#you know what I would love to play?

[mako-designated-driver]

Codex Entry #39: The Grey Wardens

The first Blight had already raged for 90 years. The world was in chaos. A god had risen, twisted and corrupted. The remaining gods of Tevinter were silent, withdrawn. What writing we have recovered from those times is filled with despair, for everyone believed, from the greatest archons to the lowliest slaves, that the world was coming to an end.

At Weisshaupt fortress in the desolate Anderfels, a meeting transpired. Soldiers of the Imperium, seasoned veterans who had known nothing their entire lifetimes except hopeless war, came together. When they left Weisshaupt, they had renounced their oaths to the Imperium. They were soldiers no longer: They were the Grey Wardens.

The Wardens began an aggressive campaign against the Blight, striking back against the darkspawn, reclaiming lands given up for lost. The Blight was far from over, but their victories brought notice, and soon they received aid from every nation in Thedas.

They grew in number as well as reputation. Finally, in the year 992 of the Tevinter Imperium, upon the Silent Plains, they met the archdemon Dumat in battle. A third of all the armies of northern Thedas were lost to the fighting, but Dumat fell and the darkspawn fled back underground.

Even that was not the end.

The Imperium once revered seven gods: Dumat, Zazikel, Toth, Andoral, Razikale, Lusacan, and Urthemiel. Four have risen as archdemons. The Grey Wardens have kept watch through the ages, well aware that peace is fleeting, and that their war continues until the last of the dragon-gods is gone.

—From Ferelden: Folklore and History, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[egophiliac]

something quick to relieve the tension of these final hours ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

close-up, 'cause it got kinda lost in resizing:

[aq2003]

has anyone gotten the idea that odysseus' storyline in hades 2 is a depiction/exploration of trauma over his SA and how he's blaming himself for things that were out of his control? because that's the impression i'm getting from what i've seen. he talks about "goddesses" as his "greatest weakness" and that "he's not one to say no to them"...

when mel invites him to the bath, he brings up mortals having different standards for intimacy than gods and how it usually has a more romantic/sexual connotation. she then asks if he's uncomfortable and he has a startled reaction and brings up circe and calypso again (but never actually by name)

(this isn't ship/romance bait btw. odysseus knew mel as a kid and they're stated in-game to have a sibling/uncle-niece relationship)

also he grew apart from penelope after his return, but the game makes a point of showing that his love for penelope and telemachus is what drove him on at all so that element of his character isn't brought into question

[brighteuphony]

I love Chiyo- and I kind of headcanon her as a Witch of the Woods (Sands???) archetype- a bitter old woman who has sacrificed too much, experienced and committed more atrocities than anyone can imagine, and who knows the truth about what lies in the hearts of men to live among the villages anymore.

In my AU she's got a pretty dark backstory. Back in time when Villages were just getting established, women weren't allowed to be shinobi in the same capacity as men. There was too much warring and death among the clans to risk women, so they were only ever allowed to serve as spies or medics. (Chiyo started off as a medic).

And like any military/fascist dictatorship, serving the state was more important than anything else- so women who were kunoichi were given missions to steal and return with powerful bloodlines. Even before villages, this was a common fear among clans (which is why so many of them have protective measures and inbreed/arrange matches very carefully).

Chiyo was one such woman, who took a X-rated mission in her youth because she was told it would 'serve her nation'. There was a powerful bloodline whose Kekkei Genkai could harden sand to something akin to Steel- something Suna very desperately wanted.

Chiyo succeeded in her mission, but despite the veneer of 'serving your nation', when she returned, she was considered, in her words, "Just another whore."

Then when her son didn't manifest the bloodline- it was worse, but Chiyo was happy because that meant her son was HERS. (This is when she met Enji, and he saved her son's life at great cost- so Chiyo owes him a blood/life debt.)

Then the war came, and they needed women to fight so now serving the nation meant something different, and Chiyo became a full fledged 'shinobi' and turned her healing towards poison and death- especially when she had to fight the Salamander.

Then she sealed Gaara and that was the atrocity straw that broke the camel's back and she dipped out Suna and retired to an oasis. She's still a healer, but adamantly refuses to serve shinobi.

Once again, thank you so much for these asks and all the support for this AU?

@youngpeacearbiter

[blackkatdraws2]

I have a lot of leftover drawings in my gallery. [Blank Scripts AU]

[Content Warning: Images below contain Gore, Death, and Disturbing/Uncomfortable Imagery]

I find it a bit cute knowing they start out as crazy and then slowly settle into something calmer and relatively healthier after learning to adapt to each other's lust-turned-love. [Stanley did it first but hey :3]

[s0fter-sin]

i need ghoap frantically making out against a door finally taking the leap on their feelings. need ghost grinding against soap, expecting to find him just as hard as him, only to feel nothing

and in all his wisdom and experience, he concludes soap was tortured and never told him

he’s trying to think of a delicate way to say he understands, that he’s been through it and it doesn’t change anything about how he feels (and who the fuck touched him so he can hunt them down and rend them limb from limb)

meanwhile trans!soap’s just trying to find the best angle to grind his cunt on ghost’s thigh

just it never even entering ghost’s head bc he’s never known a trans person but he has met plenty of people who’ve been tortured - himself included - so of course that’s his logical leap

soap takes off his shirt and he sees his top surgery scars and ghost asks if he wants him to kill the one who did it and soap just hums like, “actually, man did pretty good, they healed real well,” and ghost’s just teary-eyes with awe at how well he’s coping, “looking on the bright side, that’s my johnny.”

imagine he thinks johnny was fully castrated but sees he’s determined to still have a sex life with him so he buys packers and straps to help him bc hell yeah healing and soap’s just like, “holy shit i’ve never had such a thoughtful partner before, such a sweet man, lt.”

