#this is canon actually bioware told me

[marictheirins]

" this should have been merrill " argument is so fuck annoying. yeah lets do that, lets take merrill give her to flemeth to be mentally & physically abused, manipulated, groomed, & ultimately made hollow to become the next vessel of mythal. this shouldnt have happened to morrigan, why are we wishing it on merrill. morrigan did the due diligence to learn about elvhenan history from keepers all over thedas, was raised directly by mythal, & has dedicated more of her life to the same studies that led merrill to be tricked by a demon & then she of her own volition instead of making up for her mistakes just straight up leaves her clan then wistfully acts as if she has no family or friends & is so unloved & unworthy boo hoo its horrible. she turned away from her own people in favor of a mirror she doesnt even unlock. ultimately it doesnt matter who is better suited because my bottom line point is can we stop this argument every goddamn game of which woman should we throw under the bus because its supposedly the better choice because ougvbbh human vs elf the human shouldnt be here despite the context behind her character, the elf is always better choice.

[qunaricatnip]

thinking thoughts about anora being the “real power behind the throne” and why I don’t particularly vibe with that bit of canon

[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. It was 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 uncles 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 seem 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 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.

[galadrieljones]

From your recent posts on what taking down the Veil would mean (which, btw, thank you for seeking out those opinions and writing your own as well - I've also been very interested in those consequences lately): "The plot of Veilguard is, I think, when taken in a vacuum, very good. It's a unique perspective taken from many old tropes, but it is simply not executed with gravitas, in my opinion."

This is putting into words something I've been struggling with over the last few days. I've played VG twice now and have a third save going, though I've mostly been spending my time back in DA:I as I feel more at home there. But my feelings on VG have begun to move from "it's fine" to "I'm indifferent" to "I can't really interact with this in a way that's satisfying to me." And I think maybe a lot of that is about the lack of gravitas with which the story is told.

If we don't truly know the stakes of our actions (whether that's what it means if the Veil is gone, or whether magic is in any way as dangerous as the South has always made us believe), we cannot make informed choices. Uninformed choices are fun too, and they have their place - not knowing what drinking the Well of Sorrows would do to my Inquisitor is still the most frightening choice I've made perhaps in any game.

But I never get the sense with VG that the writing is intentionally leaving a choice ambiguous to scare us or to leave us with mystery - or even to remind us of a parallel between Rook and Solas, who are each trying to make impossible choices without fully knowing the consequences of their actions. Instead, it just feels like we are handed a choice without context and are expected to trust that what appears to be the correct answer actually is the correct answer.

That's not very Dragon Age (and not very BioWare) to me. Rather, it's a much less robust and mature vision of Thedas - a setting that has always taught us there is much more lurking below the surface. Long-held beliefs are to be examined, challenged, traced back to their beginnings. VG, unfortunately, is not particularly interested in these things.

Yes, I totally agree, and I do feel that Veilguard is a somewhat unserious game. I understand why it really embitters a lot of people. Part of my complaint about Rook's obstinate, almost unshakable air is that I don't have the opportunity to really get into her emotional state of mind. She's REALLY quippy, and that's fun, but idk. I enjoyed playing as a kind of passionate, brave Lavellan, who did not always know what she was doing, but who did everything because she believed that to win was not only possible but necessary, and that she was, in some ways, chosen for a reason. I liked playing a true hero, who was exceedingly valorous and beloved despite having little experience in the fray. With my Rook, I do really love her, in my way, but I want to throw her into a blender lol. I want her to feel things! To express fear, genuine confusion, heart, love, regret, anything. She is too in control at the risk of seeming noncommittal. Even while in the regrets prison, I do not recall feeling as if she actually lost something. Now, that may change in my second playthrough. I am only about halfway there.

BUT, perhaps the game takes on this same noncommittal state of mind, for me at least. It wants to be light on its feet in some ways, which, I think, is honestly fine for a video game, BUT, Dragon Age has crafted for itself a long tradition of heavy and beautiful games, though they are always flawed. While I think that Veilguard is visibly beautiful, and I think the Solavellan ending does live up to the sort of gravitas established by Bioware games in the past, I do mean it when I say that the rest of the game is just little bit preposterous lol.

The reason I brought up Silence of the Lambs when talking about Veilguard in that other post was really to show that I think it has a lot of potential, and that it could have fit neatly into a very interesting canon of texts that hardly exists anymore. Everybody is so into antiheroes that we have sort of forgotten about heroes altogether, that sometimes, heroes only feel like antiheroes, or villains, or they are struggling, not because they are morally compromised, or weak, but because they are shamefully misunderstood, and much of that is due to their own personal failures. That is how I view Solas. The entire thing with Solas as this inconceivable master, exceedingly dangerous to his enemies, but locked away into a prison of his own making, constructed by his regrets of loss and love is enormously interesting.

I also think he is massively heroic. He is brave, unshakable. He makes countless difficult decisions, and while I know we all love to joke about his failures, I found that Morrigan's defense of his decision with the Veil was really inspiring. It is, perhaps, now this sort of "wound" or mistake, but at the time, it was the only choice. It's interesting to me that Veilguard utilizes this trope that we see in Silence of the Lambs, but the man behind the bulletproof glass is not a villain at all. He COULD be the hero of the story, if the writers would let him.

I would have loved a game where Rook starts to see Solas as the hero and herself as the villain, and what this does to her psychologically. Does it change her? Teach her? I would have loved to have some of Solas's point of view as well, in the Fade, and what he is going through. I would have loved a lot of things. But. The text is the text, in the end. It is what it is. In this age of the transformative, I have to choose imagination and just try to let it go. But that doesn't mean ignoring the flaws. I enjoy these discussions and asking these questions, because it helps me to grow a better understanding of what I enjoy in stories, and how to make better stories myself.

