To Return - Part Two

// Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five //

Celegorm woke with the dawn to a softly dying fire on a low hillside. The wind rippled the long grass in soft waves. The forest was a dark line at the edge of the sky but he didn’t worry. The cloak still rested on his shoulders shielding him from watchful eyes and if he had not been intercepted all night they should still be an hour or so longer. He sat up, eyes fixed upon the being on the other side of the embers.

He was at least a head taller than him. His dark eyes flicked up at him the moment he had stirred. It was uncanny to find such familiar mannerisms on such a foreign form. The sun rising behind him, cast his cropped silver hair in warm light. And his claws also.

Truly he’d known Huan was no common hound. Anyone with eyes could have see that. But he was the Hunter’s gift and so he’s strangeness could always be accounted for so. He felt his face heat up as he thinks of how he’d treated him. Not poorly to be sure, not till the end, for he had loved him but still like a beast and not like a person.

“You slept in my bed. You slept at my feet” he whispered, “Celebrimbor would ride you when he was little enough.”

Huan - he winced, it seemed strange to name him so now - sat cross legged in the grass, drumming little rhythms on his leg. His brow furrowed just slightly and he spoke as one not yet accustomed to elven words.

“My Lord asked if I would look after you, for the longest time it was my best joy.”

Celegorm sat up shaking his head. He startled as Huan offered him a plate. Game from the moors they sat amid. He scanned the campsite for a bow but found none. There was blood on the Maia’s lips.

“You left with me and brought my curse upon you.”

Huan smiled softly with bloody teeth. His eyes found the fire but he made no move to rekindle it.

“Every day we’d leave Nargothrond to tear up the Dark Ones wolves I’d think, perhaps today I will meet him. The one greater than the rest.”

Celegorm stiffened. He’d known his companion’s doom in his heart - as well as he’d known his own. But he’d never spoken of it. Not to his brothers, certainly not to his hound.

“It never frightened me,” Huan carried on, “I thought I would die as I lived, fighting the darkness with you.”

The sun had risen high enough that Celegorm’s shadow fell over the Maia.

“But when the time came you were not there.”

He felt heat rise to his face, “You left me - ”

“You-“ Huan’s voice is cut off by a snarl, “You…”

Celegorm bit his lip until it drew blood. He’d determined not to ask for anything if he’d ever be permitted to leave the halls. After all he’d taken he could not deserve it. He’d offer his apologies. Offer himself in any way that would demonstrate his sincerity. But he would not presume to ask forgiveness. Even if it was only to save himself the hurt of being denied.

So he did what he hated, which was nothing, and waited. He did not reach over as Huan hunched over, a small whine escaping his throat.

Finally, Huan spoke, “You changed.”

“The Oath…”

“Do not - with that!” Huan snapped at him, “I know it all, I was with you through it all! You gave it up! All of it! All of us! And for what?”

“I’m sorry.” he says unable to stop himself

“I loved you.”

“I’m sorry. Please…”

He shoves the rest of the words down his throat. A silence draws out between the two of them but he doesn’t trust himself to speak. He aches for the time he could sit in comfortable quiet with him. Now the horse he’d been given in Lorien nickers beside them and makes his stiff muscles jump.

“Have you a plan?” Huan said finally.

Celegorm shrugged and looked across the plain. He’d not thought that far ahead, except in broad strokes. The cloak to keep a low profile. Head down to the sea. Find a boat.

“The way is closed, the last ship arrived years ago and none can return.”

So they say, but had anyone tried. Either way his brother is across the sea. He shrugged, “I will.”

“How?”

“I will do it.”

“You don’t know how to sail.”

“I’ll find someone who does.”

Huan sat back on his heels, eyebrow raised, “You’ll send another Telerin sailor to their death trying to cross the sea.”

“I… did not consider that. I’ll go alone.”

“How, Celegorm? On whose boat?”

“I’ll swim Huan! I dont know!”

“You never do,” He sniffed and they fell once more into silence. Celegorm was half a moment from taking his leave when the Maia spoke again, “I know of a Telerin elf that could get you across, favoured by Ulmo.”

Celegorm frowned, “Young?”

“No but he’s part Noldorin, he’ll not hold it against you.”

“Someone I knew?”

A pause.

“No.”

Celegorm stared at him a long moment before looking away.

