#i have a lot of feelings about dragon age

[dragon-queen21]

what are some general wings of fire agere headcanons you have?

Thank you for asking! Hehe love the chance to ramble about characters, especially ones I haven’t really talked about a lot >:3

~~~

~I definitely think that Peril would be a regressor with Clay would be her caregiver.

~Most of the time is spent cuddling and making up for the lack of affection she got as a child.

~First time she regressed would have been involuntary at something that triggered her.

~Sunny and Starflight would both be regressors.

~I feel like Sunny would regress first and drag her brother into being small without meaning too

~Glory sometimes babysits them but only if Tsunami is left in charge because despite being in a normal headspace she is just as chaotic as the two hatchlings are

~Moon regresses though she hides it from the rest of her winglet. It takes Kinkajou (who already knows what age regression is) to pick up on the signs of her friend being small and coax her into telling the others.

~And by coax I mean she 100% outs Moon without even realizing it. Just assuming that yeah all dragons know what agere is, it’s not that big of a deal <- rainwing thinking

~For Qibli so many things start to piece together and he realizes “holy heck- that’s a real thing?! I thought that was just me!”

~Winter just, couldn’t care less. He babysits the two hatchlings sometimes when Kinkajou isn’t around

~I think he would have tried to regress before in private but couldn’t get over the idea of it being weak and pointless

~He got close to being fully regressed around Moon once but panicked when she asked if he felt small

I have a very self indulgent agere fic I wrote with the jade winglet maybe if anyone is interested I will dig through my drafts and find it :3

[oblivionscribe]

I love Dragon Age so much. I'm slowly collecting all the books and comics. I have a DA tattoo that I plan to make an entire sleeve (it's Grey Warden armor but I have the templar shield inside because I made choices and nobody was there to tell me no lmao). I love talking about Dragon Age. I met the love of my life here on Tumblr because we were geeking out over our OCs.

I played Origins shortly after it's release. I had been in a pedestrian/motor vehicle accident and was housebound for a long time as I regained the ability to walk. I was already a big fan of high fantasy and I loved reading all the codex entries. The lore of the series is lovely despite some things not being explained which I hope we get some answers in Veilguard or related content. I love Dragon Age 2 - the companions were amazing and I loved the being a sassy little shit. Inquisition opened up the world to explore, something I hoped for, but was a bit disappointed with how empty the world was. You could definitely tell some areas were kind of meh with how little there was to it. I hope this is balanced in Veilguard where we get a mix of DA2 and Inquisition. I know the series has its issues, especially with certain voice actors being douchewaffles and certain fan groups that are ravenous and toxic. It's a stain on the fans and the series but on the whole, the world is amazing and I love learning more about it. I'm so excited to go to new areas and all the NEW LORE to ponder and over-think about. All the new discussions we'll have like some big symposium. I know some people are upset that it isn't as intense as Baldur's Gate 3 but the series has never been that intense, perhaps Origins because it was obvious there was some inspiration from the LotR series (listen to the LotR OST and then Origins OST). And it's okay to feel that way, BG3 flipped the table on RPG expectations and is an amazing game, sometimes we grow apart from series (I was big into Mass Effect but after I learned Andromeda, my favorite entry tied with ME2, wasn't getting a sequel I got real meh about it. I still love it but Dragon Age will likely be my favorite BioWare IP if not my favorite video game IP. Ugh, it's gross how much I love this series I'll be screwed if GoodSmiles makes a line of Dragon Age Nendos because I'll have to get them. I can't wait to import my Inquisitor and make him the old man he's supposed to be. And I love talking about OCs! Andraste's tits, y'all make such great OCs and I love it when people commission me to draw them and I get to learn so much about them. I'm nervous as fuck that I'll make some really regretable decisions my first run of Veilguard but we will endure this together TwT Anyway, I'm done talking, thanks for reading this if you did TL;DR : It's me, Bobo the Clown, simp for all things Dragon Age

[hollytree33]

“Not much farther now.”

