#past handers

[gothteddiesdotcom]

HI GUYS I DIDN’T TAKE ANY PICTURES OR VIDEOS WHILE I WAS AT THE JUMPS TODAY BUT I DID LEARN HOW TO DO SUPERMANS SO I AM VERY EXCITED

[flashhwing]

after all that part of me wants to just play amell anyway. but my amell would probably make pretty much the same decisions as fabian, just circle mage flavor and romancing someone else. cousland would be a bit more ruthless, less likeable, and an apostate to boot. you know i love apostates

[thesuperduckling24]

when you said "larping fits", I see now that you mean like costumes, but for a minute I misunderstood it as like ... epileptic fits, but with larping. like you suddenly go into character and start hitting people with foam swords for a few minutes before snapping out of it and being really disoriented.

LMAO that's so beautiful. not very fun for the other thrifters though, those things hurt like hell

[sparrowlucero]

Hello sorry I am being shy and anon but do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into Doctor Who again after briefly dabbling (and enjoying it very much) in like the early, early 2010s? I know this is mostly your art blog but you were the only person I could think of to ask you're like the Doctor Who authority of blogs I follow

Oh yeah of course! People can be really confusing about this so I'll try not to be.

So first, the majority of doctor who episodes are self contained stories that you could just watch and understand perfectly without any further context. even when there is some overarching context it's usually written in a way that's either pretty easy to glean and/or just doesn't impact your understanding of the story. 99% of the episodes don't even care if you know the premise and are just like "what if some people were on a spaceship and the devil was there? wouldn't that be fucked up or what??". Don't feel like you have to binge a 60 years long show to watch it. Some standalone episodes I think are fun if you (or anyone else) just want to check out one or two:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (A supposed-to-be-dead boy in a gas mask haunts a young woman in world war 2)

Blink (A woman gets wrapped up in a mystery involving statues that make people disappear. This one is especially good if you flat out know nothing about the show. Has some really great time travel stuff.)

A Christmas Carol (A christmas carol pastiche (of course) where the doctor tries to rewrite the past of a cruel man who's going to let a lot of people die. very sad and sweet. I love the "wintery planet with sky fish" setting of this one)

Vincent and the Doctor (The famous Vincent Van Gogh Episode™)

The Rings of Akhatan (A pretty lowkey little adventure story about an alien festival. has supreme autumn vibes)

Flatline (A species from a 2 dimensional world tries to break into our 3 dimensional one. really fun special effects)

Midnight (A tour bus breaks down on a diamond planet where nothing can survive. Something knocks at the door.)

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (The Doctor and friend go to a library that covers an entire planet and finds that everyone has disappeared. Has a lot of really great, interesting concepts baked into it that I won't spoil)

It Takes You Away (A girl is left alone in a cabin in the woods when her dad disappears through the mirror. Has a famously goofy ending that I really love)

73 Yards (A character is steps on a fairy circle and is followed by an old woman who always stands exactly 73 yards away)

The Devil's Chord (This doesn't really have, you know, a plot, but it does have jinkx monsoon as an evil music god)

Boom (The doctor steps on a landmine on an alien planet and cannot move)

Wild Blue Yonder (A two hander where the Doctor and co are trapped on a dilapidated spaceship at the edge of the universe. really atmospheric with some fun/strange visuals.)

That being said, it does add a lot to watch it in order; there's a lot of plot twists, character dynamics, and general payoff you get if you marathon it. I would personally recommend starting with either the first episode of the 2005 show ("Rose") or the first episode of the 2010 season ("The Eleventh Hour") and just watching in order from there. I think you could also start with "The Snowmen", "The Pilot", or "The Woman Who Fell To Earth" if you wanted, but the first two (especially rose) are the better jumping on points.

some other little notes of advice I don't often see people mention:

it's stupid sometimes just roll with it

once in a while the show sort of "reboots" with different writers, actors, directors, and a new tone. it's much more like watching several small shows than one long show, so don't be too put off by the length!

IMPORTANT: pretty much all streaming services will separate holiday/anniversary specials from the show proper and you have to deliberately search them up on the same service to find them. It's really necessary to be aware of this because many of these specials are the first or last episodes for characters/whole eras of the show and are genuinely unskippable. I strongly recommend looking up a list of the episodes and checking it after finales just to make sure you don't skip anything on accident.

there's two spin offs (Torchwood, a more adult (read: gay sex) show about a mysterious agency that solves sci fi crimes, and the Sarah Jane Adventures, a pretty good monster of the week kids show) that ran concurrently with season 1-4. You don't have to watch them to understand anything happening in doctor who, but sometimes they cross over with the show in fun ways, Ex. the first season finale of Torchwood continues directly into season 3 of Doctor Who. My friend and I got a kick out of watching them at the same time so maybe you will too. (either way I recommend watching "Children of Earth", the torchwood miniseries, if you want to see a weird dark sci fi show about the government making contact with aliens. It's a bit like arrival (2016) if it was way nastier.)

alternatively, you can inject fast acting brain poison into yourself with this

anyways I hope this all reads as, you know, more approachable than the way dudes on quora recommend this show:

[bigtrashdad]

An honest admission about Delaware Pastoral

I want to preface this by emphasizing that the comic is NOT ENDING. This is more of an open conversation about making comics, and what feels like an inevitable burnout. I've reached a complete standstill with DelaPast. When I began posting this comic in 2020, I was positively bursting with drive to complete this story, which has slowely but surely dwindled. This isn't the first time this has happened. I was making a comic from 2014-2018 that let out an excruciatingly slow death-rattle after 53 pages, (which if you do the math, averages about 13 pages per year, in theory). and was eventually just abandoned.

