This is just a basic thing for my OC's with a link to a general all about them post or posts depending. This will be edited over time as not all of their posts are done or in the event I want to add other posts with it. I'm not super sure, I just make things up as I go along. Welcome to the ride lol.
Also before anyone says anything, yes I have played DA2 and made a Hawke. I have not done much writing with her so she is not on this list.
DA: Origins
Teagan Surana: Her all about here
Calypso "Cal" Amell: Her all about here
Adrestia Cousland: All about status: not complete. But there is some stuff tagged for her
DA: Inquisition
Artemis Lavellan: All about status: incomplete. I have messed with her more as an oc as of late so any tags may not be fully accurate (her wife is still Josie though, that won't change)
DA: The Veilguard
Zoe Surana: All about here, with some tagged stuff floating around as well
There is one thing I kind of question with Carpenter. She says in S2 ep 9 that Mason took her back to the cabin once, and that They burnt it to the ground, that it was just blackened wood and rotten ruins. But previously in S1 ep 6, that Mason said it still stood the last time he drove by.
Now while I do trust Carpenter more than Mason, that it may have been something he said to make her come with, there is a thought I've had that Carpenter could have done it. And the only reason that gives me that feeling is that throughout the rest of S2 ep 9, we see Carpenter lead with anger. The Sorrow-and-Shame even says so:
"Your fury always followed in the footsteps if your shame.
You'd take a kind of sour pride in tearing apart everything you'd built.
You couldn't stand to be seen. And so you convinced yourself, time and time again, that if you only burnt everything down, you'd have a better chance of escaping in the smoke."
Now of course there was the time Carpenter burnt another house to the ground in order to escape, but that was more life or death. There was no need to convince herself of that one. But she would have to convince herself to burn Nana's house down. Burn it down, and further severing herself from her Nana Glass. It's also why she took the name Carpenter because she couldn't stand to here her name, and wanted to leave Nana Glass behind.
But really this is all just a random theory more than anything because I love S2 ep 9 and could talk about it and Carpenter so much.
I cannot help feeling like the tendency to see Inquisition!Leliana in stark contrast to Origins!Leliana has led to some people forgetting what... Leliana is actually like in Origins.
In fairness, as in all Dragon Age games some very revealing character moments happen in party banter which makes it easy to miss. But the gentle-hearted mystic who desires only to draw others unto the love of the Maker has never been all that Leliana is, and it's always been in direct conflict with the side of her that is not only adept at intrigue and yes, violence, but enjoys those things. This is the central conflict of her whole character, and it's not a trivial conflict, because there is not one simple answer to who Leliana truly is. She is both of these things. She is deeply religious and finds comfort in her faith, and thinks it should bring comfort to others as well. She's also prone to gossip and pettiness and all the qualities that helped her thrive as a bard.
There's this one particularly revealing piece of banter with Alistair if the Warden is in a romance with Morrigan:
Alistair: So have you heard? Morrigan and him are... you know.
Leliana: Have you nothing better to do than to spread idle gossip? And besides, he can probably hear us both. You're not being very discreet.
Alistair: No, look, he's not even paying attention.
Leliana: Hmmm. maybe. You don't... think that he's serious about it, do you? The woman is a vile fiend.
Alistair: Well, look here, now who's an idle gossip? Me-ow!
Leliana: You're the one who started this, I might remind you. And I'm... well, I'm ending it!
I once had the especially entertaining experience of getting this banter, and minutes later hearing Leliana turn to Morrigan to give her the "It's so nice that you're together, isn't love wonderful?" line. But whether or not you have the pleasure of hearing them back to back, I think this dialogue make it pretty clear that while Leliana would like not to think of herself as a gossip, it takes very little prompting from Alistair to get her to slip back into that mean girl persona. And Alistair (who is more perceptive than he often gets credit for), calls her on it immediately, clearly embarrassing Leliana--who realizes that her mask has slipped.
I don't think it follows from this that Leliana necessarily hates Morrigan unilaterally. There's something much more complex going on between them, in my opinion, because they are such distinct opposites in upbringing and personality. Both Leliana's faith and her life of courtly intrigue are nonsense to Morrigan, who neither believes in the Maker nor has much patience for intricate social graces (at least, not yet). Meanwhile, I think Morrigan's outward self-possession and the sense of power she exudes is a source of both fascination and frustration for Leliana, who thinks she understands power, both social and divine--but finds in Morrigan a kind she cannot fully comprehend. (I also think you can definitely feel some sexual tension into their banter, especially the much-beloved banter about the velvet dress.) Ultimately, both of them are very concerned with power, but approach that concept very differently. And Leliana responds to this clash of ideals in a particular way because her own self-image is so conflicted.
As all great Dragon Age foils do, Leliana and Morrigan needle one another, push each other's buttons, challenge one another's sense of self, and in doing so reveal one another in their complexity and sometimes in their ugliness. It is perhaps easy to write this off as the tired trope of women being unable to get along with one another, or conversely to claim that they get along just fine and fandom has fabricated the tensions between them; I think to do either of those things diminishes a genuinely complex and sticky relationship that serves to reveal a lot about both characters.
