#she would like varric but would think he was a bad person

[potatoesandsunshine]

thinking about my surana in inquisition is like. Oough augh there's interesting meat on that bone let me gnaw

[lillotte17]

Jumping on the Veilguard Banter wagon bc I'm back in the Solavellan sauce, but I can't seem to focus long enough to finish anything bigger ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

~~

“I can see the wheels turning in that big bald head of yours, Chuckles. What world-ending secrets are you pondering this time?”

“I was merely… Would I be correct in assuming that you are still in contact with former members of the Inquisition?”

“I might be. Why? Looking to liven up your days with another round of mental chess with Tiny? Not sure he’d agree to that. He’s pretty mad about the ‘ripping open the sky again’ thing, although he did think it was funny that you picked Tevinter.”

“No. Thank you. I do not think it likely that the Iron Bull and I could have any sort of conversation that did not end in violence at this point.”

“If you’d prefer, I’m sure I could get Sparkles over here to yell at you about all of this instead. He’s just as mad, but much less likely to try and bury an axe in your skull.”

“I did not ask the question in the interest of having you summon old acquaintances, Varric. I was simply…curious.”

“You can say her name, you know.”

~

“The former Inquisitor-”

“Are we really doing this?”

“…Is she well?”

“How do you think I should answer that question?”

“Honestly, if you are capable.”

“You wound me, Chuckles! I don’t deal in salacious idle gossip.”

“You wrote an entire book about her.”

“I write books about everyone.”

“Varric.”

*sighs* “Look…nothing I could say would make you feel any better. Good or bad, it is what it is. Knowing about it won’t change anything, so why does it matter?”

“She always matters.”

“Could have fooled me.”

~

“I have to ask, is what Varric wrote in his book about you true?”

“Knowing his penchant for peddling exaggerations, half-truths, and blatant falsehoods? Probably not.”

“So, you weren’t madly in love with the former Inquisitor?”

“That is… I have a deep respect for the former Inquisitor, and I am not going to discuss her personal feelings or private affairs.”

“That book has sold enough copies to rival Hard in Hightown at this point, I don’t think anything in there is private anymore. Besides, I was asking about your private affairs, not hers.”

“I am not going to discuss those, either.”

“Oh, so it is true!” *laughs*

[raymurata]

Just scroll (or go ahead and block my #dav critical tag) if you don't wanna read me whining abt Bellara's Archive choice again, but I'm not done with the salt.

What bugs me isn't that the choice to destroy the archive exists, it's that the game frames it, through its UI (which is the closest thing we have to a nonbiased narrator in this medium), as equally weighted against the opposite choice.

If they had worded it like this:

"Free the archive (the knowledge will be lost)" x "Keep the archive (the knowledge will be kept)"

With no extra commentary, then that would be better. If you got to be openly racist against the Dalish or openly in favor of the Dalish, period. Just like in previous games.

Bellara says "(the archive would help us) get back what made us who we were," and "With it, we could be that again."

Which is funny because... People don't study history to return to the past. It's fine if Bellara is idealistic and saying whatever unrealistic, grandiose dreams she and Cyrian had, but the Dalish would never (could never) become like the ancient elves again. For starters there is a Veil now. So what it would in fact do is help them understand where they come from, what they've been through, and trace the changes in their culture.

Of course our modern historians and scientists have tried to reclaim lost technology, too. They've figured out how the Romans made their extra sturdy concrete, and scientists in Brazil have long been trying to replicate the extra fertile Terra Preta from indigenous peoples that lived in the Amazon basin, and several South American historians would love to know how exactly the Inca used the quipu as a writing system aside from counting tool, etc... And that's super cool!!! And maybe (but that's a big maybe) the Archive could give the Dalish a technological edge to carve a corner of the world for themselves without the constant struggle with Tevinter trying to enslave them or Andrastians trying to subjugate them.

But I personally don't think anyone's reading Aztec accounts of human sacrifices to replicate the same practices in modern cults, or that there is an army out there utilizing Roman decimation as a method of discipline. We're using different horrific methods of control now, lol.

But let's say a modern general does decide that the best way to punish a battalion for one man's insurgence is to force every group of ten soldiers to violently murder the 10th man.... Do you really think that the fault would lie with the historian who unearthed that information and put it on Wikipedia? Or the insane general that decided to do this? Would modern morality and laws allow for that punishment to be executed? Do you think that the existence of that article online is inherently dangerous and controversial, and that it should be taken down? Do you think this general would have been a good and non-violent general if he hadn't ever read about Decimation? Or is it clear to you that violence and ingenuity are both inherent to mortals as a whole and can't be so easily blamed on the spread of knowledge?

Because it's not clear to DAV. The game (not Bellara, not Varric) words it very unambiguously as a dichotomy: The only safe way to deal with this Archive is to destroy it. Keeping it is inherently dangerous because the knowledge could fall in "the wrong hands."

What Bellara says is "Cyrian is gone because of what that thing knew," and "what about the bad side, the other things we did?" and "We stole the dwarves' dreams."

Again, she gets to say whatever she wants because she's a character and she's an anxious, idealistic mess. Love her for it. I like that she feels guilt here too because she has been established (through her way of dealing with Cyrian's first death) as someone who takes the blame for mistakes she didn't even commit (She certainly isn't responsible for Solas' actions). She's someone who drives herself sick cooking up the most horrific scenarios in her mind, and she's so compassionate she can't stand the thought of being the one perpetrating violence against innocents. Her misplaced guilt and dread are the emotions that lead her to consider destroying the Archive.

But no matter how guilty a young german may feel about the holocaust, destroying knowledge about gas chambers is not what will prevent other genocides from happening around the world. Individual guilt is barely productive.

Furthermore, Corinne Bursche says that DAV gives you a choice between "destroying" or "sharing" elven knowledge, which is not how the game worded it. But the point still stands even if the Veil Jumpers, for some condescending plot reason, completely lost control of this knowledge, or were so flippant as to put everything on Thedas' wikipedia without curing it at all.

Let's accept, too, that the Archive contains knowledge of how to build something equivalent to nuclear weapons, which one could argue is in fact truly dangerous, but... Well. Do you think it's fair that the countries that have nuclear arsenals are some of the most vocal about the dangers of other countries ever developing their own?

