#cheap post but whatever

[domwitch]

Me: ok guys I'll be normal about him I promise

Me 5 mins later: I need to mount him and get him pregnant

[aria-greenhoodie]

You see, @localcanadiancryptid22, I’m a motherfucker who LOVES drama, so I fw anything that can create that.

I’m normal. Btw. In case you were wondering.

[vigilskeep]

when you first start the cousland origin, you can have some conversations with arl howe, teyrn cousland, and duncan that shed some interesting light on the political situation in ferelden. it’s definitely the origin where you get the most context on the rebellion and on cailan and his father. while howe isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of sources, he is also one of the most openly critical of cailan that we have access to, which i think is worthy of interest

howe remembers maric with what the toolset describes as “genuine fondness”: “your father hasn’t spoken of our time with him? that man took care of his friends. as they say, he was large as life and twice as tall!” i think we should pay particular attention to that man took care of his friends.

what howe’s talking about is a really important aspect of kingship, where you win the consent and enthusiasm of the nobility for your rule by offering rewards like wealth, land, and prestige to the loyal. kingship is always less stable than it’s portrayed, and this is one of the ways that kings must essentially sell to the nobility that answering to them is worth their time, which would be especially important in ferelden given everything we know about its culture. fereldans believe someone only has power when it is given by the loyalty of those below them, who have the right to freely rescind that loyalty. the dao codex says that “the sight of [fereldan kings] asking for—and working to win—the support of ‘lesser’ men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.”

i suspect howe is remembering a maric fresh from the victories of the rebellion, who was able to reward those who had followed him with the spoils of those victories. at the end of the stolen throne, we see that in the final days of the rebellion, maric was killing those who had betrayed his mother to the orlesians even when they arrived under truce to meet him on holy ground. in dao, we see no lingering orlesian nobility except for those who married in and continue to be met with marked hostility. i think we can safely surmise that maric elected to make no conciliatory measures and give everything to those who had followed him; with the orlesians on the run and his people out for blood, he was in a strong enough position to do so, and it certainly served to win the fond memories of men like howe.

by contrast, howe goes on to say, “it’s too bad cailan isn’t half that.” the toolset notes establish very clearly that it’s the same issue, elaborating on howe’s thoughts: “bitter turn, i don’t get as much from the current king”, and “disdainful, i have no use for him, he does me no favours”. this isn’t a minor character detail, if howe’s last words when killed by the player are anything to go by. “maker spit on you... i deserved... more...” whatever it is that howe feels he should have been given, by the crown or anyone else, it characterises his actions and his defining treachery.

it’s in these same conversations that we see another side of this demonstrated. there are two points where howe can openly criticise the king, and bryce immediately admonishes him for both. one even has the toolset note: “speaks sharply, as a lord to a lesser man, not a friend to an equal”. it definitely comes across that way; the way he tells howe “that’s enough” is not far off the voice he uses when the player, his child, displeases him. bryce can’t tolerate any criticism of cailan, as the couslands in dao are ardent supporters of the king. to venture some hc, i suspect that this is not merely royalist fervour, and that howe’s resentment for having been given less is matched by bryce’s awareness of the precariousness of having more.

over the centuries, the theirins have consolidated their power and eradicated almost all the teyrns (the noble rank that is second only to the king). with the only other lingering teyrn being loghain, who is essentially part and parcel of the royal family, the couslands stand alone as the only real rivals to theirin power within ferelden. there are rumours that bryce was once considered for king instead of the theirins; he too could have decided to believe he “deserved more”. but unlike howe, and perhaps understandably given his strong position and happy growing family, he is satisfied with what he has. he will not take the risk of even the slightest challenge being made within his hall

(i expect that bryce’s satisfaction with the current situation further spurred howe’s dissatisfaction to its heights, given the complicated cousland-howe history and the fact that he was expected to accept a friend he had fought beside as a superior for the rest of his life.)

i don’t think howe’s judgement on cailan is likely to be without basis. we don’t hear about any victories the young king has to his name, from which he could have passed around spoils. (to be fair, cailan had harder luck than maric in this regard. a king who raises a successful rebellion gets to bring glory and prestige to everyone who follows him, whereas a king trying to rebuild after that rebellion mostly gets to bring, uh, taxes probably. especially on wealthy centres of trade like howe’s amaranthine, one might assume.) cailan also takes a far more diplomatic approach to the question of orlais, which perhaps predictably did not win over many nobles of howe’s generation. it makes sense that cailan’s strongest supporters would instead be men like bryce who hope for things to simply continue, peacefully, as they are. perhaps in another world where cailan had won the battle of ostagar, he might have earned wider respect. (you could actually argue on this basis that there’s more sense and purpose to cailan’s glory-seeking than he usually gets credit for.) but howe already acts before ostagar, which can only demonstrate his certainty in cailan’s failings at this point: his belief that even if cailan could win, he would not be stable enough to pursue justice for the couslands

[skunkes]

^_^ comm wippy yey yey

[sergle]

ironically i love thrifting but ive never thought about using ebay, do you have any tips or keywords you use on it to find deals and shifty stuff/wording to look out for?

honestly I don't find ebay to be shifty for buying stuff! people are scared about using it sometimes and I think it's a little funny lol I guess the tip would be that if you search for an item with vague enough terms, you'll get some SHEIN-esque mass produced clothes muddying the results. and you know it when you see it, because those listings look like shit btw. this type of thing:

like, these are real listings and everything, and you'd get the product, but they are obviously not what you're looking for. you can ignore these, but if you want to filter them out, you can just narrow the search to SPECIFICALLY pre-owned items.

