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Prison of Regret cut content

According to the devnotes in the text file, the prison was originally different from what we see in the game. Rook first wandered in the darkness, then along a bloody path among fallen comrades. In the end, the path was supposed to lead to the Demon of Regret who could change its appearance and voice to put pressure on Rook. There was a choice to confront it or give in.

Alone in the Dark Rook awakes in darkness, alone. Chains appear to have attached themselves to Rook. Attempting to gain a bearing, Rook starts to hear a voice. The voice sounds like Solas, but different. A path appears before them. Rook attempts to get answers from the voice while following the trail. Blood Leading the Blind The path resembles blood dripping over the edge of a cliff. The trail disappears after rook moves forward. The Voice returns to inform Rock they have swapped places with Solas. Rook Demands answers, but is taunted in return. A small light appears at the end of the path. Reaching the Light fills the screen with white. A still image of Solas appears when the white fades. He is striding out of a opening in the fade. This scene is identical to the one where Rock was moments ago. Approaching Solas triggers a banter about Solas with the voice. Approaching the Portal triggers a banter about the prison. Reminded of the Lost The set pieces fade away into the darkness, the path continues beyond. Escaped, but the battle has just begun. Figures come into view as Rook travels down the path. They are the fallen followers from the Ghilan'nain's battle, Frozen in their death throes. The scene is frozen in time capturing the moments Rooks followers died along with a scene of Ghilan'nain. Taunted by the Lost The followers that died taunt rook. Banter will play as players fumble around the space and while they progress down the path. Banter line about the First Fallen Follower Banter line about the Second Fallen Follower Another flash of white fills the screen. The mighty have Fallen Rook finds themselves on the walls of Weisshaupt. Similar to earlier, the scene is frozen in time. Rook walks the ramparts with the still battle around them. The voice speaks of moments from the battle. Banter line about Ghilan'nain. Manipulation Manifest The voice asks why Rook is here. Rook responds by mentioning Varric. The scene fades away. Rook finds themselves on another trail, however this time there is a doorway at the end outlined in the darkness. Passing through the doorway leaves Rook inside Varrics room. Suddenly the furniture and the walls will fall away, revealing a pile of rocks. Approaching the rocks triggers the Varric Reveal scene. First/second/third/fourth banter of characters. Get the Characters speaking about Varric. Challenge the Demon of Regret by walking towards it. Regret Changes its appearance and voice to imitate characters Rook has interacted with in an attempt to stop Rook in their tracks. Changes again to another character. Changes to one last character. Within the Conversation there are non-standard game overs depending on which response is chosen. Give-in to Regret Confront Regret Approaching the Demon, Rook overcomes their regret. Triggering the outro cine. Rook emerges from the Prison, where all their followers await them. After the hugs and jubilation, the group sets off to stop Solas and Elgar'nan will new found determination.

The text also contains some lines from the dialogue with the demon.

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What is this! Is someone there! Hello! Rook. Solas? Solas, you...! It's like... walking against a wall. Follow the line, I guess. Where does this lead?

What... what am I seeing? It's what you chose. The tipping point. What are you? What's the point of this? This is the truth of your actions. Your tipping point.

The moment of freedom. A god walks free, because another took his place. Someone who played the role. Solas built a cage that could hold the gods. You trapped him, but were also his way out. You're not Solas. What are you? Another god? I am the lock on this prison.

Keep going, Rook. It's a long way back. Back? To what...? I'm not moving without answers! I deserve answers. You will get what you deserve.

You're more like Solas than you know. It's the blood on your hands. What blood? Show me!

Neve/Bellara? No. You're fake, like Solas.

(Neve banter) I fought for you, Rook. You led me to this. She'd call me Trouble, make some joke to hide how she feels. She wasn't fighting for me. She wouldn't say that.

(Bellara banter) Was this what I fought for, Rook? Was it worth it? She'd never say that. Every moment was worth it. She knew why she was fighting. Didn't need me to tell her.

You're not her. Not real. Live long enough, the only thing that's real is what you've lost.

