#remains to be seen i suppose

[the-second-moon]

drafting more "younger dorian wrangles with the experience of kirkwall" stuff, now in things-are-getting-real act 2 edition

Hawke says, “Before we do that, I’ve just got to pop down and speak to the Arishok.”

Dorian scoffs. “Right. And I’m meeting the Grand Cleric for tea.”

Hawke just looks at him, oddly devoid of the usual retort.

“…What?” Dorian asks. “Were you not joking?”

“I was not,” Hawke says. “Sorry. Hard to tell with me sometimes. I’m told it’s because I say everything in this particular tone of voice.”

Dorian splutters with disbelief. “You’re meeting with the Arishok? You! Casually!”

“Now, is it really so odd he’d want to spend time with me? I’m extremely fun to be around.”

“I was not given to understand that qunari prioritize the concept of fun.”

“That one was an actual joke,” Hawke says. “No, I got wrapped up in some silly matter involving the qunari and that made the Arishok aware of me. Now he’s begun to ask for me at times. It seems that me keeping him apprised of local happenings makes him slightly less likely to lose his temper and go on a rampage through Docktown—or that is the hope, at least.”

Dorian can hardly process this information; he is still trying to fathom the mere concept. “You deliver information to the qunari,” he repeats. “Hawke, do you not understand who you’re dealing with? Do you realize what they would do to you if they could?”

Hawke furrows his brow. “Make me join the Qun? I doubt that would work out well for anyone… and it's not in my plans. I’m just trying to keep a handle on the situation.”

“You are a mage! Those superstitious barbarians would chain you and sew your mouth shut if they found that out. And you treat with them as if they are rational!”

Hawke laughs easily, though there’s something cold in its rebuff. “Dorian. Try to remember that I didn’t grow up in Tevinter.”

“Yes, that is quite evident. If you had, you’d have seen what bloody invasions the qunari have waged up north. You’d know exactly the kind of violence those brutes would—”

“I meant,” Hawke cuts in, “when it comes to ‘treating with’ people who see me as a dangerous threat, I for one have never had the luxury of doing otherwise.”

This briefly derails Dorian’s tirade. He snaps his mouth shut.

Hawke continues, “As for ‘rational’—well! You’ve met the people around here. How much of an option do you expect that is?”

“It’s different,” Dorian says. “That is quite different.”

“Is it, though?” Hawke asks. “It’s all a matter of survival. Besides, there’s a risk to the whole city if things break down between the Arishok and the Viscount. If I can be a minor obstacle on the way to that seemingly inevitable disaster, then of course I will do it as long as possible. Isn’t that reality more important than any abstract principle?”

“Maker’s sake, Hawke, it is not abstract! The risk to yourself is all too real. The more visible you are, the more of a target you become—you taught me that yourself! And now you would wade into this position of incalculable danger for—for what? A city that would cage you and a people that would destroy you. What would possibly make any part of that your responsibility?”

Hawke shrugs. “Nothing, really. But I don’t see anyone else doing it.”

“Hawke,” Dorian says, now sounding slightly desperate. “You are beginning to worry me.”

Hawke laughs aloud. “Beginning to? Just now? You must not be very observant.”

“I am being serious,” Dorian says. “The number of burdens you have heaped on your plate these last weeks is beginning to border on absurdity. You cannot have them all. There are some things that one single man simply cannot fix.”

The facade briefly drops from Hawke and he gives Dorian one straight look. There is a naked pain in his face, an agonizing level of exhaustion, that nearly makes Dorian take a step back.

“I am well aware of that,” Hawke says.

Dorian struggles with his tongue for a moment. “That was—I only meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Hawke says. “But what choice do I have? I can fight the impossible odds or give up to languish in despair like everyone else. That’s not a choice. I’ve come much too far to give in to despair now. I won’t. There must be some way through all of this, or what in the Maker’s name was any of it for?”

“I understand that,” Dorian says. “Truly, I do. But does that justify taking such risks? Surely there must be some middle ground.”

Hawke laughs again, his voice once more sounding light and easy, though Dorian is still too harrowed by the fleeting glimpse beyond Hawke’s mask to accept any of this as sincere. “Of course there’s no middle ground! You should know that already. That’s a luxury no one has in a place as fucked as this.”

