skyholdlibrary

[skyholdlibrary]

the sketch was in my drafts for YEARS.

#da2 #fenris

[skyholdlibrary]

can’t stop thinking about the dumars. they really just killed those guys

#da2

[skyholdlibrary]

My piece for the Fortitudo Dorian Art Book @dorianartbook!

#dai #da3 #dorian #dorian pavus #dragon age inquisition

[skyholdlibrary]

You know we deeply deeply deeply don't talk about THIS enough

#dao

[skyholdlibrary]

Solas: I'm so mysterious and wise that I have made friends with actual spirits.

HOF: So have I dude, you're not special.

Hawke: I had a friend who was possessed by a spirit. He blew up a chantry and caused a massive civil war.

Inquisitor: We found a spirit earlier today. He is my son now.

#dao #da2 #dai #solas #Warden #Hawke #inquisitor

[skyholdlibrary]

My new fav friendship

#da2 #hawk #corypheus

[skyholdlibrary]

sick and tired of people saying carver hawke is boring when he and non-blue hawke are in stiff competition for "most unhinged hawke sibling". this is a man who

has a mabari tattoo in an undisclosed location that he can make bark

saw a man with a giant sword and glowing tattoos who he JUST watched rip a man's heart out of his chest with his bare hands and thought "yeah i can take him". fenris will never know how close he came to death that day.

tried to relate to aforementioned man with giant sword and glowing tattoos by telling him about aforementioned mabari tattoo

does a fake pirate voice

falls in love with a blood mage

reads av*line's cop ass for filth every chance he gets

thinks killing slavers is a fun sibling bonding activity (he's right)

meets up with his little nerdy friends at the hanged man to geek out about flags

gives friendmanced seb the shovel talk

once nailed his sister's braid to her bedpost

refers to duke prosper as, alternately, "baron paucity de rochefort" and "le baron du stinky cheese"

as a templar canonically goes so fully rabid chimpanzee mode anytime someone even breathes hawke's name in his direction that the other templars never mentioned hawke around carver because they were so scared of him

#da2 #carver

[skyholdlibrary]

Okay I’m just going to say it: I always found the take that “Fenris and Anders’ relationship is wasted potential” kind of irritating. At least in the way most people mean when they say it: Anders and Fenris never found common ground, and that is a waste of potential

I do agree that there are some writing let-downs in their relationship, I just don't agree that the fact that they never reach a common ground is part of it.

It is true that Fenris and Anders have more in common than differences, their trauma is ultimately based in the same thing: being held and tormented against their will by an oppressive system. If you pay attention, the narrative, the characters, and Fenris and Anders themselves are aware of this. Here's a little snippet of it shown in this Legacy dialogue

The game knows they're alike. It's not that they can't see there's common ground between them. They can. The problem is: Fenris is healing, and Anders is not

I'm going to show you more banter screenshots now

Specifically of Fenris and Anders' banter with Varric, in acts 2 and 3

Just bear with me, we'll start with Fenris

Fenris and Varric in act 2

Fenris and Varric in act 3

Now Anders

Anders and Varric in act 2

Anders and Varric in act 3

There are more banters that illustrate this point but I think these four are the strongest and also I would like to go to sleep at some point tonight.

Fenris is healing from his past, if you look at his banters as a whole, you can see across all characters he gets more open, humorous, and talkative throughout all acts. Anders does the exact opposite. Anders gets more closed off, cold, and in act 3 you'll notice he rarely speaks before being spoken to unless he's following up on a previous conversation.

It makes sense, to me at least, why they never become friends. It isn't because Anders is a mage, Bethany is a mage, anti-circle, and Fenris loves her. Don't believe me? Look on the wiki or search "Bethany" on my blog and you'll find some of their interactions. They're adorable.

It's because Anders is getting worse and Fenris is getting better. That's why all their conversations are just an exhausting loop and why they never seem to connect. To me, that is the story being told here. It was never about them finding a common ground, it was about paralleling two people and one who heals from their past, and one who does not. Making them on opposite sides of the mage/templar debate is meant to emphasize this.

I do want to state that I have mixed feelings about this. While I think it's a neat idea, it does also feed the "You were hurt by a system but now your hate for it consumes you" trope which I am. Not a fan of. You can also talk about how the world itself plays into this in that Fenris can escape from Tevinter but Anders can't escape from being a mage. That's all a retrospective for another day, I'm just talking about the intent behind the relationship here.

Basically what I’m trying to say is: A story may not go in the direction you want it to but that does not make the story bad, it just makes it the story you didn’t want. That is fine, but I take some issue when people treat it as an actual fault of the story rather than a matter of taste.

Like I said, there are plenty of actual writing issues in Dragon Age 2, and I do think that there are some wasted opportunities in Fenris and Anders' relationship. My biggest problem is that it doesn't go far enough. We see Anders spiral until he hits full rock bottom and destroys the Chantry. We see Fenris... go play some cards with his buddies. I think it would've been more effective if Fenris got a little farther in his healing, namely his relationship with magic. I've said that I don't think Fenris would ever fully trust magic and I don't, but it would've been neat to at least see more progress made than is actually made in the game. This I think is the consequence of Dragon Age 2 being a first draft like David Gaider said, I think if they had more time, they could've pushed this further and made it more interesting, but I do genuinely like what's there like I genuinely like the entirity of Dragon Age 2.

Anyway, that's why in my opinion, Anders and Fenris never finding a common ground isn't a problem from a narrative perspective.

#da2 #fenris #anders #varric

[skyholdlibrary]

So, in the process of making this gif set, I stumbled upon a few glorious flycam moments again, but this one I managed to capture during Here Lies the Abyss has to take the cake, brought to you with in-game sound, because that makes it 10 times more hilarious for some reason.

There’s so much happening here, I don’t even know where to start. Let me try to dissect this one by one under the cut.

Keep reading

#dai #this is amazing 😂

[skyholdlibrary]

Honestly Sir Thrask is kinda a case study for how it's almost impossible to be a 'good templar' pretty much by virtue of holding the job.

Like. He wants to help a group of mages who he is deeply worried about. He has to hire help from you. If you ask him why he can't be kind to the mages himself, he says "You are not a templar, you do not know what a badge of shame that would be".

A BADGE OF SHAME. If you are KIND to mages that is SHAMEWORTHY among your peers. He cannot take the credit.

When he tries to fight against Merideth in act 3 with some sympathetic mages and templars he ALSO can't do that properly because the other templars (Cullen) intervine.

If you're a "good" templar you are punished by your peers. You can either leave (and risk lyrium withdrawal) or stay and wear a badge of shame.

#da2 #templar #thrask

[skyholdlibrary]

What is this?

A weeklong event celebrating the Dalish elves and everything relating to them! Whether it’s about your OCs or the many canon characters from all games and media, join us by creating fanart and fanfics based on the given prompts.

How do I participate?

Simply post your work and tag it with #dalish week 2022 and/or @ us at @dalish-appreciation-week, and we’ll reblog everything here. Please remember to tag and indicate nsfw works as such!

Prompts

Day 1: Arlathven (Monday Oct 10th)

Day 2: Craft (Tuesday Oct 11th)

Day 3: Prayer (Wednesday Oct 12th)

Day 4: Halla (Thursday Oct 13th)

Day 5: Travel (Friday Oct 14th)

Day 6: Vallaslin (Saturday Oct 15th)

Day 7: Campfire (Sunday Oct 16th)

#dalish week 2022

[skyholdlibrary]

Remember when learning specializations was Zevran offering to throw knives with you

#dai #dao #zevran #sera #iron bull #the iron bull #vivienne #dorian #solas #cole #inquisitor

[skyholdlibrary]

birth

#dai #inquisitior

[skyholdlibrary]

you don’t believe in god, i don’t believe in luck

#fenris #hawk #da2 #this is too good

[skyholdlibrary]

my favourite picture has got 2 be the one of that dorian cosplayer standing on the subway ALSNDLDDKFPFKGODP

#dai #dorian

[skyholdlibrary]

No but can we talk about what Cassandra thought happened in Kirkwall before talking to Varric because she’s so surprised that half the people involved in what happened were from Ferelden by coincidence and said that she thought they all came together. Like did she think that Hawke, Anders, Aveline, and Merrill were all part of a terrorism syndicate

#dao #da2 #cassandra #cassandra penthagast

[skyholdlibrary]

Dorian visiting friends in Ferelden

Brushes by @spindlewit and via CSP assets store

#dorian #da3 #oooooh my goddd pretty