Fic: Lightning Grounded

[featheredraven]

Title: Lightening Grounded
Characters/Pairing: Anders/F!Hawke
Rating: PG-13
Summary: They try for a life together, but things will never be all right, not as long as Justice remains.
A/N: Doesn't mention specific endgame spoilers, but still takes place post-game. Prequel to The Hunt for Gravity

Comments

[skybound2]

Oh, wow. Ouch. So much emotion. Very gripping, I can feel the desperation, and the worry in them all. Nice that they got a little bit of happiness before it all came tumbling down. Nicely done.

[featheredraven]

Thanks! I wanted to write something fleshing out my post-game headcanon...and all that came out was angst. I'm going to have to try to find a happy moment to write about, at some point.

[featheredraven]

I think what I like most about the Hawke/Anders relationship is that it really doesn't have a happy ending in sight. And as much as I would like for things to work out with them...I really don't think that it will.

I have this idea that Anders has a somewhat obsessive personality and that it only gets worse after he merges with Justice.

[middlemarching]

I agree with you completely. :/ Everything about them feels temporary and the end is inevitable.

Beautifully written, I really enjoyed this.

[featheredraven]

That temporary feel makes me rather sad...but then, if it was a neat, happily ever after sort of relationship, I don't think I'd find it so interesting.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed it!

[thirteenthchime]

I really enjoyed this, thank you!

[_herzeleid]

This is beautiful. Sad but beautiful. I really like how you handled Justice. It struck me as like a mental disease instead of like a separate being. That made it a lot sadder for me for some reason and nearly made me cry at work. :( I want a happy ending for Hawke and Anders but I can't see it logically happening (unless the Warden can pull a Connor on him :p).

[featheredraven]

I seem to keep nearly making people cry with my DA2 stuff. Sorry!

I hadn't thought about it that way, but I guess that's a good description of how I wrote Justice. It's a bit confusing in the game, since we see that both Justice and Anders are there, and yet Anders keeps insisting that they are one and the same.

[_herzeleid]

You're very good at conveying emotion. I'm envious, heh.

I've always considered Anders' explanation as a way to rationalize away his status as an abomination and make himself feel better about it. I do believe he changed somewhat but I think anyone would in that situation. Justice is definitely there and you can see him winning (ESPECIALLY in Act 3).

On a side note, I definitely think Justice was allll behind the Chantry thing. Given videos I've seen from the Rival!mance and the end itself (when Anders is speaking before the Chantry goes boom I swear I can faintly hear the Demon/Fade noise behind his voice... Or perhaps I'm going mad).

[featheredraven]

I love writing emotions rather than highly detailed situations - or, rather, I guess I like writing highly detailed emotional situations rather than highly visual scenes.

I think it's a bit easier to see how Anders ends up as he does when you rival him - especially when you rivalmance him - because he really has nothing to lose them. The way I played my second time through the game, Hawke began to dismiss everything that he said and there are many dialogue options that are truly terrible in how hurtful they are and I think it sort of pushes Anders into a corner where the only person he really has on his side is Justice...

You're definitely not going mad; Anders definitely starts glowing for a bit in that scene. Even if Anders might agree with the whole Chantry thing, I think Justice was in control in that moment.

[solan_t]

So beautifully sad.