[queen-beefcake-sqx]

you know, I’m about 30 hours in — almost to the end of Act 1 — and I think I’ve finally pinpointed what’s been really bothering me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Light spoilers up to end(ish) of Act 1 below.

A little after I got Davrin and dealt with the Minathros vs. Treviso dilemma, I told my gf that this game was a fun RPG, but it didn’t feel like a Dragon Age game and I was having a hard time pinpointing what it was, because there are a lot of things I really love or understand about design-wise why certain choices were made.

The battle system is fun and dynamic, and I find myself switching my builds often when I’m stuck on a fight. The accessibility options have been great for my and my gf’s needs, including the difficulty scalers. I love the return to DA2 style maps except like, even better? The verticality is INSANE and the various environmental puzzles feel like the right amount of difficulty. I enjoy the characters and their interactions (mostly, more on that in a second).

And I understand the decision not to carry over EVERY SINGLE CHOICE since DA:O, and I actually think it’s smart to use a system that carries over specific choices — although I think they could have done more — and my gf even suggested the brilliant idea of a future DLC model that has you pick certain DLC-specific past choices that flesh out the impact of past choices as DLC. Which I think is a brilliant option for combating choice creep, because let me tell you — it becomes a LOT of writing and alternative dialogue lines for things that ultimately don’t have to have a direct impact on Rook, and I’d rather not have to feel the urge to set three games worth of choices every time I do a run.

And I can even handle either a little handwaving or just outright rewriting some past canon to make certain choices all wind up with a consistent outcome. I’m a Kingdom Hearts fan! I’m used to it!!! Whatever.

But it finally hit me what IS bugging me — DA:TV is the most sanitized, depoliticalized Dragon Age ever. It’s like Bioware read all the criticism of DA:I’s plot and the choice to make the Elvhen gods slavers over their own people and went, “Oh people didn’t like that, so we’ll stop doing that. We won’t mention the Antivan Crow’s history of training child slave soldiers, we’ll relegate the social discrimination toward the elves to a single Davrin line, children aren’t ripped from their parents under the Qun, and we’re going to show you all these ~*vaguely bad groups*~ without really giving any context of what makes them so truly awful. You’ll get the idea, because your groups are the good guys and the Big Damn Heroes.”

And I’m over here slamming my hands on the table shouting NO! It wasn’t that we didn’t want the politicized stuff! We wanted you to do it better! We wanted to feel conflicted working with the Antivan Crows, needing their network but despising their methods! We wanted to see the roots of an uprising in Minrathos lead by the escaped elves with Magisters like Dorian on the inside! We wanted false gods who could be slain to return the Elvhen parthenon, the gods the elves had always worshipped, but who had been prisoned and replaced — we wanted to find how much of Solas’s tales were truths versus lies! We wanted a goddamn nuanced look at the non-soldiers within the Qun, the ones who truly feel at peace knowing they have a purpose!!!

Not knowing what’s happening is an intentional choice, because if they spelled it out — set the conflicts within the larger geopolitical tensions that have brewed over three games — they’d have to acknowledge a long series of questionable narrative choices the games and supplemental material have made in the past. And from where I’m sitting, it looks like they chose to ignore and handwave 90% of it instead of actually wrestling with it and trying to bring some nuance to it. And that’s just disappointing.

[hellslayersomething]

thoughts on all the DA4 news this past week, from a tired old veteran who's been wandering the bloodied plains of the DA fandom since Origins' release:

I still don't believe that this game actually exists and won't until it's in my hand, in my PS5, I've clocked 50 hours, and I hit credits.

After the news came out that there were 7 companions, I told a friend I would need a solid 4/7 of them to be pre-existing characters in the canon. Harding, Neve, Lucanis, and Emmerich put it at exactly that number, so good show there.

The "Hero Shooter" character reveal trailer was a massive mistake. BioWare and the influencers they're paying had to spend the past two days doing frantic PR to convince people that the game doesn't actually look like that, it's not indicative of the game's tone, it definitely feels like Tevinter Nights and not Fortnite, and it's not a fee-to-pay live service game. They should have led with the gameplay video.

All of the people freaking out about Lucanis being labelled a "Mage Killer" just goes to show that DA discourse truly is a circle. (Also, read "The Wigmaker Job", it's so good.)

The dialogue suuuuucks. Wow, it's been a while since I've encountered a game that respects its audience's intelligence this little. [Earthquake] Harding: "The tremors are getting worse!" [demons show up] Neve: "And we've got demons!" Is BioWare expecting the core player base to consist of people who have never encountered media before? The extent to which the game over-exposits is quite actually mind boggling. I'm genuinely curious if there's anyone who watched this video who didn't come out of it feeling insulted by the game's lack of trust that you have basic cause-and-effect recognition skills. I know people like to bandy about "media literacy is dead", but surely it hasn't gotten so bad that players need to be told out loud "Watch out for lightning" when a boss shoots lightning at them. I'm hoping this was just included for the sake of the gameplay video, but several of these very bad lines seem pretty integral to what's happening on screen, so I guess we'll see.

The dialogue and voicing for the trash mobs is especially bad. I hate to say the word, but I truly think "cringe" is applicable here.

Nice FFXIV reference. (Listen, if this game is going to play follow-the-leader with any one other game, since apparently DA can't get away from that habit, FFXIV is the one I'd want them to chase. Certainly a better fit than Overwatch.)

The battle system seems fine. Reminds me of DA2's, which was perfectly cromulent. Sincerely, I don't expect deeply satisfying gameplay from DA, they've never delivered it before, no need to start now. Passable is fine.

Happy to see the DA2 dialogue wheel return too. Hope that means the invisible personality system comes along with it.

