me, suddenly sitting up and pointing wildly at my pepe silvia board: "what if the titans were like the seekers, in that they got tranquilized briefly, and then reconnected to a spirit. but in their case, the spirit is the primordial dwarven lyrium writers, which were the origin of the dwarven shaperate in modern thedas-"
the elves and the surface dwarves both originally worshipped the great dragons, which were like sapient emissaries/extensions of the titans. bc the blood of the dragons is the blood of the world, etc, and dragons are considered the special divine form by the evanuris, and there's that concept art of a bunch of them living in a titan.
there are 3 semi-permeable planes, so speak - fade, normal earth, and the void, and the titans are kind of "stationary" but connecting all three, and dragons can move freely through all of them. the titan-linked dwarves funnel their worship energy into the titans, which manifests that into a great dragon, that essentially becomes a deity to them. the great dragons have the archdemon style immortality of being able to body-hop into a nearby connected dwarf if they die.
the titans themselves are kind of eldritch and have geological scale thoughts, but the dragons are much more quick-thinking and have "personalities" in a way that's comprehensible. thus, they can be the old gods.
the initial spirit-born elves were mimicking casteless surface dwarf exile communities (since exile from the stone is a very old concept and could've had an actual magical effect of being Detached from the hivemind in ancient dwarven culture) to pick up Emotions and Concepts. they came through without any lyrium, largely out of curiosity to see the world directly and to interact with the dwarves. this explains why solas isn't particularly surprised by cole, bc it's not "necessary" for lyrium to be used to take a body, it just creates a somewhat more confused/less powerful body. cole came out as a moderately talented and somewhat eccentric rogue, not evanuris material.
the exile dwarves were already taking little bits of lyrium to do their fine dwarven crafts and enchantments - this increased after the elves came through, bc with the elves' fade connection, they could start doing More with the lyrium. they start making larger cities and joint settlements using the lyrium. this is sort of a mosquito bite to the titans, but the dragons get more upset, and wipe out nearly the entire first batch of elves, bc they were unused to most things about the physical world, and can't defend themselves well.
elgar'nan is currently a benevolence spirit watching all this from the fade, and goes "hey i didn't like that >:( i'm feeling New Emotions outside of my usual purview >:( someone make me a strong body and i'll protect you from the dragons >:(". they put him into a lyrium-infused body, and he comes out super buff and really coherent! many more spirits are inspired to take lyrium and follow, elgar'nan fights the dragon and wins... except it respawns out of the nearest titan-linked dwarf immediately, bc it is unkillable. so now he's basically fighting the same increasingly angry dragon (belonging to the kirkwall titan) every few days. war ensues. elgar'nan is getting increasingly weird bc he's drinking dragon blood as a protein shake. see also, his claw hands on the mosaic.
it's discovered that in the same way that the titan-linked dwarves beam worship energy to the titans, vallaslin on elves can be used to beam it towards elgar'nan. this is also interesting in the context of maferath, bc he was also doing some weird stuff with wyvern blood(?) was this to make him stronger to support andraste(?) was it a misremembered story of elgar'nan that got put onto him(?) was this dude a reaver actually(?). more of the early elven leaders start doing this, and become the evanuris/forgotten ones. lyrium is required for the vallaslin formulation, so this increases the amounts being mined.
somewhere in this era, is the precursor to the vhenadahls/the elven funerary custom trees. getting Killed For Real is very scary to the immortal first elves, so they plant a tree and go "ok maybe my friend's spirit will reform someday :( and it'll know to come back to this tree and we can hang out again :(" which may or may not work, but at least makes them feel better. the "tree of the people" concept/mythal's tree symbol is a bigger and more effective version of this - it's a magically infused tree that kind of functions as a landmark or bridge between the earth and the fade. people can go up to it and communicate with spirits even without a strong fade connection (like the surface dwarves), and it draws in spirits that reflect the nature of the surrounding community and try to protect it. this becomes a symbol of the dwarven/elven combined settlements (see also, the tree icons in orzammar + the surface dwarven ruin in dai). and THIS is how the city elves can still win-
the kirkwall titan, now Really Upset, starts sending out its hivemind dwarves as soldiers bc it's not enjoying how much lyrium is being removed + its dragon getting killed every week. the surface dwarves are having second thoughts bc they've now lived through several generations of war by their standards, with no end in sight, and had to fight their estranged cousins, and the elves are really chugging lyrium to a point where it's a bit weird. multiple titans are now involved. there's creature vs creature warfare where the titans are making Beasts to attack the surface, and ghilan'nain is making Counter Beasts. ecosystem is in shambles, earthquakes are hitting all the population centres on the surface, normal dragons being sent to attack, etc.
this is when you start getting spirits draft dodging, and compelled to take forms with vallaslin. bc it also has the effect of keeping them "solid" even if they don't really want to stay and would prefer to dissolve instead. for instance, if they're kind of ambivalent wisdom spirits who don't enjoy being a physical entity,
mythal enters the field alongside an emotional support embodied wisdom spirit, to try and help in what seems to be a war of survival now. mythal provides enough force to actually enter the kirkwall titan. she claims it as a joint elf/surface dwarven settlement. elgar'nan bypasses the "dragon can reform out of any dwarf" problem by... killing all of them. so the dragon can't find any to reform out of. this is very bloody and horrible, and perhaps the first time the elves have actually seen the hivemind dwarves in their natural living conditions (not soldiers). solas corrupts into pride out of stress, but is considered to be mythal's very useful attack dog for his contributions to the slaughter.
