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novaursa · 5 months ago

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Skyfall

- Summary: Baela and you chase after Cole and his men. You fall from the sky straight into Gwayne's arms. Literally.

- Pairing: targ!reader/Gwayne Hightower

- Note: reader is referred to as Y/N and is Rhaenyra's younger sister. The reader is also bonded with Silverwing. For more parts, and if you want to read this in chronological order check my blog. The list is pinned to the top.

- Rating: Explicit 18+

- Word count: 2 997

- Tag(s): @deniixlovezelda @duck-duck-goose2 @aadu2173 @sachaa-ff

The woods blur past as you cling to Silverwing's saddle, the thrill of the chase coursing through your veins. Baela and Moondancer had led the initial pursuit, their swift movements through the sky like arrows seeking their target. But now, it’s you and Silverwing against the fading light, and the dense canopy below.

"Go on, Baela! I’ll take it from here!" you shout, your voice mingling with the rush of wind.

Baela gives you a quick, sharp nod before veering off, her focus shifting elsewhere. You and Silverwing dive, the leaves slapping at you like an annoyed housemaid.

"Alright, girl," you murmur to Silverwing, "let's show them what we’ve got."

Your dragon roars in agreement, her silvery scales glinting in the dying sunlight as you plummet into the forest. The branches are closer now, snapping past you, some grazing your armor, others too thick to avoid.

You laugh, the exhilaration of danger making your heart race. "Just a bit further!"

But Silverwing, despite her grace, is a creature of the sky, not the woods. A particularly thick branch catches you off guard, striking your side. You gasp, losing your grip. Silverwing tries to stabilize, but it’s too late.

"Y/N!" you hear someone shout, but the world spins as you tumble through the air, your body crashing through the foliage.

The ground rushes up to meet you, but instead of the hard earth, you find yourself landing against something softer and warmer. There’s a grunt, a thud, and then silence.

You blink, trying to regain your senses. Your eyes meet a pair of very familiar ones, wide with shock and framed by a mess of light auburn hair.

"Ser Gwayne?" you manage to say, your voice breathless. The realization hits you both at the same time – you’ve landed right in his arms, sending him off his horse. He’s on his back, staring up at you with a mix of surprise and amusement.

"Princess Y/N," he says, a slow grin spreading across his face despite the circumstances. "This is a rather unconventional way to reunite."

You quickly scramble off him, cheeks flushing. "I didn’t plan it this way, trust me."

Gwayne gets to his feet, offering you a hand. "I’d say you’re getting better at making dramatic entrances."

Before you can retort, the surrounding knights, led by Criston Cole, converge on you, their expressions a mix of shock and suspicion.

"Well, well," Criston says, eyeing you warily, "looks like we’ve caught ourselves a dragon princess."

You roll your eyes, dusting off your clothes. "Congratulations. Do I get a prize for being the most unexpected guest?"

Gwayne stifles a laugh, earning a sharp glance from Criston. "Secure her," Criston commands. "We can’t risk her getting away."

Gwayne steps closer, his eyes softening slightly. "I’ll take care of it."

You meet his gaze, something unspoken passing between you. He had been your suitor once, and now here you are, on opposite sides of a conflict neither of you had asked for.

"Try not to tie the ropes too tight, will you?" you quip, trying to lighten the mood. "I bruise easily."

He smirks, giving you a look that says he remembers more than he lets on. "I’ll do my best, Princess."

As the knights surround you, Silverwing roars above, finally breaking free from the canopy and circling protectively. The men look up nervously, but you know Silverwing won’t attack without your command.

"Easy, girl," you call up to her. "I’m fine."

Gwayne’s touch is gentle as he secures your hands, his fingers brushing against your skin longer than necessary. "We’ll keep you safe," he murmurs, so only you can hear. "I promise."

You nod, a mixture of gratitude and sadness filling your heart. "I know."

And so, surrounded by enemies and yet strangely comforted by an old friend, you find yourself a captive – but one who is far from defeated.

The knights form a loose circle around you as they lead you through the woods, heading in the direction of Duskendale. Silverwing continues to circle overhead, her shadow passing over the treetops, a constant reminder of the power you still wield, even as a captive.

"Call off your dragon, Princess," Criston Cole demands, his tone clipped with irritation. "We don’t need her burning the forest down around us."

You meet his gaze with a steady one of your own. "That’s not how it works, Ser Criston. Silverwing follows her own instincts. I can’t just call her off like a hunting hound."

Criston grunts, clearly dissatisfied with your answer, but he says nothing more, focusing on leading the group forward.

Gwayne stays close to your side, his presence a strange mix of comforting and disconcerting. You glance at him, catching the hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"Unfortunate, isn’t it?" he says after a moment, his voice low enough for only you to hear. "Your late father never approved of our match."

You give a dry laugh, shaking your head. "Probably for the better. I don’t fancy being locked up in a tower all my life."

Gwayne’s smile widens, genuine amusement in his eyes. "You think I’d lock you up in a tower? You clearly have no idea what kind of husband I would have been."

You raise an eyebrow, intrigued despite yourself. "Oh? And what kind of husband would you have been, Ser Gwayne?"

"The kind who knows better than to try to change a dragon," he replies, a teasing glint in his eyes. "Besides, I value my life too much to cage something as fierce as you."

You chuckle softly, but the humor is short-lived as reality sinks in. "And yet, here we are. I’m chained, a captive to be killed or used as leverage against my sister."

Gwayne’s expression sobers, his eyes reflecting a mix of regret and resolve. "I wish it were different, Y/N. But these are the times we live in."

You sigh, looking up at Silverwing still soaring above. "Do you ever wonder, Gwayne, what might have been? If things had gone differently?"

He nods slowly, his gaze distant for a moment. "Every day. But wishing for the past won’t change the present. We can only deal with what’s in front of us."

"And what’s in front of us is a forest full of angry knights and a war that doesn’t seem to have an end," you say, a touch of bitterness in your voice.

Gwayne gives a soft laugh, the sound almost comforting. "At least you still have your sense of humor. It’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you."

You glance at him, surprised by his honesty. "And here I thought you only admired my dragon."

He smirks, shaking his head. "Silverwing is impressive, yes. But she’s nothing compared to you."

The compliment catches you off guard, and for a moment, you don’t know what to say. The knights continue to lead you through the forest, their voices a distant hum as you walk beside Gwayne, the man who once might have been your husband.

The journey to Duskendale stretches ahead, uncertain and fraught with danger. But for now, at least, you have an ally by your side, even if he is also your captor. And in these uncertain times, that might be the closest thing to hope you have.

The sky darkens as Criston Cole’s men set up camp, the forest growing quieter as the night settles in. You’re confined to a tent, albeit a comfortable one, considering your status as a prisoner. The air inside is warm, lit by a single lantern casting flickering shadows on the canvas walls.

You sit on a makeshift bed, your thoughts drifting between your current predicament and the distant roar of Silverwing, a constant reminder of your connection to the skies above. The flap of the tent rustles, and Gwayne steps inside, his expression unreadable.

"Comfortable?" he asks, his tone casual but his eyes searching.

You give him a wry smile. "As comfortable as one can be in captivity."

He chuckles softly, stepping closer. "Could be worse. Criston wanted to keep you in chains outside, but I insisted on more... humane accommodations."

You raise an eyebrow. "And why is that, Ser Gwayne? Still holding a soft spot for me?"

He sits down beside you, his proximity sending a shiver down your spine. "Maybe I am. Or maybe I just know how to keep a dragon content without a fight."

You roll your eyes, but the corners of your mouth lift in a reluctant smile. "Still think you can tame me?"

Gwayne’s gaze locks onto yours, intense and unwavering. "I never wanted to tame you, Y/N. I wanted to be beside you, as equals."

The sincerity in his voice catches you off guard, and for a moment, the tension between you softens. You reach out, your fingers brushing against his. "And yet here we are, on opposite sides of a war."

"War or no war, some things don’t change," he murmurs, his hand wrapping around yours.

The air between you shifts, charged with unspoken words and lingering desires. Before you can second-guess yourself, you lean in, capturing his lips with yours. The kiss is urgent, fueled by the months of separation and the fear of an uncertain future.

Gwayne responds with equal fervor, his hands moving to release the binds on your wrists. As the ropes fall away, you bring your hands up to his chest, pulling him closer. His fingers fumble with the laces of your dragon riding attire, and you do the same with his armor, the urgency of your movements reflecting the intensity of your emotions.

"I missed this," he breathes against your lips, his hands sliding over your skin. "I missed you."

You shiver at his words, your own hands trembling as you help him undress. "I missed you too, Gwayne."

Clothing discarded, you pull him down onto the bed, your bodies pressed together in a desperate embrace. The warmth of his skin against yours is intoxicating, each touch sending sparks of desire through you.

Gwayne moves with practiced urgency, his hands guiding your hips as he enters you. The sensation is overwhelming, a mix of relief and need that leaves you gasping. "Y/N," he groans, his forehead resting against yours. "I need you."

You wrap your legs around him, urging him deeper. "Then take me," you whisper, your voice trembling with emotion.

Your movements become frantic, each thrust driving you closer to the edge. The world outside the tent fades away, leaving only the two of you, lost in each other. Your breath mingles with his, your bodies moving in perfect sync.

As you reach your peak, Silverwing's roar echoes above, a wild and powerful sound that mirrors the intensity of your release. You cling to Gwayne, your nails digging into his back as you ride out the waves of pleasure together.

For a moment, time stands still, the only sound your ragged breathing and the distant rumble of your dragon. Gwayne collapses beside you, his arms still wrapped around you, holding you close.

"I love you," he murmurs against your hair, his voice raw with emotion. "No matter what happens, remember that."

You press a kiss to his chest, your own heart aching with the weight of your situation. "I love you too, Gwayne."

In the quiet aftermath, you find solace in each other's arms, knowing that whatever the future holds, this moment is yours and yours alone.

The next day dawns gray and heavy with tension. Criston Cole is restless, urging his men to pack up and prepare for the march to Duskendale. You watch from the confines of your tent, the memory of the previous night with Gwayne still fresh in your mind, a bittersweet ache in your chest.

Silverwing circles above, her presence a constant reminder of your strength and the bond you share. Gwayne catches your eye from across the camp, and you see a flicker of resolve in his gaze. He looks up at Silverwing and then back at you, subtly nodding—a signal.

Your heart races as you understand his unspoken message. It’s now or never.

You take a deep breath, steadying yourself. As Criston and his men begin to move, you seize the moment. "Now," you whisper to yourself, breaking into a run.

Chaos erupts around you as Gwayne shouts, "Stop her!" But instead of joining the chase, he tackles Criston Cole to the ground, his body crashing into the other knight with surprising force.

Criston snarls, struggling under Gwayne's weight. "Hightower! What are you doing?"

"Giving her a fighting chance," Gwayne growls, pinning Criston down. "Get out of here, Y/N!"

The soldiers around you hesitate, torn between their orders and the unexpected fight unfolding between their leaders. Their momentary confusion is all the opportunity you need. You sprint towards the edge of the camp, your eyes fixed on Silverwing above.

"Come on, girl!" you shout, waving your arms. Silverwing roars in response, descending swiftly and landing with a thunderous impact.

You reach her just as the soldiers begin to recover from their shock. Hands grab at you, but you twist away, your foot finding purchase on Silverwing’s saddle. With practiced ease, you haul yourself up, securing the straps around your legs.

