#look I wrote something!

[librathefangirl]

My Fear (My Weakness?)

ao3 (Chapter 1/1; 500+)

Zeldris had never been good at trusting. His father had made sure of that. Growing up, the number of people he could trust would have his back was limited. The people he could trust would have his back without expecting anything from him in return even fewer. There were only two people he fully trusted. This random stranger was not one of them.

Warnings: Needles, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse.

Still working on my other stories but - I got vaccinated today. It hurt. So, I decided to torment Zeldris a bit too (plus I got bored having to wait).

Modern AU?

Read on ao3 or under the cut!

The thing was, realistically speaking Zeldris knew there was nothing dangerous happening here. Well, maybe there was . He was trusting a complete stranger to inject poison into his body. 

Zeldris had never been good at trusting. His father had made sure of that. Growing up, the number of people he could trust would have his back was limited. The people he could trust would have his back without expecting anything from him in return even fewer. There were only two people he fully trusted. This random stranger was not one of them. 

Of course, this was not a life or death situation - but it could be. He could be assassinated at this very moment. By his own fucking volition.

Maybe the real problem was that Zeldris couldn't shut off his own brain?

This stranger had no reason to want him dead, and Zeldris had no reason to fear for his life at any given moment. Not anymore. Meliodas made sure of that. Their father couldn't ruin their lives anymore. That knowledge did little to help ease Zeldris’ fear. Obviously. This wasn't about death. Zeldris had never really feared death. He had walked hand in hand with it for so long, it lacked that power over him. This was about something far more… stupid.

Zeldris didn’t like needles. They hurt and – He hated this. He hated how that small fact turned discomfort into fear. He hated the way the sight of the needle would make his heart beat fast. He hated how weak it made him feel. More than anything, Zeldris hated being scared.

His father had hated it too. Zeldris could still remember the look he had given him when Zeldris got scared of thunder as a kid. To his father, fear was a weakness, and weaknesses were to be crushed.

But Zeldris didn’t know how to stop being scared. Even when he knew there was no reason to be. In the same way, years later, he still didn’t know how to stop feeling like a failure whenever he got scared. Everybody got scared – Zeldris knew this. He also knew his father had been wrong about so many things. He was wrong about this too. There was nothing wrong with being scared.

Knowing that didn’t help Zeldris from feeling weak.

A hand brushed against Zeldris’ back. In an instant, he remembered how to breathe without feeling like he was going to pass out. It was like that brief, fleeting touch knocked the air back into his lungs.

Being scared was okay.

Meliodas grabbed the back of Zeldris’ chair – not reaching out to hold him, but still keeping that grounding touch between them. He was talking. Telling some story in an upbeat, soft tone. Just like he had done during thunder when they were kids. Zeldris felt himself drawn to his big brother’s voice. He focused on it; not wanting to think about the needle anymore. Meliodas was talking about Elizabeth. He always seemed to be talking about Elizabeth nowadays. Zeldris found he didn’t really mind. He was slowly learning that maybe he actually had three people he could trust. After all, Meliodas trusted Elizabeth, and Zeldris trusted his brother.

Being scared was okay. Because Zeldris wasn’t alone. Maybe their father had been wrong, or maybe being scared really made you weak. It didn’t matter. Zeldris wasn’t alone. He didn’t need to be strong every single moment. He could be scared, he could be weak.

He wasn’t alone.

[marjansmarwani]

Seven Sentence Sunday 

@detectivecarlosreyes did one that I tagged her in ages ago and I needed the motivation to write literally anything, so I decided to do one too (disregard the fact that it’s technically monday here). 

Shout out to @justaswampdemon for helping me with it as well as @moviegeek03 because they’ve both been listening to me obsess about this idea for months. It’s a rough first draft but I’m happy I started writing it at all. 

It had been three weeks since Owen had come home to find a note on the counter that had turned his world upside down. 

Well; two weeks, five days, and seven hours, but who was counting? 

