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everydisneymovie · 4 years

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Review #53: 101 Dalmatians

Post #58

9/1/2020

Next up is 1961′s 101 Dalmatians

Enjoyment : [6]

This is a very cute movie. It feels like an evolution of Lady and The Tramp both in style and tone. The dogs are cute, the humans are generally likable and the slapstick antics with the bumbling villains are satisfying on their own. The tone and comedy really carry this movie, especially when the characters do not. The humans don’t get enough screen time, and the dogs mostly just act the way you’d expect dogs to act. While I think as a whole this is a stronger movie than Lady and the Tramp, at least Lady and Tramp have some character beyond just ‘dog.’ One really strong point is how this movie builds tension. We know in no uncertain terms what will happen if the puppies get caught. We see what is stopping them from escaping, and then we see them formulate a plan to bypass the roadblock. That is exactly how you build good tension and manages to get you invested a fair amount.

Quality : [7]

This is a very nice looking movie and it takes some interesting departures from previous animated films. Thanks to new copying techniques this movie is a lot more fluid in its animation, and it has a very scratchy almost charcoal sketch style to it’s art direction. It is very clear that this is a movie was made in the 60′s as it draws from pop art and modern art for it’s character designs and backgrounds. It abandons the previous painterly style of the 40′s and 50′s for something closer to rough ink work. This is appropriate for the subject, considering we mostly see Dalmatians on screen. I also noticed that there is a great deal of effort put into the vehicles. Thanks to very subtle rotoscoping, it almost tricked my eye into believing the cars were 3D animated somehow. With 101 characters to individually animate, it makes sense that they relied on looping and duplicated animations, but they do a very good job offsetting it with unique animations to distract the eye. For example, they will draw 1 basic running animation and loop it three times, to create three puppies all running at staggered intervals, then animate a unique cycle for a puppy climbing over an obstacle and that helps you accept the repetition. It is a very smartly made film, which was exactly what Disney needed after the financial loss they took with Sleeping Beauty. It was cheaply made but it never feels cheap which deserves recognition.

Hold up : [4]

Luckily there is nothing grossly offensive about this movie. No overt racism from what I saw, but again that can be attributed to ‘everyone on screen was white’ rather than any actual diversity. On the other hand, this movie writes it’s female characters very lazily. Anita is just a love interest, with no given back story or motivation. We learn nothing about her and she is simply there to be Rogers wife. She is also drawn very conservatively compared to the more stylized way Roger is drawn which always sucks to see. Pongo and Perdita are also an issue, since Pongo displays more personality throughout the movie, while Perdita is confined to ‘concerned mother’ and little else. Nanny is a somewhat interesting female character but she doesn’t get enough screen-time or nuance in my opinion. Cruella is interesting villain, since she is very clearly evil for evils sake, and genuinely frightening at times. However I feel like she is given no backstory or motivation beyond being selfish. She is not the worst Disney villain so far but also not the best.

Risk : [6]

I think this movie lands in the perfect middle ground between ‘cheaply made’ and ‘well made’ There is a real efficiency to the writing, animation and framing. Although I worry that this might set a bad precedent for future movies. This movie works with its rougher edges because the tone is. jazzy, almost free form. I feel like this style is going to be slapped onto future projects without the stylish behind it. Still I really have to applaud the effort put into making this movie look and feel good. For what it is, it is harmless and fun. I will always take harmless and fun over hurtful or boring.

Extra Credit : [3]

I like the sound design and art direction of this movie. It reminds me of the art of Saul Bass and even french pop art. It is fun to see a Disney movie branch out in terms of its aesthetics. I also really liked the subtle touches like some of the facial animations, the background details and the frenetic way they animated Cruella driving her car.

Final thoughts:

This is the first Disney animated movie where I generally could not find anything ‘bad’ about it. It has a series of minor flaws but none of them really kill this movie. If they fleshed out Roger and Anita, this could have been a really great film. I also think if they had a bigger budget they could have really made this movie pop with some shading animations. It was noticeable that characters passed through light and dark environments with no visual change to their color and that bugged me a tiny bit. It was also interesting to search for any reused animations. Anita is basically just Aurora or Wendy, and Nanny is just Flora. Also, they included a bunch of the dogs from Lady and the Tramp meaning we now have an extended animated universe. Also weird note, the cartoon the dogs are watching after they get captured was from the Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons. This means it is tied for the record of [3] but I feel like future cameos in animated movies are going to be a real contender moving forward. This movie manages to hold up a good amount and I fully recommend it. It is not terrible.

