#the fic is calling A LOT of Veilguard stuff

[solasyoulittleshit]

rereading Dead Pasts and Dread Futures by youworeblue before Veilguard and I just lol'd at this line

Ixchel Lavellan is being very prescient here lol

Meanwhile in DA:TV --

Great fic by a great author, if you're a newer fan or one of the few who haven't read it I linked it above!!!

[thebookworm0001]

Spoilers for the end of veilguard and specifically how solas’s story is handled under the cut

And seriously I do mean the very end of the game and I’m gonna talk about stuff that happened before then too

You have been warned

I felt satisfied with the ending.

I was able to collect all the solas memories/regret murals and very much felt like the way the ending unlocked by that was handled well.

Solas has always been a man bound by his regrets. And this game spent a lot of time establishing is primary regret is Mythal. Yes, he cares deeply about helping people and wants that world restored, but it’s less to do with the elven people and more to do with him feeling like he’s made mistake after mistake.

He’s been living in a sunk-cost fallacy for millennia and cannot see a way out. He really, really doesn’t want to do this - he knows how many people he’ll hurt to do it, but can’t see another way because if he stops now he feels like it’ll be just another betrayal of mythal when he’s already betrayed and failed her so many times. She’s the reason any of this happened.

That’s why it has to be mythal telling him to stop. He wanted to stop for a romanced lavellan - his letter says that explicitly. But he regrets mythal’s death (and his resulting actions) so much he just. Can’t let it go. What does his life mean if he can’t fulfill the wishes of the goddess that called him to service, to a body? The friend he murdered, in the end, to make up for the first time she as killed.

He was a spirit of wisdom mythal corrupted - it’s another version of Cole and the Templar who killed the human Cole. That confrontation has to happen for him to move in any direction.

And the way he absolutely crumples when he sees her? Damn if that didn’t sell me on how deeply he cares for her, beyond the murals that show how ashamed he is of what he did with and for her.

He’s always needed someone to tell him there was another way, but nobody besides mythal could absolve him of the actions he took, because they aren’t her. It’s not a matter of the nature of their relationship, rather that he cannot untie himself from the way his spirit was warped by her and the actions he took in response to her.

Idk I know people will have very different feelings and opinions on how that went down, but it made sense to me.

And my solas-romanced lavellan acted exactly how I expected her to. Granted, Ellana is the kind of lavellan who would immediately forgive him and would, no questions asked, go with him on his journey to atone. I had a whole fic planned out where she did that exact thing - even if the details weren’t what happened here.

If you have a lavellan who isn’t as sad as mine and who wouldn’t join him, yeah this ending may not work for you. But I went from being pissed at him for trapping my rook and lying about killing varric to immediately being back on my ‘fuck you’re just a deeply sad and broken man please let yourself be happy’ lament when he talked about how he failed both the world and mythal in different moments.

It worked for me. I’m satisfied by how it was handled and think the ending makes sense for the read on Solas I’ve had for the last several years. He’s just a deeply sad man who thinks he has to make up for his failures - and the one person he’s failed more than anyone tells him it’s not on him. She’s the one person he could never get forgiveness from - and he got it. And that’s why it had to be her.

[pinehutch]

Okay so my Thing about Dragon Age is this:

Ten years ago, I was in constant extreme pain as I worked my way towards a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. I had spent the previous year working 12-18 hour days most days, between an unsustainable volunteer job and my daytime career. Sometime that fall, I started noticing that my hands were locking into fists while I slept, and that the fatigue was never getting better, and that walking was really hard, more days than not.

I tried to work through it, that first awful year. I mostly did, too. I had weeks when I couldn't walk unassisted, and months where I was sick all the time because we were trying different meds. I called the rheumatologist in tears more than once, feeling hopeless and like a failure because I couldn't tolerate some of the easier drugs. And in between it all, I worked.

On the days that I couldn't work, and if my hands would let me, I played Dragon Age.

I'm stubborn, and I don't usually watch or read or play things that other people recommend until the time feels right. Spring 2014, I needed something that would be immersive enough that it could distract me from my body but that wouldn't require too much complex problem solving. I needed gaming, and some very trusted people had recommended Dragon Age to me before, so I started Origins in March and by July I had played through Origins and DA2 and all the DLC I could get. Inquisition came out that fall, and I was hooked.

(It also was one of the first ways that I learned to distinguish between healthy pain and warning sign pain: I learned to put the controller down before my hands would be so irritated I couldn't use them at all the next day.)

So there I was, having the worst year of my life (at that point), and I got to fill up my brain with lore and distractions and become a hobbyist expert in the historiography and folklore and religion and politics of something that was entirely made up. I could invest, mentally and emotionally, but I didn't have to fix anything real, including my own unfixable problem. I just had to learn, and to play.

Dragon Age brought me into video games for grown-ups, and it brought me back to fiction writing. The first short story I had written since high school was DA fic. I came back to writing poetry, the love of my life, a couple of years later.

