#This is so far detached from everything and Blight feels very out of character so I don't even know why it starred them

[evren-writes]

Snake Eyes

Deep in the forest, something twisted and horrid lives. With eyes that lie like a snake, and horns twisted like the devil, people warned of its cruel nature. If you were to ever enter the forest alone at night, you’d be found dead by dawn with no cause identifiable by man.

And while the village told no living soul to dare step foot in those woods, Arren didn’t like to be told what to do.

That didn’t make his self-inflicted task anymore enjoyable, however. While spite and desperation was an excellent motivator, wandering for hours in the dark was absolutely fucking annoying.

Arren growled to himself as he brushed dirt out of the scrapes and cuts on his knees. A beaten, broken part of him didn’t care if it got infected, almost wished for it, but the fire burning deep within him suffocated those thoughts in smoke. He would succeed and bring the head of the monster to that shitty town and make them beg for him back.

It was either that or burn the whole place to the ground and leave nothing but ashes, but the ever persistent ache of what they had done kept his sensible side frustratingly sharp.

A sensible side that immediately evaporated once the wind carried a hissing laughter along with it. The sound was smooth and silky, with a little bit of smugness mixed in. Arren hated it and would relish in murdering this motherfucker.

“What brings this little, lost light to my forest?” The voice taunted, seemingly enjoying this game very much.

“Don’t call me that.” Arren said flatly, obviously having the exact opposite experience.

“That’s- That’s not how this works.” The way the voice wavered filled Arren with bitter satisfaction.

“Well, if you want to stop being a dumbass anytime soon, my name is Arren.” It’s not that he particularly wanted to be on first name basis with the horrible beast of the forest, he just disliked the nicknames more.

And, to his surprise, the monster laughed in response. It was snake-y or smug in a way that decided life or death. It was just. Happy.

What the fuck?

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to meet someone like you!” The voice exclaimed out, and suddenly, it wasn’t a part of the wind anymore.

It was right behind him.

Arren whipped around, hand reaching in his coat pocket, ready. The figure that walked out of his shadows was both exactly what was described and not at all.

Golden horns that curved back like a goat rested on its skull. Two green snake eyes gazed at him with a giddiness, and beautiful golden scales rested under those eyes like makeup. And other than scaled hands with deadly claws at the end, it looked fully human.

Human and not as scary every had made him out to be. Half his head was shaved and wild black hair fell across his face. His clothes looked like a torn funeral suit, with several different kinds of flowers pinned to his lapel, most of them purple.

This would be easier than Arren thought.

Before he could curl his fingers around the hilt of the small dagger he had brought, the monster spoke up again.

“So why are you here, then?” He asked, walking towards Arren, who stepped back several steps in response.

“What?” Arren hissed back, not in the snakey way, but in a very angry human way.

That made the monster stop. His smile slowly dripped into a frown and he looked away uncomfortably. Pulling at the cuff of his suit, he answered.

“People usually come here to die.” He said softly, avoiding eye contact. “I try to chase them off, but it doesn’t work. They’ve accepted their fate and I’m always too late.”

That didn’t make any sense at all. With reluctant confusion, Arren let go of the hidden dagger and brought his hand to his side again. It would be so easy to stop this thing in the heart while it refused to look at him. He could gain his place back and his sins forgiven.

But at the very core of his being, Arren was a learner. He craved knowledge and the answer to mysteries more than he did redemption. If he killed the monster right here and now, then he would never learn what any of that meant.

So for now, he asked questions.

“How did you know I wasn’t here to die?” He asked, though it sounded more like a demand with his forceful tone.

At that, the creature perked up and looked at him. A smile tugged at his lips again and another laugh escaped his mouth. Yeah, cruel fate his ass. This thing was a complete fucking loser.

“Well, for one, people who want to die don’t usually call me a dumbass.” He responded, and Arren thought that more people really should. “And second, the light thing I said actually meant something.”

Oh, now that was interesting.

“So it wasn’t just a dumb nickname?” Arren asked, subconsciously stepped forward and ending up standing face to face with the monster.

“Yeah! That’s what these are for.” He said, pointing to his eyes. “It’s difficult to explain, but people who are about to die here look dark and foggy inside. You were like looking directly at a forest fire, and I don’t just mean because you’re hot.”

Arren peeled back his lips into a snarl. The sound furious and indignant, and that asshole had the gall to laugh at him. A sound so bright and delighted maybe he was the fucking forest fire here. Fuck him.

“But you still didn’t answer my question.” He said suddenly, snapping Arren out of his simmering rage. “Why did you come in here?”

Arren didn’t owe this thing anything. Meeting a monster in a forest and having him tell you a few interesting things didn’t mean he had to spill his whole stupid life story.

Except he was going to anyways. Not because it was boiling over the pot and definitely because he desperately needed to tell someone.

“I was going to kill you.” Arren said, feeling a bit of disappointment at how little the monster seemed bothered. “So they would let me back into my home.”

The monster tilted his head as he took in this information. Then, his lips pursed themselves into a frown and he gently reached forward. Arren froze. So many different reactions exploded through him, all involving attacking this thing right now, that it left him motionless.

It let the monster gently sweep the messy hair out of his right eye and gasp at what he saw.

Arren knew it looked bad, probably even worse from the last time he checked. A long, messy cut that went from the top of his forehead to halfway down his cheekbone. Bloody and with his right eye crusted shut, probably for the best.

He hadn’t bothered to clean it or treat it in anyway. He had just immediately run into the forest to get away and never looked back.

“Why would they-?” The monster started, but Arren didn’t let him finish.

“Because I tried to kill my father.” He said simply, as if it wasn’t horrific news.

The monster opened his mouth to speak again, likely to spew so many more questions that it made Arren sick.

Abruptly turning away, Arren spoke again. “Don’t.”

Thankfully, his boundary was respected, and he didn’t hear anything. His heart was beating fast in his chest. Finally he had come out and said this to someone willingly, but feeling it all flood back was so fucking upsetting and he hated it. Hated all of them.

Except he had nowhere else to go and he didn’t want to die.

“You can stay here.”

Arren jumped when he heard the monster speak up so abruptly and turned around. A clawed hand was extended towards him, and the expression on this supposed cruel beast was wild and welcoming, like this was some kind of exciting new adventure.

Briefly, the thought dealing with the devil flashed in Arren’s mind, but that was only after he had already took the devil’s hand. For some reason, this idea was a lot more welcoming than his first one.

“Plus, I think I have an idea on how to keep you safe.” The monster spoke up, a grin embodying his features.

“I don’t need you to keep me safe.” Arren bristled, but he couldn’t help the curiousity welling up within him again. “What is it?”

Gesturing grandly, the monster pointed to his own right eye. Arren could feel the reckless and exciting energy radiating off of him. Arren would be lying if he said it wasn’t as infectious as it was worrying, but he was a liar so he wasn’t going to say that.

“I’m going to give you my eye so you can see the ins and outs of this forest like I can!” The monster declared and Arren stared at him blankly.

“What the fuck are you even talking about?!” He suddenly yelled, realizing that yes! This situation could get even weirder! “How do you even know you could do that?!”

The monster’s expression took on a more sullen and distant look as he stared somewhere past Arren’s shoulder.

“There are some things about me that I just know.” He said, sounding far away. “Like that I used to be a human before this and that I had a different name.”

So there was even more mystery to this place? Also this was when Arren realized he had never bothered to ask if the monster had a name. He was so used to it just being a creature that stalked and haunted the woods, that he hadn’t even realized that it could be someone.

“So what’s your name now, then?” Arren asked, finally deciding to be polite.

The monster seemed to snap out of it and turned to look at him. His features softened and he looked a lot less sad. Arren decided he liked this version a lot more. Meaning, that he found it the least annoying.

