose trenchant sense of loyalty could be directed towards a higher aim than merely countering border scuffles. He had always thought that no single cause or person could ever command the loyalty of him that his own House and lands did, not even the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, though he was proud to pledge his sword to Rhaenyra, the true Queen's cause. He soon came to realise that the lady before him was this higher aim, the guiding star in his life and the object of all his future hopes. She might not ever be a Queen in name, but he would readily admit to anyone who asked that she was the queen of his heart and where his true loyalty lay.

Usually so confident, Benjicot found himself tensing his shoulders and fixing his gaze upon the ground, rather than her lovely eyes as he awaited her response to his question. He looked up suddenly in shock, first to the small hand placed upon his forearm and then to the crystalline eyes that had haunted his dreams so much of late. "I am not afraid of you, Benji. You have always been so kind to me. You are...my best friend" she added, with a nervous smile, before quickly looking away from him.  Warm affection surged in his chest at hearing her confirm that she was not only not afraid of him, as he had feared, but also even considered him more gentlemanly than her suitors on the Bracken side. Lowering his head to chase her eyes, despite her adorable attempts to evade them. He couldn't help finding her perennial shyness endearing. When she finally met his gaze, he gently lifted her hand to his lips and placed a reverent kiss upon her knuckles, which only made her blush harder. "You are my best friend too, my Lady, and if your, no doubt, endless train of suitors are causing you distress, I am sure your loyal friend can think of a way of 'removing them'.

Benji grinned, pleased with himself, as a laugh bubbled forth from her and she lightly pushed his shoulder in remonstrance. "Don't be silly, Benji. I appreciate your concern, but there's nothing you can do without crossing the border into Brackenlands. That would be far too dangerous". Benji murmured under his breath, "for them." "What was that, I didn't quite catch it," Y/N looked up inquisitively at him. "Nothing, nothing, my Lady, you just have a twig in your hair. Do I have your permission to remove it?" Embarrassed at having had a twig in her hair for gods only know how long, she quickly assented, "Oh, yes of course." With her agreement, Benji wasted no time in brushing his knuckle softly against her temple and through her hair, before tucking a stray lock behind her ear. "All gone now," he assured her, though there had never really been a twig in her hair to begin with. He smiled mischievously at her, for what reason she could not tell, but she did so like to see him smile, especially at her, because of something she had said.

Smiling brightly back at him, she quickly waved away her concern that he might incur danger to himself in order to rid her of her irritating suitors. Why would he go to so much trouble on her account, even if they were friends? Returning her gaze to her book, the pair happily passed the time in comfortable silence, Benjicott content merely to be in the presence of the one he loved, and she absorbed in her book. When enough time had elapsed, Benji thought, for his next question to be posed without incurring too much suspicion from his lady as to the motivations behind it, Benji tentatively spoke his next query. "My Lady, would you be able to....perhaps, describe these suitors or...tell me their names?" Avoiding her eyes, sure she would be able to see the dark thoughts lingering behind them, Benji directed his gaze off into the far distance as he awaited her reply. A quiet, yet direct response of 'why?' had him struggling to repress a smile at the air of ingenuousness behind it. As expected, she did not as of yet hold any suspicions as to his reasoning; she was genuinely incredulous as to the reason. His brows furrowed the next moment, however, as he realised that her lack of suspicion also spoke to her disbelief that anyone would care enough to intercede on her behalf over something that had upset or concerned her.

A wave of sadness passed over him then, but he quickly rallied himself, a look of steely determination in his eyes. He would convince her, no matter how many years it took, that she was worth more than anyone had ever lead her to belief. That she was worthy of being cared for. That she meant more than anything to him. Gods, he worshipped the ground she tread on and he'd be damned before he let any suitors bother his love for even a second more. Still assuming an air of nonchalance and directing his shifty expression elsewhere, Benjicott responded to his lady's query. "No reason in particular, just to build a better mental picture for myself of these bastar....weasels," he quickly corrected himself. "Oh, of course." She responded, in her sweet, direct way of hers, as if she should have expected us much. She then proceeded to describe the four offenders with a degree of detail he was grateful for, only interjecting a few times to ask for more particulars.

By the time she had finished describing them, Benjicott had a clear enough idea of the "weasels" in question who he needed to despatch...have a stern talking to, he corrected himself mentally, once again. Only one of his lady's suitors had caused enough offense to merit more than that, the others were mere weak-spirited vassals of House Bracken that needed to be removed from his Love's presence. That shouldn't be too difficult. He'd seen all of them before and knew when he could expect to come across them near the borders to the Blackwood lands. The other one, however, would need more than a stern talking to. The craven bastard had dared to touch his lady, grabbing her wrist to prevent her from leaving the room to avoid hearing his pathetic attempts to win her heart. Benji's eyes had darkened at his lady's admission of this, his fists once again curling into tight balls at his side. His voice came out harsher than he'd intended, as he realised he'd been gritting his teeth in his anger at the suitor who had dared to frighten his lady by imposing his unwanted attentions on her. "He should never have touched you or enforced his unwanted solicitations upon your presence.

He would not have gotten so far if I had been in the room, my Lady." Y/N met his gaze with another quizzical look, searching his eyes for something, he could not tell what. He found himself wishing, hoping even, that she might find the love he held for her therein and not be offended by it. That she might even return it. But no, she only looked away from him again and spoke in a quiet tone. "You have always been such a gentleman, Benji. Not all men are so. I wish you could be there with me when I have to deal with these suitors. I never know what to say to them. I always end up offending them merely by being myself." Her eyebrows furrowed at this into a look of concentration, seemingly trying to uncover the reason why she had caused offense. Benjicott found her look of confusion adorable, much as he did everything else about her, especially her directness, which so seemed to offend the spineless scoundrels who vied for her hand. The hand he would so cherish if she were to grant him her love.

"It is their fault if they are offended, not yours. You should always speak your mind, my Lady. It is not for you to pander to weak men such as they are. Have you spoken to anyone of the rude manner in which these suitors have addressed you?" Y/N smiled sadly up at Benjicott before replying. My Lord Uncle cares little for anything involving myself and I would not want to be a burden. "You never could be" Benjicott interjected abruptly before he could stop himself. Another quizzical look from her, before she lightly patted his shoulder. "Thank you Benji, you are very kind." "No I am not, my Lady. Or at least, I say what I say not out of mere kindness, but because I genuinely, ardently mean what I say. You are and never could be a burden...not to me." He said the last part so quietly he was not sure if she would hear him. The light blush on her cheeks was the only intimation that she had heard him and might have been touched by what he had meant as a subtle confession of his true feelings for her, but she quickly looked away before he could completely embarrass himself by falling to his knees in front of her and begging her to grant him her hand in marriage.

 "My uncle does not share your view. My cousin, Aeron, is very kind to be and cares for me. I'm sure he would intervene if I were to tell him of Ser Percival's unwanted attentions but I hesitate to do so after the last time I mentioned a suitor was bothering me." Benjicot's interest was immediately piqued at this unexpected revelation. "Oh? What happened the last time you did so, my Lady?"

"Aeron wouldn't tell me exactly, he's very assiduous about not involving me in anything unpleasant, but Ser Benjen did not renew his suit afterwards and I later caught a glimpse of something that looked suspiciously like a purple bruise under his eye. Aeron wouldn't admit that he was the culprit, but he grew very edgy when I mentioned it to him and started stuttering out possible scenarios which were so outlandish that I know it was him. Ser Benjen is an oaf, but not so much so that he could, as Aeron suggested, have 'tripped over a bucket and fallen down the stairs or been hit in the face by a raven.' Aeron's never been a very good liar, gods bless him. Not to mention that he'd already asked me if Ser Benjen had bothered me again, no doubt in full knowledge the poor man had been too afraid to, with Aeron glaring at him every time he was even in the same room as me'. Y/N shook her head and smiled indulgently at the thought of her kind cousin's well-meaning antics.

Benjicot found himself smiling in spite of himself. He had to hand it to Aeron Bracken, he was as loyal to his House and family as he was to his own. That factor alone had earned him enough respect from Benjicot to ensure their frequent border scuffles always involved an element of almost brotherly playfulness that never resulted in full out warfare. But it was his kindness and care for his cousin, the lady Benjicot loved, which had him thinking he could have befriended Aeron under different circumstances. Not to mention he'd done Benjicot the immense favour of already removing one suitor from the equation. One down, three to go, Benjicot mentally made a tally for himself.

"Right, one down, three more Bracken scoundrels to go. No problem, you've come to the right man. I can arrange for them to mysteriously and, quite coincidentally, of course, disappear". Rob echoed the tally Benji had mentally made for himself but a few hours ago, waggling his eyebrows suggestively and making a motion with his hand as if he were physically wiping the suitors away. Benjicot sighed in frustration with his loyal and well-meaning friend. "How many times do I have to tell you, Rob. I won't allow you to murder Brackens and cause a war, just because you hate them." Rob's mischievous expression quickly turned sullen. "Fine," he sulkily replied, "have it your way. How do you plan on 'removing' these drivelling knaves from your lady's presence?”

 Benji turned fully to his friend, having advanced a few paces ahead of him on their way back to Raventree. "I intend to have a polite discussion with the first two and a not so polite discussion with the third one who dared to lay a hand on her." Benjicot glowered at Rob as he broke into laughter, holding his torso in response to what he had meant to be taken in utter seriousness. "Enjoying yourself, Rob?" Still struggling to quiet his laughter, brushing away stray tears that had streamed from his eyes, Rob sought to make amends. "I apologise my friend, but I think I know enough of your character to know exactly what you mean by a 'polite discussion' and it involves at least three broken noses and several black eyes." "Not necessarily!" Benjicott peevishly replied, though he could not entirely refute Rob's accusation. It all depended on how amenable these pipsqueaks were to his 'polite' request that they kindly full off and leave his girl alone...or else.

His dark thoughts were interrupted, once again, by Rob breaking into another round of laughter. "There it is, I can see you scheming their deaths right now. I'll marry a Bracken tomorrow if you manage to have a 'polite discussion' with these suitors that doesn't involve them encountering some violence from your end of some kind or another." Benjicot did not honour Rob's sallies with any response, merely glowering at him and turning petulantly to stalk off in the direction of Raventree. He'd show Rob that he could a conversation with these suitors, telling them to never impose themselves upon his lady again or face the consequences, without actually putting those consequences into action...he hoped.

"Right, one down, three more Bracken scoundrels to go. No problem, you've come to the right man. I can arrange for them to mysteriously and, quite coincidentally, of course, disappear". Rob echoed the tally Benji had mentally made for himself but a few hours ago, waggling his eyebrows suggestively and making a motion with his hand as if he were physically wiping the suitors away. Benjicott sighed in frustration with his loyal and well-meaning friend. "How many times do I have to tell you, Rob. I won't allow you to murder Brackens and cause a war, just because you hate them." Rob's mischievous expression quickly turned sullen. "Fine," he sulkily replied, "have it your way. How do you plan on 'removing' these drivelling knaves from your lady's presence?”

 Benji turned fully to his friend, having advanced a few paces ahead of him on their way back to Raventree. "I intend to have a polite discussion with the first two and a not so polite discussion with the third one who dared to lay a hand on her." Benjicott glowered at Rob as he broke into laughter, holding his torso in response to what he had meant to be taken in utter seriousness. "Enjoying yourself, Rob?" Still struggling to quiet his laughter, brushing away stray tears that had streamed from his eyes, Rob sought to make amends. "I apologise my friend, but I think I know enough of your character to know exactly what you mean by a 'polite discussion' and it involves at least three broken noses and several black eyes." "Not necessarily!" Benjicott peevishly replied, though he could not entirely refute Rob's accusation. It all depended on how amenable these pipsqueaks were to his 'polite' request that they kindly full off and leave his girl alone...or else.

His dark thoughts were interrupted, once again, by Rob breaking into another round of laughter. "There it is, I can see you scheming their deaths right now. I'll marry a Bracken tomorrow if you manage to have a 'polite discussion' with these suitors that doesn't involve them encountering some violence from your end of some kind or another." Benjicot did not honour Rob's sallies with any response, merely glowering at him and turning petulantly to stalk off in the direction of Raventree. He'd show Rob that he could a conversation with these suitors, telling them to never impose themselves upon his lady again or face the consequences, without actually putting those consequences into action...he hoped.

 "Well well, the conciliator returns, no doubt from his successful diplomatic negotiations with the unlucky fellows who dared to bother his sweet lady. Oh but look, lads," Rob called jubilantly from his jaunty position on a fence to Kermit and Oscar beside him, all with smirks on their faces, "is that blood on your collar, good envoy?" "Oh fuck off, Rob, this one deserved it and I barely touched him. He ran off with his tail between his legs." Rob looked at his nails, returning smugly. "So you said the last two times. Did they all deserve it too?" "Yes!" Benjicott spat out quickly, without hesitation. "This was especially." His eyes darkened at the memory of his encounter with the craven bastard who had presumed to touch his lady and frighten her with his unwanted solicitations. He'd found the swine patrolling the border on his own, in his arrogance. Well, this would go a lot quicker than if Benjicott had to deal with a host if Brackens.

"Oi, dastard, I have some business with you," Benjicott shouted across to the Knight, swaggering casually up to the border. "You dare address me in such a manner, Blackwood swine!" The Knight spat out. "Who are you to accuse me of cowardice?" Benjicot advanced so that he was chest to chest with the Bracken Knight, his steely response coming out through gritted teeth. "Oh I dare. Any man that presumes to touch a lady without her permission and insult her with his unwanted presence deserves the name of coward." The Knight looked shifty and considerably chastened by Benjicot’s close proximity and the sheer aggression radiating off him. Seeing the Blackwood sigil on the broach fastening Benjicot’s cloak round his shoulders, the Knight gulped at the realisation that it was the formidable future Lord of Raventree bearing down upon him.

