#and i think this was because of what veilguard actually is

[basically-fabulous]

All fair! And I do agree for the most part. My own experience making a woman who looks (and sounds) like me in VG was more successful though honestly I had her all armored up for half the game so my main focus was on the face so I'll cop to my brain just filling in the details if that's what happened lol.

Comparing Saints Row 5 and Veilguard is actually fun because they were also both #Woker than previous installments (and amusingly I made basically the same character visually in both). And I think that's why I'm a little more patient with the character creators not being as expansive as they might otherwise be. Veilguard's is less cohesive in the physical sense but they at least give you the in-game recognition (outside of those conversations with other trans characters that treat you like you don't know, which to clarify, blow), and SR5 lets you be whatever and then ignores it. Which was always my main critique of THAT sort of CC. Like the visual diversity is there and that rules but it's hard to ignore that as far as the game is concerned, being an average trans woman is no different to being a turbo plus-sized shiny Dr. Manhattan with his dick out who sounds like a southern belle, so I can't really give them props for "inclusion", especially in games like Saint's Row, where it really wouldn't be surprising if the game made jokes about trans or fat or otherwise marginalized people. BUT it's clear both teams wanted to offer some level of inclusion in a more thoughtful way, even if they were lacking one way or another, so I can't really be mad so much as I might just wish they'd gone further. Hopefully they keep pushing the boundary and one day we get some better CC standards where you can be trans and fat and not talked down to lol.

the fact that the cyberpunk 2077 character creator doesn't let you be fat is utterly indefensible. like even elden ring let's you have more different kinds of body types than cyberpunk and elden ring doesn't advertise itself on "In The Lands Between you can BE ANYONE...."

[fadetouchedsilk]

I think when it comes to Veilguard critique there’s a bit of a disconnect between what I see most people complaining about vs. What a lot of the rebuttals to these opinions seem to be.

I can’t speak for everyone else but at this point when I come at this game it’s almost purely Doylist. I think it’s kind of ridiculous for my experience as a player to seem lacking when compared to the narrative experience of the NPCs. The setting isn’t real; it’s a product that was marketed as being ‘the most romantic Dragon Age yet,’ which implies a level of wish-fulfilment that we were supposed to expect. Which is fine! But it’s not what was delivered.

If I’m criticizing a romance & comparing the Rook version of it to the NPC/NPC version of it, it’s not because I’m violently jealous of the version that doesn’t include my character. It’s because I can make a direct comparison to things the writers come across as caring more about. Never mind the fact that we get statements in the AMA like ‘Yeah, we really wanted to include the Lords even if we knew they weren’t going to get the content the other factions had.’ You’re allowed to like that faction, you’re not stupid for doing so. It’s not a deliberate shot at you if someone points out how ridiculous the decision to keep the Lords in was when the devs were aware that they weren’t going to be able to develop them properly, especially when compared to other factions.

It doesn’t do anyone any favours to take criticism of the game personally. “This is good on a technical level” and “I personally liked this thing” are separate statements that need to coexist.

I don’t want to say it’s a waste of time to examine things from a Watsonian perspective, but I’m having a harder time doing that here because the shortcomings of the writers are so apparent, particularly when you hold it against the other Dragon Age games.

Maybe some people are being malicious in their criticism, idk. If that’s the case, then it’s definitely not worth engaging with on any level. But don’t automatically assume that someone who says ‘I didn’t care for the way this aspect was written’ is an automatic dog whistle for ‘I think you’re dumb if you disagree with me’ either.

The game has been out for a few months now. Take opinions with a grain of salt & form your own. If we shouldn’t be expected to place several disclaimers at the start of every opinion we post on this website, then we also shouldn’t be automatically assigning bad faith interpretations to every opinion that isn’t worded with perfect thoughtfulness either.

[ryssabrin]

i feel like people who don’t like solas or solavellan have such a warped perspective of what the romance is and how fans of it actually engage in it. like i’ve seen a lot of (most likely het dudes lol) on reddit say they tried it to see what the fuss was but felt it was “demeaning” and i’ve seen it described as literally a horror story where solas is manipulating and using and lying to a young impressionable lavellan who gives up her entire identity for him and becomes a complete doormat to all the awful shit he does. that’s never been my experience and i kinda just want to ramble about how i see it and what i find romantic about it?

so full disclosure, if veilguard had come out a few years ago with how they portrayed lavellan and solavellan i might have been pretty disappointed. i think there is a subset of the solavellan fanbase that likes the wolf/halla or student/professor thing and they play their lavellan younger and agreeing almost without question to everything solas says. i see the appeal but i never played my lavellan that way and i really like the dynamic of it when lavellan actually goes against his advice at times. solas is a character that needs to have his preconceived biases questioned. especially in inquisition when he’s still coming to terms with the fact that the modern people of thedas are in fact people lol. so i was concerned at the prospect of my lavellan being taken out of my hands and having to listen to her make excuses for him and submit to everything he says. (which tbf i don’t think is how she actually comes across in dav, but that was a worry.)

however when i replayed my canon dai run this year, i realized i was closer to the age i always saw my lavellan as (early 30s), and as my lavellan is probably the bioware pc i’ve always played closest to my own personality, i took the opportunity to tweak her a bit and make some different choices. i’ve (hopefully lol) matured and grown a lot since i was 24 and so rather than going for the snarky sarcastic cool girl vibes i opted to play her with more diplomatic and caring choices. it made me see the solas romance in a completely new light. rather than some sort of student/professor dynamic or a pride and prejudice-esque rivals-to-lovers vibe where lavellan is fighting for his respect the whole time, what stuck out to me was how much their connection builds simply because lavellan is kind to solas. she hears him out when he wants to give his opinions and advice, she respects his expertise on the fade and spirits, and she offers him comfort and friendship when she sees he needs it. she impresses him because he finds himself wanting to indulge in her closeness. he finds a connection to someone he never expected to and it makes him rethink everything about the broken state he put the world in.

it’s worth noting that lavellan is always making the first move. she kisses him first, she pursues him. he tries to brush off the kiss as a spontaneous lapse in judgement and she doesn't let him. he only ever gives in to her advances, he doesn't make them himself. he calls their relationship "selfish" on his end. he knows he shouldn't be encouraging her but he can't help but long for her companionship. that being said though if lavellan shuts it down he respects it. he probably feels a little relief because the temptation is now out of his hands lol.