I love comics, and I love making them. I also think it's an extremely strenuous process that takes so. much. time. I'm a perfectionist through and through, and I tend to expect way too much of myself, while also having the attention-span and patience of a gerbil. A very real part of me is ashamed DelaPast hasn't progressed further, and that I've been neglecting it for so long. All while undermining the fact that since this comic's conception I've completed a bachelors, masters and pedagogy degree. I got an email the other day that the website domain is about to expire, and I considered just letting it slowly vanish into the abyss. To just upload the finished script and let people read it for themselves and imagine what could have been. But it wouldn't be fair to anyone who enjoys this comic, to all the work I put in to it these past four years and kind of stupidly, the characters I've come to love so much. But I do need to officially take a step back and seriously reconsider how I'm going to make the comic going foward. This story has always been a dialogue-heavy, actionless, two-hander, which has been an absolute nightmare trying to make "exciting" through storyboards. I might reformat it entirely to be more text heavy, or figure out a way to save more time on each page. Regardless, it's time to finally admit that DelaPast is officially taking a hiatus until further notice. I don't know when it will be back, or how, but it WILL return. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading Delaware Pastoral so far! Elliott and Wentworth will be back soon, I promise :) For now, feast your eyes on this unfinished page, as a little treat.

[sweetmage]

Ohhh kiss prompts!!! Kiss on a scar for handers or your cyberpunk bois! Whichever is fueling you the most 😂💚

Thank you so so so much for this prompt, I had so many feelings about them 🥺

I chose Handers! I'll put it under the cut!

In all their years together, Hawke never asked about that scar. He had more than share himself; souvenirs from battles past that formed latticework of raised flesh all across his skin, a map of every close call he'd had. But Anders's was different. It was a neat line on the left side of his chest with its matching exit wound on his back. It was warped and discolored on its borders like it'd been cauterized and stood out starkly among the others, whipp scars, magic splashback burns, and whatever he'd inflicted upon himself in moments of despair. Absently, Hawke let his calloused fingers brush against it, and he felt Anders stiffen in response.

"Hawke?"

At once he snatched his hand back like it'd been burned. "Uhh, what?"

"Did you want to ask something?" Anders propped himself up on his elbow to look him in the eye.

"No," he said, shaking his head but it was painfully short-lived. "Well, maybe. What's with the scar?"

He sighed and looked away. "Templars," he said, as if that explained it all.

"Templars," he spat back, like the word tasted foul on his tongue. "What in the Maker's name did they even do to you? Looks like you were skewered like one of those little Orlesian sandwiches. You know, with the olives?"

"Glad I can always count on you to be sensitive and mature, Hawke." Anders sank back into the pillows, head haloed by his hair. He didn't look upset though, the slight quirk of lips betraying his amusement. "Edan was away," he said of the Hero of Ferelden. "The stand-in Commander was less than understanding of a certain mage's plight. And by certain mage I mean me and by plight I mean not wanting templars sniffing around my quarters."

"I think I know where this is going." Hawke frowned.

"Not enough of them dropped dead in the joining. All the ones that survived hunted me. They knew what I did with Justice. They'd see me dead for it. But Justice wouldn't allow that." His hand drifted to the scar, rubbing the toughened skin. "He protected me, kept me alive."

"That... definitely got you in the heart."

"I don't know how he did it. It was like the Fade itself flooded me. I didn't need to breath anymore, my heart didnt need to to beat for a while. I didn't even feel the pain at the time, just this... anger."

"That sounds like the Justice I know."

"It wasn't him," Anders said. "I don't know where to draw the line, but I swear that rage was all mine. He just kept me alive long enough to act on it."

It was hard to imagine what Anders had gone through, the persecution, the fear, and the desperation. His own life as an apostate had been sheltered, safe, and privileged in comparison. The best he could do now was wrap him up, hold him tight and plant kisses in his hair until he felt his body slacken in his arms. It was a poor consolation, but it was all he had to offer. Anders seemed to accept it.

"I'm fine, love. I've been through worse."

"I know, but..."

"You're sweet to worry, but it's okay. It was a long time ago."

Hawke didn't say anything else, but he did reach down to lace their fingers together, feeling each knobby joint lock with his. His lips left Anders' hair, traveled down to his chest where he gave that scar special attention, kissing around its raised edges.

"Hawke?"

"Let me love on you a little. Is that alright?"

Sighing, Anders' fingers wound through his hair and he nodded. "Not like I could stop you if I tried."

"You know me so well," he replied with a lopsided smile.

"I guess I have him to thank for us, in a way," he mused. "I got to be with you. I didn't think I'd ever get to love anyone like this again, or that I should."

"He made the right choice," Hawke agreed, tucking his head against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart, unmarred by his ordeal, beating just for him now. "And I'll always be grateful for that."

[taraljc]

So having watched the first episode again before the finale, I am now watching the second episode.

Just like WandaVision, A³ is really built to be rewatched and rewards you for paying attention and I love that. Because the problem with 98% of puzzle box shows is that they don't stick the landing because they don't actually know what they're doing and this show new from day one exactly the story they were telling and exactly how they were going to get to where they needed to be for all the pieces to fall into place.

The only reason she assembles the coven is so she will have the opportunity to harvest their power. And yet she also tries to keep the kid well out of it by not having him there in the basement when they chant the song.

I really love that Agatha tells Teen 100% the truth. The road is a myth. It is not real. It will kill you. She tries to warn the kid off right up until he reminds her that she needs power to fight the Salem Seven. They were never the true antagonist of the series they were simply a plot device. The wolves nipping at their heels to keep them moving.

