#bethany and dav

[duggardata]

Beal–Baird #2* has arrived! Sounds like Bethany had a successful home birth. Her Due Date was tomorrow (Christmas Eve).

[lizzybeeee]

Literally made an account just to vent my thoughts because DATV is beyond disappointing and actively destructive of the previous games/media in the series.

The story/lore choices made concerning what happens in the south of Thedas during DATV are devastating and a clear attempt to create a 'clean slate' for the franchise going forwards.

Spoilers to the game are mentioned going forwards -

Simply put: Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches have basically been wiped clean - any previous influences that our characters may have had on these areas is wiped away by the Blight (aka BioWare) and therefore will likely not be mentioned in any games going forward.

Ferelden is basically left blighted, save for Redcliffe and small pockets of resistance in Denerim.

Ferelden, if it ever appears in the franchise again, will likely never address who rules the nation or whatever influences the Warden had on the land. The land will claw itself up from the ashes devoid of the influence we had on it.

Kirkwall suffers the same fate, and what remains of its residents have fled to Starkhaven.

Kirkwall has been over-run and those who escaped are held up in Starkhaven. Whatever influence Hawke had on the lives of those within Kirkwall has been waved away and destroyed by the Blight, likely to never be mentioned again.

Orlais has been over-run outside of resistance around the area of the Winter Palace, and venatori infiltrators have made the political situation within Orlais tenuous.

Orlais has been set-up with the venatori threat for a coup to completely invalidate whatever choice of ruler was made in DAI. Whomever the Inquisitor backed will likely be assassinated, and if Orlais appears in the game again it will be with a new ruler.

As someone who has been so invested in the lore, characters, and story of the game...this is devastating. It would be one thing if the game was bad but the story contained to Tevinter, for example - but this goes beyond as it retroactively changes everything for the worse and literally wipes everything clean. The greatest appeal and strength of this series was that it felt that you shaped Thedas - I adored every little bit of dialogue or codex entry that popped up in DA2 and DAI about things that happened in previous games!

It's baffling, and honestly comes across as mean-spirited, making the decision to deliberately target the places that our characters had the most influence.

The Warden may as well have let Urthurmiel win since Ferelden appears to be utterly blighted and Denerim, the heart of its nation, is destroyed.

Nothing Hawke did ever mattered, at all - and what little mattered was never from their own agency thanks to the Executors.

The Inquisitions efforts to restore order across Thedas was all for nothing, because nothing remains of them from in-game.

Unless if Dorian pops up in a DLC with his bloody time amulet and big reset button for the game then this is world of Thedas that remains.

With each game in the series up till now I finished each game with the feeling that the world was getting bigger, more complex, and now it just feels empty, shallow, and hollow.

Also fuck the Executors.

[temperqnce]

Just now starting my Rook planning. I know the timing doesn't work out, okay, but they're Varrichawke's twin kids (twins run in the family!) and they have so many bethany/carver/marian and varric/bartrand sibling dynamic parallels that it is already killing me

[thenevarranaccord]

I’m gonna fight everyone.

Inquisition and Origins both had perfectly fine mage healing. Yes, it was less of a focus in Inquisition, but every single Inquisition mage is a perfectly competent healer if used properly and in combination with well-crafted gear. The problem is that most people don’t want to bother with anything more complicated than “drink potion.”

Morrigan and Wynne can both be set to basically autopilot all of your healing in Origins.

Healing was straight garbage in II though and that’s a fact. The best healer in the game is Hawke himself, so you have to give up playing all other classes and specialties if you want a spirit healer. Anders can either attack or heal but can’t do both effectively at the same time. Bethany gets a D+ for effort in healing and Merrill can’t heal at all. But hey! Endless potions.

[spurgie-cousin]

the Jordan and McKay video is going to take me a while to go through and make notes on bc it's 2+ hours long and i have to do other things today sadly lol but I just gotta share this direct quote from Dav that I think is really indicative of where he's at:

"it's at this point where it's like, I hope this isn't true. Because I don't want to go through life always having to think I'm the worst in order to find the life in Christ. And that whole thing (where) it just sort of requires you to feel really bad or at least admit that you're just sort of a nothing, you have nothing. And that's why you need Jesus and isn't this such great news?? It just stopped being good news for me."

