Dragon Age Lore Breakdown: Gereon Alexius
Started working on my accursed DA fic again, and the research rabbit hole led me down the In Hushed Whispers path. And I found out a bunch of things about this dude that I realised I never knew before.
Anyway, ramble under the cut.
Before he became a Magister, Gereon Alexius was first and foremost, a researcher of magic. One that was trying to push the boundaries of what magic could do, particularly in the field of ‘traveling through and controlling both time and physical space’.
His research partner (and eventual wife) was Livia Arida, a researcher who focused specifically on the Veil.
Gereon’s father, Magister Alexius, was your typical Tevinter upper class dude – focused on power and bloodlines and image. House Alexius wished Gereon focused less on the theoretical and more on magic with practical uses.
Gereon's father thus gave up his post as Magister to his nerdy ass son in the hopes that he would become more invested in politics like he himself was.
Instead, Magister Gereon used his position to ‘became a tireless champion of education, criticizing his peers for pouring the Imperium's funds into the war with the Qunari at the expense of the Circle and demanding better schooling and institutions of higher learning for the Soporati.'
His codex entry is more telling of his backstory and character than anything he's displayed in game lmao.
He continued his research in a diminished capacity, and subsequently married his long-time sweetheart and research partner Livia Arida. He also took a position as professor of thaumaturgy at the Minrathous Circle.
[They use the word ‘thamaturgy’ here very liberally, and I’ve not seen this anywhere else in my Dragon Age research. We all know the DND connotations, but I would like to take the meaning of the term as ‘boundary breaking magical research’, since that’s what Gereon is known for. Like idk the Thedosian equivalent of fringe science.]
[[This also assumes a scientific hierarchy within the study of magic within Imperium society, which I doubt they will explore in DA4, but gods that would be so fucking fascinating.]]
Anyway, Gereon and Livia had a son, Felix. Despite both his parents being mages, and particularly gifted ones at that, Felix was a very weak mage, one that could only cast very simple spells and with great effort.
Gereon’s father saw Felix as a weak link, described him as ‘just barely more than a Soporati’. Because of this, he tried to have Felix assassinated. Typical Magister behaviour.
Livia, being absolutely… livid (yeah I went there lmao), intercepted the assassin, and in turn, fucking had Gereon’s father assassinated instead. This ensured Felix's safety and secured Gereon as head of House Alexius.
Anyway, if it wasn’t clear how much Livia and Gereon loved Felix, you should know by now. Since he couldn't learn much magic, they brought in tutors from all fields – history, art, music, literature, etc, ensuring that anything the boy could study was offered to him on a silver platter.
And although Felix wasn’t a powerful mage, he seemed to have inherited his parents’ analytical minds, and therefore was a gifted mathematician. Recognising this, his parents sent him to study at the University of Orlais.
In the meantime, both Gereon and Livia continued their boundary breaking research. At this point, they decided to take on assistants and apprentices, since they could not involve their son in their research.
While Livia took on ‘half dozen of the most promising young students of the Fade and the Veil throughout the Imperium’, Gereon chose only one apprentice.
You know who it was.
So they continued their research – with Gereon and Dorian focusing on breaking the boundaries of magic itself, while Livia and her apprentices sought to determine the effects of such magic on the Veil. Kind of like an unstoppable force vs immovable object situation.
[There's also what I can only assume is an artist's rendition of their notes in The World of Thedas 2, which is... well.]
[The description included: Careful study is paid to the eyes of the nug. Based on the drawings and a limited deciphering of the text, the author seems all but obsessed with understanding what animals see and how this might differ from our own perception of reality.]
[[Edit: apparently the images above aren't from Gereon's notes, but from a book called Grim Anatomy. Dissecting this book is a whole nother post so we'll leave it at that.]]
They were apparently super close to a breakthrough. But we can’t have nice things in Thedas, can’t we?
