#the way kirkwall is its own character to me.... the way its the villain AND the victim of da2.....

[rosykims]

can you imagine if da2 had 18 more months of development time lol.

[venvellan]

da2's arishok is a good villain. if you have a fundamental understanding of the qun and listen to his thought process, the things he does makes sense. he uses the qun to justify slaughtering kirkwall's people, which is utterly inexcusable and what makes him a villain, but his character is complex enough to make dealing with him that much more thought provoking. he sends agents to kill petrice because she was killing his people, he doesn't give up the elves because they committed their lives to the qun, no matter how recently they converted, and he refuses to leave without the tome (and isabela) because his idea of justice hasn't been done. his logic makes sense, generally, though it is wrong on more than one occasion. he isn't moral, but he is methodical.

i feel this way about solas, too. i like da2's arishok for the same reasons that initially draw people to solas, i think. when we meet them, i find them interesting and educational to talk to, someone worthy of respect, and someone very honorable in their own way. similarly, many of my issues with solas compare with flaws in the qun/the arishok.

solas asserts that all of his beliefs are correct, and we're never allowed to challenge him on any of it. if he has high enough approval, he'll approach you to go, "yknow, i thought you were all [insert prejudice or stereotype] but YOU showed me that some of you guys are actually okay," which is NOT what it looks like for someone's beliefs to be challenged.

brief aside, i want to be fair in that we don't get this opportunity with many of the companions, and it's not even an inquisition specific issue. the dialogue format is agree, joke, be mean, and it's flawed, but it works in the majority of interactions. we don't really get to engage in nuanced discussions with characters, but there are positives and negatives to the system overall. it is possible to challenge and shape a character within this dialogue system (i.e., garrus vakarian) but in dragon age that really only comes in the form of harden/unharden. it was a little more doable with origins' system, but it really hasn't been a huge part of any dragon age game. most characters' beliefs remain largely unchanged by you regardless of how you play.

solas also possesses a strong sense of duty and purpose, though what duty he has, what his true goals are, he keeps hidden as long as he can. the most damning comparison though, to me, is how willing he is to destroy the world and bring back "his people," while the qunari fight to conquer the world and homogenize society into "their people."

in any case, with both him and the arishok, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. you can see why they do what they do, even if it's wholly immoral. it makes their threat a lot more personal, a lot scarier, psychologically, that a "normal" person, who doesn't want to cause suffering, can hold such specific beliefs and such strong conviction that knowing that they'll hurt people doesn't give them any pause. the root of their motivation is understandable. solas wants to right his wrongs, at his core. the arishok implicitly believes that the qun is safer, better for its people than life outside the qun. we can see that they're taking it too far, but they don't care. it makes them good villains.

"i am not corypheus, i take no joy in this." sure, which is a very similar sentiment, emotionally, to the qunari sense of duty. you can say you don't enjoy it all you want, you're still committing genocide. you can hate the qunari all you want, but you fight with their ferocity, their unshakeable faith in their own cause. their need to "do what's right," no matter who's caught in the wake.

i understand why people like solas, i go back and forth on it myself, but i don't think he's all that different from the arishok in method and motivation. they're each thrust into a world so different from what they believe is "right" that they demand it change around them. if we had to kill the old arishok, then if solas refuses to give up, he will have to die. he doesn't get to do genocide just because he's romanceable. he's a good character, he's a good villain, but he's not a good guy, and unless he stops before he does any real harm (which he will not do), he should share the arishok's fate.

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[wizardofozymandias]

14 Days of DA Lovers Prompts, Day 3: “You Drive Me Crazy”

Written for the @14daysdalovers prompt event. 

Prompt: “You Drive Me Crazy”

Pairing: Varric/Female Hawke

Characters: Varric Tethras, Marian Hawke

Warnings: Mentions of Canon-Typical Violence, Blood, Injury, Self-Destructive Behavior

Summary: When Hawke almost dies fighting the Arishok, Varric ends up exposing more of his heart than he planned the next time he talks to her. 

It was three days before Hawke was awake for more than a few minutes at a time. Every time she woke up, she was in a haze of pain. The last thing she remembered was someone shouting about “the Champion of Kirkwall,” just before she collapsed in a pool of her own blood. 

Voices drifted in and out of her dreams. Sometimes she heard one of her friends (it seemed to be Anders often) while at other times she heard Carver or Bethany or her mother. The speakers never seemed to materialize; she only heard their voices, and never any words she could understand. The only exception was when her mother kept calling her Marian. At least I can remember my own name, Hawke thought. That should count for something. 

Three days after the duel, Hawke finally opened her eyes and the room didn’t swim away into the dark. Every inch of her ached. She wondered if this was how a sword felt on a blacksmith’s anvil. Good thing swords couldn’t think or feel—at least as far as she knew.

She turned her head. When did my head turn into an iron cauldron full of oatmeal? was the first thought that crossed her mind. Her skull felt so heavy, while her brains felt like mush.

The thought of oatmeal, of mush, sent her stomach churning, which made her head hurt worse. Although “worse” seemed an irrelevant concept. Measurements of pain didn’t seem to apply anymore, once you had reached “molten metal being pounded into shape by a hammer” levels of misery. 

A groan staggered its way up her throat, tripped, and came out half a cough. The motion rattled her ribs and made her eyes water.

“Hawke!” came a quiet voice from nearby.

The faint firelight revealed that Varric had been sitting nearby, keeping watch over her.

“Hey,” she said. Or at least, that was what she tried to say. The sound that emerged from her scratchy, parched throat was more like a rusty door hinge creaking open. She cleared her throat, winced, and tried again. “Hello, Varric.” At least it sounded like words this time.

“Hello, yourself.”

“How long have you been here?” she asked.

“Me?” he looked incredulous. “I’ve been in your house for the past three days, ever since they brought the newly-minted Champion of Kirkwall through the door, bleeding like a villain in a Summerday pantomime.”

Hawke tried to laugh. She wheezed instead, but even that hurt. “I guess I took a beating, didn’t I?”

Varric let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s an understatement.”

“You sound upset.”

He took a minute to reply. That was usually a sign that he was holding back his temper. “Hawke, it’s no time to talk about this. I know it’s not. But I’m not sure it can wait.”

Hawke tried to roll over to face him, but her body wouldn’t move. The pain radiated again. “I would at least turn over to look at you, but I’m, uh, stuck,” she rasped.

Varric looked like she had stabbed him. “Oh, Hawke,” he said. “You’re a wreck.”

She let out the pathetic wheeze that currently served as her laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know. And don’t look at me like I’m dead.”

Varric took a deep breath, then stared down at his hands, laced tight in his lap. “Hawke, what was that duel?”

“Other than our best chance to stop the Qunari from taking the city?”

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“You’re gonna have to spell it out for me,” she told him. “I’m not in much shape to think.”

“I’ve seen you fight,” Varric said. His voice was full of barely-restrained emotion. The same voice she had heard him use once before, with Bartrand. “I’ve seen you fight mercenaries and burglars and Qunari. Hell, I’ve even seen you fight a dragon.”

“Living the dream,” Hawke murmured.

“Okay, there, Chuckles. Less joking, more listening. I’m serious this time.”

“I know,” Hawke wheezed. “You sound like you’re about to pull out Bianca and turn me into a pincushion. I’m hoping my jokes might save my hide.”

“Don’t quit your day job,” Varric advised. “My point is, I know how you fight, Hawke. And what I saw three days ago was nothing like that. You egged him on, left yourself open too many times, took too many hits. Worst of all, you looked like you were enjoying it, every time he landed a blow.”

“Varric, I—”

“Listen to me. I know you’re hurting, I know losing your mom hurt you worse than you’ll admit. But Hawke, I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Watching you try to kill yourself.”

“I thought you supported the duel with the Arishok.”

“I did! Because I knew you could take him! Shit, Hawke, you could’ve wiped the floor with that blowhard. But when you walked in there, I could tell you didn’t want to walk out. I don’t know what kind of crazy death wish you’re carrying around, but you need to let it go.”

She closed her eyes, wishing for a minute that she could just go back to sleep again. But Varric had found her out, and she knew it was pointless to try and hide anything now. “Was it that obvious?” she said. 

“To the others? Probably not. But you’re my best friend, Hawke. Shit, I never thought I’d care about anything in this damn town. And then I met you. I don’t have any family left that will claim me, but you and the others are more family to me than Bartrand ever was. And—you—you matter to me too damn much for me to sit by and watch you destroy yourself.” He seemed to be wrestling with what he was about to say next. Finally, he soldiered on. “Andraste’s ass, Hawke. I love you. I never thought I’d say that to someone again. But you walked into my life and settled in like you owned the place. I love you, and you drive me crazy. You get into more scrapes than anyone I’ve ever met and you probably should’ve died ten times over by now. Which is why I can’t stand to see you give up. Not like this. So, whatever problems you have, tell me next time. Or, shit, tell whoever you want. Daisy or Blondie are probably way better listeners than I am. Whatever it takes, just don’t throw your life away.”

If Hawke hadn’t been in her current state of severe injury, she absolutely would’ve had a stronger reaction to everything Varric had just told her. But considering her head still felt like a half-mashed potato, she wound up gaping at him like a cod someone had just hauled out of the harbor. 

With an uncharacteristic show of restraint, Varric ignored her dumbfounded state. “You don’t have to say anything,” he told her. “Just promise me you’ll keep trying to survive. If you can’t do it for your own sake. . .well, it might be selfish of me to say, but I’d like you to do it for mine.”

[common-blackbird]

Started!

This is my Inquisitor (so overjoyed you can be a qunari), her name is the default Herah and I decided I’m going to approach this game by staying true to a character and not looking to do everything and be on everyone’s good side u_u

I want to make a good background for her so i’m not telling anything. Yet. I’ll just say she’s a qunari mercenary and prefers using two-handed weapons.

Highlights from today:

Studying history does pay off! This was a reference to the famous book in environmental history - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. So proud i recognised it x)

Also i don’t have a good shot of solas but he cracks me up so much.. The guy has a posture of the typical retired grandpa (the only thing missing is to have him walk with his hands on his back). And there’s a scene where the party sees the rift and there’s the inquisitor facing it, cassandra bracing herself and solas... just standing like an old man

On a side note, Cassandra is so gorgeous and good and i already love her, i just keep taking shots of her TAT

As for varric, it’s so different than from da2, this is so much more “official” and you can see he’s the same as ever, but you’re not hawke, hawke’s not here, the gang’s not here and there’s nothing casual about the whole situation T-T

And lastly, my inquisitor has a horse now, i didn’t know that was possible in the game ;__;

played some more...

