So, having a relaxing bath together at the end of a long day shouldn’t be a bad time for a love confession and you can see why Zev chooses that moment, rather than when they’re in the middle of fighting Darkspawn or trying to plot an infiltration of the Arl of Denerim’s estate or shakily collapsing after killing Zevran’s ex or even fucking up a chimney.
This should be a great moment to tell Vari he accidentally Feelings and it’s terrifying, but the thought of being without her is worse. She’s been quiet for a moment, pausing in scrubbing herself to just submerge herself in the water after Morrigan and Alistair had stomped past their room arguing, so when she pulls herself up again and blinks water out of her eyes Zev clears his throat and gently touches her arm and tells her he loves her, and that Sound and Touch are what finally send her into the sensory overload that’s been building up for the past several minutes.
And then Vari has this amazing discovery that zev loves her too but she’s kind of preoccupied with all the sensory input going on now and it would be nice if her hands would stop flapping by themselves and stop touching me zev fuck wait it’s not that i don’t like you or i’m upset i love you too but also just don’t say anything or also move for a few minutes and if you know a way to make bath water suddenly not exist for a bit that would be great too.
[asks from charamei, who has not used tumblr in Eighty Years]
'If they have an LI, how much of their character is tailored to be compatible to that person?' for... hmm. lacha? and also rynessa just for the lols
'How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?' for vari and... hm... corinne
Lacha: If they have an LI, how much of their character is tailored to be compatible to that person?
I think “i want another Zevmance” was where Lacha came from, so a lot, I guess. Although I do think that Broscas canon backstory is just really compatible with Zev. “This guy tried to kill us, because that's what the organisation he belonged to told him to do, and without them he'd have Nothing and they'd probably kill him. Yeah, I know that feel.” I just played on that a lot.
I also was also getting pretty squicked out at the time for how a lot of fandom zevmances go, and needed a character who was incredibly aware of the fact that Zev swore an oath to serve them in exchange for his life, and worried of taking advantage of that. And again, I think Brosca works really well with that because they've never been in a position of authority in their life before and may not know how to handle that. So the basis of Lachas personality, “tough thug whos never been given the opportunity to be anything else” and “really worried about abusing her new position of authority and being like all the people who've spent their lives hurting her” came from Zev.
Rynessa: If they have an LI, how much of their character is tailored to be compatible to that person?
I mean her character is more tailored for it to be Hilarious that she romances Solas, rather than necessarily all that compatible with him. But you know, Rynessa is an immortal asshole who thinks she's better than everyone else, Solas is an immortal asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else, they are pretty compatible! And I have had to make sure she won't be too annoying for him. They have some lovely pretentious Intellectual discussions.
Vari: How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?
I try not to think too far ahead because DA4 could just fuck everything up. The main thing I've got is Vari and Zev breaking into Josie and Estella's house to hide from Crows fairly often, and occasionally crashing family dinners. I'm considering the idea of it coming out (in a very Dramatic Reveal) that shes the Dark Wolf, but idk if I will actually do that. (But if it does happen, it needs to be the same time everyone finds out Solas is the Dread Wolf, so everyone gets them confused and Solas gets really pissed off.)
Corinne: How far past the canon events that take place in their world have you extended their story, if at all?
Well, I know that she spends over a year planning her and Josie's wedding, and also that she wants to make sure the world is going to not be in the middle of falling apart when they do get married because she needs to be able to devote all her time to making sure the wedding is perfect and she can hardly do that when she's needed to save the world. And if there are people dying in this world falling apart nonsense, that might mess up the seating arrangements. She has to know who's still going to be around before she plans much of it. And it has got to be better and more elaborate than her wedding to Sebastian. So yeah, idk exactly when the wedding will happen, da4 should help me work it out.
Other than that, I know she'll still continue working for the Inquisition, and writing her romance novels. And one day Varric and Rynessa are going to go “Hang on. Corinne is?? the most interesting person I have ever met?? Fuuuck.”
oh gosh i spent a really long time trying to come up with a good scenario to ask you about....i dunno, i think the one scene for me that always kinda DEFINED my wardens was their first impression of duncan so like???? you could talk about that if you want! :3
Huh, I never really felt that defined my Wardens for me. But ye, is still nice question!
Therlia was mostly just interested in having a person from outside the tower around, and asking him about life outside the tower. She liked that he didn’t look down on her for being a mage.
Vari disliked him quite a lot, because he’s a dick at the start of the Tabris origin and she feels he could have done a lot more to help rescue Shianni and the others.
Elora is quite impressed by him, and thinks Grey Wardens sound great. (Not that she’d want to join, she’s just been given her first military command.)
Isaline sees him as a Proper Person, because he’s not a mage, and therefore treats him with respect. She’s a little confused and nervous about the fact that he’s treating her like a person too.