“Blight. That’s who I am now.” Blight said, looking stronger and more sure of himself now. “So, are you in or not?”

Blight, huh? A poisonous name that promised of death. It didn’t feel quite fitting for what he knew now, but Arren liked how it sounded. Powerful and threatening.

As for the question... What else did he have to lose?

“Fine. Fucking whatever.” Arren grumbled, crossing his arms and Blight just laughed in response again.

Reaching a hand out, Blight gently cupped it over Arren’s right eye. It aggravated the aching sensation and brought a sting along with it, but that was fine. He watched Blight take a deep breath and close his eyes, and suddenly Arren felt dizzy and the world was literally spinning around him like some sick punishment for all his crimes.

He wanted to cry out, beg for all of it to stop and say he’d never do it again. He wasn’t sorry but it didn’t matter because the sickness outdid any pain he could ever feel and he had learned his lesson.

Then, everything abruptly stopped.

The world was different.

[phoenix1410200]

Well, here is the post clarifying my thought process for the next few cards and the characters I'm unsure on. (Hope you'll enjoy it and that you may can help me with the decisions.)

Here are the remaining cards I still need to do (four of the cards I've already decided on a character/event with 99% certainty, regarding the rest I'm quite torn on which character/event/object I want to depict):

• The Magician (Card 1)

• The Hermit (Card 9)

• Justice (Card 11)

• The Hanged Man (Card 12)

• Death (Card 13) -> The Titan (probably)

• The Devil (Card 15)

• The Star (Card 17)

• The Moon (Card 18) -> Amity Blight

• The Sun (Card 19) -> Luz Noceda (I am waiting for the reveal of her palisman)

• Judgement (Card 20) -> The Day of Unity (probably)

• The World (Card 21)

[Note: Firstly, I'm not an expert in Tarot, so not everything will be 100% correct (especially due to the fact that Tarot is highly symbolic). Secondly, I'm using the Rider Waite deck, so the characters I chose are mostly fitting the description of that deck.]

Now, let's get to the potential candidates and my reasoning behind them.

Card 1 — The Magician

Keywords of "The Magician":

• UPRIGHT: Manifestation, resourcefulness, power, inspired action, willpower, desire, creation, skill, ability, concentration

• REVERSED: Manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents, wasted talent, cunning, trickery, illusions, deception, out of touch

First of all, I need to explain some symbolism regarding this card. In this card the four suits of tarot are shown (wands, pentacles, cups, sword). Each one stands for one of the classical four elements (wands = fire , pentacles = earth, cups = water, sword = air) and represents how the Magician is a master of the elements ("he has all the tools (and elements) he needs to manifest his intentions into being"). This of course would translate to (elemental) glyph magic and a master of glyphs.

Candidates for "The Magician":

• Luz Noceda — Luz wants to be a witch aka a magic user. She rediscovered glyph magic and is very skilled in using glyph magic. Also, a snake is usally depicted in this card (which might be Luz's palisman).

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda is (or at least was) one of the most powerful magic users on the Boiling Isles. She was a master of all kinds of magic and currently learns glyph magic. Eda can also be deceptive and manipulative. Her plans aren't always the best, but she's still very cunning and skilled.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Despite his young age, Gus is a very skilled witch (especially or rather mainly in illusion magic). In "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins" he felt down and how he felt like he was useless and wasted his talent. Also in this episode, Gus started to use glyph magic which he could still used later down the line.

• Hunter — Hunter is a very skilled person, both physically and in regards to his magical abilities. He also can be manipulative and deceptive (as shown in his appearances so far). He is also interested in wild magic and knows about 'elemental magic used in the Savage Ages'. Not to mention the potential of him learning glyph magic.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character and the fact given that he must have learned some sort of magic (probably glyph magic) during his life on the Boiling Isles.

Card 9 — The Hermit

Keywords of "The Hermit":

• UPRIGHT: Self-reflection, introspection, contemplation, withdrawal, solitude, search for self, search for truth, inner guidance, being alone

• REVERSED: Loneliness, isolation, withdrawal, recluse, being anti-social, rejection, lost your way, returning to society

Candidates for "The Hermit":

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda lived a long period of her life in solitude and isolation. She had to do a lot of introspection in order to get where she is now. This card also sometimes represents a mentor figure and is sometimes considered the mature and wiser version of "The Magician".

• Hunter — Hunter is quite a lonely character that needs to do a lot of introspection. Also, he has potential to fit this card quite well.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — He seems to travel alone in a chariot, so the descriptive term 'hermit' does seem to fit. This card often depicts a star which fits the astronomical symbolism found in King's orginal home. There is also a lot of potential for him as a character. (We really don't know much about this guy, so he's kinda a wild card.)

Card 11 — Justice

Keywords of "Justice":

• UPRIGHT: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law, clarity, karma, consequence, honesty, integrity

• REVERSED: Unfairness, lack of accountability, unaccountability, dishonesty, injustice, retribution, corruption

Candidates for "Justice":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very juste and morally good character as we see in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". He has a very explicit moral compass in that episode, though he isn't flawless in that regard as shown in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed".

• Warden Wrath — He works as an enforcer for the Emperor's Coven.

• The Coven Heads — Mostly for their potential as a characters.

• The Emperor's Coven — They are basically the police system of the Boiling Isles, just extremely corrupt and founded/controlled by Emperor Belos.

• "Statue of Hekate" (S1E19)

Card 12 — The Hanged Man

Keywords of "The Hanged Man":

• UPRIGHT: Pause, surrender, letting go, new perspectives, sacrifice, release, martyrdom, waiting, uncertainty, lack of direction, contemplation

• REVERSED: Delays, resistance, stalling, indecision, needless sacrifice, fear of sacrifice, avoiding sacrifice, disinterest, stagnation, standstill, apathy

Candidates for "The Hanged Man":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus did sacrifice quite a bit during his episodes like "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" and "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". In the latter episode, he expressed the desire to learn new kinds of magic.

• Raine Whispers — Raine sacrificed themself for Eda in "Eda's Requiem" and created the BATS, a resistance movement against the Emperor. So, they fit quite well.

• King — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• Hunter — Mostly for his potential as a character (e.g. Titan Sacrifice Theory).

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character.

Card 15 — The Devil

Keywords of "The Devil":

• UPRIGHT: Shadow self, attachment, oppression, addiction, obsession, dependency, excess, powerlessness, limitations, restriction, sexuality

• REVERSED: Independence, freedom, revelation, release, releasing limiting beliefs, reclaiming power, reclaiming control, exploring dark thoughts, detachment

For people who do not have much knowledge of tarot and this card, I should explain something. This card does NOT stand for a literal devil or an evil person. The most common and basic description for the card is about an unhealthy bond with someone or something that's (usually) not for the greater good like an addiction, an obession or a toxic relationship. This card also symbolizes instant gratification, even if it is at the expense of your long-term well-being.

Candidates for "The Devil":

• Hunter — Hunter has clearly a very unhealthy bond with Emperor Belos. This is especially shown in "Eclipse Lake" and how badly the relationship to Belos affects him (Hunter literally dug his own grave due to the negative influence Belos had on his sense of worth). Also, both the upright and reversed keywords of this card do fit him quite well. He is a powerless witch that works for the restrictive and opressive Emperor's Coven and is dependent on Emperor Belos in regards to his own self-worth. And we know from "Hunting Palismen" that Hunter wishes some personal freedom and independence for himself (especially regarding his future). There is also the potential of Hunter's possible redemption arc in S2B and his breakaway from Belos.

• Emperor Belos — Emperor Belos is a dictator that causes a lot of opression and limitations on the Boiling Isles. His relationships with characters like Lilith, Kikimora and Hunter and his treatment towards them is quite unhealthy and even abusive. He himself is also very dependent on the essence found within palismen for his well-being. (So, most of the upright keywords fit him quite well.)

