#& the parallels w inquisition.....

[lelianasbong]

I think a lot about the fact that Leliana and Sera were young orphan girls from working class families who were adopted by human noblewomen... how Leliana took to that life like a fish to water and Sera rejected it wholesale: the material excess when others have nothing, having pride in something you didn't earn but were lucky enough to be born into. But Sera being an elf meant her life with Emmald was never going to be the same as Leliana's with Cecilie. The music and etiquette lessons that carried Leliana are harsh reminders of a life that didn't make room for someone like Sera.

They're both religious but their faith leads them to the same conclusion: no one should be excluded based on who they are and no one is without worth. They're rogues who love pranks and teasing their friends, they love ✨️ WOMEN ✨️ and are vocal about it, they're willing to sacrifice themselves and gut their enemies if it means protecting their people. They're steadfast friends and devoted lovers. Leliana learned her archery skills from Marjolaine - a nobleman's sport, a game to mirror The Game, 'I made you, Leliana. I can destroy you just as easily' - while Sera learned by the sweat of her brow, practicing until the arrow hit its mark more often than not and her arms no longer shook. There are no tutors in back alleys.

Leliana forswore her old ways for the ascetic life of a Chantry sister (before taking up arms to defeat the Blight); Sera inherited Emmald's fortune and gave it all away to orphaned children despite herself being hungry and homeless, because Sera is kind and because the knowledge of where that money came from was more painful than the joy of spending it.

[pinayelf]

is this the same spot? (the same as, the closest it could be considering the map is different in dai)

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

@brainwormterrarium's Caleb for artfight because i feel So Normal about him

[tahopo]

I’m still on the fence about Sebhawke and the dlc didn’t really help as much as I wanted it to. I like seeing your characterisation though. What is it about the dynamic that you enjoy?

when it comes to sebhawke i think you really have to do the heavy lifting. seb was originally going to get a bigger part in the exalted march expansion that got cancelled, and supposedly hawke would’ve had affairs in starkhaven. i suspect a whole chunk of that got reworked into inquisition and afaik it won’t ever be revisited (whatever they said abt hawke and da5 has me squinting). so w a good enough imagination, the liberties can take you fairly far.

ive talked a bit about the leandra/malcolm and sebastian/hawke parallels which i find fun. mary kirby also said sebastian was basically the progenitor of the envy demon you encounter in DAI which is sooo.. the implications. and there’s THIS ridiculous codex on some trashy dime novel that is hilariously sebhawke coded.

other things i like abt them:

sebastian being the youngest sibling and hawke being the oldest.

extremely sheltered guy v. jaded person w a backlog of experience

being friendmance married to seb, except he always takes the throne back anyway so like now what. does he have to divorce you. pretend to divorce you. or is he really just pissing everyone off in starkhaven w his controversial ferelden wife. it’s all so fun.

you can make him a widow 🖤

sebastian cares about inheritance and hawke’s especially. he really truly believes hawke deserves power, even the heretical blood magic type (NOBODY ELSE IS COOL WITH THIS). he really does have a power-hungry streak in him and all his dialogue points towards how he sees hawke and him as an unstoppable duo. he’s trying to put all the stat bonuses and enchantments on his gf. that man is one crush induced thought away from buying matching outfits.

seb ultimately sees hawke as a ticket (to act, think, have fun, follow aims)

walking survivors guilt complexes

just the sheer animosity varric has about sebastian makes this all funny. he can’t even vent it out reasonably, he has to redirect his seb haterism towards blackwall.

[v-arbellanaris]

although i understand why (presumably, writing challenges/general timeline for this game), the one thing i wish very very much is that, at least at haven, you could flirt with solas the way you can for cassandra as f!inq and dorian as f!inq as well, because one of my favourite lines is when you promise him that if they tried to take him to a circle, you'd stop them any way you could. and from a lavellan, that obviously means so much, but i'm always thinking abt the context of isra saying it to solas, when at their first introduction, solas' introduction of himself as a mage that's seen & experienced more than a circle mage (when he's been working w the inquisition for a few days already) seems to imply he's def met some circle mages before this who had an Attitude abt having learned abt magic academically compared to his "hedge magic". & the general push of the dai storyline + characters to insist that mages belong in the circle, that mages can only get a Good & Proper Magical Education from the circle... solas doesnt consider himself an elf the way other elves do in the beginning of the game but he's always pushed forward the image that he is a mage, and it's likely that there was a lot of condescension from the other circle-trained mages abt his knowledge, which was deemed inferior (funnily enough, likely a parallel to his own behaviour gfdkfjdg). but to be able to have flirted that way as a circle mage, to show him that kinship - likely to his surprise - would have been something.

[whimsyswastry]

Total # of completed works?

 Honestly? Zero.

Total word count?

83.787! Last year I was so excited to have written 17k and this year O_O over 80k!!!

Fandoms written in?

Mass Effect (fShenko), Andromeda (mReyder), Greedfall (fDeSardet/Kurt), and a VERY small amount of Dragon Age (Cullevelyan)

Looking back, did you write more, less, or about how much you thought you would?

Way more. In the beginning of the year, it was like...April and I hadn’t even written 2k words yet. The fact that I wrote more this year than 4x what I wrote in 2021 is shocking and fills me with great joy and motivation to keep going.

