Episode 2 certainly had some ...'opinions' about domestic violence
Really disappointed they saddled Jet with a "it's not our business if this guy is beating the crap out of his wife" line
Though it seemed to be the opinion of like every character
Even "the master" was curiously not concerned that one of the villagers could be possessed even after his often repeated "my duty is to protect the villagers" line
Spanking children may affect their brain development in a similar way as more severe forms of violence, according to a new study by Harvard researchers.
Can’t believe hitting your children has the same effect as hitting your children.
Why I woke up today with the overwhelming need to ask this ask, I don't know but -- it's a Tabula Rasa question: what about this story was self-indulgent to you?
Goodness what a question. What part wasn’t?
I mean for a start writing a crack AU of my own fic, very far removed from the original canon and therefore appealing to the four people who still remember flower show and thought it wasn’t angsty enough, that was pretty big for me, to deliberately write something with a very limited audience.
Also that there were some elements I just knew would be unpopular, like Raph and Esther, Eve both in concept and in execution, well, half the concept really. Everything about Esther, actually, I know people loved her but no one loved her like me. I know the genre is what made the story work, it’s impossible to hit an audience with the horrors of domestic abuse if they don’t already love the abuser as much as the characters, but I knew it would be a big thing to take on and I know some people hated it. I had to want and love all this stuff very much to put it on paper.
And you know the biggest thing was just... I’m not even sure how to express it. CW: DV coming up here. DV is terrible, and unless you’ve been there it’s hard to understand why smart, loving people stay, why people defend their abusers, why it’s hard to walk away, why people who should know better still victim blame, why it’s easy for a victim to blame themselves too. I’ve heard a lot of really shitty takes over the years from real misogynists to the most staunch feminists - it’s fucking hard to talk about and not have someone slap your hands away from it. The division of sympathy can turn from support to revictimisation real quick.
“The abuser is always at fault” quickly becomes “the victim has never done anything wrong” becomes “the abuser is an inhuman, unfathomable creature to hurt a blameless person” becomes “actually, now that he’s explained it, I can understand and she’s not blameless” becomes “maybe she’s just as bad as him” becomes “well if she didn’t antagonise him...”
It’s hard to say “I loved him and he was in real trouble and I couldn’t help him” without someone reminding you he’s an awful monster and even expressing sympathy for him is battered woman syndrome or something. It’s hard to say “he took me apart with a thousand paper cuts and I don’t know how much was abuse and how much was honesty” without someone pointing to police or hospital reports as the real abuse rather than a symptom of the cancer.
So, yeah, it was important to me, and self-indulgent, and fuck what other people think, to show it all play out. To make the absolute worst scene in that whole shitshow a moment when criticising the colour of someone’s jacket is as bad as any of the torture porn out there. I wanted a trauma narrative, I wanted to show at least a little slice of the reality of it, that it’s not an inhuman monster and a damsel in distress, there’s more to it. And I did it knowing it would tank my AO3 stats and that’s okay.
The hard part is sometimes reading through the comments and seeing I’ve done my job too well, reading how many people go “Well, maybe it was Aziraphale’s fault, really?” Which can be tough, but was also literally the point, to show how easily we fall into these patterns when it’s someone we care about.
Oh dear, this got a bit long, I hope I answered your question without traumatising you <3
Cullen gets to grips with this strange new girl that’s dropped into his world.
Since Tumblr seems to be making posts with external links unsearchable, if you’d prefer to read it on AO3, you can find the link to my AO3 page in the sidebar. My Tumblr masterpost is here. As of today, that masterpost will also contain the link to my Spotify playlist for this story. Read on to find out why...
I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the blurriness from my vision. I should have gone to bed hours ago, but there was too much to do. We were still trying to calculate the supplies that had survived the destruction of the Temple, make a count of who had been killed in the initial explosion and who had been killed in the fighting until Lady Trevelyan–now being acclaimed by the people as the Herald of Andraste–had stabilised the Breach. And I should make a start on the letters of condolence to the families of our soldiers.
Deciding that maybe a walk would do to clear my head, I left my tent and decided to do a circuit of the town. Maybe the people would take some comfort from seeing the leadership of the Inquisition present and moving among them. I had barely come through the gates when Varric called me over.
“Curly, you met with Oracle earlier. I couldn’t get anything from the Seeker. How did it go?”
“What do you mean?” Cassandra had mentioned that Varric had taken immediately to the shy woman from another world. Having seen the way he was with Merrill in Kirkwall it didn’t surprise me. Varric seemed to be a better big brother to the misfits he gathered around him than Bartrand had ever been to him.
“I mean,” he said sounding exasperated, “is she going to be shipped off to Val Royeaux as a scapegoat for this mess? The Seeker was pretty quick to jump on her earlier and the kid’s obviously terrified.” He squinted at me. “You can’t possibly think she’s the genius behind all this.”
“Nothing’s been decided yet. We’re meeting again tomorrow.” I decided to throw him a bone. “Her story is pretty… unbelievable. But no, I don’t think she had anything to do with the destruction of the Conclave. Either she’s a very good actress, or she’s genuinely traumatised. And it hasn’t been examined yet, but the stuff she’s wearing seems to back her story up.”
Varric seemed to relax. “Good. Is her story as wild as the one people are telling around here?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been a little busy to listen to gossip.” Tiredness made me sharper than I had intended, but Varric let it slide over him.
“They say that Andraste brought her from another world to sing prophecies for her.”
That floored me. “Sing prophecies for Andraste?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “That hut hasn’t been silent since the Seeker brought her back from your little interrogation. Come on.”
“It wasn’t an interrogation,” I protested. But I followed the dwarf, unable to suppress my curiosity. Approaching the cabin she and the unconscious Herald were housed in I nodded to the guards stationed there. I was about to speak to them when I heard the voice floating out the crack under the door.
“I have run through the fields of pain and sighs.
I have fought to see the other side.”
Images flooded through my head. Images of her being beaten, shouted at, threatened, and finally stabbed by a slim man with long brown hair and cold, black eyes. I wondered why hearing her sing of suffering caused me to imagine what her husband had done to her so vividly.
“I am the one, who can recount what we’ve lost.
I am the one, who will live on.”
She held the last note for a spellbinding moment before silence overtook us all. It lasted only a moment before she began again with a new tune.
“Time stood still for a while,
Your hand was holding mine.
The stars that shine in your eyes,
Don’t let them go by.”
I looked at the guards. “Has she been singing for long?” I asked.
“All night,” one answered, confirming Varric’s assertion. “Some make no sense, but several mentioned the Breach, there was one about the Grey Wardens and another about the Nightingale. They…” he hesitated. “They make us see things, Ser. Pictures in our head.”
“You see now why people are calling her the Prophet of Andraste?” Varric asked, drawing me away again. “They know she predicted we’d find the scouts alive on the mountain path and that she knew we’d be facing a pride demon at the Breach. Then they hear her singing those songs and they imagine they see things. I don’t think they’d stand for having her executed.”
“Thank you, Varric. We needed to know that.” I hesitated. Obviously I couldn’t tell him what we had discussed in the Council. But it might be useful to find out what he knew. “Cassandra mentioned that you had spent the most time with Lady McKichan on the way to and from the Temple. What did she tell you?”
Varric squinted at me. Then he seemed to decide he could trust me. “Not much. Honestly, Curly, I learned more from what she didn’t say. She was frightened and completely out of her depth. But she was used to being frightened. She spoke up when she knew something that would be helpful, but otherwise she wanted to draw as little attention to herself as possible. And she seemed to expect that shouting would lead to someone hitting her.” It was as serious as I had ever seen the dwarf. “Someone has tried to beat the spirit out of that kid. And they nearly succeeded. If I didn’t know better, I would say she’d been a slave at some point.”
I nodded. “Not a slave,” I confirmed. “But she has been beaten.” I laid a hand on his shoulder. “I promise that whatever happens tomorrow I’ll make sure she’s treated gently.”
He gave me a crooked grin. “You know, you’re not half bad, Curly.”
