#Dudes in the Desert

[theluckywizard]

In Search of a Wayward Bronto

Summary: Desperate to find his brother, Garrett Hawke heads to a blight-ruined stretch of Orlais to search for the Wardens with Varric and Alistair. Amid their misadventures and unending banter, Garrett grapples with past failures and his growing love for Inquisitor Rose Trevelyan.

WC: 6585

Rating: Teen

No CWs

Excerpt below the cut 👇

“I think there’s sand under my eyelids,” complains Varric. “Sand in my shoes. Sand in my hair. Sand in creases I didn’t know I had. And now my Maker-damned eyelids.”

“Hawke, where’s your spyglass?” asks Alistair.

“Check the outside pocket,” says Garrett, taking a swig from his water skin and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He squints through the darkness, scanning for the ritual tower that’s supposed to be right bloody here. They’d sent Liska and Feyrith on to the Inquisition camp ahead of them to reduce their party size on these vast stretches of sand and salt.

Instead, Alistair pulls out that well-worn copy of The Fires of Satinalia Garrett kept, his eyebrow arched high, wrestling with a tenacious grin and losing.

“The Fires of Satinalia?” chuckles Alistair. Garrett plucks it from him and thumbs randomly through the pages, laughing in preparation for the roasting. Alistair snatches it back, dancing out of reach. “Hey Varric— look what Hawke’s had all this time. Contraband.”

Varric saunters over, catching the book Alistair tosses. “Maker, Hawke, really? I thought you were a few pegs above the target audience for this shit.”

“You seem more like a Lurid Lust Charade man, to be honest,” says Alistair. “Or maybe The Pleasure Château.”

“Bit quick on the draw with those titles, aren’t you?” asks Garrett, flashing a grin. He leans into it, desperate for something to lighten his mood. “If you must know. It’s sentimental.” He braces for another savage tide of comments.

“Sentimental? Of velvety candlelit nights with your hand in your drawers?”

“How scurrilous of you, my sweet prince,” rejoins Garrett. “Try ‘velvety candlelit nights making my lover snort brandy through her nose’.”

“Really didn’t need to know that,” says Varric. 

“Pish posh. You’re just envious of my good fortune! How long’s it been for you? Four years? Five?” Varric waves him off.

“Keep your sodding smut,” says Alistair, chucking the book at Garrett’s chest. “Just hang a sock on the tent before you cozy up with it.”

“Spoken like a true connoisseur.”

Alistair huffs an indignant laugh and taps his temple. “I certainly have no need of such things.”

“You never had a stack of poorly drawn tits hidden under your mattress? I find that highly doubtful,” says Garrett.

“The way the sisters would scour the dormitory?” he chuckles. “No.”

“Probably behind a loose brick in the base of a statue of Andraste that they’d all know about,” theorizes Varric.

“Well— it was Hessarian,” admits Alistair, finally fishing out the spyglass. “Impressive guess though.”

Varric smirks. “Adolescents are nothing if not predictable.”

“The prevailing rationale was that Andraste’s holy bosoms would draw suspicion,” says Alistair. “They were— remarkably shapely.”

Read the rest here!

DAFF Tag List:

@warpedlegacy | @rakshadow | @rosella-writes | @effelants | @bluewren

@breninarthur | @ar-lath-ma-cully | @dreadfutures | @plisuu | @hekaerges

@ir0n-angel | @inquisimer | @crackinglamb | @agentkatie | @oxygenforthewicked

@about2dance | @exalted-dawn-drabbles | @blarrghe | @delicatefade | @leggywillow

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[isjasz]

[Day 256]

@zipzapzooooooom said hg and cg but cactus ring them then somehow hg got possessed I don't know what happened take it as you will👍👍👍 + action sequence experimenting too ig HELPFOEPWKW

[solidaritygaming-fanblog]

Scar when it comes to being disgustingly loyal to blonde brown eyed white British men who are bird coded and associated with a primary color. I guess

bro has a type

[cinnamon-flame]

Hello I am back with more Viva Piñata doodles! Turns out if you think enough about fluffy piñatas you can force your way through art block (at least for a while)

The typical Viva Piñata experience, I love you Pretztail but why are you like this I drew so many Pretztail as a "do over" of my first Viva Piñata drawing from 2018

that's when it all started

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Jon I-XII ADWD vs Jon XIII ADWD

[fernsfabulousfloweringfacility]

Silly little comic that almost killed me witha chainsaw <3<3

DDVAU by @kitsuneisi and @xmaruu11!!!! so much love for them :D

[thatweirdnoise]

Killing your love in a death match, not in a "fate has betrayed us" way, but in a "you will die tonight, so let it be by my hand so you feel mercy at last" kind of way

[chrliekclly]

[st-hedge]

The ‘sleeping tomb’ loz au for this specific anon who asked that I draw it again. Here’s the ending of the story for u

[tapeworrmart]

Summer fun!

[lanadelreis]

drake: haha i’m gonna diss kendrick

kendrick lamar’s honest to god reaction:

[feralcorpses]

This is why you don’t trust me with researching things 👍

Sorry for putting those lilacs and poppi- *GUN SHOTS* -Some sort of ripoff unintelligible accent- “They been in the desert for long enough”

I don’t know why I added that last bit 💀

[isjasz]

i swear this was funnier in my head

(day 10 for dddaily4sherin KAJSKLJA)

[legend-had-it]

whenever nami gets a new girlfriend a part of my brain goes

I thought I was watching one piece this is WOKE PIECE

and I love it, I think she should have 30

[schneiderenjoyer]

I can't stop laughing. With the amount of raging lesbians this game has been pumping out, even I'd be shocked out of a coma at the revelation that they made Ezra.

The amount of self restraint bluepoch must have to do to not turn him into a woman that they have to make it a joke. I'm dying.

Bonus points for Desert Flannel for single handedly being the reason for the misunderstanding, but doubling down how cool she is.