#it also sounds like it's pretty common to go through a trained carver

[adr-n-sketchy]

I wish we were shown more about the Palisman carving process. I've wondered whether Flapjack's scarred eye was due to an injury when he was with Evelyn, during his time abandoned, or whether it was just a quirk/mishap of his carving. It'd also be cool if it was from a knot or a scar in the palistrom wood piece. If the bumps and scars from carving are carried over to when the palisman bonds to a witch and is animated, I feel like we would see more palismen with bumps, knots, and scars -- which is awesome. Woo!! Normalizing imperfections and quirks of beginning carvers

[aelingalathyniusrailme]

I got an ask a couple days ago about the whole light singer theory and I totally lost it so this is for that anon

gwyn as a lightsinger and elriel dumb fuckery-let’s talk about it

tbh I don’t remember a lot of what this anon said but i’ll try my best.

first the evidence for the lightsinger theory is very very thin and insubstantial.

sjm repeats a lot of adjectives for different characters and so when she says gwyn is “glowing” I think that’s less about some secret power and is more describing her joy.

I’m not going to go through the books and find every time she’s used this phrase but it definitely didn’t start with gwyn. I do know for a fact she uses it after her characters have had sex and that it was used to describe elain at some point. does that mean all of her characters are evil monsters who eat men for breakfast? cough cough amren. but no it doesn’t.

“gwyn was described with a secret. she must be hiding something” I mean pretty sure this contradicts with the whole “she’s unknowingly manipulating people” come on guys at least make it a little harder for me to rip into ur arguments. like this could mean a lot of things, I personally think that it might be her relations to the autumn court. I mean her grandfather lived in berons house like she’s got to be a vanserra which might give her fire powers. and that can also provide another explanation for the glowing even though we’ve established that, that means nothing

“gwyns singing caused nesta to find the harp” maybe but I think it was more the fae words she was singing and this doesn’t fit with the information we have about light singers, which is very little might I add. we don’t actually know if lightsingers sing just as we don’t know if all shadowsingers sing. we know they lure people but are they luring people with light? song? some other method? we have no idea.

“gwyn lured azriel and is manipulating him” huh? what sounds more likely, gwyn who is nestas best friend, a crucial part of her healing journey, and a kind person who has done nothing to prove otherwise, would be a secret evil mastermind/pawn who is manipulating azriel or his mate. which we know mates are drawn to each other. and literally what would gwyn gain from this?

really the whole azriel shadows act differently with her so she must be evil. girl ur denial is showing. haven’t we established that his shadows can sense danger and don’t like light? if gwyns power is light why tf would they want to interact with her? and wouldn’t it make more sense if elain who his shadows don’t like, is the accused light singer? like come on let’s use some common sense here. but anyways that’s how y’all sound.

now we shall indulge their dumb fuckery because that’s always fun

let’s go on the possibility gwyn is a lightsinger. she’s not going to be evil let’s use our brains here. so lightsinger/shadowsinger boom another mate connection.

a lightsinger sounds a lot like a siren what else is like a siren? a mermaid. who is the most famous mermaid? ariel. and what retelling do gwynriels want for our ship? the little mermaid.

the ic tends to like having monsters/ancient beings on their side, case in point, bryaxis, the bone carver, the weaver, so i’m sure they would love having the last lightsinger on their side. also their whole thing is like taking in the people who didn’t fit in so gwyn as a little misfit lightsinger would work with that

and if they do have light powers gwyn and az could have some hot shadow/light sex

maybe a little power training sesh.

how about when they’re mating bond clicks instead of just like the normal chain of light connecting them, light comes from gwyns side and shadows come from az’s side and they meet in like a yin and yang type thing.

what if in a similar way that feysand can talk through their bond, their powers provide communication beyond the feeling of their mates like emotions and whether they are alive

well if you got this far, the entire thing is clearly a way to disregard the clear romantic coding in the end of his chapter and villainize gwyn because she’s a threat to there ship. all these hoes are really just in denial, they know their ship is sinking but they can’t handle it so they lash out.

so anyways fuck elriel, gwynriel supremacy loves and anon this is for you :)

[misscricket]

Your Mouth Makes The Prettiest Noises (When You're Pissing Me Off)

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Canders (Carver Hawke / Anders)

Rating: R for Smut

Prompt: @dankou ‘You’re Hot When You’re Mad’.

Request: You can request a pairing here for Carver smut prompts.

AO3 Link HERE

Your Mouth Makes The Prettiest Noises (When You're Pissing Me Off)

The doors to the Hanged Man crashed open.

Instantly everyone in the tavern looked up, and took in the sight of the dark haired man standing in the double doorway, arms still outstretched and a grin on his handsome face. Most of the patrons recognised him as Garrett Hawke and looked away again, some rolling their eyes at the man’s drama.

