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orionsangel86 · 4 years ago

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SPN Conspiracies - Applying Logic to Chaos

Its been over 2 months now since the Supernatural finale aired. I am still so angry, hurt, and confused by it and I don’t think I will ever get closure unless someone like Andrew Dabb, or Jensen Ackles, actually opens up and gives us an explanation that makes sense.

What annoys me most right now is people trying to gaslight fans into believing that we should accept the narrative we have been given at face value: That the finale was always planned to be that way, that Destiel was never on the cards, that there was no Network interference, that the only changes made were due to covid and were minor at best.

This harmful gaslighting is FALSE.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH OF WHAT HAPPENED.

Look, I don’t agree with some of the crazier conspiracy theories. I don’t believe that there was some huge campaign among the CW Network execs to remove anything remotely gay out of homophobia. I don’t believe that the finale was changed because of some desire to make it into a Walker promo. I don’t believe that the finale was really bad on purpose in protest by Dabb for not getting to do an ending he truly wanted. I don’t believe that Dabb left us smart fans a bunch of secret messages in the finale to hint that he was on our side all along and that everything was fake.

I do, however, believe that all of these conspiracy theories have some elements in them that are plausible. At least, more plausible than the bullshit narrative mentioned above that some people are pushing in some desperate attempt to defend the Network (which imo is really strange behaviour anyway - why would anyone care about a TV network with a history of terrible behaviour?!?)

We have facts, based on information provided before the covid lockdown, which for some reason, people like Misha have since backpeddled on. So let me try to outline some of the information that makes no sense.

Below the cut I go on a deep dive into the conspiracies and statements I have heard about the SPN finale and try to make some sense of this whole fucked up situation. It gets long.

1. “Cas was never gonna be in the finale”.

False: We have many fan accounts of Misha confirming that he was filming the finale. We have video evidence of Misha confirming he was going back to film the finale after the lockdown. We have confirmation from fans in Misha M&Gs from March that he had about 5 days of filming left.

We also had fan accounts of discussions with Alex Calvert (I think) where he confirmed the final shot of the final episode was all four of them though I would LOVE if someone can find a source for this.

2. Okay, Misha was gonna be in the finale, but only as Jimmy Novak

False: I heavily side eyed Misha when he said this. But I think I can come up with a plausible explanation for it. Per above, Misha was supposed to film for 5 days. This does not align with the half a day he described of filming as Jimmy Novak. My own belief is that after Cas was cut from the finale (for whatever reason we don’t know) someone (probably Jensen Ackles) put up a fight and complained that Misha should be there for the final episode. The writers probably tried to come up with a way to bring Misha back without having to deal with Cas, and pitched the idea of Jimmy Novak being in Heaven. Misha, obviously annoyed about this, turned this stupid pitch down.

3. Destiel was never a thing, never planned, never part of Dabb’s ending. Bobo and Misha pushing the confession was the part of the season that was Wrong.

False: We have a SPN writer on record saying that Castiel’s confession was the first thing written for Season 15 when the writers returned to the writers room. If it wasn’t planned, why was it the first thing written, why does it align so well with the rest of season 15? Look I know some people either a. hate destiel and refuse to see it even if it slaps them in the face, or b. have major heteronormative goggles on, or c. are just homophobes in denial, but 15x18 fits in perfectly with the narrative of season 15. Everything Cas says, everything that happened in that scene was so in character it just works. It fit. If you just rewatch the season whilst applying some critical thinking skills and pay attention to the narrative and character arcs, trust me, the confession fits in with pretty much every other plot point, and character story in the season.

Also: We have known for a while that the network did market research into Destiel, wanting to know if it would go down well or not. They were well aware of its popularity and considering it. Where would this have come from if not pitched by the showrunner? Dabb must have at least been considering it. If you take all of Dabb era into consideration, starting with mid season 11, all the way through the season 12 build up, season 13 grief arc, and then Bobo’s Destiel break up arc in late season 14, early season 15, it is clear that there was some toing and froing on the issue of Destiel, but ultimately, I still believe that Dabb was on board. He wrote 13x01 for christs sake. No way he wasn’t taking it seriously.

4. It’s always been about the brothers. The finale just stays true to what Supernatural is all about.

*rubs temples* Fundamentally FALSE: The show has time and again reasserted the message of “Family don’t end with blood”, as well as the messages of AKF and YANA. Sam and Dean may be at the heart of the show, but a heart can’t exist without a body to support it. Without bones, and lungs, and blood, and muscles, and a BRAIN. The finale abandons the shows core messages. It forces the characters back into their season 1 characterisations and the whole thing becomes hollow and souless. But I’m not here to complain, I’m here to lay down the facts. Dean’s heaven was supposed to be surrounded by loved ones right? We know OG Charlie Bradbury was gonna be in his Heaven, we also know CAS was gonna be in there. So this idea that the finale as it currently stands was how it was meant to be is wrong. Dean was supposed to die and reunite with his found family and loved ones. This alone would have been a far better ending than the one given. Do I think this was solely a covid issue? Fuck no.

The randoms that WERE in the finale are proof alone that they could have got people in and quarantined. We also have several actors on record saying that they WOULD have quarantined for the finale had they been asked to return but they WEREN’T.

Lies have been told. Samantha Ferris and Chad Limberg have confirmed that we have been lied to about the original plans for the finale.

This alone is proof enough that there is more plausibility in some of the conspiracy theories than any bullshit narrative some people are pushing in defence of the barbaric mess of a finale we were given.

So lets address some of the conspiracy theories now:

Conspiracy No.1: The CW Network reviewed Supernatural during the covid break, and due to homophobia, refused any Destiel arc that wasn’t already filmed, shut down any potential reciprocation from Dean, and forced Dabb to change his finale.

I don’t think this is entirely what happened. But I do think it is very strange how there is a such a huge disconnect particularly in Dean’s characterisations between what had come before the lockdown, and what came after. The one fact we have here, and please someone provide a source if you can find it because I know there is one, the finale script was still going through changes up to only 2 weeks before it was filmed. We know that there was some weird editing in 15x18 (which was still in post and uncompleted before lockdown) and we know from Jensen’s own mouth that there was more to the confession scene on Dean’s side that was cut. We also know that this isn’t the first time that Destiel heavy moments have been changed in post - the prayer scene is another big scene that went through a lot of changes and Bobo fought to have his script play out the way he wanted it.

There are certain things that in my own opinions, are basically true of SPN which I have put together from years of keeping one eye on the writers room, the network, and all the various comments made. My opinion is this:

The writers room has always been split on Destiel. Some writers heavily supported making it canon, others did not care, or were against it.

The Network considered it over the course of several years, did market research, green lit it, then changed their minds, possibly several times over the course of Dabb’s era. Destiel was pitched to the Network early in Dabb era.

The crew on set were also split. Some people heavily supported it, and worked to assist the reading, whereas others did not care/did not support it. The same can be said for the editing room.

Bob Singer supported the subtextual homoeroticism, but never supported bringing it into text (this is an opinion, but I think it aligns with everything we know about him.) IMO Bob Singer also supported subtextual homoeroticism between Sam and Dean - the guy is gross is what I’m saying. He isn’t exactly a progressive person.

Fun fact - a while back our old enemy Sera Gamble went on a Twitter rant about writers rooms and the ways a script goes through changes. I don’t think this was in relation to the SPN finale wank but she basically inadvertantly confirmed that the Network can step in and make sweeping changes to a script if they want to and if they decide they don’t like the direction of a story. Sera Gamble confirmed this as a fact.

Now. I’m not saying that this is what the CW did with Destiel. I just think its very strange how pre lockdown, the last thing filmed is a heartfelt homosexual declaration of love between Dean and Cas, and we have a finale script that Misha had not seen, but knew that he was meant to film as Castiel for 5 days (5 days on set is over half of an episode as far as I know). Then all of a sudden, Covid happens, and Cas is cut from the finale completely, a desperate attempt to bring Misha back only as Jimmy Novak takes place, which Misha rightly refuses, leading to a finale which makes zero sense narratively and appears in every way completely and utterly butchered.

The only explanation provided by anyone involved is that Covid meant changes had to happen - but that covid didn’t change the actual story at all.

But this makes no sense because we know that Cas was cut from the finale. This is FACT. Do not let anyone gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Misha was preparing to quaranting to return to set as Cas post Covid, so whatever happened to cut Cas from the finale, it wasn’t Covid.

I’m gonna have to Occum’s Razor this and say that the most logical explanation here is the one that is most likely true. Someone got cold feet with the Destiel story, and to prevent any possible interpretation that included Dean reciprocating, any hints of Destiel were removed from the finale script, including Castiel’s whole appearance.

Now, this isn’t me saying I think that Dabb’s original finale was full of Destiel love confessions and a homosexual kiss or whatever, but I am asking you all to really think about it and ask yourselves WHY Cas would have been totally cut from an episode he was supposed to be in at LEAST half of?

We will probably never know the real reason Cas was cut, but he WAS cut. I’m not saying it was all homophobia, but some fuckery went down.

Conspiracy No. 2: The CW Network changed the finale to make it into a Walker promo because they only cared about raising up Jared and not Jensen and Misha as they were losing them anyway.

I don’t agree with this in terms of the finale being butchered solely to make it into a Walker promo. There are however moments in the finale that are clearly supposed to be Walker Easter Eggs and added to excite fans of Jared/Sam in particular such as Sam’s gratuitous and unnecessary topless scene, as well as the call on the “case in Austin”.

I will take this moment to say something pretty damn controversial though.

*Deep breath*

The fact is, Dean Winchester has been the “lead” character of Supernatural’s narrative for years now, with Sam often being sidelined and not given great storylines himself. Even in Season 15, right up until the finale, I myself felt bad for Sam sometimes because so much of this show has become all about Dean. Jensen Ackles is clearly the better actor when it comes to emotional story arcs, so the emotional heart of the story has most often leant on him.

So you can understand my confusion, when this is turned on its head in the final episode, to make Sam carry all the emotional weight, and have the most lines/screentime, and story resolution (even if his story resolution was just as crappy as Dean’s).

If we pretend that Destiel is not a thing, and ignore Cas’s confession, the story change in the finale from Dean focus to Sam focus is still rather suspicious. Again, I’m not saying I completely approve of or agree to the conspiracy theory that Walker influenced the butchering of the script, but I can believe that perhaps a note went down from the CW to someone like Bob Singer, to emphasise Sam/Jared more than they perhaps would normally, because the CW wanted to shine the spotlight on Jared to raise excitement for Walker.

I can also believe this note might have said something like “we wanna cater to fans of Sam/Jared the most - don’t do anything to piss them off.” but now I am getting into my own conspiracy theories so by all means dismiss this as me being bitter.

Conspiracy No.3: Dabb purposely made it bad, as a secret message to Destiel fans that he had been silenced, by layering meta clues into the episode that he knew fans would notice.

I doubt this one is true. Though some of the theories are quite compelling. The old vampire silent movie theory for instance starts off quite well, but loses me the moment it brings up Urban Dictionary slang.

Sometimes I have just had to accept that Supernatural is a bad show that is sometimes accidentally a masterpiece. However, some writers really did go That Deep with their stories - anything by Ben Edlund or Steve Yockey for instance, their episodes are meta masterpieces with a hundred different layers of beautiful subtextual storytelling and are a joy to analyse. Bobo Berens has certainly done some A+++ work especially now we KNOW that he was working hard all this time to bring Destiel to canon text (so any analysis of Destiel in the subtext in his episodes is very accurate). There have been many other key elements analysed over the years which have been confirmed true. Cas’s death in Season 12, Dean’s time as a demon in season 10, Season 11 ending in unity of dark and light, these were all plot points predicted by meta writers just by analysing the narrative. Sometimes the writers really have been very smart and they do add things to the show to aid us in our meta.

Richard Speight Jr for instance, confirmed that SPN has a visual library that the production team use to give clues and hints in the narrative. Pizza, for example, always means a lie has been told. Whenever Pizza is being eaten or even just mentioned on screen, there is dishonesty in that particular moment.

The beers also have a very specific message and the one thing I can’t let go about the finale, was that Dean was drinking El Sol beer. The beer his dad gave him, that was terrible.

El Sol has been used in the show to indicate something being wrong, a fake reality, or another lie, for the longest time. It is the beer of deception.

The fact that in the final episode of this entire show, Dean is in Heaven, supposedly at peace, and then he gets handed an El Sol beer to drink? Thats a HUGE red flag for any meta writer watching who can read SPNs visual library.

If they had given him the Margiekugel beer of family then it would make sense. Dean is in Heaven, with Bobby, his family, at peace. Margiekugel should have been the beer of choice. But nope. El Sol. Something is wrong.

I don’t know if it was Dabb, or Singer, or some disgruntled ADs and crew members who added these elements into the finale, but their very presence confirms some message of Wrongness.

I could go into a huge rant about Vampire Mimes not making sense and the very glaringly obvious symbolism of cutting out peoples tongues too, but that is high school level film analysis. It’s obvious. It means to silence someone. There is validity in interpreting this as Dabb saying he was silenced. I don’t know how true it is, but i can’t 100% dismiss it, because as I said, this is high school analysis levels of obvious subtextual storytelling.

So in summary, whilst I don’t think that Dabb intentionally went out of his way to sabotage his own script, and leave a breadtrail of secret messages for savvy fans to put together to confirm that he was silenced by an evil network into not getting what he wanted... I do think that there is validity in questioning these odd choices for the finale. Cutting out tongues? Vampire Mimes? El Sol beer?

The evidence is somewhat compelling is all I’m saying. I don’t believe the full conspiracy theories, but as I have said many times before, some fuckery went down.

So What Do I Believe?

That some fuckery went down and whatever company line they are pushing is bullshit.

I believe that the original script included Cas (since thats fact). I believe that the original script probably always had Dean dying on a vampire hunt (due to Jensen’s issues with it and in particular, his sarcastic comments about vampires in the past year or so which in hindsight are hilarious and prove he never really came to terms with Dean’s idiotic death). I believe Dabb’s original script was some less crappy version of what we got, which potentially included showing Jack rescuing Cas from the Empty and resolving the outstanding Empty plot points (potentially this was actually a 15x19 plot since Mark P commented that his final scenes were supposed to be with Jack and Cas), had Cas reunite with Dean in Heaven and had them have a discussion about Cas’s confession. I believe that there was probably a lot of back and forth over how to handle that with some people wanting Dean to obviously reciprocate and others believing they should keep it ambiguous. I believe that Dean and Cas would have reunited with Charlie Bradbury, and Bobby Singer, and possibly others (though if this was the case it must have been very early on since no one ever looped in Sam Ferris, Chad Linberg or any other Roadhouse people).

I believe that Sam’s ending probably didn’t change much, but I do feel that initially they were planning on him ending up with Eileen, because it is the only thing that narratively makes sense. Cutting Eileen and giving him a blurry wife is something I won’t ever understand and Jared’s bullshit explanations are quite clearly pulled out of his ass to appease bronly types. I believe the reunion on the bridge would have included Cas and Jack, with a final shot of all four of them together, at peace (as this aligns with Alex’s comments from around a year or so ago that the final shot was all four of them). (I also am not sure it was always supposed to be on a bridge since the foreshadowing in an earlier episode showed Dean, Cas and Sam all in the Roadhouse together).

I believe that script went through countless changes and redrafts, and not even production people or the types that some fandom people claim as their “sources” would even have seen those early scripts, since even Misha never saw it. I believe that these rumours of Dabb never having Cas in his finale and ignoring all Destiel elements likely come from people who only saw later versions, weren’t party to network discussions and felt bitter about the final scripts they did see (being the crappy butchered one that was ultimately filmed). Those “sources” are now spreading rumours to discredit Dabb.

I obviously believe Dabb is a weak ass pushover who either didn’t care enough to fight back, or gave up since he’s been stuck with fucking Bob Singer on his back for years, but I will NEVER believe he didn’t care about the DeanCas love story, because he has been one of the few writers who has championed for it for years. You can’t look back at Dabb’s episodes in earlier seasons and claim he didn’t care. Dabb was a writer whose creative ideas were beaten out of him by an unforgiving Network only concerned about where their future money was coming from. Do I think he gave up too easily? Yes. But I also have one other huge reason for not believing the bullshit about Dabb being this anti-Destiel villain.

Bobo. Because if Bobo truly believed Dabb was gonna fuck that up at the end, I don’t think he would have given us Cas’s love confession to begin with. If he had known it was gonna end like that, I think he would have reconsidered, because had Cas not confessed his love, I don’t think he would have been cut from the finale. Bobo - a gay man, would not have wanted such a horrible message for queer fans being put across in the show he worked so hard on. He started writing that confession scene the day they returned to the writers room. Dabb would have been there, would have seen what he was writing, probably discussed it with him, after all, other episodes were written with the confession in mind. No way was Dabb planning to fuck up the ending knowing what Bobo was giving us. Nope.

Something went very wrong over lockdown. Someone, somewhere up the chain of power caught wind of the confession scene in 15x18, realised that it demanded a resolution which would make Dean Winchester, their protagonist, queer, and pulled the plug. I believe this did not come from a place of homophobia, but of bad business sense.

The CW is constantly trying to win the approval and attention of the one demo group that they seem to fail at getting the most: young straight men. Supernatural was one of their only remaining shows that appeals to young straight men, and Dean Winchester is more often than not the fave character of those young straight men who project onto him. Making Dean Winchester, established Han Solo of Supernatural, queer and in love with his best friend in the finale would have come across as a betrayal to those young straight men. The CW probably feared they would lose that demo group for good, and with a show like Walker starting soon with Jared at the helm, they couldn’t take the risk.

Hence there was probably a whole bunch of back and forth script redrafts with the Network, with Dabb and Singer fighting to make a finale that would appeal to everyone. There was most likely no way that they could bring Cas back without addressing what had already been filmed, because any resolution of that plot would either a. make Dean queer, or b. address it awkwardly by having Dean reject Cas (this storyline would probably have been slammed by critics worse than the finale because it meant addressing it. It might have got the attention of LGBTQ activist groups and caused a bigger shitstorm than what we got). The best option was therefore C. Bury it and Cas, pretend it never happened. Never address it again and distract Dean with other things. Hope that Destiel fans will accept no answer from Dean as ambiguous enough to imagine a future reunion rather than shutting it down with a rejection, and still keep hold of the blissfully ignorant heteronormative straight boys so they can carry over to Walker when it starts.

I also believe (controversially probably) that there was concern that any resolution of Dean and Cas would have overshadowed network darling Jared Padalecki. If Dean and Cas had come together in the finale, with a very clearly textual homosexual reunion, then that would have been all anyone talked about. The reviewers, the critics, the audience, everyone. It would have been nothing but Dean and Cas (and look, if they did think this, they were right, Destiel trending over the US ELECTION.)

So what is the network to do, when they are losing the two stars who would get the most attention from this storyline? The one star they were holding on to and getting his own show, relegated to third place in the finale of the show where he was first on the call sheet? Nope. That’s pretty unacceptable. Even without Walker I can imagine people at all levels side eyeing the Destiel thing over the years. This IS a show about two brothers, and their relationship should be the core relationship, we can’t have one brother pushed aside in the finale to make way for a queer relationship that will get all the attention instead. It was never gonna get approved for this reason ALONE.

At the end of the day, if I look at it from a business perspective, it makes far more sense that the CW shut down Destiel, rather than “oh Dabb never cared and ruined it because he’s an idiot.” The writers cared, and had built on that story over years. But their mistake was leaving any Destiel resolution to the finale. If they had instead gone and got Dean and Cas together in early season 15, then they could have ended it in a way that satisfied everyone. Destiel wouldn’t have threatened pulling focus away from Sam and Dean, and the show could have gone out on a high.