Favorite story (of your own) this year?

Operation Leviathan. It was a plot bunny that struck me when I was watching Underwater in 2020, but I just didn’t have the oomph to do anything about it. But somehow, the flood gates opened about three days into NaNo and I wrote about 95% of it in a month. I have a couple thousand words left to wrap it up and some editing! I’m so excited to share it with the community.

Any writing risks this year?

I didn’t really write anything that risky. I tried a different tense, which wasn’t really my cup of tea. Well, that’s not true. I really enjoyed writing in present tense, but when I got into a flow state, it would automatically revert back to past tense. Which made editing a nightmare.

I should really keep trying though. I love present tense, especially for thrillers.

Any fanfic or original fic goals for the new year?

My goal almost every single year is to do make some sort of headway with Unharrowed. It’s a prequel to Inquisition that has been cooking since the first time I played it. But I can’t seem to ever make any progress. I’ve recently started revamping the lead character completely to give her a stronger (both in terms of literature and literally) personality. I’m hopeful that this will solve a lot of the issues I’ve been having with the story.

Most popular story of the year?

Masquerade & Mysteries, by almost 2x as many as my other stories. It’s my greedfall prequel, that tackles the class divide between Kurt and Lucette. It’ll be 7 chapters all said and done. Five and half of them are already completed...I’m just slow (and not very confident) at writing the smut.

Most under-appreciated story (of your own) by the fandom?

In the Flicker -- I understand why it didn’t gain much traction. AO3 is often very ship-centric and I wasn’t sure how to tag this. It was by-and-large a character study as I played with writing in first person. The story starts with a Ryder/Gil pairing, but the end game ends up being Ryder/Reyes. (Don’t worry, it’s not at all anti-Gil, it’s just how the story unfolded). However, I’ve only posted the first chapter, so I didn’t want to tag it as /Gil but I also didn’t want to tag it as /Reyes since neither is technically true.

Hopefully once the story is completed and posted, I’ll be able to tag it more appropriately and it will find it’s audience.

Most fun story to write?

Operation Leviathan! It had been so long since I felt a flow-state while drafting. It was freeing to just word vomit on a page and feel decent enough about what I’d written to keep it to edit down the road instead of trashing it immediately.

Most unintentionally telling story?

Probably Unharrowed. One  aspect of the story is coming to terms with a body (or in this case, a magic) that doesn’t cooperate with you and how distressing that can be. I didn’t intentionally mean to parallel my experience, but it just kinda...happened. At least in my notes it did lol I still haven’t drafted it.

Biggest disappointment?

The Hot Zone. So far it’s been well received, which is awesome. But I was 14k words into the story and suddenly it was like hitting a cement wall. I just...couldn’t write it anymore. No matter how hard I tried. I’m giving myself a break and will come back to it as soon as I can because I am so excited for this story.

Biggest surprise?

My word count. Writing in 2020 and 2021 was like pulling teeth. It was torture just squeezing out a couple thousand words over the course of the entire year. But this year, the flood gates just opened. It was like a huge weight had lifted off of me and I realized how much pressure I’d been putting on myself to engage in a hobby that’s supposed to be fun. I’m glad I’ve finally found my way back to enjoying the process.

Favorite part of fandom this year?

The entire Dragon Age fandom coming back to life after Absolution was released. My dash had been a trickle of DA content until December, and then suddenly it was all DA all the time. It was great to find new artists to follow and share as well!

Tagging || A large portion of my writing moots have already completed this or something very similar. So if you’re still reading it at this point, consider yourself tagged! And please tag me, I’d love to read about how your year went! 💛

[lnquisition]

As of this moment, I declare the inquisition reborn . //  Effective immediately, the inquisition is disbanded. 

[zorlok-if]

Your Blog looks so freaking cool holy moly- also. Could you tell us a little bit about the poly romances? like what kinda vibes/flavours/themes are they?? I am very excited to put my grubby poly hands on all of them

Okay, I've been working on this one for a while now cause it made me realize that I had to think about these more. I think when I originally put the poly route options in the masterpost I'd just copied and pasted them from a list called "potential Z poly routes?" So, here's an answer and list that I've actually put a lot of thought into:

🌹 Dev and Adam/Eve: Finally resolving years of hatred and misunderstanding, their mutual feelings for Z are the common ground they need to also find each other once more. Lots of pent up tension (and you get to enjoy all of it).

Intense emotion, tender, forgiveness, warmth, fluff, passion, (re)discovery, curiosity, understanding

Can be: romantic + asexual, romantic + sexual, platonic + asexual, or platonic + sexual

🌹 Dev and the Celestial: Friends w/ benefits turned poly QPR. Just a couple of people who want to have fun, cause trouble, engage in mischief, and not take existence too seriously while being with and supporting the people they love.

Mischief, chaos, adventure, indulgence, exploration, curiosity, pranks, respect, encouragement, schemes

Can be: romantic + asexual, romantic + sexual, platonic + asexual, or platonic + sexual (romance just between Z and Dev)

🌹 Danny and Adam/Eve: Protectors protecting each other. Individuals who are concerned with morality and have a tendency towards self-sacrifice. Very emotional, deep care and understanding. The sweetest and most adorable coupling (+ moments of intense angst).

Caring, healing, inquisition, fluff/angst, heroism and martyrdom, protection, safety, help, gentle

Can be: romantic + asexual, romantic + sexual, platonic + asexual, or platonic + sexual

🌹 Adam/Eve and the Celestial: Develops from a fascination with one another and an immense respect for the differences between you all. Challenging each other intellectually and morally, posing questions each other never thought to ask. (Also can involve lots of discussion on gender and identity.)

Respect, understanding, ideals, searching, mystery, discovery, debate, morality, challenging

Can be: romantic + asexual, romantic + sexual, platonic + asexual, or platonic + sexual (romance just between Z and A/E)

🌹 Danny and Ciel: Forced. Proximity. A relationship that deals mostly with helping one another, understanding each other, and working through parallel situations with care, respect, and understanding.

Change, health, saving people from themselves, caring, fluff/angst, mystery, curiosity, complexity

Can be: romantic + asexual, romantic + sexual, platonic + asexual, or platonic + sexual

❤️‍🔥 Ciel and [Secret RO]: An intense, passionate affair. A power triad looking to bring the world to its knees.

Heat, fire, passion, strength, resolution, wild delight, overindulgence, burning, conquering

Can be: romantic + sexual or platonic + sexual (secret RO only interested in bringing Ciel in as a sexual partner, never has feelings for them as they do for you)

Poly routes I'm also considering adding:

These may be added or swapped for some of those above if I decide they make more sense or would be more compelling.

🌹 Danny and Dev: Another heavy mystery and intrigue one, big on discovery, mutual respect, and helping one another through grave trials

🌹 Danny and the Celestial: Slow burn for the Celestial to finally trust Danny, built out of immense personal respect and great trials

🌹 Adam/Eve and Ciel: Only like a darkest timeline kind of situation, falling from grace, solace (highly unlikely to implement just a kind of evil AU that lives in my head)

🌹 Dev and Ciel: Same as above, The Darkest Timeline's Sexy Mad Love Triad™️, corruption, destruction, power and hunger, supporting one another unconditionally

🌹 Adam/Eve and Danny and Dev: Little sleuth polycule (probably won't implement because it's just a lot to code but this is super cute to me and has a positively lovely little vibe)

[ourfag]

hi

hello my name is [REDACTED] my pronouns are [REDACTED] im a nonblack poc, autistic, and an adult

here is the climate around here

stede has autismal swag

he also fucking sucks (AFFECTIONATE)

beardless ed best ed

giving ed a kiss on the forehead very important

whumping ed within an inch of his life also very important

izzy had it coming!!!!💥💥

seriously im chill about a lot of headcanons but i do not fuck around w that weird racist “ed abused izzy” nonsense, i block generously for that

sundays are sexual

i cant tag for fuck of shit

further info under cut

hello, i see you’ve clicked the read more. here are some more words about Me

i find the watsonian lens more fun and interesting to play with but the doylist lens more objectively important, especially concerning a story’s relationship to social structures

so youre not gonna see me rbing a lot of cast&crew content but you may see posts (positive, negative, inquisitive) about how the show approaches race/class/what have you. other than that i could not care less what rhys darby is doing today

im abysmal at figuring out how to respond to people. if you initiate an interaction with me i may set it aside to give an appropriate amount of attention to later and then forget about it forever. i try not to do that but if i do then dont worry bout it, it’s nothing you said or did, it’s my weird maladaptive perfectionism social anhedonia two hit combo

to that end: im better at spitting out words and then pitching them into the ether or fishing your words out of the ether and putting them on my blog than having a direct extended back-and-forth dialogue. i do want to be friends with you but you have to approach me from the side like a horse. lets parallel play together

oh i can reclaim fag. if you were worried about that. sorry i genuinely forget theres cishets in the world

[nevermindirah]

I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

i’ve had this problem about how people yell at talk to me about dragon age things but i honestly see it happen a lot where like,,, yáll don’t analyze a piece of media beyond what’s in it. words are hard, but like,

example using dragon age since I write about the shitty writing a lot, I have criticized certain aspects of things as racist and islamaphobic, and I have gotten people arguing that well that thing I’m criticizing makes sense in-game. But like, I’m not talking about the stuff in game, I’m talking about how someone (a team of people, sometimes) in the real world sat down and wrote something that was racist and islamaphobic. I’m analyzing and critiquing that a person chose to write those things, right? As I said in a post

I really could analyze a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition and the choices the Inquisitor makes, but when looking at tought or dubious choices in the game, I can’t ignore the fact that the entirety of the game and it’s choices were written by (white) people who choice to make this story. They chose to have all the racism, they chose to have it be an Inquisition, they chose to have Elven gods to be revealed as just sadistic magister slavers, to have elves slaughter and holy ground desecrated. Every microaggression or macro aggression was written because someone wanted to include it, every reference and parallel to Inquisitions was because they wanted to include it. The lack of basic respect and sensitivity for the cultures and peoples that have faced atrocities as racism, colonialism, genocide, slavery, and Inquisitions and the ripples that affect people in even the smallest of ways is truly upsetting and speaks volumes.

And I mean, imo this problem isn’t just about like, dragon age, and racism, this is just an example. I see a lot of people analyze a piece of fiction only within the world of that fiction, and not everything outside of that bubble: like the biases and bigoted views of a writer.

Sometimes yáll will see criticism about author or creator and their choices in creating a piece of fiction, and deflect it by saying that whatever thing being criticized is in character for that fictional character or there’s an in-world explanation within the fiction. And it’s just. Missing the point. Not all critcisms are about characters or w/e, some criticisms are about the writing and the creators of the fiction and you need to stop trying to ignore the real world and people beyond and behind the fiction. If someone’s rightfully critiquing bigotry in a piece of media shut up about how it makes sense in the story or its in character for some character to be shitty and bigoted or a walking stereotype.

[theharellan]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm. tagged by: stolen from @dansiere tagging: @ghiassan, @deathsreflection, @altuspavus, @windrunnerrs (velanna), @hopewrought, @willbeshot, @seahaloed (iron bull), @asterfed​ (noctis), @ anyone who wants to steal it! also multis feel free to choose a different character

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated (i’m open to roleplaying with non-dragon age characters, and have AUs for other fandoms)

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. solas is both wildly popular and wildly hated. he’s been more consistently popular than the controversial women in the series, like sera or vivienne, who have only recently begun to get to the point where their tags are less vitriolic (although i’m sure it’s still out there), but there’s still a sizable hatedom that can’t have his name breathed in their vicinity w/o them talking abt how much they hate him. even if you’re currently cosplaying him!

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. again, you have ppl who are super into him and ppl who think he’s ugly. my personal opinion is that i think he’s weirdly pretty, and wish ppl would commit more to his unconventional features rather than try to chisel him into sb more traditionally attractive and that ppl who don’t find him attractive would maybe chill w/ calling him ugly. find him unattractive by all means, but lets embrace the fact that inquisition let their love interests have skin flaws etc and accept that some won’t be our cups of tea.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. its hard to deny at this point tbh.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. frustrating as the hate in the tags he has enough fans that i couldnt say he’s underrated w/ a straight face.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. he’s the reason the game starts with a bang and not the inevitable dissolution of the conclave b/c the sides are disparate.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. regardless of solas’ relationship with the inquisitor, there are parallels and contrasts in their stories and he also is the reason they survive inquisition.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. fen’harel is well-known and revered, if feared, among the dalish, yet at the same time he’s not remembered for a lot besides locking the gods away-- and the context of that decision has also been lost. as solas he’s relatively unknown until inquisition and especially trespasser.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. again, polarising!! he has loyal agents and people are willing to speak well of him despite everything, including his enemies sometimes (depending mostly on the inquisitor). 

How strictly do you follow canon?  — generally i try to have a canon basis for my interpretation, even if i interpret the text differently than the author.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  solas is an immortal who is simultaneously jaded and very much invested in the small moments of life. far from being weary of the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, it is systems and orders he is most tired of. he walks an interesting line that feels far less misanthropic than other immortal characters i’ve experienced, yet still he’s quite cynical. as a character who has fought against religious based tyranny before, but in a completely different era, he is in a unique position where what he sees around him is both horrifyingly familiar and yet completely new. it allows an exploration of the wrongs of thedas’ society from an outsider’s perspective. his motivations are complex and multifaceted, often condemnable and yet also understandable. his character arc in inquisition (if befriended, or regardless in the case of my solas) takes him from a dispassionate, disconnected antagonist to someone deeply invested in the people of thedas, deeply conflicted and actively hoping he will be proven wrong again. i think his story is a testament to human (or elven, or dwarven, or-) connection and how even when we resist we can’t resist creating bonds with the people in our lives. i personally see this bond going beyond the inquisitor hence why i play low-approval solas as conflicted as high-approval, if not when it comes to the inquisitor.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  solas is selfish and motivated solely by revenge, he’s clinging to a past that clearly no longer exists, if you ignore all the people from it who are still alive. he’s totally unaware of all his flaws and never owns up to any mistakes ever. no, i haven’t listened to a single word solas has said in my life why do you ask. he’s also critical of my faves which means he’s #cancelled, there is clearly no validity to what he’s saying. ksjdf no but in all seriousness i think a lot of reasons ppl don’t find solas interesting are just... weird readings of his character that sometimes have no basis in the text of inquisition, but also there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to not find him interesting. usually those ppl don’t like... talk abt how much they don’t find him interesting constantly tho. they just chill and aren’t invested in this particular villain. for one thing i think the game missed out on opportunities for exploring how someone who may not have even had a body at the beginning of his existence would feel about gender and sexuality, so making him presumably straight and cis was a boring choice. i also think that the dragon age games being very protagonist-centric hurts solas’ character, there’s no real reason why the inquisitor is the only one who can throw his plans into question but making the player the center of the universe means he’s not allowed to change due to the effects of other companions or NPCs. thank god this is rp and i do what i want.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  i have a history degree so when the inquisition companions were being teased, solas describing bias in primary sources from the memories he’s seen got me interested in him. but my first playthrough i didn’t actually take him with me all too often, i think my main party was dorian-blackwall-varric. i liked him, and i think he or dorian were my first friends in skyhold, but my initial interest was in other characters. between his dialogue that appealed to the historian in me tho and how his spirit opinions sort of turned everything i’d felt about spirits in the last two games on its head, i started vibing with him more the farther i went in. like merrill set me up for the “spirits are people” thing and solas hit it out of the park. then temple of mythal happened, and i did bring solas with me there. i found his dialogue fascinating and also suspicious, i’d just finished masked empire like the day before da:i came out so i definitely thought solas was an ancient elf in the same vein as felassan. it was after temple of mythal that i actually decided to make his blog, although like as one idk linchpin to cement my status as solas trash... i was hit BAD by the banter bug on my first playthrough, probably got like a dozen banters total. but then at some point late in the game i took solas to the forbidden oasis and he wouldn’t stop talking to people, and i really loved his banter with the rest of my party at the time.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  replaying inquisition, new DA content when the bioware gods deign to grant us a lifeline, but the biggest thing is my rp partners. i wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the people i write with, new and old. my activity of late hasn’t been the best, work and the summer heat has really been sapping me of energy, and does even during years when we aren’t going through a pandemic. but it’s the thought of my rp partners and love of solas that keeps me coming back.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO / I SINCERELY HOPE I DO? i have my doubts sometimes, but i think i do ok.

