#the more of a problem she is for Emmrich the more fun it is to watch

[aldisobey]

I love her. She never did a wrong thing, she should be rich beyond her wildest dreams and live a lovely life in Rivain with Emmrich at her beck and call.

“Nonchalant and a little stupid…” - why do I love her so much for this. Take them all for fools.

Listen this sewer rat is perfect, give her direct access to the vaults. To be a rich rat high on cocaine looking out for friends is the ideal dream she has discovered a beautiful way to live. Run from those Nevarran horrors, get to beaches and the gold.

I want to meet her at a bar on the beach and just shit talk Solas, have her show off all the newest jewelry and shit. Like cheers fucking get paid for being such a delight, he owes you more.

Rook Questionnaire

tagged by @ass-deep-in-demons <3

tagging my fellow boos @caffeinatedmunchkin @aldisobey @heylittleriotact @jainydoe and literally everyone else, I’m on mobile and forgetting people (tag me, I want to read)

Can’t believe people want to know about my sewer rat lmfao

Rook’s Rook lol. She doesn’t have an official first name for me since I always go for the default ones.

Where in Thedas is your Rook from?

Short answer: Rivain. Long answer: some alienage somewhere before that. I haven’t decided yet lol. Leaning towards Orlais.

What is your character’s alignment?

Chaotic neutral

Race and subclass?

Elf rogue

If your Rook was a companion, where would they be found?

Probably in a cave or dungeon. Stealing shiny shit.

What emotion did they usually pick?

Nonchalant and a little stupid. She plays dumb on purpose, letting people underestimate her, and honestly, it works. That’s her motto in life, and she swears by it.

What companion are they platonically close with?

Lucanis. They exchange many mierdas, middle fingers, annoy the shit out of each other, and drink disgustingly strong coffee together.

Romantically close with?

Emmrich. She loves her magpie of an old man. He needs the chaos, she needs the grounding; somehow, it works. She “acquires” (i.e. steals) shiny things from dragon hoards to gift him, and in return, he takes her on extravagant jewelry shopping sprees. His banker absolutely despises her.

Who are they suspicious of?

Everyone, basically. She’s not big on people in general, so yeah, everyone kind of sucks by default. But if we’re being specific? Probably Nevarrans, which makes things super awkward for Emmrich. She can’t handle Nevarra’s whole death-obsessed vibe and finds the entire country borderline nightmare fuel.

Does your Rook get along with their chosen faction?

Yeah they’re good. She likes Isabela a lot.

Are they proficient in playing any instruments?

She’s surprisingly good with a harmonica.

Weapon of choice?

Double daggers. Nothing fancy.

What is their orientation?

Bisexual, though she hasn’t explored much. Wouldn’t say no to Isabela, at any rate.

What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

She doesn’t enjoy it but she also doesn’t lose sleep over it. If it has to happen, then it has to happen, simple as that.

What hobbies does your Rook have?

She’s into drawing, but it’s mostly a cover because reading isn’t exactly her strong suit. What she lacks in literacy, she makes up for with a sketchbook. If she can’t read it, she’ll just draw it. Problem solved, right?

What NPCs do they like? Which ones do they dislike?

Tarquin can’t stand her, but oh boy, does she like him. He’s irritating, petty, and bitchy; basically her dream combo. And Dorian? Yeah, she’s got a crush on him the second he walks into the room. Zero hesitation.

Do they have a favorite creature in Thedas?

MABARIIIIIIII

Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

She’s from Rivain. That’s pretty much the only life she knows.

What would your Rook be doing if they weren’t recruited by Varric?

Literally nothing important. Petty theft. Doing jobs for the Lords. Joining get rich quick schemes.

How do you think they’ll meet their end?

Killed by a dragon, in her bed, or dying from a heart attack induced by one of Nevarra’s many horrors.

Would they side with Solas or fight him?

Fight him. She couldn’t care less about her elven heritage or any of that “lost elven glory” nonsense. But the sky falling apart? Yeah, that’s kind of her problem. So, Solas, kindly fuck off.

What is your Rook’s favorite ability?

The riposte with poisoned blades. Swish, swish, swish, mofos.

What languages is your character fluent in?

Just Common lol

What do they do after an absolute crisis?

Drink. Sleep.

Does your character believe in the afterlife?

Not especially.

What specialization best represents your Rook?

Duelist

What animal best represents your Rook?

One of those very vocal, very bitchy calico cats

What was their life like before the events of Veilguard?

She, and I cannot stress this enough, did not do anything important. She literally just spent her time going from job to job with the Lords and filling her secret stash because she’s terrified of being poor.

Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

Yeah. She enjoys being looked up to. It’s not healthy but she loves the kick she gets out of it. More often than not, she runs her decisions by Neve first. So, if anything, Neve is the “power behind the throne.”

If you could choose a different faction for your Rook, which one would they have joined and why?

Probably the Crows. She’s too morally questionable so she couldn’t be a Shadow Dragon fighting for the greater good and the Mourn Watch is out of the question because Nevarra terrifies her.

What’s your favorite thing about your Rook?

She’s a morally bankrupt rat on cocaine but one who really loves her friends.

Bonus: some of the characters that inspired her.

Marnie from Marnie.

[chromunist]

Honestly very bizarre to me how people single out lucanis’s romance as being so bad. I haven’t seen all the romances but from what i have seen it is not noticeably different in content. Taash was 3rd most romanced and definitely has the exact same content (its just more sexual).

Like they can never get their story straight if the problem is the amount of content or lack of smut. Probably because if its lack of content you have to crit the whole game (at least more than just luc, emmrich girls seem to be having fun) and not just whine abt him and mary kirby in self-pity as a lucanismancer, and if its lack of sexy you have to acknowledge thats subjective and invalid.

People saying mary kirby is lying abt him being demisexual to cover up bad writing cuz she called him a bisexual disaster before? Like what bad writing? Not having as much content as you want is not bad writing. And you out yourself as not interacting with a lot of acespec people if you think we never default to more common sexual labels for simplicity LOL.

His writing comes off very acespec to me and a lot of other acespec ppl. And not just because he doesn’t rail you on screen in the pantry. In the subtle ways he is shy and reluctant towards intimacy, in the way he romance is his favorite genre but he struggles to see himself in a relationship in real life. This man would rather listen to you talk then have a round 2 ! like please this is not a lie! He has 0 horny energy.

Ppl just need to admit that the romance they planned on before the game came out wasn’t to their taste. I get thatd be disappointing but to act like it is objectively bad and call the writer, who has written one of the most iconic bioware characters, a bad writer and a lier is actually insane

[livefromthedas]

That Time Flirting Accidentally Worked

(Also up on AAO3, here)

Summary:

Rook Ingellvar, famously a dumpster fire amongst Mourn Watchers, manages to fall face-first into dating one Emmrich Volkarin.

Nice.

Notes:

I swear to God I intended to start DATV fanfic writing for my Lucanis/Rook playthrough... but this came out instead. Strike while the hyper-focus iron is hot, I guess.

I tried to write this Rook (F, Mourn Watcher) as vaguely as possible while still making sure she was reflection of the character in my head, so hopefully that works for readers.

Please note that while I'm utilizing quite a bit of canon knowledge about Navarra and Navarran culture, here, there is also a ton about the place that we just do no know, so a lot of information here is extrapolated (aka, pulled directly out of my butt.) I had fun though, at least, exploring more of the place, and creating my own little pocket of extra romance content for Emmrich and Rook as well.

And yeah, this will probably get spicy. Just a heads up.

———————————

Chapter 1: Hot Date for a Hot Mess

The needling fire of over-exertion kept a purposeful momentum in Rook’s stride the entire journey home from their latest magic-riddled battle with the Venatori in Arlathan.

That fight, deep in the autumn hewn forest - an apparent ambush - had been jarring and brutal. Had Davrin not been with them, with Assan to serve as their own surprise attack from the sky, Rook was quite certain that, for all of their combined competency, she and Emmrich Volkarin may very well have met a swift, very bloody end that day.

There had just been so many of them - Scarlet scythe’s crackling with arcane energy, and corrupted magic churning in the air like a turbulent storm. Then again, when it came to Venatori, there always seemed to be a limitless supply.

Rook breathed in deep as she strode through the Vi’revas - the eluvian unique to the Dreadwolf’s hideaway in the Fade - close on Emmrich’s heels. One moment they were in the Crossroads, wild and untethered to reality as it was. The next, they were striding into the cool, dark nethers of the Lighthouse.

“Ugh,” Davrin grumbled, reaching to pull something that looked suspiciously like viscera from his hair as he strode through the eluvian’s surface in the pair of necromancers' wakes, “I’m going to go wash up. See you two at dinner?”

Rook smirked bemusedly - of all of the blood the Gray Warden was soaked through with, Maker forbid a bit of viscera get in the handsome elf’s hair. She nearly went to nod, when Emmrich spun on his heels to face the pair of them.

“Actually,” the Professor poised, hands clasping before him as his bangles glimmered in the unnatural light of the corridor, “Would you be so kind as to let Lucanis know to be expecting two less settings at the table this evening? Rook and I will be dining in Navarra.”

Rook’s eyebrows rose curiously - this was news to her.

“Yeah, no problem,” Davrin grinned. He gestured a hand over one shoulder as he made for the door, “You kids have fun.”

Kids . The word lingered humorously in the air - Emmrich barely stifled a chuckle at it, even in the gray warden’s absence.

“A trip home is a nice surprise,” Rook mused, mischief and curiosity a glint in her eyes.

The senior necromancer, dashing as ever, offered her an arm, and she was quick to place a hand at his elbow as he guided them from the room, and up the stairs.

“Forgive me, darling, I had hoped to ask you properly once we were settled in,” Emmrich said, gloved hand resting warmly upon the slender hand she’d offered him, “Reservations at the Pnemoix are scarce at best this time of year, and I received word of an opening just prior to our departure to Arlathan.”

“Yeah, that got chaotic rather quickly,” Rook admitted, ever as tired, but relieved they were alive to tell the tale at all. For all of her raised hackles that needled up her spine over the ambush in the woods, a tickle of excitement wiggled its way into her belly, “And I’ve heard of the Pnemoix!” Her sudden excitement was palpable. Word amongst her peers back at the Necropolis had it that the Pnemoix was one of the most exclusive- and enchanting - dining experiences in all of Navarra City. It was not far from the city’s main entrance to the Grand Necropolis itself, in fact. Emmrich could scarcely stifle the humorous glimmer in his eyes as the bounce in her step hastened as they strode. He finally slipped a chuckle when her expression then screwed with uncertainty, “Aren’t they ridiculously expensive, though?”

“Hardly any concern of yours, my darling,” Emmrich laughed.

Cresting the top of the stairs that overlooked the Lighthouse’s eerie library, the Professor stopped before the long hall that led to his study. Rook watched curiously as something shifted in his demeanor - warm laughter settling into something warmer still, slender hands and their menagerie of golden rings gracing her arms with an almost reverential care.

“I had hoped, should the temptation arise,” Rook felt a wildfire blush ignite to the tips of her ears at his sudden unusually intimate word choice, before he’d so much as finished his sentence, “We may enjoy the privacy an overnight at home might afford us.”

Emmrich’s grin broadened at the blatant blush that flooded the young woman’s typically cocksure expression, a softness in his gaze despite the hint of mischief that lingered there, “You so scarcely find a moment alone in the Lighthouse, my love. You’ll forgive an old man his selfish desire for attention undivided.”

“I-I… of course,” Rook managed, despite her blush, a dizzying flutter in her chest and her tongue-tie of nerves.

“And the decision is entirely yours,” her breath caught in her throat as he pressed a kiss upon her forehead, one hand affectionately upon the back of her head, “But do consider it, darling, hmm?” He seemed absolutely tickled at Rook’s uncharacteristic shyness as she nodded, green eyes alight with racing thoughts. This was hardly a woman prone to speechlessness, after all. “I’m going to change, and request Neve look after Manfred until we return. Meet me at the Vi’Revas when you’re ready.”

Rook managed a nod before Emmrich swept off airily, stride as confident as ever.

——————-

“Okay… Oookay,” Rook finally managed to breathe again once the ancient chamber doors of her quarters sealed shut behind her. Gaze darting around the dancing light of the aquarium that dominated the far wall, she huffed a ragged sigh, palm to her forehead.

