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ziracona · 2 years

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Okay but what I can’t get over is when you meet Anders, and he explains Justice, he says his anger and hate corrupted Justice and overwhelmed him—changed him—and he’s miserable and guilt-ridden and full of so much self-hatred and fear of hurting someone he loves again and certainty he will, that he takes THREE YEARS of being in love with Hawke who is actively pursuing him, before even considering risking a relationship.

And I fucking believed him. I thought ‘That makes sense. Spirits are influenced by how they’re believed to be (a great example being the awful things that happen to poor Justice on a Rival!Path in DA2), and their environment, and what they’re pushed to do. He’s clearly not a demon, which tracks, because that only happens to a spirit corrupted completely away from their core being, and Justice and Vengeance aren’t antonyms—they have solid overlap. So, it’s more like he’s unstable and a little bit shaky in his sanity, dealing with this, but still very much a spirit and himself—just also sort of unwell.” It made sense. I really thought Anders would understand what was going on.

It wasn’t until beating the whole fucking game and having complete context, that I was able to look backwards and realize that’s entirely wrong. In Awakening, Justice has /exactly/ the same personality as in DA2, just more stable and calm and curious, less unwell and fractured. That’s what I said before? No, not exactly. What I mean is, Justice pushes Anders in Awakening to consider a more active role in defending Mages. He’s forceful and passionate about doing the right thing—hell, when you meet him, he’s championing a bunch of humans in the Fade to save them from a demon by force. He changed, yes. But it wasn’t his personality. It was his stability.

Anders’ feelings of anger and hate and desire for justice and vengeance didn’t hurt Justice at all; those feelings are all just ones. It was his fear and guilt that did. It was the way he’s been raised his entire life by the Chantry to consider himself dangerous and violence dangerous and action dangerous, and caring too much, fighting back, standing up, using magic to fight back, all dangerous and bad. It’s his /fear/ that he is wrong and bad. It’s his religious trauma over his own existence biologically as what he is. Justice didn’t change. Anders was afraid of what he and Justice did—were able to do—what Justice did to protect him. And immediately assumed he was the monster and he was at fault, because as much of a rebel as he is and as much as he believes Mages are not monsters and deserve to be free, like basically all minorities who had to unlearn the bigotry they experienced their whole life, he has not been able to stop applying to himself rules he long ago stopped apply to everyone else in the world.

And that fear, that belief Justice had been warped and hurt by him, and schism in his own mind about not just what Justice means, but what it means as it relates to him and what he’s allowed to do and want, and it making him evil as a person to pursue even if he thinks it’s right, /that/ is what warped Justice. That’s why Justice is unstable and unwell and their relationship is fractured and strained, despite caring for each other, and Justice’s overwhelming desire to help Anders. Anders is terrified not of Justice, but of himself. And in retrospect all of this is made so clear by his two paths in DA2.

Since gaining Justice, Anders was immediately attacked and almost killed by another Warden, and had to flee, and it was bloody. He ran to Kirkwall and kept his head down, struggling to help as a doctor for refugees in the slums, risking freedom and life every day by practicing magic as an apostate. He’s utterly alone. He spent years fleeing the Circle and being dragged back. As a youth, he fell in love, and they separated him and his boyfriend and took him to another tower. He kept trying to escape. He was left in solitary confinement for an /entire year/ after his seventh escape. The wardens saved him, and he had a home and freedom for like 6 months in awakening, then the Wardens bowed to the Chantry’s demands and initiated a Templar to follow him literally everywhere like a prison warden and that hard earned freedom and community was lost. He saved Justice’s life by letting him live in his body, but in doing so was proclaimed an abomination and almost killed on the spot by the Templar Warden, and fled, alone again. In Kirkwall, he isolated himself to try to keep others safe, and spent his time healing. Then he meets Hawke, and goes to save his first love from being made tranquil, only to find the Chantry is using their own church to bait him, and he has arrived too late, Karl is gone, and he is nearly made tranquil himself, then forced to kill the only person he’s ever loved when Karl regains his person for seconds and begs him to do it before he’s a mindless slave again.

From here, he spends the next 7 years helping heal Hawke’s team, smuggling Mages out of Kirkwall to save them as part of an Underground Railroad, championing mage rights and protesting, writing manifestos, healing refugees and the poor, and doing everything in his power to make the world better. No one in Hawke’s party, except determinately Hawke (and determinately Bethany as well, before, well), takes him and the plight of Mages seriously. He’s treated as an extremist and an annoyance and over the top for regularly talking about the fact that, you know; his minority group literally is being killed in the streets and turned into mindless slaves for the church every fucking day, and no one is stopping it. He becomes more and more desperate and isolated and the situation gets so bad, Justinia has ordered an Exalted March to purge Kirkwall, and Meredith has sent for the Right of Annulment to kill every mage in the circle, about half way through Act 3. And still, no one does anything. He’s completely alone, even in just, fucking validating the severity of the suffering and death and injustice they face.

If Hawke treats Anders like a monster, like an abomination, and Justice like a demon? Over the course of those 7 years of being dismissed, abandoned, and outright attacked by the closest things he has to friends, he becomes less and less stable, more and more lost to the Chantry fears he’s a monster, less sure of himself and his identity, more alone, and confused, and broken, and hopeless. Pulled in too many directions and giving up in despair and trying to fight at the same time. And Justice gets worse. He becomes believed by everyone to be a demon, until even Anders is uncertain and afraid of them both. And then Justice is torn between hurting Anders, and letting innocents die, both of which go intrinsically against his nature as a spirit, and what happens to Justice is what happens to any spirit forced to be and forced to act outside of its nature: he begins to be warped into a demon.

If Hawke is a friend to Anders, and he is not alone in his fight for his people. If Hawke helps him, and reassures him, and he is able to stabilize his mind and emotions and realize he’s not a monster, and his cause is just, he and Justice stabilize together, and no longer have even the issues they do in Act 1, because his warped view of justice and his fears are overcome, and with Justice’s sense of self not constantly threatened, the problem is removed. They both get to be happy, and well, and cohesive. It empowers Anders to see he’s right and just, and to make hard choices rationally, and find who he is and what he wants, with great assurance and passion, and Justice to retain who he is and stay a spirit, while both help the world.

And anyway it just makes me extremely upset that Anders even with all his conviction and belief, has still had such fear and guilt over his very being drilled into him by the Chantry, that he truly believes he’s the monster in his relationship with Justice, and a danger to everyone around him, and it’s the Chantry the whole time. It always has been.

#dragon age 2 spoilers #dragon age 2 #Anders #Anders dragon age #justice dragon age #da justice #da anders #I kinda lost the thread for a moment there getting distracted about the plot structure as a whole but my point stands and it’s VERY upsettin #chantry what /haven’t/ you guys royally fucked at this point? anyone? anythjng? at all?#spoilers #I wish he could blow it up /again/. some poetic justice that bomb is basically where Karl stood #if you reblog this post with Anders negativity I will /kill/ you

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robotslenderman · 3 months

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Aside from Sullivan, are any of your other vampires from the Sabbat/Formerly Sabbat?

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE VYKOSOVICHES~!

Introducing: Grigori Verenich. As a Russian scholar in Oxford he was Embraced by Sascha Vykos for his research skills, and discarded when no longer useful. Needless to say, he was one of the lucky ones, but his experiences with them fucked him up nonetheless. He poured his time into learning blood magic and was often mistaken for Tremere, which he delighted in because he knew it'd piss off Sascha, but also not enough for them to actually destroy him over it.

I don't know much about his time between then and meeting Norman, but he met Norm in the roaring twenties in Boston. Norm was almost ready to graduate medical school to become a doctor, and he was also a boxer. When Grigori Embraced him Norm took one look at the Sabbat and went "holy shit fuck THIS" and noped out. Grigori stalked him for a few decades because he didn't really know what else to do with this kid that actually has morals, and their relationship was pretty tense. Norm basically divorced himself as much from his Tzimisce heritage as he could. Much like how Grisha was frequently mistaken for Tremere, Norm was usually assumed to be a Gangrel.

