#writing: dragon age

[geezmarty]

(bellara/taash) nerd/jocks lovers rise up

[companionquest]

Top Ten Cullen Rutherford Blunders

[part-time-pixie]

that one b99 cold open

[realvsable]

My hot Dragon Age: the Veilguard take is that Lucanis has absolutely zero game. People portray him as super cool and flirty and suave and I’m like

This is a man who does not know what to do with a compliment. He’s a little business boy who has a big job and an overbearing grandmother.

You say something sexy to him and he fucking chokes on his own spit.

Y’all hear the accent and think sensual right away but this man hasn’t slept in like 3 weeks, is literally running on Spite, and hides in the pantry most of the time.

No game whatsoever.

I love him 🥹💕

[aviss]

Hear me out, if Dorian Pavus apprenticed under Emmrich in Nevarra in his teens, he probably not only picked up fom hin not just spells, but also the love for facial hair.

Imagine, of you will, baby gay Dorian with a massive crush on his necromancy professor, who not only knows all there is to know about the death, he's also soft spoken, erudite and openly bisexual, coming back to Tevinter with the first wisps of his signature mustache, and a new need to be himself openly. No wonder he'd rebelled and gone off the rails.

Also, imagine Felix seeing him for the first time and making fun of his mustache, and Dorian defending it because it looked so good on Emmrich.

[corseque]

I automatically sorted the lines of every Dragon Age character from DA: Inquisition and DA: Veilguard into their own text files, and uploaded them to google drive.

Dialogue Separated By Speaker for 1500 Different Dragon Age Characters ↗

This comes with my:

ORGANIZED INQUISITION SCRIPT

ORGANIZED VEILGUARD SCRIPT

If you are confused about a line you've never seen before in your favorite character's file, you can search for it in the full scripts (organized by scene and with speakers labeled) I made, and it will give you the context! It could be a deleted line, it could be something that was cut but they recorded dialogue, it could just be a really rare line! There seem to be many secrets left to find, even about Inquisition after 10 years.

Anyway, feel free to use this for whatever you like. I personally love these kinds of files and think they're great help when writing fanfic to get a character's voice right! I hope you find something interesting.

[taashyvashedan]

- Walk It Off -

The relationship between Lucanis and Taash is one of an extremely patient mentor and an eager and willing student. If Taash was injured, Lucanis would have the utmost faith in their ability to push through the discomfort and get back to what they do best.

Of course, Spite would interject but everyone ignores him anyway.

The Spanish phrase “Sana, sana, colita de rana” is a common saying used by parents in Latino communities to comfort children who have been hurt or fallen.

I love the fact that Lucanis interjects Spanish into his conversations with various companions. As someone who deeply understands 'code-switching,' it's extremely endearing to see him 'slip.'

[antivanlights]

After their fight against the gods is done, after the Veil is once again secured, I imagine Rook wanting to do something for Lucanis - something special. Especially since they finally can. After much deliberation (approximately 15 seconds and a side glance at the wyvern-tooth dagger sitting carefully on Lucanis' night stand), Rook has a wyvern-spotting adventure planned. A bag sits ready with camping gear, food rations, a wyvern species encyclopedia, a journal and all the art supplies they could find within a few hours.

Convincing Lucanis takes less than a minute, and the next thing they know, they’re hiking across the Orlesian wilderness.

The first wyvern they spot will be permanently engraved into Rook’s memory – whether that’s from the beast’s presence or from Lucanis’ reaction is up for debate (is it really, though?). Regardless, Rook will inevitably become an expert on that particular species of wyvern.

“Rook!” “Rook.” RookRookRook, look!” “ROOK.” They swear that last one was Spite, but Lucanis calls out them every few minutes during their adventure, each time a wyvern so much as blinks funny. There, Rook is witness to one of the biggest (and longest-lasting) grins Lucanis has ever displayed. Eyes bright, body practically buzzing with excitement as they crouch behind cover. Rook doesn’t know if anything can beat the feeling pounding at their chest.

Rook reaches an important conclusion, they fucking love wyverns.

[ellie-writes-games]

Spite Wants To Set A Flame

Lucanis (and by extension, Spite) have been helping Bellara with her romance novel. Flowery language and smut metaphors lead Spite to some surprising conclusions.

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As someone on the autism spectrum, I remember struggling with interpreting metaphor as a young person A LOT. As soon as it was introduced in Veilguard that Bellara was writing some smutty fanfiction, the first thoughts I had were "Oh, the neurospicy gang is gonna struggle." (Mainly Taash and Spite.)