• Alador & Odalia Blight — Like Emperor Belos, Amity's parents are quite unhealthy people to be around (especially Odalia). This was shown in regards to their treatment of Amity. They also seem to be quite materialistic which this card can symbolize.

• The Titan — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design (a horned demon with wings).

Card 17 — The Star

Keywords of "The Star":

• UPRIGHT: Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality, rejuvenation, inspiration, positivity, healing

• REVERSED: Lack of faith, faithlessness, discouragement, despair, hopelessness, self-trust, disconnection, insecurity, negativity, despondent

Candidates for "The Star":

• King — King is quite interesting character. We know his hopes in regards of meeting his father. He also felt a lot despair and distress due to absence of his father. In his original home, there is also a lot of astronomical symbolism like stars.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very positive character. And he has insecurities and he felt discouraged in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins".

• Hunter — In "Eclipse Lake" Hunter is shown in his most despaired state so far, as well as his mindset in regards to one's purpose. He has also a lot of potential as a character.

Card 21 — The World

Keywords of "The World":

• UPRIGHT: Completion, fulfilment, wholeness, integration, achievement, accomplishment, travel, sense of belonging, harmony

• REVERSED: Incompletion, feeling incomplete, seeking personal closure, lack of closure, lack of achievement, short-cuts, delays, emptiness

Candidates for "The World":

• The Boiling Isles — The main setting of the series.

• The Titan — The Titan makes up the Boiling Isles which is the main setting of the series.

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

• "The Collector" — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

If any of you have other suggestions regarding the remaining cards and the placement of the characters, please let me know. I would love to hear your ideas. :)

[lesetoilesfous]

For the DADWC: “It’s really not that complicated.”

It took me SO long to decide what I wanted to do with this prompt but I think I figured it out so I hope you enjoy!!

(If you want me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: gen, FenHawke, pre-FenHanders

Characters: Varric Tethras, Anders, Fenris, Garrett Hawke, Isabela, Merrill

Tags: post-DA2, canon divergence, I haven’t played DAI yet I’m sorry y’all, my canon now I do what I want, what if Varric and Anders were still friends and Varric is doing what he does best, pro-Anders (including the chantry boom), anti-Sebastian (nothing against him I just needed a villain), mage rights

Rating: Teen and Up

“It’s really not that complicated.”

It wasn’t often that Varric Tethras allowed himself to look visibly impatient with anyone - and even less often than that when it came to Garrett Hawke. But he looks annoyed now. 

He also, Anders notes to a feeling a physical relief, has not moved from where he is standing between Anders and their former companions. Next to the door, Merrill looks like she’s about to start crying. Isabela and Fenris are differently unreadable. Isabela is wearing an expression of wry amusement that doesn’t reach her eyes, and Anders thinks all of them know her well enough to notice the way she has tilted her hips - prepared to fight if she needs to. Fenris is as poised and impassive as he ever is, elegant as some ancient Tevene statue,  though his countenance is far better suited to the imperial dignity of the magisters than the wracked suffering of the slaves. Anders doubts that he’d appreciate the comparison.

Hawke looks like he’s been slapped. His expression of shock, however, quickly darkens into thunder. Anders takes a step back without entirely meaning to, and sees Fenris catch the movement. A very slight frown appears on the elf’s brow, quick and brief as a breeze on still water. 

“It’s been two years, Varric!” Hawke is raising his voice now, and Anders feels the way Varric and Isabela’s weight shifts, poised for movement like puppets in a show. Next to his side, Hawke’s mabari watches them mildly. Anders resists the urge to pick up his staff. Hawke’s poker face was seemingly perfect. His dog’s was not. Anders tellls himself he has no reason to be afraid yet.

His heart does not seem interested in listening.

Even as he registers the rush of his own frantic heartbeat, Anders feels a wash of cool magic spread across his chest, soothing his body as Justice murmurs in the back of his mind. 

I will not let them hurt you.

Anders curls his fingers and tries to school his features into impassivity - a feat that’s harder to do when he notices Fenris staring at him again. There is no mabari to warn him of Fenris’ intentions, and Anders feels his heart jumping into the back of his throat despite Justice’s efforts as he tries to read anything in the elf’s face.

Then Hawke flings his hands into the air and Anders jumps as he begins to pace back and forth across the soft, scarred woon floor of the tavern in which they’re meeting. “I’d expect it of the rest of them, but you! Varric, I trusted you.” There’s a terrible fracture in Hawke’s voice then, and all of them flinch. Garrett hasn’t been this audibly upset - that Anders knows of - since the death of his mother. Varric’s shoulders relax as he begins to lower Bianca, and Anders tries not to let that scare him.

He will not betray you.

Justice’s voice is firm in his conviction. But Justice is a spirit, and knows little of such things. 

“Hawke...” Varric’s voice is soft, conciliatory.

Anders glances at the window - it’s boarded shut, a storm had come in not long after Hawke and the others had arrived. It’s hardly the best weather in which to make a quick getaway, but the rain will at least cover his tracks. And one of the benefits of spending eighteen months half starving is that he’s pretty sure he’ll be able to fit through it, once he gets the bolt open.

“We’re not here to hurt him.” All of them turn to stare at Fenris, whose eyes are stil fixed on Anders. Anders resists the urge to step back again, feeling the wooden bench behind him barely brushing his calves. Fenris meets his eyes, and he is as handsome as he was the blighted day he’d met him. “You. Anders. We’re not here to hurt you.” Fenris’ voice is soft, as if he’s speaking to some wounded halla. 

Anders bristles. “Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.” He has his staff in his hand now - he’s not sure when he picked it up - but the weight of it is reassuring and the way it responds to his magic is better. He feels his panic ease as the detached kind of confidence he’d learned from war replaces it. He wouldn’t win a fight, not with all of them - but he’s sure he’d manage to stay alive long enough to get out the window. As quicky as he dares, Anders begins to slide his foot in the direction of the wall. Fenris’ frown deepens.

“What would you have me do? To prove it to you?”

Anders laughs, once, and it’s more of a reflex than humour. His hand tightens hard enough around his staff to hurt. “Put down the giant sword?”

Fenris reaches up and takes the greatsword off his back, laying it carefully on the table beside him and stepping back and away from it. 

At the same time, Hawke slips the daggers from his back with the same deadly, dextrous ease Anders has seen him use a thousand times. For one thick, painful heartbeat he half imagines he can feel his heart at the back of his mouth. He’s seen how quicky Hawke can kill people with those things. He knows how quickly he could kill him. He knows how close he’d come before.

(”You cannot let him live! After what he’s done!” Sebastian’s accent is thick with his anger and despite himself - despite everything - despite his certainty, and his desparation, and his fury and his grief and his resignation - a stupid, foolish, too loving part of Anders half expects Garrett to answer him immediately. To defend him, as he had so easily defended Isabela to the Arishok.

Garrett says nothing.

The last time Anders felt like this, Karl was begging him to kill him.

He waits to die.

When Hawke speaks, his voice is ragged. “Go.”

Anders doesn’t question it. He runs.)

Hawke meets Anders eyes, and lays his daggers carefully beside Fenris’ sword. Then he steps back and away from them.

Anders blinks, and the room blurs.

Merrill swings her staff off her back and places it beside the other weapons. She meets Anders’ eyes with a gentle smile. “Just for safety.”

Isabela looks at him. “Well, kitten?”

Anders takes a deep breath, and steps back and away from the window. Fenris and Garrett’s shoulders slump. Varric chuckles, and lowers Bianca. “Not that I don’t love a good old fashioned Antivan stand-off, but now we’ve got the pleasantries out of the way - can I buy you a drink?”