(Harding banter) I did everything for you, Rook. And then you left me. Lace would blame herself. That would hurt more. Her voice, but she'd never try to hurt someone like that. You don't know her. Not like I did.

(Davrin banter) I saved you, Rook. What was the point? That's not how he'd challenge me. How he'd tease me about it. He'd have saved anyone. Done it for the challenge alone. You don't know him. Not like I did.

If the pain is great enough, appearances can be all that matter.

You're stealing these voices. If this is the Fade, are you a demon? I am Regret. The Regret of a god. And you are a speck that I will consume forever. You feed me regardless.

Wardens, hold the wall! This is our house! Hold that wall, Wardens! Push them back!

A face in the sky. Like no Blight before. The Mother of Monsters.  Like no Blight before.

That's Weishaupt. I saved the Wardens. You saved some of the Wardens. And they're dead, aren't they.

I came to warn them. Their plan wasn't going to work. I tried to warn them. The gods changed everything. They didn't know about the gods. Why were you here? I told you, to warn them. That's what you came to do, not why you were here.

But why you, Rook? Because I trapped Solas. Because Varric—

Why show me this? To make me give up?

Ascend. What? Rise to match the gods. Rise above those who died. See why you lead.

You won't keep me here! Said it yourself, this cage is for gods! I'm not like them! Not like Solas! "A cage built for gods." Or mortals with delusions.

I'll get out, you know. I get out of things. Solas got out. Stubborn. Another thing you and Solas share. Another? What's the first? The regret. The blood on your hands.

You want to know how he swapped places with you? How your regret could match his? Every choice you've made, you owe to this. This is the moment that put lives in your hands. Welcome to your cage. The moment why you lead.

When Varric showed you the cost of leadership. And the god of lies regretfully killed him. He was always...? Always.

The first fight against Solas? Varric is still... Right where you left him. This... is the moment Varric died. But this regret isn't mine.

The god of lies abhors blood magic, but made an exception for you. He had to do it. You made him do it. Varric died at that ritual. You didn't want to face it. And with a little blood magic, you didn't have to. The moment Solas used. When the blood on your hands clouded your mind. Solas was trapped in his own cage, but if your regret grew, he could escape. Only by trading you. Shaping you. Until your regret matched his. So Varric lived on, in your mind, until it could hit you all at once. This is the end. When he traded his regret for yours. This is the very real loss that let Solas swap his regret... for yours.

Regret is the price we pay for acting when no one else will. That's what leaders say. When they get people killed for the greater good. When they toy with lives.

It was lies. The whole time... I was toyed with. Lied to.

This mistake. This failure. And it can never be undone.

Do you see? How everyone says one thing, but you hear another? (Laughs.) Poor "injured" Varric.

(demon shows Rook memories of the companions?) [TEMP] Mementos - Lucanis [TEMP] Mementos - Bellara [TEMP] Mementos - Harding [TEMP] Mementos - Davrin [TEMP] Mementos - Taash [TEMP] Mementos - Neve [TEMP] Mementos – Emmrich

It's just you. Alone. Always alone.

Give up. Lucanis has only spite for you. Give up. Emmrich could never love you. Give up. Die. Taash doesn't care. Give up. Harding deserved better. Give up. Neve deserved better than you. Give up. Bellara needed better than you. Give up. Davrin deserved more than you.

Give up. Your fortune is wasted. End it. Give up. Die. No one will mourn you. Give up. Die behind the Veil. Give up. End this contract. You failed. Give up. You failed your calling. Die. Give up. Fade like the failed shadow you are.

Give up. You're a poor example of your kind. Give up. You failed what's left of the elves. Give up. Your time in the sun is over.

Give up. You can't fight your way out of failure. Give up. Your magical powers can't help you. Give up. There's no evading this death.

Give up. You're alone in the dark, like you deserve. Give up. You could never match those who came before you. Give up. Death is the only role you deserve. Give up. There's no point in even trying. Give up. Die. Like Solas knew you would. Give up. This is what your failure deserves. Give up. No one believed in you. End it.