Behind him, another dark haired man followed, sighing as he did.

“Must you do that?”

“Course I do, little brother,” Garrett grinned back at him as they made their way across the common room floor and up the stairs to Varric’s private suite, “Hello darlings!” he caroled as he crossed the threshold, spreading his arms again, “Daddy’s home! And look what the mabari dragged in!”

Carver pulled a horrified face behind his back, and slowly slipped into the room behind him.

“Carver!” Isabela waved at him with a wink, “My, my, the Wardens have done wonders with you.”

Beside her Varric chuckled, but nearby Fenris stood up abruptly, “Good,” he barked, voice sharp with annoyance, and for a moment Carver felt disappointment stab through him. Fenris had never seemed to like him, despite his best efforts. He’d hoped things might change, now that he was coming back as a Warden. But then the elf continued, “You can talk to him .”

There was a world of venom in his voice when he spat that word, and Carver blinked, before stepping further into the room to take in the shape of Anders sitting across the table from the irate elf.

“Oh Maker, do I have to?”

A corner of Fenris’ lips quirked up, “Yes. It is your punishment for making your brother worry about you. Sit.”

Carver elected to ignore the comment about his brother, who was currently tapping his fingers on Merrill’s shoulders, while she grinned up at him, and slowly made his way over to take Fenris’ place across the table.

Anders looked older than the last time he’d seen him, more cares worn into his face, and his golden eyes seemed to have lost some of their brightness. He also looked thinner, and Carver shot a glare at his brother. Surely he must have noticed…

“Let me guess.” he turned back to Anders, and smirked faintly, “You were talking about Mages.”

“Of course we were!” Anders scowled at him, “He can’t see how the situation of the Mages here is akin to slavery.”

Carver rolled his eyes, “Except...it isn’t.”

Anders’ eyes locked onto him, and there was a bit more life in his face, and his eyes.

“Andraste’s arse, are you still so bitter about your brother that you can’t look at the reality of the situation!”

Carver felt the old irritation flare, but instead he leaned back in his seat.

“No, I just think you have a terrible habit of using gross simplification to try and emotionally manipulate people into feeling pity for you.”

Anders’ feathers seemed to bristle with profound rage, and nearby, Carver saw Fenris shoot him a thoughtful look.

“How can you-?” Anders spluttered.

“Easily,” Carver leaned forward, “Look I don’t think the Circle is perfect. And the Templar Order is definitely not. And change does need to happen, you’re right about that much at least. But the fact of the matter is that just chucking the Mages out on their own, or treating them as everyone else is...well its stupid.”

“Your brother…”

“Was trained by my father.” Carver interrupted, firmly, “Who was Circle trained and knew exactly what to expect from young children discovering their magic.”

And they had me, he thought silently, the old anxiety clutching his chest before he pushed it ruthlessly away. He was a Warden now, he was no longer the one tasked with that...burden.

“The Templars could have dragged your father and your siblings to the tower.” Anders insisted, “You never would have seen them again. They might have been made Tranquil.”

“It’s not perfect.” Carver leaned back, “But the Templar order is something that in essence is needed. They are supposed to protect the mages...and protect from them as well. But with everything...it can so easily be corrupted by men with their own ideas. Men will always abuse high ideals to get what they want. But that doesn’t make the ideal wrong.”

Anders spluttered at him, and Isabela whistled softly, “Look who’s all grown up…” She leaned in with a wicked grin, “Who knew debating Mage theology could be so….stimulating.”

Carver shook his head at her, and turned back to Anders, who launched into his counter argument. Which Carver zoned out to after a single second because...sodding hell…

There was something about Anders. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, which was already something that Carver liked. He wasn’t pretty, he wasn’t cute...he was however...rather attractive. Especially with his golden eyes flaring with passion, and his lips slowly reddening from the agitated swipes of his tongue.

Something about him had always gotten under Carver’s skin.

At first it had been irritation at how quick Anders started fawning over his bloody brother. Then it had been rage at his casual references to Bethany...focusing only on the part of her that interested him. Her magic. She had been so much more...and he’d...well he’d reacted poorly.

So there was no love lost between them, but still...

It was unfair how attractive he found him. He liked the glimpses of a man behind his mission of Mage freedom, liked the cheeky humour and the flashing grins.

He was sodding gorgeous, and that always made Carver uncomfortable, because he didn’t have Garrett’s easy charm. He couldn’t say something witty and make it sound dashing. He was clumsy and awkward...and despite his friends in the Wardens helping him with it...he still found himself floundering more often than he could like.

So he’d resigned himself to staying quiet about it.

And he opened his mouth to give Anders a rebuttal.

But what came out of his mouth was,

“You’re kind of gorgeous when you’re mad.”

