#IT'S DEIAS BACKSTORY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lavellane · 18 days ago

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expanding on this and recapping some oc lore now i have the full context of the game. so ive mentioned in a prev post that deia and her two older brothers were saved from venatori by the inquisition when she was a kid (she was 19 at this point, 28/29 in game by datv) and travelled with them for a few days on their way back to skyhold. when i say the inquisition i literally mean ashara, solas, and cole and varric. some INTEGRAL points here

her oldest brother, the playful/irresponsible/freedom loving evander, spent most of that trip with solas

matthas, the second son, self-serious, stubborn and noble, clung to ashara and quickly became enamored with her and the promise of her inquisition.

deiadre, who had been the most injured in the attack, didnt spend (much) time with ashara or solas and only really remembers them through the biased recounts of her brothers. instead, she was kept company by varric.

cole was there the whole time but the mercars did not see or at least remember him, but he was the one who made the trip so happy and meaningful and perhaps why it affected so much in the grand scheme of things. fun fact they were probably on their way back from coles spirit/human quest!

anyway re: the varricmance - she instantly developed a crush lol. it didnt go anywhere bc varric obviously would give the time of day to a literal 19yo but she returned to tevinter with a signed copy of his book and wanted to be just like him and also be WITH him lol bc she had a teenagers infatuation. over the years of working in the inquisition with her brothers, she kept in contact with him, helping with the odd job here and there. 6 years later, after evander was discovered as an agent of fen'harel and ashara stripped the mercar family of their agent ranks, varric was the one who talked ashara down from a manhunt to find and capture evander. he also reached out to deia and he really was the only fucking person she had left ("me? i always wind up babysitting my informants and worrying about their families" lol). having been abandoned by the inquisition, burned by fen'harel, and alienated from her broken family, varric became her family. and from that point she stopped having a crush on him and instead fell in love with him.

a few more things bc i truly am seeing the light of the varricmance over here lol:

brotherly baggage

theyre both the younger sibling now unwittingly the head of their respective households. both forced into positions of leadership they do not want

both tied to the inquisition and solas and arguably worse off for being involved with both of them

both easygoing, funny and big believers in optimism and having a normal one

theyre both motivated by Getting It Right. varric wants to fix the relationship between himself and solas. deia wants to fix the relationship between herself and her brothers

hawke —> rook :) bird motif :) and deia loves birds!!!!!!! she gets her nickname from her mother, who refers to their family as the rookery, but then it was varric who suggested she use that as her alias while assuming work with the shadow dragons.

in addition, varric was unrequitedly in love with cillian hawke before hawke died. now deia is unrequitedly (???) in love with varric

so bearing all that in mind, when varric asked her to come help him help solas, she went gladly. not just because she associates saving solas from himself with saving her brothers from themselves, but also (and mostly) because she would follow varric anywhere.

and then he died. lol. did she know that ? not for several months ! lol ! and do i imagine she finally confessed to dead!varric during these months believing he was alive, only for her to realize that she had been too late and never got the chance to tell him how she felt or what he thought of it :) yeah girl. and i think theres a real shift in that moment where she is no longer Team Redeem when it comes to solas. she wants that twink obliterated. and she know longer sees her kind, complicated brothers in him, she sees the fucking Dread Wolf. but ultimately she does redeem him because of one point in particular: varric.

varric died trying to save solas from himself. he believed – up until the exact moment of his death — that solas could be better. and deia HAS to believe that varric was right. and she HAS to finish what varric started. so she gives solas the forgiveness and atonement that varric wanted, thereby making sure varric didnt die in vain, and that varric ultimately achieved what he had set out to do. because in the end she redeemed solas in varric's name, not for his benefit, or ashara's or evanders or matthas' or even for her own. but for varric

by the way deia is a varricmancer now :)

#oc: deiadre #tay plays datv #datv #datv spoilers #straight up wrote this for myself btw im too lazy to format this like a coherent text post. what u see is what u get lol #its actually so funny how much my own made up backstory for rook makes my experience playing this game fundamentally better lol #im going to play as deia one more time and see if i can get the lore right in my head. and then i think i can finally put this game to bed #lol

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lavellane · 7 days ago

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19 22 and 29 for Deia Evander and Matthas in that order!!

19. What is Rook’s love language? What love languages do they respond best to?

hmmm so i think if you were to ask HER she would likely say quality time ! deia grew up in a big family of 8 people (5 siblings + her parents + herself) all in one cramped little house, so while it was not always the most calm or enjoyable of upbringings, she does associate it with never being lonely and always feeling love in the room she's occupying. i think ultimately having the family break down was really hard on her and she really isnt accustomed to being alone, and so having a loved one make time for her to just stay by her side, not leave, and enjoy her company a great deal :)

(i, personally, might argue that her True love language is gift giving. a downside of being a part of a big/poor family is not having a lot that you can call "yours". so receiving a gift made just for her would DELIGHT her for sure :))

22. Most embarrassing memory as a teenager:

haze im soooo sorry ik u said evander -> matthas but i think im going to answer this one for matthas just bc he is so deeply embarrassing just in general and so this really speaks to the crux of his character. and actually this question ties neatly into the mercar-trio's backstory so thats fun!!

during dai, matthas (18 at the time), evander (21) and deiadre (15) were all attacked by venatori while on the road to skyhold to set up a diplomatic alliance with the inquisition. fortunately they were saved by the inquisitior herself, ashara/solas/varric/cole returning back from some sidequests or whatever who even cares lol. anyway during that time leading them back to skyhold, evander bonded with solas and deia bonded with varric, but matthas "bonded" with ashara. as in she said maybe like 20 words to him over the course of 2 days and maybe smiled at him once and he fell absolutely horrendously humiliatingly in love with her. at least he believed it was love - in truth it was more loving the idea of her and drinking the herald of andraste koolaid, but he was absolutely insufferable to be around from that point onwards. teenager-in-their-first-twitter-fandom level insufferable LMAO. he had an almost uncanny ability to relate ANY conversation topic to Inquisitior Lavellan in one way or shape. he took up any cause of hers as if it was his own. they had come to work out a deal with josephine and that was it, but matthas actually ended up staying in skyhold with the inquisition and serving ashara for several years, pining after her like a puppy dog from the grand hall every time she walked by. whenever he returned home to minrathous for family holidays he would be bullied within an inch of his life by deia and evander. i wish i could say he grew out of this phase but honestly if ever he runs into ashara in person during veilguard he would lose the ability to speak commons entirely lol. if he had a personal quest, it would be rook helping him get over his sad down horrendous situationship :(

29. Any vices?

evander is a basically just 7000 little vices in a trenchcoat at this point. he's a hedonist through and through so its kind of a minor miracle he's also dead broke 90% of the time so he cant do anything too crazy. but yes, all the vices. enjoys drinking, sleeping around, thinks of kleptomania as an artform to be perfected, likes causing fights On Purpose and then bailing, and loves to lie and cheat <3

he's also deeply kind, gentle and selfless when he wants to be. but mainly the vices LMAO. i think if i was to point to anything specific i'd say he's a bit of a chronic graffiti artist. in fact he and deia bonded when she was a girl bc he essentially taught her parkour lmao, or at least navigating the shortcuts and rooftops of minrathous to find all the best places to tag in direct view whichever authority was upsetting him the most that week. he's a very creative man and likes to channel it in very aggravating ways. he and deia have that in common lmao !

#oc: deia #oc: evander #oc: matthas #TY FOR ASKING LOVE U MWAH <3 #datv

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shiroselia · 5 months ago

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8 chapters left to write and the next chapter I'm writing is [checks notes] DEIA'S BACKSTORY REVEAL???

#How #Did we #Get here??#Dude literally a month ago I was writing chapters in the mid 80s #Now I'm in the last 120s #A month ago they didn't even know Concorde was dead #Now I'm telling the readers what Deia's deal is???????#That is intentionally the Literal Last Reveal in the Entire Fucking First Part????

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shiroselia · 11 months ago

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Welcome! To Manda Tries To Talk About One of Her SSO OCs Without Spoiling Her Longfic!

So, now that Dorian's little poll thing trend is going around I really felt an itch to talk about my horse game OCs. One problem, however, I'm the author of a lore heavy, rewrite fic of which one of my OCs is the main character of. Nevertheless, my other OC works off of the exact same lore foundation, meaning that talking about her Too will get slightly dodgy and weavy. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna try though! (This gets long, I love talking about writing and characters. You all know that my longfic is insanely long already. You have been warned.)

Introducing; Freyja Winterbird!

Freyja is my NA Alt, and is just like Deia, not actually named her proper name in-game. Her "actual" name is Amanda Winterbird, but just like Deia, the Amanda is only there because Amanda is me, and that's not their canonical names regardless. (Not to mention, their names don't exist in game-) I instead like to think that Amanda is my OCs' first name, while their middle names are their actual given names, meaning that Freyja's "official" name would be Amanda Freyja Winterbird.

I generally worked very closely to canon when I created my horse game OCs. That is to say, as one might notice, Deia is inspired by the old intro text, and Freyja is somewhat inspired by a rework of Deia's circumstances. I also have their actual story arcs work very closely to canon, but naturally, I cannot go into details about that given that that's what a certain fanfic of mine is about. (Read A Quintessential Jorvegian Summer Vacation To Find Out More-) This is usually the exception though, given that all of my original stories originally come from me reworking a work I already enjoy, and dodging copyright laws by making it completely unrecognizeable. My SSO OCs are actually SSO OCs though, and not simply original characters of mine in an original universe, so they don't have as heavy reworks as my other OCs, naturally. That is to say, I change a lot, but not too much for once, while cherry picking what I want to keep and throwing the rest out head first.

