#i guess i'm learning to just have fun with it?

[reblogthiscrapkay]

Okay. I'm going to be a fun ruinner here. I'm a current high school teacher and a former kid who grew up in the time before phones, and while I can see the argument here, it's missing some things. First of all, even with phones, kids nowadays still do dumb stuff like everything above. They still do light stuff on fire. They still do run into doors. Kids will just do things like this with or without phones. In fact, with a phone that might just mean they have someone to film it. The phone could even be a motivator here if the stunt is a TikTok trend or something they think will gain online traction.

Secondly, yes, kids have always found ways not to pay attention before phones made it even easier. But you know what has changed? The endurance of every student including the academic ones. I have had students tell me that they know they are addicted to their phone and that they hate it. They can't do a sustained activity, even ones they enjoy, if their phone is within reach. You see this in grown adults too. Picking up the phone is habitual. It is distracting in a way other activities aren't.

Anecdotally, my school instituted a "no phones whatsoever" policy this year and guess what? Kids still do dumb stuff. They still distract themselves. But you know what else? There's way less stress among the kids because people have to talk to each other. No one can take a text the wrong way, or fixate on what is happening to something they posted while they are in school. They are more engaged in life in general. And I don't have to waste half a period telling kids to put their phones away so more learning happens.

Every year one of my unions surveys teachers in my state about the biggest problem with students and number one for years has been phones in the classroom. Every teacher who is at a school with a strict policy is praising their admin for putting in the policy. With that out of the way, we can focus on other issues like student mental health and reducing testing.

"kids don't pay attention in class anymore Because Of Phone" is so funny as an argument. students haven't paid attention in class since school was invented. my parents' generation were in there making flipbooks out of the corners of their notebooks and doodling random shit instead of taking notes. and they didn't have phones.

[dadvans]

i am just so sad right now. like going into s8 i didn’t think bucktommy would be endgame, but the way s8 started changed my mind, so to have them be literally so in love for 5 episodes straight just to have them break up in the most abrupt way?? it just feels so last minute which is shocking because in the interviews this was apparently a planned thing but it doesn’t feel like it at all. Like if this was a concern Tommy had why didn’t it come up at all? like little throwaway lines of Tommy making jokes of Buck getting sick of him or wanted to explore other options or whatever. I hope the backlash makes them rethink, and Tommy comes back but for now it doesn’t seem like it. I guess my only hope is that Buddie goes canon, but even then i won’t be able to really enjoy it. I seriously don’t know if i’ll be able to keep watching the show, not solely because they broke up, but because of how they broke up. (srry for the long ask, just needed to vent)

no apologies needed!

at the end of the day, so many of us found joy in their story, their chemistry, the way even up until the final second tommy admitted that what he wanted with buck was something that would inevitably break his heart.

they were good together. tommy fit into so many intimidating parts of buck's life with ease. tommy is (as far as we know) still good friends with buck's best friend! tommy loved him anyway, loved him warts and all, road shotgun to buck's worst fears and weirdest conspiracies.

at the end of the day, we have a few things:

we GOT them. we got to see them together, we got the soft looks, we got the kisses, the foundation of them that is real and canon in a way we could strike like a match against the edge of a box to light them up for real all over again. i don't think "being canon" gives any credence or superiority to a ship, and have shipped people or characters that have never interacted/existed together in a tangible way, simply because it's FUN. that's how i'll always have fun with ships and fandom, BUT! what a wonderful thing to celebrate that we DID have them, that we have this as a foundation for whatever comes next, that there is never a door permanently closed to them finding each other again when it was already real from the start

for a lot of us, this isn't how their story ends. it's insane that so much fic and content was produced for a canon ship like this. so often fandom is chasing down the what-ifs and never-hads. a lot of us invested in bucktommy because they had the compatibility, the fit, the chemistry, the potential. that's novel shit! that doesn't just evaporate because they broke up in canon. it certainly hurts. the kind of hype we were surfing will crash and sink back in the oncoming months, but i know talking to a lot of people tonight that we aren't done with this ship. we aren't ready to say goodbye.

i'm sad. i'm angry. i felt a real sense of queer euphoria whenever i saw them together, even for 30 seconds, teetering on the edge of this new couple joy learning each other into something new and weird and fun that always lingered as a promise on the edge of their interactions. i was so excited for who buck could become with tommy as his home base. shifting that has rocked me in a bad way.

i expect people to inevitably step away from this ship and this fandom, but i'll mention that non-canon ships like arthur/eames or mcshep or social network rpf or short-lived shows from 1996 (hi sentinel) have had long-lived fandoms and left long-lasting impressions in other fandoms that have lasted for over a decade of zero additional content. this is a playground that, just because they've parted ways for now, we don't have to stop playing in.

and i'll be honest: i have several WIPs i'm like, well trash that! after watching the most recent episode. but i also have a dozen new ideas. new ways they could fall in love now or again, new ways they could meet, new ways they could be for each other.

i'll keep creating. i'll keep dreaming. they won't ever not have the spark that they had. the show could end tomorrow but we'll always have an open door to believing and shaping the thousands of ways they can and will find each other again.

[eatanorange]

marauders do the candy trauma salad trend since I JUST saw a fantastic one for pjo (highly encourage y'all to add your versions/to this pls I don't have solid hcs of everyone) (evan's is fully me projecting btw)(a lot of them are me projecting <3).

Upon completion I want to add up here n not just the tags that these do reference various traumas/bigotry so be careful and mind what headspace ur in n all that pls take care of urselves k thanks love u.

Sirius: Hi I'm sirius and every time my mother considered something I did 'impure', like experience joy or get sorted in to gryffindor, she took my mouth away! *momentary zone out from the horrors* I brought milk duds!

Barty: bazooka bubblegum. *vid cuts* I'm barty and I hate my dad for all of the reasons you can imagine and I think it would be fun if he blew up. good?

Lily: Hi I'm Lily and after I got sent to magic school, all emotional ties with my muggle sister, who regards me as a freak, and my mother, who was more sensitive to her side, were severed. They didn't tell me when my dad died. I brought 3 musketeers.

Remus: Hi I'm remus and I got bit by a werewolf when I was 5, then my dad offed himself because of it. I brought moon pies.

James: Hi I'm James and I fell into limerence with someone and incessantly pursued them for over a year in ways that were detrimental to both of our mental states. I was so public about it I don't even need to say who it was. My mother sat me down one day and said "was it something your father and I did, something we said, that convinced you you need to beg someone to love you? to let you show them love?" and that broke something in me. We're chill now though, and I have coping techniques that work for me while still allowing me to be my expressive self, so I brought mr. goodbars.

Peter: Hi I'm peter and my animagus is literally a rat. I brought sour patch kids.

Dorcas: Hi I'm dorcas and my pureblood parents will never say it to my face but they wanted me to be a boy. To compensate I was sure to always get top marks, be well liked, and experience gender dysphoria. I burnt out before our 5th year, and learning radical acceptance in the place of trying to guess unspoken rules saved my life. I brought smarties.

Regulus: Hi I'm regulus and in order to be sure my mother didn't assassinate my brother for running away, I stayed behind in the abusive household and eventually became a deatheater to keep my cover, hunting down one bald headed bitch's horcruxes until it literally almost killed me. I think it did kill me in some lives. and I brought the starburst.

Mary: Hi I'm Mary and due to blood supremacist bigots, I have to go to school with people who want me to die just for having the audacity to exist. The muggle world is also like this. The school I go to does not matter in this scenario. I brought mentos for the salad and a bottle of soda for the show.

Evan: Hi I'm evan and my ex went on holiday to another country for 3 months, told me we could write to stay connected, they didn't, broke up with me via owl while still on said vacation, and then came to talk to me in person about that, denied that it was an active choice to disconnect from me, then tried to put the onus of any friendship to follow on just me. We haven't spoken since. Also I'm a sex positive, but also trauma affected ace, it was an open relationship, and they somehow still managed to be shady/inconsiderate about hooking up with someone on the vacation. I brought blow pops.

Pandora: Hi I'm pandora and sometimes I get prophetic dreams so vivid I can't tell when I wake up. Sometimes, though the future is not stagnant, I see my friends die :) I brought airheads.

Marlene: Hi I'm marlene and I have 5 brothers. 3 of them accept my nonbinary identity. The rest, and my parents, blatantly ignore that I use they/them pronouns. Then they told me if I don't have children as an adult I won't be worth visiting because it's my job as a pureblood to produce an heir. So I went to St. Mungos and got sterilized. I brought baby ruth candy.