You're right. I can't go on. I can't deal with the loss. Lies win in the end. Regret is too much to bear. It's too much... There's nothing...

I give up. I failed Harding/Neve/Bellara/Lucanis/Davrin/Taash/Emmrich.

I give up. I'm no Shadow Dragon/Warden/ Veil Jumper/Mourn Watcher/ Lord of Fortune. I give up. I failed the Crows.

I yield. I failed as a human/elf/qunari/dwarf.

I'm a failure as a mage/warrior/rogue.

I give up. I have no one. I failed the heroes before me.

Delicious.

I'll face regret. Keep going.

Things always seem impossible. Just fight one battle at a time. You're not in this alone. Go on, Rook. It was always you. You got this. You know bullshit when you smell it, and that demon is full of it.

Varric?

How dare you make me lose him twice! Using Varric was a mistake. If you really knew what Varric meant, you wouldn't have used him. You didn't take his voice. You couldn't, could you? Because it's always been a comfort! "Things always seem impossible. Just fight one battle at a time." "I know I can handle this." "It's not a personal failing to be scared!" "I'm not in this alone." What are you doing? Varric knew the risks. Knew what it might cost. I didn't lose him. Solas killed him! Solas did this, and he'll pay! You think you can break me with what I've lost? What Solas took? I don't regret this. But gods be damned, Solas will! He built this prison, not me! Solas lied, made me lie to myself! I won't be caged by what he did! I can see through the regret. I see through you! I can regret, but keep going! That loss might have ended me! But not now! You think you can hold me? That you're the first regret to try? I have friends to fight for! And no regret will keep me from them! I get beat up. Get sad. That's what life does. It hurts, and then I get back up! All I can do is keep going! All I can do is keep trying! Varric chose me. Saw something worthwhile! You're damned right he's why I'm here! I can't regret what he did for me! More time with him was a gift! All you've done is remind me why I try. The value of the friends I have left! Shown me how much I need them! I know they're waiting for me! You think you can keep me from them! You think you can keep me here? Keep me from what matters? All of this hurts, but you're wrong about me! I'm not alone! Not in my heart! I found love! That's my light in the dark! Nothing can keep us apart! Not gods! Not you! I regret nothing about the time we had. Nothing! (Growl!)

[utopiaxsehnni]

Distorted Children

... in the Sims 4, after patch 1.113 (Feb. 25, 2025)

EA has identified the issue and posted a temporary workaround.

We have identified the cause of an issue with Child Sims experiencing body distortion, and we are working to release an update which will resolve this issue in existing saves. Child Sims in brand new saves will not be affected by this bug. In the meantime, you can manually restore your Sims by using the following workaround...

[utopiaxsehnni]

One of my biggest pet peeves with the writing of BL3 was how there was all this buildup for Troy betraying Tyreen.

From when he first got Maya's powers, to the Jakobs manor monologue where he said he was done getting table scraps, to all the subsequent bickering between him and Tyreen where there was none before

Then they just. Didn't do anything with it. They stayed working together. It was set up to be a MASSIVE plot point and they just dropped it.

It could've been so interesting, too :(

.

[utopiaxsehnni]

Romance tropes in bridgerton🐝

credits: @artemis_eureka on Twitter/X

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i feel like no one gets skz’s japanese tracks like i do

[utopiaxsehnni]

... ♥

been thinking about them a lot lately

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sleepy

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Simone Di Meo batboys

[utopiaxsehnni]

Skywalkers Apart concept: a mix-up occurs and Anakin has to go on a mission with Chopper instead of R2!

that would either end with both of them frying each other, or a new galaxy-wide record for number of war crimes committed in an hour

