non serviam

The sale period has ended and, as promised, we're here to share the zine with everyone so you can read it and appreciate the incredible artwork! We'd like to thank all of our contributors for their fantastic work, as well as everyone who reblogged, shared, and liked our fundraising posts. Every bit of support made a difference and helped make this project possible.

The download link is right here: https://tinyurl.com/ddviarookzine

Together, we raised $278 for charity, and we couldn't be prouder. For such a small and niche fandom, we achieved more than we ever imagined—and that's all thanks to you. 💚

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone who supported Deadly Devotion, whether by purchasing the zine, sharing our posts, or simply cheering us on throughout this journey.

────୨ৎ──── gwayne hightower x reader

summary : after gwayne's absence, spiralling into the hours of the morrow, he seeks his bethrothed in the library of hightower. with a thoughtful gift held tightly in his grip, it seems that young love continues to grow between the soon to be couple.

word count : 1k

warnings / other information : not proofread, general relationship fluff, mention of arranged marriage, use of female pronouns for the reader, f!user, mentions of arranged marriages and betrothal, oneshot, possibly oc gwayne (?), no physical descriptions of reader; ambiguous reader, sfw!

AN : this is unbelievably short and unbelievably bad (╥ ᴗ ╥), i lost most of my motivation around halfway through this, and i think that's quite clear. ALSO SORRY FOR NOT POSTING IN LIKE TWO WEEKS. i've been really busy recently, but i have a lot of ideas after the new episode, and i'm hopeful that i can post more consistently!!

────۶ৎ────

🎨 Fanart of Captain Till, from #greedfall2 #TheDyingWorld. My tribute to the end of a Studio, of a world, of Greedfall. Of a character: Till's contents are missing, and my mind is making them up. TY spidersgames for your creations💚

Attention Emmrich Volkarin simps! We have created a fan server where we can all be mentally unwell about the old man. Share your art, writing, and make some friends in a safe environment!

You MUST be 18 or older to join this server.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard spoilers are not monitored and are allowed in all channels. It is recommended that you have either finished the game, or do not mind spoilers when entering the server.

Unexpected SplenAUr: The Alternative Universe Emmrich Zine

RINGS THE DINNER BELL ATTENTION EVERYONE!!!

The Fade's Anniversary Zine, "What Comes After", is here for the feasting!!!

First of all, thank you to everyone who participated and helped put this together! You all continue to be a light in this fandom, supporting all who come through our doors. It is truly an inspiration to see so many people come together like this.

Below is a google drive folder that contains the "What Comes After" Zine files. The zine has two parts, Collaborations and Solo works. There are light and dark versions of both!

what that means is that I have a folder on my computer with the name of my url with an index.html file in it, and when i click on that file to open it in a browser I get a simple page with a list of years and months. selecting a specific month will send me to a list of the posts i made or reblogged in that month, similar to tumblr's own archive page. the contents of the post including images are stored locally on your machine.

It can also make a separate index file that organises posts by tag, which is great if you're a consistent tagger, but it will list every single tag you've ever used so it can take a while to find the tag you're looking for in the list if you're a habitual tag commentator. generating the tag archive also takes a while depending on how many posts have to be processed.

you can make it back up any blog as long as it's not set to private. I have backups of both my main and sideblogs and it keeps them in separate folders.

it's had some trouble going all the way back to the start of my main blog in 2012 just by sheer volume of posts, but by making it fetch posts from one month at a time I've been able to go back to 2015 (that's tens of thousands of posts), which was good enough for my purposes.

Okay then. Rant. For Halsin tag only. A picture for attention.🤣

People who are fond of video games are often accused of "not living in the real world". Oh my sweet summer children, there's so much real world in video games it completely ruins our escapism every now and then.

Scenarios for good games are written by very talented people who are anything but unaware of reality. You play a game, you stumble upon things that trigger shit out of you, because you've seen them more than once. You have felt them. You know people who have felt them too.

Okay, I'm getting carried away. To the point.

