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Vivienne: Tell me, Iron Bull, is there anything I can do to assist you more effectively in combat? Iron Bull: Uh, no. No, I’m good. Vivienne: You do so much fighting at the front. I would help however I may. Vivienne: If my skills can weaken your opponents to make your fight easier, please let me know. Iron Bull: Well, nobody fights well when their clothes are on fire…but honestly, I do really like the ice. Iron Bull:Whatever works for you, though, ma’am. Vivienne: I am always happy to help.

The thing with Solas is… he woke up from uthenera to a world that he does not recognize, a horrible world where everything is awful, where his people are suffering badly, where everything he knows is gone. To put the cherry on top, it’s a world that he deliberately brought about by his own hands.

It’s exactly the same situation for Solas as it was for the Inquisitor when they time-traveled into the horrible future where Corypheus ruled. The Inquisitor had few qualms about sacrificing people in that future because it “didn’t really matter or exist” - the only thing that mattered was going back to the past to prevent that horrible future from occurring.

The Dalish derided and hated? The city elves in alienages? This is Solas’ Bad End Future. Solas does not consider the world around him to be truly real or right. He doesn’t understand the Dalish, and can hardly recognize them or City Elves as elves. He does not want to understand or even think about modern elves because it’s Solas’ fault that they were killed, that they were enslaved, that they have to live the terrible lives they do. He spends as much time in the Fade as possible because of escapism, frankly. Because some of his oldest friends still live there, and because he can still walk lost Arlathan’s streets in his dreams… he wants to be in the past again, where he didn’t fuck everything up. 

He’s very much a lost, isolated character looking for guidance, a true hermit of the tarot. Every conversation he has with the other companions is him desperately sound-boarding off them, “What should I do? What would you do? What can I do?” His conversations with Varric about the Man On The Island haunt me, especially. ("How can you be happy, surrendering? Knowing it will all end with you? How can you not fight?")

So yeah, he is a bitter sleepwalker trying not to invest in anything around him… because of self-preservation. Because if he invests emotionally in it, it will make everything harder. If he was truly an asshole, and if people truly didn’t matter to him, this wouldn’t be a problem for him. 

The touching part about Lavellan is not that he treats her better than other people, because he doesn’t. It’s that his feelings for her force him to confront the future that he made, and see it as real. (“You’re real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can’t.”) This future is real, and it’s something he made, and its reality matters deeply.

It’s the story of a god who is estranged from his people (literally, statues of Fen’Harel are not allowed inside Dalish camps) and his relationship with Lavellan helps him reconcile the reality of the world and decide what to do about it. It’s a sleeping god finally answering the call of the Dalish, who never expected to be answered. It’s a mortal convincing a god that his people still need protecting.

The story is incredibly touching to me, especially how I experienced it.

she’s so cute

Careful this ones feisty. 

I want a Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC just like that one quest in Skyrim where the Inquisitor wakes up alone with a hangover in some unknown land after a night of drinking (with Iron Bull perhaps?) a little too much, and now they have to find their way back to Skyhold while also fixing the problems that occurred because of the wild night of being irresponsible fun.

We are the Dalish - Keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path.

We are the last of the Elvhenan

And never again shall we submit.

what if zevran was a member of the chargers though like what if bull had found him making a name for himself in antiva striking back against the crows and brought him in and bioware kept it super on the down low so when bull was introducing the chargers to the inquisitor he’d come to the final one and say “and this one’s lockpicker” and there’d be a dramatic close-up on zevran’s face imagine how great that would have been. imagine

I think the reason why I’m so in love with Bull is because I find him a fascinating study of dichotomy. He’s a spy for the qunari and he’s a loud, brash, unforgiving sort of gent. He’s strong and bold but also loves nugs and pink. He’s confident and secure in his sexuality and person, but his sexuality revolves around giving others pleasure - which gives him pleasure in return. He prefers the simple, direct approach but he’s also very smart and good at strategy (he beats Solas in mental chess.) 

He’s so complex but it masquerades as simplicity, and my writer’s fingers just want to jump into his character and find his motivations because his entire nature is so full of chaos and contradictions - but it still works. There’s only one fault I’ve ever found with Bull and that was that one bit of dialogue between him and Cole but the rest of him is accepting, comfortable in his skin and his sexuality and genuinely fun, if a little crude. Underneath it all, though, is this other layer, this deeper layer where he is a spy and is spying on the Inq and also using the Chargers as a cover to make people in Thedas more willing to work with him so he can study their political workings. 

And it’s that last bit that fascinates me, and it’s part that you only find out if you actually side with the qunari in Bull’s mission, because afterwards he tells the Inq that his relationship with the Chargers was effectively a lie. Now, I don’t think that’s as true as Bull wants it to be, but I think he definitely wants it to be the truth. 

(More rambling under cut)

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sadface

i’m so tired of reading this homophobic ‘predatory lesbians’ nonsense in the name of being ‘sera critical’ or whatever like y’all really hate lesbians and don’t even try to disguise it

sera expressing her attraction to qunari women isn’t fetishizing or predatory or sexist because she is literally incapable of mimicking male heterosexuality structures seeing as she is, y’know, a woman

the male gaze is called that because it’s perpetuated by straight men

lesbians’ attraction to women is in no way comparable to straight men’s attraction to women and pretending it is just so you can bash a video game character you don’t like is lesbophobic/homophobic and you need to stop

"So you truly never wanted to leave? You never dreamt of what life could be like outside?” Dorian looked aghast at the thought of such an appalling lack of imagination. Emeline almost laughed, but settled for rolling her eyes.

"Well, of course I dreamed of it, everyone does. Or I did, anyway, at first." 

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an instrumental mix for the inquisition (listen)

A modern day Dragon Age: Inquisition instrumental fanmix. Listen now on 8tracks! ( Part Two )