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i’m still crying over this. literally got shown the message while she was blood red and face down in her pillow BLASTING the cantina music. then it was sneakers and boys like you by itzy because she was panicking

like sweetheart i think you might need to consider the “what are we” conversation cause i’m pretty sure you two might just be dating atp

watching my sister get very openly flirted with by the girl she really likes and she IMMEDIATELY puts on the star wars cantina music while she lies face down in a pillow

i’ve raised her pretty well i think

[utopiaxsehnni]

watching my sister get very openly flirted with by the girl she really likes and she IMMEDIATELY puts on the star wars cantina music while she lies face down in a pillow

i’ve raised her pretty well i think

[utopiaxsehnni]

ya know. watching my sister get aggressively flirted with by this girl she likes is one of my favorite things. because she goes into a gay PANIC

asked the girl she’d rather be called, her name everyone online knows her as or by her actual name and this girl 😭😭 literally gave her the it doesn’t matter what my sister calls her and “i wouldn’t even mind something else” and my poor child that i basically raised went into a FIT mid match with her friend 😭 because my sister will literally convince herself she’s seeing things and that she’s imagining that there’s a chance this girl likes her back and then here this girl comes saying stuff like that and she has to take several moments to process it before she can respond because she wasn’t expecting it at ALL

[utopiaxsehnni]

Honestly it's no wonder that I latched onto Lucanis' and Illario's fucked up sibling dynamic. Just thinking back on how much I loved Thor and Loki ("I never wanted the throne I just wanted to be your equal") or Gamora and Nebula ("You were the one who wanted to win and I just wanted a sister"). I eat that shit up every time. God. The more fucked up the better

[utopiaxsehnni]

over-psychoanalyzing blorbos is healthy and needed enrichment for the girlies in order to avoid over-psychoanalyzing themselves. like giving a dog a chew toy in order to redirect chewing on its hind legs

[utopiaxsehnni]

I have an uncomfortable and very personal connection to Lucanis, Illario & Caterina's (and Taash & Shathan relationship tbh, they're honestly a flip side of the same trauma) family dynamic, and it's sadly "neurospicey with high expectation caretaker (that is tbh, also Neurospicey)" that I want to shed a bunch of headcanons that I don't see brought up but OH BOY, I KNOW SOME THINGS.

It's unfortunately the "woman who lost all her children and now there is just one survivor" because my mother had six kids before me, they all died in infancy or early childhood, and there are things that I just feel about their upbringing. Bonus, my mother is Italian-Australian, if you want that extra cultural relevance I guess. But it made me very much appreciate their writing of her - because I recognised that hollowed out woman so well that watching her felt like a gut punch of familiarity.

SLAPPING A BIG OLD WARNING ON THIS AND UNDER A CUT because yeah, a lot of discussions of child death, intergenerational trauma, child abuse and family trauma. Seriously please mind those warnings!!

( and if you read these and go... OP are you okay,,,,?? its okay, I am told its called "intergenerational trauma"! and the therapist gave me pills about it! I kid, but also - yes i do therapy about it, don't sweat it, I also find these things kind of therapeutic because instead of just having these life experience rolling around I can use them to help others write good or understand character beats that might not be apparent straight away and honestly this kind of trauma is not written often or well, which is far more frustrating and upsetting, because often there is a lot of shame around failed motherhood, but also no one ever wants to talk about what its like to have dead children. Even if high infant mortality rates and loss of even up to age 15 children has dominated much of human history, but outside of horror movies, it's seldom actually discussed what that does to a family or the women involved over the long term. Weirdly outside of horror I can find it more readily about men than I can about women. )

Illario and Lucanis are often called the wrong name as children, when they are children especially, but even sometimes into adulthood. The exhausted moments when Caterina turns to Lucanis and goes "Giovanni, go get your brother." Then she stops, he stops, and then just get on with it.

The correction at them in training: "Maria- how many times have I told you not to-" then she swallows, their child eyes stare up, Illario wants to ask, Lucanis jerks his head to stop. Caterina swallows and taps a foot back into position.

They do things sometimes, training, talking, and especially gesturing, that Caterina's eyes just close and a pain falls over her face and there is no asking what it's about, but its clear, for a moment, just one or two, they were the same: they moved the same, acted the same, and the times and places blur.

