#you can like oghren all you want but if youre just going to pretend that misogyny isnt central to his character

[alistairkisser]

"#mostly i want sigrun or velanna to throw hands the first time morrigan or leliana refers to their beloved sergeant as a lecherous old drunk" okay. i mean you can headcanon all you want but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of oghren's banters with sigrun are overt sexual harassment and she repeatedly asks him to stop to no avail. in fact, the rest of his misogyny aside, he directs substantially more harassment at sigrun than any other female companion. you can lament his misogyny all you want but it's a central conceit of his character and erasing it because you want to like him more and can't grapple with that is doing a massive disservice to the women of the setting. sorry!

[dareactions]

How will companions react to a teen!Warden? Will their behavior change or they will act the same way as with an adult!Warden? Who would like to be friends with Warden and who's more annoyed by teens? Sorry if my request is too long:(

Alistair: He always wanted a sibling in some ways. There's something nice about the idea of having someone that depends on him and the Warden becomes a younger sibling so fast he gets a bit scared. Alistair wants to so badly steer them in the right direction- and he very easily falls into that role of the cool older brother. Honestly he kind of lets them get away with way too much just because they're younger but eh- he's not here to be a dad let's be honest. Leliana: Honestly she's kind of excited. Teenagers are always some of the most creative people in terms of problem solving and they have the ego and gumption that rivals most politically inclined adults. She for sure leans into the big-sister role that she finds herself in. She is a confidant, someone who listens and gives advice when asked. Also the person who pretend she doesn't see anything if you don't want her to. Loghain: Only one internal thought- what the fuck? He is so confused. Like- Loghain can't even be angry, he's just confused. Why the fuck is a teenager this competent? Since when were Grey Wardens below the legal drinking limit? There's such a mix of feelings that anger never even bubbles to the surface; he just becomes an exasperated dad in the funniest way imaginable. He hates this, he doesn't want this but it's not like Alistair or Morrigan is going to tell the kid off. Morrigan: She is so actively displeased she may as well just have even more of a permanent frown. She's not bad with kids and she would argue she can handle teens even better; but really? A teenager? She just sighs, rolls her eyes and makes sure they're not more than an arm's reach away when they're in major cities and anyone who even so much as raises their voice at them- it's on sight. Oghren: This man- does not know what to do. He isn't exactly the most stable person to put anyone around; much less a teenager. There's a lot of squabbling and stupid fights. Teenagers like pushing boundaries and Oghren likes pretending he is unbothered until he no longer is. It takes a LONG time to find a stability that actually works on the road between the two but hey- he doesn't mind teaching the kid a trick or two. Shale: Could care less, let's be honest. Just more inclined to not take you as seriously initially but eh- humans tend to exceed all odds. Sten: It's a big of a weird situation. In some ways- he likes the initiative the Warden is showing at a young age. After all, it's not like age actually decides your competence in battle - however he really could do without the whole mood swings and feeling on top of the world thing. He doesn't baby them whatsoever- just treats them like he would any teen within the Qunari. Wynne: If the Warden didn't want a mom figure- they should've stayed out of Wynne's sight. She is ON THAT. She does not mind being the bad guy unlike Alistair and is here to ensure the Warden survives this Blight. She's soft, comforting, nurturing- and also willing to put her hands on her hips and stare them down with a look that would make gods shake. Zevran: You know that older brother or uncle that teaches you how to pick locks and steal cars? Yeah, that's him. Zevran is actually the one who seems the most upset visibly that they're doing all of this so young- but he takes it in stride. He keeps them within arm's length, his protective nature is always a silent one. He is pissed when he finds out he was hired to kill a child though.

[stenshale]

@a-gay-bloodmage GLADLY. putting it under a cut because the thoughts are Many

okay. lets say you're brosca. you're casteless which means everything is gonna suck forever unless you con your way into high society somehow. both your dad and you sister's dad walked out which means you're double fatherless. your best friend is kind of a dick. you and your sister are under the thumb of your town's fantasy drug pusher. and worst of all, your mother is an alcoholic who does not fucking like you even a little bit. she's mean, she sucks, you have to make sure she doesn't drink herself to death. she blames you for all of that. whatever. fine. that's life.

now let's say, through some real looney tunes bullshit, you manage to get out of dust town AND join the grey wardens AND ensure your sister and mother's safety and prosperity. great! this rules! the sky is fucking terrifying but honestly you can cope with that because you're out, dammit! you have friends that don't suck! no one up here cares that you're casteless!

you're living the high life for, like, two whole days. then you almost die, you almost die again, your cool recruiter dies, the fucking KING dies?, and the new acting king says you and your new best friend, the only other living grey warden in ferelden apparently, are public enemy number one. sucks. back to being a social pariah.

oh and there's a fucking blight and you have to kill an archdemon. also very cool. dust town isn't looking so bad right about now. lucky for you, because of some legal shenanigans (that, mind, you do not fucking understand because you have only been in this country for a week, and even in your hometown you weren't exactly rubbing elbows with the lawmaking elite), you get to go BACK to Orzammar. you get to visit home!

your sister is married and has a kid which is awesome. her husband seems to take good care of her. you can make him king if you want, because that's the influence you have over people now. deciding elections. weird! a couple months ago you barely had a say over what you had for dinner at night.

okay. now let's say you're specifically bosca brosca, and you want to be a berserker soooooo fucking bad. like so terribly awfully bad. you're back at home and you just want to hit things really hard with your big sword. you're also probably nonbinary but you've got too much on your plate to focus on that right now so it's not a concern. gather army first, then kill an archdemon, then gender stuff at some point. if you live. which is looking less and less likely the more you learn about surfacer bullshit.

there's a berserker dwarf in Orzammar who can teach you, though! cool! except he's mean. and he sucks. and you have to make sure he doesn't drink himself to death. and his relationship with his wife (who you come to hate for different, golem-related reasons) seems, to put it lightly, a fucking mess.

and you are not a hateful dwarf. no more than any other duster. living casteless for long enough, seeing the bigwigs in the diamond district, it turns anyone into a bit of a misanthropist, sure, but you're pretty tame, considering.

you hate oghren, though. from the MOMENT you see him. he's loud and you want to drown him, probably, and you had better get out of Orzammar quick because if you don't find running water to stick his head under, you're probably just gonna settle for lava. not a good idea. he still has to teach you berserking.

and so you do. and he does. he's good at that and drinking and not much else, and you kind of wish he was bad at the berserker part, too, so you could say the asshole never did a damn thing for you. but you can't.

and then he gets too drunk, even by his standards, and you haul him back to his tent, because that's what you do, you wait until the people you... know? are broken enough that you can sweep up the pieces and pretend you did them a service. you're not going to fix anything, but you can try and stop it from getting worse. you can make sure he rolls onto his side and sit by the fire, close enough to his tent to hear if he starts to get up in the middle of the night but far enough that you can pretend that's not exactly what you're doing.

and the healer, who drinks him under the table but does it in a quiet way that makes it hard to hate her about it, tells you that you're awfully gentle with him. it's a question and an accusation and you dignify neither. you don't even agree. it's not gentleness, it's necessity, it's maintaining a family team, it's what you do. you don't tell her that because she'll only give you that look she gets when she knows more than you thought you said.

if you knew who pavlov was, you'd draw some connections. if you knew who your father was, you'd draw some other connections. but you know neither of those men, so you hate him in a way that sinks its teeth deep in your chest and stays there.

and then you kill an archdemon and become a living paragon and raise house brosca out of castelessness and get married and act as the advisor to the king of a country you AREN'T EVEN FROM! and you think you're rid of him for good until you go on a grey warden mission and guess who fucking pops up.

[princehendir]

fear and hate for brosca? (from the ask game not just sending them fear and hate in general)

[ask game]

fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

That her mother was right about her. That ultimately, her clarity of purpose, her natural talent, her belief that she was meant for more, all her hard work, isn't enough to prevent her from ending up like her mother, or Oghren. Alone, miserable, pitiable, drunk, destined to die poorly, in an ugly way. Unremembered, or worse, remembered poorly.

Later on in his life though (Inquisition-era) he's really specifically terrified of being resented. This is kind of an offshoot of the last thing, he resented his mother for most of his life, he knows how that is and he doesn't want anyone he loves to feel that way about him, and as he's probably reaching the end of his life due to the Calling the worry starts feeling very urgent. Are people going to be relieved when he goes, the way he was relieved when Kalah finally passed? Is there anyone carrying the same sick feeling in their guts for her as she did for her mother all those years? Is it too late now to fix it?

He worries about Alistair a lot specifically. I have it written down somewhere that if some demon wanted to do some extreme psychic damage very quickly it could do it by telling him that Alistair regrets not taking the throne and now resents him for "keeping him" from it. That he resents that he had to go through the dark ritual just for her, and this is all he got for it. He worries similarly that Morrigan resents him for all she went through to keep him alive, and it's a big part of why he's so hesitant to go speak to her when he finds out she's also in Skyhold.

Anyways, she's willing to be pretty open with being afraid of dying unremembered, dying alone, becoming weak and pathetic (her words). She actually talks about this a lot on Origins with the rest of the group, Kalah telling her how she'll just die in the dust like everyone else, how seeing what Oghren is stresses her out, etc. But the fear of resentment she is not open with at all. She can't bring herself to admit it or say it out loud, it's an inside thought. Which is fine probably.

hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?

Hates injustice generally. Hates needless cruelty. Hates oppression. Hates the carta, hates the lyrium trade, hates templars, isn't so fond of the chantry most of the time. He doesn't usually go out of his way to say as such unprompted, but if you ask him directly he'll give you a direct answer. And if there's something concrete he can do about a specific injustice (killing a specific guy, helping someone who's in trouble, foiling an organization's plans, etc) he'll do it.

There are also some specific people in this world that she really hates, but can't kill because That Would Be Wrong, and usually her response to being exposed to them is to just. Not talk. At all. Because she isn't very tactful and can't lie or pretend to not hate someone for very long. So, silence. Arl Eamon was fully convinced she was a mute for like, months.

[tabriscadash]

I was asked this on my old blog right as I set about transitioning to this one, so...

The first character I ever fell in love with: for DA:O, dare I say Daveth? What can I say -- I irrationally got incredibly attached to him. otherwise, DEFINITELY Morrigan, and I have crystal clear memories of my first run through Lothering and looking at Morrigan like 😍 the whole time. For DA:2/E, Carver -- unless you count Anders & Justice since I knew of them from Awakening beforehand, in which case probably Justice. For DA:I, it’s a toss-up between Vivienne or Cole -- I technically liked Cole first but SPECIFICALLY in the supporting material (Asunder), and didn’t vibe with him anywhere near as much in the game, AND I got him as a companion after I got Vivienne, so probably Vivienne.

A character that I used to love/like, but now do not: for DA:O, I guess Oghren? I never loved him, but I liked the idea of him because I really liked the dwarves/Orzammar side of DA’s worldbuilding -- but he’s such an unlikeable character that I just.. don’t vibe with him at all. I debate recruiting him every single time now, and I don’t think I ever do his personal quest (in the base game OR Awakening). for DA:2/E, I don’t really have anyone that fits -- but I REALLY wanted to like Merrill and Aveline more than I did, and especially in Aveline’s case, I can’t stand her and genuinely think she’s the unintended, secret Big Bad of the whole game. for DA:I, probably Cole, bc I was really into the idea of a little walking-corpse serial killer animated by a spirit as per the book, but that’s not really the vibe in DA:I, and combined with the somewhat patronising/ableist language and how significantly he is infantilised (including by the fandom) I just got put off him. I do still like him, but not as much.

A ship that I used to love/like, but now do not: for DA:O, I don’t really have one? I guess see my DA:I answer, lol... for DA:2/E, has to be Anders - I don’t think he’s OOC in 2, but I think his writing does so little with him and he feels v. reductive. Where his relationship could be SO interesting and angsty, it instead is written in a really dull and/or cringey way. It would have been nice to see Anders more like the Anders of Awakening near the beginning of the game (rather than random, infrequent and questionably rare snippets), and then see the progression of his relationship with Justice as the game went on -- I want more interesting abominations, PLEASE. for DA:I, listen I cannot express to you HOW EXCITED I was for my planned Lavellan to romance Sera… also I used to be way more tolerant of Cullen x Amell/Surana ships because, like, hey dark ships are fun, right? But since Cullen’s ~wholesome whitewash~ in DA:I, and his fandom clamouring to absolve him of any wrongdoing ever.. it’s boring to me.

My ultimate favourite character™: for DA:O, probably Sten? or Morrigan. They’re both fantastic, and also are significant comfort chars for me. for DA:2/3, honestly, probably my own Hawke -- I feel so hugely proud of her, and can’t imagine I’d enjoy the game anywhere near as much had I not played it as my Hawke. If not her, maybe Sebastian or Carver? for DA:I, I really love Vivienne, as well as Blackwall, and Solas is a great character even if I probably would not say I liked him.

Prettiest character: for DA:O, we all know it’s Zevran. for DA:2/E, I think Aveline -- although her aggressively bland colour-scheme lets her down in a major way (although I respect her dedication to all orange all day every day). There’s just something about her arms -- very Abby from TLOU:2. for DA:I, maybe Josephine? Ser Barris is very pretty, too...

My most hated character: for DA:O, I really didn’t like Alistair, Wynne and Oghren, and of my companions - Oghren is probably my least favourite. He’s vulgar and also profoundly uninteresting. for DA:2/E, it has to be Aveline. There’s just something about ineptitude and a complete, wilful refusal to take accountability for your actions that I can’t stand. It would be okay if it was an intentional character flaw, but the game/narrative treats her like she’s lawful good and it really annoys me. for DA:I, maybe Iron Bull? He was a huge disappointment for me. I also really dislike Sera, Cassandra, and Varric. I’m so sick of Varric - I never want to see him again.

My OTP: for DA:O, I really loved Zevran’s romance -- but I am also very amused by the fact that Leliana got to ‘love’ status with Kallian accidentally, AND I got the ‘love’ glitch for Justice (👀) and Velanna. I do sometimes wonder about an AU where Kallian is forced to make a politically expedient marriage with Nathaniel Howe for diplomatic reasons in order to consolidate her position as Arlessa, and it being an entirely platonic arrangement (it’s not like anyone expects an heir from an infertile Grey Warden) -- and maybe Zev and Nate kiss sometimes, who knows? I also LOVE my Darkspawn Chronicles AU where Kallian and Nelaros are a happy, married couple each hiding their skills with weapons from each other like dumb, cute sweethearts. They shelter Zevran when he fails to kill Alistair and a poly couple evolves. for DA:2/E, I love the IDEA of a Seb romance that isn’t so strictly conditional around the structures that abused him -- he should be allowed to love, chastely or otherwise, but free from the Chantry OR his position as prince/heir. I’d LOVE to actually have a romance with him where you can actually challenge the abuse he’s experienced. for DA:I, Malika doesn’t have a canon romance (although I think when I replay, I’m going to romance Josephine!) but I think Blackwall has an amazing romance. Solas’ is also iconic, it must be said. 

My NOTP: for DA:O, I really dislike Alistair in a shipping capacity; he’s immature and says a lot of misogynistic shit and I don’t think he’s the worst for it, but I don’t really vibe with shipping him, having played the game as a female city elf. for DA:2/E, I wouldn’t say I have one, particularly? although I really dislike Aveline’s relationship with her husband simply because it seems incredibly inappropriate, given that they work together and she has power over him -- and because I dislike her, generally, I don’t feel inclined to do something nice for her. for DA:I, I suppose Sera/Lavellan -- although I’m not AGAINST it, it just really isn’t for me, having attempted it. I also don’t really vibe with Dorian x Iron Bull. Something abt the way the game handled BDSM and their relationship banter specifically I don’t really like.

Favourite episode quest: for DA:O, probs Orzammar/the Deep Roads. I really love the dwarven lore! and, of course, Fort Drakon is really funny, even though it’s not canon in my game iirc. for DA:2/E, maybe the murder mystery with the serial killer, where ultimately Leandra dies? I also really enjoyed all the companion quests. for DA:I, The Descent (just, all of it, lmao) and everything to do with the Avvar. Crestwood also BANGED.

Saddest death: for DA:O, it’s frankly a fucking INJUSTICE that Shianni gets murdered if you make her Bann of the Alienage -- the idea of that happening whilst Kallian is in Amaranthine and unable to protect her :( genuinely very upsetting. I go back and forth on who is made Bann, tbf, so idk how canonical it is: I think maybe Cyrion would get it, but I’m also endeared to Soris holding the position, with Shianni as Hahren. for DA:2/E, Bethany. I wish both twins had had the chance to reach Kirkwall :(. Let Leandra die instead. for DA:I, maybe not the saddest death, but the most memorable for me was that one sleeping dragon in the Hissing Wastes.. leave her alone. Stay out of a womans’ business.

Favourite season game: DA:O!

Least favourite season game: DA:I.

Character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but I hate: for DA:O, Alistair. I cannot deal with his complacency and hypocrisy. for DA:2, I really disliked Merrill but I honestly cannot remember why. DEFINITELY Varric -- I hated how the game forces you to be his best friend, and if you’re low approval, you have to endure these pointless pissy little comments with this little anti-dwarf centrist pissant. After the expedition, I literally have no reason to put up with him, and I NEVER take him out. I hate that he plays the same role in DA:I, too. for DA:I, the Iron Bull was hugely disappointing, and I also really don’t vibe with Cassandra. She just seems very wishy-washy and complacent and hypocritical, and many of her comments about other cultures seem snide for literally no reason other than bigotry. 

My ‘you’re a piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: for DA:O, lbr probably Sten. Mans is gonna launch a HORRIFYING invasion in the next game iirc and frankly, I’m ok with it. Just wanna see that big bastard again ❤🥵. for DA:2/E, I LOVE Gamlen, ok? for DA:I, I am not sure if I have one.

My ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: for DA:O, if any of you so much as LOOK at Velanna wrong, it’s hands. That includes Bioware. I also feel incredibly protective of and sad for Morrigan. for DA:2/E, probably Sebastian -- I feel so sad for him, and so frustrated by the limitations with the game. for DA:I, I’m honestly not sure.. maybe Josephine? I don’t really feel this way about Sera, but I do think she deserves better from the game and its writing, and also from fandom: there are valid criticisms of her, but the hate she gets is not proportional to any valid issues with her -- and gee, I wonder why that is.

My ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: for DA:O, I did use to find Cullen x Surana/Amell intriguing as a dark ship -- I actually hc that Neria Surana is actually Nelaros’ sister, and have dabbled with it as a dark ship. I also am interested in Loghain/Alistair - which each pretends the other is someone else. Alistair is wooby, hate ships are, in general, fun -- so long as we acknowledge that they are, indeed, unhealthy ships. for DA:2/E, I kind of feel like Sebastian romances are, invariably, kind of dark... and, similarly, Anders romances -- especially with certain red Hawkes, The way it ends is, invariably, bordering on fucked up. ALSO Hawkecest is weird and wonderful: GET WITH IT. 

My ‘they’re kind of cute, and I lowkey ship them, but I’m not too invested’ ship: for DA:O, I joked about Velanna x Leliana once and I’ve not been able to stop thinking about it ever since… Velanna x Sigrun is also something that can be so personal. Ariane x Finn is adorable and are paid DUST by Bioware AND fandom. I actually am really into Anora x Nathaniel & NO I will NOT explain myself; it’s a crackship but it’s MY crackship. for DA:2/E, Isabela x Fenris is super cute, but I don’t pay enough attention to them to really have super committed thoughts & feelings on them. for DA:I, Blackwall x Josephine is cute as a background ship; I also think Maryden x Cole is sweet.

[thatssolavellan]

OC interview: Meylin Surana

Thanks, @mageofholyandraste, for the tag! I’m introducing my Meylin Surana here.

INTRODUCTION

1. Can you introduce yourself?

Eh. I’m Meylin, I’ve been in the Circle for a while but now I’m a Grey Warden. Me and my partners are now traveling around Thedas.

2. What is your gender identity, orientation and relationship status?

I’m a woman. I had my share of boys and girls when I was in the Circle, but... I don’t know? Now I’m with Zevran. He is sweet and I think this is serious. He even gave me an earring once. But he’ll die before assuming it.

3. Where and when were you born?

Denerim Alienage, and if I believe the Templars are right, 9:13 Dragon. 

4. What is your weapon of choice and fighting style?

I’m a mage, so, uh, staves. But when I was in the Circle, I liked to play with daggers which I stole from their deposit - Zevran is teaching me some lessons now. If I can, I do everything as quickly as possible, Mana Clash, right?

5. Lastly, are you happy?

I think so. What, am I smiling? Yes, I am.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS

1. What’s your family like? What is your relationship with them?

I don’t know. The templars took me from Denerim alienage when I was 8. I remember just a couple of things about my life there. A noble’s house, and getting scolded by someone in a kitchen. Playing with kids around the Vhenadahl. But no matter how hard I try, I don’t remember nothing about my parents. 

2. Have you ever ran away from home?

If I consider the Circle my home... yes. I try not to think about it much. But when I was 13 or 14 I was hanging around with some of the younger apprentices and we tried to fool templars who were guarding the door. We managed to go to Lake Calenhad and slept in a bush near the lake, but they captured us in the morning. One of my friends got transferred to Montsimmard after that and I talked my way out punishment, but we didn’t try again.

3. Would you consider marriage or having children?

Ugh, no. Don’t tell Zev about it. He may have ideas.

4. Do you secretly hate one of your friends?

No. We pick some fights between us but sincerely I love it.

5. Which friend knows everything about you?

Funny to think about it. Even I don’t know everything about me, I guess. But I’m having some weird and deep conversations with Morrigan lately.

ASKED BY FANS

1. Are you literate? Have you been to school?

I went to the Circle, and they are pretty harsh with us concerning reading, learning about nobility and stuff. Pretty dull things, but it got useful when I started traveling around.

2. The eeriest prediction you made that later came true?

I always got an idea about making a huge mess in the Circle and they getting rid of me somehow, sending me away. So, it happened. But the mess wasn’t exactly my doing.

3. What is something you were embarrassingly late to realize?

Well. People say I’m smart. When I became a Grey Warden I thought it will be enough, but turns out that being a smart magic cute girl isn’t enough to save the world. I need friends. And connections.

4. Do you have mental health or physical issues?

I started to notice that I’m anxious and since my nightmares started, I’m having trouble to sleep. Sometimes I need to chat with someone all night to get it away.

5. What is your current main goal?

Killing the Archdemon, of course. 

CHOICES

1. Drink or food?

Food! I can’t drink much, but i try sometimes.

2. Cats or dogs?  

Dogs. Mabaris are good boys.

3. Optimist or pessimist?

Eh. Realistic?

4. Sassy or sarcastic?

People call me sassy all the time. So. Sassy?

HAVE YOU EVER

1. Been caught sneaking out?  

That Circle incident. Yes.

2. Broken a bone?

Sometimes. Wynne has to patch me up and always makes me promise this time will be the last.

