Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

230 followers 54 following 520 posts

stitch • fanfic writer and all-around nerd, non-binary (they/them) • 30+
Rinalle Bou-Attica <Zalera>
Eylanni Bou <Sarg>
pfp by derpfoxskye.bsky.social
dragon age etc posting @ stitchcasual.bsky.social

Posts Replies Media Videos

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

eylanni absoLUTELY fights zenos. this is the culmination of a personal arc he goes on from StB to EW, where he enjoys fighting but thinks he shouldn't and ties himself in knots about it. post dark knight therapy, he feels a lot better about it and can accept that similarity between him and zenos

June 3, 2025 at 5:03 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE TWINS!!!! (no joke) they're 30-whatever years old and i love them very much (just not enough to load up the game and take new poses tonight 😂)

April 2, 2025 at 1:36 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

i dont know any of these people

March 13, 2025 at 3:20 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

nice

a screenshot of empyrean aetherpool arm and armor both at +69

March 13, 2025 at 2:53 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

even if we WERE down a few mages by the end there....

February 3, 2025 at 1:22 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

WE CLEARED BITCH
#AllBLMJeuno

February 3, 2025 at 1:21 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

#AllBLMJeuno went hard for three bosses (we're going BACK IN to get the clear because we cannot be stopped)

February 3, 2025 at 12:22 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

February 2, 2025 at 10:51 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

my collection grows

February 2, 2025 at 10:39 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

WE ARE LIVE BABEY

February 2, 2025 at 10:35 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

hanging out at the peering stones on zalera if anyone wants to chill before/while i make the pf here in 15

February 2, 2025 at 10:15 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

🎵 it's my birthday and I'll raid if i want to! 🎵

ALL BLACK MAGE (+emotional support tank and healer) JEUNO!!!

Sunday February 2
3:30pm MST (2:30 PST, 5:30 EST)
Crystal (Zalera)
pf under Rinalle Bou-Attica

#AllBLMJeuno

a screenshot of a redhaired catby from ffxiv with the details from the skeet text overlaid

January 24, 2025 at 7:07 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

we're refreshing our memory of chaotic cloud

a white and black cat sleeping on someone's lap. there's a keyboard and mouse on the desk nearby

January 17, 2025 at 7:52 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

the tea tent is open again!! The girls have set up near Castrum Velodyna for their first opening after Starlight. Come join for chill rp vibes (and gossip about the holidays maybe)

(we Are on aether so if you want to come...maybe try flying over this morning 😭)

a poster for Tanria Traveling Teahouse
2nd Saturday of the month
8-10 pm EST
Adamantoise
Lavender Beds
W30, Lily Hill Apt 72

January 11, 2025 at 3:41 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

she's my favorite coworker 🥰

a package of candy corn with a sticky note on it that says "good morning :) i have been meaning to give you this since October. I finally remembered to bring it today. Happy Thursday!"

January 9, 2025 at 5:04 PM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

misbehaving at the gold saucer (while waiting for party finder to fill)

a torso shot of red-haired catboy leaning in close to a white-haired catboy, as though they might kiss at any moment

January 2, 2025 at 1:34 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

September: FFXIVWrite2024! from day 19, Taken
October: more DA fic! from my very sad, major character death WIP, The Last Goodbye
November: Empty Hands, a DA fic about grief (endgame spoilers)
December: birthdays are like booze, a DA fic about my gremlin Rook

September: ffxivwrite2024 (day 19, taken)

“What’s a beacon even look like?”

Eylanni nudges a rock with his boot, turning it over for inspection. Not a beacon. Unless Mr. Mysterious Voice has figured out how to put communicators inside of rocks. Well, if he can steal souls, he can probably do that. Eylanni crouches, picks up the rock, and holds it to his ear. Nothing. He tosses it to the side and keeps looking.

