#kaer rambles

Basically, where my brain is...

Tier 1 - romances I am most drawn to at this time

Lucanis and Bellara

Luc: I already love what I've seen of his personality, I'm really intrigued by his story, and I love his vibe.

Bell: Her smile in the companion trailer stopped my heart. I love her entire vibe, I love how expressive she is, I love her hips.

Tier 2 - I really think they're intriguing and hot but I just find the first two more compelling

Davrin: I already know he has a hot voice. I need to reread Tevinter Nights because I don't remember much about his personality. Right now he feels like the "safe, sweet, good boy" romance option?

Taash: I am SO attracted to Taash, but I just don't know enough about her yet. I have nothing at all to make me compare her to Vetra, but I keep thinking about how in love with Vetra I was and then I tried to romance her and it was not for me and I was so disappointed. I don't know why I keep making this comparison and I hope I'm wrong because I would love for her to pin me to a wall and do things to me.

Neve: Neve is so fucking pretty and I love her style. I love her deep voice. I just need to know more about her.

Tier 2 all has in common "I need to know more" whereas Tier 1 is either "I already know a little" or "damn that's a strong first impression I already get your vibe and I love it."

Tier 3

Harding. Look, I like Harding. But I never flirted with her as Quizzy (cause most of my playthroughs are as Ryn). Her character art is gorgeous and reminds me of Nicola Coughlan, who I am OBSESSED with at the moment (Penelope is so fucking gorgeous, I want to pin HER to the wall.) But her in-game model does remind me of Fiona a little bit (that's not a bad thing, it's just a weird headspace) and...idk. She's always felt like a buddy to me.

Tier 4

Emmrich. He just doesn't hit any buttons for me right now. I don't foresee wanting him. I could be (and often am) 100% wrong, but right now he doesn't do it for me. A lot of people are speculating that he is secretly a skeleton/becomes a skeleton and is the skelly romance that was hinted at. I um. I need flesh. Thanks.

Unknown Tier

Are we going to have non-companion romance options again? I would like to smooch Mae. I know she is still in love with her dead husband but I would like to smooch her anyway, please.

--

Characters

What I am contemplating for Rook -

A Dalish Warden (f)(leaning toward warrior, for the parallel with Lyna) - in my world state, the Warden and the Inquisitor have both been Dalish. I imagine a character who is intensely inspired by both of them and wants to make her own impact on the world/ is concerned about her clan's increasing isolation and plunge into Ancient Elven Nonsense. This would probably be the Bellara romance. I can just see it. She would also have a big, boisterous personality, and the two could cause lots of chaos wherever they go.

A highborn human mage Shadow Dragon (probably f?) - someone who comes from privilege and has gradually come to see how fucked up everything is and now works to change it, similar to Mae and Dorian. She would be very haughty and spoiled, but have a good heart.

A City Elf Crow (m)(probably rogue. I'm very clever and original) - probably sold to the Crows as a child. Probably tragic, traumatic backstory. Probably a twink. We know me. This would be the Luc romance. I want to see him with a bratty twink. I'm predictable. I'm sad he wouldn't have an Antivan accent though.

The Crow and Warden are tied for the lead right now, but I think the Shadow Dragon would be interesting, so it's still in the running.

I saw someone complaining that the majority of the fandom were planning elven Rooks. Idk about everyone else, but, I just really like the DA elves. Especially when you can give them the da2 nose. City or Dalish, there are so many story options. I like how their character models feel. I just like them.

I like dwarves a lot and Origins was SO interesting to play as one, but I don't like the feel playing one in previous games, and I don't like the way the romance cut scenes play out.

We only had the option for Qunari in Inquisition, but again, I didn't like how the model felt to play, and I couldn't make one that I could get attached to, and they can look strange in cut scenes.

A mage or warrior Mourn Watch is on the peripherals of my mind - a little farther out than the Tevinter mage idea - because I think the lore would be interesting, but the three I already mentioned are more so at the moment. I don't currently have a lot of interest in being a Veil Jumper or a Lord of Fortune. (Dwarf might be fun for LoF?)

Once again though, everything I typed here is probably wrong, going by my track record. Watch me log in to the game and after I've disappeared from tumblr for a few weeks suddenly show up with 95k words written about my steamy Qunari-on-old-man/skeleton love affair and my deep abiding hatred for Luc.

