#100% that was varrics doing lmao

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

badum-tss

#this line is so ridiculous i love it so much #100% that was varrics doing lmao #laya plays dragon age #mota #the political aspect is inchresting too but it is. too late for me to think about that lol #(in the day. not in general lmao) #(also i have no mental timeline of political affairs in thedas in my head so theres that xdd) #seems awfully suspicious tho that the orlesians had the tome of koslun and now they got sb trading important secrets with orlais?

[sapphim]

no pressure or anything but i’m curious since you go in the game files a lot + have a mod sorta centered on this quest, i’ve never seen anyone do this, and i don’t have access to da2 rn, do you know how best served cold like. works? if bethany/carver are both dead, sebastian is never recruited, fenris is either not recruited or hawke betrays him during his act 3 quest, anders gets kicked out of the party after his act 2 personal quest, isabela leaves at the end of act 2, and hawke has aveline, varric, and merrill with them the whole time?

does the quest still work or does it get glitchy? i suppose it might not be too difficult to get to work from a gameplay standpoint, but that seems potentially even less comprehensible than the normal quest lmao and i know the devs were under crunch

lmao I don't know about "get" glitchy, since it is already glitchy under typical circumstances. after a companion is kidnapped you can still add them to your party from the party picker and sometimes go initiate conversations with them at their party base. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

what usually happens is that there will (should!) always be a "default" option the game will be able to fall back on, even if it's not itself a "correct" option. what I mean is like, if you have two lines that play based on Hawke's gender, you wouldn't set one to play if Hawke was male and the other to play if Hawke was female, you'd set one to play if Hawke was female and then set the other to *always* play, and then if Hawke's gender wasn't registering as either male or female for whatever reason, it would still have *a* line to play, even if incorrect, rather than abruptly breaking and falling out of the conversation early.

as for how best served cold works—in Keran's dialogue where he announces which character has been kidnapped, he has a long list of lines describing the kidnapped character, with special plot flags used specifically to determine if that character is eligible to be kidnapped there. this is for the siblings and romances. if there's no sibling alive and no romanced character not in the active party, it falls through to the default, generic line "We just got word they pulled it off, right before you came here."

cut for length

if that line plays, it calls a special little bit of plot script used to determine, if a sibling or romance isn't kidnapped, then who should be kidnapped instead? I've looked at the script disassembly for this flag recently and I don't 100% understand it, but it goes thru a list of characters and checks their availability and their approval level and then picks the first one in the list that meets its requirements. there SHOULD be a fall-through state for this too in case no one passes. I know back when I was making my mod, I made my fall-through state if all the changes that *I* made failed to pick a kidnapping victim to just... call this plot flag and let IT figure it out lmfao.

still, it's very probable that they didn't ever consider this one very specific situation in which NOBODY would be eligible and now I'm curious, so I deleted most of the characters from the party pool in my save game, unset some flags that would lead the game to believe bethany and carver were available anyway, and rocked up to the warehouse with aveline, merrill, varric, and no other friends in the whole wide world to see what would happen, keran told me someone unspecified had been kidnapped, and then lying there on the beach...

was no one

and then we abruptly fell out of thrask's conversation early because the conversation was set up "improperly" with no fallback line and so Grace couldn't decide whose death to call for, leaving us all stranded standing aimlessly on the beach with no way to progress the rest of the quest or the game

which was very funny

then I checked the cnv and saw the other dialogue choice WOULD have allowed the cutscene to progress (the third dialogue option was missing from the wheel completely), tried that, found a second dialogue wheel with a missing option, and then

we abruptly fell out of the conversation here once again because there was no one to thank me for rescuing them again and, once again, no fallback line, so once again our game was softlocked

so I'd say, to answer your question, the quest does NOT work and "glitchy" is an understatement

thanks for asking!

#im gonna tag this #kidnappapalooza #bc i need to update that mod at some point and might as well bulletproof it lol #this is the sort of the thing I'd just naturally fix on my own and label a bugfix if I encountered it now #but I'm not sure if I was in that habit back then

[villainanders]

I'm back on locked tomb dragon age thoughts. I was curious as to what Houses you would assign da2 characters, or at least Bethany. I haven't played with her yet since I've only played mage hawke ( I will fix this soon) so I don't know her very well. Rn I'm thinking like Fenris, 8th (fucked up power dynamics), maybee varric fifth? since his whole thing is bucking tradition? not sure. Isabela, fourth? or maybe third or seventh? I think she'd like the gaudiness. idk I'm thinking

this is such a good question im sorry its taken so long to get back to you...

anyway for au reasons i do feel like all the hawke sibs should be from same house and I'm not 100% on that. @widgitart said 3rd which i really like with leandra's backstory (maybe she like. gave up her seat as 3rd heir to run off with Malcolm who is non-nobility from a less prestigious house but the amells never wanted to make gamlen their heir so there was a weird power vacuum until the hawkes came back to third? idk) but I'm also compelled by the idea of them as 4th house bc i think there's something thematically good with carver and beth both being so doomed so young and 4th's habit of sending teens to the front lines.

for varric i can definitely see 5th. tho honestly this is the house i know the least about lmao I'm just like hell yeah magnus and abigail house :) tho i could also make a case for 3rd and frankly. hear me out. 7th (its not that i think 7th cultural practices are similar to orzammar's cultural practices but i could see varric having a similar relationship with 7th house that he does to orzammar. very much "everyone is acting like this thing is cool. but its not its actually very fucked up!!)

fenris 8th for the fucked up potential and Sebastian and aveline both 2nd for obvious reasons (i know I'm messing up any hope of this being a canaan house au by assigning people who wouldn't be lyctor/cav pairs to the same house). i dont feel like bela is from the nine houses at all i feel like she's a cool space pirate doing her own thing out in the galaxy. hell yeah girlie.

i'm not really sure for merrill and anders. tho in my head they're both og lyctors so its kind of different. part of me wants to say 6th for anders since they're the closest to the circle kind of but then he would have been very bad 6th house member lmao. i feel like i could also see 5th but again i like. barely know anything about them lol. MERRILL is interesting to me there's a few ways it could go (i think there's strong cases for 6th and 7th) but i kind of want to say 9th since merrill practicing magic from a different tradition (as a blood mage but also generally as a dalish elf) could have some interesting ties with the way ninth is distanced from the other houses and regarded by other houses as being stuck in the past (which is. unfortunately how a lot of dragon age treats the dalish)

#anyway do not have set in stone thoughts on any of this would love to hear more of ur thoughts :^) #lyctor au

[catdotnip]

not me doodlin my hawke before finishing my canon origins run 👀👀👀

#laurna hawke #dragon age #dragon age 2 #custom hawke #she made her necklace and earrings herself!! #she used clay from the shore from the wounded coast :) #oh the original caption was supposed to be 'well you can't say something THAT funny and not expect me to need a breather. VARRIC." #and her staff is 100% just a cool ass stick she found #she's like. merrill. anders. how do i enchant this. #and theyre like I dont think that's how it works lmao #hbfdskj hey bioware i want to drag anders and fenris into a room and tell them to work with each other #bc i think i'm gonna romance fenris. if i can stand him lmao #but i wanna be friends w anders!!!! i wanna convince fenris to join the mages!!!! i accidentally killed him the first time wHATTT #bro i just kinda did and i was like. wait what. #anyway

[doctormage]

jumping in on the anders apologism bc now i'm feeling strongly about it too, it's also just baffling to me how people can play da2 and villainize anders. bc youre right, the game spends a lot of time showing you chantry atrocities, plus one of the most interesting things about da2 to me is the prominent theme of how oppressors control the narrative, yet so many people miss it! the framing device for the entire story is varric telling the story of how a rebellion started to a chantry seeker, recounting chantry injustices but in a dark room away from the public, where it can be suppressed. that means something, but people still call anders a terrorist or murderer and i'm just like. well that's an interesting way to refer to slave revolts, lol. kind of the entire point was that the chantry lies to justify religious persecution and villainizes anyone who resists, but i guess you somehow missed that and are doing it for them...

“the prominent theme of how oppressors control the narrative” yes!!!! fuck!!!!

it’s especially funny to me given how they kinda beat us over the head w that in DAI (which obv came out after DA2 but like, we can use it as a lens to look at previous games bc it’s been out for 8 fucking years and we’re all somehow still arguing abt its predecessor lol). even the first two I can name just off the top of my head — the shit w the seekers wrt tranquility & the shit w inquisitor ameridan — are both instances of the chantry lying about their shittiness & those lies having serious long-standing implications for the entirety of thedas, but ESPECIALLY for marginalized groups (elves, mages, tranquil) (not to mention how trespasser explores similar ideas but i don’t want to derail)

also failing to acknowledge varric’s role as the storyteller AND the situation in which he’s being forced to tell the story, like you mentioned, is some big fat beef i have w DAI. how are yall gonna constantly bring attention to the fact that DA2 isn’t a direct narrative but instead a story being told while being interrogated by not just a seeker but THE RIGHT HAND OF THE FUCKING DIVINE, then want to demonize the revolutionary YOU created so bad that you backpedal enough to be like no varric was telling the 100% pure unbridled truth actually. he has a perfect photographic memory and remembers everything exactly as it happens, and then he wrote it down as such with zero exaggeration at all. despite him literally saying on multiple occasions that he loves to lie and sensationalize. not with this tho we trust him. HUH???

and don’t even get me STARTED on how they named the mage underground as such to draw parallels to the actual fucking Underground Railroad and were then brainless enough to be like “well that’s bad actually :/” lmao????? girl (gender neutral) WHAT??

but yeah at the end of the day youre absolutely correct, people will fall for this shit even at the hands of the fantasy catholic church and refuse to see otherwise. the games can straight up tell and SHOW us that the chantry & all the organizations that report to it (the templars, the seekers, the circles) are corrupt and LIE!! outright LIE and kill people to protect those lies, and still people will be like “okay well what about the rich people huh? what about all these made up scenarios i created to make myself feel better about hating when the oppressed stand up to their oppressors?? I’m enlightened for saying all violence is bad, even when it can put an end to more violence<3” lmfao not only are they doing the brainwashing themselves, like you said, but imo a lot of them are missing the point on purpose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#i have sooooooo so many fucking thoughts abt this #I’m also thinking of that one post that explains why it’s so gross when ppl like awakening anders but not da2 anders #that ends w something like ‘he’s no longer the image of the perfect minority who doesn’t stand up to his oppressors’ or something #I’m gonna find it and rb it bc yeah!! that’s exactly it!!! #anyway all aboard the anders defense squad train choo choo #da #anders apologist archive #long post

[lavellander]

hello im feeling extra “touch the stove”-y today so. i was looking for any dialogue where solas just straight up lies and (of what i could find online/transcribed, obv) i didnt find anything that was 100% untrue. he’ll completely avoid the question, change the subject, give part of the truth, etc etc etc, but nothing was just Entirely A Lie

what really gets me is that there’s a handful of convos where someone infers something from what solas says, and he will even point out that he didn’t directly say that. like, he tells people how to see through his shit, lmao

here is an embarrassingly long ass list of examples, all sorted by what kind of not-lying he’s doing lol, just bc i am unhinged<3

*note that some of these are cut from longer bits of dialogue or have been split up from one conversation into different categories*

literally just Not Answering The Question lol

Dorian: How much “will” do they have? They’re amorphous constructs of the Fade. Solas: Hmm.

