Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5355440.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Dragon_Age:_Inquisition
  Relationship:
      Female_Inquisitor/Cullen_Rutherford
  Additional Tags:
      Modern_Girl_in_Thedas, Self-Insert, POV_First_Person, Unreliable
      Narrator, Mary_Sue, Slow_Burn
  Collections:
      Modern_Day_OCs_in_Thedas
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-12-05 Updated: 2016-01-13 Chapters: 4/? Words: 3943
****** Yet Another “Modern Girl in Thedas” Self-Indulgent Author-Insert Fanfic
******
by imjusthereforthefanporn
Summary
     "Modern Girl in Thedas" stories are my guilty pleasure and I decided
     that it was time to write my own.
Notes
     Trigger Warnings (PLEASE READ!)
     Thedas is a dark and dangerous world in which terrible things are
     constantly happening and most people's lives are, to quote Hobbes,
     “nasty, brutish, and short.” This story will reflect that.
     If you have triggers for abuse, sexual violence, self harm, drug and
     alcohol abuse, suicide and suicidal ideation, war and combat, extreme
     poverty, or first-person portrayals of mental illnesses such as
     depression, anxiety, disassociation, and PTSD, then I recommend
     against reading this story.
     You can also expect major character deaths, infuriating injustices,
     morally questionable decisions, historically accurate personal
     hygiene practices, and a one-woman campaign of American cultural
     imperialism with a side of “white savior” complex. I will piss you
     off.
     If any of the above is likely to upset your emotional equilibrium
     enough to send you to a dark place in your mind then I urge you to
     please practice good self-care and skip this story.
     If you have any questions about specific triggers, please feel free
     to leave them as comments on the first chapter and I will answer them
     as quickly as possible.
***** What the fuck?! *****
I woke up in pain.
This, by itself, was not unusual – I wake up in pain every day – but the
locations and intensity of today's pains were new. My knees felt bruised, my
legs were almost numb, something heavy was chafing at my wrists, and my left
hand burned.
I opened my eyes to discover that I was not in my bed. Instead, I was manacled
and kneeling on a cold stone floor in a dimly lit room. Where the fuck was I?
My mind immediately flashed to all those Criminal Minds episodes about serial
killers kidnapping women and keeping them captive in their basement dungeons,
subjecting them to days or weeks of rape and torture before finally killing
them. Was this the place where I died?
I flinched at the bang of a door slamming open. My stomach churned with dread
at the sound of approaching footsteps and I struggled to breathe. What would he
do me?
I forced myself to look up. To my surprise and partial relief, it was two
women. The taller woman had light olive skin, short black hair, and fresh scars
on both cheeks. She wore some sort of dominatrix outfit featuring a metal
corset over a curve-hugging black leather bodysuit. The shorter woman wore a
shiny coat with purple accents. The hood obscured most of her features but I
caught a glimpse of pale skin and red hair.
“Tell me why we shouldn't kill you now,” demanded the tall woman.
My stomach lurched. Oh shit, they really were serial killers.
She continued, “The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead –
except for you.”
“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed, trying to make sense of what I was hearing.
She grabbed the manacles and jerked my hands upward. “Explain this!”
A sudden flare of green lit up the room as my left hand throbbed with pain. I
stared in shock at the flickering gash. It was the Anchor. From Dragon Age.
What the fuck.
My mind whirled, desperately trying to rationalize what I was seeing.
“This is some sort of elaborate prank!” I surmised, then barked with laughter.
I was being filmed for one of those hidden-camera reality TV shows. This one's
gimmick must be trying to trick gamers into believing that they were inside a
game and then laughing if they fell for it.
My obsession with the Dragon Age franchise was no secret to anyone who knew me.
I wondered which of my friends submitted my information to the show? I bet it
was Scott.
“This is no prank,” the actress playing Cassandra growled as she took a step
toward me. I scanned her up and down, impressed by how much she resembled her
character. They'd done a great job on her costume, too – now that I'd had a
better look at it, it was clear that it was meant to be armor, not fetish wear.
I relaxed, feeling silly for not recognizing who she was supposed to be sooner.
