Dragon Age, Skyrim, and Way Too Much Fanfiction

A writing blog for when I actually write things. Mostly fanfiction. Mostly Dragon Age. Mostly rambling. Also too many pics of my beloved Inquisitor and my mighty Dovahkiin, and reblogs of fanart and fics I love. View my much more prolific (and non-censored) AO3 writing collection here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilchtastic

[lavellanlost-blog]

Star Wars Episode VIII: It Slips Through Your Fingers

[A/N: I have no idea at all where this came from. I’ve been a Star Wars fan for twenty-seven years but for some reason I’ve never felt any urge to write fanfic about it. I was just lazing in bed, thinking too many thoughts, and this appeared, springing fully-formed from my mind like Athena being born of Zeus.]

***

It Slips Through Your Fingers

People stared, pausing in their frantic duties to gasp in awe as Luke-- Luke Skywalker, hero, Jedi, savior-- swept into the control room on silent feet, his face like a gathering storm and his eyes filled with certainty which, in the right light, might have looked more like regret.

Leia wasn't surprised at all. She hadn't known he would come-- and yet she had. Of course she had. It felt like she'd always known this moment would arrive, as if she'd been born with the knowledge but had only just remembered it now.

Aides and technicians and scurrying people-- their arms overloaded with the bits and bobs and broken pieces that they thought they could save-- parted before him as he strode directly to the center of the room and stood before his sister with solemn eyes. Then they snapped back to attention, ordering the last stalwart hold-outs to the evacuation point and punching in the last data-wipe codes on flickering computer consoles and averting their eyes from the General and the Jedi as if they somehow knew that this moment was for Leia and Luke alone.

They sat together in the almost-quiet, heads bent close without touching, neither of them flinching as the base around them rocked and trembled and groaned beneath the First Order's assault. They'd been here before, after all; history seemed to perversely enjoy repeating itself.

Leia told herself it wasn't futility, having to do it all again. It was another chance, a chance to get it all right this time. That was why she stayed. That was why she put aside grief and regret and too many years of desperate pain. She'd looked around at the faces of her people-- young faces, eager faces, faces full of hope that they were all willing to work for-- and she'd thought: Even if I never see it, they deserve a future so much better than my past.

Luke looked as worn as she felt; the lines etched on his face and the sorrow in his eyes whispered stories that were as full of lament as her own. There was too much distance between them-- and she knew that not all of it was physical. Parsecs separated them from each other (and she'd known from the moment that he'd stepped into the control room that she was seeing her brother like a ghost, for all that he looked perfectly solid and real), but the true chasm was time. Never enough time. We should have met sooner. We should have known sooner. Life should have drawn us together, not torn us apart. It hurt, but by now General Organa was used to hurting, and she didn't have time to wallow in it.

Neither did Luke. They both knew that time was slipping through their fingers too quickly, and tightening their fists wouldn't help them hold on.

So Leia put aside what she wanted and simply focused on what she had. Her brother was here. Too many other people weren't, but recriminations and accusations and bitter feelings wouldn't change any of that.

She gave him a small, weary smile that spoke volumes about all the things she didn't need to speak, because he already knew them all. "I know what you're going to say," she told him instead. "I changed my hair."

It earned her something that was almost a smile. They sat like that for a while as the base shuddered and dust fell around them, making the room even more dim than it already had been. Her people melted away like water, leaving them in the darkening control room as they fled to the transports, dragging the wounded and the panic-stricken behind them to what she fervently hoped was safety.

"Do you remember the day you saved me?" she asked, not so much breaking the ringing silence as underlining it. "You and Chewie and--" Her voice shook a little, but she went on-- "and Han, walking right into the wampa's den to rescue a princess you didn't even know and had probably never heard of."

Luke's eyes were sad. She remembered when they hadn't been. "Of course," he said. "Always."

"Do you ever wonder why? Why you did it? Why you cared?"

She saw him breathe in, then out, the motion slow and thoughtful and so very real. "No."

She held up her smile. "Why not?"

"Even then, I knew it was right. I knew..." He shrugged a little. "I didn't know it with the front of my brain, but it was there. It was always there. I wasn't saving you. I was joining you."

Her eyes prickled, but there was no time for tears, either. Her smile endured. She endured.

Leia arched one brow. "Remember that time I kissed you?"

Luke gave her a look of such utter seriousness that it almost made her laugh before he even replied. "No," he told her, flatly deadpan. "I absolutely don't." His eyes glittered, either with humor or tears he also couldn't afford to shed right now. Maybe both.

"Me neither," she said, smile quirking upward.

"Good. I'm glad we established that."