i feel like there’s also this perception that he’s constantly shitting on the dalish while lavellan just has to put up with it and that alone is reason enough to find the relationship demeaning. he mentions the dalish in one optional conversation chain where you ask him for his opinion on the state of the elves and then in the balcony scene where he realizes he’s misjudged the inquisitor after his personal quest. in both instances, lavellan can stick up for the dalish. in the optional conversation, lavellan can say that if solas had a bad experience with a clan once (which we know from dav is exactly what happened lol), that she’d like to correct that misunderstanding about her people.

it's worth noting as well that lavellan doesn't know solas is the dread wolf when he's criticizing the dalish. from her perspective, he's essentially a city-born elf who had some dalish look down their nose at him for not being a "true elf" like they are, something that not only happens in canon throughout the games and lavellan would be aware of, but literally happens to solas specifically, right in front of you. he doesn't say a single word to mihris and she doesn't know a thing about him other than his face is bare and thus feels comfortable referring to him with what is essentially a slur. but rather than confront her directly about it he just passive aggressively speaks to her in elven almost exclusively for the rest of the quest lol.

far from the dynamic being that lavellan is just putting up with someone talking down to her about her culture, i think it's reasonable to see her view is more that they're both members of the same marginalized group, but from different cultures. his position in criticizing the dalish is not punching down it's lateral. she loves her culture, but is able to recognize it has flaws and not every member in it treats other cultures well, particularly even when they're from the same marginalized group. (and it's also just really meaningful that the first "flirt" option you get in the solas romance is lavellan recognizing that solas has put himself in a very vulnerable position as an elven apostate joining the chantry-led inquisition and with whatever power she has she will make sure that it's not held against him.)

i do think the writing conveys that he does have his mind changed about the dalish at least a little bit, but one of his pet peeves is when people are ignorant and refuse any information that challenges their worldview. as a manifested wisdom spirit, it is a particular sticking point to him to not be listened to when he is providing knowledge. i think criticism of how he is towards the dalish is lacking without taking into account his nature as a spirit. obvs we didn’t know that in dai but we do now. when wisdom isn't listened to it turns to pride. "i told you so," "i'll prove i'm right," "you should have listened to me," etc. etc. he got his feelings hurt when the dalish didn't believe him (and according to dav, literally tried to kill him) and his ego's held a grudge ever since.

when it comes to the vallaslin, to me it’s less about solas wanting to dismantle part of dalish culture (he offers no actual opinion on the dalish during that scene) and more that it clearly bothers him a lot that he fought so hard to free the elves from slavery and the one community of elves that’s closest to the descendants of the people he wanted to free still wears tattoos honoring the very tyrants he wanted to free them from. if lavellan says she wants to keep them and that the dalish reclaimed them and they mean something else to her, he doesn’t argue. i actually don’t like that solas’s post breakup banter with cole implies that lavellan thinks he might have broken up with her over the vallaslin. it’s putting thoughts in the head of my character that i personally don’t see her having. the way the breakup plays out, there’s not a single indication that it has anything to do with the vallaslin. i like to pick the “i believe in us” option because it shows lavellan having some idea that there’s something solas isn’t telling her and that’s the main reason he’s walking away. and the irony of course is that we learn in dav that that was the moment he came the closest to just giving up everything to just be with her.

so when i played through dav with my solasmance lavellan and she talks about what drew her to him it all just felt so right. he was kind and wise and sad but he made her feel like she was the only thing that mattered to him. (and that was very almost true!) there was a passion and intensity to their relationship that made her think he was the person she wanted to be with forever. when she says "i thought i would have followed anywhere he asked me to" you could read it as her saying she would have joined him in tearing down the veil if he asked and depending on your lavellan that might be true (though in the next bit she talks about how she would have been trying to change his mind anyways). but you could also read it as what her mindset was while she was with him during dai. before joining the inquisition, she knew him to be someone that traveled the world looking for lost secrets and history. why would she not have wanted to join him in that? is that not something you do when you're in love with someone?

something else that i find really compelling about solavellan is how solas relates to the inquisitor (not just lavellan) as a figurehead stripped of their personal identity. he knows from personal experience exactly what that's like. in the romances (not just solas's), the inquisitor is able to find someone that knows and cares for them for who they are, not what they represent. this aspect of the inquisitor's arc is honestly why i like keeping the vallaslin. my lavellan wants people to be able to look at her as the inquisitor and see a dalish elf. it's one small act of defiance and in reclaiming her own narrative. so thinking about what she might want to do after her responsibilities to the inquisition are over, it's reasonable to think she might want to just go wherever solas goes? because she loves him and feels like herself around him. even her asking him to let her come with him in trespasser feels more motivated by the fact that lavellan sees solas isolating himself and closing himself off and she's sad about it because she cares about him. that was why she wanted to grow close to him in the first place.

and i genuinely don't think it's all that wild that lavellan still holds a torch for solas 10 years later. i personally was friends with this guy in high school i always had a crush on, and towards the end of senior year it looked like it could actually end up turning into something. but then he immediately left for a summer abroad after graduation and eventually moved out of the country full time for school. we kept in touch off and on and caught up when he was in town, but nothing romantic ever happened. for years after i would catch myself thinking every so often what could have been and what he was up to. for solavellan, they were actually together. they had mutually expressed feelings and though their time together was maybe a few months at most, it was intense and passionate. they split up not because anyone's feelings changed, but because of solas's baggage. it's really not unrealistic for lavellan to continue wondering to herself what would have happened if he had been honest with her sooner. if she could have convinced him to change course. and it's not like she has the luxury of retiring and just not thinking about him anymore. that's not a conscious manipulation on solas's part to string her along, that's just the reality of their situation.

and even with all that in mind, in dav lavellan is still able to have the self-awareness to understand that the good in him that she believes exists and all that they had together and what she meant to him could all just be wishful thinking on her part. that she's giving him the benefit of the doubt "imagining his broken heart" when he doesn't deserve it because it makes her feel less foolish. she's not blindly faithful to him. i just loved everything about that scene and every word out of my lavellan's mouth felt spot on and perfect for how i saw their relationship. i could not have been more relieved lol.

as for the ending, i really really dislike the bad faith read that the only thing that matters is mythal and that he somehow loves mythal more and if that weren't true then lavellan alone would be able to convince him to stop. varric says about solas that he wants to be a hero, but it's easier for him to play the villain because it means he didn't fail, everything bad he's done is a choice. once you've done one bad thing, betrayed one friend, manipulated and sacrificed some pawns, committed one lil genocide, etc. lmao, it becomes easier to do it again. you've already crossed your moral event horizon and now you just have to find an end that justifies the means of all your misdeeds. what i've said about solas before is that what's frustrating is that he does genuinely feel remorse about the shit he does, but he needs to believe it's necessary and he will keep doing it. he needs to believe it will all be worth it in the end. it's not that he thinks feeling sorry makes up for it necessarily, but that he had to do it. he had to be the one taking on all of the bad things to hopefully one day do a good thing and it will all work out.

(as a side note when solas says "i would not have you see what i become" in trespasser i always thought that meant he was going to resort to some awful corruptive magic or something but it turns out what he actually meant was "i'm about to be a real asshole and do some incredibly awful things and i don't want you to see that side of me" which is much sadder.)

so when rook says "you don't have to do this" solas counters with "i've betrayed and fucked over and killed so many people who trusted me and if i stop i will have done that for nothing." so then the inquisitor jumps in with "as one of those people, i'm telling you that you can stop." but then we get to the heart of it. he thinks he failed mythal when she died the first time and was unwilling to listen to her as flemeth. he needs to make that mean something. he needs to justify to himself what mythal made him into. so he needs to hear from his mythal, not morrigan's mythal who has the benefit of the wisdom and hindsight centuries of living among mortals gave her, but his mythal, the one closest to who she was when she died that what he is is broken. that she's the one that broke him and he alone doesn't have to bear the weight of everything he did because of her. it's not about loving her, it's about the specific relationship he had with her. with that baggage unpacked, he's not only able to let go of his prideful need to prove himself right by tearing down the veil, he's also free to choose what he always really wanted: lavellan.

and still! yet again! he does not ask or assume anything on her part. she offers! of her own free will. something that really rustles my jimmies about a lot of solavellan criticism is that people act like lavellan has no agency. that she couldn't possibly make the choices she does of her own accord and it has to be solas manipulating her. that has never rang true to me at all. she always made the first move. i think this more uncharitable read might unfortunately be encouraged by how many actual solavellan shippers play into the wolf/halla thing but i personally don't think that's the dynamic that weekes actually wrote. it is lavellan that pursues solas, not the other way around. and weekes was honestly so careful in how they wrote the romance so that when solas's identity and plans are revealed, it doesn't feel like he intentionally tricked you or took advantage. i actually really like the ambiguity of whether or not they slept together because to me it does feel like that's a line solas wouldn't cross, but i get why that doesn't matter as much to other solasmancers.

i also think there's this perception that solavellan is a ship with an unhealthy power dynamic that needs to be "fixed" in some way or at the very least apologized for before you're allowed to like it. for me it's honestly kind of the appeal? not that there's some goofy dom/sub thing going on lol but that in spite of how "superior" solas may or may not feel to lavellan and the modern elves, he still falls hook line and fucking sinker for her. lavellan has so much more power in the relationship than she realizes. she changes his entire perspective on modern elves and his ultimate goals so bad he had a complete crisis of faith and had to run as far away from her as he could. how could he have broken the world so badly he needs to catastrophically break it again to fix it if it could create someone like her? someone he wants and cares for so desperately? it's the push and pull of him trying to stay away but selfishly indulging as long as he can that's so juicy to me! it's so good and i just wish other people could see that, even if they don't care for the character.

anyways. i don't have a conclusion. i don't want anyone to think i'm vaguing about them. this is honestly the result of some thoughts that have been brewing for a while and a lot of common criticisms i've seen over the years. i didn't want to respond directly to anyone in particular bc i learned my lesson about not doing that waaay back in the shenko fandom iykyk lol. i just really like the ship! i think it's tragic and romantic and lovely and poetic and mythological and all that good stuff. it humanizes solas as a character and makes me think about empathy and compassion and how much faith you can have in someone if you love them. or how it might feel to sacrifice love for something you think you need to do, only to ultimately realize you never did and find that love patiently waiting for you to get your shit together. or to love someone and know they love you back and that they love you so much they had to leave or they would have given up everything they thought they needed for you and then to be able to actually get through to them and get them back. "she could save him if he'd only just let her"! it's a very niche wish fulfillment fantasy and it's me! i'm the fan being serviced!

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

I was thinking about what you said, "less transactional relationships with companions, the companions feeling like friends with each other and not just you."

And I don't think I had really noticed that in DAI until DAV came out. The companions chilling in their section of Skyhold felt normal because, well, game limitations meant that companions had always hung out in their section of camp or the Normandy etc. But I loved coming back to the Lighthouse and seeing who was chatting! (Harding and Lucanis sharing dreams was one of my favorite conversations to eavesdrop on.)

And I don't really get the complaints about how the devs had to pick from static companions to chat with or them moving around in the Lighthouse and chatting with each other. I don't feel we were "cheated out" of having conversations with them, they still had chat quest markers in the Lighthouse. And instead of just standing around in their rooms we got to go to places they found important! I got to go on walks in Arlathan with Davrin! Nev invited me to eat fried fish, which didn't work out I got to help her find clues!! I wasn't looking at the same wall behind the companions every conversation!!!

I think it really makes the veilguard feel more alive to see that they’re doing stuff and hanging out with each other when we’re not there.

Like they’ll go to Emmrich to speak with a corpse, they don’t need to go through us first. Emmrich and Harding will go camping (yes the logistics of that don’t entirely make sense but the thought is there) without us. Davrin and Lucanis hang out together.

And while SOME of these interactions involve rook stumbling upon their conversations, they also all have conversations with rook and spend time with rook. I don’t get the idea some people have that they’re all friends and rook is separate. They’re all friends, including rook.