I'm a hardcore Dark Urge x Halsin romancer (if you follow me, you know, if you don't know, run for your fucking life). This didn't happen overnight, for 3 runs I was fully concentrated on origin companions, and the latecomers just chilled in camp. Then I switched my attention to them, and...

So, Halsin. My first impression of him was exactly as most people's: confident, sure of himself, steady. It took me one run romancing him and Shadowheart to understand how wrong I was. This druid is anything but confident. He wears a mask, a mask he has worn for so long it almost glued to his face. He has a tragic backstory: 3 years of sex slavery, the loss of his family, the loss of everyone he loved to the shadow curse, the unwanted and deeply uncomfortable position of the First Druid, alcohol abuse, loneliness, grief, guilt. If he had a proper arc, all of this would have probably been explored. Or not. The problem is that Halsin is a latecomer and doesn't have an arc. There is a lot of his lore in the game, but most of it is hidden behind dialogue, scenes and banter triggered in very specific situation.

Another problem: Halsin isn't loud about his suffering. You have to pull every detail out of him with pliers.

Does this remind you of something? Of someone you probably knew? Of someone who never said a word about their struggles before ultimately and irreparably breaking? When I started taking Halsin to the party, I was shocked. Instead of an experienced, calm, sure of himself, and indeed confident hunk of an elf, I discovered a bleeding mess.

First: 3 years of sex slavery. Locked behind a night in a brothel. Thanks for nothing, Larian. When Halsin let this part of his history slip, I was as terrified as one can be for a fictional character: this trauma was not processed at all, it was generously sprayed with Stockholm syndrome, minimized, even romanticized in a way. Durge/Tav has incredibly dumb lines, but I imagine them just yelling at him. Instead my character had to tell him that his horror story sounded "traumatic" and enjoy (not) his genuinely perplexed look. There is no way to talk to Halsin about this again.

Second: no matter how much Halsin minimizes his tragic experience, its real scale shows in the same encounter with the drow twins. At first Halsin seems enthusiastic... for as long as you don't pay attention to his dialogue. "An intriguing pair. Reminds me of my youth." And in his youth he was taken to sex slavery by the matron and the patron of an unnamed drow noble house. Then we follow the courtesans to their den... and what do we hear? "Wow, a night with the famous Halsin, the legends say you can turn into a bear!" Where could they know this from? Of course, Menzoberranzan where Halsin was kept. And what happens next? He tries to detach from the situation first, and then... then he speaks as a slave. " I didn't realise I was that popular, but hey, we must give people what they want!" (wildshapes) We, not I? Must? MUST? He is not the courtesan here, he is their client! They are supposed to give him what he might want, and he "must" do only one thing: enjoy the night. I almost cried when I finally paid attention.

Third: Halsin has pretty bad self-esteem issues. They manifest during his whole romance. Even in his much vilified polyamory, his way to treat his partner. "You are all I want, but I won't deny others the happiness of being with you". He doesn't drag anyone in your bed, he is only ready to share in your heart, without asking for the whole of it. He won't suggest you might cheat on your partner if you are already in relationship, there's no such option, you can only go ask for consent or turn Halsin down immediately. Would he tolerate you cheating on another person? Somehow I think he absolutely wouldn't. During his romance scene, he takes care of you, not jumps on to suit himself first. He follows your wishes and your desires. Damn, he doesn't even believe he deserves to be loved - to the point when you have to call him an ass and basically force yourself on him to stop him from leaving for Reithwin on his own. He wants to leave on his own not because he doesn't care, but because he doesn't believe that you would want life with him. It shows in his genuine surprise and joy. Same thing happens in the epilogue: "You could have gone with anyone, yet you chose me." I mean... he's steady, experienced, wise, lovely to be around, genuinely loving and caring; damn, he's gorgeous too, and yet...

Is this confidence? In my opinion - no. This is a disaster of completely ruined self-esteem.

Halsin's case is another proof that you have to make your pain known to have any sympathy at all. Of course many people will just turn away, but there will always be many for whom you will be the poor pookie and the only one whose suffering matters. Not meaning anyone in particular, this applies to every companion whose lore is easy to discover.

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