no excuse for this

spicyshimmy:

succulentthighs:

The thing that makes me so angry about the Grey Warden 30 year death sentence, is that Carver is never going to be an angry little old person shaking his fist at kids

Because Carver would make the best angry little old person. You do not understand

famous last words

He holds on a few extra, stubborn years more than he should. That’s him all over. And he thinks, at last, that he’s become more steel than shield or sword. ‘I’m damn well silverite,’ he tells himself—never out loud; not anymore—while surveying the bleary, bloodshot eyes of fresh recruits on the stingy mornings after their Joining. He knows the shadows in their cheeks, the way their knuckles turn pale gripping their weapons too tight. 

Nathaniel Howe—an old, fine friend—left for the Deep ten years ago now; Sigrun and her laughter went with him, and the tunnels swallowed her stories. And Oghren took his belches and his beard the following Satinalia: ax strapped to his back, a carved wooden horse dangling from a belt strap. 

‘If you don’t make those sodding ‘spawn shit themselves silly when I’m gone,’ he said, ‘then I’ll know. I’ll feel it in my jiggly stones.’ 

‘Famous last words,’ Carver Hawke replied. 

He holds on a few extra, stubborn years more, but it’s a strange thing to protect. The cracks in his knuckles. The chips in his shoulder healed—only to be replaced by the chips in his sword. Polishing metal. Oiling leather. Nightmares and the stammering, clamoring voices. 

Because, he tells himself—never out loud; not anymore—he’s a champion’s champion. 

He holds on every day. A little bit; a little bit more. 

‘Just the two of us now,’ he says, one stingy morning, gray as the stone and sky of Ferelden. 

‘You’re a tit for this,’ Hawke replies. ‘The biggest tit I’ve ever known.’ 

‘Tit for tat, Champion,’ Carver says. 

Hawke stands at the mouth of the cave, framed in light, watching him go. Carver doesn’t look back, but hears the echoes. ‘Famous last words.’

Bethany will come for—comfort him, Carver thinks, knuckles turning pale, gripping his weapon too tight. Father’s arms. Mother will know. It isn’t surrender. It’s time to head home. 

Posted 2 months ago With 254 notes

RE: f!Wardens and Broodmothers

phosphorae:

brennacedria:

I’ve thought about this a few times, but it just came to mind again after Cypher’s thread about wardens going through their Calling, where a lot of us (including myself) have mentioned female Wardens being afraid of becoming broodmothers:

Do we know if this is even possible?

I tried to find info one way or another through the wiki, etc when I was writing my Blight fic and couldn’t, so instead I decided that my character would believe she could become a broodmother whether it was true or not, and that gave her a bit of a phobia of being in the Deep Roads, at least alone where others couldn’t retrieve her body if necessary. But even after I’d finished that, the curiosity never really went away. I mean, f!Wardens are already tainted, so, more or less in the words I gave my Elissa, would that protect them from whatever taint is given in the conversion process, or instead would it speed the process along?

I do believe the same, now that i think throughly about it. 

I don’t remember the lore saying at any point that becoming a broodmother happened, though all we know about the warden circumstances is relatively scarce. After playing Legacy, I rather consider the possibility that every warden becomes a ghoul -if they don’t die/kill themselves- rather than the broodmother thing with the female ones. 
In fact, the taint seemed to work in a way with Larius that the darkspawn didn’t notice him as before, and assume they’re “equals”, because of the song. 

So, that would prevent the process of the conversion being applied to the female wardens, maybe? They could fight as long as there’s the will to do so, but I don’t actually believe they’d force themselves to the wardens like what happened to Laryn and the rest of the dwarves. They were untainted, after all when they were stanged to the Deep Roads.

On the other hand, having so little information and the wardens being so secretive about their ways and methods, and their own ignorance about what the Taint does to them, it would seem a normal fear for the Wardens to worry about becoming a broodmother. I don’t think anyone would be willing to experiment about the issue. 

Speculation ensues for sure.

I haven’t seen this brought up explicitly yet, so my two cents on Wardens becoming Broodmothers- I think it’s an entirely legitimate fear for a female Warden to suffer from given her experiences in canon, but I also suspect that the infertility issue that Wardens share due to the Taint may mean something in this context.  Wardens are effected differently by the Taint than anything else including the Darkspawn themselves, and just given contextual clues I have my doubts that the Darkspawn process of creating Broodmothers could work on a Warden woman in the first place, never mind trump whatever part of her biological fight against the Taint that has already mostly shut down her ability to reproduce naturally.

Also given some of what we learn about the Architect and his reverse-engineering work with Wardens’ blood, it seems that biologically a Warden can be poisonous to a normal Darkspawn in a (less-virulent) way similar to how a Darkspawn is poisonous to a normal humanoid?  I recall there being some discussion of how the Wardens’ Taint effects Darkspawn shocking the shit out of my Warden- but of course the Architect is a smooth liar, and YMMV on to what degree you believe that information.  From what we see of the Mother, though… well, that shit ain’t right, and she probably wasn’t ever a Warden herself (please correct me if I’m wrong here, The Calling is the only EU material I haven’t read yet, just absorbed through fandom osmosis) but a Broodmother warped by Wardens’ Taint.  If her Children came out so deformed, what would happen if it were possible for a Warden to become a Broodmother?  She would either poison her own young, or create something else entirely… that I shudder to think might make the Architect very happy.