Wanted to try my hand at a mock screenshot study of Shivana! This is of the night before she reached the Temple of Sacred Ashes, before a much longer journey begins (she did not dress for the weather)

[invinciblerodent]

This is going to be very ranty and disjointed, probably borderline incomprehensible post, but with the "return" of Dragon Age Discourse (and really, did it ever go anywhere?) and me repeatedly seeing the complaints and dismissals of DA:I as a "chosen one"-type of a narrative, I just.... I keep finding myself thinking about the relationship of truth and lies within the game.

Throughout the course of DA:I, the idea of a malleable, flexible personal identity, and a painful confrontation with an uncomfortable truth replacing a soothing falsehood, follows pretty much every character throughout their respective arcs.

There are some more obvious ones, Solas, Blackwall, The Iron Bull, their identities and deceptions (of both those around them and themselves) are clearly front and center in the stories told about them, but this theme of deception (both of the self- and the outside world) is clearly present in the stories of the others as well.

Like, for example, ones that come immediately to mind are stories like that of Cullen, who presents an image of a composed and disciplined military man, a commander- all to hide the desperate and traumatized addict that he sees himself as.

Dorian grappled with the expectations of presenting the image of the perfect heir to his father's legacy, the prideful scion of his house, his entire life (he even introduces himself as the result of "careful breeding", like one might speak about a prized horse)- all while knowing that his family would rather see him lobotomized and obedient, than anything even just resembling his vibrant and passionate self.

Cassandra calls herself a Seeker of Truth, and takes pride in that identity- only to learn that in reality, she has been made a liar, a keeper of secrets, without her knowledge or consent, and it is up to her to either uproot the entire organization and painfully cut out the abscess it is to build it back from the ground up into something respectable, or let the information she had revealed sit, and continue to fester.

And this theme continues and reframes itself in, among others, things like Sera's own inner conflict between her elven heritage and her human upbringing, or in Cole being caught in this unconscionable space in-between human and spirit, between person and concept, etc.

The Inquisitor isn't exempt from this either.

I feel like this is where the core of the many misunderstandings of this plot come from, why so many people continue to believe that Inquisition is a "chosen one" or "divinely appointed" type of story, because I think many might just... not realize, that the protagonist's identity is also malleable, and what they are told in the setup/first act of the game is not necessarily the truth.

The tale of the Inquisitor is the exact opposite of that of a "chosen one" story: it's an examination and reflection of the trope, in that it is the story of an assumption that all wrongly believe to be the truth, and thrust upon you, even if you protest. The very point is that no matter who you choose to say that you are, you will be known as the Herald of a prophet you don't even necessarily believe in, and then that belief will be proven wrong, leaving you to cope with either a devastating disappointment if you believed it, or a bitter kind of vindication if you didn't.

There's a moment just after Here Lies the Abyss (when you learn of the lie you've been fed your entire journey in the game) that I don't often see mentioned, but I think it's one of the most emotionally impactful character moments, if you are playing an Andrastian Inquisitor who had actually believed themselves chosen (which I realize is a rather unpopular pick, lol): it's when Ser Ruth, a Grey Warden, realizes what she had done and is horrified by her own deeds, and turns herself in asking to be tried for the murder of another of her order. As far as she is concerned, she had spilled blood for power, and regardless of whether she was acting of her own volition at the time, whether she had agency in the moment, is irrelevant to her: she seeks no absolution, but willingly submits to any punishment you see fit.

And only if you play as an Inquisitor who, through prior dialogue choices, had established themselves as a devout Andrastian, can you offer her forgiveness, for a deed that was objectively not her fault- not really.

You can, in Andraste's name, forgive her- even though you, at that point, know that you have no real right to do so. That you're not Andraste's Herald, that Andraste may or may not even exist, and that you can't grant anyone "divine forgiveness", because you, yourself, don't have a drop of divinity within you. You know that you were no more than an unlucky idiot who stumbled their way into meddling with forces beyond their ken.

