#rook actually says “i'm trying to stop it” but it.. makes no sense... so

[danielsarmand]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard dev. Bioware

[pomefioredove]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ requiem of a cringe

did something embarrassing last night and was like "I need to go crawl in a hole and die. OR I could write"

type of post: blurbs characters: cater, rook, jack, vil, idia, malleus additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral (the term "damsel in distress" is used in vil's part, but it's meant to be teasing and not indicative of the reader's gender), reader is yuu, rook is rook

I. Talks Too Much

It's not that you're trying to be annoying.

Your mouth simply moves faster than your mind, and before you know it, you've been talking for twenty uninterrupted minutes about... well... nothing.

You always notice that uncomfortable, irritated look on their face just after you're done. And then you keep rambling in an attempt to make it less awkward (it never does).

And now you're here, hiding in the hedge maze outside Heartslabyul, thinking about getting lost and never coming out of it.

Of course, if anyone were to find you now, it'd be him.

"Hey, hon~ you busy?"

"Please, not now, Cater," you mutter.

The boy stills, looking a little taken aback by how miserable you sound.

"Are you still upset about that thing at the Unbirthday Party? That was hours ago, babe! I bet no one even remembers,"

You physically cringe. The faces of your uncomfortable tablemates won't seem to leave your memory...

"I remember it," you murmur, burying your face in your hands. "I'm so annoying."

For once, Cater is quiet. A minute goes by, and you think he may have left, until you hear the grass crunching under his knees as he kneels down and pulls you into a hug.

"You are not annoying. And even if you were, it'd only make me like you more," he mutters, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

"Understand?"

Your surprise at his change in tone doesn't stop you from hugging back. "Understood,"

You hadn't meant to say all of that.

You just spilled a potion you'd been working on for hours, and amidst your frustrated floor-scrubbing, you had vented about your entire week to your poor lab partner, a person you had been trying to impress all semester.

He had, gracefully, let you finish your rant, and then let you sit in it, just like the harmless potion now coating your knees as you cleaned up the floor.

Then, he awkwardly said: "That... sucks. I guess. I don't know what to say,"

There had probably never, in your whole life, been a person who looked more unhappy to be around you.

Afterwards, you found a nice spot in the woods behind campus to die.

You lie there, hoping nature would reclaim you before next alchemy class, when some purposefully loud rustling in the bushes catches your eye.

"Ah, Trickster! You really should not lie like that- a predator will take that as weakness, non? Are you injured?"

"Only my pride,"

"Talking about it will make you feel better," Rook says. It's more of a demand than a question.

You sigh. "I think I've done enough talking for... ever, actually,"

"Nonsense," he suddenly straddles your waist and pins your wrists to the earth. "I will not move until you tell me the problem, mon cœur."

You're like an animal in a snare. Once Rook has made up his mind, that's it. He will find out.

And so, with a sigh, you let him take the kill- that is, you tell him everything. Your whole, terrible week, the potion incident, the look on your lab partner's face...

When you're done, he's just. Smiling. "I see now. You are embarrassed,"

"Well... yes. You don't think that's embarrassing?"

He beams. "You are simply overflowing with beautiful emotion and passion for la vie! How could I ever find that embarrassing? You and I are not so different,"

In a weird way, that makes sense. Rook is never one to let shame hold him back from expressing his feelings.

He smiles at your pensive expression, and gives you a kiss on the head.

"Mais, next time you are upset, maybe you should come to me first, non?"

II. Clumsy

Forgetful, scatterbrained, oblivious, dimwitted are all words you've become used to hearing.

As well as a few colorful swears.

You have two left feet, even when you're not dancing- you're used to walking into walls, tripping, and dropping things- it just sucks that you have an audience now.

The first years that had gathered around the mess you made- tripping over your own feet and spilling the papers you were meant to deliver to Ace and Deuce all over the floor- are watching with grins and phones out.

You pretend they're not there, even with their taunts and whistles and laughter.

"Hey! Loitering is a waste of time!" someone barks. Literally.

You look up to see Jack moving through the crowd, scolding the other first years for blocking the hall.

When he sees you in the eye of the storm, on your hands and knees picking up your spilled papers, something upset takes his usually-stoic demeanor.

"What's the matter with you?!" he snarls at the boys. "Didn't anyone teach you any manners?! It's rude to stare- and laugh!"

His ears are flattened against his head when he kneels down beside you to help, collecting the papers, and putting them in your hands.

"Come on, we'll be late if you keep 'sittin there,"

Jack pulls you to your feet and gives one final snarl to the other first years before walking you off.

"...Thanks,"

"Eh? Don't mention it," he says. "Leona woulda had my tail if I just walked by..."

You know there's more to it than that, but you don't push. You're just happy he's forgotten to take his hand out of yours.

You can't handle being the center of attention.

For good reason, too- you're awkward, clumsy, and about the least graceful a person can get.

A true Ugly Duckling at a place like NRC. But Vil Schoenheit sees the swan in you. Perhaps that's why he's always been so patient and sweet.

It's a little distracting.

So much is obvious when he waves at you in the hall and, distracted by his smile, you walk right into a wall.

Though you can't see anything but stars after falling on your butt, the stares and snickers of everyone else are hard to miss.

Vil glares them away with a look that could kill twice over, and then stands over you as you lay on the floor.

"Come on," he says, holding out a hand. "I'll check you for concussion."

He brings you to Pomefiore and sits you down, shooing off a few curious underclassmen as he checks your pupils. "Do you feel nauseous?"

"Not really,"

"Then you'll be fine. Just a bump. You really should be more careful, though,"

You've heard that one before. Vil smiles at your dazed expression, and presses a cold compress against your head.

"This will help with the swelling,"

"Thanks," you mutter, still a little out of it. "You're my hero."

His eyebrows raise in true surprise, and then he chuckles. "And that makes you a damsel in distress?"

He doesn't give you a chance to respond before taking away the compress and kissing the red mark on your head.

"Don't think that being so cute is going to distract me. I'll make some time for lessons on poise this weekend,"

III. Unsociable

You'd think that being quiet and staying out of people's ways would get them to leave you alone, but it really just attracts more attention.

And after a grueling period of your tablemates making you the butt of every joke ("wow, I didn't know you could even talk!" "are you quiet because you hate us? come onnn, you can tell me!") you were ready to bury yourself alive.

"I don't ever want to leave," You mumble into the bundle of sheets and blankets on Idia's unmade bed.

"You could stay, y'know," Idia says from his desk, mindlessly scrolling through some gaming forum. "I should blackmail Crowley into letting you stay down here at least half the year."

"Couldn't it be the whole?"

"Nah. You need like, sunlight and stuff,"

"And you don't?!"

Idia snickers. "I'm built different. You know that. I get all my nutrients from blue light... You could at least stay for the weekend, though,"

You roll your eyes.

"...And I'll leak those normies' data. I'm sure I could get into their browser histories and have that emailed to their parents,"

Hm. You genuinely consider it for a moment, but eventually decide to give mercy. You're basically a saint.

"I think I just wanna pretend like I don't exist right now,"

Idia nods in understanding and pushes his gaming chair over to the edge of the bed, before crawling in and wrapping himself around you.

"That can be done. Pancakes tomorrow?"

Sure, there were people who talked to you, but you didn't talk back.

You just don't know how, you suppose. Every time you try, you end up saying the wrong thing, or are accidentally rude, or do something embarrassing.

You don't understand the references people make. You don't get social cues or hints. You have the social skills of an oyster.

Four months at Night Raven College, and you didn't have a single friend.

Well- except for him.

"How are you enjoying your tea?" Malleus asks, polite and curt as ever.

You take another sip- it's tangy, sweet, with a hint of bitterness. Some sort of Briar Valley blend that Malleus had imported just for you.

"I really like it,"

He smiles. "I'm pleased,"

One of the things you find so agreeable about Malleus is his simplicity. He often says exactly what he means; albeit, in a sort of 13th century Lord sort of way.

There's less stress with him. You don't have to pretend to be interesting, or outgoing, or cool. You can just be... you.

Because he likes you.

"You know," you say with a faint smile. "You're so nice to me. Sometimes I think that you're the only person I need. I could be happy with just you for the rest of my life."

You had meant that casually, but when you look back up from your cup, Malleus has this... look.

Wide-eyed, his lips pressed firmly together. There's even a dusting of color on his cheeks.

"Oh," you internally panic. Was that too much? Was that weird? Did you make things awkward again? Crap, you should have just acted normal, what's wrong with you?! "S-sorry, I-"

"Do you truly mean that?"

You go quiet, looking back at him with wide eyes. Your heart is pounding against your chest.

"...Yes,"

Malleus hums, his expression becoming more... pensive, and then...

He smiles. "I feel the same. Shall we go for a walk while the night is still young?"

[acey-wacey]

HIHI!!! I LOVED YOUR CHARACTER IS JEALOUS OF TSUM FIC!! (please I'm begging write more, it's too good)

Of course! I'm glad everyone liked them so much :)))

...

Jealous of Their Tsum

Feat Lilia, Rook, Kalim

...

🦇 Lilia Vanrouge 🦇

You're honestly used to Lilia popping out to scare you around campus.

Ever since you'd seen that Lilia had gotten an adorable doppelganger, you knew it would come to find you, just like the seemingly young boy always did.

It wasn't entirely unexpected when a little plushie landed on your head.

You were monetarily startled by the sudden ambush but you soon realized it was Lilia's tsum.

You laughed as the tsum blinked it's little dot eyes at you expectantly.

"You got me so good, Lilia-tsum," you praised the little bean while it hopped into your head and shoulders in glee. "Very scary."

You grabbed the tsum from where it was bouncing on your head and held it to your chest.

"You are just so adorable! I can't handle it!"

The tsum wiggled happily in your grasp and you pressed kisses to it's fabric forehead.

"How come I never get this when I scare you?"

You turned around to find Lilia hovering upside down behind you.

He did that to you so often you weren't even startled anymore.

You just smiled and flicked his forehead, earning a shocked stare from the boyish fae.

"Try being cuter next time."

Lilia frowned and dropped to the ground, landing gracefully on his feet.

"Is this face not cute enough for you?"

Lilia pouted at you with his best sad puppy dog eyes.

You, now immune to Lilia's antics, went right back to pressing smooches to his adorable tsum.

Lilia narrowed his eyes at the smug plush.

"Traitor," he whispered under his breath.

He could've sworn the tsum winked at him.

"If you want some affection, Lilia, you should try asking," you said nonchalantly while nuzzling your face into the tsum's.

Lilia vaguely sensed a trap but he would rather die than lose the object of his affections to a stuffed version of himself.

"Well then, my darling," he batted his eyelashes at you, making you smile. "Please?"

...

🏹 Rook Hunt 🏹

Rook left his tsum alone for 5 seconds and it was already gone.

Of course he couldn't expect anything less.

Curiosity was in his nature so of course his plush doppelganger would run away to explore a new world.

The tsum happily explored the NRC campus pausing often to appreciate the beauty of the unfamiliar world.

However, when you walked by on your way to class, the tsum was immediately entranced by your beauty.

It bounced after you and followed you around with hearts in its eyes.

After a while alone, you had begun to wonder what the strange noise from behind you was.

You turned around only to find an adorable round plushie hopping up and down on the ground.

It looked suspiciously like Rook so you narrowed your eyes at it.

"Have you been following me?"

The tsum squinted its eyes happily.

You laughed and bent down to look closer at the little creature.

"If I tell you to stop, will you?"

The tsum shook its body in what you assume to be a no.

"Just like the real Rook then," you groaned lovingly and unbuttoned the breast pocket of your jacket, opening it to the tsum.

"If you're gonna be here for a while, might as well get comfy, eh?"

The tsum eagerly hopped into your pocket and squirmed around with glee.

"You're actually kinda cute, you know that?"

You said to the tsum with a faint smile, scratching its head with one finger.

The plushie nuzzled into you and you patted it back affectionately.

"I must say, prefect, I am awfully jealous."

You smiled at the familiar sound of Rook's voice and paused, waiting for him to show himself.

You never looked around for him because you knew seeing you startled and frantic was just what he wanted.

Little did you know it was what he loved most about you.

"The great Rook Hunt, jealous of a tiny plushie," you said with a smug smile in your voice. "How low you have fallen."

Rook almost instantly appeared beside you with a sly smile.

"Not nearly as far as I intend to for you, mon chou." Rook clutched his chest dramatically. "But to see your affection passed on to one so similar to me and yet so different, oh, it breaks my fragile heart."

"Then I'm sorry, Rook, but your heart will have to stay broken as long as my adorable little pocket pal is around," you patted the tsum again, earning a joyful bounce.

Rook only sighed in response.

"There may yet be a day when I replace my fiendish friend as the object of your affections but until then, may you know my heart waits for you, my love."

You were frustratingly flustered by the sudden confession.

Rook always said sappy stuff like that but for some reason, it hit different this time.

You didn't say anything until he began to walk away.

"Hey, wait!"

Rook shopped to look over his shoulder at you.

"Come on, Rook," you groaned with a blush dusting your cheeks. You lifted the tsum out of your pocket, much to its dismay, and set it gently on the ground. "You don't get to say something like that and then walk away without kissing me!"

Rook smiled and ran to wrap you in his arms.

"If this is my reward, I should get jealous more often."

...

Kalim Al-Asim

Kalim and his tsum are inseparable, much to Jamil's chagrin.

It's hard to find one without the other especially when it comes to you.

Both Kalims flock to you as soon as they see you.

On one notable occasion, Kalim-tsum was a bit faster to bounce after you.

The plush launched into your arms, causing you to drop the notebooks you were holding.

You scowled lightheartedly at the adorable tsum in your arms.

"I don't suppose you're going to help me clean this up?"

You raised an eyebrow at the tsum but it just cocked its head at you.

You sighed and set the tsum onto your shoulder as you bent down to pick up your books.

"It seems every version of Kalim is determined to cause me trouble," you sighed, booping the little critter on the nose.

It wiggled its little button nose and hopped backwards on what you assumed was a sneeze.

You laughed and took the plushie back into your hands, tucking your books under your arm.

"I can't stay mad at you, you're too cute!"

You looked at the tsum helplessly susceptible to its charms.

"Hi, Y/N!"

You looked up to see Kalim running toward you.

He saw the tsum in your arms and beamed at you.

"I see you found my doppelganger! Pretty cool, right?"

"Yeah, he's pretty adorable," you cooed as you pinched the little things cheeks.

Kalim pouted and set his head on your hands right next to where you were holding his tsum.

"Why does he get to be adorable and not me?"

You held back a laugh at the puppy-like glint in Kalim's eyes.

The tsum hopped up onto Kalim's head and you took the opportunity to grab Kalim's cheeks and bring your face close to his.

"You're a whole different kind of adorable."

At that, Kalim beamed, automatically squishing his face into your hands.

That did earn a laugh from you and you couldn't help but kiss his nose.

"You are the absolute cutest, Kalim. No tsum can top that."

[ryuichirou]

So i'm reading your yandere/hypnosis post and i get to Vil being utterly jealous enough to try on Rook; and it makes me think about his drive and the second place club lol (Leona, Jamil and Vil) like D: poor them they're always outranked by that ooonnee person! Can our boys catch a break? whether that person knows or not I always tend to feel bad--especially for Vil since i remember his inner speech in book 5 and the fact that his most trusted person ended up being such a big fan of the person who makes him feel like second best. wait i love rookvil i think i made myself sad LOL NOoo--aahh I rambled im sorry, i guess the main question i wanna ask is what do you think about those particular three always having to come second to their respective counterparts? I think your opinions and insight is so interesting that i'd like to know your thoughts on this! and you don't have to answer for all three characters if you dont wanna I was just curious on your thoughts! Anyways, have a good day and stay hydrated! it's hot this summer oof

Anon! Took some time to get back to you as well, sorry for the late reply. Summer is already over, but it’s still SO HOT…

Without diving into just how much I love the ending of book5 and the whole Rook-Vil-Neige thing (I feel like I talk about it all the time LOL)… It is interesting how these Vil, Jamil and Leona always get to be second best, isn’t it? But ironically, I don’t think I ever grouped them in my head based on this. Maybe it’s because of how different their situations are? But also now that I think about it…

Vil isn’t better than Neige, and he tries to be better by working hard.

Jamil is better than Kalim, but he can’t be better because of his status.

Leona may or may not be better than Falena in some ways, but he doesn’t even bother.

Ignoring the fact that this “better” is always subjective and in actuality things are more complex than that… and also trying not to sound like an armchair therapist that’s just telling anime boys “you should have done this you idiot”, but.

Jamil got the most development in that sense because this internal conflict is very straightforward, in fact, he was the easiest one to describe with these little sentences I just wrote. Jamil wants to stop pretending to be worse than he is, he wants to work hard and to show how great he is without being forced to get worse results than Kalim. He is only the second best because he consciously allows Kalim to be the best whenever he is given this choice. And he isn’t always given a choice: a lot of times the system decides for him, just like when Crowley chose Kalim to be the housewarden. Still, even in that situation, Jamil knows for a fact the shape, the density and the nature of this ceiling he can’t break, he’s been aware of it for his entire life. This is why it’s easy to pinpoint moments of Jamil’s growth: when he expresses how much he hates pretending to be worse than Kalim, when he says that he won’t hold back anymore, when he gets to dance and rap at VDC as a lead-vocalist and, ironically, when he gets scolded by Leona in ch6 (I have some issues with their sub-story, but still).

With Vil, the difficult part is to understand what exactly he understands as “beauty”: I mentioned it in a bunch of Vil-centric posts, but we’ve seen how in-canon he was described as too beautiful, therefore not as relatable as Neige. So this isn’t about beauty, and in a way I think this isn’t about Neige either. This is about Vil’s own feeling of self-worth and self-expression, and how people perceive him; Neige is just a very good point of reference, a good metric, especially considering that they always end up being compared to each other and that comparing numbers of followers is easy and seemingly objective (which is a cruel trap a lot of people fall for).

What I’m trying to say is that Vil isn’t fully and constantly aware of “the shape of this ceiling”, or rather why he can’t reach Neige; this is why we had that ending to his book. This isn’t solely about skill or quality, but those are the main things Vil focuses on.

And Leona… I am not sure about him, to be honest, because it boils down to one problem that I have with him: I am not sure what he wants.

It’s easy to compare him to Jamil because it seems like his issue lies in being frustrated with the system: he will never be the first because Falena is literally the first born son. But I don’t think it’s fair to compare a prince with a servant like that, because even though Leona wouldn’t be the king, he still has a lot of power and opportunities, and we’ve seen Falena valuing his strong points and expressing that he wants Leona to help him. One might even say that he invited Leona to be by his side, as a brother and an equal. But this isn’t what Leona wants in actuality, is it?

His “ceiling” seems to be obvious, but I guess his actual frustrations lie elsewhere, and those are kind of difficult to see because of how inconsistent he is. But maybe it’s just me being frustrated with his character again lol

I am replying so late because I really thought I would have some kind of conclusion about this whole thing, but it seems like I don’t lol Still, it was an interesting topic to think about.

Thank you for your ask! <3

[magnetic-rose]

y'all can screenshot this post and clown me if i'm wrong but the more time goes on the more i think varric ISN'T going to die in da:tv. at least not in the beginning we saw. midway/end of the game is another story. there's a few reasons why.

"There’s a fascinating relationship that’s already being set up, Varric and Solas as opposing narrative forces, with your character, Rook, pulled between them."

this is an article from inverse with a journalist who played an hour of the game.

"I literally have no idea if Varric dies I don't know any spoilers about the ending or fate of characters! the only thing i'll say is that the devs have said that Varric is a major character."

this was some tweets from kala elizabeth, who's part of the community council and has played parts of da:tv.

It didn’t stop Gaider trying to kill him again, though. “I tried to kill him in Inquisition,” he told me. “I think mainly because I didn’t get to do it in [DA2]. And everyone was like, 'But the Inquisitor isn’t Hawke! It lacks the same meaning.’ And I was like, 'Yeah, I guess you’re right.’���

people often bring up that varric was supposed to die in a da2 expansion and then again in inquisition. it was gaider who wanted to kill him both times and gaider doesn't work for bioware anymore. not only that, but gaider was dissuaded from killing varric in da:i by the other devs because varric dying wouldn't be as meaningful to the inquisitor than it would be to hawke.

and the same could be said about rook. rook doesn't have a strong relationship with varric. and new players coming into the DA fandom for the first time also won't have a strong attachment to varric if he dies in the prologue.

idk it just doesn't make narrative sense for varric to die 40 min into the game. the fact that they're being so coy and "teehee woowee" about his supposed death is also suspicious. if a beloved character was going to actually die in the game like that, i feel like they'd do anything to keep that spoiler secret. i remember before da:i came out, they edited leliana's tortured model to look normal so players wouldn't see the extent of damage she had in the future timeline.

