#absolutionabsolved

@absolutionabsolved (lottie) continued from here

OKAY so I've been thinking about this really hard, I just haven't had the time to get my thoughts down. This is sort of a complicated thing for Ellis because of his limited sense of object-permanence & self. I headcanon that Ellis deals with BPD ( borderline personality disorder ) & has since he was very young, which is very important to some of the things I'll be breaking down in response to this. To Ellis, the concept of a ' new beginning ' is very flexible as he has to reinvent himself on a daily basis in order to fend off any of the heavier parts of his brain or feelings.

Growing up, Ellis always idealized the idea of a big reinvention of himself. he always wanted to become something new & had some kind of idea that it would change him at his core. He always wanted to become someone different. The idealized version of himself was more reliable, kinder, less erratic. This version of himself that he wanted to become was fair & level headed & had his shit together. He was always itching for something to happen to pave the path to that person, he wanted to take that leap of faith to start on that journey. He fantasized about that new beginning, what it could be & who it would make him... It's really what drew him to the idea of being a Grey Warden in the beginning. Every story painted them to be the finest, most selfless warriors in history. It's what drove him to want to go with Duncan so badly where in his main verse, @ocousland's Lily was like ' literally fuck that '. That desire for a ' new beginning ' was so strong in the first 21 years of his life that it dictated all of his hopes, dreams & thoughts of what his future could be.

Obviously, the Fifth Blight changes that hopeful perspective. I could go on & on about it but I have already on more than one occasion so I'll just give the shorter version here: The events that transpire during the Fifth Blight sort of jerk the ability to see any concepts of a ' new beginning ' away. Every day is based around survival rather than the fantasies he entertained as a child & the thought of it being over & having to start again is so far out of reach that he doesn't think of it. He doesn't hope for it, he doesn't fear it, he doesn't acknowledge that by the end of it things are going to change. The world will be different & so will he, but he can't afford to acknowledge that or the wave of emotions that will come with acknowledging that ' new beginning' on the horizon.

This leads me to my next point: that lack of acknowledgment really damages his ability to think decisively during the events of Awakening & Witch Hunt. He still feels like the fight is going, he still feels like he's stuck in the blight & every day is based around survival. He can't acknowledge his new beginning because he can't grasp the concept that it's over, not until Morrigan had already passed through the Eluvian & slipped through his fingertips. It's then, that he thinks that he wasted his new beginning. He spirals out of control following that & really only pushes through with the help of Lily & Fergus or whatever siblings apply to the universe in question. He needs a lot of support during this time because though they won, he feels like he's lost... if that makes sense?

So new beginnings become a constant for him following this. He has to reinvent himself on a daily basis , reflecting those around him in a way that makes it harder for him to recognize himself? He adopts a lot of personality traits from those around him & rebuilds himself in their image to make it harder for him to see the past. He doesn't want to look internally so those ' new beginnings' become associated with the person he becomes each day, knowing that he likely wont be the same person tomorrow. When it comes to big life decisions he usually doesn't process them until they're already taking place, he doesn't see them until they're unfolding right before his eyes.

Very similarly to when he was growing up, he wants to change, he needs change to keep himself going... but it's not as easy as that? In the years following the blight during the events of Awakening & Witch hunt, he's very much stuck in that ' fight' mode where he can't fathom that the greater part of the conflict is at an end. He can't recognize the new beginning as one of the warden-commanders of Ferelden because he's too stuck on the past.

For example: When he goes out into the world in order to seek help with his mental ailments & search for an end to the taint, he doesn't even realize that he's made the decision to do so until he's already on the road. By then there's no time to think about whether or not this ' new beginning' is scary or exciting or anything in between, it's already happening. It's move forward now or let the past eat him from inside out.

So I guess the shorter version of this breakdown is that he used to have a lot of hope stemming from the idea of a new beginning... But when it came, he didn't know how to process it. He still doesn't know how to process change as he walks his path in life & it's hard to recognize it before it comes. He can't grasp the concept of the implications of new beginnings as every day is a new beginning. He has no confirmation that when he wakes up tomorrow that he will be the same person... So he pushes forward & processes it all in hindsight. But when he does, it usually offers him some sort of peace. the past rots inside of him easily so all he can do is push forward & see what happens.

It was like looking at a ghost. The shape of his face, feline and sharp, those piercing eyes, the pale complexion that left him absolutely breathless. He was staring at a fragment of his past--buried deep within the recesses of his mind; never to be thought of again. Yet, here Gideon stood. Solid and full of substance. It was no ghost. 

Eden sucked in a shaken breath; his heart pounded like wings of a hummingbird as he soaked in Gideon’s image, tall and terse as ever. He lost the ability to speak--to move. His calloused hand had slid onto the bar counter of the Herald’s Rest to steady himself. He was afraid if he took a step that his knees would buckle and he would crash into unconsciousness. He stared at the other for a long moment, unmoving. He blinked as if he was batting away a long forgotten dream, and yet Gideon did not disappear--another regret stood before him and he had to come to realize that Gideon -- his dear friend from childhood would not disappear. The realization fell upon him like stones sinking to the bottom of a lake - slow and heavy. 

