#i need to be more active on here but it's hard

[galpalaven]

Felassan - Inquisition Companion + Romance Option

I blacked out after work and wrote this in a daze. Enjoy?

Felassan presents himself as a Dalish dreamer mage and friend of Solas, joining up with Solas from the very beginning after the Conclave. 

He is romanceable by any gender or race, unlike Solas who is still race-locked (but bisexual — because the main gripe between the two is the topic of modern elves and anyone else being “real”). I think it would be interesting to also have specific dialogue if you try to romance both at once — Felassan would urge Lavellan to be careful with Solas either way, though it turns more clearly yearning and sad if the player has also triggered the beginnings of his romance.

Since Felassan’s addition to the group would be an extra mage, I think to balance all that out Cullen should be able to be taken at least on some outings, and we could have an extra rogue as well (Harding would fit here, I think).

more under the cut

Personality

As a friend of Solas and his direct counter, it’s immediately noticeable that Felassan is much more friendly and playful. Notably, he enjoys chatting up a Dalish inquisitor about being Dalish, and answers questions companions have about the elves with far more enthusiasm than Solas. If the two are in the party together, he will actively tell people not to listen to Solas and poke fun at him for being rude. 

He gets along well with all of the other companions. Some who get along less well with Solas will comment on how they don’t know how he’s still friends with him when they are not in the party together. He gets along especially well with Sera, showing interest in her upbringing without making her feel condescended to the way Solas does. He particularly enjoys hearing about the Red Jennies and her efforts at helping to even the playing field for the underprivileged.

He gets along with Vivienne as well — I think it would be interesting for Vivienne to be vaguely familiar with him after he had been friends with Briala. I think it’s not a terrible idea for him to have still been involved there, too, as it could come in handy during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

Story Influence

The main differences with Felassan’s presence would likely come into play mostly with things to do with the elves.

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts

Felassan is one of the most useful companions in this quest. Knowing Briala personally makes it easier for the Inquisitor to convince Briala to either:

Get back together with Celene

Become the puppet behind Gaspard

Felassan knows his way partially around the palace and is able to direct the party slightly when looking for things needed to advance the quest. He is also friends with some of the servants, allowing them access to some of the servants’ tunnels in a pinch.

He makes cheeky, sarcastic comments about the nobility when asked. He’s better at not speaking about his past, so he doesn’t get shifty during the quest like Solas does. He’s happy to dance with the Inquisitor, enjoying the scandal it will cause, with maybe a special line with a Dalish Inquisitor. Rather than single them out and make them “special” compared to other Inquisitors, it’s mostly just on principle of relating to them as another elf, similar to dialogue that can be triggered with Bull about being Qunari (or Tal-Vashoth, in that case).

What Pride Had Wrought

Welcome Felassan as the 3rd option for the Well of Sorrows!

This is where he becomes a real player on the table. He will argue with Morrigan about the Dalish, correcting her outright in places. They never gave the Dalish Inquisitor a real chance to argue with her about things, or explain things themselves, so he has snarky commentary either correcting her or being surprised when she gets things somewhat right. There are also scenes where he will take up the explanation entirely.

Felassan being present also will give the player the correct answer to the rituals. He knows them, explains offhandedly that he’s been here before as an excuse, and makes it far easier for the player to ally with the Sentinels rather than fight them.

By the time they reach the Well, things are tense. 

Solas still fights with Morrigan and the Inquisitor both. If the Inquisitor brought him and Felassan both, he will immediately reject the idea when Felassan offers himself as an option. 

Romanced!Felassan wants to do this for you — he knows what will happen, he knows the weight of this decision, and he doesn’t want this for you. He will elaborate if asked that drinking from this well will bind you, not only to the memories within, but the will of Mythal. The Inquisitor can, at this point, shrug this off if they don’t believe in Mythal or that she is still alive to control them. If the Inquisitor still chooses to drink themself, he accepts this, but tells them that he will help them with any… side effects, should they arise.

Unromanced + High Approval!Felassan will say something similar — you are his friend and he wishes to keep you safe. He will elaborate similarly if asked with high approval.

Low Approval!Felassan offers himself as a Dalish authority, perhaps derisively suggesting that he is older and wiser than a Dalish inquisitor, and that this is his responsibility, not theirs.

Either way, Solas is NOT happy, but will ultimately accept the final decision.

Trespasser

We come upon the eve of the Betrayal of Felassan.

At low approval, Felassan will have left some time in between the end of the main story and Trespasser, seeking to follow in Solas’s footsteps and find him. Despite not having high approval, Felassan is still fundamentally opposed to Solas’s decision, and will be trying to track him down alone to stop him — something Solas has been running to avoid at every turn. He does not want to see Felassan — he does not want to kill his best friend.

High approval and/or romanced Felassan is present and there to help the whole way through. 

