#Dare I say it...dragon age 2 even about anders

[donttelljim]

Escape Ch 2 - A Beginning

Dragon Age 2 Anders/Nathaniel Nathaniel and Anders navigate their way through Kirkwall, searching for a way out of the city and into the Marches beyond. Nathaniel's focus is on getting them to safety, but Anders is more interested in witnessing the fallout of what he's achieved, if anything. And processing many, many conflicting emotions. Does he even want to be 'rescued'? A couple of chapters following Anders immediately at/after the end of DA2, as Nathaniel attempts to help him. For old times' sake. And maybe for other reasons, too. Written for @chaos-company​’s Angstpril, Day 26, Failed Escape (On AO3 here) ~ Chapter 1 here ~ ============================= The pair moved quickly - too quickly for Anders to truly get his thoughts in line. Most everyone in the city was gathered outside, staring in the direction of the empty sky that used to frame the Chantry. A free, empty horizon where that oppressive behemoth had once loomed, and yet not a single voice cheered. There was no thrum of change, of excitement, pending liberation: only the numb stillness of shock and grief. Fury burned in him, but he had no time to shake them and shout about the opportunity they were wasting - the apostates among them and all other oppressed besides. He had to keep pace with his rescuer, or whatever Nathaniel fancied himself.

Ducking through side-streets allowed them to avoid the worst of the crowds - in fact, everyone was so occupied with staring and doing nothing that there was hardly anyone in their path as they kept to the city’s alleyways. Nathaniel took the lead, moving with surprising knowledge of Kirkwall’s rabbit runs: clearly, he had remained here since they’d brought him back from the Deep Roads, and he’d been mapping out ways to keep to the shadows since. Out of habit, Anders suspected, rather than any plan. “Have you prepared a pack for the road?”, the scout asked gruffly. “Is your clinic in good hands? Have your patients been accounted for?” “No, yes, yes. Nathaniel - Why are you - ?” “You didn’t expect to survive, then.” The scout grunted, dissatisfied. “No matter. I have some things. We go now.” “Surely you need to wait for Bethany?” She had appeared to join them before the fight, and Anders had been near-tearful to see her. Regret twisted in him that he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye. He wondered what she thought of him now; whether she understood. She had always been cautious, but she had shared her sister’s potential for fire. Another strong soul lost to the Wardens. “She was not supposed to get involved here any more than I,” Nathaniel replied, his attention on the speed and silence of their progress far more than on their conversation. “She’ll give her excuses to the Commander. And I’ll give mine.” Kirkwall was full of smugglers’ routes in and out, much to its guards’ and templars’ dismay, and most of them went through Darktown. Here, at least, there was a mixed reaction taking hold: for every group huddled together over the latest horror, there were others sensing a buzz of promise in the air, hovering on the cusp of action and wondering whether they should take it. Thrilled chatter about the Knight-Commander’s demise was as present as frets about abandonment from the Maker. It was something. It was a spark. Sparks could catch and burn a city down. The Marches’ most wanted apostate wore a hood pulled low over his face, leant to him by Nathaniel, he himself wearing regular leathers rather than his uniform of silver and blue. He hadn’t wanted to drag the Wardens into his choices, no doubt. This was off the record, whatever ‘this’ was. “You do realise I’m a mass murderer, right?”, Anders protested, once they were alone in the tunnels that would expel them to freedom. “That’s what they’re all saying.” His voice was defensive, defiant, daring Nathaniel to abandon him. “And they’re right. You shouldn’t help me.” This whole time, Nathaniel had kept moving, never pausing even as they conversed, but suddenly the man wheeled on Anders with a snarl. “And yet I am! You speak as though you do not wish for my aid? Do you even want to escape this?” “I - “ Anders faltered. He folded his arms, once again seeking a way to arm himself whilst stood in what was very almost a sewer. “I…” Guilt dragged at him. He deflated. “I did want this,” he uttered, sounding only half convinced. For a moment, he looked lost, but fire and steel returned seconds later, the back and fore of a tide. “No. I did. But you - “ “You are a good man, Anders,” Nathaniel interrupted, the words shocking the newly upgraded fugative. “And yet a fool.” His jaw set, the tension in it made distinct by its pale complexion and edged shape. “As was I.” Before he could explain that remark, he began onwards again, selecting a fork in the tunnels and stalking to it. The time for speaking had apparently, in Nathaniel’s mind, ended. Anders followed for a couple of steps, then halted again. “Wait.” Nathaniel sighed with ragged impatience. “Do not argue with me now. I know how you enjoy it, but - “ “No,” Anders cut across him, tone urgent yet far gentler than before. “Not that way. Trust me. Come on.” Choosing the other route, he took the lead, and the archer fell in step. Nathaniel might know Marcher cities, but Anders knew Darktown. The forests were distinctly eerier without Merril in tow, Anders was starting to realise. Someone else he wished he could have said goodbye to, though with her determined fall towards blood magic, he struggled to see them on the same side of their people’s plight.It had taken long enough for Anders to adjust to the outdoors at all. He remembered his first escape from Ferelden Circle - the cultureshock he’d experienced at the moistness of soil, the tribulations of being caught in the rain. Insects. He had known none of them since he’d been a child, and they felt suddenly alien to be lost amongst. He still couldn’t get to grips with insects. These woods were as unsettling still as all forests had been to him back then: mist hung between the trees, hovering and silent, with no care for the panic of the humans, dwarves and elves walled up nearby. Conflict meant something else entirely out here: it was impersonal, coming down to a brief and bloody encounter not over politics or prejudice, but the mutual desperate desire to live. If that didn’t end you, the creeping cold or need for resources might.Perhaps it wasn’t so unlike the city after all. Nathaniel had travelled the Free Marches for years, serving as a scout and squire to Ser Rudolphe Varley. He, at least, knew the land. The pair were headed to Ostwick: it was the only way to reach Ferelden unless they chanced a vessel from the Gallows - laughably out of the question. Anders still remembered the cold sweat he had felt when he arrived at Kirkwall and  found himself docked right at the Circle’s gates. He’d assumed that someone had tipped the templars off about him, at first, until he realised that everyone must enter the city there.Karl. He didn’t even know what had become of him in the uprising, and the Circle set upon itself. He often thought of him as having died, the day they took his mind from him, but technically, he was alive somewhere. Had he survived? Did it matter? Had Anders failed him twice? So, Ostwick. “And from there,” Nathaniel had reassured him with a deep pride in his voice; “Amaranthine.” Anders had grimaced. Was he to retrace his steps back to every place he had escaped? Where next, Kinloch? That sounded like fun. At length, Anders’ feet slowed. He had been trailing for some time, and at last, something in him stopped and refused to move. “Nate…” As he slowed, he realised that his cheeks were wet, his eyes numb. How long had that been the case.Nathaniel turned. “Anders?” At first, the Howe frowned a deep glare of concern - he hadn’t been raised with many examples of gentleness - but then his face softened, the expression falling away to leave one Anders had witnessed the man discovering during their time with the Wardens. There was a peaceful and caring heart in there, inside that man, and it took a half-death before it learnt to beat. Anders scowled at him despite himself. “What?! Stop - stop doing that!” Nathaniel looked taken aback, the expression retreating, hardening again. “Doing what?” “Looking at me with - with sympathy!” Within the mage’s eyes, lighting sparked, engulfing them for a moment before subsiding. He shouted, his voice strained and emphatic, close to tears still but no weaker for its passion: “You look at me as though I’m some victim of what happened back there. I know what I did! I made a choice. And I stand by it.” He backed off from his escort, or captor, or whatever Nathaniel was, slicing his hands through the air between them. His shouts bounced from the trees, sending a nearby bird into the air. If anyone was on their tail, they’d hear him. He didn’t care. “The people of Thedas need to see that they cannot oppress mages and expect us to simply wait and politely ask for it to stop!” The anger bubbled in him, spilt over, letting out the pressure that he had expected to be relieved by the Chantry’s explosion, but which had only piled back up and crushed back in moments later. Was there no releasing it? “Our lives are at stake! Every day! We can’t simply sit with the rod of Tranquility or the blade of Annulment pointed at our heads and ASK NICELY to be allowed to live!” Nathaniel strode towards his friend with a snap of movement, voice tender even through its urgent hiss; “Have I argued any of that with you?!” “Not today. Plenty in the past. And why take me away?” Anders glared a challenge at his only remaining ally. “I can face the choice I made. Why save me from the consequences?!” Nathaniel’s expression didn’t change. As he spoke again, his voice had lost its hiss; it was level, calm. “Why come with me?” “I…” Anders floundered. The words left him, along with his fire. The mage sagged, energy draining until he found himself sitting on a tree root, burying his face in his hands. It was catching up with him - an ‘it’ that was too big to think about, exhausting to feel for as long as he had. He wept. For a few seconds, he cried alone (even Justice was having no part of it), but then, he heard the soft crunch of leaves. Two hands, rough and coarse but tender in their movements, rested on his arm, his leg. He could feel Nathaniel kneeling close to him, could smell his all-too-familiar scent. Of all the people to show up -When they had encountered each other in the Deep Roads, Anders had felt Kirkwall’s years of pain strip from him, at least for the day they were in each other’s company. Seeing him had loosened something: he’d laughed, teased, played like he hadn’t done in a long time, taken back to before Justice’s influence. He had felt more like himself, but what did that mean, now? ‘Anders’ was not a place of escapism any more, with this blood on his hands: he must own it or lose himself to shame, to fear over what he had become. He could not begin that road, and Justice would not allow it. He didn’t want comfort; he didn’t need reminding of his past: he needed to lose himself to whatever his future demanded he become.Nathaniel’s hand covered one of his, wrapping around it and lowering it from Anders’ face. Anders let him, but braced himself, meeting his old friend with steely eyes even through their pink shine. “I was a friend of Justice, just as you were,” Nathaniel murmured. He looked weighed down by a burden of his own, Anders noticed: not an uncommon look on him, but the mage paid attention even so. “I encouraged him. Spurred him on. It was I that suggested he approach a living host…” Howe faltered, his gaze dropping, but forced himself onwards. “I told him that no harm would come of it. That it would make him no demon.” “He isn’t a demon,” Anders insisted automatically. It sounded more tired in his mouth than it used to. Nathaniel's gaze raised back to him, the corners of his eyes creased and lined. He countered immediately; “You are not free.” Grief finally overcame him. ‘Free’ was a word Anders had fought for most of his life. With those few words from Nathaniel, the many ways in which he was still falling short began to pile up around him. He wasn’t free from Templars or the chantry, even now. He wasn’t free from the prejudice against him and his people. He wasn’t even free of the Wardens, it seemed - Corypheus had proven that long before Nathaniel had appeared again. He certainly wasn’t free within his own mind. “You never wanted this fight,” Nathaniel prompted, the statement almost spoken like a question, eyes searching Anders’ face. “Back in Amaranthine. You always said you just wanted freedom.” It was true. Anders gritted his teeth against rising sobs, his throat choking as tears fell again, harder this time, tangled in his words like rope around his feet. “But someone has to.” His hair, plastered with smoke and dust, fell forwards, some sticking to his wet, reddened face. Nathaniel didn’t leave, didn't look away. He seemed completely unembarrassed by Anders’ breakdown, which Anders found himself loving and hating him for. The Warden also didn’t let go of his hand.“Come with me,” he urged’. “Lay low in Amaranthine. We’ll figure this out. Whether you want to find a new home for Justice, if that’s possible. Or whether you want to go and…” He shook his head, searching for his words, for whatever Anders’ goal might be. “Keep waging your war, fighting your rebellion. Whatever it is. Just come home first. Take some time.” His voice was almost pleading, an intensity on his face that reminded Anders of when he first fled the Wardens - the way Nathaniel had chased after him, begged him to stay. That same intensity was softer now, more resigned to something and more willing to listen. “Let me help, if I can.” Anders sniffed, his laugh hollow. “Amaranthine is your home, Howe. Not mine.” “It will always be yours,” Nathaniel corrected. Anders snorted; Howe persisted: “You’re still the mage that saved the Keep. People remember that. They talk of it often. Sing songs, on occasion.” He smirked dryly, his eyes glinting with the pair’s old spar; “It’s incredibly annoying.” Anders laughed again, just as hollow, but managing to smile this time, before the look fell away with the continued weight of the reality he was finding himself in; “I thought I escaped being a Grey Warden. I’m starting to wonder if I ever escaped anything.” Nathaniel cut in before he could demand to be abandoned again, his hand gripping the mages’ tighter. “You’re my friend, Anders. You cannot escape that any more than I can get away from you, it seems.” He grinned, the expression as weary as it was warm, and in some ways, oddly boyish. It almost seemed shy. Anders smiled meanly at that, though his heart felt anything but. “Heh. Then I guess we’re both special that way.” Nathaniel smirked back at him, a spark traveling between them: it was something familiar, yet also, it felt of something new “It would seem so.”

#angstpril2022 #fic #day twentysix #failed escape #grief tw #guilt tw #dragon age #da2 #deagon age two #dragon age awakening #anders #nathaniel howe #end of dragon age 2 #escape kirkwall #grey wardens #friends to lovers #rescue #escape #anders x nathaniel

[potatowitch]

Hawke as Companion

Template by @little-lightning-lavellan

Is your OC a Companion in the Dragon Age series? What would it be like for a player to select them to join their party for quests (or romance them, perhaps? 👀)

I did originally plan on doing this for my Inquisitor but, as always, I've got Hawke brainrot instead, and I figured writing some companion interactions would be so much more interesting with her as a companion than my Lavellan. This got .... very long.

You have selected RIAN to join your party!

Race: HUMAN

Gender: FEMALE

Class: MAGE

Specialization: BLOOD MAGE

BACKGROUND

Marian Elaine Hawke, known also as “Rian”, “Chuckles”, “Champion of Kirkwall” and “Hawke, NO” was born in 9:06 Dragon to Malcolm and Leandra Hawke. Despite having to keep her father's magic a secret, she was never led to believe that magic was anything but a gift. Therefore, she spent much of her younger years experimenting to see if she could produce magic, eventually managing at age 9 to light the fireplace with a tiny fireball.

Growing up, she was attached to Malcolm at the hip - the two of them shared not only their magic but their senses of humor and general chaotic energy.

After the Hawke family fled Lothering during the Blight, Hawke joined Athenril’s smugglers to pay off her entry into Kirkwall. As soon as she met Varric at the start of Act 1, they became inseparable best friends - Hawke often cites Varric as her soulmate and the platonic love of her life. During the Deep Roads expedition, Carver became infected with the Blight, and with the help of Anders, Hawke was able to lead him to the Grey Wardens so he could join their ranks.

Over the years, she developed close relationships with most of her companions except for Aveline and Sebastian. Her friendship with Merrill eventually developed into a committed romance, and Hawke started to practice blood magic after recognising that Merrill could do so without being "evil". The two of them eventually also developed feelings for Isabela, and as such she joined their romance as well.

