#i so went off topic

[awkwardgtace]

What inspired you to create the seer au? It's such a cool idea to dive deep in and see how Delphia interacts with the gods while also being a "background character" in the human world. How long did it take you to map out Delphia's relationships to the gods?

this got very long and probably very much ramble so I'm sorry. I put a tldr and have left most of it under a read more. I'm not even sure if a lot of my rambles are relevant to the question

tldr; I've always liked gods and the idea of false deaths seemed fun. So I ran with that and the overall development probably took a month for Rhys, Vitus, Dabria, Ash, Alessia, Delphia. With everyone I'd up it to two or three months total for the basic plot and relationships I've run forward with since. A lot of times I get an idea and just run with it so that definitely happened here and the lore or ideas come while i'm failing to sleep or bored at work.

ok this is actually a long answer (and i'm super excited to type it out) so i'm gonna just put the short answer of the first story with her before a read more that goes into like the world

So Delphia's original story was actually started by thinking about this post. It talks about giants reaching in through doors and windows and i wanted to write something with that. My brain didn't like the simple idea so it slowly morphed into someone who sees their own death and tries to escape saved by a being of protection. This kept evolving until that original post didn't work as a base anymore. I actually still have like saved snippets from when I wrote up Little Seer and all the ideas that I jumped between. A lot of it was like well she sees things, maybe she helps people and that makes her stand out. When I finished that story I didn't have everything in my head how I do now with the gods and Delphia's relationships.

I think overall it took me a few weeks to actually finish her first story. I only really had the ideas Vitus and Dabria are parents, Rhys is a brother, Ash and Alessia are partners to Delphia (the full all three with each other came later), and Delphia is more human than they are by the end. Then I ran with it, just thought about how she got there and the life she had that would make her give everything up blindly. I also did always want a more full pantheon, gods of war, prosperity, sky, fate, all the fun stuff (cause i was a greek and roman myth nerd as a child and even made pantheons for a class once. If my project partner somehow sees this shout out to the god of war and moist things)

Ok now onto the really long parts going into a read more. It may have turned into rambling. Hope it actually answers your questions :D

So once I decided I wanted Delphia to see the future and be saved by a god of protection I started to kind of dive into things I always thought about. Death that doesn't stick, names holding unbelievable power. I also always had story ideas of someone powerful always ready to sacrifice themself for whatever cause they wanted regardless of how minor or major it may seem.

So basically I made Del and I liked the idea of avoiding her name. I wanted her name to do something when she remembered it. I actually made a note of her name early on because it was going to reveal her connections to the gods in some way with a few that held more significance for her. I spent probably a day deciding how I wanted her memories to act and I liked the idea of an unexpected side effect. So I figured what if it builds up each time she dies. The spell itself gets stronger and stronger until finally the release causes a burst. I also thought it would be a good way to give gods an insight to how a human was feeling. I liked that set up to sort of propel relationships forward if I kept writing about them (which I already knew I was going to)

For Delphia as a character I wanted her to have minimal ties to humans. To give her a reason to see the gods giving her this life among them and taking it. She was also supposed to be the kind of person who sees the worst of people and continues to make the choice to help them. I wanted sort of a martyr who's choosing to be one and knows the consequences of her death. She's also supposed to be a person that if you know her you have good things to say. The stories of a witch or curse bearer doesn't match up with her. People would be overcome with guilt if the thing that turns others against her didn't make her sort of fade away. They don't remember Delphia, they remember someone with magic and a cloak.

A lot of the lore of the world I came up with as I went along. First I wanted a reason for everyone to be afraid of the gods, but I wanted it to be wrong. Easiest path is old gods and it fit in with the myths I loved too. Then I needed a reason they were gone so I figured they had to go too far. And I needed someone to stop them so Fate gives power to Life and Death.

