It does! Like someone has played way too much Sims 2/3 with over-gaussian blurred skins and now thinks that's the way games Should look.
So I remembered that the elves are sort of based on Jews and had the image of the alienage elves from DAO singing about TRADITION
http://riverbanks.tumblr.com/post/145525797600 for some reason i can't reblog this, but i like it, and it's sort of how i headcanon templars
i always assumed that Lyrium may have given templar powers a boost, but was not necessary for using the skills. We see Ali not need lyrium, the Warden can learn the specialty, as can Warrior Hawke and Warden Carver, and Warrior Quizzie without any indication that they have to use lyrium. having the templars have a similar riutal to tranquility could be interesting, but i'm not sure it works for me. Like i said above, the PC can learn the spec in all the games thus far. But templars can be possessed under extreme circumstances I'm pretty sure? Unlike Seekers and Tranquil. They may have some ritual though idk. The templar abilities themselves i think are kind of anti-magic that is grounded in reality and ritual. Like Cole said, templars make things more real, so templars sort of tap into the shared mindset of all those who fought magic and that sense of history makes it more real? idk my thoughts are super rambly tonight.
Tranquils can be possessed - Pharamod in Asunder was possessed, and that was how they found out possession cured Tranquility. It's just difficult, because they're invisible to spirits, but it's possible. There is additional Templar training that makes them Templars, and as I see it it has to be magical in nature. Maybe not exactly like the seekers tranquility, but something of a similar sort.
question: if i break up with someone in inquisition, can i get back together with them in trespasser, or am i doomed to end the game all alone? (i don't think i still have the option to romance anyone else, it's pretty late...) Spoiler the specific situation here is that i, despite knowing exactly what could happen, am an elf romancing sera on my first playthrough </3 i just finished what pride had wrought and, WELL, i didn't drink from the well myself but i'm also not comfortable completely renouncing my gods, culture, and family :I ugh, why are the only options here 'youre right babe lemme just abandon everything ive ever known' and 'fuk u we're over' ?? is there any way to a) get around this or b) break up with her now and reconcile later? ((I REALLY SHOULDVE SAVED THE SERA ROMANCE TO A ~HERALD OF ANDRASTE~ PLAYTHROUGH HUH)) also it is such bs that you can't choose for no one to go into the well i like morrigan but she has no business trampling over ancient elvish magic like that :I i can't remember if it was here or on tumblr someone said it but wow i wish it could've been merrill instead </3 </3 </3
Once you're broken up, you're broken up for good. I think you can still romance Cullen that late in the game if you haven't gone through his flirt options yet, but you have to be into Cullen.
eh, i'll pass. (dang it) when i started playing i was sure i wouldn't mind, but apparently now i'm genuinely upset that both my available dialogue options for this are bad ones </3 i guess i'll suck it up and lie to her. ffffffs. I JUST WANT TO GET MARRIED DAMN IT
YEah it is unfortunate, but thankfully with some developments in Trespasser, it's pretty easy to make breakup-get back together headcanons (tho i know that's not as satisfying). MARRY THE CUTE ELF GIRL.
So I finished Trespasser last night at dawn. That was an adventure and I think @Nochi and I might be kismesises because of this game. (and because Nochi is awful). So I got to Skyhold for the first time and was wandering around trying to talk to everyone and get all the cutscenes Me: How am I supposed to ever learn my way around this place if you keep teleporting me every cutscene, game?! Nochi: Your Inquisitor also has short term memory loss from the Breach. She keeps ending up in places and doesn't know how she got there Me: ...well now you made it sad Nochi: Solas keeps 50 First Dates-ing her Me: wow fuck you And we just ran with it through the entire playthrough coming up with more and more ideas about this Inquisitor. I haven't written anything in years but this idea won't leave either of us alone!
