#shit's about to get reeeeeeeeeal

[ghostcrows]

i go into everything expecting to need to use my birth name only for them to be like who the fuck is that. we have spencer on file

i dont feel like i even have a 'deadname' i feel like i just have a strategic alter-ego who is just me again. like not even a cis-sona anymore. not even me in a fake twirly mustache and hat. the same guy twice

[free-for-all-fics]

I should be asleep but instead I’m thinking about reader filling a bathtub with snow and letting Namor play with it like those cat videos where the cats are like “what’s this? What’s thissss? Oh, oh!! This isn’t the fake stuff! This is the reeeeeeeeeal deal. The good shit.” And just go wild and play to his heart’s content until the snow melts. Just picturing Namor having unrestrained winter fun with snow inside the reader’s bathroom. Namor brought the sun to his people, so reader will bring snow to him. Yeah it’s dumb, maybe Namor has seen snow in his centuries of existence, maybe not. But it’s a cute mental image/thought, right? A sort of “What’s this? What’s this? There’s white stuff everywhere” Nightmare Before Christmas thing. Snow melts to water so he’d be fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. No risk of drying out or getting too cold.

Edit: Now I can’t help but imagine Namor throwing snowballs with the same strength he did those water grenades. A snowball fight between Namor, Namora and Attuma would be chaotic af. I also keep imagining a scene similar to the snowball fight in Beauty and the Beast, where reader accidentally gets hit so hard with a snowball that she falls down hard. Reader would not wanna be in the crossfire of a snowball fight with this trio.

[fanfoolishness]

no words for heaven or for earth (1/?)

The aftermath of the assault on Adamant Fortress for Min Hawke and Varric Tethras. Part 1 of ? ANGST ahead. Min and Varric have seen a lot of shit together, but nothing like this.

(If you want to read more of their courtship and story, you can find it all here or at AO3.)

Part 1: Where’s Hawke?

Adamant was a jumbled mess of flaring magic, the practiced, familiar kick of Bianca against his shoulder, the shouts and sounds of battle. Varric knew they had a job to do: stop the Wardens, kill the demons, kick Corypheus right where it hurt.

But it was a little hard to remember that when he saw her, red armor a dark silhouette against the swollen desert moons. Min Hawke was a force unto herself, twin daggers flashing in the moonlight, and when he saw her, his heart did all that stupid shit he tried to write about but had never quite captured.

It felt damn good. New, and strange, but good.

Bianca loosed a bolt that sent a pride demon to its end. He watched it disintegrate, panting as the battle paused for just a moment. There’d be more demons any second, no doubt, but this was a minute he was going to take.

He drew up himself up in front of her, trying to look casual as he caught his breath.  “Sparrow.”

Min Hawke appeared to be fighting a goofy, full-fledged grin.  A fight she lost spectacularly.  She beamed at him.  “Hallo there, Varric.  Fancy running into my favorite dwarf up here.”

“Oh, you know.  This is textbook for a traditional dwarven courtship.  You’re supposed to slay demons with your beloved in a crumbling Warden fortress in one of the sandiest places in Thedas.  Sand in your junk is romantic, they say.”

Hawke arched an eyebrow at him.  “First, ‘beloved’?  I quite like the way that sounds!  That’s delightful, you old softy.  Second, you and I now know very well that sand in one’s junk is hardly romantic.”  Her cheeks went pink and he chuckled at the memory of last night in her tent.  Maybe it hadn’t been romantic, but it had been worth it, anyway.  He took her hand in his and gave it a quick squeeze.

A shout behind them made him drop her hand and reach again for Bianca.  “Suppose it’s time to kick some more demon ass.”

“Don’t worry, love,” she said, and his brain had just a moment to register the love before she drew her daggers and gutted a lesser shade that had appeared from nowhere.  “I’ve got your back.”

He fell, they were all falling, falling --

He gasped for air, braced for the impact, his mind an empty blank --

And he got to his feet, water soaking his boots and the bottom of his trousers.  Where the fuck were they?  “Hawke?” he called uncertainly.  “Doodles?”  He looked around for Namira Lavellan, and spotted her standing a little ways ahead, looking aghast.

“Varric.  There you are,” said Hawke from somewhere above him.  He glanced up and nearly tripped over himself in shock.  Hawke was standing on a rock above him, sticking out horizontally into the air.  She managed to look both scared and annoyed, which somehow made him feel a surge of affection for her.  He blinked, and for the first time fully took in their surroundings.  

