#thanks alie! sorry alie!

[figueroths]

Artists self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five arts/sets/edits/gifs that you've done, then pass on to at least five other people. Time to shine and spread some self-love and appreciation 💖

ik it says five but pls understand and respect that i am incapable of making such decisions <3 and also know that I am abt to start tedtalking <3 i am not sorry for any of this <3

TOP FIVE SIX :)

this maleficent set - maleficent (2014) makes me feel insane like true love being familial, parental in fact !! uwuwuwuwu is top tier and anyway I love these gifs individually and how they pair!

this aquamera set - I love love love aquamera, and this is so vibrant and fun! using the fish font style on the fish man line was inspired i'm such a hottie for that! an early mistake in blending mode led to the first gif being so fucking extra and mwah tbh good call to just run with it. also just remembering I specifically told @khazadkeit to send me that prompt lmfao brave of them, after all the essays I've written in their dms, to invite in even more rot ryan i am kissing u on the shoulder tenderly

this ginny baker set - someone called this "visually intense" in a way that felt like 15% derogatory so i'm gonna snatch that phrasing and make it 100% affectionate. like there's a lot happening, and it's so rewarding to look at these gifs now and find little layered surprises in the blending or layout or typography! 😌

this nabrielise set - listen I am so deep in the rot on tbsatdh that my body has adapted to it and I need that rot to breathe and function. it's a v simple, v pretty, v tender set and I love it

this made for love set - my most slept on set for a most slept on series. typography? sexy! colors? sexy! blending? sexy! simmer + hazel green? 📢 SEXY!

this first kill set - i misquoted in a tiny way that gets deeply on my nerves but I just think theo and talia have one of the most compelling relationships on the show and I really love the flow of this set. sometimes u make smth and one or more gifs are a little off the vibe but this one's 10/10 start to finish 💅🏽

honorable mentions <3 yes <3 i'm that annoying <3 still no apologies <3

the first gif in this san junipero set is so perfect I wanna get back on whatever I was on when I made that

this whole nick miller set I snapped! just sat down and made that in a few hours, learning how to do stuff as ideas occurred to me like oh? beyond my abilities? ok I will simply expand my abilities then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ignore the rest but the last gif in this mad max: fury road set might actually be the best blending I've ever done I'm counting 4 shots in there plus triple layers on the big guy

light of my life penny robinson!! idk this just sparks joy but also I'm obsessed with the hand(/claw?) at her temple in the first gif

more robinsons! this time judy & john beloveds. fuckdjsklfidng typography is my passion 😐 but anyway the second gif is so dear to me. that episode is so dear to me really and how they let each other go in totally different ways but how teaching her independence is key to his survival later when he's dependent on her abilities it's emo hours 🥺💗

#long post #i guess khfajks rip #thanks alie! sorry alie! #asks #eddiediaaz #i've made over 200 sets this year like woof who knew #so really what's wrong with going six over the ask lmao

[mothwingwritings]

Question?!💕 Okay anyways LOLZ!😂 What if Muhammad Ali Jr. meets Yujiro's daughter, and Baki faces Muhammad and finds out he already met his sister? How would Baki react when Muhammad comments some "things" about his sister appearance, and mannerisms? And also what would Yujiro think about all this mess? Would he get jealous or be amused?

Btw I LOVEEEE your Baki fanfics!💓

Mr. Ali Jr is going to get kicked in the dick SO HARD that man will either A. No longer have a dick, or B. Have a concave dick for the rest of his life as a reminder of how dumb he was to ever fuck with Baki's darling sister. :)

Joking aside though, I really feel like Baki would let him talk his shit and make his comments. Go ahead and whisper about how good (name)'s ass looks in those jeans, or talk about how nice your plush lips would feel around his cock. Make insinuations about how easy you seem, or snide little observations about the swing of your hips when you walk. The more shit he talks the more fun it will be for Baki to absolutely beat his sorry ass to a pulp in front of EVERYBODY. And guess what? When Ali Jr. is beat half to death, blubbering in unimaginable pain, it's going to be Baki that gets to go home with you and enjoy your company. And he intends to fully enjoy his time with you, being pampered and doted on for being your strong champion. <3

As for Yujiro... It's a mixed bag. Muhammad's father is one of the few people Yujiro truly respects, and as such, he doesn't treat Ali Jr with the disrespect and contempt he treats most people. I think he would be pretty amused with Ali's flirting, maybe even commend him on his good taste. But the moment he takes it a step too far and either asks you on serious date or (god forbid) tries to put his hands on you in some way, that boy will be knocked out so hard his ass won't know what hit him. Since he would want to at least try and avoid killing him, Yujiro will instead make sure to put him a coma so that he's out of the picture for a very long time. :)

#No lie one of my fav baki moments of all time is when Baki absolutely decimates Ali Jr. #he was talking all that shit and he found out real quick #literally destroyed B) #baki x reader #baki reader insert #baki scenarios #baki the grappler x reader #muhammad ali jr x reader #yujiro hanma x y/n #yujiro x reader #yujiro hanma x reader #baki hanma x reader #baki x y/n #this boy is getting the hanma dick kick special one way or another so sorry ali jr #thank you for asking love!!! #yandere baki the grappler #mothwords

[humanmorph]

this scene makes me feel like i hit my head really hard

#palisade spoilers #palisade #fatt #palisade 45 #friends at the table #sorry about no transcript but this is 13 minutes long. #i will leave transcribing to the professionals (there's some crosstalk i cannot make out here + noises that I don't know how to transcribe) #also it'd take a lot of time and i want to make dinner. #i'll add it whenever it's finished because i do like having it here. thank you transcript team... #also had to compress the file but i don't think it's too noticable? maybe if you're an audio guy. just listen to the episode then. #this clip starts & ends with an ali sigh. she's so good

[always-coffee]

Thank you

I think we fall a little bit in love a million times a day.