Their relationship was healed by having a baby, believe it or not -- in 1980s New York City Grigori met Anastasia Petrova Sokolova, who was an exceptional artist and sculptor at an art school. Grigori went to Norm "hey, you're a good anatomist but you're shit at Vicissitude, check out who I met who'd be awesome at it" and introduced them. Norm quickly realised that no matter what his opinion was over the matter that Grisha was going to Embrace her, so he agreed to stick around to watch over her, at least for a while, and ended up agreeing to do the deed himself.

Nastasya ended up being the counterbalance in the relationship and Norm and Grigori got along a lot better with her influence. She was, however, largely sheltered from the majority of the Sabbat, and is shit at playing politics. They do take her to Sabbat events but keep her away from the edgelordy stuff; Grisha knows that Norm wouldn't stand for it, and thinks they're a bunch of tryhards anyway.

The three of them lived together long after Nastasya was supposed to be released. They do not have a vinculum, but do not need to. They mostly see themselves as Noddists who are "true Sabbat" and haven't lost sight of the underlying founding principles of the Sabbat that eventually got taken over by edgelords and sadists -- they adhere to the main beliefs of being anti-establishment and anti-Antediluvians, and also varying levels of vampire supremacy.

These nights they live in Staten Island in New York City. They mostly ignored the Battle of New York (though Grisha did participate a bit). They have a treaty with the local Camarilla (which Hellene would sooner die than admit the existence of) and a good relationship with the local Anarchs, too. In exchange for certain stipulations, including Nastasya's services as a Vicissitudist, the Camarilla don't kick them out of NYC. The Anarchs also leave them alone because Grisha has played the three of them up as being the only thing holding the Camarilla back, and absolutely leans hard on the "childe of Vykos" thing, using his blood magic skills and Nastasya's Vicissitude to give the three of them a far more terrifying reputation than they deserve. They had no idea Callihan was blood bound, but when he gets replaced by someone who seems to have the exact same ideas they definitely do get suspicious about it...

Despite their reputation, these nights the three of them are super chill and laid back and tend to just fuck around in their house leeching off Nastasya, lmao. Grigori breaks into the Tremere Chantry for fun to borrow their books (it's not stealing if he gives them back), which drives Aisling Sturbridge apeshit. Norm, on the other hand, spends most of his time in his Gangrel identity hanging out with Anarchs. Nastasya is the only one of the three of them who is actually actively working, lmao. Norm and Grigori just stuck their money in investments decades ago; the three of them are "don't have to keep track of how much money I have" kind of wealthy. They have friends in all sects. After a while, post-Dracon, Sascha even starts mentoring Nastasya in Vicissitude.

#VTM #the Vykosoviches #Anastasia Normanovna Vykosovich #Norman Cosgrove #Grigori Verenich #I need to actually sort out Grigori's full name bc Russians have a family name and a patronymic

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pellaaearien · 1 year

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WIP Word Search

Okay @cuubism AND @landwriter tagged me in that WIP word search game that’s going around and since they are two people I love and respect I shall oblige, despite the fact that I only have one WIP - for Sandman. And there’s currently only one unpublished chapter.

So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to do one word from each WIP in my docs folder. Whichever one gives the best results. And you all shall see my secret shame.

cuubism’s words were: eat, world, run, blood, glass

EAT - (ffxiv) a snippet of my oc x Aymeric that I wrote inspired by that video where a man wakes up from anesthetic and hits on his own wife

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, with utter sincerity. Eyn’ara could feel a flush rising to her cheeks. “How did I get so lucky?” He leaned back, sighing dreamily. Eyn’ara bit her lip to keep from laughing, torn between amusement and concern.

“Just take it easy, love,” she soothed. “Eat your biscuit.”

Suddenly, he lifted his head again, intent. “How long have we been married?”

Smiling helplessly, Eyn’ara shook her head. “I’ll tell you if you eat your biscuit,” she said.

Aymeric looked at the biscuit like he’d forgotten it was there, and took a delicate bite, staring at her as he chewed expectantly. Eyn’ara’s heart swelled with love for this ridiculous man.

“Four years,” she answered.

WORLD - (dragon age) fenhawke fic

Fenris looked to Hawke in hope of seeing that look. Cold. Merciless. Righteous. Stealing over the face of the habitually jovial Hawke, it did not look out of place. Its rarity merely heightened its significance. It was the look he imagined an avenging Andraste might have worn. Seeing it directed at slavers reminded him why he'd sworn his blade to her. Times like these reassured him he'd made the right decision.

“Not a chance.” Hawke's voice was thin ice on a winter's day. He could feel it in his chest like a breath of frigid air. She met Fenris' eyes.

Had he not been buried wrist-deep in a slaver's spleen, the world might have melted away around him. He'd be a regular attendee of the Chantry if this was the god he was praying to.

RUN - (sandman) Another Word for Ache (you won the jackpot!)

Death sighs. “Our sibling,” she says.

That word again. “Would this be the same sibling who tried to get Dream to spill family blood?”

Her eyes widen. It’s a natural enough expression but it sits uneasily on her face and Hob gets the impression that not much shocks her.

“He told you about that?”

Hob shrugs. “I think he was trying a new tactic, trying to see how much information would get me to run away.”

“That does sound like him,” she says, shaking her head ruefully.

BLOOD - (voltron) sheith fic

If Keith was smart, he would have disengaged, tried to find some way to get through to the automaton bearing down on him, but some defensive instinct of his own has been triggered and the chance passes him by. He’s already hurtling off the edge of too far when Shiro leaves an obvious opening and Keith lunges for it, hearing the telltale hum of the Galra mechanism powering up as he does, bright purple light flashing in his periphery.

He lands a solid hit against Shiro’s side but it’s already too late because Shiro grabs his arm with his flesh and blood left hand and twists and the next thing Keith knows he’s on his back, looking up into that implacable, beloved face, the prosthetic humming an inch from his throat.

GLASS - (doctor who) Locum Tenens

At last, she reached a door at the end of the hallway. The song in her mind swelled, and Rose could tell that behind the door was the music’s source. She pushed open the door, and walked through it into a field of deep red grass. The sky above was a burnt orange. Rose looked around herself in wonder. In the distance, a gilded city marked the horizon, shimmering under a glass dome. There were two suns in the sky.

landwriter’s words were: pale, hope, lips, ache, laugh, morning

PALE - (ffxiv) my oc x Aymeric, hurt/comfort fic

“...Very well.” The words were a sigh of defeat she tried not to read too much into. Slowly, as though the motion pained him, he uncrossed his arms, peeling back the layers he was wrapped in.

She tried to steel herself not to react, but her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t help it. The first thing to be revealed was an angry scar across his throat, the burn of a rope pressed into his pale skin. She clenched her fingers around the pot of salve to keep them from balling into fists and held back an angry hiss. They hurt him. She abruptly wished they were all twelve — thirteen — of them alive and in front of her so that she could kill them again, slower this time.

HOPE - (lucifer) deckerstar fic

“Are you certain? You needn’t even take your eyes off the building.”

It was indicative of the kind of week she’d had that Chloe even entertained the thought. Thought of his clever fingers dipping south, slipping beneath the button of her jeans…

“No, Lucifer,” she said, in what she hoped was a quelling tone.

He lazily removed his fingers from her skin, no trace of repentance in his movements or his expression. “But you considered it, for a moment. I think that’s a win.”

LIPS - (doctor who) kidfic

“Listen, Doctor. I’ve got… I’ve got something to tell you.” His lips twitched, but he remained silent, allowing her to continue. “I lied to you,” she said in a rush. She’d been waiting for so many years to say those words it was almost a rush to finally say them aloud. “On the beach, on Bad Wolf Bay, I said the baby was mum’s, but it wasn’t. It was mine.”

ACHE - surprisingly nothing, given one of my fics literally has it in the title

LAUGH - (ffxiv) my oc x Aymeric, Shadowbringers fic

He laughed louder. “No, indeed. Sometimes I long for the days when our problems were so simple.” He stretched leisurely, and Eyn’ara took the opportunity to let her eyes trace the slim length of him. “Our problems are now of the negotiating table, and though I would be the last to dismiss your labours, cannot be as summarily dealt with.”