In 9:38 Dragon, Gereon and Livia travelled to Orlais to visit Felix. As the family travelled back to Minrathous (or Hossberg - Dragon Age is never consistent with the lore), they were attacked by hurlocks. For some reason, Gereon wasn’t with his wife and son when this happened.
Livia is killed and Felix is tainted.
Gereon is obviously filled with survivors guilt, the grief of losing his wife, and the fear of now losing his son to the taint. He stopped caring for anything other than his son’s health, and this affected his relationship with his research, and by extension, Dorian.
This led to an argument over how distant and strange Gereon was becoming, and eventually Dorian parted ways with Gereon.
In the gap between this and the events of Inquisition, Gereon is now part of the Venatori. It can be assumed that the reason he joined was because of promises made that the Elder One can save Felix from death.
[We can probably extrapolate that Gereon somehow understands that Corypheus is a darkspawn, and so that adds to the weight of his belief that Corypheus can cure Felix.]
It is this time and space bending research that is the foundation of In Hushed Whispers.
Once Gereon is defeated, you can judge him in Skyhold. If you decide to take him in as an agent, he can continue his research for the Inquisition. (Though canonically all it yields is this amulet. Which isn't even unique, you can get it in random loot drops anywhere. Sad.)
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Heya Naff!
Just had this little idea snippet pop to mind and I thought I’d share it with you cuz it’s kinda reminiscent of Lack of Light and I guess a little of Cryptid Sightings too.
So, what if Y/N for some reason or another ends up in a dark cave, not in any danger, but maybe just there to destress and have some calm, quiet time. Then they hear an ominous voice (Moon or Eclipse probably), but never see whom it belongs to. They make rather interesting conversation and despite Y/N’s curiosity, the voice warns that it's for the best Y/N doesn’t know what they look like, lest their appearance frightens them.
Over time and many more visits they become good friends. Y/N is always one to confide in them about their troubles and hardships, and the ominous voice replies with comfort and advice. Reversely on the rare occasion the voice opens up, Y/N is able to cheer them up with a lighthearted kindness and maybe some humour thrown in.
Eventually Y/N gets curious enough and the voice's owner is revealed.
They are indeed a little unsettling to say the least, but Y/N is able to remind themselves that this creature/thing is their friend and the encounter goes smoothly.
From then on Y/N is also adamant of giving lots of hugs and cuddles, no matter how scary they seem. And tho the creature doesn’t say it, they do appreciate it.
Idk, I’m just soft for making friends with something scary / otherworldly that doesn’t get much love otherwise ^^
with a touch of secret, almost imaginary friend when you don’t have any others
But yeh, that’s all for now :)
Hope you're well and have a lovely day/night, dear Naff <3
PS: haven’t gotten to CS chapter 19 yet, but hope to soon. From the little I know of you making people cry or something, I’ll be sure to have some tissues or a pillow at the ready :’) /lh
Hey, Piixel, I love this idea so much that I wrote a little something based on it! I hope that's alright! (If for any reason you want me to delete it, say the word and I will.)
Umbrage Embrace
Shadow Monster!Eclipse x Reader (SFW)
You can’t speak. You bury your face in your hands, arms scraping against the bark of the willow. A terrible tremble falls over you as the gush of tears leaks past your defenses and down your cheeks.
It doesn't matter that it’s pitch dark in the forest save for the barest splatters of moonlight nor that you hide away. You will not see Eclipse. He, however, sees you.
Word Count: 3,800~
Warnings: Anxiety and hurt/comfort.
A/N: This is based on @piixelpaint's ask which you can read here! (you're already here.) Their idea inspired me so much that I had to write a little something for it, and I do love creatures who hide and give comfort and maybe wish for a little comfort in return but are terrified of scaring away their human beloved. Eclipse fits this type of monster perfectly. I also was in a headspace of wanting to address some anxiety and explore some sweet hurt/comfort! Enjoy!