Because that's what it feels like, to me, when the game calls elven knowledge dangerous without ever allowing you to question -- what about Tevinter rituals and magic? Tevinter's millennium of slavery, still in practice at present day? Should we destroy all their libraries too to keep the world safe from dangerous magics? Why do we only get to tell the Dalish, the nomad nations severely subjugated in present Thedas (If you ever played the previous games and have the context, at least, since this game that happens in Tevinter somehow manages to completely gloss over racism against elves as if it never existed) to destroy a one-of-a-kind, ancient trove of knowledge? And have it be framed as good and safe? As "moving forward"?

If you choose to free the archive, Rook says "The elves deserve the chance to chart their own course" to which Bellara answers "Right. Define ourselves by who we are, not who we were," but once again that writing just makes me question Bioware -- Do they not understand the point of history at all? Do they think indigenous peoples are monoliths stuck in the past if they choose to study the history they lost to colonialism? What purpose do they think that keeping that history and culture extinct serves? Who do they think it benefits?

If you step outside of what the game is telling you as fact and think for yourself, with the context of the other DA games in mind, do you still agree that it's inherently dangerous to keep the Archive? Do you still think these are equally morally weighted choices?

Or would you agree that DAV has to subtly convince you, out of character, that keeping this knowledge is inherently dangerous to make this dichotomy make sense?

Again. This wouldn't bug me if they just owned up to the fact your protagonist can, once again, genocide elves/their culture, just like in previous games. And scapegoat present elves too for the sins of their thousand-years-old tyrants, now suddenly returned (it would make so much sense for characters in the narrative to scapegoat the elves, and for us as heroes to fight against that. But no, they don't even go there except through Bellara's guilt.). It's just bizarre to have an elven historian guiltily agreeing with destroying the Archive and then telling us "The Evanuris broke us and kept us broken" without anyone, either Rook or her, ever mentioning a thousand years of Tevinter slavery and several centuries of Andrastian persecution and subjugation.

No. The Evanuris are the be-all and end-all of evil and everything bad that ever happened in Thedas, ever, can be traced back to them.

[girlwithadragonheart]

I need to yap desperately about one single gripe I have with this game. MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD read at your own discretion

The first half is me ranting about how much certain things mean to me and how impacted I was, and the actual gripe comes closer to the end.

I'll preface this by saying this post is about Varric's death and my rage and despair regarding it, but more so about my Rook's.

I've seen people who said they picked up on the hints about whatnot, who knew before the Fade Prison. I was not one of those people. I was so relieved when I saw him after the Prologue that I didn't think twice, because I knew that it would destroy me the second shit started going wrong.

I was already not having a good time when I started the game simply because Varric was getting older. I don't handle aging well or death, and his design showing his age, and the comments he would make about "getting too old for this" just made my heart break.

And then shit got worse. I sobbed disgustingly when that knife went into Varric's chest.

After Rook woke up from talking to Solas and she heard Varric, I was so gods damned relieved. And my Rook was better taken care of by Varric in that year she spent with him than she was in the rest of her entire life.

I cried from the end of Ghilan'nain's fight until the romance scene and on and off after that. I got so used to visiting Varric just to be comforted by his presence. Inquisition was the biggest part of my life for a year and a half when I was just a kid.

I did really bad middle school age writing for it but regardless of the quality, those characters were built up in my head becoming even more than they were in the game. Varric was my biggest support character through everything I was going through at the time.

I don't talk about it much, but I didn't have a great childhood, and I know a lot of people didn't, but I coped with it through writing and video games. Varric was the one supporting me through the abuse I suffered and writing was the way I processed how bad things really were.

When Rook was in the prison she said "What am I going to find here?" And Varric said "I think you already know, kid." I DIDN'T until he said that. The second he said that my entire chest tightened and I just said "No" out loud as I watched Rook find his body.

Now for my real complaint!!!

Rook never gets the chance to grieve Varric. They go from talking to him every day to finding out he's dead and it was all a lie. I have personally never been more fucking pissed at Solas than I am now. But Rook comes back and they have that kind of "closing off" scene with Varric's empty bed (which was so hard to go through btw). And then they fuck their pookie LIKE I CANNOT BE THE ONLY ONE UPSET ABT THAT

FYM I gotta find out my dad is dead and then Rook is up for boning like there's no fucking way unless it's to cope. And at least pertaining to the Lucanis romance, Rook is processing everything that happened and they can say "So much has happened, I just don't know how to feel."

And rather than getting to process that in some kind of way, the devs said nah this scene serves one singular purpose, and Lucanis says "I do" and then dicks them down.

Personally, I felt very dismissed despite being overjoyed about finally having the romance scene, I couldn't even enjoy it with everything that happened prior.

Rook deserved the chance to completely break down after everything they went through. Tbh i don't know how they kept it together. Varric said "don't get all misty eyed" and i thought to myself that's way too delicate a term for what's happening here, I was fully ugly crying.

Fuck your "I had a good run" I still need you bitch.

All this to say I'm very upset, and I'm running my second playthrough and every time I look at, hear, or talk to Varric I tear up again. Wtf Bioware.

Rook should've gotten the chance to actually talk about what Solas did to them, especially in the sense that he made them believe Varric was still there. Or at least get to properly grieve the person who was their closest friend for a long time.

I have very strong feelings about this obviously

[starfleetteddybear]

Ah! What a glorious feeling crawling into bed, cup of tea in hand, ready to indulge with some quality fanfiction kindle time. Especially if it’s another rendition of Emmrich and Rook rated R kissing.

Everyday I wake up to like 30 emails from ao3 of all these great fics updating and …I feel like that meme where Sabrina is eating all that food she can’t decide which first. It’s such a great problem to have! I thought I’d just take a minute to share a selection of stories I have on my radar and am absolutely loving! Maybe others will find a new favorite? 🤩

Gotta catch up with some amazing works:

@nerdanel01 has put out new chapters for their stories featuring Agnes and Emmrich. So excited to check those out! What a treat waiting for me. You created such a slow burn yearning. 😩 It’s such a high I haven’t come down from still.

