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

[kanis-things]

ma'am 😳

[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.

[chaos--mode]

DARP Advent 2024: Day Six

HALFWAY THERE!

Let's talk about INFLUENCES and ADMIRATION!

Muse Portion!:

1. Who or what are some things/powers/people that your muse admires? Ren greatly admires the Friends of Red Jenny, both for their "unorthodox" approach (in comparison to Ren's experience at least), adoption of chaos and mischief, and focus on helping those that truly need it 2. Does your muse have a "hero" that they look up to from canon? she definitely looks up to the Hero of Ferelden and the Inquisitor, at least in my default canon. she also tangentially knows Zevran through a common contact and admires him for his involvement in the Fifth Blight and going against the Crows 3. What legends, tales, or stories helped to form your muse's ideas of power and heroism? oooh definitely the HoF and the Fifth Blight, since she's about 9 years old when they kill the Archdemon. growing up though she also would've heard tales of old Tevinter heroes and fairytales, which gives her some ... interesting takeaways lol 4. Conversely, what sort of legends, tales, or stories formed their idea of what a villain is? when everything goes down in Kirkwall kicking off the war Ren's about 15 or so, and she'd definitely have some Thoughts on that 5. Are there other muses in DARP that your muse admires? Or reviles/fears? (be careful with that second one and be RESPECTFUL.) in terms of admiring, she looks up to people that want to help others and aren't beholden to any larger structured organization like the Chantry. she admires Harding and Sera since even though they met through the Inquisition they weren't really all that attached to it as a concept and are more interested in helping others for reviling/fearing pretty much anyone associated with Tevinter, Venatori, or assassins. she knows a bit about the Crows' practices through Zevran and also spent near a decade running from assassins (in all likelihood she has dodged at least one Crow contract over the years) so she really doesn't like the Crows or anyone associated with them, at least not on first meeting. she'd be wary of anyone from Tevinter just because of her history and worrying about who may or may not be tied to her father somehow, so she'd probably keep people like Dorian and Neve at arm's length until she knew they weren't a threat to her 6. If your muse is someone who has companions or is one of the groups of companions from canon, how do they and their companions play off of each other? Are they friends? Enemies? Two dudes who'd cross the street to avoid each other? What are their most powerful connections within their "group"? Ren joins up with the Inquisition sometime early on during Haven, though she's more a background actor helping with shipments, menial tasks, manual labour, cooking and cleaning, etc. she helps Harding with scouting efforts once they get to Skyhold and start dealing with Venatori but is still very much on the fringes, likely only meeting the companions/advisors briefly here and there. she'd likely know Harding better than anyone else, maybe Varric a bit too since i imagine he talks to everyone just because that's who he is. she might approach Dorian at some point once she's not scared of him because oh Maker thank you someone who knows wtf i'm talking about when i complain about Ferelden. the only enemies she would have would be the trainer for the Rift Mage specialization since they're a part of the Mages' Collective, and Ren's got bad blood there for the Veilguard. i actually already wrote up a post about something similar here

[nochi-quinn]

I finished the game but apparently my remaining notes are going to have to go up in parts bc I Do Not Know How To Shut Up

“thieves, pirates, brigands” repeat-escapee mages, casteless dwarves, angry xenophobic elves…. 

Let 👏 Manfred 👏 be 👏 a 👏 warden 👏 

“nah, they were doin it” history will say they were roommates

“it sounded so tragic, and romantic” “never mind, that does sound like him” somewhere in fereldan, lavellan sneezes 

Taash: this story could have had DRAGONS the WHOLE TIME?? 

(I was about to do my usual “you could never be a dragon” but if anybody could be a dragon it's Taash) 

Solas is clearly the Maker, what's not clicking

(this is of course a joke. Sandal is the Maker.) 

The way Lucanis just goes “.....no” to some of the wilder things Taash says just tickles me so much

There is no way to convey through text the way he is just clearly bewildered by questions like “can Spite turn into an elf” 

THAT'S why Solas adopted Cole. He felt like home. 

“a memory of tranquility” oh god that's what they did, isn't it. they made the titans Tranquil. jesus.

“I suspect you have questions” look here you

“you can't fight a dragon bc you're an idiot” 

Emmrich is just so…pleasant. Maybe that's a weird descriptor, but I would absolutely hang out with him, in a quietly autistic parallel play way 

“but that's more than I should say” man the world is exploding, fuck the warden secrets

It's okay Emmrich I also had children so I wouldn't have to wash dishes 

The game begging me on its hands and knees to just follow the damn dwarf, me looking down and whispering “I'm ‘splorin’” 

“riddles riddles riddles, oh, I am a rock” what happened to being respectful

Okay I'm about ready to throw Ivenci in the blight water BUT “perhaps [the antaam] could be convinced to do more backflips while murdering” was funny

“imagine how big THEIR casino would be” 💀 

Harding like “life is already so weird, this might as well happen” 

“was there a plan after that?” absolutely not 

“you call that nice and quiet??” look here you

Mila has been more immediately helpful than any other authority figure in this entire game. Possibly the whole series. 

BIG FUCKIN FACE

“can we hire her?” “you don't have enough gold” I definitely want to hire her

HOF's chalice!! 

Kristoff's journals TT

this library is just a series of gut punches

“and now I die” no no, it's “in death, sacrifice”, run it again

I am torn btwn not wanting to redeem the first warden and not wanting Davrin to die 

cool l hate it 

(the way Gilan'nain moves is VERY nice tho) 

Emmrich said y'all need therapy

I just. I just love Mila so goddamn much.

My roommate assured me nothing happens to her which is good bc I would have deleted the game and complained to the BBB 

OSTAGAR THE MABARI

I completely forgot Taash had a quest here & was very confused to see them in the tunnel. Just chilling. 

