i suspect you have questions?

dragon age sideblog 18+ space he/him/his trans, queer, white, 30+, ND call me brood

[broodwoof]

brood - he/him, queer, nd, disabled

main @broodsys ao3 bitterling mod/creator of: @thedasweekend & @sera-sundays 18+ space

veilguard lover

solas; mythal; ghilan'nain; bellara; morrigan

solythal; solavellan; solrook; solarric multishipper (i love shipping!)

veilguard is my favorite game, followed closely by inquisition

✨ queer + disabled + nd ✨ watsonian analyst ✨ opinionated ✨

prompt info (for dadwc & thedasweekend) my prompt lists tagging system (wip)

#veilguard (general tags for veilguard content-includes spoilers) #brood salt (fandom crit; general salt)

#brood loves veilguard / #blvg (retired tag for positivity posting; i'm not filtering my joy anymore 💖) #brood bday (veilguard-positivity messages i requested for my birthday, and people really delivered! a great cheer-up tag for veilguard lovers)

broodwrites (writing tag)

brood writes thedasweekend (writing tag for thedasweekend) dadw time (writing tag for dragon age drunk writing circle)

broodart (art tag) broodscreens (screenshot tag) broodedit (edit/graphics tag)

broodspice (nsfw tag for my posts) spicy content (nsfw rb tag)

broodmeta (meta tag) meta masterlist

Lavellan: Nessa | tag✨Delwyn | tag✨Velari | tag Feydis | tag✨Valyris | tag✨Cyren | tag

Atros Shiral (city elf inquisitor) | tag Liall Talas (au warden) | tag Dimitra (templar-trained mage) | tag Daw Aldwir | tag Sybil Thorne | tag

veil jumper divider courtesy of the lovely @flowersforthemachines, posted -> here <-

[vonspe]

”what do rook and the warriors do during book club?” Involuntary Yoga

[kikicolors]

the forgotten boy

[lesbianironbull]

i actually almost pissed my adult pants cuz of this comment on a clip of somebody having the da:o moment of stumbling into the room where sandal's surrounded by darkspawn corpses

[samaraxmorgan]

Edging him until he’s completely delirious and when you tell him to “say the magic words” he accidentally says “I love you”

[bebx]

your careers are temporary. archive of our own is forever

[broodwoof]

seriously, veilguard doomed me (<- said with the greatest affection) to being totally unhinged about solythal forever

i was already getting weird about them the longer i sat with and considered that scene at the end of inquisition. the intimacy of it. the gentleness of it. the brutality of it. the WILLINGNESS of it... on both their parts, yeah, but the one that really, REALLY compels me is mythal's willingness

the more i thought about it, the more i sat with that, the less i could see her as someone who had only ever seen solas as a blade to be wielded, or someone who saw solas as a slave, or someone who saw him as disposable

but veilguard. holy shit. that sealed the deal. she loves him!!! she tells us as much! and the mythal that tells us is specifically a mythal that is angry and bitter towards him. this is not a sentiment coming from a place of peace and comfort and warm familiarity, but from the hot fury and cold aching isolation both

i talk about it as a ship, but tbh that's as much to step away from the view of mythal as his mother. but my view of them has been and continues to be that: they are each the other's home. and, as i've said before, and probably will again... you can leave home. sometimes you must leave home! sometimes it is for the best to do so! but it will always be home. and in their case, it is also in many ways their first home. i think even moreso than the fade itself is. they remind each other of the past, the time of arlathan, yes, but also the time before it. the time before elgar'nan's emergence. the time when they were just spirits in the fade

no one else will ever take the place of the home they have found in one another. which isn't to say no one else can ever become their home! bc you can of course make a new home. but that first home? that is inviolate. it remains a core part of you. it is formative, it is shaping, it is determining. that is what they are to one another. caught in each other's gravity for all time......... 💖

[broodwoof]

i've struggled to feel like i understand lace, because it always feels as though there are two different directions in which to approach her

she's brutal. she's compassionate. she's reactive. she's centered. she's in hiding. she's front and center. she's a protector. she's a killer. she's a farmer. she's a warrior

i feel like she's a being of dichotomies. it's even in her name: lace and harding

and in veilguard, she, a dwarf, gains magic. this is the ultimate dichotomy, but it's also a dichotomy-that's-not: it's a confluence, a point at which two seemingly contradictory forces meet and create a unified whole

(ppl who want to be tagged for my meta under the cut: as always, lmk if you'd like on or off this list!)

