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Moved!

New blog found HERE

Keeping this around so as not to lose the drabbles and stories. <3

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There is lots of birds to look at here

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the-loveliest-ones ----> flickeringquip

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2 am to 10:30 am is prime sleep schedule

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The thing with Solas is… he woke up from uthenera to a world that he does not recognize, a horrible world where everything is awful, where his people are suffering badly, where everything he knows is gone. To put the cherry on top, it’s a world that he deliberately brought about by his own hands.

It’s exactly the same situation for Solas as it was for the Inquisitor when they time-traveled into the horrible future where Corypheus ruled. The Inquisitor had few qualms about sacrificing people in that future because it “didn’t really matter or exist” - the only thing that mattered was going back to the past to prevent that horrible future from occurring.

The Dalish derided and hated? The city elves in alienages? This is Solas’ Bad End Future. Solas does not consider the world around him to be truly real or right. He doesn’t understand the Dalish, and can hardly recognize them or City Elves as elves. He does not want to understand or even think about modern elves because it’s Solas’ fault that they were killed, that they were enslaved, that they have to live the terrible lives they do. He spends as much time in the Fade as possible because of escapism, frankly. Because some of his oldest friends still live there, and because he can still walk lost Arlathan’s streets in his dreams… he wants to be in the past again, where he didn’t fuck everything up. 

He’s very much a lost, isolated character looking for guidance, a true hermit of the tarot. Every conversation he has with the other companions is him desperately sound-boarding off them, “What should I do? What would you do? What can I do?“ His conversations with Varric about the Man On The Island haunt me, especially. (“How can you be happy, surrendering? Knowing it will all end with you? How can you not fight?”)

So yeah, he is a bitter sleepwalker trying not to invest in anything around him… because of self-preservation. Because if he invests emotionally in it, it will make everything harder. If he was truly an asshole, and if people truly didn’t matter to him, this wouldn’t be a problem for him. 

The touching part about Lavellan is not that he treats her better than other people, because he doesn’t. It’s that his feelings for her force him to confront the future that he made, and see it as real. (“You’re real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can’t.”) This future is real, and it’s something he made, and its reality matters deeply.

It’s the story of a god who is estranged from his people (literally, statues of Fen'Harel are not allowed inside Dalish camps) and his relationship with Lavellan helps him reconcile the reality of the world and decide what to do about it. It’s a sleeping god finally answering the call of the Dalish, who never expected to be answered. It’s a mortal convincing a god that his people still need protecting.

The story is incredibly touching to me, especially how I experienced it.

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We named the other planets in our solar system after gods but named our own planet “dirt”

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celestial

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moon or stars? gold or silver? strawberries or blueberries? summer or winter? rose gold or pastel blue? roman mythology or greek mythology? long hair or short hair? tv series or movies? 

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Writing To-Do List

So currently my WIPS are:

1. Finishing up the second Elvarav’ahn, feat. Melarue. 

2. More Teslylmana with Ess and Saeris.

3. A piece with triplet spirits Trickery, Guile, and Secrecy that fits in really well with the Fen’Sulahn au. 

4. An idea I had about Elaera/Solemnity and Dirthamen? It’s very rough atm.

Melarue and Fen’Sulahn belong to @justanartsysideblog

Ess belongs to @feynites

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Dammit, people, if you’re going to write a Canadian character, you can’t just throw “eh” in wherever. It’s not a verbal tic - it has a very specific semantic role.

In brief, “eh” does one of two things:

Turn an imperative into a request. e.g., “Pass me that wrench, eh?”

Turn a statement into a question. e.g., “Cold out there, eh?”

In the latter case, there are several situations where it’s commonly used:

The speaker is not sure that the statement she’s just made is correct, and is asking the listener to confirm. e.g., “That’s about forty kilometers West of here, eh?”

The speaker is checking that the listener is still interested and wishes for her to continue, but does not expect any specific response. e.g., “So then this freakin’ moose shows up, eh?”