“Wow, you really do look like her!” I gushed. “How did you make the Anchor so
realistic? Is that blacklight paint on my hand? Is there, like, a taser or
something built into the manacles to shock me?”
“Quit speaking nonsense!” She shouted and pretended like she was going to hit
me. Of course, the actress playing Leliana grabbed her wrist to stop her. Their
choreography of this scene was spot-on despite having to improvise new lines
around my responses.
“We need her, Cassandra.” Whoever cast her as Leliana deserved a raise. She
wasn't just a perfect lookalike; she had the voice and accent down too.
“Do you remember what happened? How this began?” she asked me.
I knew that I was supposed to say something about running from spiders and
seeing a woman, but instead of ad-libbing my lines I took a moment to consider
her question. I actually didn't remember. I couldn't even remember the last
thing I'd been doing before I woke up here. It was just like when I took Ambien
– oh, those fuckers.
“Wait, how did I get here? Did you – did you DRUG me to get me on the set?” I
flashed hot with rage and began to tremble, blinking back tears. “Not cool. Not
cool. That is definitely not okay! Stop this right now. End scene.”
But the actress playing Cassandra refused to break character. “Go the forward
camp, Leliana. I will take her to the rift.”
“Okay, fine,” I bit out. I would play along and get it over with so I could get
out of here. “This is the part where I ask you what happened and you tell me
that it will be easier to show me, right? Let's go.”
She flinched at my words but still hauled me to my feet. Every joint in my body
protested and I swayed as a wave of vertigo rolled over me. I closed my eyes
and tried to regain my balance while she replaced the manacles with rope.
How much longer could they keep this stupid scenario going? The big reveal that
it was all a joke had to be soon. And then I would leave and hire the sharkiest
lawyer I could find to sue the crap out of whichever studio produced this show.
A sharp tug on my wrists forced me to stumble forward. “Wait --” I choked out;
I was still dizzy. But 'Cassandra' ignored my protest and rudely pushed me
toward the cell door.
I staggered along behind her while trying to stomp some of the pins and needles
out of my feet. I only had a vague impression of where we were going – candle-
lit stone walls, dungeon, long hallway, stairs – because I was too busy
seething to pay much attention to the sets. I was going to rip Scott a new
asshole if it turned out that he was indeed the one who signed me up for this
shit.
A sharp draft of cold air brought my attention back to the present as Cassandra
pushed open the heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. I stumbled through
and was temporarily blinded by how bright it was on the other side. I stood
there in the biting cold and waited for my eyes to adjust. The odors of
woodsmoke and sewage assaulted my nose. I felt a snowflake melt on my cheek and
realized that I had to be outdoors.
I squinted up at the sky and gasped. That was definitely not a green screen and
this was definitely not the set of a TV show.
 
 
 
***** What if all of this was actually real? *****
Previously on YAMGITSIAIF:  I squinted up at the sky and gasped. That was
definitely not a green screen and this was definitely not the set of a TV show.
 
I felt like I was floating. Separating from my body and just drifting away.
Away from the gently falling snow. Away from the medieval-era architecture.
Away from all the people milling about wearing authentic-looking – no, actually
authentic – period clothing. Away from the swirly green hole in the sky.
A murmur gradually penetrated the fog of my mind and I realized that someone
was speaking to me. “...just the largest. All caused by the explosion at the
Conclave.”
I snapped back to my body with a jerk.
“This can't be rea–” I tried to speak but choked on a scream instead. Pain,
unbearable pain unlike anything I'd ever experienced before shot through my
hand and up my left arm.
I fell to my knees and cradled my bound hands to my stomach. Scratchy rope
abraded my wrists. Icy wet slush seeped into my pants. My ears stung and ached
from the freezing cold air.
It felt real.
“Each time the breach expands, your mark spreads and it is killing you.” Said
the actress playing – no, said Cassandra. “It may be the key to stopping this
but there isn't much time.”
“This has to be a dream. Or a hallucination,” I muttered to myself. Was I
having a psychotic break?
Cassandra crouched down and shook me by my shoulders.
“This is no dream!” she shouted in my face. I winced and wrinkled my nose; I
guess there's no toothpaste in Thedas. “You must help us close the Breach.”
