#but also in awe of how much love Solas had for her

[liaragaming]

I think Mythal gets a lot of undeserved hate directed her way solely by being Solas's former love. And I also think Crossroads Mythal has had thousands of years to do nothing but stew in her own anger and misery - thus coloring who she was before.

But the one thing I cannot get over is how upset she is at Solas for "betraying" her.

Like...

He built a refuge for her in the rebellion! He always thought she would join him - despite her never saying the words!

He tells Elgar'nan the only reason Mythal joined the Evanuris as gods was to keep him and everyone else in check!

Solas never rebelled against her! He rebelled against the Evanuris' claim to godhood. And it was a claim that he always thought she would drop.

I get so mad at her for being so mad at him! But she did join them, and Solas never saw that. He always held this picture of what she was to him before he took a body. He loved her so much, and maybe she loved him the same once, but that love became so misguided, and they both clung to it?

They give me some deep Emmrich / Johanna vibes in that way - on such opposite ends there's no way for them to work out but also inevitably tied together.

Solas is so in it to the point of not being able to see what she had become. Real enough in his love for her so as to keep the essence of her alive when it would have died anywhere else.

I just get so tangled up in what they must have meant to each other at one point (pre-physical bodies, a time we don't get to see), and how Mythal moves on and Solas clings to her, and how much he loved her, how much hope he had, and how upset she was with him, and what a painful complicated mess this all was.

He traps the Evanuris behind the Veil because he's so grieved and pissed.

And then he wakes up to find a piece of Mythal walking around in Flemeth's body, and I can't help but imagine what a shock that was. To find a Mythal that had lived and learned and changed over thousands of years that he didn't experience. He won't even speak to her essence in the Crossroads.

When Bellara asks how he could have killed Mythal, Solas insists Flemeth wasn't her. But we know he feels guilt over killing Mythal. We know he weeps over her body. Like, he loved her, but I think at this point, he's also angry with her as well? Maybe on a level that he doesn't recognize.

I just can't help imagining Lavellan running into her in the Crossroads and giving her a piece of her mind.

[lizzybeeee]

THE ENTIRE DRAGON AGE AMA IS A DUMPSTER FIRE

They avoided all the high-rated questions with genuine criticism (not blind hate!) and went for questions that were safer and allowed them more leeway. After that awful IGN article and that treatment of Davrin...God, just put it down. I have no faith that BioWare will be able to continue Dragon Age or Mass Effect with the respect it deserves.

Edit - They had an opportunity for genuine discussion with fans who were concerned/unhappy with the way Veilguard was -> people unhappy with the story, the marketing, the lack of 'RP' options in an RPG, etc... Instead they just doubled-down even more, avoiding those critical questions, with no real acknowledgement that fans have very reasonable problems with this game.

Some Highlights & My Initial Ramblings Below:

The Executors

"They attempt to manipulate events in the most subtle way they can manage."

So, very clear that they're not simply observers of what is happening in Thedas: they're manipulators...

"Magical Illuminati Confirmed! Lizard People Did 9:30 Dragon!!!!"

All that complexity of character -> his hatred of Orlais, his experience as a general, his relationship with Cailain, and the influence of Howe...all diminished. Any influence from a shadow cabal is too much influence - all the humanity of Loghain's choices/consequences...God, what a waste.

Not to mention what this does to other events/characters in the series -> they imply they've been intervening as far back as the magisters breaking into the golden city. I do not find this compelling! At all!

2. Solas and the Executors

Oh my god, he sounds like such a fucking Mary-Sue I'm so sick of Solas at this point -> "Actually, I know more about the Executors than anyone alive - not even the rest of the Gods know as much as me."

("I'm also, like, an Ancient Elven God, I'm responsible for the Blight and the Veil, and I kind of locked the Gods away cause they were evil - but, like, I'm really sad about it. Also the Herald of Andraste thinks I'm cute <3")

<- Previous comments: massive oversimplification, obviously

But I miss the days when not everything was about Solas. It removes so much interest and wonder in this world when the fucking egg is behind it all. I loved him as a character in DAI and now I just feel this bone deep tiredness when I see his stupid face.

Don't you dare threaten to bring Gareth David-Lloyd back -> keep him away from this mess!

3. The Fate of the Rest of the Evanuris

Yay. I'm so looking forwards to "The Return of the Elves: Electric Boogaloo 2" - it was done so well the first time!

"It was the elves all along!"

The only character with any potential to be interesting is Andruil*, but how they handled all this lore was done so shallowly and so poorly that I find it hard to give a damn anymore. Not to mention that the game literally mentions Ghilan'nain mourning Andruil - so is this a retcon/redirection/or have you confirmed that one of the most interesting members of the Evanuris' is dead?

*interesting in that she's established in lore to potentially have a tonne of really cool things attached to her (the void armour, the great weapon she has etc...). The rest of the evanuris are nowhere near as well established as she is.

4. Southern Thedas, Sociopolitical Issues, and Future Games

NOW YOU WANT TO INCORPORATE GEO-POLITCAL EXPLORATION?? You avoided any meaningful discussion like the plague in DATV but now you're acknowledging it?? OkaY. okAy.

They couldn't even give us the long-term ramifications of the mage/templar war how the hell am I supposed to believe that they will be able to pull off 'elven gods are real' etc...? For a game series that totes : your choices matter -> they have not proven that they have been able to show that in a meaningful way. They literally cleaned the slate with this game to avoid doing that.

So, what, does that mean that the Veil is never going to come down now? Or are you going to have the entirety of Thedas build themselves up again just to have the Veil fall and send things into chaos once more?

What a fatalistic, miserable outcome for Thedas -> why the fuck would anyone bother to live in Thedas if you're going to keep throwing meteorites at them? By all means, change/conflict has to happen for the series to move forwards...but this is just so miserable at this point.

(The Elder Scrolls, at least, gives people room to breathe between crisis' or sets them up in different areas of the world! Bethesda treats past installments/your decisions with greater respect than DATV does.)

Even, then, if the Veil remains up, that means that the spirits are just trapped in the Fade being miserable for the rest of existence. The entire series has been humanizing spirits, from Justice to Cole, and now they're just throwing in the towel? I guess they can stay in the fade now! Problem solved!

What do you mean the Evanuris are not a threat anymore? IN A PREVIOUS QUESTION YOU LITERALLY SAID SOME ARE STILL POTENTIALLY KICKING AROUND THE BLACK CITY?

Weakened, sure, but Solas was 'weak' in DAI. You're giving yourself an out if you decide to go back to the elves again. Please do, I'd love more content on how the elves alone fuck everything up!

5. More Southern Thedas, the Chantry, and Tevinter

Thanks for the confirmation that things in the South are so fucked up that they have to work alongside the 'Slave Capital' of the known world to rebuild!

Slavery was one of the biggest things that caused a rift between the north/south chantry system -> one of the reasons why there were exalted marches -> a uniting belief in the south is that slavery is fucked. They didn't address slavery in DATV - what hopes are there that they will do so effectively in a future game?

Don't tell me that Dorian fixes everything off screen either -> either he solves slavery off-screen or the south is being forced to work the slaver-capitol because their land is nuked and they have no ground to stand on.

I'm so thrilled.

6. Solas and the Idol / The Blight

I will never get over Solas fucking curing the Blight off-screen and no one asking questions/giving a shit. Hello?? The Hero of Ferelden would like a word with you???

So the Blight is calcified in Minrathous, at least, but everywhere further away is still fucked! Once more, the South is doomed to suffer from the long-term effects that regular blights have -> not to mention the red lyrium (which still exists according to the AMA) across the south.

I don't care; it's lame. It's a lame way to conclude the blight and I hate it. This game did not earn 'cure the blight from thedas' at all. You could have had us learn how to soothe a titan and see how that can diminish the blight but you did it this way.

Another 'magical ritual' because Solas has such a good track record with them lmao.

7. The Agents of Fen'Harel / The War with the Qun / The Crows

Turned him against the idea of being a leader???!!

Fen'harel's Call to the Elven People After the events at the Winter Palace, elves left the Inquisition under mysterious circumstances, as did elven servants across Thedas. None could say where they went, but those who believed the Inquisitor's story about Fen'Harel wondered just how large the Dread Wolf's forces were... and what the ancient elven rebel had planned. This is from the Trespasser Epilogue, Epler!

Your concept art for Joplin literally had him as a leader of a faction of elves. Just be honest that it's a retcon and you changed course - don't try to save face with this reasoning.

About the Antaam: "We needed some big mindless bad guys to fight and so we did this because we didn't want to address the Qunari War/Invasion we set up in Trespasser".

You had to canonize Sten as being alive and Arishok in order for this reasoning to work -> you didn't even come up with an alternative Arishok to take Sten's place.

Yeah, the exchange that set up the Crows we see in the game as "idealists" did not make the game. I can confirm that!

I'm sorry, "Caterina kept Illario in check?" as in, 'kept him an idealist and not the usual Crow'? The woman that beat him with a cane and starved him and his cousin to train them as Crows. Fuck off.

lmao -> tell me you're coming up with this on the spot without telling me that you're coming up with this on the spot.

8. World State Discrepancies - Isabela

Outright ignores the very real criticism about the marketing from this game and World States.

"there are absolutely places where we unintentionally suggested there was a hard canon (...that Isabela is always assumed to have joined Hawke's party.)"

Unintentional?

Excuse me, you have her talk about Merrill and the Kirkwall Crew as family - that was not unintentional in the slightest. Not to mention Sten, Blackwall, Sera, and Cole are canonized as being part of your world state no matter what.

You had a story you wanted to tell - one that only fit a few world states - and you went ahead with it and disregarded those choices. Don't try and lie about this all being a big misunderstanding.

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

Edit - They could have taken the opportunity to address the very reasonable criticisms that people had with this game but they cherry-picked questions and avoided/minimized anything remotely critical.

They could have provided us some insight into the game development time but each time they approached the topic they settled for "we're happy with what we delivered and it was well optimized."

They had an opportunity to acknowledge that people were bothered by the handling of the lore/stories (to potentially mention they could course-correct/ rethink their plans) but instead they doubled down on everything that they did and even 'justified' some decisions. They doubled down on the Executors, Solas's changing motivations, the destruction of Southern Thedas, and the elves/Solas being at the heart of everything etc...

This AMA basically confirmed that the only reason they did what they did to the south was for a reset -> It's not a compelling or fulfilling narrative to have everything we've done reset back to ground zero off-screen. BioWare games differentiate themselves from other RPG's by their import system from previous games - it was compelling and exciting! With DATV they set the expectation that BioWare can outright throw out entire games worth of choices/build up, not solely retcon them.

Justifying your choice to water down the lore/world of your story by saying you'll address it in the 'next game' does not instill me with confidence, BioWare! It doesn't explain that lack of it in this game either!

They avoided every question that, rightfully so, pointed out the misleading comments made by devs in the pre-order period of the game:

the fact that there were only 3 imported choices from previous games was leaked by a reviewer -> BioWare was vague from the start about choices

that this game was the most 'romantic' in the series

that world states/ headcanons wouldn't be disrespected

that there are 'lore' reasons for bad darkspawn design

that there are lasting, impactful choices/consequences to be made in this game

that the lore/world was not watered or toned down

that companions are deep and you can disagree with them etc...

BioWare's behavior towards their customers in the lead up period to this games release was downright scummy. I absolutely felt misled after playing the game for myself and recalling what I read in interviews put out. While EA is undoubtedly poison, you can't hold them solely accountable for this.

I feel for the individual developers who worked on this in what was undoubtedly a toxic environment from EA - but I feel that it's pretty clear that BioWare itself has a lot of problems within and in their leadership/executives. Working for EA does not give them an excuse to mislead their customers.