Silverwing launches into the air, her powerful wings beating the ground, sending dust and leaves swirling. Below, Gwayne glances up, meeting your eyes one last time. In that fleeting moment, a promise passes between you—a promise of love, loyalty, and hope for a future that might still be yours.

"Go!" Gwayne shouts, struggling to his feet as Criston shoves him off. "Fly, Y/N!"

You nod, your throat tight with emotion. "Thank you, Gwayne."

With a final roar, Silverwing rises above the treetops, carrying you away from the camp and towards freedom. The wind whips through your hair as you steer her towards Dragonstone, the ache in your chest both a reminder of your captivity and the bond that now holds you and Gwayne together, despite the distance and the war.

As you fly, you cast one last look back, seeing Gwayne standing tall amidst the chaos, his eyes following you until you disappear into the horizon. It’s a silent vow that this isn’t the end—that you will find each other again.

For now, you focus on the path ahead, the promise of Dragonstone and the fight for your family fueling your determination. Silverwing’s powerful wings carry you onwards, each beat a testament to your resilience and the unbreakable devotion that ties you to those you love.

As Silverwing's silhouette fades into the distance, Gwayne braces himself for the inevitable confrontation. Criston Cole stands, brushing off the dirt from his armor, his eyes blazing with fury. The camp buzzes with confusion and tension, soldiers whispering and exchanging uneasy glances.

Cole's voice cuts through the murmurs like a knife. "What in the seven hells were you thinking, Hightower?"

Gwayne straightens, meeting Criston's glare with unwavering resolve. "I did what I thought was right."

Criston's nostrils flare, and he steps closer, his voice low and dangerous. "You let a valuable prisoner escape. Rhaenyra’s sister, no less. Do you have any idea what this means for us?"

"I do," Gwayne replies calmly. "But I also know what it means to treat people with honor. She wasn’t some bargaining chip to be used at will."

Cole’s eyes narrow, and he steps forward, closing the distance between them until they are almost nose to nose. "Honor? This is war, Gwayne. Honor gets you killed."

"Maybe," Gwayne retorts, his voice steady. "But it also makes you worth remembering. Y/N is no ordinary prisoner. She’s a dragon rider, a princess. Treating her like a common captive would only fuel more hatred and violence."

Criston shakes his head, incredulous. "You’re a fool if you think she’ll spare us any mercy. The moment she’s back with Rhaenyra, she’ll come for our heads."

Gwayne squares his shoulders, refusing to back down. "Perhaps. But at least I can live with myself knowing I didn’t betray everything we once stood for. We were knights of honor once, Criston. Have you forgotten that?"

Criston’s face contorts with rage, and for a moment, Gwayne thinks he might draw his sword. Instead, Criston takes a deep breath, visibly struggling to control his temper. "You’ve jeopardized our mission, and for what? Sentiment?"

Gwayne holds his ground, his voice unwavering. "For what’s right. You may not understand now, but one day, you might."

Criston’s eyes flash with a mix of anger and something else—perhaps a flicker of respect and understanding. "This isn't over, Gwayne. Not by a long shot. You’ll answer for this."

"I already have," Gwayne says quietly. "And I’m prepared to face the consequences."

Criston turns away, signaling for the camp to resume its activities. "Get ready to move out!" he barks to the soldiers. "We’ve wasted enough time here."

As the camp stirs back into motion, Gwayne watches, his mind replaying the look in Y/N’s eyes as she flew to freedom. Despite the threat of retribution hanging over him, he feels a strange sense of peace. He has made his choice, and he would make it again a hundred times over.

One of the soldiers approaches, hesitant. "Ser Gwayne, what should we do now?"

Gwayne sighs, feeling the weight of his decision settling on his shoulders. "We follow orders," he says, his voice firm. "We march to Duskendale and prepare for what comes next."

As the camp prepares to move, Gwayne allows himself a moment of reflection. He finds strength in the memory of Y/N’s freedom and the promise they silently shared.

Whatever the future holds, he will face it with the knowledge that he did what was right—not just for himself, but for the woman he loves and the honor he still believes in.

#house of the dragon #game of thrones #gwayne hightower #gwayne x reader #gwayne x you #gwayne x y/n #criston cole #silverwing #rhaenyra targaryen #house targaryen #house hightower

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planckstorytime · 5 days ago

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Strangled by Gentle Hands

*The following contains spoilers*

“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what was?”

– Solas, Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

I. Whatever It Takes

My premium tickets for a local film festival crumpled and dissolved in my pants pocket, unredeemed as they swirled in the washing machine. Throughout that October weekend in 2015, I neglected my celebratory privileges, my social visits to friends, and even my brutal honors literary theory class. All because a golden opportunity stretched before me: a job opening for a writing position at the once-legendary BioWare, with an impending deadline.

The application process wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Rather than copy+paste a cover letter and quickly swap out a couple of nouns here and there, this opening required me to demonstrate my proficiency in both words and characters – namely, BioWare’s characters. Fanfiction wasn’t normally in my wheelhouse – at the time, I had taken mainly to spinning love sonnets (with a miserable success rate). But I wouldn’t balk at this chance to work on one of my dream franchises – especially since the job prospects for fresh English BAs weren’t exactly promising. So, I got to work crafting a branching narrative based on the company’s most recent title: Dragon Age: Inquisition. Barely two months prior, I saw the conclusion of that cast’s story when the Inquisitor stabbed a knife into a map and swore to hunt her former ally, Solas, to the ends of the earth. Now it was my turn to puppeteer them, to replicate the distinct voice of each party member and account for how they’d react to the scenario I crafted. And if it went well, then maybe I’d be at the tip of the spear on that hunt for Solas. Finishing the writing sprint left me exhausted, but also proud of my work.

The folks at BioWare obviously felt differently, because I received a rejection letter less than a week later. Maybe they found my story trite and my characterization inaccurate, or maybe they just didn’t want to hire a student with no professional experience to his name. Regardless, I was devastated. It wouldn’t be until years later that I learned that, had my application been accepted, I likely would’ve been drafted into working on the studio’s ill-fated looter shooter, Anthem (2019), noteworthy for its crunch and mismanagement. My serendipitous rejection revealed that sometimes the future you strive to build was never meant to match your dreams. What seemed like an opportunity to strike oil actually turned out to be a catastrophic spill.

Still, my passion for the Dragon Age series (as well as Mass Effect) persisted in the face of BioWare’s apparent decline. I maintain that Inquisition is actually one of the studio’s best games, and my favorite in the series, to the point where I even dressed up as Cole for a convention one time. The game came to me at a very sensitive time in my life, and its themes of faith vs falsehood, the co-opting of movements in history, and the instability of power all spoke to me. But I will elaborate more on that at a later date. My point is, I held on to that hope that, in spite of everything, BioWare could eventually deliver a satisfactory resolution to the cliffhanger from their last title. Or perhaps it was less hope and more of a sunk cost fallacy, as an entire decade passed with nary a peep from Dragon Age.

As years wore on, news gradually surfaced about the troubled development of the fourth game. Beginning under the codename “Joplin” in 2015 with much of the same creative staff as its predecessors, this promising version of the game would be scrapped two years later for not being in line with Electronic Arts’s business model (i.e. not being a live-service scam). Thus, it was restarted as “Morrison”. The project cantered along in this borderline unrecognizable state for a few years until they decided to reorient it back into a single-player RPG, piling even more years of development time onto its shaky Jenga tower of production. Indeed, critical pieces were constantly being pulled out from the foundations during this ten year development cycle. Series regulars like producer Mark Darrah and director Mike Laidlaw made their departures, and the project would go on to have several more directors and producers come and go: Matthew Goldman, Christian Dailey, and Mac Walters, to name a few key figures. They eventually landed on John Epler as creative director, Corinne Busche as game director, and Benoit Houle as director of product development. Then came the massive layoffs of dozens of employees, including series-long writer Mary Kirby, whose work still made it into the final version of DA4. Finally, the game received a rebranding just four months before release, going from Dreadwolf (which it had been known as since 2022) to The Veilguard (2024) – a strange title with an even stranger article.

Needless to say, these production snags did not inspire confidence, especially considering BioWare’s been low on goodwill between a string of flops like Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) and, before that, controversial releases like Dragon Age II (2011) and Mass Effect 3 (2012). The tumult impacted The Veilguard’s shape, which scarcely resembles an RPG anymore, let alone a Dragon Age game. The party size is reduced from four to three, companions can no longer be directly controlled, the game has shifted to a focus on action over tactics a la God of War (2018), the number of available abilities has shrunk, and there’s been a noticeable aesthetic shift towards a more cartoonish style. While I was open to the idea of changing up the combat (the series was never incredible on that front), I can’t get over the sensation that these weren’t changes conceived out of genuine inspiration, but rather vestigial traces from the live-service multiplayer iteration. The digital fossil record implies a lot. Aspects like the tier-based gear system, the instanced and segmented missions, the vapid party approval system, the deficit of World State import options, and the fact that rarely does more than the single mandatory companion have anything unique to say on a quest – it all points to an initial design with a very different structure from your typical single-player RPG. The Veilguard resembles a Sonic Drive-In with a mysterious interior dining area – you can tell it was originally conceived as something else.1

That said, the product itself is functional. It contains fewer bugs than any previous game in the franchise, and maybe BioWare’s entire catalog for that matter. I wouldn’t say the combat soars, but it does glide. There’s a momentum and responsiveness to the battle system that makes it satisfying to pull off combos and takedowns against enemies, especially if you’re juggling multiple foes at once. Monotony sets in after about thirty or forty hours, largely due to the fact that you’re restricted to a single class’s moveset on account of the uncontrollable companions. Still, this design choice can encourage replay value, as it does in Mass Effect, and free respec options and generous skill point allocations offset the tedium somewhat.

While the character and creature designs elicit controversy – both for the exaggerated art direction and, in the case of demons and darkspawn, total redesign – the environmental art is nothing short of breathtaking. I worried that this title would look dated because of how long it had been in development and the age of the technology it was built upon. Those fears were swiftly banished when I saw the cityscapes of Minrathous, the cyclopean architecture of the Nevarran Grand Necropolis, or the overgrown ruins of Arlathan. But like everything in The Veilguard, it’s a double-edged sword. The neon-illuminated streets of Docktown, the floating citadel of the Archon’s Palace, and the whirring mechanisms of the elven ruins evoke a more fantastically futuristic setting that feels at odds with all three previous titles (even though all three exhibited a stylistic shift to some extent). It aggravates the feeling of discordance between this rendition of Thedas and the one returning players know.

All of these elements make The Veilguard a fine fantasy action-adventure game – even a good one, I’d say. But as both the culmination of fifteen years of storytelling and as a narrative-based roleplaying game – the two most important facets of its identity – it consistently falls short. Dragon Age began as a series with outdated visuals and often obtuse gameplay, but was borne aloft by its worldbuilding, characterization, and dialogue. Now, that paradigm is completely inverted. The more you compare it to the older entries, the more alien it appears. After all these years of anticipation, how did it end up this way? Was this the only path forward?

Throughout The Veilguard’s final act, characters utter the phrase “Whatever it takes,” multiple times. Some might say too many. I feel like this mantra applied to the development cycle. As more struggles mounted, the team made compromise after compromise to allow the game to exist at all, to give the overarching story some conclusion in the face of pressure from corporate shareholders, AAA market expectations, and impatient fans. Whatever it takes to get this product out the door and into people’s homes.