He had spent every day since doing everything he could think of, calling every person they had ever known; desperately hoping that maybe they had heard something, that maybe they had the answer to all the questions that had kept him up every night since. He had spent entire days tracking down every NA and AA group he could find in the city and surrounding areas, reassuring them that yes, he understood it was anonymous, but if they could just tell him if they had seen the man in the picture or not recently he would be on his way. The entire fire station had joined the cause; Marjan was keeping a list of everyone who had hung up on her so she could keep calling them with different numbers. 

He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since that day and all his usual routines had been abandoned. His skincare products sat unused beside the sink and each day the face in the mirror looked more and more haggard, but he ignored it. It didn’t matter. Nothing did until he had the answers he was seeking. 

He just needed to know that his son was alive. Nothing else mattered.

no pressure tagging @reyesstrand @terramous @welcometololaland @doublel27 @strandnreyes @kiras-sunshine if you want to share anything you’ve been working on!

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[iid-smile]

you've always been interested in how nanami was part danish. it was only a small percentage, but the genes were obviously strong, still standing two generations later. he wouldn't consider himself bilingual in the language, especially since he only knows a few words here and there. he can say hello, he can introduce himself, but that's about it. or that's what he lets on anyways.

his secret comes to light when you snuck up on him while he was moving furniture around the house.

you don't doubt his strength, and he's not all that clumsy to get hurt, but accidents can always happen. just a little bit of skin managed to get caught underneath a surface. you were close to approaching him, but at that moment, he had a small slip of the tongue.

"kraftedeme..." he mumbles under his breath. if there's one thing you know, what he said definitely wasn't anything nice.

you're not all that heartless to not check up on him before you investigate, looking at him with the most innocent expression you can pull off. "so... what does that mean?" this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. you've never heard him verbally swear, but for him to do it in a different language was even better.

usually, nanami knows when something's up, or when you're planning on teasing him, but this time he doesn't even know he's said anything out of the ordinary. "what does what mean?" he questions.

"cra- crafdeme... kraftdem..." you only had a barely audible sample to go off on, but it's already clear enough what you're trying to pronounce.

"don't say that, love." conflict runs over his features, clearly concerned over you picking up on his use of foul language. he's been way too confident in your lack of understanding. "you weren't supposed to hear that."

him avoiding your gaze was something he never did, unless it was under one condition. he's flustered. "why?" you try your best to stay within his line of sight, holding onto his hands so he can't escape or walk off anywhere. "just tell me what it means!"

he won't be able to leave until he tells you, and that's not going to happen for a long while. what a mess he's gotten himself into.

[magicicephoenix]

i think they are a bit like brothers

bonus:

[poorlydrawninstarsandtime]

the humble conkroch

[id in alt]

[imaredshirt]

Give me a Stan who thinks Fiddleford doesn't know how to throw a punch, much less defend himself in a fight with your average goon, so one morning he takes it upon himself to show the nerd a few basic jabs and hooks and maybe an uppercut or two behind the cabin, because let's face it, there's gonna be a time when Stan can't be there to take a hit for the guy or defend his nerd butt. So he's gonna teach him some stuff for his own peace of mind.

Fiddleford just kind of genially goes along with it, following Stan around the back of the cabin and watching with hands on his hips and a smile as Stan gets into position.

"This is one of the most basic punches in the world, so pay attention, 'cause I'm not gonna show you again," Stan says, knees slightly bent and fists up.

Fidds nods. "You've got my full attention, Stanley."

Stan isn't sure if he's imagining the way Fidds is eyeing him up and down, but he automatically flexes his arms a little more than he needs to. Up ahead, Ford is sitting on a tree stump and taking samples of the air or something (Stan had stopped listening to Ford's explanation once his words went from interesting to Big Science Shit that Stanley Does NOT Care About) and he's watching them with this amused grin, rolling his eyes skyward when Stan won't stop flexing and showing his arms off.

Stan ignores him and rolls his shoulders before jabbing his fists forward in a quick one-two. "There - you catch that?"

Fidds has got his arms crossed now and gives Stan a thumbs up. "Sure did!"

"See, just like this," Stan says, and shows him again despite saying earlier that he wouldn't.

