#one of them only knows bc she just happened to be there while i was telling the other dkfnlxnd
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extremely-judgemental · 21 hours ago
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People like to argue that Cassian showed his love through actions, not words, in ACOSF, so no 'I love you' is fine. But, if actions over words is the theme of ACOSF, then what about Nesta's actions from like, acomaf onwards? Even her encouragement of Feyre to be with the man/fae she loves, and to do what she thinks is right, in ACOTAR, right before under the mountain? I suppose none of that matters then. Oh, also what about Rhysand's actions in prostituting Nesta to Eris, or keeping the pregnancy from Feyre, or laughing at Nesta being punished for something Feyre forgave her for pretty much instantly? Some sjm fans need to get their heads out of their asses.
That’s a lot to address! You just pointed out everything I hate about SF and this fandom. (I’m trying so hard not to rant but sorry😅)
People like to argue that Cassian showed his love through actions, not words, in ACOSF, so no 'I love you' is fine.
It’s interesting how they instantly came up with this justification when these books are romances. The entire plot leading up to that one ‘I love you’ in the end is the point of a romance. When half of the plot is sex and their attraction to each other, how can one accept the MC not saying the three words to the FC (which most of them are imprinting on) even once? These reasons are similar to abuse victim talk, ‘X doesn’t say it but he takes care of me’, ‘X can be a bit rude but at least he doesn’t hit me’, ‘We don’t get along much but at least he doesn’t leave me cold at nights’. This is what Nesta is doing at the end of SF, and also the BC of HOSAF with Ember (I haven’t read it, so fact check that). If throughout the book, Cassian had supported her, took her side, cared for her, been gentle and kind with her, okay, no words are needed, but he openly flamed her insecurities with ‘I don’t know how anyone could love you’. It’s pivotal moment in Nesta’s journey and their relationship which is completely dismissed. Nesta is grovelling for his affection while Cassian is declaring his love for Rhysand instead. I’m sorry, that only happens if the guy comes out and says he’s gay for his bff. Also, let’s not forget this is a guy who is supposed to be emotionally adept and expressive. (I have so many thoughts on this and Cassian’s behaviour but I want to keep this answer about Nesta.)
But, if actions over words is the theme of ACOSF, then what about Nesta's actions from like, acomaf onwards?
I completely agree with you. ‘Action speaks louder than words’ apply to Nesta more than anyone else in the story. Even Feyre does most of the sacrificial acts because of her trauma response. Ignoring the new details added in SF because stans argue those were only included to uplift Nesta, there are many moments to prove this.
1. Nesta takes care of the household. It’s her duty but she has no resentment towards her sisters for not helping her. She even dotes on Elain and that takes a lot of strength for a child.
2. She starves herself to force her father into being a parent. It’s not a selfish act to get burdens off her shoulders, it’s her way of getting her father’s attention so her sisters don’t starve to death.
3. She has a terrible encounter with a mercenary in the past and still lurks close to Feyre afraid to leave her alone with one when she could have bolted.
4. She throws herself in front of Elain when the beast shows up in the hovel.
5. She goes to the Wall looking for Feyre alone with a mercenary (whom she doesn’t trust). At this point, Elain and her father are under the glamour. If she’d died, no one would know how or why.
6. She broke off her relationship because Tomas wouldn’t care for Elain or look for Feyre with her. She puts her family first.
7. The first thing she does when Feyre returns from SC is apologise to her. She’s the one to make the first move to fix their relationship. Knowing Feyre loves to paint, she asks her to teach her. She could have suggested reading or dancing which she enjoys but she puts her sister’s interests first.
8. She encourages Feyre to pursue a life and love with Tamlin knowing her sister isn’t happy in the mortal lands anymore.
9. Her only request in exchange for helping Feyre/IC is to protect Elain. After they are transformed, she sacrifices her own healing to care for her sister and ensuring no one traumatises her more.
10. High Lords meeting, scrying was all so Elain was left out of the war. She wants revenge on Hybern because he hurt Elain and destroyed her life. She isn’t even thinking of what was done to her.
11. She abandons the plan of getting to the Cauldron because she sensed Cassian is in danger, also exposing her location to Hybern who’s been looking for her.
12. She throws herself over Cassian knowing she’ll be killed but still does it anyway. ‘I’d rather die with you than see you die’ (Like come on! You have to be blind not to see this and still take the man child’s side.)
13. She leaves River House because she doesn’t want to burden her sisters. It’s what Feyre always wanted, her exact words in ACOTAR were ‘another mouth to feed’ which is what Nesta is trying to avoid.
14. She scries again when she’s afraid of her powers so that Elain can stay away from the Cauldron.
15. She stands up against anyone who disrespects Cassian, Elain or Feyre.
16. She saves Emerie and Gwyneth in the Blood Rite knowing she’ll probably die.
17. Her love for Cassian is so strong that when she believes he died, she unleashes her powers which she kept hidden until then. (Her powers are new too and this woman never lost control and hurt anyone unlike Rhysand, Tamlin, Feyre.)
18. She sacrifices her powers to save Feyre and her child—a power she stole as a vengeance, a power that’s part of her—because her sister is worth more than all that. For this, she makes a bargain with the Cauldron which she has spited more than once and is afraid of.
These are her specific acts of love and not ‘it’s the right thing to do’ or ‘my sister wants it’. If there’s anyone who’s proved their love in healthy way in this series, it’s Nesta. There’s no condition for her love or limits. She’s unapologetic and fiercely protective of the ones she truly cares about. Also, despite being reserved, she expresses her love and admits her mistakes in words—with Feyre, Cassian, her friends.
Oh, also what about Rhysand's actions in prostituting Nesta to Eris, or keeping the pregnancy from Feyre, or laughing at Nesta being punished for something Feyre forgave her for pretty much instantly?
These stans don’t even hide their hypocrisy. When Rhysand/Feyre/IC do something, their ‘reasons’ count and so their actions can be overlooked. When it’s anyone else, they should be judged on their acts alone. Pick a fucking side already. Nesta considers selling her body for money to care for her sisters—that’s gross. Rhysand sells Nesta to Eris without even hinting at it to anyone, not Feyre, not the WOMAN INVOLVED—feminist king giving power to women. Rhysand endangers Feyre with pregnancy—‘he cares about her!’ Is he the one going to labour? Is it his body growing a killer spawn inside? Is it his body going to tear itself apart to let that child out or bleed to death? ‘Oh, but he didn’t want to put pressure on her’ More than finding out the child is going to kill her when the hormones are riding high and she’s on the brink of labour?
