doodles and daydreams

I've been told I'm a little out there. Honestly I'm ok with that. They/them she/her is also fine

[whimsicallywiddershins]

Harry Potter has a lot of hype of being the best magic young adult book out there. And while it is good, there are better ones. Also, JKR is trash. So.

Tamora Pierce is an amazing author. I still read her books as an adult, and I love them. Her books feature strong female characters, interesting and nuanced side characters, well-written antagonists, queer and poc side and main characters, and wonderful world building.

The ones more similar to Harry Potter are the lesser-known Circle of Magic series. First book is Sandry's Book. This series revolves around four children who discover they have magic that revolves around mundane/natural things: weaving, plants, smithery and weather. They all find themselves in the same house in Winding Circle Temple, where they find teachers and learn to control their magic, while dealing with various problems.

The adults are responsible, good teachers. Two (maybe three) of the four kids are poc. Three out of four teachers are poc and I'm pretty sure all of them are queer. The setting is not European, it has a Mediterranean/Turkey vibe.

Please read these books. Give them to your children, instead of Harry Potter. You won't regret it.

[hedge-bones]

This was my big magical series growing up, HIGHLY recommend, like if I could focus long enough I would happily write thesis-length praise about it

[russiansandgod]

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[notearsnora]

Sapphic Glinda canon!

[loish]

Don’t mind me, just painting the kind of place I’d like to be right now 🍂

[lovely-v]

Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”

[busket]

at the rose city comic con panel this month a fan asked them (sean and elijah) if sam and frodo were in love and they said

Sean: .....yes. absolutely

Elijah: 100 percent.

Sean: dont tell rosie

[explorerrowan]

Rosie: "This is my husband Sam, and that's his husband, Frodo. Frodo is my husband-in-law. I'm not into him, he's he's a bit too 'elfy' for my taste, but Sam likes him, and that's fine with me. As far as I know, Frodo can't give Sam children, but Frodo looks after ours all the same, so I don't mind sharing Sam if it means another pair of eyes on the wee ones. In all honesty, our family tree is right simple compared to some hobbits. Yes, I'm referrin' to you Lobelia, over there pretendin' you ain't eavesdroppin'. Still bitter you ain't got either of my boys or their house, eh?"

[arcaniumagi2]

[ms-katonic-of-tamriel]

Tbh it's canon that Frodo invited Sam and Rosie to move in to Bag End after their wedding and they all lived there for a couple of years until Frodo went to Valinor, so yeah. Running with it.

And once Rosie dies, Sam says his goodbyes and disappears after him.

[roach-works]

what’s funny is people assuming that rosie would somehow be too dim or naive to KNOW that sam loved frodo, instead of looking at a guy who would loyally follow a beloved friend to hell and then help carry him home again, and not be like ‘oh i can’t not fuck that.’

[elodieunderglass]

Polyamory, specifically polyandry, would be an interesting solution to the oddball population of the Shire.

The Shire is excellent farming country, with consistently good weather, and only one tough winter in living memory; hobbits like to produce large families; they’re resistant to disease, rarely violent, and encounter few dangers. It is usual for hobbits to produce many children, so that (for example) Bilbo and Frodo are unusual in both being only children, with no siblings, and not having children of their own. All of this should point to a population that increases every generation if not doubling outright. Young people (and their ideologies!) should rapidly outnumber the old with an ever-increasing effect and impact on society. However, the Shire has a surprisingly stable history; it never seems to increase or decrease greatly in population, and the bell curve of age seems… demographically balanced? There certainly isn’t a conflict from rising young bloods challenging the middle-aged reactionaries; there’s no unemployment; there are no housing crises or waves of emigration, or even a tendency for young people leaving home to marry. Meanwhile, not only does the Shire not suffer from internal pressures, but it remains obscure and hardly noticed in global politics.

What makes sense here is that adult hobbits form a loose group. Four parents in a polycule, between them all, may produce four children. All four parents claim to have four children. An outsider would assume this meant the adults had eight children.

Hobbits therefore are not especially fertile or fecund. They simply have large families. Much of their interest in genealogy is due to the complex relationships of blood-kin, hearth-kin, love-kin and pledge-kin, who must all be carefully tracked and measured - not just because you need to make sure that you don’t climb into bed with an un-permitted degree of blood-kin, but to track family alliances and carefully quantify the precise level of thoughtfulness to put into the proper present to gift your father’s lover’s lover (too much implies a degree of intimacy that might upset the polycule.)

Thus, while a hobbit matron may tell a startled dwarf that she has seven sons, she might only have borne five of them herself, and have one hearth-son by her wife, and a pledge-son of her first husband’s. There are between three and four fathers involved at various stages of production, from conception to pledge-duty, but there is debate about the precise number of fathers, as one child was festival-conceived and therefore provisionally pledged to the Brandybucks until more distinctive paternal traits should materialise. It’s expected that four of the sons will be uninterested in women, and their contribution to family life will be in raising hearth-children and pledge-duty. However, this level of detail is normally negotiated later in conversation, as a mutual overture of friendship. So she’s just clear and simple: yes, certainly, she has seven sons. Yes, they’re all hers. Yes, that’s fairly normal - yes, hobbits like big families. How big? That’s really hard to say! Well, about thirteen hobbits live in her house… er, she has forty-three nieces and nephews. Yes! She has nine siblings, that’s correct, but some of them are still babies themselves..

In this way, a bewildered dwarf might assume that hobbits are absurdly fertile, producing an average of seven children per couple, at an absurd pace.

When in fact, with about half of hobbits never bearing biological children, the population of hobbits is pretty much always the same.

Tl:dr, hobbit population works perfectly well, both internally and in the perceptions of outsiders, if the majority of the Shire is gay, they’re all polyamorous, and they all firmly claim to be parents of high numbers of children. Of course Frodo fathered Sam’s kids - he named them! They were pledge-kin but not hearth-kin, as Frodo needed a lot of quiet and stability in the home.

No outsider ever parses hobbit genealogy well enough to understand this except for Gandalf, who never explains anything either.

[the-writing-goblin]

Okay, reblogged this too quickly out of enthusiasm.

This makes so much sense in the worldbuilding, actually???

Like, consider: Elves don't understand hobbit families, but hobbits are also baffled by elf families. You have exactly one partner ever? And it's considered wildly inappropriate to take another even if that partner straight up dies? And they only raise their own children, usually three maximum? Most hobbits would be convinced that elves were cold, unfeeling and anti-social.

Bilbo is percieved as oddly elf-ish when he comes back from his adventure at least in part because he only takes on one hearth-child, and even then quite late in his life. Like sure dude, you don't have to have romantic or sexual partners but no children????? Very strange. Here. Take a Frodo. Maybe he'll fix whatever is wrong with your brain.

And this also explains why hobbits get on better with Elrond than most other elves. Because Elrond has a weird af family by elf standards and takes in foster children all the time. He seems much warmer by comparison. Basically, when Bilbo comes to stay at the Last Homely House and he's doing his writing Elrond would be thrown by how comfortable Bilbo is with his family.

Elrond: My apologies, I know this must be quite confusing for you.

Bilbo: No no I understand perfectly. You have two blood-parents (Elwing and Earendil), two hearth-parents (Maglor and Maedhros), one blood-brother (Elros), and one pledge-brother (Gil-galad). Certainly a bit unconventional due to the kinslaying and all, and a bit on the small side, but other than that...

Elrond, who has never in his life had his family called 'small': ...

[swimmingblue]

and I mean, this would work.

Historically, a lot of agrarian communities did some sort of extended-family group, because it helped everyone. More hands for the work, more eyes on the kids, you can pool talents and skills, and it meant that more people were included.

[an-odd-hobbit]

I love this and I’m polyamorous myself, but historically weren’t large families often a thing because most of the kids wouldn’t live to adulthood? Which is why populations remained relatively stable despite everyone having a ton of kids?

[elodieunderglass]

It’s a good question but not set up to be the case in the canon material! Obviously we are having fun, but it’s backed (at least in my own contributions) by the genuinely interesting public health problems and ecological implications of hobbits.

