#reasons like this are why hes the best romance in dragon age and i will take no arguments.
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vaguely-concerned ¡ 2 months ago
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I've been trying to figure out a dynamic between neve and rye that I find more compelling, because right now there's not much of anything there for me to sink my little teeth into. but I think I've landed on something delicious with the idea that especially after minrathous gets fucked, rye looks at neve and sees myrna -- someone he feels he keeps letting down horribly no matter how hard he tries not to and can't quite achieve the approval of/connection with that he wishes so it's better to just pull away completely and disengage rather than stay in that unshifting shame. neve is (very understandably) measured and distant with him after what happened, and he's flashing back to his student days of myrna gazing at the perpetually hungover heartbroken heap of a person of him on the other side of her desk every time he missed the deadline of a paper or project like '...can we at least both agree that this is. a bit disappointing. especially considering your potential.' (and him all smudged black eyeshadow and numb ruefulness being like 'sure that's a very kind way to put it myrna thank you'.)
aside from the 'if I let him get too deeply into this he'll go the way of brom and it'll be all my fault (again)' element, neve thinks rye is dismissing her and her city/being a bit callous in the same way he was after varric's death (listen. how fucking wild must rook's reaction to losing a beloved mentor seem to the rest of the crew who aren't seeing the blood magic paper doll ghost varric the whole time, especially those who got to see them interact. you WOULD think 'there's something wrong with this guy. putting the job first is one thing just not seeming to react at all is another this is fucking freaky', wouldn't you, especially after seeing the warmth in that dynamic in action beforehand.) perfect storm of two people who grit their teeth and turn inwards in pain deciding that not talking about it is their best bet (NEWSFLASH: IT ISN'T) lmao
(rye spent his last year of watcher training on a mostly joyless bender and then got it together enough to finish the eternal orb project last moment in a fevered near-sleepless week instead of the half a year that was intended. emmrich is both astounded and distressed to hear this. "a week? but -- but that is an astounding accomplishment rook!! and also why in the maker's good light would you ever do that to yourself?" ("well you see there was no one to stop me from doing it like that but me. and under those conditions these things tend to happen".) rye was working through/looking up stuff around transitioning and doing every kind of OTHER high level watcher research through that whole time, but ultimately he's an excellent watcher and a terrible student, at least under traditional methods. adhd from here to the fucking moon. touched by something akin to divine inspiration in moments of high tension that pulls all the threads into one coherent unbreakable cord, a bit of a frayed mess in most other settings. in our world he'd be dropping out of a masters program at the very last hurdle in this moment maker bless and protect him)
#myrna is actually really proud of him for pushing through and becoming a very fine member of the mourn watch#(and a good man)#but she is also. well. myrna. so she has never expressed as much to him. (she thought it went without saying. it did not!)#dragon age: the veilguard#dragon age#dragon age: the veilguard spoilers#dragon age spoilers#oc: Ellaryen Ingellvar#neve gallus#considering how satisfying the Arc with davrin has been I hope this can liven up neve and rye's interactions for me!#also very interesting and fitting b/c davrin will come for you where you live and go 'and hey btw ANOTHER THING --' no bullshit#which rye finds SO annoying but is probably why their relationship has grown so deep so quickly b/c davrin won't let him avoid him#while neve is ironically a lot more like him and it means they have a much harder time reaching each other b/c they're both so watchful#and guarded. they vibed so hard in the beginning it was all neve approves all the times b/c they have similar instincts. and now look at us#we live in the same house and politely pretend the other one doesn't exist. we're making ghosts out of each other!!!#explaining why he's semi-avoiding her. he thinks he's being thoughtful in giving her her space but uh. well.#perhaps more flight behaviour in that than he's willing to gaze at directly haha#rye looks at lucanis claiming he's a mess and goes 'oh buddy you should've seen me the first day in a year I was fully sober#and working on that fucking orb with head pounding and eyeliner running. even like this you're one of the tidiest#and most disciplined people I've ever met. you're literally fine.'#the reason the romance is so slow is not even mostly on lucanis I think rye is the slower to truly open up one in that dynamic lol#hey. I love rook. I love him so much. my trying his best underachieving babyboy who killed god when he got it together#I suspect this is going to be a situation where I've planned multiple other playthroughs#that will inevitably be hampered by '...but where is rye tho. I wish rye was here. does anyone else miss rye' lmao#for reference I've finished DA:O at least 4 times. and all four of them was sophia amell doing exactly the same things. I have a Pattern lo#a pattern I have only really broken in da:i where I have three inquisitors I care about sort of equally (adaar is my fave#but I have fondness for them all)#hawke I basically play as always the same person just AUs of him haha. what if he was a mage instead and it was somehow even sadder#that sort of thing
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angrykittybarbarian ¡ 1 month ago
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About that Dragon Age: The Veilguard audio web series
Thinking back about the marketing for DATV I now realize it was kind of deceptive.
No, it was not literal fraud. They did not make specific promises and then broke them, not explicitely and in a way you could hold them liable in court over. And I get when you are advertising your product you will of course highlight its most favorable aspects while not shoving its negative sides into everyone's noses.
However I do think that EA/Bioware did stretch out the boundaries between regular endorsement and fraud.
It started with the web series Vows and Vengeance they uploaded weekly on Youtube right before release. At that time I was still hopeful and excited for the game. And Vows and Vengeance all but encouraged that excitement.
You know why? Because, and this surprised me, it was genuinely good.
Vows and Vengeance functioned as an early introduction to the companions. While they were not the main characters they did play a key role in each episode. The plot was what could be typically expected from a regular DA installment. It had a dark, gripping story. The dialogue was well written. It dealt with mature themes, it actually discussed the classism of Tevinter.
Lucanis was a proper crow who killed a good man because he was hired to do so. He was positively morally grey. Davrin had actually strong opinions when the main character dropped the Dread Wolf's name. Bellara was interesting in that it became clear how she struggled with her ADHD without using infantile language, Scout Harding acted smart, mature and competent, Taash was a morally grey bad ass, fitting for a freelance treasure hunter and with smart and witty dialogue to go with it.
It was amazing, I found myself excited every week for a new episode. It got me interested in the companions. I already contemplated to romance Taash because they were so cool and charismatic in that series. I thought, if a FREE webseries that was made for advertisement was already this great then the game had to be nothing short of phenomenal.
And then it just...wasn't. There was nothing of the depth that came through in the web series. It was as if I was presented with a sample of a multilayered chocolate cake but got a dry brownie after I actually paid the full price for it.
The sheer audacity behind this course of action is still so inconcievable to me, I sometimes still wonder why they put effort into writing the free thing and not the product they demand payment for. I still don't get it. The only explanation is they purposefully put out a misleading sample to lure in the customers in the beginning to spend money, right?
This fraud adjacent behavior does not stop there.
Remember when we thought we would be importing our worldstates from our previous games? There wasn't even a question about it in the beginning because this is such an intrinsic Bioware feature. But then the info about the three choices in the character creator leaked.
Leaked!
Meaning they never intended for this information to be known pre-release. They fully intended to keep it secret until it would be too late. They also never said they wanted a soft reboot.
This is the conclusion the fandom has drawn after they destroyed their own lore and went scorched earth on the entire south of Thedas.
And the biggesr lie was when they said this was their best work. After all this!
This is the reason why DATV's shortcomings are so devastating. This is why so many feel like the game was a slap to their faces. EA/Bioware gaslit and manipulated us from the very beginning. We have been cheated and betrayed.
The last bit of trust I and many others had in Bioware, they mercilessly crushed.
I personally will never take even one thing they say at face value again. You can only trust their actions from now on.
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fangsandfeels ¡ 4 days ago
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I gained the next level of appreciation for how well Dragon Age 2 understood trauma, the ugly side of it.
I don't blame Fenris. I understand why after enduring years and years of abuse, humiliation, having your autonomy, your memories, everything that constituted you including your own name stripped away from you, you have no empathy for anyone reminiscent of your abusers - especially if nobody came to save you in the end and you are the only one fighting for your life and freedom. I understand why upon hearing how someone (who reminds you of your abusers) suffers unfairly, the only thing you can say is "Good" - and lash out at anyone trying to tell you off for it. Where all these fucking preachers were when you were suffering? Why even in the land that is supposed to be different from your own hellhole, your word and your experience still don't matter?
I don't blame Anders. I understand why after being betrayed by your own parent, after the decades of listening how you must suffer for the sin of being born, being confined to isolation, being treated like a monster while being a child, being denied the simplest of comforts, you fiercely defend people who share your abilities - because nobody else would ever look out for you and them. Of course you would clash even with someone who has legitimate reasons to be negative towards people like you because your own wounds sting more than their pain. You have dealt with the Chantry's vile propaganda for so long, you no longer take things at face value. Of course, Chantry would say that the foreign land where mages rule is foul, and corrupt, and full of blood magic and demons! So many times rumors, lies, and twisted religious depictions have been used to abuse, lobotomize, and enslave you, you're no longer letting it happen - and you only believe what you see and hear. And all you see around is injustice and indifference. And you're only the one screaming into the void, raging against the horrors everybody else is willingly blind to.