Eyn’ara snorted. “I could still try to hit them with my axe.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

MORNING - (ffxiv) my oc x Aymeric

Aymeric sipped, wishing he could be as certain. He knew Eyn’ara’s life was frequently unpredictable, and it was entirely possible that she had gotten pulled away with no time to inform him of the change in plans. It was the risk they’d taken by choosing to arrive at the event separately. Without her, the evening ahead of him stretched on interminably. Even without the noble harpies circling around him to deal with, her teasing voice that morning via linkpearl had promised him a surprise, and ever since he’d been able to think of nothing else. He was only mortal, and he missed his wife.

I’m not tagging anyone because everyone’s been tagged and I’m ashamed. Do not perceive me

#thanks for the tags tho!!#I super appreciate you thinking of me

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rosykims · 1 year

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8 for cillian ;)

(OC Codex Prompts | your OC’s doctor/healer talking about their injuries)

Anders, Please don’t be mad. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t think it was a big deal until now. Long story short, I took the pommel of an axe to the back of the head last week and I don’t think it’s healing quite right? Or at all, really? I’ll spare you the details, but there’s a lot of pus. Sorry. Also, everything smells like deathroot? Any advice? — Hawke ~ Considering ‘blunt force head trauma’ could pass as a hobby for you, Cillian, I can’t believe you’d be reckless enough to wait this long before telling me. You realize I could’ve healed you in ten minutes if you’d told me immediately? Now I have to skulk around for overpriced reagents in Lowtown, panicking because you may or may not be dying of an infection. Maker’s breath. You know the templars just LOVE it when I skulk. I can meet you at the estate tonight. I’ll need fresh water and bandages (to dress the wound) diluted spirits (for the pain) and sugar cakes from that one place in Hightown we visited last month (to make it up to me). Don’t exert yourself, and leave the rest to me. You’d better be alive when I get there, or so help me. (PS: Justice is mad. I’m just disappointed.)

[Corrospondence between Cillian Hawke and the fugitive apostate Anders, circa 9:32 Dragon, recovered by the Seekers of Truth following the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry.]

#oc: cillian #mine: writing #ILY MAIA THANK U HEHE #this is like. pre relationship between act 1 and 2 but theres still a lot going on lol

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infinityhype · 10 months

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🕷 Who is your favorite phantom troupe member and why?// 💳 What type of hunter would you be? //🧐 If you were a hunter exam proctor, what type of challenge would you run?//💯 What would motivate you to take the hunter exam? //🐜 If you were turned into a chimera ant, what animal(s) do you think you’d be?//👶 Do you have any hxh OCs?//💭 What is an idea for a fic/drawing you’d like to see?

Once more on mobile and hoping it looks okay lol

Who is your favorite Troupe member and why?

It's a tie between Phinks and Paku, love a blockhead with a heart but also, Paku is my beautiful evil girl boss wife

What type of Hunter would you be?

Monograph/Manuscript Hunter, looking for rare books and scrolls to take back to the library and also helping other Hunters do research

If you were a Hunter Exam proctor, what kind of challenge would you run?

Make contestants research a topic and tell me or write about it, if they explain it well and I think it's cool as hell they get a pass

What would motivate you to take the Hunter Exam?

Money and access to rare things closed off to the public, HxH world gotta have some kind of scary library that's like, a death trap but also full of good resources

If you were turned into a Chimera ant, what animal(s) do you think you would be?

Some kinda weird fox/cat hybrid, I'd still have my glasses tho

Do you have any HxH OCs?

Answered this in the other ask so just gonna do a different character!

Actually, I don't think I've talked about Morel's dad all that much, so a bit about him.

Lysander "Sandy" Markovic possesses both a doctorate in paleography and a Hunter license (it is a miracle he didn't go darkside from the Ph.D.) He caught measles when an epidemic ravaged the town where his family lived and went deaf at age 11, so he communicates primarily through sign language. He met Ursaline Mackernasey when he chartered her to take him to the Green Chantry, an abandoned monastery containing thousands of invaluable tomes and scrolls…smack dab in the middle of an extremely dangerous island. They became good friends over the course of the journey, then friends with benefits, and then Ursaline had Morel. They never married but are basically good friends who happen to have a kid together.

Sandy is a specialist, and his nen ability is Restoration/Destruction Memorandum. He can restore or destroy just about anything with a few nen-infused words scribbled down in a notebook. Cannot bring back the dead nor kill anyone directly with his ability. Created it to restore old manuscripts and hieroglyphs and the like, his services are very in demand and he's published in all sorts of academic journals.

Other facts about Sandy: wears glasses, keeps a full beard because otherwise he looks super young, always has pencils or pens stuck behind his ears, has escaped faculty meetings and/or talking to people via an open window more than once, easily moved to tears (Morel inherited this particular trait), very proud of his son boy always and so glad he can talk shop with his nerdy son-in-law Knov

What is an idea for a fic/drawing you would like to see?

Always down to see more morelknov stuff!!!

#ask and ye shall receive #mads asks #this has been A Week so apologies if none of this makes sense

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silurisanguine · 10 months

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In this house we believe (and might get me this reaction but i said what i said)

*Anders did nothing wrong in blowing up the Chantry. *Joel did nothing wrong is saving Ellie from the Fireflies hubris and her survivor's guilt. *The Destroy ending is the only correct ending to Mass Effect 3 (even if all 3 endings are shit). *Elisabeth is a hypocrite and Dr Reid is better off without her and that Geoffrey McCullum had more chemistry with the doctor in those few scenes that the so called romance with her.

#Dragon age 2 #Mass Effect 3 #Vampyr Video Game #The last of Us

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rhetoricalrogue · 1 year

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12 for ada and 11 for rolfe for the dai codex entries!

12. propaganda written in support of your OC

Excerpt of a letter from Mother Madeleine of Serrault, to Doctor Arnaurd Rosseau of the University of Orlais

While I do understand your hesitation in accepting Mlle. Trevelyan into your program due to her young age, I ask once again that you reconsider your stance. Adelaide has shown exceptional compassion and care of our own patients and has spent time assisting our physicians in minor surgeries, often pointing out details that have been key to saving the life of a patient. She is quick to learn techniques and takes initiative to ask probing questions that further her learning. While we have a small medical staff on hand here to aid in births and emergencies, I fear that we have reached our limit of what we can educate her in. To not encourage her to hone her Maker-given talents would be unthinkable.

I also implore you to think of the looming political tensions on the horizon. With the threat of war almost within reaching distance, our country will soon be in need of every medic available. I pray that it will not come to it, but adding a young, talented surgeon with the finest education that the University could offer would be a much-needed blessing.

11. slander written about your OC

nearly illegible half-burnt note found in a Chantry dormitory hearth, scribbled by an unknown recruit. The letter is later used as evidence of one Rolfe Trevelyan's self-defense ending in the death of a templar recruit.

...fuckin bastard Trevelyan thinks he's too good for this unit. Shouldn't (illegible) parent's money bought off Ser Caldwell. Only way he got into the Order, has to be. Should have been ME making the cut, not some (burnt parchment makes the rest of the lines unreadable)

Rolfe ain't got the skill needed to be a spy. Mark my words, he'll wind up getting his rich, pampered little throat slit on his first mission and no one will mourn him. Meet me at the rookery at the usual time. He'll be alone to get his first message, might as well do the cuttin' ourselves just to make sure ONE thing in his life isn't fucked up.

DA:I Codex Prompts

#prometheas #ada trevelyan #rolfe trevelyan

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dgcatanisiri · 2 years

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I still want Carolyn Seymour (Doctor Chakwas’s VA) to get cast in a major role in Dragon Age, and preferably a villain. Cuz she did good work as two different Romulan characters in TNG, I’d love to have her as like a major antagonist.

Actually, in retrospect, I wish she’d been like the head of an antagonistic group of Chantry figures who oppose the Inquisition (and not the half-hearted antagonism of Mother Hevara, the Mother in Val Royeaux when the Templars abandon the Chantry, a REAL opposition). Like in my fantasy of an Inquisition that didn’t have Corypheus exist as a distraction from the wolf in our midst, but ACTUALLY featured the Chantry as the Big Bad, she’d voice the character at the head of this faction.

