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Mar. 20th, 2019 04:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenofzani've been thinking a bit more about my tabris and what makes her, you know, different or special to me, why bother writing about her in my alistair/warden/zevran fic instead of another warden (though she's the only alistair-mancer i have so that's the doylist explanation).
mehren sometimes comes across as unsympathetic to other people's problems. as warden, she's more eager to fight, as a way to take out her feelings/revenge on the world. in my warden-as-inquisitor au, where mehren doesn't get rescued by duncan but effectively gets a stay of execution from uldred's whole mess, and ends up just sent to ostwick, she discovers that same martial prowess and thrill from a fight, but she's not allowed to just, go off the rails the way warden surana is. this is probably healthier for her in the long run, but it also means she gets an additional ten years to stew in her resentment until the circle rebels. she has very little patience for anyone involved in the templars or the chantry, though she's much more willing to at least not snap at circle apologist mages than at non-mages. she's grimly determined to fix things, and she does enjoy the fighting, but when people (especially templars or chantry folk) are like "woe is me" she's like "what about my woe. when were y'all going to address that." she can be a little callous, like "look, everyone suffers, it's part of life, stop whining about it and pick yourself up."
kallian, whose name is absolutely going to change bc that is the default ftabris name lmao, might also initially come across as callous, or even flippant. but that's because she has decided, if the world is going to be shit, and she's going to be responsible for part of it, then dammit she is going to be responsible for all of it. she will shoulder every burden she can to spare the people around her. it's a little bit "i'm already broken, so what's this burden to me; if i can spare my friends/this stranger/anyone the pain i've been through then what's a little more". idk if she would say it like that, or even talk about it at all, but even when she was trying to be as practical and pragmatic as possible, she didn't harden alistair or leliana, and she didn't make alistair be king, even though it was the better decision politically. if kallian ended up inquisitor somehow, she would gladly make every hard decision and take as much weight of the whole fucking south of thedas as possible. she wears the wedding ring of the man she didn't get to marry through the whole fifth blight, partially because she made a promise, partially because she couldn't save him, and partially to remind herself that she can't rely on other people to solve her problems. it doesn't work.
she's trying to be pragmatic and practical, but underneath it, she's an idealist. which is part of why i think it charms her when alistair is like "you're so pretty and competent", especially since he initially was like "haha what kind of warrior could you even be". she's made a difference with him, to him, and he noticed and appreciated her.
i also, in her playthrough, which was my first, avoided denerim until the very end, because i didn't know she could go back without like...repercussions, but also, i think it reads very well as, she's scared to go back. what if all this new warden stuff, all this responsibility and companionship, what if it just...goes away. what if she can't do it in her old home. what if they see where she came from and are like "oh haha nvm". she tries to keep everyone else's spirits up, and takes on too much herself.
she was also absolutely prepared to die to defeat the archdemon. i the player was about to lose my fucking mind to keep that from happening, but she would never have allowed alistair to do it. the relief, when morrigan offered an alternative, was overwhelming, but she definitely had decided that was just one more burden for her to take on, to prevent other people from hurting themselves.
(if she ever saw the leliana from the inquisition alternate future, she would have absolutely broken. she did all that work and she still couldn't even save her dear friend from the bitterness of the world. it didn't even matter.)
she asked about all her companions' lives and stories, and when they asked about her, she deflected or lied. she downplayed things. i think over that year her friends picked up on it, zevran and leliana right away since they were doing the same thing, and morrigan and wynne, and maybe even oghren and sten a little bit (though i have no idea if sten would have read anything more into it than her being a good leader), but alistair was the only one she ever like...told things to in detail. he was the only one who ever got to see her panic or break, and that was mostly accidental, since they were the two wardens and spent the most time together. regardless of their relationship, she would have been so so hesitant to show that to him.
okay, i think writing all that shit out helped me remember why i love her so much and why she is the only other warden besides mehren i can like...remember. even though i'm so attached to all my inquisitors.