@tethrawke I gotta finish that last little bit of your story Hope Dream featuring Hawke and Varric. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🙌

@crackinglamb Gotta get caught up on your story The Turning Tide. The way you write about Iron Bull…I… He wasn’t even on my radar! You did so well! I’m hooked! 🪝

@emmg Literally I’ve loved everything you have ever written. Seriously, you could have your Rook and Emmrich fucking in a cardboard box and you’d find a way to make it inspired and sexy. Honestly, I think about you and @eavangeek on the same wavelength because you both just take an interesting premise and turn it into something absolutely amazing. Like Rumpelstiltskin turning straw into gold. 💕

@farore05 I am loving your story Amaretto Sour. And I can’t WAIT for how you get rid of Johanna. Hate that woman (in your story) with a fiery passion already and we just met her. 🤬

@heylittleriotact I heard people are dying to get in here is such an interesting premise. I didn’t even know I would enjoy a modern au of Emmrich but…👀👀👀👀 You have my attention. As if you didn’t already from the other stories you put out already.

@livingmeetthedead I absolutely love the way you are writing Emmrich’s pov in your story Quietus. It’s so unique and not many people are doing that! I don’t think I could write his pov very well…I might try at some point but I think you do such a good job at it! Honestly, I’d say the way you are doing it is inspired. 🥰 You’re doing amazing sweetie!

@andthekitchensinkao3 “If the notion appeals, Pari… I’m going to put my face between your legs and eat you like a ripe peach. And that’s only the beginning of the things I want to do with you.”OMG Somebody call the coroner (heylittleriotact) because I’m dead. 😵 so freaking 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

@tired-truffle I know you just wrote that one shot about King Alistair and his queen warden but… 👀 God I loved it so freaking much. I hope you do more because you captured his voice and personality perfect in “Ball and Chain.”

@sabine79 You have been feeding us so good with Arsenic and Myrrh I literally can’t keep up. 🙌💕 NOT a complaint. I feel bad I have fallen so far behind. Forgive me because I love how you got your two “rooks” going on and I love how you have both a Lucanis/Rook situation and a Emmrich/Rook situation going on.

@templarkicker Your story “Once When You Walked Beside Me” has me in a chokehold. They were together and then BROKE UP before DAV? And then they are getting back to get her from lovers to strangers to lovers again? 😩🙌🔥

@sunny374940 I have so enjoyed getting to read your stories. Please keep sharing and posting them with us. What a delight to get a new update to my inbox from you. I loved how you took your Rook/Emmrich on their honeymoon recently. And the babywearing? So freaking cute!!!🥰 and I love you have your own original work going on too, “Damn Sky Wales.”

@woundedsoul12 Rook’s letter to Emmrich after Tearstone Island? Broke my heart! 😭 Seriously, great job with the angst. I’ve loved all your other dragon age stories too!

And a special shout out to @redheadsramblings because you are such a supportive sweetie. Everytime I (virtually) turn around you are there. And I see you all over tumblr and ao3 too! Absolute sweetheart. 💚

[what-eats-owls]

It matters how you do it

I finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard and had some big feelings about it. Spoilers for basically everything under the cut, and frankly, it won't make sense unless you've finished the game anyway.

First of all: I had a blast with this game. I didn't find Act 1 slow, I did find Act 2 a bit of a whack-a-mole, and then Act 3 kicks you in the kidney (complementary) while insisting it's for your own good.

I've seen some recurring complaints: that it lacks depth/edge/darkness, that it abandons previous lore, that the previous choices don't matter. I don't entirely disagree. To me, it felt like a massive Dragon Age 4 game that pivoted to a different, tighter game after complaints about bloat in Inquisition. The key is that when editing down, there's such a thing as trying to trim the fat and taking a chunk of the roast with it.

I enjoy the concept of Lucanis's character, and the voice actor sold the hell out of him, but the storyline felt like being taken to a museum and allowed to see one (1) beautiful unfinished sculpture. Why did Spite, specifically, work? We know the spirit of Justice became Vengeance by abomination, we knew Solas was Wisdom before he became Pride, so what was Spite before, and why wasn't that tied to Lucanis's own personal arc? (Doubly so if you romance him!)

Similarly, Harding was a delight, and her greenhouse was such a lovely little haven. I would have loved to see more explanation of the connection between plants and the titans, and how Harding's own personal struggles with rage connected to that of the titans. She has every reason to be angry and scared, and the game tells us she pushed that away—but we don't actually see her toxic positivity manifest to that degree, until she abruptly has an angry clone.

On the flip side, I loved the other five character quests, and I felt they had solid, poignant arcs that delivered. I also adored their interactions with the codex—if anything, I wanted to see more of that type of interaction on the screen. You have to fill in a lot of the character work for Rook yourself; Rook has all these interesting potential backgrounds, but I think starting the game playing through those, a la Origins, would have gone miles towards establishing more personal stakes up front and made for a stronger start.

So that's all my nitpicking. But let's talk about the bigger theme: It matters how you do it.

In the first Fade conversation with Solas, he gets so mad when Rook refuses to let him DARVO them about the consequences of his botched ritual. This makes way more sense when you understand he's literally imprisoned by his own regrets, and he needs Rook to have that same kind of regret in order to take his place. His entire arc is about rationalizing binary choices and shitty actions that hurt others in the name of a hypothetical greater good that he wants.

Solas can't engineer every binary choice Rook's forced into, but he uses Varric to maximize Rook's regret. He is trying to quite literally mold Rook into him, and the game is great at presenting this both as a coldblooded manipulation and a broken plea for validation—if you let it. You don't have to give Solas a moment of consideration; you don't have to take time to view his memories, or kill his demons, or listen to those scraps of Mythal still holding onto the good in him. You don't have to do any of it.

But you can. And in the end, it matters.

It matters because for every companion, you can encourage them to either be more nurturing/compassionate or destructive/closed off versions of themselves, and that is frequently tied to continuing or breaking from a cycle. (The exception is either Neve or, presumably, Lucanis, who are forced into the Hardened version depending on which city you save.) These aren't presented as morally opposing choices, just who you want them to be. You can see how the Grey Wardens fucked up bad with griffons and decide they have a better place. You can help Emmrich face his fear by finding deeper meaning in life instead of indefinitely postponing death. You can help them do things differently.

So when you get to the final choice in the game, you may have two options: physically force Solas into saving the Veil, or trick him into it. The kind of binary choice Solas has molded you into making by pelting you with cruelty and manipulation.

Or, if you've taken the time, you can get him to understand he's wrong. You bring out the people who saw the best in him and speak to what he's had to endure, even as you're showing him there's another way. You reach him not as Pride, but as Wisdom. And he goes willingly.

