#Detective Hawke

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Ch. 70: Chasing Shadows

Summary: Rose continues to uncover the chaos behind the scenes at the Winter Palace and alerts her advisors to her discoveries.

Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.

Excerpt below the cut 👇

“We found more evidence of foul play— a lot more. Which may or may not be related to the Tevinters.”

“Then perhaps we should warn the empress now,” he says, leaning to peer through the door back into the ballroom.

“Aside from Josephine skinning us alive for being too obvious, Celene’s advisor Morrigan said she’d be by her side,” I explain.

“Did her advisor even make it that far?” he asks.

“I’m not sure.”

“We should check,” he insists and moves to stride back inside. 

I catch Cullen by his hand before he draws too much attention looking eagle eyed and overly alert at someone else’s party.

“Not like that,” I scold him. “Here— give me your arm. We have to act casual.”

“Andraste have mercy,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face in frustration. “What does that even mean?” 

Apparently he used up all his patience for playing it cool earlier. He holds out his elbow stiffly. I tuck my hand into it.

“Smile,” I instruct. I pretend to delight in my surroundings before glancing at him. “Act like you’re having a good time.”

Cullen stares at me blankly, addled by how far outside his skill my directive falls.

“Well— just, try not to look so antsy,” I say. “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Explain to me— the finer points of our latest siege capabilities.”

Cullen’s gold embroidered epaulets fall an inch. “The ballistas or the mangonels?”

I grumble softly, waffling my head around in frustration. “Take your pick.”

We move back into the ballroom and Cullen begins explaining the rationale behind our array of mangonels and the benefits of single projectiles versus scattershot. I nod and smile, and snatch us two glasses of punch from a passing tray, offering one to Cullen.

“I’m not drinking tonight,” he argues, baffled once again.

My eyes do a somersault. “It’s for show. Just— pretend to take a sip.”

Apparently incapable of pretending to drink, Cullen dribbles a splotch of punch on his uniform. He curses under his breath and I stifle an unruly laugh.

“At least it’s red,” I note in a whisper. “I see part of Celene’s dress around that corner. Keep going. Mangonels.”

Cullen continues, discussing a few options for setting payloads ablaze and which are the most cost effective. Celene comes fully into view, clearly in discussion with someone I can’t yet see.

“She’s talking to someone— don’t look.”

“I’m not,” he protests. Cullen cranes his head and looks.

I poke him sharply. “Tell me about the tar.”

He scowls at me momentarily before continuing. “The tar pits of Edgehall are rather close, fortunately. Geologists believe—”

Morrigan’s raven black and wine-colored form appears from around the corner as she emerges to sweep her eyes over the room. A young heavily armored man stands vigilant beyond Celene. Morrigan nods to me subtly.

“She’s there. Along with Celene’s champion I believe,” I remark, allowing the breath I’d been partially holding to leave me fully.

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[kingoftheu]

[romancemedia]

The Most Romantic Anime Scenes of 2023

[kwistowee]

JON BERNTHAL as DET. JOE TEAGUE | MOB CITY (2013)

[hawkzeyes]

I’m so normal about this I promise 🥹😭

Preview Green Arrow #1 (2023-)

[lasaraconor]

[oifaaa]

Another bout of artblock means another installment of things that definitly happened in the comics I swear (Just dont look up the actual comics themselves take my word for it I know what I'm doing)

[minhkhoakhan]

"You know your identity isn't determined by what Ollie knows, right? You're queer whether you tell Ollie or not." TIM DRAKE & CONNOR HAWKE - DC PRIDE SPECIAL (2023)

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

Stories are not reality. They use many tools to reflect reality but they are not beholden to the same rules. What's more, they reflect Romance just as readily as they reflect Realism. Stories require a suspension of disbelief. Some willingness to look outside yourself to pick apart meaning. An ability to empathize with experiences not your own so you can better see why and how it was put together the way it was. Stories are ephemeral and intangible, a collective fever dream with meanings that shift depending on the dreamer. They are also deliberately constructed and come with their own concrete intentions, histories, and baggage unique to each culture, genre, and medium the story is told in.

If I had one wish when it comes to critiques of fiction, it's that people come at a story from where it is first and everything else can come later. For example, critiques of YA are going to be different to that of Adult works. Those teenagers are heroes and sexual agents because it's important teenagers be allowed their own coming of age journeys— explorations of sex and sexuality a big part of that period of self discovery for many. (That doesn't mean sex has to be a PSA either, it can be raw and awkward and weird and uninhabited). E.g. No, that immortal/older supernatural being falling for our teen hero isn't a predator (well... there are layers). What they are is a extremely common teen power fantasy. (However, if you did want to read a YA series that deconstructs that particular trope and explores how horrific such a dynamic would be, I'd recommend 'The Fever King' and 'The Electric Heir' by Victoria Lee. Brilliant and harrowing books).

Okay, so, anyway. I've been watching a very good YA show called Dead Boy Detectives. (I have a feeling the people following me are reading those words with exasperation, "No shit"). It's fun spooky hijinks but it's also a beautiful piece of cinematic storytelling that uses a variety of mixed mediums to get its points across. It makes this queer nerds heart happy and deserves more space to tell the story it wants to tell and subvert the tropes it wants to subvert. However, in case it doesn't get that space, I wanted to recommend two queer book series that fans of the show may want to look into. The 'Whyborne & Griffin' series by Jordan L. Hawk (each book gets better and better, and also, the actor that plays Edwin would make an excellent Whyborne) and 'The Last Binding' series by Freya Marske.

