Enjoy the game.

Our posts will be focusing on pc and ps4 games.

[vapordreamsdivision-blog]

So after our previous post we decided to make a recommendation list with games we think did a good job at portraying mental illness and disorder.

ELUDE

This game depicts a metaphorical depression to the gamer, you start off exploring landscapes that change with the mood in order to show how depression feels by contrasting it with other emotional states, the objective is to find “passion objects” to aid the protagonist in overcoming emotional obstacles.

ACTUAL SUNLIGHT

The official site describes it as "a short interactive story about love, depression and the corporation." The writing is clever with a mix of dark humor and wit, drawing you into the story of Evan Winter, an overweight, lonely, and severely depressed individual as he goes through his daily struggle of trying to manage his relationships while dealing with social anxiety. The game is short, but it leaves a strong impact on the player. I want to say more, but I don’t want to spoil it.

Warning: Deals with themes such as sexuality and suicide.

SYM

A side scrolling game where you play as a boy named Josh where he has designed an internal world in order to cope with his social anxiety. The game is filled with puzzles to be explored as Josh tries to avoid the real world while eventually finds the ability to overcome his phobias.

DEPRESSION QUEST

A choose your own adventure fiction where you play as someone who has depression. You go through daily tasks such as work, relationships, and possibly treatment, the purpose of the game is to illustrate what the illness does to people in an attempt to help others understand depression.

[vapordreamsdivision-blog]

Maybe it’s just us, but has anyone noticed how video games, specifically the horror genre, have been portraying mental illnesses/disorders? After playing games such as Until Dawn or Outlast it appears that the horror genre has a gimmick for using mental illness/disorder as a main motivator for why a character is the antagonist of the game, which enforces a harmful stereotype for people dealing with mental illnesses/disorders.

For instance in the game, Until Dawn, one of the antagonists of the game Josh Washington has Psychosis which was a resulted from his Schizophrenia and Depression, his mental illness and is used as one of the main factors, aside from his friend’s indirectly causing the death of his sisters, as for why he decides to pull a prank in order to get back at his friends by masquerading as a serial killer in the mountains hunting them down.

Josh’s Cellphone(x)

When playing as Sam, if you manage to evade the Killer in Chapter 6, you’ll discover Josh’s phone with a conversation with Dr. Hill open, the real one not the one depicted in Josh’s hallucinations throughout the game. The conversation reveals that Josh has been off his medication, possibly due to side effects from the pills. (sickness, headaches, etc). Implying that his motivation for carrying out the prank was due to his relapse. It doesn’t help that all possible endings for Josh are bad ones. The game reinforces the idea that people with mental health problems can be unpredictable as well as violent when they are less likely to be violent as anyone else and are 12 times more likely to find themselves the victim of a violent crime than the general unaffiliated population.

Outlast, takes place inside of an asylum which portrays the villains as corrupted doctors and antagonistic, extremely violent patients, the game writers takes the easy way out by using the patient’s mental illnesses as a way explain and justify their malevolent behavior, they are depicted as monsters the players should be afraid of. This stigmatizes people suffering from health problems as unnatural, abnormal, and wrong in the eyes of society. Games like this are harmful because it discourages society from trying to understand as well as reinforces the idea that those who suffer from mental illnesses/disorders are defective. Because of games like this 25-27 percent of participants in a survey said they would scared or uneasy around a person with mental illness and 42 percent said they would not socialize with a friend if they knew they had a mental illness.

And these are two games we came up with at the top of our head, does anyone have any other games to add?

