#ALSO if I did swap my canon then I could maybe possibly make my rook a child of Hawke. maybe.

[13skeletons]

The more I think about it, the more I think I should've paired a mage Hawke with Tobias Cousland. (Knight Enchanter so he spent most of the game fighting with sword and shield.)

Like, your family has had to move constantly your whole life because of magic. But you've finally settled outside Lothering and tried to just stay in one place for a while, but then the Blight comes and you have to flee with your lives, barely making it out in time. You're refugees in a templar-controlled city and you have to hide your magic harder than ever, but you're determined to make it work this time. Then the Hero of Ferelden ends the Blight in record time and rises to the throne. The official word out of Denerim is that he's a warrior of great skill, but certainly no mage. Certainly no apostate. The noble Couslands hiding their son's magic? CERTAINLY not. And what Ferelden would refute that? They owe everything to him, what's a little blasphemy to a hero? But the rumors persist.

("I have a cousin who saw the Hero crush the life right out of a hurlock with magic!" "Well my sister was living in Denerim during the final battle and she swears she saw him in a field of frozen genlocks and there were no other mages anywhere NEAR him." "Me nan lives in Amaranthine and she saw him walking around with a staff on his back, bold as you please!")

The rumors reach your ears and you think, "if he can do it, why not me?" And for a while it even seems to be working out that way. You regain your family's estate. You save the city from the qunari, you defeat the Arishok himself in single-combat.

But it all falls apart. Champion you may be, but the Arishok is no Archdemon, and you have no queen in your corner, no ancient and respected family name. The mage-templar war erupts right there in your city, and no amount of magic can stop it.

History will remember Tobias Cousland as a warrior and a Hero, but you're just another apostate - a danger to yourself and everyone around you.

Like. OoF? Ow? Pour that salt directly into my fucking wounds??

And also the more I think about it, the more I think I want to completely swap out my canon. Like. I LOVE the narrative circle of starting Jasper Mahariel's journey by being corrupted by this ancient relic of his people and ending it by following his lover through the same. And I LOVE that the first human Merrill ever met took Jasper, one of her only friends away, and she never saw him again. Then the second human she ever meets ends up falling for her and taking care of her and giving a her real home and supporting her unconditionally for the first time. I love that through-line, that's why I did it.

But also I set it up years ago and I'm slowly finding that other stories are more compelling in my old, depressed state. [weary emoji]

[lottiesnotebook]

Here Lottie:

Oh no! Your pro tags have been given a new role! How would they fare?

Warden-> Hawke

Hawke-> Inquisitor

Inquisitor-> Rook

Rook-> Warden

Ooh hello Anon! This is very reminiscent of my Protagonist Swap Game that's gotten me through a truly hideous week (so if you want more details on these swaps, or alternates, feel free to play that too, if you hadn't already seen it!)

Without further ado, let's swap my girlies, though I will be making appropriate alterations to the canonical backstories to keep them consistent with their personalities, so with that in mind:

Luna Tabris in Dragon Age 2

Given how central being a City Elf is to Luna's identity (and the fact we have an alienage in Kirkwall), let's make the whole Tabris family refugees in the Hawke family's place. Maybe Luna loses her newlywed husband on the road to Gwaren when they face the darkspawn. She's not going to have a noble title or Hightown manor to reclaim, but let's say she ploughs her earnings from the Deep Roads into her new home in the alienage, making it a better place to live, protecting it from humans who'd take advantage of her people, maybe giving a glowing white-haired elf a few reasons to live and flirting with a pretty pirate along the way...

And then she hears a guard raped one of her people and Aveline, who was meant to be fixing the corruption within the system, didn't even investigate? Maybe Luna's the one burning Kirkwall down at the end of Act 2, never mind the Arishok. XD I could genuinely see her allying with him, at least until the issues of what to do with Isabela and the mages came up, at which point she's always going to pick her loved ones over ridiculous concepts like 'honour' and 'single combat'. I don't see a way she survives leading the Kirkwall Elven Revolution but who knows, maybe she escapes with Isabela and Fenris and lives like a pirate queen?

Rhiannon Hawke in Inquisition

So I usually say Rhiannon should have been at the club or possibly a popstar instead of in Dragon Age 2, but I actually think she'd be a pretty good Inquisitor. She's smart, charismatic, and would make a terrifyingly good cult leader, even if she'd be a little bewildered by it. She'd certainly have a better time there than she did in her own game, or than my canonical Inquisitor did. I do think she'd be a little too trusting, though, and that would get her in a lot of trouble come Trespasser...

Rheyah Adaar in Veilguard

I genuinely think Rheyah would have a much better time in Veilguard than in Inquisition. Sticking to her canonical age, she'd be about 30 when the game starts, which is a little more grownup than Rook reads to me, but that's all to the good - being the baby of the gang at 19 in Inquisition was rough for her, and being one of the grownups along with Neve, Lucanis and Emmrich would be a lot easier for her. I also think she'd probably know Taash as a fellow Vashoth mercenary, and they might even have played with her younger siblings as kids, so she'd definitely be WAY less isolated than she is in Southern Thedas.

I also think she'd be much more likely to attempt to redeem Solas as Rook than as the Inquisitor - in my head, she never quite moves on from him being one of the first people in the Inquisition to show her kindness and treat her like a person only to turn around and say that actually he'd never seen her as a person at all and now only did so unwillingly, but when she's Rook, they've never had that conversation, and she is a strong believer in second chances and forgiveness otherwise.

Cara Hawke Laidir in Origins

Oh no if ever there were a character who should not have been sent to deal with the Fifth Blight... XD Cara's defining character traits are Spoilt Princess with a (Very Well-Hidden) Heart of Gold, so I don't think she'd necessarily be a GREAT leader in this particular hour of need, or deal well with the privations of being on the run.

I do however think that Alistair would immediately be lost to her confidence and force of personality, so at the end of the game Ferelden might end up with Mage Queen Cara ruling at his side (yes I know that's not possible canonically but the canon of Origins never had a Cara to deal with). Would she be good at being Queen? Probably not, but I don't think that would stop her.

Thank you for the ask, anon! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did thinking about it!