After that he talks about how whenever he came to the church about his struggles, his problems were blamed on him not working enough on his faith and relationship with God and how that has a serious effect on how he viewed himself as a person and it is wild to feel like i relate so much to Dāv fkin Beal. I'm also really surprised that he seems to be deconstructing Christianity as a whole as opposed to Bethany's flavor of fundamentalism.

I'll add some more takeaways later as I get through the video but just had to share that one asap

[fundieshaderoom]

Bethany's "Deconstruction" IG QnA

[duggarsetal]

Transcript of Dav Beal’s Instagram Live

(I know I process information a lot better when reading, so thought it could be useful for others)

Edited a little, since Dav used a lot of “you know”, “um”, “uh” and “basically”

He talks for a while about his music practice, which I’ve included, but the part about Bethany/their marriage/his therapy is bolded, as it’s likely the bit you’ll be most interested

Be warned, it’s a hefty read.

So I’ve been trying to do more music stuff. I really enjoy music. But I’ve found out, or realised recently that I spent a lot of my life just kind of, enjoying things and just doing them as I felt like doing them. Which meant that I didn’t necessarily get really good at any one thing. So, I have piano. I play by ear a little bit. And I can play some ukulele, and I can play some guitar, a little bit. But I’m not great at any one of them. And I can sing a little bit, but I’m not great at singing. So it's interesting because I really don’t want to just be getting by on a tiny level really in these areas. I don’t wanna be doing a little bit of piano, little bit of guitar but never really have skills that can actually be used. Like what if I could actually play really really well. And I could then use those skills, I could take them somewhere, and I could offer that. So, this is one of the things that I’ve been doing more this year. Just taking more time to practise. So I’m practising guitar. I’ve got some  chords right now I’m struggling with. I think it’s D minor. Struggling to transition from G to D minor. Takes me a while. Or basically any chord to D minor. Then my big problem has also been all those rookie noises that you get when you don’t put your finger down the right way. Especially on D. So, it’s getting better; And then I’m practising different [things] - playing with a pick, without a pick.  I got a little membership on guitar tricks for a little while (unintelligible). But that’s just one of the- it’s a matter of finding - both finding the time, but also finding the right path - whether to get a teacher or not, things like that. So with piano I’ll look up a youtube video for example, and then I’ll practise what they’re doing, or what they talk about in the video. So one of them was to try to help break the connection between my hands. So (plays piano using left hand only). There’s one scale on this hand, and then (plays piano using right hand only). Okay, on the other hand. Then putting them together (plays piano with both hands simultaneously). Okay, and then, what the video encourages to do was to, basically, go slower on one hand than the other, so (plays piano with both hands at different tempos). So that would be one of them and then you do that in every key. So (plays piano with both hands at different tempos) and then (continues playing piano with both hands at different tempos). And then with the time, the idea is to become smoother, be able to play to a metronome, and all that stuff. Another one was kind of a jazz… (plays tentatively). Yeah (plays piano). So it was (plays scales to a jazz tempo). And then it’s back the other way (play scales to a jazz tempo). So things like that basically, trying to bring in new finger exercises, because what I’ve found is that if I just treat the instrument like something that I do for pleasure without actually pushing past the little barriers to get better, then I’m just always gonna be roughly at the same level. And the other thing too, is specific songs, or individual songs. Like some of the ones I was playing before. I had to do (play chords on the piano) some songs that I like and so I’ll  try to learn to play those.

Interesting thing about my journey is that I've had a lot of… I’ve had potential. And I've had a lot of people tell me that I have potential. And I've had a lot of people tell me that I'm talented. And that belief that I'm talented has been one of the number one things that has, that I’ve used to keep me back. I’ve basically thought “Oh I can kind of get by without trying very hard because I have ‘talent’.”. But it turns out that's basically just a bunch of BS. It doesn't really exist. At least not for me in that way. There is natural gift, or natural ability, I think. But if you want - I was talking to an animator guy, who has been in the industry for a long time, and says when you’re, really when you get to the top of the animation - field of animation, the top artists, if you say to them, “Oh wow you’re so talented”, that could really come across to them as offensive, because you're basically discounting all the incredible  amounts of hard work that they've put into their craft. And so in the same way, oftentimes, it really is more hard work than talent that's gonna actually get me somewhere in my life. So I am trying to embrace that paradigm shift and pursue improvement in specific targeted areas. 