The way the light falls like fading starlight. The first sip of a hot beverage on a cold morning. The silly thing our dog or cat did. Or child. The way someone laughs. Old friends. New friends. That spark of connection, wherever it begins and wherever it may lead.

There is so much beauty in the world. And so much magick. It’s easy to overlook it or dismiss it as ordinary. But there’s nothing ordinary about the thing that light us up, that make the dark diminish. And I am constantly seeking out what shines, where I find it or create it. We are all meant to be lighthouses, in the end. I believe that.

Yesterday, I made a choice to let go of the idea of something and embrace what is. Sometimes, that can be hard to do, whether it’s intentional or not. But we are often so full of longing that it won’t fit into words. And we are, in one way or another, often chasing after one spark or another. Because it’s the light that matters. That makes the darkness into something less. And there are so many ways we accomplish that for ourselves and for each other.

I think connection is one of the most important things in life. The marrow of it. It’s the whole point of this mad world. I have friends living all across the globe. I have visited some of them, but not nearly enough. If you had told that to sixteen year old me, I would’ve thought you were daft. But it’s the truth. And I know the internet can be vile, but it has also made the world into a kind of cocktail bar with books. And I love that.

I have been privileged to make incredible friends. Those friends have supported me when I needed it, cheered me on, given me advice, made me laugh, held space for me when I’ve cried—often from the bigger-on-the-inside space within my phone. Pocket friends.

I’ve said this elsewhere, but if you have supported my poetry in some way—reading it, sharing it, telling me what it meant to you—thank you. It means more to me than I can articulate, but I am grateful. And, well, ’tis the season and all that.

XO

#poetry #poem #truth #love #art #writing #poet #writer #ali trotta #grateful #thank you #pocket friends #SFF #writing community #it's a small world #sorry for the earworm #gratitude #poets on tumblr #writers and poets #poetic #poems #poetrycommunity

[5iceroy]

｡☆✼★ ━ I'm Your Cat, I'm Your Dog ━ ★✼☆｡

companion piece to The Fine Art of Car Audio

A Little Language (Robert Duncan) || Cat & Dog (TXT) || Laika (Sarah Doyle) || Les Fleurs du Mal* (Charles Baudelaire, tr. Richard Howard) || The Cats Will Know (Cesare Pavese, tr. Geoffrey Brock) || Another Insane Devotion (Gerald Stern) || Noah's Nameless Wife Takes Inventory (C. T. Salazar) || Her Grave (Mary Oliver)

translation of french excerpt under cut:

*I find to my astonishment like living opals there his fiery pupils, embers which observe me fixedly.

#thanks for the push from cofyspoons this was rlly fun!! 😁🫶 more ideas alw welcome #(edit: mf tumblr deleted my tag but for those who sent in character asks IM SORRY BAES IM WORKING ON IT.. thank u for sending them in ❤️) #carlos sainz #cl16 #cs55 #f1 art #f1 fanart #ali + art #web weaving #formula 1 #formula one #f1 rpf #charlos #charles leclerc

[six-white-venus]

what are dreams to you?

can you taste your dreams? i can. it tastes like vanilla and strawberries and raw mango and something that i've never tasted before, not when i was awake. i am not sure what it is, but it's sweet. i don't think i like it. i wake up to the cloying scent of spider lilies and blink a few hundred thousand times. give me a second, i just need to hack up these damn flowers in my throat. mind the blood when you walk inside my room. it stains.

when you dream, do you breathe? i do. i think it's the only time i do. my sister sleeps with her arm thrown over me. she tells me i shake in my sleep. even in my dreams, i am afraid. of what? of love. always of love.

what are dreams to you? symphony of joints cracking as i stretch, a yawn dangling on my lips. the birds are chirping as i smile at ma and ask, “when are we going to see uncle?”. she is crying. It takes me a while, but i am sobbing, too.

“tell me he’s still alive, ma.”

dreams have always been cruel.

#thanks for the ask ali! #this was fun #sorry if it isn't great i tried lmao #dreams #my writing #poetry #prose poetry #words #love #writeblr

[ninthsillies]

im so excited to read the same romance novel again

#thank you ali hazelwood i dont really mind that it's all the same but slightly different. it's what im built for #firrrrrrst finishing nona though she's literally my best friend #okay back to studying! haa ha finals are great. i love finals. theyre like the death of me #sorry friends for not being online lately it's been fucking hectic. miss u :/

[jmkho]

✨️HAPPY BIRTHDAY @oliverreedmasterass ✨️

🥳 Wishing Aly a wonderful birthday today! I hope you have a wonderful birthday with lots of giggles & goodies 🎂 🥳

🗡 It took me some time to get Oliver Reed to stop running around chasing everybody!🗡

The gif is so quick I'm so sorry! The text reads -

🗡🥃Welcome all!🥃🗡

It's very astute of yew to join me, to celebrate Aly darlin's BURF DAY!