Dorian: Solas, have I offended you? Solas: If you have, why would it concern you?

Dorian: Solas, what is this whole look of yours about? Solas: I’m sorry? Dorian: No, that outfit is sorry. What are you supposed to be, some kind of woodsman? Dorian: Is it a Dalish thing? Don’t you dislike the Dalish? Or is it some kind of statement? Solas: No.

Dorian: Let me get this straight, Solas. Dorian: You’re an apostate – neither Dalish nor city elf – who lived alone in the woods studying spirits. Solas: Is that a problem for you?

Solas: [has a whole tactical moment about the red jennies lmao] Sera: Where d’you get all this, then? Solas: Do you wish to be unnerved by another tale of my explorations of the Fade? Or do you wish to learn something?

Vivienne: You must be pleased with what was revealed at the Temple of Mythal, Solas. Solas: Why should those ruins please me, Enchanter?

changing the subject before he backs himself into a corner

Gatt: I don’t see any tattoos, but you’re carrying a staff. Are you from a Chantry Circle? Solas: No. And I would prefer not to discuss it.

Solas: I find the fall of the dwarven lands confusing. Varric: What’s so confusing about endless darkspawn? Solas: A great deal, although that is a different matter.

giving the truth, but not the whole truth

Blackwall: Skyhold. How did you find it? Solas: I looked. Blackwall: Now you sound like Cole. You looked? Solas: This world is full of wonders for those who seek them.

Blackwall: You spoke of seeing death and destruction. Did you fight in a war? Solas: There are struggles across Thedas at any given time. I doubt you would have heard of it. Blackwall: An elven skirmish? Solas: In a manner of speaking, yes.

Cassandra: Solas, have you always lived alone? Out in the wilderness, as an apostate? Solas: For the most part.

Cassandra: Have you ever encountered templars before? Solas: Only at a distance. I am an apostate, after all. Cassandra: And they never caught you even once? Solas: I am a very careful apostate.

Dorian: We found elves, living ancient elves, at the Temple of Mythal. Does that bother you, Solas? If Inquisitor allied with the Sentinels: Solas: I am pleased we were not forced to kill them, if that’s what you mean.

Iron Bull: You’ve got an odd style, Solas. Your spells are a bit different from the Circle mages or the Vints. Solas: That comes from being self-taught. Solas: I discovered most of my magic on my own, or learned it from my journeys in the Fade.

Vivienne: So, an apostate? Solas: That is correct, Enchanter. I did not train in your Circle.

Solas: You are a man who made a choice... possibly the first of your life. Iron Bull: I’ve always liked fighting. What if I turn savage, like the other Tal-Vashoth? Solas: You have the Inquisition, you have the Inquisitor... and you have me.

from cutscene at beginning Inquisitor: [mentions the anchor closing a rift] Solas: Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach's wake – and it seems I was correct.

from cutscene at beginning Solas: [to a Dalish Inq] You are Dalish, but clearly away from the rest of your clan. Did they send you here? Inquisitor: What do you know of the Dalish? Solas: I have wandered many roads in my time, and crossed paths with your people on more than one occasion. Inquisitor: [Crossed paths? dialogue choice] Solas: I mean that I offered to share knowledge, only to be attacked for no greater reason than their superstition.

from “I’d like to know more about you” convo in Haven Inquisitor: What made you start studying the Fade? Solas: I grew up in a village to the north. There was little to interest a young man, especially one gifted with magic. But as I slept, spirits of the Fade showed me glimpses of wonders I had never imagined. I treasured my dreams. Being awake, out of the Fade, became troublesome.

actually telling the truth but no one picks up on the gravity of it

Solas: [...] I believe the elven gods existed, as did the old gods of Tevinter. But I do not think any of them were gods, unless you expand the definition of the word to the point of absurdity. I appreciate the idea of your Maker, a god that does not need to prove his power. I wish more such gods felt the same. Cassandra: You have seen much sadness in your journeys, Solas. Following the Maker might offer some hope. Solas: I have people, Seeker. The greatest triumphs and tragedies this world has known can all be traced to people.

Cole: No, inside. I don’t hear your hurt as much. Your song is softer, subtler, not silent but still. Solas: How small the pain of one man seems when weighted against the endless depths of memory, of feeling, of existence. That ocean carries everyone. And those of us who learn to see its currents move through life with their fewer ripples.

Cole: You didn’t do it to be right. You did it to save them. Inquisitor: Solas, what is Cole talking about? Solas: A mistake. One of many made by a much younger elf who was certain he knew everything.

Solas: Empires rise and fall. Arlathan was no more “innocent” than your own Tevinter in its time. Solas: Your nostalgia for the ancient elves, however romanticized, is pointless.

Solas: Our people used to be here. Sera: Pfft, you say that everywhere. Solas: It is more true than you want to believe.

Vivienne: You must be pleased, apostate. With the Templars dissolved, your rebels will be most difficult to pacify. Solas: My rebels? Am I an agent for their cause, whispering poison into the Inquisition’s ears? Solas: How comforting. Vivienne: You enjoy seeing yourself as a villain? Solas: No more than any other clever man who wonders what he could do if pushed.

Vivienne: [about the Temple of Mythal] Now you know the elves were once a mighty nation. Solas: I always knew, Enchanter. The Temple of Mythal is just another reminder of what was lost.

(in the Emerald Graves): These forests have changed much since I was last here.

during the Fade!Haven cutscene Solas: It seems you hold the key to our salvation. You had sealed it with a gesture... and right then, I felt the whole world change. Inquisitor: [romance option] “Felt the whole world change?” Solas: A figure of speech. Inquisitor: I’m aware of the metaphor. I’m more interested in felt. Solas: You change... everything.

pointing out that people assume he means things he did not directly say

Cole: There is pain though, still within you. Solas: And I never said there was not.

Solas: You may well become fully human, after all. I never thought to see it. Cole: When did you see it before? Solas: I did not say that I had.

Iron Bull: We’ve got the alliance with my people. Given how much you love the Qun, I figured... Solas: I might scold you? Berate you for your decisions? Iron Bull: Hey. The Chargers died as heroes for the good of the mission. Solas: I never said otherwise.

Sera: Don’t you start. Solas: I’m reasonably certain I said nothing.

Vivienne: [talking shit about grey warden mages] Solas: I never claimed mages should be above the law, Enchanter. Vivienne: No, darling. You merely implied it, while offering no viable suggestions for improvement.

after infamous “side benefits” dialogue Warrior Inquisitor: You find my muscles enjoyable? Solas: I meant that you enjoyed having them, presumably. Warrior Inquisitor: Ah. Solas: But yes... since you asked.

diminishing things he does actually know by saying he he “believes” or “thinks,” or that things were vaguely “said” or “told”

Solas: I say what I believe to be true, even if it gives offense to those who prefer the lie.

Dorian: That orb Corypheus carries... are you certain it’s of elven origin, Solas? Solas: I believe so. Why do you ask?

Solas: It is said that we lived at a pace that sustained us for... ages.

making it sound like he’s talking about something/someone else, but it’s just him lmao

Cole: Do you know a lot about wolves? Solas: I know that they are intelligent, practical creatures that small-minded fools think of as terrible beasts.

Solas: No man can kill so many people without breaking inside. To survive... those you fight must become monsters. Iron Bull: The ones that kill innocent people, yeah. The rest... I don’t know. Solas: The mind does marvelous things to protect itself.

during In Hushed Whispers Inquisitor: I’m glad you understood what he just said because I’m not sure I did. Solas: You would think such understanding would stop me from making such terrible mistakes. You would be wrong.

misc

this one i wanted to include because it’s the only circumstance (that i came across) where someone directly asks solas to lie and he literally says he can’t

during the fucking crestwood breakup scene Inquisitor: [angry option] Tell me you don’t care. Solas: I can’t do that. Inquisitor: Tell me I was some casual dalliance so I can call you a cold-hearted son of a bitch and move on! Solas: I’m sorry.

*also note that most of these are banter transcriptions from the wiki; some are cutscene / other dialogue posted by either @/daitranscripts or u/karinini on reddit; it’s not all his cutscenes obv, but I’m not about to look up every single one individually sdlkfj*

#i am................incredibly embarrassed that i did this #forgive me. the brain worms would not leave until it was Done #also sorry that its ugly no matter what i did tungle was NOT happy w my formatting. just know its clean and easy to read in my mind :/ #and i know none of this is new information but i am riddled with terminal grad student brain disease so i like having my evidence organized #long post #(bc its long as hell if u open the read more) #im going to put this in my #ref #tag. bc i sometimes get tripped up writing his dialogue to be cryptic but true

[merrilldidnothingwrong]

honestlyi feel like. call me crazy but i feel like mages (the rebels in particular) are Insanely infantilized and belittled all throughout dai. cassandra's conversation with the rebel mage when you go talk to her, the way vivienne speaks to fiona, the way fiona herself is portrayed even though from what i know she's really like, not supposed to be like that, and don't even get me Started on varric and bull. it all seems deliberately presented in the most unlikable, "whiny" way possible

oh nope youre 100% correct. inquisition is just FILLED with bullshit “both sides” agenda, and after dragon age 2, i just cant believe they had the balls to pull this. because of......... a practically empty chantry?? lol they demonize the mages at every turn. make their bias very clear for the templars/chantry from the start.

yeah the right/left hand of the divine start the inquisition, and they help close the breach, and save the world..... but cassandra disapproves if you arent andrastian, knowing full well that they are coloniziers. lelianas good but she’s lost her faith. dont get me started on cullen. why’s he there? oh right. anti mage bias. the man helped meredith for ~10 years. he still sings her praises after the inquisition has been going for a year or two. but “hes not a templar anymore”. lmao.

varric was IN KIRKWALL FOR 10 YEARS AND SAW THE ABUSES MAGES WENT THROUGH FIRST HAND AND DOES NOTHING BUT BAD MOUTH ANDERS THE ENTIRE TIME. and i dont account that to bad writing, thats just varric being varric. he’s kicked out of his home now, hes being forced to fight mages vs templars, hes selfish, he doesn’t care about the war. he just wants to go home and be cozy.

getting back to it, the chantry? who doesn’t back the inquisition? is invited to haven and skyhold? and preach there 24/7? theres templar banners right outside the inquisitors quarters??? why????? mother giselle gets to judge dorian before his his personal quest??? why????? 

everyone believes the inquisitor is the herald of andraste BUT THEY CANT ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHANTRY??? are you f*king kidding me????

ahem. my point is..... inquisitor has all this power. but cant tell anybody to shut the f*ck up about the mages?? i mean, we dont know if any of the mages are from kirkwall? we dont get to talk to them? we just outright ATTACK THEM???? the divine wanted to sit down and talk to them BUT WE’RE JUST GONNA KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY???

oh right. bioware was going through some shit when it was being written. its EA’s fault. but still. that was some shitty ass writing.

ive never read the books but i hear fiona was a badass. like. she canon says “fuck the divine”. and she goes and makes a deal with........ tevinter........??????

if they had more time, or you know, a better villain LMAO, the beginning should have had an actual sit down meeting with the mages and templars, and then we would have seen how useless that meeting was, and yeah it probably would have ended in a fight, AGAIN. and then introduce a villain. probably another templar mad with power. like the dragon age series has always shown them to be.

#bioware critical #anti templar #cullen critical #pro mage #anti cassandra #varric critical #andrzejsapkowskitostarakurwa

[dirthavarens]

so i’m sick and that means i’m thinking about my warden, champion, and inquisitor when they’re sick and how their LI’s react

Warden Ghilana Surana: 

What sickness? This woman could have the actual plague and still be going. She feels like she’s going to pass out? Lmao guess again. She’s downing a lyrium potion and getting right back to business. During the Blight, she caught a cold and Alistair was severely worried because she lost her voice, thus incantations were out of the question. However, in her discomfort, she found great strength, especially as an Arcane Warrior. What she could not use through incantations, she used through her blade, through wards scribed, through sheer intent. She conjures ice to keep her fevers down and when that isn’t enough, detonates the heat as flames around her.

After the Blight (and Alistair leaving her lmao), she spends a great deal of her time adventuring and recruiting with Nathaniel Howe. This means exposure to the elements that is far less than kind. A rogue doesn’t know healing as a mage does, but that doesn’t stop Nathaniel from trying to help. 

He’s tender in his care of her, despite her abject protestations. She’s fine. She’s always been fine. She always will be fine. Such resolve can play into her downfall at times. 

Just a year before the Breach formed, she took ill while she and Nathaniel were far, far to the North, closer to Tevinter than she’d ever ventured. They had to take shelter in a small, abandoned hut and Ghilana had no energy to do much of anything. She had been staving off the illness for nearly a two weeks through magic alone when it finally caught up with her. She collapsed during a hunt and Nathaniel took her to the nearest shelter he could find. 

She slept for days, waking only when he begged her to drink, eat, and down concoctions. The ratios of his potions were almost right, leading her to sleep for too long or have too vivid of dreams. 

After all of that, she got out of bed, cleaned herself, and carried on as though nothing had happened. Nathaniel was very, very unhappy, but he knows better than to argue with his angry elvhen wife.

All in All: Very Capable of Handling Herself. Will fight and throw fire as her temperature rises. Will do anything to keep others from worrying, laughs it off when she has to. 12/10

Amelia Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall:

Her boyfriend is Anders. Her symptoms are never allowed to go beyond a stuffy nose. 

Just Kidding. There are times she tries to hide it from him. Having Eldest Sister syndrome, taking care of herself usually isn’t high on her priorities. Making sure that her friends stay out of trouble and that her mother is alright are her top priorities. She’s the Mom Friend and her own ailments can wait. When she’s sick, she does her best to mask her symptoms. A light cough can pass as dust from the Lowtown streets. Her stuffy noses can be attributed to allergies.

Oh? That pale, clammy appearance with her glassy eyes? Probably ate something bad and didn’t she say it was allergy season?

Even at her worst, she makes sure to get her rounds in, often collapsing in bed the moment she gets home. Her mother, Bodahn, and Sandal are the only ones who ever see her sweat with fever. On those nights, her mabari stays close. It isn’t often she sees Carver since he left for the Templars but she still sends a care package when Cullen makes mention that he’s ill. Even if her brother hates her, she does what she can. 

Over the years, Anders would notice how she would change when she slept. What had been a minor cough turned into a deep rattling in her chest that roused him from sleep. Most times when he heard such a rattle, the outcome was unfavorable. Winter fever was a hard case to cure, but luckily he had the fortune of catching hers early and was able to treat it. Her mabari acted almost like a nurse hound instead of a warhound. For once, Anders was grateful for the dog’s presence. 

From that moment on, he made her swear to tell him when she was ill. With great reluctance, she agreed. 

All in All: What Sickness? Eldest Sibling Syndrome to the max. She even still takes care of Carver, despite him being a shitty Templar. Big Heart 10/10 

Inquisitor Mirani Lavellan:

She sleeps heavily and often when she’s ill. The Fade has always been a comfort to her, even when demons encroach on her weakened body. Naturally, this causes some concern within the Inquisition for the Inquisitor to “sleep on the job” so to speak. But she’s there when she needs to be. Potions, herbal teas, sweaters, and thick pants abound, but she’s there. 

Solas is more than happy to comfort her and keep the demons at bay while she rests. He fills her dreams with small secrets and memories of a time long since passed. He knows he shouldn’t but the contented sigh she lets out is worth it, even if it’s through wheezing snores or a stuffed nose. 

Mirani is more emotional when sick. She is an Empath with deep connections to the Fade and the forgotten feelings that dwell there. Being ill makes her no small victim to strong emotions, either. Battle is where she feels the strongest, where her magic is purest and most powerful. 

Being a Rift Mage gives her access to powers untapped by nearly everyone, save her Trainer and Solas. But calling on the Fade takes a great deal from her when she’s ill, as she has to be wary of manifesting her intentions as energy and not invitations to demons. Her focus and emotional state causes her mana to drain quickly between powerful spells. So much does she expel from herself that Solas stands at the ready to catch her should she fall and sound the retreat.  

During the times she had exhausted herself and had to be carried back to camp, she would protest vehemently, saying that she was okay. This gained her nothing but stiff-lips and furrowed brows from her companions. Except for Cole, whose panic was palpable. 

She’s naturally freckled and has a great deal of color to her light olive skin. This color increases tenfold when she’s sick. The tips of her nose and ears turn red and her cheeks nearly glow from fever. When sickly and nauseous, her olive hue turns closer to that of pallid elfroot. This doesn’t happen often, though, and she’s thankful.

Mirani never stays sick for long. Only a couple days at most. The longest she was ill was after the fall of Corypheus. 

She was down for two weeks, doubtlessly in-part to her fatigued heart and melancholy. Even so, she would find herself dreaming in a place unfamiliar but comforting, like a forgotten lullaby from one’s childhood. A melody she can recall, but never remembers the lyrics. During the days, she’d drag herself from bed and do her best to ignore the ache in her lungs and the incessant pounding in her head. Varric often told her she looked like shit, Bull and Sera were not much kinder. Still, she had paperwork to fill out, memoirs to write, requisitions to approve and deny. The work of the Inquisitor was never done.

With the Anchor growing worse in the two years that pass, she notices her immunities starting to fail. Dorian sends special teas and potions of his own making for her that serve to invigorate her. They work for a while and when they stop being as effective Cole is more than content to keep her company, popping in and out of the Fade when he feels her hurt. It’s harder to help her, knowing that the Anchor is the infection eating away at her. 

IF AU HAPPENS: Despite having only one arm, she still holds tightly to her words to Solas and follows him into the Eluvian. Now weaker than before, she knows she has to find a way to restore herself without explicitly asking Solas to mend her. She’s gone two years without his help, despite what she feels for him, and she will continue to find her way. She taps into the natural magic of the Crossroads. Its energy is much like that of the Fade, but purer; its intents are whatever ones wish is and she channels it to build herself back to strength. Solas marvels at her tenacity. She controls old magic so freely, so easily, as though she had always known how to wield it. She feels better than before, healthier than she thought she could after dealing with the instability of the Anchor for two years. 

IF AU DOESN’T HAPPEN: After disbanding the Inquisition, Mirani is exhausted and finds that she just wants to be left alone. Now with only one arm, no Inquisition, and no Clan, she ventures deep into the Arlathan Forest. The old magic here feels familiar and she is content to feel it wisp around her like leaves being kicked up by an autumn breeze. Through careful practice and occasional mishaps, she’s able to rehabilitate herself. On her worst nights, however, she would be lulled back into sleep with dreams of foreign memories. The visions were clearer there and the tender emotion encasing her quieted her disturbed soul. The spirits there often seek to help her when she’s in need of aid and Cole occasionally appeared to keep her company, even if he was not explicitly needed. 

