#a song in the stillness

[lasatfat]

physical contact starters | fluff starters | @dadrunkwriting

@inquisimer sent in the prompt "you are very endearing when you're half-asleep" from the fluff starters, but I tried to save the ask as a draft and tumblr decided that meant it should disappear forever. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You Will Find Him Next to Me

The last thing Gideon remembers, he was resting against Dorian���s shoulder, and struggling to stay awake. It takes his sleep-addled mind a few moments to process the position in which he finds himself, and to realise that Dorian had frozen in the process of lowering him to the chaise. He lazily grips Dorian’s wrist.

“Don’t get up,” he mumbles. “I’ll miss having you next to me.”

Dorian laughs, softly, and presses a kiss to Gideon’s forehead. “As endearing as you are when half-asleep, amatus, I doubt you’d be quite so happy with me if you woke up with a sprain in your neck.”

As he talks, he doesn’t, in fact, lower Gideon to the chaise. Instead, he wraps one arm around Gideon’s back, slides the other under his knees, and lifts him up.

“I can walk,” Gideon protests.

“Of course you can,” Dorian replies, “but this is much more romantic, don’t you think?”

“As long as none of the rank and file think the Tevinter magister is spiriting me away to steal my soul,” Gideon mumbles in reply.

“I’m willing to risk it, if you are.”

[anneapocalypse]

for the ask game!

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

Canonical Character Death (20)

Angst (18)

Fluff (12)

Poetry (9)

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence (9)

I think the first, fourth, and fifth are very representative of my writing. 😂 Angst and Fluff by themselves say less, I think, because I use those tags as broad categories for searchability.

If I take those out and take the next two tags:

Grief/Mourning (8)

Cunnilingus (7)

Hmm yeah that also tracks.

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

I almost always have the fandom wiki open, unless it's Red vs. Blue in which case the wiki is functionally useless. When I'm working on Dragon Age fic I tend to keep my copies of World of Thedas and any of the relevant novels stacked on my desk because I end up referencing them so frequently. Beyond that it's just searching for whatever I need. I use wikipedia a fair amount.

48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

forget-me-(not) by @farfromdaylight, a quasi-shippy Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light fic, and I sure do recommend it. 🙂 (Spoilers for Shadowbringers.)

[mroddmod]

don't be weepy sleepy puppies

[six-tooth]

I can't believe we got a canon funnybunny interaction

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[catmask]

does anyone have like an anti aesthetic. like something you look at and can recognize as a complete fashion/interior design/artistic movement and understand it but it makes you shudder seeing it. i am not talking like “its morally bad” “its poorly structured” like just sheerly devoid of joy for you actually invites a repulse response.

[vintrage]

can someone please get this girl her dog back

[patricia-taxxon]

openAI "Chair Excavation" showcase video + music by Oneohtrix Point Never

[mens-rights-activia]

My favourite thing about tumblr, that in my opinion makes it far superior to other social media sites, is that new posts live side by side with old posts. These days, there’s a prioritization of new content. It not only shortens the lifespan of people’s work, memes and such, but it also devalues the work that goes into making certain things.

Sure, a lot of posts are just random thoughts spewed into the ether, but some posts are carefully crafted videos, photos, artwork, prose, that take the creator a considerable amount of time and effort to craft. So, as a content creator, it’s nice to see that you can put work into a piece of content on here and it can have a life of its own. Unlike other platforms where posts live and die in a matter of day, sometimes, hours

[rystiel]

i keep seeing people say the doctor shouldn’t have feelings for rogue because he’s married to river…? river song… who has also married multiple people… one of the most polyamorous characters in the show…?

[clouvu]

Birds of a Feather

[lasatfat]

hello and welcome to DADWC!! I am making heart eyes at your city elf mage, so how about Eireann Surana + A letter with a broken seal; the wax is stamped with a familiar symbol

happy writing!

-inquisimer

dragon age artefacts | @dadrunkwriting

Fun fact: this is the first DADWC prompt I ever got! It kind of ballooned a little bit. I hope you enjoy it.

Don't Look Back Into the Sun

In the newer quarter of Redcliffe, there’s a statue to commemorate the end of the Fifth Blight; a great griffon crouched upon a slab of black stone, held aloft by the twisted forms of scores of darkspawn half-crushed underneath. A bronze plaque is set into the stone, bearing the inscription, ‘the Hero of Ferelden.’

It’s flattering, Eireann supposes. It’s very…grim. More importantly, however, it’s a good landmark to schedule a meeting. She has new orders from the First Warden; there’s a scroll of paper in her hand, sealed with the image of a griffon she had split apart when she opened it.

She’d come back east because of the rumours of another ancient darkspawn, and the promise of new answers. Now, Corypheus is dead, and she learned nothing from him. A disappointment, but a journey she is endlessly glad she made. She’d reunited with Cullen, she’d met Kali, she’d seen Morrigan and Kieran again unexpectedly. She even has some new leads: Merrill Sabrae really had taken the Blight from a mirror, and Dorian’s medicines had extended the life of his friend Felix by years. New promises, new possibilities…and new potential for that same crushing disappointment. She’s so tired of it all, but she doesn’t have the luxury of stopping. Not if she wants to live past fifty.

“Warden Surana?”

Eireann turns. A certain bird is coming home to roost.

She had recruited Thom Rainier and kept him from a hangman’s noose: partly because the real Warden Blackwall thought him worthy – and he is, the perfect example of what a Grey Warden should be – but mostly for the sake of his family. His lover, Sigyn, and her daughter, Camile, are with him now. Looking at them now, it’s amazing to see how they’ve all changed. Thom’s head and face were shaved bare by his jailors, but he’s grown back a thick covering of salt-and-pepper hair. The way he carries himself is lighter, as if the mask of Warden Blackwall was a physical weight, now lifted. Sigyn is calmer, braver, more at peace. She bears the scars of her past with more confidence. Little Camile has changed the most, naturally. She was five when Eireann met her: painfully shy, at first, but curious in the way all young children are, and highly insightful. She too has grown in confidence, but she has grown physically, as well. She just turned seven last week.

