#look we got more lore and stuff for elf things

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance: Reunion (Complete)

(A/N: Here's the entire fic for the reunion between Arya and Glenwing in Ellesméra. There's additional A/N stuff on the original posts but y'all can find them if you'd like to.)

~~~~

The bustle of activity and near constant rush of people passed by in a blur. Arya let the crowd flow around her, sinking away from the main crush. She settled a few paces behind her mother where the queen was conversing with Däthedr, silent and watchful as she always had been. 

She was glad that Saphira and Eragon took most, if not all, the attention away from her. After that whirlwind of political and personal business, Arya didn’t feel much like talking to anyone. Such situations always put her on edge, and after so long away the combat liaison was finding it increasingly difficult to hold her tongue and remain the polite and proper diplomat she pretended to be in the pines.

So instead of mingling, Arya settled into an ingrained At Ease stance and began watching the gathered elves. Well, not as much the elves. Brom was her main target. The man had been all but forgotten in the rush, just as he had planned, and he sat at a table nursing a tankard of faelnirv. Yes, an entire tankard. To himself. Because that would end well. As the hour went on Arya contemplated asking her mentor for his shortsword and rifle. There’d be hell to pay if Oromis had to come down early to corral his former student yet again.  

Oromis. Arya suppressed a wince; facing him was just as daunting as facing her mother. He wouldn’t have left the world unwatched while the queen wallowed in her self pity. He and Glaedr had to have know about Eragon, Saphira, Brom. Their madcap running around the Empire. Farthen Dûr.

And he would know about Arya. And Gil’ead. She hoped he hadn’t seen too much of that. 

For a split second Arya smelled wet concrete and tasted copper and iron. The lilting music and bubbly voices smothered down to a low drone, a buzz that dug into her ear as the suddenly harsh light flickered. 

Behind her back she felt her hands involuntarily snap into white knuckled fists, nails digging deep into her palms. Her wrists burned, fingers tingling with sharp pins and needles as the wet fire encircled the ruined skin and rusted steel bit in deep–

It took a breath, a blink. A shaking thumb subtly run over the dark swathe of scar tissue under the cuff of her combat jacket sleeve. Feeling the half rumpled and half silky repairs to her body. 

The world snapped back into focus in time for Arya to mumble a returned greeting as another elf brushed past. She bit her tongue for real this time. ‘Damn recall.’

The night dragged on, and while the rest of Ellesméra whirled and danced Arya could not help but feel rooted in place, stationary in both time and movement. It felt…wrong. She was no stranger to solitude, that was certain, but for some reason standing there, alone despite the sea of people, felt off. 

The hollow feeling in her chest intensified. Ellesméra felt leagues bigger without them there.

Her bitter musings were interrupted by a violent yank on her arm. 

Everything in her body snapped taut as Arya whirled, letting the attacker’s motion turn her as she brought up both fists. The momentum carried her raising arm up to lock against the inner elbow of the man that was now grabbing at her shoulders, ready to throw him off and slam him in the jaw with her free palm. He had both shoulders now, fingers tightening, one hand impossibly hard and cold–

Golden eyes caught her movements, freezing her in place. The entire world dropped away.

Arya couldn’t breathe. The dead man held her at arms length, his brow furrowed and silver hair still settling around his face from where it had escaped his ponytail. His eyes, they had always seen past whatever she said and found what she meant to say, searched her face with the intensity of a hunting dragon. 

He had looked at her like that before, though not quite so intently. Every time she did something so remarkably stupid, like throw an artillery shell back over the trench wall, curl around a grenade to absorb its destruction into her wards, stuck her hand in a Broddring cannon, or, the worst offense of all, go without sleep in favor of double watch shifts and nights disappeared without a word beside their other companion. Always looking out for her. For them. 

The last time she had seen his face it was planted in the dirt, blood pooling and trickling towards open golden eyes as they stared unseeing into the darkness, before the swarm of Urgals had blocked her view.

And now he was looking at her, bright, alert, and with so much fear and disbelief and hope and who the hell knows what else because Glenwing of House Svanran, healer and medic and best friend and dead man walking, was holding her by the shoulders and trying just as desperately as she to figure out if the person in front of him was really, truly alive. 

“...Glen?” Arya half choked, the last air in her lungs used to voice her disbelief. She could barely hear it over the noise around them.

At her uttering of his name Glenwing suddenly seized her face in his hands and let out a cracked laugh. Tears spilled from his eyes as he half cried, half laughed, “Spirits, it is you!” 

And his arms were pulling her in and around her and hugging impossibly tight. 

Arya didn’t hesitate, hugging him back fiercely and holding on, unwilling to let go in case he too slipped away like the other memories. Something snapped inside her chest and in her throat as she let out a broken laugh of her own. “You’re alive! You’re alive!” 

They stayed like that for what felt like ages, relief flowing off of them like a waterfall with tears of joy and disbelief. They weren’t alone anymore. 

It must have been a full minute before the world around them became important again, and Arya reluctantly pulled back. “We should,” She broke off and wiped her eyes, cleared her throat before speaking again without the tremor in her voice. “We should probably go….” 

“Good call.” 

With a small gesture Arya caught her mother’s eye. When the queen inclined her head slightly the two reunited elves snapped their heels together and bowed, knocking their right knuckles to their left collarbones in acknowledgement before all but bolting to the edge of the crowded grove. Here, at least, it was quiet but for a low murmur of the gathered people and a soft thread of the music through the trees. No one would be looking out to the forest, not with something as amazing as Eragon and Saphira at the center of attention, and here Arya and Glenwing would have a modicum of privacy to talk.

It was Arya’s turn to take Glen by the shoulders, and she shook her head with another chuckle past the lump in her throat. “You fucking bastard.” They shared a laugh again. “You absolute bastard. I saw you die. And I never thought….”

“You’re complaining about me?” Glenwing beamed, wiping away tears with his right hand. “All those times I told you not to go running off and get yourself killed, and then I figure that you’ve gone and finally done it.” 

“Hey, I was doing my job!”

“You always say that.” 

“I actually was this time!”

After a few moments of excited chatter, Arya felt cold seeping back into the warm relief that seeing Glenwing had brought. Already knowing the answer, she looked out to the dark pines that hid from the celebration’s light. “Hey, I uh…” She blinked, cleared her throat as best she could past the returning lump. “I take it…you’re my only surprise tonight, huh?” When Glen shifted uneasily, Arya felt a pang of regret at her phrasing and shot him a weak grin. “Not that you’re underappreciated or any–”

Glenwing’s jaw tightened, and for a moment Arya saw his throat convulse as he swallowed. His voice was steady, though, when he gently, grimly, replied, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. Didn’t say anything for a long, painful minute. “I couldn’t have ever asked for either of you to survive that. Couldn’t even think, imagine, hope, whatever.” Arya waved a hand vaguely, unable to put her feelings into words. “But, shit, Glen. We’ve done so much dangerous, wild–”

“Insane?” That grin was back, tinged with sadness but filled with a familiar wild undertone that everyone in their little fyrn breoal held. 

“Insane!” Arya added with a laugh. “Everything we’ve done and everything we shouldn’t have survived…. I’m just happy you made it out. That we made it out. And look! We did it, we found them!” She pointed towards Saphira’s glittering form in the midst of the crowd that felt so far away. “Let’s just…let’s celebrate that right now. Celebrate him. Shit, can you imagine the ruckus he’d make? We did it! We finally did it.” She couldn’t hide the tangle of elation and relief that broke through the pain. This is what they had all been fighting for, together, for decades. Fäolin would want them to have that, to feel the joy for him.

A commotion drew their attention. Elves were returning from the cookfires, arms laden with dishes and bowls and platters. The sight made both the medic and the combat liaison stiffen somewhat, knowing that their brief time to reacquaint themselves was drawing to a quick end. 

Arya let out a short huff and drew herself up, steeling herself for the rabble again. “Alright. Come on.” Glen grinned when she slapped his arm and seized his face with both hands, squeezing his cheeks. “Have to make sure you’re not some hallucination. Let’s go drink. We’re here. We’re safe.” She slid her hands to his shoulders, began drawing them down his arms in preparation to drag him off to meet the biggest pair of silver linings in history. “We’re in one…”

She trailed off as her right hand slipped down his left arm and stopped short at the bicep. That…that wasn’t….

“Piece?” Words stuck in her throat at the sound of the wry tone in Glen’s voice. He thought he was hiding the ache under that twisted tilt of his lips as her eyes snapped up to his. “Yeah…about that.”

“...Glen, what–”

“Later. I promise.” Without waiting for her protests, Glen slid an arm around his lost commander's shoulders and began walking back to the tables. "Celebrate, right? Introduce me to these two first. Then we drink."

~~~

The door creaked as it slid open, sticking at that same spot as it always had. Arya purposefully kept her eyes down as she closed it, avoiding looking towards her mother where she stood still half stunned outside. Just as she had told the queen, she really wasn’t ready to forgive her, not now. If she met her mother’s gaze there was bound to be a war between exploding at her in buried rage or breaking down after the many emotional hills and valleys of the day.

She made it two steps into the flat, pack already sliding off her arms, when she froze. 

Glen blinked at her from where he was lounging on the couch, just as surprised as she was. 

They stared at each other for a long moment. 

“I uh…” Arya tilted her head slightly. “Wow. Um. I forgot you were alive. And that you’d probably be here.”

The medic blinked again, bewildered, and burst out laughing. “You what?!” 

“It’s been a really, really long day!” Arya threw her pack at him, ignoring the yelp of protest, and dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. 

Glen moved the bag to the floor as his lost commander disentangled herself from her rifle strap, feeling her eyes on him as he leaned back. He wouldn’t admit it, but he too had forgotten that she likely would come back to the flat instead of her long disused room at Tialdarí Hall. He was drained from the night of food and music and emotion, and had trudged home and changed into sleep clothes as soon as he entered, completely oblivious to the possibility of intrusion. 

The loose tanktop, standard issue to Varden soldiers in warm climates, left the metal of his bionic prosthetic on full display, the plating glinting dully in the low werelight. 

They sat in silence for what had to be half an hour, recuperating. Glen made no move to cover the evidence of his missing limb. A niggling feeling in the back of his mind urged him to do so, whispering that she didn’t need guilt on top of everything else. He shushed it, reminded it that he knew that she wasn’t the reason he was down an arm. 

‘But does she know that?’

“...What happened?” Glen rolled his head to look over at Arya, her voice quiet and softer than he remembered she could be. He had tried to lock in the memories of them all together during happy times, wild times, not the times where they had to quietly ask each other if they could keep fighting. “I didn’t…didn’t see where you got hit. I thought it was the chest.”

Glenwing lifted his left arm, the servos drawing power from the precious gems embedded on the insides of the plates whirring almost imperceptibly in the silence. He turned the wrist, tilted the forearm, bent the elbow. Stared at it. “Almost. One went through the bone just above my elbow. Another one got me in the hip.” With two fingers he tapped where the second bullet had entered. “Balan threw me when he got hit and I got knocked out.” 

He inhaled through his nose and bit back a sigh. He could smell pinesmoke again, pungent and heavy. “I think…everything was over when I came around the first time. There was fire but the Urgals were gone. I was cognizant enough to realize I was bleeding out and used the bloodstopper spell to tie off the artery and veins in my arm but…” The fingers made a pleasing series of clicks as he curled them into a fist. “I passed out again. And it was a good bit before I was aware of anything after that.” 

The elves in Vandral, the closest outpost to the edge of Du Weldenvarden where the ambush had occurred, had filled him in as best they could. How they found him half crawling, half dragging himself along the forest floor on their morning patrol. Fäolin’s cold body tied to his own by belts looped across his chest and secured under the dead elf’s arms. The remains of his left arm at and below his now pulverized, shredded elbow hanging on by mutilated muscle. The unmoving fingers white and purple and dusky from lack of blood. The burns on his chest, forearms, knees, thighs, from dragging himself and his long dead brother-in-war and remaining best friend through ashes and embers during the night.

The way he begged them to save Fäolin. Begged them to find her. 

Waking up, his burns healed. His arm–

Pain at his metal wrist ricocheted up to his shoulder. Brought him back.

Glenwing forced the metallic fingers open. “I…I tried to save him.” He dropped both hands to rest limp in his lap, Rhunön’s masterpiece relaying his movements perfectly through metal and crystal. “He was gone before he even hit the ground.”

“I know.” When he looked over Arya was staring past him. “I saw it.” After a moment her eyes cleared, and locked back on him. “Your arm….”

“Bloodstopper worked a little too well, I’m afraid.” He forced a smile. He could still smell the burning pines, but it was fading. Instead it was slowly being replaced by the familiar scent of the worn leather additions on Arya’s combat jacket, gun oil, sharp pine sap and an undertone of gunpowder. It smelled like home, like the Varden, like Arya and Fäolin and decades of companionship and friends. It smelled like safety in their little group. “Rhunön built this for me, though. It works better than the old one!”

Arya shook her head, a touch of a grin on her lips. “I’m sure. She’s outdone herself.” 

“How about you?” Glen didn’t have to know her for over five decades to notice the way Arya changed at the question. Her arms pulled in, the rifle settled across her lap. “What happened to land you with Eragon, Saphira, and Brom of all people?”

Instead of answering him Arya yawned. That was real, he wouldn’t deny that, but she was all too eager to postpone whatever answers she had. “Tell you what,” She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck, massaging a kink out of the muscle that connected to her shoulder. “That’s a story for later. Right now I’m about to pass out on this couch if I don’t get to sleep for a few hours.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Glen’s voice was lighthearted, but they both could hear the warning under the words. It was clear as day, a promise made decades ago. Don’t hide wounds from your fyrn breoal. Head, heart or body, commander, medic or sniper, the only way to stay alive and keep the others safe was to share. “I’m sure it’s a hell of a story.”

Arya waved at him over her shoulder, already halfway down the hall to the room she had shared with her mate. “Yeah. It’s a real doozy. Goodnight, Glen. You still alive bastard.”

“Goodnight, Arya. Resurrected prodigal wild child.”

She blew a raspberry at him as she closed the door.

