#also their meeting would most likely be in the context of her helping the wardens with the blight

[aceofwonders]

thinking about the possibility of the vyrantium crew and the warden crew meeting at some point like 👀

[felassan]

Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition concept art & assets from a 2016 talk/presentation by Matt Rhodes, titled “The World of Concept Art” [watch link & source]

It’s an interesting and insightful talk which I recommend watching, especially if you have an interest in concept art and related things like character design and how it fits into the overall game dev process. It’s also interesting to see a bit about how the DA team’s art direction/process has changed over time between games, and hear a bit about how they’ve been doing things going forwards for the next game.

This is Part 1. [Link to Part 2]

(Some notes on the commentary given on the images and in general in the presentation under the cut due to length.)

On image 2: DAII had a fast, hot production period where decisions were made very quickly. The devs knew that the central hub, Kirkwall, had been a center of an old slavery-based empire in the past, and wanted to have indications of this [in its art direction]. There were going to be giant statues that the PC eventually fought - on the right is the design for the statues as they originally were. In the top left, this is all they had for the location [owing to the intensive prod period]. They also had a general idea that they wanted to have tableaus that came to life, shown in the bottom left.

On image 3: Going back to the design of the giant statues, the beautiful golden clockwork version of the design doesn’t really say ‘tool of an ancient slavery-based empire’, so they took the model and tried to come up with something that had more of the kinds of shapes that get into the back of your head and say things like ‘aggressive, hard, simple’.

On image 4: So here they had started doing concepts trying to find some of the right poses, accessories etc that these things would have. One of the hearts of the internal ‘DA art [direction] codex’ is “gray and pointy”; if they give a concept like this to [then] Art Director Matthew Goldman he instinctively wants to go “Yes! Approve!”, and so has to kind of reign himself in a little bit.

On image 5: This is where they ended up getting to and how the concept art turned out in terms of the model, with some negotiation back and forth. This is an example of how their art direction process now tries to tell a story with the art (i.e. it tries to support the story through art aspects of the setting and the environment). Historically, they would have just thrown the French-looking, Baroque clockwork version of the statue into the game and gone with it. They are getting more and more intentional with this sort of thing.

On this image: This was an internal image made for internal discussion. The characters in it aren’t ones that exist or that became other characters, with the exception of the Warden, who kind of became Blackwall. In this image, they were trying to think about visual separation among members of a group at the most basic level (simple graphic design principles, like different shapes and colors). This image is part of trying to solve the design problem of having 4 different characters on-screen in the party at once in their games - as in, players of course need to be able to easily tell who is doing what and where.

A general comment: At BioWare, the concept artists nowadays involve themselves in the character design process much earlier than they used to. Historically, as in earlier games, the writers would write up a bunch of characters and then concept artists would be brought in to draw them. Through negotiation and back-and-forth they would then come up with something. Nowadays though, the concept artists are involved from Day 1. The writers now write down 2 words to describe a character and the artists do sketches based on that. The writers then will write a sentence and the artists will do more drawings based on that. Then it progresses to a paragraph and drawings based on that and so on. In this way it goes back and forth and they build it up so that the visual aspects and the writeup/content of the character are developed completely in tandem, complimentary to one another. This is their goal. They aren’t quite there yet, but this is what they’re trying to strive for in this area.

On image 6: These are Dorian concepts. His initial 2-word writeup was “rockstar mage”. They had different artists take different swings at him. The middle concept is Matt’s. The third concept is by Casper Konefal. Everyone was very excited about it and so it was then taken up to a more final stage (image 7).

On image 8: Casper is one of Matt’s favorite concept artists because he goes in and lovingly details absolutely everything - all the pieces of jewelry etc. Each ring has a story. This attention and level of detail and thought behind it adds authenticity and verisimilitude. 

On image 9: In game development, there is an effect on character design that can happen during review meetings. The concept/character artist will know what they need visually from a particular character’s design in order to visually tell the story and to help the character support that. Oftentimes, people who aren’t artists don’t have the language to describe this or realize that’s what’s going on in a character’s design, and instead they just see imperfections in the presented faces. What this can lead to is that unintentionally a group review meeting can slowly trim away all the features of a character that make them interesting or distinct. This is why, for many characters across the game industry, if they were shaved and had their facial decorations etc removed, it would be kind of hard to tell many of them apart, as they have all been subjected to this sort of “council sandblasting” process. Casper figured out an idea to help with this; annotating concept drawings with artistic knowledge that artists know intuitively, as has been done here. Artists know, for instance, that certain shapes and angles can allow for certain assumptions about the character to be made (for example, think about Cassandra’s personality and then consider the angular, straight strong lines that make up her face). Annotating like this and then presenting both versions alongside one another helps these aspects of character design be recognized in the review process, and helps characters remain more distinct.

On image 10: They knew that in DAI there was going to be a character who would be with the PC for the whole game - the humble little hermit, non-intrusive, someone quite closed off who the player wouldn’t know much about. “[quote] And at the very end of the game you’d basically find out that he’s Loki himself, or the embodiment of this ancient god that had been tricking you and basically manipulating you the whole time, characterized by a wolf.” And so Nick Thornborrow hung a wolf’s jaw bone off his neck and it was just there in plain sight the whole game. Because this detail was in the drawings at an early stage, it sparked conversations with the audio department, and the audio department could add touches from their end like having wolves howling when he walked into a new area. They could then get all of these different elements and things that could be hinted at, so that when you play the game a second time it’s like ‘They weren’t even hiding it!! It was there the whole time!!’ He loves that.

A general comment: Any one of BioWare’s 3D modelled characters standing in-game talking or animating probably ends up costing them something in the 40,000 - 60,000 dollar range (they calculated this).

A general comment: For DAI, the concept artists also started to get heavily involved in the storytelling side of things at a deeper level, doing things like quick’n’dirty storyboards for the cinematic designers and spending more time with the writers talking about what emotions they were trying to convey at different points and so forth. Since starting doing this, this has become a built-in part of their process.

A comment in the context of giving advice to up-and-coming and student artists, on the subject of how concepts and ideas are naturally thrown out during the process of iterating on ideas etc: “[quote] Right now, the project that I’m working on that I can’t talk about, I have 3 versions of the story in the garbage, and it’s awesome. Because now I’m working on the fourth with our lead writer and it’s so much better than it would have been otherwise and we’re doing it so much earlier so that we can actually change things up.” Said project could be DA4 or something else. (Please remember these comments were made in November 2016. MEA came out in 2017 and DA4 has been rebooted)

[source]

[sterling-writes]

Griffin Day

"My life isn't my own. I am who I help, who I lead, who I serve. I am more than just myself... I am my people. I have to be."

While he may not be the eldest of his many siblings, Griffin certainly behaves like he is. He is what his parents would call "the most responsible" of the bunch; in most meanings of the word, it's the truth. He's smart, well-mannered, and a natural leader. He's nothing if not brave and dutiful. This, however, can also make him a bit of a perfectionist, like his father. He feels the need to be there for everyone in his family- siblings, both younger and older, and even his own parents. With his constant effort to make his family proud and help everyone around him, he often neglects his own needs. In fact, when asked: "What do you like to do, Griffin?", the question gives him pause.

Griffin is the son of Hawk Day and Jayna Solo and is one of the middle children among many siblings. He's a part of a set of triplets, of which he is the eldest, followed by his brothers Wolf and Fox. He serves as a sort of third parent to his siblings, especially when his parents are occupied elsewhere. In Dragon Age, he is the crown prince of Ferelden. He eventually marries Kala Talaros, and together they have three children.

Basics

Full Name: Griffin Hawk Day

Pronounced: grIf-uhn hAWk dAY

Birthday: Feb 26th (Pisces)

Gender: Cis Man (He/him)

Orientation: Straight

Hair: Ginger, curly/wavy. Faded sides, curly side-swept fringe on top

Eye color: Green

Height: 5'10"

Family

Parents: Hawk Day and JJ Solo

Siblings: Killian Day, Inza Day, Irene Day, Isla Day, Wolf Day, Fox Day, Fawn Day

Half-Siblings: Lucien Day II, Saric Day, Magnus Day, Elia Theirin, Callum Theirin, Fennec Theirin

Aunts/Uncles: Aron Day, Florence Day, Lucien Day, Bael Solo, Ben Solo

Domestic Life

Canon Love Interest: Kala Talaros

Alternate Love Interests: None

Children: Alexander Day, Darren Day, Anna Day

Magic/Powers

Powers: Enhanced Abilities

Gift: None

Demon/God: Not present

Fantasy Class: Warrior

Story

Fics: Lost in Crimson ~ Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 (18+)

Marvel context: Grows up in Eastern Canada with his mother, father, and siblings in his grandfather's lakehouse. They eventually move to the Terra Squad compound in New York along with the rest of the TS families, where he meets his eventual love interest, Kala.

Dragon Age context: He's the biological son of Hawk Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, but is born through magic by his mother, Jayna Solo, the Hero and Queen of Ferelden. He's raised as the son of Jayna and Alistair Theirin. He is the eldest of their sons with one older sister, which places him second in line for the throne. Once his older sister Elia resigns her claim to the throne, he becomes the crown prince. His parents, as Grey Wardens, begin to hear the calling and fall ill. Griffin prepares for his impending ascension and starts taking initiative on various issues in the kingdom. He eventually visits the small village of Redcliffe, where he meets Kala Talaros. They quickly fall in love, and Griffin takes her as his bride despite the controversy of Kala being a blood mage. After his parents become unfit to rule, Griffin is crowned as King of Ferelden, with Kala as his Queen.

Star Wars context: The son of a Mandalorian ex-bounty hunter and a Grey Jedi. He grows up among the remains of the Resistance with his many siblings.

Star Trek context: Grows up aboard the USS Enterprise, which has been rebuilt as a deep-space vessel that allows the crew to have family aboard the ship, complete with daycare, schooling, etc. One day, catastrophe strikes as the ship enters an area filled with black-hole-like anomalies that appear on the ship as portals. Many passengers are sucked through, including Griffin and his girlfriend, Kala. They appear on a deserted planet and are left there for many years. The group uses the natural resources to build a sustainable village, accepting the fact that they’ll likely never be rescued. Meanwhile, the USS Enterprise makes it their main mission to find the missing group, and finds their planet almost a decade later. They are rescued and return to their lives aboard the ship after a period of readjusting to normal life. Griffin attends Starfleet Academy to train as a Captain.

Extras

Associated color: Dark red, gold, silver

Familiar Spirit: Griffin (Surprised?)

Myers Briggs: ISFJ-T (Defender)

Alignment: Lawful Good

Pinterest Board: (here)

Tag: (here)

[kantrips]

Alistair & Celia Headcanon Collection

Some Amell x Alistair (largely fluff) headcanons! Includes some from Origins, Warden time at Amaranthine and the Inquisition-era. Some of these I have had since my first playthrough, but others I may have read elsewhere, loved and thusly absorbed so please let me know if I can link anyone!

Origins

The first time they meet at Ostagar, Celia thinks Alistair is the most fascinating person she has ever encountered because no one in the Circle had a particularly boisterous sense of humour. Alistair is oblivious to her heart eyes, and also holds back because he’s worried she won’t survive the Joining.

Even after the Joining, Alistair tries very hard not to ~feel feelings~ despite the clear signals Celia is hurling at him because he assumes she won’t like him once she gets to know him more/she will get bored of him/ she will leave like everyone else i.e. the boy is hecking damaged.

Celia laughs obnoxiously hard at all Alistair’s jokes because a) she finds them unexpected, and b) because, like a dork, she wants to prove she gets the punch line. Alistair is perplexed by her reactions at first, and cautiously wonders if she is mocking him. Once he realises she is genuinely amused, it bolsters his ego significantly. 

Celia has no concept of personal space and sits and walks very close to everyone. There wasn’t a lot of room at the Circle so she forgets she can spread out. Morrigan makes it clear she needs to back off (Celia doesn’t need telling twice) but Alistair is more relaxed and gets used to it quickly after the confusion of the first night when she blithely sets up her bedroll right next to his. Alistair assumes she is a bit scared of sleeping in the forest but really she is just accustomed to the need to cram as many apprentice bunks into a room as possible.

In a way, Alistair is also used to sharing small spaces (Chantry and Wardens) so it doesn’t bother him at all when Celia chooses to sit pressed against his side, walks so their arms bump together, or unconsciously brushes an eyelash from his cheek. He quickly grows to like her overfamiliarity (for some reason…).

Similarly, Alistair eats Celia’s leftover food if she can’t finish it or doesn’t like it, even before they’re a couple. She just offers one day and after that it becomes a given. The others side-eye them but they are happily oblivious.   

Celia gets in trouble from the rest of the party for getting distracted yelling encouragement and cheering Alistair during combat. In turn, Alistair gets in trouble for turning around mid-battle to thank her when she buffs or heals him. Morrigan advises that if they are both so determined to get killed, she is more than happy to assist with hastening the process.

Celia’s mabari, Trevor, is quickly accepting of Alistair and his proximity to Celia because he observes Alistair protecting Celia in battle and thusly deems him to be a ‘good dog’ and considers that they are equals in the pack.

Alistair and Celia vandalise each other’s wanted posters whenever they come across them. It gets competitive.

Celia doesn’t really want to be in charge of saving the world but has three things working in her favour: 1) she absolutely hates letting people down 2) has an intense need to finish what she starts 3) she is in possession of a bossy streak.

That said she spends the entire Blight screaming internally to an extent not even Alistair fully grasps.

They go to the Circle Tower first, because Celia thinks she will have the best chance of getting help from people she knows and is also ‘homesick’ in the sense that she is very glad to be free of the place, but stressed enough with everything going on to crave something familiar even if she resents it. The events there devastate her. Along with the loss of friends and mentors she has known since childhood, being trapped by herself in the fade particularly terrifies her as she has never truly been alone for so long before in her life. It reminds her of the Harowing which totally blindsided her. She is very teary, untalkative and introspective for some time afterwards, but both Trevor and Alistair have the correct instinct to stay close without trying to interact with her which she finds incredibly comforting.

Accustomed to making potions, Celia will not under any circumstances deviate from a recipe while cooking, whereas Alistair just chucks everything in to use up leftovers and see what happens. Alistair gets meals together super quickly whereas Celia takes forever. A little unfairly, Celia is perceived as the better cook because she produces very consistent meals, while Alistair’s experiments sometimes do work, and sometimes don’t, with people tending to focus on the disasters rather than the successes. Meanwhile Celia is rather: “should I add half a sprig of rosemary? No I mustn’t: it would be far too daring!” so everyone learns to tip their own seasonings into their bowl before even tasting her food.

When they’re travelling and walking for days on end, Alistair and Celia make up a lot of games in the vein of ‘I spy’ and ‘would you rather?’ They can occasionally persuade others to participate though no one enjoys them or gets quite as invested as Celia and Alistair (who are actual children).

A game stops abruptly one day when Celia guilelessly asks if Alistair would rather be Emperor of Orlais or King of Fereldan and he gets extremely defensive and answers, “Neither.” Having no context for this reaction (yet), Celia (a stickler for the rules) pushes him, insisting his answer isn’t allowed and that he’s cheating until Alistair gets grouchy, stomps off and refuses to play anything for days. 

Celia figures he must be overtired, but his unhappy reaction does come back to her later at the Landsmeet and contributes to her already firm resolve not to put him on the throne.

When bored, Alistair also periodically asks Celia to, “Do a trick!” with her magic and she usually obliges with something small and silly which Wynne always scolds them for (but they continue to do anyway).

Celia does not like Eamon one bit and makes it clear from their first meeting. Alistair actually gets a bit annoyed at her because she is polite to 99% of the other people they meet and he can’t understand what her problem is. Celia won’t say because she doesn’t want to drive Alistair away so she remains coldly civil towards Eamon and commences a long, looong process of nudging Alistair towards having the realisation himself that a) Eamon is manipulative, selfish and cruel and b) Alistair deserves better.

Celia wants to collect some of the books they find which is not practical given they are constantly travelling, but Alistair carries as many as he can in his pack and suffers in silence for it, ultimately finding it worth it for her enthusiastic gratitude.

Celia cuts Alistair’s hair and does a very respectable job after weeks of him complaining it’s flopping in his eyes (they used to cut each other’s hair in the Circle). Zevran pretends she did an awful job, gasping in horror at Alistair’s appearance, much to Celia’s ire. Alistair (internally weeping) tries to be brave until he can check his reflection in some plate mail and see it is fine.

Celia is very naïve about how the ‘real world’ works having been at the Circle since she was a child. This is especially evident in Denerim and Alistair has to explain how money works and grab her before she wanders down dicey looking alleyways.

Alistair nearly dissolves into a paroxysm of agony when he points out his favourite type of cheese at the Denerim Markets and (accustomed to the very limited range of bland foods provided at the Circle) Celia innocently asks, “There is more than one type of cheese?” Alistair makes it his mission to educate her. She doesn’t like most of what he feeds her but doesn’t say so to protect his feelings given he seems to take the matter so incredibly personally.

Leliana convinces Celia to sing one evening at the campfire. She’s breathy with a very limited range but manages okay, and Leliana plays and harmonises in support. Watching on with a goofy smile plastered over his face, Alistair comments to the surrounding companions about how talented she is and they’re like “…she’s really not mate.”

When they both wake up from a blightmare (or Celia has one and wakes Alistair with her flailing) they sneak about and eat anything they can find then sit up and have massive deep & meaningfuls (i.e. in the spirit of going for a long drive with a friend or being in the garden with someone outside a party and spilling your guts). Eventually they start blaming the depleted food stores on Leliana’s nug, Schmooples, much to Leliana’s displeasure.

Given Celia usually responds so well to his jokes, Alistair gets a bit peeved when Celia starts replying to some of his more severely self-deprecating humour with an unamused, “No you’re not,” or, “That’s not true.” He defensively argues it’s just a joke, but he does stop doing it so much as time goes on.

Celia is SO excited when Alistair gives her the rose. She never in her life thought she would be the recipient of a proper ~romantic gesture~…however she accidentally sits on the rose about five minutes after she gets it. Celia is devastated. There is a lot of panic and tears and she keeps one petal pressed in a book but has to unceremoniously ditch the rest in secret.

Celia doesn’t tell Alistair about this until years later and she’s terrified he’ll be hurt but he just laughs because he was so worried he was going to be the one to squash it and then she destroyed it basically the minute she got it. Alistair acknowledges it was an impractical gift given their situation. Celia gets mad and says it was a PERFECT gift and is annoyed at how funny he finds it given this has been a crushing, guilty secret hanging over her for years.

