#circleposting

when anders said " The Ferelden Circle's more fun. Everyone was kissing everyone. Though that was before the abominations." I really took that to heart. I was jotting down notes. like ok. everyone was kissing everyone. got it. anything else?

I am of course thinking about my own OCs now (oh Trevelyans... the family that you are!) but once you've considered the propensity for noble families to pledge their youngest children to Chantry service as public proof of piety (and to preempt a significant amount of infighting over inheritance rights) as well as the prevalence of ~inconvenient~ noble-born mages we've encountered over the course of the series... one does start to wonder how many templar recruits were pledged to the service for the purpose of absolving their families of the private guilt and public embarrassment of having a mage child taken to the Circle

I've been referring to Mouse as Rafael's pet pride demon because it's jokes and he's my silly guy, right, but like it does have to be taken into account that the Circle of Magi as an institution is by its very nature a torment nexus that turns spirits into demons just as relentlessly as it turns mages into time bombs, yeah?

my personal preference for headcanoning the contradictory alistair-templar-lyrium issue is to say that templar recruits do, relatively very late in their training—considering that most of their training is just swordplay and brainwashing—begin taking lyrium in small controlled quantities specifically to enable the practice of their magical abilities. alistair either did so as well, or he got fast-tracked for training with other fade-sensitive recruits who were able to begin this training without the aid of lyrium. either way, he obviously quit before completing his training and taking his vows, never experienced the effects of addiction and withdrawal, and then came away with the impression—being able to continue to use his abilities without lyrium consumption—that templar lyrium use is entirely a scam sold to templars by the chantry (I mean... he's right), and is thoroughly unaware of his own fade sensitivity or that it does make him somewhat unique in this regard.