#(his relationships with Merrill and Fenris for example) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-cryptographer · 1 year

Note

Isabela for 002!

Woo! Thank you for sending this in! Isabela is a great girl! /sleazy Varric voice

002 | Give me a character: ISABELA

How I feel about this character: She’s so lovely <3 I think her being this person who, having lived through a very hard childhood and the colonisation of her home and a child marriage which she then escaped from by joining a criminal enterprise and human trafficking ring - who then has this very moral and self-sabotaging moment where she ruins one of their operations because she doesn’t want to be a slaver. And then you’re meeting her at the point in her life where all her old coworkers are out to get her different levels of either dead or enserviced to them, she’s lost her ship, everything has gone wrong for her, and she clearly regrets having had that moment of moral crisis and is doubling down hard on being as self-serving and out-for-herself as she can possibly be. And then over the course of the game, she has this chance to potentially find a safe place where Hawke and their friends are willing to reward her for being a better person instead of punishing her and you get to see all of this softness and vulnerability coming out of her. I think she feels like a very rewarding character to interact with. Both in a meta sense for me as the player, and in an in-universe one? I feel like the other characters in the game who take the time to acknowledge her goodness and her depth as a person ultimately get a lot back from her.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Fenris. Aveline. I think a lot of Hawkes tend to share a sense of humour and fun with Bela, and there’s likely some shared history working as a smuggler there, so I think there are definitely some fun versions of Hawkebela. Isabela and Bethany also seems fun to me. I think it would be good for Bethany to be around someone who views her (and her magic) as more of an asset than a burden or a cause. And Isabela seems to have a good rapport with her in their banters and enjoy playing worldly older woman to Bethie. And Isabela and Merrill... it feels remiss not to mention it because it’s definitely something I’ve written before and keep coming back to in the context of the Kirkwall polycule in particular. I think Isabela and Merrill should have been one of the background companion romances along with fenbela. I think they’re cute, and it’s a relationship that makes a lot of sense to me, assuming Merrill finds a way to push past Isabela talking down to her in an attempt to hold her at arm’s length (”You don’t want my life, kitten.”) But I admit it doesn’t really excite me in the conceptual way that makes me want to emphatically say I ship it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Zevran. I like what I perceive as Zevran’s unwillingness to keep score in this relationship. Like Zevran walked into her life when she was about as powerless as could be and saved her for what was basically no net gain on his behalf. And Isabela will sometimes insult him or pester him for sex - ask more of him, in a way - but I get the impression from her pillow talk with Hawke, for example, that she knows he saved her life and feels eternally indebted to him for it. But Zevran just seems totally unconcerned with that and unwilling to collect and imo would be much happier to know that Isabela is trying to pay the favour forward when she does things like try to free slaves or stab other people’s abusive husbands. Something about that dynamic makes me happy.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m not sure? I feel like I see a lot of stories and headcanons where Isabela is just kinda ~girlboss~ which is not something I particularly feel about her even if I can’t point out anything entirely incorrect.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Still mad the ONLY way they could think to introduce Isabela between two games and a short story, is her kicking ass in a barfight. I wish instead we could have gotten a short story about her captaining her ship and the kind of presence she had among her crew. I want to see more of how she behaves in leadership positions. Maybe trying to escape with the Tome of Koslun, with the Qunari dreadnaught bored down upon her.

my OTP: Gonna talk about both Fenris/Isabela and Aveline/Isabela here because I can’t choose, lol. For Fenris/Isabela. I feel like they get one another. I admit the, uh, ‘oiled up and glistening’ banter makes me kinda uncomfortable, but I feel like overall Fenris appreciates Isabela being able to engage his angst more lightly, and with a lighter touch. Like, lotta similarities between the two characters from Northern Thedas who have history with colonialism and being a rich man’s pet (they both got renamed by Danarius and Luis too). Both have a history of, from their respected positions of exploitation, being made to enact violences on those even less fortunate. And then they both of course deal with their baggage by, in sort of complementary ways, being very protective and withdrawn where different forms of intimacy are concerned. I feel like they understand these things about one another without feeling the need to prod at each other about them all the time, so they’ve got a nice friendly witty rapport that I love listening to in their banters <3 For Aveline/Isabela. Kind of the opposite, lol. A great foils ship to rival the Anders-Fenris dynamic, lol. I like how diametrically opposed their ideas of womanhood are, but they’re both characters that I think are very attached to their identities as women. It’s a lot of fun for me to see them go through the motions of attacking those things and insulting one another, but I never get the impression it changes things in the big picture. It’s pretty satisfying to see Aveline repeatedly defend Isabela during Demand of the Qun, when Hawke is acting against her. Or even in their banters- Like Isabela saying that Aveline that she should know herself and not be bothered by what others say about her. Or Aveline reassuring Isabela she’ll have herself a ship someday. I feel like they do ultimately end up reaffirming the goodness and validity of their disparate identities, if you feel me. So the whole cop/criminal dynamic to the relationship is imo the far more concerning one than the slut-shaming and attacks on Aveline’s gender nonconformity, but I do think that’s also something that’s fun to mess with the worldbuilding on. Like- using these characters to enact and critique Kirkwall’s economy (or lack thereof) and the crime and law enforcement sectors that are expanding in response to that- All very top-notch to me. And on a lighter note, it’s really sweet walking into the Captain of the Guard’s office in act 3, and find Isabela there with a bottle of wine and chatting with Aveline.

my cross over ship: Friend and I making a lot of jokes about Anders and Isabela and DC’s Catwoman. But, to be honest, I know very little about Catwoman.

a headcanon fact: Not sure this counts, but I definitely like when artists and writers make her a bit chubby <3 It kinda bothers me how skinny her arms are in her canon character model. Think sailor woman deserves to have at least a little muscle definition in those biceps, if not some fat too. Oh! About Anders and Isabela. I think Isabela promised Anders a place on her crew when they met in the Pearl in Denerim, and she was planning on going through with that when the Templars showed up. And Isabela, yanno, skipped town because she wasn’t dying here, not today, not on this hill. She still feels a little bit guilty about that, even if it’s the best choice she could have made. And that’s why she doesn’t entirely hold it against Anders when he manages his resentment with her by writing her off as perpetually shallow and flaky.

Thank you again!!

#Isabela #dragon age

9 notes · View notes

squirrelwithatophat · 2 years

Text

The DA2 Friendship/Rivalry system is so bizarrely programmed.

There’s been plenty of fandom discussion about the Rivalry relationships being potentially abusive (in part because the player is encouraged to be an asshole to max out the meter), but I just can’t get over how weird they are…

I’ve poked fun at how the mechanic makes little sense from a narrative perspective, but even just from a game design perspective, there are a lot of quirks, to put it nicely.

Because of the way Friendship/Rivalry points are meant to stack or amplify previous decisions, making all the same decisions but in a different order can determine whether you’re a Friend or a Rival and/or have major downstream implications.

Let’s take Fenris as an example.

If you take him on every single quest in Act 1, playing a consistent pro-mage-rights Hawke while at the same time being kind and supportive, asking for his help at every opportunity (e.g., asking him to intimidate the slaver Danzig), and telling him what he wants to hear on purely personal matters (e.g., when he asks about Hawke’s motives) can leave Fenris’s Friendship/Rivalry score relatively close to the median by the beginning of Act 2.

By Act 2, the tracking begins. Even the slightest leaning towards Friendship or Rivalry gets channeled even farther in that respective direction by subsequent actions. The list below includes items distinct/restricted to each path.

Friendship path (Act 2): +5 Friendship for flirting or +10 Friendship for saying “You’re my friend” in Speak to Fenris, +10 Friendship for comforting him (“I’m sorry, Fenris”) during A Bitter Pill, +15 Friendship for giving him the Book of Shartan.

In total, +30-35 additional Friendship points if even marginally leaning towards Friendship in Act 2.

Rivalry Path (Act 2): +5 Rivalry for flirting or +5 Rivalry or saying “You’re my teammate” in Speak to Fenris, +10 Rivalry for flirting/comforting him in A Bitter Pill, +5 Rivalry for the post-Night Terrors conversation, +15 Rivalry for giving him the Book of Shartan.

In total, +35 additional Rivalry points if even marginally leaning towards Rivalry.

And remember, every time you acquire Rivalry you lose the opportunity to acquire Friendship for that decision, and vice versa. The difference between +10 Friendship and +10 Rivalry is not 10 points but 20 points on the overall scale.

Taking into account the route-tracking items, there’s up to a 65-70 point difference for Act 2 decisions with Fenris, while making the same exact decisions.

I’ll spell out an example below so we can see the order effects.

So let’s say you begin Act 2 with Fenris at 15 out of 100 on the Rivalry scale (for the aforementioned reasons) and try to achieve as many Friendship points as possible while playing pro-mage. Go head immediately for Talk to Fenris and tell him “I can help you” to knock his meter down to by 5 points (Total Score: 10 Rivalry). Head out for Sundermount to get ambushed by Hadriana’s goons. Say he’s not a slave (Score: 5 Rivalry), say “We go after them” (Score: 0), tell the newly freed Orana “I’m sorry” (Score: 10 Friendship), give Orana a job (Score: 15 Friendship), defer to Fenris on killing Hadriana (Score: 20 Friendship), comfort him (Score: 30 Friendship). Then give Fenris the Book of Shartan (Score: 45 Friendship). Completing the remaining Act 2 quests, there’s still opportunity to negate all of the new Friendship — for example, choose certain dialogue options afterwards (maximum +15 Rivalry), tell Ella to escape Kirkwall in Dissent (+10 Rivalry), tell Merrill “Don’t blame yourself” after Pol’s death (+5 Rivalry), give Merrill the arulin’holm as promised (+5 Rivalry), and refuse a duel with the Arishok (+10 Rivalry) — dropping the Total Score back to a minimum of 0 Friendship by Act 3.

With this, you have to tread very carefully in Act 3 if you want to both save the mages and avoid having to kill Fenris during The Last Straw. A fight to the death will occur if: 50 <= final Rivalry < 100. In Act 3, you can acquire a maximum of 75 Rivalry points without both killing Merrill’s entire clan during A New Path and threatening to abandon Fenris to Danarius in Alone (or just rejecting the quest entirely). As a pro-mage Hawke, you have to either start making tough choices or start leaving Fenris behind on quests to prevent his Rivalry score from dipping into danger territory.

