My dream is only you

growth

My man is fighting for his life

kind of obsessed with the banter series where taash is like “huh you’re not bothered by killing people even when it’s not personal” and harding is like “oh well one time i was told to kill this old wolf lurking around the farm, but i felt bad for it, and then it savaged the lambs. which i had to put down myself. so i learned young that a quick kill prevents more suffering! that’s why the inquisition hired farming people as scouts, because the scouts were required to kill people who weren’t our enemies personally or trying to hurt us. :)” i guess none of that is news and at the same time there’s so much to unpack

harding in her cartoon character voice: oh, you know, it’s necessarily to kill some people and i think of it the exact same way as slaughtering livestock. i know this because i was the right fit for the religious army i signed up for as a very young woman and they said i did great! :)

This banter always makes me think of the Cullen Lyrium ending card, in which it is Lace Harding who puts him down in the streets of Denerim. Just slits his throat in the street.

crying over how harding’s sash is embroidered with “symbols…to represent fellow heroes of the inquisition” and how solas is included among them, even after everything………help me

HARDING & LUCANIS' friendship.

commission for @virusq!

(commissions are open!)

Once again on why you’re all wrong about Veilguard, let’s talk about the red lyrium and the blight and why it’s shown as two different things in Veilguard and what it represents and why this isn’t a retcon or bad writing. Because I saw people genuinely confused about the red lyrium in Harding’s quest. I’m actually not trying to be a dick here I genuinely want to clarify this for people and not just because Harding is my wife and I’m obsessed with her quest line and what it means for dwarves. It also illustrates what I love about Veilguard. Spoilers under the cut. Also trigger warning for talk about processing trauma.

Harding’s cooking is atrocious, but Taash’s tastebuds are more or less non functional. Surely that’s a match made in heaven

did that wingman quest for taash

Everyone: the companions are too nice to eachother wheres the companion drama?

Lace Harding, certified goodest girl: Hey Lucanis. See this arrow. This really pretty arrow I have. It's for you. It's specially designed to kill you super painfully. Let me explain in great detail how it will kill you. I bought it special. For you. I don't want to have to use it. Not because I like you. But because I paid a lot of money for it and I think it's pretty. My pretty little arrow. For you. 💘

Lucanis: but you only have one? so youre broke? how embarrassing 😈

hang on, hold on, now I'm really in my feelings about Harding for a moment

like ever since I heard that conversation where Lucanis (very insightful tbh, short king to short queen I guess) points out that having been a tiny dwarf girl raised among the big, intimidating, human Fereldan farmers probably impacted Lace's personality more than she realizes (beyond making her adaptable and capable, it also seems to have made her... kind of malleable, unwilling to rock the boat, people-pleasing, more limestone than granite), I already haven't been able to quite shake that thought. But her being so startlingly low on that recent "who's your favorite character" poll I reblogged... it really drove that point all the way home.

a core characteristic of Lace Harding seems to be that she always tries, and tries, and tries, to be liked- she tries to always be kind, and compassionate, and caring, and sweet to everyone, and it works! everyone likes her! people like being around her, both inside and out the narrative!

... but she's very few people's favorite.

it's a really interesting take on pleasantness being a shield (honestly kind of a very accurate, but subtle expansion on her character in Inquisition, when she was just... Nice and Capable Little Lace Harding and Little Else) and even her story, while it's about her own repressed feelings (literally fighting a physical manifestation of her rage, and sorrow, and pain, is. wow you don't get more clear a metaphor than that, the metaphor is literally punching you in the face on that one), it's still not about herself- or not only herself, but all of the dwarven people, all that was taken from them, all their rage, and sorrow, and pain, condensed into her tiny little body....

there is definitely more to expand on this, and I'll probably get more into it in subsequent playthroughs, but for now, I'm finding it really interesting how Lace Harding is almost an afterthought in her own life, purposefully made a footnote in her own narrative, and that in itself serves to color it in further. she lives in the silences between the titan's heartbeats.

truly the fucking textbook interpretation of an eldest daughter of all the dwarven people, and I'm fucking emotional as fuck about her right now

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Harding: This is where people come when they dream. But dwarves don't dream…

hi Harding hiiiiii 😍