Embarrassment immediately flooded her veins.

“He finally brings it up and you… freeze? Seriously?” She groaned morosely.

At best, Rook was disappointed. It was hardly how she’d imagined reacting to such an opportunity, after all. The Rook of her imagination was unflappable in her confidence - *she* surely would have managed an air of alluring …. *Something* in response to such a proposition. A wicked flirt. A lingering kiss. A clever quip of any make or model at all.

But no. Only overwhelm. Rook had been flooded with a timidness utterly foreign to her usually fearless brogue.

Scythe-wielding Venatori, raging demons, blighted gods… Such larger than life dangers too surreal and too vast to seem anything shy of absurd? That she could handle with a finesse and fearlessness that defied logic. It was precisely why Varric had brought her into the fold in the fight against Fen’Harel to begin with.

“But actually have the fellow you’ve been pining over for the last decade make a pass at you, and your brain breaks ? Maferath’s balls.”

The sordid swear she’d picked up from Varric early in their journeys together at least managed a smile from the woman. She shoved off from the door, kicking off muddied boots and unbuckling the patina’d gloves of her Mourn Watcher gauntlets as she went.

Rook had had little choice but to be honest with the Professor once her shoot-for-the-moon flirtations had, to her own genuine surprise, actually succeeded in swaying his interest so many weeks prior.

This was all… very new to the junior Mourn Watcher. So much of her time growing up had been spent clawing desperately for a sense of self. For the sort of identity that a complete lack of kith, kin or clan denied her for the whole of recent memory. Certainly until one Varric Tethras had swaggered his way into her life and corralled her under his wing.

Something as complicated as dating just never found its foothold with her focus, amid so many years of simply trying to find herself.

She was an elf in a largely human community, a non magic user - despite her endless fascination with the craft - in a society that prized its mages above all. Both facts of which pushed many of her superiors throughout her collegiate studies to blow off and even mock her ambitions towards more magic-focused areas of study.

Rook was an academic at heart - A voracious learner and reader. But for all of her passion, she was still very much an outsider. She was the foundling discovered abandoned deep within the Necropolis - lucky to have been found alive at all - Taken in by a kind and doting pair of elderly Mortalitasi, Gunter and Eloise Ingellvar, who had even gone as far as bequeathing their inheritance to her upon the last of their dual deaths some years later.

But they had gone too soon - Rook had barely been 12 when the old woman had died - and she was once again left as a ward of the Necropolis and its Watchers, who seemed to see less value in an orphaned elf with no magical talents to speak of. Frequently outright denied access to her preferred areas of study due to their prized and limited availability (such courses should be reserved for mages who might make the most use of them after all, and the university’s donors were rife with promising young mages as heirs) she was relegated, instead, to training as a fighter. A protector. A watcher of the Watchers themselves.

Just one extra corpse between demons and the ones whose work actually matters, more like, she thought. She swung open her ornate wardrobe, eyes scanning her limited choice in clothing critically as her thoughts poured from one memory to the next.

Those days were rife with turmoil. Rook had volleyed equally between hours of grueling fight and defense training, classes in basic sciences, necromancy, anatomy, funerary preparations and the Fade, and time dedicated purely to stirring up shit in the streets of Navarra City.

Fights. Petty theft. Stirring up chaos in the market square with a prank or three - one of which had, to her own amusement and pride to that very day, saw a surprisingly large number of bees in a leading role.

Throughout her years of collegiate learning, Rook carried the rage of a clever mind stifled and of dreams dashed, and it had landed her under the threadbare patience and steely gaze of the headmaster more times than she could count. That the Mourn Watch had been tasked with her care as much as her training was likely the only reason she hadn’t been thrown out for good.

It also hadn’t hurt that Rook had proven incredibly adept at combat despite her general lack of interest in the task (outside of a good tavern fistfight, at least.) There was also the curiosity that was her study habits. Her grades in basic courses were passable at best from sheer lack of interest, yet when time and little pockets of determination allowed, she could be found holed up in the Necropolis’s expansive library for hours, even days on end, pouring over every tomb her low-level clearance would allow, creating many tombs further of dense, meticulously detailed notes.

She was at least trying, in her own way, her superiors knew. And where their interest in her full potential failed her, her own thirst for learning minded the gap. Even if she was denied the chance to pursue her major of choice… lectures in the Grand Necropolis’s halls of learning were as free and frequent as the availability and seating of its various expansive lecture halls would allow.

Those educational sermons were hardly for the faint of heart or feeble of mind. They required many dedicated hours, copious notes, and a level of existing understanding of necromancy, the occult and Navarran history as a whole that *should* have been enough to bar a student of Rook’s study tract access by sheer lack of access to advanced classes alone.

But Rook had done the work. Had soaked up every scrap and parcel of knowledge she could, entirely on her own. And in each and every lecture, perched dutifully in the shadows at the back of the room, she soared.

Which was precisely where the good Professor had graced her peripherals, time and time again.

Even nearly a decade prior, Professor Emmrich Volkarin was something of a legend on campus. Prodigiously intelligent and equally skilled in both oration and genuine fondness for the eager young minds he fostered, Rook was hardly immune from the childish swooning over the otherwise utterly unattainable genius that captivated his students with every speech and demonstration.

“Volkarin’s hangers-on.”

Johanna Hezenkoss’s recent jeer at Rook’s expense still made her cheeks run hot. Rook had never been that - certainly not as the insult Hezenkoss intended.

But Rook and Emmrich were both well aware of whom the half-Litch referred to.

Hair a little darker and warm eyes a little bit brighter then, The Professor was too clever and adept at reading people around him to have remained oblivious to the fact that not only were the large majority of doe-eyed students trailing him from office to lectern and back largely of the female variety, but they were also almost always a bit more coy than was comfortable to be sharing a room with for too long. It was always impressive, then, to Rook, just how coolly and kindly said attentions were quite unanimously blown off by Emmrich himself.

He was never once cruel or condescending, but ever the consummate professional. He paid his students’ motivations no mind outside of whatever question he was fielding, or what knowledge he wished to impart, either.

Rook later overheard whispers among a gaggle of gossiping young mages in the privy that, apparently, “half of the fun” of flirting with the man to begin with was trying to “find a crack” in their charming yet unflappably stoic Professor’s perfectly tailored facade.

Of which there was nary a one, as far as Rook knew at the time. The man simply did not budge.

Which was why, despite never having had the stones to so much as approach Professor Volkarin with a question before meeting with him in the catacombs with Bellara months prior, and with nearly ten years of confidence that only incredibly hard work and some life experience could provide, Rook was genuinely floored when her own good-humored and (mostly) unserious swings at flirting with the man *actually worked.*

Rook had only dared shoot her shot with the man with the full confidence that in all likelihood (and at absolute worst) he would simply glance past the attention with his usual jovial kindness. She took a swing at it for younger-Rook, who would have thought it the coolest thing ever, future-Rook finding the sort of confidence her younger self found so foreign.

And the man actually expressed interest. Just fully (warmly as ever but with a degree of coyness Rook had no idea actually existed prior) stated that if, in fact, her projected interest went beyond mere flattery… he was down.

“Hell of a bullseye on the first draw, there, Ingellvar,” she had mused to herself and inevitably shared with Emmrich multiple times since, much to the Professor’s amusement.

Rook pulled the only pretty, non-Mourn Watch related article of clothing she owned - a deep purple gown and its immaculately tailored overcoat - from the wardrobe, before clipping the doors shut with her heel.

Naive shock aside, it wasn’t as though Rook hadn’t been equally delighted by Emmrich’s unexpected response. She had become even more enamored with the fellow in the past many months, as he spoke with her not as a student but as a colleague. An equal.

He adored her thoughts and her intellectual curiosity, and had said as much - often. He was ever the academic, as enthusiastic about answering any question she had as she was to learn the answer. But he was also genuinely interested in all of the knowledge she had gathered in the past ten years - Her interests in Navarran archeology within the ever-ancient Necropolis halls. His in Necromancy and the Fade. It had become a frequent, deeply adored line of conversation between the two of them, in fact - just how often their individual fields of study crossed in application.

Emmrich Volkarin was every bit as charming as his passionate yet professional demeanor would imply. But what Rook came to learn very quickly upon reconnecting with the man was that, on a personal level, he was one of the most compassionate individuals Rook had ever met. He cared deeply, about everything - particularly, it seemed, about the ragtag troop of adventurers she and Neve had since managed to assemble. At 52 years of age, he also, as it turned out, had zero qualms about dating someone - regardless of gender persuasion - over 20 years his junior. He’d simply taken his work as an educator far too seriously when he was young enough to find any interest in university students, let alone misuse the power dynamic between teacher and pupil - and they had, decades later, well since lost their appeal.

So, now, here she was. Two months into the most absurdly romantic courtship she could imagine, given the sheer chaos that surrounded them otherwise.

Fancy dinners. Time spent exploring the Necropolis to feel more grounded - that little bit of home going a long way to keeping them both fixed on the battles that just kept on coming. A recent night stroll through the streets of Navarra City during the ancestral pageants, their darkly artful city glistening with lanterns and wisps.

Emmrich Volkarin was ever a man of his word, too. Early on, when a bashful Rook mentioned her lack of experience in any such relationship, he had promised they’d take things slow, and they absolutely had. Endeared and warm as they were, his kisses were chaste, and his presence around her respectful of her space and autonomy. It had only been since she had started pushing boundaries that he had reciprocated in kind.

Longer, deeper kisses. Tousled hair. Hands wandering with far more bravery - and far more urgency - from both parties, amidst long nights full of even longer conversations.

The cracks in Emmrich Volkarin’s perfectly tailored facade were showing. And, Rook grinned to herself despite the blush reaching her ears, they were admittedly * delicious.*

Rook fastened the copper skull-shaped buttons upon her overcoat before fishing for Varric’s shaving mirror and checking her hair.

She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d expected the acceleration of their relationship to go. Perhaps more spontaneously, and likely in the Lighthouse, despite neither of them having particularly comfortable quarters - his with little more than a cot to sleep on that was otherwise hidden away, and her own space often as chilly as being overlooked by an enormous deep water aquarium would imply.

She certainly didn’t expect it to turn into a Pnemoix-worthy event.

It was, frankly, the first time Emmrich had taken the lead on the direction of relations between them. He had planned every romantic gesture their messy schedules and frequent travels would allow, sure, but every acceleration where intimacy had been concerned had been entirely on Rook.

But, it felt right, the timing.

She wondered if this was his way of saying he felt the same.

Rook slipped on a pair of gold-rimmed glasses (her vision never had been the best, but she’d only just taken to wearing them more faithfully at Emmrich’s encouragement, and insistence that he thought them, “Positively charming.”)

With a flutter of excitement in her chest Rook spared a careless hope that she might make it all the way downstairs to the Vi’Revas without any of their friends asking enough questions to rattle her nerves anymore than they already squirmed.

——————-

The journey was quick and blessedly uninterrupted. Punctual as ever, Emmrich had already arrived. He turned to greet her as she strode his way, having been surveying the towering Eluvian with an air of curiosity just moments before.

Lean and immaculately dapper as ever, golden rings and bangles over luxurious shades of black and jade, a smile swept his features so genuine that it stole a smile from her own.

“Rook,” he mused warmly, “You look exquisite.”

“Could very well say the same to you, Professor,” Rook teased, hand once again gracing the elbow he lent her.

“Shall we?”

[choccy-zefirka]

Living Bodies

Woe! 3K words of body worship with Emmrich and a plus-size Rook, who that had a horrible first time as a teen and internalized her partner's disgust, be upon ye!

Content warning for references to bullying, dubious consent during the aforementioned first time, fatphobia, and also everyone's privates being out among the Necropolis flowers :3 (They are doing it in a cute skeleton-adorned gazebo that came to me in a dream)

Dear Lottie,

I am so terribly sorry you fell sick and missed all the fun! But we did it! We actually did it, all according to plan! Sprung the trap for my "secret admirer"! And our suspicions were correct!

