#threnody hawke

[ammoniteflesh]

Made my canon worldstate gals in the Dragon's Dogma 2 CC! Look At Them!!!!

[faejilly]

Lily- majesty, Sebastian ❤️

[flower prompts] Starkhaven is majestic! You will pry that fact from my cold dead hands, regardless of how it may or may not ever be portrayed by anyone else. (Also, this is a game epilogue, and takes place not long after oats.)

Hawke stopped as they crested what she had not realized was the final craggy hill before their track descended into the Minanter Valley to meet the main Trade Road.

She thought she'd been prepared for her first sight of Starkhaven, thought she'd heard enough stories from Sebastian, had watched the way Fenris spread his hands and widened his eyes whenever he came back from a trip across the Marches, had noticed when even Varric couldn't find a way to grumble about somewhere that wasn't his preferred shithole.

She was very wrong.

Isabela whistled and Merrill sighed and Adelaide blinked again, as if somehow that would change the view.

It was beautiful. Sebastian had talked about the granite they used for the roads, about new walls built whenever they'd overflowed the old ones for too long, but he'd never mentioned how it gleamed, reflecting the water and the sun, the light from above and below making it shine. Brother Genitivi had said as much in his Travels, of course, but she hadn't realized...

For the first time in her life, she thought she maybe understood why Orlesians complained about Ferelden's mud.

Even the parts of Denerim that weren't muddy tended towards brown, and this! Pale and clean, straight corners and curving walls somehow emphasizing the cliffs beyond it, the curve of the Minanter through it. It held shades of white and grey and silver, soft reds and pale tans from brick and stone and cobbles; there were even various greens just barely visible here and there, growing up taller than the walls, or visible in a gap between buildings that hinted at a garden or a court somewhere deep inside the city.

It really did look like a jewel. Strings of them; each of its walls was another necklace spilling out of the mountains and across the river until the final wall - paler and sharper than any of the others, too new to have worn down or faded into the rest of the city.

(Of course, then there was another road, and beyond that something half-city, half-market, all tents and caravans and shacks and wagons and horses and the weird furry not-horse things they rode in the desert further north, merchants and mercenaries and Maker-knew-who-else and so much dust she could see the cloud of it from here.)

"Well, shit." Merrill managed in a very clear echo of Varric's actually surprised enough to not know what to say voice.

Isabela snorted, and Adelaide felt her lips twitch in an attempted smile.

Merrill continued in her usual lighter tone. "That really makes Kirkwall look terrible, doesn't it?"

"Doesn't take much," Fenris answered.

Carver laughed, something almost a snort, an echo of their father so many years ago. Adelaide felt some of the ache in her shoulders ease at the sound, felt the earlier almost-smile return, wider and more relaxed and real this time.

"Well, shit," she agreed, though she sounded much less like Varric than Merrill had managed.

Her smile widened even further as Sebastian laughed that time, too.

He offered her his arm, and she took it, trying not to grip too tightly.

"Knock 'em dead," Isabela called after them, as they started to descend the path.

"Not literally," Fenris added.

"You just want them to save some of that for the rest of us," Carver said.

Merrill laughed that time, bright and hopeful, and Adelaide held the echoes of that sound in her heart even as she heard the shuffle of their footsteps returning to their camp back in the foothills proper.

She swallowed. Thought about where to put each foot and reminded herself to breathe as the tall pale walls drew ever closer. "Are we sure this is going to work?"

Her voice had barely had any breath behind it, but Sebastian clearly heard her.

"Not at all," he answered, his voice low but still warm, warmer than her own rough whisper had managed. "But I have hope."

"Ahh." It wasn't a sigh but it wasn't a sob or quite the break into hysterical laughter that she'd half expected to come out of her mouth. "Endless possibilities."**

"But after we lament, we can rebuild, my love." Sebastian reached a hand over to cover hers, to squeeze her fingers gently. "If not here, we'll just keep going."

Adelaide snorted. Yet it had worked; she definitely felt better. "I think we've both been uprooted more times than is plausible. Let's hope this is the last time."

She felt his shoulders shift in a shrug beside her. "As long as you're with me, I'm rooted enough."

Adelaide stopped. Sebastian didn't quite stumble as he came to a halt beside her. She closed her eyes. She lifted her head and waited.

Sebastian knew exactly what she needed, the soft press of his lips against hers so gentle her whole chest ached with it.

"I love you," she whispered. "And that is more than enough, you're right."

She opened her eyes to see him, his beautiful face, the hint of a flush high on his cheeks as he smiled at her, that bright wonder in his eyes as if he still couldn't quite believe she meant it, that they both meant it, for as long as they could hold on to each other.

She quirked a smile, ignored the burn in her throat, behind her eyes. She loved him. That would keep her going. "I should probably not keep the Seneschal waiting, though?"

"Probably best," Sebastian agreed, and he tugged gently until they both started moving again. "Marta has wanted to meet you for several years."

"What an excellent reminder to make me less nervous, darling."

Sebastian shrugged again, somehow clearly apologetic this time. She managed a laugh, and they joined the traffic on the main road, turning towards the Main Gate of Starkhaven, wide and open, giant hinges gilded with gold, guards and clerks dressed in white and red and black, shockingly bright in comparison to the crowds of merchants and farmers and travelers in more staid browns and greys and greens.

She took a deep breath, letting the weight of the past few days, weeks, years, settle as smoothly across her shoulders as she could manage. Reminded herself she wasn't just any apostate, any refugee, but Lady and Champion and beloved. Sebastian lifted his chin, and she could practically see the legacy of Vael settle across his brow, almost hiding her beloved behind a noble mask.

Almost.

He lifted a brow, the glint in his eyes as warm as it always was when he met her eyes and she nodded. Time to see what Starkhaven thought of its erstwhile Prince, the Champion of Kirkwall, and their collection of misfits, refugees, and mages seeking shelter. Time to build something new.

Again.

And again, she thought, as many times as needed.

Endless possibilities. They'd find one that worked for them. She smiled, and leaned a little into Sebastian's warmth along her side, remembering Fenris and Isabela and Merrill and Carver, waiting for them to make this first move, ready and willing to help.

Together.

[mistralrunner]

OC Masterlist

Inspired by @spectre-tabris I decided to do an OC masterlist since my OC page of details is in WIP hiatus

BALDUR’S GATE 3

Linthelea Z’hren Veladorn - LG drow lore bard/light cleric, Champion of Eilistraee, romanced Shadowheart Vyn - N deep gnome enchantment wizard, The Dark Urge, romanced Gale Dulaman - CG->CN dwarf blooded water genasi moon druid, Druid Mad Scientist, romanced Gale and Halsin Belnak Easgann - LN dragonborn feylock/wild magic sorcerer, The Lost Abeiran, romanced Lae’zel Kasan’dra - N->NG githyanki monk/Selûne tempest cleric, of Creche Chult, romanced Wyll Remanence - LG zariel tiefling devotion paladin, Avatar of the Zariel-Who-Was, romanced Karlach

ELDER SCROLLS

Nevawren - Skyrim/ESO, N bosmer bard with a giant warhammer/arcanist, The Last Dragonborn, Cryptid of Winterhold Kiskadei - Morrowind, N argonian effectively monk/cleric, Nerevarine, the Tribunal’s End Mynah - Oblivion, N dunmer thief/mage, Hero of Kvatch, the Grey Fox Astrapia - ESO, NG argonian warden, Rootmender, Ku-vastei Whimbrel-ko - ESO, NG khajiit dragonknight, Hero of Summerset, the Moon-Hallowed

PILLARS OF ETERNITY

Sinead - NG human (Natlan) skald chanter, The Watcher, Herald of Berath

DRAGON AGE

Rhovan Mahariel - DAO, LG smol Dalish warrior with a big sword, The Warden, Hero of Ferelden Tamara Hawke - DA2, CG human force mage, Champion of Kirkwall, romanced Fenris Menel Lavellan - DAI, NG Dalish rift mage, The Inquisitor (unfortunately), romanced Cassandra

D&D

Threnody - Dragon Heist Campaign, CN winged tiefling moon druid, Harper Lòchran Mòrcaora - Jungles of Chult Campaign, LG brass dragonborn twilight cleric, Sword Dancer of Eilistraee Cadha Talmhainn - LG dwarf moon druid, Professional Water Inspector Sirocco Shal’evaliir - NG half wood-elf hunter ranger, Book Hunter, Diplomat of the Chaos Trio Moirin Brandearg - N human maestro bard, Acolyte of the Morrigan

[pierogipie]

👀👀👀

Ah! Answering a question on mobile for the first time! Let's see how this goes.

This little snippet is from a fhanders Pygmalion rewrite with Hawke as a much kinder Henry Higgins and Anders as a less cockney'd Eliza Doolittle! I also plan to finish it and publish it in 2023! (Sorry it's so long 😮‍💨)

“Rivaini, I keep telling you, change some names, adjust some settings, get a <i>real</i> editor, I’d be happy to lend my services, we could turn a tidy profit.”

Isabela rolled her eyes. “And <i>I</i> keep telling you that the <i>point</i> of what I write is fun, not money. I make plenty of coin stabbing people for Hawke. Besides, we’re helping Anders now.”