She can’t truly understand what may lie ahead for the man she considers a father.

“Hello,” Eireann greets them, cordially. She bends slightly at the waist to address the child. “How are you, Camile?”

Not long ago, she would have hidden behind her mother’s leg instead of answering. Today, she smiles, politely, and says, “I’m okay. Thank you.”

“You asked to meet here,” Thom says.

She smiles. “I did. Thank you for coming.” None of them have good memories of this place.

“May I ask why?” he responds. The look on his face tells her that he already knows.

“I have new orders from the First Warden,” she replies, anyway. The scroll is supposed to be for her eyes only, but she hands it to him. “They want Alistair and I to escort you to Vigil’s Keep, for the Joining ritual.”

It’s strange. In the eleven years she has been a Warden, she has done surprisingly little recruiting. The people she’d taken from prisons were either shocked or relieved; to those already sick with the Blight, she may as well have been Andraste herself. This stoic, quiet despair is new.

“It’s alright,” Sigyn says, as much to herself as to the others. “We knew we’d have to go, at some point. We can collect our things…”

“This…this says you won’t be housed at the keep.” Thom manages to maintain composure as he says it, though Eireann doesn’t know quite how.

Sigyn lifts her head to glare. She is often quick to anger, though slow to act on it, if only because the threat of her rage is often enough to diffuse a situation. Somehow, even at her most nervous, she carried an exigent air of power.

“You said we’d be able to stay together,” she says.

“I thought you would be,” Eireann admits. “We were.”

That had been a bitter realisation. Farah had been allowed to stay with her parents. Their family was an exception, and now, she has to ask herself why. The innocent answer is that Farah had nowhere else to go, but she has a sneaking suspicion that, as the child of two Wardens, she was something for them to investigate.

She shakes herself. She didn’t come here today to stew over how the Wardens treat her. She came here to be a better kind of Warden.

“Walk with me.”

Eireann leads the three up the hill, towards the village gate. Autumn is fast approaching, heralded by the browning leaves and the slight chill that comes on the breeze. The late afternoon sunlight bathes the houses below in gold, and glimmers off the waters of Lake Calenhad, bright enough to leave bruise-coloured stains on her vision. If she hadn’t lived through the Fifth Blight, she would believe it had never touched the Hinterlands. There are places in the Anderfels where the dead still don’t rot, and yet here, the grass grows and the flowers bloom and the trees sprout fresh leaves every spring. They really had saved so much of this place.

By the time they reach the gate, the full weight of what is about to happen has fallen on Camile’s tiny shoulders. She clings to her mother’s leg, seeking reassurance that neither of her parents can honestly provide. Eireann could, and will, but not here. She needed witnesses, and she needs to be out of their earshot for the next part of the plan to work. If she’s ever asked, she can say she at least tried to do this properly. About fifty feet on, the path splits off towards Witchwood, and it’s at this junction that she stops to face her entourage.

“What are you doing?” Sigyn asks, incensed.

“Well, the way I see it, Thom can do one of two things,” she replies, casually. She meets his bewildered eyes. “You can come with me to Vigil’s Keep, do the Joining, and maybe get seconded to Skyhold, if I can pull the right strings. And that’s not a small ‘if.’”

“Or?”

“Or, you can hit me.”

He blinks. “What?”

“You can hit me, and then escape,” she repeats. “For goodness’ sake, make it look good.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Thom blurts. His entire face has turned the colour of raw rhubarb. “You’re the Hero of Ferelden. I can’t hit you!”

“I can,” says Sigyn, and her fist collides with Eireann’s mouth.

Her lip splits open on her teeth. The pain is sharp and stinging, and it blinds her for a moment. She doesn’t even realise she’s fallen until the other side of her face strikes the cobblestone, cheekbone first. “Fuck!” she yells, more out of surprise than anything else.

Camile screams, she thinks, and Thom definitely swears. “Sigyn! What did you do?”

Eireann wants to tell him not to worry – it was part of the plan, after all, she was just expecting more warning – but her mouth is full of blood and her lip is starting to swell. She waves her arm frantically. Go, idiot!

“Come on! The guards are coming!” Eireann manages to look up in time to see Sigyn grab Camile’s hand and run off towards Witchwood. Thom hesitates for a moment longer, torn between following his family and tending to Eireann’s face, which is no doubt turning some rather fetching shades of black and purple. She points, and he finally makes a run for it. He catches up to his girls, and scoops Camile up in his arms so she won’t lag behind.

“Miss!” The guards have reached her, it seems. One of them follows the escapees, and the other, a young man with a faceful of acne, is examining her busted lip. Maker, they’re letting baby children guard their towns now. “Are you alright?” he asks.

Eireann manages to half-smile without it hurting too much. “Very good, all things considered.”

“But your face…?”

“Even the face.”

~~

So, Thom Rainier goes on the run again. The Fereldan Wardens search for him, of course, though if Warden-Commander Eireann Surana doesn’t want them to find him, it’s unlikely that they will. At least, not officially. And if Eireann receives the occasional letter, or a series of gradually improving drawings, or dried flowers from the Hinterlands…well, that’s one secret she is more than happy to keep.

[araneapeixes]

lesbian bed death - goth girls are easy

This art is now available as a print <3

[mafuyuakgae]

even if I came to love humanity in the end, there’s no proof I was ever here, right?

[machinerot]

[stephreynaart]

“The song is still dumb, but it’s my Dipper’s song”