So the guitar, the piano, my work, which is in the field of motion design. I’ve been working to level up in that field as well, trying to get 3D animation training. For the last three months or so I’ve been taking a course on School of Motion to learn a 3D programme called Cinema 4D. And this has been awesome because, well a couple things, it’s shown me how much I have not really grasped the fundamentals of design. I've done a lot through intuition and kind of seeing, trying to figure out what looks good. But I really haven't had a really strong grasp of fundamentals. Like value, and colour theory, and composition, and lighting, and things like that. So the course has shown me a little bit of where I needed to improve in that, in those fundamentals. But it’s also given me a huge amount of knowledge within, for this particular programme. AndIi think it's revitalising my career in a lot of ways. Giving me this kind of sense where I don't just have to stay at the level that I’m at today. I can dedicate myself, put more time into honing my skills and developing my craft. Because I decided that I don't wanna be the sort of person who just kind of gets by in all the areas. I want to be crushing it, I really do. I want to be crushing it. I'd rather be crushing it than just being mediocre in all things. 

And this is one of the downsides of the ‘nice guy’. As I've read about, from Robert Glover, is that the nice guy - the guy who's always trying to please women, for example, is always trying to get girls to like him, and to really find his sense of self and identity in what other people think, especially females. That guy often never really gets great at anything. He often just stays at this mediocre level. And that’s tragic. It's one of the biggest tragedies, is what he says. It’s one of the biggest tragedies of the life of this guy, is that you have potential, lots of potential, but the ‘nice guys’ - of which I would have put myself in that category, at least up until pretty recently. We have a tendency to really not develop very far in any field. And so, that’s gotta change. So I'm going to. That’s why I’m making these changes, one of the reasons, that I’m doing this in different areas of my life as well. But it’s really important to really get a handle on where are you going? And what are you doing? And this doesn't just apply to guys, this applies to girls too. It’s difficult to to really figure out what to say yes to,and no to when you don't have some sort of mediating principle. Like a life mission or something like that. And your life mission could be as simple as “provide for my family” or “take care of my parents” or whatever. You can find meaning in all kinds of different things and it could be building a career. The life, the mission are - I think that there are better and worse missions that you could have. And there are missions, where your life purposes, that are more helpful to people, to other people than others. But at the same time, I think just having direction, or just having something that's what you're doing, really helps to weed out the distractions from things that you should be about. 

And so this is just one of those mindsets that I've come upon in the last several months. And I really just started to realise that I struggled with, in my life was so others-oriented, I would say. It’s where you make people and their approval the centre of your life, and then you say yes or no to things depending on how much you think saying yes or no will shake up or stabilise those people around which you have chosen to orbit your life. The problem is we can't control those people. I never could control my wife, or my friends. I couldn't control what they thought of me, much less anything else about them. So, what that means you end up basically a no -self. Like you have no identity. All you have is the reflection that you're getting back from other people and it turns out that that's a very difficult way to live . It turns out that it's very resentment prone. If you build your life around getting the reflected sense of yourself from other people, then resentment will probably be skyrocketing because you always offload responsibility onto other people. So if I build my life around Bethany, for example, in a way that, emotionally, I’m orbiting her, and trying to make sure that she’s happy all the time. What that means is that every decision I make, I have the potential to offload onto her,  blame her for the consequences, rather than taking responsibility for myself and my own decisions. 

So, for example, if one day Bethany is in a bad mood, has a bad day, and I try to do things to make her happy, so that she won't be in a bad mood. Before I would often do that, but with a bunch of strings attached - “Once I do this nice thing for her, now she has to be really nice to me”. And she has to basically have the mood that I’ve ‘paid’ for (laughs). If you're having a bad mood, and I’m gonna pay, I’m gonna do this action - not out of unconditional love - I’m gonna do it as a quid pro quo. I do this action - I wash the dishes, or I take care of the kids, or whatever -  and then you won't be in a bad mood, right? And then you'll like me, right? And then we’ll have a good relationship, right? And that’s just not how it works. That can't be how it works. And I realised that, I wouldn't say the hard way, I would say that I got lucky, in the sense that I'm not twenty years into my marriage figuring this out, but it has taken quite a bit of time.  

