One of the prompts provided to me was to imagine the babs in another of my favorite universes! I thought Dragon Age would be most fitting. Here, Wanda is a Rivaini mage, one who has allowed a spirit to possess her. In Rivain, women in Circles are trained to become seers, who are revered in Rivaini societies. They interact with spirits of the Fade and often allow themselves to possessed if it would help their village. They learn much about magic and the Fade this way. I could go on all day explaining the lore of Dragon Age, but more can be read about Rivain and the Circle of Magi here and here.
In this case, the spirit is one of compassion–Vision–curious and concerned by the suffering of mages in Thedas. Through this possession, both benefit, in which Vision learns of the waking world and Wanda learns more of the Fade. Wanda’s outrage at the mistreatment of mages outside of Rivain coupled with Vision’s need to help, together, they form a certain kind of justice. I thought this would be an interesting way to look at their relationship in an au. I hope you enjoy!!
Dragon Age is my other love, and I was secretly hoping my Santa had the same great taste!
Of course Wanda should be a mage–Rivain is a fantastic place for her too, since as an Avenger she experienced a different kind of existence as a mutant than most, and it makes sense she’d come from a place that had a different experience for their mages.
Vision makes perfect sense as a spirit, both apart and deeply connected to humanity (and, well, he’s a vision). AndWCA Vision is a great choice to represent them, since spirits that are new to the world tend to be limited in expression of emotion–besides the facet they represent–and grow over time.
Wanda’s eyes are beautiful and expressive, and I love the eerieness of Vision’s spectral form coupled with the intimacy (their closeness, his phasing). I can feel there’s so much going on just out of frame–is Wanda getting ready for battle? is Vision trying to hold Wanda back or supporting her?
I’m so, so pleased by this gift! My mind is racing ahead with Dragon Age AUs, character builds for Rivaini Witch Wanda (the only mage with decent headgear besides Viv) and Spirit of Compassion Vision, interactions with companions… Thank you so much!
At my job, I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I just realized that I could listen to people talk about marvel comics.
The podcast “Marveling at Marvel’s Marvels” is one guy telling two other guys (who don’t know anything about it) all the wild details about the origins and stories of comic characters, and then having them rate the characters.
I listened to the Vision and Scarlet Witch episodes (the episodes back-to-back and joined because the two characters are so inseparable in canon) and I was sad when the dudes were about to give them bad scores.
But then the narrator (who actually read all the comics) when into this beautiful, beautiful speech about how Vision and Wanda are fascinating compared to other super heroes because their plots are the opposite of what you’d expect – while Captain America is an average man who becomes more interesting through gaining power, Wanda and Vision start as horrifically over-powered characters who the writers constantly work to try to show as human, to use to tell small, intimate, emotional, domestic stories.
Captain America is the story of normal-grown-greater. Vision and Wanda are the story of great-made-human.
I don’t know, I didn’t expect that kind of insight and poetry out of these kinds of podcasts. I got starry-eyed listening to him wax poetic about something I also love, that the others were about to just dismiss. They reconsidered and gave them better scores.
ok while I was reading these old comics, I took screenshots because I don’t want to have to go looking back through them again. Here’s my favorite parts of Scarlet Witch/Vision’s old romance.
Those Celestial Bodies 