Oh, yes. I have plans for an Adaar next and at some point I’ll probably play a Lavellan for the Solas romance. I’ve been liking him much more than I expected this playthrough, so I’ll have to come up with someone to suit for him that still lets me find her voice.
It’s definitely going to be a while, though. I’ve got to finish this playthrough and let it settle before diving into another one and I’m still (best guess) just hovering around halfway through. Otherwise they all tend to jumble up in my head, which makes for awkward writing when I’m trying to figure out personalities. D:
I am not a crier? But that moment? Tears. Between that and the way Cullen and the others react when you say you’ll sacrifice yourself for haven. And then they find you. And then solas undercut it with his “you know they’ll turn on you” thing
silksieve replied to your post: Read More →
Ermagerd, I JUST finished this part myself. ALL THE FEELS
YESSSSS. It was so much of what I wanted and then even more, and I'm still a mess today because of it. Also this was the first time I recognized the tune from the opening video! PLEASE let this song become a thing.
Also interesting to note that Solas undercut it for you. He didn't mention anything to me--it was just Cullen and Trevelyan chatting it out. I wonder if he has to be in your party. Or out of your party. He was in mine at the time; I'm glad he didn't say anything. The moment was dramatic enough!
Anonymous said:
DAI - what race are you playing? And if you are going to romance someone, who? - LS
Human, rogue Trevelyan! The tag's "priory trevelyan" if you want to check her out here. I don't know who she's going to romance at the moment; I was waffling between Sera and Bull, and then she had a perfectly lovely, perfectly unexpected conversation with Cullen that kind of blindsided me, so I have no idea at this point! I'm sure it'll be...someone, though! Haha.
I've noticed many of your stories include literary quotes at the beginning of one or more chapters. These quotes seem very diverse in origin. Do you have an English minor or something? - LS
Nope! I’ve always loved English (and it was usually my best subject), but I never had a whole lot of interest in pursuing it in college. I was a Biomedical Sciences major with a French minor.
The desert is magical at night, and, with the instincts of a bikini model in a slasher movie, I turned off of the interstate and headed out into the wilderness for about five miles. Then I stopped the Jeep on the lonely dirt road and listened to the silence. I got out and walked away from the car and looked up at the immense blackness of the night sky, and the tininess of myself against the enormity of the universe had never been more obvious, even on acid.
An inexplicable bolt of terror shot through my system. Then I remembered what Rock and Roll Susie had said, that fear might be God’s way of saying, “Pay attention, this could be fun,” and I said aloud to whoever was out there, even if it was only me:
"Between safety and adventure, I choose adventure."
—American on Purpose, 196
I walked past the magnificent architecture, the sandstone of the Victorian buildings basking warmly in the brightness of the sun. I walked and walked and walked and I couldn’t feel anything, but I remembered that from my father’s passing. Nothing at first, then a relentless build of emotion that rises unremittingly like a winter tide and threatens to engulf you.
—American on Purpose, 267
I just loved the imagery there, so I saved them in a Word .doc and shortly thereafter read Clockwork Orange and loved the language in that one, so I saved a few quotations from that too, and then one thing led to another and then I had a commonplace book. It’s 20,000 words now, and 63 pages long, but it’s full of quotations and poetry and excerpts that I really love, and when I feel inspired by something I’m writing I like drawing from it when I can.
The other reason’s Dorothy Sayers. She uses epigraphs for her chapters in the Peter Wimsey books, which are amazing btw and everyone should read them; and she was the first one who used them in a way I felt I could understand and blatantly copy. Mostly I just think she’s the bee’s knees, tbh.
As far as the variety, I think it just comes from having friends with incredibly diverse recommendations and just being able to get to the computer when I see something I really like. There’s Gerard Manley Hopkins, an excerpt from a book on painting technique, an optometry textbook’s passage about vision, and about sixty culled references to vampires from every literary source I could find.
Being as sweet and positive as can be while simultaneously writing wonderful fics that leave you both aching, overjoyed and craving more.
BLESS YOUR HEART. Also you should know that amazing piece you did of Eppie is now my phone background, and I grin every time I check it. It seriously makes me so happy, oh my goodness. Thank you again, so much. I can't find words for how excited I was and still am every time I look at it.
marigoldfaucet said:
That wonderful writer who knows loads about eyes, posts gratuitous paintings/photographs of the sea and happens to love Olafur Arnalds just as much as I do. Also writes wonderful things with Fenris and Hawke and sometimes Shepard and it's all just wonderful and I think I love you.
OLAFUR ARNALDS IS SERIOUSLY THE BEST. I spent my entire drive down yesterday just listening to his music. I mean, seriously, I cannot imagine how it could get a single bit better.
Also, thank you. You're one of those I recognize from the very beginning, and it's seriously a delight to see your name every time I get a notification from you. You're the best! <3<3<3<3<3
Anonymous said:
I read your Fenris/Hawke writings, and Fenris always seems to be in character-I can actually hear him saying the words in his voice. I always feel like I can see the scenes of your stories (a talent, honestly!). And you have taken on some really fucked up topics (when light grows less, mute) and turned them into impressively written stories. You show such a strong bond between them ... I think with the quantity and QUALITY of what you write-you're the queen of the Fenris/Hawke fandom. TY! - LS
Oops! Forgot to add the real important bonus of your writing is the depth of your characters/relationships and for your longer fics especially, the depth of the stories themselves. - LS
GOOD GOSH but you leave the best messages, seriously. I should just put an alert on your name so I'll know to leave plenty of time for the blush to die down after I read them.