No rivalry system :( Again :(((((

Seriously though, the marketing for this game is a massive mess and their marketing lead should probably be out of the job. All of the news from this week has led to increased confusion about what the game is, what it's called, whether it is DA4 or not, whether it's a single player RPG or not, whether it's an effective franchise reboot or not--and they're all but shadow-dropping it (theoretically) after 10 full years of releasing no other Dragon Age games. This franchise has close to no momentum (many people considered it outright dead until this week), and now that they're ready to start actually talking about DA4, they've completely stumbled out of the gate and given themselves only 3-6 months to come up with a PR plan to correct for that. Embarrassing, frankly.

I guess that's it. The new gameplay video has returned my mood on DA4 from "absolutely the fuck not" after the character reveal video back to a resounding "I nothing this game", which is...actually maybe a worse place for me to be. The last time I went into game feeling a hollow nothing from the promotional materials, it was FFXVI, and we all know how that turned out for me. Anyway, in conclusion:

[bluerose5]

Okay, different anon, but the thing about Zev (and Fenris) being in their 20's-30's has so much angst potential. Like, they age like humans. All of the other elves at the camp don't. They would probably just assume that the Thedas elves live for as long as they do, because why wouldn't they? And then they find out how young their otherworldly friends are. And that they're both considered to be adults, and will die so much sooner than the other party members assumed...

Alright, let me preface the post with an author's note and apologize to anon in advance because this is about to be a long one. I made a note of this topic last night before I went to bed with the intention of continuing it, so a very brief, one sentence synopsis was already saved in my drafts on tumblr when I got this ask, which was very convenient timing. One thing I want to address from the beginning is that a lot of this headcanon is going to reference the Codex Entry: Arlathan: Part One. I know fandom wiki is not to everyone's tastes, so I will not be linking it, but it was the source that I used for now. I agree that there is a lot of angst potential in a BG3/DA crossover with the differences in elven lifespans, but what if I told you that our beloved elves from Thedas might actually live longer in Faerûn? Here's where I take Bioware's canon and twist it into headcanon. I take my crack seriously if you can't tell. Bear with me, though, I'll make my way back around to Zevran and Fenris eventually.

First things first, in order to understand elven aging in Thedas, one must understand the phenomenon known as "the quickening." Unfortunately for us, though, not much really seems to be known about it. The term itself is used to label the effect of elves aging faster around other races, namely humans; however, a couple of issues arise when we examine the source of the codex.

Issue number one: bias. It is important to examine works in the context that they are written in. Now, there is much to be admired about the Dalish and their pursuit to preserve their culture and history in a setting that is ultimately against them, but this does not make their perspective infallible. The codex is told by a Dalish Keeper, according to the excerpt, in study of their ancestors. From that, we can already assume that some level of bias is introduced, given that there are groups of both the Dalish and the ancient Elvhen that take issue with humans and/or think they are inferior. If that is not convincing enough, take a look at the negative connotations when referring to humans in the text. They are "pitiful creatures". They are "brash and warlike". They have "no patience" when compared to "elven diplomacy".

Taking a look at these biases gives way to issue number two. There is no objective standpoint that addresses how and why quickening happens to elves. It is mentioned that more elves die of natural causes, such as those exposed to new diseases that the humans introduced to their people, but there isn't much explanation as to why others started experiencing shorter lifespans around humans. A lot of the answers from the elven perspective seem to boil down to the idea that elves were "tainted" by how impatient and short-lived humanity was, or that they were deemed unworthy of longer lives by their gods and sentenced to stay among them. There is no scientific approach, no deconstruction of the process. The best explanation we get out of this is "humans bad," which isn't all that satisfactory in my opinion.

This leads me into my current theory and headcanon. The elves' lifespan in Thedas is intrinsically tied to their connection to magic, not their proximity to other races. This connection can be nurtured —and their lifespan expanded even more— through the use of additional measures, such as spells and rituals. There seems to be some uncertainty about whether the Dalish actually live longer than the city elves; although, if true, then this can lend further credence to the idea that magic is an essential factor, mostly because we were not given much reason to assume that the Dalish limits their number of mages until Inquisition. (Don't get me started on that.)

Because the thing is, some of those ancient elves were implied to live freely among the humans. They "bartered and negotiated" with them. They apparently interacted with said humans long enough for the quickening to take a noticeable effect. In my opinion, what happened was that some of these ancient elves who stayed with the humans found that they liked it there. Some might have decided to settle down for good with them. Some could have found a home, companionship, family. Whatever their reason may be, they left behind Elvhenan, which the very idea would have been blasphemous to others at the time, and they lived out their lives among the humans. Eventually, some of them let go of their connection to magic, to the spells and rituals, so that they could die alongside their loved ones when the time came. They were at rest. They were at peace.

When framed in this context —set aside the fact that Bioware decided to make an oppressed group the oppressors of old— one must realize that Elvhenan was an empire. It was ruled by an elite, slave-owning class. A group of elves, even if it was only a small group, living apart from their people and giving up such an intrinsic part of themselves would prove a threat to the status quo those in charge hoped to maintain. They couldn't let others defect, so what do they do? They spread these ideas that humans caused the quickening or that unworthy elves are cast out and die sooner because it keeps others in line. These were lies at best and fear mongering at worst. Eventually, Elvhenan isolated themselves in response, and that was that. The truth was hidden. Then, the Veil was created, and all elves were cut off from the Fade, from their most natural form of magic. That being the reason why their lives shortened once more.

All of this to say that, once Zevran and Fenris are in Faerûn, I headcanon that "the quickening" slows once more, thus giving them longer lifespans even though they're oblivious to that fact and think they're only going to live about as long as the average human. This is also in part why I headcanon that Fenris and Zevran can cast magic in Faerûn as well. Think of their existence as elves (from Thedas) as a magnet, and think of magic as its opposite pole. While in Thedas, their connection to the Fade —and by extension, magic— is interrupted because the Veil acts as a repelling force. A force that only mages can surpass.