For the actual gods it was kind of easy. Love, Fate, Life, Death, Nature, War, Prosperity, Sky, and Protection. Then I figured it's more fun to have some things not match up. Life (Vitus) looks cold, stern, and stoic, but is warm, caring, and kind. Death (Dabria) at first glance looks warm and bright, but she has to take care of death and those paths. War (Ryder) hates war and fighting despite the view that he'd encourage it and his odd way of speaking. Prosperity(Felix) looks aloof and materialistic, but cares more about others than he lets on. For the sky( Luna and Sola) I liked the idea of the two being children because the skies are ever changing and children just fit that image in my head. Love (Rhys) struggles with his own emotions and anger, while managing the feelings of others well. Nature (Ash) looks intimidating and harsh, but they are soft spoken and kind. Protection(Alessia) was different, for her I wanted her to immediately come across looking warm and welcoming, but strong and commanding too.

On top of all of that I wanted the gods to be human. There's a bunch of lore in my head about why they are how they are and what makes them different from the old gods that I plan to write more eventually. Gods aren't fun when they're perfect, they're fun when they're flawed. They're interesting and make you curious so that's what happens. I've still developed things as time goes on (such as I can't say why but at some point I've decided my gods are always prepared for war don't know against what).

Ok so after all that ramble here's the one about the relationship with Del and each god.

Short answer I'm still working on them all! For the most part I figured it out over a month for the basic interactions. This month based off when the god was developed.

Alessia, Delphia, and Ash have the most defined relationship overall. Alessia and Ash are opposites with Delphia being someone who meets in the middle. I liked the idea of that, also with all of them it's more been deciding how all of them work. For Rhys it's been a little longer than Ash and Alessia to figure it out. I wanted siblings with Rhys a bit more of someone to mess with Del. An objectively normal relationship compared to the reality they're in. I've figured them out more as I work on Rhys in other stories. Felix and Ryder are still being worked out. I know most of how I want them to interact, but their personalities aren't as solid compared to the others. Felix and Ryder fill in the role of older siblings more solidly than Rhys. For Del it's definitely how she sees them. Felix just being aloof and caring preferring to be disliked as long as he can keep the important people safe and Ryder taking blame on himself for things out of his control are newer ideas and change how they'll interact with her. I'd say those two show both the least concern and hold the most in interactions with her. Luna and Sola were instantly younger siblings for her. For the most part the relationship with Delphia is still in development. I don't actually know if I'm great at the whole writing kids things but I try :). I'm actually a younger sibling so I take a bit of how I remember thinking with my older sibling to figure out how they act. Sola needs more work than Luna though. Sola is bubbly and almost naive in ways Luna isn't which is a different thought process for me to write (i have ideas for her though I swear they are coming.). It's taking more to work out how exactly each will interact with her with those mannerisms while being gods. They aren't children forever, but that mindset they have now is the one I plan to focus on longest. Vitus and Dabria are honestly the odd ones here. Maybe the only OCs I have that are developed to a point it's kind of fine tuning when I think about a new fact for them. I think they probably took a few months to get to this point total, but their relationship with Del was pretty much immediate. In old drafts she was their actual child who ran away. I wanted good parents that are over protective at times.

I think the general relationships were all mapped out within a month or two of creating the god or Delphia. A lot are still sort of living ideas too. If it hasn't been obvious I really like found family and I see almost all of them as siblings with Vitus and Dabria as parents. Fate is left out a lot, but i actually do have ideas for them I just haven't gotten to them yet.

I don't think I actually answered your question like at all, but I also don't think I'll be any better if I wait on answering. Feel free to keep sending asks and I will continue to try and answer (hopefully on topic since I have no idea if I am anymore)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[sergle]

I just spent a good 3 or 4 minutes laughing bc I saw what appeared to be a Chadifying facetune of John Mulaney, but it turns out he just got a BUNCH OF WORK DONE on himself while I wasn't looking.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Continuation of my other post here, the autobots have come close to figuring out that Optimus is the sire but Optimus is way too moral to spark up an subordinate so they don’t look into it more

Skywarp stole the evidence, Ratchet doesn’t notice cause he and Optimus are too busy with the baby for any fun private parties

[morganbritton132]

Oh geez this might be a double ask because my phone glitched out when I tried to send previously BUT just wanted to say that I love ur Steve has older siblings au

I also need to say that I shamelessly combined that au with ur post about Tommy knowing Steve the best. Just picturing Steve’s sibs zoning out when his mom lists what he can’t eat because they assume she’s just being difficult. Flash forward a few years and they accidentally poison Steve with like peanut butter cookies and are realllly lucky that Tommy was staying over that weekend and knows he’s allergic.

anyways thx for all ur writing!

