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#but I was thinking about da2 last night and felt like starting again
pinkfadespirit · 3 years
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Help me I’m being hit on at a bar please be my fake boyfriend for a second for any of the DA2 crew?
Thank you for sending this, it was SO fun to write. I started this a few weeks ago and then @laniardraws sent me the same prompt last week (thank you too!) and I finally decided to come back and finish it tonight. Lani also specified Handers but that’s what I’d already decided to go with. 
I’ve deviated a little from the prompt and decided to go with ‘help my ex just showed up at this bar, please be my fake boyfriend for a second’ with a side helping of ‘Sebastian dumped me for Andraste’ - which, okay, I’m sorry about that. I swear I’m not trying to pick on Sebastian. I’m just having a bit of fun XD
For @dadrunkwriting 
Hawke takes a deep breath. He regrets it fairly soon afterwards, given that he’s currently locked inside a cubicle in The Hanged Man toilets. He’s not entirely sure why, of all the places he could have picked to hide, this was where he’d ended up. But then, he hadn't quite been thinking straight when he'd decided to run. He was on his way to the bar when he'd noticed Sebastian and his preservation instincts had kicked in. It occurs to him that his preservation instincts are a bit shit actually.
It feels safe to say that the Maker has a particularly cruel sense of humour, at least as far at Hawke is concerned. His first night out since he'd calmed down from his initial attempt to either drown his post-break-up sorrows, or distract himself from them by having maybe a little too much fun and here's Sebastian to ruin it. Not intentionally, Hawke assumes, but does that really matter in the outcome is the same?
Has Sebastian been coming here all this time? Has Hawke lost The Hanged Man in the break-up without even realising it? It doesn’t seem fair; The Hanged Man had been his first. Sebastian had never set foot there before Hawke introduced him to the place. Now he's out there in the bar and Hawke’s hiding out in a bloody toilet cubicle with the scent of stale piss and cheap toilet cleaner permeating the air. 
He wonders if he's always been this pathetic. What he needs to do is go out there and pretend he has every right to be there. No. Wait. Why would he have to pretend? He does have every right to be there. More than Sebastian. Well... Not really, but given that he's currently been reduced to hiding like this he thinks he can afford a moment to be petty. But once he's done with that he can go back to being a grown man, more than mature enough to handle bumping into an ex for the first time since they broke up seven months ago.
Seven months. That’s a reasonable amount of time to get over someone, right? Is he over Sebastian? He’d thought so. But seeing him again is bringing up old feelings—more of betrayal than of anything overly romantic, though, so that’s something at least. Honestly, he'd felt fine for several months before this. He’d felt more than ready to move on. And what he'd really love right now is to show Sebastian just how much better off he is without him. That’ll show him.
First things first, Hawke needs to actually leave the cubicle he’s been hiding in. Baby steps, he thinks. He takes a breath, regrets it again, then slides the lock open on the cubicle door.
The next step is probably just to get rather more drunk than he is now, which will have the double effect of making him look like he's having a lot more fun, while making the entire situation just that little bit more bearable. It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to do anything stupid. He doesn’t know why Aveline is looking at him like that from where she sits across the room, as he heads towards the bar. Hawke's a big man, after all. He can handle his booze.  
Thankfully, there seems to be no sign of Sebastian at the moment. There's a second floor to the pub so perhaps he found a table up there. Perhaps he left. But no, Hawke’s not sure he's ever been quite that lucky.
There's a queue at the bar, as there often is on a Friday night. Hawke takes his place at the back of it and tries to avoid glancing furtively about like he might be caught at any moment. Instead he focuses ahead. The lanky blond he’d noticed on the way in is ahead of him in the queue. Hawke can’t see his face but he recognises the ponytail and the gold hoop that hangs from one ear. He distracts himself from panicking about Sebastian by entertaining a brief fantasy about being the kind of person who could approach someone attractive at a bar and actually manage to be charming enough to get a phone number. Wouldn’t that be a nice way to put an end to the wallowing? A date is probably exactly what he needs really. He hasn’t had one in years. But that’s not a thought that inspires confidence in him. He puts it from his mind.
The queue moves forward and eventually Hawke finds himself standing at the bar besides the handsome blond stranger, who is even more handsome up close, now that Hawke can turn his head and attempt to glance surreptitiously at him. Apparently, Hawke doesn’t do surreptitious. The man beside him catches him looking and smiles at him. It’s a good smile, one that shows in his eyes, which are such a pretty shade of amber, Hawke gets lost for a moment just looking in them. And then the word, “Hi,” is out of his mouth before he can stop to think whether a smile at a bar counts as an invitation to start talking to someone he’s never met before.  
“Hi,” the man replies and then, if Hawke’s not mistaken, he gives him a once over, lingering for a moment on the biceps that show under his short sleeves. He doesn’t quite have time to process that before the man adds, “I'm Anders.”
“Hawke,” Hawke replies, wondering if he’d been wrong before and he’s actually a lot luckier than he’d thought. Then he hears the distinctive sound of a Starkhaven accent from somewhere behind him and thinks, actually, maybe not.  
“I think I've just had one of my worst ideas to date,” Hawke tells Anders. “And I’ve had a lot of really bad ideas.”
Anders raises an eyebrow at that. “Alright... This doesn’t sound like any line I’ve had before. Hit me with it.”
Hawke takes a breath. “I need you to be my fake boyfriend for a minute.”
Anders just stares at him for a moment. Then he laughs.  
“There’s a drink in it for you,” Hawke says as Norah finally turns to them with an expectant look from over the bar.  
“Oh. You’re serious,” says Anders, looking rather more baffled now.
“Anything you want. On me,” Hawke insists.  
Anders takes a moment to consider while Norah looks between them impatiently. “Alright then.” Then he just asks for a pint, which is decent of him really, given that he could easily have taken advantage of the ‘anything’ offer.
“Who are we trying to make jealous?” Anders asks as Norah grabs two pint glasses and begins to fill them.  
“It’s not like that!” says Hawke. “Alright it’s a little bit like that. My ex just showed up and I know this doesn’t actually make me any less pathetic than I feel but he doesn’t need to know that.” Anders just smirks at him. And Hawke decides he’s not been quite embarrassing enough for one night so he adds, “He dumped me for Andraste.”
“Huh,” says Anders. “Well, can you really blame him? You must have seen the statues; she was quite a looker.”
Hawke stares at him, halfway through pulling a tenner out of his wallet. “I’m pretty sure that’s blasphemy,” he says. “...You’re perfect.”
Anders flashes his teeth in a grin that is, quite frankly, dazzling. Hawke uses the time it takes to pay for their drinks to reflect on what a huge fucking idiot he is. Then he reflects on it some more when they weave their way through the queue that has formed behind them and he sees Sebastian standing back across the room from him and realises he hasn’t thought this plan through at all beyond the ‘acquire fake boyfriend’ stage. Never mind that he knows nothing about Anders beside his name and his potentially concerning interest in statues of Andraste. And everything Anders knows about him Hawke would rather not think about any more than he has to.
“My name’s Garrett, but everyone calls me Hawke,” he begins quickly, not panicking at all (why would he be panicking?) “Everyone being those people over in that corner there. I’m twenty-seven and I have two siblings and a dog named Parsley and –oh shit he’s seen us. What do we do?”
He looks desperately at Anders, whose expression is apparently torn between a confused sort of amusement at Hawke’s hurried biography and a general sense of ‘fuck if I know. This was supposed to be your idea’.
When all Hawke can do is send him a helpless look in return, Anders rolls his eyes. Then he takes the drink Hawke is holding and places it along with his own on the table next to where they are standing. “Is he looking this way?” Anders asks.  
“Yes. Fuck. He’s heading over here.”
“Hawke, look at me for a minute,” says Anders and Hawke looks. Anders is standing in front of him with his hand placed on his shoulders. “Just relax,” he instructs and at first he thinks there's a fat chance of that happening but then he looks into Anders’ warm, amber coloured eyes and there is something quite soothing about the sight of them.  
And then Anders kisses him.  
Anders’ hands glide over shoulders and up to tangle in Hawke’s hair and beard. Hawke’s hands just sort of flop uselessly at his side for a moment while he struggles with the fact that, yes, this is really happening. He takes that moment then reaches up to wrap his arms around Anders’ waist and pull him close. Their lips part and, admittedly, there probably is a bit too much tongue involved for the middle of the room in The Hanged Man (right in front of Sebastian) but Hawke isn’t sure if he cares about that right now. It’s a bloody good kiss. The kind that leaves them both breathless as they finally pull away from each other, chests heaving and eyes wild.  
Hawke’s still sort of dazed when he looks up and realises that Sebastian is still there staring at them in stunned surprise. “Oh. Hi Sebastian,” he says.
“Hawke,” Sebastian replies. “I can see you’re busy. I’ll, er, catch up with you another time.”
Then he turns and quickly heads back to where he’d been standing earlier.  
Hawke looks back at Anders, who picks up his drink and winks at him before taking a sip. “I’m thinking about changing my terms for this arrangement.”
Hawke blinks at him. “Your terms?”
“I’d say that was worth more than a drink, wouldn’t you? Dinner, at least.”  
“Dinner?” Hawke repeats. “You mean... like a date?”
Things are rapidly reconsidering his earlier assessment of this evening. Perhaps he really is luckier than he thought.
“You catch on quick, Hawke,” says Anders with a smirk.
“I could do that,” says Hawke. “I mean, I’d love to.”
Anders’ face breaks out in another dazzling grin and Hawke thinks that there’s no ‘perhaps’ about it; he’s as lucky as they come.
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lesetoilesfous · 4 years
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“How much of that did you hear?” plus “Are you drunk?” for Hawke/Isabela please! I love them so much
I had so much fun with this and I love them so much and thank you!
(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)
@dadrunkwriting
Pairing: Isabela/Marian Hawke
Characters: Isabela, Marian Hawke
Tags: da2 act 3 adjacent, internalised misogyny, Isabela has self-esteem issues, angst and fluff
Rating: Mature
*
“That’s not the point Varric!” Isabela’s voice is loud through the door of Varric’s rooms, and a little high with the force of her feeling. Hawke hesitates, bottle of Antivan whiskey clutched tightly between her fingers (tied with a red silk bow that the Antivan merchant had assured her that her lover would appreciate.) 
“She’s not - this isn’t - damn it all.” There’s a loud thump. Marian slowly comes to a stop outside Varric’s chambers, melting with the familiarity of habit into the shadows beside the door. When Isabela speaks again, her voice is softer, and Marian has to lean closer to the door to catch it, careful to ease the balls of her feet over the Hanged Man’s infamously creaking floorboards. 
“People like her aren’t meant for people like me. I mean, look at her! The woman washed up like every other half-drowned refugee in this city, and turned the whole blighted thing around in less than a decade. Homeless to Champion in six years. There’s a reason those pamphlets of yours sell so well Varric, and it isn’t your purple prose.”
Over the distant sound of the laughter downstairs and the low jump of music, Marian hears the quiet rumble of Varric’s reply, too soft for her to make out the words. After a moment, Isabela responds, warmly.
“I’m sure. But that’s not the point.” Varric speaks again. Marian leans forward, and tries to ignore the prickle of guilt that pulls at the hairs on the back of her neck as an elvhen bartender hurries past, glancing suspiciously at the shadows just over her left shoulder. 
Marian is distracted from the elf by Isabela, and a long soft sigh through the door. Marian’s chest aches, and she tilts forward again, pressing against the rough wall of the Hanged Man and breathing in the salt and bitters taste of old ale. “She’s...a hero. And what am I? Some cheap Rivaini whore who couldn’t shut up long enough to be a decent wife.”
Varric’s voice is louder this time, protesting, but then there’s the squeak and groan of a chair on wooden floorboards, and the quick tap of Isabela’s heels as she crosses the room. “I’m going to get a drink.”
Marian has about three seconds to think, shit, and then the door to Varric’s rooms is swinging open and she finds herself face to face with Isabela herself. For a second, Isabela stares at her, brown cheeks flushing darker as she takes in her position. Weakly, Marian attempts a smile, holding up the bottle of Antivan whiskey.
“Surprise?”
Isabela shuts her eyes, brows pulling her forehead up into a mess of creases as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “How much of that did you hear?”
Marian softens, lowering the bottle as she drops the act. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Varric attempting to make himself scarce as he steps into the other room. She looks into her lover’s beautiful bronze eyes, and offers, quietly, “Enough?”
Isabela swears, and swings forward, toppling a little as she does so, long boots skidding across the soft floorboards of the Hanged Man. Her thick, dark, wavy hair sways around her face and neck, and Hawke catches her easily, fingers curling around the soft muscular weight of her arms. “Sometimes I think one of those damn soothsayers actually did curse me.”
Hawke blinks, supporting Isabela’s full weight now as she leans forward. “Soothsayers?”
Isabela waves her off, pressing forward, and Hawke lets her go, watching as she topples against the far wall of the corridor. “It’s a Rivaini thing.” 
Hawke nods, letting the whiskey bottle fall at her side as she steps forward. “Right. Are you drunk?”
Isabela snorts, shoving a hand heavy with golden rings studded with blue and red stones into a handful of her hair. “I’m barely tipsy.”
Marian nods, bending to set the whiskey bottle down on the floorboards just inside the door to Varric’s room (no pickpocket worth the skill to escape her notice would dare to steal from Varric Tethras). Then she walks forward, steadying Isabela easily. “Right. And that’s why you’re treating the Hanged Man like it’s the deck of the Siren’s Call.”
Isabela scowls, and she flings a hand into the air with the drama of an Nevarran poet. “Don’t! Say her name. It’s...bad luck, to speak ill of the dead.” Somewhere beneath the slurred words, real pain flashes across Isabela’s features, raw and fresh as it had been the first time she’d told Hawke about the shipwreck, six years ago. 
Marian squeezes her arms, and gently tugs her back towards Varric’s rooms. “Come on, love. Sit with me.”
Carefully, Marian guides Isabela into a chair by Varric’s table, scooping up the whiskey and shutting the door behind them. After a moment, Varric steps out, offering Hawke half a wave and a knowing look when he does so. Marian throws him a smile, before returning her attention to Isabela, who’s resting her elbows on the table and pressing her face into her hands.
Gently, soothingly, Marian rubs a soft circle over Isabela’s upper back, stroking the rough canvas of her tunic. When she speaks, she does so softly. “Tell me what’s wrong?”
Isabela laughs, and it comes out a little more like a sob than Marian expects she’ll admit when she’s sober. Outside, in the Kirkwall night, a pack of mabari start up a baying howl at the moon. “Nothing! That’s the problem.”
Marian’s hand pauses in its circles on Isabela’s back. “....Right.” 
Isabela looks up then, and her eyelashes are thick and dark with unshed tears. She smiles at her, and one jewel-laden hand falls to rest on Marian’s own scarred, rough farmer’s hands. “You don’t understand.” 
Marian goes to protest, but Isabela’s thumb runs over the back of her hand as she continues. “People like me -” Marian frowns, Isabela raises her voice, “People like me don’t get happy endings. Which is why this -” Isabela gestures, loosely, to the pair of them, and the warm red fabric and soft wood furnishings around them, “is so fucking terrifying.” 
Isabela blinks, and looks away, the soft line of her throat working as she swallows. “Because I’m going to lose it.” Finally, she turns back to Marian, and her expression is hard with remembered grief. “I’m going to lose you.”
For a long moment, Marian listens to the silence of her own thoughts, and feels the heavy, warm weight of her lover’s hand over her own. Then she takes a deep breath, and feels the tightness of her chest straining against her lungs in the way it has so often done in recent years: when she watched the ogre that took Carver, when she noticed the mottled grey spreading across Bethany’s sun beaten skin, when she saw the monster that had been made of her mother. 
Then she says, softly, “So many people in this city seem to think I’m a hero. And the only person I actually want to believe it is you.”
Isabela stares at her. Marian turns her hand over, squeezing her fingers before leaning forward and pushing a heavy lock of dark hair back behind Isabela’s ear with her other hand, the backs of her knuckles brushing the rough linen of her bandana. The discs of gold tied to the fabric clink when it moves. Isabela catches her breath, lips slightly parted. Marian tries to smile at her, and isn’t sure why it feels so hard. 
“The people of Kirkwall seem to believe that I can do impossible things. But the only time I’ve ever felt that way about myself is when I look at you.” Marian hesitates, then, catching her breath like a fistful of butterflies in her chest. “Isabela...you are the most remarkable, powerful, intelligent, funny, beautiful person I have ever had the privilege of meeting.”
Isabela laughs, softly, and a tear rolls down her cheek, glittering like gold in the candlelight against the sunset bronze of her skin. “Bet you say that to all the girls.”
Marian shakes her head, catching another tear with the side of her thumb as it rolls down Isabela’s full, round cheek. “No. Just one.”
Isabela does laugh, then, leaning forward and lifting their joined hands into the air over the table between them, pressing a rough clumsy kiss against their linked knuckles. Marian’s heart twists, and she shuffles forward, pressing closer.
“Isabela.” Isabela looks at her, and in the dark her eyes glitter like distant gold. “I am occasionally capable of impossible things. And I honestly don’t know how to control it, or how long it will last. But -” Marian’s hand tightens around Isabela’s, pressing the hard edge of her rings into her skin “- if there is a Maker, if there is such a thing as fortune, or fate, or whatever it might be called, I swear to you, love. I will be impossible for you.”