Glenwing sat back on the couch, the grin fading. His eyes fell on her discarded pack, stripped of weapons and bedroll, sitting at his feet.

The lock on the strap still accepted his thumbprint. It took only a few moments to find what he sought, buried under a mess kit and a pair of socks stuffed in a worn knit beanie she had acquired nearly twenty years ago from a Surdan merchant. A thick file, stuffed with pictures haphazardly sticking out at odd angles, sticky notes and scratched out shorthand. A scattering of numbers and letters, followed by a bold ‘6’ indicated it was the sixth such file in the series, a collection of war wounds and physical exams and the occasional psych eval that never really counted due to the elvish mind being alien enough to circumvent any human or dwarf made test.

Glen pulled it out and brushed his fingers along the tabs till he found one marked a little over two months ago. He didn’t open it, just let his fingertips linger as he mulled over revealing the contents. 

No. 

She would tell him. 

He left the file on the coffee table. 

~~~

It hadn’t escaped him that she had left her combat jacket on that night. Or that she was wearing it when she came out the next morning. Or the day after that. Or the next six mornings. 

They portioned out their days. Arya would spend the morning drafting reports and debriefs, filling out paperwork to reverse her apparent death and half begrudgingly taking on Brom’s share of more mundane documents as he joined Eragon and Saphira at Oromis and Glaedr’s lessons. They split the evenings, Arya going sometimes to guide Eragon and Saphira around Ellesméra or attempting to mend her fragile relationship with her mother. Other nights she joined Glen for dinner and spent the night remembering the days they spent crawling in trenches and infiltrating camps, Fäolin perched above them in his little nest.

Afternoons, though, were for wandering the pines together, walking aimlessly and just talking. Glen told her about the last months, his recovery and the process of fitting, building and bonding with his new arm. The struggles and the joys of connecting the nerves without further surgery, the excited yelling that earned him a pair of tongs to the face when he finally picked up a mug without shattering it or throwing it into his own teeth. 

The three months he spent without leaving Rhunön’s shop. He didn’t tell her it was because he couldn’t find the courage to face the Queen. 

In turn she told him the entire story of Eragon and Saphira, everything the two had shared and every bit of information Brom would reveal about his and their lives in the village of Carvahall. The Raz’zac, the disastrous first flight, Brom’s near death experience, the young son of Morzan and his surprising allegiance. Glen could tell she glossed over the madcap escape from Gil’ead, their eventual return to the Varden getting a similar treatment along with the post battle recovery under Farthen Dûr. 

He didn’t press for a time. But eventually, he knew he had to.

It was eight days after their impromptu reunion, meandering alone past one of the solitary beech trees that some elf had planted and warded years ago with leaves near dripping with the winking lights of bioluminescent moths, when he finally tried to break through. 

“You know you can take that off, right?” Glen teased, plucking a wrinkled fold on the arm of Arya’s combat jacket. “You’re gonna get more looks than usual if you keep wearing it with those cargos.”

Arya looked down with a frown. “Hey! I think it looks good with these! Green and tan go good together, right?” She had never been much for fashion, or even being all that presentable beyond the occasional inspection back during basic or black tie events for the Varden. At those, all it took was a black dress to get whoever dragged her along off her back, even if she insisted on wearing combat boots with it. 

For a moment she remembered, with some fondness, the first time Fäolin had been forced to join her at a fundraiser in Surda. Teasing him about his slicked back hair, chucking him under the chin to get at the bowtie that was damn near choking him over the starched collar of his borrowed suit. His laugh when she asked him where he had put the backup pistol, her own when he subtly touched the grip of the one strapped to her leg under the dress. “You’re my backup pistol, remember?”

Then it was gone again.

Shaking his head as if his commander were a lost cause, Glenwing peered up from under his brows at the dappled sunlight filtering through the heavy needles above. “Come on. What are you hiding under there?”

“Nothing.” 

The medic closed his eyes with a deep inhale and soft sigh at the deadpan tone, the sharp hint of warning contained in the single word. So it would be like that.

He stopped walking. “Arya.”

“What?” Her momentum had carried her three paces beyond, so she had to stop and turn to him. Her fists were jammed in the pockets of the combat jacket.

“We don’t lie to each other.” He fixed her with that look. The medic look. The look that said ‘I am here to help and if you don’t let me there will be a very difficult road ahead.’ A look that he hadn’t given her for years, decades. 

His heart sank when she cut her eyes away from him. “I don’t…” Arya broke off and rubbed the back of her neck again, fingers digging in roughly. “There’s too much to do. We can worry about it later.”

“You finished the paperwork this morning.” Green eyes slid closed in a quiet, nonverbal curse for telling him that earlier. “You– we –were relieved from guarding Eragon and Saphira days ago, and we won’t be called to that again until they leave. Please.” Movement caught his attention. “Your hands have been shaking since you got back.”

Arya looked down. The tremors had been increasing in frequency since Tarnag. The moments of recall around her wrists always followed their appearance. 

“Arya, you know that I can’t break my oath to you. I can only help you if you allow me. I can’t tell anyone unless you tell me to.” Careful that his approach was seen well before he reached out, Glen touched his commander’s shoulder gently. “I don’t want you to do this alone. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

And still, she refused to look at him. “You don’t need this on top of everything else.”

“Cut the bullshit.” That got her attention. Glen swore only half as much as the rest of their little squad, and when he did it was usually cause for alarm. No one wanted the man holding their bleeding guts in suddenly swearing out of nowhere. “You’re scared. I understand. And I’m here to help you.”

The accusation made Arya let out a short bark of laughter. At Glen’s raised eyebrow, she merely shook her head, half a twisted grin on her lips. “Ah, Glen. I’m not scared. Nothing really scares me anymore.” Again she let out a short laugh, squinting up into the needles above much like he had and put her hands on her hips. 

He really didn’t expect her explanation. 

“I’ve puked on a shade’s shoes before and lived through the consequences. And I did it again, too. Twice.”

Glenwing stared, bewildered. It took him some seconds to find his words. “...I…I don’t know if you’re joking with me, or if this is your way of saying you’re going to talk about it, or–”

“Oh, I one hundred percent puked on Durza shoes multiple times. That’s one of the things that I like to remember about all that.” Arya was smiling broadly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “If you really want to know,” The smile fell. “I’ll tell you. But later.”

“No.” 

“Glen–”

“I have the file. You know I do.”

Arya closed her eyes in surrender. The file had been sitting on the table for days now, a clear sign to her that he was waiting for her consent to begin the process of unraveling the last nine months. “Yeah.” She inhaled. Smelled wet concrete and tasted copper and iron. Released the breath with a rough sigh. “Okay. Tonight.”

“Tonight.” 

~~~

Glenwing was sitting on the couch with tea already made, file sitting undisturbed on the coffee table, when the door slid open and closed. Relief seeped into his limbs, feeling cold on his left and warm on his right. He hadn't been entirely convinced she was going to show up.

He looked up when she didn’t immediately sit beside him. Arya stood in front of the low table, shoulders tight and fists again firmly shoved in the front pockets of her combat jacket. Every line of her body reflected tension, but her dark eyes glinted with steel when he met her gaze. 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Arya motioned to the file with her chin, sharp and jerky. “It’s a lot less…” She paused, searching for the right word. “Brutal. If you read it from there.”

Glen nodded. He did his best to sound gentle but firm. “I need to hear it from you.” 

Her jaw clenched. “...I don’t know how much I can tell you.”

“Whatever you can. Whatever you want to.” The medic patted the cushion next to him. “We’ll stop whenever you want.” She waited a few more moments. Then, with stiff steps, Arya sat a few feet down the couch. “Take all the time you need.” 

Arya braced her elbows on her knees and leaned over, studying the moss that made up part of the floor of their flat. “I’m not…I’m not ashamed of what happened there.” A shiny backed beetle meandered onto the edge of her boot. She reached down and let it crawl onto her finger, lifted it to examine the iridescence of its carapace. “Hell, I’m proud of what I endured. I don’t know why it's so hard to talk about it like this.” She grinned as the little creature fluttered its hidden wings, the thin sheaves dark in contrast to the elytra’s color. “I’ve joked about it plenty.” 

Glen leaned back. He had his notepad in his hands, rumpled and scuffed and one of the corners charred. “You’ve always preferred deflecting whenever something’s bothering you.”

With a gentle puff of air, Arya encouraged the glittering insect to take flight. They both watched it go, floating to the window where it escaped through the barely open latch. “...Yeah.”

She took a deep breath then, resumed her previous position, and rubbed the flats of her palms together. “I guess I should start from the beginning. 

“That night we were ambushed, when you lost your arm and Fäolin was killed, Durza captured me after I teleported Saphira’s egg.” Again the woman focused her eyes on the ground, watching the miniscule hairs of the moss waver in the near imperceptible movements of air created by the cracked window, her breath, and Glenwing’s breath. Connecting currents that linked everything in the room. “I was in and out, but when I woke up fully I was in a cell under Gil’ead’s keep, their maximum security wing. 

“There were shackles on my wrists. They weren’t connected to anything, so when Durza came in I obviously tried to take his face off.” Half a smirk touched her lips, a tone of bitter pride coloring her words. “So he locked the shackles to the wall. Then I tried to headbutt him when he got too close. So he put me in a chair and locked me to that.”

The woman tilted her head slightly, brow knitted in a hint of confusion. Her braid slid over her shoulder to hang free. “He just…talked to me that time. Sat across from me and told me who he was, gloated about the spells he made to break our wards with just bullets and Urgals at his disposal.” To Glen’s surprise, Arya had an almost wistful, crooked grin when she looked over at him. “You know what he did next?” 

Despite her previous assertion that nothing could really scare her, Glen saw, buried beneath the convoluted and contorted emotions in his friend’s eyes, a glimmer of fear. He shook his head, afraid to break whatever courage was driving her to speak. 

“He asked me, point blank, if I would submit. Asked if I would surrender then and there, knowing the spells he had created, the potential he had, knowing what he was. He told me what awaited me if I did. I would be taken to Urû’baen immediately and presented to Galbatorix. He would receive the information I had to give, take more if he wanted, and then I would be released into his service. I’d swear oaths to him and become his new Forsworn, and used however he saw fit to bring down the Varden, Surda and Du Weldenvarden.” She let out a soft scoff, that pained look still twisting her lips. “I told him ‘no.’ Only word I said to him besides ‘bite me, bitch’ and ‘fuck you’ a few times.” She laughed again, and it sounded desperate, near panicked at the edges. “He just smiled, that fucking smile, and said ‘good.’”

Her own smile gone, Arya dragged a hand down her face, skin going pale as she remembered. “He spent…I don’t know how long. I’ve got no sense of time anymore. He spent what had to be hours just…just telling me what he could do to me. What he would do to me. He paced around and around that stupid fucking chair, grabbed my neck from behind and whispered in my ear the experiments he wanted to try.” 

A shudder passed from the back of her skull to the base of her spine. Arya did her best to focus on the swaths of moss between her boots. Pincushion moss. A bryophyte. They grew it there because it was soft and stayed that way even when the weather turned dry for weeks at a time. 

She could feel his hand gripping the base of her braid, head yanked back against the metal edge of the chair. The way he cupped her throat, thumb pressing just under the joint of her jaw and stroking her skin as she did her best to appear nonchalant. Simply met his gleeful gaze with cold fire in her eyes. She would not look away. 

The elf took a shuddering breath and untangled her fingers from where she had been clenching them together hard enough to leave bruises. “And then…he did. He did all of it and more.” She blinked, willed the floor to return to its green carpet rather than the grey creeping in. “And I fought it. I fought whenever I could. He stopped using the shackles in the cell because my wrists were shredded and I wouldn’t stop fighting them. I don’t know how long it was till I…” Her words caught in her throat. She blinked again. Why was this what made her choke up? “Till I couldn’t fight anymore. 

“He dosed me with Skilna each day, tried to wear me down.” Her lungs hurt at the memory. The time that he had sat on her cot, one leg daintily crossed over the other while he let the poison run its course longer than before. Watched her, that fucking smile plastered on his face, the antidote held in his lap, as she coughed up blood until she couldn’t anymore, as she writhed against the feeling of her bones shattered like crystal glass and the overwhelming, all encompassing fever that turned her veins to molten lead. 

He had wanted her to ask for it. To beg for the antidote. 

She crawled over, every movement triggering more liquid glass to explode within her cells. Grabbed his leg. Saw that triumphant, gleeful grin in the haze above. 

With her last ounce of strength she slipped a finger between his leg and his high, polished boots and deposited a mouthful of blood into the space.

Her gurgling laughter at his disgust made her smile briefly, lost when the noise ended abruptly with a crack and the sound of a tightly gripped, torn throat struggling to breathe. Still. The broken jaw and flail chest had been worth it. And she didn’t even have to ask for the antidote.

“He uh…” Arya cleared her throat, tasted the same blood as he dragged her out of the cell again, fury evident in each step. “He had to change it. To a longer form. One he could trigger at will. I was apparently getting some sort of tolerance.” She could see the pen moving from the corner of her eye. “He couldn’t always be there. Something about reporting to Galbatorix. He told the guards to keep his…his work, going while he was away. Only rule was no blows to the head. Needed the information in my mind unscrambled.”

Glenwing’s pen slowed. He didn’t want to ask the question. He knew she could feel his eyes on her, the way she shifted and raised her laced together hands to her lips. The way she tensed when he put the pen down and leaned toward her to touch two fingers to her forearm. “Arya….”

She refused to look at him. “They didn’t.” Her jaw was clenched. “They…they tried.” One of her hands twitched before the other clamped down on it. She blinked. “One of them…one of them must’ve found some old book somewhere…talked about elf customs or something.” Slowly Glen saw her entire body go tense, muscles locked and coiled to their limit. The first mumbled words of her next admission were lost in the quiet breath that delivered them.  

“...tried to notch my ear.” 

