#anti carver hawke

[magerightsyeah]

Leandra: These are my children, Bethany and Carver, and their sibling, Hawke

Varric: Are they not all your children? Why doesn’t Hawke get the “child” title?

Leandra: I don’t like them

[bluerose5]

—The eighth page of correspondence has multiple entries, as if written in quick succession of one another.

C, you shouldn't have interfered.

And tell me. What kind of person would I be if I didn't?

It wasn't your place.

I beg to differ. It was exactly my place. My job is to protect the mages in my care.

Don't pull that load of nugshit with me. You've never been that interested in being a templar. Stop acting like your so-called duty matters now.

Just because I didn't want the lot I drew in life doesn't mean that I can't strive to make things better for others. That I can't try and make things better for you. Maker's breath, they were WHIPPING you. What else was I supposed to do?! Sit back and watch? Enjoy the show?

The others certainly did.

Well, I'm not the others.

Yet you're so hesitant to go against your precious status quo. You're so afraid of drastic change. How are you any better than the others when your inaction allows the Chantry's abuses to continue?

Are we really going there?

You're the one in a position of power here. Not me. Use your voice to make some change, damn it. Or was it not enough that I was getting beaten for defending a Tranquil against one of yours? It's easy to ignore the problem when you've convinced yourself that the person being assaulted is nothing more than a walking, talking, breathing object.

We'll talk more about this later. Our usual place?

Fuck you!

—The last words on the page were emphasized with three sharp lines scratched underneath them.

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[glamfellens]

sorry but after recently replaying da2 my aveline haterism is returning to me. key moments include: her complaining to hawke that they are "pouring into a pot that is already full and justifying the fears of every anti-fereldan in kirkwall" like aveline isnt rocking up to you daily to ask you to do the job that she doesnt want the guards doing. yknow. the guards who are paid to protect kirkwall. the time she actively prevented carver's application to the guard progressing at all, to then complain to him that hes hanging out with the wrong sorts of people how she constantly dismisses the increasing numbers of missing and murdered women, eventually saying to hawke (a civilian) that she cant be bothered to look into it but if hawke finds anything worthwhile ( because apparently missing women are not a good enough reason) then she will pick it up. she in fact never picks it up at the end of act 2 tensions between kirkwall and the qunari are at an all time high. despite this, aveline charges into the compound and demands that the qunari turn over the elves who recently converted after murdering a guard who assaulted their sister. its important to note that the elves previously reported this guard to the kirkwall guard and they did nothing, so the elves took justice into their own hands. are you seeing a pattern where the kirkwall guard and their captain aveline are being presented with cases of extreme violence against women and then do nothing about it. lol anyway

[redjennies]

i see you sometimes in different dragon age tags like "oh yeah the lae'zel fan with the redjenny url. who also likes oghren. extreme good taste" and then as an anders girlie i see your "anti"-anders post and im like "yeah they even have good taste in the way they hate my guy"

aw I really appreciate this! I'm really glad people like my takes on Oghren. I almost posted this long ass meta about him while doing my Brosca playthrough but ended up saving it to the drafts because I was like "girl you are the only person going to bat for this man and everyone else is just tolerating your right to be ornery about disliked characters." I just think about him at the Temple of Sacred Ashes a lot. to anyone reading this, if you've never brought him there, you are truly missing out on some fucking wild character work. he is a gem.

truthfully I'm not even really that anti-Anders when I'm not actively in a mood about how much this fandom annoys me. I'm extremely critical of him as a person and full disclosure, without trauma-dumping too much, I do have a personal history that makes it hard for me to not see him as very manipulative if not outright abusive. but I actually quite enjoy him as a character. I think he's got a lot of flaws and strengths that are really interesting to examine how they coincide with Hawke's larger story. how Anders and Hawke are arguably more intrinsically linked to each other than Varric and Hawke are. it might surprise people but I intentionally max out his friendship every time with my main Hawke because I think their particular story is more tragic if she has fully drunk the Anders kool-aid because he's the first unapologetic apostate she's met outside of her family and because he saved Carver in the Deep Roads and she feels like she owes him. even more of a surprise possibly, I love Sebastian and don't like Anders, but my canon ending is Hawke sparing him one last time and asking him to leave because I think that's the best ending for how I play their relationship. like "no, you have asked so much of me and I have done it for you over and over but I'm not going to give you this, even at the expense of my other friendships. you don't get the easy way out. you have to live with this and you have to do it far away from me." like fuck man! the drama! the poetry! the divorce!

honestly most of my vitriol towards him comes from over a decade now of having an extremely negative experience with what I fully recognize are not all his fans but a vocal group of people who plague the Bioware fandom who are just as bigoted as your average fanboy but in a way they can dress up as "social justice." I've said a lot about how I think the Circle and apostates is just straight up a bad metaphor for systemic oppression (see also: any setting with supers and/or legitimately dangerous monsters as stand-in for oppressed people.) and I won't get into it too much here, but it's worth mentioning because I believe the mage rights discourse and Anders particularly attracts this crowd because you know he's a cute queer whiteboy with legitimate problems and pseudo-radical politics. but I was in the DA Tumblr fandom when Inquisition dropped I remember what group of fans on Tumblr who were particularly rabid in their hatred towards characters like Vivienne and Sera (who are both critical of mage freedom, mind.) 'Twas not primarily the Cullenites calling Vivienne an Uncle Tom, no matter what people will tell you now.

and I also get that there's this way Anders haters talk about him that makes even more otherwise reasonable fans dig their heels in about him. like any critique of him that boils down to "Anders bad because he did a terrorism and terrorism bad" is not really useful to me because yeah, I'm not super keen on bombings as the best course of political action, but terrorism is a very politically loaded and at this point somewhat meaningless term that is mostly used to justify extreme violence against a person or group by the state. I don't need to bring up real life examples because the politics of who is and isn't labeled a terrorist being shorthand for who is and isn't a person deserving of basic human rights has become so obvious over the last three decades that everyone knows at least one example of what I'm talking about. on top of that, I'm a big believer that fiction does not and should not exist in a vacuum and good art should provoke discussions about how we view people who do similar things that these fictional characters do. who are we being asked to give empathy to and who are we not? who are we naturally extending empathy to and who are we not? how do we immediately feel about these things? are we outraged? disgusted? moved? does sympathizing with these characters change our understanding of our personal ethical lines? are certain actions justified under dire circumstances or are there certain lines that should never be crossed? are people forever defined by it when they cross said lines? etc etc. none of these questions can be meaningfully answered by "no, thing bad because thing bad."

