My tag for original posts is #quirkwall.text, for my first playthrough of datv it's #quirkwall.datv.
Hello. I mostly reblog fanart, fic, theory crafting/meta and a dash of memes. My favourite in the series is DA2. I usually play Rogue. Excluding Hawke, I always play Elf, and have a strong favouritism towards them and their lore. Chantry go boom.
Favourite companions by game:
Origins: Morrigan, Zevran
DA2: All of them. Particularly Anders and Fenris
Inquisition: Solas, Dorian, Cassandra
Veilguard: Lucanis, Neve and Davrin
Warning: Although I had a good time playing Veilguard, I am critical of it as a DA game - I occasionally reblog such opinions under the datv critical tag, so please blacklist it if you do not wish to see such opinions.
"In the days before Kirkwall, the nobility of Orlais didn't fear magic. Mages were a fashion accessory. Everybody had one." <- vivienne's response to the inquisitor questioning why templars didn't stop her and bastien from being together. hey so are we ever going to examine this further or
Census Survey Results, Pt. 1 - Intro & General Demographics
We're finally here! Because of how lengthy these posts will be, I'm going to have to split them over multiple posts. The plan is to have this intro, posts focused on each game and its main responses, and then a further few posts dedicated to each game's responses on the optional opinion section along with a selection of the free-response text box answers. They'll all be tagged with '#census survey', and once they're all out, I'll link them all in the pinned post so they're easy to find :)
Here is a list of pretty interesting patterns and findings I got from the results before we dive into the answers themselves!
When it comes to the free-response section, Veilguard inspired far more writing than any other game, with the highest comment count, response rate, average word count, and total word count
Solas inspired the largest number of people to say something, with the highest raw comment count and highest response rate. Cullen, Loghain, Anders, and Oghren also all broke 200+ optional text responses.
Sigrun had the least text responses (though she was rated positively by 85.2% of respondents and negatively by virtually nobody), with all the Awakening companions getting between 80-100. The non-DLC character with the fewest responses was Inquisition Leliana
Josephine inspired relatively few and relatively short responses, but 94.7% of respondents rated her positively
Taash generated the most intense free-response engagement, with the most total words and average words per response
Anders was the character who inspired the least indifference - only 1% of respondents selected "I'm indifferent" for him
Cullen was the most polarising, with his ratings fairly evenly distributed. He also had the highest negative percentage, narrowly ahead of Oghren
Oghren had the highest percentage of "mixed/conflicted feelings"
Tallis inspired the most indifference, with 43.5% of respondents selecting "I'm indifferent" for her. The next highest result was Sebastian at 25.4%
The top five characters with the most "I love them" responses were Dorian (75.4%), Zevran, Morrigan, Merrill, and DA2 Varric. Dorian was the most overwhelmingly positively rated, with 94.2% positive answers, 0.8% negative, and 1.4% indifferent
Vivienne, Sera, Taash, Harding, and Lucanis all had very positive ratings as characters, but their free-response text boxes were generally criticism-heavy, with people citing issues with their writing and storylines
Opinions on Oghren don't differ by gender - men were slightly more likely to be mixed rather than negative, but otherwise percentages were broadly the same across the board
Opinions on Taash differ pretty clearly between cis and trans/nonbinary respondents. Trans and nonbinary results are almost identical, but cis people were broadly less positive on Taash. 6.4% of trans and 5.6% nonbinary respondents rated Taash negatively ("dislike" or "hate") compared to 16.8% of cis respondents. 38.5% of trans and 38.6% of nonbinary people specifically selected "I love them" for Taash, compared to only 22.8% of cis respondents.
Men were substantially more likely to love Anders - 41.2% of women loved him vs. 61.5% of men.
Women were substantially more likely to love Cullen - 28.9% of women vs. 13.1% of men - and men were substantially more likely to hate Cullen (10.1% of women vs. 25.3% of men).
Sera was loved by 52.6% of men vs. only 35.3% of women
Some other interesting patterns: Neve was more positively rated by nonbinary people and men than she was by women, and Iron Bull was much more positively rated by nonbinary people than by either men or women
People who like Solas are almost twice as likely than others to also like Blackwall
Anders and Fenris fans aren't generally opposing camps, though Fenris fans are more likely to dislike Anders than Anders fans are likely to dislike Fenris. Among people positive about Anders, 97.2% were also positive about Fenris.