Isabela shuts her eyes, and more tears fall down her cheeks as she bows her head, thick hair tumbling over the soft curve of her shoulders. When she speaks, her voice is so quiet that Marian nearly misses it. “Why?”
Gently, Marian lowers her hand to Isabela’s chin, lifting it up until she meets her eyes. When Marian meets her gaze, she feels the weight of the honesty of her words pressing between her teeth with the fire of a thousand suns. “Because you’re everything. You’re everything, love. You’re everything to me.”
Then she slips her hand up over Isabela’s cheek, and kisses her, slipping her hand into the warm silken weight of her hair. Even through the cheap salt and bitters of the Hanged Man’s ale, Isabela tastes as she always does: of roses and the sea.
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Dragon Age: Origins (and DLCs), day 14.
The more time I spend with them, the more I enjoy Nathaniel and Sigrun’s dynamic, and the more I find myself thinking about what might have been if this had been a full-length game. (For starters, perhaps he could’ve had something to say about her quest, and perhaps they could’ve had the “broke ain’t the same as poor” conversation and touched on where the limits of his ability to relate to her experience are.)
Right, Fade time.
Isaura is constitutionally incapable of not responding to the First’s bombastic declarations with snark, yes.
Velanna, I swear to fucking God. Running off to melee two desire demons on your own is not what I keep you around for.
Who are you trying to impress, Velanna? Pretty sure your boyfriend will be happier if you stay by him and toss him the occasional heal, honestly.
OK, I spent about two and a half DAA playthroughs yelling at Nathaniel, then once I stopped worrying about him Anders and Velanna both discovered a newfound love for camping out in melee range. This is my life, apparently. Trying to remind ranged companions that they are not, in fact, invulnerable tanks, because they keep forgetting.
Hello, Justice. Been a while.
That went fairly well. Velanna even behaved. Mostly. (Nathaniel spent most of the fight within melee range of at least one ash wraith, but I’ve given up worrying about him. Velanna, heal your boyfriend, will you?)
Now, who gets dropped? Sigrun and Velanna are both expendable. That said, I’m happiest in melee, so I think Justice/Nathaniel/Velanna is the best choice for now.
Whoo, Sentinel armor! I felt a little bad about not giving the Hirol’s Defense set to Sigrun, but now I can. Once we get done here and head back to the Vigil, anyway. And enjoy the Juggernaut set, Justice. Until and unless I decide to give you the Stormchaser set instead, I’m still waffling about that.
Nothing like standing pensively and having a sedate conversation while everyone’s on fire. :D Well, everyone except Isaura, who was either out of range or just has too high a fire resistance score.
Now that Justice is in the party for proper, he’s wasted no time getting judgmental. Consider maybe toning it down eventually, buddy. No? Oh. Okay.
So, think this level 31 party can handle the Queen of the Blackmarsh? I do. Let’s give it a try.
I’ve stopped worrying overmuch about Nathaniel, but sweetie, you don’t need to be standing under the dragon. Get back behind Isaura and Justice, please.
And yelling “Why aren’t you dead yet?” half a minute into fighting a dragon? Once again, sweetie, I admire your optimism.
...and now you’ve been knocked out. This is why I tell you these things, Nate. Fine, just give Isaura a second to get a lyrium potion in her and she’ll give you a revive.
Good thing Velanna finally decided to behave, or I’d be completely driven to distraction.
Again, Nathaniel? Ugh, just wait, we’ve almost got this dragon.
There we go! One nice dead dragon. Well, re-dead. It was clearly some kind of ghost, from the looks of it.
And Oghren’s quest is finally done. Thank you, Oghren.
Now to bang out Justice’s and drop off some stuff in Amaranthine before we start the endgame.
Justice’s line about envying what Kristoff and Aura had, juxtaposed with a romanced Anders’ line in DA2 about Justice apparently disapproving of his “obsession” with Hawke. Hmm.
Poor Aura.
So Anders puts forth the theory that demons are “simply spirits with unique and sparkling personalities”, gets smacked down by Justice, then passes along the smackdown to Merrill when she espouses a similar view in DA2. Given everything we’ve learned, how reliable a narrator is Justice here?
Justice sure does get defensive when insisting that he has no desires. Hmm.
And here’s the love bug again, this time with Justice. Look, I knew Isaura had some sparkle to her and was good at drawing people in, but three companions in love with her? Literally half the party?
Right, I’ve run out of things to do besides the Blight Orphans questline, which I don’t feel like doing, so let’s stash/sell some excess inventory and then start up the endgame.
...of course, the narrator/Statue of War is the same VA as Varel, how did I miss that? Who, like Duncan, will also be dead by the end of the game. Apparently that’s a requirement for DA narrators.
My “Spirit of Narration from the Fade” theory looks more likely by the day.
Anyway. Time to pick my final party. Justice and Nathaniel are obvious, but who gets the free spot? Velanna? Anders? Sigrun, who specifically requested to come along?
You know what, I’ve never had Velanna along before, let’s try her out.
Nice, I’d been saving Nathaniel’s last gift for if I lost approval with him by insisting on saving Amaranthine, but no, he’s still at +100. (Funny, he’s the only companion who made it all the way to 100 this time, but he’s still (Warm) while three companions who are only in the 90s are (Love).)
...and it’d be very nice if you’d stop crashing every time I try to leave the Chantry, game.
*scrème*
Oh, now I lost three points with Nathaniel for letting the messenger go. I’ll save that gift for now, I’ve still got one last decision to make.
The dragon at Drake’s Fall went down fairly easily, though I’m not sure Isaura’s Inferno/Blizzard combo actually accomplished much.
Hello there, Seranni. Goodness. That’s...yeah.
And that crash means I should probably pack it in for the night and finish up tomorrow.
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kunstpause-archive · 4 years
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5 Questions for Writers
I got tagged by @elveny and looking at this I don’t even know where to start ? Let’s see if we can make a coherent post out of this
Tagging @curiousthimble, @midnightprelude, @captainderyn, @cornfedcryptid,  @elfyourmother​, @defira85, @edencalder @anchanted-one @tishinada @illegiblewords and anyone else who wants to do it - I’d love to see people’s answers but no pressure to anyone.
1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?
2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?
3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?
4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?
5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?
1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?
Of the ones I've written more for probably Aren Surana. I love all my characters to pieces and I always enjoy writing for Cassia or Amara - but Aren is closest to my heart and the things I want to express through writing her are some of the most important to me. Aren is autistic and shares pretty much all of those traits with me and it is very important to me to share her story and her perspective on things with others - and hopefully make the one or other person understand some things in the process.
That said Cassia is probably a close second place - writing her struggle with depression and working through it with familial support was something quite liberating. 
And lately there is Althea, my FFXIV OC which I have not yet published anything about but I’ve been writing a few bits and pieces for her and she is rapidly growing into a character I really enjoy writing.
The rest got longish, so under the cut it goes.
2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?
I love lighthearted miscommunication and I absolutely love writing more humerous things. My DA2 coffee shop AU was just pure fun to write. 
I also really enjoy a lot of the classic tropes from “there is only one bed!” to “we need to make out to hide from the bad guys”.
Also I found out through my fictober project with @elveny that I am enjoying the occasional writing of horror-themed things. (Those are all intentionally bad endings, so skip this if that is something that’s not good for you please.)
I wrote a so far unpublished “magic made them do it” story for DA2 which was also quite fun and I am currently in the middle of an enemies-to-lovers-to-weird-allies thing for Althea.
3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?
from my so far not published enemies-to-lovers thing for FFXIV:
He was the living embodiment of all that she hated about herself. The cold distance, the numbness, the utter boredom at the mundane, the miserable existence without a challenge… but something more dangerous somehow. 
A mirror of her undesirable traits would have been something she could have ignored but at the same time he managed to be almost everything she so desperately yearned to be. Unbound by the expectations of those around him, the freedom and single mindedness to follow his heart’s desire and the wild abandon with which he carried himself… He was everything she loathed and all that she wanted for herself at the same time. 
And he had the audacity to laugh at her.
This bit from a Divinity Original Sin 2 ficlet Fractured:
Amadia was there through it all, holding and soothing. Speaking soft words of consolation and compassion. Her old heart slightly breaking as she did all she could to help him hold on. On nights like these she looked at him with heavy thoughts. He had lost so much, endured so much. And yet she thanked all the powers still around her that at least for the moment he was still unaware of just how much. His beautiful, fractured mind saving him, holding back the greatest pain, the sharpest memories. She had done her best to shield him from his own past. Every time she could feel him push at his memories, trying to regain the last puzzle pieces she had woven images around them, pulling them just out of reach. Even with all the strength he had gained, all the power he had learned to master so far, Amadia was determined. Determined to keep him whole and away from the what would surely tear him apart if she didn’t intervene. She needed him whole after all. At least for a little while longer. And so she kept holding him, comforting him the only way she could.
“Rest now, my child. Lay down your burden and let me keep watch over you, my dear, dear child." She could feel his mind relax and starting to drift. Away from the memories, the past, the truth. Lulled by her warmth and her words. One more night where he would be unaware, that those words had once been his own.
And I am very partial to this nsfw bit - Bull trying to distract Amara from the murder happening in Halamshiral
Cold stone against her skin as she was roughly turned around and pressed against it. More clothes carelessly pushed aside. A bruising grip on her hip pushing her into place. When the first sharp sting of pain on her thighs went through her she let out a relieved sob, pushing back against his hands, her whole body pleading for him to continue. This was what she had wanted. Needed. And he gave it to her. Again and again until she could think of nothing else but his hands on her flesh and his voice in her ear.
She had lost all sense of time when he turned her around again, lifting her up enough to enter her in one swift and fluid motion. No matter the amount of pain, she was dripping wet for him, her body reacting instinctively to his touch, rough and forceful as it was. His pace was ruthless. Unforgiving he pushed her into the wall again and again. She felt the pleasure building up, growing with every sharp thrust until it was almost bursting when her heart dropped. 
The music.
It had stopped.
For a second her eyes went searching in the direction of the lights. Head turning. Were those screams she heard or was it imagination?
Bull’s hands closed around her, covering her ears almost entirely as he turned her head back, forcing her to look at him instead. “Don’t listen!” His words were a low grumble but somehow sounded like both, an order and a plea at the same time. He pushed into her faster, his iron grip around her not letting her move even the smallest bit as he pushed her over the edge and she came with a soundless cry on her lips.
Amara’s eyes had fallen shut, the only sound she could hear being the noise of her own blood rushing through her ears. Again she lost track of time, feeling almost like she was floating in his arms. When she finally opened her eyes again Bull was looking at her with so much love and determination on his face she felt something warm in her chest. It was small. Just a spark. But something she was almost desperate to hold on to. She could also see the worry written all over his face and she sighed deeply, before kissing him softly. “Let’s get out of here. Leave for Skyhold right away,” she mumbled against his lips. She closed her eyes again, her forehead against his as she felt the relief running through both of them when he agreed without second thought.
4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?
this bit from a Hands of Fate related one shot about DAI times:
“I can’t believe Varric wrote a book about me,” Cassia muttered under her breath. “I don’t even know if I should be flattered or extremely embarrassed.”
“I would go with flattered and avoid ever reading it,” Dorian suggested with a wink. 
“Oh definitely!” Josephine agreed. “Don’t read it.”
“Ever.” Cassandra’s dry voice added shortly. Bull still didn’t say anything but he was visibly amused by everything that happened.
“So you’ve all read it then?” Dread was on Cassia’s face. “How bad is it?” She eyed the book as if it was a particularly nasty dish she had to eat.
“Not that bad!” Josephine was quick to say. “Really, come to think of it, it is barely worth mentioning.” Cassandra and Dorian nodded eagerly. 
“Well, in my defence I actually haven’t read it, I just skipped through the highlights where Josephine had folded the pages.” Dorian was grinning madly at Josephine’s embarrassed squeak. “I must say Ambassador, I am impressed! I did not expect this from you.” 
Cassandra tried to save the situation with a last desperate attempt. “There seems to be a lot of... artistic freedom in the book,” she tried to assure Cassia. “Things so obviously outlandish that no one will ever think those actually happened.”
Somehow this had the opposite of a calming effect on Cassia. With a very sceptical look she stared the Seeker down. “Really? Like what?”
For the next few seconds Cassia got to experience something that most people believed was absolutely impossible and could never occur. But at a loss for words Cassandra seemed to actually squirm in her seat. “Like, uhm… like…” 
“Like the scene in the chantry!” Josephine helped her out and Cassandra nodded thankfully. 
“Yes, like that one! Something so ridiculous… No one in their right mind would actually believe that actually happened,” she explained eagerly, obviously hoping to put Cassia’s worries to rest.
“Chantry?” was all Cassia got out, feeling her throat closing up. 
“Page 225 onward,” Dorian supplied helpfully and quickly moved aside, barely escaping another kick from Cassandra.
Almost mechanical Cassia turned the book to the page he mentioned and glossed over it. The little voice that had told her ‘the scene in the chantry’ could mean all sorts of things died a tragically painful death as soon as she had started to read. She felt her cheeks flaming up. “Crap!” she whispered. “He is going to kill me.”
5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?
The last scene of my enemies to lovers thingy - it’s what started the whole idea and I have it in my head but I am not going to write it until I wrote the bits before.
Also I have so many headcanons about Ascians I need to write some scenes at some point. Just to get it out there.
Certain scenes from the sequel to Hands of Fate are also high on my list of things I look forward to write. But I am forcing myself to write things chronologically bc otherwise I will never get done with the re-edits.
And there is a Heavensward friends-with-benefits ot3 scene I have had in mind for a while. Some day. 
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taki118 · 4 years
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Different Paths (A DA2 Personal Challenge) Varric & Isabela
Reposting some of my favorite ficlets from this on going writing challenge of my own making read the rest here
Isabela enjoyed a good hunt as much as she enjoyed a good duel. Not the boring sort where one trotted trough bug infested woods to follow after some dumb animal for hours. No her hunts were a dance of wits and seduction. A bedding just wasn’t as satisfying if there was no sport to it. She enjoyed playing the game as it meant revealing in her victory. But this was getting ridiculous.
Six years, six sodding years and Isabela had gotten nothing more than a passing flirtation from the dwarf. It was insulting is what it was. Varric knew the game she was playing and instead of letting her trap him or giving her the graces of stating she had the wrong weapons he merely played along.
It wasn’t fair, the first charming dwarf she ever met and he acted like he wasn’t interested. An act she saw through time and again when she caught him eyeing her many assets, and she knew for a fact long legs was not a trait she shared with dwarven girls. Only interested in dwarfs her pert ass.
Well no more. This was to be her final attempt, her last hurrah and she was going to get something out of this hunt one way or another.
“I challenge you to a game.” Isabela announced barging her way into his private rooms.
“No can do Rivani.” He laughed not once looking up from whatever it was he was writing, even as the table shook from her placing her feet on top. “I still haven’t recovered from the last one.”
“Ohhhhh but this isn’t a simple game of cards I’m challenging you to.” His quill stopped its scratching for a second before continuing. And so she lays the trap. “I came across it in Orlais, one of the few good things from that place.”
“And pray tell what is this game of yours?” Isabela smirked, he was taking the bait.
“It’s called The Game of Secrets.” His quill stops then, his head raising to meet her eyes.
“Alright I’ll bite. What’s this game entail?” He leaned back and she had him right where she wanted him.
“It’s very simple,” She began picking the dirt from under her nails, as though she could care less. “We each set a stack of five gold sovgiens, we go until one of us is left with nothing.” With a smirk she pulled a coin from her bodice placing it on the table. “I say something and you bet whether or not it’s a lie. You guess right you get a coin, guess wrong you loose one.”
“Ahhhh I see why you chose me for this game.” Varric began, his eyes twinkling deviously at the prospect of the game. “But shouldn’t it be called the game of liars?”
“Oh no see if I tell a truth and you think it a lie I get two coins.” She smirked moving her body gracefully to properly lean in. “Don’t you want to learn some of my secrets?”
“I already know your secrets.”
“Do you?”
The room was quiet save for the sounds from bar downstairs and the drumming of his fingers on the table. It was a mock of thought, a tell she’d found in their card games, he’d made his decision it was only a matter of admitting it.
“Alright Rivani you got yourself a game.”
It took them a few minutes to set the table, putting his papers and ink away and of course getting a few pints from the bar. What’s the point of a betting game if you’re sober?
“So who goes first?” Isabela smirked raising the tankard to her lips.
“Ladies first.”
“Aww what a gentleman.” She cooed mockingly only to be met with his mock of bow. She did so enjoy their repartee.
“Alright. I’ve never seen Hawke naked.” And the game began.
“Ok now that’s a lie.” He laughed only for the pirate to shake her head taking two of his coins. “What!? But I thought you two...”
“Oh we did.” She interrupted. “We just didn’t care enough to remove more than was needed.”
“Alright alright,” He chuckled trying to compose himself. “My turn. I once had a dwarven lord kick the shit out of me for something I wrote in a book.”
“Hmmmm,” she thought as she drank. “I’ll say truth.”