#oliverreedmasterass #gvf #greta van fleet #jake gvf #jake kiszka #oliver fucking reed #excuse the shitty quality of the gif hun THE REAL FILE SIZE WAS LIKE 30 SOMETHING LOL so o had to compress it #Don't ask how this was made because i blacked out while doing it lmao #Happy Birthday Aly! i wanted to say thank you for being such a wonderful person #you really said imma be this weirdos friend and I cannot thank you enough. we're both new to here and #our small lil blogs thankfully crossed paths!! #happiest birthdays to thee biggest Oliver reed enthusiast!!! #hoping jake posts something on your birthday!!!!!!! #Also I'm so sorry the gif is quick #it was...it was a job to get thos going let me tell you lol #doodles #greta van fleet art #greta van art #gvf art

[glacierbash]

Y'shtola Rhul!

hi bestie. the squares on this do not properly portray my feelings about y'shtola which are pretty defined by the 14 team's TERRIBLE women writing abilities; but, at the same time, I think Y'shtola is an extremely cool kitty who deserves SO much more than what she gets

ultimately what bothers me about y'shtola is how often she's pushed into being "the girl who explains stuff in layman's terms and gets to be snarky." When I'm not angry, Y'shtola is a FANTASTIC character and I'm constantly pleased with her any time she's on screen, but then I THINK. Why is her blindness never brought up? Why isn't she allowed to have a character arc while Urianger gets to have his same one three times in a row, and Estinien gets to have one despite not being a scion for SO long? Why doesn't she get to do cool stuff anymore except fake die? Why don't they play around with her tendency to use forbidden magic more? Why isn't she allowed to be Y'SHTOLA FUCKING RHUL, THE COOLEST OF THE SCIONS???

and then i remember they hate women. she's a blorbo by osmosis, if that makes sense. She's not one of my favorites, but she's In The Brain and you're to blame, and I will forever scream about how the writers should give her a chance to be more than just, like I said, "smart one." Like, clearly she has some stuff! But it's never given the FOREFRONT like so many other characters. in Dawntrail I'm begging them to give us some Y'shtola Content because even if she's been present in every expansion it feels like she's rarely there. It bugs me more than anything. She has so many potential little quirks, but it feels like you have to hunt for them, like the whole thing about her minion saying she's 23 but WHO KNOWS. Come on square. please come on. give the kitty the credit she deserves. also give her back her skin tone KTHX <3333

however little sun is one of the best moments in the entire game and all the writing flaws can be forgiven for that.

#answered ask #SORRY TO RANT ABOUT YOUR BLORBO. SHE UNFORTUNATELY EPITOMIZES SE'S ISSUES WITH WRITING WOMEN. #i love her. i want to love her more. but i think about her and go ''why is ali//saie the only main girl allowed to have character growth.'' #*and by main i mean main cast. anyways. #uuhggjnfguhfgjgf thank you. im sorry again.

[thyandrawrites]

I know you’re super bummed right now but know I still enjoy reading your takes more than reading the actual manga. You’re very insightful and out so much depth into your writing and how it speaks meta-textually, I wish I had a talent like yours. You’re amazing, deal with it.

I'm bad at answering to kindness but! I'm working on it :')

It warms my heart that you would think that highly of my meta. I wanted to thank you back for taking the time to browse through this blog and to engage with my analysis as more than just content to consume, and for remembering there is a person behind the blog :') It really makes me happy to see my little hobby bring joy to others, even if right now I'm putting it on the back burner for a while

I hope the holidays treat you well, and take care! 💕

#I appreciate every single one of you who spent a bit of time to be appreciative of my work #I'm sorry for not answering #The monkey part of my brain feels like an attention seeker for responding to them #I try to tell the monkey to shut up but sometimes it just throws bananas at me :') #Anyway thank you all. Really #I know people follow me because they enjoy my perspective on stuff #My break isn't for that. I'm just too anxious to deal with those who do not follow me if that makes sense #It's stupid and I know it. So that's why I'm distancing myself from it #I need to find back my passion for this so that I can come back and be confident enough not to care about the outside noise #But I can only do that when I'm confident in myself if that makes sense #Ali replies

[eddiediaaz]

Here you go, Alie! A flower for you! 🌷

awwww jess it's so sweet of you to give me apology flowers for your wrong pb&j, olives, and tea opinions 🥺

dskfjbdfdfs 😌😌😌 mwah mwah mwah

#alie replies #mistmarauder #it's so fun to tease you i'm sorry 😌 #thank you for the flowers FOR REAL 🥺

[dragonsbone]

I humbly ask to be told everything about Alynne!! Her family, her story, her relationship with Jon, anything you wanna say, please tell me!! 🖤🖤🖤

hi, my love !! i apologize for such a late reply bb i’m doing my best to catch up on my inbox. she’s still a work-in-progress with her storyline as there are many gaps to be filled, but i’ll ramble on with what i definitely know !! so she is stannis baratheon’s firstborn to his first wife, who is an oc, ellyn dondarrion. originally, i wasn’t gonna have aly have a different mother, but it actually ended up making a lot more sense to aly’s personality and upbringing rather than having selyse as her biological mother. she was born on blackhaven during robert’s rebellion, but spent most of her youth at dragonstone. when she was eight, she was sent to be fostered in winterfell under the care of house stark and was to be taught the proper ways of being a lady ( per selyse’s request ).