A few reasons, behind the cut because I’m conscious of having contributed TOO MANY WORDS across various iterations of this post already:

1. Tolkien provided a lot of extensive hobbit family trees, often with birth and death dates. These indicate large families produced by - this is important! - the same mother. Conclusions: mothers weren’t frequently dying in childbirth, and early deaths aren’t often recorded on the family trees. (Possible explanations you could invent for this could include things like “children only being recorded on family trees if they reach a certain age/milestone.” But then you’d be doing the same thing as making them all poly - adding your own imagination!)

One of the longest family lines is the lineage of the Old Took, who sired twelve children and was a shared ancestor of Bilbo, Frodo, Merry and Pippin. In addition to having “three remarkable daughters” including the adventurous Belladonna Took, some of his kids met such unusual fates that they were included parenthetically next to their birth/death dates. One of this generation Took siblings actually went to sea once (but came back and lived to be like 100), one never returned from an adventure, one had no children at all (!!!) and one, Hildigard, “died young.” Hildigard’s birth/death dates aren’t given, but she was clearly old enough to have been named. Dying young was clearly significant; perhaps on the same level of notability as dying childless or dying on an adventure. However, the Old Took was famous and influential, so it’s reasonable that there be more interest in his children’s fates than usual, and that Hildigard’s early death is recorded for those reasons, while perhaps working-class hobbits would have just lost children without recording them.

There is only one “working class” hobbit family tree, and that’s Sam’s.

And while it doesn’t have death dates, we do see that they all started having kids in early adulthood, around the age of 40. Sam’s parents had 6 kids over an 18-year span (!). Of those, 4 achieved adulthood as indicated by marriage or career updates. Again, there might have been dead ones left off the family tree/dying unnamed, if we use that theory I came up with. or this might genuinely be all the kids Hamfast and Bell had, and Daisy and May might have died. But we’re still seeing a general pattern of couples producing more than 2 living kids.

2. The statement in canon is that hobbits have notably “large families”, implying both lots of (living) siblings to be observed, but also something especially worthy of comment. The historical 30%-or-whatever mortality rate could certainly reduce numbers of babies like anything! but there would still have to be a LOT of siblings and cousins and big kids knocking around to create the apparently-accepted canon cultural truth of “hobbits have large families.” Then consider if they were living in a setting where it was normal for all families of all races to be affected by the same problems; they would have, say, five children, of whom two would survive early childhood. If that was expected and natural, those other people still have to turn around and point to hobbits, saying “THOSE little buggers have REALLY big families.”

Fold into that the fact that hobbits are (for their own reasons) living in extremely functional and prosperous 1700s-1800s England, with plenty of food and tea and biscuits, and a functioning postal service - while everyone else is living in various times of antiquity, and constantly getting mown down by raiders. and it seems like it should be backwards; humans should be having huge families with a few survivors, while hobbits should only be having a few kids. What the HELL are they doing over there -

3. We do need something to actually kill off the kids. We do need some cause or factor to do it. The absolute best thing is disease, especially infectious diseases! Especially since we’ve shown that we aren’t seeing family-tree indications of bearers and children dying together in childbirth, which was a formerly popular way to go - let’s go for the next best thing of preventable infectious diseases! And the tricky thing about disease is that the patterns here would have to be continually carrying off medium-sized children and young adults. This would crop the population like a mown lawn, constantly picking off people before they reproduced, while allowing the overall impression of “big families.” But this would have to be an infectious disease that somehow isn’t captured in family trees. And doesn’t stop mothers from bearing kids regularly. And doesn’t follow cycles of epidemic or pandemic (all the families all losing cousins at once in the same year etc.) so their most impactful diseases would have to be things like consumption (tuberculosis) where plenty of people can live as carriers, everyone has different levels of resistance, and they succumb to the disease at different times. I am quite happy for the Shire to have a lot of tuberculosis knocking around. Crammed full of TB. It doesn’t ever make a huge dent on the population, but it definitely hits constantly.

4. We could expect that non-infectious diseases - cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc - should be constantly and continuously wiping out a decent number of adults - although those normally don’t interfere with reproduction and don’t solve our problem. But hobbit life histories as recorded in those stupid family trees are VERY annoying. They’re so annoying with it that in a 2022 paper intended to teach evolutionary biology to kids, authors analysing hobbits had to conclude that hobbits were probably just resistant to disease and cancer. Those stupid birth/reproduction/death dates indicate a life history slower and more resilient than humans. There probably is a decent amount of this happening anyway, but to the adults, not so much the kids. The family trees definitely and continuously imply an absurdly resilient race that really should have a huge population.