--

Misc

"Kaer, you said you were Demi, why do you keep talking about pinning people to walls?" - because they are not real and it is safe to lust after them without knowing them because I will not then be expected to follow through on my threats promises.

"Kaer, I'm just here for the Capri please stop." - please block da4 as a tag. DAVe is just a joke to amuse myself because I think it's funny and no one else is tagging it that way. Their loss. But seriously, please block it if this has gotten annoying. I am bad about tagging short personal posts and I don't usually tag content from the existing DA games because for years this blog was just Fenris and Hawke making out, but I am making an effort to at least tag long and/or picture-heavy and/or potentially spoilery DA4 posts, so you should be mostly safe.

"Ok, but what about the Capri?" - I will most likely post another chapter this weekend. The love and obsession with Capri is still going strong.

It's Weird having my brain interested in three things at once but right now my mind is on a constant Capri - DA4 - AftG loop. (Yes, there is a good chance I might eventually break down and write Andrew/Neil smut. Their thing is just so good.)

- Nicaise was related to Laurent; either Aleron’s bastard or Auguste’s.

- When Damen and Laurent join forces prior to The Adventures of Charls, they are actually on their way to fucking elope, and just happen to run into the slave-smuggling plot along the way. Also, they totally had eloped by the time they met up with Charls. Shhh it’s a secret.

Slightly tipsy partial summaries of potential future Capri fics under cut. Also featuring Bad Ideas that I will not pursue. I am NOT good at ideas, guys, that’s why I’m not published. I promise, you will be very disappointed when you see what I do without Pacat to hold me up. 

LISTEN it’s nothing against Molly - I thought she was cute and so when the new teens prompted me to finally start a rotational save I decided to start with her. But she has had the Worst Luck and I’ve decided to run with it and it’s become a whole story and I’m having the BEST TIME.

To start with, I had changed her aspiration to the new Live Fast one, because I wanted to try it out, and in the trailer they marketed her as the “pain in the ass” prankster of the group, despite her preppy style. I filled up her cas with more preppy outfits. She is a genius so I had this vision of her as just effortlessly excelling in school to the point where it was boring and the pranks were to entertain her. She comes preloaded with Ash and Sidney as her closest friends.

The game started on a Sunday. I wanted my troublemaker and her friends to do something reckless and wild before their first day of high school. Naturally it would be Molly’s idea, Molly dragging the other two somewhere stupid and dangerous, right?

And, listen. The HS pack came out so close to the werewolf pack that I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the latter. I mean, I don’t really like to play or approach the packs as individuals anyway. I like to see them as adding color and texture and life to the world at large, not being insular stories to be taken on their own (and hey I’m NEVER disappointed!) but though I played around a little with it on a Legacy spare, I’ve barely touched it, and Jacob going crazy on the class in another save made me want to.

Ok so quick recap since it’s been a minute. 

Molly Prescott - music lover, genius, and prankster - recently-turned werewolf expelled from high school and living in a tent in the woods of Moonwood Mill, existing on - it seems - nothing but rage, aggression, and raw meat, recently went on a bit of an attack spree, taking out her fury on her “enemies”.

- Wolfgang Munch. That punk has always had a bad attitude. He needed someone to put him in his place. He wants to pretend to be a monster? Now Molly’s just showing him what it’s really like.(Am I the ONLY simmer out there shipping Wolfgang with Malcom Landgraab? Yes?)

- Cassandra Goth. Ok, this one Molly fight feel a little bad about. Later. But Molly can’t get over her feelings for Cass, no matter how hard she tries, and a broken heart is not so easy to heal, and if Cass would only have given her a chance, none of this would have happened, so really it’s all her fault to begin with. Doesn’t she deserve to share some of the burden?

- Original Sim Marcel Copeland, created for an unrelated scenario and placed in this neighborhood for funsies. They just never liked each other and when I realized they had a bad relationship I thought it would be funny to add another victim to the list. But I’m not used to playing rotationally so I screwed up the aging and didn’t end up playing him so he’s an npc in the town again. I’ll explain further.

I am not good at this rotational play thing. I don’t know how it is done. In TS2 I would rule over the entire neighborhood with an iron fist (God I miss building the actual neighborhood) but I will admit there are merits to not having to personally play every single house; only the ones I’m interested in. I feel like I should limit them to a week at a time, but I get so invested that instead I’ve been setting a goal, and when I get where I want to be, that’s when I swap to someone else. 