Total Score: 26/50

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#one hundred and one dalmatians #101 dalmatians #Disney #every disney movie #I watched Every Disney Movie #reviewing every Disney movie #late stage disney #Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons #lady and the tramp #movie review #Movie Reviews #animated movie #movie theory #Movie Ranking #Film Theory #Rey Rapids #late stage capitalism #capitalism

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laurelsofhighever · 5 years

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Chapters: 46/? Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins Chapter Rating: Mature Relationships: Alistair/Female Cousland Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Fereldan Civil War AU, Romance, Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Demisexuality Chapter Summary: Alistair and Rosslyn greet a new dawn, but there are still obstacles waiting for them. THIS CHAPTER HAS ART, CHAPS

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Twenty-ninth day of Harvestmere, 9:32 Dragon

The morning light was gentle against Alistair’s eyelids. He became aware of it at the same time as the warmth that cocooned his body from the chill mountain air, and from that hazy, floating sensation came an awareness of his limbs still heavy with sleep, a draught caught in the small of his back where the blanket had shifted in the night, and the awkward, tingling numbness of pins and needles in his left hand. The canvas above his head shivered in the faint breeze and scattered drips where the rain had collected in the night. A guard ambled past. Armour clinked and boots squelched, but the sound faded, and the brief flare of his consciousness dulled with it.

A breath fanned against his arm.

Wakefulness shocked through him at the foreign sensation, but as his eyes snapped open his memory of the previous night returned, and his half-conscious panic slid away in the face of Rosslyn’s slumbering form, real, safe, and still fast asleep with her head pillowed on his wrist. She lay facing him with her hands tucked against her chest, her hair a black tangle loose of the braid she had worn to bed, her lips parted and brows unknotted of the usual cares that burdened her during her waking hours. At some point in the night, the covers on her side of the narrow pallet had slipped down to her waist and exposed her to the shiver of the cold air. Careful not to disturb her, he leaned over and eased the blanket back up to her shoulders. She didn’t stir. After enduring so much the day before, she deserved as much rest as he could give her. His arm might fall off from lack of circulation in the meantime, and now that he was awake and aware of what he was doing he didn’t know if it would be appropriate to rest his free hand at her waist again, but those were things he could live with.

He marvelled at her, fascinated by every detail. There were so many mornings when he had roused from sleep in the guts of Bhelen’s palace, heavy with the knowledge that she had forgotten him, that there would be no new letter tucked inside his pocket to gird against the deshyrs’ daily politics. Sometimes he dozed, and wished for gentle hands on his skin, running through his hair, for murmurs of greeting and soft presses of lips danced across his face as her strong body moulded to his. Sometimes, he gave in to the fantasy and rolled out of bed afterwards hollow and brittle as a winter reed, and his loneliness would stalk after him for hours, chastising him for continuing to hope for something so far out of reach.

But she was here. She had asked him to stay, sought comfort and security from his embrace in a show of trust that might have burst his heart if it weren’t already so stricken by the relief that she was alive, that she still cared, that all of Eamon’s meddling had come to nothing after all. His gaze fell to her shoulder, where the strap of her nightshirt had snagged on her bicep and fallen down her arm and half-revealed a patch of skin that even against her pale complexion stood out white as bone. As he brushed her hair aside, intrigued, he realised it was the scar from the crossbow wound she had suffered on the night they met, a jagged burst of tissue smooth as silk under his fingers, depressed into her flesh like the echo of a star.

An incoherent mumble pulled him from the memory, and he smiled as she wrinkled her nose against the intrusion of the day.

“Good morning,” he murmured, pushing her hair back so it wouldn’t catch on her mouth.

She grunted and stretched, but kept her eyes squeezed shut. “‘S too early…”

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he offered, subtly trying to work blood back into his arm now that she had lifted her head.

An eye cracked open. “Watching people sleep again?” she grumbled. “That’s a bad habit.”

He remembered the jibe. He remembered everything about that morning. “If something happens twice it’s a coincidence, not a habit,” he pointed out. “Although if…” His courage failed him. Next time, he almost said, as if he had any right to expect such a thing, as if he could be presumptive enough to think one night of reassurance could be carried forward.

“Coincidence…” She hummed, smirking as if she didn’t believe him. Her eyes had closed, drifting beneath their lids.

He took a chance, and reached for her hand. “My lady will have to forgive me.”

