Fanfic writer with a passion for exploring romantic relationships // Fandoms: Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age // Fandom: Dragon Age, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect
I’d say it’s the opposite of obvious – it never even crossed my mind! But that’s not to say it’s impossible!
I haven’t taken Blackwall and Cass out together in the field nearly enough, so tbh, I don’t have a great grasp of their interactions. Blackwall obviously has huge respect for her, and prior to the Thom Rainier reveal I get the sense that she respects him as much as she would any dutiful Grey Warden. But as you say, I think the Thom Rainier reveal basically ruins her esteem for him. When you chat with him in the barn post-revelation, he makes a comment to the effect that Cassandra still hasn’t forgiven him/is refusing to speak to him.
That being said, there is that adorable moment during the credits of Trespasser when Cass is reading from Varric’s book: after she reads Blackwall’s line, she sighs and says “so romantic!” And I mean, Cass is a sucker for that romantic drama…
Extrapolating hugely from this, if we were to imagine an AU where Cass and Blackwall were together, the argument could be made that Blackwall might be able to win Cassandra around again with some intensely noble and romantic acts of forgiveness-seeking. My imagination is crap at conjuring up what those acts might be – any ideas?
I might have more thoughts on this after I’ve heard more of their banter – I’m actually making a point to bring my two favourite tanks out more often this playthrough (sorry Bull!). Until then, my final thoughts are that it’s implausible (mostly because Cass is very stubborn and morally black-and-white) butcertainly not impossible!
– Love, Your Friendly Neighbourhood Pikapeppa xoxo
Fenris watched with faint amusement as Aveline paced back and forth, her freckled face creased with a scowl as she read off the charges. “Public indecency – thanks to the pirate whore, no doubt – obstructing the duties of the city guard, and… animal abuse? Hawke!”
“Hey, I want to contest that,” Hawke protested. “There was no animal abuse! The cat was perfectly fine. It came out of the fight better than your guard! You know Anders would have murdered me otherwise.”
Aveline exhaled sharply through her nose and fisted her hands on her hips. “Hawke,” she snapped, “you’ve gone too far this time. I can’t protect you from the consequences when your only goal was to cause mischief!”
“Oh please, like this is the worst I’ve done,” Hawke said breezily. “Don’t you remember that time in the Chantry with the blueberry pie and the…?” She trailed off as Varric subtly shook his head. “Oh,” she said sadly. “No. You, er, weren’t there that time. Um…”
Aveline threw her hands up, then headed for the office door. At the threshold, she turned and pointed a stern finger at Hawke. “Stay here,” she ordered. “I can probably get you off with a fine if I get to the Viscount before that injured guard does. But I don’t want to hear about anything like this happening again.” She slammed the door behind her.
Isabela yawned and leaned back on the bench in Aveline’s office where she and Hawke were seated. “Well, she gave us a loophole at least. We’ll just make sure she doesn’t hear about it next time.” She nudged Hawke playfully.
Hakwe sighed and propped her chin on her fists, looking for all the world like a chastised child. “It’s not fair,” she complained. “We spend most of our time running around and killing baddies and making sure everyone in this Maker-forsaken city is all right. A girl’s got to have a little fun now and then, don’t you think?”
“I’m with you, sweet thing,” Isabela said. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”
Hawke glanced pleadingly at Varric, who lifted his hands innocently. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m not getting involved in an argument with Aveline.”
Finally Hawke lifted her plaintive gaze to Fenris’s face. He shrugged and folded his arms. “Don’t look at me either,” he drawled. “I’m just paying off my debt.”
Hawke scoffed and gave Fenris a deeply skeptical look. “You are not just here because you owe me. You’re having a good time. I saw you smiling when that guard’s trousers hit the ground. You almost laughed.”
“You are mistaken,” Fenris replied smoothly. “I wasn’t smiling at that. I was imagining the moment when I’m no longer being dragged into these kinds of debacles by a certain flippant mage.”
Hawke smiled and tilted her head in a coquettish manner. “Oh, Fenris. Always pretending you’re here under duress when I know you like hanging out with us. Deep down in that armoured chest, you love us, really.”
Fenris pursed his lips and didn’t reply, but Hawke only smiled all the wider. “It’s okay, you don’t need to admit it,” she said. “I know the truth.” She winked at him, then turned to Isabela and began whispering.
“Right,” Varric said quietly – but not quietly enough that Fenris couldn’t hear. “That’s why you’ve stuck around. Because you love us.” He placed an ever-so-slight emphasis on the word us.
Fenris narrowed his eyes at the dwarf. “If you have something to say, just say it.”
Varric shrugged innocently. “Nope. Nothing to say. I’m just… observing.”
“Observing and commenting,” Fenris murmured resentfully. “If you have opinions, go home and write them in your book.” He turned away from Varric, and incidentally back toward Hawke and Isabela.
Hawke looked up as Fenris turned to face them. “A cat in a man’s trousers,” she announced. “What’s another way to say that?”
“Don’t,” Fenris warned.