Romanced Felassan particularly will have a scene where he will quietly pull his love aside and ask if they trust him. If they say yes (or “You’re scaring me.”), he will tell them that this will sound crazy, but ask them to listen until the end before saying anything else. He will explain the story of the Dread Wolf as he knows it — the rebellion, the Evanuris, the vallaslin, all of it — and then, at the end, explain that he knows this because he lived it. He tells the story of the slow arrow and the Dread Wolf (a Dalish inquisitor can recognize it midway and will interrupt with surprise) and explains that he was there. That he has known Solas for thousands of years, that he has walked this land for thousands of years.

He will also explain that he knows what Solas wants and that he must stop him — that they must stop him. Solas wants to fix what he thinks he broke, but the people alive today do not deserve the fate he would have of them.

And Felassan is willing to do whatever it takes to stop him.

High approval Felassan will explain in much less detail via commentary while discovering the murals in the Crossroads, leading up to eventually finding Solas.

Once Solas has been found, Felassan runs ahead of the group, disregarding calls for him to stop. The Inquisitor is left one man down as they chase after him until, finally, they reach the place where Solas waits — and they find Felassan in Solas’s arms, a knife through his ribs.

Felassan will be stabbed by Solas regardless of Felassan’s approval with the Inquisitor. However, depending on choices made during either Solas or Felassans personal quests, and maybe Solas’s level of approval with the Inquisitor, Felassan can die.

The Inquisitor who loves him or is his friend will rush forward as Solas stumbles back, catching Felassan and holding their hand over the wound, careful not to move the dagger. Between the blood and the Inquisitor’s mark consuming their other arm, they are a sad sight.

Solas apologizes, but states that it was necessary. He would only get in the way. The questioning continues as normal here, up to Solas taking the Anchor.

Romance

I’m not entirely sure how this would go yet. I think he’s playful and flirtatious if the Inquisitor starts it. He will throw out Dalish phrases sometimes “for privacy,” with a Dalish inquisitor, which comes with a very obvious, if not always visible, wink. 

His quests do focus around his identity as an elf, and around preserving elven history, whether the Inquisitor is Dalish or not. While this kind of happens with Solas, a lot of his dialogue is about how wrong the Dalish are — Felassan provides a different, more loving perspective on the modern elves compared to the ancients.

I think a love triangle route between him and Solas would be SO juicy. He wants his friend to be happy, but he knows that Solas does not believe that the elves are full people, and is concerned for the Inquisitor because of this. I think even if the Inquisitor locks in Solas, if the flirts were triggered with Felassan, you CAN actually come back to his romance after Solas dumps you (which, especially if they let him remove the tattoos, can hurt both you and him). I think it unlocking a special scene where he says that yes, he knew what they were and yes, he chose to keep his because he wanted them, would be sweet (and relatable if you chose to kEEP the vallaslin).

Overall, I think his romance would be sweet and fun. A direct counter to Solas and Sera, two elves who hate other elves. Felassan is proud of being an elf, he is proud of the resiliency of both the Dalish and city elves. He’s interested in every part of the world, including the dwarves, Qunari, and humans.

It's been a very long time since I played DAI so please forgive any inconsistencies. I just needed to write something down after work lol. tagging people who showed interest earlier! @lammstrellicon @swoleas @isayashai @witchofthewakingsea @ash-soka

[limeade-l3sbian]

Im sure you have noticed many radfems talk of how men will use their spouse/partner as basically a second mother, having her do all the chores, the emotional labour, the organisation, etc. And I agree with this take.

But can we talk about how a lot of women, especially trad adjacent ones, also see their male partner as almost a parental figure. The amount of times i���ve seen women use different versions of “I just want a man that can think for me” is too many to count at this point. And it’s common. It’s seen in so much romance media, where the man takes control of everything, all the big decisions. It’s become a whole trope in heterosexual romance books and stories, of a rich man with control issues who sweeps some woman off her feet and makes it so she basically just disappears in his embrace.

This is gonna sound super harsh, but please know it isn’t meant as a critique of them as much as something i’ve noticed. I really do believe a lot of women who crave old school gender roles are very lazy, “useless”(to themselves) people who don’t want to amount to anything in life. The idea of struggle and hardship, heck, even just working TOWARDS something, it scares them so much they would rather be shapeless blobs controlled by someone else. That’s why they fetishize that traditional life style for women. Obviously WE know the women of that time and current time too in those types of homes aren’t just sitting around all day doing nothing, but I really do think a lot of women use it as an escapism fantasy from life.

The way a lot of them describe their sexual fantasies is similar, it’s always what is done to them, like they aren’t actually active participants, like they don’t actually have to make any choices.

I think the reason a lot of men crave a parental figure partner vs the reason a lot of women crave one is very different but they seem to be extremely common nonetheless. And with women I also know it’s a very complex issue of both society telling us our worth, the fact that women nowadays even as the more educated demographic STILL do more housework and emotional labour in relationships, capitalism being horrifyingly exhausting to live under, I could go on. But the point is, I think certain women crave a life of no consequences so that whole “i’m just a girl” and “he thinks for me, he makes the choices” mentality thats unfortunately had a huge uptick in popularity in recent years, I do think it’s women craving a parental figure as a partner. Not to say it’s anything linked to incest, i’m not trying to make freudian connections here, but I think the role of a parent is to take responsibility for the child and they crave that floating consequence free existence of a child.