When I lay out all the conspiracy theories, and line them up next to the cold hard facts, the conspiracy theories in some way or another, make more sense. To believe the company line, the narrative we have been fed, is to ignore your own eyes, ears, and memories pre March 2020.

All I’m asking people to do is take a look at the show, the narrative presented in the show, and the information presented above. I’m not telling you to believe what I’ve written here, half of which is just my own opinion. I’m asking you to ask yourselves if it makes sense to you. Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied.

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meangimmymachine · 3 years ago

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Sera Was Never An Agreeable Girl (And Was Never Meant To)

Hello, I am back and with an essay of the ages because I have nothing better to do. Also @gh0stlysbdy is calling me a coward for not writing this out and my ego will not continue to be assaulted like this.

So, first and foremost. I am a Dragon Age enjoyer. I can’t fully say I’m a fan as I’ve only played Dragon Age: Inquisition, however I have a vague understanding of DA:O, DA2, the DLCs, as well as read or am reading the graphic novels and books. I’m a whore for lore. It’s just my nature.

Now, I have played DA:I a total of three times. Once as a female human mage when I first got the game because I thought it was gonna be a really cool game about dragons and magic. Halfway right. That playthrough however, didn’t really end up being fully played because I felt uncomfortable, so I played the second time around as a male elf warrior. I know, warrior mains, ew, but that’s beside the point. Of all the characters I interacted with as the Inquisitor, I have a select few favorites, and Sera is one of them. Dorian is the first obviously, but Sera comes third after Varric.

Thing about Sera is that so many people found her unbearable. I did too, because I played a Dalish elf and resonated so strongly with my character and his culture that I found her comments insulting for years. I got the game back in 2015, and I was really new to everything, especially the anti-mage, anti-elf propaganda that the games really like to dive into. And I, like many others, lashed out at Sera for acting the way she was acting. I wished she would just grow up and accept the fact that she is an elf and that her acting that way towards other elves and even mages is wrong. And I was right, it is wrong, however, the way I and many others have been thinking about her character is wrong.

Let’s start at the beginning. According to the Dragon Age Wiki, Sera was born in the Denerim Alienage in Ferelden. Now already, based on the knowledge of the games, and lore behind it, Ferelden, out of all the areas, has the most anti-mage sentiment. Far more than Orlais and the Free Marches. The only other anti-elf area that could outmatch Ferelden is Orlais, and I have my thoughts on Orlais. Now, from what I know of the City Elf Origin, it is already clear that the environment in which the city elves of the Denerim Alienag live has so many poor, decrepit issues, as well as the fact that humans treat the city elves as lesser beings.

She does say that she remembers the Alienage, but is also quick to deny and almost recant the beliefs that the city elves do believe in, such as the vhenadahl, which is the sacred trees that were planted in the Alienages so that the elves there still hold on to some of their traditions that had been stripped from them.

It is also state in her Wiki page that Sera is an orphan, and that she was caught stealing at a young age. As some players would experience in DA:O, elven criminals are treated worse than others, even on some accounts for no reason. However, in the alienages, city elves have assumed the role of passive bystanders to those of their own kind that are direct trouble. Sera would have probably been caught stealing and not supported or helped by her own community and internalized it as being othered. She was a child. A child who was already exposed to the fact that humans considered her community the ‘others’ and now even she was betrayed by her community’s silence and refusal to defend her. This could and possibly is the root of Sera’s anti-elf sentiment that even now remains strongly rooted in her personality.

And then we go to Lady Emmald, the woman who probably influenced Sera far more than she wants to believe. A human woman that couldn’t have children and was in fact a sick woman. Here is where I believe Sera’s issues with herself as an elf possibly got worse. Here was a little girl, rejected by her elven community, ostracized by Fereldan humans for being an elf, and then Lady Emmald, a woman who wanted to be a mother to Sera but didn’t know how because, as much as I can assume on a woman who is only ever talked about by the little girl she lied to, was never really well connected with her mother. “She hid buying them by keeping me away from the baker. She did that by lying that he didn’t like me, didn’t like elves. She let me hate so she could keep her pride. I hated him so much, and I hated...” And then she stops. Lady Emmald took her in, yes, fed her, clothed her, gave her baked cookies that weren’t even some that she made. But she still lied to Sera, and as Sera says if you question her, “It was not just cookies! Lie to herself? Fair play, only hurts her. But she made me think there was something wrong with me.” That was what effects Sera, even now. When you talk to her after The Verchiel March and accept her actions, she will say “Right then, what do you mean? Because I am really not used to that. Acceptance thing you’re doing right there.” Although internalized, this means a lot more than many people think. She hasn’t had many experiences in being accepted for who she is.

I have a bit of a theory that Sera being raised as a City Elf was what exposed her to Andrastianism, as well as being raised by a human woman, however, I do think that it is incredibly unfair of quite a lot of people, especially in the Inquisition to make fun of her for being scared of magic. Remember that point of Fereldan being the most anti-magic of Thedas? Yeah we’re back to that. Now, throughout Inquisition, I had a really hard time with her the first time around, I was always on the defense. Then I remembered, she was raised in Denerim, during the Fifth Blight. Now, we all know she dislikes darkspawn, however even she states that people paid more attention to being against mages than the Blight. She lived in an area that already demonized magic, and saw it as a precursor for becoming a demon. That exposes a child to develop an eerie sense of distrust towards another person, particularly mages. She’s naturally terrified of anything that could result in a person becoming a demon, and even supports the existence of Circles, to a certain degree, because she believes they will be better off, with a belly full of warm food and a place where she thinks will be a better alternative for others. I do like her interactions with Dorian, as it shows a HUGE difference in the way they were raised and areas that effect them. Dorian has been exposed to magic since he was born, it is as natural to him as breathing and he has lived in wealthy privilege to be able to disregard anyone else’s beliefs and view them as silly. Sera, however, was not. She is a city elf woman, who compared to Dorian would amount to nothing no matter what she contributed to the society that southern Thedas builds. With her talks with Cassandra, she mentions Seekers using their position to seem scary because they can, and knocks Cassandra off her self righteous pedestal by having her realize that those in power are terrifying to those without and it should not be flaunted in people’s faces. She seems absolutely terrified of Cole, as she has been taught that it is justified to be scared of him and dehumanize him. Although to be fair he isn’t exactly human, but still, he doesn’t understand her but does try to. And eventually she just reciprocates communicating with him.

And now finally, the fact that Sera makes the Inquisitor choose to either disregard their own religion, or choose Andrastianism. This actually made some sense to me whenever I played and talked to her. It does make sense what she means. The Inquisitor didn’t choose to be made the Herald or the Inquisitor, but those are symbols of Andraste and the Chantry, and it is expected of the Inquisitor to abandon all that they used to be to become the symbol that the Inquisition is supposed to represent. No matter human, dwarf, elf, or Qunari, the Inquisitor is stripped away of their agency and ability to represent themselves, only becoming part of the Anchor because that is all that they can be. Is it correct? No. But Sera is the only one that outwardly reminds you of who you are to the people. Is she crass about it? Yes. However, she does not truly mean any harm in it. A lot of people take it that way. I took it that way too, but then it felt more of, “Hey, listen, you have people out there that believe in something bigger than you. I need you to understand that. You can’t have people claim you’re the Herald of Andraste and then worship your own gods, you need to keep your appearance to them so they can believe in you.” She reminds me of Josephine and Vivienne, except less subtle and much more willing to antagonize.

Then there’s her antagonization of the Dalish and what happens when its proven that the elves were not in fact gods and merely does not hesitate in tearing the Dalish people’s beliefs down. She does say, “elvy elves have shoved victim in my face a million times, we’re not proper if we’re not sad about the grand history that was stolen from us.” I do think that BioWare could have been less tone-deaf with the argument, however, it does prove that Sera’s not built to please, she’s built to argue her own thoughts on what she believes and be frank about it, even if she’s got some of the facts wrong. Someone so disconnected with their culture, and then ridiculed for not being apart of that culture is something I can relate to, and also leant that same empathy toward Sera. Being told you’re not enough of ____ would drive anyone away from sympathizing or even empathizing with the sufferings of your own people, in this case Sera’s own race.

Anyways, that’s about enough of her that I can speak of, this honestly was a surprise that I hadn’t expected to fully write about, but, I always felt that there was more that people weren’t seeing about her.

#dragon age #dragon age origins #hyperfixiating #hyperfixation #sera #dragon age sera #dragon age inquisition #dragon age inquistor #dorian pavus #vivienne de fer #dalish

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unordinaryquotes · 5 years ago

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UnOrdinary Chapter 192 Review

-At least John can realize Zeke’s just a bitch. How long is that gonna last though? We know our supreme king will has no problem using others

-Guys I’m crying. Arlo showing the caring side of him is amazing and the fact that he only really does it for Remi is sweet.

-Remi basically saying “If it weren’t for you telling me that, I would tear John apart” I’m also glad that Arlo and Remi are continuing with Arlo’s rest period.

-Get you a blonde tsundere who calls you by a nickname when tired.

-It’s not a club, it’s a treehouse gathering. Also, not Remi’s fault that literally everyone but you likes her and is willing to go along with her ideas. John admitting he’s new is kinda crap as well, weren’t you King in your previous school, you should have some experience. Oh wait, I forgot, he spent all that time terrorizing innocent kids rather than doing anything Kingly.

-I understand him being skeptical about Arlo, but the Blyke one is stupid. Blyke tried so hard to be nice to you and apologized for what he did. I get you were going through a hard time, but you can’t ignore the effort he made.

-Holden being included in things makes me so happy. I want him to get more focus in the story and develop cute relationships with the other characters (I’m holding out for a Holden and Evie friendship)

-John’s so mad that everyone else still sees worth in Seraphina, not our fault you dropped her the moment she started challenging you. Also John finally got the idea of the Safe House right, just people hanging out in a room. Not so sure about the shitty comment though.

-John just wants people to feel as shitty as he feels so when no one takes it he gets mad. Also proof that John isn’t doing this to help students, he’s doing it to exact revenge on the people who wronged him. While I’m not a fan of the saying “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind” John isn’t just taking the Royals eyes, he’s running around stabbing passerby’s eyes as well.

-John, you have just activated the trope trap card. Because of your foolish statement Safe House will now not only succeed, but make you the biggest joke since the chicken crossed the road. Though if I were to give my real thoughts, I do think the Safe House will start off shakily but eventually evolve into a great place.

-We finally got a name for Arlo’s aunt! Aunt Valerie. Guess both her real name and code name start with a V. This also might be the most relaxed we’ve ever seen Arlo. A casual way of sitting and loose fitting clothing really makes it seem like he’s relaxing at home. It could be that he’s a lot more comfortable with his aunt, probably even more than Remi.

-These two lines...these two lines made me go ballistic. Let’s unpack this one by one. First off, Valerie and Arlo haven’t talked to each other in a while apparently. From the voice comment I’m guessing the last time they spoke was when Arlo was going through or right before his growth spurt in second year. This is interesting for two reasons. One, cause this is around the time that Arlo had to deal with all the weight of becoming King and Rei leaving. Instead of relying on anyone or even calling his aunt for advice, he took on the entire thing by himself. That’s way too much stress for any kid to handle and the fact that he wouldn’t even give a call to a respected relative shows he was dead set on doing everything by himself, which led to extreme stress and a change in personality. Second is that Arlo probably hasn’t been going home for any holidays. Normally at holidays a school like this would have the choice for kids to go home or stay on campus, and his aunt not hearing him in a while could be signifying that he hasn’t gone home during these break times. Instead, he probably spent the holidays alone (or maybe during his first year he was invited by Rei over to his home, please Uru) which worsened his lack of communication and dependency. But why wouldn’t he go home...well the next lines are interesting

-Valerie asking how is Arlo’s father seems normal on the surface but if you think about it, it’s real fucking weird. They’re in the same family aren’t they? Shouldn’t Valerie be in contact with Arlo’s father, especially if he’s her brother. This makes me think that Valerie is related to Arlo on his mom’s side which will be important later. Still, why would two family members not be in contact with each other? A reason could be that the family was broken up for whatever reason or maybe the two hate each other. Notice how Valerie doesn’t ask about Arlo’s mom, could his mom be out of the picture? Either from divorce or possibly death. Could his fixation on finding out about Rei’s death be because his own mother died at a young age. Maybe she got into an accident or was killed? Or maybe, it was suicide. That would definitely break a family apart to the point of no contact between in laws. What if Arlo’s father is abusive and drove his mom to suicide? Maybe Valerie hates his father for basically killing her sister and she tried her best to be there for her son. She probably couldn’t win a custody battle but she always tried her best to be in his life to be a positive role model. Arlo himself doesn’t seem to pleased talking about his father. A simple “He’s fine” and a curt “Great” in response. The two have probably done this a number of times, neither of them really caring about Arlo’s father.

-Why can I already see the two of them ending up at the boba store in town, with Arlo suggesting the mango boba to her and Valerie looking absolutely bewildered that he would say something like that.

-Another weird thing though is the question “Are you still going to Wellston?” Wouldn’t she have already known this. I think it’s more proof that she and Arlo’s father aren’t in contact. Also could it be that Arlo actually moved schools a lot as a kid or that his family might have a more impoverished life style that couldn’t support a high end school. (Probably not but it’s an idea)

-So Valerie’s division just so happens to transfer her to the Wellston area when only a few months ago we got that Ember report stating they’re gonna start making their moves on the Wellston targets. Suspicious. People who’ve had family in the police, are transfers like this normal?

-We’re gonna get our Arlo and Valerie meeting soon and I’m gonna be living for it. I also want Valerie and Seraphina to run into each other and have a talk. Just give Valerie a chance to show a caring side to her and maybe even info dump Arlo’s backstory to Sera. But this is all so when Valerie is revealed not only Arlo will be betrayed, but Sera too. A 2 for 1 special

-What’s this look for though? Is he getting suspicious about his aunt? Or could it be that he’s reluctant to actually meet with her? Maybe he doesn’t want her to see what he’s become. Either way, I’m expecting a lot of drama when these two meet face to face

This entire review was actually just Arlo theories, the Remi things were just a way to trick you into seeing my inane ramblings

#unordinary #unordinary arlo #unordinary remi #unordinary john #unordinary valerie

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pikapeppa · 6 years ago

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FenHawke & Cullavellan pirate AU: Together

Chapter 21 of Where The Winds Of Fortune Take Me is up on AO3! It’s a long chapter; read here on AO3!

In which Fenris and Rynne have an unexpected encounter in Afsaana on the Rialto Bay.

A housekeeping note: our wonderful creator and artist @schoute is busy now with Real Life Things, so our art components of the story will be less frequent! YOU’RE STUCK WITH WORDS ONLY.

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- RYNNE -

Rynne hopped off the rowboat and onto the dock, then looked around in fascination. Afsaana was the most unusual town she had ever seen. Not to say she had much experience with new places – Rialto was still the only other town she’d seen aside from Kirkwall – but still, a town whose charming stilted homes climbed up the surrounding tree-covered hills and into the verdant mountains seemed unusual to her naive eye.

“Another town, another adventure!” she said cheerfully. She clasped her hands and looked excitedly at Fenris, Anders, Varric and Dorian. “So what is there to do here? What do you recommend?”

Sera ran over to join them. “Oi! Got a word from a barmaid who got it from a beachcomber who got it from some kid with a fish. Darts competition at The Bed and The Bucket, the pot’s twenty royals! Last one there’s already lost!” She ran away without waiting for an answer.

Anders shrugged. “Not a bad pot. I think I’d have a pretty good chance at that.”

“Darts in a tavern? That’s hardly original,” Dorian said disdainfully. He carefully smoothed a crease from his silk pants as he stepped onto the dock. “There’s a marvelous tailor in the upper town square. I’m going straight there. Fenris, you should join me.”

Fenris grunted. “I don’t need tailored clothing. It is a wasteful expense.”

Dorian tutted. “My friend, you’re a pirate. Every coin you spend should be a wasteful expense.”

Varric patted Dorian’s elbow. “Ah, let the elf off the hook, huh? He has barely any coin at all. Not since the gambling incident in Rialto.” He grinned at Rynne.

Rynne winced apologetically at Fenris, who was crouched on the dock tying the rowboat in place. “I’m still sorry about that, by the way. Funny how quickly an entire pouch of coin disappears when you’re playing wicked grace for the first time while, er, drunk.”

Fenris finished tying off the boat, then stood up. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. It was worth–” He broke off with a frown. “It’s fine.”

Varric smirked, and Dorian folded his arms. “Let me get this straight,” he said archly. “A perfectly tailored garment is a wasteful expense, but allowing the Lady Luck’s assistant surgeon to fritter away all of your coin during a debauched night of gambling is justifiable?”

Fenris’s scowl deepened. Rynne laughed and fanned herself. “Dorian, don’t you know that no one can resist my charms? It’s not Fenris’s fault that I batted my eyelashes and divested him of his coin.” She sidled up to Dorian and slipped her hand through his elbow. “In fact, since you’re clearly swimming in silver, Piper mentioned that there’s a lovely bookshop in this town that’s screaming for a visit…”

Dorian snorted in amusement and unhooked her arm from his. “A solid try, my dear Hawke, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

She widened her eyes. “How can you be the wrong tree when you’re such a delight to look at? The divine hair, the perfect wardrobe, the exquisite complexion…”

Anders coughed out a laugh at her ostentatious compliments, and Dorian rolled his eyes. “You and your flattery,” he scolded. “It’s positively shameful.” He dug a silver out of his fine leather coin pouch and flicked it at her.

She grinned as she caught the coin. “And yet you keep rewarding me,” she said. Then she turned to Fenris and ceremoniously held out the coin.

“A start on repaying my debt to you,” she said mock-seriously.

“Excuse me,” Dorian protested. “If I knew you’d waste that by giving it to him, I wouldn’t have handed it over.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow, then unfolded his arms and took the coin from her hand. “As long as this aggravates Dorian, I am happy to accept.”

Dorian tutted, then tapped Varric’s shoulder. “You’ll come to the tailor with me, won’t you?”

“No can do, Sparkler,” Varric said affably. “I’ve got business to attend to. At that bookshop, in fact,” he said to Rynne. “You’re welcome to tag along.”

“I wanted to look for a particular volume too, actually,” Anders said. “I’ll come with you.” He looked at Rynne hopefully. “Coming, Hawke?”

Fenris folded his arms and shifted closer to her. “There is a group of Rivaini dancers who perform regularly at this time in the lower town square,” he said quietly.

She looked at him excitedly. “Dancing? Really?” She tilted her head. “You enjoy watching the dancers? Are they sexy dancers?” She wiggled her eyebrows salaciously.

He shrugged. “I simply thought you might be interested.”

It was on the tip of Rynne’s tongue to say yes, but for a split second, she hesitated. She’d recently started wondering if she was spending too much time with Fenris. During her first couple of weeks on the Lady Luck, it had become her habit to spend most of her spare time with him. But given their conflicting desires – or rather, the fact that Rynne’s desires weren’t reciprocated – gravitating toward Fenris was becoming more painful than pleasant, almost like drinking too much of that spicy hot chocolate that Merrill made sometimes. In truth, Rynne would probably be better off going to the bookshop with Varric and Anders instead of spending more agonizing time alone with the object of her unrequited affections.

It was too late, though. Her tongue had hesitated for long enough, and her heart butted in and took the reins before her brain could step in. “Of course I’m interested,” she said to Fenris. “Dancers it is.” She grimaced apologetically at Anders and Varric. “Maybe we’ll find you at the bookshop later.”

Anders shrugged. “I’ll likely be at The Bed and The Bucket by then. Winning the pot out from under Sera’s nose.”

Varric chuckled. “You, beat the expert archer at a darts competition? Those are some big dreams, Blondie.”

“Ouch,” Anders deadpanned. “That hurts my feelings. Sort of.”

