therookery | he calls himself a fan of mine and swears he’s read every word i’ve put down.

Entry tags:

he calls himself a fan of mine and swears he’s read every word i’ve put down.

FORM: A published work, and a letter.
SENDER: Gwenaëlle Vauquelin
RECIPIENT: Anyone who acquires a copy of her work, which will be circulating from Orlais and Skyhold initially. (And Gregoire Leblanc.)
WHAT: The first part of Gwen's great work; a gossipy letter home.
WHEN: Early Bloomingtide.
WHERE: Orlais, Skyhold.
NOTES: Since I am too lazy to literally write a monthly newsletter in Gwen's voice, I'm going to helpfully summarize its content, tone and quality here for anyone who would like to reference it later! Regarding notable omissions - in exchange for an as-yet-undecided favour from Alistair, Gwen agreed not to mention the Wardens at all. She didn't mention elves because who cares about elves tho.

Intended as an informative piece regarding the work of the Inquisition, it begins with a brief outline of the facts of the situation they face as they are known; the Herald's death at Haven, the revelation of Corypheus, the dangers that are faced not only by Orlais and Ferelden but all of Thedas. She consciously and explicitly does not linger on Trevelyan as a woman - apologising politely to readers for not having personally known her, and feeling it inappropriate to speculate - but considers the position of Andraste's Herald as a symbol, and what the loss of that means. What follows is a smartly, sharply worded persuasive argument that each day the Inquisition proves it doesn't need the symbol even as it mourns, fittingly, the loss of the woman. Clever and interesting individual anecdotes of the way that Skyhold lives and operates are woven into a narrative that's clearly more interested in the larger whole as a whole; the Inquisition as an organisation, as an ecosystem, as a part of broader sociopolitical context. (Not in so many words. Gwenaëlle has probably never heard the word 'sociopolitical'. It's just what she's talking about.)

Her writing voice is intelligent, dryly self-aware and a little bit sly where she feels she can get away with it; at a polite remove from the reader while inviting them to feel as if she isn't, as if they're being invited to share her intimate thoughts (as if she might care what their opinions are). While she focuses less on specific names than on the ways that they contribute to something more than the sum of its parts - there's no blatant shill for support, but the way she discusses the allocation and importance of support they already receive does paint the purposefully tempting picture of being a part of that whole in even a small way - she does take the time to explicitly praise the advisors for remaining steadfast to their cause and shepherding those who follow their banner.

(Observant readers within Skyhold might notice glaring omissions: if you were to judge by this writing alone, 'those who follow their banner' would include no Wardens and no elves, neither group receiving even a footnote or cited name.)

She signs off with the anticipation of following up in the months to come, that readers might consider this an introduction to something that might interest them. She speaks in terms of offering transparency about what is being done, and why, and by whom - with what resources and under which banners. (And if what she's permitted to discuss of those things serves very conveniently as contrast to the ways in which they are underfunded and underresourced and demonstrate where a generous and thoughtful person might fill a gap, why, she is just an art critic who wished to be of use, ser, no politician.)

“As, and I can speak only for myself, I do find the fate of the world in which I live a sort of pressing concern.”

A copy of said work is enclosed in a letter to one Gregoire Leblanc, who is probably by now accustomed to the stark difference between her public and private writings -
G,

Skyhold appalling. Your sister acceptable. My cousin is here; Aleron Darton, Mirielle's man. You don't remember her. Terribly pretty, very sad and romantic. You may not write about them, he'll be wounded and we'll have to stop being friends. You cannot imagine who I shall immediately replace you with if I'm forced to give you up for family loyalty: I have made the proper acquaintance of the Empress's arcane advisor and she is the most remarkable person I have ever met. I admire her in everything and she likes me extremely. You may envy me accordingly.

Varric Tethras, on the other hand, not even slightly so charming as we had been led to believe. Atrocious rude and overly convinced of own importance. He called me a second-rate biographer and said awful things about my name. It's a stupid name, but he didn't have to say so. At least my lord was persuaded away from calling me 'Clothilde' outright. A fate worse than marrying a Fereldan. How is your charming fiancee, on marriage? Adelaide asked after her character, your happiness. I suppose she can't have much of the former if she's settling for you, but we must put our best foot forward. I would say that I was kind. I did speak with her promptly - not immediately (I saw her the first evening) - and it is just as well. I don't know that she much cares for me, but perhaps that's just what her face does. Apparently your other sisters are telling tales out of school about how we would have married. Would actually sooner marry a Fereldan and/or Corypheus. Would you attend my wedding to Corypheus? We would obviously all wear red.