You know you're a fraud. You know. The game forces you to realize, as it slowly drip-drip-drips the memories knocked loose by the blast back into your head, that what all have been telling you that you are up to this point, is false. And yet, you can still choose to keep up the lie, and tell this woman who stands in front of you with blood on her hands and tears in her eyes, that you, with authority you don't have, grant her forgiveness for a crime that wasn't hers to commit.

Because it's the right thing to do. Because to lie to Ser Ruth is far kinder than anything else you could possibly do to her, short of refusing to make a decision altogether.

There are any number of criticisms of this game that I can accept (I may or may not agree depending on what it is, but I'm from the school of thought that any interpretation can be equally valid as long as there's text that supports it, and no text that contradicts it), but I will always continue to uphold that the Inquisitor is absolutely not- and never was a "chosen one".

They're just as small, and sad, and lost, as all the other protagonists- the only difference is that they didn't need to fight for their mantle, because instead of a symbol of honor, it acted as a straitjacket.

[thedeadthree]

𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐈𝐋𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 ➸ irulanne . the rook .

𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐍 𝐖𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐒 . 𝐄𝐋𝐅 . 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄 .

-`. template by @kanos . coloring . icons .

✧ ― 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 (ask to be added or removed or interact 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞!!):

@pavus, @wlwaerith, @shadowsofrose, @grapecaseschoices, @nokstella

@queennymeria, @risingsh0t, @carrionsflower, @leviiackrman, @griffin-wood

@confidentandgood, @aceghosts, @tommyarashikage, @shadowglens, @yharnams

@anoras, @theelderhazelnut, @florbelles, @celticwoman, @pinkfey

@kyberinfinitygems, @cloudofbutterflies92, @carlosoliveiraa, @shellibisshe, @adelaidedrubman

@lavampira, @capelizabeth, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @statichvm, @unholymilf

@aezyrraeshh, @imogenkol, @aceghosts, @full---ofstarlight, @ellierenae

[nohr-selphias]

Be Zevran, traveling- maybe sleeping - w a warden who is usually a pot-stirring asshole, with a wickedness that he can respect, if not find entertainment in. Until they’re about to decimate a clan of Dalish elves by convincing the werewolves to attack them.

He thinks of his mother- a woman he loved without ever meeting, but one he spent endless nights imagining what her tattoos would have looked like, or what would happen if he could run away and find a clan, her clan. He pleads w the warden, half-expecting to be laughed at, how weak he is, thinking of the menacingly amused look taliesen would give him when he wasn’t sufficiently cruel.

But they don’t. They pause and look at him in way he can’t quite articulate because he hasn’t seen it before. And they change their mind, even though it would be easier not to. He lets out a relieved breath he wasn’t even aware he was holding. And for the first time he feels seen.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I'm not ready to shut up about Aveline and Carver--so, when you go see Aveline in Act 1, you can catch up with her a little bit and that's where this conversation can happen:

Aveline: "It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you, Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar?" Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

I wanted to see what she would say if Carver isn't in the party. Instead, she says this:

Aveline: Carver was there. I imagine he feels something similar. If he allows it.

......well, at least she didn't call him a tit?

[ammoniteflesh]

I might write a fic about this one day but it actually kills me that Morrigan - who was taught that beauty is frivolous and unimportant and has no place in her life - can end up raising a child who is the Old God of Beauty. She is breaking the cycle. She is fighting generational trauma. She is very literally nurturing the things that were denied her as a child.

