The Witch Of Babbling (blog thread)

so maybe I CAN shove Oindys somewhere in the mid-to-end of timeline to have a GREAT RELATIONSHIP of FRIEND WHO HAD BENEFITS with my inquisitor and make Cullen go all broody with "oh i cannot keep these foolish hopes she is DALISH and has PROSPECTS back in her CLAN" like not that it ISNT one of the million reasons they spend three years Politely Not Acknowledging Mutual Attraction but maybe i can put a spin of romantic something in it. /hmmmmmmmm

 

it would also give me an opportunity to have Oindys in more places which is good because Dys is a good bunny. or maybe not so good because in theatricality he is second only to my Warden and I can't write my Warden for shit

 

him......... cute............ i wish i could find a better way to represent "black hair that is going salt and pepper at the unfortunate age of 28" ingame

I really wanna continue his PT but I also want to finish the edit of the arcane warrior armor that i was modding for him and i just... honestly can't even remember where i stopped. also i'm supposed to be playing FO4, and my computer keeps overheating because it's fifteen billion degrees and cat hair clogs the cooler at an astonishing rate

Ok so!! Oindys Lavellan!!! He is not actually Dalish born!! His mother and father were servants to a wealthy merchant family, as were their parents, and their parents, and so was he - he was the personal assistant and servant to the family's only son since childhood, in that very Orlesian totally-not-slavery way. Only this family was based in Denerim by the time of Maric's rebellion, and they stayed there because they could pay, but paying to stay also made the family become kinda rough in the finances. So when the Blight hit, they sent their heir to the safety of the Marches with Dys in the belly of the ship while they took care of businesses with Loghain. And then Loghain kind of, uh, got away from his head, and the Darkspawn attacked, and a lot of people died including the merchant family and their servants. Dys was around 17 at the time, and he was currently living in a very nice house in Wycome with the heir to the family and a great amount of wine and party guests. The money they sent with them was quickly going down the drain, and in the year and some after the Battle of Denerim it was all gone. The heir acquired massive debts, and was pressuring Oindys to work to pay them, and often being physically violent.

And this really pissed him off. Up until them he had been very meek and servile and afraid, because he was small and thin and not very well fed and he was against an older, larger, more athletic, more imposing human men in a position of authority. But the situation escalated until it was unsustainable, and one day during a confrontation Dys finally had enough and fought back. Unfortunately, he fought back at the tall end of some stairs, and at the end of the confrontation the dude was at the bottom of it.

Dys bolted. He couldn't do anything else, in panic as he was, and before he knew it he was already out of Wycome and into the fields. And he just... kept going, because he didn't know what else to do, until he got into the forest beyond the fields outside of Wycome, and further into it, with very little food or water that didn't make him super sick because he had no idea what he was putting in his mouth. Thankfully, he was found by Lavellan scouts before he could die by poisonous mushroom, and was nursed back to health by the Keeper and the Master Herbalist, and this was how he joined clan Lavellan. He was so very thankful for this that he changed his name - from whatever it was to Oindys, meaning lucky rabbit - a slightly self deprecating nod to the insults of his past. They helped him heal physically and psychologically, and took him in and gave him a family, and trained him and appreciated him, and he feels very very lucky to be where he is.