aly is a lady, but she was also born with the heart of a stag and a mind made of lightning. yes, she likes to wear pretty, velvet dresses and have winter roses in her hair, but she also enjoys swinging a sword and shooting arrows with her bow. aly likes the finer things in life while simultaneously likes to get her hands dirty and not act so proper all the time.

she gets along with the starks very well for the most part !! mainly, the boys plus arya. she, sansa, and catelyn get along as well ( bc in this house, women support women ) but definitely not as much as she does with the rest. but her and jon are definitely very close if u know what i mean 👀.

they were each other’s first love, and sadly, it takes many years for them to ever become more than two people who are hopelessly in love with each other, but can never do anything about it. however, they need to go through their own separate paths for them to eventually follow the same one. it’s for the best for each of their own character arcs, but yea it takes a long time unfortunately.

again, i still have much to figure out in terms of plotting because there is so much i have yet to explore within my own ideas so a lot is subjective to change in the future. but these are the main ideas that i know are for sure staying ( unless ofc i change my mind lol ). but yea i hope u like aly and are excited to see what’s to come !!

#asks #oc asks #aly asks #thank u sm for asking and sorry again for replying so late

[aliatori]

🖋️❓ 10 & 25

So you know that thing where you read a text message notification but then don't immediately respond to it, so it vanishes into the ether of memory to be obliterated forever? That's what happened to this ask until I was going through my inbox for other stuff! Better late than never, and these are great questions from the weird writer asks, so let's get into it. 10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you? Writing has absolutely haunted me. Most of my favourite writing haunts me in one way or another, especially if we use a loose definition of 'intangibly living rent-free in one's mind' as haunting. Haunting, for me, revolves around a piece of writing having a prominent place in my memory, even if I've only read it once, or if it has been years since I've read it. I'd be here for a much longer essay if I listed every piece of writing taking up residence in my mind like a beloved ghost, but a few that come to mind immediately:

The Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate. Little did I know picking up the second book in this series as 2nd grader would etch permanent grooves in my psyche and interests. Ostensibly, these books are about kids transforming into animals via sci-fantasy magic, but as the series goes on, it unpacks a startlingly political and horror-backed landscape of personal trauma, the cost of colonialism, and how war never has any victors even when there is a 'victor'. It's no small wonder I ended up radicalized.

Empress of the World by Sara Ryan. I've known I was queer since a very young age even if I didn't have all the words for it, but across the years, I've felt so seen by certain pieces of writing in terms of my identity. This was the first contemporary sapphic book I ever read, and while 'sapphic' no longer completely describes my queerness, as someone who identified as a mostly-closeted bisexual girl when I read it, it was deeply impactful.

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. I can credit this book with planting the seeds for the kinky, poly self I am today, as well as for many of my favourite concepts/tropes (tangible deities! masochists who are strong-willed and feisty! magical tattoos! sex as the vehicle for the sacred!) I re-read this book... this year? Last year? What is time? It still holds up each and every time I re-read it.

Everything Pablo Neruda. Neruda was the poet who made me fall in love with poetry as an art form. I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to describe love with a fraction of the artistry that he does in his love sonnets. Specifically, XVII has always been a favourite, and this stanza in particular: I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, or arrow of carnations that propagate fire: I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul. (Fun fact: This is where the title of my first FFXV longfic came from as well.)

Haunting also implies more morbid aspects, and to me, that means corpses. When my own writing haunts me, it tends to be the unfinished corpses I have left behind. My abandoned longfic Artificial is first and foremost among the corpses that haunt me. To this day I wish I had been able to finish it, but for a variety of reasons I won't detail here, it's not happening. I've gotten to the point where I appreciate how well it prepared me to transition into mostly original writing, and how it gave me an idea of the discipline and scope finishing a 100k+ project requires. I've never been a BNF and likely never will, but I will forever be grateful for the small yet passionate community that sprang up around Artificial. It's humbling to have people along for your weird (but well-mapped from canon!) AU project and have recursive creativity result from it. My original sapphic inkwitch/painter romantasy continues to haunt me, both because it was originally supposed to be for a project I self-sabotaged myself out of and because I still really need to write it - for myself. It's been through three drafts at this point without being quite what I want it to be. I keep tending the idea field and collecting bits of inspiration, letting the field nourish itself before giving it another try. 25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story? In their youth and pre-transition, before their first long-term posting aboard a navy vessel, Izod Arsenault was a talented dancer, to the point of receiving accolades from and invitations to the Imperial court to perform. Their favourite was a dance I imagine to be similar to the quickstep in modern ballroom dancing. It's also half the reason they sincerely enjoy attending Admiralty parties—the other being their bottomless thirst for throwing their political weight around. I'm not sure if this is hyper-specific enough, but it's at least specific, and it's for sure completely irrelevant to any plotty part of F&F.