Anders scoffed and grabbed his manifesto back from Isabela. “Helping me? By suggesting I write The Chant of Pornography? In a town that already wants me dead?”

“I’m not saying you publish it, it’s just a fun writing exercise—”

“‘Writing exercise’, <i>right</i>—”

“<i>And</i> you can’t deny that Andraste was quite hot. Literally, at one point.” Anders groaned, Varric rested his head in his hands, and Hawke laughed uproariously—she must have been drunker than she thought.

“<i>Thank</i> you, Hawke. At least someone here appreciates my jokes. Anyway, here's the game. Let’s say…five silver to the best stanza? I’ll start. <i>And so is the Golden Hole loosened, with each thrust you take—</i> ”

The afternoon turned glorious. Egged on by Isabela, Hawke and Anders giggled their way through The Chant of Light, expertly turning it into one of the most garish works of erotica Hawke had ever set her eyes on. She couldn’t have pleasured herself to it, even if she wanted to.

At pint four, she started copying their new and improved version of The Chant on the back of an invoice she pilfered from Corff. At pint six, she was slurring through Benedictions 4. By pint seven, she couldn’t keep her head up and desperately wanted dinner.

Speaking of dinner, her brain sluggishly reminded her, her mother was having a family friend over. Some Lord so-and-so from City Such-and-Such if she recalled correctly. And her presence had been requested.

“Oh! Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”

“Hawke, what is it?” Anders asked, concern furrowing his brow. He’d been in the middle of a rousing rendition of Threnodies 5, where instead of the Maker calling forth spirits to be his children, he called them forth for–er—other reasons. It had been quite funny actually. Anders had been smiling, laughing in between the verses, sometimes so hard that he could barely breathe. It had been…pleasant. Good to see.

Much better than the concern marring his face now.

“My mother, she’s got a dinner planned for Lord Whatsit and I <i>completely</i> forgot—I can’t go like this, I’m a me—mess,” Hawke hiccuped. In an instant, the pleasant haze was gone. What was left was the drunken reality that she was going to get lectured by her mother <i>again,</i> probably with an incredible hangover.

“Lord Whatsit, is that Orleasian? Don’t panic,” Anders said, standing up to kneel in front of her, lifting one hand to tame one dark curl behind her ear. He was so tall that even kneeling he was level with her. She could nearly stare directly into his four eyes.

Placing one hand on her shoulder, one on her forehead, Anders brushed a little magic over her brow.

“Your hands are warm.”

“It’s the magic.”

“Mm…magic. I love magic.”

[thethirdamell]

Elfroot for Hawke!

Elfroot: What is a small, mundane thing that brings your character great comfort?

No shit, there Hawke was, outnumbered and outmatched, quiver empty, bad guys all around... and then some shit happened and he killed them all with his bare hands. It was how most of Varric's stories went. They weren't exactly far from the truth so much as they were respecting the truth's personal space.

Varric might have spun his stories to the point of motion sickness, but Hawke was good at killing. That much was true. For most of his life the choices were good at killing or good at dying. He liked it as much as he liked being good at it, but it wasn't the something Hawke wanted to be good at.

He wanted to be good at making, but he couldn't make shit. He wasn't a craftsman. He was an archer. The only shit that he could make was the shit that unmade.

Arrows. He was a good enough fletcher, and there was a comfort in it. The making. The having made. It reminded him of Threnodies, of the Maker waiting to see the wonders His children would create. The arrows weren't wonders, but they still were. On his best days he filled his quiver to bursting.

On his worst he emptied it.

[dragonageloree]

Calendar

“For earth... sky. For winter... summer. For darkness... light.” ―Threnodies 5

Astronomical calendar written in ancient Tevene

The calendar in Thedas consists of twelve thirty-day months. Furthermore, the majority of Thedas, from Tevinter Imperium to Ferelden, celebrates five major holidays, each tied to the transition of a season or, in the case of First Day, the beginning of a new year. Although each month has a name in the language of Ancient Tevinter, the people of Ferelden commonly use the "low" names. The Tevinter names are listed first, followed by the more common name for the month.

The system was developed in the early years of the Tevinter Imperium and was influenced by the elves.[1]

List of months and holidays

The five holidays, or annums, take place at the beginning of the month within which they fall.

1st month: Verimensis / Wintermarch (Annum: First Day)

2nd month: Pluitanis / Guardian (Annum: Wintersend)

3rd month: Nubulis / Drakonis

4th month: Eluviesta / Cloudreach

5th month: Molioris / Bloomingtide (Annum: Summerday)

6th month: Ferventis / Justinian

7th month: Solis / Solace

8th month: Matrinalis / August (Annum: All Soul's Day)

9th month: Parvulis / Kingsway

10th month: Frumentum / Harvestmere

11th month: Umbralis / Firstfall (Annum: Satinalia)

12th month: Cassus / Haring

Description of holidays

First Day

The traditional start of the year, this holiday involves visits to neighbors and family (in remote areas, this was once an annual check to ensure everyone was alive), as well as a town gathering to commemorate the year past, accompanied by drinking and merriment.

Wintersend

Once called “Urthalis” and dedicated to Urthemiel, the Old God of Beauty, this holiday has now become a celebration of the Maker. It stands for the end of winter in many lands and coincides with tourneys and contests at the Proving Grounds in Minrathous. In southern lands, this holiday has become a day of gathering for trade, theater, and, in some areas, the arrangement of marriages. It is celebrated at the beginning of Pluitanis.

Summerday

Once called “Andoralis” and dedicated to Andoral, the Old God of Unity, this holiday is universally celebrated as the beginning of summer, a time for joy and, commonly, marriage. Children ready to come of age don white tunics and gowns. They then join a grand procession that crosses the settlement to the local Chantry, where they are taught the responsibilities of adulthood. Summerday is a particularly holy occasion in Orlais. It is celebrated at the beginning of Molioris.

All Soul’s Day

Once called “Funalis” and dedicated to Dumat, the Old God of Silence. However, since Dumat’s rise during the First Blight, Thedosians turn a blind eye to any old ties between the day and the dragon. The holiday is now known across Thedas as All Soul’s Day and spent in somber remembrance of the dead. In some northern lands, the people dress as spirits and walk the streets in parade after midnight. The Chantry uses the holiday to remember the death of Andraste, with public fires that mark her immolation and plays that depict her death. It is celebrated at the beginning of Matrinalis.

Satinalia  

Once dedicated to the Old God of Chaos, Zazikel —but now attributed more to the second moon, Satina— this holiday is accompanied by wild celebration, the wearing of masks, and naming the town fool as ruler for a day. In Antiva, Satinalia lasts for a week or more, while a week of fasting follows. In more pious areas, large feasts and the giving of gifts mark the holiday. Satinalia is celebrated at the beginning of Umbralis.

Trivia

There is something called a "name-day" in the dwarven commoner origin[2], but it's the only instance of such, and it's not made clear what this day signifies. The term "birthday" is used in every other context including codex entries and conversations in-game.

Satinalia is also known as "Feastday". [3] It is likely based on the Roman Saturnalia, also celebrated in the onset of winter and marked with merriment and revelry.

Typically only courts and scholars use the high names for months.[4]

The month of August was originally intended to be named after Andraste. This was during a point in early development of Dragon Age: Origins when her name was Augusta.[5]

In Dragon Age: Origins, Alistair makes a reference to the weekday Tuesday, when talking to the Warden about the events that transpired at Redcliffe Castle, while an aggressive Hawke will make a reference to Tuesday in conversation with Tallis in Mark of the Assassin. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Iron Bull mentions the weekday Friday through party banter with Blackwall, and Dorian refers to Sunday during the cutscene that unlocks The Name of Our Enemy. These instances show that some weekday names are based on the real-world Gregorian calendar.

[dirtybiowareconfessions]

Confession: I want Garrett Hawke to shove me into a wall, wrap my legs around his waist, and fuck the canticle of threnodies out of me. Just LOOK at his arms...

[jawsandbones]

Threnodies for Leto, Songs for Fenris - Part 1/3

Fandom: Dragon Age

Rating: Mature

Pairing: Fenris x F!Hawke

AO3 Link: Click Here

He learns to say no. He whispers it to himself in the dead of night, up at faintly blinking stars. He practices. He takes pleasure in it – the sound of it on his tongue, the way it feels in his mouth. The ability to speak his mind. To have choice. No. At first he fears the use of it. He has been taught how to bite his tongue too well. Fenris knows what comes with hesitation, denial. It begins with the dark frown, the biting word and ends in the lash, in punishment. Hawke asks if he would like to come with them on a day he had planned for other things. “No, I – I would rather not,” he says as he braces himself. Stiffens the line of his back, the square of his shoulders, prepares for the reprimand. She only smiles, leans against the doorframe, crosses her arms.

“That’s alright. I’ll bring you back something,” she tells him. He still feels it even after she leaves. Leaning against his closed door, hands in fists against the wood. The heavy beating of a nervous heart, the faint rush of adrenalin that pumps through every vein. He smiles, laughs to himself, presses a hand against his forehead. It is that first ‘no’ which gives him the allowance of more. He tells Varric that no, he does not want to try the Hanged Man’s mystery soup. The dwarf shrugs, chews on some unidentifiable grey meat. Merrill asks him to pick mushrooms with her and he tells her no, and she goes to ask Anders. He steps back when Isabela holds out a fish for him to hold, a very flat no, and she throws it at the back of Hawke’s head.