I dunno, is what I’m saying completely deranged? Let me know.

Anon, I'm gonna try to be respectful and hold your hand when I say this... YOU'RE RIGHT! Thought I was gonna get condescending on your ass, huh? 😎🤪

Firstly, don't undercut your words with "I dunno." You made a completely logical point and casually explained yourself so eloquently I wouldn't be surprised if English wasn't your first language.

Secondly! I have seen this too! This weird, "take care of me" emphasis from both sides of the camp. Is it laziness? I wouldn't cast that aside for a second. But I think it's also this strange reaction to the present world. At least in the U.S., the economy is shit and people kind of already know that shit is just going to be hard, no matter what. And as humans, we have a weird tendency to swing the pendulum completely to the left or the right. So our reaction to very real, economic hardship that requires frequent "grinding" is to desire a complete release of the wheel, and to have someone else handle the hard stuff.

For some reason, according to social media, you either need to be grindset girl boss or a trad trophy wife which is...yeah. But I don't doubt your point being more of a reason for this. It's bizarre, and you're not crazy.

[azaharinflames]

trying to interact with the fandom outside of Tumblr is so hard. you find like-minded people and enjoy talking to them and before you know it, a toxic buddie will slide in out of nowhere to try and ruin your day. Instagram comments, YouTube comments, the comments of your moots on Twitter or wherever, nowhere is safe from a BoB coming in and running their mouths.

i'm so tired of it. i just want to ship my silly blorbos but they seem to need every single person who's ever heard of 9-1-1 to subscribe to their doctrine, and if I have to see one more, passive-aggressive, smug little "hope that helps!" I'm going to lose my mind.

sorry for the rant but I needed to write this somewhere and I hope you don't mind.

Hi, Nonnie! Thanks for the ask

Listen, this is the perfect space to rant. I welcome it and I for sure don't mind you chose my blog to rant - happy to be of service, in fact.

And I get it and I understand what you say 100%. To be quite honest, it is one of the things that frustrates me the most, because we make sure to stick to our space, keep the discussions here, and not go borrowing trouble. And yet, that side of the fandom will actively seek conflict, will diminish our feelings, and will try to ridicule us, constantly. It's frustrating, and exhausting.

But you know what? They just want attention, that's it. They crave it. And we've made a point of ignoring them and keeping it in our space, which is why some of them actively try to invade it whilst also pretending to be all innocent about it. I've learned that the best thing to do is to ignore and move on. They don't deserve our attention, and they sure as hell don't deserve our time.

That being said - again, I fully get what you're saying. They believe they are always in the right and play dumb when it's proven otherwise, and they truly think they are morally superior even when they're textbook bullies.

So trust me, you're not alone in your feelings about this.

My inbox is always open for this type of rants, or any rants, for venting, and for discussing (911 or whatever)

Take care <3

[doshiart]

🖤 ART TAG 🖤

Hey to all artists! I want to talk about our art journey. Some of us have a long path, some have started only recently, but each of us has had our own individual path and I think it's really important to remember how we all started. And it's also important to share it with others so that no one would be scared to start their own journey and just create.

How did you start drawing? What year was it that you become more seriously and consciously interested in it?

As everyone I'll say I've been drawing since early childhood, but I think the end of 2019 is my beginning. Because that's the time I started to practice actively.

When you felt the urge to share your art with other people? When did you start posting your drawings on social media?

Maybe it's always been? I think for the first time I posted something traditional drawn on my personal social media. I started my art socials in 2020.

Your first/earliest drawing. What were your impressions of it back then and what are your feelings now?

It's hard to track my very first drawing, but here are the early traditional drawings and my very first digital hand drawing. It was before I got a tablet, so it was drawn with a mouse. My impressions? My hand was tired... But if seriously back then it looked like something cool to me and I was surprised that I could draw something like that. Now, of course, I can see all my mistakes. But let's be honest, any mistake is a move forward.

🚧 ALARM 🚧

My very first attempts after getting a tablet.

Should I mention that I was upset at the first second that it didn't work out on the first try?

Your first fanart ever

I had a lot of traditional drawings of Adventure Time (I'm a big fan of Marceline). It's roughly a little over a decade ago.

But in digital, I guess this? Snufkin and The Groke from Moomin stories. [aug 8, 2020]

Your first gallavich fanart

Hi babies! This post and this post.

[nov 27, 2023] - oh my god it's almost a year???

But what if I told you that my sister asked me to draw Cameron Monaghan… Who knew that ten years later I'd be drawing him once again...

When you had bad days and things didn't work out, what inspired you to keep trying?

I just need to rest, try again, or think about what exactly goes wrong. When I started my path as a digital artist I was very inspired by the older work by 'big artists'. No one is perfect at the first moment and there is always a long road of striving and practice behind cool works. And I knew that the more I tried, the more I could consider myself 'cool' too. (spoiler: that feeling is still with me)

Show your old piece that you strongly dislike and tell why.