it's discovered that the titans can be mined for their... worship vessels? vessels of dreams? hearts? whatever the orbs are, and this allows the wielder to thrall a dragon, get a ton of magical power, and become more or less unkillable - if they die, they develop the dragon's ability to body-hop to the nearest vallaslin-bearing person linked to them. elgar'nan can now do this, and the kirkwall titan is extremely near death and wounded and angry bc it no longer has a dragon or any dwarves. so with its last coherent impulse, it goes "woe. eternal winter be upon ye" and starts withering up all the land - it's not the blight, but just normal style desertification. the other evanuris start picking fights with the other titans too, bc they're powerhungry + want an orb to stave off the Withering on the surface.
this becomes controversial with the surface dwarves. elgar'nan thinks this is fine, bc he's feeling great and is willing to massacre all the other titans and fix the withering landscape All By Himself if need be.
june (an elf-allied surface dwarf leader) develops lyrium writing, which is the precursor to the modern dwarven shaperate. this allows the dwarves to connect to the titan's consciousness directly, without the dragons as an intermediary, though it weakens the connection significantly. mythal manages to negotiate with one of the calmer titans, and it gives her a connection to a dragon voluntarily (this is why she can shapeshift and has an affinity with dragons + can remove blight), and attaches itself to the dwarven shapers instead. this is probably the sacred ashes titan/orzammar's titan. it conveys that the kirkwall one needs a dragon to calm down and at least be put into hibernation before it wrecks the surface. mythal puts a dragon egg in with the kirkwall titan, which calms it down to an extent, and manages to subdue elgar'nan from going on his rampage, which makes the surface livable again.
removing the dragons basically made the titans like the seekers, where they're briefly tranquil, but then their emotions get put back by a spirit. but in this case the spirit is the... collective knowledge and opinions of all the dwarven shaperate feeding it information. this explains "they made the earth forget" line in trespasser. this process is done to the rest of the titans except for the kirkwall one, which is essentially on life support. it has some dragons in it, but allowing it to wake up is considered a danger (by the elves), bc it was never attached to any shapers and has 0 dwarves left alive who could do that. so it might just get back to setting off earthquakes if it becomes conscious again.
this comatose state is enforced by... mythal's lyrium idol. it's not currently red lyrium, but made of just normal style lyrium, that serves as a magical focus for the city built over the titan. this keeps the titan asleep, and holds a tremendous amount of magical power - fortunately nothing bad will happen to it-
solas is offered an orb + a dragon thrall as a token of appreciation for his contributions to all this. he declines the dragon thrall, and elects to stay on as mythal's lackey instead. this leaves him in a weird spot of having a borrowed orb, which makes him killable, but still way more effective than a normal elf. he's a very useful lackey bc no other evanuris would risk giving their servants an orb, bc of the risk of being deposed. solas is both loyal, and has ethical objections to the dragon thing, and would not attempt a coup like that.
mythal and elgar'nan end up as the top two leaders, with the other evanuris underneath them, and an assortment of other unaffiliated elven leaders who also had vallaslin + orbs and ended up as the forgotten ones. fortunately they're all really peaceful after this-
the elves have now been on earth long enough to develop Society. the lyrium-born are on another level from the cole-esques or the physically born elves, and they start jockeying for power. everyone now knows that getting an orb out of a titan provides genuine immortality + a way to control a dragon if they can catch one. and they're Immortal and perhaps Better than the dwarves, so really, they deserve a little extra lyrium as a treat.
june is uncertain about this, but has married sylaise (it's genuinely cute and legolas and gimli-esque probably) and become an evanuris, and is pretty happy being immortal, and they're not bothering HIS specific group of dwarves in orzammar, soooo....
arlathan gets more and more dependent on lyrium, and more stratified - no one is allowed to just make bodies and vibe anymore, they NEED to be attached to an evanuris. any dissenters are hunted down or slapped with vallaslin, which does have the side effect of being like a blood magic gps tracker (chantry mage style), as well applying a level of compulsion. there's more and more conflicts with the dwarves and the forgotten ones, who also have their own batch of followers with vallaslin and contraband orbs. solas starts thinking about becoming the joker.
june and dirthamen develop eluvians together. and then, ofc, it would be too dangerous to allow randos to travel like that! so the vallaslin track their movements, dirthamen can spy on everyone, and access can be revoked :) for safety :) yay :). this takes out most communities of "neutral" elves just trying to live their lives without vallaslin, as they're effectively forced to swear allegiance to someone or be removed from infrastructure they need to survive.
the evanuris' immortality isn't quite as seamless and fast as the archdemon style body hopping - it takes them a while, maybe requires some time spent in uthenera while transferring over, and leaves them weakened. there's a spree of warfare that takes out one of the milder evanuris (maybe june or sylaise) Multiple Times in quick succession. in response, they develop the Well Of Sorrows Prototype. this basically boils a bunch of their most suitable followers' souls into a delicious electrolyte beverage, that makes the drinker into an ideal body-hopping candidate + completely unable to disobey any orders.
solas goes to mythal and says "hey, this is terrible, shouldn't you do something?" and she says "but i already sent a stern letter, what more do you want?". solas offers to go on a mission to sabotage the wells, mythal signs off on it and sends him off, and then...