I too would fight a dragon about gender feelings 

“how do you decide when one of your targets deserves to die?” “usually when the client pays up front” lucanis. 

“if you aren't dead, then you're still alive” people die when they are killed

“the joining ingredients are rare” I mean not the darkspawn blood, you've got a bumper crop of that now

you called him a WHAT

ykw I'm with Taash, who doesn't like dragons

Taash gets me

hatemail game on this website

Lucanis, we don't threaten our teammates just bc we told them where we hide the bodies. That was a you mistake. 

So. The Cauldron. What the fuck? 

spite you cannot eat the candles 

you will get heartburn 

my roommate keeps saying it's not like Eddie and Venom but I think she might be wrong 

“treasure…try down” thank you, bloodborne player

someone either had a ton of fun animating that hand or it was the bane of their existence 

“The Free Marches aren't worth considering after the disaster in Kirkwall” excuse u, her name is Hawke

Lucanis: all clothes are gender-neutral if you're not a coward

give 👏 taash 👏 a 👏 cape 👏

what in the Orin the Red 

no no fuck you, Zara said “amatus”, where's illario I just wanna talk 

Also big Orthax vibes with Spite going nuts that illario killed the person he wanted to kill 

BUT ALSO ILLARIO I JUST WANNA TALK

“Emmrich-” “looks at me like a thesis topic”

ahh, destroying gaatlok stashes. it's like we never left kirkwall. 

“you talk when it's your turn” “never my turn >:[“ 

“I'm surprisingly bad at knowing when I should quit”

magic ballista MAGIC BALLISTA 

I mean where did you get that but also MAGIC BALLISTA

“you've got a team with a lot of complications” which Varric knows nothing about 

“do you know what a lich is” [sprays Emmrich with water bottle]

it's okay Bellara I too write fanfiction to avoid thinking about my problems

“don't say it like that >:|” 

“the best way to the heart is between the fourth and fifth ribs; don't listen to Viago” 

“why are there undead things here?” “thousands have died in the deep roads” “not what I asked”

I don't like that it's called “flooded chamber” when there's no flooding. 

I don't appreciate the implication of future flooding.

Well those are fucking veins/nerve endings if I ever saw them

I hate this tunnel. It's giving brood mother and I don't care for it. 

“this is just lyrium that's angry” that's not helping

okay I didn’t cry during “you are Lace Harding” but I did tear up 

“we will thrive in spite of you” 

the heartbeat drums 

(heart. lungs. liver. nerves.) 

“acceptance of the truth and her own shadow self” squints in persona 4

are you a good lich or a bad lich” look here you 

Rowan's my new favorite character. I want a book about Rowan. 

“you misunderstood -” “then say it better!” YEAH

also the little sideways shuffle of shathaan getting out of her chair was a nice piece of animation 

wild going from “leandra amell was disowned for marrying a mage” to “my mom screamed at me for not being a mage even though my dad was” 

Emmrich: I'm gonna solve a murder! 8D

“dragons do not give one lyrium-infused crap about magical curses” 

The sequel to TotK Thoughts From My Notes App, Dragon Age The Veilguard Thoughts From My Notes App

please do not respond or reblog with spoilers, even in the tags, assume whatever the last thing is is how far I've gotten bc it probably is

first off, meet Kalais:

(I've tweaked her design since this but I don't have access to the ps5 rn for a new screenshot) (really I just filled her face out a lil so she's not so Pointy)

[quest marker flashes] NO, I'm ‘SPLORIN

okay jumping over the wall in D'Meta's Crossing & going from Standard Spooky directly into Turbo Hell was very effective 

“this blight is WEIRD” harding you were there for corypheus’ whole deal, you can't say things like that, it's terrifying 

they really took the deep roads and set it to “worse”, huh

(my roommate kept going "BROODMOTHER" bc she hates me)

NO WONDER THEY CALL IT THE DRAGON AGE

I watched my roommate do this bit with her Warden; she sent him off to probably die from the Joining. I just. left him there.

Morrigan if you're gonna wear the headpiece get your hair out from behind it you're driving me crazy

Morrigan smiles so much, idk how I feel about it 

this is gonna be a weird sentence but I miss how her mouth was shaped in DAO, it just suited her for some reason idk

OH she looks like a Carja, that's what's bothering me

(a lot of this game gives me shades of HZD if I'm being honest) (it's not a complaint)

Titan Harding TITAN HARDING

been trying to figure out who Bellara makes me think of and I think it's “Merrill if she had a support network that wasn't Hawke” 

(“and less blood magic”) 

oh, little backstory tchotchkes!

while Rook just monologues to themselves 

(definitely interesting being a Not Culturally Dalish elf with a vallaslin)

“it is merely a suggestion” gonna suggest you off a cliff

I'm so glad Varric didn't die. I was so prepared for it

as a through-line through the series I prefer him over Morrigan tbh

“your old friend is kind of an asshole” “I know, isn't it great” 

WAIT solas’ knife is the fucking LYRIUM IDOL?? 

that thing just can't stop ruining Varric's life, huh 

the way Harding's bruises and stuff actually take time to heal is so cool 

me: talks to The Viper one (1) time me:...godDAMMIT, Mercer

room: offerings to andraste  me: offerings to me :) 

I. Don't care for Neve so far. 

which is unfortunate bc I picked the Shadow Dragons origin

me: spots what is clearly a fade tear me:

ATAB (All Templars Are Bastards) 

“the venatori rise” yeah yeah, hail hydra, fuck off

hey? hey Varric? I don't think I like your foreshadowing Varric 

[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.