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

I already had a very grim outlook on the franchise from the end of DATV but this literally look my interest out the back and sent it to God. What a disaster.

[nadas-dirthalen]

I don't think I can ever forgive Solas personally for the way he used Varric's death as a manipulation tool against Rook. As someone who experienced the recent loss of a loved one in my life, realizing what he did to Rook and imagining someone taking away my autonomy to grieve and accept the loss makes me feel so disgust toward him. And to use the image of Varric, someone who was always protective and loyal to his friends? It angers me more, as it feel like such a disrespect act for Solas to do with Varric's image, especially as Solas was arguably once one of his friends. I still question if Solas ever understood what it meant to be alive as a mortal or if he was so caught up in continuing to see himself as some spirit of Wisdom, he denied how he had changed or that life is not as simple/much more vastly different than his once pure Spirit self believed. If he did, would he have treated Varric's death as a tool to use against Rook in the same callous way he did?

Absolutely love Solas' role as Veilguard's antagonist and how it provokes so many emotions and debates on his actions and how to deal with him. Hating his former colleagues is easy, they're batcrap insane and power hungry, but Solas? His actions hurt so much more than anything those two could ever do because we know him in Inquisition; we know, as flawed as he was, he was capable of good, and yet ends up taking actions similar to that of the people he once fought against. But yeah, even though I had the tools for the arguably 'good' ending, there's a reason I chose to fight him and force him into the Veil: He just lost a lot of my sympathy for what he did and I didn't think he deserved a gentle sending off, harsh as it may sound.

Hello anon!! First off, let me say this: you're totally valid to feel as you do about Solas, and even though I don't share your opinion of him, I definitely had a moment of, "Oh god, that was reprehensible."

I think the difference, here, is that my Rook was feeling the feelings you're describing. My Rook would have a hard time wanting to redeem Solas, and only did so for the sake of my Inquisitor.

But the longer I went on after playing Veilguard, the more I realized... that was intentional. That was the point BioWare was making in the third act of Veilguard, and they did it beautifully.

We're supposed to hate him. Let me explain.

We all know what Solas did in the end of Veilguard, and what we find out he's been doing from the very beginning with Varric. What I want to talk about is Solas' conversation with the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

PC: You said that the elven gods went too far. What did they do that made you move against them? Solas: They killed Mythal. (Chuckles.) A crime for which an eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment.

We find out in Veilguard that everything Solas has done, no matter how awful, no matter how violent, has been to bring back the world that Mythal knew before she was killed by the other Evanuris. The one where she was whole. Where Solas, in his mind, had not yet failed her.

Whether or not his actions are good for Thedas (and in most cases, they aren't), Solas does them anyway, consumed by his grief and his need to avenge Mythal. He doesn't think through the creation of the Veil. We see this in a note from Felassan to Solas that is found (I believe) in the Crossroads. He does it anyway, even though even the companions notice that the process hurts him. Badly.

We know, as players, that redeeming Solas leads to him vowing to help soothe the anger of the titans. He works toward his atonement. It is extremely important and powerful that there are many people out there who, knowing this, choose to fight Solas anyway.

Solas also knows, logically, that the world will burn if he takes down the Veil. That doesn't matter to him. What matters is his grief.

We know that, logically, Thedas is worse off if Solas is fought into Fade Jail rather than convinced to go of his own volition by redeeming him. To some players, that doesn't matter. What matters is their grief, like you're saying here.

"An eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment."

In this way, Rook becomes Solas. By choosing to fight him rather than swallowing down their own feelings and pain for the greater good, Rook perpetuates the cycle of violence—for better or worse. And here's the thing: you are justified in this. Your Rook is justified in this. That's why, I think, Solas is written the way he is in Veilguard. BioWare wanted to show that those people who hate Solas have ample reason to do so. They wanted to show what Solas is like with people he doesn't value—and Rook is one such person in act 1 of the story, when he chooses to do blood magic on them.

Redeeming him means Rook taking a chance on Solas' redemption despite the pain he's caused, even if he doesn't deserve it, for the chance at Solas becoming something better. This shows what I think is true of the cycle of violence: that sometimes, it is a deeply uncomfortable and counterintuitive process. But sometimes, that is the only way a cycle of violence is stopped, for better or worse. We acknowledge the pain caused by those who hurt us, but refuse to inflict the same pain upon others, no matter how much pain we feel. It is deeply uncomfortable and counter-intuitive, but sometimes walking away from a situation is all we can do. (and of course I do not believe this is the right course of action in all situations, but Solas is a fictional character, and I believe this angle on his story is reasonable and poignant because it is fiction. real life is infinitely more complex, but Solas' arc isn't meant to be an exact representation of real life: it's to mean something.)

This was the last way, I think, that BioWare drew a strong parallel between Solas and the player. During the DAI quest "In Hushed Whispers," they show us that our seeing the alternate timeline as "not real" mirrors how Solas feels about waking up in present-day Thedas after creating the Veil. Now, they show us that his singular desire for revenge is something that is possible for even us, the players, who knows these are all characters made of pixels, to feel.

I think this is why Epler has said he advocated for an ending where you can fight Solas. Not because he hates Solas (I assure you, he does not), but because it is of tremendous importance to Solas' thematic statement that the player can act on their anger, their pain, toward him—because that is what Solas has been doing to Thedas this entire time.

Thank you for sending me this. I hope you know that I think you're valid for wanting to fight Solas, even though that isn't the ending I choose. It's people like you who help make Solas such a fun, interesting character, and who help highlight just how cool he is to me. You can love him, you can hate him, but I have yet to find a person who's 100% neutral on him. And I love that for us.

[seeker-ophelia]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Ophelia’s Review, Part 1: The Emotion

Like most people on tumblr, I went into Veilguard for Solavellan. I needed a happy ending for them. I had obsessed and freaked and theorized for years. But before I delve into VG I need to explain some backstory. This is going to be as much a biography of me as it is a tale of my rook. And its going to be long, so you know, heads up. And Veilguard Spoilers.

I have been really struggling to get my thoughts into a coherent string after act 2 of VG. I feel like I can’t even review the game because I’m so emotionally wrecked, all I can do is tell a story. If you want to read this, be forewarned, its long, also, obviously spoilers, Veilguard. But… holy god my Rook. 

[Part 2 is here]

My first Dragon Age game was Origins, in 2009. I torrented it off Pirate Bay and played on my aging laptop that could barely handle it. And I loved it. I had never played a game like this before and loved the emotional and story-telling aspects of the game. I played as a Dalish rogue, Lelianna and Zevran were my best friends. Morrigan was the awe-inspiring yet traumatized goth-girl, and I fell for the golden-retriever bastard king of Ferelden.

I did not only watch on in broken-hearted horror as he ascended to his throne beside Anora without me, but I had him lie with Morrigan, the weirdo-turned-friend, because I trusted her, and frankly, I didn’t want to die.

And it broke me in a way the fantasy books I inhaled like oxygen as a child never did.

Because I chose to do those things. I made the choice. For right or for wrong, I was the one who decided their fate, even if those choices came back to bite me in the ass later.

I played Origins three more times over the next 5 years, through what I now call my University Years. I was broke, stressed, and overworked, and Origins became a comfort to me. I even properly bought the game with the DLCs the last time, because I had a little more money, and I figured a game that I had played and loved so much deserved it. (Never played 2, and that was my own fault). I discovered Fan Fiction because of Origins.

Then… I did some life things that I’m not going to air into the internet, but I kind of got my life together around 2016/17. I had a good job, a career even, and while I was by no means wealthy, I was okay.

And I heard about Dragon Age Inquisition, and remembered my old love for Origins, and gave it a go. I’ve always been a fantasy stan (I grew up with LotR), if you give me the option to play as a mage or an elf I’m going to do it. I wanted to romance Leliana, especially after her bad-assery in Redcliffe, but that turned out to be impossible. Because I never played 2, I didn’t know who Cullen was, and I romanced him (my love letter to Alistair). And while I liked the game, loved it even, I didn’t feel that emotional pull that Origins made me feel, and I put it aside. I’ve played some other games I’ve liked throughout the years, Fable, Skyrim, The Witcher, and I liked them all, but none of them really gut-punched me like that first fated Origins playthrough.

Cut to 2020, covid, and fuck if I didn’t have anything better to do, so I played DA2.

Oh man, I laughed at the graphics, oh it was so bad after Inquisition, how did anyone play this? And then I walked Darktown with Anders, walked slaver dens with Fenris, helped my Merrill with her Eluvian, and Isabela with her relic. And I helped my friend Varric in the deep roads. And I began to feel a tendril again of what I had in Origins. Who cared about the graphics, the gameplay, the locations, these people’s stories were what was driving this tale, and that was amazing and rare.

And I went into Inquisition with new eyes. I could not touch Cullen again, not after how he acted in Kirkwall. I knew Solas left, so I wanted to try and romance Bull (I’ve seen the youtube videos; ‘So you want to ride The Bull’). But I slowed down my playthrough this time, talked to everyone, actually spoke to Solas over and over in Haven. Indominatable focus indeed, hahren. What a curiosity you are. And I fell for fucking Solas.

A bald fucking hobo apostate, are you for real? Brain, get your head in the game. And my heart said, wait.

But he leaves! You know he leaves!  

Well, maybe I’m just destined to fall in love with emotionally unavailable fictional people.

And I played Descent and Hakkon for the first time, which were fantastic. And then I played Trespasser.

And Trespasser broke me. Just like Origins did.

And my Casual Dragon Age Days were done. I was feral.

But I also had a very demanding job. I could not just play video games for large chunks of time. I worked. A lot. I mean a lot. And in the fall of this year, I burnt out. I quit. I’ve got Real Shit going on in my life right now, and I’ve worked so much I can afford to take some time off.

And Dragon Age was there to welcome me, arms open wide, with Escapism 4.0, AKA The Veilguard. I spent hours crafting theories, making connections, playing Inquisition again, playing DA2 again, writing, actually writing Fics again. I read the comics, read TN, watched Awakening (twice).

I joined tumblr to stop being a lurker and actually participate. Joined Caitie and Kala’s patreons, just loving the hype and the theory crafting and the love for Veilguard. I love the Dragon Age world. It has helped me through so many tough times in my life, and its going to get me through this one, too.

I found community online. In tumblr, in reddit, in discord.

And I breathed Dragon Age for almost 2 months before Halloween. Solas this and Lavellan that and Fade and Magic and Titans and Gods and Love. Remember this, don’t forget about that, did you hear this theory, well what about the connection between…

To quote myself, Like most people on tumblr, I went into Veilguard for Solavellan. The companions came out, and I didn’t feel super strongly about any of them. I didn’t even feel strongly about my Rook. I had a general idea, especially because of Trick’s IGN interview, Rook/Mirror/Solas, but nothing really concrete.

And then Nadas-Dirthalen asked me about my Rook a few days before Halloween, and I had to think about it. I had to put down Solas and Lavellan, I had to put down my theories, put down the lore, and pick up this new thing. This Rook.

And I looked at it.

What did I want her to act like? What did I want her to look like? How did I want her to be? What drives her? Where is she from? What are her goals? What does she like? What does she hate?

And I weaved a new friend. Danivas (Dani, for short). Escaped rabbit slave out of Minrathous, her magic the only thing that saved her from hard labor in Dock Town or the mines, and then it was the only thing that saved her from the unwanted advances of the Tevinter Nobility. Rescued by the Dragons in her teens, she sought connection to her elvhen heritage with the Veil Jumpers, falling hard (platonically) for her mentor, her sister, Bellara. Everything she hated about herself, Bellara loved, and Bellara was flighty enough to need protecting, especially after Cyrian, so that’s what she became. Bellara’s protector. Arlathan’s protector. Protector of the small, and defender of the powerless. She will never apologize for saving Varric and the others at the cost of some stupid magic map, she would pay that price a hundred times over to save living beings.

