#when merrill says she just says 'I love Hawke' to herself because it's the only thing in the world that makes sense sometimes...

[vaguely-concerned]

I'm playing through Dragon Age 2 again and I just can't get over how... idk how to say it exactly, but the way you feel, in every moment of this game, how much Varric loves Hawke. It feels entwined with everything, it breathes through every part of the narrative, it blooms diegetigally through the integration of story and gameplay, makes you a co-conspirator in that love in a way maybe only a video game could.

It's in the way I don't think this story is a defense of Hawke only -- or even primarily -- directed at Cassandra, but at Hawke themselves. Beneath everything else going on there's the quiet, utterly unshakable refutation of Hawke's worst fears: Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? . . . You're a failure, and your family died knowing it. Rising through the story as Varric tells it there's a fiercely tender voice saying: Yes, you did matter. In tragedy or in triumph, for better or for worse, in love or in hate, you always mattered. The ultimate tragedy of Hawke is always right there in the open before the story even starts letting you in on telling it; they couldn't fix anything. They couldn't stop the downward spiral Kirkwall was set on -- the real truth is that no one person ever could. And yet the point of DA2 is that it matters that they tried, and it matters that there were people who loved and were loved along the way, however badly it all failed in the end. Hawke is the Bioware protagonist who succeeds the least, and they're the character who matters the most, to me. (This is also why the Absolution reveal did not shake me in the least haha, my love for Hawke has nothing at all to do with whether they succeeded or failed at anything.)

What Varric is saying, in the only way he seems to be able to say the really real things -- through stories -- is so simple and so fundamental. You were here, and I loved you. There's the emotional heart of it, at the end of it all, that love and grief and recognition. It's so dizzyingly intimate. There's so much distancing, layers upon layers of obfuscation, to be able to say it. It drives me insane!!!! It makes me feel the same way that 'Poem' by Langston Hughes does:

I loved my friend.  He went away from me.  There's nothing more to say.  The poem ends,  Soft as it began,— I loved my friend. 

He loved his friend. They went away from him. What more is there to say. (Many, many, many things, when you're a compulsive liar and storyteller, but hey sometimes you have to deploy a whole armada of lies to tell one simple truth, I understand, I'm a writer too lol)

[lgvalenzuela]

Things I never would have guessed from fandom osmosis before actually playing the Dragon Age games:

-Alistair is actually pretty smart, and has a lot of knoweledge to share about the topics he's interested about.

He's also not that shy, and flirts with a warden pretty smoothly, if a bit innocently for his lack of experience and general humorous persona.

And his primary motivator is revenge which is an interesting way to take a character like him.

-Zevran is the only character who actively searches for consent even in simple flirting like calling someone beautiful. If you tell him to stop he never makes a mention again.

He's also one of the most loyal and sentimental companions you can have. He cares a lot, want to admit it or not.

-Merrill is one of the most educated and smart characters on the series, she takes calculated risks based on her own studies and research, and the only reasons she fails is because nobody trusts her and refuses to treat her like an adult.

Part of it is also the game refusing to frame her as anything but a naive child when she's anything but.

-Isabela has the most emotional intelligence out of all the characters in DA2, she knows exactly what they're feeling and what they need to hear at all times. It's clear that she's wise and worldly, and just needs time to build confidence between her and the others because she's been hurt a lot and her respect is gained.

-Fenris has an amazing sense of humor and you can find him consistently laughing at both Hawke's and companions he likes silly jokes. He's just really deadpan when delivering his own jokes.

He's also considerably patient and doesn't lose his temper unless confronted with people who have actively abused him.

-Anders spent SEVEN YEARS protesting peacfully, and it took the risk of genocide on his people to reach the desperation of act 3.

-Dorian is incredibly reserved. He tries to avoid talking about his life with a veil of humor and sarcasm, but he's specially guarded around his sexuality and love life. He only comes out to the Inquisitor in a moment of fury to piss of his father and he may have not done so if not pressed.

If in a romance with Bull the only reason the others find out is because Bull exposes it in front of everyone (I wish they would have find out a better way to let the player find out than Bull ignoring Dorian's wishes of privacy)

If romanced by the Inquisitor he's in his first real relationship and it shows, he's lost most of the time but tries to hide it by acting cocky. It's really funny.

He's also a huge nerd, I wasn't expecting that but I was pleasantly surprised.

-The Iron Bull it's not just smart, he's so caring, he shows you around so you can meet the people, the ones nobody cares about, he introduces you to them.

-Sera also goes to the pile of characters who are really smart and nobody gives them credit for it. She says it herself, she's just really bad with words, but as long as you try to understand her she makes a lot of sense.

The game just gives you no other option than to treat her horribly, which I sense a pattern of framing the neurodivergent coded characters in a certain light with Merrill and Anders.

-Vivienne is the only one (with Dorian) that asks the Inquisitor if they're okay after Haven, and gives beautiful words of afirmation.

She's really affable if you bother to befriend her.

[anneapocalypse]

4, 8, and 16! 🔥🔥

For the 🔥choose violence 🔥 ask game!

Disclaimer: provocative name aside, I am not actually trying to be mean here, these are just my opinions offered for Entertainment Purposes™️, and I’m not mad at anyone who has a different opinion.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I'm lucky if I remember why I blocked anyone. I just have to assume past!Anne had a reason. 😂

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Okay, so this one's about Merrill, but before I say it I have to qualify that I am not on the Merrill hate train. I love Merrill, I think she's a great character, and I don't think she's wrong for wanting to restore her people's history. I do think that what she's doing is dangerous enough that it's in conflict with the duties of a Keeper to protect her people--but the thing is Merrill knows that, and that's why she agrees to leave the clan. She believes this is too important, more important than becoming a Keeper, which she also says she would have been terrible at. I do think Merrill is not being totally honest with herself about the danger at first; in Act I, she's very quick to insist that it's fine and she's got everything under control. But I think her years in Kirkwall make her more mindful--she sees a lot of demons, a lot of blood magic, she sees how Anders struggles with Justice, and she almost falls to another Pride demon herself if she goes into the Fade with Hawke. (Personally, I also think this might have something to do with her proximity to Audacity on the mountain, and then having more distance from it in Kirkwall, because I do think the Pride demon was influencing both her and Marethari. In the short story "Merrill" it's very clear that it called out to both of them, rather than Merrill seeking it out on her own.)

By Act III, she's undeniably aware of the danger because she asks Hawke to come along for that very reason. What Merrill is doing is undeniably dangerous, but dangerous does not necessarily mean evil or wrong. In the end, though I think there's undoubtedly some level of pride in her motives still, I do think Merrill is fully aware of the risks, and believes that the possible gain is worth it, and takes every precaution she can.

Furthermore, I think that Marethari fails in her duty to her people when she goes to the demon and allows it to possess her. Her responsibility is to protect the clan. When Merrill leaves, Marethari needs to accept her choice and let her go. She needs to move the clan on, out of reach of whatever danger she believes Merrill poses. If they need to contact another clan, raise new halla, she has years to do that. Instead, she keeps them on Sundermount for the better part of a decade because she (and her own pride) simply can't let it go, and in the end she leaves her clan leaderless and possibly dead because she (and, I think, Audacity) convinces herself that only she is capable of protecting Merrill. But Merrill isn't her responsibility anymore. Her clan is. And she abandons them.

So the one thing that kind of sticks in my craw is the idea that Merrill must be an unparalleled genius because she successfully reverse-engineered an eluvian from a shard. Because the thing is she didn't do that! That's the thing she didn't do! She never successfully got the mirror working in canon. Maybe in the next game, for some world states, we'll find out that she did finish it, or maybe we'll never hear about it again; as of the information we have right now, she never made it work.

And I know this one is contentious, because there's a big interpretive gap as far as how close Merrill was to making the eluvian work. And I'm not trying to step on anyone's headcanons here; there's room for speculation and when it comes to headcanon or fanworks there's truly nothing wrong with going the route that she was really, really close, and maybe succeeded down the road.

But as far as canon, we simply do not know. We do not know how close she was. We do not know whether she had built it correctly and simply needed the power to activate it, or whether there was some fundamental flaw in her theory she hadn't figured out, or whether it was wrong from the ground up. We do not know whether Audacity truly knew what she needed or would have given it to her had Marethari not interfered. We don't even know whether it's possible to build an eluvian in a post-Veil world, for that matter! We don't know, and we probably never will.

In fact, it's unclear to me whether Merrill actually knows the full extent of what eluvians are supposed to do. She says in her Act II quest "Mirror Image" that she knows that they were used for communication over distances (which was the extent of ancient Tevinter's understanding of them, and what Duncan remarks in Origins), but she doesn't know exactly how they work. I don't remember her ever saying that it's supposed to be a physical portal you can travel through. There's a moment where Hawke asks what's wrong with it and Merrill exclaims, frustrated, "Well... look at it! Do you think it's just supposed to sit there not doing anything?" I'm not convinced she actually knows what it's supposed to do, only that it's important to her people's history. I'm not blaming her for her lack of knowledge here--I think as fans we've gotten so used to hearing about eluvians that it's easy to forget their existence isn't common knowledge in-universe even among the Dalish. Ariane's clan was safeguarding an exceptionally rare text about eluvians and even she didn't know what they were (in part because most modern elves canonically are not fluent in ancient Elvish, something else I think people kind of forget).

Again, I don't think Merrill is wrong for wanting to discover and restore her people's history. If anything, the gaps in their knowledge only make that more important. I'm also not saying any of this because I'm trying to refute the idea that Merrill is smart. I think she's very clever and resourceful and I think this shows in a great deal of her dialogue with other characters.

I just don't think we can know, based on canon, that her theories were 100% correct and she is now the foremost expert on eluvians. Again, I have zero issue with this as headcanon--I really am not coming for anyone who holds it as such! My only disagreement is when it's put forth as Fact, and like anyone who takes a different view of canon is wrong and is trying to tear down Merrill.

Because like all my faves in this series, it is possible for a character to be good and compelling and interesting and even right about a lot of things without being right about everything all the time.

16. you can’t understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Okay we'll take this one for whatever values of "so many people," because at this point I don't really see this one come up all that much, but as a huge Sera fan, I do not understand the appeal of the "Sera is Andruil/has a fragment of Andruil" fan theory, and I don't think I ever will.