[dalek-thal]

Fuck it, discourse discussion (ironically), because it's shit and mostly bullshit. No spoilers above the cut.

Veilguard does not break lore. An ongoing theme in the franchise is misinformation and propaganda and how these are informed by the worst of a population. That Dock Town isn't full of very visible slavery doesn't mean slavery doesn't exist, nor is it a retcon. Slavery, like institutionalised racism, isn't usually visible until you're either already aware of it and looking for it, or are already enmeshed in it (try to tell me you knew Adidas used slavery before that story was broke by the news media random white people of tumblr, I fucking dare you).

The above is but one example of this. Generally, people keep using the wiki as evidence, but the problem is that the wiki quotes the World of Thedas, which is an in-universe text written from the point of view of Brother Gentivi and other southern Chantry scholars. The wiki is not supposed to be the be all and end all of lore, because the information it uses as its source is, by design, incomplete.

Ultimately, it comes down to entitlement. A lot of people decided they know the lore based on the wiki, but didn't bother digging into the themes of the series and recognising that almost every in-universe text (including real world lorebooks) features inherent bias and prejudice, and often times is bullshit (I doubt strongly that Brother Genitivi ever went further north than Nevarra). But, you read a wiki, so now you've made it a part of your identity that you know all the Dragon Age lore, so when a new game comes out and shows you that other things are true, you assume it must be wrong because you can't be.

In general, I find it deeply problematic how many self-proclaimed "lore nerds" keep acting as if they know the text better than the actual writers. Contrary to popular belief, almost every writer on Veilguard started at Origins. The only major change is that Gaider moved on from the writing team.

Really seems to me like a lot of people decided they didn't like Veilguard because it's different, and are now looking for reasons to justify their hatred. These reasons don't hold up, and I'm sick of it.

Spoilers for Act 1 below the cut. Will discuss major decisions and what people are calling a "plot hole", so you may wish to avoid if you haven't made any major decisions. If you're not sure if you have, then you haven't, because you will know.

Which brings me to the other stupid. People trying to say it doesn't make sense that only Rook was able to stop the attack on one of the cities. Problem with that statement is, the only reason he was able to stop it was because Ghil wanted the dagger, so had the dragon focus on Rook to retrieve it. This gave the respective factions time to deal with the Blight.

Without Rook there, the dragon would have continued to attack, leaving the other faction and your companions to fight three battles at once - the Blight, the dragon, and the respective villain (Venatori or Antaam). Rook only had one force to deal with (dragon), so it stands to reason the city with Rook present would stand up better against the remaining threats than the city without Rook.

It's not a plot hole if you don't understand it.

[butterflydm]

ever onward in our DAV adventure...

I'm on such a high with this game right now.

The romantic scenes I've gotten to do with Lucanis so far have made me very giggly and happy while I was playing through them. And Neve approves of our romance. <3

My next big main quest made me SO happy! Delightful, delightful! I really do love the quest & flow design of DAV and, even though I have to admit to some protectiveness/defensiveness over DAI (it was my first Dragon Age game), I think that DAV improved on it in several ways. I feel like the tension of the main storyline is a lot stronger here than it was in DAI post-Skyhold. The open world was just... too open in DAI, imo. Pulling back and making it more controlled in DAV (plus eliminating collection quests entirely except for the one) was a good game design decision.

When we got stuck in Elgar'nan's trap and then Rook heard SOLAS reaching out through the thinned Veil to help us through! I was just eating up the conversation between Elgar'nan and Solas as we fought our way through to save the Dalish. This game has been giving me so much great lore and I am loving it to pieces. Sneaking through the Venatori camp was... definitely illuminating on their mindset. They want old Tevinter back again, and the since the old Tevinter gods were actually the servants of the old elven gods...

Also... we're gonna have to kill that big-ass dragon that Elgar'nan just summoned (and then fed the Venatori to after we freed the elves) so... you know. That's coming.

Had a great conversation with Solas afterwards (Rook has officially earned his respect) and we got a bit of him talking with some regretful longing about the Inquisitor after we got a bit of her doing the same in our earlier meeting, so that was sweet (I set them up as having romanced in DAI so I could get any potential extra dialogue). Rook called Solas out on his pride, and we really did get to see a big difference between Solas and Elgar'nan -- Solas knows how to apologize and realizes it when he screws up. Which was true in DAI as well -- if you took the high approval route with him, he's way more conflicted about his ending choices, because he realizes that his initial assumptions about people post-Veil were incorrect. If you prove him wrong, he admits to being wrong.

Solas also gave a pretty clear 'endgame approaching' warning in the game, in the sense of saying that our next encounter with the gods is likely to be our last chance, so my next priority is to finish up any character or region quests, to get everyone as prepped as possible for the next big fight. Companions were my first priority, to try to get them all up to Hero of the Veilguard status alongside Harding.

So, companion updates:

Harding - already a Hero of the Veilguard, but I had a really good conversation with her after the Solas convo, where she expressed how glad she was that she had friends to help her past feeling the weight of the Titans' pain on her shoulders and how she believes that Solas can be saved too. Okay, I definitely need to go with an Inky who doesn't believe that Solas can be saved in my next run, because I'm very curious how her opinion might change if Inky thinks Solas needs to be stopped as opposed to saved! (I'm wondering if it's like how Varric's approval during Mages/Templars choice in DAI depends on what Hawke chose in DA2). Harding firmly believes that Lavellen could save Solas from trapping himself in his regrets and bad choices if given the chance. So it's possible we might have a Solas/Inky happy ending waiting at the end of the game if we play our cards right. Maybe. We'll see! Depends on Solas and his stubbornness, really.

Taash - I wanted to finish up them next, to see if that moved the Taash/Harding romance forward. We've gotten some hints and flirting here and there and it's been very cute. During the quest to take care of the Stormrider dragon, Taash asked Harding about her mom, and they had some good mom-related conversations.

Taash's personal quest really tugged at the heartstrings (I shed a few tears, for sure). I had Taash leaning towards being more Rivani and their mom wasn't a big fan of that. And was confused about Taash being non-binary. And now Taash has to struggle with the pain of never getting to have that big conversation where the two of them work it out. And that's hard but also... really true to life at times. It felt very honest.

Taash's personal quest also crystallized something I was trying to say before about the themes of the game -- for some of the characters, it's not sins of the past so much as the struggle with the weight of your culture and the baggage that it brings. That's become more clear as we've gone through each quest. Because that was definitely Taash, who is torn between two cultures, Rivani or Qunari -- one culture that stresses personal freedoms and is chill about magic and spirits, and the other one which stresses authoritarianism and control and is definitely not chill about magic or spirits. And you can certainly take from both in some ways but there are other ways that the two cultures contrast so strongly that you have to pick one.

But we've had other characters struggling with issues brought about because of their cultural background -- like Bellara, who is dealing with ancient elven history in the form of her brother accepting an offer to serve one of the Forgotten Ones of elven lore; or Harding dealing with the cultural weight of all of the grief and anger of the murdered Titans, and Davrin needing to deal with the 'whatever it takes to win' cultural background of the Wardens coming back around again in the form of the Gloom Howler. The regrets of the past. So... similar to what I was saying before, but slightly modified.

In lighter news: matchmaking successful!

Emmrich - We killed Johanna and destroyed the lantern, but this was a really tough quest on an emotional level. We just lost Taash's mom in the previous quest and then I had to make the call to save Manfred or encourage Emmrich to let him go and move forward into lichdom. And it was a really difficult choice! For this specific Rook, I encouraged him to become a lich but, wow, I was torn. But it is Emmrich's dream, and when we spoke about it... it's clear that it's what he wants. And Manfred isn't any more dead than he was before, since he was always a wisp inhabiting a body. He just won't be... inhabiting anymore. But, yeah. A tough one. Taash got Hero of the Veilguard status at the end of their quest, but Emmrich didn't get it here. Either he'll get it when he becomes a lich, or picking lichdom means that he doesn't get it. I guess I'll find out.

All throughout this, I would go back to the Lighthouse between each mission and run into delightful conversations between my companions. I really love how lively and dynamic it feels like the Lighthouse is. People are always moving around and talking to each other. <3

I moved some other companion missions forward but haven't completed them yet -- I need to do the next story mission in Treviso to complete Lucanis's personal mission, and Neve's mission next goes to the Cobbled Swan, where the Inquisitor awaits for a second check-in (excited to see her again! She's not ~exactly~ my Inky, of course, but you can't distill dozens of hours of characterization into a dozen lines, so I wasn't expecting that). I have some final tie-ups for Taash and Harding, plus the Lichdom ceremony for Emmrich, and I've moved forward to the next steps on Davrin and Bellara's quests.

Speaking of Bellara's questline, this hit me HARD after my recent decision to go no-contact with my brother:

Yeah, that's gonna be a rough one, especially if we have to kill her brother.

My next quest is going to be helping put to rest the souls of the Rivani mages murdered by Templars during DAI (we found a heartbreaking codex entry about this at the time).

[crossdressingdeath]

A thing has been living in my head since I listened to the first episode of Vows and Vengeance (uh, potential spoilers for that by the way), so have some vague thoughts as I try to make sense of it.

It's like... okay, we've all been enjoying the jokes about Solas's ritual-based woes (because they are very funny, to be clear), but the fact that he keeps doing rituals even though they never end well and he never likes the result is fascinating to me, both in terms of his character and in terms of potential DAV plot hooks. I mean, he knows he's fucked up every time! He's never happy about it! But he never stops either, even though he never gets what he wants. That refusal to accept that he needs to step back, listen to others and look at other possibilities instead of steamrolling his way towards the conclusion he's decided is an unfortunate necessity is such a fascinating part of his character. Also yes, I know that Solas has that thing where if Quiz says they want to change his mind he seems to want them to but the issue with that is that he's still refusing to stop for five fucking seconds and actually let them try before he goes about his merry world-ending way. Solas has this thing where even when he knows he's fucked up his response seems to be trying to undo the one specific thing he knows he fucked up rather than... learning from the mistakes he made and trying to move forward with that knowledge instead of constantly trying to go back. This is most noticeable with his main plan ("fucking with the line between the waking world and the Fade destroyed my people and brought me nothing but misery so clearly the solution is to fuck with that line again, in the opposite way this time, with the knowledge/assumption that doing so will once again kill a shitload of people and make me miserable and guilty" sure is... a plan) but honestly just in general the fact that he keeps doing rituals that never work out for him is like. my guy at some point you have to realize that this isn't going to do what you want, please try a tactic that is not a magic ritual.