All those gunky little lumps of soap Papa found folded in my laundry — they were put there by the washer girl! That knife ear, the one that looks like a toad! I think her name is Len-something, but who cares? And yes, she made them herself, out of whatever goop she's gathered round the alienage — because she has a """"crush"""" on me! The cheek! As if just because I don't like boys exclusively, I'd ever give the time of day to a walking, talking potato! She isn’t even cute in that scared rabbit way, like elf girls are supposed to be!

She did come to the "date" me and the girls arranged, too, and blathered on and on about how beautiful I am (fact) and how much she likes me (yuck)... Until we had enough and pushed her into the river!!! Oh, I wish you were there with us, it was ab-so-lu-te-ly hilarious!

Say, since you are sat by the window in your chair all day, have you heard any news out on the street? From the paper criers, maybe? I want to know if Len-whatever ended up drowning.

Correspondence between two traders' daughters. 9:40 Dragon

***

Happy now, Sticks?

Did her like you told me to. All the way. What a shitshow. Lardy Lenny is even lardier naked, that's for sure. Felt like sticking my dick into a giant slug. Next time I lose this stupid game, just send me into a shem's mabari kennels with salami for a sword. That will be way less painful.

Don't know how I'll fuck normal girls no. The fat cunt ruined it for me. Think I'll be having nightmares for years after this. Told her that, and she started bawling. Didn't even look funny like she usually does in tears. Just gross.

So yeah. Enjoy, I guess.

Note from an alienage boy to his friend, attached to a crumpled set of girl's underclothes. 9:42 Dragon

***

At first, Lenore is too distracted by turning and flexing her left hand. Her wrist has been getting a little stiff lately: she probably holds her arm at an uncomfortable angle when mixing potions. No surprise, since she is self-taught. Aching joints and sleepy pin pricks are the least of her problems, really! When she was just starting out, on a work bench that was just a half-rotten plank of wood balanced on a rock in the alienage backyards, she'd splash hissing, blistering liquid all over herself, turning her forearms into pale clumps of scar tissue, like cold leftover noodles plastered sadly at the bottom of a bowl.

Maybe if she observes Emmrich more closely during their studies together, she will figure out how to position her arms properly... Ugh. She'll find any excuse to "observe" him, won't she? Well, she's allowed; they are a couple now, outlandish as it sounds!

A couple.

All at once, her mind catches up to what her ears heard after Emmrich, gentle and attentive as always — what has she done to deserve him? — pointed out her stiff wrist.

Finer points of anatomy.

Her eyes dart upwards from her hand, and she gapes across their elegantly arranged tea table. Emmrich smiles, soft yet playful, eyes half-lidded and shining in the wisp light.

There is that side of him, that confidence — decades' worth of it — that sometimes makes her, all flushed and boiling alive in unspoken greed, wish for more than just quick kisses and lingering glances and fingertips resting on knuckles, shoulders, waists, whenever they stand too close. As if all of that was not already a gift far more generous than normally granted from someone like him to someone like her.

It has been a harmless enough indulgence to entertain, she supposes. A guilty pleasure, something titillating to think about in the secret alone hours while she touches herself. Not that she does it too often; bodies like hers aren't really meant for this, she's well aware... But still, that's also something couples are allowed to do, right — imagine each other's faces in place of characters from the Randy Dowager's Gold Collection?

But here and now, with Emmrich looking at her like that, it hits her with the full force of a Venatori blood forge trampling her to the ground. A keen, panicked awareness that this is not the Randy Dowager's Gold Collection. This is real — they are real. Especially her. Too real, too heavy, suddenly suffocating under her own weight, suddenly feeling the scented air of the Memorial Gardens with every pore of her skin, so tangibly, disgustingly physical that it begins to itch.

Most of her is carefully concealed underneath her usual Veil Jumper leathers, but if Emmrich, the real, non-fantasy Emmrich, decides to explore these finer points of anatomy, if he lifts the covers and sees just how much she the opposite of that...

Oh. Oh no.

She still remembers, a decade later, how the sight of her naked body broke the first and only boy that agreed to touch her. And that was before she got most of her scars!

She can't do that to anyone else, ever again. Especially not to him, not to her most treasured friend, not to the man who has been so kind to her that she dared bother him with her clumsy attempts at romance. Because with him, she could be certain, at last, that it would not turn out to be a prank.

How can she repay him by giving him nightmares?!

"Dearest? Why are you crying? Was I... Was I too forward? Too much?"

She did not even notice when the tears came. But here they are, marring her vision, so that there are two Emmrichs circling the table, kneeling in the grass next to her. Unafraid of the stains that will be left on the pristine Nevarran satin. Clasping her hands.

"I know that not all experience attraction the same way; if you would rather not explore this side of romance, that is perfectly fine, and wonderful! Your affection has already been such a beautiful gift."

Past her, the one that clung to the shadows, beyond the welcoming golden glow of camp fires, outside the reach of a friendly embrace; the one that spoke in sparse, grunt-like words, and kept her head down, beaten more than once, and shy far, far more than twice — that her would have made a vague noise and slunk away, never to bring this up again. But Emmrich — and Manfred! — was the one who brought her out of her shell. He deserves the truth, spoken with her whole chest.

"I... I do feel that kind of attraction towards you. You are a beautiful man, inside and out, and when I am with you, I sometimes forget myself and... pretend I am beautiful too."

She draws in a long, labored breath. She needs all the air in her lungs before this next plunge — she should know, she almost drowned once.

"But I am not. Especially not... from the neck down. You may have gotten used to my face..."

She dips her head — a habitual motion by now — letting her long, side-shaved fringe fall into her eyes. There's always quite a bit to hide under her hair: the dark rivulet of a birthmark on one side, the scar and the squinty damaged eye on the other. At least now she can do alchemical experiments in a mask and protective goggles. Less of an eye sore for Emmrich, to be sure.

"But trust me... My body is much worse."

She shuts her eyes and shrinks back into her seat, momentarily losing her present, adult, more or less mature and competent self (at least when it comes to alchemy and to… saving the world?) in the sheer blood-curdling terror of being seventeen again.

"The boy who took my virginity was so appalled that he said I'd scarred him forever. This has haunted me for ten years. And the... deed itself was punishment from his friends for losing some sort of dare. Do you understand?"

She forces herself to look into his eyes, even as the unseen, tightly wound strings holding her together begin to snap, one by one.

"Being with me... in that way... it's torture. I care for you too much to ever — "

"Lenore, my darling..."

Still on his knees — and still so tall that their faces are level — Emmrich pulls her hand to his lips and covers it in kisses. First on the outer side, swift, soft, each touch a beat of velvety butterfly wings; then, long, nearly reverent, on the inner side, where her pulse hammers against her bluish-pale wrist.

"Thank you for being frank with me. And I am truly, deeply sorry that you were betrayed with... such utter cruelty, in one of your life's most vulnerable moments. That fool of a boy was not the one scarred. You were. And oh, my dearest, you are still bleeding."

She listens to him in petrified silence, still as a startled halla before a long, soundless leap away from danger. She does not mean to — she knows Emmrich better than this by now; if he is disgusted by her, he will be much more polite about it — but instinctively, she braces herself for him to recoil away, grimacing like he is about to vomit. Overwhelmed by the sheer mental image of her laid bare before him. A slug; a toad; the stuff of nightmares.

Any second now. Any second.

He never does recoil.

"I know I cannot close this wound with a few words, much as I wish I could... But, darling, please try to take them to heart nonetheless."

His eyes, fully open now, reflect so much of the Gardens' ephemeral glow that it feels like she's sinking into two pools of starlight.

"Every body is as unique, as precious, as beautiful as the soul within. We study them, we mend them, we venerate them, in life and beyond. Your body is already dear to me because it is yours... And if you were ever to open it to me, like you opened your beautiful mind, there would be no greater honor than to discover — to savor — every last inch of it."

"I..."

Lenore swallows, her head swimming. If this lofty speech were delivered by anyone else, she'd have scoffed in doubt. Does she look like someone to whom a man (or woman, or anyone) would wax poetic about the sanctity of mortal flesh? What's the catch? But it's Emmrich, her Emmrich, whose voice and touch make it so easy to... Well. Forget herself.

"I want you to. Please."

He beams at her, placing one final kiss in the middle of her palm. Like a seal for a secret pact.

"Of course, dearest. Follow me."

They both get up, leaving Manfred (who has been off chasing the see-through Fade butterflies among the headstones, bless his innocent makeshift heart) to clean up their little picnic... Or at least to amuse himself with exploring how tea cups can be neatly stacked together.

Emmrich leads her to a secluded gazebo, crowned by yet another rendition of the embracing skeletal lovers that she has seen throughout the Gardens. Its threshold is barely visible, overgrown by a rustling carpet of delicate white blossoms that heave like the softest seafoam around Lenore's ankles.

"Shroud's kiss," Emmrich muses, after plucking one fragile white cup and placing it in Lenore's hand, right over the spot he kissed. The petals feel weightless against her skin, effervescent as a melting snowflake, as if woven from the Veil itself.

"I always loved the legend around this flower. They say that it grows on lovers' graves, and that one moves closer to the Fade simply by inhaling its fragrance."

He gestures to a bench under the intricate dome of metal lace, which is also cushioned in countless white flowers. She sits down, and a pale blue barrier shimmers into place around the gazebo. Shielding them from prying eyes. Emmrich's doing — or the Gardens'? Was this a secret rendezvous nook for someone else, once? Someone who might be buried underneath? Or, knowing Nevarrans, cast into the statue at the top of the dome?

"Do you think that legend is true?" Lenore asks, momentarily unable to contain herself. The fingers of her free hand race along the tips of the blossoms, and her alchemist's mind races in tandem.

"If we could maybe extract the essential oil and run a few experiments; but oh, that would require sacrificing so many of these beautiful flowers..."

Emmrich chuckles. He has leaned over her, bringing his lips so close to hers that she can drink in his breath, a pulsating heat beginning to rise at the bottom of her stomach.

"It is true if I will it, my dear," he murmurs, and the second he closes the distance, his tongue meeting hers in a kiss deeper than any they have shared before, the air all around them erupts in a cascade of pale-green sparks. Ghostly petals glide through the air, and if Lenore truly does tumble into the Fade, it is in a part of it that is as serene and sheltered as their Lighthouse.

The fragrant breeze is like silk against her burning cheeks, caressing her, each stroke leaving her more and more light-headed. Somehow, her body stops feeling like a heavy heap of scrap metal that she has to lug around while everyone stares at her; it is hugged gently by the cushion of petals, while Emmrich, as promised, explores it with both affection and... and gratitude.

He is still kissing her, diving deep with no fear of drowning, when his gloved hand unbuckles her belt and slips past the innermost layer of her traditional elven tunic. Her insides clench at the sensation of velvety fabric against her stomach rolls, and then her chest. As if she is balancing on a precarious clifftop somewhere back among the floating ruins of Arlathan.

But that startled pang soon dissolves into sweetest bliss. Emmrich has loosened the tunic's collar, allowing her shoulder and breast to escape, out into the warm, perfumed air. How scandalous! How very like the Randy Dowager's Gold Collection! Does she... Does she actually belong in one of those stories?

He continues to trace the outlines of her half-bared form, and his fingers are soon joined by his lips, which wander away from her gasping, half-parted mouth, and keep slowly moving down, paying a tribute of little kisses to each curve, each mole, each stretch mark. With a few motions of his deft, scholar's fingers, the layers of clothing peel off her torso completely, like she herself is a blossom unfolding.

His gaze measures her, from the flaming tips of her teardrop-shaped ears to the contours of her stomach. He smiles, a languid, hazy smile.

"Thank you for letting me see you, dearest."

"Can I..."

She clears her throat, part of her still dumbstruck in disbelief that this is actually happening. That she is actually saying this — to him.

"Can I see you as well?"

"I would be delighted."

She bites her lip, unsure where to start. But, ever so helpful, he weaves his fingers through hers, and patiently directs her through unclasping first his largest bracelet, then his collar pin.

Her heart hammers in her throat when she removes his jewelry and lays it on the bench beside her. With the bulkiest pieces out of the way, the buttons on his vest and shirt go next, and each of her little conquests over the delicate buttonholes is rewarded with a kiss from Emmrich. It does not slip past her that each of those grows a little sloppier than the next, a little more intermingled with bites and short, panting breaths. It's as if... As if he's enjoying her touch as much as she enjoying his.

