#//also lmao satinalia????

[kiastirling-fanfic]

2024 Writing Round-Up

no one tagged me yet I'm just doing it

words posted:

59,724

additional words written:

no clue!

grand total of words:

somewhere north of 60k?

fandoms:

Dragon Age (various games), Baldur's Gate 3

highest kudos:

Few Against the Wind (no clue how many are from this year, but guaranteed it's that lol. At least a couple hundred are from this year since I don't think I broke 1k last year?)

highest hit oneshot:

He's Careful With His Teeth (the BG3 fic) with 129

new things I tried:

Smut-adjacent (haven't written smut since like 2008; He's Careful With His Teeth is at least adjacent though)

Describing flowers in the pov of someone who's never seen them (Flowers for Brosca is about Karina Brosca and her evolving relationship with flowers)

Actual proper drabbles! In my 20+ years in fandom I somehow only learned this year that "drabbles" are supposed to be exactly 100 words long; I wrote quite a few between Dragon Age Drunk Writing Circle and doing a 10-drabbles series for the DA Create-a-thon :)

fic I spent the most time on:

Few Against the Wind, though admittedly with little to show for it lol

fic I spent the least time on:

No Rest Could They Find (no link, still unpublished), I legitimately don't know if I wrote anything new for it all year lmao

favorite thing I wrote:

Curiosity Crosses the Veil, a storytelling fic that has my OC Hamin Surana doing a Thedas-retelling of The Little Mermaid. It even got podficced :)

favorite thing(s) I read:

Detours by BrownieFox, a Pokemon fic that deals with the ramifications of the Sinnoh champion falling out of time, getting back to her time with friends in tow, and more. Great if you like action and devastating emotional turmoil all in one.

writing goals for 2024:

I'd love to write more! Ideally I'd love to get through Act 2 of Few Against the Wind and get enough of No Rest Could They Find to start publishing.

new works:

Starting with Gift fics:

The Trial of Raleigh Samson, for Nirikeehan, for a Satinalia exchange, feat politics and Samson being gross, two of her favorite things

Two Heralds Walk Into a Bar, for Plisuu feat his boy Connor, for an OC swap, a Tranquil Templar Inquisitor, and my Dascha Cadash, a dwarf who dreams.

Provenance, for youworeblue (dreadfutures), for Arlathan exchange, feat Dorian and Solas being academics

Comfort in the Darkest Hours, for Inquisimer, for Arlathan exchange, because I got her hooked on Avexis/Alistair with no content for the ship

The Nuances of Your Character, for Morsmordre, for Arlathan exchange, feat Solas and Sera on a mission together (Sera's PoV)

Hands by Labor Worn, also for Morsmordre, as a random act of kindness, another idea I'd had for the Arlathan exchange but Nuances won out

The End of the Tunnel, for gl1tch_prime, for a moodboard exchange. Got dwarfy with it :)

Tranquil Week:

Slow and Steady, featuring Clemence, a canon Tranquil from DAI

A Break, featuring Avexis, a canon Tranquil from DAI

Dissent, featuring Nestor, a Tranquil OC who works at the Wonders of Thedas

Empty Gestures, featuring Gereon Alexius, who the Inquisitor can make Tranquil in DAI

Fearless, featuring Boranehn, a tranquil Gray Warden OC

DA Create-a-thon:

Dagna Drabble Series, pretty self explanatory

Delicious in the Deep Roads, wherein Oghren wonders at how well they're eating, and Warden Terit Brosca delights in telling him

Curiosity Crosses the Veil, a Thedas retelling of The Little Mermaid

Other:

He's Careful With His Teeth, a Dark Urge/Astarion sort of pre-smut. cw for blood kink.

Flowers for Brosca, in which Karina Brosca learns what flowers are, how to resent them, how they can heal, and how they can make her heart flutter

Dorothea and the Mage of the Emerald Circle, a Thedas retelling of The Wizard of Oz

Gonna half-ass the tags because I am sick bye

@theluckywizard | @inquisimer | @plisuu

Template under the cut:

words posted:

additional words written:

grand total of words:

fandoms:

highest kudos:

highest hit oneshot:

new things I tried:

fic I spent the most time on:

fic I spent the least time on:

favorite thing I wrote:

favorite thing(s) I read:

writing goals for 2024:

new works:

[korcariapostate]

      //why didn’t anyone tell me that thedas’ equivalent of chirstmas was basically Earth Christmas but if it was back in the middle ages??????

