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Welcome to the Dragon Age Big Bang!

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Dragon Age commissions :D

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2. @squidproquoclarice

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Unbeautiful

Wrote this for Day 3 of Bellara Week, prompt Grief/Comfort. It was supposed to be short and sweet and uh... it ended up not being very short at all and I'll let you all decide how sweet it is. Contains spoilers for the blighted Bellara path because what can I say, I love it.

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Bellara had never considered herself a particularly vain person. Oh certainly, she knew she was attractive—she wasn't blind to the impact her appearance had on people around her. Certainly, she'd taken a particular pride in her appearance, had put some effort into dressing herself and cleaning herself up in ways that appealed to her, but was that vain? She'd never thought so, before. That had just seemed… well. Nice? She supposed? She wasn't sure if there was an exact word for it.

She hadn't felt good about much in regards to herself, after losing Cyrian. Maintaining her appearance had been one of the few routines she'd managed to keep up after his death, mostly because it had been easy and already a force of habit. She didn't think that had been vain back then, to keep such a tight grip on one of the few things left in her life that still made her feel good about herself but, well…

Looking at herself now in the mirror as she felt a hot lump well in her throat, a part of her couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she'd always taken a bit more pride in her appearance than she'd realized until this moment.

Bellara hadn't actually… well. Seen herself, since being rescued from Elgar'nan. Sure, she'd glimpsed parts of herself since leaving Minrathous and being Joined, but all of those moments had been small, quick things she hadn't let herself linger on. If her fingers trembled slightly every time they caught her eye until she tucked her hands behind her back, or if she'd kept her gaze slightly averted from her body as she'd washed, guided more by muscle memory than anything else, that was… fine, wasn't it? It wasn't a bad thing, exactly. It wasn't like she'd had a habit in the past of lingering to admire her own form when she was changing for bed.

She'd thought it was fine, until she'd seen herself in the damned mirror.

The worst thing was, it was a normal mirror. Bellara knew this because she'd checked it herself, when it had first been gifted to her and Nessa for saving Minrathous. She'd been so sure there was something to it—some kind of spell, or enchantment, or maybe even an old-fashioned Tevene trick because it had been a gift from the Archon himself and surely someone like Dorian Pavus would work in some kind of mechanism or use some special magic for one of his own mirrors, right?

Sadly, no. It had been a normal mirror, and she'd been incredibly disappointed to report this to Nessa, who had been watching her fiddle with it all evening with the kind of amused affection Bellara still didn't know what to do with. With that confirmed she'd given the go ahead to hang it up in their new home in Arlathan Forest, and up until this moment in time she'd done a truly impressive job of not catching a glimpse of herself every time she passed it by.

She really should have known her luck would run out, eventually. It always did.

The worst part was, it had only been a brief glimpse out of the corner of her eye; Bellara had been in the middle of going to do something else when she had seen only a blur of herself in the mirror, a bit of skin showing unmistakable blight scars. She could have kept walking—could have ignored it, buried it down deep and not dealt with it. She could have focused on other things in order to keep her mind busy and to keep herself from thinking too much about the ghosts that haunted her, but…

Well. She was trying to be better about that, after Cyrian. This wasn't something she wanted to confront—in truth, she was happy to continue avoiding it for as long as she could get away with after managing this long—but that bit of skin had wedged itself into her memory, and she had a really good memory and very fresh wounds to reflect what had happened the last time she'd buried her thoughts and feelings instead of dealing with them.

It couldn't be that bad, right? Right. Of course. It wasn't that bad; her mind was just filling in the blanks as it tended to do when she thought a little too hard. She'd looked worse for sure, right after being rescued from Elgar'nan; any way she looked now was an improvement over that, even if it wasn't how she'd looked before. Maybe she was worrying for nothing! Maybe this was all in her head! Maybe she still looked the way she'd always looked, and her eyes had simply been playing tricks on her out of… some sense of lingering trauma, or something. Or remnants of Elgar'nan's influence, slowly clearing out of her mind now that he was no longer infecting her body and her soul like a disease.

Bellara nodded to herself, taking a breath. Yes, that made sense. When she thought about it like that, her avoidance of the mirror seemed silly; the way she hadn't been able to really look at herself until this moment seemed silly. She'd just built it up in her head, that was all. It was fine. She was fine.

She took another breath, to remind herself of how fine she was. Then she turned around to face the mirror fully, looking at her reflection head on.

She didn't look the way she'd always looked. That revelation hit her like a bolt of magic to the chest, even as no small part of her kicked herself for so easily buying her own lie just to work up the courage to see her reflection.