All in All: Naps, warm clothes, give her tea and a blankie. Very emotional but does what needs doing. Overall, very soft. 7/10 (but 100/10 in my heart)

#personal #dragon age hcs #dragon age #my mage babies

[pestopascal]

so since you're writing shipping stuff with varric, how do you feel about bianca being right there especially after varric says he will probably see her again

oh? idc about bianca skjdhfskdjf i think she’s like. whatever. they dropped the ball on her. i know what they were going for like fuck the caste system fuck yeah paragon level of respect for a surface dwarf!!! 100% agree!!! but they pulled a ‘i’m not like other girls’ thing with her and like baby relax we kno ur not like other girls. shame they couldnt just leave u as a story like varric was just heartbroken 5ever over an ex or dead gf or like named bianca the crossbow after a dead sister (not for shipping purposes at all just like. men lose one (1) woman in fiction and make it their personality yknow LMAO). even her lil threat at the end was just so fucking stupid. they couldve genuinely done something with her (I GUESS??) but made her into some kind of non-issue who is actually technically responsible for the release of red lyrium on the surface... and faces no consequences for her actions.

if they write in varric seeing bianca again then that kind of also goes to show the double standard of toxic relationships when its men kept in them by women and the writers dont see a problem with it or dont actively give you, the player, a chance to deter it. like their banter wasnt even remotely romantic and bianca dragged him and belittled him but was still like “uwu ur gonna die to my family assassins one day but i wuv u and also i gave red lyrium to the bad guy and piled the blame on u again varric bc i know ur beating urself up over it”. but thats par the course for bioware to just like. honestly have pretty... awful writing. and especially when their writing doesnt age well, even by release of a game in particular.

anyway, emhyr and varric dont hook up until trespasser so whatever 💆‍♀️

#replies #yeah like i know what they were going for #but everything bianca says and does just makes her writing #tone deaf af #and also just a lot of ???? over how she's responsible buuuuuut blames varric #who u would think was also one of biowares golden children anyway whatever #Anonymous

[pinayelf]

Cullen’s Revised Redemption - my take

This was previously an undetectable read more but decided to update it and also make it (more) public since people have asked for it. This is very wordy, so grab a bag of chips or something lmao.

Disclaimer and Request (PLEASE READ)

I am putting this above the read more because I need people to see it before they do anything with this post. The reason I had the first version of this basically invisible is I’m genuinely not here for people yelling and fighting in the notes so that being said:

I wrote out the first one so I had something to link to people in the case someone asks me why I’m romancing him with an elven mage

This is a hot button issue and I know people have feelings varying from either extreme sides or in the middle so

If you vehemently hate Cullen and find him irredeemable that is fine and valid, but please do not come onto this post and reply why. To be frank, you won’t make me dislike him considering I hated him initially

If you think his redemption is perfect that is fine and valid, but please do not come yelling at me for this post.

Let us agree to disagree NOW.

I love Cullen. If the URL wasn’t obvious I’m saying it now. But I am also allowed to feel that his redemption wasn’t fully realized and lackluster and wish it didn’t happen off-screen. 

I believe Cullen does want to change. Failing and slipping at first is realistic. What didn’t work is that it wasn’t fully realized. If you disagree that is fine.

Cullen’s PTSD is a reason for the things he did. It is a reason NOT an excuse. Mental illness is not an excuse to do bad things. You can say that while acknowledging his trauma. Said by a person who also suffers from mental illness

“Ellie why do you care so much about a white dude, he doesn’t deserve your time and energy!!!” - because he is a comfort character of mine, he is fictional so I have the ability to make him safer for me and for my OCs and I think that’s more than fair

This is NOT the only right way to write a fix-it for him you can 100% write your own, this is just mine and an example of one

Now...let’s go!

This is meant to have been a longfic, but I can never finish anything I write so you’ll get a condensed version. This is for my worldstate where Imryll (my main Cullenmance) is the Inquisitor, but I also use this same redemption in all my timelines, just tweaked a bit for whoever the characters are.

DAI starts and Cullen has just stopped taking lyrium. He wants to change, , he is full of regret and ready for it but is obviously harder than he anticipated. Especially since the Herald, Imryll, wants to ally with the mages. He and Imryll do not get along, Imryll doesn’t trust him and they have had a couple of public fights. 

Imryll allies with the mages. Cullen is worried abominations might occur. The ones from Kirkwall see Cullen and refuse to interact with him. Some hate him and look at him with disdain. He’s made an announcement saying he no longer operates under the Templar Order and denounces what Meredith did. But they still don’t trust him.

He is frustrated by this and Leliana calls out the fact that he still doesn’t trust them because he believes they’ll turn into abominations, so why should they trust him? Cullen says he’s seen it happen, like in Kinloch, especially if they’re exposed to power. Leliana points out how the same thing happened to Meredith. Cullen snaps out of his frustration, admitting he knows he’s wrong but it’s hard to accept it. Leliana tells him he must accept he is wrong if he wants to really change.

(Note: In my canon Leliana becomes his support for this rather than Cass. I love Cass but she is too static in her beliefs and will just enable or stunt Cullen from growth. They are still close friends but it’s Leliana who he confides in with about this - they both have the same faith but Leliana is more open-minded and will help him grow)

The Templars and the Mages clash at Haven and Imryll demands Cullen to do something about it. Cullen is hesitant and doesn’t do much, he doesn’t want to believe his comrades are acting this way. This sours his relationship with Imryll and the mages.

(This idea is taken from a text post that I can no longer find :c) One of the mages give birth and the others are overjoyed and crying. They need supplies and Cullen offers to help but they all refuse to speak to him until he arrives back with Josephine. Cullen wonders why they are celebrating and crying and Leliana says that most mages never stay with their family because they are separated. Another realization hits Cullen.

Cullen joins Cassandra in looking for rogue Templars and when they encounter the group, Cullen attempts to reason with them but they don’t relent. He sees his old self in the leader and realizes what he sounded like. After dealing with the Templars he and Cassandra see a group of young refugee mages starving and hiding in a small cave. They quiver in fear when they notice his Templar gauntlets and refuse to come to Haven despite them being in near-death from starvation. Luckily, Varric is there and convinces them to come. 

The encounter dawns on Cullen what the Templar Order truly looks like to mages. This haunts him. It is the same fear he had for years after Kinloch - the difference is, the order protected him but no one truly protected the mages. He finally accepts that the order he once romanticized so much is corrupt.

The next time he sees that his Templars are the ones who start the altercations. He does something about it - but at the same time angering his lieutenant. 

During the fall of Haven, the Red Templars show Cullen anyone is apt for corruption, seeing the people he once trusted become the army for a magister breaks his heart. He witnesses the mage recruits give their lives for the Inquisition. He watches Imryll sacrifice herself for the sake of the Inquisition. When have the Templars ever done this? He’s never witnessed this. He must make amends. He must. 

Upon arriving at Skyhold he requests to be judged by the mages and Fiona - the ones from Kirkwall especially. He tells them it’s time he answered for his inaction and the things he enabled. Surprised, Imryll calls Fiona to form a council of mages to judge him. 

Cullen prepares for whatever sentence they are to give him. All the while after owning up to what happened in Kirkwall, the Inquisition loses some support, including soldiers who leave due to their disillusionment in him. The day of trial comes and to Cullen’s surprise they sentence him with reparations. He is to do the Inquisition mages’ bidding and to work with Fiona along with his Inquisition duties.

Besides the loss of support, many begin to look at Cullen differently and turn cold towards him, like some staff and people who have joined the Inquisition. He helps build a mage tower and joins Fiona in doing small missions  to help the refugee mages. While some mages warm up to him, some don’t and while hard he accepts they never will.

One day a missive arrives at Skyhold stating that mages from Starkhaven are taken hostage by Red Templars for a hefty ransom. Josephine insists they pay the ransom and plans to take a loan out from an Antivan bank - however Cullen sees the situation as time sensitive. He is afraid that if they wait too long, the Red Templars will kill the mages. Josephine, and Leliana surprisingly argue against this, seeing it too risky. But Cullen has a terrible gut feeling, and after finding the location of the abandoned keep they are located in, he takes some of his troops who are willing, and mages who are looking to save their brethren.

The raid goes all right, and the troops manage to retrieve the hostages without any casualties, however at the last minute, one of the templars set off hidden explosives that begin to set the the keep ablaze. As it falls into ruin, Cullen makes sure everyone makes it to safety. But then he sees a young mage girl trapped under rubble, and in spite of his lieutenant demanding he leave her, he doesn’t. He runs to her rescue and seemingly dies as the castle crushes both of them.

The troops return to Skyhold with the news that Commander Cullen has died in the rescue. Shocked, the remaining advisors and Imryll set off to find a new Commander.

Surprisingly, Cullen and the young mage girl, who introduces herself as Lyra, survives. Lyra mustered up her remaining strength to put a barrier around them as the castle fell. Cullen and Lyra then set to Skyhold in order to get her to safety. Cullen does everything in his power to make sure she is safe, and shocks everyone at their return. 

After this event, Imryll begins to warm up to Cullen. They form a friendship as Imryll often spends late nights at the mage tower doing research. Cullen initially stayed there to make sure nothing happened to Imryll (as she was not very popular with his troops or certain Orlesians). Despite them being from separate worlds they find they have a lot in common. 

When asked how he feels about the Dalish, Cullen tells her that in the Circle, elves were not treated differently and it does not matter who you are. Imryll tells him it’s a very blind way to view discrimination, as despite her existence not revolving on her being a Dalish elf, her being a Dalish elf is how people will always view her. Cullen finally understands when he accompanies her to Val Royeaux to deal with Josephine’s assassination contract and he sees how Orlesians treated Imryll in spite of her title. He speaks to her about it, and apologizes, saying he will never understand how it feels, but he will make sure she and the other elven members of the Inquisition feels safe. 

And all the while, Cullen begins to see what protecting those who need it is truly like. 

Cullen opens up to Imryll about his withdrawals. She tells him she supports him not taking lyrium again and encourages him not to. While suffering from a terrible spell, Imryll uses a healing spell to alleviate his headache and it triggers a memory from Kinloch. He freaks out at Imryll, who he scares off. He and Imryll don’t speak for a few days until he goes up to her and explains what happened. Imryll then says that if they are to be good friends they must always remain transparent with each other and learn boundaries and communicate well. Cullen agrees.

Cullen quitting lyrium inspires some of his troops to leave the order and quit lyrium. To be able to cope and deal with it, Cullen asks if they can have a rehab clinic in Skyhold. Imryll agrees.

As Cullen’s friendship with Imryll deepens he realizes he’s falling in love with her. Unsure what to do and already assuming she will never feel the same way he tries to shove the feelings aside despite Imryll showing signs of reciprocating. 

