#isaline amell

[thenugking]

for the ship meme - all the domestic life questions for Zev and Isaline?

If they get married, who proposes?

It’s fairly mutual. After Isaline’s parents show up in Awakening and turn out to be Terrible, they’re discussing family and Zev suggests they could potentially have their own family, and Isaline panics bc Wardens can’t have kids and will Zev be okay with that, and Zev reassures her that it’s fine, they can think about adoption in future but honestly whether they have kids or not, he would be more than happy to just have Isaline be his family and stay with her forever, and Isaline asks so.... she can probably get the Chantry’s permission... if Zev would like to.... get married...? And Zev says that yes that is what he was hoping for, if Isaline would like.

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

I think it’s mostly just their companions from the Blight, it’s a fairly quiet affair - neither of them are super big on the ceremony itself. Leliana officiates for them.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

Two, Sindony and Aneira. Sindony is biologically the daughter of a human mage from the Gallows, who wanted their kid to be safe but didn’t want to go on the run with them, so asked Anders to deliver her baby and find them a good home. Zev and Isaline have raised her since she was a baby.

Aneira was an elven orphan who was Isaline’s apprentice when she was stuck in the Gallows. She clung to Isaline a lot as Nice Adult, and didn’t want to be seperated after the end of DA2. Isaline and Zev were happy to adopt her.

Neither of them are super well developed, but from the time I played them on Sims, Sindony is creative and loves drawing, and is fairly outgoing. Aneira is a lot quieter and shyer. She’s very clever and wants to become a spirit healer like her mum. She loves rabbits a lot.

Do they have any pets?

Isaline still has her mabari, Barkspawn, and they adopt at least one cat after the Blight. They might eventually get a rabbit for Aneira, too. Or a nug.

Who’s the stricter parent?

Zevran. He’s not particularly strict, but he wins from Not Being Isaline.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

No one we’re nice to the bugs :(

How do they celebrate holidays?

They generally follow Antivan traditions, because the Circle didn’t tend to do a lot of celebrations, but with Isaline being a strong Andrastian and Antiva being strongly Andrastian, they are pretty religious about it. I think they also kind iof awkwarly try to celebrate elven holidays, because Zev and Aneira don’t want to admit they want to connect to their culture more, but they definitely do.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Zevran. Isaline likes to get up and Do Stuff, but also does like to be snuggled.

Who’s the better cook?

They’re both fairly good at it. Zev probably wins just because Isaline, while a fast learner, has never cooked anything before leaving the Circle.

[thenugking]

OC fact! Dr. Jay Cavendish has a poster on their bedroom wall of their hero, Marie Curie. It has lots of famous quotes like "I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries".

Related fact: Liza Charlton thinks they’re a neeeerd.

Also, Isaline Amell does not Have posters of her heroes, bc those are hard to get hold of in Thedas, but she would also have a Marie Curie poster if she could. When she was in the Circle, she was scared of the idea of Discoveries and Research, mostly bc she was excited by the idea of discovering new things magic was capable of, and excitement means desire and pride demons and the chantry’s disapproval and being a Bad Mage.

Since getting out and working through some of her trauma, she’s become a researcher of magical theories and has been developing defences to templar smites.

(Also I was gonna send u an OC fact but you do not seem to have an ask box??)

[thenugking]

Hi! Um, odd question to spring on you out of the blue, but if all your Wardens got together in a pub somewhere, how would they all get on?

Griffon, Mahariel and Orlena are Too Autistic for this shit and find a quiet corner to escape to. They end up having a good conversation about the stress of the Blight and of other people’s expectations and Griffon ends up asking Mahariel and Orlena some stuff about Daish and Circle culture they want to know but have been awkward asking about. In return, Mahariel asks Griffon about some noble stuff he doesn’t get. Griffon doesn’t get it either. Neither does Orlena. They complain about nobles.

Meanwhile Lorrel is adopting Everyone, whether they like it or not. Vari likes it a lot because this is essentially her grandmother and she’s really cool, and Seren’s really excited about having a city elf declare that she’s family now. She wants to know Everything about life in an alienage, which Vari and Lorrel kind of agree is “it sucks but also we’re the Greatest, and will fight anyone else who says it sucks.”

Elora tells Lorrel she doesn’t need or want a grandmother, or any family. In between mocking her little brother Thosk for all his shitty life choices. Which Thosk takes, because okay fair he has made some really shitty life choices. But some of the rest of you must have made shitty choices too right??? Isaline agrees that yes, she did. She’s not going to go into it. Mags says she did everything wrong, which Isaline and Lorrel tell her they’re sure isn’t true. Mihren says humans deserve what they get. Lacha isn’t comparing her mistakes to some fucking dwarven noble’s, and would prefer not to speak to Elora or Thosk at all actually. 