that being said, I still come down on the side of Anders is a shitty person at the end of the day. not because he blew up that church or even because he tried to kill that girl, but because there's a consistent lack of compassion for the suffering and/or oppression of others the second someone doesn't fit his mold. because he's honestly pretty sexist and racist in universe. because his romance plot is just a series of progressively worsening red flags in a way that's in my opinion, less sexy and more like he's gonna start punching holes in the wall right next to you. because he's lowkey a tankie. and I've said it before and I'll say it til the day I die, we can have a discussion about how ableism influenced his writing, but at the end of the day, as a mentally ill anarchist, I know buckets and buckets of mentally ill leftist whiteboys who act like this. shit I know women and nonbinary people who act like this too. while I can understand that Bioware wasn't necessarily coming from the same perspective I am and think people are right to call his overarching storyline a tired centrist liberal take on the dangers of radicalism, his character writing still feels not only coherent as a character but very true to a particular type of ain't shit anarchist boy I have encountered over and over. i cannot dismiss his flaws and worst moments as bad writing because I feel like I personally know this asshole.

for example, I once made a post about Dissent years and years ago where I was talking about Anders/Justice/Vengeance/whoever we're calling him depending on what's most useful in the moment's outburst of violence towards Ella through the lens of male entitlement even in leftist circles and like yeah I was being a little tongue in cheek about it because a) I'm pretty tongue in cheek in general, b) I have a tendency to get even more tongue in cheek when I'm talking about things that hit a little too close to home to me, and c) that quest is frankly terrifying if you've lived a life that makes you relate more to Ella in that scene than to Anders. I think it was something along the lines of "people can call Anders a revolutionary all they want but when a mage girl was afraid of him instead of grateful for his rescue, he tried to kill her. [insert anarcho-feminist ranting here]" and I remember someone arguing with me about how that's not what happened at all and how even though I was being pithy, their take on the situation was so utterly removed from what occurs that I had to go back and watch the scene to make sure I wasn't the one completely misremembering it which made me realize just how much Anders has been completely rewritten in parts of the fandom consciousness.

which in and of itself is not really a problem. I know some people just don't care for interacting with fanon at all and want to stay as true to canon as possible and I'm like that sometimes, but there are lots of characters I'm like "oh, I don't like how their story went in canon or think the writer had a neat idea but is too misogynistic to handle her in a way I like and I'm going to basically put them in an AU where they developed their traits in a different way and I can recognize this is more or less my version of them." there's characters I don't care for in canon but I love someone else's fanon version of them. I'm even fine with people doing this with Anders, if they want. I've read really good fic with him that is not my take but hey you do you, this is what transformative fandom is for after all. but I do get more than a little prickly when I'm interacting with my reading of canon that is of course informed by my experiences but still discussing something that just literally happens and someone tells me I'm wrong because of what basically amounts to their fanfics, you know?

anyway that's my very long post about my complicated and extremely nuanced Anders feelings. great character, shitty person, his fans are either really cool or really fucking not. also it's been almost fifteen years, and I still think we should've had Jowan in DA2 as a familiar face helping out in the mage underground to both flesh them out more and to serve as a middle ground between the more circle-aligned Orsino and the initially representing the mage underground before getting progressively more Kaczynski-esque, Anders, instead of Cullen just kind of hanging out in the templars not really doing anything.

[hungee-boy]

Feel free to ignore if you’re uncomfortable with or just don’t want to answer but how would you change isebela to not be caricature without changing the whole character? Would it be more fashion changes or physical or something else?

Kinda like: how would you change her if you were her character writer/designer for the new game?

isabela at her core i think is a very compelling character and is relatable to a lot of romani experiences, especially with her doing whatever she has to to survive

i would definitely keep her stealing as castillion's responsibility, him making her steal the tome of koslun under threat of death for example would be fine because if he wasnt in the picture, chances are she wouldnt have stolen it in the first place

other forms of thievery besides just like looting bodies and picking chests (as those are gameplay mechanics for all characters) shouldnt be for her enjoyment or greed, only for her survival or just not done at all

her staying a pirate is fine imo and i like the idea of her being an ethical pirate (like her freeing the slaves castillion had her transport) but we all need to look at how pirates are depicted in fantasy and how much of that is anti-roma racism and caricatures

her being so sexualized and her comments on "life back home" are where i have the biggest issues honestly

like romani women have always been targets of fetishization and sexual violence, as well as many women being sterilized without consent to prevent more romani children being brought into the world

getting some damn clothes on her would be a great start, like some pants at the very least. i would like to incorporate more romani clothing in her design tho like maybe a traditional blouse instead of her usual top

maybe a romanced isabela can have her replace her blue dikhlo with red, since wearing a dikhlo is usually reserved for married women of certain vitsas (most common with eastern european roma if im not mistaken) or giving her a red hipcloth (again specific to certain vitsas)

romani dress is usually modest and loose fitting, with women commonly wearing long skirts and blouses with jewelry and adornments to symbolize her wealth and status and im not saying isabela should be covered head to toe, shes an open person and not every romani woman should be expected to dress one way over another, its just her look is way too impractical for the sake of being sexy and again romani women are very often sexualized regardless of what they wear

isabela's attitude towards sex and being open to intimacy is not an issue on its own, what is the issue is how the writers make fucking jokes of her sexuality at every chance they get (like the std joke in anders' clinic, aveline's slut shaming, etc. etc. etc.....) and this is just my personal opinion but there are times that she comes on too strong to like hawke or carver or fenris that seems unrealistic and just like an attempt for the writers to further hone in on how horny shes supposed to make you feel