And I made her in CC, I walked her through the streets of Minrathous, through Solas’ ritual, through Arlathan forest. My heart sang when I saw Harding again, and knew that Rook and Harding would be best friends. And I began to fall for the characters.

My Veil Jumper sister Bellara, poised but wickedly intelligent Neve, violent and troubled Lucanis, steadfast and resolved Davrin with playful Assan, towering yet growing Taash, and mystifying, immortalizing Emmerich, with his weird but I guess acceptable Manfred.

I helped Harding, Paragon of her time, discover her new mystifying magic, to find peace through pain, just as Bellara had done for Dani.

I learned all their stories. Their loves. How to interact with them, what they liked and didn’t like. And I fell, for Assan. That fucking griffon. Is so cute. How can you not love him? He’s just like Dani. Forced through circumstance to fight terrible evil, not necessarily against their nature, but certainly not what they would prefer to be doing. They are powerful and special and fierce and playful.

And, like any child, rebellious.

Dani helped Davrin through parenthood. He was a soldier, a commander, not a father, or a teacher, and though she was brash and sarcastic, she had been Bellara’s protector, she knew honey over vinegar, and pushed him to be gentler with Assan. Watched them grow together and felt such unhinged joy through their path to tulum. And then she looked up from digging her fingers into the feathers in Assan’s neck one day to see Davrin staring down at her, and thought, oh.

Her heart stuttered. And they flitted about each other for a long time. Teasing and testing, flirting and ribbing.

As she walked the steps of the Cobbled Swan to meet Morrigan, she told herself she would bring Davrin to Arlathan again, without Assan, and without any gingerwort tea. Just the two of them, and she would tell him what he meant to her.

But the Gods had different plans.  

And they had to move, NOW.

Davrin, the Grey Warden constantly surrounded by death and destruction, tried to warn me.

What if one of us doesn’t come back?

I actually let myself imagine the future.

Our future.

With our half-bird, half-cat kid.

And Dani, who had never had much hope for anything before, brought her hand to Davrins face with a soft smile, and soothed her Griffon Daddy, Var Lath Vir Suledin, Davrin.

When we win, when we beat this thing, we will come back here, and I will show you how much I love you.

Every Solas fresco I uncovered, I cried. Every memory, every revenant, even the ones I saw coming. I felt so much emotion for Solas, even as my love for Rooks Companions grew. Dani’s love for Davrin grew, in a very real, fast, surprising way.

But the Gods Eclipsed the Sun, and we had to move, NOW.

Of course I chose the Grey Warden to lead the charge against the Antaam. I needed Taash and Harding with me, and he was better suited to the roll. Harding is a scout, not a commander, and Davrin would have Lucanis for any sneaky mischief he would need, with Emmerich for any quick heals.

Imagine my relief when we met up again. I made a choice and he didn’t die, thank you, BioWare.

No, Neve, Bellara is better suited to deal with old Elvhen Magic.

And then Elgar’nan took her from me. Dani’s sister. Her home.

And she blasted through darkspawn and Blight to get to Elgar’nan, to get to Bellara.

But they had to get through Ghilan’nain first.

Fuck you Ghilan’nain if you think I’m fighting alone, my strength is my team, and I will move Fade and Titan to get to them. And Dani frees them, only to have Lucanis foiled, again. How do we get out of this? What do we do?

Upside down, she watches Davrin scale a crumbling tower, and their eyes meet.

No.

Whatever it takes.

Davrin, No.

His voice is deep and commanding, resolute and resolved.

“Assan!”

And Dani’s scream tangles with Assans as her son smashes into Ghillan’nain’s back.

The Blighted Goddess stumbles, and Lucanis and Dani fall to the ground, but Ghilan’nain’s blight is lightening, and when Dani looks up at Davrin two tentacles have speared him, his eyes wide and unseeing into the dark sky.

She screams again, Ghilan’nain forgotten, and as she watches Assan dive to the aid of his fallen partner, Dani is knocked back by a concussive blue blast; the Crow has fulfilled his contract.

The air is charged, the veil tearing here, Emmerich is yelling something at her, she must remove the dagger or this world will be torn asunder.

And then there’s overpowering, pressured silence. Grey and fog and stone and loneliness surround her, and all she can see or hear is Solas.

You were never ready to make the sacrifices that leadership requires.

Davrin. Assan. Bellara. My family. Is GONE. Because of ME.

Well, shit, kid. Haven’t you learned anything from this place? I made the choice, even knowing the risks. My decision, my sacrifice, and you don’t get to take that from me.

And Emmerich and Lucanis pull her from her prison of regret, and she knows she can’t blame herself, that would be taking away Davrin and Bellara’s agency, but you know who she can blame?

Solas.

The man my Lavellan loves. The man I swore to save. The one I started this game for. The one who made me feral for Dragon Age.

He did this to me.

Solas took away my love. By not being able to face his regrets.

And Dani became Hardened.

“Are you certain you’re alright, Rook?”

“We’ve still got work to do. I can collapse when this is over.”

“You needn’t carry this burden on your own. The rest of us will send word to our allies. You must take care of yourself in the meantime. We’ll speak again soon.”

But she was fine. She would be fine. Had to be fine. They had a job to do. Gods to kill. People to save.

It was walking past Assan’s spot in the courtyard that broke her.

Mourn Davrin?

To the Void with that.

I will avenge him.

I will kill the Elf who started all of this, forget Mythal, forget Lavellan, forget the Blight.

Mirror.

Solas cannot blame himself, that would be taking away the agency of his friends, but you know what he can blame?

The Veil.

I will end the curse that started all of this, forget Mythal, forget Lavellan, forget the Blight.

Mirror.

I will defend the small.

Mirror.

I will free the enslaved.

Mirror. 

You were never ready to make the sacrifices that leadership requires.

Mirror.

Its easier to play the villain, because that means you didn’t fail, all the damage you’ve done, all the people you’ve hurt…

Mirror.

It becomes a choice.

Mirror.

Remind yourself who you really are.

Mirror.

But will you listen?

Mirror.

Rook lays on the cold cobblestone, eyes wide, fist white-knuckled around the lyrium dagger, a battered and bruised Solas standing behind her. Her anger got her through her battle with Elgar’nan, but it will not help her here.

Rook will have to live with the choices she made. The successes and the failures. She can’t blame Solas. It's easier to blame Solas. But that’s exactly what Solas did, place blame where it did not belong, and it destroyed the world.

And her anger and hate and grief and despair swallow and consume itself into the tiniest, smallest fleck of a wisp.

Of hope.

She rose slowly, meeting Solas’ gaze, and places the dagger in his outstretched, bloody hand.

I don’t want to see any more pain on top of what Elgar’nan has done.

(Hope)

Your prison is made of regrets, and you are trapped in yours.

(I’ll not be trapped in mine)

Destroying everything won’t erase your mistakes.

(Killing Solas won’t bring Davrin and Assan back)

You have the chance, right now, to save the world. Bind yourself to the veil and stop it from failing.

And it takes the Mother, the Maiden, and the Mirror, for Solas to accept his past.

As Lavellan walked the din’an shiral after Solas, Rook walked it for Davrin.

As Varric released Dani from her regret, Mythal released Solas from his.

As Solas turns to the Eluvian, the Magic Mirror named Rook, he is forced to see his faults, and how to fix them.

His corrupted purpose is repairable. And he passes his torch to the Mirror, vowing to seek atonement for the sins of his past, sins grown and amplified because he refused to face the truth of them.

And that will probably hit everyone, because I’d wager good coin that if you’re playing video games, or reading fantasy, you’ve used escapism before, but it hits especially hard for me. Right now. At this point in my life. When my own personal veil I’ve constructed to hold back my own evils is crumbling around me because I have not faced the truth of my own past sins, my memories as demons grown and amplified and slipping through cracks because I refused them for so long. My choice.

And when Solas and Ellana walked into the sunset, I cried. And cried. And cried. Because this whole time I thought I was my Inquisitor, bare your blade and raise it high, look to the sky, for one day soon, the dawn will come, var lath vir suledin. Bellanaris. Perseverance, endurance, outlive, outlast, that is what you need.

When in reality I am my Rook. Let go of your regret. You don’t need to hold on to this, you need to let it go.

We all have to face our regrets. Accept them, and then let them go. Running from them only makes them worse.   

And I leave with the lyrics of the Veilguard Credits song, “Roll The Credits,” by Danielle Ponder:

I could feel it, I won't come down I could see it, oh, with all eyes Hold my head and saw the whole sky I never felt so damn alive And if there's smoke, then I'll be water If there's fire, I'll be rain

We were lost, but we weren't stranded We were dreamers on the run I gave my all, it was commanding And we just did this shit for fun I could feel it, I won't come down Found myself above the sky Tell my mama, tell my daddy That love is falling from the sky

Good God Almighty, I done opened my mind These holy waters left a chill down my spine

[lillotte17]

Okay, I’ve done 2 play throughs and I’m well into my 3rd, so I feel like my review of the game can be (mostly) fair and not as emotionally driven as it was when I finished the first time. (this is very long >_>)

I want to start with the good things!

The game is beautiful. BEAUTIFUL. I was not crazy about the stylistic change of the graphics from DAI at first, but once I started playing, I really loved it. The maps are huge and unique. I find something new every time. I love all the little puzzles and sneaky little side quests you can find. I the little sneaky cameos of items and songs from other games.

I love the mechanics of being able to use companions’ special abilities when they are not in your party. I still wish we got 3 people in our party instead of just 2 for balance reasons, but otherwise I find the fighting really engaging and dynamic.

I love that they brought back specific banter spots, shortened the time between when the next banter triggers AND allowed for recovery of the conversation if it got interrupted by something. Thank you for my LIFE. Waiting for certain banters to trigger in DAI was awful lmao.

I really appreciated the effort they put into the CC, allowing for greater body type differences and the various gender options. Long hair, curly hair, please and thank! The CC took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, it’s fun just to build characters, lol.

I really liked the easy upgrades and enchantments for your armors, and I LOVED being able to wear whatever the best armor was, but have a different armor visible. Great call, team! Do that for always and ever. The only qualm I had was that I would have liked to be able to change the colors on some of the outfits, but really, there was such a good variety, this is a very minor complaint.

In terms of storyline, my favorite quest was the Blood of Arlathan, and I also liked the final push at the end through Minrathous. Big surprise that the things I liked best was actually getting to fight with Solas on my team again, lol. But those where also the times where it really felt like everything was on the table, you know? Weisshaupt was a strong contender, too. That quest was so fasted paced, it made it a little hard to appreciate just how much was going on around you. But asking your local assassin to stab a god-cloud is never not funny, so that one gets good points, too.

Overall, the gameplay is really strong. The rollout was really smooth. I didn’t really encounter any bugs, except for one time I managed to change all the subtitles to French? But I think that might have been a user error. If I was just here for a generic fantasy game, this would get 10/10. It’s fun to play and it’s pretty. You can stab stuff, and throw magic around, and there are dragons.

However…

The storyline and the pacing was a mess. Which is honestly baffling from a BioWare game. I am not saying this with spite or hatred, because I know that EA tried to kill this game repeatedly, so it’s kind of amazing that we got anything at all, BUT it’s still frustrating, because…I can SEE IT. I can SEE all the pieces of a REALLY good story. An AMAZING story. The story I WANTED to play!!! And it’s like…it all got put together wrong.

