A thread because I'm too fucked up for nano but I do want to use the November Momentum to actually. Write shit. I keep a lot of notes in my head, rewrite scenes seventy billion times until I have the details but not the words near memorized, and if I sit down and try to sort it all out I go on a Wordbuilding Tangent that never ends and never end up writing. So here I'm going to dump whatever writing, relevant to whatever, the equivalent of having a folder full of napkin doodles and scrawls on the corners of notepads from moments where words just fit together and you have to write them down. Except I'm a mess, so they're likely to be sticky notes stuck in odd places- "Why do I have '46 Hetera orange' stuck to the back of my monitor?" type things.
Some backstory shit for Fallout 4!Laverna, because the Lav Singularity Approacheth. Also explaining why she has a husband, baby, robot, job as a lawyer, suburban house and all that shit. Also Lav straight quoting SLC Punk! Unedited beyond a basic spelling pass, just Writing To Write Spoiler: implied abuse, addiction present but not closely examined. Lav and Nate are moirails Nathan Vargas's family would kill him if they found out he was spending his school breaks sitting on the fire escape smoking. He and Laverna had a deal: he would bring a cup of Slocum Joe's every morning as a peace offering, and she would let him bum off her seemingly endless supplies of cigarettes. Halfway through their senior year he hung out the window, watching her pull one out of her pack like a magic trick- the lid flipped open and suddenly the cigarette was between her fingers for her to light. (Grey Tortoises, the local brand, because they were abundant and easier to steal even though her mom smoked Big Boss. She had taught him a little, how to vanish things into the palm of his hand- he had more surface area to hide things under but she made it an art. It was hard to pay attention to her hands when her hair, even her eyelashes, were translucent white. And her violet eyes were startling enough, but her left one was covered in a burn that spread out to her temple, healed only enough that the skin is no longer so discolored. She never made any attempt to hide it, or the long, straight cut scars on her cheek and brow.) “I'm thinking of joining the army after I graduate.” He spoke slowly, as if afraid to break the peaceful silence. There were plenty of people he talked about stupid bullshit with, but only Laverna would understand trying to keep his family happy- he was barely reaching the lower limit of what his family thought were acceptable grades, but some 'honorable service' would put him back in their favor, mixed with the same self-destructive impulse that found him here, drinking shitty coffee and smoking shitty cigarettes. “What, get out to go right under someone else?” she snorted derisively as she leaned back dangerously on the rail, exhaling a plume of smoke. “I figured you'd want to celebrate your freedom at least a little.” “You know they'll never let me go unless I get married. Then we'll just have to make nice until they die. I wouldn't put that on the unprepared, and the chance of a woman being willing to put up with me and walk knowingly into that mess?” He shook his head with a self-depreciating laugh. Laverna just stared upward while she smoked with the look she got when she was either thinking or on Med-X, a stare that could be vacant... or intent, just not on anything outside her head. “I'm going to get a law degree.” “You hate the law. And lawyers. And judges. And generally everything associated with that whole line of thought.” “To properly destroy something you have to know it. I can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside it.” She smiled, thin and dangerous like a knife's edge. Nate had always had bouts of anger that welled up when everything was too much, as if suddenly he was on fire and there was nothing but the anger. Laverna was always angry, but she kept it close, always burning under her skin. For him it was a loss of control; for her it was what kept her from breaking down. He'd always admired her for that, her control of it rather than being controlled. “That almost makes sense, at least coming from you.” Instead of answering she went back to staring and smoking for a long moment. “You don't... have anyone, do you? Mother won't let me go even after I graduate. And law school will kill me if I can't leave.” “Lav-” that earned him a glare: if you were going to use her name you'd better use the whole thing. “Laverna, you're...” “Queer as shit, yes.” She sounded more impatient than actually annoyed. “Which is a problem all on its own. Anything not Perfectly Conforming means you're probably a communist. Maybe if I moved to Vegas, but fuck if I can afford that. I trust you not to be an asshole, and we both need an out. I'll give you until graduation.” She flicked her butt over the side, onto the sidewalk three stories down, and ducked past him to climb back inside. At the end of the school year he did propose, down on one knee with his grandmother's ring and everything. She laughed at him, but there was absolute relief in her eyes when she accepted. It became the start of a game they played against the world: Perfect Family. Even after he returned from the war scarred physically and mentally, they acted in public (and sometimes at home with a much more joking tone) like the Perfect Nuclear Family. His parents helped them buy a house in a lovely suburb, Sanctuary Hills, and they later bought themselves a Mister Handy robot to help with the chores. They called each other “honey” and “dear” and talked fondly about when they first met. High school sweethearts, oh how romantic. They didn't love each other like a married couple were supposed to, but there was love. Laverna helped him adjust, taught him how she had learned to quiet the screaming in her head. A night at the park and a picnic basket full of wine served in cheap plastic cups led to an impulsive decision Nathan thought for sure he would regret. Laverna was, as she had so delicately put it before, “queer as fuck.” Perhaps she had only gone along because she didn't want to upset him. (When has that ever been the case? Logic asked, and he was relieved he couldn't find a counterargument. She'd never been shy about telling him when things were off the table.) And perhaps by a small miracle during what might be the only chance for it to happen, Laverna was pregnant. Before he could