He looks up at Hawke with a small smile and a hand raised. Hawke frowns. “Why? Why didn’t you trust me?”

Varric’s eyes narrow. “Not sure if you remember, Garrett, but your fingers were looking mighty twitchy the last time you saw Blondie.”

Outside, thunder crashes across the sky and shivers through the tavern’s thick walls. Anders jumps. When Fenris speaks, he does so softly. “Perhaps we should move away from the window?”

Anders grins at him, and it’s mostly just baring his teeth. “Why? Worried I’ll escape?”

Fenris’ eyes are green and lovely and unreadable. “Just worried, mage.”

Anders falters, and for a moment he could swear the elf...smiles at him. But he blinks, the fire in the torches on the walls flickers, and then the expression is gone. Hawke, meanwhile, continues to be focused on Varric. 

“ - you’re the one who wrote a book making him out to be a bloody Maferath! Or worse, Hessarian!”

Varric pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well I could hardly make him Andraste, now could I?”

Despite himself, Anders sniggers. Isabela smirks at him, Fenris only raises an eyebrow. For half a moment, with the distant music of the tavern’s minstrels starting up, and the smell of cheap ale rich and savoury in the air, Anders can almost imagine they’re back in The Hanged Man again, and the worst he has to fear from these people is whatever creative payment they’ll come up with in lieu of coin when he inevitably loses to them at cards.

But then Fenris moves towards him, and Anders’ body tenses, and the illusion shatters. Before Fenris can reach him, Hawke looks up, and with easy familiarity slips his arm around the elf’s waist. Fenris falters, dropping a kiss on Hawke’s head where he’s sitting now, on a bench beside Varric. Anders tries hard to ignore the way that twists a coil around his heart, even after all this time, even after everything. He still isn’t sure which of them he envies more.

He speaks without thinking. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. It’s not like any of you bothered to find me.” Anders notices Varric opening his mouth, and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder through the thick leather of his coat. “Except you, Varric.”

“Hey!” Isabela scowls and Anders grins at her, moving to press a kiss to her cheek that she accepts with a tilt of her head and a grin. “Thank you.”

Anders folds his arms across his chest when he looks at the rest of them. “Merrill I can understand.” He meets her eyes, then, “I know - well, I don’t know, but I can imagine how important Dalish culture is to you and...what I did.” Anders stops, and swallows, and tries to ignore the prickling ball of guilt tearing at his insides. “I can see how that would have made things more dangerous for everyone.”

“Would you do it again?” Again, despite the softness of his voice, Fenris’ question cuts through the general noise of the tavern like nothing else. Again, he meets Anders’ eyes, and Anders cannot read his expression. The firelight shimmers strangely against the lyrium in his skin.

Anders lifts his head, and tightens his fingers around his staff, feeling the magic pulling at him like a magnet. “I would.”

He expects Fenris to rage. He expects Hawke to say something. But Fenris only nods, once, and says nothing. Hawke looks down at his hands for a moment - still big and hairy and calloused as a Fereldan farmer’s - though far more scarred. Then he looks up and meets Anders’ eyes, and Maker help him it’s as difficult to look away now as it was nearly a decade ago, when he’d waltzed into his clinic with stolen armour and borrowed knives asking for a Grey Warden.

“We’ve been looking for you. We never stopped.” Hawke’s voice is quiet, and his hands curl into loose fists in his lap. “I...” He shuts his mouth, and swallows, and Fenris’ hand curls around his shoulder and squeezes it once. Hawke doesn’t look away from Anders. “I’m so sorry.”

Anders forgets how to breathe. “You’re...what?”

Fenris squeezes Hawke’s shoulder again before stepping away from him, and lifts his chin to meet Anders’ eyes. “We both are.”

Anders is seized by the vicious, sudden fear that he is dreaming - that this is some cruel trick of the Fade, and soon he’ll wake and be alone again, on the cold hard earth in some templar-infested wood. 

You are awake.

Justice’s voice is calm, but Anders knows him well enough by now to hear his curiosity. Neither of them had expected this.

Anders doesn’t know what to say.

On the other side of the tavern, a group of men break into a raucous chorus of cheering and laughter - some gamble won and lost, cards probably. Merrill turns in the direction of the noise, before looking back at the rest of them. “Remember when we used to play Wicked Grace? That was nice.”

Isabela smiles at her, and touches her tattooed cheek with the familiarity of a lover. “Of course, sheereen.”

Hawke looks at Varric. “I cannot believe you knew where he was this whole time and you didn’t tell me. I thought you hated him! Maker, I thought you were rallying Thedas to hate him, the way you wrote about him in that blighted book.”

“So that’s why you returned your copy.” Varric says, thoughtfully, stroking the thick gold stubble on his chin.

“He is right here, you know.” Anders says, a little waspishly, though he sits as he does so and, cautiously, sets his staff down beside him. It takes him a moment to peel his fingers away from the shaft and the safety it offers. When he does, Hawke is looking at him with an expression that Anders can only describe as sheepish.

“Sorry.” 

Anders tries, hard, not to smile, and finds the expression pulling at his lips anyway. “I mean, you’re not wrong.” He lowers his voice, “I would drown us all in blood to keep you safe.” He giggles, and slaps Varric on the back when he scowls. “Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff?”

For a moment, Hawke’s expression doesn’t change - then, slow and bright as a sunrise, he starts to grin. Anders’ heart clenches. Maker, he’d missed that smile. 

“Fenris still hasn’t forgiven him for the poopy line.”

Fenris rolls his eyes, but another smile is pulling at his lips, even as he folds his arms. “It is not the joke I take issue with. It is simply not how I speak.”

“In which language?” Anders finds himself asking, lullled into the old familiar rhythm of their conversations. Fenris raises both eyebrows at him. If Anders didn’t know him better, he’d swear the elf looked pleased.

“The trade tongue. Its..slang is nonsensical.”

Hawke laughs, and it’s a great booming thing. At his feet, his mabari lifts its head to lick his hand and he scratches it behind its sandy ears. Its tail thumps against the wooden floorboards. “Says the man who mastered Orlesian verlan.” Hawke looks at Anders, and there’s a bright humour in his eyes that Anders had only glimpsed, briefly, when he’d stepped into the tavern and seen him alive. But then Anders had stepped back, and Hawke’s face had fallen, and Varric had lifted Bianca...Anders blinks, and returns to the present as Hawke finishes. “You know it’s Orlesian backwards. I swear, that brain is wasted on a warrior.”

Fenris huffs, and he’s still smiling when he leans into Hawke’s side. “At least one of us needs to understand the principles of strategy.”

Hawke grins, and slings an arm around Fenris’ shoulders. To Anders’ surprise, Fenris lets him. Hawke looks at Varric and Anders then, and the firelight glitters over the raven-black silk of his hair. “Speaking of which. Where do we sign up to free the mages?”

Anders stares at him. “Sorry, what?”

Fenris shifts, then, leaning easily against Hawke’s side. “We did not come here to hurt you, Anders.”

Merrill grins, and sits forward, eyes bright and smile brighter. “We want to help!”

They do.

[hadesburns]

endymion. the binary shard-skinned boy, both a beauty and a wreckage. both silver and onyx. he caught my eye very early on when his biography was posted, because despite what a romantic character he is, what fealty, what fierce devotion streamed through his veins to propel him into his guardianship, into his hopeless love, his hopeless sense of time and light, i could just feel that there was more depth to his story than what was lurking on the surface of him, something darker, something heavier. it’s almost as though he himself shows only a veil to the universe and even to those he loves directly, but it doesn’t truly reflect what’s beneath, it doesn’t scathe the immenseness of his feelings, the complexity with which i’m certain he must hold the reality around him, to be so, so abandoned and then be so, so committed. in terms of the zodiac, i wonder if i’ve ever seen a more gemini-esque character.

headcanons:

i. IN THE BEGINNING. this is onyx.