Now, while in Faerûn, magic is in abundance. No longer is there a repelling force to interrupt the pull of the magnets towards each other. The Weave, for example, is a well of power that is more easily accessible, and its presence is similar enough to the magic in Thedas that it acts as another opposite pole for them. It's not something for them to think on. It simply is. The magnets click together, and both their magic and lifespan are restored by that connection.

Of course, if they were to return to Thedas, then so long as Solas hasn't fucked things up while they were gone they would presumably revert back to that previous state, but that's a whole other can of angsty worms. The inevitable question of whether or not a character in a crossover will return home, but we'll save that discussion for another day.

[omniblades-and-stars]

🍕 ❤️ 💚 🧠 for Korak and Crash pls I’m having a weird day and they’re comfort characters for me

I'll bring you the good stuff for our beloved saints Crash and Korak just for you Korbs.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Crash: I already answered this elsewhere, but now I am on my phone because I have to pretend to do my job, so I will copy it here.

"There is an elcor street food vendor on Omega that serves the best food out of a giant pot that Crash has ever tasted. She doesn't know what's in it (he must have told her a hundred times, but she's pretty sure it changes every time), but it's delicious."

Korak: OK, I made up a food one time and I can't even remember if I fucking named it because of who I am as a person. Basically, it's like a goulash, heavy on that one little snippet of world building Bioware gave us about there being a spice called ignac native to Khar'Shan, and full of all sorts of delightfully weird alien veggies. Korak is also quite fond of sukiyaki he's found.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Crash: I gave an answer for Crash already, but she's such a joyful person, let's hit you with another. (I am coming up with this off the dome by the way.)

There was a young turian kid living on Omega who she knew well because his family lived in the same building as she did and he was often left unattended (latch key kid sort of situation). One day he comes to her crying because he can't find his ragged little stuffed varren toy.

Well, she went looking for it and found it pretty easily, the little scamp had dropped it just outside and it had gotten kicked out of the footpath. But instead of just giving it right back to him, she set up a little adventure/mystery for him to go on with her to rescue his toy.

They went mucking through the jungles of Sur'Kesh (the back alley behind the mega-complex) but alas! He was not there! So they trudging through the deserts of Tuchanka (an abandoned lot in front of an empty warehouse) and broke into the crumbling ruins of the evil krogan warlord's secret base (the warehouse) where they had a very intense imaginary battle to rescue the stuffed animal. Burn took a nasty wound to the snout, but our little turian hero was there to save the day and patch him up!

The best thing about this story is that her little buddy grew up and got off the station before it dragged him down or killed him like it so often does for so many others.

Korak: The first Nos Astra sunrise that Korak saw when he and Aumellio left Omega behind together. It was a simple thing. They were staying in a cheap hotel, didn't even have a place to actually live yet, all of their possessions condensed into a few not very large boxes. But leaning against a balcony rail together, watching a new beginning literally light up before them.

Cheap hotel coffee tastes really good when there's hope on the horizon.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Crash: You know, it's an interesting thing to think about, how krogan perform gender. The examples we get canon-wise in game, krogan society is deeply gendered at least culturally. The women have their own clans, their own spiritual practices even. Crash rejected all of that. She left Tuchanka which it seems like not very many krogan women do. She wears armor and has no desire to live like the women on her homeworld do. But she still identifies as "female" for whatever that might mean. If we base all of what we know of krogan females on Urdnot Bakara, one might say she's gender non-conforming at the very least.

Though I suspect all of this is just another failure on Bioware's part to include non-cis-male aliens in their initial world building.

Crash is firmly asexual and aromantic. (She does however like romance stories but she won't tell you that.)

Korak: Korak is a cis dude, and he's very much a gay man. There's not a lot to elaborate on there, he's a pretty simple guy.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

Fuck how am I supposed to choose?

Crash: I think my favorite thing about Crash is how sure she is of herself and her joy. She made a conscious decision a very long time ago to live in a way that made her happy, made her feel fulfilled, and she does it with all of her hearts because she knows she's doing what she wanted all along.

Korak: My favorite thing about Korak is that he's actually a bit of a sweetheart and he's so lost trying to be a good dad, but goddammit he is giving it all he's got.

Plus he's kind of a hunk.

[crossdressingdeath]

Greagoir: And this one, newly a mage, and already flouting the rules of the Circle. Irving: I'm disappointed in you. You could have told me what you knew of this plan, and you didn't. Jowan: You don't care for the mages! You just bow to the Chantry's every whim! Tahel: Jowan, please don't make it worse. Greagoir: Enough! Greagoir: As knight-commander of the Templars here assembled, I sentence this blood mage to death. Greagoir: And this initiate has scorned the Chantry and her vows. Take her to Aeonar. Lily: The... The mages' prison. No... please, no. Not there! Jowan: No! I won't let you touch her!

It's fascinating to me how the Warden's presence is barely mentioned here. Greagoir and Irving acknowledge them just enough to make it clear that they know they're there and Jowan doesn't acknowledge their input at all. I would've liked a bit where... I don't know, maybe Jowan actively steps in front of them and makes himself the target as the person who dragged them into this mess to begin with? Greagoir and Irving try to excuse their presence, or alternately try to throw the lion's share of the blame on them? The whole thing with this incident is that it's a pissing contest between the Chantry and the Circle, and the First Enchanter's favourite apprentice assisting with it isn't deemed important? If nothing else you'd think the Templars would see them as a much bigger threat than Jowan, given again they're Irving's favourite apprentice and explicitly, canonically a magical prodigy! But... nope, they're just kinda there. Jowan even pretty clearly leaves them out of his protective blood magic; it's "I won't let you touch her", not "I won't let you touch them". Kind of wish that if one of them was getting left out it was Lily seeing as Jowan's known the Warden for over a decade and Lily for a few months...