Now let’s try an alternate scenario — all the same decisions, with the same starting point of 15 Rivalry at the beginning of Act 2, just in a different order. Immediately start Talk to Fenris and say “You’re my teammate” (Total Score: 20 Rivalry). Complete Night Terrors (Score: 25 Rivalry). Collect the Book of Shartan while in the Lowtown alienage (Score: 40 Rivalry). Complete Dissent and tell Ella to escape Kirkwall (Score: 50 Rivalry). Now leave Kirkwall to trigger A Bitter Pill, making all the same decisions as before but now on the Rivalry route (Score: 30 Rivalry). You can then finish Act 2 with a maximum Total Score of 65 Rivalry. Given the same maximum gain of 75 Rivalry points without being a douche during Alone or slaughtering Merrill’s clan, it’s pretty easy to max out the meter (Score: 100 Rivalry) and guarantee loyalty in Act 3.

Let me spell it out — whether or not a pro-mage Hawke who brought Fenris on every single mission later has to kill Fenris during the endgame can depend entirely on quest order.

And this is all from playing a very consistent pro-mage/anti-Templar, Merrill-supportive (but not personally willing to work with demons), always-Fenris-inclusive-party Hawke who makes the same exact choices, not some wild troll character deliberately aiming for divergent results.

Keep in mind as well that this is also after the creators actively wrote in divergent responses to the same choices specifically to push the Friendship/Rivalry score farther along the route that it’s already on. Sometimes there’s no in-universe explanation at all but other times they’re clearly working around a predetermined Friendship/Rivalry gain. Why, for instance, would the same exact gift result in +15 Friendship in one condition but +15 Rivalry in the other? Returning to Fenris, the way they justify these polar opposite responses to receiving the Book of Shartan is by having him interpret it as a kind gesture (as gifts pretty much always are in real life) in the Friendship route but instead interpret the same gift as an insult in the Rivalry route. In the Rivalry route, Fenris sees Hawke as being insensitive and condescending, snapping, “Of course I know about him [Shartan]. What do you take me for? I certainly didn't learn from books, though. Do you think they teach slaves to read?” It doesn’t appear to me to have been the intent of the writers, but I can definitely see why many fans interpret the latter type of reaction as indicative of an abusive or otherwise dysfunctional relationship. There really shouldn’t be yelling or expectations of insults/maltreatment when someone you’ve known intimately for years is trying to do something nice for you. Either this expectation of mistreatment is justified by previous behavior (in which case it is an abusive relationship), the person reacting in this way is deeply mentally unwell, and/or there’s been a serious breakdown in communication.

If the game was being produced all over again (or remastered), I’d frankly prefer they scrapped the Rivalry mechanic entirely. The approval/disapproval systems of Origins and Inquisition, despite their own flaws, were far more nuanced and interesting — they contributed much more to characterization, whereas the Friendship/Rivalry system was almost entirely single-issue (plus Friendship points for being nice or deferring to their judgment) for each companion. Also, the fact that you can gain a lot of Friendship just from being kind/supportive/helpful can make it difficult to max out the Rivalry meter (thus guaranteeing loyalty) before reaching the endgame if you aren’t willing to ignore or deliberately offend certain companions.

But the real point is that I’ve got a save file close to The Last Straw that I’m afraid to finish because I think I fucked up with my boy Fenris.

Lord please send help. 🙏

#dragon age #dragon age 2 #da meta #dragon age meta #fenris #da2 rivalry

61 notes · View notes

savingthrcw · 9 months

Text

when it comes to Neria, besides wanting her to interact with all DAO companions and build their entire relationship, I'd be so curious to see her interact with Anders (it's like the meme 'I could fix them' 'I could make them so much worse') because of their shared hate for Circles, but on the other hand Neria also hates generalizing so she's the 'not all templars' person? Because she knows good and evil examples of every group, but also it would be very interesting to see her around Cullen, whom she knew, who apparently had a bit of an interest in her, who had his trauma with magic but now is also not fighting to have them all killed and so on

and obviously she'd argue with anyone who hates mages but also give the benefit of the doubt to people who hate them because they were badly hurt by magic, and decide to at least try to point out someone can be evil and destructive even without magic if they have enough money/power/weapons (so obviously an interaction with Fenris could go south very fast depending on how he takes it, but also she has NO magic anymore?)

BUT she can never interact with Sera, I guess, and with anyone who has an elf problem, because while she can see the reasons for being afraid of a category of people that holds some kind of power, thinking low of an entire race is just infuriating to her, and she gets violent/aggressive and sees no point in discussing what's obvious to her? Nor she can interact with Merril because hello blood mage. But Solas? I have NO IDEA

#this is more of me rambling than a wishlist post but still #muse: neria #show: dao #neria wishlist;

0 notes

notebooks-and-laptops · 2 years

Text

Merrill on Solas’s side: my one fear given nuance

Okay, so, I want to build off the post I made a while ago about my fear of Merrill being on Solas’s side in DA4. Because my feelings about it are mostly NO THANK YOU but also there’s some nuance and hey, I work best through my character feels out loud. So let’s talk about it. I’m gonna put most of this under a cut because oh boy it got a bit long actually.

Because the thing is...it could be good, actually. There’s a very, very specific version of this idea in my head that could be good. Why would it be good? Well. Because Dragon Age hasn’t really had any sympathetic villains yet. And I get that solas is supposed to be our sympathetic villain and if that works for you great! but for me, he wasn’t established well enough as friend before he became enemy. He’s just the weird racist guy who gave me a castle and now wants to fix his mistake by...making the exact same mistake all over again. And while he does have individual moments of banter with the DAI crew that are very fun, he doesn’t actually show up to any of the bonding scenes (wicked grace night for example) nor does he have any cut scenes that develop a particular relationship between him and say...Dorian, who’s also hanging out in the library.

But Merrill? Merrill has friends. True, proper, established friends. She’s lovable. She loved. Varric, Carver and Isabela in particular, but Bethany, Fenris, Anders, Aveline, Sebastian - they all had positive interactions with her regardless of how they viewed her magic. And she certainly cared about them.

And Merrill’s characterisation could be simplified down to ‘restoring the old ways’ and ‘protecting her people’. In Dai in particular, we hear that she has turned her attention to city elves getting caught in the templar/mage conflict crossfire - her ‘people’ are expanding from the dalish to all elves, and her cause is expanding from ‘history’ to ‘rights’. To the present. To fixing things. So, she still likes the old ways and wants to restore them, and she sees the systematic abuse elves suffer clearer than any other companion in game (apart from maybe Fenris, though Fenris makes comments rather than actionably trying to fix whats going on).

So Solas comes to Merrill, an incredibly talented mage and historian, who basically rebuilt her own eluvian from scratch, and recruits her. And Merrill goes with him because she can restore the old ways, and protect her people who’s treatment is getting steadily worse and worse (masked empire, but I also imagine by da4 we’ll see that Solas’s prophecy of ‘they’ll blame the elves’ for the dai events will be coming true - especially with them disappearing) - and perhaps the only way she can see it getting better is a complete revolution where the current order is completely overthrown (she had some role models there, after all). And she becomes your sympathetic villain because not only is she doing it for all the right reasons (not for elves long dead, but for elves now) but also because...can you imagine Varric and her seeing one another on opposite sides of a battle? His daisy who wandered into gardens she wasn’t supposed to? Or Isabela? Can you imagine the internal struggle that would play out in Merrill’s mind. She’s a keeper - it’s her job to remember. But does remembering truly equal restoring? Would she convince herself that the collapse of the veil would actually be good for everyone? Would we have scenes where she tries to beg Varric to listen to her? Where she tries to get Fenris to? Hawke? The new protagonist?

Merrill is kind. Being in that position would tear her apart, and I think it would tear her apart in incredibly interesting ways.

I also think she’d be a great final act betrayal for Solas. Because she’s clever, so clever, and I think eventually, she’d realise that what Solas was trying to do was probably going to destroy a lot of elves too, let alone humans. And I think she could be a great dagger in the back for Solas, and a great friend for us in the final part of the game if we chose to let her work with us (maybe similar to Loghain? To get her we have to lose a current companion or something?).

BUT there’s also a lot of worry. All of this, if done, would have to be done with such nuance and tact that I’m not entirely sure they can devote to a secondary character who wouldn’t be around the protagonist much. Like, it couldn’t be like Calpernia, it would have to really show an intense internal Merrill struggle to make me enjoy it and to not, ya know, massacre my favourite character in the entire franchise. Also, its impact would be very tied to how many da2 characters are going to be present. There’s literally no point in doing this if Merrill isn’t going to actually be on the opposite side to her friends, if Varric isn’t going to have an absolute break down about his Daisy, if the new protagonist isn’t going to have the perfect moment to kill her and her weapon is knocked out of her hand by Isabela.

And also...Merrill is our ‘good’ blood mage. I deeply, deeply don’t want that to change. Merrill shows a nuance to magic, shows a perspective that is alien to the chantry in a very sympathetic light. And I think it would be too easy to demonise her. Or like...have what Fenris said about her ‘justifying her need for power’ by killing innocents for their blood come true. Which, I think Merrill as our resident sympathetic blood mage needs to stay away from that - she can’t be the person to sacrifice innocents for magic because a) she cares too much and b) then we have no blood mage left in bioware cannon for us to like - we just have confirmed chantry propaganda about why they’re bad.

And also...I just don’t trust bioware to do it right. Like. I think Merrill cast as bad-guy-on-Solas’s-side would too quickly become someone obsessed with the old order, someone close to Solas. And honestly? Merrill would kick Solas’s ass if she’d been in dai. Like. Solas is incredibly disrespectful to elves! All the time! To the dalish! I couldn’t see Merrill being friends with him at all. She’d find him interesting for about 3 seconds, and then he’d go and say something racist, or something mighter-than-thou and it would totally rub her the wrong way. I think Solas would remind her so much of her Keeper and their circular arguments and the fact that she never listened to Merrill. Which again, could be an interesting dyanamic, but I’m not sure it would have room to breathe that it needed in a video game format. Merrill could reveal how Solas doesn’t actually care about elves, but only about the ghosts of the old elves, and she could do that by being on his side or ours, but the temptation in the writers room to make her Solas’s second in command in an uncomplicated way I think would be pretty high.

