elfrootbong - Tumblr blog

elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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realizing julian has recurring nightmares about being forgiven by people he's wronged and that's why he can't ever forgive himself for wronging them (because he thinks it'll make him succumb to the tactic next time he's targeted by a desire demon) (he's mostly wrong but there are no psychiatrists in thedas to prescribe him fantasy prozac)

#worst part about writing characters with similar neuroses (mento iwness) is that you sometimes have to watch unintentional connections #light up as you write and go aha. i do that [CRINGINGLY]#i do think fantasy prozac would fix him. fantasy weed and cbt (you decide which acronym is applicable) barely take the edge off #julian

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elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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wrings him out like a dish rag

#doodling on my phone at work. hashtag employee of the month #i gotta actually draw more of him being possessed #my art #julian #warden amell #hero of ferelden

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elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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wynne: look you're quite literally actively dying like right now as we speak and i've already talked myself into abandoning my values for this so can you please just stop fighting me and trust in the maker

julian: i'm an atheist

#wynne: ok. [initiate possession sequence]#ive got the leadup and aftermath mostly written/outlined but the actual conversation the night of his near-death is in iteration 82648 #in the spirit of pedantry he's not teeeechnically an atheist but in the lore friendly culturally informed sense he may as well be #like 'i'm sure the maker is real but i don't think andraste is his literal wife i think she was just a revolutionary who got deified'#and 'whether or not he's real doesn't matter because he clearly doesn't give a shit about us either way and the feeling is mutual'#you get me. anyway the circle will do some interesting shit to your relationship with andrastianism #i'm sure he's feeling absolutely vindicated by the events of veilguard #inb4 'are you writing this instead of the porn you keep putting on the backburner' shut UP. YES. SHUT UP.

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elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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literally writing multiple books worth of exposition because i physically cannot bring myself to write porn without the plot infrastructure to hold it up

#i feel diseased. i've been trying to write these freaks porking each other to death for months and i'm still like well but first i have to-

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elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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it's been so long since i last drew on paper i just tried to pinch zoom my fucking sketchbook

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elfrootbong · 1 month ago

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grips my keyboard. 50k

finally checked my word counts on the 4-6 docs i've been piecing together like the world's shittiest quilt and realized i've put out 30k+ words of first draft and outline for putting julian through the wringer. in like 3 weeks

#now i'm just trying to figure out how to divide it up into manageable bits/whether or not i want to make this one big fic or several #i think i might do one fic for all of the kinloch hold shit and then one for zev's pov (which will be longer/very closely following canon)#i'm leaning towards switching between zev and julian's povs for that piece but i might sneak in some wynne pov shit while i'm at it #it's messier than anything i've ever written (used to a very tight single character pov) so i'm gonna have to have someone beta this for me #i like writing zev i think. as someone who was raised in a cult and used hypersexuality as a coping mechanism/survival tactic for years #he's hashtag relatable you could say #anyway pray 4 me etc

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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HOG LORD

#found this in my scraps folder from months ago lmao #it's a crop of a larger study but i like this part <3 #feat. half of [character in the process of being renamed after 10 goddamn years]'s head #my art #the end / the beginning / the world #<-temporary(?) worldspace tag. it's that ~mesolithic fantasy worldspace i used to never shut up about

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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question for in the tags time!!! do ur wardens/hawkes/inquisitors ever get married. who proposes. where do they get married and by what cultural or religious tradition

#julian and zev do get married but not in any official legal capacity. neither of them have much faith in the chantry as an institution and #julian in particular is like. i do not want the chantry involved in my personal life ever again if i can help it lol. so they wear rings +#make vows (have not decided how typical to andrastian tradition those vows are) but it's a personal commitment. they don't even pay taxes #so why would the state need to know lol #i think zev proposes. julian never considered he might have the option so it's jarring in a 'wait i can do that???' sort of way #they probably do this in antiva or the marches shortly after awakening. julian has been calling him his husband for months cause #they've discussed it at length by then and already decided to do it. they just hadn't considered how or when etc #hawke and anders probably do something similar but not because neither of them Want to do it the traditional way. just as a matter of cours #considering they're fugitives and likely will be for a long time if not forever. it's a bittersweet thing. hawke absolutely proposes.#i think they both cry a lot. they're both codependent freaks so you know how it goes. they probably do this immediately post escape #(i don't think about my inquisitor sorry </3 i may iron his shit out when/if i can tolerate inq's gameplay long enough to replay it)#nem and lucanis do not get married. i think lucanis might marry neve and nem is their third whenever they're around #but they're not actually in a relationship with neve. this is my boyfriend's wife. i was here first. we're besties <3 #(that's if i don't go with the 'breaking lucanis free of the crows' route which i. might. we'll see. neve is probably still there)#(if i go with that route they MIGHT get married in their clan's tradition and do something andrastian-adjacent if lucanis is inclined)#like they don't give a shit about andrastianism and there's religious implications to the plot that i'd have to consider irt #how lucanis feels about it after but like. i imagine the crows as something of an offshoot andrastian cult given some textual evidence #so he still has cultural expectations and so on and so forth. as do most of these people #anyway if any combination of them do get married it's probably discussed like a proper contractual negotiation (sweet in a way)#the pedants are flirtingggg