#ali answers #thank you and sorry time is a weird soup #thanks for giving me a reason to think about hauntings for several days #I don't believe in ghosts but I do believe in hauntings #so I guess I do believe in ghosts #insofar as anything can haunt you if you let it #long post for ts

[deuxfoundry]

hello 🧍‍♀️

#been busy with school sorry #thanks for the notes on my zhongven fic tho <3333 #~ aly speaks

[sustainably-du-mortain]

Let's hear about those character playlists, yeah? Expand on best songs and lyrics that really mean something to you/your characters

OOOH I'm so excited for this you have no idea!!! I love talking about character playlist!! I'm gonna do Jonah because he's my music guy (and also bc I'm still working on Mads and Côme' playlists)

Jonah's playlist

Before I go into more details, here is the whole playlist!!

Because I'm a chaotic gremlin, this is a mishmash of songs that fit his personality/backstory, songs where only a couple lines fit his vibe, songs that inspired a few fics I wrote, songs that remind me of the triad or just songs I think he would listen to.

Now it's time to get sad!!

Up, up & away - Chance Peña

I just want to show them I can make it on my own I want to go up, up & away Jonah left the family house when he was 16, so this song is about him deeply wanting to leave a house that didn't feel like home. He was living alone in a house that was constantly haunted with silence and an absent mother, and he craved a way out of that place that was slowly suffocating him. So as soon as he could, he left and never returned. Even when Rebecca or his favorite nanny begged him to come back and despite the fact that he was barely making ends meet in the beginning.

[cw: toxic relationship, cheating and guilt-tripping for these next two songs]

Lucky Escape & All for you - Years & Years

From all of the pictures I've seen of the two of you / Is he a model? / I'm not surprised, you're so vain / [...] / You probably think I must be broken / Promiscuous boy, be ashamed / Well I can tell you honey, I'm potent / At least I own up to mistakes / Don't lie to me now/ Just have some courage and show them who you really are / [...] / You're so deluded, you're such a fake / And now you got somebody else to manipulate / I think I dodged a bullet / I made a lucky escape - Lucky Escape I've been thinking / Was it all a different scene in my head / You've got powers / You instructed all the demons instead / Ooh, everyone sees a man so tall, so perfect, they said / [...] / And I have spent a year, wondering if I had all of the blame / And love's a bitter fruit if you remain in your shame - All for you I always pair these two songs together because they're about Jonah's relationship with Bobby. They got together at the end of their last year of high school and went to college together. The first year they had together was going smoothly because Bobby seemed to be really accepting of Jonah's polyamory and the couple flings he had when they were together. So Jonah was really relieved about that, but after a while Bobby's behavior started changing and he realized Bobby wasn't fine with it and actually discovered that Bobby was using the fact that he was polyamorous and that they were in an open relationship to cheat on him. So these songs are about that. Lucky escape is about how Jonah learned Bobby was cheating. He came upon a pic of Bobby with another guy on one of those pages colleges have about cute couples/gossip. And when he scrolled down, he discovered pictures of him with other guys on what seemed to be dates Bobby had never mentioned. But Bobby denied it all until Jonah caught him in the act during a party and finally got fed up of all of this. All for you is about how Bobby constantly gaslit Jonah when he tried to confront him about the pictures, at first saying they were random pictures and that he should trust those, until he started guilt-tripping Jonah over his polyamory, saying stuff like "If you're cheating, I can do it too". Jonah spent months blaming himself and his sexuality over this, thinking that maybe if he stopped going on dates with other people it would stop and this slowly destroyed him and his confidence. Until Tina forced him to see that none of that was his fault and helped him get out of the relationship.

I was torn between these next two songs, so have both

Before the song is over - Aron Wright

Leap of Faith - Christopher

So let go of all you carry / The gravity of such regret / [...] / Don't you get tired of standing / In a place bound to collapse? / [...] / The unknown is not dementing / It's the place where faith begins / What if the best is yet to come? / You just need a little more time under the sun / Close your eyes, one more time / Give me a chance to change your mind / It's just a dance, yours to be had / Don't leave before the song is over - Before the song is over We're watching the clouds changing shapes / Wait for the storm and taste the rain / But if we're standing still, now it'll be too late / [...] / Are we taking more than we can give? / [...] / Would you leave us behind or take a leap of faith? / I still your color just the same / Do you see us shine? / If you're praying for a change, you better not wait / Keep turning the pages, there's choices you make / Only once in your life - Leap of faith These two songs carry a similar feeling to me, but also hit slightly different. I see both as a conversation between Adam and Jonah. Before the song is over revolves more around these two's relationship. It's about Jonah trying to get Adam to see that there could be something worth it between the two of them. He gets where Adam is coming from, he knows how scary it is to open up again, but, if Adam is willing, they could try and see where it leads. He just wants Adam to give it a chance. The feeling with Leap of faith is the same, but to me, it revolves a bit more around Adam and Nate's relationship. It's about Adam freaking out because his relationship with Nate is suddenly changing and Jonah telling him to give it a go if he wants. Just the way the lyrics are worded makes me think of a pre-existing relationship evolving and leaving the safety of that pre-existing, comforting realtionship for something more.

Undertow - Diplomacy

fun fact: this one is actually sung by Jack Falahee who is my face claim for Jonah

I'm fighting fires burning in my head / [...] / So I'm starting over new and breaking all my rules / And I've been such a fool, so I hope you'll forgive me / If I need to catch my breath / Take it slow, I've been looking all my life for you / [...] / Still I'm taking my time for you This one is about Jonah's relationship with Nate. He has not dated anyone since he ended things with Bobby, so he hasn't had any serious relationships in years, apart from hookups here and there. So meeting Adam and Nate rattled him up a bit. He wasn't expecting to fall in love again, let alone with two people at the same time, so he needs to take it slow because what happened with Bobby still haunts him. And while he enjoys the pace this is going with Adam, things were going too fast with Nate and he chickened out after the carnival, because he had to figure out if he really wanted this, if he was ready to open up again. So this one is kind of a plea to Nate to let him take things slow.