I don't blame them both for losing their mind in their own ways while the rest of the group silently wondered why they couldn't just be normal.
Personally, I don't think there was any chance for them to become friends or make peace during the events of the game. The "I suffered so I don't want anyone to suffer like I did" or "I'm a bigger person" are pretty lies and half-truths at worst. At best, they are mindsets only possible after someone who suffered finally feels safe and can be out of their survival mode. Which is not really true for Fenris and Anders, even during the final act of the story.
Even on high friendship or romance, Anders is still self-destructive, ready to die at Hawke's hands after launching his plan in motion. Even with a friend/lover at his side, he is alone in his head, in his vision of the world, in his pain.
Even with proper support and help, it takes Fenris three years to accept a relationship, but it doesn't change his perspective and if you don't have enough of his trust, you lose him to his trauma-based response.
I may be overthinking it, but I am truly thankful to the game for not toning down the complex, hard and uncomfortable aspects of trauma. People have always been in love with the concept of the perfect victim (who hates only "the right" bad guys and suddenly knows when to be tolerant, nice and accepting and doesn't say any rancid and hateful shit ever), but it became particularly aggravating lately.
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pebsterino ¡ 2 months ago
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Im a fan of Da since 2019, I've cherished all 3 games, my favorite one is DA2. I will not be persuaded by anyone that DA4 is a good DA game.
They have damned everything I loved about Dragon Age for... this???
This is no longer the dark fantasy I fell in love with; it's a game that feels more like a Disney movie, complete with writing intended for children. The way they treat YOU as a player suggests that you aren't capable of solving the easiest riddle in this world. The direction of the writing is baffling. The constant explanations for everything make my blood boil because I'm not a child, and I can think for myself. They claim this is an RPG, yet it lacks any meaningful RPG elements. You have no choice whatsoever; your character is scripted the way the developers wanted them to be. (By the way, I had no idea that no matter which option you choose, your character will always try to be funny in an unfunny way.)
As for the gameplay, I've never cared for the gameplay in any Dragon Age games, so I won’t dwell on it, but I’ll share my opinion nonetheless. I think it’s still an improvement from Inquisition, but that’s not hard to achieve. The game was designed to be played online, which is another insane thing to consider. Is a Dragon Age game supposed to be online??? It’s so ridiculous, and I have no idea how BioWare thought it would work when nobody showed any interest in the multiplayer mode in Inquisition.
The lack of choice and the absence of consequences for your actions are glaring issues. Not a single companion cares if you try to be "rude" to them because you simply can’t be. The fact that you cannot make any of your companions leave your party is ridiculous. You are forced to harden one of your companions (which happens in almost every title), and the only consequences of them being hardened are that they will refuse to heal you and their approval rating is slightly lowered. You can literally romance both of them as if nothing happened.
I'm tired of my companions constantly reminding me that they have issues and need to work through their trauma with my character. As someone who goes to therapy every week, I find this portrayal insulting and ridiculous. Therapy is neither fun nor pleasant. It isn’t something you resolve by completing two quests and reassuring a character that “it’s fine, we have each other, and I care about you; your feelings are valid.” It’s the most absurd echo chamber I’ve ever been in. The fact that none of my companions can stop making everything about themselves and get their shit together while a blight is swallowing the world is beyond me. Therapy takes months, even years, and it’s a deeply personal journey that friends cannot, and shouldn't, interfere with. The whole idea that my protagonist can choose what’s best for the companions is equally absurd. My companions should be making choices based on how I treated them throughout the game; it shouldn't be up to me to decide that. And the best part is that, in the end, it doesn't matter, because no choice in this game has any real weight. Honestly, it’s narcissistic of anyone to expect others to fix their mental health issues. This was a reality check for me when I was younger; it hurts, but it is what it is.
The writing of the characters is something I never thought possible, but here we are. Most characters are written as if they're afraid to offend anyone. My wise friend once said, "If you live your life trying to avoid offending everyone, you might as well not live at all," and that’s true. It’s probably another reason why I can’t take anything seriously in this game—because nothing is serious. Nobody talks like this ever. So much of this is self-indulgent writing, which is fine and valid if you do it for yourself, not for the masses who will play this game.
This is easily illustrated by the Commander of the Grey Wardens, who tries so hard to be the bad guy. He won’t listen to logic or reason; he’s just a children’s movie villain who is evil for the sake of being evil. Honestly, the dialogue speaks for itself.
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cadaveerie ¡ 6 months ago
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spoilers for DA2, DAI, DATV (from things seen in the first Dragon Age: The Veilguard gameplay reveal, and from the character designs and descriptions) and Tevinter Nights (The Horror of Hormak)
Trying to guess what gods Davrin and Bellara's vallaslin represent
Long post ahead. TLDR at the end!
I suppose that someone has already made some comparison like this, but I couldn't find any post that compares the images like this so I'm doing one!
Firstly, the source: The chart in which the vallaslin were assigned to their gods for the first time was posted by Matt Rhodes (post).
The vallaslin used in that chart are from Dragon Age: Inquisition, so we don't have an official confirmation for the vallaslin of DAO or DA2. The designs are different in those two games, but they're similar enough to make a guess. For further reference, aside from the confirmed DAI version I'll try to assign the vallaslin that I suspect might be Davrin and Bellara's to their respective DAO version.
Now, the post itself is under the cut:
Davrin - Ghilan'nain
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Ghilan'nain is the elven goddess of guides and navigation. She is often called the Mother of the halla—white deer-like creatures revered by the Dalish and used to pull their aravel, or "landships".
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Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Ghilan'nain's.
Ghilan'nain is my best guess for Davrin.
The reasoning:
Theme
The Mother of the Halla, a goddess closely related to animals, who loves and protects them, and who herself became the first halla. The goddess that created countless monsters so wild that she had to destroy most of them after her beloved pleaded her to stop (Codex: The Ascension of Ghilan'nain). And possibly, she might have been the one responsible for the events of The Horror of Hormak, a story in Tevinter Nights that narrates how two Grey Wardens find a temple that, coincidentally, is full of halla horns symbolism in its columns, and in which from a strange pool come out horrifying mutated darkspawn and monsters. There's also some other symbolism in the story that suggests that it might be Ghilan'nain's doing, but that's the most obvious one (aside from the fact that the pool is straight up creating monsters, as Ghilan'nain is known to do).
She is also said to help Dalish hunters find their way home when they're lost. And all of that -- the hunter, the monster and the animal elements, sound very accurate to Davrin, who is both a monster hunter and one of the Grey Wardens that were assigned to raise a griffon (perhaps he loves animals like she does, that'd be cute :D).
Additionally, if it turns out that it's indeed Ghilan'nain's vallaslin, we will probably end up getting this information in-game, since Ghilan'nain is one of the gods that Solas (and Rook) freed by accident. Oops.
Design
Based on the design alone, I think you could easily see a halla's horns in it. However, I think it can be a little hard to properly identify which vallaslin we are talking about by only looking at the forehead, since some of the designs look very similar to each other, especially in the forehead region.
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Having said that, I think that if we look both at his forehead and chin, the Ghilan'nain vallaslin design from Inquisition is the most similar to Davrin's, since both vallaslin occupy the forehead and the chin only and the "horns" are making similar shapes.
Other reasons
One of the reasons why I believe it might be hers as well is because it would make a very interesting conflict for Davrin. The monster hunter who has to fight this... monster-looking creature, that on top of that is the goddess his vallaslin represents?
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And it's even crazier if we consider what Solas reveals to f!Lavellan in one of their romance scenes: that the vallaslin are actually slave markings that nobles forced their slaves to get. I wonder what Davrin (and Bellara, and a Dalish Rook) would think if they knew this... And I wonder what a god would think if they saw an elf with one of their symbols on their face. Would they believe they're a slave dedicated to them? Who knows, if some of the theories out there are true, perhaps the gods themselves could have some control over them. Not sure how likely that is, but it would be interesting and add yet another layer of drama (and maybe it's reaching, but it reminds me to what happens if you bring Anders with you to the Deep Roads in the Legacy DLC, that he turns against the team. I wonder if something like that would be possible if you bring Davrin along and have to fight this goddess at some point. tbh I love this trope.. I know it's too extra but I hope it's true lol).
Other options
If not Ghilan'nain's then I believe the other most likely options are the following:
Mythal's (complex version), The All-Mother, the patron of motherhood and justice (the flip side of vengeance):
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and Falon'Din's, the god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond:
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And the both of them is because even if they have a cheek part that Davrin's doesn't have, it's similar enough to his in both the "horns" aspect and the chin. At least enough, I suppose... I still think it's way more likely that it's Ghilan'nain, though. For the rest I can't seem to find enough similarities to even suggest them... but here is all of them, in case you want to check:
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link!
Bellara - Dirthamen
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Dirthamen is the elven god of secrets and knowledge.
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Comparison to DAO's, this is the most likely to be Dirthamen's vallaslin, in my opinion. This image belongs to codexapocryphal, who made this post. After looking at all the vallaslin, I agree with them that this is the one that's most likely to be Dirthamen's.
