three cats in a trenchcoat

It's been a while since I did an updated pinned post and I think it's about time I cleaned this up and made it presentable for company (i.e. you). You might know me here as gatesofminrathous, but you can also call me Rosa - it's not my name, but it's been my online name for long enough it might as well be. I also moonlight as throneofthegods on ao3. I'm a Dragon Age fic writer and occasional fan artist and you can find all my work in the below.

Without further ado...

Veilguard Long Fics:

🗡️No Rest in This World | E | Lucanis Dellamorte/Rook de Riva | 350k (complete) | post-canon, angst, established relationship, slow-burn divorce, slavery, antivan crow politics, past trauma, mental health issues

Rook de Riva never expected there to be an ‘after' to this job. For twenty-two years, Rook was an Antivan Crow by circumstance, not by choice. While returning to the yoke of the Crows after so long away proves a bitter pill to swallow, it is life with the new First Talon that forces a reckoning with past wounds left unhealed. When Tevinter's new Archon seeks out the Crows to eliminate the remaining Venatori, Rook is quick to jump at the contract for an escape, even as it claws at the darkest parts of her past. As tensions grow and truths come out, Rook must ask herself how much she's willing to endure for love.

🍸Last Call | E | Lucanis Dellamorte/Rook Thorne (and kind of Mercar) | 50k (complete) | modern au, romcom, humor, the hanged man is a dive bar, the antivan crows are lawyers |

What do you do when your whole life falls apart? You move to Kirkwall. Reeling from a personal betrayal, Lucanis Dellamorte is looking for an escape, one he hopes to find as the new line cook at The Hanged Man. As closing shifts with Rook—the bar's enigmatic bartender—lead to friendship, which leads to something more, Lucanis must decide what he wants more: the life he's always known, or the unknown of a fresh start.

🥇Everything and Nothing to Lose | M (for now) | Lucanis Dellamorte/Neve Gallus/Davrin | 12k (in progress, updating weekly) | real world modern au, men's gymnastics, sibling rivalry, mystery, angst and humor, bisexuality, mid-life crisis |

Lucanis knows gold. From golden child to gold medals, there's one last gold he's chasing: the all-around Olympic gold that's eluded his gymnastics dynasty family for the past sixty years. At twenty-eight and rapidly aging out of the sport, the upcoming Olympic trials are his last chance. Then came Worlds. After a catastrophic accident nearly ends his career, Lucanis is five months into an ill-advised, painkiller-fueled comeback. As if things couldn't get worse, an anonymous source has hired a PI to investigate potential foul play in Lucanis' accident, and now his carefully planned life is turned on its head. Add in a former competitor with an olive branch extended in friendship and a bitter, lifelong rivalry with the cousin for whom Lucanis' injury might mean his own last chance at victory, and suddenly Lucanis is wondering how much that one last gold is really worth.

Veilguard One-Shots:

💀You Only Feel It When It's Lost | T | Gen (technically Emmrich/Rook) | 2.6k (complete) | character death, regret, hurt no comfort, immortality, lich emmrich, character study, grief/mourning |

Immortality is a heavy burden to bear alone. When the last of the Veilguard passes on, Emmrich stands alone and questions if the price of lichdom was worth it.

🥃To Be Seen By Your Eyes | T | Lucanis Dellamorte/Rook de Riva | 2.8k (complete) | pre-relationship, feelings realization, fluff and angst | *this is a prequel to No Rest* |

Rook had many questions for the Demon of Vyrantium after his rescue from his underwater prison. She had not expected one to stir up new feelings.

🩸Where Our Hearts Hunger | M | Lucanis Dellamorte/Rook de Riva | 3.8k (complete) | hurt/comfort, flirting, unresolved sexual tension, blood and injury, undressing, partial nudity | *this is a prequel to No Rest* |

Left bloodied and injured in the aftermath of Zara's death, Lucanis is forced to grapple with the implications of Illario's last words. Rook has her own ideas for how to distract him.

Inquisition Long Fics:

📝Where Shall I Begin? | M | Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan | 69k (in-progress/hiatus) | during canon, epistolary format, letters, many POVs, slow burn, coworkers to friends to lovers, lyrium addiction, sibling bonding |

For Cullen, the Inquisition was a chance to atone, to make peace with a Templar's regrets. For Evelyn, it was the chance to live a life free of the Circle's restraints and to reunite with the Templar brother she has not seen in twenty long years. But even in the midst of chaos that follows, there are always quiet moments. Letters from a brother to a sister, separated by time and circumstance. Notes passed between friends, reveling in the gossip that surrounds a burgeoning hero. Strange figures met on the road...and sometimes closer to home. And the friendships and love that grows between the unlikeliest pairs. This is the story of the Inquisition as told through the letters of its people. And the story of a former Circle mage and ex-Templar who, despite it all, find hope - and the chance at a future - in one another.

Inquisition One-Shots:

🫂Nothing He Wrought Shall Be Lost | T | Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan | 5.2k (complete) | family reunions, fluff, first meetings, pre-DLC |

Thirteen years after entering Kinloch Hold and three months after the fall of Corypheus, Cullen Rutherford and Evelyn Trevelyan make a visit a long time coming, and Cullen is forced to reckon with the question haunting him for the past decade: just how unconditional is a family's love?

🐶The Things We Do For Love | G | Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan | 750 (complete) | mabari, domestic fluff, post-canon, humor |

Cullen knows that sometimes love means sacrifice. He'd just prefer if that sacrifice wasn't sharing his side of the bed.

My Art (my art tag):

Thank you to @epiphany-jones for the tag!

Started on ch 18 of EAN this morning. Are we ready to actually move some plot along? (Did you forget there was a plot other than gay panic and Lucanis having a string of terrible days? I'd understand.)

There is no badge-checking security to stop the three of them from waltzing into the restricted zone. It is a sign clearly meant for theater and little else, judging from how few sets of eyes even glance the way of these interlopers. The area behind the gate is one part stable, one part break room in which a disgruntled custodian scoops horse shit off the path while two of the horseback acrobats Lucanis recognizes from the joust's half-time performance pass a joint back and forth. Further back still are actual horse stalls, about half of which sit occupied. In the very last one stands a beautiful chestnut mare and a towering, half-armored Blackwall who stares down at Neve as though it's 2 a.m. and the cops are at his door.

Relationship: Lucanis Dellamorte/Davrin/Neve Gallus Rating: Explicit Words: 93k (Chapter 17/?) Tags: Real World Modern AU, Men's Gymnastics, Sibling Rivalry, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Mystery, Family Drama, Humor, Angst

⟡⟡⟡

Chapter Seventeen

Two miles into the Mario Kart-like death trap that is the 495, Lucanis suspects he will need to get his car detailed. "Stop moving! I'm going to get makeup in your hair." "You're already getting it on the seats." With each glance in the rear-view mirror, Lucanis gets a partially-obstructed view of the scene playing out in the backseat. Bellara dabs at Davrin's silicone elf ear with a makeup wedge smeared with a shade of brown Lucanis wouldn't exactly call a perfect match, but gets the job done nonetheless. It's an activity better suited for literally anywhere else than the backseat of a moving vehicle, but by the time the four of them had left Neve and Bellara's apartment they were already running twenty minutes late. "You can just leave it as is," says Davrin. Bellara pouts. The bouncing of the sponge grows in vigor. "You'll look like you have vitiligo!" "Maybe I do," Davrin quips back. Bellara bounces the clean end of the wedge on the tip of his nose, the world's gentlest telling-off.

Thank you @sorrygoldfish and @blightwashed for the tags! I'm really really close to being done with this chapter (it'll probably go up tonight??) and in finishing it I've realized that what I thought was going to be a two chapter arc realistically needs to be spread over three chapters? The content is the same, but I think certain scenes need a little room to breath so they don't get overshadowed by other, bigger scenes (no comment). It does mean this first chapter won't encompass quite as much as I'd originally planned, but don't worry, you're still being fed.

Your one last tease before the chapter goes up:

"Was there some sort of sale on V-necks?" says Neve. She too is a member of the bared-chest brigade, though her shirt is frilled and tucked into a pair of high-waisted teal trousers, giving her the appearance of a particularly flamboyant pirate, sans peg leg (though Varric insists he'll get one for next year). It takes a great deal of effort to keep Lucanis' eyes from wandering to the smooth expanse of brown skin on display. "Sex sells, Gallus," says Varric. He drops a stack of books onto the table with a thud. "So time to start selling." An hour later Lucanis is no longer thinking quite so much about the tightness of the leather pants, only the trail of sweat he can feel running down the crack of his ass. A line of fans snakes into the central walkway, one Neve and Davrin make a valiant effort to wrangle into something that does not block the narrow-eyed, disgruntled tarot reader's stall. Bellara is installed next to Varric as the official photographer for every fan who wants their picture with his infamous chest hair, and Isabela works cashier, which leaves Lucanis as the keeper of the Post-It notes. "How do you spell that?" he asks the woman with the stack of books so tall they're spilling out the top of her Politics and Prose tote bag. "C-a-s-s-a-n-d-r-a," she says.

Pick a scene/chapter/whatever from one of your fics (or I'll suggest one!) and add any commentary you feel like. Why that line? How come this plot twist? What does the eyebrow waggle MEAN?!?! I want the dirt and I can only smash my face up against the glass of your stories so hard before I start to leave smudges.

Thanks to @sorrygoldfish for the tag and also for once again giving me a little prompt to go off because I am chronically, famously bad at knowing what to say for any of these even though I really conceptually vibe with it. Goldfish asked me to talk a bit about how I add depth to my characters by dropping (and I'm quoting her here), "an excruciating character detail in the middle of an otherwise banal or lighthearted moment."

There is a part of me that always wants to answer these sorts of questions with "I don't know??" Because in a way I don't? The way I go about writing is always very loose, very instinctive, and driven by feeling out a scene when I'm in it vs having a specific plan for what I'm going to say. But I think saying that and not interrogating it further does me a disservice because I am thinking about it.