"I don't...don't understand your meaning, Ser." He stuttered out, attempting to take a step back, before Benji grabbed him by his cloak, preventing his retreat. "Did you, or did you not lay a hand on Lady Y/N Bracken when she tried to kindly reject your pathetic suit for her hand?" The scoundrel had the audacity to laugh then, making Benjicot's blood boil. "Is that what this is about? Why should you care, Ser? Is she some great friend of yours." He quickly stopped laughing when Benjicot's grip on his collar tightened painfully so as to nearly lift him off the ground. The knight shivered in fear as he saw Benjicot's eyes darken and heard his next words, spoken in a low, dangerous tone. "She means more to me than a spineless lickspittle like yourself could ever comprehend and if I ever head of you approaching or even looking at her again, I will have no hesitation in paying you another visit. I assure you that I will not be so reasonable, in that case."

"I didn't even kiss her, she wouldn’t let me, the minx. She didn't need to go crying about it. I said as much to her at the time. She's just too sensitive, I assure you Ser." Benjicot saw red at the knight's revelation. Of course his lady wouldn't tell him the whole truth. She never wanted to burden anyone with anything that troubled her, not even when someone offered her physical insult. If he had known that this scoundrel had not only attempted to kiss his darling lady without her consent, but also made her cry in the attempt, there would have been not attempt at a 'discussion' with him, 'polite' or otherwise. What followed was not pretty and Benjicott was sure Rob would laugh at him relentlessly for giving into his anger. He was also sure that his friend would agree that this one really did 'deserve it'. Besides, he hadn't hurt him too badly, just enough to be sure that he'd never approach either his, or any other lady with his unwanted attentions again. Drawing his mind back to the present, Benjicott was irritated to see that Rob, the smug git, was still smirking knowingly at him whilst Kermit and Oscar continued to laugh at his lovesick behaviour. No matter, he didn't care what they thought. He only cared what she thought. He couldn't seem to care for much else at this point, his whole thoughts consumed by his lovely lady. Even now a dreamy look transformed his features, which had shown his irritation only a moment before.

"What exactly is your plan here, Benjicot? I hate to break it to you, my good man, but as soon as you despatch one suitor another shall surely raise his ugly head. You can't prevent every suitor from seeking out your fair lady's hand. She will marry some lucky fellow one day." Rob held his hands up placatingly, seeing the danger in his friend's darkening eyes, but he could not help himself from expressing what to him was an unavoidable obstacle to Benjicot's suit for the fair Bracken lady's hand. "I only mean to point out, dear fellow, that removing these suitors now will not help you in the long run. You can't really believe that she would marry a Blackwood, let alone the heir of Raventree." "I'm counting on it." Benjicot spoke through gritted teeth, a look of fierce determination on his face. "She's my girl, in my heart, even if she won't have me in that way. She will be my wife if I have my way and even if she won't, I'll get rid of any problem that bothers her and that I have the power of removing. Whatever it is, I will attend to it. And if anyone hurts her," his voice became cold and low, "I'll kill them. Whenever she needs someone to rely upon, I will be there. Is that clear, Rob?"

Rob smiled softly at his friend then, before shooting a warning look at his two partners in crime, who were barely holding back their sniggers, unused to seeing the usually fearsome Bloody Benjicott act in such a manner. He understood now, where he had doubted before, that his friend was not merely infatuated, but deeply in love with this lady. He couldn't fault him for that, though he questioned the wiseness of his choice. The enmity between the Blackwood and Bracken Houses was no easy thing to surmount, and his friend had a hard road ahead of him if he were to win the love and hand of the lady he had chosen. "Crystal clear, my good man." If his friend was really serious about gaining the love of the mysterious Bracken lady, he would help him if he could.

A day later, Benjicot found himself waiting for his lady underneath their Brackentree, more anxious than usual to see her and convince himself she was well. He could not erase the image of her distress at that brute's behaviour from his mind. A deep sense of sadness and anger on her behalf left him with a painful feeling in the pit of his stomach that she considered herself so little she would not even tell anyone that she had been insulted in such a manner. That she wouldn't tell him. He wanted so desperately for her to see him as someone she could confide in and trust to fight on her behalf for her interests. Just as he was pondering how he could possibly gain her trust in this capacity, the very lady he was thinking of emerged from the tree line into view, a book in hand, as usual.

His face immediately broke into a smile reserved just for her, her presence alone acting like a wave of calm quieting his anxious thoughts. He was delighted to see her return his smile with a gentle smile of her own, even if she shyly cast her gaze elsewhere as he continued to gaze at her. He continued to find this perennial shyness an endearing trait of hers, hoping that it might have more to do with his effect on her than any reservations around him. He was surprised when she tripped lightly up to the tree he resided under and slid down to sit beside him, a smile still on her face. Normally she would seem hesitant to take a seat by his side until he had first stood up to greet her and invite her to. He always hoped that she would grow more familiar and comfortable around him and was elated to see her already seeming to be so.

"Good morrow, my Lady. What has you looking so pleased this day?" To his further surprise, she turned to meet his gaze fully, where she usually avoided direct eye contact, gushing out, "Oh Benji, you will never guess what has happened. It's the most wonderful thing. All of the horrid suitors I was telling you off have stopped their pursuit without me having to do anything. I have never had so much time to read!" "Oh?" Benjicot responded in a wry tone, a single eyebrow raised. "I cannot account for it. Of course my uncle is less than pleased, but he cares too little about me to take too much of an interest. Perhaps my awkward manner frightened them off or someone prettier has taken their interest. Whatever it is, I am most glad of it." She sighed in relief. Benjicot frowned at her last statement. Though he was pleased that she was relieved to be rid of these troublesome suitors, he was anxious to impress upon her that their sudden absence was due to no fault of her own. "I assure you, my Lady, that neither of your suggestions for your suitors' sudden departure are in the least likely, for your manner is positively charming and," he tentatively placed his hand on hers, as he gazed into her eyes, "you are the fairest lady that ever lived."

Unsurprisingly, though much to his dismay, she frowned at his compliment, as she always did and looked almost disappointed in him, before shrinking into herself and retracting her hand. "I wish you wouldn't say jest with me like that Benji, it's not very kind." He immediately snatched her hand back as she retracted it and chased her eyes with his own. "Don't do that, Y/N. Don't hide from me and lock yourself inside your mind. I can see you doing it." She met his gaze at this, looking startled, as if she didn't think he would notice her protective mechanism. He noticed everything about her. He just wished that he would be where she would look to for reassurance and comfort, rather than withdrawing from him. "I need you to understand that I would never jest about what I believe to be absolutely true. To me you are the loveliest, most charming girl, not least because you are so outwardly fair. But it is the beauty of your mind and person that makes me sure you are the fairest lady in the Riverlands." He did not add, Westeros, fearing she may think he was being too grandiose in making such a claim, though he was confident that he was not.

To his relief, she had not run away, as he had half expected her too, already kneeling next to her in case he needed to head tail it after her and make her belief him. He couldn't risk losing her forever if he allowed her to run off this once. Not when it was so important that she finally understood how highly he thought of her, to say nothing of loving her. He didn't think it was safe to risk revealing that when she was already put out with him at a compliment. Better to be safe than sorry and lose his girl because he was too impatient to gush out his love for her and wrap her in his arms. Instead he gently held her chin in his hand, holding her gaze as he invested his voice with a firmness he never usually directed at her. "Please believe me when I say that I have never and will never deceive you. I always mean exactly what I say when I tell you how lovely you are. How much I value your voice. How any measure of time spent with you could never be enough for me." Her head titled quizzically in that adorable way it always did when she was testing the truth of what he said before she offered him a small smile, much to his relief. "Thank you Benji, you are very kind. I'm glad you should think me such a friend and that you enjoy my company...I think the same of you." She added before he finally allowed her to withdraw her head from his hand and look away. He could help the smug smile that made its way onto his features at this, though he wished she would see him as more than a friend.

"No one has ever much cared for what I have had to say. It certainly makes a nice change." She smiled up at him once again. Benjicot gazed down lovingly at her, his eyes aglow with adoration for her, which she, alas, could not see, though it was there plainly for any other observer to see. "You have the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. It is to others' detriment if they have failed to hear it. Though it is quiet, little mouse," he lightly stroked her cheek, smiling indulgently at her, "I would hear it above a throng of voices." She seemed genuinely taken aback by this, a light blush gracing her features, and he could only hope that the truth of his words had resonated for her.

Not wishing to flustered her too much, he directed his gaze elsewhere. A hard task for him, since he could very happily gaze at her pretty features until the end of his days. He would make this sacrifice to her shyness, however. "In the matter of your disappearing suitors, I suspect a bigger game is at play. Perhaps a more worthy suitor has sought fit to see them off from bothering his fair lady with their suits." He smiled slyly at her from the corner of his eye, trying to silently convey that he was said suitor. "Don't be silly, Benji. What a ridiculous suggestion." She narrowed her eyes at him as he broke out into laughter at her directness. She grabbed his elbow then. "What's so funny Benji!" "Nothing, my Lady. Only I think in this, I may be proven correct, and you may be mistaken. It is an unlikely turn of events, of course, since you are clearly the intellectual in this pair." "You are clearly wrong. I think I would realise if such were the case." She did not hear as Benjicot muttered under his breath, "if only you would."

@lovebabe18-blog

@poppyflower-22

@ithilwen-blackwood

@spinachtz

@lady-callisto

@twistytimesandthoughts

@abookloverlawyerfan-blog

@mymoonempress

@drwho-ess

@dancingbaek

@aemondslove

@cheendrella

@rebeccawinters

[krems-chair]

I would give all my critiques (this is a lie) back if at the end of Veilguard we had found out in an extra extra post-Marvel credits scene that it's just been Sandal playing with figurines on the Skyhold war table's map of Thedas all Civil War Buff Dad style.

I wasn't going to do this because everyone deserves to rationalize Veilguard however works best for them, but in the wake of that hilariously dismal end-of-times IGN interview and AMA, I thought I'd share how my best friend and I decided to view Veilguard. Everything below is taken from probably a fifteen minute text conversation we had working through our disappointment together, but by the end we both felt way better about the game.

Picture this. You reach the climax of the game, Solas has freed himself from the fade and is getting ready to cast a really powerful spell and suddenly, out of nowhere, he just gets squished flat and then it immediately cuts to Bodahn in a little fire-lit room saying "Oh Sandal, you crushed another one of the pieces?"

Varric is sitting there alive, well, and BLONDE, and has been playing the whole game with Sandal and says "the kid's got a great imagination." They're all in the home of the Inquisitor.

So how do we get here, you might ask?

*drumroll*

Actually wait no I fear this is going to be long so I'll put a divider thingy in.

So hear me out.

We'll go a year or so after Trespasser. The inquisitor is going through it. Skyhold is still theirs to command because sure everyone and their mother's mother was mad at the Inquisition for taking care of business, but what are you going to do, take their home away? Not if any of the Inquisitor's fiercely loyal friends have anything to say about it (I'm sure Josephine had something worked out to get a title locked down after there being so much uncertainty at Haven, anyway).

So it's become a home base once more, regardless of how intact the inquisition is or isn't under Divine Victoria. Agents are always going in and out, the murals in the rotunda serve as an ever-present reminder of the mission at hand, and Varric visits regularly from Kirkwall to touch base. On one such visit, Bodahn and Sandal accompany him, because they heard there might be a need for enchantments (BOOM).

One night everyone ends up around the map because it's been a rougher week than usual and a game of wicked grace at the tavern just isn't enough, they've gotta treat this like an overdue group project and pull an all-nighter to get SOMEWHERE on tracking down Solas.

Enter Sandal. He's bored, no one is asking him to enchant anything, and Dagna isn't around for them to talk shop (engage in probably illegal/definitely unsafe experiments). And there, amidst the pile of clutter the team has been using when they need to add a new piece to the war table, is a Rook chess piece.

He's seen one before, of course. Varric used to try and teach it to him back in Kirkwall, and Sandal was good in the way that new chess players who go full chaos mode are stellar at driving experienced chess players crazy. His win streak is no joke. So he grabs it, tries to lighten the mood around the war table because no one in a bad mood is going to be requesting enchantments any time soon, and suddenly the tension that's been building up for months starts to ease just a little.

Eventually, everyone gets involved. Much like any great D&D campaign, they fit time in for the adventures of Rook & co in between skrimishes, secret missions, and stressful planning sessions, but that just enables more people to have input.

The Chargers keep making suggestions of all the missions Rook should go on when they pass through, but these all end up becoming Neve's cases.

Bellara was made up by Cassandra who stopped by for a visit from rebuilding the Seekers/wearing her big hat and she was too busy to give anything substantial, but she went with what she knows: a character who loves romance and has a dead brother.

Sera doesn't have the attention span to get too in-depth with it, but she does doodle all over the map of Thedas and add some much needed commentary as the Rook piece moves across it. She also INSISTS that the villains of the story be old and elfy, because they don't get enough representation as villains.

Lucanis loving coffee/it being 75% of his lines comes exclusively from the fact that on the nights they get too invested to stop it's the only thing that keeps them going and he became the character that embodies that particular struggle.

There are so many enchantments Rook can take advantage of because Sandal keeps thinking of new ones he can test with Dagna when she's next around.

Speaking of Sandal again, he tried to kill Varric off in the beginning because he was putting on his author hat and over-narrating. Varric was of course like "wait no why did you kill me I wanted to be part of this" so he keeps interjecting as himself and everyone else is like "shhh you're dead." They only indulge him when they conclude what feels like a major plot point and need someone with an understanding of narrative and pacing to tie all the threads together or give them an idea of where to go next.

The Inquisitor struggles to get into it sometimes because they feel like the weight of the world is on their shoulders yet again. Occasionally, they'll sighs heavily and insert their game piece onto the board (Blackwall carved it, so it's as close s a completely different style can be to their true likeness) to be like "so anyways, THESE are the problems happening in Southern Thedas, in case anyone forgot" only for their message crystal to light up and Dorian's voice to filter through.

"I hear you're working on an astounding number of hypotheticals. Do you think it would be feasible to form an undercover group that works to liberate slaves?"

And then suddenly they spend the rest of the night working through how effective such an organization might be (through Rook's eyes, of course), but because Dorian isn't there to stop them they give him an insane new hairstyle and mention it every time they're giving a description of the Shadow Dragon leader. He is horrified.

