#she just wanted to infodump

[tealgoat]

Dialogue from the wonderful @wonder-of-the-stars !!

Taking notes

[chibigaia-art]

artist rendition of me watching ep7 of the fallout show

[crazylittlejester]

Warriors who knows he’s gorgeous and uses it to his advantage vs. Time who’s the most stunning man on the planet but completely unaware of it and is just absolutely oblivious to the fact that he gets hit on almost every single time he, Wars, and Twi go out for drinks because he honest to god just thinks people are being nice and friendly

and no matter how many times someone (Warriors) has been like “hey man, they were fucking flirting with you”, he is unable to recognize it the next time it happens. Warriors thinks he a lost cause, and Malon has definitely sat there more than once and watched someone hit on Time and shoot their shot, not realizing he’s married. and she just laughed her ass off because Time wouldn’t get the hint if it slapped him in the fucking face, bless his heart, and she’s had to go and rescue him because he just seriously cannot tell when people are hitting on him. He’s definitely embarrassed about it every single time it happens, but he just does not get it

is he smooth as fuck when HE’S flirting with his wife? absolutely. can he figure out when anyone is flirting with him? absolutely not.

[livingdeadhorse]

They are about to watch the shittiest horror movie to ever exist. . .

+ art dump for things that I don’t wanna post individually below cut

[dragonologist-phd]

Introducing: Marja Aeducan

In Summary:

Grey Warden, Commander of the Grey, Arlessa of Amaranthine, Paragon

Noble Dwarf

Warrior (Champion/Berserker)

Main Weapon: Two-Handed Battleaxe

Commanding; Decisive; Perfectionist; Honorable

Relevant Fic: Of Diamonds And Dust, Shapes in the Silence

more rambling:

Origin:

Endrin's golden child with open ambitions for the throne

She earned the respect and admiration of many through her skill with both military and diplomatic strategies. Despite this, she had few real friends; Gorim and Bhelen were the only people she truly trusted

Her main hindrance was that she does deeply believe in Orzammar's values and system of honor. She considers breaking that honor to be an action borne of weakness and a betrayal of the Ancestors, and holds herself to high standards even when others don't

As such, she refused to kill Trian and was devastated that everyone was so quick to believe she did. She vowed to return, reveal the truth, and take her rightful place as queen

She became a Warden alongside Darvis Brosca, who was recruited by Duncan at the same time

Major Choices:

Negotiated peace with Dalish and werewolves

Allowed Isolde to sacrifice herself for the good of Redcliffe

Saved the mages at the Circle

Defiled the Ashes of Andraste (long story)

Destroyed the Anvil and, after much strife, crowned Bhelen king of Orzammar (again, long story)

Allowed Alistair to duel and kill Loghain at the Landsmeet. Placed Anora on the throne alone

Would have sacrificed herself to the archdemon, had Darvis not performed the Dark Ritual with Morrigan

Party Dynamics:

Best friends with Alistair. They clicked immediately; he was relieved and reassured to have someone so decisive take the lead after Ostagar, and she was endeared (and occasionally baffled) by his sincere support and friendship

Grew fond of Sten over time. They got off on the wrong foot, but eventually learned to communicate better and realized they had a lot in common

Thinks Shale is the coolest and peppered it constantly with questions it couldn't remember the answers to. Shale was annoyed occasionally, but also flattered

Her friendship with Oghren can be complicated, but he understands her conflicting feelings toward Orzammar like few can. They've both been betrayed by their Caste, they both feel indebted to their society despite that, and they both resist talking about those feelings and end up drinking together about them instead

If I talk about Darvis we'll be here all day but suffice to say they hated each other at first, then with time and growth on both their parts formed a very strong bond. They're narrative foils; they're reluctant friends; they're ride-or-die comrades; they're in-laws. They're everything to me

Romance:

Has a genuinely sweet romance with Leliana, whose own complicated past with politics and court life gives her insight to Marja's conflict; Marja, in turn, finds Leliana's ability to find beauty in the world inspiring

Unfortunately, some of the beliefs they hold can't be reconciled, and eventually put strain on their relationship. When Marja's desecration of the ashes at Haven is revealed, they break up for good

Despite resolutions to forgo romance afterwards, she finds herself charmed by Sigrun's cheerful pragmatism and determination, and the two begin an informal relationship

Epilogue:

She survives her encounter with the archdemon, but is left with aftereffects; these mainly manifest as chronic pain and a heightened sensitivity to the Blight. Due to her chronic pain and the resulting exhaustion on her body, she takes to using a cane to get around

Becomes Arlessa of Amaranthine and commands the Fereldan Wardens from a strategic role, while Solenne Kader is sent from Orlais to act as commander in the field

Her Calling begins early, and she begins making arrangements for her last mission. Alistair and Sigrun manage to convince her to quest for a cure instead. She and Sigrun leave together on this quest, and haven't been seen since

Misc:

She acquires an interest in herbalism while on the surface, and keeps a book of dried flowers and plants she's collected