This resulted in a game that was frankensteined together, assembled out of spare parts and broken dreams. It doesn’t live up to either the comedic heights or dramatic gravity of Inquisition’s “Trespasser” DLC from 2015, despite boasting the same lead writer in Trick Weekes. Amid the disappointment, we’re left with an unfortunate ultimatum: It’s either this or nothing.

I don’t mean that as a way to shield The Veilguard from criticism, or to dismiss legitimate complaints as ungrateful gripes. Rather, I’m weighing the value of a disappointing reality vs an idealized fantasy. The “nothing”, in this sense, was the dream I had for the past decade of what a perfect Dragon Age 4 looked like. With the game finally released, every longtime fan has lost their individualized, imaginary perfection in the face of an authentic, imperfect text. Was the destruction of those fantasies a worthy trade? It doesn’t help that the official artbook showcases a separate reality that could’ve been, with a significant portion dedicated to the original concepts for Joplin that are, personally, a lot closer to my ideal vision. I think it would’ve done wonders to ground the game as more Dragon Age-y had they stuck with bringing back legacy characters, such as Cole, Calpernia, Imshael, and the qunari-formerly-known as Sten.

I don’t necessarily hate The Veilguard (I might actually prefer it to Dragon Age II), but I can’t help but notice a pattern in its many problems – a pattern that stems from a lack of faith in the audience and a smothering commitment to safety over boldness. As I examine its narrative and roleplaying nuances, I wish to avoid comparing it to groundbreaking RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) or even Dragon Age: Origins (2009), as the series has long been diverging from that type of old-school CRPG. Rather, except when absolutely necessary, I will only qualitatively compare it to Inquisition, its closest relative.

And nowhere does it come up shorter to Inquisition than in the agency (or lack thereof) bestowed to the player to influence their character and World State.

II. Damnatio Memoriae

No, that’s not the name of an Antivan Crow (though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking so, since we have a character named “Lucanis Dellamorte”). It’s a Latin phrase meaning “condemnation of memory”, applied to a reviled person by destroying records of their existence and defacing objects of their legacy. In this case, it refers to the player. When it comes to their influence over the world and their in-game avatar, The Veilguard deigns to limit or outright eliminate it.

Save transfers that allow for the transmission of World States (the carrying over of choices from the previous games) have been a staple of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises. Even when their consequences are slight, the psychological effect that this personalization has on players is profound, and one of many reasons why fans grow so attached to the characters and world. At its core, it’s an illusion, but one that’s of similar importance to the illusion that an arbitrary collection of 1s and 0s can create an entire digital world. Player co-authorship guarantees a level of emotional investment that eclipses pre-built backgrounds.

However, The Veilguard limits the scope to just three choices, a dramatic decrease from the former standard. All import options come from Inquisition, with two just from the “Trespasser” expansion. One variable potentially impacts the ending, while the other two, in most cases, add one or two lines of dialogue and a single codex entry. Inquisition, by contrast, imported a bevy of choices from both previous games. Some of them had major consequences to quests such as “Here Lies the Abyss” and “The Final Piece”, both of which incorporated data from two games prior. The Veilguard is decidedly less ambitious. Conspicuously absent options include: whether Morrigan has a child or not, the fate of Hawke, the status of the Hero of Fereldan, the current monarchs of Fereldan and Orlais, the current Divine of the southern Chantry, and the individual outcomes of more than two dozen beloved party members across the series. Consequently, the fourth installment awkwardly writes around these subjects – Varric avoids mentioning his best friend, Hawke, as does Isabela ignore her potential lover. Fereldan, Orlais, and the Chantry are headed by Nobody in Particular. Morrigan, a prominent figure in the latest game, makes no mention of her potential son or even her former traveling companions. And the absence of many previous heroes, even ones with personal stakes in the story, feels palpably unnatural. I suspect this flattening of World States into a uniform mold served, in addition to cutting costs, to create parity between multiple cooperative players during the initial live-service version of Morrison. Again, the compromises of the troubled production become apparent, except this time, they’re taking a bite out of the core narrative.

Moreover, the game’s unwillingness to acknowledge quantum character states means that it’s obliged to omit several important cast members. At this point, I would’ve rather had them establish an official canon for the series rather than leaving everything as nebulous and undefined as possible. That way at least the world would’ve felt more alive, and we could’ve gotten more action out of relevant figures like Cassandra, Alistair, Fenris, Merrill, Cole, and Iron Bull. Not to mention that The Veilguard’s half-measure of respectful non-intereference in past World States ultimately fails. Certain conversations unintentionally canonize specific events, including references to Thom Rainier and Sera, both of whom could go unrecruited in Inquisition, as well as Morrigan’s transformation into a dragon in the battle with Corypheus in that game’s finale. But whatever personal history the player had with them doesn’t matter. The entire Dragon Age setting now drifts in a sea of ambiguity, its history obfuscated. It feels as gray and purgatorial as Solas’s prison for the gods.

Beyond obscuring the past, The Veilguard restrains the player’s agency over the present. When publications first announced that the game would allow audiences to roleplay transgender identities and have that acknowledged by the party, I grew very excited – both at the encouraging representation, and at the depth of roleplaying mechanics that such an inclusion suggested. Unfortunately, The Veilguard offers little in roleplaying beyond this. The player character, Rook, always manifests as an altruistic, determined, friendly hero, no matter what the player chooses (if they’re offered choices at all). The selections of gender identity and romantic partner constitute the totality of how Rook defines themselves, post-character creation – exceptions that prove the rule of vacancy. Everything else is set in stone. The options presented are good, and should remain as standard, but in the absence of other substantive roleplaying experiences, their inclusion starts to feel frustratingly disingenuous and hollow, as if they were the only aspects the developers were willing to implement, and only out of obligation to meet the bare minimum for player agency. In my opinion, it sours the feature and exudes a miasma of cynicism.

Actual decisions that impact the plot are few and far between, but at least we have plenty of dialogue trees. In this type of game, dialogue options might usually lead to diverging paths that eventually converge to progress the plot. You might be choosing between three different flavors of saying “yes”, but as with the World States, that illusion of agency is imperative for the roleplaying experience. The Veilguard doesn’t even give you the three flavors – the encouraging, humorous, and stern dialogue options are frequently interchangeable, and rarely does it ever feel like the player is allowed to influence Rook’s reactions. Relationships with companions feel predetermined, as the approval system has no bearing on your interactions anymore. There are so few moments for you to ask your companions questions and dig in deep compared to Inquisition. Combined together, these issues make me question why we even have dialogue with our party at all. Rook adopts the same parental affect with each grown adult under their command, and it feels like every conversation ends the same way irrespective of the player’s input. With the exception of the flirting opportunities, they might as well be non-interactive cutscenes.

Rook’s weak characterization drags the game down significantly. With such limited authorship afforded to the player, it’s difficult to regard them as anything more than their eponymous chess piece – a straightfoward tool, locked on a grid, and moving flatly along the surface as directed.

III. Dull in Docktown

On paper, a plot summary of The Veilguard sounds somewhere between serviceable and phenomenal: Rook and Varric track down Solas to stop him from tearing down the Veil and destroying the world. In the process, they accidentally unleash Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, two of the wicked Evanuris who once ruled over the elven people millenia ago. With Solas advising them from an astral prison, Rook gathers a party together to defeat the risen gods, along with their servants and sycophants. Over the course of the adventure, they uncover dark truths about the origins of the elves, the mysterious Titans, and the malevolent Blight that’s served as an overarching antagonistic force. Eventually, Rook and friends join forces with Morrigan and the Inquisitor, rally armies to face off with their foes, and slay both the gods and their Archdemon thralls before they can conjure the full terror of the Blight. As Solas once again betrays the group, Rook and company have to put a decisive stop to his plans, which could potentially involve finally showing him the error of his ways.

The bones of The Veilguard’s story are sturdier than a calcium golem. Problems arise when you look at the actual writing, dialogue, and characterization – the flesh, blood, and organs of the work.

I’ve seen others chide the writing as overly quippy, but that better describes previous titles. Rather, I think The Veilguard’s dialogue is excessively utilitarian and preliminary, like a first draft awaiting refinement. Characters describe precisely what’s happening on screen as it’s happening, dryly exposit upon present circumstances, and repeat the same information ad nauseum. This infuriating repetition does little to reveal hidden components of their personalities, or their unique responses to situations. You won’t hear anything like Cole’s cerebral magnetic poetry or Vivienne’s dismissive arrogance. Many exchanges could’ve been uttered by Nobody in Particular, as it’s just dry recitation after recitation. It almost feels like watching an English second language instructional video, or a demonstration on workplace safety precautions. Clarity and coherence come at the cost of characterization and charisma.

Words alone fail to make them interesting. Most companions lack the subtlety and depth I had come to expect from the franchise, with many conversations amounting to them just plainly stating how they’re feeling. Most rap sessions sound like they’re happening in a therapist’s office with how gentle, open, and uncomplicated they feel. Compare this to Inquisition, where every character has a distinct voice (I should know, I had to try to copy them for that stupid application), as well as their own personal demons that it betrays: Sera’s internalized racism, hints of Blackwall’s stolen valor, Iron Bull’s espionage masked by bluster, or Solas’s lingering guilt and yearning for a bygone age. These aspects of their characters aren’t front and center, but things the audience can delve into that gives every moment with them more texture. The Veilguard’s companions lay out all their baggage carefullly and respectfully upfront, whether it’s Taash’s multiculturalism and gender identity issues or Neve’s brooding cynicism towards Tevinter’s underbelly. You’ve plumbed the depths of their personas within the first few minutes of meeting most of them.

Small exceptions exist. Professor Emmerich Volkarin stands out from the rest of the cast as a particularly inspired character: a charming, Vincent Price-like necromancer. His attachment to tombs and necromancy as a way to cope with his crippling fear of death makes for curiously compelling melodrama. The way in which he ultimately has to face his fear – either by foregoing his opportunity for immortality to save his beloved skeletal ward, Manfred, or by allowing his friend to pass on so that he can transcend into a new type existence – rises above the other binary choices in the game by being both narratively interesting and legitimately difficult to judge. Still, I feel Emmerich’s whole “lawful good gentleman necromancer” conceit, while a unique and clever subversion of tropes, would’ve worked better if it actually contrasted with anyone else in the party. Instead, the whole crew is full of unproblematic do-gooders who are forbidden by the game to nurture any meaningful interpersonal conflict. While I’d appreciate this lack of toxicity in my real-life relationships, fictional chemistry demands more reactive ingredients.

The Veilguard’s developers frequently positioned the game as “cozy” and about a “found family”, but I can guarantee you that there’s more tension at my Thanksgiving dinners than there is anywhere in this title. This family would get along swimmingly even during a presidential election. The thing about the “found family” trope is that it’s more satisfying when it’s earned. Here, it represents the default state, the starting point, and the status quo that they will always return to. Any minor squabbles (Harding wanting to sleep in the dirt, Emmerich taking too many books on a camping trip, Taash not liking necromancy) are introduced and squashed within the same scene. They all feel so extraneous. There’s so little friction among the companions here that you’d think it disproves Newton’s Third Law. The previous games never struggled in this regard, which makes the choices here all the more baffling.