Sister Leliana, Ambassador Montilyet, and I assembled in what Leliana insisted on calling ‘The War Room’ early the next morning. As I expected, the Nightingale had already heard the rumours being bandied about the camp naming our two prisoners the Herald and the Prophet of Andraste.
“We simply cannot accuse them of the destruction of the Conclave now. The people will not stand for it,” Josephine commented, echoing Varric’s assertion of the previous night.
“No,” Leliana agreed. “And Lady Trevelyan’s ability to close the rifts and seal the Breach itself make her irreplaceable. But we must still investigate Lady McKichan’s origins. The story she told us is fantastic but she believes it. Unless Solas’ examinations reveal something else I think we must accept it.”
“She wasn’t acting last night,” I told them. “And having seen that wound you will never convince me that she shouldn’t be dead. I can’t think of any magic strong enough to have saved her.”
“You are sure?” Josephine asked. “It couldn’t be managed by a strong spirit healer?”
I shook my head. “I have known two powerful spirit healers. Neither Wynne nor Anders would have been able to save someone with a wound like that. Even if she hadn’t bled out instantly, the damage to the heart would be too extensive.”
“Cassandra is supervising Solas’ examination of her as we speak. We will know more after.” Leliana’s certainty was final and we moved onto other urgent matters.
It was half an hour later when a soft knock on the door yielded those answers. The bald elf laid down the folded bundle of clothes and inclined his head respectfully before addressing me. “Seeker Pentaghast informed me you believed Lady Lily’s scar indicated a fatal wound?” I nodded. I may be trying to modify my opinion of mages, but open apostates still made me nervous. “You were correct. The size, angle, and depth of the scar mean the wound should undoubtedly have been fatal. I know of no magic that would have been able to act quickly enough to save her. She is a walking miracle.”
“And her clothes?” I expected the question from Leliana but it was Josephine who asked.
He shook his head. “The tunic she called a ‘jumper’ was wool and could have come from anywhere. The rest were of materials I have never seen. And while I can profess no knowledge of such matters, Lady Cassandra informed me that the… undergarments were like nothing she had ever seen.”
I was sure I flushed. Solas had begun extracting small items from the bundle and laying them on the table. “I removed these items from the pockets of her coat after leaving her. I have not asked her about any of them. I believed you would want to examine them first. Again, the materials involved are not to be found anywhere in Thedas. I believe she is telling the truth when she says she came from another world on the other side of the Veil.”
We all gazed curiously at the items before us. Leliana picked up a bright pink pouch filled with small, apparently edible bites. She nibbled the edge off one and declared it bad tasting but not poisonous. Then Josephine picked up a small cream tube the size of her thumb, removed the lid, and sniffed delicately. “Vanilla!” she exclaimed in some surprise. I could make nothing of the two differently sized rectangles, one of which had a small rope ending in coiled hooks attached, but the small red thing seemed to be an unusual kind of whistle. Pressing the button on one end of the short, thick metal tube yielded a light at the other. Doing the same with the thinner metal tube revealed a blunted point that left a smear of ink when I drew it lightly over a fingertip.
“You should perhaps also be made aware that Chancellor Roderick is outside preaching their guilt and demanding that the people help him seize them so they can be taken to Val Royeaux for trial.”
I sighed. As far as I could tell the Chancellor seemed to have been determined to cause trouble ever since the Temple exploded.
“Is anyone listening to him?” Leliana asked.
“Very few,” Solas admitted. “The Herald and the Prophet are seen as greater servants of your god. Most people seem to think the Chancellor is trying to test their faith.”
“Good luck to him with that,” I muttered.
Leliana glared at me before turning back to the mage. “There is one more thing. Cassandra told me you mentioned Lady McKichan’s connection to the Fade was in some way unusual. Can you explain that?”
He shook his head. “She is connected to the Fade, for all she claims it does not exist in her world. Perhaps the Veil is thicker, less permeable.”
“What does that mean for us?” I asked. The safety of the people of Haven was my responsibility. If Lily’s presence put them in danger… “Is she more likely to draw demons?”