At long last, his shoulders are bare as well. Exhaling softly, she marvels at the way the shadows of the gazebo’s lattice sculpt his bony clavicles, and runs her hands over the bristly cloud of short silver hair on his chest, and up his throat, where the skin is more worn with years of living, experiencing, being... him.

"You are perfect," she whispers, her thumb trailing over his cheekbones. At the sound of her words, his skin radiates rosy heat, and her body responds in kind.

"As are you, my darling."

His hands are back on her chest, as hers are on his. She chokes back a sound that might be a moan, or might be a sob. He pauses his chain of tender touches, uncertain if she is distressed. But she assuages his doubts by pressing into his mouth with another kiss, and if any tears do roll down her cheeks, those are tears of relief.

He hums in contentment at the back of his throat, and his fingertips, in their endless conductor's dance, brush along the texture of Lenore's many potion splash scars. She shudders when the cold metal of his few remaining rings glides over her, and the pulse between her legs, which has been growing stronger throughout their tender exchange of touches, of admiration, teeters close to its peak.

"Emm... Emmrich?"

She resurfaces from the kiss, dizzy and emboldened by the taste of him, and fumbles about for his hands, guiding them, like he guided hers, to push down her pants. His name comes out sounding as an awkward, stumbling mix between a needy plea and a tentative question. Emmrich, she means to say. Can you... Do this?

The thing is, she has no clue how to accommodate him between her thighs, underneath the soft pillow of her stomach. The worst parts of her, as the mirror says, as the memories in her head jeer.

But he smiles at her, and lavishes her with even more kisses, while she squirms under his searching lips, both nervous and aroused. Soon enough, he finds a comfortable angle... And again, he is on his knees before her. Fully giving himself to worship.

In romance serials, the good, beautiful partner with the perfect body orgasms when they are pleasured by their equally good, beautiful, perfect lover, and merely pretends to orgasm when the bad, comically inept or tragically forced lover, always fat, sweaty, and disgusting, slams against them like a dying tusket. What happens to the fat lover in the meanwhile, tends to be left out of the picture, because theirs is not the part of the story that the reader is here for. Perhaps, when the good lovers elope together into the sunset, the bad, fat lover is left to touch themselves all alone, in shameful secret, making a point not to overindulge, just like Lenore has in the past, because that would be disgusting...

And yet here she is. With a song of short, gasping notes coaxed from her lips, as his tongue circles within her and the ghostly blooms all around them merge into a flash of blinding white light.

When the peak is reached, when the wave hits her, and she, for once, is unafraid to drown, she impulsively grabs at the hair on the back of Emmrich's head... Which she only realizes once her mind stills a little — and instantly lets go, tumbling from the realm of pleasure back into awkward, clumsily physical reality. Apologizing for hurting him, again and again.

He looks up at her in half-drunken confusion, his hair in disarray, the pearly thread of her sex glinting in the corner of his mouth.

"Darling..." he manages to slur, his breath hitching. "You did not — "

Despite herself, she glances a little further down. And, for the first time — oh, by the Maker, Mythal, whoever, she is still so clueless! — she notices the bump in his pants. The little wet spot.

Oh. Oh.

He liked that.

"I wish I knew how to use my mouth the... the same way..." she stammers bluntly, still not looking away from the straining fabric.

"That is quite all right," he mouths, carelessly unspooling the band of red around his waist.

"There will be more nights like this one."

Until you become a lich and your duties take you away from someone so small and insignificant, a stray thought, like a charge of ice magic, runs through her brain, down her throat, impaling her very heart.

Grinding her teeth slightly, she wills her mind to return to the present moment. To the here and now. To Emmrich, brought to blissful ruin by the sight and feel and taste of her innermost self. To his sweet little moans and the rhythmic, almost elegant up-and-down pumps of his jeweled fingers, as they cup around the cock he finally brought out of his pants.

She never thought that Focus on his cock, focus on his cock, Lenore! would be a little chant of reassurance. The last time she saw erect, leaking flesh before her, she would rather have focused on anything else. But who knew that intimacy could be so different... even for the likes of her?

She bends forward and sneaks in a few kisses — on his wet mouth, over the desperately thrumming vein under his jaw — before his shuddering release leaves a messy splash of evidence over the both of them. She will help wash it off, of course; she knows the best potion mixes to do that... But it won't be something shameful, something that she had to get over with, retching and doubling over, her underthings stolen as evidence that the brave hero had survived the battle with the oozing, lumpy giant slug. It's simple, and natural — something that bodies do.

Bodies that are cherished and taken care of and worshipped. Hers revealed to him, his revealed to her.

Alive, here and now. Their skeletal forebears watching over them, in kindness and understanding.

[grandwitchbird]

Veilguard is generally a well designed and well written game. I’m clear on what I think about DA as a whole, but it’s easily the best actual game in the franchise.

People are picking up, however, on a real critical flaw and mostly failing to locate the flaw while getting distracted by nonsense. It’s a flaw present in every DA game if you dig enough. Let’s talk about story bosses.

This is a tricky thing in arpgs. RGG and CDPR try to ensure that story bosses are densely interwoven into the world in a way that works thematically.

Adam Smasher would have been a problem in any universe; he’s just enabled and enshrined by this one. Hansen points us right back to the military industrial complex, the ghost of which we’ve spent the entire game wrestling with. Literally. All of that directs us right back to the systems in place in our cyberpunk world. It points us at our own motivations as V and interrogates our love of the power fantasy as a player.

In an RGG game, when you run down a corridor towards a boss, it’s a gauntlet. It’s there for fun and also to highlight the legendary clash that’s about to happen with reference to the Yakuza films the series started as an homage to. The boss may wait at the end or jump you, depending on their personality and goals. There will be mini bosses along the way because you’re generally fighting hierarchical organizations.

In Veilguard, our enemies wait at the end of a corridor. They’re powerful and don’t need to come to us. Ok good start, also a nod to ME. Occasionally you’re lucky and get story ‘minibosses’ that interrogate that very idea. The first warden is here to flesh out everyone’s motives and challenge us as the player. Sometimes you’re very lucky and the boss is Johanna Hezenkoss and she’s exclusively here to have clear motives that flesh out Emmrich’s arc and to cause problems because it’s fun. Most of the time, you get Aelia or whatserface Aelia 2.0 in Lucanis’s arc. Or the others I don’t remember after playing the game 5 times. Anaris? What did he even want? No I don’t mean power. What was under that? What was his motivation? Because I can explain the power-hunger in every Yakuza shithead or nationalist asshat I’ve fought in an RGG game. But Veilguard, like all of DA is avoiding real discussions of power and psychology and ~implications~.

I’m not a forgetful person. I’m meticulous and have the true blue autistic pattern recognition. I genuinely can’t say what made Aelia and Aelia 2.0 anything other than cosplay tyrants. Not without projecting onto the text or stretching it to breaking point by leaning hard on one specific short story.* Dragon guy and other antaam guy came out of literally nowhere. Mail order villains those two.

Even with our big bads, we get mere hints and gestures. Everyone is impressed with whatsisface doing a bad imitation of Bowie’s lines in Labyrinth. He’s a spirit of tyranny though. What does that mean. What makes the tyrants work in this world. And why are we cribbing from the Goblin King while carefully editing out the sucker punch?

We know the answer in the real world and can project that onto the game. But it’s not in the game. Not in a way the text doesn’t flinch from. And this is something people are picking up on. It’s also not been in any of the other games sorry to say. So this isn’t new. Veilguard just isn’t hiding behind obfuscating design choices and allusions to better stories. It’s still making those allusions (see gif above) but it’s a more honest text re: its limitations.

As with everything. The Mourn Watch and Grey Wardens stand heads and shoulders above the rest of the faction/companion-based conflicts. Their bosses have clear psychologies, motivations, and represent coherent and grounded goals (in hilariously disparate ways) Solas, likewise, has us/Rook as a mirror and his needs/wants and the conflict between those needs/wants are forefront and incredibly well developed. It’s not all bad. It’s actually quite good.

But when people flounder at surface details looking for the ‘problems’ with the writing. This is what’s getting missed. The problem is never ‘plot hole’ or ‘bad lore’. It’s something in the structure and conflict and motivation. And I’m afraid to say it’s old news with DA (Loghain is fine but the entire end of origins is an asspull. Don’t @ me). This game is much stronger than the others on that front. That would still be true if we had only Solas. We also got Johanna fingerguns Hezenkoss and the entire Grey Warden plot. I, for one, am counting that a win.

*the extended media is a critical weakness of the franchise. Referencing your own EU is not the same as entering a dialogue with an existing subgenre populated by works from diverse sources.

[joudama]

And that’s that for Veilguard. Got all the achievements and got the four main possible endings (didn’t bother with the bad ending where you do none of the side quests, everyone dies, and you end up trapped in the Fade forever with Solas).

My four Rooks:

Female Shadow Dragon elf mage - saved Minrathous - romanced Harding - punched Solas in the face

Female Antivan Crow human rogue - saved Treviso - romanced Lucanis - tricked Solas into using the fake dagger

Male Grey Warden dwarf warrior (this was originally going be a Qunari, but I couldn’t get over the yassified look of all the qunari I tried to make and I gave up) - saved Treviso - romanced Davrin (meant to romance Bellara and lol welp, that didn’t happen) - big softie who sent Solas into the Fade with the Inquisitor

Male Mourn Watch elf mage - saved Minrathous - romanced Emmrich (meant to romance Bellara or Neve and lol welp, that didn’t happen) - told the Inquisitor she could do better and made Solas go off into the Fade alone.

My Mourn Watch one is probably going to be my “canon” run, since I liked it the best (that’s not saying much) of my runs. I went with a life leeching run for him, including using the unique items that made health potions/companion heals not work, and beefed up leeching. Literally the only time I died was when my controller ran out of juice in the middle of a dragon fight. The Elgar’nan fight was over so fast I was like, “Wait, is that it?” It was like the curb stomp fight in Inquisition with Corypheus before they let you have enemies scale up with you.

And now for my thoughts. And oh boy, do I have a lot of them. Hoo.

I have…so many issues with this game. It is a very good…whatever the gaming equivalent of a popcorn flick is. It’s great if you go in with your brain turned off and enjoy all the shiny. But that’s not what I want in a Dragon Age game. I’ve been replaying DA2 - the game that DATV is basically trying to channel - while playing these, and the difference in writing quality and intricacy of plot and world building could not be more sharp. The first time I played DATV, I thought it was fine. Almost aggressively fine. I had fun with streaming the game and seeing where it went. I loved the reveals with the wolf statues. I had some major issues with the writing being as subtle as a brick to the face at times (more on my thoughts about the dialogue LATER, because oh boy), but it was serviceable. And I genuinely thought Veilguard had been robbed by not being nominated for Art Direction at the Game Awards, because say what you will, the areas are fucking gorgeous. But, even then, I was like, “Yeah, this would not have deserved a GOTY nomination had it gotten one,” and placed it at a 7 or 8 out of 10. A good enough, enjoyable game that ran well, but was not by any means GOTY material.

Then I made the mistake of playing it again, and the cracks began to show. By the time I hit the middle of Act 2 of my third run, I was just so done. I hated every time certain companions had anything to say at all. I hated that you couldn’t call people out for being a jerk but had to be the supportive nursery school teacher at all times to them. And for the first time playing any BioWare game at all, I found myself wishing I could either not recruit certain people or kick them out of camp. The cracks were beyond showing at that point, and I no longer thought the writing was even “serviceable.” Things that hadn’t seemed so bad on that first popcorn flick run suddenly became a problem - not being able to actually talk to your companions to get to know them went from “it feels more natural to have them saying this stuff while out in the field” to “what is even the point of going around the Lighthouse if all it gets me is a line spoken at me or overhearing bits of them having ACTUAL conversations?” It legitimately hurt replayability. I missed being able to actually talk to my companions, and I realized I cared more about Manfred and Assan than most of my companions because Manfred and Assan actually seemed to like interacting with me. I will take Manfred’s rock-paper-scissors game over a “hey Rook” and dead-eyed stare.

