#so that my hof doesn't look like an adopted

[kanis-things]

ma'am 😳

[spiritsong]

inflicting upon you my rook ideas because I need to brainstorm. welcome to my rooks

1. loretta ingellvar | elf/death caller mage/mourn watch — the man the myth the legend! child victim/survivor of a death cult (the empty ones), found in the bowels of the necropolis by the undead (♥️ lucanis or neve)

2. shrike de riva | elf/?¹/antivan crow — witnessed her parents death at the hands of assassins after her clan had an unfortunate run-in with the crows. the crows, ever the opportunists, "took her in". yearns to be reconnected to her dalish heritage. doesn't remember her given name; shrike is a nickname. loves antivan puppetry (♥️ davrin or emmrich)

3. issala thorne | qunari/slayer warrior/grey warden — tal-vashoth², though they can't shake their belief that their self-worth is tied inherently to their function as a weapon, or an instrument of justice. chose the name issala, qunlat for dust, to reflect that. of course, the grey wardens were incredibly appealing to them as a cause. (self-sacrificial rooks where you AT 🗣️). very committed to non-violence. still gotta decide their former role under the qun (♥️ davrin or bellara)

4. valruna thorne | dwarf/reaper warrior/grey warden — smith caste, family specializes in runecrafting. mother committed a crime and joined the legion of the dead to preserve their family's standing. as an only child, valruna protested, begging for them to go the surface instead, but it was no use. despite her mother's sacrifice, several years later, valruna left for the surface, unable to stay home³ any longer. was purposeless for a long time before eventually becoming a grey warden (paralleling her mother's sacrifice YAY give it up for sacrifice again 👏) also goth dwarf (♥️ harding)

5. sylvenne mercar | elf/evoker mage/shadow dragon — born into servitude in orlais before being sold into slavery in tevinter. was eventually adopted (by this mysterious military family I GUESS). late bloomer mage; her magic manifested, her potential was obvious, and her station was raised. joined the shadow dragons as she believes in their agenda, though she has difficulty coming to terms with her own desire for power, even at the expense of other people (♥️ neve or emmrich)

6. odalis laidir | human/evoker mage/lord of fortune — elf-blooded⁴ human trained by my HoF's father, mar, who is for all intents and purposes, a Rivaini seer, though he was pushed out of the tradition due to being amab (despite his genderfluid identity). odalis, also nonbinary, was brought under mar's wing. thought joining the lords of fortune was a good way to satisfy their insatiable wanderlust (♥️ taash)

7. eirelan aldwyr | elf/?⁵/veil jumper — literally idk dont ask me. i know EXACTLY what they'll look like and their whole vibe and personality but I have no backstory (♥️ bellara or davrin or harding or emmrich)

8. ghilaras | elf/?⁶/?⁷ — protege to my HoF. dalish child orphaned due to whatever circumstance; found themselves in surana's path (or they put themselves there because HoF idolization). surana begrudgingly took them in (parallel to odalis and mar). eventually got separated when HoF went deeper into their search for a cure. ghilaras spends their life looking for her, but gets derailed by veilguard plot. also they are a falconer 🦅

9. amadeus mercar | human/rogue⁸/shadow dragon — he's a tortured bisexual that grew up in minrathous's docktown. wary of mages (I'm being generous). best lockpick in the city

everything subject to change as usual

¹ either rogue (veil ranger) or mage (spellblade); depends on stylization of the specs ² If we can't say we're tal-vashoth, this character MIGHT fall apart. nervous ³ kal-sharok?? orzammar??? ⁴ oh it hurts to say this (stares wistfully at the timeline where bioware said it's okay to be mixed race in dragon age world) ⁵ either rogue (veil ranger) or mage (death caller) ⁶ either warrior or rogue (veil ranger or duelist) ⁷ so initially I was thinking grey warden because narrative, but I like the idea of ghilaras becoming a veil ranger due to their commitment to elven culture,,,, but what if surana was like "no matter what, promise me you'll never follow in my footsteps. don't undergo the joining". BUT THEY DID ANYWAY !!! 😈 ...delicious. but also that would mean I have three grey warden rooks and that's just too much even for me ⁸ saboteur or duelist