But when I swapped off Molly (and I have MUCH MORE to say about Molly) it was the day of her bday and I’d had aging on for unplayed sims. So all the teen townies she had gone to school with aged up. And when I swapped to the next leg of the story, two teens I wanted to keep teens also aged up. So then aging spent a looooooong time off while I got everyone else caught up to Molly, and I’m still trying to decide how I want to handle it.

Anyway. Swapping houses around. But I intend the story to happen at the same time, so I won’t tell it the order I played it. ANYWAY.

Molly went on her rampage and left her victims without answers to what happened to them - but Cassandra is a smart girl and had heard rumors of things that go howl in the night. Woozy and grasping at the edges of control, she took a bus to Moonwood Mill, fleeing into the woods on the night of the full moon. She has vague memories of encountering Kristopher, leader of one of the two local werewolf packs, but mostly she was just thankful, the next morning, not to have harmed her family.

Later, Kristopher investigated, and made the rounds to the homes of the teens Molly had attacked. He spoke to their families, and convinced them to let him take them in, where he could oversee their development as young werewolves. Cassandra, more than anyone else, was really taken in by the sales pitch of the Collective. The idea of learning to control the beast, of working toward bridging the gap between sims and werewolves appealed to her. She didn’t want anyone else going through what she had been through.

 Aaaand then Jacob and Marcel immediately grew up the minute we got into the house, so instead of the chaos of FOUR werewolves in high school, I just had two. Anyway, it was fine. Kristopher began to teach Wolfgang programming. And Cass, feeling understood and supported, actually really began to shine. 

Meanwhile...remember how I said that several of the townie teens from class had aged up? Well, I didn’t think a lot of it when I got the notice that poor Kiyoshi Ito had died. He fell off a mountain. It was bound to happen.

But the fact that I got the notice that Rashidah Watson ALSO died, a few days later, just as Molly was returning from a hunt, fresh meat in hand, is just a little suspicious, right? RIGHT??

- somehow Act 3 or post game Fenris and Hawke are thrown into a weird reality with past!Fenris and Danarius and are forced to work together to get back out. Past!Fenris sees himself functioning in an independent, strong, non-dependent-and-brainwashed-to-Dan-manner. Present!Fenris has new perspective on how much he’s grown and how far he’s come. Dan is too arrogant to see any of it but does get punched by Hawke at some point.

- also some sort of Lothering AU. Like. Leto and family escape and flee to Lothering pre-marking, maybe. I feel like I had several of these boiling around at some point. 

- expanding some old drabbles like the Pavellan vampire au, RED, and maybe the Hawke-as-a-magister au into fics.

- in my canon, Hawke kills Anders, but I genuinely believe that Justice would not allow him to die. It didn’t when the templars tried to kill him prior to da2. So I’d like to explore some stuff with that. I just don’t know what.

- Similarly, I’d like to explore some Blue Wraith, post Inquisition era stuff with Fenris and maybe Hawke but I just really want some more canon before I do. Like either confirmation that I can for sure do whatever the hell I want or more stuff to work around before I commit myself. The few attempts I tried ended up tense and angsty and, I can reassure you, very out of character. Like they were very “fenhawke struggling with their relationship because Hawke went to the Inquisition so now Fen keeps slipping away alone to kill slavers and not telling him where he’s going” and that’s not them. And it also depressed me SO MUCH. So I need a little more information before I figure out what’s going on. I’m pretty sure, given the canon we’ve been given and the timeline that Hawke finished up at Weisshaupt and he and Fenris reunited and went to Kirkwall and helped Varric out and Fenris went to Tevinter after. Fenris may have been in Tevinter while Hawke was with the Inquisition/Weisshaupt, too, it may be a back-and-forth thing. Anyway. What I can’t decide is if it’s still a back-and-forth thing and Hawke is still in Kirkwall because it’s OKAY for them to not be at each other’s side all the time it DOESN’T mean there’s trouble, or if Hawke is also in Tevinter, like, at an inn or chasing slavers in another direction or working another angle.

- I feel like there are more I’m forgetting

Now that I’m dipping my toes into Captive Prince fandom, writing my Marionette, Poppet, Prince series has brought a few aus forward for that, too. Nothing terribly original, but my brain doesn’t work the same way as other people’s so they would have a me twist. 

- Auguste lives at Marlas and as part of the peace treaty a political marriage is arranged between Laurent and Damen. Their personalities would be SO DIFFERENT without the events of the books and no one who does this kind of au remembers that. 