@fadetouchedlurker

@flawed---by---design

@sacredashes

@mindtrove

@jackals-ships

@guacamolleee

@griffongrey

@in-the-drowning-deep

@flowersforthemachines

@guard-dogbiscuits

@breitweisergallery

@sousukeaizen

@songofamazon

[in-the-drowning-deep]

yes!! she's so, so grounded (ba dum tsh). she took off at the first possible opportunity. she's one of the kindest people you'll ever meet. she is extremely good at killing and willing to put people down like animals.

idk, in a lot of ways she feels like the Iron Bull? both of them with an apparently very strict code they live by, which serves to conceal the huge mess of contradictions underneath. everything that might challenge that is held at arm's length with narratives that cleanly separate them out. neither of them think of their targets as people, both of them strive to take care of the ones around them as best they can. both of them shove down uncomfortable emotions, or try to push them aside without necessarily working through them.

and much as Bull is a character stand-in for something much bigger (the Qun/qunari), Lace is in some ways a stand-in for dwarves as a whole, with all the complexities and contradictions that come with that.

(which is SOOOO so so juicy to me when you consider the fact that Orzammar doesn't see her as one of them at all. the stone the builders rejected will become the cornerstone, etc)

[broodwoof]

OUGH..... drawing the comparison btwn her and bull??? that is so perfect and so real

[kitkatpancakestack]

WE HAVE GOT TO START LOVING THE PROCESS MORE THAN THE PRODUCT AGAIN

[davrinsleftpectoral]

Bellara Week Day 4

Research

[Day 1] [Day 2] [Day 3]

Welcome to Bellara week at Nug E Cheese. Bellara, the store’s maintenance engineer is excited to be getting some new (to them) animatronics for the store. What could possibly go wrong? In this fic series, Spite is a human man that just happens to look like Lucanis but with purple hair, works for Ossuary Delivery Service, and he’s dating Bellara. 

412 words below the cut

"Hello, hello! Hey, this is Dave, the maintenance engineer from store 3. Well. I used to be. Not so much anymore after the fire. I hear they plan to shut that location down. That sure is… unfortunate. Employees didn't last long there anyway. Not that I'm implying they died.

Anyway. I wanted to return your call. I'm sorry you got stuck with Miss Hinge Trap, I mean Goldie. She was uh… the most finicky animatronic in the store.

If you're gonna keep Goldie, make sure that you put her in the sequined outfit, it's her favorite. She's better behaved if she likes what she's wearing. And she can only be in the front of the band. It doesn't make sense, because she only plays the tambourine, but she hates being put in the back or off to the side.

Do not put her beside Druffy the druffalo or Lord Woolsley the ram. She's a nug supremacist. Gus, Goldie, and Shmooples have to be in the middle front of the band. 

You're also going to want to keep an eye on her. She tends to get a bit quirky at night, and is more active in the dark. If you have her out on the stage, she tends to wander a bit, going into free roaming mode at night. The servos in Goldie specifically can't be turned off for too long.She likes to rearrange party favors or pull out all the napkins from the holders. Messy but harmless. 

Now, if you've treated her poorly, that's a different story. She won't take kindly to not being the center of attention. She will go for the other animatronics. I've had to reconstruct the others multiple times. Especially Shmooples. I think she wants to be Gus' girlfriend instead of her. 

I wouldn't recommend being in the store alone with her at night. Her temper is worse at night, and she knows when you're alone. I think she senses fear. She can be real quiet too, so if you hear her, that means she's up to no good. You can try playing dead, go limp. She might ignore you then. 

But I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, you'll be fine. If you need to get in contact with me, well you can't. This number won't be in service after today, and I'm uh, doing some traveling. Gonna to on a road trip and take in the sights. So good luck, I'm sure you'll do great."

Want to know more about Nug E Cheese, catch up on AO3. 

