twilightoftheapprentice

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Nothing like holding my love

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Facts

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After Rana is fired and Neve introduces her to the Viper, she can be found in the Shadow Dragon headquarters, chatting with this adorably short Shadow Dragon elf lady with a very sexy voice. (Only in Saved Minrathous worldstates, of course, otherwise Rana is homeless and starving. (Save Dock Town!!!))

Rana : Are there more records on— Shadow Dragon agent : Wait. You finished the ones I gave you? Rana : Yes. And there might be a pattern with spy movements, but I need more information. Shadow Dragon agent : Neve said you'd give yourself homework.

(Later:) Shadow Dragon agent : The inconsistencies you found in the coded messages. You were right. It was a trap. Rana : Was everyone okay? Shadow Dragon agent : Thanks to you. Good work.

(Later:) Shadow Dragon agent : A few of us are heading to the Silver later. You want in? Rana : What are we watching for? Shadow Dragon agent : It's not a job. It's supper. Rana : Oh. Um, yes. Thanks.

The diligence, the hot work ethic

Neve talks to EVERYONE about Rana

Ex-Templar Rana Savas, you are being flirted with

"It's not a job." (exasperated, charmed, turned on)

"Oh. Um, yes? Thanks????" My God, what an absolute dork

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I want to see the fall of LinkedIn during my lifetime

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ever since i was a child i knew i was meant to stan controversial female characters

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I feel like chatgpt came around and everyone immediately forgot what they were doing to get stuff done before. like writing centers, extensions, extra help, templates, office hours, beta readers, random generators, and art and writing prompts have all existed for ages. even if you were cheating there's always been sparknotes, photomath, copying, paying someone else to do it, faking that your grandma died, and whatever. all of that stuff is more reliable and doesn't fuck over the planet. and you might actually learn something

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rereading Streets of Minrathous and I'm still so pleased that the OG Neve-Rana dynamic made it into Veilguard

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amazing how your attitude on a song can be "it's pretty good" and then as soon as you pair it with the right blorbo, you suddenly have to listen to it 40 times in a row

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Lady Gaga presents The MAYHEM Ball Tour — 2025

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everyone has a threshold for what will make them evil and for me it’s apparently driving for longer than four and a half hours

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whats a stereotype for your country that you absolutely do. mine is that i unironically go "eh" and apologize a lot and i often drink maple syrup straight

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u call her a “war criminal” and “tyrant” ...i call her “babygirl”

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for $1 name your favourite fictional lesbian. and no "straight female character popularly fanonized as a lesbian" or "this male character is a lesbian to me" allowed

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I think the other reason I don't really get into ships as portrayed by fandom culture is that it seems like the mindset is more like. "I want these characters to be in a Romantic Relationship(TM)" instead of "I want these characters' relationship to be romantic"

What I mean here is that, so often I see pairings enacting romance tropes to the point of heavily altering or downright replacing their original dynamic - as if the people behind it only understand romance as a series of checklists to tick off. Couples like to kiss and sleep in the same bed and flirt with each other, so it doesn't matter who the characters are, if they're a couple then naturally they'll do those things, right??

And that's where the whole thing starts to lose me, because I would assume that the appeal of shipping characters is, y'know... the characters? Rather than just, the idea of a couple? If I'm thinking about how it'd be cool for them to be in love, my first thought is always "so how would they show it," because just like everything else about a person, the answer is going to be different on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe the characters involved aren't really into kissing, but they like arranging date activities. Maybe they aren't committed to the structure of dating at all, and just want to be around each other whenever they can. And even if they are the types to like doing traditionally romantic things, that doesn't suddenly erase whatever else they had going on before they started adding that on top of it.

I'm not saying that the more typical romance tropes and activities are bad, just that they're applied kind of excessively, regardless of whether or not they actually work for the characters involved. I want to see my favorite characters having relationships that are true to who they are, not what the stock depiction of a couple says they should be.