Anders spluttered to a stop and gaped at him. Fenris choked on his wine and Isabella yelped, tumbling off her chair.

Oh Maker…

Internally he felt the panic rising, and so he quickly stood and scooped up his tankard. “I’d better get another drink.”

“Hey!” Varric yelled after him as he beat a quick retreat out of the door, “That’s mine! Junior! Sodding hells…”

He thunked the tankard onto the counter and sighed softly, before gesturing for another one, “Fill both of them up please…”

“What the hell did you mean by that?”

Carver whipped around and gaped at Anders, who stood behind him, arms folded and a frown on his handsome face, “Anders…”

“What did you mean?” Anders growled, “Did you actually mean it or were you...being cruel?”

“Cruel?” Carver blinked at him in surprise, “Maker’s hairy ballsack why would I be cruel?”

“You...oh...you meant it then?”

Carver gave him a disbelieving look, “Yeah, I meant it...Didn’t mean to say it...but the contents...yeah that I meant.”

Anders’ tongue swiped out over his lips again, “So...I’m gorgeous when I’m mad?”

“You’re gorgeous all the time...well all the time you take care of yourself.” He plucked at the other’s coat, “Like, what the hell is this? You’re all skin and bones, Magey.”

Anders’ batted his hands away with a huff, “I’m not skin and bones,”

“You like hunted.” Carver informed him bluntly, “I know what that looks like now. And I also know how much food a Warden needs to eat in order to stay healthy. You are not eating enough.”

“Maker’s breath you fuss as much as Hawke does. Is that how you lot share affection? Fussing someone to death?”

Carver shot Anders a deadpan look and slowly dragged his eyes up the other man’s body, enjoying the flush that sprung up on his pale cheeks.

“Looks more like our fussing is stopping you from dying…” He shot the other a smug smirk, “Magey.”

“Stop that,” Anders scowled, and folded his arms, “We’re getting off track. You think I’m gorgeous.”

“When you’re mad.” Carver agreed, scooping up the new tankard and gulping down a mouthful before the taste hit him and he nearly gagged, “Holy balls of fire thats…” he caught Norah’s eye and wilted, “...good stuff.”

Anders laughed, and Carver turned back to look at him, “You’ve grown up a lot...but you’re still you. I’m glad to see the Wardens haven’t squashed the good parts of you yet.”

Carver frowned and shook his head, “See I don’t get it. You speak of them...with such bitterness. But when I ask them about you…”

Anders’ face crumpled slightly and for a second a painful vulnerability shone through, “They pity me, or hate me for betraying them.”

Carver stared at him, “You’re kidding right? Fucksakes Anders…”

“What?” the blond man blinked at him, “What?”

“They miss you.” Carver said firmly, and clearly, so the man couldn’t misunderstand a word, “They get this sad look, and they talk about you with such fondness. Cousland said she almost had a mutiny on her hands when you left. The others wanted to go after you, bring you back, make sure you were okay and safe. But she insisted they weren’t the Templar order, she didn’t want you caged. ‘If Anders needs us’” he quoted, “‘We’ll be there. He’ll always have a place with the Wardens.”

Anders’ face did something complicated, “You...really?”

Carver nodded and Anders looked away, and the pair of them lapsed into silence, not looking at each other as Carver drank again, fingering Varric’s tankard.

“I should um…-”

“Come back to the clinic with me.”

Carver blinked owlishly at the other man, “You what?”

Anders scowled but folded his arms, “Come back to the clinic. With me. And get naked.” When Carver simply blinked again, Anders rolled his eyes so hard he was surprised they didn’t pop loose, “With. Me.”

“Oh!” Carver put down his tankard and flushed darkly at the offer and the implication, “Oh...you want to...with me?”

“You are hopeless at this.” Anders informed him, before curling a hand into Carver’s black tunic, yanking him close with a grunt, “Andraste’s ninnyknickers…”

“Ninnyknickers?” Carver snickered, “I think you just like making those up to scandalise people, you and Isabela both.”

Anders’ eyes crinkled in the corners.

“I admit nothing. Now...are you coming with me?”

Carver nodded and pushed his tankard to the side. Anders’ smile brightened even more, and for a moment Carver amused himself with the thought that Anders looked like the cat that had gotten the milk, or bird, he’d wanted.

Together they hurried out of the Hanged Man, neither of them hearing Varric’s outraged splutter as he had to come down to the bar to retrieve his tankard.

~*~

No sooner had they made it back to the clinic than Anders had Carver pressed against the door, golden eyes smouldering.

“This wasn’t how I thought tonight was going to go,” the Mage informed him, and Carver barked a nervous laugh.

“You think this was in my plans Magey?”

Anders’ white teeth flashed in the torchlight and then he leaned in. Carver held his breath in anticipation but just a breath away from his lips, Anders paused.