“Mmmm?”

“Mmmm. I was…” Wynne would have said enraptured. He brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “I’ve never seen you so peaceful.”

A smile blossomed at that, one side hidden where her face was still smushed into the pillow, but he caught it. When her eyes blinked open again, dry and scratchy and dark in the low light, she regarded him with such softness he felt it like a shield bash from a qunari, and anything clever he might have said vanished clean from his thoughts. He kept still as she shifted closer, held his breath as the hand in his turned and traced a line along his jaw.

“Thank you – for staying.”

“I…” What could he say that wouldn’t sound foolish, or opportunistic, or just downright lecherous?

But her face fell; her gaze drifted away from him and for a moment he worried his awkwardness had spilled out and ruined everything, but she was leaning closer still, tucking herself within reach of his arms, and his heart swelled with gratitude to be allowed such intimacy.

“And thank you for last night as well,” she murmured into his shoulder, so quietly he almost missed it. “You didn’t have to help with Cuno.”

He stroked her back. “I didn’t? So Brantis was lying to me then – he told me it was always a prince’s duty to help beautiful women in distress.”

“Ha.”

“He’s going to be alright, you know,” he offered, though the patterns she was sketching against his chest were making it difficult to concentrate. “The horsemaster said he was treated in time to make a full recovery.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him,” she confessed. “He’s all I have left.”

“I –” He frowned. “You have me.”

Her fingers stilled on his collarbone. A pair of soldiers tramped past the pavilion, so close their conversation tumbled through the thin canvas, their shadows a long intrusion on the wall and on Alistair’s forgetfulness that they weren’t the only two people in the world. Slowly, her head lifted to look at him, and he cursed the new line of tension in her shoulders, the petulance that put it there.

“That sounded –” He swallowed, loosened his hold so she could push him away if she wanted. “I know it isn’t the same thing, I’m sorry, I just –”

He saw the kiss coming, in the way she tilted her jaw, how she pulled him down to meet her, and to his relief his body responded before his mind had time to involve itself. He opened to the taste of her instinctively, to the scent of sweetgrass wrapping around him like a cloak. It was awkward, with the two of them lying side by side – his nose got in the way, their bodies trapped her hand between them – so he pushed up onto his elbow for a better angle, relief and joy and desire making his fingers shake as they trailed up the bare skin of her arm. She cradled his face as she eased onto her back, holding him close, and the slant of lips gave way to tongues and a too-enthusiastic clack of teeth. She arched into him. Her hair ran like silk through his fingers. And through it all his lungs forgot to give him breath, his heart beat in his ears, his blood sang with the near terror of knowing he had come so close to losing such sensation forever.

“I love you,” he whispered against her mouth. The words slipped easily from his mind, like they had so many times in his dreams, and only when she stilled and pushed against his shoulders did he realise he had spoken out loud.

He panicked.

“I didn’t mean that!”

Confusion tightened at the corners of Rosslyn’s eyes.

“I mean, I did,” he tried, and winced at how insincere he sounded. “The words – I meant the words, only…” With a sigh, he rolled over onto his back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t going to tell you.”

She sat up. “You are aware that sounds worse?”

“Yup. Ugh, Maker’s breath… Have I mentioned that when I’m around you I feel like my head’s going to explode?” He grimaced and smacked his hand against his forehead. “In a good way! In the ‘I can’t stop thinking about you’ kind of way that apparently makes it extra easy to shove my whole foot in my mouth. I definitely imagined this going differently.”

A long, weighted silence followed.

“Did you mean it?” she asked quietly, finally, facing away from him as she twisted the blanket between her fingers.

“What, that I… that I love you?” He reached for her and felt the swell of her ribcage as she hauled in a deep, steadying breath. “How could I not?” The pallet creaked beneath him as he rose next to her to brush a kiss against the tip of her shoulder. “But… You went through so much yesterday, dealing with everything, I thought it would be better to wait, and not dump that on you, too.”

He held his breath as he waited, willing the words to be right, an eternity in which it seemed even his heart stopped beating. And then she turned to him with a smile that shone like a light on a dark road, and one of her hands slid into his, the other a faint brush against his chin, and he found he could breathe again.

“Alistair…”

His name, whispered through lips swollen with his kisses… He leaned in, torn between the need to let her say whatever was clearly on the tip of her tongue, and the compulsion to touch, to seal up that last little bit of space and banish any lingering doubts. He had missed kissing her so much.

