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D:

...WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

So I've had Leliana stealth romance me countless times. In fact, it's what she's good at, but right now I am staring at Alistair's character screen and going D:

Adhara was just stealth romanced by Alistair. Tesni has been sneak!kissed by him countless times and it has always ended badly, but this Alistair appears to be an emotional masochist, because when she told him she wasn't interested he a) approved, and b) decided they're a couple anyway. My poor stuffy Dalish is hiding in a corner, clutching a rose she didn't want, going ಠ_ಠ. Every time she tries to talk to him he goes "yeeeeees?" and her options are "Let's bone!" or "Let's break up!"

"But I just let him down!" she says. "I don't even know why he gave me the rose! I threatened to kill him!"

Knowing my luck she'll break up with him again and he'll fall from "care" to "love." AUGH.

Has this happened to anyone else? Share your fun/traumatic Alistair sneak romance stories.

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Yeah! I always seem to have to break up with them twice to get it to take. :)

Maybe Adhara should stop waking up naked with him, then he'd stop getting the wrong impression?

LOL

I seem to have got my M!Cousland stealth re-romanced by Morrigan by giving her a mirror. I had no idea that could happen with her.

Whoa, really? I've never managed a stealth anything with Morrigan. It always takes work. XD

I was going for more of a "mugged and woke sans kidney" than "crazy night in Vegas" with that screenie.

And yet it still worked!

In one of my earlier playthroughs before I understood how all the romance trigger thingies worked, I decided to romance Zevran. I'd heard wonderful things about romancing him, and I found it was very easy. I had no problems choosing the right lines and navigating my way through our conversations (without looking stuff up and relying on spoilers). Apparently, I had no problem doing the same thing with Alistair and Leliana. Zev had to tell me I needed to break up with not just one, but both of them. What? I wasn't even trying to romance them, I was just being friendly! X( Fortunately, Zevran knew what a complication looked like.

Well... At last, a few weeks ago, I decided to romance Alistair in the game, which, considering that we are currently writing a romance fic with Alistair involved, is probably beneficial... somehow.

In any case, I had to create a snooty, Cousland noble to give Anora a run for her sovereigns, and jumped right into hacking things up. All went relatively well, Cousland strung the impressionable boy along on her path to glory, got the rose, got Alistair hardened in more ways than one, with the side bonus of a few Alistair-initiated kisses and puppy dog looks.

Easy.

Then, one day, out of nowhere (and when I say out of nowhere, I mean: in the middle of a planned shopping bargain in the elf village with the clueless trader's bobbing head between them, his eyes never leaving Cousland's breast plate... all courtesy of xbox version's messed up targeting) comes a conversation...

Alistair (peeking over the bobbing trader head): What precisely is going on between you and Leliana?
Cousland: Um, we're friends.
Alistair: Friendly friends? And here I thought... *eyes light up*
Cousland: Yeahright - No! Definitely friends.

I know Leliana didn't see it that way but hey, comfort over Marjolaine was included in that whole friendship bundle. It was totally innocent on Cousland's part. With Leliana at least. Now Morrigan would have had her swaying to the Sapphic side in no time, but a sad and horrible and wrong fact of the unmodded Dragon Age is that Morrigan doesn't swing that way.

What followed was a bizarre scenario of Alistair putting his drama queen skills to full use, pre-Landsmeet. First, Cousland got a serious guilt-tripping lecture on leading Leliana on, then Alistair mentions that it was sort of hot, but still omg, wrong, how could you? Then he restates how he feels about Cousland, swoops in for a kiss (with the poor trader Elf stuck in the middle of this the whole time, his opinion of 'shemlen' plummeting to whole new depths, I am sure). And finally, after Alistair lets go of a kiss-frazzled Cousland, he throws down the ultimatum: Leliana or me.

Now wait a minute!

What you have to understand is, Cousland really dislikes ultimatums. In fact, as an implied Warden Commander, she considers this behavior all shades of unacceptable... so. That's exactly what she tells him: Just. Don't.