Was this really happening? No, this couldn't be happening. This had to be just
a very vivid lucid dream. Or I was crazy. I should probably just stay right
here and wait for whatever this was to be over, right? Just close my eyes, put
my head on my knees, and block it all out. I allowed myself to fall backward
onto my ass and did exactly that.
I heard Cassandra grunt with disgust. Except I didn't. I couldn't have heard
that. Because she wasn't really real and I wasn't really here and none of this
was really happening.
But... what if I was wrong? What if all of this was actually real? If all these
people were real, and if the Breach was real, then that would mean...
I did some quick moral calculations.
If this was just a dream – which it almost certainly was – and I did nothing
then I'd eventually wake up. Whereas if I did try help then my dream would
probably turn into a really bad nightmare but I'd still eventually wake up.
If this was a hallucination – the second most likely scenario – and I did
nothing, then I'd... what? Continue to drool on myself in a padded room
somewhere? But what if I wasn't in a padded room yet? What if I was projecting
this hallucination onto the real world? If I tried to help, I might think that
I was attacking a demon but I would actually be hurting a real person. So if I
did try to help, I couldn't fight. That was probably for the best anyway
because I didn't really know how.
And finally, if by some INCREDIBLY IMPROBABLY TINY chance that this was
actually real and I was actually in Thedas? If I did nothing then Corypheus
would conquer Thedas and millions of people would die. People who might
actually be real people not just fictional characters in a video game. But if I
tried to help – and didn't get myself killed or otherwise fuck things up – then
I could save them just like I did in the game. Maybe I could even use what I
knew and save more people.
I took a shaky breath and looked Cassandra in the eye. “Okay,” I nodded. “I'll
help.” She pulled me up to my feet.
I didn't really pay attention to Cassandra's monologue as she led me through
town. Everyone thinks I'm guilty, blah blah blah – I'd already heard this
speech each time I'd started a new playthrough. Instead, I spent the time
gaping at my surroundings.
Haven was much bigger than portrayed and there were a lot more people than
NPCs. I realized that of course this had to be the case. Most functions of
daily life had been omitted from the game whereas real people need places to
sleep, to cook, to eat, to bathe, to use the toilet... I grimaced. I was not
looking forward to the toilet facilities.
At the edge of town, Cassandra abruptly stopped, turned, and pulled out a
dagger. I sucked in my breath in alarm before I remembered that she was just
going to free my hands.
“There will be a trial. I can promise no more,” she told me as she cut the
rope.
I reached up to rub my forehead – my head was pounding – then froze as
something occurred to me. Was I here as myself, or was I here in the body of
one of the player characters?
I didn't have to crane my neck to look Cassandra in the eye, so not Cadash.
I touched my ears. Not Lavellan.
I ran my hands over the top of my head. Not Adaar.
Human, then. Was I Trevelyan? Or myself?
There were no mirrors handy so I thought for a second, then pulled my right
shirtsleeve up to my elbow and examined my arm. Ah, yes, there it was. The scar
from when my childhood cat scratched the hell out of me. I was here in my own
body.
I felt a pang of disappointment; Evelyn Trevelyan was probably in a lot better
shape than me. The initial adrenaline spike from waking up in a dungeon had
worn off and I was already beginning to feel fatigued despite not even being at
the bridge yet. Climbing all the way up to where the Temple of Sacred Ashes
once stood was really going to suck.
I looked up from my self inspection to find Cassandra impatiently scowling at
me.
“Come. It is not far,” she urged and began walking up the path.
“I know. You want to test my mark on something smaller than the Breach,” I said
absentmindedly as I tried to remember everything that would happen on the way
up the mountain. Cassandra looked back at me and narrowed her eyes for a moment
before continuing forward.
Oh, right. That was supposed to be her line. She must have felt like I'd stolen
the words right out of her mouth.
That opened a whole new can of worms. I turned it over in my head while I
struggled to keep up with Cassandra's long strides. I didn't just have to
remember what was going to happen, I also had to decide what to do with that
information. How much should I reveal? How do I explain how I know what I know?