Dorian sighed dramatically. “And the handsome Tevinter goes to the tailor on his own. I see how it is.” He began to saunter away. “If I don’t return to the Lady Luck, please tell our dear Captain that it’s because you all abandoned me.”

“Will it make it better if I promise to compliment your ass in your new trousers?” Rynne called after him.

“Not now that I know your compliments won’t be genuine,” Dorian yelled back.

Rynne snickered, then smiled up at Fenris. “All right, let’s go see these sexy dancers.”

“I never said they were sexy,” Fenris said calmly. “That was your assumption.”

“But you didn’t deny it,” she said slyly.

Anders clicked his tongue. “Come on, Varric, let’s go,” he said. The two of them made their way along the dock toward the upper section of the town.

Fenris gazed disdainfully at Anders’s departing back, then gestured toward the boardwalk that wound away toward the west. “The lower town square is this way.”

She beamed at him. “Lead the way, O Handsome Escort.”

They walked along the boardwalk side-by-side, and Rynne shoved her hands into her pockets to stop herself from accidentally holding his hand like she wanted so badly to do. As was the case in Rialto, the boardwalk was busy with all sorts of people of every age and race: pirates from everywhere in Thedas trading news and insults, elven and dwarven artisans peddling their wares and unloading goods from their boats, barefoot elven children racing around everyone’s knees, and even a number of qunari.

Rynne studied the tall horned people as subtly as she could without staring. “I’ve never seen so many qunari before,” she confided to Fenris. “Actually, Kaaras is the first qunari I ever met.”

“I assumed as much,” Fenris replied. “Although technically, Kaaras is not qunari. Most of the horned people you see here are not qunari.”

Rynne’s eyes widened. “Wha–? What do you mean, they’re not qunari?”

“‘Qunari’ is the word for people of any race who follow the Qun. Their religion, so to speak, or their rule of law,” Fenris explained. “Kaaras left the Qun, so he is what they would call ‘tal-vashoth’.”

Rynne frowned thoughtfully. “So if I converted to the Qun, I would be a qunari?”

“You would, yes,” Fenris said. Then he smirked.

She tilted her head quizzically. “What’s funny?”

“The idea of you converting to the Qun,” he said. “It would be a poor fit.”

“Why?” she asked curiously.

He rubbed his mouth, then smirked at her again. “Because the qunari do as they are told.”

Rynne barked out a laugh. “Excuse me!” she exclaimed in mock offense. “I do what I’m told if it makes sense! I’m learning to fight quite well, aren’t I? Look, I even have my dagger on my thigh for easy access and my coin purse near the front.” She pointed at the embossed pouch that Carver had sent her, then tucked her thumbs confidently into her belt and raised her chin. “No one’s pickpocketing this girl.”

Fenris’s handsome smirk widened slightly. “True enough,” he conceded. “Still, you would make a poor qunari.”

Rynne elbowed him playfully. “Fenris, are you trying to compliment me in a very odd way?”

To her surprise, he didn’t make the expected witty brush-off. Instead, he slowly rubbed his chin.

“I… perhaps I am, yes,” he said.

Rynne stared at him, her humour swiftly fading as she studied the oddly serious look on his face. She genuinely hadn’t expected him to agree with her.

Wait. What did it even mean that he wanted to compliment her?

Her mouth was dry. She swallowed hard and gazed at him, waiting and hoping and wishing for him to say something more. But he wasn’t looking at her, and the tips of his ears were turning pink.

For some reason, his unusual sign of nerves rendered her nervous.

Quick, change the subject, she thought. “How do you know so much about qunari?” she asked brightly.

His shoulders instantly loosened, and he finally looked at her again. “They have been in conflict with Tevinter for many years,” he said. He narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know of this?”

She pointed at herself and grimaced. “Naive noble girl, remember?”

He shot her a chiding glance before replying. “People often spoke of the conflict in the streets of Minrathous. I had little else to do but listen and fight when my master commanded.” He shrugged, but his expression was slowly becoming bitter. “Besides, to be a slave is to be invisible. You can learn a great deal from simply standing around while your master and his cronies loosen their lips in your presence.”

Rynne nodded sympathetically. “That reminds me of going to parties at my mother’s friends’ houses. Especially when I was small. Bethany and I were always told to sit up straight, smile and nod, but not to speak unless we were spoken to.” She adopted a mocking high-pitched voice. “‘Children should be seen and not heard’. Have you heard that before?”

He looked at her in surprise. “I… not in the common tongue, no.”

“Ah. Well.” She shot him a dark look. “It doesn’t make for a very fun childhood, I can tell you that. But you’re right: people do share some rather scandalous secrets around you when they think you’re just a mindless ornamental doll.”

Fenris was silent. When Rynne looked at him quizzically, he was frowning.

All of a sudden, she realized what she was accidentally implying. Horrified, she clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh Maker,” she blurted. “That’s not to say I’m – I don’t mean I was anything like a slave, I don’t mean that, what you went through was far worse than– oh, fuck me sideways.” She buried her burning face in her hands. “I’m an idiot,” she lamented. “I’m so sorry, Fenris.”

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t apologize. You present an interesting perspective. And a valuable one.”

She chanced a peek at him through her fingers, then slowly lowered her hands. He didn’t look angry; in fact, he was studying her with a soft and thoughtful little frown that made her treacherous heart thump.

“I believe I owe you an apology, in fact,” he said.

“What?” she said dumbly. “What for?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “When we first met, I… I made assumptions about you based on your family’s wealth.”

She relaxed. “Oh. Well, that’s all right, most people–”

He held up a hand to stop her. “I thought you would be a burden on the ship,” he said bluntly. “That you would turn tail and run back to Kirkwall when the thrill of adventure was outweighed by the hardship of a sailor’s life.” He plucked idly at the red ribbon around his wrist. “You are not what I expected.”

“Oh,” she said stupidly. Then she swallowed hard. His gorgeous green eyes were steady on her face, and something about the intensity of his expression was making her feel extremely nervous.

She dropped her gaze and awkwardly rubbed her nose. “Well, I, um… I rather like the idea of being underestimated.”

He drew back slightly in surprise. “Why?”

She shrugged and tucked her hands in her pockets. “If people expect nothing of you, then you can really surprise the shit out of them,” she said. “It makes their shock all the more enjoyable.” Then she remembered one of her favourite quotes from Swords and Shields – one that was actually relevant to the situation.

She straightened and smiled at Fenris. “‘No fire burns brighter than the one you never expected’,” she said proudly. “That’s something that Varric wrote, and he’s one of the smartest people I know.”

Fenris stared at her incredulously for a moment. “That is… a very optimistic point of view,” he finally said.

Rynne let out a little self-deprecating laugh. “I know. I’m insufferable. You don’t have to say it.” She unconsciously lifted her left hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.

Fenris grabbed her wrist before she could touch her scar.

Her eyes darted up to meet his. And suddenly she realized how close they were. There was a mere handspan of space between them, and his handsome face was just a few inches from hers.

A sudden, breathless rush of hope shoved her heart straight into her throat. As the milling people on the boardwalk moved blithely around them, Rynne stood frozen with her wayward eyes on Fenris’s lips and her breath stalled in her lungs and his warm strong fingers wrapped around her wrist.

An hour later – or maybe it was just two seconds – he released her wrist and stepped away from her. He dropped his gaze and ran a hand through his hair. “We should, er. We should move on,” he said. “We will miss the dancers.”

Her heart dropped from her throat straight through her chest to settle heavily in her stomach. “Right, right,” she said quickly. “Um, let’s go.”

They made their way along the boardwalk in an increasingly uncomfortable silence, and Rynne tried hard to quell her disappointment. It was her own fault for assuming… something about how close they’d been standing and how complimentary Fenris was being. Besides, it wasn’t like friends couldn’t compliment each other. Rynne was constantly complimenting everyone on the Lady Luck, and it wasn’t like she was interested in any of them.

But friends don’t stare at each other’s mouths like that, a sneaky part of her mind whispered.

She ignored the little voice. It was pointless. Fenris had said he wanted to be just friends, and that was the end of it.

A couple of minutes later, they were standing in the midst of a cheering and clapping crowd as they watched a troupe of six beautiful Rivaini women spinning and twirling to the driving rhythm of a drum and a stringed instrument Rynne had never seen before. The atmosphere was bright and cheerful, and Rynne gratefully allowed her mood to be buoyed up by the music and the wonderful dancers.

She clapped along to the drumbeat and leaned toward Fenris, who was watching the performance with a small frown. “I think I should learn to dance like that,” she yelled over the noise. “It would come in handy for my combat training.”

He glanced at her. “How, pray tell?”

“The rolling,” she replied. “And the flexibility. I could bend over backwards to dodge a sword, then roll behind them and, er…”

Fenris raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Rynne laughed. “All right, fine, you caught me. I just want to learn a sexy dance.”

“That strikes me as the last thing you should be learning,” he drawled.

She elbowed him playfully. “Says the man who choreographs dance routines while running from deck to deck on the Lady Luck.”

He shot her a chiding smirk. “You will never let that go, will you?”

“Never,” she said with relish. She jerked her head at the dancers. “You know, I could imagine you learning these dances. The half-naked bodies and the fluttering scarves…” She grinned salaciously.

He huffed and folded his arms. “And I could imagine Dorian exchanging his fine silk garments for a burlap bag. That doesn’t mean it will happen.”

She snorted with laughter at the absurd idea, then watched the dancers for a moment longer before glancing at Fenris again. Then she stopped clapping and stared at him in alarm. His expression was blank with shock.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He didn’t reply. His shoulders were stiff and his fingers were clenched, and his gaze was fixed on someone on the other side of the dancing circle.

Rynne tried to see who he was looking at, but there were so many people that there was no way to tell. She looked at Fenris once more with growing anxiety. “Fenris, what’s the–”

“Vishante kaffas,” he hissed. He grabbed her hand and started pulling her along behind him.

Her heart leapt into her throat again, but with panic this time. He was moving swiftly and confidently through the crowd without jostling anyone, clearly in an effort to not draw undue attention. When they reached the edge of the crowd, Fenris stopped short and released her hand.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a hand to silence her, and she dutifully closed her mouth and watched his eyes. He was glaring fiercely at someone across the square, and through the thinned crowd, Rynne thought she might now be able to tell who he was watching: a figure about her height wearing a nondescript brown hooded cloak and carrying an equally nondescript haversack.

The hooded person disappeared through the door of an inn called The Gull and Lantern, and Fenris dragged a hand through his hair. “Venhedis. Fasta vass,” he cursed.

Rynne watched with growing apprehension as he started to pace. “Fenris,” she said quietly, “who was that?”

He clenched his fingers in his hair for a moment, then glared at her. “That was my sister.”

Rynne froze for a second. A sister? A sister? “You have a sister?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he bit off. “She… kaffas. I have not seen her in years. Not since she…” He trailed off and continued to pace. “What is she doing here?” he muttered.

Rynne took a step closer to him. “Slow down for me,” she pleaded. “You… she… you didn’t expect to see her here?” She knew her question was stupid and vague, but for Maker’s fucking sake, Fenris had a sister? How had he never mentioned this before?

“No,” he snapped. “The last time I saw her, she was leaving Minrathous with her blasted merchant lover. She should be in Qarinus with him. Why…” He trailed off and rubbed a hand through his hair again, and with a pang, Rynne realized that he was starting to look distinctly worried.

She ran a soothing hand along his arm. “Fenris–”

He flinched away from her. Actually physically recoiled from her touch.

A childish pang of hurt rose through her chest. She ruthlessly shoved it away and folded her hands behind her back. “Do you want to go in and talk to her?” she asked.

“I… don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t… I never expected to see her again. Certainly not outside of Tevinter.” He rubbed his mouth, and with a heart-wrenching pang, Rynne realized his hand was shaking.

She squared her shoulders. “All right. Let’s go talk to her,” she said confidently.

He looked sharply at her. “What?”

She met his eyes steadily. “We’re going into that inn to talk to her.”

He swallowed hard, then dropped her gaze. “You don’t have to… I don’t need your help,” he muttered.

Rynne studied his tensely hunched shoulders. He looked so defensive and angry and… and scared. Fenris was the bravest man she’d ever met, and he was scared to confront his sister.

She took a step closer to him. “You stood by me while I had that shitty conversation with Carver,” she said. “I’m coming with you to talk to your sister.” She smiled at him. “Hopefully it’ll go better than my talk with Carv, though. Who knows, maybe you’ll just end up having a nice chat over tea and cakes–”

“This is not a joke,” he hissed.

Rynne didn’t flinch. “I know that,” she said steadily. “That’s why I’m coming with you. You don’t need to do this alone, Fenris.”

He glared at her for a moment longer, then dropped his gaze once more and ran his hands through his hair. Finally he dropped his hands to his sides and exhaled sharply. “All right,” he said. “All right. I… let’s… we will speak to her.”

Rynne nodded and fell into step with him as he strode toward The Gull and Lantern. He pushed open the door to reveal a small but clean pub with simple wooden tables and benches and surprisingly ornate stained glass windows.

Rynne stepped inside with Fenris and looked around. “Now where–”

“Leto?”

Fenris looked up, and Rynne followed his gaze. The brown-cloaked figure had thrown back her hood, revealing an elven woman around Rynne’s age with dark red hair and familiar green eyes.

“Varania?” Fenris croaked.

A smile burst across the woman’s face, and she ran toward Fenris and threw herself at him in a hug. Fenris stumbled back in shock but hugged her in return, and Rynne watched with a bittersweet ache as the siblings embraced.

Varania pulled away and roughly wiped her eyes. “I can’t believe it’s you,” she said. “Venhedis, it’s been so many years. It’s good to see you.”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I didn’t… why aren’t you in Qarinus with that – with Ahriman?”

“He is here with me,” she said. “He’s in the upper part of the town on business, so we don’t have long.” She took Fenris’s arm and pulled him to a nearby table.

Rynne followed them in silence, and she couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved when Fenris gestured for her to sit on the bench before he took a seat himself. “Hawke, this is my sister Varania,” he said.

Rynne smiled at Varania. “It’s lovely to meet you,” she said.

Varania smiled and nodded to her, then turned back to Fenris and lowered her voice. “I was hoping to escape Ahriman while on this trip,” she told him. “I stole some of his fine jewelry and I tried to sell it in town, but the merchant would only give me a fraction of its value. It’s not enough for me to buy passage on a ship to Llomeryn.”

Fenris stared at her. “You… you want to escape? I thought you loved Ahriman.”

Varania’s face twisted. “Perhaps I did, once. But no more. He’s a cruel man, Leto.”

Leto? Rynne thought in confusion. Why was Varania calling Fenris by a different name? But it didn’t feel appropriate to ask, given the urgency of the situation.

Varania was still talking in a quiet, urgent tone. “I cannot stay with him any longer, but I haven’t the coin to escape him like I had planned. I don’t know what I am going to do.” A tear ran down her face, and she quickly wiped it away.

“Take my coin,” Fenris said immediately. He reached for his coin pouch, then paused. “Kaffas,” he muttered. He exhaled heavily and bowed his head. “I am almost out of coin. Still, you can have–”

“Take mine,” Rynne interrupted. She reached down to her belt and unstrapped the leather purse that Carver had given her.

“Hawke, no,” Fenris said sharply. “We don’t need–”

“It’s not charity,” she said firmly. “It’s payback. Really, I should have given this to you as soon as I got it.” She gazed seriously into his eyes. “Besides, some things are more important than coin.”

He hesitated and glanced at Varania’s desperate face, then exhaled and nodded. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I… thank you.”

She shook her head dismissively. “No thanks needed. If Varania gets free from this merchant fellow, that’s more than worth everything in this pouch.” She shot Fenris an apologetic look. “Do you mind giving Varania your pouch, though? I’m rather attached to mine…”

“Ah. Of course,” Fenris said distractedly. He held out his pouch, and Rynne pretended not to notice how his hands were shaking as she transferred the coin from her pouch to his.

He held out the pouch to Varania, and she swiftly pocketed it before clasping Fenris’s hand in hers. “Thank you, brother,” she said fervently. “But you should go before Ahriman returns. If he sees me speaking to another man, even my brother, I–”

“Wait,” Fenris interrupted. “You should join the Lady Luck.”

Varania’s eyes went wide. “The… what?”

Rynne perked up. “Ooh yes, that’s a wonderful idea,” she enthused. “That’s the escape right there! It’s perfect!”

Varania was looking distinctly worried now. “What is the Lady Luck?” she asked.

“I belong to a pirate crew now,” Fenris told her. “The Lady Luck is the ship. The Captain is Dalish and very fair. If you join the crew, you will never have to worry about your safety again.” He leaned across the table. “I will keep you safe.”

To Rynne’s surprise, Varania’s expression became slightly hard. “Leto…”

“I will keep you safe,” he insisted. “As long as we remain together, I can keep you safe.”

Rynne shot him a sharp look. That attitude was familiar.

“Come with us now,” Fenris insisted. “We’ll go back to the ship without delay. Ahriman will never know we were here.”

Varania was starting to look scared. “I – but – he’ll return any minute,” she stammered. “What if he sees us as we’re leaving?” She clutched Fenris’s hand. “He scares me, Leto. If he catches me, he’ll kill me. He will kill you, too.”

“I should like to see him try,” Fenris snarled. “He may be a powerful merchant in Qarinus. But here, he is but a man who sweats like any other when death comes for him.”

Varania’s eyes darted from Fenris to the door and back. “I – let’s – let’s wait until he has come back and seen me here,” she suggested breathlessly. “He will go out on business again, and once he is gone, I will meet you.”

Fenris scowled. “I don’t like it,” he said. “He could harm you in the meantime.”

Varania’s expression grew even more desperate, and Rynne gently squeezed his arm. “Let’s try what Varania suggested,” she said. “If she thinks she’ll be all right for an hour or two, then we should trust her.”

Fenris’s scowl deepened. Then he sighed and leaned back. “All right. Meet us at the docks in two hours,” he said sternly to Varania. “If you are not there in two hours, I will return here for you.”

“All right. Two hours,” she said. She hurried around the table and hugged Fenris once more. “Now go, quickly. Before he sees you.” She nodded to Hawke, then turned and ran up the stairs to the upper level of the inn.

Rynne frowned slightly as she and Fenris rose from the table, but she held her tongue as they stepped back into the sunshine and noise of the lower town square. Fenris was silent as they picked their way through the crowded square and back to the boardwalk, and Rynne didn’t bother to ask where they were going. She knew Fenris was headed back to the docks, and that he would wait there for the full two hours until Varania appeared.

If she appeared. Which Rynne was starting to have some doubts about. But how was she supposed to say that to Fenris when he was so determined to protect his sister?

His handsome face was tight with worry and anger as they made their silent way toward the docks, and once again, Rynne was forced to keep her hands in her pockets to stop herself from taking his hand. Once they were at the boundary of the docks closest to the town square, Fenris led her over to a corner near some old barrels and ropes, then leaned against the brick wall of the adjacent building and folded his arms to wait.

Rynne, meanwhile, seated herself on the barrel closest to him. She idly picked at her nails for a moment, then awkwardly tugged her ear. “So. Um… Afsaana seems, er, nice so far.”

He didn’t reply or look at her. Rynne nervously nibbled the inside of her cheek as she tried to find something to say. Something other than I think your sister is up to something, that was.

Finally she shuffled off of the barrel. “Are you hungry? I’ll find us a–”

“Don’t leave,” he said.

She looked at him, and a pang of tenderness squeezed her heart. Fenris was finally looking at her, and his expression was so vulnerable–

And in a blink of an eye, it was gone. He rubbed his mouth, and when he looked at her again, his usual frown was back in place. “Stay here,” he said sternly. “It is safer if we remain together.”

That’s what he had said to his sister. And with a sudden flash of realization, Rynne’s heart broke.