“a dead planet gutted cleanly into two halves.”

in many ways, endymion is the very planet which hangs hollow and muted in his history; carries the same scars across the leather of his skin, harbors the same wounds against the bloody veins of his canyons, floating and confused in the midnight hue, pieces of him struck dead by random circumstances beyond even the heart of heaven’s control. the tectonic plates of his diaphragm muscles and shoulder blades seize and crumble around him, shudder apart in horror at self-realization, in disgust at useless unintelligence, at the confounding dilemma that is himself.

cosmos has left him, cracked from the core, split down the middle in this, her devastating desertion, her gaze turning dull and distant from him and all his kind, and if, in her apostasy, she finds nothing more about him to warrant an ounce of salvation, why would he? she turns away from his planet to leave them all in the vacant beating of their black-hole chests, invert their souls to do the opposite of shine, the opposite of burn, the opposite of feel, and endymion can only watch as his marrow drains from his bones, watch as the kaleidoscope of essence drifts away like pieces of his own world, his own atmosphere. a black planet shifting without light, the scorched surface of his empty hands reflecting nothing more, no wishes, no hopes, no directions; he is a monochrome of ebony and dust.

he knows what it means to be shattered, knows what it means to be neglected, to be dark, dark inflorescence, drying and dying in the shade, with only asteroids to swear by, only the silhouette of sleep against death, only the stars to glean what little understanding he can of what the freezing tendrils of life really are. he knows how cold carbon can burn, how to twist and reach and flex and fracture open and open and open, until all the universe pours down his throat, a reverse scream, a reverse howl, calling for a light he cannot put a name to.

he’d been born yowling and aching before he’d ever even understood the concept.

ii. WARTIME SERENADES. and this is silver.

the dawning of the new millenium harkens him to her horizon and he rises to it on a cascadence of newfound purpose, the motivation of the damned, the determination of a wolf twice splintered, the two halves of his soul melding and welding together in the heat of battle, the war for loyalty. he reshapes himself away from cosmos’ hand, away from the broken glass she forged him from, away from the future she’d already discarded. he reshapes himself into a blade, reshapes himself into dry bone and razor-sharp teeth, reshapes himself into every biting edge and cutting dagger the solar system could possibly offer, his palms no longer empty of blood or gore, now colored heavily with the last sighs of corpses.

the lady of the moon kneels over him only once, and from then on he kneels only to her, he inclines only to her, he assents only to her, and in her warcry, he finds his legs, his arms, his heartbeat, every joint in his knuckles wrapping over the handles of blades, everything he thought had been lost to him forever more. he collides, he cascades, he strikes down against the earth’s gravity, two planets conflicting in a halo of hellish distortions, and even the crater he leaves behind sings a ringing timbre of atonement-- atonement for sins yet uncommitted, but not warded off for long. while the others in the garrison claim every solar flare and ounce of mortal blood, every shredded tree and upheaved continent, endymion calls the shadows to him, calls the silence, calls the quiet hell, writes his name across every widened pair of eyes that never saw him coming.

iii. CONNECTIONS TO: other celestials. this is how onyx darkens.

created as not much more than a mutt, a hodgepodge of shapes and shadows, he considers himself only half-divine, only half finished, a prism monstrosity with a foolish adjacent position near to godliness, close enough to share atmosphere with celestial hosts, but far enough to only see their light after they’ve become supernovae. he cares nothing for all of them, and yet too much for most of them, separate even as he surrounds himself, even as he is surrounded, all with their piercing, jeweled eyes and vicious, seething teeth. he regards them coolly, wholly ice and wholly still. he remembers this always; that he is not belonging to them, he is not beholden to any of them, save one, and he will cut them down, strike them from beings of light to nighttime corpses, their pretty lies and gleaming lipsticks rendered to little more than ash and dust, should his lady wish it. one word from selene and he would lay waste to them all.

iv. CONNECTIONS TO: selene. this is how silver flares.

he discovers the true nature of stars only after meeting the moon. his life, a series of ink-black stains and coal-toned scars, his life a bleak shadow of misunderstanding and regret, of forlorn tragedies and helpless aspirations, of loves unspoken and hearts locked away in iron boxes, he comes to learn that stars are cold, are distant, are detached. he cries to them, baying his emotions out into the universe, out into cosmos’ closed hearing, her ear pressed away from him, her attentions inward only, his wishes collapsing in on themselves like falling comets. the stars do not call back to him.

only the moon does, only the radiation in his general direction, and it’s not love, he knows this, it’s not favor, not intimacy, not desire, not anything he could ever touch or feel or inhale, nothing about her signalling any moment’s attachment to him, yet still, she shines on, as she shines in every direction, in every possible angle, the incandescence of her glow near to blinding him, and he drowns in it. for a creature of the dark, even the smallest of her touches, the least of her murmurs, the shortest of her glances, is enough to fuel him for another millenia; she could not be rid of him unless she killed him, and she has only to voice it, wish it so, and he would complete the task for her, spill his blood between one heartbeat and the next, drain himself of all sharpened edges, all waning howls.

he’d do anything for her, anything, anything, which is why he lets her turn away from him, he lets her disintegrate from his side, lets her discard him when she must-- name him canine and pet hound, name him guardian only, never lover, never husband, never soulmate. in the boroughs of his chest, he caves in on himself slowly, the pieces of him fragmenting more and more with each passing century, but he speaks to none of it, voices none of it. others, ysra most notably, chide him regularly about his unending love, his yawning torment, the devotion he allows to destroy and gnaw his organs, gnashing the gamey meats to poultry while he stands firm and marble in his role as protector, but he can do nothing else. he can love nothing else.

she has given him the chance no other has given him, she has shown him what love truly is-- how can he do anything except try to give it back?

v. CONNECTIONS TO: ysra. when bronze meets flame.

endymion is no raging tide, no furious monstrosity of hurricane, there is very little fire or absolute catastrophe that storms ahead of his stride wherever he may go, he does not seethe with untempered savagery, and although he admires and rather reluctantly adores his partner, his planetary sister by all the prowling gifts and measures she claws and rips for, he understands and notes the differences between them as night and day. her, the sun, burning and hungry and ravenous beyond end, all gold and bronze and heat, her intelligence only seconded by her temper; him, a shadow, not the moon itself, but the absence of light that floods in when all else has faded, cut and sharp and lethal as ice, frozen and silent, a black hound slipping through the insanities of time.

he loves her fiercely, despite himself, despite herself, despite all logic decreeing they should never get along and perhaps never venture within the same space of each other; she smiles when he makes a mistake, he grins when she’s angry-- sometimes he imagines them truly related, truly of blood together, a whole childhood of mingled memories and eternities of understanding, but although he would surrender his life for her own, and she for him, he knows they ignite too separately, too contradictory, too dissident. same coin, vasty different peripheries.

vi. CONNECTIONS TO: cosmos. coal reaching subzero temperatures.

he scrapes out the pieces cosmos embedded inside him, drops the foundation of her touch, ignores the divided hemispheres of his soul, the way reality looks now different from how it looked then. he abandons her and her watch, her worship, her admiration, the bitterment blistering his tongue with a foulness he can never name, a torrid weight he can never announce, only taking each step as to untether himself from his disappointment in her, a blight he’s sure rivals her disappointment in him. he forges himself from steel and stone, hones his instincts from perfection to indomitable supremacy, alights himself with starlight and moondust, a keen shadow to his charge, his mandate, his lady.