Lucanis and Illario grow up without a sense of ever being completely alone in any room, especially when Caterina is present. The are ghosts in House Dellamorte, they do not know them particularly, but they know they wear their faces often.

There are anniversaries that they do not understand the importance of, moments that for some reason they will never be privy too, they must be present. They will seem sometimes so innocuous and unimportant, no one ELSE around them will ever understand it, but they know they can never miss it.

My immigrant kids will know this one well, but over protective parenting? It's turned up to 11. Imagine every stereotype about Asian / Eastern European / African / Latino / Mediterranean parents, but on HIGH BLAST. It's more akin to stories I have heard about parents who had to live through a war-zone and what their kids grow up with. You can't go anywhere, do anything, say anything, no one outside of your family is to be trusted. Friends? Keep them at arm's length, if they're allowed at all. Activities are limited to what can be supervised. And what's worse? There is no arguing that it's just them being paranoid. The proof is there. It happened. There is no saying that it's anxiety, it's over the top, because the worst has happened and they know it. You can't say it's "just paranoia talking" because it happened over, and over, and over again.

They wake up with Caterina walking in to check their breathing. I am 30+. My mother still does this, and every time I hear her take a relieved breathe. Life will never be taken for granted. Survival will never be taken for granted. She checks on them constantly, and it probably felt strange and spooky to feel her hovering as a child, but some point around 16, it probably started to make sense.

As children, they want to ask, they need to understand, they want to know why they have to live this way when others don't. It's frustrating too because others seem to know all the details when they don't and they're fed it in pieces. Then by adulthood, they understand and the pain is theirs too, now, whether they wanted it or not.

Teia must have been a breathe of fresh air to the entire household when she visited, the soul person that can banish the ghosts. Because Teia is an elf, there can be no confusing her for any of the other children, some confused creeping despair. She's Teia and she's only Teia, and it's probably in part why Caterina enjoys her company, because she's clearly no afraid of the old woman, but that there can be no mistaking there here and now of it.

Speaking of creeping despair: probably thank the Maker there are no mages in the family, if demons are born out of human emotion twisted??? What in the fuck must the Fade look like just the other side of House Dellamorte? IT'S A GOOD THING NO ONE IN THE FAMILY CAN GET POSSESSED RIGHT [stares directly into the camera like the Office]

The long nights of despair are palpable when alone in House Dellamorte after the servants are gone to bed and Illario and Lucanis sit doing study nearby. They watch her at times stare into the hollow depths, and at times when conversations veer about survival, choices, making assessments, she speaks candidly of crawling out of that place with her own two hands, not for pity, but on how one learns to live and go on. She says it's that or death, Illario asks if that means because the enemies of House Dellamorte will kill them? She says no and leaves it at that. They only realise in adulthood how often their grandmother sits and contemplates death, and not from another assassin's blade. It is only that it is completely unacceptable for her to ever give up that made her drag herself out. It's not grand declaration, it is a simple contemplation, she'd never want your pity. Even if therapists did exist in Thedas, what would they even say? Or do? There aren't enough therapists and drugs in the world. Everyone understands that no parent should bury their child, but to do it over and over and over? After awhile, there is only the quiet shuffling and exhaustion.

Of course Lucanis attracted a Spirit of Determination that became a Spirit of Spite, that is exactly what he has had shaped to him. Welcome to the other side of despair. Welcome to how you live through the worst days of your life. The first funerals of the Dellamorte House were probably the typical big wailing Mediterranean-type funerals. You scream, you cry, your rip your hair, you throw yourself at the coffin and wail. She thinks there is nothing worse in the world, and then - she finds out - there is worse. The last Dellamorte funerals are silent. There is no more grief to tear out. What is left is only determination, only resilience, only spite that drives the will to go on.