This, was why Fenris didn’t want to be with her. He saw her as a sister. Maker’s balls, how fucking horrible was that?

She slowly seated herself on the barrel again, then looked away from him and pretended to be watching some seagulls while she blinked back her tears. Once the ache in her throat had abated and she was reasonably certain she wouldn’t start crying on him for no apparent reason, she turned to face him.

“Tell me about Varania,” she said bluntly.

Fenris shot her a look of surprise, and she shrugged. “Come on, we have two hours to kill. So tell me about her.”

He eyed her for a moment longer, then shifted his weight slightly and looked out at the bay. “She is three years younger than me. Almost your age,” he said to Rynne. “When Danarius took us from our mother, she was killed in the commotion.”

“Danarius is… was your former master’s name?” she said softly.

He nodded. “From the day we were taken, we made a pact to never be separated. I swore to her that I would protect her at all cost. And I did, for years. I…” He took a deep breath. “Danarius threatened her regularly. He said he would harm her if I didn’t do as I was told. So I did what he told me.” He folded his arms more tightly. “I mastered every weapon he handed me, and I kneeled at his feet and served his wine during his cursed parties. As I got older and stronger, he…” He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. “He took me to his lyrium mines and forced me to police the other slaves who worked there.”

“What do you mean?” Rynne whispered.

He swallowed hard and didn’t open his eyes. “If the other slaves weren’t working hard enough for his liking, he forced me to beat them. To push them harder. Some of them died because of my actions. He told me to hurt them, so I did.” He exhaled heavily. “Proditor, they called me. It means ‘traitor’,” he said quietly. “And they were right. But I… I had no choice. Or… I thought I didn’t.”

Rynne exhaled. It felt as though someone had punched her in the stomach. If she felt this terrible hearing his story, how must he be feeling?

He looked so sad and exhausted. Rynne nibbled her lip for a moment.

Fuck it, she thought. Then she reached out and took his hand.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, but he didn’t pull away. So Rynne placed his hand in her lap and squeezed it with both of hers.

He swallowed again and looked away from her, and for a moment they were silent as Rynne simply held his hand.

Eventually she broke the silence. “You said Varania ran away with that merchant. This Ahriman fellow. What… what happened?”

He blew out a breath. “Ahriman was in business with Danarius. He purchases lyrium and sells it in the cities. I can’t say I know exactly how it happened or when, but Varania fell in love with Ahriman and convinced him to buy her from Danarius.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “This was three years ago. She barely took the time to say goodbye. In the space of a single day, she was gone, and I was…” He trailed off.

You were alone, Rynne thought. She firmly squeezed his hand.

He rubbed his face. “I don’t understand it,” he muttered. “To this day, I don’t understand why she left.” He pulled his hand from Rynne’s and started to pace. “I kept her safe. She was safe with me. We were – she was all I had. I thought…” He trailed off and shook his head. “Clearly I was wrong.”

Rynne watched his pacing with an aching heart. This whole situation – the sister leaving on an apparent whim, and the brother being angry at her departure… it was all starting to feel too familiar.

She licked her lips nervously before speaking. “Maybe there was something else going on that you didn’t know about,” she said.

He shot her a sharp look and continued to pace. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean…” She took a deep, bracing breath. “Me and Carver. He had no idea what my mother did to me. He still doesn’t.”

Fenris spun on her. “I am not your brother,” he snapped. “I paid attention. I kept her safe!”

Rynne studied his angry face with an aching heart. “You can’t protect someone from everything, Fenris,” she said softly. “I… it’s just not possible. And that’s not your fault.”

He ran both his hands through his hair. “I tried. I…”

“I know you did,” she said. She reached out and took his hand once more. “And it’s not your fault if it didn’t work.”

“She left,” he yelled suddenly. “She…” Then he broke off and met her eye, and some of the rage in his face started to melt.

So did I, Rynne thought with a wrench of guilt. She swallowed hard, then looked down at their hands.

His skin was darker than hers, but the tattoos were so much paler. Rynne carefully twined her fingers with his, and he allowed it.

They fell silent for some time. Rynne didn’t look at Fenris, and he didn’t look at her, but their clasped hands remained resting peacefully on her lap.

Once again, it was Rynne who broke the silence. “Fenris,” she said quietly. “I’m… a little worried about this plan.”

He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

She winced. “I don’t think… I’m not sure Varania is coming.”

He drew away slightly. “Why would you say that?”

“I just…” She shrugged apologetically. “Well, I noticed that she didn’t ask how you escaped from Tevinter.”

To her great regret, he pulled his hand out of hers. “And?” he said sharply.

“That’s the first thing you asked her,” Rynne pointed out gently. “You wanted to know how she got here and if she was safe. But the first thing she said to you was that she needed money.” She shrugged. “If I ran into Carver for the first time in years out of the blue, I’d want to know everything about what he’d been up to. I wouldn’t tell him I needed money. That would be the last thing on my mind.”

Fenris glared at her, then shook his head and started pacing again, and Rynne wilted. She shouldn’t have said anything.

She tried to reach for him again. “Fenris, look. Let’s just–”

He roughly shrugged her off. “Why are you here, then?” he snarled. “If you think she is not coming, what are you doing here?” He waved angrily at her. “Why are you… why–”

“You mean aside from the fact that you told me to stay?” she said archly. “You really think I’d fucking leave you here by yourself?”

He closed his mouth and stared at her, and she shot him an exasperated look. “Fenris, please. You can’t really think I’d walk away and leave you to wait all alone.” She folded her legs up on the barrel. “Do you know how long we’ve been waiting already, though? I honestly might get hungry before she shows up.”

He continued to stare at her for another moment, and Rynne watched painfully as his expression shifted from anger to a heartbreaking sort of bewilderment before he turned away from her.

She took a few deep breaths to control her own emotions. Eventually Fenris came to lean against the wall beside her again, and when Rynne looked at him, he actually appeared quite calm.

He glanced at her. “I would like to wait for her,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Rynne said immediately. She unfolded her legs and swung them idly for a moment, then looked at Fenris again. “Seriously though. I don’t suppose you’re carrying any snacks?”

He huffed and folded his arms. “Shut up, Hawke.”

Rynne glanced cautiously at him, then smiled in relief. He was smirking at her, and she was more than pleased to see his sense of humour reappearing, despite the tense situation.

But his smirk was short-lived. It slowly faded away until Fenris was no longer smiling, but just gazing at her. Just… just studying her, staring into her eyes with those piercing and beautiful emerald eyes of his–

“There she is. The wench with the coin to spare.”

Rynne and Fenris looked up. Two large human men and a qunari – no, a tal-vashoth – were approaching them with a distinctly hostile air.

Fenris stepped away from the wall, and the dark-haired man sneered at him. “Stay out of it, knife-ear. No one needs to get hurt. Not unless they ask for it.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes, and Rynne swallowed hard as her heart started to race. She crossed her legs demurely and gave the men a winning smile. “Gentlemen, please, there’s no need for threats. What can we do for you today?”

The dark-haired man and the tal-vashoth raised their eyebrows at her manners. The second man frowned and took an aggressive step toward her. “We saw you at The Gull,” he said in an Orlesian accent. “You gave that rabbit a pouch of coin.”

Fenris froze at the mention of Varania. The Orlesian man kept talking to Rynne. “If you have that much silver to spare for a rabbit, then you must have more.”

Rynne widened her eyes dramatically and pressed her hand to her chest. “You didn’t harm our friend at the inn, did you?” she said plaintively.

The Orlesian man lifted his chin belligerently and didn’t reply, but his dark-haired friend did. “The bitch was gone when we went to grab ‘er.”

The Orlesian man glared at the dark-haired one. “Shut up, Julian,” he snarled. “Don’t just tell them what they want to know.”

Fenris shifted very slightly, and Rynne sighed in relief – loudly, to call the thugs’ attention to herself and away from Fenris. “Well, I’m so glad that our friend is all right,” she simpered. “Please, we don’t want any trouble. I do happen to have an emergency stock of coin, but… oh, I’m so terribly embarrassed. It’s in my bust.”

All three of the men snapped to attention. “What?” the tal-vashoth said flatly.

She blinked innocently at them. “It’s in my bust,” she repeated more loudly. She slid off of the barrel and took a casual step closer to the big Orlesian man. “If you don’t mind, I just need to…” She reached for the neckline of her shirt and started slowly undoing the laces.

The Orlesian man took a small step closer to her. Then Fenris stabbed the dark-haired man in the neck.

The dark-haired man let out a strangled cry. Fenris stabbed him twice more, and the man stumbled to his knees.

The Orlesian whipped around to look, and Rynne kicked him hard in the balls.

He doubled over with a groan, and the tal-vashoth recoiled in surprise. “Vashedan,” he snarled, and he pulled a sword from his belt.

Rynne whipped her dagger from its sheath and skipped out of their reach. A split second later, Fenris was standing in front of her with his own dagger drawn.

“Did I do the right thing?” she asked him breathlessly. “I can’t decide–”

“You did fine,” he growled. “Stay back. I will handle them.” He lunged at the tal-vashoth, and soon their blades were slamming together with the ear-splitting screech of metal on metal as Fenris parried the tal-vashoth’s blows with his dagger.

“Salope,” the Orlesian man spat.

Rynne whipped around to face him. He was still hunched over a bit, but his face was red and ugly with anger.

Before Rynne could speak or move, Fenris darted at the Orlesian and slashed him across the wrist.

The man hissed in pain and grabbed for Fenris, but Fenris was already out of reach and engaging the tal-vashoth once more. The Orlesian clutched his bloodied wrist, then pulled a scimitar from his sash with his wounded hand and advanced on Rynne.

“Eager little whore,” he snarled. “You can untie those laces for me when I pin you down with this sword.”

A ripple of disgust and fear ran down her spine. She forced herself to smile as she subtly adjusted her grip on her dagger. “Wrong,” she said. She jerked her chin at his weapon. “That’s a scimitar, not a sword. I know these things now.”

The Orlesian paused in confusion. Then he hastily raised his scimitar in defense as Fenris lashed at him once more. “Fucking knife-ear,” he snarled at Fenris. Then, to Rynne’s horror, Fenris was actively fighting both men at once with nothing but his dagger.

“Fuck this,” she muttered. No way was she going to stand here idly. She ran over to the dead dark-haired man and fumbled at his belt, then pulled off his sword with shaking fingers.

She darted around to Fenris’s field of view and waited tensely until he caught her eye. The minute he looked at her, she tossed the sword to him.

He caught the sword, booted the Orlesian in the stomach, then skipped back two steps to adjust his grip on his weapons before engaging the two men once more, and Rynne exhaled in relief. Fenris wielding two weapons was the equivalent of two warriors fighting, and already the fight was more balanced–

“Julian!” an angry voice said from behind her. “The fuck is this? Did you kill ‘im?”

A hand roughly grabbed Rynne’s arm, and her anxiety surged. Without stopping to think, she flung her head backwards.

Thunk. A dull throb of pain reverberated across her skull, and her assailant yelped in pain and released her arm. She whipped around and quickly assessed her new opponent – human, blond, armed with a dagger, bleeding from the nose – then lunged at him and slashed madly at his arms with her blade.

“Fuck!” he yelled. He tried to back away from her, but she advanced on him ruthlessly despite her rising panic and slashed at his belly.

The fabric of his shirt parted beneath her dagger, and a bloom of red appeared across the fabric. A roil of nausea joined the panic in her belly, but she ignored it and slashed at her assailant again.

He grabbed her wrist and twisted, sending a jolt of pain up her forearm, then slapped her hard across the face.

A fiery blaze of agony lit her right cheek. The blond man’s fingers were painfully tight on her wrist and dragging her toward him, and as she struggled to gather her wits, she realized something awful.

She’d dropped her dagger. She was unarmed. Fuck, she was unarmed, and the blond man was forcing her back against the wall and – ow, fuck, that was her head hitting the wall with too much force to be comfortable. And now his other hand was scrabbling at the waistband of her trousers–

She flinched in horror. Stop. Stop it, she thought in panic. Then she lunged toward him and bit his nose hard.

He howled in pain and stumbled away from her, and Rynne gasped for breath and dropped to a crouch by the wall. Her fingers scrabbled through the debris on the ground until she found a brick to strike him with, but by the time she pushed herself to her feet, the blond man was on his knees with blood dribbling from his mouth and Fenris’s sword shoved clean through his belly from behind.

She looked up. Fenris was standing over the blond man with the most furious snarl she’d ever seen on his face. The Orlesian man was facedown in a puddle of blood, but the tal-vashoth–

“Look out!” Rynne squealed.

Fenris whipped around, then hastily dodged back as the tal-vashoth swiped at him with his sword, and then they were fighting again but Fenris didn’t have his sword anymore...

Rynne bolted at the tal-vashoth and plowed into his side. He was huge and a full two feet taller than her, so her attempted body slam made no impact.

But the brick she bashed into his jaw certainly did.

He roared in pain, then broke off with a choking gasp as Fenris’s dagger sank into his chest. Fenris stabbed him three more times in the chest, and when the tal-vashoth dropped limply to the ground, Fenris spun toward Rynne and grasped her arm.

“Are you hurt?” he snapped. He cupped her cheek in one hand. “Your face… he struck you?”

“Y-yes,” she said. Why were her teeth chattering? She wasn’t even cold. “But it’s fine. I’m fine. No blood, no bruises. I–” She broke off abruptly.

Fenris was bleeding. His shirt was cut below the left ribs, and his side was painted with blood.

Panic filled her throat and she reached for his side, but he blocked her hands before she could touch him. “It is superficial,” he grunted. “A wound to the ribs, nothing more. Come. We need to move.” He took her hand and pulled her through the growing crowd and back in the direction of the town square.

Rynne tried to breathe normally as she jogged alongside him. Her right cheek felt like she had a bad sunburn and the back of her head was throbbing, but that hardly mattered; she wasn’t the one who was bleeding.

She gazed pleadingly at Fenris’s angry profile. “Fenris, let me look at that wound–”

“Not now,” he snapped. “We have to find Varania.”

Rynne pressed her lips together and didn’t reply. If those thugs hadn’t been lying, and Varania was gone…

Fenris’s grip on her hand was almost painfully tight, but Rynne didn’t try to pull away. He shoved the door of the inn open, ignoring the alarmed cries of the patrons in the bar, then pulled Rynne up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, he finally released her hand, then whipped his dagger from its sheath and burst into the first room on the left.

Rynne flinched as the door banged against the wall. A moment later, Fenris backed out. “Empty,” he snarled. He strode down the hall and shoved open the next door with a bang, and Rynne helplessly trailed behind him.

Two doors later, he froze, then strode into the room. “Varania,” he barked.

Rynne darted into the room behind him, then stopped short in shock.

Varania was the midst of climbing out of the window. When she caught sight of Fenris, her big green eyes grew even wider, and she ducked her head through the window as though to escape.

But she couldn’t leave. The strap of her haversack was caught on the window ledge. “Venhedis,” she hissed. She pulled fruitlessly on the haversack, but Fenris grabbed it and dragged it off of her shoulder.

“Give that back!” she yelled.

“Why are you trying to escape?” he demanded. “Did Ahriman threaten you?”

“He’s not– no,” Varania said defensively. “I just… I want to go to Llomeryn.”

Rynne narrowed her eyes at Varania’s near-slip, but Fenris took a step toward her. “We can take you to Llomeryn if that is what you really want,” he said. “I will keep you safe until–”

“You can’t protect me,” Varania shouted suddenly. “I don’t need your help.”

Fenris recoiled, then tried again. “I can. I… it is not like before, Varania. On the Lady Luck–”

“Oh, stop,” she said scathingly. “You couldn’t protect me before, and you can’t protect me now. I can look after myself without your help. Now give me that bag.” She held her hand out imperiously.

Fenris stared at her in silence, but Rynne took a small step toward her. “If you don’t need Fenris’s help, then I suppose you don’t need the money, either.” She reached for the haversack in Fenris’s hand.

“No!” Varania blurted. Then she pressed her lips together.

Rynne paused and looked at her. “So you need coin, but you don’t want a quick getaway.” She tilted her head. “Is Ahriman even here?”

Varania glared viciously at her. Then Fenris spoke in a strained voice. “Varania, is he here?”

“No, he’s not,” she snarled. She swung her leg back through the window and stepped back into the room. “He’s not here. He cast me aside, all right? He threw me out. Is that what you want to hear?”

Fenris recoiled. “No, of course not,” he said. “Why–”

“You never wanted me to escape,” she yelled at Fenris. She looked completely enraged now. “You wanted me to stay locked up in Danarius’s mansion with Hadriana and all those other women.”

Fenris gaped at her. “I didn’t want you locked up,” he said incredulously. “I wanted you safe. All I ever… everything I ever did, I was trying to stop Danarius from harming you!”

“Him?” Varania sneered. She let out an ugly laugh. “Danarius was nothing. He barely knew I existed. Hadriana, though… she and her handmaidens tormented me. They hounded my sleep, denied my meals, pulled my ears, took my clothes and made me clean the floors naked like a common beast.” She angrily wiped her eyes on her wrist, and Rynne forced herself to breathe through the ache of sympathy in her chest.

Fenris took a step toward his sister. “I didn’t… you never told me that,” he said quietly. “Why didn’t you–”

“You were miserable enough already,” she said. “Doing whatever Danarius wanted just to keep me safe.” She snarled the word ‘safe’, and even Rynne flinched slightly from the anger in her tone.

“And so you left,” Fenris said. His tone was a heart-wrenching mix of sarcasm and rage. “You seduced that merchant, and you left.”

“I had to,” Varania snapped. “I couldn’t stand it any longer!”

“We made a pact!” Fenris shouted. “We were supposed to stay together after Mother died. I told you I’d protect–”

“You failed!” Varania yelled. “You didn’t protect me. My life was terrible!”

“So was mine,” Fenris yelled back. “But we were in it together! Or that is what I thought.”

“Being together wasn’t enough,” Varania retorted.

Fenris took an involuntary step back, and Rynne bit the inside of her cheek. She truly understood Varania’s arguments – Maker only knew she understood. But the undisguised hurt in Fenris’s face made her want to pull Varania’s hair out.

Varania walked over to Fenris and snatched the haversack from his hand. She returned to the window and swung one leg through, then turned back to look at Fenris once more. “You should thank me for leaving,” she said acidly. “If I hadn’t left, we would both still be rotting in Danarius’s mansion.”

He stared at Varania without speaking, and her angry expression softened slightly. “Goodbye, Leto,” she said quietly. A moment later, she slipped through the window and disappeared.

The ensuing silence was stifling. Rynne exhaled slowly and looked at Fenris. His face was turned away from her, and he was utterly still.

She took a tentative step toward him. “So, um… no tea and cakes, then,” she said softly.

Fenris glared at her. But before he could start yelling, she reached up and gently wiped the tears from his cheek.

He ducked his head and roughly wiped his other eye. “Let’s go,” he said brusquely. “There is nothing here for me to reclaim.” He turned away and walked toward the door.

Rynne silently followed him down the stairs. She grimaced apologetically at the affronted-looking innkeeper as they left, and then they were making their way through the town square once more.

She looked up at him. His face was shuttered and angry, and she braced herself for his rage before speaking. “Now can I look at that wound–”

“No,” he said.

She pressed her lips together, then tried again. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m still hungry. So we should probably go find a snack before I lose my temper and start trying to eat you instead.” She tried for a cheeky smile.

He sighed loudly and dragged a hand through his hair. “Hawke…”

She relented. “All right, I’ll give you a break from my constant charm,” she said gently. “What do you want to do now?”

He rubbed his mouth for a moment. “I… I want to go back to the ship,” he admitted. “But I will take you to meet the others–”

“All right,” she interrupted. “Back to the Lady Luck we go.”

