#she was only like 19 at the start of inquisition her adult life has only been bad and shitty aaaaa sedate me

[taamlok]

guys i changed caris' hair, look how cuteeee

[elfcollector]

i am asking about dovecole. please tell me more about them and how they came together

THANK YOUUUUUUUUU

so in terms of the How'd This Come To Be, it's actually quite a slow burn! their first kiss isn't until shortly before trespasser lmao. this is because, frankly, they both have a lot of shit to cope with before being in a relationship would be even kind of healthy.

one of the reasons they get along so well initially is that they're in a very similar spot of being 'technically a young adult but functionally very new to being in the world.' cole is in the body of a young adult (he's probably around 19-21 by inquisition) and mooostly has the mind of a young adult, but Existing like this is extremely new to him! and dove is technically ninteen at the beginning but in a very real way she hasn't grown or matured past the age of eleven, because that's when she was made tranquil. and now that she's not she has to learn, all over again, how to be a person in the world. they're both young in a way that only they can really understand.

cole is an enormous comfort to dove, and she to him, because they have this commonality ( in addition to the fact that they're both good people with beliefs and ideals that are fairly aligned ). cole is one of the few people who can accurately understand what dove is feeling, sometimes better than she can — though being around her is extremely overwhelming for him initially — not only because he's an empath but also because he gets, more than anyone, how fucking overwhelming it is to be a person. and dove can understand better than anyone — even solas — what it's like to go from being so little to SO MUCH. dove sees herself more clearly via cole than she can otherwise, and vice versa

they do develop fairly childish crushes on each other not that long after meeting — i have a drabble somewhere on this blog where dorian notes that cole in particular gets a little lovestruck around her — but neither really have the context to understand the feelings beyond 'i like being around this person a lot.' so they just end up spending a lot of time around each other! as cole becomes more human and dove starts catching up on her actual age, especially post - game, dove starts to realize that what she feels for cole is explicitly romantic. she's not sure if cole feels the same way, but she knows that even if he turned her down they'd remain friends and she'd still be happy. so she tells him she's in love with him! cole is so happy to talk about it with her because it helps him realize oh shit THAT'S what these feelings are?

this happens about a year after the end of the game, and they take some time to just. be in love with each other and see how that feels and where it takes them. it's only four months or so out from trespasser that they officially decide to Be Together, partially because that's when dove's hand starts to act up and they're both subconsciously like 'if i die/if dove dies i want us to be together for the rest of my/dove's life.' this is when they have their first kiss! it's very natural and sweet and they're both so giddy. leliana thinks its adorable. cassandra, on the other hand, wishes they would stop being so lovey dovey in public. not because she's not happy they're happy but because oh my god this is so mushy

speaking of, they don't overtly tell most of the companions, which means the ones that haven't stayed with the inquisition full time between the game and DLC don't find out until said DLC. (varric, as ever, is the exception.) it's funny! sera and viv are both more supportive than you'd expect

[officialthiamlibrary]

Hi, thank you for all the help before! I’m wondering that is there any fic about Alpha! Theo? Thx!

As promised, here is the second part of the alpha Theo request!

Woohoo by Shipper_Trash (Teen | Complete | 1.1K) Tags: Mpreg, alpha Theo, omega Liam, kid fic, married Thiam Summary: This is a future fic, in the same 'verse as this: Get Together!! A Peek Inside: “Uhhh,” he tries to think how to answer, because if he says yes, then they won’t ever be able to play pillow fights, and that is not something he can let happen. If he says no, he will have to explain and she is too young! This situation shouldn’t have arisen at least until she was well in her teens. Like, 19. Yes, 19 is a perfectly reasonable age to give her the talk.  

What’s Your Deepest Desire by ReignWrites (Explicit | WIP | 15K) Tag: Graphic depictions of violence, alpha Theo, panic attacks, angst and fluff and smut, memory alteration, kidnapped Theo Summary: A new and unknown Supernatural being is wrecking havoc in Beacon Hills when people have been disappearing one by one. The problem has been going on for weeks and worsens when Theo Raeken ends up missing. In a desperate attempt to save the innocent lives of Beacon Hills and put a stop to this monster, Liam Dunbar calls Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski for help despite having departed a few months ago. The last thing Theo remembers is being ambushed by a man with glowing tattoos and blue eyes before being sucked into a fantasy universe. This world is Theo’s happy place and filled with his heart’s deepest desires. Liam’s in love with him, Theo has a comfortable bed to sleep on, he’s a real werewolf, and the alpha of his own pack. A part of him knows this reality is fake, but the way Liam kisses him and looks at him with so much love in his eyes makes Theo stay. He’s finally happy, and he’s forgetting everything about his past life. Will Liam, Scott, and the rest of the puppy pack be able to save Theo, or will they lose him forever to this fake reality? A Peek Inside: Oh, how Theo wishes he’s here for a night shift. He would’ve come into this clinic with a dazzling smile on his face, but he’s only filled with dread. “I was out driving,” he starts and frowns, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. No one knows about his homeless situation, and the fact he was about to sleep near the monster sends a shudder through his body. “And I saw this man dragging a woman’s body in a barn. I went to go check it out, but I saw him—” he cuts himself off.

A tale written with fangs and claws by Former_Princess (Teen | WIP | 488K) Tags: Smut, mates, friends to lovers, alpha Theo, slow build, bisexual Liam Summary: This is a story of a spark getting ignited when nobody thought it would happen. A story about friendship, trust and yes, also about love. About finding your place in the world and figuring out who you really are. This is the story of how Liam Dunbar became an Alpha and got a mate and a whole pack to call his own. This is the story of the Morning Dew Pack. A Peek Inside: Now Liam opened his beer too and raised it. “To Seattle and our new life.”

The way you move by brightsummernights (Teen | WIP | 31K) Tags: Tags vary depending on which oneshot you read (please read them carefully) Summary: My collection of unconnected Thiam one shots. A Peek Inside: He is screwed.

An Empty Barstool by Endraking (Mature | WIP | 29K) Tags: after college, angst, alpha chimera Theo Summary: Scott heads back to Beacon Hills after college to establish his adult life. He has to make a decision with regards to Theo, who has handled protecting Beacon Hills since the pack left for college. This ultimately leads to Theo, and his pack, on the run from an ambitious pack and hunters leaving Scott's pack to deal with the new threats to Beacon Hills. A Peek Inside: Scott shook his head before he glanced over to the chimera.  Theo’s face was still bruised and swollen with a nasty cut that lined the right side of his face, with a few drops of blood collected on the bar.  The chimera wore a beaten smile, a genuine one the alpha took note of, as he picked up his beer and took drink.  Scott nervously grinned as he asked, “Shouldn’t you get that checked out?  I thought you’d heal by now.”

Delirium by hollyster (Explicit | Complete | 5K) Tags: A/B/O dynamics, smut, mates, mating bites, public humiliation, knotting Summary: AU/ In which Theo is the Alpha of the Puppy Pack and Liam his Mate who forgets to take his pills to avoid a surprise heat and, goes into heat while eating a burger at the local grill. (Scott is a true Alpha, Liam's his beta but Theo's mate and omega in his pack) (Theo didn't kill anyone, Scott gave him a bit of his power, he's just a good pal with his own pack) A Peek Inside: "I'm in the car, baby. Everything's gonna be fine, I'm there in ten."

Power by liamschimera (Explicit | Complete | 981) Tags: Major character death, dark Theo, dark Liam, murder, ritualistic sacrifice, resurrection, heavy angst, alpha Theo Summary: “No, you look at me.” Theo snarled, sitting up as best he could as tears fell down his face now. “You watch me bleed out, you watch me die. You spineless fucking coward.” A Peek Inside: The Alpha with his stolen eyes, his stolen pack. He doesn’t know how he fell this far, he doesn’t know how it came to this. All he knows is how it started.

The Boyfriend Experience by ExtraSteps (Explicit | Complete | 52K) Tags: Smut, kidnapping, Liam is an escort Summary: Theo is a self-made alpha werewolf. By day he builds up his business, Raeken Industries and by night he runs the hottest club in LA, Sinema. Alongside his pack, Tracy, Josh, Corey and Hayden, he helps to protect LA. Escorting is so commonplace in this town that Theo doesn’t even blink twice when Derek Hale, another alpha, introduces him to Liam Wolf at Sinema one night. What does surprise him, however, is his immediate and intense attraction to the other man and the realisation that Liam is his mate. Liam's only been a werewolf for four years, having been taken in by Scott and the rest of his pack, but he's been fitting in just fine. Working as an escort under Scott is certainly no hardship, and with his blue eyes and cheeky smile, he's never had to try all that hard to pull new clients. Liam is out with Derek when he introduces him to Theo. He's definitely attracted to the young alpha; Theo's hot and rich, what's not to like? But the name Theo Raeken always seems to be followed by whispers of some unspeakable event, of a past marred in ambiguity. What happened five years ago and why does it still have such a profound effect on the LA packs? A Peek Inside: His gaze was drawn up, to where a balcony hovered over the dance floor. It was hard to see past the lights, but he was pretty sure there was a dark figure shadowed behind them. As Liam squinted up there, he was left with the distinct impression that the man was looking at him as well. He didn’t know why. It was just a feeling shivering down his spine.

those who wait by LovelyLittleGrim (Explicit | Complete | 6.7K) Tags; Dark, manipulation, claiming, biting, smut, alpha Theo Summary: Theo finally gets what he's always wanted. A Peek Inside: Theo breathes in, Liam’s scent surrounds him. The smell of arousal and need fade, turn into something bitter with worry. He closes his eyes and waits, lets his heartbeat settle into something neutral and thinks carefully about everything he had thought out two days prior. All the words in all the right order, in all the right places. All the looks; downcast eyes, trembling fingers—everything that would build the perfect lie.

Sculpture In Briefs by saawinchester (Explicit | Complete | 20K) Tags: Alpha Theo, enemies to lovers, smut, underage Summary: Liam’s parents left him the house and very little cash before they scurried away to go live their life of adventure. Forced to be independent too soon, Liam had to look for a means to pay the bills, keep himself in school and put food on his table. That leads to him displaying his body for people to drool or ogle at while he swerves to the music and for the right price- get to touch. Of course none of his schoolmates and pack members know about his late night activities. Enter the ever inquisitive Theo Raeken who comes into the picture with his flirty smirk, stupid perfect hair and hypnotic hazel eyes. Liam never hesitated to show his dislike for the other werewolf. Not even when Theo Raeken gets to discover his night job and….. pays for a lap dance? A Peek Inside: Theo’s eyes flickered up to the exotic dancer seeing sweat shine along his body as he swayed sexily to the current beat. Now that he was close, an inkling of familiarity was starting to simmer within him. Like he had seen those muscles flex before and that……scent…..apricot….No. His eyes dropped down to the right side of the gorgeous dancers hip and there it was… .just peaking out of seams of the underwear was a little red heart tattoo. He gasped as the dancer swerved to face him, oblivious to his presence….Liam Dunbar.

[strawberrysoup]

Let’s Review || Chapter 1

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con elements, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, very dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

This story is, as advertised, fucked up. It’s inspired by the recent influx of Dark!Steve and Dark!Tony fics and there is a lot of potentially triggering material so please read with caution. Our heroes are not heroes in this story; they’re criminals with limited to no consciences. 

There weren’t many things that Penny Parker could really rely on. Her paychecks fluctuated unfathomably every two weeks, the electricity bill was never consistent, and for some reason even when she drove her car dry it never took the same amount of gas to fill the tank. Peter’s class schedule seemed to change every time she asked about it, his after-school club activities were never on the same day, and why did she have to sign this report card but not last quarter’s, Pete? Consistency was something she’d learned not to hope for. Mostly she kept her fingers crossed that things would somehow work out to her advantage, day by day.

For the most part, it did. She’d dropped out of high school when uncle Ben died to start working, to help support aunt May and Peter. It had taken three years to get her GED between the three jobs she worked, but she managed. GED accomplished, she checked off that box on her mental list and signed up for night classes at the local community college. It was hard, but she could make it work. Then aunt May had died.

