#hdu

[bylightofdawn]

I feel personally attacked by this post. HDU judge me for my love of research rabbit holes. I lovingly include details in my fics so that exactly .05% will see the loving amount of detail I put into my research and appreciate it. Everyone else is just stuck going on the journey with me. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

This is why I read the reddit comments

[dsh-bangladesh]

[lunaxriax]

Why are you asking me where I have been? I'm not the one who suddenly vanished >.>

I did not- shh. Be quiet. You're asking me where I have been so I can ask you where you have been, satan. Don't be like this.

[latebuthere]

No, because I absolutely agree.

Aveline is very much the person who believes she's knows better than anyone--she's very self righteous--and refuses to take any kind of accountability for her actions (see leandra's death.)

I could go on, but I will end this agreement with only the following statement:

No one insults my brother except for me, damnit.

I said I wasn't going to get started on the topic of Aveline ruining Carver's chances with the guard but I lied okay, it's Carver Hawke defense hours.

Here's the thing; it doesn't matter if you believe Carver was or wasn't fit for the guard. That's a different debate that I'll get to. What matters is Aveline's in no position to tell the guard not to accept his application. Why does she think that's her right to judge whether or not he's fit?

Carver should've had the chance to prove himself one way or another. If it turns out he's not a good fit, then let him fail. Let him learn from it.

"Oh but failure could mean lost lives-"

Aveline doesn't get to talk shit about failure and the people. Plenty have died on her watch yet she still believes she's a good guard and Guard-Captain.

"maybe Aveline's protecting him, Carver could die while on patrol-"

Carver could die working in the Bone Pit, or serving as a templar, or when he's running around with Hawke. Carver could trip and fall down a set of stairs and die. In fact, he can die in the Deep Roads, somewhere he wouldn't have to go if the Hawke's weren't desperate.

Either Carver fails as a guard, or more likely, he succeeds and proves himself worthy of it.

But let's be real, Carver probably kept getting rejected due to being a Fereldan with a past of smuggling/mercenary work and Aveline only reaffirmed the decision, either because they asked her what she thought or she stuck her nose in unprompted.

But what irritates me is that she admits to telling them not to accept his application, and then has the balls to call Carver too proud to take up a trade or find another line of work.

Carver tells her, "And who would take on a Fereldan apprentice? Maybe in another year I could work my way up to pissboy." He has a good point here. Aside from the guard, the only other place Carver could work and use his skillset is with the Templars. Or go back to mercenary/smuggling work.

And Aveline doesn't even have a real answer for him. No suggestions, no encouragement, nothing. Just "Fine, let's crawl down some holes. Good bloody luck for your sake."

Also, if you do the Mark of the Assassin DLC in Act 1-

Aveline: You should see if any of the noblemen are looking for new men-at-arms. Carver: Are you trying to get rid of me? Aveline: It's a role with some autonomy. A good fit with your training and... tendencies. Carver: After serving King Cailan? You want me to suffer some poncy git who needs two servants to wipe his own ass? I'll find my own way, thanks. Aveline: I wish you would.

You wish he would?? Aveline, he was trying to find his way into the guard, a position he'd make a good fit for, and you helped deny him of it because YOU didn't think he would be good enough, I just-

If I haven't made it clear yet, I firmly believe that Carver would've made a great guard. He wants to help people, to be a protector. He's loyal, and despite what Aveline claims, he can follow orders and take his duty seriously. We see him do incredibly well with the Grey Wardens, after all. If he were a guard, he wouldn't have to go down into the Deep Roads with Hawke, and I think he would've been okay with that! He's so hurt and bitter when you leave him behind because that effectively tells him, "I don't need you." Carver's spent the whole first act telling you he wants to go on the expedition aka that he wants to be needed.

But if he were a guard, he would be needed elsewhere. He'd be in training as a recruit. He'd look after Leandra while you go. He wouldn't be backed into a corner with no income and only the templars left as his chance at forging his own path and providing for his family.

He doesn't get that opportunity, though.