It's a hard choice. I stopped liking a lot of my work after a time, but this one was initially a struggle. I really didn't like how it looked in the end. I wasn't able to draw it as I wanted, and had problems with the face and dynamics. But the background is cool! (A lot of the work you don't like has some good in it!)

Renee and Andrew from AFTG [dec 5, 2021]

Show your old piece that you very like and tell why. What's the difference with the previous?

I love the shading and the face, especially eyes. And i still love this drawing! Face looks better than previous and hair has a dynamic, and the expression is really good.

Buck Toothsome from School for vampires [nov 8, 2021]

Show your old piece that you were very proud of back then.

I really loved this study redraw!

Ginny with Marcus from Ginny & Georgia [june 22, 2021]

Do you do any practice sketches or warm-ups before you draw something big?

I've started to do it recently! I'd forgotten how many sketches I made in sketchbooks when I was studying drawing.

I tried to change the pen pressure.

Sketch vs Final. Show your process.

Actually, it's been a tough process.

Your most recent drawing.

I'm working on my secret santa's gift right now, so I can't share it 🤭But here's my last sketch during warm-up session 🤲🖤

Give yourself some praise! Look at what improved in your art!

I just want to say that four years ago I would've been shocked by my current drawings. I've really improved in drawing faces and anatomy, I'm trying new interesting composition, trying to learn new things and use it in my works.

Any advice you'd give to your earlier self?

Do more thinking while creating your art. Do a sketches warm-ups before digging into the big work. Don't be afraid to draw it again if something doesn't work. Take breaks to physically exercise!

Set a goal for yourself for the coming year.

I want to improve facial expressions. Make a professional portfolio. Keep growing and enjoying drawing.

I want to see more your drawings...

@deathclassic @suzy-queued @kiennilove @gallapiech @spookygingerr

@konaiiro @michellemisfit @heymrspatel @vintagelacerosette @sgtmickeyslaughter

@burninface @lingy910y @crossmydna @deedala

[joanofarcs-stigmata]

gave up studying for my midterms so hello here i am! first, i want to give a few disclaimers: i have a degree in sociology, specifically in regards to trauma informed childcare and the school to prison pipeline, and i teach, so while i interact with the prison system i do not have a law degree, and i only know so much. also, i am trans and schizophrenic, both of which have crazy high rates of discrimination by police (especially schizophrenia. out of all people that face police brutality in the usa, 20.1% are schizophrenic!) so i am definitely biased. i'm also from the southern united states. my state has the highest # of people ever killed by the state in prison in the usa, and our last governor swears with his life that we have never executed an innocent person, despite plenty of people being cleared posthumously. (horrifying, i know. i love my home but also gosh i hate it here). so that's where im coming from, life experience wise. also, i apologize if my wording comes off as gruff; being schizophrenic, i have a hard time conveying tone. i 100% mean everything kindly.

also: im not an anarchist or anything lol. i promise

first, police aren't 'problematic'-- they're a militarized institution. they're a system built into the fabric of society. that's far more than problematic. in my state (which i'm keeping vague bc of privacy, but you can probably figure it out real easy at the end of this lol), the police, rangers, and sheriffs were all started for two reasons: genocide and slave catching. "hey, local farmer, need an *insert whatever slur for indigenous person you can think of* to give up their land? just have them bullied off the property by rangers!" "hey, plantation owner, your slave ran away? call the sheriff to come find them!" the police exist to enforce laws, and when the laws are genocidal and pro-slavery, these institutions are founded as colonialist and antiblack. policing in the usa exists because of slavery and genocide. the justice system hasn't 'failed' because it wasn't moral to begin with.

of course, the history of policing in america doesnt 100% start with slavery/indigenous genocide. but, prior to these laws that supported state sanctioned violence, most law enforcement was done by militias. you see a lot of these still in my state, especially in sundown towns and near the mexican border, and a lot of these people get slaps on the wrist for brutalizing others while the people they are harassing-- black people, people of color, immigrants-- are jailed for nothing, which is just the system working as intended. historically, militias were only formalized into a police force when it came time to murder and attack people of color, ESPECIALLY in the case of slave catching. there is an entire department in the police force in my state that still shares a name with a slave catching group.

and that's just historically. in the modern day, the poor and unhoused, black people, indigenous people, other people of color, the severely mentally ill, and in some areas, lgbt people, make up the statistically disproportionately high percentage of american prisoners, and they certainly make up a higher proportion of solitary confinement (which has been outlawed in other countries and actively used for torture in the usa!) and those on death row. people who are the 'undesirables' make up the most of our prisons, and are the first to get murdered by police. in my state, just this month, a family was only just awarded money in damages for the police murder of their son six years ago that a major city here covered up. not some rural backwater town by a hillbilly cop-- one of the biggest metropolises in the state by a decorated officer. and do police do their job? do they stop sexual assaults? thefts? murders? hate crimes? no. often the police are the ones doing these things, and when they aren't, they are just there to do paperwork documenting what happened. this isn't the movies. most of them don't care, and the ones that do dont stay cops long. how many cases in this year alone have there been of schizophrenic people (often black) calling the police for help/getting a wellness check called on them, just to be murdered? or brutalized? police are on the side of the state, not you. there's a reason why i only share hotlines that DONT call the cops.