[thetapirsarehyperfixating]

hi! first time making an original post in like years. anyways

this is my canon timeline for dragon age, written out in prep for veilguard's release :> larger versions of the busts, plus assorted rambling, below the cut.

eventually, i am probably going to cave and post some stuff about these bastards on ao3 - if you are interested, this is where to look: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tapir_boy/works

SARRELAN TABRIS: as im writing this post my partner looked over, saw sarrelan, and went "thats my fuckign WIFE". so shes highly reviewed

Sarrelan is the Warden-Commander and Hero of Ferelden, the woman who killed the Archdemon, ended the Fifth Blight, Arlessa of Amaranthine, and winner of Vigil's Keep's Biggest Bitch award twenty-two years and counting. she is full to the brim with autism, which is part of the reason she looks so. mad. all of the time. she doesn't mean to, she just does not Emote well and so comes off as being more aggressive than she actually is. now don't get her wrong, she is also full of rage and kind of jumps to violence as a first resort, but she is capable of listening to people and generally does like people, like she thinks good people deserve things and wants to give them good things. she just never looks like she does.

she's got kind of an immediate bond with Alistair, something to be said about him being basically the first human man who's ever treated her with respect and actually listened to her when she takes control of a situation. ive seen interesting commentary out there about how alistair immediately turns control of the situation over to the HoF and how that can be really disorienting/frustrating/upsetting for some characters, but its kind of the opposite for sarrelan. shes had almost two decades of experience getting into shit with her cousins, shes used to taking charge and she likes having that control, and its a relief that alistair doesn't try to fight her on it.

zevran is a little more rough-going to start as they're both very different people - zevran is used to reading more into people's body language, and sarrelan's body language is very disassociated from her actual emotions, so he does spend a good while thinking he's in like Imminent Danger while sarrelan's in the corner trying to figure out if she actually Likes this guy flirting with her. (she does).

zevran semi-accidentially insinuates himself in alistair and sarrelan's relationship right after it starts, half-jokingly offering to have a threesome to help them both get over their nerves of losing their virginity, and then oops oh no they all caught feelings and no one knows how to deal with it. they only figure their shit out a few days before the battle of denerim and it's as sarrelan is On Top of the archdemon, getting ready to kill it, still unsure if Morrigan's ritual will work and if she'll even survive this, that she's able to tell them she loves them.

zevran's earring is the only piercing she has, and she treasures it greatly. she's a two handed warrior and has a sword bigger than herself. shes also gone 1v1 with an orge alpha and survived. canonically. id say i have video proof but i dont. just trust me bro

(TW FOR SA, NOT GRAPHICALLY DESCRIBED)

CONNOR HAWKE: local man made of 20 different types of trauma in a cool chestplate

connor is actually adopted into the hawke family! long story short, he was born in kirkwall and was taken to the circle there, and only left because his enchanters conspired to smuggle him out after one of the templars assaulted him. he fled to ferelden where he came across the hawke family, who took him and his daughter in and helped him fake a new identity with them. he's not happy to be back in kirkwall, but the city is a part of him whether he likes it or not - it's eating him alive but without it, he doesn't feel like himself. he's a very dedicated and loyal person, usually to his detriment, but he feels like he can't keep running from the threat of the templars anymore, he has to do something to fix this makerdamned city now.

(TW IS OVER)

he's got Something going on with the whole kirkwall crew, it just never really expands into anything for years because he's basically married to the job. but his life has been intertwined with these people's since he met them, and at a certain point all of those feelings mesh together and he's sitting there at wicked grace night and realizes he might be In Love with all of them, and then he has to make a hasty exit before he has a complete and total breakdown over it. during the timespan of DA2, anders is really the only person he has a romantic relationship with, because justice is getting tired of anders holding himself back from maybe the one other man in kirkwall who would support him no matter what, and kisses connor like the day before he has to leave on a longer quest to the sundermount. connor makes them discuss their feelings afterwards and they end up figuring it out, although the rest of the kirkcule are like. still fucking each other and are by no means exclusive at this point. the rest of them just never talk about it, because things go downhill in act 2 FAST. like, within a month he loses his mother, almost gets dragged back to the circle, has to fake his daughter's death, completely destroys his relationship with carver, and almost dies fighting the arishok.

