#just also tag da4

[blarrghe]

once again begging people to use the damn da4 tags instead of inventing new ones. or like invent new ones but also just tag the basics always. ffs.

[snarkspawn]

did I doodle this mostly so I had an excuse to draw this spite reaction image?

(YES HAHAHA YES!!!)

[emmavakarian-theirin]

so i managed to save edit my way into getting lucanis' romance scene to trigger and did some flycam shenanigans and discovered something

so usually with game cutscenes, all the characters involved will be loaded into that scene from the beginning but some would be hidden away off camera until they're meant to appear, and i thought maybe that's what was happening outside rook's room and that he'll just suddenly appear inside

but it turns out he's actually animated to stand there before he physically opens the door to enter (the door itself however is not animated to open and so he phases through it, although we do hear the sound effect of the door closing behind him)

and we know he has the line "i cannot believe we found you" but what we don't get to see is that disbelief on his face before he says it while he's entering the room

and then it cuts to when he is on camera and we see the weary teary eyed smile he gives to rook after he's made his presence known

and i know a lot of people like to headcanon that he's ended up in rook's room while they're gone at least once, either through his own intentions or spite's possession, and i think having this expression of disbelief as he walks in and sees rook is actually there this time supports it

[felassan]

(๑•ᴗ•๑) if your Dragon Age elf OCs were elves that had manifested from being spirits rather than elves that had been born, what kind of spirit would they each have been?

[lavellaned]

Solavellan fic recs

If you're like me and was disappointed by veilguard, here are some of my favorite post-Inquisition solavellan fics that are *chef's kiss* in my opinion.

Little Arrow by playwithdinos - post trespasser solavellan kid fic that is very angsty with some sweet, sweet papae!solas

Everything Stays by beaubashley - domestic bliss, Solas and Lavellan living in a cottage. They adopt a cat. The coziest damn fic.

Vir'vhen'an by RogueLioness - post trespasser. Well of Sorrows has actual consequences and Solas fucks up big time. Almost like the da4 regret prison but actually good.

Verhas'alhan - To Yearn for Wilderness by RosemaryBagels - Veil came down, Lavellan hides from Solas and makes a life in a little village. Solas is in prime yearning, sad, wet cat mode here.

Memory (series) by MistressDragonFlame - pre trespasser. Pure angst, hurt no comfort. Lavellan forgets all the events of Inquisition and the anchor is killing her. Solas finds out, bad times ensue.

Love Is Not A Victory March by Myrime - post trespasser, Solas and his forces are winning. Solas and Lavellan have a meeting. Angsty. Like something that I had hoped we would've gotten in da4.

Barefaced by playwithdinos - post trespasser but also Arlathan AU. Some time travel stuff involved. Lavellan has amnesia, but Solas remembers everything. Not finished but what is there is worth the read. Lavellan is Ghilan'nain's slave. Andruil is also there.

but never doubt I love by cedarmoons - Jaws of Hakkon angst. Post Inquisition, pre trespasser but with moments during Inquisition as well. Lot of angst, hurt but with comfort this time.

the diver's wife by magesamell - Lavellan makes herself tranquil kind of Seeker-style in order to defeat Solas, then needs him to come back to herself. Angsty solavellan road trip.

Hobo Apostate by broomclosetkink - Lavellan shows up when Solas is about to tear the veil down. Points out the hilarity between hobo apostate Solas and ender-of-worlds dread wolf Solas.

It Is Not Enough by NamelessShe - This is a chonky fic but it is one of my favorite post trespasser ones. Very lore heavy, I recommend this one for anyone who laments the lost lore and story threads in da4.

sleep like this by mortaltemples - The most da4 relevant fic on this list. Lavellan is a ghost, 10/10.

I will make you whole again by amorficzna - Solas tears down the veil, kills everyone, goes back in time to the beginning of Inquisition to be with Lavellan as Solas (...as he wanted).

Between Heartbeats by houndinghell - Ameridian/Telana parallel lovers are eating so fucking good in this fic. Lavellan makes the ultimate sacrifice to stop Solas during his final veil dropping ritual. Hurts so good.

The Healer's Bloodied Hands by geekyjez - post trespasser sick-fic. Classic hurt/comfort.

i'd rather flail like a mortal (than flail like a god) by crossingwinter - post trespasser. Angsty but with a hopeful ending, more hurt/comfort, another instance of Solas coming face to face with his vhenan's mortality.

The One Where Lavellan is a Nug by Feynite - I think this is my favorite solavellan fic of all time. Just please read it if you haven't, and read it again if you have.

[cheriboms]

i think they would be friends :]

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

over the last 3 months i have seen myself called (and sometimes blocked for being assumed to be):

a racist/a bigot

homophobic/queerphobic/transphobic

ace/demi-phobic

a fascist

for expressing opinions such as "I found the characters and background stories in Veilguard weaker and less interesting than previous Dragon Age games" and "i miss the amount of tension and conflict that we used to get to explore with the player character depending on their in-game background and life history" and "i did not feel Lucanis' character and romance arc was fully satisfying while I was playing through it".

and since this all started we now have:

seen the entire DA staff laid off from Bioware

heard many now-former bioware devs talking about how toxic the workplace was during the development of DA4

seen allusions to Bioware/EA executives overriding plot/plans that the Dragon Age writers/devs would have preferred

extracted large amounts of cut content from the games that show things like increased emotional response range for Rook, or alternate endings for companion arcs (NOT concept art content, but actual written and even voice-recorded dialogue in the game files), or increased impact from decisions you could make in the game

IN ADDITION to what we ALREADY knew about how many times the game changed direction/leadership changed/the mid-process layoffs, etc.

so can we maybe not keep putting "people who come into the Dragon Age universe from a place of love and were ultimately disappointed with the latest installment" in the same trash bucket as "dudes on twitter who were mad there were trans/nonbinary characters in their AAA game". can we FUCKING as a community acknowledge that there are many reasons someone might not jive with a change in direction other than jumping to "they disagree with me so they must obviously be horrible people, whose opinions shouldn't be counted anyway" (<-if this is your first impulse maybe examine that also).

i am so tired and i am never gonna get an apology for any of it but NOW that a lot of the people who were posting/reblogging these sentiments are hearing/seeing all these other things add up. it's like suddenly now it's "acceptable" to have problems with aspect of Veilguard or want more from it, because the writers/devs have shown they probably did too during it's creation. whereas when I said these things right off the bat (because the only thing we had was the game we got. not the game we can pretend they wanted to make instead) it WASN'T because apparently expressing opinions on my personal tumblr counts as "being mean to/harassing devs who worked hard on the game" or, again, assumed I am a racist/bigot/facist/queerphobic.

you're allowed to still like Veilguard. it's fine i promise. you can love the game if you love it and my not loving it has nothing to do with your own relationship to this piece of media. i am happy there are people who truly can enjoy it without massive Caveats. but i am still seeing like 3-5 posts Per Week express those opinions and it is really destroying my love for the community i once enjoyed.

[beaulesbian]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

[exhausted-archivist]

I Think Solas Was Never Supposed to Succeed in Tearing Down the Veil

This has been sitting in my drafts for like.... weeks. And I'm kinda just chucking it out there because I want to talk about it but I also don't think there will ever be a time where this can be discussed without strong reactions. So, I'm just gonna treat this with half seriousness and be kinda general? I'm down to discuss but I'm not here to deal with the pro/con Veilguard sentiments. I just wanna talk about the game in a mostly analytical way.

I think Solas poses a lot of cool narrative restrictions, contradictions, and irritations. He is a wonderful antagonist – easy to be against what he's doing but also you can, at points, see where he's coming from. Can still think he's smart/dumb/irrational/ect, but still see the logic. Whether its flawed or not.