Hope you enjoy! and thanks if you read them all! This was fun for me.

[gh0stly-pages]

Out of Our Minds (Part Four)

Ledger!Joker x Harley Quinn-esque f!reader (18+)

CW: swearing, mentions of blood

Words: 5.9k

Chapter Summary: More sessions pass and while you learn more about the Joker, the pull you feel towards him grows stronger. Yet this time, it feels like everything is starting to change...

Previous part: Part 3

Notes: We back, and things are really picking up this time. Hope this distracts everyone who might be going through a tough time right now. <3 Things really pick up in this one, and I'm already excited to drop the next part lol. Have fun with this one!

With every session your infatuation for the Joker only grows.

At first, you tell yourself it comes from your want (well, need) for him to progress, both for the sake of actually seeing him healed and for the sake of your survival. Then eventually, you think it comes from the fact that his mind truly is incomprehensible, and you want to know what’s going on inside of it, want to crack open his skull and see every gear. But now, you’re not even sure what it is exactly that keeps you feeling empty anytime you’re not in a session with the Joker. You don’t know what you’re chasing anymore. Everything is just one big mind fuck.

Slowly, the Joker becomes more and more human to you. Where others still see some kind of raving, homicidal madman, you see a person. 

As your sessions carry on, you tell him more things about you, and you learn more things about him. He likes junk food. He is skilled with almost every gun known to man. He owns over thirty blades. His sleep schedule is so all over the place that he doesn’t even know what day it is ever. He prefers nights over mornings. He drinks his coffee with lots of creamer. Every fact you’ve tucked away in your mind and you’re not sure for what.

You like it when he tells you something personal about himself, but he likes when you do it even more. ��I was a gymnast for a long time,” you told him once, much to his surprise. Even you hadn’t expected to get into that part of your life. “I had to stop once I started going to school, just got too busy, but I was real good at it.”

“Gymnastics, huh?” He said, grinning, and you figured he must be imagining you, usually so rigid, flying through the air. It sounded like a joke. You were surprised he wasn’t laughing. “So, you’re pretty, ah, light on your feet?”

You smiled to yourself, thinking of all the memories. It had felt so nice to throw yourself into all that hard work. When you were flipping in the air, you felt free. “Guess you could say that. Certainly hasn’t come in handy though, in my line of work.”

“It may come in handy with mine. You’d probably make a good fighter, Doctor l/n.”

The thought of you fighting anyone made you laugh out loud. Have you thought about fighting people before? Of course. All your life people have hurt you and you wanted to hurt them back. But in the end, you had decided that wouldn’t do any good. Now, however, as you kept imagining it, the Joker appeared at your side, and you were winning this fight, him laughing maniacally beside you. It sent a sort of thrill through you. You didn’t like it. “Luckily, I’m not in your line of work.”

He had winked. “You can always change your mind.”

Alongside learning bits of things about him, he also taught you a few new skills, probably antsy to test them out considering he’s strapped to a bed most of the time. He (as best as he could still cuffed to a table) tried to teach you to pick a lock, how to get a perfect shot with a gun, how to rig up TNT. It was nothing you needed to know, nor anything you thought he should be thinking about, but you went along anyway because it was best he knew you were there to support his interests. As dark as they were…. You’d work on that. 

After your last session, you decided to bring something up to Mr. Dale.

“Doctor y/n, your progress has been very minimal,” he had commented as you walked up to him, before you could even open your mouth.

You frowned. “It’s the Joker, sir. It’s not going to move very fast-“

“Well, I am tired of waiting. The longer he sits in that cell I fear the worse he’ll get, and then what? He snaps and tries to kill us all?” He cleared his throat, adjusting his collar. You wanted to smack him. “Is there any way you could hurry up the process?”

Don’t rush me, was what you wanted to scream, but that wasn’t going to get you anywhere but kicked to the curb. “I do think I have an idea,” you said, trying to direct him to why you came up to him in the first place. “You need to let me bring in his makeup.”

Mr. Dale’s eyebrows shot up. And, of course, he began to laugh. If it weren’t for growing used to the Joker doing it so often, it would really piss you off. “You want to turn him back into a clown? Miss l/n, I fear that would only encourage him.”

“First off, it’s Doctor l/n,” you point out sternly. You’ve had enough of him treating you like less. If there’s another thing the Joker has taught you, it’s to not take shit from others. “And second, I want him to embrace himself. If he can be this clown persona he sees him as, we can take this persona and shape it so that it’s less… violent. Then, the makeup will no longer be something he associates with villainy. Please, Mr. Dale, I know what I’m talking about.”

You smiled wide as Mr. Dale’s face fell, absolutely shattered by your words. He wiped a few beads of sweat from his forehead. “Alright, Doctor l/n, I will allow it however if it ends badly-“

“It wont.” 

“You’re getting too comfortable. It’s his fault, I’m sure. I was right, he breaks people.”

You wish you could grab him by the collar and pull him close, but instead you settle on a deadly glare, looking him right in the eye. “I’m not broken. J isn’t broken.”

“Well, you’ve changed.”

You scoffed and turned away. “See you later, Mr. Dale.”

You have changed. You’re not sure if it’s for the better or not.

—————————

For your session, you walk in with a gentle smile, the tubes of makeup in your bag clinking together. You’re going to keep it a surprise, for later in the season. You’re not really sure why you feel giddy, but you do. It sort of outweighs your exhaustion, you’d run to the store late that night to pick up the same paints the Joker was said to have used. And when the guards finally let you in through the door, your smile grows even wider at the sight of the Joker, who is already smiling back at you. Not just because of the scars, it’s an actual smile. At first, his smiles had been menacing, but now you feel they’re actually kind of… nice. “Well, hello, doll face. So lovely to see you again.”

“Hiya, Mr. J,” you respond, taking your seat. “How are you doing today?”

“You know me, Doctor l/n, your presence puts me in a much better mood.” He props his chin up on his fist. “You look beautiful today.”

The past few sessions, Joker has certainly grown more flirty. It’s not something you’re a stranger to, the other patients have tried their hand at it, usually to try and get on your good side, but it’s different coming from Joker. You know he likes to rile you up, but you can’t help but feel the words are mostly genuine. “I look like this everyday,” you point out, not wanting to show him how his words affect you. 

“And you are, ah, beautiful everyday, doll.”

“Mr. J, refrain from flattery, please.”

He bows his head, pretending to be upset like a kicked puppy. “Oh, you’re no fun sometimes, Dr. l/n. You know I like to tease ya.”

“Some of the guards told me you’re allowed to roam around your cell now,” you say, trying to switch the subject before he can completely throw you off course. He’s good at that. “How are you liking that?”

“Hmmmm, well, I, ah, went from being stuck permanently standing in a small cell and now I can walk around the cell. Once you’ve walked it once you’ve, ah, seen it all.” He looks to one side of the room. “A wall there.” His head swerves to the other. “Oh, and one there too! What a surprise!” He chuckles to himself. Nothing makes Joker laugh more than his own nonsense. 

“So, not much better?”

Joker shakes his head. “Nah ah ah, not one bit. Can barely even make a ruckus too, the doors conceal all my banging and kicking and laughing. The guards can’t even get annoyed with me.”

You bite your cheek. “You really like being a nuisance, huh?”

“I do like to make people tick.” He wets his lips. “Especially pretty psychiatrists with sharp minds.”

Already, you can feel your cheeks warming. Embarrassment, that’s all it is. You, once again, try and take the conversation back to what you actually need to be in there for. “How about we get started, huh?”

Joker nods, smacking his lips together. Despite how much he licks them, they’re always chapped, the skin cracking. “What am I in for today? I feel we’ve talked about everything we possibly can.”

“And yet you’re no closer to getting out of here, are you?” You smirk at him as you bring out your clipboard. “I feel like I’ve been keeping it too light these past few sessions. I’ve learned a lot about you but you still won’t let me reach past the barrier.”

“What barrier?”

“The barrier between you and whoever you were before you became the Joker.”

His lips twist into a frown. Again, his past touches a nerve. “Dolly,” he warns, “I’ve told you, whatever came before doesn’t matter. I’ve always been the Joker. You won’t find anything past that.”

Once again, Joker is being a stubborn ass. As much as you enjoy talking with him, he also drives you nuts. “You’re saying your life started once Batman came to the scene?”

