This got fucking long. And it helped me think about some aspects of my characters that weren’t particularly well fleshed out, which I really enjoyed!
2. What would your Hawke generallythink of your warden and your Inquisitor?
Cait respects Milon, both because ofwhat she accomplished in ending the Blight and because she’s primarily heardabout Milon through Anders. Milon protected Anders when she didn’t have to, andtrusted him enough to give him actual responsibility within Vigil’s Keep, whichmeant almost as much to him. Back in the Circle, his obvious talent neveroutweighed the fact that he was junior to plenty of other healers andconsidered both flighty and a flight risk beyond that. At Vigil’s Keep, though,he ran their (admittedly small) clinic, & people in need of serioushealthcare from all around Amaranthine came to him for help. Milon didn’t thinkthat was a big deal—he was a healer, trained by one of her own companions, andthere was healing to be done—but it was a big deal for him, and the way hetalks about her to Cait reflects that.
Later on, Carver also speaks prettywell of her in passing in his infrequent letters home, and the fact that theWarden-Commander was able to get Carver to accept her authority without chafingunder it isn’t lost on Cait.
In contrast, Cait finds Gilead to bea little bit disappointing compared to the myth that grew up around her soquickly, and even the way Varric had described her. Gilead has a soft heart,and her inclination is that violence is only ever a last resort—after all, it’snot as if a Keeper can just go around busting heads when they want to solveissues within their Clan. She buys in very strongly to Josie’s “niceness beforeknives” ethos (part of what brings them together) and otherwise has a generallydiplomatic approach to running the Inquisition. Her judgements as Inquisitor,for instance, are never execution or anything else that’s irrevocable.
For Cait, who by that point has beenon the front lines of the Mage-Templar conflict for some time, this seemsdangerously naïve. Allying with the Redcliffe mages was a point in her favor,but since Cait’s aligned with a somewhat more aggressive group of mages thatdidn’t attend the Conclave, it’s not quite as big of a point as it could havebeen. They’re just very different people.
18. What is the biggest similaritybetween your protagonists?
This is kind of a facile answer, butthey all were thrust into much more prominent roles and had to take on a lotmore responsibility than they ever would have wanted themselves. Even Gil, whowas being trained for a leadership position, was expecting to have at least a decademore time to be someone else’s First and to assume authority gradually.
Beyond that, they’re all loyal andprotective people, but that manifests in each of them in different ways.
19. What is the biggest differencebetween your protagonists?
How much they accept the worldaround them versus how much they fight against it. Once Milon’s forced tobecome a Warden, she accepts it, and she works very hard as theWarden-Commander. But in that role, beyond the big decisions that she wasforced to make during the Blight, she stays focused on Warden business andrarely uses her status as the Hero of Ferelden to effect anyone outside herdirect sphere of influence.
Cait, on the other hand, uses everyadvantage and every bit of respect she gets to push back against the authorityof the Chantry, the Templars, and anyone else whose power she thinks needs tobe resisted. With time, she learns to modify the way she uses that power—earlyon, she’s kind of a Force mage through and through. She pushes back, hard, againstwhatever she considers to be her opposition. Later, she develops other skills.She has a mode of thinking/acting she calls “Becoming Lady Amell” for when shehas to deal with either nobility or people for whom nobility means something,which is basically a somewhat successful impersonation of her mother. And,after years around Varric, she learns to lie better and to obscure herintentions when she absolutely has to. But she’s always a person who sees howthe world is and how it should be, and pushes hard for the latter.
Gilead would prefer to let the worldoutside her immediate concerns deal with itself, but as Inquisitor that isn’tan option, so she does use the large amount of power she ends up being handedfor what she thinks is essentially the greater good (like supporting Leliana asDivine, or telling Cassandra to not try to reform the Seekers, or protectingthe mages as allies). But she’s immensely relieved to disband the Inquisition,and she never really took full advantage of what she could have done with therole.
20. Who handles responsibility thebest? And who handles it the worst?
Milonhandles it the best, because there’s always too much riding on her decisions tobehave any other way. And she has the most time of any of the three to growinto her leadership post-Blight. Cait handles it well when it’s in regards tosomething or someone she cares about, and somewhat less well when it’ssomething she’s been forced into. Gilead only handles it well when it’s withina realm she feels confident in and involves things or situations sheunderstands. Anything outside of that, she does her best to delegate to whoevershe thinks knows more. The big decisions she has to make as Inquisitor arefrequently overwhelming to her, and although it goes against canon, at momentslike Dorian’s confrontation with his father or Bull’s decision regarding theChargers, she lets them choose for themselves and supports them afterwards.
hey :) i saw you have carver on your defence squad post and i like him a lot too, but idk what to make of templar!carver going along with meredith and the right of annulment and only changing his mind at the last minute. like he's not evil i can't see him being fine with mass murder, but i feel like yelling bad writing when a character i love does something i dont like is kind of cheap sometimes... idk i'm just curious about what you think, your meta is always so well thought out :)
speedgriffonz replied to your post: Some yoohoo, trying to start unnecessary discourse...