Also: why is Lily being sent to Aeonar? She's not a mage. She doesn't belong there. Thedas does have normal prisons! This is never justified and it's always bothered me. Also like. the way Greagoir can sentence someone to death with no actual trial or any sort of procedure is... terrifying! Thank you for the reminder of how truly, unfalteringly horrific the Circles are, Bioware! Doesn't make DAI's retcons even worse in the slightest!

[villainanders]

You have a few posts about how Oramas arc is literally the same if you enslaved her or not and I wonder how would you rewrite it/her?

Oo this is a good question thank you! What really bothers me about Orana is that when working for Hawke she still doesn’t really seem to have any other choice or agency in what she wants to do, and while she could leave she’s been conditioned her whole life to not see that as an option. In my headcanon I always imagine Hawke trying their hardest to make it clear to her that she’s welcome to stay working for them as long as she wants, but she’s free to move on and they’ll do what they can to support her in finding what she wants to do.

In game I’m imagining this like.. after you hire Orana you can progressively click on her and continue talking with her at the estate, and just generally ask her questions about herself and her life and be supportive (probably with the option to be an asshole boss instead, which I imagine would stop this plotline from progressing). (I’m just now realizing how similar I think an Orana arc would kind of look like Zevran’s arc lmao, as wild as comparing those characters is, I think they’d be in very similar places of latching onto the player character because they’ve never really had agency before). And then if you’ve done that consistently then near the final half of Act 3 you could get some kind of very mini side quest from her. I feel like it could really be a lot of things as long as it sets up as moving forward with her life. Like idk maybe she tells you she always loved baking and you can help set her up getting a job doing that, or maybe she tells you she has family or friends still back in Tevinter and you can talk to a couple of people to help her reunite with them. And at the end she tells you she’s going to move on and thanks you for your help and whatnot. And ofc this is all entirely optional/contingent on you interacting with her so if you don’t do this I guess it could play out like it does in canon with maybe a line or something about her leaving Kirkwall with Bodhan and Sandal at the end of the game bc I do worry about her and would like to know that she ended up okay

As for what happens if she’s enslaved, that’s a tougher question. Mostly bc I think Bioware shouldn’t have made that an option if they weren’t going to deal with it more significantly but I think that would require a way bigger rewrite than what a little chosen choice in a side quest for a character a lot of players miss on their first time would conceivably have, so in the spirit of what I think DA2 actually could have done, I think I’d keep what actually happens with Orana more or less the same (so, you know, just kind of being there. Maybe safer than when she was enslaved a crazed blood mage but separated from her family with no other real options. And then maybe Hawke could have a line in DAI mentioning she left kirkwall with Bodhan and sandal too bc like I said I like to know she ended up okay) but with more reactions and consequences from everyone else.

So obviously a sizable approval hit from the companions (I would say sake of the way the game works everyone in the party, but that doesn’t make SENSE to me bc everyone is going to find out later and react to it, so fuck it absolutely everyone. Maybe not Carver and Bethany if we pretend that nobody told them. I don’t care this is the only choice in the game where that happens). I do like/find it interesting that a diplomatic Hawke can minimize rivalry by arguing that she doesn’t have anywhere else to go so we can keep that. Fenris should leave your party or mayyyybe I could buy him staying with high enough friendship or rivalry, but you take a big rivalry hit/all of your friendship swaps to rivalry (like Merrill will do in her act 2 quest) and he breaks off any romantic relationship with you. Not totally sold on that but I am compelled by the super fucked up “companion goes along with things totally against their values” rivalry path dynamic you can get in like the Anders rivalry. Idk tho. Anyway beyond that I just think it needs to be a thing they bring up and not let you forget about it! I’m willing to buy that the champion is an important enough figure that they’re able to get away grievous crimes but “the champion literally participated in human elf trafficking” is a thing people would bring up. Leandra should comment on it (she does but weirdly permissively), Bodhan should ask about it, people should whisper about it in the hanged man, companions should DEFINITELY bring it up in their high rivalry cut scenes (that’s one of the bigger asks bc it would involve having a separate version of a cut scene depending on one decision but I feel like they could record a line that gets included or not). You could even have either Orsino or Meredith (whoever you side against) bring it up at the end of the game to point out that Hawke is a fucked up person too. If there was space to do a little more with it I’d like to see the city elves and the dalish being resistant to interact with you and maybe even have a fight at some point with a group of vigilantes trying to attack you bc you are, well, literally a known slaver. Idk it’s a tough balance. That all simultaneously feels like too much hinging on one choice in a side quest and not enough given what’s actually going on but something like that idk! Actual consequences that show people remember the things Hawke has done

[robotslenderman]

6, 7, 8 and 9 :D

6. Do you have your Rook(s) planned out to any degree? If so, would you share some details or ideas you have?

My Rook is my Lavellan, Liriel. Liriel was not the Inquisitor in my playthrough - Sable Trevelyan was - but she, along with two other Lavellans (Lahariel and Mahanon, who belong to @orodrethsgeek), were headcanon companions instead.

Liriel had a Solavellan "romance" which was very different to the canon romance and was more like enemies with benefits, tho by the end of the game there was genuine fondness between them. (Stronger on Solas's side, due to Liriel's passion for knowledge; Liriel knew better than to get too attached to someone who looked down on her.) Liriel figured out who Solas was but didn't tell anyone other than Lahariel and Mahanon until Trespasser. At first she wanted to kill Solas, but Cole speaking up for him plus her softening over time means that by DA4 she's willing to hear him out, and possibly aid him if it means not killing innocents in the process. But if he goes ahead with it, yeah, she's gonna fuck him up.