The thing was, on some level, Bellara had been right—it wasn't that bad. It certainly wasn't as bad as it had been in Minrathous, when her skin had been black and her eyes had been red and she could feel the blight pumping in her blood to her heartbeat, when she hadn't even needed to try to lean into the whispers because Elgar'nan's presence had been so loud in her head. The parts of her that hadn't been blackened from blight had been pale, that ghoulish shade of white that made her seem more darkspawn than person, and she'd… she'd seen the way the others had flinched from her even after she'd been rescued, the way they hadn't been quite able to meet her eyes. They had rescued her, sure, she was still alive, but this? None of them had expected this.

None of them except Davrin and Nessa, who hadn't flinched away from her and had met her gaze easily. She supposed that made sense, when she thought about it. Grey Wardens were used to darkspawn.

(Was it fair, even, to say that she'd been more darkspawn than person at that point? Darkspawn were people, twisted and changed by the blight; it wasn't like she'd stopped being herself just because she was blighted. She didn't know. She didn't want to think about it. That was a crisis for another day.)

The point was, when she thought about it with the same kind of logic she applied to tinkering with an artifact, she could recognize that she didn't look that bad. Her skin was… it was still pale, that was true, but it wasn't blackened like it had been before, so that was a good thing for sure. Her eyes had shifted back from red to brown, and the actual blight marks… Well. They were still there, she could see them on her face, but compared to what they had once been they were faded things, more like lingering stains than outright infection.

(She'd never thought about the blight like that before—as an infection. That was how it had felt, though, as it had crawled under her skin and bitten into her dreams; like she was sick, her body throwing every natural defense it had at its disposal and some unnatural ones from her magic at it to try and slow it down.

Had it been like that for everyone caught in Elgar'nan's web? Had all of them been sick, fighting losing battles to try and preserve their bodies and their minds? Was that all darkspawn were in the end—regular people, sickened by corruption? Had they known what was happening to them right up to the very end?

Isseya had still known herself. Bellara had come back to herself.

She didn't want to think about it, and yet. And yet, and yet, and yet.)

It wasn't that bad. Bellara knew this, when she thought about it logically.

The problem was, she still remembered what she'd looked like when she'd been better.

(She'd actually gotten the chance to get better. Isseya hadn't. None of the darkspawn they'd killed while fighting the Evanuris had gotten that chance.)

With a hand that trembled slightly, Bellara reached out and carefully touched the mirror, taking in the sight of her reflection. There was nothing logical about what she saw. Blight scars lingered on her face, faded enough to indicate she wasn't entirely gone but still showing enough to prove that she'd been changed. Her eyes followed the scars down, down along her neck and the upper part of her chest to where skin vanished under her clothes. She could see how those scars continued, along her exposed arm. An entire web of past blight corruption, faded but still lingering on her body as if to remind her that she would never truly be free of what Elgar'nan had done to her.

She didn't look blighted, but she still looked—

She still looked—

(She'd gotten better. Hadn't she?

Or did she just have enough awareness now to recognize that her body had been changed in a way she hadn't been able to stop?)

She'd been beautiful once.

The sound that escaped Bellara's throat was a hoarse, ragged thing; talking was easier these days, but there was still a lingering ache that hadn't quite faded yet. When Elgar'nan had taken her, had… changed her, she'd screamed and screamed and screamed until she'd tasted blood on her tongue; there were many things she still didn't remember about her imprisonment, but that particular memory was crystal clear. The pain just made her vision swim, and she sank to her knees as she choked on her own grief.

Had she even cried, before this moment? Had there been a chance for her to? Bellara wanted to say she had—she must have, time had passed since they had ended the double Blights—but her eyes stung slightly as the tears fell in a way that told her they'd been dry for awhile. Crying hurt too, in a way that it hadn't before; trying to muffle her cries wasn't doing her any favors for her throat, and Creators, were her eyes really aching?

Maybe being in Elgar'nan's care had somehow changed the way she fucking cried, too. That would just be her luck, wouldn't it? Maybe she could make that the plot of her next serial, if she ever felt any desire to pick up a pen again: a woman learning to process her emotions again after just barely surviving blight infection. There could be a decent story there. She even had personal experience to draw from to make the writing easier.

It was a dark thought, and Bellara couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up in her throat as it lingered in her mind; it wasn't exactly a good laugh, caught in between her sobs and bordering on the edge of hysterical, but there had to be something to being able to see the humor in this situation. She hadn't been able to make herself laugh when Cyrian had died, the first or the second time. Maybe this was some kind of growth that now she could see the humor in her incredibly fucked up situation.