adsfljsdf i found the original post i wanna fukcing fight this person i’m full of bi rage afdfasdfgf
It's ugly, honestly, their line of thinking. Does Anders being bi mean he loves & is attracted their MHawke or male Warden-Commander or any other male OC less?
speedgriffonz replied to your post “speedgriffonz replied to your photo “Extremely effusive thanks once...”
it’s bc anders is a nasty radical and supporting him would turn pure, innocent, “let’s solve every problem peacefully” hawke into a nasty radical too. and why would anyone want to play a hawke like that when you can take the middle ground like a rational person??
You’re not wrong! I started writing a big long thing about that reminded me that his writer considered rivaling him to result in him being a better person, even though she stated it also resulted in him suffering more and having more depressive episodes, but I veered way off track and made myself mad.
What gets me, though, is that the game will allow for Hawke to support the cause of mages and encourage Anders in that regard, but they can’t do that *and* romance him at the same time. In the romance, there are so many lines where you tell Anders you just care about him and mages could go fuck themselves otherwise, and so few where you get to stand with him unambiguously. It’s like the game wants to make sure he can never be *too* happy--he gets either a friend who’s fighting for the same things he is but doesn’t have a lover, or he has love, but his partner never seems to quite understand the cause that underpins his entire life. I’d say it was because the writers thought that if he had everything he could want in terms of Hawke’s support and their love, he wouldn’t have decided that he had to go through with the Chantry explosion, but I would probably be overestimating the amount of thought they put into it.
speedgriffonz replied to your photo “Extremely effusive thanks once again to DA2 modders, who fixed things...”
tbh i don't think i could do his romance without this mod
It’s *much* better. So many of the flirt/romance lines in the base game follow a pattern where Anders says something about mages and Hawke’s support and influence, and Hawke can only reply with a joke or by saying that she doesn’t care about mages, just Anders. Why the devs thought that supporting Anders and his cause at the same time wasn’t something players would care about being able to do is beyond me.
3, 4, 8, 24, 32, 45 and 46 for claudia pls (sorry for asking so many haha)
03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves?Probably her thighs. She has really strong thighs. They serve her well in combat situations. Also, Anders seems to like them a lot. ;)
04. What are their favorite traits about their lover? (one psychological and one physical)
She loves Anders’ resolve. When he sets his mind to something, there is no stopping him until he’s achieved it. We’re going to go SFW physical traits (because I can think of a few NSFW ones). She loves his freckles and moles. She could spend all day kissing every mole and freckle on him.
08. What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it?
Claudia doesn’t go to others when she’s hurting or when she needs help. She tends to suffer alone. It drove her to the bottle in the past, which gave her a whole new problem to deal with. She’s aware of this fault of hers and does try to ask for help or guidance when she needs it.
24. In their own words, how would your character describe what their lover is like?
In her words?
“He’s just...I don’t know, I’m not really good with words. But he’s just so sweet, and...and he works so hard at everything he does. And...shit...I just love him so much and wish he loved himself like I love him.”
32. If your character’s lover offered to take them out on a dream date, what would they want to do?
She’s happy just spending time with Anders. They don’t get time enough with each other, so every moment is cherished. But, since he’s a busybody, I think she’d like to spend time helping him on whatever he’s working on at the moment (at the clinic, with his manifesto, at the mage underground), then maybe they can head back home if they aren’t there already and cook a meal to share with each other. Then, maybe heading into the bedroom for something more intimate. Or, if they aren’t in the mood for that, cuddles.
45. Is your character the kind to hide their true emotions or do they wear their heart on their sleeve?It ultimately depends. With things like anger, she’s very forthright with her emotions. When it comes to expressing other emotions, though, she kind of feels like it’s a burden to others for her to express these things because she’s been supporting her family for so long that she’s so used to ignoring them or hiding them to not inconvenience her family. She’s working on being more honest about her feelings, though.46. What is some random affectionate thing that your character always does to their lover?She makes Anders take a break and care for himself. He often forgets to eat, or works well into the night and exhausting himself. So, she’ll come in with a meal or making him go to sleep. Claudia loves him very much and doesn’t like that he neglects his own health sometimes.
speedgriffonz replied to your post “The tags on @sve1tka‘s amazing portrait of...”
ppl who cannot stop talking shit about him shouldn’t be allowed to reblog the wonderful art pieces imo. like if you’re being rude about the character u don’t deserve the pretty drawings lol
HARD SAME, and I don’t quite get why you’d want to reblog great art of a character you thought sucked anyway. I hope each of those 3 or so people saw plenty of the excited and enthusiastic reblogs and were like, hmmm, maybe it is not Anders who is the bitch, but I myself.
