Ah…well.

Okay so the DA Kinkmeme was (and still is) a dragon age fanfic community site, where all kinds of kink fics get written. And I mean every kink you can possibly think of, even the morally questionable/bad ones. It started on livejournal and is now at dreamwidth, and is probably the biggest request/fill community in the fandom (and often in many other fandoms too, with other Kinkmemes existing for said other fandoms).

You anonymously share a prompt for a story you want to see written and someone else anonymously fills it, which not all the stories are kink stories. Some are very vanilla or just general friendship fics people would like filled.

On one hand it’s bad because a bit like Ao3 it is open game, you want the worst fic in your life written you can request there and there is at least a 50% it gets filled and written. No matter how awful (and I do mean AWFUL) the content.

But also the kinkmeme is the reason I’m more positive about safe, consensual kinks; because I got explore my own things I liked on there with my favorite characters. So for every bad the kinkmeme’s done, there is some good.

But honestly the reason it is “Bad” is because I get to think about my part in that every now and then. Which I didn’t go for the really bad prompts on there, overall the fics I wrote there were pretty…not vanilla but more leveled. I even brought three of them over onto my official Ao3, two of which are relatively safe and the other is a series of Male!Hawke/Isabela’s I did that balanced raunchy with fluff. Cause I am at essence a terrible person. But yeah, I think my Isabela fics were the worst things I wrote on there (but for some reason decided to keep), but I also had some great safe for work things on there for angsty M!Hawke/Fenris, a questionable M!Inquisitor/Cassandra before the game, and my fav M!Mahariel/Morrigan fic I ever did (my fav F!Mahariel/Morrigan fic is on here, this blog).

It’s basically like anyone who has written fic before, you get to go back and reread over old work you did and groan at word choice or concept. My Isabela ones particularly make me groan and they were the most popular, I’m almost a shame to have them on my Ao3 but too late to abandon them now.

Same with some fics I have on here, when I go to clean out my fics I never get far. I’m too at war with myself to get rid of the raunchier ones I have floating in my fic tags. 

College me was a dick for making me relive my dark writing days.

Alright, it’s kind of one of our younger ones that we work on only when we are driving to like the airport in Washington D.C. at 6 in the morning or to a convention center (for a comic/anime/game convention) at night. But I’ll share what we do have so far.

The premise is that Everett Hawke (the older twin and daniel’s) and Niul Hawke (mine, younger) both work for a trucking company owned by Isabela. They do long-haul team trucking together with their little dog and sort of moonlight as ghost whispers, but not on purpose.

Like they didn’t even mean to come to know about supernatural things, but ended up finding these things in the liminal spaces that are truck stops, rest stop starbucks, and 12am Wafflehouses.

For example, there is this one starbuck rest stop on their usual route. Everett and Niul would stop there for drinks and this one guy who works there that promises to fulfill people’s greatest wishes, but the twins kind of shrug. They’re good and live decent lives, they don’t really want anything. So it frustrates the hell out of the guy, to the point every time they stop in at this particular starbucks he is there and offering something. Money, Fame, Sex, ANYTHING. But no, they just want a caramel macchiato and a mocha latte.

And eventually, the twins realize this guy is crossroads demon and just accept that crossroads demon Zev makes one hell of an Americano, is a pretty okay guy, and is a good friend. While Zev complains about how awful human food service is and how he sometimes just misses the days when you could buy a soul on a dirt road for 10 years of sick guitar skills.

Anders is a client they truck for and that Everett goes on “not” dates with when they’re in town for a delivery. no idea what Fenris does yet though.

Isabela and Niul are technically a thing too, like when they are out on the road and can afford to stop at an actual hotel or something he’ll call her and they’ll talk for a while. Sometimes Everett talks with her too and/or Merrill will join in on Isabela’s end, Merrill working for Isabela but also having more insight of the weird supernatural things that happen to them out on the road.

Also, the tiny dog. It’s Niul’s dog and he doesn’t always bring it with him, but sometimes he does and it freaks Everett out sometimes. Like they’ll pull into one of the liminal bubbles and Niul leaves the truck for whatever reason, this dog will turn its head towards Everett and talk to him in a very deep, deep voice. Everett just stares and listens to this dog talk and accepts it’s just another weird ass supernatural thing he has to deal with, except all by himself because this never happens when Niul is around. Is the dog possessed? Is it not a dog and something else? Is it just Everett who is being haunted???? NO IDEA! (but it’s probably justice or something latched onto everett or the dog).