Ultimately, I think DA2 and Inquisition grappled with big questions of oppression and violence, faith and authority. It makes sense for those games to delve into harder, uglier subject matter, and ask you to make binary calls.

But my read of Veilguard is that, at its core, it's about how those decisions are meant to trap you in regret at best, and numb you to rationalizing cruelty at worst. It's why the companion who loses their home city becomes colder, more isolated, in response—more like Solas.

That's why it offers you a third way at the very end, but only if you've worked for it. A better way is possible, yet it has to be more than words. You have to understand where the pain comes from, what maintains and is being maintained by the current cycle. Then, and only then, can you break it.

I can't wait to play it again.

P.S. Utterly obsessed with the Trevisan fish merchant.

[himluv]

I agree with you on the Solavellan ending. I love the angst and tragedy and I'm eating the idea of Solas and Lavellan having a lot to unpack once in the fade. Dramatic confrontations, tears, breakdowns and a slow road to forgiveness,. Delicious food. But I'm really annoyed with a portion of the fandom that seems to just gloss over the fact that Solas killed Varric, someone who was always kind to Lavellan and was even her friend. And even if you don't like Varric personally he is in canon a relatively decent person who tried to reach out to Solas on a compassionate level. Then he used a blood magic puppet of him to manipulate Rook... IDK the way that seems to mean little to nothing to a lot of Solavellans kind of bothers me. I'm not here to tell anyone how they can or can't play but the takes have been so bad. The infantilization, excuses and woobification of our boy are so egregious. Solas is complex and morally gray. Why would we be going through the effort of redeeming him if he wasn't doing things that would require redemption in the first place? I've felt really disconnected from the rest of the fandom because of all of the softening of his character people have been doing and it's refreshing to hear a take from someone who loves Solas but doesn't want to defang him.

Thanks for this thoughtful reply to this post! Sorry this took awhile, but I've been thinking of what I wanted to say. Long and spoiler-riddled reply below, and I don't even know how relevant it is to your reply, Nonny. Sorry!

I think A Lot of folks have spent the last 10 years rotating him in their heads like one throws a clay pot, molding him into something he could be based on what we knew about him. But, we didn't necessarily account for the other forms he could take. And some folks are very resistant to who he's canonically become by Veilguard. Because it's not a good form, he got Worse™ in his decade away from friends and love (shocker!), and it's hard to reconcile this version of him with the ones we may have made.

I get all of that. But I also LOVE that. It means he could still surprise me, and I got to experience this weird duality of love/hate I didn't expect to feel toward him. I got to see his lies in real time, know he was lying because I KNOW HIM, and go, "oh, you little shit (affectionate)". Like, that's just FUN! Which, last time I checked was in fact the point of video games.

I love that he is unpredictable and dangerous in this game. That we finally see him go all out, and use every skill and trick he has. That is THRILLING, especially because he's more dangerous and lethal and ruthless than I personally expected. Which... Is my fault. I should have expected it, because look what he did to Felassan. Look how he so easily killed all those Qunari in Trespasser. Look what he did with those spirits of chaos and disruption. Look what he did to the Titans! I should have known better, the games and books showed me time and again what he was capable of. I just didn't want to believe it.

I've seen some posts talking about how Lavellan approaches Solas at the very last confrontation. How carefully she goes up the stairs towards him. I've seen several interpretations of it, but there's one I haven't seen (which could be because I'm not hanging out in the Solavellan tag much these days).

She takes those stairs slowly, as if approaching a spooked horse, because the last time someone climbed a set of stairs to talk him down from his ritual, he killed them. And I don't think for one second Lavellan believes, if she handles this poorly, he won't do the same to her.

And I think she is 100% right. He would, perhaps on "accident" as he claims to Neve was the case with Varric (debatable - seemed pretty intentional if maybe a bit impulsive from here). But I firmly believe there is a world where Solas would stab his vhenan if he had to and certain conditions hadn't been met (and yes that would utterly destroy him).

She walks up those stairs to him, her vhenan, knowing this is it. Their final stand. She will save him from himself, whatever it takes, and she is prepared to die at his hands if it comes to that. And it so easily COULD HAVE.

I don't know. I just think that Veilguard gave us SO MUCH more insight into Solas and there's so much there to chew on. I think we're going to be able to go back through all the games and codices and so many little details are going to fit together and complete a puzzle we didn't even know we were making.

After all of this, I still have so much to think on 😂. I'm going to be living in Thedas for another decade at this rate!

Good. I don't ever want to leave.

[hallahart]

here's 2000 words of self-indulgent solavellan veilguard reunion fic that is wildly noncanonical, apropos of nothing~

-

The Lighthouse, for all its depressing divorcée energy, is gorgeous—lots of magic lights, frescoes and paintings, high ceilings. Definitely nicer than the mud hovel Rook used to sleep in. But one mural (in what Rook is generously calling the living room—it has more of a tomb-like feel at the moment) is particularly eye-catching, seeing as how it’s about a story high: a woman reaching skyward, rising from the jaws of a snapping wolf with some kind of weird green geometric patterns surrounding her. 

“Who’s she?”

Rook doesn’t know Solas well enough to read him—the man is as impenetrable as Nevarran poetry—but they can hear his teeth grind from across the room. For a thousand year old god (or whatever), he sure is touchy.

“Must you pry into every nook and cranny?”

Rook ignores him, peers closer. “Oh, wait, I see it now. Green glowy hand, pointy ears. You know the Inquisitor?”

“I am surprised that Varric—“ he stops himself, starts over. “Yes. I knew her.”

He’s so obviously annoyed and uncomfortable that Rook has no choice but to wiggle their eyebrows. 

“Knew her, knew her?”

“The Inquisitor is of no concern to you.” Most people would probably backpedal when Fen’Harel looks at them like that, but Rook isn’t most people. They never really had a knack for survival instincts.

“Oh wow, you did, didn’t you?” Rook can’t quite imagine the standoffish man in front of them being romantic with anyone. He’s pretty…severe. They’re pretty sure he’s never smiled in their presence. “You know, I’ve never seen her in person, but those recruitment posters they put up back home—was she really so, you know…” Rook mimes some unlikely curves. 

Solas pinches his nose, and Rook is delighted to see a blush spread across his cheeks. “This conversation is over.”