Before she could say anything, however, a familiar voice interrupted the crisp quiet, low but insistent, dousing the giddy flutter of his stomach in a flare of rage. His fingers tightened around Rosslyn’s. Every instinct screamed for him to see off the intrusion, to shield her from the man who for months had made a misery of both their lives.

“I’m afraid Her Ladyship is indisposed,” the guard said, his voice muffled by the canvas. “It is still rather early, my lord.”

Eamon’s reply came stiffly. “There are important matters I must discuss with her as soon as possible.”

Alistair nearly snorted. Rosslyn tugged on his hand, both a silent reassurance and a reminder not to grip too hard.

“She is not to be disturbed,” the guard insisted.

“And why is a royal guard stationed here and not outside the royal pavilion?”

“Uh…” The guard cleared his throat. “Those are my orders – they come from Prince Alistair himself, my lord.”

There was a pause at that. Through the thin wall Eamon’s shadow shifted its weight. “And where exactly is His Highness?”

“He… uh. I mean, that is to say, I don’t know?”

Rosslyn chuckled, and only smiled wider when Alistair turned an incredulous frown her way. “Your man is doing a wonderful impression of subtlety,” she teased.

“You do realise why he’s here, don’t you?” he asked. “He’s probably come to sell you some lie, to try and keep us apart –”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“I –”

Her thumb brushed over his lower lip, distracting.

“That’s not the point.”

“I know.” Her gaze flickered down to his mouth, her cheeks blooming with the curve of her smile. “But here we are, after everything…”

All he could do was shake his head, disbelief and wonder crowding out the space in his chest where his lungs were supposed to be. How was it possible for her to both calm and excite him all at once? She gazed at him with such confidence, her grey eyes fierce, mouth set, and her whole body radiating warmth as she leant towards him, inviting in a way that made the perverse corner of his mind very grateful for Marjolane’s attempted assassination. He kept it to himself.

“Can we just stay here today?” he asked instead, nudging closer, with only the briefest dirty look in Eamon’s direction as he tucked her hair behind her ear.

She smirked, accepting the kiss. “And what about all your princely duties? And the army waiting on us?”

“I’m sure they won’t mind a day off.” He teased her, flicked his tongue against her lips and then retreated, smiling when she followed.

“I shouldn’t be encouraging this.” Her fingers tangled in his collar. “There’s too much to do.”

“More important than kissing me?”

“Wouldn’t you get bored if we just did that all day?”

“I’m sure we could entertain ourselves somehow.” The suggestive tone was meant as a jest, but something froze in Rosslyn’s expression.

“It’s probably not fair to keep Lloyd out there facing down the dragon by himself,” she pointed out as she pulled away. A small frown marred her features as she swung her legs over the side of the bed to reach for her dressing robe, confusion warring with resignation and something else that he didn’t understand. Cursing himself, he followed, careful not to get too close or to touch her.

“Did I… do something wrong?” he asked.

She huffed and shut her eyes. “It’s not you. But… we have our duties, and it would be a bad idea to ignore them.” She offered a weak smile. “No matter how tempting it sounds.”

There was still a mote of hesitation in her expression, in the way she lowered her gaze to unstick her hair from where it was caught beneath the collar of her robe, but she was still smiling at him as she laid it over her shoulder, proud and lovely in the morning light.

She was also in night clothes. Her toes peeked out from the bottom of the too-large trousers he had borrowed for her from the quartermaster, and though the robe now hid it, her shoulders were all but bare, with only the thin fabric of an undershirt between her skin and the draughts seeping in under the edges of the canvas.

“You’re right, of course,” he admitted, hurriedly averting his eyes. He cleared his throat. “I should, um…”

Eamon was still arguing with Lloyd outside.

“Boots! That’s what I’m after.” He cast around for them, and for the jerkin he had discarded on the back of her desk chair, acutely aware of her moving around the end of the bed – the bed they had slept in together – and the moment’s pause before she sank into the space beside him. His valet would roll his eyes at the clumsiness of his laces later, but his fingers wouldn’t work, because when he glanced at Rosslyn out of the corner of his eye, he found her watching him, wistful and soft, so that the thought of leaving hit him like a kick to the gut.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asked, giving the last knot up as a bad job.

She bit her lips together to control her grin. “You may.”

This time, he took care not to push too far, only meeting her in a chaste press of lips that nevertheless lingered, and even when the kiss ended he didn’t pull away. Her hand laced with his as she leaned in and let her forehead fall against his.