Idk. Like. I think it could be good. I would read a fanfiction with this premise that was Merrill centric and explored all these interesting things. But there’s just so many ways it could go horribly wrong that I just. It is my deepest fear for da4. Because I could handle them butching quite a few of the characters, but Merrill is so important to me if they did it wrong I’d be so fucking sad I’d probably struggle to play the game much.

#merrill #da2 #da4 #dragon age #dragon age 2 #solas #dragon age inquisition #dai

67 notes · View notes

merrilldidnothingwrong · 2 years

Text

7. Years.

Hey, folks, back again to discuss DA2′s poorly handled timeskips again. Specifically, I’m here to talk about how much the companions don’t change throughout the game, despite the fact that they should. Because 7 years is a long time. So I’ll talk about some growth I think the companions could have had with a supportive Hawke who also calls them out when they’ve messed up (we don’t talk about rivalry). This’ll be going under a read more, bc it’s going to be long. - Mod Alistair

Varric: We don’t really see too much of Varric as a person, including his flaws, in DA2, so I don’t really have much to say.

Bethany/Carver: These two stand out because they do change and grow, depending on the paths they take in life. Carver’s growth especially is incredible.

Merrill: I would’ve liked to see her more outwardly confidant, and to blossom into the leader she was meant to be, away from Marethari’s abuse. Other than that, no notes, Merrill’s great.

Isabela: Again, no notes. Isabela’s growth with a supportive Hawke is to stop running away and actually return the book, demonstrating how much actual friendships mean to her.

Sebastian: I think growth away from his unhealthy relationship with Elthina would have done him good. Sebastian already had some understanding that the religion he believed in and the religious and political institution he was part of were two very different things. I just wish that understanding could have gone further.

Fenris: Ah, Fenris. Judging change for him is interesting, because he already goes through a lot of growth. I think the only real growth I would want for him is for him to better understand the different political climate of southern Thedas as opposed to Tevinter. Because Fenris is very smart, and if given the chance to reach better understanding of how Tevinter’s problems have nothing to do with magic and everything to do with imperialism, I think he absolutely would have. Would that erase his trauma and discomfort with mages? No, absolutely not. But I honestly can’t see any universe where Fenris understands the above and willingly joins the Templars at the end of the game.

Anders: And here’s the big one. Out of all the companions, Anders is the one who needs the most personal growth. He has a great understanding of the horrors that mages go through, but at the end of the day, he’s human, with all of the human biases. I genuinely think that the foundation of Anders’ growth has to be unlearning his racism, and apologizing to Merrill and Fenris. Especially Fenris. Not just because of racism, but because Anders says some truly horrendous shit to Fenris. Fact of the matter is that Anders is the only mage in the party that Fenris is always locking horns with. He argues with Merrill, but the two of them still manage to get along fairly well. And Fenris is outright civil with Bethany. Anders is the only one who constantly antagonizes Fenris. So, yeah. Anders’ growth all revolves around apologizing for the truly horrible shit he says to Fenris (I’m not grabbing examples because I hate reading their banters), apologizing to Merrill, and unlearning the deep racism that he still has.

Aveline:... What do I even say about Aveline? It’s not like most of the other companions who have some flaws they need to work on, or one big bigotry that needs to be torn out like with Anders. Aveline is just awful to everyone on so many levels. Multiple times she tries to blackmail and threaten Anders, she slutshames Isabela horribly, and I don’t even want to start on how awfully she treats Merrill. Maybe someone else could think of a way, but I personally can’t see any way for Aveline to undergo growth without completely changing who she is.

It’s strange. The DA2 companions argue the most out of all the parties in the games, to a point where they logically shouldn’t after 7 years. In that time, unless in a truly abusive situation, they would have either gone their separate ways, or started getting along better. I do honestly think that the writers forgot that the game takes place over 7 years. So yeah. Merrill and Isabela are great, Varric is Varric, Bethany and Carver already have growth, Sebastian and Fenris have some things to work on, Anders needs to stop being racist and apologize, and Aveline... is Aveline. - Mod Alistair

#dragon age #da2 #sebastian vael #fenris #anders #anders critical #merrill #isabela #anti aveline #bioware critical

52 notes · View notes

katsidhe · 3 years

Text

My Dragon Age II feelings are at critical mass. I shall inflict them upon the internet.

So, I love Fenris and Anders an inordinate amount.

What’s endlessly fascinating to me about Anders and Fenris is that they’re a wonderful example of how similar damage and trauma and even moments of mutual understanding do not necessarily bring people together. I feel as if in many areas of fic especially it is a common narrative thread for traumatized characters who are at odds in canon to have a moment of realization about the others’ hurts, and for that to be something that overcomes ill will to bring them together, with a sense of pity or shared struggle—like, oh, I didn’t realize you were wounded, but now that I do, I will treat you more gently. (I see it a fair amount in SPN fic too, another place where I feel it can be out of place.) and like, I see the appeal. It’s cathartic.

But the whole point of Fenris and Anders is that they are similar people with reasonably similar hurts and traumas, and they KNOW this, and yet they clash so resoundingly anyway!! They can see each others’ open wounds but instead of prompting camaraderie, it just makes them lash out at each other in preemptive self-defense. They aren’t unintelligent, they aren’t miscommunicating: they’re deliberately targeting recognizable weak spots.

It’s a fantastic rivalship. I’m deeply protective of how much they don’t get along in canon—of the ways in which Fenris cannot allow himself to relax the inflexibility of his fury and fresh-built convictions in the face of a mage who would seek to change his mind, because he is struggling so badly to cling to his own sense of identity and injury lest he be eroded. And how Anders cannot permit himself compromise due to both the nature of his possession and how personally he takes Fenris’ position, how much the hypocrisy outrages him.

Any legitimate search for common ground is drowned out by how defensive each of them is. They have opposite arcs, one towards recovery and one away from it: when Fenris and Anders meet, Fenris is far too hostile and afraid to entertain anything like a friendly overture from Anders, and by the time Fenris has mellowed out a bit and gained ground with his own identity in Act 3, Anders/Justice is far too entrenched in the inflexibility of his own principles—far enough he even tries to alienate a friendly Hawke, to say nothing of Fenris.

I think it’s a fantastically complex relationship, and gets even more so when adding in their relationship with Hawke, or Merrill, or Sebastian, or Isabela, or yknow what literally everyone in DAII, I love them all.

#not spn #I ship it black so hard #fenders #fenris #anders #dragon age 2

55 notes · View notes

electricshoebox · 3 years

Text

writing tag

Tagged by the lovely @adventuresofmeghatron, thank you!

Tagging: @junemermaid, @molliehaswords, @desynchimminent, @valkyriejack, and @mercurymiscellany, if you’d like to do it!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

39. Holy shit.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

533,274 words. Holy shit.

3. What are you top 5 fics by kudos?

How to Share a Bed Without Killing Each Other: a Love Story (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, 5 Chapters, Complete) The trials and tribulations of literally sleeping together.

Rivers in the Sand (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) The Hissing Wastes unsettles Bull’s memories, and when he and Dorian are trapped together by a fallen pillar, Dorian helps him deal.

a soft place to land (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) When a letter from his father sets him off, Dorian turns to Bull for a distraction.

Always Good at Bad Ideas (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) Bull gets injured fighting a dragon, which leaves Dorian frantic enough to blurt out the one thing he was trying to keep to himself.

Flashpoint (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dorian/Iron Bull, Oneshot, Complete) “One time he got so excited he set the curtains on fire.”

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, always! I’ve seen various opinions on whether authors should, but to me, engaging with and getting excited with readers is half the fun and half the point. I also just really want people to know how much it means to me not only that they read, but that they take the time to leave a comment. Comments are hard to write. I completely sympathize with that, sometimes you just don’t know what to say or how to say it, and I absolutely don’t begrudge anyone that doesn’t. It just means a lot to me when people do, even when it’s literally just “This was cool!” or something, and I want them to know that it’s appreciated!

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm. I guess that sort of depends on your definition of angsty. None of them have directly tragic endings, it’s just not in me to write that way, but I have one or two with open or less definitely, obviously happy endings. The rarepair DA2 oneshot I wrote for Merrill/Orana, Counting the Cost, has the most open ending, left completely up to interpretation. The Inception AU DAI fic I wrote for Dorian/Bull, In the Shadow of Dreams, has what I think of as an optimistic ending, and less a happy one. I tried to end that one with more romance, but it just didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the fic, so a quiet ending that signals a road to recovery was what I chose instead.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Most all of my oneshots have pretty happy endings. I guess I’m tempted say A Line in the Sand, my Deacon/MacCready start-from-scratch slow burn novel, just because it goes from antagonists to lovers and has the longest road with the most earned happy ending. I feel like the long struggle to get there makes it feel happier.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really. Instead I’m sometimes tempted into AUs based on other media, but not full blown crossovers with actual different characters meeting. Even then, I’m really picky in what I enjoy. I’ve only written one, the Inception AU for Dragon Age that I mentioned above. Honestly, it requires no knowledge of Inception at all. I really just stole a bunch of concepts from it and then made my own modernized Thedas around them.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Thankfully no! I’ve received one or two kind of odd comments, but otherwise I’ve been very lucky and everyone’s been really nice.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Hell yeah! I’ve written many kinds, really, whatever I feel like or whatever fits the fic. I’ve done plenty of your typical smut. I branched out into light BDSM with several of my Dorian/Bull fics, as well as waxplay and praise kink. I’ve also done some roleplay in the vein of “established relationship pretending to be strangers meeting at a bar” for Deacon/MacCready with By Any Other Name.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! Two of my Dorian/Bull fics, Wishing Stars and No Patron Saint of Silent Restraint, both by the same lovely person: landanding on AO3. I don’t think I stopped flailing for a solid day when I got the request for permission either time.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not since pre-AO3 days, beyond collaborating in a tabletop setting. I’m not completely opposed to the idea but it would have to be someone I felt really, really comfortable with and with whom I have really good communication. I’m really particular about my writing, and I’d need to know someone’s emotional comfort level with trading and changing and even eliminating ideas.