Beyond the intra-party dynamics, characters lack grit or darkness to them – even when the narrative absolutely calls for it. Remember how I described the necromancer as lawful good (to use traditional Dungeons and Dragons alignments)? Yeah, that’s every character. Even the demonic assassin. Lucanis is a notorious hitman possessed by a demon of Spite, and possibly the weakest character of the game. This may or may not be due to the fact that his writer, Mary Kirby, was laid off mid-development. Regardless, he has noticeably less content than the other party members and generally feels unfinished. The demonic possession storyline goes nowhere; he doesn’t exorcise Spite, nor does he learn more about it or how to live with it. Instead, Spite is just an excuse to give Lucanis cool spectral wings (which he will use to fail several assassination attempts). The demon itself mostly just comes across as rude rather than threatening. The biggest issue, however, stems from the absence of any edge to Lucanis. When confronting his traitorous cousin, Ilario – the man who sold out Lucanis’s family to an enemy faction, kidnapped his grandmother, and made multiple attempts on his life – our grizzled, hardened assassin, pushed to the brink, demands… due process. Seriously, if your choices have led Lucanis to have a hardened heart, his method for dealing with the grievous traitor is sending him to jail. That’s The Veilguard’s idea of vindictive brutality among a clan of unforgiving murderers-for-hire. By contrast, Inquisition features Sera insubordinately murdering a stuck-up nobleman for talking too much. I believe that if modern BioWare had written The Godfather (1972), it would’ve ended with Michael Corleone recommending his brother-in-law to attend confession and seek a marriage counselor.

The writers seem intent on making the cast wholly unproblematic, with no way that the audience could ever question their morality or taste the delicious nuance of seeing someone you like do something bad. Measures were taken to child-proof every aspect of the good guys so that they couldn’t possibly be construed as anything else – even if it constricts them to the point of numbness and eventual atrophy.

To make things as palatable and accessible as possible, the language itself was dumbed down. Characters make frequent use of neologisms and bark phrases like “Suit up,” or “These guys go hard.” It emulates popular blockbuster superhero stuff rather than staying true to the diction the series traditionally employed. It’s all about the team, and the entire Dragon Age world has been stripped down into simplistic conflicts and recognizable stock characters.

This is why The Veilguard’s story largely fails. Despite being ostensibly being about the characters, they come off as an afterthought. Most of the time, only the sole requisite follower has anything to say on a given mission. Even in combat, their wholeness as fully-implemented party members falls short of expectations. Their damage output pales in comparison to the Rook’s, they have no health and cannot be downed in battle, and they mainly exist to give the player three extra ability slots. That’s the game’s true ethos for the companions, whether in combat or dialogue – utility, tools to make things happen rather than elegantly crafted identities. We end up with the largest amount of content per companion among any game in the franchise, only to have the weakest roster.

I know these writers can do better, because I’ve seen them do better. Trick Weekes wrote Iron Bull, Cole, and Solas in Inquisition, as well as Mordin Solus and Tali’Zorah in Mass Effect 2 (2010) and Mass Effect 3. Mary Kirby wrote Varric throughout the series, as well as Sten and Loghain in Origins. Plenty of other experienced writers, such as Sylvia Feketekuty and John Dombrow also contributed, so I can’t put any of the blame on a lack of skill. I don’t know if the mistake was trying to appeal to a wider audience, or if the constant reorientations of the DA4 project drained the crew’s passion and left them lacking in time to polish things.

I personally suspect that the writers had to rush out a script for all of the voiced dialogue. A video from August of 2020 showed off the voice actors for Davrin and Bellara, more than four years before the final game’s release. I think the codex entries, letters, and missives that you find throughout the game, which consist of only text, are much better written than the dialogue. My theory is that the writers had more time to revise and spruce up these tidbits, where edits were minimally invasive, as far as production is concerned. But my knowledge is limited; after all, BioWare rejected my application almost a decade ago.

Still, there are aspects of The Veilguard’s plot that I enjoy. The lore reveals were particularly satisfying2, and many felt rewarding after a decade of speculation. I called that elves were originally spirits, as well as the connection between the Archdemons and the Evanuris, but I wouldn’t have guessed that the Blight formed out of the smoldering rage of the Titans’ severed dreams. I’d concisely describe The Veilguard’s story as the opposite of Mass Effect 3: Whereas ME3 did excellent character work, the characterization in The Veilguard leaves much to be desired. Whereas ME3’s tone was overwhelmingly grim, The Veilguard feels inappropriately positive. Whereas ME3’s lore reveals ruined much about the series’s mystique, The Veilguard’s helped tie the setting’s history together. And whereas ME3 fumbled the ending about as much as it possibly could, The Veilguard actually coalesces into a spectacular third act.

While I think the twist with Varric’s death is weak (outright pitiful compared to the Dread Wolf twist of Inquisition), the actual events that make up the finale carry a momentum and urgency that the rest of the game severely lacked. Everything from the sacrifice and kidnapping of Rook’s companions to the slaying of Ghilan’nain to the awe-inspiring battle between the Dread Wolf and Archdemon Lusacan – the whole affair takes the best parts of Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission and elevates it to the scale of an apocalyptic series finale. Ultimately, Solas takes center stage as the final antagonist, and the drama crescendos to a height the rest of the game desperately needed. He remains the most interesting character in the game and perhaps the franchise, and thankfully, the resolution to his story did not disappoint me (though I would’ve preferred the option for a boss battle against his Dread Wolf form if the player’s negotiations broke down). So in that sense, I think the worst possible scenario was avoided.

But is that really worth celebrating? Averting complete disaster? Exceeding the lowest standards? In many regards, The Veilguard still could have been – should have been – more.

IV. A World of Tranquil

In my essay on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024), I briefly discussed a trend in media to sand off the edges so as not to upset the audience in any way. The encroachment of this media sanitization seems to be an over-correction to the brimming grimness of late 2000s and early 2010s fiction (to which the first two Dragon Age titles belong), which earned comparable levels of criticism. Like Solas, I occasionally feel trapped in a cycle of regret, where it feels like our previous yearning for less aggressive, mean-spirited content led to a media landscape that prioritized patronizingly positive art. Now it’s clear to me that, in order to have a point, you need to have an edge.

Dragon Age historically drew a very progressive audience, and many of them congregated around Tumblr in that website’s heyday. Tumblr has garnered something of a reputation for overzealous discourse and sensitivity among its userbase, and I think that the developers of The Veilguard, in an attempt to cater to one of their core audiences, may have misunderstood both that passion and the fundamental appeal of their products. They became so concerned about optics, about avoiding politically charged criticism, that they kneecapped their world-building, rendering it as inoffensive and sterile as possible. It’s not so much “PC culture” as it is “PG culture.”

To that end, the various governments, factions, and societies of Thedas lost their edge. Dragon Age previously presented itself as anti-authoritarian by showcasing the rampant abuses of power across all cultures. Whether it was the incarceration of mages under the Chantry, the slavery practiced by the Tevinter Imperium, the expansionist anti-individualism of the Qun, the restrictive dwarven caste system, or the rampant racism against elves, social strife abounded in this world. I think that’s one thing that drew so many marginalized fans to the series. But the correlation of fictional atrocities with those of real life frequently prompted volatile discourse, with many concerned about how allegedly allegorized groups were being represented. You began to see countless essays pop up by folks who use the phrase “blood quantum” more than any healthy person should for a setting about wizards. BioWare responded to this by making Thedosian society wholly pleasant and the people in power responsible and cool and the disparate cultures tolerant and cooperative. If nothing’s portrayed negatively (outside of the cartoonishly evil gods), nobody can take offense, right?

For starters, the Antivan Crows have gone from an amoral group of assassins to basically Batman. These figures, which previously purchased children off slave markets to train them into killers, are now the “true rulers” of Antiva, by which the official government derives its authority. The Crows in The Veilguard stand against the insurgent qunari army as heroes of the common folk. They’re not an unscrupulous faction that Rook is reluctantly forced to ally with for the greater good; no, the Crows are simply good guys now. When the pompous governor of Treviso rails against them, with such audacious claims as “assassins and thugs should not represent the citizenry,” we’re meant to laugh at the governor’s foolishness. The unintentional implication this sends is that lethal vigilantism and unchecked power are cool because the people who use it are cool and stylish. The slave trade goes unacknoweldged; Antivan children want to grow up to be assassins now. The Crows never do anything wrong in The Veilguard – the governor is later revealed to be cooperating with the invaders for their own power. BioWare avoids the unpleasantness inherent in the Crows’ concept by pretending it never existed.

Perhaps more ridiculous is the Lords of Fortune, a new faction of pirates and treasure hunters based out of Rivain. Except they don’t really do piracy or treasure hunting. The game goes to lengths to ensure that the audience knows that the Lords don’t steal important cultural artifacts from any of the tombs and ruins they raid. What do they steal, then? There is no such thing as an ethical treasure hunter – plundering indigenous sites for souvenirs is inherently problematic – but the writers wanted to reap the appeal of adventurous swashbucklers without any of the baggage, regardless of whether it makes sense or not3. It comes across as a child’s idea of a pirate: they’re not thinking about the murder and looting, just the funny men with eye-patches who say “ARRR!” The developers want us to like the Lords of Fortune, and to that end, they can’t do anything culturally insensitive – even fictional disrespect toward a made-up culture. This is doubly amusing because the Lords are represented by Isabela from Dragon Age II. The same Isabela that kicked off a war with the qunari by stealing their holy book, the Tome of Koslun. This irony goes unacknowledged by the game.4

When these rogue buccaneers aren’t busy giving land acknowledgments to displaced Dalish elves or whatever, they’re enjoying their nonviolent coliseum. Pirates revel in bloodsport, but only so long as no actual blood is spilled. The Lords refuse to fight prisoners or animals in their arena, as they find such acts too cruel. I guess they’re all big Peter Singer readers. Instead, they summon spirits to adopt the visages of common enemies so that the player can kill them with a clean conscience. It’s another example of wanting to have your cake and eat it too – they wanted to create a glory hunter/gladiator faction, but couldn’t stand the underlying implications of such. So they twisted and bent them to fit into their unproblematic paradigm, leaving the Lords flavorless and lame. They barely even contribute to the main story, and they’re practically the only look we get into Rivaini society (which remains criminally underdeveloped).

More tragic is the handling of the qunari, once one of the most unique and nuanced civilizations in the Dragon Age setting. The Qun, as portrayed in the first three installments, is a society that demands all of its composite parts work in harmony. Thus, they have predetermined vocations for their children, rigid gender roles, strict codes of conduct, and an ambition to “enlighten” the rest of the world. While the Qun has often been presented as antagonistic toward the heroes, the series has commonly balanced its portrayal by showing how seductive its absolutism can be for people without hope. In some cases, life under the Qun is preferable, as is the case with former Tevinter slaves. Conformity becomes comfort when the world is regularly threatening to split apart.

The Veilguard opts for a different approach. See, Rook’s not fighting members of the Qun in this game – they’re fighting the Antaam, the former qunari military. The Veilguard constantly reiterates that the Antaam, which makes up one of the three branches of the Qun, has broken off and decided to invade, pillage, and stoke chaos. BioWare didn’t want the questionable morality and complexity of fighting an invading people from a humanized, multi-faceted culture, so they removed their culture. Their efforts to turn the non-Western-coded qunari into something digestible for their mistaken conception of a modern audience instead results in two caricatures: one being a fetishized, perfect society where there are no perceivable social ills; and the other a bunch of rampaging brutes.

Contending with a realized conception of Plato’s Republic mixed with the Ottoman Empire makes for more compelling drama than a horde of murderous giants. Again, BioWare wanted to have it both ways, and they still needed nameless, faceless orcs to kill. So every bit about the qunari’s militancy, imperialism, and repression coexisting alongside some of their more progressive ideas and communal unity is stripped of its context and meaning. Blame is placed solely on the Antaam, who no longer represent (and retroactively, never represented) the Qun’s ideology. It’s a cowardly compromise, attempting to pin the blame of all the Qun’s failings on a renegade military and seeking to exonerate the political and social apparatuses of their culpability.