Following this, every time Alistair gives her any kind of gift, he can’t help but throw in a ‘Don’t sit on it!” and cracks himself up, especially when Celia gets grumpy about it and accuses him of spoiling the moment. It happens so often that when Alistair chooses a horse for her and plans to teach her to ride, Celia manages to cut him off with, “Yes, I know Alistair: I can sit on this one,” and steals his thunder.

Alistair periodically says Celia’s name just to check if she’ll answer, especially after a long period of quiet or to see if she’s awake à la screaming in the chantry because it’s so silent. When she responds he says, “Nothing” or “Never mind” but he finds it vaguely comforting just to hear her reply and it’s a habit he never loses, even when they have been together for years and he is much less isolated generally. Alistair doesn’t realise he’s doing it, and it never happens frequently enough for Celia to notice: she just assumes he has lost his train of thought.

They sometimes conspire to purposely fall to the back of the group while on the road so that they can hold hands. Everyone knows full well what they are doing, but Alistair and Celia think they are being incredibly ~sneaky~.

The first time they sleep together they laugh. A lot. Before, during and after.

Alistair snores loudly but only when he’s on his back. Celia is used to the noise of people sleeping around her at the Circle so it doesn’t bother her and she doesn’t want to disturb him because she knows he needs the rest.

When they are known to be sharing a tent however, their companions will slap on the walls of it and demand she kick him until he stops snoring. Celia will relent and gently prod and nudge Alistair until he rolls over with a bit of sleepy grumbling.

I think everyone has this headcanon to the point it is basically actual canon HOWEVER I am legally obligated to include it: Alistair is a professional body heat distributor and Celia drastically cuts down on the number of blankets she uses once they are sleeping together. If she stands in front of him on cold days, he understands the non-verbal signal and will automatically wrap her in his cloak.

Also might as well be canon: Alistair likes to be the little spoon. He doesn’t say, but Celia knows.

Decidedly not a fluff one (you can skip to Amaranthine to avoid) but the ritual with Morrigan fairly significantly messes Alistair up (both the act itself and his consideration of the repercussions i.e. Kieran). He’s jubilant and relieved at their victory over the Archdemon, but in the background struggles to process and there is some fallout once the victory celebrations lull and he has time to fully register what happened. Alistair grapples with a lot of guilt, disgust and confusion. He doesn’t know how to express it or where to direct his emotions so it mainly manifests as self-loathing. He wants to talk to Celia about it but can’t articulate his feelings which makes him feel worse.

Celia tries to comfort him, but he needs space on and off for a long while after and she gives him it. She feels a lot of guilt too, and never stops wondering how much it was actually his choice to do the ritual, worrying that she made him feel like he had to do it. Eventually they discuss it openly and honestly, which eases both of their minds somewhat, but it takes a long time to get to a point where they can talk on the subject. Meeting Kieran at Skyhold also helps Alistair down the line, though it’s obviously painful.

Amaranthine & Inquisition

Alistair keeps an eye out for people struggling, especially new recruits who are having trouble fitting in. He takes them under his wing and is very good at building people up and making sure everyone is included. He’ll just start enthusiastically greeting people like they are his best friend and squeezing himself onto the bench next to them at meals until everyone else follows suit.

For recruits that don’t respond well to his ‘mother hen’ type attention, Celia is good at assigning tasks that specifically highlight their strengths and builds their confidence/sense of purpose which also gains them the respect of their peers.

Alistair has been known to stand behind Celia while she is giving mundane orders/making speeches and pull faces or impersonate her, turning stony and impassive when she spins around accusingly because people are laughing.  

But if anyone else talks smack about her he gets very, “Sorry mate, just to clarify was that comment directed at my wife, your Commander, the hERO OF FERELDAN, VANQUISHER OF AN ARCHDEMON!? That’s lucky, I didn’t THINK IT LIKELY. Because that wouldn’t be WISE, would it now?” etc. with some loud, fake laughter and firm backslapping for the worst offenders.

The plan for them to part ways so that Celia can search for a cure goes very badly, especially because Celia (under a lot of stress and not coping™) eventually devolves into, “I’m in charge and I say so,” which is a big betrayal of their agreements both to stay together, and make decisions together on equal footing. She realises this and takes it back but Alistair is demoralised and gives in with a bit of petty, sarcastic reverence e.g. saluting and, “Whatever you say boss, don’t know why I dared to utter an opinion how foolish of me...” so they still part on slightly strained terms, even after later mutually apologising and trying to make the most of their time together before they go.

Both regret the argument during their separation and write horribly soppy letters to each other, but something still feels uncomfortably unresolved until they are together again. They pine. So much. It’s disgusting and cliched. There is considerable sighing and staring at the moon or deep into tankards, very much to the ire of those around them. Alistair can be particularly annoying: “This roll reminds me of my wife...she eats bread sometimes...”

After Celia sends the letter to the Inquisitor, she writes to Leliana directly along the lines of, “I know it was incredibly subtle but I wanted to check: did they get the message? That I will destroy them if Alistair gets hurt?” and Leliana replies in the vein of, “Hon, it wasn’t even remotely subtle ffs…”

When reunited, though ecstatic and nearly delirious with joy and relief, it takes a while to rebuild the trust they once had, especially for Alistair. There’s an unfamiliar awkwardness that flares up unexpectedly, but it doesn’t last and they’re both fully committed to each other and to staying together permanently this time.

Celia and Alistair have a conversation recapping everything that happened while they were apart in which Celia is all, “Poor Hawke. Honestly I’m shocked you didn’t do something obscenely idiotic like try and sacrifice yourself thank the Maker for that…” and Alistair is there, nervously sweating, looking for an exit, loosening his collar etc.

As they settle back into their old routines Alistair will occasionally blurt out things like, “I really like having breakfast with you,” and then berate himself internally for how trite that sounds but Celia replies on cue, “I love waking up next to you and the way you groan when you stretch your back out and the way you check your hair twice before you leave the room and the way you complain if I don’t eat my crusts and the way you still hold my hand when we’re walking...” and basically they’re just blissfully happy being comfortably domestic and even as they get older they are forever just teenagers in love.

The Wardens at Amaranthine acquire/receive a griffon egg and the hatchling imprints on Alistair and decides he is their mother. It can’t cope with separation, crying constantly if Alistair goes out of sight, and won’t let anyone else feed or handle it so Alistair carries them in a sling 24/7. He gets to give orders and run training sessions with the tiny griffon occasionally poking its head out just to glare at everyone.

Whenever the baby griffon squeaks, Alistair automatically replies, “Well said,” or “Excellent point, Ser Beaksly” with a totally straight face.

For the first few months, Celia gets nipped or scratched if she approaches Alistair unless he wraps the griffon up. It so badly wants to fight her. Celia is permitted to sleep in her own bed, as long as the griffon sleeps curled on Alistair’s chest and Celia doesn't try anything outrageous like touching her husband even fleetingly. It gets a little frustrating as the months drag on, but the image of Alistair with the sling over his armour, or with the griffon snuggling possessively around his neck staring daggers at everyone, is so entertaining that Celia can’t get truly annoyed about it. As the griffon gets older it does learn to tolerate other people and becomes more independent but remains very protective of Alistair and favours him above all others. Insert the ‘Ah yes. Me. My husband. And his thousand pound murder-bird-cat child’ meme here.

Modern AU Bonus Round

They share headphones while commuting.

They occasionally end up wearing sort of matching outfits, mostly unintentionally.

They consistently refer to their dog, Trevor, as their son to the point that people who aren’t familiar with them assume that they actually have a child.

[hellsbellschime]

In s8 when Sansa ask questions about food problems with Dany it's call back to Jon asking same questions with stannis. So Jon call Sansa oversmart asking same questions he asked to previous monarch. Not only that he give Dany reason for Sansa not liking her is bcoz she also hated him. How Sansa not liking him in childhood is same as not liking a tyrant? Jon has problem with Sansa undermining him but clearly not him taking Sansa for granted. D&d messed up his character.

LOL they didn’t mess up his character, they sacrificed him on Dany’s altar because they didn’t want to fully commit to the fact that she was a war criminal about to commit atrocities in Westeros on a scale that no one in human history has ever seen before. Because I don’t know if you noticed, but literally all of Jon’s shitty behavior towards Sansa makes complete sense through the lens of someone who actually does understand that Dany is very dangerous and easily triggered/offended. 

Jon was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, so he absolutely understands the math when it comes to feeding people in the North. He had to manage the most desolate and difficult to live in place in probably the entire North, and he knows how valuable food storage and basic accounting skills are. He also knows from his time on Dragonstone when he witnesses Dany’s fit over Cersei “taking all the food from the Reach” that Dany has NOT planned for her food situation in this invasion, despite the fact that she is commanding a force literally 100x the size of the Night’s Watch. He also knows that her closest adviser is a Northman who lives on an island in the far North, who is old enough to have survived at least two winters and therefore knows how desperate the food situation gets in the North in winter. And again, he knows that Dany has agreed to go North with him but no one else in Dany’s retinue has even brought this issue up. Understandably, if even her closest advisers aren’t pointing these problems out to her for some reason, he’s not going to push her when she has been so insanely reluctant to help him in the first place, despite the fact that her “throne” is entirely dependent on beating the Others anyway.  

So in a sense, he actually is correct in saying that Sansa’s being too smart for her own good. Or rather, she’s actually claiming her right as a Stark to have a say in how the Northerners are treated when a conqueror shows up and expects to be treated like a guest, but Jon knows that testing Dany’s patience is a mistake. Frankly, Sansa IS just saying what she says to be an asshole. She knows that Tyrion isn’t this dumb, she knows Jon isn’t this dumb, and she knows that obviously there isn’t any food incoming from Dany’s side of the table. She’s not asking this question in the hopes of actually getting food, she’s asking it rhetorically because she knows everyone else is thinking it and because it’s her responsibility as the Lady of Winterfell to ensure everyone in the North that she has called to retreat there and who has given Winterfell a massive portion of their harvest in exchange for the protection that the Warden of the North is supposed to be offering in exchange for everyone’s fealty. Dany rolls up with a massive sense of entitlement and expects everyone to be grateful for her arrival, and Sansa is both allowing what everyone else is thinking to be heard and explaining to Dany exactly why there wasn’t a ticker tape parade waiting for her in the North.

HOWEVER, once again Jon is correct in saying that Sansa is thinking she’s smarter than everyone by speaking out, not because she said something that hadn’t occurred to anyone else, but that she should follow everyone else’s lead and ignore it. Because while Jon doesn’t know things like the fact that Dany burned Dickon Tarly (burning both the Tarlys is important, but I think it’s really worth keeping in mind that Dany literally burned someone alive because they basically said “well I’ll die too then” and she was like “ya okay,” like can you really fathom the nuttiness of a ruler executing one person and having another person be like “I volunteer” and just agreeing to it without asking any follow up questions whatsoever), he does know that she would let the entire North die if they wouldn’t bow to her. Basically, he knows that Sansa is underestimating how little Dany values life and how little respect she has for feudal law. Like, Sansa is speaking out because even Cersei, FFS even JOFFREY wouldn’t likely execute a high lord or lady for speaking out of turn, but Jon at the absolute VERY least knows that Dany is temperamental, easily offended, and has ZERO regard for what the king or queen of Westeros is actually obligated to do or not do. He knows that she literally calls herself protector of the Seven Kingdoms but will not actually protect them unless they hand over everything to her and smile while they do it despite the fact that she’s a complete stranger. 

Jon is actually being smart by framing it in the way of “she didn’t like me either when we were children”. It’s extremely demeaning to Sansa and undercuts her intelligence and authority completely, which seems to be the point. It reframes the situation and makes it a Sansa problem instead of a Dany problem, and it implies that Sansa is that naturally prickly to everyone, not just Dany. And of course, by saying “when we were children” it literally makes it seem like Sansa is being childish and petty. Obviously none of these things are true, but after being that publicly disrespected Jon knows that Dany is going to need a lot of ego soothing, and ironically undermining Sansa is the easiest way to do that. 

I feel like the show didn’t quite know where the fuck it was going with this storyline up until the very end, however it’s very hard to ignore the fact that literally all of these behaviors and choices make sense within the context of Jon knowing that Dany is dangerous and unpredictable, and the only thing that DOESN’T back that up is that even after Dany is dead Jon never once acknowledges that she was really dangerous. I’m almost certain D&D had a specific idea in mind and just pulled the chute at the last minute, because literally EVERY character who meets Dany in Westeros has oodles of subtext acknowledging that she’s not a benevolent savior and that she’s actually scary as hell and completely unpredictable, and then at the very end all of these people who were behaving in ways that recognized that before were suddenly shocked and confused by her behavior, and conflicted about whether or not she needed to die for what she did. So yes, D&D did mess up his character, because they built up one character at the expense of everyone else (and managed to ruin her too really) and then chickened out when it came time to pull the trigger at the last fucking gasp of the series. 

[sepublic]

Been thinking about your “Luz is a Cryptid post” and it’s so ??? True??? Because like Willow even mentioned that “hey, no one has ever beaten the Bat Queens Trials before” in which Luz literally fuckinh blasted her way through and the fact that Luz & Amity literally Turned a monster who’s been in their school for what a century??? Into a tree. Penstagram is full of Cryptid human posts who’s literally taken care of by the most hunted down criminal.

           Gus has a Penstagram account dedicated to all of the weirdness and eccentricities of Luz Noceda, documenting all of her human quirks; Completely oblivious to the fact that by even Human standards, Luz is INCREDIBLY strange!

           Like, let’s look at her accomplishments shall we;

-Somehow crossed the dimensional plane into the Demon Realm

-Is the personal apprentice and roommate of Eda the Owl Lady, a wanted criminal and THE most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles

-Led a prison break in the Conformatorium and made a fool of Warden Wrath

-Infiltrated Hexside as an Abomination and got banned for it

-Did MAGIC, despite that literally being impossible for humans, using a long-lost technique that most people don’t even recognize

-Made a fool of Amity Blight and by extension her mentor Lilith –Emperor Belos’ hand-picked Head Witch of his Emperor’s Coven- at the Covention

-Animated an entire house and led it down a rampage through Bonesborough (and THAT was also documented by Penstagram posts!)

-Helped Willow wreck a clan of Demon Hunters so badly that they had to become Animal Control workers just to make ends meet

-Caused mayhem in Bonesborough before destroying the Treasure Shack, and also ran around on all-fours

-Broke into Hexside again, and then broke the Detention room after fighting the monster inside

-Apparently helped babysit the Bat Queen’s kids??? Then completed her trials and actually changed her mind!?

-Publically stood up to the author of the highly-successful Ruler’s Reach book series

-Got unbanned from Hexside, became the first human ever to enroll at a Magic School, defeated a Greater Basilisk that had effortlessly defeated three schools of Witches, and then changed Bump’s mind about multi-track learning when even Lord Calamity couldn’t!

-Survived against a group of voracious animals while shrunken down before destroying Tibbles’ livelihood a second time

-Volunteered to be Grom Queen, won Amity Blight’s heart, and destroyed Grometheus

-Softened Amity Blight, helped Willow become more confident and popular, challenged Boscha multiple times, and won the affection of her friends

           And these are just the public incidents, too! And we also know that Luz will break into Emperor Belos’ sacred treasury, personally fight Lilith herself, and maybe lead a second prison-break in the Conformatorium! This girl is just inexplicable, she must be a whirlwind of chaos to anyone who’s even heard of her, truly terrifying and incomprehensible, utterly unstoppable! She is no doubt a charismatic criminal mastermind… And to people who personally know Luz… She’s basically all of the above, but also incredibly kind-hearted, loving, and an AMAZING friend who inspires people to be their best! She’s a true force of nature to be reckoned with, a bizarre entity from another world!

           Like, I wouldn’t be all-too shocked if Luz got her own separate wanted poster by the Emperor’s Coven, with a snail bounty on her head comparable to even Eda’s! Now THAT would be a step-up from her now-defunct Banned Poster from Hexside! Luz must be terrifying to the Emperor’s Coven as a completely out-of-context problem that they’ve neve dealt with before, one brimming with a natural charisma that practically infects others and changes their mind!

[popculturebuffet]

Darkwing Duck Reviews: Darkly Dawns the Duck Pts 1 and 2

It’s a Darkwing Double Feature! Just in time for his ducktales special, I take a look at the introduction of everyone’s favorite Daring Duck of Mystery. In his daring debut we meet Darkwing Duck, an egositical and attention hungry superhero who soon finds himself having to look after a feisty orphan to keep her from getting nabbed by local kingpin of crime Taurus Bulba with the help of his biggest fan. Darkwing owns the night under the cut with decades old spoilers. 

Let’s Get Dangerous.. is tommorow so with that in mind i’m doing a darkwing double feature to refresh myself before the big special. So i’ll be covering both the original series pilot “Darkly Dawns the Duck” and the ducktales reboot episode “The Duck Knight Returns”.  Let’s Get Dangerous Itself because I was so wiped yesterday I didn’t get the other review done and unexpectly got acess to the new episode way earlier than usual so i’d rather focus on that. Got it? Good. Let’s continue past me. 

As usual with a new show a breif bit about my history with it: I watched it years ago, as a friend of mine lent me the first two discs of the season 1 dvd and never found the third one nor asked for them back, nor cared I had them. I thoughtly enjoyed it, had a great time and then it took me a decade or so to actually watch the series again due to a combination of being too stubborn to just buy the season 1 dvd again, a very darkwing move of me in hindsight, and then when disney plus meant I had all episodes at my finger tips I.. sat on them till now.. though to be fair i’ve sat on a LOT of great shows on there including the mandalorian, gargoyles and boy meets world. I have a bad tendency to procastinate, the fact this is coming out so late in the day should be a giveaway. I did read about half of volume 1 of the comic and all of volume 2, so there’s that at least.  Point is this new episode finally made me decide to get off my ass and watch darkwing once again, starting with the pilot and the episodes related to the fearsome four to be ready for tomorrow to see what the differences are (Thoguh I did remember bushroot vividly, so I had that at least).  Something to note before I get started talking about the pilot itself though, is the episode order for Darkwing Duck is a Darkwing Clusterfuck. Now I do understand WHY they aired this way: While some episodes do logically take place after other episodes, you can reasonably pop on just about any darkwing and watch it and enjoy it with minimal need to know what happened in previous episodes, kinda like batman the animated series oddly enough. It was also aired between two networks so on some level I get disney’s confusion here.. but on the other hand it’d take ten minutes, they clearly can call up the creator easily as Tad Stones made a cameo in ducktales 2017 we’ll get to so they could easily get a better order from the creator himself, so they really don’t have an excuse for this, or for slapping the pilot in the middle of season 1. Then again both ducktales 2017 and x-men the animated series were sort of a mess order wise when first put up, so not giving a shit about where episodes are placed for re-watching clearly is a pastime of theirs. 

Now i’ve got that out of my system we can dive into the episode itself and a breif plot synopsis. Darkwing Duck is the superhero protector of St. Canard, a masked vigiliante who takes out crime but wishes he actually got fame and credit for his work. Kind of like Booster Gold but without taking endorsments or as far as we know coming from the future. He also has nothing else as shown by the fact he fights crime, does a training regimine to prepare his breakfast that’s a delight to watch then prepares to sleep. It’s an intresting concept, a hero who HAD a civlian identity once, as the rest of the series would play out, he just no longer needs it. And it’s also ahead of it’s time as batman would explore this idea both seriously with bruce wayne murderer and comedically and seriously with the lego batman movie LONG after this series aired, meaning the writers here figured out what many probably knew about batman and put it into their parody version: Batman is the real identity and Bruce is the mask. Batman only keeps his old self because the bruce id is useful to him: It keeps people away from his company, puts up a playboy facade that draws attention away from him being batman, and allows him to do various charities and what not and help honor his parents in a way that dosen’t involve swooping in and kicking people in the throat. And as seen with bruce wayne murderer when the option to throw bruce away for good came up Batman gladly took it.  This is the same idea: Drake Mallard ONLY cares about crime fighting, has no friends no family, we never do find out jack about his family hopefully if there’s a full reboot series Frank and Matt fix it for their version. He has nothing, and is fine with that. He hasn’t really had a reason to care about anything else than his own glory and works alone not because it’s less efficent but because his oversized ego means he dosen’t want to share credit. IT’s an intresting start and his ego would be a defining bit of who he is and used intrestingly int he reboot but we’ll get to that there. 

His life changes forever though when local crime boss Taurus Bulba unleashes his latest scheme: To steal the Ramrod, a gravity manipulating device created by the late Dr. Quackmeyer.. late because Bulba’s men killed him and were dumb enough not to get the arming code for the ramrod first a year ago. Bulba is also behind bars but in one of my faviorite gags of the episode despite the warden’s constnat gloating, Bulba has taken the “Supervillian makes jail into a base” Or “Jail is nothing to a supervillian who can easily get out trope” to ludcrious machines. He has whole meetings with his minions, keeps the ramrod once he gets his hands on it in the laundry and has a ship SHAPED LIKE HIS FACE built into his cellblock. I’ts just so over the top it’s glorious. But yeah since Bulba can’t go after it at first he sends his three goofy minons, one played by eddie “Mandark” deezen in.. love that guy. 

THey do end up stealing the ramrod thanks to the help of bulba’s cool, non-anthromporhic condor who he uses as his right hand man and as his link to his minons via a small tv aroudn it’s neck. That.. is awesome. Darkwing spots the condor but fails to stop the three stooges or the condor and gets unknowingly blamed for the robbery..and stopped to get glamor shots not realizing the guy thought he was a criminla which.. fair enough. It is a shadowy disguise after all. 

Darkwing ends up grabbing onto the vulture sonic 3 style, but ends up falling off him into a hangar where we meet the original version of Launchpad McQuack, whose apparently quit working for scrooge and has his own hangar now though it wouldn’t be a stretch that scrooge bought it for him.. he does , stingy as he is, appricate hard work and launchpad wanting to start his own buisness and while hte planes were probably all on launchpad, Scrooge would gladly buy a run down buliding for a loyal friend who wants to put in some hard honest work. Plus it’s a free place to store any vehicles he has in the st canard area.. I mean it’s still scrooge. And yes I know the whole “Tad stones said they aren’t the same universe” non sense. I do have the utmost respect for the guy and he seems really, nice but I don’ tlike that, no one likes that and both the comics and the current duckverse with the ducktales reboot entirely ignore that for good reason.While the two shows are diffrent in tone they stil lfit and it’s not a stretch for launchpad to want to spread his wings or failing that scrooge to help push him out of the nest and give him his own buisness or one of scrooge’s to run. 

But while Launchpad does help DW with a propeller plane they fail and while launchpad offers to be his sidekick, DW gives him the old I work alone bit.  However him being alone won’t last for long as Bulba still needs that arming code and since his only lead is Waddlemeyer’s grandaughter who grew up in his lab, he sends his buffonish minons to go get him. Why he never sends his lone female minon with them is because it’s funnier if she dosen’t I guess. Which it is so fair enough.  So thus we enter Goslyn, who the head of the orphanage is fed up with due to her antics. Goslyn is played as most of you knwo by christine cavanagh.. I honestly forgot and it still throws me off a bit she’s using what would later be her chucky finster voice for a character so completely diffrent. Granted it’s not unusual in voice acting, just weird here and only for me personally having grown up with rugrats but not darkwing. The orphanage head is a bit less jarring as she’s played by Marcia Wallace, aka Edna Krabable from the simpsons but A) that show was already running at this point and B), the character is basically a nicer version of edna versus chuckies voice coming out of a tiny if immensly fun to watch hellion. I do like goslyn, sh’es a fun character even in her shadier moments, it’s just something i’d forgotten about i’ll need to get used to is all. 

Bulba’s hired goons come in claming ot be friends of her grandpas and we actually get some really heartwrenching context for Gos’ behavior: While she does act out she actually LIKES THE orphanage.. ti’s just her friends keep getting adopted while no one wants someone “full of spirit”. It’s heartwrecnhing to hear.. and only gets worse when the goons try and kidnap her.  Thankfully Darkwing.. also kidnaps her, but he kindaps her from kidnappers and while Goslyn naturally takes a second to realize he’s the good guy them shooting at him clues her in. Darkwing, in a rare for the series as a whole moment of reason and not wanting to just power though something himself TRIES to do the responsible thing and leave gos with the police where she’ll be protected.. but given they think he’s a wanted criminal they shoot at him.. and the small child in his motorcycle. Yup that’s the police alright. 

So with no other options Darkwing takes gos home, hyjinks insue including her activintg the breakfast thing. But the two genuinely start to bond. While Darkwing dosen’t WANT to keep her around, the whole not wanting connections thing, it’s clear he’s growing fond of the little snot as she holds her own with his trianing course, they have a tickle fight and in the sweetest moment of the episode the two sing little girl blue, a song her grandfather used to sing her to sleep that she teaches darkwing. It’s an utterly heartmelting bit and Cummings and Cavanagh really sell the hell out of it. It also however turns out ot be plot relevant: Turns out just in case Dr. Waddlemeyer hid the code for the ramrod in the song, and when Darkwing sees a photo Goslyn got from bulba’s goons, he realizes this and realizes that depsite thinking she didn’t know it Goslyn had it all along.. and that as long as h’es around she won’t know.  Bulba is naturally livid at his minons failure and decides now’s the time to take this into his own hands and while he actually liked the prison hq setup, as it did make sense as it was the perfect cover and the warden was too full of himself to realize Bulba was still active and too convinced the bull was beaten down when he clearly wasn’t, but instead as mentioned above awesomely converts his cellblock into a flying ship in the shape of his own head.  Bulba.. is a great villian and I only think the show didn’t use him more because he’s a dead serious, deadly dangerous villian in an otherwise goofy but fun superhero parody show. The show later gained Negaduck, so they had a more dangerous threat for darkwing that fit the show’s tone better while still being utterly terrifying, and likely simply didn’t need him till the idea for the steerminator came up. But I love the guy: he reminds me a lot of the kingpin, a threatning villian who uses his sheer size to beat our hero down, is cool and suave and is an utter mastermind at planning. He also wears a nice suit.  And naturlaly he has a plan to take out darkwing since despite the two never having met, as Darkwing disparages when Goslyn assumes their lifelong mortal enmies like in the comics, they know of each other.. and thus bulba knows exactly what trap to spring to get him out of the way and goslyn into his ship: He flashes a message in morris code that he wants to surrender to Darkwing while stroking his ego a LOT. And it works... while i’ts an obvious trap Darkwing’s so full of himself he goes despite Goslyn telling him it’s very obviously a trap.  Naturally everything goes pear shaped as a result: Bulba shows up, revealing gos not only to be right but easily pummling Darkwing. Which makes sense: While Darkwing is a vetran crime fighter and secret agent, Bulba’s been at being a villian longer clearly as he’s built up enough of a rep both for Darkwing to know him out of hand and for the warden to be proud capturing him. Given what univese this is, it probably isn’t Bulba’s first round with a superhero and given at this stage St Canard only has one.. yeah Darkwing is outclasssed and the police grab him while Bulba scarpers. And while Gos puts up a good fight using the trianing course, Bulba’s vulture gets her. Bulba has everything he needs.  Darkwing meanwhile actually bemoans what a dick he’s been, that the first person he’s cared about besides himself in possibly ever is now in the hands of a murderous mastermind, and that he’s stuck in jail with no one to call on for help. Thankfully.. help arrives.. and by help I mean launchpad backing the ratcatcher, Darkwing’s bike, into the prisoin. He DID come just to bail DW out despite his earlier jerkishness, but backed in and Darkwing not beliving superheroes have time for paperwork, decides to just bust out. And to be ifair int his case he’s probably right as you know, a ten year old might die if they don’t get there in time. So off they go.. but with Bulba in the air they need something with wings to catch him. ANd luckily as Launchpad mentioned earlier he’s been working on something special for darkwing.  It’s with this we enter the thunderquack, which is DW”S awesome headshaped plane. It’s just cool it’s got a nice design, goofy enough tof it the universe but cool enoguh to still be fun to watch. Darkwing has really damn cool vehicles, as the ratcatcher is also awesomely iconic. But yeah the thunderquack impresses darkwing and rightfully so and he decides to make LP his sidekick afterall.  So now our heroes fly into the danger zone and attack bulba’s airship with Darkwing landing on the bow and a scuffle insues with darkwing and hte minons.. who use actual guns which for a 90′s kids show is  a suprise, especially one this intentioanlly goofy, but boy is it nice. However Bulba, being awesomely evil, isn’t dumb and instead of fighting darkwing, which he could win but would win him nothing and having gotten nothing out of goslyn, figures the hero might know the code.. and while Darkwing lies and says he dosen’t, Bulba points out .. he’s right.. but he’s always been a gambling man and has his condor drop goslyn to lure drake into telling him , with DW putting in the code and bulba testing it with a bank robbery.. before predictably having his condor drop the girl because he no longer needs her. Thankfully launchpad catches her in time and then they get revenge on the condor with the thunderquack BITING IT.. which is awesome. Hopefully the reboot version does that. 

Darkwing meanwhile saves the day, his new daughter and the city by simply sneaking over to the ramrod and mashign the keys till it overloads, silly, but undeniably awesome and effective. Bulba TRIES to finish off darkwing this time for foiling his plan.. btu the ramrod explodes and while bulba’s minons and goslyn and launchpad are safe... bulba and darkwing are apparently dead and it’s effective.  A few weeks later Goslyn’s back at the orphanage utterly distraught and broken at being basically orphaned again. Naturally though Darkwing’s alive, having taken his old identnity back since now he has something worth using it for and adopts her, hinting at who he is so she goes with him. And Drake has changed.. sure he’ll still be as egostical and impuslive as he was here.. but he’s no longer just darkwing.. he’s drake again as he has someone worth fighting for.. two someones in fact. He has a friend, a loyal partner to help him fight cime. And more importantly.. he has a loving daughter. And both needed each other: Goslyn needed someone who understood her despite her manic energy, and Drake needed someone who needed him and not darkwing, a reason to be a person outside the cape and cowl and outside the attention again. He needed a reason to live again... and he’s got it. And it’s going to be great. 

Final Thoughts: This pilot is excellent. Well paced, plenty of laughs, tense action and great introductions for everyone involved as well as a hell of a vilian> This is how you do a first episode: it introduces the main themes of the show, both comedically and dramatically, introduces the cast and gives us a one off , or rather two off it’d turn out, villian whose compelling and intresting. IT’s really damn good stuff and I can’t wait ot see what frank does with a simlar story tommorow. Until then, stay safe, and happy hallowen. We’ll be back shortly for The Duck Knight returns and then Let’s Get Dangerous tommorow. 

[trvelyans-archive]

past and present

a comm for the wonderful @dauntless-necromancer of morrigan and kieran and their warden elrich cousland <3 thank you for commissioning me ! 

also for context because i didn’t post the first one, in this fic morrigan and kieran live in the mountains while elrich is searching for a cure for the calling ! and kieran’s a teen now, iconic ! i hope you enjoy !!! <3

-

It was just supposed to be a walk. 

Kieran often walked across the mountain vistas surrounding his and Mother’s new home – it was his only escape whenever they were in an argument or she needed a few hours alone after receiving another letter from Father with bad news. He had a few paths he liked to walk the most, but sometimes he explored a little further than the last time; a little higher up the cliffs than he was able to reach when he was younger. 

He was 19 after all, now, and growing into his own. He was a short child – he hadn’t been taller than Mother until he was 14 or 15 - but now that he was (finally) an adult, he was gangly. (At least that’s what Mother said.) He had strong arms and legs, plenty strong enough to be able to pull himself up and over the higher ledges on the mountains, but they looked thin and ropy, and Mother always told him that he was much stronger than anyone would ever assume he was at a glance. 

“Which isn’t entirely a bad thing,” she’d said after, kissing him on the forehead as she brushed past him to reach the cupboards where they stored their herbs while they two of them made dinner. “It will be much easier for you to take them by surprise that way, after all.”  

She said that with a twinkle in her eye, then, and that always made everything better. 

Today, though, things were different. Kieran left in a huff after they’d gotten into another one of those arguments they seemed to have every couple of days at that point – there were messages and letters from Father that Mother sometimes kept quiet despite Kieran practically begging to see them, and he had had enough. He wanted promises too, after all. He wanted Father to tell him that he was okay, that things were okay, that he would return to his family one day soon when his work was finished. He didn’t want to hear it from Mother – of course she would tell him that. She would do everything for him.  

Or… most things, at least. Except read him Father’s letters or let him write one of his own in return. 

So he left, wrapped up in his favourite cloak with a full waterskin, a pack full of food, and a journal that Father had sent him several years, and Mother stood at the doorway, watching him go with a frown on her face. He was entirely intent on returning before evening fell – because, really, there was no where to go - when he found himself stuck in the middle of a blizzard. 

A few years ago, when he was younger, he would have been much more scared of being stuck out in the snow by himself. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t scared this time – he was, especially because he quickly realized that he accidentally forgot his warmest mittens back home – but he knew how to deal with this kind of thing much better. 

After all, there wasn’t much else to do up in the mountains but explore. Read, write. Take a walk.  

Get caught in a blizzard. 

He laughed to himself and pulled his hood up higher over his face, trudging through the quickly rising snow into a thick grove of pine trees. On every couple of branches, every couple of trees, hung little clay ornaments Kieran sometimes made when he was desperately bored in the middle of summer, and the sight of the few that he could tell were made by Mother calmed him a little. Blizzards ebbed and flowed quite often up here in the mountains, so it would only take an hour or so for this portion of it to pass. Of course, that meant Kieran had to take shelter somewhere to wait it out safely, but he did not mind very much. It just gave him time to think about the letter he would write Papa when he returned home, whether or not Mother wanted him to or not. 

She didn’t have to know… 

Not that he liked keeping secrets from Mother. She was all he had – for now, at least, until Papa would join them in the mountains one day soon and they’d be together again – and they had to trust each other to stay alive. They were as close as a mother and her child could possibly be, she always said. They had respect for one another, even though they had seen each other in their lowest moments, and they tried not to keep any secrets between them, no matter how dark or scary they were. 

No secrets, and yet she always hid Father’s letters. 

Kieran frowned. He wasn’t going to apologize first this time. 

After all, he always needed some sort of distraction nowadays to keep him from dwelling on all the thoughts in his mind; so he could ignore the voices that he sometimes heard at the back of his head even though he knew no one was behind him. Though Mother didn’t like to talk about it very much, there was something different about him – something that had always been different about him. For the longest time, he thought it was normal, that everyone felt that way – especially after he had gone to Skyhold with Mother to meet the Inquisitor and tried to befriend some of the other children there - but around the time he turned 17, Mother sat him down and told him… well… a lot. A lot of things he never expected to hear but also, somehow, that he saw coming at the same time. 

He huffed as he leaned against a tree and slid down into the snow, pulling his cloak around his body and swinging his pack down from his shoulders to hug it against his chest. He had a book in his bag, but he wasn’t content on bringing it out right now – the snow would surely melt against the pages, and he had no intention on smearing the ink when his books were the few prized possessions he actually had. Instead he tipped his head back against the tree and looked up, at the flurries of flying snow, at the muted grey sky beyond them. 

And then, somehow, he fell asleep. 

He did not wake up on the mountain. 

The first thing he thought when he awoke and his vision cleared was that, somehow, he was actually very thankful he hadn’t brought his warmest mittens along. They would have made his current condition much, much worse, as every other part of his body was sweating. 

He squinted as he glanced up, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight streaming through the leaves in the trees – not pine needles, he noted, actual leaves – and staring into the sky. There was no trace of any clouds above him, grey and stormy or otherwise, and, in fact, it seemed like quite a beautiful day. So beautiful, in fact, that he was lulled into a foolish sense of security for a moment before bolting upright.  

He was far, far away from home. 

Before he started moving, he shed his heavy coat and draped them over his arm after pushing up the sleeves of his shirt but left his cloak on, pulling his hood higher up over his face. He could not remember if it was summer or not – he often forgot such things because they lived so high up in the mountains that the seasons didn’t mean much besides it being slightly colder in Wintermarch and vaguely warmer in Justinian - so perhaps he had no reason to be too worried. It could be that he was somewhere in the foothills of the Frostbacks and it’d only take a week or so to return to Mother – well, if the weather held out like this… 

But he knew the treacherous roads of the Frostbacks as well as anyone, and he knew well enough that once he reached higher altitudes the trek would become much harder. 

So, then, knowing that, perhaps instead of a week it would be more like… three. Give or take a few days for the weather, any issues with the roads, and especially considering that he wasn’t certain he was in the foothills, anyway. After all, the terrain felt much different; the flora was unlike anything he had seen in recent memory. Based off of his knowledge of the world alone, he could’ve been in… the Free Marches. He could’ve been in Orlais. He could’ve been anywhere. 

And everywhere, right now, seemed very far away from home. 

But there was no point in worrying about it in the meanwhile, at least not until he started moving and got a sense of where he was. He couldn’t undo… whatever it was that had just happened – or, at least, it was very unlikely he could undo it, especially since he didn’t know how it had happened in the first place - and sitting here, dwelling on it and twiddling his thumbs meant he was wasting precious time. Kieran heaved a heavy sigh and started off towards a gap in the trees, figuring that it was as good a place as any to start. 

Kieran liked to consider himself an optimistic person – he had forced himself to be when he started growing older - but after only a few minutes, he was beginning to realize just how much he sounded like his mother. 