And Nesta being punished is ridiculous. Who is Feyre to forgive Nesta in the first place when it was Nesta making meals for her and doing chores? All Feyre did was hunt and paint, she says so herself. Anyone who hunts knows you can’t and shouldn’t do it everyday as it’s not good for kill. So Feyre was doing nothing on some days and still didn’t know how to do chores? If Nesta deserves Feyre’s forgiveness, Feyre should apologise too and make up for treating her sisters like maids.
AND why does Nesta need Rhysand’s forgiveness? I have sisters too and we have broken up with guys for far less than this shit. It’s not romantic. It’s a red flag and a sign of immaturity, manipulation and abuse. It shows the guy is incapable of seeing perspectives and understanding others who aren’t directly related to him or beneficial to him. That he might very well isolate you from the ones who truly and deeply know you so that you’re left with no one else but him. No woman will sit around and watch her sister get punished by a man for something that happened between them unless she hates her sister and is indirectly feeding off of it.
This fandom is toxic af. If they sat down with their grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, girl friends and had an honest talk, they will see how similar all these are to the ABUSE they live with. Nesta’s story is very close to my heart even if I hate to admit it. Not because I loved the book or even Nesta, but it’s the story of the women in my family and the one my cousins and my sisters are trying to avoid. Whenever anyone romanticises Nessian relationship, it’s hard to hate/be angry with these girls when I know some of them will live this and that’s when they will face the harsh reality. It doesn’t matter how hot Cassian is, how hot their sex is, none of it matters when he doesn’t care or even respect a woman for than her body.
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teddybeartoji · 2 months ago
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o wait before i start posting any pics.. i was thinking that maybe.. you guys could help me liquify this gender some more by switching up what you call me.... DON'T GET ME WRONG I LOVE . LOVE LOVE LOVE WHEN YOU USE HE/HIM AND JUST OVERALL LIKE MORE MASC STUFF THAT'S SOOO MMMMMMMMMSO FUCKING GOOD like i don't get to feel that irl at all so it really does make me so happy but i've just been thinking abt TRYING to switch it up more yk? does this even make sense...... . hhhh anyway i might won't even like it and i'll want to just go back to hehim but i wanna try... JUST TO SWITCH IT UP.
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bitchthefuck1 · 4 months ago
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you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.
There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.
#like so much of their dynamic (esp but not exclusively in S3) has been about showing the ways that carmy's trauma and dysfunctional#attitude in the kitchen impacts other people and how even though he cares about syd and wants their partnership to work he keeps self#sabotaging and setting himself and by extension her and the restaurant up to fail and replicating the same toxic environments that#he grew up and trained in and this is very much consistent with his character and a natural continuation of the conflicts they've been#having since S1 but because him being shitty with her runs contrary to them getting together suddenly its 'ruining the story' and#out of character and only happening bc the writers just hate to see this ship winning and like. if you really think that i genuinely don't#know what show you've been watching bc it sure as shit wasn't this one. like it hurts to see him do this because you know#they could do something genuinely great together and that he's ruining a really good thing but this is also the reality of where he is rn#if he was just a good and supporting business partner and not deeply dysfunctional it would be wildly out of character#the problem w S3 wasn't that it 'ruined' their relationship it's that it had no clear focus overemphasized carmy's arc at the expense#of the other leads deprioritized the supporting cast while failing to give them their own arcs gave more screen time to#unecessary and uninteresting new 'comic relief' characters and let conflicts stagnate without resolving them or#letting them evolve over the course of the season.#this isn't exclusive to the bear this is a general trend ive noticed where as soon as the 'shipper' part of people's brains get activated#it's like they lose the ability to read the story any other way and it stops being about what's good for the narrative and starts being#about whether or not these two people kiss and anything that gets in the way of that is bad and anything that brings it closer is good#and it's usually whatever but it's really frustrating when the story ppl are doing that to is this good#it also makes people fundamentally incapable of treating any 'obstacle' to that romance in a way that isn't wildly meanspirited and#gross (esp bc those characters are usually women) which is exhausting. like no claire isn't evil or a 'pick me' or 'bad' for carmy#or a useless addition to the story or whatever other nonsense you guys have decided must be true to feel okay. she's a perfectly normal#character and their relationship is exploring some of the ways that carmy's inability to deal with or actually address his trauma#impacts the various relationships in his life. she doesn't even have to be a monster or a narrative mistake for him and syd to be#'destined' for each other or whatever. this isn't a middle school wattpad fic.#im definitely gonna get killed in the street for this but ive been looking for a good reason to spend less time on here so might as well#the bear#sydcarmy#sydney adamu#carmy berzatto
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napstabl00k · 2 months ago
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Those sonic prime gjinkas from my day out today
#luriart#sonic prime#shadow the hedgehog#nine the fox#sonic the hedgehog#i guess. only twice. btw trust me on this his outfit changes w his shoes & gloves#rusty rose#thorn rose#knuckles the dread#prim the bat#prim rouge#<- ??????????#nine again. my son boy. why do all the sonic kids i wish i could adopt happen to be the type that would tell people kys#rouge the bat#just the once.#rebel the bat#rebel rouge#anyway okay so a] this was a lot of fun. i dont know if ive made this clear in my other gjinka posts but sonic's shirt says sega normally#but it reflects what he's thinking other times. Only for the jokes no one else seems to notice that the shirt changes#b] oughgh i have this obsession w the hair of these characters and making it make sense for them? nine has darker hair than tails bc tails'#hair is a] sunbleached and b] he bleaches it closer to his roots than nine#nine's hair is also greasier & straighter. it has less volume#my og amy has thick braids w heart shaped beads at the end but why the shit would the eggcouncil let her have Heart Beads???#shes their sick as hell robot. so her hair's grown out into dreads on their own. she has sort of a side shave but like. in the way that one#side is metal. thorn doesn't have the time 2 braid her own hair so she has half of it cut short and the other half grown out in a small afr#you'll never believe this but dread has dreads#prim actually gets rouge's natural hair!!! my rouge wears a wig and all the pieces that frame her face are gelled on#but if rouge [like. usual rouge] took her wig off she'd have a short buzz underneath. and i was so excited to draw it so i did#rebel keeps the wig. knucks is there at the very bottom but he has real tight braids#anyway one thing i was wondering while i was drawing is where the fuck did prim get the black shirt under her leaves shirt
