No one's slick as Tethras
No one's quick as Tethras
No one's neck's as incredibly thick as Tethras
For there's no man in town half as manly
Perfect, a pure paragon
You can ask any Tom, Dick or Stanley
And they'll tell you whose team they prefer to be on
No one charms like Tethras
Has ripped arms like Tethras
No one's got a repeating firearm like Tethras
As a specimen, yes, I'm intimidating
My, what a guy, that Tethras
Give five hurrahs
Give twelve hip-hips
Tethras is the best
And the rest is all drips
No one fights like Tethras
Douses lights like Tethras
In a wrestling match nobody bites like Tethras
For there's no one as burly and brawny
As you see I've got biceps to spare
Not a bit of him's scraggly or scrawny
That's right
And every last inch of me's covered with hair
No one hits like Tethras
Matches wits like Tethras
Writes lit’rature about mashing bits like Tethras
I'm especially good at setting up cliff-hangers! (Gasp)
Five stars for Tethras!
When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs
Every morning to help me get large
And now that I'm grown I eat five dozen eggs
So I'm roughly the size of a barge
No one shoots like Tethras
Makes those beauts like Tethras
Then goes tromping around wearing boots like Tethras
I use antlers in all of my decorating
Say it again
Who's a man among men
And then say it once more
Who's the hero next door
Who's a super success
Don't you know? Can't you guess?
Ask his fans and his five hangers-on
There's just one guy in town who's got all of it down
And his name’s Tethras
Tagged by @metatiki. If I’m understanding correctly, this meme is for things that got cut from fics. Honestly, a lot of what I’ve cut, I cut for the very good reason that it’s terrible writing! So, uh, yeah.... but here’s a bit of not-too-embarrassing conversation between Mahanon and Dorian in my very first DA fic, Playing With Fire. This is the original version of their conversation about why Mahanon took Dirthamen’s vallaslin.
~~~
“I take it the Dalish don’t look kindly on the idea of two men as lovers?” Dorian asked.
Mahanon sighed. “It depends a little on clan, but no. It’s not that different from what you’ve told me of Tevinter, except we’re trying to preserve the whole race, not an individual bloodline. Everyone’s expected to marry and help raise up the next generation in the Dalish ways. My clan’s not too bad about it. I managed to stay single this long, after all, although my Keeper is starting to get pushy. It’s part of the reason I was chosen to go the Conclave actually. No bondmate or children I’d be leaving for months. And I think Keeper Istimaethoriel thought I might actually be happier among the shemlen. Or at least she’s sick of trying to push a bondmate on me.”
“Are you? Happier among humans?”
“Dorian, the world is ending, I’m apparently the only one who can fix it, and I’ve been given more power than an elf has had since the Exalted March in the Dales. I have no idea what I’m feeling half the time, and if I did, it would hardly be a good measure of how well I like living in human society.”
“Point taken.”
They rode in comfortable silence for a few minutes after that, listening to the clack of the horses’ hooves against the uneven cobblestone. Trees lined the road, leaves not yet the dark green of full summer. To their left, Mahanon caught occasional glimpses of Lake Calenhad, deep blue and glinting white in the sunlight.
“Someday it will be funny, you know,” said Dorian.
“What will be?”
“We’re both here running from unwanted marriages, and now here we are trying to save the world.”
~~~
Who to tag... I feel like I tag the same people a lot! Let’s go @cullenlovesmen, @enigmalea, @weird-in-thedas
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age (Video Games)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Solas, extremely minor Lavellan/Josephine
Characters: Solas (Dragon Age), Cullen Rutherford, Varric Tethras, Cole (Dragon Age)
Additional Tags: Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Solas, Touch-Starved Cullen, Dares/bets, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Sexual Tension, Jimterruption, Resolved Sexual Tension, Oral Sex, Teacher/Student Roleplay, Sort Of, Praise Kink, If You Squint
Summary:
Cullen is bad at card games, and Varric doesn't always play for coin. The cost of a lost game of Diamondback? Cullen has to kiss Solas. It goes both better and worse than he had expected.
I intended to remain in Solas’s POV for “Keep Your Hands On Me,” but I got stuck in chapter 2. I switched to Cullen’s POV, and that went a lot better. Chapter 2 will be posted to AO3 momentarily, but I thought I’d share the chunk I wrote from Solas’s POV just for fun.
Outtake after the cut!
Cullen commonly passed through Solas’s study on his way to the War Table or the chapel. At some point in weeks past, the polite nods they gave one another had turned to “Good afternoons.”
In the week after Varric’s dare, Cullen had returned to curt nods, and not even that much if Solas didn’t greet him first. Solas found it rather childish, but childishness was what he expected of modern peoples. He told himself he was not disappointed. Still, each time Cullen passed wordless through the rotunda, Solas couldn’t entirely silence the sinking feeling.
So when Solas went to the garden at the time of their usual chess match the following week, he had schooled himself not to expect Cullen to attend. The Commander hadn’t sent a message to cancel their game, but one did not expect a man who could not say “Good afternoon” to play an entire match of chess.
But there Cullen already was, setting up the board. He was fidgeting with each piece as he went, attempting to set them down perfectly centered in their tiles. He looked up nervously, scanning the garden as if for threats. When his eyes fell on Solas, he dropped a piece, and it rolled off the table to the ground. For a moment, Solas thought the Commander might bolt, the fabric tails of his mantle borne up by the wind like banners. Internally, he grinned at the mental image. Externally, he kept his expression impassive as he approached the table.