...much like briala/celene, elgar'nan puts on a scandalous play, accusing mythal of letting her dog offleash and listening to the forgotten ones' podcasts. mythal feels politically threatened, and midway through his heist, solas abruptly drops unconscious/develops an inexplicable urge to turn himself into the guards, bc she activates the vallaslin's compulsion to force him to get caught.
after being caught, mythal doesn't pull strings to get him out of trouble, and solas has his orb confiscated and is sentenced to imprisonment in his own temple - mythal thinks this fine, it's a thousand years, at most, and she'll even bring him enrichment for his enclosure! solas does not think it is fine, fully becomes the joker, and chews his leg off (this is the bound pride demon at solasan illiteracy temple) to escape, and burns off his vallaslin too.
solas' first major act afterwards is to steal his borrowed orb from mythal (with felassan's help as a man on the inside, bc felassan figured out how to remove the vallaslin compulsion while keeping the outward appearance) before he starts taking swings at the evanuris and the forgotten ones to take advantage of the chaos. all the other evanuris, minus dirthamen, bc of his Secrets Security, get a well by this point. mythal develops her own well too, bc she just lost her most reliable lackey and needs a substitute. this is solas' fault, they did all their wrongs together, etc.
solas' orb + growing dread wolf reputation begins to actually empower him enough to take on a Cool Wolf Form, despite his lack of dragon or vallaslin (moral objections to both). ghilan'nain, not yet an evanuris, just a powerful neutral elf, is sort of mildly helping him out in a "this might as well happen, i like chaos" and "can you rate and review my creatures while running around?" way.
the hibernating titan is in a precarious state - the city is doing ok, and there are enough dragons in the titan to keep it on life support, but the rest of it is spooky and weird and closed off, bc it's effectively made of the feverish nightmares of an entity that can rewrite reality. however, to the forgotten ones, it is simply free real estate. this is The Void. they start living inside it to avoid the evanuris, and juice themselves up on dragon blood as a substitute for lyrium. maybe this is even how qunari were invented, idk.
this status quo is messed up when: ghilan'nain is offered an orb and apotheosis in exchange for making her creatures more regulated. she accepts, however, she wants more dragon blood for her Experiments. and gets either andruil or the forgotten ones to hunt dragons in the kirkwall titan's insides for her.
the Void gets spookier and worse, and the titan begins dying for real. its dragons become fully feral and nearly rabid in their aggression, and have to be killed. i think the entire settlement is caught up and infected with proto-blight, and then slowly starves to death, which is what this codex is about. mythal orders the area sealed off as red lyrium pours out, but does not actually prosecute the perpetrators in any meaningful way. this is what happens here. solas is involved in the re-sealing bc he has an orb and is familiar enough with the titan after helping fight it the first time.
the evanuris start getting restless, bc they see mythal as unnecessarily letting the rebellion continue instead of crushing it and letting them refocus on the forgotten ones. mythal is unwilling to place reforms that would end the rebellion peacefully, bc then the evanuris would break away from her, nor is she willing to fully obliterate the rebels. Centrism.txt.
then... the evanuris start getting even sillier. as solas' rebellion gains strength, andruil refuses to follow directions, goes back into the void, comes out covered in red lyrium. uh oh! mythal lures her in by getting solas to be the dread wolf and annoy her until she chases him into a trap, then mythal beats her into a paste, uses her voluntary dragon connection to clear the red lyrium, and gets dirthamen to remove her memory.
...however, ghilan'nain is now SO curious about the blight. and is sad that her gf got beaten up. so she starts fiddling with it, since andruil brought her a little bit of red lyrium before going on the rampage. she is acquiring status effect: blighted.
andruil doesn't remember anything about what happened, but does vaguely remember that Mythal's Yappy Off Leash Dog was involved and might know more, so ghilan'nain lures him into a trap, bc solas is still in contact with her, since they were quasi-allies. i don't think the fen'harel and the tree myth is based on any sexual intent on andruil's part, i think that's a mistranslation over time. andruil tried to force him to take on her mind control geas and put his knowledge into her well, (which was a concept that's fully incomprehensible to the post-veil elves, and they replaced it with a more clearly understandable motive), and solas manages to escape by fluke when anaris also shows up to beef with him.
dirthamen, meanwhile, is starting to become uneasy allies of convenience with solas, bc while he can excuse slavery, he draws the line at blight killing everyone. he starts to suspect ghilan'nain is using the blight, and when he gets close, she does several things; messes with his reputation to distance him from mythal, sics andruil on him (i think he's the huntsman in this), and then tells falon'din "hey, your brother knows this COOL SECRET you don't! isn't that bad? you should kill him"
so falon'din goes on a jealousy rampage and nearly kills dirthamen. this is why dirthamen's temple is so shambles, his followers seemed terrified after he suddenly disappeared, there are few statues of him, and one of them features him with a giant sword in his back. mythal does eventually beat falon'din back and subdue him, but not before dirthamen is put into uthenera from injuries and the Blight Location is forcibly extracted from him and his followers.
this culminates in: the evanuris all get together and go, "hey isn't it suspicious that mythal could remove the red lyrium from andruil, but she still doesn't want us to have it? smh. we COULD just kill her and drink her blood and remove red lyrium ourselves, and use it safely and defeat the forgotten ones, if she wasn't such a drag. oh, you don't want to kill mythal? well, your choice, but... enjoy not having blight resistance after this i guess :/". so they all go ahead and ides of march her and drink her blood. this is a precursor to the joining ritual.