okay, so the history of policing is bad, and the vulnerable are being imprisoned and killed at disproportionate rates, but we need people to go to prison, right? so here is where religion comes into play for me. first, Jesus calls for us to protect the marginalized: the poor, unhoused, oppressed.... huh, the people most targeted by policing. then, Jesus calls for us to support the prisoner (Matthew 25:36-40) and to radically, radically forgive.

not to get too personal, but i was a victim of medical abuse as a teenager by a doctor who violated my rights and by all means should be in prison. but i don't want him to go to prison. should he face consequences? yeah. strip him of his license and make sure he never gets near patients again. but imprisoning him, placing him in a deeply corrupt system that constantly violates the rights of the people inside it and leaving him to rot? that's not radical forgiveness. that's not Christlike. our criminal justice system is NOT just. It's punitive. it is not focused on rehabilitation, community building, and harm reduction. it is focused on punishing. And who does that help? Not the victims of crimes, that's for sure. Not the community. Not the person in jail. It helps the STATE. Because prisoners are unpaid slave labor, and prisons can be used to beat down the undesirable and get them out of sight where they can be beaten into submission and quietly done away with. As long as prisons are used to punish instead of rehabilitate, build community, and reduce harm, they are a violation of human dignity and decency. and unfortunately, they never will be rehabilitation, community, and harm reduction focused, because a punitive system based on fear and violence gives the state (and corporations!) money and power.

if you would like to hear from people smarter than I, i have some (so many) books to recommend!

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Y. Davis (anything by her, tbh)

Abolition for the People: The Movement For a Future without Policing and Prisons - Colin Kaepernick

Instead Of Prisons - Prison Research Education Action Project

Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better - Maya Schenwar

Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - Danielle Sered

"Prisons Make Us Safer": And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration - Victoria Law

We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities - Zach Norris

Resist the Punitive State: Grassroots Struggles Across Welfare, Housing, Education and Prisons - Emily Luise Hart, Joe Greener, Rich Moth

PLEASE let me know if you have any questions!!

to be Christian is to be called to love, but to be Christian is also to be called to love the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the imprisoned specifically and explicitly. To be Christian is to abolish police and prisons, because with these institutions the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the imprisoned will never be free. We are called to make Heaven on Earth, and that includes doing away with institutions that enforce worldly shackles.

[workinghardforthemoney]

jane fonda as barbarella in 'barbarella' (1968)

[cent-scratchnsniff]

it was just going to be a few warmup doodles but then she infected the rest of the page like the ever eternal and spreading spores. hod!!! hod. hod :)

[chryblossomjjk]

just found out that jungkook interacts with people who aren’t me

[strtravels]

While the chair wasn’t much more comfortable than the ones in the waiting room, he could feel his body relax more and more – the tiredness coming with it, while the rest of the adrenaline was washed out of his bloodstream. The crash. It always happened. One thing that countless missions had taught him. There always came the moment when you managed to sit down when things were over, and you would start to struggle to keep your eyes open, even if finding sleep had seemed impossible only half an hour ago. – Half an hour ago, he had still thought that he would lose her. No time to think about sleep or at least resting, as his mind had run and run and run, coming up with the worst scenarios as he stared at the door of the waiting room, HOPING for good news.

But even with the good news, there was still no time for sleep now. HE SAT UP STRAIGHTER, to keep himself from getting too comfortable, and nodded slowly at her words. “Kate – I…” Didn’t quite know where he was going with this sentence. A confession or just asking for forgiveness? Couldn’t shake the feeling, after all, that Kate wouldn’t be here if she had taken an active soldier. He had played a dangerous game with her life and just because he had been lucky, didn’t mean he couldn’t see the mistake he had made. Punishment. Retribution. He wouldn’t be able to make up for what had happened to her. No matter what he did, the scars would still remain.

Raised a hand; pushing the curls out of his forehead, and shook his head slowly, as if that was the rest of his sentence. What else should he say? HE COULDN’T SAY WHAT HE WANTED. The wrong moment. The wrong words…

The distraction was welcome, even if it was her trying to sit up, too. A hand instinctively reaching out to her; a soft touch to the good shoulder, as if she needed him to tell her to sit back and relax. As if he didn’t understand how hard that was now. After everything. And with everything still waiting for them. – At least some of the worries he saw himself able to take off her shoulders again.

“ – I’m sure Vikram knows, Kate. He knows this had to be a hired force. They didn’t have their own agenda against us… And we will find out who hired them and what they wanted.” Because that was another question, wasn’t it? Had their only motivation been to kill as many of them as possible? Had the target been Kate? HE FURROWED HIS BROWS and then got up out of the chair.

“ – but I’ll get a taxi back to the Tower and talk to him immediately. – You should get some rest… but I can call you later. Keep you updated…”

 ❝ I can see there's no need for me to keep on about it....you've punished yourself enough. ❞ It was all a jumble in her head. Now. Then. Today. Yesterday ...... Three months ago when he'd been sat in her office watching her slam the receiver down after that phone call from the Ministry of Defence had gone awry. She couldn't remember what'd she said afterwards, a sarcastic remark thrown out into the open to vent her frustrations, but what she had said wasn't what had mattered.