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh god that’s honestly really hard. I’ve written the most for Dorian/Bull and that ship will always have a special place in my heart. But I did write my first full-length novel for Deacon/MacCready, and they’ve already got me in the middle of my second. So they’re the ship that taught me I could do that, and they’re my beloved rarepair. There are a few more I absolutely love, but I think those are my top two right now.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Definitely Uprising. It was the first time I tried longform fic, and it was meant to be an entire retelling of DA2 with Velanna as the Justice-bearing character, rather than Anders, because after learning the developers almost took DA2 in that direction, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had a lot of plans for it, for how Justice might develop differently, for what it might have looked like if elves had been more of the battleground issue instead of mages vs. templars, for some angsty bittersweet long distance Nathaniel/Velanna and some complicated Fenris/Hawke and Merrill/Orana. But I drifted away from Dragon Age fandom in interest a long time ago, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get the steam back for it. I’m proud of how far I did get, though.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I feel pretty confident with dialogue, I can usually make a scene flow with it pretty well and I spend a lot of time trying to be meticulous about character voice. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on my descriptions, which I appreciate and wouldn’t have considered a strength, but my readers have been kind. I think I’m pretty good at including body language, too, though maybe to a fault.

16. What are you writing weaknesses?

Much as people have been kind on the feedback, I really feel like action scenes are a weakness for me. I don’t enjoy writing them and I struggle a lot to make them feel like they’re flowing over just bulletpointing. I also feel like I struggle to make them exciting. I feel like I struggle with exposition scenes as well, and keeping them interesting over info-dumping.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I’m generally in favor of including them, but with the caution of doing thorough research if it’s not a language I speak. I shy away from it if I can’t be completely sure it’s accurate, because I don’t want to risk putting off a native speaker reader, or saying/doing something offensive. I’d expand that to include anything about another culture, really. For example, I’ve been slowly picking away at writing a Fallout fic for my Sole Survivor Anthony and Preston, and part of what has been slow going is just making sure I’m getting Anthony’s culture right. His parents immigrated from Vietnam, and I want his experiences with them and with his culture to be as accurate and respectful as possible, not falling into any stereotypes but also being allowed to be complicated.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Depends on what we’re measuring. The first fandom I ever wrote fic for of any kind was Sailor Moon. The first fandom I actually put fic on the internet for was Lord of the Rings, on good old fanfiction.net. The first fandom I published on AO3 for was Dragon Age.

19. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

God this is such a hard question to answer, my feelings on my writing change so often. I think it’s hard for A Line in the Sand not to be my favorite for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, it’s my first successful novel-length fic, I accomplished a lot with it and learned a lot from it, and it’s a rarepair I got to kind of develop from scratch in my own way.

But if I look back at my whole repertoire so far, just to branch out from the usual answer, I’d say I’m also really fond of To Have and to Hold, which was the first time I ever participated in a minibang, or really any kind of writing challenge. It’s a Dorian/Bull established relationship fic set during Trespasser, and it’s kind of a meditation on Dorian’s past and present and how they’ve shaped his feelings on love and commitment and marriage, all while he’s trying to decide his future. I’m proud of how it came out, and I think my Dorian voice still holds up okay. Plus I had two incredible artists working with me who put together stunning work for it, and how could I not be super grateful for that?

It’s funny, most of the top ones up there for kudos are ones that I don’t personally think are my best, it’s a lot of my very early offerings for Dorian/Bull that I think I could improve on a lot of if I tackled them now. I’m grateful people like them but I feel like they’re more an accident of timing, being published early in the ship’s popularity.

#writing tag #writing memes #my writing

8 notes · View notes

flowers-for-elgarnan · 4 years

Text

One simple thing I want from Bioware in the next Dragon Age games (lol good luck): Better masc bisexual representation. Although there are several canonically bisexual/pansexual dudes in the franchise, one thing that has struck me since I first started playing the games (as a bi/queer man IRL) is that all of these characters only make comments about their attraction to other men if 1. your PC is masc and 2. you are flirting with them.

Examples: - Iron Bull only ever makes ambient comments about hot ladies, with the one exception I can think of being if he’s in your party when you first meet Dorian (calling him pretty) - Zevran (and I think Bull too, but correct me if I’m wrong) specifically states a preference for women -- which obviously doesn’t negate his bisexuality, but compiled with the rest of the representation in the game makes it feel a bit ‘meh’ (especially if I’m correctly remembering that Bull states a similar preference) - I also feel like I remember both of them stating this preference for women during flirtatious conversations with a somewhat begrudging admission to their attraction to masc folks (but maybe I’m misremembering or just projecting here) - Anders only mentions that he and Karl were together and that he’s had relationship with men in the past if you play a masc Hawke who flirts with him, otherwise it never comes up Obviously, all of these characters can still fall in love and show deep devotion to a masc protag, and, as I said, one doesn’t have to be equally attracted to all genders at all times to be bi/pan, but I still feel like there is a mis- or under-representation of bi/pan men here that the female bi/pan npcs don’t suffer from. Like, Isabela and Leliana are both quite open in their attraction to fem people, both in and out of conversation, while (to my knowledge) neither Merrill nor Josephine (nor Fenris, for that matter) show any particular preference in any direction. I dunno, I just want it to feel okay for men and masc people to express true attraction to other masc people just as much as they are allowed to express attraction to fem people -- and I want it to happen in Dragon Age. Is that so much to ask?

#bisexuality is real ok #dragon age #meta #does this count as meta?#thoughts and feels #bisexual representation #pansexual representation #zevran #anders #iron bull

71 notes · View notes

lesetoilesfous · 4 years

Note

"Accidentally Witnessed kiss" prompt for fenris/merrill? 😳 i love your writing sm!

Hey! Sorry this one took so long, but I hope you enjoy!! And thank you so much for the prompt and the compliment!! <3

(If you’d like me to write you a da2 fic, send me a prompt from here!) @dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Fenris/Merrill

Characters: Fenris, Merrill

Tags: what even is a timeline

Rating: Teen and Up

Fenris hates the Wounded Coast. He hates it for several reasons. He hates the taste of fish, that permeates the air so thickly he can taste the slimy beasts on his tongue every time he breathes. He hates the damp, humid heat and the midges it draws with it. He hates how much harder it is to run through the sandy dunes, and he hates how it reminds him of the sand-filled arenas built in Minrathous for the Provings. Most of all he hates how damnably, incessantly nonsensical the place is. It’s like walking into a rabbit warren built by a madman, designed to confuse and infuriate him. It’s like getting lost in the blighted Fade.

Take now, for example. He’d thought he could steal a moment with the witch alone. Merrill was at her most handsome, in Fenris’ opinion, when she was breathless and windswept after a battle - face fierce with anger and quiet courage. She looked like an old hero: standing framed by the bright blue sky, green eyes blazing, chin held high in defiance of her enemies.

But Fenris had asked that they keep their relationship private for now (mostly to avoid the undoubtedly endless teasing he’d receive from the abomination and Isabela). So he couldn’t simply stride forwards and kiss that fury from Merrill’s lips the way he wanted to.

Instead he had waited. For hours. Until at last Hawke had tired of puling old clothes from broken chests rusted by the salty air and declared that it was time for them to set up camp. Merrill’s eyes had strayed across the dunes and brightened as they settled on something, and she’d gasped “Spindleweed!”

The witch had hurried away after her herbs and, after a moment to check that no one was following him, Fenris had gone after her.

She’d been crouched in front of the herb when he found her, carefully extricating it from the sand in an effort to keep its roots in tact. Fenris had watched her quietly until she was done, and then he’d cleared his throat. For all her ferocity, Merrill still jumped like a frightened halla when she was surprised, and Fenris tried to contain his amusement - even as she whirled on him.

“Lethallin! Don’t do that! You nearly scared me out of my skin.”

Fenris hums, stepping closer and lifting his fingers to run along her bare arms. They’ve grown warm in the sun. “I think it would take much more than that to scare you, love.”

Merrill flushes pink, and for all that she’s trying to frown, a smile quivers at the corners of her lips. When she looks up at him, her dark green eyes are bright. “Maybe. What are you -”

Fenris answers her question with a kiss, and feels Merrill smile against him as she lifts her arms to wind them about his neck. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and folds his arms around the small of her back, pulling her closer. Merrill sighs, happily, and for a moment everything is perfect.

Then Isabela wolf whistles, loudly.

Fenris and Merrill jump apart, both flushed, Fenris’ lips tingling from their kiss. Merrill is going from pink to red, even as Isabela arches an eyebrow at them from another entrance to the clearing that Fenris could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Don’t worry, kittens. I won’t tell a soul.” Isabela gives them a wicked grin. Fenris doesn’t believe her for a moment. The pirate turns and walks away, humming, hips swaying as she goes. Fenris glares at her as she does.

He hates the Wounded Coast.

#dadwc #asexuelf #fenris #merrill #da2 #my fic #da2 fic

20 notes · View notes

pikapeppa · 5 years

Text

Fenris/f!Hawke smut: A Proper Dinner Party For Adults

Okay. This was just an excuse to write some canon-universe PWP from Rynne Hawke’s POV. It’s set a few weeks after Rynne and Fenris finally reunite in Act 3. You know those first few weeks/months in a new relationship when you’re so crazy about your partner and all you want to do is have sex constantly? Yeah, that.

For @dadrunkwriting Friday. NSFW. ~6300 words. Read here on AO3 instead.

*********************

Rynne was horny.

This in itself wasn’t a surprise. Rynne had always been a lusty sort of girl, and harbouring several years’ worth of unrequited passion for an unavailable man only seemed to have reinforced her urges.

But she and Fenris had been together for almost three weeks now, and they’d been fucking at least twice a day ever since. With how much time they’d been spending twisted together in bed, Rynne thought the constant itch would have lessened a bit by now.

Instead, the opposite seemed to have happened. Instead of a rose-coloured memory of a single blissful night gone wrong, Rynne now had several weeks’ worth of memories of Fenris’s hands on her body. She knew exactly how well his elegant fingers could push her to her peak and just how beautifully his face could twist when he was finding his pleasure. She knew the exact scent that his sweat-laced body left on the bed, and in those moments when he left the bed to fetch a drink or to use the bathroom, Rynne would shamelessly bury her face in his pillow for the sheer pleasure of enjoying the sweet sleepy smell of his hair marking her sheets.

