#Thrask

[silver-horse]

^^ “friendship/rivalry point allocation should not be taken at full value of who characters are, but rather sometimes simply added for the sake of game mechanical benefits and consequences of choices” 

a very good point

also interesting that Anders constantly gives approval for the kind and moral and helpful choices during both Awakening and DA2. If you keep him in the party constantly and you never do anything shitty, you will literally never lose friendship points with him. I don’t know if there is another character like that.

But people cherry-pick that 1 single instance where he gives friendship points for an evil choice as some sort of proof that he is bad. With this logic all the above listed characters would be hated ( many fan favourite characters in DAO as well. If friendship points is anything to go by then Morrigan is irredeemable and I say that as someone who really likes her).

And even in this one instance if you don’t do the evil thing, you won’t gain rivalry with Anders, so my point stands that you can always do the most moral thing and you will never lose friendship points with Anders. That’s not the case for the other companions.

(Oh and other characters also give mild disapproval if we turn down their flirting, even if they are politely turned down. For example Zevran. It’s actually kinda realistic, people in the real world also don’t feel warm and fuzzy when they experience rejection. That doesn’t mean he “took it as an insult” this is again just an approval thing. Of course the developers thought it’s logical to not gain friendship when you turn someone down. However the actual dialogue is polite when they are rejected. They accept it immediately and don’t throw a hissy fit like real men often do.)

why is Anders like. so liked in the fandom. I don't get it he's voiced support for tevinter slavery and is just. downright cruel to fenris about everything. and if you try to not flirt with him and say you aren't interested just after apologizing for his friend being made tranquil he takes it as an insult

Some of the main reasons I like Anders:

His multifaceted advocacy for equal rights for mages, including going as far as risking his life to help mages escape the Gallows and get out of Kirkwall

He himself has gone through a lot of trauma in the Circles, including but not limited to an entire year of solitary confinement, and yet he gave up the only protection he had from them (the Grey Wardens) because he couldn’t stand him having freedoms that other mages didn’t

He does nothing in half measure, and is so full of passion for the people and things he cares about—and this isn’t just special with Hawke, lest we forget he travelled all the way to Kirkwall in the first place because of Karl, and even before that lest we forget the very reason he merged with Justice was to help his friend

Speaking of Justice, I really like how much his personality and Justice’s personality in Awakening blend together in his character in DA:2; it truly is a matter of showing what is told in the way you can pick pieces of both characters as they were separately now merged together, and I find that to be a really interesting and unique piece of character progression that not only builds him as a person, but adds to and reflects the worldbuilding with how magic and spirits work

He’s super open with affection in his romance, and just like Merrill, declares his love for Hawke without hesitation

When he’s not with Hawke, he’s providing free health care for Kirkwall citizens and refugees that the rest of the city openly shuns and attacks, and in return they protect and love him; he is at the same time showing people mages aren’t scary, but people just like them just by doing what he does

As a “Zillennial” I can’t help but like and relate to his nihilistic sense of humour

And to respond to your points:

“He's voiced support for Tevinter slavery”

...Where? Show me where in the game that Anders says slavery in Tevinter is okay actually.

If you are only referring to the allocation of friendship points if Hawke is an evil motherfucker who gives Fenris back to Danarius, then I would like to counter this with the fact that the friendship/rivalry point allocation for all the companions is messed up at times. And in fact in regards to that specific scenario, they should all openly attack Hawke for doing such, in my opinion. Leliana and Wynne attack the Warden for poisoning the Sacred Ashes, but apparently no one even tries to stop Hawke selling Fenris back into slavery? Really, Gaider?

Anyway, some other examples of the friendship/rivalry point allocation being really morally messed up and/or OOC:

Fenris gains +10 friendship if Hawke threatens to expose Thrask having had a mage daughter unless Thrask pays them, and +10 rivalry for promising to keep Thrask’s secret

Aveline gains +10 rivalry for attacking Varian the slaver

Merrill gains +5 friendship for accepting Torpor’s bargain to possess Feynriel, and +5 rivalry for killing Torpor

Aveline gains +10 friendship for turning Keran over to Meredith, and +10 rivalry for letting him go

Aveline gains +10 friendship for allowing Isabela to negotiate with Castillon the slaver, and +5 rivalry for killing him

Varric gains +5 friendship for allowing Isabela to negotiate with Castillon the slaver, and +5 rivalry for killing him

So lets look at that last point as a similar example to Anders’ friendship/rivalry change during the quest Alone. Varric and Aveline gain friendship points for letting a slaver go free, and rivalry points for killing him. Are you going to say Varric and Aveline support slavery too, then? Or are you going to acknowledge that friendship/rivalry point allocation should not be taken at full value of who characters are, but rather sometimes simply added for the sake of game mechanical benefits and consequences of choices, and don’t make sense?

“He’s downright cruel to Fenris about everything”

Yeah. They’re rude to each other. They have a hostile relationship and it’s not good, but the way you’re phrasing this is as if it’s only a one-way street. Fenris is also rude to Anders about everything.

This isn’t to say that either negates the other, but that they are on the same level of antagonism. It’s not just Anders bullying Fenris, or just Fenris bullying Anders. They are both at fault.

“If you try to not flirt with him and say you aren't interested just after apologizing for his friend being made tranquil he takes it as an insult”

I do agree that the dialogue here is messy.

I would like to point out though, that it is entirely possible to get through it without flirting and without him trying to initiate anything. I know because I literally just did it with my new playthrough I started.

Anyway, this blog loves and supports Anders. ✌

[bookishnewt]

I haven't watched much dnd but its funny that a few of my favorites are in a similar ballpark. Not to mention two of them are played by the same person.

[flashhwing]

amazing how quickly Fenris dialogue brings you from “shut the fuck up about mages” to “fuck YES eat his heart out baby” back to “man we get it you hate magic”

[vulptilla]

It's Hawke/Blackwall hours in this household tonight, so I just have to rave a little about how cathartic it feels that Katla, after enduring so much loss since Lothering, outright refused to let Blackwall to be consumed by his guilt. It's so deeply fitting to her personality and past experiences that she'd resort to questionable means to save him—because, unlike the countless times she'd been powerless to save those she loved, this time, she actually had the power to act.

And she did act. No questions asked.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

I'm just saying Alriks absolute horrid treatment of mages seems way more acceptable to templars and easy to cover up, than Sir Thrask just...being nice to mages, which he says will make him ostracized within his order.

[sapphim]

very funny how playing through dragon age with Carver and a non-mage Hawke turns Carver into thedas's biggest #acab advocate. Carver watched one viral video about how you shouldn't talk to cops and immediately made that the basis of his entire personality. you so much as breathe in a templar's direction and your baby brother immediately starts giving you the stinkeye.

[elsa-targaryen]

In other news… turns out we had to go all the way to Tevinter to actually find a Templar that I like.

She’s got a poor taste in men, though. She can do better.

[littlelostmabari]

Chapter 20: The End Begins (Part IV)

In which things boil over for Saoirse and Hawke.

We finally reached "Best Served Cold"! This chapter was meant to go one way but then Saoirse decided "no eff that" and we ended up with 5k words of this one scene which I'm extremely proud of... <3

Fandom: Dragon Age 2 / Dragon Age Inquisition

Current Pairings: Cullen Rutherford x OC. Background F!Hawke x Anders

Rating: M (Canon-typical violence & behavior, check tags & CW on chapters)

Links: Whole Work | Chapter 20 | Saoirse Character Sheet

(Dividers by cafekitsune)

A rush of air pummeled her in the chest, but she leaned into it as a wild whirlwind encapsulated her. A soft tinkle of laughter pressed against her earlobe and from that point a wave crested over her skin leaving hard planes of bark in its wake. Greenery stuck in hair that frizzed from under her hood, and from her feet came ripples of brush and vines that climbed across the ground. They covered everything in a radius around her, including Carver, in a thick weave of brambles. Her feet passed over them without issue as she traced a circle in the brambles, then pressed the toes of one foot behind her and crouched into a defensive position. When she opened her eyes, they locked onto Grace with the green-yellow glow of Chauntea's faun.