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Can I request Back to December with Eddie?! and if you could make it kind of angsty 🫣🥹
back to december (eddie's version)
warnings: angsty. very, very angsty. hurt/no comfort.
wc: 2.6k+
a/n: fuck it we ball. i have nothing to say about this one. if it's trash, that's between me and god.
Love was never something that came easily to Eddie.
Maybe it was due to his upbringing, maybe he was another victim of circumstance, but love and him had always had a complicated relationship. It had left him scorned usually, a long line of failed situationships that trail behind him like ghosts of his pasts. Times he let bury themselves, relationships he’d get involved in knowing he’d never achieve the kind of love he’d seen in books and movies. Other people would talk about their small town romances, and he would only think of all the one night stands he’d subjected himself in which tore off a piece of himself every time he’d depart. He was the type of person to be used, to be drained of what fun the other participant could suck him dry of and then discarded for the next one. He wasn’t relationship material – he wasn’t love material.
Until you. And how unexpected you had been.
You, who was suddenly sitting in front of him in a coffee shop, hunched over your laptop and no doubt working on finishing up classwork for that degree you’d always talked about getting with him. You, who had been the exact opposite of someone Eddie would have ever anticipated falling for. You, who had never looked at him as something to use and to discard, but to have and to hold. You, the one (and possibly only) exception to everything he thought he knew.
You’re just as stunning as you had been on late summer afternoons in the passenger seat of his van. Same messy hair, same glowing eyes, same jestering lilt to your lips that seemed ever present even in the most serious of situations. Even with brows furrowed and new stress lines in your forehead, a slight pucker of your lips at whatever was on the screen in front of you and accentuated eyebags that hadn’t been there in your past life but now exist in the here and now, most likely a symptom of the long hours you’d always been willing to put in for the things you wanted – you still took his breath away, even now.
The first time you’d ever spoken to Eddie, he had considered it a cruel joke. You were beautiful, someone who entered the room and everyone just knew you were the smartest person there. Teachers loved you, others at the very least tolerated you if not admired you. It prodded at every insecurity he’d already harbored. All his fears of not being good enough, of being judged for his repeating years, of forever being doomed to be worn as a mark of shame rather than a badge of pride had been put in front of him with a pretty bow on top. You were something to show off. You were something good. But those wide eyes that had slowly pulled him in, had broken down all his defenses. He’d never stood a chance.
“Eddie?”
It’s not your voice, but that of the barista sitting down his order on the pickup counter. But his name still tears you from your concentration, and when you pale at the sight of him, he doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he had been staring.
They have to call out his name a second time before he moves to grab the coffee, turning his back on you just as he had all those ages ago. His fight or flight kicks in; he doesn’t know whether it would be better to leave it as it is and hurry out of this coffeeshop with his tail between his legs, or if for once in his life, it was worth leaning into the discomfort. Instead of running from that crackling in his chest and all the hurt flooding him the same as that final time he’d seen you, maybe he should take a deep breath and dive right in.
Would you even recognize him as he recognized you? Would your soul see his as if for the first time all over again, and sadly smile with a whisper of, oh. There you are, again?
Or would you pretend to be strangers again? Would you pretend like all the history had faded to smoke and he was just some guy you’d bumped into at a cafe? Would you give him the honor of wiping his slate clean and just starting over, as if he’d never hurt you?
He had been an idiot when it came to you. A loser who had been handed a gift on a silver platter, and instead of cherishing it until the end of time, he’d ruined it. Ruined you.
The decision is made long before his palm wraps around the overly warm cup, and his feet carry him to your table before doubt would wrap its chords around his throat.
His chest flutters just like it had in the autumn when he’d first realized that how he felt for you was different. As the leaves of Hawkins had changed color, so had his feelings, turning their own brilliant and vibrant shades between him draping his leather jacket across your shoulders and the gentle kisses you’d wake him with before the sun even rose. Quiet and private moments between just the two of you that Hawkins had never bore witness to. Hazy afternoons spent under the guise of tutoring him in subjects like math and science bled into dinner dates at Benny’s, sharing milkshakes and him teaching you how to tie a cherry stem with your tongue.