He had laughed in response, and that one moment, a singular laugh reverberating across the space between them? That had her freezing on the spot. That laugh had slipped itself through the wall of professional boundaries she'd put between them and lodged itself somewhere in her rib-cage like a piece of shrapnel. She'd gone home that same night, poured herself a glass of single malt, nursing it in the darkness of her own living room as she contemplated the fact that she was in love with Lieutenant Edward Southgate, and absolutely unable to do anything about it.

There had been too much at stake for her to allow herself to be sidelined by this, of all things! What she had built, her Head of Personnel alongside her, was bigger than the whims and wants of one person. She couldn't jeopardise that for the sake of pursuing something that might end badly...and with her track record, it was very likely to. But Ed laughed again and once again she was reminded that she could listen to that sound on repeat, all day....god, it really was hopeless wasn't it. She nodded as he finished talking, giving him a soft smile in response, eyes darting once more to her hands.

She cleared her throat, ❝ Ed I...❞ paused, brows furrowing. Repeating his words. ❝ ...listening to orders...❞ Oh. Her eyes widened with realisation. She tried to shoot up off the pillows, but every muscle in her body violently protested the action. UNIT was everything, everything to her. She would always put it first.Could Ed live with that?

❝ Ed, you need to get a get a message out to Colonel Shindi,Now. Those th-things were hired. Someone ordered the attack on us, we need to know who. ❞

[ehlnofay]

Pax should have said no.

Damn it all, they should have said no. Should have said go to hell and fucked off back – stop contacting me, sort out your own shit – but they didn’t, fuck knows why, and now they’re stuck here.

(They know why. They know exactly why; absolutely anything would be better than fucking off back to Cyrodiil. What’s for them there?)

But there’s nothing worth staying for here either, and now she’s crammed in between strangers on a long table, everyone dressed in fabrics she’s never seen with dyes so saturated they seem almost gory, eating stuff that isn’t food and talking loud enough to make her want to hurl a glass into the wall. It’s bizarre. The woman next to her, ruddy-faced and bald, wears a headpiece that shines like the sun the Isles doesn’t have; the other side is taken up by a stranger in a bone-white porcelain mask who has not moved but to swill the wine around in their glass. There’s scarcely room for Pax’s chair. It all feels like such a baffling pantomime of aristocracy (she's known the real thing well enough – feasts and toasts and luxurious gifts she had no use for, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it she actually will throw a glass), bright colours and rich settings and a god taking offerings at the head of the table.

At least, Pax thinks, no-one tries to talk to him; they’re too busy fawning over their lord. Which is probably to be expected; but it all feels so strange, so unsettling, the way they all lean in towards it like flowers turning to face the sun, like seaweed dragged at by the inescapable pull of the tides. They grow towards it through the cracks in the air, matter moving toward the inevitable centre, as if they can imagine nothing more than this.

(Even more unsettling is the way it responds in kind, listening attentively to anyone who speaks to it, leaning in as though to kiss them, as though to swallow them whole. All hell, why did Pax agree to this? Why did they come?)

(They should have told it to fuck off. Should have said no way, I don’t want to help you, don’t want to get involved in anything you’d need my help for. I don’t owe you anything. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m done.)

(Pax is done. Pax is sick to death of all this shit; doesn’t want to deal with this, the vaguely described problems of a god that picks people apart like it’s unravelling a thick yarn shawl. Doesn’t want to deal with anything like this. He’s had his fill of gods.)

(Why is he still fucking here? Why did he agree to this? This is no better than eating in that weird fucking inn in town. This is no better than –)

(That’s a lie. It’s a bit better than Cyrodiil. Just as much a shithole, but it pulls the rug out from under him often enough that he doesn’t have time to think too much.)

“Not hungry?” says a prowling voice, coiling catlike into the plaits in their hair, and Pax jumps enough to jostle the masked bastard sitting ramrod straight next to him.

He looks up.

At the empty placemat across from him sits a figure veiled in gossamer, glittering in the glow of the lit-up lichen on the distant throne; the fabric of its endless shawls pulls apart at the ends, peeling away from itself, shedding patches like iridescent insect wings every time it shifts. If Pax squints, they can see through it to the grand marbled wall behind.

She glances back at the chair at the head of the table, where something lounges, eyes dripping gold, intricately carved cane laid across its knees; its too-many fingers are laced with the hand of a man whose gown blooms floral. Flatly, she says, ��What the fuck?”

“Aren’t you hungry?” Sheogorath asks, pouting; she can hear it laughing down the other end of the table. “It’s a proper feast. We pulled out all the stops.”

Pax shifts their eyes away to peer down at their plate. “You have served me worms,” she says. She flicks the dish with a fingernail. “In jelly. With flowers.”

“Larva, actually,” Sheogorath replies. It’s still at the other end of the table. It doesn’t seem eager to explain this. When it smiles, the gossamer falls away; its whole face splits in half.

