The Bittersweetest Thing

kelila:

dgaider:

You’re presuming that everyone is entitled to a romance with a character of their choosing, or even a romance that they like.

I think you’re also assuming that a romance arc with Varric and/or Aveline would have been exactly the relationship you remember, but with a kissing scene added. It wouldn’t. Varric would have been someone else. Instead of Aveline talking about her Dad, you would have had sex with her. Is that better? Is the friendship you formed with Varric so unworthwhile that you would have traded it in for something else which may not even be what you imagine? He is the way he is because that’s what he was written to be.

Yes, I know everyone wants more. More, more, more. I’m just not sure why everyone would so readily discard what they already have, assuming that they wouldn’t change it in the act of transforming it into something else. In my opinion, not every fictional relationship is made more appealing by adding romance to it.

Why not add death? Man, even a romance cupcake would start to taste a bit samey after a while, wouldn’t it? Bah.

#damn kids get off my lawn #I mean SEX on my lawn why I never #I’m sure nobody will take this personally #go home Gaider you’re drunk

I just wanted to reblog this with the tags because they made me laugh. But I might as well throw in my 2 coppers.

I see the appeal in wanting to romance Varric. He’s awesome and he and Hawke (especially Snarky!Hawke) had some awesome dynamics. And then there’s that chest hair, baby. But I loved that friendship that they had.

Same with Aveline. My first playthrough, even though I knew she wasn’t a romance option, I flirted with her every chance I got. Because I loved her and wanted to live vicariously through my Hawke. So it made me kind of sad I couldn’t try out a romance with her. But still, that friendship they developed, (and the arc with Donnic) is enough for me. I love it so much (I actually really really love Donnic, and if anyone is good enough for my Aveline, it’s him… if he breaks her heart tho, Imma come at him with all my magey powers ready).

Heh. Yeah, I know the desire for all the romance comes from a place of love. I really do. It’s just, from a creator’s perspective…

Let me put it this way. You run a deli, right? It’s a great place. Quality meats. Steaks you could drool over. Sandwiches. Soups. Personal service. The kind of place which makes for loyal customers, where they’ve been coming for years. They love it.

You decide to expand and start making cakes. Why not? Cakes are delicious. And it’s a hit. You get lots of people coming in, snapping up the cakes. They love the cakes. Some mornings, when the cakes go out into the display, the deli’s so packed with people you can hardly get in. “Cakes! Cakes! Omigod cakes!” Makes you feel good. You listen to their comments, their requests, you make even better cakes. Some of these new people say they’d never even been to a deli before— a friend told them about the cakes, but they love everything else here and now they won’t even go to a supermarket. It’s good for business.

Yeah, there’s that regular. The big one with the jowls. He stands behind the crowd and scowls, making nasty comments about the girl who eats the red velvet cake at the corner table and moans in pleasure while she does so. “Man, this place was better when it was just a deli,” he sneers, like I should feel the same.

“Another ten-inch salami, sir?” I ask. He gets the same thing every Friday. I avoid commenting on the way he fondly strokes it on the way out the door. People like what they like, man. Who am I to argue?

Then there’s that one woman who complained about some sirloin she bought. “It was good,” she lamented. “I just wish it’d been cake.”

“You want sirloin cake?”

“I like cake,” she said. She looked a little hurt, as if I’d insinuated something. “Couldn’t you put some frosting on it?”

“I… don’t think that would make it taste like cake.”

She bought some red velvet and left. I think because it was red.

Then some days the morning crowd just gets so excited. They’ve heard I listen to comments, so they want lemon cake. Lemon cake with strawberries! Oh, how about lemon cake mixed with chocolate orange? What would that taste like? They get so carried away with their chatter, it’s really all I can do to get to the other customers and their orders. The other customers get annoyed, and on days like that all I can think is: “Screw the cake. Screw it all to hell.” Still, I remind myself that they just love the cake. My cake. It’s all good.

Then I turn around one day and a lady’s taken a bite out of the the gorgonzola display. Like, the big block of it on top of the counter! I yell at her and she gets all perplexed. “I just wanted to see if it was cake. It wasn’t labeled very clearly.” I yell at her some more. “I just love your cakes so much!” She runs out the door. I feel a bit bad… but when I look at the big, toothy chunk taken out of the gorgonzola I feel marginally less bad. It’s goddamn cheese, lady. What the ever-loving hell?

Then one day we run out of cakes. We’ll get more, but the morning crowd wants cakes now. “Why don’t you just turn this into a cake store?” one of them helpfully suggests. I explain that it’s a deli. I like it being a deli. We have other customers who enjoy it being a deli. “But I came here for cake!” “You should really have more variety.” “I’m intolerant to glucose! Why aren’t there cakes for me?”

I sigh and turn around to get someone else’s order (ten links for the skinny guy with the really intense stare— he comes here and sits in the corner just to quietly watch the cake ladies, I swear), and when I turn around THEY’RE EATING THE GODDAMN DISPLAY.

“LADIES! THAT’S A PICTURE OF A CAKE!!”

“But it looked so good!”

“Not everything is for eating! Out! Christ on a cracker, out!!”

They left. I heard a few days later that a club started in town, where people eat cardboard pictures of cakes. It’s a thing, apparently. I don’t ask the ladies the next morning if they started the club. I don’t really want to know. If it makes them happy, God bless ‘em.

“You could just stop making cakes,” comes the sneer.

Shut up, salami dude. I happen to make great fucking cakes.

———————

I mean this in good fun, honestly. The romance stuff is rather adorable, and I would never give up the love that gets poured on the characters we write just to give up the occasional annoyance at the fixation on what I personally think is just one aspect of interesting character arcs.

But when I see you staring longingly at the display… well, I make that face. Yes, that one. Don’t mind me. ;)