I know that for this one, the DAO and the DAI one don't seem that similar to each other, but I believe that there's still similarity, especially in the cheeks. Since this is speculative it might not even be the right comparison, but it's not that relevant either way.
Dirthamen is my best guess for Bellara.
The reasoning:
Theme
The Keeper of Secrets, he is the god that gave the elves the gift of knowledge. Both him and Falon'Din, his "twin brother", would venture into The Fade often to learn secrets. He's also said to have gifted the elves the gifts of loyalty and faith in family.
It's pretty clear that this would make sense for Bellara, since she's a Veil Jumper, the people that explore the ancient ruins of the Arlathan Forest looking for ancient secrets of the elves. And Bellara herself is described in the EA website as "obsessed with discovering the ancient secrets of ancient Elvhenan". This god seems to be a perfect patron for her.
Contrary to the dynamic that Davrin might have with Ghilan'nain, the other god that escaped as we saw in the gameplay reveal was probably Elgar'nan (if you want to know why, you can watch this video by Jackdaw). So if Bellara's vallaslin is Dirthamen's, then she wouldn't have this sort of connection to one of the gods that escaped as Davrin does for having Ghilan'nain vallaslin (although it would have been funny, but I suppose it's better this way, to give each character their own personal struggle facing this. And at the end of the day, both of the gods that escaped are still part of the pantheon she follows, so it'd be significant for her as well regardless of who was released).
Design
Compared to Davrin's, this is a bit harder to figure out, as the two vallaslin look significantly more different. To me the most relevant part when we compare DAI Dirthamen's design to Bellara's are the geometrical shapes, especially the triangles, as this shape (in this form of... dots, almost) is never found in other vallaslin.
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And I think that the design in her cheeks is also kind of similar to Dirthamen's in DAI, as they are little triangles/diamonds that go across a longer curve. It could be a reach though... I'm not super confident in this one, but considering the other options, this one seems like the most similar.
Other reasons
Relevant to her overall design and her vallaslin, it seems that the triangle (and geometric shapes, but mostly the triangle) is a relevant motif for her. She's full of them all over her outfit... although as seen in the concept art below, it's not so much a "her" thing as it is a general theme for Veil Jumpers. I also suppose that they took a lot of their style from the elvhenan and their ancient artifacts that they found in the Arlathan Forest.
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Other options
The one that in my opinion looks the most like it could be Bellara's, aside from Dirthamen's, is June's, the elven Master of Crafts, a god of crafts and building. I believe this because of the little dots June's has under the eyes, which I think look similar to what Bellara has in her cheeks, and also to those she has right below her eyebrows. The forehead part also looks... kind of similar to hers. One of the biggest differences is that June's DAI vallaslin goes down the neck, and hers doesn't (and doesn't even have anything on the chin, but Dirthamen's DAI one also has something on the chin).
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I've also seen some people suggest Sylaise's (the complex version), the goddess of all the domestic arts, or Falon'Din's, the elven god of death and fortune who guides the dead to the Beyond... but to be honest I just don't see enough resemblance, and I don't think thematically it makes as much sense as Dirthamen's does.
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And once again I leave the picture of all of DAI's vallaslin in case you want to check:
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and the link, again!
And that's all! Sorry if this was too long!
Keep in mind that at the end of the day we know that the vallaslin are different depending of the region, so that's the in-game reason why they're different. That and of course, there can always be slightly changes, especially in this game since it's been 10 years since the last one came out.
Do you agree or have any other take? If you have other theories for this or you spot any mistake, please let me know! Thank you for reading :D
TLDR: It's Ghilan'nain for Davrin and Dirthamen for Bellara, probably? But we're just guessing here.
the DAI vallaslin images from the wiki, they were uploaded by KeladinStorm and  Evamitchelle so shoutout to them!
Edit 1: Confirmation for Bellara
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blingblong55 ¡ 1 year ago
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All too well- Simon 'Ghost' Riley
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A/N: this is some of me in writing and why I believe romance is not for me, not now at least...so enjoy :) --- F!Reader, angst? fluff?, toxic!Ghost, age gap, older boyfriend!Ghost ----
A/N: I know Ghost wouldn't be this kind of man if he was real but I have to break my heart with him...sorry
He is older than you, years ahead of you and has more experience than you do so when you broke up with him, it was hard to let go. You at the time were 20, he was 37. People always judged and of course, you thought it was because they were jealous not because they were seriously concerned. Still, in Uni, he wanted you to make him your priority. You always said no and for some reason, he would get mad about this. At first, he was the nice guy, he was perfect and it all made you more sure that maybe there was a future with him. Your free time was spent with him because somehow, he convinced you to give all your time to him. 
This all gets noticed by all your friends. Your phone, passwords and even social accounts get monitored and checked by him. It wasn't all romance anymore. It became a reward system, you gave him your free time? Maybe he would be romantic. You let him control your friendships? Maybe he would tell you more about his weekends. Soon enough, you noticed it. Simon became the villain and for good reasons. He played the perfect part all too well, but only to those questioning stares and in those moments, it was perfection. 
When the stares looked away, he was the same Simon that had your heart trapped at the top of the castle. His anger and manipulative tactics become the dragon. Everywhere you went, his shadows lurked for you. When he said he wanted you to think of him every second of your waking life, he meant it. Will he approve of me talking to them? Your mind always asked that, even if the guy was just a friend, a literal friend and nothing more, Simon crept into your head. 
His childhood memories, being told to you, maybe it was for sympathy or maybe it was to make you think he wasn't the cold-hearted man who made you cry on Valentine's Day. "Simon! Do you not understand how rude and mean that was?!" Your heart was stabbed by his actions on that day. "R/N, you are being dramatic!" A gift that you went out of your way for in the hands of a woman who is supposed to be a best friend of yours. Two people were lied to this day, you and the naive of your best friend. "I did it, it was for you! when I made it, my mind went to you! Gosh Simon, why can't you see how rude this was!" He walks to you, hands gripping your body. "You are acting like a goddamn child R/N!" He shook you, thinking it would make you understand better. "I'm not the one dating someone young now am I?" The anger that left your mouth, oh that sent him over the edge. "Don't you fucking dare!" he said through gritted teeth. "I'm still growing, you are a grown man who doesn't even think for a moment that your fucking girlfriend did something for you! I did that and that fucking girl thinks you did it for her!" You push him and he gives you that stare. The same one your father gave you when he was made and was ready to yell and punch walls. 
Three weeks later, that is how long it took you to do it. "I'm being serious Simon, it's over." Your voice is cold and he scoffs with a low chuckle. "Aren't you too young to make the decisions here, doll?" That voice, how he gave you a condescending tone and how he approached you. "I think I'm more mature than you to know this is wrong. Me loving you is wrong and it's dead...this is over." He shakes his head and walks away furious. For weeks he called you, maybe to haunt you but every time you answered, it was the same old thing. Random numbers during class, lunch or at night called you. When they stopped, you sighed and for the first time, you smiled, a genuine one. 
The day you broke up with him was still fresh on your mind. He was a strong man, that is no doubt, so if he wanted to, he could harm you so easily. Your friend theorised that he could make you disappear, all to keep the pretty little young lover near. It is true what they say, there will always be a reason men like him stay alone for long. There's a reason why they date younger ones and not women who know best. Sometime later, that best friend approaches you, unaware of what happened between you and Simon. 
"He told me what happened." But he told her lies, told her that it was you that was the problem. After she gave you his truth, you gave her the real truth. "So...the...gift, it wasn't really from him-" "No, and I'm not asking for anything back, not at all. Just, be careful, he...he isn't the man he says he is and please...please for your own sake stay away." That same day, you found out he asked me to meet up. I thought he meant as friends, since well I thought I was his friend." She wouldn't do it, you thought. "And at first I was okay with it until he kept asking over and over. I felt weird about it because it didn't seem like it would be a friendly meet-up, I said no, out of respect for you." You hugged her. "I know he was asking to hook up but I can't do that, not to my best friend." she hugged back and you two soon talked more. 
Simon, oh that man was a mess. He soon engaged when your young heart was still grieving him behind doors. His fiance tagged people you knew, those people, some, told you he moved on. This was a game plan. Tell the young lover what was lost and maybe, they'll come running to you. It hurt but it didn't work. You noticed how happy he was. How much more he changed and in your head, you asked why he couldn't change for you. You look at the lovers that pass by, how the guy treats his girl and for a moment, you wish that was you. 
Memories come every night. 
Winter. No one knew how your heart felt for him but he did. His body is close to yours as he wraps you with the blanket, he kisses your shoulder and smiles. The art of making love was something he was an expert in. 
Summer. He takes you on midnight rides. Holds your hand and sings along with you. Your hair is in the wind as his lips meet your hand. Simon, the man who taught you so much now making you cry on the way home. 
Autumn. Your dad heard your cries as Simon explained to you why he wouldn't go to you. A woman moans on his side of the phone, "it was the movie," he explains so easily. 
Spring. Filled with arguments, tears and sex. Manipulation works its way to your body. "Fuck you!" You cry as he yet again reminds you that you are young and stupid. He degrades you this way. Reminds you that he has the upper hand for being older than you. 