He choked out a sob in attempt to hold back tears. Then, everything became instantaneous. With the fluidity of a dressage horse, Eden MacTavish leapt over the counter and cleared it with ease, each step faster than the last. His form crashed into the other’s and his thick, muscled arms snaked around the other in a crushing hug-tight and protective. 

“ Gideon!” was all he could muster as he held him tightly; anchoring to him as if he were to disappear in mere moments. He was real. He was no ghost. The Fallen Prince of Starkhaven was standing in his bar. A rush of a lost childish emotions threatened to burst as he forced himself to let go of his long time friend. He gazed at him with tears brimming his green hazel eyes. 

All he could muster was the word “ How?” 

@absolutionabsolved​ S.C. 

he makes out w @honnleathrose for fun

MMMMMMM okay okay okay so this is an ask that i've been thinking about really hard because i've dug really deep into his suffering on this blog, but not so much on the things that actually make him happy. He loves to write & outside of his personal journals he can come up with some pretty magical poetry.

okay so first of all he likes to write. I've already made a post detailing his personal journal & what goes into that, but it's not nescessarily always for fun. He makes a lot of observations about the world as it's actively happening around him & likes to record them if he's able. However, he uses writing not only as a way to cope but also for recreation.

Outside of his personal journal, he writes poetry & keeps a field journal on different plants / bugs / animals he encounters in his travels. Is all of the information correct? absolutely not. He still loves it though. While on the note of his field journal, he also loves to sketch. He has a really good understanding of anatomy / values but not a very good understanding of color theory so most of his art is without color. He really enjoys drawing bugs & animals, mostly because of the little leggies. They just make him happy. He also uses his artistic ability to, again, capture different perceptions of what's going on around him which brings him a lot of peace.

He generally enjoys traveling & exploring as well. He gets really restless if he has to stay in the same place for too long. He likes to be able to spend time in nature, to kick off his shoes & stand in a stream. To him, nothing is more relaxing than sitting on some grass & watching the forest do what the forest does. He's known to take really long hunting trips when he just needs some space to breathe. He loves seeing new places & above all going somewhere no one knows his namehe frequents taverns as well. he likes to drink & make merry, though he generally only does so in places people won't recognize him.

aisde from that, he likes to train with his hound. Fergie & him have a very interesting relationship because that dog has got an ATTITUDE. Ellis wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s got more scars on his body from Fergie than from the entirety of the Blight because they tend to play rough. Ellis insisted on training Fergie himself. Ellis has actually got a large scar on the left side of his face from him & a lot of people who didn’t know him before assume he sustained it during the blight

that and of course HANGING OUT WITH ANY OF HIS SIBLINGS. it brings him so much life & joy to do so. it makes him feel young again, a little splash of  the life they had before the world went to shit.

so lets dive into this. the moon card is largely about longing but it's also about deluding yourself or distracting yourself with an internal struggle. the card often depicts two entities in some sort of conflict at the beginning of a road, to distracted by each other to see the long & amazing journey laid out before you. Which is kind of on point for Ellis & how I like to write him. He's a man who used to have a lot of dreams, a lot of ways he wanted his life to play out. He's still young by the end of the blight & most of those dreams are still... within reach. But he doesn't recognize that because he's always at war with his grief, his rage & himself overall. It drives him to think a lot about that everything that could have been, the things he wanted in a past life & how out of reach they seem now.

So i guess the way to answer this specific ask is that Ellis has always been a dreamer. When he was a boy he wanted nothing more than to be some sort of legendary hero, to be like loghain or any other legend from the war. He wanted to be a great warrior & face every day as a new adventure. Which I suppose he gets in the end, but it's in no way like he thought it would be... so he thinks those ideas are unachievable because they didn't play out exactly how he wanted them to / they didn't feel half as good as he thought.

After the blight healways sort of wants for things he knows he can't have because he found, through the blight, that the idealization of situations are a lot easier to swallow than the harsh reality that would actually happen. He always wants to find morrigan, to have a family with them, to desperately grab for the seratonin that comes from the idea of it... though he fears what making that idea reality would do? if that makes sense.

He likes to hope for things he can't have because it's easier than wanting something & it not living up to expectations. he would never, ever admit to that though... he often deludes himself into thinking otherwise, sort of trapping him in a cycle of self inflicted suffering.

even though she had been serving the king and queen of ferelden for only a month, rosalie had learned a whole lot. one, that whatever work she did for mia back in south reach was absurdly easier compared to the volume of work she had in denerim.

two, that queen anora didn't really need much help. at all. she knew what she was doing and being a ruler was her comfort zone. king alistair, on the other hand, struggled a little, even after all those years. the team assembled to assist the king and queen of ferelden found themselves around the king more often than not because of that.