[narrachara-blog]

a logical breakdown of why chara must be the narrator

for screencaps and more detailed explanations, click here. the numbers within these brackets: [ ] correspond to the number in the link above. 

a compilation of points:

the narration is a character in their own right

the narration voices their opinion about various things ( the healthiness of instant noodles [ 1 ], toys [ 2 ], the cuteness of a garbage can [ 3 ], etc, etc ),

has independent reactions to events that occur ( toriel [ 4 ], asgore [ 5 ], and asriel [ 6 ] fights. undyne fight [ 7 ]),

and has a sense of humor that is all their own. ( they make several puns, make morbid comments, remark on the smell of things many times, etc )

not to mention, they are incredibly smart. ( they have an extremely expansive vocabulary [ 8 ], have knowledge of multiple languages [ 9, 10, 11 ], and are capable of recognizing ‘arcane swear words’ [ 12 ] )

the narration has their own personality. they are not impartial, as typical RPG narrations are. 

this character exists throughout the entire game

there are many, many references to previous narrations, allowing for only one narrator. [ reaper bird check [ 13 ], moldbygg [ 14 ], the pun based around toriel’s bed [ 15 ], etc. )

this character is not a monster.

they understand how ‘determination’ works. they are the ones to describe each SAVE point. they are the one to continuously repeat ‘__ fills you with determination’. no monster, save alpyhs ( and potentially, sans or gaster ) knows that the secret to humanity’s ability to resist death is ‘determination’. but the narration exists before frisk encounters sans or alphys. and it continues after sans is dead and alphys has escaped in no mercy runs. as for gaster, very, very little is known about him, but considering the recent patch and his new found ‘canon’ status, the narrator is also not him.

as it is no monster, the narration must be done by a human or be an out of universe influence, like a creator’s self insert.

this character is not one of the makers of the game.

both creators are already within the game. toby fox is the annoying dog [ 16 ] and temmie is. temmie.

additionally, the narration is capable of being surprised, uncertain ( in asriel’s fight [ 17 ], with the cameras around snowdin [ 18 ], etc ). if the narration was supposed to be either of the creators, they would know what is to occur.  

this character is human

the narration references human culture many times, ( USDA [ 19 ], Loox Eyewalker [ 20 ] , several anime references [ 21 ], Doctor Who reference [ 22 ], Legend of Zelda reference [ 23 ] ).

additionally, as they are not a monster or a creator, they must be ( or, if you care to argue this point, were once ) human.

there are a limited number of humans in the underground. chara, the six human souls, and frisk. 

this character is not frisk.

the narration always refers to frisk in second person ( using ‘you’ ). [ 24 ] they refer to frisk by their name [ 25 ], precluding the possibility that frisk is narrating the events to themself.

this character is not one of the six human souls

these souls are seen at the end of the game, separate from frisk during their whole journey. 

( a possible argument is that their essence is within their individual items, allowing them to communicate with frisk. but again, the narration remains constant throughout the game. )

this character has immense knowledge of monster culture.

the narration demonstrates a knowledge for monster languages and translates often ( froggits [ 9 ], snails [ 10 ], and ancient runes [ 11 ] )

the narration also provides the information for each enemy. their name, their attack and defense stats, and a small section about them. in that small section, the narration typically provides a tip of how to beat each enemy, hinting that they have encountered these monsters before + communicated with them extensively. ( shyren [ 26 ], loox [ 27 ], pyrope, [ 28 ] ).

with the above qualifications in mind, the only possible explanation is chara.

they are not a monster. they are ( or were, again, depending on definition ) human. they would have known human culture. they were in the position to learn everything about monster culture and individual culture.

chara would have been capable of being with Frisk since the beginning, as Frisk lands directly on their grave [ 29 ]. 

additionally, chara explicitly narrates at the end of no mercy runs, especially within New Home. they communicate with both red and white text ( white text being what the narration uses ). while the description of ‘my drawing’ is in red [ 30 ], their description of their bed, ‘my bed’, is in white text. [ 31 ] 

finally, there are a large number of events that can be best ( and in a few cases, only be ) understood with the explanation that chara is the narrator. 

in the date with undyne, tea is the ‘blatantly correct choice’ [ 32 ]. chara lived with asgore, who continually mentions tea. [ 33 ] even the narration in his home mentions tea. [ 34 ] undyne associates tea with asgore [ 35 ]. chara, a child who seems especially close with asgore, would likely have similar views. another note is the description of drinking the tea. [ 36 ] the narration finds the tea ‘pretty good’.

it would explain the abnormal reactions to the fights [ 4, 5, 6 ] with the Dreemurr family, as chara would have lived with them. they would be against the idea of fighting them.

the ‘jokes’ in a fight with woshua mention a ‘child that slept in the soil’ [ 37 ]. as monsters turn to dust and are not buried, and the other six human souls are not buried, but placed into coffins, the only child that has ‘slept in the soil’ is chara. 

you are shown chara’s memories many, many times ( the introduction [ 38 ], the memory of meeting asriel [ 39 ], and the text that occurs upon death is chara’s memory of asgore’s words to them as they died of buttercup poisoning [ 40 ]. 