By Act 3, Hawke had become a staunch supporter of mage rights, a dedicated member of the Underground, and wholeheartedly supported Anders’ choice to destroy Kirkwall’s Chantry.

Following the destruction of the Chantry, Hawke and her friends fled Kirkwall, splitting up despite Hawke desperately wanting them to remain together. Isabela and Merrill chose to remain with Hawke, and the three of them traveled across the Free Marches, occasionally running into Anders and assisting him in rescuing mages from rebelling Circles. Eventually, Isabela managed to acquire a new crew, and her partners were more than happy to sail with her as she established herself once again as the Queen of the Eastern Seas.

INQUISITION

Depending on the player’s choices in Here Lies The Abyss, Hawke can be convinced to stay and help the Inquisition further instead of accompanying the remaining Wardens to Weisshaupt, becoming a full companion. She will move to sit with Varric by the fire in the main hall. Hawke will also be present in Varric’s companion cutscene where he invites the Inquisitor to play Wicked Grace.

Upon first being recruited to the Inquisition, Hawke’s specialisation is not available - when automatically leveled, she will put points primarily into the Inferno and Storm trees. Her unique specialisation, Blood Mage, only becomes available if the Inquisitor has allied with the mages at Redcliffe. At that point, Hawke will initiate a conversation with the Inquisitor about their opinions on blood magic, and if the Inquisitor states that they have no problem with it, her specialisation will open. Otherwise, she will refuse to admit her use of blood magic to the Inquisitor.

At this point, Hawke will also speak more openly about her support of Anders. She will eventually admit that they are still in contact, though she won't tell the Inquisitor anything that could give them an idea of Anders’ whereabouts.

Her specialisation is not open to the Inquisitor, however Hawke can offer to teach a mage Inquisitor "a neat trick", which will give the player the choice to replace their current Focus ability with Hawke's.

BLOOD MAGE

Upon unlocking Hawke's specialisation, she will gain a large increase to her Constitution but her mana bar will become considerably shorter, and conventional healing effects will only operate at 25% efficiency. If she is out of mana, she will automatically revert to using her health pool to power her spells instead.

Her spell tree is very similar to the Dragon Age 2 Blood Mage tree, however it does not include the Blood Slave ability - it is instead replaced with Blood Bomb, which is a variant of Walking Bomb. Instead of applying a damage over time curse to a target, Hawke channels a spell that corrupts the targets' blood from the inside until the target dies - at which point they explode, doing damage to nearby enemies. This spell continually consumes Hawke's mana and health while it is being channeled.

Her Focus ability is Major Sacrifice, a variant of the Knight-Enchanter's Resurgence. Instead of healing the party to full health and providing an ongoing healing aura, Major Sacrifice will instead heal the party to full health but take 25% of Hawke's current health, and will provide an aura of ongoing damage to nearby enemies, converting their health into health for the party.

VARRIC'S PERSONAL QUEST IN VALAMMAR

If the Inquisitor brings Hawke to Valammar, she will be suspiciously quiet throughout the quest - though she will pipe up to complain about the Darkspawn. Following the reveal that Bianca shared the location of the thaig, Hawke will be furious and will argue with her.

Upon returning to Skyhold and speaking to Varric, the cutscene will begin in the middle of a conversation between him and Hawke.

HAWKE: You deserve better, you know. VARRIC: Yeah, you've said that before. HAWKE: It bears repeating. As many times as it takes to get it through your thick head. You deserve so much better. VARRIC: *sigh* Thanks, Chuckles.

APPROVAL AND ROMANCE

Hawke is not romanceable, though she welcomes playful flirting from a female Inquisitor. She will eventually initiate a conversation where she makes sure the Inquisitor isn't expecting the flirting to go anywhere further, as she is already in a relationship.

RIAN APPROVES OF: Supporting mage freedom, open-mindedness with magic and spirits, sarcasm, humor, stealing from nobility, pranking nobility, loyalty to your friends, being nice to Varric, terrible puns.

RIAN DISAPPROVES OF: Chantry rhetoric, the Circles, Templars, Tranquility, authority, betraying your friends, ignorance, pomposity, being mean to Varric.

Hawke will not leave the Inquisition, even if her approval is at Hostile. When questioned about this, she will say:

HAWKE: Did you miss the part where Corypheus is my responsibility? I’m going to fix my fuck-up, Inquisitor. If I have to put up with you while I do it, then, well … I’ve always said the Maker has a sick sense of humor.

TRESPASSER

Following Corypheus' defeat, Hawke leaves the Inquisition to rejoin Merrill and Isabela.

Once Trespasser is started, Hawke can be found accompanying Varric and Bran to the Winter Palace.

During exploration of the Eluvians, if both Hawke and Varric are in the party, they will briefly discuss how excited Merrill would be by all this, and Hawke will say "You'd better be writing all this down, Varric."

She will approve of redeeming Solas, though she won't disapprove if the Inquisitor decides they would rather kill him.

High Approval

If Varric has chosen to give the Inquisitor an estate in Kirkwall, Hawke will pipe up during the conversation saying she's excited to be neighbors, offering to give the Inquisitor the key to her wine cellar - though she will complain that Varric has never given her control of the harbor, to which Bran will mutter "thank the Maker".

Regardless of the Inquisition's fate, Hawke will return to her lovers, occasionally keeping in touch with the Inquisitor via letters.

Low Approval

If the Inquisitor has low approval with Hawke, they will be informed that she left as soon as the Inquisitor stepped back out of the Eluvian following the final confrontation with Solas. The epilogue slides will state that her whereabouts are, once again, unknown.

COMBAT COMMENTS

Killing an enemy

And stay down!

One more for me. We’re keeping score, right?

Have at you!

How’s my hair looking? (COMBAT ENDS)

I wonder what’s in their pockets. (COMBAT ENDS)

Oh, ew. I’m not cleaning that up. (COMBAT ENDS)

Low Health

This is going badly!

Little help, maybe?

Why are none of you healers?

This hurts! This really hurts!

Low Health (Companions)

INQUISITOR: You good over there, boss?

VARRIC: Varric, that blood better not be yours!

COLE: Help the kid!

CASSANDRA: They’re swarming the Seeker!

BLACKWALL: Hang on, Beardy!

IRON BULL: Bull’s in trouble!

Fallen Companions

INQUISITOR: Shit! Trevelyan/Lavellan/Adaar/Cadash is down!

VARRIC: Don’t you dare leave me now, Varric!

COLE: Cole! No!

CASSANDRA: Seeker is down! How did they manage that?

SOLAS: Come on, Solas!

DORIAN: Help Dorian!

SERA: Awful quiet, isn’t it? Oh shit, Sera!

LOCATION COMMENTS

(first time seeing a High Dragon) *laughing* "Oh, this will be fun!" IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "Hawke, the last time you fought one of these you nearly died." "Yeah, but I didn't die. That's the important thing."

(approaching a campsite) "Well ... I've slept in worse places."

(when collecting a Shard) "Let me guess. We have to collect a stupid amount of these for a really stupid reason, and they're all going to be in really stupid, hard to reach places. *sighs* I love adventuring."

HINTERLANDS

"Have we been here before? Feels like we've been here before."

(upon unlocking the cabin in Redcliffe with the Tranquil skulls) "That's ... fucking Maker. Tranquil have always made me uncomfortable but ... they were still people. They were still... shit, I need a second."

FALLOW MIRE

"Eugh, that smell! Worse than my dog when he's eaten cheese, and that's saying something."

(upon killing Widris) "Something, something, crazy mages ... "

"Oh, walking corpses. That's nice."

STORM COAST

(upon seeing the dragon vs giant fight) *laughing* "Oh, that's brilliant!"

"Not to sound like Varric, but why are there so many bloody hills around here? My legs hurt."

EXALTED PLAINS

"Maker, I hate Orlais."

(finding Valorin's corpse) *sighs* "Might sound a little hypocritical coming from me, but ... blood magic is not for the careless."

(seeing the ruined bridge, if Varric is in the party) "Hey Varric - " "Don't you dare, Hawke." "C'mon, please?" "You are not tossing me!" "Spoilsport."

EMERALD GRAVES

"I've always thought it was beautiful how the Dalish bury their dead under a tree sprout. Like ... I don't know, maybe death doesn't have to be the end."

HISSING WASTES

"There's sand in ... places. So many places."

"Have I said I hate sand? Because I hate sand."

EMPRISE DU LION

(seeing Red Lyrium) "Maybe don't touch that. It'll do all kinds of weird shit to you."

"I'm fucking freezing. When can we go home?"

(seeing Red Lyrium giants) "What the fuck?"

(Elfsblood River rift - near the lady with titsicles) *giggles*

SHRINE OF DUMAT

"I'm getting the weirdest sense of deja vu." IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "You're not the only one."

DEEP ROADS (THE DESCENT)

"Why do I always end up back in the Deep Roads? Am I cursed?"

COMPANION COMMENTS

VARRIC: "I was worried about what would happen if I brought her here, but ... it's nice to have Hawke around again."

CASSANDRA: "I have to admit, I do admire the Champion. A woman who built herself up from nothing to defeat the Arishok ... there's a certain romance to Varric's stories about her."

SOLAS: "I've been informed that Varric also calls Hawke "Chuckles". I ... don't see how we are similar."

DORIAN: "Hawke? Oh, I like her. She's not as daft as she acts."

BLACKWALL: "The other night, I found her getting teary-eyed in the tavern over how much she misses her dog. Don't quite know what to make of that, really."

VIVIENNE: "She is a powerful mage, I'll give her that, but she's also a naive fool. No wonder Kirkwall fell to pieces around her."

IRON BULL: "She's fun. Got a lot going on in that head she doesn't talk about, though."

COLE: "Fleeing, fighting, falling. Failed father, failed mother, failed Beth and Carver too. Fire and freedom, and she knows it's right but it still feels wrong. Old wounds that never healed, sometimes she can still taste the blood in her mouth. You chose to save her. She wishes you chose differently."

SERA: "Thought she'd be scary, but she makes me laugh. Hasn't let owning a mansion get to her head, either, and have you seen those arms? She's strong."

CULLEN: "I'd ... rather not talk about her, if you don't mind. We've a less than friendly history."

JOSEPHINE: "Lady Hawke is charming, certainly, but I cannot imagine her being popular amongst her neighbours in Hightown. She throws the very concept of decorum bodily out of the window."

LELIANA: "I knew her when she lived in Lothering. She didn't seem to like the Chantry much, but she was always sweet, and her jokes made me laugh. It's a little odd to see the woman she's grown into."

TRIVIA

Malcolm also made sure he trained Hawke in using a sword. She's not very good at it, preferring instead to use her staff as a melee weapon if an enemy gets too close.

She has a mean right hook.

Her and Varric have matching tattoos on their left buttcheeks.

Despite being Ferelden and adoring her own mabari, Hawke has a preference for cats.

She's awful at singing. She sings a lot anyway.

#oc as companion #who goes to weisshaupt instead of hawke? i don't know and i don't care #rian

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 24/38 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Loriel had not expected to miss Avernus quite so much.

Months went by without word from him. First few enough for her not to notice, and then too many for her to ignore. A dozen times over the past months she had thought to write him, and then decided that no, she didn’t need to after all, but she couldn’t pretend that forever.

It was her own petty, childish pride, then and now. She had fought him just to prove that she’d win, and writing him now would be admitting that she needed his counsel. Which she did

She still wasn’t going to do it.

More than the man himself she missed his knowledge and experience. And if not that, then at least someone to report her findings to. Someone who would care if she didn’t get anything done, and who would care about what she had to say about it. And yes, perhaps that amounted to missing the man himself, too.

The worst of it was that her work had stalled without him. Her rigor and meticulous care wasn’t enough anymore, and she was no closer to cracking open the crystal and finding the Architect than she’d been any time before. She began to lose whole days to restless pacing, to picking up books and putting them down again, to feeling her eyes move across pages and absorbing absolutely nothing. She had not thought that the loss of a sporadic correspondence partner would undo her so badly.

The work had to continue. 

Had she been a spirit mage, she would have had options—spirits of knowledge weren’t that uncommon. The Chantry did not teach its prisoners to speak to them, but a powerful spirit mage could have managed it. The Dalish did so, and so did the Alemarri. Spirit lore was something that might have been available to her, when she was eighteen or twenty and still fresh.

But she had bathed too long in her own blood, and her connection to the Fade had rotted. So it would have to be a demon, and she would have to bind it.

For all her transgressions, Loriel did not make binding demons a habit. Less out of any unwillingness to transgress—what sacred rule had she not already broken?—than a sense of calculated risk. Any imperfection in the binding, and the demon was out, ready to turn its wroth on the first target it could get its hands on—generally, the mage who had bound it.

It was a bad idea, she knew that going in. She would do it anyway.

That did not mean she would be stupid. She did her due diligence. She read up, poring over every scrap of demon lore in her library. Abelard’s Index of Foulest Daymons was particularly helpful. She had borrowed the tome from Avernus and only vaguely intended to return it, and now it seemed like she wouldn’t have to. It was a murderously heavy text, listing every type and subtype and sub-sub-and-so-on-type of demon known to exist, their names and habits, their foibles and tricks, how best to bind one, and what one might ply it with. Better yet, Abelard had lived in Tevinter during the Steel age, and his text was unsullied with Chantry prejudices.

She practiced first. When finally it came time to summon something, she spent hours carefully inscribing the binding circle—with far more care than what she intended to summon really warranted. She started with wisps and wraiths, half-formed blobs of Fade-stuff still waiting to become, lashing them to her will and releasing them again. When she could do this as easy as breathing, she moved on to demons of hunger. Hunger was something she no longer felt, and could not be tempted by, though hunger demons were more likely to try and eat her than to tempt her. 

Next she tried Rage and Desire, creatures of things she had felt once, but hadn’t for months and years. If Rage might still bring heat to her blood, if only in the form of intense irritation, Desire offered nothing she’d ever take. Loriel had no fear of Desire. She’d already had the thing she most greatly desired, had it, and thrown it away—on purpose. Nothing else in this world existed that Loriel could be said to desire.

Sloth she avoided. Sloth—Torpor—was the only one demon who had ever gotten the better of her, who she hadn’t defeated herself. It was too great a risk, that she’d lie down and sleep until the end of the world, given half a demon-shaped excuse.

These lesser demons, though, would be of no use to her. What she needed was knowledge, and what that meant something like Pride.

Abelard’s Index was not very reliable for lesser demons who had since returned to the Fade-sea and reformed. It listed appearances they no longer wore, personalities they had long shed, even if their basic natures would reform. But for powerful demons who had amassed centuries of memory—just the one she would need—Abelard was perfect. She read and reread the relevant heading, squinting at the antiquated Tevene. Vainglory, Audacity, Superbia, Narcissus—no, not quite, no, and no. Demons that dealt with forbidden things—Censorus, Proscripta, Obscurus, Taboo—no, not that one, not this one neither. Then she saw the subheading—Daymons of Knoweledge.