By the time I hit late act 2, I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could delete the damn game off my hard drive…only for the last achievement I had yet to get to NOT pop when I finished the game. I looked it up and discovered it wasn’t set by triggering a certain end state, but was tied to picking some flowers in Act 2, and wanted to cry. I don’t usually 100% games, especially if I feel like some of the achievements are bullshit I don’t want to do (‘sup, MELE needing you to do some Armax Arena Spectre-level fight - I would sooner chew off my own arm than do that, as anyone who watched me stream Veilguard would have guessed watching me kvetching the whole time I was doing that Hall of Valor shit), but that was just frustrating. I decided to try to get it on a fresh run as a Mourn Watcher, since I’d heard that was one of the surprisingly good faction backgrounds, and that was a good choice. Mourn Watch became my favorite faction, when it had been Shadow Dragons until then. It added so much to a lot more conversations than I would have thought, and made it so I actually enjoyed the sadly few times you get to actually have conversations instead of eavesdropping/being talked at. I’m glad I decided to slog through one more time for that achievement, because if I’d ended it on that third run, I know I would have never played it again. It turned back into a popcorn movie again, aided by me knowing when to put on a YouTube video and watch or scroll through Bluesky instead of listening to a certain character be the fucking worst. If I ever play again, it’ll be a Mourn Watcher (I already know the Veil Jumpers and Lords of Fortune are considered, shall we say, lackluster background factions.)

Which brings me to some of the big, fundamental problems this game had.

This is not a CRPG. It’s just not. It’s an action RPG now, with the focus on “action” not “RPG.” It’s part of the whole Mass Effect-ification of Dragon Age. And I say this as a huge Mass Effect fan:

Dragon Age should not be like Mass Effect. And vice versa.

When Andromeda came out, they decided to ditch the Paragon/Renegade system, and instead went for DAI-style emotion-based options. Which seems great! More speech choices to make a more nuanced Ryder instead of picking up or down! Great! Only no! A lot of people hated it because it didn’t feel like Mass Effect. They had taken away something that had seemed like a major part of how you roll played in the series, and replaced it something very different. It was the first time they took a mechanic from one game and ported it into another, and it didn’t really go over well with a lot of ME fans because it didn’t feel like a Mass Effect mechanic.

And now with Veilguard, they basically made a Mass Effect game with a Dragon Age skin on it. And it just doesn’t work.

Combat: They copied the combat wheel from Mass Effect, but did it kind of badly. I honestly hated it because I tried to play like I do in Mass Effect - pull it up, use it to look around and get a handle on my environment, then pick an enemy or a safe space to bolt to - and the camera snapping the enemies meant I couldn’t. It drove me crazy because it was like the Mass Effect wheel but fundamentally not, and the camera drove me mad because I’d pull it up trying to find where the nearest blight boil was, and it would snap on enemies instead of just letting me look. It’s like they wanted to get rid of every little bit of tactical game play and replace with smashy smashy bang bang instead. Don’t think, don’t plan, just attack…which fits in with the popcorn flick-ness of DATV. Don’t think, just do. Turn your brain off and look at the particle effects.

Another Mass Effect-ification with regards to combat is dropping from taking 3 companions to 2. Which you need to do to have that Mass Effect style combat wheel, and the Mass Effect 3/Andromeda style primer/detonation style interaction of companion powers. Detonations were very satisfying, but not very Dragon Age-y, and requires throwing out some of that DA lore to make it work, because now everyone uses magic-based abilities even if they aren’t mages. Assan attacks deal fire damage. You can spec a warrior who calls up a giant lightning hammer to twirl around, and…how? That’s not enchantment, that’s plain ol’ magic, and how?! Warriors didn’t deal magic-based attacks unless their weapons where enchanted before, but now, everyone is just tossing magic attacks at everything. That’s not how the world of Thedas has worked until now, but you can’t have those flashy explosions or particle effects otherwise, so shhh, turn off your brain and don’t think, shhh. Look at the screen light up and the pretty lights. It worked in Mass Effect because they had already set up tech and biotic attacks, but there’s no way to make hitting something hard with a sword cause it to blow up and damage all the other baddies around them, so now everyone has magic. OK.

As an aside, it was also a really bad idea of get rid of how aggro worked. Dragon Age had always worked by warriors drawing aggro because they had the heavier armor (or could use taunt on enemies targeting squishy mages or rogues). Rogues had lower aggro because they had lighter armor, and could sneak. Mages had even lower aggro because they had the lightest armor and were distance fighters. DATV threw that out the window, and Rook draws all aggro because they are the only ones with a health bar. Your squad is immortal in fights, which means there’s no reason for enemies to ever target them. Which means god help you early game when mages and rogues have no real skills yet. Enjoy dodging while your companions hit the enemies with what seems like attacks as powerful as spitballs. It also means that there are times what the game tells you and the fight you just did are completely at odds. Remember that fight with the Wrath of the Stone in Harding’s companion quest? That thing is on your ass the entire time, but then at the end of it, Rook says something along the lines of “It really hates Harding,” and…are you gaslighting me, game? That thing ignored Harding the whole damn time in favor of trying to stomp me like a cockroach. Harding did not exist to it during my fight. It had a hate boner for Rook and Rook alone, no matter what the game tried to insist on after.

Now, imagine how that would have felt if Harding actually could have been killed/knocked out during the fight, and it was only going after her? What if you couldn’t damage it if it took her down, so you had to make sure she stayed alive? Imagine how different that fight would have hit then? But no, that would mean the devs have to think about how to rez characters and how healing would work, and would mean players have to be tactical, and shh, no, no more of that, no thinking, just dodge and hit things and look at the particle effects. Shh. Have some more popcorn.

Story: DATV wants so badly to be ME2. It wants to recall the companion loyalty quests and the big suicide mission where you have to have everyone ready or you’ll all die. But you can’t copy what you did before and get the same flowers and results. You just can’t. You can try, and all you’ll get is diminishing returns. They tried to do the big cosmic horror of ME1, complete with a Virmire choice, then have the big final stakes of ME2, and no. You can’t follow a template and get the same greatness. That’s not how it works.

And speaking of following templates…

Romances: The romances in Veilguard are just dismal. And I think it’s because they decided to follow the Mass Effect pacing formula instead of the Dragon Age one.

Dragon Age: You start flirting in Act 1. You usually flirt with everyone because hey, why not? Some time in Act 2, things start getting serious, and you have to settle on who you want to go for. Things start to get serious, you get together, and then you get happy fun adult time with your new LI. You get the option to break it off or commit to them fully. By Act 3, you’re in a committed relationship. People comment about it. You can go to them and spend time with them - nothing major, maybe just a kiss. There might also be a special scene that’s just with them and unique to the romance. And by the end, after the lengthy amount of time that’s passed, you are Together.

Mass Effect: You start flirting in Act 1. You usually flirt with everyone because hey, why not? In Act 2, you keep on flirting with everyone. By the end, you might have to make a choice if you’re flirting too hard with everyone and the two LI options tell you to pick someone already, but you’re just picking who you’re interested in. Early in Act 3, there might be an almost kiss, but it’s mostly just the occasional anticipation of eventually boning and nothing really happens until right before the final big fight, when your LI shows up to your cabin for “oh shit, we might die in a few hours, so let’s go out with a high note” happy fun adult time. The only time you get that “committed relationship” vibes is in ME3 if you’re romanced the same character for at least one other game, and you choose to continue the relationship.

The Mass Effect pacing works in the Mass Effect trilogy because each game is only 20-40 hours long. Veilguard is a good 80 hours long. That means using that same amount of romance you use in ME is going to mean you’ve got too little butter to spread over too much bread. It’s why you have a good start for the romances in Act 1, then act 2 is a such a desert of nothing after you commit that I genuinely wondered if I’d hit the wrong option at said no at several points during the very long third act. There’s not just enough content for that long of an Act 2. Near the end everyone starts commenting on you being with them, but it’s not actually happening in the game. There’s no flirting, there are no extra scenes, and even the scene when you commit to them is based on a scene that happens with everyone, just with a romance option tacked on. The only person (of the ones I romanced, so I can’t speak to the others) who really get unique scenes was Emmerich. He actually takes you out on a unique date. It helped a lot to make Emmerich’s romance feel more fleshed out than the others. And Davrin had so many little jaunts out in the woods that those turned into romantic trips out, which added a lot to his. But Lucanis’ and Hardings? With both of them, like I said before, I genuinely wondered if I had accidentally opted out. Their romances most used the Mass Effect format, and it just doesn’t work for a game this long. BioWare knew that once, long ago, because Andromeda did not use the ME trilogy format for romances and was closer to one they used in DA. But DATV is trying to be ME2, so they used ME2’s very thin romances as a guide.

And we can all see how well that turned out.

The Executors: Fuck me, they feel like Cerberus reskinned, and I absolutely hated when Mass Effect shifted from sci-fi/Lovecraftian horror to space opera with Cerberus as the main bad guys you have to fight with the Reapers functionally falling to the background. The Executors are a secret, shadowy organization pulling strings from behind the scenes like the Shadow Broker codexes in ME2 retconned Cerberus into having been doing in ME. Ugh.

The Andromeda-ification of dialogue: Remember Peebee? Remember how she talked? Give her long hair and pointy ears, and she’s Bellara. Down even to the techno-babble. It’s like they’re trying to change magic to just “sufficiently advanced technology.” Everyone speaks in that modern, quippy style that was annoying in a game set hundreds of years in the future because it felt dated by the time the game came out (Ryder makes a Frozen joke, y’all). And it feels completely out of place in a game set in an early modern setting (I don’t think DA is medieval, honestly - it’s more a pre-industrialization/early scientific revoltution setting, so more 1500-1700s, and I’m gonna stop now). It was jarring. You can only let one quirky character break the rules about how people talk (Alistair in DAO, Varric in DA2, Cole in DAI) but when everyone does, it’s jarring. You can be anachronistic, but you have to know what you’re doing and how to do it when you do, and I’m sorry, but the current crop of BioWare writers don’t. They wrote the dialogue like it was a modern day YA novel, not a Dragon Age game. It would have been fine for a modern day urban fantasy game. It was not fine for a DA game set in the same time period as people using the four humours for “modern” medicine (remember the surgeon in DAI? Talked about the four humours? Yeah.)

OK, I did not intend to go on for this long, and I haven’t even gotten to what the game did to how religion is handled or the sociopolitical aspects of Thedas, and how they threw out so much that made Dragon Age unique in their urge to do a soft reboot, so I’m just going to end it here. I wanted to love this game, and I can only do that if I turn my brain off, and that’s not what Dragon Age should be.

[heylavellan]

Hello and happy Friday! ^^ How about ""I don't want explanations. I want…" 💋" for Neve and Bellara?

did i get carried away? yes! i had so much fun writing from bellara's pov. veilguard spoilers, read at your own discretion! @dadrunkwriting

no takesies-backsies

rating: t

words: 1282

notes: bellara follows in varric's friend fiction footsteps and writes her self insert falling in love with neve's character. wingman lucanis

Maybe Bellara went just a bit toooo far. Sometimes that happened. More than sometimes. This whole writing thing had been Neve's suggestion. Well, Neve and Rook's. It was a nice break from interrogating the Nadas Dirthalen made by Anaris the Forgotten One and trying not to think about the fact her brother was serving said Forgotten One. Also that her gods thought it would be fun to try and Blight the world.

There was a lot going on, and sometimes Bellara would rather distract herself. The serials Neve brought her were great, but she always finished them before the next chapter was ready. Then she'd read the week's assigned reading for the book club and get bored, so she'd try one of those large academic tomes Emmrich brought. Which inevitably brought her back to the Nadas Dirthalen and all those thoughts she was trying to avoid.

So she started writing about the Veilguard! It was really fun at first, but she quickly ran into a problem. She caught up to the present day. Which was good, because it meant that she could write about things as they happened. But bad. Really bad, since it meant she was stuck with the original problem. Nothing to do.

One day when Bellara was complaining to Lace, the dwarf shared what she knew about Varric's books. About how Hard in Hightown was based on some of his friends in Kirkwall. Donnen was Donnic, Belladona was Isabela, and Maysie was Merrill. Friend fiction, he'd called it.

It was then that Bellara had the perfect idea. Neve was always saying that the press was giving her a bad rep in Minrathous. So why not write a story about how awesome she was? The Neve Gallus!