like yes have her be open and not ashamed of being intimate but put more love and respect on it. i love an isabela that is repressed in her own feelings and the only way she knows how to have meaningful connections is through sex cus thats what was expected of her. like oh my god do you know how many people relate to that, if its done right it could be a very compelling arch to her character and maybe something she learns isnt concrete the more platonic/romantic meaningful time she has with everyone in da2 and beyond

as for her comments about rivain and the people there, like the phrase "even deny a fortune teller and theyll run you out of town" to merrill, just makes rivainis out to be greedy and shameless swindlers and that projection is obviously also put on romani people since that is a VERY common stereotype

like the phrase "getting gypped" literally means to be cheated and comes from the word gypsy. theres no denying the intention the writers had when they wrote that line for isabela

and honestly i love the idea of rivain (i say the idea cus we only hear accounts of the nation, we havent seen it in person yet) i love the idea of a matriarchal society that is religious and spiritual but does not tolerate the chantry's bigotry and openly accepts society's outcast such as mages and qunari

romani culture irl is patriarchal and often anybody who is not romani is typically not trusted, but if rivain was treated as an idealistic fantasy romanistan, where our values and traditions are implemented and we make a better world for ourselves and other outcasts then it could be very compelling

thats the thing with representation, sometimes it doesnt have to reflect reality 100%, but it still requires knowledge so that you can make new ideas based on the facts and reasoning of the group youre representing

[yami268]

Top 5 fav storm hawks characters? (BUT you can't use Snipe XD)

Very Well. Challenge Accepted.

Carver

What solidified Carver as a favorite for me was the episode ‘Second Chances’. While I did assume the twist, I like how they presented him as cunning and charismatic. He pretty much had everyone almost believe that Aerrow was under mind control. The other thing is that his reason for it was him being petty that he got beaten. I figured he has a hero complex and I would’ve loved it if he was in the show more as a morally grey/anti-villain who just wants to beat Aerrow.

Cyclonis

One of the popular characters that I like for the same reasons as well: good design, interesting personality, and story potential. She’s also intriguing as you’re trying to find a balance between “She’s a villain and needs to be stop” or “She needs a blacket and cocoa”. If the show had been more developed and gave more thought to the world-building, I think it could have shown more of her character, especially on how she was thinking she was reclaiming a false legacy.

Scabulous

Not gonna lie, I am a sucker for sky pirates. So seeing Scabulous and the Murk Raiders was a definite highlight for me. I’ve always imagined them to be like zombies or mutants. I wished they had more appearances than they did. They are certainly fun to watch.

Aerrow

Aerrow’s the typical teen hero, but I can I like him. He has the vibe down and dual-wielding is awesome. If there’s one complaint about him, I wish he was shown more fallible. He could do well with learning lessons like, “Not everyone on your side is going to hold the same standards as you do” or “Those who could be considered good aren’t really.” *Has long list of examples*

Suzi Lu

I like this pupper. She’s a good Canadian pupper.

[baodurs]

ok. informal world state summary:

phaedra cousland

archer rogue (assassin, ranger, shadow)

stoic, dutiful, resolute. a deep sense of honor eternally at war with her unflinching pragmatism.

softspoken and poised. kind of quietly intense, her full attention can be weighty & intimidating. she's not without humor, but her basic manner is quite grim and serious, especially during the blight.

spares loghain, who does the dark ritual. alistair & anora rule. sides with the architect.

romances zevran <3

gets along best with morrigan and sten; they understand each other. close but tense relationship with leliana. codependent with alistair but they divorce at the landsmeet. loghain becomes one of her closest... friends?

bonus: lycanthropy arc during nature of the beast

morven hawke

force mage (and occasional blood mage but it's complicated)

red hawke! she's gruff and both intentionally and unintentionally difficult. an imitation of malcolm's blunt and uncompromising manner.

anti-circle but unwilling to risk rebellion for herself or the people she cares about (and thinks herself cowardly for it). tries to avoid being in a position to help others but is ultimately an incurable bleeding heart who can't not do the right thing when she inevitably finds herself there anyway

sides with the mages, doesn't kill anders. carver is a grey warden.

not a major plot decision, but she accepts help from the demon in the deep roads and spends years beating herself up for it bc malcolm would have done better and then she gets to legacy and has a breakdown 👍

romances isabela <3

closest with fenris. trusts merrill more than anyone. loves anders but sometimes they can't look at each other. i feel like she and varric shouldn't get along as well as they do but they do anyway. rivals sebastian (with respect) and aveline (with resentment. devotion too but mostly resentment)

camellia trevelyan (i might change her name... she's also very new so take everything i say about her with a grain of salt)

knight-enchanter. but her magic sword isn't 2h; it's more like a rapier

an illegitimate elf-blooded child of bann trevelyan. she always had long hair to hide her slightly pointed ears, and her parents made a valiant effort to hide her magic too when it first emerged

rebel mage, and well-suited to the role—she's bold, dashing, charming. has a mischievous streak that developed in her time at the circle, thanks to the relative freedom (vs needing to hide her magic/heritage at home) and lack of consequences (vs other mages that didn't have noble families to intervene on their behalf)

allies with the mages, briala rules through gaspard, camellia drinks from the well of sorrows, leliana becomes divine (steeled)

in trespasser, disbands the inquisition & vows to stop solas by any means necessary

romances blackwall <3

haven't figured out her relationships with everyone yet, but solas was her closest friend lol. she mostly gets along with sera. varric too, but i think she makes him nervous sometimes. she and vivienne have more in common than they initially think they do, and they do come to trust each other. she and dorian are like siblings in that they love but occasionally want to murder one another. ummm that's it

[thiedas]

Robin Hawke, a summary.