Annabeth is…… not going to be doing at all well considering she did a lot of Terrible Things in the pursuit of stopping the Blight Whatever The Cost, at the knowledge that 13 other people were able to stop the Blight without being fucking terrible about it. But if we’re being nice, we can have pre-dead family and Blight Annabeth, who is incredibly down to party and hang out with all this fun new people and hey do any of them want to make out maybe?? Therlia has no objections to that.

Mags is very shy and awkward, and Lacha, who doesn’t want to be here at all and sees no reason to hang out with these people, sighs and starts talking to her. She tells Mags a lot of stuff about her life and her own feelings on leadership and People, and ends up giving Mags some blunt but very helpful advice. Mags isn’t sure whether or not Lacha likes her at all (she does).

Therlia, Isaline and Mihren end up having a very deep discussion about how terrible Circles are and the stuff they suffered there. Seren tells them her girlfriend was made Tranquil but would prefer to go back to talking to her City Elf friends instead of saying more about it. After a while of just talking about her abusive templar ex, Isaline lets slip his name. Therlia and Mihren are very quick to agree that yeah, Cullen Rutherford is the fucking worst. Seren looks back over and vehemently agrees. Orlena approaches the main table for the first time that night to tell everyone that yeah that guy’s a massive creep. No one else likes him either.

So tl;dr there are some disagreements and then everyone bands together to talk about how much they hate cullen rutherford

[thenugking]

listen i don’t care how “overrated" you think Let It Go is it’s a fucking mage rights anthem and you can pry it from my cold dead hands

[thenugking]

Any worldstate set of Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor get together for a triple-date with their respective LIs. How does it go?

Okay so I was going to do a worldstate in which I have three protagonists who have one LI each, but I don’t have one of those yet, so we’re doing Isaline/Zevran, Dragon/Merrill and Arloni/Solas during Inquisition, when they were all at Skyhold.

They get along pretty well, mostly. Arloni’s happy to be around people who aren’t insisting she’s the Herald of Andraste and trying to convert he. She’s able to relax and listen to Isaline, Dragon, Merrill and Solas being massive nerds discussing the Fade and their theories of magic, and Solas is able to manage to not be too condescending. 

The “mostly” is because then Solas says something about elves and then Merrill gets angry at him and Zevran gets snarky at him and Dragon backs up Merrill a lot and Isaline’s not really sure if it’s her place to weigh in as a human and Arloni tells her that she can absolutely weigh in because Solas you need to Stop being like this. And eventually Solas just sulks while the others have a good time.

(Later on Arloni is able to bring Briala to a triple date instead and that goes much better. Briala and Merrill and Arloni excitedly discuss ways they can help elves everywhere and Zevran cautiously joins in even though he’s Not Really That Into Elf Stuff, Honest and Isaline and Dragon are supportive partners. It’s a good time.)

[thenugking]

I know Cullen triggers you, but- Cullen and Isaline in the Gallows and 'Hellfire' from Hunchback of Notre Dame? It just- it seems to fit really well with their dynamic during that period, and I *love* the psychological horror element of their relationship.

Oh wow that it a really good song for them, thank!! (I don’t think I’ve ever watched Hunchback of Notre Dame and haven’t heard the song before.) Very disturbing and very good!!

[thenugking]

mylordshesacactus said: you’ve WRITTEN a mage/templar relationship iirc, just, like you said it’s clearly portrayed as awful and toxic and then MY GIRL eventually gets out and is ok again and im very proud of her

Idk I think you mean Isaline, who I have sadly not written yet. (Ideally I will one day but I suck at fic.) She’s the one in the awful toxic relationship. I’ve written a brief flashback of Estella getting raped by a templar before getting some recovery and the thing where Noodle is creepy to Tarynn and she punches him and runs away but like, neither of them are relationships.

But like, thank u, I am glad you support Isaline or maybe Estella or maybe Tarynn they are all Very Good I am proud of all of them.

[thenugking]

mylordshesacactus said: ye that was Isaline! the others are…yeah “relationship” is not the. right. word. at all. im so protective of isaline tho.

mylordshesacactus said: anyway you’ve written Isaline in the sense that you put her together and played her through!

:) Thank u friend! Hopefully one day I will Actually write Isaline fic. I kind of want to start it as cliched “forbidden romance where the guy is Abusive but that’s written as romantic” and then nope it’s fucked up noodle’s a bad guy, Isaline gets away from him and gets a recovery arc. But also then I’d have to write a bit of noodle/isaline as if i shipped it and eww.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 28

Day 28: Three Wishes: If your OC had three wishes, what would they wish for? (No wishing for more wishes.)