I think this one pairs well with: Poet - Bastille

Your body lies upon the sheets Of paper in words so sweet I can't say the words So I wrote you into my verse Now you'll live through the ages I can feel you pulse through the pages Poet is very N and Jonah coded to me. It's about writing odes to your lovers and I think they do that in their own ways: Jonah through music and the songs he writes, Nate through letters and paintings. It's about worshipping your lover through writing and I think that fits the both of them perfectly.

And last but not least

Eight - Sleeping at last

If I had to resume Jonah with one song, it would be this one. I don't even know where to begin. I could quote this whole song because this is literally Jonah's life story. Also 8 is his enneagram type. I was little, I was weak and perfectly naive / And I grew up too quick He was raised by nannies who didn't give a flying fuck about him, except for one, and with Rebecca never being home, he ended up being forced to grow up too fast. He was constantly scared of nannies snapping at him if he forgot to do something or if he did something wrong, so he quickly became a self-sufficient kid to avoid having to interact with them. When I see fragile things, helpless things, broken things / I see the familiar This small little bit is about Douglas. He feels for the kid because he can't help but see himself in him. Although he isn't big on the hero worship, he took the kid under under his wing because he cannot bear to see a child go through something similar to what he went through with Rebecca. I can't let you in, I swore never again This is about Rebecca and Bobby. They're the two person in his life who have hurt him the most and he swore he would never let them hurt him again, and this is exactly what he's doing. He cut ties with Rebecca when he left the house, so this was the first time he had seen her in a very long while when she showed up at the station and he does not intend on fixing their relationship. As for Bobby, he tries his best to avoid him, but Bobby makes it hard with the constant snooping around. Show me how to lay my sword down / For long enough to let you through / Here I am, pry me open / [...] / Here's a map, here's a shovel / Here's my Achilles' heel / I'm all in, palms out / I'm at your mercy now and I'm reading to begin / I am strong, I am strong, I am strong enough to let you in This whole part is about Adam and Nate. It's about him allowing them to see how vulnerable he is, willingly opening up to them, despite how scared he is, because he's ready to give it a go. It's about letting them see how scarred he is by his past relationship with Bobby, by his past and hoping they won't hurt him like tthat again.

#Eight destroys me every single time I hear it #i'm not sorry for the pain this playlist will cause #maybe just a little bit #but thank you so much for the ask i've been dying to talk about Jonah's playlist #if you want to know more about other songs in the playlist let me know #or if you want me to go a little more in-depth with one of these songs #oc: jonah rafferty #oc playlist #jackal🚬 #ali's headcanons

[etoilebinaire]

I've been meaning to ask for your thoughts about Rasha and Alistair but I somehow wrote it down as "Rasha and Zevran" and now I'm curious your thoughts about both variants. at first glance, Rasha/Zevran are a clear nOTP since Rasha is so paranoid and Zevran could very well be an assassin sent after her a la DA:O scenario... but would they be so incompatible? if Rasha knew that Zevran is an assassin from the start, wouldn't there be something... comforting in that knowledge?

You mean the Rasha that ended up with the Iron “nice to meet you im a qunari spy btw” Bull?

(this is the perfect ask thank you so much, a lot of rambling under the cut!)

Just kidding Rasha and Bull were outright hostile towards each other until they were convinced the other wouldn’t kill them on sight anymore and even then they wouldn’t be friendly until months later and they wouldn’t even start to trust the other a little bit until after a big yelling match after the entire demands of the qun nightmare. They got themselves caught in an enemies to colleagues to friends to lovers pipeline, even if the start was a bit one-sided. And I think it would be very similar for Zevran and Rasha. How to put these thoughts on paper. Zevran and Bull are essentially the same person. Listen. They are. The only real differences is different spy training (crows vs. ben hassrath) and that Zevran is younger. I’ll try to describe Rasha’s thought processes a bit because it’s important to get an understanding, but please know that I don’t think they’re healthy etc it’s just that Rasha is not dealing with things well </3. Ok so, three points about Rasha that need to be mentioned: First of all. Saying you’re an assassin/spy/whatever does NOT help. It only means that if you’re upfront about that you’re hiding something much worse. Rasha will find out if you’re an assassin/spy/whatever either way, you don’t have to tell her, you don’t get brownie points for telling her, she will not trust you more, she would have found out either way. She sees through that attempt at gaining her trust immediately. Second of all. Rasha is probably too morally and dutifully bound to kill or send away help if it offers itself. Would she kill Zevran if he was unconscious at her feet after a failed assassination attempt? Only if she didn’t allow herself a chance to think about it. Would she recruit someone from an order trained to assassinate people in her position if she knew that person would be an asset for the inquisition? Yes, if she was confident she could keep an eye on them, even if she would sleep worse for it. If anything, Rasha hates bad resource allocation and management and the inquisition needs all the help it can get. (also.. divine intervention because I as a player would never send a character away) Third of all. Rasha has incurable “I can fix them” disease. She’s an ass and it will take her forever to get over herself and not be mean to someone she doesn’t trust, but once she does.. She applies all the therapy that she doesn’t get to other people god bles. It’s all Shokrakars fault anyway. SHE was the one who got the ragtag group of tal-vashoth together (the Valo-Kas, Rasha’s old mercenary group from before she got dragged along in the inquisition, Rasha didn’t exactly join that group voluntarily but she somehow got stuck there) and THEY all needed therapy and Rasha was somehow the one person most equipped to deliver said therapy. Something about deflecting and being an outsider but still having somewhat of an understanding because of her parents also being tal-vashoth. You don’t need to trust people to still want to help them.