Special thanks to @blackwall-my-tiny-husband for the banner and dividers. 

And thanks to @datvcompanionweeks for hosting the event!

[datvcompanionweeks]

This reads like something straight out of a horror movie. Bellara should really watch her back - I'm not the one dealing with Goldie, but even I got shivers.

Thank you for sharing!

[broodwoof]

i've struggled to feel like i understand lace, because it always feels as though there are two different directions in which to approach her

she's brutal. she's compassionate. she's reactive. she's centered. she's in hiding. she's front and center. she's a protector. she's a killer. she's a farmer. she's a warrior

i feel like she's a being of dichotomies. it's even in her name: lace and harding

and in veilguard, she, a dwarf, gains magic. this is the ultimate dichotomy, but it's also a dichotomy-that's-not: it's a confluence, a point at which two seemingly contradictory forces meet and create a unified whole

(ppl who want to be tagged for my meta under the cut: as always, lmk if you'd like on or off this list!)

@fadetouchedlurker

@flawed---by---design

@sacredashes

@mindtrove

@jackals-ships

@guacamolleee

@griffongrey

@in-the-drowning-deep

@flowersforthemachines

@guard-dogbiscuits

@breitweisergallery

@sousukeaizen

@songofamazon

[rneliflua]

[ohnoitstbskyen]

What it looks like to me is that these churns of outrage aren't actually about anything that these creators say or do, so much as they are a kind of reflexive action in response to literally any kind of friction. Like an angry infected rash flaring up with pain when it is brushed by a feather.

The show you like is telling a slightly different story than what you want? Friction is the same as pain so it is hurting me, AAAA!!! Your expectation of what was going to happen to that character you liked didn't pan out? Friction! Friction hurts! You're hurting me!!

But where the Disney Corporation can run a fucking angle grinder across the rash and barely provoke an "ow," indie creators (especially if they are not men), can get nearly run off the internet for things like factually answering a direct question or stating that the story they are writing has main characters.

There's a lot of misogyny in that, obviously, and in many awful flavors, but I think there's also mixed in there a very peculiar kind of consumer-brained entitlement. We expect that the big corporations will fuck us over every two seconds, and we expect to be utterly powerless to do anything about it because all they give a shit about is Line Go Up, but indie creators (especially if they are not men) are expected to be the balm to that infected rash. Where everything else in the world is painful and mean and uncomfortable, independent queer creators are expected to produce the comfortable swaddling bandage that dulls the pain and soothes the sensitivity. This is supposed to be our happy place, our safe place. It's supposed to be ours and belong to us and serve us.

And so they moment they produce friction, any friction, literally the tiniest amount of friction imaginable, well that's a failure! You are failing to live up to your purpose, and that's not just a creative failure but a moral and personal and spiritual failure too. It's a sin, in fact, it is a kind of evil. Friction hurts, and that means you are hurting me!

It creates this fucked up upside-down bizarro logic wherein the corpos and the companies can transgress to almost literally any degree, as much as they want, as often as they want, but queer independent creators (and I cannot stress this enough: especially if they are not men) have to walk tightrope on a razor wire and may God help their souls if they ever put a foot wrong. We will shake and shake and shake the towers until they each fall down; I didn't like that step I think you were taking, how dare you believe you deserve to be up there!

[spicymancer]

I definitely feel a sort of hesitation and anxiety whenever I read people’s headcanons about my stories, because I get worried they’ll be upset that the way I write the story doesn’t match up to the thing they have in their heads. This gets especially tricky when lots of folks speculate in different directions and I feel that whatever I write WILL disappoint somebody… (or, to Skyen’s point: create upsetting emotional friction for them)

Which, to be fair? Yeah. That’s normal. Not all art is for everybody. I try hard to internalize this… there’s a really badly paraphrased Mark Rosewater quote about game design I think about a lot:

“Anything specific enough for a person to fall in love with must, by its very nature, be something that another kind of person doesn’t like.”

That’s not a bad thing. Everyone is different and if you try to make something that perfectly inoffensive to everybody, you end up with something mild and flavorless.

All this to say, I’m glad I’ve managed to cultivate a broadly cool audience who, for the most part, are super supportive of my work. I think it’s important to make stuff for the sickos (Affectionate).