he tries not to openly sneer at her sculptures, tries not to hate them publicly, tries not notice their softness, how careful and loving the hands that formed them must have been, for such a mother who discards the children left in the wake of her womb so suddenly and without guidance. he keeps his acidity to himself, locked in the same black ocean inside him where he keeps everything else that’s real and heavy and forlorn, that he cannot, will not, produce in anyone’s presence. jaw wired shut, eyes bright but downcast, endymion centers himself only on the now, the services he strives to provide, the force he must maintain, the court he must endure.

vii. HE WHO BREAKS. the wolf in immortal skin. personality and physical aesthetics.

there is a duality that breeds inside his lungs like a cancer, festers uncertain inside the maze of his heart, the way his words so very rarely match the expressions on his face, how his eyes and brows and lips unjustly divine far more than he usually intends to permit, more expression held in a single glance than any declarations he could manage to give. his eyes bloom too brightly, his lips too quick to grin before he can turn away, the hollowness of most godly creatures unaffecting him just yet, their apathy or fury unscathing him just yet; he who has seen the edge of creation, seen the vacant twilights of disuse and despair, still somehow clinging to the shimmering ends of his time alive, believing the days to be blessings, believing the nights to be more triumphs to conquer. he has been worthless and desolate before, he has been idle and barren and insignificant before-- he shall not be that again.

something in him still yearns, still craves for the light of love just beyond his reach, similarly to himself before his awakening, the outline of his veins beating rancid against the cage of his ribs, but despite this, his exquisite misery, he still bares his heart on his sleeve along with the sword on his back, just as quick with a smile as he is with a knife, refusing to dampen his loyalty or his endearment for anything under the stars. he is unendingly protective, arms like steel bars, gaze like twin arrows, the height of him imposing long carvings against the marble floors, the indentations of his suspicions eternal and irreversible.

a thousand years he stands magnificent and ascetic, a massive wolf hide sewn and threaded into the tapestry of the cloak over his broad shoulders, the uniform meshed from titanium and iron, from volcanic stone and mortar; he is the collected assembly of cold shine and fathomless vantablack, of humanoid and animalistic instincts. poised to growl at anyone too close to his queen, teeth bared and bloodthirsty, he keeps his eyes like daggers to the courts and strangers alike, able to shift instantly from friendly to ferocious in split-second timelines.

with every hour’s passage, he ordains himself to shine ever steady, ever stable, the unshakable anchor of his feet rooted to his position, his profession, his passion, both a star himself (undying and deathless in the surrounding black) and the wolf his queen requires him to be, all outstretched claws and raised hackles. come storm, come turmoil, come upheaval or chaos, endymion stands guardian at the gates of selene’s atmosphere, devoted and true, righteous and unwavering.

[anautisticdragon-blog]

Revisiting New Vegas: DLC

What I recall of New Vegas is how much I loved it, and for the most part it was more clever than it had any right to be. The stand out memories for me were how they handled stories of aging and the effects it can have, through the companions Raul and Lily. Beautifully done.

I'm putting together a small mod pack for my partner so she's able to appreciate these stories, too. I look forward to watching as she explores with the same wonderment I had, invested in all of those little stories and marvelling over how everything ties back into the main plot.

But what about the DLC?

I thought about this for quite some time. And the truth is? I'm actually skipping it. I think New Vegas is a better game without its DLC. I think it stands better alone, as a complete set piece, with just a little extra help from mods like NVInteriors to flesh out areas where the game is weakest.

You might be screaming 'WHYYY?' at me right now whilst punching your screen (I really don't think that's good for your monitor), so let's have a look at my decisions. Do keep in mind that there's going to be obvious spoilers ahead, so... Caveat lector, you know?

Dead Money

This was my favourite of the DLCs. From a story point of view, it had at least one likeable character and believable stakes. Not the greatest story ever told, but it was serviceable at the very least. Then there's the gameplay, though. Which is a painful, repetitive, tedious grind of death. Is that worth it for -- compared against the rest of hte game -- an average story?

I decided that... no. No, it really wasn't. I didn't want her to suffer through it. Whilst some do like the storyline of Dead Money (and I can understand why), I feel that we're all united in how much we Universally resent the gameplay of it. If she happened across this DLC too early, it could sour the rest of the game. For a first time player, it's just a bad idea.

Honest Hearts

Religion. Religion. Religion. Religion. Natives. Religion. Oh, you're going to brainwash the natives? I can't tell the natives not to listen to your quackery? I can't tell them about missionaries, conversion, and the shit you're pulling here by undermining their very culture? Good-O. Sod this for a game of soldiers. Where's that bloody choice and consequence, Obsidian?

Frankly, I wanted to imprison these religious zealots for their crimes against a fledgeling culture and save the natives myself, what I didn't want is a repeat of colonial America happening before my very eyes. That's not a fun time for me.

So, this one's out too.

Old World Blues

The biggest, most obvious problem here is that it's tonally incompatible with the rest of the game. It feels detached and entirely out of place with the rest of it, almost as if it were a different game entirely. That's a problem for me.

I like tonal consistency, I've brought it up before. There's really nothing in New Vegas that sets a precedent for primary coloured, toyetic scorpion bots and cussy AI appliances. It's funny, yes, but once the joke's worn off (which happens fairly quickly), it's just letting an average joke drag on for however many hours the content lasts for.

And then there are the scientists, oh dear. If I wanted to sit around listening to a group of smug, self-assured, sociopathic, arrogant pricks I'd watch Alt-Blight videos. Even the one whose role is the supposed 'good guy' of the bunch is just an utter arsehole. There's not a single, sole likeable character present. That's a problem for me, considering how much I dislike sociopathy.

So... Bad jokes, a failed attempt at being as clever as Fallout Tactics was, sociopaths, and... Uh... That's it. Pass.

Lonesome Road

Oh boy! I get to listen to an Alt-Blight-esque self-aggrandising, sociopathic lunatic tell me why everyone deserves to die and why all the world should burn in the never-ending fires of apocalypse. Good-O! This is why I don't like Chris Avellone, as not only is he a sociopath (which I've covered in the past with topics such as the Fallout Bible), but his characters tend to be soapboxing sociopaths as well. See: Kreia, Weeping Mother, et al.

The last thing I want is to sit around listening to an arsehole telling me why the world is horrible because people are too left wing, too bleeding heart, and how he wants to Make the Wasteland Great Again by nuking the hell out of it.

That's basically all Lonesome Road is. Listen to Avellone soapbox about the worthiness of evil and sociopathy. It's not new, really. This isn't a revelation. He even mentioned in a recent interview that he prefers 'clever' (sociopathic) evil characters to any other kind. It's just his nature. He's a born arsehole, so his characters are born arsholes too. Comes with the territory.

Oh, and if you kill his soapboxing sociopath and refuse to nuke anyone? A robot friend dies. Oh, and a race of monsters will overrun the wastes and kill everyone anyway... Whoop-de-bloody-doo. So the sociopath wins no matter what.

Choice & consequence, Obsidian. Somehow, along the way, they seem to have forgotten about their most important design ethos. Though Avellone pulled the same shit in Fallout 2 when he removed the good ending for the intelligent deathclaws just because he hated them and wanted to see them suffer (absolutely not kidding, guy’s a douche).

Do I think that my partner wants to listen to a soapboxing, sociopathic idiot, watch a robot friend die, and then learn that everything she does in New Vegas is pointless anyway? No, I really don't think that's necessary.

Cutting this out like a tumor.

Gun Runner's Arsenal

Where do I even begin?

Okay, first of all? Through bizarre and magical happenstance this Robotron has a shack full of specialised guns that even the Van-Graffs (specialised vendors and generally violent people) don't have access to. There aren't any guards or anything, really, so why hasn't this place been raided? And they aren't exactly running guns, are they?