the connor hawke of reality and the Champion of Kirkwall that gets immortalized by varric are two very different people - basically by the time that connor gets the name of Champion, he's already been working on maintaining a public persona that he just calls Hawke, and after everything with his daughter being sent away, he never lets that mask down again. he really considers Hawke to be a completely different person to Connor, and varric tries to help cement that difference in the Tale of the Champion. Hawke's story is that he was always Ferelden, his daughter was adopted and really did die, and he had no idea anders was getting so radical until the moment the chantry exploded - connor's story is that from the moment he sent Lila away, he was planning to find some way to take down Meredith.

he and anders spend a lot of time inbetween acts 2-3 trying to figure out more peaceful ways to address the chantry and bring some - any - oversight to the circles, but when all of that fails, they finally resort to plan dynamite. when all is said and done, they go to amaranthine to be reunited with lila, and then go on the run trying to help the mages break out of the circles and evade the templars. when he hears that varric was kidnapped by cassandra and that she's looking for him to speak at the conclave, he sees it as an opportunity to make a case for the rebel mages, and goes despite all the warnings not to. he survives in the fade up until the questline where the Herald goes into the fade, finds him alive, and drags him back home to see his daughter again. then he stays in skyhold to basically act as an advisor to her, and when the rest of the kirkcule get their hands on him, it kind of spurs him on to finally address his relationship to the rest of them.

connor is a force mage by default, but given how long he spent in Ferelden living on the run from the templars, he mastered both casting without a staff and fighting without magic. he's both tall and strong, but he manages to avoid scaring people off through sheer Dad energy.

LILA HAWKE: hey look theres that daughter we've been talking about

Lila is very much her father's daughter, but she doesn't have his same talent for acting calm or friendly, if she doesn't like you she Will tell you to your face and she will not work with you. (cullen.) after hawke's "death" at the conclave, she kind of becomes the defacto leader of the rebel mages, which is definitely a normal amount of responsibility for a twenty-one year old struggling with ongoing mental health issues and overwhelming grief to handle. shes doing great

(slight detour: to address some of the weirdness with DAI's timelines im having there be basically 3 factions of mages in the rebellion: the Circle mages, who want to remain under the circles with the exact same setup as before; the College mages, who like the idea of having their own spaces and want some oversight, but also some oversight of the oversight to address the rampant abuses of powers; and the Hawkes, the rebel mages who want no circles and no templars and the ability to live their lives in the same communities as non-mages. the Circle mages mostly look to Vivienne for leadership, the College mages are rallied behind Fiona, and the Hawkes were roaming the continent with Connor, now working loosely with the Inquisition with Lila.)

she's got some health issues - she's shorter than varric by a few inches despite being a human, she has moderate asthma, and semi-regular psychotic episodes, mostly auditory/visual hallucinations and paranoid episodes. bubba, the family mabari, acts as a service dog for her when he isn't doing the same for connor, and i imagine at some point between inquisition and veilguard, she has her own mabari who works full-time as her service dog.

she is one of the co-inquisitors for DAI, but she is not the herald of Andraste; she wasn't actually at the conclave when it exploded, she was down in haven with varric and anders, but she kind of gets roped into everything because cassandra says "youre a hawke, you're going to get involved anyways" and lila... can't really argue with that, she's just mad that cassandra was right. arisas is the diplomatic one, she's the more experienced one, and they honestly balance each other out really well. it frustrates her to no end that arisas is almost literally twice her height.

lila kind of regards her time in amaranthine as the best of a really, really shitty situation - she hates that she lost so much time with her father, that her teenage years were so tumultuous and that she had so many milestones of her life and she couldn't talk to her father about them, she never got to introduce her first girlfriend to him, she had to come out to him over letters, and while she has a lot of respect for the wardens in amaranthine and appreciates them for taking her in with no questions asked, she hates that she lives in a world where that had to happen in the first place. sarrelan is the person who made her realize she might be kind of butch, and zevran taught her how to actually fight instead of just using her magic for experimentation. connor never kept a grimoire after fleeing kirkwall (too obvious and too much evidence, especially if it got lost or stolen), but she does, and it's filled to the brim with notes and homebrewed spells.