Thank you! It's...I don't know. It's something that's always intensely appealed to me, finding the good in that kind of impossible evil, and I'm just so glad Dragon Age has given me a world conducive to that while still giving me all these characters I love too. I just... I love them a lot? Whether or not I've written about them as much as Hawke and Fenris, they're really important to me, and they're often important to the characters too, and it makes me so happy that I've gotten to tell so many stories about them over the years. <3<3<3 Also I basically should just put that other message you sent on ff.net (the one about Fenris's word choice) up here with a gigantic "this" gif, because YES. Everything about it. I completely agree.
sixpennies said:
October 20th 2014, 3:05:00 am · 15 hours ago
Am I too late for the reputation thing? Amazing Fenris writer, hands down. Best Hawke. Total sweetheart. All-round lovely person :>
YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW well great now I have these emotions and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them. Seriously, though, I adore your Fenris with all of my heart, so I'm really touched by this. I've really enjoyed getting to see more of your writing since you've been on tumblr, too! Thank you, lovely. <3<3<3<3
I received this message on ff.net a while ago and instantly knew my response was going to get too long for private messaging. Reposting here with permission.
So, I've read quite a few of your fics (mostly the longer ones) as a huge fhawke/Fenris fan. And it seems like (please tell me where I'm off here) you have some consistent themes throughout. 1) freedom for Fenris is about him making his own choices - as a key word. (2) Fenris never tells Hawke he loves her - not that he doesn't, but he doesn't say it. (3) does Fenris ever really move in with Hawke? I get the impression that he doesn't, even if they spend all (or almost all) nights together. Any other themes you stick to with this pairing?
--LostSpace
Okay. I’ve been letting my thoughts percolate on this ask for a few weeks now, and I think I’m ready to give it a shot. Your second question I answered here, and the answer to your third question is (probably as you expected): no, he doesn’t ever truly move into the estate. I think it’s important to him to have something of his own to trash or take care of as he pleases, a place to go where he can be totally alone and in control of every aspect of his environment.
And now for your first question. You are absolutely correct about Fenris making his own choices, and the thing I’ve been trying to figure out is how to articulate that in the ship I write for him. I know that I don’t always succeed in writing it like this, and I certainly don’t expect that I’ll never screw it up in the future either, but—this is at least what I try for, anyway.
It’s not just that my OTP for Fenris is him with Hawke. It’s that my OTP for Fenris, the disenfranchised elven former slave of a powerful, nigh politically- and economically-untouchable human magister, is a relationship with Hawke, a powerful, nigh politically- and economically-untouchable human mage. And what’s more, I write him being happy and fulfilled within that relationship, wanting it as much as Hawke does despite his history and despite the atrocities committed against him by someone very similar.
From the very first day Fenris was conditioned to obedience, forced to endure unimaginable horrors at Danarius’s hands and then driven to immediately turn around and defend him from all threats in unquestioning obedience. That was not his choice; he had no voice save for the words his master allowed him to speak. It’s not until he slaughters the only people in the world who’ve ever shown him kindness that he’s able to break away, and even then it’s a flight fueled by sheer terror that stretches on and on and on for the better part of a decade.
And then I, the shipper, ask him to fall in love with Hawke. To take up the defense of another strong, driven mage with the exact same unhesitating loyalty and devotion that he showed Danarius—and this time by choice, Fenris surrendering himself not because Hawke’s holding his leash but because he wishes to.
It’s such a… delicate balance, you know? That seems to me to be an infinitely more dangerous cage for an escaped slave, and when I write mage!Hawke/Fenris I’m asking him to step into it willingly. It’s also hard to directly address in fic without either resorting to language and concepts that don’t exist in Thedas or without giving characters an unusually marked sense of self-awareness that might not be in-character for them. Everything is so tangled up in his past—does he love Hawke because he wishes to? Or does he love Hawke because she is a powerful mage who has been kind to him, and his soul is so twisted in slavery that he will never have peace without a master to lead him by the hand? How does he separate those—or more importantly, can they be separated? How does a slave who knows nothing of a healthy, meaningful romantic relationship be expected to instinctively understand how to navigate the first one he’s ever tried?
Even now I don’t know the answers to some of those. I certainly don’t think Fenris knows either, and a lot of his relationship with Hawke is both of them coming to terms with the fact that sometimes there are no easy answers. Sometimes they both have to just offer what they can and accept what the other can give, and let that be enough for the time being.
However, there are some aspects of their relationship that make Fenris and me more comfortable. They meet in relative social and economic parity; while Fenris is an elf, Hawke is an apostate, and both of them are dirt-poor refugees. Fenris squats in Hightown; Hawke lives in a borrowed room of her uncle’s Lowtown shack. Both of them are skilled at what they do and they work well together in fairly even partnership—and even though Fenris cedes leadership to Hawke when he joins the party it's worth noting he begins their acquaintanceship as Hawke’s employer, not her servant.