Freyja's actual lore is that she is a mirror version of Deia. Think alternate universe, same person, different individual type of thing. Freyja and Deia are ultimately different people, they just exist in each others roles in different timelines, if you will. Which is to say they don't exist in the same universe, except when I want them to for funky and fun content shenanigans. But the general idea is that everything that Deia is, Freyja is too, and everything Deia experiences, kind of, Freyja experiences too, sort of, they simply do them in different ways, take different things from them, and are ultimately different people.

For example! The biggest difference is that while Deia is not from Jorvik, Freyja is born on Jorvik. She's from above the map, if you will, which is to say somewhere from northern Jorvik (details omitted for my own personal convenience), but ends up working at Moorland Stables for a summer, because the stable she usually works at lowkey kicks her out because the stable owner/Freyja's boss thinks it "would be good for her to get away for a bit". Freyja is similarly to Deia rather snarky and relatively pessimistic. Freyja, however, is a lot better at social interaction, and has actual manners. Freyja is also a lot more outgoing and generally friendly, and keeps most of her hostility to herself.

Why Freyja has these pessimisms at all I cannot really talk about, given that since Freyja and Deia share lore, Freyja's backstory works off of details that are also present in Deia's story. Their backstory's are incredibly different, but Freyja's is actually more intertwined with my personal lore, which means that it's actually a bigger spoiler than Deia's backstory, which is only a spoiler because I am setting it up as a future reveal. Let's just say that Freyja has taken the wrong lessons from past upsetting experiences, and is now an expert at bad faith interpreting everything and everyone. (And unlike Deia, Freyja is not semi-verbal.)

While Deia is around 18/19, I imagine Freyja to be slightly older, think 21/22, and while Deia is 157cm, Freyja is 176 instead. And of course, Deia has white hair, and Freyja has black. Which was intentional on my part, yes. I am The achromatic and I refuse to stop. Freyja works with horses full time, and Moorland's riding camp is simply the next stop on her list, while Deia simply takes the job offer at Moorland to [redacted], and will only work there until the school term starts. They also have different birthdays, which is the 3rd of December for Deia, and Freyja's is 27th of November, because those are the dates their respective accounts were created. With a solid year difference of [checks notes] 12 years!

The biggest similarity, of course, is that Deia and Freyja both ride the same horse. Both of them ride a mare named Moonlight, who is the same individual regardless. The main difference between Deia's Moonlight and Freyja's Moonlight is in dynamic with her respective rider, and her personality. While Deia and Moon get along really well and are two old bitches in crime, Freyja is initially dismissive of Moonlight, and it takes some time for the two of them to get along. Moonlight also has different circumstances in her whys, hows, and whens, of course, but that is spoilers so heavy going into Any detail will spoiler Most of the endgame of QuintSum as such. Why Freyja and Moon don't get along initially is, once again, because of Freyja's backstory which spoils details about Deia's Moonlight in QuintSum, so I cannot go into detail, but they have different dynamics with their respective Moonlights. (The biggest difference being Freyja knowing Jorvik's mythology, while Deia doesn't, hint hint.) Moonlight herself is a rather tall mare, standing at 163 at the withers, because I Love bigger horses, and I can do whatever I want. (I imagine her build to be leaning Irish Draught because whoboi do I Love Irish Draughts.) She has long, curly mane and tail, but otherwise looks pretty much exactly the way she does in-game. The tack she wears is also her "canonical" tack in QuintSum, because it is my favourite tack on the JWB.

(I will say, though, I vastly prefer Deia and Moonlight's dynamic, and I'm very glad it's Deia I'm writing the fic about. If we ignore that Deia is my baby who I've had for most of my life, and that Freyja has existed for a whopping three months. I simply believe Deia has the more interesting perspective story wise. Not to mention how Freyja has too much knowledge to reasonably pull QuintSum's set-up off, and the story itself would be Vastly less interesting had the Literal Protagonist known almost everything from the start-)

And before you ask, no, making Deia and Freyja's names rhyme was not intentional, I simply really enjoy the name Freyja (specifically with that spelling in particular), and Deia has had that name for years by now. I think it's pretty funny though!

Sorry for clogging your dash, thank you for reading me ramble about character writing, and come back once QuintSum is finished (or read it if you don't have the patience of a saint) for Deia's character bio, because the lord knows I'm going to Never shut up about Deia once I can fully talk about her on main.

#sso #ssoblr #sso oc #Winterbird Alt

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