Harding gets to be a self-insert because everyone unilaterally agrees that a fictional scout wouldn't hold a candle to her skill level. All the not fleshed out dwarven plot points come from their scrambled theorizing, but it does inspire her to look deeper into the mysterious Kal-Sharok during her real travels.

The reason Morrigan acts so out of character is because they're all like "we have no fucking idea what she gets up to when she isn't saving the world, but we know she'd be there in some capacity."

Leliana is busy busy busy but when she hears about what they're doing and that Morrigan is involved, she finds the time to send a letter saying "let's give her different hair :)"

When Morrigan finds out she brings Kieran for a visit (he missed all of his friends at Skyhold anyway) and is like "seems a most inconvenient waste of time..." and then finds out Leliana is the reason her game piece looks crazy and is like...make a character who is nosy and up in everyone's business all the time but still super reserved and afraid to trust others. (Boom, hi Neve).

Kieran gets really into the story and is critical to designing Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. "She has sooOOoO many arms!" he explains, miming it out over the sound of a muffled voice crystal shaking as Dorian yells "you could've killed me! You could have made me evil! But you made me UGLY?!"

Even the Inquisitor, exhausted as they are, still finds the time to check in and ask if brown-haired Varric is still dead. The answer is always yes.

They all have a good laugh about the idea of Treviso and Minrathous being full of zip lines, but how else are they going to get to the parts they actually care about?

Minrathous gets destroyed instead of Treviso because while they're deciding the stakes for Rook to be faced with, Fenris stops by to check in with Varric because he heard they might need to go to Tevinter. He takes one look at the board and goes "hanging bodies. Everywhere."

"Fenris, that means the venatori will take over."

"...this game is stupid anyway."

Iron Bull definitely said "this story needs a DRAGON HUNTER" so boom. Enter Taash. A Dorian that romanced him sighs heavily and decides to play along if only to get to spend more time with his amatus another way. He models a character after one of his favorite professors from when he was a child.

Solas looks so yassified because the Inquisitor's love interest (or Sera, if they're pining after the Dread Wolf himself) came by and threw his actual war table piece into the fire during a particularly rough evening after his agents thwarted them yet again. To replace him, they let Kieran draw on a spoon and add a new cursed detail every time he pulls some bullshit to try and cheer each other up.

Fenris goes back to Kirkwall and complains about the stupid game Varric is running instead of spending all of his time on saving the world. Merrill overhears and is like "oh! They're incorporating eluvians? That's nice!" until she hears about how many there are and her eye starts twitching.

Harding only dies because everyone over-celebrates when Rook finally gets a win over on the stuffed squid animal being used to represent Ghilan'ain and her game piece topples over. Varric insisted that it be canon because he's tired of being the only dead one.

Blackwall gets Sera to be a little more invested by promising they can make a character together, maybe an elven Grey Warden! She washes her hands of anything too dalish, even though Blackwall makes it clear that there's more to him than that, but insists he should have a loyal griffon friend in honor of his rocking toys.

It's one of the Inquisitor's fondest memories as they prepare to actually find Solas for real, and one of the only unifying threads keeping everyone sane.

[bluejutdae]

Under the surface | Kim Seungmin x you

notes: this is for @chvnmax, cause she deserves a sleeper build Seungmo. Wanna know something fun? I spent 20 minutes on google trying to discover if Seungmin can raise only one eyebrows because ✨credibility✨

Warnings: suggestive.

You left work late and you’re tired, dreaming of a hot bath and the soft comforter on your bed. You have promised Chanbin, though, and there can be multiple things said about you, but you have always kept your promises. So you do what you have to. You send a message to Changbin, informing him you’ll be at the gym in 15 minutes tops, and you send a message to Seungmin, asking how his day was. You only talked to him for 5 minutes in the morning, and that’s not enough Seungmin time for you.

The thing is: you’re crazy about him. He’s your boyfriend, so it’s not weird, but it’s still all so new. So you would love to go directly to his dorm, but you still keep walking towards the gym.

This gym isn’t half bad, it’s clean and bright, there’s never too many people and, when Changbin is not here, the gym instructors are always kind and professional. Today the gym is not too crowded, as usual, and after getting changed into workout clothes you can easily spot Changbin in the room. He’s not alone and it wouldn’t surprise you too much. The surprise lays on the identity of his companion.

Because the fact is that near Changbin, squatting an amount of weight you can’t even start to imagine, is Seungmin.

Seungmin in a tight gray shirt, sweaty and clinging to his back and arms, and black joggers.

He’s mid squat, hands around the barbell, his biceps are bulging and shoulders are bigger than you ever noticed. Despite being together and being attracted to one another, you have never seen each other naked. Seungmin insisted on going slow, to do things properly because when it’s right, you gotta do it right. His words, but you liked the idea of dating and courting, so you had a couple of make out sessions, clothes always on and hands not roaming too much.

Seungmin’s breathy laugh travels to you and a moment later he’s raking his weighted barbell. You might die for a moment: his biceps are to die for and you hyper focus on a drop of sweat descending on his neck.

When the fuck did you boyfriend become a muscular man? You clearly appreciate his lean figure, you like to put your hands on his forearms and caress him, making him shudder and squirm under your ministrations, but this is such a surprise you don’t know what to do. Can you just go there and steal him, apologize to Changbin for abandoning him and take Seungmin with you, hide somewhere and never let him be seen by people? He’s too hot to be left in the wild.

You must have said something or made a noise, because while you’re there ogling your boyfriend, two sets of eyes rest on you.

“Hey, you made it!” Changbin boisterous voice welcomes you, and you smile taking a few steps towards them and in lieu of a greeting, your mind comes up with: “what the fuck Seungmin��.

He wasn’t expecting this, so he bends his head on the side and raises an eyebrow in an inquisitive expression. “Hello to you too, my darling. What a pleasant surprise.”

It’s not a normal behavior and you know it, but you’re transfixed on his arms and your mind provides you with fantasies about his legs and abs and his back and whatever else he might be hiding under his clothes. Almost as an out of body experience, you see your hand reaching to his arms and squeeze.

“Puppy?”

Changbin emits a dry cough, and it seems like it’s moking you, “I forgot something important so I really have to go. I’m sorry guys, we’ll work out together another time, uh?”

Your hands are still groping Seungmin’s arms, but you’re conscious enough to answer him. “Be careful on the way home.”

“I’ll see you later, hyung”, your boyfriend's voice is laced with humor. “Are you done?”

“No.”

“You’re being ridiculous. If you want to grope muscles, you should have took the opportunity while Changbin hyung was still here…”

“I don’t want to grope him!”

“But you want to grope me?”

“Of course.”

His laugh is so pretty it almost distracts you. You still manage to turn your eyes towards his face and smile at him. “Puppy, since when are you muscular?”

“No, no. Let’s not ignore when you said you want to grope me.”

“We’ll circle back to that later.” You finally detach your hands from his arms and poke at his tummy. “You’ve been hiding this from me?”

He scoffs. “I hid nothing.”

“Are you sure? Doesn’t that mean you’re gonna let me see everything?” You know you said you were gonna go slow, but thinking about Seungmin sweaty and his arms bulging made you incredibly horny and a little wet.

“Puppy” he warns, looking around at the gym. It’s true that there’s almost no one, but a couple of trainers and at least three customers are present. You shrug with a wink. But Seungmin hasn’t finished with the surprises tonight, and in a flash he bends at the knees and puts you on his shoulder, your face now staring at his back and your ass in the air. Your response is a loud yelp and a threat.

“Put me down. Put me down or I’m gonna kill you.” Truth is: you didn’t expect Seungmin to be able to lift you like this and if you were only a little wet before, you are scared you’re gonna embarrass yourself if he keeps doing stuff like this. He puts you down only when he reaches the man’s locker rooms.

“Wait here for me, uh? I’m gonna walk you home tonight.” He looks around and, having assessed you’re alone, he kisses you hungrily, nipping at your lips and panting in your mouth.

Later, you’ll ask him to come up to your apartment, you’ll kiss wildly as soon as the door closes behind your backs and, for the first time, you’ll undress him. His shirt will lay on the back of the couch, joggers on the corridor floor. In return, he will get to have you naked too. Clothes scattered on the floor and on some pieces of furniture, it won’t matter tho. What matters is that you’ll make it to the bedroom and, most important, to your bed. He’ll show you how his biceps bulge when he’s over you, torso raised but hips fucking his cock inside you, making you bite your lips to stop the loud noises he’ll try to coax out of you. Later, you’ll worship his body, asking him to flex this or that muscle to lick it or gently nip at it. He’ll tell you about his gym adventures with Chan and Changbin, sometimes Minho, and he’ll promise you can go with them if you don’t act feral and try to get him naked.

Later, but for now you run to grab your bag from the lockers and come back to wait for him. Who would have thought your boyfriend had a sleeper build?

[isaidyoulookshitty]

idk it is so upsetting to me that veilguard is the first dragon age game i won't be replaying. when i was 15 i played origins so many times (almost a dozen) it is one of the only games i have ever 100% finished. da2 was the same! and while i didn't make it through as many playthroughs of inquisition i put hundreds of hours into it and made an effort to get to the bottom of everything the game threw at me. until veilguard, i had bought every available dragon age dlc for all games, tried to play almost every route given in the story choices, and spent hours reading through codex entries to soak up as much lore as i could.

veilguard has rendered all of that completely null.

it feels almost spiteful at this point that this new frakenspliced bioware cared so little to honor the bones and meat of the first three games. 15 years i have spent loving and cherishing (and criticizing) this franchise and now i feel like a fucking idiot for it. my grey warden? canonically awol and never addressed again. hawke? irrelevant and, for some players, potentially stuck in the fade forever. inquisitor? stripped of any complexity or depth i had given her in favor of the most syrupy, out of character fairytale true love's kiss ending with a man that shattered her worldview and broke her heart. how do you take 10 years to craft an ending this dissatisfying and thoughtless?

and the world i spent a decade and a half fighting for, shaping with player choices, and calling home? gone. "overwhelmed by the blight." literally scorched earth for the next game to build on with whatever the writers pull out of their ass to make players forget all about the original dragon age. it's tragic! disrespectful to longtime fans at best, at worst it feels intentional and like i am being made the butt of a joke told by writers who in the promotional material sound like they could not even be assed to play the games they're attempting to draw from. veilguard is just a product to be sold, not a story worthy of The Dragon Age Setting.

and i haven't even touched on all my gripes with the game's writing, the sanitization of any canon conflict that could be uncomfortable or difficult to address, the stale and cutesy therapyspeak and lessons in basic morality that are baked into every in-game interaction (most of which are shallow and all the same anyways) compared to the dialogue trees from the other 3 games. it is so frustrating to see that the devs chose to cave to a decade of vitriolic fandom politics in favor of addressing the kettle they wrote themselves into.

instead of hand-waving racism toward elves, the panic over qunari, the isolation of the dwarves, the corruption of the chantry, the abuse in the circles of magi, and slavery in tevinter, we should have been given the chance to confront all of it. to put a real end to it. we will never get to do that now. in fact, in their failure to follow through, bioware has only succeeded in exacerbating all of these issues. they have made the elves, which they have openly ADMITTED were "inspired" by Jewish and indigenous peoples, their mouthpiece for white guilt and shame passed down from one's ancestors (while also gutting elves' religion, culture, history, social differences, etc. i could go on). they PERPETUATE the same stereotypes of barbarity, violence, and warmongering imposed on the qunari by the rest of thedas by continuing to make them an opposing enemy force with the exception being a couple of friends they have neatly packaged for us. the unsatisfying conclusion to the mage-templar schism in inquisition is inconsequential. who the player chose to HEAD THE SOUTHERN CHANTRY as divine is deliberately made irrelevant. the dwarves are still isolated and ignorant of their origins save for harding (assuming she doesn't end up killed) and a single closed-off group. and the slaves in tevinter (again, mostly elves)? conveniently kept out of sight and conversation when we finally get to minrathous. everything that happened to fenris to make him the character he is, arguably the most impactful and sympathetic out of all the da2 companions, is not even addressed, much less tackled. all of it is swept under the rug.

i wanted dragon age: dreadwolf. i wanted a solid conclusion to a story almost 20 years in the making. a dragon age reboot might even have been a great idea somewhere down the line, but this was not the game to do it with. it was supposed to be a sequel and they couldn't even get that right. did i enjoy parts of it? of course! i finished it! but i won't be doing it again. the game clearly intends you to, considering a significant portion is locked away by decisions players are forced to make pretty early on, but i can't make myself do it. it makes me way too sad.

i could go on about how i, a queer and nonbinary adult fan, thought their handling of gender and LGBTQIA+ identities was heavy-handed, infantilizing, and felt so out of place within the setting it makes easy fodder for the "woke=broke" crowd that wouldn't have been receptive to queer rep anyway, but that would need to be another post in itself. not to mention the romance! unfortunate that i chose to romance lucanis not knowing his is now notorious for a lack of content, meaningful dialogue, pacing, and actual development. i won't even get to see the other romances in comparison because, as i have said, i will not be replaying.

[crossdressingdeath]

Solas: Your team trusts you, and you listen to them. It is impressive... and enviable. It took me centuries to build such a bond during my rebellion. And when I served the Inquisition, I tried to avoid such entanglements.

Well you see the trick is that Rook actually listens to their team.