He learns acceptance. The right of rage, permission of grief. Fenris mourns the life he never knew, bitter to the one he has left behind, learns to take joy in the one he is creating. Hawke is a welcome figure on his doorstep, and he finds he likes the sound of her voice. They speak of anything that comes to mind, Hawke an attentive listener to anything he has to say. Some nights it is no more than comfortable silence, shared space, and a few times Hawke falls asleep in the chair. They find which bakery he likes best, learns that apple pastries are his favorite. She brings him a bottle of Ferelden ale. They drink it together, and it’s Hawke who smashes this bottle against the wall.

Isabela teaches him how to skip stones. She laughs as he growls frustration at the third one that simply sinks. She cheers when the sixth finally goes, three pathetic hops, but more than good enough. Anders and Varric double over in laughter together as he wakes to find Merrill has braided daisies into his hair. He spars with Aveline, helps her bridge the opening she leaves on her right. She gives him a small bag of cookies in thanks and a “please don’t tell Isabela I bake.” Times spent at the Hanged Man with everyone else, and they shout over the table, slap down coin and card. He watches them argue and laugh, smiles to himself.

He reacquaints himself with loneliness. Kirkwall seems harsher now that Hawke has gone to the Deep Roads, a little quieter, somewhat cold. A sudden realization of what her presence means. Fenris misses her most on the nights alone with himself, mind moving in torturous circles. Speaking with the others is never quite the same, they don’t listen the way she does. Her presence in his mansion has always been welcome, while others feel intrusive, a churning in his gut. She had leaned forward and smiled, put her hand over his. “Go see the others while I’m gone,” she had said, “you can’t stay cooped up in here all the time.” He does his best to honor this promise.

Merrill has found herself managing the clinic in Darktown, fielding questions of where Anders had gone. He brings her the supplies she has in her house, buys more with his own coin when she runs out. Fenris walks the late patrols with Aveline, knowing she takes the more dangerous routes. She tells him he doesn’t have to. She thanks him anyway. She tells him how proud she is of the guards in training, gives glowing admiration of the others. One in particular. He tells himself he must find a way to meet this Donnic. He helps defend Isabela from those who call her a cheat, and from behind the safety of his sword, she proudly admits it. He pulls her arm over his shoulders, walks her to her room, and puts a bucket beside her bed.  

Fenris lies in his own bed, looking through the cracks in his roof. He likes it best when it rains, falling into the buckets he carefully places. The sound of drops against tin, the fluttering moonlight that cascades into the room. He knows that Hawke is sleeping under a different sky, one of rock and stone, in a place she’d rather not be. “I’m frightened of being underground,” she had confessed, “all of that above my head… just makes me uneasy.” He lies awake and wonders if Hawke is wondering about him. Rolling over to bury his face in his pillow, shame in wanting one of his only friends. A desire that had lain dormant, feelings he didn’t know he could have. He dreams of her laughter, of blue eyes and freckles, and brushing hair behind her ear.

Bartrand returns, but she does not. His stomach rolls, knots, churns in worry. He wears a path into already worn floorboards, unable to stop pacing. He resolves to find the dwarf, ask him where Hawke is. Aveline finds him first. Asking to speak with him, sitting in the chair. Long moments spent in silence before she leans forward, elbows on her knees. “I spoke to Bartrand,” Aveline says, “They got separated. A cave-in.” Her hands tight together, fingers digging into flesh, knuckles white with the effort. “He doesn’t think they survived.” That pit falls, and Fenris sinks into the opposite chair. Hands grip the armrest, staring pointedly at the fire. Long enough until his eyes burn, blink back pain, shaking his head.

“No,” he rasps. “I will question him myself.”

“Fenris,” she says his name quietly, a warning in the syllables.

He plans to leave Kirkwall. He will book passage on a ship south, leave the Free Marches entirely. Hawke had asked him once, if he might stay. Those early conversations, getting to know one another. “Perhaps you’ll find a reason to stay,” she had said with a smile. He had taken her kindness with a measure of suspicion, hard to trust, unwilling to settle. She had slowly carved a place for herself in him, settling in locked spaces, dusty corners. He’s stayed too long. There’s nothing left keeping him in the city anymore. On the third day of the second week, he packs a bag. He takes all the things Hawke has given him, the only mementos he cares to keep. In his hands, a red scarf, soft against his skin. On the fourth day, there’s a knock at his door.

There are dark circles under her eyes, as though she hasn’t slept in days. She is thinner, her hair longer, but her eyes still burn brightly blue. She stretches out her arms, steps through the doorway as she wraps them around him. Burying her face against his chest, holding him tightly. Fenris still hasn’t recovered from the shock of it, slowly lets his hands settle on Hawke’s back. “Bartrand trapped us down there. Carver caught the blight. He’s gone with the Grey Wardens and I,” her hands fist in his tunic, tremble and shake, “I missed you. This. I cried when we saw grass, can you believe it?” He can. He holds her a little tighter.

He learns how to ask. Slipping into old habits, sitting by the fire as she speaks. Listening quietly as her hands move wildly to convey every detail, from sitting hunched to sitting straight, expressions rowdy and vivid as she recounts all that happened while she was gone. They talk for hours until their voices are hoarse and the drinks are emptied, food eaten. Hawke rubs her eyes as she leans back, stifles the yawn. “Would you like to stay?” He asks, playing with the loose thread at the end of his leggings. She smiles, reaches out, touches his knee.

“I don’t want to throw you out of your own bed,” she says. Fenris shakes his head, finds the courage to rest his hand over hers.

“It’s no trouble,” he tells her. They stay there quietly, as his thumb traces over her knuckles. There’s a new scar on the back of her hand, just there, right by her pinky finger. The way she touches has always felt natural. A brush across the shoulders, hand on his arm, at his back. It’s never come easily to him. Even now he feels stiff, awkward, nervous, but still his hand remains. They both look over as a log in the fireplace cracks, breaks, warm light on their cheeks.

“Then I’ll take you up on your offer,” she says, and that smile still remains, so light on her lips. She settles into his bed, lying on her side, watching him as he tucks himself into the chair. “Fenris.” She stretches out her hand towards him. “There’s no reason we can’t share.” He can think of at least ten. Still, he finds himself walking towards her, tips of his fingers brushing against hers. He lies with his back towards her, staring at the wall. The fire burns, dies, and he stiffens when he feels her turning. Her face against his back, an arm slipping around him. Murmuring in dreaming, curling up against him. How warm it is to be held by someone. He indulges himself, lets his hand link with hers. Finger against finger, and palm against palm.

Hawke shows him first. An estate in ruin, a home she means to repair. The others help as well. Merrill worries on the ladder, cleaning the very top of the windows. Aveline is adept at repairing broken walls, cracked bannisters. Those Hawke has hired are also underfoot, but there’s only the cheerful laughter when it’s just the group of them. Isabela paints her name in a flourish before painting in earnest, while Varric buys Hawke a fine desk to sit in the front. A gold tipped quill, expensive ink. Anders has a scarf wrapped around his face as he dusts out the cobwebs, carries the spiders to the garden. There Fenris and their newest addition, Sebastian, work together. Hacking at weeds, planting new flowers.

There are days he gets lost in the labor. Leaning over in the dirt, gloves on his hands and sun beating on his back. Sweat on his brow, dripping at his temples, and he tears at stubborn root, embedded rock. His mind drifts, turns towards a different sun that used to beat upon his back. A labor that wasn’t like this, a work not the same. That was because they told him, this is because she asked and he – bats away the sudden touch, slaps away her hand. Stumbling back into the grass, and he is ready with the apology but Hawke pretends as if it didn’t happen at all.

“Did you want some water?” she asks. His hands clench into fists as his shoulders move with heavy breath, trying to steady himself in the present.

“I – yes. That would be appreciated,” he says. She extends her hands towards him once again, helps him to his feet. He follows her meekly to the kitchen, casts his gaze to the floor. She shifts, tilts, intercepts his vision until he can look naught but at her. When he finally meets her gaze, she smiles, passes him the glass.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” she says, “I should have said something first.” The condensation rolls down the glass, cold against his skin. He watches her as she walks, that easy swing of her arm over Isabela’s shoulders. The women sway and laugh together, and he wants it to be that easy for him. He longs to touch, when he’s shunned all touch before. Unwanted hands under his skin, wrapping around bone and muscle, claiming him for them. Now he wants to reach out, he wants to ask.

In the quiet when all others leave, they sit together in front of Hawke’s fireplace. The Amell sigil sits proudly above it, while the Hawke sigil rests above the door. She sits cross-legged, an elbow on her knee, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. While she is watching it burn, Fenris is watching her, the way the light flickers on her face. They pass the bottle of wine back and forth, a sort of sharing that comes naturally to them now. “I have an estate,” she says.

“Yes you do,” he says. Hawke smiles proudly, sits a little straighter, brushes hair behind her ear. It reveals the smudge of dirt on her cheek. He’s moving before he even realizes it, his thumb at the mark, brushing it away. Her face turns towards his. The dirt is gone and yet his hand remains, fingers curling at her cheek. All other sounds seem to slip away, and he can only hear the soft sound of her breathing. The way she shifts closer.