She is convinced the Evanuris are the Archdemons.

DA4 actually perfectly lines up with my headcanon post-DAI for her - after meeting Mythal Liriel was bitterly disillusioned and set out on a quest to uncover the secrets of Arlath'an that Solas was keeping from her. The Veiljumpers fit her perfectly bc of that. I think she'd already be great friends with Bellara.

She did have a kid with Solas. Celysel will be around ten by DA4. She knows she "comes from" Solas but doesn't consider him her father at all; she considers Lahariel and Mahanon her dads and is a bit confused that people expect her to be upset that she never knew Solas. She doesn't know he's the Dread Wolf, but she may be told during DA4.

7. Which character from the previous games or other media are you most hoping will make an appearance in DAV?

So Fenris hasn't been Liriel's dad in eight years since I made her Liriel instead of Leandra, but it's still gonna fuck her up if he shows up lmao. (If he does I'm just going to headcanon that her actual dad is tagging along, since their backstories are still p much the same and they'd get along really well). I'm also hoping for Dorian and Leliana, our Divine.

8. What faction are you most excited to learn more about?

Veiljumpers, for obvious reasons!

9. Which romance, if any, do you plan to pursue first?

Liriel won't be pursuing any romances because she has husbands at home.

Altho if Bioware smiles upon me and makes it possible to romance the egg woof again I'd absolutely love to see how that goes purely bc I miss watching Solas and Liriel argue and I'd honestly love to see how the whole "yeah you're an omnicidal maniac" angle overshadows it. It'd be JUICY

also if Liriel brought Solas home it'd be hilarious to picture Mahanon's reaction of "yay! Solas is back!" contrasted with Lahariel's "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING THIS ASSHOLE HERE I THOUGHT WE GOT RID OF HIM"

[mneiai]

Reading/re-reading a bunch of Dragon Age books and thought I'd give my quick thoughts for the ones I've gone through the last few days:

Asunder - 6/10. Always shocked Gaider wrote it, it does not feel like someone who knows the lore or games well, except insofar that a lot of the fight scenes are "this is how I envision it would play out in the game" as opposed to ones meant to be read. I can't remember if the printed version was this bad, but either there some horrific typos in the digital version or, again, it does not feel like someone that knows the lore wrote it ("Rite of Annulment" what the fuck). Creates some weird conflicts with established lore for no good reason. Last half better than the first half and Cole, Rhys, and Evangeline are genuinely likable once it gets going, at least.

Tevinter Nights - 3/10 to 10/10. Weirdly find the Talons story incredibly engaging and the characters very interesting (though that could be my OCD-based sympathy lol) and wish it were a book of its own and not just a short story that had to rush over a lot. In fact, I'd say most of the Crows-related stories are good, as well as the ones actually set in Tevinter. The Grey Wardens ones vary in quality and the Nevarra ones read like someone took passages from the World of Thedas and told a writer they had to come up with an excuse to infodump with poor mysteries shoved in. Most of the rest were just blah.

Magekiller - 2/10. This is so bad. The intro feels like some 12 year old writing about their OC and the addition of the relationship between Marius and that one DAI NPC that never goes anywhere again makes the protags honestly look way more at fault for some of the shit that goes down in DAI than Cole ever could. And this is true about all the comics, but the art is Not Great and relies very heavily on lazy shortcuts normally found in lower quality comics. Also a lot of lowkey ableism considering how Marius comes across. Never had strong feelings about Charter before, but now I dislike her.

Alistair comics - 5/10. The collection doesn't seem to have a good name to call all these lol Anyway, some interesting parts, getting to see one of my fav Tevinter characters and the way she's handled is always nice, but the whole thing is very C-quality-DLC-plot-thrown-out-during-development. Just all over the place. Hated the Isabella stuff, what even was that? We're not even going to get into the multiple international innocents that should have happened, but the whole thing was honestly ridiculous. Mae carries this shit.

Knight Errant - 8/10. Vaea and Ser Aaron are a trope, but it's a good one for comics and well-done in this, they're very cute. Varric feels way more natural here than in the Alistair ones, not sure what's going on with Sebastian but I think that has more to do with how wishywashy he has to be for Bioware canon than anything else. Literally nothing will make me care about the Magekiller romance, though, and it's honestly weird that's the conceit for the job.

Wraiths of Tevinter - 6/10. I think this was slightly better because it had to establish some of the characters, but it wasn't great (and what the hell did they do to my poor Fenris?!). The original stuff was better than when it started mixing into the overarching comics plotline, and the fact that 50% of these DA works fall back on "Qunari Ex Machina" got very old by this point. I cared absolutely zero amount about any of the villains and the Magekiller characters felt incredibly out of place in an already large cast. If it weren't for the endearing Knight Errant team and the mabari, I'd probably mark it down lower. Also lol why am I supposed to care about a slave owner Venatori apologist just because she had a bad childhood? Literally every one of the characters had a bad childhood. Fenris and Marius were literally slaves!

Also actually sitting down and reading the World of Thedas volumes instead of just looking stuff up in them and they're...fine. I still wish they were more encyclopedia like and I'm still confused at some of the assumptions people make based on things clearly not actually said in them, but that's fandom for you.