I only got this ask once so we’re good! The Steve Has Older Siblings AU has kinda been on hold for a bit because Dustin is either the easiest or the hardest character to write and right now, he’s being difficult for me.

BUT! I love this.

I’m going to change it around a bit because I’m on this kick right now where Steve is allergic to aspirin. Also, with the way that Steve’s mom is written for this AU, she is negligent but protective of her son. I don’t think she’d allow peanut butter in the house if Steve was allergic.

She wouldn’t allow aspirin either but Richard insists that it’s the only thing that cures a migraine (hangover), and Steve’s eight. He doesn’t even like taking his Flintstone vitamins so she’s not concerned about him getting in the medicine cabinet.

It’s not common that Tommy stays over at Steve’s when they’re sick.

Typically his mom watches them at their house but she had to go wake up his grandma (“That doesn’t make any sense. Why can’t she set an alarm clock?”/”I dunno, Steve. That’s what Mommy said. She had to go to Granny’s wake.”) so Mrs. Harrington was babysitting them.

Mrs. Harrington isn’t very good at taking care of them. Tommy wouldn’t tell Steve that because it’ll make him sad, but his mom kinda sucks at this. She doesn’t even give them popsicles for their sore throats or kiss their foreheads to check their temperature. She just disappears for long periods of time to yell into the phone.

Tommy’s kinda happy when she has to go into the office because he thinks Claire might look after them, but she’s apparently studying in her room so Steve’s brothers are doing it.

Tommy secretly likes this better because Jason and Richie are very nice to him, and they tell him that he’s cooler than Steve. No one has ever said that before! Not even Carol and they got married under the jungle gym.

Tommy likes hanging out with them even if he feels icky today.

He is standing in the kitchen next to Steve, watching Richie cut a little orange pill in half with a knife. Richie keeps muttering under his breath about running out of the ‘liquid S H I T.’ Tommy thinks it’s funny that he said a bad word, but can’t laugh about it because he can see the bottle that the pill came out of and –

“I don’t think we take that,” He voices but Richie brushes him off. He says it’s like candy. Tommy has brothers too, so he knows that sometimes you gotta give in or they’ll rub your face into the carpet until you get rugburn, but, “I know but… but what if only I take it?”

“You take half,” Richie tells him. “Stevie over here takes the other half and then we’re right as rain. It reduces fever.”

“Yeah,” Jason adds from behind them. “So your brain doesn’t leak out your ears.”

Tommy looks over at Steve but he isn’t fully awake so there’s not much of a reaction there. Plus, he’s not a very good reader so Tommy’s not sure if he even knows what the bottle says. He tries again, ignoring Jason, “That’s not what Mrs. Harrington gave us earlier.”

“Yeah, I know. This is better.”

“Steve can’t take that,” Tommy tries again after he crunches the medicine between his teeth. He sticks out his tongue so Richie can see that it’s gone, and then adds, “Mommy gave that to him once and it made him really sick.”

“It did?” Steve croaks, snatching his hand back when Richie tries to hand him the pill. Richie tries to force the pill into his mouth but Steve presses his lips together. It makes his brother swear and gesture to Jason, and then Steve is snatched off his feet with a hand pinching his nose shut.

He struggles and Tommy wants to help but he – he also wants Richie and Jason to like him so, he doesn’t help. Steve gasps for breath and the pill goes in…and Steve is fine. He’s angry and out of breath, and his nose is still stuffy so he still kinda sounds like a frog but he’s not.. he’s not blue like last time.

Tommy thinks, oh. He thinks, cool.

Everything is fine for fifteen minutes and then Tommy is yelling out the door of Steve’s bedroom that they need help. Steve is breathing weird and – “and, I – I think he’s going to die!”

A lot of stuff happens at once. Claire leaves her room, Jason and Richie come up the stairs, and they all start yelling and blaming each other. No one really jumps into action until Tommy bursts into tears. Then it’s movement and car rides, and Tommy is sitting in the waiting room at the hospital without shoes on.