[doctormage]

ok as promised here's my whole thedosian astrology spiral in one big post

underneath a read more bc i love you all

starting w my tags from the first post bc context:

#bc i saw a post that put the zodiac seasons (for thedas) roughly from the 20th of one month to the 20th of the next #like it is irl #but the zodiac seasons coincide w the actual seasons #the start of aries season is the vernal equinox #the start of cancer season is the summer solstice #the start of libra season is the autumnal equinox #the start of capricorn season is the winter solstice #and (to my knowledge??) the seasons in thedas start with their annum holidays or whatever #wintersend = beginning of spring #summerday = beginning of summer #all souls day = beginning of fall #satinalia = beginning of winter #(someone PLEASE correct me if im wrong on that) #well i know summerday and satinalia are right but #ANYWAY #using that logic the zodiac seasons would also start on those days #thedas-aries season would run from the 1st to the 30th of guardian #thedas-taurus would be 1-30 drakonis #thedas-gemini would be 1-30 cloudreach #so that thedas-cancer aka the start of summer aka summerday aka THE FIRST OF BLOOMINGTIDE #kSLFdfslkdFDKs #anyway. now i have to be Right about this#my previous hyperfixation and my current one.....coming together....to make me into a Massive Bitch<3

when would the zodiac signs' seasons take place in the thedosian calendar?

so bc the zodiac signs are based on constellations and all the lore etc that accompanies them i'm not even gonna touch that (YET.....yet...) but since spring, summer, autumn, and winter start on the first days of guardian, bloomingtide, august, and firstfall, respectively, so would those particular seasons of the zodiac

thedas-equivalent-of-aries season would just be 1-30 guardian, bc irl the beginning of aries season coincides with the beginning of spring and continues until the sun moves into taurus; all the cardinal signs (aries, cancer, libra, capricorn) begin on the first of the season like that, so we can assume that – IF there are 12 zodiac signs in thedas – the sun is in each sign for approximately a month. so that in 3 months the next cardinal sign can coincide w the beginning of that season

imo it makes sense that (if we're assuming thedas also has 12 signs and that their sun spends roughly equal time in all of them) four of them would coincide w the beginning of the seasons. so like yeah thedas is fake and for all we know they have 10 zodiac signs and they all start on wildly different days, but then everything is just shooting in the dark and where's the fun in that. obviously the changing of the seasons is important to them bc their holidays center around them, therefore i don't think it's wildly out of the blue to think that whatever star sign system they have going on would similarly coincide w the changing seasons

again i'm not currently bothering with picking constellations/symbols/stories/traits/etc for each sign so i'll just say first, second, third etc. point being the seasons of the zodiac would actually be like they are below, rather than how they are irl (aka the 20th-ish of each month to the 20th-ish of the next; it's like that irl bc our calendar is stupid and the beginning of the seasons randomly happens 2/3 of the way thru the month):

first sign = begins spring, 1-30 guardian

second sign ≈ 1-30 drakonis

third sign ≈ 1-30 cloudreach

fourth sign = begins summer, 1-30 bloomingtide

fifth sign ≈ 1-30 justinian

sixth sign ≈ 1-30 solace

seventh sign = begins autumn, 1-30 august

eighth sign ≈ 1-30 kingsway

ninth sign ≈ 1-30 harvestmere

tenth sign = begins winter, 1-30 firstfall

eleventh sign ≈ 1-30 haring

twelfth sign ≈ 1-30 wintermarch

okay so we have cardinal signs, what about fixed and mutable signs?

the cardinal signs are CALLED the cardinal signs bc they begin the seasons; they're the ~get up and goers~ of the zodiac, motivated, leaders, trail blazers, energetic, etc. they litchrally bring in the changes of the season so that makes sense right

so IF we are to continue w that logic — and here's where i'm getting (even more) conjecture-y, but i feel p confident that since 4 of the 5 major holidays in thedas are based on the changing seasons aka thats important — then the traits of the thedas-equivalent of those signs would also have similarities to the irl cardinal signs (namely the traits listed above)

but there are also FIXED signs and MUTABLE signs: so called bc fixed signs are firmly planted in the middle of each season (taurus in spring, leo in summer, scorpio in autumn, aquarius in winter) and bc mutable signs precede the major change from one season to the next (gemini from spring to summer, virgo from summer to autumn, sagittarius from autumn to winter, pisces from winter-to-spring)

and again bc these are based on the seasons, it also makes sense to me that, generally speaking, the signs in the middle and at the end of the seasons would also be distinct in some way. and probably have similarities to irl fixed and mutable signs, tho i'm not as obstinate about that as i am abt the cardinal signs. but anyway MOVING ON

