#zevni

Thank you for waiting, ik this was asked like 12 years ago -- Happy Valentine's Day!

DAPHRIS:

What was the moment that first made their ~heart~ Soft for the other person? Not necessarily a conscious realization of “I love this person,” but a moment that had them like “Oh…I adore them…”

Daphne didn’t pine after Fenris after he left her, which is I think an important distinction; Daphne wasn’t longing for him all that time, she fell in love with him twice. So she has a few more of these than he does. But I think my favorite of them is when she had taught him to write and had hastily scribbled her a note that included him trying to spell out her first name a few times.

Fenris, meanwhile, I think came to idealize her very quickly. She’s someone that’s always going to stop and help people — she’s a born villager, and builds a community in a way that feels effortless from the outside looking in. I think that’s something he really admires about her, even when the village in question includes people like Anders. She has a habit of showing mercy that he’s disarmed by, so I’d say the first time he watched her catch a mouse or a bug and let it out in the woods rather than killing it.

How much independence do they prefer in a relationship—do they want to share their lives as much as possible with their partner, or do they prefer to mostly do their own thing and let their partner do their own thing?

I think…on her own and especially when she was younger, Daphne is a fiercely independent person. She would’ve really resisted the urge to become a unit with her partner in years and relationships past. I think we could say similarly about Fenris. But I think when they leave Kirkwall and only have each other for so long, they quickly fall into that and rarely go far from each other; I’ve said in the past that Daphne is Fenris’s right eye and Fenris is her left. Fenris I think becomes anxious about losing his sense of individuality and independence after the twins are born and maybe leaves for about a year when they’re very small, but overall I think they are happy to pass the time together and do it well.

What does sex mean for them? Socially, religiously, what attitudes are they bringing with them? Is “virginity” something they care about? Do they want sexual experiences to occur within a certain “level” of relationship, or does that not really matter so much to them?

Maybe to help her cope with pretty much all of the other shit going on in her life, I gave Daphne a pretty normal and healthy relationship with sex. At least, in my opinion. Daphne has taken many lovers, sees nothing particularly sacred about sex, and thinks it’s fun. Especially that first time she slept with Fenris, I think she sometimes forgets that it’s a big deal for others — I think she got excited and her experience gets the better of her at times.

Fenris I think before being with Daphne had been used to thinking of sex as another tool for pain and violence against him. He didn’t quite Think about sex in the same way he didn’t Think about family or friends — he was precluded from having that kind of relationship with someone by virtue of the markings and the disabling nature of the markings. In a way, it kind of sheltered him from rejection on that front. In other words, he does not want sex or a family if he cannot have it with Daphne and would have been unlikely to move on in that way because I think he sees her as exceptional. And she does…have feelings about this. Maybe not good ones.

ZEVNI:

How do they consciously realize that they like the other character? Does it take them a while?

This is a great question. You could answer this several ways, honestly. Because I think that, to start, they do reach an understanding on this front pretty quickly and Zevran, to begin with, tries to take a more…mentorly (?) role with Ghavni (rogue4rogue). I mean, obviously, he’s not the most disciplined on that front, so that pretense evaporated pretty quickly, but it does thread through most of their interactions to start with. Ghavni I think liked the attention and courted it, even when he was trying to act like it was something else.

What do they think about romantic love? Do they have baggage surrounding it? Do they idealize it? Is it an object of longing and wanting, or were they really not thinking about it until they started falling for the other character? What are their expectations like?

Ghavni to me is not unlike Fenris in a lot of ways — namely, here, I think they see romance and sex as something that would never be available to them, and so never really considered their own sexual…legitimacy isn’t the right word, but it’s closest, before meeting Zevran. The thought that someone would genuinely find them attractive beyond flirting and maybe a tipsy makeout session is a completely foreign one to them. And I think as they realized more about their gender identity, they hit this point where they realized that they knew a lot about how men loved each other but wanted Zevran to see them as a woman. And this was…awkward to navigate because I’d say that Zevran was already courting them the way that he’d court a girl. Because he kind of knew already.

Zevran was attracted to Ghavni pretty much immediately. He likes tall women and Ghavni was very much his type, although perhaps a little bit less experienced than he was used to. I don’t think the romance side of things really caught up to him until he came to the alienage and saw Ghavni with her family, and realized how important it was to them to have that in her life and how if he wanted her, he’d have to be that for her. And realizing that he actually wanted it scared him a lot, actually.

They have to apologize to their partner. Is this difficult for them? How do they approach it?

I think Zevran actually kind of sucks at apologizing verbally, actually! He feels things deeply but he’s not great at talking about them. I think he’s never had to really have that many relationships where people Talk About Their Feelings. If he feels apologetic then he changes his behavior, but if he’s confronted about it or expected to say anything plainly he actually gets a little mean or short, and it’s something that he has to work on. Ghavni is one of those people that also does not talk, but acts. She’s one of those “bowl of cut fruit” parents and lovers; they’re good for each other that way but I think anyone on the outside looking in might have a different impression.

I initially said ghavni and zevran had three kids, biologically — regardless of how this would likely be physically impossible for these two — and also adopted one. then it became two bio, one adopted kid. then just one bio kid. and as I’m getting to know them better I’m wondering if they have children at all, actually.

​so here’s the thing. i do think ghavni would want kids to start with and the reason she leaves the wardens that I’ve been working with has been that ghavni finds out they’re pregnant right before awakening and they have to stage their death in the deep roads so that nobody finds out the warden commander of ferelden actually faked their joining and has been hiding in plain sight for so long via a combination of dumb luck and primordial elf magic (long story). for some reason I’d thought awakening happened two years after origins rather than a few months, so this new timeline means that zevran got ghavni pregnant on their wedding night rather than after many many months of trying on and off while zevran moves back and forth between ferelden and antiva. and this is throwing everything off.

i think ghavni would try their hardest to keep the baby due to the fact that i think they would know that as someone we might classify as intersex, it is a miracle that she and zevran even conceived in the first place, let alone so soon and so auspiciously. but i cannot fathom ghavni enjoying being pregnant or having an easy childbirth. and more importantly, i cannot fathom ghavni really enjoying being a mum at freshly 22, and this is in fact a life path that ghavni tabris was pretty keen on not going down in the first place (is morning sickness more tolerable when you’re in love with the dad?).