Mahariel hates him because he blames Duncan for Tamlen being gone. And unlike Vari, he doesn’t mind being a dick about Duncan in front of Alistair, too.
Lacha doesn’t really care who he is when she sees him at the Provings, and ignores him because she has a job to do and Beraht won’t be happy if she gets distracted talking to a a human. After their actual first conversation, she quite likes him because he treats her with respect and lets her bring Rica with her, but she’s also suspicious of the fact that he’s treating her with respect.
Annabeth thought he was hot, and that it would be fun to fuck him on her first day in charge of Castle Cousland.
Lorrel I’m not sure about, because I know they’ve met before the origin story. So when he turns up at that point her impression is “hello friend it’s good to see you, please don’t recruit any of my grandchildren into your cult”, but idk how their actual first meeting went.
Adani Tabris didn't love Nelaros until he was dead at her feet. She liked him very much, and she had reason to hope they might come to love each other, but it wasn't until he had come for her, carrying a sword he could barely use, when her own community was willing to leave her for dead, that she loved him. She wears his wedding ring for the rest of her life, and even when she marries Zevran, she wears two rings thereafter.
Vari Tabris did Not like Nelaros at all when they met. He didn’t get her sense of humour and she accidentally insulted him, and she thought he was annoying and boring and most of all a wimp. And then he died trying to save her. Vari was horrified and plagued with guilt. She doesn’t wear the wedding ring, but she always keeps it with her.
For the Dragon Age OCs thing: can oyu compare your favourite City Elf and Dalish Elf Origins OC and say how they'd react to each other?
Like I only have my one Mahariel and for city elves I don’t have a favourite from Vari and Lorrel they’re both my daughters but I’ll do Vari because she came first.
Vari would be Very Excited to meet a Real Dalish and ask a lot of questions and Mahariel would be a little Nonplussed by it all and not very happy about “but don’t the Dalish have face tattoos why don’t you have face tattoos??” But like, they could bond over autism things and Mahariel is very relieved to have another Grey Warden who can take charge of stuff and Vari will encourage Mahariel to be more assertive, and also encourage him to come out by being very loudly queer all over the place. (Idk how the Zevmancing works here like Mahariel’s polyamarous but Vari’s monogamous and I think they’d still both be a bit insecure about stuff). But yeah like I think they may have a bit of a rocky start while Mahariel kind of gets used to Vari, but afterwards they’d end up good friends who support each other a lot.
OC facts: Dorak Brosca did not have a true special interest until he got to the surface and found plants
I didn’t have a special interest for Vari while I was playing her or until ages afterwards like I think she jumped from interest to interest fairly quickly but I couldn’t figure out what any of them where until I realised that like, half way through the Blight her special interest becomes kink and there’s no going back from that
Day 15: Choices: What choices do they make in the main quests of their game? Why? What is the hardest decision they make?
Isaline:
Redcliffe: Kills Connor. She hated herself for it completely and it likely is the hardest choice she made but she thought it was the Right Thing To Do because demons and blood magic are both Bad. Alistair putting her in charge is definitely him testing her because he’s a templar so obviously he’s Really in charge. And templars have to kill people in Harrowings, and this is basically the same thing right?
Brecilian Forest: Sides with the elves. She’s panicking and doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t want to screw over the elves by fighting Zathrian and has recently realised quite how much humans have fucked over elves and doesn’t want to be racist.
Urn of Sacred Ashes: Doesn’t destroy the Urn. Because like, she’s Andrastian, and Kolgrim is talking nonsense.
Orzammar: Makes Harrowmont king, sides with Caridin. Letting a tyrant like Bhelen become king goes completely against her morals, even if he is more progressive. She does her best to try to talk Harrowmont into being a bit more progressive, although I’m not sure how much it works. Branka also goes completely against her morals.
Circle: Sides with the mages. Dumps Noodlehair’s ass when he tells her to kill them all. It’s awesome.
Landsmeet: Makes Anora queen, kills Loghain. Alistair remains softened in Isaline’s game and with the theme of her game being taking control of her life and doing what she wants to do, it felt right for her to keep Alistair as a Warden. Isaline kills Loghain almost solely because he sold the elves in the alienage, before that she was willing to maybe give him mercy.
Ultimate Sacrifice: Makes Oghren a Warden early, he does the Dark Ritual. The Dark Ritual for me often involves some slight metagaming; if killing someone off adds nothing to the story, I have to work out a way to do the Dark Ritual without having to pressure someone into sex. After Alistair panicked at the idea of it, Isaline got everyone she knew with a penis in Redcliffe castle together and asked if any of them would mind becoming a Warden and then impregnating Morrigan. So that happened.