“May I kiss you?” Fenris asks it hoarsely, as though he hasn’t spoken in years, or at least never with meaning such as this. Her nod is instant, her answer voiceless. A palm pressing against stone as she leans towards him and he thinks he might count all the freckles, her stars. The brush of her nose against his. The feel of her breath on his lips. The warmth of simply being near her. Taking her face in his hands, eyes closing. She wets her lips just before, and his are maybe a little chapped, but still they fit together. He pulls her closer until she is sitting in his lap, his hands travelling the length of her back. Arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair.

“You seem to be in good spirits,” Sebastian smiles as he takes the box from Fenris, stacking it with the others in the Chantry basement. Fenris grumbles and Sebastian chuckles. “Things are going well with Hawke?” Fenris blinks, startled.

“With Hawke, I –”

“A blind man could see how you feel for her,” Sebastian tells him.

He walks with Aveline on Wednesdays. Down the twisting paths of Lowtowns, in the back alleys she does not want to send her guard. Most of it is spent in silence, some of it with Aveline asking him to train some of her guard. “There are many in this city who look up to you,” she tells him, but he finds it hard to believe. Especially difficult on the nights Fenris twists in his bed, casts the blankets to the floor. Feet hard against stone as he paces, hands pressed against his head. A voice that does not want to leave him, commands that haunt his dreams.

Fenris holds a ladder for Isabela as she climbs up to Merrill’s roof, smashes through cracked tiles with the hammer. They yell at each other, Merrill in concern and worry, Isabela wondering how anyone could live like this. Hawke wanders into the alienage in the afternoon, passes Fenris her half-eaten sandwich as she clambers up after them. “Are you sure you don’t need my help?” Fenris calls upwards to them. Isabela’s face appears over the edge, hair hanging down.

“Don’t you dare let go of that ladder!” She tells him. Merrill frets beside him, biting at her fingernails, waiting for them to finish. They reappear when the sun begins to set, covered in dirt and web, cuts on their hands, and more hammers than they went up with. They sit at Merrill’s small table, eat whatever she offers. Merrill seems more than happy to have them all there, pleased pink on her cheeks, squished between Isabela and Hawke.

Fenris smiles as he reaches across the table, sweeps up the hard won coin. Anders glowers at his cards before reaching for the rest, shuffling them together in an angry huff. Varric leans back in the chair, accepts graceful defeat. “You are a menace, elf. One of these days I’ll figure out your tell,” he says. Perhaps it the way his ears perk up when he sees Hawke walk into the Hanged Man, or the way he sits up a little straighter when she sits next to him. Anders is dealing the cards neatly, and Fenris keeps his close to his chest, away from Hawke’s prying eyes.

“I think he’s cheating,” Anders says, “he’s been spending too much time with Isabela.” Hawke has her elbows planted on the table, holding her face in her hands.

“Or he’s just better than you at the game,” she says. Anders rolls his eyes, feigns hurt as Varric laughs. While Anders and Varric stay late, Hawke and Fenris walk home together. They detour into Darktown, so that Fenris can fill the clinic’s donation box with the coin he won from Anders and then some. Knuckles brush against knuckles, finger against finger, and Hawke smiles under star and shafts of moonlight that streams through the cracks between buildings.

Sand underneath his feet. Salt on the wind, the hint of the sea. Long grass that sways in the breeze, under cracked cliff and wounded coast. Signs he thought he would be able to forget come rushing back. He knows this trap. Stopping and the others stop too, look over their shoulders at him. “Hunters,” Fenris says.

“You are in possession of stolen property,” says the one who dares step forward. “Back away from the slave!” It isn’t rage. It isn’t denial. All the things he thought he might feel when they finally found him, and it isn’t that. The first is fear. Fenris expects to see Danarius to step forward next. Little wolf. Kill them. He fears he will listen. Master coming to collect and he, and he –

“Fenris is a free man,” Hawke shouts as she steps in front of him, puts her hand on his chest. Aveline raises her shield beside him, and Sebastian has the arrow notched. He’s forgotten something he learned, something he taught himself. He forgot who he was, but just for a moment.

“I am not a slave!” Hawke reaches upward with fist and magic, pulls down their attackers. Fenris sprints forward, ready to face them head on. The steady sounds of Sebastian’s arrows, burying themselves into the soft spots between armor. Hawke’s magic is the warm hand at the back of his nape, a watching presence that’s a comfort and not a prison. Aveline at his side, facing faceless attackers. Cowards hidden behind metal, the flash of a sword and the Tevinter crest.

It builds with each step towards the caves. He has tried to forget it, to leave it aside. Haunting him for far too long, an anger he cannot shake. Bitter to all they robbed him of, fury to what they put inside him. An outrage that has been growing, pulled forward through the years he thought he might be free. Fenris wants to be better. More than what they made him, past all they gave him. Hadriana trembles below him and a different man might have let her go. He kills her in thinking it might kill the despair, only makes it worse. Pushing away her touch and “what has magic touched that it hasn’t spoiled?” He regrets each word, calls himself a coward as he runs.

He did not face Danarius when he could have. Standing side by side with the Fog Warriors who called him friend, the taste of what life could be still fresh on his tongue. He cannot face Hawke when he should have, told her that it is not her magic he fears. That it is Fenris who is the ruin, and that she deserves better. Instead he runs, and she lets him go. Those first days all over again. He paces through the mansion, afraid the hunters are waiting in each dark corner. He cannot stay. Wandering the city until he finds himself on her doorstep.

He can hear her running down the stairs at the sound of his arrival, breathless in clothing casual, tucking hair behind her ears. She opens her mouth to speak, but closing it again as he walks towards her. Looking at the floor, her bare feet against stone, struggles to raise his gaze. “I was… not myself.” Not the man he wants to be. “I’m sorry.” Finally able to look upwards, expects the anger he knows he deserves. He doesn’t find it.

“I had no idea where you went, I was concerned,” she says softly. She crosses her arms, as though stopping herself from reaching out and touching him. He appreciates the gesture. His skin has been fire since he felt Hadriana’s heart in his hands, markings raw and sensitive, and a vulnerability he’s still trying to fix. He struggles with the explanation of it, only knowing that he wants her to know. Hadriana’s claws still at his back, Danarius’s teeth at his neck. Paltry. Lacking. He leaves in frustration, he leaves her in worry.

He decides to tell her. His regret, a shame, one action among many he wishes he could take back. Fenris goes to the wine cellar, takes the last bottle from the shelf. He knows its name, the shape of the label, the style of the cork. He knows it from it being pointed out to him. As he holds the bottle in his hand, his thumb traces over letters he cannot understand. “Today is the anniversary of my escape,” he tells her as he holds it out to her. She takes it instantly, pulls her chair forward. “Would you like to hear the story?”

“I enjoy listening to you talk,” she says. He leans forward, touches his forehead against hers.

“There are few pleasures greater than speaking with a beautiful woman.” Warm with wine, feeling bold, letting himself let go. Speaking the words makes them real, the truth of what he’d done. Killing those who had taken him in, who believed he deserved his freedom. He took too long to believe it as well. Ghost of shackles around his wrists, the collar around his neck. It chokes him on the days he least expects. He feels them even now, tight and cold, but Hawke reaches out, brushes her thumb against his cheek.

“Thank you for telling me,” she says softly, “I know it can’t be easy to speak about.” He misses her touch as she pulls her hand back, folding her hands in her lap. She knows and yet she doesn’t hate him, doesn’t rage at him for what he’s done. She lays acceptance at his feet, dares for him to take it. He stands on the precipice but cannot fall. Reaching for the bottle, wine rich on his tongue. A taste he was never allowed, a privilege never given, but he has taken it for himself.

“I… have never allowed anyone too close.” How many times had they been sent to his bed to tempt him? A touch was betrayal, affections were punishment. Difficult to shake such a thing. Setting the bottle on the table, hands in fists on his knees. He’s still getting used to it. The closeness. The permission to find solace in another person. The realization that Hawke is no pawn, no trap set to close around his bones. There is no rope. No chain. Naught for the one he extends to her of his own will.

He seeks her out three days later. “Command me to go and I shall.” Hands on his cheeks, her face so close to his.

“No need.”

[gaysparkler]

Chant of Light | Tag

Which verse of the Chant of Light is most representative of your Dragon Age OC and/or your OC’s relationship with their love interest?

I was tagged by the amazing @jawsandbones to find a verse that I identified with my characters and their love interest. Thank you so much! <3 It was a lot of fun

Eleanor Surana

Passing out of the world, in that Void shall they wander; O unrepentant, faithless, treacherous, They who are judged and found wanting Shall know forever the loss of the Maker's love. Only Our Lady shall weep for them. -Threnodies 12:5

Eleanor and Leliana

You have walked beside me Down the paths where a thousand arrows sought my flesh. You have stood with me when all others  Have forsaken me. -Trials 1

Frederic Hawke

Though stung with a hundred arrows, Though suffering from ailments both great and small, His Heart was strong, and he moved on. The deep dark before dawn's first light seems eternal, But know that the sun always rises. -Other Chanters

Frederic and Fenris

I have faced armies  With You as my shield, And though I bear scars beyond counting, nothing Can break me except Your absence. -Trials 1

Samael Lavellan

The loyal shield, broken to pieces, found only ash Left to the wind and rain. And Havard wept And took the ashes, still hot from the fire, and pressed them to his heart - Apotheosis 2

Samael and Dorian

You have grieved as I have. You, who made worlds out of nothing. We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay, Comforting each other in our art. -Trials 1

I will tag @aveline-the-dragon-slayer, @tessa1972, @glowybroodyelf, and anyone else who wants to give this a try!