- Because I’m a sucker for timetravel shit, future Damen and Laurent get sent back in time to the beginning of book one. Like, not replacing themselves or anything. Some kind of weird artifact the Regent uses thinking he will be able to ask advice from the future regarding some brewing conflict with a neighboring conflict and boom they’re there, smack dab in the middle of court, looking at themselves. And they have to decide how much to tell themselves, and how much they can risk trying to “fix” or change, because things worked out in the end but there are some lives they would like to save. And also they would like to kill the Regent more slowly, given a second chance. Okay maybe /I/ think he should have been killed more slowly.

- Instead of trying to fight, Laurent takes a political marriage to Torveld and abdicated Vere to his uncle in order to quit the game and save his own life. He brings Damen with him into his new household. Things happen. This is a contingency plan I had him considering for a while in Marionette that I just find really intriguing and would like to explore. I don’t ship him with Torveld at all and he would totally end up having an affair with Damen and still end up finding a way to take Vere back from Uncle, obviously.

Above, the Janitor mopping up Molly’s pee, while the teacher pretends not to notice what she’s standing in and continues to teach the class and Molly, looking less feral than usual but clearly showing off her bite scar, blatantly playing on her phone from the front row.

Below, for no known reason, the principal walking through the gym naked. I take screenshots when they MATTER.

Also, Molly’s bedroom:

So, anyway, Molly got expelled, and it wasn’t my fault. 

She was in class that day. She, literally, went to class. It was, I think, the first class of the day. She had the checkmark that told me today was the day she earned an A as well as a Chess Team promotion, though with the game’s current glitches it might take sending her solo before she actually got them. She went to class, sat down at her desk, and then cancelled the interaction on her own and stood up. And the principal came in, caught her, and gave her detention. She tried to talk her way out of it and couldn’t. After he was done yelling at her in front of the whole class, she sat back down and finished learning. She went through lunch and her second class of the day, dutifully served detention, got a good report - and then a notice that she had been expelled. I guess she had earned detention one too many times? I mean, this one wasn’t even her fault, but yeah, she kind of had it coming.

Well, you can imagine that Mrs. Prescott was absolutely furious, I’m sure. They had a HUGE fight when Molly came home. Molly promptly packed up a camping tent and a few other supplies, and left. With zero simoleans to her name, she moved to Moonwood Mill to live in the woods. (FreeRealEstate cheat, empty lot, a tent, a camping chair, the drum grill, campfire, and like two little lanterns were all I stuck in her inventory. She had a few things from exploring I let her sell, and she had werewolf abilities that let her use the bathroom, groom herself, hunt for food... I mean, she doesn’t need much. I replaced all of Molly’s nice preppy outfits with more torn up ones in Cas, though I did take the dirt off her face because, eh, I mean, she’s living in the woods and her only mode of cleaning herself is a tongue bath but I was getting tired of it. She also got a few more tattoos to celebrate her freedom. Her mother, of course, would never tell the neighbors her daughter had run away to live in the woods! She told them she kicked her rebellious hellion out, lest she prove a bad influence on little sister Amy, who had only just become a teen, herself.

Molly loved her freedom, but being a full-time werewolf was harder than she thought, given her petty need to be the best. She could not stand the fact she had been expelled. She could not stand the fact that none of her family tracked her down to try to convince her to come home. She could not stand the fact that she was still the lowest ranking wolf!!! She was always simmering with rage!

One day a little too close to the full moon, filled with this rage, she showed up at Cassandra’s house and threw it all at her. She kept trying to get over her crush, you see, and couldn’t. (Literally, I have had her try several times and it won’t go away.) It was easier to be mad as Cassie for rejecting her all those weeks ago than to face the idea that maybe Molly had taken the wrong turn somewhere. She started an argument with her, the argument escalated. Molly bit Cass. 

She was horrified, of course, after the fact, but it was also kind of thrilling. Molly went on a rampage and broke a lot of shit at Goth Acres and then went home. At this point in time, I think she had three werewolf temperaments? Hungry Like the Wolf - she gains rage when she’s hungry and also gets random cravings out of the blue; Carnivore - gets fury and negative moodlets unless she eats fresh, raw meat; and Feels Outcasted - which is supposed to mean she gains fury if she doesn’t get enough social, but in my experience means she spends all her time being resentful about the fact other wolves outrank her, which is SO FUNNY for the personality she’s developed. Through all of the getting kicked out of school and losing your family and rage-induced giving the curse to your crush who now hates you very much thing, Molly is ALSO struggling to keep herself fed because raw meat goes bad fast in her inventory with no fridge to stick it in, AND she is CONSTANTLY on and off PROBATION with the Wildfangs for “lack of Pack Participation” because even though she has now maxed friendship with both Ash and Jacob and speaks to them every day, they expect her to give them shit, too. So her days have become this mixture of exploration, digging holes, peeing on shit, working out, selling garbage in the hopes of buying a fridge or giving the garbage to her wolf friends who she secretly resents in order to buy their friendship...