This is fanfiction written by me, @ellie-writes-games. These are NOT actual screenshots from the game. Peace, love, and mad props to the DA writers.

[densewentz]

rookanis players: why isnt Lucanis' romance more passionate, more physical!! Why is he so subdued and quiet!! You barely even kiss!! Lucanis, fresh out of a year in a demonic torture pit, having just had one of his two remaining family members taken from him just as he's freed, almost losing Treviso to the elvhen gods which are a) apparently real and b) that he's apparently now responsible for killling and who, oh yeah, also is always literally on the brink of exhaustion because he can't sleep or his spite demon goes around causing mischief and sniffing people: rook, mi vida, please give me a break

[thatwavephenomenon]

No but the 'team meeting' after the fall of Weisshaupt was so. unorganic or unnatural. 'What a crushing defeat, maybe we should focus on our mental health now to do better next time.' Like hello??? This is not your job of which you had to take a step back from because your boss is an asshole?? You are all at war against two gods who keep Resident Eviling the world?????? I mean it's not such an awful idea but it's executed rather poorly. Like the game was this close to display a message saying 'You have just finished one of the main quest. You should focus on the companion's quests next.'

[abyssal-ilk]

no more romance. romance is canceled. tell me about your warden/hawke/inquisitor's best friend and any info you want to add about their dynamic 🖐

[geezmarty]

drawing more taash/bellara. help

[waspgrave]

I can’t believe people are acting like Solas and Varric aren’t friends….did you listen to their dialogues? They talk philosophy, laugh, ask each other questions, give advice, Solas even goes from polite but distant ‘master tethras’ to a friendly ‘varric’ in the span of a few conversations. Solas took genuine interest in his writing and read his books. Varric even invites him to play Wicked Grace. Foolish.

[stealingpotatoes]

inquisitor inq'isita part 8: @highladyofdusk and I are filled with intelligence (and new memories of hawke hawke)

(commission info // tip jar!)

[baejax-the-great]

One of the things missing in Veilguard is any sort of meaningful power struggle. By keeping to the poorer parts of the city-settings, we don't really deal with corrupt or powerful nobles. By defanging the Crows, an organization who famously has lethal squabbles between factions, they turned them into some weird, benevolent family organization. Even the assassin trying to make "evil" power plays doesn't actually manage to kill any of his targets, and his ruthless relatives? Also don't kill him in revenge. In the end, the status quo is maintained. Nothing has changed.

In Tevinter, we have the Threads, an organized crime unit who we know runs "protection" rackets on the locals and is involved in some kind of smuggling (it's Tevinter--so presumably this would involve slavery and dangerous artifacts, but it's Veilguard, so I guess not). Instead of them beefing with the Shadow Dragons, who presumably ruin some of their deals with their pesky "freeing the slaves" thing, and instead of their main issue being with any sort of law enforcement, something which doesn't exist in Veilguard beyond one singular templar who does all of jack shit the entire game, their main power struggle is with the Venatori, who are evil just to be evil.

And instead of the Veilguard siding with law enforcement or the threads and enlisting their help to, idk, unseat the corrupt head of the templars or otherwise deal with the venatori shit, the threads are highly favored by the storyline, and in the end the only real choice is to make Neve a thread or to make her... idk, the same Neve? The game calls her an "inspiration", but it's not like she's part of any organization, so we can't call her a figurehead. It's just like, see that random citizen right there? She rules. And I don't really see how that increases the power of the rule of law, because even if one good person is working within rule of law to get things done, she's not part of the system, and everyone already know the system is corrupt in Minrathous. Random citizens in fucking Ferelden know the system is corrupt in Minrathous, or they would if they weren't all dead. Neve is now just playing on hard mode to appear righteous, which, good for her, but I'm sorry, won't inspire all that many people who are still paying "protection" money to the local mafia.

(Putting Neve in charge of the Threads is an absolutely whackadoodle decision by the devs that I don't even know how to respond to. She has a single Thread contact. Presumably the Threads have a hierarchy. She has never demonstrated interest in being a smuggler. Being a detective really has no overlap with being a crime boss. Telling a group of criminals that they are all detective's helpers now is sure to go over like a lead balloon. What the fuck was that. Why did that happen.)

