#have dragon age feelings.

[octosan]

Seeing that choice infographic today got me thinking about Bellara in particular and it's like, huh.

The choice they listed for the end of Bellara's questline is listed as "keep the archive spirit" vs. "free the archive spirit" and that word choice in this stripped context immediately got me thinking, like...

Wouldn't it have been more impactful if that was just, the choice? That wasn't the choice. The choice for the questline was "do you want to let Bellara keep all this desperately needed information on the ancient elves for the sake of Bellara's people, or do you want to destroy it because something something it could be dangerous in the wrong hands?"

The question is "do you think that pursuing lost culture and knowledge for an oppressed people is inherently more valuable than the risks?" which feels like a very unbalanced choice imo. Like yes, obviously, lmao why did you even need to ask Rook.

But

The game never really discusses the fact that this information is being given by a spirit, a person (to some extent) who is bound to that artifact for all eternity. It seems very strange in retrospect because in Inquisition we had concepts put forward such as "spirits being bound is wrong, they deserve autonomy even if their personhood looks different from ours" and "Corypheus is trying out rituals to cut down on a person's autonomy for the sake of acquiring the information they possess" and the Nadas Dirthalen feels like a natural extension of both these concepts, if only the spirit inside it was not just, functionally, a silly little boot-licking AI.

I don't know how it would fit into the whole Anaris thing if they did this, but I think it would have potentially been more interesting and thematically appropriate if Bellara's questline had this idea that the Nadas Dirthalen is another extension of Evanuris/Forgotten Ones slavery.

This idea that she is burdened with an unfair sense of personal guilt about her gods turning out to be tyrants, because she loved and exalted the elven empire for so long in her own research without seeing the red flags. That's not exactly. What they did but I want to charitably say that's what they were intending with her dialogue about it.

Then she is presented with her ultimate goal made manifest--a manual all about what things were like in Elvhenan, even if from the perspective of a Forgotten One. Only, by the end of the questline, she has to ask herself very seriously if she believes that having this information is worth it being at the expense of an imprisoned being. Especially if you've seen the murals that explain how spirits and elves are linked (and this just makes me feel how weird it is that Bellara's questline isn't tied tighter into the main story anyway) but even then we have characters like Spite and Manfred who could communicate personhood and autonomy in spirits.

And I think that would have potentially been a harder choice for her to make.

Now, this would have the unfortunate suggestion that destroying the archive is the "good" choice and destroying the archive is such a horrible thing to do in context dfkgkfdskfg so maybe that's why they didn't do that.

idk though, I mentioned this to a friend and they suggested the story could at least give Bellara and Rook a consolation prize to lessen it. The spirit won't be around to "consult" but in gratitude it can impart the answers to Bellara's questions directly into her head anyway--demons can already canonically do that. So here Bellara has the information she sought for so long, but it'll be harder for her people to use it and to keep it. So it's a bittersweet, but she has the validation of knowing she is not like the Evanuris or Anaris, that she is a better person than her gods turned out to be and she was rewarded for that.

Or, if she does choose to keep the spirit, it's an unfathomably huge win for the Dalish, an archive of countless secrets about the elven empire that will last forever and can be protected, already organized and archived for them... but for Bellara in particular, it comes bundled with a very uncomfortable fact she learned about herself.

It'd be a heck of a foil to Merrill's questline where she had the impossible choice of setting a demon free or letting the information it knows rot forever.

[trialsofthedas]

Rook: *sneaking in through their window after a night at the villa*

Viago: *turning in their chair and flicking the light on* You want to tell me where you've been all night?

Rook: I was out with Teia?

Teia: *turning in their chair* Wanna try again?

[arcane-gold]

death • rebirth

[ruushes]

🗣️ pay ‼️🗣️ attention ‼️🗣️ to ‼️🗣️ him ‼️

[lizzybeeee]

When you spend 20 years attempting to bring down the child slavery, murdering, human trafficking exploitation ring that stole your childhood, murdered your friends, and killed countless innocents only to have them rebrand as 'Noble Freedom Fighters™' off-screen.

[blueeemoth]

I have been rotating in my mind some headcanon's of the Orb and its influence on Gale's body, because I feel like its design could be improved + I really like his early concept where his hand was bandaged

[cozmic-ash]

Rook and her man of big feelings, post-Fade

[purple-frost]

Okay but imagine being Lucanis and going through thirty-something years of life reading romance novels and seeing other people fall in love and never experiencing that yourself so you just sort of accept that it won't happen for you and so you focus on being Grandma's #1 Assassin. Next thing you know you're being broken out of a torture prison by a walking hurricane of an individual and suddenly all those feelings you've read about start to happen. Which would be great if wasn't for the literal demon in your head declaring that they too like this person (platonically or otherwise, it doesn't matter). So now you don't know if your feelings are actually your feelings or if they're some sort of demon side effect because no amount of Crow training prepared you for this shit.