“Good afternoon, Commander,” he said, settling into a chair just as Cullen came up from retrieving the fallen piece.
“Hm? Ah. Yes. Good afternoon, Solas.”
“I’m glad to see you have not lost the power of speech,” Solas said, and immediately regretted it. “I apologize. I should not have made light of your discomfort.”
Cullen shook his head. “No, I can hardly blame you if you were offended by my silence. I apologize as well.”
“No need. Shall we begin?” Solas said, gesturing at the chessboard.
They played in silence for several minutes. Solas was never one to mind quiet during a game of strategy, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see Cullen shifting uncomfortably. Several times he caught Cullen opening his mouth as if to say something, then shutting it. And throughout, the Commander was rubbing the back of his neck.
It amazed Solas how guileless people like Cullen and Lavellan could rise to positions of such political power in this modern world. Or perhaps that was merely the haste with which the Inquisition was refounded. In either case, it did not further the Inquisition’s goals.
“I would recommend removing your hand from your neck. It does not become your station,” Solas said, quietly enough to keep the more casual of the prying ears from hearing.
“Oh. Yes.” Cullen blushed as he moved his hand to the table. Solas suspected the blush had less to do with embarrassment at being caught in a nervous habit, and more to do with the circumstances under which Solas had last given the same advice.
“What I do not understand,” Solas said, “Is how a person can confidently lead the military of a militant organization and yet become so embarrassed when dealing with matters like Varric’s price."
If you’d like to read more of how this conversation really went, you can check it out on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023441/chapters/47901007#workskin
⭐️ Director’s Cut something! Anything. (And while you’re at it pretend I know how to use tumblr.)
Oh gods, I started rereading Summer Wind for this. It’s like reading cotton candy for me, a wish fulfillment fic for wishes that I’m not sure I personally have and yet... I’m terribly attached to it.
There’s so much weirdly personal stuff in that fic, which I feel is a jackpot for “director’s commentary.”
There’s the obvious - it’s set in my home state, in a town smaller than mine but nonetheless very similar. There are warm cheese curds and dairy cows. It’s clearly Wisconsin.
The names of two local establishments - the Spinning Wheel Inn and the Blind Squirrel (a bar) - are stolen from Shawano, WI, where my in-laws have a cottage. This fic was written brainstormed on the drive to Shawano last summer and written over a long weekend at the cottage.
Cullen’s dog, Belle, is named for my friends’ dog.
There’s a bit where Cullen says he learned wine pairing from his father, who learned it in high school German class. That’s my dad right there. Don’t ask him about spatlese. *glances back at fic* Shit, I even used that same line. Told you - weirdly personal.
Then there’s the realization I had about two months after writing this fic, which is that I’ve written Dorian and Cullen as two different aspects of my own psyche. Dorian pursues the career goal I had when I entered college: publishing. He’s intellectual and career-driven. He’s basically my intellect. Cullen is Lutheran af, sings in his church choir, stays close to home. He’s basically my spiritual side.
The fic is about the reunion of the two. It’s also about homecoming, which I have experienced recently myself. There’s something about home, whatever and wherever that might be for you, that allows you to be a whole person.
I was tagged by @enigmalea to share a last line of a fic.
“I love you too,” Dorian said, and there were absolutely not tears in his eyes.
From Summer Wind, the main story of my Cullrian Wisconsin!AU. (All of the last lines of chapters of my WIPs are terrible on their own. Maybe I should work on that.)
I’m tagging @princeofgotham and @amata-hawke to share a last line from a fic/chapter.
Thank you @metatiki for tagging me! I didn’t see the tag until today, sometime after 7 pm, so it’s a bit late, but better late than never I hope! This is from my Cullen/Solas WIP - a little Solas-and-Cole dialogue from the chapter I’m currently working on.
~~~
“Wondering and worrying: will it even work? It’s all different now. If it works, does that mean it’s less different? More real? If it works, is he real?” Cole paused. “Why do you think Cullen isn’t real?”
[There’s more stuff here in the actual fic, but I’m omitting for brevity.]
“Would you consider a nug a real person?” he asked Cole, quite seriously.
“Yes? No. Maybe?”
Solas sighed. Perhaps Cole would not be of much help to him in this.
“Do nugs think and feel like people?”
Cole thought for a long time on that one, head tilted like a puppy dog. Perhaps he was listening to someone at a distance, trying to see their thoughts differently to answer Solas’s question.
“Nugs can be sad,” he said finally, “But people can be - guilt-grim, shame-shattered, locked in lies, loving but unloved, racked by recollections.”
“There’s more complexity in people,” Solas said.
“Yes. Knots to untie before they can be free,” Cole confirmed.
“When you hear my pains, are they more complex than other people’s? Just like people are more complex than nugs?” Solas asked.
Cole listened again, for even longer this time, his face furrowed around his concentration.
“Your hurts are older,” he said finally. “You used to feel them louder than the others, but you cut a channel, canal them, to keep the ocean from overflowing.” He paused. “Can oceans overflow?”
“Not exactly,” Solas said. “So my emotions are ‘louder’ but not more complex?”
~~~
Not sure what the etiquette of tagging is when it’s late, but I figure I can still tag a couple people! Your choice whether you post when you see the tag or hold out for actual Sunday lol! How about @amata-hawke, @dragonifyoudare, and @dirthenera
