ROUND 3 — Match 59 of 72
Merrill (Dragon Age)
Identity: Bisexual, explicit Notes: Can be romanced by a Hawke of either gender, and is directly called bisexual by David Gaider. Propaganda: 1. "Merrill is imo the sweetest of the DA2 options, as well as being coded as neurodivergent. Her relationship with her clan and former matriarch is something that we get a front-row seat to in her personal quests, wherein she practices blood magic in attempts to restore pieces of her culture's history and identity despite the dangers inherent to blood magic. She's a lab safety queen despite it all and I love women in STEM (Spellbinding, Theurgy, Enchantments, and Magics)" 2. "people constantly underestimate her. she comes across gentle, awkward, sweet, a little airy even, and then you actually pay attention to her and realise how stubborn she is, how much resolve she has, and how willing she is to keep going with something once she’s decided it matters. that contrast is a huge part of why she sticks with people. she has warmth, humour, and softness, but none of that makes her simple. what also helps is that her romance doesn’t feel detached from the rest of who she is. it keeps all of that same awkward sincerity, but also the loneliness, the hopefulness, the messiness, the sense that loving her means meeting her where she actually is instead of where other people think she should be. she brings a lot of heart to da2, but also a lot of tragedy, and that combination tends to hit people hard."
vs. Shion (No. 6)
Identity: MLM, explicit Notes: Romantically involved with Nezumi (a man). Propaganda: "He's such a strange and interesting character. He lived in a so-called utopian city, promised a perfect future, unaware of any strange underbelly, until at age 12 an escaped convict broke into his room for shelter -- because Shion had opened the window to scream his frustration at his perfect world. Into a hurricane. This convict was a child the same age as him, sporting a gunshot wound. He got Way Too Excited to apply his practical medical training to get the gunshot out, and then basically fell in love when Nezumi (literally just "Rat") threatened him with a spoon to the throat from the dinner he'd snuck him. Nezumi vanished into the night, and his location got tracked to Shion's house, and Shion's family fell to the outskirts. As an older teen and now a garbage man keeping the perfect parks pristine, he finds a suspicious corpse that would implicate the government in problems and is going to be eliminated -- except that Nezumi has kept an eye on him ever since and helps him escape to outside the city walls, where there is a horrible, terrible slum that the city regularly raids for test subjects. Shion is happy there, anyway, Shion falls in love there, Shion learns about how the world works there -- and when he finds out his best friend has vanished (by finding her discarded coat) none of those things will keep him from diving into the belly of the beast to try to save her, even as Nezumi curses him and panics. Inside he will encounter the most horrific war crimes, and find in himself a monster that only Nezumi can keep tame (a responsibility Nezumi definitely is terrified of). Absolutely incredible character writing. One of those characters who is kind and innocent-seeming and an absolute black hole of potential, negative or positive. He has rage blackouts. He wants to save the world. He can talk to animals (which drives Nezumi wild because he has pet rats and he can't talk to them). He can't recite poetry for shit. He probably shouldn't be put in charge of the government. I love him. He's everything to me."
Who should advance?
Merrill
Shion
