notabloodmage

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last time i mentioned this someone got mad at me but i DO think the layer of literal and allegorical homophobia that exists for mhanders really adds something deeply meaningful to it that i can't look away from. like oh yeah due to reasons fundamental to the way we were born our relationship is scandalous and we can't truly be together or really even marry in the eyes of the dominant religion. your uncle makes judgemental and sexual comments about our relationship. our most religious mutual friend who disapproves of us constantly uses innuendos for what we are to each other. tying yourself to me dooms your legacy forever. i dream of a future where we can love each other freely.

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You cannot imagine it, Anders. All the color, all the music in the world, gone.

genuinely one of the most fucked up things dragon age ever did was let karl have a few last moments free of tranquility with anders without anyone understanding why or how this was even happening. and then have anders kill karl in what he believed was an act of mercy. and then later reveal that the cure for tranquility is not only known and accessible but has been actively kept secret. and then, upon this reveal, never do anything with any of this information or explore its ramifications with any tranquil or mage or anyone ever.

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yeah yeah big strong healthy hawke and frail ghastly anders but what about hawke who's just as gaunt and falling apart. what if they're both held together with string and stubbornness

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literally nothing will ever be funnier than this oneshot kill from merrill

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anders manipulating hawke isnt even thaaaaat terrible like.................... i mean yes its bad. but its so tasty in a sense that he falls for hawke first and then makes a conscious decision to use hawke's affection for him and its a difficult decision because he loves hawke as well. like isnt that sooooo so tasty yummy. making a choice to manipulate the person you love the most because it seems like the only choice you have for the greater good. hello!

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(jerk hawke voice) samson is not that hard to escape poverty 🙄 if only you stopped drinking lyrium and used it to purchase a rune of fortune so your enemies drop more coin... Yeah they are fucking acumulative. 5% on your chest, 2% on your helmet, 3% in your boots and gloves, 3,75% , you'll get 13,75% more benefits with every dead. And 10% more with every buddy you have. Anyone can can get these in the black emporium under kirkwall. What do you mean "what am i talking about". The place with the talking skeleton. With Thaddeus Gigantus Crumbum the Third. Yeah, the golem. Where you can also change your face in a mirror, and everyone will act like you were always like that? You know the place. Honestly is like people here aren't even trying.

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and her being butch would fit so seamlessly into her character and would tie in with how alienated she feels around other chantry members and her arc about potentially finding things about herself outside of marjolaines grooming but noooooo they literally made her actively feminine on purpose.....

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merrill and neve for warmup

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Duality of Anders and Justice

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Why don’t we let the guy whose every plan could be reasonably construed as an abstract suicide attempt take a crack it

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what makes me so upset about morrigan is that the world was genuinely hostile to her. she tried to leave home before and she really did want to go out there and see mountains and cities for herself and step into an ocean!! but as a mage & a cultural outsider who doesn’t understand social norms, she is met with such animosity and suspicion and overwhelming rules she can’t understand that she goes back to her abusive mother and swears never to leave the wilds again. we see her get that treatment from even well-loved good-aligned characters like alistair—don’t answer her, she looks chasind—right off the bat, when she’s hardly said or done anything. gossips in lothering, the one village she’s visited multiple times, can openly chatter about how all mages should be killed off. she never had any choices or anyone to turn to. and all this just teaches her to be hostile first, to lash out defensively rather than be mocked, which in turn makes it even more impossible for her to find support

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Nightingale

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love love loveeee cole as a tool for the writers to do fun character exposition/development. your little dude would never open up about this thing in a million years? you need to show that a character is putting on a front? need to do some fun foreshadowing? get your favorite little ghost boy to randomly exposit about their hopes and dreams and deepest fears! have him bluntly ask them questions about their trauma! fun for the whole family i tell you

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honestly I love that Anders falls in love with Hawke whether you romance him or not but my favorite part about it is how in act 3 he'll be jealous and still pining if you romance someone else, but if you do romance him he's pushing you away. handers tragic pairing of all time

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origins au where the warden dies of their injuries in flemeth’s hut after ostagar. and flemeth sees that the existence of a buddy grey warden was extremely emotionally load-bearing for the one she did manage to save so she puts a spirit in the warden’s corpse and drags them out with the exact same you worry too much young man! look, they’re fine! spiel

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like because the thing is da2 is kinda like a greek tragedy right. the ending was set before the story even begun. There was nothing no one could have done. You can replay it a million times, you can make different choices, but it'll end the same way. you can rewatch it a million times but Antigone will always be dead by the time they open her tomb. You can retell it a million times but Orpheus will always turn to look at Eurydice. These characters wer doomed from the start - HELL, the first choice you make in game ALREADY sets this 'doom' narrative (by choosing to be a mage/warrior/rogue, hawke immediatly dooms one of their siblings).

like. da2 is a game more about the journey then it is about the ending, because the ending was set in stone from the get go.

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I have a proposal towards the bg3 fandom:

✨Them✨🥹