So like in general I feel like my OCs wouldn't wish for anything because in Thedas I think the only way they're getting three wishes is from a demon choice spirit, which they're not going to go for. So while I had to convince them it was okay for this question, they're all still adhering to a bit of "be careful what you wish for". And trying not to like, change anyone's else's brains about by doing so. I think they're all ending up with pages and pages of carefully annotated notes on exactly what they want. (Estella gives up and gives hers to Josie to write, since Josie's used to handling trade deals and negotiations.)

Isaline

An End To World Hunger, or something big and noble that helps everyone like that. She thought about world peace, but then again, sometimes war is better than the alternative. Ending world hunger doesn't really seem to have many downsides.

That her daughters always be safe from bigotry . The second wish was always going to be something that would benefit her daughters but she had a lot of trouble working out exactly what was best. Wishing they never be unhappy is denying them important emotions. Wishing they always be safe means hiding them from the world and important experiences, and like, what if they want to be a thrill seeker?? She thought about "let them never suffer like I have" but there's the suffering she went through in the Circle and then there's just suffering by like, getting a paper cut. It would be nice if they never got paper cuts but protecting them from every slight mishap is just going to be smothering and ultimately unhelpful. "Let them be loved and have a better childhood than I did" sounded nice but surely that would happen anyway if she was even a half decent mother. She almost decided on "Let them always be safe from templars". It would be helpful, and protective but not too smothering, but while protecting them as mages, she doesn't want to ignore that Aneira is an elf, and has other struggles because of that so she ended up on "let them be safe from bigotry". It should keep them safe without hiding all the bigotry in the world from them.

Her wedding ring back. While she was in the Gallows, Cullen threw her wedding ring in the harbour, telling her Gallows mages weren't allowed to be married so she was deluding herself and other mages with false hope, or some bullshit like that. She never got it back and is still very unhappy about it.

Corinne

The most amazing dress in the world. It's going to be made out of diamonds but like, cotton diamonds? Which can totally be a thing if she has three wishes. It has to look beautiful, and not be uncomfortable or hard and be all nice and flowing and not be see through, apart from the outerskirt which should be see through and made of cotton sapphires. And it should hold itself up in perfect shape and-. Look I know very little about fashion and even less about dress design, but Corinne absolutely does, and she has pages upon pages of description of this wonderful dress and it is going to be the most amazing dress in the world.

Annoying Passive Aggressive Curses on Sebastian. You know, shit like "may your food always be slightly burnt" and "may you always realise you're out of loo roll after sitting down on the loo" and "may you always step on legos". Corinne wishes all of them on Sebastian. She has legos invented just to make him step on them.

The other most amazing dress in the world. But this one's for Josie and compliments Corinne's amazing dress in every way, but suits Josie as perfectly as Corinne's suits hers. Josie's is also made out of gemstones, of course.

Estella

Estella's issue is that she wants to change the whole world but also doesn't want to violate anyone's free will by doing so. So her three wishes in order are:

Every mage is safe from templars

But that no mage or templar’s free will is violated to keep mages safe from them

But that no harm comes to the mages, as a direct or indirect consequence, of whatever it is keeping them safe from the templars

She thinks that should work without any accidentally Awful side effects. Of course it may mean mages are kept safe because every time a templar wants to hurt one, the templar suddenly dies of a heart attack, but oh well, what a shame, not like she could have done anything to stop it, I'm sure we'll all get over it. Estella at least will get over it very quickly.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 5

Day 5: Sexuality: Describe how you think about your character’s sexuality. How would they talk about their sexuality/sexual inclinations or lack thereof?

Isaline: She's bi! She's not sure she's Allowed to like girls for a while, but meets Isabela just when she is becoming more confident in herself, and thinks Isabela is very pretty and nice. Zev arranges a threesome for her.

She doesn't tend to talk about her sex life much, because if you're not involved in her sex life, you have no need to know about it. She's quiet and polite and discreet and sometimes shocks people with her detailed knowledge of various sexual acts and kinks. "I'm married to Zevran," she reminds them.

Corinne: Corinne was supposed to be asexual heteromantic, but is now asexual biromantic, because Josie exists. For the ace part, she just finds the idea of sex kind of gross. She'd rather spend her time drawing hearts around the names of her crushes and slowly leaning in to Romantic Kisses. When she was younger, she assumed that when you got married, you spontaneously developed sexual attraction to your spouse, and then became confused when people were fucking each other without being married first.

Corinne is a massive Romantic with some very Traditional ideas around romance and heterosexism. And then she meets Josie, and has a Gay Panic, because the Boy is meant to be older and taller than the Girl, and how does it work if you're both girls?? Is it okay that she's taller than Josie?? Does it mean she has to start acting like a man??? Should she hold the door open for Josie or should Josie hold the door open for her????? She goes to Merrill and Bela for advice, which isn't incredibly helpful since Merrill is confused about what the issue is, and Bela spends several hours just laughing at her.