You later learn he had another girl while being with you. His free time is shared between you and some other girl. Your bed is drenched in tears of regret and sorrow. The headphones blasted the words your heart cried for. 
For moments, he was liberty, fun, happiness and love. Now, when you look back at it, Simon Riley was the man who lived as the dragon of the castle, the one you had to fight off to regain your heart. You hated him for what he was. Your heart, body and soul kept him like a sword oath. The same one that had you overthinking. Did you ask for too much? Were you even a good girlfriend? 
Get out of my head, you cry. "If we had been closer in age, maybe you would understand what I wanted." He texts you some random day. That night, your friends held you as you cried in some bar. The last time you saw him was on your twenty-first birthday. Your mum asked for something from the store, so as you walk down the busy streets, your eyes catch a glimpse of him. His gaze catches yours. It was then you learned that this would be the last time you cry over him. He is dead to you, something to be proud of. 
It was then he learned you were the only good thing he had. His ex-fiance out of his life, just like you but unlike her, you were good. 
"Simon!" Your laughter fills the lounge room. "I told you, doll, this is what you get for that tickle," Simon's deep laugh belonged to yours. It's a melody. The fireplace, the laughs, the kiss after and how you both panted from an intense tickle fight. It was rare but beautiful. You cup his face, "I love you," you whisper and he grins. "oooh I knew it!" he picks you up again and you laugh. 
This is the end of the warm time
As you walk past the park, you think of the old times. It is bittersweet. The way things ended, the way he loved you, kissed you, it was good until it wasn't. Simon Riley is a man on many faces, one you know all too well. 
Love, what a miserable thing to be a part of when you had him. 
A/N: so....there's that...
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inkyquince ¡ 2 months ago
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I'm going to make fun of so many peoole who don't like veilguard. Because....
Veilguard is the spiritual successor to Dragon Age 2
Inquisition is more like Origins, and I would call it the spiritual successor if it wasn't sufficiently lacking in other areas
Now there are dumb fucks out there who only like origins or only like inquisition. It's their entire personality when it comes to dissecting the dragon age games.
I like dragon age a lot because each game is a different genre. Origins is depression melodrama. 2 is a comedy that loves to stop and punch you in the gut every now and then, and shows the prime time when your friends are more your family than blood is. Inquisition is... A political thriller that happens to have magic (and the ugliest graphics. Bruh why is everyone but like three people so deep in the uncanny valley. Why is combat boring). Veilguard is getting to see what it feels like to inherit a situation outside of your control, it's more like an underdog story.
"it has cringy dialogue" and you don't remember origins? You think bioware doesn't dish out cringy dialogue for each game?
"the art style-" is STYLISED. Origins is good looking for graphics that feel outdated for 2009. But it's not realistic looking. 2 had it's budget slashed viciously so it does look wonky especially with their cameo characters. Inquisition, as I've said, feels deeply ugly because there is nothing stylised about it. They went for realistic and now everyones inquisitor is kinda ugly, sorry. People enter the uncanny valley, they always look better in concept art. The three prettiest people we have is Dorian, Cassandra and Josephine. Everyone else enters the uncanny valley of WEIRD looking. It's busted and I'm sorry. Veilguard? Fuckin stellar stylisation. The art, the environments, the magic, is so goddamn pretty.
"you cant control your compa-" yes you can. You can make them attack. Why are you sad about missing out on inquisitions boring combat where you press R. Wow. Amazing.
People have rose tinted glasses for these games. Play them from the first to the last game and I'd say veilguard is FULLY one of the best. I saw some loser on tiktok scream about the iron bull's signature being EXPLAINED in text and not shown?? Saying 10 years and for what?
10 years for a play through, start to finish, took me 55 hours doing ALL of the quests and exploring. From the amazing character creator and the hair physics that inquisition, 2 and origins could never make work. From the beauty of the backgrounds, how each location feels deeply lived in, compared to inquisition where new environments felt plastic and not real. For a finale that had me crying for 20 minutes at the choices I made and knew would make again. For the reveals, for the conversations, for the natural ending for Solas. I only cried in origins after my warden died. I teared up at Hawkes mother dying. Inquisition got no tears from me.
I'm sorry that you're hung up on small details. I have complaints too. Maybe a better fantasy term for trans and non-binary, but honestly the conversations that we're able to have about them? Deeply lovely. I personally wish that one day we can go back to the origins start, where we spend around 20 minutes IN our origin and then go frolicking. I'd kill to see that with the mourn watcher and crow origin so we can be excited when we see them again when we revisit the important NPCS. Personally do want the Lucanis romance to kick off earlier in the game, but he is one of the hardest ones to romance for good reason and it made sense for the character. I miss importing decisions but to be fair, the choices I made in origins wouldn't have shown up that much in veilguard, except maybe Kieran being in the background of some scenes at a stretch, but mostly for inquisition and Hawke. Varric obviously sees a lot of Hawke in Rook (just look at the dialogue wheel) and I wish we got to hear Isabella talk about them.
But these are so little. I have way more complaints about inquisition but I will still play it. I can acknowledge the flaws but if you hold it, or origins on a pedestal, that's just embarrassing for you, that you're stuck on a game, instead of being stuck on the series, in an excellent fantasy setting that keeps being expanded on.
Veilguard let's us say goodbye to Solas in the best way. There was NEVER going to be a happy end for him. Stop deluding yourself that the inquisitor and Solas would have rode off into the sunset. It's frankly embarrassing that themes from inquisition and veilguard flew over your head if you beloved that.
I've seen this same anguish over a sequel and it was for 2, after origins. Now 2 isn't the perfect game. It doesn't even have a proper title. But 2, a decade later, is well loved. It's full of jank, it's got strange coding, but the story has a lot of love. But it wasn't origins, so fans wailed and pissed. But it's a fan favourite these days and Hawke is deeply beloved and remembered fondly to the point that the possibility of their death in inquisition made an impact.
So, basically, get over yourself. None of these games are perfect and yes it took 10 years but I love it. I get to play as a crow for the first time, a faction I've loved since Zevran was able to rizz himself out of being killed. You can play as a Warden again, for the first time since Origins. Griffins are back and they're adorable. Their quest is heart breaking and anxiety inducing. You can play as new factions, ones we didn't fuck around with before, the shadow dragons, the mourn watchers, the veil jumpers. We get several amazing romances, that feel in character. Everyone is bisexual again but have clear preferences. Bellara has a preference for women, Emmerich has a preference for men, Lucanis has Never being in relationship. Taash and Harding might get together, Lucanis and Neve might get together. We get a companion that's trans, we GET to be trans for the first time. In inquisition we have krem but the developers never thought we would want to be trans, so I will happily take what we can get. Could it be better? Always. But I'm not stuck in 2014.
Take off your rose tinted glasses and go fuck that old man and maybe you'll lighten up.
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violet-moonstone ¡ 1 year ago
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THW Rewrite
More headcannons because I have not been able to stop thinking about this franchise for the past 13 years, and I have over a decade's worth of opinions.
I've already posted some of these ideas but ehh it's fine.
While I enjoyed watching it for the first time, THW was disappointing to me for a variety of reasons. (The music was probably the best out the franchise though, I'll say that) Grimmel didn't reach his full villain potential since the writers used Ruffnut's lack of judgment as his key to success instead of him being a capable strategist. (Also they did my girl so dirty. She may be a dumbass, but she's not an idiot!) I don't like that the dragons left after just 6 years. I don't like that all the riders except for Hiccup and Astrid are just played for laughs instead of shining like they do in RTTE. I don't like whatever the hell Snotlout's obsession with Valka was, and I didn't like Toothless' "romance" with the Light Fury. I hate that even dragons can't escape half-developed romance and a nuclear family as the ultimate character accomplishment.
So here are my edits (looking back, there's quite a bit going on, so it may need to be split into 2 movies or a short TV series)
The time jump happens between movies 2 and 3. (I want a full movie with bearded Hiccup and "Homecoming" does NOT count) 10-15 years have passed, so the riders are about 30-35. Zephyr and Nuffink are either little kids or preteens and are getting to an age where they're starting to train dragons.
Astrid is more rough around the edges like she was in HTTYD 1 and Rob/Dob/RTTE, not just Hiccup's supportive gf/wife. Instead of making her softer, motherhood has made her fiercer because she has more people to protect. Hiccup on the other hand is a doting father and can't say no to the kids if they give him puppy dog eyes: heart melted every time.
Toothless finds his original flock(?)/herd?/murder?/unkindness?/parliament? of Night Furies instead of just one "soulmate". Each can have their own personalities and roles in the group while Toothless is the baby. I think it would be interesting if, like Hiccup, Toothless was quite small compared to his peers - potentially explaining why he was on his own and got separated from the group before meeting Hiccup.
Dagur and Heather are brought into a council meeting as Berserker allies. Hiccup greets them in a way that clarifies things for audience members who haven't watched the show. I suppose Mala would also be in it too. I don't dislike Mala but I hate her and Dagur's relationship. More development needed there.
Gustav should be there too, still very much trying to prove himself as a dragon rider and occasionally messing things up.
In terms of the main plot and villains, I'm not too picky, although I've said before that I'm tired of dragon mind-control being the main villain tool. I'm fine with it if Drago comes back as the villain, but if not, the villain should just be dragon hunters or rival dragon riders who use their dragons for conquering/raiding other settlements.
It can hit pretty much hit the same story beats as before but with better character dynamics.
Make Ruff and Tuff more instrumental to mischief and redirection in a way that helps the plot.
Give Fishlegs more credit for his discoveries and record-keeping about dragons.
Snotlout and Eret are together (or implied to be together if that's the best we can get). Snotlout is also no longer Hiccup's rival - he should be his second in command. They can disagree from time to time, but ultimately, his loyalty is not in question.
Fishlegs and Ruffnut have kids who cause chaos with Zephyr and Nuffink.
It would be cool to include a couple characters from other parts of the world with dragon mythology. I understand that Vikings are white but if we have goddamn flying dragons, there's no reason there can't be visitors from other cultures (who aren't villains).
Ending option 1: The movie can end with the dragons going away, but now they've been with the Berkians for over a decade and it just feels more impactful.
The "there were dragons when I was a boy" line can either be Hiccup talking to his grandson after an even longer time jump, or Nuffink talking to his own kids about Hiccup's adventures.
Ending 2: the Berkians go to The Hidden World with the dragons. Hiccup writes a memoir to leave behind. We hear him reading from it at the beginning and assume that means dragons are going to leave, but it's actually a diversion to make people think dragons are gone so no one tries to look for them.
Ending 3: We accept that HTYYD takes place in a different world so we don't have to explain why dragons don't live among us anymore. The movie ends with Hiccup vowing to make the archipelago safe for all dragons and Nuffink and Zephyr take up the mantle of discovering new dragons. The dragons stay and they all live happily ever after, the end :)
I'm tempted to actually write this as a fanfiction but I already got a lot of writing projects atm. We shall see.
edit: I'm writing it
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vigilskeep ¡ 2 years ago
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Out of curiosity, what direction would you have taken Cullen's character in Inquisition? Or would you have included him at all? :3
oh man well
first of all i’m not sure i’m the best person to answer the question because i am profoundly uninterested in cullen. even in dao, his most cohesive appearance by a mile, where he features in my favourite origin, he um... he sure is there! he serves his narrative purpose! i don’t know what else to say
more in the spirit of actually answering your question, i think dragon age inquisition is as fundamentally incapable of making good use of cullen as a game that would make cullen part of its main squad inherently must be. dragon age inquisition is not capable of breaking down what is wrong with the templars, which is why you get... i don’t know why people call it a redemption arc even in quotation marks. he just shows up. he still supports the templars, and would rather you go to them, who shouted you down in the street, than the mages, who by all appearances straight up invite you over. he has not had to face the consequences of his work in the templar order or his treatment of mages; for all intents and purposes, from his perspective, all he did wrong was not notice that his knight-commander was an anomaly who was crazy. he is fundamentally the exact same guy who told me to my face mages were not people, except he’s polite about it now, because this is dragon age inquisition and we all just need to shut up and come together to defeat the Real Problems. it is completely canonically possible for him to have taken part in two circle annulments, one of which he personally instigated. dragon age inquisition does not care!
so to take cullen in a decent direction for his character—if you insisted on bothering to include him in yet another game at all—you would have to be writing him in a different game than the one where the hero has no choice but to lead an organisation with cassandra and cullen at their side, where every challenge to that organisation’s divine purpose is laughed off. (meanwhile one seemingly humble elven apostate, who actually has entirely other concerns, is the only compulsory mage. no rebel aligned mages are even optional companions in the game.)
i am interested in what it would theoretically take to write a compelling ex templar character. my own inquisitor is an ex templar! dragon age is a series designed to challenge your ideas of what backgrounds allies can come from, and designed to throw in your face that, for better or worse, good or evil, everyone on every side is also a person who believes they have their own reasons to do what they do. but if you wanted the ex templar character to be cullen, you have to challenge the foundations of his beliefs as a templar. you have to make him... actually regret being a templar? criticise the templars for anything other than imperfect service to the chantry and impolite wording of their deadly prejudices? you might even want to consider centring his personal quest on, hey, the terrible things he’s done and believed, not on the harm to the poor little stoic self-sacrificing templars
sorry this is coming across a little aggressive. you see why i’m the wrong person for the job. i don’t like cullen and he was an antagonistic force in the previous two games who my characters felt personally threatened by. i don’t see why i have to swallow that he’s one of the good guys now without him facing a single consequence, much like cassandra, who was introduced interrogating my friend. (but hey, this religious army has good intentions!) and i certainly don’t see why you would not only do all that but make him the face of a ludicrously flat, wish fulfillment romance only available for women of the conventionally attractive races (available for circle mages! with a throwaway line about how she’s not like the other girls to address it!) to get straight married and settle down with a dog and a picket fence. (i’m not saying there is no place for wish fulfillment romances whose only stumbling block is cutesy awkwardness. but that’s not what dragon age is for! where’s the teeth! it’s representative of a wider tone change in dai that i deeply dislike and if i get onto it i’m going to make this post so long. and with this man?)
idk i think cullen should have been the rogue templar breaking rules to hunt wardens in awakening and sigrun should’ve got to cut his head off. the end. that’s my ideal. sorry again
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Are there any companions you can't stand?
I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.
The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.
I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.
I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.
Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?
For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.
I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.
It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.
If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.
But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.
Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?
Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"
And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.
My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.
Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.
He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.
Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?
We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.
Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.
#asks#dragon age#dao#da2#dai#sebastian vael#aveline vallen#carver hawke#dai sera#cullen rutherford#vivienne de fer#i have to stop myself before i go on tangents about morrigan and wynne and anders and isabela and merrill and dorian and varric and-#literally everyone sksksks i can't help it#also on the flip side of this type of discussion i also love looking at characters that most people adore and discussing their flaws#like i love alistair he's my favorite companion in dao BUT it's easy to forgot that he can be just as petty and selfish too y'know?#if you don't execute loghain he can straight up just abandon you and leave and you'll find him in da2 as a drunk like... babe really left#and let you deal with the blight because he was so blinded by revenge and thirst for loghain's death and that's not great??#not really something that gets brought up because it's unflattering it's an ugly part of his character but it's there mingling with the goo#and if you have a good relationship with him but don't know how he'll react when you spare loghain that can be devastating too#but it's also super understandable WHY he reacts like that WHY he leaves even if it's a selfish move on his part and hurts you#i dunno i think sometimes we're scared to talk about the ugly parts of our favorite characters because we love them#and don't want them to be wrong especially in fandom with a lot of pissing matches and bad faith arguments y'know?#i dunno this is my spiel of the night: i love all my companions except sebastian who is just a character that exists to me#i wasn't joking when i said i'd like to be enlighted about sebby and his romance like....... explain elaborate educate
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agentrouka-blog ¡ 1 year ago
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Targaryens were not magically attracted to each other, it was social conditioning that made it ok for them to be so. Cultures where cousin marriage is allowed, cousins do feel attraction and love towards each other. Cultures where its seen as taboo, no one would even think like that. Its the same for sibling incest. No normal person wakes up one day and gets attracted to their sibling or someone they think of as a sibling, there are always some influencing external factors. You can say Jaime/Cersei but they were influenced by Tywin's ambition of wanting to be like Targaryens. His mentality that Lannister are superior to other lesser mortals is exactly that of Targaryens and this reasoning is what Jaehaerys used to justify sibling incest. So Jaime and Cersei literally grew up hearing this, why won't they think its okay for them to love each other like Targaryens, after all their father wanted to be like them in all other aspects? This is why I think its impossible for Jon to ever feel attraction towards Arya and vice versa, because they wholeheartedly think of each other as siblings and they have grown up without any conditioning that makes sibling incest okay, meanwhile with Sansa there is always the added factor of them considering the other 'half' sibling, its not always spelled out but they are written in such a way that we do get the gist they love each other but its not the same as with their other 'actual' siblings. George has really done his best to lay the ground to make any romantic relationship between digestible lmao.
(post referenced)
Hi anon!
Ah yes, that non-existent magical Targ attraction that is invoked to cover up the level of generational trauma and legacy of abuse and indoctrination that informs these "choices".
I mean, this sure as hell is not meant to be viewed with alarm, I suppose:
Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian. (AGOT, Daenerys I)
If he had been nicer to her, would Dany have coped with this expectation by talking herself into a devoted attraction to her heroic older brother who protected her all her life? Much like Sansa invented a palatable reality with Joffrey after the Trident?
And the thing is, never mind Cersei and Jaime those two warped Targ-cosplayers, even relationship between Jon and Sansa is absolutely due to a traumatic fracture within the Stark family dynamic.
Ned's claimed infidelity, Jon's resulting bastardy, and most of all the patriarchic power Ned had, to place Jon into the rest of their family without any explanation or any consent from Catelyn... that's a massive ripple in what otherwise masquerades as harmonious and respectful mutual treatment. It introduces the brutal power differential between men and women, between upper and lower classes right into the middle of their childhood home.
For most of the siblings this is a thing they block out enough to foster a close relationship with Jon - and they ignore or cannot yet grasp what this truly means for him, for Catelyn, for society in general. But they do know, from Bran to Arya to Robb, they know.
And so does Sansa, and her comparative isolation from the boys and identification with Cat's role makes her perhaps the most aware of what Jon represents, for himself and for her. Double realities and denial are a defensive trait she develops. As is her idealisation of romance.
His identity and the way he grows up privileged but without permanence - it others Jon. Not only to his family, but also to himself, who grows up with (to him) shameful longings for unattainable things, and a fear of the social prejudices against his core character. He has no normal relationship with himself, with his desires, with his identity.
The mix of distance and closeness, the discomfiting breach of a social boundary in the pursuit of a deep-seated longing for repair... that's definitely a part of Jonsa. They are receptive to each other in a way they normally would not be. They are a bit wonky that way. But unlike with the Targaryren practice of incest, theirs is a voluntary, spontaneous attraction they will freely struggle with or act upon at their own volition.
Basically, while the relationship becomes "magically" okay through the surprise revelation of RLJ, we are still talking about an attraction and romance that would not be happening if they had not also grown up warped at their core.
Luckily for them, there is that escape clause.
You did it to yourself, Ned.
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therookandthecrow ¡ 2 months ago
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Of course, the only female Rook I'm planning to romance Lucanis with is the closest to a self-insert as possible, without actually being like me. I've given her a lot of my darker personality traits, many of which I have been working on, in earnest. My looks, however, not at all.
Actually, she's based off one of my Tavs, Iellana in looks and personality [for reference, Iellana is a Sharran priestess/'confessor' sort - almost a Dark Justiciar]. I hope I can give Nirasha a dagger tattoo in Dragon Age, because she is essentially her.
There is a lot more about her under the cut. Before that, enjoy my screenshots of how her counterpart looks in Baldur's Gate 3.
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Nirasha is coldly distrusting, harsh, and pessimistic, likes to do things 'by the book', she has a resting b---- face [more like a resting murderer face, if we're being fair], she's stubborn, fiercely judgmental, she has an innate sense of superiority, sometimes to the point of arrogance!
She's also very traditional in the way 'this is how we have always done things, why do we need to fix it', very rigid and stern-minded, likes to have every thing accounted for, she does not tolerate mistakes, especially her own. That, and she never forgets a transgression.
In fact, it is a comfort for her to go to sleep imagining the ways in which the people whom have wronged her could potentially die, especially at her own hands. Vindictive is her middle-name. She really needs someone to either reel her in or to encourage her murderous ideations. *cough* Lucanis *cough*
Her demeanor is best described as cagey, guarded, curt, no-nonsense, distant, aloof, unnerving almost. In her other iteration, she is literally a Dark Justiciar of one of the most evil fantasy Gods possible. Don't be fooled by her Vallaslin of June in Veilguard, she'd have got one of the Forgotten Ones, if it was an option.
While judgmental of others, she is more judgmental of herself. A perfectionist, I am not, but she is one. Her death-glare doesn't help either. She has a way of looking at people that makes a lot of them think that she hates them. That is only true half of the time. She actually self-flagellates, emotionally - she is a masochist.
She's coolly sardonic, and on the outside, she appears to be dismissive of other people's feelings. However, she is quite sensitive, especially to criticism, deep down. When wronged, she is ruthless to the point where she won't tolerate anything less than the ruination of those whom have done the wronging.
Forgiveness is not a strong point. I've thought of her as the woman with daggers for eyes. It's hard for her to find the glass half-full, in the proverbial sense. One of her worst traits is that she gives a 'fifty reasons why you suck' speech to people under the guise of being helpful.
While she's good at problem-solving, identifying-patterns and putting them into words, she has a lot to work on in her delivery, because the way in which she words things has hurt other people in the past, even though it was not her intention. It doesn't help that she smirks instead of smiles.
Lucanis may end up "fixing" her, because I like flipping tropes and expectations around, and I've seen too many "I can fix him" posts about Lucanis before the game is even out! I like the idea of Lucanis, even with his own issues, being the person she'd needed all along, while she is the person he's also needed.
She's not a vessel for negative traits of my own, and those which I do not have, but she is intended to be a study of a female character with a lot of traits often associated with male characters. She's supposed to be an asshole who eventually accepts her soft side, and lets herself be vulnerable and breathe for once in her life.
Lucanis is the one who prevent her from succumbing to the darkness inside of her and turning into a monster of a person. I'm actually planning to play her BG3 iteration again sooner than later and romance her with Gale to mirror her relationship with Lucanis in Veilguard.
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moonlit-midnight ¡ 2 years ago
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A Wistful Heart Concealed by Thorns
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Characters: Malleus Draconia.
Genre: AU, Friendship, Angst, (Romance in the Flashback only).
Summary: After the death of his mortal lover, Malleus swore he’d never get close to a human again until a certain bright child waltzed into his dreary life.
Warnings:
Strictly platonic, reader is a female child.
The woman in the flashback is an ancestor of the reader.
Set in the real world where magical creatures exist.
—
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t make you happy.” Weary, storm-gray eyes looked at her beloved, her frail hand reaching out for him. “I love you, but I couldn’t make you happy.”
“Nonsense! You’ve always made me happy, my dearest. There was never a time where you didn’t fill my life with happiness.” The broken-hearted man gently interlaced his fingers with his dying lover.
“I’m glad to hear that.” A warm smile graced the woman’s lips. Even when her sickness worsened, her smiles never lost its radiance.
She casted a long, loving look at Malleus before slowly closing her tired eyes.
As the quiet night stretched on, the dragon fae didn’t let go of his precious mortal lover’s hand.
Even after she uttered her dying words, even after she whispered her last I love you, and even after her hand had gone cold and lifeless in his grasp, he remained by her side until the sun of the next morning rose up in the skies of the thorny kingdom of Briar Valley.
She was his first love.
She was his light, a walking gleaming sunlight in human form, and the kindest soul to ever grace his dull life.
She was a beautiful stranger who came from another world, and his ardent lover whom he loved with every beat of his heart.
But now she was gone for eternity, to a place where he can’t follow.
★ —
Centuries later, Present time (Somewhere in the human world).
With a happy skip in your steps, you bounded through the glass doors of Solace Library.
“Fair morning, Mr. Draconia!” You greeted cheerfully, twirling in delight.
Oh you had a flair for being dramatic, waltzing in libraries and bookstores as if you were in a musical.
“If you’re here to annoy me with your endless tales, then I don’t want you here, child. You should be in school, not wasting your time elsewhere.” Malleus didn’t bother sparing you a glance as he continued sorting things on the counter. 
“I’m here to return the fairytale collection I burrowed last week. I’m homeschooled by the way, and my classes start in the afternoon.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Instead of sulking at his response, you let out a light laugh.
Oh the ever so cold, blunt and aloof Mr. Draconia.
It had been ten months since you came across Solace Library and attempted to be friends with him, but your efforts were unsuccessful.
The man wasn’t willing to befriend a mere child, let alone a human.
Such a peculiar kid you were. He never understood why would a child go such lengths to befriend someone who wasn’t her age, and someone unapproachable like him.
“I enjoyed these fairytales. They’re the best I’ve read so far.” You carefully placed the colorful stack of books on the counter.
“Have a good day, mister.” You waved at him, a sunshine smile painted on your adorable face as you exited the library.
Once you were out of sight, a wistful look flashed across Malleus’s youthful face. He always wore the same expression every time you left his library, and he couldn’t fathom the reason behind this longing.
Could it be possible that you were a descendant of his departed lover?
His striking green eyes widened at the thought, but he quickly dismissed it.
★ —
You took notice that Malleus always had a distant look on him, like he was yearning for a certain someone and homesick for a faraway place.
His ethereal eyes were vibrant, but it was filled with centuries of grief, perhaps the saddest eyes you ever gazed upon.
You wondered why he was withdrawn. You couldn’t comprehend why would he open a library in the human world if he was going to keep his distance and not interact that much with the customers.
You weren’t a nosy child, but you were curious about why his heart was ice adorned and concealed by thorns.
He truly was a walking enigma; the most mysterious faery you ever met in your eight years of living.
Malleus didn’t realize that his eyes were overflowing with tears until he saw you dabbing his cheeks with a handkerchief.
“Is there something about me that makes you feel sad? You were staring at me when your eyes suddenly pooled with tears.” You tilted your head, asking in a gentle, hushed tone.
Malleus usually dodged most of your questions, but this time he didn’t avoid you and he didn’t divert his cold gaze either.
“You might not believe me, child, but your presence makes me happy.” He replied, voice steady and honest.
“Really?” Your eyes widened in surprise.
“Yes, daughter of man.”
“Then why do you look melancholic when I’m around?”
“Because there’s something about you that seems familiar. So familiar that I can’t help but get swept with sorrow.” Malleus took a deep breath.
“Are you implying that I remind you of someone?”
“Yes, you can say that. Your face sort of look like the mortal woman I once loved very dearly.”
In that moment, Malleus Draconia wanted to scoff at himself. He swore long ago not to open up or get close to a human ever again.
Yet there he was, revealing the most intimate parts of his thorny heart. The very parts which should’ve been buried deep in his graveyard of secrets for eternity.
“What was her name? If you don’t mind telling me.”
“Her name was (…).”
“Did you say her name was (…)?” You gasped heavily.
“Does it ring a bell?” Malleus was baffled at your shocked expression.
You nodded, gray eyes sparkling. You told him that that the woman he once loved was possibly one of your ancestors from your father’s side.
There might be thousands of women with the same name, but you were sure that his late lover was definitely an ancestor of yours.
Malleus didn’t doubt you. You also had the surname of his lover, and you even shared some similarities with her.
You had the same sharp storm-gray eyes, the same bright sunlit smile and the same cheerful attitude.
It was a wonder how you held pieces of your ancestor in you.
★ —
Later that day, Malleus apologized for all the time he was cold towards you, and for constantly rejecting your friendship. He admitted his guilt that he only did that to protect his heart.
He did it out of fear to get attached again; an ephemeral attachment that always resulted in bitter sorrows.
Throughout his life, he watched his close humans friends die right in front of him, and after the death of his beloved woman, he felt tired making connections with humans.
“You’re such a funny man, mister!” You piped in after a long silence.
“Why do you say so, daughter of man?” The dragon fae chuckled, raising a brow.
“You said that you didn’t want to connect with humans any longer. Yet, you had the audacity to build a library in the mortal realm.” You exclaimed, laughing cheekily afterwards.
Upon hearing your remark, Malleus found himself laughing genuinely for the first time in forever.
It was a happy sound, and a wonderful feeling which made him hope to experience this kind of happiness once again for the many decades to come.
“I was only fulfilling a longtime dream.” He uttered, voice filled with softness and eyes gleaming with fondness.
Once upon a time when his lover was alive, Malleus dreamed to visit her world, build a library and manage it together with her.
Although he couldn’t do it with her, he still fulfilled the dream anyways.
He named it “Solace Library” in loving memory of his lover who used to call him Solace instead of his name.
Malleus was her solace and her place of safety after all.
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necromancy-enthusiast ¡ 3 months ago
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My first playthrough of Dragon Age Origins was hilarious for many reasons up to and including I managed to totally miss Leliana and not realize I missed out on a party member until after it was too late to recruit her, but I think my favorite is how Alistair spent most of the game kinda hating my warden despite them mostly agreeing on how to handle things and her being polite to him, he just didn't like the company she kept more than anything.
Morrigan was the cool bad girl apostate to her sheltered nerd circle mage and she very badly wanted to impress her (and also she had a crush on her but Bioware wants to convince us Morrigan is straight so whatever). That was the first straw. She wanted to save Jowan because yeah sure he kinda betrayed her in the mage origin but you see, it's hard to just drop your best friend of over a decade who was the one and only person who stood between you and getting bullied when you were first brought to the circle as a little kid, and also I have a strange weakness for the fuck up best friend who everyone sees as inferior to the protagonist and betrays them but comes to regret their actions trope (a very specific trope but more common than you might think, I can think of five examples off the top of my head), and then Sten aka the guy that went into a blind fury and murdered eight people joined the party and she was weirdly tolerant of his many, many, many idiosyncrasies, and then. Of course. Dear Zevran. The most bewildering of them all.
Honestly I can't exactly blame Alistair because if that was me as a real person with real world logic looking on I'd also be more than a bit leery. But that's the nice thing about fantasy, if you don't want to then you don't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of your character who's mostly neutral good and generally dislikes killing people unless they really have to romancing a non-repentant assassin who talks about continuing to be an assassin after he's freed from the Crows like he's talking about opening his own business after being stuck working at a shitty exploitative company in an industry he's otherwise passionate about. In the years since I've played that run I have spent quite a lot of time internally addressing it and trying to have it make more sense from a narrative standpoint anyway, though.
... Also clearly none of this stopped Alistair's romance from kicking in when he finally started liking me again around Denerim not long before the Landsmeet, because just barely after I finished the whole string of events with the earring Zevran tries to give the warden and the warden is like 'I'm not gonna accept this unless it actually means Something and you admit it' concluded in my favor like. Alistair buddy boy you're a bit late. Also why do you still have that rose from Ostagar, it's been months since then, have you been carrying a dead rose in your pack for months Just Because? Like this was clearly supposed to kick in a lot earlier in the game but alas, the devs didn't take people like me into account. I bet you feel really stupid now, don't you Alistair? Now we both feel stupid and uncomfortable. Amazing to think that this kingdom wasn't overrun by the darkspawn already between the two of us being its only hope. Truly amazing.
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eastern-lights ¡ 2 months ago
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I've already compiled my thoughts on Dragon Age Inquisition and Baldur's Gate 3 and what I think DAI does better. Now that I've played through at least the first third of Veilguard, I have thoughts on how it compares.
(Spoilers for Veilguard up to the Hossberg encounter, but nothing major for the story, mostly companion dynamics)
Basically, while I do have my gripes with Veilguard (mostly concerning the tone), I was pleased to see that the writers doubled down on most of the things from Inquisition I considered to be superior to BG3, namely how well the protagonist fits in with the rest of the cast and the party dynamic.
Rook is fundamentally different from Tav. While Tav is a character created by you the player, Rook is a character created by the writers, customized and played by the player. The former approach offers much more options for customization and characterization, but it also means that Tav is at the same time everything and nothing. In order to give the player this kind of freedom, the world must react to Tav in a universal, and sometimes bland manner.
Because Tav has no set character, the reasons for people liking or disliking them must come from Tav's deeds within the story itself or be so generic as to be applicable to anyone. Why does Gale love you? Why does Shadowheart, or Astarion? Mostly because you stuck by them, you helped them and, in the case of the former, weren't a complete asshole. Which, as much as I love the romances in BG3, makes them a bit shallow at times.
DATV imposes limits on the player, but thanks to that, it is able to make Rook a true character within the story. There are a few key character traits that are true regardless of how you play them that are necessary for the story to make sense: Rook is a rebellious, unpredictable, compassionate and cunning.
The fact that Rook can't really be evil bothered a lot of people, but it really works for this narrative in my opinion. The fact that they are compassionate, chaotic and snarky makes their friendship with Varric seem deeper and more plausible - they are basically Varric junior. You can tell exactly what made Varric choose them.
It also allows the writers to work with the idea of Rook being Solas' mirror. If Rook's snarkiness and compassion makes them akin to Varric, then their cunning and disregard for authority makes them akin to Solas.
And it shows. I think everyone can agree that the interactions between Rook and Solas are some of the best in the game. You can clearly see that Solas sees himself in Rook, and this could never have been possible if Rook was a blank slate like Tav.
The party dynamic in DATV really is something else. Admittedly, I would have preferred to have more conflict between the companions, but no one can deny that their dynamic is deeply developed. You know exactly how they feel about each other. By the time you recruit everyone, you know how Lucanis feels about Neve's dietary habits ffs, and none of it feels like needless exposition. It just exists in the world.
It makes the group feel more lived in, like Rook isn't the centre of everything. I loved the fact that if you take Bellara along to recruit Emmrich, she is the one who takes the lead, and he greets her first and Rook is for a moment reduced to a sidekick. Bellara and Emmrich know each other, of course he's going to talk to her rather than some rando, who just happens to be the player character.
The fact that some of them fall in love with each other if you romance neither is just icing on the cake.
BG3 for all its virtues, lacks that. I legit have no idea how they really feel about each other, other than Lae'zel and Shart's conflict. What comments they make about one another are a one line affair, sometimes delivered, I am sad to say, with some of the least convincing voice acting known to man ("Oh no! Poor Astarion! He will not see the sun again!" and variations thereof are the greatest offenders, seriously, what happened there, I know these VAs can act better than this).
You never get the sense that these people care about one another, either positively or negatively. They can potentially all be Tav's friends, but they never feel like each other's.
While BG3 and DATV are fundamentally different in concept, they do not actually differ in quality that much. They both contain both award-worthy writing and immense cringe. I believe the reason one is currently regarded as better than the other has more to do with the current preference for player freedom over characterization of the cast as a whole.
Ultimately it is all about personal preference.
The fact that it's not BG3 does not make DATV a bad game, or a bad RPG.
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felassan ¡ 2 years ago
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A few more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -
Chat said "I would love to see Shale again, but I'm not counting on it." Mark replied "Shale is quantum."
"I don't think we'll ever see broodmothers again. People trapped in statues, sure, I could see that. Desire demons would definitely get a redesign if they ever came back for sure. You could do something like the Fear demon in DA:I where it sort've, you could do it in conversation where it looks like something different to everybody. That might be an interesting approach. Yeah, or Desire demons mirroring the player character's romance, if you had a romance then you'd know what would work with the character."
"I don't think the character artists are happy with the sort've giant bulldog look of mabari. I think if we got mabari again it would be [inaudible]".
"My original plan for Joplin was to make a toolset, find a talented group of people and essentially uplift them into an indie studio and help them make a remake of DA:O. So if that had been the case, the combat would have been much more modern. If you were to Deadspace[-style remake] it, I don't know what you'd do, because remaking DA:O with modern graphics and tac cam would be expensive. If you go to a remaster you could just up-res all the textures and call it a day, that's the easy one, it's easy to see what you'd do with that. If you're doing a remake I'm not sure where you land. Like do you go more action RPG? DA:O was considered an action RPG in its day."
Chat asked "Is there a plan to include any of the old main player characters in the next games?" Mark replied, "The problem with the Hero of Ferelden appearing in future games is they don't have a voice and everyone else has a voice now, and they could very well be dead. So it's sort of a difficult one. It was discussed for DA:I when you're in the Fade, but. If you're gonna bring them back you gotta figure out what to do, it could be done. Bringing them back now, I think what you would do is make it so that, 'surprise! they're still alive' and they are mute now because of something to do with the Blight. I mean you're kind of retconning that in, but you could 'a wizard did it' into making them mute. The other thing would be, their appearance is definitely lost, so you would have to recreate them. But that's already been done, we did that with Hawke."
Chat commented around this point, "Same problem with DA:D and the Inquisitor, but it would be weird if they didn't have any role at all." Mark said, "With the Inquisitor, at least you can just assume that the events of Trespasser happened whether they played it or not. So they have no arm."
"The Dead Space remake is designed to feel like the original, not be the original. I don't know that you can do that with DA. You can remaster, in which case it is the original, just pretty. You can remake, but I think remaking and making it feel like the original isn't really possible. So if you make a remake it's more likely to feel like DA:I or like whatever DA:D ends up feeling like, more than it is to feel like DA:O. One of the reasons why it hasn't happened is, Mass Effect is like, if you find a partner that knows how to do Unreal, and there's a million of them, then you know what you need to do. It's on early Unreal 4, especially ME1, so it needs to be updated, so you need to touch a bunch of stuff and find stuff that's been lost. You know the best version of the combat, so you update everything to that. With DA:O it's like you could just up-res the textures, but first of all there's no partners out there, basically, that know how to use Eclipse. The pitch was to take DA:O and DAII and you basically remake them in Frostbite and you make the 'Champions Trilogy', you retcon it into a trilogy. Like it's three different player characters, 'this is their rises', and you remake it."
"There was some appetite after Joplin was gone, there became some appetite for releasing the toolset for Frostbite, but the two things didn't line up."
"I like Absolution, I feel like it could have used one or two more episodes but you know, I get why it didn't get that. Oh yeah, it's definitely a love letter [to DA]. I can't imagine someone watching Absolution if they didn't know anything about DA and it making a ton of sense, because it's talking about an 'Inquisition' as if they're the good guys, and the Tevinter Imperium isn't really set up as being that bad until it suddenly is really bad, so I think you kinda need to know what's going on coming in. Netflix is kind've throwing a lot of things at the wall to figure out what works. Disney is eating their lunch and Disney controls all the IPs." Chat here said "The sad thing is Netflix is notorious for cancelling things that are loved." Mark said "It's possible that Absolution was relatively cheap, but Netflix's track record is, that unless it was very cheap, I can't imagine us [inaudible]. I don't know the numbers on Absolution. I mean they set it up to make it so they could do a second season, but yeah, I don't know if they were."
"Absolution would have been a relatively cheap show but that doesn't, so like that's the weird thing, Netflix will do multiple seasons of things. It's like a cost-benefit analysis. Something with lower ratings that was cheap enough could get a second season versus something that was really popular but cost a lot could get cancelled. Absolution was pretty cheap, but I don't know if it was cheap enough."
[source]
He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -
[During Witch Hunt DLC when talking to Sandal] "Interesting that Dagna's not here in the Circle Tower. Would have been a good opportunity. Someone forgot"
"I feel like Ariane's personality is a bit inconsistent"
[when ambient dialogue in the Tower references the refugee camp at Kirkwall] "Definitely starting to lay the foundation for DAII"
Chat said "Shale having thoughts on the Titans would be interesting". Mark replied "I mean they're just a dwarf, so they wouldn't necessarily know anything, but maybe they picked some knowledge up from the transition"
Chat asked "How do you feel about mods that allow players infinite retrains for stats?" Mark replied "I think these days, infinite retraining is not a bad thing. Probably don't wanna be able to do it in the middle of a level because then you can trivialize encounters"
[at the Witch Hunt veil tears] "So unlike in DA:I, you can just punch veil tears to death here." Mark then mentions that this doesn't really make sense
"You can see that Witch Hunt had a low budget for character art"
Chat said "So how does looking into the future work in DA?" Mark replied "I think seeing the future is sort've like, ripples coming back in the Fade, is how it's presented"
"It's weird that darkspawn emissaries are called 'emissaries' if they can't talk. Sort've an odd choice of name." Chat mentioned here that in the related codex, hurlock alphas spoke. Mark said "Yeah, it's a bit inconsistent, because I'm pretty sure that even in DA:O there's an implication of speaking darkspawn, and then in Awakening everyone is like, omg, speaking darkspawn?"
"Trusting the Architect, probably not a good idea"
Chat asked "Why do some people think the DA world and the ME world are in the same universe? What do you think about it?" Mark said "People think that because they just like joining things like they like together. I guess there is a krogan head in DA:O and there's an ogre on the wall in ME. Cole references ME characters and events, but he also references irl movies from the 80s"
"Witch Hunt is balanced to be able to play it after base game DA:O or after Awakening"
"PEGI and ESRB ratings used to matter a lot because stores like Walmart for example wouldn't carry anything with an M rating. That's not true anymore. There was also a time when T rated games sold worse than M rated games because teenagers didn't wanna buy T rated games because they thought they were kiddie"
Chat said "In hindsight, do you think it was a good idea to have this many fleshed out different origins? They really made the game unique and replayable, but no other games are doing it." Mark replied, "It's incredibly expensive. Having origins like this, you need to do tutorials six times, it's brutal. So I think it's kind've, if you could do it for free I think it's great because it lets you see, set the setting up from a bunch of different places. But as a general content thing it's a lot of extra work. If you wanted to do it what I would actually suggest would be something where you start with, somehow have a common beginning place, and then either flashback to the origins, or do a mission in the middle which was unique to each of your origins. So if you are playing, like if you imagine you started in Ostagar, but then did a flashback to your individual origin, how you got to Ostagar, but then it was after the tutorial, so at least you're not six timing all of the tutorials. Maybe"
"DA:O has a lot more custom levels than following games just because of the workflows"
"I don't know why you're chasing Morrigan down in Witch Hunt if you didn't have a baby or romance with her or she didn't have the OG baby. It's a bit weird, your motivation for it is a bit loose. The hook is a little weak if the OGB doesn't exist"
"DA:O combat feels like an MMO, through a modern lens. Bits of the story have aged really badly, but otherwise the story holds up well"
"Stroud is there in DA:I because he's the only one for sure who is alive"
"Tac cam is not widely used after DA:O. If a remake of DA:O is for the original audience, I think you'd need tac cam still there. Tac cam was important to them. But the question is who is the remake for, who is your audience? DA:I tac cam is a compromise. DA:O is free-roaming, you can drive it into the darkness, but that requires a ton of special work in terms of level creation. So you could make the DA:I-style tac cam for a DA:O remake but I think you would find it virtually unusable, because the levels are built assuming you can just slide it out"
"EA doesn't like spending money. I think there's a belief that a DA remaster/remake would make money. The question is would it make enough money? This is the weird corporate thing. Would it be profitable enough?"
Chat asked "Can BioWare just give up the code to the public for the community to have some fun and make DA:O 2.0?" Mark replied "There's no way EA would let the code go out. EA is too worried, a lot of decisions at EA are made by executives from the perspective of, 'I would rather something not exists than something exists and I get in trouble for it not being us that made it'"
"MELE did well and is well-reviewed but I mean did it sell millions of copies? It made its money back but did it do better than that?"
"A remaster of DA:O, DAII and DA:I would cost more than MELE but it is comparable. A remake, you're getting into, like remaking the DA 'trilogy' is at least as expensive as a brand new game and it probably doesn't sell that well"
"If you're gonna open the hood of DA:O you should remaster DA:I. I don't think it would take too much, there's a couple of things you could do to make it look even better and also I thin you rebalance the Power requirements. Which would take a week. Just tune the down, just so you could make it through the game a bit quicker and not get lost in the middle. And maybe force you out of the Hinterlands"
[source]
(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)
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At the time of writing, this post finally concludes this Dragon Age 'notes of interest and behind-the-scenes dev insight quotes [from Mark Darrah on Games DA playthrough livestreams]' project. All the vids have now been covered and all the 'snippets' that I thought were especially neat/interesting have been collated. To see previous posts in this series, at present you'd have to search my blog or click here. do check out the primary source (view, tune in, subscribe etc) here. during the livestreams donations are usually enabled. and if you found this post series useful or of interest in recent weeks, I have a Ko-Fi here, if you feel so inclined
hope this was useful and thank you for reading and stopping by!  ( ´ ▽ ` )b
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