Ever meet someone and think, “if you weren’t a minority, you wouldn’t give a shit about social justice at all?”
Sera is that for me. Sera only cares about helping the “little people” out of self interest. We can see this because she hates the Dalish as much as everyone else does -- she’s not part of them, so she has nothing to gain in helping them, and everything to gain by trashing them like everyone with privilege does.
That doesn’t mean I hate her, or that I think people shouldn’t like her. Fuck that noise. I mean, I stan a dude who wants to blow up the world and also has the same bigotry (although most of that is due to me and @orodrethsgeek‘s verse where he gets stuck with our dalish OCs and learns not to be such a twat; every time I actually play DA:I I want to punch Solas because “wtf, that’s not our Solas!” Our headcanons have gotten pretty extensive, lol). I just get strong vibes from Sera that she doesn’t care about “little people” as much as she thinks she does -- at least in DA:I.
I see great potential for her to grow past this.
Much like the egg, I headcanon that in my and @orodrethsgeek‘s universe she eventually mellows on the Dalish and becomes really good friends with our elf tornadoes. I think when she’s older she might actually work with Calmar a bit, since his work focuses on the city elves, and she’d get along great with Tabren.
You haven’t been following me long, so I don’t know if you know about Liriel’s work and SS!AU (”Solas Stays” AU), but basically after DA:I she goes on an Epic Quest to recover as much elven history as possible, having been embittered by her seeing Fen’Harel and Mythal as having done nothing for centuries while the elves suffered. She travels from clan to clan, learning about their cultures and histories, and writes as much down as she could, and shares with them what she’s learned about their history from other clans. When she’s older, she settles down and becomes the “High Keeper” of Wycome -- that is, the Dalish representative of the Wycome Council.
One massive flaw with Liriel’s work is that she focuses on the Dalish so much she neglects the city elves -- I can see Sera going, “Hold on, WTF?” and holding her to task for that. Because of that, Liriel would make sure to go out of her way to build relationships and learn about the cultures of alienages and treat them as cultural entities in their own right, like she does the Dalish clans, along with inviting their Hahrens to Arlath’vhens later on.
And it’d be all thanks to Sera telling her, “Hang on, you called me out for not caring about the Dalish, why don’t you care about the city elves?!”
asdfasdfasdfsdf look at this amazing commission @nipuni did for me aaaaaaa
Presenting! Celysel Lavellan Dirtharen, the Red Wolf, archaeologist, Arcane Warrior, Dreamer, first born of Clan Dirtharen, first of the Dread Wolf’s “six puppies,” third Keeper of Clan Dirtharen, heir of the Dread Wolf
(and forever salty she didn’t inherit his sweetas castle and ball orb of destruction)
Imagine an elven Vivienne and you have Cel’s personality in a nutshell. I’m pretty sure Solas went “why” when he realised that.
Meeeeme! Tagged by nobody, saw this on @daihell‘s blog and wanted to snag for Liriel Lavellan!
Who named them/Significance of their name:
Lahariel (owned by @orodrethsgeek) named her.
When Liriel came across Clan Lavellan, she was in disguise as a Doggo. As the only Fereldan in the clan, Lahariel became attached to Liriel very quickly and named her after a female elven hero from Clan Sabrae, the clan he’d lost during the events of DA2. When it was discovered Liriel wasn’t actually a mabari, he took it... uh... badly.
At first the skittish and flighty girl refused to speak a word, except to get mad at any perceived injustice. After a while, she began to talk more and more, but by then Clan Lavellan had begun to forget that Liriel wasn’t the name she’d been born with.
She never told Lavellan the name her mother had called her. By the time she felt safe enough to take her birth name back, she’d been Liriel long enough she didn’t feel like that scared little girl any more, and kept it. She’s been Liriel ever since.