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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something i've been writing a lot about lately is julian's capacity for harm vs his intense desire to do as little harm as possible and all the places where he like. fails to prevent it despite his best efforts. it's kinda becoming a main running theme of the plot. like origins already boils down to "the ends do not justify the means" if you look at it from a certain angle but beyond that he's got personal hangups about being an agent of harm so it compounds the personal toll of the plot quite a bit (some finer points below the cut)

like right off the bat he leaves the circle feeling like he's [inherently destructive/poisonous/all the other typical self-loathing preoccupations lol] in part because

he's just had a NASTY messy as fuck breakup(?) (they weren't Together but it was a typical mage situationship that he thought nothing of until it ended in flames) (he didn't care much about the relationship and it was strictly casual but the circumstances surrounding the breakup were VERY traumatic for both of them and he feels like a monster even though it was largely a misunderstanding/communication breakdown) which was an inciting factor in him starting to get more self destructive and caustic/part of the reason he even agrees to help jowan escape knowing it's probably going to fail badly

has been lashing out at his mentors and peers and anyone who tries to get close to him and he doesn't understand Why he keeps doing it

he already feels like he keeps doing profound hurt to people around him without really even meaning to. which like....he does, but it's largely a combination of missing social cues + poor tone control + the inherently hostile environment of the circle + his own trauma + bottling shit up like a pipe bomb. it's messy. he's not blameless in any of it but a lot of it is unintentional

some of it is very much intentional which does not help. it's the juxtaposition between "i just want to move through the world without causing harm or being harmed" and "using my pain as a weapon makes me feel powerful/like i have some control over my environment" that he doesn't know how to cope with lol. he just thinks he's rotten and evil to the core and only pretending to be compassionate and kind #ocd #autism #ptsd #magetrauma

tldr kinloch hold will fuck you up, warden amell is very unwell

#ramblingggg yay <3 it's only downhill from here (the joining)!!!#he's really been set up to fail and it's an impressive feat of personal determination that he gets through any of that shit #he's not like. an abuser or even hashtag toxic per se. but he definitely has some antisocial tendencies that he keeps on a tight leash #it's almost worse that he's so self aware about it cause he does Not know what to do about it other than push it down #and have a crisis when he still manages to fail to choose the kinder path. rinse and repeat #it's been so so so fun to write even if it's barely readable in this draft. i love writing messy problematic shit i love ugly arguments #julian

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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struggling to make him look both too young and too haggard the way he does in prose. dude canonically looks like shit lol

#he's the kind of pretty where he's only attractive if you're drunk or farsighted but once you see it you can't unsee it. do u understand #when zev finally Sees It he's kinda just like. man what the fuck #julian

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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quick paintover of a movie still i liked ft. kinloch era julian

#still figuring his face out. saw that image of young james spader on pinchrest and was like. well if you squint really hard-#he's supposed to take after his mum in the features but got the blonde hair and fair skin from his dad #who was probably like. orlesian realistically. typical involuntary julian L #been thinking a lot about what happened to his other siblings and i think the oldest (solona) would still be in kirkwall/the gallows during #da2 events but haven't gotten much further than that. got to thinking about how much they all do or don't resemble one another. etc etc etc #obviously he's only vaguely aware two of them exist (taken very young) but doesn't remember their names and would only recognize them #by family name or if they look fucking identical to him. which like...looking at the members of that family......surprisingly likely #anyone who's been around hightown long enough would see him when he's in town and be like damn wtf that boy looks like an amell #my art #study #dragon age #julian #warden amell #hero of ferelden

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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also giving him ocd so i can show him being an annoying as fuck child who ruins everyone else's fun by going "you can't do that it's against the rulesss you're gonna get us in troubleee" and then have him grow up into a disillusioned, jaded anarchist whose primary response to hard lawbreaking is "yeah idk i just don't think that's, like, my business"

#hashtag self insert (JOKE!!!!!!!!!!)#writing out a. not argument but tense conversation at the campfire regarding the latter half of this. it's very fun #everyone's like did you just fucking admit mages smuggle contraband in the circle. and he's like well not ME but yeah what of it #like why is it worse when a mage does it. riddle me this #julian #edit: to be clear he already had ocd i just hadn't gotten much into what that looked like as an apprentice cause he's got #such a good handle on it now. mostly <3

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elfrootbong · 2 months ago

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finally checked my word counts on the 4-6 docs i've been piecing together like the world's shittiest quilt and realized i've put out 30k+ words of first draft and outline for putting julian through the wringer. in like 3 weeks

#GUARDS!!!!!!!! PUT THAT WARDEN IN THE MEAT GRINDER #none of it is like. readable yet. but i'm trying to force myself to practice the 'done is better than perfect' school of writing #this 7 year writer's block is killing me i need this shit OUT of my brain and onto paper (computer screen) lest i take poison damage #it's beginning to cohere though. it's getting there i can feel it #tldr is i'm finally bucking up and using him as an outlet to talk about agency/autonomy/SA/abuse so it's all very. heavy. but cathartic #(been going back and forth on whether i wanted to include that in his backstory for years but. it fits)#also trying to work through his animosity with wynne which is fun #speaking of: spoiler: he gets possessed too (more of a wynne situation than an anders situation)#i'll get more in depth on that part here once i . actually write out the aftermath lol

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elfrootbong · 3 months ago

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