#dorian the actual haunted office

[the-haunted-office]

These two guys show up and Dorian flips its roof. But in what way?

[greypetrel]

I was gleefully telling my friend about you and showing her your art (she's super into LOTR so I was trying to find those, but got in the wrong tag🤣) and found/shared your Vespa comic. We had a good laugh and she said: "Wait till someone tells them about ROLLER COASTER" and I immediately came over here. WHAT IF someone tells Dorian and Aisling about ROLLER COASTER?? 🤣🤣🤣

Forgive me if it took too long, but this made me laugh so much that I HAD TO draw something.

Also: I'm leaving you the correct tag down here, but the Dark Lady one is "aisling the dark lady AU". You can find all my aus and tags in the character masterpost!

They'd LOVE the idea, of course. A little too much. They. Not most people around them.

They'll ignore Josephine begging them to please, PLEASE reconsider, think of your reputation, and rush to the Undercroft. Dagna will be over the moon with the plan, of course. Here's the blueprint, and under the cut some other details:

They found plenty of materials to build it in the Exalted Planes. Someone will have to dispose of all that rubbish after the war ended, right?

"Can't you build it in the Exalted Planes?" "But Josie, if we build it there, how would we experiment on gravity? We'll need to travel there and you see, that would be a great bother and will hinder our research. Also if we have it here, it would improve the moral of the troops greatly! :D"

Dorian's calculations were right. Solas discovered it with the first trial run. Not that any of the -very elated- science bros knew, but he actually started to think that maybe the Veil wasn't that bad of an idea, right there and then. Because can you imagine them WITHOUT THE VEIL? CAN YOU? Thedas wouldn't survive.

In order to make Josie happy, they'll come up with other rides to install around Skyhold:

Teacups will be installed in the upper courtyard. Except they're still a scientific experiment on Centrifugal Force, so they're fast. So fast that the game promises a free foal to everyone who manages not to puke on them. Since the foal is one of Little Brother's, Aisling horse (he made a name for himself in the Western Approach, biting on Venatori's butts, and is generally a prick), the excessive speed is actually considered a good thing. So nobody will win a foal of that horse or will have to tell Aisling that her beloved horse is an asshole.

Cullen's tower will be turned into a haunted house (thanks @ndostairlyrium for the idea). He'll actually contribute in painting the place, and will say that it's very useful to dissuade people to come looking for him if the report isn't REALLY important. "Aren't you scared, tho?" "Please, I was a commanding officer in Kirkwall."

Whack-a-mole in the Tavern's courtyard. The Iron Bull and Cassandra monopolize it and they're so-called nemeses. One day, then, the TRAGEDY: a mysterious person beat their record. No one knows who they are, there's a whole weekend of them playing Sherlock Holmes interrogating everyone around the Keep. (it's Krem.)

Josephine needed one joy, or ONE THING that she can use to sell the Inquisitor to the aristocracy. So Aisling organised something cute and nice for nobles to see and participate in. With horses! She named one of the horses Josephine! Josephine is moved, and from how Aisling describes it, calling it "giostra" because she heard the term from Dorian in vernacular Tevene and can't remember it in Trade for the sake of her, Josie thinks it's a carousel.

It's actually something better, and Josie loves it. (In Italian, "giostra" means a carousel, and also what happens in the video)

(Aisling is the unbeated championess. It's not that people let her win, is that she just can't be beated.)

One day, Dorian will eventually use all the data to calculate how much force they will need on the roller coaster to send a cart into orbit. Aisling will read his notes and find a way to propel the cart strong enough to actually do it.

Sera greatly approves.

[foxedthecards]

❛  don't be afraid. i'm a friend.  ❜

Dorian (the actual Office) to Jonas!

@the-haunted-office

(Aw yiss I was hoping to get to rp with Dorian!)

Jonas had been walking through this goddamn maze of an office building for at LEAST an hour now trying to find someone, anyone to talk to. Why? Well he needed to know where he was expected to be of course. He was here to do his magic thing, throw some cards and pigeons around, get paid and go find a bar afterwards.

He'd knocked on just about every door and rattled the knobs and peered through windows but all he could see was...more empty offices. Where the fuck was everyone? Probably gathered expectantly somewhere in some break room waiting on him probably?

This place was so...empty. And quiet? Except for the faint annoying buzz of overhead florescent lights of course. In fact the prevalent silence and emptiness had started putting him on edge because it was a bit creepy.

So when a voice suddenly spoke out of nowhere, he made a noise that was probably the closest possible human vocalization of a keyboard smash and violently windmilled backwards straight into a copier machine.

CRASH!

Papers drifted to the ground as he grabbed at the nearest cubicle wall and pulled himself back to his feet. He winced and rubbed his back. " Ow fucccckkkk! " he moaned and looked around to see who had spoken.

No one was there.

" Uh. Hello? " he said.

[buttsonthebeach]

can you please, please elaborate on the AT AU? I am highly intrigued.

I SURE CAN! Thank you for asking! I never got past the stage of researching the real life Appalachian Trail, some general worldbuilding, and writing the first few paragraphs. Some snippets of worldbuilding include: -First chapter is called Trailhead, chapters in between were going to be different named for different mile markers and major stopping points on the route (Skyhold, etc), last chapter is called Trespasser because DUH (I was terribly pleased with myself when I realized how well that worked)

- Ellana is essentially in the forestry service/fish and game/national parks service - I hadn't settled on an exact job title or done my full research on it yet. This is my favorite career path for her in modern AUs though. She 100%, 10/10 could never work in an office.

- She is hiking the trail after her parents' death in an accident. It was something she'd always wanted to do with them. (She has a better/stronger relationship with her parents in this AU, partially because she is much older when they die.)

- Different DA:I characters' reasons for hiking the trail were, according to my notes:

Varric is looking for material for a new book

Bull is using this as an opportunity to gather intel

They meet up with Vivienne at the halfway point, there to have an elegant party to meet up with the high rollers, but she does hike with them for a while

Blackwall is on a journey of atonement, they discover. He is planting trees for the people he killed.

Cullen just got out of the military and is also trying to find/make peace with himself

Cole is the supposed spirit that haunts the trail (some people call him a demon, others credit him with saving their lives. He used to kill hikers who were trapped as a parallel to the White Spire)

Sera… ended up there just because??

Cassandra is looking for answers after the death of Divine Justinia and for what her new purpose is. So is Leliana. Josephine has been dragged along and is making the best of it. Divine Justinia herself loved to hike the trail, which has its origins as a pilgrim’s path (except Solas totally snarks that it’s an older, Elvhen tradition)

Dorian is hiding out from his parents after their huge fight. He figures this is the last place they would look for him. He also wants to honor Felix, who recently died, because they had talked about doing this together.

Divine Justinia died at Haven after being called there on some urgent business about an artifact. The artifact was stolen and it is unclear who was behind her death. There was a massive manhunt and talk of a new Inquisition but nothing came of it. This was a year ago. The artifact is Solas’s orb, and he is actually on the trail looking for it because his plan is the same as usual because he is the worst.

- The orb was going to end up being not on the trail, but in the national park/nature reserve/whatever where Ellana worked, and she was going to get called in to deal with a trespasser who would of course be Solas. I had no idea where it was going after that!

...so yeah, the idea was essentially a looser version of DA:I's plot where everyone is hiking together and Corypheus/the Anchor aren't really involved. That was as far as I got!

[confuzing]

tell us more about those three chapters of the story you wrote in those notebooks you still have :3

Fun fact, I drew a revised map for this idea recently. It haunts me still. (I'm writing all this without looking at my notebooks so I'm gonna be making up a lot of names.)

But it was a fairly standard vaguely medieval fantasy setting with a rigid magic system that was largely inaccessible without formal magic training.

By the way by 'three chapters' I meant an entire story outline, so textwall incoming.

Our 'main character'- he's a pretty blank slate, as is evident by the fact that I can't remember his name. Let's call him Blondie- is a farmboy of mild temperament who vaguely wishes he could go do something cool. He's heard rumors of a Dark Lord trying to take over the neighboring kingdom to the north, but well, that's way up north...

So anyway that very first chapter starts off with a prototype steam-powered piece of farm equipment exploding and almost killing Blondie.

He's saved by a Healer named Maris who happens to be heading back home to Neighboring Kingdom and asked if he wants to tag along with her. (We find out later Maris maybe had to do a teeny tiny bit of necromancy to keep Blondie alive but that depends on your definition of necromancy, it's fine really. Probably.)

So they go off and meet some other colorful characters, including an elf boyfriend for Blondie because I had just started read Tolkien around this time and was struck by the Sublime Inherent Melancholy of romantic relationships between people with vastly different lifespans. Elf Boyfriend was named Zac because he was Super Cool.

Ok, so, the initial idea features a third act plot twist that I'm pretty sure wouldn't actually work, wherein Blondie thinks until comically late in the game that they're going to fight this Dark Lord when that's not what everyone else is doing at all.

Let me explain, the mysterious Dark Lord is actually a guy called Lord Dorian D'arke (yes really). Dorian is a gentle himbo with a degree in Magical Engineering and he's not trying to overthrow anything, he's running for office. (He maybe looks like Sephiroth For Reasons)

Neighboring Kingdom has a Naboo-esque system where they elect their monarchs. Dorian is pretty popular with the people but has zero PR team, which is why his wife, Maris, (PLOT TWIST) is hurrying home from a trip abroad.

Anyway, they trick Dorian's opponent into outing himself as the Real Bad Guy, Dorian gets elected and then I have a whole other notebook about their happily ever afters.

(I couldn't work it in to the plot summary, but the most 11 year old thing about this story was that Magic users get Cool Eye Colors, so Maris had Purple eyes and Dorian's were Silver. Sick right?)

[himbo-the-clown]

Okay I've just finished the introduction (I've got the B&N "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" copy with an introduction by Christopher and Barbara Roden) and I already know so much more about Arthur Conan Doyle and also just general stuff.

- Apparently in the 2008 survey where they found out 58% of Brits thought Sherlock Holmes was a historical figure, 23% also thought Winston Churchill was fictional?? Makes me wonder how many Americans think some of the older or more "mythological" presidents were fictional...

- ACD apparently said his marriage to his wife improved his "imagination" and "range of expression" which is cute!

- He decided to write a detective story because he loved Monsieur Lecoq and C. Auguste Dupin so much, but iirc he also has Sherlock dismiss them as like...bad detectives. So good to know I'm well within tradition to have Beaumont know who Sherlock Holmes is and hate him with a passion

- Sherlock Holmes was based on one of his med school teachers?? There's a whole quote from ACD himself about it, it's pretty interesting!

- Watson's name was originally gonna be Ormond Sacker

- ACD got a bunch of rejections for A Study in Scarlet (the first SH story) including one publisher who said it was "both too short and too long" and one who straight up returned it without reading it 2 months later. The people who did publish it actually waited a year to publish it because "the market [was] flooded [that year] with cheap fiction." They gave him £25 for the copyright

- He wasn't going to write more Sherlock Holmes, but it had some success in America so he was taken out to eat by an agent. Oscar Wilde was there too. They were both asked to write something for the guy's magazine, and Wilde wrote Dorian Gray and ACD wrote the Sign of the Four

- Because he wasn't planning to write more stories after A Study in Scarlet, there's a bunch of continuity errors between it and the other stories because he didn't actually start fleshing Holmes and Watson out into real characters until the Sign of the Four

- Apparently when he was writing the early stories ACD didn't actually know that much about the layout of London? So he got all his info from a post office map?

- I feel like most people know ACD was a doctor (hence Watson being a doctor, as his self insert character) but apparently he was... Incredibly unsuccessful? Like really really unsuccessful. Which he said was "ideal" because it meant he could focus on writing while sitting in his empty office. Literally no one went to him when he opened his practice in London apparently. Also he allegedly got his own practice's address wrong in his memoirs so... That's something. Mood tbh.

- He wrote to his mother about killing Sherlock because he didn't wanna write more stories and distract himself from his true passion for writing historical novels, but she instead gave him a new plot to write (The Cooper Beeches)

- For some reason when the magazine he wrote for kept asking him for more SH stories he just....wouldn't say no? Instead he kept trying to find ways to get them to drop him? Which included asking for roughly 20x as much as he'd been payed for his other stories. But it backfired cause they agreed to pay him it

- He got legit hate mail for killing off Sherlock Holmes and allegedly even Queen Victoria was "not amused"

- After killing Sherlock, he heard about a legendary big black dog that haunted people in the country, and he decided to write the Hound of the Baskervilles. When he brought it up to his editor he said he could either do it at his usual wages with a random character or do it for around 4x as much as the last pay rise he'd asked for (when trying to get them to drop him) as a Sherlock Holmes story

This isn't really a bullet point but they also pointed out that one of the appeals of SH stories is that you know no matter what it'll all turn out well, and that's something I definitely wanna carry over with Beaumont Lockwood. I love stories where you know everything will be okay in the end!

[lawrencedienerthings]

Nicolais: The ugly metaphor at the heart of George Floyd’s murder

get headlines https://thecherrycreeknews.com

As a white male and conservative columnist, the easiest thing for me to do during our country’s current unrest would be to remain silent. In the past, my efforts to address racial divisions have led black politicians to accuse me of gerrymandering, made me a target for partisan operatives on social media and have been taken out of context by left-leaning publications.

Against that history, engaging again makes me uncomfortable. But the discomfort concordant with silence would be unlivable.

Nothing I feel – the anxiety that I may be misquoted or worry that I’ll be doxed by vengeful extremists, my elevated heart rate or subtle nausea, not even a slight shortness of breath – compares to the discomfort African-American protesters across the country, and black men in particular, have made clear they feel every time they come into contact with law enforcement.

Mario Nicolais

And I have never felt anything that could compare to the terror George Floyd must have endured during the eight minutes and 46 seconds  it took four police officers to kill him.

Watching that video, I am haunted by the indifference displayed by Derek Chauvin as he casually ended a life. With his left hand stuck in a pants pocket and donning an apathetic facial expression, Chauvin never showed the slightest concern for Floyd’s desperate pleas.

In fact, the only time Chauvin reacted in any fashion was to bystanders shouting at him, lending their voices to the one that had already failed an unconscious Floyd. In that moment Chauvin’s eyes narrowed, his jaw-jutted forward and anger rose within him as he reached for a canister of Mace. If another officer had not stepped between them, Chauvin certainly would have attacked them.