Let  me start with.... The advisors! (+ cassandra... or is she also an advisor too?)

What a bunch. I love Cassandra’s and Leliana’s faith having a crisis bc they believe that Inquisitor is the Herald of Andraste and the way they deal with it. It’s really interesting. Leliana is completely opposite than what she was in origins and i’m surprised it doesn’t bother me at all! I love seeing this whole darker side that was only hinted at in origins, though it’s also sad when i think how she used to be. I wonder how she’s gonna overcome her doubting of faith. 

Josephine is a delight. I keep using her for almost every war table mission for now. She radiates capability. She reminds me of those bureaucrats that are super nice and helpful and chill and even if you’re doing everything wrong she’ll just smile and say “it’s ok, we can fix it” and then goes and fixes everything herself (and you feel this insane amount of gratitude you send a whole separate email to thank her for her patience and help )

As for Cullen... It’s interesting... I got impression from what i saw in the fandom that he’s supposed to have had his allegiance changed and him rejecting the templars should have been him ultimately siding with the mages (or at least being anti-templar(?)), and that turning point that could have been a great way to show his character development during the game. Which i agree, only... i did not get that impression from the game so far at all. I mean, so far everything that i can remember him saying is totally smth he’d say in da2... He didn’t leave kirkwall bc of his disappointment with the templar order, he doesn’t seem to have any issues with the templars except those who go full war mode instead of trying to balance the situation. And it’s a really chaotic situtation, i love how they did it.

This line was amazing, i wish there was a special cutscene for that.

I’m loving the way they made this huge religious organisation in crisis have a complete collapse with the death of a key figure. I love the concept of inquisition and problems that it poses. I love you can see everyone’s reasoning and doubts reflect their background, but also see why inquisition can be understood as another power-grasping organisation trying to topple the templars, the mages and the chantry. Everything is divided. We got templars leaving the chantry, seekers leaving the chantry(?), rebel mages, loyal mages, rebel mages gone rouge, templars gone rouge, and suddenly there’s another organisation forming that you can totally believe is just another powerhungry force trying to get the piece of the cake by taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the sudden lack of the religious authority. (and only we know we’re The Good Guys). I love that we have characters who need to believe in the greater plan, characters who question the greater plan, and characters who want to utilise the power of belief and characters who don’t care for divine plans. The chaos is real and it feels real. I love that the centre figure of the whole holy business is a heretic of another culture. For the chantry this is the lose-lose situation (unless the inquisitor becomes religious by the end of the game). Which is why this line works so well. 

Ok, now shorter updates:

Red Jenny! I know it’s not her actual name but it is in my head. Where’s that box i delivered ages ago >_> Anyways, she makes my brain work on 150% capacity. I can understand what she means only after i go over it for 5 times.

Forgive me but oh my god, i can’t believe that i can recognise one voice actor and now i have another mental image whenever he speaks. Like, he’s really good at bringing out a new character, but when he gets more casual he sounds like kanan jarrus from star wars rebels and i’m just “what are you doing here, space dad” ;__; Hopefully it’ll get old and i’ll be enjoying more iron bull. he seems nice...

Vivienne on the other hand is like a reverse Josephine(?) She seems insanely capable but hates customer service, however somehow she likes you very much and will do everything you need for reasons you can’t fathom. Have a screenshot. So classy. I already feel humbled.

and lastly, BREAKING NEWS: aveline finally hired carver ;__;

Tbh Kirkwall is still a mystery and i have so many questions but i don’t think i’ll get any answers... If a powervacuum of the divine cause this much chaos, how’s kirkwall faring without a new viscount? Like, yeah, aveline can keep in check, but umm it’s in a very vulnerable state which makes it a good target for any invasion... didn’t sebastian promise bloodshed?

That’s all for now, bc otherwise i’ll start writing an essay on cassandra.

We befriended a bear in the hinterlands!

lets start with this cool shot

so, i have been to the mages and to the templars and... i sided with the templars.... First i was all for mages since they offered negotiations while the seeker just walked away, but then it turned out that was a trap, there’s also tevinter mages there (which is a red flag for my inquisitor) and then there’s some time magic involved (which is a big no for me), and i just walked out. Felt bad for the mages but my inquisitor comes from a culture where mages have their tongues cut so...

Also this guy deserves a medal for putting up with corrupted superiors and annoying nobles.

And i met cole ;__; Where are Rhys and Evangeline ;___;

the templar mission was ok i guess... I was surprised that red lyrium was apparently circulating around for some time, not sure if that means since meredith or even before. I love the stories of corruption tho and to imagine what it’s like to be trapped in this organisation that just keeps breaking everything it stands for

As for the important mages, i’ve Dorian twice since i bailed out on him in Redcliffe :I I love the guy, he seems arrogant yet so kind (like, no one would have carried that annoying priest and yet he did, after he ran from his own people to warn us after i ditched him in Redcliffe? man ;A;) Every time i go with “ok the inquisitor fears tevinter and distrusts this rando who just popped in” i am marinating in guilt.

and then we fight some mages and die several times but we succeed and we meet the bad guy...

Is it an unpopular opinion to say that i like him as a villain so far? i saw so many jokes on his incompetency. Idk, i like that part where he said that he reached the fade in someone’s name, it makes me think he’s not just power-hungry person(?) who’s just evil,but was originally serving someone, and he said that the gods were either gone or corrupted and he spent hundreds of years thinking what to do with whatever happened so he seems like he knows what he’s doing and maybe(!just maybe) he is trying to fix things that are wrong but we can’t see that? And of course he hates the inquisitor, he has to redo his stuff all over again, i’d hate the inquisitor too. im probably looking too much into it. My wish is that, if he’s evil, he became so gradually, but originally had good intentions? Or there’s more to things going on that we just don’t know and he does... Maybe this was his tragic attempt to fix things but he would ultimately fail and be branded as a villain etc etc. I’m getting carried away

If it turns out he’s just evil for the sake of being evil then feel free to tell me so now so i don’t embarrass myself further with plotting myself lol.

A side note, is he the Architect? Or the same? In DA2 he says he’s a tevinter magister, right? and he ceased to be a human. Also in DA2 it seemed like he was the boss, and here he said he reached in the name of someone (probably more important than him). But what is the Architect then?

And with that we reach the skyhold.

in skyhold

I didn’t know you meet hawke so soon ;__; i thought that was like, somewere more to the end of the game, since the big decision and all. But the mission is already opened and i am going to procrastinate on it until i finish every side mission :<

Also he is so sad ;__; i understand, but at the same time... all that humour now bitter sarcasm :’(

(also, very shallow remark, but i really really prefer his looks in da2 than here... it’s like they softened him. He’s more...oh god idk bearish(???) than hawkish(????) you know what i mean? the nose isn’t as sharp anymore, the beard is... what is it with the beard... anyways i get the game has its limits so it’s fine. it’s fine! fine.)

then there was the fight that i remember since twitter >:D

It’s what made me want to play dragon age and i finally reached it T-T so good! I love how you can see the both sides and everything they say is true but they’re so angry at themselves they’re taking it out on each other TAT

Cassandra later says Hawke probably wouldn’t have joined the inquisition even if she found him, and i wonder now if that’s true... At first i thought, nah, Hawke has too much of a hero complex, he would feel too responsible to just say no. Besides, he’s with the inquisition now (tho i can’t find him anywhere anymore!). But at the same time, the way da2 ends was such an iconic walking away from everything, and not taking into account the hocus-pocus rift stuff, i can imagine him refusing, especially seeing how bitter he is now. It’s also a question of how much would have cassandra told him i guess. idk, what do you think? Would he lead or nah?

another person i want to find but can’t in skyhold are the templars with ser barris. i can use them on war table missions but otherwise they’re non-existant? i forgot to talk to him back in haven but now i wonder if it was even possible and if he was even available there, since he isn’t here. I spent hours just running around skyhold looking for the guy :(

and then everything becomes unimportant bc aaaaa!! she! is the arcanist! Dagna! im so happy and proud(?) she went and reached her goals x)

anyways that’s all for now, laters

some random updates:

so i did the halamshiral and gave up to my “stick to the character” mode, and nothing went my way, but that’s life. Met morrigan! i almost forgot she appears lol. And, despite also jumping on the wagon of give-morrigan-better-clothes train, i have to admit seeing her in her old clothes was a relief after that dress at the ball. It’s not the way the dressed looked, but the way she moved in it... god im shallow

i also initially didn’t like morrigan being at orlais court of all places, but after the conversation that’s supposed to explain why she’s there i’m kinda ok with it. I mean, i still need some more info. Wouldn’t Tevinter be better? she’d practically become a magister overnight if she got this good in the game so fast. It’s also unconvincing how everyone knows everything in orlais but somehow nobody connected that the random kid that has no bakcground whatsoever with morrigan who keeps checking on him? But at skyhold she’s just “hey i have a kid, he’s no trouble, right?”  but hey, it’s morrigan. She can do anything. I’ll just have another story idea in my head.

Then there was news of the new divine that could be either cassandra or leliana and i don’t honestly know whom to choose. I’d prefer leliana over cassandra simply bc cassandra is more of a military mind, while the position of the divine would be more political. But lately every mission with leliana was spy spy, kill kill... Do we really want that for a religious leader? On the other hand, it would nicely round up her story from origins to inquisition... But cassandra is more of a public figure than leliana is...

when cassandra said:

“I want to respect the tradition, but not fear change. I want to right the past wrongs, but not avenge them. And I have no idea if wanting any of them makes them right.”

great moment. She’s usually so convinced and rash, i forget she’s more doubtful and open minded than what she looks like. Everything about cassandra is different from the impression she gives ;__; I love her so so so so much. (when she says she considers the inquisitor her friend i melted, next time varric pulls up the “seeker has no friends” joke, my heart will no longer be breaking).

I did a bunch of personal missions. Some were cool, some were ????. Also there were war table missions with zevran, that was cool. Also i love the codex entries in skyhold. The archery competition with varric banned? Dancing lessons failing bc lace harding is on the move all the time? Perfect.

And i met chargers, i like them, and aaah that staff-bow from the trailer is such a cool idea ;A;

What i don’t get with bull’s chargers is - they’re a mercenary group right? But isn’t swordselling seen as the complete misunderstanding of the qun? I get only bull is qunari, but he’s the leader of them? How is that not frowned upon?

