Reblog / posted 3 months ago via draggy-s · © bampire with 88 notes
bambaarts: Something that’s been on my mind in the past 24 hours.

bambaarts:

Something that’s been on my mind in the past 24 hours.


you know what i’d fucking do for a lady arishok

a huge fucking indomitable lady 100% in charge of her shit and the shit of everyone within her purview thighs like tree trunks arms like tree trunks that flat busted unimpressed hacksaw face looking out at you from under the weight of all those twisting horns

a lady who scares the everloving shit out of you a lady too frightening to fuck a lady who has reached the end of her patience for politely suffering your calcified kirkwall bullshit a lady sent to bring the words of her prophet safely home

a lady with a voice like a bandsaw being dragged backwards through a burning peat swamp and the hugest fingers and the hugest most darling ironshod wrists 

do you know

what i

would do


vaultdweller:

Endless List of Queer Characters in Games
→Isabela

You see, sweetness, men are only good for one thing. Women are good for six.




spicyshimmy: Merrill - Requested by Hotaru In the beginning, she truly thought there was ink inside of her. She believed that if she consumed enough history, swallowed enough of the old words, then the hands that wrote them and the blood that guided those hands would guide her hands and the line they drew together would remain unbroken. She hid in the hollows of trees, never one to make her own roots. And she read—voracious, devouring, pages and papercuts, voices she thought she heard, sentences parried by the wind, volumes pressed against her chest. Punctuation was her heartbeat.. And the binding. Oh, the glorious binding. The heroes of old—the tricksters especially. The many means to understand a stranger through the glint of a hero’s eye or the sharpest edge of a villain’s tooth. A place where even the worst traitor was an acorn of a child once, and even the bravest martyrs sacrificed more than themselves for causes that didn’t cry like babes in the night.  Oh, she thought. Oh, I am so hungry.  But for all she understood them—the children of these stories, carrying each one like arrows strapped to their quivers, feet baring their soles to the ground—they never seemed to love her as she loved them. The tales had made her different, the forest a shadowed stage. ‘That is because what we keep,’ the Keeper said, ‘we keep alone.’ ‘Oh, but I’m not alone at all,’ Merrill replied. She was so young then, before she learned the pages were always blank, the mirrors always empty, words and reflections passing like sunlight through the leaves. One day she, too, would be nothing more than a few quick lines on freckled vellum. They lived their stories so someone else might write them, and history could answer its own echo, repeating itself on a folded page. Then, a hungry young elf, eyes wide, would crack open the binding to whisper her name.  Lonely she might have been, but never alone for the stories she saved. 

spicyshimmy:

Merrill - Requested by Hotaru

In the beginning, she truly thought there was ink inside of her. She believed that if she consumed enough history, swallowed enough of the old words, then the hands that wrote them and the blood that guided those hands would guide her hands and the line they drew together would remain unbroken. She hid in the hollows of trees, never one to make her own roots. And she read—voracious, devouring, pages and papercuts, voices she thought she heard, sentences parried by the wind, volumes pressed against her chest. Punctuation was her heartbeat..

And the binding. Oh, the glorious binding.

The heroes of old—the tricksters especially. The many means to understand a stranger through the glint of a hero’s eye or the sharpest edge of a villain’s tooth. A place where even the worst traitor was an acorn of a child once, and even the bravest martyrs sacrificed more than themselves for causes that didn’t cry like babes in the night. 

Oh, she thought. Oh, I am so hungry. 

But for all she understood them—the children of these stories, carrying each one like arrows strapped to their quivers, feet baring their soles to the ground—they never seemed to love her as she loved them. The tales had made her different, the forest a shadowed stage.

‘That is because what we keep,’ the Keeper said, ‘we keep alone.’

‘Oh, but I’m not alone at all,’ Merrill replied.

She was so young then, before she learned the pages were always blank, the mirrors always empty, words and reflections passing like sunlight through the leaves. One day she, too, would be nothing more than a few quick lines on freckled vellum.

They lived their stories so someone else might write them, and history could answer its own echo, repeating itself on a folded page.

Then, a hungry young elf, eyes wide, would crack open the binding to whisper her name. 

Lonely she might have been, but never alone for the stories she saved. 


spicyshimmy:

letsgetfoxy:

[source]

fingers that usually slide into pockets sliding under a collar instead. they aren’t searching for gold but for skin; they aren’t searching for treasure as such but for a heartbeat well-known and well-cherished. isabela always wears her prizes where everyone can see them, the glint and glitter of any light off metal, but it’s the skin that glows now, the bend of her elbow and the length of hawke’s throat. all the rest is hidden, eyes shut and hair tangled and the creep of fabric over a bare thigh more intimate than even the shadow on its inner curve. ‘oh,’ hawke might sigh into the silence, ‘those clever fingers.’ 


spicyshimmy:

goddessofcheese:

MY FAVOURITE VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS (in no particular order):

Isabela (Dragon Age 2)

“They don’t know me. I know me.”

sometimes it’s not enough, in the face of words that hit the mark like weapons, what does hurt, what does break the skin—when it’s worse than you thought; when what you know is one against hundreds of think-they-knows—but there’s not a day that goes by when these two lines don’t hit back. hard as they can, and double time, like dual blades. and there’s not a day that goes by that i’m not grateful for this character saying this thing. sometimes you need that bright light. i definitely need it today. 


spicyshimmy:

They don’t tell you this when you’re a wee slip of a girl made of heartbeats and hammocks and horizons:

You’ll never be a mermaid.

(No, it doesn’t matter who said you looked like one.)

