#*casslin

i started thinkin about mixing things up a bit and i saw a thing on my dash and i had the coolest fuckin idea and i'm Goin With It

i'm makin laurelin blind.... he "sees" with magic but it's kinda... like toph... or echolocation just with spirit magic sorta??

he can see in pretty good detail with it but he like... he "feels" colours and stuff and has no conception of how people see normally

which also just works really well with the rest of what i have goin on with his character bc his whole like. no direction in life?

he doesn't know what to do with his life bc he's not gonna be keeper but he's a mage but he's... blind... and stories matter So Much bc like

that's his real experience of the world and he can fill in the blanks with it and like people describing stuff in stories helps him to

like when he was little he had no idea how to figure out how to see things but his da (and ru's da B)) helped him figure out w descriptions

bc they're both mages too but they're sighted so they help sorta figure out how he can see things with the magic and invent new sight 4 him

thinks abt him telling cass she's beautiful and she's like "thank you but... you can't... see me" and he's like "no but... i can.."


he's extremely perceptive to small changes that are tied into emotions and actions more than anything so he sees her smiles and like

he can see the changes in her expressions and the way she tenses or relaxes with him sometimes, and he's very sensitive to hear breathing 
 he can feel when he makes her blush and hear her hands when she fidgets while they're talking and so he describes it all for her...

 in fights she's always just ahead of him. she knows he can feel the things around him and is mostly safe but. she won't let him get hurt

 she isn't about to lose someone who tells her such beautiful stories that belong to only her and he loves how she feels when he tells them

casimir: also i have. another lavellan

i was having issues with my romance planning and i solved it by benching inbal, moving canary to bull, and making a new lavellan to romance cass with and as with my others i'm still. headcanoning them all existing in the same universe, just. different people sent depending on events

maddi:

U mean a new lavellan for me to fall hopelessly in love with

casimir:

laurelin gets sent to the conclave in the case that they reasonably decide to send him instead of their clan's first who is also barely grown bc tintalle is not only first to their keeper, but is also like. 22. which is adult but like. well i mean not that they would have thought he would've had to but tintalle has never killed before the conclave. literally not even once he knows how in theory but has never even been on a hunt bc he's the first.... and he's really into scholarly stuff and healing so like.... why would he.... laurelin is 33 and mostly assists his father (the clan's hahren) and their crafters

maddi:

Gosh I love that baby

casimir: 

he's also a mage bc fuck that ok there's plenty of mages in clan lavellan u know my headcanon lmao

so he's. a solid decade older than the other kids at least whereas ruive is literally like feral child soldier-saint joan of arc minus the witch burning and tintalle is still incredibly young and naive in so many ways, he's like. actually an adult he's also charming and irreverent and not just in the "i'm a pesky kid" way ruive is but in a like "i think the keeper sent me on this mission to see if i could stop acting like everything i do is a joke for once" maddi:

Omg I am so in love let me lie down

casimir: 

i have one hero each time that is really reluctant to be a hero at first bc they're like "i am not cut out for this at all and caring about this many things makes my head hurt tbh" he's also like. male pronouns but he's genderfluid as heck

maddi: God aras is a reluctant hero but like. In the 'wait why do u want me to do this? Piss off pls I am not in the mood for responsibility' casimir: laurelin is just like. i don't understand how this happened to me. how is this real life. why is this happening. i did not ask for this

maddi:  AMAZING

casimir: 

but under that he has like. one thing. that gives him meaning and sets him on his path and forces him to take things seriously

he doesn't have the faith or conviction of tintalle and ruive, doesn't believe in himself or see the opportunity he has to make a difference the way they do he's not sure if he believes in the elvhen gods even, though he's pretty sure they make more sense than the maker but he does believe in the power of the stories they have of them the chant of light obviously is bullshit, but the story of it powers so many people that it must mean Something growing up with the clan's hahren as his father, he understand how important stories are that you can do anything and make anyone believe whatever you need them to, feel whatever you can imagine feeling, just with stories

truth is hard to pin down but in the end its obviously not quite as important what actually happened as what people tell happened and believe happened

with time, the story becomes the truth

sometimes not with very much time at all

and without stories there would be no truth preserved to begin with

and he believes in the power of belief, in whatever stories or faith you have, that even if he doesn't believe in what someone believes in, he admires their faith in it

so he figures eventually that it's his job to make sure the story he's a part of has a good ending, and that it gets remembered right along the way

he just lacks conviction and purpose of his own

hence why he's a full grown but with no inclination of how he's to settle down in his clan

no partner, no family save his father, no ambitions

he helps the crafters and his father and sometimes the halla herders just because he has to keep busy sometimes

he goes on hunts from time to time but mostly they don't like to send mages out from camp. just in case.

he spends his time inventing spells to make pretty lights that entertain the clan's fledglings

he actually spends a pretty solid amount of time with them he's good with kids

and it makes sense having been raised by the hahren that he's good and used to taking care of them

his father is getting quite old by now and he just. is kind of an odd guy in the clan. no direction or ambition and not many close friends. he's kind of reclusive but sociable at once and he's just. doesn't seem to have a place he fits

the keeper sends him to the conclave in the hope it might ignite in him some kind of purpose

and while it's not what the intention was, well. it. certainly does that

honestly though, without cassandra pulling him up off his ass and forcing him to defend himself and then to fight, well. he wouldn't have gone far probably

he's taken with her almost immediately but he doesn't really start to like. actually feel something romantic for her until he starts to hear her talk about stories and how she believes strongly in what she does and why

for a guy who struggles to find things worth believing in, it means everything to realize that strange as it seems, though they don't share their foundations, he could place his faith in her.