#gothkimmyschmidt

I’m so sorry that you sent me this prompt for @dadrunkwriting all the way back in May 2019 when I first signed up, and I’m only just answering your fic prompt in… January 2021. 🙈 But thank you, belatedly, for sending this, and here’s the filled prompt! ❤️ 

——— 

Monsters (500 words) 

Merrill had been weeping into his shoulder for at least an hour now, and Carver had been uselessly patting her back for most of that time, reassuring her as best as he could.

“This isn’t your fault, okay?” he said, for the ninth time. “I promise.” 

“But why did he run?” Merrill sobbed. “If I wasn’t there… Pol wouldn’t have run into the varterral. Pol would still be alive.” She dissolved into fresh tears, and Carver tried to make soothing noises as he rubbed slow circles into her back. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am a monster.” 

“No.” Carver was firm. “You’re not a monster, Merrill. Anything but that.” 

But it was as if she hadn’t heard him. 

Varric had warned him about this. He and Isabela had apparently tried to comfort Merrill, but she remained utterly distraught over Pol’s death, blaming herself for it all. You need to go see Daisy – she could use a friend right now, Varric’s note to him had said, and Carver had come as quick as he could. But now that he was here, he had doubts that his presence was doing any good. 

“What must they have been saying about me?” Merrill wondered aloud, angry through her tears. “What must the Keeper have been saying about me, to make Pol think it was safer to run into a varterral than be anywhere near me?” 

“I don’t know,” Carver said. “I just know it’s not true. You’re not a monster. You’re—” Lovely. Wonderful. Beautiful. Clever. Kind. “—Well, they’re wrong.” 

Merrill sniffled and wiped her eyes, and seemed to finally register what he’d said. “You’re just being nice to me, Carver. Like Varric and Isabela.”

“Varric and Isabela wouldn’t be nice to you if they thought you were a monster, Merrill, and neither would I.” 

“Varric told you to come and see me, didn’t he.” 

It wasn’t a question. But Carver answered it anyway. 

“Yeah, he did. But I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to.”

“No,” Merrill eventually agreed. “You’ve always been honest like that.” 

“And I definitely wouldn’t have come if I thought you were a monster.” 

She smiled at that, then, and Carver hoped he was finally getting somewhere. He didn’t know what had happened with Pol and the varterral on Sundermount, but what he did know was that it was useless for Merrill to blame herself for the tragedy that had occurred. 

“No,” she said, quietly. “I know you wouldn’t.” 

It was a start, at least. Carver didn’t know if his presence was helping at all – he was no Varric, he never knew what to say in these situations; he’d never been good at talking about his own emotions, let alone comforting Merrill with hers. 

Egg! Egg. 

(There’s some really weird egg gifs. This one was the best absurdist gif without being disturbing.)

Hit me up anytime! Always glad to talk to a mutual. (And thank you!) :)

thanks dude! i know you like aurelia and fenris, so i’ll make this one a pre-rivalmance kirkwall-era aurelia’s-being-a-bitch fic :) for @dadrunkwriting

the magician: “I guess today’s my lucky day.”

“He keeps staring at you.”

Aurelia only smirks at Isabela’s words, doesn’t look across the room—doesn’t look up from her cards at all, for that matter. She knows. They’re halfway through their fourth game of wicked grace, she knows he’s watching, she can feel it, she can taste it in her mouth almost as much as she tastes the ale from hours earlier when she’d first strode into the Hanged Man for the night, the metallic flavor of her lips from taking a hit to the mouth the week before, the mouthful of something fiery and Antivan Isabela had poured her minutes earlier.

The only difference is that she has not, in fact, ever tasted any part of him.

“Are you going to say hello?”

Aurelia snorts, shuffling the deck and dealing again. “When have I ever said a polite ‘hello’ to Fenris?” she asks, and Isabela rolls her eyes.

“Hawke, it’s pretty obvious he’s interested. Even with all the petty arguments you two seem to come up with every day.”

She knows that already, too. Interested is one thing, action is another. They danced around each other constantly, snapping and biting and bickering and hard glares that were just too long for comfort, wrists grabbed just too tightly, nudges and shoulders that were just too rough. Never more.

But just enough that she knows.

“And anyway, if you don’t jump on that soon, someone else will.”

Now she glances up, not at Isabela but at the table on the far end of the barroom where Varric and Fenris and Anders sit together dealing diamondback and jeering and joking and drinking. 

“Who will?” she mutters to Isabela. “You?”

She grins. “Maybe. If you’re not fast enough.”

Isabela’s remarks, as they often do, earn her a kick under the table. She only laughs again and pours herself another drink. “Well you can’t just prowl around each other like dogs in heat all the time, you’ll embarrass yourself. As much fun as it is to watch.”

“We’re not acting like ‘dogs in heat,’” Aurelia snaps. He’s looking at her again, she can feel it, and Isabela’s still laughing and the taste of liquor in her mouth isn’t so sweet anymore. “Anyway, I don’t know what he wants. He hasn’t made any moves. It doesn’t matter, anyway, I’m having plenty of fun playing whatever his game is.” She takes another sip of her drink. “And I intend to win it.”

Isabela fans out her cards before her, looking through them intently. “Can’t be much fun with all the glares and none of the—” She mimes a few vulgar thrusts, and Aurelia slaps her cards out of her hard.

“You’re insufferable sometimes, you know that?”

“I do,” Isabella giggles, picking her cards up from the table.

“Anyway,” Aurelia continues, looking up to see another tavern patron approaching their table. “Fenris isn’t the only one who’s been eyeing me all night.”

Isabela gives her a wink when the young man—a mercenary they’d seen hanging around Lowtown—stopped beside them.

“Hawke, is it?” he asks with a sly smile, and Aurelia nods. “Hope you’re having a good game here.” She nearly has to kick Isabela again to keep her from laughing. “Let me get you another drink,” he offers.

Aurelia bats her eyes. flashes a smile first at him, and then again toward Fenris, still looking at her, still yet to leave his table. 

Rules: List 10 words/phrases that have something to do with your work(s) in progress and then tag 10 people to do the same.

I did this once before but I can’t say I took it very seriously then (I enjoyed it, but I was definitely being silly). @gothkimmyschmidt tagged me so I decided to go for round two! This is all from one WIP.

Women Helping Women

Is home a place or a feeling?

Multiple POVs

"My” People vs. “Our” People

“Ayelet was keenly aware of her lack of fingers now. They tingled. “

On The Run

When found family grows apart (and trading one for another).

Clairvoyant

"At this point, my reservation appears to bring you luck. It would be a shame to ruin a good thing."

Changes of heart

Tagged by @gothkimmyschmidt, thank you for thinking of me!!

rules: complete the questions and then tag ten others you follow but want to get to know better

name: porto

age: 36

favorite colors: blues and teals, orange, golden yellow

when you made this account: this one specifically, I think August of last year?

follower count: 135, where did you all come from, hi, welcome

superpower: either flight or teleportation, travel is bullshit

favorite drink: coffee always

a song you love right now: this is a judgement-free zone so tbh, 礼賛歌 has been on heavy repeat since I got home 

dream career: I honestly don’t know anymore; I don’t think I have the initiative to be self-employed, as much as I hate working for a giant corporation, but I also know if I was just a stay at home person I’d go out of my mind. I’m OK with what I’ve got, I guess.

dream vacation: World tour, spend at least a week with everyone important to me that I haven’t seen in the last five to seven years or longer

hogwarts house: Ravenclaw

favorite character this week: Mitsuki Izumi (I’m still settling back into DA, ok)

christmas or halloween: can I say neither? There really isn’t a holiday I look forward to anymore, but between the two I guess Halloween

💋 What traits do they like in other people? What traits do they not like?

Mahreen highly values knowledge. Know your shit, cite your sources, and she will like you. She also likes people who look like they got their shit together, as a remnant of her craving for stability from a life in the Free Marches moving around. So she naturally gravitates towards people who are more stable and predictable.....until Sera. Who actually shows her that being unpredictable and spontaneous is actually FUN sometimes. 

She dislikes irrational decisions, people who are quick to anger and violence. She is used to them from her time in the Valo Kas of course, but she just wants people to think before they act goddamnit. Also zealotry. Don’t do zealotry. 

💫 What’s their favorite expletive?

Thank you for the asks!  <33

Izzy:

Q3:  Do they answer questions that make them a little uncomfortable?  She very much deflects either with humour or awkward detours away from the subject she isn’t ready to tackle.  The “making mad love in my tent” conversation only happened because her brain was trying so hard to detour from talking about the crippling nightmares she was having, this it blurted out something almost as bad as what she was avoiding talking about.  She can be an embarrassing fool.

Q5:  Are they curious?  Oh, yes.  to a fault.  She’s not great at keeping out of stuff.  I think its the thief in her.  She curious for loot!  If there was a book that said ‘do not read’ she would be straight in there.  big red button.. all over that.  Dragon gong?  I wonder what that does?

Aedan:

N2:  What have they never done that they want to do?  He has always wished that he travelled more, and not just around Ferelden on foot because after the Blight he was pretty damn sick of that).  Since the end of the fifth Blight he has wanted to visit Weisshaupt.  Maybe he’ll get the chance while he helps Izzy search for a cure for the calling!