#okay I'm leaving this here and running

[happilyobsessing]

AFTER THE FACT for #veilguard30 by @pavus

Prompt: Joining Rating: Teen (strong language) Words: 1,767 Characters: Marian Cousland, Alistair Theirin, Duncan, Morrigan Summary: Marian Cousland reflects on her Joining and struggles to come to terms with a life she did not choose. AO3 Link

During the bitter winters at Highever, where howling winds ripped at the crumbling coastline and waves battered the cliffs in a relentless battle, Castle Cousland stood proud and resolute against the onslaught. Reinforced walls of ancient stone protected their inhabitants against the elements and tucked away from the main keep the Couslands would spend their evenings content in the warmth of hearth and family. At her father’s knee (even recently) Marian would drift between waking and slumber as his gentle voice wove stories of their heritage: the Elstans, Sarim Cousland, and the rebellion against King Calenhad. Her mother’s hand would rest absent-mindedly against the ruffled crop of her hair and tenderly soothe her daughter’s racing thoughts.

Now, as Marian stared hard into the flickering campfire, the ghost of her mother’s touch whispered over the back of her head. Or perhaps it was just the wind, she thought to herself. Her jaw clenched tighter than a mollusc’s shell, and she hunched further over the sharp ridge of her knees. At least it wasn’t raining. Yet. Travel along the Imperial Highway had not yet been hindered by foul weather, for which Marian was glad. The recent weeks had been terrible enough to be ruined further with rain and it would have only confirmed the suspicion brewing in her gut that the Maker had a personal vendetta against her.

She snatched up the charred branch beside her and viciously stoked the flames of the fire. Sparks leapt from the flames and she didn’t flinch as they fluttered to smoke sullenly at her feet. The now-familiar grip in her gut once again wrapped itself around her intestines. Nausea sloshed inside of her like wine spilling in a goblet and in that tumult nestled the ache she nurtured for her father, her mother, her home. With a violent jab she tossed the branch into the fire and buried her head against her knees, eyes screwed shut, breathing shallow as – to her shame – a sob burned at the back of her throat.

Even if she killed Howe, split him in half and posted his head on a spike from the walls of Fort Drakon, she could never go home.

At the back of her mind a voice (incomplete, more breath than words) prickled and something dark in her blood pulsed in return.

“Are you alright?”

Marian startled and whipped around to look at her companion. The Junior Warden stood at the edge of the fire, hesitant to intrude upon her space. She didn’t respond. Alistair shuffled awkwardly under the weight of her gaze and – for a moment – he reminded her of Fergus, seven-years-old and preparing for the tongue-lashing of his short life from Nan. The knees of his breeches were scuffed green from where he had even been playing with Colossus, just like her brother. Barely holding back a roll of her eyes, Marian turned away to glare at the fire. The nausea in her belly had settled. Instead, fury simmered low and hot in the pit.

“Leave me be.”

The muffled crunch of dead grass set her teeth on edge as he moved closer to her, and she suddenly understood Morrigan’s frustrations. The child-like need for reassurance was irking, the sweet naivety infuriating. And if he fell into one more spiel about the honour and the glory of the Wardens Marian felt as though she would be perfectly justified in running him through with her father’s sword.

“You look like you’re on your last legs over here. Are you afraid of sleeping?”

“No.” Yes.

Maker damn him, the Junior Warden heard the lie. He sat heavily beside her. Too close. Marian not-so-subtly shifted away from him. If her mother were here, she would chide her for being so rude; she did not raise a churlish brute, how in Thedas did she expect anybody to marry her, let alone like her, if she acted like a curmudgeonly druffalo. But her mother was dead, and the man whom Alistair considered the closest thing to a father had been the one to wrench Marian from her arms. His blinkered determination to conscript her into the Wardens had destroyed her, ruined her, killed her as she had come to realise in horror during Alistair’s pathetic admission. Pragmatic was the kindest word Marian could force herself to begrudgingly admit when made to think about Duncan; heartless fucking son-of-a-bitch felt far more satisfying. If good people like her parents had to die, then it felt only fitting that the last hope of survival that failed them lay dead as well. Of course, if she turned around and spat that at the boy sitting beside her, there would be tears and shouting and Marian was just too tired to listen to him.

Read the rest on AO3

[sergle]

I'm thinking abt that pretty fall leaves embroidery pattern post and about how like... it is categorically a repost, it's a reupload. right? a thing that is generally disliked. but because it's credited, it's genuinely boosting the artist in question. and it could ALWAYS be like this. reposting content could ALWAYS be a symbiotic relationship, but because sourcing back to the original creator of something is so uncommon, it's just easier to ask people not to repost it at all. and people still don't understand the difference. or they'll go to the effort of cropping out usernames/signatures to repost something, which is More Effort than literally crediting the creator of something you liked enough to want to repost. Like. I literally don't actually care if my own shit gets reposted, you have to understand. I just don't want it STOLEN. But "do not repost" is easier to write on my art than "you can repost this, but don't alter the image/remove my signature, don't you dare write 'credit goes to the artist' because that is not credit, please link back to my original post or someplace that you can actually find me. please use an actual link/url instead of writing a non-clickable link of my username, because making it text instead of a clickable link cuts the number of people who will go to the effort of visiting my own page in Half." All those aggregate themed accounts, those fuckin annoying as hell instagrams and facebook groups that are like "body positive art we love wamen 💕 hashtag feminism" and then MASS-STEAL plus sized art created by women, if pages like these that always go and steal my older self-portraits and other works... If they just put a link to my prints of those pieces in the text of those posts, or, fuck, my commission info page? I would literally be living on the moon right now. I would have a house on the moon