“He gave me purpose. What’s a joke without the punchline? Batman is the punchline.” 

“You were a child once, Joker.”

“Like most people, yes.”

“And how was your childhood?”

He ignores your question, grumbling as he stares at his cuffed wrists, rotating them as you sit there expectantly. You realize he’s not going to answer you and groan. So, he doesn’t want to dive into the past. You’re not going to force him. Prying was never the best way to go about things. You’d leave it alone again… for now. “Okay, sorry, Mr. J, we can move on. Is there anything that you’d like to talk about?”

Joker raises an eyebrow, not confused but suspicious. “You’re just gonna turn it into some kind of analysis moment, aren’t you?”

He knows me too well. “Well, that is my job. But no. Just, talk to me.” You hold your hands together, resting your chin on them. “About anything.”

“Hmmmm.” He looks like he’s having trouble thinking of something. “I’ve been thinking about Batman.”

“B-Man.” Of course. “What have you been thinking about him?”

“Those last moments I saw him, his expression. He looked so shattered.” You’re not really sure what he’s talking about, and you’re sure your face betrays this but he goes on anyway. “Oh, I’d live for a moment like that again. Seeing Batman react to my schemes, it’s so pleasing.”

“Do you consider your vendetta against Batman more for yourself or on behalf of the people of Gotham?”

He points at you. “There’s the analysis question. You can calm down there, Doc.” Joker coughs. “Behalf makes me sound like mister tall, dark, and dorky,” he snorts. “I’m trying to pull back everyone’s mask, but especially the Bat’s. I mean I, ah, already broke down Harvey Dent.”

That makes you go still. You hadn’t thought much on Harvey Dent, or how what Joker did may have affected him. You’re not sure if broken is the right word. Maybe scarred. Figures.  “The explosion. Right.”

“Poor, poor Harvey Dent. Gotham’s White Knight broke right in half. All because of me!”

You frown. “Harvey Dent died a noble man, Joker. Batman killed him all because Harvey was trying to do good.”

Joker’s eyebrows shoot up. “Harvey Dent is dead? And Batsy killed him?”

Oh, fuck. You clap a hand over your mouth, shaking your head. You weren’t supposed to say anything. It was an accident, you hadn’t meant to let it slip. “I… no, I mean, yes but-“ you stumble to try and cover it up but there’s no going back. Joker knows. And, honestly, who cares? He was going to figure it all out eventually. You take a deep breath. “Yes. Harvey Dent is dead. Batman killed him and five other people. And then Batman… he disappeared.”

Joker shoots up from his chair, and it takes you aback, causing you to squeal. You instinctively push your back into the chair while Joker looms over you. You’re not sure what he’s feeling, his mouth a thin line, his nostrils fuming. “Doll, why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” he hisses.

“I… my bosses didn’t want me to. They were scared of what you’d do. That this would inspire you…”

You wait for him to yell, to react violently, but instead he laughs. This time though, it isn’t a creepy giggle or a small chuckle, it’s a full body laugh, the kind that contorts his body. It sounds like it hurts. “Batsy killing people?” he chokes out. “I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it-tah one bit.” He clutches his stomach. “Batman is a very hard person to break, believe me.”

“You… you don’t think he killed all those people?”

“Ha! Absolutely not. He would’ve killed me too, he had me in the perfect place to do it, multiple times. No no no, something’s wrong about this…”

Slowly, you loosen your posture, moving back closer to the table. You’ve never even thought that any of that mess could have been something made up. “I��m confused,” you admit. 

“Doll, do you know how hard I tried to get Batman to kill me? He won’t do it! He just won’t. He’s got his, ah, one rule, his precious little moral code. He had me in the perfect position to kill me so many times yet he didn’t take any of those chances. Yet now he says he’s killed off five people including Gotham’s little savior? Puh-lease. There’s more to this story than they’re letting up.”

You hadn’t thought about it that way at all. Well, probably because you had no reason to. Joker knew more about Batman than any Gothamite did. You didn’t know much about him other than his attempts at stopping crime. Who were you to know Batman supposedly didn’t kill? You admit, it was strange that he had a streak of getting rid of criminals in ways that didn’t involve killing, then suddenly turned and killed a few people? “Are you sure you didn’t… break him?”

“No, if I did I’d know it. I’d feel it. The Bat is about as stubborn as me, doll. And now he’s in hiding?” He sniggers, a hand gently touching his lips. “Sounds like some kind of, ah, twisted joke. The Bat is hiding something.”

“I’m sure he’s hiding lots of things.”

“Whatever this is though I’m curious about it.”

Of course. You just ignited a flame in him. Idiot. “Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”

“Good thing they got nine lives.” 

The more you think about it, the more intrigued you are. Batman has always been shrouded in mystery for you. Was he good? Was he bad? And now it turns out his story is all over the place, that it doesn’t make sense? You kind of wanted to know now too. “Do you think it has to do with Harvey?”

“Only one way to, ah, find out.”

“Which is?”

He looks at you like the answer is obvious. “Drive the Bat out of hiding, of course.”

There it is. Mr. Dale was right. You shouldn’t have told him. He was going to find out eventually but now was not the time. Shit. “J, you can’t-“

He cuts you off. “You don’t like the Bat, do you?”

“Well, no, but-“

“Then don’t you wanna know what his little secret is? It must be somethin’ real special if he’s, ah, abandoned Gotham. Doesn’t sound very heroic to me. Sounds rather dull.” 

You know Joker’s dead set on getting back Batman for his own amusement, but what of you? What reason would you want to go find him for other than to expose him? He locked up Joker and left him here to rot. He killed five people plus Harvey Dent. He gets to hide away while people still root for him, safe from consequences. Everyone else suffers. Maybe Joker has a point. “I’m just a psychiatrist working Arkham asylum, Mr. J, trying to seek out the Batman is far above my pay grade,” you finally say, snorting, trying to get the idea out of your head. “B-Man can’t hide forever.”

“You’re right. Because we’ll drive him out.”

“We?”

“Well, you like to do good, don’t you? Little miss Mother Teresa, over here. You’ve already offered me friendship. So come on, help me, help Gotham, help us all!” He shows you his yellowing teeth. “Or, are you not as good as you think you are?” He reaches out with his hands suddenly, moving towards you. They only reach about halfway across the table, stopped by his cuffs, but you still jump. “What’s behind that mask, dear? Tell me what you really want. Let. It. Slip. Every dirty detail.” 

You’re trembling now. Like a rabbit caught in a trap. “I… I’m not sure I’m following.”

“You’re not as good as you think you are, dolly. I can see it! I, ah, can sense the darkness looking beneath your white coat.”

What the hell was Joker going on about? That you were as rotten as he was? You weren’t. You had dark thoughts sometimes, yes, but you weren’t crazy. You weren’t crazy. You weren’t. You weren’t bad you- “I don’t know what you want from me,” you whisper.

As your voice gets quieter, Joker gets louder. “Is that it? You feel all fine and dandy in this shitty life of yours, locked up with me in this madhouse? The people out there don’t care about you, they don’t care about any of us. But you’re fine with it, huh? Like a little pet pooch nipping at their heels. You’re just being optimistic!”

“Joker-“

“Tell me,” he demands, “what you really want! I want to break Batman! I want to strip all of Gotham down to its rotting core! And you want to keep yourself beneath their boots? Dolly, please, you’re much much more than that.”

Heart thumping, you can’t take his words anymore. You stand up abruptly, slamming your hands on the table. “Fine! You wanna know what I want? I want to hurt every single person around here who has done me wrong! Every single person who ignored me or disregarded me, everyday I wish I could just rip them apart. I- I hate everyone. I hate this stupid fucking place because everyone treats me like shit and at first I was only trying so hard at this because I can harldy survive and they told me that if your sanity improved then I’d get a raise!” What is with you today? You clap your hands over your mouth, hands shaking. Fuck, Joker was going to be pissed. Oh, goddammit. “J… I- I didn’t…” You struggle to find the words, trying to keep looking him in the eyes. They give nothing away. He is silent. “Mr. J-“

Then, out of nowhere, he cackles. He throws his head back, neck exposed, and laughs into the air, the howls of his laughter echoing throughout the room. Immediately, you’re caught off guard. You can’t tell if he’s laughing because it amuses him or because he’s angry. Even when he calms down enough to look at you and smile, you still can’t tell, and you continue to shake. “Doll,” he begins through his laughs, “that’s exactly what I’m looking for.” He doubles over with howling laughter again and you’re not sure if you should be scared or confused. “This whole time you just wanted a raise! So you took on little old me?”