Demons of knowledge came in all manner of forms—she paused for a time on Secerne, who collected secrets. It dealt only with knowledge that no-one else knew. Tempting—but such a creature would hardly be likely to give its secrets up and render them useless to itself. A blood mage could bind a demon and constraint it, but to compel it was pointless—you’d probably just end up destroying it, and if you were after knowledge, what good was that? No, once bound, the demon would have to be dealt with the old fashioned way.

Revelatus traded desired knowledge for undesired knowledge. It would tell you anything you wanted to know, and then something you didn’t want to know—the worst thing your lover had ever thought of you, how happy you might have been if you had just chosen differently, what was really in your sausage. Countless men had been driven mad by this one, Abelard warned. Loriel decided not to test her luck.

Finally she settled on a demon called Veritas, who spoke only truths. It was an ancient creature of malice and cunning, but it would tell her the truth, and for that Loriel would give anything.

tck

There came a point where even she could not justify dithering any longer. Weeks had passed since she had decided she would bind a demon. On the chosen day, she made all her preparations, triple-checked her summoning circle, cast spell after protective spell. Finally she could find no more excuses to delay—she spilled her blood and spoke the words.

The air itself seemed to part, and a greenish miasma spilled forth from the crack. A shape was being pulled through, too big for such a modest aperture, yet somehow, terribly, emerging. Reality bulged and bent, and finally, a demon climbed out.

It was smaller than other Pride demons, shaped something like a bear and something like a lion, though in place of claws or talons, it had clever human fingers. Its face was covered with a golden mask, shaped into the form of a human face. Its hide was pitch black, and every inch of it covered with blinking, roving eyes.  It raised its head, as though to sniff the air, and bent to examine its new situation, noting the summoning circle, the runes of binding and restraint. 

“Hello,” said Loriel. “Might you confirm your name?”

The thousand eyes blinked all at once. “I am Veritas, he who knows ten thousand truths.” Its voice came through as though from far away, echoing around the chamber.

“Ten thousand only?”

“No, far more! Many, many more! I know more truths than there are stars in your sky, more truths than there are grains of sand in your deserts, more truths than the number of breaths you will take—”

“That is more than ten thousand.”

“That I know ten thousand truths was not a lie.”

“Oh, I see. You’re one of those demons of knowledge.”

She had succeeded in offending it. “What do you mean by that?”

“You speak only in riddles and technical truths. You say things that are true by letter only, and lies by implication. Disappointing,” said Loriel, pouring unimpressed into her voice.

It scowled around the room—or seemed to. She could not see its face behind the golden mask. “Why can I not see you, little mageling? Where are you?”

Invisibly, Loriel produced a faint crescent of a smile. “I am here in this room with you, Veritas.” Her voice echoed through the chamber as she spoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The demon’s ears twitched, and only then did Loriel realize that even telling it that she was there in the room with it was more than she meant to say.

“So you are, mageling, so you are. Why have you summoned me?”

“Why do mages ever summon you? I seek knowledge you might have.”

“Why should I tell you anything I know, when you have dragged me so rudely from my home?”

“I will make it worth your while, Veritas. I offer knowledge in exchange for knowledge.”

Veritas laughed. It was a horrible sound, like broken glass. Loriel didn’t dare speak. “Little mageling, you know nothing I do not. I have sought out truths for centuries, bent only upon knowing, and you, little girl, whose lifetime is as a mayfly’s breath to a being like myself—you presume to offer me knowledge? You presume to know something I do not?”

Loriel let the echo of the last word fade, then said calmly, “What is my name?”

No answer.

“So you do not know it,” Loriel said. “And I am forced to conclude, Veritas, that I do know some things that you do not.”

The demon paced inside its narrow circle on all fours. “Aren’t you a darling little pedant! Very well, I’ll take your deal, but I will take it on my terms. You may ask me one question, but first, you must tell me something I do not know. Do not lie! If you answer falsely, I shall know, and I shall devour your heart.”

An empty threat. Veritas was bound. It was subject to her will. It couldn’t get out if it wanted to—or else what was the point of blood magic binding? She was perfectly safe. It was bluffing—

...No, it wasn’t. Of course not. The demon of truth could not bluff. If Veritas bluffed it would no longer be Veritas. I shall devour your heart. Not a promise or a threat, but a statement of fact.

“Very well,” Loriel said steadily. “I shall speak truly.”

“What,” grinned the demon, “is the full, entire, and complete name by which you are called?”

She should have seen that coming. “My name is Loriel Surana.” 

Loriel was common enough for elves. And Surana was not even her family name; it was just what all elves were called in the Circle. Elves had no family names.

“Loriel Surana,” said Veritas, tasting it, savoring it. “Loriel Surana, Loriel Surana...yes, I know of you.”

She was so startled that the question came out unbidden: “What do you mean?”

“Your name floats upon the Fade like a dying leaf upon the breeze! One who often walks free along its emerald waters has called and called it, lacquered it with misery and love, twisted it with hatred and longing. Your name forms an island of despair and desire; tempests that will not calm; storms that will not pass. Yes, what a name!”

“I see,” Loriel said neutrally. Whatever bloomed in her to hear that, she stoppered it at once. “I answered your question, demon, so here is mine—”

“Ah, ah, ah!” The demon waggled a finger not-quite-at her. “You already asked your question. You asked me what I meant. Now it is my turn again. Where in this room are you right now?”

“I am standing in the northeastern corner of this chamber,” Loriel answered, and slowly, on magically silenced feet, moved to the southeastern corner instead.

“No fair,” the demon complained. “I did not know which way was northeast.”

“Oh? Then my mistake. But I answered your question, so here is mine. Where is the ancient darkspawn being known to many as the Architect?”

“The Architect is underground,” the demon said sulkily.

Loriel felt a vein throb in her forehead. “I could have told you that.” 

“Then you should have asked a better question,” sniffed the demon. “Now it is my turn—”

“No,” Loriel interrupted. “No, it isn’t. I didn’t say I would answer any question you asked. I agreed that I would tell you something you did not know. You have just told me you do not know which way is northeast, so I will tell you—it is the direction of the corner where the empty pouch of lyrium powder lies. Here is my second question: what is the cure for the Blight?”

“Why—blood, of course.” The demon smiled with hidden teeth. “It is always in the blood. That was a dirty trick you played, Loriel Surana, but no dirtier than mine, so I will forgive you, this time. Here is the next thing that I do not know and that I would have you tell me.” The demon smiled wider, showing teeth. “What do you love most in all the world?”

“Well?” said the demon, when she had been silent too long. “Will you answer, Loriel Surana? Or will you let me go?”

“I will answer.” And she answered, truly: “Nothing. What I love most in all the world is nothing.”

“How interesting. Yes, very interesting...you are a pleasing little mageling. I think I like you after all. Well, Loriel Surana? It is your turn. Speak!”

“I’m thinking,” said Loriel, and finally settled on: “What concrete set of actions should I take next—immediately after ending this conversation—that, of all possible actions, would take me the further along my goal of discovering the cure for the Calling?”

Veritas grinned wider still, its face little more than teeth. “Take a man infected with the Blight, and find a way to take it out of him. A man, and not a rat. But why waste your time with me asking me that which you already know?”

Loriel exhaled through her nose. “Thank you, Veritas. You may go now.” 

The demon’s grin was all that remained of it as it disappeared back into the Fade, making no attempt at all to remain within the waking world. Loriel was alone, the floor littered with truths both new and old.

“Shit,” she muttered finally.

tck

It had been a mistake to summon the demon. She was no good at dealing with creatures of the Fade. When Loriel had been small and scared and helpless she’d had a silver tongue, been so adept and turning minds to her advantage using nothing but her words. Not it seemed she had forgotten entirely how to deal with a mind she could not break and twist and bend. 

All she had succeeded in doing was in giving an ancient, powerful demon tools to hurt her with, and what had she learned? Nothing she didn’t already know. Stupid. Careless. Idiot.

“Warden Pollard has begun to hear the Call.”

Loriel had been half-listening to Brigit’s report; now she startled to full attention, rattling her morning tea in its cup. “What?” Brigit repeated herself. “Warden Pollard...who is he?”

Warden Pollard was Orlesian. He had transferred from under Warden-Commander Clarel some years ago. He had served well, saved three of his comrades in a raid, and fought with a pike. He had been a Warden for only thirteen years. This was early, but not unheard-of.

“Where is he?”

“The chapel. He prays for his soul. He intends to visit his mother in Velun before heading to the Deep Roads.”

“I would like to speak with him in private.” She said it so quickly as to be unseemly. But Brigit only nodded and moved to acquiesce.

When her office door opened and Brigit admitted him, Loriel couldn’t help but think he didn’t look much like a dying man. Perhaps he was pale, perhaps a sheen of sweat stood out on his skin, but she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he always looked like that. 

Only when traces of discomfort began to appear on his face did Loriel realize she had been staring at him silently for far too long.

“Commander,” he said awkwardly, still with the traces of an Orlesian accent. He’d never met her before. Was he one of the ones not quite aware that she still lived, and still ruled? “I’m honored.”

“Do not be,” she said flatly. “How is it?”

How are you feeling might have been more appropriate. But it would have rung false. 

“Not so bad, yet. I knew it was coming. I accept it.” He paused. “Is there some manner of ceremony?”

Loriel had no idea. There probably was. She had never cared to find out, never cared to make sure that her wardens had a good sendoff. “If you wish it. But that is not why I wanted to speak with you. Can you get more specific?”

A flash of confusion.

“About how it is.”

Pollard looked even less comfortable. “I’ve had nightmares, ser.”

“Different from the usual?”

“Yes.” 

“Can you tell me more?”

“With respect, ser, I’d rather not.”

Her mouth set. “Please,” she said, and there was the power of blood in her voice, and not a trace of a request. “Tell me more.”

Pollard’s eyes went foggy and distant. When he spoke, he sounded oddly flat. “The nightmares were only the beginning. Now when I sleep, I hear the most beautiful voice. Like my mother calling me home. And when I awake, I want nothing more than to hear that voice again. I can hear it now, just barely. And a strange music in my ears.”

“What kind of music?”

“Bells. Like chantry bells, calling me to prayer. Ugly and beautiful at once.”

“Is it anything like lyrium song?”

His brow knit. “Yes. Not unlike lyrium song. But different. Richer and darker. I can almost pick out voices in it, but never what they say.”

She took out a notebook, her shorthand flying across the page. “What do you see? In the dreams?”

“Darkspawn. All gathered together in the biggest chamber I have ever seen. It’s dark, but I can see perfectly. They’re darkspawn, but they do not seem ugly. At the center sits a beautiful figure, bathed in gold, smiling. They welcome me home. I’m glad to be there.”

“When did this start?”

“Three weeks ago I first heard the voice in my dreams. 

“Any physical effects?”

“My skin is hot. The sun hurts my eyes, even on cloudy days.  I feel stronger now than I have ever been, even stronger than I was as a young man.”

“Anything else?”

“I hope not to be alive by the time there is anything else.”

Loriel finished transcribing. “One last thing. Come here. Roll up your sleeve; give me your arm.”

Pollard obeyed. He did not protest, did not react at all, when she took some of his blood. It glinted darkly in the glass vials she had fetched for this purpose, easily a few shades too dark. She stared at it for a few seconds. There was the Blight itself.

She took a few vials. Enough so he wouldn’t notice, later, and closed the wound she’d made with a clumsy burst of creation magic. The vials went into a wooden box inscribed with a rune of entropic suspension—blood spoiled so soon after it left the body.

Frustration overwhelmed her, that all she had was a few vials of blood and a brief coercive interview. Imagine all she might have learned if she could watch as he succumbed to the Taint, hear in his own words what was happening to him. He was going to die anyway—this way he might help save the lives of countless other Wardens, who could object to that? She could just—

No. Velanna had been wrong. She cared about the Wardens, of course she did, why else do all this? She would not subject an innocent man to such a fate. She was better than Avernus.

Pollard blinked as she released his mind, but if he was aware of the lost time he did not show it. She thanked him for his service and assured him that his family would be taken care of. He thanked her in turn, and departed as quickly as was seemly. She watched him go with only the smallest burst of dark regret.

#dragon age #femslash #amell #surana #dragon age: origins #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction

[skycendre-blog]

I often hear from DA fans that they love Anders, but “they feel too conflicted” over the Chantry exploding

And they can’t condone the act, even when they recognize that Anders “had a good reason”. Arguments are generally “I agree with the purpose but not with the action”, “blowing up a palace is too extreme”, “by doing that, Anders turned into Meredith”, “he’s as bad as the Templars”. 

It could be argued that there is no in-game validation for hundreds of people dying. That only a bunch of Chantry-folk exploded with the building - we’re talking about 20 to 30 casualties here - and that the bomb was limited to the building and collateral damage wasn’t excessive. 

It could also be argued that Anders had no choice. He tried for six years to peacefully petition for mage rights, he wrote his manifesto, he smuggled fugitives out of the Gallows and sheltered them in the clinic. He healed the poor and the sick in Darktown.  After six years, the whole province was under Templar dictatorship, and Meredith had already requested Annulment directly to Orlais. It’s not like Anders could have done anything else. 

But let’s get real, and admit that it's understandable that the "grand" gesture of blowing up a building leaves people “conflicted”, prompting them to shook their heads in disbelief, and blame Anders of being “the real bad guy”. Why? But because that’s exactly how the game is trying to sell it. 

There's some narrative there. Just look at how that building explodes. Two big columns of light converging, ominous music. The camera zooming on the terrified people inside, helpless as the world around them becomes a burning blast of white/red destructive magic. 

It’s horrifying to watch, especially because it takes after a very dark chapter of real world history, and the first-run players witness it wide eyed, shocked as they couldn’t fathom such a sheer amount of destruction falling onto the city they learned to love through three Acts of Dragon Age 2. But let’s also consider the fact that for those three Acts, what the player does is pretty much kill people. There are a few missions where the foes are only monsters - such as those on Sundermount and the Bone Pit - but for the most part, Hawke and their merry band of misfits spend their time together slaughtering men and women, old and young, named or unnamed.

Some could say that these people “attacked first”, but that’s surely not always the case: in a lot of instances it’s people minding their own business, and Hawke barging in to put an end to it, for a reason or another. In some others, the player decides that a person/group of people can’t simply walk away, therefore they kill them or prompt a companion to do it.

During the first time skip, the player can also decide to have Hawke work as a mercenary, and they do so for an entire year. A mercenary by definition - as also seen with the first mission - kills people for money.

 Moreover, there are a lot of routes the player can take that allow pretty bad stuff to happen.