The Templars here are quite astonishing. Well; I have never seen so many. But they are mostly to be admired; a man of rank I spoke with was rather heartening. And he had detailed pictures of the demons - do you think that he would let me put them in my next edition? You don't know, you haven't met him. I will ask. But not gratuitously. It will have to be fitting. There's another that I know better, a younger man, Bellamy; that one walks a line. Any line, I expect, he has the mouth for it. I have promised to help him with the large words in this edition, as you know I am such a charitable woman. Well, you know, I am actually, because I even gave time to some absurd man talking nonsense about what Seeker Pentaghast (who is much better looking in person I would dearly like to lay my head upon that bosom) is "allowed" to do as if she owes him an explanation! It's ingratitude. I am sure the Seeker acts only in our best interests. If I simply must be here then at least I may trust her entirely. In fact I would be delighted to do so. You could do yourself an injury on those cheekbones.

I suppose it hasn't been as awful as I feared, but I miss you terribly. Do not send me any of your books as consolation, I will scream.

Your only friend, probably,
G.

PS
If you want a souvenir I have to steal you're going to have to be reasonable.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

'A pressing concern'.

[After he's read his copy, that's his first comment. Reading for enjoyment hasn't been a thing for Bellamy in awhile. There's a novelty to it that has him in a good mood. That, and he likes the challenge of trying to read between her lines.]

That's not really just you speaking for yourself, is it. I'm kinda disappointed. There weren't as many difficult words as I thought there were gonna be.

Well, I don't presume to speak for everyone, ( airily. there are a lot of stupid people in the world, bellamy, don't you know? she seems satisfied with his assessment, though, so her incisive critique of modern thedosian society is delivered as if they are both of them on the inside examining out, and not heavily implying that he is probably one of many stupid people. )

And if I make too much a point of my vocabulary I'm not going to speak to everyone, either.

( she doesn't think she is, now. she is aimed at if not necessarily aiming for a fairly particular audience, and she knows it. but that's no reason why it shouldn't be feasible it might be more widely read. )

[Inclusion is nice, and is pretty well in line with the way Bellamy thinks. (Not that he's smarter. More that people have no damn clue about hardships. It's not quite the same, but it's definitely related.)]

You're right. If you're trying to reach a wide audience, dumbing it down seems pretty smart. [A pause.] This is the part where I make a joke about Orlais.

[You know. Dumb, Orlais.]

Proud of it?

[Like he has to ask. He can tell.]

( her huff of air is amused, even if she gives him a little shoulder-shove for sassing her beloved orlais. after a moment, though, more thoughtfully - )

I am. Proud, that is. I don't think of it as making it less intelligent, you know, only less esoteric. If you can't explain something to someone who hasn't studied it, then you can't explain it, the flaw is yours.

I think I explained it well.

( besides those things she left out. )

[Orlais jokes, way too easy. He tolerates shoulder-shoving, mostly because he deserves it.]

Yeah, you did. Almost inspiring in parts, without going too over-the-top, propaganda. Almost, but you held back--and, hey, really nice to the Advisers, too. Do you get private meetings with them, or does that come after a few more of these?

[Also--]

But you were missing some stuff. Not enough about the brave healers. I thought getting sick was so you could put in some of that personal experience.

You blow very hot and cold on these healers, you know.

( the remark is very mild - but, you know, since he's given her the opening... she scrutinizes him a moment before saying, ) I wonder if you might elaborate on one of them for me. As apparently I am ill-informed with regard to the background of the man who helped me.

( with a wrinkle of her nose, )

I did think it odd he made such a point of his name.

[It doesn't take much extra scrutiny to mark the way Bellamy's mouth tightens, or the narrowing of his eyes. He looks away with a huff of breath--nearly a laugh, but still somehow dismissive.]

Probably wondering why you didn't recognize his name. And to be honest, I kinda wonder the same thing--how a well-informed lady like you could end up missing out on that news. Or gossip. Whatever you want to call it.

[Distractedly, staring off, Bellamy picks at his handwrap with his thumb. Then he stops, abruptly, and looks back at her.]

You hear about the Kirkwall Chantry at least?