Suddenly there are the saddest puppy dog eye expressions and 'if that's how you really feel!' emotional blackmail and the next thing you know Alistair storms off a la mini-Landsmeet affair in a full blown drama queen mood and the next thing you know, romance options are totally gone.

Um. Yeahh.

I have to say, Alistair is so much more tolerable when I'm in his head and writing him, instead of trying to deal with the full brunt of his charming company from someone else's POV.

I probably... should... reload from the previous save. But damn, I don't want to! The Cousland in my head is foaming and frothing and plotting pain and suffering, which means she may side with Loghain during Landsmeet and will never, ever have that queen crown she craves.

It's probably a good thing too... But yeah, potential villains are born of the smallest things. Such as an unpredicted dramatic breakup in the middle of an elf trader's space.

At least Sten and Dog always have her back.

Have you slung Duncan's shield at him yet? It offers you the chance to reopen romantic negotiations.

Oooh, cool. :) Thank you. No, haven't dealt with Riordan or Anora yet. I thought since he already got his mum's amulet, any chance to repair the relationship would be toast. Never really bothered to read up on breakup issues in my Zevran-leaning playthroughs and I think it's coming to bite my backside in this soap opera of a scenario.

Methinks this Cousland is more inclined to selfishly hold onto that shield out of sheer spite in her cold lonely bedroll, but she doesn't get a vote.

There's no point in her cutting off her nose to spite her face. If she wants that crown, she needs to make nice with Alistair. It's your game, of course, I'm just saying.

Oh, I think in the end, she's ambitious enough of a noble girl to make up with Alistair, and play a happy couple solely for the promise of a crown. But it wouldn't be fun. She will be miserable for the rest of her life with a thorn of Alistair in her side whom she'd never take seriously. And I'd disapprove -10 of extra-hardened!Cousland, since in that case, Alistair'd be better off in an arranged marriage with Anora instead of tricked into something he thinks is true love.

Personally I am beginning to prefer the outcome of her stewing and holding a lifelong grudge. But what I was hoping for is getting her over that Cousland Princess crown fetish by solid dose of Blighted reality. Hopefully dragging her through alienage and deep roads would change the perspective a bit.

Gah, why the hell do I set emotional constraints of a readable romance and personal growth plot on the actions of my characters. The game dynamics have enough limitations.

Gah, why the hell do I set emotional constraints of a readable romance and personal growth plot on the actions of my characters. The game dynamics have enough limitations.

Well, it is a role playing game. *grin*

Gah, why the hell do I set emotional constraints of a readable romance and personal growth plot on the actions of my characters. The game dynamics have enough limitations.

You're not alone. I do it too.

I. DIDN'T. KNOW. THAT!

*scribbles*

I have never needed that shield before, but it is good to know!

On one of my games Loghain is running around in Cailan's armor with Duncan's shield because I am awful.

Tangentially related.

My husband does that. He always waits to kill Alistair until I am paying attention. He is always naked. And husband is always cackling maniacally.

Erm...Alistair is alway naked. We aren't that kinked. *never translates well*

Herren and I use the same computer for gaming. I once found this in my screenshot folder and was SO ANGRY:

It's the only screenshot he ever took, and he did it because he knew I would find it and be ANGRY.

We obviously need a support group. Alistair does not approve of this tomfoolery.

Your shield made me giggle, however.

(reply from suspended user)

I put the fun mods in after he quit playing. :D

oh gods. Only you, Shimmy.

Why am I wanting to blame Evie or Faolan?

It was Faolan.

I've never had an Alistair sneak romance, except in the sense that I go in, sure I'm going to romance Zev this time for reals, and then PUPPY EYES OF DOOM.

I actually tried doing a guy, and when Alistair started talking lampposts, Gabriel said, "Oh, he is SO not straight!" and the next thing I knew I was installing Equal Love.

I know that face! I always fall for that crap. I think think "Oh, I'm totally going to go for Zev this time". Then he effing imprints on me and it's over from there.

@_@ Here! Have my flower! <--- Double entendre metaphor! ICWUTUDIDTHARBIOWARE!