The nearly nonexistent romances are honestly the worst offenders here. Even if they wanted to keep the rating down to make it more accessible to a wider audience, there is no reason why I should only have ONE opportunity to kiss my love interest over the course of an 80+ hour game. SOLAVELLAN had more unique romance scenes and kisses than you get with Lucanis and he DUMPS your character before coming back to steal your hand. Not to mention the fact that it is possible for your LI to die before you ever get to actually say you love them or anything. Davrin was my first romance. At the end of Tearstone Island like…I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t feeling my PCs grief that her boyfriend whom she had kissed exactly one time was dead. I was PISSED. I don’t think I have ever been so mad about a writing choice, and I am a certified Tragedy Enjoyer. It didn’t even feel like a good tragic blow, because they didn’t take the time to build up the romance before killing him. And Rook hardly gets a second to mourn afterwards, so it was just kind of a nothingburger that made me feel like I wasted all the time I had spent playing for it. (I went back and changed it so he lived but jfc)

Speaking of killing characters: Varric. It was a mistake. I know what they were going for. I see what they were trying to do. But it was a mistake. First of all, they relied way too much on the idea that the player has played the other games, in the sense that the story just opens with Rook already with Varric, who they have known for over a year, and then they turn around and nerf him in the first act. There’s no time to establish how Rook feels about Varric, or how they feel about this quest they’ve been on for so long, you just get thrown into it without preamble. And then, Varric is just kind of… there. He’s Rook’s cheerleader, but he almost never has any real advice, and you almost never get to have a discussion with him. Which means, when you find out what happened to him later, the emotional blow is relying almost entirely on your attachment to Varric from previous games instead of the game you are currently playing.

Also, I figured out he was dead pretty early on, so the reveal had almost no impact, and felt a bit ham-fisted, if I’m being honest.

The second reason it was a mistake is that…it just felt like an excuse to make the player hate Solas. Like, it honestly feels like that is the only reason they did it. Which seems so unnecessary? The man is responsible for the fucking blight and the death of the titans and is currently trying to tear the Veil down, and you think that’s not ENOUGH motivation for the PC to want to give him the middle finger???

Which brings us to: Solas. I love this man. I love Solavellan. I love his story. I love THEIR story. But…if I had played this game first, I don’t think I would have cared about redeeming him. All of the companions tell stories about second chances and redemption and being able to change your nature, and I KNOW that was supposed to be in reference to Solas, I know it was but… It just felt like they did almost nothing to SHOW you how much he was trying to do the right thing every time he fucked up. How badly he wanted to be a hero and a protector, and someone giving wisdom instead of orders. When we saw his regrets and talked about them with the team, I really thought it was going to be relevant later. I thought it would come up in conversation with Solas, and depending on how you talked to him about the things you saw, you could slowly guide him towards choosing a better path at the end. I thought it would all be on Rook, and their choice to take a chance to try and redeem him or not. But in the end, it didn’t matter. It only unlocked Mythal. She was the only thing that made a difference. Not Rook. Not your Inquisitor. Not any of the other choices you made in the entire game or the one that preceded it. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO grateful they squeezed a Solavellan ending in there for us, really and truly. But the fact that he was so in love with her during DAI that he was about to give up everything without her even asking, and he’s so torn up about her during Trespasser that he can hardly let her close to him because just being in proximity to her makes him want to stop everything and stay with her, and then when she shows up at the end of Veilguard and asks him to stop…he pauses for even less time to consider the option than when ROOK asks. And then Mythal holds more sway with him by like 1000%. Just. Felt very much like a downgrade. (Also I wanted a hug. He needed a fucking hug and my Lavellan would have hugged the Bad Choices right out of him)

There are other things. Dwarves getting sidelined again. Slavery in Tevinter barely being touched on. The weird idea of the Crows being a good option for orphans with nowhere to go. The SUPER uncomfortable end of Bellara’s quest where a non-elf Rook can have an opinion on what she should do with the history of her people. But those are kind of like…small potatoes. Typical BioWare story flubs tbh.

I know, my complaints are much longer than my praises, but I really do like playing the game. Really and truly. It is a good game, and I am eternally grateful that they got it to us at all. I just…wish we could have gotten the story I think they wanted to tell us, instead of what we ended up with. But as they say: That’s what Fanfic is for. <3

[nerdanel01]

Rook Questionaire - Agnes Gallatus

tagged by @eavangeek, thank you!

Under the cut due to length! Tagging @ass-deep-in-demons @nostalgiaclown @starfleetteddybear @racheloleo @the-grand-gemini @truebluedreamer @jusbeinkt @blindvogel @erikonil @hmserebusadjacent (no pressure!) in case you want to join + play :) (also anyone else who sees this should also feel free to join in and tag me if you fill it out :D)

Where in Thedas is your Rook from? Agnes grew up in the countryside, in the part of western Nevarra that has changed hands between Nevarra and Orlais a few times. I headcanon this to mean there are some people who live their who consider themselves “Orlesian” and have a more Orlesian culture, although this is exclusively the peasant/lower class. Agnes’ mother Madeline would have been one of those peasants. Her father is a Nevarran noble, but very minor nobility; she was raised on his estate, first as a servant, then later as one of the members of the household after her mother passed away. Because her father’s estate is so far west, she was sent to the Circle at Perendale when her magic manifested, rather than the fancier Circle in Cumberland. She also has a slight southern inflection to her pronounciation because of all this, which means everyone else in the Mourn Watch clocks her as a hayseed pretty much from day one.

What is your character’s alignment? She’d like to think she’s lawful good, but despite how hard she tries she’s really a messy, chaotic good.

Race and subclass? Human, Spellblade mage.

If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found? Minrathous, because Agnes is definitely still getting run out of Nevarra by the nobility after the War of the Banners one way or the other, even if she doesn't end up as "Rook" Rook. 😬

What emotion did they usually pick? Aggressive/stoic, but it’s a mask. She mellows out to the soft supportive/approving Rook when she’s talking to someone she likes (mostly just the companions.)

What companion are they platonically close with? Agnes is closest with Bellara, although Davrin is probably a close second.

Romantically close with? She’s been disgustingly obsessed with Emmrich since she was like, 19, if that counts as “close.”

Who are they suspicious of? ILLARIO FROM DAY ONE. FROM GO SHE DOESN’T TRUST THAT MAN. Also, every time Solas so much as breathes in her direction she thinks he’s planning something awful for her. She's not always wrong.

Does your Rook get along with their chosen faction? For the most part, Agnes “got along” with the rest of the Mourn Watch in the way that oil and water “get along.” But there were a few rare exceptions where she made a friend… or an enemy. :)

Are they proficient in playing any instruments? Solas is trying to teach her the harpsichord. It isn’t going well!

Weapon of choice? Orb & dagger babeyyyyy. Let her get up close with her magic and stabby stab.

What is their orientation? Like, I know this, but I don’t know that Agnes does…. She’s not 100% hetero but she’s been obsessed with Emmrich for so long I don’t think she’s ever really had the chance to discover that she’s maybe a little bi.

What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it? Don’t tell anyone, but she likes it. Not because of anything to do with the bloodshed itself—she’s not really bloodthirsty—but it gives her great satisfaction to know that she is strong enough (and capable enough) to protect the people, communities, and ideas she cares about. She enjoys killing because she’s good at it; because she thinks it can help keep the people she loves safe, and protect her, in some measure, from grief. (It won’t.)

What hobbies does your Rook have? Agnes draws, although she doesn’t really consider herself an ‘artist’ in the typical sense. Her drawings are meant to be renderings, not artistic depictions: true to scale diagrams of monuments and anomalies in the Necropolis that Emmrich has asked her to draw to illustrate his scholar’s logs. She maintains this ‘hobby’ after she leaves the Mourn Watch, but never really considers herself an artist so much as a person who looks at things carefully. I would say her drawing style is more architectural than expressive. She loves the opera, it’s her #1 fixation. Not really a hobby so much as a coping mechanism, but she’s also frequently found to be cleaning—either her Mourn Watch cell or Emmrich’s study.

What NPCs do they like? Which ones do they dislike? I mean, as indicated above, she dislikes Illario pretty much from ‘go.’ No one else is really able to get under her skin that way… although she doesn’t really love the dude selling conspiracy theory newspapers in Minrathous either, even if he is Neve’s contact.  As far as the ones she likes… I’m not sure that she and Viago have a warm relationship, exactly, but they have common interests and a mutual respect for each other. She likes Shathaan a lot, because in some ways her protectiveness over Taash reminds Agnes of her own mother. Of course, she has a complicated relationship with Myrna and Vorgoth because of the War of the Banners and her own damage about being part of the Mourn Watch in general, but those are also positive relationships.  She has a… complicated history with Johanna Hezenkoss, who advocated for her inclusion in the Mourn Watch. :)  In general though she tends to keep people at arms’ length, so she doesn’t have super strong opinions about most of the NPCs.

Do they have a favorite creature in Thedas? She’s not really a big animal lover, but Agnes has a massive weak spot for Assan.

Do they enjoy life as an adventurer? I’m not sure it’s that she likes her life as an adventurer so much as she really wasn’t so hot about her life in the Mourn Watch…. She does enjoy the things that life as an adventurer has brought her, though, specifically all her new friends in the Veilguard. It’s really the first time in her life she gets to feel that kind of camaraderie.

What would your Rook be doing if they weren’t recruited by Varric? Getting cauliflower ear and developing chronic pain while fighting for her dinner in Dock Town.

How do you think they’ll meet their end? Spoilers for when I am laid in earth, sorry! :)

Would they side with Solas or fight him? Their relationship is so volatile it really depends on the day. Ask her again tomorrow.

What is your Rook’s favorite ability? Omg that Voidblade though. Rush in and stabby stab stab and EVISCERATE

What languages is your character fluent in? Common, Tombscript (written)

What do they do after an absolute crisis? Sit in silence staring at a wall, not processing, not talking to anyone. Shoving it down as deep as she possibly can.

Does your character believe in the afterlife? Yes, but she doesn’t have any concrete ideas about what that looks like or feels like. But she has a high sense of conviction that there is something beyond death; that it is more like stepping through a door than a curtain coming down at the end of a play.

What specialization best represents your Rook? Spellblade. Get up in their business and fuck shit up.

What animal best represents your Rook? Mabari—capable of cuddling at your feet in front of a fire but also capable of chewing someone’s face off if pushed. But distinctly a domesticated animal; not a wolf.

What was their life like before the events of Veilguard? Immediately proceeding? Pretty grim—having left Nevarra and the Mourn Watch, she’s basically having a midlife crisis. Has left her boo behind. Has chopped off all her hair. Is feeding herself every day from the betting proceeds she earns in an illegal dueling ring. It’s not a good time! Agnes did not love Minratous, and most of the time she lived there she spent punishing herself for things that were probably out of her control.

Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader? Oh no, she’s totally the leader. She hates it, but she owns up to it and what it means. It’s not the first time she’s had that burden, so when Varric asks her to take over in his place, she’s not half-assing it—she becomes boss.

If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why? I mean, I wouldn’t… but there’s definitely a world where Agnes could have gotten involved with the Shadow Dragons in Minrathous if she hadn’t had the Depression so bad. She doesn’t really get over that until Varric recruits her.