She couldn’t stop marvelling at how gorgeous he looked all naked and sated in her rumpled bed. She couldn’t get over the faintly bitter taste of his climax as it flowed down her throat. Rynne was useless, besotted, completely tied around his lyrium-lined little finger, and if she could have it her way, she and Fenris would stay hidden away in her bedroom fucking each other’s brains out for the foreseeable future, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, Rynne couldn’t have it her way. Orsino and Meredith had each sent a messenger to her house this morning, and when she finally dragged her cranky ass down the stairs, it was to find a frankly alarming pile of letters on her writing desk.

She wrinkled her nose and turned to Orana, who was hovering at her elbow with a cup of tea. “I have a brilliant idea. Let’s start throwing these straight in the fireplace from now on.”

Orana’s jaw dropped in shock. “A-are you sure, Mistress Hawke?”

“It’s just Hawke, Orana,” Rynne said absently. “And yes, I’m sure. I’m almost certain that none of them are important.” She picked up a letter at random. “Look at this one, for example. It’s… oh, it’s from the bank. Never mind.” She gave Orana a sickly smile. “Letters stay on the table, I suppose.”

“If you say so,” Orana said cautiously. She gave Rynne the tea and hurried away.

Rynne sighed and gingerly sipped the steaming tea. She listlessly started sorting the letters by importance, and she was trying to wrack up the courage to open the one from the bank when Fenris’s voice drifted down the stairs.

“Sorting your mail, are you?” he said. “That’s very responsible.” He joined her at the desk and picked up her cup of tea.

She bit her lip. Fenris was standing just behind her, not quite touching but close enough to touch if she leaned back just a little bit. His lovely sexy voice was warm with humour, and his beautiful emerald eyes were smiling at her over the rim of the cup.

Maker’s balls, she wanted to go back upstairs. Could they go back upstairs? Wasn’t it enough that she’d sorted the mail? She didn’t need to actually read it, did she?

He quirked one eyebrow at her lack of reply, and she forced herself to breathe. “How dare you imply I’m anything less than responsible?” she quipped. “I am the epitome of responsible. Just ask Carver.”

He scoffed and set down the cup. “You don’t really want me to ask Carver.”

Rynne mock-pouted at him. “Of course I don’t. Now you’ve gone and called my bluff.”

He chuckled, and Rynne swallowed hard. The sound of Fenris’s laugh had always made her heart skip a beat, but now she knew that laugh in a different context. She knew it as a purr against her ear when she was begging for his touch, and she knew the irresistible breathless chuckle that he preserved for the tender moments of their afterglow. His laugh was ruined now, ruined in the most wonderful possible way, and Rynne wasn’t sure she could hear it anymore without immediately wanting to strip off her clothes.

“What?” he said. He rubbed his nose. “Is there something on my face?”

Oh balls, she’d been staring at him. She quickly shot him a coy smile. “There sure is,” she said, and she popped up onto her tiptoes and planted a noisy kiss on his lips. “Now come on, let’s go to the market and see how my most terrible investment is panning out.”

He clicked his tongue as they made their way toward the door. “I can’t understand why you don’t sell your shares on the Bone Pit back to Hubert. That cursed place reeks of death.”

She playfully chucked his chin. “Aw, you don’t enjoy our little day trips out there?”

He raised one eyebrow as they made their way through the bustling Hightown street. “I never have. You know that.”

“And yet you always come with me anyway,” she said shrewdly.

He shrugged. “I enjoy following you.”

Rynne stopped and gaped at him. Had he really just said something so bold? And in public, no less?

He smirked at her, and the sly look on his face was just… it was too much. She was already struggling to keep her hands off of him, and now he was smirking at her like he knew exactly what she was thinking, and she couldn’t help it: she burst into laughter.

She laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop fucking laughing, and soon Fenris was smiling too, but in a bemused sort of way. “Was it that funny?” he asked.

“No, no,” she gasped. “Not funny, I – I loved it. I’m not really laughing-laughing, I just…” She took a deep and shaky breath, then looked him in the face. “Oh fuck it, let’s go back to the house.”

His eyebrows leapt up. “Wha– why? We only just left.”

She took a step closer to him and grabbed his chestplate. “Because Fenris, I just want to–”

“Hawke.”

At the sound of Aveline’s voice, Fenris stepped slightly away from her – much to Rynne’s disappointment. She shot him a wry look, then turned to Aveline with a smile. “Av! What brings you to this dreadfully fancy part of town? Have the Coterie managed to purchase a mansion hideout in the heart of Hightown?”

“No. Report of a robbery, and I’m shortstaffed,” Aveline said briskly. “But I’m glad I caught you. Did you get my letter?”

Rynne raised her eyebrows. “Letter? What letter?”

Aveline gave her a reproving look. “I sent you an invitation a week ago.”

Rynne stared at her in growing confusion. “An invitation to what?” She grimaced. “Please tell me it isn’t some fancy political dinner thing. I can only stomach so many pleasantries before I want to jam a corkscrew into my own eye.”

Beside her, Fenris let out a tiny cough. Aveline, meanwhile, was frowning more deeply by the second. “Donnic and I are hosting a dinner party,” she said.

“Why?” Rynne asked.

Fenris snorted softly, and Rynne grinned at him. This, of course, turned out to be a mistake; Fenris was smirking again, and Rynne adored his smirk and all the heat it contained, and all she really wanted to do was kiss those smirking lips of his–

Aveline’s reply regained Rynne’s flagging attention. “Because – well, because we thought it would be nice,” she said defensively. “You lot are always going to the Hanged Man, and you know how it looks for me to be seen there, Hawke. And I know your mansion is bigger, but Donnic and I have a perfectly nice home as part of the City Guard allowance…”

Damn, Rynne thought. She hadn’t meant to hurt Aveline’s feelings. “Of course, of course it’s a nice idea!” she said hurriedly. “It’s a lovely idea, Aveline, we’ll be happy to come! When is it?”

“Tonight,” Aveline said flatly.

Double fucking damn, Rynne thought desperately. She didn’t want to go to a dinner party tonight. The only thing she wanted to eat these days was Fenris’s cock.

She forced herself to maintain a bright smile. “Tonight! Fantastic! That’s great!” she said.

Thankfully, Fenris stepped in and saved her from her own over-enthusiasm. “Shall we bring anything?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you, Fenris,” Aveline said somewhat pointedly. “You can bring a side dish. Donnic is making roast beef and potatoes. Varric and Sebastian are bringing sides as well, and Anders is bringing wine. Merrill said she’d bring something for dessert.”

“I’ll bring my famous punch,” Rynne offered.

“No,” Aveline said firmly. “Your punch is not invited.”

Rynne gazed at her in genuine surprise. “What? Why not? What kind of party is this without punch?”

“A proper dinner party for adults, Hawke,” Aveline said. “Which we all are, in case you needed reminding.”

Fenris turned away and scratched his nose, and Rynne couldn’t look at him. If she did, she’d either start laughing again or she’d say something filthy, and Aveline’s opinion of her was clearly dropping with every passing moment.

Rynne waved dismissively. “Of course! That makes sense. Adult dinner party, Donnic’s lovely cooking, Merrill’s cake. It sounds wonderful. We’ll be there!” She nodded pertly.

Aveline eyed her suspiciously, then nodded and stepped away. “Come for five o’clock. And don’t be late.”

Rynne blinked innocently. “Me, be late? Never!” She saluted Aveline. “Guard-Captain.”

Aveline gave her a tiny smile, then waved and walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, Fenris leaned in close to Rynne’s ear. “A party without punch? I wonder whether you’ll survive the night.”

She shivered. His lovely voice was quiet but laced with laughter, and the mere sound of it sent a pulse of heat down her throat and into the base of her belly.

She turned and stepped close to him. “The real question is how I’m going to survive a night of sitting next to you and not being able to stroke that lovely cock of yours.”

He scoffed and ran a hand through his hair, then darted a quick look around the street. “Kaffas, Hawke. You will make me blush.”

She smiled slowly. “Can you show me?”

His eyebrows rose. “Show you what? My… blushing?”

“Yes,” she purred. “Every last blushing inch of you.” She leaned into his chest and curled her fingers against his abdomen.

She waited eagerly as his face shifted from surprise to something much more heated. She lifted her chin in invitation, then watched avidly as the tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his lips.

“What about Hubert and the Bone Pit?” he asked. His voice was quiet: an intimate near-whisper, like the kind of voice he would use while murmuring to her in bed.

She pressed herself more firmly against his chest. “Fuck Hubert and the Bone Pit,” she breathed. “Actually, I take that back. I’d much rather fuck you.”

His eyes darted up to meet hers, and Rynne stared breathlessly at him. Then he placed his hand on her hip.

Her breath left her in a sharp sigh. It was so innocuous, really: just the touch of his hand – the mere resting of his palm on her hip. It shouldn’t be affecting her this way; it shouldn’t be raising the pulse at her throat or bringing a thrill to life between her legs. It was just his hand, after all. She’d been groped more firmly than this during the first ten seconds of stepping into the Hanged Man.

But this wasn’t some random smelly drunk; this was Fenris. This was Fenris’s hand on her hip while they were standing in public. Public touching – or any touching outside of the bedroom, really – was something he was still getting used to. But here he was, touching her in public, placing his hand on her body in an affectionate matter right here in the middle of the street…

Rynne was so fucking thrilled that she almost leapt on him on the spot.

He tilted his face closer to hers, and she stopped breathing altogether. “Back to your house it is, then,” he whispered.

She pulled in a breath, then beamed at him. “Good,” she murmured. “That’s all I really wanted, anyway.”

Two minutes later, they were back in her mansion. Five minutes after that, they were naked in her bed. Fenris was pressing her hands into the mattress while his cock slid through the creamy heat between her legs, and Rynne was staring at his parted and panting lips in a deliriously happy haze.

Well, at least she’d tried to leave the house today. That had to count for something, right?

****************

Later that evening, Rynne scuffed her feet sheepishly as she and Fenris walked away from Aveline’s house.

She glanced sideways at Fenris and chewed her lip uncertainly. His expression was very neutral, and he hadn’t said a word since Aveline had told them in exasperation to go home.

The evening had started out well enough. She and Fenris had had sex twice that afternoon in addition to their usual morning fuck, and by the time they’d arrived at Aveline’s house fifteen minutes late – very good by Rynne’s standards – she was feeling quite confident that she’d be able to make it through the evening without getting overly, er, distracted.

