you know how sometimes in a modern character in thedas fics there will be a plotpoint where the MC can't understand anyone or be understood because Fereldan/Trade is not English. They try French (and it can be understood bc that's Orlesian) or Spanish/Italian (which is understood as Antvian), but English doesn't have an equivalent?
In the Grand Necropolis memorial garden, the tombstones are all written in an English substitution cipher based on hexagons. Now, I COULD say that English is for Nevarran what French is for Orlesian but instead I'm going to go with what I think is the more interesting option, which is that English's Thedasian equivalent is some basically dead language from the Divine Age that you rarely see outside of the Grand Necropolis unless of course you are say, Nevarran royalty and have been forced to learn the language as part of your studies.
What I'm saying is that Cassandra should be able to somewhat understand an MC speaking English. Not that that would HELP with them being trustworthy because while Cassandra can understand, only being able to speak the language that tombstones and old relics are carved with isn't really helping beat the "I Am Weird And Should Be Investigated" allegations.
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Thank you for the tag @briannasroger ❤️ My titles are not as interesting as yours LOL but this did force me to organize my WIPs and remember some I had forgotten about!
RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous, and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and you post a snippet or tell them something about it!
Sleeping Beauty AU
King Doppleganger fic
Ash snowed in fic
Accidentally swapping suitcases
Drunk Ash confession
Ash/Phi AU
King A and Inky Trev
Doctor who Ash AU
Ash’s mom lives AU
Tranquil
Modern AU
Pollen fic idea
Ash AU knight
DA fic mgit
Silver Linings Chapter 15
Tagging: @theluckywizard @carako @aetherflowers @inquisiorastoria and @bibutterflies
Modern Girl in Thedas trope is at its absolute best when it parallels the OCs experience with Solas' experience.
The two people in the whole world who woke up and discovered the world was not as they thought it was.
Your typical MGiT will come in not knowing how the fuck they got there but trapped and forced into becoming something they never wanted. And it gives them the chance to change things for better or for worse. They engage with the system as is because they are forced to, but they do the best they can to remake the world in their image and with their ideals and beliefs. And they engage with the people in the world as people despite knowing they were once nothing more than pixels on a screen.
Solas wakes up to the world he created and knows he must do something similar, but refuses to engage with the way the world works now. He seeks to destroy it, to bring back the good parts of the past while eliminating the bad. And he cannot allow himself to see the people in the world that he created as people because to do so would invite a guilt and shame that would only stop him from doing what he believes to be right.
The fact that often MGiTs get paired with Solas espouses, more than just the fandom's desire for the man, a kind of hope. That these MGiTs are capable of seeing the humanity in him, of seeing his flaws and his complexities and knowing what he did and what he wants to do and loving him anyway. By rejecting the notion that the world is any less real than the one they came from, that the love between them can be real, they pose an active threat to Solas' worldview. A true counterpoint, showing him that there is another way. That this world is worth fighting for, even if it isn't his.
The MGiT would actually be great for Veilguard because you can just explain Rook’s incredibly sensitivity and awareness of mental health and identity stuff as someone who did go to therapy for years and has the skill set but like, isn’t using it for themself.
Like yes, I have seen 13 papers/wiki articles/youtube discussions on gender identity, do not ask me what that means I cannot tell you, btw have you heard of the wide spectrum of sexuality and gender-
Terrible Fic Idea #91: Modern Girl in Thedas, but make it DA2
In honor of DA:V coming out next month I've been replaying DA:I. This is something of a trial because, having just finished a Hogwarts Legacy replay, it's easy to tell that this game is 10 years old - that, and I loved how focused and intimate DA2 feels. Yes, it has world-spanning implications, but it's really all about this guy trying to do his best by his friends and his family. I love it, and DA:I never inspired the same kind of feels.
All of which is a long way of saying: I got to thinking about that most famous of tropes, Modern Girl in Thedas, and I thought about how would I handle it?
Or: What if the MGiT were to appear in Kirkwall shortly before the Fifth Blight?
aka the Thedas is Not Enough fic
Just imagine it:
Rather than a true self-insert, I see this more as modern woman meets Thedas, with a middle-aged fan of the Dragon Age series waking up in the body of an unnamed background character in a Hightown estate sometime in early 9:30 following a severe illness. The keyword here is fan - the SI has played the games, read the fic, and glanced at the wiki, but couldn't write out a clear timeline or recall most codex entries.
