#da:i

Friends! At nearly 30 some hours into Dragon Age: Inquisition, Herah and I have finally met somebody we can frickin' ROMANCE! 🥳🎉🎊💃

Okay, but then I realized the problem as soon as I flirted with the man and he was so overwhelmed by my ✨suave moves, handsome looks and charm✨ that he became available to join my party. But, see, he's a warrior. I'm a warrior. I need to keep a rogue and a mage in my party to deal with various issues. So that means he'd need to replace the other warrior already in my party.

Nooooooo, I can't go on without Cassandra, she's my boo-thang! I'm totally secretly romancing her even if I can't romance her, man! I want her in my party the whole way through, if possible!

Battle couple goals, remember? 😍

Anyway, so I realized that's going to be a problem with ANY romance option who's a warrior class. And for a female Qunari such as my beloved Herah, that also means

Iron Bull is off the table, too. Heh, I haven't recruited him yet but have the mission where I can and that's where I'm heading next. I totally do want to romance Bull eventually but... I'm also fairly sure that, like Garrus and Tali in Mass Effect, if neither Bull or Dorian are romanced, they'll end up with each other and I find that kind of adorable!

So, I went ahead and looked up exactly who Herah's romance options are, so I could plan accordingly. And I took into account Herah's personality, which is a little serious and very kind, though will bring the hammer down to protect the innocent and the people she cares about and I think the best match for her just might be... *drumroll*

Josephine! 💖💖💖 I've already been making sure to talk to her whenever I'm back at Haven, plus since she's an advisor, there's no problem with having Cassandra in our throuple 😇my party! 😘😜

However, I'm also on the verge of meeting Sera

who is a rogue so would have to replace Varric in my party (and if you don't think I would romance the absolute HECK out of that guy if I could... but alas, Varric is not an romance option for anyone). So I'm keeping my options a little open until I see how Sera and Herah interact. Just from what I've read, though, I feel like they might not be a great match but, hey, they might have a bunch of chemistry so who knows? 🤷‍♀️😉

Oh and I'm aware that I don't have to have my romance option in my party and, conversely, you can have somebody in your party that you're not romancing, I'm just following my Mass Effect preference of keeping my romance partner with me as much as possible. 😉💖

And thus ends my epic Dragon Age: Inquisition Romance Update of Updateyness for today!

I've been upgrading my companions' armor and weapons to give them more health, deal more damage, etc. But I didn't notice until just now that Cassandra's new arm pieces have little hearts on them! 😍

Also Herah is doing some pretty epic side-eye in that cap, lol! Did somebody insult her best girl? 😡😉💖

Bonus!

Battle couple goals! 💘

Annnnd to make sure you meet your daily quota of random screencaps...

Solas: "Inquisitor, that was MY FOOT, AHHHHHH!" Herah: "Oops, my bad, sorry."

💖Scout Harding💖 She's adorable and I love her! (Hey, is she single? Can we romance her? I don't think we can but I'm not entirely certain... 🤔)

Herah: "Does anybody remember where I parked the horse?"

Also, I've been trying to figure out why I can't seem to get enough points to pay the cost of going to Val Royeaux to advance the story. I mean, I'm almost 30 hours in the game and-- Wait. I've looking at the Inquisitor perk points. I thought I needed 4 of them to afford to go to Val Royeaux and I've been investing them to try and get the "Deft Hands, Fine Tools" perk. But it's the power points I need, isn't it? The power points that I have... 63 of.

So, yeah, I finally went to Val Royeaux. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Oh well! At least I did pretty much all missions and side quests that can be done first so we'll just say that was a carefully thought-out strategy. Um, yeah, that's it!

Solas: 🔥😱🔥

"There are DRAGONS in this game?????" 😱😱😱

Paging Aislynn's last remaining brain cell. Aislynn's last remaining brain cell, could you please come to the red courtesy phone for an urgent message?

I missed the dialogue option in my own cap so am borrowing it from Revan657's video of the entire Cassandra romance. But LET ME TELL YOU, friends, even though I'd accidentally stumbled across the fact that, yes, even female Inquisitors can get that initial flirt option for Cassandra, I still went all "EEEEEEE!!!" when it popped up, lol! 😇

I didn't take it, though, because I knew that, just as she can turn down a male Inquisitor's advances if you haven't gotten her approval rating high enough, she will always turn down the female ones (hey, it's okay, Cassandra is allowed to be herself, with her own preferences). So I didn't want to set Herah up to be rejected and chose the friend option. But still, I enjoyed the brief what could've been. Love you, sweetpea.

I really love all the songs I've heard at the Haven tavern so far! We stood there for 7 of them in a row, as a matter of fact! 🎵🎶🎵

Herah, chillin' to the tunes (and, umm, awkwardly staring at the tavern bard... hey, is she single? 🤔😀😉). We'll be back to hear more songs!