ARISAS ADAAR: please help him he is too young for this

arisas is by far the youngest person to get involved in a major political conflict in my canon - he turns 16 during the events of DAI - and he is trying so hard to keep people from learning that information. he grew up in tevinter, taken there from par vollen as a very young child, and doesn't have the greatest grasp of southern mage/templar politics and is very confused by everything happening at the start of the game. he joined with a mercenary company as his first job, and was only with them for a few weeks before they got hired for the conclave, and he was Not getting paid enough to get a crash course in the differences between southern mages and tevinter mages.

ari is a lot more hesitant / cautious than lila is, partially because he has an anxiety disorder, and partially because he just knows a lot less about the south than she does. if it were up to him, he would not be in charge of this mess, but he's the one with the Anchor so he kind of has to be. he takes to the diplomacy pretty well, and he at least always finishes the paperwork that josephine sets in front of him (unlike liia, who will get distracted and go do something else halfway through). it does mean that he is constantly sleep deprived

inquisition is probably his first big exposure to a lot of queer people in very close proximity to him - between lila, leliana, dorian, and bull, it's the first time that he's really considered that people could be queer, much less trans, and it starts to make him question some things that he really doesn't have time to question. and, as the game continues, it doesnt really seem like questioning it will do him any good, as the inquisition continues to erase him and fill in the blanks with the Herald of Andraste, so he basically goes "even if i am queer, looking into it now will do me no good, because no one here is going to listen or respect that" and continues on like normal. (post canon he does figure some shit out, although he still uses he/him pronouns).

ari looks up to bull a lot, at first because he's a qunari who actually follows the qun, and ari is very curious and kind of wants bull to take him under his wing and become a father figure to him; but when bull becomes tal-vashoth and leaves the qun, ari tries to reassure him that he's the same man regardless of the identity he ties himself to, and that there's no shame in acting outside of the qun if it means protecting the people he cares about. bull in turn tries to help ari come out of his shell and maintain his sense of self in the midst of everything that comes with being the herald.

he struggles a LOT with having his identity erased by the inquisition, being both revered and reviled and rewritten with every step he takes. it makes him feel just thorougly inhuman and alone, and causes a mental breakdown after trespasser. he tries to stay in politics for a few years post canon, tries to help dorian with reforming tevinter with all this newfound influence he has, but being in the spotlight so much is detrimental to his heath, and he ends up having an early retirement in his mid-20s. he moves to kirkwall and raises nugs. this is the greatest his life has ever been.

[soulventure91]

Initial primary Rook thoughts:

Name: Sataare Taashath (first name pro. seh-TAAR-ay; Seht for short)

Class: mage (most likely a flavor of battlemage, depending on subclass availability)

Race: Qunari / vashoth (probably born into the Qun, was found to be a saarebas, escaped and was rescued by the Wardens)

Faction: Grey Wardens (probably one of the first qunari Wardens!)

Personality: Demure/shy/avoidant. Not that Seht doesn't feel things but she probably has a hard time demonstrating her feelings around the Veilguard. Probably she stuns most people when she unleashes all kinds of primal magical forces then turns to them going 'oh sry um that was a lot my bad'

Romance/Party Dynamics: To be honest? I don't know yet if Seht would romance anyone. At this juncture we've only really seen Harding and Neve - Harding I think would immediately adopt Seht as a bestie/little sister, and I can see Neve as a mentor for Seht to expand her magical skills. Davrin would seem like a natural fit with them both being Wardens (something something hearkens back to HoF and Alistair something) but alas there's no material out about Davrin beyond his appearance and a general character sketch (and he has a griffon :D). There's also the mage/mage-killer route with Lucanis but at this point is so unoriginal looking at the rest of the fandom. Seht and Taash are going to do the Spider-Man point at LEAST once because of names but their relationship will depend on whether Taash is qunari/vashoth/tal-vashoth and her history. Bellara might end up a similar tack as Harding but, again, depends on her actual characterization. Emmrich is the wild card of this stack, because I can see Seht being very nervy around him being a necromancer.