He frowned. “You don’t have to–”

“I want to,” she said firmly. “You don’t need to be alone.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to be alone if I was in your place. I mean, I wasn’t alone. When I argued with Carver, I mean.” She looked up at him. “You were with me the whole time.”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t want your pity.”

She wilted in exasperation. “I don’t pity you, you handsome fool. I…”

I love you, she thought, but she snapped her mouth shut before the words could leave her tongue.

She tried again. “I care about you,” she said carefully. “You’re my friend. So stop trying to pawn me off, and let’s go back to the Lady Luck together.”

The muscles in his jaw tensed for a moment. Then, finally, he nodded.

They made their way along the boardwalk back to the docks as unobtrusively as possible. Fenris pressed his left arm against his wounded ribs to hide the bloody tear in his shirt, and Rynne held herself in a meek manner and kept her eyes low to deflect attention. When they got back to the docks, she grimaced at the Lady Luck’s twenty-person rowboats. “If it’s just the two of us, how will we…”

She trailed off. Fenris was holding a single silver. “From Dorian,” he said. “I kept it in my pocket. We can pay someone to row us back.”

Rynne smiled and took the coin from his palm. “Don’t tell Dorian about this. If he knew we spent his coin on something so practical, he would shit his fancy silk pants.”

Fenris offered her a feeble half-smile, and Rynne smiled back at him. By the time they’d found an available boatman to row them back to the Lady Luck, however, Fenris’s face was creased in a brooding frown once more.

The dwarven boatman was chatty, and Rynne easily returned his banter as the dinghy glided through the bay back toward the Lady Luck. But she couldn’t stop herself from worrying about Fenris’s moody silence.

He was silent until they returned to the ship, and Rynne watched worriedly as he guarded his wounded left side while climbing the rope ladder up to the deck. Once they had set foot on the ship once more, she planted her fists on her hips. “I need to look at that wound now, all right?” she said. “I don’t want it to get infected.”

“I said no,” he said sharply.

She recoiled slightly. He was scowling at her. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s not you,” he snapped. “It’s… I am…” He rubbed his hair roughly, then dropped his hand to his side. “I need… some time,” he said slowly. “I need to be alone.”

A now-familiar pang of rejection twisted in her gut. Why? she thought. Why did he always need to be alone? Why wouldn’t he just let her…

She mentally cut herself off. She knew why he didn’t want her around. He didn’t want to be with her. He probably felt like she was smothering him. But she really did need to treat his wound.

She pushed her hurt aside and lifted her chin. “You can have thirty minutes,” she said. “Then I’m coming to treat that wound.”

He glared at her again. “Why are you being so obstinate?”

Why are you? she thought mulishly. She raised her eyebrows. “Well, excuse me for caring about that gorgeous manly body of yours.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Festis bei umo canavarum. Fine,” he groused. “Thirty minutes.” He turned on his heel and stormed away to the officer’s quarters.

With a painfully heavy heart, Rynne watched him walk away. When the door to the officer’s quarters swung shut behind him, she sat down on the nearest bench and sighed.

Well, Afsaana had been an adventure, all right.

Too bad it hadn’t been a good one.

#fenris #fenris fic #where the winds of fortune take me #pirate au #fenhawke #fenris/hawke #fenris x hawke #fenris/femhawke #fenris x femhawke #fenris/f!hawke #fenris x f!hawke #fenrynne #pikapeppa writes #pikascout

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masterskywalkers · 5 years ago

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Dragon Age!!!!!!

My opinions are likely unpopular with areas of fandom but did we expect any different? Of course not!

The first character I first fell in love with:

Very easily it was Alistair.

I just loved his entire character and felt he was a breath of fresh air in terms of how male characters were presented. I loved how he was written, and just how good he was. Despite what he’d been through he didn’t brood and he wasn’t played off as the comic relief, but rather was a healthy blend of what a character should be. He was allowed to be emotional and hurt but also to smile and laugh and (potentially) fall in love. I really appreciated that at the time and still do to this day, which is why Alistair remains special too me.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:

There’s a few, most notably Anora and Fenris.

Anora is a character that grew on me a lot more as I got older, and I really appreciate her character more now than I did when I first played the game. She’s unfairly disliked by a majority of the fandom, but I’ll speak more on that later.

Fenris was simply a case of needing a second playthrough to really resonate with his character properly - and that’s solely just because of how I was playing at the time. The second time I'd built more for him headcanon wise and spent more time with him in the party, and I really just came to like the character more because of that. Now he's sort of a necessity for my party lineup if I play Dragon Age 2.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t:

Iron Bull. I’ve never made it a secret that I dislike Bull, but I rarely talk about why. It's honestly for a lot of reasons - many which I won’t go into too much detail with unless people ask for it. But basically I don’t like how he’s written in certain instances to the point that I’m really uncomfortable with some of the dialogue choices used for his romance options. I also strongly dislike how his relationship with Dorian is pushed to be almost canon by the writers (not negating the fact that I find the romance itself problematic at best).

I also don’t really like Corypheus (within Inquisition at least) but that’s because I feel he was a weak villain overall as well as being a filler one. But I've made me opinion on how Inquisition's story was delivered very clear before now, so we won’t open that box unless someone asks.

The character I love that everyone else hates:

Anora, for one. She’s not perfect, don’t get me wrong. But she’s not evil, and she’s a damn sight better suited for the throne than Alistair is. I feel like her ambition targets her for a lot of hate, but there’s nothing wrong with a female character being ambitious. Especially given the situation the game puts her in.

Sebastian. A lot of people don’t like him, but I’ve always been really interested in his character. I’ve even thought about doing a playthrough with a romanced Hawke for him. He’s just so different compared to the rest of the party, and I don’t know if it’s because he’s a DLC character or because of his heavy religious background that so many people are put off by him.

I’d also like to add Vivienne, who suffers again from the ambitious female character problem this fandom has. She’s a powerful lady who makes no secret of what she wishes or desires, and that along with her honest attitude towards members of the party makes her a target for hate. But I love her, and she has a caring side underneath her layers, and I wish more people saw what her character was and how strong she is.

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:

I can't really think of anyone, honestly. I could say Anders a little bit because I think both him and Justice were written better in Awakening than what they were in 2, but that's me being picky. He's still a character I really like.

The character I’d want to be like:

Probably Inquisition!era Leliana. I always liked her role and how secretive a spy master she really was.

The character I’d slap:

Anders, because of the whole 'blowing up the chantry' deal. But also Solas for being the bad egg.

A pairing that I love:

Buckle in fellow followers, because it's a ride!

Of course my main OTP's include Alistair/Female!Warden, Hawke/Fenris and Hawke/Anders, and Dorian/Male!Inquisitor. But I'm also fond of seeing ...

Morrigan/Male!Warden - I really want to play a world state where Kieran is Male!Warden's son. The idea of that relationship just seems so different and fun from my usual games.

Zevran/Mahariel!Warden - my very first character in Dragon Age (although not my canon) was a female Mahariel who ended up romancing Zevran after Alistair became King and dumped her, so it has a special place in my heart. Another pairing that deserves its own investigating one day.

Sebastian/Female!Hawke - for reasons specified above.

Josephine/Female!Inquisitor - now don't get me wrong! I love this ship with a male Inquisitor too, but I've always wanted to make a female qunari and romance Josephine with her.

Cassandra/Male!Inquisitor, Cullen/Inquisitor, Sera/Dagna, Lavellan!Inquisitor/Abelas, Ameridan/Telana. I'm also rather fond of Nathaniel/Cousland, although that always makes me miss Awakening.

A pairing that I despise:

Iron Bull/Dorian is the big one, as well as Iron Bull/Inquisitor.

Blackwall/Inquisitor too, because Blackwall is not an overly memorable character to me honestly? I also don't particularly feel comfortable with him lying about his identity to someone he loves - and yeah, I know, Solas does the same but at least Solas isn't borrowing another persons persona.

Also? Not a big fan of Alistair/Anora. It's a marriage of convenience, and I don't see any happiness in it - and one thing all my boys have is the desire for me to want to give them some kind of happy ending with their love interests.

Send in a fandom!

#dragon age #flyppa #misc: replies #misc: fandom meme #misc: ask meme

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r95irth · 5 years ago

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BNHA tier list

I’m waiting in between two works and so..I fell in the tier list hell, yet again...

So here is my tier list for Class A characters !

Are you surprised ?

And after that, I wondered “hey, how different it is when I write bnha fanfics?” So I made the same tier list but with this angle in mind :

So...I will develop a bit more on that one

1) Momo, Urakawa, Hagakure and Kaminari got to the tops because I have clear idea of how I want their quirk to evolve I have ideas of skills and techniques, and even picture some combats move. + they all got a theme (if Kaminari is a traitor) I like to develop.

Shouto almost fell out in the second category because I have like...two new technique for him in my mind and that’s all? But his family themes are so dear to me I couldn’t do that. So, sorry Shoot, you got there because of your trauma not because I wanted you to be cool...

Bakugou got there because he is fun to write, easy to use during combats and his denial and angers are interesting themes.

2) I’m sorry izuku and Iida, I love you so much but I just can’t imagine any combat moves for you TT it’s getting better since the twist about OFA...And with Iida I can make up some theme with his friends and family but writing a character and building it on other is not that great TT

Kirishima is a bit of trouble, I have an idea for is combat move but I still haven’t found a way / an opportunity to write it / includes it yet. And it frustrates me.

Mina i have literally nothing but my love for her character and the fact that she’s a cupid / fan of love stories but don’t find any shoes to fit her feet. Which is not good I try very hard to not sum up a character to romance / or ship only. That’s why I try my very best to always introduce canon characters one by one and not lover pairs when I can. Quirk/combat idea : 0.

3) Nothing to add...

4)Killer cases : I’m really sorry, but that’s really how it was done for better care. I choose between those two. Sera and Kouda almost got in the list, but Kouda would make a rabbit an orphan and that was too sad. And I like Sero too much. The hard thing was that I needed a character I didn’t care enough for me to miss them while writing (like “OH CRAP their power would have saved my ass why did I do that?!) but also a character I liked enough to be able to write about the survivor missing them without feeling like a use liar / hypocrite. So it ended on Satou, who is a cinnamon roll. And I'm sorry Satou.

5) Every time I wrote better care and went like “okay, did I made everyone do something?” I often ended up like “CRAP I FORGOT THEM” Kouda especially.

6)Mineta is freaky ; I don’t hate him, and for once, I do like how Horikoshi handle him and his perverted (it’s played for humor, but at the same time his classmates allow him no crap, he gets punished every time, there’s no deny that his behavior is wrong in the narration...) Still I really don’t like perverted character trope. But I can’t change that because it’s like 80% of his character. So he is a challenge to write for me, as I try to make him interesting while remaining faithful to canon. So at the very least, it’s entertaining to write him.

Anyways, here is the end of my talk xD Client got back with work so- bye bye !

#tier list #personal #writing bla-bla #bnha #better care #take care

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akria23 · 6 years ago

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I am just really afraid that there won't be hell for Sera Gamble and John McNamara at comic con. That, like, people will praise them and ask nice questions and no one will ask about the plotholes. And than one person will emotionally ask about queliot or their treatment of female characters and the showrunners will just shrug them off or make a lame joke and that will be all. I just really need to see them fucking squirm.

I don’t think it’s gonna happen anon.

It rarely if ever does because these people who are there (who do the interviews and such) don’t want to be exiled from process. The fans don’t want to be seen as hostile or rabid. There’s also a culture here of the creators being better than thou so the handling in these situations is sometimes backhanded. They will praise themselves - even if no one else does - they will make sly comments as well.

I see it being the elephant in the room that people will approach but won’t confront.

The Magicians ain’t the first in the game to do wrong in this aspect but they’re all treated the same. And while Queer publications will drag them in their own platforms that doesn’t really get the mainstream stance that it should. The same people who were praising them will just stop praising them. But that’s a problem because it dismantles nothing. The Glee creator was horrible (the plot was terrible, the writing was shit, there were a lot of issues about how characters of color were handled, how his baby gay Kurt was just self insertion, the biphobia was prevalent from his views not in a manner that did the story or the people justice - and etc but he still got not only another chance but acclaim for those projects. And Sera had gotten more than one under hers despite Supernatural and she’ll get more despite The Magicians.

For me it’s not about them hearing what they did wrong - they know - they don’t care. Salty was the descriptor used when fandom expressed their worry a could of weeks ago. So if that’s how Sera saw those people when they were only worried…imagine what she thinks now that they’re pissed?

My thing is - Where do we go from here? How do we handle this type of thing moving forward? How do we use what power we do have to dismantle this shit and stop it from happening? Because while it’s great (for some - cause I think most of this fandom is unauthentic) to hear the complaints and expression of feelings/views - how do we take that outrage and manifest it where it counts. Because if you’re gonna complain today and watch season 5 next year…then what’s the complaints for? If you’re gonna leave this fandom and go into another being just as ignorant to critical thinking processes…then what’s the point? How do we make this ‘lesson’ a tangible learning moment - that’s my concern. Because fuck Sera and her whole as team. Fuck those in fandom who are still with the bs antics. Whose gonnna do what needs to be done to make shit like this stop - that’s who/what I’m interested in.

I understand wanting to make them eat crow and wanting to shame them - trust me, because I spent days feeling that way about this damn fandom but I know for a fact that you can’t get people to care. They don’t care and they never will fam. Don’t hold on to that hold on to what you can control.

#the magicians #queliot #representation

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go-diane-winchester · 6 years ago

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New question: Why do I dislike Misha and his fans?

@super-who-loser asked the following question:

Hey, I’m not trying to come across as rude or anything I’m just wondering why you dislike Misha so much? I know Jared and Jensen have been there since the beginning and yes, there have been times where his character has been pretty useless but I don’t hate him and you’re being really mean to some Destiel shippers and like I know that it’s obviously never going to happen and Cockles is a big no no for me but I am confused about why you really don’t like him? I’m honestly just curious

Thank you for the question. Let me point out before hand, that my irritation towards Misha has nothing to do with a ship. I used to read destiel slash. I used to like Cockles AU. I don't ship wincest. I ship AUs. Its my favorite slash subgenre. So no, this is not a ship argument. Ship whatever you want, but mind your manners. There are many things that I don't like about Misha. However I am choosing to answer only from a SPN perspective because that is the primary way that we know him.

MISHA AND SLASH FICTION

You may not realize this but Supernatural has been on the air for so long that it, plus its fan base, has experienced and initiated a few changes and trends. In the space of fourteen years, filming became digitalized. Social media, which was a fledgling thing back then, is the norm now [I have a disdain towards social media]. To put it into perspective, the child actors that played Asher, the Antichrist kid [I forget his name] and Little Lillith from the early seasons are likely in their 20s now. Trends in entertainment changed. Hollywood seems poised to implode upon itself, geographically, with major entertainers moving house to outlets like Netflix. Netflix, not bound by geography, is likely to become the next Hollywood. Slash, too, has undergone change. And as far as SPN is concerned, that change has not been organic. It has been by design and at the hands on Misha Collins.

When Castiel came on board, there were already two prevalent pairings in Supernatural: Wincest and Bobby/John. There were other pairings. But these were the most prevalent. So Supernatural had slash fans already. These fans were already aware of what slash fiction was, and they were a self-monitoring group. They realized that the actors were aware of slash and didn't want it to be the focal point of their con appearances, because they didn't want the fans to think they were hinting at anything. The fans understood and ever since, they have respected the actor's wishes. When some fans liked Dean's interaction with Cas, they started shipping destiel.

Destiel's old fans were just like all the other shippers. They were treating destiel the way it should be treated. Like a fantasy. They did artwork and literature about it and kept it to themselves, as they should. Misha never knew what slash fiction was, until he looked on Tumblr and found Destiel. In his words, he used destiel to ''keep this gig for longer''. He kept talking about destiel even though he was instructed not to, and pulling the LGBT into it, to make it look like destiel was about gay rights and queer art, when it isn't. There are various kinds of destiel written by different people, from different perspectives, for different reasons. That is true for all pairings everywhere. By making destiel about the LGBT and waving the ''no shipping question'' rule in convention panels, he did two things.

He turned destiel into a vehicle for LGBT activism. Instead of being a pastime, now destiel is used to fight for LGBT representation, even though, many of the LGBT people within my own circle despise him for it. Most of the people fighting for LGBT representation are actually quite homophobic and insulting in their thinking and logic. And they are not even LGBT. They are just a bunch of straight girls for whom, their fantasy has become a drug, and they wont stop until destiel becomes canon.

He turned Jensen into the bad guy. Misha spoke openly about slash. Jensen chose not to. He didn't want any part of it, and this is true about all the pairings he is a part of, not just destiel. Because of his choice, Misha fans make negative comparisons between him and Misha, even saying that Jensen is a homophobe/biphobe because he doesn't want to talk about destiel or make it canon. They ranted about it on social media and mass media picked up on it. The University Of Sydney has an academic paper, under Celebrity Studies, dedicated to Jensen's supposed homophobia. The destiel shippers are literally Jensen's reputation.

Misha should have left slash alone. Any fan of his will know that he overindulges the slash fans. And the one thing that I noticed about slash fans, is that you don't give them excessive attention, or they will go completely crazy. It doesn't matter what they slash.

Harry Styles and Liam Tomlinson learned that the hard way, because the Larry fans destroyed their friendships when they over-emphasized the fan servicing. They did the fan servicing because Modest Management told them to, they ended up hating their fans for what the fans became. They have since severed ties with Modest. Even on a day when one of them was mourning the loss of a parent, the fans who pushing the other guy so they could have a ship moment. These two boys were very young when they entered the band. Harry was 15 years old. They had youthful ignorance to blame for making the decision to blindly follow the manager's instruction. Misha cannot make any of those excuses.

Misha got into the show at age 35. He was already a grown man. He was not a pivotal part of the show and therefore the only notes he was getting, was for his acting. He wasn't being coached by anyone as to how he should engage his fans. He was too small a fry for that. In fact, no one was sure how long he would last on the show. So these notes were only acting, including one telling him not to adlib his lines. Whatever transpired between him and the destiel fans, happened because he orchestrated it.

MISHA AND SUPERNATURAL

When Cas came on board, he was fun new character. By the end of season 5, he had run his course on the show. The show didn't need his character because [and as a writer I understand this] the presence of Castiel hampered the progress of the story. Sera Gamble dealt with that frustration during her tenure as showrunner. Cas was an angel. If he was an ally to the boys, the boys should have a more powerful nemesis. After all, they have an angel buddy to help them. Unfortunately, they couldn't keep coming up with more and more powerful bad guys and negative elements, especially on a show where the biggest bad guy, the devil itself, and the worst case scenario [the apocalypse] has already been dealt with.

During 6 and 7, they had Soulless Sam, Sam's wall, the leviathans, Metatron, the demons, Crowley, Dick Roman and even the Alphas, if I am not mistaken. So many bad guys and bad situations, because the good guys had a powerful angel. They could make him lose his power, so he wont be such a powerful ally. And they did exactly that. But Misha has very few skills to show off. Imagine if Osric was Cas. Even without power, he would still be able to taekwondo the stuffing out of bad guys. He wouldn't be useless. Cas, without his grace, didn't help the story along. He didn't bring something extra to the story. He was pointless. So they made him a bad guy and for the first time in a long time, Cas was pivotal to the story.

Eventually, she got fed up of shoehorning him into the script and just did away with the character. But, rumor has it that Singer brought him back. And he was welcome by the worst Q score measurement ever. That would tell you that he was not appreciated as an actor by everyone, just his shipping and cult fans. Since then, Cas has done nothing important in the script until recently where he made a deal for Jack. Other than that, he has been an add on, and that is Misha's fault. Every time Jensen and Misha did a scene, Misha would overemphasize the destiel aspect, either via social media or during his panels. And eventually Jensen got fed up and cut the scenes short. Basically, Misha shot himself in the foot. The DeanCas fan service made for annoying television for people who didn't want to deal with shippy nonsense while they were watching their favorite show.