Estella: Estella is also bi, although would define her sexuality as something like "into people who acknowledge mages are treated like shit and deserve the same rights as everyone else, very much Not Into anyone else." She doesn't make an effort to hide her sex life or sexuality, but neither does she go out of her way to talk about them. She likes having one partner who doesn't feel any sexual attraction and is just always happy to cuddle with her, and another she can have rough, slightly violent sex with (and then also cuddles after).

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 30!

Day 30: Free Day!: Is there anything about your character you wanted to say but didn’t? Their favorite outfit? What their Pokemon team would be? Which Hogwarts house they’d be in? Tell everyone about it! (Can be anything at all, serious or not!)

I didn't know what to do with this but I decided to just talk a bit about my three favourite moments for them all. Or three of my favourites, it was very hard to pick. Many of which I've already talked about before, oops. But it felt like a nice thing to finish the meme off with.

Isaline

The start of the Zevran romance; when she feels suicidal and goes off to pick herbs with him alone, hoping he'll kill her and thinks she's being subtle but Zev is Well Aware this is a suicide attempt. When Zev isn't sure he wants to live himself, but he doesn't want to see someone else feeling as terrible and worthless and self hating as he is, and just finds himself trying to make her feel better. And they talk and begin to open up to each other and just really enjoy being in each other's company and they both make a real friend when they've both alone for so long, and both end up wanting to be alive right now. It's a lovely moment that begins their relationship, and both of their recovery arcs and I just love these two damaged, hopeless people saving each other. I love them.

The end of DA2. Isaline's in the Gallows for months before then, secretly working to destabilise the templars and teach mages to fight them, but appearing powerless to the templars and not feeling as if she has much more than she's showing. If she fights back too early, that could backfire and have a negative affect on every mage in the Circle. And then the Chantry blows up, and the templars run round in panic, and she smiles and fucking destroys them and calmly walks through the Gallows tossing aside every templar who tries to stop her and is a terrifying unstoppable force. And then as the fight against Meredith begins, and Cullen has a Convenient Last Minute Change Of Heart, she turns to him in a wave of magic and tells him to run and he does. And she follows, blasting countless spells at him as she calmly lists his crimes, and all the mages he's hurt. She tells him this is justice for all of them, for every mage, but most of all, it's for her. And she kills him. And I love that she's able to put herself first there and to finish him for every time he's hurt her and finally be free of him. And I just really like mages fucking killing that noodle.

When she comes back from Here Lies the Abyss and her daughter Sindony runs to her in such excitement to show her that look she can do magic now. It feels like the final part of her recovery; it no longer hurts so much to think of when she developed her magic herself, and her fear and shame about it, and the way her parents abused her. How can that memory have a hold over her now, when her  own daughter's here showing off her own magic, so proud and happy? Now that she has children to raise and love and give a better life than the one she had. Maybe magic's still not fully accepted in Thedas, but they've come so far from her own childhood, and there's a world where her daughters are able to grow up loving themselves and loving their magic. And that is so, soimportant.

Corinne

It's maybe not as serious as Isaline's (I mean. It's really not as serious as Isaline's) but one of my favourite Corinne moments is the scene in Mark of the Assassin, when Hawke and Tallis are trying to get into the Chateau and Hawke can give a funny overdramatic speech about how they saw someone wearing the same outfit as them, and it is the most terrible thing that could possibly happen, and they simply must get inside at once. Except that when Corinne does it, she is 100% deadly serious. There's someone wearing the same dress as her and it is the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to her and could ruin her reputation. The jewel is nothing compared to this. I'm really proud of how I made Corinne so unlike how Hawke is "supposed" to be, and this scene I feel kind of sums up the difference really well.

The Chantry Boom. When Sebastian tells her Anders needs to die and she breaks up with the love of her life. I just adore the moment when she realises romantic love is not the most important thing ever, when she realises she has to stand up for something for herself, when she chooses her friend over her partner. It is such a big deal for the girl who's written a dozen novels where people sacrifice everything for true love, who wants to be a fairy tale princess and live a happy ending with her handsome prince. I'm so, so proud of her. And she's able to wipe the tears from her eyes and hug her friends, who are still here, who still love her, who are still important, and go and fight for what she believes is right. Because she's not just the prince's princess anymore, so it's time to take control of her own destiny at last.

Crashing Josie's wedding. It's not the most deadly serious scene, it's a Terrible cliche, but it's so Corinne. She knows it's a cliche, she loves the drama of it, the fact that she's realised there are things more important than romance doesn't mean she's not still an utter romantic who wants to kiss in the rain and ride off into the sunset with her love or, you know, crash a wedding to declare her love. But doing that is still brave and important and how she feels is still serious. Corinne's never made the first move in a relationship before and she thinks it's awfully rude to actually interrupt a wedding and she's only just fully come to terms with the fact that she's into women and her last relationship ended with her and her husband ignoring ways in which they clashed For Love until they ended up declaring war on each other's cities, and now she's approaching love with a wiser, less rose-tinted perspective and she's scared of what that means for the relationship. But she knows she loves Josie, and even if there are things more important than that, her love is more important than her fear. And she gives the most sweet and sincere declaration of love to Josie and Josie runs to her and kisses her and they do the -pick-josie-up-and-twirl-her-round thing, and Otranto tells everyone to clap because he's great and it is Best Romance Scene. It just makes me really happy.

