#its always just

[vigilskeep]

hi hello @demandthedoodles was kind enough to tag me in wip fridnesday, that well-known day of the week, so i dug up a little keir and anders snippet. it’s not that deep it’s essentially just 1k of anders being embarrassing

(context: this is set at the end of the Act Break Breakdown™️, so basically keir hasn’t been in town for nearly a year in the time between act 1 and act 2. this also makes it set before any kind of relationship)

As soon as light bloomed inside the lantern, Anders nearly jumped out of his skin. There was a figure, waiting, in the dim light.

Hawke was in the doorway.

Hawke, of all people, was in the doorway.

As a mage, Anders was in the business of altering reality. Somehow no spell he had ever cast had seemed quite as improbable as the mundane fact of Hawke’s broad shape filling out the doorway of the clinic. He was a little hunched over, lending an awkward slant to the thick fur pelt worn over his shoulders, and letting his ragged dark hair fall loose to one side. It was longer than ever, almost to his waist. That was what startled Anders, more than anything: the reminder that it had been almost a year since the last he had seen of the man.

Frankly, he had not expected to see him again at all. “Hawke?” said Anders, baffled.

Hawke blinked, slow and cat-like. There was something strange to those yellow-gold eyes that had not been there before. Before Anders could place it, a motion of Hawke’s right arm, cradled to his chest, drew his attention. Anders only realised it was, in fact, an arm, when his sleep-deprived vision had cleared enough to see past the blood.

The blood. In an entirely different voice—an uncharitable listener might have called it a yelp—Anders said, “Hawke!”

“Healer,” answered Hawke, with a grimace. He was only wearing light armour under the fur, nothing more than a chest-plate, pauldrons, and bracers, no doubt a born and raised Fereldan’s concession to Kirkwall’s latest bout of sweltering summer heat. It left the injured arm mostly bare. It was drenched in red, which had poured down from a thick, ugly gash across the meat of his bicep.

“Maker’s breath,” said Anders, rushing over and immediately taking his other arm by the shoulder to pull him into the clinic. He was mildly aware it was a liberty to take, after almost a year, but there was no standing on ceremony in the clinic, and Hawke had never minded before. “What happened?”

Allowing himself to be moved, and Maker knew Anders could never have moved him otherwise, Hawke said, “Carta.” Right. Never one to waste words, this one.

Anders headed for one of the cots, manoeuvring Hawke approximately in its direction so he’d take the hint and sit down. How long had he been standing out there? “Why didn’t you just come in?”

Hawke did take the hint and sit down. With his free arm—his left hand, and Anders idly noted the dexterity he had with it—he loosened the distinctly Fereldan brooch that pinned the fur pelt around his shoulders, letting it slide free, and raked his long hair to one side, out of the injured arm’s way. “The lantern wasn’t up yet,” he said, like this explained everything.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Anders. “You must have heard me moving around.”

Despite the pain the movement must have cost him, Hawke shrugged. “Lantern wasn’t up.”

There was no use standing over him, at Anders’ height. He sat next to Hawke on the cot so he could face the wound. He was dismayed, almost immediately, by how distracted he was by Hawke’s closeness.

Nearly a year, and he wasn’t over this? A little mortifying, he had to admit. Maybe it was just the surprise. The sudden immediacy of him, after such an absence without any thought of his return. The familiar smell of blood and sweat and kaddis, and an excuse to zero in on the muscular thickness of his arm. That was all. Anders reminded himself he had a job to do, and focused on examining the wound.

The first thing he noticed was that the cut had sliced a tattoo raggedly in half. It took Anders a moment to piece it together as the sword and anvil of the Red Iron’s sigil, a souvenir of Hawke’s indentured year with the mercenary band. Justice flashed like a throbbing headache behind Anders’ eyes, remembering the onslaught of refugees that they had both poured in with. So many forced to lower themselves to such depths, all for the questionable privilege of feeding into this meat grinder of a city. “Glad to be rid of this, are you?” he said lightly.

Hawke frowned down at it. Too late, Anders remembered who had done that year of service with him, who also wore that mark on her arm, and he cursed himself for ever forgetting. As long as Bethany was in the Gallows, he couldn’t let himself forget. “I can live without it,” he said.

Not on Anders’ watch.

He lifted his hands and began using his magic to feel out the shape of the injury, to understand the cut that had made it and the stitch that might weave it back together. In the heat of battle and desperation, he might have done quicker, clumsier work, but Hawke wasn’t in danger. (Though Anders dreaded to think what might have become of the arm if Hawke had waited for the bloody lantern an hour or two longer.) He could afford the luxury of taking his time. With any luck, he could save the tattoo with almost no scarring at all.