If they didn't add anything shipping related, the hellers screamed. If they did, the hellers screamed canon and queer baiting. Misha's interference did that. All he had to do was stop talking, and he couldn't do that, because his fan base will lose interest in him. In order to keep that one group of militants, Misha isolated all other fans and potential fans.

MISHA AND THE DESTIEL FANS

Misha's fan have sent Jensen various death threats, the receipts of which are on my blog. A few days back, a heller was setting Jensen's picture on fire because Misha tweeted a lie that there will be a turning point for Dean and Cas in the upcoming episode. So even though Misha was the guilty party, this psycho is punishing Jensen. These fans have also discussed kidnapping Jared's children. When they bully Jensen and Jared, they tag Misha in many of the tweets. Misha randomly does Q and A sessions based on his tweets, but he has never seen a single threat and bullying remark??.....in ten years??.....really?? Nah, I am not buying that. Frankly, I think the man just doesn't care. Acknowledging them will mean he will have to stop them which means he will eventually have to stop peddling destiel which means he will not have an audience which means SPN will kick him right out. The funny thing is, I think he is wrong. He might actually have more fans if he didn't alienate them with his special brand of shippy vulgarity. I could fill a page with all the receipts of the death threats. And Jensen doesn't deserve that.

I also call out destiel shippers on Tumblr so that everyone else can block the problematic ones. Have you noticed how many names there are for the destiel pairing? DeanCas, CasDean, DeanxCastiel and recently I discovered Dastiel. Have you ever wondered why? It is because they don't want you to block them. If you filter destiel, they will use another name. Why is that? That is not a ship. That's a cult. They want to indoctrinate. They tag destiel in other fandom names. They are trying to create more fans for a ship. That is why I call out specific people. Especially the ones that tag AKF in their destiel garbage. I have no issues with the good shippers. I have done posts about them. The bad ones might do something criminal one day, which is why they bother me.

This answer, only just scratches the surface. I am not telling you everything. I am not telling you about Jared, Robert Berens, Kim, Briana, Travis, Sera Gamble, Ben Edlund, Ty Olsson etc. I am just telling you the brief basics. I hope this answers your question. Have a nice day. Apologies for the inevitable typos.

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sailormoonartblog · 6 years ago

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Sooo, anon somehow felt the need to send me so many asks that I had to lower the zoom down to 75% in order to encapture them all. Phew! This is going to require a bit of time.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because it’s clear you don’t know your Sailor Moon history well enough to be able to argue about it. Which isn’t anything bad by itself, of course, but it becomes bad if you somehow still feel entitled enough to have discussions in spite of your very flawed knowledge of the facts. But alas, I am a weak person who loves engaging in discourse, so I’ll still take the time necessary to prove you wrong. First of all, it’s not “5-10 years”: from 2005 to 2010 is five years, I believe, 5 and a half if you really want to be retentive. Second, your blind obsession with the old anime somehow made you forget that not just it, but all kinds of Sailor Moon media were put on hold during that period: ever wondered why OldMyu suddenly stopped with Marina’s graduation in 2005 instead of just passing the tiara to another actress like they always did before? No? Did you know that PGSM, which originally aired on TV between 2003 and 2004, was released in two DVD boxes in 2005 that were retired from commerce after only a few months? Did you know that the shinsoban edition of the manga was printed concurrently (2003/2004) and was also retired from commerce in the fated 2005? Did you know that nearly all of these media (the volumes of the manga, the disksets of the anime and the live-action) then reappeared on the shelves in 2010, after the ban was out, except for the musicals, which used to be the most mistreated medium? Or did you think that the 5-year ban only worked for the anime because that’s everything that exists in your mind? Now, we can all discuss hours about the causes of this ban, because different sources claim different reasons for Naoko Takeuchi to decide to put her series in a commercial stasis only to soon change her mind, and it’s a very difficult topic to discuss; but I honestly believe you lack the knowledge necessary to even think of entering the discussion. Now, if you didn’t notice, all of the above also worked outside of Japan: all over the world, in 2005 volumes of the manga and cassettes of the anime were pulled off the shelves. The possibility of getting a non-Japanese version of the shinsoban edition was immediately aborted, and the only media not affected were Sera Myu and PGSM because, as we know, they were never exported to begin with. But, as soon as the ban ended, things changed! Around 2011, many countries around the world started translating the shinsoban edition of the manga and publishing new releases of the anime in the DVD format that they couldn’t use beforehand and, hell, even a freaking videogame for the Nintendo DS was published! You know, it may sound incredible to your ears, but the Sailor Moon world actually doesn’t rotate around the old anime!

Regarding Stars, then, you’ve got your facts all wrong: the fact that you didn’t have it imported back then has got absolutely nothing to do with the Japanese producers and publishers - not with PNP, not with Kodansha, not with Toei, obviously not with Bandai - and instead all to do with your own importing company, Dic or Viz or however it’s called since it seems to be always changing. You might know (but who am I trying to fool?) that the same exact thing also happened in France, where, like in the USA, they decided to stop importing Sailor Moon after the end of the fourth season because they couldn’t come up with a clever enough idea to censor the Starlights’ hermaphroditism. On the contrary, countries with more clever adaptators imported the fifth season regularly in 1998! So, as you see, you really have to blame no one but the censors working for the company of your very own country for the fact that you weren’t able to enjoy a crazily censored version of your precious Sailor Stars back in the 90′s and instead had to wait till 2019 for a loyal adaptation that’s bound to come out in two ultradeluxe Blue-Ray boxes that most US fans will still complain about because their video quality isn’t enough for them to be able to distinguish every single drop of colour on the filmed cels.

Oh! A woman with opinions different from mine! We can’t allow it! But clearly she wasn’t speaking seriously, now was she? Naaah, no one can be serious if their opinion is so drastically different from mine! The fact that you think that all I’m basing my preferences about are the elongated limbs is clear intellectual dishonesty, because you should know perfectly that otherwise I’d be praising Katsumi Tamegai to death, who is the only artist who drew the girls as if they were positively anorexical. And the fact that you think that a character designer’s artworks (which mainly consist of settei) could and should emote tells me that you don’t know the difference between character designing and animation direction. But, somehow, you’ve still got the presumption to act as the lecturer here.

Wow! Arguing with me is so important to you that you actually went and sent me the same answer twice! I’m so flattered! <3

Here: http://tiny012.tumblr.com/post/182437440176 (many thanks to @tiny012 for provinding all these useful data!). Educate yourself. The rest of this last ask is such a big joke that I’ll just leave it here for everyone to contemplate and meditate about the extentions of human stupidity.

#sailor moon #naoko takeuchi #sailor moon crystal #sm rants #chrono #unsufferable people

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usaghinanami99 · 7 years ago

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@pichipichiparadise Didn't I say you should be prepared for this? Well, here it comes! I hope I spelt all the titles right 'xD And sorry in advance for any grammar mistakes, I always do my best when I write in foreign languages but I'm just your average teenage fangirl who loses all of her reason before what she loves the most. Before starting, I should say that I love both slow romantic ballads and fast-paced pop songs on an even level, so I don't think I am too biased towards any of the two genres; truth to be said, MM offers some great pieces for both types of music, and I like all of them. Now, here's what you were all waiting for, i. e. my complete ranking of all the songs from the anime Mermaid Melody!

48) Ai no ondo Sorry, but it's just a big "no" for me. The tune is so irritating that it somehow annoys me to listen to it. 47) Koi wa nandarō? Urgh. Same as before. Irritating tune and even more irritating singer – it's higher on the list just thanks to some passages in the lyrics which make me think of some sort of sexual innuendo, and since I am both a hopeless romantic and a huge pervert, I vastly appreciate it XD 46) Oh, yeah! Alala Does this remind you of exaggeratedly cute idol songs? Because it's the impression it gives me, and it's not a good one. (OK, I'm overdoing, there are definitely some idols I like, but Jpop rarely clicks with me if it's not related to anime in some way) 45) Splash dream! Er... this is getting boring, but I just cannot stand Asumi Nakata's voice 'xD However, this is where the tunes stop being outright irritating for me, and it's just a matter of them failing to catch my heart. 44) Aurora no kaze ni notte I'm on shortage of comments already, I guess I'll just say that Ema Kogure sounds like a 2 year-older and that I keep on forgetting how the tune goes. 43) Star! Meromero heart Irritating singer, forgettable tune, stupid lyrics (I know it's done on purpose, but still). On with the next one. 42) Mother symphony OMG, I feel guilty for puttin your favourite song so low! Actually, I must admit that I've never thought about the lyrics the way you put it, and maybe reading your comment will help me appreciate this song a bit more ^^ However, this spot is where the songs start being just boring and uninteresting to me instead of plain unsufferable, so it's still something... I guess? 41) Nanatsu no umi no monogatari – Pearls of mermaid As I said, boring and forgettable and little else. I think I've already lost half of my readers by now. 40) Birth of love Really? Did they waste Eri Kitamura's talents to make her sing this so-so piece? That's a crime on my book! 39) Piece of love I said I love love songs, but that's simply an understatement: I am a literal sucker for slow, deep, emotional songs about feelings and such. But this... what I can see is that it tried to be a romantic piece but failed miserably and ended up being a mere yawn-inducing song. I'm not exaggerating, I really find it sleep-inducing! In this sense, it low-key reminds me of A dream is a wish your heart makes, lol. But I feel the need to repeat that I absolutely adore romantic ballads if done right, in fact the main theme from Beauty and the Beast is my single best favourite song in the whole freaking world, OK? But there's a clear limit between "romantically slow" and "sleepily slow", and this songs trespass it. 38) Mizuiro no senritsu I have a sensation that composing more upbeat songs is easier, because there can't be the risk to have your listeners fall asleep, or is it just me? In fact, this makes nice for a Jpop song... it's just that I'm not that big a Jpop fan to start, and the idols I do follow, such as Momoiro Clover Z, I do so just because they have sung songs from animes I love. I guess this song is somehow OK, it's just a matter of me not connecting with it. 37) Portami con te OK, finally here's what I think is the worst Italian song – in case you started thinking I was biased and would put all the Italian songs on top... well, you wouldn't exactly be wrong about the bias part, but still. For me, this song is just on the limit between "nice romantic slow songs" and "boring as heck slow songs": one day I find it sweet, the other day I think it is simply too slow. But what really made me decide to put it low in the list is the fact that it's a mere rearrangement of Yume no sono saki e instead of a completely new piece of music, thus making it the sole and only non-original song from the Italian dub... which is not cool. Definitely not cool. 36) Yume no sono saki e I really have the same opinion about this song and the last one, due to them being so terribly similar, but I decided to give this the higher spot because I'll be eternally pissed that they decided to use an already-existing base to arrange Portami con te, and that's not something I could ever forgive 'xD 35) Daijina takarabako (slow version) I think this could make for a nice lullaby. What else could I say? It's cute and it manages to be slow without being boring; now, I don't consider it to be necessarily unforgettable, but here we're starting heading for the better. 34) Hana to chō no serenade This is the perfect LanHua song, full stop: it's just as haunting, hypnotizing and mysterious as it should be, with that exotical feel to the tune that spices it up. And it is even better in French! It may seem to be too low in the list to be a song I like, but these are just the songs that I find to be good but not great. 33) Kibō no Kaneoto – Love goes on Now that's a pretty battle song! True, it may not be at Sera Myu level (but then, very few can compare to the eternal goddess Akiko Kosaka), but I admire the fact that it manages to be both sweet and relatively upbeat at the same time. 32) Concerto d'amore "Good but not great" is again all I can say about this one, so I'll add that I'm very disappointed by the fact that the second half of the song has never made it to the series proper and is therefore only present in the CD version – which is a shame, because I think that is where the song gets better. The tune is nice enough, but maybe it's overused, in the sense that it always plays whenever a radio is on during the show, which sometimes feeds me up; but it isn't a boring song, definitely not. 31) Voce del buio OK, I'll admit that the concept is good: this villain song wanted to be suffocating and practically impossible to forget, and it succeeded perfectly – that's the type of melody that just can't get out of your mind after one single listening. But there's too much rap for my taste and, though the contrast between the tune of the stanzas and that of the refrains is amazing, it somehow comes off as "I recognize is good, but it's not exactly my genre". 30) Ever blue Man, this song used to be so much lower in my list! The thing is, I just couldn't make myself listen to it without suffering terribly xD But then I heard the French version and I finally understood that it was just a case of me hating Hitomi Terakado with a passion that prevented me from appreciating the song! In fact, thanks to other foreign dubs (such as the Portuguese ones, but really, each one of them is better than the Japanese), I discovered thatt with a decent singer, it actually turned out to be a pretty song, and I'm more persuaded than ever now that the Cosplay Singers have just released their cover! I'll never understand why they tend to cast chipmunks instead of voice actors in Japan, but whatever. 29) Super love songs! Nice, clean, pleasing song of the more upbeat scale, with a catchy refrain: that's how I like my Jpop. 28) Daijina takarabako Even I cannot understand how can I like a solo by Asumi Nakata, whom I honestly detest, but I guess that when the melody enchants you, miracles can happen. Good job! 27) Legend of mermaid I think I can't say anything about this song that hasn't already been said xD Well, I like it but don't love it; I can only add that the instrumental intercourses in between the singing parts come off as really annoying to me, I think I don't enjoy the way they are arranged that much. 26) Ashita ga mienakute OMG this song. This song. This song. OK, sorry, let me rephrase that: as a 9 year-older watching Pure on TV, I was at best indifferent about Mikaru's feelings, and even partially blaimed her for the pain Lucia was suffering. Growing up, I melted out towards the character and, while I'll always be on Lucia's side when it comes to the love triangle stuff, as a middle-schooler I undertood that nothing of the love drama was Mikaru's fault. Some years ago, when I started using the Internet, I discovered that the Japanese dub of the anime had different songs from the Italian one, and was literally blown away upon first listening this one. A song sung by a handicapped girl my age who mourned about her solituted and sufference was, like, so much akeen to me as a person that it seems a strange coincidence. Add to that that I loved seeing depressed characters, because it helped me find my own depression a little less terrible. I've grown out of that phase now, mostly thanks to me having changed school, but this song holds a special place in my heart, and if I were to make a ranking of the most relatable songs I've ever listened to, this would come third after Belle and Let it go. 25) Tsubasa wo daite As lost in my thoughts as I were, I haven't mentioned the fact that both songs have got enchanting melodies (and I thought this even before knowing of the songs, because I absolutely loved the instrumentals that played when Mikaru and Mikeru spelt out their poems in the Italian dub). This version gains a higher place because, while Mikeru is less relatable than Mikaru, Junko Minagawa is a much better singer. Ah, and it's a song sung by a character who laments his condition and talks long about his feelings, which is exactly my cup of tea. 24) Kodō – Perfect harmony We're getting better and better with the battle songs! Here's another catchy one, but I'm afraid I haven't got much else to say about this. 23) Ankoku no tsubasa This is another case of the French version making me appreciate the song more than before – seriously, though, just listen to it! I really dig the style taken here, it screams "sexy villain" from every note and it's done so damn right. 22) Kizuna And here comes my favourite Japanese battle song! The thing is, I really dig the refrain but cannot say the same about the stanzas, so I decided to even it out putting it around the middle. What is more interesting to me, though, is that this song was clearly the basis used to compose Eternal eternity for the 3rd season of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Crystal, which makes it again more important. I know what I said before about me disapproving of rearrangements, but what can I do when one is just so unbelievably good? (Because yes, I indeed prefer Eternal eternity. Kill me now.) 21) Sekai de ichiban hayaku Asa ga kuru bashō Have I said how much I like sweet lullabies yet? Because I love them. I've got no more to say. 20) La nostra forza (rearrange) My first reaction upon hearing this on the CD was like "OMG how dare they ruin one of my favourite songs", but with time I learnt to understand that this style actually fits LanHua more than the regular version would have. Though I don't think I have to point out that the one sung by the BBS and Alala is far better. 19) Mermaid Melody – Principesse Sirene There's a complex love-hate relationship between me and this song, and it depends on how much weigth I put on each aspect of it: if I concentrate on the tune, I find it to be a great song worth of the glorious tradition of Italian OPs; if I concentrate on the rest, though... I really can't understand how they could come up with the idea of casting a 14 year-older to sing it, and this is without mentioning the absurdly stupid lyrics it features. Maybe this is what leads me to enjoy the karaoke version so much. 18) Legend of mermaid (slow version) What can I say, if not that it's cute and pretty and sad and everything else? I don't like Asumi Nakata and Hitomi Terakado's versions one bit, but Kana Ueda saves the song for me. And the instrumentals are far better than those of the original version. 17) Ai no kiseki Another awesomely sad and emotional song sung by Kana Ueda – see the pattern here? It's the type of song that really makes you cry, and I live for that. 16) Return to the sea Closing Kana Ueda's section, and at the same time opening the sequence of the songs that I outright love, comes Sara's awesome image song, which is tremendously catchy and terribly depressing at the same time. That's the magic of music (and cartoons) for you. 15) Taiyō no rakuen – Promised land That's exactly the type of Japanese OP that clicks with me for its catchyness, and well... What can one say about Miyuki Kanbe, apart from being sorry over her tragedy? She's incredible. She's an excellent musical actress and a perfect Usaghi (though to be fair, my best favourite is and will always be Anza Ōyama, no matter what, with Miyuki being a close second). Her singing is gorgeous and, as a sidenote, she's the person that made me realize that not all nasal voices are terrible – quite the contrary, on her case. 14) Beautiful wish This. Song. Is. Just. Perfect. Especially in French (but I guess you're tired of me saying that, uh?), but Eri Kitamura rules, too. This melody is just too perfect and it would deserve to be no. 1, if only there weren't some songs which are even more perfect imo. 13) Rainbow notes It's like the first OP, but even better: the catchyness has been brought up to eleven and Miyuki is as freaking skilled as always, and she'll be dearly missed forever. 12) Before the moment Sorry everyone, but the prize is going to the Pure OP for me (please don't kill me!). Not that I prefer Eri over Miyuki (though I love them both so much), but it just... well, listen to it. That music. 11) Star jewel Rina rocks and this song shows it excellently! And Mayumi Asano is the only one from the main trio who sounds like a real human being, so that's a plus. There's some pure awesomeness here. 10) Dolce melodia To think that, when I was a kid, I reckoned this song was just too much. I mean, not even for an instant did I dislike it (the contrary, in fact), but I found it to be so overused that it started tiring me, to the point of getting on my nerves. Now that I'm older, I've understood that beautiful things are always beautiful and can just get better every time you enjoy it again. Now I can listen to this song on repeat more than a dozen times in a round and always recognize it for the true masterpiece it is. (Except for Caren's version, that is – Rossella Liberti's voice is just something I can't stand.) 9) Kuro no Kyōsōkyoku �� Concerto That is, the perfect villain song. Villain songs are really the best songs in the Japanese dub. I don't know what to add. Oh, wait... 8) Yami no baroque ...What do you mean, there's an even more perfect villain song? This show is just too much and it's so beautiful it's killing me, but I'll gladly die with Mermaid Melody if I must. 7) La nostra forza OK, the Japanese version definitely wins in the lyrics department, but the music here is just too prefect for it to be any lower. 6) Ritorno all'oceano Pure awesomeness and nothing more. Denise Misseri's version is gold and Francesca Daprati's is diamond, but there's really nothing else to say. 5) Battito d'amore Please don't judge this basing on the CD version, because the duet between Valentina Ponzone and Claudia D'Ulisse can't even remotely compare to the many stunning versions heard in the TV series. Battle song at its finest. 4) Fantastica poesia Battle song at its ultimate finest, i. e. The very best battle song ever! With the addition of some sexual innuendos to spice up the lyrics, how much better can it get? 3) Stella preziosa This. This better. It's a telltale sign the fact that I just can't bring myself to choose which I prefer between Francesca Daprati's version and Elisabetta Cavalli. 2) Assoluto amore I can't say anything else, I'm afraid. Perfect music, great lyrics and Valeria Caponnetto to do the goddesses' job. I'm in heaven. 1) Dolce melodia (orgel version) A sadly emotional arrangement of a great song? Yes, please. This song is too perfect and it's too much for my heart to bear, to the point that I'm not even listening to it as of now and I'm already crying just at the thought. Sung by Denise Misseri it's a masterpiece, but sung by Valeria Caponnetto it's the greatest tragic song ever.