Of course I heard about Kirkwall. Everyone heard about Kirkwall.

( well, maybe not everyone. probably not the dalish, for instance. or dwarves under the surface, maybe? or - people who just don't hear things, like that, her grasp of how information travels through the classes is sort of vague. it must do, obviously, but not everybody has the same level of access. that's- sort of the point.

after a moment, she shrugs; )

Why would I have made a point of learning the name of the mage, like he's some sort of - it isn't to be admired and when is it ever going to matter if I know some awful mage's name?

( well, now. but the circumstances of her present life could not have been planned for. )

Maybe so you don't end up going to him for healing?

[Now, yeah.]

Why wouldn't you want to know his name? But y'know, his name's not even what matters. What I've heard is, he did it--all of it--to help mages, but the thing is, he screwed mages. Didn't change anything except made instability look like it was something people really had to worry about, with mages. Killed people, innocent people, for nothing.

And after all that, he sets up shop, here. And that's it. End of story. He gets protection with the Wardens. He gets to "help" the Inquisition.

[He doesn't actually do the quotation marks.]

I'm not going to again. ( obviously.

when she'd first heard about what happened at kirkwall, the way it filtered out to the rest of the world, details lost but a fire kindling that would tear down the circles with chaotic civil war - 'what the mage's name was' had been one of those details not repeated to her. it hadn't occurred to her to think of it as important, who the perpetrator was in the individual sense; he was just a mage who'd done something terrible, and now look what a mess had been made.

what did it matter, what his name was? and he was probably dead.

except he isn't. she nearly asks what does a mage who can blow up a chantry need protection for, but they're in a hold just brim full of dangerous people who probably have no love for the man, so that sort of answers that. she settles on, )

Well, he got a smack in the mouth. I don't see why she had to apologise, in that case.

[It's nice to think of Anders getting smacked in the mouth. This is unfair only in the way that Bellamy doesn't know him personally. That makes it only a little unfair. It's the easiest thing in the world to have opinions on people you don't know anything about personally, whose crimes you think of in broad strokes.

It's less nice to think about somebody apologizing for the lightest infraction. Bellamy's mouth twists again as he looks away.]

We're supposed to move on and let it go. Tell ourselves the Wardens'll take care of him. The Champion of Kirkwall judged him, forgave him, absolved him. Maybe feeling bad means he's suffered enough, and if all that's not enough, then you think about mages and feel like what he did was 'cause he didn't have a choice.

[That last part is the part that sticks the worst. Bellamy knows about narrow choices. Killing innocent people. Without looking down at his hands, his thumb rubs almost compulsively over the knuckle of his index finger, over the ridge of his handwrap.]

I guess maybe she saw reason. Or someone convinced her to see reason, and told her to apologize. Maybe it was even an order--I don't know how much the Inquisition's got to do with this, but someone sold it to the Advisers.

Well, she didn't sound thrilled about doing it.

( gwenaëlle is familiar with delivering an apology you neither wish to give nor actually mean, to the surprise of absolutely no one. maybe the very slight surprise of people who didn't realise that she could be compelled to give one at all.

she never killed any innocent people.

(personally. if alix and magalie's deaths keep her up at night - if she blames herself, if she thinks there had been anything she could have done - that's between her and the maker.) )

You weren't there. ( almost a question. )

I had better places to be than Kirkwall.

[So, no. He wasn't there.]

Just 'cause I wasn't there doesn't stop me from having an opinion on it. No matter where it happened, or who it happened to, it still matters to us--to all of us. Just like how getting forgiven doesn't mean anyone has to forget about it. And nobody's going to convince me otherwise.

I'll bet you anything they won't let you write about him. Not in any way that's going to matter.

["They". It's easy, too, blaming something faceless, whoever intervened in this case. It would sound more conspiracy if there wasn't a truth to it. Someone changed someone's mind, convinced them--however tenuously--to apologize. The other bet Bellamy is making is that the same courtesy wouldn't be extended to any mage that lost control like that. People take care of their own. That means that he has to do the same.]

Of course not.

( there is no faceless conspiracy behind the answer she gives, prompt as it comes; she's already shaking her head before he's finished speaking. )

Talking about something like that - ( which she's not sure she should do, even if she were allowed; a noblewoman from orlais is not the voice of kirkwall, it isn't her place, what could she say? that an unremarkable man she didn't find particularly unpleasant turned out to be one of the most infamous living mages? and it was a bit of a shock? ) - it would undermine the entire purpose of the piece.