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fleshdyk3 · 2 months ago
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god i fucking hate my dad
#he came home today from a bike trip he went on and he's been arguing with me about honeybee the whole fucking day#he keeps saying just let her out let her run around! every time i put her in her pen to nap#and he refuses to stop her from biting him#and he got mad at her for playing with his socks when she'd just been playing with mine and he threw them on the floor of the living room#which first of all stop being such a fucking slob#and second of all what the fuck did you expect to happen? it's a soft new toy on the floor where she spends most of her time. where all her#toys are. very similar to the two soft items she's allowed to play with (my socks)#she's fucking 3 months old she doesn't understand the difference between my socks and his socks#and i keep telling him i know what im doing i was doing all the research while he went to buttfuck nowhere on his midlife crisis motorcycle#but he just wont fucking listen to me#and hes like oh youre at that age where you think youre right about everything and are so stubborn like fuck you actually#first of all im stubborn about this because its a living breathing puppy and his actions will affect her behaviour as an adult#and bc i know what im fucking doing. ive been an animal person my entire life. i did all the research. i did this exact same thing with#parrots for five years.#and hes like you cant just put her in her pen every time shes being a dog like no i fucking dont. i only put her in her pen when it's time#for a nap and she's getting overtired. you can't just let her run around until she collapses bc for one she never fucking will#second that's only going to make her energy threshold higher and then she'll be absolutely impossible to handle#and i told him that and that i read that on like every professional dog training source i read#and he said that might be true or might not be#like it fucking is bitch omfg#and then he tried to one up me like um i actually raised you guys for a long time i know what im doing#like a child is not a fucking dog. also my mom raised us lets be fucking serious. and look how well adjusted i turned out#and he told me to relax and calm down like i wasnt even arguing with him but i sure as hell will now#like dont tell me to fucking relax. when has telling anyone to relax ever made anything better. especially a teenager. especially a (for#simplicity's sake) woman.#and i told him dont tell me to relax and he got all pissy and stormed off#like literally fuck you#im my fathers daughter. im just as stubborn as he is.#rambles
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ehlnofay · 11 months ago
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It’s not until she hears Sissel’s knees hit the floor that Efri is jolted back into her body.
She blinks, whipping her head around. Sissel is kneeling, bracing a palm on the ancient stone pavement, at the barrier – no, the barrier’s gone, it’s just Sissel on the floor. She lifts her head and meets Efri’s eyes; her hair is wispy and wild, the little plaits meant to keep it neat come loose and tumbling, her eyes wide. The barrier's gone, but still, her pale face is lit up blue.
“Are you okay?” she asks. She doesn’t speak loudly, but it echoes in the great stone chamber.
Nine, Efri doesn’t know.
She blinks again, looks down at her hands, clinging to the metal stick so fiercely that her joints ache. (Her own stick, her nice wooden one, is still on the floor somewhere, where it slipped out of her grasp when she hit the wall.) The lumpy heavy end of it, the clobbering end, is still resting on –
Not on. It’s in the thing’s head, fitted neatly in the opening of its dented helmet, the horns spiralling over the floor. There’s a tooth, perfectly preserved, by Efri’s foot.
One by one, she unwraps her gloved fingers from the handle of the metal stick, letting it drop to the floor with a clang so loud it makes her wince. Kazari is nosing at her side. (When did they let go of it? When did they get so close? She must have missed that. She feels out of the loop. Her heart is juddering like fish on a line, battering like some frightened trapped thing at her ribcage, and her breath is coming fast and heavy.) Absentmindedly bringing up a hand to press over her sore shoulder, she says, “’M fine. Not too – barely touched me.”
Kazari turns and spits on the floor. Efri blinks. She does it again, tongue lolling out of her mouth, face very disgruntled – and oh, Efri gets it. She does not glance down at the thing at her feet; she doesn’t need to, she knows what its arm looks like, chewed almost to pieces even through its banded armour. (If she hadn’t been so busy being scared of it, that sight might have made her a bit scared of Kazari. But not now, when they’re trying to hack and spit the taste of dead man arm out of their mouth.)
Efri unclips her canteen from her belt and holds it out. “Here,” she says. Her voice is rough. Her heart is racing too much to let constructing sentences be easy. “Not much, but –”
Kazari stands still while Efri tips half of the remaining water onto her tongue, and then Efri watches her swilling it around in her mouth, trying to bathe all of her teeth in it, before she spits it again on the floor at the dead thing’s feet.
The water is still clear. That’s something, at least; the dead man was too old to still have blood in him. Or maybe he was embalmed, drained of it hundreds of years ago, thousands.
“Are you okay?” Efri asks Kazari when they’re done, because they were the one doing most of the fighting, who was closest. They tip their head, shift their weight – wince when they put weight on one foot. Their lips peel back from their teeth. Their clothes on that side are singed.
Efri points it out. “Your robe,” she says, which makes it sound much fancier than it is. She’s too tired to think of a better word. She rubs a hand over her face, pushing the hair back over her forehead, says, “I’ll reinforce it for you when we get out.”
Kazari noses at Efri’s shoulder – the shredded fabric of her dress, the fraying edges stained with blood. Efri says, “I know. I’ll have to sew that up too.” Over her shoulder, she calls, “Kazari’s leg’s hurt, I think.”
“There’s blood on you,” Sissel replies. She peels her hand off the floor and leans back on her heels.
Efri touches her shoulder again. “’S fine,” she says. “Just a scrape. The blood’s drying already.”
It’s really sore, actually – the flesh abraded and tender, an ache sinking deep into the muscle – but it’s normal sore, the kind of sore you really should be after being thrown into a wall. It doesn’t feel sprained or dislocated or anything like that.  Just like it will be bruised a whole rainbow of colours come tomorrow.