He had loved you. He still loves you. And he’d been a fool, because it had never occurred to him that during those Autumnal months, more than just the leaves or just him had been falling.
Even the warmth of all your love that he had been blind to wasn’t enough to stave off the chill that had crept in by that December. Winter was cruel. You’d both learned that the hard way. One bad argument, one stormy night, and it had all fallen apart. He’d lost you — he’d lost that ray of sunshine in his life, the one thing that should have kept him warm through icey December nights. All over something that had started off over a disagreement of future plans and unraveled into an argument over differences.
His voice cracks as he stands before you, eyes wide as he says, “Hey.”
When you look back up at him this way, it’s hard to believe that he never saw it. That love, swirling with endless depth. That quiet but firm matter of fact that you loved him, and a piece of you if not all of you always would, even after he’d shattered your heart on the ground carelessly.
“Hi,” your voice is meek. Even after nearly a year, all it took was him being here, and you felt the person you’d worked so hard to build from scratch fall right apart, exposing all your old wounds and still-sensitive nerves. Before Eddie, you’d always seemed so sure of yourself.
He should walk away. He should leave you be. He should just live with what he’d done, the damage he’d inflicted, and let you continue to heal.
He can’t. “Is this seat taken?”
You hesitate as you stare at the chair that his hand lands on the back of, and he doesn’t blame you. He isn’t sure he’d let him take that seat either.
“No,” you answer honestly, clearly against your better judgment, “It’s… open.”
There were a million other seats he could have taken. A plethora of empty tables he could have chosen over your currently occupied one. Hell, he could have even just walked out of there and let your soul rest. But for the life of him, he couldn’t. Because you’re here, and you’re only staring at him rather than cursing him with every foul name under the sun like he deserves, and all of the rotten parts inside of him are clawing out for your kindness. Like a child desperate for comfort, like a wounded animal taking shelter.
He takes that seat wordlessly, and watches you slowly shift your laptop out from in between you two.
You clear your throat first, offering that first olive branch, “How’ve you been?”
He almost wants to wave your question off. He’s been giving a rare opportunity and almost can’t stomach the thought of wasting it on small talk.
“Good,” he forces the answer out, “We, uh- we got picked up as openers for a tour this summer.”
We as in the band. The thing he’d put above you. He just might regret that decision for the rest of his days.
You’d had a college plan. He’d had a drop out plan. But you had still tried to fight tooth and nail for him; you'd given up a fraction of your reputation for him, a side effect of being associated with the freak, and you hadn’t even blinked an eye. It had been the bare minimum, at least in your eyes, but to him it had been a sign that he was nothing but poison for you. It went further than just the fact that you had your shit together and he didn’t. Once the first weak spot had his attention, all the fragile delicacies that your relationship hung on by did. He stopped ‘studying’ with you at Benny’s, choosing Hellfire Club over you. He always forgot to congratulate you on your accomplishments, whereas you never missed a beat in recognizing his. It was always him taking, taking, taking. He had watched you give, endlessly, over and over, and convinced himself that one day, he’d bleed you dry. He convinced yourself it was better to break your heart than to drain you for all that you were worth. He’d never considered your perspective of it all.
“That’s amazing,” you should be scathing, hurt and angry to have to hear about how the very thing he’d broken your heart over was working out for him. But you aren’t, and you both know you never could be; you were happy for him and still cheering him on, even after all the damage done between you two, “What’s the band you’re opening for?”