Or maybe Joining her had failed, and now the blight was making its way into her brain, and she was going completely insane before she finished her transformation into a ghoul. Maybe that was happening, too. It would certainly explain how she couldn't stop crying, or the way her head was starting to pound along with the burning in her throat, and her chest felt so tight—

"Bellara?"

Bellara's ears twitched slightly, at the sound of Nessa's voice; the utter chaos that had been crashing around in her head quieted slightly in response. It didn't stop entirely and the sensations were all still too much, but the dwarf's voice was a ray of light shining in the darkness the elf had found herself tumbling down into and she grabbed onto it tightly with both hands.

Literally.

If Nessa was startled when Bellara lunged up and pulled her into a tight embrace, she didn't give it away; the only hint that the smaller woman had been caught off guard was her sharp inhale, but she melted easily into the mage's arms as Bellara sank back down to the floor again, rocking back and forth slightly as she held onto her partner like her life depended on it. Nessa moved briefly in her arms and Bellara made a soft noise of protest in response but the Warden simply shifted, wrapped her arms tight around her and settled back into place.

Good. That was good. Later Bellara would apologize for her behavior, but right now she just needed to focus. She needed—she needed to get out of this spiral she'd found herself in. Her grief was a sea trying to drown her, and right now Nessa was the only bit of land she had left to hold onto.

Her head still throbbed and her throat still burned and her eyes were way too wet, but Bellara focused instead on the sensation of Nessa in her arms; it was both achingly familiar and entirely unknown to her, as she let herself sort through the sensations of it. The things that felt familiar she still loved with her entire heart and soul: the feeling of Nessa's clothes under her fingers (a little rough and worn down from years of wear and tear, but still in good shape and well cared for), the faint floral scent that always clung to her from her favorite soap (lavender, which had earned her no small amount of teasing when the Wardens had made a new permanent home in Lavendel), the way it felt to just bury her face into her hair and breathe her in. The things that felt unfamiliar but still distinctly her were…

Well. It was only one thing, really.

Before being taken by Elgar'nan, Bellara had only known as much about the Wardens as anyone else outside the Order. She'd known they were sworn to defeat Blights as they swept across Thedas, and she'd heard the rumors that the Wardens were willing to do whatever it took to prepare themselves for an eventual Blight. She hadn't known how true that was until she'd met Nessa, and then eventually Evka, Antoine, Davrin, and the rest—that was when she had learned Wardens were as tainted as the darkspawn they fought, shortening their lives in the process and exposing their dreams to an Archdemon when one took to the sky. In the days leading up to Tearstone Island, Davrin and Nessa had barely slept.

She still hadn't known what that had meant, though, not really. Not until Elgar'nan had dragged her through his eluvian and had placed her under his… gentle care. She'd walked away from him able to sense the blight, both within him and all around her, and that had extended as well to the Wardens—she could feel the blight in Nessa's and Davrin's bodies, in a way she suspected they couldn't quite feel towards her.

Even now she could sense the blight in Nessa's body, moving through her blood with every pump of her heart. It was a strange thing, when she thought about it; she'd still been partially blighted even after Elgar'nan had died, and being Joined had given her the chance to live another thirty years, but apparently her connection to the last of the Evanuris had just been that strong. It should have bothered her, but now that she was focusing on it in the moment, it felt almost comforting. It was a reminder that she wasn't alone, that even if Nessa didn't look like her she still carried the same blight within her.

That was weird. Right? That was definitely weird. Bellara probably should just keep that thought to herself.

"I can still sense the blight in you," she murmured, because if there was one thing Bellara could always count on, it was that her brain and her mouth sometimes weren't connected.

Nessa hummed softly in response; if she was bothered by the comment, Bellara couldn't tell at all. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. It's, um, comforting? In a way? That's—Creators, that sounds bad."

"It does," Nessa replied, but she still squeezed Bellara gently anyway and the elf smiled into her hair. "Explain it."

Bellara was quiet for a moment, composing her thoughts; she shifted again, absently rubbing Nessa's back as she did so, and the dwarf rumbled contently against her in a way that made her smile soften. Her vision was starting to clear and her headache had faded now to something dull, something easy to ignore.

"I was always afraid of the blight," she murmured, when she could follow her line of thought. "I don't think that's shocking or anything, I mean… you know. You heard me every time I had to deal with it. I hated it."

"I remember." Nessa's voice was amused. "Never stopped you from following me into it, though."