As time goes, Imryll’s relationship with Cullen’s lieutenant worsens because of the decisions she makes as the Inquisitor. The Lieutenant and Imryll get into a fight when Imryll allows the mages to make their own separate army group, as the lieutenant feels it will make them corrupt with power. He calls Imryll slurs and tells her that she has no right being a leader because of who she is. Cullen publicly calls him out, to which the lieutenant responds he is only doing because he wants something from Imryll. Cullen tells him he is doing it because it’s the right thing to do, and that the lieutenant should not speak or Imryll or any elf or mage in the way again. When he refuses to apologize, Cullen kicks him out of the Inquisition. 

Meanwhile, Imryll struggles with learning how to be a Knight-Enchanter. She questions her self worth and her bravery. Cullen comforts her, telling her she is the best person he knows. He tells her she is brave because of how she still continues to fight and to lead the Inquisition, not in spite of who she is, but because of who she is. He offers his support.

During the Shrine of Dumat, Cullen is hurt badly after attempting to keep a Red Templar Shade from Dorian. He refuses care, saying the others need it more. Imryll insists he does and asks if she can use a healing spell to alleviate the pain of his bruised chest. He lets her. Amidst this, they share a kiss and cements their romantic relationship.

Cullen and Imryll’s romantic relationship flourish and for the first time in his life, Cullen feels he’s found someone he can have a healthy love with. He also finds he has friends - real friends, which he hasn’t had in a long time.

During Samson’s capture - memories flash back and threatens Cullen to slip. This makes him realize that his say on the matter is biased and lets Imryll and the others choose what to do with him. (Imryll conscripts him but doesn’t have Cullen handle him, she has another recovering ex-Templar work with him and spend time in the rehab they’ve built in Skyhold).

When Imryll chooses Leliana as the Divine, Cullen shocks his former colleagues when he says he approves of the choice.

After Corypheus’ defeat the idea of the rehab clinics begin to spread and open up in other places - which begins to open conversation about how the Chantry exploits their own Templars.

Following the events of Trespasser, Imryll disbands the Inquisition. With land Cullen inherited from his parents he and Imryll build another rehab clinic as well as a place for former Circle mages to find a home in, and learn how to live lives outside the Circle (this post is Cullen-centric so I’m not gonna write a long thing about it but in my canon Divine Leliana and Vivienne find a middle ground and build centers/schools where abandoned and former Circle Mages can find a home in and learn, without them being prisons)

And scene! If you reached this end thank you for reading all that. A lot of the later stuff is mainly skipped over because this focused more on how Cullen changes - the repercussions from his actions and how he actively shows the changes.

#cullen rutherford #my meta #super long #please don't fight under this i will block you

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Seven forms of love asks: the first one of each category for either Ari, Liam or June?

[ask game]

Ooh so many!! >:] Imma do all of them hehe

Eros 1: Is your OC romantic in the traditional sense? Do they enjoy giving or receiving gifts of flowers or confectionary? Or are there other courtship traditions from their culture of origin that are important to them?

Ari: Hmm honestly? I'd say so, yeah. He's romantic in a chivalrous kind of way, and even if it's less on purpose and more "how else am i supposed to do this?" i'll still say it counts lol. Once past the courting he's romantic in how much attention he pays to his partner's interests and likes and in how he will support those. That ties into gifts etc. as well, because he is more likely to go by his partner's preferences/culture/etc rather than his own. It's for them, after all, so it should be meaningful to them.

Liam: Yes 100%, he is probably The corniest romantic out of all my ocs lmao. He's the 'will slowdance in the livingroom', 'will hold hands at the theatre', 'will reenact the Titanic scene at the bow' kind of romantic. He is not a fan of expensive or elaborate gifts, but anything small and thoughtful will do the trick. I've long integrated that one hc about courting in Ferelden into my worldview so giving and receiving flowers from a lover is something he values a lot.

June: Not at all. She's a romance repulsed aro, so. Not much of a romantic hfldksjf. It wasn't something she'd given any thought until it became relevant, after she and Cullen started getting closer and she had to figure out what she wanted out of the relationship. There is certainly some overlap with what would typically be considered romantic, but she is still not at all romantic in a traditional sense. Also re: gift giving, she's not a fan lol. June is horrible at both receiving and giving gifts that are not practical in nature, so she'd rather avoid it entirely.

Philia 1: Does your OC have a Best Friend? If they do then how long have they known each other and how did they meet? If they don't then do they have a close group of friends they love equally? Or are they more of a loner?

Ari: I'd say that Joseohine, Leliana and Vivienne all equally count as best friends to him, out of which he vibed with Viv the quickest. Josephine he he didn't call a friend until later even though they got along really well, out of worry that it would be inappropriate. He also definitely had some close friends in the Valo-Kas, but admittedly i haven't thought about them as much as i should lol so i don't have any specifics there.

Liam: Varric and Fenris; Fenris because the grow close, Varric because they did the anime mind flash connection thing and simply forged a silent pact early on (they vibe because they are (partially) fucked up in the same way <3). During the time in Kirkwall until the Deep Roads he also definitely considered Bethany his best friend.

June: Dorian and Sera are her ride or die besties, but Dorian came first and is still just barely holds best friend status over Sera. They got along sooner, they share interests, and they simply Work.

Storge 1: Did your OC's parents love them unconditionally? If so then has this helped them feel confident as an adult? If not then how has this affected them? What were the conditions their family attached to their relationship?

Ari: Considering that both his parents felt a little out of their league because usually he would've been taken care of by Tamas, they did really well! Growing up as the only Vashoth kid around could get a bit tough even if the environment was friendly, so they made extra sure to make him feel loved.

Liam: I am sure that they did, but it did not always come across that way. Subconsciously the love, over time, started feeling tied to how well he fulfilled his duties (or what he perceived a such) as eldest son, even if it was subconscious.

June: The love was most definitely perceived as conditional, always dependent on performance. They were a noble family with decent standing and strong ties to the Chantry, which left the sisters with high expectations and a constant competition for approval.

Agape 1: Does your OC wish to make the world a better place? How far do they see that as being their responsibility? What lengths would they go to in order to help achieve this?

Ari: Yes, and it's something he has become especially persistent about since becoming Inquisitor. He is now in a position where changing things on a greater scale is Actually Possible, and he maaaybe gets a little too hung up on the ideals he has in his mind.

Liam: Not really? He believes in common human decency and in simply being nice to people, but he does not generally see it as his responsibility to "make the world a better place". However, he does feel responsible as soon as he gets involved in something, so he ends up helping a lot anyway lol.

June: It is not a priority, no, and she does not feel responsible for the greater good. She does start caring more about the impact she has and the good that she can do, but never to the point where she'd get worked up about it.

Ludus 1: Does your OC have any particular favourite chat up lines? If not for themselves then perhaps ones they have suggested to a friend? How effective do these tend to be?

Ari: Any chat up lines he know he knows from books or from Leliana, and he decided that it would probably be best not to try those himself lolol. He is very good at complimenting people though! Which can come across as flirty sometimes, for better or for worse.

Liam: If he is being smooth on main you can be sure that it was on accident, because he is horrible at flirting. But he wouldn't try it for showing genuine interest anyway. However with an established partner he thoroughly enjoys throwing all the bad corny pickup lines at them, and we're talking "did it hurt when you fell [...]" type bad

June: Casual flirting is basically her modus operandi when it comes to friendly conversation, but when she's trying for a hookup or something she'll be way more bold and direct. June is way more witty than i am lol so i can't give you any proper examples, but she's very good at coming up with lines on the spot (and they tend to work pretty well!)

Pragma 1: Is your OC in a committed long-term relationship (or relationships)? If so then what has contributed to this relationship lasting so well? If they are not in such a relationship, then is this something that saddens them or which they regret?

Ari: A committed relationship hadn't been something on his radar, but he an Josie simply Worked. They mesh really well, they have similar interests, they enjoy talking with one another a lot, they're intellectually on the same wavelength... it gets strained after Trespasser, but they're holding tight so far.

Liam: Depends on the worldstate, but in the one where he lives he is with Fenris! I think part of why it works is that they're both very affectionate and very devoted people at heart, but they also simply get on well and work well as a team. A long-term relationship is definitely something Liam sought out.

June: It wouldn't have been something she'd have considered or missed, but here we are, and she is content with how it worked out. June and Cullen are good at both pushing and grounding each other, and they end up finding a good deal of support in their relationship.

Philautia 1: Does your OC have a healthy sense of their own worth and value? Or do they see themselves as failing to live up to their original potential? Perhaps they are convinced of their own sinful or inadequate nature?

Ari: I wouldn't say he has a lacking or inflated sense of self-worth, he simply exists as himself and is okay with that. There are things he is self-conscious about, there are things he is proud of, all within reason. Where it gets more complicated is the sense of value he gives his actions ; that is where the feeling of Not Enough sets in

Liam: I think it's decent. Overall he is fine with who is is and how he is, and does give his own needs their due, but he will quickly feel like he is not worthy of someone's love when he, in his eyes, fails to take care of them. It doesn't impact is sense of self-worth per se but it does make him feel like he failed as a friend/son/sibling/etc

June: There are things about herself that she is very proud of, but overall her sense of self-worth is. Not the best. Being self-centered is a defence mechanism against feeling like she is constantly failing expectations everywhere, a feeling that she got a little too used to growing up (yay for performance based families! <3)

#......i got a little carried away x'D #sorry this got so long lol but it was fun!! #oc: ari adaar #oc: liam hawke #oc: june trevelyan #my ocs #oc ask game/ my answers

[mrs-theirin]

i Am here for eden. numbers 2, 6, 14, 50 :3c

thank you scottie ilysm <3

2) What is the moment your OC felt the coolest?

tbh??? probably the first time she met cassandra. eden was ASTONISHED that somebody in a position of power was fangirling over her, and considering all of the things eden had heard about cass from varric, she was very surprised

6) What is/would be your OC’s phone wallpaper?

definitely absolutely 100% varric. it would probably be a screenshot of a video she had taken of him, mid-laugh, light in his eyes. kinda blurry but eden remembers what he looked like in the moment clear as day. that would be her lockscreen. her home screen would either be a picture of her and the da2 crew or an old picture of carver, bethany, and malcolm

14) What made you chose your OC’s name?