Remington 'Robin' Hawke is the oldest child of Leeandra and Malcolm Hawke. Until his father died, he had a great relationship with everyone in his family, including his younger twin siblings, Carver and Bethany. After Malcolm's passing, tensions strained as Robin was given the role of the patriarch in their family, one they never wanted. This provoked ire from their mother and younger brother, who thought he should do more for the family. This caused him to grow closer to Bethany, a fellow apostate mage. However, the arrival of the Fifth Blight caused their lives to be completely upended, and Robin would be forced to take on a role they neither expected nor wanted.

Critical story decisions:

Prologue:

Bethany is killed during the Hawke family's escape from Lothering.

Robin and Carver work for Meeran of the Red Iron as mercenaries.

Act one:

Doesn't condone blood magic while speaking to Merrill, but allows her to travel with him and promises to visit her in the alienage.

Approaches Vincento regarding Feynriel. Has Varric step in, which saves him. Tells Feynriel to go to the Dalish.

Agrees to help Ser Thrask. Tells Grace he'll convince the templars that the apostate mages are dead, and he succeeds.

Kills Idunna. Has Merrill check Keran for demons, then releases him back to the templars.

Agrees to help Ghyslain de Carrac find his wife, Ninette. Doesn't tell him where they found her ring, resulting in it being sent to her family. He chooses to tell Jethann about her death.

Convinces the Tal - Vashoth warrior to help them. Tells the Arishok they are owed money.

Agrees to lead Ketojan to freedom. Sets Ketojan free. Threatens to kill Sister Petrice.

Agrees to help Fenris. They recruit him, despite his anti - mage views.

Promises not to harm Anders as a fellow mage. Has Carver diffuse the angry refugee situation. Recruits Anders after having him kill Karl.

Fights Hayder with Isabela, then recruits her.

Takes Carver with on the expedition to the deep roads. Agrees to help find Sandal. Refuses to agree to the demon's demands. Carver joins the Grey Wardens at Anders's suggestion.

Act two:

After learning of Javaris's actions, Robin tells him to leave or they'll kill him.

Upon investigating Gaspard DuPuis's estate, he refuses to let the man go and kills him.

Fights with Orwald after being led to him by Seneschal Bran. Decides to kill Ser Varnell and his group, and tells the Viscount to be truthful with the Arishok about the condition of the Qunari bodies they stumbled upon.

After recognizing the calling card of white lilies, they tell Gamlen about the killer. They report their mother's disappearance to the city guard, but nothing comes from it. Pays the urchin for information, and kills the real killer. Makes up with his mother in the end.

Because they refused to side with Petrice, they had to fight through her supporters at the Chantry. They out her as a terrible person, watching as her titles are stripped from her and she's shot through the heart by a Qunari archer. In the end, they watch the Viscount cradle his dead son.

They struggle deciding to give the relic to Isabela or the Qunari. They choose to give it to Isabela, disliking her greatly but not wanting her dead. She never returns.

Sides with the elves seeking refuge in the chantry, much to Aveline's disdain and the Arishok's respect. They duel the Arishok and win, becoming the Champion of Kirkwall, a title they hate from the beginning. Robin first dips their toes into blood magic during their fight with the Arishok as they find they're not strong enough to win without it.

Act three:

Made their support for mages abundantly clear.

Strong - armed into helping the three apostates by Knight - Commander Meredith. Allows Emile to run free and lies saying that they killed him. Places blame for the situation on the templars.

Chooses to kill Keran on the Wounded Coast. They once again reaffirm their support for mages, and demand that Ser Thrask release the hostages he's taken. He asks Cullen to be merciful to both the apostate mages and Samson.

Kills Knight - Commander Meredith and flees Kirkwall, despite being revered by the mages of the Free Marches.

What do they do with their companions during the final battle?

Kills Anders after he explodes a chantry building and kills many people inside.

Takes Merrill with.

Takes Fenris with.

Takes Aveline with.

Takes Varric with.

Reunites with Carver, who he takes with.

Some stats:

Class: Mage, with a blood magic specialization.

Personality: Purple.

Act one party: Carver, Varric, Merrill.

Act two party: Varric, Merrill, Fenris.

Act three party: Varric, Merrill, Fenris.

Romance: Merrill ( I will not force ship anyone who writes Merrill. This is just canon to my playthrough ).

Some facts:

Robin hates his name, thus the nickname. The only people who know his name is Remington are his family members, his romantic partner, and close friends.

The only reason Robin returns for the Inquisition is because of their friendship with Varric. He ends up being left in the fade.

They wear their hair long during the events of Dragon Age II, but cut it all off before Dragon Age: Inquisition. Hair holds memories and all that stuff.

Robin is non - binary. This caused a rift between him and his mother, but by the end, she accepted it and they were able to make up before she died.

There are aus available where he's the inquisitor, where he's rook, but also verses where he's companions for both.

[carnalapples]

Hey there! 3, 10, and 16 from the DA Worldstate questions for all your protagonists?

Hi Grey!! Thank you for the ask--from the DA Worldstate asks:

3 - opinion on blood magic?

Sunita Amell: She starts out incredibly anti-blood magic, but gets very grey towards it as time goes on. She grows slightly bitter with her life and with the Wardens when she thinks about her lack of choices, and she sees a lot of unsavory practices as she gets further into the Order. Though she never exactly turns to blood magic herself, she draws a lot of parallels with what she sees around her, like the Joining, phylacteries, etc.

Harsha Hawke: I think it's comical how many blood mages there are in Kirkwall. Hawke, for good reason, does not. In the beginning, she has the mindset that she's no expert on magic and can’t really speak on it. After all, Merrill does blood magic and it's fine! She’s careful! After what happens to Leandra, she never really goes back to that way of thinking. She's more hesitant around Merrill and wonders if she made the right choice helping her restore the eluvian.

Ashna Trevelyan: Nope. She has lived the most... not quite sheltered, but uneventful life out of the three up until the Conclave, and never really questioned what she was told about blood magic. She really fears having her agency taken away from her, and as far as she's concerned, it's just another way to do it.

10 - are they good horse riders?

Amell: Amell gets very good at riding during her travels. Riding into town on a tall horse, wearing a long cloak—well, it’s all like a story! And she loves to make herself seem mysterious.

Hawke: Please keep Hawke away from horses. This will not end well for anyone. There was a reason the twins were in charge of feeding the horses in Lothering. Sebastian tries his best later in their lives. Some things cannot be attributed to the Maker's will.

Ashna: After a lot of practice, she can ride a horse! (woohoo) She is still wary of them. Ashna and animals... do not really do well with each other. Thanks to some well-intentioned rangers, she and the Inquisition horses reach an understanding. She and Cullen's mabari, however…. need some time.

16 - do they get sentimental about their weapons or armour?

Sunita: Yes, she's very sentimental about them. She held on to her Harrowing ring and staff for a very long time. She still keeps them with her at Vigil's Keep, and has sworn Nathaniel to protect them while she's gone.

Harsha: She gets more sentimental as time goes on and she has to fight less and less. Her weapons and armor start to mean more to her. The one exception is her bow: Carver bargained for it for her when they went to Ostagar, and she holds it close after his death.

Ashna: Absolutely not. She never thought she would be fighting when she lived in the Circle, and she never does end up enjoying it like some of her comrades. She tries to maintain everything in the beginning, but despite her efforts her armor gets very banged up, and she does not enjoy repairing it. She really only does it for Cassandra's sake, which is a testament to how close she is with her.

[hauntedgarden95]

What would your inquisitor and warden think of what happened in Kirkwall? Would they have supported Hawke’s decisions?

Would your warden or Hawke have actually accepted the role of inquisitor if Cassandra had located them as she’d planned to? Would they have been a good leader for the Inquisition?

If Origins and Inquisition had the 3 personalities (Diplomatic, Sarcastic, Aggressive) which would your warden and inquisitor have predominately been? And what one did your Hawke have?

Sorry this took so long! Work was hectic yesterday!

And thank you!!!!! For sending me these questions! It makes my week everytime that someone is wanting to hear about them!!

Also I apologize I got a tiny bit rambly again:

What would your inquisitor and warden think of what happened in Kirkwall? Would they have supported Hawke's decisions?

Yaviel Amell: 100% supported Winter Hawkes decisions (spare anders, side with the mages). She’s a mage and she watched what the circle did to Anders and again to Jowan. Her initial thoughts on the circle are conflicting at best (my HC is that prior to being in the Circle her mother had taken her from Kirkwall and ran from the templars to Fereldan. They lived in the slums and barely scrapped by. No feeling of security or safety) because of where she was when the Templars inevitably took her from her mother. But by the time the Blight is over she’s been anti-Circle and Templar. In fact it is well known that Carver Hawke and Anders were taken in before the Grey Wardens of Fereldan “disappeared”.

Keira Lavellan: Keira is first and foremost Dalish and then second a mage but she never had the experience that circle mages do. As a Dalish she believes everyone should be free. So I do believe she would have sided with the mages but I think she would have banished Anders. For her own safety and the safety of those she cares about. She would know he was right but she couldn’t condone what he did. But she cares for him as well even then. So she tells him to leave and they both know where he goes anyway. She’s very much a “save whoever you can” kind of person. (sometimes to her detriment)

Would your warden or Hawke have actually accepted the role of inquisitor if Cassandra had located them as she'd planned to?

Yaviel Amell: Yes. And that’s why no one would tell her. Vie is very fatalistic and has a huge Death Wish. Danger is never an issue. She would have also accepted it to keep the weight of gathering such an army off of someone else’s shoulders. Several people go to great lengths to keep her away from it. Until the giant hole in the sky. (Sidenote I have never thought of a Vie as Inky AU but I am now)

Winter Hawke: Nope. No. I’m like 99.99% sure Varric wrote her telling her what Cassandra wanted. And it’s an instant Nope. She would have stayed in hiding if it had been anyone/anything else other than Corypheus.

Would they have been a good leader for the Inquisition?

Vie: HMMM. That’s a harder question. I do see her as a strong leader, she’s been leading her Wardens for years. Even when she disappears on some secret mission for a few years. So I’d go with yes. But maybe I’m biased. The decision on who to leave in the Fade would be hard however. (wish we’d been able to kill the spider honestly). But they would beat Corphyeus rather soundly.

Winter: No. Would she have tried? Also no. She would have dipped out quick and the crew would have willingly helped her hide. But besides the controversy that would just from her being the Inquisitor (It would have bitten you in the ass Cassandra) she really wouldn’t be able to handle it. What happened in Kirkwall was something that just seemed to snowball down a hill and she could do nothing but watch as it grew to a monstrous size. She disappears for this reason. She never wanted any of this fame (or infamy) so as soon as she can she’s gone. Winter leading a chantry led organisation is also hilarious in the aspect that she hates them.

If Origins and Inquisition had the 3 personalities (Diplomatic, Sarcastic, Aggressive) which would your warden and inquisitor have predominately been? And what one did your Hawke have?

So Winter is definitely my sarcastic child. Purple Hawke 100%. And behind it all is a very distressed woman.

Vie is a little harder to decide because I have this problem with never being mean in video games and sometimes the origins choices can be a little basic so it’s hard to kind of get a tone. I’m gonna say a mix of diplomatic and aggressive?

Keira: definitely diplomatic with some sarcastic/charm thrown in. She’s Dalish but she also knows what’s at stake. The main reason she agreed to be Inquisitor is because of Solas telling her the orb is of Elvhen make. Maybe he did it on purpose but it was an instant, “This burden is on your shoulders now. And the safety of our kind also depends on it.” Worked like a charm.

[dreadfutures]

ventured into the DA meta tag and people are wilding

do people really feel like they were forced to play Hawke as a centrist? lmao

sorry I played a blue Hawke and at every opportunity he was still able to call out the anti elven racism and anti mage rhetoric...the options were there. Sure I couldn't idk storm the Gallows or assassinate Meredith or kill Sister Petrice but like???

I wouldn't call not being able to do those things centrist in and of itself?

and it felt like there was plenty of dialogue and narrative weight for Hawke being aware and having strong feelings about those topics!

sometimes I think people just played a very different game than I did. same thing w people always saying Carver and Hawke are always butting heads. (I maxed out Carvers friendship and I thought we had a very lovely and supportive sibling friendship, with one major argument that Hawke immediately defused and was able to encourage Carver to follow his own path idk)

🤷🏽‍♀️

[of-kirkwall]

The eye patch

There's a couple of things that people tend to notice right away when Baby walks into the room, and chief among them, other than his sheer size, is his eye. Or rather, the lack thereof.

Baby wears an eye patch over his left eye, and for good reason -- nothing lies beneath it but a small mass of gnarled scar tissue. Sadly, this wasn't the result of an accident, or even just from chance at birth. It is a driving force of why Baby Hawke is anti-Templar, anti-Circle, and rather anti-Chantry.

It happened in a small village in the bannorn, the village that the Hawke family lived in before moving to Lothering. There weren't many children in the village, and so Baby, Bethany, and Carver often had only each other to play games with. It was during one of these games that a Templar from the village Chantry happened upon them, and spied Bethany and Baby using magic, when they thought they were alone.

The templar decided to try and take them, of course, to drag them off to the Circle, 'where they belonged'. Baby, however, was having none of it. While he did not yet possess the bulk that he enjoys as an adult, he was rather tall for a 13 year old boy, and so he fought back.

In the ensuing struggle, the templar pulled out his boot knife, and he used it, severely wounding Baby... though not without Baby using that against him, using lightning magic to electrocute the templar as he held the blade in Baby's skull.

Though seriously injured, and bleeding heavily, Baby managed to struggle to his feet and hurry Bethany home, leaving the dead templar where he fell. At home, his father Malcolm was able to heal the wound, but the eye was obliterated. There was nothing there to save.

They left the village that very evening, under the cover of darkness, forced to flee in case anyone managed to figure out what had happened. Eventually, this journey led the Hawke family to Lothering, where they lived until the Blight.

[ell-vellan]

about me

Hi! Call me Ell or Autumn (she/her). I'm a writer by hobby and profession. This blog is mostly Dragon Age and a sprinkling of whatever else I like. I'm an adult and I write adult things, so follow at your own discretion, I'm not in charge of you.

Ao3

My DA Meta Posts

My Writing

My OCs

I don't knowingly follow back or privately chat with minors - nothing personal!

I try to curate a positive space here as much as possible for my mental health. I don't tend to post anti stuff, but that doesn't include some critique of media I like. I utilize the block function pretty readily and I don't engage with negativity.

I'm inconsistent at best with tagging, though I do make an effort to tag for common triggers. The only one you might see regularly is a cw for blood (in fanart, not real blood). If you need something tagged, you are free to ask, but I can't guarantee I'll never forget to include it.

My Canon Dragon Age Worldstates for fic purposes:

I'm always happy to chat about any of our shared interests, be tagged in things, or get asks about my writing, characters, or media. But I'm not here to argue.

(List not exhaustive - major highlights only.)

"Happily Ever After":

DAO: female warrior Cousland x King Alistair, ruled together, dark ritual with Morrigan, killed Loghain

DA2: male warrior Hawke x Anders, templar Carver, sided with mages

DAI: undecided!

"Elfy":

DAO: Male rogue Mahariel x Zevran, King Alistair rules alone, killed Loghain, dark ritual with Morrigan.

DA2: Male mage Hawke x Fenris, spared Anders, circle mage Bethany survived, sided with mages

DAI: female mage Lavellan x Iron Bull (though my hc is Solas is an almost-maybe ex), allied with mages and Grey Wardens, Divine Leliana (softened)

Favorite DA Characters: (aka the ones you'll see most of my rbs about)

Zevran, Alistair, Fenris, The Iron Bull, Krem, Morrigan

Favorite pairings:

Zevran/Warden, Cousland/Alistair, Hawke/Anders/Fenris, Hawke/Fenris, Hawke/Anders, Bull/Dorian, Bull/Inquisitor

Not an exhaustive list by any means.

[ofandrastes]

elliott hawke, dragon age verse

statistics.

FULL NAME Elliott Malcolm Hawke.

NICKNAMES Hawke, nothing else. He doesn't even like being called 'Elliott'.

RACE Human.

GENDER & PRONOUNS Cisgender male, he/him/his.

FACECLAIM: Joshua Sasse.

SEXUALITY Bisexual.

NATIONALITY Fereldan.

RELIGION Athiest.

POSITIVE TRAITS Determined, Courageous, Passionate, Honest.

NEGATIVE TRAITS Hot-headed, Irritable, Cynical, Hypocritical.

AFFILIATION Champion of Kirkwall.

skills & abilities.

CLASS Mage.

SPECIALIZATION Force Mage.

WEAPON Staff.

DIALOGUE WHEEL Red.

biography (via the keep)

The son of Malcolm Hawke and Leandra Amell, Elliottt has lived in many places throughout Ferelden. His father was a mage whose gifts were passed onto both Garrett and Bethany, Malcolm's daughter. Malcolm refused to submit himself to the Chantry's rule; he kept his abilities a secret and taught his children to do the same. Therefore, the family was constantly on the move to avoid templar hunters. Ten years ago, the family settled in the village of Lothering, building a home on the outskirts and making a life where they wouldn't forever be on the run. Though Leandra worried constantly that the templars would one day catch up with them, Malcolm's teachings were sufficient to keep them safe. He died three years ago, leaving Elliott responsible for the welfare of his mother and younger siblings. When the Blight began, Carver enlisted in King Cailan's regiment, saying the horde spilling from the Korcari Wilds meant their home would be quickly overrun if the darkspawn were not defeated immediately. Elliott remained in Lothering to safeguard the family. Carver appeared on their doorstep almost a month later, exhausted and injured, King Cailan had been betrayed and slain at Ostagar, and the horde was advancing on Lothering. Though Elliott and the others were making plans to leave, they fled their home before they were fully prepared...and it may still be too late.

