#he also probably kind of wants to phantom thread blackwall but it's not quite as funny/a nightmare of repression in the same way.

[eastgaysian]

dragon age white boy rambles ⬇️ i need to revisit his siblings...

see my original vision for caden trevelyan repressed homosexual was always that he was homoerotically obsessed with his superior officer who viewed him as a little brother and after that superior officer died tragically at the conclave this immediately got transferred onto cullen. but this was a failed attempt to try and change the fact that cullen has always been deeply uninteresting to me. like i'm keeping it because it's central to my white boy vision but i've realized now that it's much funnier to focus on the fact he wants to phantom thread solas.

basically he has a Repression Framework for fellow templars/soldiers where attraction is more-or-less acceptably translated into intense devotion/idealization, being weirdly invested in hearing about past exploits, fantasizing about dying in each other's arms etc. with solas, caden has reasons to like/respect him - solas kept the anchor from killing him, he's chosen to aid the inquisition of his own free will despite any reservations, he's a knowledgeable older man with relevant expertise and genuinely impressive capabilities, to some degree even the fact that he's an apostate who knows this much and has avoided being found by templars is something caden finds fascinating.

but at the same time solas is an elven apostate who no one knows anything about and is too mysterious to really trust, so logically caden Can't like/respect him, and he doesn't have any established framework for dealing with these complicated feelings. before he recruits the templars/becomes inquisitor their relationship actually gets off to a tentative good start because the Fundamental Moral Disagreements haven't come to a head yet. caden is technically a very recent ex-templar but he's polite and pragmatic, he puts the work in to help people, and he's always curious to learn more, which are qualities solas can appreciate.

after becoming inquisitor solas immediately disapproves of essentially All of caden's major decisions, while still feeling obligated to stay with the inquisition for the greater good. weirdly, solas pretty openly disliking him is what allows caden to justify liking him, because it's not like he's friends with this elven apostate, they're comrades by necessity, he appreciates the qualities that make solas a necessary comrade, and that's fine. at the same time solas is an older male authority figure who is forced to abide by caden's decisions even if he fucking hates them which is opening up crazy new pathways in caden's brain of being able to, from his point of view entirely justifiably, defy the wishes of an older man he respects and wield power over him. all this clicks into place in caden's head and he's like. I want him flat on his back helpless tender open with only me to help.

what this means in practice is they'll go out a-questing and have what seems on the surface to be a cordial conversation about history or whatever but they're both imagining killing each other with hammers and on caden's side it is sexual and on solas' side it is not. he is fully aware that solas wants to kill him with hammers but honestly this kind of makes it more sexual. he's going to punch solas at some point, immediately apologize for losing his temper, and then be unable to sleep for hours that night touching the bruised knuckles feeling something he can't name but knows isn't quite guilt. because he feels guilty for feeling it. this is the gayest thing that will actually happen between them except for the confrontation at the end of trespasser maybe which can be gay if you think about it. normalest guy in all of thedas 👍