And yeah the conversations we have with them might be limited to more cutscene ones, but I don’t feel like we were prevented from talking with them. We just had actual conversations instead of going up to them, asking them ten deeply personal questions about their deepest traumas without any lead up, and then immediately leaving like we did in inquisition.

[elspethdekarios]

Okay we all know about the Solas/Varric banter with the man on the island, but I was listening to DAI banter earlier (as one does) and now that we know about the titans/lyrium bodies/the blight there are several others that are SO GOOD and worth talking about so here goes. I might not be saying anything new here but I needed to get it out of my brain.

Trickster Figures in Dwarven Literature

Solas: By the end of Hard in Hightown, almost every character is revealed as a spy or a traitor. Varric: Wait, you read my book? Solas: It was in the Inquisition library. Everyone but Donnen turned out to be in disguise. Is that common? Varric: Are we still talking about books or are you asking if everyone I know is a secret agent? Solas: Are there many tricksters in dwarven literature? Varric: A handful, but they're the exception. Mostly they're just honoring the ancestors. It's very dull stuff. Human literature? Now there's where you'll find the tricky, clever, really deceptive types. Solas: Curious. Varric: Not really. Dwarves write how they want things to be. Humans write to figure out how things are.

So it's obvious in hindsight that Solas is asking about trickster figures because he is one himself, but now that we know what we know, I think it's incredibly poignant that he's specifically asking about trickster figures in dwarven literature. It makes me wonder if he's not only asking out of curiosity but because he wants to know if the dwarves write about him. Is he a trickster figure in their legends too? Now that so much time has passed since ancient Arlathan, do the dwarves have some twisted memory of the Evanuris like the Dalish do? Do they have a tale about Fen'Harel who tranquilized the Titans and severed the dwarves' ties to their ancestry?

I don't quite know what to think of Varric's last line: "Dwarves write how they want things to be. Humans write to figure out how things age." I wonder, though, if this eases Solas's concern about appearing in their mythology. If dwarven writing is idealistic/optimistic, there's probably a slim chance the truth will be revealed that way. Maybe the fact that humans write "to figure out how things are" gives him pause - but I think humans aren't concerned enough about the elves to write themselves into discovering his secrets, so I don't think Solas really has a reason to concern himself with trickster figures in human literature.

The Lyrium Trade

Solas: Is it true that the entire dwarven economy relies upon lyrium? Varric: Mostly. We've got the nug market cornered as well. Solas: And the dwarves of Orzammar have never studied lyrium? Varric: If they have, they certainly haven't shared anything up here. Why? Solas: It is the source of all magic, save that which mages bring themselves. Solas: Dwarves alone have the ability to mine it safely. I wondered if they had sought to learn more. Varric: The folks back in Orzammar don't care much about anything but tradition.

And here we have yet another attempt by Solas to see what the dwarves know about him without giving himself away. He wants to know if they're aware of what lyrium actually is, and, by extension, if they know about the history of the Titans and the Evanuris. There are several banters between these two where Solas is incredibly curious about Orzammar. Varric is like "wtf man, stop asking me about Orzammar, I'm a surface dwarf" and Solas gets frustrated that Varric isn't interested in his ancestry at all. This is partially because Solas places so much importance on ancestry in general, but part of his frustration has to be because Varric can't tell him what he wants to know. Also, imagine waking up after however many years and the dwarves are sustaining their economy almost completely on the literal blood of their ancestors - the ancestors you destroyed. That has to be horrifying. Harding brings this up at the end of her personal questline in Veilguard, when you return to Kal-Sharok and interact with the carvings on the wall. It's different for her, of course, because those are her own people, but the sentiment is the same, and the question is the same: would the dwarves sustain themselves on the lyrium trade if they knew the truth?

In the same lyrium vein:

Solas: I find the fall of the dwarven lands confusing. Varric: What's so confusing about endless darkspawn? Solas: A great deal, although that is a different matter. Dwarves control the flow of lyrium. They could tighten their grip on it. Varric: It's hard to get the attention of the humans when the darkspawn aren't up here messing with their stuff. Solas: You're active in the Carta. You know your people could tug the purse strings. You could claim sovereign land on the surface, or demand help restoring the dwarven kingdom, but you don't. Varric: You're not saying anything I haven't said myself, Chuckles. Orzammar is what it is.

I think this is Solas trying to ease his guilt by offering solutions. Is it a little egotistical of him to assume the carta/dwarves/Varric haven't already thought of this? Yeah, but he's Solas AKA Pride Personified. Anyway, I think this is Solas's way of assuaging his guilt just a little bit.

A Once Mighty Hero

Solas: I am sorry to have bothered you with my questions about your people Varric. I see so much of this world in dreams. Humans, my own people, even qunari. Dwarves alone were lost to me, save scattered fragments of memory where some spirit cared to watch. Now I know why I see so little. Varric: And why is that? Solas: Dwarves are the severed arm of a once mighty hero, lying in a pool of blood. Undirected. Whatever skill of arms it had, gone forever. Although it might twitch to give the appearance of life, it will never dream. Varric: I'd avoid mentioning that to any Carta, Chuckles. They might not take it the right way.

Okay, Solas is definitely doing his twisting-the-truth thing in the first lines. He knows why dwarves have little to no presence in the Fade, because he is the reason, but he's so close to revealing the truth here. Not about him, and not about how, but about why. The image he paints of the once mighty hero in a pool of blood sounds metaphorical, but it isn't. The dwarves - so reliant on the lyrium trade, living where lyrium grows, mining it, their livelihoods revolving around it - are quite literally lying in a pool of their own blood.

Solas sees what the dwarves are now compared to what they could have been. They're an imitation of their once-great ancestors. And it's his fault (and Mythal's, but this ain't about her). In this particular banter, Solas seems to pity the dwarves, hence Varric's warning, but he's the only one alive who knows the truth. The dwarves don't pity themselves: in another banter where Solas asks Varric if he misses the stone, Varric responds with "How could I miss what I never had?" - and that applies here as well. The dwarves may "twitch to give the appearance of life" to Solas, but that's his guilt talking. Varric isn't insulted (as far as we know) because he doesn't place much importance on his heritage and he understands that Solas isn't trying to be demeaning, but he hears the pity in his statements - he wouldn't warn him about speaking to the Carta otherwise.