5. Kids should definitely be dying by accident a lot - drowning, falling down stairs (admittedly their architecture has few stairs) and so on. However, the culture seems to suggest that it would have to be quite a subtle continuous attrition of children. Disasters, accidents, attacks and famines are all so rare in the Shire that people literally still talk about interesting deaths a generation later. Frodo’s parents were considered completely unhinged for dying of drowning. The Fell Winter, in 2911/1311, was legendary for being difficult - in the Unfinished Tales Gandalf says:

“They (the shire-folk) were very hard put to it then: one of the worst pinches they have been in, dying of cold, and starving in the dreadful dearth that followed.”

The Fell Winter caused a drop in population, and it’s possible that they hadn’t recovered from it by the time of the books; but everyone had a lot of kids since then, and it’s still a huge legendary outlier and the worst thing that every happened to their species.

Notably there weren’t many deaths in 1311 recorded in the family trees, which is obviously due to Tolkien not matching stuff up (this whole situation is about him not matching stuff up, and us filling in the gaps). But the point I wanted to make here is that disasters are rare to hobbits.

6. A possible theory is that every hobbit even tangentially related to the Fellowship hobbits has possessed a disproportionate share of luck and fecundity, so their family trees are absurd, and everyone else is just DEAD.

7. To be fair we do see a LITTLE political impact that could be attributed to having more young people than old ones. In The Hobbit, the middle-aged Bilbo is extremely conservative and concerned with reputation and respectability; the Shire is openly prejudiced against other races. But by LotR we meet a younger generation of hobbits who are very different. Some of this is possibly due to Bilbo having changed the culture a little bit (and that’s Gandalf’s own hope and meta-explanation*) but some of it could be because of the population effect I mentioned way back - constant, ever-growing new generations being (theoretically) ever-harder to control through cultural expectations, and therefore being ever more progressive and flexible.

For this we can see Fatty Bolger - a friend of the Fellowship hobbits, who is presented as the least brave and progressive of them all, therefore elected the one staying home as a decoy while the rest of them trot off happily on a high-risk quest. Fatty casually achieves some impressive feats without worrying at all about respectability. He agrees to be a living decoy for the Nazgûl, escapes them on foot and raises the alarm, and later is a rebel leader in the occupied Shire. The Bolgers are in a reasonable approximation of the same social class as the Baggins family, and Fatty did this while being younger than Bilbo, but Fatty is seemingly willing to go into ride-or-die mode. Bilbo’s constant personal worries and fears about “hobbits don’t do that, hobbits do this” and “is this respectable” don’t seem to form part of the Fellowship hobbits’ mental landscape, and even the most cowardly of the young generation is shown being active, brave, and taking initiative. By the time of Fellowship, a working-class hobbit openly declares his desire to observe other races (Sam’s fascination with elves), young hobbits apparently normalise far-ranging camping trips all the time, Gandalf is a frequent Disturber of the Peace, dwarves come from all over to help out with a birthday party, and Frodo’s four best friends plan a journey outside the Shire in a spirit of helpful mischief. Culturally, they’re more open and responsive than Bilbo portrayed them.

So it’s possible that the Shire is in a constant state of ongoing exponential growth and development and progress, and is just so obscure that nobody has noticed that yet. And THAT could be why they’re reasonably technologically advanced and so on. Which slightly changes the flavour - but once again requires the reader’s input and imagination and research and three different sources to bring to light. So we might as well just have whatever fun we like, right? The ultimate answer is that Tolkien didn’t think about it! and meanwhile he made so many statements of such confidence and such implications that they created huge numbers of attractive fanfic gaps, in which fans can nest, like cliff swallows.

At any rate, it’s all provocation and good fun. You might as well announce that hobbit family trees are a mishmash of kinship types that conceal a truly goofy amount of polyamorous activity, as try to work out why kids aren’t dying more, when they really should.