That hurt more than he wanted it to. 

Thankfully he had his waterskin, and a book in his bag he could read if he got bored. This was not the type of forest he was used to – there were no swollen roots or long, overhanging branches – and, if he felt so inclined, he could probably take out his book and read while he walked without it slowing him down too much. Perhaps tomorrow he’d take his mind off of things by reading while he travelled – that is, of course, if he didn’t have to use his book as kindling tonight. Which made him feel… more miserable, somehow.  

He was out of the forest within an hour, and across a meadow in the next. The cloak was slowing him down slightly – it was heavy, thick wool – but he thought it would be best to keep his face hidden for now, even as he descended down a short hill into another thicket of oak trees. Pausing, he leaned against a tree and pulled out his waterskin, uncorking the top and tilting his head back to pour a stream of water into his mouth. 

When he felt the tip of a knife against the back of his neck, he couldn’t help but choke. 

He recovered quickly, though, and wiped his mouth on the back of his neck while he turned around slowly with his hands raised in defense (one still holding his waterskin, which he was dangerously close to spilling).  

“Ah,” the man said quietly. He was an elf, with tanned skin and golden hair, and though he was considerably shorter than Kieran and quite a bit smaller, the knife at Kieran’s throat didn’t do anything to make him feel less intimidated. “I must admit… you looked much more threatening from behind.” 

Kieran frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?” 

“It means that perhaps I should not run you through right now,” the man replied, taking a short step back. “Not that I was planning to, really – the man in charge would not approve – but, if you had posed a threat… well, the thought crossed my mind.” 

Kieran crossed his arms over his chest. He could be plenty threatening. This man didn’t know what he was talking about. 

“Who’s this ‘man in charge’ you’re speaking about?” he asked. 

The man laughed, and Kieran felt his annoyance grow even stronger. “I do not think I am at liberty to disclose that information to anyone quite yet,” he said. “At least not without getting a fair punishment in return. Saying that, I do suggest you move along – some of our friends are, well… not very open to strangers, and –“ 

“Zevran?” 

A woman stepped out from behind the elf, a woman with bright orange hair and a medium build who looked unsettlingly familiar. “Who’s this?” she said, eyes narrowing and nose wrinkling. 

“Perhaps a bandit,” Zevran said. “Does not quite look the type, to me anyway, but appearances can be deceiving, no?” 

The woman rolled her eyes. “He’s probably just a villager from the nearby town,” she told the elf before turning to Kieran. “Is there something wrong? Have you lost your parents to the Blight?” 

The Blight? 

The Blight was almost 20 years ago now – the Blight, Mother said once, is the reason Kieran was born in the first place; the reason he had the abilities to read things and feel things the way he did. 

How did he end up here? 

“No,” he answered hesitantly. “I mean… Yes, I have. My mother and father are…” 

He didn’t finish. He didn’t quite know exactly what to say. 

“I am sorry to hear that,” the woman said, taking a step closer. “Would you like me to keep them in my prayers tonight?” 

Zevran, the elf, cleaned the flat side of his blade with his thumb, never taking his eyes off Kieran. 

“Yes, I would appreciate that very much.” Kieran shifted uneasily on his feet, glancing at the woman from underneath his low-hanging hood. “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your name?” 

“I am Leliana.” She smiled at him. “And you are…?” 

Leliana. Of course. Kieran remembered Leliana well from his time in Skyhold – she had been in several strongly-worded discussions with Mother late at night when she stopped by their quarters. She looked younger, now – happier. And much, much less tired. 

Kieran knew that time travel was a possibility – he’d heard some rumours about Tevinter Magisters travelling through time several years ago – but he wasn’t well-versed in how it worked enough to be able to have done this himself. 

There had to be a reason he was here, and he was determined to figure it out. 

“Kier,” he said after realizing she was waiting for a response. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Leliana.” 

“You, as well.” She glanced over at Zevran. “See? He’s not a bandit. If he is, he’s certainly better at conversation than the rest of them.” 

“Yes, yes, he is a wonderful conversationalist,” Zevran replied. “However, Leliana, I do believe we have duties to attend to, hm?” 

“Ah, yes!” Leliana offered Kieran a dazzling smile. “Well, I’m sorry about your parents, Kier. May the Maker watch over you.” 

Leliana and Zevran had been two of his parents’ companions during the Blight. Leliana was one of the few people who had tried to reach out to Mother after her and Kieran left the Inquisition following the defeat of Corypheus, even if they had never quite become friends. If they were here, that must have meant his parents were around, too. 

And he wanted so badly to see them, to see what they were like when they were younger… 

“Do you have room for another person to travel with you?” he blurted out before he could stop himself. 

- 

And Kieran thought Mother was suspicious of outsiders now. After seeing what she was like during the Blight, he’d never think that again. 

It had been a few days of travelling with them – which still felt incredibly weird and alien to him – and though she glared at him less and less in camp, she still glared at him every chance she got. It made him feel sick to his stomach to see her glaring at him like that, and each time she did he felt like there was something he needed to apologize for.  

There was, really, a whole list of things to say sorry about. I’m sorry for not respecting your privacy. I’m sorry for letting my emotions get the better of me. I’m sorry that I just miss Father so much – 

And then, well, he stopped finding things to apologize for and instead found things he wanted her to apologize for, so it was a little bit of a moot point. Especially because this wasn’t the right version of his mother he had to apologize to. 

And perhaps he wasn’t helping by always keeping his hood up in camp, but there was nothing else he could do, really. He couldn’t very well wear a mask without arousing even more suspicion. And though Leliana took a shining to him, and Zevran was about as nice to him as Kieran wanted, Mother and Father – or Morrigan and Elrich as he had begun to force himself to call them – didn’t pay very much attention to him at all. They were too wrapped up in each other to notice. 

While he sat in the opening of his makeshift tent, he watched them. It was nice – in his time, he had only seen them together when he was a young child, and he scarcely remembered any of those times very well. But here, during the Blight, they talked and sat together. Even if they didn’t sit too closely or too intimately – even if Morrigan kept her distance – they were… together. And that was what mattered to him, really, in the end, even if he couldn’t be a part of it. He just wanted his parents to be together and for him to see it. It made him happy when they acted like a real, true family.  

They hadn’t done that in a very long time. 

Besides that, though, there was still a tension between his parents that he couldn’t deny, but he didn’t quite know why it was. He’d known that his grandmother – whatever she was, in the end – wasn’t very kind to his own mother, but he didn’t understand how that affected her. After, Father was sitting beside her in front of the fire with a hand in the short space between their bodies, and Kieran could tell he wanted to reach out for her. So why didn’t he? And if he did, why wouldn’t Mother let him? 

One night, when rain trickled down from wispy gray clouds and left a thin mist over the camp, he sat in the mouth of his tent as always, watching them, and this time he was close enough to hear. 

“… Even you aren’t immune to my charms, are you, Morrigan?” 

Morrigan glanced away, down at her hands. “I am immune to every man’s charms, Elrich,” she answered. 

“You don’t have to be,” he said softly. 

She looked over at him and smirked, but Kieran could tell there was a sadness behind it – a sadness he had seen himself in their time. “Oh?” she said. They were sitting closely together – much closer than Morrigan sat with anyone else in camp – but she wasn’t close enough to rest her head on his shoulder or hold his hand. “You think you know everything I’ve been through, do you?” 

“No,” Elrich responded, “I didn’t say that. I meant, rather, that you don’t have to be immune to every man’s charms – certainly not mine.” 

Morrigan sighed. “Have we not been over this enough?” she asked quietly. 

“We have,” Elrich answered before offering up a small, sad smile of his own. (Kieran realized how much he looked like his father, in that moment – the colour of his eyes, the shape of his hair. He used to look much more like his mother as a child, but now the gentle slope of his jaw had turned sharp, and he had to shave quite often in the golden looking glass Mother had displayed in her room.) “I just thought I would remind you.”  

“Your reminders are… welcome.” She stood up suddenly, reaching up to adjust the cloak around her neck so it hung more tightly across her shoulders and chest. “I should turn in for the night.” 

“I should, too.” Elrich stood up beside her and tilted his head down to look at her, eyes roaming across her face for a long moment before he backed away with a slow, approving nod. “Goodnight, Morrigan.” 

“Sleep well,” she said, turning on her heel and heading back towards her tent. Not without shooting Kieran another glare, first, but this time he didn’t care. He pulled his hood higher over his head and inched back into camp, closing the tent doors behind him. 

There must have been some reason that Morrigan did not feel safe initiating a relationship with Elrich – there must have been something to inevitably draw them together, as well. The rings that his mother and father both wore in his time were not worn by either of them right now, so he supposed that that should have been his first step. 

After he got some sleep, of course. 

As always, his dreams were plagued with phantom faces looming over him and shadows that slunk into darkness at the corners of his eyes. Voices that somehow sounded distant and close at the same time whispered in his ear, and he could feel the ground vibrate with every step one of the blurry figures took towards him from a cloud of dense, green fog. Some of it was Elven – he had known how to speak it since he was a child – and some of it sounded older; more ancient. He knew what the language was and who it belonged to, but he just couldn’t put it into words for himself. This is how he had slept every night. And as always, when he finally awoke, his brain was tied into knots that took him several long moments to pull apart so he could finally breathe again. 

It helped to have Mother around to sing him lullabies when he woke up. He suspected he would not be able to ask her now unless he wanted to risk being flayed alive. 

That day, the voices echoed in his head as they climbed small mountain in the foothills of the Frostbacks (too far away from Mother for him to turn tail – he didn’t think it would work, anyway). They were heading for Orzammar, Elrich had told Kieran that morning when he emerged from his tent covered in a thin sheen of sweat. They had business with the Dwarves to attend to. Kieran was neither pleased nor displeased at the announcement – it gave him time to figure out with the words floating around in his head meant; what exactly they were trying to tell him to do. 

It was hard when Elrich kept asking questions.

Not that Kieran didn’t want to talk to him - he really, really did. After all, that’s what had gotten him into this in the first place. It was just... well, this was the wrong version of his father to talk to, and he didn’t want to give anything away.

But his emotions won out, in the end - instead of telling him to leave him alone like he should’ve, he sat down around the fire with him and made breakfast. Well, watched Elrich make breakfast.

“So, are you from Ferelden?” Elrich asked, glancing over at Kieran.

“Yes,” he answered.

Elrich smiled, eyes crinkling around the edges with amusement. “You don’t sound Fereldan,” he commented. “Can’t imagine this is a very nice time to see the country.”

He sounded the same as he always had - dignified, confident, and most of all kind - but his voice was much higher, and Kieran couldn’t help but snicker at how hard his father was trying to sound mature. 

“Well, the company is good,” Kieran replied. “I cannot get any safer than I am travelling with two Grey Wardens.”

Elrich leveled an even, unflinching stare at him, though Kieran could see a flash of fear in his eyes. “You know?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kieran said. “It’s not that hard to tell, really.” 

Elrich laughed. “What gave it away? The Griffon breastplate?”

Kieran laughed, too, and then realized how much it sounded like his father’s and stopped. “Perhaps,” he said. “My mother always says - er, said - that I’m very observant.”

“Well, your mother sounds like she was a smart woman.” Elrich pulled the pot of soup off of the fire and set it on the ground, where it melted the thin layer of snow around it. 

“She was,” Kieran replied, tilting his head to hide his smile.

“What happened to her?” Elrich questioned. “Darkspawn?”

“You could say that,” Kieran responded.

“I’m sorry.” Elrich scooped a spoonful of porridge into a bowl and handed it to Kieran. “If it makes you feel any better, something worse than Darkspawn killed my parents.”

Kieran flinched. He knew what happened to his father’s parents, but he and his mother had always agreed that, selfishly, they were slightly thankful - they would not be here if it wasn’t for them. However, hearing his father talk about it now, when the wound was still fresh... it hurt.

Especially because Kieran felt the same.

“I’m sorry,” Kieran murmured, looking down into his bowl while his eyebrows drew together in thought.

“It’s alright,” Elrich replied. “Thank you, though, anyway. I do hate the Darkspawn - more than anything. I hate them for destroying beautiful Ferelden land and killing villagers - like your parents. I hate that they’re leaving young people without a family.”

“You’re not that much older than me,” Kieran pointed out with a laugh.

“True.” Elrich spooned some porridge into his own mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m trying my best to be strong, but... it can be hard sometimes. Knowing that I carry the weight of the country on my shoulders, that so many people’s lives are in my hands...” He swallowed hard, glancing down at his bowl with a bitter laugh. “I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining. Things have turned out better for me than they do for most, and with any hope, this should all be over soon so I can...” He cleared his throat. “Settle down once more.”

Kieran winced and hoped Elrich didn’t notice - he had no idea how much longer he would have to wait to do the settling he wanted.

“You’re doing a great job,” Kieran offered quietly, than quickly added, “from what I have seen so far, anyway.”

“Thank you.” Elrich smiled at him. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

“Just... make sure you don’t lose sight of what is most important.” Kieran let out a gentle sigh, losing himself in his thoughts. “Family. The people you hold dear. They are what you’re protecting, after all.” He frowned. “They are worth more than anything.” 

“That they are,” Elrich replied, then glanced over to where Morrigan’s tent was opening. His eyes lit up, and a hopeful smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Speaking of which... I need to go speak with Morrigan. Excuse me.”

He stood up slowly as he assembled a second bowl of porridge, and when he hurried over to Morrigan and handed it to her, she stared at it for a long, long moment before taking it tentatively from his hands and smiling up at him. A small smile, but a smile nevertheless.

Kieran looked away, ignoring the ache in his heart.

He packed up his own tent, rolled it up, and watched as everyone prepared for the day - Leliana stretching in a warm patch of sunlight, Zevran sharpening his knife with his tongue between his teeth. They looked so normal and calm - Kieran had no idea how they did it. Although, he thought, they didn’t know what was going on in his head either - they probably wouldn’t be able to live with the thoughts and the voices as well as he did.

That made him feel better, at least.

At midday, when the sun was at it’s highest point, they were about to begin ascending a mountain pass towards Orzammar - the first of many, he remembered, having studied the map of the Frostbacks several hundred times - when, suddenly, they heard a guttural roar in the distance and a burst of flames blazed across the path in front of them, leaving melted snow and charred rocks in their wake. 

A dragon. 

No wonder the voices had been so loud. 

Up ahead, everyone drew out their weapons, but Kieran kept back – he had nothing more than a simple dagger Leliana had given him, and he wasn’t sure he could wield it efficiently enough. Wynne, the older mage who came from the Circle of Magi, summoned an ice field to separate the dragon from the group while Leliana notched one of her arrows and aimed it at the creature’s neck.  

It swooped down in front of the group. Alistair and Zevran rushed forward to slash at it, led by Elrich, and Wynne and Leliana attacked from the sidelines while Morrigan watched, creating a dark purple sphere of shifting magic in her hands that she flung at the dragon with unnatural power. It wailed and wailed but did not relent, reaching out to swipe at them again, but Elrich got a hit in before it could hurt any of the party.

Kieran pulled his hood higher up over his head, unsure of what to do. 

Zevran and Alistair continued assaulting the beast’s legs while Elrich slid underneath its stomach, hacking at the dragon’s underbelly which seemed to be covered in a thick layer of dark, heavy scales. Morrigan and Wynne flung balls of spirit magic at it over and over in quick succession, and Leliana aimed her arrows to try and pierce the dragon’s eye – they bounced off like flimsy pieces of metal, but she did not give up. They were shouting at each other over the roaring – directions and suggestions and cries that the others stay safe or be careful – and none of them seemed to notice that Kieran was not joining the effort. If they did, they didn’t notice. 

At one point, deep into the battle, Morrigan hurried to Elrich’s side and casted a shield around him while Wynne tended to his wounds. Though their faces had all been creased with battlehardened lines, when his mother and father looked at each other in fear, Kieran could see a fear there. After Elrich had been healed and stood up on shaky legs to attack the creature again, Morrigan held him back by the arm. When he turned around to look at her, a bolt of lightning came forth from the tip of her staff and struck the beast on the nose. A current of electricity tore through it. 

The dragon let out a guttural cry and reared up on its hind legs, futilely lashing out at the party, but they all stumbled back from its reach before it could land a blow. It squirmed and thrashed in the cold air, claws scraping the rocks on either side for leverage, before it finally slumped down onto the rocky ground, chest heaving as it took one last breath until it lay there, dead. 

A tired cheer echoed through the mountain pass, and the party looked at one another, giving them relieved smiles or grateful pats on the shoulder. 

Except for Elrich and Morrigan, who were hugging tightly. 

Kieran smiled. 

He hadn’t seen that for a long, long time.

That night he lingered in the mouth of his tent like always, pretending to sharpen his dagger while he listened to his parents talk around the fire. 

Well, there wasn’t much talking. They set up camp a few hours after slaying the dragon so everyone could tend to their wounds, and Morrigan never left Elrich’s side while Wynne stitched up the larger ones that Morrigan said she didn’t want to touch. She didn’t leave his side through dinner, either, and now, in the dark of night when neither of them were supposed to still be awake, she held his hand tightly, staring into the fire. 

“What are you doing?” he asked with a laugh, nudging her shoulder with his.  

“Considering whether or not to flay myself alive,” she answered with a slight smirk. 

“Always so dark,” Elrich said, shaking his head while he chuckled. 

Suddenly, Morrigan turned to him, a crease between her eyebrows. “I have something for you,” she said, blinking. 

“What do you mean?” he asked with a grin. 

“I mean that I have a gift for you,” Morrigan said. She reached over to her pouch, where she slid her hand inside while keeping her eyes trained on him, and then fished out a smaller pouch from inside. “’Tis… a ring. Now, before you get any foolish notions, let me explain.” 

Except she said nothing further until Elrich prompted her with a nod of his head.  

“Yes, um… Flemeth once gave me a ring because it allowed her to find me wherever I went, in case I was ever captured by hunters.” She passed it back and forth between her hands. “I disabled its power as soon as we left the Wilds. Recently, however, I thought to change it. Now…” Morrigan glanced up at him. “I will be able to find whoever wears it, instead.” 

Elrich tilted his head, reaching out to place his hands over hers. “That’s a sweet gift,” he said. “Thank you.” 

She blushed. “’Tis not given out of sentimentality,” she said. “I believe you are too important to risk. If you were captured, the ring would allow us to find you quickly.” 

“Does it do anything else?” 

Morrigan pulled it out of the bag and looked at it, squinting slightly. “Flemeth used to say it was a link between us; one that I presumed worked both ways. I never tested it, but I doubt she would have lied over such a thing. So it would mean that I am linked to you as much as you to I.” 

He inched closer, taking it from her gently. “So I could find you, if need be?” 