Home they grew up in:
Liriel grew up in southern Ferelden, mostly the Wilds, occasionally the Brecillian Forest. Her mother spent Liriel’s childhood escaping the clutches of Templars, leaving the three of them -- Liriel, her brother Seheron, and her mother -- always on the move. Liriel grew up around a wide variety of people, moving from clan to clan, tribe to tribe, town to town. She learned to sing in the Lothering Chantry, she briefly brushed shoulders with Lahariel in Clan Sabrae, she sat at her mother’s knee while she sought refuge at Flemeth’s hut, she played with Chasind children and learned about Avvar magic. The family could never afford to stay with one group of people for very long without putting them in danger, but Liriel had a culturally very rich background -- and with it, a strong sense of community, loyalty and dedication.
But, also, a sense of appreciation for differences, and for diplomacy -- something that would not appear to be something she learned from, as a kid with bad ADHD and poor social skills. But it was this appreciation for differences and a sensitivity to them (even if she found it very difficult to act on) that came in useful during her later career as a Keeper and High Keeper.
Relationship with parents:
Liriel’s mother, Velanril the Elder, often despaired of Liriel because she seemed to have no sense of self preservation. Liriel was completely unafraid of running full-tilt into the Wilds without looking back, and yet had an uncanny ability to survive everything it threw at her. Velanril eventually figured out that Liriel was a much brighter child than she appeared to be, having an exceptional talent for evaluating threats in the blink of an eye and compensating for them in a breath. While Seheron tended to slink around the wilderness with more caution, Liriel appeared more careless -- but was always able to get out of trouble as soon as it appeared, and could quickly tell when a situation would be more than she could handle.
Liriel, on the other hand, was utterly baffled that her mother was so distressed about the whole thing. Growing up in constant danger was as normal to her as sunlight; she couldn’t get why her mother seemed to think the Wilds were full of danger to be avoided when... well, yes, it was, but that was life? Liriel wasn’t going to spend her life cowering behind her mother’s skirts. Danger was everywhere. That was just life.
Her relationship with her father, on the other hand -- her father was a Templar wannabe who never stopped pursuing Velanril. Sometimes, as a dog, Liriel would lie at his feet at camp at night, getting to know him.
By the time her brother died, her father had never known that Seheron had a twin sister. It would be years before he realised that he had a daughter at all.
Three Words to describe them as a child:
Wild, independent, adventurous
Childhood friend(s):
Her closest childhood friend was her brother, as Liriel moved from place to place too often for her to make any lasting, permanent friendships. However, she considered herself on good terms with many children from various clans, tribes and settlements, and was quite popular at least in her younger years, when her daring thrilled many of the other kids. The older she got, however, the more their emotional growth seemed to surpass hers -- even as an adult, she remained very childlike and often childish.
Favorite Toy:
Liriel never had any toys. It was extra weight to carry, something else to haul around in the dead of night at the last moment when whispers of Templars reached them. Her toys were sticks and stones and mud, or maybe a dead bird or rabbit here or there. She never particularly minded, she was too busy exploring to play make believe with dolls or stuffed animals.
Childhood Trauma?:
When she was fifteen years old, Liriel’s mother died trying to stop her father from catching the children. Liriel and Seheron were forced to flee the Wilds, but unbeknowst to her, her father had made a phylactery out of Liriel’s blood with the aid of an assassin who attacked the three of them before, but died before he could return to tell her father about the twins. Her father still found the dagger with her blood on it, and tracked Liriel and Seheron all across Thedas, on foot. Liriel believed that they’d be safe in Tevinter, or at Weisshaupt.
She was wrong.
On the way there, starving and desperate and unable to determine why the Templars were always so dangerously close, Seheron was kidnapped by slavers. Liriel pursued him all the way to Minrathous, and even disguised herself as her mother when her father caught up to her. The two of them grudgingly joined forces to try and free Seheron, but failed -- in the process, Seheron died. From the point of view of Liriel’s father, he’d lost his only child because of Velanril’s apparent selfishness.
But Liriel was free.
Her only family had bought it with her blood, but she was free.
The incident, and her whole childhood, would haunt her for a long time, however. She vowed to spend the rest of her life in mabari form, believing (rightly) that dogs were treated better than mages were. She tried to make her way to Wycome, the city her mother had grown up with and spoken of so fondly, but on the way joined Clan Lavellan for survival. When it was discovered she was an elf, she refused to speak for a long time, and even when she did she’d say nothing of her family except they were dead, and it was a Templar’s fault they died. She was very “every person for themselves,” and believed that anyone who criticised mages was a hair’s breadth away from stabbing her in the back with no remorse. She believed she’d never be treated as a person, that she was the only person who believed she deserved to be treated like a person. She became very angry, and very, very bitter.
She was deeply fucked up, and had no idea, because it was normal to her.
She ended up suppressing as much as she could of her trauma. It wasn’t until nineteen years after her mother’s death, when she was pregnant with Velanril the Younger, that PTSD suddenly came up and went “o hai” and hit her in the face with a cricket bat and made her a crying, hormonal wreck. Luckily, by then, she had three loving husbands to help her through it and remind her she was safe, and she was loved, and nothing would ever happen to her family again.
She took Mythal’s vallaslin because it was a no-brainer for her. Motherhood, for her mother and her sacrifice. Justice, for the justice Velanril never got. For the justice Liriel wanted one day.
Hobbies:
Exploring, being very nosy, hyperfocusing on research, crawling up Solas’s ass.
Childhood fear(s):
Being captured by Templars, being dragged to the Circle, injustice.
Quirks:
She has a raging case of ADHD, is a motormouth, and has very poor social skills.
Despite being passionate and full of anger, she’s also very “out of sight, out of mind”. She’ll get along with someone like Commander Cullen because she’ll just totally forget how evil Templars are until it’s in front of her face.
She also mutters to herself, acts like a female Sherlock Holmes around Solas (which both amuses and annoys him), and tends to bounce off the walls.
For a long time, she sleeps and toilets in mabari form. It’s not until her relationship with Solas that she learns to sleep in elven form again. She never does, however, learn to “go” in elf form, and hasn’t since she was twelve years old.
in my headcanon, Dorian gets all his sass from his mother. So when it came to introducing her to Sable he was torn between thinking “oh god they’re gonna hate each other” and “oh god one of them is going to chew the other up and spit them out and I don’t know which one.”
Because on one hand, Aquinea has bite but it gets blunted by her drunkenness.
But on the other, Sable has a really sarcastic personality but also tends to Panic about things a lot.
Unfortunately, the reality was much worse: Sable and Aquinea sassed each other once and all but fell in love, resulting in them becoming Buddies and occasionally ganging up on Dorian. Naturally, Dorian was horrified.
Headcanon says that Aquinea never really gave a flying fuck about Dorian’s sexuality or whatever (she knew what it was like to get married off to someone one has no respect for) until Halward went Crazy Blood Mage on his son’s ass (at which point Halward was banished to the couch for the rest of his life -- not that they slept in the same room anyway but it’s the thought that counts), but much to Dorian’s dismay his mother became much more annoyingly supportive when she found out having a son-in-law even more sarcastic than she was was way better than dealing with some bored daughter-in-law reliving Aquinea’s worst nightmares and a bunch of annoying rugrats nobody particularly wanted or cared about.
(Also, Sable’s way better at dealing with Aquinea than Dorian is.)
So whenever some magister is taunting Aquinea about her son marrying another man, Aquinea’s like “thank fuck Halward’s line ends here, rest in fucking pieces! Which I could say the same for your husband’s line, Becky, but I hear he knocked up the maid again!”
“You take that back!”
“Is it true that when you married your daughter off, her husband took one look at her and said that to you?”
“GASP!”
(You can see why her and Sable get along so well right)
Tell me about the well of sorrows! Who ended up drinking from it? Also, regardless of if she did or not, what would that convo after between her and Solas look like?