[lynchgirl90]

@pitchfork: #DavidLynch on #DavidBowie & the powerful music in #TwinPeaks

Throughout “Twin Peaks: The Return,” moody and unpredictable music was used to accentuate the show’s fractured timelines, inimitable characters, and countless moments of head-scratching multiplicity—matching them in both soothing harmony and rattled discordance. Primary composer Angelo Badalamenti, sound supervisor Dean Hurley, and others involved in the soundtrack recently spoke to us about the process of creating music for the series. And now, the creator, writer, director, sound designer, producer, and overall series architect, David Lynch, adds his wisdom about the sound world of “The Return,” including insights on David Bowie’s involvement and why we many never hear the show the way it’s meant to be heard.

Pitchfork: After making a cameo in 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, David Bowie’s character Phillip Jeffries reappeared in the new series via footage from that film and as a big, talking tea kettle. Did you ever approach Bowie himself to be in the new series?

David Lynch: Absolutely. I never even talked to him, but I talked to his lawyer, and they weren’t telling me why he said he couldn’t do it. But then, of course, later on we knew.

Why did Phillip Jeffries take the form of a tea kettle?

I sculpted that part of the machine that has that tea kettle spout thing, but I wish I’d just made it straight, because everybody thinks it’s a tea kettle. It’s just a machine.

Did Bowie know that his character was going to appear in that capacity?

No, no, no. He didn’t know that. We got permission to use the old footage, but he didn’t want his voice used in it. I think someone must have made him feel bad about his Louisiana accent in Fire Walk With Me, but I think it’s so beautiful. He wanted to have it done by a legitimate actor from Louisiana, so that’s what we had to do. The guy [voice actor Nathan Frizzell] did a great job.

What did Bowie and his music mean to you?

He was unique, like Elvis was unique. There’s something about him that’s so different from everybody else. I only met him during the time I worked with him and just a couple of other times, but he was such a good guy, so easy to talk to and regular. I just wish he was still around and that I could work with him again.

What music was running through your head when you were initially thinking up the new series?

There were a couple of pieces of music that I wanted in there from the beginning: The Platters’ “My Prayer,” the Paris Sisters’ “I Love How You Love Me,” Booker T. & the M.G’s’ “Green Onions,” Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

What’s your relationship to that Otis Redding song in particular?

It’s the version from the Monterey Pop Festival. There was Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company doing “Ball and Chain,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Wild Thing,” and there was Otis Redding. When I hear those three things, it just drives me crazy how great they are. With Otis Redding, we reach this place in him, and I just couldn’t believe that version. It was so, so, so beautiful. So much feeling comes through that thing; it’s one of my all-time favorites. I just go nuts. I start crying like a baby when I hear that thing.

How did you decide to use Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” in the nuclear explosion scene in “Part 8”? Did you always have that music in mind for that scene?

I was going to experiment with Angelo but that thing was, in my mind, made to order. I did chop it up a lot so that I could get different sections for the visuals, but it was just meant to be.

How did you feel watching that scene set to that music?

It felt real good. The problem is that, in the studio, we played it in the mix really loud, so it would be more like you’d hear it in a theater. Then the heartache comes when you have to dial it back for television, because they have these restrictions as to how loud these things can be and how long they can be loud for; many different rules, it’s really not so great. It’s like when you know what it can be and then you have to suffer that [dilution], and people see it on their computer or even, my god, on their phone—it’s like a nightmare. There’s so much fucking power in that scene, and in this world people would love to hear what’s there, but the machines [which we watch things through] aren’t there any more. It’s got to be full range and full loud.

Original “Twin Peaks” composer Angelo Badalamenti said that you two connected digitally while working on the music for “The Return,” rather than being in the same room. What was that like?

What I really like to do is sit close to Angelo, I love him so much, he’s like my brother. I was on Skype with him, and it’s not a great image, but the sound was set up so that when he hit the keys, I heard exactly what was going down the line, and the quality was as though I was sitting next to him. I’d go through these different topics with Angelo, and he just started playing. If what he played wasn’t the mood I was looking for, then I’d just change the words and talk to him some more. It wasn’t like he made a mistake or goofed up, it was that he interpreted it that way and it required changing the words. He always gets into it and catches a thing. It just flows out of him.

You’re credited as the show’s sound designer. What did that entail exactly?

This thing about sound designer, it’s a weird thing. When you see the credit up there, people automatically think that person did all the sound, so it’s misleading, but I want to take that credit because I’m the one who makes all the final decisions on sound. In actual fact, I picked sounds and I made a few sounds, but Dean Hurley was making tons of stuff, and [sound designer] Ron Eng was making a lot of stuff too. They were working their butts off, but I would tell them in our spotting notes what I wanted in regards to mood in different places. We worked together, but they were building a lot of sound. In a traditional way, they’d probably get sound design credit, but I don’t want to do that because that means that I don’t do anything. [laughs] I’m responsible for what people see and what they hear.

Are there any other pieces of music that you’re still dying to place in one of your works?

Oh of course, there are so many millions songs and bands. Michael Horse [aka Deputy Hawk] just turned me onto a guy called Justin Johnson. He’s on YouTube. He plays the shovel—a three-string shovel. He’s great.

Link (TP)

[ammoniteflesh]

Failure for Ghila, Ghost for Threnody, Heartbreak for Maryam!

OH EXCELLENT CHOICES, TYSM

failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?

Oh god I actually don't know, Ghila feels like she has failed in so many ways - primarily by way of not doing more. She was so lucky to be given as much cultural and political power as she was, and she constantly feels like she wasted it. Like she had an opportunity to make things drastically better for the Dalish and she just... didn't. I don't think she ever could have, really, but she doesn't believe that.

She's never forgiven herself.

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

I think pretty much every Hawke is haunted by their lost family, and Thren is no exception.

But also herself. Or, the version of herself that could have been. Her earliest years - when she had so little control of her magic that she had to be almost entirely confined to one room for years at a time - really fucked her up. She learned that she could only go outside if she acted normal. And even after she was safe and more in control, she never stopped desperately trying to act normal. And when she realises how much that hurt her and warped her sense of selfhood, it causes a lot of grief.

She copes by desperately clinging to her stable, happy, disaffected persona - which only makes things worse, until she breaks down entirely. It's a lot of long, painstaking work to put herself back together, after that, but she makes her way to happiness. She learns to honour those feelings and keep them close without letting them overwhelm her entirely.

heartbreak: Have they ever had a relationship that ended badly? Experienced some other kind of heartbreak? What happened?

I actually think Sera was her first romantic relationship! But she was in a deeply weird codependent female friendship where she was absolutely 100% in love with the other person. And it ended horrifically poorly, but the how is very spoilery (dm me if you wanna know about it! >:3)

[maliro-t]

Chant of Light Tag

So I was tagged by @louminx to do the chant of light tag (thank you!):

Which verse of the Chant of Light is most representative of your Dragon Age OC and/or your OC’s relationship with their love interest?

I actually have barely talked about any of my DA characters on here so I hope this provides a little bit insight into each of them. I spent probably way too much time on this but it was very interesting and fun to do.

Aeren Mahariel:

Blessed are they who stand before The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.

- Benedictions 4:10

Aeren & Alistair:

Though stung with a hundred arrows, Though suffering from ailments both great and small, His Heart was strong, and he moved on.

- Canticle unknown

Anna Hawke:

My Maker, know my heart: Take from me a life of sorrow. Lift me from a world of pain. Judge me worthy of Your endless pride.

- Transfigurations 12:3

Anna & Isabela:      

For You are the fire at the heart of the world, And comfort is only Yours to give.

- Transfigurations 12:6

Viridiana Lavellan:

Whatsoever passes through the fire Is not lost, but made eternal; As air can never be broken nor crushed, The tempered soul is everlasting!

- Exaltations 1:8

Vi & Solas:   

In your heart shall burn An unquenchable flame All-consuming, and never satisfied. From the Fade I crafted you, And to the Fade you shall return Each night in dreams That you may always remember Me.

- Threnodies 5:7

OR (I’m cheating I know but there were two very good ones) 

You have grieved as I have. You, who made worlds out of nothing. We are alike in sorrow, sculptor and clay, Comforting each other in our art.

- Trials 1:8

I’ll tag @unicorni-butterscotch and anyone else who is so inclined! I’m very interested to see what people do with this cause it’s such a cool idea.

[lavellenchanted]

Chant of Light

Which verse of the Chant of Light is most representative of your Dragon Age OC and/or your OC’s relationship with their love interest? 

I was tagged by @denerim​! This was really interesting and quite a challenge. It would be too long to do it for all my characters and their LIs, but here are a few:

Liadan Mahariel

I covered my face, fearful, But the Lady took my hands from my eyes, Saying, "Remember the fire. You must pass Through it alone to be forged anew. Look! Look upon the Light so you May lead others here through the darkness, Blade of the Faith!"