“That my dear was a lie.” With ease he took his coin back. “Though I did write a rather scathing piece about a dwarven lord I didn’t care for, he just never figured it out.”
“Too thick headed I assume.”
“Eh you change em to a human and most dwarves can’t tell. They can’t all be like me.”
“A pity really.” The bluntness of her words didn’t seem to strike him or if they did he was hiding it exceedingly well. Still this was her last attempt and being coy seemed to do her no favors.
“My turn. Isabela isn’t my birth name.“
“Truth. Isabela isn’t exactly a Rivani name.”
“That it isn’t.”
“So what was it?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
And so the game continued for hours, coins being passed back and forth amongst the pair as well as lovely little tidbits to keep in the back of their minds. All while their many tankards emptied. The room was pleasantly warm and filled with laughter though Isabela was clearly besting Varric with her seven coins to his three but he didn’t seem to mind. Reveling in the secrets he’d learnt of her.
“Hmmmmm let me see....,” She drawled as she stretched in the chair, looking delightfully sinful. “I had sex with the Hero of Fereldan.” Varric only laughed taking two of her coins.
“It’s a truth. I’ve heard you spout that tale at least once a month at the Hanged Man.” He’d relaxed in his chair having removed his duster and gloves some time ago. “You’re slipping Rivani.”
“Maybe I slipped on purpose to extend our fun?” She purred enjoying seeing him so relaxed. His cheeks flushed at more than just the drink, she was getting to him.
“My mother was a lovely woman.” His attempt at changing the subject.
“That’s a lie.” Her hand reaching to take a coin only for him to smack her hand away playfully.
“It’s the truth she was a lovely woman.....to other people.” He smirked taking his two coins. Normally she’d praise him for his deviousness instead she pouted and patted her hand. The response was a laugh just as she’d expected. “Sorry I had to get rough with you.”
“Ohhhhh Varric I can think of much better ways you can be rough with me.” Hook, line and sinker just as he started to drink. As he coughed for dear life she continued. “In fact I have this ....”
“Mercy Isabela have mercy on this poor dwarf.”
“Aww well since you’ve asked nice. I’ve never had sex with a dwarf.” Isabela was hardly being subtle any more and Varric knew it. What he didn’t know was her angle.
“Lie.” He announced holding a hand for his coin.
“Fine you got me.” Not really she wanted him to call her. “But only because I didn’t specify.” Dropping the coin now putting him in the lead with eight. Not that winning this game was the goal of the night. “Had i said I’ve never slept with a male dwarf it’d be the truth.”
To her surprise, Varric made no comment only taking his coin. Well that was some wasted bait she thought annoyed.
“I’ve never slept with a non dwarf.” He smirked and her golden eyes gleamed.
“Lie!” She shouted proudly taking his coin.
“And just how do you know that?” She laughed at her victory, no doubt plotting to say it was the truth and ending their game.
“You have your contacts and I’m friends with nearly every worker at the Blooming Rose.” The look on his face, utterly surprised and embarrassed, if that was all she got from this it would be worth it. Why she’d commission a painting. “And you bought a lovely lady with legs for miles time a little more than six months ago.”
“Just take your coin and get on with it Rivani.” It was the closest she’d ever gotten to hearing him mad. A smart woman would drop it, but then Isabela was nothing if not bold.
“Awww Sore spot? Don’t beat yourself up Varric everyone gets lonely and there arent many dwarf girls in Kirkwall...” She’d meant to tease him, say how human women had their advantages and she’d be willing to demonstrate, but instead he spoke up.
“It’s not that she wasn’t a dwarf, it’s that she wasn’t....” His eyes drifted over to his crossbow for a moment and it told the rogue all she need know.
“I’ve had my heart broken.” She announced simply as though it were like anything else she’d said this night. He waited a moment trying desperately to figure out her game.
“.....Truth?” He asked unsure for the first time this night. Casually she tossed him two coins.
“I was surprised honestly. Wasn’t even sure at first but that’s what it was.”
“It was that elf right?” He asked watching her drink. “The antivan.” She nodded softly.
“You never forget your first I suppose, not really. Even if you didn’t realize it...” she sighed this was far more personal than intended but they way he was looking at her, like a good book he couldn’t predict, she wanted to keep it that way.
“My isabela he’d call me.” She sighed thumbs rubbing the rim of her tankard. “said it meant little beauty in Antiva. I loved the way it sounded coming from his lips, I never wanted to be called by anything else.” She expected a jest, maybe a ‘nothing little about you’ but nothing. He just continued to stared and said,
“Hmmm I thought it sounded Antivan.” She smirked glad for the levity.
“He left as quickly as he came but I wasn’t upset then not really. We’d meet up now and then and.....it was like no time had passed at all.” Varric smiles softly at her and it was only then Isabela realized she’d been smiling at the memories. “But then this time I felt like I was meeting a stranger. Zevran lived an entire life away from me and it changed him....that hurt me more than I thought. That the warden had known him better than me.”
Silence passed between them as Isabela pursed her lips forcing back any tears that might slip. That had never been her intent she hadn’t considered something like this could happen, alcohol didn’t normally make her mopey.
“Well that’s enough of that.” She announced her smile not reaching her eyes as Varric studied them. “Your turn. Almost got me beat.” He regarded her with a strange combination of sympathy and contemplation, It unnerved her in a wonderfully exhilarating way. Regardless how this all turned out this hunt was indeed enjoyable.
“Bianca is all the company I need.” To someone else his face was utterly neutral not a single tell, yet she read him like one of his books taking a coin. “Hey! You didn’t even ask.” She didn’t falter smoothly rising to her feet.
“That’s because it’s a trick question and you know it.” She smirked moving to his side of the table. “A sweet lie you tell yourself but why I’m afraid I don’t know.” With a hop she sat on the tables edge her thighs resting where his hand had. The hand he’d moved in hopes of using to hide the small blush that crept on his face, she noted with a smirk.
“How about this then, last one for all the coins.” She offered taking his tankard and knocking back what was left with ease. “You can choose to think of it as one statement or two.” He finally looked back at her confused about her words.
“Wouldn’t that mean you’d loose?” She just grinned wickedly at him.
“Oh I can still win depending on your answer.” With a flick of the wrist her two coins rested on the bare flesh of her thigh.
“So here it is, I am genuinely interested in you and I made up this game purely to entice you.” It was said simply and plainly without any flair or smolder yet the dwarfs jaw seemed to drop for a moment.
He thrummed his fingers in thought beside her thigh. Isabela couldn’t be sure what he was thinking. Doubt maybe? Guilt perhaps? Whatever it was it had him reeling and left her nervous. She’d laid herself bare here, figuratively which was so much worse than literally.
It felt as though hours had passed in silence until she felt a warm calloused hand on her thigh.
“Truth?” He asked sweetly trying to hide his embarrassment should he guess wrong.
She smiled, and tipped his chin up to say, “Truth.” Before leaning down and capturing her prize. Oh yes, Isabela did so enjoy a good hunt and she’d savor this one.
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fandomn00blr · 4 years
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Kanders head canon...
I decided Karl’s birthday was the 13th day of Guardian for some reason a long time ago, and wrote this thing that fits somewhere early in my Handers DA2 playthrough about Anders being particularly sad on this day every year and looking to commemorate things (see relevant sections below)...
Now I’m writing in another world state, post-Inquisition with Anders remembering Karl again (what can I say? I love to cry about Kanders) and I just decided that Karl was transferred to Kirkwall in 9:27 (Anders tries to escape, spends a year in solitary, escapes again and works for awhile at the Pearl in Denerim before Origins starts in 9:30...it all works out...or not, I can never figure out his timeline. anyway).
So now I’m head canoning that Anders blew up the Chantry on 13 Guardian, 9:37 after ten years of doing everything he could think of to try and right the wrongs done to Karl, and I’m...feeling...so many things.
---
9:32/33ish?
It was the 13th day of Guardian. It would have been Karl’s birthday today. Even after they had been separated, Anders always sent him a gift. Sometimes just a note, a dirty picture, or an embarrassingly amateurish poem, when he had nothing else to give him, which was usually the case.
Remembering this ritual, and that it had ended, was hitting him especially hard this year. He’d left a scathing note on the Chanter’s Board last year, in memoriam, thinking he was making some bold public gesture. It listed the many ways the Chantry had wronged Karl, and then concluded with “I miss you, my love,” and was quickly covered over within a few hours by a request for some help in rounding up some mages who’d recently escaped the Gallows. Justice didn’t seem to appreciate the tragic irony in that the same way Anders did, as he laughed at himself the way he knew Karl would have, and the spirit nearly went on a rampage. So he decided not to make a yearly tradition out of it.
But he still felt like he needed to commemorate the occasion somehow, and the burden of finding a fitting way to celebrate the birthday of his deceased lover was weighing heavily on him.
Anders hadn’t said anything to anyone about it all day. Justice knew he was troubled, but Anders was doing all that he could to keep him out of this part of himself. This was one of the few things that remained his own, from before Justice. And he cherished the melancholy in a way the spirit could not understand.
But everyone else could see he was struggling, too. He had been especially sulky, and his somber mood had begun to rub off on them. After a quick round of drinks at the Hanged Man to celebrate surviving another ridiculous run-in with giant, murderous spiders and Hawke’s impending move to her family’s old Hightown estate, they each went their separate ways for the evening. No Wicked Grace. No drunken brawls. Everyone just seemed to want to call it a night.
...
(Blah blah blah...Hawke follows him home because she’s worried about him and they mourn together...whiskey...Karl’s favorite kind...blah blah blah...I’m not weeping, you are!)
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1 2 4 7 8 9 13 18 20 26 27 29 30 32 39 40 41 43/44 45 46 49 51 53 55 56 57 59 63 65 that is. so many dghsdghsdgv I'm sorry I just see an ask meme and go crazy aaaa go stupid aaaa. You can just answer whichever u like from those!! also 69(nice): you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash
HDSKFJKS I completely understand but lucky for u I LOVE to talk !!
1) How are you?
Pretty good, actually!! Which is a nice change of pace. I went to Walmart with some friends yesterday and got a few things, baked a family recipe that my friends LOVE, and finally did my laundry (it’s been a couple weeks we love depression and executive dysfunction dfhkjsfd). I went to Cracker Barrel with some friends and earlier and played a 4-way game of Tetris after. :3c
2) Post a picture of yourself.
Here you go !!
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4) What is your entire name?
Sierra Alexis and my last name is something constantly misspelled so I’ll give you the name of a historical figure whose name is a letter off from mine: George B. McClellan, to whom I may or may not be related because last name variations are fuckin’ WEIRD.
7) Your zodiac/horoscope and if you think it fits your personality.
I’m a Capricorn sun and moon, and Libra rising !! And from what I’ve read on Twitter from various astrologers, like Milkstrology, I LOVE her, I’d say it’s pretty accurate with my personality!! I like to say Capricorn’s aren’t cold bitches but, I Have A Tendency To Be One !!
8) What did you do on your last birthday?
God what DID I do on my last birthday… it was in January, so like, I SHOULD remember… OH I went to IHOP with my friends !! I share a birthday with another friend and I got a JoJo notebook and something called a Fuggler! They’re stuffed animals more or less but designed to be “ugly.” I got one that looks like Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty because I LOVE Gritty… he’s so fun and funky.
9) What is one thing you’d like to accomplish before your next birthday?
Get all my requests in my inbox over on my writing blog done KJHFDJKSF it’s been a few months and life has been. Hectic to say the least.
13) If you could change your eye color, would you?
There’s so much weird as hell brown-eye-phobia so like… I think blue eyes would be pretty neat. OR PURPLE… give me some unnatural eye colors pls...
18) Do you have any tattoos?
Not yet!! I’m going to get one the next time I go back home for break. :3c And I have a few ideas for other ones!! I wanna get a big-ass “Dragon Age: Origins” tattoo that’s the dragon on the cover on my thigh. I also wanna get a DA2 and “Inquisition” tattoo… and the Joestar birthmark… too many ideas… 
20) Left or right handed?
Right-handed !! I could have been left-handed or ambidextrous if I broke my arm AFTER I started kindergarten, but alas that was before.
26) Something you are working on right now:
This !! But also the script for my next podcast episode that I record on uhhh Monday I think. Should probably figure that one out dsjfjhsf
27) Do you have any “rules” about food?
I answered that in the last ask !!
29) What would you say is your best quality?
I also answered this in the last ask !!
30) What do you think you’re really good at?
Writing, I’d say! And memorizing trivia about the stuff I’m super into. If it’s stuff pertaining to “M*A*S*H” or old movies or TV shows or actors or specific historical events, I will know that shit FOR LIFE. Don’t ask me to do math pls thank u
32) What talent do you wish you’d been born with?
I wish I was able to do stuff with music. That was never really in my blood, despite all the music classes they make you take in elementary school. I just never learned how to memorize or read sheet music. :/ I would have loved to play violin, tho… my friend plays and she says I would have been a good cellist.
39) Do you sleep with a stuffed toy?
YES… have for years. I still have my Care Bear from when I was 5, Gritty as mentioned above, a plush of my school’s mascot, and a little Fugo !! He’s so tiny.
40) What do you think about the most?
Everything and constantly and all at once. But the past really because I can never let stuff go and even the small things I mess up on haunt me forever… Wish that wasn’t the case but it is !!
41) Share two habits:
Biting my nails and having a very specific routine in which I get ready when I wake up. Like, I’ve gotta go brush my hair before I put my important cards in my left pocket, then put on my silver bracelet, then my beaded bracelet, then my earbuds in my right pocket, then put my earrings in. I HAVE to do it in that order…
And other oddities that include, like, if I need to go around something I HAVE to follow the urge to go one way and not the other, lest I feel the need to go back and fix it. And then which foot goes first before I reach a crack in the sidewalk, or up or down a curb, etc.
43) What are your career goals?
If I can just make people happy or get some kind of joy out of the things I do, I’d call that enough. :)
44) What is your ideal career?
Mmm, either a film historian or a film professor !! Preferably at the college I’m at right now but wherever the wind takes me, I’ll go! Or a Twitch streamer or YouTuber, it really depends on my mood jdhfjskf
45) Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
It was pretty much the same !! Freshman year was pretty lively, I didn’t have a job on campus yet though, or my podcast. Everything else is basically the same!
46) Do you replay things that have happened in your head?
CONSTANTLY… good or bad it’ll play back over and over and over again.
49) Do you have any phobias?
HOO BOY, DO I… fear of heights; fear of insects/bugs/arachnids/bees/wasps; I have a strong dislike of the number 13 but I don’t know if it’s a phobia, I just. REALLY hate it; the unknown, more or less what lurks somewhere beyond where I can see. Not so much a fear of the dark with that one, just what could BE in it.
51) Are you allergic to anything? If so, what?
I answered this in my last ask, as well!
53) Ever come close to death?
Two or three times, maybe? Two of them involved what’s called a laryngospasm, typically it can happen when your sick, which is what happened to me both times. Basically your throat just closes up on your for a hot minute and you can’t breathe. The first time I genuinely thought I was going to die (and my dad still sent me to school that day… HOE), the second time I was also sick and was losing/had lost my voice DURING A JOB RETREAT and it happened in the middle of the night so that was funny sitting there gasping for breath in the pitch dark.
At the FIRST retreat I went on for that job, you had to take pictures as part of a scavenger hunt, and the place used to be an old military fort, so there were still the old bunkers there. We had to take one on top of it and I was taking the picture, and it’s a wide shot so I go to take a step back but before I do I look behind me. If I hadn’t I would have fallen a good 10-15 feet down onto solid Civil War-era bunker concrete. I’d consider that being a “close to death” moment because I really could have died!
55) A random fact about yourself:
I have a half-brother !! My sis and I finally found him after her 23andMe results came back (which she decided to do despite us being like THE GOVERNMENT WILL COLLECT OUR DATA) and we didn’t think our mom would be happy she found him but she was !! My sis might reach out and contact him, she just wanted our mom’s permission first to do it.
56) What are three things most people don’t know about you?
Well, that I have a half-brother. I don’t mention it a lot. Aside from y’all on here and my sister, most everyone else doesn’t know I’m nonbinary! Everyone else knows I’m bi though lmao. And that there were times I’d stretch or bend the truth or lie about something just to impress someone else. It’s a… Bad Habit. Another thing is that most people don’t know I like coffee? Like I need to put a shit ton of creamer in with it because I’m a Bitch, but yeah.
57) An unknown fact about your life:
I wouldn’t call this an “unknown” fact but I’d used to go to work with my dad every now and again when he worked at the Home Depot and he was assistant manager. I’d either chill in the back room which was an office he shared with two other guys, or walk around the store with him. I had my own apron, too, which was my name with “Mini Mac” next to it, “Mac” being my dad’s nickname and something easier to say than my last name. I actually helped a few customers out so I wonder if I should have gotten paid for that despite being like, ages 9-13 when I’d go jshfkjd
And I guess I technically tested video games as a kid? Basically, when my dad was stationed at Fort Knox, they’d get demos of video games that hadn’t come out yet to test I suppose? and I still have a few somewhere. He’d hand them off to me and I’d play them so there’s that.
59) Five weird things that you like:
Eating globs of wasabi for no reason.
Scaring my friends also for no reason.
I wouldn’t say using cotton swabs to get wax out of your ears because it feels good is weird, just more medically inadvisable if anything.