He shows him a few more punches, going over each one a couple times before telling the engineer to mirror him, even getting in close to adjust the guy's scrawny arms and balled fists. He's being real professional about it and everything and doesn't understand why Ford keeps grinning and shaking his head at them, which is making him a little incensed but he stamps it down because Fidds is watching him with this nerdy, dopey smile while letting himself be maneuvered around and he's gotta learn to defend himself 'cause Stan can't stand the thought of some jerkwad wiping that smile off the nerd's face.

"See," he says near the end of the lesson, tapping his fist right against Fidds’s chin. "Do it right and your fist'll hit right here."

Fidds tilts his head a fraction at the touch. "Well alright then, seems easy enough."

"Yeah, like I said, if you do it right. Gimme your hand-" he takes Fidds’s wrist and taps the guy's balled fist against his own stubbly jaw. "Right here. You got that?"

Fidds nods. "Sure do!"

"Good." Stan drops Fidds’s wrist and gets into position again. "Then come on - lay one on me."

Fidds pulls back and blinks at him. "Come again?"

"Hit me!" Stan taps his jaw. "Right here!"

The guy suddenly looks nervous and galnces over at Ford for help. "Hit you? Stanley, I don't think-"

This is what Stan means. Fidds isn't always gonna be able to look to him or Ford to save him. He gets this weird, uncomfortable feeling in his chest at the thought of Fidds facing off against some asshat on his own, and that alone is enough to keep him from letting the guys off easy, if only to get rid of the weird feeling. Maybe a bit selfish but he doesn't care.

"Ah, come on, one little punch ain't gonna hurt ya, Fidds."

"I'm not worried about me," Fidds says, and then frowns when Stan barks a laugh.

"You think you're gonna hurt ME?"

Fidds is still frowning when Ford calls over in an amused, warning tone, "This is not a good idea, Stanely!"

"Just worry about your air test or whatever and leave us alone," Stan calls back. Ford shrugs and scribbles something in his journal, and when Stan turns back to Fidds, Fidds is finally getting into position.

He looks unsure, watching Stan nervously as Stan stands before him with his arms crossed.

"Hey, not bad form - you ready?"

"Well, I suppose so," Fidds says, accent coming in a little thicker than before. "Stan, if you're sure, I should probably warn ya-"

"Don't tell me nothing, just punch me!"

Fidds presses his lips into a line and throws his fist - and jabs Stan on the chin just hard enough to tilt Stan's head half an inch to the side.

"That's it?" Stan guffaws and shakes his head. "That was barely a tap!"

"I don't wanna hurt ya!" Fidds says, sounding so conflicted that Stan gets this urge to pull him into a headlock and ruffle his hair and drive the worry away.

Instead he riles him up.

"Please," he says. "Fidds, look - one of these days I'm not gonna be there to take a hit for you, and then what're you gonna do? Just let some jerk punch ya around?"

Fidds looks slightly perplexed. "Where is this all comin from? No, Stanley, I am NOT gonna just let some jerk punch me around."

"Good! So you gotta learn to defend yourself!" Fidds still looks unsure, so Stan tries a different angle. "Okay, how 'bout this - what if some jerks are beating up on me and Ford, huh? You're just gonna let em?"

Fidds looks up. "What? No, I am not!"

"You're gonna defend us?"

"Dangnabbit, Stan - of course I am!"

"Not gonna let us get our teeth kicked out?"

"What!? No!"

"Then show me!" Stan slaps a hand against his own chin. "Right here, come on! I'm some jerk who just threw your friend Stan to the ground and I'm about to kick him in the gut, what're ya gonna-"

The blow lands hard. Stan's head jerks to the side and he's thrown off balance, and he sees actual stars before his vision clears again and he realizes he's crumpled on the ground. His head swims as hands pull him around onto his back.

"Mother o pearl!" Fidds gasps. He's got his hands on Stan's face, careful touch at complete odds with the punch he'd just landed in the same place. "Are you alright? I am so sorry! I hit ya and you weren't even ready and - you just got me so riled up and I tried to tell ya and I shoulda said earlier instead o just lettin ya show me all those moves, but I just wanted to, well - goddangit, Ford, this ain't funny."

Ford's laughing as he comes up behind them, looking down at where Stan is staring kinda dazedly up at Fidds, who's kneeling by his side in the cool grass. "We did try to tell him, Fiddleford."