- Exaltations 1

Liadan and Alistair

Eyes sorrow-blinded, in darkness unbroken There 'pon the mountain, a voice answered my call. "Heart that is broken, beats still unceasing, An ocean of sorrow does nobody drown. You have forgotten, spear-maid of Alamarr. Within My creation, none are alone."

- Andraste 1

Marian Hawke

Great heroes beyond counting raised Oak and iron 'gainst chains of north-men And walked the lonely worm-roads evermore. Mighty of arm and warmest of heart, Rendered to dust. Bitter is sorrow, Ate raw and often, poison that weakens and does not kill.

- Andraste 1

Marian and Fenris

In the long hours of the night When hope has abandoned me, I will see the stars and know Your Light remains.

- Trials 1

Eilidh Lavellan

There, in the heart of them, sang a Lady radiant And clad in armor of bright steel. She paused her song to look upon Shartan, And said to him: "All souls who take up the sword Against Tevinter are welcome here. Rest, and tell us of your battles."

- Shartan 9

Eilidh and Cullen

Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the Light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure. What you have created, no one can tear asunder. Who knows me as You do? You have been there since before my first breath. You have seen me when no other would recognize my face. You composed the cadence of my heart.  

- Trials 1

Ninaeve Lavellan

I have heard the sound A song in the stillness, The echo of Your voice, Calling creation to wake from its slumber.

- Trials 1

Ninaeve and Solas

And as the black clouds came upon them, They looked on what pride had wrought, And despaired. The work of man and woman, By hubris of their making. The sorrow a blight unbearable.

- Threnodies 7

Ninaeve and Zevran

Though all before me is shadow, Yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost. I am not alone. Even As I stumble on the path With my eyes closed, yet I see The Light is here.

- Trials 1

Carwyn Lavellan

Then the Maker said: "To you, My second-born, I grant this gift: In your heart shall burn An unquenchable flame All-consuming, and never satisfied. From the Fade I crafted you, And to the Fade you shall return Each night in dreams That you may always remember Me."

- Threnodies 5

Carwyn and Dorian

And no longer was it formless, ever-changing, But held fast, immutable, With Words for heaven and for earth, sea and sky.

- Threnodies 5

Ysabel Trevelyan

Blessed are they who stand before The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just.

- Benedictions 4

Ysabel and Krem

For You are the fire at the heart of the world, And comfort is only Yours to give.

- Transfigurations 12

***

I’m tagging @whiskasgirl, @inconsistentgryffindor and @lotsofthinkythoughts (if you want to do it!)

[bixpicks]

Bix Picks 2019

20. Omni - Networker (Sub Pop)

Stripped down post-punk-pop Like Television demos Or Wire unplugged

19. Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay (Warner/Tan Cressida)

In confident mode Earl’s crushing anxiety Sounds light and carefree

18. FKA twigs - MAGDALENE (Young Turks)

Hints of Björk. But Just the music, not her voice, So you might like it

17. Alasdair Roberts - The Fiery Margin (Drag City)

The fair bonny lad Sings for thee new songs that sound A hundred years olde

16. Rustin Man - Drift Code (Domino)

Pastoral delight From former Talk Talk bassist A warm, rural treat

15. Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Partisan)

Feral, Dublin punks Match smart, heartfelt lyrics to Urgent blasts of fun

14. Hemlock Ernst & Kenny Segal - Back at the House (Ruby Yacht)

Dream matchup dazzles With notes from the underground. Beats and rhymes and life

13. Thom Yorke - ANIMA (XL)

Paranoid android Tries to make digital sense Of analog woes

12. Thee Oh Sees - Face Stabber (Castle Face)

Look at that cover! We need more of this and less Of everything else

11. Bon Iver - i,i (Jagjaguwar)

Fractured and searching Claustrophobic and glitchy Yet rife with feeling

10. Tool - Fear Inoculum (RCA)

First ask yourself this... Have you changed in thirteen years?? Exactly. Enjoy.

9. Michael Kiwanuka - KIWANUKA (Interscope)

Proclamatory Statement of artist and self Proud, strong and sublime

8. Angel Olsen - All Mirrors (Jagjaguwar)

Among synths and strings Angel soars, finds her groove and Fiercely stakes her claim

7. Cate LeBon - Reward (Mexican Summer)

Quirky, cryptic koans That leave their mark.  Artful, with A strange insouciance

6. Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest (Drag City)

Married and content, Domestic bliss has dulled none Of Bill’s mordant wit

5. Billy Woods & Kenny Segal - Hiding Places (Backwoodz Studioz)

Grim transmissions from Deep within the rubble of Black America

4. Black Midi - Schlagenheim (Rough Trade)

>

Nihilistic yet Palatable. A tetchy, Confident debut

3. Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains (Drag City)

Profound, poetic Funny and gutting, Berman Saved his best for last

2. Big Thief - U.F.O.F. + Two Hands (4AD)

Haunting, anodyne And beguiling in quiet But transcendent ways

1. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen (Ghosteen Ltd)

Threnodies weighing Love and loss. Cuz that’s how you Cap a trilogy!

HONORABLE MENTION (in alphabetical order)

75 Dollar Bill - I Was Real (Thin Wrist) Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I Made a Place (Drag City) Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿ (Warp) The Comet is Coming - Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery (UMG) Deerhunter - Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? (4AD) Floating Points - Crush (Ninja Tune) Froth - Duress (Wichita) Steve Gunn - The Unseen In Between (Matador) Cass McCombs - Tip of the Sphere (Anti-) MIKE - Tears of Joy (10K) Modern Nature - How To Live (Bella Union) Sean O'Hagen - Radum Calls, Radum Calls (Drag City) Panda Bear - Buoys (Domino) Tim Presley's White Fence - I Have to Feed Larry's Hawk (Drag City) Gruff Rhys - Pang! (Domino) Ty Segall - First Taste (Drag City) SUNN O))) - Life Metal (Southern Lord) Swans - Leaving Meaning (Young God/Mute) Josephine Wiggs - We Fall (The Sound of Sinners) Wilco - Ode to Joy (dBpm)

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[lets-arelis]

an essay of straight retrospect-english version

“An essay of a straight retrospect” – “The miracle of the month of the Gods”

 By Arelis

 A’ PROLOGUE (of the Gods)

POSEIDON

My life of the unvoiced fire is autonomy’s transformation matrix.

HEPHAESTUS

Words, like infinite plans of burglars, pouring out;

brush marks are their bendings, appositives causing ruptures.

Polynesia is a canvas of untraversed roads;

in the epicentre there is a blind Cathedral.

ZEUS

An Unknown Father’s cruciform dome causes the transfer of the wind

a preferable guard in the cradle; the Antipoet being empty and dialectical once again

ties unmusical meanings from an arched dome.

The manifolds of discordance, the transmissions of versatility;

the statues are pointed bows of opaque forms without a shadow

the spoked nerves are mediators of paradoxes

addresses of bubbles of impalpable parturitions of the beams

perpetual leaders of boisterous gates;

pronoun parts of piety divide the “you” from the “I”

the other scrolls are in the amphitheatre, taken from the Bible

of the Dead the rosette of the leading doors;

unexplained columns of signatures

which are drops of measures of big square coffers;

these tasty crispy stars are a gable in the Pantheon

of the miserable living crook

the obelisk with the lantern is for conformance and pleasure

the confiscation of the peacock, reconstruction’s bubbles of a futile struggle,

recesses of variegation

a mounted general with his gun is a semantron of boundaries, of desolate acute odours

or of meadows with irrespirable lament.

MARS

A fitted, dark effigy of subsidence with terra rossa of a metropolis

at the blemishes of the retrograde paper

accomplices in a crime with you as the victimizer; they step on twelve sierras of

lament, they echo without anchors, leashes, anyone…

I respire a dry fig’s scar in the mouth

a curative inspection of a love maelstrom

at the court of appeal there is a reopening, the “Sour”.

DIMITRA

Three eucalypti of thick skin in our significant community

with the sun born sweat of their surrounding twigs

purify the altar’s cliff;

just thirty steps

a passage to a necropolis

a withdrawal of a sunflower

they row a Greek trireme;

the others just named it

“HEARTLESS STERILITY”

ARTEMIS

positions of triumvirate, words of alchemy

                                                      Aphrodite

Sisyphus                                                                                              Pluto

MERCURY

Resemblance of passwords

                                              Guide of penetration

                                                            HERA

Teleportation of sufficiency, lava of the course of mind

frescoes by Giotto or Cimabue

colonnades of priming for lotus eating

the necklaces of the bear are glassware made of stellar ischemia;

mosaics are the scattered mussels, morphine in the onshore wind

an echo of the Untainted pleasant adherence

the Jerusalem thorn’s evergreen stems are a window.

My infinite wrath is a Bow of Restoration of progressions

the blazon of my curly lion skin is an Altar

the unfading earthquake is a ciborium of the Initiate

a presanctified Triptych; the centre of the world is some sacs of variation

minefields of benediction, reliefs instantiated

in a marrow’s Baptistry there are plashes of judgemental passersby

for the gloomy unicorn; the mouth of my river is a pulpit at the landless Funeral Suppers of the Muses; my other half is a mullah.

