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like the man the text presents to you is a traumatised grownup doctor who cares deeply about his community and spent 7+years writing manifestos and smuggling people out at a small scale and doing everything in his power to keep the templars from acting in the extreme, all while running a clinic in the sewer for free. it presents a man who is driven to the depths of despair by the cruelty and abuses of the oppressive systems he's a part of and who sees no other option but to act first and who is willing to die for his cause.

and then you see the tweets about him and its like "he's an abusive gaslighter who you are BURDENED with taking care of" like girl that's not the character you wrote

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my beloved princess awhhhhhhh

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Cool project from and by Reddit user Eglwyswrw, a gamebook adaptation of Dragon Age: The Last Court - 'I am adapting DRAGON AGE: THE LAST COURT into a Choose Your Own Adventure format in order to help preserve its narrative. Here's how you can help out...'

Excerpts from post:

"I felt compelled to start this project as a volunteer in order to preserve a playable form of The Last Court that, in spite of being in a very different subgenre of interactive fiction, somewhat keeps a good chunk of the original's spirit... or so I hope!"

"What am I supposed to do if I want to help out? Play it, either on your phone or your PC. Keep a watchful eye for typos, random strings of code that might have sneaked into the text, bizarre balance issues (such as having negative values of something for too long, or having over 100 of them for too long), illogical narrative transitions etc. If possible, screenshot your final stats (at the bottom of the page) and send them to me/copypaste it in the comments so I can have an idea if the balance is OK. A single playthrough of the demo should last, I don't know, 15 minutes? There should be a lot of variations based on your chosen class and choices so please feel free to play it as many times as you would like! When can we expect a full release? Pretty soon I think. This includes over 37000 words and I took about 9 days to reach this point, with almost a third of the story done."

the link has a free playable demo which contains almost a third of the full story, "the prologue + 3 full chapters", "Forever free, available on itch.io".

[source and full post with more info] credit: Reddit user Eglwyswrw !

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an extremely self-indulgent comic set a little post-Veilguard, ft. a new baby wyvern for Lucanis <3

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listen

screw the canon where all other potential wardens died bc duncan wasn't there. you know, the whole thing with mahariel never being found by their clanmates until it was too late, brosca starving themself to death in that cell, cousland never escaping the castle, the whole jazz that's supposed to happen to the origins you didn't choose.

now, imagine an entire gang of warden survivors. imagine the dynamics.

amell and surana staying close together at first bc it's their first time outside the tower and they find comfort in that the other understands

but surana, at the same time, desperately wanting to connect to tabris and mahariel (whom tabris low-key worships) bc while there were some tensions in the tower, nothing prepared surana for how elves were treated outside of it

mahariel is neither a mage nor a storyteller but they can't find it in themselves to refuse when a wide-eyed surana and a tentative amell ask about the dalish keepers. as they all sit around the fire and they describe what they've seen keeper marethari do, the magic which the chantry always said was evil but gave the dalish life and purpose, mahariel finds themself thinking that maybe they could get used to this new clan

and then we have tabris eyeing cousland with disdain, hidden dagger close at hand and waiting for them to so much breathe in the same way as vaughn did. the slow realization that cousland won't, ever. the tentative friendship between them, and cousland's growing resolve to avenge their family and take back highever - only, improving conditions in the highever alienage is also part of their motivation. what tabris has described will not happen under their watch.

speaking of tentative friendships - brosca and aeducan. the hostility, the centuries of bitterness, the unfathomable divide between literal royalty and casteless. how long would it take for that to be cast aside? could it ever be?

(not to mention how the gap grows with their return to orzammar and their opposing politics. and yet, they finally find common ground in the deep roads - as the broodmother lays defeated at their feet and the realization dawns that this is where the monsters came from this entire time, from them, casteless and royal weep together and a bond begins to form in the deepest pit of despair)

and then it turning out to be lucky that they straightened that out in the deep roads bc they're family now, in the literal sense - imagine brosca and aeducan fighting over who first gets to hold the nephew they share

just... please, give me an entire warden family

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If you’re bad enough at DA2, you can imagine that Varric keeps saying “…And then they died” every five minutes, which pisses Cassandra off to no end because it’s a lie, she knows it’s a lie, but he keeps doing it and she gets so into the story that she falls for it every time and just screams in pure rage.

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So I think the Watchers sleep in box beds...

Behold the box bed- it's a bed inna cabinet. They were popular in Western and Central Europe from the post-medieval period to the 19th century. In addition to looking neat as hell, they have a few advantages: - Thank fuck there's some privacy. Meaning if two apprentices wanted to bang, there'd be no disturbing the roommates. - Protects you from creepy crawlies or critters at night. - Insulation The Lore points to the Necropolis dormitories and apartments being partially underground (or at least part of the larger stone complex) which means it's gonna be COLD (numerous bits of lore point to this, too). Box beds would shield the sleeper from all that cold and damp radiating in from the stone (though I'm sure they have fireplaces and rooms that have been rendered with plaster to make them nice). You can also line or upholster the walls to make it extra cozy, you know, like a casket.

Added bonus:

You can double decker that shit and cram in more apprentices and novices. Because pre-modern ideas of bodily privacy means odds are, you don't get your own room.

Senior Watchers probably have their own berths, but probably aren't that spacious. Lore bonus: They look a bit like a burial vault. You could even decorate the doors with the hexagonal latticing you see in the Necropolis proper.

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Crypt Baby Ingellvar as Inquisitor (a kidquisitor specifically) solely so I can have Varric and Solas fight for custody twice and Varric wins both times

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I’m tired of people acting like it’s not a joint effort of the entire Veilguard to get Rook out of the fade regret prison. Tired of people acting like just one companion would get a bit unhinged or crash out trying to rescuing them.

That Neve or Bellara wouldn’t somehow go out of her way to help, platonically or romantically, and pooling over all of the ancient elven they have read in the Lighthouse, coming together with Emmrich to find where the thinnest part of the fade would be in terms of Solas’s entire existence. (Yes in game they mention being able to read ancient elven because of lighthouse magic it’s how they are able to read the books.)

That Davrin or Harding aren’t pooling over their resources. And using their connections like crazy, frantically, worried.

That Taash isn’t reeling from just losing possibly TWO of the most important people in their life and showing desperation when they reach their arm into that fade to help rip them out. Remember how they sounded when they yelled for all of them to pull when they found Rook?

As if Emmrich isn’t speaking to the spirits or the dead and trying to use his resources to locate them.

As if Lucanis isn’t doing everything he can to help.

It’s a JOINT effort. It was MULTIPLE people reaching in to grab them. And you KNOW the remaining mages of the companions were outside of the actual fade tear or hole or whatever that was expelling all of their magic to keep it open so they can pull them out.

The Veilguard loves Rook. And they will rip as many holes in reality as they need to save them.

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sometimes i play around with the headcanon that the companions did ask Rook to join book club or to go camping or to hang out or any of the various things they do together - but Solas obscured it/erased it/controlled Rook's responses, in order to make sure Rook would feel more and more isolated and full of regret. eventually, after being turned down enough, he didn't even have to do anything anymore - they just assumed Rook didn't have the time or desire.

(very quick and dirty/cruddy comic to illustrate an idea, like most of my comics are lmao)

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Anders be upon ye (again)

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i'm always gazing into the distance thinking about city elves bc, despite bioware forgetting them entirely, there's stuff like this dagger from the tabris origin in dao:

elves are not allowed to own weapons in denerim to begin with. so this means that they went to SIGNIFICANT effort to keep this thing at all.

it survived hundreds of years from the dales collapsing to the present day thedas, with the name and story attached, despite the various displacements and woes the elves went through in between then.

the fact that it's named after fen'harel, and yet has this positive connotation of defending a home rather than betraying allies, is huge actually! like that's wild. not only did the city elves remember fen'harel at all As A Concept despite their forced conversion to andrastianism, they ended up with a very different view of it than the dalish.

i would argue that given how the city elves are always struggling under corrupt and brutal nobility, they might have retained a stronger cultural memory of the arlathan rebellion as a positive thing in their stories. and the dalish clans are technically descended from dales nobility too, so that would also have an effect on their ideology?

FURTHERMORE. if we assume there were multiple felassan-style immortal elves running around, with varying loyalties and agendas, then... i am once more on my "the dalish Historical Misinformation Nightmare has been fomented intentionally by immortal elf agents to keep them worshiping the evanuris" ted talk.

which also explains why the city elves didn't get affected by that! bc... the type of immortal elf who would be an evanuris partisan, would also see the city elves as hopeless and not even worth the trouble to influence.

THIS is how the city elves can still win-

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actually solas seriously presenting himself as your serving man being the only way to get your weird elf companion into the palace during we&wh would rock. hovering at your shoulder. you know he’d be weirdly into playing it up and you also know that the commentary after each person you talk to would be golden. and you’re doing espionage with literally the dread wolf haunting your footsteps and whispering in your ear

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When this is all over, I will join her again

the warden is ours with @starrythroat

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Cut romance lines from the finale

Before meeting Solas.

Davrin: If he thinks he can pull some mind-game stunt on you again… Rook: I know you'll be there if he does. Emmrich: He'll not use magic to deceive you again, darling. Not as I stand. Rook: I'm glad you're here, Emmrich. And I believe it. Harding: After what he did to you—to us—I just want to jam an arrow in his stupid… shiny… head. Rook: I'll let you get the first shot in. To celebrate us. Lucanis: He doesn't have a dragon, right? I can just kill him for what he did to you. Rook: You're sweet, but he's mine. Taash: Hey. Taarala. I'm gonna kick his ass for what he did to you. Rook: Thanks. Let's focus on saving the world first.

I don't know where Bellara and Neve's lines are, but I found others when Rook frees them from Elgar'nan.

Rook: Elgar'nan won't get to you again. I won't— Bellara: I know, Rook. I know. Rook: For what he did to you, Elgar'nan will suffer before he dies. Neve: Sweet-talker.

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isabela sketches to get into the summer mood ☀️

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"Minrathous Style"