All I'm saying is it's not surprising Lucanis barely flirts with Rook until after Inner Demons, it's not just because he's bad at it (which he definitely is but in a sort of endearing way), but because until that point he doesn't know if his feelings are his own.

[abyssal-ilk]

thinking about sten again. thinking about him calling the warden kadan and never explaining what it means. thinking about him offering to take the warden back with him to par vollen, but it's never actually an option the warden takes, even if you agree. thinking about how sten responds the best to a warden who stands their ground even if he doesn't agree with them. thinking about how he loves sweets and art, and how he plays with kittens. "it's training," he says. but come on. he's playing. thinking about what else he's had to justify to himself for liking.

and he calls alistair kadan! shale as well! do you think it was ever extended to the other party members? just,, agh

[vaguely-concerned]

rook falling asleep on the red couch in the lighthouse dining room while lucanis is making dinner....... they were helping out by keeping him company and peeling and chopping potatoes for a while there but then the potatoes are done and the room is so safe and warm and smells like coffee and good food and lucanis is trying to explain something to spite and his voice is low and soft and good to listen to and rook's eyes only slip closed for a moment. they'll get up to save the world again or whatever in a second just. one moment. while the world is warm and kind. and then they're being shaken gently awake an hour later because it's time to eat and everyone's starting to drift hopefully dinner-wards

[bunabi]

The zine is ready to roll and up for pre-order! 🥰

This project kept me sane in the lead-up to Veilguard's release. It's a 7 x 10 inch art book with 32 pages of companions, advisors, origins, enemies, and locations from DAI, plus a little foreword.

The pre-order window closes on the 20th!

[beebundt]

this is the first time back at my computer since my back injury 3 months ago and i had a hankering for some isabela 💙🗡

[nvaderxim]

"This is where we part"

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

A fan comic depicting my headcanon on why Kieran and the Hero of Ferelden won't be around for Veilguard's events.

Edit: I made a continuation

[ibahibut]

💀: Fewer wounds, more kisses from me.

🐦‍⬛: Contract's accepted, mi amor.

Music inspiration: A Little Death by The Neighbourhood

[burningblake]

I'm sure we'll become great friends in the valley, Chuckles.

[apostaterevolutionary]

Okay can I be a bitter Anders fan for like. Just 2 minutes here lmao

Cause bioware released some game stats for veilguard and apparently 72% of players redeemed Solas which is like. Okay yeah the game kinda pushes you towards that. But when I think of all the shit I used to have to put up with just for enjoying Anders like at all and…

(This is not me being anti-Solas, I do not care if you love or hate him, but I am gonna say what he’s done is like. Objectively worse than literally every other companion so lmao. And that’s fine! You can still enjoy him! I’m not saying you can’t and it’s important to me that people understand that! I’m just saying he did in fact do objectively morally worse things in game than Anders did and I don’t think that’s really debatable. And I can’t really make my point here without saying that but I do want to make it clear this is not some moral condemnation of Solas enjoyers cause it’s not)

Getting anon hate on the regular, being told “oh you’re allowed to like Anders as long as you regularly talk about how much he sucks”, people gleefully describing how much fun they have killing him ON your posts about the fact that you like him, the devs making jokes about shitty fates for him when fans asked innocent questions about him, the absolute audacity of his writer to say half the shit she did in interviews (about bisexuality and mental illness, most critically), and then being beaten over the head again in inquisition about how Anders is the worst character to ever exist and there’s no redemption for terrorists who lie to you one time in the entire game and he deserves death or worse and that’s it

And now… 72% of people are down to redeem the guy who lies to you for 2 games straight and who did a lot of questionable things that includes creating the fucking blight and. Like. I guess I’m glad that Solas fans can live in a world where they aren’t constantly harassed and can give their ship like. A pretty damn good ending all things considered. And that the devs love Solas and actually give the option for that happy ending and have characters go to bat for Solas throughout the game and the most annoying thing they have to see are people making scrambled egg memes. I would not wish anyone to have to deal with the shit Anders fans had to put up with back then cause it sucked. It really sucked. And I’m glad it’s not being repeated with a different character, if nothing else

But like. Man there really is a difference when the writers actually like the character who does the thing, huh