I’m just gonna preemptively make a note for when I make those hypothetical DLCs for Dragon Age Inquisition...

#dg rambles

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villainanders · 3 years

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new fan theory that the reason anders gets progressively Like That has nothing to do with justice actually. he’s just sleep deprived from balancing his three jobs of doctor, doing his mage underground railroad thing, and going on basically every mission bc unless you’re a mage he’s the only companion after act 1 that can heal. if hawke had made him take a nap the kirkwall chantry would still be standing

#hawke: merrill hold off on the blood magic for a minute and learn a healing spell please anders is literally dying #merrill: absolutely not #dragon age

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sinsbymanka · 3 years

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Female Hawke/Varric Tethras + kiss prompt 'on a scar' and it's one of Hawke's scars? :3

Thank you for the prompt @serphena!! For @dadrunkwriting and in honor of my Varricmance March Madness...

The Crossbow Goes or I Do

Words: 2,104 Rating: Teen Chapter 1/1 Additional Tags: Pre-Relationship, They did their pining, ten years of it apparently, Mutual Pining, Idiots in Love, Mutually Unrequited, Friends to Lovers, Past Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Hawke is a menace, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Flirting, Banter, POV Varric Tethras, Varric Tethras' Chest Hair, Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Elodie Hawke is a menace that fits just right into Varric's life and keeps him on his toes. After The Incident with misfiring Bianca, Varric knows he'll let her get away with anything....

...except it's hard to let her get away with leaving.

Read on AO3

Varric doesn’t know how The Incident happened.

Well, that’s not strictly accurate. He knows Hawke the way he knows the best ways to sneak around the Guild Hall, where to purchase the good ink, and how much it’ll cost to bribe Corf when Rivaini gets carried away. He’s well aware of what she gets up to when she’s unsupervised.

Hell, usually when she’s supervised too. The woman is a force of nature and they’re just along for the ride.

What does surprise him about The Incident, as it’s known forever after, is how quickly it happened. He swears up and down every time it comes up in conversation afterward he only looks away from Hawke for a moment. One second, he’s peering down at the short story that eventually became his bestselling Hard in Hightown series, the next…

The sound of a bolt rattling into Bianca’s chamber, the whoosh of another flying through the air, followed quickly by his large, ornate, absolutely atrocious dressing mirror shattering into a million pieces.

He’s better off without it. Honestly, the most upsetting part of the whole sequence of events is that he isn’t holding Bianca.

Varric doesn’t look up from his papers. The room is completely quiet.

“Hawke.”

“Varric.”

He appreciates the deadpan delivery of his name. He really does. Odd how quickly Hawke wormed her way into that special, stupid part of his heart that forgives almost anything. She’s barely off the boat at this moment, fresh faced and lively if a bit too hungry looking.

He’s known her for a few months. And, bizarrely, he feels like he’s known her all his life.

“That sounded like Bianca,” he observes, as if he wouldn’t know the way Bianca sounds anywhere.

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” Hawke chirps. “Somebody told me that Bianca is a delicate, complicated lady who can only be fired by one specific dwarf who was trained in her secrets by an Antivan Crow whose life the dwarf saved.”

He finally looks up to take in the damage. Mirror shattered, bolt in the wall behind it, and Hawke standing shamelessly in the middle of the room cradling his crossbow.

“Somebody also told you not to touch her,” he adds pointedly.

Hawke grins from ear to ear. “We’ve already established somebody is full of shit.”

He discards his journal and glides back across the room, arms out and a carefully maintained disgruntled look on his features. “Come here, beautiful. What’d she do to you?”

Hawke takes a step back, eyes widening in clear afront. “What did I do to her? Varric, she’s drawn blood!”

“I told you she’s a sensitive lady. Difficult to handle. Little rough around the edges.”

“She’s a menace Varric.” Hawke relinquishes the crossbow and examines her fingers with a wrinkled nose. On her left ring finger is a nice cut, blood welling and dripping down her palm. “Look what she did!”

There’s a smear of crimson on the trigger. He wipes it away with his shirt sleeve. “You got your fingers stuck in the gears. She taught you a lesson about respecting other people’s property.”

“It’s going to scar!”

“Let me send an urgent note down to Darktown for Blondie. He’ll be thrilled to come stitch together your papercut.”

She laughs and puts one palm on the curve of her hip, leaning into his space. “I’m telling you Varric, the crossbow goes or I do.”

Something lurches in his stomach, a hint of fear he doesn’t quite have a name for, a bit of knee jerk panic at the thought of losing the last bit of her he truly has. But Hawke’s joking, Hawke is always joking, he can see the sparkle in her blue eyes and the twitch at the corner of her lips.

He lets his own tip up in the same playfulness. “You better clean up this mess before you go.”

She sighs in defeat and plops her finger between her pink lips, sucking on it thoughtfully while she looks at the chaos she’s caused. Varric spends a second too long examining the way her cheeks hollow around her finger.

He’s only a man, after all, no matter how taken he is.

“How much bad luck is it to break a mirror again?” she asks.

Varric doesn’t believe in human superstitions, or much of anything beyond the worth of his coin or the power of a well-loved lie, but he answers her. “Seven years at least. And just in time for our expedition too.”

Another moment of silence. Then one single, elegant curse. “Bollocks.”

Somehow, Varric gets stuck with the job of keeping Hawke in bed.

Privately, he thinks Blondie must be out to get him for humiliating the mage in more than one card game. Otherwise Varric wouldn’t get saddled with the most impossible job in Kirkwall. Their newly crowned Champion, and what a laugh that is, sits in her opulent bed wearing nothing but the rattiest shirt he’s ever seen. It’s so large it hangs off one freckled shoulder.

Varric wonders if it isn’t one of Carver’s old hand-me-downs. It’s better than thinking Hawke was plucking her nightclothes out of some moldy trunk in Lowtown, anyway.

Her icy eyes glare daggers into him from where she’s propped against the headboard. “Varric, if you don’t help me out of this bed I will chop Bianca into firewood.”

“Remember what happened the last time you got into a tussle with Bianca?” Varric asks, raising his eyebrows.

“I still have the scar!” she protests, trying weakly to push herself up off the bed. The covers slip, revealing the bandages wrapped around Hawke’s waist. Before Anders got his hands on her, bandages like those were the only thing holding Hawke’s guts inside her.

Varric knows. He put them on.

“You’re gonna have a better one now. Comes with a heroic story and everything.” A story where Varric stands, clutching his crossbow, helpless and afraid as a sword pierces Hawke’s body and hoists her off her feet. A story where she summons a fistful of fire to smother the Arishok as she’s impaled on his blade.

Varric’s still covered in a cold sweat and it’s been four days. Andraste’s ass, what would he have done if…?

But it’s not worth thinking about. He can’t face it in this bright bedroom, with Hawke and the mutinous gleam in her eyes. She swings them from his face to the window, her expression wistful.

It tugs at his heartstrings, it really does. Hawke has barely spent a night in this mansion in Hightown since they dragged Leandra’s body from the monster’s pit and held a quiet, solemn funeral at the Chantry. She bunks at a spare cot in Anders’ clinic, crashes on the moldy old chaise in Fenris’ mansion, falls asleep in Merrill’s bed while Daisy sits in front of her damned mirror all night.

But, more often than not, she’s in Varric’s bed and he’s in his armchair. Or she falls asleep in the armchair and refuses to be moved. Varric should complain, it’s ridiculous that he’s sharing one suite of rooms while she’s got a whole damn house, but he doesn’t. He can’t.

He knows what it’s like to live in a mausoleum to the dead.

In truth, Hawke has not come home to stay since it stopped being a home, and now she’s trapped there with her guts shoved back in and a title she could care less for.

“Play a game of Diamondback with me,” he cajoles. “You win, I’ll risk my chest hair and get you into the garden against the doctor’s orders.”

Hawke bites her lip and considers his offer, narrowing her eyes. “You cheat.”