As awful as it is to watch Floyd die, it is the metaphor within that buckles me over time and again. Derek Chauvin is the Dorian Gray-esque picture of silent white America.

Staying quiet, due to fear or discomfort, is indifference to the knee on the neck that systematic racism has placed on black America. African Americans comprise 13.4% of the U.S. population, but represented at least 23.6% of people shot and killed by police in 2019. Given that the race of another 19.3% of those shot is “unknown,” the actual percentage is certain to be substantially higher.

READ: Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

Those statistics do not include people who died in custody through other means of lethal force. They will not include George Floyd. It is reasonable to assume the disparity would be equal, if not greater, for such violence against black men and women in those circumstances.

I highlight the data behind this inequity for several reasons. First and foremost, it gives data-driven support to the desperate pleas of a community begging for its life. Second, it highlights the cost of societal indifference by white Americans. 

Of course, it is utterly inappropriate for me or any white person to tell black men or women how to feel, what to do or how to make their voices heard. But the truth is, in our democratic society, they cannot do it alone. 

Put another way, 13.4% of the population acting without support is no more able to change the system than a handcuffed man pinned face-down is able to comply with a directive to “get up, get in the car.” Black Americans do not need white saviors, but they do need the support of white allies willing to follow their lead.

The need for allies will become particularly important to counter the many Americans who will instead choose to complete the Chauvin metaphor. Faced with growing protest from bystanders no longer willing to be silent, the anger will well up within them and they will erupt as they reach for their metaphorical – and sometimes literal – Mace and attempt to meet dissent with violence. 

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Most prominent among those Americans whose face is reflected in the video of Chauvin reaching for his hip holster is President Donald Trump. His administration’s decision to teargas peaceful protesters so they could clear the background for a photo op at a church where he was unwelcome is only eclipsed by Trump’s craven threat to use the U.S. military against its own citizens.

So while I understand and empathize with protesters, it is my fervent hope that they will not fall silent when the most important moments yet to come happen. I pray that they show up to legislative hearings and polling places to demand justice even more loudly than they have in our streets over the past few weeks.

As Atlanta artist and activist Killer Mike summarized, now is the time “to plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize” against public officials like Trump who glorify division and violence and buttress the systems choking the life out of black Americans.

It will not be comfortable and it will require steadfast commitment to the often monotonous work of democracy. But as the murder of George Floyd has made clear, silence and indifference are no longer an option.

Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care, and public policy. Follow him on Twitter: @MarioNicolaiEsq

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggested writers and more to opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Nicolais: The ugly metaphor at the heart of George Floyd’s murder

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[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [13]

“Behavioral training or exam?” The hulking mass of a person says, barely glancing up as Dorian enters the front room of the office.

“Pardon?” Dorian blinks, setting down Archimedes onto the floor.

“You’re not here for grooming,” The man says, looking at something in his hands behind the counter - probably texting - “Hairless cats don’t really need grooming. So it’s either behavioral training or some kind of physical exam or something.”

“I was actually here to see if I need to make an appointment,” Dorian says, “And to find out more about this business. I don’t just trust my cat to anyone.”

Before either of them can say anything further, the entryway door chimes open and Dorian turns to see a harried looking man with no less than three bags awkwardly struggling to hold the door open as a parade of dogs trots in.

Once the mass of dogs has entered the building, the man follows suit, awkwardly and carefully lowering the tote bags hanging off his shoulders to the floor to release even more dogs.

“Rutherford,” The man behind the desk says as the blonde man with the slightly dazed and frazzled look that can only come from managing too many things at once walks past him and opens the door to what Dorian assumes is the main working offices of the veterinary practice.

“Bull,” Rutherford nods back, clearly moving on auto pilot as he gestures the dogs in.

“You’re missing two,” The receptionist - apparently a man named Bull says.

“Maxwell’s facetiming his dogs in my car,” Rutherford answers, gently nudging a small pug into walking towards the doors with the tip of his shoe, “I’ll get them after this lot is sorted.”

“I figured,” Bull says, “You’re still missing two.”

Dorian stares at Rutherford. As if this - this pack wasn’t enough?

Rutherford suddenly starts counting off on his fingers and muttering before blanching in the realization that he, most likely, has forgotten two.

“I left them at Evelyn’s house,” Rutherford gasps, and then, blinking - stares at Dorian and then curls in a little on himself. “I’m sorry - was I interrupting?”

“I was just trying to make an appointment,” Dorian says, “Don’t mind me.”

Rutherford blinks, frowning and glances at Bull, “Are we supposed to be making appointments now?”

“He’s new,” Bull says, “No, you do not need an appointment. Cool it, Rutherford and get your other dogs.”

Suddenly the sound of something hissing and spitting comes from the depths of the office, made clear by the echoing walls and the fact that Rutherford is still holding the heavy door open.

“Sera’s lizard has a tooth ache,” Bull says by way of explanation.

Moments later a woman’s voice is heard yelling, “No! No more Binky for you! No more Binky until you behave! You are being very naughty Monoxide! Very naughty! You are being a bad example for Carbon and I will not have that in my office!”

“So,” Dorian turns to look back to Bull, “Behavioral or exam?”

-

“Right, almost forgot - don’t freak out but my house is haunted. You want a beer?”

“Your what is haunted?” Krem gapes turning towards Skinner as if she can provide a better explanation.

Skinner shrugs, shoulders past him and follows Bull into his house.

“My house Aclassi,” Bull calls from deeper inside, “I know you grew up poor as shit but I know you know what a house is.”

“I think he’s more hung up on the fact that you call it haunted,” Varric says, waving at Krem from where he’s seated in front of Bull’s TV. It looks like most of Bull’s things are unpacked. Cullen and Dorian are working on setting up his TV and his multiple electronic devices that hook up to it.

“How do you know it’s haunted?” Krem asks.

“Aclassi,” Bull says, handing Skinner a beer that she somehow opens with her bare hands - a trick she claims she learned in college, which is a lie because Skinner has never gone to college, a lie which when called out on Skinner replies I never said it was my college - “Since when have I looked like a buttercups and lavender kind of guy to you?”

He points out the window where, sure enough, the window boxes are full to bursting.

In fact every window box that Krem can see is full to bursting.

“Dunno, Chief, you’ve always been more of a daisies kind of guy.”

“Exactly,” Bull says. “Also I’ve been playing a guessing game of trying to figure out her name for the past week since I moved in.”

“Her?”

“Chill, Cole and I spent a week confirming she’s a she and not a he or a they,” Bull says, “I’m not gendering a ghost wrong.”

Skinner meets Krem’s eyes and shrugs, sitting down on Bull’s sofa and putting her boots up on the coffee table.

“What do you mean guessing game with her name?” Krem asks instead.

“Check the hallway mirror,” Bull says.

“You own a mirror?”

“Couldn’t take it down,” Bull says, “Haunted house, remember?”

“Gently loved,” Krem startles and jumps straight up in the air, turning around to see Varric’s boy standing directly behind him. “She prefers the term gently loved house.”

“Cole,” Krem says and Cole looks abashed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Show Krem the mirror, Cole,” Bull waves them off and Cole turns around, gesturing for Krem to follow.

Cole leads him into a narrow hallway and points at a nearly four foot long slightly tarnished mirror.

“She’s ready,” Cole says and then leans forward to breathe over the mirror.

In the fog over the glass the word hi becomes clear.

Krem stares and the fog travels over the glass without anyone breathing on it to reveal an elaborate game of hangman.

“We have three letters,” Cole says, pointing.

Krem figures that with only two letters missing, it should be easy enough to guess.

“It isn’t the point to know,” Cole says. “I’m guessing obelisk.”

An invisible hand draws a cross on the mirror underneath the hangman and then draws a flower underneath the hanging figure. The figure is missing a leg.

Cole looks at Krem expectantly.

“Has anyone guessed closed parenthesis yet?” Krem says, and the invisible hand draws one out on the mirror and adds a bee around the flower. Aside from the fact the image is a hangman missing a leg, it’s a pretty nice picture that’s been drawn out on glass.

Real detailed.

“So, gently loved, huh?”

[scurvgirl]

Queen of the Stone, Part 6

Read on AO3,  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

She has been a Grey Warden for eleven years, and the taint is beginning to consume her. She needs to find a cure soon. So Elodie Amell sets out in search and finds herself in the city thought long-lost, Kal-Sharok. There she discovers something much bigger than just a cure for the taint running through her body.

A companion story to my other story, In Your Gaze I Wish to Stay, but this can be read separately!

First Light

Elodie makes her way back to Denerim and to Alistair. A note - Katra is my Hawke, she romanced Fenris, she's been staying at Skyhold helping the Inquisitor (Miriel Lavellan).

The final installment!

A month later and she made it to Skyhold, dirty and exhausted but still riding her high of relief. She greeted Fiona with a broad smile, breaking down in tears on how she had been released from the taint and how she could finally move forward with her life. The woman held her close, her own eyes turning glassy and wet. Elodie didn’t know if they had been freed of the taint in the same way, but she was the only person (so far) who truly understood what this meant.

Freedom. The truest taste of freedom she had ever had.

Fiona smiled kindly back and wished her well, eyes gleaming brightly.

Unfortunately Inquisitor Lavellan was not at Skyhold, she had ironically descended down to the Deep Roads to answer Orzammar’s call for help about devastating earthquakes. But it was no matter, Elodie stayed with an amazingly pregnant Katra Hawke and they rested against each other, both basking in the futures that awaited them. Elodie told Katra she should name the baby after her, which made Fenris scowl with a firm “no.”

She spent the next week with Dagna, reporting most everything. She explained her interactions with the Titan and left out Kal-Sharok and the precise location. Dagna seemed completely preoccupied with the rest of the tale to really notice those peculiars. Elodie told her about the part with the elven woman reaching her hand out with blood magic, the lyrium turning red and the Titan being forced to her will. Elodie told Dagna what the Titan said and the spirits that had buoyed up the Veil, veritably isolating the Titan from the dwarves.

Dagna’s eyes lit up as she took it all down, scribbling madly. They wound up in a long magical theories discussion on all the potential implications of this. The Blight, lyrium, blood magic, the Titans, Stone, the Fade.

The conversation lasted for days, until Elodie was sure that Dagna had all the necessary pieces to begin her own speculation and research. And as tempting as it was to show Dagna the cutting of the Titan, she knew better. Some things…some things had to remain secret until it was their time to be revealed. So she kept the box close and sealed, shielded in her own magic.

She wound up staying two weeks, delivering her information and tales to those it would best serve. She kept the robes and other trinkets away from prying eyes, however, doing her best to keep her word to keep Kal-Sharok’s secrets. Not that it was easy, Skyhold was full of people, nosy people at that.

The new Spymaster, in particular, was the nosiest sort. But a sort she was undoubtedly familiar with.

“Zevran Arainai! Exactly how did you manage to take over as Spymaster?” She asked, hugging her old friend close. He chuckled and patted her back.

“Ah, if I gave away my secrets I would not be a very good spymaster, no?”

“Pish! What are secrets between old friends?”

“Old? Oh you wound me!” He teased, guiding her to his office, er…roost? It was in an alcove above the library of which Dorian haunted. He smiled at Elodie in passing, quickly getting distracted by his book on antique spell weaving patterns.

“Now what is all this business of you no longer being a Grey Warden?” He asked, leaning back in a chair. He looked good, rested, his hair was longer and there were lines at the edges of his eyes, but the whole “aged” part of his look only seemed to enhance his handsomeness.

Elodie grinned, “I am no longer a Grey Warden, it is true. And soon, neither will Alistair.”

Zevran chuckled again, not seeming the least bit surprised.

“You were never one to simply let things lie.”

“Certainly not, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

He laughed more freely and they fell back into a long conversation, catching each other up on what’s happened in their lives. He regaled her with tales of hunting the Crows and ending up in the service of the Inquisition. She told him of the Deep Roads, of her investigations, and her plans, of which he whole heartedly supported.

She spent her remaining days in Skyhold with Zev and Katra, bouncing between the two with only a few appearances to Josephine. She was going to enjoy her time with friends rarely seen, particularly Zevran who had dropped off the map about a year ago.

It was odd in a sense, to see Zevran like this, to be like this herself. Older, wiser, in these positions of great power. Shit, Leliana was now Divine and Alistair King of Ferelden. Maker knew where Morrigan was, but she had been in the Orlesian court. Elodie could scarcely believe it, they barely had it together while facing the Blight and now…now they were some of the most influential people in Thedas.

As she saddled the Nugalope in preparation to leave for Denerim, Zevran promised to send gifts of her most likely impending pregnancy. She smacked his arm lightly, badgering him not to jinx it. They wished each other luck in their endeavors and then she was off, heading back to Denerim on the plump Nugalope, Daffodil, with a securely fastened box of a cutting of a Titan.

It was another month before she reached Denerim and all the tension left her body as she guided Daffodil into the city and to the palace. She had sent a raven at Skyhold to the palace, informing Alistair of her imminent return but she…she was actually here now. Standing before the palace gates, taint free and ready to great the future.

The gates were opened quickly, the guards immediately welcoming her home from her journeys. They eyed Daffodil warily but the horse master seemed unsurprised by the newest addition to his stables. Her things were taken off Daffodil, a servant by the name of Riari hurrying them into the palace while Elodie strode to the back of the palace, to the gardens where the king of Ferelden was sparring with his son.

Their son.

Duncan, now seven and a half, lunged and parried with his father, blonde hair bright in the sun. There was laughter and an ease in the boy learning how to fight. And she couldn’t feel them. There was no tether she felt to Alistair other than the love in her body, there was no odd hum she felt with Duncan – the darkness was gone, leaving only the love.

Elodie closed her eyes for the briefest moment, reveling in it, before stepping into the light.

“You’ve improved a great deal, little one,” she said. Both Alistair and Duncan dropped their practice swords and turned to Elodie, their faces in the same awe struck expression.

“Mum!” Duncan yelled, running towards her. Elodie dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around the boy, holding him tightly to her. Her eyes squinched closed, heart burning with relief and happiness to have her son back in her arms.

Alistair rushed over to her and wrapped his arms around them both, all of them creating a heap of smelly, sweaty bodies, happy tears streaming down dirt streaked faces.

“You’re home – I did not…I saw the letter but it was almost too much to hope –

“I will always come back,” she whispered. Alistair shivered and leaned heavily on her, a welcome weight that reminded her how far she had come.

But suddenly he pulled back, eyes wide in an incredulous expression.

“I don’t…but you’re…Elodie??!” His voice pitched.