#mermaid melody #mermaid melody pichi pichi pitch #mermaid melody pichi pichi pure #mermaid melody principesse sirene

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cedarmoons · 8 years ago

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une nuit au jardin

@kauriart || cullen and solas (aka lionwolf aka eggnoodle), halamshiral. same verse as this. needed cullen practice, for reasons. rating: t; contains depictions of sexual harassment

Were it not for the possibility of Corypheus using the country as a foothold to increase his power in Thedas, Cullen would be more than happy to throw Orlais to the wolves, come what may. He’d found himself a secluded part of the ballroom, hoping that the shadows would keep him relatively hidden, but all he’d done was trap himself in with these—these strangers. Strangers who will not leave him alone.

Were it not for Leliana and Josephine specifically pulling him aside, lecturing them both on the alleged importance of this Orlesian Game, Cullen would’ve pushed through them and walked away long ago. But the Inquisitor had told him to stay here, since this is where he’d see the signal, so stay here he would, praying that the signal comes sooner rather than later.

Even if he had to put up with his… admirers, he thinks, is a rather loose term. He prefers “harassers” himself. Maybe even “stalkers.” Where he goes, they follow, no matter how much he wishes they’d just leave him be.

He spots Solas watching them from across the ballroom. Though he does not wear the regalia of an Inquisition uniform, his retainer’s outfit is of black velvet with gilded accents at his throat and wrists, status symbols. Despite the richness of his clothes, none of the nobles even look twice at him; Cullen even sees one man snap his fingers at Solas, who turns and regards him stonily.

In his distraction, someone lowers their hand to his rear end and squeezes rather hard. Cullen jumps, turning immediately to the perpetrator, a man with an owl masked whose eyes do not betray the least bit of shame. Cullen feels his cheeks heat, despite himself, and he cannot keep his incredulity from his tone when he asks, “Did you just—touch my bottom?”

The man lifts a shoulder in a lazy-half shrug. “I am a weak man,” he says. His owl mask covers his mouth, so Cullen can hear but not see his smug smile. Cullen shifts away, pressing his back against the wall behind him, and the group titters as one.

“It is a compliment, Commander,” one masked woman coos, fluttering her fan. “Do not take it so seriously. You are far too pretty to be so dour.”

A budding migraine throbs behind his eyes, and he itches for lyrium, fingers twitching behind his back. This had been a good night—his sweating and delirium had been minimal, and he had had no headache. These people are quickly ruining it, though he would prefer the lyrium aches right now to spending another moment in their presence.

“You should smile, Commander,” another woman suggests. “You are so handsome when you smile.”

Cullen clenches his jaw, biting back a retort even as his embarrassment rises hot in his neck and cheeks. He clenches his fists behind his back, biting back the urge to tell these people what he really thought of them and their Maker-damned Game.

He glances up to see Solas watching them again, and his eyes are not good enough to see Solas’s expression. But a moment later, Solas starts moving, rounding the corner and walking toward them, and hope lifts his spirits.

Thank the Maker, he thinks. Finally, the Inquisitor is ready to act, and they can leave this cursed place once and for all.

Fingers brushing against his lower back distract him again. Cullen jerks away, provoking another round of soft, condescending laughter, and the same man who’d groped him has his hands on his hips, ankles crossed in some ridiculous pose. “I would be most interested to hear of your time in Kirkwall, Commander,” he says.

Maker’s breath. He sounds sincere.

Cullen forces himself to smile, even as he leans away and clears his throat. “A—Another time, perhaps.”

“Commander Cullen,” Solas calls. The crowd does not part for him, but they do for Cullen when he steps toward Solas, and Solas inclines his head.

“Does the Inquisitor wish to speak with me?” Cullen asks. Solas nods, regarding the crowd surrounding them, grey eyes narrowed.

“Must you take him from us, rabbit?” one complains, and Cullen half-turns, ready to give these Orlesians a piece of his mind, but Solas speaks before he can.

“I am but the humble manservant of the Inquisitor, Madame. He has ordered me to bring Commander Cullen to him. Now, if you could follow me, Commander. Ladies, gentlemen, please enjoy the remainder of this night.” He bows to the crowd, a shallow dip at the waist; Cullen knows from Josephine’s mandatory lessons that those types of bows were only for social inferiors, and almost always taken as a grave insult if one’s social superiors are on the receiving end.

Cullen had thought the lesson ridiculous, but Solas, apparently, had taken it to heart. The women gasp and flutter their fans, and the men mutter about impertinence. Still, there is nothing they can do, and Cullen is very glad about that.

Solas turns and walks away without another word, and Cullen follows him gladly. As they leave the throng of people, he hears one woman call out, “Return to us soon, Commander!”

Not bloody likely, Cullen thinks, unable to stop his scowl now that his back is turned.

Though he does not see the Inquisitor, Solas does not pause until they reach the gardens. “Where is the Inquisitor?” Cullen finally asks, once they enter into a trellis covered with flowering vines, its walkway lined with roses. Only then does Solas stop and turn to face him.

“The Inquisitor did not ask me to bring you to him,” Solas asks. “I simply thought you might be happier separated from those people. There is a quiet spot I know nearby, if you would like to collect your thoughts before returning to the ballroom.”

Cullen stills, taken aback. “I—thank you,” he says, voice rougher than he’d anticipated. “But I should be waiting for the Inquisitor’s signal inside. I cannot miss it because of… mere discomfort.”

“Cullen,” Solas says. “Sera and Varric are investigating the servants’ quarters. We are to distract the court until their investigation concludes. We have ample time before we will move against those who plot against Celene.” His expression darkens. “And please, do not dismiss your own well-being. You did not seem to be merely discomfited.”

Cullen cannot speak, so he nods, short and sharp. “I have been wanting to get some fresh air,” he says, dryly, and some of the fierceness leaves Solas’s eyes. He nods again and turns, continuing his walk, but Cullen cannot enjoy the gardens, lush and green in the height of summer. He instead can only focus on how the black velvet crushes between Solas’s shoulderblades, how the tunic accentuates the broadness of his shoulders. All things he’s noticed in passing, of course, but—

Maker. He looks away, embarrassed by his own conduct, by the fact he is ogling Solas outright, no better than the Orlesians inside the palace. They stop walking in a small, secluded corner of the garden, where a chessboard made of marble stands, its pieces already set up. A small fountain is behind the chessboard, its water a soft trickle that fills the stillness of the night, and near the fountain is a bench, situated under a flowering tree.

Cullen’s eyebrows raise. Before he can speak, however, Solas touches his arm again. “I will see if the Inquisitor can find time to dance with Dorian. That should be enough distraction for the court for you to return safely.”

“Will you return?” Cullen asks, and Solas’s expression softens.

“Do you want me to?” he asks.

“If possible.” He glances at the chessboard. “I’m assuming that isn’t a coincidence.”

Solas laughs, loud and unabashed, some roughness in his voice making it huskier than normal. “No,” he agrees, smiling. “I quite enjoy our matches.”

“In that case, I will be waiting. And if you could tell any soldiers where I’ll be, I would appreciate it,” says Cullen. Solas nods, smiling, and with one last warm look turns away and leaves the secluded garden. Cullen waits until he is out of sight before sitting down with a heavy sigh. He runs a gloved hand over his face, though his mouth is dry, his lyrium craving stronger than before. He had the box in his room, just in case, always just in case, but he knows his weakness far too well.

Cullen presses his fingers into his eyes, though the pressure does not alleviate his migraine. At least the air is fresher than the stale heat of the Palace. And here, he will not have to deal with those—people.

He does not look up until he hears light footsteps on the path. When he does lift his head, blinking black spots from his eyes, he sees Solas, who tilts his head, his eyes pale blue in the moonlight. “Are you well?” he asks.

“Just a headache,” Cullen mutters. “It’ll pass.”

Solas’s brow creases. “The Inquisitor is currently dancing with Dorian; the court should be distracted enough that you are able to return to the ballroom. Leliana has told me she will stay by your side.” He pauses. “Unless… your offer of a match still stands.”

Cullen nods, gesturing toward the empty seat across from him. But Solas does not sit. He steps closer, one hand tucked behind him, and the other resting at his side. “May I ease your migraine?” he asks. Cullen blinks up at him.

“It’s not,” he starts. “It’s not that pressing. I’ve dealt with far worse.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Solas’s lips thin. “You should not have to,” he says, almost snappish. He sighs immediately afterward, his eyes closing a brief moment. “I apologize. My frustration is not with you.” He sits, steepling his fingers on his side of the board, and gestures to Cullen’s side. Cullen can hear faint strands of music from the palace, the notes soft and warbled as they pass through open windows and balcony doors. “Please.”

Cullen has noticed a consistency in Solas’s strategies—where Cullen seeks to outrun and outlast his opponent, Solas is far more subtle. He has no qualms about sacrificing his more powerful pieces to achieve his goals, and in so doing often forces Cullen to be on the defensive, which in turn prevents him from making any significant plays of his own. It is a gamble, but almost always a successful one.

It’s a long game, but eventually Solas wins, with a rook, a bishop, and a pawn he had exchanged for a Queen. Cullen had fared no better—Solas had left him with two pawns, both of his knights, and one bishop. “Well played,” says Cullen, reaching over the chessboard. Solas shakes his hand, and the warmth of him bleeds through the leather of Cullen’s glove.

“Commander, ser!” Jim calls, his voice faint and far away. Cullen stands at once, calling back to Jim, and soon the scout has found them, red faced. “The Inquisitor has told me he has evidence of Florianne being Corypheus’s agent,” Jim tells him. “He has started another dance with her to delay her access to Celene, but will make a move against her the moment you arrive in the ballroom.”

“Understood,” says Cullen. “Dismissed.” Jim salutes and runs back the way he came. Cullen almost follows him, except Solas touches his wrist.

“I know a shorter way,” he says, nodding toward a set of closed doors, almost hidden away by shrubbery. It is a storage room, connected by servants’ passages. Just a few tunnels have them emerging near the ballroom, and they get there before Jim does.

“How did you know about the tunnels?” Cullen asks, and Solas only smiles. It seems, Cullen thinks, that Sera and Varric had not been the only ones doing some investigating.

As Jim had said, Adaar is dancing with Duchess Florianne again. They’re the only figures on the dance floor, and the music is slow, almost romantic in nature. Cullen cannot help his wince and looks up, seeing Dorian further down, holding a glass of wine and looking absolutely delighted.

“How romantic,” sighs someone they walk past. “Think of it—the Inquisitor and Florianne!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” scoffs another. “If you’re measuring how many times people have danced together as a sign of true love, he’s danced with that Magister four times.”

“Pah!” comes the reply.

Solas and Cullen join Dorian, who is leaning against the banister and watching his lover dance, an absolutely delighted smile on his face. He greets them with a toast, lifting his glass of wine and downing it in one swallow. A moment later, without even looking, he lifts another glass of wine from a passing servant’s tray. Solas does the same, though he thanks the servant quietly before sipping from his drink.

“Where have you been?” Dorian says, eyebrows raising. “You two were missed.”

“Not by you, I presume,” Solas retorts, to Dorian’s unabashed laughter. Cullen does not bother to dignify Dorian’s implication with a response and instead finds his soldiers, and tells them what is to be done the moment the dance is concluded. They salute and go to their positions.

The moment the dance is over, Cullen gives the order. Florianne is arrested, and Adaar, smiling, systematically reveals the evidence they’d gathered over the night. It is actually rather vindicating to watch, and almost makes the whole mess of Halamshiral worth it. Almost.

When Gaspard, Briala, Celene and the Inquisitor leave the room, only the latter three return. Dorian saunters off to congratulate his lover, leaving Solas and Cullen alone. Solas swirls his wine in a manner far too elegant for an apostate with no experience of court, but before Cullen can dwell on that inconsistency, Solas downs the rest of the wine and says, “Would you like a rematch?”

Cullen opens his mouth, ready to say no. Though he’d like a rematch, he needs to check in with his troops, with Leliana and Josephine; he needs to give out orders to prepare for the journey to Skyhold; he needs—

“Commander! Commander Cullen!”

Cullen looks over Solas’s shoulder and grimaces.

Maker’s breath. It’s an Orlesian woman, the one who’d told him to smile after he’d been groped. Cullen turns back to Solas at once and says, “Actually, that sounds like a wonderful idea. To work?”

Solas’s lips quirk up, and too late does Cullen realize he’d said to work, as if chess was a chore. Before he can stammer out an apology, Solas nods, carefully moving so that he is between Cullen and the woman trying to fight past the throngs of the Inquisitor’s admirers.

“To work,” Solas agrees, smiling.

#lionwolf #solas x cullen #kauriart #i finished this at 1:30 am soz 4 mistakes

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thisselflovecamebacktome · 7 years ago

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Before The Storm thoughts

So before starting, I want you all to know that I went into the first two episodes spoiler free. Like I watched no trailers, saw no posts, just really knew nothing about this game to the point of thinking that it was going to be about Rachel’s downfall with Frank and Jefferson. I was then told that that wasn’t the case just before this episode came out. To be honest, and I’ll talk about this more later, in short I wish it was. I think my overall “eh” ness reaction about this game comes down to two issues.

Firstly, by having a game with Rachel in it, they take away a lot of the mystery that made her interesting in the first place. Like the reason she was such a fan favourite in the first game was because there was a mystery to her. Like every single character in the game saw Rachel Amber in a different light so we couldn’t help but be like “What was she really like? Was she the perfect girl, a master manipulator or somewhere in between?” and left to our own conclusions. This isn’t to say that you could never have a game where they get it right with her, but it’s such a thin line and I just personally don’t think they nailed it.

On the topic of perceptions of Rachel, I do want to make a few notes before we go on. To be extremely honest, I’m super surprised that people felt this game villainised her more than the first game and made her seem “selfish and manipulative”. I won’t lie, as much as I shipped Amberprice in the first game and understood that Rachel was meant to be a troubled soul hiding under the mask of perfection, that was the overall impression I got from that game, In comparison, I feel like they did a lot better to push the “troubled” part of her in this game. I still think she had her selfish and manipulative tendencies, whether meaning to or not, but it’s clearer to me now that Chloe wasn’t just some midway point or escape for Rachel and I do think that the fandom needs to realise it can be both. Like she can care for Chloe but also have those moments just as Chloe did with Max in the original game.

Just on that note, I need to lowkey rant. I said it during the original games and I’ll say it now; this game and it’s fandom continues to villainise Max for the smallest shit. Like the way you go on about how horrible she was to Chloe for not getting in contact? She was what, 12 when she left and 14 when Chloe’s dad died? When I went to a different high school than my peers/friends in the same city, do you know how many of them I was talking to a year later? 0. Same with when I left year 12. Not to mention Max could have quite easily had just as dramatic stuff going on in her life at the time. All we ever know is Chloe’s side and Max’s guilt when she comes back. Like yeah, in a perfect world everyone would keep in contact, but shit happens and the fact that is still a thing I see in like every second post is just exhausting tbh.

Now that I’ve said that, back to Rachel. I like that Victoria didn’t like her before everything to be honest. It allows us to keep some of that ambiguity surrounding Rachel. What I didn’t like is that the one character who was alive that brought up legitimate issues surrounding Chloe’s behaviour since befriending Rachel ended up being a insanely jealous arguably abusive stalker as opposed to actual concerned friend. And before people come with me saying Chloe wasn’t exactly a saint before, I know, but she please do not act like the shit she did in those 3 (?) days wasn’t on a higher level than her actions before. Like here’s the thing, I never expected Chloe to listen to anyone telling her to stay away, and hell, they didn’t even have to be completely right. Like regardless of how he went about it, Chloe had the right to tell Eliot that he wasn’t at the meeting where she got expelled so didn’t have the full picture. But to have him go from “I’m concerned and here for you” at the hospital to flat out fuckboy mode with “I was here for you when no one was. No one loves you but me!” at Rachel’s house without having another character who was alive to also share legitimate concerns was kinda offputting to me. It also took away from that ambiguity of Rachel in my opinion.

My second issue with this game is that it just felt too disconnected to the first one. I know that they didn’t want to have it have anything to do with the first game, but honestly, I think that was a mistake. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of having Chloe and Rachel meet in the game was great. The fact they showed Rachel was troubled was great. But the truth of the matter is that some random story about Rachel’s biological mother that wasn’t even important enough to mention in the first game despite it being extremely hinted as the start of the end for Rachel just seemed too far left wing and out of the ballpark to me. And I get that two separate companies made the two different games, but to be honest, I still would have liked something a little more relevant.

And that’s where I think perhaps they should have gone with the “safe” option of Rachel’s downfall and left this as dlc. And by that, I don’t think it needed to be page by page like a full episode on Rachel and Jefferson getting closer or her fucking Frank or whatever to show she’s gone off the rails. Like I would have been happy if we had an episode ending with Jefferson walking in and introducing himself, next episode Rachel saying she joined the photography class and just mentions from there of how well she gets along with Jefferson. I mean if they were going to put that implication at the end of the game that she had gone off the rails before her death scene, they could have at least done something to lead up to it. Like at least show us how Chloe and Rachel get to the point where Chloe flat out believes Rachel left her behind. Also to be honest, as much as Frank/Rachel is creepy full stop considering he’s what 30? and she’s 16ish, I kinda expected them to be a slow grow relationship. Like idk, I expected him to actually dislike her at first and not show feelings until they hung out more, so to see him just check her out straight off made me feel even more uncomfortable at their relationship.

Alternatively, if they really wanted a Chloe focused game, one on her reaction to Rachel going missing. Show us her searching for Rachel. End it with Max coming into the picture. Idk, just something.

I also felt this game just didn’t work with the cannon of the first game very well. Like I already mentioned about the biological mother story not even being a mention, but there’s also little things like Rachel’s bracelet being found with Frank (? It was Frank right, or was it on the body) despite Sera or Chloe potentially having it at the end of this one and so on.

Not to mention I really feel like they took away everything the first game tried to push about Nathan. Like the first game really pushed that yeah, he fucked up, did horrible things and had psychological issues, but a lot of those were a result of being severely manipulated by Jefferson. Meanwhile this game implies he beat Samantha to the point of her having broken ribs (at least that’s what I got from his father threatening her mother at the hospital) and that her leaving caused him to snap. Both of which happens long before Jefferson shows up. Like just her leaving I could get because quite frankly, loneliness leaves a person open to manipulation, but the broken ribs? Nah.

Basically what I’m saying is that the game probably could have worked okay as a standalone game, but I felt it, and specifically episode 3, was rushed and doesn’t work work in relation to the original Life Is Strange game.

#life is strange #before the storm

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therealdragonnerdagain · 7 years ago

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Because I intend to eventually kick my tumblr addiction (taking it one day at a time here) I wanted to explain why I spent so much time back in 2015/16 ranting about how Solas doesn't love Lavellan.

People made the mistake of thinking I was this heartbroken fan in love with a fictional character. The hilarious reality is that my character would have totally killed Solas for his crimes if she was given the option. My character is in love with Solas. I'm not.

But anyway . . .