Another thing that happened is Bethany and I would have these conversations, and they would be so devastating to me (chuckles), She would express something she didn't like, for example. A lot of these conversations had to do, interestingly enough, with her, with celebration. And with the fact that I wasn't celebrating her accomplishments and achievements in a way that was, that would've, that she would've thought was loving. But, in those conversations, rather than taking what shes saying and going “okay, well that, that’s a great perspective”, or forming my own opinion instead, what I would do, in order to alleviate the tension in our relationship, I would take on the weight and the blame of everything, in the conversation. So if she said “you did this  to me” or “you’re uncaring”, or something like that, then I would basically get to this point in the conversation, after arguing for a while, or after trying to ‘reason’, I would get to this point where “you're right, i’m the most selfish”. Cause I could kind of strain to see it from her point of view, and be like “okay she thinks I’m selfish, so I'm going to basically admit that I'm the most selfish, I have all of these problems”, right. And uh (chuckles) what it would, those conversations would end up being devastating for me. And I didn't really know any other way. So the only way out of those very intense conversations was, that I, that I knew, or that I chose, was to basically take on the blame of everything, and then I would kind of keep a lid on my emotions in that conversation. Really, like, just tight and keep the lid on and I wouldn’t lash out in anger. But what I would find is that after the conversation, she'd be better. She feel better emotionally and that I would just, I would kind of be like, “okay, we diverted the storm” or something like that. Then the next day, typically it was the next day, I would just be really devastated, and just having a really rough time of it. I would be thinking back on our conversation, and just a lot of resentment, just be really resenting her for basically putting me in a position where I've had to take the fall in our conversation and that was the pattern.

And so these conversations would happen every couple of months, maybe, and it would just be a really bad one and then it started to get worse and I started to have these suicidal fantasies (laughs). They call it passive suicidal ideation, where you’re not really about to end your life, but you are fantasising about it. And I like the word fantasy, because my fantasy had to do, not really with me feeling so worthless, necessarily - that, that probably was in there somewhere. But what made my fantasy compelling, was how bad Bethany would feel if I were no longer here. And (laughs) I had some moments where the, those suicidal fantasies were more dramatic. And that’s when I decided I needed to do something about this, and so I went and got some therapy. 

Wonderful therapist, he really helped me with a lot of things. One of the things was EMDR, which is eye movement desensitation- densative - uh, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing - EMDR. But he would, we would sit, I was looking at a computer with him on zoom or whatever and he would hold this wand, and it would go back and forth, and I would follow it with my eyes. And while we did that, I would hold certain memories from childhood  in my mind, and he would lead me through and process some of this stuff. I think of all the things we did together, that was probably the most interesting, and the most beneficial. He was a great therapist. But, near the tail end of that process there was something that kept coming up during those EMDR sessions, and it had to do with me as an adult who has agency, who is not a child. And I think what I realised  through that process is that I had a lot of difficulty disconnecting myself emotionally from my family environment. 

So when I was back at home, at my family’s, before I moved out, a lot of the emotional issues had to do with freedom, had to do with uh, not , hmm… So I basically, my family - in my mind - became a cage. My family were - their being - became a cage. Now, I moved out at twenty, which was probably several years too late, or later than I should’ve. But what kept coming up in the EMDR therapy was just disconnecting from that. Disconnecting from being a child who has no choice, or young person who has the feeling that they are in a cage. And through EMDR I started to latch onto this idea of being an adult, and having agency, and having responsibility, as an alternative to being overwhelmed in interpersonal relationships. So that was one of my biggest takeaways from therapy. 

And then I started to learn about this other concept where, rather than viewing yourself as a wounded child who needs to have a secure attachment in order to be healthy, this other approach was teaching the idea that it isn't really a wounded child, so much, that is having the issues here. It is the adult self that is recreating the patterns of childhood. And what was the interesting, maybe subtle, difference there, is that the adult is recreating relationships that he or she knows. So I was recreating the relationships that I knew. And the operative term there is I was creating. I was reenacting [sound cuts out momentarily] …really encouraging to me, because that also meant that I could stop recreating it. Rather than having to have someone give me my attachment needs, and make me feel securely attached for me to be safe in a secure relationship, I could actually take control, I had the locus of control inside, and I could actually make changes actively, as a grown up and as an adult. 