Some examples: If Hawke sides with the Templars, they get to butcher a group of mages and their families, as they were about to flee Kirkwall.  If the player allows Ser Karras’ group to get to the Starkhaven apostates in Act 1, some mages get murdered and Karras rapes Alain.  The player can also have Feynriel turn into an Abomination if so they wish, which prompts Arianni to kill herself, and leads to a ton of awful things happening in Kirkwall. Not to mention that if you say the wrong thing to the Dalish hunters after Marethari’s death, you end up wiping out the Sabrae clan in its entirety. And that you can literally sell a person into slavery - not a random person, one of your companions. 

 Hawke definitely kills a lot of people during the game. Innocents or not, involved or not, for one reason or another, petty or serious, for money and glory or for a good cause. Varric makes a rough count at some point in Act 2, and by then it's already around 250 deaths, speaking only of those Varric witnessed firsthand.

All of this gets a free morality pass from the game.

Sure, sometimes other NPCs judge you for your actions, but there’s no single occasion where the game presents Hawke’s choices as unforgivable, ominous or inhuman. There’s no single occasion where the game shows a cutscene of “helpless innocents” dying at Hawke’s hand, which stays forever burned into the player’s mind.

Then Anders blows up the Chantry.

He blows up the symbol of centuries’ worth of abuse and oppression, which has the whole Kirkwall province under Templar dictatorship, which never once in game has done anything remotely useful for the poor and the sick of Darktown. Which spawned and empowered people like Petrice, which allowed Templars like Ser Alrik to rise in the ranks, which orchestrated the murder of the Viscount’s heir and provoked the Qunari enough to have them almost destroy Kirkwall.

Anders blows up the Chantry, Elthina dies alongside a bunch of chantry-folk, and the game gives you THAT scene. That terrible, horrifying scene which screams “WRONG”, yelling that it doesn’t matter what mages have suffered and are still suffering, it doesn’t matter that they’re all about to die because Meredith already called Annulment, nothing matters anymore: this is just unacceptable.

Forget about everything else Anders did in those six years. Forget about the clinic, the manifesto, the friendship or love he shares with Hawke. Anders is unforgivable now, the game itself is telling you he’s a monster. That he went too far. “He put a bomb into a building full of innocent people”. In a world such as Thedas, “innocent people” dying for a reason or another is a daily occurrence.  Mages dying on a whim of their Templar captors is a daily occurrence. Mages ripped away from their families as children, locked up, abused, raped, beaten, lobotomized.

And they’re innocent too. All the victims of Chantry brutality are innocent to some degree, but all of this too is completely wiped out by that short cutscene.

The Chantry explodes, Elthina and her subordinates die, and people blame Anders for rebelling instead of blaming the Chantry for everything else.  Even if Anders tried peacefully for six years. Even if he was one single man against that colossal institution of oppression and abuse of every race and culture, which brainwashed almost an entire continent into mindlessly following their “divine law”. The game yells that “killing innocent people” is wrong.

I yell that no Chantry-folk in Kirkwall was innocent.

Even if I put the bloody, murderous history of the Chantry aside, if one allows law enforcements to rape and kill, one is not innocent. Elthina and her cronies were the most complicit of them all.

 It’s 2019. Stop blaming the victims of abuse, and stop buying into BioWare’s narrative of “innocent people dying”, purposely intended to villainize and shame the one person who dared to stand up against systemic oppression, giving a voice to all the mages whose cries were snuffed out.

It is lore-established that countless innocent people died because of the Chantry - in the seventeen Rights of Annulment pulled in Thedosian history, in the Exalted Marches, in the systemic erasure of Dalish and Chasind culture. That innocent people die every day of starvation in the alienages and in the city slums, and in the Circles when Templars decide to kill or lobotomize them.

 Innocent people don’t live in a luxurious palace in the most opulent part of the city, so coated in gold that it could buy the whole Free Marches.

Innocent people don’t have an army of brainwashed zealots to enforce their laws, kept on a leash by drug addiction.

Innocent people don’t preach and empower centuries of abuse perpetrated upon others, whose only fault is being born different.

  Anders&Justice did the only right thing possible, and their actions should be a fandom-wide appreciated symbol of pride and freedom.

#mage rights #Anders #Justice #mage freedom #the chantry sucks #Stop blaming the victims of abuse #Innocent people rhetoric doesn't work in a medieval-based world #The Chantry IS NOT INNOCENT #Anders did nothing wrong #Mage Pride

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

Aaa omg Anders & Hawke pls? ❤️❤️❤️

1) Anders has No Time for flirting. Even if he misses it. Even if he wants it (and Maker, it’s been so long, and Hawke is kind, and smart, and proves to be someone safe...). 

So Hawke, being Hawke, woos Anders with supplies and donations to his clinic. 

At first, Anders is surprised. Then suspicious. He knows most of his major donors, and if he doesn’t, Lirene does. But she either doesn’t know, or won’t tell him, because she doesn’t spill. But linen is precious in Darktown, and healing potions are healing potions. There is food in every basket, and lines of credit to local laundries opened in his name. 

When Hawke drunkenly admits their years of good deeds over a game of cards and a couple too many tankards, Anders all but leaps across the table to kiss them. 

-

2) Hawke doesn’t much care for sleeping with a light on, but they learn to bank the coals in such a way that still allows for light when Anders sleeps over. Their relationship is still a tenuous thing, and Anders still sometimes skulks about like a half-feral cat, but three times makes a pattern. Hawke has woken up to muffled cries only abated by Anders waking and manifesting magelight, or Justice’s own confused arrival to an invisible threat. 

Hawke keeps an oil lamp and a thick sleeping mask in a bedside drawer, just in case the embers burn out overnight. 

-

3) Despite his ascetic habits, Hawke learns that Anders adores soft, fancy fabrics. Hawke surreptitiously commissions new robes for Anders’ birthday and gifts it alongside the finest pajamas they have ever felt. Anders initially refuses the gifts, of course--it’s all too much, he doesn’t need them, he’s not worthy of such kindnesses--but after a long moment, Anders grudgingly takes them. The first time he wears the robes in public, Hawke almost cries. 

-

4) Anders distracts Hawke after they find Leandra by cajoling them into braiding each other’s hair. It’s a skill he picked up in the Wardens after the Warden Commander recruited such an odd bunch, and everyone was too stubborn to cut their hair to keep the blood and gore out of it. He tells Hawke stories of his exploits in Kinloch, the daring escapes he had committed, the ways he would tweak the newest Templars’ noses. They trade anecdotes back and forth until Hawke quiets, fingers twisted in Anders’ hair, and they ask him about his family. 

When he answers, he speaks his mother’s name out loud for the first time in over a decade. 

-

5) Hawke woos Justice, in their own way. Justice isn’t exactly easy to talk to, they’ve learned, but Hawke figured out a way to do it. Justice, being a spirit, has no need for sleep, and, being a part of Anders, suffers from his sense of restlessness. Hawke starts leaving notes for Justice at Anders’ bedside table after he moves in. They’re simple, at first: letters that say ”I’d like to understand you,” and “I want to know you,” and “If you could choose so, I’d like to communicate with you. I want to be your friend, as well.” 

A sort of correspondence emerges. Hawke learns more of the Fade and of Justice’s time in Kristoff’s body, of his time while employed in the Wardens. Justice does not share any of Anders’ secrets, not even the ones Hawke already knows. It is a point frequently made and reminded of in Justice’s responses. Notes turn into letters, which turn into books left in the top drawer and a very silly-feeling Hawke. Each tome is as personal as Hawke can manage; treatises on the Fade, a copy of a Dalish tome on spirit warriors, a dissertation on Fereldan ethics and morality as told by Brother Genitivi. Justice reads when he can and he and Hawke talk back and forth slowly via letters. It’s not a perfect system, but it is theirs. 

Anders reports being more rested in the mornings one day and Hawke, having forgotten to clue him in, tells him of their letter-writing. Shocked, Anders leaves for the day without breakfast and does not return to the mansion for three days. Hawke is beside themself until Anders comes back. 

“We’ve... spoken, of a sort,” Anders says, and he relays to Hawke the gist of his conversation with Justice. He hadn’t known or perhaps didn’t notice that Justice could manifest and control their body as he slept, and he feared the worst. Anders and Justice spent the last days navigating the boundaries and intersections of their distinct selves, comparing memories, exploring their complicated feelings toward Hawke and Anders’ mortal life. They disagree on some things, they’ve come to accept, but one thing is certain: Hawke is a Good Person, and Justice gives a wary seal of approval. 

Hawke’s jaw is cupped in hands both flesh and Fadeborn, and Hawke’s world blooms green with the Fade when they kiss.

==

Send me a Dragon Age ship and/or prompt (platonic or romantic) and I’ll write 5 headcanons/mini-stories/interactions!

#Hawke #Anders #Handers #Justice #JustHanders #Soulrebel writes #dragon age 2 #da2 #ryanglitter

[teyrnacousland]

So I just found out about the Faces of Thedas thing with Anders (I know, I’m late to the party, but I only just now saw it online here) and I just. 

What. The. Fuck. 

I don't even know who they're talking about because it’s certainly not about the Anders we know and love. Maybe this book was written by Templars? Anyways I’m pissed and I accidentally wrote, like, an essay to point out all the things they got wrong. I even have sources, up until about halfway through where I shifted from essay format to full blown angry ranting. I’ve spent hours on this. Help.

“A virtuous heart? Well... two out of three isn’t so bad. [...] He’s selfish.”

Did they actually just call Anders selfish and imply he doesn’t have a virtuous heart?? Anders who comes back to help you even if you send him away after he’s freed from the Templars and the darkspawn are dead. (As seen HERE. Seriously. Watch that video and tell me this man is selfish. Tell me all he cares about is joking and running away. I dare you.) Anders who begs you not to leave Amaranthine because if there's even one person alive you have to save them? Anders who opens a free healing clinic in the worst part of Kirkwall and works there tirelessly pretty much 24/7 just so he can help as many people as he can???? 

”[...] a coward [...]”

A coward?? Anders??? Anders who came back to help after you sent him away because he couldn’t just leave you to fight alone when he knew he could help. Anders who despite all his protests about the Deep Roads (he’s claustrophobic!!!) will still go with you every time you ask. Anders who isn’t necessarily eager to go on the suicide mission to save Amaranthine but will not argue if you bring him. Anders isn’t a coward just because he’s afraid, he’s a brave, kind, incredible person because he will help people no matter how afraid he is. 

"He played the part of a good little Warden, all the while planning his next disappearing act."

Anders was an amazing Warden, there was no “playing”. He wanted to help people and he did. And he explicitly says he isn’t planning on running away if you ask him in his personal quest. (LINK it’s at 10:13, if the link doesn’t work right)

"While he ostensibly belongs to the Libertarian Fraternity of mages"

Anders says in Awakening that the Libertarian’s plan to pull away from the Chantry is “a recipe for disaster”. (LINK) I’ll concede that it is possible he’s part of the Libertarians because they’re the closest aligned with his views despite him not agreeing with exactly what they want to achieve or how. Although even then it's still unlikely, because for Anders to be an Enchanter wouldn't he have to have an apprentice? I'm pretty sure he doesn't. And he never introduces himself as an enchanter. So he can't be part of ANY mage fraternity.

(About escaping the Circle) “It’s not out of righteous indignation-- it’s fun!”

Hoo boy. This is the most blatant piece of mischaractreization I’ve ever read. Tell me this man was not full of righteous indignation. And you can’t think of one reason besides “fun” that he would try to run away? He literally tells you one of the Templars used to call him inhumane and kicked him in the head to wake him up (LINK, at 0:29), they put him in solitary confinement in a dungeon for a whole year. AND, in Dragon Age: The World of Thedas, vol. 2, pp. 160-162 (sourced from the Wiki, I don’t actually have this book. Yet.) when asked why he ran away “he tearfully replied that he had simply wanted to go home”. What fun.

Just because he makes light of his escapes and subsequent captures doesn’t mean he’s just messing around. What it means is that he’s smart. If he’s a joke, he’s not a threat. If he doesn’t fight back when they come for him, if he laughs and jokes and plays along, they don’t have any excuse to kill him. 

“Enlisting Anders requires appealing to his primary concern: his own amusement.”

Yes, as seen in this video where you don’t even ask him to help and he offers anyways (LINK, at 14:57), or the one mentioned above where you tell him to run off and he comes back to help you (here it is again). Clearly he is a selfish coward who just wants to fight the darkspawn for... his own... amusement? Alongside someone who for all he knows will turn him in to the Templars as soon as they get the chance (which you can do, might I remind you). He has no reason to trust you, but he puts his own safety aside because he wants to help. What a selfish coward he is. 

“[Justice] became a lodestone to orient Anders' shaky moral compass"

Are you kidding me?? Anders and Justice joined because their moral compasses were aligned. And this inaccurate slander of a characterization isn't even consistent with itself. Their selfish jokester version of Anders had no reason to make this deal with Justice, and Justice had no reason to suggest it if he didn’t think Anders was a good person. Our Anders agreed to host Justice because he's compassionate and wanted to help his friend, and because he was starting to let himself believe that maybe they could actually change things, which he'd never believed he could do on his own. Before Justice he just felt helpless to change anything. That's why he's so bitter about mage rights in Awakening. And Justice knew this, so Justice wanted to help.

The “Variations” Boxes

Do I need to point out how gross it is to refer to executing him as “bringing an end to his suffering”? But also, look at the general difference between the two variations. If you kill Anders, people support him and elevate him to martyrdom and follow in his footsteps, but if you let him live then everyone hates him forever and he’s miserable and on the run for the rest of his life. I don’t really know the motivation behind this but it’s clear they want you to think killing him is the “good” choice. Also, one specific line in the “killing Anders” box annoys me:

"His valiant and ultimately doomed blow against their oppressors" 

Doomed?? Anders started a rebellion. It was bound to happen eventually, the rebellion and the war have been building up for years. But he gave the mages an advantage. HE started the war, not the Templars. And thus he gave them a chance to fight back. Because if the Templars had been the ones to start the war you can guarantee they would have done it by either turning every mage Tranquil or cutting them all down while they were all nice and rounded up in their Circles. Most of them would never have seen it coming. He gave mages everywhere a better chance to fight back. And he succeeded. Circles fell. The Divine agreed to a Conclave to negotiate their freedom. He started that, he was the first step. Anders is a hero.

"His friendship with Justice awakened a keener awareness of and and empathy for the plight of all mages."

Are they really trying to say that JUSTICE awakened a sense of empathy in Anders? Have you met these two? Anders is the empathetic one, the one who cares about individual people. Yes, Justice wants justice for the mages too, he also believes they deserve to be free and he wants to fight for them. But Anders is the one who feels their pain, which is the definition of empathy. 

Not to mention that despite the way he lightheartedly brushes off Justice’s insistence that he do something to help the other mages, he does obviously care. He brushes everything off with humor because it’s a coping mechanism. But in one of his banters with Justice he says: “Yes, well. Welcome to the world, spirit.” in a defeated tone. He wishes he could do something but he’s just one little mage. He’s resigned, not apathetic. 