“I… do not know.” She frowned. “As I said, I never tested it. Perhaps.”  

“I’m glad to know you care,” he told her. 

To Kieran’s surprised, she looked offended. “D-do not read more into it than is there,” she said. “You have supplied me with equipment, certainly this is not very different, is it?” 

“Thank you for the gift, Morrigan,” Elrich replied, placing it in the palm of his hand and curling his fingers tightly around it. 

“You… are welcome,” Morrigan replied, clearing her throat. “Perhaps it will be useful some day.” 

They said very little after that – instead they sat beside each other, arms and legs and shoulders touching like they were connected at the waist. 

Occasionally, Kieran could see his father glancing down at the ring and smiling.  

Elrich retired to his tent first that night, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear before leaving, and just when Kieran thought that perhaps his mother was going to follow, she didn’t. Instead she turned around and frowned at him. 

“Enjoy listening to other people’s conversation, do you?” she asked, stalking over to his tent and looking down at him. 

“No,” Kieran answered, wrinkling his nose. “I respect other people’s privacy.” 

“You don’t fool me,” Morrigan said. Though it was said harshly, Kieran didn’t think it was an accusation. “There’s something you’re not telling everyone else – they have not noticed, but I have. Why are you travelling with us?” 

“I had to,” Kieran replied, staring her down for a moment before shuffling into his tent and closing the entrance tightly behind him. 

He woke up, to his surprise, in his own bed back home with the same woman leaning over him. 

-

“Foolish boy,” Mother was muttering, tucking in his blanket between his bed and the wall. “Foolish, foolish boy.” 

“Mother?” Kieran asked, pushing himself up from the bed. 

Mother glanced over at him and sighed. “How could you scare me like that?” she asked quietly. “You could have frozen half to death, or –“ 

“I’m fine, Mother,” Kieran said. 

“No, you’re not. You nearly have frostbite. Foolish, foolish boy – what will I do with you?” 

“Mother,” Kieran began, “I would like to write father a letter.” 

Mother stopped what she was doing, hesitating for a long moment before turning towards him. “I don’t think that is a good idea,” she replied softly. 

“I want to write him a letter,” Kieran insisted. “I know you don’t want me to be disappointed that he has not returned to us yet, but I won’t be. I’m more disappointed that I haven’t heard from him in several months.” 

“Well, neither have I.” Mother frowned, looking down at her wrinkled hands. “He is far away from here. He’s alive, but I… I fear he might not be for much longer.”  

“He will be.” Kieran drew his chin up. “I know he will be. I can feel it. And I would like to write a letter to him.” 

Mother sighed once more and glanced over at him, and just when he thought she was going to get mad, her lips curved into a wickedly pleased smile. 

“Very well,” she responded. When she moved to stand, Kieran followed, but she waved her hand at him in exasperation. “You stay here,” she said, smiling. “I will bring it to you. You need your rest.” 

“Thank you, Mother,” Kieran said, smiling. “I love you.”  

Mother squinted at him. “Perhaps you hit your head as well.” 

“Mother!”  

“I am just kidding,” she said. “I love you too, you foolish, foolish boy. Now lie down.” 

When Mother left, closing the door softly as to not disturb him, Kieran’s eyes fluttered shut despite himself, and he nestled down beneath the blankets, already thinking about what he would – and definitely should not – write to his father about.

[thereinafter]

Chocolate Box 2021 exchange letter below.

Hi, dear chocolatier! Thanks so much for creating for me. For fic, I’m good with whatever rating you want to write and any tense/person/structure. I’m also requesting art for everything besides OW. I’ve copied my signup below with a DNW list for each fandom, and those are followed by my general art and fic likes lists.

——-

Dragon Age: (fic, art) Aveline Vallen/Cassandra Pentaghast (Dragon Age) Aveline Vallen/Female Hawke (Dragon Age) Cassandra Pentaghast/Female Inquisitor (Dragon Age) Cassandra Pentaghast/Leliana (Dragon Age) Cassandra Pentaghast & Myrna (Dragon Age) Dagna/Sera (Dragon Age) Isabela/Leliana (Dragon Age) Josephine Montilyet/Leliana (Dragon Age) Leliana/Morrigan (Dragon Age)

For all the / ships I requested, I would be very happy with anything inspired by the likes lists below. Cassandra/Leliana, Josephine/Leliana, Leliana/Morrigan: I’m forever interested in all their history we don’t see as well as how they might interact when the Inquisitor or Warden isn’t around. Cassandra/Inquisitor, Aveline/Hawke: I’m good with any variant of female player character and will always love flirting and tension/confusion happily resolved, or facing things together, or just cute/romantic moments. Aveline/Cassandra, Dagna/Sera, Leliana/Isabela: show me how they might meet for the first or second or third time and spark something?

For Cassandra & Myrna (of the Mourn Watch): “Down Among the Dead Men” was my favorite Tevinter Nights story and I’m fascinated with Nevarra and the Grand Necropolis as described there. Have these two met before in the past? Do they have to work together on something for the Inquisition or post-DAI? Since I read TN I’ve wanted a fic where they interact (and preferably get along eventually).

I would also love art of any of these pairings! See general art likes list below.

DNW: setting AUs (except for art), background male player characters, pregnancy, non-canon major character death, unhappy endings, daddy/mommy kink, noncon

——

Crossover: (fic, art) Cassandra Pentaghast (Dragon Age)/Kassandra (Assassin’s Creed Odyssey)

I still feel like this should happen. Magic or basically magical AC tech or in recurring dreams or however you want to handwave transportation between universes, I would just like to see them in the same place and maybe breaking some things together. (alternatively: I did art of them arm-wrestling one time and if someone wants to write me that fic I would love it.)

Also more art! Fighting back to back? Kassandra flirting with Cassandra? Wearing clothes from each other’s world? A Greek-vase-style pastiche?

See general fic and art likes below if you want more ideas.

DNW: AUs other than the canon settings, pregnancy, non-canon major character death, unhappy endings, daddy/mommy kink, noncon

——

Emelan - Tamora Pierce: (fic, art) Dedicate Lark/Dedicate Rosethorn

I love the four kids, but I love Lark and Rosethorn the most. (Note: I’ve only read up to Shatterglass as of now, but I don’t mind references to later books if you want to set something later.)

A few fic ideas, feel free to mix up or use anything else from my general likes list: - An adventure by themselves without their students? Or an attempted romantic outing that turns into one? - Writing to each other when one is away? (Rosethorn travels a lot; has Lark ever gone somewhere and left her to manage Discipline?) - Observing traditions and the turn of the year at Winding Circle, from their POVs? - Ways they might use their magic together or experimenting with that?

I would also love any art you want to do of them: see the general art likes below.

DNW: setting AUs (except for art), pregnancy, non-canon major character death, unhappy endings, daddy/mommy kink, noncon

——

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon: (fic, art) Sabran Berethnet/Eadaz du Zāla uq-Nāra (The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon)

Reusing some of my Yuletide fic prompts, feel free to mix these or use things from my likes list: - A missing scene from when their relationship was secret, before Ead left the first time? - Sabran’s experience of one of the times Ead was hurt and recovered? - I’m always here for long-distance pining and letter-writing. - Post-canon reunions, whether it’s Ead visiting Inys, or Sabran finding ways to meet her elsewhere, or Sabran carrying out her plan to abdicate. I would love exploration of the other courts and lands in the book, especially Yscalin rebuilding from the draconic takeover, and the Priory. - I’m still curious about whether it’s possible for Sabran to learn either type of magic and whether she would explore that, and whether there might be other trees.

I would love art as well! Any canon scene illustrated (the rose under Sabran’s pillow? the bath? the candle dance scene?), or just any art of them you want to do. General art likes below.

DNW: setting AUs (except for art), non-canon pregnancy, non-canon major character death, daddy/mommy kink, noncon

——

Original Work: (fic) Female Adventurer in Need of a Challenge/Lady Stuck in Tower of Ridiculous Traps (Original Work) Female Inventor of Ridiculous Traps/Female Master Thief (Original Work) Female Avant-Garde Artist/Scandalous Demimonde Actress (Original Work) Female Palace Cook/Female Royal Taster (Original Work) Female Paladin/Incarnation of Her Goddess (Original Work) Female Knight on Noble Quest/Witch Who's Far Too Distracting (Original Work) Brave but Stubborn Female Knight/Famous Female Bard Who Has a Crush on Her (Original Work) Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight (Original Work) Female Knight Who Loves Baths/Female Sorceress Who Loves Baths (Original Work) Female Knight Who Loves Baths/Female Water or Hotspring Spirit Who Loves Knights (Original Work) Wandering Lady Knight/Her Pining Female Friend She Writes Letters To (Original Work)

I nominated:

Female Adventurer in Need of a Challenge/Lady Stuck in Tower of Ridiculous Traps: I was imagining the kinds of elaborate traps you find in D&D manuals, but other types also work! I just like the idea of bonding through solving bizarre dangerous puzzles from opposite sides of a barrier.

Female Inventor of Ridiculous Traps/Female Master Thief: Professional rivals to lovers? Longtime couple who collaborate? (Bonus idea: prequel to the first prompt?)

Female Palace Cook/Female Royal Taster: I like the idea of one falling for or trying to seduce the other through food creations, under the noses of the royalty. Maybe the taster is also a bodyguard, or just another servant with a risky job?

Female Avant-Garde Artist/Scandalous Demimonde Actress: I’d be here for this whether you want to set it in a real historical period or a fantasy/SF world. Too many feelings and sublimating them through art? Modeling turning into more? A secret relationship, or a volatile on and off thing? I could also see this as a found documents or research notes type of story (or something like 5 times = 5 works in an exhibition?)

Female Paladin/Incarnation of Her Goddess: A dramatic h/c situation, or a reward for faithful service? Or maybe they have a comfortable old-married type of relationship? I could be into any of these.

Female Knight on Noble Quest/Witch Who's Far Too Distracting: Kind of the opposite of the above. They just keep running into each other and catch feelings? Or the witch wants to interfere and ends up helping? Or the quest is actually a bad idea and the witch saves her life?

I didn’t nominate but would delightedly read any take on these (all the lady knights edition): Brave but Stubborn Female Knight/Famous Female Bard Who Has a Crush on Her Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight Female Knight Who Loves Baths/Female Sorceress Who Loves Baths Female Knight Who Loves Baths/Female Water or Hotspring Spirit Who Loves Knights Wandering Lady Knight/Her Pining Female Friend She Writes Letters To

See the long list of general likes below if you want more ideas.

DNW: unhappy endings, death of requested characters, underage sex (<18), daddy/mommy kink, incest, noncon, a/b/o

——

General fanart likes:

I draw it myself, and I don’t really have style preferences for fanart; I’m interested in however you interpret my request in your own style!

- If one of my fic prompts or my likes below suggests something (non-explicit) you want to draw (whether one scene or sequential), I’d love to see that. I always like to see characters doing things they’re good at or looking formidable or happy. And for shippy art, I am always here for handholding, hand kisses, regular kisses, cuddling, and/or other romantic moments in contexts that make sense for the characters.

- Dressing the characters up or down is also fun. Fancy clothing or armor, things they might wear that we don’t see in canon, or illustrating what they do wear in canon if it’s a book. Partial undressing and dishevelment. Different historical AU looks (as an exception to my setting AUs DNW).

- I’d also be into a piece that’s more of a character study expressing something about them through formal visual elements and symbolism (as opposed to a narrative scene).

- If emulating other art styles is fun for you, I’d totally enjoy any kind of famous artist/historical style pastiche. Or, my love of in-universe documents and worldbuilding definitely extends to art, so something like an in-world manuscript page or notes/doodles/sketches by a character or an in-world portrait of them would make me quite happy.

——

General fic likes

If something’s not on this list, that doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t like it, but I enjoy these things pretty reliably. Take from it and mix these up as you wish.

for both gen and shipfic: Relationships among women, complex and powerful female characters, adult characters with some level of life experience Casefic if the characters do cases or missions: anything like another episode or chapter from the canon Lighthearted slice of life/ day-in-the-life stories when the canon focus is more on big dramatic events Epistolary or found-documents stories, and other unconventional story structures Time loop stories, Rashomon-style stories, and other sets of variations on a theme (including “five times” fic) Canon divergence AUs Worldbuilding/exploring places and times we don’t see much in canon; in-universe mythologies, stories, songs, plays, etc.; holidays, personal or cultural traditions, celebrations People or events from characters’ past resurfacing to complicate things Magical or scientific accidents or anomalies making weird things happen Heists, rescues/jailbreaks, investigating mysteries big or small Court plotting, dealing with complex etiquette/social rules, intrigue, spying, disguises and fake identities Road or sea or space trips, wilderness survival situations, exploring ruins/haunted places/caves/dungeons/etc. Sparring, duels, tournaments, competitions whether serious or not Making things for each other, whether it’s art or music or crafting or food or magic or whatever, and giving gifts Competence porn/demonstrating how good they are at what they do (but perhaps being awkward or lost in other contexts) Learning or teaching others new skills, or trying to Temporarily caring for animals or babies/children when they’re not used to it

for shipfic (pre-relationship, get-together, and established-relationship stories are all interesting to me if I like the ship) Everything above plus: Longtime friends, partners in arms or work or crime, old friends or former lovers meeting again, old enemies who have to admit they like each other, rivals who respect each other … to lovers Long-term established relationships where they know each other better than anyone Cute/playful moments, escalating flirtations whether awkward or skillful, good-natured teasing, surprising each other, discovering new things about each other, trying to impress each other, distracting each other consciously or not Giddy crushes, pining that’s eventually happily resolved, angst with happy endings Having a lot of feelings and not knowing what to do with them, repression, extended UST, slow burn, emotional romantic revelations Hurt/comfort, fighting beside each other, disproportionate reactions to the other being hurt or possibly hurt, facing external threats together, rescuing each other, tending each other Loyalty and devotion, us against the world, bodyguarding, protectiveness, love conflicting with other loyalties, noble self-denial and sacrifice, courtly love Being inspired by the other to create, or achieving things for the other’s sake or in their service, whether secretly or openly Forced-intimacy-by-circumstance tropes like only-one-bed, huddling for warmth, fake dating, marriage of convenience, handcuffed together, dreamsharing/psychic bonds Ascetic/hedonist or repressed/libertine or inexperienced/more experienced dynamics “The grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one,” or prickly/stoic/intimidating/jaded characters softening for a particular person, or allowing themselves to have fun with them Secret relationships as a source of angst and/or for the excitement of sneaking around (though I prefer infidelity not be the reason, unless it’s a forced/political marriage situation) Dancing, whether it’s formal dancing with sexual tension or meaningful romantic dancing or getting uninhibited on a dance floor Meaningful handholding Language of flowers/fans/other symbolic communication and private codes Bathing/dressing/doing hair/other physical caretaking, watching each other sleep, holding each other for comfort, having a hard time not touching Reading/storytelling/singing to each other Reunions after separation, or stealing moments away from everything to be together

for sex scenes: cuddling, kissing, laughing, tasting, eroticized hands and voices, clothed/semi-clothed sex, complicated undressing, talking whether emotional or joking or dirty, asking for things, curiosity/discovery, playfulness/inventiveness, eagerness/desperation, being overwhelmed by feelings, having to keep silent or hold still, interruptions and delayed gratification and intentional drawing things out, body worship, sex against walls, informal mild kink (e.g., tying up, holding down, blindfolding, taking direction, honor bondage, scratching/marking, tearing clothes, mutual roughness), sexy letter writing, one fantasizing about the other, decadence and sensory/sensual details, voyeurism/exhibitionism if it’s IC, writing/painting on skin, sex pollen, magical/ritual/magic-enhanced sex

[m00nslippers]

In a dream world where we are getting a Red Hood live action trilogy, how would you want the three movies to be? Like what plotlines, characters, villians, what arc to develop, how to present his character to appeal to the general audience and such :D

Oh man, this is an interesting question.

Well first of all, this might sound strange, but I absolutely do not think that Under the Red Hood should be adapted to Live Action. I believe this because it already exists in animated form and is perfect. No live-action remake is going to compare unless they recreate it scene by scene and they never will. The dialogue is too good, it cannot be made better, only worse. So, that being said, RH1 should not be a retelling of UtRH, rather that movie/storyline should exist as backstory for the first Red Hood movie. They should communicate the events of that story without retelling it wholesale as the plot in the movie. They should also go ahead and go with the Lazarus Pit explanation of Jason’s resurrection because the superboy-smashing-the-universe thing is too vague and requires more context than a standalone movie can really provide. I would amend it though so that it’s actually more like Arkham Knight games, in that Joker had Jason for over six months torturing him before he finally killed Jason and sent the tape to Bruce. At that point, Ra’s and Talia got a hold of Jason’s body and resurrected him.

I have a really solid idea for the first movie, a more vague idea for the second one and a really vague idea for the last one. I’ll write you guys the synopsis of the first one up here.

Red Hood Movie 1

So, the movie opens on some brief scenes of a seemingly ordinary guy as he goes through his day. He wears blue collar clothes with a leather jacket thrown over the top, rides his motorcycle to work and stops to give money to a homeless guy on the street. He works construction or something, shows himself to be really smart and maybe a little over-competent for his job, he can jump down from high beams like he’s an acrobat, he does complex math in his head, but when colleagues ask how he knows so much he just plays it off. He seems friendly but he’s secretive, keeps to himself. He goes home from work, he’s the only one there, he works out, punches a punching bag, he checks a secret compartment in his house to make sure no one has tampered with it, but we don’t see what’s inside. He eats alone and when it gets dark he walks a ways to a local dive and sits in the corner until a red-headed friend comes in.

He and the friend bullshit together, clearly they’re close. His friend asks if he’ll babysit his daughter so he can work on a case, he says sure. They’re in the middle of talking about the daughter when something on one of the televisions playing in the bar catches his eye. It’s a breaking news feed of an Arkham breakout in Gotham City, with the building on fire, lead by the Joker. He flinches and you see this snarl of twisted fear and rage and his friend reaches out to grab his arm. “Jason, don’t. He doesn’t have to be your problem. You don’t owe Gotham anything.” And Jason looks Roy in the face and says, “Gotham owes me everything. And I’m going to get my payback.”

Jason leaves the bar, goes home, opens the secret compartment–it’s full of guns and all of his Red Hood gear. He packs it up and leaves on his motorcycle bound for Gotham.

Switch over to Bruce being Brucie at a WE function for a charity. He’s called up to give a speech and he talks about how his second son was a boy from Gotham’s streets who’d been exceptional but just didn’t have the opportunities because of his poor background. Unfortunately he was dead in a tragic accident, but Bruce had dedicated this charity in his name for underprivileged youth to fund scholarships and community support, etc. He steps down and has to glad-hand some people until his phone vibrates and he looks at the screen. It’s Oracle telling him there’s a Gotham break out.

