#i dont think i like my title but whatever

[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

[marblerose-rue]

click for better quality!

the planes of existence

[jrueships]

im going into my new work tomorrow, first time ever😐

[sonknuxadow]

they werent lying that knuckles series barely has knuckles in it

[necrophiliak]

I found you via tumblrs orbit system and you sounded kinda nervous about your ocs, so I’m gonna appear in your askbox and shout “yaaaay ocs!”

a idk if its nervousness per se and more just a combo of hope tht ppl will like+care abt them and me being awkward/not knowing what to say (but 40k ppl have been super nice ive never actually had ppl care abt my ocs before outside of my close friends ToT and they arent into 40k)

anyway. um yeah. ty tho 🥺 i rly appreciate it

[kalaidosnail]

When they were 8 years old, Jonathan Sims watched one of their bullies die at the hands of the Leitner known as Mr. Spider. They found themselves unable to share their experience with his grandmother, instead delving into whatever books he could find to soothe their mind. This led them down a path which eventually found them with a small notebook in his hands, scribbling down notes as he scrambled through abandoned buildings, poking Artifacts with sticks. After being saved once or twice by a disgruntled Gertrude Robinson, they continued to investigate, becoming a sort of ward of many of the Avatars of London. He observed the process of skin burning on many afternoons spent with Jude Perry, trembling but ultimately standing still, wide eyed, drinking it all in. They learned how to spin a baton and balance on a tightrope while Nikola Orsinov clapped delightedly at his efforts. Annabelle Cain herself helped him find closure and peace after they confided in her what had happened with the Leitner. Many others would ask after his well-being, sending them birthday gifts and dropping by with treats the one time they became sick with the flu. Gertrude, reluctant as she was to let a child be claimed by a Fear, helped him forge a connection to the Eye, and taught them how to hide from James Wright, then from Elias Bouchard. Now, they have found a position as her replacement, the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. 

   How will they manage to handle their grief for Gertrude, evade Bouchard’s schemes, diffuse political tensions between the Avatars, and wrangle their trio of disconcertingly attractive and devastatingly mischievous assistants? 

Well, for once in his life, he really just doesn’t Know. Should be interesting, at least.

--

In other words, I've decided to do a chatfic. Kinda. Jon knows how to use a phone, that's it that's the premise.

[avvidstarion]

Your Childhood Home is Just Powder-White Bones

aka Avvid's journey into necromancy!!! 4.5k words (ao3)

You were never a very strong child, so when they weren’t trying to kill you they mostly left you alone.

The adults ignored you, figuring one of your cousins would take you out sooner or later and then there would be one less burden on the creche. They barely even tried to teach you to fight, only including you in the occasional training session when they needed an extra punching bag. Eventually, even when your cousins tried to kill you it seemed halfhearted. You just weren’t strong enough to be considered worth anyone’s time. 

So they left you alone.

The best thing about growing up in a castle is that there were so many places to explore. The creche mostly kept itself to a select few rooms in the north wing, the places they considered most important– kitchen, armory, bedrooms– so the rest of the ruins were yours and yours `alone. While your cousins were being taught to kill, you picked your way through the crumbling, decrepit hallways, climbing over piles of rubble and squeezing through collapsed doorways. Your ancestors didn’t much care about maintaining the structural integrity of the keeps they seized to build creches. 

You don’t quite remember the exact day you found the library– you were young, that’s as much as you know. Books had never been a large part of your life; you were taught the basics of reading and writing in your language, but that was it. The education your elders provided you with came from practical experience rather than written word: here’s how to swing a sword. Here’s how to break someone’s wrist. Here’s how to not scream when someone else breaks your wrist. 

The library was dilapidated, the roof half-caved in. Plant growth made its ways through the broken windows and up the walls, dust covered every visible surface. Your feet crunched on glass and tiny vermin bones as you made your way over to the sagging bookshelves. You ran your fingers along the spines of the books, pulled one out at random, and sat down in a moldy, chewed-up armchair. There was no profound reason that led you to teaching yourself to read; it was simply a matter of your having a lot of time on your hands, and the fact that you liked the way that the books felt and smelled.