SAVEing the Lost Souls requires knowing them personally. [ 41 ] as frisk does not know Asriel personally, they would not have been able to SAVE him alone. Chara knows Asriel personally and would be able to SAVE him. 

napstablook being capable of reacting to the narration is likely due to the fact that Chara would be a ghost as well.

the description for Chara’s bed in New Home mentions that ‘if you lay down here, you might not ever get back up.’ [ 42 ] as this is the bed that Chara very, very likely died in, that comment is warranted. 

upon leaving the True Lab, you receive a ( at the moment, anonymous ) phone call from Asriel. the narration mentions that ‘it is a voice you have never head before.’ [ 43 ] the specification is odd. but if read as ‘it is a voice you have never heard before.’, it could very well mean that chara recognizes their best friend’s voice.

the narration has an expansive vocabulary [ 8 ]. chara, in their speech at the end of no mercy runs, is incredibly formal and uses an expansive vocabulary [ 44 ].

the narration sets up for the ‘queen sized bed’ pun [ 16 ] very early on, in the ruins. the narration knows that Toriel was the queen of the Underground before there is any other hint. Chara would have known that, even if monsters like Papyrus or Alphys would not have.

tldr: chara is the narrator. 

[archdemonsblood]

Carver Hawke and Dorian Pavus are the same age.

[mys-archive]

[vapordreamsdivision-blog]

(X)(X)

  If you aren't familiar w/ what exactly a mage cirlce is and how it functions.

Peacefully protests and ignored for years

Anders was constantly ignored for years while protesting peacefully in Kirkwall, wrote a manifesto, met with the grand cleric, and helped mages escape through the mage underground, etc.

However by the end of ACT 3 Anders is literally backed into corner with no one listening to his peaceful protests aside from (depending on the choices you make) a pro-mage Hawke, but even then there is only so much they can do.

Grand Cleric Elthina

(X) (X)

As the grand cleric it was Elthina’s duty to mediate between the mages and templars yet she did nothing to prevent or stop the templars from taking advantage of the mages and instead took a stance of neutrality that did nothing but help the templars oppress the mages.

Mage Circles, weren’t as great as just as the Chantry wants you to believe.   

Screenshots of Dungeons in the Circle tower the place where Anders spent a year in solitary confinement.(X)

Anders was locked up in solitary confinement for a year after his seventh attempt at escaping, keep in mind this was seen as a “light punishment.”

Cole recounting the experience of a mage that was left to starve to death in a cell by templars.(X)

In the Orlesian Circle, the mage Cole possesses was locked, imprisoned, forgotten about, and left to starve and would later have any records of his existence destroyed.

The Rivani Circle was erased from the map because they gave their mages “too many freedoms.”  There’s also the fact that mages are taken away from their families and have no sembalance of freedom once placed into the circles, therefore the circles had failed mages long before Anders set foot in Kirkwall.

The mages were lobotomized(Chantry law states that mages who have passed their harrowing are not to be made tranquil, throughout the game you see the Kirkwall circle repeatedly breaking this law and go unpunished for it), sent to harrowings unprepared, abused by the templars (there are even hints that templars have been sexual abusing the mages.)

Meredith calling for the Rite Annulment  

(X)

Knight Commander Meredith was already pushing for the Rite of Annulment way before Anders considered blowing up the Chantry.

Kirkwall Chantry

Poor refugee talking about the Kirkwall Chantry. (X)

The Kirkwall Chantry is located in Hightown, the place where  the upper class live. The Chantry’s purpose is to give aid to the poor and those in need yet it’s unreachable to people living in Lowton, the place where the lower class live, and they are unable to afford to move closer to the Chantry.