He’s not really talking to Ryder, mostly just filling the silence. The two of them are checking farther into the trench than the rest of the Sons and Ironworks people. Why go over the same territory a third time, after all? There’s a lot of trench, and really not that many people, all things considered. And besides, this way they’re away from everyone, where Ryder prefers to be.

“Aren’t beacons usually, like, bright? Or lit up or something?”

He very carefully kicks at another pile of rocks to see if something spills out of them that looks beacon-y. And sighs. Maybe Mr. Mystery was lying. He’s probably a bad guy anyway, stealing people’s souls like that, and when Eylanni finds this beacon and gets over to wherever, he’s gonna give that guy a piece of his mind! It’s not nice to do that to people! And not nice for everyone else, watching their friends’ bodies and hoping nothing happens to the souls they have no way to safeguard.

October: The Last Goodbye

He winces when Varric opens the door after a knock, the crowded sound of too many people in close quarters crawling their way into his ears. It seems he was right about the denizens of Skyhold drinking through their grief tonight: half of them must be crammed into the downstairs bar. He can hear snatches of multiple conversations, several different groups singing (to various degrees of success), and the ring of laughter laced with heartache.

The Tevinter stands in the doorway to the room, proffering a bottle of wine. “Compliments of the Iron Bull,” he says. He’s exchanged his armor for something more suited to a funeral party, but Fenris still narrows his eyes at him. “He says, the one for sorrow thing still applies if you drink them one at a time.”

Varric takes the bottle and claps the Tevinter’s arm. “I’d tell you to tell him I owe him, but I think he already knows. Thanks, Krem.”

“Course. We’re just downstairs if you want for company.” The Tevinter pitches this last so it includes Fenris; Fenris pretends to ignore him.

Two bottles isn’t enough either. But Fenris’s body finally feels languid, devoid of most of the tightly coiled stress he’s carried for months, so he’s not about to get up and go downstairs for a third. The idea of people looking at him right now leaves him feeling wretched and flayed open, like a specimen pinned for study. His mourning is a private thing; he doesn’t think any of them would understand the twinned anger and sadness in his heart.

November: Empty Hands

She hiccups around a laugh bubbling in her throat, surprised that’s something she can still do. She’d thought that, maybe, with Davrin gone (and Assan with him), that any real levity was beyond her now. She’d watched her parents die a slow death inside after they’d lost her sister at such a young age, smiling but never fully, laughing but only intentionally, and assumed that was just how it was when you lost someone.

Nellis claps a hand to her mouth, worried that Neve and Lucanis will take it poorly, that laughing right now will break their fragile little peace. But she can’t stop it now. The giggles start in her belly and work their way up her body until they erupt out of her mouth, startling all three of them with their volume. She tries to apologize, to stuff them back down into a dark little cave inside of her where they can’t escape again, but she can’t form words around the helpless peals of laughter.

Neve and Lucanis trade a look. They like doing that, trading looks. Two people well versed in reading the subtleties of people’s behavior and body language, seeing between the lines of what’s presented. Neve shrugs at him and Lucanis smiles with one corner of his mouth and then they’re both joining in, filling the open space with the sound of three distinct laughs. Nellis doesn’t think anyone else in the Lighthouse is close enough to hear them, but even if they were, she hopes they’d understand the way Neve and Lucanis have. That sometimes it’s all you have, and even if it hurts, that’s better than nothing at all.

Lucanis takes the incomplete list with him when he goes to track Rook down, setting it on the library table. Rook has done him the favor of being easy to find today, dangling upside down from one of the giant statues at the top of the curved ramps that bracket the room, throwing knives in his hands.

“Rook?”

“Lucanis! Good timing. Grab those and toss ’em, would you?” He gestures with one of the knives at a small stack of weighted leather targets on the side table, each about half the size of Lucanis’s palm.

In the absence of any other instructions, and because he’s curious, Lucanis sends all five into the air at once, in as random a spread of heights and distances as he can manage. Above him, Rook laughs: a bright, sustained thing.

