#sireth lavellan

[paradife-loft]

11 questions, DA flavor:

I was tagged by both @hweanaro​ and @onehandedly​! why thank you, friends! hope this is... not boring or halfassed? sighs forever at the evolution of my relation to the DA franchise.

1. Who would win, your Warden or your Inquisitor, if they got into a fight? Mmm, I think probably my Warden would win. Not that I’d ever want them to fight, oh my gosh x____x They’re not the sort to be best buddies, I don’t think, because of the different way their lives have turned, but they see fairly eye to eye on enough things that GOSH BABIES WHY WOULD YOU ARGUE MUCH LESS COME TO BLOWS EEEEK. But uh yeah, as to why - at any given point in their personal timelines, I’m fairly certain Irsae (my Tabris) would have more brawling/combat/kicking things and running away experience than Sireth (my Lavellan). Sireth certainly learns a lot through experience during the course of DA:I, but prior to that she tends to resort to fighting as a very last self-defense resort, and doesn’t have any real finesse at all. She’s a lot more nervous about being in physical scraps in general. Irsae, while also not having any proper Lessons or anything before getting conscripted, he was a lot more prone to literal ‘fight me’ incidents as a kid in Denerim, and gets more vicious much faster. They’re both rogues class-wise and combat pragmatists disposition-wise (...and both relatively small and skinny), but Irsae just has an edge psychologically and in experience.

2. If you could make a team out of companions from all games, who would you choose? Oh geez, that’s hard... I don’t even know. Like, I could just pick a favourite from each game, but they probably wouldn’t get along very well. Hrm. As far at least as characters who’d be interesting and mostly pleasant company, while also a balanced party, I think I’d want Merrill, Cole, and Cassandra. (Add a bonus Morrigan for Team Maximum Autistic Babbies, hello >_>)

3. Did you sacrifice the Chargers? No, I haven’t. It was a hard decision for Sireth because she was trying very hard to do things that were strategically sound, not endanger the Inquisition’s chances of victory because of what she knew were her own lackluster political abilities. But when it came down to it, she couldn’t make a decision that would be sending her friend’s friends to their deaths thinking they’d been betrayed.

4. Mages or templars? Take a wild guess though! *eyeroll* Mages. The templars as they currently exist are a horrible organisation as regards both their charges and their own members. Ick.

5. Your favourite Thedas location? I do have a massive sort spot for Kirkwall, of all the places we’ve visited. Places I really like conceptually and/or in others’ headcanon and fic I’ve read are Nevarra and Tevinter.

6. Choose one of your playable characters (Warden, Champion, Inquisitor) and describe them. Looks, class, weapons, partner.

Ahhh, oh gosh... Y’know even though I haven’t talked a lot about any of my protags here except maybe Sireth via liveblogging, I think I’ll talk about Lenore here, since she’s the most... current and updated, I guess, of my older ones?

So Lenore is my alt!Hawke, which is to say, she’s one of the characters I played through DA2 with, but in my canon verse there’s a different one of my OCs who is Hawke, and Lenore is a different person who interacts with the main cast and has some similarities in her backstory to Hawke’s but e.g. doesn’t become the Champion of Kirkwall. She’s a dual-wielding assassin-spec’d rogue (because I’m terribly predictable), and typically of the grumpy violent red!Hawke persuasion. Rather tall and somewhat lean in a muscular-ish way - she tends toward fighting work to pay the bills when it’s available to her (the way she originally meets the DA2 cast is through Carver, who knew her vaguely as another soldier at Ostagar) - but also a bit top-heavy and generally awkward about what to do with her body and in how she moves. She’s got short black hair in basically the default Marian haircut, pale skin, a fairly prominent nose and eyebrows, and a perma-scowl - except for around Merrill (precious darling girlfriend who she will snarl at and/or stab just about anybody for), Fenris (laconic snark bffs who trust each other with things like hanging out silently while down and kind of fucked in the head and not up for anybody else), and not!Bethany (younger sister she wants to protect forever). She also actually doesn’t get along suuuper well with my canon!Hawke (Tamzen), because he’s massively purple to the point of accidental assholery, except when he cares way too much about politics. Whereas she is aggressively neutral about politics as a general question, and her assholery is very much not accidental and she has no time for bullshit and nonsense.

7. Your opinions on Eggma- I mean Solas? Uhhhh well. I started out pretty fond of him, I mean, I like people who are interested in things and enjoy questions. I got... progressively less so hearing more of his comments on the Dalish, his... entire series of conversations with Iron Bull as much as I heard of it at least (wooo banter bug >:( *sigh*), the inability to disagree with his characterisation of spirits’ natures in Cole’s quest, and the little snippets of stuff regarding Mythal’s temple and Trespasser that I’ve heard on here. (Yeah, I haven’t actually finished the game. For a variety of reasons.) At this point I just am Not Interested and kind of grouchy.

8. Your most hated opponent/s? Or opponent who took you the longest time to beat. Geez it’s been such a while since I’ve played any of the DA games I probably don’t remember. Probably some of the demon/arcane horror/revenant groups in the weird little temple structures in DA2 would count :| That and the... despair? demons (the ice magic ones in the cloaks?) in DA:I. Evil little shits. I remember running into a number of them while underleveled like a dumbass, so. ALSO TBH I hate the dragon opponents in DA:I because I always end up thinking about how I’m unprovokedly attacking a sentient creature and wincing throughout the entire thing because it’s not even a quick mercy kill on behalf of all the nearby townspeople either, it’s a drawn out battle :( It’s a wonder I manage to play dark side in SWTOR, istg...

