#oc tab

[justsumfangurlmind]

The fams all here 🥹

[impossible-rat-babies]

Today is also another day of salty about BioWare dialogue options with Dimitri.

I think my biggest qualm is how you can’t be more passive in responses? It’s also emotion after emotion after emotion which isn’t Dimitri. He is the furthest thing from super passionate and righteous about something. It’s honestly something that kinda grated on his nerves when people are loudly passionate.

Like how accepting quests can be like: “yes I will go and do this!!”

Dimitri is like: “I will make time for this since it is along the way. We will return in due time.”

He’s also one to not be super inquisitive. He would rather have someone fully explain to him before he asks questions. He also doesn’t make assumptions in his questioning. He is very open minded. It’s an issue I run into the most with dialogues with Solas where there are presumptions/dialogues with the spirit in Crestwood.

Like in Crestwood is like: “what is so distressing about the real world?” He would ask it like: “what is distressing about this side of the Veil?” He thinks of the Fade as a place that is not unlike the real world; it’s a place he visits when he sleeps and one that people can actually visit as is proven in Inquisition and questionably historically. It’s just another world—one isn’t more real than the other.

There are so many insistence’s with talking with Solas about spirits where presumptions are made. Dimitri doesn’t pressure to have a large difference in how demons and spirits function. Demons and spirits aren’t inherently evil, but they are dangerous. His personal experiences say that.

I’m just being nitpickey at this moment with the background I’ve built for Dimitri, but goddamn it it matters to me

[impossible-rat-babies]

Some OC thoughts of late:

—It’s not like I don’t want to develop Dimitri’s clan more and create specific origin stories for them. It’s like the history is so old and the First Blight did such a number on the clan and even then the knowledge they perserved from the old kingdom is sparse due to their own isolation within the Anderfels and the creation of the Veil dampening magic. Not to mention how that impacts the understanding of how such things used to work. People in Thedas can’t imagine a world where the Fade and reality are one, so understanding the mechanics of that world along with the life and magic within it is beyond comprehension. Plus we just lack the access to the lore surrounding such matters.

—It also plays into Dimitri’s story being one of how memory works along with trauma, loss and general workings of mental illness and how it relates to memory and the perceptions of the world. (Which this comes from my own hugely personal experiences). The history of his clan reflects his own memories: broken, but within intense points of clarity. The clan doesn’t know what happened before the fall of Arlathan, but how the Blight shaped the clan is very real and well known. Like how Dimitri knows well of his life in the clan and how it has shaped him despite the changes in him, but to recall the instances that have changed him is nearly impossible due to gaps/static or the trauma making it difficult/impossible to speak about.

—This also plays directly into his mental state and memories in his perceptions of events both present and past and how he perceives reality currently. This can be illusions or some trick of the fade. Reality to him is a fickle construct that can be difficult to grasp. Sometimes he can’t distinguish between what is a flashback and what is currently happening. Like in the most recent session, he had to pose as a slave so the characters could get into this guild to achieve the goal of the dungeon. Well at one point he was being examined and he could hear Elrahal telling him about his experiences with such matters and Dimitri didn’t know (or perhaps care) if it was reality or some flashback. Reality can be a fluid thing for him when he has episodes relating to trauma. (Like things having to do with slavery remind him of Elrahal which bring up traumatic memories of static due to having witnessed Elrahal’s death).

—In practical terms with talking about him being mentally ill, he’s most likely got severe anxiety which he deals with via negative coping mechanisms, issues with dissociation, PTSD that manifests in extremely intense flashbacks that make reality a fluid thing, intense and repressed trauma, and most likely other things.

—Speaking of, I didn’t create him with the intention of him glorifying mental illness and creating an edgy character. He’s more than the mental illness. He’s snarky, sarcasric and has a dry wit. He’s intelligent and strong willed. He was trained to be a leader and he had incredible focus to be able to use his magic. He can be incredibly nuturing and loving towards children. He can be incredibly emotionally vulnerable and laugh at stupid jokes when he is comfortable. He can trust others and care for people despite all of his misgivings. He knows he’s difficult and unyielding. Like his big quote is: “I don’t want to forget. I want to be okay with remembering.” He wants to try and recover and be in a better place because feeling awful is shitty! He’s not down in the dumps and “emo” because he likes it. He just hasn’t found a way to try and recover yet. (Which this all is a big reflection of myself. Like damn it’s like looking in a mirror.)

Some Mage Darva thoughts:

—Darva intensely feared becoming like his mother when he found out he was pregnant. By the time he left the clan, it had been over five years since the death of his father and he couldn’t much remember who his mother was before the death of his father. All he really remembered, whether it was willing or not, was her intense patterns of grief she cycled through. He knew her intense and all encompassing sadness that left no room for anyone else. No one suffered as much as she did—not even Darva. Or he knew her anger and bargaining to where she would find herself in obsessive habits that if she did them right, he would come back. Then, when he didn’t come back, she would burst into anger and blame and Darva was the target. He stopped crying over his father because she was more important. It was her, her, her.

—It was all he knew of his mother by the time he left and he knew it was badly. Like: “unconditional love—like between a child and a parent—isn’t conditional.” By the end, his mother had conditional love that she called unconditional. He intensely feared bringing that into his relationship with Miriam. He didn’t want her to end up like he had. (He knew it was bad what she had done, so that was the first step in it).

—In certain ways, it mirrors Morrigan’s relationship to her mother and Morrigan’s relationship with Kieran. Like: “I am many things, but I will not be the mother to him that you were to me.” Darva won’t be like that to his daughter and he wasn’t, just like Morrigan. (I have my qualms with Morrigan, but her relationship with her son is not one of them).

—Also many of his fears in regards to it were dashed once she was born. He would do anything to keep her safe, even from himself if need be. (But that didn’t ever need to happen). He wasn’t without his fault while raising her like many parents, but he knows from himself and others that he didn’t fail her.

—Cole commented on it once: “a mirror with four different reflections, all looking and examining. The young girl with rubbed red eyes to stop the tears sees both of them and knows how it should be. You didn’t make the same mistakes, Darva. You weren’t your mother.”

[yeowninefive]

Nothing much, just a retweak of Tab's existing design. He has hair now. And a different set of eyes and nose. And ears. And a bigger hat.

I made the changes so Tab would have a more distinct head shape, as opposed to the basic sphere of a head (sailor cap notwithstanding) he used to have.