So in order to fix this, I'd have to add in a lot of mods to make whatever this nonsense is feel like it has a place in the world. I'd have to improve the area to give it presence, add NPCs on paths that actually run guns, and have a few Gun Runner sanctioned affiliated merchants who sell their stuff. Then it'd feel more believable.

Except that the whole thing's a mess. You have GRA versions of guns and mods which are the same weapon but unique??? I don't understand the worth of this, really. To the first time player, this just serves to be a confusing bloody mess. And you can just up and buy these incredibly powerful weapons, which takes so much away from the joy of discovering something wonderful while out adventuring.

So, a confused, half-arsed, unfinished mess. One that's done far, far better by mods like AG's Supplemental Uniques and Weapon Mods Expanded.

Pass.

Conclusion

New Vegas is a brilliant game with a fantastic story. It has plentiful amounts of choice and consequence, enthralling stories to be a part of, and it's an all around good time. So the DLCs only detract from that and lessen it with bad, substandard content filled with sociopaths, unlikeable characters, annoyances, and worse. They don't really add anything at all.

So, when playing New Vegas, doing so without the DLC is always for the best. Unless, you know, you actually like sociopaths, feeling powerless, and unfinished content. I don't.

[theconservativebrief]

Ten years ago this month, the first Twilight movie sparkled broodily into movie theaters. By then, the four-volume book series had already been published in full, made the best-seller lists several times over, and was safely established as a cult phenomenon for its target demographic of teen girls — but with that first movie, Twilight became mainstream.

In the fall of 2008, America at large was introduced to the story of Bella Swan, teenage everygirl, and her fraught, star-crossed love for glitter-streaked vampire Edward Cullen. Twilight introduced us to Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, and it continued the Harry Potter tradition of the YA book-to-movie franchise as a dominant box office force.

It also became a cultural flashpoint. Think piece after think piece by turn celebrated Twilight’s cultural dominance, mocked its shimmery vampire mythology, and feared the effects that romanticizing its tortured, dysfunctional love story might have on its teen readers. In 2008, Twilight was adored, but it was also hated, feared, and mocked.

Here in 2018, we finally have room to get a little perspective on the whole thing. In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the first Twilight movie, Vox culture writers Constance Grady, Alex Abad-Santos, and Aja Romano joined forces with deputy managing editor Eleanor Barkhorn to look back at the unlife and legacy of the Twilight phenomenon.

Constance: When the first Twilight movie came out in 2008, I was 19, and I was positive that the entire franchise was a blight on the pop culture landscape. Before the movie even came out, I made up my mind about it. I read the posts about how the Edward-Bella love story ticked all the boxes of an abusive relationship; I shook my head over Stephenie Meyer’s bland, boring sentences; I howled over the whole concept of everything that happened in Breaking Dawn. (He chews the baby out of her uterus!)

But I was also completely fascinated by the franchise. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I picked up the first book to see what the fuss was all about, and even though I thought the love story was creepy and the prose was blah and absolutely nothing happened until about three-quarters of the way through the book beyond some vampire baseball (vampire baseball!), I kept turning those pages. I was compelled. I couldn’t help myself.

I hate-read every Breaking Dawn review, and every review of the movie. I developed opinions on Kristen Stewart (bit her lip too much) and Robert Pattinson (I appreciated his palpable hatred of the franchise). I spent so much emotional energy thinking about the whole Twilight thing that I was, for all intents and purposes, a fan. I was just a fan who hated it.

Looking back 10 years later, I don’t think I was necessarily wrong about most of the things I disliked about the franchise then. Bella and Edward’s relationship does have some disturbing power dynamics (which we’ll get into in a bit). Myer’s prose is pretty bland. The structure of the plot is bananas. (I was wrong about Kristen Stewart, though, and the way she was penalized for sometimes seeming mildly uncomfortable with the Twilight phenomenon while Pattinson was lauded for his outright hatred of it says a lot about gender politics circa 2008.)

But I also think that I clearly found Twilight really compelling when I was 19, and I was mad about that, because smart girls weren’t supposed to like books and movies like Twilight. There’s a weird, creepy eroticism to those books that is calibrated to speak precisely to the sexual and romantic fantasies of teenage girls, and I was a teenage girl. It did speak to me. And that pissed me off.

There are few pop cultural products that our society likes to shit on more than the pop culture created for teenage girls, and Twilight circa 2008 was the pinnacle of that phenomenon. This was a franchise that was built for teen girls, marketed to teen girls, and loved by teen girls, and because of that, it became accepted common knowledge that all correct-thinking people could only despise and revile it. So when I look back 10 years later, I find it difficult to untangle my hatred of Twilight from my own internalized misogyny, and from my profound and at the time unexamined belief that anything made for teenage girls must inherently be less-than.

How did you feel about Twilight back in 2008? Has it changed for you since then?

Eleanor: I was 24 when the first movie came out, and I think being just past teenagehood made all the difference for me. I loved the movie — fully, earnestly, without irony, without reservations. I loved the moody Pacific Northwest setting. I loved the longing glances. I loved the vampire baseball! (But then I am a sucker for the “characters with superpowers show off their superpowers” scene that these movies always tend to have. Ask me how I felt watching Tobey Maguire leap from Queens rooftop to Queens rooftop in the 2002 Spider-Man.)

I had spent my teenage years full of feelings, full of angst, full of deep, painful crushes on mysterious boys. And I’d mostly felt embarrassed by those feelings. I wanted to be calm, detached — a Cool Girl, to reference Gone Girl, another best-selling book turned hit movie. Seeing Bella feel so many of the things I’d felt was tremendously validating. I was normal! I’m okay, you’re okay, etc.

The fact that I watched the movie at 24 instead of 19 also meant that Twilight inspired a fair amount of nostalgia for me. By my mid-20s, I was no longer having those intense feelings anymore. I was turning into a much more practical, grounded person — realizing that I should be looking for stability, kindness, and shared values in the men I dated, rather than hotness or mysteriousness.

This was a necessary step in my maturation as a human being. (I’m very glad to be married to my kind, stable husband, whom I met at church, rather than the hot guy in my algebra class who sometimes showered me with attention and sometimes ignored me.) But it came with a sense of loss — intense teenage feelings have a particular joy and drama to them.

Twilight came at just the right moment for me to be a fan: I was close enough to my teenage years to appreciate the validation of my feelings, but far enough away that I could appreciate, rather than be embarrassed by, the romanticization of those feelings.

And that’s why I never fully understood all the hand-wringing about whether Twilight was “good” for women, or whether Bella was a “good role model” for girls. Pop culture doesn’t need to be instructive to be good. It can simply show people as they are, rather than as they should be. Bella isn’t a character I want to be like as an adult, or want my daughters to be — but that’s fine. Fiction for young people is full of spunky, plucky young women role models. It’s okay for Bella to capture a particular way that many young women are — even if, with the benefit of a few years of hindsight, we recognize that’s not the way we want to be forever.

Alex: I mean, I understand the hand-wringing and analysis of whether Bella is a “good role model” because of Twilight’s audience. The books were being consumed by teenage girls (and younger-than-teenage girls), and the natural response from adults, when it comes to any piece of culture as popular as Twilight was, is to fret over “what is it teaching the children?”

Many adults seem to believe that books for younger audiences should follow a certain moral code or provide some kind of moral guidance. Though overhauling the way we teach kids about books and how we approach books ourselves warrants its own entire article.

I read New Moon — the one where Bella wants to die so Edward will come and save her — and I’ve seen every movie except Breaking Dawn Part I. I guess my main impression of that one book and the four movies (I don’t want to speak for Stephenie Meyer’s entire oeuvre) is that Twilight is both a not-so-well-written book and a mildly exciting movie franchise.