But that leads me into how this could lead to some interesting plot possibilities, because Rook has also royally fucked up after the first part of DAV. Their attempt to intercede in a ritual has fucked up the world and based on what we've heard seems to have changed them permanently. It'd be very fun if one factor in their relationship with Solas involved the question of whether they do what Solas does and just try to undo what they did, or accept what happened as a now-unchangeable fact and make the best of it they can. Especially if you agree with the theory I've seen floated that the Veilguard are going to on some level correspond to the Evanuris with Rook themself corresponding to Solas; the concept of them being in a similar position to him (having fucked up their world by accident during a ritual gone wrong, although in this case the ritual itself wasn't their doing and the fuckup wasn't nearly as fatal) and having the choice of either following in his footsteps and just trying to undo it somehow or learning from his mistakes and accepting that there's no real way back and they have to go forward. Now I don't know how exactly that would work, it's not like Rook has access to time travel or anything like that, but it could be something like... rather than trying to somehow magically undo the Evanuris getting out (since they're going to have to do that the old-fashioned way) maybe they could try to fix (or "fix", since we don't actually know if them being bound to the Fade is harmful at this stage) what happened to them personally? Again these are just vague thoughts that I'm having, I have no idea how viable this would be, but it could be interesting if Rook was given the same choice of either moving forward with the knowledge that their actions did likely irreparable damage (to themself if not the world) or trying to undo it and could either follow in Solas's footsteps or say "No, I've seen where people trying to undo their mistakes leads, I will do everything in my power to mitigate the damage but I will accept that it's done and can't be fixed just like that".

[cessmaga]

I have a confession to make, I'm kinda a ben 10 fan, but I genuinely hate uaf especially omniverse for some that some around it

-I hate how they treated ben's character, he was doing fine during the first season until the mandates wanted him to be "just like the OS" but making him a manchild instead

-and don't get me started on how ben is constantly cheating at julie because they wanted to give ben a "harem" and they doubled it down in omniverse, like ben doesn't even need to have a thing for every girl he fucking met including a clone of his fucking cousin, and elena would be a powerful and interesting foe to ben and that ruins for me when ben is hitting on her when ben and julie are still fricking dating,

-and don't come at me saying that ben's still a teenager, one he's not a fucking baby he should know better, and two the show didn't make him accountable it treated it like it was normal and cute

-and the way they broke up is so distasteful and disrespectful, the fact that they broke over a misunderstanding on a video game and ben didn't bother to call julie after is a cherry on top for all of this, some people defending ben that maybe he's trying to give julie a space but where is it then, the show treated it like it was funny

-they did julie so fucking dirty like what did she do to deserve it, what for being a basic love interest to ben??

-the whole "they gonna kill kevin" thing is so fucking distasteful and mean spirited, like didn't he fucking SACRIFICED himself to save the universe from aggregor or something by corrupting his mind and body, and the first thing ben has in his cranium is to fucking kill him, it would make more sense of kevin's still an antagonist to ben and gwen but no, and gwen's not wanting to kill kevin is just using her fucking braincells

-I hate OV over power creeping ben, I already mentioned this before but omniverse makes me alien x even more

-they treated the whole "everyone is dead the one we spend time with is just a carbon copy" like a normal occurrence not a serious thing, and the fact that ben's more worried over a goddamn smoothie flavor over his family and friends and everyone are fucking dead

-also the fact that the thing he inspires the most is a goddamn talking smoothies not grandpa max or anything than that

-I don't hate rook, but the writers are pretty using him just to amplify how ignorant and incompetent ben is

-kai green is a cherry on top, the show pretty much tells us into our face that "these two are gonna be together and you can't do anything to stop it" by ruining the establishment that they are no such thing as destiny (hench why his older self is different everytime we met him) also multiverse exist too, why this only girl is his "soulmate"?? he could end up with anyone else

-and she only has like minimal screentime too, and this pairing came out of nowhere where it's established that ben x ester is a thing

-and their dynamic is not even that really good, they wanted the "they hate each other but they actually like each other" couple trope but all they did is bicker and nothing else, and not to mention that the show keeps telling us that kai likes ben's aliens more than him

-and also making ben an ignorant douchebag even more just to show how "girl boss" and amazing kai is

and even the reboot is pretty boring and lackluster, guess what, I prefer watching it over uaf and ov, at least they didn't ruin ben and not having shitty story arcs, I could watch it without cringing about ben being a shitty person and a boyfriend and annoying power creeps and bad story arcs

[immobiliter]

okay okay, *cracks knuckles* let's do this~

don't click if you haven't finished the game because this is HUGE spoiler territory. don't fucking do it. don't ruin it for yourselves. i'm watching you all

so let me preface this by saying that i did not expect varric to leave this game alive, and i've said from the start that he went into that confrontation with solas fully prepared to either stop him or die trying, and i was right. he did die trying lmao. i thought it was kinda wild and unrealistic that they managed to somehow get him back to the lighthouse ( and assumed that bioware were maybe too cowardly to kill off a fan favourite ), but i was glad that he made it through the prologue and hoped for some kind of meaningful close to his arc. because i still expected him to not leave the game alive

varric is then a non-entity for the entire game, barely involved in group discussion aside from being a generic life coach to rook, and i continue to blame bioware for shoddy writing choices ( especially given the way they write morrigan, which i'm still not entirely on board with her being a walking talking plot device, but w/e ). i didn't make the connection that he was already dead if only because it didn't make sense to me, considering that harding and neve were also at the ritual site and would surely have had a reaction if he had died there ( especially harding, and i'll come back to this ). plus we meet dorian, isabela, the inquisitor over the course of the game — people who might not have withheld their thoughts on varric's death to a grieving rook because they don't really know them and have no reason to.

if varric died, it would have a ripple effect across the entirety of thedas and i'm not exaggerating here because he has friends all over the place. he's been in three ( two and a half now? lmao ) games, and he is purposely well connected. he has a spy network, he was the viscount of kirkwall, he's a bestselling author and celebrity. even if the south is in fucking chaos ( and i still hate everything about that btw. the moment i started getting those missives from the inquisitor i was ready to eluvian portal hop my way over to denerim and kirkwall and play that game instead, fuck the north lmao ), this would have huge ramifications that meant it didn't make sense for him to be a figment of rook's imagination for that long. and i think that's also my problem. that this went on for the whole fucking game without anyone pushing against this fantasy that solas used to manipulate rook.

but he was dead all along. so instead, i get bioware pulling the rug on you during the final endgame like "oh so he was never alive at all actually btw" and on its own, that's a good twist. their final conversation together made me cry, it was lovely. but the more you question that twist the more it starts to unravel and fall apart because there were no meaningful hints at it throughout the game. i romanced harding, which is the romance where the ghost of varric's death should have actually had some bearing on things because they both saw it, they both went through it, and there was NOTHING from harding whatsoever. no cryptic conversation between the two about grief, not even concern from harding that rook is apparently hallucinating varric in the infirmary and they've been doing this for weeks??? months??? however long the timescale of the game's events is.

and sure, there were subtle things. bellara using varric's full name when talking about him, varric never being addressed when he was a part of the group. but nothing about this should have been subtle. he's the wrong pick of a character if you intend for this to be subtle, bioware. even solas says he had a tenuous connection to rook at best in his attempt to manipulate things, and there's no way he could have maintained that illusion that varric was still alive and with rook if their companions ( or the cameo characters like dorian or the inquisitor ) had actually pushed against it like it would make sense for them to do.

then there's the argument that rook's "regret" in causing varric's death is meant to be big enough to counter solas' own regrets so that they could escape the fade prison but..... rook has only known varric a year. there are other characters for whom varric's death would have weighed way heavier, surely. i feel like it was way more about the player's own emotional attachment to varric as a fan favourite honestly than it was about rook. arguably SOLAS should have regretted that more than rook, like come on.

it also means that he gets a death in the narrative but the ONLY people who get to have meaningful reactions to that death are solas and rook. so varric's death becomes all about them, which didn't sit right with me and still doesn't. when i say that i was fully prepared to punt solas back into the fade and not give him his solavellan ending, i stg lmao. and i do also hate that rook could only confront solas about this at the 11th hour because of when this plot twist was placed in the narrative. like if rook had managed to figure out that varric was a manifestation of their grief earlier and confronted solas about it 2/3 of the way through the game ( via their fade connection ), i think it would have hit more on an emotional level. because i don't want to hate solas and never have hated solas as a character, and i understand the rationale behind why he would have done this to manipulate rook as a failsafe but ?? good job game, you're making me hate solas at the last fucking moment despite wanting to pursue a "save him" ending. i don't think that necessarily did solas any justice as a character either in all honesty. there was surely another way that they could have done a switcheroo and had him escape the fade prison, surely.

anyway, moving away from the giant fucking elephant in the room lmao. i did enjoy the game for what it was. the companions were fun, i don't think the end mission for veilguard hit the same heights as the suicide mission from me2, but it was nice to see an endgame sequence from bioware that carried big consequences for companions and forced you to play through their stories first ( even if their questlines were very long and unwieldy at times. like trying to get to their final quest but just being handed various conversations and outings was frustrating. i like being able to get to know the companions better but my god ).

i enjoyed the factions, i think the cameos were incredibly superfluous and wish they'd actually carried more weight in the game ( i do think bioware had this issue where they wanted to make the game accessible to a new audience but didn't want to commit to their own canon and piss off those purists who wanted all of their 329843 choices in the three previous games to matter. like bioware should have just said, it's been ten years, this is the canon we have decided on for the past few games sans these three choices you pick in the cc screen, and ran with it. i think the game would have been better off had they done that and i think that's why they blitzed the south as they did. so that apparently nothing mattered anyway ig ).

sans the varric thing, i think solas's ending was handled well. i liked his final conversation with mythal a lot. i'm not a big solavellan shipper but i can see why people are happy with what happened there for him.

like it was a good game and i had fun playing it. i just think they fumbled a lot of things and the varric one is just so fucking BIG that i'm over here like ??? i somehow have to fix this and it's gonna be such an ordeal on my part i did not ask for this. it also means i can't write anything set during veilguard until this is no longer a spoiler lmao thank you bioware, truly

[thessalian]

Molly!Rook vs D'Meta's Crossing

After a brief amount of wandering around, at the end of a boat journey

Bellara: ...So that's why the shinies thing!