For one thing, by the end of Trespasser we know that Solas and Mythal are walking around in the waking world still because they are exceptions. The rest of the Evanuris are not hiding among mortals. We know where the others are! They're in the Fade! Solas trapped them there! That was a pretty significant thing that happened!

For another, Solas and Andruil were not friends. If Sera was or was carrying a piece of Andruil, and Solas recognized her, I think he would have reacted strongly. Maybe he wouldn't be capable of killing her on the spot in his current state, but also I sort of doubt he would be walking around gently prodding her to remember who she is.

The theory also seems to be partially based on the misapprehension that Sera's archery skills are somehow magical, which I've already talked about.

But also, and more importantly to me personally, I feel like it just ruins Sera's character. Sera's story is that of a young adult with a lot of unrecovered childhood trauma, and deep issues with identity, rejection, and abandonment, still trying to find a place where she belongs and discover what she believes about the world. What does her unwittingly carrying around a piece of an elven god add to that? What does it add to her painful memories of Lady Emmald, to her sense of alienation from other city elves? It undermines the perspective she brings to the Inquisition as a commoner, a Nobody who is proud of being nobody. It completely ruins her relationship with Solas, turning them from a fascinating set of foils (the ancient elf who broke the world vs. the modern elf who is in so many ways the product of the world he created) into just two ancients arguing with each other. If anything, it feels like papering over everything that makes her complicated and interesting in an attempt to "fix" her: Look, she is Elfy after all! She's the Elfiest!

Sera doesn't need to be secretly an ancient goddess to be a compelling character.

[shivunin]

So I saw your tags on the types of love ask and I'm also obsessed with the first weeks and months after Fenris and Hawke break up lol!! I would love to hear more of your thoughts about what Maria and Fenris are feeling/thinking esp wrt fighting together, how the kirkwall group sees them, and just generally how they cope with not being "together" but still being around each other all the time.

Oooh anon, I tried to keep this a reasonable length and I failed haha. In my defense, I have 30k words of unfinished fic answering this very question and I pared it down as best I could.

So:

I think the immediate aftermath is, of course, the most painful--but it's also the most careful on her part. Analysis sets in for her pretty quickly about a day later, when her head is more clear: she loves him and she doesn't believe that loving him gives her a right to take his friends and home away. Hawke is very aware that she has the power to do this if she isn't careful.

What can she do about it? Give him space. Make sure he knows he's still welcome. Keep inviting him to things where many of her other friends are present. Never touch him unless she has no other choice, because she knows she'll give herself away. Look at him directly as little as possible (this one is for her own sake---watching him is like putting her thumb on a bruise to make sure it's still there). Be alone rarely, if ever, and if alone then at a great distance. No more walking home together; no more late nights reading in her library before the fire; no more long goodbyes at her door. She tries so hard to be careful with him and instead she is stiff and overly polite.

It hurts. For both of them. I've talked before about how friendship is the bedrock of their relationship to me, and for a while they lose that, too. Maria's fatal flaw is that she thinks she can perfectly read everyone around her. She assumes that the boundaries she's drawn are good for both of them and she never, ever asks Fenris what he thinks or wants---because that would mean talking about it.

Fighting is rough for a while, because one of them is now dedicated to not paying attention to the other. They both get hurt, badly, in the few weeks immediately after that night. Fenris occasionally slips and calls her Maria (he can't get it out of his head no matter how much he'd like to). Hawke occasionally slips and pats his shoulder or elbows him to make a joke before she remembers and pulls away again.

At last, they get in a really big argument over what Fenris says to Merrill during Mirror Image. Maria loses her temper (she usually keeps a very tight leash on it) and says some things she doesn't mean---the subtext being, if she is a monster then I am a monster. If you knew that before, then why did you ever pretend you wanted me? She does not say this explicitly, because I think she doesn't actually want to know the answer. She apologizes as best she can without actually acknowledging what happened, but now that is festering between them, too.

All of their friends definitely know what's going on. They had front-row seats to the budding flirtation, the tiny gestures of affection...and now they also get to see Hawke putting herself as far away from him as possible, Fenris's absolute refusal to discuss any of it, the pained way he looks at her when she isn't watching, and so on. How can they not know? I think Varric and Isabela try to discuss it with Maria, in their respective ways, and she laughs it off. I think Anders probably makes a pointed comment and she bats that away, too. (Actually, Aveline might be the only one who's still oblivious, judging by the dialogue in her Act 2 quest.)

She does eventually confide in Sebastian, because he's supposed to take confessions, isn't he? Surely this is not so bad a thing to carry, in comparison to everything else. In the end, all she really wants is her friend back and she doesn't know how to get back what they've lost. She blames herself far more than she blames Fenris (Hawke should be able to fix everything always, obviously). Before she can come to any conclusions about how to patch things up, Leandra dies and she really starts spiraling.

When she finally emerges from the big blank space immediately following the funeral, Hawke is erratic. She gets drunk and sloppy, she throws herself into fights she couldn't possibly win, and she stops being careful with Fenris.

(For the record--I think he prefers the minor arguments to Hawke being polite with him. Maria is polite with Meredith and Marethari and the Viscount and the Arishok. She is friendly or charming or crass with everyone else. Being on the receiving end of cordiality was far, far worse than anything she pulls while she's grieving.)

Again--it takes something big to knock her out of this spiral. Luckily, Kirkwall has no shortage of shitshows. Hawke faces down death, comes to terms with the fact that she's just going to have to be in unrequited love with Fenris forever, and acquires a new title, not necessarily in that order. Fenris watches her die, acknowledges privately that he would rather be with her than without her regardless of what they are to each other or what dangers they face, and is there with her when she needs him the most.

Some of those boundaries stick around--she doesn't look at him often or for too long, which he hates, and they don't spend much time alone together. But slowly, slowly, they rebuild their rapport. Hawke and Fenris respect each other deeply; I think that's what makes the rest of it possible. Love is one thing---messy and busy and too heavy by far---but respect is something they both understand, and it's a good enough foundation to build on. She does love him; if she could make it into a purely platonic love, she absolutely would. More importantly, Maria trusts him and he clearly feels the same. It takes time, but they get back much of what they lost.

I want to be clear: she never thinks of any of this as biding her time for him to realize he wants her; she knows that he never will. She also knows she has to be okay with that if they're going to be friends again, and that matters to her most of all. It would have broken her heart to lose him because she couldn't move on.

For Fenris's part--I don't know how much of his reaction is guilt and how much is being caught essentially flat-footed. I cannot imagine what it would be like to work up to wanting to be emotionally intimate with someone (physical intimacy entirely aside) and then have that comfort entirely ripped away because of something he feels solely responsible for.

So, anon, to answer your question:

They deal with it by letting what happened between them be the third party in the room, ultimately. They both know what happened; they know that talking about it by now is more likely to open up wounds than it is to heal them. What they have is immeasurably valuable to both of them. If he still dreams about holding her, if she measures every suitor at her door against Fenris, well---that's for them to handle alone. Nobody else needs to know.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Isabela for the first impression meme 😊

[ask game]

Heya! thank you for the ask! c:

Isabela

First impression: Oh, great, the standard sexualised female probably-meant-as-default-romance-for-male-hawke companion! I know who i'm not romancing out of spite alone :^) (her entrance kicks ass though)

Impression now: Bestie. Beloved. <333 I was very positively surprised about the depths of her character and she's sooo. She cares so so much and it scares her that she cares so much but she learns to do it anway and augh. I care her. Also arguably the only the most emotionally intelligent person in DA2

Favorite moment: When she comes back after bailing with the tome. It goes against all her instincts, she is terrified and she knows that she is putting her life on the line but she came back

Idea for a story: Sth about her and Zevran! Angsty and dramatic or just shenanigans, before DA2 or during or after idc, but i'd love to see more of them

Unpopular opinion: Hmm, only opinion that i can think of that might be unpopular is that i actually really like Isabela's relationship with Aveline. I know a lot of people say they hate each other/ are horrible to each other but i didn't get that impression at all tbh? Or at least, i felt like they started rough but by Act 2 they're bros.

Favorite relationship: Her and Merrill (platonic or romantic idc) <3 Except for a couple dialogue lines that feel a bit too patronising to me (which i. kinda blame on the game being patronising towards Merrill in general) their relationship is so good and sweet and also they are a hella scary duo. And Bela's relationship with Zevran also makes me really soft ngl

Favorite headcanon: If you know me you know i love silly HCs lolol, and i love the HC that she did wear pants and Varric either didn't notice because they're brown and he is silly, or because he's colourblind, or wrote it like that because he was being petty about losing a bet to her or something. Also love the HC that she and Zevran officially married so that she could have his last name bc she thought it sounded badass (and/or to officially rid herself of her old husband's last name)

[mightymizora]

Self-indulgent post ahead but the more I write Glim and Gale the more I get why they're so complimentary. Under the cut because it's long and who is actually interested in that XD

I never go into my first playthroughs with a goal of who to romance (Blackwall was the bottom of the pile for my Cadash which seems wild now!) but usually I click in pretty quickly into what makes the dynamic interesting. Alistair being a new Second for my Aeducan and the tension of her being his first love vs him being a replacement for Gorim, Hawke dabbling in blood magic from a place of cynicism and falling for Merrill who is an expert and full of light, Meroia and Aloth being friends for years and slowly realising that they both need to be more chill about duties and the past and enjoy their lives in the present, Gennol actually ending up hunting Fen'Harel after fifty years hunting for her clan.

But the threads between Glim and Gale are finer. There's the surface things; they both love poetry and reading, they have natural talents, and bards and wizards are lovely foils. But the thing that interests me about them are their differences. Gale is all expectation. He comes from a wealthy family with connections. He has every opportunity, living in Waterdeep and having access to all that being from a wealthy house in the city brings. He becomes an Archmage, and a Chosen. His life is a trajectory up. But Glim? She is constantly fighting the expectations forced on her. Deep Gnomes don't have cultural landmarks like humans do; their existence is survival. To even be a bard is ridiculous. They have no shared songs, no libraries, and their greatest city has been destroyed. She lives in one of the most culturally significant cities in Faerun, Silverymoon, and has the access to the university there, but lives a community of less than 1000 people who are only 100 years into being a community there, and only have real connections to each other and the other communities forced up from the Underdark. She fought for her right to her education, literally, by paying for tuition by running dangerous missions back into the place they fled. People think she's from the Underdark, that she must be cruel, calculating, a trickster. Or worse, that she is completely expendable, just like all gnomes. One of the forgotten folk.