Bruce slips away and he’s in the Batcave putting on his Batman gear as Alfred and Barbara–over the computer–fills him in on what’s going on and talks about how most everyone is out of Gotham at the moment, it’s just Bruce and Oracle, and asks Bruce if he wants Alfred to call in Nightwing or someone else for help. Bruce says no he wants them to stay out of it as he’s looking at the Memorial case of Jason’s Robin costume that’s still damaged. Alfred reminds him that since it’s the Joker, Jason is bound to appear, Bruce just grunts and says he’ll deal with that problem as it comes and has Oracle on the look out for any activity from either of them.

Bruce shows up at Arkham and talks to Gordon briefly, who tells him there’s a riot going on inside and they’ve already confirmed the warden had been murdered. Bruce busts in and starts kicking butt and capturing everyone, getting various people to safety that he finds as he makes his way through the building. All the while Oracle is giving him tech support. Bruce finds Joker’s cell but it’s been broken open. Suddenly he thinks he sees joker and and chases him down, capturing him but it turns out it’s just another inmate dressed like him–there’s a whole bunch of fake Jokers running around the building. Oracle tells him they’ll never be able to confirm if it’s really him from cameras alone like this and Bruce has to admit that’s true. But also says the Joker is probably already long gone, and they need to stop worrying about containment and start searching the city for him.

Cut to Jason riding into Gotham. He opens up a derelict safehouse with yet more guns and suits up and hits the streets. Everywhere he goes, he sees flashes of memories–of him as a kid on the streets, of Bruce catching him stealing the tires from the batmobile, him as Robin, him fighting Bruce as Red Hood. He questions homeless people and hookers and roughs up some dealers. They all know him, they’re all afraid, he’s the King of Crime Alley and remember when he ran out Black Mask. After some investigating, someone tells him a certain crime family’s men were hired to riot outside of Arkham and sow even more chaos.

Jason attacks the guy in his big mansion, mowing down hoards of mobsters with guns, all to get to the head guy and question him. He says Joker put out the word he wanted some grunts to help with the breakout and Black Mask had done a deal with him to provide men. The head mobster is Black mask’s man outside of Blackgate prison. The meeting was held in Gotham’s abandoned Amusement Mile between Joker and Roman’s proxies. Jason kills the mobster and leaves for the place he mentioned.

As Jason is on his way, someone hacks into the comms on his helmet–it’s Barbara, she found him after the attack on the mobsters–and she’s trying to get Jason to stop and leave Gotham. He and Bruce had a truce, that Jason would say out of Gotham and stop being Red Hood. Jason says that truce ended when he let Joker escape and now he’s going to kill him. Barbara says he’s not the only person Joker hurt, we see her in the Clocktower in her wheel chair with a picture of her and Gordon. Jason says he’ll kill Joker for both of them. Barbara says she’d rather the Joker be alive than Jason dead at his hands, and Jason says, well that’s where they differ.

Jason investigates the place, an empty funhouse or something. Down a hallway he thinks he sees the Joker and he runs after him but there’s no one there. He keeps seeing images of when he got captured by the Joker in the mirror, sees his younger self bloodied and dead. He’s getting increasingly unhinged. Then Bruce appears as Batman, tells Jason he broke their truce, he came back to Gotham and he killed people, but Bruce is willing to overlook it if he just leaves. Jason goes into his issues with Bruce, about how that’s his problem, he’s unwilling to go as far as necessary to really protect people. About how if Bruce had killed Joker from the beginning, Jason wouldn’t have died or become what he is, and Barbara wouldn’t be in a wheelchair, and all the people who died in the Arkham break out would still be alive.

Jason attacks Bruce, they have a huge badass fight. They are mostly fighting to a draw but they are both getting heavily injured. In the middle of their fight they think they see joker and Jason cuts off Bruce’s path and goes after him alone–only to get clocked with a crowbar from behind and dragged off.

Bruce finally makes it around to where Jason ran off only to a smear of blood on the ground that he runs through the computer and is told belongs to Jason by Alfred. Spray painted next to it is a Joker smile and the location where Jason first tried to get Bruce to murder the Joker.

Bruce goes to the location and finds the Joker there with Jason completely beat up and tied down. “Remember this Batsy? It was a fun little game, wasn’t it? It really had potential.” He’s missed his broken bird in Arkham and getting out has made him feel nostalgic, but alas he has better things to do, so it’s time to tie up this loose end for once and for all. He doesn’t need Red Hood getting between batman and his games, so he’s going to play one final round, winner takes all. “I think we should play again, but this time with a twist,” he says. Joker has set up Bruce to kill him or he’s going to kill Jason again–he’s like you can’t do it can you? Not even for your little robin. So he’s going to die–again.

The confrontation ends exactly like it did in Under the Red hood. Bruce throws a batarang that slits Joker’s throat but doesn’t outright kill him. Joker runs away laughing as Bruce goes to Jason, with Jason weeping and telling him to go after the Joker. Bruce refuses and says Jason’s injuries are more important. He tries to take him to the manor and Jason says no, he refuses to go there, to take him to a hospital. Bruce says if he goes there Red Hood will be arrested for killing the gangster. Jason doesn’t care, he refuses to have anything to do with a father who chooses the joker over his own son twice, he doesn’t get to treat his wounds and act like not going after the Joker was him saving Jason. it was just him betraying Jason yet again.

The last scene is Roy visiting Jason in Blackgate prison. He shows him home videos of Lian and brings him crayon pictures from her. He tells Jason if he ever wants out, just to say, but Jay says no, he’s got some unfinished business to handle. We see Black Mask, also there in the prison…

The End.

—

So pretty much the first movie has the Joker as the main villain in a re-working of the UtRH story, pretty typical Jason stuff.

The second one is where things are a lot less typical and almost brand new and not from the comics because let’s face it–Jason doesn’t have a lot of good stories that don’t involve the Joker. In the second movie Jason is in prison for most of the plot. And the villain? Astrid Arkham, who is the Arkham Knight. How does that work, you may wonder. Oh I have ideas and it’s twisty~ If you guys want to know how I think that one would go, I’ll write it up later.

The third one I’m thinking a League of Assassins thing. Basically Talia comes to Jason to try to get him to lead the league and we find out a lot about the circumstances of Jason’s death and resurrection and training. I’m much less sure about the exact plot for this one, but I think by the end of it Jason should finally forgive Bruce enough to go home and stop killing.

[felassan]

Do you think we're ever again going to hear from Hero of Ferelden or even see them on screen? I mean ik that Bioware said it is tough, because in many cases HoF is dead (ultimate sacrifice thingy) but... Leliana could be dead too, and here she is, standing proud as Inquisition's spymaster - pretty big role for a dead woman. Lyrium spirit you say... Same question about our old companions from DAO and DA2. Well, except Wynne I guess. 😅

Under a cut for length. TN spoilers under cut.

Hello, sorry, I know it is a popular wish but I don’t think we will see the HoF on-screen again :[ The HoF’s story is long-over, both in-universe and irl, and they led 2 whole games and a host of DLC. Compounding this, as you say they can be dead and BioWare have said something along the lines of how bringing them back would be tough and that it’s unlikely. It would be a lot harder to bring back the HoF compared to the lesser challenge bringing back Hawke in DAI was, due to the larger amount of base variables (3 different races as an example, no set voice) and the lack of easily-defined personality (like red or purple). In addition, even with the lower amount of variables involved, the implementation of Hawke in DAI for a large section of the fandom went down like a lead balloon. There were opinions and complaints that Hawke was OOC - for example, genuinely amazing as it was to see Hawke again, my blood mage Hawke went on nonsensical rants about hating blood mages and I was like huh? BW will have seen that sort of response and how it got a bit messy and taken it on-board. If the Inquisitor will return as an NPC like Hawke did in DAI (which is most likely out of the three previous PCs, owing to the obvious Solas connection), I imagine they already have their hands full with this. The other thing to keep in mind is that Hawke could not die in DA2. Hawke was alive in all worldstates. In quite a lot of universes, the Warden is dead. another thing is that around 2017 Laidlaw tweeted that the HoF was never going to feature in any of their products again. ofc things can change in the years since and he has left, but that was a fairly strong statement.

Hearing from them via letter or in dialogue references I think is possible, more likely and way easier to implement. Saying that, even then - the HoF’s story has been concluded and tied off. If they survived Origins, they traveled west on their quest for a cure for the calling. We can tell from romanced Leliana’s Trespasser epilogues that they have at the very least returned (I don’t see why only Lelimance Wardens would have). It’s not clear but from them I also assume that they found a cure.

I know that other main characters such as Leliana could be dead but were brought back, but I don’t see them repeating that trope for a big-name character again. After a few times it becomes over-used and cheapens the deaths that supposedly occurred. It also has the potential to get messy. How many lyrium ghost people or “surprise! this character who died in game actually survived!”s are we supposed to accept before the premise becomes silly, over-used and immersion-breaking, you know? 

About the old DAO and DA2 companions, I mean… that’s a big question, especially if you’re asking “will we see them on-screen” and “will we hear from them again” about each of them. We could easily hear from any of them from among the ones who still live, especially if they bring back receiving letters and a war table-esque type game mechanic.

Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana, Warden Loghain and Oghren have already been seen again in big ways in a subsequent game. His smaller amount of re-appearance content is a sore point for a lot of folk, but Zevran appeared again in DA2. Dog is a no. Wynne is dead. Morrigan might be brought back if they go for the “Flemythal isn’t really dead” or “Flemythal pushed her godhood through the mirror to Morrigan” or “Morrigan has advice on how to deal with this new threat” angles, or if they choose to delve into an end outcome for the person who drank from the Well. Leliana could feasibly be seen again if she’s Divine. If she’s not Divine she might appear as the Inquisition-remains’ Spymaster, although it really depends on the time that has elapsed because she’s clearly been grooming and preparing successors for that role. Whether she’s still a direct part of the “Inquisition’s generals” depends on the specific timeframe I expect.

They leaned quite hard into fleshing out and making prominent-once-again the Crows in TN. There’s a bit of potential there for Zevran to reappear, but I can’t tell how much of that is wishful thinking/reaching. The last time we saw and heard from him he didn’t exactly hold the Crows in high regards (more idle reaching/rambling on the Zevran question here, ctrl-F “Zevran”, TN spoilers at link). Sten is the Arishok in most universes. The Qunari Antaam invasion seems like it’s going to be a big plot point or at the very least a major backdrop/context to the next game. Whether we encounter him I think will depend on what’s going on with the hinted schisms in the Qun, whether it was he that ordered the Antaam to invade, etc. Some more thoughts on the Sten thing here (TN spoilers at link). It would be cool if we (well, us in a meta sense) ended up meeting him on the battlefield or something like he foretold years ago in DAO, or if we could have a meeting with him to try and propose peace or allying to try and defeat Solas or something. Shale… iirc some endings of DAO have her heading for Tevinter, but she was followed up on in Asunder, and was DLC only. I had originally thought she might be a good shout to tap, but that isn’t the case anymore since Solas is confirmed to be able to freeze even golems, and TN also makes a point of hinting at the existence of other intelligent/sentient golems.

Re: the possible return of DA2 companions I have less thoughts, and tbh I don’t really see a need in most cases. Many of them can be dead. Anders in particular can be dead, as in shanked in the back as a story decision cinematic from Hawke-dead rather than just “fought against Hawke after disagreeing with them at the end and ‘died’ at the time” (the latter could be story/gameplay segregation). Aveline has a role and steady job to do in Kirkwall. I don’t know why Prince Sebastian would leave Starkhaven and he’s been back in comics. The siblings can be dead. Bela was already back in comics and DAI. Varric’s done his time as a companion in 2 main games, although I can certainly see us getting reports/info/jobs from him, in the form of letters sent from the Viscount of Kirkwall. Merrill would be interesting to see and might be able to help us given that she’s an expert on eluvians. I would also like to hear what she thinks of the Dread Wolf being a Thing, you know? Find out where she stands on that, if it’s impacted her world view, would she support him or not, etc. Fenris has obviously been moved on the chessboard to Tevinter, putting him in the local area. I could see encountering him as the Blue Wraith in game, perhaps working for or with him a bit or getting a quest or two from him, but I don’t envision him as a DA4 companion. It’s also important to remember that the comics are not supposed to be nor designed to act as a prologue for DA4, like it’s not a direct-set-up situation (see the notes on the podcast mentioned towards the end here).

NB I love these characters! Please don’t interpret this post as not liking them.

[msg refs this post]

[sterling-writes]

Danny Quill

"There isn't a problem in the world that can't be helped with music."

Music, kindness, truth, love. Those are the virtues Danny holds above all things. He can see the goodness in anyone and anything and believes all are deserving of love. He can't lie to save his life, and in all honesty, he would never want to lie. The only things he'd ever let out of his mouth are words and songs of honesty and compassion. And perhaps the occasional remarks of adorable naivete. He may not always be the smartest man in most meanings of the word, be he has a pearl of unspoken wisdom that sometimes shines through in the most unlikely moments. He's quick to consider someone a friend, which can unfortunately sometimes make him blissfully unaware of someone with ill intent. Luckily, he has the support and guidance of his family and friends, who he loves more than anything in the world.

Danny is the son of Peter Quill and Florence Day and is the second youngest of their six children. He often pursues a career in music, either solo or in a 2000's pop-punk cover band with his cousins and friends. He hosts a Let's Play channel on YouTube with his best friend, Jonah Strange. He grows up with his siblings and eventually ends up dating/marrying Charlie Solo, and together they have two kids.

Basics

Full Name: Daniel Jason Quill

Pronounced: dAn-yuhl jAy-sn kwll

Birthday: Oct 31st (Scorpio)

Gender: Cis Man (He/him)

Orientation: Gay

Hair: Light brown, tight fluffy curls. Worn in a long bob

Eye color: Green

Height: 5'11"

Faceclaim: Dan Avidan (IMDb)

Family

Parents: Peter Quill and Florence Day

Siblings: Thomas "Tommy" Quill, Teagan Quill, Evan Quill, Grayson Quill, Kentucky "Kenny" Quill

Half-Siblings: Benji Solo, Anatole Solo, Dane Valentine, Apollo Valentine, Saria Lavellan

Aunts/Uncles: Aron Day and Hawk Day

Domestic Life

Canon Love Interest: Charles "Charlie" Solo

Alternate Love Interests: None

Children: Dorian Quill, Bonnie Quill

Magic/Powers

Powers: Power stone

Gift: TBD

Demon/God: Partial Demon + God connection

Fantasy Class: Bard

Story

Fics: x

Marvel context: Grows up with his parents and siblings in a house in New York. He ends up moving with his family into the Terra Squad Compound along with the rest of the Terra Squad families. He becomes bound to the Power infinity stone and inherits its power, though he rarely uses them. He becomes close with Charlie Solo and they get together. He joins his cousin Falcon's pop-punk cover band and starts a gaming channel with his friend Jonah. He works in music either as a solo musician or touring with the cover band. He has two kids with his husband, Charlie.

Dragon Age context: Born and raised in Redcliffe village where he works at his mother's tavern, The Crimson Violet, as a bard. One day, his father, who is a Grey Warden, begins to feel The Calling and falls sick. Danny hears a legend that there is a cure for The Calling somewhere out there. He runs away from home in hopes to search for a cure and save his father's life. He runs into some members of the Inquisition, who bring him to Haven where he meets Kala Talaros, a (good) blood mage, and her brother Bo Talaros, a necromancer, who believe they can work together to find a cure. He also there meets his love interest, Charlie Solo, a noble of Highever. He joins the Inquisition as a bard and becomes a personal assistant to the Inquisitor themself.

Star Wars context: He grows up among the Resistance people, whether or not the Resistance still exists by that point, with his family.

Star Trek context: Grows up aboard the USS Enterprise, which has been rebuilt as a deep-space vessel that allows the crew to have family aboard the ship, complete with daycare, schooling, etc. One day, catastrophe strikes as the ship enters an area filled with black-hole-like anomalies that appear on the ship as portals. Many passengers are sucked through, including Danny and his boyfriend, Charlie. They appear on a deserted planet and are left there for many years. The group uses the natural resources to build a sustainable village, accepting the fact that they’ll likely never be rescued. Meanwhile, the USS Enterprise makes it their main mission to find the missing group, and finds their planet almost a decade later. They are rescued and return to their lives aboard the ship after a period of readjusting to normal life. Danny attends Starfleet Academy and becomes a security officer aboard the Enterprise.

Extras

Associated color: Purple, pink, magenta

Familiar Spirit: Lion (strength, courage, truth, justice, plus they both have manes)

Myers Briggs: ESFP-A (Entertainer) Are we surprised? 😆

Alignment: Lawful Good

Pinterest Board: (here)

Tag: (here)

[errantgoat]

Lost and Found

A belated Birthday gift for my dear @queen-scribbles

Dragon Age one-shot set in the canon shared between our Wardens - Trinne Amell and Harvey Cousland. Takes place right after the battle for Redcliff. Because some days are shittier than others.

Trinne was more than happy to leave Alistair and Cousland alone on the Redcliff shore after the battle. The night had been rough, she was tired, and not in the mood for listening to two men exchanging grievances like a couple of fishwives. Instead, she returned to the village and threw herself into performing what menial tasks needed to be done – from checking up on the rest of the party (all accounted for, even Zevran, she'd have to tell Alistair he lost that bet), counting what means of defense the village had left (two barrels of oil left, unused), to helping villagers carry the undead corpses (too many) onto burning pyres. The sun was already peeking over the hills, when she realized she had seen neither the templar nor the rogue and asking around confirmed they haven't returned to Redcliff proper. 

Grumbling underneath her breath, Trinne directed her steps towards the pier, and then to the left, through waist height weeds and bushed, towards a small piece of shore from where the final wave of undead came last night. Half worried, and half promising herself to give the two lazy oafs a piece of her mind, she traversed the overgrown path and emerged on the other side, only to find Alistair's lone silhouette occupying the sorry excuse for a beach.

Trinne joined him, her question quickly answered when she spotted garments dumped in a pile on the rocky ground. She didn't even have to follow Alistair's line of sight. Calenhad Lake was eerily still, like a fancy silver mirror, and Cousland's head was a dot ways away, disturbing the said stillness, ripples blossoming whenever he resurfaced or dove underwater.

She opened and closed her mouth, and opened it again, pointing towards the lake. "Is he insane? He knows there's at least dozens of dead people in there, right?” Trinne exclaimed. "Moving ones!”

Alistair broke away from watching the rogue and greeted her with a forced smile. "I guess he thought it would waste time?" He guessed, guilt painted on his face. "I offered to bring a row boat, but he wouldn't hear any of it... He said I've done enough." The templar shifted uneasily. "He knows it was an accident, right?"