Custody of 14 year old Peter Parker had been hotly contested, as Penny had only been 21 at the time of aunt May’s death. Technically, she was an adult. She had two jobs, a steady income, an apartment, a decent credit score. Somehow, like most things in her life, it had just kind of worked out and she was granted sole custody of her younger brother. She’d dropped her night classes, picked up a third job overnight, and kept her fingers crossed that social services never asked why her “two bedroom apartment” only had one bedroom.

Semi-decent luck was the only thing that really kept her life running, and by extension Peter’s. She knew it would wear off someday, she’d been granted the lion’s share of good fortune in Queens when it came to looking after her brother and it wasn’t super fair. She just didn’t think it would end so spectacularly. The end of the luck was supposed to be a low, painful fizzle.

Instead, it was a flashbang that started with Peter acting like a cokehead. Peter had never been a particularly twitchy kid; Penny had leeched all the chaotic energy from their mother’s womb and left the intelligence behind for her kid brother. Over the course of several months though, he’d begun jumping at the drop of a hat. Penny would turn the corner into the kitchen and startle him so badly he’d have an asthma attack. If she even glanced at his phone when a notification lit up the screen he’d lose his mind, accusing her of not respecting his privacy and dart away into his room. Asking if he needed anything from the store was suddenly the Spanish Inquisition and god forbid she offer him a ride to school.

Because she’d graciously left all the IQ points for Peter, Penny had a tendency to do stupid things. Like assume Peter’s behavior was because he had gotten a girlfriend or was just going through usual teenage boy hormones that made him act like a jackass. Luckily the dumbass wasn’t actually a cokehead, considering he still blanched whenever she had weed in the house, but fuck if he wasn’t acting like a freak. It came to a head when she happened to be coming home from her second job at the same time he was getting home from one of his after-school club meetings.

She hadn’t been sure what she was seeing at first. It was definitely Peter, he’d hit a growth spurt finally and started to put on some height and muscle mass but was still a lanky little shit, and he was arguing with a man in a suit who was walking next to him. Both were being followed by a slow-moving car with blacked out windows and no front license plate. Peter’s body language was uncomfortable, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders angled away from the man and tucked in, eyes down.

When Penny called out to Peter, the man had gotten into the backseat of the black car which promptly drove away. Her brother had gone red in the face and ran up the steps to their apartment complex without waiting for her to catch up, locking himself in the bedroom and refusing to come out when she followed him in. She’d given up on being the casual guardian, the cool big sister who let him live his life. Penny had begged him to come out, to tell her what was going on. She just wanted to help, how could she help him if he wouldn’t talk to her?

It had started with simple answers, after Penny had started to cry, through the door.

Who was that man? Tony Stark.

What did he want with Peter? To offer him a job.

Why were they arguing? Because Peter rejected the offer.

He was lying. Penny knew what it sounded like, the way his voice changed. She’d been glued to his side since their parents died when she was 13 and it had only gotten worse with uncle Ben’s passing. Peter was lying through his teeth and Penny had no idea why, no idea what to do. Helplessness had settled over her shoulders like a lead blanket, her chest tightening. If Peter was willing to lie to her, then whatever was happening with Tony Stark was really, really bad. And she had no fucking idea what to do.

***

“JARVIS, bring up Peter’s file.”

The voice cut through the silence of the car like a shot, Happy glancing at the man in the backseat through the rearview mirror questioningly. Usually his boss was in a pretty good mood after having harassed the high school kid he’d become obsessed with over the last several months, but the tone of his voice said otherwise.

“Of course, sir,” the AI responded dutifully from the Stark phone, a document appearing on the screen, “anything in particular, sir?”

“Peter told me he was emancipated after his aunt’s death and that he lived alone. I think my boy’s lying to me, J,” Tony’s voice was lower than usual, irritation apparent in his stony expression.

“Straight home, boss?” Happy asked quietly, humming in response when the man in the backseat nodded.

“Records show that Peter Parker is under the guardianship of one Penelope Parker, 24 years of age, relation: sister.”

“So he did lie to me,” Tony ran a hand over his goatee, sighing through the motion in disappointment before anger overcame him again, “You mean he lives in that shithole with someone? She’s supposed to be taking care of him, that place is a fucking drug den!”

“The police have indeed responded to 23 calls involving illicit drug use in that apartment complex in the last 10 days, sir. Another 10 calls were answered in response to domestic violence, 5 calls in regards to loitering, 7 calls in—”

“Thank you, JARVIS,” he waved his hand impatiently before the AI could recite every reason his boy shouldn’t be living in such a fucking pigsty, “tell me more about Penelope.”

The name was said with enough venom that Happy’s eyebrows went up, glancing once again at his boss in the rearview mirror as he navigated through the congested New York City streets.

“Penelope Parker, 24 years of age, born in New York City, New York. Dropped out of high school at 16, accomplished a GED at 19. Currently employed at Little Hands Daycare, Starbucks Coffee, and Kroger’s. Owner of a 2001 Toyota Camry, license plate 605-CEG, rents a one-bedroom apartment in Queens for $1,200 a month, credit score of 713, 1 speeding ticket, no medical insurance—”

“Stop,” Tony grit his teeth, tilting his head from side to side to crack his neck, “a one-bedroom apartment. No medical insurance. Didn’t even graduate from fucking high school. How the hell did she get custody of my boy?”

“Custody of Peter Parker went to his closest living relative, with the stipulation that social services kept up regular visits on account of the young age of the guardian. Records show that visits kept up for roughly 3 months before ending.”

“3 fucking months, those useless fucks,” it came out as a snarl, “look up the case workers, I want their names. And their heads. On a platter. Get a lock on their wifi signal, I want to know what they’re doing at all times. I already have a tracker on Peter, hack into the GPS on Penelope’s phone and keep track of her too.”

“The phone number listed on Ms. Parker’s work forms is a prepaid burner with no GPS capabilities. I can use triangulation to pick up on her general location when she connects to cell phone towers.”

“Seriously, a burner phone? Is she a drug dealer?” Tony’s eyes shot up to meet Happy’s in the mirror, “Oh my god is my baby’s guardian a drug dealer?”

“There is no evidence of any misconduct on the part of Ms. Parker, sir,” JARVIS stated calmly, despite the edge of infuriated panic from Tony, “she has no arrest record or suspicious activity.”

“That doesn’t mean anything and you know it JARVIS,” Tony pressed his head back into the cushion behind him, squeezing his eyes shut, “I’ve got to get him out of there, sooner rather than later. Happy, once we get home, start coordinating with Rhodey for extraction plans. JARVIS, keep an eye on any activity on their WiFi network.”

“Shall I connect to the webcam on the laptop computer, sir?”

“And the camera on my baby boy’s phone,” on his own phone, Tony opened his picture gallery to swipe through the images he already had of Peter, a small smile taking over his mouth in the process, “Keep any recorded video for at least 24 hours, let me know if anything interesting happens.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Happy, let’s get everyone ready for my boy’s homecoming,” Tony stated, shifting in his seat as they pulled into the private garage beneath Stark Tower, “its coming up sooner than we anticipated.”

***

Penny had started googling Tony Stark the moment she realized Peter wasn’t going to part with anymore information. The longer she sat in front of the laptop, the more panic began to grow in her chest.

Tony Stark was a bad man. A very, very bad man who made very, very dangerous weapons and had lots of very, very important and powerful people in his back pocket. There was no real evidence, of course. None of his misdeeds could be proven in court, none of the weapons he invented could be traced to his company, none of the people he practically owned would even admit to knowing the man. He was incredibly powerful and so fucking dangerous that Penny’s teeth ached at the thought of him even being near her baby brother.

“Fuck,” she muttered dragging both hands through her dark brown hair, “fuck, fuck, fuck.”

There was no reason for a man like Tony Stark to be offering Peter a job. Sure, Peter was smarter than anyone she’d ever met. The kid’s IQ had to be off the charts, he’d gotten into that insanely expensive private science school in Midtown. But there was no reason for Tony Stark to recruit a high school senior, even if he was a budding genius.

“What are you doing Pen?” Peter’s voice was raspy from crying and the sound made Penny jump, turning in her seat to look at the teenager behind her.

“I’m…,” she glanced guiltily at the laptop before sighing, “I didn’t know who Tony Stark was off the top of my head. I had to look him up.”

Peter quickly reached out and closed the internet browser before shutting the lid of the laptop, running his hand through his hair in a way rather reminiscent of his sister, “You shouldn’t google him, he’s got enough of an ego that he probably gets an alert every time his name comes up.”

Penny bit her lip, rubbing her hands together in her lap before gathering as much courage as she could and pushing out the chair at the table next to her, “we need to talk, Pete. I need you to tell me the truth about why he was talking to you, no bullshit. I can’t help you if I don’t know the situation.”

The teenager hesitated for all of 30 seconds before dropping into the chair, his expression one of dismay, “I can’t tell you anything, Penny. Its too dangerous, he could hurt you—”

“I’m not worried about me, Peter,” she cut him off, hand rising when he started to open his mouth again, “Stop. Listen. Its my job to take care of you, to keep you safe. Start from the top, how did you meet Tony Stark?”

Another hesitation, eyes darting away from her face before he answered, “on accident. He saw me on the street, I was looking for a job at one of the coffee shops near school.”

Penny held her tongue, refusing to lecture him on getting a job and derailing the current conversation, “and he approached you?”

“Yeah,” Peter rubbed a hand over the back of his head, “Asked me my name, about my uniform. Asked me if I liked science since I went to a special school. I thought it was cool, he runs a research and development laboratory. Then he started… showing up in different places.”

“You think he was in those places deliberately?” The question was a quiet prompt when Peter seemed to clam up and he nodded in response.

“It was weird, but I… I liked the attention,” it was whispered, tears gathering in his eyes as shame built in his chest, “He told me how, how smart I was and how impressed he was by me. Talked to me about science and then just… about me. He wanted to know what kinds of things I liked to do for fun, what kind of movies I liked. I kind of thought we were friends but then…”

“Its okay, Peter,” Penny reached out and grabbed both of his hands in hers carefully, tears in her eyes as well, “what happened then?”

“He started getting handsy,” he murmured, a shiver going down his spine, “at first it was just, just like him putting his hand on my back when we walked through a door. Or he’d put his arm over the back of my chair and touch my shoulder. It was weird because he was an adult but… he’s handsome, Pen. He’s really, really handsome and I was excited because he was interested in me for some reason but now I realize that it wasn’t good and it’s not good and I shouldn’t have let him and I’m so sorr—”

“Don’t say sorry, Pete,” a quiet sob escaped Penny’s mouth and she covered it with her hand, the other still clutching at his, “Don’t apologize, you have done nothing wrong. Oh God, Peter, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I noticed that you’d started acting differently but I passed it off. Oh my God, I should’ve talked to you so much sooner. I should’ve asked what was going on. How long has this been going on, Peter?”

He was quiet for so long that another sob was ripped from Penny’s lips and she shot forward, dragging her little brother into a nearly suffocating hug. Fuck, fuck how long had that piece of shit been conditioning her little brother. That fucking pedophile how long had he been stalking her little brother. Fuck the age of consent in New York, fuck the law, Peter was a baby—he was a fucking child.

“You don’t have to answer, Peter, its okay,” it was a soft whisper, her hand carding through his hair while he cried against her, “I’m going to figure something out, okay? I don’t know what yet, but I’m going to make sure that he leaves you alone. I’m going to take care of this, I’m going to take care of you.”

“You can’t, Penny,” his cries were breathy and quiet, “you can’t take care of me this time, he’ll hurt you—”

Penny couldn’t say it out loud, because Peter would lose his mind, but Penny would let Tony Stark murder her in front of an audience if it meant he’d leave Peter alone. Every promise she’d ever made, to her mother on her deathbed, to aunt May on hers, was to keep Peter safe. To make sure he had every opportunity. Peter was so smart, he had so much potential, if she could just give him the chance, if she could just get him to the point where he could make something of himself—then she would consider her life perfect. She’d die knowing she had done her job, she’d opened the gates for her brother’s success.

“I’ll figure it out Peter, one way or another.”