"A chance meeting with Hawke [...] was the catalyst for Anders' fanaticism. Through their association, Anders witnessed firsthand the increasingly heavy-handed measures taken [...] against mages."

He gets into mage rights because of... Hawke? He knows the Circles are terrible because he was in one. He learns about how bad the Gallows are from the people at the clinic, and Karl’s letters, and through his own investigations. Why are we taking away Anders' agency and saying that he was only confronted with and only started caring about these things because of his association with Hawke?

The entire first paragraph on the second column of page 6, starting with "Vengeance’s influence"

This entire profile is filled with this disgusting undertone of “oh this poor crazy mage and his delusions”, but it’s especially prevalent in this paragraph. They word it as if Anders gave in to some temptation Justice was pushing for. And as though they were wrong. And they say this as if he were wrong. They say Justice "pushed Anders to conclude freedom for mages would never be granted" as though he hadn’t come to that conclusion after being ignored for YEARS. Seven long years they (meaning Anders and Justice) spent trying to make someone, ANYONE listen, and they never used violence (except in self-defense) throughout those years because Anders is not a violent person. Neither is Justice, not needlessly. Their one act of violence was a last resort and it went against everything either of them stand for, but something HAD to be done and they knew nothing else would work because they'd already tried everything else. And he didn’t have time to think up another way, because things were escalating with or without him. Meredith was trying to invoke the Right of Annulment. It was a now or never thing, and this was the only way he could save anyone.

"Elthina called the city's mages and templars to a conclave to hopefully broker peace."

This isn’t even true! There was no conclave, and unless I’m forgetting Elthina made zero effort to "broker peace", she chose “neutrality” on a field where neutral means Templars get to openly abuse and rape and lobotomize mages as they please. 

And yes, Anders didn’t want their compromise, because there was never going to be a compromise. Because those in power, the Chantry, had no reason to compromise. They held all the cards. The mages had nothing to offer, nothing to threaten, they had nothing. The mages were dealing with a millennia of oppression and abuse, and the Chantry were dealing with little more than an annoyance. How could any compromise be fair under those circumstances? And even if the Templars did decide to compromise, how do you compromise freedom? What is the middle ground between human rights and being treated like a slave?

Anders knew that the Chantry would never offer the mages any kind of freedom anyways. They couldn’t. They would have offered something small and inconsequential as a token so they could say that they’d tried to compromise, and the mages would have had to either resign and accept it, or refuse and risk the Chantry using it as an excuse to call them unreasonable and rebellious and get rid of them, which they were already talking about doing. And Anders believed, with good reason, that Orsino would do the former, would condemn them to another however many millennia of rolling over and letting their rights be trampled just to avoid escalating things.

"Even among those who share his convictions [...] he is considered a lunatic extremist."

Really? Every mage thought that? Every person who ever went to his clinic to be healed (for free, by the way) thought he was just some “lunatic”? Every member of the Mage Underground, every mage that he helped rescue from the Gallows, every person he sheltered and freed and healed, his lover, his friends, EVERYONE thought that he was just a “lunatic extremist”?? 

This line is actually disgusting. The Templars wrote him off as a “lunatic” when he didn’t play the victim like they wanted him to, and the Chantry called him an “extremist” for daring to oppose them. These are the words that were used by his oppressors to further oppress him and dismiss his very real and valid concerns. His supporters never thought this. 

Honestly, the entire "relationships" section is just garbage. He doesn’t bring misery to everyone he encounters, he brings every Hawke nothing but joy and they all love him because he's a wonderful, kind, smart person who's easy to love and they’re starting a fan club for him and inviting everyone who respects and appreciates him to join. 

"He's most likely to value those who don't deny, excuse, or rationalize his multitude of sins."

This is the worst line. “Anders doesn’t want to be supported, he wants you to hate him and think he’s a monster because that’s the only way he’ll learn!” Also since it’s relevant, here’s a line they have later: "He wants to be [a] good person [...] but he can't see the way forward through the fog of anger and remorse. He needs a guide." They’re saying what the Chantry says, that mages can’t be trusted to make their own decisions. That they can’t be trusted with the responsibility of managing their own lives. He’s just a “troubled” “lunatic” in need of someone to guide his subhuman incompetent self through basic life choices. He doesn’t want someone to support his beliefs and decisions, he needs someone who will tear them down and tell him why he’s wrong, and instruct him on how he’s supposed to act instead. (Fun fact, that’s abusive!)

Also to me this reads as a fun little dig designed to try and guilt people who support Anders by trying to tell us that he doesn’t value us or our support and doesn’t want it, and that what we’re doing is actually bad for him, so that’s fun.

"Anders is a pariah, arguably the most universally despised person alive"

Hawke's new Anders fan club/support group says otherwise. Also the Hero of Ferelden is a member now too, because fuck you, she loves him unconditionally. Seriously though, it’s just unrealistic that no one would support him. The fandom proves this. LOTS of people support him. And his actions didn’t even save us specifically from a lifetime of abuse/death, whereas for the Kirkwall mages in game it very much did.  

"But only the most bloodthirsty fanatics condone the cold-blooded murder of hundreds."

And please note their second attempt to try and guilt people who support Anders, this time by calling us "bloodthirsty fanatics". Cute, no? I support Anders even more now, fuck you. 

“Vengeance's hushed whispers chip away at Ander's desperate desire for atonement."

Justice (/"Vengeance") OPPOSES Anders' "desire for atonement"?? Justice. Justice who spends half of Awakening running around telling your companions to atone for their wrongdoings. (Atone is actually literally the word he uses with Velanna!) That guy wasn't on board with Anders' "desire for atonement"? 

Again, bullshit, even if we’re not considering the fact that Hawke CAN kill Anders, which is something they wouldn't have been physically possible unless Justice had allowed it. Justice protects Anders from physical harm all other times, why would that suddenly not apply? Because as I said, this goes against everything either of them stands for, and while they both see it as necessary they both desire atonement and justice. Anders wants it because of the guilt and depression he feels, and Justice wants it because they need to atone because that's what is just, and also because he's scared of becoming a demon.

Okay, less important, but what’s up with those stats? 

Why does his "deception/persuasion" stat go up when he joins with Justice? The book itself claimed that pre-Justice Anders was charming and impossible not to like, while together they were apparently utterly unlikable. Also Justice is basically physically incapable of deception, since he HAS to always act on his nature. 

Also his empathy is at 2 for both, despite them literally claiming that Justice increased his empathy. (And despite Anders being canonically one of the most empathetic people in the series, but I digress.)

In conclusion.

tl;dr Anders is the best person I know, fuck you.

#anders #dragon age #dragon age 2 #anders was right #faces of thedas #as written by knight commander meredith apparently because who else would tell such blatant lies #none of this is even touching on how badly they demonized and vilified justice. i might even make a whole separate post because justice is #good person too

[nopequisition]

Meet Aurya Hawke, my so brave so stupid canon Champion of Kirkwall! A surprisingly talented mage that managed to conquer Fenris somehow and survive, despite her intellective quote and no sense of danger at all. 

More info under the cut OR just look at my OC DA page (where you will find all my Dragon Age OCs). Got any question? OF COURSE YOU HAVE SOME, CLICK THE MESSAGE LINK AND ASK. ✍(◔◡◔)

I’ve used the wonderful OC Analysis by @nyghtlei, thanks!

Nickname(s): Arr (yep, like a pirate), Ari Age: 23 Height: 1.53m Weight: 54kg Body Type: Athletic Eye Color: Light blue, tends to green water Hair Color: Black with some blue reflection Hair Style: Long and damn messy Scent: Something like Sea Mist Dialect: Fereldian accent Class: Mage Specialization: Force, Healing Hobbies: Gossip about Kirwall, Aveline come here Pet Peeves: Who dares to abuse poor and weak people Favorite Food: Salmon and good beer Least Favorite Food: Anything coming from Kirkwall probably Relaxation: Cooking, despite she’s terrible in this Greatest Accomplishment: Defeated all demons tempting her, with style Regrets: Couldn’t stay in Ferelden to help with Blight, couldn’t save Bethany Hidden Talents: Good contorsionist, good teacher Love Interest: Fenris Best Friend(s): Varric, Aveline Friends: Isabela, Sebastian, Merrill, Carver Acquaintances: Gamlen, Anders Enemies: bugs, EVERYWHERE

Templars?: They are so stupid i like mages but Cullen is a cool guy- Ketojan and the Qunaris: Helped and spoke with Ketojan, accepted his fate Isabela’s Fate: Alive and well in the party, book returned to Qunari Merrill’s Fate: Didn’t help completing Eluvian for her own sake, spared her Dalish clan Fenris’s Fate: Alive and well, with her Aveline’s Fate: Married with Donnic Ander’s Fate: Killed during Mage Rebellion Feynriel?: Alive, helped to reach Dalish clan Adventurous or Careful: Adventurous, another way to say reckless Innocent or Guilty: Innoc-oh come on Serious or Silly: S I L L Y Loud or Quiet: Loud Tiny or Bold: Tiny Secrets or Honesty: Secrets, THE GOSSIP- Violent or Gentle: Gentle but don’t you dare abuse someone in there Hide or Confront: Confront Stress or Relax: Relax, life is a piece of lemon Brave or Cowardly: Brave Details: 1. She misses a lot her sister, Bethany, and there’s not a single day where she doesn’t think about her. Despite arguing with Carver a lot, she loves him very much and even accepted his role as Templar. They actually write to each other  a lot. In her bedroom, she still has a small medallion that Bethany gifted to her for the last birthday. 2. She cares a lot for miners in the Bone Pit and was visiting very often, sometimes even helping mining and cure who was is a bad shape, and checking each day if they had anything needed, like food, water, tools and other. Miners were very happy to have her around. The day that a dragon killed everyone, she charged it without even thinking. Reckless as usual. 3. She was seriously considering to become a Grey Warden when the Blight started, also because the circle was failing so much and didn’t want to end up in that one, but destiny chose a completely different path. Now she wants to be... a Dragon Shapeshifter. Damn you Flemeth, you ruined a girl with your magical trick. 4. No one must ever threat Fenris, EVER. Those who dares to do so will be obliterated, most of the time. She loves Fenris so much and sometimes feels sorry for what he’s being through. At least they kicked Danarius’ ugly ass once and for all. And don’t you dare threat the rest of the crew. 5. She’s the queen of gossip around Kirkwall. Knows literally EVERYTHING about the High Town and let Varric spread some innocent tales around to cheer up people. Aveline is trying so hard to not being involved, always ending up knowing more things than expected. 6. She’s incredibly proud to be so small. She jokes on this saying that she’s a dwarf in disguise...

#aurya hawke #my oc #dragon age #dragon age 2 #da2 #hawke #kirkwall #doomed forever #just another idiot in town but got worst #original character #dragon age character #dragonage #oc #dragon age oc

[langwrites]

How to Make Friends and Influence People

I have been toying with a revamp of my Dragon Age fic, so... I guess it might end up being a bunch of drabbles? Here’s a sampler.

A Discordant Note

“This is the story of how I died.”

…Morbid, I think, and perhaps not particularly accurate despite its pithiness.

“An elf, a witch, and an abomination walk into a cave…”

I think not.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning, without all of this posturing. I should leave the tale-spinning to true masters of the art, and instead tell my story as I remember it.

My name is Nyx.

This is certainly my story—my memoir, if you will—but the story as the world sees it is not mine, you see. I am, at best, something of a background figure in the epic saga of the Warden-Ensigns who ended the Fifth Blight. I should know; as a Warden myself, I am hardly ignorant of the trials they faced in their journey.

But once, I was in their position.

I was a bright-eyed youth with no notion of what my future would hold. All I knew was that my mistakes had somehow earned me a second chance—a chance to be free of Kinloch Hold, to turn away from blood magic that marked my recent past, to find a future with those who would value my power over the source. I owed my future to those who allowed me to live long enough to have one.

I joined the Grey Wardens when I was twenty and never looked back.

This is not the story the Wardens remember.

Per Weisshaupt’s records, I joined Warden-Commander Duncan of Ferelden in the Frostback Mountains, during the early spring of 9:24 Dragon. By all accounts, I was already a seasoned apostate who had successfully evaded Templar notice for years before volunteering to join the Wardens as an adult. That I was already afflicted with the Taint was a confounding variable, but not an insurmountable one. The Grey Wardens have had many strange and unique recruits over the years, after all.

By my own account, I was recruited through the Right of Conscription in 9:30 Dragon. I have a reason for it, and it does not involve madness outside of the ordinary course of the life of a Grey Warden. No, that comes later.

That story will follow.

With regards to fellow historians, Senior Warden Nyx Surana

??? Dragon

Crawling out of a fetid swamp and breathing in the sort of air cold enough to freeze your lungs solid: Not anyone’s idea of a pastime, I should think.

I would have honestly preferred to take a second shot at that Eluvian and just face-plant in the Brecilian Forest in the middle of a werewolf infestation but, alas, it was not to be.

On the other hand, I am now dry, clothed in actual cloth as opposed to mail, and not freezing to death. It was a near thing, but it seems I have survived. When I get my hands on that bastard, I will make him rue the day he dared step foot out of his cozy lair and strip the flesh from his spongy bones while I am at it.

First, though I need to get my bearings. Then I may properly contemplate taking up demon-slaying in addition to darkspawn-slaying as a lifelong career choice.

1 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

Even looking at that date, written longhand, gives me chills.

Something is very wrong.

2 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

My worst fears are confirmed. The Eluvian does indeed lead to a world beyond the Fade, after a fashion. But it does not lead to a place farther from the Thedas I knew—rather, further. Backward.

I have to wonder if Morrigan knew what I was about to do.

Lesson learned: When a great big demon makes a point of herding you toward the mirror, Nyx, do not let him do so. Certainly not if the mirror is active.

Lothering’s Chantry has at least been helpful, assuming that the Revered Mother indeed believes that I am a mere misplaced Dalish tribeswoman. Were she clever enough to identify me as an apostate, Grey Warden or no, I would have a fight on my hands. Not for the first time, I appreciate how little humans understand about the Dalish. While I myself am no expert, I would hardly expect the Templars to be so forgiving to a tattooed elf woman wielding a staff such as I have.

Hiding my equipment outside of town worked out well. I only have to hope that no hapless farmer comes across it. Not all of the things I carry on a mission are safe to handle.

Addendum: Or, if someone does so anyway, that the farmer in question has two apostates in the family. Himself included.

7 Drakonis, 9:24 Dragon

Perhaps running south hadn’t been his best idea.

It was the sort of thing that made Anders regret his penchant for escaping without an actual plan, per se.

Slightly.

The Frostback Mountains composed most of the border with Orlais, which was part of the reason why he hadn’t expected to run into the foothills so soon. The maps in Kinloch Hold didn’t really do it justice—after miles upon miles of green hills and gently rolling landscapes dotted with fir trees, the Frostbacks rise up out of the earth like spines on a dragon’s neck. And the path just kept going up.