"Of' course it was an accident!" Trinne rolled her eyes. An incredibly dumb one, admittedly. So dumb that pointing fingers in this situation was unreasonable, and she assumed a pragmatic person like Cousland would be better than that. Apparently not.

She wistfully glanced towards Redcliff, she could almost visualize the vacant cottage they've been given for lodging. They were real beds there. Real beds. All she wanted to do was to go to sleep. Or at least try to, because it was becoming increasingly difficult to catch a nice full night of rest for her lately. Trinne blew a raspberry, resigned - something always came up. 

Just an hour or two more, you can make it. She shook her head to get rid of the cobwebs and then critically looked the templar over. Alistair looked almost as disheveled as she felt.

"I ate already." She nudged him, nodding towards Redcliff. "There's a stew, for the militia and us too, of course." She flashed him a toothy grin. "The villagers went all out."

Hesitantly, Alistair returned her smile with his own, a more tight lipped one, but his eyes gave the smallest twinkle of mischief. He cocked an eyebrow. "It can't be better than the one I make?” He asked theatrically, as if offended. 

She stifled a snort and managed her most thoughtful expression. "It has potatoes in it. And real vegetables."

He turned his gaze towards the sky, nodding. "Well, in that case, tough competition."

She grinned and nudged the warrior again, because this could go on forever. At least he seemed a little less distracted now. "Go. I'll stay here for a while. I'm sure Cousland won't be long either. Calenhad is as cold as void."

She was still touching his arm when Alistair's hand brushed against her own, two sets of fingers entangling in a quick, skittish gesture. It lasted just for a moment, both parties exploring a sudden and newfound interest in their own shoes. Trinne's were caked in mud, as she discovered, her cheeks burning up. She let the embarrassment wash over her, she welcomed it, and even enjoyed it. But she'd rather fight two Ogres at once than meet Alistair's gaze right now. Finally the templar broke the silence by clearing his throat. Was his voice a little squeakier than usual or did she imagine it? "Um, I'd better go," he said. "I'm pretty sure if I'm going to apologize one more time, Harvey will just skewer me.” He gingerly put the thing he was holding in his left hand on top of the pile of clothes. It was an empty scabbard. Then he glanced towards the lake one last time. "Just make sure he doesn't drown, okay?" 

"Can do!" Trinne replied a bit too quickly, clenching and unclenching her palm. Only when Alistair was gone she realized her swimming abilities left a lot to be desired. Hopefully this doesn't come up.

Thankfully, Cousland turned out to be a quite decent swimmer, but that also made the wait really, really boring. Between the moist ground, overwhelming smell of fish and seagulls that ignored her because she had no food to offer, there was only so much she could entertain herself with. Finally, after the third time she promised herself she'd give him another fifteen minutes and then just leave him be, she realized the swimming silhouette was slowly getting closer. When Harvey finally reached the shore, Trinne had to purge her mind from seeing another walking corpse clumsily emerging from the depths. Cousland was soaked, pants clinging to his legs making him look spindly. His skin was pale, with an unhealthy hint of blue.

The rogue stumbled, but managed to right himself before Trinne could react. She approached him slowly. He was alive, definitely alive. Just exhausted. "Are you alright?" She prodded.

He moved past her, still wobbly, sparing her maybe half of a glance. "Do I look like I'm holding a sword?" When she didn't reply, he shook his head, wet hair brushing the base of his neck. "Then spare me.” He picked up his shirt.

"Spare you what, me being concerned?!” She couldn't believe she postponed sleep for this. "You're being very pleasant today.”

"My family sword is on the bottom of the LAKE.” He bellowed back at her, voice coarse and Trinne flinched, because it was the first time she heard Cousland raise his voice to such extent. He was pointing towards the murky waters, hand trembling from either cold or anger, she wasn't sure. A piece of weed untangled itself from his hair, landing on his face. "So no, I'm not alright." He answered her question properly this time. "Nothing's alright."

This was a long night, Trinne thought. Full of unpleasantness. It was still continuing, even after dawn. "Look, I'm sorry about that." She massaged the bridge of her nose. She was going for a placatory tone, but she was tired and her teeth were clenching on their own. "But you talked with Alistair, and I talked with Alistair. He says it was an accident, and I agree. He even tried to get it back, you know he couldn't just go in the water with all that armor."

"Maybe he should have.” Harvey snapped back.

Trinne's patience was now fumes, scattered in the wind. And her core was boiling, Alistair's lingering touch a kindle to her anger. She threw hands in the air - because Maker be her witness she had tried - and then cradled them in front of her. "Oh, poor you! I'm so sorry you gave Alistair your family sword for safekeeping, I'm SO sorry he used it to defend ALL these people. I'm so sorry it got wedged in one of the undead corpses, and I'm sooo sorry that corpse walked right back into the lake at dawn.” She mimed the shambling of an undead creature.

Harvey looked like she just slapped him. "You think this is funny?"

"Cousland, I haven't slept for two days, everything is either funny or tragic. And this was a too specific sequence of events to not fit both."

Something in the way his muscles tensed sent her mind right back to her Circle days, and she remembered a story of how one of mages of Lucrosian fraternity brought back to the Tower an unusual prize - a caged bird of prey. It was such a novelty a few younger students snuck out that night and teased the bird, pocking it with sticks. One of the boys' names was Gavin, she remembered. They called him Gavin Four Fingers after that.

If he comes at me, I will fight him. She decided. No matter if her magic was tapped out at the moment. She will wallop his ass until he sees reason. He looked like he was barely standing anyways.

But Harvey did not lunge. Instead, the rogue stood still, as his eyes glazed over, looking past her shoulder towards the water. He visibly deflated, grabbing his armor, and started putting it on without a word.

She watched him buckle the brown leather and tighten it with laces for a minute or two. Then do the same with his belt and weapons. When the rogue reached for his shoes, still in complete silence, Trinne rolled her yes.

"Oh come on Cousland, I'm throwing you a bone here! If you're angry, vent, come at me, whatever! You'll feel better.”

He put on a boot, took a deep breath, took the boot off and removed a few stray pebbles. "Amell, give me one reason I should stay.” He said.

"Cousland?" Now it was her turn to feel as if she'd been struck. Trinne's mind grasped for context, skimming through bits of past conversations, searching for clues. Nothing. Where did this come from? Was this really about the sword...it couldn't be about the sword. Cousland was quiet and did what was expected of him, and usually even well beyond that. And the way he said it, absent was the dry tone she began to associate with rare attempts at humor the rogue was sometimes capable of. He was being serious. Trinne didn't realize she sat down. "I know you're angry at Alistair, but that doesn't mean...”

He raised his hand sharply and cut her train of thought. "To the void with Alistair, I know it's not his fault. This is on me. The history of six generations rests on the bottom of the lake because I lent what wasn't mine to begin with. So please tell me what should I do now."

His family. Trinne felt embarrassed that she'd forgotten. Though maybe that wasn't the best way to put it. Every day they were either running or fighting indescribable horrors. And with all the Fade business it really felt like years have passed. And she regretted that her hesitation only seemed to reaffirm something for the noble, as his green eyes hardened.

"My family, everything that they were, will disappear like the sword." He said, hands tightening around empty scabbard. "Howe will lie, and people won't speak up because we just lost Ostagar and there is more important conflict at hand. As long as Coastlands are stable and can support the war effort, then it can wait. Also, it might even be better that way, we did fall under Amaranthine's rule after all, a long time ago, so it's just back to the way it used to be." Frustration was rolling off of him in waves. "I can't let it end like this, and while I'm here I can't do anything." 

"Harvey," Trinne started softly, a little overwhelmed by the turn this conversation was taking. "We're Grey Wardens now, we took an oath..."   "Don't remind me." He shook his head. "Does a new duty make an older one obsolete now? I didn't agree to this. I didn't."

Well, that wasn't the right approach. She tried to use an argument that she thought would appease him, but this wasn't their regular dance of quips and jabs, and she was lost. What would their group do if he really left? Would he really go? Would they even manage to stop him? Would she try to stop him? Maybe it wasn't even that deep, maybe he just wanted someone to listen. "What would you do, If you could go?" She asked him apprehensively. "I don't know." Harvey trailed off. Both boots were on now, but he made no attempt to get up. "I'd find Fergus first, give him the sword, if I still had it. Travel north, help him gather the remainder of Cousland troops, rally local banns. Bryce Cousland was a fair man, there are surely those that remain loyal to the family. Then we would go after Howe, I assume, take back the castle..."

Trinne squinted at him. "This is an oddly specific plan to follow after 'I don't know'. How many times did you consider leaving?”

"A few.” Harvey confessed.

They sat together, shoulder to shoulder, so close she could almost feel the coldness of the lake still emanating from him. She sympathized, but what he wanted to accomplish was out of her field of expertise. Advice wise, if he asked her how to arc a lightning bolt to hit three darkspawn at once, she'd be more than happy to share. But right now she was grasping at straws. Finally, instead of politics, she reached towards a more basic truth.

"Nobles have their own code of honor, don't you.” She said. Trinne herself was technically nobility, but was too young when she arrived at the Circle to take away much from it. "I'm not sure if they would take kindly to a Grey Warden who shirks from their responsibilities, especially during the Blight. When it comes to credibility, I mean.” She shrugged apologetically, not to antagonize him, but because she thought that was the truth. "Just sayin'"

There was a long pause when he tried to refute her, but finally shrugged his shoulders. "They wouldn't, would they? I don't have anything to counter that.”

"I don't think so. It might even make it worse for your brother. But I haven't finished yet.” Trinne put her finger up. "They would listen to someone who helped stop the Blight, I think.���

"And how long will that take?” He responded with a sour smile. It tugged on his lips without reaching the eyes. "I know stories, I know there were blights that lasted decades, if not longer. No, Howe needs to pay before that.”

"Right now, I'm not sure you could do anything else. If it's...if it's the memory of your family you're worried about, the only thing you can do is try to do good things while carrying their name. It must count for something." Maker, why was it getting so hard to talk.

Again they sat in silence, looking at the lake. Wind finally picked up, and small waves were crashing against the stones. Trinne blinked away the burning sensation beneath the eyelids. It finally hit her what was missing from the bigger picture.

"Cousland, you are such a dumbass, you know that?? It's you, you, you. Doing everything by yourself. You'd go off looking for allies when you have a perfectly fine bunch here."

He seemed taken aback by that. "Amell, you don't owe me anything."

"Nonsense!" She cut him off. "You helped me save the Circle, and believe me when I say I don't love the place, but I wouldn't want to see it become a flaming pile of abominations either. So if you can't do your thing the proper way, we'll just have to do it our way." "That's not reassuring, we're barely...” he started. Again, she didn't let him finish. "The only thing I want to hear from you is whether you want Howe done rare or medium, because I will fry that bastard in his own bed for you, you have my word.”

"Trinne..."

She rolled her eyes. What a stubborn man.

"Cousland, listen, we will get him. I don't know where, I don't know when, but we will. Trust me on this." She paused, returning to the problem at hand. "And I'm really, really sorry about your sword. I really am. This is such a stupid thing to have happened.” She bit her lip, calculating, counting how many undead corpses she saw littering Redcliff, how many were already on the pyre the villagers erected to burn all of the remains down. She thought how many monsters might've retreated back inside the Calenhad.

"Look, we might be able to last one more night. If the blade is still wedged inside the corpse, it will just come out again tonight, wouldn't it?"

He was already shaking his head. "You're playing a very unfair game, Amell."

"What, no! I'm being completely serious. We killed most of them, right? So whatever wave comes out tonight, it can't as bad.” She paused, pursing her lips. "Unless... whatever lives inside the castle can summon more demons, and who knows how many corpses are buried at the bottom of the lake. Hmmmm.” She trailed off unhappily. Don't you just hate it when you kill your own argument.

So far Cousland's face went from doubt, skimmed confusion and was following her little tirade with an emotion she couldn't quite place.

"What, why are you looking at me like that? It's just a thought.” As his eyes lingered on her face, Trinne felt the heat invading her cheeks once more, this time for a different reason. Their defense did well last night, it wasn't a stretch they could keep Redcliff safe for a while. He didn't have to be weird about it.

Finally, the rogue awkwardly raked a hand through his hair. "Trinne I...if I said yes to something like this, I'm certain the six generations of Couslands I mentioned would rise from their ashes just to haunt me at night, my father first in line."

She huffed, arms crossed. "You're impossible to please, you know that?” "On the contrary. Duty should always be towards people, not towards things." He got up, took a deep breath and let it out, marking the end of this conversation. "We should go. And you should really get some rest." He tilted his head. "Did you know your right eye starts twitching when you're really tired?" Rude! "Well, and you have to find a change of pants because yours are soaked." She was definitely tired, because that jab wasn't even half as good as she thought it would be. "Just promise me you won't saunter off while I'm asleep, alright?" She finally caved. He nodded, but didn't comment. "We do need to figure out what to do next. Maybe it's time to visit the Redcliff castle."

Trinne yawned. "On this we both agree."

[shannaraisles]

‘Ships & Qs - Berenice Adaar/Cullen Rutherford

No takers so far for this one, so I thought why not just do one anyway? ~grins~ Gives me an excuse to show off this gorgeous artwork by @hes-per-ides of my adorable Benni Adaar again, too! Benni/Cullen is a Modern AU ‘ship - firefighter and EMH (emergency mage healer).  It’s long, so it’s under a cut - enjoy!

Who in your ship is the serial butt-slapper and who is constantly getting their beautiful butt slapped?

Benni is the butt-slapper, and it is purely because Cullen blushes like a fire engine every time she does it. In public, it’s a playful slap to the butt just to shock him into smiling at her in front of their colleagues; in more private moments, she’ll squeeze as well. Cullen would never admit it, but he really likes how brazen she is with her playful affection.

Who wants to be immortal and who wants to die before they’re old?

Interestingly, neither for neither. Benni wants to live her life to the fullest, with friends and love and experiences galore, but she knows it wouldn’t really mean anything if it never ended. For the same reason, she doesn’t want it to be cut short. She’d love to have a future where she and Cullen are elderly and embarrassingly in love in front of their grandchildren. Cullen is a little simpler - he’ll be happy living so long as she is.

Who smokes and who pulls the cigarette from between their lips every time they try to light one?

Cullen smokes, or at least he used to. As of their relationship, he has been trying to give up for a while. Benni takes the cigarette out of his mouth every damned time, regardless of his mood. She’s completely unflappable in the face of his annoyance.

Who always has cold hands and who is always warming them up for them?

Benni always has cold hands (and feet). Cullen would rather not have to warm them up at all, but if he doesn’t, she sticks her hands up his shirt and does it herself.

Who plays candy crush in important meetings and who elbows them in the ribs to make them pay attention?

Benni’s the one on her phone, playing a game or texting, during meetings, to the point where Cullen has given up elbowing her and just confiscates her phone before they go into handover or official meetings. He isn’t subtle about it either - everyone knows she can’t be trusted not to distract herself if she has her phone with her.

Who can fall asleep anywhere (and does) and who has to put them to bed?

Cullen’s the serial sleeper. Benni envies how he can just switch off and sleep anywhere, but he’s pretty much impossible to wake up once he’s settled in. She’s got used to having to haul him back to bed and tuck him in.

Who is the genius procrastinator who wings every test but still comes away with straight As, and who takes preparation and conscientious work very seriously?

If Benni could, she would never sit a test ever again. As it stands, she does the bare minimum, while Cullen crams and studies and write up revision schedules. They both get the same grades in the exams they have to take for work, but they approach it in very different ways.

Who takes their coffee black and who likes it with milk and two sugars, getting called a pussy by Person A?

When they first got together, Cullen drank his coffee black because he seemed to think that was how he was supposed to drink it. Once he tasted Benni’s cream and two sugars, however, he switched and ignores all the teasing from their coworkers because of it.

Who initially seems shady but turns out to be a cinnamon bun, and who initially seems like a cinnamon bun but turns out to be shady?

It’s Cullen who started out seeming shady. He had an attitude and issues, and then sort of melted all over her. Benni, however, is not the shady one in her family. For this context, though? Okay, yeah, she’s a shady cinnamon bun.

Who moans and talks with their mouth full whenever they eat good food, and who tells them to stfu but can’t help laughing?

It takes a while, but this is Cullen’s main method of embarrassing Benni in public. He knows perfectly well what his moans do to her, and her only recourse when he does this is to try and laugh it off or make him shut up. Or both. It never works.

Who gives the bear hugs and who is always sidling up to them and snaking their arms around their waist?

Benni’s the bear-hugger. Cullen pretended not to like it at first, but he can’t really hide the fact that there is something remarkably freeing about having a girlfriend who can completely envelop him in a hug and lift him off his feet in the same motion. He’s definitely the waist from behind hugger, combining that usually with a kiss to her shoulderblade, because he’s just a soppy romantic, really.

Who still buys juice boxes and fruit snacks to put in their lunch?

Benni. She never got juice boxes and fruit snacks when she was in her Circle boarding school, so as soon as she became an independent adult, they became a staple of her packed lunches. Cullen steals her fruit snacks and thinks she doesn’t know it’s him.

Who packs the other’s lunch and who repays them in sexual favours?

Cullen packs Benni’s lunch - for a healer, she is appalling at remembering to feed herself most of the time. He doesn’t consider the consistent sex life as repayment for something she wouldn’t do anyway, though.

Who leaves notes in the other’s lunch and who tells them they’re dumb (but secretly has a collection of every note Person A has ever written them)?

Cullen packs the lunches, so Cullen writes the notes. He also watches her face when she opens her lunch to see her expression when she reads them. Benni’s collection of those notes is not at all secret. She has a bright pink binder covered in multicolored hearts where she keeps everything even slightly related to their relationship preserved for all time.

Who unconsciously holds their breath the first time they kiss, and who pulls back and says, “Breathe…”?

Cullen was the one who forgot how to breathe. ~chuckles~ She took him by surprise a little, but he certainly warmed up to her. Once she reminded him that breathing was kind of important for his continued enjoyment.

Who gets arrested for a petty crime they committed by accident and who bails them out?

Is this really a surprise at this point? Benni is definitely the accidentally arrested one, and Cullen is absolutely the one who bails her out. Bonus points whenever it happens in the middle of the night.

Who grabs the other’s hand just as they’re getting out of bed and pulls them back under for cuddles?

Cullen, perhaps surprisingly. Benni’s the kind of person that once she’s up, she’s up, and there’s nothing she can do to stay in bed. Which is how Cullen ends up being the one who pulls her back into bed at stupid o’clock and cuddles her until she gives up and cuddles back.

Who gets mad about something unrelated to Person B and punches the wall, and who patches it up and kisses it better?

