Just for general info, my spoiler tag is "da4 spoilers"!
Update: I might share some live commenting while playing, which I'll additionally tag "roos plays da4" :))

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@aravellan
Just for general info, my spoiler tag is "da4 spoilers"!
Update: I might share some live commenting while playing, which I'll additionally tag "roos plays da4" :))

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Nightingale's Eyes
Southeast Asian Leliana inspired by a post I saw that I sadly lost >.> If anyone knows the post I'm talking about pls share!!
Also please reblog if you like it, I spent all day painting and now my hands hurt so I'd really appreciate some likes and reblogs <3
just thinking about the way Veilguard had Emmrich and Davrin state, in a way that brokers no argument, that the Darkspawn are NOT PEOPLE and that’s the only time it’s ever brought up asdsfjdsjkf
can we talk about the fact that the consecutive reveals that both the darkspawn and the demons/spirits, both of the mindless hordes of Always Pure Evil enemies that we can kill without a second thought, are PEOPLE is such a compelling earth shattering revelation that happens in the series leading up to veilguard
followed by the setup of an antagonist that can potentially wilfully refuse to acknowledge the personhood of the people of thedas, when every measure of what marks someone as a Person with a capital P by the standards of the society they’re from(spirit, mage, elf) marks someone as less than a person in the current world of thedas
that so clearly holds the mirror up to our own cruelty when the inquisitor responds to "it was like waking to a world of tranquil" with "we're not even people to you" betraying that our own hero does not view the tranquil as people
when the first spirits were born of the dreams of the dwarves but we read codex entries from ancient elvhenan that say "we hunt the pillars of the earth and their WITLESS SOULLESS DRONES"
the "mages are not people and should not be treated as such" the way they qunari refer to everyone outside of the qun as Bas - literally THING the way the chantry compares kissing an elf to kissing a dog ect ect and forever
When we speak to the architect when we meet justice when we meet cole when we meet maddox when we meet countless other characters from groups that get so utterly dehumanised by either theodesian society or some magical contrivance that exists as a metaphor for such
when the story beats you over the head with THEY'RE PEOPLE THEY'RE PEOPLE THE TERROR IN THE NIGHT IS A PERSON THE MINDLESS ZOMBIE HOARDS ARE PEOPLE THE PERSON ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BATTLEFIELD IS JUST AS MUCH A PERSON AS YOU AND YOUR ENEMY THAT DOES NOT SEE YOU AS A PERSON IS A PERSON
and the conclusion that we come to about that is actually
don't worry about it kitten <3
what was the point of it? this is a story about how efortlessly we can be persuaded to dehumanise others...
... unequivocally in favor of the dehumanisation?
or at the very least of the opinion that there’s no point in doing anything about it?
I'm confused, you're a Sollavellan romancer? I thought you were queer and nonbinary????
I am all three?
Happy Pride
Throughout the history of Thedas, there had been multiple attempts to set the Litany of Adralla to music, both to serve as a memory aid and to have the melody provide a sense of comfort to the petitioner, in addition to the protection from demonic forces the litany itself provides.
None of these compositions have quite managed to rival the popularity of the rather controversial Mother Nicana version, which will be presented to you shortly.
Born in Jader in 7:56 Storm, Revered Mother Nicana was a figure as beloved by her faithful as she was inconvenient to her superiors.
Ever practical, as well as a fierce advocate for following the spirit of the Chant, regardless of the politics of the time, she faced criticism from peers in the Chantry for choosing the original Tevene text as the basis for her composition. When pressed, she simply answered that if she could find a single translation that fit the original's metre, she would consider it.
In spite of this short-lived controversy (or perhaps because of it), this version became popular especially among those who had need of the litany for practical uses, such as the Mourn Watchers of Nevarra.
The following are two performances of Mother Nicana's Litany of Adralla. One was performed by the lay sisters of the Tantervale Chantry. The other was heard sung in Kirkwall's Lowtown by an initial survivor (presumed to have been a minstrel employed in the Hanged Man tavern) of the catastrophic fallout of Anders' destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry in an attempt to protect himself and several others from the demons that surrounded them.