Everything Gale has been praised for, encouraged in, is seen as an indulgence or a silly quirk in her, but he takes her seriously. He holds her up and says no, you are a remarkable person, just as you are. And then, when she learns about what happened with Mystra, she has the opportunity to do exactly the same thing back to him.

And they fight about this! She hates that he is willing to throw everything away because he feels defeated! He loathes how careless she can be with herself when she feels like she doesn't matter and lets herself fade into darkness.

And just as he is a mix of, in his eyes at least, arrogance in his craft and a deep lack of self-worth, she is a mix of a deep love for the beauty that music brings her and the ever-present sense that she can never be anything but the nature of her people, that she will always default to a cruel, brutal way of life. They constantly pull each other from the edges of the void, just by seeing something beautiful and simple in each other.

[ghostwise]

i didn’t say zev because i thought someone else would LOL.. sending you zevran! and isabela :) !

Zevran

First impression: Genuinely such a good guy. A test of the Warden's willingness to trust; he comes in as an antagonist, after all, and so much hinges on what the player's reaction to this is. I think the way his backstory is revealed is perfectly executed; glimpses, here and there, between the jokes and the innuendo.

Impression now: WHAT CAN I SAY I FIND HIM COMPELLING… truly a character that tackles some universal questions about the human condition. What can you do, when you feel you've failed yourself so completely and so thoroughly that not even running to another country to die can fix it? How do you define yourself when your identity was purposefully manipulated and subjected to horrific abuse your whole life? How do you stay whole? Do you even need to stay whole? Do you need to be whole to love? To do good in the world? To be worthy of it?

Favorite moment: Antivan poetry convo is a classic, it's just so sincere. He knows he's being a bit of a fool, but it's a good exchange, if it makes the Warden smile.

Idea for a story: MMMM listen. Gestures to the entire Everything. But I will say there is a very far-off story where he accompanies Hamal in finding his mother's clan. Don't know if I ever will write it, but!

Unpopular opinion: I've said it before but I find it distasteful when people act like he was all over the Warden right away from their first meeting. Buddy, he just survived a suicide attempt.

Favorite relationship: Besides Zevran/Warden, I'd say Zevran/Isabela, Zevran/Alistair, and his friendship with Leliana is so good.

Favorite headcanon: I think it's contextually supported but I really DO think he's primarily a creative soul, I think I've written him doing poetry (canon), tattoos (canon), drawing (canonically tattoos, so he must know how to draw), and jewelry + metalwork (supported by the metal rounds, which the item description states he made himself; plus the gifts of silver and gold he receives). Sign that boy up for some art therapy is what I've done.

Isabela

First impression: She has one of the coolest intros of any DA character, honestly. But that's very much what the setup is supposed to be right? There's complexity behind that, there's a person who's suffered a ton, and doesn't have her shit figured out, and she's beautifully vibrant and relatable bc of it. She's not agonizing about it, either. Over time she comes to be patient with the questions within herself. She extends that to others. She's just lovely.

Impression now: She deserves the entire world… and a ship to sail it. <3

Favorite moment: Her convo in Act 3 when she and Hawke reunite, only because knowing they were apart for a while is so harrowing to my heart.

Idea for a story: A story where she and Merrill enjoy a festival day at the alienage :)

Unpopular opinion: Not sure if this is unpopular? But I really feel like her backstory in the comics is so out of character. I don't know suddenly I can't read…

Favorite relationship: This one is genuinely tough. But I have to say, Isabela/Fenris and Isabela/Merrill.

Favorite headcanon: I like to think she helped Kirkwall's mages escape by ship, and some of them stuck around as members of her crew.

[the-cryptographer]

Isabela for 002!

Woo! Thank you for sending this in! Isabela is a great girl! /sleazy Varric voice

002 | Give me a character: ISABELA

How I feel about this character: She’s so lovely <3 I think her being this person who, having lived through a very hard childhood and the colonisation of her home and a child marriage which she then escaped from by joining a criminal enterprise and human trafficking ring - who then has this very moral and self-sabotaging moment where she ruins one of their operations because she doesn’t want to be a slaver. And then you’re meeting her at the point in her life where all her old coworkers are out to get her different levels of either dead or enserviced to them, she’s lost her ship, everything has gone wrong for her, and she clearly regrets having had that moment of moral crisis and is doubling down hard on being as self-serving and out-for-herself as she can possibly be. And then over the course of the game, she has this chance to potentially find a safe place where Hawke and their friends are willing to reward her for being a better person instead of punishing her and you get to see all of this softness and vulnerability coming out of her. I think she feels like a very rewarding character to interact with. Both in a meta sense for me as the player, and in an in-universe one? I feel like the other characters in the game who take the time to acknowledge her goodness and her depth as a person ultimately get a lot back from her.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Fenris. Aveline. I think a lot of Hawkes tend to share a sense of humour and fun with Bela, and there’s likely some shared history working as a smuggler there, so I think there are definitely some fun versions of Hawkebela. Isabela and Bethany also seems fun to me. I think it would be good for Bethany to be around someone who views her (and her magic) as more of an asset than a burden or a cause. And Isabela seems to have a good rapport with her in their banters and enjoy playing worldly older woman to Bethie. And Isabela and Merrill... it feels remiss not to mention it because it’s definitely something I’ve written before and keep coming back to in the context of the Kirkwall polycule in particular. I think Isabela and Merrill should have been one of the background companion romances along with fenbela. I think they’re cute, and it’s a relationship that makes a lot of sense to me, assuming Merrill finds a way to push past Isabela talking down to her in an attempt to hold her at arm’s length (”You don’t want my life, kitten.”) But I admit it doesn’t really excite me in the conceptual way that makes me want to emphatically say I ship it.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Zevran. I like what I perceive as Zevran’s unwillingness to keep score in this relationship. Like Zevran walked into her life when she was about as powerless as could be and saved her for what was basically no net gain on his behalf. And Isabela will sometimes insult him or pester him for sex - ask more of him, in a way - but I get the impression from her pillow talk with Hawke, for example, that she knows he saved her life and feels eternally indebted to him for it. But Zevran just seems totally unconcerned with that and unwilling to collect and imo would be much happier to know that Isabela is trying to pay the favour forward when she does things like try to free slaves or stab other people’s abusive husbands. Something about that dynamic makes me happy.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m not sure? I feel like I see a lot of stories and headcanons where Isabela is just kinda ~girlboss~ which is not something I particularly feel about her even if I can’t point out anything entirely incorrect.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Still mad the ONLY way they could think to introduce Isabela between two games and a short story, is her kicking ass in a barfight. I wish instead we could have gotten a short story about her captaining her ship and the kind of presence she had among her crew. I want to see more of how she behaves in leadership positions. Maybe trying to escape with the Tome of Koslun, with the Qunari dreadnaught bored down upon her.

my OTP: Gonna talk about both Fenris/Isabela and Aveline/Isabela here because I can’t choose, lol. For Fenris/Isabela. I feel like they get one another. I admit the, uh, ‘oiled up and glistening’ banter makes me kinda uncomfortable, but I feel like overall Fenris appreciates Isabela being able to engage his angst more lightly, and with a lighter touch. Like, lotta similarities between the two characters from Northern Thedas who have history with colonialism and being a rich man’s pet (they both got renamed by Danarius and Luis too). Both have a history of, from their respected positions of exploitation, being made to enact violences on those even less fortunate. And then they both of course deal with their baggage by, in sort of complementary ways, being very protective and withdrawn where different forms of intimacy are concerned. I feel like they understand these things about one another without feeling the need to prod at each other about them all the time, so they’ve got a nice friendly witty rapport that I love listening to in their banters &lt;3 For Aveline/Isabela. Kind of the opposite, lol. A great foils ship to rival the Anders-Fenris dynamic, lol. I like how diametrically opposed their ideas of womanhood are, but they’re both characters that I think are very attached to their identities as women. It’s a lot of fun for me to see them go through the motions of attacking those things and insulting one another, but I never get the impression it changes things in the big picture. It’s pretty satisfying to see Aveline repeatedly defend Isabela during Demand of the Qun, when Hawke is acting against her. Or even in their banters- Like Isabela saying that Aveline that she should know herself and not be bothered by what others say about her. Or Aveline reassuring Isabela she’ll have herself a ship someday. I feel like they do ultimately end up reaffirming the goodness and validity of their disparate identities, if you feel me. So the whole cop/criminal dynamic to the relationship is imo the far more concerning one than the slut-shaming and attacks on Aveline’s gender nonconformity, but I do think that’s also something that’s fun to mess with the worldbuilding on. Like- using these characters to enact and critique Kirkwall’s economy (or lack thereof) and the crime and law enforcement sectors that are expanding in response to that- All very top-notch to me. And on a lighter note, it’s really sweet walking into the Captain of the Guard’s office in act 3, and find Isabela there with a bottle of wine and chatting with Aveline.

my cross over ship: Friend and I making a lot of jokes about Anders and Isabela and DC’s Catwoman. But, to be honest, I know very little about Catwoman.

a headcanon fact: Not sure this counts, but I definitely like when artists and writers make her a bit chubby <3  It kinda bothers me how skinny her arms are in her canon character model. Think sailor woman deserves to have at least a little muscle definition in those biceps, if not some fat too. Oh! About Anders and Isabela. I think Isabela promised Anders a place on her crew when they met in the Pearl in Denerim, and she was planning on going through with that when the Templars showed up. And Isabela, yanno, skipped town because she wasn’t dying here, not today, not on this hill. She still feels a little bit guilty about that, even if it’s the best choice she could have made. And that’s why she doesn’t entirely hold it against Anders when he manages his resentment with her by writing her off as perpetually shallow and flaky.

Thank you again!!