Stiff, cool small talk continues. Talk of this band that had so graciously taken Corroded Coffin under their wing. Discussions of the weather. Comments on the college you’d been accepted into, and confirmation you had been working on class work when he’d found you. You had a full ride. He tries to remember all the times you’d discussed your specific accomplishments that would award that, if you’d ever bragged about your GPA to him or any of the extracurricular activities you’d taken part in for a shiny bit on your applications. But he can’t recall them; maybe he had just gotten too jealous at the time, or maybe you’d been aware of the hurt it would have caused him and avoided the bragging rights. (It was the latter. God, he knows it’s the latter, but it hurts to admit it).
It’s painful. So, so utterly and terribly uncomfortable. He once knew everything about you. The mundane things like your favorite song to belt out with the windows down, and the remarkable things like how it felt to feel your heartbeat pressed to his while his bedroom window was open on frigid November nights. He’ll never know that feeling again. He’ll never feel your breath sync with his, and he’ll never get the chance to not take for granted that serenity you’d always offered with open palms in his direction.
When the conversation dwindles and the coffee goes lukewarm, he knows it has to end. He’d replayed this scenario a million times — rehearsed his apologies and tormented himself with endings where you took him back. You’d forget the past and drop your guard as you welcomed him back into your arms. The night he should have vocalized his fears of dragging you down with him but instead claimed you were holding him back would be erased. His pride would become a caged animal who had spent enough time roaming free and wreaking havoc on the best things in his life. Everything would go back to the way it was. Everything would be okay again. In his mind, that’s how this should have gone.
It didn’t. But he could still offer at least one piece of his dress rehearsals to you, leave at least one bandage behind for the trouble he’s caused.
“I’m sorry, you know,” he stumbles out, and it’s not nearly as smooth as all the words he’d repeated to the mirror, “I’m sorry for the way things ended.”
You’d loved him. Really, really loved him. And he’d taken it for granted, he had used it and discarded it for all it had been worth.
He’d always known you were smart. You wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, even if that love still burrowed in the channel of your heart frozen in time, forever cursed to a loop of the December night he’d chosen to chew you up and spit you back out.
“Don’t be,” you smile sadly, and he sees the glimpse of the you that still loves him, that still wants the best for him. The piece of you that will always treat him better than he deserves, “We got everything we wanted, right? It all worked out in the end.”
“Right.”
His tongue is dry, almost swollen, heavy in his throat.
He doesn’t know how to tell you that no, he didn’t get everything he wanted. None of it worked out in the end. Because at the end of the day, he finds that the only thing he really wants is you, and he will never have you again. You had treated him so well, had been so damn good to and for him, and he hadn’t known what to do with himself. Some foolish part of him still believes that with the knowledge he finally holds now, he could treat you better — treat you right. But he can’t. He’ll never even get the chance. He’ll never even deserve the chance.
An exchange of goodbyes. A final glance. An acceptance that even if he locked away his pride now, it had already dug its claws into you, and the scars would always remain.
He leaves more unspoken words in that coffee shop, at that table with you and your cold latte, than he can count. You both promise to reach out to each other more often, but you both know it won’t happen.
He doesn’t sleep that night. He never does these days.
Repentance churns his chest, a familiar friend, and demands to be felt until he can see the sun begin to rise through the curtains of his hotel room. He swears he feels the ghost of gentle lips kissing his cheeks, whispering to come to bed, but it might just be the wind.
There may only be a small piece of you frozen to that night and all your time together, and you may still have a possibility of thawing from the cold that he left you out in, but there is no such luxury for Eddie. He’ll always be there. Repeating words he doesn’t mean, watching tears well in your eyes as he destroys everything he’d ever wished for, setting aflame the one thing he could have done right in his life.
He writes another song about it, ignores the tear stains on the paper and adds it to the collection of all the ones that came before it.
Across the city, your pillow matches the sheet of lyrics. Tears shed that Eddie would never be able to recognize through his own smoke and ash.
Love was never something that came easily to Eddie. Regret, on the other hand, always would — always, for as long as you exist somewhere out there, frozen in December.
“And I think about summer, all the beautiful times when I watched you laughing from the passenger side – and realized I loved you in the fall.”
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