Eeee I am glad you asked!
So! For the Well of Sorrows, the OT4 ended up going with Sable, as well as Dorian. Usually the OT4 went off on their own for Inquisition stuff – at first for tracking down magical artefacts because of Solas, then eventually they were designated the local elven experts once it became apparent that Corypheus was interested in elven ruins.
And when Sable invited Solas to come along to the Arbor Wilds, Solas insisted that the other elves come along too. At that point he had a lot of respect for Mahanon and was growing fonder of Liriel. Even a little begrudging respect for Lahariel.
Liriel drank from the Well. She didn’t give Sable much of a choice. Solas refused, Morrigan wasn’t an elf – “This is my people!” she pretty much said to Sable, jabbing a finger at the well. “This is our history! Morrigan does not have the right to drink. You do not have the right to decide who will drink. I will drink because I am elvhen, and never again will we submit. This is our birthright. Not yours.”
And while I cannot speak 100% for Lahariel and Mahanon, I’m sure they were there nodding along, even if they might’ve been twitchy because weird magic wtf. Maybe they’d be reluctant because of that magic, but I’m sure that despite that, they’d have infinitely preferred Liriel did it.
Solas wouldn’t have been happy with it at all. Whether the Well gave the drinker the ability to defeat him, or the ability for Mythal to control them – he would have rathered that he had to kill/control Morrigan than Liriel. At that point he’d become very fond of Liriel and was even starting to love her.
Afterwards, there wasn’t much of a conversation between Solas and Liriel. He did try. But Liriel shut him down each time with, “You clearly have knowledge that my people are entitled to that you refuse to share, so fuck you. I’ll take whatever shreds are left of our heritage however I have to. You could have prevented this but you didn’t. You think about that.”
So like, after Dorian’s forced to go back to Tevinter after Halward’s death Aquinea is like “hmm, I should probably make amends for the whole standing-by-and-not-doing-jack-shit-when-he-was-shut-in-a-basement thing. Also possibly being a terrible mother.”
(Definitely being a terrible mother.)
Anyway her version of “making amends” was to hang around and drink Dorian’s wine. And tell him “GOOD JOB FUCKING THAT ONE UP, GENIUS” after Dorian and Sable broke up. and being like “by Andraste I did not ditch your father so you could break up with the love of your life and spend the rest of your life as miserable as we were, eugh, fucking go to wherever he is and drag him back here”
(”Do you promise not to embarrass me if I do”
“I make no such promises”
“Great! Thank you for your undying love and support, Mother! It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy.”
“You’re welcome!”
“why are you still here”
“because Halward willed his wine collection to me and it’s the only fucking bit of joy that stupid miser ever gave me.”
“Also me!”
“Not when I had to be sober for nine bloody months to give birth to you!”
“And here I thought I was born with wine instead of blood running through my veins.”
“You’re lucky you’re out of arm’s reach, boy.”)
eventually Dorian and Sable patched things up and Sable appears in Minrathous.
Now, friendly reminder that Sable is in his mid forties by this point and looks a little bit older. Aquinea takes one look at him and is like “I really expected my son to bring home a young, hot boytoy.”
And Sable’s like, “Oh, don’t worry, he did! But there wasn’t enough room in the carriage so Dorian had to shove him in a suitcase.”
And that is when Aquinea decides her son has wonderful taste in men and Adopts the shit out of Sable and proceeds to treat him like he’s the second baby boy she never had.
(Dorian is only slightly cranky about this and decides Sable can pay the penance of dealing with Aquinea when she’s hung over.)
So I just thought of a Thing and told @orodrethsgeek and now I’m telling everyone else.
For everyone who doesn’t know -- Liriel Lavellan, my Dog Brat, is a mage who can shapeshift, and she’s a headcanon companion for Sable Trevelyan, my Inquisitor.