[the one section with the fan-made sky map ended up being relatively useless even tho the sky map was in fact very cool]

general disclaimer that at this point i’m literally just. straight up guessing lmao

also since we only have so many constellations we see in-game, and since they each come with a codex giving us at least a little background info (aka CRUMBS), any suggestions of which constellations are part of the zodiac are based on those specifically. obviously in real life theres a bazillion constellations that aren’t part of the zodiac, but we do not have the luxury of knowing every constellation in thedas so i am going with what we got

the thedosian constellation map (the canon one) is different than the fan-made sky map, but because i highly doubt anyone at bioware could’ve predicted someone would be As Insane As I Am Being Right Now about it, i don’t think they probably put a lot of thought into making it lmao. the fan made sky map DID have thought put into it tho, and it actually features the constellations we see in-game, so i’m going w that one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

AND. i’m gonna look at the names of the months (both the fancy ancient tevinter names and the ~low/common~ names) in comparison w the constellations we have at our disposal bc why the fuck wouldn’t they be related in some way. this has no basis in any deeper logic than “maybe the fact that the ‘common’ name for this month is drakonis has somethinng to do with the constellation draconis idfk” but like. it’s literally the same name but with one letter (that makes the same sound) changed. i don’t think i’m asking too much here lmao

signs that start the seasons

wintersend is canonically associated with the old god urthemiel; the codex entry for the constellation bellitanus states it (is believed that it) was originally associated with urthemiel. using the same reasoning as with satinalis/satinalia, i’m gonna assume that bellitanus-as-a-zodiac-season would start with wintersend and last through the whole of guardian

summerday was once called andoralis, dedicated to the old god andoral; the codex entry for the constellation servani states it is thought to be representative of andoral, but where the wiki says andoral is the god of unity, the codex says andoral was the god of slaves. (doesn’t clarify if andoral is like, a figure to which the enslaved would turn to in their plight, as like a savior? or whether andoral is...just associated with slaves in some way.) i have no idea what the fuck to do w that except assume bioware is back on their bullshit! i’m gonna come back to this later

all soul’s day was once funalis, dedicated to dumat, old god of silence; the codex entry for the constellation silentir (which literally means ‘silence’ lmao) is usually said to represent dumat. so by this logic we might say the zodiac season for silentir begins with all soul’s day and ends with the last day of august

the constellation satinalis is canonically associated with satinalia, so it makes sense to me that if satinalis is part of the zodiac, its season would start with satinalia / last through the month in which the holiday takes place. aka firstfall

with these in mind, we have (tentatively) 3 of our 4 cardinal signs aka the signs that begin the seasons: bellitanus for spring, silentir for autumn, and satinalis for winter

looking at the fan-made sky map, these aren’t super evenly spaced apart (but then again neither are irl constellations perfectly proportioned so whatever!) HOWEVER. they do still, at least vaguely 😭, follow a clockwise pattern in the correct order of guardian/spring → summerday/bloomingtide → all soul’s day/august → satinalia/firstfall. it’s about the small victories ok *inquisitor ameridan voice* take moments of happiness where you find them or whatever

what about the other 8 signs???

great question!!! haha!!!

✨I Am Once Again About To Start Guessing Wildly✨

because even tho the “cardinal signs” go clockwise and in order, there’s still an uneven amount of constellations BETWEEN them. there should be 2 between each but, for example, silentir and satinalis only have tenebrium between them. and there are fucking....TEN constellations between satinalis and bellitanus so we’re going to have to get even more creative somehow<3 lmao these are all taken from the codex entries for the constellations (the names are links!)