And lastly, i don’t think i’ve said this, but i love that they added codex entries in the loading screens. love it.

update

After months of procrastination, i have faced my fears and have met alistair. it was very anticlimatic beating 11 level monsters when i was level 21...

but.. ALISTAIR TAT He’s changed... but not changed... but changed! Like, his personality is the same, but he’s more serious, doesn’t run from responsibilities, isn’t as bitter as hawke (also, why do i get impression that i am supposed to get the impression that they’re friends? they’ve met like, once, and talked for less than a minute.. whatevs. let’s pretend they’ve met again when on the run), i really love the inquisition alistair ;;__;;

Also, i managed to get that awkward demon baby family reunion :D

 know that morrigan says the vaguest generic thing “i told him his father was a good man” bc of various world states, but i also think she’s come a long way not to mock alistair, and then when he notices that she didn’t use the opportunity he mentions that the kid changed her and she’s like “pfft, yea right, you wish”....

... when she was the one who said that in the first place ;;__;;

Awwww :> I love that they bicker but softly. Kids have grown up :’) Anyways, when will alistair start paying alimony

The only weird one is Leliana bc when morrigan was introduced she was like “danger danger” (smth i’d sooner think alistair would do), and when alistair is (supposedly) in skyhold, Leli doesn’t even mention him, only hawke.  bruh, what were they to you, you almost died together ;;__;;

oh i also slayed a dragon.  I didn’t even want to fight that dragon. It was a hillarious feat of inquisitor, solas, cole and blackwall, all on level 21, having to chug all the health potions right at the beginning while fighting a dragon that was... level 13, after which i just let go of controls and suddenly everyone was hella good at fighting and slayed it (only cole needed revival several times).  

And, befitting the wild-dream feel that it had, when i got back to skyhold and visited companions, suddenly i was drinking pelin with iron bull, and he’s reminiscing on that fight with the dragon and i’m like

it was awful and you weren’t even there.

i forgot to update

but last time i was playing i finished the hawke/alistair sacrifice and all the torture i went through with deciding whom to sacrifice vanished bc frankly, at one moment, i wanted to sacrifice both of them, but in the end it was much more easier to sacrifice hawke bc inquisition hawke just didn’t feel like hawke to me, while alistair improved since the origins!

and now i remembered why i didn’t update, in the same day cassandra rejected me so i was sad and didn’t continue playing since then (i think last time i played it was around easter?)

new update

BLACKWALL!! or should i say Thom Rainier? Wow, what an arc! It was also so fun bc i was all strict mode, picking the third option, telling him his life is in inquisitor’s hands and all that, but in the end i set him free. He’s so good, a true knight T-T

Also i romanced sera. we’ll see how that goes.

Also, fave point in the game so far, i wanted, for so long, to sit at that val roeayoux (can’t spell) cafe and finally did it with cole’s personal mission. THANK YOU COLE YOU TRULY CAN READ PEOPLE’S MINDS.

another interesting thing was that after specialising as a reaver, cassandra said that drinking dragon blood makes you grow scales and become mad. Iron Bull said that inquisitor smells better bc dragon blood and that qunari generally smell better than humans. So i’m guessing qunari have fractions of dragon in them? ok...

and now i started that mission with morrigan and the puzzles are killing me lol, i am this 👌 close to just go chase calpernia and give up on a well of sorrows.

[basementdwellercreaturefeature]

You suck so bad and I fucking love you for it.

@tevinter-pariah said something that got me both excited and depressed at the same time: “Anders is everything that people fear about mages while trying to prove that they aren’t to be feared.” 

Goddamn. The irony here is exquisite and why I so thoroughly enjoy this franchise. It’s ripe with this kind of shit. The cruel dichotomy we see in so many Dragon Age characters are why I keep falling deeper and deeper in love with it and its why I wheeze for my favorite shifty apostates. Especially my wife, Morrigan, who is my wife and we are married as she is my wife. Allow me this moment to rhapsodize about my favorite magical fuck-ups. Starting with the sewer doctor, moving on to the swamp witch and then finally the ethereal egg.

Now, I could talk about Anders all day and frankly I kind of do. That man is irony walking around in a trench coat, pretending to be human. His desire to remove the stigma about mages leads him down a hellspiral in which all he does is increase the stigma about mages. In an attempt to start a revolution and fight for mage freedom, he inadvertently increases the prevalence of fear-based ideology against mages that makes them cling to their Circles more and supports public opinion that they are imbalanced and dangerous. Anders does more for anti-mage sentiment than most Templars do in a lifetime and it makes me want to both punch the shit out of him and give him a hug because that is the last thing he ever intended.

The tragic irony here is both life-giving and devastating and it makes me feel a lot of shit and write a lot of blog posts. Justice enables him with the fortitude to take action for mage-rights, but the influence of Justice drives him toward a No Compromise™ solution that is so disconnected and extreme it entirely undermines his cause. It practically puts me in a coma thinking of post-Kirkwall Anders, a man who we are shown has immense compassion, realizing that he sacrificed lives in hopes of the ends justifying the means and then nothing changes it only gets worse for mages. 

He really sucks.

And my wife, Morrigan, who is my wife, is both harsh and gentle, cold and inviting, powerful and weak. She almost took my Warden’s goddamn kid from him and it broke my heart but man, her arrogance is somehow endearing because its so often sourced in uncertainty. The deeper you go, the more you want to reach out and offer a comforting embrace to the woman who struggles with both knowing too much and too little all at once. No, you don’t try to change her. You shouldn’t, she can change on her own. But you want to be there for her while she tears through the tangle of her own emotions, to see the untrusting swamp witch open for you when you earn it. So much of what drives Morrigan is being different from Flemythal but so much of what she does she only does because of what Flemythal herself instilled in her. 

In Origins, she is innocent of so many things. Human interaction, friendships, romantic relationships, the human-built world around her. Yet she is filled with vast lore knowledge and is both wise and willing to lend you that knowledge when you need it. She is capable of childish innocence and exceptional cruelty (ex. kittens holy cow). Morrigan is only able to keep Kieran safe for as long as she is because of the knowledge she gained from the one she is protecting him from. By the time we see her in DAI, she determined to be different than her mother but is still driven toward restoration of old magics and old histories based on the values instilled in her in her childhood. In so many ways, she has grown and changed. In others? Not so much. She still knows how to manipulate, she still can be cruel, she is more concerned with gaining access to the power of the Well than protecting the culture that created it. For someone who loves ancient lore, she is willing to shit on it to get her way.

She really sucks.

Solas is... different. I don’t have the kind of affection for him per say that I do for Morrigan and Anders. For them, I want safe spaces and soft whispers and great sex and the kind of laughter that makes their stomache ache. For Solas? I want to lock him in an Eluvian without access to the Crossroads somehow so he dies alone, gazing through the glass at a world and a woman he will never touch again. No, I am not bitter why would you think that. Honestly, I struggle with a pretty intense hatred toward the Dread Egg and find it hard to empathize with his plight after he revealed his intentions for Thedas. It isn’t a plight I find sympathetic, it downright turns me into a rage beast and I am often prone to frantically smashing my keyboard about him, staring the sentence off with “let me tell you about this mother fucker” or something of the like. But as a writer? I worship that elf. Patrick, your employment of the iam keeps me h y d r a t e d. That same exquisite tragic irony is present in everything Solas does. In his desire to restore, he destroys. In his desire to remedy, he creates more complication. It’s this heartbreaking destructive cycle that never ceases to enthrall me narratively. He is weighted with regret for a cycle he perpetuates, both sure of himself and desperately divided. He is the smartest stupid person there is. In an effort to bury the tyranny of the Evanuris, he himself becomes tyrannical in his refusal to allow the people of Thedas agency in their own fate. He is cruel and kind, humble and prideful, intelligent and foolish, childlike in his enjoyment of the sensual and austere in his refusal to engage in it. Solas is the man lighting his own pants on fire screaming, “Only I can fix it!” at the top of his lungs, as the team has put it. How can you not enjoy a villain like that? 

He also really sucks.

But its because the shifty apostates suck so hard that I love them so much, and in Morrigan and Anders case, why I am so deeply attached to them and what happens to them. I am new to the Dragon Age fandom and new to fandom culture in general, and I see something in this fandom that puzzles me exceedingly. Support is often equated to full acceptance and criticism is often equated to complete condemnation. I can recognize that Morrigan is cruel and selfish and still love her wit and strength and resilience. Similarly, I can recognize that Anders is reckless and self-righteous and immature and still appreciate how compassionate he is and his taste in cat names. With Solas, I can admire the eloquence of his writing and the subtle egg snark and his passionate nature while still recognizing that he is elitist and dangerous and a threatening antagonist. 

Being positive or negative in commentary is not about romanticizing a character or demonizing them, in my opinion. To me, it should be more about what view am I taking here? Am I looking through a lens of understanding in a desire to empathize? Or am I looking through the lens of critique to try to be more objective? Believe it or not, I can love Fenris and Anders, Alistair and Loghain. I can be anti-Circle while still recognizing the validity of them as an institution. I can be proud to be a Grey Warden while also highly critical of Duncan and the tactics of the Wardens in general. In the morally grey world of Thedas, a black and white view doesn’t really allow you to experience the full range of everything being offered. Let’s try to be more gay and more gray.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk, have some killer piece by @withoutafuss​ because it really is one of the best Dragon Age pieces out there. 

[spookieloop]

5 MALE CHARACTERS I LOVE

Tagged by: @fadedjacket Thank you!!! I think I’m also going to take the opportunity to go on about WHY I love these characters

1: Doom-Head (Rob Zombie’s 31)

First and Foremost I love Doom-Head because I’m thirsty AF, but beyond that the character absolutely steals the show; Richard Brake gave a STUNNING performance. He’s a fun character because he seems like he’d be just an edgy-grimdark type of character, but he is the kind of loser trash man who says the word “dong” and loves the sound of his own voice so much he fucks himself over(and he absolutely IS an edgelord). BEYOND affectionate ripping on the character, he is actually so TRAGIC when you think about the time period the movie takes place in, and the fact that Rob Zombie is a very smart man with a great love of the time period. In the movie, we catch glimpses of Doom-Head’s mental state, which is obviously...suffering; compounded by the fact that the movie takes place in the late 70s, and the fact that the character is at least in his forties(Brake is in his 50s), there was absolutely no such thing as decent mental health care in his youth. I could talk for hours about this character. And I have on my Horror Side Blog @its-monster-mash

2: Porter Gage (Fallout 4)

I HAVE talked for hours about how much I love Porter Gage and why, I run a Gage Request blog at @raiders-r-us, and a general fallout sideblog @0nce-in-a-bluem00n

Basically, Porter Gage is a companion in Fallout 4’s Nuka World DLC and is your second in command as you lead and manage a group of Raiders; though he has personal morals that go above and beyond your standard raider. If you go down his friendship/romance route, he will open up to you about his backstory and how he became a raider in the first place. In short, as he grew up he watched his family constantly knuckle under to raider gangs, and at age 13 he ran off and joined a mercenary company...who also knuckled under to raiders. So from 16 on he’s been a raider. It’s the only life he ever really knew.