By the way, if he becomes a warden, you can get this banter:

Aveline: I'm glad you found a place with the Wardens. Carver: Well, it's not the city guard, but it'll do. Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you. Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

This banter makes me want to scream.

Aveline's just... she's so insistent that she's right. She's someone who will double down rather than entertain the idea that she's wrong and it's not just with Carver and the guard, it's with everything. The "my beef with Aveline" list gets longer and longer every time I replay da2, I swear.

Say what you will about Carver, whether you think he would've been a good fit or if Aveline's right and it wasn't for him, he was denied a chance and it cost him so much in the end. He either dies, or he joins the templars where he deals with Chantry's bullshit trying to brainwash him with "mages aren't people" and "magic is a cancer in this world", or he's infected with the blight and becomes a Grey Warden, forced to serve the rest of his life fighting darkspawn, tormented by voices and nightmares.

I will never not be bitter about this.

[celebrimborium]

I never let you lift your hand. It was you. Just you. Getting stronger.

[iamadequate1]

Ugh, Stizzy and Steddyhands canon insistence stuff assaulting my human eyeballs again. Stede had more satisfying sex with Mary than he'd ever have with Izzy (or Jack or Ricky or Nigel or Chauncey or any of these other dbags).

Meanwhile, lest we forget, S2 gave us only two glimpses of Stede's unfiltered thought of Izzy. Which, uh... he doesn't actually like Izzy.

The second glimpse is when they meet face to face and Stede tells him to piss off so he can talk to the adults.

The first glimpse is the beginning dreams where he angrily stabs Izzy for selling them out to the English... and then promptly forgets Izzy exists to run along the beach and begin his nightly sex dream of Ed.

This, of course, foreshadows the finale where Stede stabs another colonizer prick who happily works for the English, and then Stede runs carefree to Ed.

If Zheng hadn't interrupted, things would have swiftly escalated into sex dream-into-reality territory there. Goddammit, Zheng!

[lovepollution]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that I don't think the person who wrote the Hamish and Lily interview actually watched Midnight Mass...

[dotthings]

Jensen is so cute making his little joke about "if there's interest, I'll start pushing for a revival" yes he was kidding, and that was his little joke for all the people out there who want an spn revival. For those who don't want an spn revival, too bad for you. Jensen absolutely knows there's interest, it's self-evidently silly to think he was being serious about not knowing. He's also talked non-stop about an spn revival, and has talked about wanting to put those boots back on, and talked about Dean, and talked about the characters, he has such intense brainrot. So yes, he's the funniest, out there making jokes as if he isn't already trying to move the earth to get a revival to happen, as if he doesn't know that so many people are hungry for it. No really he's adorable <33333 and his little joke just means the clown nose I already had glued to my face gets another layer of epoxy glue.

[chamerionwrites]

A thought I have been idly turning over is that the argument can be made - and made pretty compellingly imo - in both directions that the changes from Cassian’s sketchy offscreen backstory in R1 to that presented in Andor serve to portray him as a more/less uncomplicatedly sympathetic hero and/or victim of imperial violence.

On the one hand “traumatized refugee orphan turned hustler, saddled with a juvenile record and nursing a self-protective apathy approach to politics, radicalized by the proverbial straw(s) that broke the camel’s back after a lifetime of survival in a system that wants to kill him” clearly complicates the narrative from “I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old.” And quite frankly, hard NOT to complicate the narrative when you’ve got an entire TV series to stretch your narrative legs in vs a single film with an ensemble cast. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to suggest that a story which has vastly more space to expand on an idea necessarily has smarter things to say so much as more space in which to say them - but I do respect the commitment to complication and interrogation, nonetheless.

On the other hand the implication of R1 - made extremely albeit briefly explicit in the offscreen references to, and I quote, Outer Rim “anarchist movements” and children “tossing rocks and bottles at Republic walkers” (no further comment at this time but like…oof) - is not, imo, a less thoughtful or complicated or potentially subversive story. Some of the complexities certainly lie in different places! But I don’t even think that such questions as “Does a slightly-selfish-on-the-surface grifter ask more from the audience than a dedicated idealist?” are as straightforward as they initially appear, within the broader context of a media landscape that is frequently far more comfortable lauding revolutionary action as a variation on a revenge plot (Everyman Hero just wanted to keep his head down and live his life until Evil Empire killed his girlfriend/family/best pal/etc etc) than as a natural outgrowth of ideological conviction (which is for Scary Radicals*). I also continue to find it UNBELIEVABLY tantalizing that R1!Cassian was explicitly described as, if not a Separatist himself (hard to describe a six year old that way or know how he would describe himself as an adult!), then unquestionably part of that ideological lineage, in that Star Wars as a franchise has never been willing to give more than halfhearted lip service to the idea of Separatists as anything but cartoonishly over the top villains - or, by extension, to the idea that the Republic was the Anakin Skywalker to the Empire’s Darth Vader. Even in highly abridged form, that’s a backstory that’s begging a lot of pointed and fascinating questions (What are the political fault lines within the Rebel Alliance? What does it mean that this franchise’s treatment of the Clone Wars has frequently boiled down to glibly setting up and knocking down arguments about Third World sovereignty and resource extraction? Can you as the audience imagine a political movement that contains both incredibly corrupt bad actors and grassroots liberation movements under the same broad ideological umbrella?)

ANYWAY TL;DR I think there’s a lot that’s spiky and unstraightforward and potentially subversive about both of those backstories, and I don’t think you need to dismiss the complexities of either in order to appreciate the other.

*I am OFC not saying that Andor doesn’t engage with ideological conviction, because it does! I am merely pointing out that - outside the audience demographic of broadly left-leaning people on tumble - a loveable rogue who wants to stay out of politics and survive does not necessarily read as less likable or morally upright than a revolutionary who’s fully prepared to Die For The Cause.

[finalgayze]

im alive just thought i was dying for a hot minute.

[golmorehotgirl]

Just saw my first “gender height swap” mod for viera and homie…just play another race don’t fucking piss me off

I always try to practice a “live and let live” type attitude for mods that aren’t inherently harmful but this one annoys me so much because I hate when people sand down the few interesting race quirks we get to uphold the rigid gender norms we have irl. Like I’m going to hold your hand when I say this, I promise you it’ll be okay if the femme presenting one in a m/f dynamic is taller. The world won’t end I promise!!!!

Also want to edit to add in that if you use something similar because you play a trans character obv that’s different! It’s the ones that swap all m/f I’m talking about.

[carlos-tk]

hi lil update

+ a thank you for everyone’s kind words this morning ❤️

[crowsintheforest]

finally started natlan, and the soundtrack for genshin gets better with every expansion. how dare hoyo, honestly

[redbelles]

for the ao3 meme, 18, 19, and 27! oh and 15 ofc 😇

18. the character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

[bucky voice]: MAAAAAAAARGE

she is still tormenting me! i am still wrestling with her chapter! it's been months! free me!

19. what’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

beyond what i already have on tap (feyd/irulan, guts/casca, aemond/rhaena, etc.) i have no earthly idea. i'm sure i'll get jumped by some unexpected whackass ship and lose several months to it, as i am wont to do

27. what do you listen to while writing?

if the brain rot is bad enough, project-specific playlists! here is the nonsense for chimneys :)

if i don't have a specific list though it's a pretty safe bet that i, me, meg redbelles, parody of myself, am listening to bruce springsteen

+ 15. what wip are you taking into next year with you?

un! fucking! believable! i am under attack! ......anyway it's chimneys

ao3 wrapped asks ✨

[mobscene-awards]

BIGGEST SIMP:

Francisco Vidal

Ayaz Ateş

Olivier Fontaine

Henry García

Runner(s) Up: Aviv Kasyanenko, Yves de Metz.

[thedarkestgreys]

WHY IS TAYLOR SWIFT PLAYING??????