Should I even attempt to change events? What about the Butterfly Effect? If I
followed the script of the game then at least I'd know which series of
decisions could lead to victory, whereas if I start changing things then
anything could happen.
I thought about the people of Haven. All those possibly very real people who'd
just given me the stink-eye while we strolled through town. If I remembered
correctly, roughly half of them would die when either the Red Templars or
Venatori attacked.
That made my decision for me.
“Hey, Cassandra?” I said. She tilted her head toward me to acknowledge that she
was listening but didn't stop her forward march. I took a deep breath, exhaled,
and blurted, “I've seen the future.”
 
***** God-fucking-dammit, Cassandra! *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Previously on YAMGITSIAIF: I took a deep breath, exhaled, and blurted, “I've
seen the future.” 
 
“Ugh,” Cassandra's disgusted grunt carried a tinge of exasperation this time.
“More nonsense.”
“No, I really have!” I protested, jogging a little to keep up with her (damn
her long legs!) as she strode up the path that wound between the impromptu
barricades. “A bunch of different versions of the future, even. I know which
decisions will–“
A stabbing pain in my hand interrupted me and I fell to my knees in the snow.
“The pulses are coming faster now,” Cassandra observed as she helped me back to
my feet. “The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons
we face.”
“Cassandra, please listen to me!” I pleaded as I stumbled along behind her. “I
really have seen the future. I can also tell you who is behind–“ I cut myself
off. We'd reached the bridge.
“Wait!” I grabbed Cassandra's arm. “I'll prove it to you. Any second now, the
Breach will spit out a meteor that destroys this bridge and then we'll be
attacked by two demons.”
I realized what I'd just said and started waving my arms and shouting at the
soldiers at the other end. “EVERYBODY, GET BACK! GET OFF THE BRIDGE!”
“I don't know what you expect to achieve with these lies but they will not sway
me,” Cassandra lectured as she grabbed me by the wrist and began dragging me
forward across the bridge. I tried to dig in my heels but it was futile because
she was much, much stronger than me.
“No, Cassandra, it's not safe, we can't –“
The meteor arrived on schedule.
The bridge collapsed beneath our feet. I rolled with it as it fell, then lay
gasping on the ice amidst the rubble. Everything hurt. Something green
flickered in my peripheral vision.
“Stay behind me,” Cassandra ordered, and advanced on the first demon.
“No, wait, I told you there are two,” I wheezed but the fall had knocked the
wind out me. I couldn't speak above a whisper.
My skin crawled with horror as tendrils of black smoke began to ooze out of the
pool of green light forming next to me. I scrabbled back away from it as best I
could, shards of rock and ice cutting into my hands. I needed to run, to hide –
I tried to get up but slipped on the ice as a sharp pain in my right ankle
stopped me. Broken? Or just sprained? Either way, it wouldn't hold my weight. I
couldn't even stand, much less run.
The demon coalesced in front of me in a final bright flash of green light. It
was hideous. A giant mouth dominated its face. It had no skin; its arms were
just a ropy mass of purple muscles ending in long black talons. It stunk of
dead rotting animal.
The shade roared and came at me. I flailed around wildly for something to hold
it off with and my left hand closed around a wooden staff. I gripped one end
tightly with both hands and kept the other end pointed at the demon, hoping
that the staff would prove to be longer than the reach of the creature's claws.
I wondered if I was actually pointing a broom at a nurse in a mental
institution.
I tried to hold it off, but it didn't need to touch me to hurt me. It gurgled
something and I felt myself suddenly weaken. The staff slipped from my bloody
grip as I sank back against the rocks and ice. I felt my heart rate slow as the
cold spread rapidly through my body. The edges of my vision began to black out.
I heard Cassandra shout something in the distance. The demon must have turned
away from me then, but I was only vaguely aware of what was happening around
me. Instead, all my attention was focused on my struggle to breathe. In, out,
in, out. I could hear my pulse in my ears and could tell that it was beating
much too slowly.
I don't know how long I lay there like that before I was jerked upright into a
sitting position and a flask was pressed to my lips.
“Drink this potion,” Cassandra commanded. I took a swallow. It tasted like
dirt, but I didn't mind as I felt a gentle warmth suffuse my body. I guzzled
the rest and then stared at my palms in fascination as all the little cuts
healed before my eyes.