Molly!Rook: Well, that and the fact that if I want to be equipped halfway decently... Trade is a thing!

Neve: So ... it's professional habit and avarice, then.

Harding: More "survival", I think. And, I mean, they're generous to a fault -- look at this! I think I'm gonna call her "Mayhem"!

Molly!Rook: Yeah, I guess another bow with a regular woman's name would be a bit on the nose, huh.

Harding: ...yeah...

Bellara: ...Why are the docks so quiet?

Neve: I'm with you on this one, Bel. Dock Town's my usual stomping grounds, and docks are never quiet.

Bellara: ...Bel?

Neve: No?

Bellara: Oh, no, I like it! I've just ... never had a nickname before!

Molly!Rook: Okay, given Harding's face, we're avoiding where the nicknames usually come from and going on to ... fog and silence. I read a book like this once. If we see an undead with a huge sword and geometry for a face, I'm leaving.

Bellara; Harding: ...wut.

Neve: We'll explain that one later. Though I really want to know where you found an old Tevinter penny-dreadful cautionary tale out here.

Molly!Rook: It's actually stolen from the elven. Originally set not far from here and-- What the fuck is this.

'This': *is a barricade*

Harding: ...Mayhem?

Neve: That barricade is to keep things in. Maybe quietly and save mayhem ... or ... "Mayhem", if you like ... for later.

Molly!Rook: Okay, parkour it is; hup-- OH EW!

Harding: What?!? ...Oh shit.

Molly!Rook: You've seen this stuff before, Harding; what kind of soap do you need to get Blight off? Really wish I was more into shoes right now...

Bellara: Did you just say--?!?

D'Meta's Crossing: *is full of Blight*

Further into D'Meta's Crossing

Molly!Rook: None of this is stopping me from being tense about the potential upcoming appearance of Geometry-Face, you know.

Harding: This ... this isn't like the Blight I know. It doesn't act like this! And ghouls are usually just ... maddened, not ... not like that.

Neve: It feels like Blight got mixed with ... blood magic, somehow.

Molly!Rook: Might make sense, honestly; the call archdemons make to get darkspawn to dig them out probably works the same way--

Neve: How do you know that much about archdemons and Blights?

Molly!Rook: You may have noticed how much Varric likes to talk. He hung out with the Champion of Kirkwall, whose brother ended up a Warden, and then he hung around with, and I quote, "The Nightingale", who apparently ran around with the Hero of Ferelden. You pick stuff up.

Harding: ..."Likes".

Molly!Rook: Yeah, I know it's too weak a word, but underplaying for comedy is a thing. *blows up a Blight boil*

Harding: No, I meant-- What the fuck are you doing?

Molly!Rook: Checking for survivors who aren't apparently stuffing people into houses with pitchforks-- ooooooooh shit.

Neve: I take it that there's no shiny or survivors in there.

Molly!Rook: Shiny, yes. Survivors, no. Note indicating that the mayor here is a greedy motherfucker who gives zero shits for his people and almost definitely let this happen or worse? Also yes.

Harding; Bellara: He. WHAT?!?

Neve: There ... is a blood magic component here.

Molly!Rook: I hope the Blight fucking ate him.

A little while later, after a visit from a very big dragon

Molly!Rook: Man. Not even the dragon wanted to eat you.

Mayor: Help! Let me out! Please!

Molly!Rook: What. Did. You. Do?!?

Mayor: I was trying to protect my people! Really! And if I happened to do it by sacrificing a couple of You People and made an awful lot of money in the process ... well...

Bellara: ..."You ... People"?!?

Molly!Rook: Veil Jumpers, Dalish, or elves in general; spin the Wheel o' Bigotry on that one. Also, dude, want to identify the several parts of that sentence you shouldn't have said?

Mayor: I ... I was seduced by a god!

Harding: And apparently a lot of money.

Molly!Rook: Look. Dude. If you were so keen on gold that you tried to drag it all with you while running for your life from the mess you made? This is what that gold has bought you. Enjoy.

Neve: But ... I mean ... he was under the influence of blood magic!

Molly!Rook: And might be still. And probably will be again, because he's ticking back and forth between "I know what to expect and can resist it now" and "You don't know what it's like to be controlled by something so powerful". He earned this. He deserves this.

Neve: And we're the ones to decide?

Bellara: *opens her mouth*

Molly!Rook: I got this, Bel. Neve ... he decided to try to buy his wealth - both current and future, since I did find notes that he fucked this village over for money time and time and time again - with Veil Jumper lives. We are Veil Jumpers. We deserve justice for our own.

Bellara: Thank you; I would not have said that so well.

Neve: ...Honestly, I was expecting more yelling and profanity. You're usually more ... excitable.

Molly!Rook: My mind runs all over itself like a litter of happy sled dogs. They're a pile of limbs and ridiculous most of the time, but harness them up and get them moving in the same direction, you get results.

Neve: It disturbs me how much sense that makes.

Harding: Well, let's just get those brain-dogs in a saving-the-world direction.

Molly!Rook: Can we, like, draw straws on who tells Strife about this?

Bellara: Sorry, Rook, buuuuut I think it should be you. I mean, you're good at giving him bad news by now.

Molly!Rook: Yeah, but given that I'm about to bend all my brain-dogs towards saving the world, can't I have a little vacation from it?!?

Harding: We'll have your back, Rook.

Molly!Rook: Thanks. Though you're a little short to hide behind when I need to escape the glare if he decides to blame me for this somehow.

Back at Veil Jumper HQ

Morrigan: *appears, awesomely*

Molly!Rook: .........okay that was awesome.

Morrigan: I can provide information, should you need it. And you will need it.

Harding: Hi again. Sorry; guess you're still the Elven Expert.

Morrigan: 'Tis fitting, I suppose, that I retake the role. Given that my attempts to explain my knowledge to a literal evanuris were somewhat less well-received with at least some members of the Inquisition than they seem to be here.

Harding: You ... were kind of explaining elven history to a Keeper-in-training and an actual evanuris, Morrigan.

Morrigan: ...Indeed. Though had I known that latter at the time, I might have reacted differently.

Molly!Rook: Okay, look. We've got a shot at this. Bellara, you can play with the eluvian--

Bellara: Is ... is a "squee" appropriate right now? Because I kind of want to squee about that but also the world might be ending because of our gods so maybe it's not appropriate--

Molly!Rook: Take your squee where you can get it, Bel. We should probably see if we can find that dagger Solas was using; anything that might tell us what the fuck happened and how we can un-fuck all this. Neve, you're the best at looking for clues, and also you probably Know People so maybe more allies would be good. Anyway, point is, we put your skills and talents together with my absolute refusal to be told I can't do something, and we can deal with our stupid kinda-gods.

Harding: ...We have to go back there?

Molly!Rook: I mean, I know it wasn't fun, but it could have ended a lot worse. We can do this, Harding. C'mon. I think I know the way from here. *exits, stage Ritual Site*

Neve: Should ... we be worrying about that?

Harding: We all have our coping mechanisms, I guess? Or maybe they're just handling it better than we are. You want to force them into that conversation before they're ready and risk them breaking down when they're actually getting shit done?

Neve: Point taken.

Bellara: ...What are we talking about now?

Molly!Rook: Um ... guys? Scavenger hunt for blue glowy dagger-thing of stupid?

Neve; Harding: Never mind.

[linawritesocs]

avery's birthday ssr vignette!

avery is my first twst oc if we're not counting those mc sketches from 2020 so writing his birthday vignette is so.. 🥺🥺😭 like yes!! this is my son!! look at him go, i'm so proud of him!!

also i was surprised to find out that there are actually not that many picrews that have freckles. picrew can you stop disappointing me like this

[ part 1 ]

[ pomefiore dorm lounge - birthday venue ]

seth: avery-chan!!~ happy birthday!

avery: .. ah. it's you. you're here to do the birthday interview thing, right?

seth: yep! you're so smart, avery-chan!

avery: um, this isn't the first time when you interview someone on their birthday. of course i heard about it before and i knew that i'll have to go through the same thing.

seth: ah.. you're right.

seth: wait, so that means other people have talked about those interviews before? what did they say about me, what did they say??

avery: most of them found you a bit annoying, honestly. and loud. and they said that you interrupted them a lot.

avery: the chaotic ones, like cater or vance, had a lot of fun though.

seth: o-oh.

seth: well, whatever, those boring guys' opinions don't matter.

avery: wow, you sure don't suffer from low self-confidence.

avery: .. wait, what is this?

seth: ah, i thought that our interviews should have a more professional vibe, so..

seth: i brought a microphone with me!

avery: ...

avery: why?..

seth: because i thought it would be fun!

avery: b-but it doesn't make any sense-

avery: it's all pink and sparkly too..

seth: it looks so cute, doesn't it? i decorated it myself~

seth: look, it even has flowers on it!

avery: i-it sure does.

seth: sooo, avery-chan, are you ready for your own birthday interview?

avery: *sighs*

avery: it's not like i have a choice, do i?

seth: nope! <3

avery: oh well, i guess i'm ready then.

seth: yay!!

seth: okay, first question: it's your first birthday here, since you were a rsa student in the past, right? so how are you feeling about it? do you like this birthday party more than the one you had last year?

avery: well, i gotta say, this party is more.. interesting than the one i had back in rsa.

seth: really? why?

avery: rsa students weren't really sincere about it. they just gave me some gifts, wished me a happy birthday and.. stood there awkwardly. they had no idea what to do, it felt like they were.. scared of me, really.

seth: scared? of you? why??

seth: you're one of the cutest guys i've ever met!

seth: see, i said that you were "cute", not "pretty". so don't get mad at me.

avery: the thing is.. they also thought i was cute. so when i turned out to be more rude than they expected..

avery: they thought that i'm a "prince charming" kind of guy or that i'm this cute and soft cinnamon roll, basically, they thought that i'll be just like them.

avery: but.. i didn't fit in. i was too "mean" for them. and they couldn't accept someone like me.

seth: ah.. yeah, that's why you overblotted back then.

avery: *sighs* whatever, i don't even go to that school anymore.

avery: and surprisingly, nrc students' birthday wishes felt more sincere than the ones i got from rsa students.

avery: yes, even vil's.

seth: oh, even vil wished you a happy birthday??

avery: well, he did, but he also gave me this makeup kit and said that he hopes i'll start taking better care of my appearance this year.

seth: haha, yeah, that sounds like vil.

avery: .. that makeup kit was flower-themed though.