TOTH: tevinter old god of fire, thats p much it. the codex does say sometimes toth is depicted as a “flaming orb” which maybe i truly have succumbed to the brain worms but i hear ‘orb’ and ‘god’ and ‘flame’ (aka light/energy/etc or perhaps idk a fucking explosion) and yall already know where my dumb ass is going w that 🥴

since the rules are made up and the points dont matter, i have decided Fuck Bioware, toth is going with summerday now. i dont give a rats ass about andoral since apparently they dont care to tell us what he was actually god of, so welcome toth you are now in charge of the beginning of summer bc i said so

TENEBRIUM: associated with lusacan, tevinter old god of darkess/night. also obvious associations with falon’din, elven god of death, whose sacred animal is an owl

pea brain analysis: its dark in winter lol; slightly larger, maybe lima-bean-sized brain analysis: the beginning of a new year (aka first day aka first of wintermarch) could hypothetically be associated w the past ‘dying.’ and also the holiday was originally an annual check to make sure everyone was alive, so i don’t see why gods of death can’t be associated w making sure all your loved ones weren’t taken by said god of death lol

ELUVIA: commonly called “sacrifice,” it’s (apparently) based on an orlesian tale in which a woman is saved from a “””lustful mage””” (i love bioware i love this frachise) by being placed in the sky and becoming a constellation. before this inspiring tale that is definitely not anti mage propaganda, eluvia may have represented razikale, tevinter old god of mystery. the imagery of this constellation is a seated woman with a cloud right above her - literally like her head is in the clouds (also bc it sounds like ‘eluvian’ i’m like 👀)

i’m inclined to pair this one up with cloudreach both bc the ancient tevinter name is “eluviesta” and bc the woman in the story is literally. in the clouds. simple enough

PERAQUIALUS: it’s a boat! but apparently a “primitive vessel” sailed by ancient peoples like the neromenians. according to the codex the translation is usually ‘across the sea’ rather than ‘boat’ but that doesnt rly help me lol

sorry my beloved. before me stand 10 beautiful constellations but i only have 9 pictures in my hands. you are not thedas’s next top zodiac sign

DRACONIS: obviously its a dragon lol

i think the drakonis (the month) / draconis (this constellation) correlation is. pretty evident lmao and since we have all but thrown credible hypothesizing out the window, why NOT?? why not make drakonis the season of draconis!!! 🤡

FERVENIAL: an oak; some believe it could be representative of andruil, elven goddess of the hunt, as the vir tanadhal (“way of the three trees”) is her whole thing

sigh idk *spins wheel* leaves start changing color in mid-late autumn so *spins wheel again* fervenial can go with harvestmere which is thedas-october it’s fine

JUDEX: a big ol sword, sometimes called the “sword of mercy,” referring to pre-andrastian concepts of justice in ancient tevinter

speaking of pulling ideas right out of my ass, if this constellation is associated w justice it makes sense to me that its season would be in the month of justinian. bc again why the fuck not!

EQUINOR: the stallion / a horse, sometimes depicted as a seated griffon. some speculate the original imagery was a halla, linking the constellation to the elven god ghilan’nain aka “mother of the halla”

i am really grasping at straws here HAHA but the word haring (as a gerund/present participle of the verb ‘hare’) can mean to run or go with great speed. horses go fast, ghilan’nain is invoked when elves want to travel quickly, blah blah blah. whatever

SOLIUM: the sun; one interpretation is that it indicates an ancient fascination with ALL objects in the sky (aka both the sun and moon[s]), another interpretation associates it with the elven god elgar’nan, aka “eldest of the sun”

alright i know the name ‘solas’ means pride in elvhen and the word ‘solace’ means like comfort/consolation, neither of which have jack shit to do with the sun, so i shouldn’t assume solis is associated with solium exclusively bc they start with ‘sol’ and sol means sun in...a lot of irl languages lol HOWEVER. i have an even worse reasoning we can fall back on which is that it’s in summer and it’s...fucking sunny??? LMAO im so sorry

FENRIR: the white wolf 👁👄👁 scholars apparently dont know wtf to do w this one; obviously there is a case to be made about its association with fen’harel

i have talked myself in circles on this one but whenever i try to type it out it makes Zero Fucking Sense lmao so. i may come back and edit this but for now just know it’s going with kingsway and i want yall to know i do have some stupid nebulous reasoning for that in my silly little brain but communicating it is simply not in the cards for me today god bless 🙏

alright so what bullshit have you proposed at the end of all this EXTREMELY shaky guesswork, queen?