"You bitch," Saoirse called out in a monotone, her voice taking on the glacial pace of the great tree. "You will not touch him."

[trans-ruffboi]

night terrors makes so much less sense with feynriel in the circle

[miraculan-draws]

Meredith...is such a good villain. She's so perfectly nasty. She's real but she's just campy enough. She dresses herself to look like Andraste. The god complex of it all.

And Hawke by act 3 being so...not COCKY bc that implies some falsehood. Apostate Hawke, in act 3, knOWS, has PROVED time and time again, that they are Apostate Number One. There is no bigger fish to fry. Hawke knowing, with every conversation, that it will come down to them vs Meredith in the ring. And they are SALIVATING for it. And Meredith can't do anything!! Money is power. Hawke is backed by the nobility. Hawke is backed by the Fereldans. Hawke is backed by the Underworld. She can't move against them like she would any Lowtown apostate. And HAWKE KNOWS OHHHH THEY LOVE RUBBING IT IN HER FACE THEY'RE PRACTICALLY FLAUNTING IT. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR FARE. The "We'll catch up at the Gallows, knight-commander, I've been eagerly awaiting a duel with you." THE FUCKER THAT KILLED THE ARISHOK IN SINGLE COMBAT??? fuck I love them. One of the tastiest rivalries in the series is Meredith vs. Mage Hawke.

(And while Meredith is too busy being pissed at Hawke for being King Bitch, Anders and Thrask are basically emptying the Gallows right under her nose. He is being a cunt for the People.)

[redlyriumidol]

things that would have been cool writing choices for dragon age imo, not necessarily better just interesting:

loghain doing the dark ritual on his own if the warden chooses not to. I'm not sure this is in character really it just would have been wild for a character to make a Decision like that without you. maybe only if you have low approval or something (even though its difficult to get approval either way bc you get him so late)

anders somehow using gaatlok to blow up the chantry. much as i enjoy digging through sewers for poo crystals this would have tied the various plots between acts together so nicely. this one i legitimately think would have been better.

I said this in a different post but not allowing you to go to the circle during the arl of redcliffe because it's a cheap copout and makes no sense. either give us consequences for running off and spending 300 hrs in the fade or force us to make a hard choice.

a fourth secret persuade option for mage wardens to let eamon be possessed instead of killing connor or isolde. I know i've said this a lot. But the deal would be Arl Deamon agrees to act the part until the blight is over and the dialogue is slightly different during the landsmeet etc and ur the only one who knows why. ;) epilogue slide where he's eventually discovered and killed but not before he Wreaks some Havoc

giving thrask and grace more protagonism in da2 and having them survive, and THEY become the mage/templar leaders in dai rather than randos samson and calpernia.

an acknowledgment in the anders romance that justice is ALSO in love with hawke. awakening anders was a fun flirty commitmentphobe whereas justice was an intense weirdo about kristoff and aura's relationship and even expressed jealousy towards them. which was soooo interesting. anders being so intense and lowkey possessive (love him tho) in the romance makes so much more sense if it's actually coming from justice. "justice doesn't approve of my obsession with you" bro justice IS the obsession be fr.

isabela not betraying you in the fade if she has 100% approval and is romanced. i always find this out of character especially since she betrays you JUST for a ship and not anything actually meaningful like the others. or if it was a ship but the demon's offer was more explicitly about freedom/escaping from castillon (which can be read btwn the lines but I think it should have been more obvious) that would have been much better.

[reduxulousoctopus]

X-Men '97, Post-Episode 7, ~2500 words Morpherine established relationship, missing scene (unless the show actually does explore what happened during that fight, in which case boy is there egg on my face).

I follow established show canon by referring to Morph as he/him in diegetic works (fanfic and fan art) and they/them in non-diegetic works (my episode analyses and reblogs), because that's the stupidest option and, like Morph, I am also an enby with a terrible sense of humor.