LMAO i have no idea. i cannot remember why i picked eden, but i do know that it sounds nice so. that was probably it. i think i opened the da2 screen to make a new hawke and said “eden sounds nice!” and there we were. i wish there was a bigger story adklsghdslgk

50) What is your OC’s most memorable kiss?

god that’s a hard one. do i have to choose just one? top four (in order of when they happened):

1) her first kiss with varric

2) their last kiss before eden went into hiding

3) the LONG overdue kiss they shared after eden first arrived at skyhold, a kiss that said “maker’s BREATH i fucking missed you”

4) the kiss she ecstatically gave him after carver returned from the fade, officially confirming their relationship to anyone in skyhold who was around, which was quickly followed by a breathy but happy “let’s get married”

(maybe i should write a quick oneshot/four chapter fic about those kisses eyes emoji)

50 Random OC and Relationship Questions

#eden hawke #quill's oc asks

[theharellan]

101 DRAGON AGE QUESTIONS | not accepting

for the sake of reducing the number of ooc posts i’m answering these all in one and just @ing the people who asked the questions! thank you for them all!

if you sent me one of these btw and rbed this meme yourself and i didn’t send you something, please let me know! i want to send you things back and must have missed you reblogging the meme. this includes non-mutuals.

1. How did you get into Dragon Age? | asked by @kaaras-adaar & @dreamerlavellan​

Sort of by accident, actually. It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years in university (2011) and summertime is generally a time of inactivity and depression because I cannot tolerate the weather here. My dad happened to own Origins and I picked it up because??? Fantasy? RPG?

Starting the game I saw you could play as a dwarf, who have been my favourites in fantasy since a child as The Hobbit is among my favourite books. Then after that I fell in love with the worldbuilding for dwarves and Gorim, my first actual Dragon Age love. I was more or less hooked after that. DA was actually not my first Bioware game, I was obsessed with Jade Empire as a kid so like Origins appealed to me immediately despite being far less fun to play than literally any other Bioware game I’ve ever played. The characters and world more than made up for it.

I beat it relatively quickly and my dad bought Dragon Age II which had come out earlier that day, actually against my suggestion because I’d heard it wasn’t good. And in this instance my dad forgetting something I said turned out for the best because I ended up enjoying DAII more in some respects. While it took me a while to join the fandom as a content producer I was a consumer and certified DA trash from then on.

2. Have you finished all three games? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

Kskjdfs yes. I’ve beaten each at least 4 times, but probably more like 8. The only thing I haven’t played are some of the Origins DLC because as much as I enjoy my replays I am so ready to be out by the end of the game (and I have the worst luck with Awakening bugs) and I also don’t have Sebastians DLC b/c his never goes on sale individually and I refuse to spend more than like $4 on him.

3. How long did it take you to finish the series? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

I honestly don’t know. I think it took me like a week to beat Inquisition without 100%ing it, I’d say my first playthroughs all probably took about that long. I tend not to do everything in my first playthrough. Like shard collecting didn’t happen until round two, etc.

7. Favorite DA:O backstory? | asked by @dreamerlavellan & @fatefaulted

I’ve played through all of them and I enjoy them all except Cousland, but my favourite is Aeducan. I enjoy the politics, the culture, the aesthetic of Orzammar. I love Gorim Saelac and the surprising amount of depth to this character who is designed to be thrown away after the prologue. I love how it ties you to the Darkspawn threat in a bigger way than any of the origins accomplish. I love how it ties you to the Orzammar plot later in the game, and playing Aeducan first is probably one reason why I adore that branch of the game. It’s a good origin that establishes its world really well and has great characters to boot.

11. Share a pic of your favorite OC from any DA game. | asked by @dreamerlavellan

I just want to share pics of my girl and Solas’ future husband.

Ian Lavellan, non-Inquisitor written by @theshirallen

Thora Cadash, dwarven Inquisitor and default Inquisitor for this blog written by... me lmao.

22. Favorite DA2 party combo? | asked by @fatefaulted

My main Hawke is a mage Hawke, so this party is horrendously imbalanced, but: Varric, Merrill, Isabela. They all just like each other and I think that’s neat. Although in act one my favourite is probably Carver, Merrill, Isabela / Varric. Unfortunately the game doesn’t want me to have a warrior in my party.

24. Favorite main-story quest from DA:I? | asked by @kaaras-adaar

It’s hard to pick between In Hushed Whispers and In Your Heart Shall Burn. I love seeing the red lyrium’d companions and the dark future of Thedas, and speculating on what happened in the intervening year. I love reflecting on what it must do for the Inquisitor to see that and have it be undone. I think it sets up the rest of the game really well, and in ways Champions of the Just doesn’t do quite as well.

In Your Heart Shall burn is a simpler quest but I think the power and emotions in the quest are so raw. Playing this the first time was riveting and I was on the edge of my seat. The triumph of closing the Breach, the strangeness of your first encounter with Cole (whose appearance at the gates is another reason I prefer IHW tbh, I think it’s more tension building than Dorian’s), Corypheus, crawling through the snow. Capping it off with The Dawn Will Come and the journey to Skyhold idk, it’s just such an emotional high point in the series that every time I replay I get goosebumps.

25. Favorite DA:I place? | asked by @fatefaulted

It’s a tie between the Frostback Basin and the Emerald Graves. I love the lore in both, as elf trash I prefer the lore in the graves especially if I can include the Din’an Hanin into that category. But the Avvar lore and Ameridan is also Very Good, and while I adore the giant trees of the graves the Frostback Basin clearly was able to have more resources poured into its design, and as a result the different sections of the map have so much more character.

A close runner-up is the Hinterlands, as I think the quests there are fun and it feels like home. I enjoy returning to it. Which is good, b/c I’ve played through it... a lot... I think loving it might be a coping mechanism, but also I love the vibe of the early game that’s best captured in the Hinterlands.

32. Favorite DLC mission overall? | asked by @fatefaulted

Trespasser is up there with Shivering Isles as my favourite DLC ever produced. Its hits every emotional beat I think it needed to hit, set up the next game with greater detail and intrigue than the initial epilogue, and I’m honestly dying to get to replay it again on Thora despite what it does to my nerves. The first time I played it I could feel my heart beating faster like wtf me.

37. Blood magic: yes or no? | asked by @hopewrought​

Would I use it myself? No. Morally I think it can be reprehensible but also neutral, much like any other magic in the game. In certain characters I think even if used for good it may encourage unhealthy habits, but I think it can be learned to be engaged with in better ways.

59. Who was written really poorly? | asked by @theshirallen you can’t hide behind anon I know it was you

Oghren fucking Kondrat. When I think about the reasons Origins is my least favourite game he is among them. With Oghren there was a really good chance to portray an alcoholic abuse victim, suffering from severe mental health issues, and still mourning his wife, with the respect it deserves. Instead he just... is a gross sexist dwarf and his alcoholism is mostly played for jokes. And then he comes back in Awakening and... continues to be a gross sexist dwarf whose alcoholism is mostly played for jokes.

There could have been some really interesting stuff with Oghren, the Warrior caste of dwarves I think would suffer from issues similar to qunari warriors, where when they can no longer fill the purpose society has dictated they must serve, what then? They can’t do anything but fight. There could be comradery with Sten, or perhaps Zevran or Alistair, or any of the companions who have had the path their lives took dictated to them by societal forces they had no say in (even if they are happy with that direction). There are snippets of good stuff in here, the line “let us show them our hearts, Warden, and then show them theirs” is one of the best of the good-byes the game offers us imo. It’s a shame about what came before.

Like there are other characters, such as Sera, who I think were done dirty by their writers, but Sera at least got some growth in the DLC and there were attempts to address criticism of her character. Oghren in Awakening was just kind of a take two of an already poorly-done arc.

60. Who do you wish had been given more story? | asked by @hopewrought​

I wish Briala had more, like that she had some impact on the story in universes where Gaspard isn’t crowned with her as his puppetmaster. She and the elves reappears in that but not if you reunite her with Celene or exile her, and I think it would’ve been neat. I also wish she’d had a chance to interact with Solas in some small way given how many parallels were drawn by one of his own agents during Masked Empire.

I also wish we had more about dwarves in general in 2 and Inquisition. We get some great lore in Inquisition that was set up in 2, but with our only dwarf companion being Varric, who honestly has a relationship with his race that at times is comparable to Sera’s, it pulls a few of its punches. I really think they have dwarves set up to be important players in the next game, with their architecture featuring heavily in the dev diary, buuut no dwarves to be seen. So who knows. Just give me dwarves in the next game who aren’t Varric Bioware pls. Let me kiss one maybe.

61. Favorite NPC? | asked by @kaaras-adaar​

I’m not going to count advisors even though they kinda are NPCs and I’m going to answer one for each game so uhh...

Origins - Anora

DA2 - Feynriel

DA:I - Krem

Bonus - Lord Woolsley, the only unproblematic DA character

63. Best story moment? | asked by @ghilannainguideme

It’s a tie between the journey to Skyhold and the talk with Solas at the end of Trespasser and the resulting disbanding of the Inquisition (if you so choose). I really can’t separate them because I think the reason Trespasser works so well is how it calls back to the very beginning of Inquisition and that moment with Solas in the snow. It’s triumphant and sad, something’s ending, the fellowship is breaking, but you know all of you will continue to work towards a better world apart.

In DA:O I think it’d be saying good-bye before the final battle and in DA2 I think the moment where you can tell the Arishok he was right to take in the elves who killed that guardmen is good. Probably one of the reasons why I think Hawke-Arishok work so well as a protagonist-antagonist combination.

81. Favorite fanfic? | asked by @ghilannainguideme​

I don’t read a lot of fanfic, actually. Save what I read on here, which I do count, but idk if other people do.

My favourite writers to read are @theshirallen​, obviously. Joly wants to tweakIan’s personal quest but I think the version they have written now is still very good and you can find it here. I love reading Peace’s stuff and find their smut especially spicy in the best possible way, you can find a Merrill/f!Mahariel piece here! Gaia doesn’t write on Tumblr much these days, but she wrote a wonderful Tug/Sketch (the companions from Leliana’s Song) that you can find here.