There’s a lump in your throat. You swallow it down. “I didn’t have much of a choice but yes… it was that or be fired. But I did really want to help you, Mr. J. Are- are you mad?”

“Mad? No! I am, ah, lovin’ this side of you. It’s so cruel.”

That certainly took a weight off your shoulders, and you finally took a long breath in. Fucking hell, Joker was confusing. Guilt still gnawed at you. “You’re right, I’m just as selfish as you say people are,” you mumble.

“Exactly,” he hisses. “But it takes guts to admit it, especially to someone who, ah, doesn’t exactly handle things very nicely.”

“I’m so sorry, J.”

“Don’t apologize. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Then I don’t know what to do now. You’re set on getting Batman out of hiding, I’m going fucking crazy right now, everything feels so weird.”

Joker seems to find the utmost pleasure in your unraveling. “Doll, what’s in the bag?”

The question takes you off guard. “What?”

“When you came in, you were all giddy, and I could hear something moving in your bag I haven’t heard before. What is it?”

Ever so perceptive. “Oh… uh,” you fumble through your bag, bringing out the three tins of paint. “Your paint. They… they let me bring it for you.”

Joker’s smile falters a bit, yet he doesn’t look upset, just surprised. “My paint… You really brought it for me?”

You nod. “Y-yes.”

His voice dips low. “Put it on me then.”

Now that takes you by surprise. More than anything else that’s happened to you today.

The Joker is so guarded off, yet he’s inviting you in, allowing you to not just touch his face but apply his makeup. It feels sacred. This is a part of him that makes him not just recognizable, but feared. And here you are, being asked to put it on him. It’s so wrong it feels… right? It scares you.

“Are you sure you-?”

“Put it on me, y/n.”

If this is a test, you’re not exactly sure how to pass. But his look is unnerving and so you stand up, pulling yourself onto the table between you, a lump in your throat. You feel frazzled as you move close to him, bending your legs to the side of you as you settle on your thighs. This is the closest you’ve ever been to him. You can see every line of his scars, every wrinkle and crease on his face. “Okay,” you say, more to yourself than to him. You grab the white paint to the side of you, screwing off the lid and taking a large glob of the substance.

You loom close to him, your fingers wet with white paint, waiting for a sign that he’s okay with this. You don’t dare breathe, scared that any movement, any sound, will shut him down. But to your surprise, he doesn’t back away, he nods. Keep going. Your fingers finally land on his cheek, right beneath his eye, and you gasp at how warm his skin is. Joker shows nothing on his face to reveal how he feels except for the way his eye twitches slightly at your touch, his cheek twitching along with it. As you start to paint around his face, everywhere but his scars and lips, you wonder if his reaction stems from a disdain of being touched or from not having been touched so gently in so long. 

“Mr. J,” you whisper, and you can feel your hands start to shake again but you quickly steady them. Once his face is fully white, you dig into the black paint. He notices this and closes his eyes, letting you rub the dark paint in circles until each of his eyes look like they’ve settled into two, painted voids. When he opens his eyes again, they’re still trained right on you. “What am I doing?” you ask to no one in particular.

Joker doesn’t answer your question. He doesn’t have one for you anyways other than the obvious. “The red now, doll.”

“Y-yes, of course.” Quickly, you grab the red paint and stick your fingers in, moving them towards Joker’s lips but stopping. Putting the makeup on his face had been intimate enough but… his scars? That was a whole different kind of territory. “J…”

“Do it,” he murmurs, and it’s so quick you still wait, your hand just in front of his mouth shaking. This had to be a test. Some kind of sick joke. “Doll, can you, ah, hear me? I said ‘do it’.” 

You want to protest, but for what? He made it clear what he wants. So, you begin to smear the red across his lips, moving first to the scar on his right, your entire body shuddering as your fingers touch the sunken in skin where the carvings were made, the mangled flesh around it, every bump and curve. You don’t understand why anyone would ever find these scars ugly. To you, the way they healed, the way they are a part of him, there’s something hauntingly beautiful about it.

Godammit, J is beautiful.

As you continue to smear the red paint, he looms closer. “Do you wanna know,” he whispers, “how I got these scars?”

“I…” Of course you do. Everyday since you’ve met him, you go home and you can’t help but see his smile. See those scars. And you can’t help but wonder how they got there. You imagine a blade ripping across his mouth, drawing so much blood it drips down his chin. You’ve imagined him screaming in pain. You’ve imagined him uttering not a peep as the blade pierces his skin. So many possibilities. This was the barrier you’d been hoping to jump. “Yes,” you finally rasp.

“I can, ah, never get the story straight. It’s like a black hole, doll. A black hole in my mind. There’s so many ways I could’ve gottem, so many ways I think I gottem. What’s real? What’s not? Who the fuck cares?” Even with a furious growl in his voice, he laughs. “I can’t remember what it really was that did it. There was a horrible father. A wife who I tried so hard for. There was war, and violence, the mob, and so much pain. I’ve seen a lot. Maybe they’re all real memories, maybe they’re not, doesn’t matter! I hated the scars at first, I really did, but now? I embrace them because there is just so much to smile for. I’ve got so much left to do in this city. So much fun left to have. But there’s something I’ve been missing.”

You rub your thumb over his right scar, drawing in a shaky breath. “What is that?”

“I have all these plans, all these ideas and feelings over what I do and yet I’ve never thought anyone good enough to share them with. People, ah, will only be good to you for a while before runnin’ off with your secrets, it’s just human nature. I didn’t feel a kinship to anyone until you came along, Doctor l/n.” When he smiles, you feel the movement beneath your finger. “Look at you. So lonely. Letting everyone spit on you. Yet here you are, being so kind to me. I’m sure you imagined I could’ve killed you for keeping me along for a stupid paycheck, but you admitted it to me anyways. You are pulling back your own mask, right in front of me. You know you couldn’t fix me, right?”

You can feel tears welling in your eyes at his words, guilt gnawing at you. “I wanted to try at first. But now… I- I don’t want to fix you. I like what you are.”

“That,” he growls, “is exactly why I’m so drawn to you. I know, doll, that you crave something more than what you have now, this world kicking you down over and over and over again. I know the feeling. You’ve got nothing and everything to lose. Yet you manage to smile amidst the darkness. You smile in the face of pure chaos.”

“I don’t understand,” you mumble. 

“I want what’s best for both of us, doll face. You were right. I do need someone by my side. As I was saying, what I’ve been missing this whole time, was you.”

Your eyes grow wide. “Me?”

He nods. “You stuck with me this long. Even for a paycheck, that’s somethin’ no one else would do. And yet the big Arkham bosses are out there now, laughing at the both of us. Ain’t that unfair?”

“Yes.”

“Doll, stick by my side, and we’ll let them all know just how corrupt they truly are.”

Your arms break out in goosebumps. Every word the Joker utters is dripping with venom, an edge to each syllable. You’ve tried to ignore him, the way he crawls into your rib cage, into your mind, finding your weaknesses, your dark desires and whims you push away. Yet here he is, getting you to reveal them, and trying to get you to go along with him. It’s working. “Let’s show them, then.”

You look down at your fingers, covered in red, and it almost looks like blood. 

He grins. “That’s the spirit.” With a curl of his finger, he gestures for you to move closer. You do, and he cranes his neck towards your ear. “If you really wanna help me,” he whispers, his breath hot in your ear, “then tomorrow is the day you get me out of this place.” Every t is pronounced as sharp as a blade. “You’re smart, doll, I know you can think of something.”

Breaking Joker. Out of Arkham. A few weeks ago, you might have grabbed your remote and hit the red button but now? You think you might just take him up on that. You move back to look him in the eye. “You won’t help me think of something?”

“I’m sure you’ve got something in that, ah, pretty mind of yours.”

You huff. “J, I’m serious. This is Arkham. It’s constantly guarded and protected. And I’m just me.”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“You’re you, sweets. No one’s gonna suspect you.”

Oh fuck. He’s right. No one gave a shit about you. You’d fly right under the radar. That part was easy. But everything else? This wasn’t exactly your forte. You didn’t know what to do. “I’ll try my best,” was all you could offer.