decisions under the cut

PROLOGUE joined mercenaries

ACT ONE fought against templars, returned saemus to viscount, returned cargo to martin, killed kelder, killed danzig, ginnis died, told truth about ghyslain's wife's death, solved mystery of missing miners, didn't blackmail ser thrask, idunna killed, sent feynriel to the dalish, keran reinstated to templars, karras killed, handed ketojan over to the qunari,

ACT TWO killed gascard, didn't side with varnell against qunari, didn't side with petrice, discovered looter of hubert's caravans, didn't encounter iwan, javaris died, attacked raiders with guardsmen, feynriel freed and left for tevinter, killed arishok

ACT THREE hawke offered to help nuncio, let zevran go, handed conspirators to orsino, rescued nathaniel, returned gem of keroshek to gamlen, allowed emile to go free, sided with mages, let keran go, killed dragon at bone pit

LEGACY sided with janeka, found malcolms will

COMPANIONS

ANDERS approved of ander's action at chantry, anders alive and well BETHANY bethany died while escaping lothering VARRIC rivals with varric, bartrand killed, helped varric discover cause of the haunting, varric did not keep red lyrium idol CARVER carver died in the deep roads ISABELA recruited isabela, isabela did not return to hawke FENRIS fenris is alive and well MERRILL merrill stayed with hawke, merrill alive and well, merrill destroyed eluvian, merrill's clan was killed AVELINE aveline married donnic, aveline did not stay with hawke SEBASTIAN did not recruit sebastian TALLIS never met tallis

SHIPPING during my run i did romance fenris, later isabela, but i don't see necessarily one canon ship for him. he's very hard to romance in general, constantly feeling the need to be a contrarian, a 'my way or the highway' mentality. somebody fix this man!!

CLOSED SHIPS: Anders

TEMPLARS VS MAGES safe to say that hawke is vehemently, vehemently anti templar. in his eyes, they are the cause of most, if not all of his hardships. it's the biggest point of contention between him and carver, who would have become a templar if he had survived.

HERE LIES THE ABYSS yeah, hawke's sacrificing himself. he sees no reason not to, if not only because he's brazen and egotistic enough to think that he's the only one who can accomplish what needs to be done and survive the fade. if he doesn't end up going, i could see this whole thing as a wake up call that makes him re-evaluate pushing everyone away all these years, even though the events of DA2

ATTITUDE speaking of which, i think hawke definitely speaks more diplomatically at the beginning of DA2. he has very strong opinions but, overall, his rage is more contained to short, infrequent bursts. however, i think after carver dies he begins to descend into further bitterness...and then it all just comes to a head when leandra is killed. that's when shit hits the fan and it's red hawke all the time with some extremist decisions -- and why so many companions will end up leaving.

[proserpinewrites]

Assorted headcanons about my Rook, Evrion:

Born in 9:10 Dragon, making him a year older than Dorian Pavus and Carver Hawke. As of the events of DA4, he is 42 years old.

Was found as a newborn near a battlefield healer’s tent during a skirmish between the Tevene army and the Qunari on Seheron.

His adoptive mother was a spirit healer for the Tevene army, his adoptive father a soldier hell bent on rising in the ranks but hindered by his own lack of magical talent.

Both parents were very religious which is why they named him for Andraste’s second stepson. It’s also why Evrion himself is decidedly a-religious but well versed in religious texts common to Andrastianism.

Left school at 16 to enlist in the army after his father died of a heart attack and left the family without enough income to do more than barely scrape by.

His adoptive mother died of Blight at the height of the Fifth Blight, leaving him with no home and no living family. (That he knew of, at least.) After she died, he began to get involved with anti-slavery groups now that his meager income wasn’t needed to support her and no one was left to be upset at his choices.

Was dishonorably discharged from the Tevene army aged 34 for ‘suspicion of being involved in illegal activities’. The army brass never had enough evidence to throw him in jail, but over the years Evrion helped many slaves held by high ranking Altus members of the army escape. After his discharge and an introduction to the Viper, he started working with the Shadow Dragons.

He was only able to enlist in the army due to a quirk of the enlistment system that allowed him to join based on his wholly human Soporati parentage, at least on paper. This did not make him popular with the other members of his battalion or the officers.

Cannot swim, absolutely terrified of drowning, yet unwilling to learn to swim.

Hasn’t rented or owned a home since his mother died and their apartment was sold to cover her debts. Lived in barracks or hostels during his army days, and lives out of the bunkhouse portion of The Shop otherwise.

As a consequence of this, he lives wholly out of his pack and owns very little by way of personal belongings.

[icharchivist]

You mentioned playing DA2 as a mage, is it mostly to give Fenris extra trauma or is mage also your favorite gameplay class?

Both definitely-

joking aside, playing as Mage is the most fun i have in DA in general. I find it more tactical and it allows for better assessment and crowd control, which comes very handy in DAO and DA2 in particular that have such. annoying. Crowds.

DAI has less crowd but it has a slightly more action orientated gameplay. DAO and DA2 are pretty much "you command a character to attack someone, and they'll keep attacking it", with also the possibility to set tactics so your NPCs can also attack them properly (like "if enemies has 90% health: use [Attack]"). DAI has neither of those, which end up being uncomfortable for close ranged battle to me since you have to manually stay close to your enemies. so i like mage more on that specific gameplay.

tho fighting gameplay wise my favorite is really DA2 on that regard, but even if the gameplay is different, it's just always the most fun.

and also it's the most fun lorewise and in term of the unique perspective it gives on the plot of the game.

DA's plots or the way characters interreact with you change whether you're a human, an elf, a dwarf, a vashoth, or a mage (with combo if you're non human mage because oough boy). And the mage lore (and the elven lore) is by far one of the most fascinating aspect of the franchise to me, and i really like to play as Mage as a result because it gives access to interesting story thread. Not to mention that the politics of the game also change depending on which angle you play, and that's also something interesting to take into account.

DA2 in particular feels like THE game you want to play as a Mage into because of how much it changes the plot. DAO and DAI are both about a world ending threat on the horizon and your character being the only one being able to do something about it, so while organizations can be prejudiced against you, it will eventually adapt in order to let you save the world.

DA2 meanwhile is just about a simple human family trying to run away from their destroyed home and immigrating into a very anti-mage city which is led with a iron glove by the Templars who are trying to capture any mages and lock them in the Gallows, while their Knigth Commander gradually become more and more mad and considers eradicating all of the mages, while the character you play end up befriending a radical mage outlaw who has been trying to abolish this system by any means necessary. As a result the plot change a lot if you play as Mage or Non Mage because it changes your personal stakes into it.

Picking playing Mage or Non Mage also indicate which one of your sibling is going to survive: if you play as Mage, Carver survives, if you play as non mage, Bethany survives. Carver is a warrior while Bethany is a mage. The dynamic really changes for Hawke as a result because it's either you're trying to survive and lay a low profile as an illegal mage, or you are invested in protecting your little sister.

I've played both routes and as much as i love Bethany, Carver is the most interesting sibling to me, and he's one of the major reason for me to pick Mage everytime because the conflict between Hawke and Carver is SO interesting and i just really like Carver. I personally always make him a Grey Warden, but he also has the chance to die, or the chance to join the very Templar Order you're hiding from, and it really raises the stakes in a really big way.

(Bethany has the same choices except that instead of joining the Templar, she gets imprisoned because she's found out as an illegal mage, so if you end up on this path you do kinda have some emotional stakes about the whole mage crisis in the city because your little sister's life is at stakes)

You learn early on that your characters' action led to a civil war as the mages from all across the Andrastian Countries have been rebelling inspired by your actions. The reason why, if it's because you were a tyrant who went along with the desire to kill all the mages, or if it's because you helped the mage rebellion, is up to you to define, but as a result i think it has more stakes when you play as a mage.

And it does make the plot regarding Fenris a lot more interesting. Fenris is from a country where Mages reign supreme, and he was a slave to a powerful magistrate who basically tortured Fenris with magic experiments so much so that Fenris forgot his past, and ended up with scars filled with Lyrium, a toxic magical dust that keeps causing him pain, but also gives him the power to faze through things and people (that's why ripping out hearts is his trademark attack).

That's why he distrusts mages and feel comfortable with the way Andrastian Countries are imprisoning their mages so they cannot have the freedom to hurt others with their magic. And it's why he is constantly in conflict with the mages of your party because both of them have taken being an illegal mage a step further with illegal magical practices and he can only see the harm mages can do with this illimited power.

But he clearly comes from a place of trauma. When you first meet him and help him, it's because he's trying to set a trap for his former master so he can finally kill him and stop feeling like he has to constantly be on the run. (note that this plotline can end with Hawke giving Fenris back to his ex master so! fucked up!). But therefore he will have different reactions if he realizes Hawke or one of their friend is a mage, and as a mage you will start with a nerf on his appreciation scale because he will judge you much more harshly.

But he's also willing to discuss it with Hawke and depending on how you play it, he can see that as much as he distrusts mages, they don't deserve this treatment. And i think it especially shines through with his romance with Hawke because he has a personal reason now to care as to why the mages are being mistreated. In the first Act when you're still a renegade, you can go to the Gallows with Fenris in your party and he will... lowkey freak out because "you're a mage you shouldn't be here if they realize what you are you will be taken away" and depending on the personality of your Hawke, Hawke will notice that Fenris seems genuinely concerned for how Hawke would be treated despite advocating that treatment for all the mages. It's really interesting in a way to give Fenris a perspective check, that just because he distrusts mages doesn't mean he should encourage a system that deprives them of full freedom.

In Act 3 the gig is up, you're found out as an illegal mage, but since you basically showed yourself by solving a crisis and saving the City, you're allowed to be free...... for now. But therefore you start to feel the pressure of the Knight Commander who really doesn't like that you're staying free, and is starting also to blackmail you to get her way. If you don't play as mage and if Bethany was taken to the Gallows instead, it's your sister's life that will be threatened. It's genuinely a heavy situation to be in as everything is slowly but surely about to fall apart.

the plot of DA2 just has so much more weight when you play as a mage because you can't be content with just trying to not make any waves nor being noticed by the templars. Things are going to get worse and you're at the center of all of this, and the intersection of the politics and the personal drama is really fascinating, in a way that isn't really there when you play as non-mage, especially if Bethany doesn't get imprisoned by the Templars. Because whether Bethany dies or joins the Grey Wardens, her situation cannot put a pressure on you. So you have only one possible route out of the 3 routes possibles where Bethany being a mage is actually putting pressure on yourself. (unless of course you romance one of the mages, especially Anders since he is the radical mage who wants change at all cost).

so to me it's really also with this aspect of how it's much more interesting to interreact with the plot of da2 in particular from the lenses of a mage.

in DAO there are 6 differents origins and i think all of them do give you a very unique view on the world in front of you and none of them are better than the others. But personally i really like the mage one even more because of the way you can get to explore the magic of this world.

on the other hand DAI doesn't actually feel very different depending on your origin which is kind of a shame, but because DAI is in the middle of the mage/templar civil war, playing as a mage is already setting you in a sort of radical situation that i think really enhance the gameplay. human mage, therefore, has a lot of interesting political implications in DAI (also because like two of the romances options are templar alligned characters so coming from a place of having been under templar's watch add some spice to the romances), but i think that due to further reveal, Elves especially have a very interesting plotline there. Elven Mage is soooo juicy in DAI in the way the lore you learn and the politics of the game always end up concerning you in some way in a way the others origins aren't as much informed about.

BUT YEAH da2 as mage genuinely change the plot A LOT, a lot more than it does in DAO and DAI imo, which is definitely something i recommand because it's FUN.

but also yeah A+ gameplay and anyway believe me you want to be a mage to throw fireball because when you have 20 enemies in front of you, taking them one by one with your little swords and daggers is hellish.

.... coughs so yeah, many thoughts. Don't get me started on the lore i love the lore so much i have all the lore books with stickers all around so i can check back some specific lore points, i'm normal about it--