So all of that combined. With Zevran. Spoilers: I do think they make a great match but how it would happen truly depends on how and when and in what context they meet. - If they just happen to be near each other but not interact, Rasha would probably sniff him out as someone who’s a bit too keen on their surroundings, assume he’s an assassin sent to kill her and destroy the inquisition, and leave. This is her thought process with most strangers.   - Do they meet à la DAO after a failed assassination attempt and Rasha was a target? Zevran is dead, she would cut his throat, end of that. UNLESS her brain caught up with her instincts and she thought about it for a second. Then she would interrogate him, find that he’s very willing to give up whoever hired him, be annoyed at his flirtation attempts, and then accept his request to let him live and join their group. She’d absolutely 24/7 keep an eye on him and not eat food that was in his vicinity and have a constant guard on him and generally be awful. It wouldn’t be fun for any of them, but at least Rasha would have a focus for her paranoia, Zev would live, and their group would have another person to fight alongside them. Resource allocation. Zevran is pretty honest about most of his experience as a crow, and one would think there’s some comfort in that for Rasha. However, him being honest could also be a lie and then it’d just be a manipulation technique to get closer to her and let her get her guard down and she will not fall for that!!!! So her paranoia would get in the way there. The real comforting thing about Zev is that his go-to technique does not work on Rasha. She isn’t moved by flirtation and it’s pretty clear that that’s Zevs usual manipulation/deflection/distraction. I don’t think Rasha would lower her guard around him for a second.

Eventually, I do think they’d exchange assassin techniques and Rasha would be intrigued (and disgusted) by how the crows work. They would bond over being dual wielding bisexual assassins who deeply regret some of their kills. Remember, nr. 3, Rasha does have incurable “I can fix them” disease and she’s all for leaving oppressive regimes so she would absolutely encourage Zevran to leave the crows. It wouldn’t be until she can smell Taliesens blood that she actually entertains the thought of trusting Zevran, but you know, small steps. (I’m assuming, btw, that Zev wouldn’t try to assassinate Rasha unless he was still with the crows no matter the timeline here. This isn’t necessarily DAO with Rasha as warden but what a thought that is. Sten would still be in that cage. Rasha and Shale would be unstoppable together. Rasha would be like “we don’t have time for this there’s a blight to stop” every other mission while still trying to help everyone.) All Rasha’s friends are people who left the qun and are dealing with trauma from that so Zevran would fit right in. Again, they would bond over regretting past kills and I think in convincing Zev that he will have to live with that, Rasha would convince herself that she can live with it as well. Rasha’s true personality really shines through when she tries to help people, and it becomes apparent that she’s actually a kind person. I think that if you look at the bigger picture and her decisions, it already is apparent she’s quite compassionate but she surely doesn’t see it that way and on a small scale she’s usually not very nice, which is what people typically see. Anyway, I think Zevran is a good judge of character and would probably see through that all pretty quickly. Rasha wouldn’t trust him until after him leaving the crows, and even then it’d take some time, but I think they would get along very well after that. As I said, bisexual dual wielding assassins with a past they’re trying to not be traumatized from. Rasha still wouldn’t respond to flirtation because that’s just not her thing. But it very much is Zevrans thing and once Rasha realizes he’s maybe serious and he maybe IS offering she’d be like aight . And then she’d fall like a fucking avalanche. Listen. It takes her a LONG time to warm up to people, like a LONG time, but then it’s down in the deep and there’s no return. It’s like a switch in her brain and it is melted to the metal frame once it flips over. And then eventually Zevran would realize he caught feelings and freak out about it, around the same time Rasha would realize she caught feelings and freak out about it, and maker help the people around them. Zevran’s coping mechanism with being scared is becoming distant but Rasha straight up gets angry when she’s scared. Eventually she would see that Zevran’s scared, realize that she’s scared, and then be like “wait if YOURE scared and IM scared then who’s driving the bus”. She’d sit them both down and be like “there’s no use in us being scared of each other like this we should either be scared together or not be scared at all” and she’d be SO pragmatic about it that it would probably break any potential objection Zevran could think of and then they’d get together.

And they would be amazing together. They would be so annoying. They would call their weapons sexy all the time and do lockpick challenges that Rasha always wins and be SO loud and then deny all plausibility in the morning with a straight face. Rasha would suffer through Antivan poetry if Zevran suffers through Rasha’s spells where she overanalyses the seating arrangements in bars and accuses 5 seemingly random patrons of being shady (she’s right about 4 of them). They have at least 10 knives between the both of them at all times. They would be absolute menaces to their friends with PDA cause Zevran thinks that’s hilarious and Rasha would go along with it to see him smile. Also, Rasha would absolutely love destroying the crows from inside out and she’d excel at it too. No way she’s leaving that all to Zev. Rasha would do well in Antiva. Zevran would not do well in the Frostbacks. Rasha would obviously still get bouts of paranoia about everything including herself and Zevran and their relationship and I don’t think Zevran would know how to handle that and he’d just laugh it off, but if Rasha has any semblance of a support network she’d be fine eventually. Otherwise, they would work extremely well together.