Estella

Being cured of Tranquility. She goes to the Conclave with the group of templars that she's been a slave to for the past three years, just because it's useful to have a slave around. One of them decides he wants a quick fuck before the Conclave starts and leads her off to find a back room. He hears a commotion, and the Divine calling for help, and bursts in to see what's going on with his Tranquil behind him. He pulls out his sword, instructs his Tranquil to grab the thing the Darkspawn just dropped. And Estella picks up a ball of Fade and it reopens her connection to it and everything she's ever felt comes rushing back and she's standing there staring at one of the men who's spent the last several years abusing her and raping her and treating her like a thing and she can do magic again. The templar hears the noise she makes as she grabs the orb, part yell of shock, part gasp of amazement, part snarl of anger, part shout of joy, and turns in confusion. He sees her face full of an overwhelming amount of emotion, and lightning sparkling at her fingertips and has a moment to feel terrified before she kills him.

Later on, Vivienne tracks down the two templars from the group that weren't at the Conclave when it exploded, and ran in the chaos. She has them brought to Skyhold's dungeons to await Estella's judgement. Estella is surprised and suspicious, because Vivienne talks like Circles are good and tells Estella she's wrong about everything and steals her furniture and snaps at Estella when Estella sets her furniture on fire in retaliation. But Vivienne says they should face justice for abusing their power, and Estella wants to look the templars in the eye and watch them squirm, and she wants them to not be alive any longer. She goes to see them alone, with Bull waiting outside the dungeon so she can call if she needs help. The first sneers at her, reminds her of all the abuse and degradation she suffered, however well she's doing now. People may see her as a Herald, but she's a mage, she'll always be nothing, is she really pretending to forget that before she was a Herald, she was a slave, a pet, an object? But whatever he says, he has no power now, and he still screams as she kills him. The next one is terrified, and begs her to forgive him, to spare him, tells her he's sorry. But he was never sorry before. Estella watches him beg, tells him to do it more. Kills him anyway. She comes out of the dungeons shaking, she hugs Bull, and runs to find Amelia and holds her tight and reminds herself she's safe now. She goes to Vivienne later, and tells her what happened and thanks her. Vivienne is disappointed she didn't put them on trial, let the world know their crimes, that templars like this will not be tolerated any longer. Estella understands, but she couldn't have dealt with a public trial, with seeing them again in front of other people. Vivienne understands that. They sit together for a while, and try not to talk about things they'll fight over today, and start to wonder if maybe they could be friends.

When the Breach in the sky seals up, and whatever disaster people wanted zir to solve this time is apparently averted, Hawke decides that maybe it's time ze and her husband and kid stopped hiding out in the Anderfels and finally reply to the letters saying The Inquisition requests their presence. So Hawke and Anders and a child they rescued from the Gallows go South, and are escorted up to the main hall, and Anders is almost knocked over being suddenly and enthusiastically hugged by someone he last saw standing in the Gallows courtyard with no expression on her face, unable to feel anything near enthusiasm. They talk about what they've been doing the last seven years, and about mage rights, and Estella eagerly tells Anders everything she's been doing, and how they're going to have a mage Divine now, and Anders is amazed and delighted that the Herald of Andraste everyone in awe of is a mage. The people in power finally care, and there are mages in power who can change things. It's really important and meaningful to Estella to have Anders there at the end; he inspired her to fight, and was the first one to really change things. Her hopeless crush is gone by now - and she tells him about it and they laugh about it - but he's still one of her oldest friends, and her hero. And Inquisition ends with the two of them happy and hopeful for the future, and yelling "For mage rights!" off the top of Estella's balcony for all of Skyhold to hear, and it's a really good ending.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 9

Day 9: Social Status: What is your OC’s social status? What sort of education did they receive? How do they interact with people from a higher social class? From a lower class?

welp I mean all three of them are in the "noble family, but is a mage" category wow I really should have chosen some more diverse OCs for this.

Isaline: Her magic developed when she was four and she has only very hazy memories of life before that. She met her parents during Awakening and found them thoroughly unlikable people, who were obsessed with their social status. They were willing to overlook the fact that she was a mage since she was now a hero, so long as she dumped her elven boyfriend and married a noble. Isaline hates them, and doesn't consider them family, and because of that and a lack of memories of her childhood, does not see herself as a noble. (She does consider Hawke and Carver family, but neither of them really act like nobles either.)

Isaline is incredibly wary of nobles. She gets on well with some of them, Anora and Nathaniel for example, but is cautious around people who've grown up in privilege. She is much more at ease with anyone from low social classes - mages, elves and casteless for example. All her education came from the Circle, until after the Blight when she just starts teaching herself  and getting her friends to teach her everything she can.

Corinne: Farm girl whose mother was a noble and dreams of becoming one herself. I assume Leandra and Malcolm educated their kids themselves, and baby Corinne definitely got Leandra to tell her all about being a noble, so she could practice Proper curtsying and table manners. Corinne's a social climber who's always eager to impress nobles. She idolises Lady Elegant, a commoner who married up to become a glamorous noble,  so much. When she finally becomes a proper noble herself, and then Princess of Starkhaven, she surrounds herself with nobles and makes a lot of friends.

Corinne's always polite and kind to everyone though, and is happy to be friends with people from lower classes, even if she doesn't Get why not all of them are interested in raising their statuses. She doesn't Understand why Anders won't let her buy him fancy clothes that aren't falling apart and always stinky, or why Isabela insists on spending her time in such dirty, vulgar bars, or why Fenris was annoyed when she tried to get his house done up and decorated.

Estella: She was five when her magic developed, and while she has a few more memories than Isaline, it's not enough for her to identify as a noble either. While Isaline simply doesn't feel like a noble, Estella violently rejects that as an identity. She has no idea how to act like a noble and no desire to learn, she lost her Noble accent for a Lancashire accent (or whatever the Thedosian equivelent of Lancashire is) years ago, she's only ever been treated like shit by nobles, and she really, really despises the noble culture of politics and status always coming before people. It's also not something she ever wants for her daughter, and tries to keep Amelia as far away from that life as possible.

Unlike Isaline, Estella's parents aren't bad people, they just really, really don't get her. They don't understand what life at the Circle and as a Tranquil afterwards was like, or that she doesn't give a shit about nobility, which all just makes her reject it more. She gets on with nobles like Josie who do understand life in the Gallows was harder than just "I no longer had fancy clothes or luxury meals" and are willing to learn more about what it was really like. The Winter Palace was a mess, and tbh the Inquisition only got through it thanks to Josie, Vivienne and Cole running round doing damage control because Estella is incapable of changing her behaviour to please nobles.

With people who are oppressed, Estella will often just attach herself to and decide they're best friends now and intensely start discussing revolution. Sera giving her reports of Little People getting abused will usually result in Estella dropping everyone to go off and Save them, however far away they are. She's fiercely supportive and caring to the Little People, if a little frightening in her intensity.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 25

Day 25: Downtime: What does your OC do in their downtime? Do they drink, gamble, play cards? Visit brothels, go to the Chantry, go to plays/operas? Read? Other stuff?

Isaline: Usually she studies and reads. In the Circle, she spends most of her time reading in the library, or else praying. During the Blight, she hangs on to Wynne's books and Loghain's maps to go study them. She starts getting Leliana and Zevran to teach her Orlesian and Antivan and, while Sten is in the party, tries to convince him to tell her things about the Qun. Most of all, she studies magic, and as she becomes less guilty about it, learns every specialisation she can. By the end of the game, she's also learning about templar powers from Alistair, so she can start working out how to counter them. She still prays ever day and tries to go to the Chantry at least once a week, but by the time the Blight has finished she's come a long way from spending hours praying for forgiveness. After the Blight is over, she also starts occasionally going out to plays too. And of course, spends a lot of time with her family.

Corinne: Corinne likes parties and socialising and occasionally gossiping about noble business. Before the Deep Roads expedition, she spends a lot of time window shopping, and afterwards a lot of time Actually shopping. She plays an instrument (a harp I thing?) and makes sure to get in a bit of time with that every week, and likes ballroom dancing sometimes. She writes romance novels, which I don't know is downtime so much as it's how she makes most of her money, but she also spends time going out to talk about and sign her books. When she's in Kirkwall, she also starts researching and asking around about her family history. She also spends an awful lot of downtime doing her hair and make up, to make sure they're perfect. Oh, and she writes a diary, and doodles hearts around her crushes names in it.

Estella: Estella likes doing everything she couldn't do in the Circle. She goes out to see historic monuments and museums and plays and operas and circuses and shows. She loves swimming, and riding her dracolisk as fast as she can, and hunting dragons and a Lot of thrill seeking. She loves playing whatever kind of sports exist in Thedas (she's Terrible at them but the point isn't winning, it's messing about with her friends). At Haven she spends a lot of time playing and sliding on the frozen lake with Amelia. And she loves cuddling with her friends and just being around people she loves who love her too.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 1

(I have so many OCs, so I thought I'd try to do a few at a time. Thank u to Charamei for helping me choose Isaline (worldstate 4 warden), Corinne (worldstate 7 hawke) and Estella (worldstate 2 inquisitor) for it, bc I am shit at decisions.)

Day 1: Introduction: Describe your character in 140 characters Now have your character describe themself in 140 characters Also provide any of the basic biographical stats you wish: full name, age, pronouns, gender, class/specializations, etc.

Isaline:

Full Name: Isaline Amell Age: 19 at the start of Origins Pronouns: she/her Gender: (cis) woman Class: Ice/spirit mage Specialisations: Spirit healing, shape shifting. Also sometimes arcane warrior, blood magic, force magic, knight-enchanter and many other fields of magic. She's a genius.

Description: Smol self loathing mage who believes the Chantry's bullshit, then learns to love and stick up for herself. Genius cinnamon roll.

Self Description: I try to do my best to help people. I’m currently researching further applications of rift magic for the Inquisition, and raising my daughters.

Corinne:

Full Name: Corinne Hawke/Amell/Vael/Montilyet Age: 25 at the start of DA2 I think?? Pronouns: she/her Gender: (cis) woman Class: Creation mage Specialisations: Spirit healing and force magic in the game, glyphs in actuality.

Description: Actual Disney Princess Hawke who doesn’t want to do any fighting or adventure, and just wants to wear pretty dresses and get married.

Self Description: I'm a good friend & very creative. If I had one flaw I'd say I'm sometimes a bit too trusting.  Like trusting my husband to not declare war on my city.

Estella:

Full Name: Estella Trevelyan Age: 29 at the start of Inquisition Pronouns: she/her Gender: (cis) woman Class: Primal mage Specialisations: Knight Enchanter Description: Gallows mage who was made Tranquil by Ser Alrik, got cured when touching the orb and now has 7000 emotions and issues all happening at once. Self Description: I’m a mage. I’ve been repeatedly beaten, raped, dehumanised and treated as a slave by “templar protectors”. Every Chantry needs to be blown up.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 20

Day 20: Conclusion: How did they want their story to end? How did it actually end? Do they get a happily ever after?

Isaline: Isaline never really wanted anything for herself, until part way through the plot. She was just doing what people told her to do and planning to keep on doing that. Whether she was sent back to the Circle, or continued to work for the Wardens, she may not be happy, but she'd have carried on doing that. And I assume "how did they want their story to end?" means "how did they want the main game to end?" so like, she wanted the Blight to stop.

Eventually she began to want to end up being friends with Morrigan and dating Zevran and maybe getting a bit of credit for ending the Blight and not having to go back to the Circle forever and feeling better about herself. And she got all those things, which she is very happy about. I wouldn't say it's a "happily ever after" because bad stuff happens to her in DA2 and Inquisition and presumably in the future too, but for the most part, she does get to be happy, and gets to have several happy breaks in between all the world ending and things. Origins certainly ends happily and triumphantly for her, with Isaline gazing out in amazement at countless people cheering her on and adoring her, and getting to feel really, really good about herself and really, really valued.

Corinne: Corinne wanted her story to end with marrying a handsome prince and going back to Starkhaven with him and living in a nice castle and not having to deal with Kirkwall's problems anymore and living Happily Ever After. She got the marrying a handsome prince part down. And, technically, in Inquisition lives in a nice castle, even if it's not in Starkhaven. DA2 of course ends with Corinne and Sebastian breaking up and declaring war on each other, while Corinne finally takes a side in Kirkwall's problems and starts fighting for mage rights.

DA2 is very much not an end for Corinne, with the character development she gets in the last hour or so I've thought a lot about what she does afterwards. But it's the end of an era, and even though it's very much not how she wanted it to end, she ends up very happy with how it did. She feels happier having realised there are some things more important than romantic love, and like a better person having chosen a side, and a lot more confident using her charm and networking skills to become Viscount. And she discovers she really enjoys being Viscount. She's still hoping she gets to live Happily Ever After with Josie one day, though.

Estella:  She wanted Inquisition to end with the total destruction of the Chantry, the death of every templar, every tranquil being cured, every person in Thedas realising Anders Was Right, and every mage finally being okay. She doesn't manage, but on the other hand, she says she's not done yet. It's not something I can see her stopping working on, although she's a bit happier with the Chantry once the game ends with the first mage White Divine. The end of Inquisition certainly doesn't feel like an end for Estella, because her main goal is obviously Mage Rights, and killing Corypheus basically just feels like "well, glad we got that inconvenience out of the way". After that, she starts trying to contact the members of Kirkwall's old Mage Underground, and once I have a plot for that, that'll feel like a much better climax to Inquisition than the Corypheus battle.

Again, she doesn't really get a Happily Ever After, because I am sure bad stuff will continue to happen around her in future games, and she would have to have a much calmer state of mind to be happy Ever After but she ends up okay. She's going to make a lot of progress on mage rights, whether the game lets her or not, and while she might not end mage discrimination in Thedas, she's going to be pleased with and proud of the progress she's helped make.

[thenugking]

30 Days of Dragon Age OC Challenge Day 18

Day 18: Companions: Who is their first friend among their companions? Who ends up being their best friend? Who do they hate the most (or like the least)? Is there anyone they don’t recruit?

For the Warden: What was their relationship with the companion(s) from their Origin?

Isaline: Jowan was Isaline's best friend for years, and she hates how things ended. From what she knew of Lily, she liked her and has her freed after Origins is over.

Among the main companions, I'm not sure whether Alistair or Leliana is her first friend. After the Connor disaster, when Alistair starts yelling at Isaline, she has a massive anxiety attack and is pretty clearly expecting him to kill or torture and is terrified. Alistair has a bit of a panic himself, awkwardly reassures her and goes to Leliana for advice. After that the two of them start trying to get Isaline to open up a bit and relax and convince her that she's not an awful person. If she had to pick a Best Friend, it would be Zev, but she'd count Alistair, Leliana and Morrigan as among her best friends too. It took a lot longer to be friends with Morrigan, since Morrigan was very disdainful of Isaline's Loyalist guilt and submission, while Isaline was Horrified by the apostate rejecting the Maker's word. They start understanding each other better later, and Isaline nervously asks Morrigan to teach her shapeshifting and they end up good friends. She's also very close to the Awakening crew (other than Oghren, sadly. They get along, but never really clicked.) Sten is the only companion she disliked.

Isaline recruited Sten but asked him to leave after he attacked her in Haven and she killed Loghain because he sold elves into slavery. She didn't recruit Wynne because. In-game, Wynne and Morrigan had an argument and Wynne didn't want to help, or something like that. The actual reason was that Wynne's lectures about the Circle being good and putting other people before yourself would undo a lot of the progress Isaline had made, so from a story perspective, she was not allowed to join the party.

For Hawke: What is their relationship with their siblings?

Corinne: Corinne got along really well with both her siblings. She and Bethany are fairly similar and were able to be girly together and worry about magic. Carver is a lot less grumpy than in canon when not in Hawke's shadow and a more openly affectionate. I consoled his approval to full friend. She's devastated to lose both of them.

Other than her siblings, Aveline is her first friend among her companions and Corinne's looked up to her since meeting her. She becomes friends with Anders, Merrill and Fenris in Act 1, and Anders is probably her best friend. It takes a while for her and Isabela to like each other but while they are rivals, they do end up with a vitriolic best buds dynamic. She likes Sebastian a Lot up until the end of DA2. In Inquisition, she gets along really well with Josie, Leliana and Vivienne.

Varric and Corinne have a really fun relationship, because they're just awkward acquaintances who don't really like each other much and Varric's approval ends up at like 5 rivalry and they're like. so far removed from what the "canon" Hawke/Varric relationship is. Varric was friends with Carver and finds Corinne the most boring person in the world. Corinne doesn't Get varric or his books, and though she is always polite, ends up thinking he's a bit of a jerk. Varric just really, really wants Corinne to do something Interesting, please, for once in her life. They have nothing in common (except writing but they're such vastly different writers that they just get annoyed by each other if they talk about books) and it's hilariously awful.

Estella: Estella's first friend is Inquisition Solas, and she attaches herself to him in the middle of Chantry assholes and anti-Anders assholes. They remain good friends throughout the game. She dislikes Cassandra immediately, because Chantry Seeker Basically a Templar asshole. Cassandra is... sometimes good with Estella and sometimes very much not good.  Estella's feelings on her go up and down a lot, but she never really likes Cass. She's immediately suspicious of Leliana too, although they end up getting along fairly well. Josie is lovely and helpful from the moment they meet and is Estella's second friend there, after Solas. She loathes Noodlehair utterly and he's fired immediately.

She dislikes Varric because her likely first words to him are "!! Oh you're Anders' friend!!" and Varric explains that he is No Longer Anders' friend and Estella explains that she was a Gallows mage and the Chantry Needed to be exploded so fuck off. She was good friends with Anders when she was in the Mage underground during DA2, and they remain good friends when they reconnect at the end of Inquisition. Estella admires Anders enormously, and also for a long time had a huge crush on him.

Estella and Vivienne hate each other when they first meet, and Estella only lets Viv join the Inquisition because she has guardianship over Estella's daughter, but over time become best friends who are really good for each other. Estella also becomes good friends with Sera, Bull and Cole quickly, along with Solas and Josie. Dorian takes a little longer, because of his views on slavery, but while Dorian's hiding inside refusing to speak to people because Estella set his moustache on fire and he's waiting for it to grow back, he thinks about what he said and ends up apologising, and they do become good friends.