When I was younger I’d like to floss really hard because the slight pain from it felt good. Young me was a #Freaque KJHDFJJDHF
I don’t know if being fond of alphabetizing and reorganizing things is considered weird but I LOVE doing that.
63) A quote you try to live by:
“It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll; / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.” It’s from the poem “Invictus” and the last two lines are what I’m getting tattooed !!
65) Weird things you do when you’re alone:
Practice the “Lucky Star” dance. I GOT THE LYRICS DOWN… JUST NEED TO DO THE DANCE NOW…
69) Leave me a compliment:
“you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash”
Anon pls 🥺 I do my best to be nice but my friend really do test me sometimes... my feelings bounce back n forth like if they do something my feelings can switch to angry or like, hate, and then if they do something nice I’ll like them again. It sucks but ! I just take it one day at a time. Anon I care for u 💜💜💜
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The Last Straw Quest
I just finished my first playthrough of DA2 in years and I’m remembering why I love this game so much, why it stayed with me for years after I played it, and how much it hurts to play to the end.
The ending of DA2 - The Last Straw quest - hurts me. Physically hurts me. This found family of theirs is forever changed afterwards. Things can’t be as they were ever again. Trust is broken, people can walk away for good, and people you’ve grown attached to can possibly die by the end of the night. It leaves me a bit numb just thinking about it.
I’ll put my thoughts under the cut since it’s a bit lengthy. I just. Need to share my thought process, and this will be a good reference to refer back to when I’m planning out the end to my fic. Feel free to leave your comments on this or express your thoughts; I like to get different people’s perspective on this last scene of the game.
Basically, it comes down to 2 choices: kill Anders or let Anders live to leave/to help put a stop to the chaos that’s going to occur in the Gallows. Whatever Hawke chooses, their decision leaves a bad taste in my mouth because you lose one or more of your friends, you lose a part of your found family. 
(For the record, my following points are if Hawke has a decent relationship with all of the companions and they are all at the Chantry when Anders does his thing, as I imagine them all to be damn close after the years they’ve gotten into trouble together)
If Hawke chooses to let Anders live, Sebastian’s trust is utterly shattered for good. This choice hurts me the most because I love love love Sebastian, and Sebastian could have been in there. A woman he considered to be family was just blown up. Innocents were killed in the explosion, and more innocents were going to get caught up in the chaos. I don’t believe Sebastian would ever follow through on his threat to the city - it doesn’t feel right with my understanding of his character - but when Hawke tells him to “not interfere,” as if Sebastian didn’t have any right to be furious and in pain at what just happened, I can picture him saying some very harsh and angry words because Hawke telling him to “not interfere” tells Sebastian that he is not worth any sort of value to someone he considered to be a friend (or the love of his life if Hawke romanced him). And when no one else in the DA2 Crew objects, not even to tell Hawke “that’s not fair” when Hawke basically tells him to mind his own business, it tells Sebastian that they take Hawke’s side in this. Granted, he just threatened to attack the city at this point so they probably aren’t happy with his choice of words, but if they really knew his character, if it ever crossed their minds about what this destruction did to him and meant to him, they should have said something. But they don’t, for whatever reason they stay silent, and Sebastian has no support. They’ll choose Hawke over him. To Sebastian, they’ll choose Anders, a murderer, someone that kept this entire plan hidden from every one of them knowing the mess it would cause, someone that betrayed everyone else’s trust and not just Sebastian’s when he kept this secret plan - they choose him over Sebastian without a word of protest. Would they have protested letting Anders help them/leave if Sebastian was inside the Chantry when it blew? He doesn’t stop to figure that out, and that question probably haunts him for years after Kirkwall when he goes and rules Starkhaven alone. And the others, I can’t help but think they’d question their silence on the matter too when the battle was over. At least I hope so; in my opinion, for the hell of internal torment Sebastian undoubtedly goes through, they should feel a sliver of guilt.
And on the flip side:
If Hawke chooses to kill Anders, they are killing someone who has been in the DA2 Crew for years, from the very start, through the good times and the bad, and that shakes them to the core. The entire gang would have been shaken after that. Regardless of Hawke’s choice of siding with the Templars or the Circle, if they all side with Hawke, every one of them would notice Anders’ absence after the battle was won and the healer was no longer there to patch up their wounds, and would try to see where and when Anders started taking a downturn any of them could have prevented. Aveline, the guard captain in charge of protecting the people of the city, likely held onto the guilt of knowing Anders blew up a part of that city and left a wound that would scar and fester for years. Sebastian felt immense guilt for paying to have the mercenaries killed after the deed was done, and it wouldn’t surprise me that after Kirkwall he starts to question his words and actions that night after demanding Anders’ life, and eventually I believe he’d remember Elthina’s phrase of death never being justice, and never feeling entirely certain if killing Anders for his crimes had been the right thing to do. Varric - Kirkwall was his home, he’d have been pissed at Anders for starting this mess - but his thoughts would linger on the stories they shared over shitty drinks at the Hanged Man, how Anders has been growing detached and distant and everyone had seen it but nothing they did helped and he just kept getting worse, and he’d realize Blondie really wasn’t coming back, and he couldn’t help the unsettled feeling knowing his friend was gone for good. And I picture they’d all feel the weight of Hawke having dealt the final blow, especially if Hawke romanced Anders. Regardless if Anders’ actions were right or wrong in the end, if Hawke killed Anders, he crossed a line that Hawke couldn’t ignore. And regardless of their feelings on Anders, there would always be a bitter taste in their mouths when they recall Hawke driving the dagger through Ander’s back. None of the Crew would do what Anders did, but the image of a friend killing another - possibly killing their own lover - doesn’t just go away. That kind of shit haunts you for some time.
I just have a lot of Feelings right now. 
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sky-scribbles · 6 years
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The Shape of the Soul - II
Continuation of my Dragon Age daemon AU, this time for the DA2 companions (barring Varric, because in this AU, dwarves don’t have daemons.) Inspired by this post, which is incredible and should be read. For those of you who’ve already seen this on DeviantArt, I’ve done some rewriting because I wrote this a while ago and I felt like it could do with some tweaking.
Origins/Awakening version here.
~
Carver Hawke
They know him, the people of Lothering. Brianna makes them know him.
She refuses to take a form that isn’t fearless. Lion, great bear, boar, wolf, bronto – whatever his older sibling’s daemon becomes, Brianna becomes something larger and stronger, and Carver’s chest swells with pride. She’ll bring him out from his family’s shadow. She’ll become a creature no one could look away from, prove that he’s more than just the little Hawke.
When she lets him down, when she settles into the form of a black and gold Anderfels shepherd dog, he feels like pounding the walls of the world and screaming. She feels his resentment, and flattens her ears and bares her teeth. And Carver knows there’s something wrong if you’re fighting with your daemon, that you should never be angry with your own soul, but he is, he’s angry, so angry.
It’s not just pride. It’s not just that he hoped for a daemon who’d make sure he could never be overlooked. His anger isn’t because he thinks Brianna got it wrong. It’s because he’s afraid she got it right. Dogs are servants’ daemons. Dogs belong to footmen and farmers and labourers, people who slink in the shadows of others, and whenever he looks at Brianna he feels despair well up inside him because that can’t be his life.
So he refuses to be a dog. He marches away to Ostagar.
And there, in the soldiers’ camp, the knot of doubt and anguish in his stomach unravels. Because Brianna romps and play-tussles with the other soldiers’ daemons, and his comrades-in-arms grin as Carver thumps her flanks and ruffles her ears, saying he should be proud of her, that having a dog-daemon is a good sign. Smart, they say, loyal, Fereldan to the bone. That night, he sleeps with an arm draped over his daemon and a smile draped over his face. The resentment he felt when she settled feels so distant it might as well have never been. He's not little Hawke here. He’s Hawke, and Brianna is his daemon.
Then Loghain retreats when the beacon is lit, and everything is gone.
Kirkwall. Brianna slinks at Carver’s heels, not because she’s a servant’s daemon, but because of Bethany. She bristles now when anyone but Carver goes near her, raises her hackles and snaps, and he doesn’t try to calm her. He’s little Hawke again now, and he’s snarling on the inside too.
Then one day, he’s wearing armour again, just like he was at Ostagar, and there are brothers-in-arms around him whose daemons play-fight with Brianna until her barks and snarls turn into yapping laughs. He walks tall, proud of the emblem on his breastplate, and prouder still of Brianna, because dogs mean loyalty and Carver plans to give all the loyalty he has. First to his new order. Then to his sibling, when the city goes up in flames and he understands at last why his daemon is a dog.
Dogs aren’t about serving. They’re about helping. Years later, on the way to Weisshaupt to find his disaster of a sibling, he passes one of the Anders shepherds, and stops to ask him about his dogs. And the shepherd looks at Brianna, smiles with understanding. The Anderfels shepherd, he says, needs a purpose, or it’ll snap and snarl at everything. They won’t take to many, but the ones who raise them and stick with them, they’ll die to protect. Except they won’t die, because they know how to fight, and by the Maker, but do they fight hard.
 ‘Well,’ Brianna says, as they walk away. ‘Looks like I got it right after all.’
Carver stops walking, drops to his knees, and throws his arms around her.
~
Bethany Hawke
Night comes after day, dwarves don't dream, and mages’ daemons are birds. These are facts of life, things that no one can fight or change. Bethany thinks often about the Circles, about how their halls and passages must be like aviaries of caged birds, and her throat tightens. And yet they might be beautiful. All the bright feathers. 'And all the singing,' Eliron whispers, and Bethany smiles.
He doesn’t like to become a bird too often, though. It feels like tempting fate. He spends most of his time as deer, and Bethany prays to the maker to let him settle as one. Just let him not be a bird. Then that jeering boy from the neighbouring farm gets into a fight with Carver, and somehow she hurls him away from her brother and halfway across the street without laying a hand on him. They run home, Father shouts for them to pack their bags, the family runs again. And Eliron panics. He flickers through every bird Bethany knows and plenty she doesn’t, trying on shape after shape, refusing to take any form that doesn’t have wings and feathers.
Be an eagle, Carver tells him, be a swan or an albatross, but Bethany knows that’s not what Eliron’s going to be. Eliron knows it too, because he never listens to Carver. He favours small things, things with round black eyes and plain feathers, things that can become invisible just by staying still. He moves around the house in cautious hops and short bursts of flight - a wren, a dunnock, a treecreeper - until he realises that what he loves most, what they both love most of all, is to hear him fill the house with song. From then on, it’s nightingales and blackbirds, robins and larks.
At last, Eliron settles as a song thrush.
He’s plain to look at, if you don’t look closely, if you just take in the brown feathers and don’t notice the beautiful cream and dark flecks on his chest. He’s small enough that he can just about hide in a pocket if he’s afraid, and he often does, because the Templars stare long and hard at anyone with a bird-daemon. She could look at them wrong, and that would be all the excuse they’d need to cut her down, just because her soul has wings. Like hawks on a songbird.
She looks at the Gallows sometimes, from across the water. She looks at it and thinks about how people keep thrushes as pets. They can live in a cage. They’ll sing their hearts out, with bars between them and the hawks and cats.  Maybe it would be easier, to let them clip her wings, so she can sing.
But after the expedition – when everything’s said and done and there’s no going back, no matter how much she and her sibling might hate it – she realises something. She and Eliron – they have a secret, and it’s the reason Eliron became the kind of thrush he did, not the plainer-feathered yet more beautiful-voiced cousin. A nightingale will sing to make you weep, but you’ll never see it, where it shrinks deep into the woods. A thrush, though… a thrush is something else.
A thrush learns. A thrush steps out into the open. A thrush knows how to crack a snail’s shell with just a few quick, hard strikes against stone.  Bethany knows how to strike like that, when she’s got something worth fighting for, knows how to step out into the light of day with lightning at the tips of her fingers. Put her in a cage, and she’ll survive, but she was always meant to be free, because a thrush is more than a brown-and-cream bird with a pretty song, a thrush is a wild bird and a thrush has skill and smarts and pluck.
That’s Bethany’s secret.
Oh, she’s afraid. But she’s also a thrush. Which means that at heart, she is bold.
~
Aveline Vallen
Her father, of course, wanted her daemon to be a lion. Strong, proud, loyal, and, most importantly, Orlesian. He was about as determined for her to have a lion as Aveline and Audric were determined for her not to have one.
‘Too grand,’ Aveline complains, after her father raises the idea for the fiftieth time.
Audric, in the shape of a mabari just to prove a point, nods. ‘Too stately.’
‘Walking around Ferelden with some great golden cat beside me? That’d mark me out as foreign even more than my name.’
‘And they’re lazy, the males. Sleeping in the sun all day, taking first bite of whatever the females catch.’
Both their jaws clench. That’s injustice, that is, and they want no part in that.
So it’s with some relief that Aveline realises one day that he’s stopped changing. He’s loping at her side in the form of a stocky reddish-coloured bullmastiff and isn’t showing any signs of abandoning that form any time soon. ‘Perfect,’ Aveline says, and Audric gives his tail the tiniest wag. A bullmastiff is as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. Very tough, very straightforward, and very, very Aveline.
Even without the lion, her father gets her into the king’s service. It’s all right, they tell each other. Audric’s a more natural daemon for a knight than you might expect. A dog-daemon means loyalty, and it means respect from any true Ferelden. The lips that curl at the sound of her name tend to go still again when they see Audric, because he’s about as Fereldan as a lion would have been Orlesian. And it’s only right for her soul to be Fereldan – she speaks with its accent, knows its ways, falls in love with one of its men.
But then suddenly all of that is behind them, and Wesley is dead, and she’s in Kirkwall with a family of ragged refugees.
The guard becomes Aveline’s new pack, because a dog’s nothing without one. She knows some of her comrades-in-arms wonder why she’s always wandering off with Hawke, and why she challenges the Captain’s orders when the cost could be her career. She knows why they wouldn’t expect it, because Audric’s quiet for a dog. The guards never thought the woman whose soul is this watchful, stoic creature would be the one to raise her hackles or show her teeth.
You can’t give the same command again and again to a bullmastiff, though. Not unless you want it to stop listening and start looking for more. Aveline and Audric know that, and that’s why they question things, find the scent of corruption and follow the trail until they’ve flushed out the source.
That’s what marks them out. All dogs are loyal followers. But there are only a very few who can be leaders.
~
Anders
Anders wakes from his Harrowing with his mind aching and his heart pounding and his sheets cold and wet from sweat. He almost lashes out when something touches his shoulder, but it’s Karl, just Karl, thank the Maker, and without thinking twice about it - damn the consequences, just this once – pulls his lover to him and holds him close. And Karl smile against his shoulder, clings to him for a moment, then whispers, ‘I think you should take a look at Themis.’
So Anders does, his heart beating even faster. She’s been ridiculously late to settle - he likes to joke that it’s out of spite, that she refuses to take a shape while the Templars are trying to define what they are. But everyone knows that when a mage’s daemon settles late, it’ll often happen after the Harrowing. So he looks, and there she is, his Themis, his soul, perched on the end of his bed, bobbing her long tail up and down to show off its beautiful blue-green sheen.
He stares, then grins.
‘Maker,’ he says. ‘The senior enchanters are going to love this.’
He can’t count the number of times someone tuts or mutters ‘of course,’ when they see the shape she’s chosen, when they realise that the Circle’s resident troublemaker has a magpie for a daemon. Anders, though, has no complaints. All crows are clever, and Themis has his flair, his flash, his wit, his love of hoarding. Little trinkets, shiny things, useless things, any things that he can squirrel away beneath his bunk, just for the joy of having something in the world that belongs to him.
Then they take Karl away. So he starts testing his wings for the first time in years, desperate to break the cage, and he sees the darker side of a magpie-daemon. He doesn’t remember much about his home, no matter how stubbornly he clings to the images, but one flash of memory is of his father hurling a stone at a black-and-white bird. He can’t hear the voice in his mind, only remembers it saying that the bird would have got at the hens’ eggs, even the new-hatched chicks if it could. He remembers thinking that surely only a few magpies do that, and not very often. And it’s the same with mages who try to be free. They summon demons, people say. Only a few, Anders wants to scream. Not very often. And not me.
Magpies are hunted, hated. The whole world is against them.
It sank in long ago, the cruel irony of the rule that mages’ daemons are always birds. People love to cage birds, to watch them sit behind bars and sing, but a bird is a creature of the sky and that is where it belongs. You'll never hear a magpie sing for anyone. Anders certainly doesn't plan on doing so. So when Justice makes his offer, he says yes.
And after – after the world becomes as black and white as Themis's feathers – there’s an odd distance between them. He’s not the same man he was when Themis settled, and she doesn’t quite fit as she used to. He and Justice are one now, after all, and no spirit has a daemon. But Anders still loves her, of course he loves her, because he will always be a magpie at heart. You can tell it just to look at him – feathered shoulders and dark eyes that don’t miss a thing. He may hunt for escape routes and messages from the underground now, not for trinkets, but he’s still a scavenger.
He watches her sometimes, a lone magpie flashing around his clinic, and the old rhyme runs through his head. 'One for sorrow,' he says, and Themis shakes her head. 'You're me,' she says. 'You're a magpie too. It's two for joy.' She was always the bright-eyed part of him, the part that laughed and bobbed her tail. She's the part of him that hopes. So he allows himself to believe her. The thought that there might just be a chance at joy… it’s what keeps him fighting.