(this is a sure-to-be-edited WIP snippet from a future chapter of bit of a shithole, a "young dorian winds up in kirkwall during da2" fic)

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[s00ths4yingz0di4c]

man i was rewatching the apple parents episode of mlp and im just like

man. if only i could write a plotline that was half as emotional as that.

i dont feel like any of my current writing could even come close to that sort of emotional impact, and im not totally positive anything i have in the future will even have that impact tbh

i have a lot of moments that i want to be emotional in my stories but im not sure if i could write them in a way that will make them have the exact sort of hit i want people to feel

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

None of our hands are clean

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[egophiliac]

I love how you draw Grim the size of a small cat. It genuinely blows my mind that according to the game he's actually approximately 70 cm tall... Like, Ortho is 148 cm. That's only two Grims! If Grim stands on Ortho's head, they'd be just a bit taller than Malleus (who is 202 cm and I'm not sure that's counting the horns)! The proportions are just so wild to try to imagine realistically... (and I do like the small cat Grim take more, it's very endearing)

every time I remember Grim is actually supposed to be the size of, like, a medium-to-largeish dog, and then I just...draw him cat-sized anyway. I also think it's cuter that way! 🤷 (let's just say he's not allowed to ride the servant unless he takes the shrinking potion first.)

ultimately I figure we all get a little artistic license in our fanart, and mine are:

cat-sized Grim

Lilia with hair spikes up to the heavens

w i d e Silver

[zo-lost-and-confused]

Jwct Countdown Promt 2 - Favorite duo

They will always have a special place in my heart. They are best friends. They are brothers. And I love them.

Their relationship seems strained in jwct and I think they should hug about it.

[cozymochi]

may ask how Nyoka like with female students?

(I‘m going to guess on what this is asking, since I’m not entirely sure 😭)

There are no female students at Night Raven College, it’s an all-boys school. Excluding possibly the Ramshackle Prefect depending on perspective since MC/Grim duo student thing in itself is supposed to be an anomaly/exception to the norm and that goes both ways. But, general rule of thumb I operate under is that there’s really no “female students” to interact with… cuz there aren’t any.

THAT SAID, for open-campus stuff where the public is allowed to cross into NRC, or if he ventures out to the town— Nyoka… he treats women politely. He’s from Sunset Savanna, so that’s a given. I guess “butler-like” is as much of a descriptor as I can use on the vibe he’ll evoke if approached. He’s not going to be rude by any measure, but I wouldn’t automatically call it warm either (despite how he may present himself), he’s still distant. Just polite and might be more complimentary.

Maybe the mob girls from the Foothill Town like that sorta thing. I choose to believe he’s aware of any effect he has, but at the same time I don’t really know. I guess I’ll leave that open? I don’t have much to say about it.

AAGH, I I WAnted to be more interesting but I really don’t have a strong answer

[seas1mping]

Edit: issue resolved but post not going away. Please be respectful and nice to everybody involved.

TW for self harm, suicide, other triggering themes.

Reece is a grown man. He's 25. The fact that I know minors who he's complained to about his mental health struggles when there's a FOUR TO SEVEN YEAR AGE GAP. Why are we as a community continuing to give somebody a platform who isn't directly harming minors, but is especially close and friends with a number of them.

I sent him a private message saying that his LJ "relationship" was harmful to himself and others because he was talking about Jack being shipped with male characters as Jack CHEATING ON HIM. And how he trauma–dumped at someone telling him that him saying that was incorrect. He responded to my message NOT on discord, but by making a PUBLIC VENT POST. On his tumblr. Here's the screenshots!! The first two are my message on discord to him (the timestamp is messed up because I screenshotted it right after I sent it) and the last is the vent post he made in retaliation instead of being mature and talking to me.

Not that I owe anybody any kind of explanation for why I reacted the way i did, but throughout the last 4 years I've had several friends fake their suicides just to come back on the next day like nothing happened. Seeing Reece say that he is going to do it right there triggered me so bad that when someone pointed out that it sounded manipulative (albeit to them) it caused my fear to turn to anger, which led to Reeces blocking.

Reece has not stopped posting about me in vents, not by name, but in general, since this incident. His most recent one (or one about self-harm) is the first one in which he has physical put a name to who he is talking about. This has nothing to do with my friend, the other account mentioned, and everything to do with the fact that I told him he was wrong for trying to chase sympathy from other people because of something I, NOT THEM, I, did.

I'm trying to let him go and let him do his own thing, but he's in a Fandom that is very popular in the younger crowd, and other kids/teens (LIKE ME) do not need to be bending over backwards and trying to care for his mental health. And then coming to me and asking me what I did to hurt him.

In his grown age, and my young age, I shouldn't have to be the bigger person in this and constantly correct his behavior so that it doesn't come back to bite some other kid in the ass.

DMs are open if you need anything (questions, comments, concerns). Any and all hate, anon hate (anon questions are fine), or messages/asks trying to attack me or my friend will be deleted.