Kazari noses at it again. She leans too far forward and falters on her maybe-hurt leg – rights herself, wincing, and rolls her shoulder. It gleams, just for a moment, and she nearly stumbles again. Efri puts out a hand to steady her. (It doesn’t really accomplish anything – Efri’s strong, but she’s not that strong – but it’s the principle of it.) “What was that spell?”
“Pain relief,” Sissel says from behind her. “I think. Doesn’t actually fix anything, but.”
“You’ll be okay ‘til we find someone?” Efri asks, and Kazari nods. She presses a hand against their shoulder and nods back.
They both turn to look at Sissel, then, who’s just kneeling on the floor, sitting on her heels.
“You all right?” Efri asks her.
“All right,” Sissel confirms. She doesn’t look at them. “Didn’t even come near me.”
She’s staring.
Efri crosses the floor to stand with her. (She needs to lean on Kazari – her legs are too wobbly, and she doesn’t want to touch the dead thing’s stick, doesn’t want to look for her own. Kazari limps a little on their sore front leg.) There’s a moment of total, humming silence – all of them still and staring, necks craned back, looking up at the thing.
Whatever it is.
It’s a ball. Big and blue and shimmering, it floats above a wide crystalline dish set into the floor, spinning on an axis. Just spinning and spinning and spinning, endless motion. Its smooth surface is cut through with dark wavering lines, etched with lettering, and it doesn’t quite glow but it doesn’t not glow, either, the light moving across it silkily, like clouds in a blue sky. It looks like something that should be humming – a low pitch in their ears, an eerie shiver dancing over their skin – but it’s silent. Inert, maybe, but for the spinning.
“What is it?” Efri asks. Her voice cracks as she speaks. She looks down at Sissel’s face, staring as though mesmerised, illuminated by the room’s dim lighting – the fires that should not still be burning down here, the luminous not-glow of the ball.
Sissel says, “I don’t know. Something important.”
Hovering above the dish, it spins, and spins, and spins.
“Is it what the ghost was talking about?” Efri asks. She tilts her head and squints at it. It doesn’t – well, it looks strange and unearthly and powerful, but it isn’t doing anything. And it hadn’t been clear what the ghost was talking about, exactly, according to Sissel, just that it was something important – but what else could it be?
Sissel, still watching it, shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think so.”
Efri watches it with her, brushing a bit more hair out of her face. It’s sticking to her sweaty forehead. She feels a drip of not-dry blood running down her arm under her sleeve.
Kazari is staring at it too – just as confounded as the rest of them. Efri sees the light in their irises shifting as the ball spins.
They’re not learning anything from staring, the ball staying strange and mysterious as ever, so Efri raps her knuckles against her sternum to steady her breathing (it’s slowed a bit – not normal, but closer to it) and climbs up onto the stone rimming of the dish. Kazari, behind her, lows in consternation; Sissel catches her breath, a noise like a creaking door. “Careful,” she says.
“Promise,” Efri replies, and places her feet very, very carefully on the glassy blue flooring. Nothing happens. She doesn’t step on the dark curved lines as she treads toward the ball in the centre, slow and wary as if she were approaching a skittish animal. Nothing happens.
She reaches out, and, with just the tips of her fingers, she grazes the ball’s surface.
Nothing happens.
It’s cool to the touch, and smooth, like polished metal or not-frozen ice or delicate glasswork. It continues to spin gently under her fingers, warming her glove with friction, no smudges left on its clouded face.
 It really feels like there should at least be a tingle running up her arm, a strange and unfamiliar current, a spark. But it’s just Efri, standing with an arm outstretched, pressing her hand to a ball.
“It’s not doing anything,” she reports, and Sissel clambers up onto the dish with her, fitting her palm to its gently hovering underside. Kazari balks, begins pacing agitatedly. Efri frowns. “Why isn’t it doing anything? Shouldn’t it be doing something?”
“It’s important,” Sissel says definitively. There’s ancient dust on her fingers, but none of it seems to transfer. “It’s something really special, I think.”
Efri shifts restlessly. She shifts her grip and tries to grab onto the dark ridged curves ringing its surface, but they slip easily away from her grasp as though her touch was no barrier at all. “But what does it do?”
Sissel shrugs.
Behind them, Kazari lows.
Efri drops her hand and grabs Sissel’s wrist. “C’mon,” she says, and when Sissel frowns at her, “We’re not going to learn anything about it this way. We have to look for clues!”
Kazari makes a more impatient noise. (Efri thinks she found a clue.)
Sissel gives the ball one last searching look and lets Efri tug her away, off the weird blue dish and down to where Kazari stands on the stone floor, at the head of the table where the dead man sat. Efri sniffs loudly and tries not to think about it too much. The table is smooth polished stone, worn a little away with time; Efri trails a gloved finger over the edge and directs her attention to where Kazari points with their chin.
There’s something carved into the surface, the edges blunted and shapes softened by however many years it must have been since it was put there. Efri squints, trying to make it out. She has to stand right up on her tiptoes to get the right angle to see much of it in full.
“That’s not letters,” she says eventually, frowning. She’s pretty sure she knows her alphabet well enough by now to know that. “Is it magic?”
Sissel shakes her head. “I don’t know what it is. It’s not like magical writing I’ve ever seen.”
Efri looks at Kazari, who also shakes her head. “Maybe it’s a different sort of lettering,” she theorises. It must have been written a long time ago, if it’s from back when the city had people. Onmund’s been reading all about it for ages, and he’s told her a bit – Saarthal was the city of Atmorans, populated by proto-Nordic people. All complicated history stuff. But they weren’t quite the same as Nords today, he said, so it stands to reason they had different writing, too. They’re supposed to be uncovering and cataloguing artifacts (at the thought, Efri glances back at the hovering ball and swallows an inane bubble of laughter) so she suggests, “Maybe you can copy it and we can show it to someone. I’m sure there’ll be someone at the College what knows what it is.”
Sissel, also standing on her toes, nods dutifully. “What will you do?”
The chamber they’re in is cavernous, and about empty but for the ball in the dish, the altar and chair, the body on the ground. “I’ll check him,” she says, and points. “See if he has anything on him that’s special.”