“And if you pay attention, you may learn something to improve your own lackluster technique.” He pulls the cards from his pocket and hops up, in a painfully undignified fashion, onto her ridiculously high bed. The action brings a spark of humor to her gaze.

“I won’t be distracted by your ridiculous cleavage today, serah,” she teases, watching him shuffle the cards. In the brief moment of silence, Varric catches the way she runs her thumb over her finger, tracing the small silver scar Bianca left all those years ago. It’s a habit he’s noticed with fondness when she’s plotting, and it should worry him to see her scheming…

But honestly, he’d rather have her scarred and scheming than not have her at all.

They stand on the docks with the world on fire around them when Varric finally runs out of things to say.

There’s a joke here... somewhere. He struggles to find it while Hawke stares over his head at the ruined landscape of Kirkwall. He could say something about how she sure knows how to make an exit, but the thought of her exit sticks in his throat, deep in his chest.

Kirkwall without Hawke makes no sense. Varric without Hawke makes no sense, and when did that happen?

She’s leaving and he’s staying. It’s what they need to do. She’ll be free as a bird to ignite the revolution she’s become the figurehead of, thanks to Blondie, and he’ll be here to confuse and confound the authorities while he tries to put his home back together.

But, somehow, it feels like his home is about to get on Isabela’s ship.

“Look on the bright side, Varric.” He looks up into Hawke’s face. She’s got her best Champion smile plastered on, the one that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “We’ve almost burned through those seven years of bad luck, right?”

The mirror. Her face without the wrinkles of worry at the corner of her eyes, on her forehead, Bianca in her arms and a smile on her face. Varric’s chest constricts painfully.

The Hanged Man is gone. Hawke is leaving. All he’s got is Bianca on his back and a pile of trouble again.

“You’ll always have the scar though,” he jokes weakly.

She looks down at her hands. Varric wonders if she can see blood on them, even though she’s done everything she could have. The scar from her run in from Bianca is merely a thin white line across her finger, but his eyes go there immediately.

He doesn’t know what possesses him, but it feels right to snatch that hand out of the air. Long fingers curl immediately over his leather gloves and her blue eyes flick to his face.

It’s a bad idea, but he’s too committed to stop now. He brings her knuckles to his lips like she’s a fairytale princess instead of the biggest menace he’s ever known, like he’s a knight instead of a cheating scoundrel. His lips brush over that thin scar softly before he pulls away, looking up into Hawke’s eyes.

She swallows, hard, and Varric swears he sees tears in her eyes behind a watery smile. Varric’s words are still missing, lost somewhere in the rubble around them, but he has to try. “Hawke-”

She pulls her hand from his and drops it to the side. “Well Varric,” she begins behind her brittle smile. “I’ve been telling you for years. That crossbow goes or I do.”

For a brief, insane moment Varric considers slinging his beloved Bianca over his shoulder and into the harbor. It passes just as Hawke stoops to envelop him in her too long arms. He just catches her whisper. “I’ll miss you.”

“Yeah,” Varric swallows his own bitter emotion. “Me too, Elodie.”

That makes her laugh and lightly punch his shoulder as she withdraws. He barely gets a look at her tearstained face before she flees up the gangplank and onto the boat, leaving him bereft.

“If you were waiting for an opportune moment, you have missed it,” Fenris remarks acidicly behind him.

Varric ignores the remark and the ridiculous insinuation behind it as Fenris appears in his line of sight. His love life is complicated enough, after all. “I can afford to let her go, she doesn’t owe me five sovereigns.”

The familiar, immediate refrain is almost comforting. “I’m good for it.”

Varric huffs a small, broken laugh. “No you’re not.”

“You are not incorrect,” Fenris finally admits. The elf casts a look behind him for a moment before adjusting the pack over his shoulder. “I wish you well, my friend.”

The bastard has enough decency not to add Varric will need it. “Watch her back, Broody.”

“I will attempt to do so,” Fenris murmurs, shoving past him. “Although nobody does it as well as you.”

Varric watches him go with a heavy weight in his stomach.

That is exactly what he’s afraid of.

#manka writes #dadrunkwriting #varric tethras #female hawke #elodie hawke #female hawke/varric tethras #dragon age #dragon age 2 #varricmance march madness

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misscricket · 3 years

Text

Canders

Oh @stark-illerbase, let me take you on a journey...

Anders and Carver don’t like each other in Act 1 of Dragon Age II. That’s putting it mildly. Carver is a young man probably suffering from PTSD, grieving over his twin sister and struggling with the new life his brother and mother are pursuing. He strongly identifies as a Fereldan, hence the tattoo he got at Ostagar being a mabari, and he sees his mother trying to recapture the Amell name and legacy as almost a rejection of the Hawke lifestyle back in Lothering. As to the PTSD, not only did he see his beloved Twin sister get crushed by an Ogre right in front of his eyes, he was also at the Battle of Ostagar. He had to be dragged away from the battle by his fellow soldiers and told to run for it, or else he would have stayed, and fought and died right there, so determined was he to protect his country and family.

“ Said he wanted to protect his family. That someone had to, because his father had died and, well you know how the Champion turned out. Carver took it real serious...” (World of Thedas Vol 2)

Along with a love of using a sword, this was Carver’s motivation for signing up with the army, the Blight was threatening his home, and his family, and he saw it as his duty to protect them.

“The more ground we lost, the harder he swung that plank of a sword of his. He was shouting that we had to win, that it was to keep our homes safe. I swear he was crying when we finally tackled him, but damned if I’ll hold that against him. It took three of us to drag him to cover. I had to slap him back to his senses, to make him see that killing five, or ten, more ‘spawn wouldn’t matter. The wall was on us, and dying there wasn’t going to help anyone. I said if he wanted to do his family good, he’d get them safe. “ (World of Thedas Vol 2)

So he’s a bit of a prickleberry.

And then in comes Anders. Instantly he’s hyper focused on Carver’s brother, because Carver’s brother is a Mage. And Maker have mercy Carver has been hearing about the Mage plight for years. His whole bloody life actually.

He acutely understands the realities of living with an Apostate mage family, from the perspective of someone inside the family unit who doesn’t have magic himself. He couldn’t be too good at anything, or excel, because it drew attention. He wasn’t a Mage himself, but he too lived as an Apostate, in fear of drawing the Templars gaze.

And then Anders says,

Anders: I'm sorry about your sister. She sounds like a special girl.

Carver: Why? Because she was a mage?

Anders: (If Hawke is male) Your brother says she had a good heart. Being on the run never made her bitter. (If Hawke is female) Your other sister says she was a good person. That she never turned down a chance to help people.

Carver: Yes, yes. I'm sure the Chantry's got a shrine with her portrait on it.

Anders: I was trying to be nice.

Carver: Stick to surly. It works for you

And then this one

Anders: You don't like me, Carver?

Carver: I don't like you.

Anders: That's unfortunate. Hating someone just because they're a mage is a shameful thing.

Carver: I don't hate you because you're a mage. I hate you because you won't shut up about it.

Carver: Oppression this, templars that. I'd heard enough long before you.

Anders: Maybe it's time you put some thought into it.

To Anders, Carver looks like the sullen, angry, bitter brother of two Mages, resentful of their powers or perhaps, even, hating them because of them.

This isn’t the case. Carver bitches and moans about his siblings, but most of his gripes are familiar to anyone who has an older or over achieving sibling.

When there is a legitimate threat, Carver immediately steps between Hawke and danger. When Fenris snarls about Mages, Carver, unprompted, says.

Carver: You have a problem with my brother/sister, you have a problem with me.

It’s instantly protective, and it’s far from the only incident in the game. He continually worries whenever Hawke talks to Templars, or stirs up Mage trouble, not because he hates Mages but because he’s worried for Hawke.

Anders however can no longer seem to see greys, it’s all black and white for him. Either you’re for Mages and then you want wholescale freedom and down the Templar order, or you’re a Mage hater, and as good as a Templar.