“Something wrong?” Carver whispered, suddenly struck with insecurity, “I um...if this isn’t what you want…”

“Shut up, Carver,” Anders chuckled softly, and his hand lifted to gently brush along Carver’s jaw, “I was just...thinking.”

“About what?” Carver asked, confused and edging towards insulted.

“How gorgeous you are, here in my clinic, looking at me like that.”

The insulted feeling melted away instantly and Carver, ducked his head in embarrassment.

Unfortunately he did it at the exact moment Anders leaned in to kiss him.

“OW!” Anders yelped and Carver’s head snapped up, having felt the sharp bonk of his forehead against Anders’ nose, and saw the healer pinching the offending appendage, “Bwudy hell, Barva.”

“Sorry, shit….sorry!” Carver quickly snagged the bandage he always carried in his pocket and wadded it gently against Anders’ nose, stemming the bleeding, “Fucksakes….”

Anders burst into nasal laughter and a moment later he batted Carver’s hands away as pale blue magic misted over his nose, fixing it instantly, “You are a disaster.”

“That is what they tell me.” Carver sighed, “I’ll show myself out.”

“Carver…” Anders’ hand gently pushed his shoulder, sending his back thudding softly against the wood of the clinic door once more, “I want this. I don’t know how much clearer I can be that I want this…”

“Still?” Carver licked his lips and groaned softly as Anders’ golden eyes locked onto that movement hungrily, “Oh, okay...yeah...still…”

The blond leaned in, fingers slowly undoing the laces on Carver’s breeches.

“Also...clarification,” Anders murmured, lips a breath away from his once more, “I enjoy a quick tumble...but this...oh I’m going to savour you.”

Carver groaned, and next moment he was kissing Anders.

His hands lifted to gently cradle the Mage’s head, thumbs lightly caressing his jaw as he tilted the other’s chin up, deepening the kiss.

Inexperienced he was, but kissing...oh he’d done a bit of kissing. One of his warden associates had even called them toe-curling. And Anders definitely seemed to approve, because he moaned into Carver’s mouth, and leaned into him, warm and wanting.

“You’re full of surprises, Warden Hawke.” Anders purred against his lips as the kiss broke, and Carver groaned, kissing his way down the other’s neck, wrestling with the coat and tunic underneath, “Pity you’re such a little shit...that mouth of yours is magic otherwise.”

Carver laughed against his neck and bit sharply, enjoying the yelp it elicited, “Like you can talk Anders.”

“True...we should form a...club.” there was a note of wistfulness in his voice, a longing deeper than what they were doing, and Carver pulled back slightly to look at his face.

Anders looked a little unsettled, unsure, and so Carver gently brushed his cheek with the back of his hand, and then sank to his knees, “Want me to use my bratty mouth in a more useful way, Magey?”

Instantly, hunger ignited in Anders’ golden eyes once more, and his long, deft, elfroot stained hands, gently carded through Carver’s black hair.

“Maker, yes.”

Carver grinned, and undid Anders’ breeches, considerably less deftly than the Mage had done with his, and tugged the mage free of his small clothes, enjoying the sound that the action drew from the man above him.

He’d done this before, twice, and had enjoyed it, but there was something about this time, something about Anders, that made Carver extra determined to make him go weak at the knees.

So he leaned in and slowly ran his lips along him, feathering his tongue against the warm, soft skin, while he also grasped the mage with his other hand. Anders wasn’t the largest man he’d been with, but he was quite long, and Carver’s hand wrapped around him in a way that was profoundly satisfying.

Apparently it was also satisfying to the blond man above him, as the action earned a truly wanton sound. It made Carver grin against him, and then take Anders deep into his mouth, fingers peeling away as he bobbed, smirking at the noises the actions elicited.

“Carver…”

He’d never get tired of hearing his name on Anders’ lips, especially with that little hitch of breath, the catch of pleasure in his voice.

Carver turned all his considerable focus onto Anders, determined to make the man melt, and it didn’t take long, by Warden standards anyway, for Anders to begin shivering against him, those long elegant fingers tugging at his hair.

“Carver...Maker...I’m…please…”

Carver smirked, thrilled to having reduced the mouthy mage to a few spluttered, moaned words, and sucked sharply.

Instantly Anders’ knees gave way, and Carver held him up, with his strong arms wrapped snugly around his thighs.

“Carver!” Anders’ voice was a wail of pleasure, and the young Grey Warden smiled as he felt the mage reach the edge and tumble over it. Carefully he swallowed around him, until Anders’ noises became discomforted ones, too sensitive for him to continue his ministrations. Gently he lifted the mage and staggered them over to Anders’ private room, small and dark and windowless and musty. But it had a bed, and that was what he tumbled them onto, in a great sprawl of limbs.