* in the Unfinished Tales, Gandalf tells Pippin that he chose a hobbit for Thorin’s company partly because he foresaw an apocalyptic world war coming and wanted hobbits to survive it: he picked Bilbo to be a social catalyst to change their culture and increase their likelihood of surviving it. the Unfinished Tales aren’t 100% canon, but it does seem to have worked.

[yuumei-art]

The Great Escape

The days are getting chilly. The world is getting dystopian. Makes me want to curl up with a hot tea and good book and never come back

[toastbutteregg]

[jessicapendragon]

[soloorganaas]

[zoanzon]

[amourningcrow]

the implication is driving me insane.

'when spite helps'

he doesn't do it on purpose. it's spite.

[dontlistentothemmoose]

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol* moon’s stuck in a time loop. do you have extra ammo? this won’t be enough. nasa employee: enough for…what? astronaut: *finding extra clip of ammo, pocketing it, and getting back on the rocket-ship* don’t worry about it!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *emerging from supply closet with a space harpoon, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut:   oh hey u guys are back early astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: what?  nasa employee: how did you know what i was going to say?  astronaut: *punching in key pad code for base evacuation signal, getting back on the rocket-ship* i told you…moon’s stuck in a time loop. *red warning lights begin flashing*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *rifling thru bookshelf of operating instructions, selecting one that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. hey, do you have anything to eat? i’m starving. *opens random drawer, finds nothing, closes it* nasa employee: a time loo- uh, we don’t have food in here…we can’t…eat in the control room, only the break-room. astronaut: *sighs* nasa employee:…my lunch is in like 10 minutes, though, and if my lunch is actually STILL THERE and not STOLEN, AGAIN, i can share it with yo- astronaut: nah, that’s ok…no time. *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* or…too much time. but thanks, anyway. OK, bye! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: you’re…welcome? wait, a TIME LOOP?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: yup. nasa employee: …?  astronaut: *sitting down next to nasa employee* so…do you ever like…wonder what the meaning of life is? the secrets of the universe? nasa employee: aren’t you supposed to be ON the MOON?! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: hey, what the hell is that? astronaut: that’s the code red override klaxon. moon’s stuck in a time loop. oh, and there’s an explosion imminent. But don’t worry, we can deal with that tomorrow. So, you have any siblings? *pulls beer out of space suit, cracks tab* want a drink?

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: do you know frank in IT? nasa employee: what?  astronaut: do you know frank, who works in IT?  nasa employee: yeah, but why are you guys back so early?  astronaut: moon’s stuck in a time loop. call frank, tell him there’s a virus in the security patch and the system’s compromised. then get the hell out of the base.  nasa employee: wait what? what? where are you guys going?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* back to the moon. it’s stuck in a time loop. call frank!  nasa employee: *picks up phone* ugh, straight to voicemail. i wonder wha- *alarm begins blaring*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: *grim silence* nasa employee: i said, you guys are back early…hey, what are you…?  astronaut: *randomly opening drawers until they find a pair of scissors and some duct tape, getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. *sticks head back out the door of the rocket-ship* by the way, if you go to the break-room in exactly 2 minutes and 45 seconds, you’ll catch the person who’s been stealing your lunches for the past two weeks. nasa employee: what?! WHO IS IT?! *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: *running for the break-room* FUCK!!!!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *sits down, sighs, pulls a beer out from their spacesuit* moon’s stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: …ok, and? hang on, how did you get a beer? you can’t have that in here. astronaut: what do you know about project floyd? nasa employee: I mean, the usual amount? i’m not really on the project anymore, why?  *alarm begins blaring*  astronaut: COME WITH ME TO THE ROCKET-SHIP, we don’t have ti-

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: yeah. moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. see you tomorrow. maybe. nasa employee: WHAT?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what?  astronaut: *sighs, rubs hands over face, and loads pistol, before getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop. and, uh…you should call your mother like you’ve been meaning to. and tell her you’re not actually mad and that you will come to dinner tonight. you’re gonna be hungry. nasa employee: wait, what? WHAT?? how do you know my mom?! why am i gonna be - *alarm begins blaring* 

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” starting to get back on the rocket-ship, but dropping everything with a horrendous clatter* FUCK! goddamn moon’s stuck in a time loop. *alarm begins blaring*

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early  astronaut: moon's stuck in a time loop.  nasa employee: what? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop.