"Well, yeah, of course I did, it was you. It's still you. I'd follow you anywhere."

Bellara didn't think she'd said anything particularly special; to her it was simply the truth. Wherever Nessa went she would go, too. For some reason though she felt a small shiver run through the dwarf at her words and she paused, pressing a gentle kiss to dark brown strands of hair. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, you didn't, I just…" Nessa cleared her throat. "I'm still not used to that, I guess. How easily you say that, even after Tearstone Island."

"Vhenan, Tearstone Island wasn't your fault." Bellara had doubted many things during her captivity, had questioned many of the decisions that had led to her ending up in Elgar'nan's hands; Nessa's role in all of it had never been something she'd doubted or questioned. A job had needed to be done, and she had volunteered to do it because she'd only trusted her own hands to keep Neve and Nessa safe.

"I'm still working on believing that," the Warden sighed, then shifed to glance up at Bellara before she settled down into place again. "Besides, we were talking about you right now, not me."

Bellara pressed her lips together at that, but she couldn't argue with it even though she really wanted to—she filed away Nessa's words for later, however. This was something they would properly discuss, eventually. She trailed her fingers down the shorter woman's spine, realigning herself to get her thoughts back on track.

"I was always afraid of the blight. I still am, really, even if I… understand it now better than I did before. But when I can sense it in you it's not as scary? I guess?" She frowned for a moment, tapping her fingers against Nessa's back. "You're you, and I love you. So the blight feels safer with you, I think. I can feel it running through you the way it runs through me, but it just feels… better when I feel it through you, compared to through me. When it's you it feels nice."

Bellara was snapped out of her focus by the gentle feeling of fingers brushing against her cheek; she blinked and looked down into Nessa's eyes, realizing with a small jolt that she must have focused her gaze somewhere else as she spoke. Her partner's dark eyes were soft, and for some reason the look of them made her swallow. "You know the blight runs through you now the same way, right?" Nessa asked, and her voice was gentle. "You're a Warden, love, even if we have no expectations about you hunting darkspawn. We're the same."

"We're not," Bellara snapped, and immediately winced at the sharpness of her own voice. "The same, I mean," she continued, quieter now in an attempt to control her emotions. Nessa was helping her feel better, it wasn't fair of her to lash out. The wound on her soul was a gaping, ugly thing, but the dwarf didn't need to see how heavily it still bled.

Time hadn't healed it. Maybe it never would heal.

Dread Wolf take her, what an awful thought.

Bellara shifted again and started to pull away now, because her mind was made up; she felt better—at least marginally so—and at the very least she wasn't spiraling anymore, and if she continued down this particular path of thought there was a chance she'd just hurt all over again. As far as she was concerned this was done, and if it was a little abrupt, if she was a little closed off now, well…

Well. It was fine. She'd be fine.When she'd been like this after Cyrian's death, it had been easy; Irelin had let her go, hadn't followed her. She was used to this; to the letting go.

How easily she'd forgotten Nessa wasn't Irelin.

The shorter woman let her get up, got to her feet with her, but before Bellara could step away entirely her hands caught her wrists; loose, gentle, not holding on tightly but enough to make the elf pause. She could have pulled away entirely, could have turned and walked off—Nessa would have let her go, she knew this. But the dwarf's thumbs were tracing gentle patterns over her pulse points, and she foud herself slowly relaxing at the lingering touch.

"Your heart's racing again," Nessa murmured.

"Just… got a little angry." Bellara's voice sounded weak, even to her own ears. The apology was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back through nothing but sheer willpower; she may not have wanted to talk about this, but her feelings weren't wrong.

Nessa apparently had different ideas about the not talking part, though. "Why?" she asked, her tone mild, and she kept her eyes down, focused on Bellara's wrists like they were the most fascinating things in all of Thedas.

"I—I'm not sure talking about this is a good idea."

"Do you want me to let go?"

"… No." Bellara sighed quietly, stepping closer when Nessa very gently tugged her back in. "This feels nice."

Nessa chuckled, something deep and warm. "I've been told I'm good with my hands," she teased, and when she did finally lift her eyes to meet Bellara's there was a gleam there that was both wicked and affectionate.

For a moment—only a second, really—the image of Nessa in front of her was replaced with something else. Still Nessa, but… changed. Those dark brown, almost black eyes brightened red by the blight, dark veins running under skin that was several shades too pale. Bellara inhaled sharply, blinked, and the image disappeared as quickly as it had formed in front of her.

Nessa didn't say anything. She simply waited.