She grinned, “I was successful, yes.” She didn’t want to go into detail with Duncan present but Alistair clearly understood, his face changing from awe to happiness to awe again. His eyes shut and she knew he was thanking the Maker for it, for whatever role the He had in this. Elodie closed her own and clutched Duncan to her.

Thank you.

**

As much as she wanted to continue to hold Duncan, Elodie was filthy. She had a bath drawn and sank into it with a long moan. The water was hot and prickling with bath salts she was certain that one of the castle staff had imported from Rivain. Bless them, she had missed such luxury. She lingered for a moment, simply enjoying it before setting to work. She scrubbed and scrubbed, removing all traces of the Deep Roads and the surface roads from her skin. She wanted to smell like a flower and a lady by the end of this.

The door creaked open as she dumped a small bucket of water over her head.

“It’s just me! I wanted to talk when I knew we wouldn’t be overheard,” Alistair announced and she nodded, rubbing the water and soap from her eyes. She pushed her hair back to smile at him while he took a seat by the tub. He had gained a bit more weight, most likely from stress eating, but he wore the weight well and he was as handsome as ever. Elodie leaned out of the tub and pressed a kiss to his lips, happy and savoring his touch.

“Right, talk,” she murmured, nipping at his lips. He chuckled and sighed in that adorable way of his before leaning back.

“Oh I know and trust me, tonight neither of us will be sleeping but we both need to get caught up on occurrences.” His face turned serious and she settled back into the tub.

“It is admittedly a long story, one that I will gladly expand upon when we have the proper time, but know that there is a cure for the taint. I don’t know if it is the same as the Blight, the thing that cured me seemed…like it was separate. But I have learned so much. Did you know that dragons are immune to the taint? Or at the very least, extremely resistant to it some way – they bypass it, the secret is their blood.”

Alistair’s eyes widened and he ran a hand through his hair, “Maker, that means –

“They could really be old Gods. That’s what I thought, but when I was down there, I…had visions…and I think the Archdemons may actually be neither. I think they are shapeshifters, like Flemeth.”

The weight of that realization fell upon him, making him slouch in his seat.

“We should inform the wardens at Weisshaupt,” he said and she didn’t know if she agreed with that. Yes, they should know of the real threat posed but…it would put Kal-Sharok at risk if the wardens discovered the Titan’s powers in this regard.

“We can decide that later, there is more. I was not cured by dragon blood, though I do think we can replicate the effects with dragon blood with proper study. I was cured by a Titan, that is how you will be cured too.”

“What is a Titan?”

As much as she wanted to wait until she wasn’t in water and turning into a pruny mess to tell him about it all, she launched into the story, telling him about Karega and her husband and the lyrium visions and the Titan and how the taint got started from blood magic being used on a Titan. She explained how the Titan essentially imbued her with pure lyrium energy to flush out the tainted lyrium energy. It rid her of the taint incurred by the blood magic because that Titan had never been touched by blood magic.

She was…purified. It was an odd thing, no doubt, but for some reason it worked. And the connection to lyrium was persistent, she could feel it humming to her whenever she got close to it. Like the taint but not.

Stone sense.

It made as much sense as the rest of her life and yet here she was, naked in a tub explaining her latest adventure to the love of her life.

“It gave me a piece of itself to plant in the deep roads at Kal-Hirol, but before I do that, it will purify you and Duncan. Freeing you from any taint circling in your veins. Alistair,” she reached up and cupped his cheek, smiling so broadly her cheeks hurt, “you will be free.”

Her heart felt full to burst as a soft smile spread across Alistair’s face. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers.

“I love you, so much, I…Maker, I am a lucky man.”

His old words made her chuckle and his lips cut that chuckle off with a sweet kiss. They would soon be free together, free to have a family and just…be. He was still a king, and there were responsibilities with that, but over the years they had figured it out. The Landsmeet had accepted their king and subsequent queen and mistress –

“Alistair, where is Anora?”

When he paused she knew. Her eyes shut and she sagged into Alistair. She loved Anora, not in any romantic sense, but she was Duncan’s mother, they all had a hand in raising the boy. They were a family, an odder one but…it worked.

“Her illness was too much for her, the healers said there was nothing they could do.”

Cost. There was always a cost to decisions, no matter how good and sound they were, cost was inevitable. Elodie could have been here, could have saved Anora…but then that would have cost Elodie her own life, Alistair’s…maybe even Duncan’s. The taint was not strong in him, barely there but it was present enough that it gave her pause and…. There was always a cost, and this time, Anora paid it.

“Maker guide her soul,” she whispered. She’d…organize another vigil, as mistress and court mage she felt like she had some sort of duty for this. Anora was more than a friend, they shared a son.

“This isn’t your fault, the healers said –

“The healers are not me,” she hissed.

“They still know things, Ellie.”

Tears eked out of her eyes and she buried her face further into his chest, “I should have –

“You were doing what you knew what was best.”

Cost. There was always a cost.

Elodie leaned back into the tub, elated and defeated and conflicted, mourning for Anora but so excited for the future her and Alistair could have.

Alistair informed her the rest of the events she had missed, how the Bannorn was already pushing for him to remarry even though he couldn’t bring himself to – not so soon after Anora’s death and with Elodie away.

She thanked him dearly for waiting, she would have to explain to the Bannorn that he did not need a wife to rule – that she had done her service as queen twice over, and had produced an heir, a healthy, flourishing heir. Alistair was king, but she knew that several of the Banns had daughters they wanted married off to the best suitors.

Alistair was officially a bachelor again and she knew just how desirable he was.

“If anyone is marrying you, it’s me,” she told him firmly. He raised a brow at her, his lips curling into a smirk.

“Now you want to marry me!”

“Oh hush you, I’m in mourning. Anora is – was – the mother of our son.” She cast a simple warming spell over the water and resumed cleaning herself, determined to still be clean and feminine after all the drudgery of the roads.

But Alistair just kissed her head and cheek, “She is missed. But I am so happy to have you home. And so is Duncan! He was terrified that he had lost both of his mothers.”

Elodie fell silent, staring into Alistair’s eyes. She didn’t need to tell him that if she hadn’t done what she did, Duncan very well would have lost her, she didn’t need to tell him that it was a calculated risk to go and find a cure. He knew.

He stroked her cheek then stood up, “I will leave you to the bath. I told Duncan I would be five minutes and I am sure I am over that time.” He bent down for another kiss, lingering for a moment.

After Alistair left she hurried through the rest of her bath, eager to be with Alistair and Duncan again. She emerged twenty minutes later, all wrinkly and smelling like flowers and spices, feeling like an Elodie Amell that is not dirty or tainted or in peril of any sort.  

She stood there for a long moment, just…savoring the freedom. Naked and wrinkly, water dripping down her back, the air cold against her body and she just – breathed.

She went from an unforgiving household with her birth family, thrown out on the street when her magic surfaced. She stumbled into the Chantry, cold, hungry, and filthy. The Circle was a warm, clean, gilded cage where she flourished…to a point. When First Enchanter Irving said that she should reign in her magic so the Templars wouldn’t get suspicious, she did. She held back. And then her Harrowing came and she didn’t think she’d have to hold back anymore. And then there was Jowan and getting recruited into the Grey Wardens and it seemed she got to taste freedom for five minutes before it was ripped away each time.

But now…it was going to be more than five minutes.

The robes she donned were a light blue with embossed white flowers. She dried her hair first with a towel then with a spell. She put her hair into a simple braid before making her way out of the room and down the hall to where Alistair and Duncan are eating dinner. So wondrously domestic and calm.

Duncan saw her out of the corner of his eye making him turn his head to her quickly, his face lighting up in a brilliant smile. She joined them at the table, sitting next to her son and he leaned against her.

“I missed you, Mum,” he said. Elodie smiled and kissed the top of his head.

“I miss you too, sweetheart.”

Dinner was a lovely affair, though the servants kept rushing about as the castle finally realized that Elodie was indeed home. They overheard plans of a large banquet for the following day, making Elodie chuckle. While everyone else seemed to be embroiled in the chaos of manners and celebrations, Elodie and her little family enjoyed their meal, telling each other stories of their various adventures. Duncan was progressing well with his sword training, but he confessed he preferred to ride the horses. Alistair spoke of the lighter subjects the Banns had presented him over the last year and Elodie took care to describe the ancient city around the Titan and how amazing it was.

At some point, Duncan asked if she was going to leave again and she sighed, drawing him into her lap.

“Not if I can help it. I will need to journey to Amaranthine soon, but that will be a short trip.”

“We can go together, I’ve been meaning to go there anyways,” Alistair interjected. Elodie gave him a small smile in thanks. Traveling to Kal-Hirol should not take long, particularly since the efforts to rebuild the outpost had been going well.

After dinner, they continued to stay up, playing little games with Duncan, reestablishing a new normal. While he laughed and stayed close to Elodie, wrapping his little arms around her, he felt different. Older in a way that had little to do with his age. Sadder too. She put him to bed, opting to hold him until he fell asleep.

After he fell asleep and she extracted her body from his bed, she tiptoed back into her and Alistair’s room. It hadn’t changed, the drapes and the rug and the bedding was all the same. Well, no, there were more pillows on the bed than before, occupying her side of the bed. Alistair emerged from the attached washroom, in a long, frayed robe that was as old as his kinghood. He looked at the pillows on the bed, then back at her. He stepped to the side of the bed and swept them off, the soft things bouncing against the floor in his earnest to make room.

“This bed is too big for one person and you were gone so,” he stammered, blushing like he used to when they were out in the wilderness, fighting darkspawn and bickering with Morrigan.

“Clever.” She sidled up to him, wrapping her arms around him, reveling in his closeness. Tomorrow he would take hold of the Titan fragment and be taint free by the end of the day, tonight they could celebrate her return and tomorrow…freedom.

Alistair brought his arms around her and looked like he was about to say something, but his eyes dipped down to her lips and he leaned forward while she leaned up. Their lips met and the arousal that had begun in the tub returned in full force. Her hands delved under his robe, caressing soft, fuzz covered skin.

Their kiss morphed quickly from chaste to heated to obscene. She pushed his robe off his shoulders and he untied hers as they fell back onto the bed.

“I love you, I love you,” they whispered to each other in between hurried kisses and searching touches. Their bodies pressed into each other, giving into each other, reunited.

It wasn’t until the late hours of the night and potentially even the early hours of the morning that they finally fell asleep, sweaty and naked and spent, curled up in each other’s arms.

Morning arrived in a lazy haze with a tall, soft Alistair wrapped around her, holding onto her like Duncan held onto his teddy bear. Asleep like this he looked so much like the young man she met at Ostagar, and when he opened his eyes he transformed into the man she was still madly in love with.

He nuzzled under her jaw and breathed her in.

“I still can’t believe you’re here and you’re…just you.” His voice was raspy and deep with sleep, soft with intent. She trailed a hand over his arm and into his hair, all sticking out in soft angles.

“It’s amazing how it works out, isn’t it? How after everything we can have what we…you want this, right?” She whispered. Alistair shifted so that he was more on top of her.

“More than anything,” he affirmed and then he was kissing her again. The kiss turned into another one and then they fell back into each other, getting swept up in it all.

An hour later and they burst into Duncan’s room only to find the boy already awake and playing with Alistair’s old Grey Warden puppets. They let Duncan take one puppet to a breakfast of fruits, breads, cheeses aplenty, and boiled eggs.

They laughed and teased and ate in such ease and happiness that Elodie almost believed it was a dream or that she had actually died in the Deep Roads and this was a kind hallucination imparted to her from the Maker. But it was reality and that was such a gift, a gift that she wanted to expand. She bit her lip and looked over at Alistair, thinking about what babies born of them would be like. If they’d be little happy, cheese loving little ones or maybe they’d be mages and love botany and books.

Elodie leaned over to Duncan and kissed the top of his head, “You know why I left, yes? You know why it was important that I went?”

Duncan nodded slowly, “You and Papa are sick, you needed to find a cure. Did you?”

She smiled and nodded herself, “I did. I’m not sick anymore, but your papa is and I need to heal him. And I need to heal you too, so you don’t get sick.”

An uneasiness flitted into her at the idea of manipulating that energy through the boy, but what choice did she have? He wasn’t tainted, not exactly, but he was drawn to it. How old would he be when he found the Grey Wardens? When he said that he wanted to join their ranks, not fully understanding what the Grey Wardens were.

No, Elodie had to…she had to protect her son, and if it meant a day of discomfort, then so be it. She turned towards Alistair, his face drawn into a harder expression that he usually reserved for unpleasant negotiations with Orlais. While she hated what she had to do, there was no other way, they were out of time. The taint in him would kill him if it could and she was not going to let it cut his life short, not when his happiness was so close at hand.

Duncan fidgeted but nodded his head slowly, “Al-alright. Will it hurt?”

Elodie paused, trying to find the words, “I will try to make it not hurt, but it should be quick for you.”

“What about Papa?” His eyes were wide, bright and concerned. Her gaze softened and she drew him close to her body.

“Your papa has lived through many difficult things, he will live through this too, and at the end…he’ll be even better.”

Alistair leaned over and ruffled Duncan’s hair, “I’ll be fine! It’s not like I’m fighting the Archdemon again. Now that would be a different story. At least the dragon would have a tasty snack.”

Duncan snickered and wrapped his arms around Alistair, “No! The dragon can’t have you! You said we could be in bed all day and eat cheese.”

“Oh now, you can’t eat cheese all day – you’ll get sick,” Elodie said only to have her son and beloved blow raspberries at her. She rolled her eyes but smiled. This…was the right thing, it was. You have to sometimes re-break a bone to set it properly, this was like that. Break, so proper healing can happen.

After breakfast, they began. They moved into a small healing room annex to Elodie and Alistair’s bedroom. There was a cot for Alistair to sit on while he waited and Duncan sat on a small chair, trying not to fidget. Elodie unlocked the small chest containing the lyrium, now solidified into a fragment, and cradled it carefully in glove-clad hands. The light was almost blinding with power but she held it, carrying it to where Alistair sat. His clothes were plain, far simpler than anything he had to wear as king, but it was best to not soil what good clothes it did have.

The light filled the room as Elodie began to breathe, connecting herself into its power. She could direct it for a short amount of time, and in that time she could purify Alistair and Duncan – she could, the knowledge was bestowed in her by the Titan.

Power built and built in immense waves. Whispers entered her head, echoes of spirits long since passed, their words indistinguishable from the rush of power and blood in her ears. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped as the magic clicked inside of her. Now, she had to send it out now or else it wouldn’t work.

Elodie extended her arm out towards Alistair and let the Titan’s power course through her in an overwhelming rush. It flooded her body, shoved its way into cavities she didn’t know she had, but she had it, she was in control for this moment and she forced it out and into Alistair. His body seized as the magic infused lyrium poured into his body, forcing the taint out of his body. Blackish water dripped from his pours, his mouth, large stains forming on his clothes.

Duncan screamed but she couldn’t mind that, not when she sent a sliver of the power to him, forcing whatever darkness lurked inside of him out. He shuddered and vomited his breakfast, but it was gone from his body, gone from Alistair’s. She could feel the pulsing of their lives in that moment, so perfectly in synch with the Titan. She felt their hearts, their souls, purged clean. A cry escaped her as the power left her all at once, retreating back into the fragment.

Elodie slumped back against the table, all of her energy having left with the Titan’s power. Alistair coughed and sputtered drawing her attention to him. Duncan moaned and she looked to him…her son. She had to get to her son. Stumbling, Elodie somehow made it to him, holding him and cleaning his face. She guided him away from his mess and to the couch in the room.

“Mum…I don’t want to do that again,” he cried and she shook her head.

“You won’t have to, don’t worry, you’re fine now, you’re fine,” she was out of breath. If she could just…breathe, she could heal them. Yes, a healing spell, she needed to do something.

Elodie pulled herself up and took a deep breath, steadying herself, before beginning to move her hands and chant. The spell drifted from her and she directed it to sink into Alistair, coiling inside his body and then releasing to ease his pain. He shook and sputtered then sighed as the spell worked its way through him. Elodie fell back against the wall and cast a smaller spell for Duncan. He shivered in response but followed his father’s example and settled quickly, moving to lean against her.

The room then fell quiet save their exhausted panting. Her eyes fluttered closed. Beyond the sudden drain of energy pulsed a twinge of relief. That pulse grew until she could feel it in her heart. She gave a short, soft laugh, smiling in the face of it all. Alistair was free. Duncan was free.

They were all finally free.

It took an hour for any of them to have the energy to move from their spots. Elodie directed both Alistair and Duncan to the baths where she took care to help bathe them. Alistair rested heavily against her, occasionally groaning from the lingering pain. Every time he coughed, more brackish liquid came out and she was quick to wipe it away. After the baths, she took them to bed, where Alistair was quick to pass out.

Duncan however, remained awake, disoriented and sleepy, but awake. He reached out for Elodie and she couldn’t not crawl into bed with them, curling herself around her son and love. This was what she had traveled to Kal-Sharok for, family and freedom.

“I feel weird,” Duncan whispered and Elodie resisted chuckling. He would feel weird, a bit empty and a bit more separate from Alistair and maybe even Elodie.

“I felt weird too, it goes away. You know what this means, though,” she asked, holding him to her. He shook his head and she sighed, searching for the words.

“Your father and I were sick, we were…not able to do things but now we are all free, and you are too, to be the person you choose to be.”

“I’m the prince, I’m going to be king,” he whispered.

“If you choose it, then yes. Never underestimate the importance of your choice.”

She had made Alistair king, had gone against his wish and part of her regretted it. He had not wanted it, and while she stood by it being the best decision for the country…she wondered what he would be if he had not become king. And yet…if he had not become king, had not married Anora, their son would not exist.

There were only so many regrets she could hold in her heart and at the end of the day, this was not one that prevented her from sleeping.

But she wanted to learn from it all the same, she wanted to give Duncan that choice because she could. Ferelden should have a king who wants to be king, a king who knew how to serve his country. And perhaps…even a queen.

Elodie’s hand moved to her stomach and hoped.

**

The next few days blurred together in a haze of healing, holding, and late nights full of love and hope. There was a gathering of the nearby nobles and the whole of Denerim celebrated Elodie’s return. Grateful for their love, she had chefs and cooks prepare as much food as possible to feed the people of Denerim.

And while all of it was grand, she felt the burden of the Titan shard growing. She had to make her way to Kal-Hirol soon if she was to fulfill her end of the bargain. By the end of the week, they were packing up the horses and carriage to head out to Amaranthine. She climbed into the carriage with the box containing the shard, sitting next to Duncan. Alistair took his customary spot on his horse out in front though she found that just the slightest bit ironic.

Bad things happen when I lead!

It was a marvel and a relief to find how mistaken he had been about his abilities. Traveling to Amaranthine was always odd, an equal mixture of constantly running into merchants and bandits all the while sloughing through muddy roads.

It rained nigh constantly and by the end of the week, they were all soaked to the bone and cold. Even Elodie and Duncan did not manage to escape the downpour. It made her chuckle at first, reminding her of the days when this was an almost weekly occurrence. Maker, it wasn’t even that long ago that she had to sleep on the ground instead of a cot as she traveled across Thedas. And yet, it all felt so different. With Duncan and an Alistair who looked fairly different from the young man of ten years ago present, Elodie felt herself…almost shift in herself.

They made it to Amaranthine and were quickly whisked away into the small estate held by the Arl. The Arling had undergone several changes over the last few years, and while there was still a notable presence from the Grey Wardens, it had mostly been reduced to a cooperative venture with the Arling instead of allowing it actual political power over people who were not Grey Wardens. People were free to join and some prisoners had even been, but the position of Arl and Warden Commander were no longer synonymous. This then led to a change in location of power. Vigil’s Keep became the center of all Grey Warden operations while the city of Amaranthine remained the seat of power for the Arl and Arlessa.

Arl Braeden Ewart greeted them at the gates and was quick to bring them into the estate. His son, Raine, ran down from the second floor in barely restrained exuberance.

“Duncan!” He yelled and the two boys were then off, chasing each other through the large home, the drudgery of the journey forgotten.

While the boys played, Alistair and Elodie were guided up to the guest room where their things were brought. Elodie peeled her sopping wet robes from her body and let her hair down, unwound her breast band, tossing it carelessly to the side.

Alistair’s arms suddenly came around her, the heat of his chest pressing into her back as he leaned over and kissed her neck.

“I can think of something that can warm us up,” he whispered, kissing her ear. She chuckled.

“Oh? Would you care to enlighten me?”

And he did, oh he did.

They dined with Braeden, his wife Melantha, and their children. Wrangling Raine and Duncan proved to be a bit of an adventure though they were eventually lured to sit down and eat due to their rumbling bellies and waning energy.

Dinner passed with social ease and she fell back into bed with Alistair, curling up against his chest. He held her close and she reveled in their closeness. Duncan was asleep, or at least pretending to be, sharing a room with Raine.

Alistair held Elodie to him, smiling into her hair.

“You know,” he began, “with the taint gone…we could…”

“We could what? Live to the ripe old age of seventy?” She teased and he chuckled.

“Well, that but you know, Duncan’s always wanted a little sibling…if…if you want to try again,” his voice grew quiet and tentative. Her body tensed for a moment, remembering the loss, the…pain they had gone through before. She had always blamed her inability to keep a pregnancy on the taint but what if it wasn’t the taint? What if it was her? Could she live through that loss again?

Could she live if she didn’t at least try?

Her fingers trailed down over Alistair’s soft chest, drawing random patterns and contemplating a future of children. She wanted, oh she wanted, and this had always been the plan but there was that fear.

Elodie took a deep breath and nodded, “I want to try again.”

Alistair held her close, and while they didn’t try that night, there were many more nights to try in the future.

The next day brought with it fog and a heavy overcast of clouds, but there wasn’t rain, Elodie took her blessings where she could get them. She kissed Alistair on the cheek and Duncan on the forehead, wishing them goodbye after breakfast. She promised to return as soon as possible, which she hopefully would mean less than a week. Her horse was swift in its journey, carrying her to the old chasm now lined with winding roots and sprouting trees on the dirt walls of the chasm.

The cleft in the earth was just as great as she remembered it, though more overgrown now due to the heavy rains and the now receding signs of blight. Still, she saw dark corrupted spiders skittering down below, preying on deepstalkers. She thought back to the skrimmers she faced in the tunnels beneath Kal-Sharok and marveled at how different the spiders were here.

She left her horse at a nearby homestead, paying the farmers a sizeable sum to watch over the horse while she journeyed into the Deep Roads.

The upper tunnels hadn’t changed too much over the years, but the lower roads had. Dwarves from Orzammar and surface traders had created an outpost in the most easily cleaned parts of Kal-Hirol, though there was still a slight lingering scent of darkspawn and shit. The dwarves greeted her with familiar nonchalance. She had helped set up this outpost, had brought the documents from Kal-Hirol to the shaperate in Orzammar and she had even suggested merchants shift their routes to here for better trading opportunities. It had been a successful venture so far. Kal-Hirol was growing from a mere trading outpost to a small village, spreading further into the recesses of the old Thaig. Meanwhile, it also brought in gold to the nearby farms who wished to expand their consumer base. All in all, the arling of Amaranthine had seen some of the most impressive growth over the years – along with Redcliffe and the central Bannorn.

Small children ran to and from stalls, chasing each other in a rowdy game of tag. She dodged their speedy pathways and continued forth into the deep, walking past the stalls and the small outcropping of homes. The Titan’s shard sat comfortably attached to her belt and her magic seemed to…reach into it every now and then. Or maybe the shard was reaching for her magic and she was just responding. Either way, there were frequent moments where she felt more connected to the Stone around her, to the dwarves milling behind her. And as she delved deeper into the roads, heading to the deepest part of the Thaig, the more the shard drew her in, the more intertwined she felt with her surroundings.

Was this the trade off? She can no longer sense the Darkspawn but now she was connected to the stone?

Elodie rested her once tainted hand against the cool rock wall of the road. She gasped as energy suddenly poured into her, building a sudden connection that allowed her to feel things. The skittering of a spider. The thump thump of deepstalkers walking around. The indefinite spread of the taint.

It was so…deep here. How was planting the shard here a good idea? Wouldn’t the taint get to it? Would it be immune to such an overwhelming amount of corruption?

She closed her eyes and removed her hand, sojourning forth. Or maybe that was the point. Plant the shard of purity, of hope, in the deepest, darkest, most corrupted place, and let it grow to blast it all back. Fight the darkness from within.

A poetic thought, though she didn’t know how practical it was. But this was the Titan’s wish, and so she continued. Elodie made her way through Kal-Hirol, fighting spiders and darkspawn and deepstalkers, choosing to try and keep hidden as much as possible.

The deepest part.

Pour over the rock.

After two days of journeying into the dark, she found a drop that was so deep that she could no longer see the light that she cast down. The darkness enveloped it completely.

Here. A quiet feeling rose within her and she opened the box on her hip. The shard glowed brightly in her hand, almost blinding her eyes that were now accustomed to the dark. It pulsed and she closed her eyes, thanking it one last time before dropping it into the pit. It made no sound as it fell and hit the bottom. The light though…the light bloomed in the dark and the Stone sighed in relief. The lyrium in the surrounding stone, even the faint strands, erupted with energy that flowed in and out of Elodie like she was part of it. It was like when the Titan had initially blasted her but more…chaotic, less of a directed beam and more of a scattering of birds when they are awakened suddenly.

But then, all at once, it fled her body and receded down into the chasm with the shard.

She stood there on the edge of the pit for a moment longer, smiling in wonder. This world was weird, and yes, that was her professional Hero opinion.

It was another two days to make it to the trading outpost. And then another day to make it to Amaranthine. She was back in just under a week, less than a fortnight, really.

The rain started back up as she arrived and she was quick to hand off her horse to the stable master. She ducked into the estate, her robes now damp enough just to be annoying. The home was warm and dry, filled with echoing laughter from her son and Raine. She would have to take care to invite Raine’s family over more, Duncan should have friends, particularly if they are going to be the rulers of the land someday. Friendships and alliances make the government work or fail and Raine’s family was a good one. Amaranthine was beginning to flourish under their care.

And now that she was back and free to handle herself as however she wished…they were going to travel more. Duncan should see his country, know more than the palace, see how the people in his country lived. He should know the Banns and Arls and Arlessas, the Teyrnirs of his country. It was important to build up those friendships, facilitate those alliances.

Elodie was quiet as she made her way through the estate, contemplating the future as she was wont to do lately.

The sound of barking and children’s laughter broke her out of her reverie. The boys sped past her, two mabari hounds chasing them all in good fun. She chuckled and Duncan turned around to wave at her before barreling back down the corridor.

The guards nodded in greeting, saying “My lady” behind their helmets. She nodded back to them and she headed to the room where she and Alistair were staying. She entered the room to find it empty, which was fine really. She changed into more suitable clothes, clothes that had not been worn for a week and smelled like the Deep Roads. No matter how many times she braved those treacherous depths, she never quite got used to the smell. It was like rotting flesh combined with the smell of rancid milk. Unpleasant was really an insufficient term.

She was tempted to draw a bath…but it was close to supper and she was also hungry….

Bathe…or eat….

Bathe…or eat….

Her stomach rumbled, making up her mind for her. She washed her face and arms in the wash basin then applied some of the fancy Orlesian creams the Arlessa had gushed about. They smelled very flowery but she took flowery over rotting flesh and rancid milk any day.

Her hair went up into a braided bun, and she donned a gold necklace Alistair had gotten her in the early days of his kinghood. The chain was small and dainty and the rose pendant as delicate, not overly embellished, and it was her favorite piece of jewelry. The rose he had gifted her still remained pressed in the pages of her healing journal, somewhat wilted and old, but it was there, a symbol of their enduring love, even as they changed.

Elodie emerged from the rooms and inquired to one of the guards in the hall where the king might be. None of them knew which meant only one thing – the larder. Shaking her head, Elodie turned towards the kitchens, the children running past her again, the dog trailing after them.

The kitchens were busy with preparing supper and she was sure but she was able to sneak her way to the larder where the king was indeed ensconced in – nibbling on cheese. She put her hands on her hips and grinned at him. Upon seeing her, he blinked, mouth still half-full with cheese.

“Elodie!” He exclaimed, or he tried to with his mouth full. But his face brightened and he stepped to her quickly, wrapping her in a tight hug. He didn’t mention the smell of the weariness in her face from travel. He simply tucked his face against her neck.

“It’s over?” He whispered and she rubbed his back, smiling and nodding.

“At last, my love,” she replied. A chorus of “aaawws” erupted from behind them, reminding them how they were very much not alone. Elodie stepped back, blushing, but she took Alistair’s hand and guided him out of the larder all the way out into the hallway. Out of sight of the apparently nosy kitchen staff, she kissed his cheek, waiting for him to finish his cheese.

