kirkwallguy

[kirkwallguy]

"wooow i've written so much this week i cant wait to take a break over the weekend" *gets home* *immediately starts writing fanfiction*

#i have a disease called must write words down. #fanfic isnt tiring to me like regular writing... it's like doing an adult colouring book after spending hours drawing people #ok i think i will try to drunk freewrite this a draft of long fic i want to do. idr how i used to write fic as a teen but thats how i do #all my other writing nowadays..

[kirkwallguy]

i bought inq three years ago and im so close to hitting 300 hours on it. ermmm.

#294 hours and booting it up after a stressful week to play until im comfortably drunk / i fall asleep > #😒 cheaper than a night out. ive spent almost £300 on the dentist this week. its cheap alcohol and gaming for the foreseeable future.

[kirkwallguy]

i honestly rarely go on ao3 anymore but honestly whenever i look at the handers tag it's like hmm... i might be in the top ten percent of sickos here. concerning!

#im not here for hurt and comfort im here for fics where anders is a scared cat that hawke keeps trying to bathe like a dog and gets mad when #he tries to claw his face off. metaphorically speaking. #i dont really read fics anymore tbh i just wanted to have a peek and make sure none of the most popular ones were the #same as the ones im planning lol

[kirkwallguy]

bfs…

#biting down on this and chewing slowly

[kirkwallguy]

Oh someone come get their social media team this is tragic... capitalising proper nouns but not using punctuation to try and seem cool. 0 understanding of the purpose of the meme. lobbing instead of lopping. 2/10 see me after class.

#if i was getting paid to post i would be the greatest poster of all time

[kirkwallguy]

#yeah ill reblog that

[kirkwallguy]

mary finds out what gay people are -> realises not everyone wants to fuck women just a little bit -> immediately runs to start the cullen romance. which could mean nothing.

#REALLY FUN. also just found out that if you flirt with dorian as a woman enough you #can tell him you feel led on. because yes mary was flirting with him the entire time. he's rich and charming! #time for her backup plan

[kirkwallguy]

reached dorian's personal quest in this playthrough. funniest quest ever. you can literally have your inquisitor not know what gay people are.

#REALLY FUN FOR MARY #dorian: i prefer....😔😬😰the company of men 😑😒 #mary: the what #dorian: MEN. I FUCK MEN. #mary: ......so no women. ever. not even me??? #the blood magic conversion therapy gets worse every time. so extremely 2014.

[kirkwallguy]

my one wish for dreadwolf isn't good gameplay. or good writing. or a good story. all i want is a fucked up mage that i can soak in milk and slam against a wall.

#making my peace with the likelihood of bioware dropping any nuance in the mage templar dynamics so they can focus on #elf lore. but please just give me one. one toy to play with. 🤲🏻🤲🏻🤲🏻also make them bisexual and wejrd with it

[kirkwallguy]

everyone says “i can’t believe we’re doing chantry explosion discourse in 2024” well i wasnt there in 2014 or whenever you guys were talking about this i was busy being 12 so you have to let me have my shot. its my turn

#MEEE. i just got here ok im speedrunning da discourse.

[kirkwallguy]

the one bright light in kirkwall

#aurgh.

[kirkwallguy]

with the way it stored candles the kirkwall chantry is lucky it stayed standing as long as it did tbf

[kirkwallguy]

the hightown chantry was probably sheltering orphans and refugees et cetera, and you can tell this because the moment your character arrives in kirkwall as a refugee, they get locked in the chantry prison on the orders of the chantry enforcers so that everyone poor can be forced out. this was subtle foreshadowing that the hightown chantry regularly shelters woebegone innocents. you can tell because the chantry is a place the player regularly goes to, where there are never any npcs who could be remotely described as that

#refugees 0 gold orphans 0 gold healers 0 gold candles 3000 gold #someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. kirkwall is dying