Bellara swallowed against the lump in her throat. "We're not the same," she murmured. "Like… you're right, too, we are, but we're not. We both have the blight and that is comforting to me? Because I'm not going through this alone? But even if we both have the blight you still look gorgeous—which isn't bad! I like the way you look! Just… you're still so pretty and I'm… not."

"Bellara," Nessa said, and it was strange, really, how she sounded like she'd just been stabbed.

Bellara shrugged, and now she was the one looking down at where Nessa was still holding her wrists. "I see that now," she sighed. "I was trying to not see it, I guess, but I saw myself in the mirror and… well, I can't keep pretending, can I? It's better if I accept it. I'm going to look this way for the rest of my life."

The thought still hurt. The thought still really hurt, because apparently Bellara was, in fact, a bit of a vain person who had taken more pride than she'd thought in her appearance, and to have that counted as something else she'd lost to Elgar'nan… didn't feel good. The grief was still there, even if it wasn't consuming her, overwhelming her, drowning her. Nessa's presence had caused it to shrink from a raging sea to a trickling stream, but Bellara could still feel it deep in her stomach.

Nessa being here with her made it better, though. Nessa had let Bellara hold her, and hadn't squirmed or tried to get away from her even though she was covered in blight scars and still too pale. Nessa was still gently holding her hands, tracing patterns over the pulse points of her wrists like she hadn't been changed at all. The grief would probably never go away, but as long as Nessa was with her—as long as Nessa stayed—Bellara could live with it.

Nessa was the one who stepped closer now, as silence fell between them. A hand left Bellara's wrist, gently reaching up to brush against her cheek; the elf hummed softly at the touch, leaning into it and meeting the dwarf's gaze.

She looked pained.

"You don't need to be sad, vhenan. It's true."

"It's not true," the Warden snarled, and the intensity in her voice made Bellara blink. "Lara, it's—" She caught herself, took a quiet breath; the other woman wasn't sure how much it helped, her eyes were still blazing, but it gave her a moment to think, apparently. "You're still so, so beautiful."

Bellara blinked. Then she blinked again, because it took a few seconds for the words to really sink in. "You saw me before I was blighted, Nessa," she said, because for some reason her mind had suddenly gone blank.

"Yes, I did. You're as gorgeous as you were when we met in Arlathan."

That—that couldn't be right. Could it? The evidence had been in front of Bellara plain as day, was still in front of her even if she wanted to ignore it; she could see the blight scars running along her arms. She's biased anyway, whispered the little voice in her heart she'd never been able to silence. She loves you. Of course she'll say what you want to hear to make you feel better.

It would have been easy to believe; Bellara almost did believe it, for a moment. That little voice had been a part of her for as long as she could remember, and it had already whispered to her so many times; even when she tried to ignore it, it was never gone. The rest of her heart pushed back against it, though—reminded her that yes, Nessa loved her, but Nessa had also never lied to her. The Grey Warden knew how to speak well, and she often had when she'd needed to rally the team, but left to her own devices she preferred to speak directly and bluntly, and that also meant that she had a habit of speaking honestly.

Nessa might have tried to soften painful truths, but she'd never lied to her. That wouldn't change now, even if she was trying to make her feel better. So…

So when she was saying this—insisting that Bellara was still beautiful, even with her changes—she meant it.

She really meant it.

Oh.

Her vision was swimming again, Bellara realized. There was pain again, in her chest, like a lightning bolt had struck her heart or she'd lost control of an artifact while tinkering, but even though it hurt it felt… good. Nessa made a soft concerned sound at the sight of her tears but Bellara shook her head, gently tugging one hand free to wipe at her eyes. "Sorry," she whispered.

"I didn't mean—"

"It's not you! I mean, it is? But it's—I'm alright, you didn't do anything wrong. They're happy tears. I think. I just…"

Bellara took a breath; this time, she was the one reaching for Nessa's hands, and she turned her head slightly to press her lips to the dwarf's palm. "I just don't think I believe that yet," she admitted. "Not the way you do. But it still feels good to hear you say it."

Nessa smiled up at her, and it reminded Bellara all over again why she had fought against Elgar'nan's control for so long. "I can believe it enough for both of us, trust me. And I'll say it as many times as you need to hear it."

"Every time I ask?"

"Every time you ask and a few times you don't." Nessa squeezed her hand, then glanced towards the mirror. "Do you want to take that down?"

Bellara paused, glancing at the mirror. She took a moment to look at her reflection, to look at the image of her and Nessa standing together. "No," she decided. "It can stay up. I'd like to get out for a bit, though."

