#this has been cooking for ages fdkjfs

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

you said you're holding yourself from going into details of your quizes dealing with an arm loss. can you elaborate on it here? :)

yea!! thank you for enabling me hfkdlsfjdl <3

will preface this by saying i'm working off of the fact that this is a high fantasy setting where heavy injury etc is way more common and also this is dragon age so things don't Have To Make Perfect Sense lolol

but n e way!

Gonna start off with June cos the Actual Arm Loss has much less impact on her. It still needs a lot of getting used to and adjustment in how she goes about doing things, and she does have times where she gets frustrated with how difficult mundane things are now, or with how slow the progress is, or with needing so much help.

It's the magic-y part that has the biggest impact; the mark's been there for a good 3 years, and her body had gotten used to having it there, so it suddenly being gone, especially after expanding so drastically, kind of fucks up her magic balance and drains her both physically and mentally for a long time. She also hadn't realised how used she'd gotten to intuitively tapping into the anchor's powers until she couldn't do it anymore, so that took readjusting as well.

Otherwise it doesn't take a big toll on her mentally though; if anything, she is kind of relieved to have the arm (or rather the anchor) gone. It's caused an insane amount of pain especially towards the end, and truth be told she'd seriously considered having it removed more than once, so in a way this being how she got rid of the mark is kind of ironic. But what's done is done, and she'd rather tackle the challenge than dwell on it.

As for the prosthesis, the first one she gets and main one she uses is basically a substitute staff -- or rather wand lol. Dagna designed it early on because June is used to bare-handed casting (don't do that at home kids), so she'd instinctively try to channel mana to a hand that Is Not There Anymore which was uh. messy. So! Simple device that lets her channel magic safely and accurately :) They've developed it since then to be more versatile and sturdy, but overall it's still light and simple enough to be easily strapped on and off and to not immediately break when she accidentally tries to lean on it. She does learn to control her casting better also, but on missions it's a practical tool to have. She does have some other simple, utilitarian prostheses for when she really needs a 2nd "hand" to say, grab or hold something, but rarely ever uses them unless she really needs it (too much of a hassle to put on and off & too exhausting to use for long) Full mech arm is being workshopped! Tbh mostly for fun than for "i need this" purposes, but since the Inquisition is still standing they have the resources to do it, and because June and Dagna (and Dorian) are nerds who don't back down from a challenge, they Will do it. Lots of experimenting with levels of complexity, materials, runes, magic, and how to make all that work together, and how to make it work in theory if surgical procedures were involved (neither of them are medics tho so uh. the results are questionable fdkjfs)

ok wow that got a lot longer than anticipated lmaoo so Ari under the cut!

Ari Does Not take it as well oops. Mostly bc Trespasser & the aftermath of it is already So Much (June is much more distanced from all of it but to Ari it Matters. A Lot.) and dealing with the loss of his main hand/arm on top of that is just Too Much, so with everything piled together rehab does not go nearly as smoothly. Doesn't exactly help that things he'd usually do to wind down like cooking or hunting or taxidermy are, well, hard to do now, so the stress and frustration pents up a lot and he's just. not having a great time. Luckily he has a good support system though and he does get better, eventually.

At least for Ari the magic aspect isn't as much of an issue. I do hc that the anchor gives non-mages some magic adjacent abilities, and the strength of its influence is more than enough to mess up non-mages mana balance as well, but it's not nearly as severe as it would be if he were a mage and takes a lot less readjustment (long term anchor fucked-up-ness notwithstanding).

Like June he also never gets a full on mech arm, and doesn't intend to. Ari isn't as close with Dagna and not as keen on experimenting, or has the time or brain space to invest in fancy gadgets, but he makes good use of utility tools to help him for things like keeping a clipboard steady or holding reigns, but especially for archery. The first solution was the mounted crossbow like in the epilogue slides, which.. works. It's not elegant and not always practical, but it does its job well enough and he does make sure to keep in practice with it. Later he gets a prosthesis with which he can draw a proper bow; with entirely different techniques he has to get used to, but he greatly prefers it. Takes a long time before he becomes proficient with archery again, but he's glad he doesn't have to give it up. Helps that at this point it is mostly recreational since he does way less field work over the years post Trespasser, which makes the limitations to speed and draw weight much less of an issue.

[fairymint]

“....What???” Nope, he was not just cat-chattering at something. You didn’t hear it.