Anyway this was a lot of rambling and I'd love to hear anyone else's interpretation of these or other lines too!

[mrs-gauche]

Hey guys! 🙂 It's the end of 2024 and I realized today I haven't posted on here since finishing Veilguard.

Well, to make it short.. since then, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, replaying it, watching my friends who are DA casuals and not into fandom play it (which was very enlightening but also hilarious 😂), so now.. I feel like I'm at a point where I know exactly what my issues with this game are and I've made peace with it. I still love Dragon Age! And I love parts of Veilguard and I had a ton of fun playing it (though probably for all the wrong reasons 🥲). When I first finished the game, I cried tears of happiness that after ten years my favorite character actually somehow got a beautiful Happy Ending and closure, but also tears of sorrow that this marks the end of the story that was set up back in 2009.. and tears of mourning that this story had all the potential to be so so SO much more.

Dragon Age is a very weird franchise in that all the games have been, in many ways, vastly different from each other and to be a fan of the whole series means to recognize all its flaws and changes, but still loving it because of its unique core elements that glue it together and make it so special. I could sit here for hours trying to put into words what I think went wrong with Veilguard, but I know many people have already done so far more eloquently than I ever could. This blog was always meant to be just a positive little corner to share my love for these games and silly VA stuff with other people and I'm sure I will eventually reblog all the two million posts I've liked over the past month, both positive and critical. But for now and the new year, I want to focus my time and energy on just being creative, getting back to drawing and trying to realize ideas about DA I've had for a looong time and that's my way of "emotionally recovering" (that sounds so dramatic 😂). 💜

With that being said... What a crazy decade year it has been for me personally in this fandom... So I want to look back at it, just some rambling under the cut, 'cause I'm a little sentimental now, I guess. 🥲

Before I created this blog, I was mostly just a lurker on here for many years, despite being a fan of BioWare games since.. uh.. forever? lol But I was always waaay too insecure about my English, let alone my own art. I also have social anxiety, so maybe that was part of the reason why I decided to finally create this blog at a time when the fandom was at its most dormant? lol (There is also a whole separate post for another day about how Mass Effect influenced me personally and how it made my biggest dream come true, the enormous honor to voice a few NPCs in (the German version of) Andromeda. Still the craziest thing to ever happen to me. lol)

So, seeing all the crazy excitement and the fandom fully revived this year and all these months leading up to Veilguard was both incredibly overwhelming, but also the most fun I've ever had as being part of a fandom! This year also marked the first time I posted my own art online and I can't even put into words how crazy it was seeing the response to that and I still can't believe that Trick Weekes not only commented on but also reposted it, that is still f*cking insane to me and I'll never forget the morning I woke up to see that. lmao

So yeah.. THAT happened. Followed by what I think has to be one of the weirdest, craziest marketing campaigns I've ever seen. lol Going back to 2022, we truly had it all...

A title announcement on a random Thursday that was probably done so that it would not be confused with the Netflix series announced a few days later. A tie-in comic more than a year before release that was... a little pointless? lol A vinyl collection that spoiled the composers a year before release. A title change literally two days before the first trailer. A reveal trailer that left many in shock because of its tone shift and complete lack of the former title character. A line of Game Informer articles that left us often times with more questions than answers. Every single article being deleted the very next month due to GI shutting down. An actor panel at SDCC happening right as Sag Aftra went on strike. A "fandom" party that had nothing to do with Dragon Age. Jason Derulo. An artbook that accidentally revealed the release date with its pre-order, which was then deleted. Twice. Memes about roadmaps. A second trailer that in hindsight probably should've been the first one. An audio drama by a different writing team with some baffling (but funny) lore mistakes. A combat showcase starting off with a disclaimer that "footage had been edited due to spoilers"... followed by THE biggest spoiler in literally the first ten seconds. The first IGN video with super spoilery dev commentary. A hand-on preview event with 140 people leading to spoilers galore... Did I mention spoilers? lol

That was when I stopped looking at stuff online, so I don't know what happened after that, but WOW, what a crazy ride that was. 🥲 Truly a DA4 Summer to remember and I'm unironically so grateful to have witnessed it in real time with all of you. 😂

Then finally, after ten flippin years of tinfoiling, speculating, reading crazy development stories and clowning around at every gaming live event, Veilguard was finally released and it will probably go down as the most emotionally charged Halloween of my life. lmao

Then it was time to actually play The Veilguard. Which took me about a month.

A month filled with what I can only describe as a crazy rollercoaster of conflicting emotions. Aside from everything having to do with Solas, I'd say my personal highlights of the entire experience was seeing Felassan (I screamed), the PHOTO MODE and even one hilarious "breaking the fourth wall" moment, where I would frantically run around in Elgar'nan's trap in "Blood of Arlathan", to a point where I would yell at the screen "SOLAS, I COULD USE SOME HELP NOW, HELLO???" and hearing his flippin voice literally two seconds later going "Yes, you called?" and I freaked out so hard I dropped the controller. 😂😂😂 Also, as someone who romanced Alistair in my first playthrough of DAO and brought him to the final battle not knowing he would sacrifice himself, you can imagine my flashbacks when I saw Davrin dying at Tearstone.. who I had romanced. 💀 Or the Dark Ritual flashbacks when I saw Morrigan wanting to talk to me right before the final mission. lol Getting the Felassan rune actually made me tear up a little. There are many little moments like that that I loved or that made me emotional, but ultimately.. Veilguard is a game that, for all the amazing graphics and cutscenes and flashy combat.. the more I think about the story and the lore (or lack thereof), the more I end up confused and trying to figure out what it is that's breaking the immersion to me in a way that the previous games didn't.

But anyway... I finished Veilguard, though the DA craziness of 2024 wasn't over just yet and I didn't know that the best was yet to come in December. lol

So.. Years ago, one of the main reasons I created this blog was to make silly "appreciation posts" about Solas' German VA and ramble on about my love for his performance.. I even remember making a post on here like three years ago talking about how I would sadly never EVER get a chance to meet his VA personally, because that man never ever goes to any fan conventions or public events. lol

Well... GUESS WHO I MET AT THE GERMAN COMIC CON EARLIER THIS MONTH!!!

