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.
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Vincenzo smiles slight at her quiet tone, looking to the child in his arm. "No need to speak quietly, this one isn't waking up for much of anything anytime soon." He puts his other hand, crutch still held, up against the child's back. The child is slightly drooling on his shoulder. "Three surgeries in the same week will do that to you."
Bethany Hawke. So the Amell's daughter did marry. Or perhaps something else happened. He chooses not to pry for now. As he listens to her, he tilts his head slightly at her words, a slight expression on his face is one of surprise.
"Old enough to remember...?" Vincenzo repeats. His expression almost looks hurt, but he has a slight smile on his face to indicate his amusement. "Last I checked, Vicari still is a luxury brand. Are we considered old fashioned now...? I suppose I havent designed much new dresses in a bit..." He scoffs. "I blame those Florentines over at Gucci."
Her more serious question is met with a more serious expression. "It was Raccoon City that made me decide to get into medicine. Before I took over the family business, I used to be a scientist, I suppose the interest never left me, but it seemed it was in good conscious to do something then."
The child in his arm stirs only slight, and Vin lifts her a bit more against his chest, carefully holding her back for support. "This may come as a shock to most people, but I too, in fact, like being alive." He remarks simply. "Bioterrorism seems a bit counterintuitive to that."
Three surgeries. Given the child's amputated leg this is not much of a surprise. That poor girl. It makes her wonder why the little one isn't getting to rest somewhere more comfortable. Whether he has a personal interest in her welfare, or if this is something more cynical like using her as a prop for a photo op Bethany is unsure, and the uncertainty has her drop the matter for now. Besides, if the kid is comfortable enough to be asleep in his arms, then perhaps there is no harm done. She files that detail away for later and her gaze flicks up from the child, to the mock-injured look on his face.
"Ah, perhaps I misspoke?" Bethany offers a playfully rueful, apologetic smile. "You'll have to forgive me; a professor's salary only goes so far, and most of my NGO work is voluntary, so while my mother has expensive tastes I haven't had the same opportunity to be tuned in to the finer things."
Not exactly true. There had been a time, but that part of her life was dead and buried, along with the person responsible for it.
The same person responsible for many things.
Her face falls, visibly. Though she does her best to feign it being in accordance with the change of mood, as he speaks of Raccoon City. That incident is like a wound in the world, even now. An outbreak so major that it not only spurred the creation of most anti bioterror measures, but the city itself having been wiped off the map. The scale of that loss is difficult to conceive, even though incidents have grown more commonplace since then.
"Most people like being alive, I'd imagine, and there are enough of them of sufficient power and influence who find bioterror to not be incompatible with the notion, apparently." She muses. "If only there were more who feel like you do, then perhaps we'd get somewhere."
TerraSave is in decent enough shape financially; since taking her role Bethany has budgeted everything with the utmost seriousness and care, initiated and overseen audits, personally uncovered and put a stop to certain bribes and corruption, but even still the organization's reach, and ability to help, was limited. Always would be.
"You left the realm of science to pursue fashion? An interesting choice, was it a decision driven by passion or obligation?"
i love making friends in fandom, i love playing with our toys together, i love coming up with increasingly niche aus, i love lifting strangers up, i love motivating people to create, i love watching someone get excited over an idea and immediately running with it, i love yelling in tags together, i love seeing someone gain confidence in their writing/art because people were kind to them <33
In modern verses, even when Bethany is based in the USA, she is not and will never be american. She may have residency but it will never be citizenship (and even if circumstances are unspecified, she has ended up there due to an equivalent of her canon backstory, i.e. it involves being an immigrant or refugee).
I love Bethany so much. She's the best little sister anyone could have. She's on the run from the magic police. She's a book nerd. She's slowly dying. She compares herself to a weapon. She's been kidnapped twice. She questions the lore accuracy of smutty books. She's mentally ill. She's cool with murder and crime. She telekinetically threw a bully across a field as a child. She wants to be normal. She's survived multiple assassination attempts. She can break mind control powers. She's had a cult try to steal her blood. She kicked her uncle out of his own house when he pissed her off.
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.
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He cocks his eyebrow when she lays out the detail in which Malcolm had come to the point of meeting him. Unlike usual, HUNK's expressions are no longer hidden behind his mask, and as she stops, he stops as well, turning to look at her while she speaks to him.
"You don't know him either." HUNK tells her shortly. "You don't know what we've done to live."
"What happened to 'Regardless of what set you on that path, continuing to tread it is a choice you make every day.'?" HUNK returned her words to her. "Does that not mean your family's suffering is pointless? Your father could have chosen to die instead of do the things he did. You could have chosen to die. And if he gave himself a second to remember what we trained for, and what we fought for, then he would have remembered not to let his guard down." HUNK's voice typically did not raise, it was firm, but hardly aggressive, but it does for a second, and he quickly corrals it like a rabid animal, but it leaves his breath for just a second, and it brings him to a lower tone.
"Your father could have killed you, just before it all came crashing down on him. He had a moment of sanity didn't he? But he didn't. He hesitated. That is why he is dead. Because he was a coward."
HUNK looks forward, his momentary lapse in composure makes him more willing to finally turn the conversation. "I have gathered as much information as I can from studying the situation. There is a person who seems to have access to important information regarding you, but they are keeping themselves undetectable for now." He looks down at himself, and then to the distant smoke. Some of his information was in that car, but all the better he supposed, the less information out there, the better.
"This person needed to have personal access to you in order to learn this about you. My first assumption was the college, but your papers were accepted, and Baxter faked your annual medical tests, so there would be no way for anyone to find out, staff or student. Then there were your book clubs, but those also did not show anything. There is only one place where people might have this information on you, and be weaponizing it against you."