then things progress badly very fast. it turns out it does NOT work without mythal actually being alive. also, mythal's idol was actually compensating for the dying titan and preventing blight from fully spreading out, and it stops doing this when she's dead. but the evanuris only notice after acquiring status effect: blighted and becoming unhinged. horrible things are growing out of the titan's corpse, and are in danger of infecting even other titans, bc they all technically share the same Void Space if you dig deep enough. this would kill the thedas.
solas, fully becoming the joker, gets his rebellion to seed the land with his little... veil strengthening contraptions from dai, which are also focused in a way to Physically Grab blighted areas and throw them into the black city when it goes up. this is why the waking sea exists and is called that - it's right next to the red lyrium thaig, and was presumably like ground zero of blight leakage. huge amounts of earth/the titan's insides got zapped into the black city when the veil went up, and seawater filled the gap.
solas uses the evanuris' bound dragons as a way to channel the locks on the black city and the veil. the titans recall them underground, and they go into hibernation after the veil goes up. he passes out from the effort, and uses all his Orb Energy in the process. he also loses most of his followers, so... his orb takes ages to recharge at all. the dwarves seal off the red lyrium titan again, and rebuild their civilization - the veil going up also puts all the titans to sleep, so the shapers are no longer in contact with them, and the hivemind is gone beyond a very slight stone sense.
the hibernating dragons are now the old gods, occasionally whispering Cool Facts into the dreams of humans. eventually, after thousands of years, the dwarves forget the location of the red lyrium titan and... accidentally dig it back up while exploring. whatever spooky thing happens then, scares them SO much that they decide to strike the titans from their records entirely, bc they assume that all titans are like that. but it's... slightly too late.
the red lyrium leaks out just a little bit, and slowly starts growing into dumat, one of the sleeping old gods, and eventually overcomes its natural blight resistance. the evanuris reconnect with it using the blight that they share. and it starts calling up the magisters to break them out. corypheus goes up there, gets Fully Infused with blight, and then goes down and wakes up dumat for the first blight.
this is also why the dwarves think the darkspawn came from underground, and the chantry believes it was the magisters thrown down from the sky - technically both are true. the red lyrium infested some random dwarves/deep roads creatures after dumat got overrun, but until dumat got in physical contact with something Fully Blighted (the magisters, called underground to find dumat), the red lyrium creatures stayed mostly dormant. and then afterwards the darkspawn started creating broodmothers to create more troops faster than red lyrium would. and many of the dwarven kingdoms fell, so no one remembered the initial red lyrium part or any efforts made to contain it, in comparison to the much scarier and more obvious hordes of darkspawn soon afterwards.
anyway i think i got more followers since the last time i mentioned this! and it is one of the funniest parts of dai, to me. everyone needs to know about the temple(?) jail(?) where solas pretends to be illiterate
Ok I legit think about this ALL THE TIME. Because it’s respectful place, it’s a temple named after him, by name, but there are no wolves about. So was it like a time out he endured for some period of time, related to idk his objections to the Evanuris ascending to godhood etc?
Or…Or! Or was this where he was interred after the creation of the veil, by forces respectful enough to house his unconscious ass safely and properly in a fuckin temple, but angry enough about what happened to, you know, imprison him (Mythal’s people? a forbidden one?)?
The “indecipherable” part could reference his crime (creation of the veil). And indeed death lies within after that act.
Because even if none of that tracks, Felassan didn’t know where Solas was in the post Veil world. He passed out, and lay in dark and dreamless sleep etc. who took care of him? Where!!?
personally i think the "cast from favour" and the two figures are important!
my thought would be, that if it was initially meant for solas/mythal to be paralleling briala/celene, then this would indicate a place where solas did something that he thought mythal would cover him for, but... she decided it was too extreme and refused to favour him, and let him take the fall and get imprisoned instead. and perhaps the two figures turning away are her and elgar'nan, or her and another evanuris, idk.
and the sought to claim bit sounds a bit like this codex where another person tried to claim a dragon form? so maybe solas tried that (could even be how he achieved his Large Dread Wolf form, even if he failed/was barred from it), or maybe he was stealing an orb (could be why there's a reference to "hearts" in the inscription, like the titan hearts). and those might make sense for solas to pretend to be illiterate for, haha.
AND! given that a lot of the fen'harel stories involve him chewing off like a tail or leg or whatever to escape, that's, imo, why there's a pride demon there. there's precedent for mythal going and beating up falon'din in his own temple, so it's not out of the question for solas to get bound into his own, if he ever had one. presumably he did some weird magic stuff, severed a part of his power to escape, and that's what the pride demon is.
and that also makes sense why the stat boosts at the temple go to the inquisitor? bc it's technically solas' power, but, he's so weak that the strongest magical thing of his nearby is the anchor, rather than solas himself. so it goes to whoever's holding the anchor instead.
OP you cannot leave these in the tags they are TOO DEVASTATING.
But your idea of piling on another Celene/Briala parallel is incredible. Would be brilliant from a narrative/thematic perspective.
The fact that Solas clearly got out of Solassan without the original shards to unlock the door does hint that this was a pre-Veil escape act, where he could leave a physical place via a spiritual route.
The other thing about Solassan is that its design, and locking mechanism, is the same as the Mystery of Winter in the Frostback Basin where (presumably?????) Geldauran was held.
The inscription there says pride will be the downfall of the Evanuris, but in the future tense, so it seems that temple was at least constructed pre-Veil.
So yeah. I wonder about Geldauran’s crime. And, like Solas, how he escaped without opening the door. And of course given its location and connection to Hakkon, it does call to mind the crimes of the sinner who took the form of a god.
Idk. I like all the vibes that come together here. Solassan is more important than we’ll ever know.
oh that's a really good point about the geldauran thing! i hadn't considered that at all.
my other thought before veilguard came out was that: since in a lot of the murals, the dread wolf is depicted as a separate entity from solas, that's a similar thing to what he did at the temple? like when closing the black city, he essentially cut himself in half, and left most of his power in wolf form inside it to guard it. and that part of him obviously got blighted, either immediately, or when the magisters broke into the black city...
which also explains why he got so sad and "oooh no one can follow me... dinan'shiral... i don't want anyone to see what i become... 😔" after the orb broke. and explains why he wanted that red lyrium idol, despite being really scared of the blight otherwise! bc then without the orb, his only option to go back and close the black city again is to like... reabsorb that half of himself, immediately contract (status effect: blighted), and then do something gruesome like lock himself in with the evanuris, and seal the doors shut before the blight fully takes him over. which would make sense with how doomer he sounded about it, hah.
you could really go somewhere with briala and celene both ostensibly wanting Rights For Elves™️, but it's like. both of them, when given the choice to kill a bunch of elves (that they don't know or care about personally) to gain power, they do it without hesitation, or really any remorse, or even trying to make amends afterwards.
which could be really neat as a parallel - like celene ostensibly considers the elves to be citizens of orlais, and therefore her responsibility, but... not to the point where they get equal rights or the assurance she won't have them slaughtered. and briala also considers the elves as her people, but... not so much the dalish, since she's willing to get them killed for her own benefit, no problem.
and then, both of them are sort of entrenched in the system of orlesian court stuff, which is 90% empty gestures and posturing rather than changing anything about orlesian society. iirc, celene's Big Move wasn't like... improving actual average living conditions for the elves in halamshiral, it was to put an elf in university. one entire elf. waow. and same with briala - her ambition isn't like "topple orlais and splinter it and seize power for the elves in the chaos" it's "get an elf into a court position". what's step 2 of that, to actually improve anything for the masses of elves in general? don't worry kitten. the hand selected small number of elves going to university, or becoming minor nobility, will definitely have some major impact. for sure. beyond enriching a small group, and being a public propaganda piece to soothe the other elves and prevent them from rebelling <3
idk!! it could've been neat, like a somewhat darker leliana/marjolaine situation, where briala really DID absorb all the morals of the orlesian court and can no longer see beyond these methods at all, even when she's trying to help. and she still has the orlesian mindset of dehumanizing the dalish and seeing them as a step below even the city elves.
but instead all this is just bc, weekes is incredibly bad at writing political or social conflicts,
hear me out: fastest and least traceable way for solas to start causing trouble in tevinter is..... to start beaming literacy classes through a spirit of knowledge or something, to the enslaved population of tevinter en masse while they're dreaming. and then they immediately get a covert leg up on whatever they're doing, and can organize better.
and uhhh obviously the endgame there is that they can write their own pamphlets to give to the magisters--
ok hear me out AGAIN: feynriel from da2 is also a somniari, and in tevinter (perhaps). and he's human looking, but obviously sympathetic to the elves.
so all solas has to do is get this guy recruited through dreams (bc he's more comfortable with weird fade entities presumably), and then he can even delegate some of this! and feynriel can technically navigate tevinter society pretty well bc he is at least perceived as a human mage, so he can really be doing some infiltration and sabotage...
tevinter slaves are probably kept under some level of surveillance/unable to communicate between each other covertly, bc they're intentionally kept illiterate. and they'd often be on grueling work hours with no time to even consider how to escape or sabotage something.
but... they all still go to sleep, haha. so any enterprising somniari could just... take them into dreams where they could talk freely/run through fade simulations of how to escape/murder a magister/hand out pamphlets in a really efficient and coordinated way?
so they can keep acting completely normal by day, and show no signs of plotting anything. until they finally break out, in an eerily well coordinated effort that would LOOK as if they'd been secretly sleeper agents for years!! which would really freak out the magisters, bc they'd assume there was some covert rebellion going on for ages that they hadn't noticed at all, or that some other country was funding and training these people and sending them on deep cover missions. but actually the slaves just spent a few months going through dream sequence trial runs to be really coordinated, and had time to discuss a plan together without eavesdroppers.
Varric twisted sideways, narrowly avoiding a lavishly bound hardcover that had already lost its spine and most of its dignity, its pages scattering as it sailed past. He darted around the long table on his short but quick legs. The book—thick enough to concuss a mabari—was titled The Veil Guardians Of The Dragon Age. Its cover was a garish mess, featuring a hero squad rendered in an overly elaborate, tasteless style, tacky high dragons, a holy sword, and a group of elven villains who looked as though thinking would hurt them. And, of course, a sword had been driven straight through the book, leaving a ragged hole in the center.
Cassandra, clad in the uniform of the Lord Seeker, tried to corner him across the table, darting from left to right. Eight years had passed, yet she was still no closer to catching the dwarf than she had been in Skyhold. At last she slammed a gauntleted fist onto the table. The messenger bird on its stand shrieked and flapped in alarm.
“Varric Tethras, stand still! What in the Maker’s name is this supposed to be? Since when does the future of southern Thedas collapse into… this?! You’ve written yourself into some kind of indestructible nuisance—dead, alive, found dead again and alive again as some weird Fade narrator as if it were a tavern trick—and everything we fought for amounts to...nothing?! And since when is Tevinter a shining utopia? This is—absolute fabrication! Pure nonsense! I clearly overestimated your skill—and possibly your morals as well!”