And so I’ve started doing that, and I've started to treat myself more and more as someone who has agency and has responsibility, and isn't just going to be buried with the emotional states of other people. And, it was really interesting because I can't remember the last time um, Bethany and I had one of those difficult conversations, interestingly enough. It unhooked me from that, and the interesting thing too, is plenty of the time, Bethany will still have something that she still wants different about me, or something that she’s expressing - an area that she thinks I hurt her, or something like that. She’ll still express it in much the same way as she used to, but the thing that has changed is I don't get carried away, and take all the blame for what she's expressing now. I allow her to have her own thoughts, and feel the way she feels, and she has every right to those feelings - and at the same time, I'm not using her as the litmus test, or as the mirror for how well I'm doing. That's the key. I'm not using the person that is my committed emotional relationship to dictate my sense of okay-ness or enough-ness. That has been switching into something that is internal, something that I can reference without anybody else telling me “oh you're doing good” or “you're not doing very good.”. 

Um, so - someone asked “what's your favourite band?”. My favourite band… I don't know. I've been listening to more Johnny Cash. I was never a huge Johnny Cash listener until recently when we were at our, at our new house, preparing to move in, scraping the ceilings and stuff, of all the popcorn, and I was listening to a lot of Johnny Cash, so that would be one of my favourites right now. I really like The Highwaymen, which was Cash and Willie Nelson and two other guys that I forget, or I don't even know their names. 

Why am I telling you this? (laughs) Honestly, I was recording a video to post, a music video, a video of me playing the piano. And I kept recording it again and again and again and again, which is interesting, and it would never - I would always make a mistake and so I decided it might be a lot more interesting and a lot more confronting for me to do a Live, where I have to play piano, or play an instrument without the recourse of being able to rerecord it. So that’s why L decided to do a Live. 

Alright everybody, have a good rest of your day.

[pickleballpaul]

I remember when Bethany said Dav looks into philosophy and then they (Bethany, Paul & Morgan) posed it as if it was like a strange thing for a Christian to do, why?! I watch a lot of Orthodox YouTubers, and they literally all studied philosophy, and think it's important to study it. I'm confused at what was so strange about Dav deciding to look into it?

[justabrowncoatedwench]

Dragon Age NPC Ages in DA: The Veilguard

This assumes that the 9 10 years between Dragon Age Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard refer to the Trespasser DLC (as in the last time Varric would have seen Solas; confirmed in Dev Q&A on 6/14/24). This places DAV in 9:54. Characters who showed up in a previous game will not be repeated in the lists for later games they also appeared in (i.e., Leliana is under DAO, not DAI).

Read more for length & spoiler reasons. The ages listed are assuming they have not had their birthday in 9:54 yet.

ETA1: I used the ages & evidence summarized by @dalishious in this post, superseding those ages with newer evidence where available or my own interpretation of textual evidence (when given a range I personally favor smack in the middle more often than not).

ETA2: Changed year/ages to reflect the Q&A information that Veilguard is 10 years post-Trespasser, not 9 as originally stated.

Dragon Age: Origins - 9:30 - 24 years prior

Alistair Theirin - 43

Morrigan - 49

Leliana - 50

Zevran Arainai - 48

Oghren Kondrat - 66

Wynne - RIP (would've been 71)

Shale - Eternal

Sten (now Arishok) - 67

Loghain Mac Tir - 75

Anora Mac Tir - 50

Dragon Age: Awakening - 9:31 - 23 years prior

Nathaniel Howe - 53

Anders - 54

Sigrun - 48

Velanna - 48

Dragon Age 2 - 9:30-9:37 - 24-17 years prior

Hawke - 48

Carver/Bethany Hawke - 43

Fenris - ~54

Isabela - 54

Merrill - ~47

Sebastian Vael - 46

Aveline Vallen - ~59

Varric Tethras - 53

Dragon Age Inquisition - 9:41-9:44 - 13-10 years prior

Josephine Montilyet - 41

Cullen Rutherford - 42

Cassandra Pentaghast - 50

Solas - ~2000 (appears mid-40s)

Sera - 33

Vivienne de Fer - 57

Blackwall/Thom Rainier - 58

the Iron Bull - 50

Dorian Pavus - 42

Cole - Ageless (appears 20, or he may have aged into his 30s if he were made more human in DAI)

Kieran - 22

[kirkwallguy]

Meredith was impactful to me as a villain because she's just a. Human. A person. Who went through a trauma of her sister killing people because she was afraid of the templars, and she corrupted herself into hatred of magic and mages, which can draw a very discomforting parallel between Hawke and Bethany.

