#‘if you had to choose to save your warden or—’ warden. warden every time

[mossy-rock-in-a-field]

Several weeks ago, my retirement-age mother requested that I play Baldur’s Gate 3 for her because she has trouble with controllers/keyboards and wanted “to see what all the fuss is about with that cute wizard boy.” For context, my mother and I have done this sort of thing in the past with certain RPGs (dragon age, mass effect, etc.), but it’s been a few years since she’s personally requested a game like this. Basically, I control her Tav but let her make all the choices so she can determine how the story plays out without worrying about mechanics. She treats it like a choose-your-own-adventure book.

Anyway, here is a list of some of the things my mother has said and/or chosen to do throughout the course of BG3 in no particular order:

She is (obviously) romancing Gale. She is quite smitten with him and his passion for books and learning; she also thinks he’s polite and qualifies as “relationship material.” She also REALLY likes the things he’s said about his cat so far (my mom is a cat lady), so I know she’s gonna flip shit when we meet Tara in Act III.

She’s playing a normal druid Tav with a generally good alignment. Her favorite spell is Spike Growth because she thinks it’s hilarious whenever enemies walk into the AOE and die. I usually end up having to cast it at least once per battle per her request. Sometimes twice.

Contrary to her alignment, my mother tasks me with robbing every single chest, crate, barrel, and burlap sack we come across; this also includes people and their pockets. The party is always at max carrying capacity. ALWAYS. She doesn’t like selling things because “what if I need them.” The camp stash is in literal shambles. There is no hope of organizing it. She’s got like fifty seven sets of rags and a billion pieces of random silverware.

She MUST talk to every animal and corpse in the game. I think five hours of her total playtime so far (47ish) has been spent speaking to animals as many times as humanly possible. Like, I was thorough in my own playthroughs, but this is on a whole other level.

She did NOT get Volo’s lobotomy, but she did let Auntie Ethel take her eye in hopes of a cure for the tadpole. I did not understand the logic then. I still do not understand it now.

She is far more interested in fashion than equipment stats. Do you have any idea how much gold I’ve had to spend on dyes just to make things match? SO much. Same vibe as that “please someone help me balance my finances my family is starving” tweet but instead of candles it’s thirty thousand fucking bottles of black and furnace red dye.

We broke the prisoners out of Moonrise, but they got on the boat too early and bugged the fight by leaving Astarion and Karlach behind. Wulbren Bongle somehow got stuck in combat mode even after engaging the cutscene on the docks below Last Light; he he kept trying to run ALL THE WAY BACK TO MOONRISE nine fucking meters at a time while I frantically tried to finish the fight with the Warden, otherwise Wulbren would have run straight into the shadow curse. (I would’ve let him go; fuck Wulbren Bongle, all my homies hate Wulbren Bongle. But my mom didn’t know that, and she wanted to keep him safe. So.)

She had me reload a save like eighteen times to save the giant eagles on top of Rosymorn Monastery. Wouldn’t even let me do non-lethal damage just to get past things. I think getting that warhammer for the dawnmaster puzzle took us like an hour and a half alone. (Yes, I know you can use any warhammer, but SHE didn’t.)

She’s started keeping an irl notebook to keep track of her quests between play sessions. She writes down ideas and strategies when she thinks of them during the week, then brings them to her next game session at my house. I think she wrote about three pages on possible approaches to the goblin fortress alone.

She insists that I pet Scratch and the owlbear cub before every single long rest, no exceptions. Sometimes I have to do it multiple times until she is absolutely sure that the animals know exactly how much she loves and cherishes them. She has also commissioned a crocheted owlbear plush from a friend of hers and is very excited.

I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff I’m forgetting, but those are some fun things I thought of. She’s enjoying the game and is telling all of her retired friends to get it and play it for themselves. She asked me “what is Discord” yesterday and I think my life flashed before my eyes.

anyway shout out to my mom for being neat

Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5

[chanafehs]

My Veilguard review:

Note - I will be honest in saying this is very long and very negative. If you enjoy this game please don't let me be the one to ruin that for you and skip on this post. I will be discussing spoilers. This is just my opinion so please don't crucify me for it.

I think my thoughts about this game were shaky to begin with as I had been exposed to different spoilers and information before the launch. I wasn’t actually expecting this game to be amazing but as someone whose favorite Dragon Age game is Dragon Age 2, which is arguably the weakest in the series (until now), I still went in with the impression I would have a good time regardless. I did not have that at all, in fact towards the end of Act 2 and the beginning of Act 3 all I wanted was for the game to be over. 

The problems for me really started right in the beginning with the Inquisitor character choices and their characterization. No choices for your Warden, no choices for your Hawke, and only three choices for your Inquisitor out of the dozens you made in Inquisition. The romance option just felt like a very polite way of asking if you romanced Solas or not, especially after completing the game where your non-solas romance will only get one letter for you to read, outside of that, the Inquisitor will not even mention them. Disbanding the Inquisition meant basically nothing and vowing to stop Solas felt like it had little bearing on what my Inquisitor said when she showed up. 

The time frame to make Dragon Age 2 was just over a year and somehow included more choices from Origins than Veilguard did with over ten years of production. That is the information that's been banging around in my head throughout this entire game. In Dragon Age 2, we get the consequences of our decisions with Alistair’s fate and we get extra dialogue concerning Isabela/Zevran/Leliana/Anders/Nathaniel + some sidequests. Veilguard couldn’t even give us so much of a mention of our Inquisitor’s friendships and the consequences of those friendships outside of Solas. The Inquisitors themselves are locked into one personality type as well, and regardless if you choose to stop Solas or not, they are very amicable toward him. 

During the second cut scene you get with the Inquisitor in Dock Town, they will go on to ask you about your progress and then go on about Solas. Mind you, my Inquisitor is extremely unsympathetic to Solas and I chose the option to stop him no matter what, so why is it that every time I speak to her, she keeps trying to ask me if Solas is being genuine and that he was her friend? That doesn’t sound like someone who has vowed to stop him. They will also try to draw parallels between you, Rook, and Solas. Even at the end of the game, they will still try to appeal to you to see reason with him. That is essentially all the Inquisitor is there for. Incredibly frustrating. 

Throughout the game you will get missives from the Inquisitor detailing the devastation that is being brought to southern Thedas and every letter feels like more and more of an insult. To keep it short: Southern Thedas as we know it has been essentially wiped out. I think that deserves more than a footnote in some missive most players aren’t even going to see.

So the setting we spent all three games in, that we saved countless times, had our companions and protagonists die for, gets demolished in the background where we cannot see it. Skyhold had to be taken back from demons and whoops, that's not actually something you can do anything about. Nothing the Warden, Hawke, or the Inquisitor ever did mattered at all and it renders everything from the previous games absolutely irrelevant. 

With that aside, the companions are also another issue for me. I found myself having trouble getting attached to any of them and every single time I recruited one I had the internal question “Why are you even here?” None of their companion quests really tie into the story at large, save maybe Harding and Davrin, and they are incredibly boring save for a few cool moments.

The main appeal of Dragon Age for me is the companions, it’s why Dragon Age 2 is my favorite of the series. Despite the overused environments and the rushed production I still had a great time with it because of the companions. I was actually eager to do the companion quests and learn more about them and how they all fit into the main narrative. Even characters I didn’t like, I still understood why they were important to the story. Like I can’t stand Anders but I know why he is there, he has a purpose.

Every companion is painfully amicable towards you even if you decide to be “stern” towards them. I found myself not caring what dialogue option I chose about them because it made absolutely no difference. There is nice, funny nice, and gentle parenting. That is really all you have to work with in terms of the dialogue wheel. It was more difficult to get disapproval than approval and I can probably count on my fingers every time in this game I actually got companion disapproval. There is only one companion in my playthrough that became hardened, Lucanis, and it had virtually no impact on his character other than the fact he leaves for a couple of saves and comes back to kissing your ass. 

Something I actually really liked about BG3 and the previous Dragon Age games was working for your companion approval - this meant actually learning about your companion and what made them tick. If you don't understand them well enough you get disapproval, when you actually listen to their ideas and thoughts you get approval - there is an active effort to get these things. In Veilguard this does not exist and you are essentially promised approval no matter what, meaning there is no encouragement to know who these people are if they're just going to support you regardless.

I have to agree with the Skillup review they made about this game saying that every dialogue option feels like it was made with HR in the room and I one hundred percent agree. This is not how real people talk to each other. This is how teachers talk to toddlers when they want to explain the virtues of sharing toys with their classmates.

It felt honestly insulting at times to be treated like I don’t understand the concept of bigotry, I still have no idea what they were trying to go for with this, like were they trying to appeal to a market of high school boys who hadn’t discovered what empathy was yet? There is zero trust in the player and every dialogue and decision you make in these moments feels handhold-y and preachy. Like Pixar levels of life lessons you learn.

In the moments where I had to settle arguments over coffee and companions not respecting each other's interests, I could not honestly believe this is the same universe with Loghain Mac Tir, Meredith Stannard, fuck even Corypheus. Humor has always existed in Dragon Age and I love the comedic banter between the characters but it was always humor that served as an escape from the oppressive and dark situation around you, here the dark and oppressive situations feel like an escape from the unrelenting friendliness and tone deafness of your companions. 

The companion I probably had the most issue with was Taash and the way they were handled. I’m not going to get too deep into the Bharv scene because even thinking about it makes me cringe but If someone messed up my pronouns and then immediately dropped to do pushups I am most definitely killing us both. Isabela’s explanation is extremely preachy and she proceeds to do the exact thing she says she hates about people messing up pronouns. Anyways. Moving on. 

Taash I think is a good example of how to not write a multiethnic character. I don’t expect a white person like Trick Weekes to understand the first thing that comes with being multiethnic or having strict parents that intersects with that identity but it is most definitely not whatever the hell this is. 

The only thing I can offer here is that as a multiethnic person (my father is Palestinian and my mother is mainly Irish and Seminole) is that there has never been a point in my life where I felt like I had to choose what culture I am let alone give that choice to someone else in my life I just met.

That’s not what being multiethnic is. I do not have to choose between anything - I am whole and I don't need to cut myself into halves and quarters to be accepted.

It also feels subconsciously like you are supposed to choose Rivain as the Qunari are depicted as bigoted and oppressive as they always have been in this game. Knowing all of this really tainted my experiences with them as a character and I understand a lot of other non-binary individuals love the representation they brought on that level but personally, I’m just tired of “queer representation” always coming with racist undertones. Again, this game feels like it always had white queer people in mind, not lgbt poc. 

These kinds of comments are really only made worse knowing what the Qunari take inspiration from - primarily Black and Brown SWANA Muslims. Why should Trick Weekes have any authority over a questline like that is beyond me. 

Also, this sucked. Especially because they said it to Neve too. I don’t really want my non-binary representation sprinkled with Misogyny as well, especially since we can’t really call Taash out on this comment unless you’re playing a woman (as far as I know).

Aside from Taash, I thought the writing around Harding was strange. Don’t me wrong, I love Harding, but I do not remember her being this friendly and people-pleasing in the Inquisition. If you play as a Dalish elf the first thing she says is she’s surprised that you would care about anyone else - there is absolutely no inclination of this kind of perspective in Veilguard. Additionally, despite knowing everything Solas has done and the consequences that had on her ancestors, she still tries to push you to reason with him?

All of her quests about learning about the Titans, experiencing and embracing their anger, and you still want to appeal to Solas? That was another thing I found so weird about this game, throughout the entire story you are being told again and again that Solas cannot be trusted, he is to blame for everything, and will stab you in the back and yet it seems like every companion tries to push back on you if you agree with this viewpoint? 

Also, something I didn't know at this point of the game but I do now is that Solas had killed Varric and she does know this so why is she acting like this knowing Solas had killed her friend who she spent years with?

Genuinely this whole game felt like: Devs: Solas is a villain

Rook: okay understood

Devs: actually nvm you don't understand him if you think he's a villain

The only companion quests I was actually genuinely interested in were Emmrich and his thoughts around death and becoming a lich. Lucanis' quests had the best boss fights for sure. Outside of that, it felt like “Go here with Bellara” or “Go here with Taash” and it got so grating I couldn’t wait for these quests to be over so I could progress with the main story. It felt like an annoying back-and-forth game to finish a main quest just to finish all the companion quests and then go back to the main quest. Like a list of chores to get through before you can have any fun. 

The inclusion of characters like Morrigan and Isabela in this universe was extremely hollow and they do not feel like the Morrigan and Isabela we know at all. With Morrigan there is a bit of an explanation to this with the essence of Mythal however she reiterates that it is still herself and it is only the memories of Mythal that remain inside of her.