YES GUYS, without sounding like a weirdo (because despite my obsession with voice acting, I don't care for VAs social accounts or anything beyond their work as a VA), but after years of jokingly referring to this blog as the "Ozan Ünal Appreciation Blog", and kinda the reason I made this blog in the first place, I finally met the man himself and it was probably the best friggin fan experience I could've wished for. 🥲🥲🥲

See, I've met a lot of different VAs at Cons before, who were all super nice and awesome to talk to.. but let me tell you, this guy has such an incredibly contagious positive attitude and charm!! lol Me and my friend were literally the last to stand in line at his booth before the event closed, there were TONS of people (there were quite a few VAs at the Con, but his booth had BY FAR the most people in line the whole day lol) and yet he made sure to take the time to talk with every single person, asking questions, was genuinely interested in our opinions, joking around and just generally SO FRIGGIN NICE. And he's just a very chill and funny dude? lol

And it was so funny, because there were SO many people and yet apparently I was the only person that day to talk to him about DA and Solas and he was SO excited about it 😂😂😂 (I bet like 90% of the fans talked to him about his VA work on Vampire Diaries, The Big Bang Theory, Gravity Falls and Nicholas Hoult lol).

And of course, because DA4 happened so recently, it was still fresh in his memory. He told us that he even watched some Let's Plays and asked what we thought of the game and I'm still laughing so hard, because he was literally like "Oh yeah, the lore is MASSIVE and it was so overwhelming and I could barely keep up with it, the whole time I had no idea what I was talking about.. like, what exactly IS Mythal??" LMAOOO His performance for Solas was so good and so convincing and now I'll always have to picture him standing in the recording booth, no flippin clue what he's actually talking about. lmaoo And then my friend was pointing at me like "She's actually a walking lore encyclopedia" and then he was like "Oh, you should've been in the booth then!" lol

And I'm actually quite upset on his behalf now, because he also told us how, when the English VAs were officially announced, he had actually made a post on social media about how he was returning for Solas in DA4 and how he got in so much trouble for that because EA told him they were going to make an official announcement.... AND THEN THEY NEVER DID??? Like, I was desperately waiting for an announcement about the German voice cast and they simply never made one, we literally had to wait for the credits to be published? (Also, the German and French version have only one female and one male voice for Rook and no one knows what happened there, we tried to contact them about it, but no response so far?? It's like they don't even care.) That's EA for you...

Anyway, we then chatted a bit more about his other work and stuff and he recorded an audio for me (I actually got him to say the "Vir shiral malasa, bellanaris" GUYS AND IT SOUNDS SO GOOD, like I was so nervous, asking "Could you do elven..?" and he was like "Sure, it's been a year, might be a bit rusty" and then he just knocked it out of the park?? lmao So I have both Lavellan's AND Solas' WEDDING VOWS NOW. 😭😭😭❤❤❤❤❤)

So yeah, that was my meeting with Ozan flippin Ünal and what an awesome guy and amazing VA and what an "epic conclusion" of this year of the Dragon (Age) 2024. lol And the timing feels so strange now, because, in a way, it feels kinda like coming full circle?

Like I said in the beginning, for years I was always mainly a lurker in the fandom and the reason why I created this blog was to join in on the hype/speculation train for DA4 and to talk about Solas' German and French voices and share my silly edits and gifs. And now I've played Veilguard AND I've met Ozan Ünal.. both things that, at some point, I wasn't sure were ever going to happen.....

So.. In terms of my fandom experience, this year was crazy and whatever 2025 brings and whatever happens with this blog or DA in general... I love this fandom (especially my little Solasmancer bubble <3) and I love Dragon Age and whoever's reading this, here's to 2025 and I hope you have a Happy New Year!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[lottiesnotebook]

2024 Writing Roundup!

So in retrospect this is a WILD thing to post on NYE, but thank you to @miladydewintcr for tagging me by proxy! I can't take full credit for a lot of these words, as I cowrite all my Dragon Age fic with @adainesjacket, so this is kind of a collective wordcount for both of us...

words posted: 75,300

additional words written: 228,259 (Mostly on The Kick Inside, which is now 135,000 words long and STILL NOT DONE DX)

grand total of words: 303,559

fandoms: Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dimension 20 (A Court of Fae and Flowers), Grishaverse (so actually my most varied year in terms of fandom so far!)

highest kudos: what stays and what fades away, with an unbelievable 363 kudos??? I still can't believe that my little Grishaverse fic I intended to be 3 chapters long ended up being my most-read fic ever. I technically started this last year, but due to Life Happening, I didn't get round to finishing it until April this year.

Anyway, I'm really proud of this particular canon rewrite of the Shadow and Bone trilogy focussing on childhood friends Genya and Nikolai, and I'm crossing my fingers that this year, I'll get the Wedding Sequel finished and posted to celebrate it as it deserves...

highest hit oneshot: I have not really gone in for oneshots this year, so the season of possible miracles wins this category by default with 206 hits - my Dimension 20 Exchange gift for @justiceforprincecorrick. It ended up running a little later than I wanted it to, but I reread it as preparation for this year's exchange, and I think it holds up as a cute, winter-themed Cinderella AU for Binx and Andhera from Dimension 20's A Court of Fae and Flowers.

new things I tried: Dragon Age fic, writing outlines, and writing fight (and smut) scenes that should be posted in the new year!

fic I spent the most time on: The Kick Inside, or my Dragon Age Origins Rapunzel AU, as it was originally titled in my heart, has been a labour of love since August, and I've finally started posting it weekly. Please give it a read if you enjoy Dragon Age at all - it's an alternate universe where a pregnant Warden recruit provides Morrigan with an alternative to the Dark Ritual, and the ripples this causes in the world.

fic I spent the least time on: merry solstice (please don't call), cowritten with my beautiful wife @adainesjacket, at least proportionally - the Dragon Age 2 Justice/Anders/Hawke Christmas RomCom AU that nobody asked for but people have been very kind about! We wrote this in a single month and it came out so perfect that I just want to write it all over again.

favorite thing I wrote: The Kick Inside is still my beautiful, terrible baby and I am actively afraid of not finishing it because it's been eating my brain for five months.

favorite thing(s) I read:

Top of the list has got to be the His Delicious Materials series by @elodieunderglass, the best Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon fics and possibly the best fics I've ever read. I squeak audibly whenever they update, and read them aloud whenever given the opportunity. The narrative voices range from Tamsyn Muir (Nona the Ninth) to Terry Pratchett, and they are truly a joy to read if you enjoy fantasy worldbuilding, Daemon AUs, or simply to feel Joy and Hope in this Cruel, Dark World.