Sabia got in an argument with Alistair over knocking out Isolde and making her kill her own son.

It ended with her being kissed by him.

Sabia TROUNCED him.

I STILL don't know how that happened.

Well, I had this issue with my human male mage. I had left FreeLove loaded without knowing it. I had turned off Polygamy and was romancing Zev (come on, you know me...).

Anyway, in Redcliff, when Big Al told me his secret, I was supportive. When we went to Denerim and confronted Goldana, he hit on me outside. It was subtle; I didn't quite catch on (apparently, my mage can be a little naive).

So, we get back to camp and I get the "let's fuck" forced dialog from Big Al.

My PC was all "WTF"?

I kept reloading prior saves to see where he changed his approval and found it had happened in Redcliff. I searched my loaded mods, saw FreeLove on and turned it off.

Reloaded the save before Redcliff, and he STILL ninja romanced me. It appears enough flags had been set for this particular PC that Al wanted him too badly to give him up. Eventually, I reloaded Polygamy and FreeLove and romanced the hell out of everyone. I decided to let this particular PC kill himself at the end of the game.

The funeral was rather interesting. Out of all the companions I romanced, and even though Big Al was going to make my human male his Queen Consort (buwaaahahahahaha), Leliana was highlighted as the one that loved my Warden.

I let the prologue roll and deleted the character. No sense trying to resurrect this disaster for DLCs or expansions.

Oh, also, if you romance everyone with Polygamy on, you can get some of the best jealousy companion banter! I thought Leliana and Morrigan were gonna duel, their banter was pure venom at one point.

Polygamy only turns off companion reactions when you speak to them, it doesn't change the status of all relationships for companion banter. If you want to see all of your companions fight over you, load Polygamy and Easy Love, give everyone their gifts, romance the hell out of all, then run through Orz a few times to trigger banter. Great fun to be had, I assure you.

And don't use my dreamwidth account pretty much at all. But I needed my DA fix today and won't be getting DA2 until Friday so I wandered over here, and well this caught my attention:

Sometimes Morrigan does not get the message. My poor m!Mahariel both got ninjamanced and couldn't get rid of her, even though he was staunchly into Zev the entire time.

He expressed sympathy for Morrigan, and then ended up in Zev's tent. Morrigan got pissed, approval -20. I thought it was over then, but he killed Flemeth and Morrigan tried to invite him into her tent. m!Mahariel refuses, she gets pissed, -20.

I got frustrated, stopped trying to gain her approval and forgot about it until he went to Orzammar, bought the mirror and gave it to her. The next time my m!Mahariel talked to her, this time by accidental click, he got the conversation with Morrigan about love. He told her there was someone else and there was no approval drop, but I assumed that they were over and never had him start another conversation with her after that. When ritual time came up, she still asked about his relationship with Zevran and all, but when my warden went through Witch Hunt, they still had the dramatic kiss at the end.

Strangely, this didn't happen with my m!Cousland that did romance her and then dumped her when Zev came along. Apparently, Morrigan just likes elves better.

I was just informed that I won't be getting DA2 until March 15. *grumblegrumble*

I have never had that big of a problem with Morrigan. But what Alistair is doing to Adhara right now is about as bad. She just broke up with him AGAIN and he approved +2. @_@

D: Now that's just a criminal delay.

I'm starting to think there's just something about the elves for the LIs. I know it's easy to get ninjamanced by Leliana, but I had nearly as bad of a problem with her as with Morrigan for Theron. The poor bewildered elf couldn't shake them no matter how many times he tried to tell them that he didn't want any part of them, they kept trying harder.

I haven't had this happen with any of my human wardens, and was never able to start a romance with Leliana with either my male or female Cousland. I never managed to play another elf through far enough to see if they've had the same problem.

Perhaps it's Alistair's possible elf-blood that's begun to express itself in a horribly destructive manner. Or Morrigan's voodoo. He wants to stop, but he just can't get away.

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D:

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How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

Re: How about a stealth breakup story?

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So I've just been lurking here...

Re: So I've just been lurking here...

Re: So I've just been lurking here...