[Examine your appearance]

the rest of my life!!!!!!!!! is only abt love baby!!!!!!! literally what else matters……….? nothin

As a chaotic player and dm, I relate to this and feel for my lawful friends.

The Dread Wolf Rises

Dorian living in a fantasy cyberpunk city having electricity and neon lights only to go to anglo-saxon england where they don't even wash their own asses:

something something jester starting the campaign with an elevated and unrealistic view of romance and basing her crush on fjord on the hyper masculine front he presented which lined up with her understanding of romance from novels, something something jester coming to understand romance in a real way & fjord coming to understand & accept himself alongside one another on their travels, something something fjord opening himself up and being honest and vulnerable with jester, and jester getting a romance that is real and genuine, based on mutual respect and understanding and attraction and gentleness

jester & fjord’s growth and understanding of romance & masculinity paralleling one another until they culminate in that scene, so full of tenderness and care and openness…… yes. yes.

Roses Where Thorns Grow - Chapter 28: The Storm, Part II

Summary : Approximately a month after their unexpected break-up at Crestwood, Ellana struggles to maintain a working relationship with Solas. But reoccurring nightmares and the fear that demons may be creeping into her dreams drives her to seek his aid, as much as she does not want to. When they are drawn back into a rekindled affair, Solas’ guilt drives him to finally tell her the truth he wanted to at Crestwood.

They used to sing to labouring mothers.

Songs in dialects too old to translate, melodies known by heart if not by memory.  Hummed, when the words were forgotten. It was an old custom. Passed down from mother to daughter, midwife to Keeper, over generations. As much a part of Dalish culture as the Gods they prayed to.

When someone’s time came, the voices carried on the wind through quiet glades and over rivers. Ethereal and joyous. Sisters, sages, helpers, friends and lovers — they sang for hours, or times through the night and into the next day. A chorus in rounds, in harmony; they kept a rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat through the bloody work of bearing life. 

When voices grew raw and eyes too heavy, others would take their place. This way they ensured her hands were never empty. Silence never fell. To leave her with only her own cries as company was to abandon their strongest at her most vulnerable. It was forbidden.

They worked as she worked. Guiding and supporting. Together, with loving arms wrapped round her body. Hands on hips and shoulders. Standing on the dirt in bared feet. Connecting her to the pain, the fear, and triumph felt by all who’d come before. Through tears and laughter they swayed — in circles and waltzes — to rock her gently into motherhood.

It was a tradition kept for more than just its value of emotional support. The songs they sung counted minutes between the waves, and the hours gone by since they’d begun. They masked the lowing cries when pain grew them loud enough to rise above the canopy. It was a show of solidarity, a gift, and the first act as village to cradle the life that emerged. Within that space sleights were forgotten, troubles set aside, and petty squabbles forgiven. No one would walk this path alone.

Though she’d never had a reason to participate, Ellana still held the custom dear. As a purely Dalish rite, removed from Gods and monsters, it remained unblemished. A part of her upbringing not tainted by all she’d come to know of her people’s history in her time spent apart from them. The longer she lived in this realm of thrones and kings, the weaker grew her connection to the clans that raised her. Each thread still tying her spirit there was tucked close to her heart, protected by fragile hope — maybe naiveté — that it could not be severed entirely. 

She didn’t know the birthing songs well enough to join a chorus, were she asked to. And she’d never been asked to. The times there was a chance to learn she chose instead to keep her distance. Cautious, sat on hills and behind tents, hiding in the periphery. Catching glimpses of swollen bodies through gaps in the canvas. She regarded the ritual with a sort of morbid curiosity. Through the eyes of someone whose experience had taught them they would not share in it, and did not want it. 

Her bloodline was cursed. It would end with her.

[ Read the rest on AO3 ] or [ FF.net ] - A crescendo.

[ Re-read the last chapter so you remember what’s happening ]

[ Start at Chapter One ]

and actually it is a good thing that cas died right after because if i we had to watch jensen ackles try to kiss a man that would just be. a lose lose situation for literally everyone.

you only unlock this emotion by being terminally online for the last seven years

The Supernatural writers took the bury your gays trope to a whole new level like this shit is the funniest thing to me they legit made him canonically gay and then killed him immediately after he confesses BECAUSE he felt happy while confessing I'M GOING INSANE

AND sent him to SUPER HELL

AND IT WASN’T EVEN MUTUAL

i see it’s a Big Day Online for everyone who is using the same blog they made in 2011

The Haunting of Hill House (2018- )

u know ur fucked when u skip every song

I wanna listen to music but if I hear a sound right now I WILL die

FKA twigs street style

Confession: We can’t conclusively say Anders was right cause we don’t know literally every option available to him and how they compare.