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting there when Mr. and Mrs. Harrington rush into the room. The only thing he does know is that he’s never seen anybody look as angry as Mrs. Harrington did when she sees them.

She looks like she’s going to yell at them but Mr. Harrington grabs her by the arm and drags her to the reception desk. They disappear behind the white double doors that Steve went through.

It only makes Tommy cry harder.

[katabay]

PAGLUIB

way back in like. march?? I took a stab at writing some kind of kabitserye type of story but it was a mess: it kept veering off into murder mystery drama territory because I was reading a lot of murder mystery novels around then and it Wasn't Good because I hadn't tried writing mysteries, let alone murder mysteries, before lmao

I did write a handful of short mystery stories since then, so next year I might take a stab at this idea again now that I'm no longer jumping head first into a genre pool I don't know how to swim in :)

[etirabys]

when a post goes viral, at least one rando attributes to me viewpoints or flaws that I don't think I have and criticizes me for them. main thing that calms me down fast is remembering the flaws I do have and how he could have criticized me for those instead if only he'd known. but he didn't. because I hide them

[naivegh0ul]

LOOOVE how you write about riling up riley by being stoic but me personally, i dont think i could get through a minute being all lackluster because i WILL cry the second he stuffs me up. his size plus my sensitivity, i know he'd be heady with his triumph, being cocky and bullying himself balls deeper. GRAAAAH i need this man biblically,, was wondering how would you put it when he finally sees he's broken you in (again)

Oh my god he is such a bully when it comes to your sensitivity, always mocking you and teasing you about it. He knows you're just trying to rile him up when you act all nonchalant and unaffected when really you're struggling to control yourself.

I say again, he is a bully. Don't even try to play with him longer than five minutes. You're ignoring him for longer than he likes? Well, now you're being flipped onto your front and pushed into the couch cushions, face buried in the pillows as Ghost almost tears your clothes off. He's so mean about it, mocking you and manhandling you as you try your best to ignore him and seem like you're bored.

He's not nice when he's pent up, that much is obvious. He does not care if you cry or try to squirm away. He'll finger you ruthlessly, tutting when you make no noise and crooking his fingers to hit that sensitive bundle of nerves.

Once he gets bored of fingering you (which takes a long, long time), he'll force you to pleasure him, knowing you can never keep your cool doing that. Just the sight of you on your knees before him has him smirking and his cock twitching. You're avoiding eye contact as you pick at your nails and act bored, huffing as if you're annoyed.

Ghost can see right through you, though. Knows it's all an act, that his pretty little thing could never get bored of him.

He'd make you unzip his jeans and unbuckle his belt, saying the most filthy things down to you. "Fuckin' slut. Gaggin' for it. Come on, open your mouth." You try to act bratty, seeming to come to the conclusion that seeming bored and ignoring Ghost is not the way to go, so maybe being bratty and uncooperative is better.

Ghost has been here before, you being bratty and refusing to do what he says. He's broken you in before, he'll do it again. He'd totally slap your face to get your attention, his big, calloused palm connecting with your cheek.

Yeah, he knows you love it when he slaps you. He knows you love it when he takes control and doesn't put up with your bullshit. And you know he's the type of guy who'll shove his cock down your throat. He doesn't care if your teeth drag along his sensitive shaft. He wants his cock in your throat and he wants it now.

He loves seeing you cry on his cock. He knows you're needy and desperate and the act of having his thick cock stretching your mouth, cutting off your airways is enough to make overwhelmed tears spill down your cheeks.

And if that's not bad enough, he'll pinch your nose shut and watch you panic, watch your eyes widen as you grip his thighs and try to pull away, throat contracting around his cockhead as you choke.

He wants you to be nice and pliant for him so he'll let you pull off and take a breath for a second before he's gripping your hair and stuffing his cock into your mouth, holding you there until you go limp and gently suckle on his cock, accepting the fact that fighting him won't do you any good.

[demonslayedher]

I finished posting the unabashedly educational Sword Fic.