3. Received flowers?

Alistair gave me a rose once. Sweet boy. He got the wrong idea, but he’s a cutie and he knows it.

4. Ghosted someone?

I received a bunch of letters lately about Circle matters and I’m pretending I didn’t.

5. Pretended to laugh at a joke you didn’t get?

Not really. But I always laugh with the silliest things... That’s why Oghren likes me.

***

Tagging: @siennamain, @fernaee, @housevael. If you want to do it, here it is 😊

[darthlordcommie]

DAO Thoughts: The Nightmares

So, I’ve just played through that part of the game again, and I got to thinking about the nightmares that the sloth demon traps you and your companions in. Spoilers for DAO obviously.

Essentially, the nightmares you and your companions are trapped in are divided in are divided into two categories: fears and wants. My thought is that everyone was divided into what was more likely to keep them trapped.

Wynne: Starting off simply, Wynne’s nightmare is based around her failing to save the other mages. She’s surrounded by their bodies, trapped in her own guilt and grief over her failure. This makes sense. Not only is Wynne a healer who genuinely does care about people, especially the mages under her care, but she has an internalized self-loathing towards mages pushed on her by the Chantry, and might have fought a dream filled with her desires on the grounds that it wasn’t what she “deserved”. But because she’s filled with that internalized hate, it’s easy to make her feel as if she wasn’t enough, wasn’t good enough, that it’s her fault.

Morrigan: Morrigan is trapped by the image of her mother, Flemeth. While she claims to have known that it was definitely just a demon in the Fade, I think it was closer to suspicion that was confirmed by your presence. This is because not only does Morrigan not know all that Flemeth is capable of, but Morrigan is very much afraid of her mother. Even if it wasn’t actually her, the idea of even striking at the image of her mother seems to have terrified her, so while she could recognize the nightmare for what it was, she couldn’t break out on her own.

Oghren: Oghren is trapped in a tavern, surrounded by dwarves mocking his failures. This is essentially the nightmare he had lived for years after Branka left. And as seen, he was unable to emerge from the nightmare of his life without outside help. By keeping him there through his insecurities, which are the best ways to strike at him without reprisal, Oghren wasn’t able to overcome his own self-flagellation.

Leliana: Leliana is trapped within the confines of the Chantry, where she is forced to beg forgiveness for claiming to have had a vision. As she felt a heavy amount of doubt for her own faith without having your arrival to vindicate her, being trapped back at that point, having gone to the Chantry at her lowest, means that Leliana is stuck in that loneliness without you reminding her that she had chosen to act on her vision and leave with out.

Zevran: Zevran’s nightmare is more of his memories. He believes he is being trained and tortured as preparation to join the Antivan Crows, as he was in the past. You can break him out of it  by reminding him that he had already become a Crow, but unlike any of the others, he won’t fight the demons, too terrified even of the images of his former masters. He holds a deep amount of fear towards the Crows, and it’s only with your help that in the real world and the dream, he can feel like he deserves to escape his nightmare.

Shale: Shale’s nightmare will be of still being trapped as a statue. Never moving, never being able to interact with the world. They do not believe themself to be able to move, so they can’t. It isn’t until you arrive, and remind them that they are in fact free, that they can move again, with the assurance that their prison is just a nightmare.

Dog: Dog is just asleep. You have to wake him up. Pretty simple.

Sten: Sten will be with the soldiers he came to Fereldan with. While he is aware that he is trapped in a dream, his shame and survivor’s guilt leads him to not want to leave. Ultimately, you have to remind him of his duty, and maybe his debt to you, for him to accept that he can’t remain in the dream forever.

Alistair: Alistair is with his (he thinks) sister, Goldanna and her family. For the first time in his life, Alistair’s fully content, and happy. You need to pull at him and remind him not of his duty, but of his memories. In order to get Alistair to pull out of the dream, he has to first realize it is a dream. Reminding him of his duty simply makes him feel as if he doesn’t want to, because he feels happy with his family. The tragedy that it was all a lie, and one that cannot be replicated in the real world, is one that hits him.

My point with all of these is that out of the companions who are trapped by their desires instead of their fears, it’s only Sten and Alistair. Both of them are characters with the strongest and deepest sense of loyalty and duty, and both are already living their own nightmares. Sten failed, his comrades died, he lost his sword, and he slaughtered the people who saved his life. At this point, the only thing keeping him going is duty, and the appeal of being able to at least pretend he hadn’t failed kept him bound in the dream. And Alistair. Alistair who wants, more than anything else, to have a family and to belong somewhere. He’d already lost his family in the Grey Wardens, and he wants to have happiness and bonds. He’d had nightmares, he was a Grey Warden after all. He knew how to fight through fear and grief, however hard it was. But contentment and happiness. Alistair has never had to choose between his desires and his duties before. He’s never had that luxury.

So, yeah. Just some thoughts I had.

[clowns-of-thedas]

Dragon Age characters as weird things my friend and I said: Part 1

The Warden: I am officially the CEO of presents.

Alistair: Cursing is outdated, fucking roll over ‘em with a block of melting cheese and stick them to the ground.

Zevran: Double wielding blades? Take this you filthy Christians.

Morrigan: Damned shall be the boys that send unasked dickpics.

Leliana: *watching a girl struggling to use a defect microwave* This bitch really is allowed to be this stupid, like legally?

Wynne: Tell me, are you okay? You seem to show symptoms of depression and a severe hangover.

Sten: Let them eat chalk before they can talk.

Oghren: If I got a demon under my bed it sure as hell is one slim bitch.

Shale: I didn’t know how to crack an egg until you showed me last month.

Loghain: Stop showing me the flaw of my own ability to remember the things I hate.

Anora: What value do we Europeans even have besides being artistic and depressed? *dramatic pause* Alcohol.

Duncan: I can’t even fathom to describe on how many levels this is failing.

Cailan: Clapping enemies with them cheeks.

Velanna: *inspecting the picture of a seal* It has the required bastard vibe.

Sigrun: The migraine be hitting me at 1 am after I wanted to get the good night night water.

Justice: They all be looking like they had the worst day since they were born.

Nathaniel: Professionals would also call that daddy issues.

Irwing: It actually just dawns on me how crazy this whole situation really is… I have not witnessed something like that in my entire life. *continues pretending to be shocked*

Maric: Backstreet wench at it again!

Fiona: Get your gear and exorcism kit ready, we’re going on a crusade.

Jowan: I knew youd me confusion. Yes.

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 24/38 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both?

Loriel had not expected to miss Avernus quite so much.

Months went by without word from him. First few enough for her not to notice, and then too many for her to ignore. A dozen times over the past months she had thought to write him, and then decided that no, she didn’t need to after all, but she couldn’t pretend that forever.

It was her own petty, childish pride, then and now. She had fought him just to prove that she’d win, and writing him now would be admitting that she needed his counsel. Which she did

She still wasn’t going to do it.

More than the man himself she missed his knowledge and experience. And if not that, then at least someone to report her findings to. Someone who would care if she didn’t get anything done, and who would care about what she had to say about it. And yes, perhaps that amounted to missing the man himself, too.

The worst of it was that her work had stalled without him. Her rigor and meticulous care wasn’t enough anymore, and she was no closer to cracking open the crystal and finding the Architect than she’d been any time before. She began to lose whole days to restless pacing, to picking up books and putting them down again, to feeling her eyes move across pages and absorbing absolutely nothing. She had not thought that the loss of a sporadic correspondence partner would undo her so badly.

The work had to continue. 

Had she been a spirit mage, she would have had options—spirits of knowledge weren’t that uncommon. The Chantry did not teach its prisoners to speak to them, but a powerful spirit mage could have managed it. The Dalish did so, and so did the Alemarri. Spirit lore was something that might have been available to her, when she was eighteen or twenty and still fresh.

But she had bathed too long in her own blood, and her connection to the Fade had rotted. So it would have to be a demon, and she would have to bind it.

For all her transgressions, Loriel did not make binding demons a habit. Less out of any unwillingness to transgress—what sacred rule had she not already broken?—than a sense of calculated risk. Any imperfection in the binding, and the demon was out, ready to turn its wroth on the first target it could get its hands on—generally, the mage who had bound it.

It was a bad idea, she knew that going in. She would do it anyway.

That did not mean she would be stupid. She did her due diligence. She read up, poring over every scrap of demon lore in her library. Abelard’s Index of Foulest Daymons was particularly helpful. She had borrowed the tome from Avernus and only vaguely intended to return it, and now it seemed like she wouldn’t have to. It was a murderously heavy text, listing every type and subtype and sub-sub-and-so-on-type of demon known to exist, their names and habits, their foibles and tricks, how best to bind one, and what one might ply it with. Better yet, Abelard had lived in Tevinter during the Steel age, and his text was unsullied with Chantry prejudices.

She practiced first. When finally it came time to summon something, she spent hours carefully inscribing the binding circle—with far more care than what she intended to summon really warranted. She started with wisps and wraiths, half-formed blobs of Fade-stuff still waiting to become, lashing them to her will and releasing them again. When she could do this as easy as breathing, she moved on to demons of hunger. Hunger was something she no longer felt, and could not be tempted by, though hunger demons were more likely to try and eat her than to tempt her. 

Next she tried Rage and Desire, creatures of things she had felt once, but hadn’t for months and years. If Rage might still bring heat to her blood, if only in the form of intense irritation, Desire offered nothing she’d ever take. Loriel had no fear of Desire. She’d already had the thing she most greatly desired, had it, and thrown it away—on purpose. Nothing else in this world existed that Loriel could be said to desire.

Sloth she avoided. Sloth—Torpor—was the only one demon who had ever gotten the better of her, who she hadn’t defeated herself. It was too great a risk, that she’d lie down and sleep until the end of the world, given half a demon-shaped excuse.

These lesser demons, though, would be of no use to her. What she needed was knowledge, and what that meant something like Pride.

Abelard’s Index was not very reliable for lesser demons who had since returned to the Fade-sea and reformed. It listed appearances they no longer wore, personalities they had long shed, even if their basic natures would reform. But for powerful demons who had amassed centuries of memory—just the one she would need—Abelard was perfect. She read and reread the relevant heading, squinting at the antiquated Tevene. Vainglory, Audacity, Superbia, Narcissus—no, not quite, no, and no. Demons that dealt with forbidden things—Censorus, Proscripta, Obscurus, Taboo—no, not that one, not this one neither. Then she saw the subheading—Daymons of Knoweledge.

Demons of knowledge came in all manner of forms—she paused for a time on Secerne, who collected secrets. It dealt only with knowledge that no-one else knew. Tempting—but such a creature would hardly be likely to give its secrets up and render them useless to itself. A blood mage could bind a demon and constraint it, but to compel it was pointless—you’d probably just end up destroying it, and if you were after knowledge, what good was that? No, once bound, the demon would have to be dealt with the old fashioned way.

Revelatus traded desired knowledge for undesired knowledge. It would tell you anything you wanted to know, and then something you didn’t want to know—the worst thing your lover had ever thought of you, how happy you might have been if you had just chosen differently, what was really in your sausage. Countless men had been driven mad by this one, Abelard warned. Loriel decided not to test her luck.

Finally she settled on a demon called Veritas, who spoke only truths. It was an ancient creature of malice and cunning, but it would tell her the truth, and for that Loriel would give anything.

tck

There came a point where even she could not justify dithering any longer. Weeks had passed since she had decided she would bind a demon. On the chosen day, she made all her preparations, triple-checked her summoning circle, cast spell after protective spell. Finally she could find no more excuses to delay—she spilled her blood and spoke the words.

The air itself seemed to part, and a greenish miasma spilled forth from the crack. A shape was being pulled through, too big for such a modest aperture, yet somehow, terribly, emerging. Reality bulged and bent, and finally, a demon climbed out.

It was smaller than other Pride demons, shaped something like a bear and something like a lion, though in place of claws or talons, it had clever human fingers. Its face was covered with a golden mask, shaped into the form of a human face. Its hide was pitch black, and every inch of it covered with blinking, roving eyes.  It raised its head, as though to sniff the air, and bent to examine its new situation, noting the summoning circle, the runes of binding and restraint. 

“Hello,” said Loriel. “Might you confirm your name?”

The thousand eyes blinked all at once. “I am Veritas, he who knows ten thousand truths.” Its voice came through as though from far away, echoing around the chamber.

“Ten thousand only?”

“No, far more! Many, many more! I know more truths than there are stars in your sky, more truths than there are grains of sand in your deserts, more truths than the number of breaths you will take—”

“That is more than ten thousand.”

“That I know ten thousand truths was not a lie.”

“Oh, I see. You’re one of those demons of knowledge.”

She had succeeded in offending it. “What do you mean by that?”

“You speak only in riddles and technical truths. You say things that are true by letter only, and lies by implication. Disappointing,” said Loriel, pouring unimpressed into her voice.

It scowled around the room—or seemed to. She could not see its face behind the golden mask. “Why can I not see you, little mageling? Where are you?”

Invisibly, Loriel produced a faint crescent of a smile. “I am here in this room with you, Veritas.” Her voice echoed through the chamber as she spoke, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. The demon’s ears twitched, and only then did Loriel realize that even telling it that she was there in the room with it was more than she meant to say.

“So you are, mageling, so you are. Why have you summoned me?”

“Why do mages ever summon you? I seek knowledge you might have.”

“Why should I tell you anything I know, when you have dragged me so rudely from my home?”

“I will make it worth your while, Veritas. I offer knowledge in exchange for knowledge.”

Veritas laughed. It was a horrible sound, like broken glass. Loriel didn’t dare speak. “Little mageling, you know nothing I do not. I have sought out truths for centuries, bent only upon knowing, and you, little girl, whose lifetime is as a mayfly’s breath to a being like myself—you presume to offer me knowledge? You presume to know something I do not?”

Loriel let the echo of the last word fade, then said calmly, “What is my name?”

No answer.

“So you do not know it,” Loriel said. “And I am forced to conclude, Veritas, that I do know some things that you do not.”

The demon paced inside its narrow circle on all fours. “Aren’t you a darling little pedant! Very well, I’ll take your deal, but I will take it on my terms. You may ask me one question, but first, you must tell me something I do not know. Do not lie! If you answer falsely, I shall know, and I shall devour your heart.”

An empty threat. Veritas was bound. It was subject to her will. It couldn’t get out if it wanted to—or else what was the point of blood magic binding? She was perfectly safe. It was bluffing—

...No, it wasn’t. Of course not. The demon of truth could not bluff. If Veritas bluffed it would no longer be Veritas. I shall devour your heart. Not a promise or a threat, but a statement of fact.

“Very well,” Loriel said steadily. “I shall speak truly.”

“What,” grinned the demon, “is the full, entire, and complete name by which you are called?”

She should have seen that coming. “My name is Loriel Surana.” 

Loriel was common enough for elves. And Surana was not even her family name; it was just what all elves were called in the Circle. Elves had no family names.

“Loriel Surana,” said Veritas, tasting it, savoring it. “Loriel Surana, Loriel Surana...yes, I know of you.”

She was so startled that the question came out unbidden: “What do you mean?”

“Your name floats upon the Fade like a dying leaf upon the breeze! One who often walks free along its emerald waters has called and called it, lacquered it with misery and love, twisted it with hatred and longing. Your name forms an island of despair and desire; tempests that will not calm; storms that will not pass. Yes, what a name!”

“I see,” Loriel said neutrally. Whatever bloomed in her to hear that, she stoppered it at once. “I answered your question, demon, so here is mine—”

“Ah, ah, ah!” The demon waggled a finger not-quite-at her. “You already asked your question. You asked me what I meant. Now it is my turn again. Where in this room are you right now?”

“I am standing in the northeastern corner of this chamber,” Loriel answered, and slowly, on magically silenced feet, moved to the southeastern corner instead.

“No fair,” the demon complained. “I did not know which way was northeast.”

“Oh? Then my mistake. But I answered your question, so here is mine. Where is the ancient darkspawn being known to many as the Architect?”

“The Architect is underground,” the demon said sulkily.

Loriel felt a vein throb in her forehead. “I could have told you that.” 

“Then you should have asked a better question,” sniffed the demon. “Now it is my turn—”

“No,” Loriel interrupted. “No, it isn’t. I didn’t say I would answer any question you asked. I agreed that I would tell you something you did not know. You have just told me you do not know which way is northeast, so I will tell you—it is the direction of the corner where the empty pouch of lyrium powder lies. Here is my second question: what is the cure for the Blight?”

“Why—blood, of course.” The demon smiled with hidden teeth. “It is always in the blood. That was a dirty trick you played, Loriel Surana, but no dirtier than mine, so I will forgive you, this time. Here is the next thing that I do not know and that I would have you tell me.” The demon smiled wider, showing teeth. “What do you love most in all the world?”

“Well?” said the demon, when she had been silent too long. “Will you answer, Loriel Surana? Or will you let me go?”

“I will answer.” And she answered, truly: “Nothing. What I love most in all the world is nothing.”

“How interesting. Yes, very interesting...you are a pleasing little mageling. I think I like you after all. Well, Loriel Surana? It is your turn. Speak!”

“I’m thinking,” said Loriel, and finally settled on: “What concrete set of actions should I take next—immediately after ending this conversation—that, of all possible actions, would take me the further along my goal of discovering the cure for the Calling?”

Veritas grinned wider still, its face little more than teeth. “Take a man infected with the Blight, and find a way to take it out of him. A man, and not a rat. But why waste your time with me asking me that which you already know?”

Loriel exhaled through her nose. “Thank you, Veritas. You may go now.” 

The demon’s grin was all that remained of it as it disappeared back into the Fade, making no attempt at all to remain within the waking world. Loriel was alone, the floor littered with truths both new and old.

“Shit,” she muttered finally.

tck

It had been a mistake to summon the demon. She was no good at dealing with creatures of the Fade. When Loriel had been small and scared and helpless she’d had a silver tongue, been so adept and turning minds to her advantage using nothing but her words. Not it seemed she had forgotten entirely how to deal with a mind she could not break and twist and bend. 

All she had succeeded in doing was in giving an ancient, powerful demon tools to hurt her with, and what had she learned? Nothing she didn’t already know. Stupid. Careless. Idiot.

“Warden Pollard has begun to hear the Call.”

Loriel had been half-listening to Brigit’s report; now she startled to full attention, rattling her morning tea in its cup. “What?” Brigit repeated herself. “Warden Pollard...who is he?”

Warden Pollard was Orlesian. He had transferred from under Warden-Commander Clarel some years ago. He had served well, saved three of his comrades in a raid, and fought with a pike. He had been a Warden for only thirteen years. This was early, but not unheard-of.

“Where is he?”

“The chapel. He prays for his soul. He intends to visit his mother in Velun before heading to the Deep Roads.”

“I would like to speak with him in private.” She said it so quickly as to be unseemly. But Brigit only nodded and moved to acquiesce.

When her office door opened and Brigit admitted him, Loriel couldn’t help but think he didn’t look much like a dying man. Perhaps he was pale, perhaps a sheen of sweat stood out on his skin, but she didn’t know him. For all she knew, he always looked like that. 

Only when traces of discomfort began to appear on his face did Loriel realize she had been staring at him silently for far too long.

“Commander,” he said awkwardly, still with the traces of an Orlesian accent. He’d never met her before. Was he one of the ones not quite aware that she still lived, and still ruled? “I’m honored.”

“Do not be,” she said flatly. “How is it?”

How are you feeling might have been more appropriate. But it would have rung false. 

“Not so bad, yet. I knew it was coming. I accept it.” He paused. “Is there some manner of ceremony?”

Loriel had no idea. There probably was. She had never cared to find out, never cared to make sure that her wardens had a good sendoff. “If you wish it. But that is not why I wanted to speak with you. Can you get more specific?”

A flash of confusion.

“About how it is.”

Pollard looked even less comfortable. “I’ve had nightmares, ser.”

“Different from the usual?”

“Yes.” 

“Can you tell me more?”

“With respect, ser, I’d rather not.”

Her mouth set. “Please,” she said, and there was the power of blood in her voice, and not a trace of a request. “Tell me more.”

Pollard’s eyes went foggy and distant. When he spoke, he sounded oddly flat. “The nightmares were only the beginning. Now when I sleep, I hear the most beautiful voice. Like my mother calling me home. And when I awake, I want nothing more than to hear that voice again. I can hear it now, just barely. And a strange music in my ears.”

“What kind of music?”

“Bells. Like chantry bells, calling me to prayer. Ugly and beautiful at once.”

“Is it anything like lyrium song?”

His brow knit. “Yes. Not unlike lyrium song. But different. Richer and darker. I can almost pick out voices in it, but never what they say.”

She took out a notebook, her shorthand flying across the page. “What do you see? In the dreams?”

“Darkspawn. All gathered together in the biggest chamber I have ever seen. It’s dark, but I can see perfectly. They’re darkspawn, but they do not seem ugly. At the center sits a beautiful figure, bathed in gold, smiling. They welcome me home. I’m glad to be there.”

“When did this start?”

“Three weeks ago I first heard the voice in my dreams. 

“Any physical effects?”

“My skin is hot. The sun hurts my eyes, even on cloudy days.  I feel stronger now than I have ever been, even stronger than I was as a young man.”

“Anything else?”

“I hope not to be alive by the time there is anything else.”

Loriel finished transcribing. “One last thing. Come here. Roll up your sleeve; give me your arm.”

Pollard obeyed. He did not protest, did not react at all, when she took some of his blood. It glinted darkly in the glass vials she had fetched for this purpose, easily a few shades too dark. She stared at it for a few seconds. There was the Blight itself.

She took a few vials. Enough so he wouldn’t notice, later, and closed the wound she’d made with a clumsy burst of creation magic. The vials went into a wooden box inscribed with a rune of entropic suspension—blood spoiled so soon after it left the body.

Frustration overwhelmed her, that all she had was a few vials of blood and a brief coercive interview. Imagine all she might have learned if she could watch as he succumbed to the Taint, hear in his own words what was happening to him. He was going to die anyway—this way he might help save the lives of countless other Wardens, who could object to that? She could just—

No. Velanna had been wrong. She cared about the Wardens, of course she did, why else do all this? She would not subject an innocent man to such a fate. She was better than Avernus.

Pollard blinked as she released his mind, but if he was aware of the lost time he did not show it. She thanked him for his service and assured him that his family would be taken care of. He thanked her in turn, and departed as quickly as was seemly. She watched him go with only the smallest burst of dark regret.

[thethirdamell]

Accursed Ones - Ch. 136 - World Gone Crazy

This is an edited version of Chapter 136 of Accursed Ones that does not include the scene with sexual assault if you wanted to read more than the summary but did not want that content included. 

9:35 Dragon 19 Eluviesta Early Evening Ferelden: Vigil’s Keep Crypts

“See how the rain has washed away The tears that you were crying? Though the darkness calls me down You know we all are dying…”

Anders inhaled shakily at the end of the verse, too choked to sing the next. He closed his eyes and thumped his head against Sigrun's sarcophagus, wishing she was here with him. She'd always been able to make him smile. At least he finally had a song for her.