Everyone had seemed pretty stilted when Rynne and Fenris first walked in – not surprising to Rynne, given Aveline’s agenda of a so-called ‘adult party’. So Rynne had provided a little social lubrication by picking a topic at random to talk about. “Did you all notice it’s a full moon?” she said cheerfully. “Funnily enough, this is the best time to pick blood lotus. The moonlight brings out its aphrodisiac properties.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

Merrill blinked. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

Rynne winked at her. “It’s a useful tip, that. Store it away for later.”

Merrill tittered, but Aveline sighed. “You and that pirate wench. It’s always got to be something dirty with you two, hasn’t it?”

Rynne widened her eyes. “Why Aveline, I didn’t know you saw potion-making as a kink.”

Anders and Merrill laughed, and Aveline rolled her eyes. Then Fenris spoke up, and in Rynne’s opinion, that was where the trouble began.

“We could talk about religion or politics,” he said. “Those topics are never controversial.”

His tone was very dry and extremely appealing, and Rynne gazed dreamily at the tiny hint of a smirk on his lips.

Sebastian tutted playfully. “Are you looking to start a war in Aveline’s house?” he said to Fenris.

Anders huffed. “Maybe we should talk about magic while we’re at it. That’ll really start a war.”

To Rynne’s surprise and delight, Fenris didn’t rise to the obvious bait; instead, he leaned back on the couch and swirled his wine glass. “And maybe you should bring finer wine next time you’re invited to someone’s home.”

There was a general ooh of appreciation at Fenris’s remark, and Varric smirked at Anders. “Better find yourself some elfroot for that burn, Blondie.”

Merrill blinked at her glass. “Is the wine bad? I didn’t notice.”

Donnic eyed his glass apprehensively. “It does smell a little off. Where did you say you got this, Anders?”

They continued to tease Anders about the wine, and Rynne tried to pay attention and join in like she usually did, but her attention kept drifting back to Fenris.

He wasn’t even doing anything provocative, for fuck’s sake. But Rynne’s enamoured brain couldn’t stop translating his every move into something more erotic. Every time his fingers ran along the stem of his wine glass, she couldn’t help but imagine those fingers trailing softly along the line of her throat. When he lifted the glass to his lips, all she could think about was the feel of his lips caressing the heat between her legs. He smiled at something Varric said, and all she could see was the tender curl of his smile as he pushed her down on the bed and crawled onto the mattress to join her.

Rynne tried to be a good guest at Aveline’s dinner party. She made clever comments when the others spoke to her, and she laughed when everyone else was laughing, but she couldn’t stop watching Fenris. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth when he was speaking, and she couldn’t stop thinking about those evocatively gesturing hands stroking her skin. When he ran his hand absently through his hair, she couldn’t stop imagining her own fingers sinking into his soft snow-white hair as he dragged his teeth over her nipple–

“Can we go home and fuck now?” she asked him.

His head whipped up in surprise – in all fairness, everyone’s heads whipped up at her words – and Rynne instantly wanted to punch herself. Fuck, fuck, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Aveline pinched the bridge of her nose. “Hawke, in the name of all that’s holy…”

She grimaced, but it wasn’t really Aveline’s reaction she was concerned about; it was Fenris’s. He was staring at her in silence, and his eyes were wide with surprise, and Rynne was feeling guiltier by the second. It was one thing to make playful lewd comments to Fenris when they were just friends and she could hide it under the guise of flirting with everyone, but things were different now. She and Fenris were together now – blissfully, wonderfully together – and their relationship wasn’t a secret by any means, but Fenris was so private about his personal matters.

She waited in agony for him to react. When he didn’t, she turned to Aveline with a smile. “So! That new guard rotation you put in place the other day. That’s sounding very, er, fascinating. Can you tell me–”

Aveline sighed loudly. “Just go, all right?

Rynne raised her eyebrows. “Eh?”

“Go home,” Aveline commanded. She shot Fenris a stern look. “You too. We’ll try this again when you’re ready to be mature adults.”

And that was how Rynne and Fenris were unceremoniously evicted from Aveline’s dinner party.

Rynne eyed him nervously as they made their way back to her mansion. He hadn’t spoken a word since her lusty exclamation, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of his silence. She knew he wasn’t mad, per se; when Fenris was mad, he made sure she knew it. But that somehow only made his quiet all the more unnerving.

There was nothing for it. If he wasn’t going to talk, then Rynne certainly was. “I hope you weren’t hungry,” she said. “Donnic’s cooking really did smell good. You remember how bad a cook he was when he and Aveline first started dating? Funny how married life seems to have turned him into a real domestic sort.”

Fenris nodded, but still didn’t speak. Rynne swallowed hard, then smiled at him more brightly still. “I don’t know about you, but I still remember that pie he made that one time for your weekly card game. You remember the one? It had blueberries and blue cheese in it for some unholy reason–”

He suddenly grabbed her arm. She squeaked in surprise, but before she could ask what was wrong, he was hustling her into the nearest alley.

He trapped her against the dirty stone wall. “Stop talking,” he grunted.

She stared breathlessly at him. If this was any other context, she’d be delighted at the thought of being penned between Fenris’s lovely lean body and the wall. But his face was creased into a scowl and his chest was rising and falling quite heavily – oh no, was he mad at her after all?

She grimaced. “Fuck. Am I in trouble?”

“Yes,” he said. Then he shook his head roughly. “No. I… I’m…” He took a deep breath, then he surged forward and kissed her.

She instantly arched toward him. Her eager lips parted for him, and a shameless moan escaped her throat before he muffled it with his wine-flavoured tongue.

And his hands – Maker fucking save her: his hands were sliding down the small of her back to cradle her ass. Rynne tilted her pelvis toward him in a desperate bid for contact, and to her utter delight, Fenris pulled her closer with his hands on her ass. He pressed his hips into hers, and she broke their desperate kiss with a gasp as his hard bulge pressed against the vee of her thighs.

She swallowed convulsively before speaking. “So… so it seems I’m not the only dirty-minded idiot who’s preoccupied by the thought of us being naked and sweaty–”

“Shut up, Hawke,” he groaned. He nipped her lower lip, drawing another tiny gasp from her throat, then kissed her again and pushed his knee between her legs.

Rynne broke from his mouth and dragged in a tremulous breath. Her hips were already rocking forward to meet his thigh, and his face was still twisted in a beautiful lustful scowl, and… Maker’s fucking balls, it would take another ten minutes for them to get home. A whole ten torturous minutes…

“Fenris,” she whimpered.

He brushed his thumb over her lips. “Stop talking,” he whispered. “I can’t think when you are talking. I can’t… I can think of nothing but this.” He pulled her more firmly against his thigh.

Rynne pressed her lips together hard to quell another moan. Frankly, she was relieved by his admission. He was so well-behaved in public that she’d been half-worried that she was alone in her obsessive thoughts.

She clasped his neck in her hands. “Me neither,” she breathed. “I can’t think of anything else either. I want you all the time, and everything you do turns me on–”

“Rynne,” he begged. “Stop. Talking.” He kissed her once more, and Rynne happily submitted to his lips and his hands on her neck and her butt – no, not her butt anymore, but travelling over her hip and up to her waist, and – and higher…?

His thumb stroked the edge of her bustier beneath her shirt, and it was too much: his hands over her clothes when she just wanted them stroking her skin? The tempting hint of heat from his palms, separated from her skin by the offensive barrier of her shirt? It was a waste, a waste of his hands and all the ways they could make her come undone, and she’d waited long enough.

She dragged her lips away from his and arched her chest toward him. “Fuck me,” she whimpered.

He exhaled hard. “Hawke…”

“Please, Fenris, fuck me,” she begged. She reached down and clumsily started unlacing her trousers.

He grabbed her hands. “Stop,” he hissed. “Not here.”

“Please,” she whispered. “A quick one now, and when we get home I’ll treat you real nice, I promise.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, then let out a little laugh. “Festis bei umo canavarum,” he muttered. “You’re irrepressible.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘insatiable’,” she purred, and she trailed her fingers down his chest.

He grabbed her hand again. “Come,” he said, and he pulled her out of the alley.

His bare feet were silent as they ran, leaving Rynne to hear the full cacophony of her own harsh breathing and her heart pounding in her ears. They pelted back to her house without talking, and by the time Rynne was shoving her key into the lock, she was so out of breath she nearly couldn’t speak.

She wrestled the door open and stumbled inside. Fenris shut the door behind her and locked it, and before she had a chance to do more than take a breath, he was walking her backwards with those strong elegant hands of his on her hips.

Fenris crowded her against the wall once more, and Rynne stared at him as she tried to catch her breath. There was a light glow of sweat on his nose, and his lips were parted as he fought for breath.

She reached up and started unlacing her shirt. “You’re fond of this wall, aren’t you?”

His eyes flicked from her fingers up to her eyes. “Pardon?”

“This wall,” she said with a cheeky smile. “This was where you first kissed me. Remember?”

He exhaled slowly. “Of course I remember,” he said. “I could never forget.”

Rynne grinned and finished loosening the laces of her shirt. Fenris gently pushed her hand aside and parted the neckline of her shirt, and when he ran his fingers lightly over the swell of her breast, she shuddered in anticipation. But then he spoke, and his words were serious and soft.

“This is not like before,” he said. “You are aware of that?”

She glanced at him. His expression was tender and a little bit melancholy. “What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.

He tipped her chin up and looked her in the eye. “Everything that transpires between us now. It… it is not like before.” He licked his lips slowly. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t thinking before. I came to you without thinking, and I wasn’t ready. But now…” He exhaled once more, then suddenly pressed himself against her.

He clasped her neck in both hands, and Rynne melted shamelessly into his body. He brushed her nose with his, then drifted his lips over her ear.

“Now this is all I think about,” he whispered. “Stripping you bare, laying with you, the touch of your lips on mine, it’s… it is all I want, Hawke.” He stroked her neck with his thumbs. “If I could go back and show myself all that I was missing by forgoing all those years with you…”

Her swollen heart was pounding with adoration now rather than exertion. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around him. “Your turn to shut up now,” she said. “No regrets, Fenris. Don’t think about before. Just be here with me now.”

“I am,” he murmured. “I am right here.” He stroked her neck, then ran his knuckles over the swell of her breast, and Rynne panted fitfully as his fingers moved closer to the edge of the bustier cup without dipping inside.