It wasn’t cold yet, but sunset would probably bring a brand new array of interesting frost patterns and icicles soon enough. The grey-streaked green slopes were hardly inviting, snow or not. Spring came slowly to a place like this, meaning that there was enough snow far enough down the slopes to be unnerving, almost as much as the lack of humans in the area. Thus far, he had only seen scattered herds of sturdy mountain goats, probably tended by handlers no other living human had seen in ages. The lack of human contact was downright disorienting—after Redcliffe and Honnleath, he’d made the mistake of supposing there would be more people to talk to, even well into the mountains’ shadows.

At the very least, the inevitable templar pursuit party was probably going to have just as much trouble as he did. The frigid weather in the Frostbacks didn’t agree with the metal armor templars insisted on wearing. Granted, it didn’t much agree with him—see the robes? Not insulated!—either.

If he looked back, down through the vale he’d already passed through, Anders was almost certain he could see the faintest gleam from a pack of the helmeted bastards following in his footsteps.

Or maybe it was a trick of the fading light.

Anders turned back to the seemingly endless uphill climb ahead of him, sighing. His breath made a translucent white cloud.

It would all be worth it… Well, if he could get out of the country. True, Orlais was on the other side, but White Spire didn’t have his phylactery. The jurisdiction confusion could hold the templars up for a day or two, if they realized they’d popped over into the next country. Unless they just handed the tracker over to the Orlesians, anyway.

Of course, by the end of the day he still hadn’t gotten out of Ferelden, properly run away from his niggling worry about the pinheads inevitably dogging his heels, or managed to find shelter.

Worse, it got astoundingly cold as soon as the sun finally decided to drift off behind the peaks. Almost without thinking about it, Anders found himself speeding up whenever he saw a patch of rock or greenery still bathed in light—there, at least, it would be slightly warmer. Eventually, though, there was no more light and the wind continued to howl mercilessly across the rock, and he shivered in his suddenly too-thin robes.

Clutching his staff, currently more of an expensive lyrium-infused walking stick, he continued onward and upward into the thin air.

Sometime after the sky began to darken in earnest, and every breath he took was wheezy and showed up in the air, Anders crested a small hill and stumbled into something he hadn’t expected. The tree line had started to clear out a little, probably because there was a little game trail winding through the cliffs, but there was still a grove a little ways off and up.

Ringed by knotty mountain trees, crammed against the meeting place between a rock and a tree, was a sort of improvised tent made of evergreen boughs, moss, and dirt. The camp was well above the road, providing a perfect vantage point while being almost invisible to any creature passing below. In fact, Anders wouldn’t have seen it at all if he hadn’t smacked right into the low-grade illusion over it and known how to dispel it.

(Though he was certain that he would never tell anyone that he’d poked it with his staff first. That sort of thing could have cost a foot off the end of it, with a different spell.)

After confirming the camp was empty (by throwing a rock into it), Anders crept into it with curiosity leading him by the nose. Not for the first time, really.

Well, for a camp there wasn’t terribly much in it. Aside from the evergreen bedding, a campfire that didn’t look like it had yet been lighted, and a burlap satchel sitting on the ground, it looked like no one had bothered to do much at all to the little clearing. Anders didn’t have much experience with camping or tracking, but he did have enough book knowledge to know to test for traps. He prodded experimentally, looking for ankle snares or tripwires that most people used when trawling for thieves.

Granted, if the illusion had been cast by the sole owner of the campsite, then at least he might have a sympathetic ear (of the sort that didn’t generally use traps. Nasty things).

Though one of the trees nearby looked like it had taken a sword to the trunk at some point, peeling the bark back, which was less encouraging.

Still, nothing in the campsite looked abandoned, precisely. No dust (…did the outdoors gather dust?), no extra ashes in the fire pit…

Hm.

Well, if his options were staying here and probably being captured by Templars again, versus trying to run off on his own and likely being eaten by a red lion or breaking his fool neck trying to scale a cliff, Anders could honestly say that the former managed to win out by the slightest of margins. Assuming that the Templars were close enough to reach him in a day or so, anyway, he’d probably be woken by a kick to the head and have to trek downhill again.

…At least they couldn’t kill him. Not after he passed his Harrowing. In hindsight, perhaps it was best that his first and second attempts at apostasy had been short-lived.

Anders sighed to himself and began to settle in. Hopefully, the campsite’s owner wouldn’t be any angrier about his presence than the Templars would be, though he was at a loss to imagine such a thing.

#Dragon Age #Dragon Age Origins #Dragon age Inquisition #Anders #Warden Surana #Nyx Surana #fanfiction #snippet #snippets

[thegeminisage]

Top five video game characters of all time

this is a blessed ask thank you

i’m limiting myself to one per series or they’d all be final fantasy characters

5. jessamine kaldwin (dishonored)

absolutely shamelessly Tapped That and did not give a fuck about propriety

raised her daughter and ruled a kingdom all (mostly) on her own like a total badass

wanted to save all her citizens from the rat plague, not just the wealthy

as the heart, does nothing but shit talk people and complain, which is the biggest 2017 wintertime mood

that one post about her wanting to see daud age a decade every month is canon i don’t care what anybody says

4. flowey (undertale)

i could go into how the skeleton game is actually super deep and this is one of the deepest characters but tbh i don’t need to say a word. ^ that’s his main form & how he appears to you first, pretending to be friendly. this is how he looks later:

aww! it’s a cute lil adorable flower WHO WANTS TO MURDER YOU. find me a more iconic look, i dare you. OH THAT’S RIGHT YOU CAN’T

3. fenris (dragon age)

dumb looking bishie hair (it’s objectively horrible but it grows on you)

voiced by gideon emery who has that like Iconique™ deep growl

has kickass magic markings all over his body that let him phase through solid walls - instead of using this to rob banks e uses it to pull out the still-beating hearts of slavers right through their chests and crush them in his palm

because: he was a former slave but he got the magic markings that made him that dangerous and used them to ESCAPE and eventually KILLS his former master but he also has AMNESIA i do love a good amnesia story.

nobody say anything. i was into dragon age first. i loved him first

also, he’s had a terribly hard life and people like to portray him as angsty and bitter but he’s actually very kind and protective and soft if you aren’t a complete dick or your name isn’t anders like even if you romance him as a mage, and he fuckin hates mages especially anders

the first time i ever heard of riz ahmed it was because someone fancast him as this dude and it’s still my favorite one

2. groose (legend of zelda: skyward sword)

i have a whole tag for how much i love this motherfucker

every time he’s on screen is a genuine delight like he’s such a ham you always have to laugh

when he was a one-dimensional nice-guy bully he was annoying but once you hit mid-game and he starts getting a little depth he almost immediately becomes endearing

one of the most-developed zelda characters ever, period, of all time, except maybe BotW zelda, who nearly got this spot - like he has a genuine will to do good and protect others which is a huge 180 from where he started, it’s incredible

Dat Pompadour

please watch this video it’s one of my favorite video game cutscenes of all time

the scream from that video (at about :18) is my alarm tone.

1. lightning farron (final fantasy xiii)

this is My Girl, you guys. god where do i even start

pink hair

PINK HAIR!!!

at MINIMUM 25% of the reason i dyed my own hair pink tbh?

main character of a three-game trilogy which is mainly about her development and her relationship with her sister

ROMANTIC INTEREST? not here. fuck that! it’s because she’s aro

lightning doesn’t have time for romance she’s busy TOPPLING THE GOVERNMENT to SAVE HER LITTLE SISTER like lightning is a former soldier who full-on defects solely for that purpose

(later she then decides to kill what amounts to “god” in that world to save her little sister and you know what? “god” is right to be afraid)

also, she doesn’t like the guy her sister is dating, so he really has to earn that respect. like he does, in the end, after fucking it up a few times, because he is mostly a good guy, but like also before that happens she does fullly punch him in the face (in this particular instance he kind of had it coming)

you can’t really see it in this pic but for the most part her armor is not the horrible Sexy Girl armor a lot of game girls get (the third game has like optional sexy armor but fuck that) it’s like badass looking and functional

refuses to acknowledge the fact that she has feelings at the start of the first game, but then in the end it comes back to bite her in the ass because she’s been shutting her loved ones out, and she has to learn to FEEL HER GODDAMNED FEELINGS before it’s too late

spoilers but her real name is not (lmao, surprise!) lightning. it’s claire. a three-story trilogy about a girl named claire who learns to cry. i’ll see myself out

anyway lightning is the best i love ff13 so much please watch the best trailer ever because every single person reading this will probably like ff13 too because it’s impossible not to 

no seriously i started out determined to hate it but my heart softened starting with that trailer

thanks everybody for your time

#liz answers asks #dellesayah #long post #ff13 #liz plays dishonored #liz plays dragon age #loz blogging #grooseland or bust #undertale blogging #anyway between corvo fenris and someone i won't mention #reluctant formerly tortured amnesiac assassin with superpowers he didn't ask for #is like becoming my type. bad.

[cheesedoodlesurprise]

Dragon Age 2 Rant

Someone brought it up in some random Facebook Group and it got me thinking that I should finally just put it down in words.  

Dragon Age 2 is so horribly underrated that it hurts.  

The game gets so much hate that people didn’t understand what it did right

–BUT let���s get this out of the way fast: The below rant does NOT include the Level Design.  The same 4 locations used over and over.  There is no excuse for that.  It is bad and it should feel bad for it.  However much the points i will make can also be transferred over to this failure as well, that is just warping a point to excuse lazy or rushed design.

The people I have spoken to tend to cite one main example of its failure as a Role Playing Game(barring the above shit level design) and that is simply that it fails due to its action-style gameplay when compared to the original Dragon Age:Origins.  And I understand that.  There’s two radian wheels(unless you have a computer) and you’re running around and there’s not really much Party Maintenance like it had in the original.  It is not what a traditional RPG should be, and the party direction system was not the best(it reminded me way too much of Kingdom Hearts and Donald’s proclivity to use mega-elixers every time he loses one bar of mp unless you jump in there and hit him with the no-no can) especially when you realize that capitalizing on Condition Statuses is a main feature in felling your enemies.  It is just a gross departure from what a Role Playing Game should be, compounded by the fact that this was the Second Installment and it was already deviating so much from the turn based-lite party management norm.

The answer to this is simple.  Think back to the beginning of the game.  What happens?

The Hawke family gets attacked by a big fuck-off dragon and the story immediately cuts to Cassandra giving Varric shit for telling her something as stupid as “A Dragon Appeared” and you see that this whole game is now a narrative work; a retelling of events by someone being interrogated.  

Not just anyone, A FUCKMOTHERING BARD!!!!

Have YOU ever played a tabletop with someone rolling a bard?

You can’t believe a word they say, because the truth is boring and never makes for a good story.  So when asked what they did when separated from the party, instead of ‘Oh, there was a goblin so i stabbed it in the back” you’re told of a daring battle with a Bugbear King, where after felling the horrid beast, you found the princess he was holding prisoner and after releasing her from her bonds, she then had you free her from another trapping: that of virginity.

The point is this: Bards Lie.

If you take nothing else out of not just this long, badly punctuated, rant, take that.  Bards Lie about everything and anything.  It is who they are.  The story is all that matters.  So what is a Bard to do when being tortured by a bunch of Zealots, demanding knowledge on what to expect when they track down and try to kill one of your best friends?

Punch. That. Story. Up!

You make what originally is just a standard-if not slightly above average-fighter look like a whirling dervish of death to any who would cross him.

That’s what makes the story so well, this isn’t just an unreliable narrator, it is THE MOST unreliable of narrators.  One that tells you, right off the bat, that a lot of this never even happened.  You never know what really happened to Hawke and his Band of Merry Murder.  So, yes, the gameplay is a lot more action-oriented and you don’t have nearly as many combat options(especially if you are a mage) but it’s punched up to 11 the whole time because the person conveying the story is giving it all a nice sheen of ‘this is what happens when people cross them.”  You are not watching the Story of Hawke in this game.  You are watching VARRIC’S story of Hawke.

But that only answers the main issue people have with the game.  The change in controls.

What I never got is this: How can you rip on an RPG about its controls?  They are just mechanics, nothing more, and I have to say Bioware games always kinda sucked at their Turn-Based-But-Not-Really Mechanics.  KOTOR had a lot of issues and the crux of it was the clunky interface and squad controls.  I would love to have a party on a set it and forget it mechanic and not having to constantly pause the gameplay to switch over to one of the characters because they chose to not move out of fire.  How is that better than a little bit of AI that will give your party even SOME autonomy?  Because if you wanna talk about immersion, a character who is, in the narrative of the story, talked up as the quickest cutpurse on this continent and can never be caught by anyone but for some reason can not even fathom the idea of moving away from a giant spike pile he can see on the ground and instead walks right through the damn thing and kills himself is example 1:3 under the definition of Ludonarrative Dissonance.

….My point is this: Combat in Traditional RPGs is kinda trash to begin with and the main reason you play them is not combat.  It’s story.  The story is the big pull.  And this game has story falling out its ass.  It suffers in some places, sure, with what you can tell is rushed design and you are pigeon holed in a lot of places.  Case in point:I was a Mage who hated Blood Magic but put a lot of faith in the Apostates, so when every time you choose to help runaway mages and they come back and, whelp, looks like they are Blood Mages now I was so VERY angry at the game.  Livid.  I honestly don’t think people who played Rogues or Warriors and got DEEP into their characters(@meonlyred, I’m looking at you) can really match that level of anger and disappointment in the story of a game.  No matter what I try, these people just kept failing me.  

But that is the point.  I got so invested into this story that I was disappointed in 1s and 0s.  Here I was, trying to change the whole of Kirkwall by action alone: proving that having Magic does not mean you will become a monster(and, yes, i HATED the goddamn teaser trailer because in it, HAWKE USES GODDAMN BLOOD MAGIC JUST BECAUSE THE FUCKING BULL MAN WAS TOO MUCH FOR HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and yet every one I was putting faith and and having others trust my judgement on have been utterly betraying that faith and trust.

Because this land never functioned on the same as me.  I was the outsider.  The Fereldan immigrant, assuming that this world will function the same as the one I left.  Granted the land I left also had a jihadist attitude to my way of life, this new one in Kirkwall had a civil and social structure completely Foreign to me.  There was no way to change the way they viewed the world because I was just one person.  One Outsider, no matter my lineage, who couldn’t change anything.  This land was going to burn itself no matter what I did.  

And that was the point of Varric’s Story.  Hawke wasn’t the cause of the things that doomed Kirkwall.  The Expedition, the one that found the artifact that corrupted everyone?  Hawke just helped with the last leg of its setup.  They would have got it together eventually.  They would have found it.  Bartrand would have found it regardless.  And Anders still would have…. You know what, let’s save that shit til the end because I don’t want to upset myself early.