It includes a detailed (but hopefully beginner-friendly) explanation of all the steps of making a Nichirin blade from a sunny mountain like Mt. Youkou, a touch of swordsmith and metalworker folk lore (including demons), meta about what must make Kimetsu no Yaiba's swordsmithing methods different from real life methods, some character exploration for Haganezuka and his polishing method, vocabulary and additional resources in the chapter notes, and hopefully, an endearing, silly POV character to learn this all through.

[lesbian-rook]

could you draw ragatha comforting an abstracting pomni? like ragatha calms her down enough to make the abstraction go away! thanks :3

🎶When darkness is all you see This is our Sweet Blasphemy🎵

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[spookygibberish]

Made a faintly insane list of of every animated movie I have good enough memories of to feel confident ranking, although some of them I would probably move around if I saw them more recently....

[xxplastic-cubexx]

i miss charles so bad why do they keep separating my already divorced parents.

I miss charles so bad why do they keep killing him

[20001541]

i think you'd like this picture

"see how im in support of the queer community Tomura?

Ahahaha yes it's amazing 😂❤️

We love and inclusive king ❤️

[keets-writing-corner]

Alright everyone, buckle up and sit down. I was talking with @nerdasaurus1200 on another post and came to the conclusion that I need to write Sera meta so let's freaking GO

I'm mostly gonna be talking about Sera, what we know about her so far, and what makes her tick (aka her fears) and why she's not a bitch/asshole the way apparently so many people like to portray her? (I've mostly just been hanging out with fan art and headcanons specifically about Lucifer in the fandom so I haven't seen these specifically, but someone approached me about how they liked m portrayal of Sera in my fic which was NOT that of an asshole and apparently multiple people are portraying her that way? Idk I haven't seen any but uh yeah let's talk SERA)

Characters are always the most important part of a story, and even if they're not a main character and/or the audience nor the writer know what they want/need, the writer at the very least needs to know How and Why a character makes decisions, instead of just "oh they're an asshole" So let's do that for Sera. Why is she making the decisions she's making? LETS GO

Let's start off by talking about what we know about Sera

She's at least as old as Lucifer, she was there for the creation of earth given the appearance of her silhouette in Charlie's exposition

We know that the exterminations might have been Adam's idea, but it was HER decision to approve them

We know that she's FOR SURE older than Emily

and the other thing we know for sure about her is that she is the High Seraphim (we don't know WHAT that means exactly but clearly it is a position of authority and rule)

So those are the things we know for sure:

She's about as old as Lucifer

She approved the exterminations

She's older than Emily

and she's the high Seraphim

Now I'm going to circle back to all of these points but I want to start off with her relationship with Lucifer

Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing we can say about their relationship with 100% certainty is that they for SURE know each other, either because they were essentially "coworkers" in the past, or because they're both the respective rulers of their realms (even if Sera has some people above her) and they're implied to interact with each other

(at the very least you cannot convince me otherwise that they don't interact. Someone had to have talked to Lucifer about the exterminations for him to have had "approved it" and we know it wasn't Adam because Lucifer hadn't seen Adam since he fell to hell until the finale, and we know that Sera was not only the one to approve said exterminations but also decreed that no one else in heaven know about them. She clearly must have spoken to Lucifer about it because there's nobody else left who had the authority to do that AND knew about them)

So at the very least in present day Sera and Lucifer have some sort of professional relationship as leaders. And I'll come back to this because it's implied that this relationship isn't a very good one, but first let's talk about the past

full stop, we have NO IDEA what sort of relationship Sera and Lucifer might have had when he was still in heaven. But here's the thing, even if their relation was strictly "yeah I know them cuz I work with them, but that's as far as it goes" Lucifer's fall STILL would have been horrifying for Sera to witness. He was the same rank as her, probably no other angel except the elders likely ranked higher, and they still banished him. Charlie's storybook leaves it at that, but Lucifer implies it was violent in his debut episode.