He reaches his hand out, and at first you think he’s trying to grab you, but instead he goes after one of the paint tins. The red paint. Agonizingly slow, he removes the cap, getting his fingers wet with paint. “Doll, you and I are gonna make something special. I always knew you had it in ya. C’mere.” You tilt your face towards him, and Joker smears the red across your lips, a mirror of his own striking smile. “Don’t forget to smile,” he says.

“Never.”

_______________

Later in the night, Joker stares at himself in the reflection of the small, grimy window of his cell door. His face is painted exactly the way he likes it, maybe just a bit different, but he could care less. This, this person he’s looking at, is the person he is, the person you have given back to him. He touches his face and he can still feel your phantom touch, the way you had run your finger over his face, his eyelids, his scars. You hadn’t backed off, or avoided them, you had touched them so softly. Soft. You were soft. 

You made Joker feel soft and he hated it.

Yet, he couldn’t fathom getting rid of you. It would be easy, definitely. If things actually went well tomorrow and you managed to get him out of Arkham, he could easily kill you off. No one would look for you. And even if they did, helping him break out of Arkham would mark you a criminal, and Gotham would curse your name forever. But Joker doesn’t want to do that. Even the thought of your death makes him angry. He is used to wanting to hurt people, yet when he comes across you now, he feels… protective. He knows how the world hates him, yet somehow you showed him sympathy. No, even better, you were showing him loyalty by offering to help break him out. And if you really went and did it? God, he almost breaks into chills.

When he looks at you, he notices his body reacting strangely. His heart speeds up, his hands feel sweatier, his mind feels like it’s going to split right in half. This isn’t the kind of insanity Joker usually basks in, this is something worse. He doesn’t want to put a name to it. You were so good, and yet when you let your mask slip, Joker couldn’t help but feel pulled in even more. What lies beneath you is dark and spiteful, and Joker wants to see all of it.

You won’t let him down tomorrow, Joker is sure of it. 

A voice on the intercom comes through the crack under the door, crackling through the speakers placed along the hall outside. “Shutting lights off. Everybody get to bed.”

Joker grunts, moving to plant himself down on his metal “bed”. He’s not going to sleep though, how could he? Chaos was coming, and you were bringing it straight towards him.

________________________________________________

When you get home, you stumble into the bathroom, quickly turning on the sink faucet and drenching your face in water. You let the ice cold water drip down your face, crying out as you try and get a grip on things. Your fingers are still covered in Joker’s face paint, the water hardly washing any of it off. It’s like he’s on you forever.

Why, for fucks sake, do you almost want it to never wash off?

You look at yourself in the mirror now, the makeup that Joker spread smeared down your chin. This is you now. Mr. Dale was right, you have changed. But fuck it, it was for the best. This change, this thing radiating beneath your skin, it’s something dangerous yet powerful. It moves you. You’re not crazy, you’re insane. 

You can’t tell what this feeling is towards Joker. It almost feels like… love.

Love for the Joker.

The Joker. The Joker. The Joker-

He was right. He was always right. People were going to walk over you all your life. You were tired of it. Nothing was going to change if you didn’t change it first. You couldn’t stand around and watch these people, with their pockets fat and their reputations swell, walk around with such pride when you knew they were all phonies. This city, your city, you’re going to unveil it. No longer will it crush you. You’re going to crush it. 

You were going to be Joker’s partner in crime. And you loved it.

Taglist: @lightsabergirl / @knoepfl / @jeffswh0re / @itsmrshamilton / @heath-ledger-jokers-wife / @lolwey / @ilovetoomanymen / @amazingzou/ @ronniesweetkisser / @emberhatesthemoon

lmk if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

[wisteria-lodge]

Hi! I would like to ask this Narcissa seems to love Lucius and Draco, cares for them and appears to be a family oriented person but how come it is stated in her wiki that she despises the Blacks, wouldn't this imply she considers herself more of a Malfoy and I mean why would she despise the Blacks when it comes to blood purity/superiority, I don't know the correct term but don't they practice/talk about it more/the Blacks prioritize it so shouldn't she be proud of being a Black?

So I just want to say real quick that the fanwiki is not always... accurate. It includes a lot of data from the games, interviews, interviews with the actors that I would never count as canon, and it's also written by y'know, fans. it's actually pretty funny to read through the entry on say, Lucius, and be told that he was a "high achieving model student" and "his talent in potion-making even earned him a place among Slughorn's elite Slug Club." (right. it was definitely just the potions.) I'm learning that he "favours a more elegant, refined technique when he engaged an adversary and generally demonstrates great form in his duelling style." [citation: Jason Isaacs is pretty]. And while we're on that topic "it is likely that his looks might have improved upon the fall of his former Master." Very important that we know Lucius gets hot again after the books.

My guess is that this is the bit you read:

[text id: Narcissa had a close relationship with her oldest sister Bellatrix despite their differing temperaments and personality traits. Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did. The ones who dared defy their family's beliefs, such as her older sister Andromeda and cousin Sirius Black, leading her to ignore and disown them.]

I don't know about this. Maybe Narcissa and Bellatrix were close at some point, they do use nicknames to refer to each other, but in the timeline of the books there's a LOT of friction.

Narcissa is actively trying to get Bellatrix to "leave [her] alone" during the Spinner's End chapter (which is what the snippet up there is citing.) Bellatrix is... unhelpful about the Draco situation, saying things like, “If I had sons, I would be glad to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord!" She's also blaming Lucius for the Department of Mysteries fiasco, which Narcissa is pissed about:

“Don’t you dare — don’t you dare blame my husband!” said Narcissa, in a low and deadly voice

We also see some sort of power struggle between them later on, in Malfoy Manor:

“This is my house, Bella, you don’t give orders in my —”

In the books, I don't think we get any details about how Narcissa specifically feels about Sirius, or Andromeda. There's this:

“I expect Potter will be reunited with dear Sirius before I am reunited with Lucius.”

Which is just a very Narcissa way of saying "you're on thin ice." I guess the "dear" feels slightly mocking. But she's also actively threatening Harry, so not the most representative moment. We do get this from Bellatrix:

“We — Narcissa and I — have never set eyes on our sister [Andromeda] since she married the Mudblood.”

But... she is also speaking for Narcissa, and panicking in front of Voldemort. This might not even be true.

As for the wiki saying "Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did" - that's such an odd sentence I kinda feel like there must be a typo in there. I'm not sure there's any evidence in the books that Narcissa despises the Blacks.

(I mean I do think, in a fun headcanon way, that you can make a case that she went subtly low-contact with her family after she married Lucius. The Blacks seemed to have a pretty toxic family dynamic going on circa the first war, and one thing you can say about the Malfoys is that there's a lot of love there, and as a family unit they seem solid. Maybe Narcissa did start to think of herself as more of a Malfoy than a Black. (Maybe her Malfoy-blonde hair isn't natural...)

I also think there's something going on with the house elves. The Blacks clearly have a culture of house elves, and the Malfoys... don't? Like there don't seem to be any house-elves there once Voldemort takes over (and I mean, Dobby was such a *stunningly* bad security breach, I'd be shocked if there were.) But the house seems to run just fine, while hosting a bunch of Death Eaters, Snatchers, and prisoners. Makes me think Dobby was the *only* house elf, and that he was originally a Black family house elf who came over with Narcissa when she got married. In that case, I suppose the decision not to get more might mean something. But all that's just me having fun with the worldbuilding. )

[johnslittlespoon]

genuine question because i’m not a writer - is there a reason you have someone edit your writing rather than just putting it through an online grammar/spelling checker? sorry if this is a dumb question i’m just curious

omg not dumb at all!! it's def up to personal preference (i've never had someone beta my fics prior to this fandom), but for me, yesss absolutely there is a reason. i'd say i catch most of the actual grammar/spelling errors myself before sending my fics to c, just using google doc's built in checker, but for one, i'm dyslexic, so there's always stuff i miss lol.

and two, i love how blunt and honest c is when she's reading my stuff — i know she won't hesitate to tell me if something doesn't make sense, or if it could be worded better, or should just be cut, etc. i guarantee if i put out my fics unbeta'd vs beta'd side by side, there'd be such noticeable differences; i've learned so so much from her these past couple of months, both in terms of practical things and also just how to have a better 'voice' in writing, i guess? her mind is incredible and beautiful :')

for me, it's just very helpful to have someone who will look at what i write objectively and will be honest with me and not sugarcoat things when helping me improve my writing. i find that's how i grow best, but that's also smth that (i think) requires a good level of trust and understanding, so i'm also v lucky to have c as both a friend And a beta reader <3

and also, on the less technical side of things, just getting feedback in a doc in the form of comments is so fun and helpful and motivating too, i always look forward to this from both ali and c, i owe them both my life fr bc i mean it when i say TAS would not be where it is without them :')) <3 it's rly fun to see what's going on in their heads as they read, to see what things could be elaborated on or what things fall flat, and i'm so so grateful. ali and c appreciation post fr

that's long winded but those are my reasons for not just doing it all myself! i could, and i did for like a decade, but i was very scared of criticism for a long time and it made me a bit stagnant i think, but now i look forward it and i genuinely get nervous putting stuff out without c or ali getting their hands it first LOL <3

[tendermiasma]

Hey, if someone did want to write a fic, what sort of characterization would you, as the creator, most want to see in Clover? I can think of quiet/untalkative, skittish, and delicate, but surely, there’s more?