Edit: Oh! I also forgot, they also find this batman (kind of mothman-ish) in the road during one of their drives and Everett pulls out a sawed-off shotgun (courtesy of Merrill) to see what is up with this bat guy. Anyways, he is like shaved and has a bunch of stitches and track marks. So Everett offers to give him a ride and help this guy out, because it kind of is their side job. He ends up talking with the bat guy and finds out that he was experimented on, essentially some people were trying to make an artificial shapeshifter (because actual ones exist) and it’s pretty fucked up. He basically escaped before they could kill him and so Everett and Niul spend an arc helping this bat guy get used to being a part of the supernatural community, while also coming to terms with himself. Which Niul gets to wake up and find out about all this later, when he sees giant bat man in their truck.

Bat guy is actually another Dragon Age OC too, from our tabletop (Antivan rogue guy, who is based off of pete wentz)

I really want to see the Evanuris! And they better not all be white, because wtf we are talking about the ultimate representations of all elves everywhere in true diversity of what they chose to be at the beginning of time. Elves who willed themselves into existence, before mortal beings were a thing.

Which honestly, Andruil despite her villainy is one of my favorites (the others being the twin souls Dirthamen and Falon’Din). A bisexual Elven Goddess who hunted mortals, who had a corrupted void (blight) armor and also resurrected her lesbian deer girlfriend as a god so she could have her revenge on a mortal hunter.

Like OKAY the Evanuris are bad people (which I’m still Ugh about for a multitude of reasons), but they are also vastly more impressive/exciting than Pale Angst Wolf Man 2.0. (just personal opinion).

You’re not wrong. On one hand it is unknowingly done, on the other, blood magic and demons (and basically all the other bad shit) is absolutely used by Templars and the Chantry when it suits them. This just isn’t new.

Let’s start with the Chantry things tho and then I’ll do the Reaver compare and contrast.

Seriously, the Chantry advocates a lot of things it also restricts. 

Blood Magic?
Phylacteries are built on blood magic, by taking a mage’s blood they are able to use other mages to hunt an escape mage down.

Demons?
Circles will actually trap demons in the Fade, inside of Circles (as in the Fade area of the Circle has demons roaming a good 50% of the time). They do this as the “Harrowing Ritual” in which a mage must resist temptation and possession or be killed.

Possession?
Ever heard of Seekers of Truth? They are non-magic folk made Tranquil and then touch/minutely possessed by a spirit that gives them lyrium/Fade powers.

Thinning of Veils?
Veils thin due to concentrated magical influence or extreme trauma linked to an area. Areas that are usually sectioned off by the Chantry. Oh! Unless you are a tower of mages, in which case these areas with Thin Veils (A Templar Catacomb (White Spire), A Tower of Avvarian Genocide (Kinloch Hold), and Aeonar (Mage Prison that was a Tevinter battlefield/massacre)) are your new homes. Try not to get possessed or taken advantage of, because that unsurprisingly has a higher chance of happening in those areas!

So yep, the Chantry is hypocritical as fuck, which really shouldn’t be a surprise considering how much power they have over swaths of people, and we all know power corrupts.

Now Lyrium Reavers?

There are mostly superficial or coincidental similarities between Blood Drinkers and Lyrium Drinkers. They both drink the blood of great beings, both believed Gods. They both are given powers, almost Divine, beyond their normal scope. And both do/can suffer mental/psychological damage from their respective substances.

However, Dragon’s blood as far as I can remember is not addictive. There is no Dragon Blood withdrawal. Templars also suffer from dementia and other mental symptoms (mostly memory, language, and motor skills based). While Reaver psychological problems stem from forgetting humanity entirely and gaining a hive/cult mentality from blood (not persuasion) alone. Then there is physical changes. Physically Reavers who over-indulge can grow scales, claws, and other draconic features; while until the introduction of Red Lyrium (which also causes physical changes), Blue Lyrium has no change to a person’s appearance.

So to a certain point, yes Templar’s are in essence Lyrium Reavers; but also not really when compared to Dragon Reavers.