no unauthorized pew pew-ing

Have you heard of the tragedy of the Champion of Kirkwall?

+ Bonus

The og post that made me go insane

Dorian, a known necromancer…

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

Drawing this made me feel a lot of things ok. Please understand that drawing this made me feel a lot of things.

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.

Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

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?

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.

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.

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.