Maevaris and Dorian arguing came out of nowhere and lasted a fairly long time, which was interesting, but after the most recent election in the states, Maevaris's position sounds unbearably naive and trite, and this hardly counts as a power struggle as they both say they will support the other depending on what some random outsider thinks should happen. (That is soooo not a basis for a system of government. Why would Maevaris OR Dorian cede their power to Rook, someone they don't know and who doesn't matter)

The power struggle within the Wardens is also very stupid and easily solved. The First Warden is a moron. He dies (kind of). For some reason the extremely hot and competent couple who we first encounter in the middle of nowhere are next in command, so, phew. Problem solved there. A question of what the Wardens will do now that the Blights are over would have been interesting. Do they keep recruiting lest the Blight somehow reoccur and nobody remembers the Warden secrets? Or do they disband? Do they set themselves to seeking a cure and nothing else?

The closest you get to that is deciding what the griffons will do, which, again, why the fuck is Rook deciding that, but also there are 13 of them, in two or three more generations they will be dead unless a lot of mages bone up on genetics real fast.

Who is left? We have Rivain, which is just pointless in this game. I played as a Lord of Fortune, but you could drop that faction and not a single thing changes in the game. Pirates who don't loot valuable artifacts because they are elvhen? Give me a fucking break.

Same for the Mourn Watch. There is pretty much nothing going on in that region. You could excise it from the game and nothing changes in the slightest. There is not a single excuse for them not using the Eluvians to help the Veilguard earlier in the game, given just how little they have going on.

The Veiljumpers are just missed opportunities all over the place. They could have had factions debating whether to join the god of vengeance in fucking up the human civilizations as payback for, you know, everything. They could have had people joining Cyrion in thinking that a Forgotten One might be the best way to face down the gods, given they'd done it before. There could have been a HUGE cultural impact on "what do we do now that we know our gods are evil fuckfaces--what do we keep and what do we throw away," but Veilguard ain't that deep. They could have had knowledge of a super-weapon or some elvhen bullshit that would help the Veilguard fight the gods... but nah.

In DAO, your decisions not only affected the political futures of the various regions, but they decided who would help you and how. Did the dwarves have golems? Did you have templars or mages? That whole wolf thing with the Dalish that I no longer remember that well? And the Dalish deciding to help changed how they were viewed in Ferelden. The mages helping you meant the monarch would treat them favorably. It fucking mattered.

In Veilguard, the only situation remotely close to that is the dragon decision at the beginning, which was one of the fucking dumbest plot points in a video game I have ever played. It was the first thing that made me set my controller down and go... what? What the fuck? The idea that Rook, a nobody, is the only person singularly capable of driving back a dragon in the entire north is laughable. What the fuck was Dorian up to that day? How is Rook more capable than every single Crow? How is it the two companions you sent to the other city were absolutely useless? If Lucanis/Neve + two companions were unable to drive a dragon away, what makes them think Rook would be the deciding factor? What makes them blame Rook when they themselves couldn't fucking do it? Neve in particular was a big part of fucking up that ritual and releasing the gods, so why is Rook taking all the fire for this?

AND WHY IS THEIR RESPONSE TO A BLIGHT TO FIND A SINGLE DRAGON HUNTER? HEY DIPSHITS, THE DRAGON IS HUNTING YOU. YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT PART. YOU NEED AN ARMY.

But Treviso or Minrathous being spared doesn't change the global political situation at all. It would have been really interesting if it did. Tevinter hobbled? How many kingdoms would be salivating to take a bite out of their territory? With the trade princes of Antiva being absolutely fucked over by the Blight, who is taking over that trade? Who is getting rich?

Nobody, I guess, because why would Rook know or care about that, because, as previously mentioned, they are a nobody who doesn't matter and honestly shouldn't be listened to.

The stakes in this game are nothing because the bad guys are all so obviously bad that you know, as a video game player, that you are going to defeat them. Oh, the Antaam are just mindless, faceless brutes fucking up Treviso? Okay, let's kill them. Venatori again? I'm pretty sure they aren't the heroes of this game. There's no power struggle, and in the end all we've done is revert to the status quo, (except i guess Treviso is no longer occupied).

Except for the south. The south is dead. but we didn't have anything to do with that for some reason. Couldn't even be bothered to house some refugees in our safehouse that was built specifically to house refugees. The Inquisitor, who has access to the eluvians, couldn't figure out how to get other people through them or something so... sorry, every single Orlesian, Fereldan, and Marcher.