#interesting #tho i think that Leliana's problem as a whole and why she's 'hard to read' and has this appearing contradicting story is because #Leliana doesn't know who she is#not in a - 'she's finding herself' narrative but more in a 'Leliana has internalised the We Wear Masks part of Orlais too deeply' #she twists and turns according to the situation to fit the mold people expect of her - or that she tries to expect of herself #and she's lost herself so deeply that in DAO DA2 and even DAI - it's not the 'real' her and I don't even think she knows who she really is #because she's lost herself trying to fit the masks. She's absorbed them so fully and does it so often that there is no real her anymore imo #its why she's so lost without having anyone to guide her or being 'above' her #she's what the Marjolaine wants her to be#she's what the Warden wants her to be #she's what Justinia what's her to be #and then she's what she thinks the world needs - no thoughts about its actual impact #i think she's forgotten an essential part of Orlesian culture that Vivienne tells us - there IS supposed to be a real you beneath the mask#when you take the mask off you ARE the real you - not whatever construct you've invented. #Leliana has been so absorbed into her masks - likely in part because Marjo demanded it of her - that she has no real center anymore imo #I think that's why Leliana and Vivienne - though cordial - appear to be on opposite specters #Vivienne has always known who she is even beneath all her masks while Leliana doesn't and simply jumps from mask to mask #it's also why Leliana and Morrigan clash - because Morrigan and Viviene while also on opposite specters have more in common than they'd lik #i honestly think the issue is the same #they are well defined and unmovable no matter what trappings they wear while Leliana only has the dress#to be clear - that is not a bad thing; its very interesting imo #Leliana becoming Divine completes her arc and she becomes the robes of the religion she wishes was so different than it actually is#once again finding purpose in becoming the personification of a construct she has envisioned#either way interesting thoughts#dragon age
@riddleredcoats Sorry to pull this out of the tags but I had to say that I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly! Leliana does not know who she is. She doesn't know in Origins, and she still doesn't know in Inquisition, which is why her personality is still able to be swayed one way or the other by the person leading her despite her not really having the close relationship with the Inquisitor that she can have with the Warden.
This is why, in looking at her rather two-faced behavior toward Morrigan, I don't take either of those faces to be the "true" Leliana necessarily. Or rather in a sense they're both true. The Leliana who calls Morrigan a vile fiend is both as authentic and as inauthentic as the Leliana who wants to convert Morrigan to faith in the Maker and also dress her in velvet and admire her "features."
And a big yes to Morrigan and Vivienne in contrast both having a very strong sense of self that is not easily swayed by others.
This is why I think that a lot of the differences between Origins!Leliana and Inquisition!Leliana are superficial, and can be deceptive. She has not gone on a journey of self-discovery. Even her faith is malleable to her present situation and who she is presently allowing herself to be influenced by. She's still struggling with the same centerlessness and lack of identity after ten years. It's the real tragedy of her character, imo, regardless of how the Inquisitor steers her post-Inquisition.
A thing I really appreciate about supergirl is that Kara is never shown to be pretty. Yeha she is pretty regardless because they casted milly fucking alcock but the never show her to be put together. They let her be messy. They let her be rude. They let her fuck up. Every time we see strong confident women in media they are always wearing the tightest bodysuit and look beautiful even when they have been beaten to shit. Not here. Every scene Kara is in she looks like a car had run over her. And they don't "transform" her and make her look prettier by the end to show that she has started to heal. Nah they keep her like that and they change how she acts. I love supergirl.
kara doing all of that for her dog is completely understandable btw. like on a surface level yeah most people would go to hell and back if their pet was unreasonably injected with a lethal dose of poison, but krypto is her only connection to her home other than clark, and one of her main sources of comfort after everything she went through. like he was a raggedy stray who ran up to her and her only during her moms funeral where she instantly picked him up and took him in, stuck with her when her father sent her to earth, kept her company on a planet where she was grappling with her sudden superpowers under the yellow sun and her only living relative spoke a language she couldn't understand at the time, and went with her as she travelled from planet to planet to drown her sorrows, and you're telling me you wouldn't go berserk for that dog if you were her??
"home is wherever you are, buddy"? yeah, yeah it is
"Kieran changed me. I will protect him until my last breath, if I must."
"I never thought of myself as a mother, Inquisitor. I had no good example to follow. I find myself becoming something I can barely recognize."
I love my crow people.
and to the children in the notes saying we need this fucking baby talk to get around censorship online; there's been no credible evidence that any site other that YouTube (which will only demonetize your video, ftr) will actually censor or hide content that include words like rape, pedophile, gun, terrorist, etc. etc. and even if we take as a given they were (which, again, they are not), do not fucking comply in advance, you absolute fucking coward. and ESPECIALLY do not comply by altering your real life fucking vocabulary. don't let the technocrats dictate what words you say holy fucking shit dude!!!!!!!!!!!!