Billy's quest that is the engine that drives the series but it is still Agatha's story that is also being told here. They are 100% co-leads. This is a two-hander. It is about both of their evolutions, both of them coming to accept their past in order to face their future. They are both transformed into who they need to be, to start a new path.

[adainesjacket]

Happy Friday and welcome to DADWC! How about “I just want to be close to you. As close as you allow me to be.” for Handers?

happy friday, thanks for having me! this snippet is set after the DA2 quest 'dissent'. @pinkfadespirit @dadrunkwriting

m!hawke/anders, hurt/comfort(ish), 718 words

"The lamp isn't lit, messere."

Hawke turns his head, frozen in the act of knocking on the wooden clinic door. A girl too young to be out in the dark and the cold stares at him, arms folded, a cross expression on her little face.

"I know," he says unnecessarily. "I just-"

"If the lamp isn't lit," she continues, staring him down, "the healer is not available."

"Yes, but-"

"And he needs to rest."

"I completely agree with you," Hawke says quickly, before she can interrupt him again. "One hundred percent. But he's my friend, and he's not come out in a few days, and I just need to check on him. Okay?"

This mollifies her, but only a little. She chews on her lip as she considers him. "You're really his friend?" She asks after a moment.

"I am," Hawke agrees, and hopes that it's still true, just as he'd hoped that giving Anders Ser Alrik's papers would have calmed him, just as he'd hoped that they could breeze past this 'unfortunate incident' like he breezed past everything else. He had been a fool.

"You'll make him rest?" The little girl presses. "We're all worried about him."

"I'll try my best," Hawke promises, and only when she finally huffs an assent does he raise his fist back up and rap on the door. "Anders? It's me. Can you open the door? Please?"

There was no answer, but Hawke knew better than to give up on the first try. Especially with Anders, the stray cat of a man.

"Anders," he tries again. "Please. I want to help."

He's elated when he hears shuffling on the other side of the door, but moments pass and Anders does not speak or let him in. Hawke looks around to see if the little girl is still listening, but she has vanished into the dark.

"So this is where you give up?" He asks, softer in tone but loud enough that Anders can hear him through the heavy wood door. "One mistake, one scared but unhurt girl, and the embodiment of Justice locks himself away?"

"Stop it," Anders says, and his voice is rough and raspy but oh, it is such a relief to hear him. "You shouldn't be here, Hawke."

"What, because the lamp isn't lit? People are worried about you, Anders. I'm worried about you. Will you please let me in? If I break down the door I think the good people of Darktown will string me up."

"No," Anders says, sighs, really. "Hawke - what do you want?"

You, he thinks, desperately. I want to go back to how we were before this happened. I want to flirt with you, and trade barbs, and watch each other's back. I want to get my boots out of Darktown puddles, come through this door and hold you so tightly you forget how to hate yourself.

"I just want to be close to you," he says, instead of all the messy words his heart would rather put in his mouth. "Because you need company. And if this is as close as you'll allow me to be…" The cobbled street is cold, damp, and uninviting. With a silent apology to Orana, he sits down on the stoop of the clinic, his back to the door. "I'll just wait here."

He hears the sound of a body sliding down wood, and knows that Anders is mirroring him, that they are sat back to back, unable to look each other in the eye. Somehow he feels closer to him than he ever has before. But Anders doesn't say anything more, even though Hawke can still hear his breathing beyond the wood, and occasionally a sob.

"Messere."

Hawke, cold and half-asleep, jerks his head up to see the little girl has returned. She's carrying a clay mug of something steaming.

"Broth," she says, thrusting it towards him. "From my mother. The healer helped her with her leg, last summer."

Hawke takes it gratefully, frozen fingers curling around the warm clay. "Give her my thanks," he says. "And get yourself in the warm, okay?"

She nods. "Will you stay with him?"

With his free hand, Hawke traces the grain of the wooden door, imagines Anders's hand doing the same on the other side. "I will," he promises.

[dragonagefanevents]

Dragon Age Fan Event Listings

The beauty of fan events is that they are run by fans.

Including you.

▸What are the types of fan events? - #education

▸Start a new event! - #how tos (volunteer to write for us!)

▸Ask Box - send us advice, or ask for it!

▸Blog Tag List

Below is a list of all Dragon Age fan-run events we can find. The links should bring you to the most recent iteration of the event. Where possible, the time period the event covers is listed next to the event.

Want to get an event listed? Check out the link and submit. Look here for multi-fandom events, or more events in general.

Event Masterlist - #compendium

Bangs

25k Big Bang (July - November)

10k Big Bang (March - April)

Dragon Age Reverse Bang

Exchanges

Arlathan Exchange (April - June)

DA Polyshipping (August - November)

Handers Exchange (March - May)

Templartations Exchange (March - May)

Black Emporium Rare Pair Exchange (June - September)

Platonic Ideal Gen Fic Exchange (December - February)

Smutquisition (January - March)

Theme Weeks/Months

Anders Week (Feb 3 - 9)

14 Days of Circle Mages (Feb)

Kink Memes

Dragon Age Kink Meme (Dreamwidth) | DAO | DA2 | DAI

Zines

Dragon Age Flower Zine (Processing Period)

Wanderers Zine (Creation Period)

Dragon Age OC Zine (Mod Apps Open)

Alistair Zine (Creation Period)

Faith: A Leliana Fanzine (Interest Check)

Grave Gold: A Mortalitasi Zine (Interest Check)

Special Events

Dragon Age Drunk Writing Circle

Dragon Age Annual (2025 Digital Orders Open)