~
Fenris
‘Little wolf,’ Danarius called him, but Danarius was wrong.
A wolf is a creature of packs. A wolf is bright eyes and obedience. A wolf craves company and a wolf knows its place. Fenris is not a wolf. Fenris is power and pride, even if that pride is bruised and raw from its shackles, and anyone who looks at Tenebris can see it. He doesn’t know whether she settled before he got the brands or whether the lyrium changed her, somehow, just as it changed him. All he knows is that for as long as he can remember, she’s been like this, a sleek, beautiful, black-furred creature of the northern rainforests.
Danarius should have known they’d break free. No one could ever tame a panther.
He kept her on a chain, of course, and clasped a spiked collar around her neck. He made her clean his boots with her tongue, rested his feet on her back, stroked the glossy fur of her head whenever one of his rivals came to visit. Look, said that hand that buried itself in the black pelt. See what powerful beasts I have at my command.
His touch on her was like knives in Fenris’s gut. But he stood silent, still, head bowed. His master owned his body. His soul was held in his master’s hands.
Danarius would force them apart, make them sleep in separate rooms, forbid them to speak to each other, even touch. In his anger, he would beat them both, and Fenris would feel Tenebris’s pain jolt through his own body, and he’d think vaguely through a fog of anguish that it was wrong, seeing a creature of strength and grace cowed like this. The thought would flicker for a moment, and then be gone.
When they finally run, it’s the first time Fenris has ever felt close to his soul.
Living in Kirkwall is not only about learning to live with freedom. It’s about learning who he is. For the first time, Tenebris is not an oversized cat, she is a piece of the wild, and so is he. They spend long nights curled up beside the fire in the mansion, talking as they never have before. Fenris curses himself for never realising that he always had an ally in her, then stops and curses Danarius instead for forcing him to feel separate from her. Slowly, the barriers break down, and he’s willing to touch his own soul at last, to run his hands through her velvet fur, and she’s willing to lie alongside him at night with her pelt brushing his skin.
When the accursed mage starts up his ranting about freedom again, Fenris finds himself listening for once. Because the mage mentions Tranquility. About how no one deserves to have their daemon severed, their bond with their soul taken away.
Fenris glances down at Tenebris, at this creature who would always, eventually, slip or break any collar you placed around her neck, because she’s a panther, not a cat. He feels his heart swell, and for the first time in his life, he finds himself understanding what Anders means. 'No one will cage us,' Tenebris growls. 'No one will seperate us.' And she bares her teeth, teeth that can bite right through a man's skull, just as Fenris's hand can slam through a chest. He doesn't doubt that she is right.
~
Merrill
Merrill always did do things a little differently.
Many Dalish have jays as daemons, even those who aren’t mages, but they’re all the normal creamy-brown jays, creatures that can melt into the woods, go unseen if they want to. There’s no missing Belavahna. She’s so obviously foreign, her feathers vibrant, exotic, tropical, the blue of shallow waters in warm oceans. No Fereldan bird looks like she does.
The other Dalish frown and shake their heads at the sight. When your daemon stands out as much as her, it means you’re different in some way, and people are always ready to think that different means dangerous. But Belavahna – she’s not dangerous. Merrill knows she isn’t. A jay will give you a nice firm peck if you try to hurt it (and serve you right), but they aren't cruel. Jays are bright, inquisitive eyes, and cheerful voices that rarely still. Jays are curiosity and cleverness.
Jays like to keep things, too. They stash nuts and seeds away, keep them hidden, keep them safe. Merrill feels like she's doing the same, as she gathers the shards of the Eluvian, pieces it back together, and lugs it around with her everywhere she goes. ‘Like a magpie gathering things that glitter,’ the clan say, but Merrill bites her lip and carries on. Bela’s always been the bolder part of Merrill, though, the stronger part, so she looks their clanmates in the eye defiantly, and later, she presses her head against Merrill’s face, the brush of her feathers a soothing comfort.
‘You’re not keeping these things out of greed,’ she says. 'That’s not what jays do. Jays keep things because they’re too precious to be lost.'
They stand out even more in the Alienage than they did with the clan. A Dalish girl with a tattooed face and her vivid azure and cream bird-daemon will always attract stares and turn heads, nowhere more so than where everyone else’s daemons are so... faded. When Merrill looks at the other elves’ patchy-furred dogs and mice and squirrels, the only word that comes to mind is defeated.
She could never fit in with these people, when her soul is so very, very different to theirs. So she’s on her own, and that’s the hardest part, because jays really don’t like to be alone.
But there’s brightness in this life too. There’s Hawke. And there’s Varric and Isabela and the others, and card games in the Hawke estate and feeling like she’s not so alone after all. And there’s browsing the bookshelves in Hawke’s house, and stumbling on one about Free Marches birds. It’s the book that tells her that Bela’s a scrub jay. It’s the book that tell her a lot of things about her daemon and thus about herself.
She reads. She reads about how scrub jays pick the ticks and fleas from deer and cattle, helping them in ways so small they might not even notice. She reads about how they’re frowned on, called thieves. ‘Well, that’s a little unfair,’ Bela says. ‘They need to eat.’
Yes, they do. Just like Merrill needs to fix the Eluvian. You don’t stop doing something you need to do because other people have the wrong idea about it.
But the most important thing she learns is that scrub jays watch. They watch each other, and they remember. They don’t forget where they hide their stashes, not ever. They move their caches when another bird sees them hide it. They hold on to the past and they plan for the future, looking behind so they can find a way ahead, because behind those quick darting eyes and the cheerful chattering voices are minds that never, never forget.
And it’s a Keeper’s job – Merrill’s job – to remember. Even the dangerous things.
~
Isabela
Mages have birds. But they’re not the only ones. Isabela’s never shot lightning from her fingers her whole life, though she can think of plenty of circumstances in which it would be… interesting to be able to do so. She has a bird all the same, and it means something very different. It means freedom.
When Delmar settles, Isabela’s mother clenches her jaw and mutters something about even harder to get you married properly now. The birds-are-mages association isn’t too much of an obstacle, not in Rivain, but Delmar is… Delmar. He’s no sleek, beautiful creature, no elegant peacock to adorn a rich man’s house. He’s big and brown, webbed feet and a short beak ending in a little dagger-hook, and he doesn’t keep quiet when he’s got something to say. He fills the house with his sharp, laughing call, and of course, Luis hates him.
Zevran, however, finds him hilarious.
‘A skua for a daemon,’ he says, tossing her a knife. ‘That being the case, you should find skewering me fairly easy, no?’ And Isabela laughs for what feels like the first time since she set eyes on Luis, and as she matches Zevran’s blades with her blades and his puns with her puns, she finally feels like she deserves Delmar. Like her soul is winged for a reason.
When at last Isabela breaks free, she lets Delmar lead the way. They know where to go. The sea has always called them, because the skua is a migrant, a wanderer, travelling for thousands of miles over open water. Delmar’s webs and sail-like wings were made for voyages. So was Isabela. But not for her the tame merchant life, because the skua is marked out from the aimlessly squabbling gulls and the fragile terns and the stately albatrosses by one thing. It is not only a traveller, but a thief.
On days when the spray’s flung into her face by the wind and the ship’s skimming across the waves as if it’s as eager to meet the horizon as Isabela is, she loves nothing more than to watch Delmar taking to the sky, flying to the very edge of their bond. Sometimes there’ll be some hapless seabird, a gull or a gannet, that manages to grasp a fish in its bill only to have a huge brown bird with a bill like a knife descend like a thunderbolt, grasp its wing to make it stall and fall to the sea below, snatching the fish from it beak with vicious deftness. Isabela pities the other birds of the sea when there’s a skua in the air, just as she pities the poor merchant who sees the Siren’s Call descending, flags fluttering, the pirate captain standing grinning at the prow, her pirate daemon on her shoulder.
When the arrows start flying and the swords start swinging, Isabela knows her place – right in the thick of things, with blades at the ready. And Delmar circles above, dive-bombing the enemy, beating his wings in the face of the bandit (who misses the blow he aimed at Merrill) and pecking at the face of the Tal-Vashoth (who would have had Varric if Delmar hadn’t been there) and scratching and clawing and fighting, fighting, fighting.
Because here’s the thing: nothing takes on a skua. Nothing but an eagle or a killer whale will ever be bold enough. Go near its nest, threaten its fledglings, and it won’t stop fighting you until you’re fleeing or dead.
Hawke and the others are like a bunch of clueless fledglings much of the time, and Isabela and Delmar are in agreement that if anyone tries to harm them, they will gouge out their Maker-damned eyes.
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2017 Year End Writing Review
While I don't do monthly reviews anymore, I figured it would still be fun to post an annual review; I've been doing that for several years now and it's fun to look back on it.
I did not post very much fic this year. I wrote some. I posted less. I got very into this mindset of really polishing fanfiction, stressing about posting it if it wasn't up to quality, or whatever. So in total, I only posted 13 short-ish fics this year, made no progress posting in my one major WIP, and...you would think that would mean there wasn't a lot of writing.
There was a lot of writing. Slightly more than 500,000 words' worth. But most of it was original fiction, so I'll talk about it under the read more. (Bless you if you make it through this post, because it is lengthy.)
What I Worked On
Yet another draft of my 2013 NaNo novel. Is this thing taking shape yet? Somewhat. It is my whale. My big, dumb whale. My I-planned-a-trilogy-and-bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew story. My testing-everything-I-know-and-can-learn-about-writing story. But I can't give it up, can't leave it alone, always come back to it, think about it daily. Someday it will get there. Someday I will at least think, This will do.
A full draft of a new novella and associated planning/character backstory/tidbits that don't quite fit in-story but were useful to write. A cantankerous witch, her spurned fairy lover, and her plucky apprentice try to solve the my-garden-dies-every-night-and-I-don't-know-why problem. It's a fun bit.
NaNoWriMo 2017: A post-apocalyptic story of friendship, vengeance, and overcoming pride. There are gun fights! There are ominous rocks! There is a lot of sarcasm! I haven't yet reread it, but it's on my to-do list in 2018. The planning for this novel alone nearly constituted the word count of an entire novel. I went all-out. It was really fun.
@hollyand-writes tagged me for the following, so I'll roll that into this post as well:
Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favourite works you’ve created this year (fics, art, edits, etc!) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2017. Tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original!) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works. <3 (Please feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to do this!)
A Shadow, Passing Through & Before I Embark: A pair of fics where I explored some of that territory in Act 2 of DA2 where Hawke and Leandra might have repaired their relationship a little bit before. You know. I've always felt pretty hostile toward Leandra; she puts a lot of blame and responsibility on her children when it has no business being there. But I also attempted a DA2 replay this year, and found her occasional comments in Act 2...interesting. I saw them in a different light. And a mushy, selfish part of me wanted to see Hawke get some kind of closure--some kind of improvement--with her mother before she died. Anyway, though I did not make it all the way through DA2 (I always, always, always stall before All That Remains, ever since my mom died in 2013, because it makes so. many. complicated. feelings), I liked picking it up again. I missed Hawke, and I missed Isabela.
With My Whole Heart: A little more Cassandra/Josephine fluff, sparked by an anon prompt. When I finally started thinking about it, this little fic just...flowed. I think I wrote it in an hour and a half, non-stop. It helped me remember how writing fanfiction used to feel for me. Just fun and nice and kind of wonderful.
Practicality, Revisited: A Kima/Allura fic. I'd love to explore more of these two. Written for the Critical Role Relationship Week, which I adored the idea of--I got some fun match-ups to write about, but this was by far my favorite.
Flying, Falling: Ryder/Vetra. I wish my enthusiasm for Andromeda had not dropped off so damn abruptly (not the game’s fault, I don’t think; I just lost interest even though I enjoyed it); this, and the other two I wrote for this pairing, were such fun little fics. Maybe someday I'll take another dip into it. Video games in general had a hard time holding onto me this year. But this one is really sweet, and on a reread, I really liked it. The banter, especially. I like a good banter.
Overall Thoughts
This post has no structure and is getting abysmally long, so I'm going to try and wrap up.
I wrote a lot this year. In nine out of twelve months, I wrote more than 30K words. Of the remaining three months, I wrote more than 20K in two of them and less than 10K in only one. I had a streak where I wrote something every single day from August 30 to December 14. The longest in memory, and I'm sure the longest, ever. I had a pair of back-to-back crazy months: planning NaNo in October with 72,556 words, and actually doing NaNo in November with 100,227 words--not all of them for that novel, but about ¾ of them. I really got my discipline together this year.
I worked on more original fiction, more often, than ever before, too. I miss fanfiction, but I am happy about that.
It was the most productive word-count year on record, at just over 500K. Beats out my previous most productive year, 2015, by more than 125K words. I wrote 373,467 words that year. It was also easily most productive in terms of time spent writing; I put my ass in chair and wrote for about 300 hours in 2017.
Goals
Last year's goals seemed to work out for me. I didn't always adhere to them perfectly, but the spirit of them led to a very productive year. So with that in mind, I'm going to reprise most of them:
Spend a little time writing every day: this was not true 100% of the year, but making an attempt meant I tried more, and led to more success.
No word count goal; I just want to make sure I'm keeping track with my handy-dandy spreadsheet.
Permission to write ficlets, drabbles, and even multi-chaptered fics as I want to. Still working on balance between original fic and fanfiction. After revisiting some of the joy of writing fanfiction late last year, I'd like to get back to it again, in some capacity. But multi-chapter fics with coherent stories, again, I would like to have a full first draft written before I start posting. It drastically cut down the WIPs I have floating around out there.
Get back to These Chains. I did some work on it mid-2017 to the tune of like, three more chapters, but didn't post. I have it planned out. I just need to do the thing.
I hope that, for all of you, you find satisfaction in your creative endeavors this year, in whatever art or practice that may be.
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lesetoilesfous · 4 years
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I know its probably too late for the prompts but I thought I'd throw my hat in there. I've never sent a prompt before so if this is way too much please feel free to throw it out the window! Anyways... I think it would be cool to see a pre-relationship, sexual tension Fenders with these NSFW prompts. 1. Accidental stimulation, 2. After an injury 65. Surprise discovery of an overly-sensitive body part. If you do end up writing something that would be phenomenal! But if not, that's okay! Thanks!
Hi hi! I love your writing so much!! Thank you for the prompt!!!
(If you want me to write you a da2 fic, send me a prompt from here!)
@dadrunkwriting
Pairing: Fenris/Anders
Characters: Fenris, Anders
Tags: set at a nebulous point in da2, we can do what we want with the tattoos right, please forgive me for my abuses of canon, mild gore/canon typical injury
Rating: Mature
*
In Anders’ opinion, if Fenris was going to break his ribs every single time they left the city, he was probably in need of better armour. Sure, hey, maybe he was wrong. He was just a mage after all. He wasn’t a warrior. It wasn’t like he’d been a Grey Warden or anything. He didn’t know anything about battle. Why would anyone listen to him? He was just the person responsible for clearing up their broken bones when they all inevitably insisted on trying to give him six consecutive heart attacks.
What purpose does this rambling serve?
Justice’s question holds only curiosity. Anders chooses to take offense anyway, carefully peeling away the burned and torn fabric of the tunic on Fenris’ back to get at the grisly wound beneath it. Of course, wearing any armour at all over his back would be a significant improvement. Anders could just see the novel now: Stupid Sexy Tevinter Elf Survives a Blow to his Back, For Once, Shocking Annoyed Long-Suffering Spirit Healers Everywhere.
That’s a very long title for a book.
Justice points out, mildly. Anders carefully wipes his hands clean before beginning to dab at the bloodied skin of Fenris’ back. I’m wasted on you.
Now he’s gotten rid of the blood, Anders can see where the axe that had hit Fenris had carved out a chunk of his back, neatly bisecting a complex centre piece in his tattoos, above a branch that dips down to the base of his spine. Anders frowns. He had wondered, more than once, exactly how far Fenris’ tattoos stretched - and what that might mean regarding the nature of Danarius’ abuses. He’d tried not to think about it. If Fenris ever felt comfortable speaking to anyone about such things, it was extremely unlikely that it would be him.
Instead he focuses on the task at hand, easing the pain, soothing the inflammation, and then gently, painstakingly coaxing Fenris’ body into knitting itself back together. He starts, as Wynne had taught him, with the bones. He can almost hear her voice in the back of his mind now. Start deep and work your way up. A healer should never work backwards. As long as they are clean and no longer bleeding, surface wounds should be your last concern. You do not wish to find yourself out of mana with a ruptured lung because you spent your power tidying a scar.
Anders had often wondered whether the Senior Enchanter had spoken from experience. He hadn’t asked. Wynne tended to get prickly, when it came to her personal history. His eyes dance over the scars he can see as he works, faint white and pink lines marring Fenris’ dark skin. The lyrium hums, responding faintly to the magic in his hands. Anders ignores it, and Justice’s interest in the stuff.There was no doubt in his mind that Fenris would not take well to the application of magic to his lyrium. Anders preferred his heart inside his chest, all things considered.