okay i have a question for the thread. i have a few ideas for a series (three interlocking stories thus far, fuck my ADHD brain for realz) but i keep swinging wildly back and forth as to whether it would be worth pursuing. because on the one hand, it would be epic, lore and theory heavy, with a large dose of my own worldbuilding to fill in the holes and relationships and character development done better than in game. On the other hand, i worry that there's /too/ many new things and that it would just turn people off and as petty as it is, i just can't make myself write something that no one else is enjoying. Spoiler: fic ideas an concepts under the cut the three main stories i have are: 1. the main story following my Lavellan post trespasser. her life has kinda fallen apart since and she disappears to try and find out more about Solas's plans and how to stop them. Her first arc is becoming a Wandering Keeper (there's meta floating about on that). She ends up teaming up with Merrill and Zevran. They go into the west to try and find answers. 2. side story following Cullen after Lavellan leaves (they're not technically broken up but their relationship has suffered a lot. He's angsty and directionless and eventually finds himself in the Ferelden army, serving a hardass Queen Cousland who doesn't trust him at all. Mostly focusing on character dev for him since I was really disappointed with what we saw in DAI. 3. largish side story taking place back in Kirkwall, and largely inspired by Dishonored. Varric starts to get weird vibes as Viscount of Kirkwall and asks the Hawkes to return. When they come back, Varric and them are attacked in a coup, and the Hawkes are blamed for his kidnapping and possible death (he's not actually dead). The people behind the coup are up to something, and a plague which may or may not be related to the coup is ravaging the unlucky city. Team Hawke (ft. Anders, Fenris, Bela, Varric, Aveline and possibly Seb) has to take back the city and uncover the mystery. So... onto the weird things about this universe. 1. This is in what my moirail and I affectionately call Dual-Verse. So there are two of each hero. I mentioned Queen Cousland above, she was accompanied by my Amell, who romanced Zev and is mostly dead. Probably. The Hawkes mentioned above are twin elder Hawkes both mages. Lavellan was coinquisitor with a rogue Trevelyan. There would be a cheat sheet for these fics--a brief overview of story choices and important things like that--for people who wanted it. 2. I mentioned that Amell is maybe probably dead. She went missing about six years after the events of Awakening. In my original work, she holds the mantle of the god of Death, and she has a similar role here. I'm not exactly sure how that fits into canon yet. Mostly she's vague and mysterious and drives Solas up the fucking wall bc he doesn't actually know more than her, and she is unbearably smug with him. 3. The Hawkes. Most things about them. Mara and Pyrena are prolly the most OP characters we have (hopefully their ridiculous power levels is adequately balanced by their absolute mess of emotional lives). They decided to stay in the Fade, and together they managed to kill the demon. They spent a long time trapped in the Fade (about two or three years by Thedas time) and it made their magic go weird. They already had a propensity for elemental magic (Ice for Mara, Fire for Pyrena) and that got taken up to 11 by their time in the fade. They're basically benders now. Pyrena fire and Mara water/ice. They can still use regular DA magic with a staff, but they have a strong preference for their elemental stuff. I just worry that it will all be too different from established canon to gain anyone's interest. input on this would be appreciated. if it sounds like something you'd be interested in reading, let me know bc i really want to write it but need some encouragement.
@Kittenly that all sounds like a lot of work but I'm really excited by what you've described! My face seriously lit up at reading your summaries. It sounds like you're taking canon in fascinating directions. Of the three I'm most interested in the first (because Merrill and Zevran!), and equally interested in the other two.
I'm not a huge fanfic reader, but imo that doesn't sound any more outlandish than some of the other AUs I've heard of (mostly through my moirail). So, I'd say go for it? There's bound to be at least somewhat of an audience. And I'd be pretty interested in hearing how all that time in the Fade affected the Hawkes' emotional and mental states :U do they act a bit more spirity? Do they have abandonment issues? Etc.
I don't think any of your ideas are particularly outlandish! And I'll admit, I'd read the shit of 1 and 3. If you think you could write it, there will definitely be readers.