The reason why I was so upset, and the reason why I tried to so hard to convince other gamers that the Solas romance is not love, is because it is incredibly stupid and irresponsible that Bioware/Weekes would write an emotionally abusive relationship and then sit in an interview and state that it was “love.”

Weekes was just trying to comfort young fans who were upset, but in the end, he did something really wrong without meaning to. I recognize that.

I thought of this because the other day I stumbled across this heartbreaking article about a woman who discovered -- six years into her marriage -- that her husband was actually a terrible person who did terrible things while smiling in her face all the while. He was manipulative and emotionally abusive to push his own agenda while caring very little that he was harming her. He did not intentionally set out to hurt his wife, but he did. And in the end, when she found out the truth about him, he chose to leave her -- while she was pregnant -- in order to pursue his agenda of being a destructive asshole.

Even after her husband had emotionally abused her, manipulated her, and lied to her, the woman was still baffled. Because all along, he had seemed to really love her. He seemed so "kind and gentle" only for her to discover he really was not. She was in denial for a long time. Imagine what would have happened to her and her child had she attempted to "fix" such an abusive situation instead of doing what was best for her and her baby? This is the kind of guy who might have wound up beating his wife and maybe killing his child, even if just on accident, still killing it.

The story remained me SO MUCH of Solas and Lavellan.

I've already explained over and over why Solas and Lavellan were in a very unhealthy one-sided relationship and why it was most certainly *not* love. The point of my post is to explain why I was so insistent on convincing other Solasmancers of the truth.

It's because I am very concerned about media that teaches young girls that abuse is love. They learn at an early age that they should put up with belittling, manipulative, abusive behavior, and they see it as normal, and they wind up with shitty men who emotionally, physically abuse them and sometimes wind up murdering them.

Love is something that has to be learned. People who never learn what love is are the ones who wind up in these dangerous relationships where they are mistreated.

In other words, I was reaching out in frustration and trying to help people. And yes, I was VERY frustrated by the other Bioware fans who sneered at me and didn't understand what I was doing.

Everything about the Solas romance is emotionally abusive, though.

Solas sneers on Lavellan's religion and culture and continues to belittle it long after his "apology" at Haven. He just doesn't do it to her face and instead sneers on her people in various banters with characters like Sera and Morrigan. This is emotionally abusive. Making your partner feel inferior because they share a different culture and religion? That is fucked.

And no. Don't quote that line at me about how you can choose to let people make you feel inferior. That does not excuse the person whose shitty behavior is making you feel small in the first place.

Solas is racist throughout the entire game. To him, Lavellan isn't like those other heathens, meaning other mortals -- especially Dalish -- are worthless and inferior. That's like . . . dating a racist who thinks you're the only worthwhile person in your entire race.

When Solas isn't sneering on Lavellan's culture and religion, he is lying to her about who he is and what his motivations are. In the end, he is responsible for a great deal of her physical, mental suffering and pain and doesn't have enough respect for her to tell her the truth.

And why does Solas have no respect for Lavellan? Because he does not see her as an equal. And he does not see her as a person. She can even SAY this to him in Trespasser, "We aren't even people to you, are we?"

Solas never loved Lavellan. He's a pride demon. He can not love. His romance was all about sexual tension and steamy kisses, as much as asexual people hate to hear that, it's the truth.

In the end, Solas chose to keep going with his shitty agenda over protecting the life of someone he supposedly loved. He will kill her and all her friends because "He is not a monster."

Within the context of the story, in a world where people can time travel and the elven religion has been deemed demon worship by racist anti-indigenous writers, it doesn't look like Solas is being emotionally abusive, but he is. You could almost make excuses for his behavior because he's an ancient elf who lost his entire world, but you shouldn't.

Solas is, in fact, a monster. He is a pitiful figure who should not be saved. And everything he did to Lavellan was text book abuse.

It's really upsetting that Bioware would write a romance like this without calling it out for what it is. And Weekes knows the romance is abusive, otherwise he wouldn't have ridiculed and mocked "diehard" Solasmancers who shouted that they wanted to help Solas *before* their character knew the entire truth.

This is also what angers me the most about Twilight and books like it. I hate stories that teach young girls that abuse is love. These stories are targeted at teenagers who don't know any better and don't yet possess critical thinking skills.

In the same way teen paranormal romance novels are irresponsible, video games are irresponsible with the things they teach young boys -- such as how women aren't people but slot machines that give sex when you have the right number of charisma points.

I'm not saying media causes people to be shitty. I'm saying it reinforces those negative aspects already existent in our culture and helps them to thrive.

So long as stories keep teaching boys to abuse women and young girls to lay down and take the abuse, this shit will just go on.

And if you're about to reblog this and tell me that media has zero effect on people and their behavior, head over to Google and type in "szechuan sauce, Rick and Morty."

#solas rant #bioware critical #if solas loved lavellan

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lightoftheveilfire · 7 years ago

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Happy holidays @wardenkader from your Secret Santa! I had so much fun writing this for @santa-age‘s Secret Santa exchange. I hope I did Annais Hawke justice, and portrayed her relationship with Sebastian well!

Sera stood outside of the War Room and kicked a small stone that had come loose from the wall. She was feeling left out, it had been her intel after all. Why was she excluded but Varric was invited with open arms? Had she been imagining everything? Was Inky pulling her leg? Getting ready to leave her?

The door swung open and Little Lady Prissypants stuck her stupid smiley face through the door. Was this it, were they going to tell her they didn't need her? That her information was worthless? This was it, she was getting kicked out of the Inquisition.

"Sera, would you mind joining us for a moment?" She asked motioning inside. Inky was standing with her arms folded, so serious, always so serious in here. General Uptight looked angry as per usual.

"I'm sorry Varric but we just can't spare the man power right now, it's out of the question." He said.

Varric disregarded Cullen and turned toward Inky, her beautiful Inky who hadn't smiled once since she walked into the room. Something was wrong.

"Common Inquisitor, we can't just abandon her! She's to important!"

"To important to the cause or to important to you?" Cullen responded sharply. That was harsh, even by Sera's standards.

"Enough." Inky said, finally turning to look at Sera "I need to know how confident you are in this information."

"Look I told you what I know. Some guy in Kirkwall overheard something and that's it. Dunno what more you want."

Inky groaned as Cullen shot her an incredulous look, he wasn't a fan it seemed. "My ravens wont be able to get through in time Inquisitor, we have to think of something else." Leliana cut in.

"Varric..." Inky said giving the dwarf a pained look.

Before she could respond he cut her off, "Look Inquistor she risked so much to help us and now we're just going to turn our backs on her? I thought the Inquisition was better than that."

"That's not fair! We don't have the resources to spare. You know how dangerous the red lyrium is and we just found the biggest source around. We can't wait." She responded sharply.

"Wait? Is the problem the storm? I can get to Kirkwall and back in a jiff if you need." Sera said, finally understanding why her Inky seemed upset. A winter storm was going to be rolling in from the south and heading north any time now. They were about to try and take Emprise du Lion and so they wouldn't be able to sacrifice any people, and Leliana's ravens would not survive the storm. Unless someone quick with connections left immediately Viscount Annais Hawke wouldn't get word of the plot on her life in time to stop it.

"Are you sure?" Inky asked softly, "I can't ask you to put yourself in danger like that."

"You don't have to dumb dumb, I know what I'm doing." She was worried, Inky was worried about her Sera.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sera couldn't help but groan as she thought back to that conversation in the War Room. Had she really known what she was doing? In Hindsight, crossing the Waking Sea in the middle of a winter storm seemed like a huge mistake. She had been just trying to impress Inky, show her that she can do something right. Instead she was just going to freeze to death on this damned boat.

That was until land was sighted. It had been three days with the wind whipping around her, the salt-water cutting through her clothing. The captain kept saying that they would make it but Sera was certain she would die there and never see Inky again.

She bounced down the plank on to land practically jumping for joy when she hit the snow-covered ground. She didn't care about the dirty looks she was getting as she threw herself down to make a snow angel.

The winter storm that Commander Uptight had been so so worried about for his men had clearly caught up to her, and look, she was still alive. Clearly more talented than his dumb tin cans.

Varric had told her how to find the Viscount's keep so she decided it would be faster to find Hawke and warn her than it would be to find to the Red Jenny in Kirkwall, so off she went to Hightown, hopefully it would be half as fun as in Varric's dumb books. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "What do you mean I'm not allowed in you giant ass?" She said, about to attack the guard at the gate who was preventing her from entering the Viscounts keep.

"As I said, they are preparing for the Satinalia festival so no one is allowed in. He responded, not budging for the angry woman.

"I am with the Inquisition and I have an important -" She said.

He just shook his head holding in a laugh, "look I'm sure if the Inquisition had anything of importance to say, they would have sent someone... else."

"Why you arrogant shite!" She said reaching for her bow, ready to make him regret the moment he decided to underestimate her.

" 'Scuse me Ser," a voice with a weird accent said behind her, "What is it exactly do you needed to do?"

She rounded on him, her hands falling from her bow. Hopefully he would see reason, "I have a message for Viscount Hawke from the Inquisition, and I need to tell her now yeah!"

He looked at past her at the guard "Let her go, I'll handle it."

"Oh you'll handle this alright arsehole." She growled as she followed him inside sticking her tongue out at the guard for good measure.

He pulled her back into an empty office before standing behind a large desk and gesturing for her to sit in the chair. Sera wasn't sure who this twat thought he was but she wouldn't sit if he wasn't.

When it became evident that they would both be standing, each with one keeping a hand near their bow, he spoke "So, what is this important message."

She studied him closely, dark hair pushed back behind his ears, average height, nice clothes, probably some noble arse who thought he could speak for Hawke. Well she wasn't fooled.

"Look, as I told tin can out there, I will only give my message to Hawke."

He studied her just as closely as she studied him, and as his eyes narrowed she noticed just how blue they were. He was dressed smart but was doing the Viscount's grunt work, an over eager aid maybe? A page?

"Unfortunately the Viscount is busy at the moment, as you can see Hightown is in a bit of an uproar over the party tonight."

"Look you stuffy, smooth talking, dick I don't care if you want to make yourself seem bigger by going around Hawke but I know her and I wont talk to anyone else." She said starting to get frustrated.

"I appreciate your tenacity but I think you may have misread this situation."

"Yeah? Misread this you -" She said as she started to lift her hand to flip him off.

"I am her husband and have been tasked by her personally to deal with these sort of things while she handles the nobles for the night."

Oh, her husband? Wait, didn't Varric say something about that? Some Chantry brother, and oh that would make sense of his nice clothing.

"Yer what now?"

"I am Sebastian Vael, husband of Annais Hawke, the Champion and Viscount of Kirkwall. If you have something to say, you can say it me. I am in no way trying to 'undermine' her as you said and I would really like to see anyone try such a thing with her."

Sera stiffed at that, suddenly matching the man in front of her with Varric's description, "Alright Buttercup you've met Hawke but the other person you should look out for is the Choir Boy, tall-ish you know for you I suppose but shorter than she is by a lot. Blue eyes, a depiction of Andraste in a very noticeable place. You wont be able to miss him."

"Alright... Choir Boy... Say you are her Husband tell me -"

"Varric sent you right? Tell him he still owes me ten gold for that last game of Wicked Grace and I expect him to deliver it in person." He said giving her a small smile.

"Oh yeah and Buttercup, I owe him some money too so if he asks you to pay up, don't." It was him, he could help! They could do it! They could save Hawke and Inky will be proud of her!

Over the next twenty minutes the words poured out of Sera's mouth telling him everything, from the way Inky looked as they said goodbye, to how Varric was doing, to all the information she had learned about the plot.

"And so we think it'll happen tonight, I mean yeah that makes the most sense. You have a bunch of stuffy people in masks she wont see it coming." Sera finally finished.

Sebastian was nodding along, clearly deep in thought, "Yes that does make the most sense. She has upset a lot of the nobility here given her rather... lenient view on the mage rebellion."

"So she'll stay back right? And we're good and I can go home yeah?"

He just laughed at that, "You clearly do not know my wife very well. She would not stay back from anything. If you want to leave you can, but I could use your help keeping an eye out for her at the party tonight. There are only two guards we can trust that won’t for sure have been paid off, so in total there will be four people we can trust. We'll have to be positioned strategically..." He said before drifting off and pulling out a map of the keep and looking over it thoughtfully.

"Wait, she's still going? You wont even ask her to say home?"

He just laughed again before responding, "Oh I shall ask, I shall plead with her in fact. But if I know Annais she will go anyway, her rule has been threated and so have the mages of Kirkwall. She will not stand idly by and let the guards deal with this. She is a strong and powerful woman and we would discredit her by doubting her."

Sera shook her head understanding; she would never be able to talk Inky out of something like that too. "Well Andraste's tits, I better find something to wear." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sera once again stood outside of the Viscount Keep, this time in a clean yellow shirt with an official invitation in her right hand. Just one of those stupid nobs try and stop her now.

A different guard let her in this time, giving her a dirty look before throwing open the door. As soon as she was inside she was swept up and taken into the ballroom by a very eager servant. The entrance to the Keep had changed dramatically since the morning. Every candle was lit, and there were wreathes and holly wrapped around the banister on the stairs that led to the ballroom. There were large red flowers placed in most corners and everything seemed to shine. They seemed to really be going all out for this party; nothing like this had ever been done at Skyhold.

Once in the Ballroom she was able to get a good view of things. It looked almost to small for the crowd, and the decorations seemed to have been hastily put up, as if it was done at the last minute. In comparison to the Foyer this room looked tacky.

Sera realized why she had been given a bad look from the guard, most of the guests seemed to be decked out in their absolute frilliest clothing and masks, everyone except the Viscount herself.

She noticed her the second she walked into the ballroom. She had seen her in Skyhold once, but here in Kirkwall she seemed even more imposing. Tall, so tall, with short blonde hair that was starting to turn white in a few places. She seemed so serious, maybe it was because Sebastian had decided to tell her everything, or maybe she was just that sort of person. She was dressed in all black except for the white gloves on her hands, and she had also forgone a mask. No frills, Sera liked her already.

A hand grabbed her elbow, startling her. She swung around ready to pummel whatever stupid noble thought she was a servant. A hand wrapped around her fist and before she struck anything important as she came face to face with Sebastian.

"Oy, don't go sneaking up on people like that or you'll lose that pretty face of yours Choir Boy!"

He just laughed, "You would have to be a lot faster to do any damage don't worry."

She growled but before she was able to respond he continued, "I filled her in on everything. Her friend Aveline the Guard Captain, and her husband Donnic are keeping the masses away from her so whoever it is wont be able to strike up close. She has a taste tester up there so she wont be poisoned. That means that it will have to be a ranged attack, probably will come when everyone is distracted by her welcome speech so it is up to us to recognize whomever it is before they shoot."

"Got it, you take the left side of the room I'll take the right. And Choir Boy, don't hesitate."

He shook his head and before disappearing into the crowd said, "You underestimate me."

Sera laughed before moving over to the food table. Sucker had let her take the half of the room with the wine and sweets. The table was decorated much like everything else, lots of sparkly lights, holly, and red flowers. The sweets were all in the shape of stars and the wine glasses had beautiful designs etched into them. They really had gone all out for this shindig.

Annais stood and started to try and quiet the crowd, Sera knew she would have to start paying attention but she wanted to grab a bite to eat first.

A young elven boy was refilling some sort of meat pie looking things before whispering, "Red Jenny prefers the honey cakes."

Her head shot up at that, "What?"

"Yes, over there. He prefers the honey cakes." He responded motioning at a noble in the center of the room whose hand was shoved deep in his pocket. She nodded at him before trying to wade through the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming out in the middle of this horrible winter storm. As tradition dictates, for Satinalia we shall choose a fool to be ruler of Kirkwall for the night!"

She had started her speech. Sera locked eyes with Sebastian from across the room and motioned towards the gentleman who was now pulling throwing knives from his pocket, clearly waiting for the right moment.

Sera started to panic, the crowd was too dense and the room to small to move. Neither of them was going to make it in time.

"And so it is my great pleasure to introduce you all to this years town fool as voted on by the people of Kirkwall from all walks of life."

As she continued he started to push his way to the front of the crowd, he was close. Sera hoped Annais had quick reflexes, because that was their only hope.

"Bador Kelly! Frequent patron of the Hanged Man and occasional shop keeper!"

His hand slid into position, here it was. Annais better be ready to dive.

Before Sera could yell, or warn her at least an arrow shot through the crowd, making a sickening thumping sound when it made contact with the back of the mans neck. Screaming erupted in the room, and the party devolving into complete chaos. Sebastian was standing in front of the only door, a bow in hand. He had shot him to protect his wife. Sera had no idea where he had gotten a bow from, but now she knew what he had meant when he had told her not to underestimate him.

A crack rang through the room, silencing the screaming. Annais had slammed her staff on the floor sending a calming feeling throughout the room. When she spoke her voice was steady and measured, no more of the fake excitement that she had shown when announcing the fool.

"Guards, will you please remove the body. My guests, if you will please join me in the Great Hall we can continue the remainder of the party there." She gestured for the guests to follow her towards the door, black skirts sweeping around her feet.

Sera jumped and tried to run over to Sebastian, but unfortunately the whole party was now trying to make it towards the door. She watched as the tall woman at the center of everything made it to her husband before they all disappeared off into the rest of the castle.

By the time Sera finally made it out of the murder room (as she was now going to forever call it) the party was back into full swing in the Foyer and the Great Hall. Both rooms had been decorated with such care and seemed to be much more fitting for the party. She realized that they had planned to catch him in the Ballroom and then move everyone elsewhere.

She found the couple talking softly at the head of the largest table in the Great Hall.

"Oh and here she is, the Inquisition agent I was telling you about." Sebastian said, ending whatever conversation they had been having until she had walked up.

"I seem to owe you a lot, thank you Sera." She was even more imposing up close and the small smile that graced her lips made her knees go weak. She was so much taller than any other woman she had ever seen. Her blue eyes seemed to cut right through Sera's skin deep into her soul stripping her bare. No wonder Inky had liked her so much when she had visited. She was the only woman who would probably be able to go toe to toe with her in a fight.

"You should really be thanking the servants of Kirkwall, yeah. Keep treating your people right and they'll have your back." She responded as the band started up behind them.

"Please sit, enjoy yourself while you're here." Annais said before whispering into Sebastian’s ear again.

Sera dug into the feast in front of her, excited for stuffed hog in the middle of the table.

"If you'll excuse us," Sebastian said standing and reaching a hand out for Annais, "I think after a long night it is time for a dance."

Sera watched as Hawke smiled and let him lead her to the floor. The two slid easily into each other’s arms, clearly experienced at dancing together. Annais was quite a bit taller than Sebastian but he still managed to sweep her off of her feet as they twirled gently across the dance floor. They didn't take their eyes off of each other as they spun, totally lost in the feeling of being together after a long hard day.

Sera felt a growing knot of jealousy building up in her stomach, dreaming back to the Winter Palace a month earlier where she and Inky had done the same thing. Not a care in the world of who was watching, or the chaos that had just been quelled. Just feeling safe in the arms of her lover. She could tell that was how Annais and Sebastian felt as they danced the night away, sharing soft kisses every now and then, and ignoring the rest of the party.

Sera decided in that moment that she didn't care how important it was, she would never leave her Inky's side ever again. As soon as she got home she would not waste one more moment before telling her how she felt. They would never miss another dance together ever again. She would end up just as happy and Hawke and Sebastian no matter what.

As she leapt up from the table and ran out of the room the couple yelled after her, "Wait where are you going?"

She looked back at them and grinned, "Going back to Skyhold to do something I should have done a long time ago."

#santaage2017 #Sera #Annais Hawke #sebastian vael #I had so much fun writing this #I hope you like it!#my writing #dragon age

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