Finally, finally it’s done. Anders slumps back in the bloody dirt, catching his breath. Fenris sighs, moving at last as his chest swells with a long, even breath. “Mage?” He starts to move and Anders curses in every language he knows, moving forward and setting a hand lightly on his back over the branching tattoos.
“No! Don’t move.” Fenris makes a soft, bitten off sound that’s high and startled. Anders frowns, pulling his hand back and ignoring the tingling in his palm. The tips of Fenris’ ears are red. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Fenris grinds the words out between clenched teeth, fingers curling in the dirt. Anders’ frown deepens, and he feels Justice rising in his head, lending him a second perspective as he scans Fenris’ body for any wound he might have missed. 
“Right. And I’m betrothed to Knight-Commander Meredith. It’s going to be a summer wedding.” Gingerly,  Anders touches the elf’s back, letting a little magic fall from his fingers as he scans the tissue for something he might have missed. As his fingers touch the branching tattoos, Fenris makes the sound again, somewhere between a grunt and a soft, high moan. “Fenris, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong I can’t help you.”
“Nothing is wrong, mage.” Fenris spits between clenched teeth. After a moment, his body slumps. He doesn’t look at Anders as he adds, softly. “I am...sensitive there. That is all.”
Anders blinks, staring at the dark tattooed skin under his hand. Realisation floods suddenly into his mind and he pulls his hand back. “Oh! Oh, right, sorry, that was - I didn’t mean -”
“It’s fine, mage.” There’s a soft hint of humour under the words. Fenris’ ears are still red. Anders feels his shoulders slump. He stares at the branching tattoos, faintly luminescent in the dark of the cave. “Have you completed your healing?” Fenris asks, after a moment.
Anders wets his dry lips. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, no, you’re all good.” He moves, grabbing a blanket from his pack and jerking it out with shaking fingers. He can’t stop thinking about that sound, that moan. Pushing the thought and all accompanying fantasies away as briskly as he can, Anders tosses the blanket over Fenris. “Here. You need rest. The others are bedding down for the night too. I’m on first watch.”
Fenris nods, shifting a little. “Thank you.”
Anders pushes his hair out of his face, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “Don’t mention it.”
Fenris moves. Anders tries very hard not to find him adorable, with a blanket pulled up to his ears, leaving only a tuft of white hair and big green eyes. He has no doubt the elf would resent him for it. “Anders?”
Anders hums. (He can still hear it in the back of his head. That moan. What would happen if he did it on purpose? He imagines trailing his fingers down those tattoos, kissing the moans from Fenris’ lips, feeling him writhe beneath his touch, loved and loving.) 
Anders.
Justice’s voice in the back of his head is faintly disapproving. Anders jerks himself out of his thoughts. “Yes?”
Fenris’ eyes are dark. “If you tell anyone about this I will kill you.”
He doesn’t even have the grace to sound angry. Anders nods, and tries not to smile, and doesn’t know why he wants to. “Got it.” Then he adds, softly, sincerely. “I won’t, Fenris. I wouldn’t.”
After a long, long moment Fenris nods, and shifts painfully onto his other side. Anders turns to the fire, holding his hands over the low flame and listening to the faint hiss of burning wood. 
He tries very hard not to think of handsome elves.
He doesn’t really succeed.
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novemberocean · 6 years
Text
Varric Pays a Visit
AO3
Wil and Fenris are lying low after the birth of their daughter. They get a visit from an old friend and someone else... 
(Cro and Wil universe.several years after the events of da2)
Wil Hawke lay in her bed, her arm draped around Fenris' waist. She drifted somewhere in between sleep and wakefulness. The baby burbled in her crib across the room. Rinna was awake, Wil should get up and get her. But the newborn hadn't fallen asleep until the light outside was soft, so Wil didn't see the harm in letting her entertain herself while she dozed.
When Bethany was a baby, she had always been the hardest to get to sleep, But for different reasons than Carver. Carver cried because he was dirty or hungry or any normal reasons a baby cries. Bethany cried when she was bored. When Wil had been little, she had been half convinced that baby Bethany just wanted to test their reaction time. See how long it took them to get up when she started wailing in the middle of the night.
Rinna didn't do that, but at a little under two weeks old, she only slept for a few hours at a time and ate after every nap. Fenris could do a lot of things, but breastfeed was not one of them. Wil herself was still pretty wiped out from the labor itself. Her mom had done this twice, with four times as many children. Not for the first time, she thought about her brother.
She hadn't seen or heard from Cro since he had gone away with Anders. But their connection meant that she sometimes got impressions. Sensations of heat with no discernable source. Phantom pains, and smells. She could only imagine what Cro was getting from her end.
The first Hawke twins had always been close, but the strangeness of their connection hadn't manifested until they were separated. The only time they had ever been apart was when Wil followed Carver to Ostagar. That had only been a few months. Two years since the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry marked the longest Wil and Cro had ever been apart.
She must have fallen asleep, because next thing she knew, Fenris was getting back into bed, infant in arms. Wil trusted Fenris to be careful, so she didn't warn him about the dangers of having a newborn in the bed with them; instead, she pulled both of them closer and tried to fall back asleep.
Abruptly, there was a knock at the door. Fenris and Wil sat bolt upright, jostling Rinna. Wil gathered her daughter to her chest as she and Fenris shared a look. No one was supposed to know where they were. Not even the extremely helpful, and kind of nosey, midwife. After a swift, silent conversation, Wil handed Rinna to Fenris while she pulled on a shirt.
With one hand, Fenris pulled his sword off its hooks on the wall, Rinna in his other arm. He moved to the blind side of the door, nodding as Wil moved to open the door and confront whoever had found them. With luck, whoever it was would let their guard down, seeing an unarmed woman, not noticing Fenris with a very large sword.
But it was Wil who was caught off guard.
"Hey Hawke," Varric said, customary shit-eating grin on his face.
"Varric!" Wil exclaimed, bending to embrace the dwarf. He looked good, hair a little longer than the last time she had seen him. His shirt was still ridiculously low-cut, and Wil had never been so happy to see that chest bush.
"Varric?" Fenris asked, dropping his sword.
"Hey, Elf," Varric smiled at him over Wil's shoulder. "And that must be the Hawkelet."
Rinna stared at Varric, because babies stare at everything. Wil let him go to take her daughter from Fenris to show her to her oldest friend. Varric offered her his finger in greeting. Rinna took the proffered digit, and stuck it in her mouth.
"Varric, what are you doing here?" Wil asked. Varric held out his arms to take the infant and Wil immediately handed her over.
"What, a dwarf can't check in on his friends when they have a baby?" He smiled slyly. "Though I can't take all the credit..." He trailed off meaningfully as he looked over his shoulder.
Sheepishly scooting around the corner of the house, was Cro. His unkempt hair was made even wilder by the wind, and she was reminded of the time they were small children. He was wearing pretty nondescript clothing, not a robe, drawing attention to the fact that he was a mage. The only thing throwing off the undercover outfit, was the stripe of red across his nose and cheeks... The one that mirrored hers.
She didn't think, she just moved. One second, she was crouching in front of Varric, the next she was throwing her arms around her brother's neck. It was like he had never left. He smelled the same, felt the same, the rumble of his laugh was the same. His beard scratched her face and she was getting tears on his shirt. And it was perfect. When she finally pulled back, he had tears in his eyes too.
"Hi," Cro said, voice thick with emotion.
"Hey," Wil giggled, wetly.
"I felt something two weeks ago," Cro said, uncertainly. "I made an intuitive leap." He shrugged sheepishly. That must have been weird for him.
"How was the pregnancy for you?" She laughed as she led him inside. Cro groaned.
"Awful. Did you crave pickles? I ate so many pickles." Cro sighed and Fenris laughed.
"We almost had to learn the process of pickling, because she ate all the pickles in town." Wil swatted at Fenris but he deftly avoided her.
"No? What about Hawkeling?" Varric was trying out nicknames on the baby, who seemed perfectly content to chew on his necklace while he talked.
"You aren't even going to ask her name, before you completely disregard it?" Wil asked, slinging an arm around her brother's broad shoulders. It was a stretch, but a familiar one.
"Her name is Rinna," Cro said and Wil and Fenris whipped their heads to face him. There was no way that he could know that through the link. Was there? Cro laughed at their confusion.
"Wil, you've wanted to name a kid 'Rinna' since we were kids."
Wil blushed to the roots of her hair. Fenris raised an eyebrow at her, amused.
"If it was a boy, his name would have--" Cro continued confidently. Wil drove her heel into the back of his knee and pulled him into a headlock.
Cro cried out, laughing as his sister noogied him relentlessly.
"Well now I'm curious," Fenris commented.
"Me too, I sense a story," Varric grinned. Wil stopped her assault to point at them.
"You're next," she glared. Neither looked very scared. Rinna shrieked in amusement and Wil let Cro go.
"Little bird wants to know too," Varric said, brandishing the infant like evidence. Rinna laughed again as Wil scooped her up.
"She liked that one," Cro said as he drew along side Wil to look at his niece.
"Little Bird it is," Varric agreed.
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panticwritten · 6 years
Text
10 Questions from Breakeven2007
Haha, thanks for the tag @breakeven2007, I’m always a slut for answering questions.
Since I forgot to put the rules on the post last time I got tagged, I’ll go ahead and do that this time. Basically, if you’re tagged, you answer the questions your tagger left at the bottom of the post, then you tag some other folks and leave your own questions at the bottom for the next people to answer!
I’ll do this under the break again.
1. What OC makes you want to tear your hair out and why?
Okay, when it come to writing a character, like getting the writing down when I’m writing them, it would probably be Jay. They spend so much time locked away in their lab that they talk to their androids more than they even see other people. They have shaky morals and I always want to write them as being better than they are.
With the way characters act and general ‘what are you doing?’ tearing my hair out, I’d say it’s Sawyer. Because most of my writing is daydreams and I’m writing the things that happened in my daydream, I write with the knowledge of how much those decisions fucked me over. Sometimes I wish I could go back and whisper in my past-self’s ear saying “NO!”
Retrospect is 20/20 and I hate it.
2. Do you like going back and reading old writing or looking at old drawings? Why or why not?
Oh my god, yes. To a point. I love reading 2014-onward writing. Before that, there are things I should just let die. I have a completed Johnny the Homicidal Maniac/”Gory Demise” by Creature Feature fanfic in the depths of my DA, for Christ’s sake.
The worst part is, on my particularly nostalgic days, I have thought about rewriting that ;^;
But I like looking back and seeing how far I’ve come in my writing. I like seeing how different projects change the way that I write. If I read my god-awful writing for 2010, I can actually start to believe it when people tell me my writing is good. Because no matter how many flaws it might have, It’s better than it was. That’s all that matters in the end.
3. Have you ever had a daydream so long and extensive you actually have to catch yourself before writing all that shit down because it was good.
HA yes.
I’d like to say that all of my daydreams that I end up writing are like that, but I know that isn’t true. I waited about a month before I started writing Breaking Furnace, and it took one of my friends asking questions about what in my daydreams was bothering to get me to write Sequence of Regrettable Happenings. I started writing Trollhunter’s: Subverted a few says after the daydream started, but I wish I’d started sooner. So many little details were lost from the first couple days.
The daydream sequence that brought Journey to the Center of Our Mind around is what I’m thinking of for this one. So much just started happening at once and I started writing it as soon as I could tear myself away from the actual daydream.’
On a vaguely related note, the beginning plot for Savior Destroy came out of an actual dream, and so did Damien, one of the paras/characters I have.
4. What is the hardest genre for you to write?
I’m not sure if this actually counts as a genre, but the hardest thing for me to write is physical fights. I’ve never experienced an actual fight, and I have a hard time balancing pacing, action, emotion, all of that stuff.
5. How often do you pull all-nighters (if you do)?
I don’t really pull all-nighters, but I come close a lot. I normally go into staying up past 2am expecting to stay up the whole night because I used to all the time. I never do, though, because I get tired and can’t function. I’m already so tired all the time, I have a hard time when I reach the middle point between normal levels and the I’ve-been-awake-for-36-hours-I’ve -never-felt-so-alive high. I miss the manic feeling of staying up the whole night, but it’s probably not a bad thing that I can’t seem to get there anymore.
I normally just end up making bad decisions lmAO
6. Is your writing better with or without sufficient sleep?
Without. I do good writing between like 8pm and 6am which is why I try to stay up so often, even if I know I’ll fail.
7. Do you have a favorite fandom? If so, why?
Favorite fandom, not really. If I stay on the very surface of fandoms, they’re fine but most of the time if I go any deeper I just end up getting uncomfortable so I tend to not delve. I probably like what I’ve seen of the Dragon Age fandom the most, though. Particularly DA2 because I will fight on my stance that DA2 is the best game in the series.
I just like things. I like the things and I especially like it when I watch/read/listen to things without my brain deciding to give me another 500,000 page-worth daydream to obsess over. Can I just be a casual fan for once in my goddamn life please.
8. What book would you recommend to anyone who asked, regardless of personal taste? (Doesn’t have to be your favorite.)
The Belgariad and The Mallorean. It’s actually two five-book series, but they are everything to me. It’s a fantasy series by David Eddings (and his wife, Leigh Eddings, though she wasn’t credited until much later), and it’s a wonderful coming of age story.
The Belgariad is really focused, most of the characters (except for the protag of course) know roughly what they need to do and who the bad guys are and where they need to go.
The Mallorean delves a lot deeper into the particulars of war. That even the ‘bad guys’ aren’t necessarily evil or irredeemable. There’s a lot more confusion, mystery, and the unknown plays a big part in how the story plays out and the decisions the characters make.
They’re Good Books.
9. Is there an author that you can’t stand? And conversely, one that’s on your auto-read list? Why?
I think I’ve answered a question similar to this on this blog. I haven’t really found an author that I hate, partially because if I start a book and can’t get through it I tend to forget that it and its author exists. Mostly, though, it’s because of how writing grows and a writer can do terrible work in one genre and be great in another. For example, I don’t really like most of James Patterson’s work because the way he writes crime fiction is a little too much for me. I love his YA modern fantasy/science fiction writing, though! Maximum Ride and (okay god I can’t remember what the series was called, like ‘W’ or something, it’s about witches) were genuinely enjoyable, even if they have some big continuation and plot issues that come along with the past pace at which authors like JP write.
I’d say that I want to read every piece of writing that Daniel Handler has ever created as Lemony Snicket. The voice in his work is SO GOOD and fun to read. I’ve been reading TSOUE to my sister and I’m noticing more and more that went completely over my head when I first read it in middle school. Some jokes that are more relatable now that I’m older, and I fully appreciate how terrifying Count Olaf is as a villain. I’m also in the process of reading ATWQ, which takes place in the childhood of Lemony and his first mission as an apprentice in the VFD.
10. If you were a published author, would you support fanfiction of your work? (This is tumblr so I kinda assume so, but some people wouldn’t want someone to “mangle” their work, if you will.) Would you support complete crack ships or ships that you didn’t agree with canonically?
This is kind of a double edged sword, to be completely honest. Since, even in the works I could publish, the main character is a version of myself from my daydreams, fanfiction could be a little weird for me to read.
But, like, fanfiction?? And fanart????? Of something I wrote?? That would be awesome. It would be cool to see how people see my characters, even if they completely fuck up the actual characterization. There is only one noncanon ship that I wouldn’t just say ‘oh, okay, not what I had in mind but fine.’ I wouldn’t ask people not to write it because you know write what you want, but Sawyer and Dominic is something that doesn’t sit well with me.
And that’s a wrap!
I’ll go ahead and tag @cadewrites @itstheenglishkid and @alextriestowritestuff
Okay, here are my questions for you! 
1. Do you have any pets? How about your OCs?
2. How do you beat writer’s block?
3. Where do you draw most of your inspiration from?
4. How do you and your OCs feel about pineapple on pizza?
5. If you had to choose a fictional universe to live in, which one would it be?
6. Would you get along with your OCs if you met them in person? 
7. Which of your OCs would burn a house down or overreact in a similar way if they even thought they saw a spider?
8. What’s your favorite time of day to write?
9. Have you ever written an AU of your own work?
10. Have you ever written a scene so emotionally charged that it hurt you upon rereading it?
A fun story relating vaguely to question 7. Once, I was drawing during the summer with the window open. A dragonfly zoomed in as I was about to close the window and go to sleep, so I abandoned my room in terror, screaming, and slept in the living room instead.
I’m not even scared of dragonflies?? They just don’t belong in my room.
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orodrethsgeek · 7 years
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If you don't mind, can I ask about your ot4? Im curious what first drew Mahanon and Lahariel to Liriel and Solas, as well as each other!And now that they know each other, what's something they respect/appreciate about them?
-shows up several months late without even a Starbucks to show for it- hey I hear it’s your birthday? Happy birthday!
First of all, I’m so sorry this took me forever! XD second of all, let’s finally get to it. I’ll hit these up in chronological order.
Mahanon and lahariel were the first of the ot4 to meet—lahariel was originally a member of Clan Sabrae, and the only one (besides Merrill… and the missing Warden Lyna/Linarel) to survive the events of DA2. Members of Clan Lavellan who had been sent to negotiate a trade of halla to their sister clan found him alone in the wreckage of the Sabrae camp and brought him back to Lavellan.