Glen’s blood went cold. The practice was ancient, heralding back to the bonding of the dragons and elves and the…peculiar…additions the dragon’s blood had on elves' practices of coupling. While a gentle bite on the ear of a mate was considered a pact of love, of devotion…a notch was a symbol of bitter solitude. Any elf with a notched ear was considered almost untouchable when it came to love, mating, partnership, acceptance. They were given only for horrific deeds, the slaughter of children, taking an unwilling mate, murder of a partner, and, above all else, for the betrayal of the entire elven race. 

If Durza had learned of this from his men he would have carried it out as the ultimate humiliation, and bound the mark to her body so that no healing could touch the wound. 

It took every ounce of Glenwing’s self control to not seize his best friend’s face and turn her to him, looking for the telltale rift. Instead, he steadied his voice as best he could and managed an only slightly enraged, “They tried?”

“They didn’t manage it.” The words were hollow, the memory of just how close she came to being marked still bouncing in her skull. Unlike the others, this one was…hazy. She could feel the panic in her chest and the many hands forcing her to the ground as she struggled to lift her broken body. They wanted revenge for the men she had…disposed of…after their attempts to take advantage of her weakened state. The cold, cold metal of a set of wire cutters sliding against the side of her head and behind her right ear. 

Then just…relief. Gratitude? And spending time curled under the cot, pressed as tightly against the wall as she could manage until the pale hand dragged her out for another span of agony after a longer than normal gap. 

For some reason the sense of relief sparked warmth that soothed the growing lump in her throat. She pressed her fingers into the spaces between her knuckles, grounded herself in the discomfort as she found sore tendons and protesting connective bands. “Eragon was captured some time after that. I don’t know how long. Adrenaline and pain tablets kept me on my feet long enough to get out with them. Eragon, Saphira and Brom healed what they could and got me awake. The rest you already know.”

Glen picked up his pen again and rolled it between his fingers. “Poison?” He had masked the tremor in his tone, but the rage wasn’t going to fade quite so easy. He wouldn’t press, not now at least. This was enough for one night.

“Right.” Gil’ead retreating from her mind, Arya straightened somewhat and clasped her knees with hands now blooming with fingertip shaped bruises. “Durza activated it. We got through the Hadarac before it caused problems. I might have…had to use the dream state to survive it.” She winced, fully expecting a lecture. 

Instead, Glenwing chewed the end of his pen. “You got out of it.” It was a statement of fact, laced with a hint of assurance that he wasn’t angry. He had taught her how to trigger the dream state for emergencies, and poison was certainly on the qualifying list.

“After a bunch of Tunivor’s Nectar…yeah.” Arya blinked, suddenly remembering another visitor during her half-addled state in Tronjheim’s hospital. “And the Wise One gave me something to pull me out.”

Glen stopped his absentminded chewing, pen dangling from his lips as he shot his commander a look of shock. “She’s back?” The way the stylus bobbed with his words made him look almost comically like Brom with his pipe. 

“Werecat and all.” Arya frowned. “Didn’t I say she’s the one that fixed Eragon’s back?”

“You kind of ignored the recovery period.” 

“Ah.” 

The woman’s bearing had shifted again. Glen saw more anxiety than before, less tension in her limbs as she cut her gaze away again and picked a loose thread by her knee. “Speaking of the recovery period…” 

“I broke the Star Sapphire, injected myself with four full doses of adrenaline to try and stop Eragon’s back from bleeding, overdosed, had several cardiac events, and Vilks put me on strict orders and told me I’d die if I didn’t follow them.” 

‘Ah’ indeed. No wonder she looked nervous. There was nothing that could trigger fear in a lifelong, diehard soldier with nothing else but their deployment than the anger of a very exasperated medic with the power to put them on an indefinite hold.

“You what?!”

Arya had already bolted off the couch, skittering past the coffee table. “Look, I know you’re upset with me for pulling a stunt like that again–”

“FOUR?!” 

She was already down the hall, nearly slingshotting past her room when she grabbed the doorframe. “Just…read the file, Vilks took good notes, I’ll change, just…yeah!”

Torn between fuming and alarmed, Glen grabbed for the file on the coffee table. He swore when his knuckles impacted the side of the wood, the metal leaving a decent dent. Making a mental note to speak to Rhunön about his continued issues of emotional override, he snatched up the packet with his right hand and flipped it open to the tab at the very back.

Vilks’ handwriting still kept its tight scrawl in his advanced age, and after so many years the doctor had perfected the art of short, sweet and to the point in his notes. Possible seizures. Fluid in the lungs, intubation for two hours, O2 mask for six after. Five VTach events before AED applied, unknown number post. Repeated attempts to leave bed before fully aware. Restrained for aprox 10 minutes before reminded of patient history. Energy extremely depleted, side effects of poisoning, imprisonment, poor diet, adrenaline overdose and magic overuse. Given orders of NO MAGIC two weeks, consistent bedrest and sleep (unlikely), multivit 2/d two weeks, recheck two weeks. Warned of consequences. 

A quick note at an angle, dated eleven days after the initial list, added ‘Given consequences after discovered participating in rigorous PT. Patient given icepack for forehead contusion and required to replace hospital clipboard at next possible opportunity.’

Despite his frustration, Glen couldn't help the smile that curled the edges of his lips. ‘Of course.’

“If you’re going to chuck that at me, let me get a head start first.” The medic looked up at his commander’s wry request. She had donned a pair of jogging shorts and a loose tshirt, the standard PT gear of Varden recruits in Fathen Dûr. 

Glenwing snapped the file closed. “I wouldn’t warn you if I was going to throw it, especially after reading that. Let’s sit at the table, better light.” Arya shrugged, thumbs hooked in the small pockets of her shorts, and followed him to sit in the dining area where bright werelights hung above their heads. 

They sat together, bathed in light tinged with the greens that dominated their home away from the Varden. Arya, after a moment of hesitation, placed her forearms on the table, palms down.

The medic resisted sucking his teeth, and instead bit the tip of his tongue as he reached out and gently lifted the woman’s left arm. A swath of scar tissue encircled her wrist, creeping up her hand and palm just slightly before diving down and dipping a concave wrap two inches down her forearm. The right side mirrored the same mutilation, both dark and a mottled red mix of soft ridges and silken patches. With a light touch to the back of her hand and a nod of acquiescence, he turned her palm up to reveal her tendons etched at the surface of her skin, as if locked permanently taut. 

“They’re just like that.” Arya broke the silence. A half hearted shrug tilted her wrist, and the flexor tendons jutted out further. “Tissue’s gone. Tendons just kind of…stand out, I guess.”

Glen hummed in acknowledgement, inwardly swearing at the possible damage that lurked beneath her skin. “Do you have any numbness in your hands or fingers?”

“No. The shaking started when we were around Tarnag. It feels like pins and needles sometimes, but it’s not affected my grip or range of motion.” 

Gently manipulating the joints, Glenwing confirmed her words before picking up his pen and scribbling a note down. “And you didn’t heal these…?”

“I like them.” Arya’s eyes were clear when he snapped his gaze up to hers. 

“Arya, they've got nerve damage. In your hands.” 

At that the woman pulled her hand from his grip and crossed her arms, hiding the dark bands from view. “Can you heal the nerve damage without healing the scars?” 

Glen frowned. “Yes, but–”

“Then we do it that way.” She held him in her gaze for a long moment, waiting for him to acquiesce. “This is my way of taking it back, Glen.” And again, she suddenly cut her eyes away with a quiet mumble.

“What?”

“It helps…” He could see her flex her fingers involuntarily under her arms, gnash her teeth at some unseen jolt. She looked like he did when the phantom pain kicked in unexpectedly, a shock that lingered for minutes or hours. “It helps when I have recall. When…when I touch them it’s like….” The woman fumbled for words, distress building. “He never left scars when he gave me hallucinations.” She gripped the table edge with white knuckles, tilting the chair back slightly. “And when I feel the scars I just…I know I’m not there. It helps bring me back sometimes.” 

Sometimes. Not always.

‘Recall.’ That cursed thing. Sensory recall and elvish memory went hand in hand, making the calling up of emotionally charged memories laden with past sensory detail a normal, if not somewhat uncommon, occurrence among their race. Arya’s had always been strong, bringing back physical touch and involving a majority of the senses for most of her moments of involuntary recall. Glen’s near rivaled hers, built up from the years of war and countless moments where PTSD took hold of the accursed skill, if it could even be called that. They both relived their traumas, ricocheting to the past as the world went on around them, seeing but not seeing.

Every time he thought of the ambush, he smelled the smoke, felt the hot ash and cinders embedding in his clothes and his skin. He could taste blood and pine ash, the grit between his red stained teeth and the excruciating wrong that was the needles and the dirt and bark and ash collecting, sticking to the mangled flesh of his ruined arm. He didn’t always see it, and for that he thanked whatever stars watched over him. That was his only escape. Seeing the metal limb that now dominated his left side, a zing of phantom pain that reminded him that the original limb was long gone…it made coming out of the recall easier. Something to remind him that the past was the past.

Glenwing reached out and, with a feather touch of his mechanical hand, reminded his commander to release the creaking wood of the table. He cupped her scarred knuckles, turned her palm to run a cold thumb over the ghost of a hastily healed burn. 

“I’ll do my best.” He promised. 

A rush of air left Arya’s lungs, a relief she didn't quite realize she needed. An acknowledgement of the scars beyond the cursory looks cast her way under Farthen Dûr, the concerned frown Brom gave them every once in a while. Glenwing understood their purpose, in a way that no one else could. “Thanks.”

Satisfied he could mend some of the frayed nerves, Glen turned to examining the smattering of new scars that littered the woman’s arms. Nothing was particularly egregious, and while several of the straight lines that slid down from beneath the woman’s sleeves looked near surgical, Arya simply told him it was ‘healed fully’ and ‘not a problem.’ Again, he didn't push it.

“Is there more?” Glen took a sip of his now cold tea, making a face before reheating it with a quick word. If this was all that needed checking then he could call himself pleasantly surprised given her previous description. 

Arya paused. “There’s a few on my legs but those were…those were healed. He healed them to the surface at least.” She tried to shake the sudden jolt of seeing steel nubs protruding from her shin, the excruciating ripping, tearing, snapping, as the bone split down its length. All that remained were four pale pink spots in a line from the last time that particular method was used. “Eragon and Saphira healed a scrape on my right leg, but they did well. No complaints there.”

“Uh-huh.” Glen tapped the point of his pen at the upper corner of his paper, resisting the urge to chew on the end again. She wasn’t telling him everything. But it was a start. “Is that it?”

“...No.” Arya sighed and pushed back from the table to stand. “I’m not healing these either, okay?” Her voice was muffled as she tugged her shirt up and over her head. She tossed it into the achingly empty chair across from her and stood clad only in her shorts and sports bra. “Make me look badass.” She turned and pulled her braid over her shoulder, gesturing with a jerked thumb at the expanse of her back. 

Glenwing dropped his pen. “Well. Shit."

“Hey!” Arya whirled to him. She seemed genuinely offended. “Come on, Glen! I survived this shit. You know what that took? I’m fuckin’ proud of these, and I’m not healing them for bullshit vanity.” He didn’t answer. Just stood and put his hands on her shoulders. “What are you–”

And pulled her into another hug.

Arya froze. She could feel the cold metal of his left arm holding her around her shoulder blades, a stark contrast to the warmth of his right hand squeezing around her ribs. Someone was touching her back and he wasn’t recoiling, wasn’t probing, wasn’t hurting. She wasn’t struggling, fighting, desperate to run away. An ache that she didn’t even realize had been tied into the muscles along her spine for months suddenly released, bringing with it a rush of relief and a soothing mix of warm where warm was needed and cool where cool was needed. 

“Don’t lie to me.” Glen murmured in her ear, his voice catching. “You tried.”

Arya squeezed her eyes shut. 

The day after Vilks cleared her for magic use. Checking the multitude of scars that covered her back and criss-crossed her skin with burns, cuts, hills and valleys of hypertrophic and concave bands. The visible slide of muscle where the layers above had been carved away. There was space between them, yes. But all she could see was the red, pink and silver of lingering damage made physical and, above all else, undeniable. She looked…she looked almost broken.

She had tried to heal them. And found herself scrabbling, clawing, writhing on the floor of that stupid little bathroom, choking back a scream of unimaginable pain as the nerves in her back exploded in protest. Everything she had endured, condensed and dripped in a steady, maddening flow along each pathway, electric and burning and pain. Once again it was all that existed for her in that moment, an extended second that encompassed months and months of time she could not begin to grasp nor understand the passage of. 

She ripped away from the magic and lay, panting, on that stupid, stupid bathroom floor. Blood steadily streamed from her forehead to the tiles where she had cracked it on the stone, trying to breathe through the lingering aftershocks and remembering the spells that he had used to the same result. Felt, deep in her chest, an interwoven pity and horror for Eragon and the new hell he was beginning to endure. She couldn’t heal herself. And she couldn’t heal him. Magic wouldn't erase these wounds.

Arya reached up and grabbed onto Glenwing, clutched at the loose folds of his shirt under his shoulder blades as if he were her last hope against drowning. “They’re…” She shivered, pressed her forehead to his shoulder. She had decided already, that day back in Tronjheim, that if she couldn’t remove them then she would wear them as a badge of pride. She wasn’t broken. She couldn’t be. They were the proof. “I’m…. I beat them. I beat him.”

Glenwing didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew, and she knew as well. They’d weather it just as they always did, together and steadfast and strong against the push of everyone else. So they had scars. That didn’t mean they were lost, or broken, or could be cast aside as soldiers who had long passed their expiration date. Fifty years, seventy in her case, was a long, long time to fight.  

They’d just have to keep fighting.

They wouldn’t have it any other way.

[wildlocks]

things that are bothering me the most:

antaam stuff makes no sense, full stop. it's also explained poorly/insufficiently.

most of what we see of rivain is completely uninhabited. i also don't care about more warden shit there, i was looking forward to more lore on rivaini people and culture, especially the seers obviously, we've been dying to know more about them for three games.

every elf we've met is ok with the huge revelations that their gods aren't what they seemed and this process happened offscreen. i would think there would be many different reactions to the spread of info about the evanuris, and i would think it would be extremely important to make it clear that info had spread pre-game.

the venatori are the same nonsensical vague useless boring cult with the most nothing goals. as incredibly lame as they are, it's even stretching my suspension of disbelief that they'd serve elven gods for vague promises of 'power' given tevinter's extreme history with the elves. i would think this would come up at least one single time.

the past two points are part of an overarching issue. the contentious and complex political landscape of thedas that makes the setting interesting feels flat. i'm supposed to believe NO ONE in super-elf-racist tevinter would blame the elves for their gods terrorizing thedas? even inquisition acknowledged this, w solas/inky showing concern that revealing the orb was elven would lead to elf racism.

i'm supposed to believe NO elves who've been oppressed by humans for centuries would think 'fuck them' and join up? what happened to the elves who joined solas at the end of trespasser when they heard he was trying to bring back their empire? at least inquisition had wacky cults for every side.

walking down the street in minrathous as an elf or qunari with no difference is simply absurd, i would literally rather never visit tevinter if they were going to implement it so toothlessly. where is the immediate opinion hit for being a mage/elf the inky takes in orlais???

yes the tone is off and a little shallow. yes the companions communicate too healthily for my tastes. yes i was dreading 'evanuris are behind everything' lore reveals and that's what we got. but i honestly think i could overlook those things if the above problems were solved and it felt like the same immersive, problematic thedas.

i'm so completely infuriated by the worldstate choices i'm going to make a separate post about it. but yeah i was concerned but made no noise, i was willing to wait it out and see how the three choices played out in game. and it's absolutely ridiculous that so far two out of fucking three have basically no impact, and the last one idgaf about unless inky romanced solas. i'm so so so so mad and disappointed about this, especially after staying open-minded when it was initially revealed.

everyone loves companion quests, so i don't know why the game feels like it needs to sell you on their significance. why did we get two different scenes of varric spelling it out to rook: do the companion side quests, or else they won't be able to focus! it's such a weird and superfluous tie-in. i don't get why they went so out of their way to clarify this when it didn't need to be clarified, companion side quests are expected in rpgs and their relevance to the plot is very easily accepted/overlooked.

[shnowyfox]

Jollyformers AU (

so basically i turned the holiday themed au. i haven't had the time to flesh it out obviously. TFONE megop regardless of this au is Last Christmas by Wham!

lore! so instead of cogs they have sleigh bells! usually worn via a collar though harnesses are worn as well to hold more bells that are decorative only. Idk what im doing with transformation yet but i think either it's completely replaced by the bell's allowing flight, or, transformation into creatures to pull the sleigh (basically everyone has a beast alt, deer and ungulates being the most common) Optimus obviously being a reindeer, megatron (krampus) is a goat to fit with his krampus thing, b-127 (glee-127, Badassaclaus) is supposed to be elf like with his g1 style horns supposed to look like elf ears too but they can be seen as budding antlers as well, and elita I haven't drawn yet but she's either a reindeer too or gazelle. (also considering giraffe with that neck dayum girl)

"Prime" has been replaced with "Claus"

hats are just for jolly good fun. like this whole au. and a bit of religious healing. anything goes rlly.

and now a snippet of a rewrite I never was able to finish up. Some of this HAS been retconned. i'm still working at it. mainly the occupation and the backstory stuff. (Context: Bartholomeus is another name for Krampus i dont remember where or when but that's what Megatronus has been substituted with.)

Deer Trax: (chuckles) Okay, fellas! Thanks for the jolly start. You want to give me another one?

Sentry 1: You’re naughty!

Deer Trax: I’ll take that as a no.

Elf-16: (grunts) Hey! Watch where you’re going!

Sentry 1: Oh… What did you say, no-bell?

Elf-16: Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean you. I was referring to the elf who was behind you.

Sentry 2: What? Where’d he go?

Elf-16: The joyous red and blue elf? Has a big grin, merry cheer, gives off a yankee candle scent?

Sentry 1: Where is he?

Elf-16: He went that way.

Sentry 1: When I get my hands on that elf…

Elf-16: All right, all clear.

Deer Trax: Okay, D-16, I may be a little vanilla, but “Yankee ”? That is too far.

Elf-16: Let me guess. Chased out of the cookie jar?

Deer Trax: (laughs) Yeah. I had to jump out of a sleigh this time. Almost got an ouchie (laughs) It was wild.

Elf-16: And digging through fortune cookies is worth getting an ouchie?

Deer Trax: Yes, it is.

Elf-16: I need a new best friend.

Deer Trax: If there are clues in our recorded history that can help locate the North Star, they’re in the cookie jar.

Elf-16: Sentinelf Claus, the Sentinelf Claus, is up in the blizzard right now, risking his merriment for us in search of the Star.

Deer Trax: That’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m trying to help him.

Elf-16: Yeah, okay. (laughs)

Deer Trax: The sooner cookies bake again, the sooner we won’t have to make toys ourselves. Don’t you want to choose your own path, do whatever you want?

Elf-16: We’re toy makers. We make toys, that’s all.

Deer Trax: No, there has got to be something more I can do. I can feel it. (Dentistry?)

Elf-16: Oh, yeah? Like the time you had a “feeling” you could fly without a bell?

Deer Trax: You said you were never gonna mention that again.

Elf-16: Took me three days to dig you out of the snow. Your feelings get you in trouble.

Deer Trax: Yeah, yeah.

Elf-16: Just trust in Sentinelf Claus.

Deer Trax: I do trust in him. Hey, if we did have bells…

Elf-16: I’d fly hooves first into your chest

Deer Trax: I don’t like how fast you answered that. But listen, if you did kick me, I couldn’t give you this awesome Bartholomeus Claus thing I have here. It’s cool. I’ll give it to someone else.

Elf-16: What Bartholomoeus Claus thing?

Deer Trax: Ah, it’s nothing. Just a, you know, mint-condition Bartholomeus Claus sweater, first edition.

Elf-16: (gasps) What?

Deer Trax: If you don’t want it, I can just throw it away.

Elf-16: Throw it away? Don’t… That’s not funny. Let me see.

Deer Trax: Wait. Don’t grab. You’re gonna rip it.

Elf-16: You know, Sentinelf says Bartholomeus was the…

Deer Trax: The kindest Claus to ever live. I know, buddy. Looks good on you.

[valeovalairs]

Smiles, here’s a Legend of the Riptide Pirate AU character lore dump (slash info about them just compiled into one place)

Chip

The “Riptide Pirate”

Uses his bandana to appear alive and eternally 19, despite being undead and being an actual skeleton at this point.

You know that meme, how do you do fellow kids? That’s how I envision Chip in this AU. He desperately wants to still appear young and cool once he meets the girls and warms up to them but he is an old man in a modern world. My guy is struggling.

He is very sad.

He kept the Albatross busy and alive with people for a very long time, at least a good hundred years, until it became too painful and he stopped letting people on. That’s when he became more of a legend, when he retreated into the shadows.

He still hangs out in Zero. He tries to spend most of his time there because he wants to enjoy what time he has left with Ollie, but sometimes he’ll get restless and go off on the Albatross.

He has grey streaks in hair- because when he realized Jay and Gil had both started greying and looking older and he still looked 19, they all got really sad and he gave himself grey streaks and said, “look, we match now.” There were tears.

Ollie

He’s alive!

He is a very very old man though. Like maybe even 200ish probably (half-elf’s can exceed 180 which is probably for them what 70 is for humans).

He did travel a lot with the Riptide Pirates in his adulthood, but eventually settled in Zero.

Chip still comes to visit him and his family, who know him as “Uncle Chip”. A lot of them also traveled with the Riptide Pirates at one point or another while he still had a crew.

He has dementia:( Sometimes he’ll see Chip and ask where Gill and Ms. Jay are and it hurts Chip every single time.

Jay

Guys she’s dead, I’m sorry.

She traveled on the Albatross for decades before retiring/settling (with who, idk, but I do really like clockwork/birdbolt wives, so with Ensa maybe?)

I don’t know if she had kids (definitely not bio kids but maybe she like raised some kiddos at some point idk)

She still would join Chip and Gil occasionally on the Albatross until she physically could not anymore, and then Chip would visit her.

She died of old age.

Gillion

He’d dead, but I don’t know what happened to him.

I mean it’s Gillion Tidestrider do we really think this guy is going to live his entire possible 200 year lifespan? No. Because it’s Gillion Tidestrider. He’s going to die heroically in some way. Maybe it’s before Jay, maybe it’s after, idk. But he was too slow. That’s what happened he’s gotten older and one day he was too slow. 

Fnc? Im more leaning towards this au being one sided fnc on chips side but there is for sure a whole other kind of angst potential for fnc being an established thing in this au.

Phoebe

The Ferin!

A descendant of one of Jay Ferin’s cousins. (The Ferin’s feel like a big family too me, one with lots of cousins and twice removeds and stuff like that)

One of her parents, the not Ferin, was never too fond of the Ferins practices and so they tried to keep Phoebe distanced from them. (This included the name thing but they caved and allowed her to be called Phoebe May Ferin) And her Ferin parent agreed, despite having been in the Navy themself, that their family was a bit intense.

The family has pushed her to the point of joining the Navy academy, and her family wasn’t given much of a choice, so she was sent off.

She’s heard about the Riptide Pirate, through stories- but her favorite part is that one of his earliest companions was also a Ferin. She hears rumors that he’s still around, being spotted at various docks and Zero.

She decides to risk it and run away, looking for the Riptide Pirate. She escapes the evening the Champion is in the city as all attention will be on that. She panics when she realizes that the champion is also trying to run away.

She knows how to sail (small crafts) I feel like she’d canoe and paddle and know how to man like one of those tiny sail boats.

She has reddish hair but it’s a lot more mute than Jay’s. She also has darker eyes and a stockier build.

Class wise, she’s a fighter, I think. I’m not one hundred percent sure.

Edyn

Edyn is also still alive!

She’s “The Champion’s” grandmother

I think she never returned to the undersea, and ended up settling somewhere on the surface. She ended having kids. The Undersea found out about this, and at someone point sent some people up for them, and offered the kid (now an adult) money, status, community, as long as they returned to the undersea. All they want is for them to sire a child to be “the chosen one”, someone from the same lineage as the original. They like seed some distrust in their head and it turns into a whole argument with Edyn and they never speak again.

She hears about the Champion coming to All Port as part of some diplomacy delegation, several months before, and she really wants to see her granddaughter, get to meet her, so she ends up getting a job for the place they’re staying at as like a maid or an attendant or smth under a different name, and no one suspects anything of a sweet old lady. And they end up promoting her to serve the Champions room because a) sweet old lady b) shes a triton and a triton who has never been too the surface will probably be more comfortable around another triton.

Edyn gets to speak to Calypso and reveals first of all that she is her grandmother, and second of all that she is not actually the chosen one.

Calypso

The “Champion”!

The “Chosen One” who is not actually the chosen one! Just a person meant to replace Gillion as a religious figurehead after his “failure” she and most other people do not know this (they pushed Gillion under the rug and waited for people to forget about him before trying again)

She is a Tidestrider

Her thing is mostly the Elders trying to remain relevant in an increasing secular world.

Her training is less strict and started at a much earlier age than Gillion’s, and it followed a lot less combat and fighting and more religious and magical 

She’s literally just for ceremonially purposes, they keep harping about the prophecy and destiny but the elders all know it won’t come to pass for her. She does not.

She goes as part of a diplomacy thing to All Port and there meets Edyn. She had already been discontent with the undersea and uncertain of her place and she had thought about the possibility of leaving but Edyn finally sows the final seeds of distrust and she leaves- Edyn helping by creating a distraction and letting her slip out the window.

She realizes she has no idea of where she is going until she meets Phoebe. They put the dots together and once Phoebe understands she offers to bring Cal along with her, to join the Riptide Pirate. She follows.

She has a crown of coral that looks a lot like Gillion’s but it’s a crown that she can take on and off. It’s not real.

She has lighter hair than Gil and she has a more willowy build (she is also taller than he was)

Class wise, I thought about her being a paladin, but with there being less focus on combat and being a holy warrior, I think she’s a cleric (my heart is telling me she’s a cleric)

[cyranonic]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a Belated Review

Well, I finally finished playing Veilguard and I've got some thoughts. For context, I'm a big fan of the previous 3 Dragon Age games and of fantasy RPGs in general, so my review is very much informed by that. The TLDR is: Veilguard isn't the worst game ever, but I really did not like it and I feel like it exemplifies a lot of my problems with the modern media landscape. Full explanation below the cut:

There were definitely some things in Veilguard that I enjoyed. It looked nice; combat was intuitive and snappy; VAs did great work. But I am fundamentally more interested in story than technical stuff so I want to focus on that. Some individual story arcs were fun out of the context of the whole. A few of my favorite parts:

Assan!!! Cutest baby boy!! His bond with Davrin was probably the most emotional part of the whole game for me lol

Emmerich's personal quest overall was enjoyable in a zany, campy way. I adopted the skeleton. No regrets.

Solas memory quests! I liked how we kept seeing him sacrifice his own people for the greater good. Set up the theme of the story well and allowed for some good Dreadwolf tricks and gambits.

Bellara taking up the Varric mantle, except that she write romance serials made me laugh (no one tell Cassandra about this; she will lose her mind)

It was actually really sweet when Lucanis and Neve got together

However, even the things in the game that did work for me were all slightly tainted by some bigger overarching issues I have with the tone, lore, companions, and execution of the story overall.

Problem 1: Tone

A lot of other reviews have mentioned that the tone of Veilguard feels cartoony or simplistic, and I unfortunately agree. All of the dialogue has this slightly obnoxious, Marvel movie-esque, jokey tone to it. Serious moments are often undercut by Rook's quip-heavy responses and there is a lot of that irony-poisoned, insincere, self-awareness that would be great in a Deadpool movie, but not a Dragon Age game.

I'm not against humor in a Dragon Age game and, in fact, I love and cherish the comedic moments in the earlier games (purple Hawke forever haha). I think the difference is that earlier Dragon Age games took the story, world, and characters very seriously. The humor was the characters themselves being funny within that very serious world, not the whole tone of the game itself being light-hearted and wacky.

