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[alijuan]

This game has been out for almost two months and I still feel like I'm grieving. It may be stupid because it's just a game, but this series has meant so much to me for so many years. And seeing it all end like this... The only thing that makes me feel better is reading other people's criticism of the game. It kind of helps me sort through my feelings, I guess. The datv critical tag almost feels like therapy to me lol.

I wish the people who liked the game and are mad at anyone criticizing it would understand that. Most of us aren't doing it because we're haters who want to ruin other people's fun. We do it because we genuinely love this series. I sometimes feel like the people who are the most disappointed with Veilguard are the ones who loved the previous games the most. While most of the people who like this game are more "casual" fans who are not that invested in the world and the lore. Which is fine. But please don't mock the rest of us for caring.

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Princess Shadowheart 🌙✨🪻

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Astarion + vaguely religious imagery is the answer to all my troubles

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There has been some time to deal with the last unfinished OC-tober idea. Now Yasha doesn't need to celebrate his victory alone. X3 There are two versions again. And I treated myself with colour this time. (GASP!)

You can get the spicy and non text version on Patreon as Sprite and Elve. ♥

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I can't get that frame out of my head because that’s what I thought would be revealed in da4. I knew that there was a reason why the names of the Old Gods were taken from the angelic names and why they were called archdemons.

Blight as ancient something from the Void. Something that sings to others, manipulates, corrupts. Blight that taints the living arousing rage and spite. Old Gods is ancient mystical fallen beings who were seen as divine and were controlled by that power. Blight whispered through Old Gods. This explains why Old Gods went silent after magisters opened the gates of the Golden City and unleashed the blight and why ancient sources say that Dumat not only led darkspawn but created them.

Maker. There was the only scene in DATV about how he might not exist and that Chant of Light is a lie, but it is not that simple, some moments are strangely too well matched, especially spirits, the first children of the Maker, who were jealous of mortals. The whole world is about different songs, Chant of Light, lyrium and blight. Also, the Canticle of Maferath is strange, he felt spite, and then vision of Andraste made him "pure again" because his betrayal was "Maker-blessed". And considering that Andraste saw the Maker in her dreams and she was born when Dumat was killed, too many coincidences.

Maker doesn’t have to be a man who created the world with his hands. It's interesting to think about the Maker as personification of the Fade or as some driving force. Or Maker and blight as different aspects of the same thing, like spirits and demons. Besides, the Abyss is part of the Fade.

And just for thought:

It is unknown what passed then, but over time, the Empty Ones grew to believe that the blight was to be the tool by which the Maker would end all of creation. They preached that it came from the Void, a place of nothing, and that returning to the Void was something to be celebrated because it meant an end to all pain and all suffering. The Empty Ones believed the world to be beyond redemption, and that it was the Maker's will that it be destroyed completely.

Codex entry: The Empty Ones

It’s just cult belief but they were right that the blight came from the Void. If the blight born from dreams of the titans, it’s still a weapon against "creations" on the surface. Although in peacetime dwarves are the ones who suffer the most.

Gaider once mentioned that he wondered if the identity of the Maker would ever be revealed. Even though many of the original ideas were shown in DATV, probably even Executors, I don't think so. Old Gods became high dragons, and blight is “different” now🙄 I wouldn't be surprised if Solas really ends up being the Maker one day (on reddit lol). What a waste of incredible lore and world. I desperately need Bioware's document with all original ideas Gaider was talking about.

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Night Orchids

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Commission time!! This one was for the LOVELY feyrion.bsky.social! (over at Bluesky)

It's a matching romance tarot to Dorian's featuring their Inky, Feyrion!! What a delight it was to make this for them <3333

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Yes, you sit right there and let me drink in the sight of you.

last night i accidentally posted this picture and then deleted it because it's not finished yet. but i come back to post it again because i want to share the cuteness of shadowheart lol

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Writing to Hawke.

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I didn't say all Archdemons are male, most of them are. I'm well aware of Razikale and Urthemiel, and biology of High dragons. RPG guide is a mistake, as you say, and Trick Weekes said that you have to follow the canon of the game. Speaking of DAO, as far as I remember, all Archdemons were male. And yes, they probably changed that, just like now. And it was a point they are not simple dragons, they can be male or female. And Razikale is female, there's no contradiction to my words. How does all this contradict to the fact that Epler said some weird shit and justified it with the dumbest argument?

Constellations are messy, there can be confusing associations. But this constellation doesn't confuse me to be honest because beauty is stereotypically associated with women. And you point out that the perception of them as Gods and actual biology may differ, but at the same time you point to a constellation that is associated with him as a god.

Grey wardens, scholars and Priests of the Old Gods who know their morphology didn't see that they are female for thousand years although they had 5 corpses. If that makes sense to you then fine. I understand that the reptilian reproductive system is not so obvious and it can be difficult to see penis or hemipenis but not to this extent.