In my canon playthroughs of Dragon Age, I romanced both Morrigan and Isabela, so I was curious to see how the developers would address their pasts with our Warden and Hawke. Unfortunately, the answer is that they don’t address it at all. Morrigan hardly mentions her past, leaving us to wonder if Kieran even exists. The game implies that the relationship between Morrigan and the Warden is insignificant; a codex entry oddly suggests, in a very slut-shamey way, that Morrigan had more lovers than there are trees in the forest. Isabela doesn't reference Hawke either, as she fondly remembers Kirkwall for found family and friendship. It seems that if you romanced Isabela or Morrigan, congratulations—your canon doesn’t exist.

I will echo the statement others have made about all the cameos feeling like mascots because that is really what they are. There is no substance to any of them, Isabela only feels like she is there to be a supportive voice for Taash, Morrigan will only really talk about Solas and Mythal-Dorian is the only one who actually gets a substantial quest related to him. I thought he was fine minus the "illegal slavery" bit because what is illegal slavery Dorian. Next up we will discuss legal murder.

Another thing that genuinely broke the immersion for me in this game is how awful the armor is. It is a Dragon Age game so I wasn't expecting Haute Couture but the design is all over the place and nothing looks right. Not to mention the extremely weird orientalist undertones that follow the Lords of Fortune everywhere. The outfit Isabela is wearing is even worse in person and I tried to give this game the benefit of the doubt by thinking we would be getting some underwater mission with her and that would be the explanation behind her bikini outfit - this did not happen.

The belly dancer-esque outfits with the coin-bedazzled turbans were pretty egregious and made me want to limit my time in Rivain as much as possible. For a game released in 2024, I am disappointed we are still dealing with the same Orientalist fantasy tropes. Even the Qunari are more naked in this game than I had ever seen previously. At least DA2 and DAI gave them pants. But hey the Antaam are all blighted and evil so who cares right.

Speaking of the Antaam, a lot of the antagonist motivations for this game genuinely did not make sense to me. The Antaam are suddenly giving up their fear of magic to pair up with...the Venatori? To fight for the elven gods? It honestly felt like they had no idea who to make fight for the Evanuris so they just pulled two of the baddies from the Inquisition and went "We can just use them and call it done". When you press for information on why this is the answer is always a mustache-twirling dialogue about power. Nothing much deeper from that than any of the villains besides Solas. All of the villains, especially Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, are extremely one-dimensional and have no motivations other than being evil and striving for power. At least Corypheus had cool lines.

I'm not going to get too deep into lore changes since I know a lot of things happened in the comics, books, and TV show (all of which I did not read or watch) but I honestly do think it's a bad idea to have a "soft reboot" while needing to read several books to understand everything. That's not being welcoming to new players that's homework. If you wanted a soft reboot probably don't start off with half your plot and characters coming from various comics and novels people need to catch up on.

The portrayal of the Dalish in this game is inconsistent. When we inform them that their gods are evil and planning to overthrow the world, they respond, "Okay, heard you." How can they accept this explanation so readily? In previous interactions, Solas shared that the Dalish did not listen to him and even threatened him when he revealed this truth. Yet, when we present the same information, they believe us almost immediately. Is there no pushback or skepticism? The Dalish accept everything about the evil elven gods meanwhile Andraste’s followers remain completely unaffected by these revelations.

I think what frustrated me even more was watching our elven companions express grief and regret over the actions of the elven gods like they had something to do with it, painting the Dalish as adjacent to oppressors when they themselves are oppressed in every way. The only thing that remains consistent is the sad boy Solas act about it.

At the end of the game, two of my companions - Harding and Emmrich- were killed. Emmrich's death was unfortunately overshadowed by a zoom-in on a rock and I had no idea he had died until I got the popup. Still, all I can think about is just going "Rock moment" when he died. I don't really have anything negative to say about Harding's death other than the way she went out was fitting for her narrative. Bellara got blighted and there were no consequences for this and she walked away from it - forgive me but I am still under the DAO impression that if you get blighted that's game over but all the rules about the Blight have been changed in this.

I decided to trick Solas, and honestly, I don’t have anything negative to say about it, except that Solas should have noticed me holding the fake dagger since it was clearly in his line of sight. I liked the idea of outsmarting the god of trickery. While it wasn’t extremely satisfying, but I’m okay with how it turned out.

Even as the credits began rolling I still have trouble believing rook's role in any of this. Just the persistent nagging idea that they really just have no place in this story at all. In the beginning I wanted to see how Rook is looped into all of this and how they become central to the fight against Solas but just like with most of the companions, I have no idea why they are here. This should've been the Inquisitor's story to finish.

I'm not going to pretend that everything about this game was irredeemable and terrible. There were genuinely parts I enjoyed and had a good time with. The romance ending scene with Neve was fantastic, even though it took a long time to get there. Davrin was an unexpected aspect of the game that I actually liked, as I never cared much for Grey Wardens before, but he changed my perspective. Harding's mention of the Inquisition was also very sweet. Although I wasn't particularly invested in Emmrich, I loved the conclusion to his quest when he became a lich lord.

While I'm not the biggest Solas fan, I actually really enjoyed the cutscenes between him and Rook because one of my aims with this game was the ability to be mean to Solas and kick him while he was down. They definitely delivered there even though everyone else kept disagreeing with me.

The worlds are beautiful and the CC is definitely the best we've gotten in any Dragon Age game, I spent probably a solid hour in there. The hairstyles are great and the four unibrow choices? Bioware you shouldn't have <3.

Overall I definitely didn't have the best time with this game and towards the end of act 2 I was incredibly bored and the combat became repetitive and stagnant enough that I turned down the difficulty to get through it faster. I can't see myself replaying this any time soon and I am unsure what my stance on Dragon Age is now, do I Ignore this game ever existed or do I carve out everything I liked and pretend this is the Dragon Age I love? I have no idea, I am disappointed at how this game leaves us off and I really wanted to sit here and say It's good but I can't.

I think this game will reach out to and resonate with a different group of Dragon Age fans than me, I just wish I could enjoy it as much as I see other people doing. I was originally going to give this game a 3/10 but knowing you can pet the cats I will give it a very generous 3.5/10.

[girlwithadragonheart]

Chapter 4 - Ashes to Ashes

This story contains major spoilers for Dragon Age the Veilguard. Read at your own discretion!!

Rook x Lucanis

Summary: Kalais has to choose to save her city or Lucanis's. Things don't end well.

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: Swearing, Mental-emotional breakdown, Kalais snaps a little

A/N: I love when I develop a character that ends up not taking any shit it's so healing

Chapter 3 DATV Masterlist Chapter 5

We met with Harding’s Warden contacts in the High Anderfels. Antoine and Evka were both very sweet and seemed like they wanted to help. They said they had noticed some things about the Blight that lined up with what we were seeing, everything the First Warden didn’t believe.

They told us about another Warden in the area who was pulled into another mission. Lucanis and I made our way to his last known location. There was a tent and a fire still halfway burning.

“Well, I’d say we found the camp.” Lucanis crouched down on the opposite side of the fire from me. “So did some darkspawn, looks like.”

“They left the fire burning,” Lucanis said.

“Were they ambushed?” Lucanis and I glanced at each other.

We heard a screech, both looking toward the sound. I crossed behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He rose from his crouched position behind me as I tried to find the source of the sound.

The creature screeched again, this time louder, and a ball of feathers was fiving at me, about the size of a mabari. I held my hands out, trying to keep the creature from attacking me. By description, it looked like a griffon, but that couldn’t be right. Griffons were extinct.

“Assan!” A deep voice yelled close by. I looked over seeing a handsome, dark skinned elf. The griffon pounced over to him as he walked up to us, sticking close to his side. “Easy boy.” The man smoothed a hand over his feathers.

“I’ll be damned… a griffon,” I said.

“Trouble is, he’s not sure what you are. Neither am I,” the man said.

“Rook,” I said. “Evka and Antoine sent us. We’re looking for Davrin.”

“You found him. Mind telling me why you smell like darkspawn?” He asked. “Griffons hunt darkspawn.”

“We don’t smell that bad. It’s the tent,” I explained.

“Blight? Where are Lancit and Remi?”

“The camp was empty when we got here,” I told him.

We heard a raged cry from somewhere distant. “Assan! To the trees!” Davrin commanded. “Try to keep up!” He told us.

After killing lots of darkspawn, and finding all of the griffons locked up in cages sealed with blood magic, we found what Davrin called the “Gloom Howler”. Some kind of Darkspawn, undead, bitch queen.

She got away and took the griffons with her before we could stop her.

The four of us made our way back through the eluvian and the Caretaker took us between islands in the Crossroads.

Neve, Harding, and Bellara came running toward us, looking panicked. “What’s happened?” I asked with a furrowed brow.

“The Viper just sent word. Minrathous is under attack by a blighted dragon,” Neve said.

“Has to be the one we saw at D’Meta’s Crossing,” I said.

“Well, one of them has to be,” Harding replied.

“What do you mean, “one of them”?” Lucanis questioned.

“Teia also got in touch. Another dragon is attacking Treviso, too,” Harding told him.

“Mierda,” Lucanis cursed.

“You got back just in time,” Harding said to me.

I took a breath, putting my hands on my hips. “Alright. What do we know?”

“Two dragons at once? Has to be the gods behind it,” she said.

“Teviso’s a merchant city. It has no defenses. And the canals run everywhere,” Lucanis told me. “If we don’t stop that dragon, people will die. Innocent people. My people. They either die right away, from the dragon. Or slowly after, from blight in the water. We need to go to Treviso.”

“And leave Minrathous to burn?” Neve questioned. “You’re a Shadow Dragon, Rook. You know the Viper, Tarquin, every damn Shadow… We’ll fight to the end. But people will get hurt. Or worse,” she said. “And if we fail? The Venatori will take advantage. They’ll make a push for the throne. And hand the gods the entire Tevinter Empire.”

“If we decide to—”

“Damn it! There’s no time!” Neve interrupted me. “It’s my city. Our city. I need to be in Minrathous.”

“And I must go to Treviso,” Lucanis said. “Go where you feel you must, Rook. We cannot wait.” 

Without another word, Neve and Lucanis both ran off. “What’s our move, Rook?” Harding asked.

I ran over what I knew for certain in my head. Minrathous had defenses, including the Archon Palace. I was certain that me and two others would not be able to make much of a difference against a dragon. But I did know that Treviso was already under occupation and its people wouldn’t survive without some extra aid. I also knew that as much as Neve said Minrathous was my city, I was its slave long before I was its savior.

I took a breath, my chest feeling tight with the weight of this decision. “We help Lucanis in Treviso. We have to trust that the Shadow Dragons can take care of things in Minrathous. That said… two of you should join Neve there. See if you can help. And we’ll head to Treviso.”

“Understood,” Davrin said.

“Let’s all try to make it through this alive, all right?”

I brought Davrin with me, leaving the other two to go to Minrathous with Neve. I had to trust that they would be alright. I couldn’t afford to be distracted right now, lest I risk my own hide. When we got to Treviso, the city was burning.

Davrin and I made our way through the city, killing Antaam as we went. With the dragon trying to kill everyone, I suppose they saw their chance to really take over. Or, even worse, they were working for the Gods. ‘Cause that’s what we needed. More enemies.

We ran through the courtyard, seeing Lucanis and Teia up ahead. Lucanis looked so relieved to see us. “Rook! You’re just in time. Where the dragon attacks, the Antaam soon follow.”

“It is strong and fast. You must get its attention, then lure it onto the ground,” Teia said, hands on her hips.

“We’ll figure out a way,” I said, mimicking her stance.

“Draw up your courage,” she said. “We will need it.”

We took up position in the field, Davrin on my right and Lucanis on my left. Ghilan’nain, the horrible beast that she now was, all tentacles and no heart, demanded the dagger from me and said that Treviso offered nothing more than a pawn for Elgar’nan. She clearly couldn’t see the beauty it held.

She sent the dragon after us to retrieve the dagger. Most of my time was spent dodging blows as I tried to keep it off the other two, allowing them to actually hit it.

Enough of my panic built up, that I was able to aim some of it back at the dragon in the form of lightning and fire, beamed directly at its heart. Before we could bring it down, Ghilan’nain called it away, saying she had need of it elsewhere.

“You fought it off!” Teia ran over to us.

Lucanis clutched at a wound on his leg as he limped over to us. “If Ghilan’nain hadn’t called it away…”

“It’s more important that it stopped attacking the city,” I told him, casting a worried glance at the blood staining him.

“Everyone with a home that still stands will agree,” Teia said.

“That thing was tough. It’ll be hard to put down for good,” I sighed.

“What happened to Treviso would’ve been worse if you hadn’t arrived when you did. I cannot imagine how much worse,” Lucanis said looking at me gratefully.

“Still have to help with that dragon in Minrathous,” Davrin said.