[galaxsims-x]

#MySimThroughTheYears Challenge - Izzy Edition

Here’s Izzy’s edition! I really had so much fun with Izzy. I think she’s just so cute and I absolutely adore her! Her chubby toddler form is my favorite. I think hers might have turned out better than Abel’s hahah. Izzy is a very sweet, kind, and caring character. I really love having her in my story.

Each picture represents Izzy at a different age. Under the cut, I’ll have some some extra stuff about her at those ages! I couldn’t go into too much detail for one of the adult ages because it’s a huge plot in the main story and I don’t want any spoilers out there before it comes up in the story.

Top Left - Age 3: Izzy was a very inquisitive little girl. She was raised by her abuela on a farm and she absolutely loved to help water the plants and feed the animals. She had a smile that lit up the whole room; overall, she was a very sweet little girl who loved her abuela.

Top Middle - Age 9: Izzy’s mother hadn’t come back in many years. She didn’t really know much about the woman other than the things her abuela told her. Her mother had her very young and couldn’t raise her, so she left her with her mother, Izzy’s abuela. Izzy doesn’t mind, though, because her abuela is her whole world. She loves her more than anyone.

Top Right - Age 12: Out of the blue, Izzy’s mother returned, but she wasn’t alone. She had a small toddler with her: Izzy’s half-brother, Mateo. Izzy was wary of him at first, but she quickly grew to love him, promising to protect him, especially when their mother left in the middle of the night again. Izzy promised her abuela that she would help with the farm and the baby, knowing it was too much for one old woman to handle.

Middle Left - Age 14: Izzy was always a wallflower in high school. She was the kid in class no one ever remembered was actually there. She got good grades and studied hard. But when she wasn’t studying, she found herself staring at the angry boy whose hair was the color of fire.

Middle Middle - Age 15: Izzy has started to get more curious about her dad. She knows nothing about him and when she asks her abuela, she changes the subject immediately. It was at this time that she also officially met Abel and became close friends with him. She asked him to help her look for her dad, but Abel told her that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea if her dad was anything like his dad, who was also out of the picture, his mother now married to her best friend, Wendy. She eventually agreed not to search actively for him, especially when her abuela made a backhanded comment about how Izzy’s mother was known to follow garbage people around. Later that year, while cleaning the attic in the farmhouse, Izzy came across her mother’s diary, one she had when she was about the same age Izzy was right now. She wrote about an older boyfriend (30s) who got impatient with her not putting out. So he forced himself on her and she fell pregnant. She realizes now why her mother hates looking at her so much and why she can’t stand her. She never brought up her father again after that.

Middle Right - Age 17: Izzy fell madly in love with Abel, so when he said he was going to leave, she was utterly heartbroken. But she told him to go, encouraged him to follow his dreams. She wanted to tell him that she loved him and didn’t want him to go, but she wasn’t a selfish person. Not long after Abel left for Japan and broke all contact with her, Izzy’s beloved abuela passed away. It was a devastating loss for her and her brother. She was broken afterwards and only wanted to call Abel, but every time she tried, she was met with a voicemail box, none of her calls returned. A couple weeks after the funeral, she officially gave up trying to contact Abel, but she did keep an eye on his social media accounts just to see how he was doing over there.

Bottom Left - Age 19: It was around this time that Izzy really took over her late abuela’s farm. She truly embraced the outdoor life and didn’t mind that she didn’t go to college. After all, she’d do anything to keep Bell Tower Farm afloat.

Bottom Middle - Age 23: Izzy has finally come to terms with the curve balls life has thrown at her one after the other. She’s finding happiness in small things like flowers and her dog, Pepper. She has taken her brother, Mateo, in and is making sure he finishes high school and making sure to keep him on a good path.

Bottom Right - Age 26: CURRENT.

[lettersandinkstains]

(i won’t be adding my tag list to this post as it’s long already and i do not want to randomly ping people and bother them! however, i will add instructions on how to be added or removed from any of my tag lists! i apologize for mobile users if this does not appear under a read more tag for you guys -- and will tag it as ‘long post’ for your needs)

so said the king

genres ; dark fantasy, new adult, coming of age features ; diverse cast and protagonists, LGBT+ main characters, wlw endgame pair status ; in progress warnings ; violence, swearing, sociopolitical issues, mentions of child abuse, political corruption summary ; when the king says everyone shall die for him, so they shall -- as he sits upon his throne of ivory and the crown of thorns break his skin for every sin committed, he is nothing more than a mere puppet for something bigger. when the queen says to stay out of the library, so shall you obey for her secrets are her own -- and her sins much bigger than the kings.

and when the gods command one to kill, so shall you obey or face their wrath. yet, when it comes between the choices of spilling even more blood or trying to find a way around the command when she is shown much more kindness from her target than most have given her. a life for a life -- but should one’s blood be spilled to save millions? nyx is forced to turn her eyes towards the one who is truly the cause of the hell brought upon her beautiful Ilmarya. and she has to wonder:

can you kill a god?

links: spotify | main tag | wattpad | pinterest (tag list is open for this!)

blood upon the altar

genres ; dark fantasy, urban fantasy, vampire fiction, new adult status ; worldbuilding features ; diverse cast and protagonists, LGBT+ main characters, wlw and mlm endgame pairings warnings ; religious themes & commentary, cult behavior, corruption, violence, adult themes

summary ; when sariel died, the world went dark. slowly but surely, elionde had dug itself out of the darkness and rebuilt without their goddess. from this darkness rose a new order, the church of sariel, sometimes called the soldiers of sariel, or the church. they were founded in the belief that a group of magical beings, vampires, had been the cause of sariel’s death and that they can bring her back to life.

when aleksandra, a member of the church, is saved by a sworn enemy, a vampire, within the free lands of aeonia, does the world start to see odd changes. the warm south begins to cool down, and the cold north begins to warm up and sightings of a silver tree is found within unreachable mountains.

links ; main tag - pinterest (tag list is open for this!)

ichor

genre: urban fantasy, light fantasy, deconstruction of the chosen one trope, young adult, dark status ; worldbuilding - outlining features ; diverse cast, LGBTQIA characters, established queer relationships, wlw endgame and continuous pair warnings ; violence, off screen & mentioned child abuse and csa, mental illness, political commentary, real world setting with magic, fairly dark plot

summary ; their lives were not supposed to intersect -- this was not planned by any higher being.

bailee was not supposed to survive the childhood fire that ravaged her home, nor was an archangel supposed to save her. and older now, she tries to pretend that there was no archangel, her survival was just a fluke. but when the stars begin to call out her lover, lucija, she is forced to follow through with the promise she made on the eve of her 11th birthday.

ariana was supposed to listen and obey The Watchers, angels who have weaved her life so intricately that choice was never a thing. but ariana met a pretty eyed boy whose mere presence made her heart flutter, and her days better.

but she survived the fire and ariana tried to escape the intricately weaved clutches of The Waters all because she loved a boy. and at the end of it all, ichor ran poison through their veins and with it, a monster predicted in texts rose to power and they must choose their paths carefully.

links ; pinterest • main tag • spotify (tag list is open for this WIP!)

the three steps of romance

genre ; LGBTQIA fiction, romance, LGBTQIA romance, contemporary, urban status ; in purgatory -- planning / developing features ; diverse cast, LGBTQIA+ centric, WLW centric, pure fluff and self indulgent warnings ; none

summary ; ember has always looked at the world through the lens of a camera, she has always preferred it to living her actual life. she’s always searching for something but she’s not really quite sure what. it has always felt at the tip of fingers but she could never quite reach.

one fateful night, she meets the newcomer in her little warm town by the lake. for the brief night, ember is swept off her feet and she feels as though she has fallen deeply in love with this women.

and one fateful morning, she finds out this woman is her new veterinarian.

links ; pinterest ♥ main tag (tag list is open for this!)

glass walls

genre ; dystopia, future without robots / aliens but with advanced technology status ; planning ; outlining ; worldbuilding features ; diverse cast & LGBTQIA main cast warnings ; political commentary, dark plotline, violence, police violence, political corruption

summary ; she leads the Revolutionaries, as they call themselves. A group of people who live in the shadows and online. Nobody knows their names, they do not even know each others – only calling each other by pseudonyms. Her name is Lilith, and she was always told she asks too many questions, she’s too inquisitive for her own good and it will get her in trouble one day.

That trouble came in the name of a girl who calls herself Charlotte, or Charlie, who had found Lilith trying to hack into the hidden glass walls, to place in a virus.

 A stranger who had panicked, a stranger who was going to call the cops and forced Lilith’s hand to break one of the tenants: to harm nobody.

With kidnapping under her belt, Lilith and her friends are forced to push their plans for a large scale fight closer than what they had wanted.And when the soldiers come, armed with their guns, Lilith knows that she will be ready to face them.

links ; main tag (tag list is open for this!)

so the instructions are simple:

Comment on this post (or any post I make for any of the WIP’s above), send a DM, or an ask, or comment in the tags if you wish to be added or removed. If you do it on this post, please specify which WIP you’d like to be added to! Please be sure that you’ve read the warnings!

alternatively, i also have a general tag list for all of my WIPs + my short stories & prompt fills if you wish to be added to that. if you would only like to be tagged in my short stories let me know for that too !

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(created ; 8-20-19 updated ; 8-20-19)

[derbysilkmill]

HEGEL’S TROWEL: working on the thing

Making changes everything. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality

Soul is extra-scientific, outside of science, we will allow no scientific disproof of it. Maulana Karenga, Practice: Documents of Contemporary Art  

Locked down by government guidelines designed to increase social distancing, the  gap between oneself and the other, a space that can stop cross infection between us all, meant spending time watching the television. The daily BBC update reported how many more bodies have been, are still being, destroyed or attacked from the deadly Covid-19 virus.  It might not be surprising then with so much biological and existential demolition on the go that I found myself watching TV programming to do with restoration and making things: Salvage Hunters, Escape to the Chateau DIY, Secrets of the Museum, The Restoration of Notre- Dame Cathedral. Kirsty Alsop reckons these days we should Keep Crafting and Carry on; making things as a form of therapy. The Repair Shop is a phenomena with craft experts restoring material stuff to how it was. Grayson Perry promoted art, and artisan making – he is a potter - as a great healer: ‘we are all wounded’ he said on channel four. Before the outbreak of this new threat to life I was working up this small general piece about the transformational potential of creative activity, in the main, making.  

Lisa Tarbuck, was talking on radio 2. She’s a media celebrity and a fan of making things. Super mentioning  a piece of weaving or needlework she’d completed that day, she told her Saturday night audience: ‘I just couldn’t stop bloomin’ looking at it…know wot I mean…? An old friend told me recently that I just had to get hold of a copy of Mathew Crawford’s The Case for Working with Your Hands (2011). He, the old friend, was the studio furniture designer-maker when I worked with him at Detail London; a young furniture makers.  Together, we made bespoke furniture (for a beautiful stylish wealthy cool consuming clientele). Nowadays he works in academia, writing and lecturing to students about craft and making. His research has interrogated how human well-being is affected by undertaking craft activities, particular recreational making done by amateur practitioners. Crawford writes about well-being, too. The subtitle of his study is: or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good. In a recent email exchange the furniture designer turned academic communicated that he looked back with fondness to his making days. Perhaps with ‘rose-tinted glasses’ he qualified.

There is a growing group of western intellectuals who today theorise and promote the idea that there is a definite connection between the processes undertaken when crafting things from raw materials and human well-being. Often slow and protracted, acts of physical making are, they generally posit, a valid source and resource to increase self-esteem. Existential events such as technically planning how to make something from scratch, the selecting of appropriate materials, development and deployment of hand skills, constructing structures to a set standard, finishing worked-on material, just being in a practical workshop in extended time and space, are inter alia physically, intellectually, emotionally good for human life. Teaching craft skills in adult education and community workshop settings I have witnessed diverse learner makers achieve remarkable personal satisfaction, and that allied well-being a craft cognoscenti rightly identify, in going through the technical and material processes when constructing any crafted object. Contra this supra ideal of process, quotidian workshop life reveals that, in reality, it is not only the extended making of the final object that is beneficent to the maker of this newly-present thing – the temporal spatial physical crafting and grafting - but the now-made self-styled object- the present thing in itself the maker has made.