Dragon Age Create-A-Thon

Reddit Weekly Dragon Age Writing Prompts

Unofficial Dragon Age Day (Dec 4)

Solavellan Day (April 11)

Past Events

Retired Bangs

DragonAgeBB (last: 2015; formerly on LJ and elsewhere)

Retired Exchanges

Demands of the Qun (Qunari)

A Paragon of Their Kind (DA Dwarves)

Solas Lovers

Hightown Funk (Varric/Hawke)

Retired Theme Weeks/Months

Autumn of Anders (Anders Appreciation Event)

Dalish Week

30 Days of Dorian (Dorian Appreciation Event)

Dragon Age Fan Week (2013)

City Elf Week (2024)

Cullen Appreciation Week (2019)

Cullen Week (2021)

14 Days of DA Lovers

Fenris Appreciation Month (2017)

Krem Week 2024

Leliana Week (2024)

Rylen Appreciation Week (2018)

Sera Appreciation Week (2019)

Sera Appreciation Week (2024)

Sub!Solas Week (2016)

Tranquil Week

Zevwarden Week

Past Zines

Adoribull Fairytales

Age of Romance Zine (Incomplete)

ApprovesGreatly (Incomplete)

Andoralis Zine

Arcana: A Dragon Age Zine

Arlathvhen Zine (Incomplete)

Beyond the Veil Zine (Zine)

Bring Down the Sky Bioware Fanzine

Dragon Age 2 10th Anniversary Zine (Zine)

Dragon Age Codex Zine & Myths and Legends Zine

Fortitudo Dorian Artbook

Good for Each Other (Adoribull Zine)

In Peace, Vigilance Zine

Insufficient Skill Fanzine

Legend Mark Zine

Lotus and Root OC Zine

Love Across Thedas Zine (Zine)

Na Via Lerno Victoria (Fenris Zine)

Patron of the Arts Zine

Rebel Hearts Handers Zine (Zine)

Road to the Imperium Zine

Solasmancy Zine

Sunlight (Anders Zine)

The Coming Storm Zine (Ukrainian Zine)

The Dragon Age Zine (Russian Zine)

The Keeper's Codex Fairy Tale Zine

The Unsung Dragon Age Zine

The Zevran Zine (incomplete)

Thedosian Archives (incomplete)

to be happy (FenHawke Zine)

Wicked Eyes: A Dragon Age Finery Zine

Year of the Mabari (Incomplete)

Other Past Events

Dragon Age Calendar 2018

Dragon Age Calendar 2021

For Fans by Fans - Fan Forge

[dear-ao3]

Bucket!

you did encourage the camera angles, soooo

this is more opinion but there are some facts in here if you count the mild history of cameras in F1 as facts.

F1’s main problem with cameras (imo) is that they really want to “keep people in the action” which they’ve done by keeping cars in the direct center of your screen all the times, and putting cameras at sections with wider angles of view. This is nice, because the sort of limited camera angles from before made it occasionally difficult to keep track of race action.

HOWEVER

They sort of swapped to this wide, central shot style, instead of implementing it. One thing F1 did really well was letting you feel and understand the power of these cars, even through a TV screen. The camera whipped around to follow Raikkonen absolutely sending his car through Eau Rouge (absolute madlad btw) or the Schumacher brothers chasing each other through that wide right hander in Silverstone. The cars felt fast, they felt close, and a lot of that was due to the very stationary cameras relatively close to the track, and the fact that the operators didn’t seem to feel the need to adjust the zoom angle every microsecond to keep the car perfectly centered on your TVs screen. Like sure, I couldn’t see all the pretty sponsor logos, or maybe I didn’t always catch the honestly fascinating front or rear wings of the 2000s (next up on the fact list?), but that was part of the magic. The cars were screaming past so quickly you could hardly keep them in frame at all.

This started going away in the 2010s. By 2020 it was nearly gone completely, and watching races just felt sort of stagnant: no matter how fast I knew Hamilton and Vettel were throwing themselves through every corner, they always seemed to be moving at the same speed.

But things are starting to change.

New cams like the ones on front wings, on/inside driver helmets, and the saving grace of the mid-season camera development upgrades (lol), the gyro cam. These are SO COOL, and the gyro cam in particular feels FAST, I think because the mildly warped field of view makes the motion blur heavier while still keeping that crisp video quality we’ve come to expect from modern cameras, combined with the defining feature of it rolling with the horizon as the car experienced angle changes itself.

Also just angles in general, like the ones at the Monaco pool chicane and tunnel, and some of the ones at Singapore this year, they just bring back that close-to-the-track action.

Interestingly, if you go back and watch recordings from the 1970s and 80s, you’ll notice they actually had some of these. The onboard cameras back then were genuinely exciting, and I watch them all the time. I’d recommend that any F1 fan do that, even if just to see the evolution of driving styles and cars. 

I think F1 is finally listening to fans saying they liked the more stationary cameras, the wild onboards, stuff like that. You can feel the speed of the cars like back in the 2000’s and early 2010’s.

mildly considering starting a bucket blog ngl but also the anon-bucket-question is fun what do you think

BUCKET!!!!

this is really cool. i had not thought about the camera angles before but now that you mention it....yeah youre fucking RIGHT!!!! and yes the gyro camera was fucking cool i loved it it was wonderful and insane.

alternatively i like sometimes when the camera angle shows one of the cameras on the edge of the screen WHIPPING around to capture the car (tho a shame that we dont get that angle).