So after peacefully advocating for mages for years, being dismissed by the grand cleric who’s job is to ensure that templars don’t abuse their positions, realizing the Chantry’s system is filled with corruption and failed the mages, seeing that the knight commander was hellbent on committing genocide upon every mage in the Kirkwall circle led Anders to making a choice where no one had no choice but to look, but to listen while giving the mages a chance to fight for their lives rather than be slaughtered like cattle.

[androidsandvikings]

-snip-

[augur-of-ebrietas]

i played da2. the writing was bad. you clearly don’t understand what “telling, not showing” means in a writing context. when the game shows me all of these blood mages who are only blood mages for selfish desires and all of the shit that the templars have to deal with as a result of them, but then turns around and only tells me through “he said, she said” tactics that there’s abuse going on on the other side, i wonder which side i’m inclined to feel more emotionally invested in. 

i’m not saying that there wasn’t abuse happening, i’m just saying that the game certainly didn’t do a good job of making it seem like a universal, widespread, and rampant problem, and only made it seem like maybe one or two templar scumbags who were making the entire order look bad. but when damn near every single fucking blood mage we see is a goddamn piece of shit who actively hurts other people for the sake of hurting other people, yeah, i’m going to side with the templars.

also in da:o it was just rumors and suspicion on both sides, nothing concrete. and that’s not what broke the circle apart anyway, so your whole “they were pushed into doing this!!” argument doesn’t fucking work.

[beneathsilverstars]

DA2 shows you Ser Alrik. It shows you Karl. It shows you the effect of the years of abuse on Anders. It shows you (depending on your choices) Bethany being taken away. It shows you desperate mages who feel trapped into using blood magic. It shows you Meredith trying to get all the mages made tranquil or killed. It shows you Cullen saying that all mages aren’t even people. That’s a fair amount of things to show, I think! And those all affected me a lot more strongly than yet another power-hungry mini-boss blah blah we fight them every day this one just happens to have magic.

The evil blood mages we saw were individually evil, and as Champion of Kirkwall Who Gets Involved In Everyone’s Problems, we fought like. every individual evil there. The thing about systematic oppression though is that it’s a normal accepted part of the world, so it’s not exclaimed over and pointed out by everyone in-game the same way unaccepted blood magic is. Yet we still saw all the examples I listed. And unlike with evil blood mages, no one believed the abuse was happening, no one was listening, people weren’t calling the Champion of Kirkwall, they were just letting it happen. We sure saw a lot of people ignoring the mages getting hurt, people like Cullen standing by and agreeing and people like Elthina prioritizing the status quo! The combo of seeing & hearing about Templars hurting people, some of which are my friends, and then seeing them get away with it, got me more emotionally invested than a series of they-want-power-or-something-they’re-just-evil-okay villains that I immediately killed.

(The one time the blood mages felt really personal and unjust was when they killed Leandra– but I still remembered how personal and unjust it felt when sweet Bethany who had done nothing wrong was taken away. Leandra had married an apostate and mothered one (or two), I don’t think she’d be on the side of the Templars, despite her death.)

Dragon Age does have a problem with painting mages in the worst light possible, but to me that only proves the point? Mages are so obviously the ones being wronged here that Bioware has to go out of its way to show us every single blood mage out there, point out Tevinter whenever possible, in an attempt to preserve their grey morality and get people to side with the Templars. For me, that was just enough to make me hate the Templars and their propaganda even more, hence my original post, but I guess it worked for you.

[beneathsilverstars]

*learns anything about the dragon age universe*

+15 hatred towards templars

[smearedblack-deactivated2018010]

Apostate, can u not 

[beneathsilverstars]

I made this post after learning that Templars had left Cole(’s body’s original owner) injured, in the dark, to starve to death, and then erased his name from the records… Templars, can u not

[beneathsilverstars]

in inquisition you hear a tranquil mage saying that it wouldn’t be a good idea to reverse her tranquility, because then she wouldn’t be able to deal with what was done to her while she was tranquil… but yeah, sure, templars are just doing what’s needed to fight demons

[bubonickitten]

for anyone who hasn’t seen this dialogue, here it is:

and then mother giselle responds with this:

a “bargain”. that they are “asked” to make. are you kidding me.

and tranquility doesn’t even render demonic possession impossible, it just makes tranquil mages less interesting/appealing to demons. 