She snatched up an expired operation report, crumpled it, and hurled it across the table. Varric tilted his head and let it sail past.
“If I were going to fabricate anything,” he shot back, “I'd at least have the decency to follow the trajectory of This Shit Is Weird! You build on what’s there! You don’t toss every thread from the previous tale into the fire, turn the Inquisition into fools, and write Chuckles like he’s forgotten he had a brain, just so the whole world can revolve around a handful of clueless, overprivileged and utterly UNINTERESTING heroes. And they have the nerve to claim these new protagonists are more 'down-to-earth' than the Inquisition—” He snatched up the stabbed book and tossed it onto the table. Its flashy binding took its final breath, spilling pages everywhere. “Take a good look at who actually wrote this thing, Seeker. You of all people should notice when something smells off!”
Cassandra glared at him for a long moment. Then, with obvious skeptism, she picked up the cover to her eye level. Where Varric Tethras ought to have been was not his own concise name, but somehow “Varricus Tethrum”. She lowered the book slowly and inhaled sharply, her jaw tight.
“Come on, dumb name’s far too obvious. And there’s another mail reminder on this book for everyone—early morning mail, a good waking-up call. Are you that excited about the fraud new book of mine to forgot to check your bird? I’m so touched, Seeker.”
The messenger bird let out a soft cry. Cassandra’s face slightly reddened. She took off her mail from the bird and dived into it. After the shame wore off, she sighed heavily. “I shouldn't let my emotions get the better of me. This came from Tevinter?”
Varric shrugged. “Minrathous. Thanks to our new friends, Charter is extremely well-connected among bookstores there.”
“What else do you know? Who’s this editor… C.E.J.?”
“Calvus Elatus Jovius. Former ski-keeper up in the High Reaches. Tevinter aristocrats have been wintering there since the Old Imperium decided snow was fashionable.”
“A ski-keeper,” Cassandra repeated flatly.
“Everyone starts somewhere.”
She ignored that. “The book praises Tevinter. Excessively.”
“Like it’s the last beacon of civilization,” Varric said. “While conveniently blaming every social ill on the elves. Blights, slavery, unrest—apparently all single-handedly caused by pointed ears and their evil origin. And—”
Cassandra’s gauntlet creaked as her hand tightened.
“That rhetoric is deliberate.”
“Of course it is,” Varric replied. “You don’t accidentally write propaganda, you aim it. My guess is one pampered offspring of some magister with too much coin and too little talent, obese ambition and tiny courage to be original. Who doesn't want to get themselves too much publicity but desperately need a certain story to be spread.”
Cassandra began pacing. “Divine Victoria must be informed at once.”
Varric watched her. “You planning to ban it?”
“If necessary.”
He sighed. “And guarantee every bored noble on the northern bank of the Waking Sea smuggles a copy just to see what the Chantry doesn’t want them reading? Seeker, prohibition is the best marketing strategy ever invented. I'm almost ready to suggest you propose a partnership with them before to make fat Royals from this.”
Cassandra’s murderous glare could even have send a chill down their one mutual problematic friend who was apparently somewhere deep in Tevinter inciting revolts and wreaking havoc and disregarding the supposed-merry political atmosphere. But Varric just shrugged.
“This text incites hatred,” she said. “The Divine is trying to push another reform decree to ease tensions in alienages and Lavellan is preparing for a new Dalish meeting. If this spreads—”
“It’ll harden people who already want an excuse,” Varric finished. “Yeah. I know.”
She stopped pacing. “Then you understand why it must be stopped immediately.”
“Stopped?” Varric leaned against the table. “No. Discredited.”
Cassandra frowned.
“You don’t silence a bad story,” he said. “You expose it. Show who’s behind it. A former ski attendant reinvented as literary mastermind. A Magister’s spoiled brat playing revolutionary novelist. Strip the mystique away, and it stops being dangerous.”
“And if that fails?”
“Then it falls to me to write, as I always do.”
Her expression shifted—skeptical, wary.
“You cannot simply counter propaganda with another book.”
“Sure I can.” Varric picked up the tattered book and casually flipped through the remaining pages, smile sharpened. “Difference is, mine won’t blame a people already in deep shit for ages for gravity. And I won’t pretend Tevinter suddenly grew a conscience. And Chuckles,” he scratched his jaw, “I expect him to be more competent and less boring, and I’m afraid that he does have people.” He tilted his head and winked. “And I’m pretty sure that if he were to kill me, he’ll use his nice little ‘your-philosophy-sucks’ petrification glare. These people really lack imagination. Mine will surely sell better.” He let go of the book. “And also with a sturdier spine.”
Cassandra groaned. “You understand we don't have the time for joking, do you not?”
“Joking is never a waste of time, Seeker. Especially in these times.”
“Do you intend to find this…C. E. J.?”
“I intend,” Varric said lightly, “to have a friendly conversation about branding with our friend Calvus.”
“Blackmail?”
Varric beamed. “I prefer ‘networking’.”
Cassandra studied him, then exhaled. “I will inform the Most Holy. Carefully. We cannot appear to be suppressing dissent.”
“Smart,” Varric said. “Do let Leliana keep her hands clean this time. I’ll get mine dirty.”
“You are certain this is not simply the foolishness of one young Magister?”
Varric’s voice lost its humor.
“Seeker, nobody writes a book like this by accident. Not in Minrathous. Not now. Someone wants both humans and elves either angry or afraid. Both are profitable.”