[ part 2 ]

seth: by the way, do you get along well with pomefiore students? like, i heard that you're besties with epel-chan, if i'm not wrong.

avery: yeah, he's a cool guy. when i first met him, i was sure we'd never get along and i didn't even try to become friends with him.

avery: but he made the first move because he noticed how uncomfortable i feel in this new school and this new dorm.

avery: and.. i realized that we're actually pretty similar.

seth: aww, that's so sweet of epel-chan! i'm glad that he helped you get used to this place.

seth: and what about rook-chan?

seth: i'm sure he reminds you a lot about allen-chan-

avery: he does. he definitely does.

seth: oh, but rook-chan would love to become friends with you though! he told me that you've been avoiding him since your first day here and he was a bit sad because of that..

avery: this guy doesn't want to become friends with me. he just likes to.. i don't know, observe me? since i'm..

avery: uh..

avery: well.. good-looking.

seth: haha, yeah, rook-chan is the type to do that. he did the same thing to me back when i just started going to this school.

seth: and what about others? are there any pomefiore students you find interesting?

avery: most of them are too weird for me, but there are some people who i wouldn't mind getting to know better.

seth: oh, really? can you give an example?

avery: um, there's this girl.. i think she's into gardening too?

seth: oh, are you talking about medi-chan?

avery: yeah. i heard that she also knows a lot about poisons, as expected from a pomefiore student.

seth: and she has freckles too, just like you! and they're just as cute as yours~

avery: s-shut up.

avery: uh, there's also that guy.. i think his name was mahira? i get this really weird vibe from him, but..

avery: as long as he's not as creepy as rook, i'm fine with his company.

seth: oh, he's not creepy at all! he's so nice and chill, i'm sure you'd get along!

avery: most "chill" nrc students i've seen turned out to be terrifying people that i wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, haha.

seth: sorry for asking, but did you get any gifts from rsa students?

seth: you know, even though you're a nrc student now, you still used to go to the same school with them, so..

avery: roland-senpai texted me this morning and wished me a happy birthday.

avery: .. he also sent me a sweater that he knitted himself.

seth: really? that's so kind of him, considering that it's winter and it's pretty cold, obviously..

seth: oh, can you show-

avery: no.

avery: it's.. kinda embarrassing.

seth: .. roland-chan is not good at knitting, is he?

avery: he's surprisingly good at it, actually. but the designs he chooses..

avery: and also i got a letter from allen, he wished me a happy birthday too.

seth: that's so nice! oh, did he send you a gift too?

avery: .. this guy wrote in his letter that he doesn't really know anything about my interests or, to be more exact, he doesn't know anything about gardening, so..

avery: he just sent me this hat. you know, since i used to wear a hat in the past.

seth: ...

seth: these are.. real diamonds, right?

avery: knowing allen, yeah, most likely.

seth: are you gonna wear it though?

avery: no.

seth: understandable, can i have it?

avery: sure.

seth: also, i just noticed.. you don't use those mean nicknames you came up with that much anymore.

avery: uh..

avery: well.. i guess, there's no reason for me to use them now. i don't need them to protect myself anymore.

avery: !!

avery: uh.. what i mean by that is..

avery: it's just that i'm stronger now, you know? haha, i don't need those nicknames, i can do better than that..

seth: i get it, you're a cute and friendly softie now.

avery: oh, shut up.

[ part 3 ]

seth: can you tell us more about how you celebrated your birthday in the past?

avery: it was nothing special, really. i just celebrated it with my parents, i didn't have any friends, so..

seth: i heard that your parents are very nice though! did you get a lot of gifts from them?

avery: w-well, my mom is a confectioner, so she really liked to make sweets for me. she likes making candy more, but she also used to bake a birthday cake for me every year until i had to leave and go to rsa.

avery: and my dad is a gardener, so he was the one to get gardening-related gifts for me.

seth: so they really are very nice! i'm glad to hear it! did they send you anything this year?

avery: yeah, mom sent me some candy she made herself, it's flower-shaped. and dad.. um..

avery: h-he got into romance manga and sent me some of his favorites as a gift.

seth: wait, really?

seth: *laughs* i didn't expect your dad to have a hobby like this!

avery: yeah, me neither.

avery: but his taste is.. not that good.

avery: most of this stuff is very old-fashioned and full of cliches, it's so predictable too.

seth: but i thought you liked this kind of-

avery: i appreciate the effort though.

seth: wait, if i remember correctly, you had a little sister too, didn't you?

avery: yes, and she sent me a gift too, but..

avery: it's just.. a huge bag of gummy worms.

seth: oh, yeah, you don't like them, right?

avery: i hate them. and i hate them exactly because of her and her stupid pranks.

seth: didn't you accidentally almost eat a real worm because of her once?

avery: yes.

seth: hey, do you mind if i steal this gift from you too?

avery: feel free to do so.

seth: okay, thank you~ i wonder if grim is allowed to eat these.

avery: are you- are you planning to make your cat eat them??

seth: i don't know, maybe, i'll decide later.

avery: .. i can't believe i'm saying it, but i feel so sorry for grim.

seth: you shouldn't, i made a new collar for that guy yesterday and it looks great, one of my best works.

avery: ...

avery: *laughs*

seth: huh? did i say something funny?

avery: it's just..

avery: you can be so dumb sometimes, you know? well, most of the time, actually.

avery: but.. you really are funny.

seth: i'm glad to hear that! i don't care if i'm dumb, at least i'm funny and cute and pretty and-

avery: yeah, yeah, i know. can we finish this already?

seth: oh, you're right, it's time for me to go.

seth: again, happy birthday, avery-chan!

[northwest-cryptid]

Bestie I took a whole ass class in college on coding at a school *known* for its programming degrees and teaching newbies how to code and I failed

Please do not underestimate how fucking stupid i am (not judging just like ofc you lose everyone when you bring up coding that shit hard)

Alright so a couple things here, right out the gate the fact you're bringing this up means you actually read my lengthy post about this topic so hey, thank you. I'm gonna say a lot of stuff here and I want to make it super clear that at no point am I ever trying to intentionally sound judgemental, or like I'm pointing a finger, or calling anyone out or anything of the sort. I have, genuinely; nothing but respect. But I'm also very bad with written tone so please understand that if at any point I sound condescending or whatever it's not at all intended. I don't think any of this will come across that way, but I figured I'd say something up front; since we're having a conversation in which we disagree on something. I don't see you as "wrong" or me as "right" I see us as people who disagree on a subject, and that's fine I feel like you've not been rude or anything, I don't want to be rude or anything; hopefully that makes sense, I'm gonna stop rambling about this and start rambling about the actual topic now.

I also want to quickly say you're not incapable of learning. You may not have learned well being taught the way they taught at that school, but just because a school is known for being good at something; doesn't actually mean that's the end all be all way to do it. I also took a college programming class, specifically for C# and I did not do very well. Because simply put, I didn't do well in school settings. Being taught the way they taught, didn't click with me; and I didn't really have an interest in learning what they wanted me to.

A couple of years later, I want to kinda mess around with Unity and VRChat stuff and suddenly not only did I learn C#, self taught; but I learned UDON and how to convert between the two. Why? Because when I actually you know, was being taught in a way that worked for me, and on a topic that interested me personally. I had an easier time with it. Everyone regardless of how smart or stupid they may believe themselves to be, is going to struggle if they're not being taught in a way that makes sense to them.

Coding isn't necessarily hard so much as it's frightening. It's intimidating because it's asking effort of someone in an area they're unfamiliar with, but then that's literally everything. It's very interesting to me just what people are willing to learn; but then also what people aren't. Programming is perceived as something for "nerds" something difficult, something hard.

The reality of it is, if you can learn a second language, if you can learn to draw, if you can learn a musical instrument, if you read the sentence "lol brb afk lmao" then yes, you can learn to code.

In fact, if you can play a video game, you can learn to code. I'm not joking, all coding is; is a list of rules. That's it, understanding it is no different than understanding how a game functions. If someone looks at a game of chess, or FFXIV and doesn't know the game; they see this incomprehensible mess.

"Why can the Knight jump pieces? Why does the Rook move that far? How come a pawn can only capture diagonal? Why can't I move this piece here?" Or "What does that icon mean? What does this skill do? Why is everyone grouping up? Why is this timer ticking down? Why is my tank suddenly at 1 HP?" Is literally no different from "why is that text bold? Why is that column there? Why is this text scrolling?"

The difference is that people think games are easy, and they don't skip over the easy stuff.

I cannot tell you how many times I've tried to explain HTML to someone and they go "yea yea I know "Hello World" get to the good stuff, how do I put an image in here?" and I have to explain that you put the image in there the same way you put the "Hello World" in there, you need to know that first.

Now listen I'm not saying EVERYONE can play FFXIV either, I'm saying the people who want to, do. I'm saying the people who want to pick up a DPS class learn the rotation, even if that rotation looks like this:

The problem with coding is that there's this stigma of difficulty around it. The only programmers people seem to talk about are accomplished people or they seem impressive with what they can do. They work programming jobs, they do it professionally or whatever.

Let's not forget that Yandere Dev programmed an entire game, extremely mid programming for an extremely mid game sure; but you can't deny that he did it.

People don't go into playing chess, expecting to either be Gukesh Dommaraju or to quit on their first game. That's the current world champion, who defeated the previous champion Ding Liren in the 2024 World Chess Championship. According to wikipedia I'm not gonna claim to know anything about competitive chess so you know, just an example.

What I'm getting at with all of this is, even if you are; and I'm gonna say this right now I have no right to make a statement on this so your words not mine; "stupid" you can learn coding if you want to. However the other big thing, that people don't even consider, is that you don't HAVE to.

There are TONS of resources, website builders; and free to use CSS and HTML code out there as auxiliary options. For example,

Eggramen's Testpages

Teppy's layouts

Templaterr

If all of that is too complicated for someone there's even stuff like Sadgrl's Layout Builder:

It literally uses drop downs and sliders, then you click generate and it just spits out the HTML you can copy and paste, edit it however you want.

I always feel bad when people say coding is hard. Because people have a seemingly weird idea of what coding is.

Like, alright hear me out real quick... a Website is literally just this:

<html> <head><title>your title here</title></head> <body><p>paragraph text here</p></body> </html>

Then we click save, check the website and, wow hey look at that:

Understanding this is simple.