I follow so many talented writers and I can’t list them all but here are a few I can fire off real fast: @theshirallen / @ghilannainguideme / @seahaloed / @sabraelin / @valorcorrupt / @mercysought / @hopewrought / @ofrevas / @skyheld have all moved me with their words at some point, be it in fic or rp.

82. Favorite fanart/fanartist? | asked by @ghilannainguideme

Again I just can’t choose jsdfks.

The easiest way is to just link my Solas fanart tag. Obviously this favours Solas artists, however, so also here’s a link to thedaswlw where there’s a boatload of amazing fanart all of wlw.

Of people I’m mutuals with I know @abracafockyou, @kaaras-adaar, @dalathin (currently inactive but I gotta link them), and @syntharts​ are all very talented artists.  I’m also a big fan of destinyapostacy, nipuni, elbenherzart, starscollected (on twitter), and many more.

97. What’s your favorite DA mod? | asked by @ghilannainguideme​ & @hopewrought​

I’ll chose one as many as I want to apparently from each game again, b/c why not?

DA:O - I have to admit I find this game hard to mod because nothing can really salvage the gameplay or look of the game. I need Better Dwarf Model so I don’t have to look at the odd dwarf proportions in the game (the women have arms for days). Mostly I have armour mods. I like Grey Wardens of Ferelden so I can match Alistair in the final batte and have everyone in uniforms in Awakening. I do like Kirkwall Exports because I can put Zevran in the robes of the notorious pirate tho. I haven’t used this mod yet but I also love this mod I retweeted this morning.

DA2 - Again, I don’t mod 2 very much. You could probably make some kind of chart for correlating my enjoyment of a game versus my urge to mod it, with the more I love a game means I want to mod it more. With 2 I enjoy the combat and overall design of the characters more so I mostly use a couple of tweaks, my favourite is Ishs Scarf for Merrill which just adds a cute blue scarf to Merrill and hides the fact that elves in this game have weirdly long necks. Oh and a mod to fix the weird hand dirt.

DA:I - Equal Opportunity Solas mod, I bought the game again on PC just to use it. Being able to play Solas/Ian for screencaps was everything tbh. Other mods I enjoy are More Banter, which while I have better luck with banter it is nice to be able to count on it. I installed it this latest pt and I have heard location comments that have never triggered before. Black Hair for Everyone has changed my life because finally Thora doesn’t have grey hair. No Dirt Buildup is also amazing, as the dirt can cause some really weird blotting on PCs that’s especially noticeable on dark-skinned Inquisitors.

99. Where would you live (Ferelden, Orlais, Free Marches etc?) | asked by @heysales​​

Probably Ferelden. It is fantasy England and hey if I make it past Inquisition maybe nothing will ever happen there again. Somewhere in the Free Marches might also be chill. Not Kirkwall. Maybe Starkhaven? Honestly tho I just want to live in the Frostback Basin. Have a spirit friend. Shake hands with nugs.

101. If you could meet your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor, what would you say? | asked by @dreamerlavellan​

If I met Thora I’d tell her I’m proud of her. She’d be confused, but that’s ok.

#( munday meme ) #( ooc ) #( about me ) #( asks )

[vancilocs]

Quina and gene and alix and anders?

chaos men and one sensible woman

1. Who said I love you first?

Quina, Gene is not very talkative. But saving someone from a dragon is quite a declaration of love when you could have just walked away

Anders, and Alix was like ayy lmao wanna sandwich

2. Who laughs and kisses their partner on the cheek while their partner isn’t happy about something trivial to try and make them feel better?

Gene doesn’t get from 0 to a 100 because he’s at like 60 constantly but if he’s fussy about a crab running away or something Quina gives him a kiss and he momentarily goes down to a 20

Anders’s mage worries are hardly trivial but Alix giving a kiss with a laugh is a nice distraction sometimes

3. Who cuddles up to the other after a long day at work, and this soon escalates to a playful pillow fight?

Gene would never hit Quina even with a pillow and softly but he will grapple her if she punts him over the head

Both are exhausted after a long day of work, just collapse after mending all the wounds Alix gets because he’s an idiot and Anders is a healer

4. What is something that they gave one another that has a lot of meaning?

The ring, but mainly it’s things they’ve done, like Gene whacking bullies away with a flaming stick and Quina then healing the bruises he got from getting rocks thrown at him (and his burned hands). Also keeping on healing him when he’s gone out to find trouble. He’s brought her lots of herbs for her healing needs as well, wrestles a goblin for the last sunbright flower

Actual gifts are the Tevinter chantry amulet Alix gave Anders, otherwise it’s Alix giving his full support and companionship and love to him through his crusade and Anders giving his love back (and healing the idiot)

5. How would one another describe their partner?

Quina just says Gene is so devoted and dedicated and calm and gentle and loving and everyone looks at her like she’s mad. Gene will just say that it’s her and refuse to elaborate and everyone kinda knows. 

Alix admires Anders’s passion and devotion and his dramatics, Anders’ very dramatic ass (will drown the world in blood to keep Alix safe) would undoubtedly say something very overblown while Alix is just like :) babe

6. Who wraps their arms around their partner as they look them in the eyes and compliments them with a goofy smile?

Anyone else than Quina getting so close to Gene would get shoved away but with her he just takes her into an embrace and gets almost flustered by being complimented

Alix has compliments to say, and he’s goofy as fuck

7. Who loves saying ‘my wife’ or ‘my husband’ or ‘my spouse’?

Gene screams “that’s my WIFE” and atomic elbows a spider harassing her

They’re not really married but at some point after the game Alix will start calling Anders his husband (like “don’t talk about my husband like that” or “my husband’s so great” or when talking with the Inquisitor)

8. Who always talks about how amazing their partner is when their partner isn’t there and they just light up with genuine love and happiness?

Quina, Gene’s not talkative and doesn’t really hang out with anyone, she’s just watching him with their kid digging in the sand and says he’s so wonderful, isn’t he

Both, Varric is getting bored (Alix is considerate enough not to talk about Anders around Fenris bc he values their friendship) and Anders’s clinic buddies are tired about hearing the Champion

9. Who loves it when their partner kisses them good morning?

Gene goes out at dawn to look for critters on the beach but returns soon enough, kisses Quina awake and lays back down for a moment while she wakes up

Both enjoy their sleep but if they gotta be waken up in any way it’s by a kiss

10. Who shows the other how to balance a spoon on their nose?

If anyone then Quina who learned it from someone and Gene thinks it’s witchcraft

Alix

11. Who loves to pull pranks on the other? What type of pranks do they pull and do they pull their pranks off?

They don’t really do pranks

Alix might try something small, like taking scrap paper and drawing cat pawprints in ink on it and leaving it on Anders’s desk

12. What is something small that they would randomly pick up for one another?

Gene picks up anything, but mainly brings in flowers for Quina (she can pick what she needs for curatives and the rest can be decorative, Gene doesn’t know the difference and he eats anything anyways)

Alix picks up spell/potion ingredients when traipsing around the wilderness, picked up a chantry amulet at that one point, feathers!!! Picks any feather he sees

13. Who is the one who can’t stop laughing when trying to tell a joke?

Quina, Gene waits patiently.

Alix, a lil tipsy and remembering something funny that happened that day

14. Who would plan the other a surprise birthday party?

Nobody knows how old Gene is exactly and Quina accepts just spending time together for her birthday, he might pick up something (from the store, not the beach) for them both to eat that morning

Anders lets it slip his birthday is coming up/it was recently so Alix panics and arranges a party at his house (it’s just him, his mom, Bodahn and Sandal and copious amounts of wine). The gift is a new quill, more ink and more paper to write his manifestos with.

15. Who picks the other person up when hugging their partner?

Gene is stronk as fuck, doesn’t squeeze too hard but lifts up (not that he’s much taller than her so not super high)

Neither. They’re twink ass mages both of them

#quina prepares flowers to be used in potions and gene just eats the leaves and stems she cuts off #'beloved that is poisonous' #'yea i know' #'spit it out' #he goes out for the day and comes back covered in mud with a bag full of harspuds #long oc thing #it's oc x canon i guess? #alix brings a feather to anders and is like is this yours #nevermind his pauldrons are grey and the feather is obviously from a seagull #anders is just like yes my love thank you and sticks it into his pauldron

[luobingmeis]

DAO really was the best game, the lore the ability to absolutely wreck shit, the fact that they didnt do that bullshit ‘all sides are grey’ and clearly showed oppression. I think of my warden, an elven mage, and wonder how she’ll be rewritten more than anything.

right like!!!! i love each dragon age game with my whole heart and they all have super special places in said heart, but origins handles a lot of the social problems really well, or at least from the perspective that i play it as (also an elven mage!)

the rest i’m putting under the cut bc holy shit i can talk abt dragon age a lot. also nothing is proofred. i’m so sorry this got so long i hear “bioware” and “grey morality” and i go wild

(pls talk to me abt dragon age.....)