Sissel follows her finger and grimaces.
She digs out her note-paper and her stick of char, and Efri assumes it’s clues time, but when she turns she feels a hand grip her elbow. She looks back over her tattered shoulder at Sissel’s face, her furrowed brow.
“Promise you’re really okay?” she says, voice anxious and solemn.
“Promise,” Efri says, twisting her arm to touch her friend’s hand. Sissel presses her lips together and lets go of her arm.
Kazari trails after Efri to look at the dead man.
First thing is the metal stick. It’s magic someway, Efri knows – he waved it and threw her into a wall, flung spells with it – but she’s not sure how. Doesn’t know enough about enchantments. Didn’t need to, to use it; when Kazari clamped down on his arm she just ripped it from his grasp and –
She doesn’t quite exactly remember, actually, except for the bitter tang of adrenaline in her mouth and nose, the horrible grunting and scuffling sounds, the heft of the stick in her hands. Impact, over and over and over, against something that had a little more give each time.
Efri scrubs a hand over her mouth and grips the handle of the stick. It takes effort to wrest it out of the thing’s face, caught as it is by the edges of the helmet, and when it’s finally yanked free it’s – actually not as bad as she might have expected. There’s no blood, and the corpse was so desiccated it already didn’t even really look like a person anymore, so it registers less as someone with horrible violence done to it and more as a really gross art piece. It’s not nice. She doesn’t like the twisted, gaping mouth, teeth embedded wrong-ways in its tissue and scattered like coins over the floor. And one of the eyes, which had glowed unearthly blue, is now a dull, rotten black, squished like a plum in its socket.
It's worse the more she looks. She sniffs and turns away.
“This is magic, right?” she asks Kazari, testing the weight of it in her hands, the cool surface of the metal, and they nod. “A good artifact?” she adds, and they nod again, emphatically. Efri sets the stick aside and kneels.
It wasn’t wearing any clothes, really – or if it was, they rotted away. She touches the rusted armour gingerly, tries to avoid brushing her gloves against the shrivelled skin at all. Whoever it was had expensive taste, it seems – there’s jewellery in a shockingly well-preserved beard, pendants around the neck, armbands. Efri asks Kazari if each thing is enchanted. No to the armbands, no to the beard-ring, and then, pressed against the wizened chest where the flesh contours to the ribs, she finds some kind of necklace, sharp-edged and thrumming. Kazari nods to that, and, face scrunched up like an old fruit, Efri reaches around the ancient neck to slip it off.
She tucks it into a belt pocket with the tripwire necklace they found at the weird wall.
“Done,” Sissel says. She folds her paper and slips it into her own pouch. Her footfalls on the echo-y stone floor as she approaches the body for the first time are almost silent. “Did you find anything?”
“Necklace,” Efri replies, watching Sissel’s face pinch at the sight of him. “And – stick.” She scoops up the metal stick and holds it out. “He did spells with it.”
Sissel looks at it warily. “Is he a draugr?” she asks, glancing back down at his mashed-up face.
“I mean,” Efri says, “he’s got to be, right?” She’s certainly never seen a draugr before, but what else could it be?
(Calling it a draugr makes her shiver, the set of her shoulders quaking. She’ll stick to dead man.)
Sissel shudders. She reaches out to grip the handle of the stick, and Efri’s not sure if she’s taking it or just trying to keep herself upright. “I can’t believe that happened,” she says. Her voice sounds, suddenly, fragile. “I can’t believe we’re alive.”
“Me neither,” Efri says. She presses the tip of the stick into the ground so Sissel can lean on it, stands a little unsteadily.
Kazari, with a hushed murmur, telegraphs something. Efri recognises the head incline of understanding – she’s familiar with that word, that idea – and, after a moment, the flickering ear of doubt.
“They’ll have to believe us,” she says with conviction, because she means it. “We’ll show them. They’ll see for themselves.”
Kazari presses their nose to her head.
Efri clasps her hands together. “We’ll go tell someone now,” she declares – though it’s easier said than done; they were lost in the ruins ages before they even found the crumbling wall, the halls, this horrible wonderful chamber. But they’ll get un-lost eventually. They’ll get out eventually. Surely. They have practice enough with walking. “But first – help me find my stick.”
#little girl has a kill count now!! more at 11#for context: I altered stuff leading up to the discovery of the eye#efri and sissel went off to play in the undiscovered halls of this ancient archeological dig site#on the grounds that efri has a great sense of navigation and they'll find their way back to the group no problem.#(efri has a great sense of navigation in the wilderness.)#(introduce her to a series of roads and buildings and she is lost in the sauce.)#their friends split up to look for them after they've been missing from a while (wandering around with great interest and no sense of place#(incredibly lost)#kazari happens upon them right as they've found a necklace at the end of a dead-end passageway that - when dutifully grabbed#for archeological research purposes - ended up triggering the wall to crumble or disappear or otherwise remove itself from the equation#and efri wasn't going to just. LEAVE that opening there.#come ONN kazari that's weird!! we can't just leave it!! what if it closes up and we never ever find it again and there's incredible secrets#that the college never finds! what if we never know what's through there!#we HAVE to know what's through there!#so on they go.#and so ensue the horrors#they pass a lot of dead bodies before the main all but those ones are all immobile#also sissel is the only one to receive the psijic projection warning. which she explains to the others as a ghost telling her secrets#which efri accepts bc this seems like the kind of place that would for sure have ghosts#and kazari goes sure that tracks this place is fucking creepy can we leave now (<- is also curious but HAS to put on a show of reluctance#because clearly no-one else is going to)#(permanent babysitter of kids with the worst self-preservation instincts imaginable)#(she is so strong. living every childcare worker's nightmare)#ANYWAY#:D#normal type stuff#posting because it matches the artwork I'm also posting! look at that thing!!!#fay writes#oc tag#efri
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possamble · 7 months ago
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Question to a fanfic writer: do you think that, in Marcille’s research ways *And* her love for romance novels… would result in her writing some in-universe fanfics of her own? Like, maybe she hypes herself up on something and get disappointed, or maybe she finds some character decision isn’t as ideal as she thinks it could be? Or it’s as simple as she wants to play around with the characters and see what happens?