Well, clearly the main character couldn't be Neve Gallus exactly. Varric didn't drop his friends straight into the works. No, he gave them new names. So how about Guinevere? It had "neve" in the name, but it wasn't immediately obvious. She could be called 'Gee' for short! Agent Gee? No, that wasn't right.

Neve was a suave detective, so Gee needed to be too. But what was she sleuthing? Maybe... for stolen elven artifacts? No, that wouldn't sell in Tevinter. Which was where Neve needed to fix her image. No, she could be the Bloodhound of Minrathous, stopping blood rituals just in time and tracking down anything lost.

And every hero needed a sidekick. Lucanis seemed like a good option, but he didn't live in Minrathous. He was the Demon of Vyrantium. But maybe she could work with that. Maybe they were instead rival detectives, who shared a sidekick unknowingly. The Shadow of Vyrantium competing with the Bloodhound of Minrathous. Yes!

But who was the sidekick. Maybe they were telling the story. Maybe it was... her? Hmmm, that could work. Lucine, the elven sidekick who could sneak across the city unnoticed. She ran a repair shop in Dock Town and sold second hand and vintage wares.

As Bellara continued to shape the story and write the first chapters, it became quite clear that Lucine was in love with Guinevere. Which was strange. Because Bellara wasn't in love with Neve, right? She knew she liked women, after all she dated Irelin for a while. But Neve?

She continued to write. Gee was developing a crush on the Shadow, who she would later reveal to be Lucine's younger sibling Dellen. They both continued to solve crime in Minrathous and Vyrantium until Lucine got targeted by a scheme. The Shadow and the Bloodhound work together to retrieve Lucine, where they admit begrudging respect for each other. And Lucine confessed her love for Guinevere. And they lived happily ever after.

That felt like a good place to end the book. Rook helped her find a publisher, and it was out in Minrathous. She thought that was the end of that. She'd put her first book out in the world!

But with Neve Gallus, things weren't so. Publishing might have been the step too far. After an excursion to Arlathan with Rook and Lucanis (who politely informed Bellara that her book was very popular among the residents of Treviso), Neve was waiting in Bellara's room, reading through a copy of her book.

To be honest, she'd been shoving down her feelings for Neve in case they weren't returned. Until the crush went away, the book was a good enough outlet. "Guinevere took Lucine's hand and kissed her knuckles, looking reverently at her sidekick," quoted Neve, placing a ribbon in the passage she was on. "I was wondering why so many people were asking me if my full name was Guinevere recently."

Bellara blushed and stammered, "I'm sorry if I put your real name out there, but I wanted the character to be like you but also not you?"

Neve smiled -- a real smile, not the ones she wore when she was patiently putting up with Bellara's rambles. "No. I just think it's sweet what you think of me," she replied, setting the book down on the table. "I hope I have enough stories to fuel your next book."

If it was possible, she flushed an even brighter red. Neve drew closer, and Bellara became immediately aware of the curve of her body, the click of her shoes. The deep cut of her shirt. She gulped. "I think so? I don't know if I'll write another. I mean, you're awesome and deserve to have another written about you, but um. Only if you want me to. I really should have asked," she said, letting her mouth speak whatever words crossed her mind. Mythal'enaste, she hadn't been this flustered since she first met Irelin!

"I'm honoured that you want to write about me. But I think the one thing that's stumped me is who Lucine is. The Shadow, Dellen. That's like Lucanis. There's Guinevere, me. You even had Inge, that was a slick way to get Ingellvar in there. But Lucine?" Neve dissected the book and placed a hand on Bellara's shoulder.

She knew? She had to know, right? There was no way she didn't. She was a detective and had clearly picked up that she'd used last names to inspire first names. Guinevere - Gallus, Dellamorte - Dellen, Inge - Ingellvar. Leaving Lucine - Lutare. Neve had to know. And if she didn't she'd certainly have it confirmed by her facial expressions.

Before she could stammer out an apology or explain it away as just part of the book, Neve started, "Look, I don't need explanations. I need…"

Well, if the nug was out of the bag... Bellara cut her off by standing on her tiptoes to kiss Neve. It wasn't intense really, just a quick peck. Before she embarrassed herself. She already felt like she did, but... Whatever. Also, if she kissed Neve longer she'd want more. And Neve might not want that. "I'm sorry!" Bellara squeaked.

The second part of her apology was cut off by two warm hands grabbing her cheeks and a long kiss on her lips. It began to heat up, as Neve licked and nipped Bellara's lips. A small gasp left her mouth, allowing Neve to slip her tongue into Bellara's mouth.

Someone coughed at the doorway. "I'll just bring your tea later?" Lucanis asked, slowly backing out of Bellara's room. Bellara darted over, grabbing her tea from Lucanis with a smile. She missed the pointed look Lucanis shot Neve over Bellara's thank you hug.

Neve mouthed a thank you to Lucanis, and picked up the book. "I'll be back later, Bell. I'm certain we can come up with more ideas for the next book," she teased.

Elgar'nan, Neve was going to be the death of her.

[hyperions-light]

Rook’s notes on the Lighthouse/Caretaker for the codex ask!

Thank you for asking! [Codex prompts here] These are very fun so far!

- This place is alive? Moves to accommodate guests, changes layout. Many places accessible using acrobatics. Some inaccessible currently (tried, dangerous).

- Seems to have assigned me Fish Room. Think they are watching me (good?). Able to rearrange furniture but not request more. Annoying.

- Solas lived here? Depressing. No wonder he’s so miserable. Found weird, sad little room with his stuff in it. Going to ask him if he’s bored in the Fade Jail next time. Maybe he will be less annoying if he has something to do? Can try to mentally recreate books, maybe.

- There’s a. Ghost? Demon? Spirit? Asked Bellara, she says spirit. Very turquoise, many eyes, bad clothes (do spirits wear those? Ask Solas). Seems helpful? Provides gondola rides and is more polite than gondoliers in Treviso. And it’s free!

- Spirit is in Lighthouse now. Very cryptic, even more than Solas. Wonder if that was a requirement in Arlathan (ask Solas). Still not dangerous. Seems to help with accessing new parts of Lighthouse. Asked why I couldn’t just go everywhere now, got vague nonsense. Ugh.

- Should bring random Crows + civilians here to see if it does anything. Viago? Might be funny!

- Found out Library is covered in depressing murals of things Solas regrets. Probably impolite to bring up. Does he like being miserable? I don’t cover my walls with all the missions I fucked up. Strange, sad, bald man. Going to ask him if he wants to play cards next time. Maybe letting him win would cheer him up.

- Manfred is my new best friend. We’re exploring the Lighthouse together.

- Who’s Felassan?

- Solas says to stop contacting him about unimportant things (no).

- Spent indeterminate amount of time trying to convince Lighthouse to replicate animal habitats. Did not work and Davrin looked concerned.

- Was having Davrin show me how to carve animals (looks fun) but got distracted by Assan and impaled my hand. Davrin was upset about this. Said it was fine, but he insisted we visit Emmrich. Discovered Lighthouse speeds magical healing. Worth it.

- If I start bringing cats here will it make a room for them?

- Tried bringing cats. One almost floated away. Do NOT bring Neve’s favorite.

- Bellara and I were using the magical floating ornaments above her room for target practice, and one of them suddenly exploded! Practical applications?

- How come no one else ever visits Varric? Tried to ask Harding if she’d been to see him, but she didn’t hear me? Strange. Visit more-- maybe others will come with? He must be lonely in there.

- Remember to ask Solas if he needs to eat. Think I could manifest Lucanis’ paella if I tried hard enough.

- Taash and I are going to try and build some traps. Borrowed explosives from Antoine. Think Lighthouse is sentient enough to identify intruders if I talk to it.

- Tried to ask the fish about Solas. Maybe they saw him while he was here?

- One of the wisps left Neve’s room suddenly, so we followed it around-- they are DEFINITELY the ones moving people’s stuff. Also maybe causing books to appear? Neve says we need more evidence.

- Emmrich said Harding made the plants grow because she loved them (of course she did). Going to ask her to make me taller via caring about me.

- Sat in the pantry for a while trying to talk the Lighthouse into manifesting a new bed for Lucanis, now that Spite isn’t a problem. Convinced nobody can sleep on that thing. No luck. Try carrying couch from library?

- MANY, LOUD objections to Taash and me building traps. Still think it could work, but promised Davrin I’d return explosives. No one here lets me have any fun (except Taash, Bellara, and Spite).

- Spent a while trying to see if the Lighthouse would let Harding move any of the giant floating chunks of rock. Also attempted exploding arrows + asking politely. No luck.

- Emmrich brought Johanna’s skull here! Amazing! Asked Emmrich to carry my skull around with him after I die so I can see new stuff. Did not understand the reasons he said he couldn’t. Will keep bothering him.

- Friends keep leaving things in my/the fish’s room. Need more drawers.

- Lace says Taash and Bellara can put up memorials to Cyrian and Shathann in her garden, if they want. Think it’s a good idea. Emmrich agrees.

- Made it to the top of the Lighthouse! Made Assan promise not to tell the others how to get up there. Reminds me of the rooftops in Treviso.

- Makes sense now, why Varric never got his own room. Going to put his stuff in Lace’s garden. I think she would have liked that.

[felassan]

Thoughts on the latest companion feature. (this post contains spoilers from the August 30th dev Q&A).

This feature/these blurbs were fun hh. I know these features were more like a fun and light-hearted thing rather than sth we should like overanalyze for character backstory info or read too much into for details and stuff, but I still cant help but kick my feet and think about the blorbos anyways 😊

Emmrich: I felt like art makes total sense :D Nevarra is renowned for its art, even its gardens, food and arrangements for the dead are pieces of art. this blurb combined with yesterday's Q&A had me wondering if any of the companions would like pieces of art like paintings as their personalized gifts. that reminded me of Sten and his paintings in DA:O, which was nostalgic. :') the IT bit of his blurb had me thinking about how Emmrich & Taash don't see eye-to-eye on necromancy. like obviously as a necromancer he doesn't have a problem with it. I wonder what Taash dislikes about it? is it its reputation (per Josie in DA:I)? Solas freed the weak spirit the Mortalitasi in Tevinter Nights had bound to stir her drink. maybe Taash doesn't like the binding part, the servants part?

Neve: I loved that leadership was the top vote for Neve ^^ finding the issues, testing and finding solutions, solving problems.. I wanna investigate a crime scene or case or something with Neve so bad. I also like the idea that Neve, Davrin and Harding could all lead teams of their own in their own right (with Rook as the Veilguard's leader, it reminds me a bit of the Shadow Broker's dossier on Garrus.)

Bellara: Bellara is a renaissance lady fr 🙏 a genius, good with her hands and at building things, magically talented, creative, and also apparently great at cooking! multi-skilled.

Lucanis: "mastermind at piecing things together", like Detective Neve! I'm really curious to hear their banter and see how they interact. with them both around you can't hide anything from the Veilguard!! "Assassination is an art form, and his work is beautiful" made me curious to hear Lucanis and Davrin discussing their respective artforms. Lucanis kills people, Davrin kills monsters. different targets and contexts, but for both of them it's like an artform and a very honed skillset. I think it could be cool if they talked about their varying approaches :) and this one "Lucanis lives off of coffee and hides in the dark" just sent me, like Lucanis pls 😭

Taash: for some reason I kept thinking about Taash sending all the bugs back not only with a grin but also by hitting them back over with a racket or something like it's some kind of ball game hh. I loved "bombastic yet subtle" coming up as a descriptor related to her ^^

Davrin: In a previous blurb we learned Davrin was raised in a Dalish clan, and craved excitement and adventure. reading this new one, I thought that leadership because you can count on him to step up when things get tough sounds like a great quality for a Warden to have. that made me wonder whether he set out from his clan specifically to join the Wardens, or whether it was more like he set out to go on adventures, then established himself as an adventurer, and then was recruited by the Wardens due to his reputation as an adventurer. like what the sequence of events there was like. and I wondered about Assan's in-game noises - like whether it's audio effects or sounds made by an actor. ^^

Harding: leadership here made me hark back to Harding's previous life as the Lead Scout of the Inquisition. "she works hard".. punny :D

[uchidachi]

Actually tonight is ALSO wrestling night, so please appreciate my choices for the Veilguard's wrestling finishers:

Bellara: Booyaka Booyaka 619!! (Rey Mysterio)

A spinning kick through the ropes (because like the ropes are like the veil? veil jumpers? get it? ... well I think i'm witty)

Davrin: He is direct and a strong force in battle. He will face his problems headfirst… SPEAR!!! (Roman Reigns)

Yes, the Spear is just hurling your whole self at your opponent. But with style.