[simgerale]

checking tumblr days after filling my queue and finding out people really liked it 👉👈

[hotpoopymilk]

was just over on the instagram explore page... big mistake!

apparently people are being transphobic to chappell roan... a cis woman... because they think she's trans... because she performs in drag.

the terfs have gotten so bad they're being transphobic to cis women now! imane khelif, chappell roan, doesn't matter if you're cis or trans, terfs will find a way to be transphobic towards you. honestly at this point i feel like you could probably convince terfs that literally every woman ever is trans. i feel like we could convince the terfs that THEY THEMSELVES are trans! they're actually that dumb, i think it would work. we eliminate the oppressor by making them oppress themselves. natural selection!

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I haven't been involved with coaching for almost 3 months now and somehow I am still getting dragged into the drama.

[pechadream]

Hello Pokémon SWSH fandom

disappears from the fandom's eyes for another undisclosed amount of time

[fireheartedpup]

My parents like to do this thing where they invite me over, don't specify a specific time, don't text until the time they expect me to be there, and then ask why I got there late.

I'm not gonna let it get to me today but it still sucks.

[landscaping-your-mind]

"it's okay if you fight with me, i can take it" for god's sake stop being such a fucking martyr

[leondaltons]

Hello besties I'm still (barely) alive, life has just been exhausting lately 😩

[fazcinatingblog]

Wait since when does James wear a glove

[raayllum]

i think it’s nights like these where the assumptions i’ve seen of people assuming i write or do anything for clout (like this is a children’s show and my free time, what clout?) that i’m a ‘leader’ or police in the fandom (acab btw) online are the funniest / most vapid to me bc like. you think i’m writing like 5k about a character named fucking sir sparklepuff as a tragic figure and philosophical mouthpiece because i think it’s gonna be popular or give me influence? do you even hear yourself? like nah, i’m here for the exploration and embodiment of themes so my brain can relax and sleep better at night rather than hyperfixate endlessly, this is for me. cool if you enjoy it tho

[lunaetis]

▸▸ [ @apocryphis || aventurine & yinyue || starter call ]

─「银月」─  " you're lying. " the words cut through the silence in the most casual way possible. it was like the ROVER was speaking about the weather, mentioning something she considered as fact while her expression did not change in the slightest. there was no ounce of aggression within the way she spoke, either. no hint of judgement, nor hostility. she wasn't offended about being lied to, she simply was pointing out that she knew he wasn't speaking the truth. golden hues were kept on him steadily, as though a small part of her was curious as to why he had to lie. everyone has their own reasons, she supposed. she had no right to judge, thus, she did not. the waves around this person was ... peculiar, however. how intriguing for someone's wavelength to shift so drastically within the span of few seconds.

                " apologies, should i not have said that ? " realizing that it might have come off as rude or offensive, she quickly offered a sincere apology. that wasn't a kind of FIRST IMPRESSION she wanted to make to a complete stranger, especially when she found herself in unfamiliar territory. the noirette didn't break her eye-contact with the man as she placed a hand on her chest.

                " my name is yinyue. lost would be the most accurate way of describing my current situation. "

[tvrningout-a]

shall i... make a shipping call... and not forget i made one this time...

[sunnywalnut]

No but I'm still looking for the Denny's that is still in the middle of nowhere

having cis guy friends is so funny like youll ask if they wanna hang out and theyll send you to the dark woods

[phantomrose96]

People make a lot of good "thank god I'm not a kid anymore" posts about like school bullies or homework or puberty. But actually my #1 top of the "thank god I'm not a kid anymore" list is the fact that I can leave the event when I want to.

Any event I'm at! I can say "okay well I'm tired I'm going home goodbye." Could not do that shit as a kid. If you're a kid it's like yeah you will sit here at your brother's soccer game in the cold for the next 1.5 hours. You will sit here at your sibling's football practice. You will stay at this BBQ until the whole family is done with the BBQ. You are stuck at the mall until mom finds the pants she needs. You are stuck at the grocery store. No we don't know how long. You are stuck at band practice. It's running late but you're not allowed to leave. You are stuck at the party that the adults said you're leaving soon but they keep talking to these 2 people who showed up late. What the Fuck.

And that shit is on top of having homework.

[modernpygmalion]

Gave him the boot

Ended it with my fwb today bc the steady realization i have been in love with my ex best friend who i blocked and ghosted a year ago is too much for me to bear, even tho Johnathan was going to be a lot of fun bc he was into the exact same kinks as me in the exact same way and matched my freak to an eerie degree

So im gonna just kinda settle into maybe becoming one of those professional yeaners who still pine over their homoerotic object of affection like 70 years later. Wish me luck, I might become a published poet in like 5 years if i can channel whatever this is constructively!