She starts going back to the school. To revenge-prank it. One night she pranked every toilet and locker in the place, as well as the loudspeakers, and then she sat back and waited for the students to arrive. What were they going to do, re-expel her?

(Ok, she DID die, briefly, but I didn’t save it, because I am not ready to let her go. It would have been a funny end, but I was not ready.)

Molly never got along with Wolfgang Munch. So she picked a fight with him, beat him up, and bit him. She also started trying, once again, to find some love. She has a remarkable talent for finding straight women, let me tell you! 

Somewhere during this time, Molly earned her final Werewolf Temperament: Wolf Brain. Molly - genius, chess club, preppy Molly, will get frustrated and furious if she tries to do anything involving logic. “Brain Hurt!” was the moodlet, the last time I tried to make her read. 

Molly’s lot, after I started building her a little trailer and a shack. Originally all she owned was the green chair, firepit, cooking drum, and a tent that has since been sold. 

Anyway she was spending less and less time at home. Every day after school or chess club she was making her way to Moonwood, and every day she was asking for the cursed bite, and, eventually, she did wear Rory down. She spent that night at the bar scarfing down plate after plate of food and the next morning arrived at school looking a mess but in the best mood. (This is when I went into CAS and in each category gave her an outfit with ripped clothes and a dirty face and less fixed hair. She also got a werewolf tattoo and bite scar and added some damage to her bedroom at home. It was fun!)

I don’t remember the order, but the first two random traits Molly got were the ones that made her only willing to eat raw meat and one that made her feel constantly jealous and furious about anyone higher ranking than her. It was horrible and perfect and just more of Molly’s weird bad luck falling into place. With very little help from me, Molly’s life was falling apart and we just didn’t realize it yet.

I thought it was hilarious. Molly was spending more nights in Moonwood than at home and showing up to school in these ripped preppy clothes and filthy face get-ups I’d put together, scarfing down raw meat at the lunch table in front of her peers, napping on the floor in the back of her classroom. One time, notably, she “marked her territory” in front of the blackboard just before class, and then the teacher stood in it. The janitor couldn’t get there fast enough.

Please note that expression.

So we were having a great time. God only knows what the other students thought. “Molly Prescott has lost her mind,” probably.

When the shit hit the fan, neither of us saw it coming.

There are more of them in Prince than in the previous two fics. A lot of them are entire chapters instead of fill-in-the-blank fluff at the beginning or end of a canon scene, or a flashback.

One thing that has always fascinated me is perspective. The way we think we come across versus the way other people perceive us. The way someone who loves us perceives us versus the way someone who hates us perceives us. I mean, you can even simply look at all the different ways canon Captive Prince is read - the same words are on the page for all of us and we are all going to have our own interpretations of the characters and what is going on.

I feel like in canon, Damen sees Laurent as so...almost supernaturally skilled and smart and 72 steps ahead of everyone and unflappable and untouchable and I clearly think he's secretly a fucking mess and super emotional the entire time. So there is always a little bit of nerves over whether or not he is still going to sound like himself anyway. I like the idea that some of his big plans might just be spur of the moment quick thinking that he has the balls of passing off as meticulous planning. He's a cheeky little asshole. I like the idea that the people around him are constantly on the verge of strangling him. I know canon tells us that the people who serve him are extremely loyal and devoted to him and the assumption in Arles from his faction when he hurts Damen is that Damen must have done something to deserve it - so his sweet side must come out around his people, but I don't think he's aware of it when it does. I think it's an accident. I think he's got all of the bad that's said about him internalized and he's completely unaware that there are people who believe in him. I think the more he's hurting the more destructive he gets, and that includes lashing out at everyone around him, and he is completely unaware that there are some people who have figured that out and don't actually take his tantrums seriously.

I've been in that place where the mean voice in your head is louder than anything else in the world and you can't hear or believe anything good anyone says about you.