They follow their actual stereotypes with this one. Cullen has a lot of pent-up anger and frustration, and every now and then it spills over. And yes, he punches walls. Benni’s a healer, first and foremost; she’ll always kiss his boo-boos better. More importantly, she’ll be right there to help him through what caused the injury in the first place.

Who has the plain black phone case and who ordered one with cat ears off ebay?

Ah, now ... Cullen may have ordered the one with cat ears off ebay, but it was a present for Benni. And once he did that, he should have known his plain case wasn’t going to stay plain for long. She bought glittery pens and decorated it while he was sleeping.

Who likes to drive with the music blaring and who is too shy to sing along?

Benni can’t drive, so it’s always Cullen behind the wheel. But she’s the one who turns the music up and sings along at the top of her lungs, while he tries to simultaneously enjoy her unashamed performance and pretend he isn’t in the same car.

Who’s the fantastic kisser and who has the beautiful eyes?

Neither one of them would give me a straight answer for this one, so I’m going to go with both, on both sides.

Who has the sunshine smile and who has the seductive gaze?

Benni‘s definitely got the sunshine smile, and she’s very free with it. She likes to see people smiling, and the best way to do that is to smile herself. And then Cullen will look at her like that, and she gets adorably flustered for about five seconds before dragging him off to a broom closet.

Who gets offended by the intensity of the other’s crush on a celebrity?

Cullen! He knows it’s just a crush, he knows there’s no chance of Benni ever meeting Alistair Theirin, poster boy of the Grey Wardens, but he still gets mildly offended when he overhears her gushing with her friends about him.

Who is embarrassed that they have to wear glasses sometimes and who wants them to wear them in bed?

Cullen is so embarrassed by needing to wear glasses on occasion that he managed to keep it a secret from Benni for quite some time. He stopped being embarrassed about it when he forgot to take them off one afternoon, and wasn’t allowed out of bed until the following evening.

Who cheats on the other then immediately begs for their forgiveness?

Neither one would ever cheat. It’s just not in their natures to be able to do that to someone they love.

Who is the jealous one and asks why the other was being so flirty all night, and who is oblivious to their own charms?

This one depends on the moods they’re in going into the evening. Jealousy only really comes into play when one of them is feeling insecure about something, and it’s fairly easily talked out. However, Benni is the one who seems utterly oblivious to her own charms, which Cullen finds adorable. She’s 6′7″ of curvy Qunari goddess, and she has no idea why horny people flock to her.

Who orders a milkshake with their food and who orders a soda?

It took a bit of coaxing, but Benni finally managed to talk Cullen into enjoying his food rather than just consuming it. Which is why he gets the chocolate milkshake and she gets the soda, because he deserves to have something innocently enjoyable, dammit!

Who runs their battery down to 1% and who feels the need to charge theirs at 80%?

You know, I think Cullen’s the one who always has his charger with him and never uses it? Whereas Benni is never down to anything past 49% on her battery at all times. What can I say, she’s obsessive about being contactable.

Who has the excellent singing voice and is always singing around the house (and for Person B), but has no interest in going professional?

Cullen! Absolutely Cullen. And Benni loves it. It started with singing in the shower, then he started singing to himself while he was cleaning, then singing along with the radio while they were cooking. It usually turns into dancing and laughing in the kitchen, but she adores his singing.

Who would rather be barefoot if the setting is appropriate, and who has the huge and spectacular shoe collection (possibly also socks)?

To be honest, if Benni could go naked everywhere, she would. She’s not that fussed on clothes unless they’re spectacular, and she is incredibly comfortable in her own skin. And then there’s Cullen, who not only has a pair of shoes for every occasion, but probably has underwear specifically for every day of the week, too.

Who takes their liquor on the rocks and who likes it neat?

Cullen’s a drink it neat kind of guy. Benni, on the other hand, likes to not be hungover, so she’s all about the ice and lots of it.

And I learned a lot about them doing this!

[demoiselledefortune]

Dragon Age Inquisition final play-through session!

So finished Trespasser

Overall that's a pretty amazing ending. I'm not sure if it's as interesting if you're not playing a Lavellan/romancing Solas; but it's densely packed with lores and things that'd make a replay (I mean I was spoiled enough to view Solas with hefty dose of suspicion from the start, and I did know he was an immortal of some kind from the beginning; and then got more spoilers as I progressed in the game -- but I expect there's still a whole lot of things to catch better now that I have full context). Trespasser is very well structured and paced overall, between the interludes in the gorgeous gardens of the Winter Palace (although I wish we had better to do in there that those silly and rather frustrating quests), and coursing through the Eluvian (which in itself is great, still allows a few fun sidequests; and lots of great lore drops). The political mess of a situation is a pretty logical follow up from the rest of Inquisition, and that the main choice in the end is deciding the future of the fate of the Inquisition in the political landscape is something I appreciate. I'd have liked if the end choices weren't quite as binary, but I guess that's simpler and ok, it's not like we have that many options. The Viddasala makes a decent minor villain; and of course the whole thing turns the whole Inquisition as an awesome set up to Solas as the kind top tier antagonist that I would put asides to my favourite video game villains. And hey, we even get a dragon fight! Except for once, we had an option of not killing her, which I took because I like getting an option not kill stuff (even though I of course slaughtered eagerly all 10 optional dragons the game provided before -- :3) which resulted in a pretty Hawk-esque fight by which I mean I ended up with all three of my companions down while I was running around trying to figure out how to manage to release the creature; which made for a very fun epic experience in a way that I seldom got from big boss fights in Inquisition apart from that. (I did solo fights due to companion death with Hawk on the first two dragon battles of DA2. Which ended up as good prep for the Arishok fight :3) The end game mechanic of your Mark running out of control, forcing you to release it at close interval was also a pretty great gameplay experience to make the last battles interesting and convey viscerally how dire this shit on your body is becoming...  and almost makes up for how shitty the focus mechanics were overall. That we don't get a third round of discussions with the Companions before the last time in the Eluvians was a bit disappointing though. I guess they kinda ran out of material to discussion. It's also a bit odd that they drop us off at the very end to be solo before meeting Solas without a last framing discussion. The way they did banter spots to trigger though was great. (and a huge improvement on the way banter worked in Inquisition). In term of roleplay my character was the most shaken by the reveal of the Evanuris as False Gods. I always saw her as someone with a huge mystical bend, although not necessarily something that affected her choices a whole lot (besides, say, the Well of Mythal) and someone who values genuineness a lot so that reveal turning out around false premises hit hard; and trying to rebuild a sense of identity and view of the world out of that is going to take her time. She's not even the sort of Dalish who is the most focused on the past (obviously it's important, because it's one of the baseline thing that the Dalish care about; but it's not her main focus compared to trying to work with people, building consensus and exchanging viewpoint. My Lavellan is a diplomat and a community organizer at heart.) The reveal from Solas in contrast was less shattering. She'd figure out that Solas had to be involved somehow with the Fen'Harel organization (from the Vallaslin bit, especially) but expecting him to actually be Fen'Harel was a bit too huge a leap to make on her own... yet something that fell into place when it came and the feeling of catharsis of finally knowing what the fuck was up with him stronger than the feeling of betrayal. In the end I think she had a sense that nothing he could turn out to be would surprise her. She was saddened, bitterly disappointed, horrified; but she never felt like the person she'd fallen in love with wasn't the person in front of her, and she's not giving up on him. She kept the Inquisition as the Divine's guard, of course she did. As I said after Solas left she was sure something bad was coming, and knowing more about exactly what that something bad was only cemented that. And of course, the Inquisition is what she has left, in term of something built up. She has too much emotionally invested in it to discard it when the foundation of her world believes are shaken this way. As far as the other characters go: - Vivienne wasn't the person my character ever got along the best with; and while the epilogue frames her as a big pain in the ass, I think Ireya actually approves of it... what she held the most against Vivienne was always that instead of building herself up as a leader by gathering support from like-minded mages, she'd tried to grasp it parasitically from others in power, and it seems she finally started to do otherwise. Perhaps it's not so bad either for the future of the mages for there to exist multiple competing models... (well it also could result in disaster but what can you do) - I don't have much to say about Blackwall, he was one of my least favourite character and probably mostly for shallow reasons (I never got over that he's such an unattractive character for a romanceable option). His story is interesting yet unsatisfying in term of story integration. My character does have a higher opinion of him than I do and she was happy to see him fulfilling his purpose in the Wardens under his true identity in a way that made him feel better. - Ireya never felt very close to Cullen, but she always respected and relied on him a lot; and is happy to see him continue to work in the Inquisition as well as continuing to work on helping out Templars. - In a way my character and Varric are very similar people (in term of being caretaker at heart) that nonetheless never properly connect (they work on a very different register and of course Varric's feeling of awe at the Herald even though he works at it is a barrier). Still a good friend. I do love seeing him becoming the Viscount of Kirkwall (and annoying poor Bran) which I'm sure will make him happier (he was so depressed during Inquisition). - She always kept a little bit wary and careful with Cole while still valuing him a whole lot, except towards the end, he ended up being the only source of input on Solas' outlook and she's going to miss that. She hopes he will be able to help, somehow. - Iron Bull always impressed me with his emotional intelligence and savviness. He was never someone to underestimate and also someone who brings a lot of things to a group which Ireya valued a lot. Keeping the Chargers alive is a very rewarding choice in term of what that means for Bull's outlook (as well as the Chargers themselves being around) even though I expect you'd only see the difference at the very ending. My character also ended up very invested in his relationship with Dorian, and delighted to see what it brings to the both of them. - It was a joy to realise that Sera has grown up a lot, and reacts with much more tact and sensitivity (in contrast to how she was right after the Temple of Mythal/Vallaslin removal in the main game) when my character felt very shaken about the Evanuris reveal; as well as touched to see they continued being very good friends with the offer of getting into the Friends of Jenny. Keep on being awesome, Sera! - My character started being a bit in awe of Lelianna (she was something of a Fifth Blight stories fangirl XD) but also distrusting her emotional turmoil. She feels very proud of having helped her find an emotional peace once more, and in that context her becoming the Divine is something she's glad of. - While she was sometimes infuriating, Cassandra was always someone whose honesty and willingness to criticise herself earned great respect from Ireya. She was also very fun to tease and someone to bond over being sappy sappy romantic. A very good friend, and I'm glad she's rebuilding the Seekers into something better. - Dorian wears his heart on his sleeve and was a great friend. His ending gives my character great hope for the future. - Josephine was probably Ireya's best friend in the Inquisition or at least the one she felt was the most of the same wavelength, and she's glad to see her fulfil her ambition for her family; but sad to see her go far away. I also really liked Josephine's outburst towards the end of Trespasser, I don't agree with all the points she makes in term of having doubts about the kind of organisation the Inquisition is becoming, yet having some kind of doubts about it is warranted and to have Josephine work her role as moral centre by being worried about it worked very well for me. Overall Inquisition is a bit... too spread out with a lot of things; but still a very entertaining experience as a game!

[theconfusedartist]

DRAGON AGE

Alright, so I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while, now that I’ve gotten back into dragon age origins and since I’m about to start doing a shit ton of fanart and fic simply bc I’m getting back in the swing of it, I figure I might as well start actually making a post about them, rather then just making a one-off post and talking about them without out any context lol.

Ok so, in this AU that I’m working on, Duncan realized that, hey, maybe only one recruit for like the end of the world in his order of grey wardens, is not the best idea, and then goes on to recruit all of the characters from the origins.

So, he swings by Orzammar first, getting Brosca and Aeducan. In this au, the name of my Brosca is Tsoyo and the Aeducan is Sariah. I’m gonna post pictures of every one of my warden later, but for now, I’m just gonna say who they are. Tsoyo and Sariah knew each other before, since Seriah hired Tsoyo’s...services in the past. Seriah doesn’t really think much of the casteless, but she does like that they can do some dirty work for her and go basically undetected for it. So, in terms of time, Tsoyo goes to the proving and wins, just like in the original, and Duncan recruits her, but in this, Duncan stuck around a little longer as the Aeducan family still had business with him and he needed to go to the deep roads to make sure that this was a real blight and I mean, hey, what better way to test the new recruit right? 

So, while Duncan is getting Tsoyo ready for what’s to come, Seriah goes to the new provings that takes place as they redid it because they couldn’t fathom that a casteless could ever win and this doubled as them holding it in honor for the Seriah getting her new post as a commander. Seriah didn’t really rise to Bhelen’s bait and didn’t go after him like Bhelen had hoped, even though she realized that there was no way that the mercenaries could’ve gotten the ring unless it was from Trian. It was quite the surprise to see her brother, dead in front of her and her father and Bhelen walking in and being accused of his death. 

She gets sentenced to walk the deep roads and meets up with Duncan and Tsoyo and from there they scout for a bit before going off to the circle. Because I mean, hey, one mage is equivalent to ten soldiers, right? 

So, Duncan gets there, with Tsoyo and Seriah in tow who are really uncomfortable being around each other as they’ve had a less than clean relationship in the past (murder, blackmail, and other stuff). Duncan gets to the tower for recruits and in this au, both ‘Surana’ and Amell are there. I’ll explain why I put the ‘’ around Surana in a minute. 

So, Amell, who’s first name is Daylen, Jowan, and ‘Surana’, who’s first name is Acici, are all there. Jowan is going through with his little plot to escape the circle and Acici has literally just had her harrowing, a few nights ago before Duncan had gotten there. Daylen has his harrowing the night before Duncan arrives to the tower and his goes very...differently. 

I’ll go into this a LOT more in a second reblog, since I want to go into everyone’s backstory in a bit, person by person, with pictures, but since I’m going with the abridged version, I’ll just put it as, Acici had the normal harrowing that we get in the game, give or take, and Daylen thought it was fun to fuck around with things that he shouldn’t. So, Duncan has his eye on the both of them and Acici, being the actual loyal friend goes around bolstering her image and getting the rod of fire, killing spiders and charming the old man to sign the form for her. She had him sign the form, but then figured that if she curried favor with as many senior enchanters as possible, then it would probably be good for her in the long run. 

As for Daylen, well, he’s sitting there like, ‘why do we have to get dragged down with Jowan?’ and goes to Senior Enchanter Irving and tells him about it. Sure, he feels bad about it, but the deal was this: if he goes along with this plan, then he and Acici have to be pardoned and get off scot free for helping with taking down Lily and catching Jowan in the act. Irving agrees and he plays double agent. And well you know how that song and dance goes, Jowan gets away, and the others are left holding the bag. Irving tries to pacify Gregoir, but he hates mages so Duncan conscripts them both into the order. Meanwhile, Tsoyo and Seriah are just really confused with all the magic bullshit going on. And then there were four recruits. 

After that, Duncan and the four recruits go to Highever, to recruit Ser Gilmore because I guess Duncan wanted a basic ass bitch (idk, I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t finished the human noble to this day. I’m still trying to, but I really didn’t see any appeal in Gilmore like that, he seemed like someone good to have as a second, but not someone you’d send to kill an archdemon when there’s only two grey wardens left) and Cousland, or better known as Luna the heartbreaker, isn’t really interested in the wardens or anything. I mean why would she be? Duncan is fine and all, but she gets to rule over a castle by herself, why the hell would she want to leave? But then, it’s not really up to her when mostly everyone gets killed anyways. So, at this point we have five recruits, good job Duncan!

Their next stop is (drumroll please) DENERIM! (wasn’t expecting that were you?)

Duncan was like, shit, lemme go and get Adaia, at least that way I know that I can have someone who knows what the score is and she can help the others and Alistair as someone who’s been around the bend and seen some shit. Only, that’s not what happens, obviously because Adaia was killed by humans a while back, but he is just in time to witness a double wedding and get threatened by a one of the brides (lol). And also see them all get carried off to get raped by the arl’s son and his guards. Luna is cross, but like ‘hey, shouldn’t we do something about this?’. Tsoyo is a bit surprised because she thought that elves were all a bunch of fig eating floofies that just lived in happiness, not squalor and fear of death, so she seconds it. Acici is ready to murder Duncan when he says that they can’t get involved (for that same reason that ‘Surana’ is like that) and hands a sword to Nelaros and Soris. Go get ‘em boys!

And now the estate is running with blood, Nelaros is dead, Shianni is traumatized, one of the bridesmaids is dead, and Tabris, Sauda the bride, has literally learned all the different ways to kill over seventy men with a dagger and how quickly rat posion kills three adult human men. Sauda, not willing to let Soris get hauled off, says that it was all her doing. Which...isn’t really an exaggeration, she tore into those fuckers like she was getting paid to do it, Soris gave back up with his crossbow, but she was very eager to spill blood for the kidnapping of her, the others and Nelaros’ death. Also Vaughn was killed, as was his friends. Horrifically. 

And now we have six recruits!! Way to go Duncan, you always find the lively ones!

This recruit wasn’t planned, as Duncan was planning to cut through the Brecilian forest to save some time, and came across two elves that are just heavily tainted. That’s right, in this au, Tamlen lives. So Mahariel, Yeva, and Tamlen are just sick as fuck, but still alive so Marethari is like, ‘let’s get a fucking move on’ and Duncan conscripts them, when they both try to weasel their way out of it. But what can you do? At least Tamlen isn’t dead (a split second decision, I’m not gonna lie). So, Duncan comes to Ostagar with seven new recruits and most of them just....do not give a damn about the king (lolololol get fuckin’ rekt Calian). They go into the wilds, save a few mabaris (mabari? mabaris?) with some wild flowers, Tsoyo gets a big gay crush on Morrigan, then they come back and do shots with the darkspawn blood in the joining. Daveth and Jory die(wah wah) but everyone else makes it out alive (Tamlen...barely made it. Bitch nearly pulled a Daveth) and then they were sent to the tower. 

The reason for them all being sent to the tower was simple. Cailan realized that a lot of the new recruits just did not give a fuck about the crown or his authority or was in grieving over their lost loved ones, and was like ‘hey, that way there’s no way that the tower ISN’T going to be lit and I don’t have to worry about them on the field’). And then he died. Duncan didn’t die tho, are you fucking kidding me? The leader of the grey wardens? Dying? I don’t fucking think so. He makes it out, but it’s a little after the battle and he makes it far enough into the wilds that Flemeth saves him. The other wardens have already left with Morrigan and they’re on their way to Lothering, but Duncan had to stay with Flemeth for a while due to the severity of his wounds and how long they would take to heal, even with magic. 

Duncan joins up with the other grey wardens around the time that they get captured by Anora’s captors (I have to play to see who would get captured or not, as most of these characters are fucking warriors and some of them in their own personal runs might actually be able to take them down where others can’t) and I haven’t decided what happens at that point. 

That’s all that I have right now, but once I get some character portraits up, I’ll update this a bit more.