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dimitra lore dump / thoughts below the cut cos i adore her and her Arc is so clear in my head

so. dimitra "rook" ingellvar. she/her, bi, 26 at the start of the game. was found as an infant in the crypts by the mourn watch, who collectively raised her. she adored the necropolis and the spirits, but never felt like she fit with the people, which was upsetting; everyone else, spirit and mortal alike, seemed so sure of their place. she felt horribly, horribly isolated and wrong for getting on better with wisps than people. when she was eight, she ran away, hoping that a new environment would allow her to feel like she belonged; it didn't. she spent a few years on the streets of nevarra, homeless, poor, avoiding others when she could, until her magic came at the age of twelve. a spirit who'd loved her in the necropolis, now that she was tied more strongly to the fade, sensed her and alerted the mourn watch, who came to her and brought her back into the fold. she accepted, both because she was very tired of surviving this way and because she missed the necropolis. plus, she didn't really want to go to a circle, even if nevarran circles are more analogous to tevinter ones than southern thedas's (that is to say that they're places of study, not oppression).

she continued to struggle to relate to the living, but her magic enabled her to become even closer to the wisps and the spirits. over time, she began to think that the problem was that she was alive, corporeal — the dead and spirits, fade creatures, those were natural and right and good. being alive, having a body, let alone caring about that body...those were unnatural, wrong, petty. it was a strange kind of dysphoria of the soul. she felt very disconnected from her body and her identity, and envied the dead and the spirits. for many years of her life, she was on an informal suicide watch with the other mourn watchers because they feared she'd kill herself to escape the corporeal-ness that she hated.

accordingly, she never developed hobbies — or rather she always insisted she didn't. she actually adored clothes and makeup as forms of self - expression, and regularly made her own drapey, ethereal dresses or practiced her makeup or tried different things with her hair. but she felt embarrassed by these hobbies, because they were concerned with her physical body and her living identity, and she felt it was petty of her to care about that. putting effort into being pretty is something a human would do, not a Natural being like a spirit. she kept her (naturally black) hair dyed a bright, unnatural red, and that was as much as she allowed herself.

her effect and personality were very flat, not particularly expressive; she comes across as creepy and weird and even mean/aggressive, and part of that is because she tends to think in a straight line so violence/threats are appealing/quick, but a lot of it is because she's so socially inept that oftentimes when she's just trying to be neutral she comes across as rude. and she cannot sweet talk or manipulate anyone because, again, socially inept.

you can imagine how upsetting it was to be all-but banished from the mourn watch, even temporarily! this is the only place she gets to be around spirits and the dead and wisps on the regular, which makes it the only place she feels remotely at home or even just not like she's going to crawl out of her skin. most everyone just thought she was strange, but varric never judged her, never spoke unkindly to her, joked with her and let her cruelty — both accidental and intentional — roll off his shoulders. [and there's something to the fact that my main hawke is a red hawke, so varric knows what to do with haunted assholes, and he misses hawke so much.] she still doesn't fit, but it's comforting, to realize that at least one person can understand her here, too. two, when she meets harding, though that takes longer. then more. she learns that she can lead. she helps harding with her magic, and the two connect over the feeling of no longer feeling totally at home in their skin. some of her self - doubt chips away, and even when solas tries to bring it back, it can't stick because she's had the love of all these people, and because she can finally appreciate the love the living in the mourn watch gave to her, too.

her big arc over the course of the game is coming to appreciate being alive and stop looking down on herself (and others!) for it. she opens up, becomes more comfortable with the team. by the end of the game, she's closer to in-game rook's personality; a little awkward, a little snarky, even silly. more expressive, more open. she allows herself to wear dramatic makeup and changes her hair more. she dresses fancier, no longer feeling like it's a flaw to care about her body and presenting it. and that's thanks to everyone who trusted her, who believed in her. she never stops loving the dead or spirits, but she learns to love the living and the solid, too.

harding is her canon romance, and they're so sweet and so in love. the other person she's closest to is emmrich, with whom she can talk comfortably and honestly about her passion for death and who understands. she comes to see him as a kind of a father figure and i like to imagine he gives her away at lace and dimitra's wedding.

she has a very big sister-y relationship to both bellara and taash; she just adores them both, and ends up feeling a lot of responsibility for them. when bellara is kidnapped, she feels horrible, and is sick with grief and worry.

she's best friends with davrin, neve and lucanis as well (and her lucanis friendship is funny because she was so CLUTCHED with jealousy that he was possessed because SHE WANTS TO BE POSSESSED). she just sees so much good and so much capability in all of them. davrin's death hits her hard, and she sleeps in his room in the lighthouse for a few nights after. she considered him such a close friend, and he was one of the few who immediately understood her hardass exterior.