At one point, a minor character named Seer Rowan lectures to an ignorant human (a proxy for the audience absorbing these retcons) that qunari society has always been egalitarian in practice, with mages enjoying freedom there. Previous games showed that the qunari shackle their “saarebas” mages, stitch their mouths, cut out their tongues, and teach them to commit suicide if they ever stray from their masters. However, we’re now assured that this is only practiced under the Antaam, and No True Qunari would ever do such a thing. Ignore the fact that, in Inquisition, we witness the enslaved saarebas under the supervision of the Ben-Hasserath, a subdivision of the Ariqun (i.e. not part of the Antaam). In fact, the Antaam that Rook fights in The Veilguard never command saarebas at all. They’re completely absent from the game (likely because the image of the bound, mutilated minority was too much for The Veilguard’s sensibilities). Seer Rowan’s weak, conciliatory retcon can’t even justify itself in its own game. The scolding diatribe communicates an intrinsic misunderstanding of the Qun by the writers – namely, it continues the pattern established with the Antivan Crows that the mechanics of power in society are fundamentally good as long as aberrant forces aren’t in charge. While I understand the desire to be conscientious about the portrayal of fictional cultures that draw upon non-Western traditions and iconography (which have historically been demonized in media), glamorizing the Qun and stripping it of its realistic nuance does little to alleviate any problems with representation. If anything, it creates new ones.

But hey, now we have our faceless orcs to guiltlessly slaughter. That’s what the Antaam’s been reduced to, bereft of the ideology that made them people. We kill them because they’re strange and scary and foreign and seeking to destroy our cities for fun. They remain the most prominent representation of the qunari in-game, barring our party member Taash. BioWare’s attempts to reverse what they viewed as problematic components to the qunari instead devolved into the very tropes they wished to avoid.

Which leads us to the elves. Much of the series’s discourse has surrounded the portrayal of the long-suffering elven people, who endure slavery under Tevinter, expulsion from their homeland in the Dales, confinement in ghettos, and the general disdain from other races. The games’ stories use symbolic shorthand of real-life oppressed peoples to communicate these tragedies, and this has led to a variety of intense, emotional interpretations over the years. The unending misery of the systematically marginalized elves hasn’t gone unnoticed by the fanbase – and their criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed by the developers. To quote The Veilguard’s creative director, John Epler, in an interview with Polygon:

“Dragon Age has not always been the kindest to the Dalish [elves]. Somebody once made a joke to me, and it’s not untrue, that it’s possible to wipe out a Dalish clan in all three of the games in some way.”

He and others on the development team must’ve thought elves needed a break, because the omnipresent racism against them vanishes completely in The Veilguard. Tevinter, an empire built on the back of chattel slavery, doesn’t show any of that. Consequently, it feels like players in the know still haven’t seen the true face of Tevinter, despite spending half a game there. The notion that the capital of Minrathous gives now is one of a prosperous city that’s centuries ahead of the countries down south, rather than a cruel regime cracking the whip at every opportunity. Perhaps the writers weren’t comfortable portraying this, or felt that their audience might not be amenable to it after years of incendiary argumentation. Nevertheless, it castrates their established world-building and robs us of the opportunity to witness true elven liberation in the climax. With both the fall of Minrathous and the toppling of the tyrannical elven gods, we could have delivered a much needed catharsis after four games of oppression, but The Veilguard forgoes this storytelling opportunity to play it safe.

I worry that this hesitancy originated from anxieties about the sensitivity of depicting marginalized peoples in brutal, dehumanizing conditions, and how that might look to more fragile viewers. But I think it’s important for all players, watchers, and readers to know that, though there might be aspects shared between them, fictional minorities are distinct from real ones.

Dragon Age’s elves are aesthetically Celtic. Their residency in alienages evokes images of Disapora Jews in Europe. Their Long Walk after being driven from the Dales calls back to the Trail of Tears, sharing an experience with Native Americans. Their subsequent migratory nature is reminiscent of the Romani people. And their ancient empire of Arlathan, with its large columns and temples of worship, headed by ascended humanoid (for lack of a better term) deities that cast down an enemy called the Titans, and which has since had its religion and culture co-opted and renamed by Roman-inspired Tevinter invites comparisons to classical Greece.

My point is, the elves of Dragon Age don’t represent one group of people, because fictional cultures are constructs drawing from countless inspirations. If they represent anything beyond themselves, it’s the idea of a proud people that’s fallen under the yoke of conquering powers – a supervictim to embody all. The idea that one must be limited in their storytelling options based on how the portrayal might reflect upon or disrespect an existing culture is flawed, in my opinion. In the overwhelming majority of cases, coding cannot be read as a 1:1 allegory, especially in speculative fiction like science-fiction and fantasy. I believe the most mature way to evaluate a story isn’t to try to pigeonhole what it’s trying to say say about who, as if there’s some insidious encrypted message in the text. Rather, it’s to see the forest through the trees and interpret the work as a complete whole in itself.

On that basis, I ask: would it have been so bad to see some of those enslaved elves, praying for salvation, side with their manipulative, nefarious gods? To add some nuance to the conflict with Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, would the story of elven liberation not have been better if the game actually engaged with it? Could we actually have a moral quandary with those whom Rook ends up fighting, even if the content might be seemingly problematic?

Epler might respond in the negative, per the Polygon interview, claiming that the gods “simply don’t care” about the elves.

“Those blighted, decrepit gods, they’re not bothering with the soft pitch. Their pitch is, We’re going to make a horrible world. We’re going to give you a lot of power, and maybe you’ll be OK.”

Like a chess board, the core conflict of The Veilguard is black and white. BioWare abandoned the chance to make Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain more interesting villains because it was too risky.

Similarly risky was Solas’s role as an antagonist, since his motivations, as explained in “Trespasser”, are deeply sympathetic. Perhaps too much so for the developers’ comfort. Unlike the Evanuris and their disinterest in the elves, Solas wants to restore the elven people to their former glory. At least, that seemed to be his pitch in the last game. Frustratingly absent from The Veilguard are the Agents of Fen’Harel – elves who swore fealty to Solas’s cause. They infiltrated and compromised the Inquisition, effectively precipitating the final decision to end the organization in its current form. The idea that Solas had amassed an army of common folk who found the idea of a renewed elven empire appealing made him appear formidable and intimidating. “Trespasser” implies that a mass uprising of elves under Solas’s leadership was imminent, and anyone could be in on it.

None of this happens in The Veilguard. Not only does Solas lack an army, but their absence isn’t explained or even acknowledged. As a result, Solas remains a passive antagonist until near the end, since the player has no disciples of his to contend with (either physically or ideologically) along the way. It wastes a side of his character that had been foreshadowed in a decade-long cliffhanger – that of a charismatic leader, capable of coordinating a rebellion that could spell disaster for its own followers.

In a Reddit AMA after the latest game’s release, Epler answered where the Agents of Fen’Harel disappeared to:

“Solas’ experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories – the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him – he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his ‘followers’ and went back to being a lone wolf. There are Dalish clans who are sympathetic to his goals, but even there, there’s an understanding that he’s too dangerous to have a more formal connection with, and that he will, ultimately, sacrifice them to his own ends if necessary.”

I find this explanation unsatisfying, not the least bit because the narrative offers next to nothing to imply this. The disappearance of Solas’s agents represents my biggest bugbear with the game, depriving it of the full potential of its highly anticipated antagonist in favor of the more generically villainous Evanuris. Moreover, this omission fits into the aggravating blueprint for The Veilguard’s inoffensive direction. The motivations, emotions, and backgrounds of the Agents of Fen’Harel would be sympathetic, and therefore might problematize the otherwise cut-and-dry conflicts. Epler seemed concerned that audiences might think Solas was “a little too sympathetic in his goals,” according to an interview with GamesRadar+.

But that’s the thing: sympathy isn’t endorsement, and portrayal of sympathetic characters isn’t endorsement either. But neither does that invalidate the emotions and experiences that generate that sympathy, even if the character’s actions ultimately turn toward evil. I’ve noticed a trend (especially in symptomatic criticism, which I generally dislike5) to view art as propaganda, and to evaluate it from a moralizing, top-down perspective. Antagonists with complex or understandable motivations (in this case, revolutionary villains) are often judged by this framework as tools for stories wishing to champion the status quo. Common arguments that I’ve seen imply that the relatability that we often find in villains is not a strength of the writing, but a devilish trick of ideology by which writers can reinforce conservative doctrine, to scold us away from certain beliefs. Any decent writer knows this isn’t the case, and that people don’t write morally or emotionally complex antagonists for didactic purposes. Instead, characters such as these embody the anxieties of their creators – the fear of losing yourself to your passions, the fear of going about things the wrong way, the fear of sacrificing too much to achieve your desired ends. The concepts and feelings that compel these characters remain authentic to the writer’s heart and the connection they established with the audience.

Art isn’t propaganda. To read it as such reduces it and promotes intellectual dishonesty and foolhardy myopia. Stories are irreducible (otherwise, we would not waste our time with them), and so I believe interpretations should be formed from the bottom-up, rooted in the text as much as possible. The “message” cannot be imposed from the top-down, but symptomatic readings, in their focus on tropes and cultural context, frequently condemn without a trial. Hindering your story in order to future-proof it for the sake of optics is a safeguard against this, and one that leads to bad stories. Artists should have confidence that their text will hold its ground on its own. To quote Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “A Message about Messages”:

“The complex meanings of a serious story or novel can be understood only by participation in the language of the story itself. To translate them into a message or reduce them to a sermon distorts, betrays, and destroys them… Any reduction of that language into intellectual messages is radically, destructively incomplete.” (67-68)

BioWare’s doctrine of passive writing violates this wisdom by surrendering to their fear of (bad) criticism. The Veilguard lacks punch, stakes, and empathy and becomes incongruous with its established lore because it’s not willing to take risks that might alienate or upset players. They’re more concerned with making sure their work is inoffensive than they are with conveying a moving story.

I believe all of this was inherited from an incestuous feedback loop between a vocal minority of critics, of which I might’ve once counted myself among the blameworthy, and the apprehensiveness of out-of-touch corporate board room decision-making. Dragon Age’s genome mutated, and it slowly lost its teeth.

Over the course of a decade, we bred the Dread Wolf into a Dread Pug.

V. What It Took

The Veilguard’s lack of confidence in itself and lack of faith in its audience contribute to its capitulatory nature. In many respects, it feels like the developers lost their passion for it over the course of the ten year hellish production and just wanted to be done with it. This resulted in a decent game that nonetheless feels divorced from what came before it. It tries to juggle being a soft reboot while also trying to close out the series’s biggest and longest running story arcs, but inevitably fumbles.

Nearly everything done by The Veilguard was handled better by Inquisition. And Inquisition was certainly the more ambitious title. Perhaps more returning characters would have established a sense of continuity between the two, or at least made it less awkward by having them present for the story’s grand finale. For as strong as the endgame is, it could’ve benefited from the presence of slave liberator Fenris, elven history aficionado Merrill, possible Evanuris soul vessel Sera, or Divine Victoria (any of them). The core pillar of Dragon Age is the characters, and The Veilguard’s under-performance (and in some cases, outright dismissal) in that regard sabotages its integrity. Without this to anchor it, the changes to gameplay, visuals, and roleplaying depth become more alienating.