That really is one of the biggest differences between Rook and Solas: Rook listens. Solas mostly lectures, you see that in both DAI and DAV. He wants things to be how he wants them and he doesn't much care about what other people might think or about what's best for them (see him refusing to tell Lavellan the truth about who he is before entering a relationship with her in DAI and robbing her of the chance to make an informed decision about whether she's okay with dating the villain of her people's mythology, even though he very obviously knows how badly it will hurt her to learn the truth later when it's too late to change what the two of them were). He's quite happy to do his utmost to manipulate people into thinking the way he does (see the conversation pre-Weisshaupt in DAV where he keeps dragging Rook back to the question of how they intend to deal with the siege until they answer how he wants them to, forcing them into agreeing that they'll do "whatever it takes" no matter how many plans they have so that he can claim the two of them are similar) and when you notice the tricks... well, it's hard to ignore, and that would be the case in-universe as well as out of it. Meanwhile Rook just very genuinely cares about their team's well-being. You can play it as a largely pragmatic belief that the team will work better when their problems are dealt with—although never completely; Rook being a decent person who cares about others is kind of hardwired into the premise of the game (which, because this fandom is How It Is, I feel the need to point out is not a bad thing)—but ultimately Rook is focused on what's best for the team when interacting with them, not what they want the team to be. So of course the Veilguard grows to trust (and genuinely love) Rook much faster than Solas's followers, past or present, ever came to trust him! Rook cares about their companions and allies both as part of their team who'll do better work if their needs are met and as people who they want to help; part of the reason why Rook has to genuinely care is that it's one of the things differentiating them from Solas. They see the people around them as people, and not just pieces on the board; that's why their allies are willing to go so far for them and why they don't have to be tricked or even ordered into sacrificing themselves for Rook and their aims. Rook isn't just respected as a leader or seen as better than the alternative the way Solas is, they've earned true love and loyalty from the people around them by always offering it in return. And it's honestly tragic that Solas never looks past his own preconceptions to see that.

[joudama]

And that’s that for Veilguard. Got all the achievements and got the four main possible endings (didn’t bother with the bad ending where you do none of the side quests, everyone dies, and you end up trapped in the Fade forever with Solas).

My four Rooks:

Female Shadow Dragon elf mage - saved Minrathous - romanced Harding - punched Solas in the face

Female Antivan Crow human rogue - saved Treviso - romanced Lucanis - tricked Solas into using the fake dagger

Male Grey Warden dwarf warrior (this was originally going be a Qunari, but I couldn’t get over the yassified look of all the qunari I tried to make and I gave up) - saved Treviso - romanced Davrin (meant to romance Bellara and lol welp, that didn’t happen) - big softie who sent Solas into the Fade with the Inquisitor

Male Mourn Watch elf mage - saved Minrathous - romanced Emmrich (meant to romance Bellara or Neve and lol welp, that didn’t happen) - told the Inquisitor she could do better and made Solas go off into the Fade alone.

My Mourn Watch one is probably going to be my “canon” run, since I liked it the best (that’s not saying much) of my runs. I went with a life leeching run for him, including using the unique items that made health potions/companion heals not work, and beefed up leeching. Literally the only time I died was when my controller ran out of juice in the middle of a dragon fight. The Elgar’nan fight was over so fast I was like, “Wait, is that it?” It was like the curb stomp fight in Inquisition with Corypheus before they let you have enemies scale up with you.

And now for my thoughts. And oh boy, do I have a lot of them. Hoo.

I have…so many issues with this game. It is a very good…whatever the gaming equivalent of a popcorn flick is. It’s great if you go in with your brain turned off and enjoy all the shiny. But that’s not what I want in a Dragon Age game. I’ve been replaying DA2 - the game that DATV is basically trying to channel - while playing these, and the difference in writing quality and intricacy of plot and world building could not be more sharp. The first time I played DATV, I thought it was fine. Almost aggressively fine. I had fun with streaming the game and seeing where it went. I loved the reveals with the wolf statues. I had some major issues with the writing being as subtle as a brick to the face at times (more on my thoughts about the dialogue LATER, because oh boy), but it was serviceable. And I genuinely thought Veilguard had been robbed by not being nominated for Art Direction at the Game Awards, because say what you will, the areas are fucking gorgeous. But, even then, I was like, “Yeah, this would not have deserved a GOTY nomination had it gotten one,” and placed it at a 7 or 8 out of 10. A good enough, enjoyable game that ran well, but was not by any means GOTY material.

Then I made the mistake of playing it again, and the cracks began to show. By the time I hit the middle of Act 2 of my third run, I was just so done. I hated every time certain companions had anything to say at all. I hated that you couldn’t call people out for being a jerk but had to be the supportive nursery school teacher at all times to them. And for the first time playing any BioWare game at all, I found myself wishing I could either not recruit certain people or kick them out of camp. The cracks were beyond showing at that point, and I no longer thought the writing was even “serviceable.” Things that hadn’t seemed so bad on that first popcorn flick run suddenly became a problem - not being able to actually talk to your companions to get to know them went from “it feels more natural to have them saying this stuff while out in the field” to “what is even the point of going around the Lighthouse if all it gets me is a line spoken at me or overhearing bits of them having ACTUAL conversations?” It legitimately hurt replayability. I missed being able to actually talk to my companions, and I realized I cared more about Manfred and Assan than most of my companions because Manfred and Assan actually seemed to like interacting with me. I will take Manfred’s rock-paper-scissors game over a “hey Rook” and dead-eyed stare.

By the time I hit late act 2, I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could delete the damn game off my hard drive…only for the last achievement I had yet to get to NOT pop when I finished the game. I looked it up and discovered it wasn’t set by triggering a certain end state, but was tied to picking some flowers in Act 2, and wanted to cry. I don’t usually 100% games, especially if I feel like some of the achievements are bullshit I don’t want to do (‘sup, MELE needing you to do some Armax Arena Spectre-level fight - I would sooner chew off my own arm than do that, as anyone who watched me stream Veilguard would have guessed watching me kvetching the whole time I was doing that Hall of Valor shit), but that was just frustrating. I decided to try to get it on a fresh run as a Mourn Watcher, since I’d heard that was one of the surprisingly good faction backgrounds, and that was a good choice. Mourn Watch became my favorite faction, when it had been Shadow Dragons until then. It added so much to a lot more conversations than I would have thought, and made it so I actually enjoyed the sadly few times you get to actually have conversations instead of eavesdropping/being talked at. I’m glad I decided to slog through one more time for that achievement, because if I’d ended it on that third run, I know I would have never played it again. It turned back into a popcorn movie again, aided by me knowing when to put on a YouTube video and watch or scroll through Bluesky instead of listening to a certain character be the fucking worst. If I ever play again, it’ll be a Mourn Watcher (I already know the Veil Jumpers and Lords of Fortune are considered, shall we say, lackluster background factions.)

Which brings me to some of the big, fundamental problems this game had.

This is not a CRPG. It’s just not. It’s an action RPG now, with the focus on “action” not “RPG.” It’s part of the whole Mass Effect-ification of Dragon Age. And I say this as a huge Mass Effect fan:

Dragon Age should not be like Mass Effect. And vice versa.

When Andromeda came out, they decided to ditch the Paragon/Renegade system, and instead went for DAI-style emotion-based options. Which seems great! More speech choices to make a more nuanced Ryder instead of picking up or down! Great! Only no! A lot of people hated it because it didn’t feel like Mass Effect. They had taken away something that had seemed like a major part of how you roll played in the series, and replaced it something very different. It was the first time they took a mechanic from one game and ported it into another, and it didn’t really go over well with a lot of ME fans because it didn’t feel like a Mass Effect mechanic.

And now with Veilguard, they basically made a Mass Effect game with a Dragon Age skin on it. And it just doesn’t work.

Combat: They copied the combat wheel from Mass Effect, but did it kind of badly. I honestly hated it because I tried to play like I do in Mass Effect - pull it up, use it to look around and get a handle on my environment, then pick an enemy or a safe space to bolt to - and the camera snapping the enemies meant I couldn’t. It drove me crazy because it was like the Mass Effect wheel but fundamentally not, and the camera drove me mad because I’d pull it up trying to find where the nearest blight boil was, and it would snap on enemies instead of just letting me look. It’s like they wanted to get rid of every little bit of tactical game play and replace with smashy smashy bang bang instead. Don’t think, don’t plan, just attack…which fits in with the popcorn flick-ness of DATV. Don’t think, just do. Turn your brain off and look at the particle effects.

Another Mass Effect-ification with regards to combat is dropping from taking 3 companions to 2. Which you need to do to have that Mass Effect style combat wheel, and the Mass Effect 3/Andromeda style primer/detonation style interaction of companion powers. Detonations were very satisfying, but not very Dragon Age-y, and requires throwing out some of that DA lore to make it work, because now everyone uses magic-based abilities even if they aren’t mages. Assan attacks deal fire damage. You can spec a warrior who calls up a giant lightning hammer to twirl around, and…how? That’s not enchantment, that’s plain ol’ magic, and how?! Warriors didn’t deal magic-based attacks unless their weapons where enchanted before, but now, everyone is just tossing magic attacks at everything. That’s not how the world of Thedas has worked until now, but you can’t have those flashy explosions or particle effects otherwise, so shhh, turn off your brain and don’t think, shhh. Look at the screen light up and the pretty lights. It worked in Mass Effect because they had already set up tech and biotic attacks, but there’s no way to make hitting something hard with a sword cause it to blow up and damage all the other baddies around them, so now everyone has magic. OK.

As an aside, it was also a really bad idea of get rid of how aggro worked. Dragon Age had always worked by warriors drawing aggro because they had the heavier armor (or could use taunt on enemies targeting squishy mages or rogues). Rogues had lower aggro because they had lighter armor, and could sneak. Mages had even lower aggro because they had the lightest armor and were distance fighters. DATV threw that out the window, and Rook draws all aggro because they are the only ones with a health bar. Your squad is immortal in fights, which means there’s no reason for enemies to ever target them. Which means god help you early game when mages and rogues have no real skills yet. Enjoy dodging while your companions hit the enemies with what seems like attacks as powerful as spitballs. It also means that there are times what the game tells you and the fight you just did are completely at odds. Remember that fight with the Wrath of the Stone in Harding’s companion quest? That thing is on your ass the entire time, but then at the end of it, Rook says something along the lines of “It really hates Harding,” and…are you gaslighting me, game? That thing ignored Harding the whole damn time in favor of trying to stomp me like a cockroach. Harding did not exist to it during my fight. It had a hate boner for Rook and Rook alone, no matter what the game tried to insist on after.

Now, imagine how that would have felt if Harding actually could have been killed/knocked out during the fight, and it was only going after her? What if you couldn’t damage it if it took her down, so you had to make sure she stayed alive? Imagine how different that fight would have hit then? But no, that would mean the devs have to think about how to rez characters and how healing would work, and would mean players have to be tactical, and shh, no, no more of that, no thinking, just dodge and hit things and look at the particle effects. Shh. Have some more popcorn.

Story: DATV wants so badly to be ME2. It wants to recall the companion loyalty quests and the big suicide mission where you have to have everyone ready or you’ll all die. But you can’t copy what you did before and get the same flowers and results. You just can’t. You can try, and all you’ll get is diminishing returns. They tried to do the big cosmic horror of ME1, complete with a Virmire choice, then have the big final stakes of ME2, and no. You can’t follow a template and get the same greatness. That’s not how it works.

And speaking of following templates…

Romances: The romances in Veilguard are just dismal. And I think it’s because they decided to follow the Mass Effect pacing formula instead of the Dragon Age one.

Dragon Age: You start flirting in Act 1. You usually flirt with everyone because hey, why not? Some time in Act 2, things start getting serious, and you have to settle on who you want to go for. Things start to get serious, you get together, and then you get happy fun adult time with your new LI. You get the option to break it off or commit to them fully. By Act 3, you’re in a committed relationship. People comment about it. You can go to them and spend time with them - nothing major, maybe just a kiss. There might also be a special scene that’s just with them and unique to the romance. And by the end, after the lengthy amount of time that’s passed, you are Together.

Mass Effect: You start flirting in Act 1. You usually flirt with everyone because hey, why not? In Act 2, you keep on flirting with everyone. By the end, you might have to make a choice if you’re flirting too hard with everyone and the two LI options tell you to pick someone already, but you’re just picking who you’re interested in. Early in Act 3, there might be an almost kiss, but it’s mostly just the occasional anticipation of eventually boning and nothing really happens until right before the final big fight, when your LI shows up to your cabin for “oh shit, we might die in a few hours, so let’s go out with a high note” happy fun adult time. The only time you get that “committed relationship” vibes is in ME3 if you’re romanced the same character for at least one other game, and you choose to continue the relationship.

The Mass Effect pacing works in the Mass Effect trilogy because each game is only 20-40 hours long. Veilguard is a good 80 hours long. That means using that same amount of romance you use in ME is going to mean you’ve got too little butter to spread over too much bread. It’s why you have a good start for the romances in Act 1, then act 2 is a such a desert of nothing after you commit that I genuinely wondered if I’d hit the wrong option at said no at several points during the very long third act. There’s not just enough content for that long of an Act 2. Near the end everyone starts commenting on you being with them, but it’s not actually happening in the game. There’s no flirting, there are no extra scenes, and even the scene when you commit to them is based on a scene that happens with everyone, just with a romance option tacked on. The only person (of the ones I romanced, so I can’t speak to the others) who really get unique scenes was Emmerich. He actually takes you out on a unique date. It helped a lot to make Emmerich’s romance feel more fleshed out than the others. And Davrin had so many little jaunts out in the woods that those turned into romantic trips out, which added a lot to his. But Lucanis’ and Hardings? With both of them, like I said before, I genuinely wondered if I had accidentally opted out. Their romances most used the Mass Effect format, and it just doesn’t work for a game this long. BioWare knew that once, long ago, because Andromeda did not use the ME trilogy format for romances and was closer to one they used in DA. But DATV is trying to be ME2, so they used ME2’s very thin romances as a guide.

And we can all see how well that turned out.

The Executors: Fuck me, they feel like Cerberus reskinned, and I absolutely hated when Mass Effect shifted from sci-fi/Lovecraftian horror to space opera with Cerberus as the main bad guys you have to fight with the Reapers functionally falling to the background. The Executors are a secret, shadowy organization pulling strings from behind the scenes like the Shadow Broker codexes in ME2 retconned Cerberus into having been doing in ME. Ugh.

The Andromeda-ification of dialogue: Remember Peebee? Remember how she talked? Give her long hair and pointy ears, and she’s Bellara. Down even to the techno-babble. It’s like they’re trying to change magic to just “sufficiently advanced technology.” Everyone speaks in that modern, quippy style that was annoying in a game set hundreds of years in the future because it felt dated by the time the game came out (Ryder makes a Frozen joke, y’all). And it feels completely out of place in a game set in an early modern setting (I don’t think DA is medieval, honestly - it’s more a pre-industrialization/early scientific revoltution setting, so more 1500-1700s, and I’m gonna stop now). It was jarring. You can only let one quirky character break the rules about how people talk (Alistair in DAO, Varric in DA2, Cole in DAI) but when everyone does, it’s jarring. You can be anachronistic, but you have to know what you’re doing and how to do it when you do, and I’m sorry, but the current crop of BioWare writers don’t. They wrote the dialogue like it was a modern day YA novel, not a Dragon Age game. It would have been fine for a modern day urban fantasy game. It was not fine for a DA game set in the same time period as people using the four humours for “modern” medicine (remember the surgeon in DAI? Talked about the four humours? Yeah.)

OK, I did not intend to go on for this long, and I haven’t even gotten to what the game did to how religion is handled or the sociopolitical aspects of Thedas, and how they threw out so much that made Dragon Age unique in their urge to do a soft reboot, so I’m just going to end it here. I wanted to love this game, and I can only do that if I turn my brain off, and that’s not what Dragon Age should be.

[estrellami-1]

If I Should Stay

Part 1 | . . . | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11

Nancy gets back with Jonathan not too long after. He barges in and makes a beeline straight for Steve. “You know where Will is?”

Steve nods. “There’s a lot to explain.”

“Then you’d better start soon.”

Robin, his savior, steps in. “C’mon, Jonny-boy, let’s go for a walk.” She leads him outside, and Steve can hear her start. “What do you know about time travel?”

He smiles and looks around. He can hear Eddie upstairs, practicing the song. The boys are occupied with planning, Nancy’s looking over Mike’s shoulder, and El’s watching him with big brown eyes. He focuses on her and lets his smile grow. “Wanna help me make dinner?”

Her eyes widen a little, but she nods. “What are we making?”

“Probably sandwiches,” he shrugs. “I’m not sure what else I have. Can you find the bread in the pantry? And there’s butter knives in that drawer over there, we’ll need two.” He winks. “One for you, and one for me.”

She does so, and he pulls out the condiments and lunch meats, as well as the jelly. “And the peanut butter, if you can find it,” he calls from where his head’s stuck in the fridge. He looks around for anything else he might need and grabs the pickles before closing the door.

“Y’know the best part about making dinner?” He asks her, impish grin growing on his face. She hums inquisitively. “We get to make ours first and eat while we make the rest.”

She giggles and accepts the high five he holds out.

They get to work assembling sandwiches. She pauses, mayonnaise slathered halfway onto a piece of bread. “Steve?” He hums. “I’m scared.”

He sighs and puts down his knife. “I am too, El. Terrified, if you can believe it. But I have faith in us. I know we can do it.” He wipes his hands off and rounds the counter, taking her hands in his. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met in my life. Even stronger than Vecna. And this time he won’t know we’re coming. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side, and we will defeat him. We’ll find Will and Barb, and after this we’ll never have to worry about it again.” He strokes a hand over her head and sighs. “There’s something else, too. I know where Papa is.”

She pulls back, eyes wide, posture stiff. “Whoa, hey, it’s okay,” he soothes. “I’m not going to take you back there. Ever. Okay?”

She nods hesitantly, but allows him to pull her closer again. “I was going to ask if you want us to take care of him,” he murmurs. “Lock him inside and set the building on fire, or something.”

She shakes her head. “He loves me!”

“Oh, El,” Steve whispers. “I thought the same thing of my parents for a long time. No matter how mad they got, how much they yelled, how much they hurt me… they said it, so it must be true, right? They must love me. I must be the problem.” He shakes his head. “That’s not love. You fear him, El, and for good reason. He made you into what you are, but you never asked for this, and it’s okay to be angry about it.” She looks up at him with wide eyes, and he sighs. “I’ll give you some time to think about it,” he murmurs. “If the answer is still no, that’s okay. But if you change your mind, that’s okay, too.”

She nods, steps out of the hug. He lets her go, feeling like he’s almost knocked a vase off a table. His heart’s still thumping oddly, eyes wide, scared to make the wrong move.

But then she looks up at him and offers him a small smile. “Thank you,” she says. “I know the way you treat me is different from how Papa treats me. I do not know yet if they are simply different forms of love or if you are right. I think you are, but…”

“You need to see for yourself,” Steve nods. Moves the metaphorical vase back from the edge of the table. “Let me know if there’s any way I can help prove it.”

“I will,” she says, and picks up her butter knife again, spreading mustard onto a piece of bread. He goes back to his side and smiles at her.

“Steve?” She asks after a second. “When my hair grows back. What does it look like?”

He thinks for a second. “It’s fluffy,” he says. “Very soft and light. Like cotton candy.” He puts his head to one side. “Floofy,” he decides, and grins.

She giggles. “Like you!”

He opens his mouth to tell her no, she’s wrong, except… he can’t. “Yours is even more beautiful,” he tells her. “And kids in school nicknamed me ‘the Hair’. That’s how famous this was.” He tilts his head her direction, and a lock of hair falls in his face. He splutters and shakes his head, grinning when she laughs again.

“I am very glad you came back, Steve,” she says suddenly, seriously, a little at odds with the smile still quirking her lips up.

His heart breaks and mends all in the same second. It feels like absolution. “Me too,” he says, and means it.

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[hoseoksluna]

SMOKE, iii. | myg

pairing: idol!yoongi x smoke!oc (ft. jungkook, bespectacled girl)

genre: angst

word count: 10.3k

summary: everything that has begun hurts. 

pinterest board: smoke / taglist: join

warnings: heavy yoongi angst, a rundown of the smut from the previous chapter (oral sex, humping, making out), importance of consent, hearing voices, anxiety, borderline thoughts of not wanting to be here in this world, covid and the pandemic, anger, hyyh yoonkook, yoonkook smoke together.

note: i'm sorry for this chapter. :( i will make it better, i promise. as much as it was pain to write the rundown, i still think it's beautiful and so vital to this story. i hope my babies enjoy it. luv yah. <3

side note: i recommend reading smoke 2 before this chapter, so you don’t forget about anything! i didn’t use much detain in the rundown, the chapter would’ve had 20k words if i did. 😔✋🏻

I don’t believe in God, but I prayed to something bigger than me when our chauffeur drove us through the rain.

I’ve known the man for years and I would drift through my precious slumber whenever he would get behind the wheel and not awaken. And as much as I trusted him, I didn’t trust the damned, despicable rainfall that seems to be infested in my life like liquid anthropoids. 

And as much as he meandered through the streets with utmost care and slowness, my muscles tensed and wouldn’t let up, my internal pleading words to someone up above coiled, choked out and strained. What’s worse, I feared she, the kitty girl, would stray away into her pain in all that quietness and melancholy that the condition of the weather emitted, and her bodily need to vomit would bash against the shattered pieces of my heart until only dusky powder remained. 

I folded her into my pathetic prayer. 

Seeing her so lost, unknowing of where she is and what is happening, seeing her eyes so absorbed in the nightmare she was facing, so awfully unfocused, then looking at me with such veneration once I cupped some cold water and let it drip down her noble spine—my heart failed and tore apart in two, her plea not to tell Jungkook severing it into smithereens. 

I would do anything for her, anything she’d ask. 

And I did. 

The car stopped at her apartment building, and it wasn’t until then that my muscles dissolved into a state of calmness that allowed me to breathe evenly. 

We didn’t crash. 

No vehicle appeared in front of ours. 

No muscle tear. 

My consciousness ceased being one of such smothering vigilance, melting into inquisitiveness about her energy and how she was feeling, into a territory that is ruled by her bergamot and mandarin perfume, by her beauty and dangerous femininity laced with girlish shyness that twists my stomach into knots. Thankfully, the downpour crept out of my solid and unyielding atmosphere and I felt the clouds part. 

The moonlight sliced through me when she asked me to come up. 

I didn’t hesitate. 

Tranquility surged through me, passing into me by those moonbeams. 

I glanced up at the moon when I held her purse up in the air for her, at a comfortable level for her arms as she rummaged through it. Once I heard the clanging of her keys, I looked down—meeting the same face that those clouds above revealed. Little moon kitty girl. 

But she wouldn’t connect her eyes to mine and my own mistake from earlier poked at my heart, her fear of me my everlasting demise. 

I was willing to do anything in effort to erase it from her body, never to be found again. Smooth out what I’d molded in her, reconstruct it into something new, mild and mellow. 

She held the door open for me and I perceived she had the power to pump blood into that wretched flesh of mine and deflate it all the same. It sparked something within me that I didn’t know how to identify. Something way beyond respect, enfolded with care, despite the fact I just met her. 

Fate has been too, too merciful to me—and I wasn’t sure if I should trust it. Sun-mi wouldn’t speak to me, still, even when I would call out to her.

Only radio silence echoed back to me. 

What was difficult to wrap my head around was the fact that I wasn’t reluctant to trust the kitty girl. It came to me with ease, filled up all parts of me that there simply wasn’t any space for any skepticism, nor for any ambivalence. If there was anything I was sure of, it was her. 

Me misjudging her in the beginning may have brought it about, but I firmly believe that it has now enclosed it with a protective layer of stability. One I hold dear to my heart and find myself headstrong about nurturing, protecting it further. 

She’s good. 

She’s the same as me. 

And she was wearing my sneakers.

It was all I could fixate upon as she led me through another door, out of which a high set of stairs emerged and by which she stopped. They suited her so well, downright belonged to her that I thought about letting her keep them. My heart swelled, making it difficult for me to breathe, and I went in first because I knew if I had the full package of her round femininity, her spine and the sneakers in front of my eyes, I would’ve collapsed and broken my neck. 

And I didn’t want to regard her like that. Especially not when I’d attached myself to Sun-mi. 

Even when she was lifeless, voiceless, seemingly not with me at all. 

And yet, whatever it was in me that asked for the kitty girl, didn’t leave me be until I checked, multiple times, if she was with me. If her heels weren’t slipping out of my shoes, or if the laces weren’t unraveling. If she wasn’t drifting away from me. 

She wasn’t. 

She was conscious, attentive to me and flushed under her black dress. 

My hands itched, remembering the feel of her icy cold skin warming up to me as she came to her senses. The memory engraved itself into the lines of my palm and I saw it, the film of it, all over again, when I looked down at my hand, full of pins and needles. 

It went away when I propped it on the wall while taking my shoes off, watching her small feet emerge out of the spaciousness of the sneakers. She blushed and wouldn’t reciprocate my gaze, her flush shooting to the apples of her cheek that only grew upwards to her temples like the prettiest of wild roses. Without a word, I followed her further into her apartment and I thought about how I’d follow her anywhere she went. 

Her living room was a place of utmost, ivory rest—as if she was inspired by the heaven she must be often visiting in her dreams. White walls, white couch, pristine lilies and undying vines of greenery lining each corner alongside a drapery of twinkling bulbs of lights. When she switched them on, I found myself in the middle of her personal heaven, considered it haven and I didn’t wish to leave. 

I didn’t know why she invited me upstairs and the only reason that came to my mind was one I wasn’t allowing to consume my weakened heart. 

I was willing to stay, even if she possibly needed a person to be present with her. Even if she needed to go non-verbal in the other room while I would bask in the purity of her eternal personality sunk in every detail of her apartment. I yearned to sit on her couch and take it in. Take in the perfume of her lilies, the soft and mellow mellowness of the lights that were so reminiscent of the core of those flowers. Her magazines and her books. Her cooking utensils and the reality show programs that must be burned into her TV. 

I yearned to sit and breathe her in. 

And I did when she poured me a glass of cold water and we drank it, wordlessly. She went to cleanse herself off the nightmare that had clung to her so vividly and deftly and I sat down in the middle of her plushy couch, her squishy pillows supporting my back. I ran my fingers through the different fabrics of those small cushions of hers, her blanket. Felt as though I was touching her, knowing she would repose her body using those objects of softness and something of great importance and emotional value, that I wasn’t really ready for, clove to my bones. 

I longed to be her object of softness, snoozing and idleness. I pitied her for going through something so pernicious, especially in front of Hobi. Especially in front of such a stranger like me. 

I didn’t understand how those tender feelings towards her infiltrated my lungs when I didn’t breathe enough of her air. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to feel towards a girl, not when I still had my tendencies to attach myself to my Sun-mi. I had tried to date after her, but I never developed feelings for the other person, not even a hint of them. I was indifferent to their personal stories as they were to mine, which made me realize in the long run that people in the current dating scene do not search for a long-term connection. The only connection they seek is the physical one and I regretted, for quite some time, for moving on the traditional way. Sun-mi was a treasure of gold and I was a fool for touching girls with gold-powdered hands. 

They condemned it and I was pushed towards a death of loneliness. 

Sitting here, listening to the murmur of her shower, abusing her special beige blanket with my gold-stained fingers, I wondered about her view on modern relationships. Was she the casual type and was I doomed? Or was she a love-fool like me? 

A boom reverberated out far in the corridor, tugging me away from the false sanctuary of my high hopes. The kitty girl had flung open the door to her bathroom, but she didn’t walk out. My stomach zapped with the temptation of the reason that still crouched somewhere, tentatively, in my brain, one that I’m holding back with all my strength. But then the notion that she might have been feeling faint and needing my help crawled all over my scalp with icy legs and before I knew it, my feet paddled down that corridor. Somehow, they had the knowledge of where to go without a sliver of doubt. 

Like all my thoughts, the notion had been false. 

She was perfect and erotic in her night slip, cleansing her face off the last detail of her nightmare. My heart forgot all of its regulations when I regarded the end of her ebony dress, grazing just right the curves of her bum. My mouth parted and vehemently dried, another notion slipping in that only she could be the source of water that my throat miserably needed. 

And then she turned around, a glowing torch of all my desires, dressed in silk and lace that hardened me so painfully my knees nearly wobbled. The sheer fabric pressed against her feminine peaks, baring them to me, my freed heart whispering to me that she was fully naked underneath her nightwear for me—and that she wanted it that way, wanted my eyes to see it. 