Her first form is that of a white mabari. Her favourite pasttime is to pretend she’s just an innocent doggus and Definitely Not A Shapeshifter. She did it to Lahariel, and later, she did it in the beginning of DA:I to Solas, until Lahariel and Mahanon (who both belong to @orodrethsgeek) showed up and outed her.
Anyway. The story.
Before Lahariel and Mahanon came along, Liriel decided to troll the ever loving shit out of the Chantry and Templars. Now, the Fereldans are totally unfazed at the idea of letting a mabari into the Chantry because mabari, so she took advantage of this and took a huge dump on the Chantry floor.
The Fereldans are mortified because mabari are supposed to be so well behaved, and the Orlesians are horrified because DID SHE REALLY JUST DO THAT???
and Liriel’s banned from the Chantry.
Except
she keeps
sneaking in and doing it again.
And everyone thinks Liriel is Solas’s dog so Solas gets a bit of shit for it but Solas is like “look she may have imprinted on me but I genuinely have nothing to do with this”) (Solas Greatly Approves)
and at one point they get so good at preventing Liriel from going in she can’t any more
so one day
for the first time since the Breach happened
Liriel is back in elf form
and just casually strolls in in elf form while a service is going on. nbd just a normal elf here
hides behind a pillar
transforms into a dog
bolts onto the altar --
while the entire Chantry screams “OH NO”
anyway that’s the story of how Liriel broke the record for fastest time someone’s been kicked out of a Chantry.
4 for Sable, 6 for Liriel, 10 for Cel, 14 for Tab, 12 for Calmar? :3
4. What seemingly insignificant memories stuck with your character?
Sable remembers skipping class one day in the Circle to float around the studio of a painter instead, and sitting down to draw his work. The painter wasn’t there. Nobody knew he was there. He can’t remember if he got in trouble or not afterwards. He does remember that the painter liked his work, though.
6. What is your character reluctant to tell people?
Liriel is very reluctant to tell people her birth name. She was reluctant even to tell her husbands and children, and only told each of them once, and then never said it again. Nobody else knows. Everyone who knew her old name is dead or gone. Except for Lahariel.
She hated giving up her name, but after a while she realised she was Liriel and that it was too hard to think of her old one any more because of everything it was associated with. She was Liriel more than she was her old name.
At first being Liriel was a choice, but then one day it was, and it was a choice she was happy to make.
10. What would your character make a scene in public about?
Celysel is very quiet in general and it’s difficult for her to make a “scene” about anything. Even if you did manage to provoke her she’d still be very quiet -- the “dangerous” kind of quiet, maybe, but still quiet.
If you really, really made her mad in public she’d just plot her revenge.
So I genuinely can’t think of a single thing she’d publicly make a scene about, dang.
14. How does the image your character tries to project differ from the image they actually project?
Tabby tries to project an image of cool as a cucumber, totally untouchable awesome mcbadass.
In reality he’s a total comedic klutz. The kind of person who’d look over his shoulder to make bedroom eyes at you, casually lower his sunglasses, only to walk smack into a wall.
He keeps it up though because people think it’s hilarious and he loves making people laugh.
12. What are your character’s major flaws?
Calmar might be Mahanon’s son by blood, but he takes most after Solas -- he’s way more likely to sit back and judge people and his mind is hard to change, and he’s a bit arrogant. Basically, he’s a lot like Cel if Cel was more sneery. He’s a quiet person, so he doesn’t like to interact with other people much and is a bit resentful of how loud his family gets.
I’m sure Elnora brings him back down to earth sometimes, though!
2. What was the best thing in your character’s life?
Since you asked -- Eliza!
Eliza’s totally in love with her work. She will happily get up, work all day, then go back to bed with her mind whirring with ideas and potential.
But she’ll happily admit that she’s even happier with her spouses there -- brainstorming with Eolas, Nel coming in to remind her to take meals and now is a break time so that means TAKE A BREAK DAMMIT, and Tab goofing around and teaching her how to take life a little less seriously.
She’ll say her work’s the best thing in her life, but that her family make it even better.