[narakussy]

So, I found this in my Google Docs, completely finished but never posted. It's a few years old, and the first time I ever really tried to write any sexual content. It's not super explicit but I read it and thought it was kind of cute so I'm deciding to post it!

Rating: Mature Words: 1266 Fandom: Dragon Age 2 Ship: Merrill/Carver Hawke Tags: tickle fights, first time together, admission of love, established feelings, vague timeline, playful sex, no plot just vibes

They don't know how they got there, rolling about on her shabby bed like children pinching and tickling away at one another. When they came up for air, Carver's flat on his back with Merrill perched on his thigh — a laughable sight for their size difference, he hadn't been distracted by the heaving of her chest and the pink to her cheeks. She can’t help but giggle as she looks down on him. Merrill's thoughts are Carver, Carver, Carver as she leans forward, practically topples onto him, the length of her body pressing against his.

He thinks her lashes are impossibly long, when green eyes gaze at him from underneath a curtain of them. He thinks lips are sweet, when they brush against his and neither can say who it is but before long they're grappling at each other anew, a more mature push and pull than before. Merrill's gasps and moans are a melody against his lips as he grabs her hip, holds her in place just as she straddles his waist, pinning him in place. He didn't know if he expected innocence or experience, but there is something unhesitating in the way she moves her hips against him.

Not practiced, perhaps, but not afraid. "Carver.." Her voice pulls their eyes together again and her hand splayed on his chest feels almost like a brand — hot, searing but it's not pain. Just a jolt south that her eyes seem to follow and he blushes for a moment to match the flush creeping up under her vallaslin. Nod, nod, it's all he can do and her hand is slower now as it traces downwards, her body shimmying down as well and brushing against his suddenly quite sensitive guest under his breeches.

"Merrill," He all but gasps as she undoes the laces there, pulls him from his pants with something like curiosity in her wide eyes. The words that fall past her lips garner a chuckle, his palm smears across his face because of course she would say something like that. It's perfect, nothing like the way the ladies at the Blooming Rose tried to be sexy at every turn.

He didn't want that. He wanted Merrill, callused palm against sensitive skin exclaiming on a giggle, "Not such a little Hawke after all." with him half-hard in her hand. For her part, Merrill didn't falter long. She experimented with the way she moved her hand up and down, removing it only to spit in her palm and get a groan from Carver in the process. He tried not to think it was cute when she just gave a musical laugh in response.

With her hand working him harder by the second, Merrill fluidly lays her body alongside his, leg hiked over one of his and face buried in his neck peppering kisses there. For a moment, he's frozen. The sensations she's giving him are a lot and he's thought about her — Maker, how he's thought about her. But youthful excitement wins out over any lack of experience they both might have.

He turns his head to capture her lips, angles their bodies so that his free hand can explore the dips of her body as she lays there on her side. It's awkward but she practically jolts when his hand touches her ass and he takes the way she molds herself closer as a good sign. Merrill feels wanton for the display but it's hardly a shame-filled thought. Rutting against his thigh for the hope that she might brush against the sensitive bundle of nerves hidden between her thighs.

She pushes against him as his hand slides her tunic up, "On your back, vhenan," and oh what a thrill it is when he heeds her command effortlessly taking her with him. With her tunic discarded to the side, she's near frantic to work off her leggings, to feel skin on slick skin. His hands come to help and when they hear a rip, there's a pause as wide green eyes meet wide blue.

It's decidedly unsexy, the little snort of a laugh she gives but he laughs too and Carver is glad again of how much better this is. Merrill is glad of someone who will accept her quirks, even in moments like these. But quirks don’t distract from the fire in their bellies for long and Merrill is straddling his hips anew, both bare at the waist as she settles herself atop him.

It’s not the sensation he’d been wanting, but it still gets a groan from him to feel her wet folds envelope his underside. When she works her hips — tempoed twists and twirls — he sits to hold her as she finds her pleasure giving him plenty in turn. The sounds from falling past her lips are delicious and he’s greedy to taste them, covering her mouth with his so that every gasp she makes falls into his lungs.

Neither can say how long they sit there, entwined with only the noises of their moans and bodies moving against one another. Carver’s so close when her hips jerk and sweet elven sentiments reach his ears. Merrill’s breathing is hard, like she’s coming down and he wants to see her reach that peak more closely next time.

Laying them down, Merrill almost gives a whine as he tucks himself behind her back, extricating them from their embrace and leaving them both feeling chilled from the loss of warmth. “Carver, you haven’t —” He shushes her only to be met with her wiggling her bottom against his hardness.

He groans a “Merrill” that sounds almost a growl if her little meep is any indication. It doesn’t stop her movements — slows them, perhaps, to a slow rotation before the dip at the small of her back deepens and he feels her wetness against him again. If he needed any more invitation, Merrill isn’t hesitant to give it.

She reaches behind her to guide him in and they both sigh as he delves into her warmth. He stills, a moment, adjusts himself to the sensation of her walls around him. Tight and hot, he breathes her name as his hips start to work a slow, steady rhythm.

Merrill’s hips chase every beat, a low moan falling past her lips as she chases the steady fastening of his movements. Before long her back is pasted to his chest, one arm reaching behind her to hold his neck, the other between her thighs hastening the pleasure he’s giving. “Carver — vhenan,” She sighs and he wonders again what exactly that word means as he drives faster into her, harder as one arm holds her close.

When she tightens around him, gasps so hard he knows she’s breathless, he just continues on. Merrill can feel herself moving around him, the wave of pleasure crashing in her gut as her toes curl and her head falls back against him. She can tell how close he is by the erratic movement of his hips, riding on the aftershocks of her orgasm when he spends himself on her thigh with her name on his lips.

She can’t help the mischievous sort of giggle she lets out and he just sighs, half post-orgasm sigh and half exasperated. “Maker, Merrill —” a moment, a breath, “What’s vhenan mean?” It sounds clumsy on his tongue, which he expects is why he gets a little snort and a louder giggle.

A touch too exuberant given their — ehm — exercise, she turns to him with a broad smile: “My heart, Carver. Ma vhenan.”

[villainanders]

You have a few posts about how Oramas arc is literally the same if you enslaved her or not and I wonder how would you rewrite it/her?

Oo this is a good question thank you! What really bothers me about Orana is that when working for Hawke she still doesn’t really seem to have any other choice or agency in what she wants to do, and while she could leave she’s been conditioned her whole life to not see that as an option. In my headcanon I always imagine Hawke trying their hardest to make it clear to her that she’s welcome to stay working for them as long as she wants, but she’s free to move on and they’ll do what they can to support her in finding what she wants to do.

In game I’m imagining this like.. after you hire Orana you can progressively click on her and continue talking with her at the estate, and just generally ask her questions about herself and her life and be supportive (probably with the option to be an asshole boss instead, which I imagine would stop this plotline from progressing). (I’m just now realizing how similar I think an Orana arc would kind of look like Zevran’s arc lmao, as wild as comparing those characters is, I think they’d be in very similar places of latching onto the player character because they’ve never really had agency before). And then if you’ve done that consistently then near the final half of Act 3 you could get some kind of very mini side quest from her. I feel like it could really be a lot of things as long as it sets up as moving forward with her life. Like idk maybe she tells you she always loved baking and you can help set her up getting a job doing that, or maybe she tells you she has family or friends still back in Tevinter and you can talk to a couple of people to help her reunite with them. And at the end she tells you she’s going to move on and thanks you for your help and whatnot. And ofc this is all entirely optional/contingent on you interacting with her so if you don’t do this I guess it could play out like it does in canon with maybe a line or something about her leaving Kirkwall with Bodhan and Sandal at the end of the game bc I do worry about her and would like to know that she ended up okay

As for what happens if she’s enslaved, that’s a tougher question. Mostly bc I think Bioware shouldn’t have made that an option if they weren’t going to deal with it more significantly but I think that would require a way bigger rewrite than what a little chosen choice in a side quest for a character a lot of players miss on their first time would conceivably have, so in the spirit of what I think DA2 actually could have done, I think I’d keep what actually happens with Orana more or less the same (so, you know, just kind of being there. Maybe safer than when she was enslaved a crazed blood mage but separated from her family with no other real options. And then maybe Hawke could have a line in DAI mentioning she left kirkwall with Bodhan and sandal too bc like I said I like to know she ended up okay) but with more reactions and consequences from everyone else.

So obviously a sizable approval hit from the companions (I would say sake of the way the game works everyone in the party, but that doesn’t make SENSE to me bc everyone is going to find out later and react to it, so fuck it absolutely everyone. Maybe not Carver and Bethany if we pretend that nobody told them. I don’t care this is the only choice in the game where that happens). I do like/find it interesting that a diplomatic Hawke can minimize rivalry by arguing that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go so we can keep that. Fenris should leave your party or mayyyybe I could buy him staying with high enough friendship or rivalry, but you take a big rivalry hit/all of your friendship swaps to rivalry (like Merrill will do in her act 2 quest) and he breaks off any romantic relationship with you. Not totally sold on that but I am compelled by the super fucked up “companion goes along with things totally against their values” rivalry path dynamic you can get in like the Anders rivalry. Idk tho. Anyway beyond that I just think it needs to be a thing they bring up and not let you forget about it! I’m willing to buy that the champion is an important enough figure that they’re able to get away grievous crimes but “the champion literally participated in human elf trafficking” is a thing people would bring up. Leandra should comment on it (she does but weirdly permissively), Bodhan should ask about it, people should whisper about it in the hanged man, companions should DEFINITELY bring it up in their high rivalry cut scenes (that’s one of the bigger asks bc it would involve having a separate version of a cut scene depending on one decision but I feel like they could record a line that gets included or not). You could even have either Orsino or Meredith (whoever you side against) bring it up at the end of the game to point out that Hawke is a fucked up person too. If there was space to do a little more with it I’d like to see the city elves and the dalish being resistant to interact with you and maybe even have a fight at some point with a group of vigilantes trying to attack you bc you are, well, literally a known slaver. Idk it’s a tough balance. That all simultaneously feels like too much hinging on one choice in a side quest and not enough given what’s actually going on but something like that idk! Actual consequences that show people remember the things Hawke has done

[barbex]

Hah! And another one for @18daysoffenders, this is prompt 16.