Anyway…. All of this would have happened no matter what(maybe a few things would have changed slightly, but not by much) Hawke did, but he was still in the middle of it all.  I know a lot of people like their stories to be centered around them, but those can get boring. Let’s use Fallout as an example: The Sole Survivor, wandering the wastes of The Commonwealth? When you spend your first 100 hours farming Duct Tape instead of finding your son, you come out to be an asshat.  But The Courier?  NOPE!  He was just a guy living in this world.  He isn’t the center of any story, really.  He is just a guy out for revenge, but he has no idea where to get it so him wondering around and dealing with random crap isn’t nearly as a disconnect as the game before or after it.  They are really fun and enjoyable protagonists.  Heck, one of my favorite Final Fantasys is 12: the one where you are NOT the main character of the story.  Thats the Sky Pirate and the Princess.  You are just tagging along for the ride, experiencing their story like a good audience surrogate.  

The only reason you are always being thrust into the middle of everything is because the Powers of this Town are throwing you at them.  The Qunari menace?  You are asked(told) to go deal with it, and it all blows up in your face because of someone else.  Hell you even tried to STOP the hellscape to be with Anders(that motherfucker) by being a good person and talking to him.  But nope.  He had his crappy agenda and nothing you could do would stop it.

….you know what, sure let’s talk about it now. That whole ending arc just pissed me off to no end.  There is Anders killing the ONE person in this whole city trying to hold everything together and treated people with even an ounce of trust and faith JUST TO PROVE A POINT THAT SIMPLY BY DOING IT DISPROVED HIS GODDAMN POINT!  

“Mages aren’t evil so I’m going to kill the beacon of peace in this whole shitty city which will lead to EVERY GODDAMN MAGE to just flipping a ‘whelp guess i’m an abomination now, time to murder everyone, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee blood magic is fuuuuuuuun!’ switch and I guess completely dismantle my entire point.  It’s a good thing Hawke stabbed me for being a fucking idiot” and then you come across the Mages who are holed up to protect themselves but, wouldn’t you know it, their leader turned himself into a Tentacle Death Monster and now you have to kill the one mage who had your back and was a beacon of not being a dickhole.  

All of this just constant “Mages are all evil dicks, lets torch them all’ just upset me so much.  I was playing the entire last part of the game with a giant grimace.  Angry at this whole damn city and making me kill all these people I tried to make better.

Yes, me.  I got so deep into this game(if you read up, I dropped the possessive pronoun a bit when talking about the story) that I was upset that they were betraying MY expectations of them as people.  Not Hawke.  By this time I got way into the game and imprinted.  

No matter what faults it has, in the end its story caused me to become so engrossed with it that even when it took a turn I did not like, I was so invested I was still hooked and responding to it as if it were happening to me.

I know it was a long rant that just sort of cut off, but Anders will do that to me.  Hell, I hated what he did so much, I even tried making a toon to romance him so I could see if there was more dialogue options or how it would shape with him actually having a loving relationship and nope! He still acted the same.  Just pleaded more for me to understand.  

I STILL had to gut him.  I was still so damn pissed off at him I had to kill him even as a character romancing him!

[nothe: wrote this up at work when I was bored so there is a very good chance I have odd stops and idea changes due to the nature of writing something while also having to work  on projects so it may be updated frequently]

#dragon age #da:2 #dragon age 2 #rant #anders #bards lie #story trumps rules

[jewish-gay-elves]

Doomed Love 3/?

AO3 Link

Zevran and Daolin have an odd relationship. These documents were collected to try to understand what exactly they were doing after the Fifth Blight and the destruction of Amaranthine.

Words: 3431, Chapters: 3/?, Language: English

Series: Part 2 of the Daolin Tabris: The Family You Don't Choose

Fandoms: Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Zevran Arainai, Male Tabris, Male Warden, Anders Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Warden, Zevran Arainai/Tabris, Zevran Arainai/Male Warden, Zevran Arainai/Male Tabris Additional Tags: this is a bunch of like letters or just documentation following my warden post-blight, and post amaranthine, idk how long it's going to be, Dialogue Drabble, talking about the Taint

[Taken from the Harbourmaster’s records, Llomerryn, 9:38 Dragon]

    There was a Grey Warden who came through the docks today. He didn’t have a whole lot, ‘cept there was the crest on his chest like a target. Must never have been in the country before, who knows why  he’s here, the last we heard all the darkspawn were in Ferelden. Serves the Dog-Lords right, in my opinion.

[The rest of the records were irrelevant and referring to the rest of the harbour’s transactions]

[A page seemingly torn from a book, likely passed around amongst initiates, College of Enchanters, 9:43 Dragon]

     Today was the strangest occurrence, a little between dinner bell and last class there was a great knocking noise that reverberated through the first floors of the tower. I had to run to the stock room for some extra flasks and was downstairs when it happened and even I heard the knocks. Then, in storms the angriest looking elf I’ve ever seen wearing some very mucked up armor, but I think I might have seen the crest on his chest before. He was then followed by a very, dare I say handsome looking elf and, I must have mistaken him, but it looked like Anders himself, back at last. The once slut of the Ferelden Circle turned terrorist of the Free Marches, still looking absolutely dreadful and in need of a haircut and properly fitting robes. Anyway, Anders was skulking a bit, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here while the particularly enraged elf went up to Maria and demanded to know where Grand Enchanter Fiona was! Like Maria was anything more than just a potioneer! [Side notes read: Fuck off she’s better than you’ll ever be Zachariah!!] She, of course, stuttered out that the Grand Enchanter’s office was on the top floor and before she could tell him that she was probably holding class at that moment he stormed off in search of the stairs. The pretty elf gave Maria an apologetic smile and sauntered off after the other one and Anders of course just skulked after the two of them. I don’t think the elves were magical at all. They must have made Anders lead them here, we all know the enchantment is undetectable except to other mages. Can’t imagine what they want with Grand Enchanter Fiona, I’ll just have to ask my mentor tomorrow.

[The rest of the page thanks his readers for their support of his work and promises more soon and he condemns the “haters”]

[A conversation between the King of Orzammar and the Hero of Ferelden, transcribed in the Royal Palace, taken from the Shaperate, Orzammar 9:37 Dragon]

King Bhelen Aeducan [KA]: Take notes Vartag, this is an important meeting. The deshyrs will be clamoring all over him if they find out he’s here so we’ll need to make some sort of statement to shut them up and make them feel like they were here. You don’t mind of course do you Warden? Atrast vala, Commander of the Grey.

Daolin Tabris, Hero of Ferelden [HoF]: Of course not, I remember the deshyrs well, your highness. No need for all the formality, it will be a fairly short visit. I’ve come to ask for access to the Shaperate.

[KA]: The Shaperate? What could you possibly want down there? It’s just must and moldy texts down there.

[HoF]: I’ve been led to believe that there may be important information regarding the darkspawn filed away in the Shaperate.

[KA]: Information about the darkspawn? HAH! You must be joking, I’m sure the Grey Wardens have as much information as we do on the subject. Seeing as we both have been fighting them for so long. Stop being vague, it doesn’t suit you.

[HoF]: Fine, yes, information regarding warriors who contracted the Taint and what was done for them.

[KA]: You’re full of sod, even I can tell you that, they were killed out of pity and necessity.

[HoF]: I’d rather check for myself in the Shaperate for any outliers.

[KA]: And I can save you time because there won’t be any, Warden. You remember the stiffs who clogged up the Assembly before I was rightfully crowned. There’s no way any of them would have ordered research on those with the Taint, to cure or otherwise.

[HoF]: Paragon Branka left diaries in the thaigs. I know because we let your Shaperate take them for safe-keeping when we returned.

[KA]: Why would you think there is anything in those rants except information about the Anvil of the Void? She was in it for the honor of restoring the empire, after having gone mad, I wouldn’t be surprised if she blocked out the horrors she committed against her house.

[HoF]: Because if Branka was anything, it wasn’t an idiot. I just need a few hours with them.

[KA]: What good is this going to do you? Why should I let you get access to that information?

[HoF]: There are two exits to Orzammar, one leading out to the Frostbacks entrance, and one through the tunnels. You let me read what I want, I go through the tunnels, clear out any darkspawn I see. Let your troops ride in behind me and reclaim the area and the deshyrs will never know I was here, and you’ll get the glory of securing more of Orzammar.

[KA]: And if I don’t?

[HoF]: I don’t even need to fill in the blanks. You’re going to let me look at those diaries, because we both know there are bigger things on the line. Can you imagine if the Taint had a cure? How many warriors you’d be able to save rather than send back to the Stone? How many deshyrs would bend over backwards for you because you managed to cure their children rather than returning their remains in a box?

[KA]: And you would just give Orzammar the cure, even though that would be actively detrimental to your entire order?

[HoF]: I’d just be reading the same diaries that you yourself have had access to this entire time. If I happen to leave behind a copy of the notes I take I’m sure you might be able to come to a similar solution. That is, if anything is in these diaries that we don’t already know.

[KA]: Vartag, give him the clearance. Send Milldrate to help him. Warden, I know you’ll keep your word, but you understand the sensitivity of this issue I assume.

[HoF]: Of course, your highness. Atrast tunsha.

[KA] Atrast tunsha. Take the palace entrance and avoid the deshyrs.

[The transcription ends there, as this Vartag must have left to go lead the Hero of Ferelden to the Shaperate.]

#writing #daolin #daolin tabris #dragon age #dragon age origins #m!tabris

[cdralenko]

fandom asks

i was tagged by @pinkyscousin, thank you and i’ve been so busy with work that this has been sitting in my drafts for like 3 months i’m so sorry (i also don’t think i did it right either lmao whoops)

your main three fandoms: 1. dragon age 2. mass effect 3. uncharted

the first character you loved: 1. alistair (da) -- on my first playthrough i thought the grumpy mage was alistair and that Real Alistair was some side character (listen. alistair is an old man’s name and i am dumb), and after overhearing their argument i remember saying “i really like him, i hope he comes back later.” if only i knew. 2. garrus (me) -- i wasn’t really interested in playing mass effect until youtube recommended a video of garrus’ citadel dlc romance. i liked it so much i ended up getting the game, and then 30 seconds into ME1 i accidentally fell in love with kaidan instead. whoops 3. nate (uc) -- i can’t tell you how many times nate and i said the exact same thing at the exact same time on my first playthrough of the series. also you’re stuck with him alone for like 90% of drake’s fortune so was there any other choice really

the character you never expected to love so much: 1. anders (da) -- i didn’t pay much attention in my first playthrough & didn’t understand everything that was wrong with the chantry, so we got off to a rocky start. one and a half dai playthroughs later, i enlightened myself and became a giant mage rights activist, and uh. now anders couldn’t get rid of me if he tried. 2. kaidan (me) -- i was super into garrus until i stumbled across the “big place” cutscene, and for some reason that did it & i’ve been in love with him ever since. 3. sully (uc) -- i cried like a baby the first time i got to the eclipse scene in drake’s deception. i love my adventure dad.

the character you relate to most: 1. anders (da) -- his personality, his sense of humor, his struggles, his values... anders is just a really important character to me. 2. ??? (me) -- i’m at a loss on this one. unless i cheat and say shepard i honestly can’t think of anybody i really see myself in. 3. nate (uc) -- see question one tbh

the character you’d slap: 1. HALWARD PAVUS x5000000 (da) -- please don’t tell dorian but GOD i am so glad that disgusting piece of shit is dead. rot in hell bitch 2. dr. wayne (me) -- one of the cerberus scientists who set the thresher maws on shepard’s unit at akuze. self-explanatory 3. flynn (uc) -- how dare you draw me in with steve valentine’s voice and then betray me like that?

three favorite characters: 1. dorian (da) -- if i even start to tell you how much i love this man we’ll be here all night 2. legion (me) -- i love my robot child. idk just, what an interesting character. legion’s story and quests were all really fascinating to me and i mean, come on. a robot who does the robot? what an icon. 3. chloe (uc) -- i loved learning more about chloe in lost legacy, and her character overall is just so much fun. she’s a big part of what makes among thieves my favorite game in the uncharted series.

a character you liked at first but don’t like anymore: 1. cullen (da) -- i have far, far too much to say here so for a tl;dr... i was a hardcore cullen romancer, then something he said to a mage inquisitor really creeped me out and i ran far, far away and never looked back. 2. jacob (me) -- i thought he was pretty chill when i met him in my first playthrough of me2 but uh. the writers sure did him dirty in 3. 3. flynn (uc) -- see question four

a character you did not like at first but do now: 1. carver (da) -- i thought he was a huge asshole at first but now i know how much shit he’s gone through and my little bro deserves the world. 2. ashley (me) -- i didn’t love her attitude towards aliens in me1 but i really enjoyed watching her character grow & develop past that as the series went on. 3. nadine (uc) -- lost legacy was outstanding and i loved seeing her development post-thief’s end and shoreline

three otps: 1. dorian x inquisitor (da) -- idk if i’m allowed to use pairings that include the player character but. i honestly don’t think i will ever love a pairing as much as this one for the rest of my life so i can’t not mention it 2. legion x being alive (me) -- what i could’ve had if the bioware writers were capable of feeling love 3. chloe x nadine (uc) -- please give me more of them adventuring together and shit talking the drake brothers. PLEASE.

tagging: if you’d like to do this consider yourself tagged!

#i haven't been on here in A Bit (TM) so i'm not gonna tag anyone just cause idk whos done it #anyway i'm so sorry lmao #long post #not really but it's probs long on mobile #i'm on desktop rn #ain.txt #tag game #i'm about to post like three more things i got tagged in so bear with me y'all #non vg #about

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 16/29 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

 Hawke let go of her, embarrassed, and stepped aside to let her in. “I’m sorry it’s a bit of a mess. I haven’t been taking visitors.”

 Yvanne looked around the enormous, beautiful home, with hardly a single decorative pillow out of place. “Yeah, real pigsty,” she said, and immediately cringed. Why would she say that? Did she      want    her single remaining family member to hate her? Assuming he really was family.

 While she boggled at it all, she dripped rainwater steadily onto the carpet. Hawke noticed before she did. “Oh, no, you’re soaked—of course you are, it’s pouring. I’m sorry I kept you waiting—Orana, could you get Yvanne a towel?”

 Right away the elf girl disappeared, reappearing moments later with the fluffiest towel Yvanne had ever seen. It felt strange against   her skin. What was it made of?

 “It’s fine,” she said, haltingly. “It’s not even cold out.”

 “Yes, but still. Do you like tea? Let’s have some tea. Orana, could you put on some tea?” Orana left for the kitchen to put on the tea. Yvanne didn’t particularly like tea, but she wasn’t about to mention that. With Orana gone it was just her and Hawke in the foyer, her patting her hair dry, him nervously twisting his hands.

 “Er, you should probably have a change of clothes, too,” he said distractedly. “You look about my m-mother’s size—afraid I don’t have anything else. Orana, could you show Yvanne—? Blast, she can’t hear me, she’s in the kitchen making tea. I’m—”

 “It’s fine,” Yvanne said before Hawke could apologize to her again. “I’ll dry fast by the fire.” 