My life doesn't look that different from the outside vs what it was 10 years ago. I'm working out whether or not I'm okay with that; making big changes in your life is hard when you're chronically ill and have adhd and you work a complicated job with a lot of responsibility, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. I had expected that my general weariness would stretch over into a kind of Dragon Apathy - that there would be news and I'd say 'oh, nice,' and then go back to work and the other little agonies.

Instead, I'm delighted? Surprised? Fond? Something I loved and that I needed during a really difficult time is here, again, while I'm anticipating another sea change. The thing that brought me some happiness, some wonder, and some escape can do it still, maybe.

Anyway. I collect my favourite DA stuff at @free-smarcher. I always roll a rogue on my first playthrough. (In real life I'm a giant brain on a giant, clumsy body; my fantasy is being able to go undetected.) I love Varric Tethras because he's a highly-accomplished fuckup with too many responsibilities and because he's bad at his personal life.

When Veilguard comes out I will almost certainly, at least once, play it until my hands seize.

[defira85]

Thedas Tuesday

Just over a week to go! And I've done introductions for all 8 of my Rooks (if you fancy, you browse the tag here to see any you might have missed) so today I'm posting my predictions as to who might romance who. This is just a guess, I've been trying to avoid a lot of the early access stuff that went live in September, so I really don't have a huge grasp on the companions' personalities for the most part, and it's entirely possible I'll get wrenched in a completely different direction by the muse once I get into the game proper.

But for now, under the cut because it's long:

Vaaran: Qunari Grey Warden, warrior class. This is actually the easiest one to predict because Vaaran has been a Grey Warden since the siege of Amaranthine in 9:31 and is actively hearing her calling at the onset of Veilguard. Who better to woo the stoic warrior who has embraced her own death and is only lingering to ease her sister's guilt but the charming necromancer and master of death himself? How much will it hurt Emmrich to realise that for once he finds death to be a hindrance, a horror, an enemy ready to snatch his new love away? How much will it hurt Vaaran when she realises she wants to live, but it might be too late?

Kasaanda: Qunari Grey Warden, mage class. Bubbly and boisterous, excited to be alive and to experience everything life has to offer, who else would catch her eye but the equally bubbly Bellara?

Micaela: Human Mourn Watch, mage class. A member of the illustrious and mysterious Gottschalk family on her mother's side, the more common Ingellvar on her father's side. Cousin to the infamous Jo Hawke. As a Gottschalk, Micaela has been raised as a member of the Veiled Brotherhood, and has an intimate relationship with spirits, demons and blood magic. Of COURSE that means I'm going to throw her at Lucanis (and Spite) because they're going to annoy each other SO MUCH it'll be delicious

Hedrobella: Dwarf Lord of Fortune, warrior class. The infamous Captain Brand is a world-weary grump with a heart of gold hiding under many, many layers of scars and snark. She is going to find common ground with Neve, two snarky women fighting to do the right thing for the little guy and finding comfort in each other

Dhraoibhan: Elven Veil Jumper, warrior class. I think I want to go elf for elf, and head for Davrin. We've never had the opportunity to have a Dalish elf romance a Dalish elf before! It's exciting! And with my personal little headcanon that Dhraoibhan is a worshipper of the Forgotten Ones, I can write it as a little antagonistic, a little culture clash, which will be fun. The only problem, it's also warrior for warrior, and now that the party size has been cut down, that makes it difficult to justify having him in the party with them

Luciaane: Human Shadow Guard, mage class. TECHNICALLY SHE'S INQUISITION, NOT SHADOW GUARD. Again, I get why there's not an Inquisition faction as a player background, I do, but I want one. For many reasons that I went into in her backstory post, but also because it'll be hilarious having her romance Harding knowing that Luc, her father, was a member of the Inquisition and a member of Inquisitor Corinne Trevelyan's inner circle, and he'll do fucking anime murder sparkle eyes when he realises Harding is dating his baby girl

Nomi: Dwarf Antivan Crow, rogue class. She's gayer than San Francisco in the spring time, and she's devoutly religious and bound by how important duty is. So of course that means she's going to have a CRISIS over Taash, who has left the Qun and has no loyalties beyond coin and is just the most extraordinary (BIG) woman Nomi has ever seen

Which is all 7 companions accounted for! Which leaves...

Beren: Elf Shadow Dragon, rogue class. Look. We all know my brand. I'm going to go after an unromanceable, it's just going to happen. I'll write a 300k fic about an unromanceable character yet again, it's just what I do. Will it be Solas, now that he's unattainable? Perhaps. It might also be Elgar'nan. Maybe it's Manfred, because Elissa's canon romance is Justice the corpse, so why wouldn't I romance a skeleton in this game? Who knows. We'll see what happens and who my wretched soul latches on to in 2 weeks time....

And in 2 weeks time we'll know just how wrong I am and how badly I messed up these predictions!

[solasyoulittleshit]

@dreadfutures on tumblr 💜🐺

rereading Dead Pasts and Dread Futures by youworeblue before Veilguard and I just lol'd at this line

Ixchel Lavellan is being very prescient here lol

Meanwhile in DA:TV --

Great fic by a great author, if you're a newer fan or one of the few who haven't read it I linked it above!!!