At the currently closed-for-restoration Silk Mill (soon to be transformed/remade as The Museum of Making) interested visitors come to Derby for a look around the modern workshop housed in the ‘world’s-first-factory’. Generally, but not always, these people are museum professionals, culture workers, creative artists or social activists. Nearly all are interested in delivering well-being because it matters. I like talking to these folks, often desk-bound and definitively (unavoidably?) over-digitalised in their daily office lives, they take a genuine interest in the practical making a workshop allows  – the working we do with our hands - activities they see as critical to human holistic well-being.  Sometime ago our executive director at Derby Museums was in the workshop standing by our CNC, talking with me. Next to Tony stood one of the inquisitive visitors; an interested (and interesting to me) culture-industry professional. Inevitably, the conversation made its way to mentions of well-being. I told them both how I see people who often do symbolically distinguished, but atomised or abstract, work -- practices with often unquantifiable or subjective outcomes (the negative work Crawford describes) -- come to a fresh and solider understanding of themselves after constructing a materially tangible piece of furniture out of plywood or turning out a curvy bowl from a rough brute blank of oak.  Stood next to the idled CNC I remember saying something like this:

“In my working life I come across a lot of people who do highly complex engineering, but in a rather abstract or theoretical way, or others who live in a digital bubble I call ‘computer world’, modelling AutoCAD perfection but never getting to actually see or touch any material outcomes or be involved in making something from start to finish by their own hands… But when people make something here in the workshop they objectify themselves…….as they say “no one has ever taken a picture of the unconscious…or seen a picture of the self ”.

There followed a sort of embarrassed silence. Then inscrutable nods and smiles from the Executive Director and his guest. Then a “well thanks for that Steve….” --  as they left the workshop.  

Specifically, a proud plagiarist, I had, of course, synthesized the ideas of  literary critic Terry Eagleton and Arts and Craft sculptor Eric Gill. Generally speaking, I had just paraphrased a few ideas of the well-known German philosopher GWF Hegel (1770-1831) --  ideas lifted from the undecipherable, but well known, Phenomenology of Mind (1807).                                     

 Well, to be more honest, I was paraphrasing Alexandre Kojève’s partially more decipherable Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Compiled from Kojève’s lecture notes, and first published in 1969, the cult text explains Hegel’s theory of the dialectical (constant changing) progress of human history, in particular his well-known concept of the ‘Master and Slave’ conflict – the transformative phylogenetic and ontogenetic dialectic. For me the key passage in Introduction is how the text unmakes and then reconstitutes Hegel’s brutal concept of The Thing – raw given objective nature as unshaped material object – and how non-human Things (slaves/workers/makers) become Human. i.e. transform their selfhood from a raw physiological primordial brute unthinking  thing by working on another thing (raw brute unshaped material reality – wood, stone, metal, wool, cotton, clay) and making it or, a key word,  transforming it (as of themselves) -  into something it wasn’t before, in its un-worked material given existence in the world,  for another: The Master.

This is the actual Hegelian (Kojèvian) paragraph that refers to the experience of the creating maker- slave who makes for, and in place of, the consumer master:

‘The slave can work for the Master – that is, for another other than himself…he does not destroy the thing as it is given. He postpones the destruction of the thing by first trans-forming it through work; he prepares it for consumption-that is to say, he “forms” it. In his work, he trans-forms things and trans-forms himself at the same time: he forms things and the World by transforming himself, by educating himself; and he educates himself, he forms himself, by transforming things and the World. Thus, the negative-or-negating relation to the object becomes a form of this object and gains permanence, precisely because, for the worker, the object has autonomy. At the same time, the negative-or-negating middle-term—i.e., the forming activity [of work] – is the isolated particularity or the pure Being-for-itself of the Consciousness. And this Being-for-itself, through work, now passes into what is outside of the Consciousness, into the element of permanence. The working Consciousness thereby attains a contemplation of autonomous given-being such that it contemplates itself in it. [The product of work is the worker’s production. It is the realisation of his project, of his idea; hence, it is he that is realised in and by this product, and consequently he contemplates himself when he contemplates it. Now, this artificial product is at the same time just as “autonomous,” just as objective, just as independent of man, as is the natural thing. Therefore, it is by work, and only by work, that man realises himself objectively as man. Only after producing an artificial object is man himself really and objectively more than and different from a natural being; and only in this real and objective product does he become truly conscious of his subjective human reality. Therefore, it is only by work that man is a supernatural being that is conscious of its reality; by working, he is “incarnated” Spirit, he is historical “World”, he is “objectivised” History.’

Kojève concludes in the Intro that the dead German idealist philosopher (Hegel) ‘may well know much more than we do about things we need to know’.

Interestingly, a former US academic/intellectual, Crawford (he worked in a Washington ‘think tank’ before quitting to run a motorcycle repair shop) uses the same quote in his book The Case For Working With Your Hands – but misleadingly attributes the quote to the Kojève. Folksy Crawford expresses Hegel’s idea in a more homespun pragmatic manner, as is the way of practical American philosophy:  ‘The satisfaction of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence has been known to make a man quiet and easy…he is proud of what has been made’

Crawford writes about a kind of ‘self-disclosing’ latent in creativity, work and making.Concurring with Crawford and Hegel the sociologist Richard Sennet in his study The Craftsman, rites about ‘the warm values of craft and creativity’ and a ‘zesty freedom crucial to well-being of society’.

_____________________________________

I worked for a time in a comprehensive school. The head of Design and Technology – a former skilled industrial toolmaker – had had the foresight not to sell off the capstan lathes, milling machines, welding kit, old-school woodwork benches and traditional hand tools bought and installed in the 1970s.                        

Painted out in dull lemon yellow, orthodox (vintage) wood-machinery apple green, the Design &Technology workshops ��looked like the past and so still played their part in 21st century life. You could smell old machine oil in the cold metal machines, bashed-up blue vices fitted to weathered beech workstations exuded a residual making aura. When the lathes were set running, rasping files shaped steel, sharp planes flattened pine, the space sounded like a real live workshop in the (ontogenetic) now, yet echoing the making culture of a phylogenetic past. In America, Crawford tells us that technical making and design is simply called ‘shop class’, or more accurately was called shop class because he bleakly observes, akin to the collapse of technical skills education in Britain, since the early 90s educational institutions have instituted a ‘big push’ to close shop class to open up digital and computer literacy. Any revival of shop class today is hindered for Crawford by the lack of skilled people competent to revive technical crafts and making in general.

Frustrated by the British school drift to digital D&T practices, a virtual curriculum (there is now virtual welding), and driven on by a shared ‘it wasn’t all computers in our day’ narcissistic nostalgia (manifested in everyday miserableness), me and the old toolmaker got our heads together and came up with project which harked back to the days of secondary-modern craft lessons in wood and metalwork; the saved machines made the scene believable.

It was only a small pot-planting trowel. It was made out of aluminium and wood.  From tip to tip 200mm long. It had a curved blade and the cranked arm was cold-riveted to the blade in a traditional blacksmithing style; the students used ballpein hammers clanging metal on the workshop’s under-loved anvil. On the once-busy but no-longer-silent lathes we put a sharp point on the 6mm round bar that made the stem from handle to blade helping drive it into the softer wooden trowel handle. The serpentine bends were created on a small Groz metal folder designed for DIY artisan metalworkers. The hardwood handle was shaped with a selection of rough round and flat cutting rasps, before being sanded, with care, by glass-paper. The blade was formed with aero-industry tin snips before being worked into a symmetrical curve with metal files. To work the flat sheet aluminium into the required radius of the blade it was fed several passes through a small jewellery rolling machine – sort of a washing mangle meets pasta machine. The trowel looked impressive when made. Three hundred students made one. The test of success is always if young makers want to take what they make home to show to someone who they care cares; most did. They had worked on the thing, objectified themselves, could contemplate themselves in itself, the small trowel, a trowel designed to be used, a tool to work on the thing, transforming nature as soil to wit.

The now fired up ex-toolmaker pointed out to me that, before we could roll out the trowel project to the students, the NQTs (Newly Qualified Teachers) in the D&T department – the electronic, digital, laser engraving, 3D printing makers – and ESWs, (Educational Support Workers) who would assist students, had to be quickly trained up in the basic craft and hand skills required to create, then teach, the trowel. They would need teaching the basic historical making techniques for working on the thing.

We arranged an ‘after-school’ instruction session in the workshop classroom. Everyone arrived looking harassed with a mug of tea or coffee/mug of hot water; offered the usual banter; male teachers removed ties; everyone put on an apron.  Each participant got a set of stock blanks: a length of aluminium bar, 150mm x 6mm ø; a rectangle of sheet aluminium, 1mm x 75mm x 120mm; a section of hardwood (beech, oak, ash, reclaimed teak or mahogany), 100mm x 25mm▫. The first task was to make a two-dimensional template – using 5mm graph card folded in half along a continuous grid line – to mark out the tapering and curved profile of the trowel’s blade. Sketching freehand they used the graph-paper squares for visual guidance. The pencilled line was cut with scissors and the pattern unfolded to reveal a symmetrical, if rough, outline. The next step was to show the trowel-makers how to transfer the profile, geometrically square, onto the shiny cropped aluminium by using a scribed (accurately-marked) centre line to align the centrefold of the paper along, thus ensuring the blade sat true, i.e. at 90° to the square back edge.

A metal scriber was then used to carefully score a visible line around the flimsy paper template into the soft aluminium. The workshop was quiet except for the soft ringing sound of metal on wood benchtop as, in deep concentration, teaching-staff students guided the hardened and sharpened steel marking tool around the curved card onto the aluminium.

(Still you could hear some light jokey banter, but of a kind, collaborative, encouraging type of joshing – ‘phatic’ communication, some dead continental philosopher of language would say.)

Aluminium can be cut easily - as card with scissors - when using inexpensive aero-industry shearing snips. Commonly used in hand tin-smith work and light commercial bespoke production these tools are designed to cut straight or with a left or right hand bias. (They are colour coded red, green and yellow and a good workshop needs the full set – an additional long-nosed straight-cutting pair is a great help for occasional extended profile cutting or internal corners.) I demonstrated how to cut the aluminium in short snips, neatly following the scribed line, shearing the material slowly and deftly the snips making the waste (swarf) curl upwards, away from the desired external blade line.

It was pointed out to the teacher-students that - novice maker or proficient craftsman - it is generally best practice when cutting stock materials to work ‘outside the line’ leaving a small margin of material for cleaning up post-cutting. Dead flat with fine teeth, hard because made from steel, metal-working files were used to remove the extraneous rough cut metal to the scribed line, scored into the aluminium, demarking the required final recognisable trowel-blade profile. Filing produces sharp burrs on metal which, in this instance, were removed with industrial emery paper. The blade smooth and symmetrical was now ready for the students to roll.

Metal rolling is the same process for a fine silver ring as a thick-walled boiler rolled out from, as it happens, 25 mm boiler plate. Basically, thin or thick factory-milled metal plate is passed through two calibrated parallel rollers which are adjusted to the required gauge of the material to be rolled. Sprung under high tension the front bars force the metal sheet towards a single back roller which is set higher than the underside of the passing steel or, in our case, aluminium. The metal is malleable and -- forced to climb over the higher spinning back roller -- begins to take on the required radius of the part required. This might be a shallow curve as the trowel needs, or a full circle, as in a delicate silver ring or a high pressure vessel such as a boiler whereby the seam is soldered or welded together and ground back. We were using a small jewellery-maker’s bench roller - no more than 300 mm in width - but the radius-forming mechanical principal remains the same.

Operating a bench metal roller is, as I sort of said before, a bit like passing dough through a pasta machine. But instead of making the metal thinner per pass – which, as is well known, is how the metal plate was produced in the forging mill in the first phase of ‘thing working’ - the radius is increased; the careful gradual adjustment – the increased un-alignment of the roller - in small increments forms the aluminium into the practical, and aesthetically pleasant crescent wanted. Students checked the curvature against a small accurate plywood template. They had to make three to four adjustments.