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? there is no headcanon too small for me.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO. but not lately * gestures to the low activity * i’ve been in this cycle where i get anxious abt late replies, so prioritise them, then burn myself out and can’t write the fics i want. i’ve had two i’ve been DYING to write tho i just... need to find the space in my brain to let myself.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO. i mean it depends on the day. if i work closing shifts at my store it gets very quiet and boring around 8:30 so i spent the next 90 minutes thinking about character stuff.

Are you confident in your portrayal?  YES / NO / SORT OF? 

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. 

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO / SORTA.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  i’m going to say ‘no’ because like, i don’t ask for criticism. this is a hobby based on my interpretation of a character, if you think i write solas too soft then you’re welcome to think that, but i’m happy with the balance i’ve struck with his internal versus external behaviour and how he changes based upon who he’s speaking to. if you think i’m erasing straight people by making solas pan then ksjdfs. ok.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —  yes!!! even if they retread ground already trodden, a) my interpretation may have adjusted since the last time i played or b) a reminder is nice. if it’s new stuff then it’s fun to think about.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  it’d depend on why they disagree. if they just disagree on a subjective opinion about what i took from a certain line, then they’re welcome to their opinion but i don’t necessarily care to hear it. if it is unintentionally hurtful then i would like to know. although rather than a comment i’d rather a non-anonymous message.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  —  same as the above.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  —  if they’re vocal about it i typically just unfollow / softblock if i was following in the first place. people can feel how they want about solas, but i’ve found over the years that if people really hate solas ooc it can often bleed into their ic interactions. it’s really weird seeing your character being brought up repeatedly in threads with others specifically to dunk on, for no reason other than i guess solas is living rent free in their heads, so at least we have that in common. but anyway unfollowing is just the best choice to avoid getting kinda pressed if i’m having a bad day.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  roleplay is the wild west of writing, so i think it’d depend on what the error was. coming at me like “you shouldn’t start a sentence with a preposition” would get a laugh, but i don’t edit my replies much if at all and mistakes will 100% happen. pointing out typos is chill so long as you do it politely.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  it depends! i’ve learned that being too easy going actually just means i’m subjecting myself to negative emotions to please people. so i’ve gotten less easy going as the years go by. how does one define “easy going” anyway? does asking that question mean i am objectively not easy going? the longer this thought goes on the more the answer seems to be “probably not,” but i like to think it could be a lot worse.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Deathbringer

“Sing them a lullaby of death and nothing more.”

Type: Rocket Launcher

Slot: Kinetic | Energy | Heavy

Element: Arc | Solar | Void

Perk: Dark Deliverance - Fires remotely-detonated projectiles that drop Void orbs on enemies. Hold to fire, release to detonate.

Trait: Dark Descent - The further a Void orb falls, the more powerful its detonation becomes.

Masterworked Trait: Dead Weight - Increases how quickly Dark Descent reaches its full potential.

Ornaments: Peacebringer, Dragonbone

Origin & Description: For all that they're one of Destiny's main antagonists, we haven't talked much about the Hive. That's partly because I can't do their origin story justice; I can only tell you to read The Books of Sorrow, one of the best pieces of Destiny lore and one of the better short stories you'll read today. In short, the Hive worship the Darkness/the Deep and are pretty far on the fantasy end of Destiny's scifi/fantasy spectrum, wielding all sorts of truly nasty dark magic deriving from their pact with ancient Worm Gods.

Deathbringer is associated with a Hive sect called the Choir that sought to understand the Song of Life, a set of repeating frequencies and rhythms associated with the Traveler and the Sky*. The Choir formed to celebrate that Song, since to control life would be to control death, but they could not comprehend it nor wield it themselves. Those who dedicated themselves to the Choir "were merely instruments and nothing more." Finally one member of the Choir, A'Airâm the Stricken, found mastery not by reproducing the impossible Song of Life but by finding its fundamental notes and harmonies and reversing them, weaving the first Deathsong and slaying the First Conductor of the Choir in the process. Though the Stricken fled, she was captured and..."subjected to inquisition"...and thus Hive Wizards began the study and practice of the Deathsong.

* Worth noting here the unsettling parallels between the Song of Life, a melody that while composed of mundane signals had incomprehensible effects, and the signals deciphered by the Golden Age K1 research team on the Moon when they studied the Anomaly. That artifact, eventually understood to be an antenna communicating with the Deep itself, broadcast a set of otherwise-unremarkable gravitational and EM signals that somehow caused bizarre phenomena, as if that signal were a password recognized by the fabric of the universe itself.

The Deathsong yielded tremendous power - one lore page describes a group of Deathsingers only twenty strong literally destroying an entire literal planet - and Wizards at the highest ranks of the Hive power structure practiced its mysteries. Oryx's twin daughters Ir Anûk and Ir Halak, the Weaver and the Unraveler, are famed Deathsingers that must be defeated before facing down Oryx himself in the Kingsfall raid. The Hive-obsessed Guardian Toland the Shattered joined the First Crota Fireteam so he could search for the Deathsinger Ir Yût within the Moon. Before their descent he explained the Deathsong to Eriana-3 by saying, "But what if what if what if, shhh listen, what if death were reified, described in its totality, made autonomous and universal, separate from any context or condition? What if She could invoke the ending of anything?" Personally I don't think I would have gone into the extra-super-deluxe-haunted Hive Catacombs on the Moon with a fireteam member talking like that, but hey, I'm not Eriana-3. Good thing, too, becase uh...spoiler alert: that fireteam didn't end well.

Toland closed his rant with, "How, then, would She know the song, and sing it, without Herself dying? ... I am so terribly curious to know." And again, while Toland sounds like a half-crazy edgelord who would shit himself and flee at the first sign of danger, I have to give him major points for meaning every damn word he says. Toland really did go into the lunar Catacombs and he really did seek out Ir Yût (leaving his Ghost behind, who died proclaiming "My only regret is that I will not live to see his triumph.") Ir Yût defined for him "the quiddity of death" and thus killed/transformed him into his current sparkle-orb form.

Fast-forward a couple...centuries? however long it's been since the First Crota Fireteam got its shit kicked in...and we're back on the Moon at the Hellmouth, helping out Eris Morn. After completing the main Shadowkeep storyline Eris and Toland (yeah, he's still here) discuss how the Hive faction on the Moon has skilled Deathsingers. Would it be possible, somehow, to borrow that power? As Bad Juju aptly demonstrates Toland has no qualms about harnessing darker magic for Guardian use, and he's still curious enough about the Deathsong to come along and be creepy at us on the quest.

Toland's work turns out to be pretty important since wielding the Deathsong - like reproducing the Song of Life the Choir attempted to master in the first place - isn't as simple as recording and replaying it. Hive Deathsingers literally carve their chitin and bone into new shapes to produce the correct frequencies and it takes decades of practice for the song to etch its patterns into their skulls. So building a weapon of the Deathsong ourselves involves a lot of...um...obtaining Hive bones. From....Hive. We kill a lot of Hive and then we take their bones. Then we kill a bunch of other stuff and record their screams. Then we go into the Hive Catacombs and decapitate an ancient Deathsinger so we can use her skull to figure out how all the resonant chambers work. It's...it's a messy build, is all I'm saying. Somehow instead of a gross pile of Hive bones all that work produces Deathbringer, a Nova Bomb in a can that looks like some sort of weaponized crow. Like if you stuffed a glowing purple crow into a tube so that its head stuck out one end of the tube, and then you aimed it at people and the crow yelled at them which, like, fair, I'd yell too if I were stuck in a tube, but also if it yelled purple and then the purple exploded. Alright, it's not a weaponized crow. But it's not a freaky armature built from bailing twine and Hive skeletons that says "TOLAND WUZ HERE" on one side either, which is what I would have guessed you'd end up with after all that, so....success? Yeah. Let's call it a success.

Destiny 2 Compendium Armarum Exoticarum The Index of Destiny 2's Exotic Weapons

[ Ace of Spades | Ager's Scepter | Anarchy | Arbalest | Bad Juju | Bastion | Black Talon | Borealis | Cerberus+1 | The Chaperone | Cloudstrike | Coldheart | Collective Obligation | The Colony | Crimson | Cryosthesia 77K | DARCI | Dead Man's Tale | Deathbringer | Dead Messenger | Devil's Ruin | Divinity | Duality | Edge of Action/Concurrence/Intent | Eriana’s Vow | Eyes of Tomorrow | Fighting Lion | The Fourth Horseman | Forerunner | Gjallarhorn | Grand Overture | Graviton Lance | Hard Light | Hawkmoon | Heartshadow | Heir Apparent | The Huckleberry | Izanagi’s Burden | The Jade Rabbit | Jötunn | The Lament | The Last Word | Legend of Acrius | Leviathan’s Breath | Lord of Wolves | Lorentz Driver | Lumina | Malfeasance | Merciless | MIDA Multi-Tool | Le Monarque | Monte Carlo | No Time to Explain | One Thousand Voices | Osteo Striga | Outbreak Perfected | Parasite | Polaris Lance | Prometheus Lens | The Prospector | Queenbreaker | Rat King | Riskrunner | Ruinous Effigy | Salvation's Grip | Skyburner’s Oath | Sleeper Simulant | Sturm | Sunshot | SUROS Regime | Sweet Business | Symmetry | Tarrabah | Telesto | Thorn | Thunderlord | Ticuu's Divination | Tommy's Matchbook | Tractor Cannon | Traveler's Chosen | Trespasser | Trinity Ghoul | Truth | Two-Tailed Fox | Vex Mythoclast | Vigilance Wing | The Wardcliff Coil | Wavesplitter | Whisper of the Worm | Wish-Ender | Witherhoard | Worldline Zero | Xenophage ]

[v-arbellanaris]

soooo many delicious thoughts on the dash abt how fucked inquisition is. because it is fucked. considering the chantry is the arm of orlesian imperialism (ref mllemaenad's meta which i cant link atm bc mobile) and the inquisition effectively replaces the chantry... consider orlais' history of violent colonialist occupation of multiple nations including ferelden... consider that the original inquisition became the chantry's military force (the seekers & the templars)... consider that the current inquisition only had close ties to orlesian nobility & the orlesian ruling class (you literally decide the victor of the civil war who then provides you with troops? you have casual conversations with the emperor/empress WHILE THEY'RE STANDING *INSIDE FERELDEN* with AN ARMY? the exact thing loghain, one of the key members of the ferelden rebellion, refused to allow bc it was a pretext for invasion?)... consider that you decide the "fate" of the order, the circles, the seekers (aka the three main military aspects of the chantry) but you can't dismantle the chantry... consider the pretext of occupying terrorities under the claim of "restoring order" (esp w the uglie real world parallels here)... inquisition is literally a colonialist jerk-off. that's why orlais supports you (and presses for orlesian oversight) at the exalted council; you & the inquisition serve their imperialist agenda. you've effectively replaced the chantry as the arm of orlesian imperialism. and instead of that being a horrific thing, ferelden (the main nation you occupy with military force) is the bad guy and was like "asking" to be colonised because they let you in their borders to close the rifts that no one else could close and now you're occupying all their trading points

[euryalex]

25 Dragon Age Questions

Thank you @aimryax and @lelibela for tagging me ^-^ idk who to tag so go ahead if you want to do this

01) Favourite game of the series?

DA2, probably?

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

ok so i was playing the sims w origin and i was like ‘hmm i want free game’ so i started playing the da:i demo but a while later i met my friend @swingxilly and she and her best friend played it so i was like ‘ok imma try too’

03) How many times you’ve played the games?

hmm DA:O once, DA:II twice and da:i... 10 times completely, at least

04) Favourite race to play as?

hmm imma go with.... human

05) Favourite class?

Mages!!!

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

nope i do the same thing every time

07) Go-to adventuring group?

DAO: Alistair, Wynne and Leliana

DA2: idk anders is permanently there, for sure

DAI: idk? Sera, a lot, or Blackwall. Mostly Sera, Vivienne and Cassandra bc they’re overpowered

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

hmmm I guess Evan?? idk?

09) Favourite romance?

Leliana, Anders, Sera and Dorian

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

I read the first book and I’m trying to read the others

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

The Stolen Throne

12) Favourite DLCs?

hmm idk like... the DLC in DA:O and DAII are nice but the fact that DA:I portrays the Inquisition as good and pure and totally not filled with spies and the chantry as a good thing, but then you get to the DLC which is just... a major punch in the face lol

13) Things that annoy you.

the racism, the homophobia, the ableism and all that

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Ferelden

15) Templars or mages?

Mages

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

hmm no, don’t think so :p

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

ok so i had a mabari named cole bc my childhood friend had a dog named cole and i miss him. and in da2 i had barkspawn

18) Have you installed any mods?

i amn..........;;a poor consol player.................................i canot change this.....................

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

Solona was glad to be gone from the circle.

Lyna didn’t want to leave at all lol. duncan had to use the uhh conscription thingy bc she kept being like ‘no let me stay here and die plz’

Elissa wanted to join from the beginning

And Faren... idk i think he wanted to stay in Orzammar

20) Hawke’s personality?

My Marian is blue :D

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

Not intently, or directly. Sera and Valyna wore matching colours once, that’s the only one i remember

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

Solona: hmm........ idk? Oh, go back to save the dude’s daughter in Redcliffe (bc i’m a dum dum who forgot)

Marian: go back in time to save her mom, tell anders she knows what he’s doing and how she approves...

Evan: Hmm... he’s a dork and wouldn’t change anything he’d just go back to fall in love with dorian all over again

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

hmm no not really

24) Who did you leave in the Fade?

Loghain lol. i love hawke, stroud and alistair too much and loghain can die for all i care

25) Favourite mount?

BATTLE NUG! BATTLE NUG! BATTLE NUG!

[superfluouskeys]

Dragon Age Meme!

OMG I left this in my drafts for weeks, oops!  Tagged by @idrelle-miocovani 

Tagging @rocket2saturn @artwaffle142 @butchmoira @takingtheuniverse @thevikingwoman @blessedrighteous @mirandaputsherbestbuttforward @thewindysideofcare uhhhhh idk also if you wanna do it tag me back I love to know abt people’s DA experiences!

01) favorite game of the series?

DA2 LOL

02) how did you discover Dragon Age?

DA:O was free on Origin right before Inquisition came out, and I’m a sucker for a free thing--then the Inq graphics and also Cassandra drew me into the void and now I live here.

03) how many times you’ve played the games?

I’ve done uhhhhhhhhhhh 4 full playthroughs of DA:O, plus a smattering of others mostly just for the origin stories and then I abandoned them around ostagar

I’ve done 2 full playthroughs of DA:I, plus a couple of others I abandoned at various points

I’ve done so many playthroughs of DA2 I honestly have no idea LOL I love that trash game w my entire soul.

04) favorite race to play as?

Gotta love that Elf lore!!!!

05) favorite class?

Mage!!!  Though I do like two-handed warrior in DA2, because a. it’s basically auto-aim and b. Bethany is my child

06) do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

In DA2 and Inq I make a lot of the same decisions because they’re things I care a lot about, eg. saving certain characters or getting the content I like best.  With Origins I’ve varied my major choices a little more, but a lot of the time it comes down to me being lazy and not wanting to do a lot of extra leg work for people I don’t even care about LOL.  I feel a little more comfortable making different choices in DA2 because the game is low-time commitment so a. I don’t mind replaying sections to change things and b. I really love the game and I know I’ll play it again

07) go-to adventuring group?

DA:O -- honestly if I can get away with Morrigan, Wynne, Leliana I will

DA2 -- AM LOVE THEM ALL OKAY

DA:I -- Cassandra and Solas are standbys and then I change up the third companion

08) which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

Honestly even though I use the default Hawke design and name I feel like I’ve put the most thought into her character hahaha like I’ve fleshed out Warden Ivana and Elonaya Lavellan for writing purposes, but I’m not super attached to very much about them besides basic look and disposition.  Specifics change by story and it doesn’t really affect how I play the game.

09) favorite romance?

DA:O -- I don’t romance anyone because I have problems(TM) with all of them LOL

DA2 -- Fenris

DA:I -- Solas

I always prefer the slow burn/angsty option, and I get uncomfortable when romances are too overtly sexual lol

10) have you read any of the comics/books?.

I’ve only read The Masked Empire--couldn’t get into any of the others.  I liked some stuff about it--fast paced and a lot of plot twists, but like,,,,,,,,,,,,,i showed up for the lesbians and I did not care abt anything else.

11) if you read them, which was your favorite book?

^^^

12) favorite DLCs?

I haven’t played them recently enough to remember which I liked better, so I’mma say Descent and Trespasser!!!!  But I’ve still yet to play most of the Origins DLCs

13) things that annoy you.

Unnecessary fetch quests and the way a lot of the romances feel very weird and too fast  (((though to be fair I am an emotionally stunted goblin)))

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

Gotta go with Ferelden man---they have doges!!!

15) templars or mages?

Definitely pro-mage, but I support Meredith throughout most of DA2 bc I’m trash

16) if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

Different universes I guess--that’s not the kind of thing I devote much thought to.

17) what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

I usually name DA:O doge Bertholt and DA2 doge Logan Handsomepants

18) have you installed any mods?

I’ve used romance mods for Morrigan and Cassandra, and mods that removed some of the aggressive make-up, but that’s about it.

19) did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

The Circle is all Warden Ivana has ever known, and she doesn’t relish the thought of leaving, but at that point she basically has no will of her own and trusts her life entirely to the established authority, so she doesn’t really possess the wherewithal to resent the choice made on her behalf.

20) hawke’s personality?

Purple with a side of Red or Blue depending on playthrough

21) did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

Nah I’m lazy as fuck

22) if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?  

Ivana Amell: being more emotionally present and aware of her friends in the Circle

Marian Hawke: Hawke’s whole life is a swirling mass of regret; she wouldn’t know where to start

Elonaya Lavellan: Often very much wishes she had never left her clan in the first place.

Taman Adaar: She’s a no-regrets kinda gal--can’t change the past, and the past made you who you are.

23) do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

My fave headcanon, which I use in most of my DA2 stories, is that Hawke is a mage who disguises herself as a warrior/whom Varric paints as a warrior to protect her.  She is surprised and very concerned when Meredith doesn’t call her on it, since templars are supposed to be able to tell.  Meredith doesn’t call her on it until she snaps.  For me it adds a more believable layer of why Hawke would be afraid of/beholden to Meredith when she has status and influence of her own, and if she’s already lost her sibling.  Plus I love to suffer LOL

There are also a few very weird companion conversations where there’s not really a satisfactory response because the dialogue is so pointed, and we just pretend those didn’t happen.

24) are any of your character(s) based on someone?

Nope

25) who did you leave in the Fade?

The first time I played I left Stroud in the fade--I didn’t know who Hawke was, and it was default man Hawke with like a red personality I think?  But everyone seemed to love Hawke on the internet so I was like well I should save him lol.

The second time I engineered it so I had Alastair and saved him over Hawke, just to see what happened, but every other time I’ve saved Hawke.

26) favorite mount?

I remember getting really into collecting mounts my last playthrough but I don’t remember caring that much about the actual mounts lol it was just the act of acquiring them