The books were all in common, a language you could speak but not read. You had to start with primers for children, which made you feel a bit foolish even though you yourself were a child. The primers were a lot of nonsense for the most part, rhymes designed to teach simple phonetics or concepts that would have been familiar to the children for which this book was intended (yes, you knew the dog went woof, several books mention it— but what was a dog?????). 

The primers talked a lot about mothers and fathers, and that’s what first inclined you to believe that life in the creche is not at all similar to the way life is lived on the rest of the Material Plane. You didn’t know whose mind your egg formed from– you never gave it much thought. Family didn’t matter in the creche– you called your peers “cousins”, but you likely were unrelated genetically. The only things that mattered were yourself and how well you were able to impress your superiors. 

But the world the primers described was different. Family was important: share with your siblings, take care of your pets. Mom and Dad love you. 

You had already known the children of the lord of this manor were cared for. Some time before you discovered the library, you had discovered what remained of the manor’s nursery. The children of the manor slept in plush beds made of down, not in rows of bedrolls on the floor. They had soft toys to play with. They lived in comfort and safety. They were not told that they must eliminate each other to survive. The primers and picture books said that Material children had people who loved them, who sang them to sleep at night and tucked them into bed. Who held them when they were sad. 

This was utterly alien to you. The only times anyone had ever put their hands on you was when they meant you harm.

Once you graduated from the primers and moved onto the textbooks and scrolls, you discovered other differences between your creche and the world of the Material Plane. You found no book detailing the killing arts; killing others outside of war was a crime to these people. War was common, from what you could tell, but with every description of battle came a sum of casualties, of things lost. The gith did not keep track of things lost, only things gained.

History books and atlases were your favorite; you loved learning about the Plane on which you lived. Your whole life had been confined to this manor, and you thought it contained everything in the world,  but just outside the door there was so, so much more than you ever could have imagined. You read about vast kingdoms that rose and fell, cultures and people that you hadn’t even known existed. You loved to read about geography– from what you could tell you lived on the continent of Faerûn, on the Northern Sword Coast, near the city of Neverwinter. You could never have guessed that the Material Plane was so vast, that it had so much history (though, given the state of the manor and its books, you guessed that there was a chance that any material you read about was outdated– you did not know by how long, your people never really paid much attention to the passage of time, but still). 

You were still a child when you found the book that laid your soul out bare before you. It was not a book on history or geography or culture, but a book on magic– not a tome, exactly, or a grimoire, or anything of that nature. It was more of an introduction to the theory  of the thing than an actual spellbook. You knew what magic was, but not much beyond that; your people used it, but they never studied it. It was just another way for them to make war, just another tool to destroy. But the book you found spoke of magic as if it was something that could be used to do just the opposite– it was something that could create. 

 “Magic is an act of wanting made manifest; want is the ultimate driving force of creation,” the book said. And, oh, how you wanted. You would look at your cousins and your superiors and think of the loving world described in the primers and you wanted. And if you wanted, well, maybe you could create whatever it is that could ease the aching inside of you. 

Magic. The thought of it thrilled you, sent sparks through your blood. Perhaps there was more to this world than fighting and killing and destroying. 

You devoted your life to learning, to devouring any book in the library that so much as mentioned magic. “Cantrips,” read another book, “are spells that can be cast at will without much effort. They are a spellcaster’s baseline, the most foundational spells in their repertoire”. You found them to be, frankly, boring. Prestidigitation. Light. Control Flame. You soon hit a wall.  Cantrips could not fill the hole inside of you, but you had nowhere else to turn; the library’s selection of books concerning magic was small.