I ADORE his character because if his parents had stood up to the raiders, or his mercenary company had been a little tougher, Gage would almost definitely not have become a raider. Unlike the typical raiders of the Fallout universe, Gage hates chem use, and has a strong work ethic(to the point where he will get pissed if the player chooses lazy dialogue choices); those two things alone set him above the rest, but it also can’t be ignored how intelligent Gage is. He’s been leading the Nuka raiders from the sideline(he chooses to be second in command to avoid a bullseye on his back) since before they found Nuka World, he cares deeply about his people whether he would admit it or not. IN SHORT, Gage is such a dynamic character and I live for that shit.

3: John Seed (Far Cry 5) Farcry Sideblog is @wrath-of-eden

Dear Sweet Johnny Boy. Honestly, I walked into the living room when my husband was playing Far Cry, the loading screen with John’s picture came up, and we were both SHOOK because he resembles my husband A LOT(like right down to the outfit, John’s outfit is basically what my husband wore to our wedding); so I was predisposed to like John.

What I WASN’T prepared for was how emotional I would get when I played through Far Cry 5 myself and learned John’s backstory. I didn’t go through the same religious torture John did, and I never struggled with drug addiction, but I did have a very traumatic childhood that resaulted in a similar “Yes” complex and intense need for approval. Up until a few years ago when I had a scary moment that taught me the importance of enforcing boundaries, almost every significant figure in my life took advantage of my inability to say no, often in malicious ways. To me, John represents someone who never had that awakening. The evil shit John does, he does because he BELIEVES it; that becomes undeniable in his death seen(in the gif). John was tortured and made to believe it was good and necessary, so he believes he is doing the right thing when he tortures people; Joseph only reinforces this. As horrible as the torture aspect to his character is, I see too much of myself in him not to feel for the character.

4: Cullen (Dragon Age) Dragon Age Sideblog is @the-greyest-warden

I have been crushing on this character since he was an awkward blushing mess in DAO, so being able to romance him in Inquisition?? You bet your ass I jumped at the opportunity. This character appears in both earlier Dragon Age games, so I jumped in FULLY aware of his trauma...but I didn’t expect his addiction arc.

I loved Cullen’s entire storyline; I think his timeline of trauma/lashing out/healing felt very natural. People hate on Cullen for having been harsh against mages, but he was TORTURED by mages he probably knew since he was young; the evils from both mages and Templars he experienced in Kirkwall would be a compelling case for his negative feelings, the growth he has done by Inquisiton is honestly so impressive, and really shows what a compassionate and critically thinking character Cullen is. His addiction plot line takes it to a whole new level for me personally though, because my husband was an addict when I met him; so I am very intimate with the reality of watching your loved one suffer through withdrawals, and watching the person you love reach his breaking point and still push himself beyond it. (My husband has been clean for over two years now, and our son turned one year old last week ❤️)

5: Vegeta (Dragon Ball Z)

The gif says it all. Vegeta has been my favorite character on DBZ since I was a little girl first watching his villainous little ass land on earth. From then to current DBZ content? Vegeta’s character growth is absolutely immeasurable. He went from big bad villain to a fiercely devoted husband and father(certainly a much better husband and father than Goku has ever been). His development was so gradual it never felt out of place; I don’t think there is any other beloved character from my childhood for whom new content continues to be made who has NEVER disappointed me.

Tagging: @thatpinkthot @atomkatz @chazz-anova @just-an-adventurer @undead-gearhead @aimsharpfloora @booklover2929 @xredskullxx

[kita-lavellan]

Apple Tree

Our Discord Server, Beyond The Veil, had a little writing challenge. Could we make @noire-pandora cry by writing Angst about Apples? @0zymandius and I took up the Challenge. Tags: Solavellan, Major Character Deaths, Solavellan Hell, Pure Angst, Unhappy Ending, T rating. Spoilers for Trespasser

AO3 Link

Apple Tree

Her laughter was soft as it drifted across the sun-warmed fields, on a refreshing spring breeze. A rare day of peace for the Inquisitor, where all her jobs were dependent on someone else completing theirs, and so Solas had requested her free afternoon and she had happily agreed.

When he had led her out of Skyhold, to the centre of a small copse of trees that were somehow surviving the harsh mountain climate, Kita was surprised, but when he cleared the ground of snow with a whispered spell, and a single large apple tree burst into soft pink spring blossom beneath his touch, she was enchanted.

Sitting beneath that ancient apple tree they spent the afternoon talking between mouthfuls of sandwiches from Skyhold's kitchens, and a collection of frilly Orlesian cakes Kita had ordered the last time she had been in Val Royeaux. Debating magical techniques with softly falling blossom drifting in the air around them, Solas eventually ended up with his back against the tree, legs stretched out before him, and Kita shifted to lay with her head in his lap, staring up at him with crystalline eyes.

His story paused as he watched her in surprise, but the Inquisitor just grinned and waved a hand for him to continue, pleading with him to "not stop there," and with a tender softening around his thunderstorm grey eyes, her apostate fade expert continued speaking.

Voice soft, and cadence soothing, it was only the slowly approaching shadows and chill of the night that forced the pair to abandon their miniature sanctuary, but the tree remained in blossom, and the small copse of trees remained precious to Kita.

Months passed, the war against Corypheus proceeded, and the blossoms turned to small fruit, grew and ripened. A glut of apple-based foods stocked Skyhold's kitchen throughout the autumn, and then Solas took her to Crestwood and her world shattered. Kita didn't cry that night or the next. The first time the tears came, was when she went back out to that small and precious copse of trees, to see the leaves and blossoms gone, stolen by the winter and leaving the tree bare and barren. It felt like one of those sharp branches had pierced her heart, and she collapsed against its gnarled roots and sobbed.

It hurt all over again when Solas left without so much as a goodbye, but oddly Kita understood that. Whatever his reasons for ending their fledgeling relationship, it wasn't for lack of love. That much she knew. It didn't stop the pain, in some ways it made it worse, but the knowledge often sent her out to that copse of trees, to settle against the roots of the apple tree, and draw comfort from the memories of their shared afternoon.

One year passed with no word on the elf who held her heart, and then a second that included building tensions between the Inquisition and the countries Skyhold sat on the borders of. Still, no word of Solas reached them, but the harvest from the apple tree had become a Skyhold tradition, a feast of apple-themed foods being presented from the first harvest each year.

It was a bittersweet pleasure to see her friends and her sister, laughing and enjoying the banquet, while she remembered how the ancient tree had come to bear fruit once more.

Then, she had found him again. In Orlais, or through an Eluvian, and her every perception of the world she knew shifted. The Creators were real, only they weren't gods, just mages. Fen'harel was real, only he wasn't the villain of her childhood stories, but a rebel running and uprising against slave masters.

Above all, he was Solas, her love and her heart, and Kita wanted to throw herself into his arms, but he held himself apart from her, despite the mirror of her own love swimming in his eyes and her pleading.

"Let me help you, Solas."

"I cannot do that to you, vhenan."

"But you would do it to yourself? I cannot   bear  to think of you alone!"

"I walk the Dinan'shiral. There is only death on this journey, I would not have you see what I become..."

A final kiss between them seared itself upon Kita's very being, and then Solas had walked away, her shattered heart still in his hands, but this time her soul was screaming in pain too, that he believed their love not enough to counter whatever he might do... Kita could not imagine a force stronger than what she felt for the elf disappearing through the Eluvian before her.

Time passed again, but it moved swiftly this time because Kita had a target. She would prove to Solas that they worked better together, that they solved problems better together, and that there was a better way to accomplish whatever it was he was trying to do.

Her first task had been disbanding the Inquisition because he had been right. It had grown too large to manage every aspect herself, and that opened it up to corruption. That left just herself, her friends and Nel at Skyhold, and a small retinue of staff supplied by Varric from Kirkwall.

They made plans, but just as before no one could find Solas. Not even Leliana with the full force of the Chantry behind her, and a spy network that would have made every country in Thedas nervous if they had been aware of it. Summer turned to Autumn, and the apple tree produced it's harvest once again.

Her friends had promised to help, if she could find Solas, but had mostly returned to their own lives by now, and yet they still came back to Skyhold every year for the Apple Banquet. The banquet was reduced to a large meal between friends this year, but that meant more apples could go into storage and Kita was looking forward to spending the evening with the likes of Dorian, who was often miles away in Tevinter, and the Iron Bull who took jobs all across Thedas with his chargers.

It was only because she was finishing up her notes about the latest lead on Solas that she was late to dinner that night. It was a tiny scrap of parchment appearing on her desk in a flash of magical veilfire that had her blood running cold. It was the words written in a heart-wrenchingly familiar script that had her running from her office to the main hall, but Kita had been too late.

"Don't eat the apples."

><><><><><><><><><><

It was cold. Kita could feel the biting mountain wind cutting through her leathers, but she didn't care. Tears were drying on her face as fast as they were falling, but she didn't much care about that either as she stood in the snow and stared up at the withered apple tree.

Poison. 

Skyhold was impenetrable, so the culprit had infected the apple tree itself. The fruit were deadly, she discovered, finding her every friend collapsed around the great hall, blood pouring from their eyes, and foam filling their throats as their lungs liquified. Her sister had died in her arms, as Kita emptied her stores of mana in a desperate attempt to save the blonde, sobbing over Nel's cold still body for hours before she'd dragged herself to her feet and fled.

She'd not come to the apple tree looking for answers, but for comfort. To find it withered and dead, the remaining fruit still hanging from the branches, twisted and rotten had made her ill, and the small patch of frozen bile splashed against the snow evidenced her heartbroken grief.