Emmrich: No, NOT the tombstone! Emmrich's finisher is the Kinshasa (Shinsuke Nakamura)

Nakamura and Emmrich are both theatrical, have an expert style, and are 70% leg. Emmrich could totally knee you in the face

Harding : Code Red (Zelina Vega)

Most of the gifs of Zelina on here feature her getting pinned, submitted, or flung around the ring, but she is a fearless wrestler who pulls off some really stunning moves, (and occasionally wrestles in cosplay.) As the kids say: we stan.

Lucanis: Well of course he'll have the high-flying off the top rope move! Twisted Bliss (Alexa Bliss)

Wrestling is wild, you guys...

Neve: You know it, you love it, and more importantly— the people love it. The People’s Elbow (The Rock)

It's less about the power of a single elbow drop, and more about the legend behind it.

Taash: Ok, NOW it’s time for the Tombstone Piledriver (The Undertaker)

The STRENGTH, the DEVASTATION, and the SHEER SKILL involved in not actually crushing your opponent's skull on the mat. It's forbidden in the modern WWE for a reason. If you hear wrestlers talk about wrestling Undertaker, they'll say how much trust they had in him (and how unwilling they would be to take one of these from anyone else!)

(Oh, and before you @ me, Bianca Belair’s braid whip is NOT a finishing move you fools, you fake fans. But of course Taash would have this in their moveset are you kidding? That’s so badass…)

... wrestling is fun.

[lizardsquisher]

The Pirate and the Professor

Chapter Four: The Best Medicine

A week after the grim events at Weisshaupt, Emmrich found Rook alone at the table in the Lighthouse library. Her fist was mashed against her cheek as she studied a map of Thedas. She idly pushed a Crow figurine around Antiva with her pointer finger. In her distraction, she knocked the poor fellow sideways into Rialto Bay.

Her head lifted as Emmrich approached. He set a cordial on the table before her.

She looked down at it. “Are we recruiting a bottle to hold Arlathan against the Venatori?”

“Drink it,” he said gently. “It will ease that headache.”

“What headache are you—?”

“The one that’s had you rubbing your temples since breakfast.”

“Oh, that one.” Popping the lid open with her thumbnail, Rook downed the contents in one pull and plunked the bottle on the table. Her eyes widened. “Oh, that tasted like cherries.”

“I see no reason for medicine to taste bad. A proper tonic should lift the spirits as it mends the flesh.” He folded his hands together. “Rook, you deserve a break.”

“I’d love one, honestly. But I have so much to do. I promised Lucanis we would help Treviso recover from the blight. He needs something to distract him from that business with Ghilan’nain. And we’ve got another archdemon to locate.”

“Neither mission is so pressing that it cannot wait. We don’t yet know where to find Elgar’nan’s vessel. And Treviso will be no better or worse for a day's delay.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Rook rescued the fallen Crow and returned him to shore. “I don’t even know what to do for fun anymore. Guzzling mead is right out. Can’t have the Venatori catching me in my cups. And I can’t think of many places I could go where I won’t end up finding another problem that needs solving.”

“The Necropolis remains in good order since our last visit. I have some duties to see to in the Memorial Gardens. I thought you might like to come with me. You once told me you loved to learn. There’s much to learn about the Mourn Watch and the Grand Necropolis.”

She smiled. “And about you. I do enjoy learning about you.”

Flirting was to Rook what flying was to a bird—it was what she did. Sly innuendo was a staple of all her conversations. But he couldn’t help noticing that her comments towards him had developed a more pointed nature. Perhaps he was flattering himself. Surely, such a vibrant young woman had more suitable prospects. The handsome warden, the mysterious assassin, the clever detective . . . What use did she have for a bookish old necromancer?

Read more at the link below.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61873225/chapters/159277289

[vigilskeep]

you've talked a bit about sol's relationship with lucanis, bellara, and davrin, but what are sol's thoughts on the other companions?

neve looked at sol and saw a cute slightly over-energetic puppy that somebody else owns and that it’s always fun to hang out with and make run after sticks. briefly, mind you, before going home and leaving it someone else’s problem. whereas sol was eager to melt neve’s ice walls and win her approval with sheer persistence. all of that went away for a while when sol chose treviso. it was hard to recover from that because sol had no regret for their choice, nor did they believe neve would have any regrets if she had been in the position to choose minrathous, and that was a wedge of silence between them. both aware, both not cruel enough to say everything out loud. it took a while to defrost, with bellara anxiously hovering inbetween them. ultimately they have a strong bond and sol probably respects neve more than anybody else on the team, but as friends, neve is more lucanis and bellara’s than she is sol’s, if that makes sense? sol finally showing up for minrathous and them fighting for it side by side in the end was everything to me

i was never quite sure where they stood with harding until the end, i think it requires further thought. sol wasn’t all that close with harding before the game, when they had varric inbetween. mostly they thought it was funny to play up the antivan crow and scandalise the comparatively more normal straight-laced member of the party. they have a lot of respect for her skillset because they’re accustomed to working with rogues, whereas interpersonally they didn’t know how much they relied on and valued her warmth and stabilising influence until they lost it. they didn’t really understand her all that much, i don’t think? which is funny when lucanis is over here like immediately clocking exactly what childhood trauma led to all her behaviours, but then lucanis is so much more empathetic than sol is

taash is kind of the little sibling sol never had. sol, stretching their arm all the way up to put it around taash’s shoulders: “ah yes, my honorary crow young padawan in the ways of being non-binary and setting things on fire”. sol is a mostly harmlessly terrible influence on them, always telling them to be more rebellious and to feel things fully. taash probably got the worst of the ending, and sol won’t forgive themself for that

emmrich is an endlessly entertaining curiosity who comes from an entirely different world to sol. they’re not that close, but they fascinate each other and always want to hear each other’s stories. something about the work of the necropolis emotionally touches sol—who always expected to die young, unnaturally, and unremembered, and whose profession is giving that same fate to others—in a way little else does. (even if they find the necropolis itself slightly infuriating to do quests in. professor, you’re just too nice to these spirits and it gives them far too much nerve.) i imagine emmrich saying they could be interred in the necropolis if they wished and sol definitely not crying, there’s just something in their eye, they have to go

[stayatsam]

onto a big thing about the companions...the roleplaying opportunities for Rook as a whole in the game are super fun, very varied, and i was not expecting the sheer amount of origin-based content i was going to get out of this (if context helps i'm playing a warden mage)

the COMPANION writing is very odd in Veilguard and definitely all over the place. Davrin and Neve are my opinion the ones who most consistently feels like "this is a dragon age companion" compared to previous games, with Davrin''s conflict with Lucanis especially good

i...feel bad. i don't really like Emmrich a whole lot, i was expecting to, but he's not a dragon age character. as i've progressed his questline i'm confused as to why we're chasing this mad scientist in big steampunk goggles instead of doing what's most pressing, like fighting the blight. i feel like Sten in DAO right now: "Why are we doing side quests lets go kill the archdemon!"

his group lines boil down to "we can't do anything about the biggest blight in the world until we solve our PERSONAL problems" which almost feels like the game holding my hand TELLING me to do the companion quests. which is you know, sure! it's a game i'm going to do them, but the dialogue feels off, and his entire character is out of touch with the setting sadly. i wanted to like him but the mourn watch quests remind me of fallout 4 settlement requests. "Rook, there's another haunting on the otherside of thedas we need you to kill"

i don't really feel very strongly about Bellara, not gonna lie. i wish they gave her a little more to chew on, i feel like there's good potential there and she got the short end of the interesting-stick

Harding is a weird one. i like her as a companion, but she feels like a new character wearing scout Harding's skin. i..admittedly don't take her out a whole lot though

i like Taash lots and not just because they're trans, it's cool to get a more inside look on Qunari customs and their family dynamics. their dialogue with Lucanis is probably what makes me like both of them lots.

the thing that does kinda irk me with Lucanis and Taash though is the way Spite isn't taken all that seriously, well overall i feel like. in DA2, Anders is seen as a constant threat by the rest of the party for being possessed, but there's a scene in Veilguard where Taash talks to spite like they're talking to a bad dog and not a literal demon that wants to KILL KILL KILL. this is also why i think Davrin is one of the best written companions since he's the one who reacts as a Thedas-based character WOULD to a demon-possessed assassin. and you DO get to see the two of them make amends despite their differences. the Lucanis-Davrin relationship is well thought out in my opinion

companion writing is overall pretty weak? it's hard. i like each companion individually and don't actively dislike any of them, i'm neutral at worst on a couple. i think what made me mostly resentful was having to hear Emmrich basically summarize "we can't save the world! i'll be too distracted thinking about my mad scientist ex-colleague and everyone else's drama etc. etc." like damn

i think after playing all day today i've bumped it back down to a 7/10...i have a feeling my final rating will probably be 6/10 or stick at 7

[jhezenkoss]

BellaraHezenkoss for the wip folder game?? 👀👀👀

OKAY so I'm going to use this as my excuse for my Bellara/Hezenkoss manifesto.

(The actual fic I'm currently writing does not get into any of this and is pretty much just hand of glory pwp. Does it count as necrophilia to fuck a fully consenting undead mummified hand? Unclear.)

I just think Bellara as a Fade nerd who is actually really interested in really dangerous magic but trying to restrain herself meeting Hezenkoss who is also a Fade nerd who cast aside all scruples in pursuit of power is something that can be so sexy.

I don't know that any relationship between them would necessarily be overly romantic or long lasting, but I also think it would be sexy of them to form a passionate if short lived fling and then have a few decades as bitter exes writing stuff like Re: the problems with J. Hezenkoss' last article in this journal, Re: Re: B. Lutare's asinine reply to J. Hezenkoss' magnificent article, etc.

So we've got a few avenues to this:

1. Correspondence: Bellara gets you to recruit Emmrich because they're penpals, so who's to say she isn't also corresponding with Hezenkoss? Who is undoubtedly doing very weird fun slightly fucked up things that Bellara can't help but be intrigued by.

2. Hezenkoss Can Make Bellara Worse: Bellara maybe getting pushed into things a little more unethical than she might've done otherwise by an encouraging Hezenkoss who praises her for it. Hezenkoss has a line with Rook that goes: "Look at you. A necromancer wasting the prime of their life solving the problems of others. You'd have been taught much differently if you'd been my apprentice." and well. Maybe Bellara can get in on a bit of that unethical yet sexy mentor action too.

Also this banter:

Hezenkoss: You have a question about negative topological functions?

Bellara: Yes, please. Emmrich said it was okay to ask about this.

Hezenkoss: Do you always listen to that milksop? Well, at least you've come to a proper necromancer. First, I assume you've learned to cascade your spell weaves around wave inversions.

Bellara: Oh! Really! But wouldn't the explosive radius— I mean. I'd never try it.

Hezenkoss: That's cowardice speaking. Cast it aside!

3. Alternate companion AU: Hezenkoss gets recruited instead of Emmrich and at first she seems very helpful and then you get to her personal quest and it's something like. Help me build my giant skeleton to take over the world fight with. And there's a bit of murder on the side but hey! You've come this far with her already. And you've got Bellara and Hezenkoss off to one side forming a little NPC romance over shared enthusiasm over the intricacies of magic. Hezenkoss would probably be interested in the archive. Bellara is into the giant skeleton and ways to improve it.

From this banter:

Bellara: What a waste. What happened with Hezenkoss, I mean.

Emmrich: She could have turned her considerable intellect to the good of Nevarra. And now...

Bellara: No, I mean the giant bone skeleton. That big thing she wanted to become. You go to all that trouble. And you make it look like that? I'd give it wings. Or more arms. Or something.

Emmrich: You've put a lot of thought into this, I see.

Bellara: No! I mean, I'd never do it. Probably.