“Less likely, I would say,” the elf replied. “I cannot guess what effect it will have. Though she is not a mage she is likely to have powers that are not otherwise present here or in her own world.”
“Such as the images people see when she sings?” Josephine had been quiet for a while.
“Exactly. I do not believe she is consciously projecting them, though she could if she wanted to.”
Josephine considered. “If she could use those powers to show people what we face then she could be useful in persuading people to our cause…”
“I would still like to test this ability,” Leliana was as cautious as always. “Without experiencing it ourselves I would be reluctant to-“
At that moment, there was a knock on the door and Cassandra escorted Lily into the room. She looked little better than she had last night, though the dull wool dress that had obviously been borrowed from a servant was cleaner. She was pale and her dark hair hung in slightly frizzy curtains that shadowed her face as she kept her eyes on the floor. Her posture reminded me of a woman who had lived in Honnleath when I was a child. I had once asked my mother why she never looked up. Her husband is not a kind man she had told me. It had been years before I understood what that meant.
“Good morning, my lady,” I said gently. “I trust you slept well?”
She looked up, in surprise. “Well, thank you, Commander.” The dark shadows under her grey eyes gave the lie to her words. Probably she had as little sleep as I did. But the shy smile gave a hint of the pretty woman I thought she must be when you stripped away her fears and insecurity.
Then she noticed the objects on the table. “My phone!” she cried and swept up the palm sized rectangular object. “Please let them still be on there. Please!” she muttered desperately to herself. The black emptiness that had taken up most of one side came to full life and colour beneath her fingers. She tapped and swiped them as quick as instinct in patterns that were too fast to follow. Suddenly she let out a mingled gasp of relief and grief, fingers stilling to take in what was on the object. “Tha gaol agam ort,” she murmured soft and regretful. The words had an elven lilt to them, but the sibilance and hard consonants told me they weren’t words that had ever been heard in Ferelden before.
Cassandra slid the object from the woman’s numb fingers and laid it on the table before us. The blackness had been replaced by an image that could have been a painting had it not been so lifelike. Lily was kneeling in some grass with one dog pressing itself into her side and another resting its front paws on her arm so it could stand to lick her face. She was laughing and looked so carefree. As pretty as I had thought she would be.
She reached down and touched her fingers to the dogs’ faces, whispering those strange words again. I did not need to know them to know what they meant. She loved those dogs and she grieved them. “I’m sorry,” she said softly to the table. “Bear and Mischief are… were my only family. I’ll never see them again, will I?”
“I’m sorry, my lady,” Leliana softly touched Lily’s shoulder. She flinched but did not move away. “But probably not. We have more questions for you.”
She swallowed hard, still staring at the picture of her dogs. “What would you like to know?”
Solas was the one to step to the fore. “There have been some interesting phenomena around you, Lady Lily.”
“Not a lady,” she replied automatically before looking up, though I noticed she looked at everyone but the elf. “What phenomena? Not just the knowing the future?”
Solas ignored that she had ignored him. “A demonstration is needed. You know many songs, Lily?” A nod. “Can you think of one that would make no sense to us, but that brings a strong image to your head?”
“Yes. Yes, I have one.” She picked up the object she had called a phone. “You want to hear it?”
“I want you to sing it,” he replied.
“Okay,” she nodded and began to swipe and tap again. “Okay, but it’s easier with the music. It must be on here somewhere. It’s Emma’s ringtone. Ah!”
Another tap and there was noise coming from the rectangle. Music of some kind, but I was certain no one on Thedas had ever heard music like that. I couldn’t even fathom the instruments that would make such notes. Lily’s eyes closed and her head bobbed and foot tapped in time with the rhythm. She began to sing as another woman’s voice piped the same words out of the phone.
“Hang with me in my MMO,
So many places we can go-o.
You’ll never see my actual face.
Our love, our love will be in virtual space.
I’m craving to emote with you,
So many animations I can do-o.
Be anything you want me to be.
Come on, come on and share a potion with me.”
“Enough!” Cassandra’s voice sounded strained. A tap of her finger and Lily had stopped the strange music. “Who was that woman?”