I've also really enjoyed Something Lonesome and Wild, by passing_lives, a BG3 fic my wife recommended when I started writing The Kick Inside that's provided a key inspiration in terms of the hazards of Adventuring While Pregnant. This is an Astarion/Gale fic and it managed to charm me despite not particularly vibing with either of the boys when I started playing, so now, in my heart, this fic is happening in the background of my playthrough while my disaster of a Dark Urge commits atrocities. Beautifully written and incredibly compelling, give it a look!

Finally, in terms of Dragon Age fic, I haven't played Veilguard so I have to be careful about what I read, but I've been slowly making my way through:

Will-O'-The-Wisp, by lovenug, an Emmrich/Rook fic from Mannfred's perspective (perfect, as I love a non-human narrator)

where the heart is by ghostbunny and PhantomsLost, a truly delightful Hawke/Anders Stardew Valley AU, which I did not realise I needed until I started reading it this Christmas

writing goals for 2025: Finishing The Kick Inside! Also, ideally, finishing that Ketterdam Wedding Sequel and Daughter Phoenix Rise (a Dragon Age 2/Inquisition take I don't think anyone has done before...)

new works: Just the four listed here, plus a few snippets that are going up in the new year... :3

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[octosan]

And another thing

This might be a hotter take because from what I can tell, everyone was very happy to see Felassan in Veilguard. But I was so disappointed with how they handled him too,,

I'm sorry, but you introduced this character as the kind of person who would blithely allow a demon to brutally slaughter a clan full of (mostly) innocent elves, including children*, with nothing more than a "have fun", for no other reason than he needed some information from that demon; who is implied to come very close to murdering the girl he'd been taking care of since she was a sixteen year old because she almost figured out he isn't actually Dalish; who is basically just stone-cold callous to all the suffering and death around him and only shows at the very end of the story that he did genuinely care about said girl enough to die to give her a chance to keep going in her rebellion, and with the implication (imo) that she was the only reason he didn't help destroy this world with the Dread Wolf

You introduced a character this morally complex, this ruthless and yet genuinely hilarious, a character who is clearly the actual master of deception between him and Solas, whose name is literally a reference to the concept of a deadly threat beneath suspicion,

and your choice for depicting him in this game is to just depict him in flashbacks where he's just a generic commander character, the moral straight man getting mad at Solas for being a little bit shady in his tactics for waging a slave rebellion. Doesn't crack a single joke, only a bit sarcastic in one or two codex entries, pure-hearted good boy friend of Solas whose only contribution that felt in-character to me is that he was the one to push Solas to do the Dread Wolf legends thing.

And it's not like the idea that Felassan was once a more morally pure person before the Veil doesn't appeal to me, but like. They didn't even try to connect this guy to the Masked Empire iteration of the character.

idk what I was expecting, I definitely didn't think they were going to even address the Clan Virnehn thing but like. I guess I was hoping he'd be funny at least. Why is he even called the Slow Arrow before he's doing Slow Arrow things. Why would you have a general called the Slow Arrow. They could have explained this but they didn't.

-

*I know Imshael actually didn't kill the children in Clan Virnehn, but it's not much better that he sent them off to be a burden on another clan when a harsh winter was coming. I also don't know if Felassan knew that he wouldn't tbh.

[mohntilyet]

rook being such a nobody and surrounded by more influential companions right after the obviously well known inquisitor could be really cool actually. that conversation w solas 'what will they call you after this is done' <- NO FUCKING CLUE LOL!! the idea that this millennia long, world-ending story of gods and a herald being controlled for a moment by a nobody is incredible. they start as an irritant and end having saved the world. nobody thanks them. they go back home. maybe they're literally wiped off the face of the world when they're trapped in the fade with the dread wolf! and most of all, their name is not remembered. literally, because they become a 'rook' to the inquisitor's king.

like i’m actually really liking the idea that the inquisitor and rook get conflated into the same person by the public and by history, and what little agency they had is taken away. you were never in control of this story. your narrative will be written by other people, just like every figurehead that came before you. you are not the chosen one. the choice to have faded out and see the irrelevancy as a boon, or struggle to make your name known (not rook, not the nickname, not the title) would have been so. interesting.

veilguard is a heroic story (and the game doesn’t even let you be rude most of the time) that has to end heroically (the evanuris are defeated in some way, the last archdemon dies, and most rooks climb down from minrathous to literal cheers and applause) but the hero themself is forgettable. narratively that could have been so funnnn. but it wasn’t on purpose so it just feels hollow.

[vaguely-concerned]

on the one hand I think inner demons could stand to have a bit more romanced rook specific content, but on the other hand the underlying in-built implication that 'yours is the one true voice of comfort and safety in my inner world' is a sentiment and intimacy so way beyond the romantic or the platonic or any secret third thing you could care to name that it makes me lose my entire poor little mind a bit. it's so big and fundamental — near-existential — that in that exact moment at least the distinctions kind of seem irrelevant.