And in what ways would you say that your Halsin most importantly differs from basic game Halsin?

I mean part of the fun for me is getting to see how people make inferences about him from all my drawings and ramblings. He's my guy, he obviously has a canon, but it would never be exactly as I'd write him because I'm not the one writing it! Fic is transformative etc etc. I've also witheld parts of his story because I want to draw them first lol (massive scar on his cheek? that old thing?). He's a hedge wizard who learned magic under great stress and his tether to the Fey gives it a strange tilt with a bunch of holes where basic things should be and nuance and knowledge in disturbing areas. His masterpost talks about that stuff especially in the Magic and Post-game life sections.

Also my job is to yap about him so if you have a burning question you can see I'm happy to answer.

Halsin-wise I guess honestly I've gotten people asking me how Halsin handles the poly situation but I don't really do anything with it because I care so little about it-- as in it barely crosses my mind lol. I suppose that's the main difference? If you have a great urge to add poly stuff, Clover wouldn't join is the extent of my thoughts. He's deeply attached romantically to one person and that was a hard road. I adore Halsin's character a lot so I wouldn't say he's vastly different nor do I claim to be 100% canonical because I love getting to interpret him working with what I have and my own biases. He's a guy I like to turn around in my head like a 3D object. You're going to write him how you see him too and again it's just fun to see.

[nadas-dirthalen]

A Veilguard Achievement Icon Opened My Eyes on 15 Years of Lore... but Was I Right?

— PART ONE —

Hello again, friends and travellers. Now that I've beaten Dragon Age: the Veilguard, I wanted to go through all those 30,000 words of predictions that I wrote in the ~11 days leading up to its release. I'd seen an achievement icon that pieced together a lot of Dragon Age lore for me.

But, I hadn't played Veilguard. All I had was the footage from September 19, the achievement list, and anything else BioWare had released.

So... was I right? And if so, how much was I right about?

This is your warning: This post will contain spoilers for the entirety of Dragon Age: the Veilguard, and all Dragon Age content made before Veilguard.

(no, this screenshot isn't a spoiler, I just like it.)

Welcome Back for Round Two. >:)

Stating right off the bat: I have only played Dragon Age: the Veilguard 1.5 times and so this collection is very, very incomplete. There's no way for me to learn every codex before they're even all on the wiki. If I've missed something, let me know!!

I don't know how many parts this is going to have. This has been a very fun, but very sleep-deprived week. Expect no sensible organization here; we're letting the ADHD reign!

That said, here's what I'm going to attempt to do:

A Recap of My Grand Theory: Solas was the Blight's Beginning, and Mythal was Responsible

How I Made My Predictions: A Study in Context and Pattern Recognition

What Did I Actually Get Right? (An Overview, Anyway)

Early Signs Veilguard Added to My Theories

A Recap of My Grand Theory: Solas was the Blight's Beginning, and Mythal was Responsible

I really don't have space to go in depth on what amounted to 30,000 words of theorycrafting (which still boggles my mind, how did I do that and still find time to sleep). Instead, I'll link every post and make a bullet point list of what big guesses I made in each.

Part One: Solas was creating from spirit and lyrium, crafted in one of Mythal's lyrium coffins that we see both in the Temple of Solasan and Trespasser. That means that some part of him was part of a Titan, once. There were hints about this across all three preceding games, and these hints re-contextualize those games and their place in the Dragon Age narrative. The Titans are likely the Forgotten Ones, because Fen'Harel walked among both the Forgotten Ones and the Evanuris in his legends.

Part Two: The Mythal lullaby in Trespasser is the story of Solas' creation, specifically. Da'durgen'lin refers to 'little stone boy.' Solas' twice-used phrase Ar dirthan'as ir elgara, ma sula e'var vhenan is him speaking to lyrium itself, which he does both with Sera (ancient elvhen? andruil memory? people go into more depth on this than I ever do) and the Eye of Kethisca. Elven phrases and pieces of writing/song from everywhere point to Solas' backstory and are all possibly written/sung by Solas. The codices in the Temple of Solasan are also referencing his backstory. There is a larger narrative at work happening in the random elven literature we find, and it suggests a lot of things about the world.

Part Three: The Titans are definitely the Forgotten Ones—at least, part of them (more on that later). They have all been sundered. One part remains in the Abyss; the other in the Fade. The Fade, in fact, is every Titan's consciousness, all sundered by Fen'Harel. This is the "leg" that the wolf chewed off to "escape the trap": Solas' connection to ir sa tel'nal, isatunoll. This is why he loves the Fade: he's reconnecting with the consciousness he broke himself apart from. This is also why he has Titan/Stone magic. This is also why lyrium grows both in the Abyss and in the Fade.

• Oh, and spirits seem like they might be the thoughts of Titans.

Part Four: The Chant of Light tells the story of the Evanuris, from their manifestation as spirits to their mining of lyrium and war with the Titans to the Makers' creation of "everyone else." The archdemons and Magisters Sidereal are also explained in its verses. The Chant also suggests the Maker is a Titan whose mind and body are sundered, and that Andraste's hearing the "voice of the Maker" is her hearing the Titan's song.

Part Five: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 1/3: Mythal is known to have mined people from lyrium. Elgar'nan probably sundered spirits, notably Dirthamen and Falon'Din. Falon'Din seems to have wanted to attack Titans that "belonged" to other Evanuris to gain more "worshippers" (lyrium people; slaves) for himself.

Part Six: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 2/3: Sylaise probably made the Scaled Ones. June probably is responsible for not just lots of inventions, but the invention of the geas. Dirthamen's "secrets" are "thoughts" (spirits) forced into the bodies of his worshippers... and animals... and trees (AKA, he made a lot of abominations).

Part Seven: The tragedy of the Evanuris, part 3/3: the blight seems to be the Titans' defence against repeated attacks. Crucially, all of the Evanuris made the Titans this way... but Mythal made them that way first. The reason the Titans are "forgotten" now is because Mythal tried to erase all memory of them so that none would find the blight again. (She failed. Thanks, Andruil and Ghilan'nain).

Part Eight: The story of Solas, part 1/3: Solas came from an un-sundered world where both "mage magic" and "Stone magic" were the same thing. He was created in the Temple of Solasan, where "icy terror" became the first blighted Titan. Solas' existence was significant to the Evanuris because it suggested that one can survive the blight, and his moniker (the Dread Wolf) comes from the fact that he was a wolf (elven general) that came from the terror Titan (dread).

Part Nine: Since Solas' origin story is the start of the blight, then all of Solas' story from that point is not the story of just him, but the story of the blight. This signifies his place in Dragon Age's entire narrative, and also spells out what the overarching Point™ of the series is. Backed into a proverbial corner where none of the Evanuris would stop the things that angered the Titans, Solas' only choice was to sunder the Titans from their consciousness. He misses the Stone, also.

• He also imprisoned the Evanuris in Stone, something called "gangue" in Hissing Wastes codices.

• His ultimate goal is to return consciousness to the Titans, fixing the "wound" he made when the Veil went up.

Part Ten: The Inquisitor is special because their spirit is from the same Titan as Solas. The Breach is a threat because if the Veil comes down too soon, all the Titans will come back blighted and angry. The Veil disintegrating means all the Titans are waking anyway, little by little. The Dread Wolf shape is actually an aspect of Terror that can kill people with fear. The Evanuris who've been killed before have potentially had their spirits "recycled" and might be reincarnating into mortal people now. Oh, and a bunch of predictions on the companions, Solas/Mythal, etc, that I'll go over again down below.