trauma is a funny thing when you think about it, you're just as likely to develop trauma by watching someone else be assaulted as you are for you to have been assaulted. And Sera was there, she likely saw the whole thing happen. So not only did Sera watch how brutal the elders could be to someone who questioned and disobeyed the order, but the fact that it was done to LUCIFER someone of equal rank and authority as her means that absolutely NOBODY is safe from the elders

and this is without taking into account that on some level, she and Lucifer had to have been close. There are no other seraphim in heaven besides her, the elders (who appear to be rather hands off and uninvolved) and Emily. Emily was likely created as a replacement for Lucifer, so at the time, it was basically just her and Lucifer as the only seraphim up there. They not only worked closely together, they likely had a close bond as well. Now I have my own head canon preferences as to what kind of bond, BUT let's ignore that and look at 3 options (although there are likely more, but huuu this post is gonna be long already so let's not push it yeah? )

option 1: equal peers. You are Sera and you've known Lucifer all your life. You two have "grown up" together, learned about the world and your powers together. You're comrades in arms! You know all of each other's secrets! You lean on each other for support as you lead heaven together. You work together all the time. Sure, he can be a little excitable at times but it's so much FUN right? This guy could be your bestie/brother. And you sit back and watch as the only ones with more authority than you, skewer him and banish him to hell for having questioned the order and now there's a metaphorical spear against your back at all times because you know it could have been you instead, and it could still be you if you don't behave

Option 2: Lucifer is your mentor. He's taught you everything you know. The ropes, your powers, the world. He's fantastic! You admire him greatly. He has such energy you could never hope to match. You put him on a pedestal, and in one fell swoop the only people he answers to destroy your mentor in front of you. You are now alone, without any more advice or guidance other than a warning to not step out of line as your mentor once did

Option 3: Lucifer is your apprentice. He's adorable! A little over enthusiastic but who doesn't love someone who's passionate about the things they like? He brings a wonderful energy and vibe, and... he's your responsibility. You try to reign in his wild energy only for the elders to step in and banish him because you failed him and now you know that the elders could do that to you too

So, I'll be honest, option 3 is NOT the one I'm biased towards, but if it ends up being that one, it would make Sera's behavior towards Emily extra heartbreaking. She already failed one apprentice, she will not fail another one, right?

Either way, Sera is terrified of going against the elders because of what they did to Lucifer in spite of his rank. She knows first hand how harsh they can be and because of that, she will do everything in her power to make sure nobody around her falls into the same fate. No one will ever question the elders again, and she will lie and withhold information to make sure that happens

And we're just talking about the INITIAL banishment.

Now why would Sera bring this up, unless what she was most afraid of wasn't even the initial banishment, but of the suffering she clearly knows comes afterwards? And why would she care or even know about the suffering? Well, if it's true that she and Lucifer were close, then regardless if she was spying on him or not the way we know heaven can do, she still watched a cute enthusiastic little angel go from this:

to this

all because because he suffered.

She watched him question, get banished, suffer, and change into someone she didn't recognize, in real time. And the worst part is, she's not only scared of what happened TO him, she's personally scared OF him and what he's become. He might be fallen, but he's still a powerful angel

And this segways into another bullet: she approved the exterminations, but WHY

Charlie's intro implies it was as some sort of punishment towards Lilith who was rallying the demons and they felt threatened

But clearly there's more to this

So first thing I'd like to point out, Sera doesn't look happy about this decision. She mentions as much in the song "You didn't Know" when she outright tells Emily "It was such a hard decision" and earlier in the same episode she outright tells Adam she wouldn't have approved of this if she had known it'd make things "worse"

But this is incomplete. Something doesn't make sense. Sera clearly meets with Lucifer for certain matters as previously established, and Lucifer, in spite of his initial trauma "NO CHARLIE DO NOT TALK TO HEAVEN" knee jerk reaction, never doubted that he COULD in fact get her a meeting with heaven. He outright tells her at the end of episode 5

He never says, "I'll try to get the meeting". He says straight up, I can do this. There isn't a doubt in his mind that he can get this meeting. He knows Sera will meet with him/take his call (idk how he contacts heaven) and will agree to the meeting. We don't really know WHY Sera agreed to this if she thought it was a bad idea and never really intended to entertain the idea to begin with, going as far as to tell Adam to rig the results and calling Charlie misguided. So what's up? Why on earth would she agree to it? Well...?

