Title: A Slash of Blue
Author: todisturbtheuniverse
Rating: M
Genre: Romance
Status: Complete
Length: 21,781
Pairings: Female Hawke/Isabela
Summary: Hawke has a small case of hero worship for Isabela: a series of ficlets spanning all three acts.

(It might be a crush. Or a powerful dollop of lust. Nothing more than that, surely.)

Link: AO3

Title: A Slash of Red
Author: todisturbtheuniverse
Rating: M
Genre: Romance
Status: Complete
Length: 21,549
Pairings: Female Hake/Isabela
Summary: When Isabela washes ashore in Kirkwall, she expects to stay just long enough to grab the relic and go. There are two things she didn't count on: 1) the damned thing is hard to find, and 2) Hawke.

Link: AO3

Occasionally, I find myself in a sappy mood and go searching for romance fics across fandoms. This led me these two fics about Hawke and Isabela from Dragon Age 2. They are the two main works of the Tongues Will Wag series with the other parts just being quick one-shots.

A Slash of Blue is from Hawke's POV, A Slash of Red is from Isabela's POV and they can be read in either order according to the author. I went from Blue to Red myself and despite them technically being split into chapters, I think of them more like a long one-shot especially when AO3 has the option to read them all in one.

I've never actually played DA2 but I know the story well enough to follow along.

These stories cover the entire length of game's narrative from when they first met to when the Mage/Templar breaks out in Kirkwall. It's not an actual retelling of the story but instead focuses on moments throughout that time period to show the development of their complicated relationship from friends to friends with benefits to something more. Some are canon but many are original. And these aren't just the same events told from two different perspectives; while certain chapters overlap with one another, quite a few of them are unique to their respective stories.

Like I said, I haven't played the game so I don't know how well they match their canon counterparts but I do find that they make a fun pair whether they're interacting as best friends or as lovers (or ultimately, both).

4/5

 

It's a fun series. The start of Blue was cute but I found myself far more drawn in by Hawke's family relationships than the romance, mainly because Hawke was just so damn tolerant of everything. About the one thing I could imagine Hawke getting angry at Isabella about would have been if she had killed her sister, so while it was sweet in some regards, the lack of conflict on that front and Hawke just accepting everything did make it a bit boring.

Skimmed through a few of the one shots and I liked the one with the mother planning the birthday party, if only because I really loved that dynamic and wanted to see it explored more.

So yeah, it's a solid series, quite fun and atmospheric but I don't think very memorable.

3.5/5

 

Nice enough for what it is, but I feel like this adds absolutely nothing to my experience of the Dragon Age world. The window dressing changes, but otherwise it's indistinguishable from every other fluff piece. It was a bit of a struggle to keep my attention focused on this tbh, and I only stuck it out because it was relatively short and I wanted to read the whole thing so I could review.

3/5