How I Made My Predictions: A Study in Context and Pattern Recognition

I've had a lot of people ask how I... y'know. Did that. How one person could write 30,000 words of guesses in the week and a half before Veilguard, citing so many sources, and... not be that far off, probably.

Honestly the short version of this is, "I read the Chant of Light as it appears in World of Thedas, not with the canticles out of order like they are on the wiki, has anyone else done that?"

The longer version of this sounds even shorter, at first: I started playing Dragon Age games in March 2024, and I have ADHD.

Oh, and I'm a writer who's always been interested in game development, with dreams of maybe one day working in games or on video game IP. That helps shape my understanding of what games might need to accomplish, narratively, and the mechanisms they might use to accomplish those goals.

I was able to play all three games this summer. In fact, I finished Inquisition for the first time after Veilguard's first trailers this year, on June 26. What that means is that my first real experiences learning the finer lore of Dragon Age were all this year, and had the context of Veilguard's trailers. We knew we were getting a narrative followup to Trespasser, and so where did I center my focus? Trespasser. Everything I learned about Thedas, I tried to make sense in the context of Trespasser. Every piece of lore had to fit with Trespasser. Not just the environment of the Crossroads or the companions' banter, but what Trespasser was trying to teach us.

And most of its codices are about the Evanuris warring with the Titans. The Titans, who we'd just seen in Descent. The storytelling point of Trespasser was to make us question the nature and morality of Fen'Harel by giving us context about the Evanuris and their own history, then letting us ask for Solas' perspective on it.

That's the thing about Dragon Age. Very little of it is there pointlessly. Every level, every DLC, every codex, is there to teach you something. Even the smaller codices, which don't seem to mean anything tremendous, are there to teach you how to parse the voice of all the other codices. So even beyond the games, I asked myself: what is Tevinter Nights trying to teach me about how Thedas works? What is The Masked Empire teaching me? Is it the same? And what about World of Thedas, volumes 1 and 2, written from the perspective of Thedosian historians, deliberately written to misdirect the reader with the historians' biases?

Whatever I found had to work with what was promised in Veilguard: a controversial Solas. New understanding of the Evanuris. Harding's new magic. Regions of Thedas we never explored, and why those places would all matter.

Knowing the three act structure, as a writer, and knowing that ensemble casts all need to bring a puzzle piece of the grander theme into the main plot through their own personal quests, I had a vague skeleton of what I would need to find. The shape of the information I found would have to fit the world and the relationship dynamics advertised in the Veilguard. Origins would have to matter to the Veilguard; same with DA2; same with Inquisition. Despite the series being disconnected by featuring different leads, the worldbuilding is very much connected between instalments, and so Veilguard would have to be one logical step past everything that developed in Inquisition. (Nevermind a whole host of other criteria that honestly deserves its own post).

It's very hard to describe how the pattern recognition in some ADHD brains works. What I will say is... I noticed something. Every mistranslated elven codex where it deliberately says it has been mistranslated is an invitation for you, the player, to try and figure out what is correct. Everywhere that World of Thedas says that something must be preposterous to the historian narrating it is an invitation to ask yourself: could this be possible? How would that work?

Things like the linguistic overlaps between the elves and the dwarves are intentional. Words that are phonetically similar are far more often intentional than simple oversight. Every scrap of lore holds some significance.

Because in Thedas, every perspective is right, to some degree. Including the Chant of Light. Including ancient elvhenan. If you try and make them all reconcile with each other, and you've also done so in the context of the Veilguard, and you've also got ADHD and a near-photographic memory that is strongest with emotional memories and rules/systems? Well... You get me. You get 30,000 words of "one single picture of lyrium-spirit Solas cracked all of Thedas for me in the span of one mind-blown week while I power-read World of Thedas to check all my facts and essentially lived inside the Dragon Age wiki."

(AKA, you get Bellara in human form. Sorry, Bellara. It's rough out here. But now you, reader, know the reason that this blog was renamed nadas-dirthalen in late September—and why I, when I embraced my nonbinary identity, chose the name Lore for myself.)

And what was promised in Inquisition, as well as in Veilguard's marketing? The Evanuris, Titans, and the blight. They would all have to tie together—and they did.

What Did I Actually Get Right? (An Overview, Anyway)

I'm going to try and categorize this. Oh god. These are going to be such disorganized posts, but I want them done before much information comes out, so bear with me.

What I Got Right:

Solas and Mythal: Yep. He caused the blight; she made him do it. He created the Veil and wounded himself. They weren't romantic; they were trauma-bonded. She wasn't a paragon of good. They both tried to stop the blight anyway.

Sundered Spirits: The sweet, sweet vindication of learning that Dirthamen and Falon'Din were sundered all along. Thank you, BioWare. We also learned that this happened to the Titans (more on broader implications in the last category in this section).

Titan Stories In Elven: Bellara sang "Ir sa tel'nal Mythal las ma theneras" and my heart soared. :) My ego swelled. :) That's all the confirmation I need right now that I hit the nail on the head with the elven lullabies and Solas' backstory.

The Chant of Light Told the Story of the Evanuris: The demons that would be gods. We know now that all the Evanuris manifested physically from their original spirit forms. The Chant called it.

Mythal, Andruil, and Ghilan'nain's Roles in the Blight: Mythal created it, but wanted it sealed away; Andruil found it again; Ghilan'nain made it grow and grow.

Taash, a little? I hypothesized that fire-breathers might come from the Scaled Ones or otherwise have been engineered by an Evanuris. I know they were engineered for the purpose of war, but not by whom (I... think. Needs a replay to confirm).

Davrin: Yes! Davrin was the one who connected that Solas feels responsible for specifically the blight and conveyed that to the rest of the team. He questioned the nature of the Grey Wardens and helped to choose a path forward without any archdemons left.

Harding: Yup. Titan connection. Yup, our narrative path to finding out about angered Titans.

"Do We Win?/Do We Stop the Blight?" Well, in Solas' good ending, we do get what I thought we would: the Evanuris all gone, the Titans on a path to restoration.

What I Definitely Did Not Get Right:

VARRIC?!?! When I said, "If you know, you know. Lyrium dagger, dwarf. If you don't know, close your eyes and pretend you read nothing" — GUYS I THOUGHT VARRIC WOULD GET MAGIC HE REALLY HATED AND I CRIED LIKE A BABY WHEN I SAW WHAT HAPPENED :(

Lucanis: I really thought Spite would be a Forgotten One. However, it's stated a few times that Spite is not a run-of-the-mill demon, and Lucanis is not your average abomination. I wonder if there's banter I'm missing, or if something will happen with that in DA5. Poisoned fruit, and all that.

Emmrich: I really thought Emmrich would do world-changing "give all the spirits back to the Titans" stuff. I think my error with most of the companions is that I forgot how much information actually can feasibly fit into a game without it being 300 hours long or melting the brains of its players.

Neve: Nothin' happened with gangue mentions, or Archon mentions! I was way, way off with Neve.

The Eclipse: It did not have anything to do with the Bird Boy Evanuris™ :( But Elgar'nan moving the sun and moon was badass as hell, and I honestly loved Elgar'nan far more than even my highest expectations.

What I Haven't Gotten Right... YET:

Bellara….?????? Guys I thought there was a Dirthamen connection and they put a codex in the game that says specifically that Dirthamen held a fondness for frogs, same as Bellara. And then they gave her a brother who... ya know... was... presumed... dead... AKA, on the other side of the Veil... for a while... And then they gave that brother a sundered piece of Bellara's own vallaslin. John Epler, where are you going with this please I wanna KNOW, the Bird Boys™ occupy my mind at all hours. (But also? Surprise Forgotten One mention with Bellara, and surprise Anaris mention specifically, and I'm going to pat myself on the back for being so oddly focused on Anaris in my predictions.)

Chant of Light Confirmations: I actually have yet to see a single Chant of Light verse in Veilguard. I think they're saving that one for later, keeping it up their sleeves for the next games. The needle didn't move with confirming/denying anything in the Chant except for the Evanuris as spirits that manifested into physical shape and then sought to conquer the Titans.

Titans-as-Forgotten-Ones: For a time, I thought they disproved me on this, showing Anaris as a spirit, the "eighth" while the "sixth and seventh" roamed free. Showing Anaris craving a body to wreak his evil (?) machinations upon the world. But then I got to thinking, and I realized: they never said the Forgotten Ones are spirits, they just showed one being a spirit. What did they say about spirits in general, or the Titans' relation to the Fade in general?