That's, um, not a threat, I promise! 👀😉💖 (I wish we could applaud or toss her a coin or something to show our appreciation! 😘 No, really, is she single? Does she like Qunari Inquisitors with Resting Awkward Face? 😁)

I'm still having so much fun, even though I continue to pick fights that are way above my level and thus, get my entire party killed. 💀😑

Funniest one so far: we were attacked by 2 Large Bears (the game legit calls them Large Bears 👀) and 3 outlaws all at the same time. Everybody except Varric dies. There's no way I can revive ANYBODY because Varric will just get killed before the revive completes. So there's only one choice...

...die honorably and start over? Heck, NO, Varric, we bail! I managed to get my buddy Varric

to outrun 2 frickin' Large Bears and 3 outlaws, lol! We were bobbing and weaving around trees, we were full-throttlin' as fast as our Dwarven legs could go, AND WE SURVIVED. Eventually, Herah, Cassandra and Solas just ✨appeared✨ again out of nowhere, so, new desperation strat discovered, lol! 😂😂😂

Okay, friends, I am Figuring Things Out™️here in Dragon Age: Inquisition! 🥳

I made it to level 5 before I decided it's finally time to look up how the heck to upgrade weapons and skills because we were all starting to die 💀a lot💀 to enemies I don't think we were all supposed to be dying to on Easy. (For some reason, Solas kept being the last one alive, trying to run around and revive the rest of us, and I pictured it stressing him out like "UGH, you GUYS, can you STOP DYING all the time, because I--????" and then he'd die. 💀😱😉)

It wasn't difficult to upgrade, it just wasn't where I expected to find it, lol!

(Kinda like how I wasn't expecting to turn around and see Varric standing up on the buy/sell table, lol! 😂💖Love ya, Varric, you do you, boo!)

Main thing I'm loving so far? The little quests for people who ask me to help them. I liiiiiiiiive for that in the Mass Effect trilogy and Andromeda! Nothing gives me such a nice little sparkle of ✨dopamine✨ as returning back with somebody's medicine/lost ring/news about their friend/what have you and they thank me and I'm all

"No worries, friend, the Inquisitor is so happy to help you!" 🤗

I also got a horse! 🥳Then I lost my horse! 😱Then I looked up how to call the horse back to you! 🐴I kinda love how Cassandra, Varric and Solas just straight-up disappear when I'm on my horse but when I arrive wherever I'm going and dismount, they all just... appear again? Um, did I have them in my pocket??? 🤔😁😉

Also have started getting conversations between the three of them while we walk, another favorite thing from ME and Andromeda! Squad banter, FTW!!! 🥳

I'm both looking forward to and kinda dreading recruiting more companions because I want to experience the new people but how can I just leave behind my faithful three who have been with me from the start of my journey? 😱

Okay, so I know I probably don't neeeeeeeed to keep Cassandra with me when the time comes but I turned on her Charging Bull ability and when she just *head down vanguard charge ka-BLOOEYS* into the enemies? Awww, yeah, that's my girl right there!

Y'all know my second playthrough is going to be as a male Inquisitor so I can romance her, right? 😇💖💖💖

Anyway, I also had to look up how to get back to the War Table then accidentally went on a mission I didn't mean to. Oh well, we're going to save some soldiers!

Or, you know, die trying. Also possible. I'm still pretty bad at combat.

Solas: "Would you at least TRY and get your shiznit TOGETHER, Inquisitor?!?"

*gigglesnort* 😂😂😂

I wanted to capture Herah talking because I love her voice. She actually doesn't say a lot in this scene but I decided to share it anyway because, come on, Josephine HAS to be a romance option, right?

This is a woman looking at Herah like she's a tall drink of water and Josephine has been crawling through the desert for far too long, lol!

Also, I'm pretty sure Cullen isn't a romance option for anybody but humans and maaaaybe elves? So he'll just have to be a good bro this playthrough, lol!

I'm pretty sure that whole conversation about choosing Templars or mages is going to be A Thing, isn't it? Ummmm, Herah and I don't know who is better to pick but I guess we'll just wing it when the time gets here! 😱😉

Now for a little bit of combat!

I wasn't expecting our giant axe/hammer thing to be 🔥on fire🔥 when we used it! 🤗🤗🤗

I looked it up and that's the Maul of the Dragon, which is an awesome name for a weapon!

I still suck at combat but I think in part that's because none of us seem to have a lot when it comes to being leveled up. So I'm hopeful that I'll get better! We still won, so that's all that matters. 😎👍

Since Herah and Cassandra were the ones in there doing close quarter combat, they're absolutely bloody. Solas and Varric, who were fighting at range, are much cleaner and that's a cool little environmental bit of storytelling, IMO!

Also, I still am so happy that Herah is the tallest of the bunch so far! I just love her, what can I say? She's my babygirl! 🤗🤗🤗