I see your point though, I've thought about it too and I agree that they could be female if we pretend that everyone in Thedas is stupid (it would still feel like a retcon and there's no logic, but it happens in Dragon age, okay), and I probably wouldn't have paid attention so much if the whole lore hadn't been reworked or ignored in favour of the narrative. If there wasn't so much of disconnect between previous games, artbook and DATV. Old Gods, Blight, Evanuris, Solas, Qunari, elves, Tevinter. They justify all plot holes with an unreliable narrator and other things like that. It's very convenient to make excuses like that, and that's exactly what my half-joking post was about. Their responses at AMA and interview show that they don't even know what they're talking about. Everything after project Joplin was a mistake and they try to excuse it, and it shows.

Dragon Age, particularly elves, Old Gods and Tevinter, have been my main hyperfixation for half of my life, so it's painful to me to read these ridiculous excuses about Elgar'nan seeing his female dragon as a male. It's so stupid, I can't. Everyone has misgendered dragons for three games. And no one has called Archdemons (not as gods, just as dragons) female because they are High dragons.

No more discourse, please, it's a trigger topic after Bioware's lies about everything and lore change for the sake of the plot in DATV. Read the artbook and stop convincing yourself that this is the way it was meant to be. They're just trying to explain their changing of original plot, and they're not very good at that.

And now all Archdemons are female. Okay😐 Blight is different, Archdemons are female. So convenient for developers.

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With the recent interview where the game director basically says "well people were always going to be mad at this game since it would never match their expectations anyways" and the amount of idiots calling anyone who dislikes or point out flaws as "entitled", let me say this: Bioware - yes, Bioware - are the one at fault for our expectations. They made us wait 10 years and promised a dark, immersive fantasy RPG entry in an established series where relationships and choices matter, and choices from the previous games would carry over. Instead, what we got was an action game with shitty writing, plot holes and a whitewashed world without any decisions besides who did your main character fuck. They did that, not us. And it was also they who lied about all this, and the only reason it got revealed was because a beta-tester leaked it. This is the same company who made an entire fake trailer for Anthem before the game even started to get made, they are not above lying to get your money. It is not just a question of "I didn't like the game and now I'm sad", it is a question of paying a substantial amount of money (because guess what, when you life in a third-world South American country with a fucked-up economy, video games are expensive) and waiting then years for a lie. Anyone who still wants to defend this studio and call me entitled can eat my ass.

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!not canon!

That artwork is born from my brain going: what if evil Durge/spawn Astarion, so there you gooo 🩸

My lovely Durge sure is evil at first but he changes progressively (even tho he's far from being a good aligned character, even by the end of their journey), he would never harm Astarion in any way

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Archdemons have always been predominantly male. That's what made the Old Gods different from regular High dragons. Since DAO, most Archdemons have been male. The morphology of High dragons and Archdemons was known, and Archdemons were male. You think grey wardens didn't recognise that Archdemons were female after five blights and five killed dragons? Edit: also tevinters didn’t recognise that their dragon gods were female? High dragons are always female so that would be the first thing they would think, but no, they and everyone else considered them as male. Archdemons were male in lore for 15 years.

Dumat is even still male on wiki, after that Epler’s answer, his gender hasn't been changed to female like others, apparently because it's nonsense.

In both Codex and the World of Thedas, most Archdemons were male. And excuses like "Elgar'nan sees him as male" don't work because it was established lore fact.

And now all Archdemons are female. Okay😐 Blight is different, Archdemons are female. So convenient for developers.

[alijuan]

If Orion had to choose between battling 10 dragons naked with no staff or meeting Dorian's mother he would choose the first option

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"How does it feel?" I say to John Epler, sadly staring at more cursed quotes he dropped quicker than the DA Keep. "Are you blissfully unaware? Or deep inside, is some part of you banging on the wall, screaming?"

"Lol cool line, did you just make that up?" He says, pulling out his phone to tweet that actually Loghain was a trapeeze artist in his free time and the only true lore being carried into the next came is that everyone remembers the Viscount of Kirkwall as being a total hottie.

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And now all Archdemons are female. Okay😐 Blight is different, Archdemons are female. So convenient for developers.

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I remember the old theory that Fenris was Fen'Harel, and I liked it because he was named after Fenrir, the god slayer. Solas said that Fen'Harel was someone else's name he'd taken for himself. I thought Evanuris had a prophecy about a wolf that would kill them, that's why that wolf was so feared. And now with information that Lyrium Knights were used by Evanuris to protect themselves from the People, it looks even more interesting. The Lyrium Warrior, Wolf of the legend, former slave freed from his chains, slays the tyrant gods.