she was slowly coming to like solas, despite her best efforts, or at least to respect him — which made his betrayal sting all the worse. learning what he did to varric, all because varric wanted to help him — learning how he'd warped her mind and manipulated her — learning that he would have left her to rot forever in this cage...there was never going to be any forgiveness for that. she convinces solas to trap himself with mythal's essense (and the help of the inquisitor and morrigan, of course) rather than fight him not because of any affection for solas, but because she'd just gotten beat to shit in another difficult fight, her companions were knocked out and she didn't know if bels is okay...she isn't confident she'll survive a fight, or, more importantly, that she can stop solas before she dies. nor is she convinced she can trick the dread wolf. but if there's one thing she knows, it's spirits...she can appeal to a spirit. and if that fails, well, she'll just have to fight him again.

anyway, she and harding head to ferelden, get a cottage, settle down just like lace wanted. dimitra gets to meet lace's parents, she gets to try a life outside the watch, and she takes to traveling — with lace, of course! — around ferelden and elsewhere, helping put to rest the many hurting dead left by solas's actions. and she still keeps up with everyone, of course!

I BEAT VEILGUARD GAMERS

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I BEAT VEILGUARD GAMERS

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thinking abt lucanis and lace and how he immediately clocks that at least some of her chronic people-pleaser 'i have to be cheerful and accomodating at all time' isms are rooted in her learning how to navigate ferelden as a dwarf and how it was safer for her to be seen as agreeable and sweet..................agh

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THEY'RE SO FLIRTING

running around w harding and lucanis and their threats just sound like flirting

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running around w harding and lucanis and their threats just sound like flirting

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[ ASSIST ] carver for merrill. hes like torn between being genuinely worried for them and also internally hes like THIS IS YOUR ONE SHOT DO /NOT/ FUCK THIS UP CARVER

LOWTOWN IS ALREADY UNPLEASANT DURING THE DAY, but becomes almost unbearable at night. so it's hardly a surprise when they run into an ambush at the docks. knives spring from the shadows, glinting in the moonlight, forcing them to split up to deal with the assailants. merrill, fatigued from a long day by the cost, still manages to knock out two of them. lacking the time to cast a spell, they use the blade worked into the bottom of their staff to be rid of the masked shadow coming at them with a knife. there is a horrid crack as it pierces his chest.

but the force of the motion makes her stumble. and the weight of the man moves her with him as he sinks to the ground until she yanks her staff back. panting and blinking through the blood splatter upon her face, she retreats.

but their next step tilts the world for a moment. where they expected solid ground, there is nothing. they have, unwittingly, been backed up to the stairs leading down into the harbour and their foot hits only the edge of the step, bare skin slipping on the wet stone. merrill yelps as their ankle snaps and just barely manages to keep themself from tumbling backwards down the stairs.

knees throbbing from crashing against the stairs, the elf clings to her staff, trying to lean her weight on it to push herself up. pain shoots through her ankle and her knee gives in. only carver is there suddenly, catching her. ❛  oh—  ❜ ere they know it, they're up in the air, instinctively reaching around carver's neck to cling to him so they don't fall. (they manage just barely not to hit him in the head with their staff in the motion.)

surprised and slightly embarrassed, merrill tries to protest. ❛  it's alright, carver, really, i can walk—  ❜ only it is a lie and they both know it. she gives up her protest after a while and sinks, defeated, against his chest. ❛  thanks ...  ❜

REASONS TO CARRY SOMEONE & @gutshift

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hi everyone! sorry i havent been around much, i have been Going Thru It. and now i have dav!! im rly enjoying it so far but wanna get a bit further Into It before i start fucking around in that setting, but once i'm in. ohohoh. the harding posting u shall see

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INQUISITOR AHVIR of Clan Lavellan.

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"elves have no place in politics" gaspard says to ahv, an elf,

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i was thinking about ameridan, and the throat-clawing misery of a dalish inquisitor knowing that in a few generations that identity will be erased...

and then i played WEWH and the fact that so much of the court knows about the inquisitor, but is shocked or scandalized or outright disbelieving that she's an elf, and i just. NOW, RIGHT NOW, while she is STILL ALIVE, half of the world has already decided she's a human. her identity is being erased WHILE SHE'S ALIVE? what hope does her memory have?

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this dialogue is so interesting to me....because you kind of expect sera to go "yeah, i bet, elves are so annoying!" or "'cause i'm basically not an elf" or what have you. but instead she a.) implicitly declares herself an elf, b.) drags dorian/tevinter for oppressing them and c.) refers to elves as "people" who, like dorian and humans, are varied

c is particularly interesting because nearly every OTHER time she talks about "people," she's using the word as a CONTRAST to elves. "your people? elves?" / "no, people - people." elves aren't people, at least not the way sera means it, they're something OTHER. every other situation where elvhen oppression is concerned, like her extremely negative opinions on alienage elves, she ignores that oppression to bitch about elves. it's interesting to me, the few moments when she doesnt

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what if i gave ahv top surgery for veilguard

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DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION (2014) — developed by bioware.

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DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION (2014) — developed by bioware.

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harding <3

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the champion of kirkwall.

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Inquisitor Dove Trevelyan.