An altar’s mass of a Multifaceted Sea-Resounding God

the Pagans’ euphonies are a Chorus;

mortar of attars, flankings of erosion of my dual “I”.

                                                    APHRODITE

The “I” is already abstracted from the neck…

I grieve for a wooden chandelier that is a blackboard of rules

dust, a peak of unvoiced times; this is my plucked “ego”.

Pollen is a halo of the jasmines buried in the ground.

I miss something. I miss life. The other one…

Of an exquisite oak tree.

The trunk, the bright smiles of heaven; haemostasis.

A face in the sorrow… The “you” in the unfaithfulness.

You die alone in your “ego”.

You will always blame the others in the agnosia of your anaemic self

For the one you never knew well; you never wanted to look for him.

I study… I study a long-lived voice beyond my galactic “ego”.

HESTIA

The voice of the judge of the High Table echoes in the wake of my semi-precious minerals, it invites to the shadow of the elm

to a strong, obstinate strain in a time when you disobeyed the one you didn’t want to take into account :

ATHENA

“Time belongs to Caligula; not to the medieval idols.

Don’t look back and around like a super-erotic Orpheus of some heroes of a Proust,

countless are the studies of the promising empirical

watercolors of odalisques, true diagnoses.

The mushrooms in the gardens of the nations.

Their spawn is not in the tunnels of the mountains anymore.

The three legged dolls of ephemeral children with no awareness.

The Doctor of your tribe’s Conference judged well when he said that the Sirens were always the doves of Evil.

The impression of telekinetic illusory lines is in the East.

The tortures are a rule; the numbers of the cheques.

You are sentenced to abstention from love.

May the Cyclops of Love follow you eternally”.

APOLLO

A voice destined for death leads me to a solid, dusty book

the yarn of my impetuous senses in the pulpit;

wind is the orchestra of my nocturnal whispers

the pages twinkle from the scales’ collection of winds;

they stop at a cube.

The first syllable of a curative is a multiform image, the prologue in a lifeless testimonial.

 B’ MAIN THEME (of the month)

 PERSEPHONE

I am now standing like a black-figure vase in the coast of my choices.

Alone I soliloquise with the evil; I efficiently scatter the blazons of the poppy across the four points of the offing.

I elaborate a suicide; it’s more than certain that I don’t inherit a daisy; I continually discount the blazons tightly belayed on my armour,

I think it must be some kind of chocolate flavour which shields from the pain

as a requital for the lights of “you” with the full moon in the background.

                                               PENELOPE

I am trying to separate the sea’s drip from its rival with my right hand. I distill something; I can’t.

The time of parting is stiff and inflexible; the point is a century.

Your lips manifested on the clay of a shore.

They will fade. I know it…

The meanders of Triton will be the hooded ones.

I will effortlessly keep them in my cells’ sanctuary; the Untimely, the Bright, the Purely flowing, the Abundant, the Clean, the Stony, the White-clothed, the Perpetual, the Gold, the Tempestuous, the Undying Dreams

of an Olympian Feathered Holy Communion.

                                             OEDIPUS

Do you remember when you used to drink from the wine of my shadows?

I remember eating the bread of your heartbeats,

God, like our rival, sprinkled his harp’s strings on us in the Himalaya while smiling…

The consolation of a fallen soul in slits with no crutches.

                                              DAEDALUS

Homage, a game of weakness.

The cockerel I thought I had is already dead;

the ocean carries him away towards its tomb

the sky has sexual intercourse with steamy Lilith;

a relentless martyr engraves a marriage contract of palinode

a reminder of the stone of an English hierophant.

Amphitrite is receptive after all; a bride’s sheet reflects the carcass of an ancient river on a bridal bed, herself rolling in a convent.

                                       CLYTEMNESTRA

The ignoble tribute is a game of power.

The circles I built were desirable, squares of vice on the chess, my black pawns on the verge.

The white ones belong to the others.

But I forget… I forget to abstain from others.

If only pain was a sea shell.

A paper of deceitful speech in the empty bottle.

The coin that takes its white light from somewhere else has dispelled the unbranched, triumphant pylons we had configured into the mud

the turmoils of the theatre, the compasses of illusion

the exhalation of the chains at the wheel of the heart.

Laughters are the waves of the others; sardonic, judgemental, insinuative

they laugh while there is nothing to laugh with; the skies with their virtual icebergs.

Everything is funny; I am not laughing.

The breath of the moribund for an illogical purpose

and you are done… Slowly. Torturously. Irrevocably.

For the sake of Nature.

Because since she makes everything perfect, she has to raze them.

                                        ANTIGONE

Two eucalypti, bearers of the wind’s divine law, on the path of clay

a preceding cause at the recitation of my unbroken fountains

the coating of a threnody possessed by adrenaline:

                                           IOCASTE

“From my bosom, the clock with its hands going backwards

swinging the shiver of my sun.

Let someone proscribe it or with a crutch of faith let him kill himself with an arrow”.

                                               ERATO

“Do you remember telling me that there are no mirrors in Heaven”?

You were writing your shapes and mine on the sand of my silence.

Exquisite, Graphs, Unattractive, Multi-embroidered, Brilliant

you were releasing them on my surface.

Rewritten, Unlooted, Fluid, Ionic; a clear outline of an imperial circle

a wreath of smog of the unbifurcated archer.

A summer afternoon is a parrot’s opal.

                                        ASCLEPIUS

You were in pain at the dune of silence; but you were anxious to see the end of the ships, their start line to echo distant, timeworn, legal speeches;

a kiss of a light hermit from me

mushy aerobatics on the wing of a hawk

from an enamel of desire and an evening primrose, a precursor of the day and the smell.

                                           ATLAS

You were waiting; you were hurting a moribund dog saturated from a waterfall of unique drugs.

The director deemed your performance identical

at the one-act play where you held my hand deservedly

you thought your candle was a fan in a stretched thread.

You were a kouros with a gown and a card;

the titles were a boarding of subjugation, the awards were praises

for a cardinal nothing or everything

in a logical zoo of sapphires

experiments of heteronymy, a clavichord of point-bearing.

I watch an old man carrying a club from my kaleidoscope

from the table with his loutrophoros of shyness.

The plates have become signs.

Manual-Depression-Cotter.

The whole love of a traffic warden is a gargle of Cronus.

                                       SISYPHUS

A gesture of beauteous firmness, at the end of it there is a computer’s feather

a train’s residue of an ambrosia that ends the heartache

in a thorn-bush of a reversible hike

a bow of a firm shunt of a thumb

a troposphere of incomprehensible kindness domination.

A half-extinguished cigarette on my back

a praise of a fracture, the octave is a clove

the issue of dreamy stocks is a proliferation of faded green oil rigs.

The mainland of a whelp.

“Aloe the indolent”

It allows everything.

A dolphin that wanted to become a songbird at the ice of the Equinox.

When someone is inside a glare he cannot discern the darkness.

Holiness should not exist after all.

The receipt in the papers of the musical accounts.

                                              URANIA

And I keep waiting with the few in a squall.

A meteoric starfish in the ocean…

                                             THALIA

I remember… “Do you remember the time we were sitting at the dock of life and we thought the beach was grass made of garlands?”

“Do you remember the time when church was the sea and the dream?”

“Do you remember the time when a raft was a lake with water lilies like a proper cote?”

                                                 EUTERPE

The dawn of the New Moon is non-assignable; a high priest of a small town is an unhappy substitute.

The planets we had celebrated are bright circles from our heads

the converted Bohemian fragments are the harmony of a bridal accompaniment

the notorious faceless corals are unarguable observers in the ceremony

it was then we cast the snow out of the snowmen

the sharks were beached miles away from us

the majority of the beach was ours

the hippuris of an arrhythmic flute is a dubious sex object.

The traces of darkness are a discordance in our eerie celebration that brings shining gifts

our salty, forked, deciduous pebbles for the cure of resentment.

You are the ebb of my sleep; I am the high tide of your passions

in an uneven game of sobbing for the fear of the unchangeable drowning.

Your cape is volatile in the island of my purification.

Your asymmetrical diadem is a damaging substitution of my pen,

the conceit of the random flow of my retina is a glaucoma of a Trojan shield, a disarranged graffiti of a commercial film:

“ARCHETYPALINVISIBLEMOVINGDESIGNSONBOARD”.

                                    PROMETHEUS

I was a captive somewhere near the end.

Like a Titan, an allegorical expounder, primacy is a poppy of another form in my hands, a dispersion of a rock painting

without dangerous credits or dedications.

                                              CALLIOPE

A turtle is soliloquizing and crying from her frock:

“The red always brings the black”.

The effigy addresses a reflection of transfer

in a cantilever of sunless need it provides:

                                                                                                      Decay

                                                                                                      Dispersion

                                                                                                      Displacement

                                                     Sweat

Dreamcatcher                                                                     Kneeling before the Cross

“Passion is love in the nth degree; hatred is its root

the trials of the atheists; decimals of boats”.

Cain                                                                               Abel

of subordination                                                             of elevation

a cake of razor                                                               an inference of a larva

an attraction of a brother                                                a scythe of oxygen

reflects                                                                          that half burns

cards of naked forms                                                      a hoist of a palm of candles

at Thermopylae                                                              at Versailles

                                                ACHILLES

The promotion of a newly enlisted soldier is with no indirect monographs

it is on hills with bus lanes of inaccurate wreaths of kings

it is a spectrum of an interactive Niagara of a self-awareness full of fruit.