Then, as Hawke begins her rise, she and Fenris go through a lot of it together. They start off penniless and desperate together and work together to relieve that; by the end of Act 1 they’ve known each other roughly a year, and they’ve already got a friendship well started at that time. More importantly (to me), the first flirtations have taken place. Wherever the romance ends up, it started equally, and I think that goes a long way to help Fenris trust that this foreign mage is interested in him, not his markings or his value to his former master. They’re friends before Hawke becomes either nobility or Champion, and they’ve both learned to rely on each other for more than just their lives.
Remember, Hawke isn’t Champion until the end of Act 2. That’s five years Fenris has had the power to turn her in as an apostate with impunity, just like that’s five years she’s had the ability to write to Danarius and inform him of the location of his slave. They both have some sort of power over the other and choose not to exercise it because they trust each other. That’s where they start; that’s the foundation that has to be stronger than everything else before love can even start to grow here. (I should note that I don't think their situations are identical—I certainly don’t think being turned in as an apostate [in Act 1 at least] would be equal to Fenris being returned to Danarius—but the point is that the opportunity is there for them both.)
Now, by Act 3, Hawke is more politically and socially powerful than Fenris. She’s a human noble ascended to significant authority and he’s an elf still squatting in a Hightown manor, but a lot of that’s his…choice? Not that he’s an elf, I mean, but certainly economically, at least. His cuts of Hawke’s pay over the years don’t appear to go into his mansion, and presumably a squatter pays no property taxes; and considering he’s still taking mercenary jobs into Act 3 according to the codex, he has to have a pretty pile of coin stashed somewhere under his bed. He has money and financial authority of his own, even if he chooses not to exercise it, and economic independence must mean so much to a person who was once permitted to own literally nothing.
Politically and socially, however, I think Fenris is just…disinterested in that sort of power, at least in terms of the general public. He doesn’t seem to express any interest in Kirkwall’s machinations outside of ensuring mage restraint, and if he cared about public perception of his social habits I think he might have bothered to clean up the dead bodies in his foyer at some point over six years. Neither does he make any effort to hide himself; indeed, the Act 3 codex notes it’s common knowledge that a “friend of the Champion lives within.” He doesn’t even question that he’s an elf in a society balanced against him; the closest he gets off the top of my head is the “I’m an escaped slave and an elf; doesn’t that bother you?” conversation, though that Hawke’s return line is that she’s a human seems to me to point more to his concern being the racial difference over any societal disparity.
I think a lot of that is because where it matters for him, where he actually cares about having a voice, he’s listened to. Aveline, Donnic, Isabela, Varric, Hawke—their opinions matter to him, and maybe more importantly, they value his opinions. It’s not just that he brings worthwhile outside knowledge to the party. Consider the speech about the Gallows's history, the insights into Tevinter, the conversations with the Arishok. This former slave is not only permitted to but encouraged to speak his mind and in fact speak for the party and Hawke in whole, even in front of a major foreign military leader, because his voice is equal to theirs and he has experience and knowledge and his own judgment that everyone else trusts, because he’s their friend.
He’s not afraid to speak up, either. He calls Hawke out when she’s screwed up, or when he thinks she’s screwed up (the post Feynriel conversation comes to mind), and even in the places where he knows Hawke will disagree with him he isn’t afraid to voice his own opinions (Fenris: rivalry +10). He doesn’t hesitate to challenge her views on mages despite that she is one, despite that she champions them; if he truly feared her as he feared Danarius I don’t think he’d dare anything like that. It’s only a small thing in the grand scheme of their relationship; while I do think he has some very reasonable fears about involving himself like that with a mage, putting himself at such risk and as previously addressed, chaining himself to someone so like his old master, I don’t… I don’t think he’s afraid of Hawke.
So. Choice is very important to me when I’m writing Fenris loving a mage Hawke. I don’t want it to be that “female character chooses to wear chainmail bikini and let her life revolve completely around her LI because she’s written that way” false choice; I want to do him justice and seriously address the concerns he has caring for a person so similar in so many ways to his old master. I think it helps that Eppie is genuinely, totally, irrevocably in love with him and that he knows he can trust her with not only his back but his heart; I think it helps that they were friends before they were anything else, and that despite everything that happens between them and around them they really want nothing more for each other than to be happy, even if they occasionally have different ideas of what that entails for a while.
I don’t know if Fenris can cleanly separate his love for Hawke from the training and conditioning from his slavery. I don’t know if he ever will, not totally. But if he can be aware of that and make the choice to accept it anyway—if I can write that in a way that does justice to both the powerlessness of his past and his current free present—then I’m happy. He’s gone without being able to choose his own happiness long enough.
Reclaiming Modern Ruins. Urban rot is a problem and since deindustrialization of the UK there are plenty of buildings that have been abandoned and let to rot and decay and considering today's economy it is not an option to actually refurbish and re-purpose all these buildings. Why not help nature take over and reclaim these spaces as its own? It's after all valuable lost space.