Despite being raised in luxury, she'll choose practicality over fashion every time, and doesn't really miss the jewels and trinkets she acquired as a Noble. What she does miss are the luxurious hot baths powered by the lava pools of Orzammar

While she always kind of knew she was a lesbian, she never acted on it due to the social pressures in Orzammar over having children. Her time on the surface during the Blight was the first time she was really able to explore her sexuality and general gender presentation, and it was a lot to wrap her head around

Although she doesn't have or want children of her own, she is the Cool Aunt to no less than four kids (Kieran, Gorim's kid, Oghren's kid, and Baby Endrin)

The game mabari imprinted on Darvis rather than her; howeever, during the Awakening era, Anora gifts her a mabari puppy which she names Astyth

Shortly after her reunion with Gorim in Denerim, she has an identity crisis and indulged in one of my favorite tropes, the Dramatic Character Moment Haircut (before and after pictured below)

[mommyclaws]

mm id love to hear about mousefur or willowpelt

Mousefur already has a pretty solid personality and role, I didn’t have much to change about her, so I’ll do Willowpelt! I like what I’ve done with her so far :]

I always found it interesting how Graypaw was much more relaxed on befriending and chatting with a kittypet compared to the other apprentices. (The only other one that was “friendly” being Ravenpaw, who was too busy being scared his mentor would kill him 😭) So I thought I’d use his mom to explore that a bit! I wanted some diversity on how cats think, raise their kits, and what they believe.

Willowpelt gives birth to Graykit during a period of famine in Thunderclan. Because their numbers are so big compared to the other clans, a harsh winter was all it took. The forest simply couldn’t sustain all of their population. Many cats starved, but notably her close friends, like Robinwing and Patchpelt, as well as Graykit’s father, Fuzzypelt. (I’ve switched some family trees around- Fuzzypelt as Gray’s father just makes sense to me) She takes the losses hard and it really changed her perspective on things. She starts to see border shuffles and infighting between clans as trivial. There’s a reason Starclan hides the moons when they fight at gatherings, isn’t there?

The biggest threat to the clans isn’t eachother, it’s surviving in the wild. Though not many agree with her sentiment, she’s pretty open and vocal about wishing the clans would work together and her priorities are always on her clan’s wellbeing instead of battle. She believes that if clan relations were better and not everything was about pride, Thunderclan might have been able to reach out to the other clans during the famine and asked for their help. Then maybe, so many wouldn’t have died… Bluestar was her mentor here as well, she actually got a bit of this ideology during her apprenticeship. So Willowpelt taught Graypaw to be open-minded from a young age. He’s always had very little hostility for outsiders and the other clans. She was surprised about his relationship with Silverstream, but she absolutely defended and supported him.

I genuinely think she would have left Thunderclan with him and joined Riverclan with her grandkits, but I haven’t quite decided where Sorrel, Rain, and Soot, are in this timeline- or if they're even hers. I don’t think she’d be able leave if she was already caring for them. But either way, after the initial surprise of the reveal, Willowpelt supported her son entirely.

[weirdmageddon]

sorry for liking davejade in 2023 btw its in a cool way though

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[liquidstar]

and now for something stupid

[timekeeper-vertin]

I really wish I knew the limits and main abilities of the arcane skills of the characters.

Arcane skills are very important to the series, but I truly have no idea what each character can do. Like Regulus does what with those music skills?

Are there universal skills like how tooth fairy went invisible + through walls during events? Because I thought her skill was dental related?

And what exactly are Vertin's abilities?

[justoceanmyth]

To my poor IRL who just listened to me explain the plot of the first 7 episodes of dandadan for the last hour: I'm so deeply sorry for the valuable braincells that were expended trying to apply logic to this story.

[clotpolesonly]

Jordan encouraging Declan to tell her stories

Call Down The Hawk ch 34 // Call Down The Hawk ch 56 // Call Down The Hawk ch 64

[i3utterflyeffect]

alan pulls up a miku video to attempt to pacify them, like you would to a crying ipad kid with cocomelon

...okay but real question: do you think c!alan knows who miku is. or do you think either chosen or one of the CG had to tell him

[bottlehawk]

rose lalonde grinning with unrestrained autistic glee when she ascends to being the seer of light because now people HAVE to come to her so she can infodump on them. this is her job now

[cloverdisclosed]

status: closed, @aurorabaystarter

location: aquatica

Clover observed the countless jellyfish pumping up in their bassin. They couldn't be bigger than the palm of her hand, giving off a radiant glow in the dark water. Her feest were kinda hurting at this point for staying at the same spot all of the time, but she couldn't seem to move away.

"Did you know there's a type of UFO sighting named after these little guys? Space jellyfish. When it's twilight and a rocket gets launched, the sunlight reflects of the big plume and you're put in total darkness. Except for this luminous stripe of light, y'know, like a jellyfish. Freaks people out." Her eyes aren't moving away from the water as she talks, if possible her nose moves even further towards the glass.