Personally, what do I take away from this? The Veilguard is far from the game I dreamed about for ten years, and not the one that loyal fans deserved either. I’m no stranger to disappointment at this point in my life, and yet this still leaves me with a hollow feeling. Will I still be able to return to Inquisition, a game I truly adore, and see it the same way as before, knowing now where all this is leading? The true cost of The Veilguard, for me, has nothing to do with the price tag: it’s the loss of that perfectly tailored dream, now that the possibilities of the future have shut their gates.

Where do those dreams go? Are they doomed to fester in their lonely, incommunicable agony? Will they be twisted by their enmity, like the blighted dreams of the Titans, and spread their corruption into those important happy memories?

In 2014, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: Inquisition helped me to see the light and come out of it. In 2024, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard made me feel nothing. There’s no less favorable comparison in my eyes. It’s disheartening to behold something that once meant so much to me and be greeted with numbness. I have to wonder if that affection will ever return, or if I’ve just grown out of it.

But as I wandered the streets of Minrathous as Rook, I heard a familiar song. It was one of the tavern songs from Inquisition, its nostalgic chords filling me with wistful sentiment. I know, deep down, there’s still something there. Maybe I just need to dig it up. Maybe it’s time to look back…

To be continued…

– Hunter Galbraith

Further Reading

Le Guin, Ursula K. “A Message about Messages.” Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Abrams Image, 2018, pp. 67–68.

Incidentally, this was an anomaly my friends and I pondered over and eventually solved. It turned out to be a former Wienerschnitzel. ↩︎

You could argue that this credit goes more to Inquisition and the previous games for laying the groundwork for said reveals, which were obviously planned out ahead of time, as confirmed by the aforementioned official artbook. Regardless, the payoff satisfied me and gave me proper closure. ↩︎

I’ve been informed that there is a hidden conversation that explains that the Lords of Fortune do, in fact, sell cultural artifacts at times, but only to the rightful owners. This just makes me wonder what they do with the artifacts if the prospective clients can’t pay. Do they shove them back in the ruins and re-arm all the booby traps? ↩︎

I would argue that this does not represent character progression on Isabela’s part, as her (possible, depending on the player’s choices) return of the Tome of Koslun in Dragon Age II was a pragmatic sacrifice she made to save her friends and the city, rather than an acknowledgment of the qunari’s inviolable ownership. In fact, in many continuities, she never returns the Tome at all. ↩︎

I prefer more formalist criticism because it allows the text to lead the dance, not the critique. I think it’s only fair, given that the creators likely spent more effort crafting the piece than I spent consuming it. Symptomatic criticism mandates that the reader consider everything around the text, typically at the text’s expense. In the worst cases, symptomatic critics make their arguments about seemingly everything besides the text in question. ↩︎ Link to article: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2025/01/01/dragon-age-the-veilguard-strangled-by-gentle-hands/

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lady-ashfade · 2 years ago

Text

A Sign

Yan!Rhaenrya Targaryen x WhiteHind!Child!Reader. (Hinted Yan!Criston Cole)

The reader has antlers in this! Idk if females don’t have them, they do in this.

Warnings: Yandere tendencies, possession, obsession, over protective.

Her chest fell as she glanced over the woods from above, the camp ground filled with her people had put a weight on her chest. This time she was far away and no one could tell her she wasn’t worthy of the throne with just a look. Everyone looked at her now just as someone to be thrown aside for her new male brother, Aegon. Rhaenrya could leave without another word and maybe things could be better.

Cristin stood at her side with admiration in his eyes at her beauty even with blood coving her skin and clothes. She was perfect, she was smart and caring but ruthlessly and strong willed. She had raised him from the bottom and gave him a title and somewhere he could belong, he was grateful to no ends.

Sounds of soft footsteps and branches breaking broke the silence and caught the attention of the princess and the knight. Heads turning quickly a around to face what they had heard, criston ready to draw his sword to protect. But their eyes saw no threat at the sight in front of them but a wonder to see. Maybe they both had gone mad to cause them seeing what the did.

A small girl with long hair dropping off her shoulders and down to her back, a dirty dress that was once white turned brown with spots. The sun behind her made it clear as day to see the antlers on her head, beautiful patterns with waves and twisted. Her doe eyes that looked soft and curious as she stared at the pair, they had the same expression filled with wonder and confusion.

Rhaenrya new this was a sign. She could recall the men saying there was a stag in the woods and they called it a blessing from the gods. Slowly the princess hopped off her horse to walked towards the girl she had seen, criston waiting so someone could keep a eye on her. Inching closer it surprises them that she had not run away but slowly walked closer. “Can you speak?” The princess asked in a soft voice.

The small eyes blinked and her head nodded to the question. The princess stopped a few inches away and waited for the girl’s permission to come closer. Bending down she looked at the child and smiled sweetly, slowly extended her hand out and reached for the girl. “My name is Rhaenrya, what’s yours little one?”

The girl was you, a girl only knowing the woods and nature as your home. You never seen a human up close before, the animals had always welcomed you. The harmful creatures thought of you as a friend. “Y/n.” Your small voice answered her and stepped closer. Rhaenrya felt herself fall in a deep hole of love and obsession, the urge to protect you and place you above everything.

“Would you like to come with me, y/n? My kingdom does need something like you.” You blinked up at her and felt the wind blow and the ringing in your ears stop. Just this morning you had been miles away but something was calling you. She was must be your purpose in this life.

Eyes wondered and watched as Rhaenrya walked through the camp drenched in blood and covered in dirt. The cold expression on her face sent shivers down the spines of everyone who looked. Her father, the king, had stoped what he was doing as well as the queen. The princess only looked at them and then stopped herself and looked back at the horse of her protector. Her gaze made everyone follow and the people gasped in shocked.

You stepping down from the horse with the help of Cristin and looking like a blessing from the gods themselves. Everyone stood up and watched you walked through them. You felt nervous at all the eyes on you and whispering, but Rhaenryas eyes were reassuring and calling you to her which kept you grounded as you walked. Taking her hand in yours she walked into the tent to get cleaned up and to spend time with you.

The first thing she did was get you food and clean you up first, she would be so gentle with you. “Do you know how special you are little one?” She asked as the rage whipped the dirt off your cheek. You only shook your head. “I will show you in time, you are mine by the gods laws. They sent you to me in the darkest hour.” She leaned down to kiss your head and then continued to wash you up.

“No one will ever keep us apart”

#rhaenrya targaryen #Criston Cole #Criston Cole x reader #yandere criston cole #yandere rhaenrya targaryen #yandere rhaenyra targaryen x reader #princess rhaenys targaryen #rhaenrya targaryen x reader #yandere house targaryen #yandere house of the dragon #house of the dragon #house of the dragon x reader #yandere house of the dragon x reader

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puckinghischier · 1 month ago

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Decorating with Nico for Christmas thoughts

oh he’d loveeeeeee decorating for christmas. he’d be like a little kid, begging to put the tree up the second the air gets cold outside. november first, he’s dragging it all out of the storage closet, blasting christmas music, and off he goes.

you love christmas too, so he’s not alone in these endeavors, but he’s definitely the type to find matching stockings, having them personalized and embroidered. he’s buying an ornament from every city he goes to with you, and even when he’s on a roadie and he finds one from some landmark the two of you don’t have an ornament from.

and if the two of you have pets? they’re getting their own everything. their own stockings, their own ornaments on the tree, their own pictures with santa on the mantle, their own matching pajamas. because let’s be honest, nico would totally wear matching christmas pajamas with you and love it.

but your tree? none of that white lite, modern, ‘clean’ type of decorating. he wants it tacky and colorful and loud and in your face. mistletoe hanging from every doorway, so he can have an excuse to kiss you in every room. your kitchen is full of cliche gingerbread decorations.

but the tree is nico’s main focus. you wait to decorate it with him until he has time and is gonna be home. you make nico’s family recipe hot chocolate, blast nat king cole, and get to decorating. the whole time the two of you are reminiscing on each trip each ornament came from, talking about where you want to go next. you both have childhood ornaments you always put on the tree too, sharing the memories with each other. he hangs the ornaments high on the tree, while you hang them on the lower branches.

his favorite part is putting the star on top. a few christmases ago, you had a custom devils tree topper made as a joke, but nico refuses to put any other star on top of the tree. he claims it adds just the right amount of tackiness to the already tacky tree.

after the tree is decorated and perfected, the two of you turn off all the lights and close all the blinds, basking in the light of your favorite season. you’ll continue to sip on your hot chocolate and cuddle on the couch, falling asleep there, waking up in the morning to christmas tree shaped pancakes and more of katjas special hot chocolate.

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draczrys · 6 months ago

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I know Criston Cole is not who you usually write for and I know he’s not a fan favorite but could you write a Drabble or one shot of Criston Cole x Reader? I love Fabian Frankel and just wish to read something with one of his characters. Much love! 💕

brb just added him to my muse list bc mr fabian is yum & early s1 criston is bearable. and this trope!! my fave medieval theme ever. like wdym i’m not supposed to love a boy w big brown eyes

COURTLY LOVE. ❨ criston cole x reader ❩

the standing of a riverland lord's youngest daughter was nothing of note to the realm. little to inherit, a pitiful dowry, barely a suitor at the door. so, the seven must have blessed you the day queen aemma requested your presence at court. the princess was of age now, and in need of ladies in waiting of noble birth.

suddenly, the world was a different place. thrown into the deep end of the red keep, you had all the dresses you wished for and every suitor at court vying for your hand in marriage. no longer just an unknown lady, but a lady of the crown. still, there wasn't a single lord or son that caught your eye. not since you saw him.

"... ser criston cole!"

your breath had caught in your throat as the young knight shed his helmet and blinked up to the royal box, respects paid to the king before he looks to you.

"i would like to ask for your lady's favour, if she would be so kind," he spoke, voice smooth, eyes never leaving your own. if it weren't for rhaenyra's elbow in your side, you're sure you would have stared all day.

"best of luck, ser," comes your wishes, leaning over the wooden rail to drop your favour over his joust. you had spent a whole day on it, the princess on her's too, weaving daisies and lavender into a pretty ring. "i hope that you win."

"as do i," criston muses, smirking. "if it means speaking with you again, my lady."

a blush burns at your cheeks, hurrying to sit back down. you ignore rhaenyra's teasing and watch the knight mount his horse, readying himself for the competition. he knocks down lord after lord, knight after knight, even defeating prince daemon. the heat in your chest has your heart beating quicker, head somewhat hazy as you watch on in delight.

the chaos of a tourney day sweeps you up from your daydreaming, ushered behind the princess to dress her for the feast. though she speaks to you as you braid her hair, it's barely audible past the heavy thoughts of the knight in your ears. eventually, when rhaenyra is summoned to her mother, you find the time to catch your breath in an empty hallway. leaning against the cold stone, your eyes squeeze shut to urge any romantic ideas from your mind.

"my good luck charm."

the sudden voice startles you, turning quickly to ready yourself in defence. but there, only a few steps away, is your knight. for a moment, you think he's talking about you. noting your furrowed brows and slightly cocked head, he raises the favour you had gifted into view.

"ah," you breathe out, a smile growing on your lips. "i'm glad it was of use."

criston mirrors your smile, steps closing the space between you, his armour clinking as it still rests on his bones. his arm reaches out, offering the flowered ring back to you. "it is custom the knight returns the favour to the lady, if they have survived."

glancing at the branches and petals your hands had tirelessly woven, then back to the warm eyes that watch you so carefully, that strange feeling creeps back into your chest. you shake your head.