 “Oh. Yes,” said Hawke, visibly relieved. “Yes, I should build it up. Tea by the fire...and we can talk…”

 A fire was burning in the fireplace, low but alive. Hawke puttered around in its vicinity, nudging it with a poker, and it leapt implausibly higher, though he’d barely touched it. Yvanne came over to stand by it, feeling the cold leech out of her bones, but not feeling quite comfortable enough to sit. The silence between them stretched more and more intolerably awkward, until Orana finally brought out a tea tray.

 “Please,” Hawke said as she set it down, “do sit.”

 Yvanne sat, even though she was still damp, and probably ruining the upholstery. Neither of them touched the tea.

 “So, ah,” Hawke cleared his throat, but seemed to have misplaced the rest of his sentence. He scratched his beard. It looked a few weeks old at most, coming in patchy and uneven. He looked like a man who shaved under normal circumstances. “I’m sorry, not that you’re not welcome, but—why are you here?”

 And she’d so hoped he wouldn’t have asked that right away. She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

 He blinked at her.

 “Look, I get that this is weird,” she said, all in one breath. “I don’t even know what I want from you. If anything. Certainly you don’t      owe    me anything. But I haven’t laid eyes on any of my family since I was nine years old. And I heard the name Lord Amell spoken in Highever. And I wanted to know about my family, and you were the only one I could find, and...here I am.”

 He looked at her with sudden and impossible compassion. “I see,” he said. “And ah, you said you were Revka’s daughter?”

 “I don’t really remember her. I hardly remember Kirkwall at all, even though I was born here. It’s certainly, uh…”

 “You get used to it,” Hawke said, trying for an encouraging smile. “It’s not so bad once you acclimate to the smell.”

 “How long does that take?”

 “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when it happens to me.” He gave a weak laugh, but it came out almost creaky, as though laughter hurt him.

 He picked up a tea mug and held it in his lap, not drinking it. “If you’re Revka’s daughter, then...pardon me, but I thought all of Revka Amell’s children were found to be mages and taken to Circles.”

     All?    thought Yvanne. She knew about her eldest sister who she’d never known...but      all?    All five of them? When she had first been taken to Kinloch, Yvanne had spent long hours fuming at the thought of her father and sisters getting along perfectly fine without her. Better without her, even. How she had hated them, for daring to be happy without her, for daring to continue to live their lives together when she was suffering alone.

 But that hadn’t been what had happened.

 Hawke was still waiting for her answer. She had to force the truth out of herself water from a stone. "I grew up in Kinloch Hold.”

 “Kinloch,” Hawke repeated. “So you’re from Ferelden.” He gave her a watery smile. “I was born in Ferelden, you know. My family lived in Lothering until the Blight. We came here as refugees along with everyone else. That was a time, hah. I had to work as a smuggler. That first year my brother and mother and I lived all in one room in my uncle’s house, can you imagine? We were so desperate to get out of there, but now I miss it more than anything. Odd, isn’t it?” He laughed uncomfortably.

 She stiffened. The Blight brought back uncomfortable memories for her of a different sort.   But Hawke was lost in his own memory and didn’t seem to notice. “I’ve been to Lothering,” she said absently instead.

 A clock was ticking somewhere.

 “Look, if,” Hawke cleared his throat, “if you need a place to stay, my home is open to you.”

 He cut her off before she could object. “I won’t ask you how you left Kinloch or how you got here, I can fill in those blanks myself. Tell me as much or as little as you want, I won’t press, or judge. I know how it is out there for a mage.” She must have looked doubtful because he continued. “I promise you’ll be safe here. My partner is active in the Mage Underground, he helps apostates all the time. Look—I’m a mage myself.” To demonstrate he conjured a bright sphere of spirit energy and held it in his open hand before letting it dissipate.

 This      did     catch her off guard. “I  heard   a rumor that you were an apostate,” she admitted. “But I heard a lot of rumors about you.”

 He laughed a little more easily this time. “Varric does like to encourage them. Probably for the best that there are so many that nobody believes the true ones.”

 “Right. Well, you definitely weren’t at Kinloch, so what Circle were      you    in?”

 He blinked. “Oh. Oh, I was never in a Circle. My father trained me, and my sister."

 That stunned her. She imagined what it might have been like, to be trained in magic by her mage father. Would she still have hated her magic then? Perhaps not. Perhaps her whole life could have been different. Perhaps      she    would have been the one living in this estate, not this man who didn’t even use the name Amell.

 “But I really mean it,” Hawke went on. He stood and approached, hovering, threatening to embrace her. “We’re family, so you have a home here. For as long as you need. There’s plenty of room here, of course—too much, if you ask me. You can sleep in my mother’s old room, I never go in there anyway. Orana does all the cooking, so no need to worry about that. Do you mind dogs? Flower is around here somewhere. My partner doesn’t care for him, claims he’s a cat person, but I know better. You’ll love him—my partner, not my dog, hah—he’s a mage, too. He runs a clinic in Darktown, that’s why he’s not here right now. He’s working late again. Really, he’s wonderful, I’m sure you’d get along…”

 Yvanne was getting entirely sick of Hawke mentioning his partner. She hated the way he said it—‘my      partner,’    in that syrupy way that made it obvious that the relationship was new. Every time he did it his eyes went soft and gooey. She’d been like that once, with Loriel. Her mood, already ambivalent, took a decided turn for the sour.

 “Sorry,” Yvanne cut him off, “could you explain to me exactly how we’re related?”

 Hawke brightened. “Yes! There’s a family tree around here somewhere. I’ll show you. Come, come!” He went to one of the gleaming, polished chests and rummaged in it, withdrawing a handful of heavy parchment scrolls. He picked out one particularly wide one and laid it out carefully on a nearby desk, weighing down the corners with four beautifully polished stones. Eagerly he waved her over.

 The family tree was beautifully illustrated with tiny portraits of each Amell, richly dressed and ornamented. Beside each portrait was a block of close-written text in such an elaborate hand that she could not make it out, along with lines and lines of annotations along the edges. The tree stretched so far up that surely  the majority of the people in the document were now long dead

 Hawke plucked a little golden hand-shaped pointer from somewhere and used it to indicate the parchment, avoiding touching it with his hands. “Here you are—and your sisters of course—daughters of Revka and Kiran Amell. I never realized that he must have been Rivaini...I don’t know much about him, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could tell me and I could add to this document, ah? That might be a pleasant pastime.” He produced a cracked smile and moved on.

 Yvanne had never thought of her father as being Rivaini. He looked like her and her sisters, and not much like other Fereldans, but she had always taken that as a sign of their nobility, like Queen Asha Campana of Antiva. It had never occurred to her that her father was      from    anywhere, that he hadn’t simply sprung fully formed from the aether as her father.

 “Revka was the daughter of Fausten Amell, and sister to the unlucky Damion—accused of smuggling, and bankrupting his poor father in the process of futile attempts to prove him innocent. Fausten was the son of Lord Thaddeus Amell, our great-grandfather. So I suppose that makes us third cousins! Thaddeus had another son, Lord Aristide, my mother’s father…”

 Hawke carried on in this fashion well past Yvanne’s capacity to listen to him. Instead she stared at the little oval portraits of her estranged noble clan. How strange it was to think of these ink-and-paper people as her family, as people who might have loved her, had her life gone a different way.

 “...but they’re gone, now, too.” Hawke fell silent, pained.

 Yvanne was still looking at the portrait of her mother. Had she really looked like that, pale-haired and long-chinned? The woman whose scraps remained in Yvanne’s memory smelled of rosewater and clean linen—but her face was a cipher. She did not recognize the woman in the portrait. Strange how Hawke had known right away who she was, when Yvanne herself didn’t.

 “Do you know where my mother is?” she said, not knowing that she intended to say the words until they left her lips.

 Hawke gave her a pitying look, and she felt a hot flash of hatred for him, just for that. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t. Nobody does. There were rumors, I’m to understand, that she went to be her husband’s family. I suppose that would be in Rivain—Dairsmuid, probably. But that’s just rumor. All I know is that she took the loss of her eldest quite hard—but you know that, of course,” he added quickly.

 Yvanne imagined her already-mostly-imaginary mother weeping in the streets, begging on her knees for salvation, all out of love for her eldest child. Revka had never cried for Yvanne like that. Revka had left Yvanne on purpose.

 “You really don’t know anything, then?” she said despondently. “What about my sisters?”

 Hawke shook his head. “I’m sorry. Only that none of them would be the Gallows, being Amells. They try to keep families separated, you see…but you know that.”

 She did know it. And now she had lost a hope that she hadn’t known she even had. Some part of her had been imagining that Lord Amell—Hawke—would somehow be her gateway to the rest of her family. That perhaps her mother would be here, against all odds, waiting for her. That this could be her home.

 But it wasn’t. All there was was this man, surrounded by riches, living a life she would have killed for, totally unaware of everything he had taken from her.

 So she simply stood there with her fists clenched, holding back ridiculous, childish tears.

 “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Hawke said, worrying his fingers. “You have to understand, I’m an exile here myself. I only know anything at all about the Amells from my mother. And she was always closer with Carver, before he...well.” He sighed. “I wish more than anything that I could ask her about our family now.”

 Yvanne had nothing to say to that.

 “Maybe we can find something later,” Hawke said, with an almost manic optimism. He grabbed her hand. “We have some leads. I have contacts I could write to. The Amells aren’t what they were, but I still have some pull. And money always loosens lips. My partner has contacts as well, he might know something. We can ask him when he gets back from the clinic! I know it seems very hard right now—I remember how hard it was for me.”

 How hard it had been for him! How hard for him, here in his golden palace, swathed in silk, waited upon by cringing elven servants, him who had never so much as seen the inside of a Circle!

 “But we’ll figure it out!” He smiled at her. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. “Here, let me show you to mother’s room—it’ll be your room now. You look about the same size as she w-was, you could certainly fit into her things. And anything that doesn’t fit Orana will alter. Better they get used by somebody, rather than eaten away by moths. What a depressing thought. Let’s not think it. Come, come!”

 “Wait—” He tugged her up the grand staircase to the second floor of the estate. The red carpet was decadently soft on the soles of her thin shoes.

 “It’s a bit dusty in here, I’m afraid—I haven’t gone in there for weeks, and it felt wrong to ask Orana to clean an unused room, but that’s all different now. Are you hungry? You must be—I’ll have Orana send something up. Of course feel free to arrange the furniture however you like, I’ll help you.”

 Yvanne looked around the darkened room as Hawke flew from corner to corner, lighting the gas lamps to reveal more and more of it. It was finer than any quarters she had ever known, even as the mistress of Vigil’s Keep, which had after all been a military posting, and not a nobleman’s estate. “Hold on—”

 “—and tomorrow I’ll show you around Kirkwall properly. It can be a little overwhelming, even for an experienced Kirkwaller. My friend Merrill still gets lost      all    the time. It’d be charming if it didn’t make me so worried. To be honest, it would be good for me to get out of the estate. M-my mother died recently, and I lost my brother and sister not long before that, and it’s been, well—well, it’s been difficult. You know, if it weren’t for my partner, I don’t know what would have happened to me these past couple weeks, haha!” The manic edge was back in his voice.

 Then he clasped her by the shoulders and beamed again. “So I want you to know, I’m      really    glad you’re here. Really. I have some wonderful friends, a wonderful partner, but nothing can replace family. We’re each all the other has left”

 This sent her over the edge. All he had left, indeed! Him with his silk robe and servant and      wonderful    friends and his oh so      wonderful    partner.  She struggled out of the embrace, skittering to the corner by the door like a feral dog. “Actually,      ”    she said, breathing a little heavily, “I don’t plan to stay.”

 He drooped like a puppet with its strings cut. “Don’t plan to stay? What do you mean? Of course you have to stay—”

 “I don’t have to do a damned thing,” she said, feeling for the doorknob behind her, finding it, and escaping.

 “Wait—” He nearly tripped over the finely woven Orlesian rug as he chased after her. “I don’t understand. Have I offended you somehow? Please tell me!”

 “You haven’t offended me,” she lied. “I’ve simply achieved my aim in coming here. I’ve found out everything you had to tell me about my family. We have no further business together.”

 “That’s not true! We haven’t exhausted our leads! I know you don’t know me—but you could!” he pled.

 She was struck by how pathetic he was. This was the legendary Lord Amell, who consorted with apostates and pirates and smugglers. Near as she could tell all the stories she had heard were true, and what did all that add up to? A sad unshaven man in a stained robe, begging a woman he didn’t even know to come live in his house.

 “And I could help you find the others! I’ve been known to achieve remarkable things, you think those rumors about me are totally baseless? Please, you don’t have to stay      here    if you’re uncomfortable      ,    but at least let me have Varric put you up at the Hanged Man.”

 “Stay in Kirkwall?” Yvanne made a disgusted face.

 “It’s not so bad, once you get used to it.”

 “I could hardly get used to Templars roving every street like weevils—”

 “You don’t have to worry about that!” he insisted. “I’m a very powerful man in this city. The guard, the Viscount, even the Knight-Commander, they all look away if I ask them to. Nothing would happen to you while you lived here. I could protect you. You’d be safer here than practically anywhere else in Thedas.”

 “And have nothing but your personal power between me and the Gallows? With that wretched place barely a stone’s throw away?” She clenched her fists. She could hardly believe the nerve of this man. “You have no idea the kind of terror of that place I grew up with. Kinloch was bad enough, but as long as the Gallows existed, they always had something worse to threaten us with.”

 “I do, though—my father—my partner—”

 “Your father!” she said, furious. “Your partner! Their lives, not yours. You have      no idea    what it was like. You have      no idea    what I have been through! We have nothing in common. Nothing at all.”

 “But we’re family,” he bleated. How pathetic, she thought, to want things. How disgusting. “We’re all the family either of us has left.”

 “We aren’t family,” she said coldly. “We happen to share an ancestor, four generations back. A thimbleful of blood. What could that possibly mean for the two of us now?"

 “I still want you to stay,” he said, helpless.

 “You don’t know me,” she said furiously. She didn’t understand why her throat was so tight, or why her vision was blurring. “You couldn’t possibly want that from me. You have no right to want that from me.”

 Of course he didn’t know her. Who knew her? Loriel had—no, not even Loriel. Loriel had been with her all her life, through childhood and adolescence and adulthood, and at the end of it neither of them had known the other at all.

 She paused with her hand on the doorknob. Then she forced it open, cutting her last tie.

 It had started to rain harder while she’d been talking to Hawke, and it was fully the dead of night now. She was now right where she’d started before she’d come here—penniless, alone, with only a vague idea where to go next.

 Well, not exactly penniless. She’d had to foresight to swipe one of Hawke’s candlesticks, and she was pretty sure the gilding on it had to be worth  something

#dragon age #femslash #amell #surana #dragon age 2 #please read my wizard lesbian fanfiction