                        Before forming the 6mm bar into the distinctive kinked component joining the wooden handle to the blade of the trowel, it was necessary at this stage to turn a sharp point on the aluminium that would allow the bar to be driven into the end grain of the timber. The stock piece of rod was placed in a three-jaw chuck screwed onto the turning stock of  one of the neglected Colchester lathes in the workshop, and the traverse tool slider bed set at 5°; a shallow machining angle, but correct for this operation. Each operative was informed of which was the correct tool to use for this operation – left hand cutting tool - and shown how to clamp and set the tool in the lathe tool holder to the dead-centre of the lathe and therefore the dead centre of the round stock material to achieve the optimum cutting angle and efficient waste removal.  As a matter of maker education, head-stock turning-speed settings – coded in colour on the foundry-cast body of the Colchester – were demonstrated to, but set by, the learner turners.

                         The trowel project was designed/contrived to include several processes and employ a variety of tools and typical metalworking kit to introduce youngsters to some fundamental craft techniques and experience bench fitting, sheet metal working, capstan turning. 

To secure the cranked arm to the blade two aluminium rivets were to be inserted through the stem and trowel blade and flattened into a pre-drilled countersunk hole so creating a secure fixing. But, the bar was round in section, so that only a small section of the stem would be in contact with the flattish blade. To achieve a better joint it was imperative, then, to flatten out the round bar by heating the end of the stem and bashing it while it was still plastic with heat, hammering it carefully into shape with a heavy ballpein hammer on the arm of a traditional forge anvil; a neat steer of the making process into the lost-world of blacksmithing.  

(Hegel liked to walk in his home town of Heidelberg, and perhaps it was the sight of the town blacksmith toiling over a hot forge, hammering and twisting hot raw iron into shape, making some decorative gates for the local lordship, that inspired his ideas about masters and servants and the transformative effects of working on the thing?  Today, most of us have seen similar images on TV: neo-blacksmiths heating metal in a forge until it glows orange-red with heat from the coals before working it to form, with that romantic ringing of hammer and anvil, before plunging the work into cold steaming water.)

The problem with aluminium is that, non-ferrous, it retains its silver-grey colour when heated, and, to boot, we didn’t have access to a traditional forge, but the old toolmaker had the answer. He produced a plumber’s Gaz blowtorch, “I nicked ‘im from construction cupboard”, and some Fairy Liquid. Go on then, he said, smirking, what’s the Washing-up liquid for? I put my bottom lip out, shrugged with a laugh, and said I had no idea. “Ally don’t glow”. “Oh…I see” I said. “Detergent turns black when metal’s ‘ot enuff…then you can work it on anvil…simple” he grabbed the collar of his white smock with both hands and gave them a tug, before firing up the blowtorch. I passed this tip on to the NQTs and ESWs before they flattened their trowel stems.  

In old-school black and white ink,  a technical drawing indicated to the trowel-makers where on the straight length of aluminium bar marks needed to be made to indicate where the handle section should be placed in the trapping tongue - moved by a simple rack gear - of the Groz bender. The top of the tooling was also marked ‘clock –face’ style to show how far the tommy bar handle should be moved (from 12 to 4 say) and so work the soft rod into the flattened S shaped crank required of the finished component. The makers were having fun using the different kit, especially, the Groz, - they became absorbed in the basic but fundamental metal-forming processes and traditional manufacturing techniques introduced to them - but had to fully concentrate on ensuring that the two bends were executed in the same plane of orientation to avoid twisting the stalk of the cranked trowel stem or out of line with the flattened riveted section.  

[ The Groz metal bender is itself   a thing – converted and worked and cast from material nature (mined raw    iron ore -- made into steel and machine processed)  - made by things – humanised thing makers    (engineers) -  to make small springs,    fixing clips and rings - things for other things; tools, machine parts,    which in their bending, twisting and forming offer a thing maker chance to    transcend its objective thingness in working on this metal material stuff, and objectify its subjective self through the final thing made, which in    the case of machinery and tools may make other things and so on. Such as    clips on a motorcycle in for repair or customisation in Crawford’s American shop. ]       

  The cranked bar was then set in a machine vice on the pillar drill, and a  3mm hole was drilled to take the rivet stalk and slightly larger countersunk hole ( top side) into which the 3mm aluminium rivet stalk would, using a hammer and anvil, be flattened. The wider domed mushroom head of the round rivet traps the thin blade between the stem and blade. To avoid flattening the curvature of the rivet head a purpose-designed hollowed out steel tool -- an exact concaved inverse radius of the convex pip of the rivet fastening -- was used by the participants to protect it when hammering the soft aluminium into the bored out section on the reverse side. This was then also filed flat and finished smooth with emery paper. With this fine fettling the metal-working processes had been completed. Components had all been successfully marked out, cut, shaped, rolled and bent, riveted and finally filed into a recognisable small potting trowel. Everyone in the class (shop) looked dead pleased to have transformed the shapeless bits and pieces of metal into a tool that could be used; but they still had to make the handle out of wood. 

In a small box were a selection of pre-cut handle blanks ready to be matched to the still-shiny trowel parts. There were short 25mm square sections of beech, ash, mahogany, maple, oak and reclaimed pine – all unwanted found offcuts lying around waiting to be made into something useful but beautiful. I explained how that the first task was to set out the curvature required of a rounded handle on the end sections. For example,  a circle is created from a geometrically symmetrical combination of hexagonal flats filed at 45°, then refined further with 22.5° tangents which, if the section diameter was large enough, can be taken closer to a perfect mathematically round profile with 11.25° flats and so on, i.e. angles are halved until  a finite circle is produced. People smile when I say a circle is made of infinite flats, but, in a way, it is. 

The second operation was to drill a hole down the centre of the stock timber with a 6mm drill bit. The wood was set square in a vice on a pillar drill and a hole bored down its core to accommodate the aluminium.                                         

To be honest with you, most of the teachers and ESWs went their own way, freestyling, shaping the wooden parts, integrating underside curves with small finger-shaped hand grips. After the tight discipline of the metal techniques, finishing of the handles with spoke-shaves and rough-sharp rasps into vernacular crafted forms offered the makers a sort of soft therapeutic warm-down. The workshop took on a quieter woody – less hard metallic - aspect; a fresh atmospheric with the room infused by the aroma of the freshly worked old dead growing thing: the trees.

The organic-looking handles were finished with glass paper, students instructed in how to work from the roughing grades, 60 grit through to 100 grit, fining down to 240 flour paper. The job was finished by oiling the timber with Danish oil which brings out the light and shade and twisting lines of wood grain; sealing the material from moisture, and ultimate rotting. The final operation was to cement the riveted trowel section into the completed handle with a small dob of epoxy resin adhesive and stand back and admire; take in what had been achieved in a short after-school making session.

We stood around chatting. People said they’d loved making something. One said it had de-stressed him. Another couldn’t wait to take it home to show others. Some said nothing, but admired their handiwork. A few critiqued their own trowel, then complimented other’s workmanship. Phone cameras came into play. After we all packed away and tidied the workshop up ready for the next D&T school day – vacuum forming plastic bugs for students to stick googly eyes onto – everybody rushed out of the door to get home for tea. But one person hung back. She said to me ‘I’ve really enjoyed making this. Being in the workshop was just what I needed’. Good, I thought, and said ‘I’m glad’. She said ‘No more than that Steve…I needed this’. She paused. Looked a bit upset. She told me she’d had a horrible day. Awful and terrible because she was in personal conflict with a co-worker. The situation was unbearable. The emotional pain almost tortuous, nearly breaking her, she reckoned. So upset, she just wanted to go home; get out of the place. She’d forced herself to stay on. But holding up the trowel said ‘I’m so glad I stuck it out – I’m dead proud of making this’. She waved about the trowel as if digging the earth. It might only be a small thing, she admitted, but the trowel had proved something, her soul was restored, she had something to use and show for herself.        The Trowel project will feature in Museum of Making workshop programming 2021

_____________________________________________

[ghostwise]

Dragon Age Questions

@dirthara-mama tagged me for this! Thank you!! <3 I’ll tag @mabarihounds @antivan-surana and @vlwv 

01) Favourite game of the series?

Origins! It’s the first one I played, and each time I pick it up I find something entirely new in the experience. The characters feel like old friends, and the dialogue is really charming. It also has a ridiculous high-fantasy vibe that I love, which seems to be lacking in later games. I know it’s silly, I know it’s absurd and dated... but you just can’t beat that possessed rhyming oak tree npc…

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

When Inquisition was announced, I started seeing a lot of it on my dash, so a friend and I started playing the series! I was hooked pretty much right away.

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

I’ve finished Origins three times, DA2 twice, and I’m currently playing Inquisition for the first time!!  Exciting!

I also have a handful of unfinished playthroughs on Origins, which were attempts to create new Warden characters, but none of them got past the first quest. I just love my Mahariel too much… 

04) Favourite race to play as?

Elves! I love the worldbuilding behind them, the city elves, the Dalish, and the ancient elves. I hate pretty much everything about how these issues are handled in game, though.

05) Favourite class?

Mage!

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

Pretty much. I have tried to play as different characters so as to explore different outcomes and decisions, but again… I love my OCs too damn much.

07) Go-to adventuring group?

Origins: Hamal, Zevran, Morrigan, Sten. DA2: Renata, Varric, Anders, Isabela. Inquisition: Neluayo, Varric, Blackwall, Sera—so far!

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

Listen, I love creating OCs and putting ridiculous amounts of thought into them. It went from being a coping mechanism as a newly immigrated depressed and anxious child, to something I still love as an adult. I have a hard time picking one OC I put the most thought into…

But because I’ve played Origins the most, and played it first, Hamal has a lot more content in his tag than my other Dragon Age OCs. He’s my baby and I adore him.

09) Favourite romance?

Zevran’s, no question. I think he may be one of my favorite characters in the series, romance or no! I love his background and his personality and his character arc. My boy...

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

Nope!

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

Didn’t read any of them but I do own World of Thedas v1 and v2, and it seems each time I open it I find something new and surprising about the world. I love it!

12) Favourite DLCs?

I really enjoyed Return to Ostagar for Origins, and Legacy for Dragon Age 2. I know Inquisition has some amazing DLC content so I’m looking forward to that!

13) Things that annoy you.

The constant retconning, and rewriting of issues to suit a certain agenda in game. Especially regarding treatment of the mages or the elves. Like, I know this is a fictional narrative, okay? But it’s annoying to watch the story go from ‘Templars are unequivocally abusing their power and oppressing this group of people’ to ‘well they have good reason for it, sometimes you have to massacre an entire population because of one incident, it’s Gray Morality™ sweetie!’

Nah, it’s just bad writing! And it’s okay to admit that lol

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

I have no strong feelings on the matter. Would love to hear more about Antiva or Seheron!

15) Templars or mages?

Mages!

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Same universe. I don’t have an interest in having multiple Wardens or Hawkes tbh, I... I get too attached lol

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

Hamal calls his mabari D’alen. He is the most spoiled mabari in all of Thedas, typically guarding the camp, never fighting or being placed in danger. Renata calls her mabari Nicolo, and she loves putting warpaint on him. The dog accompanied Carver at Ostagar and takes care of the family over their years in Kirkwall. I still need to name Neluayo’s hart!

18) Have you installed any mods?

A few for Origins (different robes for Morrigan and the realistic appearance mods for companions), and several for DA2 (dialogue tweaks and new hair/appearance options). But Inquisition seems kinda complicated to mod, and I don’t want to break the game hhhh

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

No, he wanted to find Tamlen and go back to his clan. He actually did take off after Ostagar, driven by anger and fear and homesickness. Alistair was devastated. Morrigan had to go and fetch him, convincing him to return.

20) Hawke’s personality?

A good mix of purple and blue, but let’s be real, Renata is pink. Whimsy, whimsy, whimsy.

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

I haven’t played around with armor creation yet… sounds fun though!

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Hamal would have gone after Tamlen. It’s his greatest regret. Even before encountering him as a ghoul, Hamal was never able to shake the feeling that Tamlen had survived. But Duncan shot down every hope, and there was so much going on after Ostagar… there came a point where Hamal accepted that Tamlen was gone. 

