#from the front and 3/4s on tho? princely

[invinciblerodent]

for sweet baby ray:

⚠️ - If this oc came with a warning sign, what would it be?

🌊 - Does this oc have a secret or repressed desire?

for the weasel woman (affectionate):

💔 - Does forgiveness come easily or with difficulty to this oc? Can they forgive others? What about themselves?

👁️‍🗨️ - Eye contact: good or bad for this oc?

Ask game!

(I found some of my old favorite shots of him! This was him at 24 in Inquisition, in Veilguard he'll be roughly 36[?], in my BG3-verse he was 55. Poor guy just can't catch a break.) (something something Protagonist Georg, who goes on three apocalyptic adventures in one lifetime, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.)

⚠️ - If this oc came with a warning sign, what would it be?

Well, my first thought is "Caution: dangerous levels of earnestness and genuine good will within. May cause unhealthy degrees of emotional attachment and codependency; if symptoms last longer than ten years, please consult your local spirit healer or Chantry wedding officiant" but let's be real.....

it's gotta be "Contains nuts".

🌊 - Does this oc have a secret or repressed desire?

Okay, stay with me on this one, this might get long, but I think... that by the time Veilguard rolls around, he'll long so badly for the anonymity he enjoyed before his time as the Inquisitor.

It's kind of sad to think about, that before he would have had his Great Adventure, he desperately longed to be something worthy. As a kid, he was fascinated by hero-stories, and wanted to be a protector, a chosen one, someone glorious and worthy of respect (if not adoration), who is (most importantly) no longer has anything to prove to anyone.

And once he got that, I think he quickly found himself too small to fill his own boots.

The Inquisitor is -and always was- a larger than life figure. The Herald of Andraste, the thrice-blessed hero of the realms, the one whose blade felled countless monsters and clashed with those of would-be gods, and while he is technically something like that, he's really still just... Ray.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, how he was very young when it all happened, and how generally, heroes seldom live to see past the ending of their tales. But he did. And then ten years passed.

The people still recognize the Inquisitor, of course. He grew a beard and walked a country over (worked for Thom), and he's stopped introducing himself as "Trevelyan" for the most part, but he can't very well slough off his skin, and his very presence still carries more weight than maybe his shoulders can carry at this point. Not to mention that Solas is the ticking time bomb that has been in the back of his mind for the past ten years, an itch that he can.... maybe sometimes ignore for a while, if he tries hard enough, but it never really goes anywhere.

And Maker, he wants it so badly to be someone else's problem. He's spilled so much blood, both his own and not, he's sacrificed so much time and energy and effort, so much of his life, and he wants so badly to be able to just... hand this burden off completely, fuck off to buy a vineyard in Bumfuck, Antiva, and not bother with the world ending, and Magisterium corruption, and politics, and pain, and all of that goddamn suffering.

But he can't. Because it's his fault, it's him who didn't see the signs (it doesn't matter that nobody else did either), it's him who let Solas go when he could have just slid a blade between his ribs, and avoided everything that went down afterwards.

So I think that while he puts on a charming face, plays the Inquisitor when he has to, and is determined to see it all through, his most secret desire is probably to just.... plug his ears, and pretend that he's still no more than the unremarkable third child of a minor noble from Ostwick.

Serves him right for wanting to be taken seriously I suppose, lol. (This also leaves room for the Inquisitor to just fuck off in Veilguard I suppose, but I kinda had this thought since Trespasser, lol.)

(I love that you called her that anon, please, everyone point and laugh at the slippery-slimy weasel-woman)

💔 - Does forgiveness come easily or with difficulty to this oc? Can they forgive others? What about themselves?

This is actually a pretty difficult question, because... I think she's has a hard time forgiving when it comes to being wronged, but her threshold for what she would consider being wronged is maybe a tad higher than average.

And I think that's in part because of her own propensity for acting in self-interest. As in, she already lies, steals, and cheats, so if she's lied to, stolen from, or cheated... well, she can respect the hustle. Game recognize game. When deceived (without her having seen it coming), she can see the artistry in it, when stepped over she can see the necessity of it, and that can probably be seen as her having an easy time forgiving, but more often than not, she just... doesn't take that sort of thing personally. Like she's not always mad to have been lied to, but she is mad when she's lied to badly, if that makes sense.

(I'm thinking of primarily the Emperor here, but I think my best summary of her feelings is a line I had written for her months ago following the Gur camp conversation, that went something like... "I of all have no grounds to blame you, nor would I think you culpable for surviving.")

All else is context-dependent, I think.

As for herself, well... she forgives herself for having done what she had to to survive, but what I don't think she forgives herself for is staying in that rut as long as she did, and I don't think she forgives her father for trying to make it work instead of just letting her go either.

Back then, she was afraid to rock the boat too much, to uproot her life and sacrifice the long-valued stability the seeking of which was ingrained into her by her family (and never encouraged to explore after her mother's passing), but now... she can see how comparatively easy it would have been to live so much better. How much more fun it is to make a living as an adventurer, to thrive and revel in her magic, how she could actually find someone who seems to want her genuine self.... she could live two thousand years, and I don't think she'll ever stop kicking herself for the decades she had wasted on uneasy complacency.

Then again, had she left Herric decades ago (or never even married him), there's no guarantee that she would have ended up where she is now, and that is rather sad.

👁️‍🗨️ - Eye contact: good or bad for this oc?

Man, everything with this woman is "it depends", lol.

I think generally, she has no troubles holding and seeking eye contact- every good bullshit-artist knows what it's a core tenet of all manipulation to be able to meet someone's gaze, and radiate sincerity. That's one thing she is extraordinarily good at: keeping eyes on her, and reading people through it.

But that's kind of a double-edged sword, and when she's not taking the piss and there's actual personal stakes and emotional vulnerability involved, she's... well, still working on not feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of being perceived.

She's still working on a lot of this "actually feeling our genuine feelings and letting people know us" business. Give her some time, lol.

(I do kind of love the idea of the group falling in many ways into communicating with their eyes only. Like I think somewhere in the depths of my notes, I've written at least 3 instances when she and Astarion had completely silent conversations with their eyes only, and that kind of bullshit-synergy always makes me feel squirmy in a good way.)

Sorry about rambling for so long lol, I loved these! <3