There isn't really any wording to look out for-- the only other thing would just be to make sure the stuff you get can be returned, bc sellers can specify whether or not they'll take the items back!

[colorful-horses]

Hasbro heard about Monster High making a comeback and they came out mad as FUCK with these dolls

[arolesbianism]

Hiiii besties I um. Rly want money. Would anyone want a tweened icon like these for like $20? I'm usually pretty fast with them so it shouldn't take longer than like a few days max

[gibbearish]

kinda frustrating how we've spent the last few months acknowledging how a lot of well intentioned but guilt trippy social justice posts are like specifically designed to worm into ocd ppls brains and then now every single post abt palestine is "i dont care how bad your mental health is, i dont care how bad looking at all this makes you feel, if you don't read every single post you see on this topic in full you are a horrible person and directly contributing to their deaths. 'waaaah my mental health' well at least youre not being bombed, did you think about that??" and its like. i absolutely get where youre coming from but you dont get to complain that guilt tripping is bad then turn around and use it anyways because you think the cause youre using it for is worthwhile. like. everyone thinks the cause theyre using it for is worthwhile, thats why theyre using it. but its still a shit way to do it

[doubledyke]

How do you think EddEddy is an abusive pairing?

i don't think their relationship is abusive lol. i think it has the potential to be toxic and annoying, but that's mostly just early on. they fight, they break up, they get back together, rinse and repeat. they both cycle through periods of being too cold or too needy. they've got issues to work out and that's a messy process for 2 giant egos. but they never give up on each other. they've got that whole red thread of fate thing going on.

[snowshinobi]

nothing gets me like a character with overt flower symbolism ESPECIALLY self-inflicted

[altschmerzes]

here’s another thought i have on the finale which isn’t very high stakes but has been driving me Fucking Nuts:

re: the fight between jamie and roy about keeley. i thought it was stupid and lazy writing that did a disservice to everything else that dynamic was and encompassed. there was so much more there and THAT was how we closed it out eh? like kudos to her for going ‘uh, no’ and kicking them out, that was a good call, but the whole thing sucked so bad generally and wasted time we could’ve spent doing literally anything other than the most cliche, juvenile, classic ‘women are a prize for men to fight over’ thing. however what’s annoying me even more is the way people who DID like it are responding to people who didn’t.

i keep seeing people be like “ACTUALLY them fighting over her was fine and normal youre all just babies who can’t handle that sometimes people REGRESS and sometimes people are MEAN and UNFAIR and UNKIND” and it’s like nah man it’s because they avoided doing this shit entirely for three fucking years and then were like do you want the cliche love triangle bullshit you dodged the whole time heaped on you at the last second when it makes the least sense? sure, here you go!

is it regression if it’s something they never did in the first place? i think not! and characters can be mean and unfair and cruel and whatever and it’s not the end of the world, i actually think it’s very interesting, and THAT’S not the part i find out of character, it’s that they literally never did this before and now after EVERYTHING else, after how clear it was how gravely fucking serious jamie was about the video leak, this is the kind of shit they’re throwing at each other about this? after repeatedly subverting expectations of classic love triangle nonsense? it’s tired and it’s lazy and it’s the cheapest option and nobody is gonna be able to change my mind by telling me i just don’t understand that People Can Be Unfair Sometimes.

[tradingjackbs]

Attempted to do a photoshoot for the one and only cosplay I'll probably ever do and. These are the only pictures I got that matter

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have found a beautiful perfect humble rock specimen that is light yellow with a weird dark yellowy brown lining, somewhat resembling a chunk of smoked gouda cheese... effervescent

[paulmccartneyexplodingonstage]

I think lots of new artists make the mistake of thinking good art is down to the materials. Lord knows i thought the same when i was younger, but in actuality some of the best art i’ve seen was made with dollar store acrylics and paint brushes.

Don’t get me wrong, having access to high quality materials definitely helps elevate your craft, but it’s really not as important as a lot of people think. If you’re good at what you do, it’ll translate no matter what materials you’re using. Don’t stress so much about having the best or most expensive gear, focus on building skill, technique and conceptual knowledge.

Because if you can make good stuff with $2 paints, when you finally *can* upgrade to more expensive brands you’ll already be miles ahead of everyone else.

[meiozis]

sm really said damn here and made maybe 5 posts for this wayv comeback huh

[crashpit]

Working on a velour tracksuit for this doll bc they had lavender purple juicy couture velour fabric on sale at Joann and I could not resist. I have another doll with purple hair that this would look good on too but she is a curvy barbie so I'm gonna have to make another one of these tracksuits bigger. I already tried making the pants for this doll but those turned out too small in the waist so I have to try again.

Will have a proper, better post when the both suits are complete I will take pics of the girls together!