When he shows up again, too far beyond any help but a blade between his ribs? It’s not something he ever gets over.

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

Oh I love breaking canon.

Hamal never becomes Warden Commander. His political influence by the time of the Landsmeet is as perilous as you might expect of an angry and traumatized Dalish elf whose interest was more on surviving and defeating the Blight, than, say, being on any noble’s good side. The only reason he isn’t immediately executed is because he and his allies called in many favors and made many concessions. One being that he would leave the Wardens and not remain politically involved. Frankly, the crown and nobility hoped he would perish against the Archdemon. But here we are! 

Alistair becomes Warden Commander instead. Receiving the boon comes with challenges of its own. The Dalish receive all the land that was most tainted by the Blight. Reconstruction takes years and is still an issue during Inquisition era.

To that end, the political influence of the Dalish during Inquisition leads to a lot of changes for Neluayo’s canon too. Because the elves have a hold over much of the south, the Inquisition needs to ally with them to even gain access to those regions. Neluayo being Dalish herself smooths things over some, but she is really in a complex position, with the Dalish, with the Chantry, with the monarchy… being stationed in the Free Marches, Clan Lavellan is one of the clans that has yet to join the southern Dalish. It’s a huge stressor for her.

As for Hawke, I keep both her siblings alive. Renata needs her little sister ;; <3 They do all go their separate ways after events in Kirkwall though. Orsino is also alive. Varric was clearly covering for him!

And I know Hawke already has a VA buuuut I headcanon Renata’s voice to sound more like Brittany Howard’s! Because it’s adorable.

24) Are any of your character(s) based on someone?

Not really. I never create them with any one source of inspiration or influence in mind.

25) Who did you leave in the Fade?

I’m gonna leave Stroud in the Fade! Makes my life a lot easier lol

26) Favourite mount?

I’ll agree that the harts are amazing! And they’re just so TALL. Love those majestic Thedosian megafauna. The bog unicorns are cute too, they’ve grown on me, surprisingly. Ha!

[angrykpoprants]

I don't think I'm gonna support the next comeback in August. It's mainly due to armys being terrible the accusing winner's mino of pedophilia, Hatred towards got7 and rampant racism towards black fans and the recent racism the k army directed to black fans over fan cafe photos and bts continues to be silent on it has rubbed me wrong way and I don't feel right supporting the next comeback as a black fan myself

I don’t really think its wrong to not fully support the comeback, you still have every right to call yourself a fan/army. Truth be told I haven’t fully supported their comebacks since B,S,& T. I still buy their albums and watch the music video once but that’s about it, if you don’t want to watch the music video or buy the album also, that doesn’t mean your less of a fan either. I kind of stay away from watching the live performances and all that stuff because there’s just so much negativity that their fans put out their. 


For the people that don’t know whats going on about Mino I’ll explain it below since it can be a sensitive topic and I don’t want to trigger people. But for the TL:DR he is not a pedophile. 


The armys never fail to surprise me. Don’t you remember during their second Mama performance when they collaborated with got7, armys went around supporting got7 just because they performed with bts and they said that they were friends with them… They even supported Jackson because Jackson said that he’s friends with Rap Mon, yet now that got7 is stealing the spotlight from bts they all of a sudden hate got7. I feel like armys wake up angry and wanting to fight people everyday. Got7 has been around for a while, people supported them even when they were featured in an episode of who is next. Got7 is very talented and they work hard so they deserve to get attention. I’m sorry armys but there are a plethora of very talented kpop groups, bts is not the only one of its kind… heck, bts isn’t even “original” there literally Bigbang mixed with B.A.P B.A.P has been around a about 19 months before bts and bigbang has been around 7 years before bts. 


I know you said that they fan cafe thing is synonymous with racism and I full on believe you but I’m going to address them as separate because both of them are a major issue in and of itself.

As far as the racism thing… there are a lot of accounts of armys of all kinds of races being racist towards other fans… I’ve even experienced blatant racism from their fans at both TRB and wings. At wings my friend who is full Asian and I were waiting patiently in line, we were keeping to ourselves and we were one of the last people to arrive. In the line that we were in the people in front of us kept looking back and they said that “I thought they just came to America for their white fans“ and I was thinking “did I really just hear that?” who knows what else they said when they got in the venue… It’s just sad that those two girls have that much hatred inside of them, at TRB I attended with my mom as I was only 15, and my friend was 13, both her and my mom are full white. People assumed that my friend was my moms daughter which is understandable, I’m not mad at that, I don’t really look like my mom either. As soon as the heard me refer to her as Mom and my friend refer to her as Miss.P for anonymity… its not that me or my mom have a problem with remaining anonymous but its more like I don’t know who follows me and for what reason… mainly it because I don’t want any retaliation from bts fans maybe someday I’ll be less anonymous, they started treating both me and my mom super rude and weird. Even during TRB, my mom had went upstairs to go to the bar, there was another mom there but she was talking about how awesome Asia is and how her two children younger than me are going to go to Korea and blah blah blah, it was basically this fantasy-land view of Asia and Asians. My mom then told the lady that being married to an Asian isn’t all lollipop and rainbows and living in Hawaii my mom dated a few other Asian men before she married my Father. After that her behavior towards my mom changed, as if she was disgusted over who my mom chose to marry, yet she created that same-like fantasy in her head for her daughters. I had also gone up there to get some water and to get out of the crowd I have asthma and I forgot my inhaler, hot/lukewarm water helps sometimes and the look on her face she she saw me looked was a real look of disgust, she was extremely rude to me too. 
If that’s the type of prejudice that I face, being a hapa… I cant imagine what you go through.

Now with the fancafe issue, ever since they opened up the fancafe, the photo have been share left and right. Am I saying its okay? No, it’s against the rules. They have said that they were going to shut down the fancafe or ban people if content gets shared but it seems to just be empty threats from bighit. What’s not cool is that they put the blame on black fans. Fans of all races have been sharing fancafe photos. If they truly want the sharing of the photos to stop then they should report it to bighit… but at this point are they even going to do anything? Its just like how they say that legal action will take place of the content from their dvd’s gets shared but does anyone actually get sued?

Yes, your right, bts and/or bighit should step in at this moment because there is way too much toxicity in that fandom. It’s not hard to tell the fans “hey dont be mean”. “dont be racist”, or even “be nice to other fandoms”. B.A.P has said all of that to their fans, just take a look at BYG’s speech in Atlanta. Bigbang has even said something along the lines of “its okay for you to like other groups, we dont really care” which i believe somewhat help die down the fanwars in the VIP fandom. Although, I dont think that’s what bighit cares about anymore. Yes, bts should be able to come out and say it themselves but like i have said previously, we dont really know what their contract entails, we dont even know if they are aloud to say anything that could potentially jeopardize the money coming into to bighit, and that’s all bighit cares about now, I dont even think bts has freedom of speech at this point, they seem to manufactured as of now. Although, bts has been subtlety dissing their fans lately and I think that this fandom needs it at this point.

Below will be the controversy with Mino.

Now about the Mino pedophile issue, no… Mino is not a pedophile and he didn’t commit pedophilia. Mino was following an instagram account that was ran by a photographer called prettypuke. I’ve know about this account for a while because he had been following since 2015, although some fans say that he was hacked. Now that photographer was also the co-director for CL music video Dr. Pepper which was released in 2015. I also believe that he had worked with other YG artist before and other people from YG were also following him.

What happened is that there was this article in published saying that Mino was a pervert… not a pedophile which, in some cases can go hand and hand but not all perverts not pedophiles. The reason why that made headlines in Korea is becuase of their online censorship and pornography ban which its more like anything that can be sexual is banned, Then this Army got a hold of the article and “translated” it but she flat out called him a pedophile. The reason for that is there was this picture that was uploaded and it was a boy with a buttplug on is forehead, what seemed to be him pretending to be a unicorn. However, just because there was a sex toy in that picture that did not make the picture sexual. There are a ton of videos and pictures where children find their parents toys. It got so bad to the point where Mino unfollowed everyone on his Instagram and the photographer had to make a statement. He said “Here is context to the image causing so much controversy in Korea. I fucking hate that it has come to this. This is my son Casper two years ago. Children are extremely inquisitive. My job as a dad is to be present, educate him, and protect him” along with that he said “My son happen to find his mother’s toy and began to play with with it. To him it’s just a found object, disgusting adults are the ones bringing negative connotation to such a simple image that shows no sexual intent“ 

The army then tweeted out a half-assed apology, she really didn’t apologize to Mino per se but more apologizing out of embarrassment because there even were a group of armys attacking her. Its just so sickening that she thought that that was okay to say because forever his image will be messed up due to people deeming him a pedophile and it seems like people just started to forget about the whole SMTM controversy. There are no accusations that they can use to even make him seem like a pedophile. This could potentially mess up his solo debut. No matter what, when a man gets accused of being a pedophile, rapist, molester, etc… and hes proven innocent that label will forever be on him for the rest of his life, not necessarily though the legal system but through out the street.  Part of me is also think that she did that to try to tarnish winners name because after Everyday their fame has been increasing like crazy.

[purplehairedhero]

A Fen/Femhawke Baby Fic List

A Fenris/FemHawke family/pregnancy/baby fic lists. Still a WIP. Only criteria is that it is FemHawke/Fenris, and it can’t be sad/depressing (I’m looking at you “Here Lies the Abyss” fics). Send me recs! Edit: 10/19/17 New stories added, Natural by Cannibal Kats and several at the bottom. 

“Hiding, Not Quite Hidden” by Brosca-Pride. Hawke and Fenris, together forever, even if it means hiding themselves and children from everything.

“Was it Worth it:?” by CannibalKats. Just a short piece about Fenris and Dahl Hawke during Inquisition. Bonus Papa Fenris.

“Take Care of Her” by CannibalKats. Anders, Hawke, and Fenris are the only members of the Kirkwall crew still on the run. Fenris catches Anders leaving in the middle of the night and promises not to let Hawke follow.

“Natural” by CannibalKats.  A short bit of fluff. The birth of Fenris and Dahl's first child. While not graphic childbirth is described from Fenris' pov.

“Wander Wild and Far.” by Spirrum. After Adamant Hawke leaves for Weisshaupt as planned, but finds instead an entirely different adventure, a stray Fereldan Queen, a dragon, and that being pregnant wile the world is ending is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

“So Much Hinges on a Maybe.” by Spirrum. Hawke and Fenris, and trying to get pregnant.

“Frostling” by Spirrum.You can grow to love a great many things.

“Smaller Flames.” by Spirrum. Their youngest discovers her magic, in true Hawke fashion. With an explosion

Broody Porcupine Snapshot Series by TheFlamingNymph. An AO3 collection.

“Little Monster” by TheFlamingNymph. Hawke just wants a nap. Just one.

Fenris and Hawke’s Family Series by SassyOrlesian. An AO3 collection.

“What I was made for” by MiaCousland. Hawke and Fenris’ child is brought into the world.

“Steal and Shadow” by MiaCousland. Hawke has to find her way throught the Frostback Mountains to answer a letter that has been sent by an old friend from Kirkwall. Note: Haven’t read this one personally yet.

“The Elf and the Babe” by Gaqalesqua. Fenris, romanced by a female Hawke, turns up at Skyhold wearing a baby sling with a baby in it. Trevelyan investigates.

“The Life We’ve Wrought” by ClockWorkSymmetry. Hawke x Fenris is adorable.

Wil and Cro Hawke Series by NovemberOcean (TwilightHawke). An AO3 collection.

“A Change in Principles” by K4t3yk4t. He hadn’t expected things to end up like this. Of course, there had been signs, and of course, they’d planned for it, but he had never expected anything like this to happen. Not to him. He feels rooted; an immobilization worse than any command had ever caused, worse than seeing Hawke nearly die, worse, so much worse. And yet...

“Ardently” by Uniqueinalltheworld.When Marian Hawke decided to leave her children with responsible adults before helping the inquisition, she had counted on being able to find one somewhere. Unfortunately, it seems like Anders and Fenris will have to do.

“Dawn” by Alistairweekend. “Mm...your kid before five in the morning.”

“Hawkquisition Series & other Stories” by Rannadylin. Most of her work has a baby or pregnancy existing somewhere. Special mention goes to Sapling.

Misadventures of Mari Hawke Series by Wintryone. An AO3 collection.

“A Different Kind of Magic” by sevanderslice. Fenris’s thoughts after the birth of his children.

“Finally together, Birds of a Feather, part 1″ by Hatsepsut. Fenris and Hawke are together after three years, and their relationship evolves. Moving in together, falling even deeper in love, going through the paces that are life, having a family, while the world crashes around their ears.

“Come Back to Me.” by Hatsepsut. Fenris leaves he City of Chains after the night he spends with Hawke; heavy words had been exchanged and everything between them looked hopeless. Eleven months later, he is back, determined to win the affection of the woman he can't forget again. But she seems to have a secret...

“On Waking” by loquaciousquark. Years after the events of Act III, Hawke and Fenris’s six-year-old daughter tries to figure out her mother’s past, her place in the tiny town of Wilhaven, and why her father never wakes up. AUTHORS SEAL OF APPROVAL.

“No Labor Like Love” by loquaciousquark. Hawke is pregnant. Fenris copes as best he can; everyone else laughs from a distance. A series of unconnected vignettes spanning the pregnancy of a Champion. AUTHORS SEAL OF APPROVAL.  The quintessential pregnancy/family fic.

“Given Respite” by loquaciousquark. Dorian meets Fenris. An interlude set after “Here Lies The Abyss.” Same universe as On Waking? AUTHORS SEAL OF APPROVAL. Honestly anything written by loquacious is amazing but this is a BABY fic list but seriously do yourself a favor and devour their work. Has a “sequel” written by Jade_Sabre called “Memorare” but not very related to this list either.

“A Deafening Sound” by loquaciousquark. Fenris and his newborn daughter.

���Whats that Holiday fic” by loquaciousquark. Carver meets his newborn nephew. This. THIS. This is the story I started this list looking for. I knew I wasn’t crazy! But on tumblr of all places???

“More Beach fic” by loquaciousquark. The fam is at the beach.

“I Mourn your Absence.” by loquaciousquark. Fenris and Leda go after Hawke.

“In Retrospect, a chicken was a bad choice.” by jadesabre301. The title says it all. Features laquaciousquark’s Leda Hawke.

“Always Safe with Us.” by Tadeusz. Hawke thought raising a baby with a trio of parents would be easier than with just two. That’s hilarious, Hawke. Totally cute that you think that. All it does is create more confusion about who has to get up when that baby cries at night.

“Hands and Feet” by Toffle. The revelation does not come in ice, or fire. It comes only with a gentle touch.

“Celebration” by Scurvaliciousbay. Fenris wakes up to Katra making a cake for their daughter’s first birthday. “Three Words” is a sequel. Fenris is putting his daughter to bed when she says something unexpected.

“New Beginnings” by onemooncircles. Heading home after concluding his business with the Inquisition, Varric pays a visit to some friends he has lied through his teeth to protect.

“The Wolf Within” by Ivy_Adair. Five years after Fenris left Marian Hawke behind in Kirkwall, he returns to discover that some things never change but others, like the addition of a little girl with black hair and green eyes, change completely. He mush come full circle to realize that he isn’t his past and that the wolf within him won’t be his future. A modern!AU.

“Medela” by mahuika. It surprises him, as it always has, how resilient a heart can be when he’s so used to seeing them ripped out and half-beating in his hand. Or, Varania is invited to meet her niece. AUTHORS SEAL OF APPROVAL.

“Exhale” by Chalahandra. Rhonwen gurgles, pushing herself up from the quilt. It’s a sunny day, with birds chirping and people talking quietly - and for the first time in a very long time, Fenris lets himself smile.

“A Cold Winter Day.” by Pinkwebby. Hawke has been pregnant for nine months, and she is ready to give birth to this child. Is she really ready to have a kid though?

“Playing in the Rain” by servantofclio. Hawke watches her partner and children in the rain. Has sequal “A Reunion and a Reckoning.” Fenris catches up to Hawke at Skyhold.

Dragon Age: Generations Series by DancingMantis. Roots and Wings more relevant to list.

“She Came Back.” by LittleWritings. Fenris finds Hawke at Weishaupt. Its a little rough but different than most.

While you were Sleeping Series by hollandmarie. VERY CUTE.

“The Hawke Child.” by CaptainStornChaser. "Am I the father?" He asked her, standing from where he had been waiting for her inside the entrance hall of her estate, reminiscent of the night the child may very well have been conceived.Marian merely stared at him evenly for a few moments. "You should go home, Fenris."

“What If.” by RaddishRodya. Hawke and Fenris have a discussion about what would happen if they had children. Also, Fenris learns how to play dictionary tag.

“Hesitations” by wiltedartist. Dehlian Hawke knows one thing and thing only: She has no idea as to how she will inform Fenris he will be a father. Sequel “The Empty Thirst.” How strange, he realized to himself, that he never knew just how much he needed one thing. Control. Fenris!F!Hawke, pregnant sex and dominant Fenris

“Mama Bird” by sparkyarcher. Elia comes home to a suspiciously quiet estate. Adorableness ensues.

“Another Heart” by aryadeschain.One sleepless night turned out to present Fenris a pleasant surprise.

“For What it’s Worth” by Nyessa. Years after Isabela runs away from Kirkwall with the Tome of Koslun, Imogen Hawke catches up to her in Denerim to settle some unfinished business.

“Dragon Age Prompts” by Jawbones. Chap. 4 “Lullaby”  "The way you said 'I love you': Not said to me" Might be more in series.

“A Hawkling Tale.” by Sportsoma.  Hawke surely does, and there's a little memento in case she wants to forget. However, being a mage and fearing the Chantry will take her expected bundle of joy, Hawke flees Kirkwall. Also a series sharing same name.

“Under the Skin.” by Lavender_Seaglass. After all that she's been through, Hawke doesn't plan on going anywhere else, let alone leaving him behind. This is, however, not something she's sure how to face. Doing things is easy; it's the regrets that kill you.

“Unplanned Consequences.” by Dragondreads.  When Hawke finds herself in the awkward position of being pregnant after the only night of passion she found with Fenris, she turns to her friend Varric for help

“Sweet Vermouth” by AngelicSentinel. Fenris would do anything for Hawke—Even conquer the Fade itself.

“I remain at your side.” by Lourdes23. When Kirkwall fell so did its Champion. Changed by betrayal, hunted and outcast, Hawke must find the strength to rise up once more in defense of a world gone mad. Yet humans can only withstand so much before desperation drives them beyond reason. When she's at her breaking point, and the weight of her duties seems too much to bear, who will stand with her and share the burden?Who will champion the Champion?  

“New Beginnings.” by Jessica Pendragon. He has dealt in death for so long and now only wants to hold life in his hands.

“Find Your Own Way Back Home.” by locketofyourhair. These books are slim, without names on the covers, and when he opens one, he can see that some of the pages are blank. Others are covered with small handwriting that he knows well, and it feels like a blow to see it again. They are journals; they are Hawke’s journals.He reads them as he finds himself adrift without her.

“Of Sausages and Surprises.” by RedIn. It was one of those evenings when her mother tried to make a noble fragile flower of her. She invited Comtesse Berauear and her two cocky daughters; Lizzeta and Pavetta. It was meant to be a boring, annoying evening or so Hawke thought.Sandal was the last person who she thought would interrupt the boredom of their well-mannered Hightown style party.

“Foxes on the Run” by ms45. Hawke gives birth whilst on the run from the Chantry.

“Milk” by Persephone. Hawke/LI - Lactating. Smut.

“Only You.” by kellbelle. This is a story of Hawke fleeing Kirkwall alone, having never romanced anyone and believing the man she loves could never love her back.

“Isabela and the Dread Pirate Captain Hook” by Dakoyone. Isabela tells a story from her grand pirating adventure days to the littlest Hawkes. No actual mention of Fenris but all her other stories are Fenhawke and there is a father so...

“That Which is Lost” by Niamh_St_George. A decade after the events in Kirkwall, Amelle Hawke and Fenris have made a quiet life for themselves. But when their idyll is shattered, Fenris discovers that while men are dealt with easily enough, it is once again magic standing poised to take everything away.

[happywitch416]

I'm going to keep asking you: Josephine, idk if I asked about Sebastian or not but if not then it's happening now, Cullen, Sera, Alistair, and Cassandra. I already know your feelings on most but my dude, your opinion is so important to me and also your posts are hilarious.

Did a Seb!

Josephine

How I feel about this character

Josie is that elegant, well spoken lady I dreamed of growing up to be when I was a wee punk. She has mystery! A good heart! Golden. Ruffles. The noble eldest of her family, saving them from doom. I think its fair obvious I am heart eyes gaga over Josie. And she's a gossip! True story, my favorite kind of person. Tell me all the things. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Leliana and Josie is probs my favorite ship for Josie. Next would be the not romance with Blackwall. I don't think I have a specific Inquisitor romance for that i like. But imagining her with an ex carta dwarf lady makes my heart feel fluffy. Val may get a cousin.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Also Leliana, i love their friendship? How they pick on Cullen and Cassandra. You know the shopkeepers cry in terror and joy when they arrive. Like yes a sale but oh the standard they demand.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I don't think I have one. Hm. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon 

I am actually good with her canon. A marriage would be nice in Trespasser. Oh that would be glorious. The flowers alone. 

Cullen

How I feel about this character

Cullen is. He is not my favorite normally. Fandom ruined him for me, #notsorry. Now. I do think he is a character with great potential. I also want that furry cloak thing. I need it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I dont have specific ship but there are a couple, as in literally 2, specific pairings that I read. But its more because I love friends writing then because I am googly eyed over noodle head. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Therapy. He needs it. Do they have lyrium anonymous? That's what he needs.

My unpopular opinion about this character

That is not a redemption arc. He definitely becomes more selective with his mage distrust/hate. But he doesn't really change from his all mages can't be trusted stance. And the templars were poor mistreated puppies! Yeah no they problematic to bud.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Him interacting with now ex templars. Growth beyond the dogma and the addictions. It needed more. But kore isn't for boys who are pretty i guess 

Sera

How I feel about this character

Sera is a disaster and I love her. Sera is all of us who saw a qunari lady and also went woof. I like that she's nobody compared to most of your companions. She's a real people. Also eat the rich mentality is just yes. Throw them into the pit. And she brings the inquisitor in as a red jenny? Who else goes after this life, let's have another for you let's go. Her friendship is also so sweet? For all her friends, I don't think she gets friend friends until she's with the inquisition. Also, I totally get how she talks, train of thought is relatable. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Dagna!!!! They are just so damn cute. I am also partial to her and my Asa. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Iron Bull. Mayhem. I also love her and Blackwall. She gets him. He gets her. Dick jokes. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

She is perfect. And has a valid point. If there is a golden throne whats worse? An ass in it or it being empty? I also like that shes not an elfy elf. So many are doom gloom our lost cause. From like...over a thousand years ago. Can we grow pls

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I want to be a wingman on a Sera and Dagna date. Let me set up my explosions are for bonding lesbians. 

Alistair

How I feel about this character

I was too old for Alistair when I first met him. He's a child. Literally. He's like 19. Thats a baby adult, the boy who didn't want to be king. Also i found this lone blossoming rose amongst the dead things so i took it..for being chantry raised he is not very understanding of miracles. And you gift him dolls. Why did duncan go oh yeah i'll take this one to probably die young. Like why dude. He could have left the chantry with alistair and been like okay here's 100 gold and go that way. You have a good sword arm, become a guard somewhere. Instead of feed the child blood... I also really hate how he treats Morrigan. Wtf man. And yes, she is mean back but to say he was inappropriate when they first met would be an understatement. I'd be a bitch to him to.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

No ships. Oops.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Wynne, he needs a mother. So badly. He needs cookies and hugs and stories. He may not be a child by age, but definitely by maturity. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

Like. My whole ass opinion lol

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I want him and Leliana to discuss that rose lol but i want alistair to grow a spine. He doesn't want to be king. His uncle treated him like shit, tell him no? Walk out on that king deal? Like thats barring sparing loghain bc he does sorta grow a pair then but abandons his duty that supposedly means so much. Why couldn't he have been like nah Anora is the queen why should i take her spot? That i don't want? 