When you finished reading through the sum of the library’s magical repertoire and still had not found the solution to all of your problems, you did the only thing you could do: you sat in the corner among the dust and the mold and the vermin bones, and you cried. You let all of your frustrations, all of your fear and your anger, flow from your eyes and your mouth in a river of tears and wails. There was no way you would have ever been able to find a spell that would have gotten you out of here, a spell that would have let you experience such exotic joys as family and dogs, but you had hoped– well, you had hoped you would have at least found a way to be less lonely. 

That surge, that powerful wave of loneliness and disappointment and wanting, is what made the bones begin to rattle. It was quiet at first, but then it grew so loud and so quick that you stopped weeping, perplexed, and looked down at the ground beside you.

The vermin bones that you had taken little notice of were moving. They were shaking, rattling, rolling, a faint green aura emitting from them as, one by one by one, they began to knit themselves back together. 

You had entirely stopped crying now, your perplexion turned to shock turned to joy as the little rat skeleton before you took one step, then two, and then creakily and stiffly made its way over to you. It bumped against your hand, nudged it with its head. It nudged your hand with its head! 

As gently as you could with your shaking hands you picked it up, cupped it in your palms. It wriggled a bit, then began to prance its way up your arm, across your shoulders and back down again. Its tiny little foot bones tickled your skin, and you laughed, joy bubbling from your chest and flowing all throughout your body. You imagined that if the rat had working vocal chords– any vocal cords at all– it would also be squeaking with delight. You had both been lonely for so long, collecting dust in this library without anyone knowing or caring that you were gone. But things were different now– you had a friend! You both did! 

The rat settled itself on your shoulder, and you gave it a nice pat with your hand, tracing the notches in its spine with your fingers. You decided to name it Nasher, which, according to your history books, was the current ruler of nearby Neverwinter.

The wanting lessened, but still did not disappear. 

Time passed. At first you worried that Nasher was a fluke, something you couldn’t recreate– it took you a long time to learn how to focus your magic on specific sets of bones, to learn how to purposefully encourage them to come back together. But you got there eventually. You raised a veritable rodent army there in the heart of your dusty, dilapidated kingdom. Rats, mice, squirrels, even a cat or two all joined you in your solitude. You named them all, loved them all, spent your days dancing and running with your new friends. The empty halls of the decaying manor echoed with your laughter and the clacking of bones. 

But still you wanted.

You wanted– something. You couldn’t put words to it, not exactly. But it wasn’t something that your animal friends could give you.

There were other bones in the manor. You had seen them during your wanderings, crushed under rubble or just left there in their death stains. The taking of this manor was not a peaceful affair; your kinsmen slaughtered without care and left the bodies of those who used to live here where they fell. And there were so many people who had lived there, guards and lords and maids and servants all abandoned, all forgotten. 

There was a medical text in the library. According to it, the adult human body had 206 bones. 

You spent two tendays studying that textbook, learning how humans’ bodies fit together like 206 puzzle pieces. The hands alone were so intricate– phalanxes and metacarpals all connecting to the radius and ulna. 33 vertebrae to make the spine, 24 ribs plus the sternum to protect the fleshy bits in the chest. Humans had 32 teeth– two more than you do, you counted– and unlike your rows of needle-sharp fangs, humans only had a few teeth that were pointed. The meat of the body was less important to you, at least with the resources you have now, but you studied it anyway. Muscles and tendons and fat, the organs and their placements. The four humors and their uses. All throughout your studies, you wondered how similar your body was to  humans’ bodies– did your organs line up the same? How many vertebrae did you have? You weren’t sure how to go about finding out, given that cutting yourself open wasn’t a good option. 

It took another three days for you to collect all the necessary pieces. You knew where to find the bodies, but so many of them were incomplete, falling apart due to time or animal interference. Picking through the rubble, collecting femurs and tibias, you were reminded of the egg hunts that the children in your primers would go on. Nasher and your other friends would squeeze into cracks for you, helping gather scattered knuckles and teeth. Eventually, you were able to come up with all 206 from what you estimated were four to five different sources.