“We should talk later,” she murmured. “Properly.”

“I’d like that.” He brought her hand to his lips, and sighed. “I should probably go.”

“Mmm. Alistair?”

“Is something wrong?” he asked, alarmed by the hesitation in her voice.

Smiling, she shook her head. “No, it’s…” She pulled back, searched his face. “I love you.”

“You – What?” The inflection had been different when he said it, though he couldn’t work out how, or why it worried him. And now her smile was shifting into a smirk, and one eyebrow had risen, waiting patiently for him to process his panic. “You did say that, didn’t you?”

“I may even have meant it,” she teased.

“Am I going to live that down?”

“You should go. I’m rather sure you have things to do.”

“Ohhhhh no, not until –” A horrible thought occurred to him. “You didn’t just say it because I said it, did you? Because I wasn’t expecting – I mean, you shouldn’t feel like you have to, if you’re not sure, or –”

“I love you,” she repeated, more forcefully this time. The grip on his hand tightened almost to the point of pain. “I have since – before I wanted to admit it, really. I… I needed you to know.”

Again that wistfulness crept into her voice, the echo of some heavy preoccupation that would swallow her if it weren’t chased away. He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand.

“Well now I don’t want to leave at all.”

“Go,” she nudged, with a roll of her eyes. “I have an arl to deal with.”

“And clothes to put on,” he teased.

“And letters to read.”

“Oh, right. Yes.” He had forgotten about those.

For a moment, neither of them moved, content with the connection between their hands and the way their knees touched, unwilling to let go of the peace that had been missing for so long. And yet, the sooner he left, the sooner he could see her again. And in the meantime, Eamon might rip open the door and find them. Yes, he should leave.

“Love you,” he whispered, with a final, brief kiss that left her giggling.

Squeezing her fingers for one last bit of reassurance, he rose and dragged himself away, only just avoiding a collision with one of the tent poles. She was already reaching for the collection of letters discarded on her desk as he made it to the entrance, but watched as he shook himself out of his distraction, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward to meet Eamon, as if walking out of someone else’s pavilion so early in the morning weren’t an entirely scandalous act.

When he was gone, taking the balm of his smile with him, Rosslyn sighed and shivered against the doubt that lurked in her chest like a wolf at the edge of a winter hold. She could still taste her confession on her lips, offered as a gift, and because despite the warmth of Alistair’s hands, his brightness, the flutter of her thoughts when she woke and found him so close, she had no other way to keep her fear at bay. Having given him up to duty, it was easy to live with her shortcomings – she had stepped back from the precipice, from the conflict of desire – but now, faced with him again, in the joy of his touches, she had to contend again with Oriana’s voice in her memory, telling her such intimacy was only ever a prelude to something more. That it was expected.

Life in court had taught her how to spot partiality; Alistair did want her, she wasn’t fool enough to think otherwise, but when the time came as it must, and she could promise nothing more than kisses, would he be satisfied? He had said he loved her. That he had missed her. When she had curled into his side the night before, with the low hum of his voice in her ears and his fingers brushing the length of her arm, contentment had sunk into the deepest part of her bones. She never wanted to be anywhere else. Half-asleep, she had wanted… had toyed with the idea of sliding her hand under the hem of his shirt, scraping her nails over his hip, tracing the muscles she had so admired in the practice ring at Lothering as if she had a right to the feel of his skin under her fingers. In truth, such boldness terrified her.

With a sigh, she shook off the thought and pushed forward, dressing mechanically in work clothes without calling for her maid. Her hair would do in a basic braid for now, and while she rummaged in her strongbox for a tie, she called for Lloyd to ask if Arl Eamon was still waiting for her.

“He is, Ma’am,” came the reply through the wall. “What should I tell him?”

Her fingertips brushed cold metal. Alistair’s amulet lay half hidden under a spare scrap of velvet, tucked in the corner where she had thrown it in her fit of despondency. She would have to tell him; that way there would be no illusions, no drawn-out false hopes for the future, even if it meant all she would have to hold onto afterwards were a few sheets of paper sealed with a Rose in burgundy wax.

“Tell him he can come in.”

She shut the box and turned.

“Your Ladyship,” Eamon started, even before he fully stepped inside, or bowed.