What’s your favorite thing about your Rook? Hard to name one thing… in general, I really like that compared to my Inquisitor, Rook is a total mess. I like that she can be selfish, I like that she can be manipulative, but mostly I like that she’s just kind of… pathetic, on some level, most of the time, despite her higher-than-average capacity for physical violence. I do quite love that she saw an opera about someone killing themselves due to the pain of unrequited love, said “skill issue” and just started to repress her affection for Emmrich even harder. I think what I especially like is the way her psychic damage aligns in the most fucked-up perfect way with Emmrich’s… like I maybe thought before the game came out her being in love with him for 20 years without saying anything was a stretch, but in reality it is absolutely not. These two are so down bad for each other but both so unaccustomed to unrequited love that of course they don’t want to risk what warmth and affection already exists between them, of course they are just willing to take what they can get from each other and not risk rocking the boat because their partnership is the closest thing they’ve felt to family… which they are both suffering from a lack of. 

Bonus: some of the characters that inspired her :) not exhaustive

[hoboblaidd]

Untangling my thoughts on the Evanuris

So much of what we know of the evanuris is from Dalish myths. The old tales are allegory that has evolved over millennia, like our own stories of myths and legends. But I do think there's an element of truth buried in each story, because why else would Felassan weave parables of the Dread Wolf to Briala if they were just random stories he knew to be false?

Solas is helpful here. He pointedly comments on Falon'din, Andruil, and Mythal, and we get more from him in the Veilguard clips about Ghilan'nain. There are Veilguard spoilers in here under Ghilan'nain and Elgar’nan specifically, so tread with caution.

The evanuris come in pairs that loosely correspond to demons and spirits. They're also close analogues to Greek mythology. This is another long post that is more my rambling theories than good, concrete facts.

Justice and Vengeance

Elgar'nan, all-father and god of vengeance. His stories are ones of conquest and rage. He was depicted as stern, with narrowed eyes and "an open, snarling mouth." He wielded a fire that burned as hot as he did. He may not immediately look as terrifyingly monstrous as Ghilan'nain, but I think that's deceptive. My money’s on him being the most difficult enemy. I think that gif of true Fen’harel attacking a dragon is him vs Elgar’nan, which is terrifying bc the Wolf is the size of a high dragon and he is absolutely dwarfed by the dragon he’s attacking. Elgar’nan’s symbol may be a dragon, and his vallaslin is stark veins that spread over the elf's entire face, and in the second iteration, quite literally covers half of the slave's face in his own mark.

Mythal, all-mother, protector, and embodiment of justice. She's a tough one, because we have conflicting information from the legends and in our meeting with her. Solas tells us she was the best of the evanuris. That is likely true, but it's an incredibly low bar. She enacted justice with a more levelhead than Elgar'nan and could mediate disputes among the gods, but she also bound her supplicants and stole their individuality to be meshed into the many. Maybe she did repent, to a point, and free her slaves. Her symbol is a dragon, full or as a winged woman, and her vallaslin is a more elegant version of Elgar'nan's, depicting branches or lyrium veins snaking across the slave's face.

Mythal-Flemeth is more vengeance than justice. She connives and manipulates, all with a seething anger underneath. She may love her daughter, to an extent, but her treatment of Morrigan is awful and abusive. I believe her claim that "no soul may be forced on the unwilling," but I don't buy for a second that she's benevolent.

Envy and Ambition

Andruil, goddess of the hunt - or sacrifice. She's a bit harder to separate from her legends, but she is not painted as kind or just. She forged weapons, she hunted beasts and her own people. Her shrine in the Dales had an altar at its heart, which has bad implications if she is a goddess of sacrifice. She lusted for better and more challenging hunts. She descended into the Abyss to hunt Forgotten Ones, and brought "plague to her lands and howled things meant to be forgotten." That certainly sounds like the Blight. That last hunt drove her mad, and Mythal challenged her and stole her knowledge of how to find "the Void." She also has a strange, predatory relationship with Ghilan'nain and Fen'harel. She stalks them not to kill, but to ensnare. That lore piece with her capturing the Dread Wolf is particularly disturbing and I hate/love it. Her messengers are the owl, and her vallaslin is stark lines around twisted antlers or branches.

Ghilan'nain, mother of the halla. Is there any god whose true nature is as obscured by Dalish legend? They paint her as a gentle soul beloved by the beasts she created. She may have been once (you who were the most sensitive of us), but even prior to her ascension, her ambition to create more drove her to the gods. It doesn't seem like she hesitated at all to slaughter her own creatures in her ambition to godhood. That clip of her talking to Solas looks to be pre-ascension, or at least, pre-total apotheosis. Her gruesome laboratory in Horror of Hormack shows her true colors, and we now know she's intricately connected to the Blight. Her appearance is as horrific - it's like she kept adding more and more to herself in her drive to create. Her symbol is a hart, or halla, and her vallaslin is a delicate symbol of antlers.

Fear and Despair

Falon'din, friend of the dead. He's been made out to be a benevolent god who guides people to the afterlife. Solas has a different tale. Falon'din craved adulation above all else, and waged brutal wars to gain more worshippers. "The blood of those who wouldn't bow low filled lakes as wide as oceans." Mythal intervened only when her own people were threatened. The remaining gods fought Falon'din in his own temple and subdued him. This is just theory, but I think the "friend of the dead" might've come from the fact that elves would either bow, and be guided to adore him, or butchered. His symbol is the owl, and his vallaslin looks like blood vessels covering his slave's face.

Dirthamen, keeper of secrets. I'm drawing more on my own theories here, so take it all with a grain of salt. The Dalish say he gave the elves "the gift of knowledge and...loyalty and faith in family." Maybe he was the propaganda arm of the evanuris. That he dealt in secrets reinforces that - he could be analogous to a secret police, stamping out or punishing any perceived resistance. His lost temple is a bathed in despair - despondency, sorrow, torment, misery. His followers butchered and scattered the remains of his high priest and, tormented by the horror they endured, they manifested as despair. His vallaslin is not connected to nature like the others' appear, but jagged lines.

The Dalish legends and academic theories are odd in how they refer to Falon'din and Dirthamen. One is shadow, one is reflection, both of each other. They theorize they were "twin souls" rather than blood kin. It's an interesting question without a whole lot of information to go on, save for the Dalish stories of them always finding each other.

The June and Sylaise Problem

June, god of the craft. We have very little to go on with June, other than that he's a stand in for Hephaestus. The Dalish describe him as inscrutable and clever. He taught elves to make tools, and crafted weapons for Andruil or to hunt her "gifts." He apparently appears the least among the elven pantheon in ruins and legends. An Orlesian scholar theorizes that June's role may have changed over time, eventually settling on craft. What his true personality was like is entirely unknown. I think it's a safe bet to assume that he and Sylaise were not as benevolent as the myths paint them to be. Regardless, his vallaslin is pretty cool. And I'll admit a bias to liking him because of theshirallen's portrayal. That tugged my heart past reason.

Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper. We have just as little real insight on Sylaise. In the legends, she taught the elves herbology and healing. Interestingly, the power she gave them included the ability to channel raw Fade essence into a "Grand Sonallium", a sphere in the air intended as a gift to June. We don't know what a Sonallium is. It's said that thousands of elves had to create it, which reminds me of the story of Elgar'nan using thousands of slaves to build his likeness in the Deep Roads. Idk if there's a connection, but I doubt it's a benevolent one. It's suggested that Sylaise was a rival to the other gods, but so was Falon'din at a time. Her vallaslin looks like snakelike plants. It is also cool.

They’re all monsters, so at this point with June and Sylaise, we’re probably just waiting for confirmation.

[ontherocks21]

Can't have this day go by without a little Anidala love, so here's a little snippet to celebrate my fave ship of all time!

Nothing explicit mind you, but also adding a forewarning of just a little spice to be found under the cut. 😏 Happy Valentine's Day! ❤️

The day after our wedding was a steady waterfall of warm summer rain.

Anakin and I didn't care.

Truth be told, I'm not sure we would have even noticed had Naboo blessed us with another temperate day. Our itinerary likely would have remained the same.

In the twenty-six hours immediately following our sunset ceremony, we were completely and totally absorbed in each other. Part of me thinks we were trying to even the playing field after having navigated so much of our fledgling relationship dealing with emotional walls, mental anguish, and societal constraints. For one standard day, we let our bodies figure out how to catch up.

Now I know what you're thinking. How can two newlyweds experiencing the thrill of physical intimacy for the first time possibly know what they were doing?

For most beings, at least of the human species, the first time is usually woefully subpar at best, and cringingly awful at worst. At least, my sister would agree with you on this point. After her incessantly haranguing me for the details, I told Sola that Anakin and I only left our bedroom for actual sustenance and to retrieve new sheets - one of our spontaneous excursions to the veranda ended up soaking the bedding with rain water and sweat. Eyeing me dubiously, she laughed with amused pity.

"Oh Mé-Mé" she said, smiling and thinking my perspective still naive and bordering on exaggeration. "No one is that good the first time"

Smirking right back at her, I had simply shrugged, my eyes shining with their own brand of knowing.

As I told you before, Anakin was a very quick learner when the task before him aligned with his own desires. Believe me, physicality is something he excels at.

Later, he would confess to using the Force. Not to unfairly influence my experience or perception of our "aggressive negotiations", but more as a guide.

It whispered to him the secrets of my body like a road map, telling him when to press his advantage, where to send a fleeting touch or kiss, how to stoke the flames of my desire until I was burning for him, aching for him. It told him what angles worked to dissolve me into a puddle of nothing. It told him exactly where to be when, something I myself in those early days didn't even understand I wanted, let alone know how on Naboo to communicate those wishes to him.

But once he learned those sacred routes, he never forgot them.

Anakin showed me the stars, and I became a Skywalker in more ways than one.

[heylittleriotact]

ao3 tag game

@emmg tagged me because she appears unbothered by my tendency to overshare (aw 🥰).

But now I’m tagging @emmg BACK because I wanna know these things about you, so DO IT (please). Also tagging @allofthebarks, @preciouslittlebhaalbae, and @xxnashiraxx if they feel so inclined 🤍

How many works do you have on ao3?

Twenty-one (21)!

What's your total ao3 word count?

495,163

What fandoms do you write for?

Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon Age, Dungeons & Dragons, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Top five fics by kudos:

Antemortem (Dragon Age - Emmrich x Female Rook smut)

Visitation (Dragon Age - Emmrich x Female Rook smut)

Open Invitation (Baldur's Gate 3 - Astarion x Feylock Tav longfic)

Algor Mortis (Dragon Age - Emmrich x Female Rook fluff/smut)

Suture (Dragon Age - Emmrich x Female Rook fluff)

Do you respond to comments?

I try to respond to every comment I get! Sometimes it takes me a week or two because I tend to block off Monday mornings strictly for comment replying, but it means so much to me when people take the time to read my work and share their thoughts with me - I feel like it's the least I can do to say thank you - also I tend to drop secrets in comment replies, so that's always fun.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Endless Possibilities - my completed Solavellan fic that wrapped up in 2017. It takes place about a year after Trespasser and focuses on my Lavellan who's racing against the clock to stop Solas because in a cruel twist of fate, she has fallen terminally ill and before she dies she is convinced she can change his mind. There are no happy endings in this story: Lavellan basically goes off the deep end and becomes more and more desperate knowing that she's dying - she gets increasingly aggressive and treats herself with less and less regard as the story goes on, and dies at the end, a burned out husk of the vibrant promise that she once held.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Casket Spray - my smutty imagining of Emmrich and my Rook's act 3 love scene. I think it’s probably the sweetest, most romantic thing I’ve ever written. I usually thrive on torturing my blorbos, but I am actually incapable of harming Emmrich and Amina and can only imagine utter joy and happiness for them both. This fic underscores that: there’s tender lovemaking, passionate and meaningful soul-fucking, and we cap it all off with a marriage proposal avec cute pillow talk in a goddamn sarcophagus. It’s revolting. I’m thrilled for their future. You just know that wedding is going to be stunning.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not on ao3. Ffnet back in the day was another story lol

Do you write smut?