As always, she grinned and ignored him. “Pussy in your pants. It rolls off the tongue, no?”
Stupid, Fenris thought. It was such a stupid joke. Not even a joke, really – and it wasn’t even funny. But the corners of his traitorous mouth twitched.
Isabela grunted in annoyance. “Damn. I was sure he wouldn’t smile at that one. You always get him to smile.” She pulled a silver from the pouch on her belt and slapped it into Hawke’s outstretched palm.
Fenris frowned. “You’re taking bets on what will make me smile?” he demanded.
“Yep,” Hawke said pertly. “Isabela’s lost a lot of silver today.” She flipped the coin jauntily before tucking it into her own coin pouch, then smiled up at him again. “What Isabela doesn’t realize is that I’ll do anything to make you smile. Including coaxing a randy cat into a guard’s carelessly dropped trousers.”
Isabela burst into laughter, and even Varric began to chuckle, but Fenris ignored them as he studied Hawke’s smiling face. The suspicion in his belly was instinctive, but there was something else there too, something warm and pleasantly jittery that was both familiar and foreign.
She grinned more broadly when he didn’t respond. “Pussy in your pants,” she said again.
He shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”
Her bronze eyes twinkled brightly. “Only for you, Fenris,” she said. “Only for you.” Then she suddenly gasped and elbowed Isabela, and the two women resumed their furiously whispered conversation. Fenris heard the word ‘cocks’ before deciding there was no point trying to listen in.
Stupid, he thought. Then he turned away to find Varric watching him appraisingly.
Fenris forced the smirk from his face and scowled. “Shut up,” he muttered.
Varric shrugged complacently and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t say a word, elf,” he said. “Not a single word.”
Fenris shot him a skeptical look, then folded his arms and leaned against the wall to wait for Aveline’s return.
Varric was wrong. Fenris didn’t love Hawke. He didn’t love anyone.
At least not that he remembered, which wasn’t saying much.
But maybe his reasons for sticking around in Kirkwall weren’t just about paying a debt anymore.
I get that it would be 1) slightly more impractical for developers, 2) potentially a bit confusing for players if the companions/advisors in DA:I changed outfits on a regular basis, but…… imagine all the things Vivienne and Josephine could wear??? Imagine the class?? The utter Heights of Fashion that they would make available unto mine eyes?? Imagine how Shook I could be every time I walk into my keep and see these ladies Absolutely Working it while I stumble around in my beige jammies????? And DORIAN. imagine Dorian with his six trunks of pure glamour that he absolutely refused to leave in Tevinter because you’ve seen how they dress in the South. Imagine him pretending to carelessly chuck articles of clothing over his balcony and into Solas’s rotunda like “oops it’s touched the ground I guess I can’t use it now but sOMEONE SHOULD MAYBE” and Solas is sitting there with a pair of silk trousers on his head like “sweetie you would have done SO well in Arlathan”
We were robbed.
HAHAHA THIS IS SO MUCH TRUTH AND ALSO THE BEST THING I’VE READ ALL DAY
Fandom: Dragon Age Inquisition Pairing: Blackwall/Lavellan Rating: Explicit
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Heat. Pressure. Darkness. Too comfortable, can’t move…
The warm hand travels up Blackwall’s back, sliding over his bare shoulder blade. A shifting of the mattress as another body climbs onto the bed.
He smiles sleepily into his pillow as Arya climbs on top of him. She straddles his hips, settling herself comfortably on his bum, and he feels her shifting weight as she leans forward to kiss the spot between his shoulders.
“Good morning,” she says.
Her voice is pert and bright – far too bright for how dark it is. “What time is it?” he mumbles, his mouth thick with sleep.
“No idea,” she chirps. “But it is morning. Technically.” She kisses his ear, his hair, his shoulders, sliding her palms across the muscles of his back.
He sighs contentedly and nestles his face into the pillow. He wants to ask what kept her out so late; when he’d left her in the Great Hall, she was deep in cahoots with Varric about a ‘special commission’ he was writing for one of their companions, and he can’t imagine that that would have occupied her for hours.
The question forms on his tongue, but then her hands start to knead his back. Her warm weight is just so nice, and he’s too bloody cozy…
The vague query fades to the back of his mind as the lull of sleep returns to the fore. Arya massages his shoulders, the heels of her hands pressing into knots he didn’t realize were there. Blackwall’s body is here in bed, anchored by her solid heat on his back, but his mind is floating and free, loose and wandering in the darkness of very early morn.
Arya smoothes her hands up along his spine, across his shoulders, soothing him with heat and pressure until he’s more asleep than awake. She leans forward, pressing her chest against his back, and with the last kernel of wakefulness in his mind, he realizes that she’s topless.
She rolls her hips slightly, pressing her pelvis more firmly into his bottom, and a slow stir of interest uncoils in his groin. Her hands move up along his arms, sliding under the pillow until she finds his wrists, and when she wraps her little elven fingers around them, the stirring between his legs pulses more strongly.
The Sharper Edge of Love: Romance, Sex, and Fanfic 