I have yet to see anyone come up with a better idea for what Anders could have done regarding situation every mage was in, especially in Kirkwall. 

Knight-Lieutenant Karras confirmed that Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard requested the Right of Annulment directly from the Divine in Val Royeaux. Anders knew that everyone was at risk and he wasn’t wrong to believe that mages wouldn’t be spared one way or another. I mean even outside of all her anti-mage obsessions Meredith even had Kirkwall placed under martial law and blocked every attempt to replace Dumar following the Qunari attack. She was unreasonable and power hungry. The chantry (aka Grand Cleric Elthina) wasn’t even attempting to control Meredith’s actions (allowing illegal use of tranquility and the brutalization of mages) - which they are supposed to oversee. In fact Elthina seemed to support Meredith’s actions based on interactions with Elthina. 

Regarding Anders’ destruction of the chantry (and the deaths from it), Meredith retaliates by invoking the Right of Annulment on the Circle with immediate orders to execute all mages, even though the Circle was uninvolved (as Anders was an apostate mage who had never been a part of the Kirkwall Circle). That proves that Meredith didn’t really care about providing “just” punishment, she simply leaves Anders’ fate up to Hawke as she turns her wrath against innocent circle mages (who she intended to kill before Anders’ actions anyways). Anders’ whole objective was to expose everything that was happening. Mages were doomed no matter what and Anders’ actions provided them a fighting chance.

Anders tried everything else that he could have leading up to the explosion, he had been working tirelessly for his entire stay in Kirkwall. Fighting for freedom usually comes at a cost, Anders was willing to pay for it to give mages a chance to take it.

Anders was right, nothing will change my mind on that.

I mostly agree, but wasn’t there a way to do that without blowing up a bunch of innocent people together with Eltina? 

What do you suggest he should have done? 

Honestly, I’m sure if Anders could have saved the mages and seen them walk free without any violence at all he would have. Anders wrote a manifesto to peacefully protest and try to raise awareness. He’s a healer, healing people in need of him for nothing and the guy who worked with the mage underground to rescue mages out of the circle for years until Meredith destroyed it. Elthina couldn’t have cared less about the injustices happening to the mages within the circle. She supported Meredith and didn’t believe in helping the mages when you try that route. Both Elthina and the Chantry were the real symbols of oppression against the mages in Kirkwall since she had power over Meredith. 

I honestly don’t even know what else Anders could have done when facing  Meredith trying to murder the entire circle for no reason. Coming up with other plausible solutions for Anders is more difficult than trying to find non-mage characters that honestly cared about what was happening to mages in DA2. 

Raise your hands for all the times you’ve heard someone suggest something Anders as already done/continuously does.

The only “solution” I’ve heard that didn’t apply to the above is a strongly re-phrased version of “let the mages die.” 

Like they basically phrase that in every possible way BUT the blatant fact that their “solution” is simply picking the maybe dozens of debatabley-innocent people & Elthina over the hundreds of mages that is to be added to an already-existing body count. 

You are right about that always being the main argument people use. It honestly unnerves me how much people seem to subscribe to the chantry dogma. 

My favorite ill-thought-out “solution” that I’ve read a few times is that Anders should have just blown up Meredith‘s headquarters… which we know is the gallows where the circle is located. At least when people say it like that they don’t intend for the mages to die… I think.

People want to blame whomever they see as rocking the boat. Because most people on the boat are sailing along just fine so long as they’re not the target of a quiet genocide, but as soon as someone starts trying to get their attention about all the bodies being dumped off the back of the boat, the other passengers blame that person for all the problems.

Anders fought for YEARS to try and do things the most peaceful way he could. He was never perfect, but he tried. And people ignored it or brushed it off. I can’t tell you how annoyed I was at the irritation in Hawke’s tone when they kept finding his manifesto everywhere- like, no, actually, my Hawke supports him, thanks.

I think that the fan reaction is partly because Anders takes the situation out of your hands. He makes a decision that removes the option of pure diplomacy, and you spend the rest of the game trying to pick up the pieces in the aftermath. And I remember being initially terrified at what had happened, too— before recognizing that all he did was take the silent genocide and make it a public one.

If the mages were going to die anyway, it might as well be naked in the sight of the rest of the world; let them see what is happening, and make it clear that they are LETTING it happen, especially if the objection they have is that Anders dragged “other innocent people into this”. Innocent people were already dying, were already going to be killed, but we were okay with it because it didn’t interrupt daily life for the general populace. And, you know? People are like that in reality, too; blaming the person who makes the most noise for “disrupting the peace”.

He might have had another choice if people had ever ONCE taken him seriously in 6 goddamned years.