“What woman?” Lily sounded confused. “The singer?”
“Describe her please, Lady Cassandra.”
“Slim, pale skin, red curling hair,” Cassandra began before Solas cut her off.
“Sister Leliana, what was she carrying?”
“A fake mage staff,” Leliana replies without hesitation. “White staff, black and gold grip, green orb at the top.”
“Commander, what was she wearing?”
I recalled the image of the woman who had been dancing in my head a moment before. “A white dress with an obscenely short skirt. A red corset over it and gold trimmings.”
Lily had been growing paler and paler. “Felicia Day? You all saw Felicia Day in her Codex costume? This?” She dropped the phone back on the table. The bottom half of the image now had strange symbols and moving writing. The top half had a picture, the most prominent part of which was the woman I had seen dancing.
“Yes,” Josephine replied. “When you sang, I could see her dancing, as if I was remembering something I had seen before.”
Lily swayed as if lightheaded. Cassandra caught her arm and guided her into a chair but it was my eyes she sought out. “Am I a mage now? I always played a mage. Is that how this works?” There was real fear in her eyes. Did she think that if she was a mage, I would harm her?
I crouched to meet her eye. “There is no magic in you, my lady. You are not a mage. This is unlike anything I have ever seen.”
Her eyes slid closed in relief. “Thank you, mo gaisgeach.” Her eyes flicked open in fright again. Whatever that last phrase had meant, it wasn’t meant to slip out. Her eyes begged me not to ask what it meant. I didn’t. She was worried enough already.
Solas interrupted whatever pleading her eyes were doing. “I believe it has something to do with the different connection your world has to the Fade. It gives you abilities which are not found here, but anyone coming from your world to Thedas would have.”
She nodded and closed her eyes, taking deep calming breaths. While Lily composed herself, Leliana dismissed Solas, though she asked him to remain close, and we were left alone with her again. She seemed calm again, but how many more shocks could she take?
Josephine seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “My lady, you know the people are calling Lady Trevelyan the ‘Herald of Andraste’?”
She smiled softly to her knees. “They’ve started that already? She’ll hate it, but it’s good for the Inquisition. The Chantry will declare you heretics. You know that, right? If they haven’t already. And I’m still not a lady. Never have been, never will be.”
“They are calling you the ‘Prophet of Andraste.’”
As predicted the result was explosive shock. “Thalla ‘s cagainn bruis! You’re not serious? Mhac na galla!” I hoped those phrases were as colourful as they sounded. “I’m not meant to be any part of this!”
“You are, whether you want to be or not.” Leliana was blunt and to the point. “You are here and the people have heard you sing and seen visions when you do. They know you have predicted things before they happen. They have decided that is who you are.”
“But it isn’t. I’m not what they think I am. I’m not a hero.” The tears were coming again. “I’m just a mouse.”
“You are more than a mouse, my lady,” I told her. “By saving the scouts on the mountain pass and warning of the pride demon, you have already helped.” I looked up at the others, met each of the women’s eyes in turn. “We are agreed that she stays? Not as a prisoner, but as a member of the Inquisition?” They all nodded. “Will you stay with us, my lady?”
Her smile was sad as she met my eyes. “I have nowhere else to go.” She made to stand and I held out my hand for her. “Tapadh leat.” She flushed. “I mean, thank you.”
Josephine was scribbling again. “We will find you some more clothes and necessaries. Are you content to continue sharing the cabin you were in last night with Lady Trevelyan?”
She nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
Leliana was more interested in the business at hand. “Is there anything you can tell us now that will be of use?”
She thought. “Eve will be awake in… two days, I think. By that time, the Chantry will definitely have declared the Inquisition heretical, Chancellor Roderick will still be spewing venom and driving the Commander up the wall, and you may have received an invite for the Herald to go to the Crossroads in the Hinterlands to meet with Mother Giselle.” That seemed to give her pause. “Cach, I hope that doesn’t mean she’ll want to see me as well. The fighting there is horrific.” She shook it off. “Regardless, you will get that invite at some point, so it’s probably a good idea to send Lace Harding out to do as much scouting as she can before Eve and her team arrive.” Josephine and Leliana had both been taking notes but Leliana looked up, startled at the mention of Lead-Scout Harding. Honestly, I hadn’t even known her first name until now.