Carver’s stance on Magic is actually one of the most subtle and nuanced in the game, if not the whole series. He understands the dangers on a level most people, who haven’t lived with unfettered magic, can’t understand. But he also understands the joys and love of those with magic, and doesn’t believe locking them up in the Circle to be the right thing, despite his potential choice to be a Templar.

So Carver and Anders...

Enemies to Lovers

The fit this trope beautifully. Even in Act 1 with surly Carver and judgy Anders. But throw in Carver either being a Templar, the thing Anders hates most in the world, or him being a Grey Warden, the organisation Anders rejected. Oh the potential for angry arguments and heated kisses.

They are not so ideologically opposed that I think they couldn’t understand each other I think, and I think if they actually hashed it out together they’d actually find a lot of common ground. It’s just whether they could get there without the prickles throwing them off course is the question...and no Carver isn’t the only prickly one.

Templar Carver

Carver joins the Templar order for two reasons.

1. His brother/sister hasn’t returned from the Deep Roads with the rest of the expedition. Bartrand has likely told him they’re all dead. That leaves him and his mother alone in the world, and Carver can’t get work. The Guards won’t have him because Aveline told them not to, and the other options are mercenary jobs or the Templars. He no longer has any mage siblings to worry about being caught, and he doesn’t have to disclose that he had Mages in his family if he doesn’t want to.

2. His namesake was a Templar. I think giving him his piece of his identity makes Carver interested in the order in a different way. Up until then they’ve kind of been the boogeymen of the Hawke children’s lives. ‘Be good or a Templar will get you’. But his father named him after a Templar, ‘skill thoughtfully applied’. There was some value to that path. And you can’t tell me that Carver wasn’t, in many ways, his family’s personal Templar. If Bethany or Hawke had fallen...would another Mage have been able to stand against them? They would have needed a swordsman. Carver.

Anders thinks Carver has joined the Templars out of spite, or hatred. But there is a wonderful array of fiction you can have with Anders and the Order and the fact they are continually trying to hunt Anders down. Carver wouldn’t stand for it, if one of his brothers companions was threatened, and he certainly wouldn’t want him to be hurt, killed or made Tranquil, which would have been his fate should Meredith have gotten her hands on him.

Grey Warden Carver

As for the Grey!Warden path, Carver thrives as a Warden, he blossoms under that structure and purpose where Anders did not. But they have the connection of Anders having been the one to beg Stroud to take him, to put him through the Joining.

We also know that Carver knows Nathaniel, who was friends with Anders during Awakening. This likely means he knows a number of the Ferelden Wardens, and you can’t tell me they wouldn’t be curious about Anders.

Alternate Universes ideas I have toyed with writing

Tevinter - Mage Healer who refuses to use Blood Magic and the son of a powerful Mage house who doesn’t have magic himself.

Special Agents AU - Agent Hawke and Anders have a turbulent relationship because the boy always comes back hurt.

Coffee Shop AU - Anders is an overworked and exhausted Doctor. Carver is his caffeine supplier.

Werewolf AU - Alpha Carver learns that being dominant doesn’t always mean barking orders, and Omega Anders learns that brooding wolves are definitely better lovers.

Mirror Universe - What it says on the box...darkfic.

Angel AU - Carver is Anders’ guardian Angel, and he grumbles about it a lot. He also keeps losing his feathers everytime he swears, and it makes Anders laugh at him.

and many many more.

To close out this rambling dissertation on the beauty that is Canders (praise be)

Enjoy this lovely fanart drawn by the talented @frikadeller in a commission for @autumnyte-old

Case closed!

#Carver Hawke #Anders #Dragon Age #Canders #Rambling Ramble

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musetta3 · 3 years

Note

for the hurt/comfort list! “Can you please come and get me?”

Hi @5lazarus! I present to you a FenHawke prompt. I wrote it so Hawke could be whichever Hawke you choose. Hope you enjoy!! <3

This…wasn’t the way home? Fenris peered down the shadowy alley, trepidation setting in. He’d followed the directions Hawke had given him—they were right there, in the Notes of his phone. Left out the door, pass three intersections, a left, and then a right. He used those directions every day, and had memorized them. Fenris knew what was he was doing, why did the street look so different tonight? He stuffed the panic down.

“Alright,” he said, looking down the street, “let’s be rational. Retrace your steps.” He turned around and headed back the way he came. “If I turned right, then I should turn left, and then—” He stopped on some street, eyes wide. Despite his best efforts, everything got jumbled; even after looking at the directions in his Notes app, he was confused. Venhedis, he did this every day, why was this so hard?

‘You’re going mad,’ the voice in his head hissed, ‘the lyrium’s leaching; won’t be long until you forget everything, and Hawke will leave you—’ the brands flickered through his leather jacket, blue light weak against the brickwork.

“Stop,” he said, breath shallowing. “S-Stop it, I’m not listening.”

There was truth to those words, he knew, an ugly truth. The brands were leaching, albeit slowly, the doctors said. They were doing all they could, going from specialist to specialist—Fenris’s pill boxes were filled from all the medications they prescribed for lyrium poisoning—but if they couldn’t find some way to stop the leaching soon, he’d end up in a retirement home for Templars… Those homes where the Chantry sent the useless, witless ones to eke out an existence before they forgot everything and death finally took them. And Fenris would join them. Fenris Hawke: thirty-something years old, author still in his prime, forgetting who he was and how to eat or drink. The thought terrified him.

‘You weren’t this bad before, you know. It’s getting worse,’ the voice said. ‘Only a matter of time—’

“Shut up!” Fenris held his head in his hands, his shout bouncing off the walls. An apartment window flew open above, a stream of expletives and demands for quiet floating down to him. A police siren wailed in the distance; Fenris looked around, heart pounding so hard, it made his head clench, took his breath away. He fumbled with his iPhone, trembling hands pressing the home button repeatedly in his panic. Siri pinged into existence, waiting for a request.

“C-Call Hawke,” he said, voice cracking.

“Do you mean ‘Colin Dock?’” she asked, once again not understanding his accent. Fenris bit back his frustration; he hated voice recognition software with a passion; it never worked for him.

“Hawke. Call Hawke,” he said, voice going sharp. He huddled against a wrought iron fence, wondering where in the Void he was. The autumn wind blew right through his jacket; he shivered, and not just from the cold.

“Sorry, I don’t understand ‘colic’—”

“Fasta vass, you piece of kaffas,” he exclaimed. The world went blurry; Fenris wiped his eyes and raked his hand through his hair. A sob escaped; he slid down the fence to the sidewalk below. The concrete sucked the heat out of him, leaving him cold and hollow. He felt even more desolate.

“Come on, get a hold of yourself,” he whispered, “one step at a time.” He tapped the Notes app, scrolling through entries “It’s here, I know it’s here…” He pulled up the document with the directions home and tapped the phone number. He was beyond grateful when he heard the dial tone. “Pick up,” he whispered. “Please, please, please, please—”

“Hullo?” Much to his dismay, the tears started again from sheer relief.

“Fenris? Fenris, are you alright?” Hawke asked, voice alarmed. “...Are you crying?”

“I—” How could he even voice his shame, that he was no better than a child? “C-Can you please come and get me?” he asked. “Hawke? H-Hawke, please—” There was a faint jingle on the other end, from what he assumed were keys.

“On my way. Where are you?” There it was, The very question he would’ve given anything for an answer to. Fenris’s breath hitched.

“I don’t know. I-I don’t know where I am—” His voice pitched, words tripping over themselves on the way out.

“Fenris, can you do something for me? Go to the nearest intersection and tell me the street names.” Solutions, Fenris liked those. He brushed himself off and jumped to his feet, hurrying towards the end of the block. The street names swayed on the traffic light wires; Fenris stared, letters scrambling into nonsensical lines and patterns before him.

“I can’t read this,” he said. “I-I can’t, Hawke. It’s not Tevene, I can’t do this—”

“Darling, remember what I said at the night school, hmm? When you’d just arrived in Kirkwall, and were learning to read Common?”

“‘One letter at a time,’” he whispered.

“That’s right. You can do this.” Fenris took a deep breath and concentrated.

“‘H-A-R-L-M?’”