“My lord,” she replied. “You seem out of sorts.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I am well, Your Ladyship, though somewhat concerned by Prince Alistair’s emergence from this pavilion at such an early hour. I understand that you were shaken by events last night, but that does not mean you can forget your circumstances, or the position you hold, and taking it upon yourself to toy with His Highness’ reputation –”

“His reputation?” she repeated. “Forgive me, my lord, for speaking bluntly, but I fail to see how matters between His Highness and myself are any of your business.”

“Matters concerning the crown become my business, Your Ladyship,” the arl replied loftily. “Especially as I was appointed Prince Alistair’s guardian by King Maric himself.”

She gave him her most cutting smile. “Aside from the fact His Highness is now in his majority, your record during his childhood includes making him sleep in the stables and trying to cart him off to the templars at the soonest possible convenience, so I wouldn’t count it as a particularly solid defence. Did you think I didn’t know?” she asked, when he blanched. “Perhaps you were worried Alistair would find time to give me these?” The letters, incriminating for their absence, waved in her hand, and she watched with catlike satisfaction as the little colour remaining in the arl’s face drained away.

“Your Ladyship, if I may –”

“You may not,” she snapped. “What news do you have for me? There must be a reason you came here so early.”

His brows drew down over his eyes, but his tone retained the proper deference as he relayed the report from the scouts sent to investigate Marjolane’s camp.

“There was a saddled horse with some basic supplies, a map with a rendezvous marker, and this.” He handed her a letter with a blank, broken seal. She scanned the lines, the orders for her own kidnapping, promises of reward for her deliverance to the arranged meeting point, and at the end, though there was no signature, a stamped Chantry crest that she had seen many times before.

“Mother Berit.” She cursed. “Have you informed the king?”

“I sent our last raven not half an hour ago.”

“She was speaking with Baudrillard last time I saw her,” she recalled. “I wonder which one of them came up with the idea.” Easing out a breath, she set the paper down on the desk, resisting the urge to march outside and cast it into the first fire she saw. After all, it would be foolish to accuse a revered mother of conspiracy without evidence to back up the claim.

“Sweep the camp,” she ordered. “I want to know how she got past the guards and I want a plan for how the watch can be tightened to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Having failed once, Baudrillard would be unlikely to try again, but they were still too close to the border and now she had Alistair with her, presenting an even bigger prize for anyone who might hope to harm Ferelden and steal some influence for themselves.

“What about our rendezvous with His Majesty?” Eamon checked.

She shook her head. “Tomorrow will be soon enough to set out. Now that Rillside has capitulated, he can spend a little time making peace across the Bannorn.”

“As you wish. Will there be anything else?” he asked, with another nervous glance at Alistair’s letters.

“No, my lord,” she replied, turning away to draw the first of the quartermaster’s reports towards her. “I have no need of you. But if you could inform the soldiers not involved in the camp search that they should inventory and drill in preparation for the march tomorrow, it would save me ordering my captains to do it. Have them pack up all non-essentials.”

Beneath the grey beard, the old man’s jaw clenched, but he kept his temper against the menial assignment. “As you wish, Your Ladyship.”

She returned his bow with a courteous nod and watched him leave, already feeling the tension bleed from her limbs. Taunting someone as well-connected and politically savvy as Eamon was not something to be done lightly, but her anger allowed nothing less. Let him lash out and weave his own story of her conduct for Cailan; she had the letters, and she had Alistair, and though the situation would need careful handling, she would make him pay for trying to separate them.

The thought brought her full circle, back to Alistair’s words, the feel of his hands on her skin. Even after a night’s sleep and the confirmation of her own eyes in daylight, her mind refused to take in the magnitude of the change from the world the day before. He loved her. He had been writing to her all along. He had slept beside her and woken her up with kisses. He loved her. In a few short hours, all the promises contained in such wonder might come crashing down, but for now, no matter how hard she tried to school her thoughts, they turned back to the pleasant squirm in her chest and the grin she hid behind her hands.

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Art by @ambellinaleander

#dragon age #dragon age: origins #da:o #alistair theirin #rosslyn cousland #alistair x cousland #cousland #the falcon and the rose #ambellinaleander #long post

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arishawatson-blog · 5 years

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After World Cup sales boost

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morsing41cortez-blog · 5 years

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Girl Slings The Liquor (Lady Sally's # 2, Callahan's # 5) By Spider Robinson-- Evaluations, Conversation,.

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authorellenmint · 6 years

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Cullen being licked to death by a puppy, drawn by @voidtakeyou

"No."