"Tell me what?" Stan demands. His jaw is already aching but Fidds’s hands feel kinda good so he doesn't tell him to move.

"Fiddleford was a boxing champion back back in his hometown," Ford says.

Stan blinks. "Bwuh-?"

"Not much of a champion," Fidds says with a wince, but he's blushing a bit as he goes on, "It was never anythin official, but - well, I did win more than a few matches at some backyard parties, see, and - well, people usually don't think I got any hittin power or can defend myself, but my Ma's been all too happy to teach me since I was little, and-"

The guy's rambling, and Stan quits being able to understand what he's saying half way through cause the accent is coming in thick and Ford’s chuckling and standing there looking proud of his best friend and Stan’s a little worried that he's still jarred from the hit, cause when he looks at Fidds kneeling there, one hand one Stan's chest and the other bashfully rubbing his neck while he rambles on - he's still seeing stars.

Later, while Stan sits in the living room with an bag of ice in his jaw and Fiddleford sitting next to him, still rambling about all the times he'd knocked a few guys into the mud in some backcountry hoedown get-together or whatever, Stan can lean back and relax and grin, knowing Fidds is gonna be just fine.

He can't wait to teach him wrestling.

[ssentimentals]

Hello can i get number 6 from the prompt with S.Coups after having an argument. Thanks 🩷

hi, honey!💜 thanks for the request, hopefully you will like it!

6. kiss of a falling tear (choi seungcheol)

when you voice wavers seungcheol knows he lost. and not in way like this is some stupid contest with winners and losers, but lost in a way of losing all will to go on with this argument. he hates them in the first place, but they are inevitable especially at the start of any relationships, so he sucks it up and tries to push through as gently as he can; which he's obviously not succeeding at, judging by your broken expression. what seungcheol hates the most about arguments is how they strip him down to his insecurities, the ones he's not ready to show to anyone and the ones he very much wants to hide from you. but you are you and even under few months you got under his skin so deep that being in the room with you and your tear filled eyes makes him want to swing himself to the wall.

'babe,' he calls in a tired voice because he is tired and this should end now, fuck, he can't stand seeing you like this. 'come here.'

you sniffle and his heart aches at this sound. uncertain, you take few steps towards him, stopping right at the arm length. 'you don't have to be like this with me,' you whisper, rubbing at your eyes. 'i'm- i'm not like them.'

seungcheol nods, ruffling his hair. he knows, he knows. he knows it all but sometimes it's so hard to act exactly the way he thinks is right, the way he knows is right. old habits die hard. 'i'm sorry, sweets.' he says instead, slowly reaching out for you. 'i really am. come to me, please?'

he needs to have you close or seungcheol fears he might break down. you wait for few moments during which his heart doesn't beat but then take his hand and let yourself fall into his arms, silently crying. knowing that he's the reason of your tears hurts seungcheol more than he can explain because it's so wrong - he's supposed to only bring you joy and happiness, not tears. taking a hold of your chin, he gently makes you lift your head and kisses away your tears, stopping right at your eyelids. 'i'm sorry,' he repeats, kissing your tear striken eyes. 'i'm so sorry, my love. it won't happen again, okay? i promise. it won't.'

[doverstar]

can't express accurately how happy it makes me that c.s. lewis did not leave room for many interpretations in narnia. it's christian and you can't get around it. susan chose to care more about worldly things than what matters and he said what he said. the lion is Jesus. evil is evil and good is good and people have to choose. and that makes some readers angry because it's nearly impossible to ignore and they want to ignore it. they want it to be something else and they can't make it something else without making it not narnia. love that. that is doing it right

[shalomniscient]

a letter from a sailor to her lover. || beidou x reader

On the open ocean, Beidou is left with her thoughts. Of course, she ends up thinking of you—and tonight, she chooses to write them down in a letter to you.

notes. been obsessed w sailor song by gigi perez ,,, ooo the sapphicism. also this is short as hell but i kinda like it, might make it a series or smtg for bei

cw. fluff

To my dear heart,

We’ve just made landfall in Snezhnaya. It’s a damn cold place—I always think I’ve gotten used to the cold every time I go back, but I keep eating my words. I guess the Tsaritsa’s love isn’t so warm, huh? It makes me miss those summer mornings where I’d wake up in your arms. A little sticky, a little sweaty, but warm. The sunrise never could outdo your smile.