Rook almost takes mercy on him. But apart from the sad silverware situation, this is the first glimpse of Solas they’ve gotten as a person and not some freaky wolf god with great taste in real estate. 

“So did she break up with you before or after she learned you were an evil trickster god?” They wiggle their fingers in mock menace.

Solas’ eyes flash and Rook knows they’ve gone too far. Whoops. Solas can’t kill them, not without possibly frying his own brain (or spirit, or whatever, Rook’s fuzzy on the details), but they’re sure he can make their life pretty damn unpleasant.

But all he does is sigh, the dark circles under his eyes deepening by the second, and holds up a hand. “Let us please focus on stopping the evanuris. Anything else is a…distraction.”

His voice is hoarse, and Rook immediately feels bad. Clearly this wasn't some meaningless fling (the twenty foot mural should have probably clued them in)—Solas is in it. Present tense. The sad empty rooms start to make a whole lot more sense.

You are the loneliest asshole I’ve ever met, they want to say.

“Yeah,” they say instead. “No problem. Plenty else to discuss. Ancient blighted gods freed from their eternal prisons, etcetera. Say no more.”

Rook can’t be certain, but they’re pretty sure the look on Solas’ face is grateful relief. 

What the hell happened between this guy and the Inquisitor that makes thinking about the gods that want him dead a relief?

___

Rook is lying on the couch pining over Taash and her stupid sexy crystal horn when Varric and Solas enter, already deep in furtive conversation.

The polite thing to do would be to let out a discreet cough to announce their presence. Rook burrows deeper into the pillows and holds their breath.

“Absolutely not, Varric,” Solas hisses. Sometimes he reminds Rook of a sad stray cat they used to feed. Very similar auras.

They come to a stop behind Rook’s couch. “Listen. I get it. Trust me. But if there’s anyone who can help us—“

“No. It is simply out of the question.”

“You’re going to have to face her eventually, you know.”

“There is no reason for the Inquisitor to involve herself. These are my mistakes to fix. Not hers.”

Rook can picture the pitying expression on Varric’s face. “Look around, Chuckles. Your Lighthouse isn’t empty anymore. Like it or not, you have to rely on the rest of us. And Ellana is already involved, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“The Inquisitor is not—“

Varric scoffs in exasperation. “Took her arm off and can’t even say her name?”

Took her arm off? Whoa. Rook’s heard rumors, but…

There’s a brief pause. Rook can imagine the seething look Solas is giving Varric—it’s been pointed at them often enough. 

“Perhaps I should find a crossbow to name after her. Would that please you?”

Varric lets out a breath that’s half sigh, half chuckle. “Too soon. Way too soon.” 

Rook’s tried to pry into this whole romantic situation, of course, but Varric always deflects, saying something like Don’t even get me started or You’ll just have to pre-order my next book.

Another silence. Then Solas speaks again, his tone softening. “I have caused her enough grief.”

Varric sounds unmoved. “Yeah, by avoiding her for ten years. Has anyone ever told you that you’re impossible?”

“On occasion, yes.”

“Seriously, if you think she’s going to sit this one out now that she knows you’re here—“

Any gentleness is gone. “Excuse me?”

Varric’s nervous laugh makes Rook cringe deeper into the couch. “Yeah, about that… listen, you know it’s impossible for Sparkler to keep secrets from her. It was going to come out eventually, what with the whole ancient evil gods thing. I think she could put two and two together.”

Rook can practically feel the frost radiating from Solas’ voice. “You will tell her you were mistaken.”

“A little late for that,” Varric says sheepishly. “She’s, uh, arriving tomorrow.”

Rook winces at the slammed door that follows in the wake of this new information, and the movement is enough to give away their hiding spot. 

Varric peers down at them, his eyebrows raised. “You heard all that, huh?”

“Yeah,” Rook says, sitting up. “That was, uh…”

“Tell me about it.”Varric sighs, rubs a hand down his face. “Tomorrow is going to be a shitshow.”

___

Inquisitor Lavellan is very short in person. And she looks almost as tired as Solas. And she’s pretty–dark hair and skin, bright green eyes and a wry set to her mouth that looks out of place on the person who was supposed to be Andraste’s prophet. Rook was expecting someone a lot more dour and…Chantry-y. 

She’s also really obviously out of Fen’Harel’s league. No wonder he’s been pining for a decade.

She shakes their hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Varric,” she says.

“It’s an honor, your Worsh—uh, your Inquisitorial—“

“Ellana is fine,” she says—kindly, but impersonally, and Rook supposes she’s had this same interaction about ten billion times.

“Ellana, then,” Rook says, and she rewards them with a small smile.

“So you’re the one who interrupted the ritual,” she says. “With some rather interesting side effects, I hear.”

“You mean being magically linked to the grumpiest elf in Thedas? Yeah, interesting is one word for it.”

They’re arrested by the Inquisitor’s hand on their arm. “You could have been cruel to him, and few people would have blamed you. I must thank you for that.”

Her eyes are piercingly kind, and Rook suddenly understands how this woman had entire nations bowing to her will. They have no idea what to say, mouth dry.

“Still, I can’t imagine it’s been easy,” she continues, the wry smile back.

Rook shrugs, hoping their blush isn’t as red as it feels. “In terms of difficult personalities, he ranks a little below my Aunt Beryl, though Aunt Beryl couldn’t turn people to stone with—“

Then they spot Solas over the Inquisitor’s shoulder, hovering in the doorway like a ghost. He’s about as white as one, too.

“Inquisitor,” says Solas, his voice so void of emotion that it gapes like an open wound. 

Rook has a front row seat to the expression that plays across Inquisitor Lavellan’s face. Shock — she grabs the shoulder of her missing arm. Then something Rook can’t quite name—a deep well of some dark thing that makes them shiver, something they hope they never have to feel. 

And then her mouth settles into a grim line, eyes closing for a moment before she turns, back ramrod straight.  

“Solas,” she says, voice steady as she releases her shoulder. Solas’ eyes track the movement with his jaw set.

“You look well.”

It’s like he’s commenting on the weather. 

Rook, frankly, wants to throttle him. The woman you’ve painted onto every other surface of your house is right here, you idiot! Say something better than you look well! They try to communicate this through a series of glares, but Solas seems to have forgotten anyone but the Inquisitor exists. Fair enough.