[litafordvsferrari]

that makes me curious

do you think you could beat up your blorbo in a fistfight if you had to

yes

no

nuance i guess?

Remaining time: 5 days 1 hour

[boiledkwamaegg]

Don't ever stop being insane about the blorbo. It's good for the soul

[kabsey]

i want rook to get a turn sleepwalking

lucanis is lying on his "bed" in the pantry reading when rook stumbles in, half-conscious. before he can even ask what's happening, rook has sprawled across him, buried their face in his neck, and mumbled, "the fish are judging me." seconds later they're snoring

lucanis, holding his book over them and having no idea where he is supposed to put it or his arms in general now, looks over at spite in panic (because he and rook are nowhere near that physically intimate yet. man hasn't been cuddled like this in... well, maybe ever)

spite just nods knowingly. "we should kill. the fish."

[fadetouchedlurker]

Memories of a Duet

I think that with the music mentioned in the codex for Memories of a Duet, Mythal was the composer, and I think Mythal was the pianist. I think Solas was the one watching. The reference to godhood (mindless worship) does not seem to fit Solas in my opinion, because the first thing that the Inquisitor runs into in Trespasser is that mosaic memory door thing that says very specifically that Solas is not a god and has never been a god, and there are other references to Solas in the Crossroads and Lighthouse where he is being referred to as "Wolf" and "Wolf Lord" (and Solas). Not really a god though, not by his people. And I cannot imagine Solas would have put up with mindless worship for long, and neither would Felassan. I suspect that he did probably play, but that music was never his passion as art was.

Also, the card for the codex entry has an image of Mythal, and it could have had the one they used for Solas things (the wolfy one), and it didn't. I think that piano was in the conservatory not because Solas played, but because Mythal did, and it had been placed there in the hope that she would join him at some point. And then the room got filled up with whole lot of Inquisition memorabilia after that. Which is truly sad to me, because he had like one thing in that room of a happier time for actual millennia of existence, and then everything else is Inquisition era stuff. And that was like. A year. And the murals are mostly Inquisition murals. The one mural that is straight Mythal is hidden behind crates.

Memories of a Duet The sheet music left by this instrument appears to be for a duet. It has been annotated by an expert hand.

The annotations are accompanied by clear emotional impressions: diligent practice, with a ruthless eyes to mistakes, the relief of private achievement, away from well meant misunderstanding and mindless worship, an unspoken joy in the center of rising, perfect echoes.

Finally, a beloved memory surfaces. A smiling glance, meeting at a crescendo, a shared moment of understanding, seeing completely and being wholly seen.

The impressions fade.

I also think that Mythal was the composer and player because one of the Caretaker's memento's is Mythal's grace, which speaks of a medallion with Mythal's symbol and music again.

Mythal's Grace A medallion bearing the symbol of Mythal, ringed with the notes of a song inscribed in spectral notation, music that cannot be heard in this world.

The spectral notation is also really interesting to me because it seems to imply to me that the music was made for spirits. Did they play music together before Solas took a body? To me, Memories of a Duet are two memories, the first after Mythal ascended, practicing and composing alone, and I think closest in time. And I wonder if the last memory of eyes meeting is before Solas left the Fade and before Mythal became a god. I wonder if Mythal composed the duet based on that memory. I wonder if Mythal missed that too. (I suspect so, whatever there had passed between them.)

My guess is that Solas played the elven lute? bass? whatever the stringed instrument is? while Mythal played the piano, because there is one there too, and there was, if I remember correctly, one in his quarters in Haven.

I bet he played the string accompaniment to the piano alone after Mythal's death and was just sad about it, and it did not at all help in making him more centered and better able to conduct a ritual to seal the Evanuris away.

Also, I think it's the only interpretation that really makes sense to me across all world states.

[broodwoof]

Antiquation

Synergy (pt. 1) Dichotomy (pt. 2) Confluence (pt. 3) Divergence (pt. 4) Paradigm Shift (pt. 5) Anemnesis (pt. 6) Pneuma (pt. 7)

Velari Lavellan

Stolen Moments (additional sfw series) Playtime (additional nsfw series)