[bubonickitten]

The post you made about Grand Cleric Elthina gave me life.

omg, she’s honestly probably one of the characters I hate the most in the whole franchise tbh.

I’m bitter about the DA2 endgame for a lot of reasons, but one of those reasons is that she got to die being thought of as an innocent saint. And not just in the game — like, it makes senes that most people in Thedas would see it that way — but it was presented that way to the player, too, which is what gets me.

Granted, I’m a huge Anders fan, so I’m biased as hell, but I so wanted to see him have a straightforward verbal confrontation with her— to confront her about her abuse apologism, about her indifference to suffering (in the Gallows, in Darktown, in the alienage), about her incompetence (allowing the Gallows templars to flagrantly violate Chantry law). It would have revealed to the audience that Elthina is a straight up villain— at least imo she is. She’s the villain you’d least expect— she doesn’t go down to the Gallows and personally brutalize mages, but she’s a powerful spiritual leader whose words enable and excuse that abuse, whose indifference (and, I’d argue, outright callousness) serve as an example to her flock that nothing is amiss. She doesn’t feel for the mages— that’s lip service, and she’s good at it. She’s good at playing neutral while being anything but, and I so wanted her to be called out on that shit, but she wasn’t, not really. (Anders did a few times, but it was always brief and throughout the game he was routinely gaslighted and referred to as “crazy”, as if we weren’t supposed to take anything he said seriously.)

It also would have been huge for Anders’ character development for him to be able to confront her, bc Elthina (imo) represents a lifetime of spiritual abuse Anders has undergone as an Andrastian mage who has been routinely rejected, dehumanized, and demonized by his faith. I wanted him to be able to lay all that out in front of her, for her to have to hear that reality and everything it’s done to him, to see if she could still look him in the face and tell him it was all excusable and justified (which, imo, she totally would excuse it all and continue to pretend to be neutral).

Sigh. My ideal endgame would’ve been so different. I totally believe that Elthina was more of a villain than Meredith was. It’s a shame she wasn’t framed as such— that that whole “grey morality” thing keeps getting pushed on us wrt mage oppression. There’s nothing grey about it, and Elthina is an example of how remaining neutral in the face of oppression isn’t neutrality at all— it amounts to taking the side of the oppressor. I would’ve loved for her (+ the Chantry as an institution) to be explicitly revealed as DA2’s biggest villain.

[avfwdrugec]

“Anders escaped from the Circle 7 times! What else were the templars supposed to do?”

I always find it really interesting when people defend Anders’ year in solitary confinement with this, because it’s like, you’re right, and that’s exactly why the whole concept of Circles is fucked up.

Not to go all “come and see the violence inherent in the system!” here, but, well… come see the violence inherent in the system.

We can talk all we want about “not all Circles” and “the Kirkwall Circle was an anomaly” and “Kinloch Hold wasn’t actually that bad,” but at the end of the day, it still involves locking people up against their will, for literally as long as they live. This isn’t just mandatory education in how to use dangerous powers and resist demons, something that would be an entirely reasonable - it’s a life sentence for anyone born with magic.

Maybe, if you’re really lucky, if you play the game just right and the templars like you and your Circle is one of the less shitty ones, you’re well versed in manipulation, you might get to go out on a leash now and again, and you’ll call it “freedom” and “not all Circles.” But if you don’t have the, let’s be real, not only social skills but general luck and talent for manipulation? Sucks to be you. Maybe the templars will let you get out some letters now and again. If you’re from a noble family, maybe your mother can bribe her way into a visit. (The Circle is far from the equalizer it claims to be.)

But let’s not kid ourselves here. Everything, even your very capacity to feel emotions, is 100% at the mercy of the templars. Templars who have been trained for their entire adult lives to not see mages as people, to be willing to cut down the people they lock in at the slightest sign of possession, to stand by as apprentice after apprentice is thrown to the metaphorical wolves and literal demons, to pin down struggling apprentices and give them a brand that will sever their connection with the Fade and all emotional capacity.

