#da thoughts

[yshtal]

brosca is the only one who will ever see Duncan as a savior, at the end of the war.

you’re a human noble. you’re a proud, happy member of house cousland. when howe betrays your family and you’re there, terrified, in the cellar with the shattered remains of your dying family, it’s you and your mother against the world. your mother: the pain-in-the-ass, hardheaded, spitfire of a woman that sassed you yesterday about manners is beside you, her eyes haggard and haunted. “He’s my husband,” she says, begging, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “He’s your father, and he’s dying, and I love him. Whatever he faces next, he faces it with me.”

She cannot be argued with. She cannot be reasoned with. You can beg and beg and beg your mama to come with you, to survive beside you, but the outcome will always be the same. Duncan will ask you to leave, and she will choose to stay. How can you live with that?

(It’s poetic justice, perhaps, how quickly you come to understand it.)

—-

You are a dwarven princess, beloved of the house aeducan, noble of caste and certain of birthright, when your brother betrays you.

Not the brother you expected to betray you, of course. Your bosom friend, your sovereign sibling. The one who would’ve had your back eternally, if the wide expanse of the throne hadn’t stood in the way. If only love could’ve bridged the chasm. the warden bridges what Trian could not, what Bhelen would not - a last-minute pardon, excusing you from a game you never knew you were playing.

(you had a birthright, certainly, and it was taken from you. all else you cling to is stolen valor now.

checkmate.)

—-

You are the young bride tabris, and your husband stands there bleeding.

Your cousin has already been stolen away, and it hurts, how innocent she was, when so much of you had been stolen away. You would’ve stood in her place a thousand times, and all the evil, lecherous, unspeakably human hands in the world wouldn’t have stopped you, if it meant shielding Shianni. Your husband, bright-eyed and already dying, even if he knows it not, comes to save you. He does not know you, but he saves you from horrors that you have braced against a thousand times before, before he knew you, even if it does not matter. he is noble, in that way.

Duncan is noble too. He offers you a way out - a way out from your family, from your friends, from the only world you have ever - could ever - know. he offers you a chance to die on the battlefield instead of dying in the cellar, before you would ever know this suffering, the suffering laid on you at birth, by mere sin of being elven.

(To die without knowing. Isn’t that worse?)

—-

You are mahariel, free to the wind, to the rain, to the very corruption of nature.

shemlen in the forest was an ill enough omen. to come with grave warnings of burial grounds and curses and demons? you should have fixed your young dalish curses on them, da’len, on what they wrought, and you should’ve turned and fled

you did not, and, by your side, he did not. in another world, you would have lived by his side. in this one, you watch him die again and again.

(it is in your nature, after all, the watching over of dying things.)

—-

You are a mage, human or elven, and it makes little difference.

the maker hates you regardless, or so the templars say. You are good, perhaps, and you turn them in, or else you are kind. It matters little to Andraste, if she’s the one listening, or to anyone else.

Duncan speaks. He offers you refuge, outside of the Circle, far from home. You’ve never seen sunlight unobstructed before, let alone war. You have to choose - Tranquility, or a noble death, somewhere down the road.

(it isn’t a choice, not really. it was made for you before you were even born.)

—-

but you, grey warden, you are something special.

He offers you a worthy death, somewhere in that nebulous future, and you don’t have to worry about how it comes anymore. You know where death will take you - on the doorstep of one darkspawn or another, not here, gasping, in the dirt.

Your sister says this life is worth it.

And it is, isn’t it, for yourself, for your family, for the few lonely friends that you leave behind? for finally, desperately, clawing your w ay out of poverty, even when it costs you everything? for rica to be safe?

(It will be worth it.

It must be worth it.)

[sins-of-the-dragon]

Two Sides of a Coin with No Edge - Anders and Fenris Parallels

A little analysis that isn't really that well organised right now but I have plenty of thoughts around how these two are opposite and yet so similar...

More beneath the cut~

Names - Anders never had a name, or he likely doesn’t remember it. What he uses is what was given to him. It has little to no meaning. Fenris gave up his name, and had it replaced with one with meaning. The meaning being almost derogatory, another form of ownership over his identity, but it’s one that eventually he could drop and take his original back when he meets Varania. He could...but no. He's not Leto any more, and can't be. That's lost. As lost as Anders' original name and who he might have been before the magic manifested.

Family - Anders has no way to ever know or track down his family. They're gone, all knowledge of them severed from him. (Unless this is covered in a book or comic I haven't got to yet). Fenris actually has a chance to reunite with his sister Varania, to know more about their mother too, but...he also can't. She's a mage, a symbol of everything he has learned to hate and fear from years of pain. How could he resume that connection?

Safety - Anders is being hunted. He’s always going to be hunted. The phylactery can track him, and if not he can likely be traced by what he’s done, where he goes. Even when the Wardens mean he can stop being pursued as an apostate, leaving them means getting chased down for that instead. Fenris is also being hunted. He has been for a long time…but once Danarius is gone, he’s free. He has an out.

Persecution - As a mage, Anders has always had that prejudice towards him. But in other ways he could blend in if he wanted to. He’s human, he could choose not to use magic once he has control over it and wear less obvious robes. He could potentially hide properly. Not that he would given who he is, but the option is there. Fenris will always be an elf, and his tattoos can’t be hidden. They’re going to mark him apart even from other elves. He was born in a place where not only was he going to be a second class citizen from day 1 as elves are across most of Thedas, but most of his people are enslaved too.

Control - Both of them have little control over the powers that are bound to them, even though both chose it. Fenris might not remember, but it is clear he made a decision to have the lyrium bound to him. Just like Anders chose to bring Justice into himself. They both show that emotions can bring out those abilities or that side of them. Fenris glows with his rage just as much as Justice comes to the fore when Anders is in a strong emotional state or faced with certain situations.

Emotions - They are also both highly emotional people. Anders shows more of the swings back and forth, with all kinds of emotions felt more strongly than most people - whether that is how quickly and deeply he falls in love, or how furious he becomes with injustice. His emotions are at the fore, strong, powerful, because that’s how he is, who he is. Fenris on the other hand struggles more purely with anger, frustration, and a very violent reaction to certain situations and people. He doesn’t allow himself to feel close to people easily because that might be a weakness someone can use against him. It takes him a lot to hold back from hurting Varania when he hears about his past, and he’s clearly still struggling with anger even after Danarius is gone.

Forgiveness - Both of them have a strong sense of justice, just aimed in different directions. Anders has felt the oppression of being a mage and everything that goes with that for most of his life. Fenris has felt the same but the source of that has been mages. Anders can’t forgive the Templars any more than Fenris can let go of his fear/hate of magic. They both know and eventually accept there can be good people on the other side, but it takes them a long time to get to that point. And neither can forgive the society that enabled their persecution.

They have so much in common but they can never see it, never truly reconcile. Anders sees someone who is determined to oppress his people, who only believes them to be dangerous and violent, who thinks the only way to prevent harm is to lock them all up and control them even if they’re innocent. Fenris sees someone who wants to unleash danger on the world, to let criminals and enslavers run wild and free to use people like him for their own power, who wants to set every mage free without supervision, inviting abominations to destroy everything good and precious in the world.

By design they can never see eye to eye, even the most determined therapist would concede they both have too much pain to reconcile as acquaintances.

Two sides of the same coin with no way to balance on the edge.

--- That's about all the thoughts I have in me for now~

[kaija-rayne-author]

Really starting to feel like a conspiracy theorist over here with Dragon Age, but I'm just thankful the special interest is sticking around.

In the scene where you ask Solas if he wants the power of the well... he sounds pretty vehement in that scene. And shuts the possibility of him being the one down rather abruptly for such a smooth speaker.

What if he knows it'll enslave him again?

There's a working theory that Mythal enslaved him based on a few bits of lore, one of which is his forehead scar. It's canon that he got it when he burned Mythal's vallaslin from himself.

Which, if he was entirely pleased with her/her actions, why would he do that? "Burn the vallaslin"... that must've hurt like blazes.

In his time, they were supposedly slave markings. I don't think he was lying to Inky about that. He generally doesn't lie smoothly or well. He can act, but only to a certain point.

Finished Tevinter Nights and was absolutely blown away by The Dread Wolf Take You. Charter is my new favourite bad-ass.

Like with many anthologies, some stories I blew through, and some, the author's voice just didn't work for me. In one or two, the antics the characters got up to dearly needed a 'hey, uh, physics doesn't work that way and have you ever actually seen a great coat?' poke or three from a decent developmental editor.

By and large, most of the stories were good. I've definitely added to my list of things I think likely in Dreadwolf. I get the strong impression we'll be seeing at least some of those characters, monsters, or locations again in Dreadwolf. Highly recommend reading the books and comics, btw.

They're quite fun, and add a lot of lore and context to the games. I've still got The Missing to read, then the companion books. I will say the first book, The Stolen Throne, is a bit rough and feels anticlimactic. But the rest are good to mind-blowingly awesome.

[daisymeade]

Just read the latest issue D/A comic.

So...las leaving that letter like "I don't want to be the villain in your stories and I'm going to minimize the damage as much as I can."

Like ah yes, purposefully trying to do something that'll cause worldwide death, destruction, and chaos but not as much as it could be! You're just soooo sad about all the unnecessary harm that you have to cause when you could just...idk...train and teach modern folks you think aren't really your people.

And don't get me started on how the fandom talks about elves getting their "perfect world" back, actively ignoring that dwarves were there too and it was far from perfect for THEM. No one cares about dwarves though.

[inarcadiac]

How many vague posts are you going to make before you actually say why you're upset? Genuinely, what don't you like about it

hey anon

I think this video should explain it better than I could

[biowho]

The first woman I ever fell in love with should at least have a tarot card if she's not going to be in Veilguard

here's bethany

Edit!!! I’ve never been more happy to be wrong

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[circuscountdowns]

various no context narilamb doodles

[mourn-and-watch]

[npcanders]

i feel like i’ve seen so many people dunking on origins and it’s usually people who were introduced to da through inquisition. similarly there have been origin supremacists (me) saying inquisition is the worst game

that is to say, what dragon age game did you first play and which one is your favourite? i played da:o first and like it the best. (also play origins if you haven’t)

[yshtal]

I think it would be rly sick if you went to go build a crow rook and the surname was Arainai

like…. just another little compradi trying to bring glory back to your house - rinnala and taliesin are dead by the house’s hand, zevran failed and deserted, guili murdered in the night, all semblance of power lost once again. the house is trying to claw its way back up, futile as it seems. that’s the way of house arainai, isn’t it? talon to knife to talon to knife to nothing, same as it’s been since the house first lost power in the early dragon age. but you, bright-eyed little crow, you’ll break the cycle, won’t you? for the family?

after all, caterina’s prized heir is right there - the demon of vyrantium, the infamous mage killer, sleeping just down the hall. you can be quiet, can’t you? all those means at your disposal, and all the opportunities you could want. you could find a way in under that armor, get to something soft and bruisable and make it bleed. he’s far from home, isn’t he? without a friend? confidantes are few and far between - even a demon must get lonely.

maybe he’d even trust you. you’re a clever little bird, right? you can find something to exploit. after all, what does a would-be talon do except claw, except maim? what else would you be good for? there is no gentleness to crows - you are here to deliver a message: run, little demon, quick as you like.

house arainai will make carrion of you yet.

[mirageshot]

Seems like a waste of a perfectly handsome elf.

[dustyhyena]

if nintendo isn't gonna elaborate on how agent 4 is involved in side order then im gonna do it myself in the stupidest way possible

[bishicat]

You believe me like a god I'll destroy you like I am

:-).

[stay-close]

Being willing is not enough. We must do.

Leonardo da Vinci

[timethehobo]

Tfw you just wanted to check in on a companion and they start a whole cutscene talking about their problems.