His involvement in the Idrilla Lavellan's Love Life Soap Opera is only accidental! At the time, Idrilla had just broken up with Nira, who she had been romancing since before she was made First. Their breakup was messy and affected almost the entire clan in a way or another, and Idrilla was just a bit under twenty, and she had to prove that, like, She Was Totally Over It, The Waters Past Have No Power Over The Mill, Look At How I CAN Actually Have A Healthy Relationship And Care About A Person's Needs I Am The First Nira You Selfish Shrew Caring About People's Needs Is My Literal Job How Dare You Call Me Cold Hearted And Immature, Look At Me Having This Cool New Relationship so she started flirting with Dys, who by that time had been with the clan long enough to get used to things and make some friends but not long enough to know not to touch the wasp nest. So he's like, Cool, the First's a pretty girl and she is nice and she wants a piece of this, Maybe I Can Touch A Boob. and everyone is saying 'uh dude, don't do it, this is a wasp nest and also Idrilla is a good girl but she's terrible' to which he said 'but maybe boob?' and they said 'dude she's using you to make Nira jealous' and he said 'but maybe i don't mind that?' and eventually they got together despite literally everything I just said. It goes on for a while as Nira seethes, and everyone is waiting for things to blow up, but they never do because Idrilla's father sees that Dys is starting to become attached and like, sort of mind that he's being used even if he does have access to The Boob, and has a nice long conversation with his daughter that makes her have a nice long look at her life and break things up and apologize to him. Which he is hurt by, but just a little, and he overcomes it quickly enough and sincerely enough that they can continue their friendship until it's pretty solid and honest. He's a chill guy and he doesn't hold (a lot of) grudges, and he bounces back pretty easily from most things.

He has had some dalliances in the Lavellan and their sister clans, but nothing permanent as I am playing him and I wanna find a good romance for him. Technically he's such a good catch, by the Lavellan flavor of Dalish standards, for being a city elf who you don't have to play match-the-genealogy with to avoid inbreeding that it's THAT complicated to arrange a match.

Also in my overly complicated headcanon his paternal grandfather was a cousin of my Warden's paternal grandmother so there's that

also i would be ashamed to post this wall of text without a spoiler tag but IT'S MY THREAD I CAN POST IT IF I WANT TO

 

i'm very sad that i only have Nira in Sims form but i physically cannot make more elves in DAI they're starting to all look the same

 

I also have a ridiculous headcanon that Dalish clan names and City Elf family names are almost all derived from which part of Elvhen Dales they came from and which populations went where- so Lavellan comes from a place called something like that or something, and gave origin to a handful of City Elf family names as this got further corrupted; Tabris comes from the clan Tabrithas, that still exists in Ferelden with a Tabrithei branch in the Marches, and Surana comes from Suravhenna, which sadly died out as an independent Dalish Clan circa the Blessed Age. Stuff like that. Names!!!

Like, not all city elves are in families that follow this but most are.

 

It's actually canon that at least some dalish families within clans (Talas and Mahariel of Clan Sabrae) are named for Emerald Knights and presumably descend from them, so with that dynamic in mind i would not be surprised if the location-names were actually canon

 

dude i totally know what you mean about wanting and also not wanting jealousy subplots in your fic. i was complaining to someone about this a while ago bc on the one hand fuck jealousy but also it can lead to some Good Drama (tm) that's not necessarily icky and possessive. like as long as they're not actively making it the other person's problem, i think you're solid. like cully going off to sulk and nurse his poor jealous heart alone in the crow tower while the rain pours down around him is A++. even him being snappy with illa and dys is fine because feelings are hard :(((

 

Yeah! IMH the other Dalish names that arent location based are people based - either people from the time of the Dales like the Emerald Knights or the Keepers; like, my inquisitor's full name is Idrilla Belavhan Haueni Lavellan; Belavhan is the name she choose when she became First and if clan Lavellan ever needed to split, whoever went with her would be known as clan Belavhan.

Profession-based last names aren't very common with the Dalish but show up in alienages, tho it's more of a human thing.

 

Yeah. Possessive jealousy is a major turn off for me but on the other hand? That scene in Persuasion where Mr. Elliot interrupts Anne's conversation with Captain Wentworth in the music concert and after that he's like 'I must go'and Anne is like 'aren't you staying for the rest of the concert?'and Wentworth turns away with his kicked puppy face and says 'no!! There is nothing here that would be worth staying for!!' as he flees the scene because all of society believes there is an agreement between Anne and Mr. Elliot but he wanted to make sure because he thought Anne still loved him but he couldn't ask directly because of the repressed social mores of the time and also his own insecurity and anxiety?? And now he thinks he has lost Anne forever and has no hope of earning her love back because she has chosen someone much more respectable than him and who is a much better match in the eyes of her family??? That scene??? That scene is HILARIOUS and when I was watching I though 'oh my God this is horrible Wentworth for God's sake just TALK to her, also Cullen should totally do some drama like this.'