Hair and seaweed aren’t ever as pretty as they are under water. 

You can’t live and breathe down there, not for long. Coral and pearls aren’t equally precious to everyone. Love runs through your fingers like a river to the sea. It takes so bloody much to build that salty dark ocean, all the veins traveling to the heart. It swells when the rain falls, too full for its shores. It’s best when it aches. It’s only real if it does.

Growing up means finding your sea legs in a storm, on a boat with no sails and a cracked hull. Every mistake is like an anchor—at least until you sharpen your knives and cut the ropes. You can learn to swim without knowing you’ll drown, but you’ll never love it the way you should. Extra cargo slows a ship down. Bones can be ground into sand. Sand can fill your lungs. 

You’ll make choices. (The wrong ones.) You’ll say things. (Terrible things.) Sometimes you’ll mean them. You’ll be a fool and try to bury it but when the tide rolls in, the bodies wash up on shore. The people you love won’t love you the way you love them. The people who love you will feel the same bitter lash and sting. You can’t help it. You can’t help them.

But there’s no torn bodice that can’t be replaced. There’s no open seam that can’t be resewn. There’s no river that dries up forever. The rain falls and it swells until it’s too much, too much for its shores.

So, you drop a thousand anchors.

Just hoist a thousand and one. 


spicyshimmy: naiadestricolor: she’d make the coolest grandma ever She never wanted to teach anyone a damn thing. Those who can’t do, as they say. And if she was going to teach, then it’d be all about knots and how to tie them.  Untying them, she told Fenris once—well, that’s your problem. ‘I’m no mother,’ she said, visiting Aveline, remarking upon Donnic’s gray hair this time but not on the old girl’s. Emphasis on the old, of course, but that went without saying. Her freckles were still the same color, and that seemed to be all that needed to count. ‘Here’s to that,’ Aveline replied. ‘The one thing the two of us could ever agree on.’  ‘I’m more of a favorite aunt,’ Isabela added. ‘A godmother, if anything. The one who teaches little ones naughty words and delicious truths and spoils them rotten because somebody has to show them how wonderful life can be if you stop telling yourself it isn’t.’ Don’t think about calling me granny just yet. Kirkwall hadn’t changed. Old was old. The hanged man couldn’t be un-hung. The docks still reeked and there was always bound to be smoke in the air when the wind turned.  But Isabela’s promise to herself had always been: never retrace old steps unless you’re moving backwards on purpose. ‘Why are you walking like that?’ a young slip of a thing asked her, peering out from around a corner.  ‘Because I can,’ Isabela replied. ‘No, don’t follow me—find some other madcap thing to do that makes no sense and do that instead.’  She played knucklebones with the girl after they re-learned how to walk, then showed her all the old shivving spots. That’s where Fenris tore out the beating heart; that’s where Anders and Hawke thought no one saw them kissing; that’s where another wave of blissful fools helped us sharpen our blades; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  ‘But don’t take my word for it,’ Isabela added. ‘My ocean isn’t your ocean—and so on.’  ‘How old are you?’ the girl asked. ‘About your age,’ Isabela replied.  A grandmother wasn’t a mother. Being one for a day was a little like walking backwards over someone else’s stomping ground. ‘One day,’ Isabela added, ‘you can wear no pants at all and realize, there’s no one can stop you.’  ‘I’m going to be a pirate,’ the little girl said.  ‘Well, then,’ Isabela replied, ‘you’d best be a good one.’ 

spicyshimmy:

naiadestricolor:

she’d make the coolest grandma ever

She never wanted to teach anyone a damn thing. Those who can’t do, as they say. And if she was going to teach, then it’d be all about knots and how to tie them. 

Untying them, she told Fenris once—well, that’s your problem.

‘I’m no mother,’ she said, visiting Aveline, remarking upon Donnic’s gray hair this time but not on the old girl’s. Emphasis on the old, of course, but that went without saying. Her freckles were still the same color, and that seemed to be all that needed to count.

‘Here’s to that,’ Aveline replied. ‘The one thing the two of us could ever agree on.’ 

‘I’m more of a favorite aunt,’ Isabela added. ‘A godmother, if anything. The one who teaches little ones naughty words and delicious truths and spoils them rotten because somebody has to show them how wonderful life can be if you stop telling yourself it isn’t.’

Don’t think about calling me granny just yet.

Kirkwall hadn’t changed. Old was old. The hanged man couldn’t be un-hung. The docks still reeked and there was always bound to be smoke in the air when the wind turned. 

But Isabela’s promise to herself had always been: never retrace old steps unless you’re moving backwards on purpose.

‘Why are you walking like that?’ a young slip of a thing asked her, peering out from around a corner. 

‘Because I can,’ Isabela replied. ‘No, don’t follow me—find some other madcap thing to do that makes no sense and do that instead.’ 

She played knucklebones with the girl after they re-learned how to walk, then showed her all the old shivving spots. That’s where Fenris tore out the beating heart; that’s where Anders and Hawke thought no one saw them kissing; that’s where another wave of blissful fools helped us sharpen our blades; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

‘But don’t take my word for it,’ Isabela added. ‘My ocean isn’t your ocean—and so on.’ 

‘How old are you?’ the girl asked.

‘About your age,’ Isabela replied. 

A grandmother wasn’t a mother. Being one for a day was a little like walking backwards over someone else’s stomping ground. ‘One day,’ Isabela added, ‘you can wear no pants at all and realize, there’s no one can stop you.’ 

‘I’m going to be a pirate,’ the little girl said. 

‘Well, then,’ Isabela replied, ‘you’d best be a good one.’