[celticcatgirl2]

“You and me…Square Dance battle…Right Freaking Now….”

[theluckywizard]

Unrequited Hawke/Aveline, a few to combine (or not) as you wish: spooky fall bingo, 'heavy fog'; whumptober, 'it's all for nothing'; whumptober, 'hunting or hunted'

Hiiiii thank you, Ammy! For @dadrunkwriting I had a wonderful time writing a little glimpse into my Hawke's history here!

Pairing: Garrett Hawke x Aveline (unrequited) WC: 860 Content Warning: Dead body Tone: Angst

They stood over a cold body, Aveline and Hawke. The investigation had already gobbled hours of sleep as he postulated late into the night and chased leads across Lowtown. And here in this forgotten corner of the docks, in this forgotten alley, Hawke felt the force of failure grinding at his soul.

Aveline surmised by their limp tissue and the blackened blood on the pavement stones that they’d been murdered yesterday. It couldn’t have been by the Templars, not in an official capacity anyway. But Meredith had been sending mercenaries after those she felt posed a serious threat. Hawke was often one of those people. But this mage was different. A sudden legend on the lips of the harried masses of Lowtown and Hightown alike. An alleged mortalitasi.

“We should hurry,” said Aveline, her tone even though the words suggested nerves. “That fog won’t be our friend in another fifteen minutes.”

He searched the apostate’s body, gingerly lifting pocket flaps and the drape of her robe in search of anything useful but she’d already been picked clean by scavenging urchins and the woman’s staff was nowhere to be seen. It could have just as easily been an unlucky encounter with a desperate someone as it could have been the more unscrupulous templars that Hawke knew sullied the ranks. 

What he wouldn’t reveal to Aveline is that he and her have been searching for her on entirely separate missions. He’d been hired by the apostate herself to track the threats against her as she searched for her younger brother, an escape of the Gallows. Aveline was merely answering Meredith’s open call to secure the streets.

“I suppose the Knight-Commander won’t complain,” said Aveline.

Her indifference smarted inside him. The woman hardly deserved such hardened apathy, far from her home in Nevarra in search of her last remaining family.

“Ah Kirkwall. Where murder is a Maker sent convenience,” retorted Hawke. 

Aveline flicked him a fraught glance that managed to be sisterly, judgmental and rueful all at once. He felt the hopelessness of the years spent pining for her at the deepest levels. Her nigh intractable marriage to the law had severed any possibility of love ages ago but he scrambled to hold onto any remaining thread that connected them. His brow was heavy with regret, layers upon layers of it. 

“Let me guess,” said Aveline. “You haven’t been working for the Order.”

Hawke sighed, scratching a hand in his hair.

“You’re really playing both sides still?” she scolded him. “Maker, Hawke. Look around. You’re going to end up on the wrong side of Meredith at this pace.”

“The mage hired me. Felt like someone was hunting her. Not the Templars though… something worse.”

“As a body guard?”

“No, well. Only the first night or two. But after those nights were quiet it was just to see what I could find out when I put my ear to the ground. And it looks like my ears weren’t sharp enough.”

“Hawke,” she scolded him. “How could you be so foolish?” It was always the same with Aveline. Oh there’d be jokes about it, but the sisterly reproof was a given. He hoped for years that he’d break it but at this point he could only accept the punchline that it had become.

“I can take care of myself,” he answered. “I know you can. But it’ll be a little bit harder when the Templars decide to take you in. Aiding and abetting apostates can be waved off well enough, but a necromancer?”

“Well it’s not like she went around raising all the dead!” he argued.

“But some of the dead is all right? Maker, Hawke,” she said.

Hawke regarded Aveline, the freckles that dusted her cheeks, the deceptively darling sweep of her nose. He searched for the spark that had flickered and glowed inside him for so many years when he looked at her. Their bond had been forged in blood and trial, the narrow escape from Ferelden. The honorable end she gave her first love that he bore witness to. He’d thought it had all meant something, but now his hopes had settled into quiet embers.

“She just wanted to find her brother. He escaped the Gallows two months back—”

“I don’t understand you sometimes,” she muttered, shaking out a sheet and drawing it over the body.

“Likewise,” he answered in a soft, bitter snort.

It had all been for nothing, all those years hoping she’d know him deeply.  Truthfully he wondered if she had the capacity. He chased true justice wherever it lay, inside or outside the confines of the law. Perhaps she’d always hoped to school him, to pull him out of chaos and into order. Perhaps that’s why she kept him close.

Hawke silently made a note to find the lad she’d been looking for and help him get back to Nevarra. It was the least he could do.

The arriving fog stuck against his skin and shrouded all the miserable ambiguities of Kirkwall. The body between him and Aveline was a cold reminder of everything that separated them. Of how wrong he’d been.

And Maker, he hated being wrong.

[vatrocvet]

accipiter, accipitris (m.)

design of harrow hawkshaw by @/whisperingrockers

[romancemedia]

Anime Romances + A Kiss on the Hand

[kwistowee]

JON BERNTHAL as DET. JOE TEAGUE | MOB CITY (2013)

[hawkzeyes]

IM SCREAMING IM SCREAMING

Preview Green Arrow #1 (2023-)