Ace-spec respondents lean slightly more positively toward Lucanis, but the difference isn't statistically significant
Older respondents (for this purpose 36+) like Cullen more than younger respondents do, while they like Loghain significantly less. Older respondents are also notably more likely to like Lucanis, Emmrich, and Aveline. Velanna, for some reason, peaks significantly for 23-27 year olds
Bellara was rated positively by every single person who said Veilguard was their favourite game
People who romanced Alistair in Origins tended to romance Fenris in DA2 and Cullen in Inquisition. People who romanced Leliana in Origins heavily favoured Josephine in Inquisition. Merrill romancers strongly gravitate toward Josephine and Bellara. Isabela romancers overwhelmingly favour Neve in Veilguard. Zevran romancers favour Dorian and Lucanis. Blackwall romancers divide strongly between Emmrich and Davrin.
The most common favourite romance pipelines were Zevran > Fenris > Dorian > Lucanis and Zevran > Fenris > Dorian > Emmrich
The fandom is very consistently pro mage, with 97.8% siding with the mages in Origins, 95.6% in DA2, and 89.7% in Inquisition. Only 1 respondent out of the 760 who answered the question for all three games chose the Templar option in every game.
To back up the common complaint in the free-response boxes about Veilguard forcing a harmonious team with no ability to disagree with companions, Rook was dramatically more likely to get along with everyone. The percentage of people who said their protagonist genuinely got along with every companion was 28.9% for the Warden, 22.1% for Hawke, 28.3% for the Inquisitor, and 72.2% for Rook. The most common sources of friction: For the Warden, Oghren, then Wynne; for Hawke, Sebastian, then Aveline and Carver; for the Inquisitor, Vivienne and Cullen, then Sera and Solas; and for Rook, Lucanis and Taash, but at much lower rates than any previous game's conflicts.
Certain pairings of characters were very often loved by the same people; some examples were Aveline and Cassandra, Morrigan and Isabela, Velanna and Merrill, Isabela and Neve, Isabela and Sera, Zevran and Fenris, and Nathaniel and Carver.
Cullen fans were more likely than other players to dislike Velanna, Merrill, Sera, Vivienne, and Isabela.
Inquisition players who chose the mages usually allied with them, but players who chose the Templars usually conscripted them.
How old are you?: 28-35 (48.3%), 23-27 (24.6%), 36-45 (18.4%), 18-22 (6.3%), 46-55 (1.9%), 13-17 (0.3%), 56+ (0.1%)
What's your gender identity?: Cis woman (48.2%), nonbinary (31.5%), trans man (10%), cis man (2.3%), trans woman (1.9%)
Write-in responses were mostly more specific nonbinary labels, people who didn't know their identity, and those who weren't comfortable disclosing gender identity but chose not to skip the question.