I can’t help but imagine a scenario where she’s struggling with some romantic trouble irl and she’s struggling with deciding on what to do, but then the answer slaps itself upside her head when she rediscovers her fanfics and how she LITERALLY made a character or two do the exact romantic decision she needs to do? It would so silly but yet I can’t help but find it so charming. Hell, just the imagery of her writing romance fanfics of her own At All is just… delightful to me hehehe.
you know I've been rotating this in my head since I saw it this morning and. I went through a wild journey of opinions before I realized... Marcille wouldn't think about fanfiction like we think about it. In the modern age, yeah, she'd be a complete tumblrina -- but we're talking about a 17th century-ish fantasy setting.
Writing before the digital age was a physical commitment to investing ink and paper into your thoughts -- and this is even before mass production can make pens and notebooks kind of whatever to buy and use on a regular basis. I'm sure the situation wasn't dire, but I really can't see Marcille, perfect honor student, using her allotted supply of stationery at the academy on super frivolous things.
Fanfiction has been normalized incredibly fast in the past few decades. Think about now normal and popular D&D is nowadays compared to how much people looked down on it 20-30 years ago. Fanfiction was a freakass nerd thing to do until relatively recent history, something that was even considered offensive to the original creators.
Remember, we've already seen Marcille react to adaptations with disgust. She's kind of a hater and an elitist fan. She also considers herself a Reputable Academic. In a setting where a digitized culture hasn't reframed fanfiction as an act of appreciation and creativity, she would absoluuuuuuuutely think that fanfiction was complete loser shit.
If she did write anything about her favourite books... She'd. She'd be one of those assholes who writes huge scathing reviews of Dal Clan translations into Common. She'd be the fantasy equivalent of those Weebs/Japanese elitists on twitter tearing through every single localization choice in anime and JRPGs and being so so annoying about it.
If we're being charitable, we could say she'd be able to appreciate non-faithful translation choices that still do a good job of carrying over the original spirit of what was said. But I think we also have to acknowledge the possibility that, at her worst, she'd really really be like those guys who were malding about the Unicorn Overlord localizations so hard the (correction: Final Fantasy Tactics Creator, not the Unicorn Overlord devs) had to step forward and ratio them. (The silver lining is that she'd never get published in the arts review newspapers/journals that she submits her essays to. those poor editors just have to deal with her being persistent.)
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froggods · 2 months ago
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still thinking about how pike is a way better love interest than angel (and spike) and should have followed buffy to sunnydale.... mentally rewriting buffy season 1
#xander and willow and giles are still there in the rewrite but angel is Not. i simply do not care#xander is jealous of pike and wiloe thinks hes cool. and a little scary#pike doesnt go to sunnydale high w them but drops by after school on his bike to visit buffy#and he joins her for hunts every night but also ! he makes an effort to support her in wanting to be a normal girl and -#- and showing up for like her cheerleading stuff even tho its not his scene and he doesnt get it or like these people#but he gets that its Important to buff and he really likes her (just like how he showed up at the dance for her in the movie)#anyway i think he dies in the season 1 finale trying to protect buffy from the master#both bc i think thats something that he would do/would happen bc of his feelings and being human#and also because i recognize that a Big Part of the show is that buffy Cant have Good Lasting romantic relationships#but i think pike would have been sooooo good to have around and have as her love interest in the show#someone who knew buffy before sunnydale and already knows that shes the slayer and is enthusiastic about her saving the world from vampires#and actively helps her w that bc hes not scared. and also knew merrick#and also makes an effort to support buffys wants/needs to be normal WHILE ALSO being like hey. i know you dont want to be the slayer and you#and you want to be a normal girl. but youre not and youre the only one who can do this and youre AMAZING so come on. well do it together#buffy the vampire slayer#op
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#not a confession#helluva boss#the fact that they even mentioned Chaz just made me screech mentally#because... you know. if you've read my oneshot you know#but yes exactly. I also tie back to him the fact that Millie was so serious and untrusting during the flashback#(to be fair. being a mercenary is cutthroat business. but even while fighting and killing she seems a lot goofier nowadays)#how the timeline works in my head is#affair in Wrath. Chaz bounces to another ring and breaks her heart. she stays home for a while after that before moving to the city in Prid#she could've had her walls up out of a sense that the city slickers would only betray her#Chillie seems significant to me bc we've SEEN just how MUCH it takes for Millie to snap when it comes to loved ones and their bullshit#let alone turn from loving affection to seething murderous hatred#so you KNOW that whatever happened between her and Chaz WOUNDED her. or at least offended in a huge way idk#someone on AO3 wrote it so he cheated on her with her sister. like yeah that could do the job alright#though that does imply she loved him which is easily the biggest plot hole here. like. look at that thing#what is there to love#about Chazwick Thurman#he's an embarrassing roach with a dick complex#(also my girl Sallie would never have standards that low. please. she's also a lesbian now but that's another thing)#tbf Chaz and Blitzo are quite similar... except Blitzo has way less shallow writing... I wonder if that could be explored#her currently being so close to someone who is in theory strongly reminiscent of her ex. putting up with so much from him too#ah but I shan't keep talking Chillie. we'd be here all night if I tried to explain all my mental lore#isn't it funny how I've thought so much about them despite despising S02e03 and becoming physically ill by Chaz's sceentime#on my first watch#and then never watching it again#it's just the Concept of him alright. like shared ex of M&M who's a conman a loser a former mafia goon & whores himself to survive#who are you and how did you get here#plus the fact that he's a shark bc sharks are so cool. did you know threshers harm and even kill prey by whipping them with their tails#wish we could've seen that#I love it when anthros have their animal traits acknowledged#wow the tags here really derailed from the original screenshot. ignore them please 🙏
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onrainynights · 28 days ago
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I'm about to be so annoying btw