“A little early for your Calling, isn’t it?” A familiar voice asked.

Nate. The Warden Constable stood at the base of the stairwell into the crypts. His hair had gotten longer, a mane of black he’d braided like one. He’d traded his goatee for stubble, as if he needed more shadow. He had enough of it under his eyes, in his voice, in the ghost of a smile he wore on his lips. He looked good. A little fat.

“Men are always premature,” Velanna chimed in from beside him. She looked better, wild blonde bangs obscuring the vallaslin on her face but not the resting bitch. Someone must have forced her into real clothes, an elegant dress that looked like folded leaves corseted about her waist and pinned in place by a gryphon pendant at her collarbone. “A Shred of Blue? This is the best you could do?”

“At least she’d understand it,” Anders countered. It wasn’t in elvish, which seemed like it should give him a point over Velanna’s old song.

“She would understand you’ve a terrible singing voice,” Velanna said, joining him on the floor. She smelled like the forest, and age-old memories. “What are you singing of your Calling for, you fool?”

Because it feels like I went to it.

“Death and dying was her thing,” Anders shrugged, scrubbing the tears from his eyes with the heel of his palm.

Nathaniel toyed with one of the flowers on Sigrun’s tomb. “Can you feel her?”

“Normal question," Anders said.

“In the Stone,” Nathaniel elaborated. “Oghren says she makes the Vigil stronger.”

“Oghren also says dwarves are born from the Stone as rocks,” Velanna rolled her eyes.

“Velanna believed him,” Nathaniel grinned.

“Oghren?” Anders repeated, something almost like a smile creeping at the corners of his lips. “You believed something Oghren said?”

“I did not say I believed him,” Velanna kicked a foot out at Nathaniel, who dodge nimbly to the other side of Anders. “I said I almost believed him.”

“Pink rocks for girls, gray rocks for boys,” Nathaniel elaborated, sliding down on the opposite side of Anders. “Dipped in lava until they hatch.”

Anders exhaled hard through his nose. Velanna elbowed him for it, a sharp stab beneath his ribs that came with a surge of relief for the excuse it gave his tears. Anders choked on a sob, and Velanna crushed him into a sudden hug Nathaniel quickly joined. Limbs and hands tangled together with the scent of leather and leaves, and Anders felt better than he had in weeks. He was still crying, but there was something safe in it, in the shadow of Sigrun’s tomb, where no one would question his tears.

“You idiot,” Velanna muttered into his chest.

“She means-” Nathaniel started.

“I know,” It was so hard to know anything recently, Anders couldn’t have been more grateful when he did. He couldn’t not know, crushed between two of the best friends he’d ever had in his life. He grabbed an ankle and a wrist, his face in Velanna’s hair. "I'm an idiot."

Velanna thumped a fist against his chest. “You and your spirit both.”

“An inescapable one," Nathaniel said.

“I’m special that way,” Anders said.

“That’s one way to put it," Nathaniel said.

“Ironic is another," Velanna countered. "How is it you escape your templars and we cannot escape you?"

"You're the one who came to see me," Anders pointed out.

"I came to see Sigrun," Velanna said, untangling herself from him to settle more comfortably against his side.

"Liars," Nathaniel kept an arm around Anders' shoulders. "Both of you."

"Us?" Anders joked, leaning back against the tomb and Nathaniel’s arm. "Lie about feelings?"

"I have never," Velanna huffed.

"You'd have to have some first," Anders pointed out.

"I have feelings."

"Bitchy isn't a feeling."

"Neither is stupidity."

"It's been working out for me so far."

"I would imagine, considering you have the emotional depth of a puddle."

"I'm an ocean."

"You're an idiot."

"I'm glad the two of you are still so close," Nathaniel said.

"Do not be jealous," Velanna waved a hand at him.

"Who's he jealous of though?" Anders wondered.

"You, obviously," Velanna said.

"You sure about that?" Anders raised an eyebrow at her.

"Velanna," Nathaniel said.

"I knew it," Anders grinned.

"I'm breaking up with you," Velanna said over him.

"Again?" Nathaniel sighed.

"We can share, I have two hands," Anders joked, waving both.

"Touch me with them and I will break them," Velanna threatened.

"I'm a healer," Anders shrugged, throwing an arm around her shoulder that Velanna did not in fact break.

A companionable silence stretched, and Anders breathed easier for it. His broken heart felt better, splinted between old friends, and for a time he could pretend the past four years had been a fever dream and he wasn’t living some waking nightmare without them.

"I have to admit, I didn't think it would be this easy," Nathaniel broke the silence.

"What?" Anders asked.

"Going back in time," Nathaniel clarified.

Anders thought of Amell, and the smile he'd had for him, and how nothing Anders had done had managed to take it away. "...I did."

The three of them stayed in the crypts, talking about what Amell had planned for the month. There was the feast, of course, paired with so many minstrels and bards it would have made an Orlesian blush. A theater troupe on reserve for evening plays. A veritable tourney's worth of games for the days.

"What if I hadn't shown?" Anders couldn’t help wondering.

“Then you’d have been even more of a fool than usual,” Velanna said.

“I think we all know there was no chance of that,” Nathaniel grinned, a secretive sort of grin that made Anders’ sick to his stomach wondering if they knew about his letters to Amell. “We’re keeping you. I’m sure dinner is about to start. Shall we?”

We shan’t. We shan’t because if we shalled then we’d have to go back inside wearing the wrong ring for the wrong man but there was nowhere else to go. Anders followed them out of the crypts and back into the Vigil, where servants were hurrying back and forth arranging the main hall for a banquet. Tables were being pushed together, benches were being carried out, a stage was being set up.

For Anders. All of it was for Anders.

Amell couldn’t tell him it was for all mages or his morals or any of the other excuses he’d used years ago whenever Amell had done something kind for him. It was just about Anders. It was always just about Anders. It was there in his letters, and the way that he signed them every month, with a quiet Always, Amell like it meant something different if he didn’t put Yours in front of it.

Hawke probably knew that, and that was probably why he manifested out of the Fade like some reincarnation of his mother to confront the three of them the second they set foot in the hall.

“There you are,” Hawke signed, a hand on his arm dragging Anders away from Nathaniel and Velanna and out of the flow of traffic. “Where have you been?”

“With my friends,” Anders signed.

“Everything alright?” Nathaniel asked.

“I-” Anders started, but Hawke was still signing, and he couldn’t pay attention to two conversations at once.

“You can’t just leave without telling me,” Hawke signed.

“I didn’t leave,” Anders argued.

“How would I know?” Hawke countered. “I can’t talk to anyone here but you and Varric. I shouldn’t have to remind you. You know why I’m deaf.”

Hawke was right. He shouldn’t have had to remind him, but for some reason he did. Hawke was deaf and it was Anders' fault. Anders had abandoned him, and Hawke had gotten hurt, and Anders hadn’t been there to heal him. The man responsible for his mother’s death had healed him instead, and Anders was still lying to him about it.

“I’m sorry,” Anders signed, because he should be sorry, but he was too busy feeling sorry for himself.

“Just tell me next time,” Hawke signed.

“Oi, Sparkles!” A familiar voice bellowed. Anders tore his eyes off Hawke to the sight of Oghren stomping across the hall like a bronto and rolling up his sleeves as he went. “I warned ya! I’m gonna kick your sorry ass!”

“I missed you too-” Anders started.

Oghren slammed a fist into his stomach. It wasn’t enough to knock him on his ass, but it was enough to bend him over it. Anders wheezed, while Velanna laughed and Nathaniel looked like he was struggling not to. “That’s for sending us the old broad,” Oghren spat. “Now we’re even-”

Oghren didn’t get further than that before Hawke grabbed his shoulder and spun him into his fist. Oghren reeled back a pace from the suckerpunch, rubbing his jaw while a vicious grin crept onto his face. “Boy, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for some son of a bitch to do that.”

It felt like there was a moment where Anders could have said something. Done something.

It passed.

“Here comes Oghren!” Oghren bellowed, charging forward to ram his shoulder into Hawke’s stomach and slam him bodily into the wall. Hawke collided with a pained grunt, and brought an ineffectual elbow down on the crook of Oghren’s neck. He couldn’t have been at more of a disadvantage, facing off against a berserker in melee combat with a height difference that made every knee and elbow hit just shy of where they should.

Anders wondered why he didn’t care more.

“Would you like this to stop…?” Nathaniel asked.

“It seems it will soon,” Velanna noted. “Five silver for the dwarf.”

“You can’t always bet on Oghren when this happens,” Nathaniel sighed.

“You are just tired of losing.”

“And your point, my lady?”

“My point is you should bet sooner.”

Hawke finally broke free of the exchange, rolling clear of Oghren’s flailing fists and slinging a flask at his feet that exploded in a cloud of dust. Oghren sneezed. “Knockout powder? I’ll use that shit for seasonin’ when I serve you up your ass! Let’s go-!”

“Oghren,” Nathaniel interjected. “That’s enough.”

“He soddin’ started it-”

“I said that’s enough.”

“Elf bet first, didn’t she?” Oghren guessed.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Nathaniel sniffed.

“I did,” Velanna said cheerily.

“Pha,” Oghren spat. “Whatever.”

“Are you alright?” Anders signed while his friends argued.

“Am I alright?” Hawke signed back with one hand, and held his injured side with the other. Anders belatedly remembered to send a surge of creationism through him, washing away the bruises Oghren had left on him. “He attacked me.”

“You punched him,” Anders signed.

“For punching you!” Hawke signed.

“He’s my friend,” Anders argued. “He didn’t hurt me-”

“He punched you,” Hawke corrected him. “And they laughed! They’re not your friends. They’re assholes.”

“They are my friends-” Anders argued.

“You haven’t been friends with them for years,” Hawke countered. “If you were still their friend they wouldn’t treat you this way.”

They weren’t treating him like anything. It wasn’t like it was the first time Oghren had punched him. It was Oghren. Oghren punched everyone. Oghren had even warned him he was going to kick his ass when he showed up, and if he really wanted to hurt him he could have done a lot worse than a gut punch. And sure, maybe Velanna had elbowed him, but…

“It’s not like that,” Anders signed.

“Yes it is,” Hawke signed. “You think Varric would ever do that to you? You think I would? They’re not your friends - they never were.”

That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. The Wardens were his friends. Nathaniel and Velanna and Oghren and Amell. They were some of his best friends, but Anders could still feel the pain of Velanna’s elbow and Oghren’s fist, and he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know what to do.

He was so tired.

“Everything alright, Anders?” Nathaniel asked again.

“Aye, he’s fine,” Oghren slapped Anders’ shoulder. It hurt a little, but it wasn’t-... It just wasn’t like that. “He’s a tough son of a bitch. Good fight.” Oghren held out a meaty hand for Hawke, who eyed it with a scowl.

“Good fight,” Anders translated.

“Whatcha waving for?” Oghren frowned.

“Hawke’s deaf,” Anders reminded him.

“Looks fine to me,” Oghren said.

“Deaf, you toadstool, not dead,” Velanna rolled her eyes.

“Ah. Shame,” Oghren shrugged, giving up on the handshake when Hawke didn’t take it. “So we gonna eat or we gonna stand around and starve till our trousers drop?”

“Drop your trousers around me again, dwarf, and I will make sure you have no need of them,” Velanna threatened him, but they headed off towards the main hall, trading the same shoves they gave Anders. Because they shoved everyone. Because they were soldiers. Because they were Wardens. Because they were friends.

They were his friends.

Hawke wrapped an arm around his waist and kept him from following. Anders didn’t want an arm around his waist but he didn’t know how to get it off. Nathaniel raised an eyebrow for it. He looked like he was doing a dozen different equations in his head, but they could only lead to one shameful conclusion. Anders suddenly understood why Hawke hated eye-contact. The confused look Nathaniel gave him made him want to curl up and die.

“I take it this is Hawke?” Nathaniel guessed.

“That’s him,” Anders agreed.

“I see,” Nathaniel said slowly, with a nod to Hawke. “... A pleasure to meet you, Champion.”

Anders translated. Hawke waved.

“Anders, could I have a word with you?” Nathaniel asked.

“Knickerweasels?” Anders supplied.

“A private word,” Nathaniel clarified.

“Dick?” Anders tried again.

“Very well, be glib,” Nathaniel sighed.

“What’s he saying?” Hawke signed.

“He wants to talk,” Anders translated.

“Don’t want you talking with him.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Anders argued.

“Still laughed.”

“He’s still my friend-”

“Merrill’s your friend, and you haven’t even seen her yet,” Hawke countered. “You don’t think she wants to see you?”

“... Maybe later?” Anders said aloud.

“... Later it is,” Nathaniel agreed. “Our table is at the head of the hall, closest to the stage. See you shortly?”

“See you,” Anders agreed.

Hawke led him back to the guest rooms with his arm still firmly locked around his waist. It was just an arm. Hawke had had his arm around him before, and it hadn’t bothered him before, so it didn’t make sense that it should bother him now, but it did. They reached the guest rooms, up on the second floor, where Varric and Fenris were talking to Merrill out in the hall.

She didn’t look anything like the broken woman Anders had dragged out of a burning building ten months ago. Her clothes weren’t threadbare linens worn for want of anything else. She wasn’t drained of blood and joy. A knee length emerald dress swirled with patterns reminiscent of her vallaslin, belted with a teal sash that looked like it had been knotted one too many times by forgetful hands. Her raven hair was free of soot and finely braided, one pointed ear lined in silver piercings. She looked good. She looked great. She looked like the hero of her own story while Anders prayed for one in his.

“Lethallen!” Merrill shrieked at the sight of him, sprinting down the hall to fling herself into his arms. Her arms locked around his neck and her knees around his waist, and Anders would have fallen over if Hawke wasn’t supporting him. “It’s so good to see you! Did you miss me? You did, didn’t you? I missed you! I missed you so much!”

Anders hugged her. She smelled like spring, and dirt after rain, and rebirth. “Hey Merrill.”

Merrill hopped down from his arms, and snatched up his hands, practically beaming, “I’m so glad you came! I have so much to tell you. You must have so much to tell me! Did you know you’re a hero? I mean, of course you know, but did you know? There are so many songs, lethallen, you have to tell me which ones are true!”

“I’m telling you, Daisy, stories are never true,” Varric said when he joined them, Fenris trailing silently behind him. “They’re only true for whoever tells them.”

“I want to hear Anders' story, then,” Merrill insisted, undeterred. She glanced at Hawke, like she finally realized he was there, and her eyes widened. “...Hawke?”

“Merrill,” Hawke said in greeting.

“... You came to see me?” Merrill asked, and Varric translated the question for her.

“‘Course I came to see you,” Hawke said. Hawke lied. Hawke hadn’t come for her. He’d come for Anders. He’d come to be with Anders because he was always going to be with Anders whether or not Anders wanted to be with him.

“But I-... I never wrote… and you still came?” Merrill asked.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Hawke said after Varric translated.

Not for her. It wasn’t for her, but Merrill didn’t know that, and Merrill wouldn’t believe that, and Merrill wasn’t even looking at him anymore, she was looking at Hawke, and then she was hugging Hawke, and then Hawke was hugging her, and Anders felt sick to his stomach.

“It’s good to see you too,” Merrill said.

“You better?” Hawke asked.

“I’m better,” Merrill agreed. “Are you better?”

“Better,” Hawke agreed.

“... Do you think we can still be friends?” Merrill asked.

“Think so,” Hawke said.

“I think so too,” Merrill smiled, watching Varric translate. “I’ll have to… um… learn how to do all that with my hands. I think I can learn how to do that. I already move them so much when I talk I may as well be saying something with them, don’t you think?”

“I think you’ll be great at it, Daisy,” Varric said.

They were friends again. Hawke and Merrill were friends again. They couldn’t be friends again. Anders didn’t have any friends who weren’t friends with Hawke outside the Wardens, and Hawke had said the Wardens weren’t his friends. It wasn’t true, but everything Hawke said was true, so it had to be true. Anders had to have a friend who wasn’t friends with Hawke, and if that friend wasn’t Merrill, then who was it? Who did he even have left?

… Fenris was his friend. The lyrium-branded elf leaned against the wall, off to the side, squinting while Hawke and Merrill and Varric spoke in an awkward combination of signs and sounds. Anders found a spot beside him, and breathed a little easier when Fenris spared him… not a smile, but a raise of his eyebrows that acknowledged his presence.

“She forgot Isabela,” Fenris signed.

“She loved Isabela,” Anders signed back.

“And you?” Fenris signed.

Anders looked at Hawke. He was talking to Merrill, but he could look over at any moment and see whatever he was signing. Even if Anders said something, Varric would hear it and tell him. It didn’t matter either way, because Anders didn’t know what he wanted to sign or what he wanted to say.

What was he supposed to say? That he didn’t want to be with Hawke? Even if Anders couldn’t remember agreeing to marry him, Hawke probably hadn’t forced the ring onto his finger. Anders could take it off. Nothing was stopping him, but everytime he thought of taking it off he felt paralyzed. He felt guilty. He felt trapped. He felt crazy. He couldn’t tell Fenris that. He couldn’t tell anyone that. It didn’t make any sense.

Anders never answered him. The five of them went down to the main hall for the feast, to a chorus of cheers from all gathered when he entered. Anders waved sheepishly, and Nathaniel waved him over to join him at a table with Velanna, Oghren, Amell, and a few people Anders didn’t recognize. He took a seat at the corner, diagonal from Amell. Hawke sat next to him, and everyone else found their seats as food was brought out.

The minstrels started playing one ballad in his honor after the next. Children and mabari ran wild, getting underfoot and under tables, the din of laughter and conversation flooding the hall. It was the most elaborate party Anders had ever seen, and it was his party, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Hawke was sitting too close to him, their legs pressed together, his hand occasionally running along Anders’ thigh.

Anders couldn’t stay focused on any of the conversation. It wasn’t important. Old friends and new exchanging pleasantries and making acquaintances. The only thing Anders managed to focus on was Amell, but Amell hardly spoke, and when he did, it was usually in a secretive aside to the dark-haired woman at his side. Anders missed her name, along with the names of everyone else at the table, and eventually lost interest in it. He watched the children careen through the hall, and wondered which of them was Kieran.

It was easy to find Amell. Oghren’s Amell. He looked like Oghren’s beard with legs, covered in grease and crumbs, and brandishing a turkey leg like a club. His fiery red hair had frayed free of its braids as the little berserker ran shrieking and barefoot after a few of the other children. There were so many of them - and more than a few had black hair.

The little group circled their table more than a few times, and eventually one of them went scrambling up into the dark-haired woman’s lap. He had to be Amell’s son. He looked just like him. He had the same wheatish skin, the same raven hair, the same blood red eyes. He stayed in his mother’s lap, eating apple slices off her plate and humming along to the latest song the minstrels were playing.

“Enough, you silly boy,” Morrigan - that was it, her name was Morrigan - said eventually, hefting Kieran off her lap and passing him off to Amell. “Eat your father’s dessert, if your own was not sufficient.”

“Your father wants his dessert,” Amell protested.

“Then your father should have eaten it first,” Morrigan countered.

Amell leaned over and whispered something to her that made her laugh, and bounced Kieran idly on his knee while the boy stole all the apple slices from his plate. They looked happy. They looked like a family. They looked like everything he and Justice were fighting for, and everything he’d never have. They looked like what he needed to see, and what he needed to remember, and what he needed to focus on, and what mattered more than he did.

**Deleted Scene: Anders feels sick after spending the night with Hawke, leaves the room to find somewhere to throw up, and blacks out.**

Anders was outside. Anders didn’t remember going outside, but he was there, standing under the Vigil’s eaves in the southern courtyard. It was raining, droplets splashing up and under the eaves to muddy the legs of his trousers. Amell was standing next to him, still dressed for the day despite the fact that they’d moved into the night, a roll of something smoking between his fingers.

How did Anders get here? What was he doing here?

“What did you want to talk about?” Amell asked.

Did he want to talk? Why didn’t he remember asking Amell to talk? Anders rubbed warmth into his arms, struggling to find a topic. Everything. Nothing. He didn’t want to marry Hawke. Couldn’t Amell see he didn’t want to marry Hawke? Maker, please, couldn’t someone see he didn’t want to marry Hawke? Why couldn’t Anders tell someone he didn’t want to marry Hawke? Why didn’t he want to marry Hawke? Hadn’t he at some point? Why was he losing so much time? Why couldn’t he have lost the time he’d just spent with Hawke instead?

“... Lot of rain,” Anders said.

“Hm,” Amell agreed, taking a long pull of whatever he was smoking before offering it over to him.

Since when did Amell smoke? Since when did Anders? Anders took it, along with an experimental pull, and coughed through the burn before handing it back.

“We were going to host games tomorrow,” Amell told him.

“... Maybe Velanna and I could dry the grounds,” Anders offered.

“Maybe,” Amell said.

“... Amell…” Everything Anders wanted to say stuck in his throat. Help me. Please help me. The words wouldn’t come. “... I can’t believe you did all this for me.”

“Why can’t you?” Amell took another pull of whatever they were smoking. “I meant my last letter, Anders.”

Anders hadn’t read his last letter. He couldn’t tell Amell that.

“... You look good,” Anders said instead. It won him a smirk. It felt like a nice thing to win. “... I look good too, by the way.”

“I know,” Amell said.

“You don’t though,” Anders said. “I could look like a ghoul right now for all you know.” He felt enough like one. Unable to say anything. Unable to think anything. Losing more time and more sanity with every passing day.

“I'm sure you’d make a handsome one,” Amell assured him.

“All three teeth and no nose,” Anders joked.

Amell took another long pull, and flicked the rest of the roll out into the rain. He reached out and touched Anders’ chest, starting at his heart and sliding up to his trembling throat, lingering briefly over his lips before he found his cheek. He ran his thumb along the bridge of Anders’ nose, and smiled. “Still here,” He noted.

“Teeth might not be,” Anders mumbled, wetting his lips.

Amell’s hand slipped lower on his cheek, his thumb running along his bottom lip and pulling it slightly back from his teeth. Anders sucked in a shaky breath, fighting for words, for action, for anything. “... Did you want me to check?” Amell whispered, taking a painful step closer.

Yes. Fucking Maker yes. “Can you-...” Anders took another breath. “... Can you just hold me?”

Amell pulled him into his arms, his whisper softer than the rain. “... Always.”

[braincoins]

I know it’s not Wednesday, but have some more of my Dragon Age: Schism WIP anyway! 

It’s not quite NSFW but it might be best to read when parents/bosses/small children aren’t around anyway. Just in case. There’s the... pretense of NSFW-ness going on, let’s say.

Featuring a headcanon I have about the darkspawn taint and the Wardens’ abilities relating to it. 

Edit: literally - I wrote the next scene (not here, in my Word document (Yes I’m Old Shut Up)), and then went back and started editing the crap out of THIS scene, so... if anything, it’s even LONGER. But hopefully better.