That said. The endgame for Dragon Age was likely never going to maintain the Veil coming down. Now let me explain before you boo me for being right. For legal reasons this is a joke.

I've seen people talking about how it would be nice to see what Thedas would have looked like with the veil down and lamenting how a lot of things happened off-screen even though in any scenario the destruction of Thedas would have still largely been off screen.

But I always just think about how the narrative was pretty heavy handed in how it has always been characterized as a bad thing, a sort of fail state at best. Wiping out all life on the continent at worse.

Which leads me to the conclusion:

Solas was likely never supposed to succeed in tearing down the veil and it was never depicted as a good thing if he succeeded.

Now I'm going to stick some stuff under the cut, because spoilers for datv, but we get at least a sliver of what they were looking at in terms of scope prior to the switch to multiplayer, and even what they were thinking of on the heels of Trespasser before datv became Joplin.

To clarify the general timeline for datv you have: Prior to official project start (roughly 2014-2015) -> Joplin (2015-2017) -> Morrison (2017-2021) -> Morrison Single-player (Veilguard) (2021-2024)

I also, and I cannot stress this enough, concept art is not cut content. None of what is shown should be considered cut content. They were exploring possibilities and most of these came in very early in pre-production. They were not carried past pre-production for many reasons we don't know and might not ever fully understand.

Anyways, I'mma start with something I think is missed by a lot of people:

Most (if not all) of Thedas as we know it wouldn't be there. Solas stressed that the tearing down of the veil would kill a lot - if not all people - in Thedas. There is no guarantee for elves or dwarves, and certainly not humans and Qunari/Vashoth. This is stressed heavily in Tevinter Nights when Charter talks to him. (Emphasis by me)

She shook her head helplessly. “Because you told the Inquisitor that you were going to destroy this world,” she said. “Did you expect us not to try to stop you?” He sighed. “It was a moment of weakness. I told myself that it was because you all deserved to know, to live a few years in peace before my ritual was complete. Before this world ended.” “Then perhaps we are not the only ones you lied to,” Charter said. “You do not have to do this.” His look pinned her. “I have no choice. What I am doing will save this world, and those like you—the elves who still remain—may even find it better, when it is done.” Charter considered lying, but then she thought of Tessa, with her quick smile and strong hands. “There are those I care for who would not.”

For reference of those who haven't read the comics, Tessa is Charter's human partner.

He stresses this both when he mentions it in Trespasser. He knows his path to do so ends in death, he wanted the world to be at some degree of peace before most of it died - its why he helps reveal the Dragon's Breath plot.

Okay, so what about datv? They could have changed their mind, a lot of stuff changed between what we were given in Trespasser (2015) and Tevinter Nights (2020).

Glad you asked!

So, what we know from the artbook is that in this post-Tresspasser/pre-Joplin era concept art, they explored the veil coming down in a different way than what we got final game. Matt Rhodes also posted the piece with the artbook caption that this was a pitch that involved Solas summoning a titan beneath Minrathous to tear down the veil. [Source]

An artist's pitch for a potential end-game. Solas has raised the titan upon which the city of Minrathous had been built, in order to use its strength to tear open the veil.

So not only did they explore Solas continuing to use titans for his purposes. Repeating a sin he has regrets for – which would have been such an interesting thing to talk about with Harding or even to throw back on how Solas still throws away his morals and values because he's barreling down the "ends justify the means" highway.

But this also says a lot about how much he does not care to about the consequences on the modern people. I also think it negates what growth he could possibly has and would be in conflict with the established fact that he does try to mitigate the damage of his ritual.

Because Titans are massive. So much so that Valta talks about it in her notes after joining with the Titan. So massive that a Warden on her calling gets lost in one. Summoning one to the surface would be cataclysmic at best. These beings are larger than mountains, its even suggested some are as large as entire mountain ranges both prior to and in datv. Not to mention Titans prior to datv are at least 14 miles below sea level (deep as the Mariana's trench) according to the da ttrpg and the map of the Descent dlc.