Now come watch me struggle to write two whole lines of dialogue for one of my favorite characters in the series, Beast, because Me Too Stupid to Write Smart Talk Good.

--

“You wanna explain what the hell happened back there?”

Although he considers pretending he didn’t hear the question, Morph reluctantly glances across the center aisle of the Blackbird to see Logan glaring back at him with an expression as hard as the adamantium underneath it. Although it’s a look he’s seen plenty of times before as an innocent bystander, Morph has only been the target of that glare on a handful of occasions. Usually when he’s severely fucked something up. Or when Logan is completely out-of-his-mind, cuckoo-bananas worried about him.

Morph suspects that this time, it’s a little Column A, a little Column B.

A wiser person might realize they were in a hole and stop digging; Morph smirks and asks, “What, the Summers Family Reunion? Well, you see, when a man and the clone of his wife love each other very much…” Morph chuckles. “By the way, this might be a bit creepy to say as one of his honorary uncles, but Baby Nathan grew up to be a serious hottie—emphasis on serious.”

No laugh. Okay, maybe that wasn’t his best material, but not even a lip twitch? Logan must be pissed.

Morph sighs and slouches in his seat. God, he doesn’t want to talk about this right now. Or maybe ever. He can feel his throat literally closing up to stop the words from coming out.

When enough time has passed that what little patience Logan had left in the tap completely runs dry, he goes right for the jugular: “I thought you were dead. Again.”

Morph winces.

“I saw that… ‘Trask Sentinel’ blow your goddamn head off. Then, next thing I know, you’re up and walkin’ around like nothing happened.”

“Not that you’re complaining, right?” Morph asks with a weak attempt at a laugh. “You know what they say about gift horses. Although, you’d think the lesson from the Trojan War would be that you should look gift horses in the mouth.”

From the seat behind him, Morph hears: “Although it’s a common misconception, that phrase actually has nothing to do with the Trojan Horse. The proverbial ‘gift horse’ is a literal, living horse, and to look it in the mouth—”

“With all those books you read,” Logan grumbles, “I thought at least one of them would've taught you it's rude to eavesdrop.”

“It would be difficult not to overhear, given the two of you are speaking quite loudly in a confined space while surrounded by people,” Beast points out. “Have you considered that this perhaps isn’t the best venue for a private conversation?”

“He is a super-genius. We’d better listen to him,” Morph tells Logan. “We’ll talk later, okay big guy?”

The stubborn set of that heavy jaw says Logan knows damn well ‘later’ means ‘never,’ and he isn’t gonna let Morph weasel out of this that easy. “If you ever want me to let you off this plane, you’ll talk now.”

“Let me?” Morph scoffs. He transforms into Quicksilver, puts on his best smug speedster grin, and says, “Just try and stop me, slowpoke.”

To his shock, Logan actually flinches. It’s a subtle thing, Morph might not have even noticed if he didn’t know Logan so well. The cause eludes him, however—until Morph remembers that he looked like Maximoff when the Thrask Sentinel… when everything went dark and quiet for a few seconds.

Funny. There was a time when Morph, blinded by youthful naivety and hero-worship, would have insisted Wolverine wasn’t afraid of anything.

Returning to his default form, Morph mutters out an apology. He tries to imagine what it would be like to see Logan die, only for him to get up a few seconds later and act like nothing happened. With that healing factor of his, they’ve gotten damned close to that exact scenario more than a few times.

How much worse would it feel, if Logan had kept his quick-healing abilities secret and Morph had to find out the hard way?

Morph takes a breath, looks out the window at the black clouds rushing by, and starts from the beginning.

“You know how most of us don’t know we’re mutants until we hit puberty, and our powers manifest? Well… I didn’t have to wait that long. Problem is, since I was just a baby, I had no idea how to control my powers—no more than a normal baby is born knowing how to walk or talk.

He holds out his hands with his palms cupped together to form a shallow, makeshift bowl.

“When I was born, I looked like a wriggling lump of white clay, about yay-big. No arms or legs, no face, no ears, no eyes. Just a mouth that would appear somewhere on my body whenever I was hungry or wanted to cry.”