The SI eventually learns that she's woken up in the body of Sofia Vidal, the 15-year-old daughter of the richest merchant in Kirkwall. Their family has a virtual monopoly on cloth trade on the northern cost of the Waking Sea and has distant ties to Orlesian Nobility as well as the Amells. Their Hightown estate abuts the future Hawke Estate, and if the term robber baron existed in Thedas it would probably apply to here them.
Now, going from the body of a middle-aged engineer from the modern world into the body of a teenager in a Medieval fantasy world is difficult... but luckily no one seems to notice, because it seems doubtful that anyone has ever noticed Sofia Vidal in her life, her family included. She was mousy and shy and easily startled and apparently an endless disappointment to the family for being more fond of books than hunting or fighting.
Because, as Sofia soon discovers, the Vidal family has aspirations. They can read the writing on the wall with regards to the current Viscount and are willing to go to any end to have their family be named the viscountcy.
To which end: Sofia is the youngest of seven children. Three died in the cradle or soon after. Her oldest brother - Gaspare, her senior by nearly twenty years - spends most of his time in Orlais with his titled wife, running the family business interests there. Their other two living siblings are mages, with Amalia sent to the Kirkwall Circle while her twin Agnese went to the Circle at Dairsmuid. It had been their father's hope that, should they not be able to secure the viscountcy themselves, one of his children could marry into the line... but Sofia is so unlikely to catch anyone's eye that her father despairs of her ever marrying at all.
All of which brings us back to the events of DA2.
Sofia may not know much, but she knows that the Blight is coming. She also knows that the conditions in Darktown are horrendous and only about to get worse as refugees flood the cities, so she buys a book on healing, collects some herbs, and sets up shop on the opposite side of Darktown from where Anders had his clinic. It's better than sitting around the estate all day and makes her feel like her transmigration has a purpose.
The events of canon proceed apace...
...which is something of a surprise, because for a long while it's quite easy for Sofia to forget that she's in a video game world at all. That is, until Anders appears at her door looking to swap healing recipes, trade potions, and - eventually - share a drink at the end of the day.
It's through Anders that she meets Garrett Hawke - a cheerfully sarcastic force mage of breathtaking power. He's the sort of powerful it would be easy to fear if he wasn't so affable and in control of his gifts. The idea that he could probably take over Kirkwall through sheer power of his magic and personality alone never seems to occur to him - which is good, because he could probably be DA's answer to Alexander the Great if he cared to try.
Sofia doesn't join the Kirkwall crew, however. She does her healing, gleefully watches their antics from the sidelines, and occasionally joins them for a drink at the Hanged Man.
Though she is the first to welcome the Hawkes to Hightown at the end of Act I, becoming quite close with Leandra. (For many years Leandra will harbor the hope that Sofia and her son will marry and give her many grandchildren to dote over, but neither are inclined that way. Especially after it's revealed they're third cousins.)
Sofia turns 19 in 9:34, the year Hawke becomes Champion.
It's also the year Sofia is introduced to Sebastian Vael, being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to attend the prince, who is bleeding out in the foyer of Hawke's home following the events of Repentance. It's not the first time this has happened - Sofia's bedroom is infinitely closer than Ander's clinic - but it is perhaps the most embarrassing.
Embarrassing, because she prefers not to be introduced to royalty in her nightclothes. Sofia has standards - not many, mind, but she has them.
Luckily for her, Sebastian is far too out of it to recall what she was wearing. But he can't help but develop a crush on the kind healer who so diligently tended his wounds - one who also ministers to the poor and downtrodden, though she could easily choose to live a life of luxury.
What follows falls somewhere between the canon friend and rival romances. We get a Sebastian who wants to regain Starkhaven because Sofia deserves no less than a Prince but who has the calm and pro-mage sympathies of the friendship route.
But that of course takes time, because Sofia's not convinced at first that Sebastian's crush has nothing to do with seeing her in her nightclothes. (Nor, for that matter, does she particularly care for the idea of a chaste marriage or an aggressively anti-mage spouse. She'd not been a particular fan of Sebastian in the game, but hadn't hated him either.)