 

Some people see Cullen as a sexy suave mature dominant man who has a solid confidence in his ability to be in relationships that comes from experience in said relationships and these people are COWARDS

 

Also the mental image of Cullen sulking in the crow tower in the rain is hilarious. Imagine what Leliana would be thinking

 

-stares at sweet innocent virginal baby cullen in DA:O fleeing the scene if flirted with even a little-
-stares at repressed traumatized cullen being a bitter, angry, paranoid and zealot-y mess in DA2-
-stares at his awkward and unsure reactions in DA:I-
oh yes this man totally has experience in romantic relationships. Totally. 100%. Not like he was a) technically discouraged from pursuing any relationships and b) deeply unstable for the decade most people would have their primary formative romantic experiences in. Cullen is not at all super intense and shy and awkward about everything due to lacking any kind of experience interacting with people in a flirtatious capacity, nevermind having an actual relationship.
/sarcasm

Leliana: is this what morrigan felt when I became the emo-goth friend?

 

THAT'S WHAT I KEEP SAYING that man is a repressed virgin chock full of trauma and Christian Andrastian guilt wrt romance who never had the opportunity to come to this from a healthy perspective because he was in a massively shitty situation and mental state for his entire adult life. There was a time in fandom where Dom!Cullen With A Past paired with Innocent Virginal Inquisitor was everywhere and it made me so confused. If it's not to explore his complex situation and anxieties, then where's the fun??

Leliana breaks her promise to be an absolute killjoy at all times and recommends some good emo-goth breakup songs for moping

 

I Can't Believe Sleeping At Last's Album Atlas: Year One Has A Song For Everything

 

-me shoving an inquisitor who looks like an honest to god doppelganger of the trashfire garbage queen warden cullen has an oopsie bastard with pre-DA:O at cullen making him have literal flashbacks when he wakes up next to her until she cuts her hair off and sleeps facing him so he can see her vallaslin-
I have no idea what you mean I don't like watching him suffer and then overcome things at all :')

 

My Warden and my Inquisitor don't look alike at all outside of being both elf mages and that is all good and proper because the other person my Cullen felt attracted to in between them was goddamn trashfire Hawke The Funny Mage and that is suffering enough

 

I mean it helps that Brejan Lavellan is actually a sweet darling nerd angel, unlike necromancer and shapeshifter hellspawn Meraud who continues making terrible decisions fully convinced she has never done anything wrong in her entire life, terrorizes ferelden and holds incredibly conflicting views without seeing any need to evaluate her hypocrisy. (She is such a bad person. I love her so much)
At least Cullen's oldest son in that timeline didn't turn out too terribly aside from being raised in Orlais in an orphanage and having capital-i Issues with religion and Templars due to that and running away to be an apostate and agent for the mage rebellion..... and Cullen being told the kid didn't make it at all and having the shock of his life when Ryol just waltzed up to Skyhold like 'HI, YEAH, BY THE WAY I EXIST'.

 

Liesyn Surana has all the stage presence of all opera divas combined in a 4'11 package, almost no indoor voice, and all the emotions. She would not be out of place as the protagonist of a high octanage shounen anime, or a tale of epic legend. Everything she does is wrapped in at least three layers of theatrics. and that's just. how she is naturally. she was born like this. this is all sincere. She came into the world Dragon Age Kamina and that's just how things are sometimes. (she's so hard to write)

Ninety-nine percent of the Templars thought she was absolutely infuriating, because that's not how a mage is supposed to be, and Cullen was completely hopeless around her. He was 18 years old, extremely sheltered, very well trained in the art of Conforming And Obeying and he fell in love with that kind of person.

 

Urghhh having to do housecleaning is so awful!!! in this weather!!!!!!! I have to stop every twenty minutes because my bp keeps dropping

 

I love Granny. She's excellent. But when it comes to the guard, Carrot is my fave. I want a Carrot of my very own :P

Also, good luck with med school! If you have questions or anything hmu.