10/10 as usual. i patiently await more facts :)

[mousemannation]

The superpower behind De Minaur's surge [x]

Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers examines the Aussie's success on return | December 23, 2024 | By Craig O'Shannessy | 📸 Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour

Alex de Minaur broke serve at a higher rate than any other player on Tour in 2024.

You hold. You hold. You are broken.

That’s the daunting reality of playing against Alex de Minaur in 2024. The 25-year-old Australian reached a career-high PIF ATP Ranking of No. 6 on the back of breaking serve more than any other player over the past twelve months. An Infosys ATP Beyond The Numbers analysis of his stellar season identifies his superpower as breaking you right around once every three service games.

The leading five players who broke serve the most last season were:

1) Alex de Minaur - 31.6% 2) Carlos Alcaraz - 30.8% 3) Novak Djokovic - 29% 4) Tommy Paul - 28.6% 5) Mariano Navone - 28.5%

De Minaur’s return strategy is straightforward. Against first serves, the Aussie hits over half (55%) of his returns right down the middle third of the court. This clever strategy has a two-fold benefit to start the point. It takes the danger of the singles sidelines out of the equation and also provides no angle for the server to immediately attack him.

Return Direction vs. First Serves

Middle third of the court - 55%

Outer third to the Ad court - 28%

Outer third to the Deuce court - 17%

When returning second serves, De Minaur turns up the heat through the Ad court to the right-hander’s backhand wing.

Return Direction vs. Second Serves

Middle third of the court - 53%

Outer third to Ad court - 34%

Outer third to Deuce court - 13%

De Minaur put 68 per cent of his first-serve returns in the court this season, which is six percentage points higher than the Tour average of 62 per cent. De Minaur put an impressive 91 per cent of second-serve returns in the court, nine percentage points higher than the Tour average of 82 per cent. De Minaur’s consistency and direction weigh heavily on the opponent’s mind when trying to hold serve.

Overall, De Minaur won 33 per cent of his first-serve return points and a dominant 55.9 per cent of second-serve return points this season. Only Alcaraz won more second-serve return points, at 56.1 per cent.

De Minaur also led the Tour in 2024 in break points converted rate at 45.1 per cent. The leading five players over the past twelve months in this category were:

1) Alex de Minaur - 45.1% 2) Daniil Medvedev - 44% 3) Jack Draper - 43.8% 4) Mariano Navone - 43.1% 5) Carlos Alcaraz - 42.7%

It’s interesting to note that De Minaur’s return speed is almost identical to the rest of the players on Tour.

First-serve return speed = 61 mph (Tour average 61 mph)

Second-serve return speed = 73 mph (Tour average 72 mph)

Where De Minaur does win the speed battle is with his feet. He is lightning fast and immediately shrinks the court with his ability to run down so many balls and get his teeth into return games. Overall, he won 41 per cent of his return points in 2024, which powered him to 47 wins on Tour, including titles in ’s-Hertogenbosch (grass) and Acapulco (hard).

De Minaur will start the 2025 season on home soil. He has reached the Round of 16 at the Australian Open in the past three years. A deeper run is on the cards for the improving Aussie.

[handers-time]

Handers Gift Exchange 2024 Round-up! 

This year's Handers Gift Exchange has officially come to a close!

We'd like to give a huge thank you and shoutout to all 20 of our participants this year. Congratulations to you all, for doing so well creating beautiful works for your giftees.

On behalf of the mods ( @dismalzelenka, @un-shit-yourself, @storybookhawke, and @hollyand-writes ), thank you to everyone who remains in the Handers fandom—in addition to authors and artists, it also includes readers, commenters, serial kudosers, and avid rebloggers! We appreciate all the love, enthusiasm, support, and cheerleading everyone did throughout this event. Everyone involved keeps the love of the ship alive and well even thirteen years after the game came out.

If you participated in this event, we ask that you please leave a comment on the gift you received, at least three lines in length! Participation goes both ways, so please give some praise and adoration to the person who devoted their time and energy to create a gift for you.

You can view the blog's tag for this event here, and the AO3 collection here, but below is a compiled list of all the amazing gifts shared over the course of this exchange. Please mind the tags and ratings as you go through them!

Invitations by replicatortrash for ghostbunny M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Garrett Hawke has been trying to open his home to Anders for weeks and it's been slow going. Is he keeping distance because of something from his past, or because Garrett is a vampire... or is there something else going on Garrett hasn't considered?

Mélange by dismalzelenka for Sulkyvalkyrie F!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: “I want Justice involved.” It was a marvel, Anders thought, how four words flipped his entire world on its head. “You what?” Hawke tilted her head, catlike curiosity peppered across her face. “Justice,” she repeated. “I want him involved.” In which Hawke confesses some secrets, and Anders and Justice both learn there is far more to Hawke than meets the eye.

The Short Straw by autumninfall for DemonicPersephone F!Handers | Mature |

Summary: A quick way to earn some coin while fleeing the Templars of Kirkwall. A dragon up in the mountains. Surely nothing will go wrong, right?

at the end of the world by PhantomsLost for barbex F!Handers | Teen |

Summary: “Hawke, no.” She shook her head and took a step back, both hands still gripping her staff tight. “You and I both know we don’t have a better option.” Tipping her head slightly in the direction of the looming Nightmare, she added, “Go. I’ve got this.”

Broken, yet Remade by Actually_An_Insane_Fangirl for PhantomsLost F!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Hawke may be broken, but that doesn't mean she cannot be remade with the gentle hands of a healer.

Lunacy by Sulkyvalkyrie for GhostGarrison M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Hawke wanted to wait another night, but Anders can't stop worrying about him...