The day you intended to sneak away to experiment was one of the seemingly random days that the adults remembered you existed, so you had to wait. You got your teeth quite literally kicked in during the sparring session: running your tongue over the gaps, you estimated you now had 27 teeth, and nearly as many bruises to your midsection and upper body, so you decided it was best to wait yet another day for the good of your health (well, really, it was your body that decided for you; you couldn’t get out of your bedroll the next morning). But then– finally, finally you were able to slip away, hobbling your way through the halls and passageways that you could easily navigate even with the limited visibility from your swollen, blackened eyes. 

The bones were right where you left them, laid out on the floor in exact formation. Your little friends squirmed and jumped around you– you apologized to them that you hadn’t been home, knowing that they must miss you when you’re away. You could tell they were excited, too, as excited as you were. 

You sat down beside the head of the skeleton, placed your hands on either side of its skull, and wanted. You let every moment of sadness, of loneliness, of pain that you had ever felt in every day of your life well up inside of you until tears ran down your face and you thought your heart was going to break. There was a sort of pulling inside of you, like something had grabbed a hold of your soul– the feeling you had when you cast cantrips, only multiplied a hundredfold. And then, just when you thought you were going to choke on your sobs, the rattling started. 

You scrambled backwards, eyes screwing up against the bright green glow the bones emanated as they came together. When you opened them, the skeleton– the skeleton!!!-- was scrambling on the ground, jerkily trying to make its way to its feet. Standing up in a rush, you offered your hand to it; it took it, and you pulled it to its feet, where it stood unsteadily. 

The two of you stared at each other for several, long seconds, and then, with a jerky, shaky hand, it reached out towards you and wiped the tears from your cheek.

With another sob, you threw yourself into its arms, almost knocking it over with your force. It slowly wrapped its arms around you and, though you knew that it was your magic controlling the bones, your hands puppetting the strings, you still buried your face into its sternum and cried as it held you. 

The time passed peaceably. Your new friend– privately you thought of them as Mom– couldn’t speak, no matter how much you wanted them to, but they still ran their finger bones through your hair while you napped in the library’s decaying armchairs, which was the closest thing to a lullaby you knew you’d hear. Mom would play hide and seek with you and the animals. They would hold you as you cried. You desperately wanted them to make you a home-cooked meal and eat with you at the dinner table, but your people had control of the dining halls and the kitchen, so you didn’t think you’d be able to sneak your friend in there. Your mom, in response to your want, once laid out a half-rotting rodent carcass in front of you as you sat reading at a desk, and– well. It’s the thought that counts. You made sure to stash the carcass safely so that you could befriend it once all the meat was gone. 

The meat– it continued to vex you. You had plenty of access to half-rotten things, rats laying forgotten and half eaten in corners, but you were hesitant to bring any of those back due to smells and disease and whatnot. Plus it would probably be terrible to live out eternity like that, falling apart and reeking. So you usually just worked on bones that were already clean, but that was growing to be too easy. You wanted to try something new.

You wanted to try something fresh.

But– how? You could try to find an animal that had just died, but it would be hard. You could find a living animal and kill it, but the thought made you sad. Plus, living things didn’t seem to like you much, anyway– the living rats all ran away from you if you passed by. They could smell the death on you, you figured. 

There were the other gith, but if you had learned one thing in life, it’s that you weren’t much good in a fight– and you doubted you could cantrip someone to death, anyhow. Not before they could get to you. You could maybe try to catch one of your cousins unawares, but there were so few of them left– under ten, including you– that they all tended to stick close to each other, anyhow. 

It was a very long time before the opportunity presented itself. One day in the cold months, Elder Ra’akos fell ill and did not recover. This was a bit of a predicament for your creche– death did not exist in the Astral Plane, so creches never really knew how to deal with it. Countless of your cousins had died, sure, but that was what weeded out the strong. It was natural. An adult githyanki dying, especially a creche Elder, was…strange. Adult gith who died on the Material Plane were viewed as either unlucky or as poor soldiers, and neither deserved any sort of ceremony. When Elder Ra’akos died, he was taken out back and buried under a thin layer of soil, only to keep the animals away. 

This was great for you, obviously. The night they buried him, you and your friends snuck out using the library’s windows. You cut your hands on the broken glass as you climbed out, but hardly noticed. You had never been outside before– the young were strictly forbidden from leaving the creche. The night was dark; you willed a ball of light into your hand to see your way– maybe cantrips could be useful after all– and in the glowing light of your magic the world was beautiful. There was grass beneath your feet, damp and cool and green. A breeze kissed your skin, ruffled your hair– you closed your eyes, comforted. And the sky! You had no idea there were so many stars. You made a mental note to take a peak at one of the astronomy books that called the library home. 

Striding across the grass, friends in tow, you made your way around the manor, towards the back where you knew they buried your cousins and now, apparently, Elder Ra’akos. There was a fresh mound, right at the edge of the woods (the woods!! You wondered how many trees there were, what kind of things lived inside). There was no grave, which didn’t surprise you. It’s not like there would be anyone else who came back here and visited. 

Kneeling in the dirt, you dug with your scraped and bloodstained hands until the earth was caked under your fingernails. It didn’t take long to find him, still in his bedclothes, face down in his grave. You tried to haul him out of the shallow hole, but you weren’t strong enough. Mom  tried to help, but being made entirely of bones, they didn’t really have much strength either. 

You decided to just do the ritual there, turning Elder Ra’akos over onto his back. Again you assumed position at the head of the body, touching your hands to the side of his skull. You did your best to conjure up memories of Elder Ra’akos as he had been in life; that time when he slapped your knuckles when you asked for second portions at dinner. That time he just stood there watching as one of your cousins attempted to strangle you. That time during weapons training when he told you to stop wasting everyone’s time and resources and just let one of your cousins take you out of your misery. 

There were a lot of things you wanted from Elder Ra’akos. You wanted him to be a kinder man. You wanted him to understand that you weren't just a waste, that you were smart and capable and of value. But mostly you just wanted him to resurrect so you could prove that you could fucking do it.

And you could. Stiffly, limbs cracking from the rigor mortis, Elder Ra’akos climbed his way out of his grave. 

You weren’t sure how much of Ra’akos was left in there, but you thought you saw a faint glimmer of recognition and possibly even respect in his dead eyes. Although that could have been your own pride reflecting back at you. 

When you and your strange parade of undead returned to your beloved library, you realized that you weren’t quite sure what exactly you wanted to do with the shambling form of Elder Ra’akos. You could not think of him as Dad in the way you could think of the skeleton as Mom. You briefly considered dissecting him– you did want to know what your insides look like, and how they compared to the human anatomy textbook– but you didn’t know how you’d manage to stuff all the insides back in, afterwards. You didn’t have a needle and thread handy, and have no way of acquiring one unsuspiciously. 

Cautiously you approached the being that used to be Elder Ra’akos. It opened its arms to you, face twisting in an approximation of a smile (or maybe a grimace), and you allowed yourself to be embraced. Privately, guiltily, you admitted that the fleshiness of Ra’akos made for a much better hugging partner than dearest Mom. The flesh wasn’t warm, not like a living being would be, but you liked it. You thought again about all of the ways Ra’akos hurt you in life; you thought about the gentleness with which his body held you in death. You decided to let bygones be bygones– you were never one to hold a grudge, anyway. 

The cold months ended, and so did your luck. You weren’t surprised, not really, when one night you were dragged from your sleeping bag to the training room floor, where the rest of your cousins waited with their knives and hammers and fists. 

  You were not sure how old you were– time, as mentioned, was a relatively useless concept to the gith. Aging only mattered during the creche years, and even then, not really. But you could still tell you were growing older. You weren’t an adult, not yet, but you weren’t a child any more. And your cousins were older, anyway. It was time for them to determine who among them would be taken to the Astral Plane, and only one could win that game. Everyone knew that it wouldn’t be you. Everyone knew that you wouldn’t have been able to hide in the dusty shadows forever. 