General appearance: I envision Seht as very small and wiry for a qunari - probably still taller than most, but a very tall human would probably cap her height. Black hair but pale (for qunari) skin; likely Seht is more "golden" a la DAO Sten than white/grey like DA2 Arishok or DAI Bull. Blue eyes but not sure if pale or dark yet; depends on how the CC works. Her horns!! Are probably curled ram's horns, though if the CC allows them to be more petite than heavy that's the route she'll go.

[rahleeyah]

Hello! I have to say that your newest chapter of HoF was so so 🥹 & made me feel all of the feelings. I love seeing how differently Liv reacted to Sealview now that she has support & family around her. That she was willing to get help and see beyond the forest bc she had El who she knew would catch her & love her through it. And that sometimes, you need people who you love enough to do the hard things for. And then Instinct was 🔥. It amazes me how you can toggle between the two yet each story still has your stamp on it that makes it Leah.

I have to admit that any adoption story or ep is rough on me bc I’m nervous about how adoption will be treated since it’s so close to my ❤️. I get nervous whenever the adoptee doesn’t treat her adoptive fam as her real fam & considers the bio parents as their “real parent” bc it usually indicates how adoption will be portrayed in the rest of the story (hopefully that makes sense). However bc it’s you, I trust that it will be treated fairly and written thoughtfully & beautifully. And I think it’ll be such an interesting story bc Liv adopted & clearly treats Noah differently than Gabi was treated by her parents. And also, we don’t know yet if Gabi adopted her kids either (which I like bc my family and I don’t think about adoption in all of our inner thoughts either!). All’s to say is that I’m excited to get to know Gabi a bit more & delve into another tiny universe.

Anywho I hope my ramblings conveyed my utter appreciation for you and your writing and all that you give us!

thank you so much for this!! that's something i really wanted to dig into, is how differently does liv react to things when she's not alone, when she hasn't been for years? when she's been learning all this time that she doesn't have to carry everything alone, instead of having that belief reinforced at every turn? when she doesn't have to worry about elliot trusting in her abilities on the job, when she doesn't have to send him home to someone else and go back to an empty apartment alone, but when the one person who she cares about most, who understands her most, is not part of her job, and is instead just part of her life? how does knowing that she has to be there for her family change the choices she makes? so i'm really glad you're enjoying it.

and i want to thank you for coming in to share your thoughts about in the blood. the sort of thesis question behind in the blood is, what makes a family? gabi often felt out of place in her adoptive family, and that's an important part of her story BUT BUT BUT many, many gay kids grow up feeling that way in their biological families. hell, many straight kids do, for a variety of reasons. and the reasons gabi has a tense relationship with her parents aren't down to her having been adopted; she may at times wonder if that's why, but it isn't, and she knows it isn't, she knows that the things that made that relationship tense would have been the same even if she was their biological child; it's who they are that causes friction. and she knows her experience is not the only way people experience adoption; she's been gathering narratives of other adoptees for her article, and we'll see her thoughts later on about all the different stories she's heard, and all the different experiences she's encountered, and how they can't just all be lumped into one box. and we'll see gabi confronting that through observing liv's relationship with noah, and through observing her relationship with her own kids. and we'll look at blood family, bc gabi is bound by blood to liv and burton, and the biological ties don't suddenly make them all a family, even if gabi, before she knows anything about her father, wonders if it might. gabi's connection with her biological mother has been a positive thing, but the point we'll belabor there is that this isn't bc of DNA, it's bc of who they are as people. the person olivia is, that's what made her so kind to gabi. olivia isn't accepting of gabi just bc gabi is her biological child; she would treat anyone that way, and we have seen her offer acceptance and support to noah on his own journey. and then of course we'll have elliot's family, and gabi observing the way elliot treats her, the way he treats noah, the way his family opens up to liv's family and how they all blend in together.

the story is called "in the blood", but it's not what it first appears. bc what gabi will come to learn is that it isn't in the blood; that what makes a family is love, and choices. choosing to stay, choosing to support one another, choosing to be part of one another's lives. biological or adopted, that part doesn't matter; the love is what matters. i was toying with the old saying, you know, i'm sure you've heard this by now, but the common way we say "blood is thicker than water" to mean biological ties are paramount is actually the opposite meaning of the original phrase. it was originally "the blood of friendship is thicker than the water of the womb"; that is, that the ties we choose are more profound than the ones we inherit.

so i hope that, after all that explanation, you maybe find some reassurance; i do not take this topic lightly, and the last thing i want is to offend anyone.

