love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
A mutuals only blog for Bethany Hawke of Dragon Age.
Canon based, though AU-heavy and headcanon influenced.
I have several canon divergent verses for DA, and AUs for other franchises such as Resident Evil (current focus), BG3, FF games, etc.
Written by Dara, they/them, 25+
This is what language is:
a habitual grief. A turn of speech
for the everyday and ordinary abrasion
of losses such as this:
which hurts
just enough to be a scar
And heals just enough to be a nation.
This blog will contain potentially triggering content typical to the Dragon Age universe, or that of any other setting I will write in. Due to this, please be 21+ to follow.
I tag triggers in the format ‘_ cw’ apart from nsfw, which I tag ‘nsft’ or ‘nsft mention’ and put under a cut. Please tag anything suicide related whether ic or ooc, disordered eating, trypophobia, and nsfw content.
I love OCs.
I do not accept pre-established relationships outside of canon unless mutually plotted. When it comes to Wardens, Hawkes, Inquisitors, Rooks, etc I'm okay with accommodating your worldstate choices for anything that does not affect my muse.
I love lore discussion, character analysis, and all that good stuff.
IC =/= OOC. Bethany's views are not mine. She canonically has and will express biases, opinions, and behaviours I do not support.
I'm not interested in interacting with anyone who uses or supports AI generated content.
My activity level and focus will fluctuate a lot due to my health, please do not take this as an indicator of my interest in writing with you.
When I reblog a meme there is no time limit, send me any and whenever you like.
Regarding shipping, Bethany is bi and open to partners of any gender. My only 'restriction' is I am not interested in romantic shipping with templars. I rarely do pre-est right off the bat but am open to testing the waters and seeing what develops and if we vibe.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Bethany challenging someone on their beliefs and critiquing their way of thinking when she sees it as wrong, is actually a sign of love. If it's someone she hates or is disdainfully indifferent to, there won't be a discussion or a debate she'll just call them a moron.
Bethany sinks into her usual chair, but this time she is not curling up to read. Her entire attention is on Chris, and she's leaning forward with intent. The words are as neutral as she could frame them, but there is still an undercurrent of intensity.
The scent of elk stew drifts in the air from the kitchen. An experiment; she has never cooked deer meat before but these shanks were promised to be even better than she beef she normally used. It will not be ready for some time yet, thus she figured it perhaps best to get an uncomfortable conversation out of the way before dinner.
Maintaining eye contact with him, she continues. "It's about you wanting Rose for the Hound Wolves."
Bethany exhales slowly, key statement aired, it's out there now and can't be taken back. Not that she'd want to retract it. Elbows on her knees, her hands raise palms-up in a vague 'what the hell' gesture.
"Just... what were you thinking? She's still a kid. Did you forget? Or does her being a 'bioweapon' come first, to you?"
There's a tightness around her eyes with the lattermost question, a flash of pain, the question coming out more loaded than it had been intended when formulated in her mind. Chris had been one of the few people to insist to Bethany herself about her own humanity, believed in it even when she questioned it; and to see a child be thought of as something to use for their power, makes something deep inside her twist painfully.
"Please tell me what the hell was going through your head when you did that."
They were sat within the Director's office, not at the desk, but on the couch, close as could be without touching, though their shoulders grazed each other's and their hands, Jesse noticed, were next to each other's. She felt the need to move her own hand just a bit closer. "Back then, when we..." She paused, thinking of what she wanted to say. They'd been talking in hushed tones, hence the close proximity. Their closeness almost scrambled her brain. "Had our flings, one nighters.. Unlike everyone else, you were the only one who supported me. Didn't tell me I was fucking crazy..."
She paused again. God, she was hopeless.
"I guess I.. I'd like to pick up where we left off, but.." The hand closest to Bethany's gently placed itself over the other's. She doesn't entertwine their hands, rather, she waits for the other's response. "Maybe we could go for something more?"
The couch in Jesse's office was more comfortable than it looked. Bethany had taken a seat there, wordlessly offering a cup of coffee to the other woman, and settling in.
When you've known someone for long enough, silence is not uncomfortable, and while they hadn't seen each other in years until more... recent events, despite the ways in which they had both changed it felt like they hadn't missed a beat.
She hadn't even questioned to herself when she'd began thinking of Jesse as 'Jesse' again, not 'the Director'.
Bethany is a tad distracted by her own thoughts until the other begins speaking, her head turning to give Jesse her full attention immediately.
The proposition is... unexpected. Bethany's pulse flutters in a way that makes her head a bit floaty.
"I... oh my."
While their prior relationship had ran its course, the attraction hadn't fizzled out, and even now it still sparked between the two of them. Bethany had picked up on it and gracefully moved around it, figuring Jesse too busy to resume their dalliance.
To hear that she wanted more.
Bethany's covered hand moves to splay her fingers, creating room for Jesse's to slide between them, inelegantly forming some sort of hand-hold.
"I think I'd like that," she murmurs breathlessly. "You were sort of exactly what I needed back then too. Even if it didn't last. But maybe now that things are different...?"
I'm watching How To Get To Heaven From Belfast and the character who is a writer is so amazingly intense; she quit her job by saying "Putting a gun to someone's head is only a threat if you're absolutely sure they don't want you to pull the trigger."
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
The dynamics that are the most fun for me to write, whether platonic or romantic or antagonistic or some grey area, are ones where the characters have a lingering impact on or change each other in some way. It doesn't have to be strictly positive change, negative works too. Just simply that they're affected by it or it catalyzed something.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
"I assume if I did that, you would be more furious with me." HUNK replies. "A shelter... at that rate, I could snap them in half myself."
"This is a large city. Thousands of little things being born within it. And there is no facility that can hold them all." Despite the words, HUNK is holding his gloved hand out to the mother cat, she is breathing fast, he assumes, still in pain, and nervous, but helpless to do much but rest her head and just trust these giants to have no ill will.
"So I figure they would do better here." He remarks, as if sharing a moment of clarity. "Undesirables, after all, have to protect each other. Nobody else will."
It's true, she supposes. None of the shelters here are no-kill, they aren't funded well enough to maintain strays indefinitely and more like than not are near capacity at all times.
Still, it is one thing to have an awareness, and a different thing entirely to give a shit about it.
"Undesirables..." She echoes. The kittens are tiny, helpless little things, and the mother is clearly exhausted from what it took to bring them into the world. Many things that are small and vulnerable fall victim to life's cruelties. Neither size nor ability makes you an exception. In most cases, it just makes you prey for something bigger and nastier.
"And so you're leaving them in my care?" Bethany has none of the necessities required for a pet at hand. The kittens will be fine, the mother will be their sole source of sustenance and comfort for several weeks, but she herself will have needs.
"I haven't had a cat since the farm. And well, he wasn't really mine, just more of the local mouser. He hated everyone except father." She glances down at her wrist reflexively with the memory. A pale white scar is barely visible, trailing from the side of it down to her thumb. A memento of the day she'd learned not to try to pet him when Malcolm wasn't around.
HUNK is sat in her living room, kneeling over a cardboard box. The box is... slightly wet, and has speckles of red and grey. Inside is a large cat, with several still wet just born kittens. "It was in a dumpster. I brought it here." No other explanation given.
This merc seems to come and go with less predictability than the wind. Yet somehow, Bethany is not entirely surprised at his presence, and that in itself worries her. It means she has adjusted to him.
The sound of tiny, fluttering heartbeats drumming in her ears alerts her to the box's contents before she even approaches. And sure enough, it's a cat with what seems to be a freshly spawned litter. Bethany grabs an old towel then returns to the box, crouching and offering her hand to the mother cat to sniff. "See, girl? I'm not going to hurt your babies." She murmurs, working around them to place the towel on the bottom of the box, ensuring to not touch or handle the kittens lest it result in them being rejected.