That’s all I seem to write these days, which is impressive because I’ve written fic for twenty years and only this year decided to start getting extremely explicit when it comes to people fucking.

Craziest crossover?

I don’t really do crossovers, so I suppose the closest thing would be the fact that I decided my feylock Tav’s patron is actually my D&D PC. Make a Drunken Master Monk Eladrin into an archfey - what could possibly go wrong? So like… it’s kind of a weird incestual D&D on D&D crossover when you break it right down? I have entertained the idea of dumping Senna into Thedas on more than one occasion. I feel like the potential hate-fucking that could occur with Solas would be biblical. That’s pretty cracky though, and I haven’t indulged in that kind of nonsense in years hahaha.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No one wants to claim responsibility for the nonsense I write lol

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I’m aware of haha.

Have you ever co-written a fic?

That’s how @allofthebarks and I became friends when she was the new kid in grade eight and I had to show her around. Our Inuyasha fics were the foundation of a friendship that could not be snuffed even when she fucked off to Texas years later. My gift to her for being my Maid of Honour last year was a hardbound volume of all of the Harry Potter fic we wrote together through high school and the years after. JK may be a hideous terf, but she’ll never take that away from me 🙌

All time favorite ships?

- Solas x Lavellan (Dragon Age): poetic, angsty, utterly tragic and beautiful. What more needs to be said? It’s timeless. Perfect.

- Atton Rand x Exile (KotOR 2): I’m a sucker for a redemption arc, and as bare bones and unfinished as the romance was in that game, you could really sink your teeth into it and go to some cool places if you used your imagination.

- Emmrich x Mourn Watch Rook (Dragon Age): Is rapidly moving up the list - it’s such a good fit for a true love/soul mate pairing and it makes my heart happy whenever I think about it. I love the idea of a pairing that consists of two lonely people who finally found each other and get to be so, so in love that it makes you sick. Inject it directly into my veins please.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ooooh tough. I started a sequel to my tragic Solavellan fic in which a spirit of Hope manifested physically in the form of Lavellan, and it had a lot of potential and I think about it often, but I’ll never finish it, I’m afraid.

I do need to finish my Astarion x Tav fic, but it’s been on hiatus since October because apparently when you decide to project years of personal trauma onto an aggressively self-destructive OC, you might write yourself into a corner and find that writing it is just a little too real so you have to stop working on it indefinitely.

What are your writing strengths?

Pain. I’m good at crawling into the brains of fictional characters and making a fluffy nest of emotional and psychological horror for myself to burrow in like a weird ferret.

I’ve been told that I’m good at portraying gore/violence/horror in general, which aligns with me getting shipped off to a child psychologist when I was six because of my tendency to write vividly descriptive stories about vivisections and school age children stumbling upon dismembered human remains.

I’ve recently received praise for my ability to accurately portray the voices of pre-existing characters (Emmrich and Varric, specifically) and that’s a nice feather in my cap.

Grammar and formatting - these are as fluid as the ocean, but I spent so much time writing obits that I aim to be pretty picky about that shit before I publish anything.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I approach emotional content very tentatively with a hesitance that does me no credit, I think? I’m afraid of coming across as contrived, indulgent, or “unrealistic” even though I’m writing fiction, so I struggle to write with my entire dick so to speak when it comes to romance and the nice, warm, happy aspects of it that aren’t tainted by some sort of self-loathing or guilt. I was raised Catholic, can you tell?

I’m an adverb slut.

I cannot relinquish dialogue tags.

Sometimes I think I feel the need to over-describe things because they need to physically manifest on paper in order for them to make sense to me.

I’m basically a vampire in the sense that it’s incredibly difficult for me to move on to writing something else even if I really really really want to write it but I have another thing in progress. I’ve stalled out on writing so many times because I literally cannot give myself permission to work on a different thing because the other Thing isn’t completed to my liking.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Uh sure? If it fits the scene and doesn’t require the reader to have a translator for entire paragraphs of text.

I tend not to bother coming up with elven and stuff when I write and just use dialogue tags etc. to indicate that characters are speaking a different language.

First fandm you ever wrote in?

On ao3? Knights of the Old Republic 2. First posted online? Fucking Pirates of the Caribbean yo. Ever? Inuyasha 😂😂😂

Favorite fic(s) you wrote?

It’s like picking a favourite child: I can’t. I’d say I’m proudest of Endless Possibilities because it’s the only long fic I’ve ever finished, AND writing it was an outlet that kept me going during an incredibly difficult time. It really helped keep me sane.

Honestly going back to it now, it’s not the best thing I’ve ever written, but I read some of the paragraphs and the way I described certain concepts and things and I’m like “holy shit I wrote that?” It just seems so outside of me, but I guess maybe that’s just where I was at during that time?

[kaija-rayne-author]

Review 11 in series of Dragon Age Veilguard

84 hours in, 82 actual playtime.

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to skip to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though., every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard (and everything else Dragon Age, I'm a Lore fiend).

Part 10.3 here.

Wow. Talk about plot hole city in Cyrian's fate. Oh... no... the dying brother is conscious enough to talk (which means swallow). Rook is standing there with 3 healing potions left over and there's at least three green jars scattered about the room. Eyebrow raise of doom.

It would've been far more poignant, and, y'know, would actually have made a lick of sense if no one had any potions left and there weren't any in the room. Rook has been really close to dead, and those potions brought him back to fighting ability. No, I don't expect writers to know what the sets will look like. But at some point, someone, probably multiple someone's saw that and decided it wasn't worth fixing. I can even think of a single line that would've fixed it. Just. One.

Like... did any thought go into this game? At. All? It really doesn't feel like it.

Goddess, that scene just feels so unintelligent and thoughtless. And not because of the writing. If it had been blocked out properly to support the script, it would've been fine! (We use the term 'blocking it out' in writing and acting, not sure if it's the same for games.) It could have been sooooo good! But. Welp. Bioware apparently has no idea how to hire writers and editors and playtesters for quality control. Y'know, if I even thought they gave a shit about quality, because after playing most of this game? I highly doubt it.

I believe everyone can learn how to write. I don't think you need to have advanced degrees or anything silly like that to do it. But there is quite a bit of science behind writing well. No one is good at it from the start. And no... not everyone can just turn their hands to writing and be good at it. That's just not how the science of writing works. You need to dedicate the time and effort to learning how to write well. Reading a lot helps. Same goes with editing. And I know at least one (more than) of the writers played this before release. They talked about it on their socials. So either they didn't notice that massive fucking plot hole, or they just didn't care enough to fix it.

I don't know how else to put it. If someone had hired me to edit this? I would've sent sooooo much of it back to the writers with fix-it notes. (I even give suggestions on HOW to fix stuff in fix-it notes.)

I'm just gonna call the Solavellan ending now. It's so fucking obvious it's sad. The world will be saved (somehow leaving the veil up? Still not sure how that's gonna work given stuff they've said in this game). And then Inky will either join Solas in his prison because that's twue wuv. OR Solas will sacrifice his mortal form because he never wanted one anyway and Inky will poof turn into a spirit and go with him. And we probably won't get the intimate scene.

And NO that does NOT count as a happy ending! Or even the suggestion of a happy ending! That's them either going to prison or dying! A happy ending would be them living quietly until Inky's natural time, with her gardening and him painting. Or working in secret to help fix some shit, or insert absolutely anything other than what I'm pretty sure will happen. Only when Inky naturally passes would a happy ending be going poof into spirit land. What if she'd wanted a family? What if he had? Uuuuuugh. What if they wanted to enjoy life before becoming spirits? Hang with their friends? Let Solas deliver some overdue apologies? Sigh.

Well. I suppose I'm not just guessing. It wouldn't surprise me if I have more than a little savantism when it comes to writing, editing, and prediction.

And when I'm not recovering from almost dying, editing media is my actual job. One I'm pretty good at.

I dunno. Whenever I look at a piece of media, it's like it forms a 4d puzzle in my head. I can see the problems and where the story is likely to go. I actually read encyclopedias for fun (yes, I'm totally serious).

I also may have been dubbed a walking encyclopedia a time or million. So not only can I see the issues? I can usually figure out several ways to fix them. Very little surprises me in fiction. Making the ones that do incredibly rare and precious to me. It should go without saying that absolutely nothing in this game has surprised me except how bad it is.

But that 4d puzzle thing my brain does with fiction makes it far too easy to guess things. Especially when the writers and devs, at every turn, decided to pick the most banal, most uninspired choices available.

If that's what happens with the Solavellan ending, I'm never trusting Weekes again. They were Lead writer. They had to have had some control. Not just because we likely won't get the only two things Solavellans have wanted for what is it now... 10 years? But that they claim to love their character, Solas. And this entire gods damned game has been doing absolutely nothing but shitting on him. It's honestly been difficult to play as a person who deeply identifies with Solas's neurodivergent traits and his story. And who romanced him.

I'm solidly in a relationship with Lucanis and he's made me dessert. Don't get me wrong, a guy who can cook AND who makes me dessert? A+! But I don't play rated M games with romanceable characters for dessert scenes. I'm starting to wonder if there's even any kissing in this game. There's probably only a day or two at most left for me before I finish it. (And thank everything holy that this is probably true. This is painful at this point. But I need to see the ending for myself.)

Y'know? With all of the betrayals this game has dished out to a die hard Solavellan DA fan? I think no intimate scenes would be the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae of this game.

My kids have started being able to tell when I'm playing without looking at my screen by what they term the 'thousand yard stare of horror'. Honestly? They've probably nailed my expression. How can this be so awful?

Oh and yes, Isseya was ooooooh so eeeeevil. (Insinuating mental illness as evil? Yeah, that's rank ableism. It's not even remotely okay, and both whoever wrote that sequence and whoever approved it should absolutely be ashamed of themselves. Perhaps if they'd actually found and hired some diversity editors along with some better developmenal and copy editors, like I told Epler he needed, someone would've caught that.) Though I have no idea why I'd hoped for better from Bioware. They have absolutely awful ableism issues and always have. Psst. Bioware. It's 2024, might want to fix that.

If you've read Last Flight, the Isseya sequence is such a disrespectful, awful story arc. Even beyond the shitty ableism against mentally ill people. 3% of violent crime (pretty sure we can call that sequence 'violent crime') is committed by mentally ill people. All you neurotypicals need to own the other 97%. And a much better villain was still likely kicking around the deep roads. It hasn't been that long since the 5th Blight.

A much better story would've been stopping the Architect. Permanently. They basically just took his motivation and plans, tacked them (in a very badly fitting suit) to a character that didn't deserve that dirty treatment.

I'm honestly not sure if I can even find words for how fucking disappointing this game is.

I do have to say that other than a few teensy details, the sequence of Taash's rescue efforts for their mom was well written. Pacing was a little off, and the bad guy at the end not having a separate battle was a little anticlimactic, but it's absolutely one of the best written sequences in the game.

And my biggest disappointment for that sequence was that both Taash and my Rook are Lords of Fortune. I know it was all emotional, but why did they both run into one of the most basic trap set-ups in existence? Aren't Lords of Fortune supposed to be sorta, y'know, good at both detecting and avoiding traps?

I forgot to say earlier that Isabela is basically the only previously shown character who actually looks sort of like herself.

Oh, and I was pleased with Bellara talking about figuring out what to keep from the past and what's better about the present. I'd have really liked more than a few sentences on what is truly a massive area they could've explored, but at least they did mention it.

Haven't seen a thing about generational trauma and abuse, though. Nor about what’s happening with all those elves and agents Fen'harel had who joined his fight to free the elves in modern THEDAS. Did the writers forget about that part too? Or just decide the closing scenes of DAI weren't important? It wouldn't matter if this were a stand alone game. It might even be a decent, albeit poorly designed, standalone fighting game.

But a Dragon Age game cannot be a standalone. There's far too much history and Lore and previous decisions that need to be considered when you're making series material.

I honestly don't know how much I have left. I keep thinking I'm almost done, and more quests pop up. I've got the final sequence at the top, then maybe 6 others? Two are treasure hunts I'm not sure if I'm going to bother to finish.

And still. The best part of this game? Is still the sets, scenery, backgrounds, and environments. I can't find a single thing I'd change about any of it.

The rest? Eeeeenh.

Section 12 here.

[broodwolf221]

sera meta!

i love her soooo much - if not for solas, she'd be hands-down my favorite character from inquisition. so it's long past time i did a meta post for her <3

this is gonna be long and i added a lot of her relevant dialogue to it

meta overview: sera is young, traumatized, has deep-seated internalized racism, and has never had an opportunity to be vulnerable or to safely express herself. she's also autistic af imo

part 1: her past

she was presumably born into an alienage, and as @skip-the-clumsy-dragon reminded me recently, city elves are expected to get married and have children. this is a realistic thing for them to prioritize (and dalish likely have the same priority) given the fact that they're an endangered culture. however, sera's a lesbian - to grow up in a society that tells her that she has to marry an elven man and have his children would've been incredibly ostracizing to her. the elves made her feel broken, directly or indirectly, and i think that's something a lot of queer people can relate to.

while only the last part is related, this bit of banter between her and solas is interesting in terms of her being a lesbian:

Sera: (shivers) Weird. Solas: Sera? What are you feeling? Sera: Ugh, here we go. It’s nothing, it just feels like I've seen this. Exactly this. It happens. Solas: Not to everyone. Sera: It’s not an elf thing. You’re not shaking. Sera: I suppose now you’ll switch to how I’m the same but different? Solas: You are different. You are the furthest from what you were meant to be. Sera: Well I’ve definitely heard piss like this before. Hmph!

she was adopted by the lady emmald, which looks fine at first, but as we're shown during the cookie scene, emmald didn't really care about sera. more than likely, she cared about what sera could do for her (a sort of live-in, unpaid servant in a child who she 'saved' from the streets) and the social esteem she'd get for 'rescuing' a 'poor elf' - lady emmald was the racist one, and the user, not the baker she blamed

Sera: I got caught stealing when I was little, yeah? You get alienage or worse for that, but the “Lady Emmald” took me in. She was sick and couldn’t have children. I had no parents. It worked out. Anyway, she gets a year sicker, so I ask about her cookies. Because mums make cookies. I can pass that down, or something. Turns out, she couldn’t cook. She missed that talk with her mum. The ones she “made” she bought and pretended. Aw, right? Well, no, she was a bitch. She hid buying them by keeping me away from the baker. She did that by lying that he didn’t like me, didn’t like elves. She let me hate so she could protect her pride. I hated him so much, and I hated… She looks away again. Sera: Well, she died, and I hate pride. “Pride cookies.”

"I hated him so much, and I hated... [being an elf]" is the obvious conclusion. and again, it makes sense - her people wanted her to play a role she couldn't, and wouldn't, play - and her adoptive mother allowed her to hate and hate so that she could protect her own pride.

Inquisitor: I don’t understand. This Lady Emmald was just trying to be good to you. Sera: She hurt people. Inquisitor: It was just cookies. Sera: It was not just cookies! Lie to herself? Fair play, only hurts her. But she made me think there was something wrong with me! And the baker! I made his life shit. Why not? It seemed like he deserved it. I mean, “if you don’t give a child a cookie because of appearances, you’re a monster.” Stupid, pride-whore noble. She pauses. Sera: I know, I said it was stupid. That’s why I want to get rid of it. I want to make better cookies.

she keeps calling herself stupid. she's angry and hurting and trying to be vulnerable, and when her vulnerability isn't supported she immediately resorts to calling herself stupid, making her feelings smaller, insulting herself before she can be insulted by the inquisitor, someone she's grown close to

Inquisitor: It is stupid. You dragged me here to bad-mouth a sad, dead woman. Sera: It’s not about that. Feelings are hard, all right? Inquisitor: Not for an adult! Sera: Bullshit! And I’m trying to say I like it here! I thought you’d want to know that, and eat my shitty cookies! / Sera: I just thought you’d want to know that I think you’re pretty great! That I made you shitty cookies!

"not for an adult" - sera is by far the youngest companion. and she's never had the opportunity to even begin unpacking her own trauma, until maybe haven/skyhold, depending on how your inquisitor treats her. but she is still an adult, and while this argument shows a lot of her feelings, it was really hard to even read thru 💀

part 2: red jenny

after emmald, she ended up on the streets again. she was taken in by the red jennies. by this point she has personal cause to dislike elves and elven culture, and to dislike nobles - but she doesn't really hate humans, which is understandable considering that she's surrounded by them. she sees that they get treated like shit sometimes, too. her alliances are not and have never been along racial lines, but class divisions: she looks out for the "little people", which in her case means the poor, the unhoused, or those in servitude.

the fact that she doesn't live in the alienage means she's surrounded by human faith. i've discussed this before in prior metas, but in thedas, andrastianism or however it'd be spelled is likely not optional - it's presumed and absolute. christianity was like this too, in medieval times, the church was the core of cities and everyone was expected to be faithful. theres' an immense sociocultural pressure towards religious conformity that everyone is exposed to even if they don't personally go to the church/pray/etc. - it's just baked into the culture. the chant is everywhere. and people internalize stuff they're surrounded by, that's natural

so she's out here angry, bitter, finally able to be 'just' sera with the jennies, not expected to breed for them or to take their shit, allowed to be exactly who she is... and at the same time, she's immersed in chantry culture. she wants a parent, she wants someone who cares for her no matter what. she keeps hearing that it's andraste and the maker who will care for her.

Inquisitor: Odd that you’d ask Andraste over your own gods. Sera: “My” gods? Whatever. They don’t talk any more than she does. Not like she’s supposed to. I know what happened to you, or what everyone here thinks happened. It seems… I don’t know what it seems.

part 3: her behavior

she's outwardly callous and irreverent a lot of the time, but that stems from a mix of things, primarily: humor as a coping mechanism and having seen so much shit in her life. she talks about food a lot, but this bit of banter with blackwall explains why really clearly:

Sera: Hey, do you think they'll have pie when we get back? I could use a pie. Or three. Blackwall: That's... a lot of pie for one person. Sera: You'd understand if you've ever been hungry. In your bones hungry.

she also has a really grounded view of mages. it's not perfect, she's very afraid of magic - as she's been taught to be. i think people get caught up in the mage freedom angles the games have been showing us and forget that within the games context, mages are fucking scary and people are scared of them. i'm staunchly pro-mage, but it's useless to ignore the context they exist within

Sera: I knew a funny boy in Denerim. Started fires with his eyes. Templars nabbed him right quick, so he's better now, I guess? Dorian: Better? Do you know what your southern Circles are like? Sera: Meals and training? So he wouldn't starve or get stomped by a mob? I've seen both. Dorian: (Sighs.) You're sadly right.

circles are bad but also? she's right. training, room and board... when it's living in a circle vs. being killed on the street, i think most people would choose the former, even with all the inherent difficulties and the oppression of it, the abuses by the templars, all of it. because at least you're alive. and the training is important. it's all kinds of wrong the way it's structured, but mages do need training, there's no denying that - even in cultures that don't lock up their mages, they still need to test them, to train them

and she has a very practical, very grounded perspective on nobles and who would suffer in a massive revolution. when solas starts recommending guerilla warfare tactics to her, she shuts him down - not because his ideas are wrong, but because she can see ahead to all the harm it'd cause the exact people she's trying to protect

Solas: Once you have the aristocracy weakened, Sera, you will have to redirect your lieutenants. Sera: Oh, this again. All right, what am I doing? Solas: Some of your forces, valuable until now, have no interests beyond creating disruption. Chaos for its own sake. They must be repositioned where they can do no harm, or removed if necessary. You replace them with organizers willing to build a new system and carry out the ugly work that must be done. Sera: What? Why? What ugly work? Solas: That is up to you. Do you wish to disrupt the nobility, secure a title? Or change the political structure entirely? Sera: None of it! I don't want any of that!

Solas: I do not understand you, Sera. You have no end goal for your organization. Sera: Nobles get rattled, and people get payback. I play in the middle. Solas: Why not go all the way? You see injustice, and you have organized a group to fight it. Don't you want to replace it with something better? Sera: What, just lop off the top? What's that do, except make a new top to frig it all up? Solas: I…forgive me. You are right. You are fine as you are. Sera: You hurt my head sometimes, Solas. Solas: Yes, I have been known to do that.

conclusion:

sera is one of the most important characters in dai specifically because of the perspective she brings to the table. she's the average person. she's scared of mages and magic. she's scared of templars. she's scared of the grey wardens. she's young and tries so hard. she lived through the blight. she's traumatized af. she feels like she has no culture that will accept her as she is. the first people to accept her, to just see sera, are the red jennies, and she happily joins them. she offers herself to the inquisition despite being scared of it because a part of her wants to help and another part wants answers - but is scared of getting them at the same time.

Herald: But where do you stand on the war? Sera: In the frigging middle, with everyone else. Sera: You know what I hear about mages? Nothing until one goes all demony. Know what I hear about templars? Nothing, until they take “maybe-mages.”

she's a queer city elf who's expected to marry another elf and have his children. she's a poor elven child who's supposed to be grateful that she was offered a good life by a noble. she's never had a space where she was able to work through all her issues, or even begin looking at them for real - but when she does have that space, she is surprisingly vulnerable with people. the cookies are important because it's her biggest show of vulnerability - she's revealing her past and one of the things that haunts her most, and she's actively trying to change the context, to disrupt a childhood trauma with new, better memories

[whaat-does-love-mean]

(Long text post)

Think I'm finally, sort of, settling into Veilguard and finding my enjoyment in it.

And it's been a process of elimination more than anything tbh.

I wasn't enjoying a lot of this for the longest time, but then I did Lucanis' first companion mission (who knew Antivan coffee was so interesting huh!).

And this moment reminded so much of Inquisition and brought an uneasy realisation to me - I haven't been enjoying this game because there hasn't been anything for me up until this point.

In Inquisition, the problem was I LOVED every character, except Solas and Sera (yes I know, shoot me....and I'm also not an Elf hater) and there was just so many other characters to interact with and spend time with and talk to and engage with that they never impacted my enjoyment of the game.

Whereas in Veilguard, starting off with Neve, she's okay? So far anyways, she's just "normal".

Bellara does nothing for me, just reminds me of Sera too much and I REALLY don't vibe with these sorts of characters in DA.

And Harding, again, is just a bit of a plain Jane....though, in The Lighthouse, she's really complex and I look forward to talking to her there all the time (still probably gonna romance her).

But it's really been Lucanis that's brought me out of my shell. The guy oozes personality, and conversations with him don't feel so "safe" as they do with everyone else (I could have told you Bellara had a dead brother JUST from that awful characters trailer never realising just how horrifyingly right I would be).

So I think my lack of enjoyment has boiled down to just waiting for a moment or a character that just excites me or entertains me or I vibe with, and this projects onto the story too so far.......AND THAT'S OKAY.

Like I'm so totally fine with this game being like this. I've had to check my expectations so hard having waited a decade for what's essentially a DA2 style isolated story of a bunch of folks fucking about around Thedas, albeit being strapped to the monumental game-changing story of Inquisition.