“It’s done, it’s all done, I don’t have to do anything more than I don’t want to, it’s done,” she repeated, kissing his face over and over again in barely restrained happiness. It flowed through her in great droves, filling her up, making her laugh free of inhibition.

“I want to try and I want to do. Alistair, there is just so much we can do, I –

“Marry me,” he blurted out and she stopped. Did he just? Her eyes widened, hand lifted up to her lips. He…did he…oh he did. She knew he did because he turned bright red, his eyes wide and he shuffled his feet like he did when he first asked her if he could kiss her.

She wanted to say yes but all that came out was, “I’m a mage.”

He quirked a brow at her, “Really? I had no idea.”

She poked his arm, “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I do. And the Circle is no more. You can’t be queen but I have been doing some reading and you don’t have to be queen. It’s called a consort? You’ll be my consort but really I just want you as my wife. Maker, I want to marry you, Elodie Amell, because I have loved you for so long and I am tired of having obstacles between us. Let’s just…be married.”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, or anything for a solid minute. Her eyes welled up with tears at the end of that minute, Alistair becoming more and more fidgety. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. Their heights weren’t too different, and she was able to just snuggle into his shoulder, happily weeping.

“Yes, yes, YES! Yes, I will marry you and be your wife, consort, person,” she laughed. His arms came around her and held her to him.

“You are the love of my life,” he whispered into her hair.

“And now we are free to be just that,” she replied.

Elodie Amell had known many titles and labels in her life – apprentice, mage, Grey Warden, Hero of Ferelden, Arlessa, Warden Commander, rebel, Court Mage, mistress, mother, and now…she entered a new phase of her life, as wife, consort to the king, the love of her life. She was still powerful, still strong, but there was a certain…overwhelming joy to be able to be something she never she would be.

Free. It was all she wanted for so long. Free.

There were still ties that she was bound by, obligations to be met but she was ultimately…free. Free to decide to keep those obligations and friendships.

Late after supper and her and Alistair consummated his very sudden, improper proposal, Elodie sat down at the small desk in the guest room. She wrote the first letter to Karega, thanking her once again for her hospitality and kindness. She informed her of the success of her mission and that she was cordially invited to Elodie’s wedding to the King of Ferelden. Elodie was certain the dwarven queen would have to decline the offer, but it was only polite to invite her. She wrote the second letter to Leliana, and she addressed it as such instead of the apparently now Divine Victoria. This time, she was certain the newly elected Divine would insist on marrying the two. She wrote to Oghren at Vigil’s Keep, inviting him and Felsi and the babe. She wrote to Zevran, opening the letter with ‘so how many assassins can sneak into a royal wedding?’ Morrigan, Katra, Miriel, Teagan, and so many others were going to receive jubilant letters announcing the impending marriage between her and Alistair. Elodie was careful to word it so that they would not blab the information too soon – Alistair and Elodie would be expected to announce it themselves in some grandiose celebration most likely.

She nearly dropped the quill when she recalled they had yet to inform Duncan. Well. She supposed the letters could be sent after they informed him.

Elodie set everything aside and turned back to the bed. Alistair slept on his stomach, snoring softly. Amazing how many things changed and yet stayed the same over the years, she thought, crawling back into the covers, curling herself around his body. He made a snuffling sound before settling back in. She rested her head against his back and took a deep breath. Her eyes fluttered closed and she fell into a deep, restorative sleep.

[mrfancyfoot]

Some Assembly Required: It Didn’t Come With Instructions So I Googled and Found the Swedish Version, pt.1

Since I’ve been asked to clarify/explain/spoil “the spirit” companion of Bevin more than a couple times now, I figured that I would make a one stop post for this and other stuff since bits are kind of scattered throughout several chapters now and I can’t blame anyone for needing a refresher.  I’ll make two sections: one for where we currently are in SAR and one for where I’ve currently developed (i.e. spoilers and in-depth explanations).  To explain the spirit will also need me to explain some of Bevin’s powers and a little more background, so that will also be included in both sections, though primarily the latter.  Also added are other fun bits.  Spoilers are included, as I’ve mentioned, but they will be in the bottom section for if you don’t want to read them.

I’ll try to update this as the story progresses, but if I fall behind, just let me know.

The Spirit so far:

Bevin officially meets the spirit in Chapter 12.  She starts off as the soothing presence that Bevin feels after having one of her “nightmare visions” of the torture she went through in the Red Future.

After her talk with Dorian, who is fleetingly concerned about potential spiritual possession after witnessing it in the Red Future, the spirit makes herself known so that Bevin can throw Dorian off of this line of inquiry.  A “that must have only happened in the alternate timeline” kind of excuse.

The spirit explains that she is the one responsible for protecting Bevin from the eruption at the Conclave.  She saw Bevin pulled through and decided that an outsider was what Thedas really needed.  Specifically, she says: “I was but an ever-weakening spirit, watching our worlds for over two thousand years from inside the Fade.  I saw you pulled through that very first rift between the worlds.  I believed that an outsider was the exact thing this tumultuous land needed, and used what power I had to protect you.” 

So, two thousand year-old (at least!) spirit who was able to watch both worlds from some corner of the Fade.

She goes on to mention that she knows nothing of how Nikki came to be involved or anything about the Conclave.

During talks, the spirit frequently uses terms that Bevin knows to be elven.

She specifically calls her “‘Ma da’isenatha” which translates to “my little dragon.”

The spirit refers to Solas as Bevin’s “hahren” or “mentor” frequently.

Bevin’s Powers:

From the very first chapter, we learn that Bevin has weird powers and brand new facial markings.

Powers = foresight

Markings = blood red sideways tear drop shape angled across either cheek near the outer corners of her eyes that she describes as being about as big as her thumb(nail).

In Chapter Three, Solas deduces that Bevin is passively syphoning in mana from the environment somehow.  Her storage limitations and general output are still very low, so any sudden increase in intake (such as magic applied directly to her) creates a surge that bounces right back out (which makes her face itch and sneeze).

To a much slighter degree, all Mages recover mana from the Veil this way, and some can learn in intake excess mana from around them as a very temporary, active skill.  Solas and Dorian discuss this briefly during their general party banter in the game.

Dorian shares (also in Chapter 12) that the markings on her face are from syphoning magic.  It’s an old Art, the effects of which were known to “make one’s palms itchy.”  He has never heard of anyone being able to sustain the magic passively before.

“Passively” here meaning “without trying.”  The magic automatically draws in mana from the environment around Bevin.

Bevin eventually deduces that she is also taking in what she calls life energy.  This is something that everything living has (people, animals, plants, etc).

She thinks this is driving her innate healing ability and has fears that it might leave her with a form of at least temporary immortality based on her knowledge of fictional lore and mythus.

Bevin’s (Awful) Background:

Chapters Four and Five are where most specifics of Bevin’s past begin appearing.

In ch.01, Bevin mentions that she’s from Michigan.

In ch.04, Bevin visits the Fade for the first time.

She starts off in a memory of her childhood that she recognizes as the precursor to a particularly bad event.  When Solas joins her dream, she immediately asks how to stop it and he dispels it, drawing her deeper into the Fade.

Soon, they are attacked by Fearlings that have taken on the forms of various church elders and her father.  Her magic, fueled by her anger is able to get rid of them but draws the attention of a Rage demon.  Solas kills the demon for her, stating that she is not quite to the strength to be able to take on and defeat such a demon.

In ch.05, Bevin and Nikki are prompted into sharing details of their lives prior to being dropped in Thedas.

Bevin tells the group that she had just finished her university studies for Linguistics and Criminology and was working as an intern for the local Coroner (also known as the Office of Medial Examiner).  Fairly certain somewhere she mentions that she’s going on to graduate studies.

Following more prodding, Bevin shares that she grew up in a religious cult.

Said cult was made up of fanatics, many of whom were eventually found guilty of murder, namely her parents, due to her efforts.

She grew up homeschooled, so would attempt to sneak out to the forest around her house any chance she got when her dad was gone.

Remained homeschooled up until highschool (when it becomes state mandated that children join a public/private school at least part time - no idea if this actually applies to her state, but it did apply to mine :P).

Here she gains access to the internet and eventually talks to someone who wants to get her out of her situation.  Through the help of “kind internet strangers” she is eventually able to escape her family by the opening of a successful murder investigation against them/the cult.

As is made clear from ch.04, memories of her father in particular still haunt her.

General (not entirely so awful) details:

Has a number of “adventurous” piercings and hints of a tattoo on her back

Underwent surgery to remove her uterus following health complications.

To be continued via edits as the story progresses. :]

The Spirit (and everything else) as a whole:

Spoilers galore from here on out for almost everything in SAR (for the past and future).  This part will touch on the spirit, Bevin’s powers, Bevin’s background, Solas’ thoughts/actions/inactions, background plotlines, future plotlines, and my own personal headcanon/lore-bending.  Basically, I explain all the nuances and shit here.  It’s very hodge-podge and I try to keep relevant stuff together if not in chronological order.  If I’ve missed anything or you want more for some part, let me know.

Open secret that the spirit possessing Bevin is actually Mythal.

The first time the spirit makes her debut is actually in Chapter 10 during Nikki’s venture into the Red Future.  The is the entity that takes over when Bevin is too frail to help with the fight (to note, Mythal is still very weak here).

In this alternate future, Solas is captured along with Leliana when they mount a rescue attempt that ultimately fails.  Solas originally leaves the Inquisition following the Herald going missing/presumed dead, but becomes overcome with guilt and agrees to join with the Nightingale once seeing that his plans have little to stand on with the Elder One gaining so much power in the first place.  They see getting the others back as an all or nothing effort.

Well, they’re captured.  Solas spends the days/nights listening to them torture Bevin and Leliana while he’s very slowly dying of lyrium poisoning.  He attempts to entertain and soothe Bevin with stories of the Fade and his past.  He doesn’t really bother hiding anything at this point.  Future-Leliana is far more concerned about getting Nikki back to the past to defeat the Elder One than she is with sharing Solas’ identity.

Later in present day, when Bevin is getting flashbacks of these days, she hears bits of these stories, but doesn’t have much context for them.  She sees them as the bits of sunshine that peak through her nightmares.  She’ll start to wonder about certain details later as some will conflict with what she otherwise knows.

When Bevin officially meets her present day, Mythal explains why she saved her.  But she’s leaving out a lot of details and not at all telling the whole truth.  Let’s break down her lieslines:

“I am the reason that you survived that eruption those months ago.”

Yes, well, she’s also the reason that Bevin was pulled through in the first place.  Bevin’s entire involvement is due to Mythal. 

“I was but an ever-weakening spirit, watching our worlds for over two thousand years from inside the Fade.  I saw you pulled through that very first rift between the worlds.  I believed that an outsider was the exact thing this tumultuous land needed, and used what power I had to protect you.”

She’s conveniently skipping over the part where she used Flemeth as a host for a long time.  Mythal/Flemeth have been aware of the other universe for a long time.  A habit of theirs has been watching select occupants as they live their lives unknowing.  Mythal takes a shine to Bevin and her plentiful childhood struggles growing up in a crazy cult of psychopathic murderers.  She reminds her of a much younger Fen’Harel.  Upon seeing the fleeting opportunity, she decides that Bevin would make a perfect companion for her old friend given her unique insights and experiences.

Bevin is brought through the Breach and confronted by Flemeth, in an exchange that she has been made to fully forget for her own good.  Mythal is transferred to Bevin who becomes the new host.  In exchange, Mythal states the she will help Flemeth with her desires in the future (namely the events following the Well of Sorrows saga with Morrigan).  Mythal ultimately sees this as getting what she wants.  Solas succeeding with his plans and being happy is vengeance against the other gods for killing her.  Bunch of long con-ers.

She’s not above poking and prodding, but, for the most part, she stays out of Bevin’s relationship with Solas simply so she can prove a point later when Bevin inevitably figures everything out.  She made the opportunity but never forced or groomed her into anything.

When asked if she knows anything about Nikki’s involvement: “I am afraid not.  Her circumstances are a mystery to me, just as those surrounding the events that took place here.”

This is actually true.  She has no fucking idea about Nikki or the Conclave.  She merely saw an opportunity and took it.

During talks, Mythal frequently uses terms that Bevin knows to be elven.

She specifically calls her “‘Ma da’isenatha” which translates to “my little dragon.”

Bevin garners the nickname from Mythal’s affinity for dragons and because of the large, ornate dragonfly tattoo across her back.

The spirit refers to Solas as Bevin’s “hahren” or “mentor” frequently.

There’s some lore bit somewhere that I read - absolutely no idea if it’s actually canon or not anymore since I have a horrible habit of not taking note of precisely where I read things (definitely my headcanon, hehe) - that mentioned that student/mentor romantic relationships were almost expected in some elvhen clans/alienages.

Within SAR, I’ve made reference to this through Solas.  He uses his mentorship of her to keep her close and help enforce a sort of private authority over her even while she gains influence within the Inquisition and Thedas.  He does, ultimately, want to include her in his plans, and that means ensuring that she listens to him above anyone else.  He gets a bit underhanded.

Leliana’s doing something similar with taking Bevin under her wing (minus the romantic angle).  Solas recognizes this and it creates a sort of rivalry between the two that escalates over time.

Bevin’s Powers:

Okay, you read all the general stuff on her powers above, so this is the nitty-gritty of it.

Solas really doesn’t have a clue about this particular magic beyond how he has used a form of it to intake excess mana from around him in a kind of “one fell swoop” gathering of it.  He can sustain himself via the Fade for prolonged amounts of time, but this isn’t quite the same thing.

So he keeps an ear out for any new information regarding it, both in the Fade and out.  It irks him to no end that Dorian has more knowledge of this area than he does while still not knowing enough about it.

Bevin’s syphoning magic is knowledge passed from Flemeth and Mythal.

She’s essentially been “branded” with it by them.

It’s involved in most of Bevin’s “peculiar” gifts.

Her vast, perpetual stores of mana from syphoning is part of what is powering her Foresight abilities.

The other part is spiritual energy, as is conveniently provided by Mythal.

This is why Mythal becomes dormant to recover after visions, especially more “involved” ones or after times where there are multiples.

As Bevin’s mana stores are depleted, Mythal grows weaker.  As they become larger/stronger, Mythal grows stronger.