“Harimann. Harimann and what?” Upon closer investigation, they determined he was on the corner of Harimann and DuPris, not too far removed from his route home.

“Tell me about your day at work,” Hawke said, no doubt to distract him. “Was the paper busy?” The panic still scrabbled for purchase inside Fenris; it clawed at him before eventually ebbing away, leaving him exhausted.

“I-I wrote an article on Dwarven lichen bread today,” Fenris replied, sheltering against the wind in a doorway. “They brought some in for us to review. New flavor or something.”

“Ooh, from the TV commercial! ‘Fine dwarven crafts, direct from Orzammar: from our noble kitchens to yours, find us in your local bread aisle.’” Fenris laughed, wiping his tearstained face; Hawke always made the best impersonations of cheesy TV commercials. It was almost uncanny, how spot-on they were.

“That’s the one. Cinnamon swirl flavor,” he said, shivering.

“How was it? I’ve been curious.”

“Lichen-y.”

Hawke scoffed. “‘Lichen-y.’ Varric Tethras must have been desperate to hire the likes of you.” Hawke’s voice seemed louder, clearer. Fenris poked his head around the corner. He saw no one approaching in either direction.

“Behind you,” Hawke said with a laugh, “your escort has arrived, messere.” Fenris turned around, disconnecting the call. Hawke stood before him, coat over flannel pajamas and hair tied in a messy bun. Utterly glorious, in Fenris’s eyes. He held Hawke in the fiercest embrace he could muster.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “T-Thank you so much.” Hawke patted him on the back.

“One friendly neighborhood Hawke, at your service. I’ll send you my bill, at the end of the month.” Hawke grinned. “Come on, I need to get my husband home.”

‘Husband’ was still such a new, beautiful term, one Fenris never tired from hearing. It made his heart smile in the most joyful manner imaginable. He linked his arm in Hawke’s and walked home to their apartment, where Toby the Mabari greeted him with many ‘aroos’ and tail wags.

“Go wash up,” Hawke said, “dinner’s in the Crockpot.”

Fenris must have been colder than he realized, if the water burned and made his limbs ache. He changed into the warmest pajamas he owned and slid into his seat at the table. A bowl of mutton stew appeared before him. It was good, he decided. Not the curries he was used to from Minrathous, but warm and comforting, all the same. Between the warm food and the soothing cadence of Hawke’s voice, he melted into his chair.

“Fen,” Hawke called, “go to bed.” The spoon clattered out of Fenris’s hand, his head snapped back.

“But I haven’t seen you all day,” he protested, eyes unable to stay open.

“You’re not seeing much except the inside of your eyelids, messere, go on.” Fenris grumbled, pecking his beloved on the cheek before crawling into bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

Sometime during the night—he wasn’t sure when without his glasses—he felt the mattress dip as Hawke laid down beside him. Fenris smiled into his pillow, pretending to be asleep.

“I won’t give up, Fen,” Hawke whispered. “I’ll find a specialist that can remove the brands, so you’ll never be afraid like that again. I swear it. I don’t care if I have to fly someone in from Tevinter and sell a kidney to pay for the surgery; I won’t give up on you.”

Fenris cherished those words and held them close in his heart. Even if the future was uncertain, at least he had someone to meet it with. Words failed to express just how grateful he was for that.

#writing prompt #hurt-comfort #hurt/comfort #fenris x hawke #fenhawke #dragon age hawke #modern dragon age #5lazarus #musetta answers #my fanfiction #fenris #musetta writes

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potatowitch · 2 years

Note

morrigan, anders, dorian for the character impressions meme

HOO BOY HERE WE GO (under a cut because long)

(send me a character and I'll tell you my feelings on them!)

Morrigan

First impression: "I, a bisexual, have been presented with a hot mean goth girl. I have immediately developed feelings."

Impression now: I've got a lot of soft feelings for Morrigan, actually. She's often callous and ignorant (especially when it comes to the Dalish and the way she speaks about Circle mages) but she does have a soft heart, she's loyal to the people she cares for, and she grows a lot as a person when the Warden pursues a friendship with her.

Favorite moment: Her friendship with a female Warden, where she admits that she feels like they're sisters in the softest, most emotional voice, just breaks me every time.

Idea for a story: ajshdkajhsdjk okay this one is silly but. You know that glitch in Awakening that shows Anders as being in love with the Warden-Commander. And you know that glitch in Inquisition you sometimes get if you import a world state with a romanced Warden Alistair, but the game somehow thinks you've managed to romance both Alistair and Morrigan, so the HoF sends your Inquisitor a letter saying "take care of my boyfriend AND my girlfriend AND our son"? What if. Post Inquisition, the HoF fucks off into the middle of nowhere with her husband, her wife, her apostate boytoy, and their son? I think that would be funny. I think Morrigan having to deal with Anders trying to cuddle her every time she's shapeshifted into a cat would be absolute peak comedy.

Unpopular opinion: She didn't "betray" the Warden with the Dark Ritual? She gave them an out? I would say her "betrayal" was more towards Alistair in the case of a female HoF because Morrigan went to the HoF instead of him first, but she in no way betrays the Warden.

Favorite relationship: Romantically I'm very soft for F!Warden and Morrigan (M!Warden too, to some extent, but the whole Yearning she has with a F!Warden ... hoo boy), I do like the concept of Leliana and Morrigan too, I think it'd be interesting to explore.

Favorite headcanon: She never, ever learns to baby talk Kieran. She speaks to him in her normal manner from the second he is born, and she doesn't get why baby talking is even a thing. She also carries him on her back in animal form when he's small.

Anders

First impression: I actually played DA2 before Awakening, so my first impression of Anders was "cute feather mage is glowing blue?? what's up with that? oh he's got a CAT??"

Impression now: THE WAY I WOULD DIE FOR THIS MAN. I am. Obsessed. I have brainrot. It's terminal. I think about him like 80% of the time. I have a mug with his face on it that brings me joy to drink out of. I think he's so complex, he's kind and funny and resilient but he's also flawed in that he's petty and occasionally cruel and single-minded. I love how selfless he is, even before Justice (I have like. a whole rant on that, if you want it), I love his relationship with Justice both pre and post merge, I love to bully and whump him in my fics, I want to hold him and tell him it's going to be okay and he's doing his best, I have never wanted to rail a fictional man more in my life.

Favorite moment: If I must pick just one, the Chantry boom. It's very sexy. He throws his whole ass self into it, knowing there is no choice for him to make a stand, fully expecting to die for it and accepting that, willing to take all of the blame and the punishment if it means a chance it will save his people.

Idea for a story: I have many. Like a whole two page long google doc of fic ideas. One of them - he tries to teach Fenris how to write but he has illegible doctor handwriting and Fenris is like "are you fucking with me. Even I know this is a squiggle".

Unpopular opinion: He was right to blow up the Chantry. It was the only option he had left.

Favorite relationship: FENDERS. But also Anders is like the fandom bicycle to me, I love him with so many people romantically. Platonically, I really like exploring his friendship with the Warden-Commander, Hawke, Varric and Isabela.

Favorite headcanon: I ALSO HAVE MANY FAVORITES but I legitimately forget that him having whip scars on his back isn't actually canon bc he just like. automatically has them in my mind.

Dorian

First impression: I walked into Redcliffe's Chantry, he sassed me, and I liked him immediately.

Impression now: Dorian is, again, a very complex character and I really love that about him. I love that he has a lot of confidence in his appearance and magical abilities, but absolutely none in his actual worth as a person. I love how honest and open he is about being friends with the Inquisitor, I love how he doesn't mind if people argue with him and will actually admit when his mind has been changed, I love how damn smart he is (like. time magic?? his brain!!!) and I haven't personally romanced him but I do love how apprehensive he is about a relationship at first, but he loves the Inquisitor/Bull wholeheartedly.

Favorite moment: Either when he gives the Inquisitor the sending crystal to keep in contact, or there's this moment if you bring him to the Temple of Mythal and ask if he wants to drink from the Well of Sorrows and he says something along the lines of "a human mage from Tevinter, drinking this much elvhen history? No. I can't do that." That just really hit me as him recognizing his privilege, in a way?