It is only when the task is complete that she rocks back on her heels and glances over to him. "Is there a particular reason you chose to make this little family my problem? Could've dropped them off at a shelter."
ough that thread making me realize that if Bethany lives long enough, there will eventually be a time where she has been 'not normal' (be it stricken with the blight as a Warden, or a tyrant in RE verse) longer than she ever was a normal human, and eventually she will forget what it was like before, to be a regular person.
rose watches bethany enter the coffee shop and quickly glances down at her phone as if she's done something wrong, immediately feeling stupid for doing so. but she's never really met anyone at a coffee shop before and she's not entirely sure what the protocol is upon the other woman's arrival. should she greet her and wave her down? pretend she hasn't noticed her?
it doesn't matter, because bethany approaches on her own—rose must have been easy enough to spot. she offers bethany an awkward grin, then hesitates before wiping her hand (wet with condensation, rather than white sweat, thank god) on her jeans and reaching out to take bethany's in a handshake. finally. like this is something bethany has been waiting for. rose supposes that shouldn't be a surprise, considering what they both are. "likewise, you can call me rosemary. or just rose."
she appreciates the pointedness to bethany's question—no politics, no dancing around the point. it makes rose relax a little, despite how nervous she is to meet someone like her. even if they are technically different… there are some things about both of them that are very similar. namely, their status as superhuman. or bioweapons, depending on who you asked. rose tapped along her cup again, staring down at her hands for a moment before she looks up, steeling herself to meet bethany's gaze. "i was wondering if you'd be willing to talk to me about your condition." she would have used the exact phrase 't-Veronica infection', but rose doesn't want anyone to overhear them and cause a panic. "and… about terrasave, actually." she paused, hesitating. "chris has mentioned me joining the hound wolf squad. i don't know if i want to be a fighter." she doesn't know that she doesn't want to be a fighter, either—but bethany has managed to make a name for herself that has nothing to do with what she is. even if rose decided that she was going to keep her powers, keep the infection… she still hasn't decided what exactly she wants to do with her abilities. "i guess i've never considered going to college or anything like that. it never seemed like a possibility, at least not until recently when i realized… i can be whatever i want." and despite knowing chris will be disappointed if she decides not to join the BSAA, rose knows he'll support whatever decision she makes. he'll make sure nobody stops her from doing whatever she decides she wants to do, no matter what the government says.
Rose seems a little tense still, understandably, and Bethany waits with patience as the girl works through her thoughts, taking in the questions asked of her. At the mention of Chris' desire to recruit the girl Bethany's mouth twitches into a hard line very briefly, though she remains silent. Children are made to decide their futures so young. A sad thing even outside of additional exceptional circumstances like these.
Her condition.
Bethany sees no harm in indulging the query, having a general sense of where it is coming from. She is likely the first superhuman Rose has met; or at least had the opportunity to have a chat with like this. And she is so painfully aware of the isolation that comes with being 'different'. How damaging it can be.
"Well, unlike yourself, I wasn't born like this - though truthfully I've been this way now for longer than I was... before." A strange truth to reconcile with. Bethany remembers there being a huge adjustment period for her new strength and altered senses, and even how it made her thinking change, new instincts and cognitive patterns forming. But, she doesn't remember now what it had been like. "I'm well used to being... careful around people. The control it takes. Is there anything specific you want to know about me, or TerraSave? There's info pamphlets I can send you on the org; they're mostly promotional materials but still accurate about the kind of work we do. I know about Chris wanting you for the squad. And I know it probably came from a place of seeing your potential and strength." That disapproving not-frown briefly manifests again. "The work he does, and what I do, are sort of two necessary halves of the same whole. Threats have to be eliminated, but all the same there is inevitable destruction left behind and someone has to help rebuild. The latter is where TerraSave comes in. I won't lie to you, the work is hard, the things you see are difficult to process, but it's worth it. It makes a difference."
Bethany pauses to take a drink of her latte, gazing at Rose's face to evaluate her reaction to the information.
"TerraSave or the Hound Wolves would be lucky to have you. Though, if you want my honest opinion? You're young. Stay in school. Have a normal life. At least try it out, because once you enter this world it'll change you."
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
