#theyre just MY thoughts on it all

[puppyeared]

learned something about myself lately

[sam-violet]

chillin in the hot springs 🌱

+ a closeup

[abstractfrog]

SILVER BLAZE PART THREE - happy jonkday everyone. one of these days i'll draw a scene that doesn't take place at night

[cerubean]

johnny zest but he goes by john landgraab and hasn't dropped out of college and been disowned yet and is also arranged to be married to dina caliente

[ohsleepie]

The prince and his Physician. A role-reversal au based on a dream I had that I wanted to draw something for. More ramblings under the cut

In this au, there is a kingdom of men where the briar valley once stood. Silver, the heir to this kingdom, has been the only member of the royal family for centuries, the result of a curse that causes him to die before he's old enough to ascend to the throne and reincarnate days after his passing. Silver's immortality was once a symbols for the kingdom's permanence, but the repeated death of their monarch every two decades or so has left the citizens with perpetual, generational sorrow with seemingly no solution as no one besides Silver was alive when the curse was placed.

A few centuries after Silver was born and it was believed the last full-blooded fae in briar valley had either abandoned the land or died, a draconian fae child is found in the brambles. This fae, given the name Malleus, was brought to the kingdom at the request if the prince and raised as part of the royal court with the express purpose of becoming the royal physician/chemist. It is believed that Silver's curse, as everlasting as it seems, was placed on him by a fae with extreme magical prowess and if anyone has a chance of breaking it, it's another fae. The kingdom believes that Malleus will be able to break the death curse and allow Silver to become their immortal king.

However, Silver has other plans for his chemist. From an early age, Silver requested that Malleus use his talents to find a different kind of solution to his curse that he can never tell anyone. He wants Malleus to find a way to stop his reincarnations entirely and let him unburden his people with the monarchy. Whether to fulfill the request of the kingdom he calls home, or the prince that took him in is in Malleus' hands.

[ruporas]

i’ll find you again in every universe. let us be a little more honest, let us have a little more time.

[soupysundae]

🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

[httpiastri]

i have never seen anyone look this stupid before

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[vigilskeep]

when you first start the cousland origin, you can have some conversations with arl howe, teyrn cousland, and duncan that shed some interesting light on the political situation in ferelden. it’s definitely the origin where you get the most context on the rebellion and on cailan and his father. while howe isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of sources, he is also one of the most openly critical of cailan that we have access to, which i think is worthy of interest

howe remembers maric with what the toolset describes as “genuine fondness”: “your father hasn’t spoken of our time with him? that man took care of his friends. as they say, he was large as life and twice as tall!” i think we should pay particular attention to that man took care of his friends.

what howe’s talking about is a really important aspect of kingship, where you win the consent and enthusiasm of the nobility for your rule by offering rewards like wealth, land, and prestige to the loyal. kingship is always less stable than it’s portrayed, and this is one of the ways that kings must essentially sell to the nobility that answering to them is worth their time, which would be especially important in ferelden given everything we know about its culture. fereldans believe someone only has power when it is given by the loyalty of those below them, who have the right to freely rescind that loyalty. the dao codex says that “the sight of [fereldan kings] asking for—and working to win—the support of ‘lesser’ men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.”

i suspect howe is remembering a maric fresh from the victories of the rebellion, who was able to reward those who had followed him with the spoils of those victories. at the end of the stolen throne, we see that in the final days of the rebellion, maric was killing those who had betrayed his mother to the orlesians even when they arrived under truce to meet him on holy ground. in dao, we see no lingering orlesian nobility except for those who married in and continue to be met with marked hostility. i think we can safely surmise that maric elected to make no conciliatory measures and give everything to those who had followed him; with the orlesians on the run and his people out for blood, he was in a strong enough position to do so, and it certainly served to win the fond memories of men like howe.

by contrast, howe goes on to say, “it’s too bad cailan isn’t half that.” the toolset notes establish very clearly that it’s the same issue, elaborating on howe’s thoughts: “bitter turn, i don’t get as much from the current king”, and “disdainful, i have no use for him, he does me no favours”. this isn’t a minor character detail, if howe’s last words when killed by the player are anything to go by. “maker spit on you... i deserved... more...” whatever it is that howe feels he should have been given, by the crown or anyone else, it characterises his actions and his defining treachery.

it’s in these same conversations that we see another side of this demonstrated. there are two points where howe can openly criticise the king, and bryce immediately admonishes him for both. one even has the toolset note: “speaks sharply, as a lord to a lesser man, not a friend to an equal”. it definitely comes across that way; the way he tells howe “that’s enough” is not far off the voice he uses when the player, his child, displeases him. bryce can’t tolerate any criticism of cailan, as the couslands in dao are ardent supporters of the king. to venture some hc, i suspect that this is not merely royalist fervour, and that howe’s resentment for having been given less is matched by bryce’s awareness of the precariousness of having more.

over the centuries, the theirins have consolidated their power and eradicated almost all the teyrns (the noble rank that is second only to the king). with the only other lingering teyrn being loghain, who is essentially part and parcel of the royal family, the couslands stand alone as the only real rivals to theirin power within ferelden. there are rumours that bryce was once considered for king instead of the theirins; he too could have decided to believe he “deserved more”. but unlike howe, and perhaps understandably given his strong position and happy growing family, he is satisfied with what he has. he will not take the risk of even the slightest challenge being made within his hall

(i expect that bryce’s satisfaction with the current situation further spurred howe’s dissatisfaction to its heights, given the complicated cousland-howe history and the fact that he was expected to accept a friend he had fought beside as a superior for the rest of his life.)

i don’t think howe’s judgement on cailan is likely to be without basis. we don’t hear about any victories the young king has to his name, from which he could have passed around spoils. (to be fair, cailan had harder luck than maric in this regard. a king who raises a successful rebellion gets to bring glory and prestige to everyone who follows him, whereas a king trying to rebuild after that rebellion mostly gets to bring, uh, taxes probably. especially on wealthy centres of trade like howe’s amaranthine, one might assume.) cailan also takes a far more diplomatic approach to the question of orlais, which perhaps predictably did not win over many nobles of howe’s generation. it makes sense that cailan’s strongest supporters would instead be men like bryce who hope for things to simply continue, peacefully, as they are. perhaps in another world where cailan had won the battle of ostagar, he might have earned wider respect. (you could actually argue on this basis that there’s more sense and purpose to cailan’s glory-seeking than he usually gets credit for.) but howe already acts before ostagar, which can only demonstrate his certainty in cailan’s failings at this point: his belief that even if cailan could win, he would not be stable enough to pursue justice for the couslands

[gunsatthaphan]

"[...] the most worrying thing about internships is what kind of people you'll meet..."

The Trainee - coming June 30th

[puppyeared]

axolotl

[pickled-flowers]

Ok so a while back I had a conversation with my friend's aunt. She's a trans woman well into her 50, who has kids and grandkids, and she came out when she was in her 40's. Me and my friends were talking about our queer space, and mentioned the well known "token cishet man"

Now, I'm sure most of us have that guy in our friend group, and it was common for us to just call him the straight guy. But my friend's aunt offered a different perspective ; she once was that token cishet man in a queer group of friends. Getting categorized so strongly as "the cis straight guy" made it harder for her to come out and accept herself. Since that talk with her, I've been careful about it, and guess what? Two women I've once called "the straightest person I know" (different occasions, and it was high school) now have girlfriends! You literally cannot know if someone is queer, and honestly most people are not the straight cisest person out there.

Anyways I'm not very articulate and English is not my friend but like I think everyone would benefit from being a little more careful about the way we treat our "token straight guy", she might be thankful later!

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

come get yer Laughin'stock! get it hot off the press! free Laughin'stock right here!

[scatterbrainedbot]

the realization that a 03 leosagi child could be a dragon-bunny hybrid hit me like a derailed freight train a few days ago

i do not know her name or anything else all i know is that her fam is as surprised and awed by her as i am

also that mikey needs a refresher on how biology works

[piquuroblox]

posting twice because i urgently had to show u all dandilicious dandington dandicus dancifer on this day