Likewise, it doesn't surprise me that he could calm himself even in the depths of torture, to make a deal with Spite. The Ossuary was hell, shut off and shut down as he says. But he and his family are a long won lesson on survival even when survival cannot feel worth it, anymore, a test of endurance that not even Zara would be able to scratch the surface of. When submission to pain would be so much easier. That is a resilience that didn't come from Caterina's torture, it comes from growing up in a graveyard that ebbs around you, that everyone sees when they look at you, and yet finding a way through, for good and bad. Perhaps not even well, but they have, they did, they continue to do so.

Caterina is past grief and it makes the woman before and the woman afterward, like two seperate lives. Which makes it so odd for Lucanis and Illario when... you know that moment when you find out that your parents were whole people that did wild shit before you ever existed that have just been sitting in the back? It's like that but worse. They hear stories and learn deeds, and it's hearing about a completely different person. Caterina that other people remember likely used to smile, and laugh, danced, did hijinks. They find old letters, portraits, commemorations, to this woman that seems to be as much as a ghost as all the other dead aunts and uncles. They have been robbed, not just of their family, and yes a peaceful childhood, but of that woman who could have been Nonnina, and now is just La Signora Dellamorte.

The apple never falls far from the tree, and I imagine that Caterina-before-the-deaths was some split of Lucanis and Illario. Which comes to something that I am sure might be contentious because I imagine it's hard to hear and see for someone who became so outright abusive as Caterina was to her grandchildren when we all love the boys dearly, but in a game about how good intentions and the best wishes and parts of us can be twisted I feel this isn't a far leap. You think you end up with five kids for someone as savvy as she was because she was an unpassionate, unloving woman? She was likely as fierce and devoted and passionate as the boys are now. (Which if you think all of this is to excuse her abuse, no, being broken by the world does give excuses to visit upon the next generation, that is the big difference between my mother and Caterina, my mother took her grief and shoved it fiercely into reminding me every day that I am loved). I understand it's easy to say abusers just woke up mean one day to hate the world, but the reality is probably way muddier than that, as often is in Dragon Age especially, this is a world where everyone has reasons they became what they are, and often did not start that way - and I think the unfortunate truth is that Caterina was once like Lucanis and Illario: passionate, driven, full of life and interest, hope and ambition to be the best she could be, and never dreamed of what it would all become.

So, yes, if you want to know what Illario and Lucanis look like after they have been actually, truly, soul-crushingly broken in a way that can never be repaired, look no further than Caterina. You can already see the shades of it in the Hardened Lucanis run, he turns himself away from remorse, redemption, love. The way Illario is trying to goad Lucanis into killing him. There but for the grace of the Maker, go her grandsons.

In that vein, I suspect she saw the traits that failed her most in Illario, and the ones that helped her survive in Lucanis, which in part lead to the divide in her treatment of the two of them.

There is probably some moment when someone is an edgelord at her, as dramatic mediterraneans are wont to do, spouted off about torture and pain and suffering. Caterina probably laughed in their face about it. It has big "you cannot hurt me in any way that matters" and "you can't hate me more than I hate myself" energy. She has stared into the abyss, she knows the darkest parts of herself, and some rat thinks they can frighten her back?

The only threat that hangs is someone hurting Illario and Lucanis. Nothing is too far, nothing is too much, when it comes to protecting what she has left. Caterina is both impassive to them, unknowable at times, frustrating at others, but then she throws down in broad daylight even as she enters true old age. I shudder to think about the torture she now inflicts in the name of her family.

[utopiaxsehnni]

i feel like i missed some courses on how to be a big sister. cause why am i stressing out trying to reassure my sister because she’s borderline crashing out over having a crush on one of her friends and already trying to write herself off because she thinks it’s impossible this girl likes her back.

like… i don’t know what i’m doing and neither does she. this is the fucking blind leading the blind and i don’t want her to get hurt because she could potentially believe what i’m saying because i genuinely think this girl likes her too, but i can be very wrong. but shit she’s noticing, i also noticed. and that was before she admitted she liked this girl.

and she doesn’t trust her friends because of course they don’t want to deflate her and they don’t see how the two of them interact so any information they have is coming from her or stuff they maybe noticed after she mentioned it.