He lowered his head and dropped the softest kiss on her breast, and Rynne snapped. She roughly untucked her shirt and pulled it over her head, then threw it on the floor. “Fuck me,” she begged. “Please, Fenris, I’ve been waiting long enough–”

He lifted her up abruptly, and Rynne hastily grabbed his shoulders as he walked them toward the stairs. A few seconds later, he shoved open her bedroom door and tossed her on the bed.

“Take off your clothes,” he said. He turned away to close the bedroom door.

Rynne eagerly obeyed his command, kicking off her slippers and fumbling with her trouser laces at the same time. “So bossy,” she purred. “I’ll listen to that bossy tone anytime.”

He turned back to her with a smirk and sauntered toward the bed. “Says the woman who has been making carnal demands of me all day.”

She grinned at him. “If you don’t like my carnal demands, maybe you shouldn’t keep fulfilling them so well.” She lifted her hips and roughly pushed her trousers down, then hooked her thumbs into her smalls, but before she could tug them down as well, Fenris took her hands in his.

He pushed her hands aside and brushed his fingers over the damp fabric between her legs. A bolt of pleasure ran straight from the apex her thighs up to her throat, and she released it in a gasp of want. “Please,” she begged. “Touch me.”

Fenris hummed thoughtfully. “More demands,” he mused. He carefully pulled the crotch of her smallclothes aside and smoothed his fingers through her slippery warmth.

She tensed and jerked her hips. His touch was so fucking gentle, just a light and careful petting of his elegant fingers, and every delicate pass of his fingertips seemed to lift the needy buzzing between her legs to an even higher pitch.

“Fenris, please,” she begged. “I want more.”

He chuckled – Maker save her from that beautiful laugh – then kneeled at the foot of the bed. “I’m doing as you asked,” he said. “I am touching you.”

She burst out a breathless laugh. “You horrible tease.”

He continued to pet her with a light and gentle touch. “Persuade me, Hawke. You’re very good at that.”

He was smirking again, and he sounded so damned cocksure and smug. It would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so desperate.

She sat up on her elbows and looked him in the eye. “I am hungry for you, Fenris,” she said baldly. “I don’t just want you. I fucking need you. I need you inside of me and touching me, and I swear I’m going to fucking fall apart if you don’t put those gorgeous hands–”

He pulled her smallclothes off and slicked his tongue between her legs. Rynne broke off with a cry of rapture, and Fenris ran his tongue along her flesh and up to the rapidly beating pulse point at the apex of her thighs.

Then his hands were moving too, smoothing along the insides of her thighs in a tender caress that complemented the torrid stroke of his tongue, and Rynne undulated toward him in a wordless bid for more. It all felt so fucking good, his mouth between her legs and his fingers gripping her thigh while his other hand slid up to rest on her belly, and it didn’t matter that she and Fenris had just finished doing this a few hours ago. It didn’t matter that the muscles of her inner thighs were perpetually sore from how often they’d been having sex. No matter how many times she had him, she always wanted more.

That was the problem with Fenris: he was everything, everything Rynne had been wanting for so many years. And now that she had him here, with that smile and that fine lean body and that fucking laugh that she loved so much, she couldn’t get enough.

He carefully lapped her clit and curled his fingers inside of her, and her climax tore through her body in a rapturous shiver. She spread her legs wide and cried out, her hips rolling toward his face as though to steal every last scrap of pleasure that his skillful tongue could provide, and when the tips of her toes were numb from the strength of her climax, she lowered her hips to the bed and sat up.

“Get naked,” she panted. “Right now.” Fenris was still fully clothed, and in Rynne’s opinion, covering that gorgeous body with clothes was a crime.

He wiped his face on her thigh and rose to his feet, then started shedding his clothes. “I should tell you to do the same,” he said, and he shot a pointed look at her bustier.

She grinned and started untying the laces on her bustier. By the time the bustier was discarded by the bed, Fenris was bare from the waist up.

Rynne shamelessly studied the lean muscles of his tattooed back as he pushed his leggings down. His cock was standing at attention, and when he turned to face her, a rush of saliva filled her mouth at the perfect sight.

She rolled onto her side and beckoned him close. He smirked at her as he approached the bed. “All right. Now what demands–”

She hooked her hand around his thigh and pulled him closer, then took his cock into her mouth. He gasped in shock, and his hand rose to cup her cheek.

She reluctantly released him to meet his eye. “Is this all right?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” he rasped. “Yes, of – yes, I want it. You just – you took me by surprise.”

She smiled. “I told you I was hungry,” she said, and she took him into her mouth once more.

He groaned and sank his fingers into her hair, and Rynne closed her eyes to better savour the feel of him sliding across her hard palate toward her throat. She angled her head to take him deeper and listened carefully to the quality of his breathing, eager to give him the same amount of pleasure that he’d given to her.

He moaned and pumped his hips slightly, and a thrill of vicarious pleasure rippled through her chest. She curled her hips toward him by instinct, conditioned and cued by the sound of his pleasure.

Then she gasped in surprise. His hand was pushing her thighs apart, and then his finger was sliding inside of her.

She moaned helplessly around his cock. He was curling his finger inside of her, coaxing her eagerness forth with a slow come-hither motion, and within seconds, Rynne was thrusting toward his hand with rising desperation.

It was too much and not enough. It felt so damned good, but she wanted more. His fingers were filling her pussy and his cock was filling her throat, but she needed more. She needed him, all of him, his body flush to hers and his skin sliding hot and sweaty against her own. She needed his gasping voice in her ear and his adoring kiss on her lips and his careful stroking hands, and she needed him to fill her up until she was complete.

She pushed his hand away and sat back on her knees, then dragged him onto the bed. “Hold me,” she whimpered.

“Yes,” he breathed. His hands were everywhere now, tracing the edge of her jaw, sliding through her hair and down to her neck, fondling her breast and thumbing her nipple, encircling her waist as he pulled her onto his lap to straddle him…

He pulled her firmly onto the length of his cock. A wave of sheer, perfect pleasure fanned out through her thighs and up through her belly, and she cried out in ecstasy.

He dropped his gasping lips to her breast. He was supporting himself with one arm, but his other arm was tight around her waist as he pumped his hips to fill her up. His skin was just as heated and sweat-laced as she had hoped, and he was so…

Fuck it, he really was everything. He was the only lover who had ever made her feel this much before. There was no one like him, no one she could ever imagine filling her body and her heart in this exquisite way, and there was only one reason for that: Fenris was the love of her life.

And that, she realized, was why their sex felt so fucking good. Every time they came together, every time their clothes fell away as they fell into bed, it was more than just a frenzied expression of lust. It was more than just an exchange of pleasure. It was an encounter of two bodies that ran to the same rhythm and two hearts that pulsed to the same dizzying beat of love. Fenris was the man of her dreams, the man she’d dreamed of for years and the man who held her close when her dreams were too difficult to bear, and he was the only person she would ever love this much for as long as she lived.

They moved together with increasing urgency, his hands gripping her body and her fingers tightening in his hair as she rode him at a furious rhythm, and when Fenris gasped in climax, she hugged him tightly and savoured every fitful shudder that rippled across his skin.

Once his body had gone still with relaxation, he lifted his face from her chest and smiled, and Rynne smiled helplessly back at him. She brushed his damp hair away from his face. “I know why Aveline really kicked us out,” she said.

Fenris huffed in amusement. “I thought her reason was pretty clear.”

Rynne smiled more widely. “Yes, all right, I’m a crass and dirty bitch. But that’s not really why. It’s because she knows what this is like.” She rubbed his earlobe affectionately. “You remember her and Isabela talking, back when she and Donnic first got together. Aveline knows what this is like.”

Fenris’s smile grew soft. He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled them over carefully until he was lounging between her legs.

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You may be right about that,” he murmured.

She smiled at him wordlessly. His face was full of fondness and so damned handsome, and Rynne simply admired him until he lowered his lovely face to hers for a kiss.

They kissed for a long and leisurely time, tongues twining and lips meeting until Rynne lost track of the time. But eventually she felt him.

She shifted her hips, and a ripple of anticipation rose to her throat. It was the telltale pressure of his cock hardening inside of her, even though he had never pulled away.

She leaned away from his infinitely tempting lips. “Again?” she asked eagerly.

He smirked. “You said you were insatiable. I need to test the theory.”

His damned voice was a deep and teasing purr, and Rynne basked in the glorious sound of it. “I like the sound of that,” she breathed, and she flexed her hips to meet him.

He inhaled sharply, then lowered his face and kissed her again. And for the rest of the night, she and Fenris moved and shifted together, blissfully making the love that would tie them together for the rest of their lives.

#fenris #fenris fic #fenris smut #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fhawris #fenrynne #pikapeppa writes

81 notes · View notes

abbeyfangirl · 5 years

Text

dragon age: all characters (companions)

I’ve been in this fandom for a hot minute now and I want to update my opinions on characters :)

Origins

Alistair: super sweet dude who literally is not the stereotypicalchantryguyfightme. He’s a great example of healthy masculinity and I totally wish he was bi because I have an entire essay on that— also: he’s a poc! His mum was brown. In game he’s got dark features. if you really want a blond/blue-eyes/white guy, make your warden that. or accept that brown people can be noble and moral. or just draw cailan, idk. just because BioWare whitewashes doesn’t mean you should.

Leliana: someone hug my singing girlfriend before I crush her under with my own hugs. Also: nugs. Yes! Shoes. Yes! She likes how I style my hair? YES!! I honestly think she’s super duper and it pisses me off whenever someone’s like: yeah she enjoys killing people and the Game. ok. and michel de chevin willingly participated in genocidal marches through the alienage he grew up in with his elvhen mum.

Morrigan: dirty swamp witch that i stan and also have a v big crush on. tiddies. Have a son with a GW so we can raise him with our tiddies out in the forest. she’s also white-passing, as her father was chasind and all people we’ve seen that are chasind are black. therefore, she is biracial. therefore, poc can be goths and don’t shy away from giving morrigan a darker skintone. if the devs had of been thinking, she’d have a darker skintone.

Zevran: Actually is the best romance, I think. Loves consent, therefore I will stan him so hard my skull cracks a little. Also: he is a very brown boy and if he’s white in da4 I’m seriously going to throw all canon out the fucking window. genuinely a good person who needs to be told so.

Wynne: grandma who only likes my friends who go to church. but also super sweet and I’d rest my head on her bosom (in a platonic way omg ZEVRAN)

Sten: angry quiet boi. the bestest boi. I totally would give him a kitten for a gift and bake him cookies. Thicc softie. I think if I had DA:O and i knew how to use mods i would mod the fuck outta him. sorry.

Sha(y)le: who’s gender? idk her. See also: fuck birds and authority. pound ur ass into the ground you feathery meatbag little shits. fuck songbirds.

Dog: such a good boi. thicc. thinks Alistair is a whiny fuck and is Morrigan’s only friend. love him. he’s the cutest companion. bet.

Ohgren: honestly forgot about him bcc he’s such a shitbag. also: he could’ve been a really cool addiction recovery type but NOPE. probably would have a trump shirt in a modern au and would catcall wlw and hit mlm. no thanks.

Awakening

Anders: he acts like rlly straight but he’s so gay I can smell it. also he’s rlly cute and fun and I love him so much.

Justice: MAYBE i’M selF CONSCious OF THE twitchING. is the friend that genuinely doesn’t get dick jokes but is ur 110% ride or die.

Nathaniel Howe: honestly is sort of a white knight/neck beard a little, but it’s kind of charming with his whole velanna m’lady?? grump boi. annoying soul patch that I’d mod out SO FAST—

Sigrun: would have ROMANCED the FUCK out of her. why she even entertains the idea of fucking with ohgren makes me realize most of the writers are dumbfucks.png. peppy little emo. 12/10 would die if she kissed my cheek teasingly.

Ohgren: why. why. why. I’d have brought Shayle over. Maybe Zev? Definitely Dog.

Velanna: she was written to be an annoying feminist and you can tell but I deadass am a kindred spirit with her bcc I too am deadpan annoyed with Thedas’ general population too. love her. Would’ve loved to romance her. She’d totally be one of those who’d get all tsundere and be like “n-no i hate you” *kisses the fuckin soul out of you then blushes so hard she’s now a tomato*

Dragon Age II

Anders: fuck the cops. i don’t care. fuck the cops. (vine reference). also: do i hate him for blowing up the chantry that would eventually annul a huge collection of his people? no. read dalishious’s meta on Anders. v intriguing. didn’t they retcon the fuck out of the reported deaths too? like there was like eight Templars and Elthinia in there. Templars killed more “abominations” in a day than Anders in the game canon—

Aveline: initially thought she was fine and then realized she’s shit to my lil brother and I will fucking clap her ginger ass. See also: whorephobia isn’t a joke so fuck off with treating Isabela badly, you tit.

Bethany: sunshine. Literal sunshine. I feel my freckles grow in her presence and i love it. she’s my little baby sister and I’d slam that ogre so fuckin hard before it touched either twin.

Carver: there has to be a mod where both twins survive. I love them both to bits. My babies. carver is my bitter, angry little brother and I can relate because I too am very angry and would totally clap my own ass. hes so genuine and I don’t get the competition between Beth and Carver. Like, both are fuckin stellar in different ways. In this essay I will—

Fenris: honestly, I don’t get the general hate between him and Anders. Fenris’ main arc should’ve been a recovery arc, not drunken moping and revenge. he deserves better. give him a soft sweater instead of his spikes and let him love himself as much as I love him for MAKERS SAKE. like when you really think about their relationship, it could’ve been an eye-opener for fenris and finally some legit sympathy for anders. but we all know that if they had of teamed up that Meredith would’ve been dead before the end of Act 1 so.

Isabela: whorephobia is not a joke. oversexualizing your only appearing brown woman is so poorly written. how about we appreciate her and her lovely bosoms but also let people tease her about her heart of gold? her innate understanding of freedom? instead of just a wave of dick? please?? can we give her some pants for when she fights? can we accept that i fall for rogues who hate themselves?? fuck. also whomever draws her x femHawke x Merrill literally is after my own heart.

Merrill: my fucking babygirl MARRY ME. Fenris could’ve been her older brother type, but NO. she and Isabela should’ve been canonical gfs instead of Isabela/Fenris (no shaming the pairing tho!!). I love how she’s written as neurodivergent. V nice. Sometimes I just look her up and cry because she’s fucking everything. Also: she’s in the Dalish origin and she’s far from being white. Why did they make the most innocent/naïve character really white? hmmmm.

Sebastian: whew that boy. Would totally be that annoying Mormon at your door but you still let him in bcc he’s super sweet. Also: huge ass bible thumper and should get his head slap because you said the maker loved all his children why do you defend a complicit old hag you annoying attractive fuck—

Varric: totally is a bard and the devs couldn’t handle the idea of him being one bcc it might make him look less straight. is the only grey morality person I don’t want to fucking bash in with a fry pan. he sees people and I like that, but you totally know he’s siding with mages every time bcc him and Anders are like besties. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules. “Professional Younger Brother”.

Tallis: I know nothing about her but she seems okay. I think she was an escaped slave and honestly? Fucking props. Spy on a shitting organization, idk what you’re doing, but your VA was that cool lesbian from SPN so I think ur okay?

Inquisition

Blackwall: Redemption Arc 101. Love him to bits. Sad dad bunwall. good man. actually atoned for his sins by actively becoming a good person. his initial design is 80% hotter im so sorry but so not.

Cassandra: was way browner in the last game. would romance the fuck outta her. I love me a butch lady who melts at my dorky recitation of poetry. BioWare is a coward. also is the worst choice for divine. but not a bad person. could use some more guidance or get her ass whipped by a dalish elf about religion or a circle mage kid whos like “yeah bud i didn’t ask for the templars to whip my ass everyday for existing.”

The Iron Bull: I think the Qunari/Vashoth were a little based off black people (the whole anti blackness thing where ppl are scared of them bcc of whatever reason) and it pisses me off that he had a weird ass dubcon thing with Dorian in banter. It doesn’t make sense— he’s an A+++ dom and would not jump straight in role play without at least checking in at first like wtf BioWare.

Cole: his mother was chasind so he’s like not supposed to be that white? or like biracial? albino? idk. love him to bits tho. He’s neurodivergent and I deadass love him. romancing him? idk. I see why ppl think it’s fuckin nasty but also like as a writer I’d age him the fuck up so fast before my inquisitor even THOUGHT about that. like idk. I’m down with him being a sweet little bro character tho. he’s a babe. love him.

Sera: had the worst fucking writer I’ve ever seen and I willingly read the twilight saga twice by a shit ass racist white lady who okay’d pedophilia. like. Fuck you Kristjanson suck your own dick you fuck. had the worst options in regards to speak to her. has a thicc case of internalized racism that literally most of the fandom just loves to use against her. my lesbian neurodivergent queen. Would write a thousand fix it fics for her. Love her to bits. im gay.

Varric: I haven’t played DA2 so i don’t get why everyone wants to romance him but like. a dwarf romance? yes please. Idk he reminds me of my uncle so I only see him as fun uncle material. Deadass should adopt Cole and Merrill and co parent with Blackwall for Sera. dads? fuck yeah. love me some wholesome, present fathers.

Dorian: is a gay stereotype that I love/hate so much. and he’s also just as bad about being a creep bcc he sexualizes qunari men (in banter). I attribute that to shit writing tho. I want to protect him from all the “omg gay best friend!” people. he’d clearly be that tired gay that wouldn’t give a diddly damn about ur het romance. wanna talk about politics? he’s ur guy/gay.

Solas: “me, an intellectual:”. I don’t hate him, but I’m not about him. He comes off as mysterious and suave (which he totally is) but I deadass would not save him from himself because he’s a racist, exclusionist eggshell. idk. not my cup of tea, but I can totally see the appeal. And he’s interesting, I’ll totally say that. “I think the Dalish are garbage but they made you” is not a compliment. it’s so offensive. and such bait for “quirky girls” which I’m no fan of. Would be Achilles and let Patroclus (Lavellan in his case) die before he realized how his pride is literally a waste of time. If he gets a redemption arc I hope Lavellan gets to slap him before getting him to teach all about ancient Arlathan and show that the Evanuris weren’t all total dicknozzles. (Aka I really have a hard time believing that they’d be slavery cult things. especially since they’ve compared elves to indigenous ppl, Jews and the Romani.)

Vivienne: it’s so racist that they’d make a black woman be pro-slavery. That’s such internalized racism. She could’ve been the cool ass “educate yourself first before you speak, fool” ice lady, but NO. the devs could’ve kept the “Templars are a tool that I proudly can mandate” and the “circles are very good education” and we. Could. Have. Romanced. Her. Like. Fuck. Sake. I just wanna give her a hug and say “love yourself omg!!” and not even in a romantic way. Also: she and morrigan should not have been so antagonistic towards each other. I’d expect them to have great respect for each other, as they both moved up in the world through hardwork and very little help. They could learn different magic from each other too and still maintain that rival respect “oh you” mood. Sidenote: probably the cooler option for Divine. if her approval is high enough she’ll love and be loyal to you forever and i can’t see her agenda being bad. she improves the circles exponentially and tells all the antis to suck her pretty painted toes.

Josephine: an actual disney princess. romanced her my first playthrough. I love her so much. she just makes me so happy. And she’s like: “Integrity, Loyalty, peace. That is what it means to be a GREY WARDEN good fucking person.” she’s the person who would let you hold her hand if you got anxious and she’d be that person who shouldered the whole group project with finesse and poise and would probably lie for everyone as to not be mean. i love josie. her and leliana’s relationship is so cute, too. whether it’s romantic or not: women supporting women.

Leliana: if you leave her hardened you must hate her. why. she becomes so against herself. i like how shes feminine and lighthearted because that’s so powerful-- to remain hopeful when the world is hopeless. (its hard to know when to soften her/harden her so i get it but. google it. she deserves to be happy and sweet again.)

Cullen: uwu war criminal with shit ass “redemption arc” that was actually a half-assed (at BEST) recovery arc. Recovery isn’t linear, it isn’t pretty, and even the broken need to be told they are wrong in order to heal right. Like I’m offended by that bullshit. I’ve had to do some mental health recovery in the past and unlearning lots of toxic ideologies— which I’m still unlearning— and it bothers me that he gets an easy pass because he’s hot. It’s one thing if you like Cullen, it’s another thing if you hold him accountable.

46 notes · View notes