The moment the word left his lips, he knew how fruitless voicing it was. Shaking her coiffed head, the ambassador clicked the point of her quill against reams of parchment they'd been bitterly arguing over for what felt half the day. While it all seemed beyond frivolous to Cullen, their spymaster was nearly always on Josephine's side to weigh each noble frippery request as serious. Not that those two being in harmony surprised him much, the two often thick as thieves.

Growing up with two sisters had greatly prepared him for such an eventuality, and having two women constantly gang up to veto whatever suggestions he had doubly so. Normally, Cullen would dig his heels in if he thought the matter important, but the last and most important voice always curbed his tongue.

Peering over the war map as if she didn't already command nearly half of it, the Inquisitor sighed, "I agree with Josephine. We best put on a show for the Duke lest he make life harder for our forces stationed near Jadar. Ambassador?" The woman who seemed to flit in and out of the wake of this nausea-inducing Game like a bird darting the clouds was much quicker to side with lady Josephine and the ex-Bard over a grumbling, broken down templar.

While they conversed about the best way to appease an overstuffed peacock in silk frills, Cullen pinched into the bridge of his nose. He couldn't wipe the snarl off his lips if he tried, and after the issues of the morning he saw no reason to attempt it. Minor things really; a broken cup here, a foolish soldier caught cavorting outside of his duties there -- all problems that he should be able to shake off. But they kept building in the back of his brain, forming a great mass until he knew one more problem to land in his lap and the Commander was liable to snap at whatever crossed his path.

In this mood, with the never ending headache setting up square in the back of his jaw, there was a great chance someone would wind up going over the walls. Which, sadly, wouldn't do well for morale.

"Well," the Inquisitor said with a tip of her head, "I think that's enough for today. I'll be heading off to the Western Approach for a few weeks. Do try to not burn the place down while I'm gone."

Leliana snickered a moment and tipped her shadowed head, "We shall endeavor, Inquisitor."

Third to escape from the war room, Cullen sneered at the sunlight breaking through the shattered bricks. Birdsong, rather than the harmonious flute trill it should be, shattered nail after nail into his skull. Trying to wipe away his hatred of all creations in the natural world by shielding his eyes, Cullen paused when he heard the ambassador clear her throat.

"Commander, if we may discuss...?"

"No," he repeated the only word that seemed to exist inside of his narrow vocabulary anymore. Her eyes narrowed at his impolite curtness, everyone unaware how he hung by his fingernails upon the cliff's edge most days.

Racing to take back the sting in his tone, Cullen sighed, "Not...not at this moment, Josephine. I have to get to something first."

"A matter with the troops?" she couldn't let it be, always curious. Like that damn dwarf who'd pry with questions that seemed perfectly crafted to flay off as much skin as possible.

With a steady step, Cullen walked away from the war room and towards the great hall. Behind himself, he added to her, "Something of that kind."

He could sequester himself safe inside the cool walls of his office. No doubt there'd be a good dozen soldiers tramping back and forth but at least they all had to listen to him, even if the click of their heels increased the throbbing in his teeth. But Cullen turned from the path to his sanctuary, growing more certain with every step that there was only one balm to cure him of this foul mood.

Rounding past the kitchens, where the cook barely deigned a glance at the man in armor and bear fur marching around their future dinner, Cullen stepped down the stairs towards the stables. It wasn't the horses he had his mind set on, though riding far from the concerns of a world on edge and the anxiety of looming death sounded tempting. Instead, he walked briskly past the stables, well aware that any person who spotted and recognized him would most likely pull him from his only salvation.

The building was small, barely large enough to fit a few pigs should Skyhold feel the need to raise such. Scrubbing off the heels of her boot stood the master in charge. She smiled at the Commander approaching, perhaps noting the grit in his teeth and the rise of a vein throbbing from the top of his head all the way down to the heel jammed inside a too tight boot.

"Here for another round?" she asked, a hand wrapped around the sun dappled apron cinched tight to her stomach.

"Yes, please," Cullen sputtered, well aware that any excess words could be the death of him.

She snickered a moment and opened the door just a breath. Peering into the darkness within, when the woman glanced back at him she winked, "I think they're ready for you. Ah, might want to take off your boots. It can get a bit messy."

Nodding his thanks, he wedged off his shoes. Despite being dressed in the full armor of his station, for a brief respite Cullen flexed his toes into the soft lull of grass. The winter mountain wind -- as brash as Sera's caw -- faded to a gentle caress, and if he closed his eyes he could almost pretend he was back home. Without the shoes to get in the way, he pushed on the door the woman all but guarded with her life and stepped inside.