all the people lucanis' mind conjures up along the way are relationships he has that are unavoidably mixed and fraught in some ways even when they're also full of love (they are fraught BECAUSE they're full of love) — the good in them inseparable from things that hurt him at the same time. (it's about: the basic disorganized attachment patterns this poor guy is dragging around with him. careful with those, they're dellamorte heirlooms. what you love also inevitably hurts you and you won't be allowed to have one without the other, you have to surrender parts of your soul to hold on to what little you have left: this is the story up until now.) and the idea that rook isn't that to him — that beneath the fear of wanting them when romanced (which is more its own separate thing because within this psychology, actively wanting something and not just clinging on for dear life to even a meager status quo lest you lose it is in itself dangerous bordering on catastrophic), this is a relationship where there isn't resentment, or guilt, or shame, or dread, or rage, or self-hate, or any of the other emotions that keep him paralyzed, unable to move this way or that. no debts, nothing owed of yourself and your soul's substance except what you can freely and safely and happily give. love and freedom don't coexist — but, I mean, you're almost starting to make me think........... unless...👀👀👀. the unconditional and undramatic 'you are here and I am here with you, you can be exactly how you are right now with me and it's safe for us both even though you're afraid it won't be, I'm not going anywhere' acceptance rook shows him here that he returns to them in the big romance scene, when it's rook who needs it. the way he's just. standing there in the center of it all, like a child desperately helplessly waiting to be found, hiding in the place he hopes you'll know to look first. (rook does know. it's one of the first things they say in there.)

in short the most important room in his little mind palace for the romance is the very first room — the one where rook isn't. where, in fact, rook cannot be, because they disprove the entire structure of the place with their existence and presence in his life. with everyone else he's putting words in their mouths about what they think of him, and rook is the one who actually gets to come in to speak their own words to him — and have him listen. ('he'll listen to you, he always listens to you', 'your voice is a comfort'.) of course rook isn't present anywhere else in there — at the risk of stating the obvious to a tedious degree, they aren't one of the locks, they're bringing the key. in the very finest 'the messenger and the message' sort of way.

[lunarharp]

forgot i had some old backlog or whatever..

[silverhalla]

Back at it again with another theory: What if Lucanis’ betrayal wasn’t a betrayal at all?

(obviously, spoilers below the cut)

During The Wigmaker Job, we have some dialogue between Illario and Lucanis about their position within both the Crows and the Dellamorte family. Illario wants Caterina to step down so he can take the coveted First Talon spot. Lucanis reassures him that his time is coming, to which Illario makes a snide comment about whether his cousin would ever go against their grandmother’s wishes. When they continue the conversation after the job, Illario states that Lucanis is the potential heir, that he’s her favorite, and that he’s unlikely to say no to her. Lucanis doesn’t argue, only insists that he doesn’t want to be First Talon, and that he hopes she’ll see reason before that. It’s mentioned again in Eight Little Talons - Caterina favors Lucanis. It’s well-known enough among the Crows that Viago and Teia discuss it in front of her (not on purpose, but she doesn’t deny it). He’s her prodigy through and through.

In the opening scene for the Lucanis quest in Veilguard, Caterina is poised, as you’d expect of the First Talon. She’s certain that the body they buried wasn’t her grandson, that it had been altered with blood magic. She doesn’t pose it as a theory, though: she poses it as a fact. It could, of course, merely be her confidence, but there’s another very unusual aspect to the scene – everyone else discusses how Lucanis was clearly betrayed, that someone must have sold him out in order for the Venatori to capture him. Caterina is the only one in that room who never speaks on it. She doesn’t ask for justice, doesn’t mention vengeance, never acknowledges that her grandson was sold out by someone he trusted – perhaps because he wasn’t. 

What if, when Caterina comes to him with a plan, with an impossible request, he’s still her favorite prodigal grandchild, and he still does whatever she asks? She’s had him tortured before as a child, has tortured and starved and beaten him herself before, because it makes him stronger and more resistant to it in the future. He says in The Wigmaker Job that he used to hate her for it, but now he understands. He justifies it. All Crows justify it, because they have to - if they don’t, then the cruelty wasn’t for survival’s sake, and their suffering meant nothing. Perhaps he doesn’t even question it. When Caterina tells him that she has a job for him, he takes it. 

What if the contract has a caveat? Sure, Calivan must die by his hand by the end of it, a little treat for a job well done, but what if his primary mission is reconnaissance, is discovery? The Venatori are using blood magic to torture and corrupt prisoners. It would behoove the Crows to find out what it entails and how to resist it, before it’s turned back on them. It would have to be someone so deeply, unabashedly loyal to her that when she asked them to infiltrate a Venatori prison, expecting torture at best, their own death at worst, they’d take the job anyway, no questions asked - someone Caterina can trust, certainly, but also someone who has never once said no to her.

And Lucanis has always been a loyal grandson. 

[wanderingibon]

the viago-crow rook dynamic makes me crazy i fear!!! the found family!!!! the layers!!! the care of it all!!!! the 'i am afraid of losing my protégé who I've come to regard as family but I don't exactly know how to convey that so I have to be stern toward them, remind them not to abandon their contract, so they aren't eaten up by the antivan crows like I know the organization can do and has done time and time again' i am literally rambling rn but i could write a whole essay i fear

[teyrnacousland]

(spoilers for the Veilguard companion quests)

My least favourite part of Veilguard so far is the way they make you make major life altering decisions for your party. It doesn't feel like I'm guiding or advising them, I'm just straight up telling them what to do with their lives and they do it, no argument, no input. It makes the characters feel like they have no agency. They'll just do whatever Rook tells them to. Their own personal values are irrelevant and entirely based on how Rook tells them to feel.

I think a good way to fix this and still keep the idea of each companion having two separate paths would have been to have the companions make the decision themselves based on decisions you've made throughout the game. Like, if Rook has said and done things that lean more towards honoring and remembering the past no matter what, Bellara will keep the Nadas Dirthalen, but if you generally make choices in favour of letting go of the past and making your own path instead, or burying information that could be dangerous, she gets rid of it.

And same with Emmerich, just have a couple of minor choices or dialogue options throughout the game about immortality and whether it's worth it to have to watch everyone you love die, and whether you fear your own death or the death of others more, and Emmerich can make the choice himself based on how Rook has influenced him throughout the game. It would make them feel more like people with thought processes and less like characters I'm controlling

[kirkwallguy]

still can't stop thinking about the fact that they have demigenders in tevinter but if you're in ferelden you're still using medieval euphemisms for being gay. there are some extremely funny situations to put several characters in

[veatomis]

finished veilguard. i enjoyed it but it was also real bad. the highs were really high the lows extremely low. the only people they really made this game for was solavellans and it should've stayed as an ao3 fic