Foresight wasn’t actually a purposeful endowment by Mythal or Flemeth but an odd happenstance that came about from combining the powerful magics just right within one particular person (Bevin).  To a much lessor extent, spiritual/Fade magic is used in minor divining and fortunes.

Cole, as a spirit, is also able to influence her visions.  When he happens upon one, he can help make her “lucid” during them so that she has free range to move.

The life energy that she’s intaking is what is driving her healing ability.

To a more extreme end it is also part of what is changing her into an immortal being.

The other part being her gradual merger with Mythal/spiritual energy.

Her healing still has its limits: she cannot regenerate lost limbs or organs.

Cutting off her head would still probably kill her if it’s not reattached quickly.  Smashing her head in would definitely still kill her.  If a blade were to be shoved into her heart and twisted a few times, there’s a chance that she’d recover from it as that would still leave it mostly intact.  Just removing her heart from her chest would kill her, though.

Her healing will revert her back to the body that she gained  the ability with.  So her prior scars will remain.  She’s not getting her uterus back spontaneously.

So, Bevin is well on her way towards immortality.

A kind of “gift” from Flemeth/Mythal.

Flemeth has used spirit energy to remain effectively immortal for many, many years.  Mythal helps deliver the spirit of the old god Urthemiel to her to fulfill their exchange so that Flemeth retains her immortality as well.

Yes, this is my hack for fixing this issue with her being human with Solas. >.>

After she fully merges with Mythal, she’d still be human, but she’d have an Elvhen mana system...thing.

Bevin’s other powers:

She’s primarily Storm natured, with a secondary nature for Fire (thanks to Mythal)

She can’t use Ice magic for shit (not the whole of the Winter School, but this is where most of her struggles lie).

Water’s not fun, either, but not seemingly impossible for her.

She eventually will learn that she can manipulate plants/nature magic.

And thus thinks that the entirety of Circle magic teachings are a load of bullshit.

She’s, like, half right.

Lotta bullshit, but she’s practically using Elvhen magic herself since she hosts Mythal, so she’s also not entirely right.

I am, of course, referring to the bit of game lore that says only Elves can use Nature magic/certain other aspects of Creation magic.

Mythal teaches her to shapeshift.

Beginning with forcing her into the body of a fennec and making her figure out how to turn back.

This first comes up in the Schematics side bit, “A Foxy Look for You.”

Bevin really likes her Barriers.

A lot.

Defensive magic is her A-game.

As a recap: 

Mana

Life energy (I’m toying with just calling this “chi”)

Spirit energy

How Other Lore Ties In:

My pet theory for SAR.

Certain people from our world, typically of more creative minds, have been able to see dreams and memories from the Fade while asleep/dreaming.

Popular works of fiction have elements based on things that actually happened in the DA world.

Religions here have influences from events and religions there.

So when Bevin’s noticing an awful lot of similarities in the cultures and histories of the two worlds, it’s not just a coincidence.

Spells and magic theories that she’s read/heard/watched frequently have real world counterparts in the DA world.

And this is why some of her seemingly bizarre magic works.

Bevin’s Really Awful Background

Bevin’s background is based on bits of actual events/cases that I’ve read about/studied and my own experiences with growing up in a highly religious area and finally being able to “escape” it.  This will move fairly chronologically through her life.

In ch.01 she mentions that she’s from Michigan, but she means this as in “I was living in Michigan at the time.”

She actually grew up in Louisiana, born Bébhionne Chael Ní Hallmhuráin (which is read “Bevin, daughter of Chael, (female) descendant of Hallmhuráin” in traditional Irish).

Daddy wanted a boy and took out his resentment on Bevin after they were unable to have any more children.

As a clan/cult elder, he dictated her life.  She’s forced to participate in his extreme tutelage to follow their religion (which she describes as “quote-unquote Catholic.”  Anything viewed as a mistake or slight to his demanded perfectionism of her resulted in mental/physical torture.

Her mother basically enabled him through her passivity, as is what is expected of women in the cult.  She did nothing to physically abuse or detain Bevin (beyond neglect), but would inform on her to her husband.  So there was some mental abuse, there.

Bevin has a couple friends from the cult that she would sneak off to play with (not all families were as strict as hers).

The first time her father catches her, he shaves her head to humiliate her.

Bevin tells herself from then on that she doesn’t care about her hair, but she still can’t stand to have it short.  Once in Thedas, she really only wants it shorter to make it easier to manage.

Past that, though, it was more beatings/locking her in the closet/etc.

Also results in Bevin’s fear of small, dark places/claustrophobia.

Becomes best friends with a female cousin named Delanay, who has epilepsy.

Her clan had essentially overrun a small, isolated bayou town, which lead to her physical struggle to leave it.

Bevin tried numerous times to run away from home, each time spending a number of weeks/months surviving off the land as she tried to work her way further from the town.  The first time she ran away to seek local authorities was when she learned that they would only delivery her right back home.

The last try, she’s hunted down by dogs until they’re attacked/scared off by the local, highly territorial pack of red wolves.  She proved herself to the pack, gaining a new set of scars across her ribs, but voluntarily goes back home after one is found shot dead and threats are made on the rest of the pack.

She’s given up on life a lot by the time she’s in highschool.

She’s the small, quiet, awkward homeschooled kid that no-one really pays any attention to.  This was her first exposure to computers and the internet.  She uses the time waiting for her bus departure to explore online and eventually finds people that she talks to.

Someone points her in the direction of a group that helps minors leave abusive households.

She initially reached out to the group and even agrees to meet with an investigative lawyer named Jeremy after months of talking, but got cold feet, stood him up, and quit all contact.

When she was fifteen, she witnessed Delanay die of a seizure during an exorcism ritual performed by her father and other elders/clan members.

Following this, she’s plagued by guilt and reaches out to Jeremy again thinking that if she had followed through in the first place, this could have been avoided.

Through her talks with Jeremy, she learned that there was a case being built against the cult following several suspicious deaths and missing persons.  She knew of evidence to support this and agreed to help him out, even though she has the physical evidence (in the form of scars) that could more easily get her removed from the family.

She then learned that her family was planning on marrying her off to a much older man.  With this new development, she worried that she would no longer have access to where she knows that evidence is hidden since upon that marriage, she would be moved out of the home.

Bevin sneaks off to the forest in search of a certain plant warned to be avoided for its high degree of toxicity.  She doesn’t want to kill the man outright, but knowing of her family’s superstitious nature, she takes advantage of the extreme hallucinogenic nature of datura (also known regionally as ‘devil’s snare’ or ‘moon flowers’). 

The man was brought over to see her and she managed to poison him via his frequent drinks of alcohol.

His following extreme behavior that lasted for several days was enough to put off her parents before he managed to drown himself.

Bevin later greatly distrusts alcohol (and other “mind altering substances”) and the general culture of drinking due to this incident.  She doesn’t like how easy it is to take advantage of someone under the influence, so will not partake herself.

Bevin used this time while they were distracted to gather the evidence needed and take it to Jeremy.  After a time of further investigation, they had all that was needed to turn it over to the proper federal authorities, who ran with the case.

Aside from murder, most of the cult/clan was involved with money laundering among other crimes.  The cult was disbanded.

Once free of her clan, Bevin changed her name by anglicizing it and taking on the name of her best friend (Delanay) in order to cut ties with and formally disown the clan name.

She was transferred to a group home in Michigan before being adopted by the man she had come to see as a father figure over the past year.  She stayed with him for a quick two years until she was accepted to a university on scholarship and funds brought in from interviews and donations.

With life finally settling down following the initial trial verdicts, Jeremy took on another case through a boy trapped within another cult.  This one gets a target painted on him and eventually killed for his efforts.

Bevin very much retreats into herself following his death, and throws herself into her coursework.

Running into a friend named Greyson from the group home finally brought her back out of her shell and she started actual therapy.  She began volunteering in projects, including the study and tagging of wolves.  This took her back to her roots where a group was looking to relocate her pack of red wolves to a protected reservation.

Throughout these years in uni is when she amasses her collection of piercings and select friends “civilize” her to the modern world.

A friend recommends a tattoo artist who ends up doing her dragonfly back piece.

Which Bevin gets to cover up the physical scars of her childhood.

Also saw a doctor about frequent abdominal pains that often completely incapacitated her.  One thing lead to another, and she ended up with a hysterectomy to remove her uterus.

She had already intended for her family line to die with her, and was more than okay with this outcome.

In my headcanon, Solas is perfectly fine with this.  He’s not looking to personally revive his people through the fruit of his loins.

I will never write about babies.

Puppies.  Everyone gets puppies.

This mostly takes us to the present day.

Other details:

English is not a native language for Bevin (despite growing up in the US, her family spoke Irish almost exclusively), and she forgets words all the time.  Sometimes the entire language.  She had to learn it for high school and pushed herself really hard in order to make the most of her little online time and to not flunk out of school and be more permanently stuck with her family.

She grew up speaking Irish and Latin at a native level thanks to her clan roots and religious influence.

To a slightly lessor extent, she speaks fluent Bayou French (which is kind of more of a creole language).

She purposefully lost her Irish accent and adopts the General Midwest Dialect.

She occasionally lapses.

Solas and Leliana

As pointed out a bit above, there’s a growing rivalry between the two.

They both take on different mentoring roles for Bevin quite early.  While Nichole learns more about the troops and warrior-ing, Leliana takes Bevin under her wing and teaches her more about the scouts/spy network.

Starts off as minor things at first: basic cyphers for messages, handling the ravens, general workings of the network and The Game.

Leliana increasingly sees Bevin almost as a younger version of herself.

Leliana doesn’t fully trust Solas from the beginning but not for the typical reasoning of him being an apostate.

She’s very aware that he doesn’t have a known background, and she’s worked to verify the little he has shared.

When she’s unable to, she becomes suspicious of him.

And worried about Bevin since the others rather lobbed her under his care exclusively.

Her agents’ inability to track him for very long also rings alarm bells.

So she knows that he’s likely more knowledgeable/ skilled than he lets on.

He is constantly under surveillance.

She sends Scout Kalen Highridge, who’s been in charge of watching out for Bevin, along with them when they head out after the lead on the Grey Warden.

He’s been kinda flirty with her before, and takes advantage of her reciprocation (she sees him as fling material) to try and wheedle his way into answers about Solas.

Her being not forthcoming at all really irks him as he’s begun catching actual feelings from their growing “relationship” and internalizes this as a kind of betrayal.

He “doesn’t see what she sees in him.”

He ends up botching his mission by pissing off both Bevin and Solas in such a way that makes it obvious what he’d been trying to do.

Solas specifically warns him away from Bevin for his duplicitous intentions.

Bevin has every intention of confronting Leliana, who she knows put Kalen up to it, but isn’t able to get the woman alone prior to the attack on Haven.

Had the attack on Haven not occurred, Leliana would have lobbied for the removal of Bevin from their shared hut.

Given that, she’s quite pleased that Bevin is given her own quarters at Skyhold.

Not so pleased that Bevin continues to spend quite a bit of time with the elf.

Bevin’s increasing duties take away most of her free time, so Solas begins seeking her out instead.

Leliana is the source of a lot of this work, and she takes the time to pull Bevin aside to have a “heart to heart” about their resident apostate.

Pretty much warns her but also says that she won’t come between them (just make it really difficult).

Also around the time that Bevin realises she has feelings for him, but this reaffirms to her that Solas may have ulterior motives or a sketchy past.

Game Solas vs Concept Art Solas

This is something I’ve been toying with for awhile that I finally decided to make into SAR canon.

They’re the same person.  Solas uses a complex glamour spell, rooted to the halla jawbone he keeps on him.  Removal of the jawbone wouldn’t result in an immediate change, but a gradual one as the weaving of spells wore off, so temporarily removing it would not be cause for alarm.

He created himself as-is out of the mildest parts of himself.  He purposefully tries to make himself look bland to blend in with the first elven populations he comes into contact with upon waking up from uthenera.  Older looking, no hair, lighter skinned, slightly softened bone structure.

Keeping it tied to the bone makes it so that he expends the least amount of mana/energy on it and so that it’s harder to detect.

Bevin can tell there’s magic attached to it, but doesn’t really question it, yet.

Bevin (and we) first sees a glimpse of him in Ch.21 when she finds herself in one of Mythal’s memories.  He looks different enough that she isn’t struck by any kind of familiarity (and such a thing would not occur to her at this time, anyway).

The Minor Bits and Details:

““Never thought I would meet another sky watcher in these parts,” he heard the Avvar Mage mumble as he stepped to follow after Bevin. Turning, the Mage faced away to the flames, head once more upturned to the sky.”

Found in Chapter 23.  Totally headcanon, but Amund is also able to see mana and life energy the way Bevin can.  He recognizes the way she “watches the sky” as he does, leading to an offhand comment that Solas picks up, but has no context for, so pays it no mind.

To be continued via edits as the story progresses. :]

[the-haunted-office]

"Hey, ummm... Sorry, this is a bit awkward... for both of us, I imagine. But, ah, you see, you're in my closet, and I'm afraid I can see what you're doing in there right now. So, um, if you could just... maybe... not do that anymore? I'd- I'd really appreciate that. Thanks."

[suburbshqs]

           welcome    to    hell,    samantha  lis  beauregarde,  georgia  katheryn  starr,  arkady  yuri  orlov   &   dorian  albert  miller.  STELLA  MAEVE,  MADISON  MCLAUGHLIN,   TARON  EGERTON  and  KIT  HARINGTON  are  now  taken     —     please  send  in  your  account  within  TWELVE  HOURS,  or  risk  being  reopened.

(     STELLA  MAEVE.     )     ━━━     if  i’m  not  mistaken,  that’s  SAMANTHA  LIS  BEAUREGARDE.  SHE’S  just  blown  out  TWENTY - SIX  candles,  and  the  CISFEMALE  SCORPIO  is  a  MORTICIAN  at  BRATTLEBORO PUBLIC HOSPITAL  around  town.  if  you  listen  to  the  hearsay,  you  might  hear  that  SHE  HAS  A  SPECIAL  CONNECTION  WITH  DEATH  IN  AN  ALMOST  EROTIC  WAY  but  it’s  up  to  you  whether  you  decide  to  believe  it.  SHE  is  most  oft  associated  with  WANDERING  A  DECRYPTED  CEMETERY  LONG  FORGOTTEN  BY  THE  LOCALS,  SUCKING  DEATH’S  DICK  BEHIND  THE  DUMPSTER  OF  THE  NEXT  TOWN  OVER’S  CHUCKIE - CHEESE,  and  FORMALDEHYDE  SCENT  THAT  WILL  NEVER  REMOVE  ITSELF  FROM  TANNED  SKIN.     →     hannah.  she/her.  twenty - two.  cst.  

(     MADISON  McLAUGHLIN.     )     ━━━     if  i’m  not  mistaken,  that’s  GEORGIA  KATHERYN  STARR.  SHE’S  just  blown  out  NINETEEN  candles,  and  the  CISFEMALE  CANCER  is  a  WAITRESS  at  JOAN’S  around  town.  if  you  listen  to  the  hearsay,  you  might  hear  that  SHE  RECENTLY  ESCAPED  FROM  A  CULT  COMMUNE  AND  KNOWS  NOTHING  ABOUT  THE  WORLD  but  it’s  up  to  you  whether  you  decide  to  believe  it.  SHE  is  most  oft  associated  with  TANGLED  DARK  LOCKS  THAT  ACTUALLY  CONTAIN  STICKS  IN  A  HALF - CONSTRUCTED  NEST,  SUNFLOWERS  BRIGHT  AND  UNYIELDING  TO  THE  WORLD  AROUND,  and  QUESTIONS  UPON  QUESTIONS  ABOUT  THE  SIMPLEST  OF  THINGS.     →     hannah.  she/her.  twenty - two.  cst.  

(     TARON  EGERTON.     )     ━━━     if  i’m  not  mistaken,  that’s  ARKADY  YURI  ORLOV.  HE’S  just  blown  out  TWENTY - FOUR  candles,  and  the  CISMALE  LEO  is  a  JANITOR  at  BRATTLEBORO COMMUNITY COLLEGE  around  town.  if  you  listen  to  the  hearsay,  you  might  hear  that  HE  MURDERED  HIS  BROTHER  AND  NOW  HIS  GHOST  HAUNTS  HIM  IN  THE  MOST  PASSIVE - AGGRESSIVE  WAY  but  it’s  up  to  you  whether  you  decide  to  believe  it.  HE  is  most  oft  associated  with  THE  BRIGHT LIGHTS  OF  A  CAR  DEALERSHIP  AT  NIGHT,  THE  ABSOLUTE  LACK  OF  CARE  IN  PERSONAL  WELLBEING,  and  LOITERING  IN  A  DARK  PARKING  GARAGE  WITH  A  SUSPICIOUS  SUITCASE  IN  HAND.     →     hannah.  she/her.  twenty - two.  cst.  

(     KIT  HARINGTON.     )     ━━━     if  i’m  not  mistaken,  that’s  DORIAN  ALBERT  MILLER.  HE’S  just  blown  out  TWENTY - NINE  candles,  and  the  CISMALE  TAURUS  is  a  PRISON  GUARD  at  BRATTLEBORO  POLICE  OFFICE  AND  JAIL  around  town.  if  you  listen  to  the  hearsay,  you  might  hear  that  HE’S  BEING  POSSESSED  BY  THE  LONELY  SPIRIT  OF  A LITTLE  GIRL  WHO  ONLY  DESIRES  VISITORS  but  it’s  up  to  you  whether  you  decide  to  believe  it.  HE  is  most  oft  associated  with  STACKED  DISHES  LEFT  FOR  WEEKS  IN  A  SINK  TOO  SMALL,  A  DIRTY  JEEP  WHO  HAS  NEVER  KNOWN  THE  LUXURY  OF  A  CAR  WASH,  and  FREQUENT  TRIPS  TO  THE  GYM  THROUGHOUT  THE  DAY.     →     hannah.  she/her.  twenty - two.  cst.  

[menmakingapologies]

A LETTER TO READERS I have some explaining to do

Since I was a boy, all I ever wanted to be was a writer. That’s the irony of this week. I Can’t Breathe is the book I spent thirty years learning to write. Writers often speak self-referentially about “finding their voice,” but the painful and complex story of Eric Garner’s life and death is one I found had to be told without my voice, without linguistic cartwheels or jokes or any of the other circus tricks I learned to use to sustain my financial career over the years.

When you finally get to this place as a writer, there is an incredible sense of relief and pride. I felt that last week once I Can’t Breathe hit the shelves. But at the exact moment when I was finally disappearing from public view in the right way, I ruined it all by becoming an Internet scandal.

I issued a statement on Facebook last week that was meant to address both allegations of sexual harassment and misogynistic writing from my days at a Russian newspaper called the eXile in the late nineties.

As to the former, I continue to deny absolutely that I have ever sexually harassed anyone in any office, here or in Russia. No woman anywhere has ever accused me of anything of the sort, and I am confident that my former co-workers will report (many already have) that I have never exhibited anything like that kind of behavior, at work or elsewhere.

In that regard, I never spoke publicly about my departure from First Look Media and Racket, which was to be the companion site to the Intercept. I said nothing because of a non-disclosure agreement, which I believed prevented me from doing so.

It is true that there was a complaint made against me by a female employee at Racket. But that complaint had nothing to do with sexual harassment. Moreover, I was not fired due to this complaint, as the company following a thorough investigation cleared me in the matter. I left First Look instead because of an ongoing dispute with management, which felt, with some justice, that I was insubordinate.

The furor this week is over a passage from a book I co-wrote back in 1999 with Mark Ames called The eXile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia.

In a chapter written by Mark, he is seen bragging about how “we” harassed women in the newspaper office, begging them for blowjobs and anal sex. As I said last week, the passage depicts behavior that is reprehensible and inexcusable. It is also, like a lot of things in the eXile, fiction.

Some Internet observers believe this denial is belied by the book jacket, which describes the eXIle as non-fiction. As to that, the publisher of the book, Grove Press, has issued a statement:

“The statement on the copyright page is incorrect. This book combines exaggerated, invented satire and nonfiction reporting and was categorized as nonfiction because there is no category for a book that is both.”

I don’t recommend reading the book, but it opens with an interview in one of Mark’s chapters with a fictional character named Johnny Chen. Chen is a fake person. He is, in fact, Mark Ames. And he is actually listed as a contributor right underneath the supposed smoking-gun disclaimer about the book’s non-fiction-ness. Even the book jacket, in other words, was spoofed.

This is not to defend the book, its message, or its use of language. I merely point out that it is not biographical reality.

The issue of the misogyny and hurtfulness in the book and the newspaper is more complicated and I apologize for it. In my Facebook statement last week, I tried to tell the truth about my feelings about the eXile years.

We wrote a lot of terrible things back then, for which I feel deep regret. Since leaving Russia memories of the paper’s gratuitous viciousness, its often demeaning and misogynistic content, and its generally mean-spirited tone over the years have haunted me.

I have regrets about many of the editorial decisions made in those years. I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, “What you are doing is wrong, stupid, and hurtful to women.” It pains me to think of one of my three young sons reading some of this material. As I wrote here last week, I am genuinely sorry for my bad judgment and insensitivity in those years.

An article on Huffington Post by NYU Russian Studies Professor Eliot Borenstein that suggested that this apology was insufficient, and helpfully offered a more elaborate version.

He added the following:

When it comes to Taibbi, Russianists have been experiencing a slow-motion shock of an entirely different kind: the gradual discovery over the past decade that Taibbi has somehow matured into one of the most acerbic and valuable commenters on the American political scene. How can this be the same man?

I understand the question, but to me the answer is simple. Writers often start out by writing terrible things, either to get attention or to imitate some other shocking or flamboyant writer from the past, whose personality was perhaps a better fit for that kind of approach.

As it happens, most of the great writers I grew up admiring were either outright insane people or defective as human beings in some other critical way in their private lives. But they somehow managed to produce great writing.

Moreover many of these voices shared a belief that producing good writing was more important than anything, more important than being good or bad, more important than achieving social justice aims, anything.

I remember very clearly as a young man reading Vladimir Nabokov denounce the “literature of social intent” as not only boring, but as an ugly characteristic of repressive states like the one he’d fled. And I remember Oscar Wilde telling me in The Picture of Dorian Gray, “All art is quite useless.”

As a confused and depressed young man for whom writing at an early age become a primary means of making sense of the world, I believed in all of this with the force of a newly religious person. So I committed to this carpe diem ethos, under which nothing matters but what you put on paper.

As I would later learn, the business of writing is more crucially about growing up in public. It can be incredibly painful and embarrassing, and it’s why so few people can stomach it in the most serious sense of the word, as a way of life.

Many people can hear the obvious things wrong with themselves. But to succeed in this profession you have to be willing to, at one time or another, hear people detail absolutely everything wrong with who you are. This is why, as hard as this week has been, I am not hiding from the questions, because I need to hear it all still – you never stop needing to hear it.

Borenstein’s proposed better apology contains a few lines that are very true, particularly:

The overall tone of the book is accurate, but some of the worst parts are exaggeration for effect; that is, I actively chose to make myself look like even more of an asshole than I was. I was also strung out on heroin all those years, though that does not excuse me. I deeply regret how I behaved, and have tried to be a better person since then, particularly in my interactions with women.

I could write such an apology, and add the other parts he felt were necessary – like making sure to point out that I’m not saying “it was a different time,” because the eXile book was “published in the same year that Gloria Steinem turned 68; everything people are complaining about now was reprehensible then.”

But there is a reason why I never formally apologized in this manner, even though I began to feel sick about having written certain things at the eXile a long time ago.

I have always believed that living forever with the dumb and failed things that you publish is how a writer apologizes. Ongoing embarrassment and loss of audience is the price of offensive work. You get readers back by growing and being better, not by apologizing. This merciless meritocratic system is a major incentive for literary restraint in most cases, especially in the Internet age.

So now, for instance, if people go back and look at the offensive things that I wrote 18 or 20 years ago, and decide never to read my columns in Rolling Stone or buy I Can’t Breathe, that is completely just. It’s how this business works.

The eXile did have a satirical idea, at least in the beginning. It was supposed to be an obscene send-up of the Americans who stood behind the crooked Yeltsin government. They arrived in droves in the nineties, consultants who wore benevolent faces as they imported neoliberal misery by day, but were monsters by night, romping in clubs and blowing fat fees on booze, drugs, and prostitutes.

The basic division of labor was that Mark would write about the nightlife side while I wrote about the daytime exploitation. My reporting in Moscow on the mob-style machinations of the Yeltsin government and the missives I sent in from the provinces were meant, I thought back then, to show the true face of the oligarchical society we Americans were helping create.

But as I reflected back years later, mostly what I was doing with that reporting was giving the eXile legitimacy as social criticism, when in fact we had pretty quickly become the very people we were supposedly satirizing.

We were mean and we turned Russia, a place we claimed to love, into our personal playground. As for the misogyny, that’s a darker topic that will likely require years more self-examination. Perhaps others can help me unwind it further. But I knew from the moment I returned home that it was an issue that would require years of reckoning.

As for Mark Ames and his columns: I will confess right now that I never confronted him about their misogyny. Our arguments ran in a different direction. In many ways, Mark and I were very different people. Among other things, he was an unapologetic libertine, while I was in a committed relationship throughout that period (though I failed at that as well).

But we had one thing in common, which is that we both desperately wanted to be writers. Our final split was more about how to accomplish that than it was about anything else. Mark felt we were on the right track at the eXile. I did not, and left.

When I returned to America, I began going through everything that we’d tried at the eXile – there was a lot of wincing during this time – and started down the long road of facing up to the failures of that period.

The eXile was where I learned to write. I tried everything in its pages: I tried being engaging, but also tried being vile and shocking. I tried autobiography as well as fiction. I tried juvenile pranks, but also serious journalism. I tried to imitate good writers (like Hunter Thompson and H.L. Mencken) and bad ones (like Jim Goad, the author of perhaps the only magazine ever more disgusting than the eXile, Answer ME!).

Stylistically I tried a me-first, look-at-how-cool-I-am style, tried another one that was more based upon being detached, reporting-heavy, and empathetic, and then spent a lot of time flailing in between.

In the cold light of day, away from the project, I read all of this again and found it horrifying, embarrassing, hurtful, and stupid. There was one day in particular when I had been away from it long enough to see this, and it was a long time before I could even look at an eXile again.

Nonetheless, some things I’d experimented with at the paper bled into my more modern work.

I’d written a “participatory” column called Working Here in which I got jobs doing all sorts of things — shoveling dung at the Moscow elephant cage, being a greeter in a clown theater, selling vegetables in a mob-run market, etc.

And for longer features I’d traveled all over the country following people around in weird corners of the Russian experience, working as a bricklayer, moonshine bootlegger, a monastery itinerant, and… well, it doesn’t matter now. But I wrote probably millions of words of this stuff.

People who read any of those articles now will find the tone and style the same as the articles and books I’ve written in the last few years. It took all those years at the eXile to learn that this unvarnished, on-the-ground reporting style was where I had something to contribute, while in other areas – like trying to be cool, or offering commentary on sex or gender relations, or being a public personality – it was clear I had nothing to offer to anyone.

This is why, if you scan YouTube, you will not find video of me hanging with actors, or partying at nightclubs, or really doing anything at all outside the confines of my job. I have a beautiful family, three young children and a brilliant and caring wife, whom I love boundlessly and as best I can. If you read my work you know the rest, because writing is pretty much the only other thing I do.

Apart from my family, my relationship with readers is the most important thing in my life, which is why I’m going against professional advice to try to explain the eXile days to those who may feel betrayed.

I understand these offenses might not be forgivable to some. If readers feel that you’ve violated their trust – by turning out to be something you seemed not to be – they will leave you, and that’s appropriate.

If on the other hand as a reader you believe that writers have the ability to evolve and grow, that’s different. I believe it. If my hero Raymond Chandler were alive today, would he still employ the offensive and hurtful language that can be found dotting otherwise beautiful books like Farewell My Lovely? I hope and believe he would express himself differently. I believe he could have been made to see the issues in his work. I’ve tried to.

Since returning home I’ve learned a lot from colleagues and readers over the years who reacted, sometimes with outrage, at certain uses of flamboyantly offensive imagery. Sometimes, I didn’t hear or want to hear the righteousness of what they said at first. But I tried to listen to everything and many times - I think particularly of a Rolling Stone copy-editor with whom I fought loudly over the cavalier use of a violent metaphor - I eventually changed in the right directions, even if it sometimes took far longer than it should have.

This has been my version of an apology, working for nearly two decades now to try to do the right work instead of the wrong work. I don’t know what else to do. If there are other apologies to make, I will make them, but I believe the most effective and sincere apology any writer can make is to try to use his or her platform in the right way.