Sera is scared of the demons of hell, hence why she approved the exterminations, but she's even MORE scared of Lucifer and folded to his request. (or idk maybe there's more going on here and she feels guilt about what happened to him so she folds to him sometimes idk, but for the sake of this meta, SHE'S SCARED OF HIM)

but here's what's kinda weird. Charlie's storybook only mentions LILITH'S involvement with the demons rising in power, not Lucifer. Sera later claims that they were uprising to Emily as the reason she's scared of them and that it's her job to keep everyone safe.

Clearly SOMETHING happened between the creation of Hell and the exterminations being approved that involved BOTH the sinners AND Lucifer that made Sera scared of both. Sera doesn't seem the type to fear without reason. She fears questioning the order because that incurs the elders' wrath. She fears the elders because of what they did to Lucifer. She fears angels falling because she saw how much it hurt Lucifer. Sera is not the type to fear randomly. Clearly there is some sort of thing that happened that made it clear to Sera that Lucifer is to be feared enough to fold to his requests and that the sinners are dangerous enough that it justifies genocide.

And now to bring back the whole Sera is older than Emily. Emily didn't know this otherwise Sera wouldn't have needed to tell her. AKA Emily wasn't even around when said conflict happened. Sera not only had to go through something that clearly traumatized her to the point where she agreed that genocide was a reasonable response, but she had to go through that ALONE. Trauma is hard enough to deal with, but to have to navigate it alone really gives it some steroids it has no business in having

This genuinely makes me wonder how long the exterminations have to have been taking place. It probably took a WHILE for hell to gather up enough numbers that they started making buildings by the look of Charlie's storybook, AND THEN did something against heaven, so this was not happening from day one of hell, far from it. And this also makes me wonder how old exactly is Emily? She strikes me as extremely young

season 2 come out please, I'm working from CRUMBS here, there is so much we don't know

But yeah, all of this to say, Sera isn't just some alpha bitch who's prejudiced against demons (not to say there isn't bias there, there ABSOLUTELY is, ugh) but at her core, she's a leader who underwent a lot of trauma and she's full of fear and she makes decisions, rational, moral or not, based off of that fear. And yeah unfortunately, fear, especially trauma based fear, messes with us in ways we never would expect

a kind man may suddenly resort to violence. The confident argumentative person, may instead end up frozen. Someone who thought they valued their family all their life instead runs away. We may regret what we do in moments in fear, we might even logically know that we're making bad decisions, or decisions that go against our morals. Sera CLEARLY hates that she made the decision to approve extermination, but she holds onto it steadfast because it alleviates the fear

Funnily enough, I don't particularly LIKE Sera. I dislike her microaggressions towards Charlie and her attempts to sabotage her efforts at the meeting by calling upon Adam. But as a writer, looking at the clues I got to say she's a very interesting character to me. She seems like a reasonable authority figure, but she's so full of trauma that she's letting her fear make all of her decisions for her

[edwinisms]

i like to think, as a hc or a theory (because it’s definitely possible), that charles has had a few kisses throughout his high school years, sure, but past that he’s undeniably a virgin– well, kind of undeniably, because I think he’d deny it if found out by trying to use technicalities (“I mean that one time there was friction involved–“), but to any reasonable person, and by occult standards (see: edwin being a virgin sacrifice), he’s a virgin.

and i think this because it seems like him to fib about his level of experience (like he did when agreeing he’d sleep with crystal, matching her level of casualness about it) when in the presence of people who do, actually, have experience, in the hopes he doesn’t come off as lame or childish. given what we know about his “friends” when he was alive, they seem like the type to have teased or bullied boys– especially in their own circle– who haven’t gotten laid, or at the very least would’ve thought less of someone for it. and given what we know about charles, i don’t think he’d be nearly as sleazy and inconsiderate as his group when it comes to landing girls with the primary intention of adding to his body count. and considering he’s only supposed to be 16? and has never mentioned any significant relationships pre-death? it just seems unlikely.

all that to say– I can see him maintaining that facade of experience and confidence literally right up until the moment it matters, and in the heat of the moment getting nervous and embarrassed because “uhhh. so I may have been exaggerating some things.” though he’s not totally clueless either, I think it’d take a bit of a soft heart to heart moment for him to be reassured enough that he won’t fuck up and hurt his partner to go any further.

anyway not sure what the relevance of this is, but it’s something.