“You look terrible,” she replies, stepping closer. Her voice is thick. Solas takes a step back.

“I think it best if we—“

“Solas,” she says, stepping forward again, and there is nowhere left for him to retreat. She has the Dread Wolf cornered. Slowly, as though taming a wild animal, she raises her hand to him, coming up to touch his face, the line of his jaw. “You’re really here.”

Rook backs away, knowing this is very much not for their eyes and ears, but—well, they’re nosy, and so they pause in the doorway, shamelessly eavesdropping. Luckily the two elves seem to have forgotten Rook’s even there.

Solas exhales roughly at her touch, ten years of tension rushing out of him in a moment. “Inquisitor—Ellana, I—“

“Hush,” she says, and drops her forehead to his.

Solas’ face crumples. “How can you—I do not deserve—” Rook can barely hear him.

“We have plenty to catch up on,” the Inquisitor murmurs, her voice gentle. “But you are alive, and safe. For now that is enough.”

Like a dam breaking, Solas reaches out, his arms wrapping around her like a drowning man, tight as a sieve. Rook is pretty sure he starts to cry, a sob coming from deep in his chest and shaking his entire frame.

Okay. Enough. Rook’s pretty sure Solas would actually murder them if he remembered they were still there. So they make their exit and ease the door closed without a sound.

They’re happy for him, despite everything. And they really hope they don’t fuck on Rook’s favorite couch.

[vigilskeep]

Do you have any kind of analysis of Cassandra's character? I find how you talk about her so interesting and different from how the rest of the fandom refers to her

i wouldn’t say i know her very well; i’ve never yet done her personal quest and i don’t bring her out a lot. here are... some notes? displayed messily

cassandra is first and foremost a violent person. when she doesn’t know how to solve a problem, she leads with violence; her interrogation of varric, her reaction when he brought hawke to skyhold, threatening to execute solas simply for failing to produce results with his tests on the anchor when the herald was first found. chancellor roderick says this outright—and you are a thug, but a thug who supposedly serves the chantry—but her use for divinia justinia was as a blunt tool, not capable of subtlety or diplomacy. unlike other members of the inquisition, she is not very capable of exerting power in other ways than violence, and she has spent her entire life expecting to hold power in any situation

cassandra could have been the inquisitor. she’s pretty much the obvious choice. she has to be actively dodging that to go on a wild goose chase to find the hero of ferelden and then the champion, and then still to evade it further and hand it over to the herald, who she may not even approve of. at haven, she at least appears at the war table. at skyhold, she doesn’t, having further and further removed herself from the role. if she does get along with your inquisitor, it suggests faith in your choices, following your lead. but it has a kind of different unique effect if she doesn’t rlly get along with your inquisitor, where it really feels like she’s been pushed out or allowed herself to be pushed out of the movement she started. either way her movement to be divine feels related to not having taken that lead position before

she gets very caught up in her own perspective on a situation. i think often of when she laughs at the herald and says “is that what you see?” when they ask if this isn’t still part of the chantry, which is what literally anyone normal would see. or her infamous comment to lavellan about whether or not there’s room among their gods for one more, completely missing that this would be a bizarre thing for them to ask of her. or describing varric’s andrastianism as “deep down, his heart is virtuous” to a non-andrastian inquisitor. etc, etc. it doesn’t occur to her to censor herself or consider how her words come across to other people who don’t have the same beliefs she does. she probably has mostly only been exposed to people who don’t have the same beliefs she does as idk antagonists and opposition, as the “criminals” she has to interrogate

she overthinks the consequences of her actions, the weight of history bearing down, in a way that suggests a kind of preoccupation with the assumption that her actions and life will be written of. nobody who reads as many of varric tethras’ books as she does isn’t kind of into that, despite her complaints. when a character constantly self-criticises but you only get approval from saying “no you’re totally good and cool and did the best you could!!!” and disapproval and sudden defensiveness from saying “yeah that was a bad move i’m glad you’re thinking about it”, i think i can come to some pretty safe conclusions about what that character really thinks and what they want to hear

her comments about “change” in her vision for the chantry are confusing at best, considering that she distinguishes herself from leliana almost exclusively by saying that leliana would change too much. her point is largely to restore things as they were, but all the things she’s restoring will, you know, somehow be better now. with very little discussion of how that could actually be achieved, as far as i can tell. even if i did agree with her end goal, i don’t think she would instil confidence

i don’t dislike cassandra i think she’s quite interesting but i don’t find her either admirable or sufficiently entertaining in order to want her approval or to hang out with her really so she does get a little left to the wayside in my attempted playthroughs personally

[cybershock24601]

Seeing how some people talk about Mythal is insane. Not to say she isn’t super sus and done a whole lot of bad things but the way people try to frame it like everything Solas has done is somehow her fault is insane. He is a grown ass man who can make his own decisions! Pretty sure I saw someone talking about the “I release you from my service” line like Mythal was somehow controlling him the whole time through elfy magic when it’s super clear that’s the shade of someone Solas cared for and feels responsible for getting killed telling him that’s it’s okay and he can stop trying to get revenge in her name. That he can finally let go of everything he has been holding onto.

It seems super obvious especially with how it mirrors the talk with Varric in the regret prison where Varric absolves Rook of the guilt they feel for his death because it was his choice to talk to Solas just as it was Mythal’s choice to talk to the Evanuris. Rook and Solas didn’t cause their deaths but that doesn’t change the fact that grief often manifests as guilt because you’re so often left with so many what ifs, so many things you wish you could have said or done and wondering if you might have been able to stop them from dying if you’d have done something different.

The reason Solas is able to finally make the right choice in the end is because of Mythal telling him that it wasn’t his fault that she died and he doesn't have to keep on his path of destruction to bring about the world he thinks Mythal wanted because he feels like that's the only way to atone for her death. Mythal and Solas made all those bad decisions together and committed some terrible wrongs and as the last man standing Solas is desperate to make it all mean something that he has blinded himself to everything else. Mythal was the only person to truly understand the weight of the guilt they both bear for their actions and so its only her that can offer him absolution for their mistakes because after all these years Solas sees everything as his own fault so Mythal acknowledging the part she played in leading him down the path they went down and telling him its okay to stop, that he doesn't have to continue walking on the path just because he feels it what she would have wanted.