HERE YOU GO I GUESS

Bellitanus: begins spring, 1-30 Guardian

Draconis: 1-30 Drakonis

Eluvia: 1-30 Cloudreach

Toth: begins summer, 1-30 Bloomingtide

Judex: 1-30 Justinian

Solium: 1-30 Solace

Silentir: begins autumn, 1-30 August

Fenrir: 1-30 Kingsway

Fervenial: 1-30 Harvestmere

Satinalis: begins winter, 1-30 Firstfall

Equinor: 1-30 Haring

Tenebrium: 1-30 Wintermarch

next time i have a death wish i will come back and speculate what kind of traits would be associated w these signs (based on the ~lore~ surrounding the constellations, their tentative places as cardinal/fixed/mutable, etc) but i just wasted precious hours of my life on this and i cant look at it anymore!!!

also want to reiterate that, regarding the post i saw earlier that i disagreed with, my refutation of that argument ended like 2 reblogs many sections ago lol. the only thing i feel confident defending is that the different seasons of the zodiac would – based on the actual changing 4 seasons – start on the first of each month and end on the last day of each month, as opposed to the way it is in real life western astrology

all this other bullshit is just for fun (??? i guess????) and based ALMOST entirely on my own assumptions. informed by actual shit from the games ofc but mainly me just

EDIT: would like to add that i don't have world of thedas or any other supplementary shit; all i have at my disposal is the 3 games, their DLCs, and the wiki lol. so if there's anything here that WOT (or smth else) contradicts please lmk! and also sorry for any typos lmao

hope yall enjoyed witnessing this fully unhinged moment w me bye<3

[loghainmactir]

satinalia;

hey demons its me ya boy anyway everyone’s doing christmas fics so i wanted to do one with padril and loghain bc of course i did. this is the first time i’ve written them with their kids, too!

as per usual, super unedited and super unplanned, lmao. sorry 🤷‍♀️ (this will also be on AO3 soon!)

—

Snow crunches softly under his boots as he moves, and the cold winter air bites at his cheeks, turns them rose-red.

Loghain loves the cold. It’s a part of Ferelden he will never, ever tire of; he could be anywhere in Thedas, really, and it— and the rain— would remind him of home. Of days spent farming while rainwater pools in his boots, of nights where it did nothing but snow.

Home. He’s skirting the perimeter of their small home, now, actually, following the sounds of shouts and giggles; the home itself is wood and stone, only an hour or two from Denerim, but tucked away from the road so they’d be free of distractions. It was quiet and secluded enough that even Anora could visit them, and she did— often.

It’s funny— he wasn’t sure they’d ever settle down again. Not after the Warden Rebellion, not after the… well, whatever it was Inquisitor Cadash had dealt with. And yet here they were; only a week out from Satinalia, five years from when they first settled here.

He had thought he wouldn’t come home to his family at all.

Loghain watches Valarie sprint with wild abandon at her brother, her roar loud enough he’s sure Denerim can hear it.

She wears a thick, wolf-fur coat, her boots a tad too big for her little legs. In her hands, a wooden sword and shield; she reminds him too much of Anora, all orders and demands. When she was seven, Valarie had become enamoured with Ser Cauthrien; she’d seen her wallop Loghain while sparring, and it was if the child had never seen anything more hilarious, and she’d immediately asked to spend more time with Anora and her knight.

Her black hair has been cut short— at her own request, of course, just below her jaw. Her skin is darker, like her father’s, and she had his nose— but her eyes are big and blue, without a trace of Loghain’s sternness.

Cassian, on the other hand, looks terrified.

He clutches a similar set of sword and shield in his hands. Loghain can’t tell whether it’s because he’s chilly, or if it’s because he’s never been terribly fond of any kind of confrontation and his sister charging at him is like something out of his nightmares, but Cassian is shivering.

He’s a sweet boy; quiet, much more interested in reading than play-fighting his sister. Loghain doubted there was even a slightly rude bone in his body, and his heart ached for him. He can’t help but dread to think of how the world might treat him.

Like his sister, Cassian’s short hair and skin are dark; he had brown eyes, however, like Padril. His mouth is pierced and his nose is arched; he scowls in frustration sometimes, and Loghain swears to the Maker he sees himself. Both of them are tall for their age, but Cas is almost lanky no matter how much they feed him.

They collide with a thunderous crash of wood-on-wood. They collapse in the snow, and Cassian wails as Valarie pummels his shield. “Ah-hah! Die, darkspawn—!”

“Why do I have to be the darkspawn?! I’m always the darkspawn! You be the monster today!”

A smirk cracks onto his face as he watches them; they struggle and roll about, kicking and squealing. They abandon their wooden weapons to hurl half-formed, desperate snowballs at each-other, and Valarie shrieks as her brother dumps handfuls of snow down the back of her shirt. She thumps him in turn, and Loghain’s smirk disappears as their play starts to get rough.