She did laugh then, a tiny sound that nevertheless stood against the darkness and rebelled. "I know why you're here," she said after another long moment of silence punctuated only by the noise of sparking wires and groaning metal and little bits of rock shaking down from the ceiling to clatter haphazardly on the floor.

He gave her a small nod.

She didn't say Why did you leave? She didn't ask Why didn't you come back? He seemed to hear her anyway.

"I'm here now," he said. The pain in his voice told her that he knew it wasn't enough.

It is, Leia thought. Luke, it is.

They sat for a little while longer, heads bowed together, not quite touching. At last, Luke stood. He gave her another small nod. Again, she was certain he'd heard or at least felt what she couldn't even begin to say.

The ghost of her brother opened his mouth to speak, but Leia just shook her head.

"I know," she told him softly. Sadly. The moment stretched between them like it could bridge the distance and the grief and all the years they'd lost. When it finally broke, she knew it was right, or as right as anything they had could ever be.

He turned away, his earth-colored robes swirling as he strode straight-backed towards the door. He didn't disturb so much as a speck of dust on the littered floor as he passed, but Leia was certain that nobody noticed it but her.

May the Force be with you, she thought.

And Luke thought back to her, It is.

***

[lavellanlost-blog]

The first-ever fanart I commissioned (from anyone, ever) by the amazingly cool and talented @lilyvonk (who now has a job so awesome it blows most other occupations away-- meaning yeah, she’s not really available for commissions anymore). My DA:I Inquisitor as always, Avrinne Lavellan. She looks so fierce, like she’s about to face Corypheus in the final showdown. (Also those double-ended blades are my favorite dual-wielding rogue weapons in the game. I almost always make them out of viridium because Avrinne loves that green-gold sheen-- it reminds her of the forests and plains around the Free Marches where she hunted and scouted with her Clan. Headcanon, woo.)

[staff]

A better, more positive Tumblr

Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.

Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).  

Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.

So what is changing?

Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.

Why are we doing this?

It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.

So what’s next?

Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.

Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.

Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.

Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.

Jeff D’Onofrio CEO

[toomanymods]

“In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.”  -Jeff D’Onofrio, CEO

(Translation: “By ‘more people expressing themselves’ we mean ‘less’. ‘Less people expressing themselves’. Because that’s what outlawing an entire spectrum of art/writing/entertainment/discussion/enjoyment actually means.”)

Idiocy. Prudishness. False, hysterical moralizing. Actual fucking censorship (pun only sort of intended).

There is nothing– NOTHING– wrong or bad or sick about pictures, art, or written erotica involving consenting adults engaging in nudity or sensual/sexual acts. If people don’t want to see such things, well, that’s exactly what the “SafeMode” filter is for. (And I feel like this has to be said over and over again: It is the job of parents to “police” and monitor what their children see and do online, just as it’s their job to monitor what movies they watch or what magazines they read. People can teach their kids whatever values about sex that they want– even if it’s stupid and backwards and wrong– But if parents refuse to implement this basic duty of parenting, it is THEIR negligence and their fault, not a call for websites to erase all sexual content in order to seem “clean” and “pure” and “family-friendly!” and free of “corruption”.)

You can’t spew insincere nonsense about wanting to have “open expression” and then say in the next breath “except for this part, it’s bad for the poor innocent childrens advertisers who want to give us money but only if there’s no icky grody smut that might scare away the soccer moms” (who are secretly reading “50 Shades of Grey” after they put the kidlings to bed anyway).

You’re going to lose a LOT of users– a lot of good, talented users. Artists, writers, photographers, models, and more. People with a lot of followers who will now have to pack up and search for someplace that hasn’t decided to become a platform for sex-negative alarmist conservative hypocrites who are too stupid to use filters and whose poor virgin eyes must never fall upon the scandalous perversions of the broad spectrum of human sexuality and eroticism.

I mean, yes, purge the illegal and horrifying– if there’s pedophilia or suchlike then yes, obviously it should be stamped out, because it causes or encourages real harm to real people who cannot consent. Consenting adults in erotic (or just plain old “smutty”) art/fiction/photography are harming no one at all, and again: if that sort of thing offends someone’s delicate sensibilities, TELL THEM TO USE THE SAFE MODE. 

I don’t care what you’re getting paid for this purge, this silencing of expression, but trust me, it’s not enough. Welcome to being the next MySpace or LiveJournal. You’re not just shooting yourselves in the foot– you’re giving in to “moral” hysteria and sex-shaming AND shooting yourselves in the foot while assuring yourselves that all the filthy lucre of obnoxious advertising will be worth it.

It won’t be worth it if there’s no one left to see it, you mealy-mouthed cowards and fools.