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Solas kissing beautiful men on the lips send tweet
One of the major faults of Veilguard's dialogue is how often it's shaped by generic platitudes and sound bites instead of actual specific things happening or being talked about in the narrative. "Sometimes people let you down", "Family makes things complicated", "Bullies are always drawn to power", "It's just people trying to live their lives", "You have to take care of yourself every once in a while", "When your heart and your gut are both telling you, 'Do what you can'--"
My biggest issue with this is not a quibble over whether or not these things are true (like all platitudes they are trivially true, whether or not they're appropriate or correct things to say in the context the characters say them), but that they are a style of placeholder dialogue that exists to avoid having to give specific details or actual development. They could only be interesting if they were argued against, demonstrated, or interrogated for meaning in some way. Instead, the characters often take these things as read, and so nothing comes of it.
Like the line "How many exceptions 'til tyranny?"--a one-off sentiment expressed by a Lich at the end of Emmrich's questline. It doesn't exist to provide meaning or create a conversation. It exists to provide a cheap explanation as to why Emmrich is not allowed to both become a lich and to revive Manfred. There is no impassioned argument on behalf of a grieving Emmrich, torn between the protege that he loved and the life's work that he is about to give up, spurred on by the phobia that defines his motives. Nobody thinks to argue that as a wisp Manfred wasn't a "mortal" who is "supposed" to die to begin with (but then, it's either canon-breaking that they can resurrect Manfred at all, or it's no big deal and they don't need lich approval to do it, and there is no in-between on this one I'm afraid). There is no exploration of what it looks like when a Lich has "exceptions", whether in the past or during the course of the story (since Johanna was obviously not trying to resurrect people in terms of what made her a bad lich). And are there circumstances where "no exceptions" can also be a form of tyranny? How would that work? Could Rook argue that on Emmrich's behalf?
Of course not, this is cheap glue holding the scene together, we can't interrogate it or it'll fall apart.
All of Veilguard's platitudes are like that. Neve says "The gods were people, and people can let you down"--no one wants to challenge her on this? No one wants to argue that "let you down" is a MILD phrase to use for "the people you selected to protect you decided to enslave and torture you instead"? No one wants to argue that they SHOULD have been better, they were practically gods! No one wants to push their basic faith that sometimes people DON'T let you down? If someone were to push back on this line, then it might have told us something about Neve or the character arguing with her. It might have given us actual specifics in terms of what is going on--in what way were the gods "people" and what made them tyrants? Could someone else have done better? Is there no other way this could have gone? But this is filler dialogue. You're not supposed to think about it. It is supposed to paper over the scene in your head so the writers don't have to tell you any more than that. You are expected to nod your head at this aphorism and keep going.
This is, incidentally, why so much of the dialogue comes across as blandly lecturing the player.
And it's not a SURPRISE that the game with the amateur writer as narrative head where they spent the majority of the development time with no idea what the hell they were doing with the story is chock full of filler dialogue, but it is, you know, irritating when it's the sequel that was supposed to explain shit to us. What is Tevinter like? Oh, you know. Like any place with people living in it. What were the ancient elves like? They were people trying to live their lives, of course.
I don't need the game to be having arguments with itself all the time to be clear, but platitudes are something you write when you don't have anything to actually say. When you know that Bellara's problem is that her brother has become suckered in by a charismatic cult leader and is about to do a ritual that will kill/torture people, then your advice to her should be about that and not that she needs to “do what [she] can but take time for [her]self too”. "Family is hard" CAN describe this situation, but it can also describe a million other situations and so if I was Bellara I think I'd get kind of pissed that it feels like no one's actually paying attention to my specific problem.
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘴𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘺𝘦𝘵
--
the aragorn/arwen ear touch but solavellan, featuring my very first lavellan, Leto.
some doods of the inquisition-era dao gang
(commission info // tip jar!)

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I've been wanting to find a way to articulate more of my thoughts about what Veilguard ultimately did with Solas and why it feels like they did and did not take him out of character to me, because said thoughts are a mess.
And fair warning that this is going to be critical of Veilguard (and Inquisition a little bit) because essentially I feel like what they did is soft-retconned key parts of the narrative to make Solas both more sympathetic and less sympathetic in ways that are (imo) a disservice to the character.
Let me explain,
i think herald of andraste anders/solas would be the most insane ship possible bc the first flirt line would go a bit like this:
solas: "i suppose i'll stay then to help with the breach... i was unsure. you know how it is, as an apostate surrounded by chantry forces-" anders, interrupting: "i would drown this entire village in blood to keep you safe. have no doubt." solas: "...what?" anders: "what? oh, sorry i zoned out for a second there. anyway don't worry haha :) i'll protect you :)"
#“lets be revolutionaries doomed by the narrative and disliked by writers named [h]epler... together..... <3”#“taking regrettable means to achieve the world one desires”#“healer has the bloodiest hands”#“chew your leg off to escape prison 7 times if necessary”#kill a beloved friend/ex bc they request it after having been changed into something else against their will bc of fear of magic.....#etc etc#anders being the opposite of mythal in that he's justice coded but like. ran a free clinic and then tried to die to start a revolution#also the sheer ben affleck smoking meme of solas falling for a human grey warden would be. funny.#also man. what uhhhh. happens if anders drinks the well(?) justice bass boosted x 10(?) fjdkshfjdsgf?
further conversations:
solas: "you know... there were other options you could have considered in kirkwall." anders: "yeah, everyone's always telling me about those :/" solas: "did you think of blowing up two chantries in separate areas at the same time, to split the templars' attention?" anders: "what? no??" solas: "it's basic tactics, you divide up your enemy if they're stronger than you are." anders: "but the... death toll?" solas: "regrettable, certainly. but do you believe in your goals, or not?" varric: "hey :) let's stop talking for a while :)"
then, furthermore: consider how anders was trying to give away all his stuff before blowing up the chantry, bc it was more or less a suicidal plan.
and the common headcanon that solas left his jawbone necklace behind after his orb broke, if romanced. and also him telling people not to follow him. and explicitly saying he's on a dinan'shiral.
once anders gets a dictionary to figure out what he said, he is putting in 1000% effort to Save Solas By Any Means Necessary :)
#the sheer comedy and then angst potential of this ship is unparalleled.....#also there is Simply no way my boy anders would let solas go into any sort of confinement/tranquility as an omelas style solution haha#he'd be biting people#literally#he would drown the world in blood to prevent this... and he's valid for that#solanders
ok but i love solas teaching anders how to revolution lol. solas gains approval most when someone wants him to talk about his special interest, like the fade/spirits for the inquisitor. and revolution for anders. and, like, imagine what solas is going to think once/if anders gains the proper inquisitor levels of power. like, solas has been there, as a favoured of mythal. what would their conversations be like about it? which one of them is going to be the optimist, excited about how this strange twist of fate leaves anders in a position to effect so much change in the structure of the chantry? which one of them will be more cynical about this (especially in the light of jaws of hakkon)
yeah!!
i think anders has a leg up on a canon inq in terms of his capability to make actual change just bc he's. very determined and ideologically driven and would not be placated by any half measures. and i must... advocate for a chantry schism if he's the herald... hahaha. like surely the regular chantry would see it as a threat that this seeming Two Time Bomber is now allowed to live at all? and that frees him and leliana to do whatever heretical bullshit they want. and meanwhile solas has been around the block enough times that he can point out things that anders hasn't picked up about situations bc of his inexperience. and if we assume all those rebel mages are anders fans... they'd sign up VERY quickly once they hear it's him.
and so the beginnings of this group would be very mage-heavy - which also allows them, if they're actually directed properly and not being bandits, to rapidly provide all kinds of medical care and infrastructure to help alleviate the rifts. and then regular people will start thinking "huh these guys aren't even that bad. i actually like having someone who can fix my broken arm or cast a cold spell on my cellar. why did we need to pay so much chantry tax for the templars again-?"
and also, this brings in the elves. and i think as bizarre as solas' opinions are, having someone who's extremely not andrastian and knows that much about elven history (even in solas' bitter/guilt ridden take on it) would give anders a better understanding of the world. same with the spirits! meeting someone who's fully detached from any chantry or other faith and is just interacting with spirits easily and not having problems with "demons" would probably make anders rethink a lot.
plus i think that would be wild for solas if a justice-coded person was actually listening to his opinions and taking them into account, and not pressuring him to do stuff he didn't want to do. mythal is still the best of them! and he is not going to unpack all that regardless! 🥚👍
i just thought of another wild thing. because. it's very much at the core of solas that he has those regrets. and anders is poised to play with at least the tranquility part in a very interesting way. can you fcking imagine anders telling him about karl? i'm not sure if in this "the herald is with a VERY underdog and controversial group that is basically hiding from the authorities to start with" cassandra would be with them; but even without her and her companion quest, there's still asunder, there's still cole. anders would be AGGRESIVELY anti-tranquility and he's carrying a cure within him that now can be distributed.
imagine anders asking solas to help out with that since he knows fade and the spirits. asking him if he knows any spirits that would like to come and help; any spirits of curiosity that want to see the physical realm but don't want to be a body-stealing demon, spirits of compassion and justice that are HORRIFIED at the concept and want nothing more but to help. solas would be seeing a consequence of one of his regrets being systematically undone victim by victim. how can it not remind him of his old days, of how he freed people from the vallaslin? how can this not be the purest form of hope?
YEAH!!!
also consider: solas saying that anyone who kills mythal deserves eternal torment and doing his little ironic chuckle about it. and then repeatedly saying it's a path he wouldn't even wish on his enemies...
so what if solas' dinan'shiral plan WAS, actually, as in that veilguard concept art, to tranquilize himself with the blight and then close himself into the black city. and presumably anders would go to.... extreme extents to prevent that from happening.... and he's even a grey warden so he'd be immune to blight....... and would take any means necessary to save solas since he couldn't save karl....
#long post#solanders#also there's the angle that solas may have just tranquilized felassan by mistake while trying to kill him#so who knows if anders could just dredge him out too
oh he would.
solas is trying to tranquilize himself and felassan creates a somniari path for anders to come in guns blazing (justice's guns) and wrest the lyrium dagger out of his hand all cool like
exactly...
also consider if there's still the angle of mythal hitting solas with a sort of emotional manipulation beam of "uwu we did all our wrongs together.... i release you from my service :) so that you can go to omelas :)" to encourage him to get this done
and by comparison anders is quite literally willing to claw his way into the black city with his bare hands to prevent this outcome ;-;
Posting on my tumblr upon request 🫡
i think given that sylaise is the deity of textiles and household stuff, she would be often depicted as a woman with a ton of elaborate veils and fancy cloth and drapery. especially with how resource-scarce the modern dalish are, this would be seen as really luxurious and rare too.
this also, i think, ties in with her domain being associated with healing. imo, thedas in general would have a way more advanced understanding of contagion than normal history, largely bc of the blight. bc if they do Not do proper handwashing and sanitizing and so on, literally every patient a healer touches after touching a blighted patient, is going to very obviously die of blight, haha. and this also would happen if they accidentally get blighted blood or something in their mouth.
so imo, most thedas medical-ish people tend to wear something like veils or face coverings to shield themselves from any possible stuff getting in the mouth or nose - even if there isn't a chance of darkspawn around, they would figure out that this seems to be better for the patients regardless.
so, this would also be a fun way for city elves to discreetly keep up their traditions/orlais to steal dales era art and sculptures really easily! yeah, for sure, this veiled woman with a fire motif, is obviously andraste, bc, she literally has a fire. and andraste was healing the world and so on, so she's dressed like a healer. and who would be prideful enough to try to depict andraste's face directly, anyway? smh? obviously the veil is better.
anyway here's andraste with a bow, bc, uhhhhh, she had hobbies. do you hate women having hobbies? do you think andraste COULDN'T shoot a bow? smh :/
i think, if we assume there are some sectors of orlesian society that are significantly elven/elf-blooded lower class humans, then this could also have some effects
bc seemingly the Formal orlesian chantry depictions of andraste in modern thedas, are tall and white and blonde with her face fully uncovered (wow she looks exactly like the noble families. that's so convenient <3 they must be divinely blessed so there's no problems with them <3).
but if we assume that a lot of the lower-class orlesian humans have some elven ancestry, as well as most servants and the theatre sector being pretty heavily elven, then we can assume that the sylaise-esque andraste version is more popular there. maybe it becomes like a class marker? or something more common in the dales area, while val royeaux is more into blondraste (blonde andraste)?
also i think maybe the anderfels has veiled andraste, if they show her in any detail at all, bc of... the blight and also all the dust storms haha. andraste should not be depicted as someone who's going to contract blight/terrible lung diseases. maybe this has some effect on anders, idk. senior anders understanders can ponder that.
honestly when looking through the dai dialogue... i don't know if solas was originally meant to have been the main guy to tranquilize/otherwise destroy the titans, at least not on purpose, or not all by himself. he seems genuinely ignorant about what's going on with the dwarves, and is never referred to at all in the myths and records of the evanuris fighting them. if they wanted to foreshadow that, they easily could have, tbh, in the same way they foreshadow so much stuff about solas otherwise.
the veilguard stuff becomes a bit clown-esque because it's like... ok so solas, the special boy genius, made this super effective dagger that tranquilized the titans - let's ignore how elgarnan, mythal, and andruil were the main ones associated with fighting the titans, and june is the one known for crafting. solas just outdid all of them, by himself, despite being newer, less powerful, and that not actually being his job....
and then somehow immediately afterwards, he's still getting called a lapdog in public??? huh? they would see him as a really vital military asset who should be flattered to keep him loyal, especially if he's getting disaffected. even if we handwave that he did it very quietly and only told mythal - why would she not, then, use flattery or defend him from comments as a way to keep him more attached? that's like her entire job as a charismatic, somewhat manipulative person who convinced him to come out of the fade and commit war crimes to begin with! it would work fine, even, he's probably prideful and inexperienced enough to be susceptible at that point.
it makes everyone involved look dumb!! either he can be a yappy upstart who did some fighting on mythal's behalf but nothing extraordinary, and therefore it makes sense for elgar'nan to call him a lapdog when he starts giving his unwanted opinions about tyranny. OR, he can be arlathan's mvp mastermind who fully won the war, in which case, at least a few evanuris should be fawning over him and pretending to placate him as long as they can.
anyway i was thinking about this bc unfortunately i need to consider it for my google doc, and i just....
neither is it very compelling for solas to be The Specialest Boy, it's also just so implausible that it becomes hard to write in his narration, and he would have to think about it at certain times, so it's unavoidable hkfjdhd. "yea i WAS the evanuris' most valued general, and my crime against the titans was so horrible and catastrophic that it haunted me ever since. those things are SO fucked up, and they started generating blight, all because of me. and without my actions the evanuris wouldn't have won against them... it was all me... uhh anyway the evanuris called me an annoying yappy dog afterwards and no one listened to me 😔🥚" ??????
yeah 😭😭😭

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The Small Fires Prologue is now on itch!
The full Prologue includes all ~37k words of the demo + ~45k words of brand new content! Please note that any lingering saves from the demo won't carry over properly, so you should clear them out and start fresh.
Features:
updated and edited material from the demo, including new credits and content warnings
a more game-esque start page
new settings, including toggles for autosaves, notifications, and special fonts
autosave now saves on every passage: no more checkpoints!
your MC is no longer 5ft by default (added a height variable)
special icons for background-specific and skill-locked choices
dynamic codex entries
Block the prologue spoilers tag if you want to go in completely blind, but I'll also try to put spoilery stuff under readmores and cuts. Please send in any bugs or misspellings with screenshots, but double check the typos tag first to make sure I haven't already caught it.
And as always, have fun and let me know what you think~!