Shadows shifted, his eyes burned from the sun struggling to discern the shapes of who slumbered inside. The cracked walls barely formed alcoves, perhaps the building once meant for a sty, but those Fereldens found another use for them. He glanced into one, the straw fully covering its occupant who wasn't in the mood for visitors.

Stepping cautiously, Cullen's eyes hunting the ground for surprises, when he came to the last stall he paused. The smile he kept buried deep inside his soul, the one that couldn't be touched by politics, by fear, by hatred, by death and pain, by Uldred, rose to grace his lips. Five little bodies slumbered in a pile, heads resting upon backs, legs nearly knocking into a brother's or sister's nose. They'd trampled down the straw during their last play session, their mother left to draw up a small towel as her bed while her pups got in the dozen or so naps necessary to grow.

He held his breath intending to watch the grey and tan mabari puppies sleep, when a yellow eye popped open. They all but sensed his arrival. It didn't take long for the entire litter to catch on that an old visitor arrived. The first one, a little boy with a small patch of white on his flank, rose to stubby legs. He proceeded to walk over his siblings, not caring who got in the way, in order to dash head first into Cullen's legs.

The pup wasn't slowed for a moment by the armor, his tiny paws padding back and forth over the top of his bare feet. He was so ecstatic to see Cullen, his little tail was thumping at the beat of a humming bird's wing. Tipping over, Cullen ran his gloved fingers against the pup's back and scooped under his stomach.

By the time he raised the little boy to his face, a scratchy pink tongue lapped all over his cheek. The pup made a little yip of excitement, and Cullen began to laugh from the joy in the dog's sparkling eyes. Something as simple as being cuddled in an arm was causing the dog to wag so much he was shaking Cullen's arm.

Stumbling away from the luster of sleep, the rest of the litter began to rise to see what got their brother so excited. All of the pups who were nearly six weeks old by now began to descend upon the great Commander. Laughing without any pause, without any trepidation curbing his tongue, Cullen tumbled to a knee. This gave all the pups the perfect chance to slather him in kisses. Some leaped onto him from the sides and the back. Everyone wanted to get into his face to show how excited they were to see him.

He never meant for this to become a tradition. The Ferelden man happened past a very pregnant mabari one of his soldiers found and felt it his duty to check on her progress. At a day old, looking more like rats than the mighty dogs they'd become, when the kennel master placed a pup in his palm to hold something changed. He didn't realize how much strain he carried upon his shoulders until this tiny puppy, its eyes not even open, its tail little more than a tremor when it suckled, nestled against his arm.

The pups were often finding that dusty old Commander stomping by. They certainly didn't want for entertainment in a keep surrounded by people who were ecstatic to play with puppies, but the kennel master maintained a tight watch on who could and couldn't see them. Perhaps it was abusing his power to be the only one to break the rules, but as he crumbled to his stomach letting twenty paws climb all over him, Cullen didn't care.

One of the girls, tan fur and a dark set of three lines on her back end, managed to make it all the way up to his shoulders. She dug her paws deep into his fur and, with a tiny growl, started to tear into it. Laughing, Cullen reached back to scoop her off, still fending away another four tongues attempting to lick him clean. The girl wasn't happy about losing her toy, but when he drew his fingers up and down her belly, the tongue lolled out and her eyes rolled back in ecstasy.

Unhooking the surcoat, Cullen lay his fur upon the ground. Without a thought, two of the pups grabbed onto both ends and began to tug. Their snarls were adorable chirps, but they meant them, one day growing into the warriors they were destined to be. But for now, their greatest foe to defeat was that pile of brown hair that smelled of a bent but not broken man.

Scooping two pups into his arm, and another clambering into his lap to find safety there, Cullen reached over towards his coat. The fighting pups paused a moment and looked towards the human who commanded this place. With a quirk of his lip scar, Cullen snatched onto the fur. A growl reverberated from his throat and he shook it for the pups. Both latched on quick, snarling to try to take down this great nemesis and win the game. Unimpressed with the whole thing, the pup in his lap opened her mouth wide in a yawn, then curled up to sleep.

The pressures of life, of the responsibilities he wore every day in an attempt to find restitution couldn't be shrugged off as easily as his coat. But for a few minutes with these puppies, the Commander could wipe his soul clean, put a smile inside his stomach, and be Cullen once again.

#cullen rutherford #puppydog #story #fanfic #dragon age inquisition #adorable #commander cullen

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