16. Ten Years From Now

Orana opens the door for him, ushering him inside and excuses herself quickly, because she's got something on the stove. Fenris watches her hurry into the kitchen, surprisinlgy touched by how far the former tevinter slave has come. She is still shy and Fenris knows that she sometimes still calls Hawke Mistress, but she's become much more confident. She's learning to be free, just like him. 

He's not pointing out that she was meant to announce him to Hawke, and sets out to find her on his own. His feet carry him silently through the hall, Muffin, Hawke's mabari, only raising his head, acknowledging him as a friend. Voices spill out from the library on the other side, and he slows his steps when he hears someone answer Hawke.

It's Anders, speaking with Hawke. Fenris stops in front of the slightly ajar door, listening. He knows he shouldn't, but his whole body is frozen. 

"What is it?" Anders says. A chair creaks, and Fenris imagines Anders leaning forward, his amber eyes full of care. 

"I thought..." Hawke sighs, her clothes ruffling as she moves. "I want to marry Merrill."

"Oh, Maker!" Anders exclaims. "That's wonderful! Congratulations." A pause. "But?" 

Another creak from one of the heavy, stuffed chairs in Hawke's library, and then he hears Hawke pacing, her voice wandering from side to side. "Well, our options are kind of limited, for some fucking reason, aren't they? We can't go to the Chantry, obviously."

"Yeah," Anders says. "It would be hilarious though. 'May I introduce my soon to be wife, Merrill of the dalish, a mage you haven't caught yet, with a penchant for bloodmagic.'"

"The hilarity would be short lived, I think." Hawke lets out a bitter laugh. 

"Yes, afraid so," Anders muses. "Mother Elthina might just combust on the spot. Can't say I'd grieve much for her."

"So, since the Chantry won't marry us, Merrill will ask the keeper of her clan to do the ritual." Hawke is pacing again. "Which is a whole other awkward problem, what with her being exiled and the new keeper not exactly on best terms with Merrill." 

"I'm sorry," Anders says. "This shouldn't all be so complicated."

"Right?" Something clatters to the floor. "I mean, I love her, I just want to marry her, without risking her to be killed, made tranquil, or further shit on by her clan."

"Ten years from now, maybe a hundred years from now, a mage will marry someone like you, and nobody will interfere."

Fenris clenches his hands at his sides. There's such longing in Anders' voice, Fenris feels it like his own pain.

"I don't want to wait that long." Hawke's voice has never before sounded like this, close to tears and so defeated.

"If the keeper refuses, I can do the ritual for you," Anders says.

Hawke chuckles. "Are you a chantry mother now, too?"

"I think being a healer is pretty close to that." Fenris can just imagine his wild grin at that. "But I also carry Justice in me and if a literal spirit of justice approves of your bond, what can anybody possibly say against that?"

Fenris silently steps back, slowly letting out a breath. He walks back to the hall, his thoughts tumbling over each other. Muffin looks up again and Fenris kneels down next to him, scratching the pelt at his neck as he tries to order his thoughts. 

Hawke is a good person and she loves Merrill. Merrill, even though she's a bloodmage, has never abused another person for her powers, and helps people whenever she can. But their bond is forbidden, just as it would be for him and Anders. 

Somehow, this revelation flutters like wings in his chest. Anders talked about the hate Fenris brings into his life, but he didn't even mention the hate he gets from everywhere else. His entire existence as a free mage is forbidden, just as a free slave has been forbidden for all of Fenris' life. 

And Fenris has never truly realized how wrong that is. 

Muffin nudges his side because he stopped petting him. Fenris continues scratching the mabari's neck as the door to the library opens and Hawke comes out. 

"Fenris. When did you get here?"

Scrambling to his feet, Fenris stretches his legs. "Just a few minutes ago, Orana let me in."

Behind Hawke, Anders looks at him over her shoulder. He doesn't smile, not even trying to. Anders always wears his emotions on his face, which makes him terrible at bluffing during Wicked Grace. And now there's so much pain in his expression, Fenris feels guilty to be the cause of that.

Hawke notices something and looks between them, but Anders already turns back into the library, his spine too straight, his hands clenched at his sides. Hawke takes a breath but doesn't call him back, even though she clearly wants to. She sighs instead and walks over to Fenris.

"What can I do for you?" she asks, ignoring the tense atmosphere in the room.

"You remember the letter you helped me write to my sister?" Fenris pulls an envelope from his pocket. "She wrote me back."

"Let me see. I'll read it to you." Hawke holds out her hand but Fenris looks at the door to the library. It's still slightly ajar, and he wonders if Anders listens to their conversation just like he did.

"Do you want Anders to read it to you?" There's no judgement in her voice.

Fenris shakes his head. "No, I... I can tell him later."

Hawke opens the envelope and pulls out the letter. "Dear brother," she reads.

[pikapeppa]

Hi there Pikapeppa! I saw your DA Day prompts post and I thought I'd send you one in case it fires any inspiration! From the 250 Erotic prompts, I pick Number 7: From Behind -- I'd LOVE a Carver/Merrill fic, but if that doesn't spark joy then I'd be happy for a Fenris/Female Hawke fic. Thanks so much!

Carver/Merrill, you say? I have never written these two babes together, but how can I say no to the Patron Saint of this adorable ship? 🥰🙏

Pika's Dragon Age Day drabbles, prompt fill #1:

Carver/Merrill, NSFW, ~2200 words. Prompt: From Behind.

*************************

Everyone thinks that Merrill is sweet, and Carver thinks that this is ridiculous.

This isn’t to say that Carver thinks she isn't sweet; it’s not that at all. Of course Merrill is sweet. In fact, she might just be the sweetest girl — woman, not girl, she’s a woman — that he's ever met in his life. But here’s the thing: Merrill isn’t just sweet. She’s not just the adorable and absentminded little elf who doesn’t know how to recognize pickpockets and who gets lost in people’s gardens in Hightown.

Merrill is dangerous. She might be tiny, but Carver has seen her fighting, and her Dalish magic packs a real punch. She’s also smart — smart in ways that Carver doesn’t fully understand. He’s watched her working on her magic stuff before, mumbling to herself as she reads her complicated spellbooks and talks to his sister about magic and spells and all that mage-y sort of stuff, and… all right, fine, maybe he doesn’t know what they’re talking about more than half the time. But he’s picked up enough about magic during his life to know that the stuff they’re talking about is really quite advanced, and only someone really smart like Merrill would be able to discuss advanced magical theory like that.

She’s not just dangerous and smart, though. She’s also earnest and loyal and funny, and she’s… Maker, she’s so incredibly pretty with her big green eyes — not that that’s the most important thing about her at all. But there are so many sides of Merrill that other people don’t seem to see, and when Carver hears Isabela and his sister just talking about how sweet Merrill is, it makes him want to vomit.

But on top of all of that, on top of her intelligence and her confidence and her kindness, there’s another side of Merrill that other people don’t see. There’s a side of her that’s mischievous and coy — a side of her that Carver has had the huge pleasure of getting to know now that she finally sees him as a man and not just as ‘Hawke’s little brother’. And if Carver is being totally honest, it’s a side of her that he feels very smug about other people not being able to see at all.

Everyone thinks that Merrill is sweet. What they don’t realize is just how… well, how spicy Merrill can be. And it’s this spicy side of Merrill that’s on Carver’s mind as he makes his way to the alienage to visit her one afternoon.

The first thing he notices when he gets to her house is that the door is ajar. This alone isn’t a huge reason to be worried; it’s not uncommon that Merrill forgets to close her door. But she’s been robbed before by vagrants who take advantage of her open door to steal blankets and food, and Carver is instantly on the alert for the possibility that this has happened again.

He cautiously edges into her house. “Merrill?” he calls.

“Back here!” her cheerful voice calls back.

He relaxes and firmly closes the door, then makes his way toward the bedroom where her voice was hailing from. “Hello,” he says. “I was wondering if…” He trails off as he spots her. She’s on her knees and elbows on the bedroom floor with a selection of books and parchment spread out around her. She’s clearly in the midst of studying something, and Carver doesn’t bother to wonder why she’s on the floor instead of at the table; he doesn’t bother to think much of anything at all, in fact, because all of his attention is on her bum.

Merrill’s bum is in the air. In this position on her elbows and knees, her round little bottom is in the air, and the unwittingly-provocative pose sends his mind straight into the gutter. She’s fully dressed and she’s clearly doing something important, but all Carver can think about is the idea of Merrill in this same pose — but fully and entirely naked. All he can think about is a nude Merrill on her knees, her pearly skin exposed and her rounded bum inviting his hands and his hips to press against her, and in less than five seconds flat, Carver’s cock is rock-hard.

He swallows hard. His cheeks are burning with embarrassment at how quickly he got excited by something that clearly wasn’t meant to excite him at all, and all he can do now is hope she won’t turn around and see him looking like an overeager twelve-year-old…

And it’s too late. She’s looking over her shoulder at him, and her face is lit with a smile. “Carver!” she chirps. “What a lovely surprise! What are you doing here?”

He swallows again. Maker, his mouth is so bloody dry. “I…” Shit, he can’t remember words. He had words that he was going to say, suave and manly words to ask if she was in the mood to make love, but he doesn’t remember what those words were, not when she’s on her elbows and knees with her pretty little bum in the air.

Her eyes go wide, and she pushes herself upright to sit back on her heels. “Carver, are you all right? You look like you have a fever.”

He shakes his head. “No,” he croaks. “Nope, no fever, not me.”

“What’s the matter, then?” she says. “You look like someone hit you in the face with a frying pan!”

He offers her a sheepish smile. “I, um, I do feel a little bit like that’s what’s happened.”

If possible, her big green eyes widen even more. “Is that what happened? I saw a man carrying a frying man this morning, you know, and I was wondering if he was going to be using it properly or for some other funny reason.” She peers at him. “You don’t look like you have a bruise, though.”

“Er, n-no,” he stutters. “There was… no actual frying pan, no.” He clears throat and tugs his collar, wishing that it wasn’t quite so warm in her cozy little house.

He shifts from foot to foot, praying that his cock will calm down and stop being such an obnoxious distraction. Then, to his surprise, Merrill smiles. “Did I miss something dirty?” she asks.

His face goes red-hot with shame. “Wha— no!” he lies. “No no, it — nothing dirty. I just, um, thought I’d come by to, er, visit you, that’s all.” He closes his mouth to stop himself from lying to her any more like a dirty horrible liar.

Merrill studies him silently for another moment. Then, to his surprise, a slow smile lights her gamine face.

With her back still facing him, she slowly lowers herself down to her elbows once more — so slowly that it can only be intentional. By the time she’s on her elbows once more, Carver feels like his entire body is going to melt with lust.

Merrill props her chin on her hands and looks at him over her shoulder. “Are you sure I didn’t miss something dirty?” she asks.

He gapes at her for a moment, completely thrown off by how sexy she is. Her spine is arched like a cat’s, and her pert little bum is lifted like she wants him to stare, and that smile on her face — that lovely sweet and spicy little smile…

It happens before he has time to think about it. One second, he’s staring at her like the idiot that everyone in Kirkwall seems to think he is. The next second, he’s on his knees behind her, sliding his hands up her hips and tugging on her leather leggings to pull them down. Her leggings are bunched down around her knees now and he’s tugging her smallclothes down too, and — Maker save him, she’s wet already.

A rush of saliva floods his mouth. He slips his fingers between her legs, his big brutish fingers moving clumsily through the slickness of her folds, but she doesn’t seem to think his fingers are clumsy at all. She’s making that little noise she makes when they’re doing something dirty, that breathy little mewling noise that Carver likes more than any sound he’s ever heard, and she’s rocking back to meet him, rocking her hips to rub her wetness against his fingers — Maker save him he’s so hard…

“Carver, please,” she mewls.

He can’t resist. He doesn’t want to resist. He fumbles with his belt, undoing it with his big stupid clumsy fingers while the blood pounds in his ears and in his cock. Then Merrill is turning around to face him and cradling his cheeks in her hands — mm yes she’s kissing him, her lips slanting hungrily over his as her nimble little fingers pull open his belt and ah Merrill please her hand is on his cock—

She breaks from his kiss and strokes him. “You’ve got such a lovely big sword,” she pants.

He bursts out a breathless laugh. “Please don’t m-make fun of me, mm…”

She giggles and kisses him and continues to stroke his cock, and he’s gasping into her lips and thrusting into her hand, moaning into her mouth, her sweet and spicy mouth, his lovely Merrill—

She suddenly releases him and turns around, planting herself on her elbows and knees once more, and Carver doesn’t hesitate. He flips up the hem of her long tunic and stares at her bottom, plants his palm on her ass, smooths his hand reverently over her alabaster skin…

He takes hold of her hips and thrusts into her, and the sound she makes almost makes him come on the spot. It’s a wild mewling cry of pure feral pleasure, and as Carver gasps and hilts himself inside of her again and again, he listens blissfully to that beautiful mewling cry. That beautiful sound that makes him feel so wanted, wanted and needed in ways that no one else has ever really wanted him, but Merrill does. She sees him as a man, as more than just another Hawke, and the feeling of being really seen by someone as smart and determined and sexy as Merrill feels so good. It feels so good to be seen by her and wanted by her, to have her petite body in his hands and her heat surrounding him and squeezing him as he pumps into her with a dizzying sort of excitement — yes, it feels so good: it feels so good, so good, Maker please, Merrill, it feels so good—

He bursts inside of her, a frenzied burst of pure ecstasy, and the sounds he’s hearing now are rough and guttural cries of his own as he empties himself inside of her in a series of hard and desperate thrusts. When his orgasm finally settles out, he releases her hips, then drapes himself over her back with a sigh.

He wraps one arm around her waist in a hug and presses his cheek to her spine. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I — was this rude? I just came bursting in on you while you were working…”

“You really did come bursting in, didn’t you?” she replies.

He lifts his cheek from her back and blinks at her. “Are you… did you mean that in a dirty way?”

She giggles and carefully wiggles her way out of his arms. “Isabela’s been helping me practice being dirty,” she says earnestly as she peels her leggings and smallclothes off. “She told me that I should get down on my knees like this to make you think naughty things, and it worked!”

“She… Isabela told you to do this?” Carver croaked. What was he supposed to think about this? Should he be furious or thankful that Isabela was getting involved in his and Merrill’s love life? He honestly couldn’t decide.

“Yes, she did,” Merrill says brightly. “I told her I wasn’t sure it would work because maybe you’d just think I was looking for a spanking, but I’m happy you got the right idea.”

A sudden image enters his mind: Merrill naked on her elbows and knees, asking Carver to spank her…

Bloody Maker’s mercy, his face is going hot again. Merrill peers at him, then covers her mouth. “Oh dear. I missed something dirty again, didn’t I?”

He stares stupidly at her for a moment. Then, without quite meaning to, he laughs.

She smiles back at him, and his heart thumps at how unbelievably beautiful she is. He shuffles close to her and takes her hand. “I like you so much,” he declares.

She laughs and smooths her palm over his chest. “You’re so sweet,” she chirps, and she kisses him on the lips.

Carver blissfully strokes her neck as he returns her kiss. Everyone thinks that Merrill is sweet, and honestly, they’re not wrong. But she’s so much more than just a sweet Dalish elf who makes friends with kittens and drops marbles into Isabela’s boots. She’s funny and playful and sexy, determined and dangerous and kind, and she makes Carver feel seen in a way that he’s never felt seen before.

Merrill is so much more than sweet, and Carver adores every side of her.

[ocean-in-my-rebel-soul]

“I thought you didn’t want me.” for Meribela?

Thanks for the prompt!...that I'm filling six months later... Welp, better late than never! I don't write these two much, so here's hoping it works!

@dadrunkwriting

Merrill x Isabela

Rated: G

Tags: angst, immediately after the Arishok duel, iffy coping mechanisms

===

Smoke still lingers, heavy and soggy like a wet blanket dragged over Kirkwall's buildings and stairs as Merrill slogs her way back to the alienage. Blood still pools in the streets from the Arishok's assault on the city. Creators, everything in her aches, something bone-deep and exhausted; too many people needed help, and she needed something to pull her mind from the battle at the Viscount's Keep, so she exhausted her healer's kit and her remaining strength stitching up every wound she found.

Bela had come this close to dying; Merrill knows she'll be out of town on the first ship she can find. Hawke had almost died trying to save her, and it's still touch-and-go whether or not they'll survive their wounds. Merrill's mishmash little family is trying to shrink again. Maybe it's the way of her life, that she is to lose everyone she loves. The thought settles like rancid halla milk in her belly and raises her hackles with what promises to be another dry-heave.

She stumbles on the final stair into the alienage. Lancing pain shoots up her legs when Merrill falls to her knees. "Fenedhis—I'll fall and break my neck at this rate." She rubs her knuckles into her eyes for a moment before heaving herself to her feet.

"Careful there, kitten, careful." Warm hands land at Merrill's shoulders when she sways unevenly. "Looks like a stiff breeze could knock you over."

Merrill glares at the ground. "Thanks," she says, clipped, and shakes herself from Bela's grip. Merrill crosses her arms over her balled fists and stalks off toward her little cottage.

"Kitten, wait."

Merrill speeds up into a half-jog across the broken cobblestones. Bela swears and her jewelry chimes together discordantly as she follows. The cottage is a scant hundred feet away, and Merrill breaks into a run. Her heart bolts rabbit-fast in her ears.

"I just want to talk!"

Merrill flings herself at the door. There hadn't been enough time to lock it earlier in the afternoon when the Qunari had attacked, and in Mythal's mercy, it is in remarkable shape. The door groans as Merrill barrels inside, torn askew on its hinges in the assault, and it sticks in the frame when she slams it shut behind her.

Bela pounds on the other side a second after Merrill throws the latch and locks the door. "Merrill, come on—let me in!"

"I don't want to talk to you!" she yells back. Tears sting her eyes, and Merrill roughly wipes them away on her knuckles. Her nails bite half-moons into the heels of her palms. "Go away!"

A thud hits the door, followed by a long slide. Bela sighs. "I know I messed up, Merrill," she says. "And I—I've thought about it. A lot. You and Hawke must have... must have rubbed off on me or something. So I came back."

Another thump on the door, lower now—Bela slumps against the door and bangs her head lightly on the wood. She's staying, for now.

It hits Merrill dully, from a distance. Her own legs shake and she catches herself on the door. Sliding to the dusty floor, she lands hard, legs splaying before her.

"You made me feel like you didn't want me."

The tears come down in earnest. Merrill tips her head back and lets them drip down her cheeks. "You—you left that night. You've talked about returning to the sea and taking me with you, and you left me here." Her voice warbles and she wipes angrily at her face again. "I said I loved you, Bela, and I woke up alone."

Long fingers inch into the gap under the too-short door. They quest and find Merrill's hip, pet awkwardly at the hem of her shirt. "I know. I spent a long time ignoring it. And then a long time thinking about it."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"No, I—" Bela knocks her head against the door again and curses a low streak. She sniffs roughly. "Merrill—oh Maker's taint, I'm not crying, for fuck's sake," she mutters to herself, so quiet that Merrill only just catches it. "Get it together."

Bela sighs. "I couldn't stop thinking about it, you know, once I started. Feelings are dumb, kitten, and here I am, having them. You know, this morning I wasn't sure what would be worse: having to face the Qunari and return the stupid tome, damn the consequences, or having to do all that and then face you," she says with an incredulous snort.

"People died because of them," Merrill mutters. Because of you, she doesn't say, because Bela knows that already and it's not helpful to bring it up right now. Bela can talk about that with someone else. Merrill is too tired to do it. She wipes her eyes and draws her knees to her chest, bends down enough to rest her head on them. "What do you really want, Bela?"

Silence meets her question. Merrill gnashes her teeth. "At least do me the kindness of answering me," she calls through the door.

"Believe me, kitten, I'm trying," Bela grunts. The door thumps again. "What—" She cuts off on a cough, clears her throat, and tries again. "Do I still... Is this still safe harbor?"

"Safe harbor," Merrill murmured. Her hand found Bela's and she laced their fingers together. Bela blinked, almost like she was surprised, but surely she knew, right? Merrill had said it in all the ways she knew how—murmured against her skin in the night, woven in the living shield Merrill casts in battle to protect her back, hammered into the fine edge of the dagger she'd saved for over most of a year to have commissioned for Bela's last birthday. Tonight she whispered it into Bela's heart, skin sweat-slick and chest heaving, feverish. "Ar lath ma, Bela, ma vhenan. You always have a home with me."

Bela smiled. "C'mere, kitten," she said, and she pulled Merrill into a bruising kiss, her trembling hand wandering down Merrill's ribs and over her belly with a singular purpose.

And then Merrill woke up alone.

"I want to come home, Merrill. If you'll let me." A beat. "If you'll have me."

"Bela—"

"I know I'm bad at this, kitten. I know. And I want to try anyway. For you. For our misfit family."

Merrill knocks her forehead on her knees and squeezes her eyes shut. "And I'm just—I—Creators, Bela! What am I supposed to do?"

"Let me in so I can apologize properly, I hope. It's dark and fucking cold." She falls silent. "I really am sorry, Merrill, and I want to make it better."

Something twists in Merrill's gut, wounded and hurting and full of aching rage. She drags in a shaking breath. "You'll have to talk to the others," Merrill says. "You'll have to, you'll have to apologize, and explain, and all that. And you'll have to ask them for forgiveness, too, especially Hawke, and maybe they'll all be nice and give it to you. Then maybe..." Merrill sniffs and wipes her face on her trousers. "Then maybe you can ask me for forgiveness, too. Later."

"...that's fair," Bela sighs. She thumps her head on the door again. "Really screwed everyone over, didn't I?"

Merrill unfolds herself and stands up with a groan, wobbles against the door. She scrapes her nails down the wood. "You'll need to talk about that with all of them. I'm—I'm going to bed."

She gets a step away before she turns back, some needy thing scraping at the inside of her ribcage, and yanks open the door. Bela scrambles to her feet; she barely has time to protest before Merrill's got her hand wrapped around Bela's wrist and pulls her, hard, into the cottage. Merrill kicks the door shut behind them and leans back against it, tugging Bela to follow until her arms bracket Merrill in.

There's no doubt as to what this is. Surely Bela knows. Surely Bela understands. Merrill can't say it any plainer, not again.

"I thought you said you're going to bed."

"I am. We are. If you want."

Bela searches her face. "It's not this easy," she whispers, her brows pinching lightly in confusion.

"No," Merrill says. She reaches up to cup Bela's cheek, rubs her thumb along the edge of her bottom lip. "But it has been a long, terrifying day, and I'm tired, and I—" her voice warbles again "—I've missed you so very much."

Relieved warmth pools in Bela's gaze when it flicks to Merrill's lips. "I've missed you, too, kitten." She dips her head and gently, more than Merrill expects, presses their mouths together.

She sighs into it and lets her hands fall to the neckline of Bela's tunic, curling into the fabric and anchoring her pirate queen to her. "If you stay, we're going to have to talk about all of this in the morning," Merrill murmurs.

Another wave of tears threatens to fall. If.

She shakes her head against the thought and winds her arms around Bela's neck. Her heart hammers in her chest, breaking it open; Merrill has to hold it together, smother everything down against the lean lines of Bela's body to keep her heart from pelting into Bela's hands again.

"I know."

It's not fair that Bela could just leave like that, before. That Merrill wants her anyway, now. Bela trails kisses along the edge of her jaw, nudges her into tipping back enough that she can trail her lips down the sensitive skin just below her ear. Her laughter ghosts over Merrill's skin when she can't help the shudder that trembles through her.

It's not fair. Bela was gone for months, and Merrill loves her just as much now as then, even though it burns.

She closes her eyes at the frisson of selfish want that bolts through her. I know, Bela says, and Merrill desperately wants to believe.

But Bela always told her she's too trusting, too open-hearted, and where has that gotten Merrill so far? Empty-handed, empty-hearted, and lonely.

Merrill drags in a shuddering breath. The morning will come soon enough, and she can't waste any more time worrying about the inevitability of Bela's coming departure.

"Take me to bed," she whispers, and she lets herself be hauled off, curled tight into Bela's embrace, unable to let her go for even a moment.

She’s survived the dawn of every morning before. She will survive it again.

[quillinthedas]

14 Days of DA Lovers: Day 4: A Favor

I’ve been sick, so I’m late. :p. @14daysdalovers

Pairing: Female Hawke (Rian)/Varric            Rating: R

aromantic characters

Rian Hawke, Rift Mage

----

It started as a favor.

Well.

Of sorts.

If “Hawke throwing herself into his bed without asking and staying there” was the same as requesting a favor, than that’s what it was.

Hawke rarely drank to excess – dangerous with her power set – but she did the night after the absolute shitshow of betrayal in the Fade (he wasn’t there, so glad he wasn’t there, couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t have broken her heart like Merrill and Isabela did).  He’d found her downstairs, weaving and laughing at nothing, Isabela scarce for once.  But there were tears in her eyes when he got her to his room, her nose red from crying.

He’d suspected (known, he and Aveline both) that behind her sarcasm and bravado was a heart delicate as crackled glass.

When she’d crawled into his bed, sprawling to take up more than her share, he couldn’t find it in himself to pack her up and take her home to Bodahn and Leandra.  Leandra, especially, would surely have something to say about her eldest not being perfectly untouchable for the day.

Hawke never told Leandra anything about all the shit they dealt with on the daily.

So instead he’d sighed, shoved her over enough to fit.  She’d tossed her arm over his back.  Humans always felt cool to him, but it was a hot night, so he didn’t raise a fuss.

The next day, he nursed her through the hangover and fetched Anders so she’d stop vomiting everywhere.  

She’d said thank you before she left.

No one ever said thank you for all of Varric’s protective meddling.

---

Then, somehow, it became a habit.

Not the drinking herself stupid.  That was still a rare occurrence.  But inviting herself, after the others left, to sleep in his bed did.  The woman had an entire mansion to sleep in, and still she slinked under his covers and curled up like a vagabond.  

“You have a bed of your own, Lady,” he pointed out one night, a bit stung at having lost Wicked Grace to Merrill of all people.  The nickname had been a dig once, before she made it reality.

Hawke snorted as she fluffed the spare pillow she’d moved in sometime in the intervening weeks.  “I have five, and only four in-use at present.”   The words and tone were flippant.  The fact that the empty room had been Carver’s was not.  Carver slept at the Templar hall now, resentful still of having been left behind on their trip into the Deep Roads.

Varric sighed. “Fine,” was all he said, because they both knew he wasn’t going to run her off.  He changed into sleepwear (she just stripped to her skivvies, the shameless creature), and slid under the covers.

She scooted closer and pressed a playful kiss to his hair. “Fenris was helping her cheat,” she chirped, and Varric would have fallen out of the bed in outrage had she not been there to catch him.

------

Sometime, in the year after Leandra’s death (the only time he went to her, wrapped around her in her bed, listened to her shake with sobs, worked weeks to get her to rejoin the world from the dark place she’d fallen into), it became a . . . dalliance.

But more than that.

She was in his bed, clothes tossed to the side, eyes alight with lust and laughter.  

She was sensitive, like no one he’d ever known, and he was jealous for a moment of her favorites at the Rose, but-

She called his name, dug her nails in just enough, arched and demanded and cursed like Isabela at sea.  And she gave – her hands, her tongue, her lips, delighting in finding what made his eyes roll back.

“Andraste’s ass,” she sighed after the first time, faintly dazed and utterly pleased with herself, “your cock was made for me!”

He’d never laughed quite so much in bed.

It wasn’t love like the poets wrote of. No declarations, no flowers, no being so wrapped up in each other that the world faded away.  But they were – family. Tied together by choice.  The closest, best, most aggravating friend he had ever and would ever have.  Varric had never loved someone the way he loved Hawke.  And he was surprised to find that what was “missing” – what he had always not quite found with Bianca – was still “missing” now.  But he didn’t need it.  Didn’t want it.  What they had was exactly right, for the two of them.

And the sex was fucking fantastic.

It began as a favor.  It ended as this: Varric and Hawke and their strange family, all tangled up, and nothing missing after all.

[mattressdemon]

bitching about narrative design in bioware games part 2

to summarize part 1 quickly, i bitched a bit about how bioware wrote some characters and designed some parts of the narrative of baldurs gate 1 and 2. they killed the only black woman in the og bg games for a (supposedly) white man’s pain (minsc) and then offered a replacement in the form of a white woman (aerie).

while complaining about bg1 and 2 could stand all on its own, the reason i wanted to talk about those things in particular is to highlight the way bioware writes and designs characters and stories in their later titles, like mass effect, but especially dragon age. i do particularly pick on the writing of david gaider and lukas kristjanson and a little bit on patrick weekes, but this is not meant to be a personal jab at any of them or say anything about their character or beliefs.

overall i think a lot of the way bioware frames certain characters and manipulates the dialogue of certain characters is really more questionable than allowing for actual critical thought. the best examples of my issues with this are cullen, aveline, fenris, dorian and sera. also a special shout out for jacob from mass effect. you might notice that ive now named four characters that lukas kristjanson wrote for; minsc, aveline, sera, and jacob. that doesnt mean i dislike how he writes all of his characters: i actually really enjoy carver and joker, for example.

my issues with the way he wrote these characters directly relates to over-utilization of stereotypes, writing dialogue that sometimes sounds bizarrely out of character, and combine both of those with poor levels of representation in all of the bioware titles.

aveline, while a very enjoyable character (imho) says things that i think directly contrast how she actually thinks and feels in game. she makes many degrading and insulting comments directly at isabela (who was confirmed as a black woman by gaider) about her sexuality and i feel like its honestly really uncharacteristic of her, given how often she finds herself agreeing with a pro-mage hawke throughout the story and how strongly she feels about the real protection and care of people. this is an issue for multiple reasons:

1. isabela is only one of two black female companions in the dragon age franchise, and she does not even have black facial features (she looks pretty european to me, leaving vivienne as the only black woman in the series with black facial features). contrast that to 12 white female companions throughout dragon age including DLCS, and three white female temporary companions (not including merrill, as i already counted her).

2. isabela is expressive and open with her sexuality in a way only one other female character is, and morrigan isn’t even near to the degree that isabela is. also, isabela is bisexual, and the narrative plays hard against characters that are bisexual/pansexual and simultaneously considered slutty (they have one each game! zevran, isabela, iron bull).