My hands acted out of habit—unzipping my jacket to cover her. My hands that didn’t connect to my heart, nor my mind. My hands that seemed to have remembered my high hopes. The only smart part about me. 

But she disagreed with them, and her own threw my garment down to the damp floor. She might as well have stomped on it to crush them further because wherever she was placing me right now, she was ensnaring me in her danger. In her femininity, in her eroticism. But she didn’t realize that she was tormenting me, opening my high hopes wide, exposing them and scratching them raw. 

And by doing that, she was making me want to torment her with pleasure so great that she would submit to my traditional ways. To my golden powder that would eventually broaden the slits of her cat-like eyes. 

Jungkook’s voice rang through me, however. At the cusp of my decision to manipulate her right back by giving her precisely what she was pining for. 

He had warned me, with maximum carefulness that she didn’t hear, to not take advantage of her. Jealousy washed over me like a stream of iciness—that he knew something I didn’t, as if he truly knew what was going on in her head while I didn’t, and that he had claims on her and a certain possessiveness over her that I had no business being bothered by. But I could only nod as he poured that cyanide into my ear, held back as I was by outside forces. And it held me back now, forcing my hands behind my back, forcing me to rethink my decision. 

She grasped that force, though. Pressed herself against me. And I could feel the ropes of that translucent obstacle ripping apart in her hands as they wrapped around mine, unfurling them, inviting my decision to come forth all over again. The hardened peaks of her breasts provoked the fight occurring in me and I sensed myself losing, losing Jungkook’s warning in my body, losing his respect—and losing his love. 

The latter is what drove me to tell her the truth—tell her that Jungkook said no, divulging to her the picture of the mountain of respect I bore in my lungs for him, despite the fact I kept holding her delicate hands. And she responded with such a piquant wit that it quaked through that mountain, debris falling off, tumbling to my feet. 

Since when is Jungkook the boss of me?

The fight loosened with her words, but it brought about the awareness that while Jungkook wasn’t the boss of her, he had been—for the longest time—the boss of me. It dawned upon me, along with the notion that it didn’t have to be this way, so intensely that my grip flexed around her hands. And the feeling of ultimate liberation, scented by her raspberry body wash, descended upon me, hushing to me, ever so softly, that because she’s become a new character in this following chapter, I didn’t have to cling to Jungkook any longer. 

And I recognized that voice. 

It was my Sun-mi speaking to me, guiding me. 

And I tried, with all my might, to conceal the evidence of the relief and the dull elation surging through me due to the fuzzy impression she had given me—a headstart to my decision. But then she reminded me of the possessiveness Jungkook had over the kitty girl and she encouraged me to ask her about it. 

And I did. 

Sun-mi took my thumbs and brushed them over the girl’s nails, showing me how before letting me take over. And the way she reacted to the feeble touch, it made me see her in a slightly different light. 

She was dangerous and erotic, yes. But deep within, in the dust-suffused corners of her being, there dwelled an abandoned kitten. Starved—starved of touch, of love and care. With a hollow belly and a bony face. And it stared right back at me after it brushed its soot-stained features against my neck, asking for more with eyes that were no longer seductive, but sorrowful. 

She was a kitten I ached, ached to take care of. Adopt and bathe and feed. Make pretty and fill up with life, joy and colors of the rainbow of emotions she could meet and get to know with me. 

And Sun-mi validated these thoughts of mine, expanding that warm feeling in my gut until it reached my heart. 

My breath shivered. 

And Kitty, Kitty expanded her wit, hauling my decision forth—to the edge of reality, provoking me further, but I saw right through it. She wanted my care for a different reason, using the same manipulation technique, and Sun-mi nodded in me. 

Would I ask you to come upstairs if I were?

Sun-mi warned me a second before Kitty untangled her hand from my grip and went to feel up my groin. I caught it just in time, putting it back to my side, and her dolorous regret pierced through me; pierced through Sun-mi’s voice, shutting the half of her sentence that advised me to be cautious. I was struck by the realness of her contrition, maybe because it seemed like a mirror of mine—maybe because it shredded the intoxication of her eroticism and the kitten in her revealed herself, fully, to me. 

That naked kitten, belonging to me. 

And just like that, I was willing to give her what her body asked of me. If I was supposed to get to that kitten through the murky waters of her desire, then I was willing to get myself wet. Because if I was to reject her, she’d close up that corner of her and I would lose her. 

The real her. 

I unattached myself from Sun-mi. 

I reopened what I had closed. I echoed the words that her body provided me. 

Are you needy?

And it wasn’t just the outside shell of her that lit up. The kitten glimmered in the shadows, turning onto her back and exposing her belly to me. That was enough for me—to know that the inner her was listening to me—and so I repeated the question in her dumbstruck silence, focusing on the her that needed me, though differently, at that moment, calling her by her name. I allowed myself to be influenced by her allure, by her former manipulation—dipping my hands in her waters. And her continuous wit affected me, properly, for the first time. 

What would you do if I said I was? 

My brows twitched and so did my cock, her words letting in a whirlwind of ideas of what I would do to her. But when I enabled my body to act out however it wished, my legs wading in her desire, only one remained. 

I set my heart upon punishing her for what she did to herself. For the way she sabotaged herself by using the fading beauty of lust and neglected the real her, the poor kitten, in the process. For submitting to the society’s detestable ways, when she was more than deserving of love and respect. 

I craved to punish her for meandering through this world like I did, with multiple earth-shattering orgasms that would satisfy her enough to be herself, unabashedly. 

Even if it made me a hypocrite. 

I’d make you come so hard you wouldn’t have to touch yourself for days, I whispered to her, folding myself into the snugness that was created between us earlier in the venue, feeling her body tremble in my hands. And before I turned my rationality off all the way and submerged myself, fully, in her waters, I echoed to her the words that rushed through me. Is that what you want?

Did she want me to discipline her enough that she would come back to herself? 

Did she want me to help her? 

But she didn’t answer me. She didn’t give me her words. Only a carnal, maddened noise of agreement spilled out of her and bound me deeper to her. I willed someone up above, silently, to make her see through my words. I persisted, vocally, encouraging her to consent to me, but the more the seconds of our time drifted on, the more I began to fall under her spell. And the more she studied the shape of my lips in a way that no one had ever done in my life, not even Sun-mi, the more my body submitted to her. 

We collided in a mutual kiss. 

And she tasted like the unnamed thing I sought in all the vapid girls I had touched after Sun-mi. Like the fruits of curiosity; like the sap of humanness. I delved into her—felt her refreshing my throat, my stomach. And her influence sank one more layer below, rejuvenating my bones. 

It wasn’t merely a kiss. It was a final connection, and I wanted her. 

I wanted her, crucially. 

The kitten clawed at the walls of her being and I felt her, shushed her inertly—told her to stay patient for me because I needed to continue with my decision, with my plan. Needed to get to her. 

Needed the same things that the outer shell of her did—without having anyone to give it to me. 

Except her. 

But when I broke the kiss and gazed into her eyes, I detected a streak of sunlight protruding through the thick dust. Lily-white and impeccable, her seduction tearing at the seams. And when she began to ride my thigh, the pleasure she received from me ripped it apart, wholly. She plummeted, an inch below, and I swam in gladness, parting her waters with my arms. 

I still needed her consent, though, so I persevered. 

She wouldn’t listen to me, as wet as she was, and I yearned to take her chin and make her listen to me, but I respected her well enough to not do that. And I lost the timeline of my impending need of her consent to help her when her hair sailed upon the surface of her lustful waters. She rubbed her pussy so well against my thigh. I could hear the squelching noises of her flesh riding her dripping slick and I sailed with her. 

I lost my mind when she came against me, the frenzy bursting in all parts of me, and I no longer saw the real her and the cracked outer shell of her. 

I merely saw her. 

And she was beautiful. 

She wasn’t erotic, seductive, nor lustful. She didn’t personify a girlish sinfulness. She exuded a pristine beam of pinkish innocence, laced with a love so great that it thrummed within my chest. My morals, my decisions, my ways and thoughts blurred and blended into my desire to have her. 

Just her. 

Her vulgarities and praises for me spilled out of her like her slick and it hydrated me, gave me a long, brisk sip of life and I was dumbstruck, mirroring her. She was unbound in her release and I wished I could cup that euphoric freedom and pour it down her throat in social events when she would need it the most, a little sugary drink of courage that would untie her from anxiety. Her beauty bloomed in front of my eyes and I couldn’t avert my gaze away from her. 

It was physically impossible within the bond that pulled me closer and closer towards her. 

And when she came back to me, dazed from the high of her vital orgasm, I couldn’t help but to be inspired by that stream of liberation. Just like she praised me, I praised her. It was important to me that she knew of what happened to her when she burst in her pretty release. 

It aroused me deeper, the words I uttered her way. And the way she blushed, the way she smiled—I knew right then and there that she threw a rope around me, ensnaring me to her for all eternity. 

And I was delighted. 

That’s the most I’ve heard from you all night. You’re alive when you come. Raw and articulate. No shyness to you.

I caressed her extended claws.

And I want them dug deep in me. 

Despite my lost mind, I kept going, kept persisting, wondering at the words that dashed out of my mouth, the one that knew how to kiss her and coax out of her those sweetened, delicate noises of hers—and her following words. 

Neck. Nipple. Thigh. Cunt. 

I became aware, wholly, of the suppleness and softness of her body. Of the authenticity and authority that it held as I kissed and licked all of those tender, sensitive parts of her that she asked me to get to know my tongue. 

And I was doing just that. 

Learning the depth of her intellect as I closed my mouth over her clit, as I drank from her sopping heat that gave me the final notion of the night that I would never thirst again. Not if I had her legs over my shoulders. Not if I had her bent in half. 

Not if I had her asking for me, provoking me. 

I enjoyed it too much. Thought I’d never enjoyed something like that before. Her taste, the heady scent of her arousal that I desired to have under my nose at all times, her wetness dripping off my chin and landing just right on her bare, squished tummy. Her neediness, her courage and her bravery. I enjoyed it all so much that I forgot all about myself and my own needs, finding her lust more stimulating and gratifying than the thought of me getting anything in return. 

But all too soon, while I was holding her in such a vulnerable position, the spell withered. In a snap of one’s fingers. 

Mine. 

The final question, the only smart one within the heated realm of our frenzy, trickled down my chin along with her wetness and I gravitated back down to my lost rationality, to the disconsolate existence in this wretched world. Kitty rolled her eyes and I floated, like a pallid cloud, in and out of our lust. One foot there, the other in reality. 

You really want this?

She bounced for me, tugging on the rope she had wrapped around me. And I toppled, harder than I anticipated, when she murmured that she wanted me inside of her. I toppled forward into our aphrodisiac haven, but my foot stayed submerged in the mud of reason. 

You’re not getting it tonight. 

But the little minx liked that I had said that. Liked that I was such a fastidious giver—a man in charge of her that knew better. And I liked that she did. I liked the way she touched me. Her fingers heartened me. And when she poked her toe in my cheek, I blazed in such joy and passion that I gave in. 

I gave in, entirely, to her. 

I kissed her like I never kissed Sun-mi. Grabbed her by the back of her neck and smashed my mouth into hers, sucking on her lips so hard that my cock twitched and she moaned in response. Moaned so vivaciously that I sensed it taking roots in each corner of my body and soul. 

Kitty dragged me out of reason, sprawling me over her. I ground my hips against her pussy, meeting her little thrusts, and I found something beyond the principle of haven in that mutual collision. Something safer, something more solid. And despite the fact I had unattached myself from Sun-mi, she, somehow, thundered in me. Her jealousy contaminated me. I felt icy fingers hooking into the back of my shirt and yanking me away, sinking into my flesh. And right then and there, I almost yelped in pain. 

Sun-mi’s voice plagued me in antipathy.

Get away from her. 

Get away. Get away. Get away. 

Go now. 

She screeched those revolting words in me until her shrieking voice melted into a ringing that rid me of my hearing sense. But as ensnared as I was, I perceived that wasn’t my Sun-mi. That wasn’t her voice, for it wasn’t effulgent with her gentleness. It was something greatly sinister that had crawled upon me in my vulnerability, disguising itself as my precious girlfriend. Though as aware as I was of its trick, it wouldn’t let go. On the contrary, it rose in volume and intensity until it forced me to let out the rottenest words I could’ve ever given her. 

I can’t. 

But because of the bond between us, I was able to give her a tender kiss to make it better. And when she took it, she gave me the strength to fight. 

And so I did. 

I settled between her legs, but the worst thing that could’ve happened did come up for air between us. 

She saw through me. She was a witness to the demon’s psychological terror inflicted upon me and she respected it enough that she began to back away. 

I couldn’t let her. I couldn’t let the demon win. 

So I pushed her hands away that had gripped the silky fabric of her night dress and covered her from me, and I flipped the hem so hard I nearly ripped it. I couldn’t afford to have her close up on me—to not have her like this and the awareness of how important she had become for me in the little time we had together descended in the pit of my stomach. The thought of never having her close like this shook through my organs and I simply could not let that happen. 

I begged her. 

I begged her to let me forget about the enormous obstacle that hid within me and wished to draggle me through mud and shit just so I wouldn’t fall deeper into her. 

And when she allowed me, when she pinned her legs back the way I wanted them, and gave over that intimate part of her that I had discovered I needed in order to survive, I discerned that her willingness, her consent and her kindness was something that attenuated the voice of the demon in me. 

I submitted. 

And in total submission to her, I devoured her and finger-fucked her until she, seemingly, washed me clean of all my darkness, sprinkling me with her wetness. I would’ve continued had she not reached the fairyland of overstimulation. And all my false pretenses were revealed to me when she sat up and palmed my cock. 

I wasn’t washed clean. I wasn’t well. And I wasn’t strong enough to fight. 

My fear quaked in my bones while she was undoing the strings of my sweatpants and it was me who felt like vomiting at the thought of being on the receiving end. 