“Now, now,” He calls, and soon enough he’s strolling closer them. They’ve caught each-other in a headlock, struggling and grunting at each-other. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally they’ll get on one another’s nerves. “How about we all play nicely, yes? We don’t want a repeat of last time.”

Chipped tooth. Bruised forehead. Crying for hours because someone, originally, had pushed the other straight into a tree.

They seem to consider this for a moment, and eventually they both let go.

“Sorry, father.” A brief pause, and the next words are almost muttered; Loghain is only a few feet away, now. “Cassian started it.”

“No, I didn’t!” He complains.

Loghain feels himself restraining a sigh of relief. At least he doesn’t have to wrestle them off each other. “I know who started it, Valarie Mac Tir, and if you don’t discontinue, I’ll be sure to end it.” They both straighten up at this; he’s getting older, now, but he can certainly wrangle them both into submission.

Last time he did, though, he pulled a muscle in his back. Padril had laughed at him.

Hmph.

“Are either of you going to apologize?” Loghain prompts, and the children glance at eachother; it’s almost like they’re daring each-other to poke the bear.

They cave. The idea of being tickled until tears are pouring down their cheeks and their lungs and ribs are sore from laughter doesn’t seem to appeal when it’s freezing cold. They shoot eachother a quick ‘sorry’.

“That’s more like it.” Loghain begins to continue his patrol of the house, arms folded. “Have either of you seen your father around? I haven’t seen him since this morning—”

There’s a brief moment where Loghain is aware something is flying towards him. The kids shriek, and soon after, there’s a thwap, and a hard, cold sting blooms across his cheek as he struggles to maintain balance.

When he catches himself, he whips around to narrow his eyes at the culprit.

He’s standing there in his old, blue Warden’s cloak. His greying hair is in a thick braid over his shoulder, and there’s slight creases by his brown eyes, now. A scar hooks over his bottom lip and stops at his chin— a relic from their time in Weisshaupt.

Snow has collected on his shoulders and in his hair, and there’s a grin on his face that he’s seen one too many times and it always means trouble. He’s almost picturesque, though; Loghain can do nothing but blink stupidly at him. That’s the love of his life, isn’t it?

Padril notices him staring and sticks his tongue out at him, his nose crinkling as he smiles into it.

Maker, he’s gorgeous.

He manages to straighten up. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Thought I’d test your reflexes. You’re getting slow, old man!” Padril shoots back, and he’s already dipping down to pack more snow together.

Loghain blinks once more. He looks to his kids— they look on in shock, as if their other father has commited a grevious, unforgivable crime, and they weren’t sure how to respond to it.

His gaze snaps back to Padril; he barely manages to duck under another snowball. It hits the side of their house and shatters, and Padril looks terribly pleased with himself, hands on his hips.

“Maybe you’re not as slow as I thought. Still old, though.” He grins at him, pointed canines showing and all. “Positively ancient, really!”

Loghain glowers playfully at him, and he turns on his heel to start moving towards him, slow and deliberate. “Oh, you’re in for it now, Mahariel.”

He’s awful— Padril dips into a low bow, arms stretched behind him, grin still plastered on his face. “Come ‘n get it, Mac Tir.” He dares, and he shoots him a wink.

That’s all he needs.

He breaks out into a sprint, and Padril spins and bolts as soon as it happens— the kids are behind him, shrieking and hollering as they try to keep up.

“Come on!” Loghain calls, glancing back at the half-elves hot on his trail. “Let’s destroy him!”

[doctormage]

i have brain worms. also i wanted this one to be the last one so it’s really long

general disclaimer that at this point i’m literally just. straight up guessing lmao 

also since we only have so many constellations we see in-game, and since they each come with a codex giving us at least a little background info (aka CRUMBS), any suggestions of which constellations are part of the zodiac are based on those specifically. obviously in real life theres a bazillion constellations that aren’t part of the zodiac, but we do not have the luxury of knowing every constellation in thedas so i am going with what we got

the thedosian constellation map (the canon one) is different than the fan-made sky map, but because i highly doubt anyone at bioware could’ve predicted someone would be As Insane As I Am Being Right Now about it, i don’t think they probably put a lot of thought into making it lmao. the fan made sky map DID have thought put into it tho, and it actually features the constellations we see in-game, so i’m going w that one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