When it's a big powerful blighted "god" who wants worship and acts and speaks like a disney villain (in datv most of antagonists do that 😭) it's just nothing to deliver. Elgar'nan (what I've seen so far) is extremely dull and bland and doesn't inspire any curiousity and I'm a bit bored if I'm being honest. It would be more interesting if there was an intricate story behind or a GOOD characterisation (Flemeth) when I look at Elgar'nan I want to see some solemnity not a disney delivery

YEPPPP, meredith is my favourite villain because she feels so realistic. maybe we don't have mages and templars in real life but someone powerful letting their trauma shape them into a bigot who uses their influence to harm a marginalised group is super common. maybe it's just because i live in a country where there's a crazy rich and powerful blonde woman making my life worse due to her personal issues but it hits! it feels relevant!

i haven't actually seen much of the gods so far but it just feels like the stakes are too high for them to be compelling? you need to be more than a little traumatised for a "destroying the world" plot to have any nuance. i know making morally grey villains became a little overdone in recent years but past a certain point you need to ask yourself whether your villain can be replaced by a natural disaster and have the exact same impact. in origins, the blight and the archdemon are natural disaster villains BUT they have loghain to balance it out, he feels like the 'real' villain until he stops being a threat and you can start focusing on defeating the actual world-ending threat. dav really needed an extra 'political' villain with the same general concept that you overcome towards the end of act 2 tbh. maybe they do and i just haven't met them yet but i doubt it lol

[fereldan-kestrel]

Hi! another for the da4 asks, if you would be so kind :)

What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

Oh well, this is gonna be a hard one because I'm undecided on so many things, and technically my canon Inky run is still unfinished but...

Some core choices starting from DAO (and thank you for asking that because it finally pushed me to clarify some things for myself 😆):

- the Warden is a female Amell, still alive and looking for the cure

- romanced Alistair who stayed a warden and got out of the Fade

- Alistair performed the Dark Ritual with Morrigan

- Anora is the sole ruler

- female mage Hawke, so Carver survives, rip Bethany (the things I would do to keep them both!)

- romanced Fenris

- sided with mages

- spared Anders (if I remember correctly 😆)

- Hawke currently chilling in the Fade

- Inky is a female mage Trevelyan

- sided with mages, recruited them (although I really love Champions of the Just and in general I would love a possibility to recruit both and put everything in order 😆)

- romanced Cullen, encouraged him to stop taking lyrium

- I guess technically friends with Solas, not enemies at least 😆

- ally with Wardens

- Celene a sole ruler

- everyone recruited, Bull is a Tal-Vashoth, Cole is more human.

- Morrigan drinks from the well (though, this is still not 100% decided)

- Kieran has the soul of the Old God

- Cassandra is the Divine

- Inquisition disbanded, although this is still not exactly decided as well. My Inky really grows as a politician and a diplomat, so she may use the "chantry bodyguards" facade to keep things going.

I think that's all that's important, I may add something if I remember it. In general I'm a chicken when it comes to Big Choices and I am currently terrified of many mistakes I might have made unknowingly 😆

[duggardata]

Beal #2* is "Term," As of Today!

Bethany (Baird) Beal is due with her 2nd Child—a girl—on December 24, 2022. As of today, she is 37 Weeks Along, or "early term."

You know what that means... Beal #2* Baby Watch!