And all this happens in even the nicest Circles.

And if you resist, peacefully, nonviolently, but effectively? Well, they’ve just admitted it, haven’t they? There’s no recourse for it but literal violence and psychological torture.

That’s why there will never be a good Circle in the current system.

[bubonickitten]

​Y E P.

Like, people who say “not all Circles” – I want to know what their baseline is for humane and just, because the Harrowing as a standard and mandatory practice? The use of Tranquility on anyone? Lifelong imprisonment just for the circumstances of one’s birth? Throwing emotionally vulnerable people into an abusive environment and telling them it’s for their own good, for the good of society – that they deserve the oppression and abuse – as though that isn’t going to make them even more vulnerable to demons and make them resentful and fearful enough to take desperate measures just to survive? I… just don’t understand anyone who can play these games and say “yeah, this is justifiable, this is excusable, this is the best way to go about things.” I don’t understand anyone who can look at Anders’ multiple escape attempts and think that’s an unreasonable response to this kind of abuse and torture, that it deserves punishment.

Not to mention, like you said, there’s absolutely a hierarchy among mages in the Circle. Neurodivergent and disabled mages? Elven mages? Mages who just don’t measure up for whatever reason? More at risk for violence and Tranquility.

And even ostensibly “good” templars are standing by and letting all of this happen, even covering up the more extreme abuses (I don’t believe for a single second that Meredith or Cullen were unaware of what templars like Alrik and Karras were doing). Even “good” templars are still participating in an abusive system, even if they aren’t personally as abusive and violent as some of their peers. I can empathize w/ some individual templars, wrt lyrium addiction and particularly those who ended up in the Order involuntarily, like orphans raised by the Chantry. But the Order itself? Nope. Not salvageable, not redeemable. The Order hasn’t lost its way; it’s always been rotten, because its entire purpose is to oppress. That’s why it exists. Well, that, and to be the Chantry’s military force in the world. Same for the Circle – it exists solely to benefit the Chantry. I don’t even think that ‘protecting people from the dangers of magic’ is the main goal – what the Circle really does is provide symbolic and economic benefits for the Chantry, at the expense of a marginalized and extremely vulnerable group of people.

So, yes all Circles are awful. If “not as bad as the Gallows” is a baseline for ‘acceptable’, then… wow.

​

[reikah-deactivated20190906]

“Mages aren’t people like you or me,” Cullen says to Hawke, at his most self-important. This remark will never be forgotten.

“Remember, mages aren’t people like Cullen and Hawke,” Merrill will say pompously over wine, and then giggle. It’s still funny, six months later.

“Sadly I’m not a person like you or Cullen,” Anders will say deadpan, two years later, as he lights the bedroom fire with magic.

“You should all stop using magic, then you can be people like me or Cullen,” Hawke hollers over his shoulder at his friends, and throws a group of templars 100 ft in the air with force magic as he leads them through the Gallows.

[mikkeneko]

The first time one of them cracks the joke in his presence, Justice frowns. “That is not funny,” he says. “Mages are people. To say otherwise is false.”

“Ah, you can’t expect a Fade spirit to understand humor,” Varric waves it aside.

“I do understand humor,” Justice protests. “I have watched the video of the cat who gets in and out of the box many times. That is funny. The knocking doors jokes are also funny. Denying the personhood of an entire demographic of people is cruel and wrong.”

Merrill tries to explain, as she often does when there’s something about the human world that Justice doesn’t get. “We know that, Justice,” she explains kindly. “That’s why it’s funny – because we know it’s not true. We’re making fun of Cullen, right? That’s always funny.”

“It’s one of things where you have to laugh so you don’t cry, you know?” Hawke adds.

“Cullen is in a position of authority over many mages – he commands the power of life and death over them,” Justice points out. “If he believes that his charges are not even deserving of basic human rights, truly believes that, then why should one not weep?”

No one has an answer to that.