-Max

[blackjackkent]

All right, no more putting it off. Time for Mizora's visit.

Somewhat amusingly, the scene starts out with Wyll and Rakha just sort of standing awkwardly near each other and Wyll has the goofiest smile on his face which is not really apropos to the situation, but it's still kind of cute to think that maybe he just looks like that sometimes when he looks at her, even in bad situations:

(Rakha, of course, is completely distracted from the cute smile and looks preoccupied as hell, which is apropos.)

Whatever Wyll might have in mind to say at this moment, however, is interrupted by the sudden opening of a hell-portal, for the second time, in the middle of their camp:

Mizora does not waste time in greetings, but lifts a hand flaring with hellfire in her palm.

"Sorores surge. Testis esto pacti mei!" she cries.

More portals burst open around the camp, disgorging forth a handful of other devils - women in silk dresses with wide, leathery wings and bright, glowing eyes.

"Come, sisters!" Mizora cries. "Be my testament! Notum sit in Baator!"

Around the camp, echoes of the words roll back from the mouths of the assembled devils. Mizora smiles in satisfaction.

"Holy hells," Wyll whispers unsteadily.

Every muscle in Rakha's body is drawn tight, every sense on alert. She feels acutely aware of the number of strangers in the camp at present, their malicious intent, and Mizora at their head. The beast in her head growls like a beaten dog backed into a corner; it wants to rip and rend and tear at these interlopers into their territory, and at Mizora most of all, who has called that frightened and weary look into Wyll's face.

But she holds herself back with every ounce of control she possesses, because to attack Mizora would be to doom Wyll. The pact is not yet broken. When it is... when Wyll is finally free... she and Mizora will have a final reckoning, and it will not go well for the devil. But until then... she waits, and watches Wyll out of the corner of her eye, ready to act as he sees fit.

"Just what are you up to?" she asks, very carefully, as if afraid to jar herself loose from her own control.

"I come to bargain," Mizora says with a casual smirk. "The Hells demand witness."

"Enough, Mizora," Wyll snaps. "Where is my father? How do I save him?"

Mizora's smirk deepens, utterly untroubled by Wyll's anger. "How else?" she purrs. "We bargain. Sisters...?"

She gestures with one hand, and the summoned devils begin to intone a chant in Infernal. In her other hand, Rakha watches the Weave give a shuddering jerk as if ripped apart by gripping hands, and from within the wound in the fabric comes forth an enormous piece of parchment inscribed with glowing letters.

She can see the magic dancing on its surface, over every word. It doesn't take much effort for her to guess what this is, even before Mizora explains it.

"Your contract, Wyll," the cambion says, mocking laughter in each word. "Signed in blood, forged in fire, bound in bone - but not unbreakable."

Then break it! Rakha wants to scream, to demand, to rip Wyll away from Mizora's control for good. She can already guess where this conversation is heading, and the dark certainty of it makes her tremble with rage.

But she says nothing. She waits. She waits... and the hammer falls.

"But no contract is ended without sacrifice, Wyll. The cost must be paid."

Fire bursts up around her, around all the devils in the camp, sending weird flickering shadows across the scene, lighting Mizora's face ominously from below. She raises her hands and her voice booms out across them, raising the hair on the back of Rakha's neck.

"WYLL RAVENGARD!" she booms. "A choice is before you! Option one - I show you the way to your father. I guarantee him no harm except that from you and your allies. And you pledge your soul to me and the archdevil Zariel in a pact eternal. Option two - I break your pact, and you are freed from your duty. Your father dies by his enemy's hand, and Baldur's Gate loses its greatest champion."

She smiles; her eyes glow like burning coals in the hellfire light. "Name your sacrifice!"

"Bloody Zariel!" Rakha hears Karlach shout from beyond the fire. "I won't let her take Wyll!"

"SILENCE, KARLACH!" Mizora barks.

Wyll's shoulders have hunched up as if defending him from a physical blow. "Mizora, you arsehole--" he growls.

"CHOOSE!" she snaps, and laughs.

Rakha's blood runs cold. I knew it, she thinks bitterly.

Kill her... growls the beast. Take the choice away and punish her for giving it. Rip out her guts and see what a devil looks like from the inside...

But she can't. She can't... because that would destroy Wyll... and yet the choice is impossible.

(A/N: I'm still salty as hell that you can't let Wyll make this choice on his own. It's the only companion decision that you can't leave to the companion themselves. I think, however, we can safely guess what his choice would be, if the option were given.)

Well, not impossible. Were it Rakha's choice alone, she would break the pact without hesitation. Wyll needs to be free. What did Ravengard do for him besides turn him out into the cold when Wyll needed him most? Wyll has trusted and loved Rakha in spite of the monster inside of her, but Ravengard did not have the strength to do the same. He does not deserve Rakha's pity, and Wyll deserves far better than either of them.

Besides... she is all too familiar with being trapped in the service of a power inside her head that she doesn't control. Hers is baked into her very blood and flesh, but Wyll, at least, has the possibility of freeing himself from his.

"The half-life of a mind-addled slave is worse than death," Astarion said, when she told him of Bhaal's taint in her blood. And she knows he was right.

The trouble is, of course, that Wyll will not see it this way. She knows all too well that he sees his father as a hero, a man to be emulated in all things. He will want to sacrifice everything to save his father, even if his father would not do the same for him.

It isn't fair! she thinks, petulant, angry, as if her rage could somehow change the truth of the situation.

There is one final thought, though, that seals things for her beyond anything else. You pledge your soul to me, Mizora said, and to the Archdevil Zariel in a pact eternal. That could mean anything - but there is the possibility that it means that once Ravengard is free, Mizora will take Wyll to the Hells. And he would be gone from her, and she would never see him again, and she would be alone with her own father's voice keening for blood in her head.

And she is not sure, without Wyll, if she can resist it.

"Break the pact, Wyll," she mutters. Shame floods her, knowing that it is selfish fear as much as love or hope that drives the words. "You deserve your freedom."

Wyll flinches, his expression twisting with agonizing pain. "You damned wretch," he snarls-- and perhaps he means Mizora, but perhaps he means Rakha, too, and the possibility stabs deep into her heart. But the words are spoken, and they can't be taken back.

His shoulders slump and his eyes close. "Do it," he mutters. "Break the pact."

Mizora tips her head to the side, visibly surprised, but her brutal smile doesn't shift. "Fiat ita," she intones, echoed by the devils surrounding them.

The Weave swirls around them in a burst of ripping, tearing energy, sloughing around Wyll's body, snapping the bonds tying him to Mizora by his hands, his eyes, his hips. The glowing contract flares up in a burst of fire, burning away into nothingness and leaving behind a singed mark in the magical fabric.

One by one, the witness devils disappear back through the portals that brought them, until only Mizora stands before them, still wreathed in the fading fire.

"Didn't think you had it in you," she says brightly, dusting her hands off with a conversational attitude, deliberately ignoring the anguish on Wyll's face as he sinks to his knees. "Seems my boy's all grown up."

She steps forward, close enough to give him a smart tap on the shoulder. "And don't go fussing about your father," she says coolly. "You made your choice; you knew the terms."

Drawing herself up to her full height, she meets Rakha's eyes and smirks. She's certainly fully aware of the fury in the half-orc's eyes - but it doesn't concern her any more than Wyll's agony does. "You know what..." she says, with mock-thoughtfulness, tapping a fingertip against her jaw. "I think I'll stick around." She snickers. "Not for the greater good, you understand... just for the entertainment."

-----

The flames fade. Mizora turns and walks away, her wings folding around her as she moves to a position at the edge of camp, casually settling herself against a tree. She catches a baleful glance from Aylin as she passes the aasimar, and grins, waggling her fingers in a playful wave.

Rakha sags, weary and angry, her eyes narrowed. She waits for Wyll to say something, anything... but he doesn't speak. He just sits on his knees in the dirt for a long, long time, then climbs to his feet and slowly trudges away towards his tent.

[hobermallowed]

Finished Forspoken’s story last night and I still can’t believe I was betrayed by a fucking bracelet…

[m1ckeyb3rry]

guys i’ve been having so much fun writing pursuit and oliver aiku’s guide to girls but i think. i think it’s time. i must return…to request land…

[ganondoodle]

got visually spoiled on the literally last thing i was still actively missing and working towards in totk but i dont think im gonna like it anyway ...

if it is what i think it is, and what it looks like to be, its just yet another nail in the coffin (or however you say that) as to why the lore sucks in this game even tho it had such good setup and so much potential

[goobie-goo]

genloss au where charlie and the wire monster become one and break ranboo + sneeg out of the mall using brute strength

is this anything

[get-them-out-of-my-skull-0914]

Ride The Cyclone AU where Ocean chooses herself to come back to life and she has her crisis of conscience there once she realizes the impact their lives/deaths left + how much she misses them, is this anything

[ardentpoop]

the angels (collectively, as a concept) were the worst thing to happen to supernatural's narrative btw im sorry if you cant see that bc you're attached to individual characters

[callixton]

ugh. i’ve started writing like a director i can tell. this was not a problem for the previous eighteen years of my life