Idea for a story: Dorian is swarmed by cats in his little reading nook, has to contend with the fact that it's Their Chair now, the Inquisitor keeps walking in to find him sat on the floor bc Mittens The Furious has taken the chair and will not stand for being moved.

Unpopular opinion: I detest when people slot him into the role of "sassy gay best friend". He's a lot more than that. He can be your Inquisitor's bestie for many other, much better reasons.

Favorite relationship: Love him with Bull, I think they bring out a lot of good qualities in each other, as well as challenging each other's beliefs. I think Dorian/Anders and Dorian/Fenris are both interesting ships too, and I love his friendship with Solas and Sera.

Favorite headcanon: He's allergic to basically everything, not just strip weed. Loves cats but they make him sneeze. Can only hang out in Skyhold's garden for a little bit bc flower pollen makes his eyes itch. He can counteract it a bit with magical antihistamines but overall his face tends to leak at a lot of things.

#character impressions #tag game

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shannaraisles · 3 years

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Works In Progress, or Niamh Might Be Committing To Narrative Sometime Soon

Okay, I think I have control over my muse again. Possibly.

Burn With Me

Pairing: Sebastian Vael/Freya Hawke

Rating: Mature

Setting: Pre-game, into DA2

Premise: What if there was a fourth Hawke sibling who sacrificed themselves to let their family escape cleanly a few years before the Blight? Freya Hawke has been in Chantry hands for almost a full year, and still they haven’t managed to induce her to tell them anything about the mages she is protecting. Interrogation in Ferelden didn’t work; cruelty and neglect in Kirkwall didn’t work; it doesn’t seem as though kindness in Tantervale is going to work, either. So Elthina brings in her secret weapon - Sebastian Vael. Will he be able to get the information out of Freya Hawke, or will he realise that some bonds are just too sacred to break?

[Read on AO3]

Forget Me Not

Pairing: Knight Captain Rylen/Ksenia Trevelyan

Rating: Teen and Up, may venture into Mature later

Setting: Modern AU (Dear Friend universe)

Premise: Ksenia Trevelyan has spent her whole life trying to live up to her parents’ impossible standards. Finally at breaking point, she has abandoned her intense job at a prestigious university hospital in favour of taking a position as a small town family doctor several hundred miles away from her parents. She meets a friendly neighbourhood templar (policeman) named Rylen, who seems vaguely familiar, and strikes up a friendship with him. Very Hallmarky, predict-a-romance plot.

[Read on AO3]

In Adversity, Hope

Pairing: Bryland Cousland/Aislynn Theirin (both OCs)

Rating: Teen and Up, possibly straying into Mature as we go

Setting: Origins

Premise: It’s a what-if. What if Alistair had a twin sister? What if she was raised by the Couslands? And what if she and Alistair had an actually healthy sibling relationship that doesn’t involve ripping his heart out and stomping on it, or even anything to do with Goldanna at all? Aaaand then it morphed into ... what if I dropped this premise into my Hounds of Highever universe, where Dermot is the Warden, his little sister is sweet on Anora, and his little brother needs someone to rein him in a bit. Thank goodness Origins already has a plot.

[Read on AO3]

#wips #dragon age #fanfic #burn with me #oc- freya hawke #forget me not #oc- ksenia trevelyan #in adversity hope #oc - bryland cousland #oc - aislynn theirin

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jennserr · 3 years

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first line game

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!

thanks for the tag @cassandra-pentughasst! i'm pretty sure i don’t quite have 20 stories, and most of what i do have is unpublished and unfinished, but i’ll give this a shot ^^

-Well, Shit

Had anyone been passing by this one particular Lowtown alley on this one particular day at this one particular moment, they would have received quite the shock—people appearing from thin air in a flash of light without so much as a “how do you do” was simply not by any means a common occurrence, even in Kirkwall. As it was, Valentina Ledoux was herself more than surprised enough for everyone when she fell from the air and onto the dirty ground of the Lowtown alley.

-The Tempest - Initiation

Getting ready for a mission was generally fairly straightforward, Leah mused. As was going to see your doctor. Hell, really anything was when you got down to it. So why was it any different here?

-Where Your Heart Is

She liked to be warm.

There were so many things that Ashawyn Lavellan had learned, without even meaning to, about the elven dancer. She knew Elaine liked it when the sun was on her skin and there was warmth in the air. She knew she liked to be as close to the fire as she could get, and didn’t care about the smoke. There weren’t many people that she had been so transfixed by, not in her journeys across Thedas, and there wasn’t much she could do about it. Not really. Because for all of the ways the two had grown close…

-A Tempest of Ink and Scars

The first thing Leah felt when she woke up was an overwhelming and all-consuming sense of contentment—the most at peace she had ever felt in her 24 (824, but that’s just a technicality) years of life.

-A Better Beginning

It’s like a blink; a ponderously slow blink. One second, I’m looking at my family as I’m being sealed into a pod. The next, when I open my eyes, I’m staring up at my older sister’s face, a face clouded by rare concern. I gasp and take a deep, shuddering breath, sitting up quickly, and everything comes rushing back to me. The stasis pods. The Andromeda Initiative. The Pathfinder mission.

-Misery Loves Company

Cora Harper was between jobs.

She was always “between jobs” now, it seemed. Ever since Nisira T’Kosh had dismissed her from Talein’s Daughters and sent her to Alec Ryder, and then the disaster that that was, Cora had been bouncing around the Milky Way with whatever merc group she could join up with for a job or two; she never seemed to be able to stay for longer.

-Hero

Nobody would deny that Leliana was a devout woman, not then and not now. She rose earlier than the other sisters, said her prayers more fervently than they, and threw herself into her duties as a lay sister. The newest Lothering chantry sister was quite vocal about her belief in the Maker’s Will, that nothing happened without reason.

-Mirror, Mirror

One good thing about being in the city, Val thought to herself, was that nobody really bothered you for wearing something out of the ordinary. Sure, they would sometimes give you odd looks, but other than that they left you alone. Something Val was more than glad for as she stepped onto the bus, still wearing her travel clothes that were a much better fit for Thedas than for modern Earth, along with the bow and arrows she carried. The driver gave the arrows a wary look, but she gave him a warm smile that she hoped would convince him she wouldn’t use them while on his bus, and he reluctantly nodded, and Val stepped past him into the passenger area.

-Mermaid AU

Had anyone been passing by this one particular stretch of the Waking Sea on this one particular day at this one particular moment, they would have received quite the shock—people appearing from thin air in a flash of light without so much as a “how do you do” was simply not by any means a common occurrence. As it was, Valentina Ledoux was herself more than surprised enough for everyone when she fell from the air and into the cold waters of the sea off the southern coast of the Free Marches.

-Witcher AU

Smoke, ash, and the stench of death filled the air, and between that and the massive wooden beam crushing her chest and pinning her to the ground, Valentina was finding it incredibly difficult to breathe.

-[Self-Insert Exercise]

I don’t know for certain when I first regained awareness, just that the first thing I remember being aware of was that my legs were sore, particularly my knees. Those felt tender, like they’d been bearing my weight for a while on a hard floor.

-[Inquisitor Liz]

And slowly, gradually, the world around her faded away; the moons and stars in the night sky, the lifeless body of the Archdemon, her friends, until the last thing she saw in this life was the face of her love staring down at her with watery eyes. Then she, too, was gone from her sight, and Eliza allowed herself to succumb to the darkness at last.

—————————

i have. so many wips that will almost never see the light of day as finished products. but damn if i didn’t find some things i’d long forgotten when i was doing this lol.

definitely see a pattern with some of Val’s stories, which was actually pretty intentional on my part when writing each of them (not pictured: a similar first line for the Witcher AU, but since it's not Technically the first line i didn’t count it). as for my favourite first line, i’d probably have to go with Misery Loves Company’s

tagging forward to @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold @charlatron @lostinfantasies38 @dalish-rogue @elveny @kunstpause @jkit45 @jt-boi-n7 @heroofshield @inquartata30 and anyone else who wants to! no pressure on anyone to do it ^^

#original #tag game #tag meme #my writing #original writing #long post

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