Something-is-a-bit-Riven-in-here

👻: Bad Disguise

You want to put into the narrative that destroy eliminates all reaper tech? Fine. But you can't selectively say "just this bit". You have to accept the relay network never works again. It's not repairable. You have to accept mass starvation of quarians and turians stranded on Earth (and probably others, since a lot of agriculture vehicles probably no longer work). You have to accept all human technology being dropped back to before the paradigm leap of the discovery of the Mars archives, and it's probably worse for the other species, who broke into reaper tech far earlier. You have to accept that advanced medical implants stop working. On and on.

Long overdue Alistair commission (1/4) for my dear @de-maure

Tempts to just replay the game again

How do turians hear?

They don't have visible ears.

Are their ears under their facial crests?

But it's not just a Turian problem. As far as I know, the only spacefaring species with external ears, other than Humans, are Batarians. And their's are just Human ears saran-wrapped down to the sides of their heads. For ever other species, we don't even see aural canals. Even the halfassed photoshop that was the "Tali unmasked" photo in the original ME3 managed to avoid showing ears (and the replacement in Legendary Edition keeps enough helmet on to hide any potential ears too). It's just something that was easy to "remove" to make the aliens more alien looking, I guess.

Which ties in nicely to my Headcanon that "Pyjak" is a slur for Humans not as a "you're a monkey" insult, but because Human external ears are just so HUGE and ATTENTION DRAWING and WEIRD... and this thing is the only species that can compare.

It made me realize that you really can’t save ANYONE in DA2.

Except Fenris.

Anders goes without saying. Merrill faces grave consequences for her actions no matter what. Aveline doesn’t really NEED to be saved in the narrative sense so much as you sort of scratch each other’s backs. No matter what you do, your sibling either becomes a Grey Warden or goes to the Circle/Templars. Isabela changes, a bit, but never really stops being so self-interested; she just continues to attach herself to Hawke for personal reasons and Hawke happens to be affecting society, as far as she’s concerned. Sebastian also doesn’t need saving, not really, and if Anders lives he goes all villainous and invades a city where neither Hawke nor Anders actually is anymore.

But you get to save Fenris. Hawke gets to change the course of Fenris’s life with their friendship and their love and give him a brighter outlook, if that’s what you want to do. The Power of Love plays a huge part in his storyline if he’s romanced. Fenris’s personal arc is about healing after abuse and trauma, so it makes sense that he actually ends up the most changed and the happiest, relatively speaking, at the end of the game.

(It’s, like, SUPER relative though. Because reasons.)

Hawke shows care through acts of service throughout the game. They are a friend who shows up for people. The ability to actually be a positive presence in Fenris’ life, to support healing instead of causing more harm, that’s healing for Hawke as well imo. Not to mention that Fenris shows up for Hawke as well. Throughout the deaths and the losses, even when siding with the mages, Fenris is the one person who won’t leave Hawke (aside from Varric haha).

back of the head scratch

a character shaking their head in disbelief or disgust with hand on their forehead, looking down

that kiss animation used since origins and in every mass effect game where they very slowly go in, hesitate, bop their heads around, and really go in for the kiss 

when a character, usually female, talks and puts their two hands in front of them like a robot and shakes them to illustrate their point

a character leans back on one leg with their arms loose

the exit-stage-right an NPC does after a conversation ends

angry limp wrist pointing

neck/collar bone scratch 

a slow crossing of the arms in times of suspicion

that punch animation 

drinking alcohol and violently shaking head

a character gives a half smile with an eyebrow raised

like half the fandom already ignores lel as a character for the crime of woman but these two… they’re foils of each other they’re parallels they’ve known each other for decades they’re both represented with the same bird they are both manipulated by older women to be people they’re not and don’t even mention THE GODDAMN DRESS AT THE WINTER PALACE ??? leliana’s veneer of kindness and morrigan’s veneer of cruelty… and they both conceal so much complication and grey morality that overlaps perfectly. where lel chooses dark morri chooses light and vice versa. these two could simultaneously fix each other and make each other worse why are we not talking about this.

(two dialogue lines from ostagar plus the coordinating vo comments)

duncan saved alistair = duncan is good

duncan is a warden = wardens are good. if not, that calls duncan's goodness into question. alistair can't tolerate that he struggles to integrate the facts that the wardens are a bit shady, that duncan himself is a bit shady! how could he be when he, to alistair, is the thing that saved him from a life of misery? he sees duncan and the wardens actively do questionable things but he has to kind of dismiss that bc even though he knows these are the facts about the wardens, he can't find a way to make this line up with his need for duncan and the wardens to be good.

And it's not even N7 themed 😔

Bonus: