There will never be another character like Blackwall Dragon Age. He's a Grey Warden. The first time you meet him, he saves you from being kirked. He's an idealist. He's a romantic. He's a war hero and a protector and a knight in shining armor. He's a liar and a bullshitter and a coward. He's a family man. He's traumatized by his family's tragedy and his own failures. He's a sports fan. He hates nobles. He's trying to impress nobles. His best friend is a lesbian half his age. He made a suicide pact with his coworker. He's a fuckboy. He genuinely likes women. He helps his friends get laid. He makes toys for children in his free time. He's a child murderer. He always lies about who he is. He always tells the truth about who he is. He gets psychoanalyzed by Varric without either of them realizing it. He fucks so loud it scares the horses. He idolizes courtly love. He's not a Grey Warden. He's every Grey Warden that ever walked on Thedas.
@sherbertilluminated there's a line somewhere in Ursula Vernon's Digger that goes something like "it is difficult to be metaphysical around the truly geologically minded"
Basics are a given. You know their eye color, hair color, and maybe even their height and clothing preference. You know she isnāt a morning person. You know he has a preference for dogs over cats. But how well do you really know them?
Obviously, every character is not going to need all this information, and some will not be applicable for every character. Use your better judgement. I know you have it.
The original boy š in a game so focused on the experience of male players there was definitely a writer who knew there would be an audience of sensitive teenage girls that needed a gentle, awkward man to romance
I wrote these down to help myself. Maybe they can help someone else, too.
Tenet 1. Leave the apple alone.
Let the apple be an apple. Stop attacking it with adjectives.
Tenet 2. You are not Shakespeare.
The reader doth not needeth each arbitrary hand gesture and head tilt. Itās not a play. Drop the stage direction.
Tenet 3. You've earned the menace.
It might be too subtle for you to notice because youāre standing too close. Step back. Check. Stop before it becomes redundant.
Tenet 4. Mr. Neel would rather kill himself than describe anything as blooming.
Keep characters consistent.
Tenet 5. Sentences, paragraphs, and chapters are allowed to be short.
Stop it.
Tenet 6. The coup must be earned.
Building a foundation to get to the cool thing is half the fun.
Tenet 7. Youāre allowed to not trust the reader sometimes.
YOUāVE SWUNG TOO FAR. COME BACK. The reader cannot derive the plot through osmosis.
Tenet 8. Chapters are thematic.
Not just a mishmash of scenes.
Tenet 9. If youāre grumpy, walk away.
Forcing it will make it dog shit.
Tenet 10. Do it for Silent Alpine Reader #47.
May his bread remain crusty, his coffee strong, and his favorite AO3 stories be marred by neither kudos nor comment.
inspired by a rant i was going on elsewhere bc someone tweeted something very stupid and uninformed about hamlet and it got my back up as someone who took two single-text-focus english literature courses in college and they were on wuthering heights and hamlet, i now put it to all of you on here:
what's "your" shakespeare play?
hamlet
macbeth
the tempest
merchant of venice
midsummer night's dream
twelfth night
richard iii
othello
julius caesar
king lear
another not listed (specify in tags) (i really just put my own top 10 here nbd)
i have no particular feelings about any shakespeare play/results tag
Thanks for the tag @thequeenofthewinter! Let's call it, uh --
More Words Monday
Still spending a lot of time on un-WIP-able DABB, but also plugging away at Something Like Home for the WIP Big Bang so I'll share a bit of that š
First -- Anneliese arriving home after visiting Merrill in the Alienage:
The first thing she saw when she entered the study was Hawke, on the floor, head leaning back against the settee, with his hair in two tiny, improbable pigtails. Anneliese huffed a quiet laugh.
Perhaps even more improbably, Anders was laid out on the settee, snoring lightly, a children's book splayed open on the floor beside him. Andi was tucked up against his chest, under his arm - her mess of blonde hair a mirror of his own.
The sight made something in her chest ache. It felt something very much like hope. Like maybe, for the first time in over five years, she wasn't alone.
Anneliese knelt next to Anders, and he awoke, blinking stupidly at Anneliese, eyes bleary and sleep-heavy. She put her finger to her lips and nodded at the small body nestled in his arms, mouthing the word "sleeping".
"Maker," Anders whispered, "did I fall asleep?"
"Looks that way." She whispered, gently extracting the slumbering child from his arms as he sat up. "I should get this one to bed."
Anders stood and stretched, "- and I should get back to the clinic. Garrett came in looking pretty harried earlier, so I asked Lirene to step in and watch over that kid for a bit. I should probably relieve her."
She nodded as she started to make her way towards the stairs. "Thanks, Anders. It ā just, thanks." She wasn't sure what she wanted to say ā stuck as she was between gratitude and longing and frustration all in one. Because Andi deserves this. And Anders shouldn't need a pat on the back for it. And she had been doing this for years alone and she was so very tired. And this was all she had wanted for so long now. And she didn't trust it would stay.
"Hey Mell -" She turned and he offered her a crooked smile, "Sleep well, Mell."
"You too, Anders," she replied, though she couldn't imagine how he slept at all in that flea-ridden clinic.
As she mounted the stairs towards the guest room, she heard Anders gently rousing Hawke - "time to get up, love. I have to get back to the clinic." A low rumbling groan from Hawke, a giggle, a squeal.
Maybe he wouldn't be heading back to the clinic so quickly.
Second - Anders being Anders (Unwell), Garrett being Garrett (Sap). First Garrett POV so far. Under jump because of length.
Anders didn't come home that night ā not for dinner, and not for bed time. When Garrett went down to the clinic, he found him hunched over his desk, scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment, a pile of processed elf root abandoned on the alchemy bench. So it's one of those nights then.
Anders huffed, crumbling the paper snd throwing it at the wall. "Piss!" He swore, kicking the corner of the desk.
"What'd the desk do?" Hawke asked, the forced cheer doing little to hide the concerned furrow of his brow.
Anders stiffened and whipped around, slouching down when he saw Hawke.
"What are you doing here, Hawke?" He asked, more out of habit than anything else.
Oh ā Hawke today.
"Oh, you know - checking on the man I love," he said, crossing the room and leaning against the desk beside Anders, "who for some reason decided he's rather hang out in the sewer than come home to his family."
Anders didn't respond - just continued writing in one long, indecipherable scrawl.
"Anneliese was pretty upset." Hawke said gently. "Said you told Andi you'd be home."
Anders scoffed, "Well, I'm sorry if I have other obligations. Guess I'm a monster."
Hawke raised hands in a placating gesture - "Hey hey hey ā just the messenger."
More scribbling, and no response.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" Hawke asked.
Anders sighed and put down the pen, turning to rest his head against Garrett's thigh.
"Remember Isala?" Anders asked.
Hawke thought about it for a moment. "The girl from the alienage?" He asked, "Mage?"
"The blighted templars came for her." He said, "She resisted. The neighbour's say she was pretty beaten up. I - I don't even know if she survived. I wont know for a few days, but ā"
"Maker, she's just a kid." Hawke gasped. "She's what, 13?"
"You're never a kid to the blighted templars, Garrett." He said grimly, "If you have magic, you're only a threat.
Thirteen. At thirteen, Bethany had a crush on a boy from the village - The blacksmith's son. Blonde hair and freckles and front teeth the size of all get out. She could hardly talk when he entered the room. At thirteen, Mother had tried to teach her to embroider, and she got so frustrated she set the hoop on fire. At thirteen, she still slept with a stuffed bear. What was his name again? Berry. Berry the Bear.
Hawke slid off the desk, kneeling next to Anders and pulling him unto his arms. He taller man sighed into his shoulder.
"Come home." Hawke whispered in his ear. He wanted to run him a bath. To take him to bed. To take him apart and turn off that brain that he knew was racing. To help him sleep, or something near it.
"I can't." He mumbled. "I - Gare, I have to do something. I can't --"
"Okay." Garret said, "then I'll stay here."
"You don't have to do that. It's awful down here, Gare - You should go home."
But Garrett was already up, pulling two cots together to create a make shift bed. He knew Anders wouldn't sleep in it, but he figured the intention had to count for something.
Arms full of blankets, he pressed a kiss to the top of Anders' head. "Home is where you are, Honey-bear. If that's in the sewers, so be it."
He fell asleep to the sound of Anders pen scratching on paper, and his mind catching on one single thought - for the first time, Anders had called the Estate "Home". And that was something.
Gentle tags for @fiberpunk027 @the-cryptographer @mylosingdogs @armoredinmoonlight @capricornwholovesdanger @rsenak @winebearcat aaand anyone else im bad at tags ā„ļø