I miss you. And it’s got me thinking about the ways to describe how I love you.

I know, I know. I’m no poet. I’m a pirate captain! But… a mutual friend of ours keeps sending me to fetch all these literature books, so I figured I’d flip through a few pages on the journey back. Might as well make use of the time, right? Indulge me, please, sweetheart, just this once.

I thought, first, that I love you the way the ocean loves the moon. You move me, coaxing me into rhythm. You are there, always—for my highs and for my lows, for when I’m strong and when I’m weak. But the moon shines so far in the sky, and I hold you too close to my heart to bear the distance.

I thought, next, that I might love you like an anchor loves a ship. You hold me steady on stormy nights, when the waves crash harsh and high. And I carry you with me wherever I go. But you are more than just an anchor.

So I thought instead, that perhaps I love you the way a navigator loves the north star. With faith and certainty in its presence, a guiding light in the darkest of nights. I know you will shine forever in my night sky, but I think I would miss you too much during the day.

So I’ve thought about it lot, but in the end, sweetheart, I think I’ll only know how to love you as myself. I’ll come and I’ll go but my love for you will always stay right there in your hands. I’ll love you like a sailor; and you’ll always be my safest harbor. Today, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that.

Yours entirely,

Beidou

PS. Please don’t tell our mutual friend i’ve been reading her books. She might fine me extra…

[sweetieviktor]

jealous! sevika x bartender! reader (headcanons + tiny scenarios)

summary: while working at the bar, a guy is being inconvenient. luckily, a jealous sevika takes care of him.

content warning: slightly spoilers of season 1, arc 2 and 3, the guy is harassing reader (it is not sooo explicit but if you dont feel comfortable with this dont read it, please!!), little violence (just a punch) and a bit of blood. be warned, be safe!

author notes: i loved doing this request and, as my first one, i hope this is good. btw here is almost 4am and i haven't slept yet (i promised myself that i would write something on the weekend and i did it yey), so there may be a lot of typos and things like that but i can't think properly now, so yep i will post it as it is now, no proof read, no nothing. wish you guys like it!

» in the late night hours, the last drop was more agitated than ever. in every corner there were people talking, smoking, playing and drinking the drinks you made and poured in their cups again and again.

» working in such a crowded place was like hell, specially today, it looked like all of the lanes came to the bar at the same time. but you were well paid, you couldn't complain much, well, not now that a guy was just about to tip you.

“hey, pretty thing,” the weird man waved his hand to get your attention, smiling creepily at you when he finally got it, “would you get me one more of these?” he raised his glass mid air to make his point clearer “i can pay you well...”

» you knew the risks of his proposal, but money is money, and so is job, and you needed it bad now, things in the lanes never were this difficult, but since the enforces forced their troops in, making money was even harder.

» so you did as you were asked. picked up the bottle from behind the counter, walked to his side and poured in the glass a dose of the liquor. he placed a few more coins than the drinks price on the table and you smiled politely, picking them up.

» in between cards, a certain someone was already watching you from afar, waiting to step in if the man tried to do something that could possibly harm you. she was silco's right-hand, a regular at the lost drop and nothing more. just another sometimes flirty customer, but unlike him, she was respectful with you.

» when you turned your body so you could put the bottle back to its place, the man called you. again. and now she was on full alert, almost forgetting about the cards game she was playing.

“pretty thing, you forgot something! you still haven't told me your name, right? i want to know you... better.” the way he was eyeing you, your body, was making you sick and all you wanted to do was to punch him now, and sadly you couldn't.

but someone could. and she did.

even before you registered what was happening, the tall woman was already at your side, almost shielding you from the man's view, burning eyes looking directly at his soul. “if you ever come here again, i swear to you, the chances of you being alive are zero, you understood?”

“b-but ma'am i did nothing!” his nose was bleeding almost comically, but she still kept her composure, holding the man's face in place, so she could punch him again if needed.

“i've asked you if you understood!” she slammed down her mechanical hand on the table, raising it again, her voice full of rage.