“Let’s go,” I said.

—-------------------------------------

Minrathous was covered in Blight by the time we reached it. The streets were crawling with darkspawn and buildings were on fire. Even as I knew I made the right choice, it hurt to see this place like this. I had more bad memories here than good ones, but the good ones outweighed the negative. This was where I met Varric, after all.

We found Neve and Tarquin huddled around Ashur who was on a table, looking miserable and wounded.

“We’re here. What’s the situation?” I asked.

“Where were you?” Neve demanded.

“Treviso. The dragon—”

“This is your city! I thought—”

“My city?!” I almost laughed in her face. “You mean the city I was enslaved to? You mean the city that showed me and other people like me no kindness? The city that’s been corrupted since the beginning of Thedas?”

“And because we were busy fighting the bigger evil, the Venatori took large parts of the city!” She yelled. “We lost people. And Ashur…”

“I’m fine,” he grunted. “She’s right.”

“You are not fine,” Tarquin said, standing. “He took a claw to the gut. A claw from a blighted dragon. Think about that,” he said to me.

“The blight’s in his blood. But that means…” All my fire was gone, and I was just exhausted.

“A slow death,” Neve finished. 

“You’ve brought nothing but trouble since you came back,” Tarquin growled.

My brows furrowed, pained and hurt. Dorian led me to them and all I did was fuck everything up. Lucanis stepped closer, almost protectively.

“It’s not Rook’s fault,” Ashur said. “I chose to engage it.”

“Because it was going for a safe house! Because half of us were already dead!” Tarquin shouted.

“Do you honestly think one more fucking person would’ve changed the outcome?” I questioned.

Tarquin spun on me. “No, but maybe you would be dying instead of him.”

I physically recoiled from the hatred in his eyes, my gut twisting with nausea. I bumped into Lucanis, and he steadied me with a hand on my waist.

“Just go. There’s nothing you can do here,” Neve said, looking over at Ashur.

—-------------------------------

I stumbled through the eluvian in the lighthouse, clutching my chest. My stomach churned, and I thought I might throw up.

“Rook!” I heard Bellara behind me, but I didn’t stop, heading straight through the hall and up the stairs. I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t lead, I wasn’t cut out for it.

I let my feet guide me and before I knew it, I was in the infirmary. Varric looked alarmed as I collapsed to my knees beside his bed, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I fucked up,” I whimpered. “I fucked up, Varric.”

“Hey, hey, hey, kid, take a breath.” He shifted, and I felt his warm hand on my shoulder, gripping me just tight enough to bring me back to reality. “What happened?”

“Minrathous---” I started, getting cut off by a sob. “Minrathous is burning. They took it- The gods took it, and Neve…” My body shook, wracked with sobs as I tried to breathe. “She’s so mad. I don’t think she’s coming back, Varric.” I looked up at him with bleary eyes.

He moved, sliding to the edge of the bed until I was between his legs, and he pulled me into his chest. “Easy, kid.” He had one arm tight around my shoulders, his other hand smoothing my hair. “You can’t save everyone. That’s the life.”

“Neve trusted me. She trusted me and Minrathous is burning now,” I whimpered, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to suck up the warmth he was giving me. It was so hard to breathe.

“You made a decision based on what limited knowledge you had,” Varric said. “No one can ask any more of you than that. Neve will come back around. Give her time.”

“We don’t have time, Varric,” I said desperately.

“So keep moving forward. That’s what you do, Rook. That’s what you’ve always done,” he said. “She’ll either come around or she won’t. But you can’t afford to spend what little time you have regretting your choices. Let me ask you something: Do you regret the choice you made? Or just Neve?”

I felt silent in contemplation. “I made the right choice,” I said carefully. “Treviso has no defenses, and it’s under occupation by the Antaam. I couldn’t have changed the outcome in Minrathous.” I had to believe that, if nothing else.

Varric squeezed my shoulder, and I pulled back, looking up at him. He smiled with that softness in his eyes that was just reserved for me. He put his thumb and forefinger under my chin so I looked at him. “Then you did the right thing,” he said simply. Carefully, he used his thumbs to wipe my face of tears. “Cheer up, kid. The night may be long, but it isn’t all dark.”

I heard what he said and what he didn’t. Minrathous was doomed to fall some day. We had been fighting a losing battle regardless, much as I hated to leave behind the people there. Half of them were under Venatori control, and the other half were too helpless to fight against it.

“Chin up, Rook. I think the others need you,” he told me.

I nodded, sniffling and wiping the remainder of my tears from my chin and jaw. “I need to talk to Solas.”

“If Chuckles pisses you off too much, hit him for me,” he said as he slid back up to the wall.

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit, shaking my head as I left.

---------------------------------------

“When last we spoke, you were hunting for followers of Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain in hopes of finding “specifics”. Has your search been successful?” Solas asked.

“You could say that. It looks like both the Venatori and the Antaam are working for Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain,” I told him.

“Unsurprising. The Venatori want magical secrets, and the Antaam want to destroy anyone opposing their brutal expansion. Both will readily bow to anyone who promises them power.”

“It’s more than a promise this time. The Antaam and the Venatori both have dragons doing their bidding.”

“Dragons?” He said surprised. “That is worse than I had feared.”

“Yeah. We drove off the one the Antaam brought to Treviso—barely,” I crossed my arms.

“Have you determined how the dragons are being directed? If it is blood magic, it may be possible to disrupt their control.”

“The dragons are blighted. We think that’s what let the gods control them.”

“The blight. Of course.”

“The blight seems to be the gods’ favored tool right now. We ran into Venatori who could control darkspawn,” I said.

“Elgar’nan would not bestow such power unless the darkspawn were to serve as the main force of his army. And I suspect Ghilan’nain will see the darkspawn as new subjects for her… modifications.”

“We’ve already run into a few darkspawn nobody has seen before. That’s in addition to the blighted dragons.”

“That is the fate Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain plan for this world, then. Corruption and blighted slavery,” Solas said, hands clasped behind his back.

“Right… Everyone should be free and uncorrupted when your demons and raw magic kill them,” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Do you truly believe my goal was to destroy this world?” He asked.

“I believe you’re ‘goal’, like you said, was to transfer the gods to a better prison—the one you’re stuck in now. And you were willing to tear down the Veil and destroy with world while you did so,” I spat.

“The Veil is a wound I cut into the Fade in a moment of desperation while aking their prison. It should not exist. I had a host of spirits ready to help when the Veil fell. They would have minimized the loss of life.”

“Do you have any idea what you sound like? You could’ve actually saved the world from the blight, but instead you chose to kill thousands of people with your vanity project!” I shouted.

“It is not vanity! I broke this world. I am the only one who can fix it!”

His shouting didn’t faze me with the huge ravine and the Fade between us. “Spoken like a god,” I said with all the contempt I felt.

“I am not a god! I am as I have always been: a man, all too aware of his failings… But equally aware that if he did not act, accepting the judgment it would bring, all would be lost. They called me the Dread Wolf. What will they call you, when this is over?” He wondered.

“I don’t care what they call me. If they’re calling me anything, it means they’re still alive. That’s all that matters.”

“Acceptance. You are willing to face the consequences your actions may one day bring, because the world needs you. I believe I can work with that.” He smiled, though it felt anything but sincere. “If the gods are using dragons, you will wish to find someone trained to fight them. Have you unlocked the lighthouse eluvian?”

“Yes. We found the Crossroads. It’s still confusing, though.”

“I cannot help you from in here. You may need to find an expert in the magic of the Fade. And if the Darkspawn are to be Elgar’nan’s army, you will need Grey Wardens to fight them.”

“I’ve got a few of them. Their leaders don’t trust me right now, though.”

“I have faith in you, Rook,” Solas said. “You seem to have a knack for gaining the cooperation of your adversaries.”

---------------------------------------

I woke up in a cold sweat---as I often did these days---to someone thumping against my door. I moved over to it quickly, brows furrowing. When I opened it, I had to catch Lucanis. He was struggling to stand, but when he spoke, it was Spite coming through his teeth.

“The idiot is still bleeding. Help him.”

“Walk with me,” I supported him with his arm over my shoulders, and I led him to my chaise lounge. When he sat, the purple glow from Lucanis’s eyes was gone, and he slumped, unconscious. “Fenedhis.”

I could see the blood seeping through the bandage on his leg, staining his loungewear dark red.

“Gods dammit, Lucanis,” I grumbled. I looked up at his unconscious form, regretting what I was about to do before I could even do it. I reached for the buttons on his pants, undoing them and pulling them down to his knees, keeping my eyes on the bandaged wound.

My fingers fumbled with the knot before finally getting it undone, unraveling it, lifting his boot onto my knee to pull the bandage from under his leg. When I got to the wound, I looked at it with furrowed brows. It looked like there was a piece of jagged rock stuck in there, which would explain why it didn’t clot properly.

I sighed, hovering my hand over the wound and pulling the piece of shrapnel with my magic. Lucanis winced. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered, putting just a bit more power until it flew up and smacked my palm. I set it with the bandages next to him. “Nasty little thing.”

Carefully, I held my hand over the wound again, pushing warmth into it and watching it seal closed beneath my magic. When it was healed, I stood, moving to my wardrobe for a fresh cloth to clean the blood up on his leg.

Before I came back around, I heard a startled grunt from Lucanis. His chest seized, staring at the wall of the aquarium across from him. I internally panicked, realizing he spent a year in the bottom of the ocean tortured.

I moved around the chaise with the cloth, putting myself into his direct line of sight. He looked up at me with wide brown eyes. “Rook?”

Slowly, he loosed a breath, looking around. “Hey, it’s alright. We’re in my room. Spite brought you here because of your wound.” I knelt down in front of him again, starting to mop up his blood.

“Of course he did,” he grumbled, looking down at his lap. He cleared his throat. “Isn’t it customary to ask before removing a man’s clothes?”

I rolled my eyes, hitting him with the cloth. “Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Well enough to clean yourself.” I stood, throwing the cloth at him.

He caught my wrist as I turned away. “Vuelve mi pequeña polilla, I meant nothing by it.”

My cheeks warmed as he crooned in his native language, and I was pulled back to my knees in front of him, resuming to clean his wound. “You had quite a nasty cut. This was keeping it from closing.” I picked up the piece of jagged rock. 

“Mierda,” he cursed, taking it to inspect it. “I wondered.”

“You would be lost without me,” I teased, wiping my hands on the cloth.

“You have no idea,” he muttered.

“I hope the next time we’re like this it’s not because you’re bleeding out,” I grinned, standing and collecting the dirty bandages to dispose of them. I saw Lucanis’s cheeks flush, and I smiled to myself as I left the room to avoid embarrassing him further. I was sure the last thing he wanted was for me to see him indecent and turned on.

❈❈❈

Lucanis pinched the bridge of his nose, looking up at the dancing reflections of water on the ceiling. It was bad enough that he had awoken half naked in a place of his nightmares. But then a complete one-eighty occurred, and he had the woman of his dreams kneeling in front of him with those mismatched eyes and warm smile.

Spite had brought him here, of course he had. And Kalais had just taken care of him like it didn’t take a second thought. And the things she said, mierda, he wished she would stop trailing him like a moth to a flame. It was dangerous, and it wouldn’t end well for either of them. Spite was Lucanis’s only future. To hope for anything else was futile.

Of course that didn’t stop all blood from running southward when she hinted at something more. Something unattainable, something beyond his imagination. Something impossible, and yet all too good for him anyway.

“She. Wants. You!” Spite growled in his ear. “We want. To taste her!” 

“Enough, Spite,” Lucanis said, standing and buttoning his pants. He didn’t look at the demon. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“We. Want. Rook! Why?” he questioned.

Lucanis sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why you want Rook. Possibly because she’s the only one who’s kind to you, though I can’t figure out why,” he muttered.

“No! You want her,” he said. “Her touch. Soft. Her hair silk. Her breath warm! Her lips. What do they taste like?”

“Enough!” He snapped. “She is not ours to have.”

❈❈❈

We all met around the fire in the dining hall. I filled everyone in on what Solas had said.

“So this elven god thinks we need a dragon hunter and a Fade expert?” Lucanis asked.

“He’s right about the dragon hunter, at least,” Harding said. “The Shadow Dragons did all the could. The dragon was just too much.” I frowned, staring into the fire. “The moment the dust settled? The Venatori rushed in. Guess they knew it was coming.”

My chest suddenly felt tight again.

“Neve’s staying for now. She said she’ll be back soon, but… At least you took care of yours,” Harding said to me.

“We hurt it, but didn’t kill it. The dragon flew off before we could put it down,” I said.

“Treviso could have used a dragon hunter. That much is true,” Lucanis said.