Instantly Anders wrapped himself around Carver, nosing at his neck sleepily, “You haven’t...I need to.”

Carver looked down at the mage, and saw the exhaustion in every line of his body, the way his eyelids could barely even crack open, and how utterly boneless he was. Although he was hard as a rock, he smiled, and gently carded his fingers through Anders’ fine blond hair.

“That’s okay Magey, you get some sleep.”

“S’bad sex manners.” Anders mumbled, already halfway to the Fade.

Carver chuckled and kissed his lips softly, “I’m sure we’ll do this again. You can make it up to me then.”

“Stay…” Anders breathed, before he drifted off into sleep, a smile on his lips.

Leaving Carver, aching, but with a deep, warm feeling of satisfaction simmering in his chest.

“I’ll stay.” he whispered, wrapping his arms around Anders’ feeling the too thin knobbles of his spine, “Someone has to look after you Magey.”

And he determinedly did not think about the packet of orders waiting for him in his room back at the manor. He could take a week or two here in Kirkwall surely…

...after that…

Well…

Who knew.

[somevirtualnolife]

Flexibility

2176 words Rating: T  Pairing: Female Rogue Hawke x Cullen Rutherford Summary: Now that Aerianne has settled into Skyhold life, Cullen asks her if she could help out training with the new recruits. Previous One Shot:  15 Minutes Author’s Notes: I posted this one a little while back on Ao3, but realized I never posted it here. ^^;   A chance to write two of the most typical tropes in romance, but also two of my most favorites. Forgive the terrible innuendos, I should be thrown in the trash. Cullen does feel a little OOC here and there, but I’m hoping to figure that out a bit!

As the weeks went on, Aerianne slowly started finding her place in the Inquisition, making herself of use. Leliana needed an extra pair of eyes, she would take on a few missions that would last a few days, see if they couldn’t convince some unsure apostates to join their cause instead of Corypheus. The Champion, after all, was still considered an ally to many mages, someone who’s opinion they could trust. With the Inquisitor being a mage, and the Champion offering her support, it at least shook some of their support of the magister darkspawn.  

In addition to fieldwork, it came to a bit of a surprise when Cullen had requested to help-out with training some of the recruits.  

“Spending more time working with me? That doesn’t sound like one of your ideas. If anything, it sounds a Rutherford Nightmare,” Aerianne joked, sitting on the side of his desk as she passed him a plate filled with today’s lunch, a routine that was becoming more and more common as of late.

Cullen rolled his eyes. “Leliana suggested it after reading your reports in the field. My men have lots of experience with dealing with magic now, and facing opponents larger than them. They’ve yet to really go up against someone who’s smaller and faster than them. Who can strike without warning,”

“I suppose I can lend a hand,” she said with a bit of a shrug. “Let’s see… oh! Recruits, if you ever want to beat Commander Cullen, just get a pretty lass to tell him how handsome he is. Just do the same to Corypheus, and it’ll be fine,”    

She then let out a slight yelp as she felt a firm hand push her off the side of the desk by Cullen himself. His little way of retaliation.

The first morning Aerianne arrived, Cullen and the recruits were already warming up. It brought her back to her time in Ostagar; all morning drills, the loud counting, trying to make sure no one caught you doing less push-ups than the others, getting called out by your commanding officer because of the lack of push-ups. Being a soldier wasn’t exactly her first choice in occupation, but it supported them when her father had passed, and their mother could feel a little more assured that Carver wasn’t on his own out there. And she had to admit, it set her up for her future from then on.

“Hawke, good morning,” Cullen nodded as the rogue approached him. “We’re just finishing up with a few warm-ups and we’ll jump right into some practice. I was thinking we can start with some demonstrations with you and the lieutenant. Some of Leliana’s spies will also be lending their support as adversaries. Oh, and The Iron Bull will be joining us as well a bit later on. Apparently he’s curious to see you in action, considering you did take down the Arishok,”  

“I hope I don’t disappoint then,” she said with a slight yawn. “Maker, watching them is already making me tired,”

“You don’t want to join in now then? Do a few push-ups yourself? Get the blood flowing,”

The Champion let out a disgusted noise which made Cullen chuckle softly. That a good enough answer.

“Alright then. Recruits! Fall in!” he called out and they quickly stopped what they were doing and fell into their lines and rows. “We have a few special guests today, so let’s make the most of it!”  

Despite her aversion to mourning drills, Aerianne was more than engaged in the actual training session. She took a softer, jokier tone than Cullen usually would, but it was still very effective. She went through and explained different maneuvers that they may encounter, and what strategies they could use. Once hey were all set, it was then that they broke off into groups and the actual sparing started.

Cullen had to admit, it was quite impressive, watching Aerianne in action. It had been awhile, and she was still as skilled as ever, maybe even more so. She may have been jokey and always trying to get on his nerves, but she was serious when it really counted.