Nessa laughed. "Then I have the perfect thing, I wanted to tell you while we were cleaning out the darkspawn remnants in Lavendel today we found an intact artifact. At least, I think it's intact. I brought it back for you to take a look at."

If Bellara pulled Nessa all the way in and kissed her for that, muffling the sound of her laughter with her lips and forgetting about the mirror entirely, well. That was fine. That was more than fine, really. She may have been changed by Elgar'nan, she may have had to be Joined to survive, but this… this was still the same and always would be.

For Bellara, for now, that was enough.

[marzopups]

Want to explain your dragon age worldstates to a captive audience or drum up interest in your OC / OC pairing? There’s a server for exactly that sort of blorbo exposition!

The Black City is an LGBTQIA+/BIPOC friendly space to gush about your dragon age OCs and develop their stories. All type of creativity are welcome, whether that’s through writing, art, or live-blogging your playthrough. Come join us!

[marzopups]

OC Meme: Genevieve Laidir

GENERAL

Name: Genevieve Laidir

Alias(es): Ginny, Kitty-Cat (nickname given by Isabela; she doesn't do anything but eat and sleep, but you still keep her around if the mice show up)

Gender: Female

Age: 31

Place of birth: Ferelden

Spoken languages: Common, Orlesian, Ferelden, Antivan

Sexual orientation: Heterosexual

Occupation: Lord of Fortune

FAVOURITE

Colour: Blue

Entertainment: Drinking, sex

Pastime: Sparring, finding new and more dangerous ruins to conquer, harassing slave ships and pretty much any Tevinter vessel she suspects have slaves onboard

Food: Anything sweet

Drink: Bourbon

Books: Anything recommended by The Randy Dowager, enjoyed ironically.

HAVE THEY

Passed university: Harrowings count?

Had sex: Frequently

Had sex in public: In the library at Kinloch, yes

Gotten tattoos: No

Gotten piercings: No

Gotten scarred: She got a very nasty lightning scar escaping from the galley of a Tevinter slave ship.

Had a broken heart: A couple of times. Once was her first love as a teenager, who was Harrowed at Kinloch and never came back. The second was her husband, Lethanavir (dalish elf)--their marriage was kind of shaky to begin with, but the real heartbreaker was when he died.

Been in love: With her late husband, yes.

ARE THEY

A cuddler: Not naturally, but she's not opposed to it.

Scared easily: No. She has seen Too Many Things.

Jealous easily: Extremely.

Trustworthy: Depends on what you're asking her. She is liable to make shit up just on a lark (like over exaggerating certain exploits) but for serious matters she'll tell the truth. One exception: Ginny tells people she and her husband divorced, so she doesn't have to pick at the scab of being a widower.

FAMILY

Sibling(s): Her twin brother Gil is the Inquisitor. As of Veilguard he is married to Josephine and (trying) to live his best life in Antiva.

Parents: A mother, Elodi (elf, currently a Grey Warden after the death of her husband led her to have a pretty intense midlife crisis). And her father, Charles (the aforementioned dead husband). Charles was an Orlesian noble who was disowned for marrying the elven mage hired to act as a family physician. The two went to Kinloch and through sheer luck, Elodi managed to ingratiate herself to Lady Isolde when she wanted a live-in mage for her pregnancy and liked that Elodi spoke Orlesian. Until Ginny was sent to the Circle when she was nine her home life was relatively stable, with Elodi able to leave the Circle often to work as a person physician for the Guerrins.

Children: None

Pets: None, but she would like a cat if she could take care of one.

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The reason I don't think the Anders discourse with Fenris is worth discussing (and tbh I reject the premise that it isn't discussed, I've absolutely seen it discussed) is because the entire scenario is so ridiculous that everyone is rendered wildly out of character.

To put it more simply: every single companion or at least most of them should have left or fought Hawke immediately upon them doing this to Fenris. Merrill would be horrified, Aveline would be horrified, Sebastian who is good friends with Fenris would be horrified. Isabela is literally in hot water in the entire game for refusing to help sell slaves! She likes Fenris enough that they can start hooking up if they're not romanced! How is does it make any sense that she allows Hawke to just do this?

(And yes, I am aware of Isabela's past with slavery; but the fact that she did that in the past is WHY she's so adamantly against slavery NOW. Which she unambiguously is. This is why she has a man trying to kill her for over half a decade.)

I just reject it because the entire thing makes no sense. If Anders is getting judged for the plus 5 approval, everyone else is getting judged for just letting it happen.