Cassandra’s gaze drifted to the impaled cover again.
“Then we are not only dealing with one novelist and their shady editor.”
“Nope,” Varric said softly. “We’re likely dealing with a new player on the board.”
the thing is to me, the resolution to trespasser seemed like it would be along the lines of either:
solas unilaterally pursues Huge Upheavals without consulting anyone else, anders style, and ends up causing enormous damage and leaving it on a scorched earth tragedy, where maybe the world will heal someday. but neither he or anyone else in the cast is alive to see it. which is like... tragic not only bc of the effects, but bc of the cause - despite wanting another method to resolve these problems in thedas, nothing was ever offered. so thedas was like a doomed slow motion car crash ever since the black city opened - the "divine retribution" for that crime finally takes place in a twisted way, bc mortals never actually managed to find another way out. the thedas art history love was there but it was not enough type of vibe. the series ends on this bleak climate change allegory, and wraps up.
OR
through teamwork and different perspectives, unlike solas' unilateral pride schemes, a group of people manage to come up with a solution for the blight and slavery and so on, without the collateral damage of solas' plan. and thedas is changed but in a way that still allows people to survive without wiping out the societies as they exist. which is a more hopeful message of mortals shaping their own world without needing some quasi-divine immortal making decisions for them. thedas was being hindered by these decisions made thousands of years ago, but is finally free to create a new future. and they can reboot it to be a little more high fantasy or whatever if they want.
but instead it is a secret third thing of: a diverse group of people from different backgrounds, all get together to create a scorched earth tragedy. and then don't actually solve any underlying problems. teamwork loses(?) nothing changes and things only get worse(?) 🥲
am i the only one who considered the veil a very blunt pollution/climate change metaphor since dao 😭
they literally say it gets damaged permanently by any death or warfare or violence. in a dark fantasy setting where people are fighting nonstop. and then that damage causes the area to become uninhabitable, and alters the nature of the spirits to become evil and attack people. and this has been going on for millennia, and people are just kind of used to it, and very few people are considering that it's largely irreversible and the damage will grow over time!! and the dalish elves/mages/poor people are forced to live in places where the veil is worse, and just accept the increased danger bc they have no other options.
so this seemed very very obviously like. either it tragically finally crumbles and kills the thedas in [whatever amount of time creates enough wars to fully destroy it], or it's optimistically altered significantly to prevent thedas from dying?
am i insane? even aside from the spirits/elves part, the entire vibe was like "what if microplastics created angry ghosts trying to kill you, and yet people refuse to stop using plastic" 😭
YOU’RE NOT ALONE. Finally, another person who thinks the way I did 😭
To be honest, this is why, until Veilguard was released, that I was fully in favor of the Veil staying up. I felt like the Veil was this poignant metaphor for climate change, and that even though some consequences are permanent, we can still work to mitigate the damage and make the world a better place. That we can always reverse course, even if some things can never be fixed.
I don’t really feel this way anymore, after seeing how Veilguard turned out, but this was fully my interpretation for the past ten years before the game came out.
like to me the neat option would be a sort of "the damage is done but we must work together to make it better" vibe, where solas is not wrong in the goals, but is acting out of fear of blight and can't think of a slower and less damaging option. so other people have to figure out what's going on, to take charge of what is - objectively - a doomsday clock catastrophe that solas has woken up into when it's 2 minutes from midnight. and seemingly, no one before him has actually tried to solve it. so obviously he's panickingly going as fast as possible and writing off collateral damage.
(which he himself says!! he wants another option! he's a zillion years old, he would not be rushing and exposing his plans to risk unless he was afraid of a worse outcome, which is, the blight, fjsdkhlfjdhgjfd)
so to me a "the veil is altered so the spirits are able to cross, but the old world is not brought back bc life has changed" is the most interesting option that prevents the setting from becoming generic high fantasy haha. i think the low fantasy vibes are so fun and unique, and the art history would be removed if they changed it too much haha
but instead people are unironically like "no no. this thing that gets irreversibly damaged over time? every single death nearby makes it more dangerous, in a setting where people love killing and murder? it Must be kept. this is a long term solution and the only reason to remove it is nostalgia" 😭😭😭
Has a baleen whale ever been kept in captivity for any length of time? If so was it successfully released or did it die?
there have been several instances of young baleen whales running afoul of something and being captured for rehabilitation, yes! they were mostly gray whales.
which makes sense, gray whales are slow enough to get caught in the first place and hardy enough to not immediately stress themselves to death over being poked and put in a tank (as long as hundreds of pounds of delicious shellfish are on offer, anyway)
none of them were ever kept very long, they were rehabilitated to a healthy weight and then released. (healthy weight for a juvenile gray whale is almost 20,000 lbs. BIG baby)
You know, judging by how fast Wen Qing caved on Wen Ning's showing up in Yiling with wwx and jc, even though she was real mad about it, I bet he has been doing this to her for years.
Probably started by bringing her injured animals to doctor on as a kid. Later on, not necessarily a lot later, he started dragging in bullied disciples to patch up and hide from Wen Xu or somebody, and then probably he'd just kind of...fold a lot of them into his canonical personal retinue of loyal subordinates, however that worked exactly.
Wet kitten Wen Ning constantly dragging smaller wetter kittens back to his big sister to protect. She has tried all the arguments already. She knows there's no budging him.
Also lmaoooo hang on, Wen Ning had Wen Qing outnumbered a lot of the time, didn't he. She didn't have personal minions she could trust like that. These people just extracted a high-status prisoner from the custody of an erratic and violent superior pursuing a personal grudge without blinking, for their Wen-gongzi.