Canon proceeds apace. Hawke becomes Champion, Kirkwall is left without a viscount, and Sofia's father tries to marry her off to whoever looks most likely to succeed Dumar this week.
As the chaos mounts, the soft, slow romance between Sofia and Sebastian is a breath of fresh air. On Sebastian's part, it grows from a seed of fondness - and, yes, lust - to genuine affection as he gets to know Sofia. For her part, by the time Sofia realizes she cares for Sebastian she's already in deep. Its friendship turned to love, which is the best and strongest.
They wed in a small ceremony in 9:36, only telling Sofia's father after the fact. As Sebastian has to leave the Chantry to do so, they're forced to camp out at Hawke's estate for several weeks before finding a small place of their own. This is awkward - mostly because the Vidal estate right next door and Sofia's father is a pompous ass on the best of days.
As the calendar turns to 9:37, matters reach their tipping point. Anders blows up the Kirkwall Chantry and Hawke is forced to kill him in hopes of restoring order. This fails and events of the endgame play out with Hawke siding with the mages.
Hawke goes on the run, helping mages across the Free Marches get to safety.
Sebastian makes good on his promise of taking back Starkhaven for Sofia, making her a princess in truth. The city becomes a sanctuary district for many of the mages in northern Thedas, much as Redcliffe was for the mages in the south. This doesn't prevent the events of DA:I, but halves the numbers of conscripts available for Alexius to conscript later. They send forces to help Kirkwall rebuild... but the city is still lawless and in turmoil when the Conclave occurs in 9:40.
Per Sofia's urging, Sebastian helps the Inquisition in its early days... though she does make it clear that she thinks the Inquisition's only aim should be to close the Breach.
But for the most part Sebastian and Sofia end up living fairly happily in Starkhaven. They have a larger family than Sofia ever imagined herself wanting - 5 kids, but magical epidurals are a wonderful thing. It's not a utopia, but it's the best that can be expected given the politics of the time. Their eldest succeeds their father as Prince of Starkhaven while their next oldest, not to be outdone, eventually gets themselves named Viscount of Kirkwall - just as the Vidal family had always dreamed.
Bonuses include:
Sofia becoming deeply, deeply over-invested in the relationship between Hawke and Fenris. So much so that for a while Sebastian thinks she's interested in one or the other or both and resolves to let her pursue her happiness without any interference from him, only to have it knocked into his head by a third-party that Sofia doesn't want be with them, she wants them to be with each other. This should be played for maximum humor and confusion.
An exceptionally complicated relationship with the Chantry. Sebastian is very much a committed Andrastian, whereas Sofia was agnostic at best in the modern world. Are demons and magic and the Breech proof that the Maker exists? Should she follow the rituals of the religion for Sebastian's sake or be honest about her beliefs? Can she open her mind enough to give Andrastianism an honest try? &c.
Sofia coming to view Leandra as second mother. Though she tries her best to prevent the events of All That Remains, she's not a fighter. All she's able to do is injure Quentin and alert Hawke to the problem sooner; Leandra still dies, but it's before Quentin is able to reanimate his perfect bride.
An engineer being forced to come to terms with magic. It makes the transition to a world at Middle Ages level of scientific advancement easier than it otherwise would be (magically running water!) but still makes Sofia's basic knowledge of germ theory a great leap forward in her Darktown clinic; and
Sofia gaining a reputation for being a great storyteller by blatantly stealing stories from the modern world to entertain children at her clinic. Varric eventually "borrows" some of these ideas and ends up writing the DA version of Harry Potter set in a fictional Circle in the years leading up to the mage rebellion.
And that is surprisingly more than I had. To be frank, the Sebastian romance snuck up on me because it's not one I usually go for, but the muse wants what it wants. As always, feel free to adopt this bun - just link back if you do anything with it.
More DA Ideas | More SI Ideas | More Terrible Fic Ideas
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I like modern girl in thedas and the reverse idea because it specifically caters to my intrusive thoughts of 'what would you do if lucanis showed up in your car while you were blasting MF Doom. Would he even react. Would he just clutch his ears and yell. Do people in thedas actually speak English or is it a different language. Could I support someone who can't even pay taxes because they have no Id. How would they get an id. Would they stay sane with the index of a surveillance state. '