Looking the Part by acesdesire M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: While visiting Chateau Haine, Hawke finds himself enjoying the party more than expected, especially with Anders looking so dashing in his formal wear. Infiltration can wait (even if Tallis might have other plans). He would much rather indulge in this rare and beautiful moment.

Some Guys Have All the Luck by barbex for dismalzelenka M!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Watching Anders fight, powerful, controlled, turns Hawke on like nothing else. That's a man he wants to get on his knees for. And more.

Hunting by DemonicPersephone for Actually_An_Insane_Fangirl F!Handers | Explicit |

Summary: Nothing like a near death experience to make romance bloom <3

Chasing the Light by leonidskies for SalsedinePicta M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Anders is having a bad day. Hawke, forever down bad, refuses to let it go.

Hurt Less by ghostbunny for PorlPoint M!Handers | Mature |

Summary: After coming close to killing the mage girl, Ella, Anders is in a bad way, consumed by guilt and shame and beginning to spiral. Hawke attempts to help him through it, while dealing with some of his own insecurities.

The One That Didn't Get Away by FactoryKat for winebearcat M!Handers | G |

Summary: Of all the things that could have happened to newcomer Garrett Hawke after moving to Kirkwall, picking up a date outside of a walk-in clinic wasn't exactly on his predictions list.

Healing the Healer by PorlPoint M!Handers | Teen |

Summary: Anders is seriously injured and out of mana, with only Hawke there to heal him before it's too late.

Rose Cottage by winebearcat for leonidskies M!Handers | Mature |

Summary: Anders reaches his 50th Name Day. He never expected to make it past 30, let alone have his happy ending.

ART: storybookhawke's piece for autumninfall M!Handers | G |

ART: notomys-mordax-blog's piece for ocean-in-my-rebel-soul M!Handers | G |

ART: salsedinepicta's piece for notomys-mordax-blog M!Handers | G |

ART: kittyopera's piece for acesdesire M!Handers | G |

ART: gevascloset's piece for factorykat M!Handers | G |

ART: moosu's piece for kittyoperas M!Handers | G |

[zot3-flopped]

The text from the Indepent article about overrated albums (ttpd was no 16)

“Despite earning Swift a handful of middling reviews from critics, her April album The Tortured Poets Department still drew effusive praise from many outlets (this one included) – regardless of the stagnancy of its sound, the overheated metaphors of its lyrics, and the indulgence of its 31-track length. It’s no real surprise that conversations around the record quickly became about Swift’s capitalist supremacy than the work itself – this is an album with very little to say and a chronic inability to say the interesting stuff succinctly.

Swift has chugged along in the spotlight without breaks for years now, and it feels pointed that her finest material in the last decade was produced while she was literally unable to do anything other than make music – the gorgeous 2020 two-hander Folklore and Evermore were products of Covid-era quarantine. Tortured Poets, meanwhile, was released amid peak Swiftageddon – the Eras tour, the Eras tour film, the endless re-records of her past albums – and sounds unsurprisingly exhausted. Swift picks over old tropes (witches again?), old feuds (Kim again?) and old melodies (Jack Antonoff again?). It’s the sound of an artist so powerful and successful that no one dares challenge her or suggest she rest or regroup for a while”

Thank you!

[roseofithaca]

It's kinda funny when people ask me about CBS Ghosts, I usually tell them to give the first six episodes a go, and to try not to be put off by the first two-parter. Because those first two episodes do have a lot of forced jokes, a lot of shot for shot scenes of the UK pilot which feel badly copy and pasted, and a bit too much toilet humor. I almost quit the show after the first two hander and then decided to give it another chance and am glad I did because the show does find its own identity pretty quick after that.

But what's interesting is that, I had a similar experience with the UK version. I did NOT like the show at all on first viewing. My best friend suggested we watch it, I sat through the first three episodes and thought...."meh". Like the plague ghosts got a chuckle out of me but not much else. And I HATED the main ghosts. So much. It kinda had the opposite problem to the US version, while the characters there felt too flat and cheesy, the UK ghosts felt way too mean - not even in a fun way like Red Dwarf or Blackadder. Like the first episode is fine, but in the second one they are all basically torturing a woman who literelly just got out of the hospital after barely surviving - because of them! With the exception of Pat and Kitty, I really didn't want to like any of these guys. And then the third episode, even when they stop tormenting Alison, I found them trying to set the builders up really cringy and a little uncomfortable, especially the scene with planting Alison's wedding ring. These episodes work great on rewatch to see how far the ghosts and Alison's relationship with them develops, but at the time I just wasn't enjoying the show so stopped after that. But my friend continued and kept saying it was amazing.

So a few months later I decide to give it one more try and the next episode up was Free Pass. I think this episode, while not the strongest of S1, is very underrated because this is what won me over and kept me watching. And I think it's because this is the episode where the ghosts are not just annoying assholes. We get to see them as actual people being excited and interested in the film crew. Aside from Robin messing with the lights, the ghosts aren't really a hindrance to anything. Instead it's where we see that Alison is just as unhinged and morally grey as they are - willing to put people at risk in her unstable house for the sake of making some money. The whole thing about her winding Mike up with her celeb crush is also funny and cute. It's also interesting to learn that this was the first episode the guys filmed and you can kinda feel that buzz of them all being excited to start and how it bleeds over into the episode. After that I was hooked.