HTML uses tags, tags come in those little < > brackets. We know websites are written in the markup language (the ML of HTML) HTML so we'll go ahead and define our code as such with:

<html>

^ Cool, that's done, now our code knows it's HTML. Now we should also keep in mind that to close out any tag we just use the same tag with a forward slash in front of it... which means our code looks like this now:

<html>

</html>

Everything we want to display on the website goes in that element (a container created by tags), because we're literally telling the code "everything from here to here is html code, use it to write the website." Well Websites typically have a little name in the tab right? That tab is called the Title. We're going to put that in the <Head> tag, this is because websites have two major areas; the Head and the Body. The Head determines how the actual website will look; not what will go on it, the Body determines what will actually go ON the website.

But hey one thing at a time, let's say we don't know or care about the difference between head and body. So we just put this:

<html>

<title> Title </title>

</html>

Does this work?

Oh hey look at that it does.

Well okay but then what if I want to write something on the web page?

Well we use a paragraph for that, it's denoted by the <p> </p> tag. So then what happens if we completely ignore Head and Body?

Would this actually work?

Oh hey look at that, it does.

What I've just told you can easily translate to "The pawn can move one space forward, but on it's first turn it can move two spaces!" It's very simple, but just like how this would be a very simple website with nothing much to it, you're going to have a hard time playing Chess if all you know how to do is move a pawn forward.

Because eventually that pawn is going to collide with another pawn and you're going to try to move your pawn onto mine and I'm going to say "oh uh, pawns can't capture like that; they capture diagonally." Or in the case of HTML "Hey you probably want more to your website than just white space and black text." Right, so then what's the solution exactly? Well hey let's start with adding a column, maybe a side bar?

Well okay for that we'll need to use a flex, but that sounds complicated and we want to keep things simple right? No one is trying to teach you The Sicilian Defense when you're trying to learn how to move your pawns! Sure it's related (I think) but I don't think it's necessarily a good way to TEACH someone the basics. So what? We just can't use a flex? Well actually, we can; but we're going to go about it in an absolutely simple manner.

Remember that layout builder I linked earlier? It had sidebars! We want sidebars! Let's generate an HTML with sidebars from that builder and then use THAT HTML to use a flex.

Yoink!

and that should do it...

Uh hey, where's the sidebar? Well we're missing a step. At the bottom of the page where we got the HTML it says something. "This code should be copied and pasted into the <body> </body> tags in an HTML file." Well shit we don't HAVE a Body tag.

Well we know everything has to go inside those tags, and we know how to use tags in general since we've been doing it this whole time! So let's go ahead and put a body tag just around the sidebar code!

Okay right, well...

This is a bit of an issue isn't it? I mean come on, we did everything it said; but we still don't have a nice sidebar with a box and everything. It's just kind of there. So how do we get it to make a box around the text and create a proper sidebar? We even included a flex didn't we?

Well sure, but let's take a step back and think about it like this, what are we trying to achieve here? Well we want there to be a box around our words for the updates segment right? That box should look like this:

But our website is just a white void with nothing around it... hold on wait a second. Our website is just a white void. Because we didn't actually copy any of the properties that change the LOOK of the website, only the properties that tell the website what goes on it.

Looking at the image we can see a background, and various colors, and the text is a different color; our website doesn't look like that, so we must be missing something.

Everything for the CODE to create the box is there, but it doesn't know what the box actually looks like. Because we never told it. That's where Style comes in, Style often pairs with CSS, and you'd see this if you searched for things like "how to change a background color" or "how to change text color in HTML" you'd probably find a guide like this:

So let's look for the Style tag in the HTML that we're pulling the header from:

^ It's there, and we know that elements have to have a start and end tag; so let's go ahead and find the end tag; and copy everything in between; making sure we place it in the body of our code.

Oh hey! There's the box, and even the background; and now the text has different colors. Well hey I kinda don't like this background, I would like to change it but I don't really get how...

Looking at our HTML we literally copy and pasted, we can see body-bg-image. with a url. So wait, what happens if I change the URL.

Oh hell yea, I hate it. But the tiling bothers me, I want the image to be bigger; how do I do that?

Well again this is laid out for us:

Let's try to set the size to be 100% of the x and 100% of the y, we can even tell it "Repeat Background, no"

Again; does this work?

YOU KNOW IT BAYBEE.

So obviously I'm just kinda having a bit of fun going over some silly stuff here, but my point with all of this is to hopefully show that you really don't even have to know what you're doing. You can take what other people have out there for you and mess with it, edit it; change it, see what you like.

The best part is that it's honestly very simple if you look at it's component parts. Coding is intimidating, because it's all "nested" meaning they clump all the shit together and you're looking at hex codes and fancy brackets and going "what does ANY of this mean?!" and in reality it just kinda, holds everything together.

Truth be told, and I'm allowed to say this; I'm a fucking idiot. You went to college, I flunked out of high school because I got my credits taken away when my principle BELIEVED WITHOUT EVIDENCE that I cheated to earn a credit for algebra 2 because I flunked algebra 1. You know why I flunked 1 but aced 2? Because my algebra 2 teacher could actually teach me, as an autistic student; in a way that made sense to me. I'm actually a fuckin' idiot. I have a disability that makes learning difficult for me. I do not have the coding autism, I have the ADHD and MMORPG autism. But I can understand HTML because it's actually really simple when you break it down and look at how it all fits together.

It's a misconception that coding is HARD because coding is intimidating. People get scared of it because they see this lengthy code of letters and shorthand they don't know, and think "well I'm too stupid to learn that."

My friend, you learn tons of shit everyday. Most people on this website can recite a meme based on an image alone. Believe me, you have the potential; and here's the truth, if you absolutely do not want to learn coding for HTML; just don't. Use the resources available to build your website without ever having to learn to code. You don't have to. You can still have a really unique personal website without ever having to actually sit down and learn HTML. You can do that. People have made it exceptionally easy to use layout builders, or CSS style codes; you can edit them, you can replace parts and bits. It's all made to be as easy as possible for someone who doesn't know ANYTHING about HTML. There's no shame in using those things, I use those things even now as someone who knows a good bit of HTML. I'm still learning mind you, but I can learn; and I can use those tools in the meantime to patch up the gaps in my knowledge.

I tend to lose people not because coding is necessarily difficult, but because coding takes effort; and it's effort that a lot of people don't want to put in to having their own space online. Which, honestly; is fine.

Some people don't care about the indie web, they ARE complacent with centralized websites, they don't mind social media; they're genuinely happy with just having an account on a website ran by some random CEO and the truth of the matter is, that's okay. The thing I care about is whether or not people are aware they have choice, and those who WANT to actually take up getting involved with the indie web have the chance and knowledge to do so. Because there are a lot of people who would likely be happier getting away from social media, but this is all they know.

They get excited about the indie web, and getting away from social media; but the second they hear that building your own website requires even a baseline understanding of HTML which can be learned in literally like 30 minutes and amounts to knowing <p> and <html> they go "oh uh, nope not for me! I'll just go back to playing FFXIV learning raid mechanics and complicated rotations but uh coding is too much for me! lol" Which kinda kills me because it's like these same people can sit me down and go "oh this raid isn't that complicated actually you just have to [flawlessly have all 23 mechanics memorized and rattles them off like it's nothing.]" But then they just decide that HTML which they have an interest in learning is somehow too hard.

I know people who can speak 4 languages but think coding is too hard. I know people who can play 3 instruments but think coding is too hard. You know what they all have in common? They looked at the fact it was "programming" and said no before they even attempted. Because programming/coding is SCARY. It's not that they tried and failed and gave up because it was so agonizingly difficult, it's that they didn't even try in the first place.

A lot of people I know also gave up after failing once or twice because it didn't stick. I came back to HTML 4 times before it stuck for me, again learning disability; autism, the works. So like sure, but I genuinely feel like people would have an easier time understanding coding at least with things like HTML if they actually viewed it as something they could achieve, and learn in a setting that's actually suited to them.

I tried learning from YouTube videos and while they're very good videos, they didn't help me nearly as much as just getting into an HTML document and rummaging through it's guts seeing what changed as I messed with it. I'm too hands on for someone to sit me down and talk at me for 3 hours about different tags and shit. I gotta do it, put me in coach I'm ready to absolutely destroy the website and then fix it again.

Anyways I'm rambling here, but I genuinely hope this made sense. Again I'm not intending to say "I'm right you're wrong here's my extremely long winded speech as to why" or whatever. Coding can be hard for some people, I do genuinely believe the way it was taught to you made it hard for you to learn it; or maybe you have something like my learning disability where for whatever reason learning coding IS just difficult for you. I'm not saying you do or anything I'm saying that could very well be the case, you're an anon I don't know you.

This does sorta go back to the "Your Experiences Aren't Universal" for both of us in this case. Never the less I appreciate your perspective and your ask. I guess I just wish more people were willing to pursue the things they want in various ways even if they fail initially. Like if you don't care about having a website then it's fine, don't worry about it; but if you do, I just want to help people find the resources they need to help them make it.

[agendratum]

okay so i just spent a really long time looking though all my old notebooks in order to find my notes on coming up with names for my dragon age characters, because i thought that remembering the logic i used for them might help me come up with a rook's name that would be more natural for my world state. and in the process i discovered several things:

a. it is NOT easy to find something specific like that in my notebooks. i kind of remembered how the page where the names were written on looked (i was wrong), but i didn't remember the exact year. and for context i have been leading some kind of a diary/journal since literally the day i learnt how to write. and i still have all of them. yes, after high school diaries mostly transformed into bullet journals, and after i dropped out those transformed into notebooks for anything and everything with no system other than dates, but i never stopped actually having a notebook. which is also where most of my creative drafts are

b. i very rarely wrote years on my notebooks. dates always. years - FOR SOME REASON NOT

c. i have two places where i keep my journals, apparently. and i didn't sort them chronologically very well

d. there are A LOT of notes on some creative ideas i had in the past that i have no idea what they mean now at all. what if i was cooking back then......

this is where i slowly started to find my da notes, thank god. read more to spare your dashes, but by god i'm noting my discoveries down

so first of all i discovered, which is something i forgot about, that i was trying to come up with a full name for ruth, my warden. because at some point i thought that ruth, the name i originally came up with, didn't sound very elven, so it had to be a nickname for an actual full name

well, i didn't exactly come up with ruth. i guess it wasn't long after i read fried green tomatoes, and when the game asked me for a name, i probably looked back at my bookshelf, thought, HEY the old time lesbians book! and named my warden after one of them lesbians from the book

so my notes on her full name are....