"keep it," you urge, cheeks rounding. "perhaps it will bring you luck again."

cole's brows raise, interest obviously piqued at your suggestion. his smile turns crooked, eyes sparkling with a life you'd only seen outside of the walls of the keep.

"and will you be present, again? in case it is you, and not the favour, that has blessed me." his tongue is playful and teasing, but his eyes hold a sincerity you daren't question.

"i cannot promise my presence to be so virtuous." you giggle breathily, eyes darting to the ground for a moment to spare yourself the dizziness that comes from his gaze. "and i should--"

"a kiss then."

the blunt but hopeful proposition snaps your eyes back to him, unsure of whether to be more shocked, offended or delighted. criston smirks, obviously enjoying your surprise. "as a precaution, of course."

stomach jumping with nerves, heart dancing with excitement, you watch his eyes carefully in an attempt to gauge whether he was taunting you or not. but no, still only genuine.

shuffling forward, close enough now, you slowly stretch upwards onto your tiptoes. eyes locked, your lips journeying closer to his cheek - slightly stubbled, but littered with freckles. they barely brush his skin before he turns his head, quicker than you can notice, replacing his cheek with his lips.

the surprise that overtakes you is quickly subdued by the sweet taste of his kiss. his lips soft, just relishing in yours. not desperate or rough as you had seen with older lords and ladies, but delicate and kind. he only parts when he feels you swoon a little in his arms, smiling against the aftertaste of the kiss. breathless, you look at each other, caught up in the warmth between you.

"my lady," criston murmurs, stepping back from your space when he hears the distant patter of feet. bowing at the waist, his eyes still linger on your own. "until next time."

#⚔️ ﹐ writings.#ser criston #criston cole #criston cole x reader #criston cole x you #criston cole imagine #criston cole drabble #hotd #hotd imagine #house of the dragon #house of the dragon imagine #hotd x reader #fabien frankel #fabien frankel x reader

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spork-supremacy · 2 months ago

Text

Feeling pretty bored so I think it'd be fun for asks to be sent in.

I don't know if there should be a type of theme here here I'm just a person who loves answering questions.

granted this is a very ninjago centric blog so...

#spork is a natrual born talker #therefore a natrual born person who likes answering question #I have a very specific blog theme tho so I'll just tag #ninjago #jay walker #ninjago jay #nya smith #zane julien #kai ninjago #cole ninjago #ask game #ninjago skybound #spork rambilng #I swear I am in more fandoms but it feels a little late to branch out

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perfectlyoongi · 7 months ago

Text

THE NUMBERS BETWEEN US

ㅤ↬┊synopsis ... you had a little habit that had been with you since you were little: you loved to count, everything. but when yoongi went to visit his future university and left you alone in the city, this little habit became more addictive.

ㅤ⚘.fandom ... bts. ㅤㅤಇ.ft. ... yoongi x gn!reader. ㅤ⚘.genre ... long-shot. ㅤㅤಇ.content ... fluff, pre-college!au, kinda ocd reader, shy best friends with feelings. ㅤㅤಇ.word count ... 4.2k. ㅤ⚘.cole's note ... dont ask how and why i thought of this, i dont have an answer for u lol i hope u like it tho ♡

You had a little fascination with numbers.

Since you were little, you felt involved in the tender and delicate lines of numbers, finding a little pleasure in counting everything that surrounded you, everything you did, everything you said.

Your life was a routine that revolved around infinite numbers. It was all you knew and it was all you needed. Every day you ate exactly four slices of apple and two cookies and drank a glass of milk; before leaving the house, you always gave your mother two kisses and, when you came home from school, you hugged your father for exactly three seconds. It was all a routine that had been created for a long time and that you couldn’t break.

Numbers have always been important to you, captivating you in the complexity of the vast numerical world since you were little, always leaving you enchanted by their magic.

However, as you grew up, you realized that a lifetime dedicated to numbers and routines was quite complicated – and painful.

Your first heartbreak was when you turned eleven: the typical hug and three seconds with your father had turned into a bitter touching of arms that couldn’t even reach the first second. It was a small disappointment, your first, but it was the only one you needed to start seeing the world in a different way. Maybe numbers aren’t that important after all.

So, even before you entered high school, you had already stopped counting how many steps you took to school, how many minutes you remained silent in class, how many ‘kids’ your teacher said. You believed that now, free from your habit, you could have a normal life, a life that would expand with your enrollment at the university.

However, in your first year of high school, you met Min Yoongi.

In a room full of students, the probability of you pairing up with the new student was a little low, but, perhaps due to your numerical history, the odds were in your favor and, in an English class, you and Min Yoongi met for the first time.

Yoongi’s cordiality invited you to get to know him better. Amid study sessions, a friendship between you began to slowly germinate; your English work was finished almost immediately, but that didn’t stop Yoongi from continuing to send you messages through texts – he always felt more comfortable behind a screen.

The complicity that was created between you and Yoongi was something unusual for you, something you didn’t know how to deal with. In a certain way, you felt that the seed planted by Yoongi in the middle of notebooks and books was taking root in your heart, branches of comfort and security drawing an extensive tree of friendship within you.

In the space of two months, you and Yoongi became inseparable.

But, no matter how much comfort Yoongi provided you, no matter how much warmth Yoongi fed your heart, Yoongi also brought with him a kind of anxiety, a nervousness that forced you to return to that annoying habit of counting – you couldn’t understand why.

And everything went back to numbers.

And everything went back to being a routine.

Every day it took you exactly eleven minutes and four seconds to get to school. Every day you always waited three minutes for Yoongi to appear and offer you two simple words that, in a way, brightened your day. Every day you spent five classes writing exactly thirty lines of notes using just a pen. Every day you had exactly an hour and a half for lunch, which was always shared with Yoongi. Every day, at the end of classes, you always waited five minutes for Yoongi to meet you at the school gate and walk the eleven minutes and four seconds with you to your house.

But, no matter how routine your life was, no matter how many days passed, your little habit brought by Yoongi began to irritate you: you felt like you had gone back in time and been that naive child – but it was stronger than you, you couldn’t help it.

Was there a way to break this habit?

The reality is that during the three years you shared with Yoongi in high school, your life had become a routine surrounded by numerical sequences that you repeated day after day after day after day aft–

No matter how much you thought, you couldn’t understand why Yoongi had such an impact on your life to the point that your heart raced exactly two seconds every time you were with him. This behavior of yours was strange to your heart and year after year it only got worse, reaching the point of confusing all the numbers in your mind.

You blamed Yoongi.

Your heart was unstable whenever Yoongi’s energy approached you. It was practically difficult for you to follow a logical thought because of Yoongi: so quickly your heart beat exactly sixty times a minute, and then it accelerated to a crazy ninety heartbeats.

All because Yoongi was, in reality, that person you always dreamed of.

And now, in the last year of high school, when universities were mentioned and futures were planned, everything seemed redundant, everything seemed meaningless.

“It doesn’t feel real.”

Yoongi’s words were embellished by an intense sunset, the vibrant colors in the sky guiding your path to your house.

“What doesn’t?”

“It’s our last year,” Yoongi had a sad smile on his lips, as if that thought alone carried with it all the negativity in the world. “High school.”

“Yea.”

You used the same smile as Yoongi and, after blinking your eyes twice, you tilted your head a little to watch the sky: among the vibrant colors of reds and oranges, you could make out small white clouds that were trying to create a shape, a story.

“It seems like it was yesterday that we met.”

Your words were covered with pure longing. As if carrying all the memories shared between you and Yoongi, your words caressing Yoongi’s lips, giving truth to that shy smile of his.

Two seconds passed and Yoongi’s smile expanded on its own.

Lost in his thoughts, Yoongi didn’t realize that he was now smiling widely, letting the warm air of the day kiss his lips, his brown eyes shining brightly.

“I’m grateful you’re in my life.”

Yoongi’s confession took exactly three seconds to settle in your heart and five seconds to be processed. Yoongi’s words repeated exactly three times inside your head and lit a single fire inside you.

He was grateful. Because you’re in his life. You.

“Your presence in my life,” every syllable uttered by Yoongi was bathed in longing, peppered with the memories of three long years filled with pure happiness and understanding, “made high school an experience worth living.”

Every word Yoongi released made small palpitations in your heart, your heartbeat becoming irregular when commanded by your best friend’s honesty.

“Having you with me brought me so many emotions, so many dreams, so many…”

“Dreams?”

You couldn’t control yourself. At that simple six-letter word your lips curved into a perfect smile full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

Yoongi told you everything.

There was an desirable complicity in your relationship.

It seemed natural, something that slept inside you and Yoongi and woke up only when the first words were exchanged. Yoongi swore it was timeless. Just two months of your friendship were enough for Yoongi to be sure that the complicity that existed between the two of you was too strong to be new. In other lives, Yoongi used to say, in other lives we shared memories and dreams. In other lives, you used to say, in other lives we had a lasting relationship. In other lives, however, in other lives you weren’t together. But Yoongi believed. You believed.

“What dreams?”

“None.” Yoongi took exactly two steps away from you and, after holding back a smile for exactly one second, he spoke again, his voice full of amusement. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yoonie!” your best friend’s name sounded in laughter, your hands looking for Yoongi’s arm to hold him. “Tell me, what dreams?”

“None, no. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please!”

Your voice had dropped in timbre and, as you gently pronounced those six letters, Yoongi sighed.

Two blinks. A smile.

“I want to join the university basketball team.”

Yoongi’s secret was exposed. Painted with the fire of the sky, Yoongi’s secret flew gently into your ears, basking in your mind, racing your heart.

Ninety-two heartbeats.

Basketball. Yoongi dreamed of basketball. Yoongi dreamed. Basketball. Os course.

“And… I would like you… I would like you to come and watch me play.”

Ninety-seven heartbeats.

You. You were in Yoongi’s dream. Your presence. Your soul. You. In Yoongi’s dream.

You smiled.

“If you make the team, I promise I’ll watch your first game.”

“You don’t need to go. It’s just a dream.”

You could tell from Yoongi’s shy tone of voice that he was embarrassed by his confession, feeling exposed for having told a simple secret.

But it was Yoongi’s dream. It was Yoongi’s genuine and only dream. You. You. You.

“I promise.” your promise was joyful, sprinkled with the sundust that illuminated your conversation. “I want to cheer for you. I want to see you doing what you love most. I want to see my best friend happy.”

“But I’m already happy with you.”

One second. Ninety-four heartbeats.

Two seconds. One hundred heartbeats.

Three seconds. Happy with you. Yoongi was happy. With you. Yoongi was happy with you.

“I’m happy with you too.”

Two perfect smiles. Two genuine smiles. Two silent seconds.

You and Yoongi looked at each other, letting the intense shine in your eyes speak for you. You and Yoongi looked at each other, letting the soft breeze of the day caress your faces. You and Yoongi looked at each other, and the entire world had disappeared.

“My days feel incomplete without you.”

A confession from you.

Seventy-eight heartbeats.

“I can only be myself when I’m with you.”

A confession from Yoongi.

Ninety-one heartbeats.

“Yoongi?”

Your voice came out in a thread, shaky. It didn’t matter how many times you repeated your best friend’s name, the reality is that your heart beat exactly seventy-eight times a minute whenever you thought of that name, whenever you pronounced that name, whenever you waited for that name to respond to you.

Yoongi’s eyes focused on you, a small, shy smile appeared on your best friend’s lips, that curve expanding as if automatically – it was the effect you had on Yoongi.