AND. i’m gonna look at the names of the months (both the fancy ancient tevinter names and the ~low/common~ names) in comparison w the constellations we have at our disposal bc why the fuck wouldn’t they be related in some way. this has no basis in any deeper logic than “maybe the fact that the ‘common’ name for this month is drakonis has somethinng to do with the constellation draconis idfk” but like. it’s literally the same name but with one letter (that makes the same sound) changed. i don’t think i’m asking too much here lmao

signs that start the seasons

wintersend is canonically associated with the old god urthemiel; the codex entry for the constellation bellitanus states it (is believed that it) was originally associated with urthemiel. using the same reasoning as with satinalis/satinalia, i’m gonna assume that bellitanus-as-a-zodiac-season would start with wintersend and last through the whole of guardian. also bellitanus sounds like beltane which is an irl holiday celebrating spring so like what are you gonna do

summerday was once called andoralis, dedicated to the old god andoral; the codex entry for the constellation servani states it is thought to be representative of andoral, but where the wiki says andoral is the god of unity, the codex says andoral was the god of slaves. (doesn’t clarify if andoral is like, a figure to which the enslaved would turn to in their plight, as like a savior? or whether andoral is...just associated with slaves in some way.) i have no idea what the fuck to do w that except assume bioware is back on their bullshit! i’m gonna come back to this later

all soul’s day was once funalis, dedicated to dumat, old god of silence; the codex entry for the constellation silentir (which literally means ‘silence’ lmao) is usually said to represent dumat. so by this logic we might say the zodiac season for silentir begins with all soul’s day and ends with the last day of august

the constellation satinalis is canonically associated with satinalia, so it makes sense to me that if satinalis is part of the zodiac, its season would start with satinalia / last through the month in which the holiday takes place. aka firstfall

with these in mind, we have (tentatively) 3 of our 4 cardinal signs aka the signs that begin the seasons: bellitanus for spring, silentir for autumn, and satinalis for winter

looking at the fan-made sky map, these aren’t super evenly spaced apart (but then again neither are irl constellations perfectly proportioned so whatever!) HOWEVER. they do still, at least vaguely 😭, follow a clockwise pattern in the correct order of guardian/spring → summerday/bloomingtide → all soul’s day/august → satinalia/firstfafll. it’s about the small victories ok *inquisitor ameridan voice* take moments of happiness where you find them or whatever

what about the other 8 signs???

great question!!! haha!!! 

✨I Am Once Again About To Start Guessing Wildly✨

because even tho the “cardinal signs” go clockwise and in order, there’s still an uneven amount of constellations BETWEEN them. there should be 2 between each but, for example, silentir and satinalis only have tenebrium between them. and there are fucking....TEN constellations between satinalis and bellitanus so we’re going to have to get even more creative somehow<3 lmao

these are all taken from the codex entries for the constellations (the names are links!)

TOTH: tevinter old god of fire, thats p much it. the codex does say sometimes toth is depicted as a “flaming orb” which maybe i truly have succumbed to the brain worms but i hear ‘orb’ and ‘god’ and ‘flame’ (aka light/energy/etc or perhaps idk a fucking explosion) and yall already know where my dumb ass is going w that 🥴

since the rules are made up and the points dont matter, i have decided Fuck Bioware, toth is going with summerday now. i dont give a rats ass about andoral since apparently they dont care to tell us what he was actually god of, so welcome toth you are now in charge of the beginning of summer bc i said so

TENEBRIUM: associated with lusacan, tevinter old god of darkess/night. also obvious associations with falon’din, elven god of death, whose sacred animal is an owl

pea brain analysis: its dark in winter lol; slightly larger, maybe lima-bean-sized brain analysis: the beginning of a new year (aka first day aka first of wintermarch) could hypothetically be associated w the past ‘dying.’ and also the holiday was originally an annual check to make sure everyone was alive, so i don’t see why gods of death can’t be associated w making sure all your loved ones weren’t taken by said god of death lol

ELUVIA: commonly called “sacrifice,” it’s (apparently) based on an orlesian tale in which a woman is saved from a “””lustful mage””” (i love bioware i love this frachise) by being placed in the sky and becoming a constellation. before this inspiring tale that is definitely not anti mage propaganda, eluvia may have represented razikale, tevinter old god of mystery. the imagery of this constellation is a seated woman with a cloud right above her - literally like her head is in the clouds (also bc it sounds like ‘eluvian’ i’m like 👀) 

i’m inclined to pair this one up with cloudreach both bc the ancient tevinter name is “eluviesta” and bc the woman in the story is literally. in the clouds. simple enough