It’s all so fucking stupid. Pax takes a deep breath – in through the nose, ignore all the odd spiced smells, and out – and does not yell at it, or try to hit it, because she’s gotten herself into a situation where that’s not really an option, because she’s a fucking idiot. Why didn’t she just say no?

(She knows why.)

The Mad God’s teeth flash bright as the ornate silver cutlery. Its chair scrapes back from the table. “It melts in your mouth,” it tells her, eyes glittering, “but I won’t make you try it. Walk with me?”

The figure still sits at the head of the table, snatching something from someone’s plate, always, always laughing. Its limbs sprawl like tentacles, like the silken threads of a tapestry, to encompass the whole room. The dinner guests stare as though bewitched, bedevilled, beguiled. Not one of them is looking at Pax. If he were to drop dead with his face in the food his corpse would not be discovered until sunrise.

Pax sniffs and shoves his chair back from the table. He lets Sheogorath (the second Sheogorath – but it must be, what else could it be?) lead him through a narrow door into some winding hallway, the walls lined and rimed with ornate coloured-glass windows. (It’s so much quieter. Still as garishly bright, but Pax is getting the sense that that is inescapable, here; the clothes they wear, as crumpled and covered in travelling-grime as ever and startlingly out of place against the odd jagged finery of the dinner party, seem unimaginably dull in comparison. Everything seems unimaginably dull in comparison.) Outside the windows, they can catch glimpses of the city – its winding, lamp-lit streets, the jumbled mess of its architecture, the sky arcing above it like a child’s attempt at watercolours. Pax wants to smash it, tear it down.

There’s no sun here, but still it’s night. The sky has shifted to purple and black.

“Isn’t it nice?” says their companion; when they look back, it’s nothing more than a shifting impression in the stained-glass window, a series of hairline cracks. It still manages, somehow, to smile at them.

It’s not. The sky is a shadow and the flamboyance of the palace is scraping at their spine. “Sure,” Pax says flatly. When she flexes her fingers, the bruising staining the base knuckle of her thumb aches.

Sheogorath looks at her – an ancient man leaning on a stick, a flickering painting, a bloody corpse, a little girl in velvet-red skirts, a breath. In its mercurial shifting she catches the flowery blossom of the man at the table’s collar, an unpleasant glimpse of her own braided hair, the smell of sulphur. It tips its head. She can’t focus on it anywhere but for the eyes.

“You don’t like my dinner parties,” it announces, as though it’s a revelation, a tragedy; its body crumbles like sea cliffs slowly eroded by the ways. It’s annoying – bloody obnoxious, and incomprehensible, and kind of weird that it noticed, that it would even care. (She’s never liked dinner parties. Nobody ever commented on it before.)

I’ve had well enough of them, Pax could say, or no, I don’t like you, but it’s the fucking Mad God, Daedric Prince of – Pax doesn’t even know what, he’s never known much about this shit, only that it’s well worth avoiding. Prince of the mad and the missing and the foolish, of breaking and breaking and putting yourself back together backwards. She should have said no, but she didn’t, and who knows what would happen if she went back on that now?

It's slinking closer. All that stay static enough to make out are eyes and teeth.

“Pax, yes?” it says, soft-voiced – a hand lands on his arm, small and dry and shivering, the skin as thing as a mouldering leaf. “You have no obligations here. If you want to be on your own, be on your own. We’ve plenty of space for it.”

Pax’s eyes narrow. He does not jerk away from it.

In the light of the coloured sky, the coloured windows, its face is phantasmagorical. “If you don’t want to be here,” it continues – still so skin-pricklingly gentle – “then your hand will not be forced. I’ll speed your way home if you wish.”

They can’t help but twitch at that. It’s setting their teeth on edge. (It’s lying – has to be. After its ages of coaxing them in, meting out information, not telling them where they were until they were on its doorstep, it would not give them the chance to leave.) Rough, still covered in road-grime, Pax asks, “Why should I believe you?”

(None of them have ever given them the chance to leave.)

Sheogorath, a figure of hollow skin and bone, inclines its head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Pax,” it says. Its eyes are wide and bulging, whites on full display like a frightened horse; it grins again. “Others might. But we’re not a monolith. We’re not even especially similar.”

Pax bites down on the flat edge of their tongue. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

The light coming in through the windows flickers. The Mad God turns to meet it.

“I’m the youngest,” it says, its voice glittering like mist on the air. “Did you know that? I don’t remember the world without you in it.” Its form spasms, volatile, wings and limbs and eyes like a snail’s on stalks sprouting and choking and subsiding back into its mass. “I’m closer to you than any. I understand, almost.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Pax repeats. She’s gritting her teeth, tonguing at her gums where two are missing. Are two devil-gods not enough to deal with for a lifetime? Is there really going to be more of this now, too?

Rolling through the air like smoke, the voice says, “It will.”

Pax presses purple-green knuckles to her mouth. Her teeth dig into the soft meat of her lip.