“Are you mad at me, Lucanis?” he asks, the knives in his hands flashing as they strike the two lowest targets within a breath of each other. Rook pulls the knives from his forearm sheaths and flicks them wide at the targets Lucanis had sent toward the edges of the room. “You can just tell me, you know,” he says, reaching for his waist. “Instead of taking it out on me like this. I promise I’ll only pout at you a little bit.” The last knife sails from his hand, piercing the target and pinning it to the wall above the door to go outside. The other four clatter to the floor. Rook makes a sound like he’s dissatisfied with something and climbs back up the statue.

January 1, 2025 at 5:37 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

June: Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair), a Lyse/M'naago fic I wrote for Rarepair Week (feat. Rinalle as M'naago's shit cousin)
July: Assurance, a fic I wrote for @miqotanking.bsky.social's birthday to go with some gposes a friend took
August: DA fic! from a five times trope thing I'm working on

June: Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)

It was just a scrap of cloth, could be any scrap of red cloth, and if M’naago had wanted to keep any semblance of plausible deniability about the whole thing, she would have gone back to her work and ignored her cousin. Instead she flew out of her seat, scattering her pages and flailing at Rinalle, trying to claw the fabric from his hands. He grinned and gamboled away from her, putting the large war table between the two of them.

“What i~is it?” he sang at her, running around the table as she chased him like they were two kits playing around the aetheryte at the Peering Stones.

“Mine!” she retorted. An excellent comeback, Naago, well done. “Give it back!”

She skidded to a halt and reversed direction, counting on the quick turnaround to throw Rinalle off balance. It worked. She charged at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and tackling him to the ground. They wrestled in the dirt, arms and legs flailing as he tried to get out from under her and she tried to snatch the cloth from his hand. She bit him, he kicked her, and altogether they made a fine mess of themselves until someone cleared their throat nearby and said, “Am I interrupting something?”

“Lyse!”

July: Assurance

Rinalle closes the door behind them and, feeling a bit like a hunting cat, herds Pye from the entry. Just a few fulms to the side will do for what he has in mind. He sets a hand on the wood paneling of the large door frame and looks down at Pye, who smiles almost expectantly up at him, his eye sparkling. Pylades raises a hand, reverently running the tips of Rinalle’s red hair across the leather of his gloved fingers.

“Pinning a helpless miqo’te to the wall,” Pye says, clicking his tongue in mock reproach. “What would your husband say?”

Rinalle’s lips curl into a slow, satisfied smile, and he leans in to kiss Pye very gently. “Yes, I should think. Please, more, don’t stop.” He punctuates the last few words with kisses, barely breaking away to speak them into Pye’s open mouth.

August: Five Times

There should be gratitude in him to the Lavellans, for taking him in and giving him a place here among them. He’s not sure he’s ever felt that. Relief, yes, for not having to brave the wide world on his own when he was too young to reasonably expect to do so. But he understands the things that make him different from the rest of them, that set him apart in ways he cannot repair.

For ten years he has been useful, an impeccable First to the Keeper, shouldering all that is asked of him and more. He is bright, talented, personable; he has made of himself exactly what the clan has needed. But the Lavellans, the Dalish, are a practical People. They will use a tool as long as they can, but they will not, cannot, hesitate to part from it and pick up a new one when their needs change.

January 1, 2025 at 5:33 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

January: an unpublished bit I was working on from after Baelsar's Wall
April: a pynalle courtesan AU wip I made so much progress on in 2 months and need to get back to
May: a fic I wrote of Eylanni going home for the first time in years (not on ao3, just sent to a friend)

“Come home,” M’naago says. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I can’t—”

“Gods, Nalle, you really think dad’ll care about what you’ve been doing?”

“I care.”

“Oh, do you? That’s news to me.”

Rinalle’s growl is short-lived. “You’re welcome,” he snaps, “for reducing the number of Imperials you have to contend with.”