“God-fucking-dammit, Cassandra!” I screamed at her as soon as I caught my
breath. “I told you what was going to happen.”
“A lucky guess,” she dismissed my words with a scowl. “Get up.”
I staggered to my feet. My ankle still hurt but the potion had healed it enough
for me to stand if I leaned on the staff I'd found for support.
Cassandra led me along the frozen riverbed, dispatching demons along the way. I
hung back, grateful that she didn't seem to expect me to help her fight like my
characters had in the game. We finally reached the bottom of a long set of
stone stairs cut into the side of a steep hill. I sat on one of the steps to
rest before continuing and gestured at her to wait.
“Look, I know things about you, things I shouldn't know.” I desperately tried
to think of what might convince her. “Like, your brother Anthony was a
dragonslayer. He was murdered by blood mages. And you had a mage lover named
Regalyen, Regaylen, something like that.”
“All that proves is that you have competent spies,” she replied as she scanned
the terrain for more enemies.
“You love Varric's Swords and Shields books,” I blurted. She actually turned
and looked at me for that.
“No I do not,” she lied.
“Yes you do too ,” I retorted. “You're a huge fangirl. You're desperately
waiting for him to publish the next chapter because – “ I racked my brain,
trying to remember what she'd gushed about. “ – because you're dying to know
what happens to the Knight-Captain character. She'd been framed for something
she didn't do or something like that.”
“Many people read Varric's books. You could say that to any of them and it
would be true,” she argued, but there was finally a hint of doubt in her voice.
“Quit stalling. We're almost to the first rift.”
I had to lean heavily on Cassandra for support to make it up the stairs and she
all but carried me up the last few. This was way more exertion that I was used
to. My legs had turned to jelly, I had to pant for breath, and I felt like I
was going to throw up.
“Stay here,” Cassandra commanded, dropping me to lean against a rock as soon as
we reached the top. “I must help them!” She ran toward the rift and engaged one
of the several demons being fought off by Varric and Solas.
Oh, shit. Solas. Fen'harel. Trespasser. What the fuck should I do about him?
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     FYI this fic will contain spoilers for Trespasser and pretty much
     everything else too.
***** On hiatus *****
Chapter Summary
     Apologies but I'm going to be putting this story on hold for a while.
Hi! I'm still excited about writing this story but I've realized that to do my
ideas justice, I'm first going to need to complete a few more playthroughs,
transcribe and analyze the game dialogue to get the other characters' voices
right, (re)read and take notes on the written source materials (e.g. World of
Thedas 1 & 2, the novels, the comics, and the RPG sourcebooks), and do more
research into the history, culture, economics, and politics of the real-world
countries that Thedas is based on as well as on the Enlightenment, the French
Revolution, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa.
(For those of you who also write fanfic, I'll be posting those transcripts and
any other resources I develop myself or find elsewhere on AO3 in my Dragon_Age
Fanfic_Author_Resources_series.)
Unfortunately, I can't keep just going through the game plot scene-by-scene and
rewriting it with my protagonist because I'm not planning for the same events
to happen in the same order as they do in the game. In fact, everything is
going to go rather rapidly off the rails in a flurry of unintended consequences
and Butterfly Effect reverberations throughout Thedas as soon as the events of
the Wrath of Heaven prologue are complete. While this story is tagged as a Mary
Sue, I'm planning some major subversions of the trope as my protagonist's
efforts to reform Thedas as per the ideological biases of a typical privileged
modern American woman don't work out as she expects. (Someone really should
have paid better attention to the reasoning behind Star Trek's Prime Directive,
heh heh heh...)
Meanwhile, since I don't want to lose momentum in my attempts to learn to write
fiction, and since I have some other self-insert fantasies that don't fit into
my main plot, I'll probably be writing some other short Modern Girl in Thedas
stories while I work on the background the research for this story. So if you
enjoy the MGIT subgenre, I encourage you to subscribe to my_AO3_author_profile
and also be sure to check out other people's stories in the Modern_Day_OCs_in
Thedas_collection.
Thanks for reading and for all your kind words!
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!