                                              MELPOMENE

The eyes of your virginity’s decaying are red-blue ribbons

the altar is a ring of puncture, a model of deviation of a subsidy

senility in segmented veins on my vigorous shrines

the arteries of the miniatures are showcases with lanterns

the rollers on the exalted hair of Sampson,

the piercing of the snowy light is a peak of an offing voyage

of a chameleon which changes my frontispiece to a regeneration.

“The beauty of your lilies must have an end”.

                                           NARCISSUS

The heat of my soliloquy is dreadful;

I am looking for a tailless mermaid in the forest

the lamp is a messy cox of love with no shells,

the names must be pearls.

A stalagmite of misery at its perimeter

the other’s trunk is a dense cavity

a virtual star of letters.

The truth is in the darkness of despair and the marsh brings a small torch

for her redemption

while you are the satellite of flakes of well-closed doubts

the fragrance of similar alternations is

a warlike consolation at the weave of a jar of processional breath.

Misery is connected to happiness; corners of substitution

the garnish of a currycomb is a bellicose libation and a fish net of deviations.

The precession has her resin; not the route which is supine or on your back

in a foam of a perfectly processed discord

the diagnosis is a virus without a cause; the enemy is the one who engraves a shadow

“A bountiful hourglass with no membranes”.

This will be the emblem of the angel who carries a splinter

as he erases his sails in a channel of dust birth

at the mooring of his hostile hydrants.

                                                    ICARUS

I wonder.

“Why to me?”

Alone I place the inconceivable seasonings like mines.

                                                     TERPSICHORE

“Heavenly guided convergence of the dissimilar mountain lines,

you should be based on undefeated mandrakes of beauteous skirmishers”!

                                                    ARIADNE

Scrolls of forgery of planned moments

I pluck the daisy’s petals like an unsuitable defender seahorse.

At the end of the Pacific I endorse a paean with no winners, flower for the dead, lost people who are medals of deviations.

                                                   PHAEDRA

“Which is the nirvana of the daisy with no wreath”?

I know. Daisies do not bloom in the foreshore.

Only the classical amphorae from the anonymous, celebrated shipwrecks lie explaining mysteriously:

“DRYLOVESEEDSOFTHESEA”.

                                                  TANTALUS

The unadorned staff floats alone, like a castaway

on the stones of the invisible violence

a segment of a Florentine canvas

it depicts a naked woman who does not show the “you” as sacred, vulnerable.

                                                 CLIO

“A piece from Palladium Baal of doubtful origin

was deprived of fur illumination as dictated by a clause

of one unarmoured rough September, thus we got

two stony tablets, a reminder of a vegetal castle, a draft of potent ideas”.

“There wasn’t starry navigator; only a weathervane of advice

because life resembles a flag at the end of an islet”.

“Two Byzantine icons of a December leading backwards

patterns exquisite lexemes scattered randomly at the end of the hall,

they trace like Eurydice on what is irreversibly gone and what may come

otherwise let it go, a divine name little eagles of strange physique”.

“The breakfast of a gypaetus is a core of lymphomas

of an eternal punishment on the tendon the serpentine shawl of antinomy

the fluctuation of flashes of the Dalmatian friend

the probe is a fountain of questionable mistrial”.

                                                  Name

  Debarment                                                                                       Of a clamp

 Of Homesickness                                                                            Delimitation

                                                  Repetition

                                                  ODYSSEUS

With a log as a compass struck by angels

I will get rid of the devoutness of my tub

I moor at the shore of my private collections

at the steppe of my dead-end coherence

I am waiting for a date palm with no dates.

Oh how the pebbles hurt!

Comforters are the windmills that repel hunger

they send the first martyrs to paths of illiterate inbred feats

a march of firefly bearers at the shimmer of the catalytic century

an agonized hagiology of conscription is an uninvited ballot box

an alliteration of a bright acceleration uncut reversal

phytogenic dispute, light of a signed illegal triumph

incomprehensible alteration in a roaming of a lack of parentheses

a centripetal ground of a brothel in uncurved quadrants.

                                                 HEBE

“What is the sun without his moon”?

A poppy with no eyebrows; a function with no arousal

A drained prestige of an unsalted herbarium.

                                               THEMIS

I initiate her fingerprint

a cotter of a shooting in the sandstone of my undedicated passing conscience

a framed fountain

the conference of the feet of the first battalions of scouts

the encounter at the catacomb of dedication

a scroll of a consubstantial face of the law traditionally in conceited dithyrambs

a mane with frames

objets d���art

climactic, concealing everything

a compilation of disregard

unstable is the reshaping of the bus

proscription of errant souls, a clarity of darkness

the remaining feeling in a sign of an amblyopic dollar

a participation in a polar comet.

Everything brings me a promise of flare.

A victim in the twilight sails in the water

for a word of sarcasm, for Pausanias,

for a swing of bravery scorn my laurels

and debasement the ears of the soldier

a paraplegic body perfume bottle “for you”

a foundation of competition.

The excavation is a kiss of surrender from the quarries of the salt lakes

the granite is a mixture of laughter and tears of cocaine on the street

the enclaves of my chuckles render my beryl inactive.

The chimera of towing is a proper hope

The python’s dessert is designated in the cage;

a luminous device of movement in the Earth’s eclipse

a chosen musket of the castes from the naphthalene

incurable familiarity in the creation of the plot

spring water is a tempestuous stone thrower in monarchs as fast as the wind,

an inappropriate land of the dead near and beyond the circus

in a calmness of a muslin

safekeeping in the strong-smelling worship.

At Lazarus the uplift is a scorpion’s stinger

in the rose’s meridian an egis of demagnetization

the conqueror of the hemorrhage, cheers of drollery

a towel of deforestation at the corner of the hut

a disastrous venture of holy communication of vessels in the service at the labyrinth.

                                               LAOCOON

A student of mine a umbilical cord of a meconium places a baby that hasn’t been embalmed

before me the branches of the whimper a levitation with no horns.

I have to fight off the obscure parts of three runes,

I don’t know which the concessionaire is to embezzle

a horizon of ungrinded write-off  

in the semi-god constellation of Orion.

There the sentences do not wound like the actions of the rain.

They only cringe and applaud us

in a beloved pump of stricture

clumsy handlings good at hunting

the index the thumb a space of fainting.

                                               POLYMNIA

An invocation of a song in an unapproachable being

panorama of a transfusion of voices

from the invocable postmortem life of the equations

the vigor of deadbeat inequations in a sextant of uncarved equal rights of speech,

a brooch on the lapel of the Unknown like wind in a blowing shell

primal before the past existed

a restrained pendulous counterpoint in a winter’s counterpoise.

                                               ORPHEUS

At the epitome of my budgets with no fingers

I ended up an untamed correspondent who bites hearts;

penniless with a billet doux the words lost their ink

and the others lost the “apology”.

“Magic must be reality’s sister of June”.

 C’ EPILOGUE (The miracle)

                                                 CLOTHO (Crucifixion)

I wake up from my oblivion’s raid.

In a blooming flower my half-worn palms two pages.

My name is a harmful, black-clothed person who banishes foreigners

he imparts shiny, golden capital letters at a map of directions.

Participation of a weed a bust of ambrosia in the idleness of silence.

                                               LACHESIS (The Descent from the Cross)

The show came to an end; my part and I alone

we defect from the tattoo of the wild plum tree

the powder goes a snail of emotions

the lie is a paper full of explanations in the basket of ragged clothes

an autumn sonata echoes mournful readings carried around.

                                          ATROPOS (Resurrection)

“Finally, life must be some kind of solid timespan

in full anomie; two different concentric circles at the spoke of action-

at liberty’s diameter”.

The wash of my epilogue in the end of the film

My diagram is vapor, an infected crease

the renouncement in my belfry is ultimate bliss.

 To A.W

To the Anonymous Woman  

[ao3feed-fenhawke]

Threnodies for Leto, Songs for Fenris

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2lpfzlp

by Jawbones

He learns to say no. He whispers it to himself in the dead of night, up at faintly blinking stars. He practices. He takes pleasure in it – the sound of it on his tongue, the way it feels in his mouth. The ability to speak his mind. To have choice. No. At first he fears the use of it. He has been taught how to bite his tongue too well. Fenris knows what comes with hesitation, denial. It begins with the dark frown, the biting word and ends in the lash, in punishment. Hawke asks if he would like to come with them on a day he had planned for other things. “No, I – I would rather not,” he says as he braces himself. Stiffens the line of his back, the square of his shoulders, prepares for the reprimand. She only smiles, leans against the doorframe, crosses her arms.

Words: 4011, Chapters: 1/3, Language: English

Fandoms: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/M

Characters: Fenris (Dragon Age), Female Hawke, Hawke (Dragon Age), Carver Hawke, Isabela (Dragon Age), Aveline Vallen, Merrill (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Anders (Dragon Age), Sebastian Vael

Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke, Fenris & Female Hawke, Fenris/Hawke, Fenris/Mage Hawke

Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, What makes Fenris Fenris, more an exploration of his feelings, and his growth

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2lpfzlp