Where do you live?: North America (61%), Europe (31.5%), Australia/New Zealand (4.5%), Asia (1.3%), South America (1.3%), Africa (0.5%)
Which Dragon Age games have you played?: Inquisition (98.5%), Origins (96.9%), DA2 (95.8%), Veilguard (84.2%)
Which is your favourite Dragon Age game?: DA2 (40.6%), Origins (29%), Inquisition (24.1%), Veilguard (6.3%)
Which was your first Dragon Age game?: Origins (62.9%), Inquisition (26.5%), DA2 (8.8%), Veilguard (1.8%)
Which difficulty do you generally play on?: Normal (49.7%), Casual (37.4%), Hard (9.4%), Nightmare (3.5%)
Which platform do you generally play on?: PC (69.4%), PlayStation (17.1%), XBOX (13.5%)
Which of the spin-off games have you played, if any?: None of the above (66.1%), Dragon Age: The Last Court (25.8%), Heroes of Dragon Age (15%), Dragon Age Legends (6%), Dragon Age Journeys (3.8%)
Which of the animated/live action screen media pieces have you watched, if any?: Absolution (53.6%), none of the above (37.9%), Dawn of the Seeker (31.7%), Redemption (16.5%), Warden's Fall (8.3%)
Which of the tie-in books have you read, if any?: Tevinter Nights (43.4%), The Stolen Throne (40.6%), The World of Thedas Vol. 1 (40.5%), The World of Thedas Vol. 2 (39.7%), Asundder (37.8%), The Masked Empire (36.3%), The Calling (34.7%), none of the above (28.5%), Last Flight (26.7%), Hard in Hightown (17.6%)
Which of the tie-in comics have you read, if any?: None of the above (52%), The Silent Grove (32.7%), Those Who Speak (30.4%), Magekiller (30%), Blue Wraith (28.3%), Until We Sleep (28.3%), Knight Errant (25.9%), The Missing (22.9%), Deception (20%), Dark Fortress (18.8%)
Which additional spin-off media have you engaged in, if any?: None of the above (56.6%), the Vows & Vengeance podcast (32.4%), the Dragon Age tabletop RPG (21.7%)
the thing about hating doribull is it’s technically canon in a large portion of playthroughs and most people who don’t hate gay people will let it play out and enjoy it. but it’s only an option to become canon because they wanted queer rep brownie points and just shoved the two mlm together (while sera gets shoved with an npc who she literally never speaks to in a way the player can see for exactly the same reasons but she gets less content because she’s a lesbian and josie gets nothing), and they’re paired together despite their lack of chemistry and massive cultural conflict that only gets resolved offscreen so that the devs can insist they’re happy together and completely unproblematic and domestic and in love, and the way they executed the relationship’s initiation comes off as homophobic at best with overtones of sexual harassment and blatant crossing of set boundaries, and the portrayal of the iron bull’s sexuality and dominant preference is so steeped in racism that it is impossible to untangle from this ship, and it falls so clearly into homophobic tropes like seme/uke shit like there’s a big masculine dom top and a smaller “feminine” sub bottom and the bottom is shy and stubborn while the top is domineering and forward and the more masculine one is bisexual while the more feminine one is gay and it’s tropey and boring and out of character for both of them especially if bull sides with the qun. but it’s canon 😁
another reason not to play dragon age: your silly post will get popular and people will post takes like this and you will make the mistake of reading them with the only two eyes you’ll ever have in this life.
One of the major faults of Veilguard's dialogue is how often it's shaped by generic platitudes and sound bites instead of actual specific things happening or being talked about in the narrative. "Sometimes people let you down", "Family makes things complicated", "Bullies are always drawn to power", "It's just people trying to live their lives", "You have to take care of yourself every once in a while", "When your heart and your gut are both telling you, 'Do what you can'--"
My biggest issue with this is not a quibble over whether or not these things are true (like all platitudes they are trivially true, whether or not they're appropriate or correct things to say in the context the characters say them), but that they are a style of placeholder dialogue that exists to avoid having to give specific details or actual development. They could only be interesting if they were argued against, demonstrated, or interrogated for meaning in some way. Instead, the characters often take these things as read, and so nothing comes of it.
Like the line "How many exceptions 'til tyranny?"--a one-off sentiment expressed by a Lich at the end of Emmrich's questline. It doesn't exist to provide meaning or create a conversation. It exists to provide a cheap explanation as to why Emmrich is not allowed to both become a lich and to revive Manfred. There is no impassioned argument on behalf of a grieving Emmrich, torn between the protege that he loved and the life's work that he is about to give up, spurred on by the phobia that defines his motives. Nobody thinks to argue that as a wisp Manfred wasn't a "mortal" who is "supposed" to die to begin with (but then, it's either canon-breaking that they can resurrect Manfred at all, or it's no big deal and they don't need lich approval to do it, and there is no in-between on this one I'm afraid). There is no exploration of what it looks like when a Lich has "exceptions", whether in the past or during the course of the story (since Johanna was obviously not trying to resurrect people in terms of what made her a bad lich). And are there circumstances where "no exceptions" can also be a form of tyranny? How would that work? Could Rook argue that on Emmrich's behalf?
Of course not, this is cheap glue holding the scene together, we can't interrogate it or it'll fall apart.