           She tensed up as they headed to bed. Alistair felt her squeeze his hand twice, quickly. He mentally reached out as they walked towards their bedroom. There. It was faint, but it was unmistakable.

            Grey Wardens could feel the darkspawn because of the taint in both of them. The darkspawn could feel the Grey Wardens in the same manner. But this also meant that a Grey Warden, if they really focused on it, could feel other Grey Wardens, too.

            It was hard, though he’d actually had the easiest time of learning it, compared to the others. It was just a redirecting of one’s mental focus, so it reminded him a bit of the meditation he’d done in templar training. The mages had picked it up pretty easily, too. He still wasn’t sure if Oghren could manage it. Easy to learn or not, it wasn’t something he was used to doing, and even then, his brain wanted to just filter out this information as unnecessary. Grey Wardens didn’t really feel like darkspawn, since there was so much more in that Joining chalice than just blood. It was the taint but… different, just a little. Weaker, certainly, but also altered. He could almost taste the lyrium, too, even though he’d never had a sip of it during his time in the Chantry. It was all mixed in together, ‘herbs and spices’ as Anders was fond of saying. But the core of it was still the taint. He could still pick that out, if he concentrated.

            Once he began to focus, the first to register was Kivral, of course, walking right next to him, hand-in-hand as if nothing were wrong. Sekh still came up, despite his having been “cured” of the taint; it… lingered in the mabari, as if the wardog’s blood somehow carried the scars of it. Alistair could even feel the taint in his own blood, a little, like a distant echo.

            But there was another source of the darkspawn taint nearby, barely detectable, like a scent wafting to you from almost too far.

            He double-squeezed Kiv’s hand.

            They’d worked out a lot of non-verbal communication in their time during the Blight. It came in handy sometimes, especially when dealing with people who were less likely to think kindly of the two of them thanks to Loghain’s lies. He’d wondered if they’d ever have need of it again. It appeared they would.

            Her other hand lazily brushed along Sekh’s fur, petting him as if he were a family lap dog. He’s definitely got to know we’re being followed. He assumed she was calming the mabari, keeping him acting him normal.

            It had to be a rogue; Alistair heard no other footsteps. It was unlikely Nathaniel would be following them like this. Maaaybe Sigrun; sometimes she got in on the pranks. There was no way to tell. The darkspawn taint didn’t differentiate between people; it wasn’t as if Kivral felt different to Nate, for example. Grey Wardens felt different than darkspawn, but the taint itself was always the same: as if death had a… almost a scent, or a taste, but in your mind, and it was rotten, toxic, like poisoned meat left out to rot. And even after all this time, even now, so long after his Joining, something in him instinctively recoiled from it. It was brief, but it was almost that sense of instant fear that defined what the taint felt like. Almost.

            She leaned up to whisper in his ear, “Pretend I said something naughty,” and then giggled as she returned to walking normally.

            He snorted. “Minx,” he charged. “Can’t even wait until we’re in our bedchamber?”

            “It’s so far!” she protested with a pout.

            “Well then.” He bent and picked her up. He didn’t throw her over his shoulder this time but carried her in his arms.

            She looped her arms around his neck and gazed adoringly at him. He knew her well enough that he didn’t doubt she was keeping the hallway behind him in her peripheral vision this way.

            “Now you don’t have to walk it,” he said gallantly.

            When they reached their room, he opened the door and she ordered, “Sekh, stay out here.” The mabari dutifully circled a little and then laid down. He just happened to be facing out into the hallway. Good dog.

            Alistair kicked the door shut behind them, then set her back down on her feet. “Keep up the charade,” she whispered at him, before darting towards one of the tapestries, the one that depicted the Battle of Ayesleigh. She shoved it aside and started pushing on stones.

            He went to sit on the bed and watched her. “I have to get my boots off before my pants!” he cried, just a little louder than normal so it’d carry through the door. While he was at it, he did start to get his boots off. Might as well. He saw her shoulders shake with laughter and couldn’t help grinning.

            Finally, there was a slight scraping sound as one of the stones gave way beneath her hand. She stepped away from the tapestry and said, in a more petulant tone than he’d ever thought to hear from her, “I had such a long, hard day, ma vhenan… I need you. Hurry up!” Then she moved silently over to the door, listening, feeling.

            He stretched his own senses, but then gave up. The sense of another Warden was too faint, too strange perhaps, for him to make out through a heavy wooden door and stone walls. He picked his boots up, brought them to a section of floor with no rug and dramatically let them drop. “Okay, now that I don’t have boots on…”

            The tapestry billowed slightly, as if a breeze were blowing. Kivral darted, quiet as a mouse, towards it, and raised a finger to her lips as a servant woman came into the room. “I need a favor, uh… I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”

            She seemed surprised the arlessa would want to know it, but at least she did speak quietly. “Frieda, m’lady.”

            “Frieda,” she said. She glanced at the door quickly, then back to the servant. “Find out where Wardens Nathaniel and Sigrun are. If they’re not outside in the hallway, send one of them here to clear our ‘visitor’ out.”

            She nodded. “Yes, m’lady,” she whispered, and darted back into the hallway.

            “And now,” Kiv said, as the wall began to close behind Frieda, “back to our little play…” She was smirking ear to ear.

            He had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. When he thought he had control of himself, he asked, “And just what have you got in mind now, minx?” It wasn’t loud enough to be heard outside the room though.

            That didn’t seem to matter to her. “OH, MY LOVE!” she declared, more than loud enough. She practically threw herself against the door; as light as she was – especially compared to the door – it barely moved at all. “I MUST HAVE YOU NOW!”

            He had to swallow down a snort of mirth. She was hamming it up, and he decided to take her cue and run with it. “Right here?” he asked as he approached the door. “Right NOW?! But what about the BED?!”

            “Do I have to issue a command?!” she asked as if his lips were water and she was dying of thirst. In the middle of a pub. On Amateur Playwrights’ Night.

            “What do you need, O Love of My Life?” he inquired plaintively. “You have but to ask, and it shall be Yours!”

            She responded with a stream of Dalish that sounded like someone in desperate need of… physical loving. He didn’t know much of her native language, but he knew enough to give a rough translation of what she’d actually said as, “Damn filthy voyeurs!”

            He slammed his hands against the door, either side of her body; that made the door shake appropriately. “Whatever my commander, my love, my one and only-est desires,” he said, almost to the wood instead of to her.

            She was shaking with laughter again, and the look she was giving him truly was desperate, in that she seemed to be on the verge of guffawing loudly and giving everything away.

            So he kissed her, deeply, to keep the both of them quiet, because the ridiculous play-acting was going to have them both dissolving into loud peals of hilarity if they kept it up. He slid his hands down her sides, then picked her up, pressing her back against the firm oak behind her.

            She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and her arms loosely around his neck. Her moan was a bit louder than it might have otherwise been but was just the same as if they weren’t making believe for the sake of some sneak.

            He moved to her neck, kissing her throat before sucking hard, and she gasped, “MA VHENAN!” loudly. As far as his body was concerned, nothing about this was pretend, and he was on the verge of not really caring if someone heard them or not.

            But then, from the hallway, came a snort of laughter and then Sigrun’s voice in a knowing sing-song: “Oooooh, someone’s being naughty!”

            Alistair looked up and towards the hallway as if he could see through the door. There was a heavy slapping sound – she must have given the rogue a hearty dwarven smack on the back.

            “Commander catches you listening in on her and Alistair, you won’t make it to the Deep Roads, get what I’m sayin’? ‘Course, can’t blame you!” She laughed loudly. “We’ve all tried to listen in a time or two! Well, Oghren maybe more than most, but… Come on, buddy! I think if we head down to the kitchens, we can snitch some rolls leftover from dinner!”

            He looked to Kiv, who listened a moment and then nodded. He backed away from the door a bit then set her back on her feet. Not long after, the wall behind the tapestry opened back up. “M’lady?”

            “You can come in, Frieda,” Kiv said, heading over there.

            “They were both in their rooms. Miz Sigrun said…”

            “Yeah, we heard her. Thank you, Frieda. I’ll make sure Garevel gives you a little extra something in your next pay.”

            The servant woman blushed. She was the early end of middle-aged, Alistair guessed. Either that, or she’d had a damn hard life. “Thank you, m’lady, but… if I can speak honestly?”

            “Always.”

            “None of us much like these other Wardens. You and our good Ferelden Wardens here, you all treat us good, almost like you’ve known us years, even. Thems treat us like we’re not even servants, like we’re slaves. Couple of ‘em tried to have their way with some of the scullery maids downstairs.”

            Uh oh. Anyone could see her brows draw in and down, her mouth frown, her nose wrinkle in distaste, but Alistair could also see her hands curl into white-knuckled fists and her spine stiffen in outrage. He could almost feel the anger coming from her, like the heat from a fireplace.

            Frieda rushed to reassure her. “Garevel showed up in time, sent the girls on their way back to work and made sure to tell them afterwards to always work in pairs, to send someone after him if something like that happened again. He looks out for us. But… well, how much longer…?”

            The anger collapsed out of her. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m sorry. The absolute earliest they’d leave would be overmorrow. I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.”

            “Thank you, m’lady. ‘m sorry to have troubled you with it.”

            “No, no,” she reassured the woman. “It’s no trouble. In fact, please do keep me informed. You work here, but you aren’t slaves or whores. No one is allowed to just do as they wish with any of you.”

            “Thank you, m’lady,” Frieda said again. She nodded at him, and then ducked back behind the tapestry.

            He waited until the servants’ door had closed up again before he sighed and looked to the bedroom door. “What do you think they expected to overhear from us?”

            “Likely hoping we’d be talking about tomorrow, about what we were going to say.” She sat on a stool near the tub and started unlacing her boots. “Ademar doesn’t have the first clue how we both survived, and it has to be driving him mad. Going into that little chat with some inkling would probably make him feel better.”

            “If nothing else, perhaps catch us in a lie,” he agreed, starting to unbuckle his armor. “Overhear us talking about what to say instead of the truth and then, when you say it tomorrow, he’ll know it’s made-up.”

            “We don’t know how much longer Sigrun can keep them away from the room. Or if they won’t send someone else, once they discover their first spy was found out.” She pulled her feet out of her now unlaced boots

            He nodded. “What do you suggest?”

            She rose from the stool and came over to help him with his armor, smirking up at him as she came in close. “Picking up where we left off?” she asked slyly as she began working buckles open.

            He arched an eyebrow. “I think I can do that.” He could feel a grin of his starting to slide across his lips.

            “And don’t worry about trying to be quiet.”

            That stopped the grin in its tracks. He could feel the heat coming into his face. “That… might be a bit…”

            “Oh, fine,” she huffed as if put upon. “I’ll be the loud one then.”

            That didn’t help his blushing, but he just bent to kiss her instead. Quickly, this time. After all, there was an awful lot of armor to be rid of first.

[allisondraste]

Temperance (37/42)

Pairing: Nathaniel Howe/ Female, Non-HoF Cousland

Story Summary: Nathaniel and Elissa were childhood friends, but time and distance tore them apart. In the aftermath of the Fifth Blight, and Ferelden’s Civil War, both Elissa and Nathaniel must attempt reconstruct their tattered lives. As a series of events lead them to be reunited, both are reminded of so many years ago when things were much simpler.

Chapter Summary:   Nathaniel arrives to Liss’ Joining just intime to catch her as she collapses.  He enjoys nothing the entire chapter lol. 

First Chapter

Previous Chapter

[AO3 LINK]

Vigil's Keep, 9:31 Dragon

Nathaniel stood, numb, ears ringing and heart throbbing in the silence that Liss left behind when she walked out the door.  He did not know what exactly he’d hoped to gain by spilling his soul to her as she prepared for a dangerous, potentially lethal ritual.  If he were honest, he had hoped for nothing other than to make amends, to be supportive. Perhaps it was selfish, but he also just wanted to see her, to comfort himself with her warmth.  He should have known better than to think it would be as simple as that, considering the threadbare composure split between them. Of course they’d both snapped, and the only hope of any sort of resolution and closure awaited on the other side of her Joining.  If there was an “other” side.

Every fiber of his being begged him to run away, to bury his feeling so deep inside himself that he would never bother her with them again.  It seemed so unfair, to ask her to have patience for someone as broken as he was, someone who had hurt her so much already. He could not expect her to give him more than she had already given, especially when it seemed that all he could offer in return were  apologies she didn’t want to hear.  

Nathaniel was pulled from his rumination by the sound of chanting, the Warden Oath, and his pulse jumped. Suddenly, he felt so absurd and ridiculous.  Liss stood alone in a room full of people she barely knew, facing potential death, and there he was in her bedroom with a half-eaten bag of cookies for company while he felt sorry for himself.   Was he truly considering abandoning her now, after swearing he’d be there for her? Was he really that cowardly and self-serving? Had he become so much like his father after all?

No.

He shook his head, and started toward the door.  He was no great man, no prince or knight in shining armor.  He was guilty of more mistakes than he could count, and Liss’ anger at him had been more than earned.  But he was a far better man than his father. He wouldn’t be running anywhere except down the hallway and a flight of stairs to stand by Liss’ side, to be an actual friend to her for the first time in almost a decade.  

By the time Nathaniel  reached the main hall, two recruits already lay on the floor, dead.  He wondered if they had families and loved ones, if they’d be missed.  They had to be important to someone, and yet, he could hardly focus on their sacrifice as Liss took the chalice in her hands, eyes wide and watering.  She’d just watched two men die doing just as she prepared to do and she was pale, trembling, glancing around the room frantically searching for something, someone among the faces in the small crowd.  Her eyes locked with his, causing several other of those gathered to snap their heads toward him as well. Despite the sinking pit of dread that churned in his stomach and gnawed at his chest, he smiled at her.  It was slight, and all he could manage, but she smiled, too, closed her eyes, and drank.

For a brief, yet excruciating moment, nothing happened and the entire hall fell silent, watching and waiting.  Then, Liss tossed her head back and opened her eyes. She was quiet, but stumbling back and forth and clutching at her throat and chest as if she were fighting against an invisible animal that grappled at her neck.  As he watched, hot tears burned behind his eyes, and he could restrain himself no longer.

“Liss,” he shouted in complete disregard for Joining protocol as he rushed forward, sprinting across the room in just enough time to catch her.  He hooked his arms under her and lowered her to the ground gently, a stark and steady contrast to the violent quaking inside his chest as he cradled her head and upper body.  She was limp and lifeless, skin frighteningly cool to the touch.

“No,” Nathaniel rasped, raw with every emotion he’d ever felt for her.  The eyes of those who remained in the hall burned into his back, their still, solemn silence more unnerving than comforting.  They should be celebrating. Liss was supposed to survive, damn it. She was supposed to wake up no worse for wear and tease him for being so ridiculously worried, to prove him wrong like she always had.  This wasn’t right.

“No, no. Liss, wake up,” he muttered again, shaking her gently and panicking when she did not stir.  He gathered her up into his arms, as if he could hold her together, and pressed his face against her neck.  His hands twisted in her hair and clutched at the fabric of her shirt, fighting desperately with the sobs that threatened to overtake him. “Liss.  Stay with me, please.”

Everyone in the hall remained respectfully, and eerily, silent, as Nathaniel held Liss, rocking back and forth and humming, more to comfort himself than anything.  He cared little what the others thought of him, and cared little that he was entirely vulnerable and exposed. He could hardly bring himself to care for anything other than the woman in his arms, the one he loved.  A gentle pressure fell on his shoulder and he looked up to see Lucia, tears welling in her eyes as she shifted her gaze from Liss to him.

“I’m sorry, Nathaniel,” she said, words shaking as they fell from her mouth.  “I—“

She paused, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to examine Liss more closely.  Just as she did so, Liss’s fingers twitched, and she coughed abruptly and forcefully, grimacing and blinking several times before her eyes slowly fluttered open.  She smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing he could possibly imagine. She was alive, thank the Maker. She was alive.  

“Nate,” she said hoarsely, bringing a hand up to his cheek, thumb wiping away one of the many tears he’d shed. Her smile widened briefly and then she lost consciousness again.

Nathaniel’s heart sank into his abdomen and he frantically pressed two fingers to her neck, sighing when he felt a pulse.  It was weak, but there. He snapped his head back to Lucia, and nodded.

“Anders,” Lucia shouted, and the mage flinched. He rushed over and knelt on the ground beside Nathaniel to examine Liss.  

Closing his eyes, he extended a hand, palm down, and held it over Liss for a moment, typically mischievous eyes filled with nothing but compassion as he looked first at Nathaniel, then Lucia.  “She did not take well to the taint.”

“Does anyone,” Lucia asked dryly.

“No, but this is the worst reaction I’ve seen anyone survive.”  His eyes were trained on Liss as he spoke. “She is lucky to be alive.”

“Is she going to be all right?”  Under different circumstances, Nathaniel would be ashamed by his lack of composure.

“She’ll be fine.  She just needs to rest,” Anders explained, and then laughed, “I’m more worried about you.”

Nathaniel didn’t acknowledge his remark, too preoccupied with Liss to care.  He brushed a strand of hair from her face, relieved that she was warm and breathing again. He was shaky, out of breath, and his head pounded.  It would take more than a matter of minutes to recover from the devastation that reaked havoc on his body.

“We should, uh, probably get her to a bed,” Alistair suggested, walking up to stand beside Lucia, “Don’t you think?”

“Right.” Nathaniel frowned, but nodded in agreement, moving to stand, picking Liss up as he did so. He turned to look at Anders, then Velanna.  “I may need some help.”

Anders nodded and Velanna stepped forward from where she’d been standing near Sigrun.  For the first time, Nathaniel noticed that all of his friends had remained, even Oghren who pretended not to be watching intently, even though he was.  Looking down at Liss once more, to make certain she was still all right, he took a breath and made his way to the back of the hall, and the stairway that led up to the living quarters.  Velanna and Anders followed behind him.

When they reached Liss’ room, Nathaniel eased her down onto the bed, not taking time to bother with the blankets, as she had broken out into a sweat that he made every effort not to worry too much about.  He then turned to look at the others helplessly. “What does she need?”

Stepping forward, Anders placed the back of his hand against her forehead.  “She has a fever, but that normal.”

“You said she was not reacting well to the taint.  Why? What does that mean?”

“I am a healer, Nate, not an expert on Blight magic.”  Anders’ words were sarcastic, but not unkind.  

Velanna approached the bed to examine Liss, pressing a hand to her forehead, then cheek.  “Sometimes when my clan would wander too near blighted lands, the halla would become sick.  Feverish, lethargic. It was in response to exposure to Darkspawn blood.”

“But that’s Blight sickness,” Anders protested, “Grey Wardens are supposed to be immune.”

“Grey Wardens are more resistant,” she explained, “It will not kill her, but she can still suffer the symptoms.”

Nathaniel directed his attention to Velanna, and asked, “Will it go away on its own?”

“I am unsure about how the disease works in a Grey Warden.  The halla never recovered on their own.”

“But they survived?” Anders frowned.

“There is a flower,” she said with a sigh, “Your people call it Andraste’s Grace.  When ground and mixed with elfroot, it cured our animals.”

“But the Blight sickness is incurable,” Anders remarked.

“In people. The flower was never able to help our hunters who fell ill.” She paused for a beat and brought her eyes to meet Nathaniel’s, “But it might work for her, considering her newly acquired Blight resistance.”

“Do you have what you need,” Nathaniel asked.

“Yes, I believe so.” She nodded decisively.  “I will go prepare a potion.”

“Thank you, Velanna,” he stated, hoping she could hear the gratitude in his voice.  She smiled, giving him a gentle squeeze on the arm as she walked past him and exited the room.   He sat down on the foot of the bed near Liss, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, head dropping into his hands.

“So, how long have you been in love with her,” Anders asked as casually as if he were speaking about the weather.

“Anders,”  Nathaniel stated tersely, hoping the mage would sense his tone and desist.

“I know, I know.  You don’t want to talk about it.”  Anders waved his hands emphatically.  “Fine. At least go outside and get some air. “

“Are you sure?”

“Nate, she’s going to be fine,” Anders stated more sternly than Nathaniel was accustomed to hearing him speak, “I’ll stay here with her, and if you don’t trust me, then Velanna will be back any minute.”

“Why wouldn’t I trust you?”

“Why would you?  Nobody else does.”  Anders’ words had sharp edges that were not quite dulled by his shrugging and laughing afterward.

“I have no doubt that you will take better care of her than I could.”   Nathaniel smiled and stood up. “ And I do need to clear my head.”

“You’re not worried I’ll summon a demon to feast on her, or work some evil blood magic?”  He laughed again, but seemed relieved.

“No, Anders.  I’m not.” Nathaniel said, directly, clapping him on the shoulder before heading toward the door, “I trust you.”

Nathaniel left the room, hoping— no, praying— that Velanna’s potion worked, and that Liss would be awake and well when he returned.  Then again, the thought of facing her after their argument, after she nearly died. What would he say? Would she even want to see him?  The thought that their friendship might be ruined for good, was only slightly less horrifying than her death.  

He made his way downstairs, through the main hall that was now completely empty, and out to the courtyard.  It was early evening, the rays of light just starting to dim, blocked out by heavy clouds that still hung in the sky.  He had intended to make his way to the archery range. Shooting had always given him a sense of calm and clarity, and he hoped that it would help him to wrap his mind around the events of the past several hours.  However, it was already too dark, and with the foreboding of a storm, it was not even worth the effort to light the torches.

Instead, he sat down gracelessly on the steps, and stared out over the exterior of the keep.  In so many ways he felt as if he were fifteen again, back at his family home, sitting outside in less than ideal weather to escape the suffocating presence of everything inside, emotions in turmoil over Liss. The only major difference, aside from his father no longer causing him misery, was that he faced nothing alone.  There were people who cared about him, and he took more than a little solace in that.

There was a gravelly chuckle behind him and he flinched, turning around just in time to see Oghren close the door and approach him.  “The stairs aren’t for sitting, Howe.”

“I beg to differ,” Nathaniel answered with a laugh.  

Oghren moved to sit beside him, as if he had not just lectured him on the purpose of stairs.  “I figured you might be out at the range.”

“It’s too dark,” Nathaniel explained, and then narrowed his eyes at the dwarf, “Were you looking for me?”

“Suppose I was,” Oghren sighed, “Thought I would see how you’re holding up.  I didn’t think that Cousland girl was going to make it.”

“And you were worried about me? I am flattered, Ser Dwarf.”

“Yeah well…”  Oghren trailed off and looked away, as if he were embarrassed.  He fell silent for a moment and then continued. “You know, usually I’d make a joke about how she’s too pretty for ya.  How Ol’ Oghren could treat her much better.”

“And this is supposed to be comforting,” Nathaniel asked dryly, one eyebrow quirking up.  

“It is if you let me finish, boy.”

“I’m all ears.”  

“Truth is,” Oghren began solemnly, eyes focused out in the distance, “You’re one of the finest people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, and she’d be lucky to have you.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Nathaniel replied, “But it’s complicated.”