“Don’t remind me. Fewer people injured, and we wouldn’t have to worry about it coming back.” My brow furrowed, and I crossed my arms over my stomach.

“We shouldn’t forget about Minrathous, either. We need to do what we can to help. Though there’s no telling how long Neve will be helping the Shadow Dragons…” Lucanis added.

“Hey, let’s not get stuck in our regrets, all right?” Varric came hobbling over.

“Hang on a minute,” Davrin interrupted. “Not only have you retained the services of a demon assassin, you’re also taking advice from the elven god who attempted to tear down the Veil.”

“Spite is my problem,” Lucanis said defensively.

“That’s what they always say,” Davrin retorted. “Rook, Lucanis is one thing, but do you really trust this Solas?” He asked.

“Trust is such a strong word, you know?”

“So you don’t trust him.”

“Ehhh.”

“All right then.”

Harding said she would ask around about Dragon Hunters, and Bellara said she would get a message through to a Fade expert immediately.

“See, Rook? Nothing to worry about,” Varric said.

“All right. We all know what to do. Let’s get going,” I said to dismiss them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: I hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list

Have a good day/night!

Tagged: @colombia-chan @bleummie

[hextechmaturgy]

i have some more veilguard opinions to share with tumblr dot com, so BEWARE OF THE CONTENT BELOW!!!! this has spoilers about the very FINAL MISSION of the game, don't ruin the experience for yourself

sooooo

who did you guys choose to lead the second team and how much do you regret it? any thoughts about that? cause i sure have A FEW

look, anyone who knows me will tell you i love tragedy. unhappy endings sate me, i don't mind when 'good' characters die. i had it on my bingo card that varric would kick the bucket this game and was BEYOND happy when that reveal happened, i felt like i had manifested that shit and i was happy to know that my favorite character hadn't survived a seemingly fatal attack because of # fanservice

so what i'm about to say comes not from a dislike of losing companions, of not getting a happy ending for everyone, but out of frustration at how nonsensical this one loss felt. i played the mass effect games multiple times, i know how these suicide missions go! you do your companions' loyalty missions and pay attention to what they're good at individually, so when the final mission comes around and you have to choose someone to hack things, you know exactly which of your pixelated friends will be good at that sort of thing and send out to be heroes. it's a neat design choice i think, it requires that you think about your companions as people with strengths and weaknesses that make them stand out from the others

i chose davrin for the job of team leader. i had done his loyalty mission and he'd more than proved himself as a capable leader at weisshaupt. we saw him adapting to an ever worsening battle, talking strategy even when things got dire. as much as i love harding, i didn't think she could compare in this regard, and could clearly see how one option would be Good option and the other would be the Bad one that ends in the death of a companion

when davrin died as a result of his assigned role, when assan died trying to save him, i clutched my pearls. i suddenly remembered the talks i had with davrin where he expressed regret at having lived through the killing of ghilan'nain's archdemon, because wardens are supposed to die when they kill an archdemon as veteran dragon age fans will know. i realized that i had set him up for his idea of a perfect death, had given him the opportunity to go as a hero, "in death, sacrifice" and all that. i had gotten him and his baby griffon killed by not remembering his worse impulses, meanwhile harding would've flourished under the trust i would've placed on her, she'd prove she's not just a scout, that she can be an excellent leader in her own right now that she's accepted her role as a shepherd of truth for the dwarves and the stone. damn good writing, you fooled me well!

so imagine my disappointment when i looked up the outcome of making harding team leader instead and found out that it literally doesn't matter. silly me! i overthought a video game decision, why did i expect deep themes in a dragon age game amiright?

LITERALLY WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT DOESN'T MATTER. whoever you choose for that job always dies, there's no rhyme or reason to this one decision? bellara and neve will make it out of their 50/50 so long as they're loyal, but harding or davrin? they just die! because reasons!

i made me feel stupid, like i had cared too much and looked too hard into a game that is so rarely interested in leaving anything up for debate. some parts of this game are brilliantly written, i think solas is one of them, he's truly at his most trickster-y, so then... why are there so many other aspects of the game that are just there to annoy me. why is who betrayed lucanis a mystery, have you HEARD what illario sounds like. why is it that davrin or harding always die at the end. and no, i won't accept "that's how it is in real life, there's no sense in war" because this is a video game and every other companion death is avoidable if you play your cards right. what a waste!!!!!!!! DRAGON AGE: THE WASTED POTENTIAL!!!!!!

[bug-oc]

Bug Fables OC Tournament Round 1

Bau (they/any) from @mantisgodsdomain

Bau (short for Bauplan) is a bandit - a dune cricket of a bandit, to be more specific. Cheerful and enthusiastic, they're prone to making friends wherever they go, with a well of energy and good cheer that almost seems bottomless. Though they belong to a species that's best known for being antisocial and cannibalistic, Bau is, perhaps, the biggest example of "terminally friendly" you'll ever meet - in more ways than one.

The ways to describe them are endless. "Party animal". "Shoulder to cry on". "Like if you violently blended a frat boy with a golden retriever and then made them 8'2 and a criminal". All of these descriptions, and more, fit them nearly perfectly (though they are not, in fact, literally 8'2, for reasons relating to them being an insect). When it comes to those they call their friends, they've got a nearly endless well of both energy and willingness to stick by the people they care for even in the worst of circumstances.

This extends, of course, to conditions most would consider to be decidedly unfriendly. They'll consider you a friend long after you've stabbed them in the back, after you've robbed them blind or carved their shell open with a sword. They are still a Bandit. They understand the kinds of things you have to do to make ends meet! The time might come, after all, where they might have to do the same for you.

They'd hate for you to die - truly, genuinely hate for it - but when it comes down to it, the lives of their fellow bandits have to come first. It's one life against many - and, you know, even if they'll mourn over you, their family needs to eat. They care for the people they meet so genuinely it can be overwhelming - even if you've only met for a bit, you're still a friend in their eyes, and they'll both gleefully and vocally consider you to be a companion. They're painfully genuine in all walks of life - they would never lie about anything regarding their own feelings, even to spare yours.

Down to the wire, they'll always pick the option to preserve as many people's lives as they can. Under kinder circumstances, they would never need to make a choice, but they're a Bandit, and a high-ranking enough one that making tough choices comes to be their responsibility.

They have the fate of their whole community in their hands. They'd love to offer a better chance, but they have to be pragmatic sometimes, especially when it comes to the Bandits they're responsible for feeding. When it comes down to a trolley problem, when it's the life of someone they care for against the lives of however many strangers - your life holds value to them, but they're not so cruel as to let people starve for the sake of one person's feelings.

If it were you with your dagger in their chest, then they would forgive you in a heartbeat. But if you don't feel like they deserve the courtesy of forgiveness - well, that's fine, too. They don't get to choose how you feel, after all. What kind of friend would they be if they tried to pick your thoughts for you? They still consider you to be a good friend, even after everything.

Holly (he/they) from @thetroupemaster

Holly's an ancient Roach with the most hellish commute known to Bugaria, long dead by the time Team Snakemouth rolled around. He was an inhabitant of the Sand Castle in its prime, assisted in his endeavors by a Warden named "Citadel" - who, in fact, practically just pestered him and nothing else - and worked at the Upper Snakemouth laboratories on the immortality experiments conducted within. Every day, he'd have to make the walk from the desert to the caves, and every night, he'd have to make the walk back, with the majority of his work day being travel time.

In fact, this horrible commute was what saved his life from suffering the same fate as the other Snakemouth scientists, as the cavern had already suffered its breakout of the subjects contained within and was thrown into total lockdown by the time he arrived at the gate, unable to get inside. So, Holly went home, unknown of what horrors happened within the walls, and unknowing that their life had been saved by the suffering of walking across half of Bugaria to get to home and work.

Personality-wise, he's a rather casual individual, just doing his job of… well, torturing people. But it's fine, it pays them well enough to make the transit worth it, and he's curious enough about what makes a bug tick that he just couldn't say no to the offer! With a particular interest in technology and biology, and maybe a couple of records of vivisection under their belt, this immortality-obsessed Roach makes quite the impression.

Why should you vote for him? Well, it'd be really funny to vote for a dead scientist, and their awful robot that bites. Oh, yeah, Citadel bites.

[buffinbonkers]

I’m so sick of veil guard defenders main rebuke to any critique being “tHeY dIdn’T eVeN pLaY tHe gAmE”.

Let’s say that’s true, and???? Let’s say they quit 8 hours in, 10 hours, 15, like how long do you require someone to not have a good time before they can say “yeah it was bad imo”. Like your main defense is honestly that they didn’t play long enough? As if it’s their fault? As if it’s the gamers responsibility to force themselves to play a game they’re not liking and not the producers to make an enjoyable game? Idk maybe apply that thinking to any other game and maybe you’ll realize the crazy and break free?

I wrote my review of not recommended at 8 hours in, and most of the reasons why I still agree at 60 hours.

Some of my reasons:

1. I played as a mage and I can only have three attacks, three spells at any given time. And the list of spells i can select from is pathetic it’s like 9 maybe? CONSOLE exclusive games give you more options with R2 and L2. It’s just bewilders me that this is the level of decision making I get.

2. You don’t really make decisions, not like in the past three games. I’m 60 hours in and I recall making two decisions, killing some guy - who to my knowledge doesn’t pop back up, and saving 1 of two cities. Which again to my knowledge hasn’t TRULEY affected anything really besides a grumpy companion and a missing faction. (I know the city was destroyed what I mean is either way - a city was destroyed)

3. Speaking of factions (which I hate but I’ll concede that’s maybe a more me thing) you have to run around to every shop to upgrade specific gear, like found gear, gear, which you can’t craft or dye, you just level it up, hope you find the obscure shop that sells the upgrade (there’s so many fucking shops) or google it I guess.

4. Companions (which you only have two of at a time now - again a personal thing prob) don’t have health, so every fight could hypothetically be cheesed by just running around (which is actually more effective then the terrible dodging system) while they kill the enemy.

THESE THINGS ARE BIZARRE? I think that’s what irks me the most, is that the things that are bad are unique, like they took a perfectly good way of doing things, and just threw it out the window for some reason. I’ve played so many games and I’ve just never seen a degradation from a prior game to a new one like this. And y’all can dislike inquisition all you want, but it won game of the year, and it won it for a reason, even if you personally didn’t like it.

The one thing that I was like okay it’s improved, is the dialogue, but even then there’s some problems:

1. Someone else pointed out that while there may be multiple options there’s too many instances where they all are nice placating. Not ACTUAL options in difference responses.

2. Personal but I hate that they went away with the like pick and choose what you talk about with this person. Like I’ve mentioned OPTIONS?

Another point someone made was that some backgrounds should be limited to race, no historical instance of quanari warden/non-mage dwarf in all mage mourn watch which I think is valid af.

Misc REALLY PERSONAL complaint that isn’t that important:

Most of the adamant defenders I see mention the improved like life like quality of the companions, but I would like to point out that, you can romance them right up to “do you commit” and then when you don’t it’s never mentioned again, they move on to whoever is matched with them. If you’re in the middle of romancing one and then commit to another it also just completely disappears. Doesn’t seem very life like to me - they had dialogue about it since origins. Even in inquisition at least if you decided last minute not to go with Dorian at least he wouldn’t ask you for gift advice for bull??? Again I know this is petty, but like I don’t want to help Lucanis woo neve just cus Emmerich wooed me. WHICH I COULD AVOID IF I COULD CHOOSE. IN A DRAGON AGE GAME?

Ofc I still will be finishing the game and reading the fanfics but that because I’m obsessed with the series it self. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not a diehard fan, I’d just steer them toward inq, and then just watch the what happened after on YouTube.

[mumms-the-word]

Bound by Blood - Ch. 1

Ch. 1 - Ostagar

Characters: Alistair, fem!Surana, Zevran, fem!Tabris, and basically the rest of the DAO crew Plot: Seventeen-year-old Nyssa Surana never expected to find herself a Grey Warden - let alone one of three surviving Wardens, one of which is her own cousin, Velle Tabris. She's the last person anyone would ever choose to save the world. Young, inexperienced, deeply anxious, and only just out of the Circle Tower for the first time in a decade, she's convinced she's as unlikely a hero as unlikely heroes come. But someone has to save Ferelden from the Fifth Blight...and keep her cousin out of trouble...and try not to fall in love with the charming Alistair Theirin, all at the same time. Three impossible tasks, but she's determined to succeed, even with the odds stacked against her. A/N: I figure that Duncan can't be in two places at once, so while he is off recruiting Velle, whose recruitment experience follows the game's canon, Nyssa has a different experience.

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Nyssa Surana was one of the youngest women in all of Ostagar, and no one would let her forget it.

It didn’t matter that she would be eighteen in two months. It didn’t matter that she had completed her Harrowing only one month ago, a test that was as much a rite of passage into adulthood as it was into being a full mage. It didn’t matter that some of the knights in the king’s army had squires as young as fourteen and that the camp quartermasters had elven messengers barely out of their teens running messages to and fro. No, because she was young, and a girl, and an elf, and a mage, it made her somehow different than everyone else, though she couldn’t fathom how or why.

If you asked the mages she had traveled with to get there, or if you asked the soldiers who stared at her as she walked through the camp, she was far too young to be in a place like Ostagar. She was only seventeen, after all, and an army camp was no place for children.

But she wasn’t a child. Though some days she felt about as naive and foolish as one, the robes she wore were proof that she had passed her Harrowing and was a full mage now. Perhaps not an enchanter like the other mages of the Circle that were there to assist the army, but not an apprentice either.

Still. Some days it didn’t seem to matter. She was young and every day she spent at Ostagar was a visceral reminder of that fact. Stares, whispers, and snide remarks all seemed intended to make her question why she had ever agreed to come here, rather than stay warm and safe in Kinloch Hold in the middle of Lake Calenhad. The enchanters tolerated her presence, but the soldiers and warriors in the army? She could feel their eyes burning into her back. She could hear their whispers following her as she walked from the purple tents of the Circle mages to the makeshift clinic run by the Chantry.

They let a girl like that walk around camp alone? Looking like that?

Shut up, mate, she isn’t some knife-ear messenger. She’s a mage, she is. Can’t you tell? Robes and staff?

You can’t be serious. She’s too young. They don’t let mages that young out of the tower.

Look, if you want to risk her setting your bedroll on fire, be my guest. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot tent pole, no matter how she looks. But if you want to play dangerous games…

For a pretty thing like that? I just might, once this battle is over.

She shouldn’t have come here. But she was here now. And despite how the stares and whispers made her nervous, it was easy to ignore them when she reminded herself that the alternative would be to stay trapped in that tower forever.

In Kinloch Hold, she was just another mage studying magic. And sure, it was safe, secure, and familiar. But here, she felt as though she could breathe, as though she were a little more alive than when she was shut up in the tower.

Here, she could see the sky and the mountains, which loomed so large and so close that she felt a little dizzy every time she looked up at them. She could touch the bark of strong, healthy trees with her hands, marveling at how they found the strength to grow up from the flagstones that paved most of the ground around the ruins. She could walk freely among the crumbling walls and broken arches of Ostagar, studying the remnants of architecture that must have been breathtaking, in its heyday. She could breathe in the fresh air, though here it was tinged with woodsmoke and the smell of dozens of mabari hounds at all hours.

It usually didn’t bother her much. She couldn’t get that heady mix of beauty and decay or that combination of fresh mountain air and pungent musk in the tower, after all. She ought to appreciate it all while she could.

Ostagar had stolen her breath away when they had first approached it. Though ruined by time and weather, the shells of the fortress halls, arches, and towers nevertheless soared high overhead despite the ages of neglect, casting long shadows with ease, their stones weathered and rugged. Kinloch Hold was tall too, but it was only one building. Here, the towering walls and columns seemed to go on for miles, but with everything open to the sky, it never felt like a prison.

In some places, she could all too easily envision what it must have looked like before, when people still roamed and lived in the fortress. In one corner, an old cathedral or temple stood empty, its roof almost completely gone, but if she stood among the columns there, following them upward as they stretched three or four stories high, she could picture them bearing aloft a vaulted ceiling, perhaps one that was painted with frescos or patterned over with beautiful mosaics. Elsewhere she could see evidence of former gardens and walking paths, places where bits of natural beauty must have poked through in courtyards and around fountains, spaces that had now given way to the trees that sought to take over the area.

It must have been beautiful before it fell to ruin. It was beautiful now, in a tragic way, even with all the modern scaffolding and army tents that cluttered the spaces between. What she wouldn’t give to linger and study the architecture, to try and discern some kind of secret or two from the worn stone arches and crumbling walls.

But that wasn’t why she was here. Nor was she here to amuse soldiers or be stared at like a caged animal. She was here at the behest of First Enchanter Irving, who had sent her with the other Circle mages to assist them as they prepared to fight alongside the armies of King Cailan. Her job was simple. Work alongside the Tranquil to gather items the enchanters and senior enchanters needed and then provide support spells to protect the soldiers and scouts of the king’s army before they headed out into the Korcari Wilds to scout the area or, eventually, into battle.

She was not, under any circumstances, allowed to enter any battles. Irving was very clear about that. She was to assist the enchanters and the army and to stay out of trouble. That was all. Those were the terms with which she had been allowed to leave Kinloch Hold, despite having only completed her Harrowing days before their departure to Ostagar.

She had promised Irving she would obey him to the letter. But she had already broken that promise several times over in small ways.

For one thing, technically she wasn’t supposed to be helping with the Chantry clinic. Though the Chantry wasn’t armed with healing spells, they had plenty of potions, poultices, and bandages for conventional healing. They didn’t need her, and generally speaking, they didn’t much trust her. But Senior Enchanter Wynne had suggested she might be of more use there, attempting to soothe the pains of the dying with her spells. Nyssa wasn’t sure whether her suggestion was meant to keep her farther away from the soldiers or away from the mages preparing complex rituals for the upcoming battle, but in the end it didn’t matter. It gave her the excuse to walk the camp and be of use to someone other than the enchanters.

She just wished she was better at healing. On her first day at Ostagar, she realized just how ill-suited and ill-prepared she was to be an army healer when she saw the first man come in with wounds deep enough that she could see the soft, wet flesh of his organs. She had nearly fainted when they laid him on the cot beside her. Her hands had trembled terribly as she handed the Chantry sister the poultices and bandages they had used. In the end, the poor man died before they even finished trying to stitch his wound closed.

She had gone off shortly after to be sick in the bushes and returned, teary-eyed but determined to ignore the pitying or judgmental looks of the Chantry sisters. After that, each bloody wound still made her feel ill and woozy, but she pushed through it. She wanted to be helpful. She didn’t want to be sent back to the mages, and then from there sent back to the tower. She had to be useful.

She asked Wynne to teach her a healing spell or two and went right back to work in the clinic.

But for some soldiers, it didn’t matter. Not even her healing magic could offer relief to those who came back from the Korcari Wilds sporting wounds tainted by blackened darkspawn blood. Try as she might, the best she could offer them were cool drinks of water and something to dull the pain. The Chantry sisters at the clinic could offer no more than she.

“Wynne,” she asked at one point, after a long day of working at the clinic. “Are there really no spells to help with tainted blood? Nothing at all?”

“I’m afraid not,” Wynne said gently. “Nothing short of becoming a Grey Warden, that is. Only they know of ways to counteract the effects of being tainted by darkspawn blood.”

“But all of them are staying outside of the ruins,” Nyssa said, her heart sinking. “I’m not allowed to leave.”

“And I doubt any of them would answer you even if you asked.”

Nyssa frowned. “There has to be some way…”

She had felt Wynne’s gaze on her as she thought through ways of possibly sending a message to one of the Wardens, to arrange a meeting of some kind. Eventually, Wynne made a thoughtful noise.

“Perhaps you might try asking Ser Duncan, once he returns from his visit to Denerim.”

“Ser Duncan?”

She remembered briefly meeting Duncan, the leader of the Ferelden Grey Wardens, at Kinloch Hold the day after her Harrowing. She had walked into Irving’s office to find Irving, Knight-Commander Greagoir, and Duncan discussing the need for mages in the army because at that time the king had none. That was when she had first heard the word Blight to describe the threat brewing to the south.

The power you mages wield is an asset to any army, he’d said, speaking partly to her and partly to Irving. Your spells are very effective against large groups of mindless darkspawn. I fear if we don’t drive them back, we may see another Blight.

He’d said mages were necessary. Not helpful, not convenient, but necessary. Vital. It was a far cry from what she usually heard about magic.

After years of listening to mages and Chantry sisters and Templars debate about the usefulness of magic as well as all of its many, many dangers and whether it was a gift from the Maker or not, to hear that magic could be so important…it had drawn Nyssa in. When Irving mentioned that they were considering sending a few mages to answer the king’s call for allies, Nyssa had asked to join. It was a rare show of impulsivity for her—she normally kept her head down. Even now she didn’t know what possessed her to ask, but she was glad she did. Irving hemmed and hawed and said he would consider it, but in the end, Duncan had agreed with her.

“If this is the girl you’ve told me about,” he’d said, “then it seems a good idea to let her go. She has earned that right, I think.”

Nyssa still wasn’t sure what he meant by those words. And when she met him again in the library, slowly perusing the books on the shelves, she was too much a coward to ask directly. So she asked to learn about the Grey Wardens instead.

“I once heard that the Wardens accepted elves among their ranks,” she’d said. “Even to the point that the last Warden to slay an Archdemon was an elf.”

“You refer to Garahel,” Duncan said, nodding. “It’s true. The darkspawn threaten everyone. They do not distinguish between the races, and neither should we.”

She had been a little surprised to hear such thoughts from him. “Not everyone agrees with that,” she said softly.

“No, unfortunately not.” He paused, studying her for a moment. “Has being an elf in the Circle been difficult for you?”

She shrugged and looked away, rubbing her arm absently. “A little…”

It could be worse. Given what she knew from letters from her parents and from her Uncle Cyrion, elves seemed to have it worse out in the cities, where they were crowded in alienages and forced to work long days for only a handful of coins. Though they didn’t live in an alienage like her uncle and her cousins, her parents were servants of the Howes in Amaranthine, a destiny that she would have shared, had she not unexpectedly developed magic at seven years old. She thought about it often, what kind of life she might have led if she had never had magic. It was hard to imagine.

At least in the tower, she could pretend she was someone’s equal because she had equal or better magical talent than them. In the tower, she had a bed to herself, even if she’d had to share a room with twenty other female apprentices, and her meals came ready-made, if a little bland, in the tower dining hall. She never had to worry about not having a bed or a hot meal, though privacy was never guaranteed and she often wished she could hide away somewhere just to give herself room to think or breathe. So, she supposed, she ought not to complain if someone occasionally called her a knife-ear or insinuated that she was using cheap tricks to get ahead. It was simply…how things were.

But Duncan’s voice had been soft, almost gentle when he responded. “It is hard to change perceptions. I have tried to reason with many, and failed. If one has always seen elves as less than human, it’s hard to imagine them as anything else.”

Nyssa pursed her lips slightly. It wasn’t a truth she wanted to hear, but she knew it well enough. “I know. I shouldn’t let it bother me, but…”

She stopped before she could find herself pouring out her heart to this complete stranger. She wasn’t ready to embarrass herself that much just yet. So she simply ended with another small shrug.

“Do not let it discourage you,” Duncan had said. He leaned in and she glanced up to meet his dark eyes, finding in them a sense of determination and encouragement. “Let it temper you and make you stronger. That is how you can survive in this world, no matter where you are or what you are doing.”

She hadn’t known what to say at the time. But ever since then, his words, his kindness in that library, had stayed with her.

Let it temper you and make you stronger, he’d said. She tried to. Every time she felt ill at the clinic, or heard the soldiers whispering foul things about her, or a Chantry sister looked at her with open disdain, she tried to let it temper and not discourage her.

But such things were easier said than done. And she had never been particularly strong.

She wished she could ask Duncan for advice again, but he wasn’t around. But if he was really returning, like Wynne said, then perhaps she would get her chance. Perhaps he would even know a solution for treating tainted soldiers. If anyone knew how to help the soldiers dying of darkspawn taint, it would be him.

But she had to wait for his return. So she waited as patiently as she was able and tried to be useful in the meantime. She cast support spells on scouts and soldiers before they ventured into the Wilds, hoping it would be enough to protect them if they encountered small bands of darkspawn. She ran errands for the enchanters and worked as much as possible in the clinic, even though it regularly made her feel faint or ill. In her downtime, she sometimes visited the kennel, speaking to the kennel master and watching the mabari hounds. And she tried to take Duncan’s advice to heart.

There was a noticeable shift in the air the day he returned. The eve of battle was looming ever closer and there were whispers that the king was ready to launch the attack almost as soon as the Warden Commander arrived. She could see a noticeable difference in the tempo of camp life that day. It was as though everyone was suddenly moving at twice their normal speed, eager to don arms and armor, set up fortifications, and prepare the hounds.

Duncan should be back today, was the whisper around the camp. I guess he’s brought another Warden recruit.

She was rolling bandages for the Chantry sisters when she saw him walking through the camp. A young, dusky-skinned elven woman trailed along behind him, looking sullen and quiet. Something struck her as familiar about the elf, but with a quick word to Duncan, the woman split off and disappeared into the camp, while Duncan made his way over to a bonfire to sit and rest.