3. isabela is a swashbuckler/rogue with a spotty history irt loyalty, again reinforcing stereotypes of characters that are bisexual or bipoc being untrustworthy or of dubious morality.

and none of this would have mattered if there were more black and bisexual/pansexual characters in the series. weekes’ comment about not wanting to make solas black and bisexual because he didnt want to fall into a stereotype? null and void if there were more black and/or bisexual characters in the franchise. representation matters.

i love fenris too! and you know what i hate? people writing GOTCHA dialogue that doesnt even fit a character just to push a devils advocate agenda.

the conversation in question is between fenris and anders in act 2.

fenris: there, your magic would be a mark of honor. apprenticed to the right magister, you would do well.

anders: so they all do those things?

fenris: just the ones who don’t complain about how powerless and persecuted they are.

“just the ones who dont complain about how powerless and persecuted they are” shut the fuck up. why would this come out of fenris’ mouth at all, ever? bruh gaider wrote his storyline, he knows this doesnt make sense. he has to. doesnt he???

and i feel like da2, but especially inquisition, does this a lot. they shove a lot of dialogue into the game that kinda gives you a GOTCHA sorta vibe, like they’re just tryin to snag the inquisitor on bs.

this happens with dorian in inquisition too. if you play a dalish elf inquisitor, theres an entire conversation with him about slavery in tevinter. while the game spends the entire narrative effectively shitting on a dalish inquisitor for being proud of their dalish culture and heritage, dorian is often praised by the narrative for being nationalistic and proud of tevinter’s culture and history. in the conversation, it feels more like dorian is talking at the inquisitor rather than having a thoughtful and engaging discussion about slavery and why his perspective on it might be different. i dont have screencaps off hand atm, but it’s right there in the game, if you have a copy, go play it.

in contrast, in dragon age origins, you can have a conversation with leliana with a dalish warden wherein she says some hurtful things about dalish elves, things that are typically associated with real life stereotypes about indigenous people, like them being “savage” “brutish” or “lazy”. and by the end of the conversation, no matter what you say or do, she apologizes. she says she was wrong to say those things, and she’s sorry, and she won’t do it again. that’s an effective dialogue about serious issues in a video game!!!! not whatever bullshit that dorian conversation was.

and last but not least: sera and jacob. sera is a great character, and yet, she is the only companion who you can actively dismiss / rudely ask her to leave the inquisition throughout the entire game and in every single conversation. the narrative frames this 20 year old (she is YOUNG!!!! who ISNT annoying sometimes when they’re young???) lesbian as an irritant, and most people walk away from inquisition disliking sera. consistently ppl shit on sera throughout the game, and the narrative itself likes to make her an enemy to the inquisitor, make it feel/seem wrong that she constantly questions authority, when so many other characters are shown in a positive light for doing and saying the exact same shit she does. this is part of a larger issue bioware has in general with writing elven women in dragon age (see also the framing of merrill in da2 and velanna in the expansion for origins, awakening).

do i even have to start on jacob? black man with a heart of gold and a deadbeat, creepy, abusive father? then he “cheats” on shepard in mass effect 3 and the narrative gives you the option to punch him? he didn’t even know if shepard was going to be released from custody!!! he knew the reapers were coming and he didn’t know if he would ever see her again!!!! of course some people will feel his actions were a betrayal, but its all ignorant of the circumstances he was in. its not no two years thought dead thing that everyone is okay with excusing (virmire romance), but it’s certainly fucking close.

tl;dr: i hate how bioware frames characters and designs narratives sometimes. if someone ever reads this that works at bioware: please hire more bipoc and queer designers.

[lesetoilesfous]

"Love potion/spell" for evil!hawke x anders from bad things bingo! If you don't mind

OOOh this was delicious, thank you so much for the request!!!!

(If you’d like me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

@badthingshappenbingo

Fandom: Dragon Age 2

Pairing: Fenders, dark Handers

Characters: Anders, Fenris, Garrett Hawke, Merrill, Varric Tethras

Tags: non consensual love spell, implied abusive situations, evil Hawke, pre Fenders

Rating: Mature

Fenris is fairly certain he’s losing his mind.

It’s not that he particularly wants to know anything about the mage’s love life, or, increasingly, of Hawke’s. Every day he finds himself regretting further not taking Isabela up on her offer on a position on her crew, shortly before she’d escaped the Qunari attack and Garrett Hawke’s wrath. But, unfortunately for Fenris, a keen and observant nature was absolutely essential in a bodyguard, and Fenris was the perfect bodyguard. So he was acutely aware of the lantern Garrett had been keeping lit for their loudest apostate companion for almost ten years, and the cruelty with which the man had kept himself entertained with Merrill in the interim. Fenris also knew, for a fact, that Anders had rejected Garrett’s attentions with increasing volume and acidity no less than 37 times.

Which made this….difficult to explain.

Anders is sitting in Hawke’s lap. He’s not wearing his coat: Fenris realises he has almost never seen the mage without it, unless he’s sleeping or badly wounded, and sometimes not even then. Without the padding of the thing, Anders’ body is too thin in a painfully familiar way that Fenris refuses to examine. His loose, stained shirt hangs off broad shoulders built for both more fat and more muscle than the mage’s body had been able to maintain in the face of starvation. His pants are belted loosely around his waist with an old twist of cloth, and he’s not wearing socks. He also has both his scarred, freckled arms hooked loosely over Garrett’s shoulders, and keeps dipping closer to him to press kisses to his cheeks, neck and lips.

In the corner of the tavern, an annoyed looking Varric is plying Merrill with ever harder liquor. The elf herself looks like she is on the edge of either tears or murder, and whilst Fenris thinks he might prefer the latter he’s more than a little concerned that she might start a fight she cannot finish. And he does not know which side he will take, if it comes to that.

Garrett has both thick, hairy arms around Anders’ back, his tanned skin rippling with muscle as he leans in to bite down hard on Anders’ neck. Anders sighs a happy, loud moan, tipping his chin back as Garrett presses a line of kisses along his bruising neck, and Fenris finishes the wine in his bottle.

It’s possible that Anders is just drunk. It’s possible that his spirit - demon - has given up its fixation on abstinence, and this combined with what Fenris has also perceived as a drought of amorous attentions to rival his own - Anders has decided to at last give in to the one man whirlwind of charisma that constitutes Garrett Hawke. It’s entirely possible that this is the case.

But when Fenris gets up to stand, and the wine in his body sends him staggering to catch himself on the closest wall, Anders looks up at him with an expression of clarity that is violently jarring only because it’s the first time Fenris has seen it this evening. “Fenris? Are you alright?”

Fenris opens his mouth to reply. But it’s at that moment that Garrett grabs a fistful of Anders’ hair and pulls it, hard, in a way that brings visible tears to Anders’ brown eyes even in the candlelight. This is enough to have Fenris starting forward, his discomfort having long passed second hand embarrassment and begun to evolve into genuine outrage. Which means Fenris is close enough to hear Garrett’s voice when he growls against Anders’ lips, “Pay attention to me, amatus.”

Fenris hardly needs the strangeness of the Tevene on Garrett’s lips in his rough, Fereldan accent. Anders’ expression visibly softens and changes, as if he were about to fall asleep. He blinks slowly at Garrett, pupils dilating so wide his eyes are almost black, and giggles in a way Fenris hasn’t heard him do since Isabela left, ducking his head to nuzzle against Garrett’s neck.

“I’m always paying attention to you, love.”

Fenris feels the drunkenness falling from his limbs like rain, finding lucidity with the familiarity of old habit. It’s not easy to resist the urge to look back as he walks away from the couple at their table to the bar where Varric and Merrill are. But he manages it, and when he reaches the old, scarred, graffitied wood of The Hanged Man’s bar, he supposes something of what he’s feeling must be showing on his face, because Varric immediately stops talking.

“What is it, broody?”

“Blood magic.” Fenris realises, quite abruptly, that he is very, very angry. The realisation and the alcohol make him dizzy, and he takes a moment to collect himself, waiting for the white hot rage rising at the back of his mind to settle into something a little less blinding. Around them, the patrons of The Hanged Man cheer and sing and laugh. But Hawke and Anders’ voices keep cutting through the noise, like sirens in a gale, and Fenris cannot seem to tune them out.

“What would you let me do to you?” Garrett’s voice, smug, boasting.

“Anything,” Anders, sighing, careless in a way he’s never been in this city, until now.

Merrill leans forward, lips pinched tight at the corners as she moves her gaze away from the men in the corner. “What do you mean, blood magic?”

Fenris glances down at his hand, and is half surprised to see the lyrium sewn into his skin glowing, softly, like moonlight in the half-dark of the tavern. He looks back up at Merrill, then Varric. “It’s an old Tevene spell. Illegal, mostly. Certainly outside of Tevinter. A love spell.” Fenris spits the last three words, mouth twisting. “Though love isn't the word I'd use for it.”

For the first time in almost ten years of knowing him, Varric looks visibly angry. Fenris wonders if this is what he’d looked like, when he found out that Bartrand had betrayed him. Probably not. Garrett was there. He would have had to keep up appearances.

Next to Merrill’s hand on the bar, roots and vines abruptly shoot up from the long dead wood. Corff makes a soft sound of surprise, staring at Merrill as if she’d grown a second head. She doesn’t spare him a glance, getting to her feet and swinging her staff over her back.

“Let’s go. I need to collect some ingredients.”

Fenris nods, following her, but Varric stops between the tables, glancing back at Hawke and Anders, now shamelessly making out in the corner of the room. Varric looks at Fenris, and in the lines and new wrinkles of his face, Fenris thinks he sees more grief than anger. “Won’t he wonder where we’ve gone?”

Fenris says nothing. Instead, he watches Varric reach the same conclusion he had, and averts his eyes when Varric’s shoulders fall and he lifts one hand to his forehead. Norah swerves around him, two trays of drinks in either hand. By the time she’s gone past, Varric’s collected himself. Fenris reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it once, firmly.

“Come on. We aren’t wanted here.”

Varric’s mouth tightens, but he follows them outside, into the cold Kirkwall night.