He didn’t utter a word. Only Yoongi’s gaze spoke for him, shining with the happiness of that moment, showing you the contentment he felt in that moment.

For a instant, your heartbeat dropped to exactly forty-two heartbeats per minute.

“Do you think we will continue to be friends?”

Your question was carried by the breeze at the end of the day, your words spreading across the street as if wanting to drive away all the fear you carried with you.

“I hope so.”

Yoongi’s confession stuck on the sidewalk, his words settling on the street as if cementing all the hope they carried.

“But… you’re going to Seoul, aren’t you?”

“Mhm,” Yoongi seemed unable to utter any statement, it was as if in that single monosyllable he hid something that he was afraid to show.

You continued to walk in silence, the sunset painting you a picture of anxious reds and shy oranges. An entire city graced your walk, where every car and every person played an urban melody that was already well known to you.

“I need to tell you something.”

Yoongi stopped walking and you stopped exactly two steps in front of him.

You were curious. When Yoongi said exactly those six words to you, the possibilities were endless: he could talk about the team of that sport he really likes, he could talk about a restaurant that just opened, he could talk about so many possibilities that the numbers started to jumble inside you.

Yoongi looked at you nervously.

Two blinks. A deep breath. A blink.

“I like you…” Yoongi sighed again and looked at the ground, searching the sidewalk for some of the courage that might have been lost there. Scratching the back of his neck, taking a deep breath once more, Yoongi looked at you again, still nervous, still without courage. “You know I…”

“Yoongi,” you let out a small laugh that hid itself in Yoongi’s ears, resonating over and over and over again. “Don’t be nervous. You know you can tell me everything.”

“Everything, yes.”

A blink. A deep breath. Two blinks.

“You know you’re my best friend,” Yoongi’s voice was low, hoarse, still nervous about the words he was choosing in detail. “You know that I… that I really like you, don’t you?”

Four words.

I really like you.

One word.

Really.

“Yea…”

Pathetic. What a pathetic word. What yea so pathetic. What was happening to you? Why did you let those four words affect you so much? No. One. One word.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you. I didn’t have the courage.”

Courage. Why did Yoongi need that one word?

Forty-five heartbeats.

“There is a program at the university. Where first-year students can receive extra credit and get used to the university. And I am in that program.”

“That’s it?” you laughed at your best friend’s speech. Why was Yoongi so nervous about saying those five words? “You didn’t need to be so nervous.”

“It’s this summer.”

Three words.

Three words that were carried by the wind to distant lands to surprise as many people as they could. Three words that were heard by you with amazement and nervousness. Three words that simply won’t leave your mind.

“It lasts three months.”

Three. Three. Three.

What could you do? What could you say? Was Yoongi waiting for an answer? For a reaction? Nothing crossed your mind other than the number three. Your whole world had collapsed, everything had disappeared, total darkness painted you inside leaving the number three floating, floating, floating, floa–

But you just smiled for exactly two seconds as the last rays of the day gently painted Yoongi’s figure and you waited exactly another two seconds to speak.

“I hope you have fun.”

Your smile was genuine, quite wide and captivating, the kind of smile that would make anyone else smile too. But Yoongi didn’t smile. Yoongi just stared at you, blinking exactly five times before turning his sigh into a small, shaky smile “Thank you.”

In a way, you thought those two words hid more than they showed. In a way, you thought those two words were a disguise for Yoongi’s true feelings.

But you couldn’t say anything. You couldn’t force Yoongi to talk. So you just continued walking with Yoongi by your side, silently casting prayers to the sun to keep Yoongi safe.

You knew Yoongi’s program would be long. What you didn’t know was that the program forced your best friend to disappear completely for three months.

No.

It wasn’t three months.

Ninety-two days, four hours, three minutes, ten seconds since your last hug.

Thirty seconds since his last smile.

Forty seconds since your last goodbye.

You were lying in bed counting precisely the seconds that were ringing loudly on the clock hanging on the wall.

You were trying to distract yourself by following the clock, naming the various seconds that passed. You were simply using that habit of yours to comfort yourself; you were looking for some relieve to protect you from the longing you felt for Yoongi.

Your body was completely relaxed on the mattress, trying to calm your mind a little.

But it was unnecessary. And you knew that. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t overcome the physical lack that Yoongi made you. Yes, you continued to talk almost daily, only when he could and had free time; but talking via texts couldn’t make up for the lack of Yoongi’s laughter, to make up for the lack of Yoongi’s jokes, to make up for the lack of Yoongi.

You sighed and got up from the bed exactly four seconds after letting your sigh of frustration wander into the emptiness of your room, of your heart.

You approached your desk and looked longingly at the last letter you had exchanged with Yoongi.

You let out a small wistful smile.

Yoongi knew how much you liked to count, especially the words, the minutes of waiting, the various spelling mistakes he made on purpose just to make you smile, to give you something more to count.

And that letter was, in fact, something very important to you – not because it was the last one you had received, but because those simple eight words had touched you in a way that you didn’t even know you missed. However, although Yoongi’s ‘we have to talk when I come home’ had moved you, the reality is that it wasn’t in the good way you were used to, but to the point of making your anxiety reach extreme peaks every time you saw that sheet of paper.

You read those words exactly five times before deciding to keep it in the blue box that Yoongi had offered you before leaving. After counting the thirteen letters that rested silently there, you closed the box and placed it on the shelf.

You sat on the bed again.

You counted the seconds on the clock again.

You thought about those eight words again.

What did Yoongi have to say? You thought of exactly eleven scenarios before you heard your cell phone ring and, before you saw who was calling you, your heart dropped to exactly fifty-three beats per minute.

But when you read the name, oh!, when you read Yoongi’s name shining on your small screen your heart accelerated to hundred and eleven heartbeats per minute and you needed to take four deep breaths before gained courage and answered the call.

“Hey.”

Yoongi sounded exactly as he always did: calm with a hint of joy trapped in the syllables. You immediately relaxed, as if that greeting was the magic word to control all your nerves.

“Just got home. Do you want… Do you want to meet me?”

Oh. Yeah. The eight words. Those words were still something you should worry about.

At the mention of that possible meeting, your body became rigid, your heart slowed down significantly and you simply forgot to breathe.

Yoongi needed to talk to you and you couldn’t decipher what he wanted.

During these long three months, nothing serious had happened to you – but what if something had happened to him? What if he found someone else to share his life with? What if he found someone else who made him feel the same way you once made him feel? What if he had found another best friend?

“Are you still there?”

“Yea, yea,” two yeses, one omission; you were hiding something, you were hiding what you really felt, you were hiding what really worried you. “So… let’s meet at the cafe in twenty?

“See ya.”

You hung up the call and stared at your phone screen for exactly one minute and two seconds.

Silence fell in your room, no thought running through your mind other than those eight words from Yoongi and his request. You couldn’t think of anything else, no matter how hard you tried – and it was slowly destroying you.

You sat in your room for five minutes and thirty-two seconds.

You didn’t want to meet Yoongi. You didn’t want to find out what he wanted to talk to you about so much. Your heart raced just at the thought of Yoongi saying that he found someone different, someone better.

You didn’t want to lose Yoongi, you couldn’t afford that luxury.

But he was here... Yoongi was here and these ninety-two days, four hours and fifty-three minutes were too much – and it was what moved you.

You got out of bed and got ready for that meeting you were dreading so much.

Walking to the agreed location was like a walk to purgatory. Your feet were slow, your mind was thinking fast. The day was hot, the end of August arriving proud in its majesty and warming every corner of the city, every building in the city, every person in the city – except you.

Wrapped up in your worrying thoughts, the sun of that day found itself unable to tear you away from that block of ice that you had created in your mind with those eight words from Yoongi.

You walked with your head down, hands moving frantically with your fingers looking for a distraction other than the numbers.

But it was needless.

After exactly three steps, you started counting the number of cars that passed you. The number of steps you took. The number of people who were on their cell phone. The time: ninety-two days, five hours, twenty-eight minutes and forty-nine seconds.

Ten more steps and you arrived at the cafe. You knew you had to wait for Yoongi, but you preferred to arrive early rather than spend endless minutes anxiously in your room. Still, you made those ten steps last, dragging them out and distracting yourself with everything you could.

One step, three more people on the cell phone.

Two steps, the memory of your first hello to Yoongi.

Three steps, a couple holding hands – the first that day.

Four steps, your first hug.

Five steps, three pigeons flying.

Six steps, that day he gave you his coat because you were cold.

Seven steps, another person on the cell phone.

Eight steps, when he said he really liked you.

Nine steps, a boy riding a bicycle.

Ten steps, Yoongi.

Ninety-two days, five hours, thirty minutes and two seconds was how long it took you to see Yoongi since your last goodbye.

Two seconds was the time you couldn’t breathe after seeing Yoongi’s relaxed figure.

Forty-five were your heartbeats per minute.

Two minutes was the time you and Yoongi needed to assimilate that reality.

You were together once again.

You ran exactly four steps until you found yourself in Yoongi’s strong arms who, thinking that the world could ruin that moment, didn’t let go of you. Yoongi just held you tightly against his body and you could smell his sweet perfume, the perfume that you missed so much.

That hug lasted exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds. Your breath stopped for two seconds. Your heart beat seventy-eight times a minute. For two minutes and forty-three seconds your mind was blank. Your only thought was to focus on the feeling of comfort you felt being in Yoongi’s arms once again after not seeing him for so long.

No.

It wasn’t ‘so long’.

You knew perfectly well how long it had been.

Ninety-two days, five hours, thirty minutes and two seconds contained a profound eternity of fear and longing.

It didn’t matter. Finally you were in Yoongi’s arms. Finally you were being welcomed by Yoongi’s tenderness. Finally you were being touched by Yoongi’s affection. Finally you were with Yoongi – that was all that mattered.

But, after two minutes and forty-three seconds, Yoongi broke the hug and looked at you, his brown eyes always shining, the smile that only you gave him beautifying his face.

You trembled because, looking at Yoongi now, you remembered why you had met at that moment, without giving Yoongi any time to rest.

Yoongi wanted to talk to you.

“So? What do you want to tell me?”

“I missed you so much,” was all Yoongi said to you, cutting off your question, your reasoning, leaving you looking at him in shock, completely confused by what he told you. “I missed you so, so much.”

You stood there staring at him. You repeated those five words to yourself in total disbelief, confused with what was happening, with what could happen after those words from Yoongi. “You… You missed me?”

“I know you like to count,” Yoongi smiled wistfully, blinking with each word, looking at you with tenderness and a lot of… love? “But I also know that you like being with me. I thought it was more… special… to tell you… in pers…. Nevermind. It’s stupid.”

Yoongi let out a weak laugh and you waited exactly four seconds before answering him, your voice coming out in a slurred, shaky, shy thread.

“No. It’s not stupid.”

Because it was true.

Those five words had a different impact when said in person and you never realized it. In ninety-two days, five hours, thirty minutes and two seconds. In thirty hours of calls exchanged with Yoongi. In thirteen letters written with Yoongi. In two thousand, one hundred and thirty-four messages with Yoongi. In three months you never realized that Yoongi never, not once, said those five simple words to you.

I missed you so much.

Yoongi smiled fondly, a light and shy shade of pink appearing on his cheeks when he, very unsure of the situation, slowly touched your hand for exactly two seconds.

And you smiled back, slowly opening your fingers and waiting a second for him to intertwine his fingers with yours.

ㅤㅤ♡ feedback is appreciated ♡

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