I see this game as more Dragon Age 3.5 or Dragon Age 2-2 or hell even Dragon Age: The Spin-off-Guard. I.e. this game feels like a spin-off set against a monumental backstory.

And that's totally fine. And helping me enjoy this a lot more than when I first started with it.

[thedragonagelesbian]

I don't remember how the dialogue options go at the end of dragon age inquisition trespasser, but I remember at least headcanoning that my Cadash inquisitor would be blinded by the divinity that Solas specifically disavows; because to her if enough people believe in something magical or divine then that would make it at least partially true / this is how mortals are raised as deities in some other belief systems. So she would be very easily manipulated by Solas using diplomatic words about his goals, if he thinks this is best and that after a tide of injury from the growing pains of eliminating the veil, then surely that will be better for both the peoples of thedas and the spirits that she has such limited connection to. He's been such a good friend and she is awed by his circumstance — how much of a stretch is it really for her to believe this too, after everything that's happened and that the andrastians have asked of her?

With this in mind, I think I will have to choose that she "wants to save him" instead of "vowed to stop him," even though both options sort of eliminate the possibility of being taken in by the stories he's told to himself and others.

I could've made this my own post, but I wanted to invite someone's invested dragon age opinions, and I felt that you would be receptive to offering your thoughts?

oh i love all of that!!! thank you so much for sharing this with me. i'm fascinated by the idea of a cadash who believes in solas' divinity; i don't think that's something i've ever seen explored before, but there's such an affinity between the faith you've sketched out here and dwarven ancestor/paragon worship. it makes me wish there was more to explore re: cadash's thoughts on the dread wolf/evanuris 'reveal', because they might already have a cultural/spiritual understanding that of course gods were people once?

and i also wish the game had let us be swayed by solas' plan! there's sooooo much rp potential there, and it's def an option i would've explored with yiseeril had it been available (queen that she is of supporting her friends in their self-destructive apotheosis).

[modern-inheritance]

Rough Day (MIC Chat)

(I'd love to turn this into a short but I think I'd get caught up in descibing Saphira's thought process and miss out/go another direction) Sometime during The War, in the limbo of timeline hell. Saphira: *doing a bit of a wander around 'her' portion of the far more sparsely tented side of camp* Saphira: *stops, midstride, pulls back a bit and looks down* ??? Arya: *laying facedown on the ground in some tall grass and strong sunlight* Arya: ... Arya: *muffled, sounding very tired, never lifting her head* Hey Saphira. Saphira: Having a nap, or a breakdown? Arya: Very astute of you. Yes. Arya: I have had...I have had a very...very rough day. Wait, what day is it? Saphira: Solas Rest. Arya: Oh. ...I've had a very rough three days. Saphira: Are you well? Physically? Do you need me to get Eragon or Glen? Arya: No, thanks. I'm good here, just...just going to gather my thoughts. Connect with nature. Eat some dirt. Saphira: ...If you're sure. Arya: Yep. Saphira: *pauses again* Saphira: *gently takes the back of Arya's combat jacket in her first few front teeth, drags her kitten style over to a shaded patch of grass and deposits her there* Arya: Thank you. Saphira: You have picked a nice spot for a breakdown-nap. I shall join you. Arya: Aw, thanks. And Saphira just sorta proceeded to half nap half defend this dumbass elf having multiple in-the-field Recall episodes. Chatting with her between them like 'so, what's new with Yaela, she's been rather smitten with that auburn haired smith that's got his forge set beside Horst's.' 'The downdrafts have been particularly fierce, there's rain coming soon.' 'I think Eragon needs to get more cardio. Should I chase him?'

Iunno I want these two to be friends really bad. In MIC, it's not shown quite as much yet, but Saphira's a little on the fence about Arya when they first start traveling after Gil'ead. Even though she recognizes her mind, there's this unsettling feeling about her (likely, I think, from the high levels of 'dragonblood' Arya has and her just being so different and dangerous from anyone else they've interacted with so far) and Saphira does take some time to completely trust Arya with Eragon, taking even longer to fully accept that Arya's there to protect her as well. Eventually they do become really good friends, bonding over battlejoy and protecting Eragon's dumb ass and Saphira does realize the lengths Arya's going to go to keep them both safe after the Star Sapphire incident.

And while Saphira never really understands the results of Gil'ead on Arya's mind, she understands pain, she understands some of it from Eragon's later PTSD manifesting, and she also recognizes the more animalistic side Arya (and other elves, though they prefer to tamp it down) displays when she gets distressed. Saphira knows an injured dragon can and will lash out, understands how much more stress it puts on them when others see them vulnerable. So Saphira treats Arya more like a very small, very scaleless dragonling. She's welcomed in to the Thunder, if you will. They're both the odd women out, and sometimes it's just nice to sit together and shake their heads at the men and boys and share knowing looks. ...even though half the time they don't know what exactly they're saying with their eyes, they just know it's the same thing.

I am...not making sense. Friends. I want them to be friends.

[shivunin]

🤡⛔💞💔

Hey, thank you very much for asking! 💗This wound up a touch long haha

(Writer Asks)

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

I have several and they're all really long. The one I still want to try to revamp/use the concept of is one about a Thedas where Halamshiral was never lost to the Chantry. It had some really, really lovely parts but it required so much worldbuilding that it eventually stopped being fun to write.

(Also a 1930s AU set between 2 and Inquisition where Lavellan is a reporter and Cullen is trying to figure out how to leave the Templars, a "how Elowen handles breaking up with Solas" AU, and a mermaid!Cullen AU I still mean to get back to someday)

💞 Who's your comfort character?

Cullen! I write him whenever I'm feeling down. I think I might have all of the romance dialogue memorized at this point lol

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

I answered this here, but I've got plenty haha. From "The Punchline" (here on Tumblr, here on AO3):

Afterward, Fenris could not say if she lifted her head or if he bent his to her. Afterward, he could only remember the ache in his chest, the wine on her breath, the awful laughter still trailing from her lips.  When they kissed, it tasted of salt and tannins and fresh blood.  It felt fitting, in its way. If this was to cut him to the bone, it should taste like a wounded thing. The kiss was nothing like the first had been. There was nothing of heady joy to this, no thick anticipation, no persistent hope. There was only the ache of regret—that he had found himself here at all, alone with her in the heaviness of night when he would never be able to give her what she needed. 

The kiss lasted only a moment; Maria pulled away almost as soon as they touched. Her eyes searched his. IIf he’d wanted to, he was close enough to count every dark spot scattered over her irises, every freckle on her nose. Too close. Too close by far.  “There,” she said quietly. “You see? That proves it. I only destroy everything I love, after all. You must be safe, then. Can still get away if you’re quick.” 

Fenris and Hawke and those awful months after the Act 2 romance scene get me every time tbh.

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Oh god, this whole thing lol. They're so awkward with each other and both trying so hard to be casual. Here's my favorite bit:

They both stopped, Cullen chuckling uncomfortably and Elowen releasing a panicked wheeze that might, to someone panicking, have sounded like a laugh.  Sylaise’enaste, she had to get out of here before she did something dire. Like drag him across the desk to find out if his mouth tasted as good as it looked. Do not say that out loud, she willed herself.  “I will see you later,” she said.  “Thank you,” Cullen said with relief. His eyes widened and he shook his head.  “No! I mean—not thank you. Yes, I’ll—I will see you there.” “Yes, see you later,” she said, belatedly remembering that she’d already said that.  Cullen opened his mouth and closed it again.  Why did his mouth have to look so kissable?  Why hadn’t she kissed him last night, when there’d been no one else around and they’d been covered in his mantle? It had been—it had been romantic, even, so close to each other like that. “Right,” she said, sharply enough that his head jerked back, “Later.” “...yes,” he said, but Elowen was already jogging for the door before she could think about why he sounded so faint.  The door shut behind her with a squeal and a bang. Elowen leaned back against it, arms spread slightly, and peered up at the puffy white clouds in the sky.  “I am doomed,” she told them, with all the gravitas of one who’d been condemned to death. 

[awkwardgtace]

21 for Delphia in the Seer and the Gods AU: How quickly did you get comfortable with the gods after being away for so long? Did the gods keep their distance out of worry that you felt overwhelmed or did the normal routine happen pretty quickly?

Also an ask in general: what would happen if you put the chillest ocs in a room together? Would they hang out, gossip about their loved ones, etc?

Ahh Delphia is totally shocked! Ask game

21 Pick your own!! This also gets a bit of a special response since some of these are stories or wips The new things with del,ash,alessia is a fic, but its 18+ on ao3 only so no link

Delphia is taken aback at first. It wasn't something she ever considered someone asking about. Sometimes she forgets people know about the time she'd been in hiding. She wants to forget about it, how she hurt the people she calls family... even if they don't know she calls them that. "Well... more time than I'd like to admit. Especially after meeting real giants. The gods are so much bigger! Plus most people still talked in whispers about the danger they posed and my memories didn't make it easier to ignore. Ryder avoided me the longest. It hurt a lot, I thought he hated me until I woke up in his hand. Vitus and Dabria found an excuse to check on me almost every day. I also found out they'd been preparing for if I ever got sick. Oh I suppose I should mention Fate. The two of us met not long after I returned, it reminded me a lot of why I'd been so nervous in the first place. Although not long was probably a few decades. Just after I met Vincent I think. That's for another time. Felix was the first to take me up on the offer to spend time together as an apology. He was trying to be better, but there were still some issues. We've improved a lot. Sola and Luna were leaving more often, but were nervous the first times we talked after I came back. Sola cried when she realized she'd grabbed me. Honestly for those two I made more of my own effort to reconnect. I think it helped with Luna when I convinced another mortal to talk to him. Sola when I defended her from other mortals. Rhys was another issue. The first time we'd really talked was around the time I met Vincent. It wasn't on purpose, but neither of us could face the other. I think... I think when I went to him it reminded him where we were before I ran away. Unfortunately that was a few decades after I'd been back. It's a bit overwhelming to think about the time. I made the right choice that day, even if I'd been nervous. Alessia and Ash were so happy to have me again and I was happy to know why I'd felt empty, but it was... a lot. Alessia was outside my door for the first few days. Ash left me massive flowers constantly. I felt amazing having their attention, but I felt awful too. Alessia was actually when I'd been a bit overwhelmed. After so long alone I was worried I'd tricked myself, someone even said that I was just dreaming. She convinced me to sleep and... and I was able to see things as reality calmly. Ash was probably a bit later than Alessia. They had a strange dream, waking up so... hurt and scared of how I saw them. I spoke my feelings and I think it helped." She had a warm smile on her face. Her cheeks went red for a bit. "There was also when the three of us...tried something new..." She looked away clearing her throat and forcing her heart to calm down. Looking back there was no trace of her slight embarrassment "Honestly it's still hard. It doesn't matter how long I live, those lessons about the danger don't leave easily. It has gotten much easier, but I also have to remember why the gods of my world are who they are. I hope that answers your question!" She offers a smile. It's clear how happy she is living with gods now. A brightness comes from her that screams hope, something that she was missing when on her own.

For the general question! It depends on their sizes. I think it would probably start with the giants in the situation staring at the small ones and not sure how to act. How these people are different from the ones they know. If the comfort is already there I think most would treat it like spending time with friends. Asking things about their differences, the different things about each others worlds. Gossip about SO's would definitely happen once they realize they are mostly all in extreme size difference relationships. There would be some intimidating moments. Someone being loud when unexpected or a stern look here and there. It would be something they wind up enjoying and do more often. Smalls all curl up on someone Let's be real vitus is chill and would wind up being the defacto bed I think it would be a lot like just having a fun dinner with friends, but also probably turning into a bit of a sleep over when smalls fall asleep from deep voices, calm heartbeats, and warm hands