codenamecynic reblogged
Have you heard of the tragedy of the Champion of Kirkwall?
+ Bonus
The og post that made me go insane
codenamecynic reblogged
Dorian, a known necromancer…
The one school of magical medicine where you do not need to hurry
codenamecynic reblogged
I love the fact that default femshep is wearing makeup 24/7. I'm not being ironic, like I could handwave this but hear me out, I think it's funnier not to. I will allow her this one feminine indulgence. She's allowed to slay while she slays
After the Battle of the Citadel, she makes thousands of credits because the makeup company she uses asks to use the footage of her climbing out of the wreckage of the council chamber with flawless makeup for advertising purposes
Just imagine the squad has been waiting by the shuttle for the past half-hour wondering where their commander is, meanwhile Shepard is stuck squinting into the bathroom mirror because she fucked up her eyeshadow and had to start over for the third time and she is NOT going to fight those fucking collectors without her trademark intimidating smokey eye. She needs the bugs to know she has her SHIT 👏 TOGETHER 👏 GODDAMMIT
Grunt asks her why she's wearing stuff on her face all the time and she just lies and tells him it's war paint. He spreads word of this to the aliens and none of them know quite enough about human culture to confidently argue this, and the only other person on the ship with similar makeup is Jack, which, ok yeah that checks out. So they kind of just accept it. Shepard doesn't think about it again until Grunt comes up to her asking if she can put the human war paint on him before the thresher maw fight so he can match his mom battlemaster
codenamecynic reblogged
Drawing this made me feel a lot of things ok. Please understand that drawing this made me feel a lot of things.
I’m planning to do prints of this, as well as several other Mass Effect stained glass posters that are still WIPs. I’ll put a link in the About section of my blog when I get that up and running! This and the Mass Effect 1 Femshep one are the first ones I’ve finished, but you can check out the #mass effect stained glass tag on my blog to see the others, if they happen to exist when you come across this post :D
codenamecynic reblogged
Vindication
for @servantofclio & @jadesabre301 whose original prompts started this, and @fourth-age whose remarkable kindness and generosity helped give me the kick to finally finish it. (aka the epilogue is her fault. you’re welcome.) Happy N7 Day, to every Shepard, and every ME ending; here’s Ward Shepard and Jack’s surprisingly happy one. Also on AO3.
It’s a damn stupid book. Heavy, too. Goofy pictures, ridiculous stories, all wide eyed girlies and brats with more shoulders than brains who are supposed to be heroes.
But, it’s an actual book, all in one piece, doesn’t smell of smoke or blood, doesn’t need to be plugged in or charged, so Jack reads it to him despite it all, every afternoon there’s enough sun coming in the window she doesn’t need to waste the power on the lights to see the words.
The monitors plugged into him every which way are enough of a drain, ain’t they?
Not to mention the ones plugged into everyone else in the building.
Only good thing about everything being ruins. The hospital used to be some sort of office building, and doesn’t actually smell like a medbay, not yet, not really. It’s in the air, but not in the walls or the floors.. Easier to stay for a few hours and keep him company, like that.
Not so many memories.
Hard enough worrying about the future, without the past leaking in too.
Or not worrying. She’s gotten pretty good at just dealing with each day.
She thinks he’d be proud of that.
Not that she needs Shepard to be proud of her.
But it was a nice feeling when she had it.
She refuses to imagine the possibility she won’t have it again.
You’re mine. Don’t you forget it.
His insides had gotten practically blended, but his armor held together well enough he hadn’t needed any skin grafts, so he still had the tattoo she’d given him, still had lines to mark the memory of his skin beneath her hands.
Not that either of them need the reminder.
But it helps, while she waits, to know it’s still there, beneath the thin rough cloth of his hospital gown. It helps, to believe he can hear her as she slowly works her way down each page, the ever-present haze of dusty air making her cough, even here, past every filter the staff could manage to set up for the building.
‘Sides, she’d never heard most of the stories before. Seen a couple of the vids, but never all the way through, not properly.
Most of them are kind of stupid, but she likes it when they push the witch in the oven.
And the Beast has a damn fine set of teeth.
Bet he’s got a good growl.
The picture’s eyes remind her of Shepard, dark and still, and sometimes she has to stop and cover it with her hand, and swallow, and breathe, before she can keep reading.
It isn’t fear, not quite, and it isn’t anger, for once, but it’s just as deep, just as painful.
She isn’t sure if it’s closer to sorrow, or hope.
Isn’t sure which would be worse.
codenamecynic reblogged
Warden shit is so stressful
oh my god how do tumblr
codenamecynic reblogged
is this anything
codenamecynic reblogged
really tho, shout out to baldur's gate 3 for capturing the "bunch of misfit disaster bisexuals forced to tolerate each other, will eventually become family whether they like it or not" vibes that were always the best part of dragon age 2
codenamecynic reblogged
While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.
Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)
Hey remember the time I was like ‘I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about sex in writing but all I can call it right now is smut because I’m still developing the words to explain how I feel’? Basically it’s this.
codenamecynic reblogged
A Day On Or Adjacent To Today is @codenamecynic‘s birthday and @perahn very graciously allowed me to illustrate her birthday fic for her but if you want to see my work you have to giggle through this fic sorry I don’t make the rules
I hadn’t even posted this up here yet but obviously Jade’s post is superior to whatever I was going to say
Happy birthday, @codenamecynic ! It is such a great thing to know you and hang out with you and especially to play DnD with you
You two are both nerds and I LOVE YOU. Also I’m never on tumblr anymore so this is the latest reblog ever, but this was an amazing story and honestly... words can’t describe the art. They literally can’t. Literally.
Haaaaaappy Biiiirthdayyyyyy @perahn!
Keeping in the theme of this year, have a Khem-leficent and her minions polymorphed friends in coloring book style, judging the hell out of something (as they do).
Good help is so hard to find.
codenamecynic reblogged
Happy Birthday @perahn!
Thank you for always blessing us with your beautiful, heartbreaking writing (dnd-related or otherwise). I hope this music does the beauty of Khem’s Letter justice!
Go out on a clear night and look up at the stars. Look long, and if you are susceptible, your throat will begin to ache with a strange longing for those beautiful, distant sparks of light. You want, and other things pall while tsu-yareth holds you. But it is a temporary phenomenon, and a very manageable one. You go inside, or you fall asleep, and in sunlight or firelight, you recollect yourself. Oh, they are pretty enough, but what do you really want them for? You cannot hold them or keep them; they are not part of your world. You could fly so high the air died away, and come no nearer. If, by some mad chance, you could reach them - what then?
Essaying Love - The Letter by Fionavar
Incredible music by my gorgeous wifey, and a huge happy birthday to @perahn! (Also, did ya’ll know that you can commission music from @bettydice? 10 out of 10 for themes for your favorite character, or to inspire dramatic moments in your latest fic. Or just to make yourself cry to while you sit in the dark and hug a pillow. No judgement. Hit her up though!)
A backstory vignette for pre-game Harper + Katy for my wifey @bettydice. For reasons.
Harper doesn’t sleep well. Hasn’t for years. Why is not specifically important - it just is what it is and he’s learned to live with it. He’s even a mostly functional human being most days.
Mostly.
He can tell something is happening before he even opens his eyes. There’s a feeling in the air, an overt quietness with intention behind it. Someone watching him. Someone trying to be quiet.
Of course she’s not quiet, because she’s never quiet; it seems simply beyond her means. Ceitidh exists loudly and though - privately, in the dark secret crevices of his cold black heart - he might find that endearing sometimes, that circumstance does not extend to this moment.
It’s the middle of the night, there’s a rock digging into his back, and Ceitidh is sitting with her back to their waning campfire.
And staring. At him. With her chin in her hands.
Harper blinks. “What the fuck.”
codenamecynic reblogged
8 for Khem and Katy, 5 for Zev/Warden
And when you got it And think you're dreaming You hit the light You've got to find it, we all need it We hit the light
Strobelite - Gorillaz
Katy looks out of her window and sees flying unicorns. She opens her wardrobe, closes her eyes, thinks about a fantastic gown, and when she opens her eyes, the gown awaits her. Then she calls forth her magical kitten and snuggles it for a while.
None of this feels real. Harper would maybe say that it’s not real, since it’s all magic and only exists when the caster wishes it. Khem would disagree. Maybe talk for twenty minutes or so about the logistics of things existing on other planes of reality, of the impossible possibility of things being and not-being at the same time.
Katy... well, if she thinks too hard about it, nothing she has feels real. Feels permanent. So she doesn’t.
“I dreamed about you.”
They’re all meant to be together. They were always meant to find each other.
She could turn this feeling around, she knows. She could think “They didn’t choose you. If they had a choice, they would not be with you. Nobody has ever made that choice.”
But that doesn’t matter. Katy would and will always choose them. And they’re living in Khem’s dream, aren’t they. Khem dreams of bones and fire and pain and terrible backstabbing and people eating their own eyeballs or whatever.
She would never dream about Harper flirting with a bartender so he’ll heat up some milk for Katy, even though he said he only sells beer.
She would never dream about how it was to kiss Shay and see her soft shy smile in the moonlight. She would never dream about herself letting Katy hug her. If she’d dreamt that, maybe she would have never left Thay.
So, they’re meant to be together. Living in Khem’s dream. Maybe Katy can add some of her own dream-aesthetic, because her dreams have been really nice thanks to Mielikki and none of her companions seem to excel at dreaming happy things.
It’s good they have Katy. She’s always tried her best to dream of only happy things.
codenamecynic reblogged
His relief was obvious, but short-lived. I wanted to press that question of confidence a little more. I had asked Harper if he thought Cort knew how to lose, and he’d been rather nonplussed by it, eventually suggesting I should ask Cort -which I’d always intended to – and accordingly did.
He countered well, at least for a time – he’s certainly never lost to anyone as weak in the martial arts as I…and then I asked one of the things I have wondered since Arrabar. He is, he says, supposed to defend the House Ferryman and its assets, and yet the two eldest heirs had died: was that not his failure?
Any goodwill I had built with him was probably lost at that moment, and I imagine it passed well into resentment as I kept prodding at the matter. Certainly each answer came more begrudgingly, and he descended into petty sniping before he claimed to be tired and seeking his bed.
Khem’s Codices #35 this drawing found in the marginalia, clearly added at a later time in a different hand, labeled “cort the pincushion.” (“She’s been giggling to herself for the past half-hour,” Serannis whispered in worried tones to Brighthip. “So probably you should see what she’s up to,” Brighthip whispered back. “I don’t want to draw her attention to me,” he said. “She’s just been giggling and muttering ‘take THAT you jerk’ and I don’t want to know.”) @codenamecynic @perahn @bettydice @dakoyone
These tags need to be immortalized, but also JOIN US IN THE CLUB OF PEOPLE WHO DON’T REALLY KNOW WHAT CORT SPECIFICALLY LOOKS LIKE. The character blob is real, but also thank you for saying that about his name because I think that also and really it’s mostly serendipitous because a name generator picked it out but it’s worked out really well.
Also I love you, you weird fangirl. Never stop Jadesa, never stop.