[cable-salamder]

Can’t wait for Roby to show up only for him to be

A. A very minor role who gets like three voice lines total

Or

B. Far older than we thought and thus make everyone who was making fanart of him and Wyldfyre as a pair mildly scrambling (because of the whole. “Wyldfyre gets a bf” and people assuming that will be Roby)

[jazzmckay]

'Killing's what swords are for': an Oghren analysis

companion piece to my other meta, 'I am your Paragon': a Branka analysis"

upon walking into the orzammar commons, you encounter an argument between two groups of dwarves that turns into a fight, resulting in one being killed. this is your first introduction to the political situation in orzammar, to bhelen and harrowmont, and to dwarven culture itself. the captain of the guard laments that the warden--an outsider--happened to arrive in time to see this, as it makes the dwarves look violent and disorderly. he seems to disapprove of the fight being witnessed by an outsider more than he disapproves of the fight happening at all.

behind him, a grand bridge stretches across the city, a bigger and more eye-catching landmark than anything else around it, even the doors that lead to the diamond quarter, which houses the shaperate and the royal palace. this bridge leads to the provings, where dwarves pit themselves against each other, sometimes to resolve grievances, sometimes just to fight for fighting's sake.

the dwarves are fighters. with the constant threat of darkspawn pushing at the borders of what's left of their empire, they have to be.

orzammar is also thoroughly structured. the caste system defines who a person is--who they must be. everyone has a role, given to them by birth. there are rules, and the dwarves follow them strictly. duty is the most important thing, and the cost of rebelling is steep. if an individual should step out of these rigid boundaries, the only recourse is an honourable death by joining the legion of the dead. otherwise, the casteless are left in the destitute dust town, or they go to the surface; both options involve that dwarf being removed from their people's records, no longer a recognized member of their society.

between this strictly regimented system and the value placed on their warriors and defenders, dwarven society exists on the razor's edge between violence and order. in some ways, it's a blend of the two. in other ways, the impossible dichotomy can ruin a person who only ever sought to be what orzammar needed them to be.

oghren is a member of the warrior caste, and he is also a beserker. his purpose in life is to be a fighter, a defender, a protector. the warrior caste is the sword and shield of orzammar. without them, darkspawn would likely overwhelm the legion of the dead and then lay siege to the city, and so they are trained--and expected--to be as fearsome of a warrior as they can be.

as a warrior, oghren was successful, and gained respect and renown. being an exemplary member of the warrior caste, he was chosen to marry branka, who was an exemplary member of the smith class. oghren was already interested in felsi, but he did his duty to his people and gave her up to marry branka. they were both recognized for their accomplishments and upheld as role models, all the way to branka eventually being named a paragon, a living ancestor, akin to a god.

and then branka disappeared.

and orzammar gave up on her.

anyone you talk to about branka will tell you what a genius she was, about the invention of hers that earned her paragon status. they'll also tell you that she's been gone in the deep roads for so long that there's no way she's still alive. people have accepted that she's gone, and it's a waste to send search parties out after her, as they'll just lose more people in the process.

oghren can't let this go. branka is his wife, and it's easy to see how much she means to him--even though their relationship was rocky--in how he talks about her accomplishments, her cunning, her tenacity. to him, it's a disrespect for orzammar to give up on her and assume her dead. he's convinced she's still alive out there, and the lack of belief from others, the lack of action, is maddening for him.

oghren describes being a berserker as "mad rage". he says:

Oghren: The hard part is getting in touch with your rage. We all learn to hold that back. It's why we don't kill every duster who looks at us sideways. You need to shut that off.

being a beserker on behalf of orzammar means unleashing that mad rage in defense of the city, and when orzammar abandons oghren's wife, their paragon, he is understandably livid. this leads to him demanding action, and killing a lord's son who doubted branka was still alive, in a duel that was meant to only be to first blood. the warden first encounters oghren when he's arguing with loilinar ivo about the lack of support for branka, and he'll explain the situation oghren is now in, two years after branka's disappearance and as a result of him killing that lord's son:

Loilinar: It was a huge scandal. Oghren should've been executed, but he'd won honours in the Deep Roads. Instead, they stripped him of all weapons, and forbid him from engaging in fights within city limits. If he breaks the decree, he'll be exiled.

loilinar also aptly refers to oghren as "practically gelded". oghren is a warrior, and a berseker, who served orzammar well enough to gain honours and be part of an arranged match. his rage has been a tool for orzammar's protection. he played his role perfectly, up until orzammar abandoned branka. he gave everything to orzammar, and only lost everything in return. he may not have been exiled immediately, he may still be oghren of house branka, but house branka no longer exists in the eyes of most. the entire house, oghren excluded, disappeared, and is presumed dead. oghren is still allowed in orzammar but he isn't allowed to carry weapons, he no longer has his family, he no longer has his people's respect. the only thing that's left to him now is drinking away his sorrows and trying, again and again, to convince someone, anyone, that it's worth sending a group after branka.

when you first get to speak with oghren, he's drunk, angry, and distrusting. he calls you out for doing dirty work for one of the potential kings. he doesn't believe you genuinely want to help him find branka out of the good of your heart. and what reason does he have to think otherwise? no one else is willing to help him, especially not without ulterior motives. the warden is just a stranger, or worse, a lackey for the kinds of people who have disrespected branka and ignored his pleas. his rage has been simmering without an outlet for two years. his city has given up on him as much as it gave up on branka. the oghren you meet is a shadow of his former self, beaten down, practically a nobody.

oghren was orzammar's sword. killing is what he is for. all he ever tried to do was be what orzammar needed him to be, to fit in that strict caste system, but how could he, when he was taught to give into a wild, mad rage, within a society built on rules and order?

oghren himself says it best later on, when you ask him about the warrior caste:

Oghren: You get a sword or an axe and are told to go out and defend your city. It's the best thing in the world, that is until you try to live in the city you saved. I mean, they train you to kill, teach you to harness your rage at the first noise you hear, then try to set a hundred sodding rules about it. Like those Provings. Ancestors show their favor through the strongest arm, right? So why so many rules saying how to fight and when you win, and not to bloody kill? Killing's what swords are for! You toss a nug to a deep stalker, you don't expect it not to eat the thing, right?

while branka is lost and doomed in her drive to live up to orzammar's standards, oghren still has a chance for escape. after completing paragon of her kind, oghren leaves orzammar without any hesitation. becoming a surfacer is exile, it is to be casteless, and many dwarves are wary of what lies beyond their city, with that vast open sky above. but oghren doesn't hesitate, and he's hardly fazed. later, he expresses that he doesn't miss orzammar:

Oghren: What? Miss Orzammar? Are you mad, in addition to being ugly? They treated me like a puddle-fly back there. I'm never going back.

and that he prefers the broader, less strict world of the surface:

Oghren: No one has any idea who you are. Or what you're doing.

in essence, he's free. he has a blank slate. he isn't a member of the warrior class, he isn't the husband of a paragon, he isn't oghren of house branka. he is a companion to the warden, and will fight against the blight, but these are connections he chose and willingly aligned with. when all this is said and done, he can do anything he wants with his life.

oghren's personal mission isn't just about hooking him up with an old flame. it's about helping him get what he truly wants, if felsi will have him back, and a second chance at a life that will make him genuinely happy. in the awakening dlc, his personal mission then is about balancing the person orzammar made him into with having a family. everything that happened in orzammar has left a mark on him; settling down completely may never be possible for him. he feels like killing is all he's good at, and now he has joined the wardens as well, but with the right encouragement, he can embrace fatherhood.

it may not be the most picture-perfect ending, but it works. oghren has gotten to make choices for himself, and the grey wardens provide him an outlet, give him the chance to still fight orzammar's main enemy on his own terms, and to fight along comrades who are all equal, who see him as a brother-in-arms without any politics, expectations, or additional obligations in play.

in the oghren the family man quest, when encouraged to stay in touch with his family, oghren says:

Oghren: And hey, (chuckles) the little one will grow up thinking Daddy's a great hero.

and maybe that is all oghren needs to be happy, in the end, after giving all of himself to every fight he has faced: to be seen as a hero.

[the-cryptographer]

i do find solas distasteful on an in-character level as well, but i feel engaging any sort of discourse about that is a bit of a dead end for me when the meta foundation for any of it seems to be bedrock for other people when for me it's a pile of sand. mmm, like, with the benefit of hindsight i think a lot of the direction that solas and dai took the lore about elves in these games was foreshadowed as early as origins, but it wasn't until dai that i felt the value i saw in the way velanna and merrill's characters touched themes of cultural genocide, or what i found personally relatable about tabris - an ethnically marginalised a character from a metropolitan ghetto - were perhaps more in the vein of appropriation than representation. (a lot of people saw this earlier than me/had more experience in western speculative fiction fandom than me/weren't so cluelessly standing around wondering how anyone could design a white tabris/mahariel/surana oc without contradicting what i felt were the very obvious racial themes of the character (what did i expect players to do? did i expect them not to use the character creator as they saw fit? did i expect them all to not only have the same understanding i did about these issues, but agree on how to engage them? when bioware itself made the majority of elves in this game white or white-passing by appearances?) i apologise for my naivete, even if i won't apologise for finding meaning where i did and creating fanworks accordingly.) but, yeah, how can i talk about the way solas treats people in-game and my interpretation of his actions when, frankly, his entire character is anathema to what i found engaging and meaningful about the series to start with? that these were not a people hoodwinked by some magical evil pantheon ancient inheritors of the land, but one faction of it struggling in very everyday ways to assert their very modern sensibilities to a world insisting they were already dead - a thing of the past.

idk, i do think the fandom is a bit of a hive of toxic positivity. and all those posts talking about how everyone who doesn't love their favourite blorbo or favourite game in a series (or don't love them so wholly and uncritically) are big dummy meanies, are ultimately as toxic as the posts insisting you are bad wrong morally repugnant if you do love or find meaning in something. But yeah, I'm also not sure there's really much to be gained by levelling in-character critique at a character who has basically shattered the fourth wall for you. like i can say there are a lot of overromanticised ideas about the banality of this character's actions (could say this of most characters even those i love) but the romance is just kind of intrinsically gone once you're talking across a shattered pane of glass at someone who is still engaged by the screen, and at that point you're just ruining the enchantment for them.

[dark-elf-writes]

Thinking about how haunted Hawke would be after everything with Anders. Specifically seeing an Inquisition where the mages were welcomed in as equals and knowing how much it would have meant to him to be able to see it. Knowing that without him being the first stone that caused the avalanche there might have never been a world quite like this. Hating what he did, hating that the fight still isn’t over, hating themself most of all for not realizing sooner, for seeing the building blocks of this new world and wondering just for a second if it was worth it.

[pulling-a-jowan]

Imagine Morrigan leaving after the Warden refuses the Ritual, and having to hear about their sacrifice later on, knowing that she will never see them again. She lost the only friend she's ever had. She lost her sister

[shannonsketches]

something something foils moving in opposite directions Goku's always happy to seek and fight stronger opponents because he spent most of his life being the strongest guy in the room and Vegeta wants to be the strongest/is always exhausted to find stronger opponents because he spent most of his life having to navigate his survival around the whims of the strongest guy in the universe room and so Goku has a foundation of safety and stability and so spends his time craving challenge and adventure and Vegeta has a foundation of challenge and adventure and spends his time craving safety and stability and the overlaid section of their venn diagram is that the only way they know how acquire and maintain those things is through battle

[sangfielle]

I feel bad talking as negatively about dragon age 2 as I do because I want to be clear I dont blame the devs for any of the issues with it, the game is just a vastly inferior product to the first game largely because of the insane crunch time the team was on - they only had 14-16 months to create that game from start to finish. that being said: wow, this game is horrible.

[kwyoz]

omgg YESSS pansexual romances!!!

if any of you call them playersexual im going to fucking haunt you.