[sapphim]

bioware's magical genetics are widely panned and rightly so but it does mean one can point at pretty much any human character in the game and go "that's an elf actually" and can't be proven wrong, so

ser aveline I'm absolutely convinced of. like, not quite at an "andraste was a mage" level where I'm certain it's actually canon, but in an "it's canon to me ♥" way. so the story goes that aveline, knight of orlais was abandoned as a baby and taken in by a clan of dalish elves. she entered a tournament by disguising herself as a man, but her identity was revealed and a sore loser killed her for the crime of daring to be a woman and a superior fighter. after her death, the law prohibiting women from knighthood was abolished and she was knighted posthumously. now first of all, a few things, 1) this story is a classic "wait but I thought joan of arc was jesus in this universe?" moment but also 2) her origin story, that she was abandoned to die as a baby because her father wanted a son, is already a blatant fabrication for the sake of the rather trite narrative. and we know from shartan and ameridan that humans are happy to erase and/or claim elven figures as their own. was aveline a human taken in by elves, or was she a human-passing child of the clan? either way, as an adult member of the clan, whether or not she was born into it, surely the reveal of her vallaslin would cause as much if not more offense than her gender.

leliana is more of a "you can't prove she's not" case, but her mother was a servant who moved to orlais to keep her job after the occupation ended, and the andraste's grace flower she associates with her mother and her childhood is found growing in the alienage. it's not a strong argument, but it resonates with other elements of her character, like how she appears to be orlesian due to her upbringing and accent, but she personally considers herself fereldan because she was born in ferelden to a fereldan mother. I'm not married to this one, I think I like it better in the context of dao alone than the series taken as a whole.

someone said goldanna and, yeah, especially as that would be a necessary addition to any headcanons that prefer alistair to be more visibly elven/less human-passing. and, yes, alistair is half-elven and his mother is fiona, canonically, and this has been directly stated by word of god to clear up any popular misconceptions. even if alistair is fully human-passing, it's entirely possible that he could have been told that his mother was elven and an elven woman chosen for the cover up. it's not directly stated to the contrary.

ok rn I'm curious how widespread it is to headcanon that leliana or ser aveline (the chevalier, not the da2 companion) are half-elven, and if there are any other characters it's common to headcanon as mixed human and elven

[greenteabtch]

da characters who can realign my spine in one hug (from highest probability of success to lowest)

1. Shale - please

2. Velanna - probably knows pressure points

3. Carver - i want a body pillow of just his arms

4. Sigrun - the comfiest realignment. the most ideal hugger. i would pay money for sigrun to hug me

5. The iron bull - :)

6. Fenris - wide muskle man

7. Cassandra - 2 busy being tender and blushing so shes on the lower end

8. Leliana - deadly precision. Actually u might die

9. Sten - probably doesnt want to touch u in the first place

10. Alistair - either he succeeds or ur in terrible pain for a week. the choice is yours

11. The Archdemon - near the bottom because its not the good kind

12. Varric - he can but like. only the part near your butt

13. Oghren - same but i dont want to hug him in canon

[dragonageconfessions]

I was around in the fandom since about 2010, just after the first game came out, and was witness to a lot of the discourse that went down. I think there's a misunderstanding here, willing or not, going on that Couslands were hated because humans are boring or they were inherently racist (that was not a wide-scale talking point back in the early 2010s, sorry). Couslands had a bad rep because a lot of the players themselves were bullies. Many a cous main disparaged the other origins because a Cousland could become ruler/marry Alistair, thus making them 'more canon'. If a player wanted to be a poc cous, they were pinged by other cous mains that 'it wasn't accurate unless you made them a bastard' or 'the name is scottish so they cant be poc'. #notallcouslands or whatever for those of you that will immediately jump on with 'BUT NOT ME' or 'I DIDNT SEE IT'. It still happened. A lot.

I don't think anyone /actually/ cares if you play a human or not. And you shouldn't care if they do. This is a dumb fantasy roleplay game about smashing pixelated dolls together that has given a lot of us a lot of joy, especially in recent years. You wanna play human? Play human, not everyone does or has to enjoy it but that shouldn't impede your ability to.

But some of y'all havent changed in 10 years and need to learn some basic manners and get off this terminally online behavior.

This is in response to some recent confessions. I didn't think it was necessary to make this into a confession so I'm just posting as is along with a few of my own responses since I've been doing this blog for ten years and have seen it all.

First:

"I was around in the fandom since about 2010, just after the first game came out, and was witness to a lot of the discourse that went down. I think there's a misunderstanding here, willing or not, going on that Couslands were hated because humans are boring or they were inherently racist (that was not a wide-scale talking point back in the early 2010s, sorry). Couslands had a bad rep because a lot of the players themselves were bullies. Many a cous main disparaged the other origins because a Cousland could become ruler/marry Alistair, thus making them 'more canon'. If a player wanted to be a poc cous, they were pinged by other cous mains that 'it wasn't accurate unless you made them a bastard' or 'the name is scottish so they cant be poc'. #notallcouslands or whatever for those of you that will immediately jump on with 'BUT NOT ME' or 'I DIDNT SEE IT'. It still happened. A lot."

Answer:

I do not disagree with this at all. When I first took over the blog there were quite a few obnoxious Cousland posts that I deleted. I actually posted on the old BioWare boards back in the day and told people they were making it bad for the entire fandom. I still remember being told to shut the hell up and that my opinion did not matter because my first Cousland romanced Zevran. My second Cousland is when I romanced Alistair. I also did not do the queen route until a much later play through. One person on the old BioWare boards even sent me hate messages over how I played.

But the thing is there were many Cousland fans who minded their own business, stayed in their corner and they were lumped in with the obnoxious ones.

As for people claiming to NOT seeing the racist and bullying behavior I have seen that response for every character fandom that has an obnoxious sect. I just deleted a submission from someone who started their submission with "I'm not racist but..." (And this submission was NOT about Couslands)

What I learned from this blog during the last ten years is that the majority in the various character and ship fandoms do not like to acknowledge that there are problematic and obnoxious people within their fandoms. Its human nature to not want to address things like that but people should not be surprised if their fandom ends up with a bad reputation.

I remember many Cousland fans were surprised at how bad the fandom reputation was.

I've seen this with every fandom. But what I have learned is those obnoxious people within the various character fandoms are NOT representative of the entire fandom.