“Complicated? You don’t even know the meaning of that word,” Oghren snapped, turning his head toward Nathaniel, “The first woman I ever loved ran off to the Deep Roads without me, and all I did was make a drunk of myself.  Now, I keep running away from anything that’s even close to being that vulnerable again.”

“Felsi and the baby,” Nathaniel stated timidly, feeling rather chastised.

“Right..” Oghren deflated and shook his head.  “I joined the Wardens because I thought Felsi’d leave me, stop letting me ruin her life.  Turns out love doesn’t work like that.”

Nathaniel searched for an appropriate response, but could find nothing, and chose to sit in the silence instead.  It did not last long, as Oghren inhaled and continued. “Listen. All I’m saying is that you can keep hating yourself for the past, run away from it, drown it in ale, bury it deep down, but it’s never going to go away.”

“Then what would you suggest, Oghren?” Nathaniel’s words were sharper than he intended.

“I don’t know,” Oghren answered, throwing up his hands, “ Maybe look at what you’ve got right now, right in front of you, and thank the shit out of whatever you worship that you have it”

“I have messed this up so many times, I’m not even certain it is an option to forget the past and move forward.”

“By the Stone, Howe!  Even I’m not that thick.”  He laughed, but was obviously frustrated.  “It’s clear you two are meant to be together.  Life’s too short to love someone like that and not do everything you can to make it work.”

“I…” Nathaniel frowned, unsure how exactly to take the dwarf’s tough love approach, “Thank you.”

“Here.” Reaching into his coat, Oghren pulled out a small silver flask and held it up.  Without even taking a swig, he slapped it against Nathaniel’s chest with enough force that Nathaniel flinched and caught it before it fell to his lap. “Now drink… and do whatever you’ve got to so you’re there for that girl when she wakes up.”

Before Nathaniel could even thank him again, Oghren stood up, grunting with the effort, and stomped back inside, leaving Nathaniel alone once again.  He stared down at the flask, which was adorned with dwarven letters and full to the brim. It was so unlike Oghren to share his spirits with anyone, let alone give someone an entire flask.  Had he stopped drinking? Or was he actually that sentimental? Perhaps it was both.  

In any case, it was thoughtful, just as his words had been.  Oghren was not the most articulate of people, but his words were more powerful than he likely realized.  Nathaniel had been so fixated on making up for his past mistakes, that he’d completely overlooked what he had in front of him.  Liss was angry, she’d refused to entertain his confession, but she’d never once given him any indication that she wished him gone.  When he truly thought about the events of the past few days, there was so much evidence to the contrary. She had been fighting for him the entire time, and he’d let his concern for her and the Joining cloud it all.  

He was such a bloody fool.

The clouds finally burst open and rain poured down torrentially, as if some dam had ruptured in the sky.  Fitting, Nathaniel thought. Twisting the cap off of Oghren’s flask, he took a long swig, eyes watering as the liquid burned it’s way down his throat.  Fergus had introduced him to dwarven ale many years ago, claiming that it would put hair on his chest. It left his mouth numb for hours, and he’d not touched it since, preferring drinks that didn’t taste like dirt and piss. He coughed, sniffed the ale, winced, and took another drink anyway.  It didn’t taste any better the second time.

He sat for a few moments longer, blinking away the rain that splashed against his face.  He shook his head and screwed the cap back on to the flask, placing it in his coat pocket before rising to his feet.  It was still too cold to mope about in the rain, and he’d chosen to heed Oghren’s advice anyway. Liss would no doubt wake up soon, and he was going to make sure he was there.

[seyaryminamoto]

I know this isn't your primary fandom, but I'm curious. What would you say are the problems with Thor: Ragnarok? For me, personally, it was the worst Thor movie. Completely unfaithful to the source material, bleeding of convenience writing and full of shoehorned bathos that killed any 'serious' moment.

Ha.. ha.. ha… ha…

I kind of was grateful no one had asked me this on Tumblr, but you just had to go for it, huh, Anon? Yeah, yeah you did, and now I have to do this. Now I have to rant. And risk getting a ton of people yelling at me for my controversial opinions.

But you know what? Quoting my good old buddy Oghren, “sod it”. This movie deserves it.

I think Ragnarok has no saving graces. It’s really that simple. I will of course elaborate on why throughout this post, but I’m really glad you believe it’s the worst Thor movie because so do I. In fact, I think it’s the worst of all the MCU, I can’t think of any I disliked more. Even the very controversial Ultron has more to its favor than Ragnarok, and that’s saying a lot.

So, where should we begin?

You’re quite right about it not being faithful to the source material, convenience writing oozes out of the screen all the time, it’s guilty of terrible humor worthy of a 14-year-old in the throes of puberty, and it’s incapable of keeping true to the previous established films in the same cycle. But there are explanations for all of this, of course.

First things first: when Thor: Ragnarok was announced, everyone was horrified and for good reason. No one who cared about Thor’s story and characters wanted to watch a horrible, nitty-gritty movie that would kill all the characters they’d grown to love over time. That’s what Ragnarok promised, initially. Remember the original design for the logo, when the movie was first announced?

Yes, it looked dark. Extremely dark. It sounded like it was going to be an angst fest. And nobody likes an angst fest (not true, a lot of people do, but not enough to make up for the tickets that wouldn’t have been sold if the movie had been dark instead of humorous).

So, after promises of making this movie the be-all, end-all for the Thor franchise, suddenly the executive team behind it was changed. That’s when the very acclaimed Waititi came into the picture. Not only did he scrap everything that had been prepared for the movie, but he did so by outright removing reported elements that could have genuinely made the movie better than its predecesors.

By this I mean, there was a lot Ragnarok could have, and should have done, to improve on what the previous movies did wrong. The first of such things was creating a better bond for the audience with Asgard, with the asgardians, with the people whose world we were about to see destroyed. This bond was not entirely absent for a large portion of Thor’s fanbase: there were people who liked Thor’s friends, the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. People complained about Frigga’s fridging, not only because it was unfair that she was relegated to that kind of writing in The Dark World, but because they liked her character too.

Were Thor and Thor: The Dark World less than stellar at the box office? Okay, sure, let’s say they were. Let’s not deny that. But…

The only MCU-related franchise with more content on FF.net than Thor is the Avengers. Thor has more fics on FF.net than Frozen. And if you think these fics are all from Ragnarok’s era, you’d be sorely mistaken: Thor Ragnarok came out on October 10th, 2017. I went back on the list of fics, turns out there are 422 pages: October 10th, 2017, is only the 56th page. The 56th. Please, let’s let that sink in. THAT is how much content was made for Thor before this damn movie even came along.

Don’t care for FF.net, though? I know a lot of people don’t. Do we really think AO3 will yield a considerably different result?

The “Thor (Movies)” tag features a total of 38,932 fics today. That’s thrice as much as what FF.net features. A total of 1947 pages. October 10th is at the 658th page. Again, more than half the content was written BEFORE Ragnarok. Not only this, but a lot of the content post-Ragnarok is quite likely not canon-compliant, as is typical in fanfiction (I saw quite a lot of Loki/Jane stories written after Ragnarok happened, and as anyone would know, Jane has been written out of the MCU so far, ergo the 2017-owards stories aren’t even necessarily taking Ragnarok into consideration).

Therefore, was the Thor franchise a box office failure? Man, I can’t even say if it was or wasn’t. But the fan response for Thor far outdid most everything else in the MCU. The thing is, it wasn’t the fan response Feige and the Marvel people were after. It’s basically the same concept as why Young Justice was cancelled back in the day: the target audience wasn’t responding to it as much as the audience they were actually reaching. Thor resounded the most with women, with an audience that saw a romantic hero where Feige and his cronies wanted a big buff moron who smashed on par with the Hulk. And that just wasn’t acceptable for these big executives.

Honestly, considering that the original Thor earned $449.3 million, and The Dark World earned $644.6 million, I don’t even know why they’re talked about as box office failures. Were they not as big as the other Marvel movies? I assume as much because of how people talk about them, and yet box office results that triple a movie’s budget should be far from failure. These movies were not flops. They may not have been the most successful with the critics and with a large portion of the audience, but like I said above, they generated a HUGE fan response. Bigger than many other fandoms related to the MCU (over at AO3, only Captain America beats Thor, from what I’ve seen).

So, my point is… would it have been THAT BAD to have a third movie that followed up on the previous two? Would it have been a box office flop? Considering that Marvel has a huge fanbase that watches every single movie they release without really caring about what’s in it, just because it’s Marvel, I don’t think it would have been a flop at all. Having Thor’s franchise as a less successful side of the MCU in terms of money, but more successful in terms of fanbase, would have been just fine, as far as I can tell.

But what do Feige and his buddies want? Money. And that’s why they went to Waititi.

Oh, people will say that Waititi was only an indie filmmaker, how could they know he was going to make a movie this big?! Well, the thing was, James Gunn was busy, so they had to find someone who was willing to make of Thor the same success Guardians of the Galaxy was and Waititi offered to do just that for them. Because, let’s be real: Ragnarok is practically a rip-off of Guardians of the Galaxy. Not only because of the style of the movie, not only because of the humor, but even because it’s fundamented on the notion of “unlikely team-up between different and damaged people united for the common goal of saving the world!”, which yes, you could say is the same notion that made Avengers what it was, but in Avengers there’s an actual effort to get the team together. S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted these specific superpowered people to work together to stop Loki. Here? It’s the same concept as Guardians of the Galaxy because a twist of fate, pretty much, brings all these people together by chance and they team up to put an end to a nasty threat. So, yes. Guardians of the Galaxy rip-off.

Why was it bad to recreate Thor as Guardians of the Galaxy, though? That’s what a lot of people might ask. Well, here’s the deal: you don’t expect Captain America to feature in something that feels like an Antman movie. You don’t expect Ironman to star as the protagonist in something more befitting of a Black Panther movie. Marvel movies are all largely similar in terms of how formulaic they tend to be, but they usually have their independent contexts, their IDENTITIES, and those identities aren’t easily replaced just like that.

Thor had its own identity. That identity was marked by Kenneth Branagh’s original Thor movie: it was practically Shakespeare in space. The development of the characters, its character-driven-storytelling, the organic unfolding of each situation, the understandable motivations of each characters, both heroes and villains, all of it made the original Thor something DIFFERENT in the early MCU. Ironman was the flagship of the MCU at the time, and Thor came out as a completely different story with ONE link to Ironman, in the form of Agent Coulson. Ergo, Thor stood on its own. Did it not stand as tall as the others, like I said? Big effing deal. It was its actual own thing. You could watch Thor without watching anything else and you would still get a fully-rounded movie.

Oh, but apparently it was a snoozefest for a large portion of the MCU fanbase who came here hoping to find the ten thousand action sequences from Captain America: The Winter Soldier or so. Shakespeare in space? That’s just lame! That’s just boring! Character-driven storytelling isn’t cool unless you have explosions on par with a Michael Bay movie! 

Well, to such “critics”, I’ll just say: Ragnarok wasn’t exempt from making people fall asleep either. I already have heard of several people who fell asleep halfway through, and my own mother couldn’t even finish it in a single sitting because of how utterly boring and annoying she found it. She ended up enjoying Deadpool better and she usually hates gratuitous violence on principle. Enough said.

Alright, so moving on: what else comprised Thor’s original identity? Humor. Oh, sure, it wasn’t “14-year-old boy in the midst of puberty” humor, but it was still humor. How many jokes have been made about Thor’s mug-smashing? How about him asking for a large enough dog to ride? Darcy made a lot of people laugh too. Are we really going to pretend none of that happened because “Ragnarok is funnier”? Or is it everyone just forgot about those things, quite conveniently? Thor was hardly a dry, dark and gritty franchise. It’s never been like that. Pretending otherwise to justify Ragnarok’s complete shift of tone and character is absolutely ridiculous.

The Dark World borrowed from Thor’s original identity and built up from there and Avengers to create a story largely disliked by fandom and critics and pretty much everyone, apparently. Still… it had a ton of jokes. If humor was all that mattered, why the hell was The Dark World not as successful? :’D Thor hanging the hammer on the rack, Darcy tossing the keys into the crazy dimensional portal, “How’s space?” “Space is fine”, Loki’s entire prison break sequence, just about everything with Selvig? Don’t come at me now and pretend nobody found any of this funny because there were posts, memes, EVERYTHING, going around about all this. Ergo, why exactly is it that HUMOR was deemed as the one thing this franchise needed when it was ALWAYS THERE?

Thor’s franchise had its failings here and there, perhaps. Maybe they could have handled things better, like I said above. But the failings were not what Feige identified, as far as quality goes. Again, though, what we really were facing was a big ole money-grabbing scheme from a big businessman. And all the audience fell for it like lemmings leaping into nothingness.

What exactly did Ragnarok do, then, to garner my rejection, spite and absolute disapproval?

First things first, like I said above, Waititi did away with everything that gave Thor’s franchise an identity. I’m going to get this first thing out of the way, but keep in mind that this is just the start: Waititi’s movie started to make mistakes I could barely forgive it for by doing away with TWO female characters who, as I proved with the link above, one of them (Sif) was reported to have an important role in the movie before Waititi came along. The actress for the other character, Jane, had said she was “done with Marvel”, but this was misunderstood and misinterpreted by fans as “Oh Natalie Portman HATED working in Marvel SO FUCKING MUCH, that’s why they got rid of her!”, when in truth…

“As far as I know, I’m done,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know if maybe one day they’ll ask for an Avengers 7, or whatever.” She continued by saying that Thor “was a great thing to be a part of.”

Thor was a great thing to be part of. Was it just courtesy? Was it just for the press? Who the hell knows, but this hardly sounds like the VERY MUCH WORSE stuff Idris Elba said about filming the Dark World, that still warranted him returning roles in Ultron, Ragnarok and Infinity War:

“I’d just done eight months in South Africa. I came to England and the day I came back I had to do reshoots on Thor 2.” He raises an eyebrow. “And in the actual scene my hair was different, my…” He stops and gives an exasperated sigh. “I was like, ‘This is torture, man. I don’t want to do this.’ My agent said: ‘You have to, it’s part of the deal.’ ”

Idris Elba says outright, on a published interview, that working on The Dark World, that working for Marvel, is torture. And he’s still been in FIVE movies of the MCU. Please, let that sink in.

Back to the subject at hand: Natalie Portman’s reported willingness to return to the franchise implies that the popular myth that Portman didn’t want anything else to do with Marvel, as an explanation for why she was no longer involved with Thor’s franchise, is nothing but rumors without real basis. It means, ultimately, that she was kicked out just because making Thor a more romantic hero than the rest was just not the angle Feige wanted. Likewise, Thor’s other potential love interest, who was never explored as one by the movies and honestly didn’t have to be, was similarly given a very shitty deal in Ragnarok:

“I was asked, but the timing of when they were going to shoot and when Blindspot was gonna shoot — it was pretty much the same time,” Alexander told Yahoo. “So there was a conflict there.”

Things might have worked out though if Marvel had given her more lead time. “I was hoping for more of a notice from [the studio] so I could make it work, but it was a short notice thing,“ Alexander said. “They called and said, ‘Hey, by the way, would you come do this?’ I said there is no way I can make that work that fast.”

Alexander did try, but ultimately “It couldn’t happen. They were on a different continent!” For reference, Thor: Ragnarok was filmed in Australia.

For further reference, Jaimie Alexander’s show is filmed in New York. As far as I can remember, that was where she was when the Ragnarok call reached her. And all things considered, she was better off not showing up, seeing as the Warriors Three just died within less than five minutes of screentime for each of them. There’s absolutely nothing to say the same thing wouldn’t have happened to Sif.

Why were they absent, then? To please a large crowd of movie-goers who were very consistent about how much they disliked Jane’s character, how much they wanted her to die, how she ruined Thor entirely, and the stories go on and on. Turns out that, the one time Marvel decided to listen to their audience, they got rid of one warrior lady and one female astrophysicist. Funny how this time no feminists gave a shit about that, because Valkyrie suddenly was the strong female character they wanted for the franchise (particularly because she was POC and bisexual, I assume).

But alright, alright. These characters weren’t the most essential part of the franchise, and a new movie could have done without Jane no problem… she didn’t really have to be involved with Ragnarok, and I get that. She also didn’t need to be broken up with Thor just for this, though. Especially broken up without any onscreen evidence that their relationship was doomed or bad or unpleasant. The last we heard, Thor was absolutely proud of her: suddenly she’s just not with him anymore and he’s just fine with it, apparently? Just… why? How? Couldn’t they just ignore Jane altogether instead of breaking them up with a single line in such a stupid and insignificant way?

Either way, accepting Jane and Sif are gone is relatively bearable, despite I really don’t like this, despite it means taking away one character who was essential to the two original movies and another who was meant to finally have her turn to shine on this one. But heh, that’s only the tip of the Ragnarok iceberg.

Finally getting into the movie’s content: my first question is how was Thor in Musspelheim? How did he get there? When? Why? The movie asks these questions for humor. It expects you to laugh at Thor’s monologue just because, but it doesn’t really stop to consider that maybe it SHOULD answer those questions. That maybe the last time we saw Thor, in Ultron, was A LONG TIME AGO. And within that time, he allegedly returned to Asgard because he left through the Bifrost and he should have found Loki impersonating Odin ever since, especially if Loki is so obvious about what he’s doing.

But nothing indicates Thor really had been in Asgard since then. Not at all, because when Thor returns to the Observatory, he runs into Skrull or whatever Eomer was called here. Skrull isn’t a newcomer, he’s not only just taking the job: he’s been here long enough to fill the place with shit he stole from all over the world by using the Bifrost (something worth wondering about, since who the fuck was opening and closing the Bifrost for him when he went on these trips, exactly?), but also by using his new position to appeal to women. Thor is surprised and confused because where is Heimdall? Well, Heimdall’s been gone for a while. And Asgard’s become a big ole’ shrine to Loki. This, then, proves Thor hasn’t been home for a while or else he would have at least seen the building of statues and the sudden shift in the population into Loki worshippers. Where the hell did the Bifrost take Thor after Ultron, then? If it was indeed Asgard, how is it he only realizes NOW that Loki is the one ruling when Loki has already spent a few years on the throne and, if this is his way of ruling, it should have been fucking obvious he wasn’t Odin since day one, according to this characterization? (This, despite we saw he was pretty good at his impersonation of Odin in The Dark World, he only made a tiny mistake that Thor was unable to notice anyhow, so he should’ve fooled Thor just fine)

So, first plothole, first inconsistency, first example of convenience writing and it happens barely ten minutes into the movie. But alas, I need a detour. I really do.

Loki’s a complete and utter idiot in this movie. There’s no other way to describe him. I’ve always thought part of Feige’s frustration with the Thor franchise was Loki’s massive popularity compared with Thor’s. Not that Thor wasn’t popular, but Loki was the first villain to actually warrant a fanbase in the MCU (and although Killmonger more or less got a fair share of people fawining over him, I honestly don’t think it was on par with the Loki phenomenon). Loki committed a crime for a MCU movie: he wasn’t there just to build up the hero’s legacy, he was there to tell his own story. We saw Loki develop from an uncertain ally of Thor’s to an outright enemy, to a begrudging ally, all over the span of Thor, Avengers and Thor: The Dark World. Which Loki do I prefer? The first one, of course. Avengers didn’t do him many favors, and The Dark World also could have handled him better.

But here’s the funny thing: Avengers built him up as a villain to defeat, but that meant Loki had to be menacing, had to be smart to some degree, he had to be respectable. He was smarter in the original Thor, yes, and he’s smarter in the Dark World too, but still, he was worthy of a certain respect in all three movies in terms of how he was built as a character.

Ragnarok obliterated all that respect. Ragnarok reduced Loki to a joke, a really bad joke, about how narcissistic and egotistical he was. He wasn’t smart, he wasn’t competent, he was constantly outdone by Thor in just about every regard, and there was nothing for him to do other than provide the audience someone to laugh at, and someone to project all their LGBT headcanons on, after the way they built up his situation with Jeff Goldblum’s hedonist character. Not that they needed to do that for Loki to be interpreted as LGBT, the fics I referenced above pretty much establish he’s been interpreted as of every sexuality you can think of, all because the original myths did establish him as someone with a very complex sexual identity.

But the point is, people told me Loki was amazing in this movie. I heard so much about that, how he finally got what he deserved… he got to be a laughingstock? That’s what he deserved? Oh, wait, he got to play second fiddle for Thor and accepted that as his place in the world. Was that it? I don’t even care if Loki doesn’t get to fulfill all his ambitions and dreams of recognition: I do care that he’s reduced to nothing but that, when his character was ALWAYS MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN THAT IN EVERY OTHER MOVIE HE SHOWED UP IN. Being told that THIS is how Loki should be handled? It’s the same as being told the Avatar comics did a brilliant job at characterizing Azula, when I’ve written a fuckton of critical posts that prove that’s not the case.

So, when you give me a Loki whose entire purpose in Asgard is to turn it into Lokiland? You give me a joke. You give me a laughingstock. You give me something unworthy of the previous stories that established his character, amidst many things, as a man desperate to find a place where he belonged, desperate to the point where he could commit heinous acts to fulfill his quest, which is what made him a villain in the original film. And why, oh, why would anyone do such a thing?

Well, that’s because Taika Waititi had the brilliant idea of making Thor: Ragnarok as a standalone movie. I’m not kidding, it’s all right here:

“To be honest, what I did was I tried to approach it as if there were no other films.” Waititi explained. “I wanted to make this a standalone film. I loved Thor 1and Thor 2, but if I was going to make this film my own, I couldn’t have come in and tried to make a follow up movie, to try to make the next episode. I wanted to do my own thing.”

He says he loved the first two movies, but I question that’s true. Someone who loved the original movies would have likely avoided a fuckton of mistakes Waititi made in Ragnarok, mistakes that anyone who actually gave a crap about the first movies would have considered utterly ridiculous. When Waititi decided to build Ragnarok as a standalone, he did away with EVERY SINGLE CONCEPT ESTABLISHED FOR THOR IN THE MCU.

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

First Thor movie: Thor’s character is established as an arrogant guy who would send his world to war just because his pride was injured. This arrogant guy gets his power stripped away from him, as punishment for his irresponsible behavior, and it’s not until he reflects on his actions and eventually takes a step forward to stop the Destroyer when he was at his most vulnerable, that Thor finally becomes worthy of his powers again. His attempt to reason with Loki works, but he pays for it with his life, pretty much, until his powers return to him.

So… how is this situation soooo different from Ragnarok’s big fight against Hela? I’ll tell you how: Thor actually displays vulnerability in the original movie, something that hits home much deeper than “OMG I HAVE UNLIMITED POWER INSIDE ME, I DON’T NEED MY HAMMER!”. His pleas to Loki have the intent to SPARE his friends, to spare an entire town of people who don’t know him and probably never will. His fight with Hela has no pleas. He just gets his eyeball plucked out and is forced to watch Hela destroy his city just so he can rage into talking with Odin (if I recall right) and then go Super Saiyan. Because, uh, the power was always inside him!

After an original movie where the power was in choices, in the choice of sacrificing himself for everyone else, Ragnarok is a movie about obtaining literal power to smash your enemy with. You tell me which is more complex and compelling for an intelligent audience.

Oh, but was it deeper in other senses? The talk about colonization and culture erasure and all that was something so new to this franchise!!!

No. It fucking wasn’t.

Movie one opens with a story about the Frost Giants terrorizing the humans and the Asgardians taking them down. The story didn’t end there, though: the story continued when we visit Jotunheim with Thor to discover it’s a completely nasty ruin, as though they haven’t recovered at all from the war and everything Asgard took from them, including a treasure as valuable for them as the Casket of Winters or whatever it was called. And amidst what Asgard took is Loki: how much clearer can the message get? Odin STOLE Jotunheim’s prince for the chance of using him to broker peace between the realms when he deemed Loki ready for said task. He took Loki as a baby and yes, raised him, but he saw that child and thought he was looking in the face of an opportunity. You’re going to tell me that’s not more meaningful, that doesn’t drive in deeper the message about how harmful this sort of colonialist and supremacist culture is (Loki was raised to think his own people were monsters, driven to madness to the extreme where he was going to exterminate his own people just to show his father that he was a worthy son? Seriously, how were there no attempts to interpret this from a post-colonialist point of view, but there are for Ragnarok?), than some dumbass exposition scene with some old paintings in walls where oh noes, turns out Odin KILLED PEOPLE?!

BIG FUCKING DEAL!

WE’VE KNOWN THAT SINCE THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF THOR’S ORIGINAL MOVIE!

Just, how the hell is this a big damn surprise to ANYONE? ESPECIALLY TO THOR! He was willing to destroy Jotunheim because they ruined his parade: HE WAS DOING IT TO FOLLOW ODIN’S EXAMPLE. THE ORIGINAL MOVIE NEVER SHIED AWAY FROM THIS.

Oh but the surprise is that Odin had a daughter he locked away and hid from the world because he was ashamed of what he’d done? Just… how was he ashamed? When did we see Odin ASHAMED in the previous movies? As much as they tried to portray him as mellowed out, he always acted like everything had been necessary for peace. He outright says in The Dark World that he will immolate Asgard in its entirety if need be to defeat the Dark Elves. Please, how are we genuinely pretending NOW that Odin was hiding any of what he’d done, any of what he was capable of, from Thor or from Loki or from just about anyone?

This is also the part where the original myths and themes of Norse Mythology start to debunk Ragnarok with astounding ease. Original myths that, surprise surprise, the first two movies abide by with much more respect than Ragnarok ever could.

Norse mythology is complex and rich and arguably the second most recurrent mythology in popular culture right after Greek mythology (I reckon Egyptian used to be the second but has dropped in popularity in recent years). I am far from an expert with Norse mythology, I actually am most confident with Celtic mythology, in particular the Irish Mythological Cycle, but that’s not the point: anyone who hears about Norse mythology is likely to have heard about the characters we met in Thor, and about the afterlife according to these myths.

Death in Norse mythology can lead people to different places, not too differently from how it is in other mythologies. Let’s see what the lands of the dead are like:

Valhalla is an afterlife destination where half of those who die in battle gather as einherjar, a retinue gathered for one sole purpose: to remain fit for battle in preparation for the last great battle, during Ragnarök. In opposition to Hel’s realm, which was a subterranean realm of the dead, it appears that Valhalla was located somewhere in the heavens.

Hel’s realm is separated from the world of the living by a rapid river across which leads the Gjallarbrú that the dead have to pass. The gates are heavy, and close behind those who pass it and will never return again. Hel is the final destination of those who do not die in battle, but of old age or disease. 

As these two are the only ones that matter for this movie, I figured I’d bring these up. There are of course thousands of various interpretations on how these afterlifes work, and some people say it’s not so cut and dry, but in general, it’s understood that Valhalla is pretty much an honor.

This honor was extended to Frigga in The Dark World. The only good thing about her death in that movie was that it established HOW death works in the MCU’s Asgard. She died in battle: she was given the greatest honor and sent to rest in Valhalla. The land of heroes who die in battle, fighting for their own.

Hel, on the other hand, should be the afterlife for those who die in less worthy ways, meaning, not in combat. Death in combat is considered one of the greatest honors in Norse culture, from what I’ve understood from all the stories I’ve seen that are set in Norse or Viking settings, and not dying in combat wasn’t a favorable prospect for just about anyone. Deaths outside of combat are, of course, accidental deaths, diseases, old age, you name it.

Hel should be connected to Hela, the character from Ragnarok. Hela should preside over Hel, the unwanted afterlife for so many people who would rather die in a much worthier way.

Hel showed up once before in the MCU, by the way. In the very controversial and despised Ultron. And no, I’m not talking about Thor’s weird-as-fuck delirium about Asgard. I mean in this particular dialogue…:

Natasha Romanoff: Thor, report on the Hulk?Thor: The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims.[Natasha glares at Thor and Banner groans in despair]Thor: Uh, but, not the screams of the dead, of course. No no, uh…wounded screams, mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and, and uh… and gout.

Gates of Hel. That’s a direct reference to actual mythology. He could have said that Hel was full of Hulk’s victims, just like that, but he outright references the GATES. Ergo… Thor knows Hel exists.

PLEASE LET THAT SINK IN.

When you arrive at Ragnarok, Hela is a complete mystery for Thor. Oh, you can come up with whatever in-world explanation you care to, I honestly wouldn’t bother making up one to begin with: Ragnarok is built on the premise of defeating Hela, Thor’s scary sudden sister he had no notion of, who was locked away in some weird ass prison and who happens to be called Hela, but has no connection with Hel.

None.

Why do I say this?

Because her powers allegedly are connected to Asgard.

Allegedly.

Can someone please explain why should Hel’s powers have a connection with Asgard when there was such a bloody obvious possibility in making Hel the realm she’s connected to? She’s the goddamn REGENT of Hel! That’s not even up for debate in Norse Mythology, out of all the things that can be debated! But instead her power comes from the LIVING? It comes from VIOLENTLY KILLING WARRIORS WHO FIGHT AND DIE DEFENDING THEIR HOMELAND HONORABLY?

I’m going to outright say it: Hela should have gained NOTHING from a militaristic approach at attacking and destroying Asgard. If the plan was to make Hela a big shock for everyone, a plot twist… she should have spread disease and old age through Asgard. And then people die dishonorably.

And they end up in her realm.

And she could enslave them and use their souls to fuel her own power or so.

Please, do tell… how is this not a much more myth-compliant approach than “Oh lookie she’s just this SUPER BADASS FIGHTER! And she can take down ENTIRE ARMIES all on her own by FIGHTING!” How isn’t this more consistent with what was already established by the MCU? (oh wait, Waititi doesn’t care to keep things consistent, I forgot…)

Man, I’ve played Dragon Age: Origins a fuckton of times by now and one of the saddest and truest things I’ve seen in it, which connects with my own reality, is one of the riddles on your way to the Urn of Andraste: how did Andraste and the Maker destroy the Imperium’s army? Through FAMINE. Through HUNGER. What’s more disgraceful than living to EAT? Nothing feels more dehumanizing, and I can tell you that just fine considering that in hyperinflation that’s EXACTLY what venezuelans like myself live like right now.

Why didn’t Hela starve Asgard, then? Why didn’t she do something that Asgardians simply couldn’t FIGHT against, seeing as that’s all they know how to do?

Oh, again, because Thor is an ACTION HERO! That is the identity Feige and Waititi HAD to build for him! That’s what he ALWAYS was supposed to be!

I’m going to share now one of my favorite things about both Thor and The Dark World: the way Thor finishes his final battles.

In the first film, Thor defeats Loki by destroying the Bifrost. He uses Mjöllnir to destroy someTHING, not someONE. Hammers can be used to build and destroy, Thor used it to destroy at that particular point in time. By destroying, he stopped the chaos Loki was unleashing with the Bifrost and saved an entire realm.

The Dark World? Thor isn’t the one who comes up with the way to defeat Malekith, since it’s Jane who makes the wacky portable portals stuff. Nonetheless, Thor is the one out in the fray, fighting the big bad… but how did he take down OP Aether-addled Malekith? Not by shoving a fuckton of lightning into his face, he already tried that and failed. Nope: he nailed the device Jane built. He nailed it right into the motherfucker’s chest. And then Malekith gets portaled away and killed by his own ship. Again, it’s not Thor using POWER to kill his enemy, it’s Thor using a hammer’s natural damn use to his favor. It’s Thor using his BRAIN.

THOR.

USING HIS BRAIN.

THINKING SHIT THROUGH.

USING HIS AVAILABLE RESOURCES TO FINISH A FIGHT EFFECTIVELY.

NOT POWERING THROUGH EVERYTHING LIKE A DURACELL BATTERY ON DRUGS.

People out there who complain about how Infinity War gave Thor an axe instead of letting him be powerful all on his own piss me off, I won’t lie. Because Mjöllnir was NOT a crutch for Thor. It was a tool, in all senses of the word. It’s like pretending Doctor Strange’s cloak is the secret to all his powers. The entire first movie is about showing Thor that the hammer, that POWER, does NOT define him: why the FUCK did he have to lose it in Ragnarok, and suffer about it like he’d never been parted from the hammer when it happened just the same in the first damn movie? Hell, the first movie stole ALL his lightning and thunder-related powers and he STILL managed to find true worth in who he was after that! He still learned what he needed to learn to be worthy of his hammer again! This movie, though? It rewards Thor for losing Mjöllnir, ZERO GROWTH OR DEVELOPMENT NEEDED BECAUSE FUCK IT, HE DIDN’T LEARN A DAMN THING IN THIS MOVIE by making him superpowerful just because it could. And Thor ends up winning the day without using a hammer in the way a hammer should be used, breaking with the pattern of the two previous movies: again, the identity of the original movies gets tossed away completely.

It’s not cool. It’s not amazing. It’s devoid of all meaning. Thor losing his eye just like his daddy before him? Another piece of crap devoid of meaning. Thor didn’t need to lose a goddamn eye to be “parallel” to his father, because he’s already in the position where he has to take charge of Asgard to become king, and nothing’s a more apparent parallel than that.

Funny comparison time: did you watch Lion King 2? A lot of people think it sucks but when I was little I looooved that thing with the force of a thousand suns. Now, if you did watch it, remember Kovu? Remember the part where Zira scars him, leaving him to look just like Scar? The drama at that point is that Kovu has been groomed all his life to kill Simba, just like Scar killed Mufasa. He was “chosen” for the job, and all his similarities with Scar not withstanding, Kovu’s growth pushes him to NOT WANT TO FOLLOW ON SCAR’S FOOTSTEPS.

So, when he gets the same scar but acts entirely differently from how Scar would have? When he chooses to love rather than to hate? When he takes a stand for peace rather than to further stir up war? He’s choosing to be different from the lion whose example he’s been forced to follow all his life!

When Thor fights Hela… what does he do that is in any sense different from what Odin would have done, in his shoes? Could someone perhaps enlighten me? He fights Hela, he doesn’t extend a hand to her and offer her a second chance. He fights to defeat her, he gets Loki to unleash Surtur on Asgard and destroy it with Hela in it. Oh, wow, he distanced himself SO MUCH from Odin’s legacy by, uh, destroying his homeland and killing his sister. That’s not so different from locking Hela up for eons, let alone so different from saying that he would sacrifice as many asgardian lives as were needed to end the threat of Malekith.

Oh, but Thor saved lives, didn’t he? Sure he did!

No, he didn’t. Fucking Heimdall was the one worried about protecting people. Who the hell would have saved them if Heimdall hadn’t been there? Who the hell would Thor have saved if Heimdall hadn’t protected people and created that weird underground refugee site? If Thor had arrived and Heimdall and his people had been caught all along, who the fuck would he have saved? NO ONE.

Also, this concept of “Thor saving a few civilian lives WHILE MILLIONS GET SACRIFICED” might as well apply to Odin’s destruction of other cultures because of how they threatened Asgard too. Heck, Bor’s destruction of the Dark Elves is presented in the same light too in The Dark World. Ragnarok attempts to make people feel bad about all the deaths in the shallowest way I’ve seen, because for one thing, it tries to criticize the previous movies by being oh so shocked by Odin’s massacres when everyone and their uncle KNOWS that Odin’s been killing cultures and worlds and things since day fucking one. But it basically spits upwards when it says “Asgard is its people, not a place” and… kills the majority of the people, along with the place. Just… what the hell was even the point of pretending Asgardians would be refugees rebuilding elsewhere when, on top of it all, they all died in Infinity War anyhow?

Now, let’s think about it: how many named asgardians do we know who survived Ragnarok? We know Thor, Heimdall and Valkyrie. Loki is a honorary asgardian, I suppose, so let’s say he counts. Who else? Oh, damn, no one. I’m all out.

And THIS is where Ragnarok was always supposed to improve on the rest of the Thor movies. THIS. Because in a movie that was going to kill the Warriors Three, Sif, Odin and as many asgardians as they could, you had the reasonable obligation to make the audience GIVE A SHIT. Constant criticism for the original Thor movies by less passionate fans is that they didn’t care about any characters aside from Thor, Loki and Heimdall (cue my surprise when they all survive Ragnarok, it’s almost like it was fanservice, oh my!), and that Asgard was BORING.

Ragnarok should have tried its best to make Asgard less boring. It should have tried to make the less popular characters relevant, interesting, valuable…

What did it do? Killed them all. Every warrior dead. Sif would be dead too, if Jaimie Alexander hadn’t been too busy to go to Australia. Every last one of them would be dead. And as for Asgard? As for the place we should see Thor cares about soooo much?

We saw more of Asgard in The Dark World, of their customs, of their complexities, and the majority of the movie is spent elsewhere. We saw more of Asgard, obviously, on the original Thor, where half the movie is spent there. Ragnarok’s response to that, though, is to practically spend the entire fucking movie in a literal trash planet, because getting out of there was so very vital to the movie! When, uh, ending up there was already a fucking pointless waste of time in the first place.

Let’s think about it: why exactly did we need our heroes to end up there? Hulk could have crash-landed somewhere in Asgard. Valkyrie could have been an actual Valkyrie, not a cast-out drunk trying to forget her days of glory and misery. We could have seen THE Valkyries in action, gearing up to fight a serious threat, and people would be fawning about such a huge damn female army, on par with Wonder Woman’s amazons…!

But no. We went to a trash planet instead, all to make a shitty version of Planet Hulk, which yes, I haven’t read, but the people I know who did read it say it was a complete disservice to a story that was so much more complex and serious than the trash heap we were given through Ragnarok.

And, most importantly… all to make the movie FUN. All so Thor could have something else to do while everyone died in Asgard. All so he could indeed be incompetent as defender of his realm because in the end he couldn’t save most of them. And it didn’t even matter to him that he didn’t, that’s yet another thing that pisses me off: he mourns his father a lot, spends the movie bitter and angry that Odin had died just so he can have an understandable reason to be pissed at Loki, and sure, he wants to go back to Asgard and save his people from his sister. But I can’t remember him seeming genuinely concerned about what fate awaited his friends and the people he ruled. Of course, neither did Loki, but as Loki was portrayed as an egotistical maniac the whole movie, it’s no surprise. Our hero, though, should have a bigger heart than this, right? He did before, didn’t he? He did everything in his power to get Malekith to leave Asgard alone, including risking the life of the woman he loved, no less!

But naaaaah, in Ragnarok he did a lot for his people, uh-huh, sure as fuck. That’s why he spent all his time in trashland making jokes and having fun except for most the time he was dealing with Loki, because by then he got pissed because Odin’s death is all his fault. Just like Frigga’s death. Just like everything because Loki sucks and Thor is forever mad at him. Thing really is, he has pressure to leave, but you don’t really feel it going by his attitude. If everyone you knew and loved were about to die by the hand of your unknown sibling, would you be chill, trying and failing to flirt with a girl by tossing a ball to a wall so it can hit you right back?

Thor’s entire character in Ragnarok is cringeworthy. This isn’t just because he was so vastly different from who he was back in the other two films, it’s because of how he acts, how he behaves. How he takes next to nothing seriously, starting from Surtur, all the way to Asgard’s destruction. This is the man who was actually characterized for FOUR films as someone with a sense of humor, but with a strong sense of duty and honor that makes him an even better man than Steve Rogers (reminder of the hammer scene in Ultron, Rogers can’t quite lift the hammer yet, Thor’s supposed to be a worthier man than him, according to whatever criteria Mjöllnir uses). And here? Here he just jokes around, he wastes his time, he acts like a complete bufoon as he has stupid arguments with Hulk and deals with Jeff Goldblum, and flirts with Valkyrie, and outsmarts Loki (hell knows how, considering how incredibly idiotic Thor felt through this entire movie, but that’s how stupid Loki was in it too).

The ideal way to compare how Thor was written in the original films and in this one is the romance. Where in the previous movies Thor is charming, confident, treats women with respect (he supported Sif in her efforts to prove herself on par with any man, he encourages her to survive and live to tell her stories herself, he listens to Jane’s explanations about space and offers his own stories when she wants to hear them, and so on), in Ragnarok he meets Valkyrie and acts like, again, a 14-year-old fanboy who just met the celebrity he faps to every night in his bedroom. He’s nervous, he’s giddy, he’s trying, TRYING to impress her! Before anyone chimes in to say he’s meeting his hero, of COURSE he’d be nervous… please, no. Thor is a goddamn prince, as good as a king already. Thor has met countless people in his life and treated them all with the same amount of respect. He has NO REASON to dumb himself down and behave like a fanboy with Valkyrie. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t funny. It was absolutely out of character, that’s what it was. For he wouldn’t be trying to flirt with her, let alone so poorly, even if he’s interested in her romantically. No, he would respect her, first and foremost. He would admire her without seeming a complete idiot in the process, the same way he did with Jane. He wouldn’t be trying to impress her by acting like he’s cool, but coming off as an idiot, because he supposedly grew out of his stupid arrogance all the way in movie 1. But naaaaah, not when he meets VALKYRIE! Nope, because she’s SPESHUL! 

Give me a break.

I’m sure there’s more about Thor, but I think I’ll leave him alone for now. I already did my piece on Loki earlier, so now… two newcomers.

Valkyrie bothers me. No, it has nothing to do with Valkyrie breaking the stereotypical blonde warrior aesthetic that people expect from Norse mythology stuff, because hell, Heimdall doesn’t bother me and never did just because he’s not aryan. Honestly, it doesn’t matter in the least what color they are.

What does matter with Valkyrie is that her change of heart and motivations make absolutely no sense.

When we first meet her she’s just scavenging trash to drag to Jeff Goldblum. She’s drunk, but she’s tough as nails and she gets everything done anyways. Is it ideal? No. It feels insulting, even, considering this is how the movie chooses to portray a valkyrie and its only heroic female character. But whatever, let’s move forward…

When Thor realizes what and who she is, he goes fanboy mode. Valkyrie dismisses all reminders of her past life, and as far as I can remember, she did that at least twice. Maybe thrice, I can’t recall that much. When Thor asked her why she didn’t want to help him save Asgard, her answer directly implies she remembers perfectly well what happened the last time she dealt with Hela and she is still too grief-ridden about it to bother fighting her again. Thor throws a tantrum, Valkyrie still refuses to go along with him, all ends just like that.

But when Loki does the ONLY useful thing he did in the entire movie, as in, hi-jacks Valkyrie’s memories and makes her relive everything, she changes her mind. Why?

Oh, because she reclaimed her past? Because she had forgotten it? BULL.FUCKING.SHIT. Valkyrie didn’t forget JACKSHIT about her past! The answer she gives Thor, initially, shows very clearly that she remembers EVERYTHING and refuses to go back anyhow. Because Hela is too powerful for her to defeat. But one forceful blast to the past makes Valkyrie not only NOT feel violated, which honestly blows me away, sure she hit Loki afterwards but I wouldn’t exactly be so chill after someone got inside my head and forced me to relive my worst memory, but it makes Valkyrie decide that she wants to help Thor now. 

WHY?!

There is NOTHING reasonable that has changed since she told Thor what she did. NOTHING! She didn’t come to a conclusion such as “well shit my life sucks badly enough here, I might as well go die”, nor does she have a heartfelt conversation with Thor about how hard this is for her but that maybe she can correct the mistakes of her past if she helps him out now. No, man, this movie doesn’t need anyone to have believable behaviors or motivations, because Valkyrie needs to join Thor so she can play the Gamora to his cheap Peter Quill, and if her brain needs to be bent backwards to join this team, so be it.

Again, let’s put things into perspective: was there ANY need for Valkyrie’s character to be exactly what it was? Why couldn’t she be the only line of defense in Asgard to endure against Hela’s attack, for instance? She’s presented to us as the only representative of this really cool elite group of fighters… and she’s just doing Jeff Goldblum’s dirty work. Please… can someone tell me what was the point of doing this?

Ah, wait, I know: COMEDY. Because that was the priority established by Waititi and who knows who else, because that’s what mattered most. So, was it fun to have a serious warrior lady kicking ass in Asgard? Nah, it was fun to make her a drunkard who’d fall over sideways when collecting Thor for Goldblum because she’s drunk. Haha. Funny.

Valkyrie is wasted potential. That’s the truth of it. She could have been amazing, but as it is, I find Sif a thousand times more interesting than Valkyrie because at least with Sif I can see where she’s coming from, I can understand her storyline even without her ever being at the forefront of any movie. Question now, why did it have to be Valkyrie? Why couldn’t Sif be the one helping Thor in Ragnarok? Fucking hell, why couldn’t it be BOTH of them? Aside from the obvious “we forgot Sif existed until ten seconds before filming the deaths of all of Asgard’s warriors” explanation, it’s because you can’t make the Guardians of the Galaxy formula work with well-rounded individuals, Nope, you need broken people. And what’s more broken than a warrior who lost her will to fight? Who lives to drink, like my good buddy Oghren who I mentioned back when this post began?

Valkyrie, then, is not a full-rounded character. She’s more convenience writing. She’s a happy coincidence for Thor, because woah, what are the odds that the ONE PERSON WITH ASGARDIAN PAST would find him in trashland? They’re not good. In fact, they’re pretty bad. But that’s what the movie needed, so that’s what the movie got. And how do you get her to change her mind about fighting when she’d given up? By convenience writing. Not even a pep talk, like what Jyn Erso got in Rogue One from her dad, which made her switch flip completely and she did a 180° regarding her opinion of the war and battles between the Empire and Rebels. I complained a bit about Jyn changing her mind so easily… but compared to Valkyrie? Jyn made a fuckton more sense than that. At least you could see where she was coming from when she changed her mind. At least you could say a fiber of her being was touched by her father’s words. Valkyrie was touched by Loki’s invasion of her mind? By what, exactly? By Waititi twisting her character over because otherwise his GOTG team-up wouldn’t work?