She looked around again, wary. “I said I would warn about anything that would harm innocents. So I need to let you know that Haven isn’t-“
Her words cut off abruptly and her hands clawed at her throat, as if there were invisible hands strangling her. She pitched forward and I had to dive to catch her as she fell. Cassandra lunged out the door bellowing for Solas as I lowered us to the ground. Her face was darkening and her lips turning blue. Solas was at my side, pale green light flowing from his hands. “She is being magically silenced.” The elf seemed to have lost some of his composure, the words coming out frantic. “This is too powerful; I can’t counter it.” Suddenly her throat was released and she let out a hoarse rasping gasp.
I could only hold her as she wheezed and coughed, clutching at my arm as if it was the only thing keeping her from drowning.
“Lie still, Lily.” Solas had regained his calm, and his voice was soothing. “I’m going to try and take the pain away.” She nodded, lying as still as she could while her chest heaved to draw in as much air as possible. He held his hands up near her throat and she flinched. Solas paused. “I promise I will not hurt you.” She nodded again. I could feel the push and pull of his magic as the healing flowed into her, watched as her breathing eased and became less hoarse sounding.
When Solas stood, he addressed the whole room. “I assume Lady Lily was attempting to impart some sort of information or warning?” At Leliana’s inclined head he continued. “Someone, I assume whoever brought her here, does not want her to give you that information. This was not a true attempt on her life, but a warning. I would not pursue this line of questioning.”
“Why that?” I could feel her trembling and her voice was weak, but it was enough to have Solas turn. “I was able to give plenty of other information. Why that one thing that could save so many lives?”
“I do not know. But I would not risk trying to speak of it again.”
She nodded again and gave a small smile as she sat up. “Ma serannas, Solas.”
I hadn’t seen him look so startled before. “You speak Elvhen?”
Lily looked a little stronger now. “A few words and phrases. I’m good at picking up languages.” She gave a small smile. “Usually the curses or terms of endearment, but it’s only polite to thank you in your own tongue.”
Solas nodded and returned the smile. “You are welcome, Lily.” He looked up as I helped Lily to her feet again. “I would advise she is allowed to rest.”
The meeting broke up then, Cassandra again escorting Lily back to her new quarters. I couldn’t help but wonder how she would fit into life in Haven. She was so fragile, timid. Even thanking him she hadn’t been able to meet Solas’ eyes. But there was a strength and determination there, too. She wanted to help. And what warning was she so upset about not being able to give?
Tha gaol agam ort - I love you
mo gaisgeach - my hero
Thalla ‘s cagainn bruis - Away and chew a brush (STFU and clean your mouth out)
“Why do I think my dad has anger issues sometimes?” I ask myself, thinking about the time he couldn’t get the key to the family station wagon to work so he broke the ignition switch off with a crowbar and jammed a flathead screwdriver in to use as a key instead, or the time he got pissed off trying to work around a PS2′s very meticulous cabling and ripped the shell off which destroyed the ribbon cable for the disc drive’s eject switch and the wiring for the heat sinks, or the time he couldn’t quite get a locking DVD storage shelf to slide shut properly because a case was jamming it so instead of taking it out and rearranging to make things fit properly and slide shut he yanked it open and slammed repeatedly until rather than just breaking the DVD case he bent the rail entirely so it couldn’t shut more than halfway.
And definitely the fact that I owned two out of those three things and he refused to take any responsibility couldn’t be part of why I’d ask myself that. Nope.
Speaking of things I shouldn’t have to explain to grown ass adults, when someone tells you “do not do that, it bothers me” it doesn’t mean “unless you have a good reason”, “unless you have a special reason”, “unless you think you should”, or “unless you want to do.” It means “do not do that, at all.”
And yet here I am having to explain this to adults who seem to think it’s different because they think their reason is special no matter how many times they’ve been told it’s not.