All of Veilguard's platitudes are like that. Neve says "The gods were people, and people can let you down"--no one wants to challenge her on this? No one wants to argue that "let you down" is a MILD phrase to use for "the people you selected to protect you decided to enslave and torture you instead"? No one wants to argue that they SHOULD have been better, they were practically gods! No one wants to push their basic faith that sometimes people DON'T let you down? If someone were to push back on this line, then it might have told us something about Neve or the character arguing with her. It might have given us actual specifics in terms of what is going on--in what way were the gods "people" and what made them tyrants? Could someone else have done better? Is there no other way this could have gone? But this is filler dialogue. You're not supposed to think about it. It is supposed to paper over the scene in your head so the writers don't have to tell you any more than that. You are expected to nod your head at this aphorism and keep going.
This is, incidentally, why so much of the dialogue comes across as blandly lecturing the player.
And it's not a SURPRISE that the game with the amateur writer as narrative head where they spent the majority of the development time with no idea what the hell they were doing with the story is chock full of filler dialogue, but it is, you know, irritating when it's the sequel that was supposed to explain shit to us. What is Tevinter like? Oh, you know. Like any place with people living in it. What were the ancient elves like? They were people trying to live their lives, of course.
I don't need the game to be having arguments with itself all the time to be clear, but platitudes are something you write when you don't have anything to actually say. When you know that Bellara's problem is that her brother has become suckered in by a charismatic cult leader and is about to do a ritual that will kill/torture people, then your advice to her should be about that and not that she needs to “do what [she] can but take time for [her]self too”. "Family is hard" CAN describe this situation, but it can also describe a million other situations and so if I was Bellara I think I'd get kind of pissed that it feels like no one's actually paying attention to my specific problem.
be the change u wish to see & etc. so dragon age fandom please reblog/reply with your transfem headcanons for canonically male nonmage characters in the franchise. i’ll start: alistair “it has to be a pretty dress” theirin & sten (i will not elaborate)
Classic dragon age conver thats like "mmm cancer is kinda bad and kills people" " yeah but would you destroy the world and every person you loved to cure cancer????" "Mmm i guess not. So we should stop trying to cure cancer or think of alternate ways to deal with it and just accept it as a reality forever. We will do this about every single problem"
Harding: Could you ever support Solas? He does wanna restore the elves, after all.
Bellara: And kill a bunch of people to do it. Plus, those are his elves, not elves like me. I mean, would you be happy with the Titans coming back if it meant everyone you know would die?
Harding: No. Absolutely not.
Bellara: Right. The world might be a little broken, but you can’t just erase it to start over. Not when erasing it means destroying people.
I hate this conver so much and this mentality is not only in veilguard this is just the clearer example
"they get each other so well, they've both seen the evil parts of the world but as lucanis loses hope after his imprisonment she gains it and gives it back to him. he kills blood mages, she fights blood mages in tevinter. also if she becomes a crime boss he could be her crime boss husband"
"Honestly, they're just both hot. Both people I want to romance. They're great together but would be better with me"
vs. Solas/Varric
"that quest in dai where you decide who is a better dad for cole"
"HE PENETRATED HIM!!!! to DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"kindred spirits but they also keep clashing it's so messy ahhhh"
the shadow dragons being written like that on purpose by better writers could've been so interesting. like a group of mostly human nobles in positions of power focusing on peaceful change and voting and optics but very rarely actually get involved with freeing enslaved people or improving their conditions. and you can't exactly say what they're doing is harmful since it's a net positive, but they could also be doing so much more and some of them are clearly doing it for selfish reasons and most of them still obviously haven't unlearned a lot of ideas they have about elves or being entitled to others' labour etc.
i think what i dislike most about dorian/cullen is the way dorian gets flattened because it's suddenly all about cullen being repressed and flustered and having a sexuality crisis lol. i feel like people want dorian to act as a counterbalance to cullen's sexual repression and lack of experience in a way that doesn't really allow for him to have his own complex feelings surrounding sex. it's not every time obvi i'm sure someone out there has written some good fics for them, but the general canon vibe i get is that dorian is mostly being used as a sexy prop a lot of the time.
