my lovleys
Nice try Bioware, but I know the state of Southern Thedas better than you do.
First off, it matters if the Hero of Ferelden is alive or not. When the First Warden recalled all wardens, our hero knew that was a bad call and refused, finally splitting off from Weisshaupt after years of mismanagement and taking scores of wardens with them. Their presence and leadership makes all the difference, rallying southern Thedas once more against the blight. If you have only an Orlesian Warden Commander in Amaranthine they’re less inspiring, but as long as you’ve done Awakening they are a boon nonetheless. There is someone to lead the fight against the darkspawn while other focus on the Venatori.
If you 100% completed Awakenings and also Soldier’s Peak, the Ferelden wardens have never been so prepared. They’re organized, they’re outfitted and they’ve been ready for this for years. Also, if you allied with the Architect then you have scores of strange research to give you an edge.
If Merrill completed her Eluvian then she moves south once again and joins the effort. She’s managed to cleanse the blight before and she’s ready to try it again. And her knowledge of the crossroads gives the south an edge on their movement and supply lines. If Hawke’s sibling is a Warden they accompanied her.
If the Inquisitor let Briala have power in any way, the Dales become the leaders in the war against the Venatori, forming a formidable alliance with Ferelden, Orzammar and the Marches, the likes of which have never been seen. And if you completed Jaws of Hakkon then their alliances with the Avvar and Chasind are stronger than ever.
Of course, if the Inquisitor kept the Wardens around after Here Lies the Abyss then their numbers are bolstered. It may cost Wiesshaupt later, but that’s Rooks problem. And if you completed the Descent, then the Inquisitor and Warden had a much better idea of what was coming and spent ten years getting ready.
They will not be broken.
They will weather this storm.
Was scrolling through AO3 and found this gem
Enemy to parent is a trope we have to popularise lmao
bastard sounds great in an irish accent. if an irish person calls you a 'daft bastard' it just feels right
the welsh have the monopoly on things ending in hell. fuckin hell and bloody hell hit different in a welsh accent. its like music to my ears
the scots have piss and shite for sure. "its pishin it doon out there" "this is a load of shite" absolute poetry
if i may speak for the english i think we do penis related words very well. dickhead, knobhead, twat, etc.
and for all the shit we give them, you gotta admit that no one can deliver a 'goddamn' quite like an american. theres a certain weight to it that you just cant achieve in other accents. when an american says goddamn you know shit just got real
Unless I missed something when I read them a decade or so ago (which is entirely possible), I second reading the Bartimaeus trilogy, it is a fantastic series
I feel like part of maturity as a 90s kid or whatever is admitting to yourself that for whatever Harry Potter might have given to you in your childhood it is a mid teir book at best to begin with and you are now older and more worldly to understand the more insidious messaging that was hidden in it. And yes, to be a mature adult, it is your responsibility to see and understand this.
You read the books and know what is in them and you have, hopefully, read about the AIDS epidemic since then and know that calling lycanthropy an AIDS stand in considering everything about Lupin and Greymane's storyline is, actually, horrific homophobia.
You have hopefully learned enough about antisemitism to recognize that the Goblins, esp bc they are bankers, are a horrible antisemitic dog whistle in the form of a fantasy race.
You have hopefully learned or experienced enough about/as a woman to understand that the entire storyline with Fleur makes the Weasley women assholes actually. That Pansy wasn't great to begin with but everything with the divination class, Lavendar, Cho and the Patil twins was not written by a "girl's girl". Even depictions of Luna Lovegood border on being kind of shitty. JKR definitely believes there is a wrong way to be a woman even if you are cis and she will not hesitate to belittle and go after you for not being the type of woman she thinks counts.
You may not understand the race politics of London specifically but perhaps you're an irish american and you've learned enough about your own history to pick up the fact that JKR is so racist that she's even racist against the white people in her area ala Seamus Finnegan's name which is every bit as bad a Cho Chang. Once you get there with Saemus and Cho you can also look at the names of every other implied nonwhite student and realize...Wow. That's kind of fucked up.
This doesn't take away your memories. It doesn't change the friendships you made over it. I understand bc I'm up there in that age range and I KNOW that Harry Potter leeched into fucking everything. It's okay. You've grown now though. You do not need it. You will not lose anything that is actually serving you now to put those memories, and maybe even your books and your existing memorabilia, in a memory box and read a better book.
If you're stuck on kid shit set in London I heartily recommend the Bartimeaus trilogy.
Mike Laidlaw: "Look, I'm not a fancy CEO guy, but if someone said to me "the key to this successful single-player IP's success is to make it purely a multiplayer game. No, not a spin off: fundamentally change the DNA of what people loved about the core game" to me, I'd probably, like, quit that job or something. Just thinking out loud, of course. Who'd be silly enough to demand something like that? ...twice." [source thread]
Everything that's wrong with Solas could have been solved if he'd spent a single moment of his life on the floor of a women's bathroom at the club at 3 am. Thousands of years of regret? No problem: this drunk girl with runny mascara just told him "FUCK them all. You're fucking beautiful. You did nothing wrong ever. Your head is so shiny." Boom. Cured.
He would end up crying hysterically in the arms of, like, five hyper-supportive twenty-somethings. They would do his make-up. He would never look back.
I am obsessed with the fact that the Veilguard all gathers round to watch Solas's saddest memories and then dissects them like it's an episode of Desperate Housewives. 10/10 no notes, exactly what he deserves.
Kill me once, shame on you. Kill me twice, how did you did that.