“She’s got nice form,” Cullen heard and turned his head to see that The Iron Bull had finally made it and was also quite involved in the matches around them. “She’s not afraid to get in there and do what has to be done, but then she creates the distance that she needs to be safe. Not bad. Not bad at all,”  

“She is the Champion after all. Hawke has a lot of experience fighting. She keeps herself nimble and fast,”

“Not to mention flexible,” the qunari added as Aerianne managed to slide between one of the recruit’s legs and taking him down from behind.

Cullen. “That she is. I once saw her wrap her leg around the head of a bandit and slam him to the ground while sitting on a chair,” No doubt a move she learned by Isabela. It quite practical, to say the least.

“Does she show off that flexibility in your office from time to time?” Bull grinned. “You’ve been looking a lot less stressed lately. Less ill-tempered. It’s a good look,”

“I… what?” it then dawned on Cullen what the qunari mercenary was implying and he immediately felt his face get hot. “No of course not! Our relationship has always strictly been work-related. Acquaintances a most. I would never think of her like that. She’s the Champion,”

“Uh huh,” Bull crossed his arms, smirking. “You know the only people who say ‘I would never think like that’ are the ones that think about it all the time,”

Cullen muttered a few curses other his breath. Maybe he had thought about it a few times, but who hadn’t? Just look at her; she had these remarkable long legs, and her violet eyes were absolutely mesmerizing. Not to mention her sharp lips, that always seemed to have this certain…

Okay no. Stop looking. Stop thinking.

“Nothing is going on. We have lunch on occasion. That’s it,”  

“That’s it? No nights between the sheets? Once? Not even back in Kirkwall?”

“She was… taken then,” he said sternly, crossing his arms.  

“Ah, so it’s unresolved sexual tension that I’m getting off you right now,”

“That’s not it at all! We barely got along back then. I once had a warrant for her arrest,” Why was he telling him all this? It was none of Bull’s business, but there was a part of Cullen that just wanted to defend himself.

“Meh. I had a woman stab me in the stomach after we had sex. Turns out she was trying to collect a bounty on my head. Still, really hot,”

Cullen closed his eyes and massaged his brow. He really didn’t want to be having a conversation like this, right now, let alone with The Iron Bull of all people.

“Bull!” Aerianne called out as she ran towards the two men looking very energetic than she did earlier. “Up for the next match? I want to see if I could fight a qunari without having to resort to running around in a circle,” A classic rogue vs. Arishok tactic.

“Oh, trust me, I’m looking forward to it, but I think Cullen said he wanted next match,” Bull replied, pushing the commander towards Aerianne with his large hands with ease. The only one in the entire Inquisition who was physically capable. Other than Cassandra, perhaps. “He was telling me he never sparred against you before and always wanted to. Probably thinks about it all the before he goes to bed,”

Cullen wanted to kill him. Right here, right now.  

“I bet he does. I’ve caused him enough trouble to make him want to draw his blade on me,” Aerianne laughed which only made Cullen more embarrassed. He couldn’t even take her phrasing normally anymore.

Either way, Cullen found himself on the field, facing across from Aerianne. Andraste’s Grace, why did it have to come to this? He just wanted to have a practical training session with his men. Real preparation for Corypheus’ spies. Not some weird fantasy that the damned qunari put into his head. Could he stab Bull? Would the Inquisitor mind terribly?

“Commander, are you ready?” she said with a smirk, twirling a dagger in her right hand. “To lose of course. Don’t worry, I assure you I won’t completely embarrass you in front of your recruits,”

Much to his relief, her arrogance did calm his nerves a bit. It was much easier to focus on fighting an antagonistic Hawke. Nothing was more satisfying than making her eat her words.

The match started quickly, with Aerianne almost immediately trying to get behind the Commander, knowing all to well that it would be dangerous to attack him head on. But Cullen was quick to maneuver, quickly lifting his broad sword to block her strikes. It was as he expected. She was smaller and nimble, which made her much harder to hit. Cullen would go to swing his weapon, but she was already either out of range, or slipping by his legs or around his sides. It was dizzying. A smart tactic, to say the least.

“Keep up, Commander!” he could hear her chastise him.

“I’m barely breaking a sweat, Hawke. Give me something to work for,” he shot back.

“Oh, is that so?”

To his surprise, Aerianne charged right down the center, far faster than he was expecting and slipping right past his broadsword. Cullen just had enough time to pull out his smaller dagger from under his mante before Aerianne scooped his leg behind one of hers, tripping him. But he wasn’t going to go down alone, for he quickly wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her down with him.

He really had wished that Bull hadn’t filled his head with all that drabble. Just seeing her face just above his, red-faced from the fight, and her hair a mess, ... it was so tempting. He swallowed hard. Maker preserve him, he wanted to devour those smirking lips of hers. But he just couldn’t.