After several long minutes of near-silent work, Hawke said, “I missed this.”

Anders blinked, and looked up from the wound, outside of which he had almost forgotten that Hawke was there. Hawke was looking back at him, steady and contemplative. Anders kept noticing details he’d almost forgotten. Hawke had longer eyelashes than you’d somehow expect of a man of his roughness, hidden a little away into the fold of his eyes, only visible at this angle.

“What?” said Anders, backtracking from all thoughts of eyelashes to parse out what Hawke had said. “You’ve missed getting cut up? Tell me you’ve found a line of work that doesn’t involve that and you’ll really give me a fright.”

“Not that.” The corner of Hawke’s mouth had turned up slightly.

Well, that was worth pursuing. “Having your own private healer, then?” he said, and he added his best suggestive raised eyebrow, just for masochism’s sake. “It must have been a trial to do without me.”

“It was,” said Hawke, entirely seriously, as ever, which flummoxed Anders so thoroughly he looked back down at what he was doing, which was probably a good idea. “But I meant magic. I missed it.”

That stunned Anders even further into silence. He flexed his fingers as he pulled the seams of Hawke’s wound together, binding flesh to flesh, and tried to remember if he had ever heard anyone else say the word magic the way Hawke said it. It was not unlike the way the Warden-Commander had spoken the words: In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice. It was not unlike the way Justice had said justice, when he’d had a voice of his own to say it. It was not even particularly unlike the way Anders had heard Chantry sisters utter the Maker’s name. Reverence. For magic. He had not thought to hear it again.

[tothechaos]

this is what every tiktok screenshot looks like to me

[starridge]

puppet hour was brutal

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Penelope's final gambit, you will always be famous, no matter the subtext.

[stealingpotatoes]

the illness post is still getting notes (???!! <3) and that means people are still telling me to get better soon, which is really nice but im gonna be too powerful if i get any better

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[ezlo-x]

palico lore will always be funny to me. They get paid to hunt just like a human hunter. But since they're small anthropomorphic cats you always treat them like pets or babies. like your palico is grown ass man....cat

[pigswithwings]

above all else a trans woman is a person. above all else a trans women is a woman who goes to the same grocery store as you and buys fruits in the same grocery cart as you and goes home and eats her dinner the same as you. above all else a trans woman is a woman who dresses like you do and talks the same way you do. above all else a trans woman is a woman who wants to be cared about the same way you want to be cared about and a trans woman is a woman who makes friends the same way you make friends. above all else you should care about trans women because they are people. treat her as such.

[stil-lindigo]

lighthearted.

if this comic resonated with you, please consider donating to this palestinian escape fund (vetted by @/nabulsi and @/el-shab-hussein) as it is less than $7,000 away from it's goal.

i turn 24 today. To celebrate, I made this comic to be a spiritual successor to lead balloon, a comic in which I talked about the darkest period of my life so far.

A lot has changed since my 23rd birthday and this one. My priorities have shifted a lot, in ways that I think are mostly good. But i think the best part about today is that suicide has gone back to being a far away notion. I'm really lucky, and I'm grateful for that.

[angelofdumpsterfires]

how i feel about all the changes in s3

[philtstone]

feel like psych deserves more credit for manifesting guest stars from almost every single property it referenced. i know plenty of shows have pop culture relevant guest stars but none of them make references that are so very specific and none of them get 99% of their references to actually show up. like psych will throw out a name exclusively for the bit and then an unpredictable number of episodes/seasons later that person will literally show up as murderer/victim/random extended family member of the week with no comment. george takei. william shatner. cybill shepherd from moonlighting. almost every single actor from the breakfast club (one of them recurring!). biff and doc brown from back to the future. dr frankenfurter himself. literally carey elwes. john cena??? john rhys davies. half the cast of twin peaks. the original "come on son" guy. alan ruck. michael rooker. both leads from she's all that. winston from ghostbusters. bud's mom from the cosby show. curt smith from tears for fears (who also sang live with them at an event, like, twice). they mentioned billy zane and val kilmer so many times per season that through sheer willpower they got billy zane and val kilmer to both show up in their series finale. those guys committed to their bits so hard that they ended their show with one of the most diversified and stacked cameo rosters in tv & thats honestly so funny and iconic of them

[lemongogo]

life of regret

[colorful-horses]

not a phase

[nidbaesenpai]

Happy one year anniversary ISAT! To celebrate I wanted to share the lil strips I made for my friends when they reached the end of the game! They're all meant to be snippets of life post game and a glimpse into the world I'm making for Loop.

[xpurplepiex]

Why do you draw Starscream like he's a girl?

because he's a DIVA💜

he's a princess and a wife who happened to be a man <33