Cassandra

How I feel about this character

I like that Cass is so Cass. Okay. She will fucking punch you in the face but also reads smut. I have found my people. She tries to right her wrongs, and the orders. She is also willing to eat her own words. She believes in people and goodness. While also maybe stabbing people. But she is also so naive? She believes Varric. Honey. Sweetie. He's full of shit and your full of shit meter is broken.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I don't really have a ship for Cass. Bear with me here, she is married to her work. She believes in it with every fiber in her soul. If she had to choose between romance and what she felt called to, what was right? She would let go of the romance. Which is supported by canon if you romance her and she becomes divine. Love only in glances. The world needs saving after all. And for cass it won't ever stop needing to be saved.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Cullen. She is a good influence on him, that he can do better if he tries, that he is better than he thinks. Also Dorian, their love of books would be a good start for a friendship. You know they read a lot of similar smut, especially if it's terrible. How else do you be mean to it.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I am angry she tried to murder my dwarf. We will go rounds lady. In her defense, I understand why she wanted to stove his head in lol and that's why I don't ship them. To antagonistic for me.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I am pretty happy with her canon.

[flunkyofmalcador]

Meet Miryan Simka!

1. What’s their full name? Why was that chosen? Does it mean anything?

Sergeant Simka and her husband Sergeant Simka were two background characters I came up with as drivers, assistants, and bodyguards to Garma Zabi in my later Zabifics.  I decided I didn’t want to let go of the lady Sgt Simka and so now she is Miryan Simka, formerly of the Abraic Planetary Regiment.  

2. Do they have any titles? How did they get them?

Sergeant.  She got promoted from Trooper.

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory? 

She did.  She is a member of the Abraic Rite of the Imperial Cult and enjoyed the festivals with her parents and siblings.

4. What is their relationship with their parents? What’s a good and bad memory with them? Did they know both parents? 

She knew both of them.  They are dead now, they died while she was off with the IG.  That’s expected, of course.

8. Did they have pets as a child? Do they have pets as an adult? Do they like animals? 9. Do animals like them? Do they get on well with animals? 

She likes animals and really needs a service dog for her anxiety.

10. Do they like children? Do children like them? Do they have or want any children? What would they be like as a parent? Or as a godparent/babysitter/ect?

She’s adoptive mom to @nightshade-victorian‘s savant, Brooks.  Simka is muscle to @sisterofsilence‘s Inquisitor Genevieve Allenbrisk, and Brooks works for Genevieve.  

11. Do they have any special diet requirements? Are they a vegetarian? Vegan? Have any allergies?

Simka should keep kosher.  She doesn’t, for a long time until she and her sweetie get their own gunship where she can keep a kosher kitchen.  Even so, just try prying bacon out of her hands.

12. What is their favourite food? 

Fresh baked bread, with lots of butter.

13. What is their least favourite food?

Imperial Guard protein paste.

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

She is a good cook, and loves feeding her “family”.  

16. Do they collect anything? What do they do with it? Where do they keep it? 

She has always been too mobile to collect anything.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

She has a digital picter and keeps lots of photos there and in her cogitator.  Rarely, she will have one printed.

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

She likes funny movies and family friendly movies.

19. What’s their least favourite genres?

War movies.  Even costume drama ones.  She has had enough of that in her life.

20. Do they like musicals? Music in general? What do they do when they’re favourite song comes?

She LOVES musicals and sings along badly.

21. Do they have a temper? Are they patient? What are they like when they do lose their temper?

People get beaten or shot.

24. What is their sleeping pattern like? Do they snore? What do they like to sleep on? A soft or hard mattress?

She’s not fussy about mattresses, as long as it’s a safe and clean place to sleep.  Simka has PTSD, and wakes up screaming a lot, so “safe and clean” reduces the chances of that happening.

29. What do they do when they find out someone else’s fear? Do they tease them? Or get very over protective? 

Simka is MADE of protective.  It’s why she volunteered for the Guard and she extends it to the people she cares about.

30. Do they exercise? Regularly? Or only when forced? What do they act like pre-work out and post-work out?

She makes her living based on her IG experience, so she runs 3k several times a week and lifts weights.

31. Do they drink? What are they like drunk? What are they like hungover? How do they act when other people are drunk or hungover? Kind or teasing?

She is an alcoholic.  She drinks to numb what she calls The Fear.  She is a quiet drunk who goes to bed when she feels she is numb enough.

32. What do they dress like? What sorta shops do they buy clothes from? Do they wear the fashion that they like? What do they wear to sleep? Do they wear makeup? What’s their hair like?

She wears her hair in a Sororitas-type bob, but she has brown hair.  She wears black fatigues with an Inquisitorial badge usually.  

33. What underwear do they wear? Boxers or briefs? Lacey? Comfy granny panties?

Sports bra, comfy granny underpants.

34. What is their body type? How tall are they? Do they like their body?

She’s about 5′7, muscular build, running towards some fat around her middle since she is middle-aged.  She has a utlilitarian view of her body and is always somewhat shocked when someone appreciates it.

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction?

Escapist fiction.  The genre can vary.

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship?

Simka’s a straight woman.  She likes other Guard who understand what makes her tick.

42. What are their goals? What would they sacrifice anything for? What is their secret ambition?

She doesn’t really have any.  She was in the Guard, now she works for the Inquisition, and she just sort of lives day to day until Brooks and a few other people come into her life and she starts living for her family.

43. Are they religious? What do they think of religion? What do they think of religious people? What do they think of non religious people?

She’s a Space!Jew.  She sees religion as being personal and doesn’t judge anyone, as long as they are not dirty Chaos heretics.

44. What is their favourite season? Type of weather? Are they good in the cold or the heat? What weather do they complain in the most? 

She likes warm, sunny, and breezy.  Rainy or cold and snowy are great as long as she doesn’t have to be in it.

45. How do other people see them? Is it similar to how they see themselves? 46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

She comes across at first as Vieve’s silent, butch bodyguard.  They will continue to think that until and unless Simka decides to introduce herself.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

Clean underwear, her prayer book, toiletry kit, and miniature bottles of booze if possible.

[raisingsupergirl]

Awesome Women Are Awesome

We interrupt your regularly scheduled drama to bring you something completely different. Something inspiring and refreshing. Something sure to remind you that there are, in fact, good things happening in the world. That there are good people in the world. And since my world seems to be populated by mostly women, it only makes sense that a few of them are pretty cool. Okay, a lot of them are cool, but I'm going to focus on just three of them right now because they've hit some major milestones in their lives recently, and they deserve a little praise.

While I've known all three of these girls since they were born, I guess it makes the most sense to start with the one that I've known the longest. Kayleigh is the oldest daughter of my middle brother (I'm the youngest). She holds a special place in my heart because she's the first person in my immediate family that I've watched grow up, and since she just graduated high school (in true, delayed COVID-19 fashion), I feel like I have a pretty good idea of the woman she's becoming. And even though she's changed a lot, in some ways, she's still the same ole Kayleigh. I remember her funny faces when she was trying to make people laugh as a baby, and I remember the silly nickname she gave my oldest brother (I'm talking about you, Uncle Buck). I also remember watching almost every home basketball and volleyball game with joy in my heart as she grew from a timid freshman to a team-leading senior. But even though most people know her for her athletic prowess these days, those who have known her longest see her a little differently.

Kayleigh isn't a showoff. She's not loud or pushy. But neither is she shy or reclusive. She's just… Kayleigh. She's one of the friendliest people I've ever known. She's considerate, aware, and smiling. Always smiling. Not because she's always happy, but because she cares if other people are happy. Yes, she's a perfectionist. Yes, she stresses out about the littlest things. And those qualities have pushed her to have the 7th highest GPA in her class and earn a full scholarship to college (for academics and athletics), but those qualities aren't what define her. To me, those qualities will put her in a position to succeed in this world, but her genuine kindness is what's going to set her up to make an impact on it. She will see the true needs of those around her, big or small, and she won't let any challenge stop her from making positive changes for decades to come. So, go get 'em, Kayleigh. And never stop smiling.

The next girl on my list is a lot like Kayleigh. She has a kind heart and a sensitive soul. She's meticulous and she's funny. The only difference is that Avery Laryssa Winch is loud. And I can say that because she's my daughter. My oldest daughter, in fact, and she just turned six. So I guess my "loud" comment is a bit unfair, but even for a six year old she's, well, loud. But not in a bad way. She's just so excited. Life is just so awesome! Pokémon and Frozen and Zelda and kitties and t-ball and Nana and Meemaw and Papa and swimming and gooey butter cake. And how could she not share how awesome those things are with everyone she meets? I mean, what if they weren't aware? It would be selfish of her to keep it to herself, right? And if they do know, well then, she'll have someone to talk to about the awesomeness for hours!

But she's not just excited. As I said, she's also considerate and fair. She accepts when she's done something to get into trouble. And she's outspoken when she's wrongly punished. I once lamented her "white lies," but now she knows the importance of honesty. She also knows the importance of making sure her little sister is safe and happy. She's the best helper ever, though she won't hear you through a megaphone if her attention is on something else. And that hyper-focus is a part of what I love about her. Because when she does realize that you were talking to her, she'll laugh and apologize, then explain that she was just zoned in on that other thing. It's cute, really. But the best thing about Avery is that she's still a kid, and she totally owns it. She doesn't try to talk about grownup things. She's more interested in having fun than understanding the problems of adult life. She's innocent. And therefore, she has no problem showing pure love. Even when she's "stressed" or "emotional," there's still an unadulterated purity that shines through like a white light, and just thinking about it makes me smile. So, happy sixth birthday, my sweet Avery. I know you get older every day, but you'll always be my little super girl.

And then… there's Annabel.

My second born just turned three. At first, I kind of thought she was like Avery. And in some ways, she is. She's hyper-focused. She loves all of the same things that Avery loves. But she just loves them in a different way. She gets a little closer and squeezes a little harder. Her angry furrowed brow would put a caveman to shame. She could care less if you like what she's playing with as long as you don't get in her way. Though, she does care if Avery likes it. Her big sister is everything to her (and, as I said, Avery makes it easy because she genuinely loves Annabel, as well. At least for now, those two are best friends). And she's in-tune with others' emotions, as well. She often curls up in my lap, smooshes my cheeks together, and asks, "Are you happy?" And I'm certain that she asks because she really wants to know. I can see the seriousness and understanding in her eyes.

It's hard to tell how much of Annabel's cantankerousness is her actual personality and how much is her age (she's finally out of diapers, which means she's finally old enough for spankins). But either way, it's clear that she's much more confident than her big sister. Where Avery has her mommy's timidity, Annabel is like Daddy. And worst of all, she's so smart. She's picked up numbers and colors and shapes without any intentional teaching. She's constantly saying things like, "Is this blue?" And that inquisitiveness only adds to her confidence. Barring some unforeseen trauma, that girl is going to face life head-on. And I have to keep that in mind when I'm disciplining her. She will learn the importance of honesty, kindness, and patience (just like her big sister), but I know I have to be careful to not exasperate her. Avery wants to please her parents, so she's pretty good at accepting correction. Annabel… well, she'll just have to learn the importance of a lot of things in her own time. And that's completely fine. Like I said, that's how I've always been, and even though I've sometimes taken the long way around, I'm doing all right. So, Annabel, just keep being you. Stay passionate, inquisitive, and intuitive. You'll get there, girl. Surrounded by so many other awesome women, you don't have any other option.

I know those are just three of the many amazing ladies in my life, but gosh, they are really amazing. Their common passion and kindness makes me want nothing but the best for them. They're magnetic. And despite the fact that they all express those qualities a little differently, they have the same spirit. The world needs more girls like them. And, with any luck, their light will shine on this tumultuous world and remind us all of what's really important. Good luck, ladies. You've got this.