Awakening: Saves Amaranthine, spares the Architect. Isaline Cannot abandon Amaranthine, it’s a hard decision in that she’s abandoning her friends at the Keep, but she Knows she’s never going to choose to abandon people in the city she might still be able to save. She spares the Architect because he genuinely seems to mean no harm and guys this is the first sapient Darkspawn anyone’s ever seen!! That’s amazing!!! We can’t just kill him we could learn so much from him.
Corinne: DA2 doesn’t really do main quests like the other games but these were the ones I could think of with significant decisions. And Corinne at least has more variety in her answers than “always sides with the mages/always sides with the templars.”
Wayward Son: She tells Feynriel to go to the Dalish! Her issue with apostates is just that they can’t control their powers and apparently the Dalish are good at teaching their mages that. Later, she lets him go to Tevinter, since the Circle here can’t adequately train him.
Act of Mercy: She tells the mages they should go back to the Circle, because they’re blood mages who are too dangerous to be allowed out, and surely Thrask will make sure they’re not punished badly, right? She refuses to kill Thrask, and doesn’t kill Karras either.
Prime Suspect: She kills Gascard DuPuis because he’s a really suspicious probably a murderer blood mage. Those are Bad.
Legacy: Sides with Larius because maybe waking up an ancient evil Darkspawn is a bad idea???
Demands of the Qun: Doesn’t hand Isabela over to the Arishok because they may argue all the time but Isabela’s still her friend, and did the Right Thing by coming back. She duels the Arishok by herself, tricking him into a fight with everyone would be unfair and just make her look like a cheating asshole in front of everyone.
Showdown: She tries to calm Meredith and Orsino down and refuses to side with either, because they both have valid points, and getting into a fight isn’t going to help.
Mark of the Assassin: Corinne didn’t want to get involved in Tallis’ plan in the first place and only did it because Adventure the spirit threatened to kill her otherwise. She never trusted Tallis for a second, was very angry Tallis when it turned out Tallis lied to her, and refused to get caught up in this any further by helping Tallis again.
On The Loose: She sent Emile de Launcet back to the Circle, after letting him spend a night getting laid, because it was the safest place for him and everyone around him. Before leaving, she told Meredith that maybe just perhaps Meredith sometimes went a bit too far.
The Last Straw: Spares Anders, sides with him, and sides with the mages because it’s the right thing to do and she can’t pretend to be neutral any more.
Estella:
In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just: Estella decides the best thing to do in this situation is obviously to recruit the templars, who are great, lmao can you imagine though. No one even suggests going to those fuckers for help bc she got Noodle fired as soon as she discovered he was here. She recruits the mages and then spends the next few weeks making sure they’re all comfortable here and wondering if she can ask Fiona for her autograph.
Wicked Eyes Wicked Hearts: Has Briala rule through Gaspard. Estella did not want to be here and doesn’t want to be nice to fancy nobles and doesn’t care about Celene as a person. When Leliana tells her she could have Briala rule by letting Celene die, she happily lets Celene die and puts Briala in control, because Briala is going to help oppressed people.
Here Lies the Abyss: Leaves Loghain to the Nightmare demon, exiles the Grey Wardens. Estella’s Hawke went to live in the Anderfels with zir husband and kid at the end of DA2 and isn’t coming back to get involved in any more bullshit, so Estella has Vari Tabris for HLTA instead. Loghain offers to stay in the Fade, and Vari agrees because look, it’s not that she wants him dead, but he did try to sell her father into slavery. Estella agrees this is a pretty good reason to leave Loghain behind. She doesn’t give a shit about what to do with the Grey Wardens, so asks Vari who moved on from Warden business years ago and also doesn’t give a shit. They tell the Wardens to just go away, and the Wardens presumably take this to mean they’ve been exiled.
What Pride Had Wrought: Doesn’t do the rituals at the temple, lets Morrigan drink from the Well. Estella really doesn’t want to do the rituals because of her issues around religion, so why waste time letting the red templars get to the Well first? She also really, really doesn’t want to drink from the Well, because it sounds like it would mean she wasn’t fully herself, and also might mean being enslaved again so no, that sounds a horrible idea. She asks Solas and Vivienne whether they’d like to, and when they refuse, lets Morrigan.
Trespasser: Wants to redeem Solas, keeps the Inquisition. Solas was Estella’s first friend after she was cured of Tranquility and they got on well throughout the game. He’s an apostate who’s always been supportive of mage rights and good at looking after her daughter and while what he’s doing now is stupid and awful, she’s still not going to kill her friend. She keeps the Inquisition around just because she’s now built it up as a massive support group for mages and abuse victims. She’s fine with downgrading the military aspect and doesn’t care all that much that various agents have infiltrated it, because none of that was ever important to her anyway.