You just hoped that they would make it quick. But they didn’t; of course they didn’t. All of your cousins wanted to get a hit in, they all wanted to show the watching Elders what they could do. They had always looked down on you, the weakling who hatched late and couldn’t fight and who cried when they hit you. It was only a matter of time before they got sick of you. 

The pain seemed to go on forever. 

You missed Nasher. You missed Mom and Ra’akos. You wished you could have seen them one last time.

Would they miss you, when you were gone? You didn’t want them to be lonely. 

You wished you were never hatched. You wished your egg rotted and collapsed in on itself. 

It was all just so unfair. You wished you had been born as someone else. You wished you had parents and siblings who loved you. You wished you had friends you could laugh with. You wished you could see the world, go on an adventure. You wished you had a dog. 

But mostly you wished that your cousins loved you. 

The pain stopped. You cracked open your eyes and found that all of your cousins were dead on the floor, bodies still twitching with arcane energy. 

Huh. You wondered what spell that was. 

You struggled to your feet, but were only able to take a few unsteady steps before your legs gave out. But before you hit the ground, a pair of arms took hold of you. Then another, and another. Your cousins. At first, for a moment, you thought they hadn’t actually died, that they were going to finish you off. But they were smiling in death in a way they never did in life.

Your cousins hugged you, held your hands, kissed your bruised and bloody forehead.

Peals of laughter burst from your throat. The corpses of your cousins gurgled in response. This had to have been the best day of your life. 

Oh, you couldn’t wait to introduce your cousins to Nasher, and Mom, and the improved Ra’akos. You couldn’t wait to show them all of your favorite hiding spots, and your books, and your favorite games. You doubt they knew how to play hide-and-seek, but you could teach them. 

Atop the balcony overlooking the training area, the Elders watched with interest. They had known that you had been experimenting with corpses; don’t think that Ra’akos’s suddenly empty grave went unnoticed. They knew you had latent magical ability– they just didn’t know that magic could be so powerful. So deadly. 

Soon they would contact the Queen, inform her of a new, unexpected development. They would ask if this was an avenue worth pursuing, a weapon worth investing in. Soon she would give the order to have you taken from your decaying family, from the Plane that you chose as your home. You wouldn’t let them, of course, but they would try.

But you didn’t know this. For now, you danced hand in hand with your cousins, dizzy with laughter and motion and love. 

[ssteeltwigzz]

See a viscera playlist: Yahoo! Songs about tearing apart!

[Open the playlist. Underwhelming pop music about giving away your body in the name of love. Close playlist.]

[vk06bg]

Need to be more careful when daydreaming my OCs!!!

[dorkicon]

bitching abt my job again

tags contain frank mentions of transphobia and homophobia

[lunar-fey]

i was tagged by @lidrens for this wip folder meme :3

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

i dont actually have a wip folder. my entire gdrive is my wips folder. but uhh anyway lets go:

half empty or half full, either way it's just 1/2

do you regret it yet? / you ever been in so much pain you invent praying? (side story to ^)

nightmare / you find yourself in a void

hard to be a good person (when you're hardly a person at all)

heroine

dragon's son

okay lets see. im not getting 6 but 3 of those are real wips so. @composeregg @playtwewy @odysseys-blood . im sure more of you people have wips. feel free to say i tagged you <3

[broke-on-books]

Happy poetry month! In the spirit of the month, what's your favourite poem? I'm not an avid poetry reader but mine is We Only Want the Earth.

Ooooh I'll have to check that one out, I don't think I've read it!

Hmmm as for favorite poem, there's a few I throw out as my top poem with frequency, but here I've got to say The Bridge by C. Dale Young. I just adore its positivity and the way it isn't afraid to be in love with the small details of life. That's just a feeling I relate with so much in my life and the whole poem is SUCH a vibe. Think I called it my idea of the world's greatest love poem in an essay once (which is def A Claim which idk if I'd fully back up now but the vibes are there) because it isn't just a poem about being in love with someone, it's loving everything they do and everything around you and loving just the world as a whole and how you see it everyday. Its such a vibe fr

Just- THIS !!!! ^^^^^^

[readymades2002]

trying to do some financial math for if i move out and getting sick to my stomach

[laesas]

KPTS Playlists

Kim's Album || Chay's Album

So the concept behind this is that Kim releases a post-canon album and Porchay releases an album of his own in response. I love the idea of how the songs on each of these would affect the other person listening to them, as well as giving both characters the ability to use songs to communicate feelings that they can't express openly in person.