She felt him fade step into the physical world behind her but didn't move. Arms still curled around her stomach and eyes fixed on the shrivelled tree as her mind struggled to comprehend the events of the last hour.

"Vhenan-"

She felt the warmth of his hands reaching for her, the relief in his voice, both of which forced a flinch from her frame, that stilled his motions and voice.

"Did... did you..." she struggled, voice hoarse from screaming her grief to the heavens, but Solas understood the half-formed question and answered anyway.

"No, no vhenan. I would not do this, I would not sanction this," the pain in his voice was clear now that his relief at seeing her alive was beginning to fade, and Kita could feel herself shaking, but whether from shock of the cold she truly couldn't tell.

"Then... who... why...?"

There was a beat of silence, and she could almost hear his reluctance to answer over the whistle of the wind as it moved her long hair around her face, sticking strands to her damp cheeks but after a moment, he spoke again.

"One of my agents. Of their own accord. I'm so sorry vhenan, they'll be punished for this, I swear-"

"Why bother?" Kita spat, voice quiet but slowly filling with anger.

"What?"

"I said why bother?" she repeated, finally turning slowly to face him. He looked exactly the same as he had before, the same armor he'd been wearing when he walked away from her and her hands curled into fists, still pressed against her ribs as she struggled to hold herself together.

"It won't bring them back! It won't give me another hour of Dorian's jokes, or one of Sera's pranks, or Varric's next book, or Nel..." a sob broke her voice, and her features crumbled. Head and shoulders bowing beneath the weight of the pain and she began to fall, to collapse to the ground and give in but Solas' arms kept her up, supported her as she surrendered and sobbed loudly.

"It won't give me back my sister!" she gasped between agony filled cries. 

Hands clung, clawlike, against the fur on his armor, and Solas' gentle fingers stroking through her hair felt like shards of glass against her heart. Ravaged and raw and so broken she didn't know which way to turn, Kita crumbled and trusted him, one more time, to help her. Eventually, she realised that the dampness against her hair was evidence of Solas' own tears, and she remembered they had been his friends too. It made her cry even harder, for his loss and hers but eventually the tears slowed, and the sobs eased, her body unable to physically portray the full depth of the agony she was feeling.

He kept his arms around her though, and his fingers continued to move soothingly through her hair in silent support, and apology, and shared sadness.

A wave of exhaustion passed over her then, but she knew if she slept she would never lay eyes on Solas again. He would leave while she was lost in the fade and without her friends, her family, or Leliana's connections, Kita had less chance of finding him than ever before.

"Take me with you," she whispered against the fur at his shoulder, closing her eyes tight when she felt him pause and tense.

"Vhenan..."

"Please..." Kita begged, voice quiet and weak, something she had rarely been in her life, but right now she felt utterly powerless and totally adrift, "please Solas, take me with you."

"I told you. I can't."

Her breath caught in her throat at the repeated rejection, and Kita jerked back from his hold to meet his eyes. His own face was stained with the silent tears he had shed in their shared grief, but he let her take a step back, his own shoulders lowering slightly.

It had been three years now, but she could still read him like it was yesterday they'd been laying beneath the apple tree behind her, and she could see the regret and sadness in his stance, and the slowly building conviction in his expression. If she had any hope at all she knew she had to convince him now, before he set his mind against her.

"Don't you understand?" Kita snapped, eyes narrowing and breath beginning to escape her in harsh angry gasped, "Don't you get it? Solas you're the only thing I have left in all of Thedas!"

The elf before her had been about to speak, she could tell from the way his lips had parted, and his eyebrows had lowered but her words stole his, and he blinked at her in silent shock so she pressed the momentary advantage.

"Your agent killed everyone. My clan is gone, my friends are gone, Nel... Nel is... my sister is... gone... I have no one, Solas, and nothing left. There is no one alive in all Thedas who knows my name , except you!"

Slowly, he pressed his lips together again and frowned. Hands shifted to the small of his back, and she could almost watch him considering the options.

"If you leave now, if you... if you reject us again... this time I have nothing left.  I have nothing to go back to... Solas... Solas please, I am begging you, don't leave me alone..." Kita finished on a whisper, her voice losing power and conviction the longer she spoke and he said nothing.

She was shaking again she realised as she watching him, but this time from fear. Fear he would turn and leave, and a small whimper escaped her when he shook his head.

"You don't understand, Kita... I  can't -"

"Can't what? Why not?"

"It's better for you if-"

"Is this better!?" she yelled, hands sparking with lightning in her fury as her magic escaped her control, and Solas flinched, pain flickering across his features as he denied her once again.

"I am truly sorry, vhenan..." he whispered, and Kita let her eyes slide closed as the ice-cold of the mountains finally touched her soul.

His lips against hers were soft, and warm, and the velvet slide of his hand along her jaw was soothing in its tenderness, but not even his touch roused her heart this time, because the kiss was filled with 'goodbye' and 'farewell' and 'so long my love'.

"Ar lath ma vhenan," he whispered against her lips, but it was only when she felt him fade step away that Kita moved, shattering into pieces against the snow like a statue of ice hit with an axe.

The keening cry of her agony echoed back from the mountains, reverberating through her mind for eons as her whole world collapsed, and she curled up in the snow and prayed to Fen'harel for oblivion.

[voiceofghilannain]

The Voice of Ghilan’nain: Introduction to my Blog

My beloved subjects: This is my first post on this blog so I will take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Gerasimos (though Jerry is what I usually introduce myself as out of courtesy, as both my name and surname sound like gibberish to most people). I’m a 23-year-old male biology student currently studying in Greece, and an aspiring entrepreneur with quite a long way ahead until I make that dream come true.

Before I introduce you to this blog, I would like to say a few more words about myself. I am a firm believer in education (scientific, technological, and financial) and I do enjoy learning new things, especially if they can be used to solve problems. I am interested in astronomy, biology with emphasis on plant biology, game design, and video game art. I also enjoy walking outdoors, cooking, relaxing at a beach while stargazing, talking about politics and money, teasing the cat (my friend, not the feline pet) and playing video games. 

In regards to the latest subject, Bioware’s Mass Effect was the first RPG game I ever played. Though it took me a year to appreciate it due to its lackluster gameplay and limited weapon options, I eventually managed to see it for what it was rather than what I wanted it to be. I played through the trilogy with a dictionary next to me as my English skills were laughable back then. It was through Mass Effect and later Halo that I built my English skills, with the later giving me the opportunity to be part of a great community filled with incredible members such as Haruspis, Covenant Canon, HiddenXperia, LateNightGaming, and Halo Canon. I also had my ride as part of the Halo Archive community, with wonderful discussions and theories throughout the years, and I was fortunate enough to watch the community grow from 40 to over 2000 members and survive several crises until its eventual collapse. During the three or so years that I was part of the Halo Archive (known there as Faber of Will and Might), I got to see video games as far more than just games and develop a passion for delving deep into the lore of video game franchises and their extended media. It is for this reason, that I would like to take a moment and thank every member of the Halo Archive for the incredible conversations and debates we had during that time and particularly Haruspis, whose incredible analyses partially inspired me to start this endeavour (You can visit his blog by clicking here: https://haruspis.blog).

It was during the end of my first year at University that I got into tabletop gaming, but it took several years for me to discover the existence of Dragon Age. Eventually, both the release of disappointing games, like Halo 5: Guardians and Mass Effect Andromeda, and toxic fans caused my interest in these franchises to wane and the Halo Archive to fade. This caused me to search for new franchisees to fall in love with and this is how I got into the world of Dragon Age, starting with Inquisition. THE Dragon Age Setting is currently my favourite fantasy setting and the reason I started making “my own” tabletop RPG for it in order to play Inquisition with my friends. I used the quotation marks in the previous sentence because I started by homebrewing for the Official Tabletop DA RPG with each update and homebrew rule making it more and more distinct from the RPG it derived from and pushing it closer to the feel of the games, with mechanics like Barrier, Guard, Status Effects, Critical Hits, the addition of several dozen warrior, rogue and mage abilities and spells, the removal of the stunt mechanic, the introduction of sustained abilities and many more features.

I have always found Medieval English themed settings and happy worlds boring and dull. I don’t see fiction as escapism from problems but as an opportunity to do things I would normally be unable to do, such as setting foot on alien worlds, standing against the Covenant as they kill billions in their genocidal campaign or simply playing as an elf that throws fireballs at sleeping targets in the midsts of a death cloud and then paralyzing them or scaring them to death by casting Horror. Due to my bias against the classic medieval fantasy setting, Ferelden is the least interesting part of the Dragon Age setting for me. I do enjoy the extravagant gold and blue themes of Orlais, the Necropolis of Nevarra, the villainous city of Kirkwall, the Blighted Anderfels, the decadent Rome/Byzantium inspired Tevinter cities, the war-torn Seheron, the pirate heaven of Estwatch, the exotic Rivain and Par Vollen, the assassin filled Antiva and the mystery of the tainted Black City far more than the mostly bland Ferelden. It is thanks to these locations and their stories that, for me, Thedas trumps any setting with a million races each worth half a page of text or settings made for adventurers that go on a killing spree to get rich within a fixed world that refuses to change.

Thedas is a continent that never stops changing. Old feuds are resolved and new conflicts emerge. Racism, blood magic, squandering nobles, the blight and other horrors make the life of most people in the setting a challenge at best and a nightmare at worst. Within the span of three games, the setting has changed dramatically and the world has moved forward. Thedas is thus very different from what it used to be when Dragon Age Origins released. Being dynamic and reacting to player choice is a very important aspect of the setting, which is both a testament to Bioware’s own talent and the setting’s innate simplicity.

Thedas’ richness doesn’t derive from an army of races or from endless classes and deities, but from its smaller scale, with fewer races and emphasis on the dynamics between their societies and the struggles that various groups, societies, scholars, nations and individuals face. With fewer things in the setting, there is more room for them to be fleshed out and explored in depth. Furthermore, Thedas has a rich history, exposed to players mostly via codex entries written from an in-universe perspective. This allows events to be portrayed differently depending on whose perspective they have been witnessed by, encourages fan discussions and theories, turns new contradicting information into a quest for the truth that often results in revisiting old passages and finding new meanings after certain revelations. Unlike most fictional universes, Dragon Age’s lore takes effort to extract and while this might not be for everyone it has kept the community far more engaged and alive throughout the years.