[vapordreamsdivision-blog]

Fighting Corypheus in DA2: 30+ minutes, blood sweat and tears, die 10 times, scream incoherently

Fighting Corypheus in DAI: Takes no more than 2 minutes, can finish the fight with one hand while typing a dissertation, eating a pizza, and doing a State of the Union speech to the United States

[thewritersramblings]

THEDAS LOCATIONS → [2/∞]

[bysaestyl]

i hate how people in DA2 completely overlook the atrocities that led anders to blow up the chantry and completely demonize him for it, yet tend to forget that:

anders peacefully protested for years and was completely ignored.

like not only was he single handedly helping the sick refugees and the poor in darktown and lowtown (bc the chantry was too busy partying it up with the nobles in hightown to give a shit), but he was also helping mages escape the kirkwall circle and personally led mages to freedom.

grand cleric elthina did absolutely nothing to stop the templars from abusing the mages and took a “””neutral””” stance even though it was her fucking job to mediate.

divine justinia sent leliana to investigate kirkwall to see if an exalted march was necessary, and yet elthina still did nothing.

tranquility was such a normal thing that npc mages will casually discuss “three starkhaven mages were just made tranquil” one day just because.

ser alrik was tranquilizing mages and raping them because he was in a position that he could and he would not face punishment for it.

there’s an npc mage freaking out in the gallows because “she’s a sin in the eyes of the maker and deserves to die.” 

cullen “mages aren’t people” rutherford.

meredith had already sent for the rite of annulment and was waiting to commit genocide on the entire kirkwall circle and considering how she was at orsino’s throat before anders blew up the chantry she would have done it anyway.

oh and let’s just throw in the fact that meredith and the templars went after every mage after the fact.

but nah let’s just talk about what anders did was “bad.”

[goodluckdetective]

I’m just really invested in Marian and Garrett Hawke being twins.

Because think of the banter people.

Marian: Garrett, you can’t use magic in public, do you want to get dragged to the Gallows!

Garrett: I’m subtle!

Marian: You set a mugger on fire in broad daylight!

Garrett: Subtly. 

Or

Garrett: Marian, that is a dragon, you can’t just jump on it’s back and-

Marian: FIGHT ME, YOU LIZARD.

Garrett: And Mother thinks she’s the smart one. 

Now add love interests:

Marian: Are you honestly reading Anders’ manifesto?

Garrett: He has nice handwriting.

Marian: And a nice dick, if you’re reading that drivel. 

Garrett: MARIAN. 

What about another:

Garrett: FENRIS. CARE TO EXPLAIN WHY YOU WALKED OUT ON MY SISTER?

Fenris: This is how it ends. I lived a good life- wait no, I haven’t, goddamn it. 

Or sads:

Garrett: She’s gone. Mother is gone. Bethany is gone. Carver is gone. Who’s left?

Marian: I am.

Garrett: For now.

Marian: Not for now. Forever. I’m not leaving you little brother. Never.

The next week, Marian engages the Arishok in solo combat. 

[edeer-moved]

tfw u wanna make a gifset about hawke talking about their LI in da:i but the writing team warped your smol child all out of character n 99% of their dialogue is useless n wishy washy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[reikah-deactivated20190906]

“Tell me about Anders,” says the Inquisitor, curious. Their face is blank, and gives nothing away.

Blue!Hawke: “To what end? I’ve learned that most people have already made their minds up about him long before meeting him. With all due respect, Inquisitor, I’m sure you’ve already heard stories enough about him, and I can’t say I trust you enough to tell you anything more. Perhaps later, when I know you better.”

Purple!Hawke: “He snores, although he claims he doesn’t. Says he can’t tolerate the dog, but uses him as a pillow half the time. He likes to whistle, but he hardly knows any tunes; he smells of elfroot and he always misses a spot of stubble, just - there, everytime he shaves. Occasionally, he glows. What did you expect? You asked because you wanted to know the man, not the revolutionary. Shame, both are pretty sexy.”

Red!Hawke: “I’m still with him. I still love him. He did what he had to do, because he knew he had to it. It wasn’t easy, it’ll never be easy, but I don’t care. That’s all you need to know. Everything else? None of your business.”

[batbovs-deactivated20161011]

Somone: Anders you can’t just blow up the chantry

Anders: