#she didn’t need magic

[acourtofquestions]

Fenrys whispered, "Holy gods."

Not at the bridge that snapped down, soldiers teeming in the dark depths inside. But at who emerged from the keep archway behind them. What emerged. Rowan didn't know where to look. At the soldiers pouring out of the siege tower, leaping onto the battlements, or at Aelin.

At the Queen of Terrasen.

She'd found armor below the keep. Beautiful, pale gold armor that gleamed like a summer dawn. Holding back her braided hair, a diadem lay flush against her head. Not a diadem, but a piece of armor. Part of some ancient set for a lady long since buried. A crown for war, a crown to wear into battle. A crown to lead armies.

There was no fear on her face, no doubt, as Aelin hefted her shield, flipping Goldryn in her hand once before the first of Morath's soldiers was upon her. Rowan launched into movement, his blades finding their marks, but still he watched her.

Aelin slammed her shield against an oncoming warrior, Goldryn slicing through another before she plunged the blade into the soldier she'd deflected. She did it again, and again.

All while heading toward that siege tower. Unhindered. Unleashed.

A call went down the line. The queen has come.

She planted her line before the gaping maw of that siege tower, right in the path of those teeming hordes. Every moment of the training she'd done on the ship here, on the road, every new blister and callus—all to rebuild herself for this.

The queen has come.

Goldryn unfaltering, her shield an extension of her arm, Aelin glowed like the sun that now broke over the khagan's army as she engaged each soldier that hurtled her way. Five, ten—she moved and moved and moved, ducking and swiping, shoving and flipping, black blood spraying, her face the portrait of grim, unbreaking will.

"The queen!" the men shouted. "To the queen!"

And as Rowan fought his way closer, as that cry went down the battlements and Anielle men ran to aid her, he realized that Aelin did not need an ounce of flame to inspire men to follow. That she had been waiting, yanking at the bit, to show them what she, without magic, without any godly power, might do. He'd never seen such a glorious sight. In every land, every battle, he had never seen anything as glorious as Aelin before the throat of the siege tower, holding the line. Dawn breaking around them, Rowan loosed a battle cry and tore into Morath.

[oleafia-art]

some golden guards + caleb

i wanted to take a break and do some character design of a few golden guards based off of some of the ones seen briefly in canon. i also drew hunter and caleb as references for faces and stuff. i tried to make them as similar as possible, but also looking very individual to one another. since belos claimed that hunter looks the most like caleb, i tried to stay true to that while keeping the other three looking similar but not quite as identical. anyways i love them <3 they’re like the most mentally ill family ever to me

these weren’t supposed to be real ocs or anything but then i ended up giving them names and backstories and so i wrote a little about them aaaand now im obsessed. i will try to make a full body ref for them, especially alistair and/or constance, if i have time

i apologize for my godawful handwriting 💔

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

All of you making complaints about “bad writing” in the game that is actually an unreliable narrator/set up for a plot twist/a natural progression over the decades we’ve been in this world/a plot point being explored/something you literally just missed sound exactly like my dad whenever I try to watch anything with him and he complains about plot holes that dont exist and are just him not paying attention or not letting the story play out to the point where it’s explained btw

[valkyurii]

it’s funny how things have gone full circle with malenia. she was so hated when the game first came out, but then people grew to like her. then the dlc came out and now people hate her again lmao

[ken-katayanagi]

Ship that enters ur brain the same way a brick enters a bank window.

[vigilskept]

2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15 for your trevelyans!

2. What were their expectations going into the Conclave?

sander's genuinely just trying to find his siblings and get the hell out of ferelden. he would like it if they changed things but he’s not hopeful and wants to be far away from this place when it falls apart lol

thea's cautiously hopeful. the war's pretty clearly at a stalemate, with no clear path towards tipping the odds to their side & she’s already had to do some things she’s not proud of to get to this point. she needs this not to drag on any longer.

4. Was there anything in their life they were looking forwards to doing once the Conclave was done?

sander’s kind of hoping he’ll be able to find some excuse to cross paths with the valo-kas again :’)

thea literally is just hoping to survive without getting executed or made tranquil…. she is so paranoid for real.

under the cut as we start to get into the heavier stuff 😈

5. What was the Herald of Andraste's opinion about the Chantry and the war before the explosion?

they both start out extremely bitter towards the chantry for related reasons, though not exactly the same. thea was already 16 by the time she (very publicly) discovered she was a mage, and it threw her whole life into disarray. prior to the conclave this resentment is all externalised and placed squarely on the chantry. similarly with sander, he deeply resents his parents’ devotion which he sees as having torn his family apart. they sent thea away without even giving him a chance to say goodbye for the sake of “keeping up appearances” and they were going to sign away his future to the templars just to avoid scandal! he believes in the maker, sure, but he does not feel positively about the southern chantry.

6. Is the Herald impacted by Justinia's death? Or do they move on quickly?

sander feels nothing in particular about justinia’s death. he was kind of expecting her to be assassinated by one side or the other. what he’s terrified of is that his siblings might have died at the conclave and he has no way of knowing for sure. most of the bodies aren’t in any identifiable state (and he does try, at the temple, trying to find any markers that it might be them)

thea is horrified when they tell her and actually does think they might be correctly accusing her. she feels inexplicably sick with guilt and there’s a gaping hole in her memory. it could be that she did murder the divine. she must have murdered someone. after all, she’s only felt this particular type of guilt once before :)

8. How do they feel about the mark on their hand?

ohohoho. the short answer is that they’re both fucking insane about it.

sander’s extremely shaken by it at the start. it hurts! it feels like it’s tearing straight through him as it expands! it’s only after reaching solas that it goes from terror -> curiosity. bc solas does something to close that rift. which means he knows something about it. so it’s just an unfamiliar tool, not some incomprehensible horror. as to what placed that mark on his hand though….. he does really, earnestly wonder about this especially in the early days. is it the maker? could it be? he comes to believe it was, and the eventual revelation that it was solas’ orb, that the anchor was just another part of his plan that went wrong… oh there is murder in his heart after that. experiencing levels of rage heretofore unknown.

with thea….. it’s completely different. she sees it as something like a stigmata. there’s a story the southern chantry tells about how archon hessarian’s sword grew hot from the flames and seared into his palm at the hilt, branding him for his sin such that no healing magic could soothe the wound. that mark stayed with him for to the end of his days. for thea, just as the brand marked the archon for his part in the prophet’s death, the anchor is a mark of her guilt. she first thinks it’s for the murder of the divine, but eventually comes to realise that it was her murder of her brother (damian) that haunted her :)

9. How do they react upon being called the Herald of Andraste?

sander feels so trapped by it at first. he plays into it immediately because i mean, what else are you going to do when people who were accusing you of murder moments ago now see u as their hope for salvation? tell them to fuck off? the mob could turn on him at any moment so he is playing to them. in the long run, this will be his ruin, because being the herald leaves increasingly little for anything else to remain under that mask. it whittles away at him until the herald is all that’s left!

thea is horrified by it, because where people see a blessing at her left hand, she sees a curse! if the maker has marked her out as anything it’s as a sinner!!!!!! she takes on the mantle as well because she feels taking people’s hope away would be even crueler but she feels like she is playing with fire as she does. she wonders whether it won’t just make the maker angrier in the end.

10. What are the Herald's opinion on the Mage Rebellion and on mage rights?

pro-mage baybeeeeeeeeeee (at the start anyway)

sander thinks the circles are fucked given how they’ve torn his family apart, and thinks there has to be a better way to go about things than locking mages up and throwing away the key. he does come around somewhat on viv’s view that people are too frightened to accept so much change so quickly, and that getting rid of circles could put mages in danger from those who fear them (guess who he backs for divine)

thea deeply resents the way her entire life was thrown into disarray after becoming a mage and the total loss of freedom as a circle mage. she wants them gone. unfortunately her guilt and self-hatred after the conclave is going to lead to a WILD 180 turn and she will end up seeing her past rage and resentment as evil borne from being a mage, and begin to see her previous oppression as justified. mages can’t be trusted with freedom, look what they i did.

11. Who does the Herald of Andraste help - the Mages or the Templars? Why did they choose them?

sander goes to the templars, not because he believes in their cause by any means but as a political maneuver to bring them to heel under the inquisition. he disbands them and conscripts them into the inquisition’s ranks immediately.

on the flipside, thea goes to the rebel mages because she fears what damage they might do if they’re not brought under the inquisition. its not politics for her, it’s real fear! she means to gently bring them into the fold, initially, but after seeing that they were willing to work with a tevinter magister….. she conscripts them. she will not let them go astray as she has gone astray!

14. What type of Inquisitor are they? What are their motivations? How do they lead?

sander’s far more politically shrewd between the two of them since his life has always depended on other people’s opinion of him! he’s much more comfortable playing The Game, and he’s much more open to unorthodox approaches and points of views. he’s willing to hear sera out more often than not! once he’s fulfilled his initial goal (getting his siblings back safely) he begins to think more on whether there is some divine purpose to having been inquisitor, and concludes that maybe it was so he could help set things right. this unfortunately is the start of him taking the role of inquisitors more seriously….. and being far less open to hearing others out. it’s not immediate! but it does get to him, and he does begin to see others giving him advice as them trying to lead him astray/manipulate him into pursuing their own agenda. it’s not a a great trajectory from there!

thea on the other hand is motivated by guilt and fear the whole way through. the exact shape of those guilts and fears changes pretty significantly over time, but she ultimately views the role of herald/inquisitor as her penance throughout. mages have broken the world (again) and she must do her best fix that, in order to atone.

15. Since religion is a major component of DAI, is your Inquisitor religious? What do they believe in?

they’re both andrastian though…. as you can see, the exact shape of their beliefs is a bit complicated?? they both find faith & a renewed relationship with the maker through the role of inquisitor, but I wouldn’t say this is a good thing for either (even if the self-destructive nature is more obvious for thea).

post-trespasser u could say sander is no longer andrastian though! the maker is gone if he was ever real at all and the gods that remain are cruel and indifferent (and he intends to see him them pay)

inquisitor questions

[lem-argentum]

it’s been so long since i’ve talked about rucreddddd. i think about them every day for the record and they are so important to me and i miss them SOOO BAD

[greeneyeofenvy]

this took me way too long-

So Idk much abt her lore (or do I?)

I didn’t use one refernece but have these screenshots

Can you tell I was inspired?. Minnie King, a hpma oc.

[scionshtola]

currently cori has the emperors new fists for their mnk weapon bc the whole idea behind mnk cori is estinien was like “you need to learn to throw hands in case you can’t use magic or your gun.” but i’m kind of enamored by the idea of them engineering themself a pair of gloves or aetherically charged brass knuckles or something after enw

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Fireborne Blade

high fantasy novella about a knight who’s planning to prove herself by retrieving a powerful fabled blade

follows her venturing into the dragon’s lair and facing it’s powerful magical effects, with a mage-squire who she doesn’t remember hiring

as well as flashback chapters of her past, preparing for this quest, an excerpts from archive records of other knights’ encounters with dragons

[tempestmothstorm]

So satchely did a little interview on twitter which you should check out but one of the questions was about some fantasy au stuff and my own au is like so so close to being the same it’s wild. Like Monika is the only off base one in terms of classes and the others are just slightly off and it feels insane

[thedeadthree]

🥀💌🕯️💀 <33

*old person yells at cloud* THEORY TIME <3 but i was thinking of the skill trees screens we’ve seen so far and i am like…… super certain that ingellvar is the mourners surname and soo that calls for an update to irulannes pin interest board <33

(ill cry change it if it isn’t though but hehe anyway im stoked to at last have a surname for when i save her edits bc rn her folder says i.datv xixjjxhx *WHEEZE* 💀)

[gamerwoo]

I want to ask something that I'm really curious about in SVT TFTP.

Is Beom really a witch? Or more like a sage with spiritual connections? I mean, she seemed to have been in contact with nature and have an amicable nature.

Beom apparently passed some of her "gifts" with nature to Soomin as Soomin is able to counter spells as we saw in 'Find Our Way' but even then Soomin is not a witch, so I guess she's kinda like Beom

in the tftp universe, anyone who can do any sort of magic or spells is considered a witch, whether they truly are one or not. it’s kind of just used as an umbrella term. that being said, though, beom was actually a witch. she didn’t often use her powers, especially when she got older. she only really used magic when it was dire. she definitely gave off more sage energy, but she also knew that witches were typically seen as evil, even by other creatures so she definitely kept that a secret lmao

soomin, however, isn’t really a witch. she, i would say, would be more of a sage than anything else

[happy-emmdings]

Me? Still bitter that Emma and Killian didn’t get to exchange their vows aboard the Jolly Roger even though they both clearly liked the idea? Pfff, noooo. Do I look like I still think it was unfair that Killian’s first and only suggestion about his own wedding got shut down in 0.5 seconds? (Henry, buddy, I just wanna talk) Do I look like I was disappointed to see 50 random extras dancing a weird disney channel-esqe choreography instead of more scenes from the actual wedding? Do I look like I expected a best man speech? Or any of the couple’s actual friends turning up?

[king0fcrows]

.

[somewherefornow]

AMY WINSTON/AMETHYST & HER DOG “TAFFY” in AMETHYST: PRINCESS OF GEMWORLD (1983)