This was her chance. She finished rolling the bandages, set them in a basket for the sisters, and prepared herself.

It was time to meet the Warden Commander once again.

[sheyshen]

ok mostly full veilguard thoughts both good and bad, some spoilers sprinkled in but i'll try to stay vague where i can.

I give the game a thumbs up, so like, 8 or 9 out of 10 probably (i never know how to rate on a scale since i'm generally easy to please when it comes to games). i can see playing it again but it is a longer game so it might not be something i just go "hey yeah i'm gonna just go replay that really quick for kicks"

full thoughts under the cut:

to start out with I am a big fan of the lore, I did every quest every zone and had a lot of fun with it all, good and bad. tidbits about my rook since it does affect the story here and there and my thoughts on some things: Mateo is a transman, rogue, crow, elf, romanced lucanis, mainly did purple with a bit of blue options (much like my hawke)

starting with the good stuff:

-I loved the companions and how they interacted with each other and with the lighthouse itself. it made it feel very homey like the tempest in MEA, since they would move around and talk with one another. and that they could start relationships with other characters (even ones not in your team) it made it feel a bit more dynamic like these people are here with you not for you.

-I also enjoyed how they would have things to say that were to do with quests you completed or choices you'd made (kinda wish you could get them to trigger by stepping away and coming back even if it only works when they're solo. they do shift if you save and reload at least)

-I loved that you could canonly choose to be trans and it would have special options (like relating to lucanis and taash in different ways) and it makes me wonder what other options from the mirror open up in convos.

-I also loved that there were quite a few trans and NB characters who's VAs were also trans and NB. it was a really nice touch.

-the combat was fun, I do want to check out the other classes when i start a second playthrough (lets see if i'm strong enough to romance someone different cause i don't think i am! lol) and see what's different when playing someone who's cis or a human or a warden

-a lot of the controls were really familiar and easy to adjust to (aside from jump/climb being F instead of space, who decided that? do you know how many times i hit space expecting to jump and just slid instead??) so it was pretty smooth going from playing ffxvi to dav.

-the twists in the story were well executed and man did it make me cry in a few places. wish the one didn't lock you out of an entire vendor so early in but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i'll just keep that in mind for my second playthrough, i never expect the first to go completely smooth anyhow.

-I also loved seeing some familiar faces though i wish it was a bit... well. more complex than what we got. (i'll expand on that below) but what we had? oh it was nice.

-the environment felt very vast and I loved that there was a lot to explore and find. and plenty of cats to pet.

-I loved Lucanis's romance, and while I do wish there was more, I'm pretty happy with what we had and what I can build on through art and fics (already having some ideas percolating heheheh) but I also seem to end up picking the romances that are more off screen anyhow (looking at you Reyes)

-The companion quests were also all really well done and felt unique. I liked that they weren't all just combat quests and some were more relaxing. and that you can just meet up with them while you're working on something in that area if you didn't bring that specific companion with you.

-in the end i actually didn't mind only having two companions with you. it felt off here and there because it's been such a staple to have 3 in the series, but it worked out well enough same for not being able to control your party members (mind you i'm not someone who likes playing turn based (why i'm struggling with bg3) so i can see that bothering people who play like that) the only time not being able to control your team really bugged me is when i was trying to get some action shots for drawing refs. i'll keep trying with photo mode maybe i'll get lucky XD

-btw photo mode is awesome

-the final push felt a lot like the suicide mission at the end of ME2, that's mostly a compliment. I'm a completionist so i had everything maxed out and done when i got to it so I was ready to go but i wonder how bad things can go if you didn't since there's a whole room for the fallen.

-i loved the final slides (the last one in particular made me cry) and it reminded me of the line at the end of rvb season 14 about telling stories. and honestly i loved that

-the little references to things really tickled me. kalluzeb, kotor, and dungeon meshi to name a few. I'm going to be keeping my eye out for ones i missed now that i can safely dig through the tags.

-there's a ton more things i loved but they get a bit more spoilery than I'd like to get with this post!

-oh yea! and no fall damage is for sure an amazing thing. i jumped off so much stuff before i realized it won't break your legs.

and the things i didn't like so much:

-motion sickness leaking through my seabands wasn't great. i had all the settings for it adjusted but some effects would still trigger it, not as bad as some games but it was still there.

-where i loved how the companions interacted i also didn't like the fact it relied on you returning to the lighthouse after every single mission. there was a lot of stuff i likely missed because i was so wrapped up in doing side quests or wandering around in a certain area rather than going back after each thing and poking everyone.

-I also wished that they would interact with rook more. It felt like rook was checking in on them helping with their problems and being a shoulder to lean on but never the other way around. (aside from varric)

-the pacing on the story was awkward in places, and felt like you had to go out of your way to find side missions and interact with companions rather than it be a fluid experience. it can be a complicated thing to integrate especially if there's a lot of shifting things around internally leading up to the game being finished so it's not a killer for me but can be a bit of a pain.

-not being able to import anything from the previous games (except the 3 from dai) and many of the letters you receive from the quizzy definitely feel like they just kinda wanted to wipe the slate clean and start new and I have some real mixed feelings about that. I don't mind a soft reset but i think it could've been handled better

-I do wish that the cameos we had had some. slight. variation based on previous choices. (using isabella as a main example, i wish she could've had like the red favor if hawke romanced her or didn't mention learning about family in kirkwall if she bailed in act 2) there's a few cameos i think would've made sense to have and references that wouldn't've been too hard to include (vaea was mentioned so it would've been nice to hear about fenris, and with us being in weishaupt it would've been nice to have some sign of hawke since they were there, even an anders mention from isabella. seeing cullen at the final push with the inquisitor (or whoever not dorian or solas y'all romanced). little things without needing to hire extra VAs or anything)

-could use the ability to place waypoints on the map. and the ability to dye gear. it'd just be a nice to have, i'm sure there's mods rolling out already at least

-I do wish the conversation options were a bit more varied. yea i like playing a sarcastic and kind character but I wish there was a bit more of the option to kinda be mean. i mean rook's kinda gotten stuck with a job they weren't planning on ever having let them be rude now and then, as a treat.

-while i loved the romance (as mentioned above) i did miss the ability to get a little smooch or something like in previous games (which is something i miss in other games with romances as well so it's not a nock on dav itself but still something i wished we had gotten) and that they were a little bit. more. not like explicit, but i would've liked a little kiss for good luck before the final battle kinda thing like they have in DA2

-The "virmire" situation felt... off to me, like it was done for shock value rather than a meaningful moment (similar to what happened with torian and vette) and that it was kinda out of the blue rather than something that made sense narratively.

-without spoiling anything major there were a few lore explanations I felt were a bit. unnecessary or could've been done better or expanded on better, or changes that felt a little strange to do that could've been better explained (like the crows)

that's kinda it for things that bugged me. nothing that would make me hate the game but little things that made me go >.> lol

One small hope I have is that they patch in a citadel dlc type of thing, something that has no impact on the story itself but is just kinda fun with your companions. have a little party at the lighthouse right before the final push like in ME3 >:3

There's a "secret" ending after the credits and a few things brought up throughout the game that make me curious where they'll go with the next game.

All in all i thought the game was really great and I can't wait to see my friends sharing their rooks and art and screenshots and stuff!

[magebutts]

my sincere apologies to everyone who's sick of seeing me talk about all my griefs with veilguard, but i do have more lol

did anyone else feel an extreme lack of connection between rook and the rest of the party? is that just me? like it feels like they spent a lot of time focusing on the interpersonal relationships between the companions and their individual stories, and then rook is just... there. and like i get it, the charcters are important and always have been. but it feels like rook really gets sidelined. (forewarning i also got sidetracked and talk abt a lot of loose story ends and stuff)

and maybe i just missed out on it because i played a shadow dragon who didnt save minrathous, but even their background doesnt feel super important. like i get rook is a hero by happenstance but like.... idk.

yeah idk for an rpg, especially a bioware rpg, i expect more. like da2 might have been super restricted bc there was no origin choice, but at least you were connected to the story. the warden was integral to the story. the inquisitor had the mark and was integral to the story.

and rook was just like... a silly goofy lil guy who cracks jokes no matter which dialogue option you choose and as much as i enjoy the heroes who are like "someone has to do the job so i guess it might as well be me if no one else is gonna do it", it felt incredibly mishandled.

and again, idk, maybe i missed out on a lot bc i did play a shadow dragon who saved treviso and romanced the slowburn guy who had virtually no romancr content which is a whole problem on its own, but... whatever lmao 🙃

oh and as i just saw a post about it on twitter, its WILD that they brought back morrigan AND ALSO ISABELA ???? and you get NO say in their history, when it is very easy to have both of them permanently leave ur party in their respective games. like im sorry, isabela learned the meaning of found family in kirkwall? every game i have ever played, i have never succeeded in getting her to stay even when i was trying to. they couldnt even be bothered to say hawkes name once in veilguard but isabela is gonna wistfully namelessly reference them??? and the fact that a character who could have been trapped in the fade and is never mentioned once in a game that is all about people being trapped in the fade

and do NOT get me started on morrigan and flemeth. we are NOT going to pretend flemeth wasnt a horrible woman who had daughters for the sole sake of creating a posessable vessel. or the fact that in a lot of worldstates, morrigan has a son who we were previously told contained the soul of an old god of tevinter... only to find out that that isnt true, so that boy was also possessed by a fragment of the spirit of an elven god, which flemeth and then solas potentially also stole if kieran existed.

and also never acknowledge the fact that there are still in fact 5 blighted elven gods trapped in the fade, granted they would hypothetically be mortal with their dragons dead but like... theyre still out there.

and dont get me started on the state of the south, i will literally never be able to care about anything else knowing what happened there. and like, idk what bioware expected. we spent three whole games in ferelden + the free marches. and i will argue, that as interesting as the rest of the world is, ferelden + the free marches are the home of dragon age. and that very well might just be me, but i feel like having games set anywhere else created a rift very similar to the rift between andromeda and the main mass effect series

ESPECIALLY with the "secret ending" cutscene (spoilers for that now if you havent seen it)

hinting at the series going even bigger + beyond the fade, its giving pathfinder/dnd outer realms, and im sorry, but if dragon age leaves the medieval fantasy theme to go for eldritch/alien beings, im gone. my interest in the series is dead. implying that everything that has happened has been the design of some greater beings and all of your heroes and their actions were actually someone else's doing all along... its an insult to player agency, and you can NOT continue doing that as much as EA has done in an rpg series. the dissolution of the keep and previous player choices and characters appearing in zero capacity was already a lot, but i could accept it if the scope of the story was beyond our choices. but with solas's dagger being the one hawke found in the deep roads, with darkspawn ravaging ferelden again and there being no mention of alistair or the grey warden who could very much still be alive and in the order, let alone be ruling the fucking kingdom, its fucking insane actually. its insane that the only choice that apparently has any meaning was how you inquisitor felt about solas, and beyond that, if you romanced him. even disbanding the inquisition doesnt seem important anymore, bc there is zero mention of solas and his agents that he had in trespasser.

like yes, sorry, i am mad actualy that no one else and nothing else mattered. the inquisitor and dorian stood side by side and you dont even get to determine their relationship if they arent together. like the man who invented telephones and face time for his best friend can only say "bet u cant wait to go home and see a certain somebody, WINK", not even considering the fact they might not have been friends.

how funny and easy it would have been for varric (ignoring the fact that hes a ghost) to make one singular joke about hawke dating an abomination and rook doing the same. for isabela to mention fenris or merrill, or a romanced hawke. for merrill to never be mentioned again despite being so dedicated to researching and restoring her eluvian. for fenris to never be mentioned despite his ties to seheron and tevinter. for the warden to never be mentioned despite ending one blight just to have two more ravage their country in their lifetime. for the crows to be a main faction and zevran gets two vague unnamed mentions in companion ambiant dialogue. for starkhaven and fucking sebastian vael, a character many people didnt see bc he was a dlc add-on, let alone a highly disliked character who a lot of people with his dlc never even recruited. no mention of hawke or their warden sibling, who were said to have disappeared after venturing to weisshaupt when all the wardens were recalled and the keep went silent. and i am going to harp on this, the cure for the fucking blight. because it is possible, and now with veilguard, we have seen it TWICE in canon.

it really just drives home that actually, the scope hadnt gone past the former heroes, they just cared more about telling their own story than collaborating with the players who make the games possible.

anyways bioware im in your fucking walls, ea i know where you fucking live and i do actually expect better from a triple a studio who was fucking stupid enough to acquire a studio who was revolutionary and famous for their storytelling only to not fucking support that

[midnightswaltz]

So, I finished Veilguard & have some thoughts.

On the whole - I enjoyed it. I can understand the problems some people have, but I liked it. I liked the combat, I liked the companions. Even the stuff I saw coming I thought was fine & the stuff I didn't, surprised me.