I’ve done a lot of wrong things in my life. As a young man, I wrote and said some very dumb and hurtful things. I also made questionable decisions about my professional relationships. I’m sorry for all of this, and I’m sure as I look back I will continue to see, and be told, more reasons to be sorry.

But it was never more than that. I know the list of revealed harassers is growing, but I am not on that list, nor should I be. I belong to a much bigger group. I was young once, and a jerk. And I am sorry for that.

-Matt Taibbi, writer.

[nettvnow-blog]

2017 IPF Trailer YouTube Round up

The IPF trailers are finally out which means that we get our best look at some of the (hopefully) upcoming web series in 2017 and beyond. IPF is a funding agency for Canadian digital productions and requires applicants to provide a trailer for their proposed projects. Not only is this a great chance to peak at where the Canadian industry is heading but it also means that us fans get a ton of new content to eagerly anticipate. As your resident Canadian grant writer and business affairs human, trust me when I say that these trailers can make or break the stage 1 portion of an application. 

So make sure you like and watch your favourites!

The IWCC-CIWC has done the hard work for me of compiling a list of IPF trailers which you can view here. So thanks to them!

With 66 videos on the list, there’s a lot of content to go through and we’re going to help you out with managing them. I’m going in blind to watch all the trailers once and then, as succinctly as possible, let you know what I think the upcoming web series is going to be about. Trailer only. No youtube descriptions or press or anything. Trailer only.

That’s right. I’m writing premises. What could possible go wrong?

Everything. Succinct is hard when the shows are this great. 

Zero Day – Kayla’s computer hacker brother drags her into a world where everyone wants the ‘encrypted crucible’ and are willing to kill to get it. (story occurs in real time)

Candiland – Candi with an I is a ‘probably straight’ guy who is experiencing his first time crossdressing like he’s always wanted.   

The Most Unpopular Girl at School – Told almost entirely through music playlists, facebook, and in-universe youtube videos, a high school student has an unflattering video leaked and must try to get it taken down.

Earthing House Huntress – A real estate agent decides to specialize in selling homes to aliens who are just looking for a place to belong here on Earth.

We Three Queens – A broke writer and his ‘rent boy lover’ move in with an elderly female widow.

Cam_Girlfriend – A Cam Girl tries to navigate a boyfriend who doesn’t seem to know her at all and her viewers who seem to know her better than he does.

Face Candy – Make-up counters are a cut throat business and the new girl needs to do whatever it takes to sell product. 

Grave Concerns – Two men with luscious beards have been hired to remove all dead bodies (new or old) from a town but it’s a little tricky when the corpses keep complaining about their grave-digging skills. 

#famous – A man seeks to create the best prank videos on youtube but runs into a number of problems with his real life responsibilities. 

Boring Girls – Three musicians discover that, for their dark music audience, shock value sells and start creating bigger and bigger scenes without caring if they become deadly.

Made With Love – A queer engineer is fired and decides to start a fashion line with her best friend even though she knows almost nothing about fashion. 

Wharf Rats – Set in PEI, two brothers dream of being fishermen and they’re just crazy enough to do whatever shenanigans are necessary to get a fishing boat.

Bad Life Choices – Two friends who really really like drugs and alcohol just keep making bad life choices. 

Cat Show – A girl puts on a cat show because she believes the rules of all the other cat shows, where her cat lost, are wrong. 

NarcoLeap – A girl has terrifying dreams that involve chasing, running and blood but whenever she looks in the mirror in the dream, she’s wearing someone else’s face. 

Life Coach – Despite her own life being in shambles, a woman decides to become a life coach and takes on a number of interesting patients. 

Cousins – Two snarky cousins are forced together and do not exactly get along.

Conversations For the End of The World – Radiation is killing off humanity and a father and son are just trying to live through the end of the world together.

Allie & Lara Make A Horror Movie – Allie and Lara are trying to make a horror movie; unfortunately ideas are easier than execution and their roommate is determined to cast herself as the lead.

Widow’s Web – Jennifer joins a group for widows over 60 and they end up taking justice for crimes against seniors into their own hands. 

Ran and Jaden – Two twenty year olds living their millennial life in Toronto.

SpeakEasy – In 1914, two men go into business with a shady character to get the money to keep their speakeasy and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the cash coming. (based on a real life story)

Tight Knit – Two polar-opposite sisters take over their grandmother’s knitting store and knitting puns abound.

Little Piggies – Three friends put together dating video profiles to help podiatry doctor Katie find true love. 

Man Dog – A dog gets put into a human body and thinks he has the whole town fooled at how well we can play human but they all know. 

Late Fees – A Blockbuster employee can’t let go of the stores closing and starts to hang out in whatever random video rental store he can still find. 

Free Space – A small change is changing and the towns people are having trouble coping, so they turn to young Terry and his Bingo hall.

The co-op – A gay actor moves into a co-op with a bunch of artists across all genres and mediums who are all trying to catch their break.

Darkland – Strange things are happening like girls exploding and pig headed humans eating bloody fish and it’s scary.

Off Kilter – A choreographer comes back after 2 decades to work with an aging dancer and claim their comeback one last time. 

Boombats – Bobby opens an odd job business and the family has feelings about this. 

Blackout – A man starts having blackouts and memory loss and is terrified of what he might do but he’s not the only one blacking out.

Year – The world is ending and a father will kill anyone or anything who tries to hurt his son.

Valley Cats – An animated series where a former valley girl-cat becomes a reality tv star.

Climax, SK – An aging ‘James Bond-esque’ spy is forced to hide out in the small town of Climax, Saskatchewan where no-one believes he’s a spy.

Demo Time – A show about a quirky product demonstration sales team trying to sell the unsellable that’s literally pitched as a product demonstration. 

Kate – A small town girl moves to the big city of Toronto for the first time and wants to do everything she never got to do.

Masters of Bait and Switch – Three friends pull off a series of elaborate heists simply because they can. 

Rachel and The Dead -  A psychology student accidentally moves into an apartment that’s haunted by a dead guy.

Tokens – An on-call actress is always sent to auditions to fill the ‘token Asian’ role and is surprised to find herself cast in a role that doesn’t rely on her filling a diversity quota. 

The Rejects – A group of incompetent and quirky police officers are trying to work their way up from the bottom of the Toronto police ranks even as the Captain tries to deal with them. 

Hurry Up and Wait – Five best friends, all of whom are queer woc, struggle to navigate romance and breakups. 

Dominion – A detective noir series featuring supernatural humans chasing down a girl who has ‘Dominion’. 

Temps Double – A French series, Ben is a fast food worker who just wants to go home but the customers are making it difficult. 

Branded – Two girls try to sell branded content but after their star show dies they have to come up with a new smash hit idea as quickly as possible. 

Bachelor Daddies – Ricky, the smooth bachelor, lets his best friend Jay move in with him after Jay goes through a divorce

The Mavericks – In a dystopia, a teacher uses her dark superpowers bands with one of her students against the militaristic regime. 

P6HUT (Piche Hatt) – With a briefcase full of guns and money, a woman juggles multiple identities.  

Hit on Me – A paid assassin falls in love with his best friend and has to navigate killing people while navigating friendship hopefully becoming something more. 

Clairevoyant – Best friends are getting evicted and become psychics in order to make the money for their rent. 

Jib & Jab on a Quest – Jib and Jab are level 1 RPG mage and warrior characters who are trying to save the world and level up.

The Upload Series – An animated series about a rogue journalist leaking real news to the people despite the government’s outlawing of the press. 

The Vault – In this sci-fi adventure, humanity has to enter the vault to survive the apocalypse and the giant smoke monster that comes with it. (note: this is not 2011’s The Vault)

Act Up – A bunch of teenagers join or are forced to join the improv club and have to navigate high school. 

Rubbed the Wrong Way – This animated series stars two people who unlock a genie and can’t quite understand that he’s actually a genie. 

Imaginary Friends – To cope with her depressing life, Sally creates a number of imaginary friends who live in her head. 

Fak Yaass – Nico struggles to balance his sexuality with his disapproving Greek family. 

Dorian Gray – A man is hired by a mysterious employer and is drawn into a dangerous world after discovering that he’s working for the supernatural, immortal Dorian Gray. 

Witch Like Me – In this supernatural series, a witch fights a number of magical creatures.

Booby & Bogey – An animated booger lives inside the nose of a real life teenaged boy and they strike up a mentorship. 

Meld – Two people take a drug that is supposed to let them feel what the other is feeling but one of them gains the ability to meld with everyone around them and the creators of the drug are desperate to stop her. 

Wild Tales – An animated comedy series about aquatic life including a pregnant male seahorse and a penguin who wants to propose to his girlfriend.

Upheaval Times – A group of humans from the Medieval period are transported forward in time to modern society.

Interlude – Three women try and navigate their lives in the big city.

Gym Rat – Liz broke up with her cheater boyfriend and is now homeless so she starts living out of the locker in the 24hour gym and sleeping on the workout benches. 

In Search Of – Strangers join a facebook group to swap their un-needed items but end up making more personal connections until they’re not strangers at all.

So there you have it! All the great Canadian IPF 2017 trailers that we could find on YouTube. If there’s something that caught your eye, we’d encourage you to check out the trailer and lend it a view and a like to show your support. In addition, there are lots of great trailers on Vimeo and other platforms as well so be sure to check those out too!

Written by Aria Bauer

[gessvhowarth]

13 Things You Might Not Know About London's Hotels

Biggest, tallest, oldest, ugliest — here are some of our favourite London hotel facts. 1. London's biggest hotels The three-star 1,630 bedroom Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury is the largest hotel in London (and indeed, in the whole of the UK) by number of rooms. The Royal National Hotel. Photo by Fitzrie B. The Hilton London Metropole Hotel in Paddington is the largest four-star hotel in London and the UK. It has 1,058 bedrooms. London's five-star hotels are quite small by international standards: the largest in London is the Grosvenor House Hotel, which has just 494 rooms. 2. And the smallest? We've covered this before. We think it might be 40 Winks on Mile End Road. 3. London's tallest hotel The London Hilton on Park Lane is London's tallest hotel. It's 101 metres (331 ft) tall, has 28 storeys and 453 rooms. The Park Lane Hilton. Photo by our own Matt Brown. Michelin-starred restaurant Galvin at Windows is on the top floor of the hotel — the views as tasty as the food. 4. London's highest hotel (this is indeed different) The views at the Park Lane Hilton are beaten by London's highest hotel, the Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard. The Shangri-La Hotel occupies the 34th to the 52nd floors of Renzo Piano's skyscraper. 5. London's Grade I listed hotels London has two Grade I listed hotels: the French chateau-modelled, five-star Royal Horseguards Hotel in Whitehall; and the St Pancras Renaissance London. Royal Horseguards Hotel was once home/office for MI6 chief Sir Mansfield Cumming (the inspiration for 'M' from James Bond). The Royal Horseguards Hotel is located inside the Grade I listed Whitehall Court. 6. London's floating hotel What do you mean you didn't know there was a hotel floating on the Thames? Sunborn London is a hotel on board a super yacht, with 136 rooms, a restaurant and a bar, and well, rather limited parking options... 7. London's ugliest hotel Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. But we think the Guoman Tower Hotel near Tower Bridge is the ugliest hotel in London. Guoman Hotel from Tower Bridge. Photo by Londonista Matt Brown. It's twice been voted the second ugliest building in London, in 2005 and 2006. (It was beaten by the Elephant and Castle shopping centre and Colliers Wood tower respectively.) They couldn't have picked a more prominent location to dump it. 8. The one with the ghosts Ghost hunters should head to the Langham, London's 'most haunted hotel'. Believers should look out for a gentleman in Victorian evening wear who haunts room 333 during October; or the ghost of a German prince who jumped out of a window before the first world war; or the spirit of Emperor Napoleon III, who hangs out in the basement. The Langham Hotel. As recently as 2014, big burly England cricketers — surely not the most superstitious of blokes — were completely spooked by odd goings on at the hotel. 9. And the one with the vampire hunter The Andaz London Liverpool Street, then called the Great Eastern Hotel, is where vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing stays during his first visit to London in Bram Stoker's Gothic horror story Dracula. 10. London's hotels converted from courthouses London boasts not one, but two hotels that used to be courthouses — Clink78 and the Courthouse Hotel. In its days as the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court, there were many (in)famous trials on the site involving figures such as John Lennon, Oscar Wilde, Johnny Rotten, Christine Keeler, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The five-star Courthouse Hotel has retained some of its original features: The Bar's private booths are actually inside three of the original prison cells. You've not lived until you've had a martini perched on a prisoner's loo seat. Clink 78 At the Clink78 youth hostel, where punk rockers The Clash once stood trial, guests can stay in former prison cells. 11. Inspirational London hotels London's hotels have inspired a whole host of literary types. It's said that Rudyard Kipling wrote his Jungle Book stories at Brown's. And that Agatha Christie was inspired to write At Bertrams Hotel at the same address. (Or maybe it was at Flemings Mayfair?) Then there's the Langham, where the editor of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine simultaneously commissioned both Arthur Conan Doyle and Oscar Wilde to write stories for the publication. The results were The Sign of Four (published in February 1890) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (published in July of the same year). 12. The one with the hidden temples The Andaz Liverpool Street has not one, but two masonic temples hidden within its red brick exterior. Andaz Liverpool Street, formerly the Great Eastern Hotel. There's an Egyptian temple in the basement and a Grecian temple on the first floor. The former has traditional seating around a black-and-white chequered marble floor, said to be worth about £3m. The latter was fitted out in 1912, and features an organ, beefy doors enhanced by doric and ionic columns, and another black-and-white marble sunken floor, surrounded by masonic insignia and throne-like seating. 13. The one with the classic music video So, it's not strictly inside a London hotel, but we're claiming it anyway: the video to Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues — the one with the much-copied cue cards and poet Allen Ginsberg hanging out in the background — was filmed in the alleyway behind The Savoy. A still from the video superimposed over Google Street view, by popspotsnyc.com. Want to go and find the exact spot for yourself? Popspotnyc.com have a detailed article to help with that. Below is the original Subterranean Homesick Blues video with modern commentary by the director D A Pennebaker and Bob Neuwirth.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/londonist/sBMe/~3/WACr-Kz2u78/top-facts-about-londons-hotels

[the-haunted-office]

It would be flipping hilarious if the Office was like Howl's Moving Castle! I might have to have it gain the ability to just get up and move around some time. xD