[biserker-kadan]

Val, the middle child OC.

Val deserves some love and attention so here are a few Val things!

1. Honestly Val is a lot more of a dick than a dork - like yeah, he's the ultimate bro with secret anger and abandonment issues, but he's also an absolute wanker and I love that about him! He'll happily antagonise everyone and anyone just because he's bored and wanted something to do. Dudes and uppity little prick and I love him.

2. Modern AU? Val was one of those scene/emo kids as a teen (like ages 12 - 17) who wore all black and band tees and listened to screamo and all that. Now that he's older, he wears whatever the fuck he wants (still band tees but like less black skinny jeans), his wardrobe is a giant explosion of patterns and colours. He loves wearing fun, pretty things - still listens to the screamo rock though.

3. Val is insecure about his looks buT I love his face, I do. I love his jawline and the fact that his head is more rectangle than all my other OCs, and he's got one of the best noses (no the best - that goes to Beau) and it's all cute and bumpy and his lips are amazing - they're not quite pouty, not quite a cupid's bow but something in between. He's got scars and he isn't perfect and I think that's what I love the most? He's himself.

4. Val is half-Dalish, half-City elf. He grew up in an Orlesian Alienage and he a city boy, but he also grew up in a Dalish Clan - which is why he has a Vallaslin - and although he doesn't connect to the Dalish religion or worshiping to Dalish Creators, he still loves the lore and is always excited to learn more about his mothers heritage.

5. When everything is over, and he's a little lost, there are 2 AUs that I have for him. One is 'canon' and that's that he joins the Warden order under the HoF, Commander Meira Tabris who welcomes him with a scowl but a special understanding - both having been raised in an Alienage. The other is that he becomes a really damn good poison and toxin creator/researcher for the 'whatever the Inquisition is' after that. Val's unable to really leave Fereldan with the whole 'Solas wanting to rip apart the world' problem but he's not exactly the Herald or Inquisitor anymore so he kinda throws himself into this niche and really likes it! It's more of a hobby on the side, with Leliana and her friend Zevran's help, but it makes him happy and takes him mind off the stress.

6. He's not alone during the Inquisition aka. His adopted family absolutely comes for him, adopted family being Myrinah (his somewhat adopted older sister who he met prior to Clan Lavellan) and Eirianwen (his somewhat adopted younger sister from Clan Lavellan). Myrinah finds him in Skyhold first - Riddick and Bren alongside her, because their all family and there's no way in hell that they're letting Val do this shit on his own - and Eirianwen comes later, after the shit show at Halamshiral, she's excited to meet Dagna and Varric and gets to work in the forge almost immediately. Myrinah and Eirianwen (and Riddick and Bren to an extent) are the only ones he really breaks down in front of and trusts completely.

7. He's so smitten with Dorian it's insane. He just really likes him. Val will sit there for hours and watch Dorian talk and rant and argue with Solas with his chin in hand and a sappy, love sick smile on his face. When they finally get together, Val likes to wake up early (a fucking struggle) and run his fingers through Dorians hair as he sleeps, likes to pepper his face with kisses or wake him up by getting him off. Val just really loves his boyfriend ok.

8. He was almost trained as a bard as a child for the Orlesian nobles. The shems used to waltz into the Alienages every few months and line the children up, look over them and then take them for themselves - because no one notices little elf's running a muck. Valerio tells Leliana this at one point and watches as her entire being freezes, face going white in shock horror. After that, she and Josephine make sure to 'lure' as many Elven bards to the Inquisition as they can, making them agents as they go and then helping the ones who wish to reunite with family. Val's happy with that.