PERAQUIALUS: it’s a boat! but apparently a “primitive vessel” sailed by ancient peoples like the neromenians. according to the codex the translation is usually ‘across the sea’ rather than ‘boat’ but that doesnt rly help me lol

sorry my beloved. before me stand 10 beautiful constellations but i only have 9 pictures in my hands. you are not thedas’s next top zodiac sign

DRACONIS: obviously its a dragon lol

i think the drakonis (the month) / draconis (this constellation) correlation is. pretty evident lmao and since we have all but thrown credible hypothesizing out the window, why NOT?? why not make drakonis the season of draconis!!! 🤡

FERVENIAL: an oak; some believe it could be representative of andruil, elven goddess of the hunt, as the vir tanadhal (“way of the three trees”) is her whole thing

sigh idk *spins wheel* leaves start changing color in mid-late autumn so *spins wheel again* fervenial can go with harvestmere which is thedas-october it’s fine

JUDEX: a big ol sword, sometimes called the “sword of mercy,” referring to pre-andrastian concepts of justice in ancient tevinter

speaking of pulling ideas right out of my ass, if this constellation is associated w justice it makes sense to me that its season would be in the month of justinian. bc again why the fuck not!

EQUINOR: the stallion / a horse, sometimes depicted as a seated griffon. some speculate the original imagery was a halla, linking the constellation to the elven god ghilan’nain aka “mother of the halla”

i am really grasping at straws here HAHA but the word haring (as a gerund/present participle of the verb ‘hare’) can mean to run or go with great speed. horses go fast, ghilan’nain is invoked when elves want to travel quickly, blah blah blah. whatever

SOLIUM: the sun; one interpretation is that it indicates an ancient fascination with ALL objects in the sky (aka both the sun and moon[s]), another interpretation associates it with the elven god elgar’nan, aka “eldest of the sun” 

alright i know the name ‘solas’ means pride in elvhen and the word ‘solace’ means like comfort/consolation, neither of which have jack shit to do with the sun, so i shouldn’t assume solis is associated with solium exclusively bc they start with ‘sol’ and sol means sun in...a lot of irl languages lol HOWEVER. i have an even worse reasoning we can fall back on which is that it’s in summer and it’s...fucking sunny??? LMAO im so sorry

FENRIR: the white wolf 👁👄👁 scholars apparently dont know wtf to do w this one; obviously there is a case to be made about its association with fen’harel

i have talked myself in circles on this one but whenever i try to type it out it makes Zero Fucking Sense lmao so. i may come back and edit this but for now just know it’s going with kingsway and i want yall to know i do have some stupid nebulous reasoning for that in my silly little brain but communicating it is simply not in the cards for me today god bless 🙏

alright so what bullshit have you proposed at the end of all this EXTREMELY shaky guesswork, queen?

HERE YOU GO

Bellitanus: begins spring, 1-30 Guardian

Draconis: 1-30 Drakonis

Eluvia: 1-30 Cloudreach

Toth: begins summer, 1-30 Bloomingtide

Judex: 1-30 Justinian

Solium: 1-30 Solace

Silentir: begins autumn, 1-30 August

Fenrir: 1-30 Kingsway

Fervenial: 1-30 Harvestmere

Satinalis: begins winter, 1-30 Firstfall

Equinor: 1-30 Haring

Tenebrium: 1-30 Wintermarch

next time i have a death wish i will come back and speculate what kind of traits would be associated w these signs (based on the ~lore~ surrounding the constellations, their tentative places as cardinal/fixed/mutable, etc) but i just wasted precious hours of my life on this and i cant look at it anymore!!! 

also want to reiterate that, regarding the post i saw earlier that i disagreed with, my refutation of that argument ended like 2 reblogs ago lol. the only thing i feel confident defending is that the different seasons of the zodiac would – based on the actual changing 4 seasons – start on the first of each month and end on the last day of each month, as opposed to the way it is in real life western astrology

all this other bullshit is just for fun (??? i guess????) and based ALMOST entirely on my own assumptions. informed by actual shit from the games ofc but mainly me just

hope yall enjoyed witnessing this fully unhinged moment w me bye<3

as usual it is my incorrigible need to be Right that has pushed me to put effort into something so. brb i have to make the fucking thedosian zodiac