(also please don’t reblog this!!)

like i understand da2 having a type of grey-morality thing bc the final battle was choosing between the mages and the templars (tho imo they could’ve done better than “the mages hate us bc we keep them locked in a tower and there are multiple accounts of us abusing them and therefore some of them turn to blood magic so therefore we should kill all of them” but still, in a setting like that where the Main End Game Choice was mages vs. templars, then that is understandable)

(but also i haven’t played da2 in a couple years so maybe it’s more nuanced than that)

but inquisition! it’s weird bc inq has a super special place in my heart. i’ve played it 6 or 7 times to completion, not counting the other times i got 20/30 hours into it before external forces distracted me. inq is overall the game i think abt the most, most of my playthroughs average over 100 hours, it’s the only game that i have all the dlcs for, for me it’s the easiest to replay, and yet there’s so much that frustrates me abt it! like, i’m gonna avoid talking abt the actual parts of the writing that bother me, bc that can be it’s own standalone thing, but imo it felt like they never actually solidified what actually caused the mage/templar war? there are those that say anders started it (seems likely), then there are those who talk abt fiona leading the rebel mages in the war? and there, of course, is the “the templars have done wrong but so have they mages and therefore you’re shamed either way for what you do” like i Get what they’re trying to do, trying to encourage players to explore their options and really delve into their own moral values of the game and not just adhere to what the game says, but idk the way they always went abt it always rubbed me some type of wrong

i think part of it is bc, when people mention circle mages turning to blood mages and demons and such like that, it was always framed as “ah these evil mages!” and not “[if these are circle mages] most likely their want for freedom pushed them to that”

does that make it right? no, not necessarily! look at uldred from dao! imo, he was wrong! i don’t like the circle and my warden herself has a complicated relationship with it, but i like that you can say “hey! this is wrong!” without legitimate plot-based “but what if it isn’t?”

of course there will always be companions who push for the more chaotic/harsh choices (morrigan is the one i have the most experience with giving me disapproval for being what i think is nice) (still love her tho), but i think dao handled “okay, look at the big picture, and really think abt what hill u want to die on” stance well

and then there’s the way the mage/templar thing is handled in inquisition vis a vis companions. specifically cullen. and, listen, i as a player have a very complicated relationship with cullen and my heros do too lmao. and i really don’t want to get into the nuances of that bc that can 1) turn into a fight i don’t feel like having and 2) can be it’s own discussion, but basically, from my own perspective, he’s a well-written character who makes for a good antag to a mage-siding hawke in da2 bc of how pro-templar/anti-mage he is. again, don’t agree with any of it (honestly da2 alone puts me on the “okay fuck this” level w/ his character), but it does offer an extreme that is interesting to see. origins is more complicated bc in a game not directly stepped in mage/templar and also a game that stems from 6 different origin stories, it’s very easy to be a non-mage and be like “why do i care abt this guy” (if you get what i’m saying? like i got immediately invested in saving the mages bc my first warden was a circle mage so i was very put off by being told to kill all of them, as compared to if i played a non-mage origin and didn’t really have that background knowledge). but overall, origins and da2 puts cullen on the “pro-templars, mages are more dangerous than they are good side.” and then inquisition is where things get interesting!!

and, for a quick ref, i’m very into getting invested in my characters and really figuring out their morals and what they would actually do, or at least think, so dai becomes interesting bc i play as another elven mage who has never stepped foot in a circle and never will. so, bc of that, i play him as naturally more inclined to not initially Think abt cullen’s past like as a templar bc, as a dalish mage, i hc that he does not know what actually goes on in circles (as compared to my warden, a circle mage, and my hawke, an apostate) (but i hc that, overtime, as he has more and more experiences with templars, he becomes more cognizant of that) (but bioware doesn’t give me the option to just dictate everything my camris lavellan is thinking akjsjkdjk)

and dai-cullen, imo, is actually very interesting! and, tbh, i do have to give it to bioware. i feel like i’m abt to say an unironic controversial opinion, and i feel like i’ve already talked abt the nuances of all of this, but i do think dai did well at reworking cullen’s character. however, i feel like that was also done to feed into the grey-ness of the mage/templars. and, imo, i think they almost did well at actually making cullen show regret for how he treated mages. almost. again, i think there’s a lot of nuance! bc we do see him show some type of regret for how he treated a mage!warden (if he said all that shit like “all these people’s blood are on your hands” if u talk abt not wanting to kill innocent mages) and we do see him step away from templar life (that is, if you tell him to stop taking lyrium)

but!!!! there’s One Thing that puts a thorn in this, and it’s that cullen says something along the lines of, “meredith wasn’t all wrong, she had reason” like bitch!!! no matter what side you choose in da2, you fucking fight meredith!!! she’s wanted to kill innocent mages/make them tranquil even before anders blew up the chantry!!! meredith was all wrong!! she was evil!!!!! she was objectively a harmful person!!!!!!!!! bioware really makes this bitch the final boss of da2 and then has the audacity to say “but maybe she wasn’t all bad” in dai like WHERE IS THIS FOR ORSINO??? ORSINO ISN’T ALL BAD, IS HE???????? OH BUT HE IS BC HE RESORTED TO SUDDEN BLOOD MAGIC IN THE LAST TEN MINUTES OF THE GAME, AS COMPARED TO MEREDITH WHO WAS A DANGER FOR THE ENTIRE FINAL ACT and i digress but the fact that bioware is trying to redeem cullen but also showing that he still sympathizes with a woman who 1) turned against the templars and 2) Literally Everything She Did To The Mages always makes me “hmmmm are u really trying tho :/”

also tho one thing i’m actually not the biggest fan of is that cullen is like “oh i knew hawke in passing........ knew varric in passing.............” meanwhile let’s just cut to everything that happened at kirkwall. this is my own opinion bc i see varric as hawke’s #1 but i personally think that at least half of the comraderie varric and cullen sorta-kinda-had in inq was varric testing the waters of “okay what is cullen going to be like if and when hawke shows up”

also tho i will say a hot-take of mine is that if cullen gets to be redeemed by bioware, then i want something for anders, too, but i doubt bioware would do something so clearly pro-mage. but it could be two sides of the extreme! extremist templar gets redemption, extremist mage does, too! come on, bioware, show your grey morality

(again, i think it’s interesting what they did with cullen in dai and does give some sympathetic light but i also do think the reworking of his character was working towards bioware’s moral-greyness agenda with dragon age. not that that’s necessarily a terrible thing, i understand them wanting some nuance, but it’s the way they do it. like, you can show bad templars and bad mages and still not have “but who is really the bad guy? the oppressors or the oppressed? who is it really?”)

(and also just bc i feel like i need to put my own player claim in this, my opinion on cullen is complicated and also i’m gonna be completely forth-right with u, dear anon, i appreciate cullen in inquisition but, as a whole, he can be terrible to ur warden in dao (that’s not me being shifty it literally just depends on the choice you make in broken circle) and in da2 he’s a nightmare, so bioware had to do a lot of legwork in dai) (tbh tho in my personal-player opinion, if i was to ever romance cullen in inq, it’s not gonna be with a mage)

god this got so out of hand anon i’m so sorry you probably didn’t want this messy essay but i just love talking abt dragon age!!! i think abt it a lot and i have five years worth of headcanons and i have a family tree set up for my surana/lavellan bc of some bullshit i pulled and also!!!! bioware’s writing can get so frustrating but i also think it’s so interesting to pull apart and discuss bc i think the bioware has actually shifted from pro-mage (origins) to neutral-mage (da2 kinda) to anti-mage (dai) and i feel like So Many Choices with characters and their plots reveal that!!! so it’s a frustrating agenda but i also just love dragon age so much that i can’t help but get excited and talk abt it!!!

like, as all things, i do believe there are times when grey morality does work, but, at least from a mage-siding perspective, it hasn’t really landed well for dragon age. bc, and i don’t want to drag in real-life scenarios bc i feel like it would be incredibly inappropriate of me to use any oppressed minority as a comparison for a fantasy world, but it’s the age-old thing of people saying the shitty “but the oppressed fight back and therefore they’re just as bad as the oppressors!” and that’s like....... not how it works.

but also you’ve caught me in a wonderful mood so i feel like, if i was in a bad mood, this would be a lot more “and fucking bioware can’t make a goddamn decision on what side they actually support so instead most of the companions are gonna made rude remarks abt you supporting mages and the ones that support you are seen as distrustful and fuck this and fuck that” but i think that is the joy of loving something with you’re whole heart and also saying “there are so many things abt this that piss me off and so many things that i would change”

and also!!!! ik bioware probably killed my warden so like rip electra surana but i would love for the warden to make an appearance in da4 as a temporary companion/advisor. but! but!!!!!! i also don’t know how much i trust bioware with my “elven mage who is alistair’s mistress and preferred the mages and wanted to free the circles and etc etc etc” bc... idk how to explain it? like, i don’t want them taking my warden and putting words in her mouth that go against choices i meticulously made in dao

#im ending this now #i went thru like 8 different discussion points im so sorry #im also not tagging this as d/a bc i try not to start fandom shit here #not for any moral reason #i just dont feel like arguing w/ strangers on the internet #i like discussing tho!!! like genuinely #also im sorry this conversation became so cullen-centric #i just feel like he is who bioware puts a lot of their moral-greyness in #answered #Anonymous

[diamondcitydarlin]

no but for real yall gotta stop with that argument that ‘FRIENDSHIPS/PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT OK THAT’S WHY U CANT MAKE VARRIC YER BOYFRAN’ 

yes, they are important. they’re amazing. I love...having friends. There is nothing better than...having friends. I definitely have lots of friends. And that’s the great thing about customizable storylines and character dynamics, if you just want to be friends with...whoever, you can do that. Just want to be BFFs with, idk, Dorian, Sera, any of the canon romanceable folks? You can totally do that. That is definitely a thing you can do without ever having to wander anywhere near to smooch territory. 

But then there’s the little PESKY fact that, considering DA is by design customizable, one can make different playable characters, characters with different personalities and different dynamics with different NPCs/companions. Whereas Dorian is usually my BFF forever in most run throughs and we 100% have matching bracelets, there’s going to come a run through where I make a character to romance him. 

And that’s what I’m saying. Theoretically having the OPTION to romance Varric wouldn’t somehow devalue a friendship option because...that still would be an option as well. If platonic was what you wanted, you could still do that and, again, never have to even deal with lovey dovey stuff. I get it. My Hawke and Varric are bffs forever and ever and I couldn’t see that relationship being anything else just because of who they both are. That doesn’t mean, however, that someone feeling like THEIR Hawke could have something else with Varric somehow has any bearing, negative or otherwise, on my Hawke/Varric dynamic. 

It’s the difficulty-level argument all over. Some people feel like there shouldn’t be difficulty-level options at all, as if my having the option to play a game on easy-baby-thunder pp jr mode somehow ruins the fun of them playing on HARDCORE MANLY MAN MODE even though those are both options open and one doesn’t have to affect the other. In any way.   

It’s almost like...customizable games should have lots of options to fit different whims of different players. It’s almost like they benefit from having various scenarios and experiences. 

I’m not saying there aren’t...somewhat valid arguments against wanting to wine and dine Varric in a romantic way, but this is the one that crops up most often and it honestly makes me want to lowkey tear my hair out lmao 

#varric tethras #varric romance #i just dont think invalidating the whims of another player's ideal experience is the best way to go about this lol #like its cool if you just see varric as a pal character in any situation #that's you and you do you baybee #but it doesn't mean that's the only way to interpret his character for everyone everywhere #ya feel ??