KimChay - Why else would I tutor you?

A big mixture of both KimChay albums + some extras that didnt fit either album but fit KimChay as a whole or inspired me while writing.

Additional Playlists and rambling under the cut 🖤

VegasPete Shoot Me || VegasPete Let it Out

I love both these VP moods but struggled with mixing them in a single playlist! The vibes were too all over the place - so now theres one for the emotional stuff and one for the self-destructive decisions bourne from hedgehog funerals and bisexual lighting

SO! Thoughts on playlists:

The concepts behind the KimChay playlists are my favourite and they're the ones I put the most thought into! - I started them back in july and I'm still adding to them now! They're not necessarily all about Kim and Chay's relationship per-se, there are a couple that I think really fit Kim's relationship with his brothers for example, or the way that Porchay feels living in the compound with his lack of autonomy. I've tried to keep a consistent sound/vibe throughout and match both the lyrics and the sound to the melancholy post canon situation!

My absolute favourite is Chay's album (lovingly referred to as the chaylist). Picturing the absloute breakdown Kim would have listening to some of these songs sang by Chay is so delicious to think about. Hopefully these would be the catalyst to a KimChay resolution!

There are a couple of other less developed/experimental playlists like for KinnBig, Tankhun (sad lol) and KimBig on my spotify profile! (as well as some other non KP playlists)

If you liked any of these, found a new favourite, or found them useful/helpful for art/writing/rotating the faves in your mind, feel free to share and to come yell at me about them here! DMs are open, anons are on! I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!

[infizero]

ok guys i dont wanna be a hater but im gonna be 100% honest i didnt rlly like the nimona movie 😭 I MEAN IT WAS FUN. it was nice. but i feel like it was missing everything that made me like the original graphic novel and honestly by the last like 30 minutes i was kind of just waiting for it to be over so i could read the book again 😭 NO HATE TO ANYONE WHO RLLY LIKED IT believe me when i say i dont think it is bad or anything. but i feel like just sooooo much was changed that it didnt feel like nimona at all to me. idk how to explain it, im sure once i reread the book i’ll be able to put it into words since the original will be more fresh in my mind. i think it was good but as someone who was literally obsessed w the og graphic novel it was honestly kinda disappointing. but i dont rlly care honestly its still rlly cool it got a movie!! 

but in my mind at least it proves that some things dont need to be made into a movie. ppl act like movies are the best form a piece of media can take and if something gets made into a movie then that’d be the peak form of it. but i honestly think nimona works wayyyyyy better in its original graphic novel form. most of the early stuff is way more slice of life lowkey stuff that lets you get attached to ballister and nimona as characters and get invested in their relationship w each other, BEFORE all the angsty final act stuff happens. also there honestly was just a ton of stuff that felt to me like it worked better in the original, like jousting tournament thing instead of the knighting ceremony, nimona being captured and being forced to turn into her “true” form rather than this new version with it just sort of happening bcuz of Emotions, etc. also the movie suffered from a lot of pacing and tone issues imo but the former i think is just from that lack of the slow buildup of their friendship, and the latter is something that i think just worked better in the book. idk again I’LL BE ABLE TO SAY THIS STUFF MORE CONCRETELY WHEN I ACTUALLY REREAD THE BOOK but i dont remember there being so much jokes and goofy shit DURING serious scenes. like iirc in the original during serious scenes it was SERIOUS. but in the movie theres so many unnecessary unfunny jokes and stuff. idk IDK i probably just had too high expectations idk. anyways