It’s your platform, CEO– you can make whatever rules and restrictions you want, and “free speech” is a nice concept but I’m well aware that private businesses and companies don’t have to offer a place for the things they don’t want “dirtying up” their sweet innocent haven of unicorns and rainbows and constant advertisements trying to lure people into buying shit they don’t want or need. But this is your house, Tumblr; you can create all the policies you want, no matter how much your user base protests.

You’re still wrong, though. And cowardly. And stupid. Incredibly, ingenuously, hypocritically stupid. 

And soon, I hope you’ll be realizing your mistake as your users dwindle and you’re left in the dusty, empty wasteland of failed social media platforms. Congratulations: you’re about to become a sad joke. (Like you kinda weren’t already?)

And all because a few cocks and cunts and boobs were too terrifying and “shameful”, as if sex and pleasure and even kink is some foul corrupting disease with no human value or merit and which has no place among all the virtuous, high-brow and civilized hate-blogs you happily foster. This isn’t making anything “better”; it’s making it more narrow-minded, inhibited, repressive, and difficult. That isn’t “open expression”. That isn’t “positivity”. It’s just catering to the fearful, the ignorant, and in the end, your pocketbooks. This is what logical humans would call “worse”.

Hopefully, someplace less moronic (and better-designed) will rise to fill the void you’re going to create. We’ll all wave at you from the shore as your wreck of a ship sinks.

[lavellanlost-blog]

Yes. This. ALL OF THIS, DAMMIT. Erotica and sensuality and nudity and sex in art/writing/photography is NOT EVIL OR DISGUSTING OR WRONG as long as it’s between consenting adults. Why the hell is this so hard to understand? What the fuck is Tumblr so afraid of that it has to ban an entire and eternal part of the human experience like it’s something disgusting and shameful?

This is foolishness. This is madness. Shouldn’t we be past this “sex-is-evil-and-porn-will-send-you-to-hell” nonsense by now? Repressing it just helps ignorance and confusion and guilt to fester and grow until people hate themselves for having/liking their own sexual desires-- and then when they actually have the sex it just ups the chances that communication will be virtually nonexistent and no one will properly understand things like honesty and sensuality and asking for/actually knowing what one wants/desires and safety and enthusiastic consent. And that’s how people get hurt. That’s how people fill up with shame they shouldn’t have to carry around just because other people have told them they should.

And that’s really shitty, Tumblr. Really, incredibly shitty.

At least writers like me still have AO3 as a refuge. I don’t know what all the good artists are going to do, where they’ll find a place to go. People will lose a lot of followers, and that really sucks.

I’ll be in my safe haven, writing what I love to write-- erotica and adventure. Sex and love. Sensuality and deep, moody thoughts. Come find me there. https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilchtastic

[lavellanlost-blog]

The Air That We Breathe

Solas almost breaks for her. For the Inquisitor-- the child of the Dalish and all of their empty, muddled, mostly-forgotten knowledge. For the willowy creature of moonlight-on-snow who gleams like the silverite of her knives as she slides into the familiar dance of battle with such lovely, deadly grace. The woman with Mythal’s vengeful branches woven beneath eyes as green as the swirls and eddies of the Fade. She is all that the People could be, should be-- and he aches, because he is forever wanting all the things he must not have. 

In the Fade, he is all desperate hunger as he bends the Inquisitor backward in a too-passionate embrace, taking her too-willing mouth harder than he should, slipping his tongue past her softly parted lips when she gasps. His hands are too honest, dragging low on her hips as he crushes her wisp-light body against his. His fingers dig in; he wants more than anything in the world to give in, to let his hands discover and covetously map the fine, delicate curve of her ass. The temptation is like a knife in his gut: twisting, sharp, demanding that he show her what he knows he cannot reveal. Only the hazy dreamscape of the Fade-- and the fact that the Inquisitor is not a mage, so thankfully not a mage-- can hide his worst, most base reaction. Were she a mage, he thinks, she would feel him pressed against her and know that even in a dream built on a memory, he was desperately, achingly hard for her.

He fights for control and almost wins, pulling back from the kiss he should never have given into in the first place. She must see too much in the way he shakes his head-- denying himself, not her-- but he holds back, holds back, holds back...

He almost wins, but when she starts to turn away-- shy, embarrassed, rejected, the vallaslin on her cheeks filled in with pink color like carnations-- he fails. He falls. He is defeated. He doesn’t break, no, but by the heavens above, he wants to.

He kisses her again because there is no power that can stop him, hating her, loving her, wanting her-- and most of all, hating himself. Solas is a liar, a long-practiced deceiver, a master of dishonesty and close-kept secrets and words forever left unsaid. It doesn’t matter. He kisses her long and deep, and his mouth and his hands and the crush of his embrace-- that is all truth. It terrifies him. Truth is a beautiful relief he cannot afford, not even for her. Not for the Inquisitor, and never for himself.

Solas almost breaks for her. Take this burden from me, he wants to whisper against her kiss-wetted lips. He is drowning in his secrets, drowning in his sins. All he needs from her is one breath, one last desperate gasp of air, before the darkness pulls him under and he is lost for good.

My people need me. If I am to drown, then let it be with the taste of her on my lips.

Solas will not break for her. Not until the end, when all of the lies he’s been killing himself with finally restore the world, the People, the truth. Then and only then will he break. He will shatter. He will lose her, and he will hate her for her shy smile and her kindness and her quiet wisdom, and for this memory of a breathless, stolen kiss that he never deserved but will long for until the end of time.

His hatred for her will be his final lie, his grandest self-deception. It will be the lie that finally destroys him.

Solas wants to break for her. He must not. He must not. This will never happen again, he vows. He will deny the sweet temptation of her soft and eager mouth, her pale throat, her high breasts, her slender hips. He will let the cold, dark water seep into his heart. He will be ice and steel and terrible, unshakable purpose, and he will sweep everything wrong away like a tidal wave without once remembering her too-lovely eyes.

Liar. Liar.

He’s going to go to her again. Not in a dream. Not in a memory. It will be just her body pressed tight against his as he claims her mouth and grasps her hips and lets her feel the hard line of his cock, the proof of his unforgivable lust. He will show her how much he wants her. He will give her this truth in the waking world, in the burning and all-revealing light of day.

He will kiss her again, to see if she will break him. There is no power that can stop him.

[lavellanlost-blog]

DA:I Musing

I’m not sure how right I am about this, but going from the in-game lore if you use the default world-state, it seems like canonically, the Hero of Ferelden is a woman (Mahariel, if I recall correctly? So, the Dalish elf option. Not 100% sure if I heard this part somewhere as a fact, though, or if I’m remembering it purely from fanfiction or something. Still, given how important the Elves turn out to be to the series, it makes sense).

In default, the Champion of Kirkwall turns up as male Hawke, so canon also?

And in the promos I saw for Trespasser, the Inquisitor was a woman as well. Can’t remember if they showed her being human, elven, or dwarven– I don’t think Qunari, though (if they showed her? I could just be remembering it with my brain adding my own Inquisitor since it was the same voice I used). So… canon female Inquisitor, too? Unless they made separate promos for female and male Inquisitors.

Anyway. Two out of three protagonists in the series are amazing world-saving women? That’s pretty cool. (If I’m mistaken, well… headcanon, dammit. Although this also means the Hero of Ferelden is canonically dead, I think. I much prefer the “wandering and searching for a cure to the Blight so she and other Grey Wardens don’t forever have the awesome retirement plan of ‘go mad as the Blight consumes you in a few years and then get handed a weapon before they toss you down into the Deep Roads to kill as many Darkspawn as you can before you die painfully, screaming”. Can’t I… Can’t I just have a 401K? No? I swear this wasn’t in the flier at the job fair.)

[meisiuplays]

A book for Cassandra 

[ladynorbert]

Can we just talk for a minute about how damned extra my boy here is?

This book isn’t published. In his own words, it still needs editing. He cobbled together this single copy as a peace offering for a teammate with whom he fought. But not only did he put an actual cover on it, he gave it a five-star review.

This is the character I choose to love above all others and I feel like if this doesn’t encapsulate why, then you just don’t know me at all. ;)

[lavellanlost-blog]

Omg, I never noticed this! XD

Varric: “A gift for the Seeker? Hmm, it needs a little extra ‘flair’. I guess if you’re going to write a smutty romance novel for someone who only half-hates you, you might as well go that extra mile and give it a cover to be proud of.” Cassandra, much later: “I can see why this has five stars! Oh, so romantic. Wait, is there more smut in this one than usual...? No, I must be imagining it.” Cassandra, later still: “--What! This ends on a cliffhanger! Varric. I swear I will bludgeon him with his own book. ...After he writes the next chapter.” *disgusted noise*

[lavellanlost-blog]

To All My, Like, Ten Followers...

I desperately want to read lots of DA:I hetsmut fics but I loathe the thought of trawling AO3 for new stuff that doesn’t suck. It just seems to take me hours, and I’m wasting enough of my life as it is. >_>; Also last I checked none of my favorite writers had written anything new, and I am a sad muffin. If anyone has recommendations, I’m all ears. I prefer f!Lavellan x Solas/Iron Bull/Cullen/Varric (er, not necessarily all at once, but if you knew of any such combos, I wouldn’t kick them out of bed...), but beggars can’t always be choosers and I’m open to pretty much anything well-written and sexy.

Halp? :<

[lavellanlost-blog]

To Tear Down the World

A rewrite of a short piece I posted here a while ago: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909654

Solavellan, angst, spoilers for Trespasser, regret. Guilt.

Pride.

And what pride has wrought.

[lavellanlost-blog]

...Holy crap. *fans self* Skyrim, with the (incredibly cheesy bodice-ripper romance novel) mod “Skyrim Romance”. It’s silly as all hell, full of tropes and nonsense, but the guy who voices Bishop there sounds like pure sex so it’s mostly worth it. Especially when he says stuff like that. Golly gee whiz.

(And then of course he and my Dohvakin had lots of sex. Yowza.)

[corseque]

The thing with Solas is… he woke up from uthenera to a world that he does not recognize, a horrible world where everything is awful, where his people are suffering badly, where everything he knows is gone. To put the cherry on top, it’s a world that he deliberately brought about by his own hands.

It’s exactly the same situation for Solas as it was for the Inquisitor when they time-traveled into the horrible future where Corypheus ruled. The Inquisitor had few qualms about sacrificing people in that future because it “didn’t really matter or exist” - the only thing that mattered was going back to the past to prevent that horrible future from occurring.

The Dalish derided and hated? The city elves in alienages? This is Solas’ Bad End Future. Solas does not consider the world around him to be truly real or right. He doesn’t understand the Dalish, and can hardly recognize them or City Elves as elves. He does not want to understand or even think about modern elves because it’s Solas’ fault that they were killed, that they were enslaved, that they have to live the terrible lives they do. He spends as much time in the Fade as possible because of escapism, frankly. Because some of his oldest friends still live there, and because he can still walk lost Arlathan’s streets in his dreams… he wants to be in the past again, where he didn’t fuck everything up. 

He’s very much a lost, isolated character looking for guidance, a true hermit of the tarot. Every conversation he has with the other companions is him desperately sound-boarding off them, “What should I do? What would you do? What can I do?“ His conversations with Varric about the Man On The Island haunt me, especially. (“How can you be happy, surrendering? Knowing it will all end with you? How can you not fight?”)

So yeah, he is a bitter sleepwalker trying not to invest in anything around him… because of self-preservation. Because if he invests emotionally in it, it will make everything harder. If he was truly an asshole, and if people truly didn’t matter to him, this wouldn’t be a problem for him. 

The touching part about Lavellan is not that he treats her better than other people, because he doesn’t. It’s that his feelings for her force him to confront the future that he made, and see it as real. (“You’re real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can’t.”) This future is real, and it’s something he made, and its reality matters deeply.

It’s the story of a god who is estranged from his people (literally, statues of Fen'Harel are not allowed inside Dalish camps) and his relationship with Lavellan helps him reconcile the reality of the world and decide what to do about it. It’s a sleeping god finally answering the call of the Dalish, who never expected to be answered. It’s a mortal convincing a god that his people still need protecting.

The story is incredibly touching to me, especially how I experienced it.

[corseque]

I wrote this meta seven months ago and at the time, the fandom raked me over the coals about it and wrote me whole essays about how wrong I was. I just want to reblog it now that it is canon.

[butterflyzo]

This is the first time I felt I have truly understood Solas’ point of view, and it was due to the comparison made between the present day, i.e. the Inquisitor’s world, and the world of In Hushed Whispers. Except that for Solas, he is experiencing In Hushed Whispers with strangers rather than friends and he was solely responsible for it, as you say. Very nicely put, thank you.

[notsosecretsolasobsession]

I’d like to re-emphasize that everything and everyone he knew and loved was destroyed, by his hand, when he was trying to help… it’s unclear exactly what ‘death’ means to these immortals (he’s super salty about Mythal’s death, but she’s still kicking-ish), but I imagine when you’re part of a society where people are expected to live forever (if time even existed) that finding out they’re all dead and gone would be particularly shocking.

[faerunner-deactivated20200224]

This is post is therapeutic because I’ve been trying to argue these same points for a long time - particularly the “dark future” the Herald and Dorian visit In Hushed Whispers. It’s a future that’s apocalyptic to them because their own people have been imprisoned, enslaved, tortured, and harvested by their enemies. The “bad future” is good to the people who personally benefit from it (Corypheus and his people), but sucks for those who’re being tortured and exploited for it (former Inquisition advisers and companions).

And, yes, the game makes it clear that while you and Dorian don’t consider the future “real,” the others do. As Leliana herself tells Dorian, “To you, this is not real. Just some hypothetical future you hope does not come to pass. But I suffered. The whole world suffered.” By going back to the past, you are effectively erasing them; their lives, their memories, their existence.

But what I find really disingenuous (and a cop-out) on the part of the BioWare writers is, conveniently, everyone is fine with you going back and changing the past. The future to which you have no personal part of is so terrible that everyone in it knows they’ll be wiped out of existence, and are fine with it. 

But imagine if the Inquisitor and Dorian jumped forward to the same dark future, only a hundred years into the future rather than one year. Everyone who knew the old world is dead and gone, and only people who’ve been born into the new world are left. They might have heard stories of the old world from their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, but they just seem like fairy stories that have no basis in their day-to-day lives. They may know this dark future filled with demons and magisters and red lyrium harvesters is terrible, but since they have no basis of comparison it’s all they know, and thus something they feel they can live with.

Then you, some spectre of the past shows up, claims to know how this happened, and explains that you need to find the Elder One’s glowing green necklace so you can go back in time and fix it so this horrible post-apocalyptic world filled with demons and blood mages and red lyrium harvesting and mass torture and possessions and general hell-on-earth  never happened.

Can you imagine how they’re react? Probably not well. “But if you go back that means that I (and my family, friends, memories, world) never existed. I can’t let you do that!” You, the viewer, the Herald, know what the old world was like and can see how horrid and post-apocalyptic this new dying world is compared to the old one… but they don’t know, so they don’t care.

Can you imagine how outraged palyers would be if the writers threw all that bullshit in our faces? The story starts off as an idealistic “close the hole in the sky, stop the bad guys, and save the world” plot, then we suddenly get thrown forward in time to a dark future that’s so obviously horrible and post-apocalyptic, and the answer seems simple: go back in time, fix the past so this horrible present never happens, then save the world as originally planned.” But then you get thwarted by the locals everywhere you turn because they’ve never seen this idyllic past you’re from, and they’re not keen to throw away the world they know, nor their very existence, on a past they’ve never seen and have no connection to. They expect you to “just get over the past already; your world is gone; stop being such a sore loser of history who’s unwilling to accept that your world is gone, and just appreciate the good in the present already.” (Even if it’s just a warm fire and a hot meal in a little rat hole in the dirt while demons and slavers look for new victims outside, which seems paltry to you but heavenly to them.)

So, what do you do in that situation? A) Just abandon your quest and get used to a short, difficult, painful life in the dirt until taint exposure drives you into an early grave (compared to the lifespan you’re used to) if demons or slavers don’t kill you first? Or do you B) Keep trying to fix the past (Veil, Chantry, Inquisition, your companions, etc.) with a heavy heart knowing that these people are people, but you feel this future is just too horrible to be allowed to stand anyway?

I suspect, personally, that most players would opt for B.

So, why do we expect Solas to go with option A? 

I’m not saying I’m okay with Solas’ plan and actions, but I can understand his feelings. Because from where he’s standing, he is the Herald and Dorian who just woke up in the world of In Hushed Whispers, and is desperate to find a way back to the past to prevent this post-apocalyptic nightmare from ever happening. And we’re all products of this post-apocalyptic future saying, “It’s not that bad. Just get over the past and learn to like this new world.”

[falon-fen]

This. So much. There’s are my exact same thoughts except actually worded properly. @ladyrex92 @missjinxei

[lavellanlost-blog]

It’d be so easy to go with the kneejerk reaction of “Fuck you Solas”, especially if you’re not playing to romance him (and I didn’t, first time around, but even then I managed and actively tried to win his friendship and “esteem”(?) and it still felt gut-wrenching when it all came together at the end...). But he’s not just an “omg teh evil” big bad-guy supervillain mwa-ha-ha-destroy-the-world-for-kicks end-boss. He’s... empathetic. Sympathetic. Frighteningly realistic, in a way. Sad, determined, alone. He has reasons-- good ones, or at least arguable ones-- for what he does and intends to do. And if Bioware does it right, he could be something terrifying and beautiful and horrible and heart-breaking and destroying and redeeming... Or, they could make another Mass Effect: Andromeda.

DEAR BIOWARE: PLZ DON’T SLACK ON THIS. THE SETUP IS TOO BEAUTIFUL TO RUIN.

[nipuni]

I would not have you see what I become

I haven’t made any little comics in a long time! I enjoy making them, but I am not good at writing dialogue so I’m using in game dialogue for this one! These conversations stuck with me 😭

[lavellanlost-blog]

So damn heartbreaking. Ow, my feels. ;_;

[lavellanlost-blog]

Bad idea or BEST idea?

I so so so so badly want to write Varric x f!Lavellan x Iron Bull kinky threesome smut and it’s kind of killing me a little argh. I want it to be the sequel to my fic “Carnal”, which was all UST-filled and weird and sort of sweet? Maybe?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/4773047

But this story trying to gnaw its way out of my brain isn’t sweet and it definitely isn’t unresolved tension. Just sexual. And dirty. And the little elfy Inquisitor getting bent over a table by Bull while Varric-- Er. Did I mention dirty?

...I’mma just go sit in the corner and stop spending hours on DA-smut blogs think of nice things like, um, cake.

[lavellanlost-blog]

Closeups of the art @nipuni did for my Inquisitor, Avrinne Lavellan. I was so surprised and overjoyed when she included TWO versions-- in the first she’s wearing the dragon’s tooth necklace from the Iron Bull romance (my favorite OTP), and in the second she’s wearing Solas’s wolf-jawbone necklace to represent the Solavellan romance. I love Iron Bull to bits and pieces and usually romance him in every playthrough-- but I find Solas to be so very compelling.

...And then out of nowhere I wrote fic. >_>;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Solas is a good man. A kind man. A man of thoughtfulness and regret and longing and hidden passion. A man of loneliness and caring and icy-dark anger that is deeper than most oceans.

A savior. A destroyer. A lover. A killer.

A god. Or as close to a god as anyone living is ever likely to see.

He wants to tear down the world, tear down the Veil, destroy what is and replace it with what was.

But in his secret heart-of-hearts, he wants the Inquisitor so much more. For her, he could almost lay down his burden and his grief and his anger and his pride.

Almost. Almost.

He hopes she lives with some measure of happiness in what time the world has left. He lies to himself, thinking his words were a mercy, as if a woman so made of fire and steel and moonlight and brilliance could ever be happy, knowing that the man she loved-- loved? Did she love him ever? Could she possibly love him still?-- was out there, slinking like his namesake wolf, tugging on threads to gently pull all the necessary elements together so that he could free his people once more.

But mostly he hopes that she will somehow prove him wrong. That she will convince him that this ugly magic-drained world of lies and fear and hatred is worth saving even now-- worth keeping, flaws and all. He doesn’t believe he is wrong.

But in his quiet moments, in the heavy lull that comes just before sleep, he imagines that he wants to be.

And then he dreams-- of her eyes, so wide, so green, like the energy of the Fade. Of the deep dark green of the vallaslin branching beneath her eyes-- the markings of Mythal. Perhaps that’s a sign of something. They suit her, even if the practice among the Dalish clans of wearing those ancient slave-marks with ignorance and pride appalls him. He dreams of her ivory skin and her pert nose and her lips-- those sweetly pink, petal-soft lips he never allowed himself to claim completely or often enough.

He regrets that. Oh heavens, oh sky, oh tree and branch and leaf-- he will regret not having her until the day he dies. Her name will be the last word that falls from his lips. Her face will be the last thing he sees before darkness rises up to claim him and the world simply falls away.

Solas does what he knows must be done. He does it because he’s the only one who can. He will make things right again, and the People will know hope and joy and most importantly, the truth.

But when he dreams of the Inquisitor, he wakes with tears still in his eyes and the pain of a knife twisting in his chest.

I do what I must do. I do what I must do. It can be no other way than this.

Save me, Inquisitor. Save me from myself.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[nipuni]

April commissions! Thank you all for commissioning me and being so nice!! 💕💕💕

[lavellanlost-blog]

That’s my lovely Inquisitor Avrinne Lavellan, top right corner! I can’t even tell you how overjoyed I was to have the wonderful @nipuni draw a character I’ve tried so hard to bring to life in my writing. Her sweet, shy nature really shows in Nipuni’s interpretation. If only I could commission her again, perhaps to sketch a scene for one of my fics? *sigh of longing* (She’s so super-duper busy though and I was beyond lucky to win a coveted commission slot when she has SO much on her plate already and SO many people hoping for a chance to commission her themselves.)

THANK YOU SO MUCH @nipuni, THIS CAME AT A TIME WHEN I VERY MUCH NEEDED A BIT OF KINDNESS AND BEAUTY IN MY LIFE. <3 If you ever want a fanfic, I’d gladly write you something delightful! (I, uh... I actually write better than it looks like here where I’m happy-flailing. I promise.) XD

NOTE: I am SO FRIGGIN’ LUCKY to have gotten so much incredible character art of Avrinne from so many extremely talented artists.