That said, major spoilers ahead:

I played an elven woman, mage, veil jumper.

Every guide I ran across that discussed how to get the best ending, says that you HAVE to save Minrathos instead of Treviso. As I had already chosen Treviso at that point (& honestly, the city with only the assassin's guild as protection probably needed my help more, even if you didn't split the team evenly sending half to Minrathos & half to Treviso - which you do.)

Anyway, THIS IS WRONG. I was still able to save everyone who could be saved even after saving Treviso. Even got the trophy.

Also, while you can't rank up the city, a stall in the spirit market in the Crossroads will sell you stuff from the Spirit Dragons & you can sell stuff to up the Shadow Dragon's Strength, which is separate from it's Rank.

I cried when we found Hector & Lorelei's bodies.

(Actually, I cried more than a few times in this game)

(I'm not discussing Varric. I can't hate it, but I'm still not over the rug pull, even when I realized it was coming, I'd hoped not)

I do not like the uneven consequences for choosing which city. If you can't continue a romance with Lucanis after choosing Minrathos, you shouldn't be able to continue a romance with Neve after choosing Treviso.

Whoever you choose to lead the distraction team in the endgame will die, you cannot change that - but none of the guides I've run across have mentioned that if Davrin dies ASSAN DIES ALSO.

Not fly off to mourn for the rest of the game - DIES WITH DAVRIN

(I wonder if this is effected by whether or not the griffins stay with the Wardens or are sent to Arlathan - I had them set free in Arlathan.)

The hardest choice in the game when I replay it, is going to be having to choose between Assan & Harding.

I loved Davrin, he is awesome, but Harding is Harding.

But Assan is basically a PUPPY

This game should go up as a warning on that "Does the dog die?" website

The Lucian romance was sweet, but a major dearth of kissing.

It's literally like they totally forgot to put them in.

There's two in the spending the night scene at the end of the game

but that's it

There's like 4 romance scenes other than that & each one should have ended with a kiss - it was right there, but it didn't.

The desert scene would have been absolutely perfect if Rook & Lucanis kiss & Neve walks in, sees & says "oops, don't mind me. please continue"

I also missed being able to have just little romance moments with your L.I.

The dialogue was hit & miss, but no better or worse that any other DA game. It got really awkward at times, then there were times where I'd comment & Rook said the same thing I just did.

(Maybe that says more about me though...)

I LOVE ERIKA'S VOICE AS ROOK

Admittedly, I'm biased, I love Erika Ishii just in general

They definitely should have given more than 3 questions to input our previous choices.

At one point you can talk to Harding & she will talk about the Inquisitor's Inner Circle. She specifically talks about Sera & Cole - two characters you don't have to ever recruit.

She also speaks about Charter being the Inquisition's spymaster - if Cassandra or Viv are chosen as Divine, Leliana remains spymaster. I'd at least have liked some acknowledgement of why Leliana retired.

Not to mention: Morrigan, the Well & Kieran. What they had was kinda okay, but it wouldn't have taken more than a line or two to explain Morrigan's situation in game.

There was a love letter from my inquisitor's love interest to the inquisitor in the miscellaneous section of the library.

It was really sweet

I really, really liked the various ways you could react to all the info about the gods as an elf yourself.

It was kinda nice how people didn't seem to keep forgetting that my Rook is an elf.

I actually enjoyed having everyone sitting around the table discussing certain revelations.

I sat up straight during one particularly subtle revelation - which I had not seen coming & fully expected none of the characters to notice - but Davrin noticed it.

Give Isabella pants, goddammit.

Or at least some indication she's not walking around in all that sand and salt water with just a massive peace of jewelry protecting her bits.

I was finally happy with how my Inquisitor looked in the character creator.

Ravi Lavellan in DAI does not look anything like Ravi Lavellan in my head. But Ravi in DATV looks much closer

I did a little dance when Dorian showed up

I did a little dance when Dorian teased my Inquisitor about having someone waiting for them back home

And given her reaction I'm choosing to believe that they survived

This is also something I really liked. One of my biggest irritations in Inquisition was that something MAJOR was going down with the Wardens & my warden apparently just kinda fucked off to find a cure?

But there's a very, very good reason why the Inquisitor is not more involved - the south is fucking falling to the Blight.

(And still they show up like 3 times)

I was a little surprised (& disappointed) that the endgame came so soon, until I realized how fucking long it is.

These are not all the thoughts, just the ones I can remember right now.

[thedragonagelesbian]

13, 24, & 30 for rook? 👀🥺 (for rook!cyrus or one of your other rooks...or all of them 🫶)

Rook Questions! yay ily these are such good ones tyty <33

13. Did Rook bring any trinkets/sentimental items to The Lighthouse?

Cyrus: Cyrus still has the sword and shield he had with him when he was left in the Fade-- Glandivalis, Shartan's sword (mentioned in Veilguard as one of the Dock Town neighborhoods!!! I gasped when I saw it & the codex entry explaining it), and Dirthamen's Wisdom, which Yiseeril gifted to him during Inquisition. They're too precious to him now to use in every day combat.

Theneneria: Theneneria has an ironbark amulet in the shape of a halla that her mother, Dahlian Lavellan, crafted for her. The last time they saw each other was after Theneneria had joined the Wardens and Dahlian visited her to give her the amulet as a parting gift. The reunion itself was very stiff and labored. What had once been a very close mother-daughter relationship had vanished as they now treated each other much as they treated the rest of the world: with coldness. But Theneneria carries the amulet with her constantly anyway, and being apart from it causes her a lot of distress. She knows she still loves her mother. She knows that her mother probably still loves her too. It just feels too big and too late to try to fix that relationship now (or, it did, until they were both suddenly saddled with saving the world...)

Raas: Sentimental stuff gets stolen; whether as an initiate or a full-fledged Crow, everyone is looking for that weakness that they might need to use to get ahead of you, so Raas is very, very sparse in their trinkets: a frayed piece of rope from their tamassran, an Orlesian mask from one of their first contracted jobs, and a worn gold coin, the last from a sizable coin purse given to them by a certain vengeful elven crow who killed their original abusive magic instructor in House Arainai.

24. Does Rook have any nightly rituals before bed?

(Theneneria & Raas aren't fleshed out enough yet to this one is just Cyrus...)

Cyrus: He unwinds with a nightcap of fortified Dalish wine which he drinks while listening to whoever he can find talk about whatever they want. That used to be Varric, but now he needs to find someone else to fill the Big Yapper void in his life to help him relax. Then it's bath + application of a topical pain reliever for his joints, shoulders, and back + finally his evening prayers to the Creators.

I think for Cyrus the question of whether the Evanuris reveal & their immense, literal, painful impact on the world, both present and past, has any bearing on his faith is... irrelevant? His faith is for him, cultivated in order to survive everything that this world has thrown at him and grounding him in his heritage and his people such that he simply won't entertain giving it up. He prays to Sylaise & Mythal most, for healing & peace & protection, but even Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain still make it into his prayers, in a very 'Ember praying for Nocticula' way. He has no reason to hope that they might be anything other than the tyrants they've proven themselves to be time and time again, so it's as much a threat as it is a supplication: humble yourselves, or I will smite you down.

30. What is Rook’s class? Did they choose it?

Cyrus: Still warrior-ing! In another system, he might've switched classes over the course of the games, like how [a version of] bg3!Cyrus went from paladin to ranger, but for Dragon Age, he's sword & board til the day he dies (and, given his track record, potentially several days after that). So far (~level 40) he has heavy investments in Survival, Grey Warden, and Mourn Watch, and his specialization is Reaper! It feels like a very appropriate evolution from his Reaver specc in DA2, no longer quite as agonizingly self-sacrificial and drawing more on the play of the Veil and the boundary between life and death, which he got plenty of experience with in his years in the Fade.

Theneneria: Two-handed warrior. Women should get to smash things with hammers, and I've been wanting to do a kind of Loony Toons spinning top with a massive weapon kind of fighting vibe for soooo long.

In Clan Lavellan, Theneneria was being trained as protector moreso than a hunter, but that was as a sword-and-shield warrior. It wasn't until she came to Skyhold and saw Iron Bull training with Krem that she decided no, she needs to be wielding the biggest thing possible on the battlefield.

Her spec is gonna be Slayer, pure DPS baby we're here to Fuck Shit Up

Raas: Dagger-and-orb mage. Idk why I'm so deadset on playing melee in Veilguard but here we are. I don't know if it's something they so much chose for themself as much as it was expected of them, since the Spellblade tradition originates with the Antivan Crows. Which kind of sums up their character lmao they have no idea what their life could look like or what they might want for themself, let alone what their magic could look like if they were able to use it for something other than lying and hurting.

(Which is why I'm soooooooooooooooooooooo looking forward to them & Emmrich... in my heart I think with enough time & recovery & growth [and lots of tutoring sessions with Emmrich] their spell blading ends up closer to southern knight enchanting, complete with a relationship to a spirit & healing abilities)

[somewhereelse-inphinity]

I ddon't know how long I've been like this. This... she'll of what I once was.

Humanity is so funny when you think about it, you take it for granted, get greedy, and when it's gone you yearn nothing more than to return to it.

Although I am... powerful, I traded my humanity... and all for what? Some power to save those who I loved even though the strings of fate had entangled and tied already? It's so strange... isn't it...?

I regret leaving behind humanity, leaving behind an afterlife, an ending, to choose eternity as warden of something so vast and spiraling that I should have known would be too much to take on alone... to become a simple concept thar would give people nightmares...

I can't even... remember what my name was before this. All I can remember was the name of the one I wanted to protect... and yet, I couldn't protect him from a similar fate that befell myself...

How long have I been alive at this point...? How long have I been this... entity of nothing but concepts? I yearn for a death unobtainable for my domain is so important, it courses through humanity itself...

I miss being myself.

And I miss him.

...

Spiders crawl around the inside of every being, entangling the webs of fate and timelines through everything, even the most simple blade of grass.

Don't take the deal from the ferryman.

"Statement Ends.."

"Hm."

"Thank you for your time.. uh.. I will get back to you if i find- some way to help you? Apologies.."

[jadewing-realms]

DAO brainworm can't leave me alone at work, so have some Salem/Warden headcanons:

- before he was taken away to the Circle as a child of 9, he lived in the Denerim alienage with his parents Neela and Arisfan. His first sign that he was not a normal child was at age 5, when his hair, previously black, turned silver at the roots and continued to grow that way. He also attracted static electricity to an unusual degree, constantly shocking himself and others.

- his parents tried teaching him to hide his strangeness, but when that didn't work, he was confined to his home. He didn't attend school.

- the event that led to him finally being taken to the Tower was when he had a great argument with his parents and then ran away from home. He was found by a merchant and nearly taken to be sold as a servant, but managed to summon an electric shock that left the man severely burned. He was apprehended by the Chantry that night.

- his parents never knew what happened to him, didn't know if he was alive or dead until he made himself known as the Grey Warden, hero of Ferelden, in Denerim once the Blight was defeated.

- He’s not actually super invested in saving the world, as a concept. Helping people be safe? Sure. Making sure the world doesn't end before he can experience life outside the Tower? Absolutely. Believing in the "greater good" or "being a hero"? Nah. Heroes are an idealized concept people invent in their minds to feel better about the darker side of reality.

- he's a bit of a madman when it comes to battle and bloodshed. The moment a situation is beyond reason and the blades come out, he’s known to grin, all teeth, as if delighted at the turn of events. Most find it disconcerting. Zevran thinks it’s sexy.

- he is constantly asking questions, to the point of incessance. He is deeply curious and analytical by nature, and seeks to grasp how things work, from gadgets to spells to even perspectives he disagrees with.

- it was in the Tower that he learned, through a series of crushes, that he was not only pansexual but also polyamorous. Everyone was just too pretty and interesting to imagine choosing just one. He never had any serious attachments until Zevran and Leliana, though.

- life, to Salem, is to be lived by whims. Not inconsistency, mind you. But life is too long and potential too vast to waste time doubting one's choices at every turn. Live to learn and learn to live.

- having Bodahn and Sandal in camp is not good for his purse. He doesn't make a lot of pointless purchases, but he’s not patient when it comes to getting things he wants or needs. The most frivolous things he buys are knickknacks and baubles for his personal collection (or for his crow friends) or random gifts/pranks for his companions.

- he chose to betray Jowan and inform Irving of the plot not out of loyalty to the Circle but trust of Irving's judgment. He also never thought blood magic was evil, only stupid to try it right under the Templars' noses.

- he is very bad at not burning himself out of mana. He has a flair for the dramatic and tends to prefer spells that hit hardest and cause his enemies to tremble in fear, at the expense of his own stamina. Its part of why he gets into blood magic himself - it's nice to be able to feed off the energy of his opponents rather than his alone.