first of all, i looked at this and was like, what was the fucking reference. i had no idea. didn't feel like some dragon age inspired elven language, but i filed this for later research, cause i still haven't found others' names

second of all, i don't know how i feel about this "final" full name. not surprised i forgot i even had this thought process. but let's just say this is non canon. and besides, considering she's trans, that would make even more sense that her name is just ruth. that is her name that she chose and it doesn't matter much if she had any other names before that. that is all left behind, if not in her clan's memory, than in that cursed mirror

moving on i found the pages where i was making my hawke's name

so i just, while writing this, realised what happened. i think back then i was still mad you can only play as a human in da2 (listen i was yet to find out da2 is one of the best games ever made) so i was trying to headcanon my hawke as a half elf and make him a name that would reference his "elven" name. i don't think it makes any sense, there is not a single elf in amell's family (who i learnt a lot about today, while scrolling da wiki again). but yeah, his elven name was tariam? and that in human was tarjei

i will decree this also non canon. he's just tarjei, it's fine.

then i found the notes on my first, now also non canon, inquisitor, lavellan, who things didn't work out with

i do think corriro is a fun name tho, i'm happy with it

but once again, i used the same mysterious reference for elven names. what the fuck is this. anyway, i tried googling what i might have looked for back then, and i think i found exactly that. it was a pikabu (russian reddit basically) post from 10 years ago with a guide on how to make elven names, where op gave a link to their source, which was a post from 2010 made on one of them text roleplaying forums that i used to love so much (i mean i never rped on this one specifically but still the nostalgia)

links for my personal peace of mind:

pikabu post - https://pikabu.ru/story/yelfiyskie_imena_mozhet_komu_interesno_budet_1690760

rp forum - http://elfs.f-rpg.me/viewtopic.php?id=6

still no actual source given to what elven language this all is referencing. tolkien maybe?? idk, but not dragon age's elven that is for sure

and then i found one little note from january 2019, when my canon inquisitor, kehaar, was born, that just listed all my canon names again: ruth, tarjei, kehaar. with no notes on how kehaar's name was made. thanks me

overall, idk if this will help me come up with rook's name. especially since rook would be growing up in rivain, not in ferelden, and not with dalish elves. BUT fun journey

i need to sort my belongings oh my god

[blooddrinkingbartender]

theotherrookie

He had to give it to Leofric. From what little he got to observe, he could tell the guy definitely knew his craft. "Oh, good. Let's get done with this already." But of course, it couldn't be so easy. When Bill turned against them, Lucien felt like his soul was getting ripped out of his chest again. That had to be some kind of sick joke. There was no way it was actually happening. His hands balled into fists as he stood there frozen by his own rage, only coming to his senses when he saw Rook reach for her necklace and move to stand in front of them. "About that," she began as her wings unfolded, "Don't think I'll be sitting this one out just because you're playing favorites." Even with that fluffy barrier blocking the view, Lucien could read her with ease. She was rightfully angry, but also ready to do everything to protect everyone, even from themselves. "Bill, don't make me punch you." she warned, raising her stance. It was going to be difficult without her magic and her weapons, but she would try anyway. She had to. While Lucien could only stand there unable to even utter a word while his friend faced danger because of him again. "Coward." he hissed. He couldn't take on a vampire, but he could certainly have Antonio hear a piece of his mind. He'd make sure to do so as soon as he got around Rook and her impression of an angry owl.

"Agreed," Leofric was glad to know at least one person was on the same page. Even if Lucien might have wanted them gone, it would be better leaving knowing this problem was dealt with.

While his face remained calm as he observed the situation, he could see that this was starting to get to Rook and Lucien, if they hadn't already been affected already. They would need some emotional support after this.

Of course Rook wouldn't have stayed behind to keep herself safe. Antonio should have kept that in better mind. But hopefully Bill would follow the command to protect him

On seeing that Rook had stepped in front of Lucien and Leofric, Bill stopped in his tracks. He felt like he had been drugged, or was in some kind of dream. There was a disconnect between himself and the world around him, but all he could do was go along with it.

"No..." he only said. His voice was distant, like he was talking in his sleep, "This isn't right... you're my friend."

"God damn it," was all Antonio could say. That was he got for trying to rush the process in the first place.

"He can take a few punches, Rook," Leofric advised, "If it comes to that, he'll most likely thank you for doing it. But if we can get this into Antonio, then that control should lift entirely.

"I'd call it being resourceful," Antonio then said to Lucien, as his claws grew back, "All I'm now trying to do is leave, and we can avoid a fight if you just allow me to do so. I'll even let Bill come back."

"I suppose some have a redemption arc, and I suppose some go in the opposite direction," Antonio said, "On this occasion, you are the better person than me, I won't deny that."

He chuckled a little bit.

"Of course not," Antonio said, drumming a set of sharp claws on the top of his walking cane. When had they appeared? "You think I'm going to miss a rare chance to be something more than what I am now?"

Despite all of his efforts. It appeared that Lucien just couldn't be swayed. Antonio could see it in his face, especially his eyes.

"Heh, of course not," Antonio replied then, "Well, you've made your choice. Seeing as I can't have your mind..."

The green swirling mists disappeared from his eyes, and they instead turned a solid black, like that of a long abandoned tunnel. His teeth appeared sharper, and green energy formed around his hands. He then held one of that out towards Lucien, who might have started to feel a horrible stretching sensation inside of his chest.

"I'm going to have your soul."

[yandere-sins]

I have an idea, hear me out. You know how people with red flags tend to be aware of it, and they still hurt others ? Imagine a darling with this mindset. "I know that I'm a walking red flag, therefore I mustn't start any romantic relationships to not hurt anyone". A darling with good intentions, but this mindset annoys the yandere. In twst, who are the ones that wouldn't even try to persuade darling, but goes straight to hurting darling ? I love your analysis and how you answer my questions ;3

Aw, thanks a bunch! I’m glad you enjoy it ^-^ However, I went with a more general answer to the question, hope you don’t mind!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««  

The characters least understanding of this mindset are probably the aggressive and the delusional ones.

♡  Sebek can’t and doesn’t want to understand you. He can’t see the things you see in yourself, as he’s way too obsessed with this image he created of you. All that counts is what is in his head. There, you are a perfect, absolute immaculate creature of pride and worth, fit to sit on a throne. The throne of his heart, to be precise. Sebek has no shame praising you loudly for all the good he has observed you do, even if it’s just something like throwing away your trash properly. He won’t let anyone defame you, not even yourself, and the good (and normal) things you did are worth more than the flaws you see in yourself. It’s actually pretty uplifting, even if he’s incredibly loud about his devotion to you and the desire he has in his heart is pouring out of him. The problem is just... he doesn’t stop gushing. Ever.

♡  Floyd feels like he has to clean out his ears as he listens to you spout complete nonsense. Then again, you could have killed someone, and he wouldn’t mind. Instead, Floyd gets pretty vocal about you having to stop blabbering crap about yourself as it’s annoying. Floyd doesn’t even recognize your concern, simply grabbing your hand and pulling you along as he intended to in the first place. If anyone asks or makes stupid remarks, he declares you two are in a relationship, and his eyes get very threatening if anyone dares to open their mouth to comment on that—even you. It’s gratifying for him to finally call you his, even though you keep annoying him with your explanations and justifications as to why you two really shouldn’t be an item. Once he finds a suitable wall, he’ll cage you against it, look you deep in the eyes, and tell you, once and for all, to stop babbling. “It’s whatever, Shrimpy. You’re mine.”

♡  Kalim is really shocked to hear you talk about yourself this way. He feels like he needs to stop you, so he pulls you into a tight hug, interrupting you with a loud, “No!” Apparently, you need someone to shake you out of it, and he’ll gladly be the one to do that. “You’re perfect!” he adds, almost close to tears. Hearing you talk about yourself as if you are incapable of being loved is an insult shot directly in his heart. However, he isn’t blaming you, as Kalim believes you are the one who suffers most. He apologizes that he never knew how much you were struggling and promises you to make it better. Unfortunately, his definition of better is isolating you in a room, tieing you to a chair and climbing on your lap every evening after all the work is done, gushing about how perfect and wonderful you are, and confessing how much he loves you, everything about you, no matter what you say.

♡  Rook listens. Carefully. Very, very carefully to every word you say, taking your sentences apart in his head and putting them back together to make sense of them. It seems you do not realize that... it absolutely doesn’t matter to him. That’s the conclusion. He’ll nod along, stay silent as you pour out your heart, only for him to grip your shoulders as he notices you are getting a bit too much into your victim role. Closing in, he’ll whisper his carefully chosen words into your ear, “It could be worse.” Before you know what’s happening, he pulls you into a tight hug, claiming that you’ll feel better soon, and this is just a temporary state of mind. Then he puts you back on your feet, fixes your clothes, and offers you his hand gallantly, asking you to come with him. Come with him so you can see an actual walking red flag as he kills off some ‘prey’ he has noticed lingering around you lately. It won’t do if there are any other suitors for your love, non?

♡  You actually manage to remind Leona why falling in love with you was a bad idea. He can’t help it, naturally, but he can still be annoyed and pissed about having to hear you talk about how bad you are. It’s a jab at his pride. After all, he chose you. Are you saying he made the wrong decision? It took you a while to find out you two were even dating, as he never voiced it directly, but you thought he was simply nice to you. And now that you forced him to admit it, already embarrassing him beyond belief, you actually have the gall to refuse him? Nu-uh, no way. Do you little herbivore need a reminder of who you belong to? He’ll give it to you. Pulling you down to where he was napping before you came running to bother him, he flips you over, baring his fangs, ready to leave you littered with his marks. As many reminders as you want and need to always remember who owns you.

♡  Ah, pure-hearted, strong-minded Deuce with his good and encouraging beliefs. You’re really breaking his heart, telling him how you feel about yourself. These red flags you are talking about are things you can change. He can help you! He’ll spend more time and invest more determination and strength into you than anyone else. After all, he’ll always be by your side, believing in you and pretending to be your knight in shining armor. That should be enough, right? This way, you’ll find out you love him at some point, right? When you are more confident and worked through those quirks of you, RIGHT? He’ll wait for you. But hopefully not too long! Deuce doesn’t know if he could wait forever... just quietly by your side. But he’s been admiring you from afar for so long, a little longer won’t hurt. And all while he gets to be by your side, smell you, touch you, be with you. It’s almost like you are a couple already, and he’ll never separate from you willingly. Not even when you say your goodnights for the day and go to bed. You can count on him to watch and care for you even while you sleep.