[chimielie]

i had the time of my life / fighting dragons with you

summary: Iwaizumi Hajime x f!Reader. No one in history has even come close to touching a night fury. Iwaizumi should be lauding himself as the greatest warrior of all time; well past Oikawa as the greatest of your generation, even. And instead he’s trying to turn it into a cat.

word count: 1.7k

cw: incredibly minor blood, unserious death threats, one minor mention of parental death. overuse of italics and “brat” as a nickname.

a/n: how to train your dragon au, iwaizumi is not really similar to hiccup but he LOVES big lizard!!! anyway i’ve been on a bus since 6:45 am with intermittent sightseeing stops and my phone was also dead for five hours so i have no idea how or when i wrote this <3 love you

“i think,” iwaizumi starts, “i’ve made a discovery.”

“what?” you look up from the whetstone you’re sharpening your sword against, passing the blade through your hands again and again with the practiced ease of years of study. “don’t tell me you’ve pissed over the ale or something stupid.”

his fine nose wrinkles.

“i don’t do things like that,” he says your name, irritated. the mocking lift to your lips drops and your eyebrows soften. he nearly never uses your given name. instead, it’s been lady or bug or brat since you were youths.

lady, most often, used always around your family and anyone who wasn’t a friend. it was your default title, said with iwaizumi’s plain sincerity and never the mocking twist that some of the other village boys used.

bug, generally when he wanted to goad you into breaking the rules. it had begun when you were still children and he had been the largest of you all: oikawa, matsukawa, hanamaki. things hadn’t stayed that way, but the nickname remained and never failed to incense you until you were slinging your weapon over your back and striding ahead of them all.

brat, used without any pattern identifiable to you. it was often accompanied by an exasperated but affectionate puff of breath and an accommodation to a demand, but not always. sometimes he would lean to the side as you entered the dining hall and mutter something like “you have a tear in the back of your skirt,” and before you ever found your tongue in the red rage that descended upon you that he hadn’t said anything sooner, follow with “lucky for you, brat, no one’ll notice when they’re blind with your beauty.”

the last one almost always nonplussed you so much you had no answer but to kick him in the back of the knee, and it never pissed him off as much as it should.

so you know whatever he wants to talk about is serious.

“i know,” you say, lifting your sword and inspecting it. “what have you done, then?”

“i have to show you,” he says, and your brows nearly shoot into your hairline. it’s not something he’s made, then; something bulky, sturdy iwaizumi can’t carry home to you.

his face is carefully neutral, but his eyes betray him. something lively and hopeful is dancing in the depths of his green eyes, something you rarely see in his chronically serious face.

you pick up your two-hander, sliding it into its just-oiled scabbard.

“take me to it, sir,” you say, and his face splits into a beaming smile you’re not sure you can recall seeing in years.

“this isn’t a discovery,” you say blandly as he pushes aside branches so you can duck under them without tangling leaves in your hair. “this is what we called the secret garden as children, hajime. don’t tell me you’re so old you’re losing your memories already?”

“you’re not funny,” iwaizumi says with a chuckle, and pride glows in your chest. “it’s not the glade, brat, it’s—”

“a fucking night fury?” you shriek, scrambling back as soon as you pass through the branches, hitting iwaizumi’s firm chest as an obstacle. “whatever you wanted to show me has been eaten and burned by now, i hope you know! or the other way around!”

you reach for your sword, but he pulls it out of its sheath before you can.

“have you lost your damn mind?” you shout, watching him put himself between you and the most fearsome creature you can imagine and holding the sword towards you. like you’re going to hurt it.

“hey, hey,” he says, tossing your weapon to the side, and the thing snuggles into him, growling. no, not growling—purring. “don’t worry, she’s not gonna hurt you.”

you dive for your sword and come up kneeling, watching your oldest friend, one of the greatest warriors of your generation, scratching the head of a fucking night fury; the same dragon, or its kin, that killed his father five years ago.

“no worries that it’ll, i don’t know, maim and kill me,” you say. “or yourself, for that matter. for the love of life, hajime, what are you trying to do, tame it?

“i’m not trying to tame him,” iwaizumi says, looking up at you with stupid, glimmering, hopeful eyes. “he’s—i injured him, a few months ago.”

no one in history has even come close to touching a night fury. iwaizumi should be lauding himself as the greatest warrior of all time; well past oikawa as the greatest of your generation, even. and instead he’s trying to turn it into a cat.

“why didn’t you finish the job?” you say warily, lowering your guard ever so slightly. it’s a beautiful creature, you have to admit, with black scales that seem to absorb the light and green eyes remarkably like the shade of—

“we—i don’t know,” iwaizumi’s tone turns reverent, affectionate. “we came to an understanding.”

“an understanding,” you echo, cocking your head and sizing up the fury. its build is lithe, more suited to its nighttime bursts of violence than some of the dragons you’ve slain in your day. you circle the two of them, giving a wide berth as the dragon swivels its head to look at you, and there it is.

mattsun’s handiwork if you’ve ever seen it, a beautiful leather-and-metal fin fitted to the dragon’s tail, replacing where iwaizumi’s blade had torn it. you wonder if he’d known. if you were the last of your cohort to know.

“it’s a beautiful piece,” you murmur, reaching out to touch it almost inexorably. it stiffens, hissing at you, and you flinch back.

“go on,” hajime says softly. the dragon looks at you with those alarmingly familiar eyes, sizing you up just as you had it. against all your better judgment, you drop your sword, kicking it to the side. it steps toward you, gaze flicking back and forth between you, the weapon, and iwaizumi. you don’t move, barely breathing as it bumps its head into your side just as it had iwaizumi.

you’re not braced for it, buckling a little under the force of the headbutt, but after a few more moments of caution, you dare to lift a hand and pat it on the head, once.

“hello, scourge of the skies,” you say softly to it. “please don’t burn, eat, or kill me.”