“yes, ma'am!” she released him, and he runned away from the bar, shrinking and muttering “sorry's” at you both again and again.

“and you better never try to talk with them like that.” she shouted so he could still hear her words, jealousy dripping in every one of those. when she looked down on you, your pretty eyes were already shining while you looked up at her.

“thanks. for defending me.” you offered her a little smile, a genuine one, and she offered her hand, which you gladly shaked.

“no need to thanks. name's sevika.” she said, displaying a smirk on her so pretty lips.

“sevika... a beautiful name for an even more beautiful lady.”

» you didn't know her well, and neither did she, but maybe this could be a start of something.

[corseque]

I thought I would just finish creating these for every language as long as I had everything open.

DA: Veilguard 繁体中文 Traditional Chinese Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard 繁体中文 Traditional Chinese Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard 简体中文 Simplified Chinese Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard 简体中文 Simplified Chinese Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard 日本語 Japanese Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard 日本語 Japanese Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard 한국어 Korean Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard 한국어 Korean Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Русский Russian Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Русский Russian Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Português Portuguese Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Português Portuguese Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Polski Polish Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Polski Polish Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Italiano Italian Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Italiano Italian Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Français French Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Français French Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Español Spanish Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Español Spanish Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard Deutsch German Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard Deutsch German Script (Raw)

DA: Veilguard English Script (Organized)

DA: Veilguard English Script (Raw)

BONUS:

Dragon Age: Inquisition Organized Script in French

French Dialogue Separated By Character

Everything Solas says in French

Comparison between Solas' dialogue in French and English

Thank you to @amburuthings for helping me get the Inquisition talktable in French!

(I would like to make organized scripts for Dragon Age: Inquisition in the other languages, but I need the raw talktable for them in order to process them, so if you would like to export the raw talktable in your language for me using Frosty and link me to it, I would be glad to quickly put it through my program.)

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

Just wanted to confirm that Pin absolutely loves Joel wearing his hair long. Especially since he wakes up with the most deliciously disheveled bed hair in the morning.

He watches you with a lazy lopsided smile, his nose smushed into the pillow, eyes still heavy with sleep, as you run your fingers through his messy curls, until he drifts off again with the Sunday morning sun warm on his back and you tucked into his chest.

P.S. I don’t know when it happened, but I found myself hesitant about posting this. Like I’m… anxious about talking about Seams? It feels like I’ve lost momentum with the series and somehow it feels wrong for me to post a silly little thought like this to try to spark inspiration for myself.

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[confused-stars]

Wriothesley as an extension of the Fortress itself

a living, breathing part of its organism, his heart beating in tandem with its machinery. that deep hum that's always present in his mind and lulls him to sleep at night is Meropide's ancient power coursing through his veins and he doesn't even know it, let alone understand it

he was a blank slate when he arrived, a non-person by his own choice, and so the Fortress claimed him as her own

sometimes he seems to know exactly what is happening five floors below, and inmates joke that it's some sort of magic, but they know that the Duke is simply well-informed and uses the in-built security system to keep on top of things... surely that's all there is to it

a young Wriothesley was once pursued by a handful of other inmates who wanted to kill him for a perceived slight. he ducked into the shadowed hallways of the lower levels, took turn after turn, and eventually made his way to a safe room where he could hide for the night. the next day, he learned that the other inmates never made it to their morning shifts

his footing is always sure on the walkways, he never loses his way, and he can always tell when there's something up with the machinery at first glance

sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night with the taste of copper in his mouth, and he mistakes it for a memory of blood... but every time, he gets up and he finds that something has happened that requires his attention - usually the violent kind

he doesn't think there's anything special to it all, but Sigewinne sees. Sigewinne knows. she'll cross that bridge in a few decades, when Wriothesley realizes that he's stopped aging

[quietwingsinthesky]

it’s one thing to go ‘i don’t want to engage with supernatural’s themes of incest because they make me uncomfortable and/or are triggering’ but its a whole other thing to claim ‘there’s no incest in supernatural and anyone who says there is is a freak, no one should ever talk about it and should instead talk about the wholesome parts of supernatural.’ like. my guy. Mary Winchester kissed her father’s corpse on the mouth. I think maybe this isn’t the show for you.