[kirkwallguy]

ok several hours of deadfire later and it's irritating me even more than in the first one because the dialogue is actually good and concise. but during important scenes there'll be a narrator doing the worst baby's first fantasy novel prose and making the scene impossible to keep track of. i just got through a conversation between a bunch of gods that COULD have been good and impactful if they hadn't had a narrator coming in every other line to do a tag that was always like "he shouts with glee, his large maw opening and displaying his undulating tongue. his blue irises were like fire from an evil fireplace. (perception) Evil fireplaces are bad. a shiver traverses its way down your spine." which honestly left me with no clue what was going on because it meant the convo was twice as long and i was so busy being bombarded with unnecessary imagery that anything that was being said was wiped from my brain... sad! oh well at least aloth is there.

i want to like pillars of eternity so bad because it's fun but it's just so painfully overwritten.

#sorry. guy who is passionate about video game writing. #it sucks even more that every other aspect of the game is good / way better than the first... #i dont think this is a poe problem it's definitely a modern rpg/crpg problem. dos2 is WAY worse for this #i want to get further into this bc the setting and characters ARE interesting (the setting of the first one was pretty boring to me #but so far this is great) #but i might just pivot back to inquisition 😒😒😒 at this point. #sorry anyway im just up late and ranting bc i have a dentist appointment tomorrow for the first time as an adult and i may die

[kirkwallguy]

one of my favourite takes about the kirkwall hightown chantry is when people act like because it’s the only chantry they actually put in the game, it’s the only chantry in kirkwall

#well now im thinking aboht the lowtown chantries. hurgle.

[kirkwallguy]

i want to like pillars of eternity so bad because it's fun but it's just so painfully overwritten.

#started deadfire and am remembering why im so meh on the first #i actually think the overworked prose-y bits so many modern crpgs have are hindering the writing a LOT #let the dialogue speak for itself! it's good! i dont need to know this guy is surly and brutish and assessing me i can #get that from the dialogue! #if it was giving me NEW information or was uh. pleasing to read. then thatd be another story. #but 😬😬

[kirkwallguy]

TYYYY 🥲🥲 and yeah mary really has a habit of worming her way into your brain and will NOT leave

can i get your mary having Realizations. maybe at the day of her wedding?

omg TY for this prompt i love talking about mary but very rarely actually write about her. this stumped me for a little while because everything that happens at her wedding requires SOO much context that i had no idea how to start, and it felt ooc to just have cullen suddenly do something so terrible. so here's him and mary just kind of sucking in unique and strange ways. this takes place juust before the wedding when everyone is beginning to gather at the winter palace.

mild tw for vomit mention and templar ptsd-esque nightmares (???).

Mary awoke in Cullen's arms. Their bed at the Winter Palace was bigger and softer than any she'd ever slept in - she and Cullen gravitated towards the middle of the feather mattress together, leaving a large indent that would inevitably linger after they crawled out of it in the morning, waiting for their return later that evening.

Cullen never looked more like a Templar than when he was sleeping. It was strange - Mary had heard (and, she was ashamed to admit, read in Varric's romance novels) that people were supposed to look innocent in sleep. Haunted heroes became innocent boys, creased foreheads smoothed, racing thoughts slowed.

But Cullen's brow remained creased as he dreamed. He muttered to himself, kicked, scratched, growled like a dog. Sometimes, he frightened Mary. She'd cling to him in the dark, heart pounding, as he whispered cruel words at some imagined threat that taunted him behind his eyelids.

Were all Templars like this? Were there thousands of people all across Thedas just like her? People who lay awake with their palms flat against their lovers' sweaty backs, thanking the Maker that they weren't born a mage? Was she just unlucky? Or was this, as Hawke had darkly insinuated that final time they'd spoken, exactly what she deserved?

According to Varric's stories, Mary had a duty here. She was Cullen's reward at the end of a difficult road, a symbol of all he had lost and gained. She was supposed to comfort him, to soothe and fix his troubled soul - her arms designed to wrap around him like bandages, her kiss the perfect antivenom.

But on nights like this, when she pressed her lips to his twitching cheek, the taste of stale sweat always made her draw back with disgust.