I grasped her hands, my vision clouded with my tears, and I could only shake my head ‘no’. I had pleaded with her to give me her words, yet I myself wasn’t able to do the same.

I didn’t understand what was happening to me. 

I crumbled and shrunk. Was smaller than the kitten inside her that meowed to me. Didn’t know whether to leave or to stay over, only that if I were to remain in the closeness of our lessening frenzy, something ugly would occur. I found myself in a state of mind where I needed to be taken care of, but letting her do it strengthened my fear. I needed Jungkook to come, but that meant he would get the wind of the fact that I betrayed him. 

I was paralyzed on the spot, with my cock hard and aching, and Kitty studied me as if she could read each and every horrendous line of the decadent poetry of my mental state. And then she tied back the strings of my sweatpants, careful not to touch my private parts, and folded her hands on her glistening thighs. 

“Can I make you something to eat?” she asked, her eyes as shiny as the traces of her arousal, round and softened, the slits wide and innocuous. So different from the way they looked when I first regarded them. 

The large, hot tear that plopped onto my cheek answered her for me. As if she called it out, my stomach grumbled. 

She rose on her bare, wobbly feet and pulled my head onto her lace-adorned bosom. Brushed a hand down my hair at a snail’s place like she internally knew that it wasn’t possible for me to linger in her tenderness, that once she reached the nape of my neck that I would withdraw. And she gave me a radiant smile once I did—as if I wasn’t vile, worthless and loathsome. 

Reassured me that it was okay like I deserved it. Like I deserved her. 

And while she made me ramen and boiled two eggs for me, the demon in me pressured me to leave without a word. Almost pushed my muscles into action, my legs to take a step back, but I resisted. I resisted with the little strength I had by crossing the distance, no longer watching her from the dark corner of her kitchen. I stood behind her, not holding her, not caressing her—because I couldn’t. I couldn’t draw closer. I couldn’t touch her in a non-sexual sphere because I feared what would have happened to my mind if I did. 

In spite of that, I said the words that she deserved to hear. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not being able to give you what you want.” 

She turned her head and gazed up into my eyes. It was so intimate that I couldn’t understand how we ended up here, how we ended up acting like this when we knew each other for merely hours. I couldn’t understand why it felt the way it did when she was merely looking at me and I longed to scratch off the outer layer of our bond that it gained from our lust, that protected it so well that even I couldn’t erase it. 

“You don’t have to apologize for anything.” 

I couldn’t say anything to that. My hands agreed with her, but my abused heart didn’t. I could only sit down at her table and eat the food she made me, thinking about how everything our bodies did was natural, yet those actions left an unnatural aftertaste within that the food couldn’t flavor differently. I existed in oxymorons with her, ones that I took to bed with her. 

And I held them instead of her. 

I awake with a jerk. 

With the brass, sharp and strange feeling that I did something wrong, that I made a mistake so enormous and calamitous that it will take a lifetime to pay its mending debt. With a long wave of Kitty’s turquoise strand loosely wrapped around my hand resting between the snugness of her pillow and mine. With her spine protruding towards me while she’s curled on her side. With a surplus of the dream I have emerged from as it drifts with me towards the bright light of consciousness, where I’d rather not be right now. 

And the memory of it opens against my eyelids when I close them. Her straddling me, her bouncing on my cock as her eyes flutter in the middle of her perfervid, red-hot orgasm that might as well have been mine. I sense her weight on me as if she wasn’t softly snoring beside me, but sitting on me with my length sheathed inside her to the hilt, shuddering and praising me, her breasts following the movement of her hips and—

I sit up and fist my hair, trying to breathe out evenly, but I fail. The damned air comes out in pathetic staccatos that permeate me with a zealous anger. And when I rip the covers off of me, I see that I was right. 

Her orgasm was mine. 

A large wet spot stains my boxers, the white fabric translucent due to the quantity of cum that oozed out of me in my sleep. It’s not sticky, nor is it dry, which means the dream caught up to me right before I woke up and came like a fucking teenager that has just discovered women. 

What makes this even worse is that I’m rock hard and so needy that I’m willing to wake her up and beg for her. Beg for her kindness. Beg for her softness. 

But I can’t. 

Anger and lust might lace well, but I can’t do that to her. I can’t use her when I know I have to keep my distance now and not allow us to step over the threshold of our desires. I should’ve listened to Jungkook and not let her shatter that mountain of respect for him, not let her set me free from my fixation on him. I should’ve stayed in the car and kept my promise to him that I would come back. 

I stand up to my feet and I detect the silky ghost of her dyed strand on my palm, the only singular softness I might ever feel for the rest of my life. And I wish it would end now, so I wouldn’t have to face her and the possible heartbreak I would clothe her in—and so I wouldn’t have to face Jungkook and clothe myself in regret and shame. 

I go and search for my Sun-mi as I walk over to the living room to put on my sweatpants from last night, but I stumble upon a dead end. The realization that I had been tricked by my demons for all these long years swathes me in iciness so cold that I shiver and my vision blurs. The realization that I’m all alone are the ropes that stifle my lungs and they swell against it, the flesh overspilling. I call out to her from within, a feeble high hope, and radio silence greets me upon this fine morning. 

The only honeyed good morning I’ll ever receive. 

I sniffle, willing the tears to fuck off because I’m exhausted of feeling so much, of being so vulnerable in this world that seems so be so set on destroying me. My girlfriend is dead. She’s not with me, nor will she ever be. She hasn’t been sending me guidance and fuzzy feelings. She’s buried six deep under and I dispersed the soil over her with the same hand I used to make another girl come, the same hand that still feels her hair like a knife I seem to be clutching, despite the excruciation I give myself, despite the blood that pours out and splatters on her stark white carpet. 

I sit on her couch and check the notifications on my phone. I have one text message from Jungkook and two missed calls from him. It’s so like him. Had it been any other member, the bar would’ve been spammed so much that I myself would have to get out of bed and silence it. 

I click on the message and read it, carefully. 

We need to talk in the morning. Coffeestand at 11 am

Fuck this shit. 

I check the time. It’s 10:20 am. I haven’t slept this long since the pandemic. Which reminds me that I haven’t been to that small coffee shop with him since before this fuckery ingrained itself in the face of this doomed world. Jungkook knows what I’ve done, but I don’t allow myself to feel. 

No regret. No shame. 

Nothing. 

I place my head in my hands and do some breathing exercises, anxiety invading my boundary and my decision to be numb. I fight, even though I’m so weary of it, and my mind spins. There’s not enough air in this room and when I go to look around to see if her AC is on, I find her standing by the doorframe of her bedroom. 

Puzzlement twists her puffy, morning features. The light glimmers in her eyes so glaringly that there’s simply no need for the sunlight right behind me that I now sense cradling my back. It has awoken hand in hand with her and I have to stop myself. 

No feeling. Numbness, only. 

I feel nothing towards her and I want nothing to do with her. 

Last night was a mistake. She was horny and I was lonely, vulnerable. There’s no bond between us. She’s merely Jungkook’s pretty friend. And I don’t see the starved, neglected kitten out in the open of her being, her former seductiveness a mat beneath her that she’s resting on, purring. She’s not lifting her small, bony head at my attention as I peer into her eyes and watch her tense features melt and relax under our spellbinding eye contact. 

And her words don’t affect me when she asks me if I’m okay. 

I don’t disintegrate when she walks towards me, her bare, sleep-kissed breasts bouncing underneath her pellucid, lacy night dress, ruining me, reminding all over again of the wet dream I had, of the way she pinched them right before I stirred awake. 

I stop her halfway with roughness that I regret as soon as it digorges out of my mouth and I wish, with all of my own godforsaken being, to take it back. 

“Can you, please, put something fucking on?” 

I palm my forehead, tearing my gaze away from her and the way her face falls, and when I run my hand down my eyes, I encounter the traces of my weakness still wet and very much visible to the naked eye on my cheeks. I’m hot all over, regretful, shameful and hateful of what I’ve become because I believe that, deep down, I’m not my anger. 

I may believe it faintly, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it at all. 

I’m not my anger and I don’t treat people like this. I exude respect, self-control and kindness. 

This is not me. 

And yet I still act like this. I hurt and I’ve hurt the beautiful girl in front of me that I can no longer face. I grab my things and I walk over to her corridor, sliding my foot into my shoe while staring down, with even blurrier vision than before, the red Jordans I let her wear last night. 

“I have to go,” I mutter, willing my voice not to betray me, but to be smooth, steady and gentle—unlike me. Jungkook’s image flashes in my brain and how he must be already waiting for me in the coffee shop, as punctual as he is. And I don’t hurt just his friend further, I sink the knife I still clutch inside my heart so deep that I lose my life in front of her. “Do you have a spare mask?” 

She untangles one of her arms crossed over her breasts and rummages in a little, white, polyester box perched on her kitchen bar. Wraps that forearm tighter around her when she hands me a new, ivory mask without looking at me. 

I twist the knife deeper in my heart and I long to take her face in my hand, instead of the mask. Take her and kiss her for her kindness until she moans into my mouth like she did last night. 

But I don’t. 

I thank her for the mask and I leave. 

Jungkook is waiting for me outside the coffee shop with a pink umbrella. A tall Statue of Liberty dressed in black, holding up a torch of my failure. He reminds me so much of her that it might as well have been her, standing in his place. 

I had texted him that I was on my way, even though my doleful heart begged me to dial his number and vomit all of my feelings into his ear. Cleanse my guts of the regret that gorged on it. Despite the fact that’s not something I normally do. Jungkook is the one who does and I’m the one who listens, who fixes, who comforts.

I could never let him know that I’m the one who needs it now. 

It had rained softly when I stopped by my apartment to take a quick shower so I wouldn’t have faced him with cum stains on my sweatpants. Gooseflesh marred my skin when I walked through it with my head dipped low, the cloud my very contrition that poured down on me. I was shivering as the liquid anthropoids crawled upon my bare arms because I left my jacket on her bathroom floor. None of us went to wash up before bed. 

They seemed to have fucked off to another city, but once I went by foot to the coffee shop, they descended again. Taunted me. Obscured my tears from Jungkook who was as kind as her, running up to me once he saw me to shield me from the rain. 

No wonder they’re friends. 

I don’t greet him, nor do I listen to him tell me off for not bringing an umbrella. I focus on burying my feelings the way I buried my girlfriend, six feet deep, and the final sifting of the soil is the cigarette I wordlessly pull out of my pack. Jungkook blinks at me. 

Then, holds out a hand. 

No wonder he’s my brother. 

I give him one and light it up with my white lighter, studying the way his brown pools zero in on tip flaming up in a soft orange tint. And when those gentle eyes shift to mine, I feel like weeping all over again. 

He puffs the smoke out away from my face. I follow him, hiding my tears by flicking my gaze in another direction, sucking on the cigarette as I bring it to life and pocket my lighter. And as the fume blackens my treacherous lungs, I have to rub my eyes in order not to reveal my emotions to him. 

But Jungkook sees through me regardless of my efforts. 

“Start talking,” he encourages, crossing his arm over his chest like Kitty did and my heart pivots on its axis, slicing through my flesh. The smoke curls around us in the pink shadow of the umbrella. “We don’t have much time. We have to be back at the company in an hour. He wants to talk to us.” 

He doesn’t have to mention his name—I know full well who he speaks of. If the said person saw what we were doing, he’d have a stroke and it makes me suck on my cigarette harder. 

“About?” 

Jungkook sighs, takes a drag and puffs the smoke sideways through pursed lips, his eyes lost in the distance somewhere behind my legs. “He never said. Just acts all high and mighty. Demands our time when we need it to rest in order to give our best before the concert tonight. I’m sick of him.” 

I humorlessly chuckle because I don’t think I ever heard him admit something like this. Hobi and I, we have these discussions nearly on a daily basis, but Jungkook never had the guts to admit the unfair, inhumane way we’re treated by the company we keep alive and thriving. Not just for us, but for the other groups under the management.  

I take a little happy drag of the poison, feeling a little more at ease with him. Enough to dig up my feelings and stain his hands, so I wouldn’t feel so alone. 

And I do. 

I prepare it, my nails black and muddy. I dig out the regret over my words, the ache in my heart from the way Kitty’s face fell, the mental agony from the fact she may never want to see me again and that I may never see her—that she won’t come to the concert tonight. 

And in the silence, as I look at my dirtied hands, I get an eyeful of the way I’m holding not just the fragments of the earth, but of wildflowers. Wildflowers of her scent, the heady perfume of her arousal that I can still smell under my nose because I didn’t have the heart to wash that part of my face. It was all I had of her for the time being. Petals of her beauty, her giggles and her moans quiver in my palms and the memory of her poking me with her toe in my cheek resurfaces in my mind. I smile so vivaciously that it hurts, though differently. I don’t regard it as sexual but as something innocently delicate, precious and endearing. And it deepens my regret that I spoke to her that way, that I made her feel ashamed of her breathtaking, picturesque body by lashing out my anger at her. 

It deepens it to the point that I lament it. And my smile falls—just like her face. 

Jungkook watches me. Has been watching me this whole time while I dipped inside myself. And he brings it back up, stubbing out his cigarette with his sneaker on the wet ground. I follow him—ready and not ready at the same time, but I feel vastly in me that I should tell him. And that he won’t ostracize me. 

“Let’s go inside so you can tell me.” 

I merely nod.

Jungkook takes the first step in front of me, keeping me shielded from the rain that begins to thicken. Maybe it grew tender from my memories—maybe it’s not as sinister when it comes to her. Maybe the rain can be mellow when she’s in my life. 

Except that she no longer is. I pushed her away. 

Under the roof of the coffee shop, Jungkook shakes the umbrella off of its sopping wetness and I can’t stand the sight of the rain. I walk inside, squeezing through him, mutter a quiet hello that the person behind the counter doesn’t hear. She’s tapping away her heart on the screen of her phone, her long nails clicking loudly, her round glasses pinched at the ball of her nose that fog up with each of her breaths due to her sagging mask. Tufts of hair spread out in all directions from her messy updo and she doesn’t lift her head at the sound of the bell ringing once Jungkook comes in. Her typing movements gain more speed and verve and I can’t help but to laugh to myself. She must be fighting someone on the other side—and I wish I could fight Kitty, just so I could talk to her. Just so I could still have her in my life. 