- Do they meet during DAI where Zevran is an ex-crow and wants to help the inquisition? Then he’d be like any other companion and Rasha would be on his ass all the time and distrust him and take a long time to warm up to him (see point 1, Zev saying he’s an (ex) assassin doesn’t help). I think she’d test him a lot, see if he actually does just want to help without any agenda, see if she could sneak up on him without him noticing, see just how observant he is, see how much she could poke before she gets met with the sharp end of a knife. Again, flirting doesn’t work on Rasha so there go 80% of Zevs manipulation/deflection techniques. And again, they’ll eventually bond over being dual wielding bisexual assassins who are trying very hard to not let their past define them. Considering everything, Zevran is pretty well-adjusted so he would “pass” most of Rasha’s inane tests, then they’d hesitantly become friends and eventually they could grow close just like in the scenario above. TLDR: Rasha and Zevran are an OTP disguised as a NOTP just like Rasha and Bull. Rasha would be extremely standoffish to Zevran until he ‘proves’ himself in her eyes and she feels she can trust him somewhat, and then she’d immediately fall in love. Rasha is actually very compatible with the very people she mistrusts the most. -----

That was most of it I promise. Rasha and Alistair is a lot shorter. They definitely wouldn’t match as well as Rasha and Zev. - In a DAI scenario, where Alistair is either king or warden, I don’t think they’d really talk a lot. Rasha would be impressed with his achievements during the blight/his reign as king, but that’s about it. In most scenarios I don’t think they’d catch each others eye either. - In a DAO-ish scenario, where they’re forced to work together and Alistair is around that point in his life.. Rasha would be somewhat empathetic to Alistair struggling with his family, and him missing Duncan, and him not wanting to be king etc. I don’t think Alistair would trigger her paranoia in any significant way. I mean, look at him. He’s kind and overly genuine and even if he does turn out to be dangerous, Rasha could easily kill him before he would even realize what is going on. I don’t think Rasha would be drawn to him aside from her “I can fix them” disease where she’ll try to make him deal with his family/Duncan situation better. They don’t really share a sense of humor and she’d think he was a coward rather than endearing (I am so sorry Alistair I hate to say it). I also genuinely don’t know if Alistair would like Rasha. If they had to work together Rasha would try to be nice. But Rasha can be a little scary with how easily she kills and how violent she is. Plus if he ever stops to think, he’d realize she never shares anything about her own family or past, which is kinda weird? And then he’d ask and then she’d make sure he never asks again by subtly but firmly threatening him. HOWEVER. Alistair has that great thing where he does fall for anyone being kinda nice to him. At least in case of the warden (it’s always a surprise for me when I accidentally trigger his romance please send help). So potentially he could develop a crush on Rasha? Now that wouldn’t go over well. She wouldn’t reciprocate, mostly cause Alistair is just not her type, but also because she wouldn’t believe his affection to be genuine. This is where her paranoia would play up again. Rasha would absolutely think she manipulated him into liking her (she didn’t) and overcompensate by showing him how much of a bad person she is (she isn’t). Like the rose scene in DAO. If he would’ve given a rose to Rasha with a spiel about beauty in darkness and how nobody is grateful enough for all her work she’d question his sanity. THEN she’d be like ‘oh no I manipulated this poor chantry boy into thinking I’m a love interest’, then she’d show him why she isn’t a love interest. Thing #4 about Rasha I realized while typing this: she genuinely believes she’s a bad person (even though all her actions tell differently, it’s her paranoia) and knows that she’s capable of manipulating people, and I think she’d be really scared of manipulating her friends and allies? Which is why she generally prefers to be friends with headstrong people who aren’t that susceptible to manipulation. Which is also why while her paranoia gets triggered around spies, she actually gets along with them very well because they have inside knowledge of manipulation so they have a one-up on her. Like, she might not trust them but she might trust herself more around them, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t, Rasha’s way of thinking isn’t sensible anyway and I’m bad at explaining it. Anyway, I’m not saying Alistair has a malleable mind, but Rasha sure would think he does, and that would be enough to make her kind of steer clear of him.

#THANK YOU for asking Karolina I was so so so so excited when I read this ask in particular #I had Thoughts about Zev and Rasha before. and you nailed it with your description #they seem like a bad match at first glance but theyre actually really compatible #zev and rasha would work very well together in every way. bull and taylor would be platonic but theyd be BESTIES #I could write an entire other essay about those two #this zev/rash/ali essay isnt coherent or anything its just me rambling for 2.5k words #but I enjoyed writing this a lot!!!!!!! Rasha my beloved Im so glad this was a chance to talk about her more #and while writing I could actually put to words what I already knew about her as a character?? #like writing it out makes it more concrete. and makes it easier to make connections etc #anyway im sorry this took me like a month you know how it is #thank you for your patience and your asks!!!! I love it 💕 #Rasha Adaar #dragon age