Whatever Logan was expecting to hear, from the look on his face, it clearly wasn’t that.

“But even at that tender age, someone clearly recognized my star potential. I was only two days old when I made my media debut: Severely Deformed MUTANT Born In Pittsburgh Hospital.” Morph shrugs. “Not the most positive review, I’ll admit, but you know what they say: all publicity is good publicity. After all, that’s how the professor found me.”

Logan’s frown returns, more confused than angry. “You told me you didn’t meet Xavier until you were thirteen—after your mom passed.”

“That’s when I moved to the Institute. Turns out we actually met quite a lot earlier than I remembered, which is pretty embarrassing. Ideally, you don’t want to meet your future high school principal, college instructor, mentor, and world famous civil rights leader while wearing a diaper. Even worse, I was wearing a diaper, too—and I told him, mister, one of us is going to have to go home and change his outfit and it sure isn’t going to be me.”

That gets him a smile and a huff of a laugh, which would be an encouraging sign if he didn’t know how the story ends.

“So Xavier talked to my parents, explained the whole ‘mutant thing.’ Dad wasn’t happy. Then again, I’m not sure he ever was. He would have been disappointed to have a girl—a sentient lump of polymorphic biomass was right out. Thankfully, Xavier was able to use his telepathy to coach me through my very first transformation. He showed me how to turn into a normal baby boy, who would eventually grow up to look like this.”

Morph transforms into his old default, the one he still uses whenever he wants to pass: pale (although not that pale) skin, brown eyes, brown hair, hooked nose, pointed chin, gaunt cheeks, arched brows. Not exactly Fabio, but it’s the face Logan used to know him by—the face he sometimes worries Logan might secretly still prefer.

“Then he put some psychic blocks in place to limit my powers to something a bit more… manageable. Don’t give me that look. It sounds shady, but the professor messing with my head was the only reason I got to have a normal, happy childhood with my parents. God only knows what would have happened otherwise—if I’d even be alive now.”

The worry and suspicion that appeared on Logan’s face at the mention of psychic tampering grudgingly fade away. “When did you find out?” he asks instead.

“A couple months after the professor… y’know,” Morph sighs. “I hacked his personal files. Since he wouldn’t be around anymore to help you recover your memories, I hoped that maybe I could find something small he overlooked, some clue that might give us an idea where to look next.”

Logan’s eyes widen and his mouth goes slightly slack. “Morph…”

“I didn’t find anything, before you get excited. Not about you, anyway. Sure found out a lot about myself, though—a lot more than I was bargaining for.”

“That’s when your default form changed,” Logan realizes.

“Yeah. It was kind of hard to think of this,” Morph replies, gesturing at the face of his human-passing form, “as my ‘real’ face after that. Not that my new look is any more real, of course.”

“Who else knows?”

“Other than our friends listening to this conversation right now?” Morph asks pointedly, causing an entire plane full of X-Men to each make their best attempt at looking busy. Nightcrawler’s method of peering thoughtfully at the radio controls with one hand on his chin is particularly masterful—Logan mentioned he used to perform in a circus, so it’s no wonder he’s got such a good instinct for stage-business. “I told Hank and Moira not long after I found out. Seemed like a bad idea to keep that information from my doctors. Especially when one of them is also my therapist.”

At receiving a glare from Logan, Beast develops a sudden and convenient fascination with the view through the Blackbird’s window.

“But you didn’t want anyone else to know.” Logan could accept that, even if he doesn’t like it. Nothing personal. A man’s business is man's business, after all—even for a not-quite-man like Morph.

Too bad it wouldn’t be the truth; no more ‘real’ than any face that Morph wears.

“I didn’t want you to know.”

Morph can handle Logan’s anger, no problem. That’s almost charming, after all these years. But it’s the flicker of hurt, just like that little flinch earlier, that really cuts him to the quick.

“Not because I don’t trust you, or want to keep things from you or anything, it’s just… I didn’t—I couldn’t—”

He sighs and looks away again. He transforms back into his new default: smooth white skin, mask-like face. Obviously inhuman.