“i won’t let him hurt you,” iwaizumi’s voice is low and raspy, blending with the rush of wind through the grass. “‘sides, he’s well fed, huh?” he gives the dragon an affectionate pat on the rump.

“i don’t even want to know what you’ve been stealing to feed a night fury.”

“not stealing,” iwaizumi says, but he doesn’t elaborate, to your relief. “do you want to see something else?”

“if it’s another dragon…” you warn fruitlessly.

“not another dragon,” he says reassuringly, and instead produces a mass of leather tangled in itself so you can’t determine what exactly it is. the dragon seems to recognize it, though, and bows its—his—head to help iwaizumi through the process of getting it on.

“oh, hajime,” you say with dawning horror. “you’re not going to try and ride it, are you? if you die in such a stupid way, i’m going to be incredibly pissed off.”

“i’m not going to die, bug,” iwaizumi promises, tightening a final strap on the saddle. “and neither are you.”

“what the fuck does that mean?” you say, and he’s already lifting you up, one arm supporting your back and the other your knees like it’s not already humiliating enough, he has to put you in some kind of princess carry to finish you off entirely. “hajime. hajime! you can’t do this—”

your words are cut off by a scream and a second attempt of the day to crawl back into the strong cage of iwaizumi’s arms. the dragon’s wings beat beneath you, a steady rhythm not unlike the gallop of a horse, but you still dig your legs in tightly and squeeze your eyes shut.

eventually, you must reach some kind of acceptable elevation as the dragon’s flight evens out, transitioning from actively beating against the wind to riding it. you open one eye tentatively, your breath stolen from you as the sea of your people stretches out into the horizon.

“are you alright?” iwaizumi inquires in your ear, and you settle a little more comfortably against him.

“i’m going to kill you if i survive this,” you say. he chuckles low in your ear and tugs the reins sharply, steering the dragon in a wide arc.

“you sound practically relaxed.” the ocean’s waves are visible even from this height, and the white line of the crash against the cliffs almost reminds you of bridal lace. “relaxed enough to stop digging your claws into my arms?”

you hadn’t even been aware that you were gripping onto him so tightly. when you withdraw, little pink half-moons are left, some bubbling with red droplets.

“i’d be sorry,” you say, “but you kidnapped me with a dragon, so i think we’re only even now.”

abruptly, iwaizumi’s knee moves, nudging the belly of the dragon, and all three of you plummet, dropping in a neat line toward the blue, blue sea. your stomach drops beautifully as a strong pull of the reins brings you back up, just barely skimming the water’s surface, and there’s spray on your face and sun in your eyes and iwaizumi’s laugh, wild and carefree, carrying you away on the wind.

“thanks for sharing this with me,” he says when you both have your breath again. his night fury coasts on the breeze, the sun low on the horizon, turning the light golden and the sea shining like precious metal in every direction. “even if you were a brat about it.”

you think, maybe, everything makes sense now; a realization as sharp and sudden as freefall feels. you lean back into his chest and raise your hands in the air. a language without words; a name that means beloved.

the sun drops below your eye’s limits, and the beat of the night fury’s wings is steady beneath the two of you.

[ferret-the-overseer]

so camera angles in F1 right

In case you don’t know this about me, I’m a mild film/cam passionista, and I have opinions sometimes okay.

F1’s main problem with cameras (imo) is that they really want to “keep people in the action” which they’ve done by keeping cars in the direct center of your screen all the times, and putting cameras at sections with wider angles of view. This is nice, because the sort of limited camera angles from before made it occasionally difficult to keep track of race action.

HOWEVER

They sort of swapped to this wide, central shot style, instead of implementing it. One thing F1 did really well was letting you feel and understand the power of these cars, even through a TV screen. The camera whipped around to follow Raikkonen absolutely sending his car through Eau Rouge (absolute madlad btw) or the Schumacher brothers chasing each other through that wide right hander in Silverstone. The cars felt fast, they felt close, and a lot of that was due to the very stationary cameras relatively close to the track, and the fact that the operators didn’t seem to feel the need to adjust the zoom angle every microsecond to keep the car perfectly centered on your TVs screen. Like sure, I couldn’t see all the pretty sponsor logos, or maybe I didn’t always catch the honestly fascinating front or rear wings of the 2000s (next up on the fact list?), but that was part of the magic. The cars were screaming past so quickly you could hardly keep them in frame at all.

This started going away in the 2010s. By 2020 it was nearly gone completely, and watching races just felt sort of stagnant: no matter how fast I knew Hamilton and Vettel were throwing themselves through every corner, they always seemed to be moving at the same speed.

But things are starting to change.

New cams like the ones on front wings, on/inside driver helmets, and the saving grace of the mid-season camera development upgrades (lol), the gyro cam. These are SO COOL, and the gyro cam in particular feels FAST, I think because the mildly warped field of view makes the motion blur heavier while still keeping that crisp video quality we’ve come to expect from modern cameras, combined with the defining feature of it rolling with the horizon as the car experienced angle changes itself.

Also just angles in general, like the ones at the Monaco pool chicane and tunnel, and some of the ones at Singapore this year, they just bring back that close-to-the-track action.

Interestingly, if you go back and watch recordings from the 1970s and 80s, you’ll notice they actually had some of these. The onboard cameras back then were genuinely exciting, and I watch them all the time. I’d recommend that any F1 fan do that, even if just to see the evolution of driving styles and cars. 

I think F1 is finally listening to fans saying they liked the more stationary cameras, the wild onboards, stuff like that. You can feel the speed of the cars like back in the 2000’s and early 2010’s.