(mehren as inquisitor, or even just as lived-through-the-blight, fucking idolizes [kallian]. she's like DID YOU SEE THAT BADASS LITTLE ELF WOMAN. DID YOU KNOW SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVED THE WORLD. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT HER DETERMINATION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY SHE'S SO COOL. which is funny, bc if they were fellow warden recruits, mehren would think kallian was boring and holding everyone back lmao)
mehren sometimes comes across as unsympathetic to other people's problems. as warden, she's more eager to fight, as a way to take out her feelings/revenge on the world. in my warden-as-inquisitor au, where mehren doesn't get rescued by duncan but effectively gets a stay of execution from uldred's whole mess, and ends up just sent to ostwick, she discovers that same martial prowess and thrill from a fight, but she's not allowed to just, go off the rails the way warden surana is. this is probably healthier for her in the long run, but it also means she gets an additional ten years to stew in her resentment until the circle rebels. she has very little patience for anyone involved in the templars or the chantry, though she's much more willing to at least not snap at circle apologist mages than at non-mages. she's grimly determined to fix things, and she does enjoy the fighting, but when people (especially templars or chantry folk) are like "woe is me" she's like "what about my woe. when were y'all going to address that." she can be a little callous, like "look, everyone suffers, it's part of life, stop whining about it and pick yourself up."
kallian, whose name is absolutely going to change bc that is the default ftabris name lmao, might also initially come across as callous, or even flippant. but that's because she has decided, if the world is going to be shit, and she's going to be responsible for part of it, then dammit she is going to be responsible for all of it. she will shoulder every burden she can to spare the people around her. it's a little bit "i'm already broken, so what's this burden to me; if i can spare my friends/this stranger/anyone the pain i've been through then what's a little more". idk if she would say it like that, or even talk about it at all, but even when she was trying to be as practical and pragmatic as possible, she didn't harden alistair or leliana, and she didn't make alistair be king, even though it was the better decision politically. if kallian ended up inquisitor somehow, she would gladly make every hard decision and take as much weight of the whole fucking south of thedas as possible. she wears the wedding ring of the man she didn't get to marry through the whole fifth blight, partially because she made a promise, partially because she couldn't save him, and partially to remind herself that she can't rely on other people to solve her problems. it doesn't work.
she's trying to be pragmatic and practical, but underneath it, she's an idealist. which is part of why i think it charms her when alistair is like "you're so pretty and competent", especially since he initially was like "haha what kind of warrior could you even be". she's made a difference with him, to him, and he noticed and appreciated her.
i also, in her playthrough, which was my first, avoided denerim until the very end, because i didn't know she could go back without like...repercussions, but also, i think it reads very well as, she's scared to go back. what if all this new warden stuff, all this responsibility and companionship, what if it just...goes away. what if she can't do it in her old home. what if they see where she came from and are like "oh haha nvm". she tries to keep everyone else's spirits up, and takes on too much herself.
she was also absolutely prepared to die to defeat the archdemon. i the player was about to lose my fucking mind to keep that from happening, but she would never have allowed alistair to do it. the relief, when morrigan offered an alternative, was overwhelming, but she definitely had decided that was just one more burden for her to take on, to prevent other people from hurting themselves.
(if she ever saw the leliana from the inquisition alternate future, she would have absolutely broken. she did all that work and she still couldn't even save her dear friend from the bitterness of the world. it didn't even matter.)
she asked about all her companions' lives and stories, and when they asked about her, she deflected or lied. she downplayed things. i think over that year her friends picked up on it, zevran and leliana right away since they were doing the same thing, and morrigan and wynne, and maybe even oghren and sten a little bit (though i have no idea if sten would have read anything more into it than her being a good leader), but alistair was the only one she ever like...told things to in detail. he was the only one who ever got to see her panic or break, and that was mostly accidental, since they were the two wardens and spent the most time together. regardless of their relationship, she would have been so so hesitant to show that to him.
okay, i think writing all that shit out helped me remember why i love her so much and why she is the only other warden besides mehren i can like...remember. even though i'm so attached to all my inquisitors.
(mehren as inquisitor, or even just as lived-through-the-blight, fucking idolizes [kallian]. she's like DID YOU SEE THAT BADASS LITTLE ELF WOMAN. DID YOU KNOW SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVED THE WORLD. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT HER DETERMINATION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY SHE'S SO COOL. which is funny, bc if they were fellow warden recruits, mehren would think kallian was boring and holding everyone back lmao)