#by this I mean I'm going to talk about my job until it's no longer new and exciting sorry guys#but this is literally the first good thing to happen to me in MONTHS#shit has been so bad like SO unbelievably bad for a WHILE#like. not only do I have a job (!!!!!!) but it actually seems like a really good fit for me and what I need#like. the hours aren't horrible and in fact I could stand to have more of them#the pay isn't *good* but it's not the worst I've ever made for sure#the work environment though... that's where it gets me. because I get to just be one guy in a store interacting with customers and literally#nobody else#for most of my workday#like. no small talk except for with customers. no learning about my coworker's stupid life. no trying to get along with someone for the sake#of work#like. I just get to be alone and sell shit and when it's slow I get to organize shit like. hello??? yes please#I don't have to be micromanaged because I'm literally alone. like. god I'm so excited#plus it's similar to work I've done before. so. yay#I do really like the coworker I've met before though. he's very sedate and has excellent customer service.#which I know bc every time my mom shops there and he's the one working he's very genial and nice#definitely good at his job. but I wouldn't be surprised if he was getting high in the back or something lmao#he's just so calm ive never met a dude more chill like. he seems like the exact opposite of anxious#and then my other coworker I haven't met yet but I'm sure she's fine.#I do like my boss though! and she's only my boss until they get another manager bc she's actually the manager at another location too#she's just filling in here while they look for another manager#but I like her she was extremely up-front and no-nonsense and plainly stated exactly what she needs from an employer#employee*#which is honestly such a relief like my last job I felt like I had no clue what people wanted from me and it was horrible#but this seems better so far#also I know for a fact I beat out two other people who had interviews the same day and I was so much the preferred choice#that she didn't even wait to decide or anything#she called me like a few hours after my interview ended like. that 3rd person left and she immediately hired me instead lol#which I have to admit does feel good after so long feeling inadequate and unhirable.#I am more hirable than at least two people. so THERE
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hella1975 · 1 year ago
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some people really still treat drugs like it's a fun little thing and im trying SO hard not to get mad about it
#like okay so the set-up is this my flatmate (F) is chronically ill and is on immunosuppressants as well as a fuckton of other stuff#and she started smoking weed bc it's the only thing she's ever found that even touches her pain#ive NEVER had a problem with that ive never had a problem with WEED even IVE done it a couple times#but me and her have VERY different attitudes towards drugs#i came from a hometown where we were between two notoriously drug-high towns/cities and we get caught in a lot of the trading#between those towns so naturally my town just generated a fuck ton of dealers starting when they were like. thirteen years old#i saw it through my entire year i was exposed to class A drugs when i was like. fifteen at parties and shit#it's HUGE in my town i seriously can't express how much it's crippled the youth of my town#like my childhood best mate's brother literally got glassed bc he got into debt with dealers it's just everywhere#so that alone makes me very wary of drugs and like. the novelty of them is just NOT THERE for me at all i actively dislike them#AND THEN there's all the kids in my year that have died bc of substances. there's the phone call when i was AT A PARTY#that my seventeen year old cousin had OD'd. like that just summed it up for me it's so prevelant that i was at a party with drugs#while he was dying. so yeah wholeheartedly i couldn't give a shit about drugs i wont touch anything stronger than weed and even that#im not keen on. my flatmate however? she DOES drugs like she smokes regularly and she likes edibles#but she doesn't come from a druggy place so it's a weird combo of me (doesn't do drugs) knowing more than her (does do drugs)#and bc she's the one who actually does them she pure WONT LISTEN TO ME#and do u know what happened last night? this girl on IMMUNOSUPPRESSANTS got completely fucked#like drank 2/3 of a big bottle of vodka within an hour. and then she fucking went and did ket#and i literally was like 'that would be an awful idea anyway but ket you're REALLY supposed to not mix with alcohol'#like obvs mixing any high class drugs is bad news but ket is renowned for going bad with alcohol#i think it's bc it shuts off the opposite side of the brain that alcohol does? so taking both increases risk of shutting the whole thing of#or smthn. like people forget than an overdose isn't always fatal and i think bc they associate overdosing = dying#they assume the risk is EXTREMELY low especially when ur young and feel untouchable#AND THEN she smoked some weed as well. like i literally sat sober with her and her mate the entire time and again in the kitchen#bc i thought id distracted her from the weed and sitting with her she thought i was just hanging out#like NO BITCH IM MAKING SURE YOU DONT KHOLE BC YOU WERE TOO STUPID TO LISTEN TO ME#and i hardly slept last night bc i convinced myself when i woke up she'd be dead in her room#and we had such a nice day planned today like it's super sunny and me F and another mate are spending the whole day at the park#but she's just cancelled bc she feels too shit and im just. TRYING not to be angry about it#WHY ARE SOME PEOPLE SO DUMB
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juniestar · 5 months ago
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Oh my god one last thing my ex took me to outside lands and when we tried to watch lana del rey he laid down on the grass and had a “panic attack” (this was after months of him talking about how he didn’t like her) so we went to see foo fighters after a bit and he was FINE
#LANA i know his sister works for you BUT TRUST MY WORD AND GIVE ME A FREE TICKET PLEASE…#MY FIRST TIME SEEING YOU WAS RUINED GIRL… she was so good too like i was saving her songs to spotify that night#im reliving all this because i found out a lot of his exes and ex friends hang out together and two of them invited me so it was me an ex an#d an ex friend just swapping stories and first of all. he said he got cheated on by this girl and she NEVER DID IT (HE would have emotional/#angry outbursts at HER though) (allegedly he’s acknowledged to her that the cheating never happened too) and 2. this is obviously making me#mentally rehash everything again. i feel so bad for his current girlfriend and also for the person i ‘’stole’’ him from though i really hesi#tate to blame myself after hearing about his patterns. first of all he wouldve done this with anyone who was vulnerable around him and secon#d i was the only reason he was at all honest with them. he was fully planning to gaslight this ex and me and his dad had to convince him not#to. they look like theyre happy now and im very happy for them over that. oh my god that man was evil he told me for WEEKS about every time#his then partner had talked shit about me while i made clear that i didnt care and wasnt very interested but he kept going. god i cant belie#ve this was my life a year ago.#the one thing i can say is that i out freaked him because throughout our short relationship i made him so insecure that a week after i told#to never speak to me again he called me asking if he really was ugly.#I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAD TO TEND TO A GROWN MAN WHILE LANA DEL REY WAS RIGHT THERE BECAUSE HE WAS SO OPPOSED TO BEING AROUND HER. LANAAAA#times like these i get so mad i dont know what to do but ultimately remembering that he has not achieved any of his goals because he refuses#to face himself really helps me. god man IVE achieved some of his goals and i wasnt even trying to#a really awful part of all of this was all of the friends who knew him taking his side. because they didnt know him well enough to know what#he was actually like.