Still a lot more human than he looked when he was born, though.

“So, yeah. That’s why I’ve apparently gained the ability to survive having my head blown off. It sure would have been handy to know that my organs were optional the last time a Sentinel put me down. Now, instead of being out of commission for two years I’ll never get back, I can just squish myself back together and keep on keepin’ on.”

Logan doesn’t respond, and slowly, the mutter of other conversations step in to fill the void. Morph stares at nothing, sick with nerves. It’s deeply unfair that he can still feel nauseous even though he doesn’t have a stomach anymore.

He would say it’s all in his head, but if he can survive without one, maybe he doesn’t have a brain, either.

Badum-tch.

Good line. Hopefully he’ll remember it after the existential horror wears off, in the brief window when things will be funny again before the heartbreak sinks in.

Because there’s dropping a bombshell on a relationship—then there’s dropping a fucking nuke.

Oh God. There isn’t going to be a window, is there?

“Morph. Look at me.”

Although he considers pretending he didn’t hear the command, Morph reluctantly glances across the center aisle of the Blackbird to see Logan looking back at him with an expression as soft as the heart he usually tries to hide.

“No matter what you look like, there’s one thing you’ve never been able to change,” Logan tells him. “That’s real enough for me.”

A wiser person might realize they were in a hole and stop digging; Morph can’t stop himself from opening his big stupid mouth. No wonder that was the one feature even Baby Morph knew to give himself. “There are more blocks Xavier left behind that I haven’t pushed through, yet. Maybe I’ll even figure out how to change my scent, someday.”

From the look on his face, Logan clearly hadn’t considered that possibility. Morph immediately wishes he could take it back, feeling like he’s just tarnished something sacred.

It’s always been strangely intimate, the way Logan can recognize him by scent alone. Even from the beginning, when Morph decided to pull a prank on the grumpy new recruit, only for Wolverine to sniff him out mere seconds into his planned routine—it was as if, like the Emperor’s New Clothes, he suddenly realized he had been naked the entire time.

Another, smarter shapeshifter might have avoided Logan after that; Morph couldn’t get enough.

One-sided pestering turned into an unlikely friendship, turned into friends-with-benefits, turned into… whatever they have now. That which dares not speak its name.

The thought of losing that connection, the idea that someday he may be able to change himself so thoroughly that even Logan won’t be able to recognize him anymore… It’s too awful. Cursed knowledge. Like learning about the solar cycle when he was a kid, and suddenly having the horrible realization: if even the sun is going to die someday, what makes him so sure Mom will get better?

Out of the corner of his eye, Morph sees Logan’s hand start to move, stop, then start again, reaching across the aisle towards him. For a insane, terrifying moment, he thinks Logan’s about to hold his hand, outing them in front of God, the other X-Men, and everybody—but of course, that enormous, rough mitt lands on his shoulder instead. Perfectly platonic, approved for all audiences by S&P.

Though they’re shooting through the air at supersonic speed, under the heavy weight of that hand, Morph feels rooted to stable ground. He closes his eyes and takes a few slow breaths he doesn’t actually need, with lungs he only has when he remembers to make himself some.

If there are any people left when the sun finally burns out in a few billion years, they’ll still be telling each other jokes as they go into that endless good night. Just think of the money we’ll save on sunscreen. Maybe, but you know the light-bulb companies are gonna take us to the cleaners. Ha ha, freeze frame, theme song, end credits.

Even as her body slowly wasted away under the combined onslaught of cancer and chemo, Mom always laughed at his jokes, no matter how many times she heard the one about the chicken who crossed the road. His most appreciative audience, to the very last curtain call.

The world is pretty fucking scary right now, and only getting scarier. Sinister. Genosha. Losing Gambit. Sentinels again, in all new and even more monstrous forms. Even worse: total war between humans and mutants looming over the horizon, shaking the ground with each step, getting closer and more inevitable every time someone mentions it, like a demon whose power grows every time you says its name.

But just because things are scary doesn’t mean the world's turning into a horror movie, and just because things are sad doesn’t make it a tragedy. Everyone gets to choose the genre of their life story—and Morph will always pick comedy.

He gives the hand on his shoulder a friendly pat, and uses the motion to disguise a slightly more-than-friendly squeeze. “I’m alright, just a little airsick. I think it’s making me maudlin.”

As he pulls his hand back, Logan frowns a little in confusion—he knows Morph is experienced enough in the air that he shouldn’t be getting nauseous over what are, for the Blackbird, barely above pleasure-cruise speeds.

“How unfair is that, by the way?” Morph asks. “I don’t even have a stomach right now.”

Logan chuckles. Nah, baby, don’t give it up for me that easy, Morph thinks, fighting a grin. You gotta make me work for it a little…

He needn’t have worried, though. When he does make it to the punchline, Logan laughs so hard that he snorts, the laugh-lines Morph has personally carved into that seemingly indestructible face creasing and growing deeper still. And as their friends who Definitely Weren’t Eavesdropping join in—even Rogue, so teary and congested that her laughs would sound like sobs if she wasn’t smiling—Morph knows all their attempts to hide their relationship have been for nothing, because there’s no way that all the love he feels for Logan in that moment isn’t writ large all over whichever face he's wearing right now.

That’s real enough for him.

[grapecaseschoices]

the difference between noah's convo with anders and maior's convo with anders is so fufcking funny.

maior shutting down convos before they get anywhere.

so they have subtitles in this game

[vigilskeep]

insane how if you say you’ll kill thrask you get completely different behaviour from the templars who immediately try to kill you despite not having heard any of that

[teddywesworl]

cullen fic is basically just a character sketch but it is also an exercise in unreliable narrator (telegraphed, even: "The Seeker looks at him with sharp, impatient eyes and tells him that he does not see himself clearly.") because, surprising no one, one of my absolute favorite flavors of blorbo is "hypercompetent pathetic meow meow"

sorry to keep going on and on but he coulda been such a good character if someone had just committed to and elevated everything about him. bro says (and DOES) some nazi shit in da2!!! and he means it!!!!!! but he got to that point bc he was Literally Tortured for... do we know how long he was in that cage, actually??? days, at minimum. and then the warden frees him and secures mages for the war effort and ties all that neatly up with a bow except cullen's angry and traumatized and a church cop and NINETEEN YEARS OLD and the templars don't have a mental health department so bro radicalizes himself and gets his ass transferred to kirkwall (INSANE MOVE, GREAGOIR) and for some fuckin reason he gets promoted to knight-captain, literally second in command to Meredith, at the age of TWENTY-ONE

like it's easy to see that last bit and go hmm. weird choice, writers. why would meredith do that. but it's way more interesting to put on ur thinking cap and ask: why would meredith do that. what possessed her to look at this spitting mad wet cat from a dumpster and elevate him to SECOND!!! in command. and the first and most obvious reason is: that boy vulnerable & impressionable & Will Not Question Her. and the second more fun to think about reason is: what if he's actually that good? what if he's actually that good. what if he can fuckin toast alrik and thrask and karras and all them with a hand tied behind his back. what if he can snuff out the mana pool of a room full of senior enchanters without breaking a sweat. what if this traumatized little alt-right church cop dumpster cat plays urban warfare like it's chess. now he's dangerous. now he's less a cameo background character and more a black cloud on the horizon labeled 'future villain material.'

but he ignores a mage hawke for like six years. but he doesn't chase the rumors of a spirit healer in darktown. but he sides with hawke against meredith in the end, even if hawke keeps Anders at their side. and then, and THEN, the next time we the audience meet cullen, he has chosen to voluntarily stop taking lyrium, thereby stripping himself of all the power of a templar and potentially damning himself to madness and/or death.

hello????????????????????????????

[sapphim]

"most fuckable templar in thedas" poll but the options are just barris, thrask, emeric, and that one templar in lothering who was like "well yeah I'd be pretty fucking stupid if I couldn't sense the magic in your blood wouldn't I? lmao" what was his deal. I need to know his story. anyway this is my truth.