One night early in their relationship, Cullen had drunk far too much and vomited all down himself. Shuddering and crying, he'd reached out for comfort. The smell of his breath, beer and vomit mingling together, had made Mary turn and run, leaving him alone on the floor in his own filth. The next morning, he'd kissed her chastely on the cheek at breakfast and his breath had smelled of peppermint.

It was easy to resent him for drinking like that. Many women resented their men for drink.

"Drink doesn't make men into beasts," her mother had whispered to her one night before bed, not loud enough to cover her father's heavy snores in the next room, "it just tells us which ones have beasts hiding inside them."

After that, she'd spent years of her childhood trying to see who did and didn't have a beast inside of them. She wasn't sure about her father - if he was a beast, he was nothing but an old bear, loud but too tired and lazy to do any harm. A few of the Chantry Mothers, the ones who would rap her on the knuckles when she giggled during the Chant, seemed to have dragons inside of them. The men who fought outside the taverns late at night were wolves, howling at the moon with their hackles up. And the girl in the portrait that hung above the fireplace in Mary's bedroom stared at her with the eyes of a songbird.

Cullen had something inside of him as well, but Mary wasn't sure if it was a beast. A beast, after all, could be killed.

As his dreams became more violent, so did his body. He writhed in her arms, as if a demon was taking over him. Mary held him tighter.

"She'll regret it," he muttered, "she'll be sorry soon."

Mary shuddered. Trying to distract herself, she traced the muscles in his back with a morbid fascination, feeling as they shifted and bulged unnaturally. If she'd been a healer, she might have understood how muscles worked - the violent snap and pull of them beneath her fingers might have been cause for gentle concern rather than a sensation that revolted her. But the inner workings of the human body were as good as witchcraft.

Cullen groaned, "kill it," he said, so loud that Mary squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that nobody else could hear, "kill it now!"

Whatever he was dreaming of terrified him. He cried out and twitched, kicking Mary hard enough in the shin that she yelped and pushed him away roughly enough to wake him up.

Cullen's eyes flew open. He stared directly at Mary, panting.

"Oh, thank the Maker," he whispered.

Mary stared back at him, keeping her eyes half closed as if she'd just woken up, "hmm?"

He looked like was going to cry. To Mary's horror, his trembling lips embarrassed her; she edged away from him a little, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"I was dreaming," Cullen said, "it was just a dream. A terrible dream."

Mary didn't respond. This was exactly how this scene played out in every single one of Varric's stories. She swallowed her disgust and reached out to brush Cullen's hair from his sweaty forehead, almost gagging as her fingers met his wet skin.

"Just a nightmare." She agreed, hoping Cullen didn't notice how flat her voice was.

Cullen, Maker help him, closed his eyes at Mary's touch. He lay there and shook as she stroked his hair, tense shoulders beginning to relax. That innocence he lacked in sleep was plain on his face now - he looked like someone Mary had never met before, someone she wasn't sure she would ever meet again.

"What was the dream about?" She tried.

Opening his eyes, Cullen stared at her for a long moment. His gaze passed over her face, lingering on each detail for so long that she almost found herself blushing.

Only when Mary was sure that he'd forgotten she'd asked him a question did he answer her:

"You." He said.

It should have been a shock, should have made her blood freeze, but in that moment his answer seemed like the most logical thing in the world.

Mary continued to stroke his hair, "what happened to me?"

"You were possessed," Cullen closed his eyes again, sleepy, "an abomination."

"Did you kill me?"

He was halfway back asleep now. He leaned in closer and wrapped an arm around Mary's waist, "I did," he whispered, "I killed it."

And then he stuck his face into Mary's neck, his hair brushing her collarbone, and fell straight back asleep.

Mary didn't sleep again. She stayed awake, palms against Cullen's sweaty back, and thanked the Maker that she wasn't born a mage until the sun was high in the sky.

#i couldn't tell you a single fact about any of my other inquisitors but mary is practically real