4. Bellara Can (try to) Make Hezenkoss Better: Maybe an AU where Hezenkoss is defeated but instead of being just a skull she's fully walking around the Lighthouse now as a grudging ally. And maybe Bellara spends a bit of time with her talking over stuff. Bellara makes a few comparisons between Anaris and Hezenkoss in the game, and maybe she can view this as a second chance to do something about the type of views that stole her brother. It probably isn't going to work! But they can have a bit of (sexy) fun with baiting each other.

Anyway. I am way too lazy to write any of this. But I do think of them often.

[mojo-bro-tho]

So- I’ve been writing an Emmrook fic. I haven’t posted fanfic in literal years and made a new blog just to do it (still debating if I want to actually post the full thing chapters I’m literally like 40k deep at this point and it’s a problem) BUT I thought it might be fun to share something I cooked up because I’m a firm believer that sometimes you just have to have a panic attack and that’s just that. So below will be a snippet of my F! Warden Rook Lenore having a moment as a result of Weisshaupt and Emmrich is there to do what he can!

“You have listened to everyone else’s terror at seeing what happened but your own. You insist far too much on shouldering the burden alone.” He began, closing the door behind him.

“I told you, I don’t have time for this.” She muttered under her breath.

“Time for what? For yourself? That isn’t how it works, Rook. If you don’t take the time, the body will do it for you.” It wasn’t a reprimand, it was a fact. He kept his tone even, spoken slow in hopes that it might somehow sink deeper into her thoughts. She still did not look up. He wished she would.

“I can handle this.” She responded plainly.

“I believe you’re forgetting who stood next to you for every step of Weisshaupt. I’m well aware that you can.”

That got her attention. That earlier look of annoyance melted into confusion, peering up at him through disheveled bangs. He had kept his distance from her, allowing himself to practically meld into the doorway without touching it. She was some feet away. He would not push her, he would not take a step further into the threshold to invade the space she had naturally put between them.

“Then why are you here?” She asked quietly. It sounded as if she was asking herself that rather than him directly.

“Every leader still needs a confidant. Someone who may lend an ear with the knowledge that they won’t see you as any lesser. Someone who cares and accepts the faltering but does not look away or turn their back.”

Emmrich’s words swirled around her as though they were a warm embrace. Her mind was alight and she felt incredibly conflicted. She recalled what Solas had said to her, about her team rallying behind her resolve. But she trusted Emmrich a great deal. His kindness seemed boundless, and he truly did care. As she searched his calm demeanor, she saw the perfected face of someone who did not wish to take pity.

“Every leader, huh? I don’t know about that.”

“Even the vilest of nobility have earned themselves the listening ears of those equally loathsome. If they have the privilege to share in hardship, you deserve far more.” Emmrich replied, his grip on his stave tightening. “Besides, you are aware of my fondness for you. Call it a selfish desire if that helps you sleep at night.”

Lenore took a single step closer. Her legs were far too stiff for it really, she felt like she was dragging the weight of hundreds of bodies behind her. It came out as more of a stumble than a stride and Emmrich once again fought the urge to reach for her. This had to be on her terms, he must not force it on her. A murmured grunt disguised as a chuckle escaped her.

“What does a confidant do exactly? Just listen?” She wondered.

“And offer advice, when wanted or needed. An advisor solely for that person they trust so deeply.” He answered. She took another step.

“That helps? That’s it? Sounds too easy.” Her head craned low, needing to watch her feet to take another step.

“When that is all that’s needed, yes.” He said gently.

Lenore’s knees buckled. The sway of her body pushed her further towards him. The cracks in her demeanor were widening by the second while the distance closed. As if a dam at the verge of bursting, Lenore found herself unable to truly halt her momentum. Shoulders hunched and back feeling pulled down. Emmrich’s own body stiffened as her lowered forehead found a spot just below the center of his chest. Her left arm extended and again met the door behind his back. Fingers sprawled and tensed like a twitching spider. Her body did not shake but the uneven vibrations of her exhale gave her away.

“Do confidants keep it a secret?” Her voice trembled.

“They speak not a word to any soul.” As he spoke, her right hand clutched at the front of his vest.

“Not even to me. Never again.”

“So long as that is what you desire.” He assured her.

That was the final straw. Emmrich’s back met the door with all the weight Lenore could press into him. The desperate cling for body heat just to prove she was not dead herself. That was hard through a silverite breastplate and every inch of her body covered in thick fabric and leather aside from her face.

No tears fell from her eyes, but a sound rumbled into Emmrich’s chest. A sound between a painful wail and the softest of gasps, like all the wind had been knocked from her lungs. Weisshaupt mattered to her, being a Warden mattered to her, all those lives, even the ones she had never met, they mattered. There were plenty left who could understand it. Davrin, Antoine, Evka. Logically she knew she could go to them and wallow in each other’s company. But Lenore would not allow herself that pleasure, not since she realized the First Warden had put all his faith in her only to lose it all. What right did she have to sorrow when so much was on the line? When they were all suffering just as much and yet were already moving.

Emmrich held no such obligations in her mind. Held no bias to the source of her pain other than having seen her own passion for her work. Maybe she could have broken in front of anyone, but she didn’t think so. He held a special place for his empathy towards her, for his unwillingness to yield to her stubborn resolve. Trusted her to find her way again, even if that required a moment of stumbling like a fool.

She could hardly breathe anymore. Every echo of her need to scream found a safe place to rest inside Emmrich’s rib cage. Her arms could not decide whether to pull him closer or to push herself away. She was melting and rigid, being torn apart and spun back together. The repeatedly rolling tide of torment that shifted every bit of the tainted rubble that made up her form.

She did not process what Emmrich did right away. His stave swiftly abandoned, clanging against the corner of the wall and instead his hands became full of her. Rather than her melding into his hold, he upheld her. One arm bent past her waist, up her spine, and firmly pinned her to him. His other hand went to the back of her neck. Two fingers wove into her hair while the rest wrapped around the base.

He was stronger than what he appeared, easily able to lift her frame to straighten her fumbling legs. The achingly mindless gasps for air shifted until he could feel them reverberate against his collarbone. An ever mournful howl that threatened his sensibilities. A pain he knew she needed to feel no matter how devastating it was to either of them. Controlled catharsis that he must endure for her.

“You must breathe, Dear.” He commanded in a whisper she could not truly hear.

The poor thing was beyond guiding words. She must or else he feared the panic may begin to slow the air to her brain. As gently as he could manage, Emmrich took control of her head, turning it to the side and pressing her ear against his chest all the while searching for the pulse on her neck. With tender care he lowered their bodies to the ground, afraid that she might collapse on herself.

Clinging even more fiercely, she crumbled into him and fell into the space between his legs while still pressed to hear his heartbeat. What a pathetic sight she would think herself to be if she could think at all. The pumping of blood thrummed in her skull. The hunger for closeness endlessly burned in her throat. The hand on her back perfectly memorized the bend in her vertebrae and sweetly caressed where the burdening weight was found inside her. She could not feel the difference in herself, but he could.

“That’s it. Just breathe. You are safe. I’m right here.” He mused into her open ear. “Just you and I. You are free to feel. Do not bind yourself to it, not with me.”

“I… I can’t…” Her words felt choking on a self strangled esophagus.

“Yes, you can. Just listen closely. Listen to what your body needs. Hear the sounds of mine. Allow them to sync.” Emmrich slowly rocked her back and forth, bringing forth the rhythms of steady breath so that it may resonate throughout her tissue. And in feathering, twisting whispers came a string of sounds Emmrich could not have understood fully at that time.

“Ir Abelas!” The syllables crushed helplessly in her neck. “Ma halani! Mir lin him banalhan!”

Emmrich recognized the words themselves as Elven, he did not know she could speak it. He made light taps against her spine with the tips of his fingers. Keeping a tempo that he rocked her to while trying to ease her hyperventilating. From their position, he could no longer see her face. But he felt her eyelashes blink against his neck and that told him she was keeping her eyes open.

Lenore sputtered a dry cough, her body making an attempt to force air back into her body by releasing what little she had to begin with. A large gasp wrought havoc on her jaw, feeling it stiffen while free from her gritted teeth. Emmrich would not be deterred by the sudden change, that was normal. He knew all of this was normal no matter how terrible.

The body always had its way in the end even if that meant destroying itself in the process. He would not allow it. He dreaded the thought of if he had allowed her to wait any longer to intervene. Just how much worse it would have been if no one had bothered to check on her at all.

Thoughts of fresh sickness across projects he would later have to rewrite came to mind. His own experiences lent him well to understanding the consequences all too well. Lonesome and fearful would always be far worse than together and broken. He was relieved to see that very experience aided her well. Silence filled the vacancy of her mouth and warm, shallow breath heated the skin beneath his collared shirt.

“There you are…” He whispered into her hair. “Can you hear me, Rook?”

Emmrich found a weak nod of her head, forehead rounding past the crook of his neck. Her mouth felt dry. Lips tired and throat yearning for the peace of stillness. Everything hurt, everything was numb, and yet there was warmth. The unmistakable heat of another breathing being. He breathed a sigh of relief that she felt scatter across her scalp.

“Good, listen to me closely… You are safe here. You are not alone. Count in your mind the taps you feel, can you do that for me?” He asked. She nodded again, eyes fluttering closed to focus. One, two, three, four. “Now start again.” One, two, three, four. “Again.”

[serbarris]

Author Ask Tag

Tagged by @volkoss my answers are not going to be as eloquent or insightful but enjoy I guess lol x

All of these are going to be about my current fic At Best You'll Find A Little Remedy. Which is about Emmrich and my Rook, Calliope!!

What is the main lesson of your story?

Um, intentionally - no main lesson. I think unintentionally, it's a story of Calliope learning to trust herself, in multiple aspects of her life, also to be more trusting of others. Also I wanted to explore the romance in Veilguard a bit more, and flesh out some of the interactions with not just Emmrich but the other companions too. And finally, I wanted to inflict/show some real-time trauma for them since everyone seems slightly too well-adjusted for the Horrors they are experiencing lol.

What did you use as inspiration for your world-building?

Basically, I had a passing headcanon that Calliope was in Emmrich's class as a student, and obviously why would she not have a crush on the handsome 35-40 year old teacher? and ran with it. First I wrote I'll Crawl Home to Her as a starting place for small interactions between the main quests, and then I started to build off those small scenes that's now ballooned into this multichapter fic! Also chapter 1 of this fic was basically - what if I wrote veilguard as a romcom novel.

Also I have a list of things I wish were explored a bit more in VG, so the plotline with the huge books in the Cauldron, an earlier first kiss scene, a [redacted] fight, and can't beat just hurt/comfort and more smut :)

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, or help them grow as a person?

On reflection, it's a bit of free therapy writing Calliope. Even though she's a couple years older than me, she is v much a younger version of myself. I was very reclusive and introverted (still am) but she is truly the extreme of me at my worst I guess? I definitely feel like I want her to grow and show that throughout the fic - at the beginning of VG she is very much running away from her problems, as well as longing to go home. She's definitely fighting her own demons in a continent without therapy so she is Struggling, but the team do help her a lot and it's the first time she's truly been confident at calling people friends (apart from Audric and Myrna but Myrna's her boss and Vorgoth is like a quasi-uncle).

I also took the chance to explore Emmrich's POV a bit through some interludes that take place. I think Calliope has such a puppy love towards Emmrich and truly has watched him afar for many years that I wanted to punctuate Emmrich only just noticing her, and how it's a quicker descent for him (that starts out a bit more lusty). It's very fun to write Emmrich's POV chapters, his voice comes quite easily.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

Currently sitting at about 22 chapters that I'm happy with the plan for(one of those will probably be split in two so maybe 23 is the answer?) - possibly more possibly less I'm going with the flow!

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Fanfiction babeyy, on ao3, some chapters have been cross-posted to tumble (before I decided to post on ao3 as a multichapter)

When did you start writing?

I wrote a couple of fanfics back in the day when I was a teen for HP and Darren Shan - I then didn't write for years until 2019 when I started to write for my Inquisitor x OC, but I've never had the balls to write their longfic it would be intense haha. Then only picked up writing again in November after doing Calliope's playthrough!

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr?

just write!!! it's fun, it's therapy- post it or don't post it, someone out there will enjoy it, even if it's an audience of you!!

Tagging: @aymayzing @maythedreadwolftakeyou