For example, let's examine Johanna Hezenkoss, the villain of Emmerich's quest. I overall enjoyed the quest a lot, but one cannot ignore how silly the tone of it is. Johanna is a necromancer who is now half-lich--the classic Dragon Age trope of a mage gone wrong. However, she is never really treated as a seriously disturbing threat or a genuinely tragic figure. She is basically a wacky mad scientist, complete with a funny crawling hand gag. It isn't bad writing, exactly. It did get some chuckles out of me. But it does exemplify the tone of the game overall--nothing feels like a big deal because it all seems vaguely silly and self-aware and on-the-nose.

In a less fun example, I am quite unhappy with the ways that this game tries to avoid dealing with the canonical racism and social inequity that previous games established. Like yes, we get some mentions that the Shadow Dragons work to free slaves in Tevinter, but no characters or quest lines ever really make the player confront that reality. It feels distant, impersonal, and stripped of complexity. I will readily acknowledge that Dragon Age hasn't always dealt with elf racism plotlines perfectly, but I respected them trying and messing up more than Veilguard just... not trying. For example, the animated show they made (Dragon Age: Absolution) dealt more maturely and interestingly with Tevinter's slave society than any part of Veilguard and I wish we had gotten more of that in a game that finally brings players into Tevinter as a main setting.

Problem 2: Lore

It would not be an exaggeration to say that a huge part of the appeal of Dragon Age as a game is simply the world that the writers created. Earlier games developed a Thedas that felt big and epic and complex. They created a setting that gave players a true fantasy experience, full of mysteries and unique societies and fun languages to learn and a rich history.

Veilguard feels very strangely uninterested in capturing that epic fantasy feeling. I cannot count the number of times that characters talked about concepts or used terms that sounded incredibly modern and bizarre given what we know about Thedas. In scenes with Morrigan, it was so obvious how older games were far more comfortable with characters sounding more archaic (dropping a 'tis on us occasionally).

Additionally, some aspects of lore were simply brushed over in very weird ways. For example, why did the Venatori so eagerly join up with elven gods, when in prior games they were, um... fairly anti-elf??? Also, why did everyone in Thedas apparently forget about the concept of Mage Circles? Did anyone give a single flying fuck about the Chantry in this game? Not particularly. Why won't anyone just call the Evanuris "the Evanuris"? Are you embarrassed by your own made-up words, game? Why does every character call them "the gods," even if they are not an elf??

One aspect of the game where Veilguard's disinterest in building its own lore really bothered me was with Taash's quest. Obviously, I have no issues with an non-binary character appearing in a fantasy setting. But the fact that Taash just kinda independently developed the term "non-binary" was very immersion-breaking to me. This might sound lame, but I want to learn some sort of cool fantasy term or an ancient pre-Qun concept of third genders or something. Just give me more fantasy stuff in my fantasy story please!!

Also, I know this controversial, but it also breaks my immersion that even playing as an NB character from Tevinter, no one ever brings up how canonically homophobic Tevinter is (thinking of Dorian and Krem here!) I think there is definitely a place for games that depict queer characters in fantasy settings being happy and accepted, but I don't think Dragon Age has ever been the franchise that people went to for comforting and hopeful visions of a fantasy society. Thedas has always been a dark, brutal, borderline dystopian world, but it still has the potential to tell queer-affirming stories about the struggle against oppression and living in defiance of your society. I wish Veilguard had done that.

Another part of the lore that felt very poorly done was the Titans. I loved the hints we had gotten in previous games through characters like Sandal and quests like The Descent DLC. But when the reveal happened in this game, all the characters kind just went "oh. huh. wild." Also I found the confrontation with, uh, evil red Harding to be very confusing and anti-climactic. The writing of the scene did not clearly telegraph what the red Harding thing even was? And then all of the rage of the Titans was very easily suppressed by Rook saying... "remember you are still you"??? Huge anticlimax that was poorly built-up and all the characters reacted to with little more than a shrug and a "dang, sucks for the Titans. I'd be pretty steamed too, I guess!" I want confrontations with the Titans to feel alien and epic and dangerous (and definitely not easily resolvable through a single dialogue option).

Problem 3: RPG elements

I feel like the developers of Veilgaurd did not want it to be an RPG and instead pushed the writers into created a more generic action/adventure game, but dang it!! I play Dragon Age because I like RPGs! I like to make choices that feel important and complicated! Veilguard gives the player a few significant choices, but I did not like them much and here is why:

Firstly, Minrathous vs. Treviso. This choice feels very forced. You have no real reason to pick one over the other unless you are planning to romance Lucanis or you are trying to role-play as a character from one of those cities. And you have no other options. I like RPG choices that either feel tactical or rooted in the lore of the world, and this is neither. The choice does not impact the game's outcome; no matter what option you choose, you can still ally with that faction and everyone will just kinda forgive you. From a role-play perspective, the game goes out of its way to reassure you that the city you Blight will eventually rebuild through grit and tenacity, etc.

Secondly, picking a character to die heroically. I hate this one because it feels like the game is trying to give you some "real consequences" and play into the larger theme of regret and leadership. But it once again, picking feels random! The game telegraphs very obviously that your choice will probably lead to this character dying or getting injured, so it isn't even shocking when it happens. And, yet again, everyone forgives Rook so quickly and immediately after the death. I actually liked the Bellara vs. Neve choice way more because I was surprised by the outcome, and that gave it more emotional weight. I thought it was just a random call; I didn't know one would be kidnapped!

Finally, the multiple endings. This was a choice that was not actually a choice. Getting the "true ending" was not based on decisions; it was just a check to see if you actually finished the game you just spent a bunch of money on. Like... yeah, obviously I finished all of the companion quests and faction quests?? I paid a lot of money to play this game so I did, in fact, play it.

For comparison, I thought a lot about BG3, which is another fantasy RPG that I played recently. That game allows you to make lots of choices that feel like part of the role-play and impact the ending of the game (is my Tav evil? Does my Tav want to rule the world with the Absolute's power or do they want to save it? Is my Tav willing to compromise with evil in order to make life easier?) Veilguard does not let you role-play much with Rook. You cannot create an evil Rook. You cannot play as a Rook who wants to tear down the Veil or side with the Evanuris. That's fine, I get that BG3 was a really hard game to make, but it makes Veilguard less of an RPG.

A closer comparison might be to look at a choice from a previous Dragon Age game. One decision that comes to mind was the choice between the Mages and the Templars in DAII. This isn't a particularly tactical choice (you still have to fight both bosses regardless) nor is it a choice that significantly changes the ending of the game. But it is a role-playing choice! By that point in the game, the player has gotten tons of information about the mage/templar conflict. They have seen multiple perspectives on the issue and seen the problems with both points of view. Therefore, the choice is fun because it feels like a declaration of belief. You, the player, are forced to pick which organization you see as less flawed or more ideologically valid, and by that point in the game, you care about that choice. Your companion characters are deeply invested in this conflict too, and so, if you care about them, then you care about the decision even when it doesn't change the ending.

With the choices in Veilguard, I was either not invested in the choice because the situation felt so arbitrary, or the choice was not really a role-play choice at all, but simply a sign of completing the game.

Problem 4: Companion Characters

Perhaps the most disappointing part of Veilguard to me is the characters, because I feel like they all had potential to be fascinating, but the writing played it way too safe.

A lot of the companions were strong concepts (a noir detective from Minrathous! an assassin possessed by a demon! a scholarly necromancer!) but I feel like their storylines never gave them much depth and often felt strangely unfinished. I think Lucanis and Harding suffered the most from being incredibly underwritten (Lucanis' Spite plotline feels like they just forgot to add another mission in?). Other characters had personal quests that were oddly paced (Bellara's brother is dead! Wait, no, he's alive. But we might have to kill him! Just kidding, we don't have to kill him. Oh no, he still died!) or with stakes that were not properly set-up (why does Neve care so much about a random templar guy who we never meet or learn anything about prior to her telling us that he died?)

Ultimately, I think the biggest issue I had with the companion characters is it felt like the writers never wanted to take any risks. There were no genuinely surprising twists like with Solas or Anders or Morrigan. There were no major RPG decisions like with Alistair or Isabella. There were no characters who were genuinely unlikable or flawed or at least morally ambiguous. I'm not insisting that companion characters all be dicks, but flawed characters feel more real, human, and therefore more empathetic to me. I love Cassandra because her faith and devotion to her cause does blind her to injustice. I love Fenris because his trauma has made him so defensive and prickly. I love Zevran because his survival strategies are horribly messed up.

I wish Veilguard had given us characters that felt more flawed. I wish they had been brave enough to show us companion characters acting terribly--lashing out in pain, or struggling with their core beliefs, or even fully betraying the party if their approval was low or the player made certain choices! Let me make Lucanis evil if I destroy Treviso! Let me see Neve genuinely go down a dark path and become the dark mage she has always fought against! Let me see Davrin truly asking himself if the Grey Wardens are a cause that he has the heart to fight for anymore!

In general, while it was cool to explore lots of different factions and parts of Thedas, the game never really put those perspectives into conversation. The threat of the Evanuris was meant to be so overwhelming and apocalyptic that in-fighting wouldn't really make sense. But I want in-fighting! I want the Veiljumpers to have serious issues with the Lord of Fortune surrounding ancient artifacts! I want the Grey Wardens to distrust the Antivan Crows because they are criminals. I want the Mournwatch and the Shadow Dragons to debate about what types of magic should be forbidden. Let things be complicated!

Veilguard, I beg you, let situations be emotionally difficult. Allow the player to be uncomfortable at times. Trust that the story will be better if the characters do not constantly announce to the player how they ought to feel and what is the Right and Correct Perspective.

Problem 5: Theme

This last point is less of a criticism and more of a diagnosis of sorts. Veilguard clearly has a theme relating to regret and how leaders are forced to bear the burden of regret for their decisions. Overall, I think the theme was pretty solid and I actually really liked most of the parts about Solas and Rook, their bond, and the Varric twist. No complaints there (although a symptom of a larger disease that Solas and Varric, characters from prior games, were my favorite parts of this game).

However, I think the rest of the game would have been so much stronger if the writers are really honed in on this theme in the side-quests and companion quests. In general, a lot of Veilguard felt slightly directionless and lacking cohesion. If other story arcs and faction quests had also shown the player different examples of "regret as a prison," that could have been a cool way to make those parts of the story feel more meaningful.

But even if the theme were more fully explored in companion quests and side quests, I still think that the game needs more focus in order to tell an effective story. Honestly, if I were writing the game, I would have limited the setting to Tevinter and the conflict to the issue between Rook and Solas. The Evanuris are fine villains, but immediately making the stakes so massive and global makes the story kinda scattered. I would have waited until the endgame to let them out.

If anyone ever wants to read by in-depth "how I would fix Veilgaurd" post, please let me know lol. I have many ideas.

Conclusions:

I don't want to jump on the Veilgaurd hate train too hard, because a lot of people have not been making their criticisms in good faith. But I do feel disappointed by this game, not just because I am a fan of the franchise, but because it feels like it plays into a bigger issue with narrative art today.

Veilguard fails because it feels deeply corporate, sanitized, insincere, and pathologically afraid of getting messy. Even if that means its lows are never that low, I would prefer it to swing hard and miss hard. I like art that actually has something to say other than "hello, here is more of the thing you like, please give us money." Some games are giving us these amazing stories, but not many of them are coming from big studios. I wish Dragon Age had gone in the direction of being a smaller, shittier, but infinitely more loved franchise. I wish the graphics still looked like ass, but I could fall in love with a mass of horrible polygons anyways because the writing was so compelling.

Instead, we got this glossy, over-worked, and pretty underwhelming game. Veilguard is a game for the modern era of soulless, irony-poisoned, pandering capitalists and I hate it, thanks. I hate it.

[fleverian]

Mermay? Nah it's fairy time

Here's some close ups

Been thinking about Fairytopia. Gotta be one of my favorite Barbie movies. I've wanted to draw a young Laverna and Enchantress for a while.

I'm gonna rant about nearly 20 year old Barbie movies. Man, I wish we got some more lore for these movies. Instead we got Mariposa, which was ok and I liked it but I didn't really care for, idk what to call it, the aggressive girliness? Where they bring in fairies obsessed with fashion and everything had to be covered in glitter. But at least I could consider it as maybe just a story Elina was telling Bibble or somewhere far away from Fairytopia. But the the next one ruined it by having Mariposa just straight up fly through Fairytopia and now there's some crystal fairy kingdom right in the middle of the Magic Meadow and the aesthetics and fashion completely clash with the first three Fairytopia movies. I like how the outfits in Fairytopia look like they are made from flowers and natural things. But in Mariposa and The Fairy Princess the outfits look like generic glittery modern Barbie princess aesthetic. Absolutely hate it. To me, it is not canon.

The older Barbie movies are super dated looking probably were even when they just came out. But they all had such well designed outfits and environments. They kind of have a liminal feeling to them. I love the aesthetics of them. The modern Barbie movies improved a bit in the animation, but never to the point where it looked that great. To me they end up looking more uncanny than the older ones. Because the older ones at least had a style to them but the newer ones just look generic. The fashion the backgrounds everything is just so soulless to me. Idk, maybe I'm just old and miss my childhood lol.

Really wish Mattel would revisit some of the old Barbie movie characters though. With a movie, books, or picture books. I fear them making anything with them with the new animation though. I need them to dust off their old stuff and bring back the crappy mid 2000's Barbie cgi. I neeeed it. It would probably be cheaper for them too since it's outdated. I need to see a new Barbie movie in all it's old

glory.

I need to see my girl Elina again. I want some more Fairytopia and Mermaidia lore.

Would love to see some backstory of Laverna and The Enchantress. I feel like there's something there. It just needs to be expanded on. What's Laverna's deal and why is The Enchantress the most useless fairy in all Fairytopia. I have to know.

I designed some younger versions of them. I saw this and wanted to draw my own versions. Gave The Enchantress a name too, Elvina. Read it means "elf or magical friend or noble being" and thought it fits really well.

Decided to try a new coloring style with these. I think it works pretty well for fairy characters. I don't think I'll use it much with other things because it takes a while and I like to use a simpler style.

Here are some versions with no backgrounds since the wings are transparent

[retromimic]

re: Astarion's age (and others)

I made a random post last week about Astarion's age and I have been thinking about it since.

I also realized that we do have other characters we can use to have a better idea of timelines and stuff.

And by other characters I mean Jaheira and Halsin.

More under the cut, tl;dr at the end

Jaheira

Jaheira is from the first two Baldur's Gate games, which both take place over 100 years before BG3 (1368 and 1369, so 123 before BG3, which is in 1492).

She's a half-elf, who age pretty much the same as human, but live longer, so she probably was in her 20's or early 30's in the first games, which would make her about 150 years old in BG3. This makes sense with her appearance, as half-elves live for about 180 years.

Note: Based on appearance only, it's possible Jaheira was older in the first games, but considering they were released in 1998 and 2000, I highly doubt they made the hot half elf lady an actual middle-age woman lmao

Side note: Minsc

Minsc is a human and also from the first two games, but there is a canon reason why he's still alive and doesn't look like he got older like Jaheira did. iykyk

Halsin

He just straight up says he's 350 years old. He's an elf.

He also does look old, but not that old.

Shadowheart

We know she is at least 40 years old (but not much older), and she doesn't look too old. It's subjective but to me she looks like a human late 20's, early 30's (I do think she looks older than Jaheira did in the first two games, but graphic quality and time does affect that). She's a half-elf, so that also checks out.

Recap so far:

Half-elves:

Live for about 180 years

40's: young and soft

150's: Mommy™

Elves:

Live for a long time (in game: at least 350 years, in DnD lore: about 700 years)

350's: Daddy™

Now onto the baby

Astarion

The information can be conflicting, so I'll try to break it down.

The tombstone

This is where it gets complicated because not only is it hard to read, but also is kind of contradictory.

It's written in the Thorass alphabet.

The initial dates are the easiest to read:

229 - 268 DR

Which would mean he was 39 years old when he died. Which a lot of people find it a bit hard to believe considering he looks much older, especially if you compare him to Shadowheart, who's not only older, but also only a half-elf.

I'll come back to it later.

What makes the tombstone complicated is the date Astarion adds. They are hard to read, the first one is barely readable and the numbers 5, 6, 7 and 9 can be easily mistaken for one another when it's someone who just had the most emotional moment of his life carving it in stone with a dagger.

The general consensus from what I've seen has been that it's 498 and that the dates on the tombstone are omitting the 1 (so the dates would actually be 1229, 1268 and 1498 DR), or that Larian made a mistake and should have made the dates in NR, not DR (which would bring the dates to 1261 and 1300 for his birth/death)

Both options have flaws because of the date Astarion writes should either read 492 (omitting the 1) or 460 (NR instead of DR). Neither are really plausible because the last number really doesn't look neither like a 2 or a 0.

The first option would also mean that Astarion died 230 years ago, which we know is not true. A lot of things in-game (not just Astarion) confirms it.

The second option would place his death 192 years ago, which is the most plausible.

But then how to explain the error in the date he adds?

Either he fucked up and doesn't know what year it is.

Or the first number is actually a 2, and he wrote 268, which is the year he died. We'll go with this one.

So, conclusion? Astarion was 39 years old when he died, 192 years ago, making him now 231 years old.

Physical appearance

Now, onto his look.

As mentioned earlier, Astarion doesn't look like he's younger than 40-something half-elf, so some people think the tombstone might be reading 129, giving him an extra 100 years at death, which would make more sense, but there is clearly more than just one dot on that first number, and there is a more plausible reason for him looking so old:

Vampire spawn appeared as they did in life, though their features were hardened and appeared predatory.

Source: Forgotten Realms Wiki

Add to that nearly 200 years of torture? That would make a man look a couple decades older.

And it's not really hard to imagine he was 39 years old at death when you see him, mostly post-Cazador, with softer expressions. (There is posts about it on here, sorry I can't link)

There is one last argument against this, which is the fact that elves reach "adulthood" at around 100 yeas old, and that Astarion already had a job and everything when he died.

But that's really easy to explain;

Elves physically reach adulthood at the same rate as humans, but their concept of adulthood is different, which is why "socially" they are considered adults only much later.

But also, this is socially, and socially, Astarion grew up in Baldur's Gate, a multi-cultural city, so he didn't grow up with elven mentality. Him having a job at 39 years old is very much plausible.

SO.

TL;DR:

Astarion was still pretty much a child when he died at 39 years old, 192 years ago.

[aha-chuu]

My thoughts on the Fontaine characters rn (pre 4.0)

I saw someone making a post about their thoughts and they were tragically wrong and I disagreed. So here I am, being opinionated.

I'm not gonna discuss leaks, I'm just talking about the character designs and what lore we know from the trailer and teaser :))

Lyney

So, Lyney is great. I love that he's kind of sussy, and his teaser that recently came out is almost... Sinister. And yet, he also checks the boxes of being really fun and extroverted! Venti vibes tbh.

Design wise? His animations are the best in the game, hands down. They suit the performance aspect of his character perfectly and are almost enough to make me pull for him.

Tragically, his character design isn't really for me. I think the simplicity works with the bombastic animations, and I'm glad to see he's wearing a reasonable outfit for the job he does (a rarity in Genshin). And yet, I'm a bit too much of a lesbian to be uber interested in the twinky direction his design leans.

Not pulling.

Lynette

So she's super cute. We have got a lot of cat girls already (I think Lyney should have also been a cat-person tbh) but I love that Lyney isn't actually doing cat things. Like, she's this subdued introvert, no meowing during her attacks or curling up in boxes like Kirara. She's just a person.... Who's also a cat.

I like her character design better than Lyney's; the blue just stands out a lot more than his red does, and the big bow is a better centerpiece to her design than Lyney's hat is to his. Plus, her animations are also nice.

We're getting her for free so I likely won't pull, but I am already preparing artifacts to build her on my account.

Freminet

Have I said how much I like sibling dynamics? These three actually seem pretty close and like they will gasp interact with each other! In comparison to the likes of the Kamisatos, this is miraculous.

I know several people who love this guy, and I do think he looks good. I saw some complaints about his hair cut (I think it's adorable), and the chunky boots & coat really serve to emphasise his awkwardness without sacrificing aesthetics.

Unfortunately, he's a physical claymore character, so it's a big skip from me.

Focalors/Furina

Well she's a brat huh. I worry after Raiden that they'll destroy Furina's character arc in order to make her more palatable, but I want her to go full Marie Antoinette. All the lore with the Oceanids disliking her and the general stuff about using the court for entertainment make me very interested in her.

As a design, I just dislike the twin tails. I love the blazer and the huge gem and the hat that's actually a crown!! Like, Furina is extravagant and over the top, obviously self obsessed - she looks perfect in that regard.

Since she's the archon and she's Hydro, she'll probably be broken meta wise. I'll likely pull, but mostly to make cool teams with her, not because she's a fave of mine specifically.

Neuvilette

... Father?

FR though, I understand why several people are crazy about this man. I do wish he looked a bit older since that's sort of where his characterisation is - he's done with Furina's shit and he's doing all the actual work of running Fontaine. With the elf ears, I expect him to be some sort of long-life species - he has no visible Vision and his hair kind of looks oceanid-like, so I figure he's not actually human. That along with the slits in his eyes. I hope he turns out to be older than Furina, and that he has a kind of reluctant dad & spoiled daughter relationship with her; we do see him tell her off in the teaser.

Neuvilette is the most feminine tall man character and the hair is a great aspect of the design. The colour palette is good and I do like the robes since he's a Judge, however I think it might get a bit boring to look at when you're playing as him - which is probably why the hair is so dramatic, in order to bring interest to the design.

He'll probably be Hydro and he'll probably be a catalyst based on that outfit (it's not exactly maneuverable enough for anything else ':))). I am interested in pulling almost a 100%.

Wriothesley

Another man???

I don't understand people talking about the lack of husbandoes in Fontaine, like look at these fine gentlemen.

We don't have much official info on Wriothesley so I'm gonna dip a little into leaks here, skip if you don't wanna know. He is some sort of prison warden which I bop with - it's an expected expansion on the justice landscape of Fontaine. He's on the rough side of the Fontaine infrastructure, in comparison to most of the other characters. That interests me since it feeds more into the duality themes of Fontaine, though currently we're unevenly biased rn to the more santized characters.

Design wise he's one of my favourites. White/black/red looks so good, as does his kind of punk esque chains. The tie puts me off somewhat, like he looks sort of smart and put together, but then the rest of the design undercuts that.

Leaks say Wriothesley is a physical standard banner five star. This fills me with fear. I also don't know what his actual personality will be, so let's say I'm undecided on pulling him.

Charlotte

I liked her personality and en VA in that one TCG event, unfortunately much like that event, Charlotte looks boring. She's cute, whatever, but she doesn't seem particularly story relevant and her design hasn't captured me.

I'm just not that interested.

Sigewinne(?)

Okay, she's cuter than Charlotte she's a sea slug person so immediately more interesting. She was also hanging out with Wriothesley, which is so adorable considering how different they seem.

We're dipping back into leaks here, but it seems like she might be another Hydro healer. I've seen people annoyed by this, but I'm perfectly fine with it - I don't have Kokomi and I like Nilou bloom as much as the next person.

If Sigewinne is a four star, I hope she's on a banner for a cool five star.

Navia

I know a lot of people like this woman. Taylor Swift etc (I am not overly into Taylor Swift), but I think Navia could be cool.

I find her design overcrowded. I do think this suits the fact that we're playing with French Revolution ideas and she's part of the bourgeoisie, so ofc she's overdecorated and elaborate in her fashion. Even though it makes sense, I still don't like the arsthetic of it.

On the other hand, I do like the yellow - it's not a colour we see in too many Genshin designs. I don't really like how it fits with the blue jewellery though.

Personality wise, I worry a bit that she's gonna be our waifu bait, but they did Dehya's characterisation really well without falling into that trap. Navia could be very fun and I think there's a lot of promise in the idea that she might be a class traitor, teaming up with us against the Fontaine government (wow Genshin loves a corrupt government huh).

Will I pull? She's a geo claymore user and my triple crowned Itto is already collecting dust. That's a no from me.

Clorinde

Everyone say hello to my wife:

(I'm waiting)

I've seen so many people mad at Clorinde when I think she looks great. Her outfit is simpler than is typical for Genshin, but that's cos she's a no-nonsense fighter type! Like how we saw with Lyney, more muted designs often mean more dramatic animations, and we already saw Clorinde doing some dynamic fight stuff in the trailer.

She really interests me in that she's a champion duellist, strong enough that even Childe wants to fight her. We see Clorinde works directly beside Neuvilette in the trailer, so she must be high up in position. A gun and a sword? She's trying to kill Navia, but the Devs describe their relationship as "complicated"??

Clorinde is an Electro woman and these are always queer fyi.

I hope she's pretty straight laced, but not quite in the Sara way. She's boring tbh, mostly because she is always answering to someone else, and she gets so little screen time. For Clorinde to work, I think she needs to have independence and apt presence in the story to be explored - not just a prop/obstacle.

Her personality makes me fearful, but rn I'm pulling 100%.

[therealeagal]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Just finished.

I quite enjoyed it, although I wish there was more stuff to connect it to previous games. The identity of Divine Victoria for example. Red lyrium is barely a thing at all in this game. And what happened to the crew after Inquisition? Either Cassandra, Leliana or Vivienne - we don't know who - became Divine Victoria.

Dorian shows up here and there, and Harding and Varric are on the new crew. And of course Solas is hanging around, being terrible.

None one else gets more than a few get passing mentions, if even that and nothing about what they're actually doing. Helping the Inquisitor, presumably. I don't think Vivienne or The Iron Bull or Blackwall or Cullen even get mentioned at all. Poor Cullen.

Anyway, for a lark, let's see how Veilguard stands against Inquisition and Numero Dos. I never finished Origins. I meant to, but you know how that goes. Something came up, then something else, then something else. And by the time you've got free time you've completely forgotten about its entire existence until you're writing a tumblr post about its third sequel.

Oh well. Que sera sera.

=========

As to combat, Inquisition's was better. I got sick of Veilguard's combat after only a few hours. Switched down to the lowest difficulty and have no great interest in turning it back up again.

----

Inquisition's story was more interesting. Just felt like it had more oomph. Maybe it picks up again in the last ten minutes or some shit. Idunno.

-----

Music. Didn't even notice the music half the time. I guess put Inquisition down for better music.

-----

Now the important part. As to characters, my Inquisitor was much more charming than my Rook to my mind. Elf and Dwarf alike. Never played a human Inky. Or a Qunari Inky for that matter.

My Dwarf Inquisitor was much more handsome (at least in the Inquisition art style) than my Dwarf Rook, but I will admit that I think my Elf Rook is better looking than my Elf Inquisitor, in both art styles. Elf Rook has a better ass than Elf Inky.

Don't really have any advisors like Leliana, Josephine and Cullen in this game. All we've got is Solas. And Solas is terrible. And I guess Varric. But he mostly just hangs out in bed all day. I can't blame him for wanting to sit this one out. He's already been through two catastrophes and is getting too old for this shit. Gotta let the new kid lead the troops.

As far as the companions go:

Resident Dwarf rogue. While Harding, a recurring secondary character from Inquisition, is no Varric, she is a good egg and she's a good choice if your party is in need of a rogue. She was in my team for the final battle, actually. Also her side-story is easily the most interesting and probably the most connected to DA lore. 10/10. The goodest of good beans and certified best girl.

A snarky and fashionable female Tevinter mage who fights the bad guys and doesn't afraid of anything, Neve is like a cross between Dorian and Vivienne, and the whole is greater than the sum of her parts. None of Vivienne's characteristic haughtiness and none of Dorian's unfortunate defense of slavery as an institution. Yeesh. Anyway, 10/10 for Neve. No notes.

Bellara, a elf mage and an archer. She's kinda like a cross between Solas and Sera, except that Solas is terrible and Bellara isn't terrible. Bellara is charming and friendly and not terrible. 10/10. No notes.

Lucanis... Cole had a hat. Lucanis doesn't have a hat. Eh. He's a good bean, but honestly, Lucanis is probably the least interesting among the cast. Well that's not to say I dislike him. I just don't find him as interesting as the others.

Davrin>Blackwall. All day every day. Not even a contest. Even if you ignore Blackwall's sordid past. Even if you ignore the fact that Davrin is actually a Grey Warden while Blackwall is a faker. He just doesn't hold a candle to Davrin. Sorry, Blackwall stans. 10/10. Best boy.

Emmrich Volkarin. Charming fellow, I can find no faults in him. He's very interesting. He's a Mortallitasi. I wonder if he knows any Pentaghasts? An all-around good bean.

Taash. They alright. The Iron Bull had more joie de vivre. But Taash is a good bean. Everyone's a good bean. Everyone but Solas. Solas is terrible. Plus, Isabella vouches for them, so they've got cred. I would trust no one else to kill a giant robot. Bull never killed a giant robot. So Taash is one up on Bull in that regard. 10/10. Best non-binary party member. Oh yeah, Taash is non-binary by the way. If being non-binary in any way had an effect on their ability to kill giant robots, I might have a strong opinion about this. Failing such an effect, I have no strong opinion.

Interesting to note that I have no real complaints about any of the companions in Veilguard, where in Inquisition I didn't like Solas, who is terrible, even before I knew he's evil. Didn't much care for Sera. Blackwall, he was just kinda there honestly. Only ever brought him along to do his sidequest. Vivienne I loved but she was admittedly kind of an asshole.

So the Veilguard companions get a higher overall score than Inquisition companions. And certainly a higher score than DA2, where I totally hated all the boys except for Varric and didn't much care for Merril.

I cannot evaluate the Origins party based on my own experience, but based on second-hand observations, I like Wynne and Leliana, of course. Shale's curmudgeonliness amuses me. And of course the dog.

The rest of the team I am either indifferent to or actually hate. I shall leave you to ponder who is whom.

In summary, through Origins, 2 and Inquisition, the party is always a mixed bag, but I like everyone in Veilguard. Everyone but Solas. Solas is terrible. But he doesn't count, since he's not actually a party member in Veilguard. On account of being terrible.

P.S. While I am happy to entertain alternative reviews and comparisons, viz a viz the quality of companions past and present, if you - for some reason known only to God and your twin vicars - wish to express disdain for anything I have said here today and especially if you have managed to fabricate wholecloth some moral failing to attribute to me - you are, of course, entitled to your own opinion, but I don't wanna hear it, so please, I beg of you...

DO NOT WIGGLE YOUR FACE TO ME, MONARCH OF REFUSE AND THIEF OF MOONBEAMS!

Please and thank you. :)

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

I'm starving. Please, tell me your faves SP long fics 🙇🏻‍♀️. Your recommendations are always the best.

Good morning here’s some breakfast! I’ve read a lottttt and I’ve definitely recommended a good chunk of these before, but there’s some more recent ones on this list too! Multiple pairings, some dark subjects, some fluffier stories, all fairly long and most of these are complete! Here we go!!!

The Thief Trilogy by Wintergrew! C’mon we know I’m gonna rec that one every chance I get lmao the lore and world building is absolutely phenomenal!!!

This House of Mine by OrcaTimes another one I’ve recommended a lot BECAUSE IT EATS OK?!? One of the first sp fics I read and it’s so incredibly well written and the character dynamics slay so hard and we know I’m a Kyle girlie I LOVE him in this! Creek centric too!

Ship In A Bottle by FayOfTheForest COMFORT FIC FRFR it got me hooked on style and it’s WONDERFUL

Painted in Shrouds by courtanie THE best kysterion out there I said what I said AINT NOBODY DOIN K2 LIKE COURTANIE the plot is so incredible dude holy shit I was on the edge of my seat

The Stag Prince by SynapticFirefly dude ok y’all know I’ll read anything w my beloved elf Kyle and I KID U NOT THIS IS THE BEST KYMAN IVE EVER READ!!! The characterization is PERFECT like THIS is kyman to me, plus sot au so ofc I’m down it is WONDERFUL the adults are iconic in it too and it’s really a The Gangs All Here story

Hunger Pains by bellwether I KNOW I DONT SHUT UP ABT THIS ONE BUT I DO NOT CARE it truly altered my brain chemistry god chapter 16(?) I believe in particular fuck dude kenny in the whole thing but there’s this moment… and STAN I love my son so much and this is EASILY one of my favorite Stans ever plus I LIVE for Cartman caring about the guys in his own way this fic dude I could write an essay on it

The Illegitimate Opportunity Structure by espyonz STENNY OH MY FUCK this one is PHENOMENAL so far

Behind The Wall by Jwink85 look man ngl this one has been on my rec lists before and that’s because it’s INCREDIBLE also we know I fuck w jwink for the most part. Such an incredible portrayal of abusive relationships and so, so good. The style girlies gettin fed too FUCK I love them. Also dude jwink in general has some incredible stuff just be prepared for some dead dove action in some

speaking of consuming super dead doves, BRUH fuckin To Have And To Hold by courtanie JESUS CHRIST I KNOW IVE RECED THIS ONE BEFORE TOO BUT THATS BECAUSE ITS OBJECTIVELY ONE OF THE BEST STORIES IVE EVER READ YALL want k2? Dark Cryle? Kenny and Stan teamup? The gang forming a plan? Kyle never losing his fire despite everything? Mannnn look no further! I wanna make this a movie so bad

Knives by SparrowGrim dudeeeeeee this is such a cool premise and it feels VERY southparkian in a dystopian kind of way!

South Park Confidential by FayOfTheForest Dude I love this one we got the holy trinity of sp ships with style bunny and creek! It’s such a thrilling crime story SO cool to see characters develop and overcome their own shit, like dude!!!

You know I ain’t doin a rec list without shouting out to the homies!!! Song Of Broflovski by asteria7, pep and rm by boxwinebaddie, Entries From The Past by ViviBaby69420, A Ballad Of True Hearts by luckypoppies, ALL OF THESE KICK SO MUCH ASS!!!

Ok man that’s what I can think of as of rn, THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKIN

[anarchautistic]

My D&D/fantasy-TTRPG nerds: how do y'all feel about races/species aging differently? It's commonly a glossed-over part of the settings, IME. People will keep "Elves/Dwarves/whoever live longer than humans" but might homebrew out "Orcs/Kobolds live shorter lives," and ignore mentioning stuff like "Orcs become adults at a younger age" or "Elves are minors until they're like 100 years old."

I can understand why most people prefer not to focus on it, since it can lead to some moral quandaries that get in the way of playing a casual game. (It's not a great time at the table to have to get out a spreadsheet to figure out if your 50yo human bard is technically grooming the 100yo elf princess, or if fully-grown-adult goblin warriors are child soldiers or not since they're all 15 years old.) The longer-lived races tend to get a pass on their long lives because, being humans ourselves, it's easier and happier to imagine not dying and staying young forever than to imagine dying younger than usual. Ironically, this kind of makes us IRL humans guilty of the same things as how we stereotype fantasy elves: We look down on and pity the shorter-lived races as if a shorter life can't be as worth living.

My curiosity is mostly inspired by watching and reading Dungeon Meshi, and being impressed by how Kui does such an impressive job not ignoring the age differences. Ogres, orcs, and kobolds do mature faster and age quicker than humans (tall-men); as do halflings in a reversal of usual expectations. She even maintains how elves/dwarves/gnomes mature at a much slower rate than humans, when even 5e Dungeons & Dragons pulls a bit of a cop-out and says that they all reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, but are considered young by cultural standards until a significantly higher age. Not only does she not cop out, it's not some swept-under-the-rug bit of lore either, the differences in maturation are front-and-center with stuff like Chilchuck's children and Marcille's backstory! Plus, it's never used as an excuse to be creepy and pull some "sure she looks like a sexualized child but she's actually a 1000 year old dragon" shit, the moral dilemmas are noted and addressed appropriately. It's such nice worldbuilding that it got me wondering whether my homebrew D&D setting should keep following 5e norms, ignore it for the sake of simple gameplay, or emphasize it even more for that immersive DunMeshi detailing.

What do y'all think? Do you prefer to downplay racial/species aging differences except for the positive ones like living longer? The middle-ground 5e standard? The complex Kui system? Something else? Let me know I'm very curious!

[blood-orange-juice]

Hello! May I ask if you have any headcanons for Fischl, Albedo, or Kaeya? Or thoughts about them in general?

Either way it’s quite fun to read your posts on Childe’s personality✨

Hello! ^^ Thank you for the ask and for the kind words! These guys are among my favorite characters and I mostly have incoherent shouting.

*

My main Fischl headcanon is that Oz is not an electro construct but an instance of true creation magic, similar to what Gold did and Narcissenkreuz Ordo tried to replicate.

Girl just accidentaly performed a godlike feat because she was lonely and bored. She does that.

Other than that, all my previous headcanons have been covered in the last year summer event. She's talented, kind, observant, a bit too sensitive for the everyday world and brave af (not the "rush into danger" brave, the "I can look at myself closely and admit I was wrong" brave).

Lil sis is majestic. And she got all the important stuff right. If she wants to roleplay through life then I see no problem.

(it's so often shown how caring she is! during Unreconciled Stars she's one of the first to arrive in the disaster zone. and she regularly invites Mona for dinner because she knows Mona keeps spending all her earnings on books instead of food.

she just... helps others. all the time.)

Also Bennett absolutely has a crush on her.

Also sitting in a garden watching a play is THE shit (even more so in real lfe) and I loved that summer event.

*

With Albedo it's weird in the sense that there's a lot of going on with him but we either have obvious things (him being Gold's creation) or things we can't really connect with anything yet. I wonder if him being a potential danger to Monstadt will be subverted.

I also hope that him not getting a winter event this year means Hoyo are cooking something else. They usually do that when a character doesn't appear for a while.

*

For Kaeya I would need a week and multiple posts.

Do you know that his surname, Alberich, means 'king of elves' in Old High German?

(which in Old French slowly became Alberon and then Auberon. so not just a king of elves, the king of elves)

Which is incredibly bizarre because he's a descendant of the regent family, not the royal family. Why were they called Alberichs?

Also In The Song of the Nibelungs (which for me rhymes thematically with The Ballad of the Fjords spear lore) Alberich is the dwarf/dark elf (svartálfar) who guards the treasure of Nibelungs.

(actually I should write a detailed post about it. hold my beer)

A smaller thing: it also makes me sad how his EN VA makes him sound slightly sadistic while in CN he's more of the "teasing older buddy/coworker" type (and later in the story we learn he's incredibly kind). He's just so beautifully voiced in the Chinese version and none ot the translations do him justice.

[fisherrprince]

for the ffxiv specbio stuff, do you headcanon the people on the First as having physically different traits from the people on the Source, or are they pretty one to one? and if so, were there any strange looks/social faux pas regarding the scions while on the First?

THIS IS REALLY INTERESTING ACTUALLY I think… that the species are all the same, mostly, but since they evolved/grew/colonized in/from different environments, there are definitely differences because of that. Like, say, dwarves not having any of the lalafells’ adaptations to sand, and instead having darkvision in their mining environments and more of a mole snout than a slit snout. Maybe being fuzzier overall. Or elves not having that split between duskwight (colorful, variant cave animal) and wildwood (forest animal). Heck there’s not a lot of elves at all, are there? Was their homeland just so concentrated that most of them were wiped? Another hard thing about this is the complete lack of knowledge we have of the regions before the Flood outside of Norvrandt! Or maybe just knowledge I have. Lol. I don’t have encyclopedia eorzea 2 or 3 just the first one… if anyone can hook me up with a First Lore Historian. I’d love to learn. Or with 50 bucks so I can grab the encyclopedia

And then, even, after the Flood, a lot of culture broke down in favor of communication and survival, so people just souped together. In short… ok. I think the First had a very fairytale vibe, so their designs should reflect that. I know drahn and galdjent have like a kingdom thing going on. There’s probably WAY less sea imagery and ocean features on roe in the first. More puppies than sea puppies, vaguely. More mountainy? Drahn I think are much more draconic than most Auri people, think fairytale dragon guys. They have the kind of customs that fairytale dragons and fae have, too, so it’s historically easy to say something odd to them and vice versa. Giants and dragons! I haven’t met a single elf except Ardbert’s friend. That’s an exaggeration but like no important npcs were elves. They seem very isolationist to me, very used to solo travel. Humes seem to have been mostly in kingdoms as well, like Ishgard, but less Catholic. They’re probably the most same. Garleans as a race of people do not exist on the First which is interesting. Ronso seem much more family-oriented, work-oriented, still cowboys, but very similar. I think the coeurl type hrothgar would be replaced with something else. Viis we know a lot about! They seem to be very similar as well, though I think just for fun for me, they’re Bigger. Like, taller, they’re isolated in a warm forest with plenty of prey and big magic energy. Viis big. Mystel I don’t know about, but they don’t SEEM to be desert cats, so I actually think. They don’t have undereye markings. Some of them have fold ears or domestic triangle cat ears rather than wild cat features. Familiar-like, not a lion pride — so they don’t have the same family structure miqote do either, it’s more like wolves where location and family are top tier. And Dwarves for sure have more mole than mouse features - thick claws on their toes and fingers, a little snoot, and very reflective eyes that are a bit sensitive to light. 

As for social faux pas… I think that Miqote, to show they’re unserious or apologetic, bunt or touch the other cat, lay down or sit next to them, put their tail on the other’s tail, something physical — and Mystel will lick their lips and look away and NOT touch, because further touching is To Fight. Ari FOR SURE tried to lean on and got smacked by Kai-Shirr and then smacked him back in betrayal. It took Alphy intervention to fix that. It is also way more common for humes to grumble and growl than it is for hyur (that’s bad manners. Imagine you bumped into someone at the store and they growled at you), so there was one point where Ryne actually (quietly like a kid swearing for the first time) grrrd at a monster and thancred had a whole 20 minutes of thinking to himself wether or not this was OK feral child behavior to let her keep doing or if he should tell her not to or. Or what. What do here. Is this OK. And lastly..,,, lalafellin alcohol is pretty strong, but their beer and mead taste great so it’s a popular party drink. dwarven alcohol is INCREDIBLY strong, it contains an ingredient mildly toxic to every other race except mord. You are SUPPOSED to, however you decide to do it, last a number of mugs (if you’re a bigger race, dilute the thing with soda or juice, you might get teased but it’s what you do). Some people were not aware of this and passed out after one mug, and got pitiful beards drawn on them (Urianger’s wispy stubble was quite silly to the rest of the party)

I’d love to compile more abt the First just in general. maybe my ideas would change with more info … anyways! Thank u for letting me drop a very large text bubble :]

[neonravengames]

what do u think of the new dragon age game? i’ve been hearing so many mixed reviews over it. does it still feel like dragon age? is bioware back?

Okay so there are a few things I want to say about Dragon Age but it’s important to share that these are MY feelings. The long and short of it is yes I think BioWare is back, there are things I wish were fixed (the lack of DLC is annoying to me) but god damn this is what I’ve been missing. I think this is as good as we could have hoped to get considering everything.

1) holy hell this is the trans rep I’ve wanted. I made my character a man with top surgery scars and selected the options to say I’m trans and his story? Where he shared how he discovered he was trans? It was so close to my own and I just cried. Plus you get to bring it up! Repeatedly! The use of the terms trans and non-binary were a little shocking at first but… I like it? It’s like my term isn’t a ‘bad word’ it fits fine. (Side note, I was almost done making my character when I noticed I had made the male version of my very first character on accident. Being able to have him be trans like me just felt… right.)

2) Speaking of bringing it up, I made a Mourn Watcher and it comes up all the time! Now sure you’re not getting a radically different narrative depending on the origin, but that’s not a realistic expectation. It’s flavor! And it’s damn tasty.

3) For the story, I’ve really liked it. There are lots of spoilers id love to talk about but as a day 1 (I got DA Origins like two days after it released) elf lore enjoyer I am very happy. I don’t know where exactly we’re going from here but I can’t wait.

4) this feels… like a love letter to dragon age. I know that’s been said but it really does. Sure the world state stuff sucks but fuck I’m not ready to leave this world behind. They’ve said there will be more games and I really think based on the reception of Veilguard there will be.

I think… if I had to sum this game up, it’s mostly like reuniting with an old friend. We’ve both changed, grown wiser, experienced things separately but we just fit together. I can’t say your experience will be like that, my love and enjoyment of this series will be different from your own, but for me this is it. This is why I make stories, why I love creating. This is where I discovered parts of my identity, and they were welcomed, not shunned. I can’t say any game has ever captured that, even BG3. I’m still not sure who to romance haha but I’m glad that no matter what happens we got this game.

My advice is to take it slow, sink into the story and world. Let go of what might have been and look at it for what it is. I hope you enjoy it and if you don’t that’s okay.

[beautifulphilosopherbird]

Dungeon Meshi rewatch ep 10 notes

so I always play the intro and outro because I love them so much and another thing caught my eye that might be nothing but is there a reason the women and men are reaching up, with Falin and Laios the ones in the center, and then them grasping hands? it feels meaningful anyway

ah it's the frog costumes ep hahahaha

they've reached the stairs they have to take to reach the 5th basement floor, near the orc's settlement (where the orc leader told them the red dragon was seen, hanging out and causing problems)

but the staircase is filled with tentacles so they can't just stroll down lol

Chilchuck is upset bc the tentacles mess with traps making it even harder to disarm them

KENSUKE SHOOK ALERTING THEM AGAIN but Laios didn't react fast enough and poor Kensuke got SNATCHED by froggy bad froggy let Kensuke go!

LOTS of notes for ep 10 so imma cut it off here

aw bye bye Kensuke (and Marcille's staff is called Ambrosia bye bye Ambrosia)

lol Senshi calling Chilchuck a kid again

he saves the day by using frog skin to wrap his hands so that tentacles don't hurt him smart kid hehe (sorry Chilchuck)

Marcille's weakness as a fashion girlie exposed lol

THEY'VE REACHED THE 5TH FLOOR castle town

lol the frog skin is stuck to them hahaha

(Chilchuck and Senshi's faces tho akjfiashioaghoa they look like Russian dolls help)

Namari gets motion sickness from the return spell portal thingie (bitch, same, that would totally be me, I get motion sickness from walking a little faster lol)

ahhh right right grumpy mcpants works for the "lord of the island" (ig the dungeon is on "his land"?)

hmmmmmmmmmm dwarf mines you say 👀 is that how Senshi got into the dungeon before it officially got discovered?

anyways, he's suggesting to the haughty looking dude to deploy troops in order to take care of the orc "problem"

hm lord haughtypants calls dwarfs "abominable" and says they're like moles

OH LORE ok let's see

so the dwarfs and elves were at war (no reason stated) and

not sure what that means exactly but I'm guessing the elves went to the west and the dwarfs to the east?

the dwarfs hid in the lands (where haughtypants is a lord now ig) and waited for the elves, and even after the war they continued to dig tunnels WHICH ALLEGEDLY SWALLOWED THE GOLDEN CITY AND TURNED IT INTO A DUNGEON wait wasn't that the dark evil crazy magician's work (allegedly)? hmmmmm interesting

he also says that the surviving dwarfs are responsible for the dungeon's continued expansion

grumpy mcpants says (his name is Mr Tansu just in case you think I am using the dumb nickname bc I don't remember) that rumor can't be trusted

ok so he copied a magical circle, I'm guessing before they met Senshi & friends bc afterwards they just bailed right? and it's in elvish, the same individual as before

AHA so his theory is that the crazy evil magician is an elf and these magical circles are his work, interesting (he says the work is beyond the abilities of dwarfs and tall-men)

OH EVEN MORE STUFF wow how did I manage to miss all this I'm such a clown

anyway, the western elves are sending letters now being like "the dungeon is ours we want it back" (well, our "heritage" is what they said, which is interesting bc weren't the king and Delgal tall-men?)

oh EVEN MORE INFO so they won the war with the dwarfs? bc they took the land from them and gave it to humans bc they apparently "didn't know what to do with it" (their king granted it himself even)

this evil magician, if it is an elf the only one I can think of is the crazy eyes elf from the living paintings, so I wonder if it has something to do with him

lordy mcislandpants doesn't want to give them back the island bc he wants the treasure that must still be in the depths of the dungeon lol

MAN we're getting so much lore and theories and everything now, the hamster in my brain is being pushed to his limits

grumpy mcpants says that the elves aren't after the treasure but the immortality spelll that's been cast on the dungeon (that does seem more valuable lol)

he tells mr lord to get his hands on the blueprint of the spell before they do and then he'll finally be treated as an equal, or even their superior

he says the lord of the dungeon possesses it (is that the evil magician or does he mean whoever "beats" the dungeon?), and tells him to keep supporting adventurers and not to cut down prices for hunting monsters etc

oh he'll issue a reward for taking down the orcs (that does not sound good)

ah yeahh I remember, Namari goes to the resurrection office and she asks about Falin (no luck of course)

on the 5th floor, outside the golden castle is the castle town (now abandoned and in ruins)

right, so Laios did mention that the red dragon is supposed to hunt once a month and then sleep until the next hunt but this red dragon has been active nonstop, even going as far as getting the orcs to flee their settlement which Marcille finds odd (but it's also no good for Falin bc she's getting digested faster)

aw cute detail look at Shuro all blushy as he's looking at Falin here hahaha

fun fact: the weak spot of a dragon is the underside of his neck

there she goes again saying her protective magic isn't as powerful as Falin's. She was the best in school, right? It's making it seem like something either happened to her or the school didn't have any good students in it hahaha I mean, I don't really have anyone else to compare her to (besides Falin who is apparently better than her in everything magic related) so I can't tell if it's just normal for her not to be able to do this stuff or what.

ALSO not me just realising Falin is a tall-(wo)man and aren't tall-men supposed to be weaker in magic than elves by default? hm

listening to their plan of trapping the dragon now after I know what happens makes me think that they should have known this wouldn't work out. they're all humanfailures

hmmmm I don't think anyone has mentioned this before but where are dragons normally bc apparently not on the 5th floor lol my guess is lower? hm does that mean something chased it up, like the orcs were chased up by the dragon WAIT IS WHAT SENSHI WAS TALKING ABOUT ACTUALLY HAPPENING????? Did something fuck up the ecosystem? 👀

Senshi guarding his special knife hehehe

and oop the red dragon is here

random screengrabs:

them in Mr Tansu's imagination tho LOL

Idk about you but I ship Senshi x bread 100%

same Chilchuck, same

paused and laughed

his timing is impeccable truly I love him

[moonthehybrid]

Fandom designs

Rant incoming!

Hi! So as I’ve mentioned before I have been in the MCYT community for 5 years, since 2020. And, embarrassingly, it was Dream smp. 

One of the things I liked in the fandom were seeing peoples designs. It was fun seeing people interpretation of basically block people- 

But I never liked posting or showing my designs, mostly cause, well- Most of the times I saw the creators pointing out art that looks the closest to their original skin. Or they would point out artists that drew the art closet to their skins. And some of the fans were even critical.

And that’s fine, but to me, it made me embarrassed on how I drew these characters. 

I don’t like drawing plain humans, I really don’t, it’s so hard for me to make basic humans for something or a design cause they’re so boring to me. I have made my first human designs ever for my own story and it was- actually a struggle- I scrolled on pinterest for hours finding stuff that I thought looked creative enough to not make a basic human.

So I also, admittedly, go overboard with designs. Headcanons, the animal or creature I choose for them, my own kinda lore I make. Ya- I go overboard.

And when it came to the life series, and I was seeing most people draw these guys like humans (only one I didn’t see was Grian) I got scared to draw them, not wanting to be faced with what happened before.

But the deeper I went the more and more, I don’t want to use this word but I will, exotic designs I saw. So I got more comfortable and started to draw designs. Admittedly, I drew more of people’s head canons, not really my own. I drew elf scott cause I saw that the most, I drew parrot Grian, Scar as an elf, Pearl as a moth, etc. 

Cause I was still scared so I just went with what the fandom did, never planning on posting, but still if I ever did, I was scared.

That was until, I heard the reaction of the creators to the fandom.

I’ll admit, I don’t know every single one of them. But I know most. I know the rules they set like Tango said he doesn’t mind the blaze head canon but he doesn’t like horns because “just because I have red eyes, doesn’t mean I’m a demon” so I respect that. 

But overall I’ve heard what they’ve said, I’ve seen the reactions. And I don’t think they realize how much this means. Not only their reactions to like animations, but designs as well. 

Knowing Imp and Skizz like the angel and demon headcanon even if they don’t understand it makes me happy. Knowing how much Scott likes to see the different interpretations of his fish skin in Limited Life makes me happy.

After hearing that I got excited and more open to mine.

I scrapped the moth idea for Pearl cause, while I like it, I thought her as a wolf fit more. I made Scott a unicorn instead of an elf because of his mascot and overall, I liked the unicorn headcanon- I made Scar a cat, someone gave me the idea for the peregrine falcon Grian, the dragon Martyn is still one of my favorites next to the sloth bear Bdubs and Tiger Etho. 

I don’t think these creators realize how much compliment not only the art and animations but the designs can mean. 

Cause lets be honest, most of these skins are plain. Impulse basic skin especially- (sorry Impy) so we make these crazy designs to have a little fun. I do at least. Cause, like I said, I can’t draw basic designs. But once I see a character or how a character acts my brain can’t stop with the ideas. 

Oh Etho likes cats and is sneaky? Let's make him a tiger! Notably one of the sneakiest wild cats in the wild! And there’s such a thing as white tigers? Perfect.

Martyn, Martyn, Martyn… what could I make him… Oh! I know! Dragons! While yes they usually have rivalry’s to kings, they’re also loyal to the ones who help and save them. And he had that whole king thing with Ren, beautiful! 

I want to do Bdubs as a bear.. What bear? Ah I know, sloth bears! They’re shaggy creatures but also the most known aggressive bear! Oh and their natural enemies are tigers! Brilliant! 

And of course I do have the designs and head canons others do too but I still try to expand on them.

Tango as a blaze! Pretty common head canon and design that no one really knows the origin too- someone just came up with it- and I liked it so I drew it. But wait- just a blaze is boring- what else could I do… Oh! He has rage moments! Perfect! I like showing characters emotions in weird ways. So I’ll do that with him! In 3rd life he has normal hair that’s pulled back into a ponytail, but as time goes on in the game his hair becomes more and more like fire. And in Last Life, fully turns into fire during his rage moment. And it gets hotter and hotter as he gets more and more angry. Yes!

Or Scott as a unicorn. Okay ya sure I’ve seen this headcanon before and like it. Scottish man is a unicorn alright, alright, what else could I do… Oh I know! Get rid of his horn! Have Ren cut it off in 3rd life and it grows back in Wild life! As well as some hair lore- 

Or watcher Bigb headcanon. I don’t want to make him just a basic human that’s boring! But what do I make him?... well there’s that watcher headcanon I can lean towards that… watcher’s usually have wings like birds… Grian is a peregrine falcon… I want to lean towards that predator bird headcanon… lets ask people…hmmmmm… they say an owl?.. Owl! Alright what owl… hmmmm. Great horned owl! I can work with that.

And then I can make head canons on how they move/act

Skizz screams and moves his characters a lot when he gets scared. Oh! I know! I draw him with wings, so lets have him when he’s scared he flaps his huge wings to make himself look bigger. Even though he’s 6 feet- it’s like how birds do irl. 

Impy is a demon. What should I give him? Horns and wings! Perfect! Maybe a tail as well. What could I do for him.. Oh! He’s close friends with Skizz, it would make sense if he picked up something from him. He flaps his wings too when he’s scared!

Basically you get my point. 

Fandom designs are fun, and knowing the creators like or appreciate it or respect it means a lot. It makes me feel free to make these crazy silly designs.