It is always so funny to me that the most popular discourse on Anders surrounds his act of blowing up a Chantry, which I would argue is one of his more morally justifiable acts and the least interesting to discuss.

Why are we always talking about that and not, like, his obsession with Tevinter and the fact you gain approval from him when you give Fenris to Danarius. Or how when he talks to Merrill, he treats her like an ignorant little girl who has no idea how the world works. As if his view of spirits is not colored by the teachings of the Chantry. And how he (re: Justice) can kill an innocent girl in Dissent because she calls him (re: Justice AND Anders) a demon.

Like. Anders is interesting to me because in many ways he's a massive asshole, but he also serves as a martyr for the cause of free mages, and he is a healer for the people of Darktown. He's cocky and has a chip on his shoulder and is a massive hypocrite and yet he is actively trying to improve conditions for mages.

I need to set him on fire.

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The real reason why I think it should have been Neve/Bellara and not Neve/Lucanis (tl;dr: I just think it's really funny)

Bellara is so millennial coded. The way she speaks, the quirky awkwardness, the fact she literally is writing romance fiction in her spare time.

The reason I think Neve and Bellara should have been the play is that Bellara is absolutely the girl that wrote 'auctioned off and bought by One Direction' fanfiction that she posted to wattpad. She absolutely has a self-insert oc in her favorite fandom.

So if there is any character whose romance should be 'I met my celebrity crush and it turns out I'm exactly what they want and they fell in love with me' it would be Bellara Lutare. It is just. So millennial fanfic coded. If you don't like that tone in Veilguard it's one thing but you cannot deny that if you meet the game where it's at this absolutely fits Bellara's vibe.

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In Regards to the John Epler Controversy With the Dragons Age AMA/His Deactivating Social Media

Two things can be true.

A developer should not be harassed to the point that they feel the need to deactivate social media

The way Epler responds to criticism and, generally, his handing of Dragon Age, up to and including his answers in the AMA and recent interview, has been pretty shitty (at least in a large portion of peoples' eyes) and deserves to be criticized.

And even a third thing can be true:

3. Epler was deserving of some sort of backlash and criticism for some of his comments even if it is wrong to harass him to the point that he deactivates his social media.

Just my two cents, which admittedly, really doesn't count for all that much.

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Thinking About How Fucking Ridiculous Celene Meeting My Inquisitor Must Be for the Poor Woman

Veilguard is coming this is just a muse blog for my ocs now you've been warned my like 5 followers.

So recap: Inquisitor Guillaume Archambeau-Trevelyan who, through my own convoluted machinations, is actually the half-elf son of a disowned Orlesian noble who was taken in by his Orlesian aunt who married the Bann of Ostwick, adopting him into the family so he would be shielded from the mage-templar war happening in Ferelden where he lived. Has a stutter. Romances Josephine.

Be Empress Celene. You are in an incredibly precarious position. Your future rests on this party you're throwing and you must now meet with the famous Inquisitor.

You meet him. He has a terrible stutter. He was raised in Ferelden and looks like it with a full beard long hair and a lumberjack aura. He's nice but seems to have no idea what the Game is nor does he care.

....he is dating the extremely hot Antivan ambassador you used to see around court. He somehow bumbles his way into finding incriminating evidence against you. He talks about how his father had given up everything to be with his mother, an elf who worked for his family, and manages to seem totally oblivious to how passive aggressive this anecdote is. He has broken into your house at several points in the night.

Despite seemingly oblivious to social graces and generally the most Fereldan Man to Ever Fereldan, he also unites Briala to support you and oust Gaspard, secures your throne, and gets you back together with your ex girlfriend.

You now owe your throne to the most lumberjack Fereldan man you have ever met.

And seriously, how the HELL did he manage to attract the hot Antivan Ambassador.

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You know, for as many criticisms as I might have of what I've seen of Veilguard so far-- while I struggle to get attached to more than my (1) true canon option in my worldstates for DAO DA2 and Origins, I already have at least 3 solid possibilities for my Canon Rook and 5 playthrough Rooks I want to try overall.

So like, game must be doing something very right to make me that excited.

[marzopups]

You know what I think its grossly under-rated in fandom? Second loves.

What it's like to love and lose and then love again. To suffer through either the death of a loved one or the death of a love you used to share. To know that loss, to know that hurt, and to still make yourself vulnerable to someone again. To love scared, to love wounded, to love anyway.

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Baldurs Gate 3 is so wild when you realise how vastly different the game is depending on if you choose Tav or Dark Urge

Dark Urge Playthrough: you’re the child of Bhaal, but unlike the Bhaalspawn, you are created solely by Bhaal himself. The first true child of Bhaal. The daughter of one of your father’s previous Bhaalspawn turns on you, attacks you and tries to kill you. In your dying state, she infects you with a parasite so that you’ll die an incredibly humiliating death, and become her slave.

By some miracle you end up on the same nautiloud ship as a Sharron Cleric who happens to to be carrying a gith artefact that contains Baldur himself. Baldur, who was made a mind flayer and is now calling himself the Emperor, realises there’s an incredibly powerful Bhaalspawn on the ship, and that he can use them to his advantage. The power you have will help him destroy Gortash. Of course he picks you, it makes so much sense.

On your way to Baldurs Gate you find out through an unsent letter that you used to be into Gortash. When you get to Baldurs Gate, the man you used to fuck turns out to be an absolute loser and with horror you realise he is still into you. It’s okay though, he’s very easy to kill.

You end up facing off against Orin, your niece, and kill her. Your father appears to you and offers you the chance to become his Slayer. On the high chance you turn him down, he murders you in front of your loved ones, and leaves you to rot.

Then Jergal, the actual Lord of the End of Everything, the original God of Death, who was the very being that turned you father into a God all that time ago, who’s been in your camp for weeks pretending to be this undead scribe called Withers, appears next to your corpse and brings you back to life, basically adopts you, states that he will protect you from Bhaal, and announces that as long as he lives, you will never die. You’re essentially immortal.

Tav Playthrough: you’re a random nobody that was unlucky enough to get kidnapped by Mind Flayers. The Emperor must pick one of the many idiots on the ship to be his pawn. He sees Tav and thinks “ugh, yeah this one will do”.

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I agree!

I had a warden that died but also romanced Zevran and it made her threatening the Inquisitor about dating her Antivan bestie waaaaaay sadder than it had any right to be.

i do think dead warden (romanced or not) suits dai leliana rlly well

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My problem isn't so much that Aang DIDN'T kill Ozai, it was that Aang COULDN'T kill Ozai. It doesn't feel like that much of a sacrifice if everything Aang did up to that point indicated that he'd never be willing to kill another person.

Look at Trigun, where I think this arc was handled really well. Vash the Stampede was forced to kill somebody when he truly had no other choice; but because we saw that he /can/ bring himself to kill when he has to, the fact he chooses not to kill Knives actually means something. The entire point of Vash's arc with his pacifism is that being a pacifist has meaning only if you could do something else, not because you're so paralyzed by the idea of killing that you literally can't do it.

I'm not saying Aang needed to actually kill someone, but Aang maybe needed to show that he would have been able to kill someone if he had to.

can't believe there are still people out here in the year 2023 that genuinely think aang should have killed ozai

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Here's my thoughts from the perspective of a Cousland who romanced Alistair and let him remain a Warden (sorry for the reblog this was too long to put in as 1 reply):

My Cousland was extremely suicidal after the death of her family and saw what Duncan did as essentially kidnapping her and forcing her to be a Warden against her will; her initial plan was to live long enough to get revenge on Howe and either die saving Ferelden from the Blight or take care of it afterward if she somehow survived.

It wasn't until Denerim that she realized that over the course of DAO Alistair et. al had made her start to maybe want to live. Her decision to ask Alistair to participate in the ritual was honestly like, 100% selfish? In her mind Cousland had lost everything, had everything taken from her, and like HELL was she going to pass on the opportunity to keep what little she managed to have for herself.

What I find super fascinating with Morrigan is kind of dependent on if you romance/befriend her or not. From the perspective of my Cousland, who did go through her whole friendship questline, I found the whole situation beautifully ironic. Her entire arc was about learning to see the world beyond Flemeth's influence and finally break free from her abusive mother...but it's because I did that, and because Morrigan cares about me, that ultimately she chooses to do exactly what Flemeth had wanted her to do anyway.

Thanks for the cool discussion, great post!

This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.

I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.

For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.

I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.

Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.

If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.

That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"

Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.

For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.

The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.

At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.

The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?

Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.

Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-

But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.

Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.

To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.

"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.

"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."

And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.

What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.

I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.

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Alright.

You ready for a hard 'tag your oc' challenge?

Tag an oc who doesn't have childhood trauma. At all. Who's family is still alive.

I'll wait.

[marzopups]

question for in the tags time!!! do ur wardens/hawkes/inquisitors ever get married. who proposes. where do they get married and by what cultural or religious tradition