So the lahariel mahanon first met was completely hollowed out by grief and guilt. He was a warrior of Sabrae, the warleader’s heir apparent, and he had failed his duty. And sometime between when the attack happened and when the Lavellan Dalish found him, he’d fixated on rogue mages as being responsible (as both Hawke and Merrill are mages in this worldstate). He was hit hard with PTSD and compensating by being an arrogant, entitled ass. All in all, not exactly the most fun person to be around.
Mahanon was drawn to him out of pity, at first. Lahariel made few friends in Lavellan, and mahanon is the sort of person who hates to see anyone alone not out of choice but because no one wants to spend time with them. Part of lahariel’s trauma manifested as nightmares, so he hardly ever slept in the aravels and tents (to avoid waking anyone up), choosing instead to sit up around the embers of the night’s fires. Mahanon took to joining him there and prattling away to fill the silence, often falling asleep on lahariel’s shoulder in the early morning hours. And slowly over the course of those late night talks, mahanon started seeing a different side of lahariel—someone who revered the Dalish warriors of old, who had always tried to hold himself to those standards of courage and honor; someone who was cocky, yes, but with the skill to match his ego (which made losing his Clan all the worse); someone who had travelled across more of Thedas, met more people, and was generally better educated than mahanon, and more scholarly than his warrior persona would lead strangers and even acquaintances to believe. Mahanon is a great lover of stories and that quieter lahariel, the one who showed through the gaps of his bad attitude armor, could have been any number of tragic heroes brought to life.
As for lahariel, he was drawn to mahanon’s kindness and persistence. It was hard to be ugly or angry at mahanon—he’d shrug off nastiness, and sometimes even laugh and tell little self-effacing jokes in response, taking the bite out of anything lahariel could have said to him. Whenever he did get upset, his response was to be unyieldingly polite, which shamed lahariel more effectively than a fight ever could have. He was never more than a competent hunter at best, but he always did his best, even though his love of animals made him particularly unsuited for the task. He wasn’t flashy, he wasn’t amazingly talented, but he wasn’t easily deterred, and that was a sort of strength lahariel was drawn to. Lahariel fell for him fairly quickly, to be honest, much sooner than mahanon fell for him.
Liriel was the next member of the ot4 to come along. She was another orphan Lavellan adopted, and both boys were drawn to her for vastly different reasons. They first encountered her shape-shifted into the form of a mabari. Mahanon left portions of his rations out for her to steal at night; lahariel would sit up and talk to the mabari about his clan and ferelden at night. And then it was revealed that the mabari was actually a mage girl.
Mahanon was drawn to her strength and her wildness; where others saw a half-human girl who didn’t know when to keep her opinions to herself, mahanon saw someone who had survived the unimaginable and held on to a fundamental freeness of spirit that embodied what he felt it meant to be Dalish. (Liriel is “never again shall we submit” personified.)
Lahariel was initially drawn to her out of paranoia. She was everything he was most afraid of—a rogue, half human mage (bad) who quickly earned Keeper Deshanna’s trust (worse). Unable to get his new keeper to take this threat seriously and desperate not to lose his new clan, lahariel took it upon himself to keep an eye on Liriel—setting off a lot of liriels trauma in the process. (These two were not good for each other in the beginning.) they butted heads a lot in those early days, but lahariel at least felt a spark of chemistry there. They argued pretty much whenever they saw each other, but in a weird, definitely unhealthy way they did give each other an outlet for their argumentative streaks. By the time Keeper Deshanna named her First, lahariel had come to see Liriel as a member of the clan—misguided and endlessly frustrating, sure, but clan nonetheless.
As for solas—mahanon was drawn to him right from the start; there’s an indefinable magnetism between them no matter the verse. In this one, mahanon was drawn to Solas’ storytelling abilities and his wisdom; it took very little time for mahanon to adopt him as a pseudo-keeper during their time in the inquisition, when mahanon was feeling more and more uncertain as time went on.
Lahariel on the other hand… I suppose you could say he was “drawn” to solas out of jealousy and later suspicion? I think it’s safe to say those two came together latest as a couple, and it didn’t happen until years and years and years down the line. But initially, during inquisition, he was jealous of the bond solas and mahanon forged virtually overnight, and suspicious of his motives/story (possibly this was related to his jealousy, though in his defense inquisitor!lahariel was also suspicious of solas early on).
(Later, when lahariel and solas first started… warming up to each other, it was bloody-minded “I will have the last metaphorical word or I will die” stubbornness and a general sense of oneupmanship that drew them to each other. Oops. The feelings came later, lol.)
(Lahariel projects a very, ah… “bro” persona and likes to think of himself as someone who can do sex without feelings, no strings attached. He is wrong and he now has three spouses to prove it.)
As for something they respect/appreciate about their partners….
Mahanon appreciates lahariel’s steadiness—beneath the cocksure attitude, lahariel is quite grounded. He has a whole new appreciation for liriel’s determination and wildness, but he also appreciates her confidence, especially the confidence she places in him. And he appreciates the way Solas has learned and adapted over the years, how he’s owned up to his mistakes and grown from them.
Lahariel appreciates mahanon’s capacity for leadership, something he never saw in mahanon when they first met. He appreciates Liriel’s forgiveness—it takes time, but lahariel does come to realize how terribly his mage paranoia affected her, and the fact that she forgives and loves him blows her away. And he appreciates Solas’ quietness—they’re both introverts, and lahariel appreciates that they can just chill together.
Anyway, sorry again that this took so long -I am fail- and I hope this is what you were looking for? Also happy birthday! And @robotslenderman can let me know if I’ve forgotten anything, lol
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shadowyin-yang · 7 years
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Saw that you're taking prompts and if you want, what about 22) "Did you just hiss at me?" with Fenris and Anders? ;) (loved the one you wrote for tearsofwinter!)
Send Me Prompts!
First off, THANK YOU!!! Aaah @tearsofwinter was the first to prompt me so I feel like I didn’t do a good enough job on the first drabble. Like I was super rusty??? But I’m glad someone liked it enough to send me a prompt due to it!!! So thank you again!
Usual: “idk if this is what you’re looking for” (b/c I imagined it being funny before it…didn’t turn out funny) + “this is too long for a drabble”
No seriously, I kind of feel I should start posting these to AO3 at this rate. 
Verse: Modern-AU with magic
Misc notes: Pre-fenders to potential fenders; mentions of tranquility (regarding Karl); Anders+insecurity issues/self-loathing/probs other things; Fenris gets beaten up by Pounce a few times (bites and scratches); everyone is an asshole (I’m watching someone play DA2 and I was kinda reminded that…everyone shits on Anders. A lot)
Link to ao3 chapter: here.
“I never hated you.”
All these years and the stupid mage decided to simply announce that tidbit of information (okay it wasn’t that simple but that would be another story)? Fenris found he was not only in disbelief but annoyed. All the wasted time spent hating on someone who did not even hate you in return! “Right, you never hated me.” He made sure to sound extra dry in his response. 
“Believe whatever you wish. I already know the same can’t be said for you towards me.” 
That part Fenris knew he could not argue with. The seething burning sensation he felt every time the mage spoke was proof enough. Except…
Maker, Anders did not seem so bad when you know he wasn’t hating you. Still annoying though. If Anders spoke the truth then everything that came out of his mouth sounded less like a personal attack. 
What followed soon after for Fenris was guilt. 
Why verbally attack someone who does not hate you? It suddenly seemed wrong to talk down to Anders when seeing the mage look away in hurt (along with anger), and retort with his own string of ugly words. Now the elf only felt like the bad guy. Say something mean and someone’s feelings gets hurt. Go figure. But it was how it always was. That’s just what they did. Why change it now? 
Fenris sought comfort from the quips Anders received from the others. A little from Aveline, mostly regarding the amount of work Anders and other mages put on her and other cops with all the meet-ups and protests; and Isabela making light of said-protests. It didn’t make Fenris feel alone when he decided to give Anders a hard time. The guilt didn’t go away though. If anything it got worse and his friends, well, now they just seemed a little…too mean. Sure, Fenris knew no one here was an angel but you’re not supposed think everyone’s suddenly worse either. The look of shame and hurt on the mage’s face became hard not to notice every time someone took a jab at his plight. It was all in good fun wasn’t it? Anders took it too seriously anyway, and it only brought everyone’s mood down so they’re just changing topics…right? So Fenris didn’t stop. He’ll keep hating the mage like always (maybe with a little less intensity). It was better this way, to keep everything the same as it was. 
Anders had confessed his feelings to Hawke. The news tightened something within Fenris, though the elf wasn’t sure what it was. A different tightening feeling occurred right after the first when it became evident Hawke did not return said-feelings. Everyone seemed to have understood that Anders needed some space and didn’t comment of his absence from game night. 
That only seemed to apply for the first few times. 
Now Anders needed to “get over it.” The mage missed so many nights since the whole thing with Hawke. It was only one excuse or another: “sorry, I have a rally to go to,” “sorry, I volunteered at the shelter,” “sorry, I volunteered at the downtown clinic,” “sorry I don’t have a lot of money right now.” 
“I’ll go talk to him.” Hawke was either foolish or the only brave one here. But who could judge when no one opposed the decision? 
Anders showed up to the next game night, and things seemingly went back to normal. Just as it should be, and just how Fenris liked it. 
“My cousin’s in town for about a month,” Hawke announced one day in game night, after Anders left. “Probably won’t be seeing Anders for a bit.” 
“What? And they don’t come to see little ol’ me?” Isabela feigned offense, “But I supposed they have always been fond of Anders. Oh well. I suppose that’s for the best though.”
“Mm? Why’s that, Izzy?” Merrill asked in curiosity. 
“The two have always gotten along. Anders always seemed very happy around them. He seems…very down lately. He could use some cheering up.”  
Fenris concluded there might’ve been some truth to that. He only met this Amell family member once, only for the sake of introductions. They were a mage though. It didn’t take long for them to show an obvious distaste for Fenris the moment he expressed his own strong opinions on mage matters. It was no wonder they got along with Anders. Whatever. It wasn’t his business. If anything, Fenris might feel his own form of distaste. This visit ruined the routine Fenris grew accustomed too. Game nights without Anders felt…different. 
During the month’s stay, Fenris often saw Anders out at night with cousin-Amell in the streets of Hightown from his apartment window. Anders never goes to Hightown without good reason, and especially not doing so at night, while smiling and laughing as he walked. Hawke was never with them and no one seemed to see Anders at all during most of this month (alone at least). It was always a curious sight whenever Fenris caught Anders out and about during the busy night with someone that wasn’t part of their main group, looking as happy as he was. Has Anders never smile or laugh? Well of course he had! But it was…different here somehow. More joyous. More genuine…
The guilt still hasn’t left.The guilt also got worse (again) when Anders resumed his regular attendance to game night again, indicating Hawke’s cousin had left. Fenris never saw Anders smile and laugh like that since the last time he watched the pair pass his apartment window. Now every chuckle and grin Anders displayed only seemed to disconnect Fenris from the reality he was viewing. It seemed wrong. Was Anders not happy? Was he not having fun? After all, why bother coming at all if you’re so damn miserable?
Fenris could not bring himself to say anything when Anders showed up one night with a small cut on his forehead. Fenris knew he usually did say something, mostly along the lines of the mage being his usual foolish self. It wasn’t the first time, nor was it the last, that Anders would show up with minor injuries from his protests and rallies for mage rights, and sometimes even elf rights. Anders never seemed to have enough mana for himself. It seemed silly to ask, not that Fenris ever did, but if one was not healing yourself and you still run out of mana…then how much healing was required? 
“You seem broodier than usual.” 
Fenris sighed. Figured Varric would be the first to notice. At least the dwarf had some decency to bring it up after everyone left for the night. “Am I?” 
“Sure. A bit quieter so it throws off your whole brooding thing a bit. Too depressing, not even charm. Did karma come around to bite you in the ass?” 
Maybe. Perhaps. Fenris wasn’t sure. “It is just the mage. Why must he show up as rugged and disheveled as he is every time? If he is so tired he should just not come at all.” 
“Well, you gotta remember he did not show up at all. You don’t just…not show up when Hawke prefers it.” 
Ah. Right. Hawke dragged Anders back. 
“Right…perhaps I am the tired one. I have had some difficulty sleeping recently.” Guilt apparently made it difficult to rest up well…
“Blondie may help you with that. Well, depends how professional you want of a diagnosis. I can give you sleeping pills if needed. Blondie just…advised I do not offer it as a first resort. But we all know how you are with him, so I just won’t mention this to him and let you get by without him breathing down your back over it. But just say the word and I can get you some!”
“Thank you, Varric. I will think about it.” 
“Take it easy on him if you see him though. Blondie seems to be having it rough lately. Well, rougher, anyway.” 
Fenris vaguely recalled where Anders lived. He never had a reason to really go see him (and that goes for all the places Anders frequented). Maker, it was disgusting. The streets were littered, the buildings looked old and worn, the roads were unfixed, and Fenris could’ve sworn there was a dead animal somewhere with every corner he turned. He had known this man for years and he could never fathom how Anders could stand living in this part of Kirkwall. Last he checked, Anders was a bloody doctor. What kind of doctor earned less money than…literally everyone else in the group? That guilt feeling started coming back again…
Fenris eventually spotted the mage standing next to a bus stop. No time like the present. He swiftly approached and touched Anders’s shoulder for his attention. Fenris swore he barely touched the man, but just from mere brush against the hoodie he heard a terribly threatening hiss, and withdrew his hand immediately. Anders turned slightly and took out an earbud. 
“Did you just hiss at me?” Fenris questioned before Anders could say anything. 
Anders only looked at him in confusion. “Did I what?” Anders looked down before even waiting for Fenris to repeat the question. “Oh Pounce, what’s the matter?” 
As Anders lifted the bottom portion of his hoodie up, Fenris spotted an orange ball of fluff. That hoodie was already ugly when he first saw it, but Fenris wasn’t sure if the little built-in pouch holding a cat made it better or worse…
“Are you scared? It’s alright, I won’t let Fenris hurt you~” Fenris had never heard Anders us such a childish tone to talk. Nor had he ever seen Anders nuzzle and kiss a cat with such love and affection. “There, there. That’s it, Pounce. It’s alright. No need to feel scared.” Maker, this man adored his cat… 
Upon calming the cat down (though Anders still cuddled him), Anders finally paid his attention to Fenris again. “Is there a reason you’re waiting on me?”
“Erm…yes. Varric recommended I go to you for suggestions. I have had some trouble sleeping as of late.”
“Oh, now you seek out a mage’s help? Tch…”
“As I’ve stated before: magic has its uses. Now will you make use of it?”
“Right, right…” Anders muttered without looking at Fenris. He sighed as he gestured down the street they were on. “Come on, my place isn’t that far from here.”
As they walked, Fenris saw the bus pass them. Anders didn’t say anything. 
Anders placed a small jar on the counter that held oddly colored leaves inside. “Take this before you sleep. Stay off your phone though. After a couple of days, tell me how it is and if you have any allergic reactions to them. You don’t need to chew it. Just drink down a leaf with water. It doesn’t have a taste so it shouldn’t be difficult.” 
Fenris looked curiously at the item. “That’s it?” and no magic?
“Yeah. It’s natural. Nothing like those over the counter stuff. Which I guess are fine for the short term, but not if you need to rely on them. Hopefully it’s just a passing thing, but might as well get used to this stuff if it works for you. Just in case.” 
“I see…” Fenris picked up the jar. The leaves looked thin and loose enough to just drink down. “You are not going to ask questions on my change of sleep problems?” 
“I would, but I figured you don’t like telling me anything. So I decided to not waste both of our time and just give you what you wanted.” 
“Right…and what are you charging?”
“Just take it. I can always get more.”
The guilt came back. “I do not wish to owe a mage anything.” Okay, that may have came out wrong. 
“Tch, fine. Just throw in a few sovereigns to the clinic or animal shelter. Or both.”
The guilt got worse. Fenris resisted pointing out the ripping wallpaper, the table with a wobbly leg, the dripping sink, and the too-easily-to-break door. He was afraid to sit down or lean on anything in fear of breaking it. 
“I…shall then…” It was the only response he could think of. 
“Alright. Well if that’s all there is. You can go. Pounce and I are taking a stroll to the grocery store.” 
And what? Buy bread and feed it to the geese? Okay Anders might actually do that…
Anders looked around for the cat. Fenris saw the orange tabby on the floor on his side of the counter licking his paws. He reached down to retrieve him for Anders, just out as an act of being nice. The cat hissed and without warning, the claws came down on the hand that reached for him. Fenris yelped as he pulled his hand back. 
“Pounce! No!” Anders quickly picked up the tabby. “Bad, Pounce! You do not attack people like that!” he used a scolding tone, though it was probably as ineffective as scolding a child. Anders sighed as he readjusted his grip on Pounce while approaching Fenris. “I’m sorry about Pounce. He…doesn’t like most people. Do you need something for that?” 
Fenris could see the claw marks on his fingers. “No. It is nothing.” he tucked his hand into his pocket and resisted the urge to hiss himself as it the pressure stung. “So you are to say that beast is picky with his company?” 
“Well I guess so…I’m not sure what it is. Pounce seems to hate everyone. Except the Amell family. Well, Carver’s the exception. Oh but he adores Hawke.” Anders chuckled as he nuzzled Pounce. It was the first time Fenris recalled seeing such a warm smile since Hawke’s cousin was over. Was a cat always this effective for Anders? 