I'm supposed to be showing people the Inquisition matters. Building support. Favours. I can't do that with his name.

Yeah, that would kind of ruin things.

[And as bitter as he's being, Bellamy doesn't blame her. Not her business, not her prerogative. She writes nicely about the Inquisition, makes money, gets the shard out of her hand. This bullshit's not her fault.]

It's not like they're not making a secret of him. No gag orders keeping us from saying anything, so word'll get out, same way it always does. And if they get pressed to it, they'll give the same answer they gave us. The Wardens are taking care of it.

Means it doesn't matter anyways.

( and there's the other reason she won't be mentioning anders in the near future, although one she didn't know until bellamy told her; the wardens. alistair has her word that she'll not so much as insinuate their presence without his say so - an unspecified favour and the promise of information if she's good are compelling, but he could have bought her silence more cheaply by asking nicely and citing the safety of the inquisition (not that she's going to tell him so, now it's too late to do) - and now, well.

how can she keep that promise if she mentions anders, whose name is inextricably bound to them? due to being one, for one thing. she does wonder, was that why?

she's a woman of her word, and she'll keep it. but she might ask, one of these days. )

Doesn't it?

[Bellamy gives a short shrug as he sits back, clearly still dissatisfied. The answer is yes, of course it matters. It matters a whole hell of a lot.

But:]

You're the lady. You tell me. I've never been good at politics.

According to my late lady mother,

( very drolly, )

neither have I.

( she doesn't sound bitter. it isn't because she's not; the real disappointment to annegret wasn't that gwenaëlle's incapable but that perhaps she isn't. if she can hide some things, why not others? if she can mind herself sometimes, why not always? why must she only thirty percent of the time bother to think before she speaks, why are the things she cares about enough to handle deftly so fucking few.

well, probably because she hates it, actually. )

I don't know. It will, one day.

Edited 2016-05-14 09:07 (UTC)

[Despite the gravity of the topic, Bellamy cracks half a smile.]

I knew I liked you.

[He doesn't exactly relax, but a measure of tension eases out of the line of his shoulders. He squeezes his hand into a fist instead of picking idly at cloth and glove. Subterfuge, lying, that's not the same as the intricacies of politics. Playing games with people and their lives. Bellamy doesn't have a lot of patience, not when it's to do with people, or, at least, people he cares about.]

What makes you say that? 'One day'? The day he finally pisses someone off bad enough, or the day whoever's protecting him gets sick of protecting him?

The world can't go on ending forever, can it? Other things matter more. Now.

( a flick of her fingers - )

That won't always be true. And if it never matters, we're probably all dead, so who cares?

[It's so broad and sweeping that he does another half-smile, resigned to bleak amusement.]

I don't know. Some days, seems like it's been ending very slowly, for a long time now.

[Or they'll all be dead. It's not really a comforting thought but it also is, an inevitability that has, at times, seemed closer than it has at others. That's to do with the slowly-ending-world thing, too.]

I'd like to leave it a little better anyways. Guilty people dealt with, all that. [He glances over at Gwen again, a little sharper.] You sure all you did at home was look pretty and write stuff?

That's deep.

( or just the kind of crushing cynicism common to the young and the traumatized. one of these things is more likely than the other, and it's not as if she sounds like she's standing by that droll statement in the slightest.

a beat later-- )

What makes you think I'm doing anything else here?

( --instead of conceding that perhaps she did a few more things than that. anyway, the stewardship of vauquelin holdings is probably not what he means. )

Edited 2016-05-18 09:24 (UTC)

[Probably it's not deep, but it is true, in Bellamy's experience. When do we get to stop fighting wasn't even a question that they bothered to ask anymore. One day at a time.

He gives her a sideways look, trying to pick sarcasm out from her assessment, trying to decide if he should say no, it's not particularly deep, but life has pretty much felt like one long day, which she should get in some way either small or large, having a shard embedded in her hand.

Instead he opts to answer her question.]

Just a feeling I get. You seem like the kinda person who doesn't do one thing at a time. You're too smart, for one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

he calls himself a fan of mine and swears he’s read every word i’ve put down.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

do not adjust ur set.

oooooo nice change, nice choice

im v pleased

no subject

no subject

no subject