Mythal and Solas are the only two people who know the true damage their mistakes have caused and while Mythal was able to accept and grow past it and appreciate the world as it is, it was Solas, Pride, who saw his only recourse was to try to make things right even at the expense of everything the world has become. Mythal offers him both apology and absolution in the end and that is what finally gets Solas to stop. Mythal is the only one that can properly understand and acknowledge the depths his grief and offer him the solace he needs to finally let go of it and begin to live not in the past but with his feet firmly planted in the present and his eyes towards the future.

[dearest-and-nearest]

It's so hard to discuss veilguard, when you don't like dai.

like, I hated it with passion on release (for many reasons), but now it became an example of "good" part of series. while it already had all roots, that grew into veilguard. take Morrigan for example.

she was a bitch in dao, a woman who agitated for whatever act of genocide you could commit, had fun with killing children and was an awful person from any angles. but in dai she loves Kieran even if she wasn't romanced... because of what? he's her son? bad argument, she wanted to kill her mother in a second. more because bioware didn't want to mess with decisions, so she will always love her son and he will change her "to good", because it's character development, you know, changing for the most stupid and cliché reason and throw away significant traits (like egoism) for "child".

or roleplay. remember how we could treat our companions and everyone around in dao and da2. agree to execute Alistair, kill Zevran without even talking to him, kill Leliana and Wynn while desecrate the ashes. give Fenris back to his owner, betray Isabela (through, I think she deserved that), force Varric to kill his brother. there were options, it was fun. While what we have in dai?

Well...

You can trick Vivienne. For no reasons or consequences, just do it and no one will even remember that. You can slap Solas and Dorian. You can not save Blackwall from prison. And force Cullen to do lyrium. That's all.

You can't even slaughter anyone properly.

And all those roots from making characters more "sympathetic" and "develop" them into good to restrict your options with companions and the whole roleplay to more good side, not letting you making world a worse place than before (like with mages. I supported templars, mages lots the war, but nobody cares, their situation won't become even worse, through it would be a nice and logical). You can't even have "an evil" companion, the most pragmatic we have is Vivienne. Everything we complained about in veilguard started in dai and even with veilguard here, I can't stop see that. I hated this game and now I just dislike it, but I still think many problems started here and lack of roleplaying too (through, I blame Mass Effect here, bioware saw they can sell rpg-elements, less with each next part, and became lazy in giving player full roleplay)

[impuretale]

Harding is VERY concerned if you are romancing Emmerich.

I have seen a lot of people say they think she has a problem with the age gap, which is fair. Their ages is something she mentions, but it's not the only thing. I have another theory and SPOILERS

Harding is not dealing very well with Varric dying. You are much more aware of this the second time you play and you are noticing all the things you wouldn't have before you got to the end of the game. The only time she comes close to breaking down is the first time you find her in the greenhouse, and she immediately stops herself the second she knows she isn't alone. Her ability to repress is going to become an issue later.

She has valid reasons to think you, Rook, are coping a lot worse than she is. ESPECIALLY if she or Neve has ever wandered into the infirmary while you are "talking" to Varric. And then you immediately became attached to the first person to join the party who is close to him in age? Who has a lot of ties to death?

She's not worried about the age difference; she's worried you are one bad turn from having a nervous breakdown.

Betting money that when they went camping together, she finally talked to him about this. I'm not saying this is partly why he has that fight with you right before the final battle, but it would have given him one more reason to have that talk to you -- which he likely would have been putting off because he'd agree you're probably a little more delicate than you're letting on.

[truetealtears]

So many fic writers don’t acknowledge the fact that canonically Fenris hosts a game night with Donnic at the mansion WEEKLY

Like sure he probably put them on hold for a bit after his personal quests since oof those were not good times but past that he sees Donnic once a week!

So many of you guys are missing out on A - probably one of/the only friend Fenris consistently hangs out with OUTSIDE of Hawke and Co (even though he’s Aveline’s husband lmao). And B - the closeness and hilarity of their relationship, like they do this for years, they clearly talk to each other about a lot. To the point where Donnic tells him about maybe having children and stuff, which Fenris then asks Aveline about and she goes ‘you two talk too much’ LIKE??? ITS RIGHT THERE IN CANNON

The funny part comes in when you’re romancing Fenris because everyone depicts him as like brooding about it alone in his mansion for weeks (which he definitely did ngl) but then only confiding in either no one at all or like Varric WHEN DONNIC IS CANONICALLY RIGHT THERE

Like can you imagine that at one point during one of their game nights in Act 3 Fenris is like:

“Donnic”

“Yeah?”

“So you are married…”

“Listen Fenris, buddy, you’re right. I am happily married and as your friend I would love to give you relationship advice but you were there for the absolute mess that was Aveline trying to court me. You know full well why I can’t really help you get with Hawke. The two of you combined are worse than even my dear wife.”

“We are not that bad”

“Fenris”

“Fasta vaas, fine. So what now?”

“Well I can offer encouragement, Aveline is close with Hawke used to have tea with her mother a lot, so I can tell you with absolute certainty that Hawke is into you and Leandra wouldn’t have disapproved. You just have to make your move… and also never tell either of them that I told you this”

*Meanwhile in the Hawke estate*

“Aveline I need you to do me a favour and get Donnic to find out if Fenris is still into me”

“What?”

“You told me they hang out a lot! And I can’t just ask him that myself so I need you to find out for me Please? I really need you to return the favour here!”

I think this would be an absolutely hilarious interpretation of canon events and a really funny and sweet dynamic between the four of them. The rest of the Hawke flock could joke about them going on double dates lmao

TLDR: Donnic and Fenris are canonically really good friends and this should be acknowledged more in fics and stuff

(Fenris and Aveline are also good friends fyi but that’s for a different post. As well as something I have actually seen a couple of people talk about on here so yeah another time)

[csphire]

YES! I hate how much the romanced end relies on Lavellan just being ok with everything Solas has done. Including things he's done directly to her or to her friends. I've had fellow Solavellans coming at me because their Lavellan forgives him whole heartedly and it all feels like they're being completely dismissive of any desire for an option for the inquisitor to be hurt or angry. I feel like we can feel bad for Solas but acknowledge that most people would be hurt by his actions and Lavellan isn't cruel or disloyal if she draws a line or, heaven forbid, expresses an emotion that isn't immediate grace and forgiveness.