But like Constance said, it gets criticized exponentially harder than other pieces of pop culture because teenage girls like it. I think some of that criticism is warranted, in that the book wallows in shallow descriptions, but it gets magnified because of who its target audience is.

One of the things I wish the movies had done more of was lean into the vampire action. There wasn’t enough vampire baseball. If you’re gonna give these vampires magical superpowers — elemental manipulation, mind-reading, pain projection, etc. — then show us those powers. Make it seem cool to be a vampire. Or at least make it seem cooler to be an immortal high schooler than Twilight often did, with the characters just trolling around a Pacific Northwest high school looking for an eternal mate.

Aja: We also can’t really talk about whether Twilight was instructive or not without talking about the kinds of real-world legacies it left us with — including a full decade and counting of YA novels with extremely problematic relationships at their centers. Despite the many red flags flying around Bella and Edward’s relationship — starting with their 87-year age difference, his stalking and controlling behavior, and the fact that he wants to bite her more than any other human he’s ever met, fans loved the couple. And because plenty of Twilight fans were so interested in their codependent passion, publishers started marketing books that featured similar relationships as a selling point.

(One of the most disturbing of these books was Hush, Hush, a New York Times best-seller that featured a hero who literally stalks, threatens to sexually assault, and tries to kill the teen protagonist. It’s a controversial book that’s currently being made into a movie, so the phenomenon is still very much with us.)

But we also have a whole generation of Twilight fans who turned the publishing industry on its head with their insistence and demand for trope-filled stories that indulged their fantasies. And their unashamed consumption of a brand of media that nakedly catered to them arguably presaged the flourishing romantic comedy resurgence we now appear to be in the middle of.

Twilight fans were also responsible for one of the most remarkable and underdiscussed publishing phenomena in history, in that they essentially built an entire new publishing genre from scratch. They started by creating a controversial but very effective system of pull-to-publish Twilight fanfiction — stories that centered on Bella and Edward analogues, without any copyrighted names or details. Then, backed by the money and enthusiasm of ravenous Twilight fans who wanted to read more, more, more, they created their own small-press publishing houses in order to ship those fics-turned-novels directly to their audiences.

It was from one of these Twilight fandom publishing houses, created for and by Twilight fans, that Fifty Shades of Grey — which was originally a massively popular Twilight fanfic called “Master of the Universe” — originated. By blowing the doors wide open on the potential financial power of fanfiction, and introducing it to mainstream culture for the first time, Fifty Shades of Grey forever changed publishing. And it wouldn’t have existed without this very specific way in which Twilight fans commercialized their fandom.

We could debate endlessly whether the marketing of any of these fics was “good” or “morally instructive,” but I do believe these fans were galvanized to do what they did because they were forced to spend years defending their hobby and their reading pleasures. And we all know the best way to defend your hobby is to find a way to make money from it.

Constance: Aja brings up a great point here: Twilight was such a giant franchise that it had a real effect on pop culture. So what do you think is its most lasting legacy?

An interesting counterbalance to the wave of YA romances about creepy, mysterious, controlling boys that Aja correctly pegs to Twilight’s popularity is that Twilight also fundamentally changed the way we talked about those romances. Before Twilight, they were considered silly and fun and not really worth critiquing, but the criticism of Twilight was so heated and so pointed that it ended up influencing the discourse around practically all relationships built on the Bella-Edward model.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a lot more sophisticated about the power dynamics of its relationships than Twilight was, but I don’t know that it could have gotten away with a ship like Buffy-Angel in a post-Twilight era. When Buffy first aired, a scene where Buffy wakes up in the middle of the night to find Angel sitting on her windowsill passed without comment, but after Edward Cullen, it became one of the scenes that people brought up when they talked about why they don’t like that pairing. That’s because one of the things the hand-wringing over Twilight established is that it is creepy when a boy breaks into a girl’s bedroom to watch her sleep, the way Edward does with Bella.

And The Vampire Diaries, the next big vampire romance franchise after Twilight, went out of its way to subvert any Twilight comparisons with its central romance between Stefan and Elena. That show very pointedly played the big reveal that Stefan was a vampire in an echo of the famous “Say it!” / “Vampire,” scene in Twilight, but in this version, Elena ran screaming in the other direction as soon as she realized what Stefan was. There’s even a scene in one episode where Elena is watching Stefan sleep, rather than the other way around, and he tells her it’s creepy.

There’s plenty for us to critique about the gender politics of The Vampire Diaries, but it’s a show that clearly wanted to be the woke alternative to Twilight, and the way it positioned itself to take that slot was by subverting the tropes that the Twilight discourse had established were gross.

Eleanor: The only love triangle YA story I really got into after Twilight was The Hunger Games, which provided an interesting (but also maddening) foil to Twilight. I saw The Hunger Games get treated a lot more seriously as a franchise because of its apparent critique of income inequality (the movie came out just months after Occupy Wall Street), and because Katniss was in so many ways the anti-Bella: tough, resourceful, independent. Also in The Hunger Games’ favor: Jennifer Lawrence, who played Katniss, was much, much better at the celebrity image game than Kristen Stewart.

But I found everything about The Hunger Games a little too perfect; the good role model protagonist and the “serious” commentary on today’s social issues was all a bit much. I still appreciate Twilight’s stubborn refusal to be anything more than what it was: an evocative, albeit problematic, teen love story that took its characters’ feelings seriously.

Would it be a stretch to call movies like Brooklyn and Lady Bird part of the legacy of Twilight? Of course, they’re in an entirely different genre; they’re also more nuanced and better acted, and the relationships at their center are largely absent of the troubling power dynamics we discussed above. But they fill a place in my heart that Twilight once did, for the way they show that the stories of young women and their romantic choices are important and worthy of deep study.

Alex: The world would be a better, kinder place if everyone was required to watch Brooklyn. Though I’m not sure if it and Lady Bird are a part of Twilight’s legacy or are simply terrific stories about teenage girls growing up that haven’t been given the credit they’re due.

Twilight’s more direct legacy is Fifty Shades of Grey and the phenomena — the backlash and the fandom — that followed it. Right? When Fifty Shades came out, article after article depicted and chided its readers as desperate, horny middle-aged women. The book was considered “mommy porn.” Like Twilight, Fifty Shades is no beautiful tome of language. But the criticism of it seemed amplified because women, particularly women of a certain age, were really into it. And If there’s one demographic whose taste people like to judge more than that of teenage girls, it has to be moms. Poor moms.

Aja: I definitely think we can’t discount the fact that a lot of the teen girls who got vilified for loving Twilight grew up and got vilified for loving New Adult erotica, so I’m doubling down on the stance that Twilight’s legacy is creating a generation of women who became loud and proud about their fictional kinks as a result of being perpetually shamed for them. I want to think that ultimately, this confidence outweighs all of Twilight’s problematic tropes.

I will add that Twilight sparked a weird purity backlash in YA literature whereby depictions of sex and sexuality between teens became newly taboo, in part because of all the hand-wringing over Twilight and its ilk. I think that’s taken a while to wear off, in part because Twilight’s imprint was so indelible.

Also, there’s one really obvious thing Twilight bequeathed us, simple but huge, and that’s “Team X” and “Team Y.” Twilight made shipping, and discussion of shipping, a standard part of the pop culture discourse around media franchises, and it did so specifically via “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob.” (And the perennial underdog, Team Bella.) These ideas — and the specific concept of shipping as rooting for your pairing or character, or “team,” to win the love triangle — entered the pop culture landscape with Twilight, and now they’re ubiquitous. And crucially, by framing shipping as a pastime akin to rooting for a sports team, they made shipping into something harmless and fun rather than yet another toxic, galling thing to shame fans for doing. If only for this, I am Team Twilight all the way.

Original Source -> Reckoning with Twilight, 10 years later

via The Conservative Brief