[thievinghippo]

oh, i love it. For the veilguard hype qa:

4. What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

7. Which character from the previous games or other media are you most hoping will make an appearance in DAV?

17. Are you interested in all the lore and speculation or do you focus more on the games and stories themselves?

4. You know, I had to break out the ol' spreadsheet for this one, to make sure I got the details right. For my 'ash in the sun' world state, we've got Warden Alistair and Brosca. Then Hawke was left in the Fade (she romanced Anders). Blackwall and Bethroot Cadash, who sided with the mages, supported Celene, who reconciled with Briala. Morrigan drank from the Well and Leliana is the Divine

7. Bethany or Carver Hawke! I know it will never happen, but it would make me so, so happy. I also really hope that Blackwall gets some sort of mention, though I doubt he will

17. I'm trying not to speculate too much, because that route lies disappointment. Though I really want to know about the Titans. Please, bioware, give this dwarf lover something!

[anneapocalypse]

1, 2, 4, 8, 19 for the dav meme!

Veilguard Hype Ask Meme!

What was the first Dragon Age game you played?

Origins! I've been here since the beginning. Alongside Fallout 3, it was one of the first RPG video games that absolutely ate my brain. I have fond memories of sitting on my futon playing DAO for like 16 hours straight, forgetting to eat and destroying my back.

2. Which Dragon Age game is your favorite so far?

This is always such a hard question for me to answer, because the three games are all so different, and I have deeply fond memories of all three of them, and I can also look at all three pretty frankly and see their flaws even as I still enjoy them. I think if I have to name a favorite though, it's still Dragon Age 2. Something about its structure and scale, the creative and unusual use of place and time, and its themes, really appeals to me. I've also come to really like the personality lock-in feature even though it does place some limitations on role-playing, and I love the friendship-rivalry system. I love it so much. I think it makes for much more interesting character relationships than simply "Does this character approve or disapprove of my actions?" Are there things about the other games that I prefer, of course. I want to be able to play as an elf or a dwarf or a qunari, for one. But even after all this time, DA2 still hits me a certain way. I love the other two games as well. There's just something about Kirkwall.

4. What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

So I have like five or six world states and I don't consider any one of them more canon than the others, but I will be going into Veilguard for the first time with Rogues Gallery, which is exactly what it sounds like (and which means the one thing I know about my Rook is they'll be a rogue), featuring Jolene Cousland, Mallory Hawke, and Calla Cadash.

Basic rundown:

The Circle was saved, Connor and Isolde both lived, Zathrian broke the curse, and Harrowmont is King of Orzammar.

Jo romanced Alistair and convinced him to do the Dark Ritual.

They stayed Grey Wardens and rode off into the sunset together.

Anora is Queen of Ferelden.

Nathaniel is alive.

The Architect was spared.

Vigil's Keep and Amaranthine were protected.

Jo went off alone to find a cure for the Calling, and Alistair was left in the Fade.

Carver is dead, Bethany is alive and a Grey Warden.

Mal romanced Isabela. (In my headcanon, they later become a polycule with Merrill but of course that's not in the game.)

She rivaled everyone except the rogues and Merrill.

Bartrand is dead. Varric kept a piece of the idol.

Aveline did not marry Donnic.

Feynriel went to the Dalish, and then to Tevinter.

Clan Sabrae was killed.

Merrill did not destroy the Eluvian.

Mal refused to take any kind of a stand until the very end of Act III where she heaved a big sigh and sided with the mages.

She disapproved of Anders' actions but spared his life.

Mal is still alive and kicking.

Calla romanced Josephine.

She conscripted the rebel mages and the Grey Wardens.

Alistair was left in the Fade.

I left off with her right before Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, so I am not sure of her decisions from her onward! But I do plan to finish this playthrough before Veilguard comes out. :)

8. What faction are you most excited to learn more about?

I'm pretty hype about all of them, but I'd say the Lords of Fortune and the Veil Jumpers the most since we know the least about them!

19. Are you planning to replay any of the previous games, watch Dragon Age: Absolution, or read any of the books/comics/short stories, or are there other games you want to play in the meantime?

I do plan to finish my current playthrough of Inquisition (Calla's playthrough) which is still incomplete. Beyond that, maybe I'll re-read some of my favorite Tevinter Nights stories. I spent about three years (2020-2023) playing the whole series on repeat like 5-6 times and reading and watching all the side content I could get my hands on, so... I'm probably good on that front. ;)

Final Fantasy XIV is getting a new expansion, Dawntrail, in just a couple weeks, so that should occupy a good chunk of my summer, and I expect I'll be ready to play some more Dragon Age in the fall in preparation for Veilguard! (Would love to get an actual release date, though.)