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-  astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*  nasa employee: what? WHAT?! astronaut: *loading a single pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* moon’s stuck in a time loop, sweetheart.  nasa employee: what?!? astronaut: a time loop!!! i love you!!! get out of the base!!! stay alive!!! nasa employee: *presses fingers to lips, confused but intrigued, as alarm begins blaring* 

nasa employee:…. nasa employee:… nasa employee: ho hum what a regular day at the office *alarm begins blaring* nasa employee: what the hell is that?!

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back earl-  astronaut: *grabs nasa employee and kisses them passionately*  nasa employee: what? what?! WHAT!?!? also, hey, where’d you get that duffel bag? astronaut: *grabbing two pistols, an extra box of ammo, a pair of scissors, some duct tape, a space harpoon, and a booklet of operating instructions that says “AIRLOCK MANUAL OVERRIDE INSTRUCTIONS,” shoving them into the bag, then cupping nasa employee’s cheek with free hand* moon’s stuck in a time loop. nasa employee: the moon’s stuck in a what?! astronaut: a time loop, sweetheart, but we don’t have much time ourselves, so you have to listen to me RIGHT now nasa employee: *faintly* …“sweetheart”?! astronaut: in 2 minutes and a few seconds, you need to go into the break-room and find frank. nasa employee: wait, frank from IT? astronaut: yes. nasa employee: how do you know he’s gonna be in the break-room? i can’t just call him at his desk right now? astronaut: how do i know this?! because, one, time loop, ok? and…also…because…heismaybetheguywhohasbeenstealingyourlunchfortwoweeks nasa employee: that BASTARD i KNEW it astronaut: BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT’S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. hey! listen to me! go in there, catch him red-handed with your burrito, and tell him lunch is on you FOREVER if he goes RIGHT NOW and checks the last security patch - because there’s a virus and the whole system’s compromised. then you need to get the hell out of this base, ok? nasa employee: …ok. ok. and…and what about you? astronaut: *cocking pistol and getting back into rocket-ship with duffel bag* me? i’m gonna shoot for the moon.

EPILOGUE:

nasa employee: so, how many loops in total? astronaut: i mean, it was hard to keep track. somewhere around six months, if i had to guess. nasa employee: damn. astronaut: yeah. nasa employee: and in those six MONTHS, the best zinger you came up with was “shoot for the moon”? astronaut: hey, you know what, i had some other stuff on my mind! nasa employee: i mean, i guess. it sounded like you found time to flirt with me each time. astronaut: yeah, like i said. other stuff on my mind. *they look at each other, blush, and look away* astronaut: sooooooo. you’re sure your mom is cool with me coming over for dinner? nasa employee: can’t make the day any weirder. plus, i owe you for ratting out frank, right? astronaut: he did help us save the world; we can’t be too mad at him. nasa employee: you’ve had a little while to get over it, i might need some more time. and it wasn’t even your food! astronaut: ok, that’s fair. what if i buy you lunch to make up for it? nasa employee: hmm, when? astronaut: tomorrow? nasa employee: well, i’ll have left overs from my mom, and you might too if you play your cards right. day after tomorrow? astronaut: honestly, anytime is good for me.

*FADE TO BLACK*

[merciawinterarchive]

🎶workin' 9 to 5, yeah they're dead but it's my living🎶

[thedaswolves]

Solas and Varric inaudible argument dialogue...

I managed to clean up the dialogue audio of Solas and Varric "arguing inaudibly" in the background during ritual while you're running to break scaffolding.. I wanted to know exactly what they were saying! :) If anyone else is interested and couldn't hear it in the game... 😊

[senseandaccountability]

Rook: Gee, I wonder what Solas felt about these things we see in his regrets, such mystery, big mystery, lets put all of our minds together and see what we can come up with! Solas in every painting:

Rook: I've got nothing.

(I know it's about POV, I know it's A Choice, I still find it funny.)

[animentality]

[scenetherapy]

[sharkboxes]

[bowtiefox]