"I think your attempted killer is a TerraSave member."
It is bizarre, being confronted by a specter of her father's past.
What they have done to live...?
His old life was something he had never mentioned, even mother's queries were met with refusal. "...hundred leagues and a lifetime ago." Bethany had caught the tail end of those words as a child, seen his haunted gaze, though it would be decades before she understood the look in his eyes, herself.
Has the man before her ever had such a gaze?
Impossible to tell.
It seems the version of her father that Ernbas knew, and the man who raised her, were two completely different men. That would have to be enough. And yet. She detects that raise in his voice, the momentary blip of something forceful. Bethany withdraws, insulating herself within her own pain, wearing the rawness of her loss like armour. Ernbas is wrong. Perhaps someday she will maybe even tell him. But currently, he is not entitled to her wounds, nor does she wish to bleed out any more of her past for his inspection and derision.
She has bled enough.
And so she bites back the instinctive sharp retort that will only draw this out. There will be other opportunities to debate her father's corpse, if they survive this.
The mercenary can take her silence as victory if he wants. Bethany has retreated inside herself, becoming small in a way she has not done in years, but yet the old habit comes just as easy as any current vice. She listens, although distantly, almost on the edge of dissociation as he breaks down his logic. It is sound, at least at first; it is true that her 'condition' is protected and all information suppressed, thanks to Al's alias and influence. For all appearances she is just a normal educator seeking tenure. Which makes it all the more strange that she could have attracted anyone's attention.
The conclusion is a surprise. One too difficult to accept. Bethany shakes her head in refusal. "Can't be..." she murmurs, almost to herself. "TerraSave don't know what I am, and I doubt they're well enough funded to be carrying out assassinations in broad daylight. It has to be someone else. Have there been any attacks like this before? I can't be the first."
Using somebody's horrific victimization as an excuse to spend time with and flirt with another person is pretty messed up, we are cognizant of that as writers and have talked about it and that's kind of the point, to show that truthfully they're a wee bit fucked up
chris leans on her desk, then glances over to the bowl as he lets his lips twitch into a smirk. "great taste in music." he produces a candy bar from his pocket and drops it into the bowl with a dramatic thud. acknowledging the new booth would be acknowledging how much time he's spent in here lately, though the thought does cross his mind that he's not the only one claiming her time.
oh well.
"i need your eyes on something." he doesn't. "i don't think photos will do it justice." they would. but he pauses to cross his arms, his eyes flitting to the bowl before looking back at bethany. "i'll buy you lunch after."
The smirk on her face mirrors his own when the candy offering is made.
She likes men who can pick up on a hint.
This little game of theirs is one Chris had initiated, true, but here is a blatant gesture both acknowledging and escalating it, and still he plays along. What fun. It's a small detail to note about him, but Bethany files it away in her brain nonetheless. Despite her immediate focus having been the appropriate 'toll' being paid, unspoken curiosity is piqued by what could have brought him to her office this time.
A nod when he says he needs her eyes on something. It's not hard to tell where this is going.
They've done this ritual before.
The offer of lunch is barely out of his mouth before Bethany has risen to her feet, the report slid into her top desk drawer for later review, and the remnants of her coffee being poured into a thermos. She's not going anywhere uncaffeinated.
"Another crime scene for me to pick over? You take me to all the best places, Redfield. Deal, but you're buying lunch and you're driving."
The manner in which Bethany addresses people is very telling of her relationship with them. She tends to use titles for those who are in high regard, such as exclusively calling her parents 'mother' and 'father', never by name nor by a more informal term like 'mum' or 'dad'. In this case specifically her respect and reverence overrides that of emotional closeness (though the intensity of the latter can be debated to an extent regardless). Respected strangers get referred to by their title and last name.
Acquaintances are often referred to by last name unless they express a preference. Friends are usually called by their first name, and use of last name may be a form of teasing or even reprimand. Those she is extremely close to and who are on the same level as her (such as partners or peers) are almost exclusively referred to by their first name. Nicknames or abbreviations are practically a declaration of love. Endearments are the top rank and are a sign of both affection, and current positive disposition.
Essentially, as a general rule her level of formality is inversely proportionate to her affection for the person. Though, exceptions exist if there is a level of respect or acknowledgement of status being communicated.
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.
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"Y'know how generational experiences are a thing? And how other things are labelled as part of the universal human experience?" She questions while trying to put the words together for this next trail of thought.
"Guess what I'm trying to say is it's not supposed to make you less or inhuman; not in the BOW sense, if you never had those experiences...right? You're just...just outside the norm?"
"Personally, I'm of the opinion that there are no universal human experiences beyond birth, and death."
Categories and labels, especially when it comes to something so nuanced as one's existence, are only useful when they are inclusive, opt-in, in a way, rather than for exclusionary purposes. At least, this is how Bethany has grown to see it.
"Every person has the potential to have gone through something no-one else has. And likewise, we all potentially can have not experienced a particular thing that a majority of others have, or that they may be able to relate to. That does not dictate who we are as people, or mean there's something wrong with us. Don't define yourself by absence."
Wow. She had gotten all that out without choking on it. Progress, perhaps.
Happy Sunday, one of the sexiest things someone can do as far as Bethany is concerned is to make it explicitly clear they want her around and value her being part of their life. While she's open to casual arrangements and situationships, and generally does fine with them when expectations are clear and there's a lack of ambiguity, feeling that her presence is actively desired by a partner and that she has something real to offer them, is something that's both extremely simple and yet meaningful.
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
Would anyone be interested in some kinda correspondence related thread (letters, emails, perhaps penpals vibe, or reaching out for a reason but haven't met physically yet or there's a reason they are apart, or any sort of excuse for long distance communications I find that stuff interesting!)