“You don’t need to do this. You have more than fulfilled the Hunters wishes.” He gestured back to the new woods of Doriath. To Lúthien’s people. “You’re free to go.”

He can’t place the expression on hop the Maia’s face. He blew a stray strand of hair off his eyes before getting up and saying, “I am always free, Tyelkormo.”

The elf opened his mouth and closed again. Instead he sighed and shrugged before walking to where his horse stood grazing. He could here Huan coming up behind as he rose up into the saddle he’d stolen from home. Frown he looked back down, unsure if he should offer the Maia a seat beside him but Huan had already started walking east and south towards the sea. With a sigh he urged her forward down the green hills of the Blessed Lands.

something really gets to me about eiffel and hera talking to themselves while addressing each other - in am i alone now? and the watchtower in particular. i can't say this to you, but you're still the person i want to tell it to. i know there's no way you can hear me, but if you can...

eiffel talks to himself a lot, and he is very used to being alone with no one paying much attention to the things he says, so i'm not sure he ever realized exactly how much until he was on the hephaestus. in the early days of the mission, i imagine hera responded to a lot of eiffel's asides and sort of embarrassed them both. and then that sort of... shifted. their relationship shifted, they got comfortable being around each other, and eiffel's conversations with himself started including hera, too. i like the idea of that as an establishing moment: that, at some point, there was a first time eiffel said something in an empty room, and hera was so used to him talking to himself that she didn't realize it was meant for her, and he asked her, "hera? are you there?"

i imagine hera still talked to eiffel, too, when they all thought he was dead. with each day increasingly longer and more difficult, that she would vent her frustrations to the empty comms room the same way he would've encouraged her to when he was there. she can't talk to anyone the way she can talk to him, and they just... keep talking to each other, even when they can't. they are so much a part of each other, the voice of encouragement and comfort in each other's heads. for so long, all they can really do for each other is talk, and they maintain that connection even in absence. they ask each other "are you there?" like reaching for each other's hands in the dark.

Okay wait hold on do you people actually pay attention to time when you take tests?? As in you calculate exactly how much time you can spend on certain sections instead of just vibing through???

headcanoning monogamous characters as polyamorous is free, fun, and easy to do! additionally, it is always both cool and sexy 😎

My entry for @cosmos-kitty's DTIYS competition :)

See this post for more details!

sudden itch to write a rare pair fic thats not Percy related

but like

the last time I did that it ended up becoming my top fic and lead to me deciding that you know... actually I hate that ship just out of spite so i'm not sure how good of an idea it is

maybe if i try like femslash or something super super rare with side characters or something

NGL, it is very mindboggling to me as a person coming from a police and commercial detection dog training background that so many people who do nosework seem to struggle with imprinting? Like I see it brought up frequently as one of the most common challenges people have and want webinars or classes for, and I’m like... but that’s the easiest part of detection???

feeling sick constantly in the background all the time is like.. usually negligible-ish.. until multiple various chronic background issues all happen to overlap at once and then it’s like 

Your Weekly TV Guide

On Monday you can expect:

2:30 PM: Original - Concept art

And Tuesday:

2:30 PM: The Stanley Parable

Wednesday:

2:30 PM: Mob Psycho 100

Thursday:

2:30 PM: MP100

Friday:

2:30 PM: Star Control II - Helix

Saturday:

2:30 PM: Dragon Quest IX

Sunday:

2:30 PM: SCII - Helix

Thanks for tuning in! (Patreon)

writing dragon age fanfiction is so so so so hard for me because every time i spot another historical inaccuracy that’s like “i don’t care that it’s fantasy they have the same level of technology this is WRONG” i have to have a moment of like. “kaed NO ONE ELSE will EVER care about this. you watch ‘ranking period dramas on corset accuracy both in construction and writing’ videos on youtube for entertainment normal people simply do not give a FUCK about medieval castle layouts!”

and yet this cycle continues, because the dragon age devs so so so so clearly DID research but they did BAD research and it HAUNTS me. like WHYYYYY is there only one courtyard that isn’t even really a courtyard in castle cousland WHY is the “main hall” huge with no furniture while the great hall “dining room” is tiny as fuck and in a horrible to access spot WHY are there no ovens in the kitchens where the FUCK do they bake the breaaaad!! like ok fine cool servants get beds in thedas i’ll bite. that fucks hard, actually! but WHY are there more servant rooms than rooms for visiting nobles do you honestly think anybody in the middle ages fucking had servant rooms???? they slept on the FLOOR in the GREAT HALL! and WHY is there a fucking library and a ‘treasury’ (which what the fuck is THAT there should be a DON-JON in there you locked your valuables in the TOWER at the TOP, not in ONE room centrally located on the first floor with TWO guards!!) like i KNOW it was for level design i KNOW it was but oh my fucking g-d it’s gonna KILL ME to write out creeping through corridors when there WERE NO CORRIDORS! like look at this. look at this.

castle cousland: stupid, awful design, honestly they kinda asked to be coup’ed with their garbage unsurvivable castle that supposedly nobody sieges regularly even though it’s literally a death trap. there is ONE main exit, no way to trap your enemies, and only one official guard post that i can see. fuck awful.

harlech castle in wales: it took 115 years for someone to successfully take this castle, and it’s withstood COUNTLESS sieges, you can go visit it right the hell now if you go to wales (not at all getting into the evilness of the english building castles in wales, that’s not the point i’m trying to make.) see how the outside makes it so that even if your enemies breach the walls, to actually reach anyone important they have to survive the volleys of arrows from the ramparts? and then presumably kill everyone ON the ramparts, or the minute you go to open a door or try to drag someone out, you’re going to get shot full of arrows. that’s after breaching TWO heavy doors (which would require a battering ram both times) which would wake up the entire castle LONG before they got anywhere NEAR the heir to the castle’s wife and child.

and before somebody says “oh well kaed maybe you just don’t know your castle building periods very well” think again. i know my castle building periods. that style above is concentric (harlech castle’s initial construction was finished in 1289 and was one of the first finished castles in england in this style,) which came after the keep and bailey style, which came after the motte-and-bailey style, which came after the burh (which arguably WASN’T a castle but whatever,) etc. there are no fortified castles in english history that look like castle cousland, because it’s fucking indefensible. now, this does lead to the question of “oh, well, what is the timeline for the game, maybe there’s something you missed!” so let’s examine the time period of origins:

at the very, very latest, origins could be based off of the BEGINNING of the british “wars of the roses” (the civil wars between the various members of the house plantagenet) which began in the 1450s— this is personally what /i/ think origins is based off of, for a couple reasons. 1) trevelyan was a real person— g.m. trevelyan was a british historian who wrote about the wars of the roses, and in one instance there’s a quote of his the devs almost verbatim used for the design of the free marches: “the Wars of the Roses were to a large extent a quarrel between Welsh Marcher Lords, who were also great English nobles, closely related to the English throne…” they ixnayed the part about the marcher lords being ferelden nobles, i imagine because it was too complicated, but trevelyan? marcher lords? a close relationship with this country? (i.e. like somewhere that might take in their refugees after a catastrophe?) cmon. 2) because ferelden is fucking huge and the histories are kinda weird, because they aren’t 1 for 1, i’m gonna say that we have to use the norman conquest of england as our unification date. in other contexts i wouldn’t try to argue this, but in this one, i’m saying 1066 is the unification date of the anglo-saxon kingdoms into england. calenhad gives us a hard unification date for ferelden— the first landsmeet was in 5:42 exalted, ergo origins is 388 years later. the wars of the roses started in 1455, 389 years after the norman conquest ended. 3) the wars of the roses happened because of a succession crisis— admittedly, these two succession crises are very, very different, but there are definitely parallels between loghain and henry vi and alistair and edward iv. henry vi was crowned at a young age (loghain largely ruled for maric at various points in his life, starting when he was very young,) and was very ineffectual— he suffered from an unknown mental illness which made him extremely unstable and unable to rule for large periods of time. loghain, on the other hand, ruled when the /theirins/ weren’t stable, so you argue he had the opposite— meanwhile, his policies WEREN’T sustainable, whatever you might think of him. loghain is too shaped by his own experiences to be a truly good leader, and by the time his rule/anora’s rule is threatened by cailan, he’s sacrificed enough of his principles that he’s willing to commit atrocities (notably, margaret of anjou ruled during the worst parts of her husband’s mental instability, which again could apply to loghain OR anora, as they ruled fairly jointly after a certain point.) edward iv was the son of richard of york, who was eligible for the throne at a very young age (18 to alistair’s 19) because his father was dead. he was coaxed and led into battle by his cousin, the earl of warwick (also known as the kingmaker— sound like a protagonist you might know?) that’s about where the similarities end, but that’s largely because alistair is a grey warden— if he weren’t, he’d probably be able to have kids and end the question of succession. but he can’t, which, assuming the devs eventually remember, WILL lead to another civil war. hence why i say this is at the BEGINNING of the wars of the roses.

another option that could be argued but makes much less sense and i have no evidence for is that alistair has similarities to edward ii (second son who only became king because his brother died, married a more powerful woman to consolidate power, not very good at ruling, no offense to alistair,) but that still puts origins at like 1307-1327. in either case, they would have been using concentric castles— and given what time period castle cousland was originally built in, it would have been built as a motte-and-bailey, which would NOT have lasted four hundred years. so the castle had to have been rebuilt, and bryce cousland would have had to update that rebuilt castle, because no one lived in it during the orlesian occupation. so where the hell does this winding, weird multi-level design come from?

i GUESS— and this is SO charitable— they could have designed castle cousland based off of a country house design from the mid 1500s, but none of them look like that, either. they’re exclusively rectangular, for one thing, and one of the huge bragging rights of owning one was that they weren’t fortified— they came into fashion during a period of relative stability under the tudor rule, when it was considered guache and maybe even treasonous to build a fortified castle. ferelden is NOWHERE NEAR a period of stability, if anything at the end of origins they’re entering their greatest period of INstability, given what happens in inquisition, and that no matter who ends up on the throne, there’s no way for them to have children. so there’s NO way this castle is a country house, or inspired by one.

leaving us with the final conclusion that a) the game devs definitely did do research into the time period because i can fairly directly trace a line between the event i think inspired origins and the plot, but they didn’t do enough research to figure out what the everloving fuck the BUILDINGS looked like. so these castles make no fucking sense and can’t possibly be called historically accurate even with the fantasy defense, and b) i care WAAAY too much about this for somebody who isn’t even a medieval historian. my area of expertise is the paleolithic, i have no clue why this bugs me so bad i spent four fucking hours writing this post.

My Christmas wish is to finish all my pertinent wips 🙏

Anyway since I can't send an ask because of character limit and I gave up after trying to write it three different ways and it not working, I'll just. Idk write a short vague post back? I'm assuming a vague for a vague is fair (don't worry I don't want to be mean I just have no other way of navigating this situation.) Since I'm exhausted & but want to at least express my view of it.

Idk just on the off chance they see this or one of our shared mutuals shows them or something. My "weak subtext" post had absolutely nothing to do with Adam Warlock, I didn't even remember that I reblogged that poll before making my post. I had seen like six other polls after the Adam one, bc I was actively looking through the blog, that did the exact thing my post was about, the blogrunner (who shall remain anonymous) had Pointed Out in private that it was happening and gave several examples & it was distressing them so I checked the blog myself and commented on it, which was why I made the post. Not the Adam poll in particular which I didn't remember and wasn't thinking about. I do not know enough about Adam to say anything about either the text or the subtext or anything, so I just. Wouldn't? It really baffled me that it was read that way.

Anyway. Farewell beloved mutual we barely knew ye...

i do fr need to work on differentiating between "actually middleclass" and "doesnt live paycheck to paycheck" lmao bc that is something i struggle with... obviously ik i have more in common with like. even somebody whos fr middleclass disney vacations every year. I know i have more in common with them than i do with bezos but god at least i dont have to see bezos being annoying in front of me every day KJANDJKLNLJD

Very long Initial thoughts and first impressions on the Caribert Archon Quest in the tags. Spoiler alert!!

Me when I don’t have an active hyperfixation: *sleeps too much* *barely any motivation to do anything* *feels empty and unfulfilled because there’s nothing to fill The Void*

Me when I do have an active hyperfixation: *loses sleep to research* *grades slip because I’m so focused on the hyperfixation* *has no motivation or energy for anything else* *ignores the growing mess in my room because that doesn’t matter to me anymore* *I only ever think about the fixation* *forgets to eat, drink water, and go to the bathroom regularly* *friends continuously call me annoying and ask me to talk about anything else*

Did... Shiro give his former cloak to Aijiro to wear,