[kauriart]

Dragon Age Portraits Masterpost

This series started as a way to get me comfortable illustrating different skin tones & to build up palettes for all the characters. But I’m finding myself really digging doing the quick portrait sketches.

[kauriart]

Finally updating this – has been a labor of love, to be sure. :) <3

[lavellanlost-blog]

I want to marry at least 90% of these drawings. Probably not the mabari, though. >_>; Cullen = heart-breakingly gorgeous.

Solas = dat profile tho. Unf. I’ll be in my bunk.

Iron Bull = my Inquisitor x Bull OTP because yes.

Zevran = Zevran. Being Zevran. Please do that more, Zev.

Josephine = gosh I never realized how much I love her nose.

[lavellanlost-blog]

I am dumb and old and what even is this trope/kink?

Okay but would someone please explain “knotting” to me and what its appeal is and why I have been seeing it not just in fanfiction but even in regular published romance/erotica. (I mean, I think I understand the biological concept but I really feel like I missed the boat somewhere and never made it to the kinky knotting party.)

If you’re into it, rad, no judgment here; I just want to know if I’m missing out on the fun by not actively seeking out smut with this tag. XD (That and I just want to be sure I’m totally understanding this right. I hate feeling like an idiot when it comes to smut.)

[kauriart]

Abelas

Abelas comes to Skyhold wrapped in silence, and golden armor, and disdain. His Sentinels file in behind him –– a row of tall, and broad-shouldered shadows, lingering his wake. It can be difficult to tell them apart. They wear the same armor, the same painted faces, the same sense of inconsolable loss.

For a long time it seems as though nothing will penetrate the world they’ve created for themselves. They train together. Eat together. Wander Skyhold in tiny groups, speaking their peculiarly accented Elven. But Abelas’ golden eyes follow you wherever you go, linger when he thinks you’re not looking back, and  drag up, and down the lines of your body when he realizes you are.

When it comes to it, no one is more surprised than he, that there is something from this new world that he wishes to claim.

At first it is simple things. The brush of his fingers against your bare wrists. A kiss, not hurried, but urgent, pressed against the corner of your mouth. His voice in your ear, growling something in ancient Elven, that makes heat drip down your spine.

But when he finally takes you to his bed, it is anything but simple.

You’re not even sure how it happens. One moment you are in the moonlit courtyard, his mouth on yours, the next, the back of your legs hit the edge of his bed, as he presses you down. It happens in the space of a heartbeat. You wonder if it seems even shorter for him, or if time drags through him at a strangely extended pace.

He sheds his armor, and stands above you. Cock stiff. Golden eyes hard, and hungry. There’s movement in the shadows behind him –– Abelas’ sentinels, clad only in the twining branches of Mythal’s vallaslin. Their tattoos run in silvery rivers down the shadows of their ribs. “You cannot have just me.” Abelas says gruffly. “We share.”  It is explanation enough.

The desire that spikes through you in response, is terrifying in its intensity. But your hand is steady as you reach for him.

Abelas takes you first. There isn’t much preamble as he straddles you, and growls in your ear, “Spread your legs.” He says, “And hurry. I am a patient man no longer.” And fills you with one surging thrust of his hips. You cry out. Bite at his shoulder. There’s pain, but it’s brief, and it’s good. And it’s even better when begins to fuck you in earnest, the golden glow of his eyes growing more and more intense with each passing moment. The rhythm he sets is swift, and relentless. It never falters, not even once. Not until he utters a sharp cry, back arching and body clenching in spasms. The warmth of his release fills you, slides down between your thighs as he withdraws. His hands stroke down your spine, keeping you still as another pair of hands reach for your hips.

Abelas watches as his sentinels take their turns. He lingers at your side, stretched out beside you, almost possessively. Tangles his fingers with yours, fills your mouth with kisses. Catches the sounds you make as you come.

They are gentle, his sentinels. You’re not even sure you know all of their names, but they are his, and it shows. The steady thrust of their hips are the same, the worshipful gazes are the same, and the raspy, broken cries are the same, as they spill within you.

You come more than once as they share you. More than twice, you think. But each encounter blurs together a little, and you are so lost in a spiral of sensation that by the time Abelas takes you again, you are nearly beyond speaking. And the roll of his hips becomes the beat of your heart, sustaining you as the rest of the world falls away.

When Abelas comes a second time, he relaxes completely, and stays pressed within you. And his breath is hot and ragged as he whispers to you, breaking the silence of the night. “You’ve done so well, Vhenan.”

Dragon Age NSFW mini-headcanons Masterpost

[lavellanlost-blog]

It was really cold in my work room. Then I read this.

...It’s not cold in here anymore. I think I partially melted the arms of my desk chair.