The speaker is being sarcastic. e.g., “You really thought that one through, eh?”

When used in this way, “eh” is roughly equivalent to appending “isn’t it?” (“doesn’t it?”, “didn’t you?”, etc.) to the end of a sentence; interestingly, it also functions very much like the Japanese “ne”, which has a nearly identical effect when appended to a statement.

Now you know.

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Saeris and her new mamae. Ess belongs to @feynites On a side note, I really miss my tablet. :(

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Elvarav'ahn, Part I

: a complex question.

Melarue belongs to @justanartsysideblog , set in @feynites LG au.

Melarue is an interesting manager.

There is no doubt they are a good one, and Elaera would have no trouble arguing that fact to any who would challenge it.

That is not what makes them intriguing, though.

Elaera has known them for quite some time now, and yet she isn’t sure she could say with confidence that she really knows them at all.

When she was younger, she spent more than a few nights pondering why. Why did she not know them, if she had known them for so long?

Now she is older, and thinks she has a piece of the answer to the mystery.

Because while Elaera is not so cunning, or so shrewd, that does not mean she does see, or hear. Elaera is pensive, introspective.

She remembers what she learns, and reflects. Ruminates until she has an answer, or determines she will not find one. Contemplation is a skill she has always been gifted in, and the older she gets, the more valuable she finds this skill.

People underestimate her. They mistake her wandering mind for inattention, and let themselves speak of things they otherwise wouldn’t in the presence of a pleasure worker.

People often forget who trained her in the first place; who spent years helping Elaera cultivate this skill of hers. Perhaps it is because she is not as ambitious as some of her fellow students, or because there is a solemn quality to her she has never truly been able to completely disguise.

Nevertheless, the surprise of people’s faces when they are reminded of this fact is a constant source of amusement for her. In her youth, the shock had offended her on some level, but she has long since discovered the value in being overlooked.

If one had asked her at one hundred if she was a spy, she would’ve given an adamant rejection of such a notion, and it would’ve been true.

If one asked her now, her reaction would be largely the same, and yet very much less true, because.. well.

It must first be understood that she has never loved Arlathan, or it’s principles. Has never been able to see into the illusion of its grandeur and actually believe it to be true, as so many seemed to. Can never hear of past victories and not see the shattered spirits and lifeless bodies the battles left behind.

In this way, she thinks she may be similar to Melarue, because she cannot fathom how a spirit of Cunning could have ever been fooled by the mask of glory Elvhenan wears.

So when this mysterious manager of hers seeks information in not nearly so many words, Elaera gives it freely, with no desire for material wealth in return.

After all, the kind of information someone wants can be just as telling as the answers themselves, and that is a payment of a kind far more fascinating to her than any other.

This is the first piece.

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Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.

Veronica Roth (via lifeofquotations)

@justanartsysideblog 

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Banter that totally happened after Erika Ryder and Reyes Vidal made out.

Cora: Wait, I thought you’re interested in Jaal.

Ryder: I am. I’m gonna climb him like a tree.

Cora: But…you and Reyes.

Ryder: Well. I mean. Jaal and I aren’t exclusive at the moment…and Reyes is Han Solo. How do you say no to Han Solo?

Cora: Wh-what? 

Liam: Oh yeah, I get it. It’s like if I had the chance to be with Leia, I’d take it. Good on you, Ryder.

Ryder: Exactly! 

Cora: *quick look up on her omni tool* You’re…referencing a twentieth century trilogy to explain why you’re sleeping with an outlaw?

Ryder: Well, duh. A nineteenth century one wouldn’t make any sense.

Cora: None of this makes any sense.

Liam: Maybe it’s more like Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford?

Ryder: Oh yeah! I’m totally using him for his body and smuggling abilities.

Liam: What about his…snuggling abilities! HAHAHA!

Ryder: Nah, that’s gonna be Jaal, he looks so soft.

Cora: I miss Alec. 

@lillotte17 mentioned Reyes being a Zevran/Han Solo love child and I couldn’t get it out of my head.