[cecoeur]

How do you sleep at night? No one to hide behind Betrayed every alibi you had You had every chance to make amends instead you got drunk on bitterness And you still claim that you're innocent, it's sad

[woosh-floosh]

(read left to right) I had to make a comic version of this moment form the fanbook because it's such a funny image

Fantranslation is by @wireddd1 on twitter!

[puppyeared]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[shirecorn]

Tumblr keeps popping up to sell me ad free dashboard. But what it doesn't understand is that me and the ads have a sort of symbiosis at this point.

The guys from the fake gameplay trailers for a predatory mobile app are my blorbos

[ganondoodle]

(totk rewritten)

finally, all the arm and spirit abilities- for the first half of the game (rauru) and for the second half with the shiekah arm replacing links arms instead and the spirit abilities gained through ganondorf

(please excuse my handwriting and sometimes repeated info on the first two, i lost motivation/patience at the end and couldnt get myself to basically redo it all from scratch just to make it a bit more cleaner)

note, the camera rune is unconnected to the arm, its the shiekah stone copy link has (zelda carries the one from botw, a copy was attempted to be made for link but it lacks all runes except the camera, the map and its teleportation, and journal/archive)

note for the heal effects of some spirit abilities- im also reworking the healing system, making it more like the older games, so healing isnt as easy and much more restricted, thus making those effects of spirit abilities more valuable ( lil potion icon on the d pad will act a little bit like in skyward sword, opens your limited selection of healing items and if chosen link switches to holding it and letting you consume it with -a- while walking around in real time- to avoid more pausing and mass healing on regular items while in menu)

additional note, the automatic recharging of the magic meter depending on the environment gives you a reliable but less abusable way of using abilities and allows for even more creative dungeon/challenge design by using it effectively- it works by absorbing magic from its surroundings, so if its an area with little magic it recharges slower, if its a very spiritual or healthy place it will recharge faster, it can be used to make things more challenging and also as subtle storytelling (example, theres a graveyard with the magic energy around being off the charts, even if there are no spirits to see, it could hint at the people buried not having died peacefully, no matter what their gravestone says...)

the usage of magic and how much the different abilities cost also allows for a much more dynamic fighting style for players to choose and try out, balancing them all out with their cost instead of a fixed timer, and the recharging beign affected by the environment perhaps forcing players that favor high cost magic abilities to use the lower cost ones for example, or not being able to charge one up bc the enemy is too fast and doesnt give you enough time to charge it

about half of the small overworld dungeons (not shrines) are also locked/inaccessible for the first half and new quests appear as the second half commences- together with the additional changes raurus return brings with it (sonau buildings, enemies being mostly cosntructs that he summoned etc) and whole set of new abilities giving you a fresh new way to play while (hopefully) not making you feel too restricted for the first half

... making these detailed concepts took me longer than id like to admit q-q

[regina-del-cielo]

Maybe it's a 'study finds water is wet' type of thought, but

considering it's an action movie whose overall plot is "immortal warriors Fuck Shit Up™️", I think it's significant that in The Old Guard the thing that makes Copley pull red strings through his Murder Conspiracy Board and say "[Merrick] doesn't care what [Andy]'s done with [her immortality]" is the people they save, not the ones they kill

Most of the Conspiracy Board is him circling random newspaper headlines and faces on old photographs to (more or less realistically) follow the immortals' treck through the world and big historical events. Which is, in-canon, not much different than putting portraits from different centuries next to a picture of Keanu Reeves and saying "they look the same, clearly Reeves is an immortal!"

But then there are the connections. A little girl holding Joe's hand in WW1 becoming the youngest (and first) woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine (suck it, Kozak). Or the grandchild of a family that Andy saved from [something] helping people escape from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.

They are warriors. They have fought and been in the midst of countless wars, major or minor, throughout history. They must have killed as many people as they saved... and yet.

It's not them taking out a random warlord or dictator or rabidly hateful politician that has tangible repercussions in history. It's the children and families they get out of war zones, save from accidents, protect from natural disasters. People to whom they give a second chance at life, and grow to change the world (or even just their own world), like a mysterious stranger once changed theirs just by holding out a hand or patching a wound.

I don't know I just think it's particularly neat

[msfcatlover]

Commissioned the amazing @magua-vida to draw my original Princesses, The Dancer & The Dream! I'm absolutely delighted with how they came out, they both look so pretty and bursting with personality!

For anyone who doesn't want to click through, you get the Dancer if you unlock the Princess's cuff & die of a heart attack, making her flighty but concerned, fussing over your health & safety. The Dream is Dancer's unique Chapter 3, who you get if you fall asleep in the cabin with Dancer fussing over you, and is smotheringly protective to the point of aggression & possessiveness while acting manipulatively sweet & fragile.

She just wants to take care of you... even (or especially) if it means chaining you up to keep you safe.