Sheogorath turns to face her, hair moving as though blown by the wind, as though tugged by the tides. It sighs. “You don’t believe me,” it says. Its tongue pokes through its teeth. “That’s perfectly fine. Clever, even. But if you want to leave, all you need to do is tell me so.” It pauses, then; the train of its strange, gnarled crown shifts over its shoulders when it moves its head. “Or just leave. The door is still open.”

“You’d be fine with me just leaving,” Pax rasps around his knuckle, “after weeks of not leaving me alone?”

(Of begging him to come, poorly-hidden agitation giving way to blatant franticness, half-swallowing the fear that choked its face in every mirror it spoke to him through. Of begging him still, after he got here, after he met it – begging in a roundabout manner, casual as anything, its every motion reeking of fear. Its abject terror when he turned to leave. You’ve come this far. Why not hear an old man out? Pax told it that it wasn’t an old man, that he didn’t give a shit either way, and it slid through a child, a monster, a sulphur-burned body coughing blood, his own shuddering form in armour he hasn’t seen in months, and it said please.)

(Regained its composure, its gentleman’s face, immediately afterward. But it – the Mad God, unknowable, inconsolable – said please. Pax still doesn’t know what to do with that.)

The Mad God, now, shrugs. Taps at the hairline cracks in the stained glass windows. “I’d prefer you didn’t,” it says, one pair of hands braiding something intricate into its beard. The hand on the glass slips down. “I told you. I do need a champion.”

“And I told you,” Pax bites, something aching and ugly surging in their gut, “not to call me that again.”

A smile, bloody-mouthed and beaming. “But we will abide,” says Sheogorath, and digs its fingers into the cracks of the stone. One brick slides loose, mortar dug up under its nails. It offers it up.

Pax licks their teeth and takes it.

The brick shivers, momentarily – crumbles, in their hand, like sand slithering through their fingers, and left in their palm is a hardy slip of bone. Spiked and sprawling, carved with intricate patterns; it arranges itself around an oval of empty space, the perfect size for four sharp-knuckled fingers.

“You can always leave,” the Mad God tells them, and for a moment it does look so very young and strangely, staggeringly hopeful. “But give it a chance. I think you could love the Isles, if you choose to.”

[sovonight]

why is so much of sewing just tracing and cutting and tracing again q_q i see why people get projectors and use adobe illustrator now

[turtleblogatlast]

Leo: *keeps sacrificing himself and getting hurt*

His family: YOU'RE HURT!!!!!

Leo, seeing they're safe: Tis but a scratch! :)

(I cannot stop thinking of Leo brushing off his injuries like the black knight from Monty Python and the holy grail. He'd do anything for them and anything to assure them that all is fine even though that is not the case. He'll keep doing it, though. Mikey may be many doctors, but Leo is Dr. Hope.)

[ cw: injury mention / self sacrifice mention / ]

I keep missing asks I am so sorry 😭😭

YEAH I imagine Leo as like

The type who is super dramatic over the smallest of injuries, but if he’s actually hurt, it’s all “well what can you do lol” especially after the invasion because he’s already known much worse and barely even made a sound during that.

[slumbergoblin]

Hi Mei :)

[neathbound-fiends]

just popping in gently to say this blog is on hiatus until further notice. I'll be around on discord still, but I'm just needing space from FLumblr for awhile

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I do think Withers has a really subtle background character arc in bg3. Because at the start it is really clear he doesn't want to be here and he's being forced to clean up his mess by Helm and probably Ao. He doesn't really care either. Everything ends so nothing really matters, he'd like to go back to his paperwork now please.

Except he's stuck babysitting a bunch of traumatized dumbasses as they stumble into dealing with the most recent bad idea of his three fuck-up disappointments. So he brings them back when they die for a pittance, lets them pay for some vengeful ghosts to come back as flesh and blood to wreak bloody vengeance on the Absolute, and starts to... comment, on what's going on, as he follows them on their adventure.

Next thing you know Withers is like, doing things unprompted. He refuses to bring back Alfira (or Quil) but that's an act of compassion, keeping the poor girl from the Urge and letting her rest, his actual duty as a god of death. He tells Arabella to follow her destiny and does that thing to make her grief go away which honestly freaks me out but seems to be him trying to help her. He shows up at Moonrise and prompts us to consider why the Dead Three would want a bunch of soulless illithids that would give them no power, getting us to think of the big picture.

And by the end (especially if you do a resist!Durge playthrough) Withers is actively interfering and seems genuinely invested! He brings Durge back from the dead, free of their father! He encourages us before the final fight with the Netherbrain! He's real fucking smug that the Dead Three lost when he never seemed to care about the destruction they caused before! He throws a reunion party and many of his lines are genuinely touching or kind! Especially if a companion died permanently! He has tea with Gale's mom and Tara! He's like, socializing and shit! Yes, everything is temporary and we all die, but there's great beauty in fighting for that precious time and living it to the fullest!

Basically Wither's character arc is this meme, all because Helm made him go outside and touch grass.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

wilf: you and the doctor have that same kind of shellshocked look in your eyes yaz: with all due respect for my elders, sir, Fuck Off