- people criticize his confidence as if it were arrogance. Perhaps it is. But he doesn’t see the point of being unsure. If he's right, why should he second guess? And if he’s wrong, it's a learning opportunity. Simple as that.

- looting is a lifestyle. Never let anything go to waste. If it can't be used, it can be sold. Or thrown at someone when they're being annoying.

- off the battlefield, Salem is known as highly intelligent, extremely reasonable, and morally flippant. He has no better nature to appeal to, but if your argument is sound, he has no reason to fault you. Won't stop him from killing you if he has to, but it won't be personal.

okay, I'm draining my phone battery quickly at this point, I should stop for now

[heniareth]

Hihihi can you please do 10 and 12 from the romanticism asks for Astala and Ilanlas? :D have a good one!

Hihihihihi to you!!! I apologize for the wait, 'tis the season. But!! Let's talk about moody poetry and theme songs for Astala and Ilanlas!! (I hope you're doing well and I hope you're having fun and resting these days. And, if not, that you'll get to do so very soon). Let's go!! (Under the cut, because it's a bit long; I couldn't choose just a few verses from that one poem)

10. What piece of moody poetry or novel quote best encompasses your character?

Astala

For Astala, we have this poem here:

Don't tell me that you understand,

Don't tell me that you know.

Don't tell me that I will survive,

How I will surely grow.

Don't tell me this is just a test,

That I am truly blessed,

That I am chosen for this task

Apart from all the rest.

Don't come at me with answers

That can only come from me,

Don't tell me how my grief will pass...

That I shall soon be free.

Don't stand in pious judgement

Of the bonds I must untie.

Don't tell me how to suffer,

And don't tell me how to cry.

My life is filled with selfishness,

My pain is all I see,

But I need you, and I need your love...

Unconditionally.

Accept me in my ups and downs,

I need someone to share,

Just hold my hand and let me cry,

And say, "My friend, I care."

It's listed as a poem by J. Hendel on TheSilverPen.com. Basically, I relate it to the part of Astala that rebels against her lot in life, is angry that she didn't get to marry and stay home and instead has to go out and save the world by herself. This feeling, I think, is prominent in the first days traveling with Duncan. Later it gets sort of shoved aside by the urgency of saving Ferelden from the Blight, until the Deep Roads. There she gets to see exactly what awaits her and every other Grey Warden at the end of their life, and the feeling resurfaces, tinged and nurtured by a deep-seated horror about what she's seen in the Deep Roads.

Ilanlas

For Ilanlas, I have found this quote:

"Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight, For the greatest tragedy of them all, Is never to feel the burning light."

It's attributed to Oscar Wilde, and it just... It fits. The fire imagery. The idea of flight. I relate them very much to Ilanlas, who, at his best, is someone who would love a good dive down the cliff and unfurling his wings at the last possible moment to not smash into the ground below. For Ilanlas, risk and the thrill of doing something dangerous is part of life. He is a liiiiiiiiittle bit of an adrenaline junkie and doesn't like to be made to sit still while everybody discusses their new course of action. He prefers to just do it. And, for a chance to be the person closest to the sun, he'd take the fall.

12. What is their character theme song and why? If it has lyrics, which line best fits them?

For Astala, I'm giving you this song:

It's an instrumental piece, and it just reminds me very much of her time as a dockhand in the Denerim harbor. It's nice and calm, like it's a very slow morning at work and she's found a moment to just sit in the sun, close her eyes and listen to what's going on around her. There probably was some sort of merrymaking in the Alienage the night before and she's tired from that, but happy. It's warm, she's had some food and life isn't so bad.

For Ilanlas I have Hymn for the Missing by Red. It's a terribly sad song. He's got others, of course, some angry, some just about everyday life, but this one really hammers home just how much Tamlen meant to him and how heavy that loss weighs on him. He's determined to search for him and find out what's happened, but he's not going to like the answer. That art of his story is a tragedy from the get-go, and the song just puts me right in that mood. Ilanlas really feels incomplete without Tamlen. It's not like they were always together, but Tamlen was someone constant in his life the way very few people have been; always had his back, always came back around whenever they fought, always managed to cheer him up. Things were easier with Tamlen around; now he's just... gone.

And on this sad note I'll leave you. I'm looking forward to getting to the part where Ilanlas finds Tamlen again. It's gonna be an angst fest >:)

Thank you so much for the ask!!! This was very fun to write XD XD XD XD I hope you have a very lovely day, stay warm and have fun ^^

[icy-warden]

Helloooooo ^^ For the OC Codex prompts, may I please request:

14. your OC talking about your favorite quest and

3. a report written by your OC’s teacher or mentor for Vergil

And

2. a letter written by your OC’s family member and

16. a conversation between your OC and their best friend for Saskia?

Pick and choose the ones you like best if you want. Have a lovely day ^^

Hello!! I'm answering a month later and with only one ask for Vergil (I promise to do the ones for Saskia as well later) 🍹😘

3. a report written by your OC’s teacher or mentor for Vergil

Answered here 💎💙

14. your OC talking about your favorite quest

After his prolonged stay in Orzammar, Zevran finds being underground highly unpleasant. At first the warmth was a nice change, compared to Ferelden’s weather. He’s used to high temperatures but this dry, scorching heat is too much even for him. Hopefully, soon he won’t have to think about what it does to his skin and the size difference in furniture he’s got to battle every day he’s stayed behind. 

Though seeing Sten standing among dwarves is a very amusing sight.

If Zevran had to choose one thing that he likes about Orzammar, beside those fascinating and public lava pits, it’s the baths. Dwarves know how to build their bath houses and Zevran is a fan.

He had a lot of time to make himself familiar with the palace’s floor plan, noble and not-so-noble districts, subtly gathering information and gossip just in case. It was one of many activities to pass the time and keep himself sane when staying within the confines of the rock walls. 

Waiting. 

Thinking. 

In the end he’s glad he stayed where he was, as one particular grim night (day?) hit him so hard, he was sneaking his way through many shadows towards the main entrance. 

So close to the open world. To freedom. 

He didn’t plan how he’d pass the heavily guarded door but the urge to just go was stronger. Then that little insistent thought about the Warden appeared. About the protection he’s under. About access to supplies. About opportunities being close to the Warden gives him. 

It sobered him up and he faltered again. 

Next day Morrigan’s knowing gaze and lips twisted in a smirk haunted him. He grinned and tried to provoke her into an argument of wits many times but she deflected every time. Still, that little glint in her eye persisted and he knows she’ll hold that over him, keeping it for herself until Vergil’s back. Or maybe a bit longer, just to see him squirm. No amount of cursing at his sloppiness and restlessness would turn back the time and if he’s in her shoes, he’d keep on the blackmail material too.

But, Vergil’s back from his month-long trip into the Deep Roads and Zevran made sure to be of use as soon as Vergil has a need for him. 

Right now he’s busy brushing the wet cloth over the skin of Vergil’s back, helping him relax after weeks in dusty tunnels. He avoids putting too much pressure on the bruises littering his body. The sight makes his brows furrow but it makes him curious as well.

Vergil doesn’t speak much and Zevran tries not to ask as much as well. But he’s nosy, so he talks about unimportant things he saw and heard, gently prodding about Warden’s venture. He saves any sensitive information for later, as Orzammar’s walls have eyes and ears everywhere. 

“It’s better that you stayed here.”

Zevran hums, trading the cloth for a small bucket that he tilts over Vergil’s back, pouring the water to rinse the soap suds. They both are sitting on small stools in one of the palace's private baths, cleaning their bodies before they soak in the pool.

And this is where he admits that dwarven baths are a marvel, maybe even better than those in Antiva. After all they’re sitting on a literal lava.

“No need for an assassin in the deep?” He stresses the word and Vergil’s shoulders shake a little, “Shame.”

“Darkspawn, golems, spiders and those damned, creepy tunnels. You really didn't miss much.”

“Well if you put it that way… It’s a regular Tuesday here in Ferelden, no?” Zevran smiles and lightly touches the side of Vergil’s head, signaling he needs him to lean back. He wets his hair when he does so, meticulously going over the long strands. “Nothing new.”

He almost misses the light flinch and for a moment he’s worried it’s him. He stills but Vergil doesn’t move away, so wordlessly he resumes what he’s doing with the hair when Vergil casually pushes back into his hands. 

“There was something.” Vergil says quietly. “Something so vile I don’t wish that fate on my worst enemy.”

Zevran waits for him to elaborate, fingers massaging Vergil’s scalp but he doesn't speak about it until much later, when Orzammar is but a memory for Zevran.

[OC Codex Prompts]

[vigilskeep]

okay. but how's your irving's pet student surana who avoided anders because he's a rebel ended up as a blood mage who confronts wynne in such short time.

that’s the fun of the arc she goes through during dao! :D

the first thing you need to understand is that minerva doesn’t start out as a brainwashed chantry loyalist. she’s irving’s creature in that she’s a survivalist. whatever mixed feelings she has on the circles (and she’s had people she cares about made tranquil) they exist whether any of them like it or not, and if you can’t adapt then you’re not going to make it. minerva happens to be marked out in the circle for reasons outside of her control: she’s extremely talented, she’s an elf, she’s got tevinter heritage. she’s spent her life since she was nine being anybody she has to be to avoid notice. she is polite, she is obedient, she is charming, every hour of every day. without fail. she didn’t avoid anders because she didn’t like him, but because association with him is dangerous, and—since his behaviour makes him, in her opinion, little more than a dead man walking—rather a waste of time. this is the kind of strategy by which people like irving become master manipulator first enchanters who are part of the system that crushes their fellow mages, and i have no doubt she’d be one eventually if it weren’t for the one breakdown in her life strategy: she loves her friend.

here’s the other thing you need to know about minerva from the first: she has a fatal arrogant streak. minerva has all this ruthlessly practical understanding of the circles, but perhaps childishly, she believes firstly that she knows jowan and secondly that she’s smart enough now to be able to pull one over on the templars and protect him. we all know how well that goes. she’s terrified to leave the circle (because it’s the place she knows how to deal with) and argues with duncan on her recruitment, but she’s a survivor, so she goes.

minerva’s experiences outside the circle are a pretty efficient way to break down every chantry principle she does have. the grey wardens openly use blood in their joining ritual. alistair places her in a position of leadership without question. morrigan uses her magic as it pleases her, and this has not made her an abomination. minerva does nature of the beast first; the dalish answer to their mages, not the other way around. she does redcliffe second; her magic makes her a saviour and protector. when the time comes to choose what to do with connor, she agrees to return to the circle to seek help to free him. she witnesses the templars cowering in fear at the door while mages like wynne and niall risk their lives attempting to protect their people and stop uldred. and she witnesses how incredibly powerful blood magic is!

once again the arrogance kicks in. other mages lose control in the face of demons. but minerva has fought through the fade and slain countless of their number, minerva is among the best students kinloch hold has ever seen, minerva controlled herself so perfectly for over a decade in the tower, why shouldn’t she be able to handle blood magic? if jowan could! if the chantry is wrong about so much, why not this? so when it’s only after all this that she returns to redcliffe to confront connor’s desire demon, she makes the gambit for blood magic. and ironically the skills of coercion she learned so well for the templars are what lets her intimidate the demon into giving her those powers without making a deal. she uses those powers in the dark of the deep roads and in the chaos of the final days of the blight. she doesn’t like it, but she’s desperate. minerva doesn’t just want to save ferelden, she wants to be the one who saved ferelden, precisely because she is a mage, an elf, a daughter of tevinter, a daughter of the alienage, all those things that marked her out. she will gamble her soul if that’s what it takes for a person like that to have the strength to win this and be remembered as the hero. she’s aware of this and afraid of this in herself—facing enemies like branka who make similar moral sacrifices for their one bright shining goal is always a punch to the gut and results in her most moral decisions to try and make up for seeing that ugly mirror—but that doesn’t make it any less true

and yeah, okay, she does love how powerful it makes her, too. but she was powerless for so long.

as for poor wynne, she’s kind of perfectly designed to bring out every single rebellious tendency minerva has. minerva’s also a solid three quests into the blight by the time she picks up wynne. it’s uniquely galling to be a fairly experienced leader now, finally respected, finally independent, and suddenly have a circle authority figure in camp trying to explain to her what being a grey warden is “really about”, and questioning her relationships (which imo is kind of a faux pas on wynne’s part from a circle mage perspective—you keep quiet on that stuff! you do not start throwing the word love around!). minerva’s ten times more outspoken at this point, she’s very obviously making up for all those years biting her tongue, and she does not respond well to being patronised or criticised. (cough cough: it’s the arrogance... again. but also the insecurity about what she’s done)