panic she announced she'd be keeping the baby, not just because they would complete their Perfect Family image and his mother would have one less thing to harass them about, but so they could love a child the way they hadn't been: completely and utterly, without restriction, without having to meet requirements first. Shaun was a blessing. Laverna got clean for him, to Nate's amazement even quit smoking. That she picked back up right after like she'd never stopped, but her drinking became cautious, she hadn't even acquired doses of Calmex or Mentats "just in case she needed them", and took her Med-X only according to schedule. Nate found the horrors in his head eased by his son's laugh, his smile, Anchorage seeming so far away as he held him. He was home now, it was so much easier to believe. Spoiler: Musings over the hubby's corpse “Fuck. Shit. Goddamn.” Laverna spilled out of the cryo pod like she'd melted rather than defrosted. Before her legs had even started working again she scrambled forward to Nate's pod, fumbling at the switch to get it open. He was dead. She'd watched him die, watched the strangers take Shaun from them. But she still had to open his pod, see him for real and not through the tiny window. What little strength she'd regained left and she sank, resting her head on his thawing legs. She'd never been in love with him, but he'd become the person she trusted most. They kept each other safe. Nobody understood like he did. And when he came home with his face torn up from shrapnel he'd stood in front of the mirror for an hour and she'd dreaded, thought he'd finally figured out why everyone reacted the way they did to her, that something had been taken from them both. But instead he'd finally turned to her and asked her to teach him how she smiled, the way she managed to without hiding her scars or bringing them to attention. She had a scar that ran down the right side of the corner of her mouth; now he had a vertical scar that ended there, and tugged visibly when he emoted. Nobody else, not a single person she'd ever met, would have asked her that. She'd bet on it, and Laverna never made a wager she wasn't already certain she was going to win. And now he was dead. Had died protecting their son, the happiest accident. She could see the bullet hole, neat and clean since they'd sealed him right back in before he had a chance to bleed. “I'm sorry, Nathan. It should have been me.” He was so much better equipped for a revenge mission, with his military training and a body that mostly worked right. A particularly bright day was enough to slow her down. But she couldn't let it stop her. She was the only one left to go after the ones who took Shaun. Finally she stood up and slipped Nate's wedding ring off his finger. “Love, honor, and cherish” had been engraved on the inside of both their rings, worn too smooth to feel unless she pressed down by time spent wearing them. His went on the opposite hand of hers, on her thumb instead of her ring finger. Too much of a difference in size otherwise. But she'd keep it with her, and one day she'd give it Shaun. “I'll get our son back. And I'll come back to bury you, too.” Her hands clenched experimentally and, finding they only hurt a little, she closed Nate's pod and started making her way out of the vault.
Spoiler: Cullen has a bad forever It happens again. The first time he met Hawke, he thought Amell. He thought Shula. "Never met her like again" he told Celosia, but he was staring into a memory, eyes golden bright as Hawke laughed and joked and screamed in the slow blaze of Kirkwall's seven year decline. Fire burning in her eyes as she confronted Meredith an echo of the blaze in Shula's as she approached that final stairway, as she discovered him, saved him, destroyed him, left him to be rebuilt. Now he sees as Right Hand and Left have the woman brought for healing and interrogation. He sees the distinct curl to the ends of her violent red hair, tiny corkscrews at the end of strands, knows it comes from fire, manipulated close, familiar. He thinks Amell. He thinks Shula. When they meet, he feels her before he sees her. Wraiths behind him and shades at each side, it's easy after Kirkwall but he feels the change, the tang of magic in the air, as heat splits from the cold in an immolation at his back, wraiths going up like candles and the shade trying to flank him screeches and reconsiders the plan. He holds it together, Shula wasn't the only mage in Thedas to favor fire, and even if Hawke was a twist of the knife she was proof of that. The second wave the rift sends out gives him something to focus on but when it's gone there's nothing left but her. He tries to thank Cassandra but no, it's all her, it's her it's her it's her There's a part of him he cut away but could not remove. He layered it under discipline, under duty, under focus, but it's still there. It's the part of him that Kinloch Hold still haunts, that the guilt of serving under Knight-Commander Meredith still eats at. It's the part that's back within the seal every time he faces a demon, screaming and sobbing while the rest of him gets on with business, and it is only years of experience keeping it locked down that keeps him on his feet. He meets gold eyes, apprehensive (afraid) but determined. Shula being brought for her harrowing, hands clenching and unclenching the cloth of her robes to work out her fear as they walk, but her eyes shine bright and her head is high. The apprentices talk, she knows not all return but not what they face. She doesn't know what she walks into, but she will walk As she jumps down to face the Breach, Cullen finds himself thinking, not for the first time, that the Maker must delight in his pain. For the third time he's been thrown into the path of a pyre of a woman, and perhaps this time he'll burn the rest of the way up- or be purified.
I am so glad I love Cullen and I am ready to wreck his shit. The world state that was in my notes before Inquisition came out as "the Amells are cursed" has been renamed "Cullen gets rekt" because the past two games have been BRUTALLY unkind to him and now I'm finally playing a Trevelyan because I just have to break him a little more before I fix him. (Adena absolutely has some Amell in her history that she takes after, it's just farther back because the Trevelyans are a higher standing family and the Amells went to shit in recent generations. Cullen ends up cataloging differences to keep himself sane in the early days.)