M’naago pulls forward away from him and twists around so she can stare him in the eyes. “I know you’re not doing it for me.” Her voice comes out soft, at odds with the fiery light glaring behind her irises. He drops his gaze to the side.

It’s easier to reconcile with the last few months when he tells himself it’s for the greater good. If he tells himself that his actions have purpose, if every waylaid caravan, every crate of stolen or burned supplies, every charred Imperial body lying at his feet are in service to the cause, then the revenge is justified. Except it’s not revenge, is it?

April: courtesan au

“What kind of tea is it?” he asks, pretending he cannot see every ilm of the other man’s well muscled chest and arms through the robe. The matching pants are, thankfully, opaque, loose waves of soft-looking green fabric that belt at his ankles above bared feet.

“Eh? I told you: it’s the good stuff.”

Rinalle blinks. “Black tea? Green tea?”

The courtesan gives an eloquent shrug, one shoulder of the sheer robe slipping down his arm. He doesn’t pull it back up, just takes the seat opposite Rinalle at the table. “You don’t just ask the grannies at the market what’s in their tea,” he says, scandalized. “Have you met them? They’re terrifying.” He shudders, and Rinalle smiles a little at the idea. Maybe he hasn’t met the scary grannies yet; the ones he’s bought from so far have been lovely.

White-furred ears flick happily, and the courtesan grins at him. “So you can do it.”

Rinalle frowns. “Do what?”

“Smile! You looked so unhappy out in the main room with your friends—”

“They’re not my friends.”

“Ah. Because everyone agrees to come to a brothel with people who aren’t their friends.”

May: Come Home

His sister Mellora crosses the space between them with deliberate, trembling steps. He straightens as she approaches, his eyes wide. When he left, she was at the temple. None of them had ever had any plans to leave except Rinalle and he— Well, Eylanni hadn’t expected Mellora here, of all places.

She looks older, though he supposes he probably does too, considering how long it’s been. Her hair, the same red and gold as their father’s, as Rinalle’s, has been bound into the sort of twist he’s come to expect to see on no-nonsense matrons, the ones truly in charge of the waystations despite any nominal titles anyone else holds. There’s a firm set to her lips, one that softens more the closer she gets.

“I oughta slap you,” Mellora says as she stops in front of him, voice wavering.

Eylanni wraps her in a tight hug, ducking his head down toward her shoulder. He’s taller than her, always has been, and he can’t curl into her like a little kit but that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Prob’ly,” he murmurs. “Sorry.”

At the time, it had felt like the only thing he could possibly do: leave his family’s temple, the only home he’d ever known, and strike out into the wide world by himself to honor the memory of his brother, taken from them too soon. Or, too soon to him, anyway. His parents had called it the Spinner’s will, which meant that Rinalle dying was always meant to happen and happen when it did. But living without his twin in the home they’d grown up in together became too unbearable, too many memories buried in the stone of the temple, taunting him as he went about his days.

January 1, 2025 at 5:28 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

a tiny bit of what i worked on tonight! this is one of the only bits that doesn't have [word] placeholders lmao

“I did find something interesting.”

“Oh yeah? I’m all ears.” He swivels back to Tarquin, picking up a bit of whatever’s on the plate in front of him and placing it and his fingers into his mouth.

“You don’t exist.”

“Well that’s a bit rude.” Kalais licks his fingers clean before reaching for something else. “I’m sitting right here.”

December 28, 2024 at 4:29 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

rate my writing set up

a white and black cat sits between two halves of a keyboard in front of dual monitors and a bunch of desk knicknacks

December 28, 2024 at 2:19 AM

catboy enrichment

@thebrothersbou.bsky.social

invading the #SpicySalonWIPs to work on *gasp* dragon age fic that *gasp* might not even have smut in it (tho i AM gonna try for at least a back alley blow, i think it'd be fitting)