“What are you having?” Jungkook asks, a glistening puppy drifting his big pools on the menu suspended above the girl’s curled form. He doesn’t take the humid weather well. Invariably sweats like a dog. A cute puppy dog that never stinks. 

I was too busy being jealous of the girl possibly fighting her boyfriend to notice what she offered to make. I glance up, noticing the words are written in white chalk and some western options are embellished in a pretty cursive that must belong to her, which reminds me that one of our mutual friends worked here before the pandemic. I wonder if he’s still here or if someone else manages the place. There’s no way Beomseok was able to write in this pretty lettering. The man has problems with Hangul and to this day I don’t understand how he graduated with honors. 

Kudos to him. 

I reread the options and find only coffees with so much milk to make you sick for days. The only strong coffee is an Americano, but I need something stronger. 

“Don’t they have anything with whiskey in it?”

Both heads turn simultaneously in my direction and I laugh, dryly. The girl’s thumb hover in the air before she blinks, flings her phone to the surface of the counter and stands up, drawing close to us. 

Jungkook elbows me. “It’s 11 am.” 

“If we have a meeting after this, I need the whole bottle.” 

He laughs through his nose. “Fair enough.” Pivots to the girl, leaning his elbow on the counter and fixes his mask. “One americano for me. Do you, guys, still do flavor shots?” 

The girl taps in his order and only looks at him with her eyes while her chin keeps facing the monitor. “The times have changed but our brand coffees haven’t. What flavor shot would that be?” 

Jungkook nearly springs into the air. I swore I could see his puppy tail wagging. “Banana, please.” 

I scoff. If I were to drink a banana-flavored americano, I would’ve spent my day on the toilet. Jungkook throws me a dirty look before he focuses on the girl again. I shake my head, smiling, lightweight. 

“Okay, so, one banana americano for me and one bland americano for the grumpy guy. I’ll be paying for both. Can we sit here or is this to go only?” 

She proceeds to tell him that the mandate is still rubbing its shit all over these walls, but since we’re the only ones here, we can sit with our masks down. Jungkook thanks her and leaves her a tip, asking her if Beomseok still comes around. My ears perk up. I would’ve loved to see the guy. 

“I had to take the shift for him this morning, actually. The poor guy has some kind of a stomach bug. Are you, guys, friends?”

Jungkook nods, but doesn’t say anything else, which I’m grateful for. Beomseok was my classmate, the only friend I had in Daegu before I moved to Seoul. He didn’t support my decision to leave everything behind, but we reconciled, years later, when he followed my footsteps and we met at this very coffee place that he rebuilt with his own hands. Helped out the ahjussi who owned it; sweated blood, sweat and tears. And when the old man died, he left it in Beokseok’s hands, legally. 

I sit by the front windowsill once Jungkook brings me my coffee and sets down his, the banana flavor sailing through my nostrils as I take off my mask. I make a face at the sweetened scent and Jungkook raises his eyebrows at me before he shakes his head in dismay. I take a sip of the dark liquid, basking in the warmth that clings to my bones. 

But when he mentions her name, I spit out the coffee that I had yet to swallow. 

“What?” I ask, embarrassed. I didn’t hear the rest of the sentence and my cheeks flush. Jungkook’s forehead wrinkles—his brows quirking as far as they can and I wish the ground would swallow me up. 

Choking at the sound of her name? What has happened to me? 

“I said—” His bunny smile forms and I know I’m fucked, knee-deep in a quicksand of shit. He won’t let me live it down. “That she loves this flavor as much as I do.” 

I run a hand down my face. Jungkook chuckles into the plastic of his drink, wiping down my coffee on his plain black sweatshirt. 

“Which reminds me that you have stuff to tell me.” 

Anxiety pinches my fingertips. I was ready—or half ready—outside when he loosened the tensity of the atmosphere. But after the way I embarrassed myself in front of him, I don’t think I’m capable of telling him how much I fucked up. 

I’d rather suffer in silence and on my own. 

I look over at the girl. She’s sat back down on her stool and she’s reading the messages, her thumb trembling in the air before it swipes up, the other one in her mouth, her teeth nibbling on her long nail. 

The way I caressed Kitty’s fingernails bolts through my vision and my throat dries. I’ve shifted to the point that I begin to miss her and like the girl’s thumb, my jaw shakes. I still it, I hide it by propping my fist against it. 

Jungkook stares me down, urging me with his eyes and it works on me. I work well under pressure and he knows this. That guy is a puppy-fox hybrid and I hate him as much as I love him. 

“I don’t know where to begin,” I admit, and it’s true. It’s as vulnerable as I was last night and I can’t grasp how that emotion still breathes in me. I’m hoping it disappears as soon as I let it out, disappears into Jungkook, where it will be safe and locked. 

Jungkook takes a long sip without taking his eyes off of me. Smacks his mouth right after. “Did you fuck her?” 

It’s me who raises their brows at the brazenness of the question and I wish it were as simple as that. I wish I had fucked her and left her while she slept. Ended the story like that without any strings attached—without any additional chapters. But what I feel for her, the bound that is irrevocably unrelenting between us, exceeds a saga. That exceeds this entire lifetime. And I can’t admit that to him. 

“No,” I mumble, unable to reciprocate the eye contact, unable to tell him what we did because I don’t want him to know. I don’t want him to see her the way I did—let him in on her horniness. It was private and it was for me. I want to honor that and protect that privacy for her. It’s the only thing I can do now. The only right thing. My hands have gone mute. “But something did happen between us. I slept over and in the morning I fucked it up.” 

The vagueness of my words graces me with the fuzzy feelings I was used to before today, but I don’t trust them. I don’t fall for it—and my anxiety skyrockets, enough that a lump lodges in my throat. 

Jungkook doesn’t blink and I don’t wish to know what it means. “Fucked it up? How?” 

How do I tell him without spilling the entirety of me? Without disclosing that I coped with my girlfriend’s death by falsely believing that she was transcendently still with me, guiding me? 

No one can ever know that about me. Not even the being up above. 

“I wasn’t in the right mind to see her bare, so I had a go at her,” I mutter, my voice breaking and I take a sip to camouflage it, the warm liquid heating up the incoming of my past anger. “I regret it and I wish I could take it back.” I caress the fabric of the mask, crumpled on the wooden windowsill, and my lamentation blackens. “But she doesn’t wanna see me anymore.” 

Jungkook pulls his phone out of his pocket and places it beside his coffee. It startles me, but I concentrate my gaze on the only physical, tangible presence I have of her. 

“Did she tell you that?” 

Something opens within me, but once again I don’t trust it. 

“No.” 

“What makes you think she doesn’t wanna see you again?” 

I don’t answer, finding the question stupid. I toy with the ear strings of the mask, recollecting the way I did the same movement with her fingernails. And I don’t want to drink the coffee anymore. I don’t want to go to a work meeting—nor do I want to be here at this coffee shop. I don’t want to be anywhere; I don’t want to exist. 

Jungkook sighs. I still don’t look at him, gripping the string so hard against my knuckle that my thumb turns white. 

“You like her.” 

I do, but I don’t profess that, vocally. It’s pointless. As pointless as the course of my personal life. 

“Did you exchange numbers?” 

I shake my head ‘no’, the corners of my mouth naturally rounding in a frail pout. The thought of having her number and having the opportunity—

“If you see Yoongi sometime before work, make sure he’s well.” 

My head shoots up. Jungkook is bunny-smiling at his phone while holding his bizarre drink in his other hand. The remnants of my past anger magnetically affixes within me, creating a dynamic windstorm in me that really pushes me to lash out at him for taking the piss out of me like that. I grit my teeth, clench my fist, hold back with all my might that I feel my shoulder act up, paralyzing me with a pain that forces me back down until I curl in my seat—like that bespectacled girl. 

Defeated. 

“I can’t believe this is happening—”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, willing my softness back for him. Clutch my shoulder while he’s distracted. “Don’t fuck with me, Jungkook-ah. I’m not in the mood.” 

He hums in question, flicking his eyes at me. Seeing the state of me, he grows serious and locks his phone, setting it down. “I told you not to touch her, did I not?” 

I open my mouth to say something, but I run on empty, closing it back down. This is the reaction I anticipated and now that it’s here, it feels right. It feels like I deserve it—like I deserve to be told off. So I listen, my knuckles against my mouth, and I stare, numbly, at him. 

“I shouldn’t have let you take her home in the first place. I knew this would happen. I saw the way she looked at you when I introduced her to you. She was in a trace, hyung. And when you were the one to tell me she felt sick, I knew this was bad news,” he breathes out, his shoulders as broad and menacing as his words, and my guard collapses. I know where he’s going with this and I brace myself against it, brace myself against the cold, hard truth that will sever me in half. But I’m wrong. What he says next is something I never expected to hear from him. “Having a go at her is the worst thing you could’ve done to her, but she’s strong. She’s the strongest person I know besides you—”

His voice recedes and the background of this brown coffee shop dissolves into a pitch blackness. I sit in the middle of a tunnel, beaten and overpowered, his silenced words driving past me like cars, and I can’t move. A myriad of scenarios that explain why she’s the strongest person he knows darts through my brain, connecting with the big question mark of why she evanesced in her body in Hobi’s presence. And the reason why Jungkook disapproves of us fluxes over me like those liquid fuckers. 

She was hurt, badly, in her last relationship. And it feels as though I’m back on my side, on the hard ground, while it pours, the lights of my scooter streaking through it. 

“—but she obviously cares for you, unlike the others. She wouldn’t text me that if she didn’t, so take her fucking number from me and fix this. Grow a pair.” 

I blink at him with fluid sight. Brown evaporates through the black. 

“Don’t make me regret this.” 

And all of a sudden, I’m aware of what I’m doing when I seize his phone. See for myself that he wasn’t fucking with me like I thought he was. And I copy her number into a new contact. 

My thumbs hover in the air—just like the girl’s behind me. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan, @euphoricmyth, @jungkoock, @cinmmongirl, @hobiberrystuff, @kam9404, @fr0ggieth1nk.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

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[bitchesofostwick]

codex: notes from the inquisition

i'm rewriting that letter (THAT one; minor veilguard spoilers for those who haven't gotten there) not because i didn't like it (i loved it) but because i can and because i wanted ellinor to be able to respond. tag list: @elfroot-and-laurels @captastra @mournholdmushroom @vvakarians @galaxywhale @creaking-skull

My love,

It seems one of the pups got to my half-written work before I could, or before Tara could, for that matter. She’s a good mum and usually keeps a close eye on all of them, but if it takes a village to raise a child, I’d dare to say it takes two villages to raise a litter of mabari.

I’ve wrapped up all I could at Skyhold. Our quarters here felt strange enough to return to after all of these years. They feel stranger still without you here beside me. But I leave the fortress behind in good hands, and although I’m surprised at how many Inquisition veterans so quickly answered our calls for aid, I am eternally grateful. I make for Minrathous tomorrow morning, though I loathe to imagine how I’ll fare at sea again for the first time since returning to Ferelden from Kirkwall. I know what you’d say—take the longer route through Orlais. But first, we both know that’s counterintuitive to the urgency at hand, and second, I’d rather let Dorian win a score of chess games against me before I spend a minute longer in Orlais than I have to, for anything.

Speaking of Dorian, he told me in his most recent correspondence that you’d already tried to adopt about ten cats from the streets of Minrathous. Darling, we both know Cat isn’t fond of competition, we’ve got a full house as it is with the new pups. How do we plan to feed these cats? To house them? To transport them back to Ferelden? Please consider…reconsidering.

I digress. Ellinor, I know you are more than capable—of anything, of everything and more that I could never dream of doing myself. You are the strongest person I know. Still, it goes without saying that I worry for you. I fear for your safety—it’s kept me awake, tossing and turning, every night since you left my side. All these years, and I’ve never been able to stop worrying. If I could be there now, be your sword and your shield and your advisor all over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat. In a single breath. All this is to say please stay safe and be careful, and I will be there as soon as my feet can carry me.

All of my love, yours, eternally, Cullen

~~~

Darling,

You’re right about the urgency we’re dealing with. I don’t even have to say this, because you’ve seen it firsthand as well as I have. But in better times, I certainly would suggest you take the longer route to get here. I know you despise Orlais. Believe me when I say you’re going to despise Tevinter as well. In fact, when I told our friends you were on your way, Harding took on an especially sympathetic expression, and Dorian merely cackled in my face. There’s magic abound here, love. And I know you’ve gotten more used to it, and I know you cope better now than you used to, but I still need you to know. It’s not like the south. It’s unchecked and it’s everywhere, and I just want you to be prepared.

Maevaris is looking forward to meeting you—Dorian’s all but sung your praises to her—and so is Rook, though she reminds me at times of Hawke and I imagine your personalities may clash a bit, were the situation at hand not so dire. Morrigan is here as well. I can just about see your eyes rolling as you read this. So get it out of the way now, before you arrive.

As soon as your feet can carry you? Poor Lady. She’s quite spry for a mare her age, and it’d wound her to know you discredit her efforts this way. I promise not to tell her you said that.

I’m sorry—it’s not fair for me to joke. I know you mean every word that you say. In truth, it hurts my heart to see you worry this way, especially after all the pains we’ve gone through to build a quiet life for ourselves after the Inquisition. I wish it were not so. I wish this wasn’t happening. I wish we were at home again, picnicking in the fields with no bigger concern than what fruits we want from the market the next day, or which friends we want to visit with next. I hate that I have to be here. I hate that I’m without you. Worst of all, I hate that you have to travel to Tevinter of all places just to be with me again. If it were in my power, I’d have made sure you never set foot in the city of Minrathous, because I know you’re going to hate it here.

Dorian saw me write that. He said you need to grow a thicker skin.

Anyway. I’m being careful. I promise. I will see you soon, my love.

Yours, Ellinor

P.S. I did not adopt ten cats. Dorian made me put one back because apparently it belonged to the fruit merchant, and I was “stealing.”