Shallow puddles dotted the landscape, which was awash with a sick green light and -- his heart sank -- floating rocks.  There were only two places he knew of where shit floated like that.  One was the Breach, and Namira had closed that months ago.  The other was the Fade.

He glanced over and saw Solas with his hands on his staff, his face lit up like some kind of gleeful bonfire.  Shit.  Definitely the Fade.

Behind Solas Dorian blinked disbelievingly.  The Warden Alistair popped up from another floating rock, upside down as if it was perfectly natural.  

“Well, shit,” said Hawke, jumping down from her floating rock, and Varric shook his head.

“You said it.”

The Fade was not going well.  

Varric supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised.  When did the Fade ever go well?  He tried to stay focused on getting out, but he couldn’t help but think of the last time he’d been anywhere Fade-adjacent.  Hawke had been trying to help that kid Feynriel -- she’d always had such a soft spot for mages, despite not being one -- and Merrill’s Keeper had found a ritual to get their heads into the Fade.  Even his stubborn dwarf mind had wound up there.  

And of course, he’d promptly jumped at the chance to show up Bartrand, to become the favored son of parents who’d been dead for years.  He’d said yes to the demon like a fool and turned on Hawke.  It made him feel ashamed to think about it, so he didn’t usually -- but it was hard not to with the Fade’s rotten green light all around him and spirits wafting past.

“How are you?” he muttered to Hawke, the others pushing forward.  He hadn’t wanted to say much in front of the rest of the group.  He still hadn’t told them he and Hawke had finally figured their shit out, and this certainly wasn’t the moment for it.

She brushed a hand against his shoulder, then let it drop as they climbed a set of crumbling stairs lined by floating candles.  “I’m trying not to be frightened.  That’s what the demon wants, isn’t it?”

“That’s what I hear,” he tried to say in a joking tone, but the words fell flat.  He swallowed.  “Hey.  I’m sorry about what happened the last time we were in the Fade.  Also, I hate that there have been multiple times we’ve been in the Fade.”

“I know,” Hawke said.  “You apologized already, Varric.  Years ago.  I’ve never held it against you, of course.”  She managed an anxious smile.  “You have to remember, the Fade responds to your will.  So if you try to think happy thoughts --” her expression looked as if she was trying to be cheery while eating broken glass -- “then the Fade can’t be so frightening.”

“Right,” he said.  “I’ll give that a try.”

Of course, he’d no sooner said it than he was put to the test.  The voice of the Nightmare, sonorous, surrounding, rumbled down at them.  It made Varric’s skin crawl.  Especially when it said his name.

“Once again, Hawke is in danger because of you, Varric,” the voice intoned.  “You found the red lyrium.  You brought Hawke here.”

Her hand on his shoulder again, gripping it hard this time.  “Don’t listen.”

“Sure,” he muttered.  “Keep talking, Smiley,” he said loudly.  Namira gave him an approving nod, as did Solas and Dorian.

“There’s the spirit,” said Hawke, then laughed at her own terrible pun, wheezing with the effort.  “Sorry, I know that was wretched.”

The Nightmare’s voice shut up, but Varric was sweating.

Varric swore, flinging a dagger into a dwarf who was so encrusted in red lyrium that it was hard to believe they could move at all.  The dwarf gasped, their red eyes winking out of existence as their body disintegrated.

Varric picked up his dagger and washed it off in a pond of stagnant water, shuddering.  On the whole he’d take Hawke’s spiders instead of these red lyrium mutants any day.  Stupid deepest fears.  He was no stranger to fighting dirty, but this?  This was too much.

“Really not a fan of these fear demons,” he grumbled.  He shook the water off his dagger, and the only color shining in its blade was green, not red.  Well.  That was something, wasn’t it?

They took a moment to rest up in what appeared to be a tiny cemetery on the water’s edge.  Varric slugged back a potion of elfroot and spindleweed, grimacing at the taste.  He’d never liked the stuff.  

He leaned against one of the tombstones, wiping his mouth and waiting for the potion to kick in.  He felt a little better, a little stronger.  The rift they had come in through swirled above them, baleful but nearer than before.  Maybe they were going to get through this, after all.  He tried to smile at Hawke, but she looked stricken.

“Varric,” she hissed.  “That one’s got your name on it.”

“Riiiiight,” he said, but holy shit, it really did.  

Varric -- Became his parents.

He wondered if a despair demon had snuck up on them, because what else would explain the sudden, icy terror in his gut?  He pushed himself off the tombstone and caught glimpses of names etched on the others.  “Don’t look at them,” he warned.  But Dorian just gave him a twisted smile.  

“Too late,” said Dorian, his eyes shadowed.  “Charming, isn’t it?”

“Ahh, fuck this place,” said Varric.

Shit shit shit shit shit

The Nightmare looked to him a monstrous living mountain of red lyrium, its joints shuddering with every movement.  Its gaping mouth ground a shrieking, scraping howl as it rose above them, a song that shattered in his ears.  Varric scrambled behind Dorian and Solas towards the waiting rift, running up the jagged slope as fast as he could, Bianca banging painfully against his back, his rough breaths sharp in his lungs.  They were almost there -- Hawke was just behind him, wasn’t she? -- he leapt --

Namira was white-faced, wide-eyed.  Alistair was hunched over a wound in his side.  The sky beyond them was clear starlight, no Fade, no lyrium dragon, no rift.  They were back in Adamant Fortress.  But --

The world was utterly still.  Except for the icy terror, back again, this time in his gut, his chest, his mouth.  His hands were frozen.  Words tripped out of his mouth, simple ones, the hardest he’d ever said.

“Where’s Hawke?”

Why were they so quiet?  Why did Namira look like she was about to cry?  He tried again.  He hoped, he hoped, he hoped --

“...Where’s Hawke?”

[queenofbaws]

Hey so totally random here but did you ever see that cheesy Stay Alive movie about the videogame? Because I feel like Josh and Chris would love it

“Ah, the one benefit of having a disgustingly rich friend...all the swag that comes with it...”

Josh swung around with perhaps a touch less grace than usual, still not entirely used to the bulky VR headset; he thought he was probably facing Chris, but until his avatar popped up, it was really more guesswork than anything else. “The one benefit, huh Cochise?”

“Just the one,” he guffawed, only for his laughter to give way to impressed oohs and ahhs as the game (finally) booted up, “Oh man, this shit is insane - I am so gonna get motion sick and barf all over your living room...”

“You barf on this new shit and I swear to God it’ll be the last thing you do...” the threat was delivered with a smack that missed the first time, and just barely managed to clip something solid the second time.

“Augh, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me - ” and then, because it had literally never been more relevant until that moment, both of them pitched their voices up into dramatic horror movie shouts, wailing, “If you die in the game, you die for reeeeeeeeeal!”

six sentence sat(or)sunday!!!

[tanakasnipples]

the last few years have been pretty shitty for me, off and on. I’ve been in and out of school since 2011 with no degree to show for it. My gpa is crap and it would take like a minimum of two years for me to finish with a bachelor’s degree because my classes are so scattered from me trying to go in different directions, as if that would have solved my problem. My mental health seems to have gotten worse, or at least i’m better at recognizing what’s going on. With the combination of depression/social anxiety/adhd it’s reeeeeeeeeal damn hard to get meds right. Seems like I can only fix one or two of those things at a time (and the other thing will probably end up worse). With the amount of moving I’ve done, it’s hard to find and keep a psychiatrist/counselor i can actually work with. A while ago I figured out I was trans. Figuring it out was both good and bad. I feel a lot better about myself in some ways. Not everyone is happy, though. There was about a two week period where I thought my mom was going to cut me off financially because of it. Things with my mom have actually been pretty rough for a long time. We don’t communicate very well. She shuts me down when I try and make points. She simultaneously thinks very little of my abilities, while also thinking I’m very capable of things I am very much incapable of. Suffice to say, she’s not the warm and supportive parent I wish I had. After I failed out of nursing school I went back to live with her. Had a pretty good job at the paper mill my (asshole) stepdad works at for a few months. They let me go because they didn’t want to pay for another worker (that they really actually need). Mom kicked me out after they let me go. Timing could have been a little better on her part, honestly. I had like a week to decide whether to go live with my grandma in another state, with my dad in another country, or with my friends down the road. I should have gone with the friends, but I was under the impression coming to Germany would be a little different than it’s turned out to be. And i missed my dad. Since then, there’s been a hiring freeze on federal employees, which means I can’t get a job anywhere on the american base. And I don’t speak enough German to function off base. I sit in my little apartment attached to dad’s house all day playing video games and drawing to distract from wanting to fucking die. And then I get shit for it from my family. I miss home so bad. But I don’t really have a home there anymore, I guess. I don’t know what to do anymore. If I ever did to begin with. I don’t know how to get a decent job without a degree. It’s not even guaranteed that I’d get a decent job *with* a degree. I’m too damn scared to even try to go back to school, especially knowing how long I’d still have to go. It feels like every opportunity I have is wasted thanks to my poor mental health. I don’t know where to turn.