It's sad when some don't want to face the reality of what's being presented and choose to ignore that what Solas did to Varric was inexcusable. As a Solavellan fan, the whole of Veilguard feels icky to me because of this. One can perhaps overlook Solas killing Felassan because it happened while he was in his deep sleep and he did not understand the current state of the world yet or why Felassan refused to help him. I even had, at one point, a tinfoil hat theory that Solas was always a spirit and had taken over the body of Felassan at that moment instead of killing him. That it was another reason why he did not sleep with Lavellan was because the body he was in was his friend's which he would have to relinquish eventually. But I digress. It was wishful thinking. In Inquisition, we watch Solas potentially grow into a better person thanks to the Inquisitor only for him to backslide in the next game. In Veilguard Solas REPEATS his mistake, killing another friend only this time it's one of Lavellan's too. This should be alarming. Easily Solas had the upper hand in that final confrontation. Last time I checked stabbing someone is red flag behavior and it's messed up that the developers did not give Varric's death the full weight it deserved. Lavellan's seeming lack of mourning for her friend feels like it shoehorns her and us the player into him being not as close of a friend as we would all like to think he was. Plus it romanticizes the dangerous messages of "Our love will conquer all" or "Oh but he won't hurt me." I personally expected better from BioWare and killing off Varric for a cheap plot twist was an incredibly stupid and toxic idea.

[ndostairlyrium]

okay, major spoilers + me being very critical and rambly so feel free to dodge

who is this person?

what mess, specifically?

why is Harding the only one that gets mad?

how did they think this cutscene was a good idea?

I deliberately chose the smug / angry option to have a legit "stay at your place kid" reaction from her, because I think one of the things that unites all the Inquisitors is that they cared. They fucking cared and were taken advantage of. They were treated like a pawn from the beginning, and they fucking subverted it. What is the mess she's talking about? Being there when it was needed the most? Stopping a legit apocalypse? HOW DID SHE MAKE THE SOUTH VULNERABLE OMG she fucking strengthen it!! It was at its lowest and I'm betting that without the Inquisition it would have been destroyed entirely, even without Corypheus. And she shouldn't need fucking scout Harding to tell a kid to shut their mouth, if that was the real Inquisitor, he would be on the floor crying for mum

We stopped Mages and Templars from mauling each other, and possibly revolutionized their relationship. Prevented Grey Wardens to self destruct and (possibly) helped them to raise their numbers. Put an end to the stupidest civil war in history. We picked the most influential cult leader in the south (the ma' thing had me screaming like, out of everything you could say the Divine has done for the struggle, you're telling me that this is all she can bring to the table? Just reassure Harding she's safe, like, why are you bragging?). Not to mention all those war table missions that are *useless*, like idk, mediating between Ferelden and Orlais? Just to pick one. But everything is inconsequential, apparently. "Hey, Ferelden and Orlais are finally working together in an united front against the Darkspawn" <- that would have been SO COOL

Morrigan being like "she worked hard these past 10 years" is the cherry on top, really. Basically all the hours spent planning my worldstate are limited to "upsidupsi things are bad, have a statuette" with the grey hoodie like an influencer that sold molded lipsticks to their followers. Do I really need someone to reiterate that she's awesome? Can't you show me instead? Are they really recommending the fucking inquisitor??

Give me someone BIG, someone that wears the struggle, with travel clothes, eyebags, dirt on her fingertips, a battered prosthetic. Tell me visually that I'm talking with someone that's leaving the battlefield (with tremendous costs because, like, one of your generals is kilometers away) to bring help and ask for help. I really hope that statuette is worth the costs in lives, because if that statue is a fucking mcguffin I'll scream. In this cutscene she looks more like one of those generals they use for recruitment posters rather than an actual person and I'm mortified for her

Dude, I'm fuming. Fuming. This is fucking ridiculous.

What she should have answered: "Who the fuck are you to judge, and where is Varric? I need to talk to an adult." / "Leave Harding and go do something constructive"

Ankh, they did you so dirty oh my GOD

Do you know how many more interesting scenarios could have been exposed if we had kept some of our decisions?? I guess I'll stick with the "I'm incompetent" version, not that the other options are better...

This meeting could've been an email

[zundely]

Okay so, I've seen one bad Harding take too many and I need to VENT. Some thoughts and spoilers for dwarves and Lace Harding ahead.

Some people made claims that it "makes no sense" that Harding is the character to get the stone-sense powers since she has never given any indication of having any intrest in the Stone or dwarven traditions and... it just bothers me at this point. Like ok I understand some people would rather have Valta or Dagna in her place amd you know what, fair, understandable but let's not ignore that Harding's plot in game doesn't mention and deal with the specific situation Harding is in. Like her being a surface dwarf and raised Andrastian isn't a bug, it's a part of the whole story.

Lace can be the only dwarven person in the room when they learn the true story about the Titans, and when she tries to reach out to other dwarves about her powers, makes and effort to connect to her cultural roots she gets harshly rejected. Because she is not good enough- the Stone literally manifested through her but she is not good enough because she is a surfacer. And it hurts her. It angers her but she pushes it down and moves forward because Harding deal with her anger by not dealing with it. There are also few banters about her being raised Andrastian and how that affects her current beliefs. And I am glad it is there. I am glad they didn't have her just switch to believing in Stone all the way. Because religion and beliefs can be messy that way and it can be hard to let go off.

And to have all that be there im text and still see people say it's not logical for her to be interested in culture she comes from after the STONE STARTED TALKING TO HER- it's a bit annoying to be quite frank. First of all, it would be fine if she took intrest in the dwarves just because of all the things she learn about the Titans and their history. I don't know, I feel like trying to learn more about your cultural roots when you grow up is a fairy common and natural thing. And implying that because she was born outside of it she is somehow less worthy of a connection to it is... it's exactly the shitty thing Orzammar is doing.

I personally find Harding's story of finding connection to dwarven culture and exploring what does it mean for her, and it not undercutting her ties to Ferelden is nice, not perfect in execution but still considering the Bioware's usual approach of "loosing your cultural ties isn't a bad thing actually and people who care about it are loosers" it's at least not that.

I will just end it by saying I also think if it was Varric getting the Stone powers and he would whine the whole time about how it sucks and it's creepy and he doesn't like Deep Roads people wouldn't bat an eye sooooo.... yeah.