The absolute worst part of Ragnarok is realizing that, as a cheap rip-off of GOTG, it failed not only to hold up the identity of any Thor film before this one, it failed to imitate GOTG properly. GOTG felt organic, this feels forced. GOTG felt like a good story to tell, because it was a group of renegades, pretty much, saving the entire galaxy even though they’re nobodies, even though they’re as good as mercenaries, even though they’re a team brought together by what feels like random factors (but it’s not that random because, as a reminder, all of them minus Drax were after the Orb, and in the break-out Drax joins them because he hopes they can help him fulfill his quest for revenge). Everyone in GOTG has reasons to fight, though, reasons to work together. They seem to barely stand each other, but they’re convenient for one another at the start and they bear with it.

Ragnarok fails to achieve GOTG’s success in terms of storytelling because Ragnarok featured Thor as good as begging everyone to help him. Reluctant team-ups like GOTG’s are achieved by having two or more characters work together for a common goal, or for goals that they can only achieve with each other’s help (I have used the same resource in writing in the past plenty if times as it is). But when you have to feature a character BEGGING others to work with him, this formula doesn’t elicit the same feeling. It doesn’t result in “wow, look at all these unlikely heroes working together”, it results in “aw look at ‘em helping the little guy who needed them”. Thor offers everyone a chance to fight a battle that, in general, doesn’t concern them. Hulk has nothing to gain from fighting Hela. Valkyrie has no reason to fight her again, as she’d given up and displays no believable motivation to go for a rematch. Loki does have reason to fight, but Thor doesn’t trust him and it’s not until the last 10 minutes of the movie that Thor finally trusts Loki again, just because Loki is doing exactly what Thor wanted him to.

Give me a Valkyrie who has spent AGES looking for Hela through the universe, hoping to fight her, and upon hearing she’s back, she wants revenge. Give me a Thor who tells her “hey, maybe you can avenge your fallen comrades, but there are a lot of people who are still alive that we have to save too. Maybe revenge isn’t the only thing that matters”, and then Valkyrie reasons with what her motivations had been. Give me a more HUMANE Valkyrie, and that way she won’t be here merely to fulfill the typical and criticized “strong female character” trope, whose entire character arc revolves around being a cool fighter and being the object of admiration/affection/love interest of the main character, because newsflash, that’s what happened with her. The so very despised trope of “strong female character”, right here with Valkyrie.

Was Sif any better? Why, yes, I’d say so. Because Thor didn’t want her. Because she was only friends with him, because her life as a warrior took priority over any romantic interests she might have. Because her eagerness to go down in history in GLORY makes her near suicidal in movie 1, to the point where Thor has to make her snap out of it and force her to understand her life is worth more than the stories she wants people to tell about her in death. THAT is a character. THAT is a genuinely interesting female character, who got snubbed in all the films she featured and even in the one where she didn’t, precisely because she didn’t. Because her strength has flaws, because she’s not invulnerable, because she’s prone to failure, because she has loyalties, because she lives to serve her people. Sif is Valkyrie done right. Valkyrie is, like I said, a “strong female character”. And no, that she’s bisexual makes no damn difference, especially when said bisexuality is only known to people who follow Tessa Thompson on Twitter and general fans who look for information on characters outside of the movies themselves. Either way, if she had been shown making out with a girl onscreen that wouldn’t make a difference: she’s still only here to beat people up and to be a potential love interest for Thor, because if she’d had believable, understandable, EXPLORED motivations, she’d be more than that. But she doesn’t. Her entire character revolves around those two things. And that’s a failure in my eyes.

Finally… Hela. Why is Hela a terrible villain, on par with losers like Obadiah Stane, Malekith, the cheap excuse for Baron Zemo from Civil War, Darren Cross… honestly, spare me naming them all because frankly the only ones I wouldn’t lump together with the bulk of Marvel’s villains are Loki and Vulture, but my point is, Hela was all about appearances, all about the acting pedigree of Cate Blanchett, and nothing about making her into a decent villain. Why’s that?

I’ve talked in the past about why Marvel’s villains generally fail, and it’s because they’re not built to be characters but foils. Marvel’s not so subtle approach at storytelling holds a certain principle at its very highest, and said principle is that the story is about the HERO. The villain can’t be more developed than the hero, else you’re failing the movie’s purpose. Only a few of their movies failed at this (I can only think of Thor and Black Panther as examples of not keeping true to this precept), everything else does it just fine. Why, though? Because the villains are completely generic. Because they’re here to further someone else’s storyline, and not to have one of their own.

Loki had his own storyline in his first movie. You watch his ENTIRE thought process through Thor, you see that he didn’t start off with the “I’m going to annihilate Jotunheim!” idea, it’s something that builds up as the story unfolds. You meet Loki as a troublemaker, capable of very chaotic messes such as what happens during Thor’s failed coronation, but he’s not stupid. He’s not trying to cause a war, he’s just sabotaging his brother because, curiously, Loki is right about Thor at this point in time: Thor is NOT fit to be king, and Odin agrees eventually. The simplest provocation caused Thor to wage war on an entire realm, just because he wanted to rule Asgard RIGHT NOW. Loki’s mischief revealed this about Thor, but it wasn’t done with the intent to completely ruin Thor’s life: Thor’s reaction to Loki’s scheme is what reveals that he’s not ready to rule at all.

It’s especially clear when you recall that Loki ends up facing the truth about himself during the fight in Jotunheim: Loki has no idea what his true heritage is. He knows he’s been sidelined and treated differently, but he has no clue what’s up. Where Black Panther features a Killmonger who has already come to terms with his heritage and his connection with Wakandan royalty, Thor treats us to the ENTIRE PROCESS of Loki’s slow but certain collapse. He starts off fine, but he ends up losing all sight of who he is, of everything that matters, because his parents weren’t his parents, because he was lied to all his life, because his brother was favored over him all along and NOW, in front of us, he has come to understand why.

Loki’s entire journey parallels Thor’s. Where Loki grows more unhinged, Thor is humbled and grows into letting the goodness in him shine, in letting the better traits that make him a decent man pull through while he lets go of his arrogance and his belief that he’s entitled to a throne and to everything he could ever want. Their journeys happen simultaneously, and THAT is unique to any Marvel movies. You don’t see that anywhere else. THAT is what made Thor so successful with fans: it wasn’t JUST Thor’s story, it was Loki’s too. The Dark World at least gave Loki the courtesy of a small arc of his own. Ragnarok? Jokes at his expense and a diva complex that resulted in him coming back to help Thor merely because that would mean he would be regarded as hero and savior to Asgard. How is it not cringeworthy?

But that’s not what I was trying to get to, nope. No, my point was Hela: what was the purpose of Hela, in the end?

Ragnarok, traditionally, is brought upon the world by Loki. He’s the one who supposedly ends the entire world, causes the massive fight of the gods and wreaks havoc comparable to the Christian Apocalypse. But Loki can’t do that in Ragnarok because he has too much of a fanbase and can’t be guilty for such heinous crimes, can he? Nope.

Let’s, instead, find someone else to blame everything on. Are there other options for this role? Surtur, Amora, maybe? Oh, no! Let’s go with Hela! Who IS Hela, anyways?

In one iteration of the comics, Hela is LOKI’S DAUGHTER. Never, from my understanding, was Hela anyone’s sister, let alone Thor and Loki’s. Is it that terrible to make her Loki’s daughter? Well, yes, because that’d mean Loki would have to know of her existence and that would cause more problems than Waititi wanted to handle (plus, gives too much protagonism to Loki, and he certainly did not want THAT!). So, Hela had to be something else. She had to be something personal for Thor too, but making her an old flame would be too much (despite uh from what I read she even had a kid with Thor in one iteration of the comics? So it wouldn’t have been completely out of left field?), because we don’t want Thor having multiple romances, we don’t even want him having a full romance, because that’s why the first movies failed! Nope, that can’t do.

Oh, wait a minute, I know! Let’s make Hela Thor’s SECRET SISTER! AHAHA, PERFECT! Because it’s not like he already had a brother in black-and-green clothing who was snubbed and given a shitty deal by their dad and who came back from said betrayal by Odin to destroy everything Thor holds dear. It’s such NOVEL storytelling, so unique! So unexpected! We totally never have seen this story told before!

Hela is a cheap rip-off of the original Loki. Just as the entire movie is a rip-off of GOTG. Hela TRIES, so very hard, to be as impressive and imposing as Loki originally was. Hela fails. Why?

Because for one thing, she’s a crappy retelling of Loki’s story. She has nothing new. She’s not impressive in any regards because she does nothing unexpected, nothing that makes her ANYTHING aside from a bad villain Thor needs to defeat. Loki was Thor’s friend and brother once: Hela generates no such conflict because she could easily be Odin’s former slave rather than daughter and the story would be the same. She could have literally ANY relationship to Thor and nothing would change. Why? Because her being Thor’s biological sister does NOTHING for the story. It creates no bond between them, because the bond that existed between Thor and Loki was established during AGES of growing up together. Hela has no such thing, ergo, you can’t pretend that her being Thor’s sister will amount to anything just because Odin handled her poorly (newsflash, Odin has been handling shit poorly since the first time he showed up in the MCU and most of Thor’s problems in his movies come from that, ergo this is, again, nothing new). 

For another thing, Hela is here to take Loki’s place as the complicated family member Thor needs to get in line. Hela is, I theorize, Waititi’s wish fulfillment for what he’d like to have done to Loki but couldn’t because he needed to be around to keep his fanbase appeased and buying tickets for the movie. Hela, though, was new. Hela was irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Hela could turn into all of Loki’s “evil” and “chaotic” impulses, while Loki is reduced to narcissism and cheap comedy, and this way Hela is turned into a cartoon villain who’s only here to break everything because she allegedly obtains her power by doing so.

I already got into it before, but I guess I’ll do it again: Hela’s connection to Asgard is absolutely idiotic. There’s an entire damn realm named after her, connected to her. It’s like saying Hades from Greek Mythology obtains his powers from the Olympus. Or like saying Satan derives his powers from Heaven. No. That makes no effing sense. Therefore, destroying Asgard to destroy Hela feels stupid, and defies all logic. But they needed Hela to cause a catastrophe in Asgard, otherwise you can’t justify destrying Asgard by using Loki to, HAHAHA, HONOR THE ORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY, HAHAHAHA, AFTER ALL THIS TIME OF SHITTING ON IT AND UNDERSTANDING NONE OF ITS CONCEPTS, NOW THEY WANT TO HONOR IT, IT’S THE ONLY FUNNY JOKE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE!

It’s bad enough that the movie fucks over Loki’s character as it does, but it attempts to make him a good, dutiful brother who steals the Tesseract from the vaults but still takes Surtur to the funky flame thing. The destruction of Asgard is ultimately done by Loki, but not really, no, it was Surtur. And not really, no, it was because Thor asked Loki to. So, in the end, it’s actually Thor who killed Asgard and his sister. But um, they were being faithful to the myths, sure.

Hela is a failure of a villain as usual for Marvel. Her story is presented via exposition, via TELL, NOT SHOW. We don’t witness the crumbling relationship between her and Odin because that would have required for her to exist since the first movies. No, we are told all about how Odin used her as his ideal tool to KILL PEOPLE!!!1 (I think I raged enough about this before, didn’t I…?) and then locked her up somewhere because she was too dangerous! Compared to Loki’s very palpable fall from grace, Hela’s character arc is absolutely insignificant. People only liked her because she was hot. That was it. Like I said earlier, Cate Blanchett’s doing. Had it been any less than stellar actress, Hela wouldn’t have garnered more than a couple of shrugs.

I guess it warrants to say Odin was probably the only thing this movie maintained close enough to the original movies (despite he was poorly written in his death scene anyhow). Odin making shitty decisions seems to be one of the main story points in Thor’s franchise, so I suppose that’s not out of line. Ironically, though, staying true to the same variable with Odin is… pretty damn old by now. All of Thor’s movies have featured Odin being controversial, doing shitty things for his perceived greater good (from stealing a child of another culture to comparing his son’s girlfriend to a goat), so Ragnarok isn’t even telling us anything new about Odin. It’s also not telling us anything new about Odin and Thor’s relationship, because we already know Thor loves the man despite it all, and whatever shitty decisions Odin made, Thor accepts them. He did since the first movie, he does again in this one. Zero new information.

As for a few more inconsistencies:

The Bifrost. Remember how Loki activated the Bifrost and destroyed a lot of Jotunheim by leaving Heimdall’s sword in place, back in the first movie? At one point in Ragnarok, the sword stays in place again and nothing happens. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The scene could have easily happened without the sword there, too. But nope. It stayed in place for no reason, and what came from that? Nothing. Just, a completely absurd situation where, again, Ragnarok is inconsistent with the original Thor.

Another inconsistency, this time one that people laughed about becuause “it fixed the Gauntlet problem”. Reminder: the Infinity Gauntlet shows up for the first time in Asgard’s vaults in the first movie.

In Ultron, though, inexplicably Thanos is wearing the Gauntlet and saying he’ll deal with everything himself (what did he even have to do with Ultron is a pretty good question, one I still have no idea what its answer is). When this happened, people thought Loki was working with Thanos and gave him the thing. Or Thanos broke into Asgard and stole it. But ultimately, it meant Thanos had the Gauntlet and we were doomed, right?

Ragnarok “solved” this problem by featuring Hela saying the Gauntlet in the vault was fake. She knocks it over and says that’s just a shitty copy of the real deal. Fast forward to Infinity War, though…

Tyrion and his buddies fron Nidavellir built the Infinity Gauntlet for Thanos. It happens before Thanos even has access to the Time Stone. Ergo, Thanos couldn’t have made the dwarves craft THE ORIGINAL GAUNTLET and then, I don’t know, used the Time Stone to show it to Odin ten thousand years ago just to get him to make a fake version of it to put it on display for Hela to knock over later. Even if he had done that once he gains access to the Time Stone, someone needs to have at least a shred of common sense and ask themselves why the fuck would Thanos do something so pointless.

Because ultimately, a plothole becomes even more absurd when the attempt to fix it just fucks it up more more. The fake, copy of the Gauntlet, which looks EXACTLY like Thanos’ Gauntlet, existed first. It’s like saying Windows was the original when Bill Gates outright worked for Apple and got his ideas for his own business and OS through working on the MacIntosh. No, Windows isn’t the original. Neither can Tyrion’s Gauntlet be the original because IT MAKES NO SENSE WITH ANY TIMELINE YOU CAN THINK OF.

Had Ragnarok ignored the Gauntlet, nothing would have happened. The destruction of Asgard could have meant this proto-Gauntlet died with it. Thanos could have simply asked the dwarves to make him a new gauntlet because the one that existed was in Asgard, out of his reach by Ultron’s time, and simply gone by Infinity War. But oh noooo, they had to FIX THAT! Well, good fucking job, as usual. You created yet another stupid ass plothole, Waititi. Congratulations.

In short… Ragnarok’s big success comes from it being a “funny” movie with scatological jokes about anuses and orgies, for instance, with Thor making a complete dunce of himself throughout the painful two hours of movie (I don’t even know if it was two hours but it felt like an eternity to me), and let’s not get started again with what happened with Loki. The movie fails at establishing new characters anyone with common sense would be concerned about because they’re as complex and deep as a puddle on asphalt, and it fails at characterizing old characters too. The movie does its best to be funny, but the constant efforts to be funny are akin to a stand-up comedian who is desperate to make his audience laugh at whatever cost. It’s forced, it’s stupid, it’s consistently unfunny, at least it was for me. I can honestly say I laughed at zero points in time in the movie. Was I predisposed to dislike it? I’ve been predisposed to dislike a lot of things before. That the movie failed to subvert any of my expectations is hardly my fault: it was exactly every bit of a failure I expected it to be.

Because when they turned that original logo into a garbage new one, worthy of 1998 Word’s WordArt, when they released a trailer that was HUMOROUS, I knew I wasn’t going to watch something worth my while. You can make comedic stories about the end of the world, people have done it in the past, but Thor did not lend itself for that sort of thing because Ultron establishes Thor is going to be RESPONSIBLE for Ragnarok. Thor has a responsibility to the end of his world. And the Thor we knew, originally, wasn’t the type who would smile and shrug if his mistakes would cost the lives of millions of people.

This is like telling a version of Harry Potter where Harry, faced with Voldemort’s second rise to power,decides to go look for Horcruxes in casinos and strip clubs because hey that’s more fun than an endless camping trip. Well sure, it’d be more fun, but it’d make absolutely no sense and people would die while he enjoys himself and fails to find a single damn Horcrux, right? It’s also like telling me that in Avatar, when Zuko reveals Ozai is going to use the comet to destroy the Earth Kingdom, Aang goes “Oh wow… that’s a shame, huh? So, how about we go back to playing now?” instead of thinking he had to prepare and fight with Ozai to put a stop to the man. 

It’s telling me that the destruction of Asgard, of Thor’s world, of his realm and kingdom, is a fucking JOKE. And if we’re not supposed to take it seriously because Thor won’t take it seriously, the movie is a failure. I never felt like any of the previous Marvel films wanted me to take them as jokes, not even the most comedic of them. I did with Ragnarok. Because all that death, all that destruction, all the sacrifices made, brushed past Thor like water from a shower, that he just dried up and walked away. Because the destruction of his world, of his friends, of everything he was supposed to protect, indeed isn’t deserving of a serious treatment because selling movie tickets via comedy is more important. Because quality, consistent, COMPLEX, storytelling isn’t anywhere near as important as making your audience laugh.

Well, congratulations, Feige, Waititi. You guys should have been stand-up comedians instead and left movie-making to people competent enough to make something worthwhile.

This movie is singlehandedly to blame for my loss of interest in MCU matters and in the Thor franchise. I would still write the occasional story for it, I would still enjoy other people’s works about it, but right now? I’ve even blacklisted a bunch of terms so I can see as few Ragnarok posts as possible. And precisely because I want nothing to do with it have I never gotten in the way of people who do enjoy it unless they outright ask me for my opinion, as you did, Anon. If anyone enjoyed Ragnarok despite EVERYTHING I wrote here, that’s on you. I don’t need any arguments to convince me that I’m wrong and they’re right about why this movie has some worth. The contradictions, conveniences, poor characterization and lack of creativity that went into this film will not go away just because someone excuses them one way or another, so if anyone is hoping to “enlighten me” about why this movie is actually brilliant? Save it. For your own good.

So, after these twelve thousand words on why Ragnarok is the worst MCU movie for me… is there anything left unsaid, really? I suspect so, because I watched it too long ago to remember every detail. Still, I’d have nothing good to say anyhow, so it’s probably for the best that I stop now that I’ve made my case quite clearly, right?

[trvelyans-archive]

aaaaaaaand on my fic-posting roll for the night, here’s my part of an art trade for the lovely and darling @free-the-mages who has been FAR too kind considering it’s taken me almost a month and a half to write this for her, but kaitlyn! i hope you like it nevertheless. you’re the absolute best and i hope i did alistair and lark good for you <3

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“Ah. I see, now – our trick to wiping out all the darkspawn is baiting the archdemon to attack us in the middle of nowhere! Very tempting. Though, I might add, not a very good idea when you really think about it.”

Lark looks over her shoulder. Alistair is leaning against a tree, a curious and almost concerned expression on his face, clothed in nothing more than a cotton tunic and linen pants. His sleepwear. She doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there. The bowl of soup he’s holding must be growing cold.

He holds it almost like an offering, and she forces herself not to take it.

Then, she holds herself back from telling him to fuck off, since that would do no good for either of them, and looks away from him instead. “Thanks,” she grumbles, “but that’s not what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing, then?”

There’s an awkward pause before she gives a heavy sigh. “Just thinking,” she answers, thumbing the peeling label of her bottle. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Oh, I wasn’t,” Alistair tells her, finally giving in and trudging through the mud in the clearing towards her. “You can take care of yourself, even against a horde of Darkspawn. I know that for a fact. I was just going to tell you it looks like it’s going to storm tonight, so you might want to… Not sit there.”

She looks down at the boulder she’s sitting on. Her legs dangle over the edge and skim the surface of the river beneath, and she blinks at him. “Why not?”

“Just… doesn’t seem like a very good idea.” But he doesn’t make any move to turn back to camp. After a moment of hesitation, in fact, he motions for her to move over and make room for him.

She tucks her feet under her bum and follows his wordless instructions, crossing an arm over her chest and clutching her bottle close to her chest with the other.

Lark isn’t particularly drunk, but she’s not particularly sober, either. She knows because she feels his knee bump up against hers and it’s like an electric shock. She’s not annoyed like she might’ve been if it had happened earlier; she doesn’t ask him to move or get off the boulder entirely. Instead she grits her teeth and tells herself to calm down. It’s just a knee, for Andraste’s sake.

But that’s not the point.

Their relationship has been rocky since Lothering, and yet she likes him anyway. Despite their bickering, despite their differences, she likes him. And she hates it. She doesn’t want to like him! He’s taller than she is, he’s a human, and…

And he’s funny. He makes her laugh even though his jokes are stupid. And, even though they aren’t on the best of terms, he came to see her anyway, even though he had to walk through ankle-deep mud just to join her on her stinking rock.

Maker. If Shianni could see Lark now, she’d be the laughingstock of the family.

“So.” Alistair’s looking at her. “What’re you thinking so hard about?”

She’s glad she’s not more drunk or else she’d probably tell him. “Nothing,” she says quickly. “Just… the… Blight. And stuff.”

“Oh.” He sounds disappointed. “Well, I’m not surprised. It’s… a lot to think about.”

“Yeah, it is.”

They fall silent. An awkward amount of time passes, and it’s not until the third poke that she realizes that he’s trying to get her attention again.

“Are you… sure there’s nothing else?” he asks. “Just because… Well, normally you’d be telling me to leave you alone, or you’d be making fun of my hair – though I did work especially hard on it this morning so, in any case, thank you for not doing that – but you’re not doing either of those things, really. You’re just… sitting there.”

She nods. “Yeah, I am,” she replies. 

His nose scrunches up in annoyance.

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not!”

“Really?” He plucks the bottle of wine out of her hand and holds it away from her, pretending to examine it with great interest. “You know, Oghren drinks this stuff. Are you sure you can handle it? You’re a lot smaller than he is.”

“Alistair –“

“So… I really don’t think you should be –“

“Alistair, give it back.”

He squints at her for a few moments, deciding what to do next, and then he thrusts the bowl of soup into her arms and offers her a smile. “Drink this, instead,” he tells her. “Or eat it, I suppose. Whatever.”

He’s worried about her. Or something. She doesn’t know why. He’s never given her this much attention before. She grits her teeth and takes the metal spoon begrudgingly in between her thumb and her forefinger, stirring slowly, agonizingly slowly, just to appease him. Alistair is still watching her.

What does he want?

In the distance, thunder rumbles. It sounds like a warning. She swallows a spoonful of soup – it’s lukewarm and lumpy - and forces herself not to spit it out.

“What do you want?” she asks after the wipes her mouth clean on the back of her hand and puts her spoon in the bowl again. “You can’t just be worried about me.”

Alistair’s eyebrows gather together. “That’s not – Y-yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”  

At that, he looks almost angry. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t be worried about,” he tells her, “and I’m worried about –“

“The Blight.” She jumps down from the rock and walks over to where he leaned the bottle up against the boulder, picking it up and tossing it between her hands. “That’s what this is about, right? You think I’m slacking off?”

Alistair stammers for a moment before shaking his head. “I wouldn’t say it like that…”

“This hasn’t been a very good experience for me either, you know!” She takes a drink, beginning to pace back and forth dangerously close to the bank of the river. “I mean… I didn’t want to get married, but then the elf who was going to be my husband got murdered by some fucking shems, and then I wind up in Ostagar, where the Grey Wardens are all wiped out, and Duncan dies, and I’m sacked with taking care of you –“

She catches herself before she continues, but Alistair’s already rolling his eyes. “Oh, well, I’m sorry it’s been so hard on you. Would things be easier if I started feeding you your dinner and washing your clothes for you? Maybe I can carry you around the country on my back, too?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Her bottle is empty, but she drinks – or pretend to drinks from it – anyway. “What I meant is that it’d be nice if you didn’t question everything I do! It’s hard to be in charge, Alistair! Do you wanna do it, instead?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead he rises, arms falling from where they were crossed over his chest to swing by his sides, gaze averted elsewhere.

“That’s what I thought,” Lark murmured. “Now, you can take your soup and your… well-wishing, or curiosity, or whatever you want to call it and go back to camp, okay?”

It almost works. He almost leaves.

But, before he takes that first step, he doesn’t.

Alistair is too kind. It’s the kind of kindness that feels like a punch in the gut. He’d never leave if he knew she was hurting. He’d never leave if he thought she was drunk. (She isn’t. Tipsy, maybe, but not drunk.)

Or, maybe... he’d just never leave at all.

“I’m not doing that,” he says evenly. “I’m going to stay here, a-and make sure you’re alright, and there’s you can do to stop me. Except… well, a few things, I suppose. I guess if you wanted to twist my arm -”

“Go back to camp,” Lark insists. “Alistair, go.”

She puts a hand on his chest and tries to push him away from her. He just places both of his hands over top of hers, staring at her in defiance.

A groan of protest rises in her throat. “Alistair…”

“You may want me to go, but I’m not going to,” he tells her. “I’m going to stay here until you come back with me.”

“Why?”

“Because!” It comes out as more of a bark than he intended, and he immediately shrinks away. “Because, I…” He blinks rapidly, stammering as he searches for the right words, holding tightly onto her hand. “Because…” And then, after a long stretch of silence, he gives a sigh of defeat, dropping his arms to his sides. “Because… look, Lark, you’re the only person I have left, alright? And I don’t want to… I can’t lose you. I can’t do this without you, okay?”

He’s breathing heavily. He’s on the verge of panting. She is, too, and she hasn’t spoken for a few long, awkward seconds.

“What does that mean?” she asks breathlessly.

And, to her horror, he laughs. He doesn’t yell at her or scold her or stalk away. He just laughs, and stammers, and then gives a lackluster shrug. “I don’t know, if I’m being completely honest,” he says. “It’s just that… sometimes you get on my nerves, and sometimes I can’t be around you… but sometimes you’re the only person.”

She stares at him, her face blank.

“And…” He reaches up to scratch the back of his neck. “I like you.”

“You what?”

Her tone sounds more disgusted than she meant for it to and she hurries to continue before he even has time to react. “I mean… I just… you hate me, Alistair.”

He balks at her. “Do you honestly believe that?”

“Well…”

She never wanted him to hate her, but she thought he did, and she thought that was what she had wanted this entire time because it made her feelings for him easier to deal with and easier to ignore since she thought nothing would come of them. But now… he likes her. Just like that.

And she likes that, too.

“I’ve never hated you, Lark,” Alistair almost reassures her, reaching out to grab her shoulder before stopping himself and giving her a quizzical look that makes her heart leap into her throat. “Do you… erm… do you hate me?”

The fact that he readies himself for her to say ‘no’ makes her sad. And angry at herself for making him feel that way.

But she doesn’t answer right away, anyway, because she should just say ‘yes’. It’d hurt him, but it’d make things easier for both of them in the long run – he must know that as well as she does. If he didn’t, he’d have confessed his feelings for her sooner. After all, things between them would never be easy – they’d bicker as much as they do now and then they’d have to crawl back to each other at the end of the day to apologize instead of getting a good night’s sleep, which they need when they’re trying to save Ferelden from the archdemon. And yet…

“No,” she says, her voice crackling. “No, I don’t hate you, Alistair. I like you, too.”

“Really?” he squeaks before clearing his throat and crossing his arms over his chest protectively. “I mean… really? It’s not just the a-alcohol talking or something?”

Lark gives him a shake of her head. “No,” she says. “It’s not.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

And that’s all he says.

The clearing falls into an awkward silence. Lark shifts back and forth on her feet, waiting for one of them – even herself, if that’s what it comes to – to make a move.

And Alistair does. Kind of. And then he stops.

“You’re sure you’re not –“

“Alistair!”

“Ijustwanttomakesure!” he exclaims. “I’m not going to kiss you while you’re drunk, Lark! What kind of man do you take me for?”

The corners of her mouth quirk upwards into a smirk. “You were gonna kiss me?” she asks.

His cheeks turn red instantly. “I… Yes, I was, but if you don’t want to, then that’s –“

She kisses him before he can finish.

He doesn’t react, at first. She opens her eyes just to see what he’s doing and his look like they’re pointing in two different directions in shock. And then, finally, he seems to relax – his eyes flutter shut and his arms snake around her waist, his grip on her strong and unwavering, unflinching, and she smiles against his mouth, pushing him backwards until he’s sitting on the edge of the rock.

She’s just climbed into his lap when Alistair pulls away, blushing furiously.

“That was, um… really nice,” he says, pulling a hand away to rub the back of his neck. “But we probably shouldn’t –“

She cuts him off again, delighting in the way he kisses her back without question. It takes knocking the bowl of now-cold soup over and sending it spilling down the side of the rock for either of them to consider stopping their romantic engagement.

Alistair’s lying flat on his back with his legs dangling over the edge of the boulder, and when he tries to sit up, Lark just holds him down with a playful smirk.

“We should get back to camp,” he whispers, looking up at her with rounded eyes.

“We should,” she agrees, then adds, “doesn’t mean we have to, though.”

And then he rolls his eyes, moving his hands from around her waist to her wrists, trying to wriggle free of her hold on him as she tilts her face upwards to nip at his earlobe. “You must be even drunker than I thought,” he comments as her hand comes up to flatten against the other side of his face. “You know, you could do with a little bit of self control, or I’m going to start thinking that you don’t have any standards.”

But he’s smiling, and he’s gorgeous, and Lark can’t find it in herself to wring out what little self-control she has.

“Lark, I’m serious,” he says with a laugh. “We should… get back to…”

She’s relentless in her attack of the sensitive skin beneath his jaw, and relentless also in the way she grinds herself against him in minute little strokes. He sighs, gliding a hand up her arm to cup the back of her neck. “You’re… very good at that,” he murmurs.

“At what?” she asks, feigning stupidity as she draws away and smiling as he sucks in a sharp breath at the loss of contact.

“At… at…”

“At using my mouth?”

Something dark glimmers in his eye before he clears his throat and glances away, cheeks burning.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she tells him, cocking her eyebrows playfully. “Do you want me to walk you through it?”

She’s biting her lip so hard she think she might make herself bleed and then feels the blood drain from her face when he shakes himself to attention and meets her eyes. “No, no,” he says matter-of-factly, making her heart sink deep into her stomach. “I’ve liked this, Lark, I have – I’m not going to lie and say that I didn’t. but… I want this to be special. Don’t you? Not on some… rock in the middle of the woods.”

It’s a fair point, but her first instinct is to disagree before she shakes the thought from her head. “You’re right, I guess,” she says eventually, untangling herself from on top of him and climbing down from the rock, kicking a smaller one nestled against it and sending it skittering through the grass until it lands in the stream with a startling plunk. “And I guess we should return to camp, too.”

“Ah, yes.” Alistair hops down from the rock after her, wiping his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Wouldn’t want Wynne to worry about us or anything, or suspect what nefarious things we were getting up to.”

“Nefarious. Is that what you’d call kissing?” Lark brushes past him to grab her bowl and frowns as she feels the gritty liquid smear over her thumb, not even thinking about it as she licks it off and meets his eyes. “I wonder what you’d call sex.”

Alistair isn’t drinking anything, and he still chokes, coughing and coughing until he’s even redder in the face than he was before. “Can we not talk about that, please?” he asks then at her alarmed glance, eyes trained on the ground and hands shoved deep in his pockets. “It’s… I’m a very weak man, Lark, and I don’t want to do something I’ll regret.”

Lark stops in her tracks, then, thinking.

Regret is a strong word. She has never felt like she’s regretted very many things. She believes in herself – she’s always had to – and she believes in what she believes. She’s never really had room for regret.

But she might regret this.

Alistair is funny, and gentle, and he has a heart of gold that could fetch a ridiculous amount of sovereigns in an Orlesian market. Sometimes he snorts when he laughs, and one time he even snorted whilst in the middle of choking down some of Wynne’s stew – it was really funny, actually, the thought bringing a smile to Lark’s lips. He brings a smile to her lips. He has for a while now.

And he can’t.

She’s not like him. She’s loud and drinks too much and has too many throwing knives. She curses Andraste under her breath and acts out against the Chantry in ways that border on heresy. And she really, really, really likes him.

And… she can’t. She’ll ruin him. She’s already ruined so many things.

He decided to start off towards the camp in the time that she was thinking, and when he stops and turns around to beckon her closer, his expression hardens into a frown.

“What is it?”

She looks at him and shakes her head, forcing a smile. “Nothing, nothing,” she chirps. “Let’s just get back to camp.”

The urge to hold his hand is probably stronger than the Archdemon is, and she resists it anyway.

That’s good, at least, she tries to convince herself.

---

Their camp is steeped in a haze of mist and gentle rain the next morning, and Lark frowns when she awakes, trying her best to ignore the stray hairs sticking straight up from her scalp. Alistair’s face breaks out into a grin as he sees her, walking quickly towards her, holding a bowl of soup – probably filled with leftovers from the night before and somehow even colder than it was then – in his hands.

“Good morning,” he says in a low, throaty voice, handing the bowl towards her and grinning wider as she takes it. “How did you sleep? Was there a certain Grey Warden in your dreams?”

She looks at him blankly. “I didn’t sleep well,” she comments. “And my head hurts.”

“Oh.” Alistair’s eyebrows gather together. “Well, I mean, you did drink a whole bottle of some Dragon-Heart-Burn-Break-Your-Face thing last night that I think is probably worthy of making Oghren feel ill. Did you… Do you feel sick?”

She swallows the lump growing in her throat. “I don’t even remember that much of last night, honestly,” she says even though it breaks her heart and makes her face burn to see his own fall. “And, anyway,” she continues, holding the bowl back out to him so far that she’s practically pushed it up against his chest, keeping a very obvious distance between them, “we should get a move on and make some headway before, well, this gets worse.”

She knows the sound she makes as she walks away is twigs being crunched beneath her boot, but she feels like, for just one second, that it might be the sound of Alistair’s heart breaking.

[fandomn00blr]

Kieran

I’m writing this Alistair and Morrigan co-parenting situation in reverse order. Like most things I write.

Here’s a thing I just wrote today because I guess I needed a good cry...

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21300158

During Awakening, when King Alistair comes to visit Vigil’s Keep to give his “approval” of the Warden operations...he actually has another reason for visiting.

...

“You have a son,” Solona whispered, motioning for Alistair to come and see for himself as Anders pushed his way out of the little room, looking a bit miffed.

“Don’t get his hopes up...” Morrigan muttered, ignoring Alistair so she could glare suspiciously at Anders on his way out.

Alistair, on the other hand, was beaming. “We have a son?!”

Morrigan nodded slowly, trying hard to hide the relief that still flooded through her now that the effort of labor was past. She looked up at him with a hesitant fondness, and Solona smiled to herself before ducking back out of the room to give them a few moments alone and to speak with Anders.

He was waiting impatiently outside and he shook his head as soon as the door was shut behind her. "She says she doesn't need my 'Chantry magic'...I tried to explain to her that I am also an apostate, not some extension of the church, but --"

"But everything is well…?" Solona asked, unsurprised that Morrigan would refuse his attention or care. He was a stranger to her, after all. And the fewer people who knew about her and her child, the better, in her mind.

"As far as I can tell, mother and baby seem quite healthy. But the child has an odd...aura to him? He barely cried at all."

"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about!" Solona said cheerfully.

Far too cheerfully. It wasn't like her at all, and Anders raised his eyebrows in question. He knew she was hiding something.

The whole situation had been bizarre. The way she’d been hidden away below the Keep under cover of night. The way he’d been sworn to secrecy, “no matter what you see…” as though she’d been expecting something horrific to burst out of this woman’s womb. And now the newly-annointed King of Ferelden showing up for a visit, claiming to be the father. He knew Solona and her companions had been through some shit during the Blight, but he couldn’t imagine what all of the fuss could’ve been about if two of them had simply produced a child. Kings had bastards all the time. It was now public knowledge that this King was one himself.

"Morrigan is a rather old soul herself…" she added quickly as some kind of explanation, before shooing him along the tunnel that led back up to the Keep. “And a witch, so I’m sure she’s got everything from here…thank you! And remember...no blabbing about this to anyone.”

“You must think so little of me, Sol. Patient confidentiality is something I hold to be sacred.”

“I know you love to gossip.”

...

“Would you like to hold the child?” Morrigan asked as Alistair stood staring in awe at them like he’d just walked in on something he shouldn’t have. He’d been invited, he had to keep reminding himself. She’d wanted him to come.

“Can I…?” He already looked completely smitten with the son he was not to have any part in raising.

“If you can resist growing too attached to him.”

Too late, he thought, but didn’t dare to say it aloud, for fear she’d rescind the offer.

“As soon as I have recovered, I will be leaving this place. Solona has been generous in offering us this temporary sanctuary, but we cannot linger. Her healer already senses that there is something unique about him.”

"I have a Templar in my company who would happily deal with the mage for us,” Alistair laughed, only half-joking, as Morrigan passed the little bundle carefully into his arms. “Just to keep you both safe…" he cooed as the baby squirmed, sensing his apprehensions through the sarcasm.

But he fit so naturally into the crook of his elbow that Alistair’s fears and anxieties about the well-being of this child quickly gave way to something far more powerful. As he dared to look down at him, he was certain he was the most miraculous, perfect, wonderful, precious thing he’d ever seen.

“What shall we call you, little one?” he asked the baby. “Alistair, Jr.?”

Morrigan groaned. “He shall not be named after a Fereldan dog lord.”

“Of course not," Alistair chuckled. "There will be bigger and better things for you…”

“His name is Kieran.”

“Oh?”

“Do you not approve?”

“No. I mean, yes. I -- it’s a good name...I like it.” He peered at the infant and smiled. And his heart nearly broke at the thought of ever letting go of him. Stroking the knuckle of his pinky gently down his cheek, he whispered, “Kieran…”

The baby turned toward his finger, his tiny mouth searching hungrily for a nipple.

“He wishes to feed.”

Alistair sighed heavily. He knew this very well could be the last time he would ever get to see his son. Morrigan had said she would write, but visits were an unlikely possibility. Still, at least she’d allowed him to see him this once. He should be grateful for this moment. He didn’t dare to allow himself to hope...

He handed the baby reluctantly back to his mother and decided to give them some privacy as Morrigan pulled her shawl down off her shoulder and allowed the baby to find her breast. As soon as he was out the door, he felt ridiculous about it, and had half a mind to march right back into the room and crawl into bed with them, refusing to leave. But Solona was waiting for him outside, her own brows furrowed in concern.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I think so."

She tilted her head. She knew him better than this.

"No, of course not! But I suppose I will have to be."

“Are you happy you came?”

“Yes. He’s...perfect. I just...”

“He is pretty fucking cute,” she laughed. “Almost makes me want to have one someday…but Sweens will have to do for now.”

Alistair shook his head sadly, refusing to look up into her eyes. “I don’t know how I can go back and just pretend he doesn’t exist. I can't even hate her for this. Because she's right. Please don't ever tell her I said that...but --”

“I’m sorry, Alistair…”

“She promised she would write.”

“I’ll remind her of that.”

“And if she doesn’t...will you…? I mean, I know she’s not going to stay here with you, but I imagine she’ll keep in touch with you, if nothing else.”

Solona nodded. “I will.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you…” she started. “Without this…”

“I don’t even want to think about that. We are all somehow alive. That’s all that matters. He is healthy and he is beautiful. And Solona...”

"Hmmm?"

He finally looked up at her. “I have a son!"

It was then that the tears he'd been trying so hard to keep in check finally began to flow.

She could barely stand to see him like this. It was a brutal reminder of how young he was...how young they all were...and to have been through so much already. So much responsibility foisted upon them. And now this...

She pulled him into her arms and he buried his face in her neck. Like he used to on the really hard nights. But on those nights, at least she’d had Leliana with her to help comfort him. Or to comfort her. She somehow always knew what to say. What to do. To make everything seem less hopeless. And Wynne. And Zevran. And Shale. And even Sten.

She realized how alone all of them were, scattered across Thedas, each of them doing their part to save the world that refused to stay fixed. She actually longed for the days of the Blight, when they could at least all still be together at camp. Sobbing, and laughing, and eating and drinking, and taking turns comforting one another in the darkness.

"I love you…" he sobbed. "But I don't know if I can ever forgive you for this."

"I know. But saving you was worth it," she murmured into the top of his head, squeezing him tight as his fingers dug into her mail and clenched at desperate fistfuls of silverite. “Even if you hate me.”

"I...have to go," he sniffed, pulling away from her.

"Yes. It was good of you to check in on us here in Amaranthine, your Highness…” she winced. Even though she’d meant it as a joke, she knew it was still painful for him to hear the title that had been mostly forced upon him. Especially coming from her.

"I want to stay here.”

"I know."

"But I can't."

"She knows, too, by the way." Solona tried to assure him, though she didn’t really know if this was a comfort to him. “She doesn’t hate you, either.”

"What about Kieran?"

"He'll grow up knowing his father wanted very much to be a part of his life."

"How do you know that?"

"The same way you know…"

He wiped the rest of his tears on the sleeve of his royal furs and turned to go without another word.

Solona slumped back against the cold stone wall, wrestling her own sobs back into her throat.

She had some new recruits who had yet to undergo the Joining waiting for her now that they’d received the King’s approval of their operations here. Anders, obviously, she’d known since she was a child, and Nathaniel Howe, who had initially come seeking vengeance for the death of his despicable father, and somehow been convinced to join their cause instead. But she hadn’t even bothered to learn the others’ names. No point, really, until they’d survived the ritual. A dwarf from the Legion of the Dead, a Dalish witch, a corpse inhabited by a spirit of Justice...at least he was already dead, she supposed, with a shrug as she smoothed out her mail and steeled her expression before heading up to the Keep to prepare the Darkspawn blood she’d sent them out to retrieve with Oghren as their guide. Just as Duncan had done. Her job, she realized with a shaky sigh, now that she'd stopped a Blight, and made Alistair King, and sent Leliana to serve the Divine, and wished the others well on their own personal quests for atonement and absolution, would be to carry on where Duncan had left off.

[kunstpause-archive]

Bitter asks

found it in the depths of my drafts again - tagged by absolutely noone but we’re doing this regardless and bc I have not suffered enough we will do it for Dragon Age

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Tbh I don’t get the Sera/Dagna thing? It feels like a lazy “pair up the spare” pairing to me. 

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

Dorian & Bull tbh. Their flirting banters are weird and don’t click for me but I could see them as close friends rather than an otp

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

oh hell yes. 

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

Aveline/Isabela - I nope out of that fast and probably block everything around it. And a popular one to a degree... but  that’s the next question already

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

Solavellan. The fandom around it has mostly been a complete shitshow in the past few years. The amount of creepy teacher/student fics I stumbled upon and just the way this fandom goes overboard with the wolf/halla symbolic in the creepiest way possible... Just a big yikes for me.

I think I trust about 3 authors with that pairing and no one else.

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I didn’t necessarily hate any pairing. Fandom has made me interested in combinations of characters I never thought about though. 

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

The concept of Bioware’s “grey morality” - veeeeeery in the beginning (we are talking about 2009 here) I thought it was a nifty idea.

Then I realised Bioware doesn’t have the chops good enough to bring nuance across and they don’t actually understand what grey morality is...

Have you received anon hate? What about?

ahaha... about everything from shipping things wrongly, disliking your fav, not treating canon as the be all end all, being a self indulgent wish fullfiller to simply not liking a character. It#s why I dipped out of fandom space for years  

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Oghren bc anyone who is regularly drunk triggers my flight reflex

Aveline bc of all the shit she says

Most disliked arc? Why?

“Who the fuck is Mythal?” But basically the entirety of the writing in DAI with the exception of very few scenes.

Don’t get me started on this awful, horrible cultish sing-along everyone loves so much. As someone who spent over half her life getting away from a very oppressive church/cult upbringing that scene was absolutely horrific.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

Blackwall. He got the redemption arc people like to pretend Cullen got...

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I love the fade bits in DAO? idk why anyone would want to skip it.  Storywise: I don’t wanna side with them but I think the templar questline in DAI is better written than the mage one. Sue me.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

I think nothing is unpopular in this fandom, not with the amount of fighting going on all the time... ;)

Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Most people in this fandom (much like the Bioware writers really) have no idea how trickster gods work and have zero understanding about polytheistic religions and it shows...

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show/game?

It peaked with Dragon Age 2...

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

Hire a more diverse writing team

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

Sometimes it just means you have good taste... ;) 

What is the purest ship in the fandom?

idk, I don’t care much for pure and uwu stuff.

What are your thoughts on crack ships?

Wonderful! Fandom needs more of them

I also am in constant danger of turning a joke into something I actually ship so that is a very fine line to walk.

Popular character you hate?

Hat is far too strong a word. I refuse to get that invested into this whole thing. If I actually hate something it’s a sign for me to take a step back

But dislike because of the way they are written in game and/or the popular fandom interpretation, there are quite a few actually. I think you can guess.

Unpopular character you love?

Loghain. Don’t get me started!

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes - with a few choice words of warning

Most shippable character?

tbh the player characters? Maybe Cassandra, because everyone could become a better person by having more Cassandra in their life!

Least shippable character?

see most disliked character...

tagging @curiousthimble, @edencalder, @knallbart @elveny and whomever wants to do it!

Feel free to change fandoms or ignore - the usual disclaimer :D