Thanks for the encouragement you guys ;-; It means a lot! Spoiler: Sperging about Hawkes and in the fade It certainly did a number on them. They had a tense relationship going in. Pyrena really disapproved of Mara and Anders' relationship (with very good reason, they had a horribly dysfunctional, mutually abusive relationship) and while she went along with Mara's decision to spare him, she wasn't happy about it. And this was built upon years of resentment and jealousy between then. The universe basically spends its time bending over and kissing Pyrena's ass, while using Mara as a chew toy. So throwing them back together after a few years apart was tense enough. So when they were trapped together after they managed to kill the demon things were a little tense. At first they wandered aimlessly, losing their staves somewhere along the lines. Mostly they wandered the geography of the Fade, retracing their steps. The Fade did a lot of molding to them while they were physically in it--recounting their subjective experiences as they travelled through it. It actually really helped their relationship. Pyrena finally truly understood the depth of Mara's resentment, which sometimes even bordered on loathing. She saw that it wasn't Mara just overreacting or being a stick in the mud but that she had spent her whole life being overlooked, put upon, and everyone's second choice. Even when their father was alive, Mara was the one who kept the family safe, often cleaning up after Pyrena's messes. After Malcolm died, Mara took on his role as head of the household, because Pyrena was off doing her own thing and Leandra was useless. She took responsibility for Bethany's training. She put food on the table. And all she wanted was to go to the Circle and be able to study in peace (her romanticized idea of the Circle was the cause of most of her and Anders's fights). And Pyrena finally gets it, because of the Fade showing her Mara's inner world, which she hides behind her biting, bitter sarcastic from (my little Knight of Void). And in Mara's part, she finally understands that Pyrena has never meant to hurt her or be mean to her--outside of sibling teasing of course. That Pyrena has never acted out of malice, she's just really bad at empathy. All the things that Mara has been holding resentment over for all these years, Pyrena didn't really know that they were a problem. I mean, she's not blameless. She's a bit thoughtless, but if Mara had ever gotten over herself for a moment, and talked about it, Pyrena could have and in most cases would have fixed it. Pyrena thought that it was all just part of the game, and if Mara had ever just reached out, she would have had a friend and an ally. Mara also gets to see the one, tiny ball of doubt that Pyrena can never quite get rid of--that she'll be forgotten and replaced. She has to be the biggest, the loudest, the best, or people might move on and leave her alone to wallow in mediocrity. So The Fade actually does some really good things for them and their relationship! As for magic and shit, they were both Force Mages, but that ability completely atrophies in The Fade, since there's no laws of physics consistent enough to manipulate like in the waking world. While that atrophies though, their spirit magic and elemental magic get stronger. They were elemental prodigies before, but stuck in the Fade, they learn to use their bodies to channel magic much like a staff could. As they peel away years of baggage and pain, they both get closer to their favorite element, finding sort of the "true version" of it, which they can channel through their movements. In the Fade, everything is an extension of will and spirit, and since Mara and Pyrena's bodies are in the Fade, their preferred element becomes like an extension of their body. The same is true of spirit magic to a lesser degree, and all their magic becomes infused with spirit magic (Mara's water and ice is a has a Fade-Green tint to it, as do Pyrena's flames). The second biggest magical thing that happens to them are the glyphs. Being in the Fade is obviously dangerous, and no one (with the possible exception of the Tevinter Magisters) has been physically in the Fade for so long. So they end up drawing incredibly intricate glyphs of protection and courage and resilience on each other. They draw it in blood, because of course they do. But it looks more like Lyrium. They're constantly adding to each other also, so over time, the glyph's sort of take on a life of their own. It's certainly some of the most intricate magic ever performed by humans. The glyphs shift on their own after a while, though not while anyone is looking. The glyphs also help them identify each other, as only they know each other's glyphs. It stops spirits from successfully impersonating them. As for abandonment issues, they don't have them so much as their choice to stay gave abandonment issues to others. Most notably Anders and Varric (also Isabela but she would never admit it). After their disastrous relationship in DA2 and Anders blowing up the chantry and immediately regretting it, he and Mara started from scratch and actually manage to have a few years where they're happy. They're not going to get better immediately, but getting out of Kirkwall and starting over sets them on a road to healing. Then Varric yanks Mara away from that and gets her (as far as Anders knows) killed? Yeah this boy has issues. ffs this got long ;-;
AwkwardZombie speaks truths Spoiler: DA:O and the phylactery problem it's probably some "blah blah contamination" thing but. it's just so absurd on first glance.
Yeah, I think a phylacerty has to have magic done to it and be stored in one of thor vials pretty quickly.