Summoning something that large from so deep, on a coastal area would cause so much wide spread damage... It is irredeemable. Its unjustifiable. Which would make any positive ending for Solas feel undeserved and forced upon you. So I get why this wouldn't have pushed forward. Its too loaded and irredeemable that even if someone wanted to pursue saving him from himself – you can't do that after something like this.

I still think its a cool concept that also really throws Solas' whole "I'm not a god" and "the Evanuris aren't gods" thing into the spotlight. Because the series has repeatedly asked us to consider what we consider to be a god, and if we're being told this isn't an act of a god... what in Thedas is? But that's a whole other post.

Joplin Era Art

Concept art shows they were already exploring a world state where at the end of the game, Solas mends the veil. It is not labeled as a fail state. [Source: The Art of Dragon Age The Veilguard]

Tranquilizing himself. Solas recloses the veil around himself and the blight.

This next one is considered a fail state.

This sequence was an early fail state. Solas succeeds in his ritual, life as Thedas knows it has come to an end, and the ancient elves return.

This sequence of boards shows Solas meditating and triggering an explosion (the iconic one to Dragon Age that has appeared in every game, and we see in Trespasser. The beam and then shockwave.) You see people standing around an animal and then when the shock wave they are on the ground dead. Then it cuts to a colour row of frames where a halla is grazing and the spirit bodies of the ancient elves appear on the horizon.

Solas succeeding in tearing down the veil was always a bad end. People were to die in mass quantities. Everyone would be gone. South falling to the blight? Small potatoes, as no one from the previous games exists anymore.

Another exploration of a world state successfully stopping Solas shows him making Ghilan'nain and then himself tranquil as he seals the Veil around himself and the blight.

Solas tranquilizes Ghilan'nain (above) and, as his last act, performs the same procedure on himself.

We see him tranquilizing an early concept form of Ghil, and in the second image we see the same sealing imagery of the veil as the second piece of concept art that had him closing the veil.

Defeated, Solas enters the Black City alone.

Even early on in Joplin, Solas was going to return to the Black City. Solavellan or not, his defeat seemed to always remove him from the waking world. Which is interesting to consider.

After that, the artbook – and any other concept art that has been shared – doesn't show any indication that the broad strokes of what was laid out in Joplin changed with Morrison. Neither the multiplayer nor reverting back to single player.

Solas doesn't succeed to bring down the veil and end game Solas always ends up beyond the veil.

I do wonder if the how changed at some point, but I find it interesting that we have no public indication that they carried the idea of Solas succeeding in any shape or form through production. Or that he doesn't mend the veil in end game.

Which lines up with what was telegraphed from Inquisition forward.

To me, Solas never felt like he was supposed to succeed because the narrative made it very overt that what he was doing was devastating. It felt that there was no coming back from it. Thedas would be inherently so different – and you'd have to commit to either it coming down in all world states or none at all because it would be such a divergent thing.

I think the veil coming down is a fascinating concept and definitely one to end a series so you have to start somewhere else – either so far in the future or in the past.

[sotc]

Lucanis:

Rook:

[edda-grenade]

so i drew this uhhhh. 3 years ago??? and forgot about it CANNOT believe we're actually getting eldritch horror goat mom in da4 👏👏👏

bonus:

[emmavakarian-theirin]

ah yes i do love these bad ideas

[felassan]

The gameplay reveal.... I was so scared Solas was going to kill Varric holy shit

ask messages that haunt me.. 💔

[vigilskept]

a lot of this has already been said probably but what keeps getting to me about the statements around the worldstate decisions is that aside from all the reasons it feels really shitty as a player coming from previous games, it erases the interconnectedness of thedas as a continent

putting together the choices from origins & inquisition, you can leave ferelden with a monarch who will leave behind no heir who at this point will be appearing less and less healthy each time he is seen in public. you can leave orlais with an emperor who has effectively gained this position by coup and garnered support on the promise of restoring orlesian glory through war (against ferelden AND nevarra. btw.)

but sure. let’s say that’s a peripheral conflict for the north. already stretching the limits of believability given how quickly tevinter slavers and antivan crows were able to react to the unrest during the blight but sure. let’s say they have bigger things to worry about rn.

let’s consider the divine election in trespasser then. any of the 3 divines can propel the chantry to the very brink of fracturing based on their approval. if they do manage to keep it united, then you can have a chantry under divine vivienne who empowers mages more than ever before under the chantry or divine leliana who has abolished circles entirely and opened the priesthood to elves, dwarves and vashoth/tal-vashoth. because of the timeskip this is now a state of affairs that has existed for a decade. there is no conceivable way that the social & political implications of this have not reached across thedas

there’s admitting you wrote yourself into a corner with the branching and need to do some retconning to stabilize the worldstates… and then there’s saying “that was all in the South. it doesn’t matter here.”

[cursedcola]

Crow!Rook who is dedicated to Treviso is to Jacobus as Viago was to Crow!Rook when they first joined. Inspiring, a bit of a bad influence ngl, and a paternal figure within the crows that really screams ‘You may struggle to find your place, but I’ll be here to help you along the way’. At least depending on how morally aligned your Rook is.

(mini spoiler below the cut)

For an NPC - the kid’s varying dialogue as you progress through the main acts was a nice touch. His story felt very real - a child left stranded during the occupation. Filled with regret and loss. Unsure and looking to all around him for some kind of guidance - eager to do something yet limited by his capabilities. Looking for a goal other than revenge that he can achieve. Anything. - and children are indiscriminate when fragile like this. He’s looking at who’s getting the job done, not who’s in the limelight. It makes sense that Jacobus grows to admire Rook. It just hits more if they’re a crow.

The devs. gave him more side-dialogue than I was expecting.He had a lot to say, mulling over the Cantori Diamond’s banister, and if your Rook checks in on him often? You can witness how much they’ve inspired him and that he’s watching their every move within Treviso. Heck, with the way Viago likes to brag I’m sure he hears about what they’re doing elsewhere as well.

The whole point of his arc is to become self-sufficient and find a purpose. Hence why Jacobus founds the Egrativi house dedicated to orphans and those with nowhere to go. His story was my favorite out of all the NPC side quests.

Despite this resolve - while not an actual parent, I’d like to think Crow!Rook takes on a guiding role for him. Just like Viago and Teia did for them. What goes around comes around and all that. Although in my mind the kid forever has a mother-figure out of my Rook. With her staying alongside Lucanis? It just makes sense. The crows were ‘family’-ish before, although there’s still that inter-house divide amongst them. Yet the new era being brought in post-Veilguard? With the Dellamortes, De Rivas, and Cantoris getting linked? It just makes sense that the newly founded Egrativi house is a pillar in the family too. That’s four heads of crow households being connected through bonds other than contracts. Sure, there’re still disagreements and promising recruits being swiped from each other. Yet that’s just the crow’s nature.

In short. I love Treviso. I love the side quests we got there. I love Jacobus and the new direction laid out for the crows. Yes they’re all killers but who isn’t within Thedas at this point. My sweet child, if we could adopt you I would have smashed that button so hard it would break my controller and I’d be fine with it.

[sirotras]

just poking around frosty editor with veilguard is pretty neat, not all the information in the character notes can be taken as Fact of course, but its fun to see what you can get in there

based off the notes abt the inquisitor, it seems like they were at some point planned to have a more involved or direct role in the game. i get why that was probably cut for resources' sake, but i personally would have liked that

also it seems like charter was planned to be in the game, thats cool! she has an entry like most other npc's, as the liason between the inquisitor and the veilguard team

theres no way to tell when things changed over the course of development, but its neat to get a little glimpse, i think