[nerdierholler]

4, 7 and 9 for the DA:V asks please :)

(I’m currently on my first DA:I playthrough, very excited about DA:V!!)

I hope you're enjoying your DAI run! Tell me about your Quizzie!

4. What does your worldstate look like going into DAV?

It seems like DAO and DA2 choices aren't going to be huge but I'll mention them.

DAO: Warden Ithlen Mahariel. Romances Alistair, sides with the mages in the tower, negotiates a truce with the werewolves, put Alistair on the thrown BUT then doesn't do the dark ritual so Alistair dies killing the archdemon and Anora now is Queen. Sadly this means no Morrigan in DAI :(

DA2: Female Hawke, she doesn't have a name. Rogue. Romances Fenris. Takes Bethany to the Deep Roads but not Anders so Bethany is dead. Oops. Eventually sides with the mages after trying to remain neutral most of the game. Isabella is still around, Varric is her bestie, she doesn't help Merrill with the eluvian, kills Anders because she feels like it's the best way to give him peace and be free of Justice.

DAI is hard because I have three Inquisitors that I'm really attached to. If I'm going purely canon compliant then I'll go with Enarin Lavellan. Rogue. Romances Iron Bull. I thought the Keep autofilled for DAI but apparently not so here is what I can remember. Friends with everyone, sided with Templars, Celene is on the throne, Wardens rebuild, Stroud is in the fade, Cassandra is Divine (?), dismantled the Inquisition.

7. Which character from the previous games or other media are you most hoping will make an appearance in DAV?

Like wow, so many! I would really like to see Dorian again especially with my Inquisitor that romanced him. Also would be happy to see Zevran again. I feel like a number of characters people want to meet again are dead or not available in my primary world state...

9. Which romance, if any, do you plan to pursue first?

Like I mentioned, I'm Emmrich curious. However, I started reading Tevinter Nights and now I'm interested in Lucanis too. Then again I really liked Harding in DAI. It's going to be a hard choice. Too many good options I suspect.

[spurgie-cousin]

do you think Bethany is actually deconstructing?

Honestly it feels like she is to some degree, but it's almost like it's against her will lol. Every time she starts talking about changes in her ideology, I can't get over this feeling that she's holding onto to parts of fundamentalism really hard, like the picture in my head is her being yanked away by her feet by logic while she still has her fingertips dug into her old ideas of morality.

It feels like there are parts of fundamentalism she can't wait to give up, like the way they define ideal womanhood, which I've always felt has maybe made Bethany feel a little insecure as a tall girl who got married at 30 and struggled with pregnancy and fertility. But inevitably, there will be aspects of her old ideology that she either found comfort in, or just fully accepted as truth and reality, that will just be harder to deconstruct. And I can totally relate tbh, even if you feel like a fairly progressive person existing in a conservative Christian world, it still will get it's hooks in you in some ways and transitioning out of that is almost always harder than most people anticipate.

I feel like Dav is probably regularly presenting her with ideas and logic she just can't argue with, for lack of a better description. My understanding of Dav's beliefs is that he doesn't even consider himself a Christian anymore, so if Bethany makes up her mind to stay with him, there are just some things she'll have no choice but to deconstruct tbh. I can't get over the feeling that it might inevitably lead to their breakup though, because it just feels like for parenting and harmony's sake they will eventually have to be on the same page, and the vibe I get from Bethany at the moment is that she doesn't want to fully deconstruct at all. I don't know if she'll ever be able to get on the same page as Dav, who at the moment is super firm in his beliefs.

This is of course just my speculation, and probably me projecting my own feelings about mixed belief relationships onto them, it's totally possible that I'm wrong. Personally, it would just never work for me if I wasn't on the same page as my spouse about spirituality in particular because that's something I take very seriously (as I feel both Dav and Bethany do too just from listening to them talk about it) especially while raising kids.

I think it's also possible that Bethany ends up on Dav's level, but has a very difficult deconstruction period, which honestly many people from her brand of Christianity do. Something about that IBLP flavored, independent Baptist section of Christianity really worms its way into people and seems harder to shake than some other denominations.