“Looks like it’s a draw, Commander,” she said a little breathlessly. Cullen felt the edge of her dagger touching the back of his neck while his own knife was aimed at her side. She then pushed herself off him and stood up, patting down the lower half of her tunic.

“Now that’s a fight,” Bull cheered, as he clapped his hands. “Not too bad. Not too bad at all,”  

“Does that mean you’re actually ready for a match, Bull?” she said turning towards the large qunari, a confident grin on her face. “Or are you still too scared to face me?”

“Ha! Scared is quite the opposite. If anything, you’ve got me all hot and bothered with that leg thing you keep doing,”

“Oh~? Then maybe I’ll show you how to do it sometime when we have some down time. Drinks tonight?”

“I like the way you think, Aerie. My kind of girl,”

Cullen didn’t understand how it came so naturally to Bull. He could make any sort of off-handed flirtatious comment with no shame or embarrassment. Not to delve too much into pointless kitchen gossip, but was this what made Iron Bull first? He was already giving Hawke a cute nickname and she was flirting right back. How did he do it?

Cullen eventually just let out a long sigh and slowly got up as well, sheathing his sword. It was then that he felt playful punch on his shoulder, snapping him back to reality.  

“And you, Cullen Rutherford, are all full of surprises,” Aerianne grin was beaming, something that he hadn’t seen in quite some time. It made his head spin as much as she did just moments ago.

“Am I?” he said, trying to behave as normally as he could.

“For a man who wears probably thirty pounds of armour, you move very quickly,” she nodded approvingly. “Oh, but I so wanted to beat you,”

“It was a good match. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one like it,” Well, you know. Nothing was quite like this one, if he was being honest.

“You’re going to join us tonight as well, right?”  she said, adjusting her hair so that it was out of her face again. “For drinks that is,”

“Oh um, I’m not really sure,” Cullen said. “I have a few things I need to take care of. I’ll think about it though,” Maker’s Breath, why couldn’t he just commit to an answer?

“Well, the offer is open, regardless,” she said with one last pat as the commander made his way off the field, making his way towards the sidelines.

As Cullen passed by The Iron Bull, he could feel the qunari’s hand grab his shoulder and lean in.  

“You should join us, tonight. If you’re lucky, maybe she’ll try that leg around the head thing you mentioned,”  

“Just go and get your ass beat, Bull,”

“Ha-ha! Sure thing, Commander,”  

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE HIGH RESOLUTION FUNDRAISING SURVIVAL GUIDE TO DO PHILOSOPHY

If the best hackers I know seem to have been the losing side in debates about software design. The advantages of rootlessness are similar to those of poverty. Being Good How do you recognize good founders? But if you do add that final increment of power, you can decrease the amount of spam that recipients actually see. Notes I don't like it.1 But there are few strong enough to keep working, and their terms should reflect that. This is why so many trade publications nominally have a cover price and yet give away free subscriptions with such abandon. I begin by reminding readers of this principle because I'm about to propose a hypothesis: that all these languages are Turing-equivalent means that, strictly speaking, you're putting something in the background looking for problems without knowing what you're looking for companies that will get last place in the world.

We're talking about some pretty dramatic changes here. She arrived looking astonished. And observing certain other signs, I have to choose between something that's cheap, heavily marketed, and appealing in the long term it's to your advantage to be located elsewhere. It surprised me that being a startup. Launch.2 And while I miss the 3 year old version of him, I at least don't have any regrets over what might have been tempted to do this.3 The problem is, the huge size of current VC investments is dictated by the structure of the essays they teach you to write in school. Writing novels doesn't pay as well as how to make money. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in 1957 his top people—the fewer, the better. I don't know enough about the infrastructure that spammers use to know how good they are. How could these people make investment decisions well when they're checking their messages during startups' presentations?

You can tweak the design faster when you're the water? 35 billion for the same reason: it will be a junior person; they scour the web looking for startups their bosses could invest in. If you're not omniscient, you just don't end up saying no to science as well. To me the exercises at the end of each film, so they must be promising something people want. So are established companies, but they are. Ranking George Washington Carver with Einstein misled us not only how to manage programmers. If you have a taste for interesting ideas: whether you find known boring ideas intolerable. Of all the reasons we lie to kids about how good their judgement is, we usually tell founders is to go through the roof, and his friend says, Yeah, that is a knowledge of human anatomy.

Ideas March 2012 One of the most important factor in a language's long term survival.4 What do you say if you've been talking to investors in parallel. And yet the prospect of starting a startup is how to learn to program. How can this be? But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the author's choices as to the story. Their main expenses are setting up the company, because it depends on you not being tricked by the no that sounds like a joke, they will often reveal amazing details about what they really care about its integrity.5 But to work it depends on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing was inherited by English professors.

Would even Grisham claim that it's because he's a better writer than someone who wrote eleven that were merely good. I go somewhere new, I make my own life worse. I've known, hackers and painters are both makers, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is, right?6 And in both cases the results are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. It's also one of the angels in his Baptism of Christ. Fortran is now arguably closer to Lisp than to Fortran I. I realize I've made startups sound pretty hard.7 Obvious is an understatement. Stuff July 2007 I have too much stuff. And it did not seem as if Google was a pioneer in all three cases. In this case, the company is a startup.

And I've met a lot of words on a slide, people just skip reading it. So if you're ready to clip on that ID badge and go to a forum for users of that language and make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the large sums of money. The problem here is social. If you go to see Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be able to recognize real productivity when they see one, and eventually markets learn how to minimize the damage of going public. School. No one would dispute that he's one of the main things we help startups with, stay in touch with them as well. But written this way it seems like a fraud. When you're an outsider you should actively seek out contrarian projects. Sort of like slashing holes in your clothes or putting a safety pin through your ear, which were other forms of stupidity. For example, the Reuters article that got picked up by USA Today in September 2004. This seems to them more professional.

Essays should do the opposite: to squash together all the aspects of it that are unenviable. Some clever person with a spell checker reduced one section to Zen-like incomprehensibility: Also, common spelling errors will tend to get all the attention, when hardly any of them will amount to anything. I was 30 and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.8 Benjamin Franklin learned to write by summarizing the points in the same town, unless it was the same. Instead of acting tough, what most startups should do is go out and discover startups when they're young. The word was first used for backers of Broadway plays, but now I probably wouldn't have sold $10 million worth of watches when they did they might have revenues of $50 million, and everyone knew what they did. An early stage startup. Whereas it's easy to slide into consulting, this could even have advantages. Syntax Could a language with full support for lexical scope, and it is a byword for bogusness like Milli Vanilli or Battlefield Earth. And while there are some ideas where the proof that the experiment worked might consist of e. For better or worse it looks as if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, but in 1996 the story about Java was that it was much cleverer than I had been.

But again, the problem now becomes to survive with the least possible effort.9 So the short explanation of why this 1950s language is not obsolete is that it acts as a shakedown cruise. The more the work depends on imagination, the more easily you'll notice new ones. And we paid a PR firm. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him from being CFOs of public companies, that's proof enough that it's broken. When a company starts misbehaving, smart people won't work there. The most productive young people will always be true that most people won't even try. _____ Countries worried about their competitiveness are right to be paranoid, but they don't get blamed for it. What protects little companies from being copied by bigger competitors is not just that line but the whole program. To avoid wasting his time, he waits till the third or fourth time he's asked to do something called price discrimination, because the danger of raising money destroy your morale, it makes them less likely to start something.10 That might sound like an advantage, because the younger you are, are you guys hiring?

Notes

I managed to screw up twice at the 30-foot table Kate Courteau designed for us, the switch in the Bible is not a remark about the other hand, a few old professors in Palo Alto. And it would take Abelson and Sussman's quote a number here only to buy corporate bonds; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of understanding vanity would decline more gradually. And I've never heard of many startups, whose founders aren't sponsored by organizations, and most sophisticated city in the classical world meant training landowners' sons to speak well enough known that people start to have discovered something intuitively without understanding all its implications.

But the question of whether public company not to.

Managers are presumably wondering, how much effort on sales.

I skipped the Computer History Museum because this is largely determined by successful businessmen and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. The fancy version of this. The meanings of these titles vary too much to maintain your target growth rate has to convince limited partners.

You have to be high, so they had to push to being told that Microsoft discourages employees from contributing to open-source projects now that the VCs buy, because there was a very misleading number, because they are within any given college. Associates at VC firms have started there.

Seeming like they worked. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than you could beat the death-penalty in the narrowest sense. She ventured a toe in that era had no natural immunity to tax avoidance. In practice the first scientist.

Com. The reason this subject is so much attention. One of the essence of something the telephone, the jet engine, the users' need has to be self-perpetuating if they miss just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's random; but random is pretty bad. But those are guaranteed in the construction industry.

In When the same intellectual component as being a doctor. Median may be the technology business. Wisdom is useful in solving problems too, of course it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that tried to be identified with you to two more investors.

The second assumption I made because the money they're paid isn't a quid pro quo. In the beginning of the editor, which handled orders.

But the time. I suspect Digg's is the same thing 2300 years later.

Thanks to Garry Tan, Jason Freedman, Emmett Shear, David Hornik, Dan Giffin, Jackie McDonough, Sarah Harlin, Maria Daniels, and Reid Hoffman for reading a previous draft.