9. What do you want in DA4? MORE DETAILED WEIRD DWARF LOOOOOORRREEEE

also less irl and fantastic racism

cities instead of a fake-bethesda sandbox

I dunno honestly I’m kind of just not liking the direction the series is going and so it really depends if I’m even going to pick up DA4 when it happens :/

10. What is your favourite mount?

Iiiiiiiiiiii didn’t explore the mount system at all when I did my (thusfar only) playthrough, because I was already overwhelmed by Too Many Things and I didn’t really see the benefit of getting rid of my companions while exploring at all since I was already hearing barely any conversation. So I have no idea :|

11. How did you name your dog in Origins?

Oh gd. I don’t even remember. It’s been aaaaaaaages o___o Pretty sure I was just like DO NOT SPRING THIS ON ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME, NAMING THINGS IS STRESSFUL EVEN IF IT’S A PET DOG and did something random and tried not to really think about it much. I’m probably a bad DA player and/or Fereldan. (Well I mean, I never really got in the spirit of being Fereldan, tbh; I’m far too attached to cities vs countryside and villages, and I was playing a city elf. Soooo yeah.)

[paradife-loft]

mrrrrr :/ so I'm romancing Josephine in this playthrough because there's... literally no other option that would be even remotely in character. but while I'm loving Josephine in these scenes, it... still feels OOC for Sireth anyway. so that's... disappointing :/ on the plus side, I'm getting slight demiromantic vibes from Josie, at least? so eh, that's a thing.

[paradife-loft]

a thing I'm really wishing I didn't have to headcanon in myself (i.e. I wish it was written into the game convos): Sireth and Cassandra sitting down and having an actual discussion about why Sireth thinks the Chantry should be allowed to fail and is ultimately not a force for good despite the people who do gain from its existence, and why Cass thinks it is worth preserving and changing despite its flaws.

like they're coming from such different places, but I absolutely believe that if any couple of people with such different and clashing opinions could have a constructive discussion about this and learn from each other and come away each with a more nuanced perspective, it'd be these two.

and I'd like to see even an abbreviated version of that, instead of just "the chantry is beyond saving and needs to fail" "cassandra disapproves" :/

[paradife-loft]

[paradife-loft]

aaaaand Sireth has pissed off a good several people now saying the Chantry should go down in flames guys I was just running around in the Dales looking at all those disgusting monuments what did you expect me to say...????

[paradife-loft]

I'm thinking that, when Sireth makes the connection between her experiences and Falon'din, she initially goes to talk with Cassandra. nobody, exactly, seems like an optimal choice for who she'd want to talk with this about? because most of her companions are human, and meanwhile Solas has been less than kind about the Dalish in the past - not that Sireth disagrees with him, exactly, but in the context of seeing something from her past with her clan that seems like it might actually be personal and meaningful to her, unlike pretty much everything else? not so much the perspective she's looking for. and so even though Cass is human, she's the person who comes to mind most when Sireth thinks about questions of faith, and tradition, and idealism. they've had good conversations about that sort of thing, even not sharing the same beliefs or seeing eye to eye all the time? so yeah. I'd like to think it would go well. not that she'd get all her questions answered, I mean, but that she'd feel validated in looking toward something she'd never really been invested in before, as a possible source of understanding her life.

[paradife-loft]

ugh, I started out this puzzle in the dead hand area really excited because there seemed to be lore in the dungeon that would be relevant to Sireth (I'd been sort of thinking about her having an affinity for Dirthamen for a while because I have a one track mind and thus all my characters must love crows, and then the codex bit about Falon'din guiding elves back from the Beyond seemed... oh, slightly more relevant to her Fade shenanigans than any "oh Andraste brought her back!!!!" bullshit.... but I digress).

but now I'm thinking the puzzle might be bugged for me because the second pillar seems permanently stuck in the lowered position since I entered the room, and the second globe won't light. so I... can't actually progress any further than the first globe. halp??

[paradife-loft]

oh, the other thing too

the big scene where they named Sireth the Inquisitor just looked bizarre. half, by the way, because they insisted on having you in those weird-ass pajama things instead of your armor.... (istg, Sireth would never have touched those things again once she woke up in the room with the crow in Haven for the first time)

but mostly because you can and I have been playing as reluctant and confused and completely uninterested in having so much power throughout the entire game, and then the cutscene just shoves you forward with completely different body language and whatnot and thinks it looks natural? what??

the way that played out in my head, it was not even remotely a "Cass ambushes you and brings you up the stairs and surprise you're inquisitor now act like it for all these people you're in front of!" deal -- the conversation they had was initially just Sireth, Cass, and the advisors, in some private room somewhere, and then Josie coached the hell out of her on how to portray leadership, and then they went and did the big public spectacle.

(negl for that matter, Josie and sometimes Vivienne depending on the topic coaching Sireth on wtf is a politics wtf is a diplomacy wtf is shaping how you come across to people is a p. big part of my headcanon, because god, you do not let an asocial autistic elf whose spent the last good number of years with one foot in the criminal underworld be any form of PR for the Inquisition without giving her some damn good guidance first.)