#david gaider

[carako]

Because I've loved this forever.

Moarrigan for you! /parries every single brick thrown my way

This time a Morri-centric comic written by David Gaider and drawn by me.

Part 3 of my Morrigan fan art retrospective!

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

[theheartmold]

“I’d been reading about the cia” insane thing to cite for Zevran inspiration.

[nerd-elf]

Dorian Pavus is the most realistic character in the series and I can prove it.

1 - He wants to be himself. And he won’t accept pretending just to please people.

2 - He complains ALL. THE. TIME. Just like anyone would living in a cold, dirty and much more rustic place than his home.

3 - He doesn’t fall in love right away. He wants to get to know the person first, regardless if it’s the Inquisitor or The Iron Bull, and become friends. He’s not aiming for love, just wishes (even though he will never admit it) someone he can trust.

4 - He sees the flaws. The problems. In everyone. But he learns to love them anyway.

5 - He doesn’t change who he is because of the person he loves. He will still be a sassy, proud and passionate man no matter who he ends up with.

[lilyorchardstuff]

You know, I noticed something...

Solid Lily always, and I mean ALWAYS, personally targets:

.Rebecca Sugar - A non-binary, bisexual Jewish woman.

.ND Stevenson - A non-binary, queer, trans man.

.Dana Terrace - A bisexual woman.

.David Gaider - A gay man.

And her favourite media punching bags are Steven Universe, She-Ra, Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil, The Owl House, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate III (and now, Arcane); works that champion diversity and inclusion, that always put marginalized people (LGBTQ+ people, people of color, ect) at the forefront of their stories. Yet, for a self-proclaimed, progressive leftist who claims to care about representation and stand against bigotry, I NEVER see Lily go after regressive reactionaries like Trey P*rker, M*tt Stone, Fr*nk Miller, J*hn Byrne, Thom*s Mahler, Americ*n McGee, John Carm*ck, Ethan V*n Sciver, the dev team behind H*tred, the dev team behind Post*l and so forth.*

*(Just for the record, I'm not telling anyone to "cancel" these creators. You can still enjoy their work. Plus, "cancel culture" isn't real BTW)

I have a feeling that Lily is either a barely closeted, far-right bigot pretending to be a woke progressive because she sees it as "fashionable" or is suffering from severe internalized misogyny and queerphobia.

Or both.

[hyperbali]

Yeah, it's the romance stuff. I'm already disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt given his track record, but this absolutely reads as him being a bitter bitch

"Sex dolls"???

[lilyvalorchard]

Solid Lily existing

[thatssolavellan]

David Gaider, about Flemeth, Mythal (and most of all, about Kate Mulgrew) @ Bluesky

I miss her Baba Yaga voice. And about the scene with Morrigan on being a mother... That was really something.

[chasindbae]

My opinion so far as pretty fresh from inquisition and into Veilguard. I am so MAD at this funk foot havin' ass OLIVE.

[lilyvalerieorchard]

Here is your daily reminder that Solid Lily has boasted about being a "better writer"/"better creator" then...

.Rebecca Sugar

.ND Stevenson

.Dana Terrace

.Rian Johnson

.Darron Nefcy

.Christie Golden

.Bryke

.David Gaider

.Dave Filoni

.Everyone at Larian Studios

.And many other industry veterans

She even lied about being a "highly sought-after writer" to just personally spite all of them. Yet here she is: Locked up in a run-down apartment block, only ever writing awful, incest coffeshop fanfiction.

Yes, you CAN laugh.

[merrinla]

Interview with David Gaider at Thedas UK Con in 2012

Thedas UK: Can I ask, what effect if any Anders being merged with Justice is going to have on his Calling? David Gaider: Uh…interesting. I'm getting some…okay, it's gone now, I was hearing a mental voice there, it was weird. [laughter] There were some plans to address that but in the end it became very complicated. I think there are a couple possibilities. One is that the spirit within Anders can affect the level of his corruption, so it may delay or remove the necessity for his Calling altogether. Either that or at some point the corruption within Anders is going to corrupt the spirit. I think those are the two most likely outcomes. I'm not going to say which of those we prefer, because Anders can survive DA2 so therefore there's a possibility that we may need him in the future.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

This single bluesky tweet has done fifteen types of psychic damage to me

[dalishious]

It irks me when people say "but look at Dorian" as a defence for how "good" Gaider was at writing Dragon Age.

Yeah, look at Dorian. The guy who has a whole conversation about how slavery is actually morally grey and the Inquisitor doesn't know what they're talking about to challenge it. The guy who jokes about and belittles Briala's rebellion as ludicrous and wrong. The guy who we don't actually see change these views until other writers take over.

TL;DR: One great scene about homophobia does not make up for all the racism in his writing lmao

[theheartmold]

We cannot keep letting gaider get away with this

[one-eyedqueer]

it’s might be silly, even stupid and anything else you will call it, but this fact? i feel like i won something today. as a gay man who needs to headcanon straight men to feel safe and represented.

loghain was my favorite character in media for years. as polish person who is patriot and passioned in politics and history, i gets him even more. as a trans son without father approval, seeing his relationship with anora… i am crying and throwing. he is everything for me as fictional character.

he is old veteran giving me comfort. and now, it’s not just headcanon when he is canonically queer.

i know David Gaider won’t see this, but, his books means a world to me, the same as whole dragon age franchise.

never kill yourself. take care and love yourself.

[fassina]

This from David Gaider’s bluesky thread on Zevran made me laugh. As things change so things stay the same…

(The whole thread is interesting as a time capsule study too though. I think people sometimes forget just how much has changed in the past 15 years especially in what it means to be an out queer person.)

[justanotherflemethstan]

this is not a drill, this is a thread on the creation of Flemeth from David Gaider!! as kind of the self professed Flemeth stan blog around here, I had to reshare

(alt text and full text transcript of the images included)

Link to the original post

Full text from the images below the cut:

CHARACTERS - DAY THREE: Flemeth

I have a type. I admit it. There are certain wells I can return to repeatedly and always find something new to explore.

One of them is older female characters. Mike used to rib me about it. Consider Wynne. Meredith. Genevieve. And, of course, the biggie: Flemeth.

Why are they a type? I... don't know, honestly.

I guess I have a feeling that older men fade, they strive to regain their youth or establish a legacy and we've seen that story a thousand times, but older women? They become free to become something new. I guess I see so many possibilities in that.

I had a conception of who Flemeth was, and why, right from the very start. Her creation went hand in hand with Morrigan, as a being whose thirst for retribution hundreds of years ago attracted an entity (slight confession: I didn't know Mythal specifically, at the time, "an elven god" was enough).

I also knew where Morrigan was right and very wrong about her. Misconceptions of the truth are built into DA's foundation, and they were fundamental to this mother-daughter relationship I was building.

Like many seeds I'd put in the world, however, I had no idea whether I'd ever get to explore it.

Knowing that she was a character of possible future importance, if not a major player in DAO, I wasn't much surprised when she was one of the first cuts the art team made in terms of getting a unique appearance. Thus the "batty old woman" players met in DAO. Not as hard a cut as the Qunari, though.

Going into DA2, I wanted both Morrigan and Flemeth, but we could only have one. So I picked Flemeth. This was the game where she really got to come into her own.

I remember the art team coming and asking if it was OK if she got a new model, as it'd be a retcon of sorts. I didn't care. I wanted it.

I honestly don't remember whether Kate Mulgrew was cast before or after Claudia. After, I think? All I recall is that Cab came into my office one day and asked if Kate might be a good fit

The squeal I made was un-manly. Cab took that as a "yes". 😅

I didn't get to talk to Kate until DA2, however. Schedules being what they were, we had a tight window to record Flemeth... so I had to write all her scenes before almost anything else in DA2 was written, before I even had a team! Ack!

It was OK, though, for the most part. I knew where I wanted to take her, and a big part of it was going to explain her transition - to set her up for the future. So I whipped up a script in, like, two days and off we went. Kate was a marvel in the booth. She adored Flemeth and you could really tell.

I didn't get to meet Kate in person, however, until DAI. This came pretty late in its development, compared to when we recorded her for DA2, and we flew down to Virginia (to accommodate her schedule - she was writing her memoir at the time, I think) for a single session. It was going to be *tight*.

I was a mess. I was finally going to meet Captain Janeway... and yes yes, I know she's also more than that. But come ON.

When we sat down, I figured I'd have to talk her through the character all over again. It'd been years since that one session at the start of DA2, right? And even more since DAO.

But, no. Kate remembered Flemeth perfectly.

I remember sitting there as she told me how much she loved the character, how rare it was to get one with so much texture and possibility. She called out my writing - my writing! - and waxed poetic about how she viewed Flemeth's arc. I... I was floored. 🫠

Then we began recording. One issue that quickly reared its head was how Caroline had to speed through the lines if we hoped to finish. Kate was a trooper, and most takes she'd get it in one (which is rare), but I was alarmed because we weren't giving Kate time to read the VO comments on each line.

I brought it up, as there were some lines (so much sarcasm) that required nuance - Kate was getting them, oddly, but I was worried.

"Oh, it's fine," Kate said. "I read the comments as we go."

"How could you? We're going so fast!"

"I'm a speed reader."

Oh. OK, then. That certainly explained it. 😁

We got to the confrontation scene with Morrigan and she nailed it. Over and over. More than once, Caroline would make a call and, before I could even interject and say "no, Kate had it right, actually" Kate would explain exactly why she did it that way and why it worked for Flemeth. I was in love.

She did the "I will see her avenged!" section all in one go. I got chills. Then we got to the final scene.

You know the one. With Solas.

It was this beautiful moment. She took it somewhere quiet and sad... and when she got to that last line, we all felt it: Flemeth was dead. Everyone was in tears.

I suppose I could talk more about the process. How she started off aligned with Morrigan's original Delirium inspiration, but I didn't pull back her loopy way of talking as much (bet you wondered).

I still don't know why it was so easy to slip into her voice, but I'm grateful I got the chance. ❤️