“Oh yeah, Anders loves his cat,” Hawke said when Fenris approached them the next day. “The cat loves him too from what I can tell of cats. Which isn’t much I guess.”
“I was informed this…Ser Pounce…is rather fond of you.”
“Oh yeah,” Hawke laughed in-between drinks, “It’s really funny. Maybe I’m just good with animals. Pounce likes Bethany too though, and myself of course. And um…my cousin, and their lover. Pounce absolutely hates Carver though…and others I assume. Anders says we’re the only ones he recalled Pounce liked. Us and Karl.” 
“Karl?”
“Oh, you remember. Anders’s old lover. The one who got turned Tranquil despite passing his Harrowing. That big case a few years ago.” The case that the mages lost, and justice was never served. Fenris never really thought much about it, but being reminded of that case only made him feel…bad. 
“…And you are saying you never had to change the cat’s opinion of you?” Fenris asked instead of delving further into the negative feelings. 
“I mean I guess? Well, Pounce didn’t like me right away. Probably because I’m a stranger. But he warmed up to me. Sort of around the same time Anders did.”
Fenris blinked curiously. “Anders was swift to like you though.”
“Yeah, and so was Pounce!” 
There was no way. It can’t be.
“I wish to see your cat.” Fenris announced to Anders as he stood before the man’s apartment door. 
“…Why?” Anders put himself before the door frame, guarding the entrance. 
“I’m interested in cats.“
There was a flicker of interest in Anders’s eyes. “I…suppose you can come see him. I guess it’s not a bad sign if you want to see him even after he attacked you.” 
Anders let Fenris in and the elf searched for the orange tabby. Pounce was laying in the sunlight coming in through the window. Fenris only got a chance to kneel down beside him before Pounce woke and immediately got his claws into Fenris’s jeans. He immediately felt the sting in his knees…
Fenris came by again later that same week. This time he brought a cat treat for Pounce. He offered the food on the floor and tried to push the little treat closer. Pounce sniffed it for a moment but promptly ignored it. 
“Strange. He usually eats anything you give him,” Anders noted out loud, watching from behind the elf. Fenris tried pushing the treat in front of Pounce’s path again but before he could pull his hand away, Pounce, well, pounced. Well…at least he can make up a story to why his knuckles bled…
Fenris came by again by the start of the next week. This time, he handed Anders a box of pizza. “I had some from work. Brought it in case you were interested.” Fenris didn’t say more as he went to scan for the cat. Pounce was on the couch this time and watched the strange exchange between Anders and Fenris. 
“Um…thanks…?” despite the confusion, Anders didn’t want to complain about the free food and happily hummed as he started getting out a plate for himself. Fenris went over and knelt before Pounce who eyed the elf with intent. Carefully, Fenris slipped the treat before the cat. Pounce sniffed it before taking the treat into his mouth. After Pounce finished, Fenris offered his (bandaged up) hand to the cat. Pounce didn’t look aggressive. Taking that as a good sign, Fenris tried to pet the head like how Anders would do it. Before he even touched the fur, Pounce bit his finger. 
Fenris stopped by once again. This time, he handed Anders a new box of bandaids and a new bottle of disinfection. Both acting as a replacement for taking up all the supplies from Anders. Fenris found he was able to pet Pounce’s head today, but only for a moment. Pounce bit him again when he felt he was being pet for too long. 
Another day Fenris came by with nothing. But he did mention the silly cat shirt Anders wore was charmingly funny…in its own way. He caught a small smile from the mage, and Fenris found he was able to pet the cat’s head a bit longer than five seconds before he started hearing a growling sort of noise and he retreated his hand before he got attacked again. 
And that’s how it went. Fenris visited at the rate that it would be considered ‘often’ to a lot people. He would bring over food for himself and Anders sometimes. Anders seemed to always be hungry. One time he brought a movie that he felt Anders might enjoy (he did. It involved cats). Otherwise, he offered some words. Nothing too out there. Just a nice compliment here and there. “Why is your hair not up today? No, it is fine. But perhaps you should wear your hair down more often-if that is something you like,” “You make good cookies. The children would like them,” “No, keep the movie if you like it so much.” 
Slowly, Pounce seemed to accept his presence. Not completely, as even at Pounce’s most patient days, Fenris had walked out with a new scratch on his skin. Anders always apologized for them, even when there was nothing Fenris felt that needed to be apologized for. 
Finally, by the end of the month, Fenris was able to get his hand to start from the top of Pounce’s head and down his back without being attacked. 
“Hmm, wow, I think Pounce is warming up to you. Your effort is pulling through! I’m so happy that Pounce gets a new friend!” Anders sounded proud, as if Pounce was a child…
Fenris stood and went over to the kitchen counter were Anders was pouring tea for the two of them. “Did Hawke have as much trouble?” 
“Not really,” Anders flushed slightly, “Hawke is…Hawke. They’re a bit irresistible…” 
“…why Hawke?” Fenris dared to ask and Anders froze in mid-pouring. He stopped and put down the hot water as he eyed Fenris suspiciously. 
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. The cause of your temporary absence.”
Anders shrugged and went on to pour into the next cup. “What’s there to say? Hawke’s nice.” 
“Nice…”
“Nice,” Anders stressed. 
“…That’s it?” 
“What else do I need?” Anders put down the water and took out the teabags. 
Compassion, listening skills, supportive, probably at least likes cats, and appreciate each other’s interests, just to list a few. 
“I assumed more than just…nice.” Fenris replied with instead. 
Anders shrugged as he pushed a cup towards Fenris. “I can’t expect my lover to be perfect. No need to be picky. I don’t have much to offer anyway…and I know I’m annoying and such.”
Fenris swallowed, feeling more and more uncomfortable whenever Anders talked down on himself like that. “That is a dangerous mindset, Mage. Anyone can be nice. Many have for the sake of saving face.” 
“Yeah but you can usually tell when they want something in return or not. You eventually start to pick up that stuff. Hawke…Hawke’s kind. They…really listen to me…” 
Fenris felt his brow twitch. “Mage…has no one mentioned to you that you need to raise your standards?” 
“Why would they tell me that?”
Fenris had to resist smacking himself in frustration. “That aside, Mage. If you are so good at telling when someone’s trying to trick you, then what is my purpose for feeding you?”
“You want to see Pounce, what else?” Anders gestured to the cat. 
Fenris stared. “Why do you not assume I wish to see you?”
“Why would you want to see someone you hate?” 
“…Maybe you are not so hatable.” Maker it shouldn’t have come out so easily. But it did become rather difficult to hate someone who eagerly wanted his cat, never mind himself, to make a new friend. 
“Heh, right, sure. I’ll take that as a compliment.” 
“…you do not believe me.” Fenris stated matter of factly. 
Anders raised a brow. “You’re trying to convince me you do not hate me?”
“Should I try harder?”
“See!” Anders pointed with accusation, “You’re never serious with me! It’s always hatred or sarcasm!”
Fenris glanced over at Pounce. The cat looked like he was staring into his soul…
“I…did not mean offense. I apologize.”
“You…apologize…?” Anders looked away in discomfort. “I…that’s…nice of you…I guess…um…thanks…?” 
Fenris just hoped that Anders (possibly) believed him. For now. Mostly because Fenris could not remember why he hated this man anymore. 
Fenris wasn’t sure what to do. He had spent over a month seeing Anders and Pounce, most of that time spent trying to befriend the cat. It was meant to be an experiment, a way to put out the growing curiosity. He didn’t think Pounce would actually respond the way he did. Before he knew it, he got carried away with it. 
But now Anders seemed almost content being in the elf’s presence, excited even, on some days. He expressed a similar shy smile that he used to have when around Hawke. Fenris froze in his thoughts. Oh no…
Fenris ran his hands through his hair. Okay, so maybe there is a possibility he accidentally made Anders have more-than-friendship-based-feelings for him now but…a part of him felt he should still be liked beyond just being nice! Did he even do anything especially nice? Sure he knew he fed Anders on some days. There was also the minor compliments of course. There was the time he brought over a used, but large, jacket for Anders upon noticing Anders’s current one was getting too worn down. Fenris could’ve sworn Anders used the same jacket during winter and he was fairly confident the one he owned was warmer. It got difficult to get Anders to (eventually) accept it.
Okay so that was one nice thing he went out of his way to do. ONE! Or maybe two if one counted the time he shared his wine with Anders one night at the Hanged Man. 
This was trouble, and bad, and…probably something to be expected after all the acts he had done to appease Pounce. Or…appease Pounce for…Anders? Fenris wasn’t sure anymore. 
If there was anything he was sure about now it was that Anders didn’t eat enough. The only time he’s ever caught Anders with food was when he was the one giving Anders the food! He also knew Anders didn’t splurge on many luxuries except for the cat. Pounce was spoiled rotten. It wasn’t hard to notice the soft cat bed looked a bit too new in comparison to Anders’s mattress that looked like it was sagging from the one time Fenris went into the mage’s bedroom. Fenris also knew Anders cared (too much in Fenris’s opinion). There was always someone to help, always something to fight for, and always some poor animal to save from the rain. 
Just thinking about it felt like it was too much…But as Fenris felt his heart ache at the thought of Anders constantly moving through life like this, he knew he too cared a bit too much. Maybe he was more sure than he originally thought. 
Game night came once again, and Fenris waited outside the Hanged Man for Anders to arrive. He almost expected Anders to give a look of suspicion but…not as of late. If Pounce approved a person, it somehow spelled ‘good’ in Anders’s mind. When Anders arrived, he looked surprised, and then looked away with a tint of red on his face. Fenris felt the insides of his chest getting particularly warm as well. Maybe not enough things were said between them, but avoiding it now wouldn’t do. 
“Um…is there a reason you’re out here…?” Anders looked ready to enter, but Fenris didn’t budge from the entrance. 
“I was waiting for you.”
“…oh. Um…I’m here? What’s going on? Am I in trouble for being a big bad mage?” 
Fenris sighed and closed the distance between them. Anders stiffened as the other got closer. Fenris felt his heart pound a bit too loud for his liking, but he had a feeling Anders might be feeling it just as a bad. Or worse. With a shake of his head, Fenris tried to meet with Anders’s gaze. Anders only persisted to not look at him. Not wanting to push his discomfort, Fenris stopped and let a moment’s pause pass before speaking. “…Do you wish to have coffee with me sometime?” 
Anders’s head snapped up. “…What?” 
“Do you wish to have coffee with me sometime?” he repeated patiently. 
He could’ve sworn Anders’s face changed color as he tried to get out a response. “Wh-What?! Wait, a-are you inferring something? Wait, is this a joke? Because if it is, it’s not a very funny one you know!” 
“It is not a joke.”
Anders only folded his arms in disbelief. 
Fenris continued. “I…know I am not the most ideal-”
“What?!” Anders exclaimed, cutting in, “Fenris, you’re like one of the most desirable bachelors in all of Kirkwall!” 
Fenris blinked. This was news to him. Never less… “It does not change my question for you.” 
“…But you can do better than me!”  
“I fail to see how that relates to what you want in regards to my question.” 
Anders fell silent, looking rather torn. 
Fenris sighed again as his heart started to ache once more. “As I said…I know I may not be the most…ideal person. I have treated you badly, and I do not know if I ever truly apologized for it. I would not hold it against you for saying no. I am…prepared for it. You deserve someone who will treat you well.” 
“Not really…” Anders let out an empty laugh as his hand wiped at his eyes. “Heh…wh…what am I supposed to say to that, Fenris? I…I don’t know, I just…”
“Say whatever you fe-”
“It’s not that simple!” Anders suddenly exclaimed. “Of course I want to! I just…don’t want to disappoint you…Heh, I mean, I hear that I’m rather good at that! Disappointment. Being a mage does that you know. I often disappoint people without even having to open my mouth usually.”
“Well whoever suggested such a thing is wrong,” Fenris stated harshly. Anders dropped the forceful smile he just put on. “This is not about everyone else and they will think. It’s about you and your happiness, and whether or not you feel I am capable of helping in providing some of it. This is not about Kirkwall, or Hawke, or mages, or any of whatever you think has to do with who ‘deserves’ what! Just once, can you do that? For yourself?” 
Fenris wasn’t sure what kind of look Anders was giving him. He had never seen it before. The mage looked confused, and something else. Maybe he was in thought as he tried to decipher what was said. Fenris couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t sure if many people expressed such a thing to Anders before this moment. 
Anders fiddled with his hands, and looked away again. “I can…try.” Anders finally replied quietly. 
“That is all I ask from you. Regardless of how you wish to answer me. Just know that there is more to me than just simple acts of kindness. Believe me when I say: I may disappoint you before you could ever disappoint me.”  
“Never,” Anders shook his head. Fenris could see how much the mage genuinely believed that. “I think…one cup of coffee wouldn’t hurt.” And Fenris saw a small smile on the other’s face. 
It was almost a relief to Fenris. He never really saw himself as nice, but it was a rather good trait. And he could always show he had other qualities to like, at least, he had hoped he did. Like Anders, Fenris decided he had to at least try to bring those good qualities out. If not for his own sake, then for Anders’s. 
It was the least Fenris felt he could do for him. 
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dandelliongirl · 7 years
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Easter
break.
Once again it’s been almost two weeks since my last diary post. My guy finished DA2 and moved on to DAI, which is a major contributor to why I’ve had less PC time lately. Now he’s bought Overwatch so it doesn’t seem like the situation is going to improve.. :)
So on Thursday last week me and dad ended up going skiing in stead of the gym. It was a really really warm and sunny day, and I went for a total of 9 km in the sunshine. It was the best morning ever, and I spent a lot of time soaking in the sun every 1,5 kms. ☼ I also planted my Easter grass on Thursday.
I made it out of the awful choreo a girl in our ballet group is making. I wasn’t even lying when I said my new pointe shoes are horrible and I had an actual reason to not be a part of it. Especially my left shoe still hurts a LOT. Anyway I’m so much happier now that I don’t have to take part in that. Me and my friend went and worked on our Pearls variation on Thursday and I stayed behind to help the others adapt the choreo to me not being there. I was happy to spend the whole evening with them just to get out of it all.
On Friday I worked on school stuff, taught my dance classes and visited mum and dad. On Saturday me, mum and my guy went grocery shopping as usual, and then me and mum went shopping for all kinds of stuff that has been on my shopping list for a while. I got some containers, super glue, Easter flowers, Easter candy, a notebook for work and some food items. We also went to pick out wallpapers for mum and dad’s bedroom. The reno is starting in a couple of days!
I spent last Sunday working on an exhibition floor. I got a good 6 hour shift of double pay because it was a Sunday. I was pretty tired for the rest of the day though.
I did school work and taught my dance class on Monday, went to the office and rehearsed our variation for ballet on Tuesday and worked on school stuff all Wednesday so that I could take an Easter break. Me and mum also went for a little run after she got off work on Wednesday. I’ve had a major throat ache/cough lately so I couldn’t run all the way but it was a really good run nevertheless and going to the sauna afterwards felt amazing in my lungs. I’m hoping we can make Wednesday’s run and sauna a regular occurrence.
I wrote some of my methods essay on Thursday morning until a friend came over to hang out. My guy’s little brother came over as well and we had pizza for dinner. They played Catherine all night and I got back to building houses in The Sims 2. I built a really cool beachfront house, which took me about 5 hours in total.
On Good Friday my guy and his brother went home to visit their parents. I did a massive cleanup operation in my closet - way bigger than I had intended and it wore me down pretty bad. I spent the rest of the day alternating between the sofa and Sims 2. This time I built a 4 story apartment building. It was so much fun in light of our recent house businesses to plan out my own apartment building and decorate all the individual apartments for different families. I made one for a super artsy cat person, one for a tumblr blogger, one for a family with a newborn, one super sleek Ikea room, one pink and lace and antique apartment, one for a musician, one for a computer nerd and one for a sports fan. They turned out super cute!
Today is my guy’s 24th birthday. Wow he is getting so old...
Me and mum visited granny and grandpa today. My uncle was taken in to a mental ward last week because of his intense psychosis. Granny managed to cheat him into accompanying her to the doctor’s and they sent him in immediately. Now he’s in a controlled environment with sleeping pills that he has agreed to take and a stable daily routine. We’re hoping they’ll keep him in there for long enough so that he’ll return to this world again and won’t be as big of a danger to himself anymore. Maybe he’d even agree to take his pills? That might be too optimistic though.. At least he’ll slow down for a while. Mum spent the entire day cleaning his house up and me and granny talked and cooked dinner. Poor granny is so tired and she feels bad for my uncle. Granny is getting a pacemaker on Tuesday and she gave us instructions on what to do if she doesn’t return from the surgery. Really scary stuff, I don’t want to lose her...
Going to go either skiing or running tomorrow morning. I’m also hoping to continue my closet cleanup stuff a bit more. I want it all purged as soon as possible because I want to get new clothes. I dreamt of new summer dresses the other night. I’ve got a dress that I’ve had for eleven years. I really need an update..
I was thinking of playing some more Sims tonight but it’s getting kind of late. I might just clip my nails and watch TV/browse Tumblr. I love taking a few days off. After Easter break I’ve only got 5 weeks until I’m officially off for the summer.
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