#*alpha state

yeah...... gods ok

ok so first you have to understand that in my alpha world state zevran was involved with my warden and estel died to kill the archdemon, and that isabela was involved with my hawke but petra ultimately wound up with merrill and isabela stayed with the two of them together for a while before she moved on bc she never stays put long

also isabela was friends with estel and like they did the threesome thing soooo. yeah zev and isabela have all that history AND zevran's dead lover (arguably the only true love of his life up to that point and they were just starting to be like. happy and safe and think about building some kind of life together even if the calling was hanging over their heads and life is full of dangerous surprises but neither of them thought it would end that soon and not like that haha i love to die) so they have that between them to boot

they love and understand each other fiercely in a way literally no one else in the world will ever be able to and they wind up travelling together after da2 after isabela leaves merrill and petra and varric and then at some point or another after they've been together for quite some time they just realize that like. they're going to stay together for the rest of their lives and they're both ok with that idea. they're never going to get tired of each other. they're never going to feel unsafe with each other. they'll never feel lonely or like they're just drifting aimlessly place to place if they have each other, because they make life an adventure to live, so long as they live it together

and like isabela is bad at love and zevran had finally gotten it after all that time but wounds like that don't heal all the way really ever and besides he kind of didnt let himself get over it? like estel has been dead for a dozen years at that point but he is really like. he doesn't WANT to get over them he doesn't WANT to move on he really doesn't want to risk falling in love again because he loved them so much and they were so good for him and he lost them so soon and so hard and some part of him whether or not that's something he admits to himself really hasn't given up blaming himself in this twisted around way for their death

literally both isabela and zevran kind of have this idea that they're both like. cursed. if they love someone that person will ultimately get hurt. and they'll lose them in the long run and they won't be able to keep them safe and they can't deal with that

so it takes them a long time to realize that they're kind of in love with each other and that it happened so slowly and accidentally that they never had the butterflies or the awkwardness of courtship they just slipped somehow into the place where they share everything effortlessly and they trust each other implicitly and they'll be happy no matter what as long as they stay together. and they've always been attracted to each other obviously and neither of them cares if they other has other sorts of affairs obviously but they both know that at the end of the day they're for each other now and that's. ridiculous. they have a stable life together (as stable as you can be when you go around sailing and travelling and getting into tons of trouble i mean). 

when they visit hawke and their family, the kids call them aunt isabela and uncle zevran

at some point when they're extremely drunk they even wind up somehow getting married. neither of them remember the wedding and both suspect foul play but no one present will fess up to being instigator, but its on the records at the chantry in denerim and that means it must have actually happened, so, well, that actually happened

(it was a complicated prank idea worked out between hawke, varric, and leliana, actually, though its unclear whether the original prank idea that varric and hawke came up with was to have a fake wedding that they did remember or a real wedding that they didn't. so they also suspect foul play, which is completely dead on, because it was pretty much all leliana pulling the strings there, unsurprisingly. she had some kind of idea that this might just wind up sitting in the back of zev and isabela's heads and like. it would help finish healing the wound they'd all suffered. and she should know. she'd loved their warden too.)

they never have kids of their own, but they visit hawke, merrill, and varric's kids a lot. to a slightly lesser extent, they're involved in aveline and donnic's kids lives too, just with aveline supervising a little more strictly for their visits than hawke's family does, especially after one of her twins declares at dinner during a visit that she wants to be a pirate queen when she grows up too!

they see all the kids grow up, see the circles dissolved, leliana crowned divine, see the world change, finally, for the better. 

they're both a little staggered when they meet the inquisitor for the first time at one point, on invitation to a banquet in skyhold by varric and hawke and leliana, because this tiny redhead dalish elf reminds them both Way Too Much of estel. 

zevran later comments on it and leliana's like "i suppose it takes a very particular kind of person to save the world, doesn't it?"

(everyone glances over to where petra is stuffing an entire turkey leg in their mouth, and they stop and go "what" and leliana laughs and is like "nothing". petra is an entire inch and a half shorter than ruivë, and they both share their complexion, hair colour, and eye colour - the same estel had. a very particular kind of person indeed. apparently having strong ties to the dalish helps too, being as the only one of the three of them who wasn't dalish went on to marry one and become sort of an honorary elf more or less to several of the clans at least and to have two elvhen children)

casimir: my worldstate is absurdly over thought out

and now like originally all my inquisitors were supposed to continue the idea that like

each world state follows a line

estel mahariel > petra hawke > ruive lavellan

tinuviel surana > heron hawke > canary cadash (was the original plan)

but things have started getting rocky bc like

with my lavellans all in the same universe and also i started rethinking that even tho like

tinuviel > heron > canary are all bird names so that was the joke there but

i'm thinking more and more that i would rather it go like.

tinuviel surana > heron hawke > tintalle lavellan ??

and then have it be

casper tabris > naia hawke > laurelin lavellan

which leaves sela brosca > bellatrix hawke > canary cadash

which i think lines of causation works better to the lore BUT it also makes it like

maddi: I can barely keep up with my two lavellan kids I am genuinely so in awe of how in depth u are with all ur kids and world states gosh

casimir: the reason ruive is who they are is because of estel but it would totally make sense for tintalle to do that small change that makes them become inquisitor instead of ruive in a world where tinuviel and heron were warden and hawke

that would make the alpha world state all be pro mage nonbinary rogues

but the second world state is gay as hell mages with the exception of heron

who is fiercely pro mage rights and incredibly protective bc he is the best big brother to bethany ever and bc anders is the love of his life

maddi: Mages are so important just an aside here bc I am very hecked up about mages

casimir: it also makes the casper > naia > laurelin line be "people who have no idea what they're doing and kind of don't what to be doing it but ultimately do and are good people and accidentally wind up heroes"

sidenote i cant believe im gonna have to create genderswapped versions of my last two wardens in order to import them properly to the keep tho

maddi: I just honestly wish bioware would catch on and add the following: all characters can be romanced by queer kids, customizing bodies and choosing pronouns. Like how hard would it be to put in a toggle so u can select what pronouns ur character wants and then just??? Run the appropriate audio???

casimir: fo real

anyway so that puts the sela > bellatrix > canary line as like. first of all dwarves. double dwarves. and not just any dwarves but. both commoners??

and then in general they're the ones who are all slightly more shy about mages

but they're still ultimately stand with the mages they're just slightl more open to the other side of things

whereas like. heron and petra and ruive are aggressively pro mage considering none of them are mages

naia and tintalle and tinuviel and laurelin are all varying shades of pro mage bc obvs they are all mages

out of all of them tho tinuviel is definitely the most politically minded

but that's bc she's also the only one who actually experienced circle life

so category one is "extremely passionately pro mage rogues" (ruive, heron, petra, estel)

category two is "mages who obviously are pro mage" (tinuviel, naia, tintalle, laurelin)

category three is basically. not so extreme or enthusiastic, sometimes almost scared about magic, but ultimately cares more about people especially the downtrodden of all kinds to let their unrest about some mages come between them and standing up for people who are oppressed" (casper, sela, bellatrix, canary)

sela and bellatrix are more like

aggressive personalities who are just. well. bellatrix is my only non purple hawke

and i honestly don't know if she'll turn out that way or not bc she's about fifty fifty on sarcasm and aggression

so far anyway

so she's borderline aggressive which is a Feat for me

she's still a hawke tho so i mean. she's not all business lmao

and honestly most of her aggressive behaviour is the kind of like "i gotta look tough for my family and also to impress this cute boy who is a total jerk so i have to be more of a tough jerk but secretly i snuggle kittens all the time"

she kind of tries to be a hardass to impress fenris tbh

naia is definitely the most bitter of my hawkes

maddi: Omg I was gonna say bellatrix sounds like a fenris kid

casimir: lmao yeah 

but. bc she lost bethany and got stuck with carver and is being expected to do all this shit that she never asked for and really she just wants to run away and pretend it never happened she wants to not have to care about any of them or have any obligation to any of this

she wants to be able to take the gold from a job she knows isnt right and walk away without turning back a moment later and getting in a fight over it

she tries to act a lot more indifferent than she actually is and uses sarcasm to cover up the fact that like

all my hawkes have some degree of a crisis of faith after the sack of lothering

petra was never religious but becomes actively anti andrastian after

heron gets more spiritual but farther from the chantry

bellatrix just takes it as proof the maker isnt watching and so she doesnt care if hes real or not (unlike petra, for whom the same conclusion ultimately results in their eventual at least partial conversion to dalish faith practices)

and naia... ironically though she doesnt see herself as having too much in common with him really

naia kind of gets like anders does about it

she still believes and wishes she didnt but doesnt believe the maker cares or pays attention, wishes there was an alternative to it

she doesnt pray and she can't speak civilly to chantry sisters, even if they're being kind to her

if she was doubtful at lothering, it's bethany's death on the road to kirkwall that makes her lose her faith entirely

she's kind of listless and apathetic about a lot of stuff but like

she is Angry at god for what happened to bethany

she tries to connect with carver but it just doesnt stick it never would

she blames herself for bethany's death, and she resents carver for being the one to live, even though she still loves and protects him