Wen Ning's ability to get up to shenanigans due to all the pathetic life-forms she'd allowed him to accumulate must have dawned on her with belated horror.
@falsegrailwar was like #please. please read op's tags oh my god
and i was like hmmn what did i say??
#they were supposed to watch his back! #and keep him busy! #and take a sword for him if the opportunity arose probably; wen ning wouldn't want that but wen qing would
#these unnamed subordinates with no lines are rapidly becoming my favorite mdzs supporting cast #like what did they think about the plot #wen ning got pressganged by jin zixun in the company of his subordinates #so some of them probably lasted all the way to the Siege
#there might have been a guy who personally carried jiang cheng out of the charnel house of lotus pier #or retrieved his parents' bodies from the corpse heap #and roughly four to ten years later#watched jiang cheng come to kill him #and had his corpse dumped in the blood pool #and knew for a fact that jiang wanyin did not even know he existed and wouldn't care if he did
#it all goes in circles and some of us get ground up in the gears
i can see why i left that out of the main post but yeah. i stand by these tags a;sldjsdfkl;
#this is one of the reasons i really like fics that go#'hm we could do a big war to depose a tyrant oooor#'we could do a coup? current ruling family blows but look! a niece and nephew who hate their uncle and just want to do medicine!'#i'm sure there are reasons why this wouldn't work but hey#wen ning would make an excellent sect heir! he wins people over so well! (tags by @spookymirrorsprite)
Wen Sect Leader Wen Ning lives rent free in my mind. Saves everyone from Wen Ruohan. Frees Wen Qing up to do her medical research to her little mad scientist heart's content. Makes Wen Yuan his heir. Depending on where it falls in the timeline, he can two-birds-one-stone reconciliation with the Jiang sect and getting rid of his own rivals by handing the likes of Wen Chao to them, or just prevent a bunch of tragedies altogether. Time traveling fix-it fic Wen Ning going hmm I wonder if I still have some corpse powers and then punching through his uncle's ribcage to test it.
....man, time travel Wen Ning murdering Wen Ruohan with his bare hands and seizing power would be such a twist from everyone else's perspective.
like. you could not tell he was the kind of guy who would quietly and unapologetically rescue his sect's enemies out of moral conviction, but he was. people contain multitudes. so same way, in this scenario the political world is rocked by this mediocre, sweet-tempered, unassuming teenage Wen cousin purging the upper ranks of his family and usurping the sect by force.
Wen Qing's reputation before the war (at least the part Wei Wuxian bothered to recall) notably consisted of one part 'medical genius' and one part 'only normal person in the Wen leadership.' Wen Ning turning out to be the most insane murderer in his family would be accepted as narratively coherent, despite being a shocking twist.
bets would be on about whether he and Wen Qing would go on to kill each other off. i feel like they'd lose a lot of vassal sects and guest disciples on account of the sect doesn't seem as stable or powerful suddenly.
diplomatic relations would not normalize for a while, unless he managed to do this during the war so all the other sects felt it was a favor to them, because killing family members for power tends to be frowned upon. nie mingjue in particular i think would be of the opinion that Sect Leader Wen Qionglin was a mad dog.
i feel like Jin Zixun would suddenly be getting a lot of side-eye in case he had similar ambitions lmao.
#the implications of his having corpse powers in his normal body intrigue me#in that this suggests something wwx did fundamentally altered his soul#which cannot have been the intent#also he was in fact a cultivator so i wonder how his body is going to handle having normal cultivation#and whatever resentment-based nonsense he brought back with him#many interesting plot threads from wn doing this insane thing!#not a boring fixit concept lol (@whetstonefires)
The tension in the long term of Nie Mingjue and most of the rest of the cultivation world holding their breath to see what other horrible things Wen Ning would do in the name of ambition, while Wen Ning mostly just doesn't do any of them would be great, I must say.
Fun how the bystander effect was coined to cover up how cops are bigoted cowards who let a queer person die and stockholm syndrome was coined to cover that the cops handled a hostage situation so badly the hostages trusted their captors more than the cops.
My absolute favorite way to view the Inquisitor is as someone who is still a prisoner the whole game. Because there is never a clear moment that ends. You're given titles, but you still can't leave. You're given power to judge, but only the cases the advisors hand off. You are occasionally allowed to make a decision when the advisors can't agree among themselves. Three years after you finish what was supposedly your only job, they still haven't let you leave.
slightly spoiled myself by perusing the lexicanum, I don't know much about the situation, but what do you mean Samus is born from Loken dying? Cause *chefs kiss* the double meaning this gives to the "I am the one who walks behind you. I am the footsteps at your back. I am the man beside you. Look out! I am all around you. Samus! I am the end and the death." stuff. Beautiful.
Samus is the start of Loken's whole arc and to know Samus is also at the end of it... Astounding, 10/10, great work guys
no no, i get it. i can see why you're confused- I want the CANON to be completely platonic, fucked-up exploration of intimacy that transcends human sexuality but never includes human sexuality.
Apparently when someone hurts your entire family because they were a total dipshit, you can forgive them on your behalf and then also be blindingly furious on behalf of the people you love. I didn't realize this on account of the repression.
I thought this forgiveness shit was easy. Turns out that was because I was repressing fucking radioactive amounts of righteous anger. And let me tell you, now that I've cracked this metaphorical hazardous waste containment site it is NOT sealing itself back up again.