Titans-and-Fade Connection: I theorized that the Titans' consciousness is the Fade, and the Veil is what keeps them all sundered. I theorized that spirits are thoughts, either floating around in the Fade or held in lyrium. For a long time in Veilguard, I thought I was being disproven. Solas' memories don't say that the Veil sundered all Titans, and they don't say that Titans' consciousness is the Fade, either. But, as I went through Veilguard, I realized... they also didn't not say it. And that's when I knew.

I have to go digging again. And after 8.5 days, here's what I think I've got. It's a start, but a promising one.

Early Signs Veilguard Has Added to My Theories

Remember how I said that there are very few in things in Thedas that are there for no reason? Well, Veilguard has given us plenty of tie-ins to previous material already, just with the stuff I remember off-hand from the past week, no wiki entries to go by yet.

(Please bear in mind that I have had this game for 8 days and this is just barely scratching the surface of its content!)

Let me re-examine some of the things I mentioned above:

Titans-as-Forgotten-Ones

The Nadas Dirthalen's very first word is Sulahn'nehn. Remember how I said many things in Thedas are there intentionally, and that World of Thedas is a book made up of invitations to solve puzzles? This is no exception. World of Thedas states that, translated literally, this common word for "rejoice" actually means "sing again."

That word might be a rallying cry for the spirits of Titans who'd, I don't know... lost their song. A promise of plot to come, made a decade ago. Why else would they include that word, instead of anything more frequently used by characters/the fandom?

I also noticed: the Nadas Dirthalen looks to be contained in a lyrium crystal, specifically. We already know that lyrium is used to store memories! It may be that the Nadas Dirthalen, the inevitability of knowledge, was Anaris storing his knowledge and memories in an attempt to pre-empt the creation of the Veil. Nadas Dirthalen might be a promise: a promise that the Forgotten Ones will return to sing again, and that their knowledge and memories will guide them to victory.

But if I was going to hazard a guess that this is the case, I couldn't base my theory on just this line of dialogue.

Titans-and-Fade-Connection

First and foremost: Neve and a couple codices say that Solas' ritual to create the Veil went wrong. We all heard Solas cry out in pain at the moment of its creation!

Second: defeating one of the revenants, whose name is something like "The Slaughtered Pillars," made my ears perk up. I noticed in the combat with the Betrayal of Felassan that the dialogue lines are supposed to be Solas' regrets, given voice.

You wanna know what it says when you fight the Slaughtered Pillars?

"Light and song, stolen."

You wanna know what the Chant of Light refers to the Fade as? Three guesses. C'mon. :)))

That's right! Light! But why would the slaughtered pillars of the earth complain about their light AND song being stolen? Well—I'm guessing that their Light is the Fade; their consciousness. And without their consciousness, their dreams, all concept of isatunoll was lost to them.

When I heard this line, I threw out what I thought I had been told about the Forgotten Ones being spirits, not Titans. Now, I have a new idea (one that still needs verifying and much codex-reading): the Forgotten Ones are those sundered spirits that Solas severed from the Titans. The entire Fade being cut off from Thedas was an unintended consequence that hurt him as badly as it did the Titans he meant to put to sleep.

(We don't even know that he was in uthenera by choice, with how often he talks about being weakened.)

Suddenly, "Sing again," makes total sense as a rallying cry for Anaris and the Titans, both. I very much look forward to digging through the minutiae of every codex to see if I can find anything else that backs this up!

Terror/Horror Mentions

I need to really examine this one, ideally with the help of a wiki that doesn't quite exist yet for this game, to get all the exact lines. But I swear that fear is mentioned almost constantly in Solas' memories, and also a lot in conjunction with Anaris and with Harding's Titan.

I'm not letting go of my "Solas was crafted from Terror/Dread" theory. Not yet. Not yet.

Bellara and the Bird Boys™

I think BioWare's favourite game, at this point, is teasing us with sneaky little mentions of Dirthamen and Falon'Din. In Veilguard, we went to Zazikel's skeleton in the Cauldron. In Arlathan, owls were just... glowing. Everywhere. Why? I don't know! Rook also doesn't seem to know! But they mention it many times over, and that is always a cue for us to pay attention and ascertain why.

I don't know what Bellara's sneaky little connection to Dirthamen and Falon'Din could mean for the two sundered Evanuris. I don't know if it means that I'm right, and that Dirthamen escaped Fade Jail when Corypheus and the Magisters Sidereal entered the Black City. I don't know if it means that, when Dirthamen and Falon'Din died, their spirits fused back together (because... Mythal's didn't?).

I just know that this has worsened how I constantly search for the Bird Boys™ in everything. Something is happening here, I just need to figure out what.

What Do I Think This Means?

I think this means that BioWare are about to make good on their promise shown in the Poisoned Fruit post-credits scene. Dragon Age 5: Something Something Something Forgotten Ones, ooohhhh, spooky, Terror Terror Malice Fear Nightmare Time, Featuring Solas (reluctantly or gladly) Helping Heal the Titans. And did we mention that the Forgotten and the Forbidden Ones have always been more closely linked than most of the fanbase thought?

But I can only guess at that for now, and I've got some serious reading to do before I say anything more specific than that.

-----

As always, if you read this far, you're one of the real ones. This has been a jumbled mess of midnight thoughts, but I promise you this: I'm only just digging into Veilguard's finer workings. I'm only just starting to put its many pieces together.

And like every Dragon Age game, I can tell that there is something big lurking between the lines of every one. I just need to read something like 135 mementos and [redacted] codices from everywhere else several times over in order to figure out what it is.

But this is just Part One. I promise: the second it clicks for me, I'll write it all in a rambling frenzy for you, too.

It's still super up in the air, but I think for the next one, I might try and tackle What Dragon Age: the Veilguard Did Narratively—and What DA5's Story Will Likely Do to Follow. We'll see what happens to me 50, 100, or 200 codices from now. :)

[bittersweetresilience]

and now that i've posted fluff and romance, it's time to get back to gore and character death

[sysig]

Look, options are limited, beggars can’t be choosers (Patreon)

So I do have a white trenchcoat to offer him, but uh

It looks a little goofy and bulky lol

As above, there’s no shirt that I can put underneath it either! Too silly but not in the way I like my silliness! >:0

Of course, the alternative is

Lol. I mean, it’s definitely A Look, but it’s not what I would imagine finding near the front of his closet haha

The skelebros are even more limited tho, they’ve only got the one outfit to “choose” from

(Also yes, Papyrus does get glasses to match Gaster ♥)

I want to do some poking around with the Body Shop to see if I can make some custom outfits myself, or at least do some retextures! I’m sure I can make something workable!

[horsemeatluvr23]

i can't be bothered to edit this properly so here is a bad photo of my sketchbook <3 i didn't wanna draw a person today to give myself a 'break' so instead i spent an obscene amount of time drawing wels castle (ft hypno's fireworks hehe)

[mewkwota]

It wasn't until I joined Twootor that I realized people had the hots for Omega-Xis. In hindsight, I shouldn't be surprised, but I never really considered it back then. Think of this like an "Ah I see..." moment.

Btw I'm not shaming any of you, just know I see it and I understand.

[fictionadventurer]

Victorian sensation novels my beloved.

They're like Gothic fiction with a sense of humor.

Mysteries, but less methodical.

They're over-the-top drama with with memorable characters dealing with the craziest stuff you've ever seen.

They don't make them like that anymore.

[tanadrin]

sometimes it is agonizing to write a single paragraph. sometimes you write a novel in a week. writing is weird.

[kestrelteens]

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[bumblingbabooshka]

Do you think Kes' ability to pick up on things so quickly is linked to her being an Ocampa? Like, since she's 2~ years old in canon (and has distinct memories of her father) I imagine her species doesn't spend much time as children and I wouldn't imagine they'd have formal schools (like entire buildings for schooling) and would instead learn from like, primarily parents or other elders. In that case learning things very quickly would be extremely beneficial for their survival. Kes: Oh yes, childhood...what a lovely few days~ Kes was a baby like for a day and then the next day she was up and ready to learn. Kes meets Naomi and every day that passes she becomes more and more amazed that she's still a baby. Wow! It's been like two months and she still can't do anything?? The doctor told her it was normal but wow. What I'm saying is they should have had Kes as a jack-of-all-trades character who could slide into pretty much any of the teams on Voyager. The Doc misses her when she's not in sickbay though!