Second:

"I don't think anyone /actually/ cares if you play a human or not. And you shouldn't care if they do. This is a dumb fantasy roleplay game about smashing pixelated dolls together that has given a lot of us a lot of joy, especially in recent years. You wanna play human? Play human, not everyone does or has to enjoy it but that shouldn't impede your ability to."

Answer:

For the record I have received and deleted submissions attacking people for playing humans. It does happen. I honestly think that while it won't end entirely I think the issue will lessen if the next human protagonist is NOT a noble.

Third:

But some of y'all haven't changed in 10 years and need to learn some basic manners and get off this terminally online behavior.

Answer:

I agree. There really are some obnoxious people in the various fandoms and some have occasionally made doing the blogs difficult. Since I am one person doing two blogs there are certain things I make a point of limiting because I don't want the stress it can cause.

[corseque]

This is very SPOILERY Dragon Age meta that is exploring a possibility that I was thinking about a few months ago, and only found in my drafts now. I think that there are still Reveals that are yet to come about Solas because he’s still suggesting that you’ll have “questions” for him, and there are a few possibilities of what those reveals could be, and this is one of the more likely possibilities.

This depends on the theory that Solas was originally a spirit, so if you don’t agree with that theory this won’t have legs for you, but maybe you’ll find it interesting.

So given established lore, if you draw a Wisdom spirit from the deepest Fade and you bind that spirit and charge it with something opposed to its nature/original purpose—fighting, as extremely clearly defined specifically in Solas’ personal quest  —

 (or “it started with a war,” as Solas describes while grimacing in Trespasser, and also “he did not want a body, but she asked him to come. He wanted to give wisdom, not orders”) 

 — that is exactly how you corrupt a wisdom spirit into (specifically) a pride demon.

So if that’s the case, and if Solas was originally a wisdom spirit

—then we are being told very clearly that Solas was actually “corrupted” into a demon thousands and thousands of years ago.

If he ever started as a Wisdom spirit, a theory that is extremely cemented to me after hard revisiting his content the past few weeks, then Solas, if those other banter comments also apply to him, must have been technically “corrupted” into Pride, ever since the war in which he was bound to fight. With the story we know, and what we know about spirits, it would be more technically accurate to call Solas a demon. And then, when he “broke the binding” of the vallaslin, and was able to become “himself again” perhaps he found some equilibrium, but he also seemed to have been changed. “He calls himself Pride.”

This explains several strange things about his character and his viewpoints, especially if we consider what we also know about the established intended canon of Compassion/Despair and Justice/Vengeance as well.

—why he gets absolutely the most incensed compared to anything else by one of his oldest friends also being drawn forth, bound, and corrupted specifically (and almost strangely specifically) by orders to kill.

—why that is what Patrick Weekes chose to explore for his personal quest, because it is ACTUALLY telling you about Solas himself in a way that is extremely illustrative

—Solas’ personal quest is ACTUALLY personal, it’s the most personal it could be, because it’s about him

— “You summoned that demon! except it was a spirit of wisdom at the time! You made it kill! You twisted it against its purpose!!”

— he never wants that to happen to any spirit ever again (the way it happened to him) 

— In my collection I made when finding all the times Solas yells, for the “solas yelling for 10 minutes” post I did, by far the MOST ANGRY and UPSET he gets is during his personal quest. This is personal for him, this isn’t the way he yells when he is defending someone else. And the way that he immediately wants revenge by burning them alive! It’s about him and what happened to him!

— why when Patrick Weekes was writing Cole’s personal quest, the original idea was for him to choose between being a Spirit and a Demon (not a spirit and human), because that would cover a lot of ground for Solas too

—why Solas is very nearly as incensed by the Grey Warden’s plan to corrupt an army of demons

—why he, when walking through the lair of an enormously fat, powerful fear demon, has an extremely mild and calm aura

—why he is so obsessed with learning and wisdom and finding out knowledge, but also mentions pride about as much

—the hint with Abelas/Sorrow about how the ancient elves would change their names through traumatic events

—why Solas is SO opposed to bindings in any way, shape or form, and is driven single-mindedly to set spirits and elves free every chance he gets

— why Solas had so much insight for Cole about what it means to choose not to be a demon.

— why Solas can appear as a giant demon wolf with multiple eyes, but also a nice spirit wolf with two eyes

— why in Tevinter Nights, the Dread Wolf’s 6 eyes were described specifically as being like a pride demon’s 6 eyes.

— why the “tiny scar” on Solas’ face was mentioned specifically in Tevinter Nights, because “it left a scar when he burned her off his face” and that detail is still important and still going to reveal perhaps, that he was bound into a demon

— why Mythal would apologize to Solas in the stinger after-credits scene. She corrupted him all those years ago!

— Why Solas has that very specific viewpoint on spirits vs demons, and how it’s your expectations that affect the spirit. And how the player’s pov of Solas could change him into a demon, just like Solas describes happens to spirits. If you expect a spirit to be a demon, it will adapt, he says. Or they could become fast friends. The exact same thing happens with Solas.

It’s also a very BioWare thing to do. To find out that this character has been technically a “demon” the entire time. It would make some people think “welp, time to kill.” While those who like him could be like “well, what does that mean exactly? Isn’t he his own person? Hasn’t he become a complex person?” and would make others think “how could we ever trust anything he says or does?” It’s just, I feel, a likely gray area Bioware place they could take it. I feel like there MUST be a reveal for this character still waiting in the wings, and this could be what it is. It could be several things, though, or the details could be different. If he “took a body” it could give it different nuance.

Thinking about it in this way actually clears up a lot of the lingering details that sort of have been hanging for me for several years, especially about why his extremely specific personal quest is the way it is, and I think it’s where they’re going.