#i was talking to my ex friend of four years and she was like not to blame you but he was probably really vulnerable from his time with [ex p#rior to me]’’ because he’s been going around alleging that that ex was abusive. and she was implying i took advantage of him. so i had to go#into detail about what an awful awful person he was and the sort of state i was in when this relationship took place. hannah lee you are#not seeing your little jehovah’s witness heaven.#anyways redirecting this energy im very happy with the way my life is and the way i am now. and im grateful for it i would not have ever bee#n able to imagine having the sort of peace and motivation i feel now. life feels like it can and will change for the better and it keeps pro#ving that right all the time#it just hurts sometimes having that as my first experience and not even being able to vocalize what was wrong bc i just didnt know hurts#oh i forgot one of his besties can see my account bc we’re sort of mutuals. i doubt he’s looking he did the whole unfollowing the ex bc she’#s allegedly amoral thing after the breakup but if he is hi isaac#he did on rare occasion show me selfless kindness but ultimately your best friend is a creep. i don’t want to be involved with anyone from#our school but I hope you know this and I hope you’re proud
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chussy · 10 months ago
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just realized that my dad actually basically attempted to kidnap me the summer before 7th grade and I didn't even interpret it as such until now because it was so in line with his general shittiness that it didn't even stand out
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non-un-topo · 1 year ago
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Why does instagram keep giving me videos about grandparents like does it want me to fall on the floor sobbing today
#they're all gone! none left now#idk what happened this week but i've been trying SO hard not to think about my nana at all#it’s just a constant don't think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it#i did have a really violent nightmare about her the other night. that fucked me up...#maybe it's because i talked to my mom and she mentioned her for a minute. neither of us know how to talk about it.#i literally can't even think about it i'll start crying.#should visit my partner's nonna and nonno... but i will cry. still we need to see nonno because he's very unwell.#i can't fucking believe i found out my nana died and then immediately went to class.#mentioned it to my professor and the whole class gasped and asked if i was okay or if i needed to leave.#but if i didn't go to class then i would have just been home alone...#crying in front of my favourite prof a few days later was... yikes. but it was okay. she felt like a grandma to all of us#she was sincerely sorry. esp because that class was called 'women and aging'#she spend the entire year telling us to ask the older women in our families their stories#and now i have none left. didn’t get to ask.#i don't know why i didn't call when i wanted to#i can't think about it#glad my mom told me that she feels totally disconnected to family too. bc lately ive felt very alone.#like my nana getting sick and dying brought them together but only for a short while.#feels like we have no extended family and it's fucking me up a lot. im just glad im not the only one
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sugarsugarmp3 · 8 months ago
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i turn 21 on monday and i just know im not going to enjoy this weekend at all...
#BIG vent in tags#the last two months have been honestly some of the worst of my life i am always always thinking about this rly shitty thing happened#and now i have to go home for my birthday weekend which i know i should be happy about and it is a good thing#but i just really dont want to go and i feel like a bad person for feeling that way#im doing better than someone i know and i need to go home and be there for them#i wanted to be in my apartment and relax with my friends#ive had 4 midterms this week and i am just exhausted with everything#and its not like it being my brithday will make my weekend bc thats literally impossible#and i feel so shitty about feeling this way bc im not the one who needs help right now and my bday shouldnt even be a priority in my family#bc we have bigger problems rn#but i still wish it was better. plus today sucked#i just am always awkward with people and i wish i was better at social stuff and ive felt rly lonely bc i only hve a few good friends#and trying to make friends is so impossible bc it seems like i keep doing the wrong thing and not being able to vibe with people#rn im just thankful for labs bc having constant lab partners are the only social interactions i get in almost all my classes#this girls would sit next to me in genetics and we would talk but i hvent seen them in a few weeks and i dont know their names#and im not great with faces so i cant even go up to them if i see them and i wouldnt even know what to say if i did#i see the same people in my classes but im sure they think im weird bc ive never talked with them but i always accidentally make eye contac#and one girl in 4/5 of my classes i sometimes talk with but i dont even know if she likes me and i acciendetnally made eye contact with her#while waiting for a lecture to start but then made no attemot to talk to her bc i thought itd be awkward and she probably thought i was#ignoring her#its just this week. its been so so shitty i dont know how to change thus
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pentaghast · 2 years ago
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if im honest i like king alistair w a warden queen! theyre happy ur honor!!!
#ACTUALLY im taking over the wardens story now. looking for a cure to the calling? whatre u talking abt#theyre supposed to have 30 years or so!!!!! granted alistair has only been a warden for 6 months or so when he says that but#and maybe joining during a blight also speeds up the taint but actually it doesnt ive decided. theyre FINE#anyway. alistair is fine bc of the therein bloodline ig? like how fiona is cured somehow bc of it#and.... dare i say..........#They Have A Child Sir. everything's a okay#ugh but the thing w morrigan. can u imagine wanting a child but knowing its unlikely to happen while one of u has one w a woman they cant#stand and the other still feels incredibly hurt#bc of the fact the morrigan knows the whole time#and i get it!!! morrigan is young and her mother is Flemeth and this is what she's been told to do and she becomes friends w the warden#knowing this so like. i see how torn she must be#she calls her a SISTER while knowing this and i can see it must tear at her but how can you just tell them that#oh it hurts. oh its bitter#i mean the betrayal of howe and then loghain has to make morrigans seem much harsher than it really is#and i dont think of it as really a betrayal from an objective pov but in the situation its already a lot what w the landsmeet and the news#that a warden has to die#i mean its all got to hit hard. there's no way ANYONES comin out of this in a healthy headspace#alistair thinks of his son he will never meet and rhia thinks of a stepson she never wants to meet and UGH.#i think they shouldve handled the whole thing differently. like morrigan should speak to both wardens instead of one#when u speak to just the hof and they have to go to romanced alistair it seems. unfair#ANYWAY!!!! IM NORMAL ABOUT IT#wytxt
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