Thedas is a land full of mysteries filled with danger. The Horror of Hormak, the Black City and the Blights, the Old Gods, Arlathan, the curse of Nahar, the Pyramids of Par Vollen, the Kossith, the ships from beyond the Volca Sea, the Executors, the history of the Dwarves, the Second Sin, the Cekorax and many more are all shrouded by the element of the unknown, which drives the curiosity, fear, dread, nostalgia and most feelings associated with them. It is elements like these that make me want to write about and share with others stories set in this world, whether official or my own.

Thus, after several months of thinking about it, I decided to create my own blog about Dragon Age. The Voice of Ghilan’nain is a blog named after my favourite Elven Goddess, Ghilan’nain, with me acting as an echo of her guiding voice through the world of Thedas. Just like She focused on creation, so will this blog focus on the things that can be, the transformation of what exists and the discussion of content that many people don’t talk about, navigating through the darkest, deepest and most obscure parts of the lore in search of stories, characters, creatures and their potential, expressing it either through my analyses or through attempts at poetry and short story writing. I will also make some posts that serve as feedback for Bioware on issues regarding gameplay mechanics, UI and story and if people are willing I can provide a few builds or ideas for DMs who want to introduce their friends to the world of Thedas through tabletop gaming. With that said, I hope you enjoy reading my future posts and I am looking forward to your feedback, suggestions and comments.

And now the melody begins, calling you to the depths of darkness:

Na melana sah’lin, La mala suledin nadas. Vir’enfenim ghilana Sulevin’an. Ma garas mir renan La ir las mir enansal.

[mocharoll]

Dragon Age: Inquisition character alignments

Cassandra Pentaghast: Neutral Good

-I do nothing that is not worth doing with all my heart.

-One day, they may write about me as a traitor, a madwoman, a fool. And they may be right. 

-The Circle of Magi has its place, but needs reform. Let the mages govern themselves, with our help. Let the templars stand not as the jailors of mages, but as protectors of the innocent. We must be vigilant, but we must also be compassionate to all peoples of Thedas, human or no. (...) If we are to spread the Maker's word across the world, we must do so with open hearts and open hands.(...)That is what I would change.

Varric Tethras: True Neutral (barely missing Neutral Good)

-To be honest with you, she’s just a better spymaster. The truly great ones can keep their distance. They don’t get attached to their people. Me, I always wind up babysitting my informants and worrying about their families. We’re in better hands with her.

-(If it was that bad, why did you stay? Cassandra said you were free to go.) I like to think I’m as selfish and irresponsible as the next guy, but this… Thousands of people died on that mountain. I was almost one of them. And now there’s a hole in the sky. Even I can’t walk away and just leave that to sort itself out.

-Heroes are everywhere. I've seen that. But a hole in the sky? That's beyond heroes. We're going to need a miracle.

-(You knew where Hawke was all along!) You’re damned right I did!

-You know what I think? If Hawke had been at the temple, s/he'd be dead too. You people have done enough to her/him.

Vivienne de Fer: Lawful Evil

- The Divine must set the example for all Thedas. She must seem to be the embodiment of the Maker to the faithful. She needs the authority of the Maker and the charisma of Andraste.

-I never worry, darling. A leash can be pulled from either end.

-Your failing-- among many-- is that you presume I desire approval. Power does not require that I be "liked.”

-Act first and teach them to fear us.

The Iron Bull: Lawful Neutral (Slides towards True Neutral if Tal-Vashoth)

-Dragons are the embodiment of raw power. But it's all uncontrolled, savage... So they need to be destroyed. Taming the wild. Order out of chaos.

-It's like being a block of stone with a sculptor working on you. One day, the last of the crap gets knocked off, and you can see your real shape, what you're supposed to be.

-My people don't pick leaders from the strongest, or the smartest, or even the most talented. We pick the ones willing to make the hard decisions... and live with the consequences.

Sera: Chaotic Good

-Someone little always hates someone big. And unless you don't eat, sleep, or piss, you're never far from someone little.

-Bad things should happen to bad people. We find someone not so bad, maybe he’ll end up not so dead. 

-Watch out, yeah? The hole in the sky didn't start their war. Stupid people did that.

-Blah, blah, blah! Obey me! Arrow in my face!

Dorian Pavus: True Neutral 

-In the south you have alienages, slums both human and elven. The desperate have no way out. Back home, a poor man can sell himself. As a slave he can have a position of respect, comfort, and could even support a family. Some slaves are treated poorly it's true, but do you honestly think inescapable poverty is better?

-If I truly believed my homeland was beyond all hope, I wouldn't miss it so much.

-Living a lie... it festers inside you, like poison. You have to fight for what's in your heart.

-I'm here to set things right. Also? To look dashing. That part's less difficult.

Solas: True Neutral

-Sometimes to achieve the world one desires, one must take regrettable measures.

-War breeds fear. Fear breeds a desire for simplicity. Good and evil. Right or wrong. Chains of command.

-One moment, I see heroic Grey Wardens lighting the fire and a power-mad villain sneering as he lets King Cailan fall. The next, I see an army overwhelmed and a veteran commander refusing to let more soldiers die in a lost cause.

Blackwall: Neutral Good (During Inquisition)

-“You are who you choose to follow.” Someone told me that once. Took me years to understand what he meant.

-At the heart of it, all a Warden is, is a promise. To protect others... even at the cost of your own life. 

-(What can one Grey Warden do?) "Save the fucking world if pressed.

Cole: Neutral Good

-It is dangerous when too many men in the same armor think they're right. 

-It doesn't matter that they won't remember me. What matters is I helped. 

-(What of Magister Erimond? Do you sense a secret pain in him?) No. Erimond is an asshole.  

Leliana: Neutral Good (if unhardened), True Neutral (if hardened)

The Chantry has committed many injustices. If we're going to change it, why not change the whole thing?

I've known mages. Some of them were better people than me. And yet I'm free and they're not. It's not right.

No one is without worth. Whoever you are, whatever your mistakes, you are loved. Unconditionally.

Josephine: Neutral Good

- We face a dark time, Your Grace. Divine Justinia would not want her passing to divide us. She would, in fact, trust us to forge new alliances to the benefit of all, no matter how strange they might seem.

-(I can only imagine the bloodshed if it escalates further.) I’m afraid history holds many examples of what will happen if it does.

-But it was such a waste, Inquisitor! When I took of his mask I knew him. We’d attended parties together. If I’d stopped to reason, if I’d used my voice instead of scuffling like a common thug...

Cullen Rutherford: Neutral Good (even more so if kept off of Lyrium. Lawful Good if he takes Lyrium)

-The templars should have restored order, but red lyrium had driven Knight-Commander Meredith mad. She threatened to kill Kirkwall’s Champion, turned on her own men. I’m not sure how far she would have gone. Too far.

-(Why did you join the Order?) I could think of no better calling than to protect those in need.

-(I doubt the Commander believes there’s anything worthy left in me.) You’re not wrong. But you served something greater than yourself once. Perhaps you can be made to remember that.

-Shouldn’t they be arguing over who’s going to become Divine?

Morrigan: True Neutral

-No son of mine would be raised in a marsh, bereft of contact with the outside world. His future will be difficult enough without my adding to his burden.

-The magic of old must be preserved. No matter how feared.

-What I fear, what all should fear, is not that Corypheus believes he can succeed; ‘tis that he actually may.

-Mankind blunders through the world, crushing what it does not understand; elves, dragons, magic...the list is endless. We must stem the tide, or be left with nothing more than the mundane. This I know to be true.

Corypheus: Neutral Evil 

Know me. Know what you have pretended to be. Exalt the Elder One. The will that is Corypheus. You will kneel.

-I have gathered the will to return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this Blighted world. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty.

The Nightmare: Chaotic Evil

The Divine: It is the Nightmare you forget upon waking. It feeds off memories of fear and darkness, growing fat upon the terror.

-Are you afraid, Cole? I can help you forget. Just like you help other people. We're so very much alike, you and I. 

Cole: No.

-You think that pain will make you stronger? What fool filled your mind with such drivel? The only one who grows stronger from your fear is me.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

marsqueerianh  marsqueerianh  I don’t even wanna talk about all...

Here are some controversial subjects: Blowing up the chantry y/n? Anders’ treatment. Cole’s fate: human or spirit? Cullen’s redemption arc: pointless, earned? Blood magic: y/n? Was Merrill right in her quest? Solas. Just Solas lmao. Who’d u put on the throne in DAI? What are ur feelings about the Qunari in general and what the game should have done with them. Whos the best Divine also ur take on Vivienne’s stand on mage issues?

1. I didn’t like it. I think that the chantry as an oppressive religious authority needs to be dismantled, especially as it oppresses mages. I don’t think blowing up the chantry in Kirkwall accomplished this. I think it facilitated labeling mages as terrorists. 

2. I absolutely loathe how Anders talks to Fenris. I could sympathize with him very easily if it weren’t for the way he talked to Fenris, and I think they did a shit job at dealing with Anders and Fenris’ differences considering that they were both victims of an abusive system. 

That among other things could have been better.

3. There’s no valid reason why Cole should become a human. There’s nothing wrong with who he is as a spirit. I understand his fears, but that’s not going to happen to him. Plus, the idea that Cole falls in love after becoming more human is repulsive to me as an aromantic asexual person. Krem/Maryden for life.

4. I think of redemption this way -- if the individual being redeemed has made their life better, made the lives of others better, and stopped doing something harmful then it’s worth it. I was quite content with Cullen’s story ending with him dedicating his time to helping Lyrium addicts. 

5. Blood magic isn’t inherently bad, but it can be misused and abused. I think the chantry promotes fear of blood magic which does not allow people to critically examine its uses. However, Tevinter’s abuse of blood magic cannot be ignored, especially as it involves torture and murder. 

Blood must be given consensually. 

6. Yes. Merrill was right in her quest. It’s her culture, and she has a right to preserve it when its being threatened with extinction. I understand the fear her people have regarding her actions. However, no one outside of her culture really has a right to judge her for her actions. 

7. Solas is basically a very powerful god and while I understand the betrayal people must feel, I really think that his actions needs to be understood on a much larger scale. I feel that way about most god(s) or god-like characters in fiction. So, I wasn’t really bothered by his betrayal. 

...he is fun to make fun of though.

8. Pretty sure I chose Anora. I don’t think Alistair is suited for it. 

9. I think a lot of people position the Qunari as having a freedom-less existence, while failing to examine the ways in which their own society oppresses people. I don’t necessarily view the Qunari as villains, even though I see them as primary antagonists in the series. They have an entirely different perspective.

We haven’t explored that enough. I’d prefer Tal-Vashoth narratives over those who have had limited to no exposure to Qunari society. 

10. For divine? I think I chose Vivienne. I’d rather have an actual mage in charge of an organization that has such a huge impact on the lives of mages. I don’t think the system can be dismantled overnight, but I think that it can be restructured and reformed from the inside out. 

[mllemaenad]

Vivienne says herself that not every Circle experience is the same and thus admits her """"privilege"""" as... a mage... and a black woman (shown in a banter with Cole, there is indeed colorism in at least Orlais) caught in the same system... as everyone else... why does everyone say that her being successful in a systematically oppressive environment make her a bad guy. I love your analysis stuff but don't be That Guy

... I ... well, look. I’m sorry if I have said something offensive. I am capable of it, I know.

But ... I don’t think she’s ‘a bad guy’, any more than I think that of the Iron Bull or Dorian. I am disappointed in a great many of Bioware’s writing choices in Inquisition, and I include some of Vivienne’s story in that disappointment.

I mean, let’s be clear here: Vivienne is amazing. She got out. She got herself right the fuck out of that Circle and all the way to the Orlesian court. She’s a candidate for the role of Divine, despite being a mage. A breaker of boundaries, a long-term survivor – indeed winner of the Game – and one of the few mages in southern Thedas to have actual combat training.

Vivienne can be kind to those she likes and respects, and give solid advice in a crisis, she can play high politics and dirty tricks with the same aplomb, she is fierce in battle and deadly at court.

She is an incredible and accomplished woman.

But do I think she admits and understands the full extent of her privilege? No. Further, I think much of what she learned in the Orlesian court was actively harmful and wrong. Orlais is a cruel and vicious place. It is bigoted, violent and awful, and has strong prejudices against mages, elves, non-Andrastians and foreigners of all descriptions – I doubt I can begin to imagine the slurs and insults they’d have for a woman of Rivaini heritage. I daresay Cole barely scratches the surface.

Mages rise quickly in the new Circle, having more freedom and responsibility than ever before - even if all true power lies with her.

Epilogue – Inquisition

That’s Vivienne’s ending slide if you make her Divine, and it makes me so sad. It makes sense, of course, that she would do these things. In Orlais self-interest is all. You’re a fool if you don’t accrue as much power as you can, because you can’t trust anyone but yourself. And of course she treats her fellow mages well: she is absolutely not a villain.

But – oh, Vivienne, Vivienne, what have you done? You brought the mages back to the Circles, and you placed the Divine over them with absolute power. I trust you not to go around butchering them or making them Tranquil; of course I do. But your successor? Or the one who comes after her? Them I do not trust. They’re not going to stop hating mages in Orlais because one sits on the Sunburst Throne. Orlais being ... Orlais, they may well hate them more. You’ve given your successor a weapon, Vivienne, and it’s pointed right at the mages’ throats.

And you did it because you only know Orlais and the Game. Because you don’t much like things outside of it. And – and this part isn’t your fault – because they gave you so little opportunity to learn.

They silenced Fiona, you see. They took the quest for the mage rebellion and flung it into the future, into a world that has so little to do with their struggles. All those voices that cried out in the earlier games and the novels – they shut them up nicely.

Solas speaks in favour of the rebellion, a bit, but he is fundamentally outside it. He favours the rebellion of slaves in general rather than this one specifically. He can’t talk about it like someone on the inside could.

Why is Fiona – elven woman, mage, former slave – standing meekly in the library instead of right up in your face, arguing. I would pay to see your duel of words: I may think Fiona is right and you are wrong, but you’re both so damn smart and brave and interesting, it would be worth it just to watch the fight.

Why doesn’t In Hushed Whispers put you in with the rebellion, withstanding a Templar siege, allowing the rebels to be courageous and desperate and afraid instead of just – giving you a couple of discontented voices in a pub? Why can’t Vivienne walk into the heart of that with you, and hear what they have to say?

I don’t think she fully appreciates how much suffering she escaped – or indeed, how much harm the Circle did to her, and how much harm it will continue to do, if she restores it.

Vivienne: You must see the value in restoring the circles, Cassandra.

Cassandra: Provided they fulfill their purpose. Too many have suffered since the mage rebellion began, but we cannot ignore the abuses that prompted it. Without change, we risk repeating the events at Kirkwall.

Vivienne: Or recreating its opposite. An overly lenient circle is a comparable threat. Kirkwall is lamentable, but it was the misuse of power, not restrictions, that led to the first Blight.

– Vivienne Dialogue

They could have sent you to Kirkwall, Vivienne. They could have done it to you when you were ten years old, too young to know how to stop them. Of course you acknowledge that what happened in Kirkwall was an abuse of power: you’re neither a fool nor a monster. But the person who sent you wouldn’t have been abusing power. You’d have been nothing more than part of a quota. It’s their job to shuffle mages around: alleviate overcrowding here, supplement some talent there. That’s the Circle: guardians of mages, treating them like children and packing them off to places for ‘their own good’.

They’d have made you Tranquil, Vivienne. Or they’d have snuffed out your life in some dark corner. Because you don’t know how to be mediocre. It would destroy you to pretend to be just average at magic, to sit in your cell and do nothing, and make sure never to draw attention to yourself.

The Circle has killed so many people, Vivienne, only through not caring what they wanted. Why can’t Hawke tell you that, Vivienne? Why can’t a pro-mage Hawke howl their outrage at this? You could be Karl Thekla, Vivienne, if your luck had been a little different, and Hawke would know that.

Cassandra: You would prefer to have the templars return to guarding the circles, Vivienne?

Vivienne: Of course, my dear. They need better oversight, clearly, but one does not throw away a tool because it was misused.

Cassandra: Few mages would ask for templars in the circle.

Vivienne: Speak to Ferelden's first enchanter. You might be surprised. When abominations ravaged your tower, suddenly the world holds far too few templars.

– Vivienne Dialogue 

Did you ask him, Vivienne? Or did you just believe what the Chantry said about that little incident? I can only think the latter, because First Enchanter Irving could have told you that the Templars just ran away from trouble. They locked all the mages in with the demons, Vivienne, even the children, and they plotted to murder them all. Think of that, Vivienne: I know demons frighten you. The Templars would have had no qualms about letting them rip out your heart.

It was mages who saved the day, Vivienne. It was Wynne who protected survivors, and then fought her way to the top of the tower to free her fellows. It was Niall who got the Litany of Adralla. Maybe the Hero of Ferelden was a mage too. And Irving and his people – so many of them resisted torture that they could still make up an army to fight the Archdemon. And they did that, too.

Why can’t Leliana tell you that, Vivienne? She was there. She favoured helping the mages. She could tell you who was better at fighting demons; who was brave enough to face them down and win.

Inquisitor: Cole, Vivienne doesn't want to talk right now.

Cole: She's afraid!

Cole: Everything bright, roar of anger as the demon rears. No, I will not fall. No one will control me ever again.

Cole: Flash of white as the world comes back. Shaking, hollow, Harrowed, but smiling at templars to show them I'm me.

Cole: I am not like that. I can protect you. If templars come for you, I will kill them.

Vivienne: Delightful.

– Vivienne Dialogue

The Circle did that to you, Vivienne. It forced you to fight a demon, it made you smile at the Templars who dragged you in there because they’d kill you if you didn’t. And it’s left you so scared. You’re scared of Cole; you’re scared of any spirit. You do care about him: you’re more than smart enough to see past the horrors of your training, to realise he’s a person and worry about him. But you’ll likely never kill that fear, Vivienne. And they’ll do it to more mages, Vivienne. Some of them will die, and some of them will be left as scared as you. They do it to spirits, too: every bit of misinformation, every bungled summoning, every spirit dragged into the world against its will and turned into a demon – because the Chantry thinks it knows about spirits when it bloody doesn’t.

You could listen to the Avvar, Vivienne, or we could go to Rivain. You could talk about it with Dorian, when the pair of you have finished snarking. You could listen to a Dalish Inquisitor. We could find ways to show you that it needn’t be this way, if only the opportunities were there.

I don’t want to destroy Vivienne, or make her less than she is. I want her to keep on being awesome, and being a candidate for Divine. I just want the game to engage with some of the points it brings up, instead of just letting it sit there.

What I wrote about her was one line in a post that was otherwise about the Iron Bull. I referenced Cassandra, Dorian and Cullen in the same paragraph, precisely because Vivienne is often singled out and I don’t think that’s fair because the problem is not with her, but rather with the game’s writing in general. It was meant to point out that most of the characters have this problem: they are dangerously wrong on some point, favouring oppressive systems or bigotry, and the game does nothing with it at all – at best it lets the Inquisitor deliver an objection that is not in any sense ‘remembered’ by the game in later quests or dialogue.

But – that said, I am flawed, and I am more than capable of being wrong. I wrote all of this to explain my issues with the game in relation to Vivienne, as I did in relation to the Iron Bull before. I could write much the same thing for any character in Inquisition.

If you still think I’m being unfair to her, or prejudiced, then say so and I’ll simply apologise. I can remove the line from the earlier post, too, if you like.

[curriebelle]

I’m sure you all guessed this but if you’re lookin for something to do between Thursdays I’m gonna recommend Baldur’s Gate II to e v e r y o n e. Especially if you don’t have a D&D group at home, because it’s the closest you’ll get to D&D without one, and ESPECIALLY if you’re also a Bioware fan. I have some thinky thoughts about it & Dragon Age II here. Not so much the usual #currie academia, but along those lines nonetheless.

So I said in a post before that Baldur’s Gate II is very much like what Dragon Age 2 should have been, and I want to pull that apart for you somewhat. Disclaimer here that while I’ve played DA2 a disgusting number of times, I’m only 20 or so days into BG2 (Chapter 3, I think)

I acknowledge that technically speaking, DA2 is rightfully the lowest-rated game of the Dragon Age franchise, but it’s also my favourite by far. This is largely because I admired what it aspired to be. It wanted to be an in-depth exploration of a single, fascinating locale, and all the conflicts that could arise from it across time. Some of the things people complained about - such as Hawke having such a limited background, the divisiveness of the companions and their behaviour, and the lack of a single overarching villain - were the result of reaching for this goal and failing. Bioware either lost their direction or lacked the time to pull it off . A lot of the other problems with the game, particularly the repeated dungeon maps, but also the useless junk-gathering and slimmed-down combat (which I actually liked, but I get that it’s controversial) managed to cripple this particular aspiration even further. Kirkwall lost parts of its complexity and bigness, but clues of it remained behind - particularly in the morally complex sidequests, which often hold a mirror up to the larger conflicts. My favourite one is when you head out to find the son of some noble or count and it turns out that he’s just a regular old straight-up murderer. No demons in his head, but suffering a mental illness - not one I’m qualified to diagnose, but one that each of the party members misinterprets as a pathetic excuse for his violence. Their preferred solution is to kill the bastard, but a player - if they actually know what mental illness is, and how it can be mismanaged - is left with much more to think about.

The resemblance between Dragon Age II and Baldur’s Gate 2 started out as simple allusions and parallels, which I thought were amusing. Now I know who Edwina the barmaid is, and now I know why the loading screens say “gather your party before venturing forth”, and now I know why they make you collect pantaloons. I’ve also met some of the predecessors of the Dragon Age party members. Imoen looks a heckofa lot like an early-2000s Leliana and gets the same broken-bird treatment. Jan Jansen is Varric after several heavy doses of hallucinatory drugs, from the family merchant business to the hand-made crossbow to the penchant for tall tales. I’m pretty sure Velanna from Awakening is a re-skinned Viconia (and I think they share a VA, to boot). Also, I feel like some of the flatter BG2 characters were revamped, re-examined, or re-incarnated. Anomen is pretty much a sexist prick so far, but he’s had some interesting chats with me about his lawful-neutralness. I wonder if their answer to him was to take the same ethics but fix the sexism problem with a genderflip, because in a lot of ways he reminds me of Aveline. (Disclaimer: this in no way takes away from the fact that Aveline is the greatest thing ever and Anomen is a lil shit). Moreover, Morrigan’s eternally grumpy power-hungry practicality, as well her potential prideful fall, and her return, in a sequel, as a semi-friendly spy embedded in a political clusterfuck (Orlesian court vs. Shadow Thieves) makes her quite reminiscent of Edwin. There are others, too, as there are exceptions. I don’t see a clear Fenris analogue in BG2 yet, nor has Minsc ever been properly revived (though Iron Bull maybe comes close). I think that’s smart, though. Imoen/Leliana is a good template to reuse but Minsc shall never be equaled.

Beyond the people in my party, I started to see traces of Kirkwall in Athkatla. Some of the districts have obvious analogues (Keep = Government, Hightown = Waukeen’s Promenade (same aesthetic, even, with all the white stone), Darktown/Lowtown = Slums/Graveyard, Docks = ....well, Docks). There’s also the sense that there are some really hecked-up things going on in the underbelly of the Athkatla, what with the random lich I found in the Egyptian-style tomb under the graveyard (?), the beholders in the sewers (FUCK) and the strange women Naruto-running around at night and casting dominate on random thugs (???). Plus they have a strangely perpendicular policy on magic. Mages in Athkatla are both the Circle and the Templars - that is, the practice of magic is heavily restricted, but it’s restricted by the Cowled Wizards (who have conveniently cast Immunity to Government on themselves). Or perhaps Athkatla is what the Tevinter Imperium looks like from the inside?

Quest structures are also re-used between the games. The overarching quest of the first part of BG2 is identical to Dragon Age II′s - I have to raise enough money to Save my Sister, either to protect her from the Circle or steal her back from Irenicus. The anti-qunari cult and the weirdness of the Primeval Thaig are not dissimilar to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye quest (except for the FUCKING BEHOLDERS aaah). There’s somebody skinning people in the Bridge District at the moment, and though I haven’t advanced very far in that quest I’m catching the horrible, creeping scent of All That Remains about it. One of the very first quests was to return a handful of acorns to a faerie queen, which requires that you leave Athkatla - and it felt almost exactly like turning over Flemeth’s amulet, even before I found the red dragon hanging out in the same area. I’m even getting companion loyalty quests now (hence, Edwina) and while reuniting Keldorn with his wife was considerably less funny (though just as heartwarming) as convincing Aveline and Donnic to Cup each others’ Joinings, I’m not surprised I’ll be helping people with everything from marriages to magic mishaps. Let’s just hope Jan Jansen doesn’t make me gather poo for his turnip-based explosives so he can bomb the Cowled Wizards or something (Cheers, Justice, I’ll always love you).

But these similarities aren’t really a bad thing at all. I’m certainly not accusing Bioware of copying their own homework - I’m actually accusing them of failing to copy their own homework. Or, to stretch the metaphor, for their horrible teacher Mr. EA to change the deadlines to their homework without telling them so they had to rush it and get a C+ from all the game critics. Poor muffins.

Here’s the thing. The inklings I had about The Point of setting things exclusively in Kirkwall are full-on confirmed by the existence of Baldur’s Gate II and Athkatla. Games like DA:O and DA:I are explorations of breadth, spanning countries; games like DA2 and BG2 are explorations in depth, spanning time, and digging deep into a particular city. Athkatla feels amazingly alive to me, and endlessly fascinating and complex. There are multiple underground ruins alluding to ancient magic and long-forgotten deaths. There are hints in the government district that everyone from nobility to turnip farmers regularly drown in ineffective bureaucracy. The Shadow Thieves, the Cowled Wizards, the noble families, and the Radiant Heart, and the Circus, all of them fill out the middle ranks of a squabbling, rule-breaking, living populace. Party members have ties to everyone from peasants, to nobility, to Cambions from Sigil. And there are strange individuals everywhere, spies and liars and con artists and performers and collectors and people who will only sell me turnips. I just finished a quest where three young boys asked me to buy them swords and I bought them a keg of ale instead. It was awesome.

Anyway, this actually segues into something else that’s interesting for me - Dragon Age 2 was all set to tackle the coolest thing that emerged, quite organically, in BG2 - the fact that of all the characters in the game, Athkatla is the most interesting. Playing it, you begin to understand why the quests are so similar between it and DA2. Exploring things like lost ruins, or the different rewards, invitations and behaviours of different organizations, or serial killers and justice systems, or problems with merchants, or entertainment venues like theatres and circuses, or religious conflicts - those are all quests that deeply engage one in the character of a place. Quite frankly, I like that better than hopping town-to-town and solving problems as you pass, which is the DA:O/DA:I model. It’s far too easy to seem random that way (what did those werewolves in DA:O ever amount to?). And conversely, it’s also why things like the party in Orlais are the most exciting things in those games: they offer you glimpses into the operation of society, into how the fantasy world truly works from the crowns to the cobblestones. BG2 is made of that experience of depth, and DA2 was prepared to be that but more. 

In certain places, you can see how DA2 fixed the very, very few problems BG2 actually had (alongside a decade of technological development, of course.) The rivalry/friendship system in DA2 is a huge improvement on the reputation/alignment system of BG2. I am effective as shit at solving problems so why does Edwin grouse at me just because I’m nice? Moreover, why do I have to choose between mega-discounts and the game’s best wizard? I much prefer the idea of friendship/rivalry, because real people can respect and disagree with you, and (although this might just be because I have his romance mod installed *ahem*) the DA2-esque Rivalry relationship seems to better characterize how Edwin thinks of me anyway. And while I’m on my soapbox, why’d they take that system away from Inquisition? Rivalry was certainly would have given me a better time with Vivienne, whom I desperately wanted to love but couldn’t because I could never get her approval high enough to offer me any quests. Heck, at least Edwin will still get Nether Scroll’d even if he constantly complains about me rescuing kittens.

Moreover, before its flawed execution, the skeleton of DA2 is far more ambitious and intriguing than BG2′s. BG2 is still a defeat-the-evil wizard game, and it stumbled across the story-of-a-city model largely by accident (one of the most graceful stumbles I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure). I assume (though correct me if I’m wrong) that I’ll still be kickin’ Irenicus’s unsympathetic ass as an endgame (unless he goes Sephiroth Supernova or has an evil boss or something). DA2’s conflicts with the qunari, and especially the conflict between the mages and the templars, turned the city into DA2′s most interesting character and its primary villain, which is the logical, brilliant extenstion of what BG2 accomplished. Meredith, Anders and Orsino - the trifecta of DA2’s endgame catalysts - were all emblematic of an impossible social and political conflict, born out of everything Kirkwall was over the span of a decade. Almost every little plotline in DA2 gives you something new to think about in terms of law, order, magic and rule in Kirkwall, and the finale was a culmination of that. It was a narrative waterfall into which the stream of every sidequest fed. It’s a brilliant structure - but it failed to spark the love its narratively inferior predecessor did, and certainly failed to achieve the quality of BG2.

And it’s only because Kirkwall is no Athkatla. It could have been, but it wasn’t. It felt emptier, and thinner, less populated and less complex, even though all the bones were there. This was largely because of those repeated dungeons - there’s something new in every corner in BG2, and the exploration of the wilderness outside the city is more extended, and every room is different, whereas the dungeons in DA2 wear out their welcome before the first act is over. It’s immensely frustrating, because Dragon Age 2 was so close to being BG2 but better. And there are things (particularly that friendship/rivalry thing) that are marks of improvement and reflection borne of lessons learned from BG2 and DA:O. It makes DA2 even more of a tragedy than it already was. Suffice to say I love both these games a lot, and I am indeed recommending that anybody whose curiosity has been piqued immediately download BG2 from gog.com (I hear there’s a bear companion in the Enhanced Edition. His name is Wilson).

But if I might replace the soapbox a second, I think the biggest tragedy of all of this was that Bioware didn’t try again. For all that Dragon Age 2 felt unfinished and unfocused, it was nowhere near as soulless and directionless as Dragon Age Inquisition, at least for me. Inquisition functioned fine, and it’s not a “bad” game by any quantifiable metric, but I could not be asked to play it more than once. I know people like it, and there are things about it to like - from my own perspective, I loved the fancy-party sequence, and there have been few companions in any game as interesting to me as Blackwall (is that a weird choice? I don’t know, I’m not really In This Fandom). But I did not care about my Inquisitor the way I cared about Hawke. I didn’t care about something as indistinct as The Inquisition the way I cared about Kirkwall, as underdeveloped as it was. I admired DA:II’s aspirations; I do not admire Inquisition’s attempt to be Skyrim when that’s not what we come to Bioware for. I don’t want Bioware to make Skyrim, I want Bioware to try BG2/DA2 again. It could be so phenomenal if they pulled it off.