Posted 2 months ago With 14 notes

succulentthighs:

fearandlothering:

succulentthighs:

fearandlothering replied to your post: Let’s discus some stuff *serious face*

Love interest wise, I’m guessing? I absolutely think Fenris is (though I know a lot of people don’t agree), and Anders could be (but he’s also a physcian and likely knows his way around prevention, and I don’t see him WANTING kids at all).

Infertile Fenris is definitely headcanon for me, Yes to all this ^

*physician. Wow I can spell.

But yes, I absolutely think that the lyrium leaves SOME kind of lasting mark (that’s like willingly injecting poison, nothing good can come from that, no matter how useful it is otherwise), and infertility—among other things—would make an obscene amount of sense.

I don’t likewise see Anders as infertile, I mean, the darkspawn taint isn’t an automatic “lol nope” in terms of conception; Morrigan proved that pretty well, and people mention having Warden parents/grandparents in Origin DLC quite a bit. That said, I don’t see Anders wanting kids. At all. Especially with the very real fear that they might be mages, and subject to the same society he’s still trying to change. Maybe post Mage-Templar War, if that even has a decent outcome, I might see him changing his mind before the Calling kicks in, but the way that Thedas is now? Absolutely not. It’s an unjust world, and I don’t think he would be at ALL comfortable with raising kids in that environment, Justice along for the ride or no.

(And because I didn’t quite get to Izzy:) I don’t think Isabela is infertile either. She’s shown as intensely uncomfortable when it comes to relationships, especially with men, but that’s due to a lot of emotional (and implied physical? it’s been a while I don’t quite remember) abuse. I don’t think it’s that she can’t have kids—in fact, chances are, if anyone had known such a thing, her circumstances re: dowry would have been a lot different. But I don’t think she would ever want to open herself up to someone (save Garrett? IDK I NEVER PLAY A DUDE HAWKE) enough to make that kind of commitment. In fact, she’s really shown as a character who doesn’t take well to much commitment at all, relationship-wise or not. I think that one’s another case of simply not wanting to take that step.

IJFKDFJ

PERFECT YES

*Throws self to ground*

Because this is a point of lore I’m very interested in, I just want to add that I think in most cases mentions of Wardens with children happen because the Wardens don’t always recruit twentysomethings like we see happening in Origins- they recruit from all social strata and age groups just so long as the recruits are useful to them, and because of this in some cases Wardens have already had children before being Joined.  Take, for example, poor Ser Jory, whose wife is pregnant at the time of his recruitment.  Or Nathaniel’s grandfather, whom, it is implied, suffered some manner of shameful personal downfall later in life, and joined the Wardens to redeem himself.  Word of Gaider God has gone on record stating that Wardens are very nearly infertile, and conception among them is incredibly rare- such that… well, uh, spoilers for The Calling?  I DON’T KNOW IF SPOILERS FOR THAT ARE RELEVANT ANYMORE we’ve got newbie fans up in here and I don’t want to ruin all the shit

Morrigan, meanwhile, conceives her Wardenspawn Old God Vessel Baby with some kind of magical ritual which it is implied she learned from Flemeth.  It is most likely NOT common knowledge among the magical population of Andrastean nations- you could make an argument that the the Dalish (or perhaps Riviani hedge mages, or any other cultural group not entirely under the historical and military thumb of the Chantry) might have knowledge of some kind of fertility magic, I think that’s plausible.  The specific ritual Morrigan uses, though?  I have a feeling that it’s related directly to the Taint shared between the Archdemon and a Warden, and that kind of knowledge is probably very rare, or even unique.  We are talking about Flemeth, and Maker knows what the hell she really is.

Those points aside, I’m in agreement on the above comments about Isabela and Fenris.  I suspect that whether or not Fenris wants children, biologically they’re most likely not an option for him due to large-scale lyrium poisoning (which, it is my belief, will probably also significantly shorten his lifespan, but there you have it massive headcanon.)  The description of Isabela’s commitment issues also seems apt.

Merrill, meanwhile… well, it’s a bit cruel that the protagonist of DA2 can ONLY be human, eh?  Merrill spends the entire game trying to do what’s best for her dying culture, whether they like it or not.  She’s obsessively dedicated to the plight of Elvenkind.  Yet if she’s with a m!Hawke, and they were inclined to try to have children together, their offspring would inevitably be biologically and culturally human.  There’s a cultural taboo in the alienages against marrying/having children outside of your race, because in the Dragon Age setting elven genetics are apparently such that the “half-elven” children are born fully human (or, very rarely, Dwarven: Word of God says dwarf/elf babies practically never happen, but it’s theoretically possible.)  If even city elves frown on intermarrying, because it waters down their already threatened cultural heritage and gene pool, can you imagine what a kick in the teeth it would be to the Dalish?

Posted 2 months ago With 22 notes

You know something I’d love to see more of because I almost never see it, and I find it fascinating?

Lots of people in the Dragon Age fandom write Calling fic/have Calling feels for their Wardens and various Warden characters, but the Calling really functions more than anything for their order as a sort of… ritual, a way of saying goodbye.  A funeral-before-death a bit like that of the Legion of the Dead.  It’s not mandatory, as far as we know.  Surely the Wardens don’t drag recalcitrant members kicking and screaming to Orzammar, toss them into the Deep Roads and demand that the Dwarves not allow them back up, right?  The Wardens can actually be fairly brutal in their methods as we’ve seen so I ADMIT I CANNOT RULE THIS SORT OF THING OUT ENTIRELY but… surely not?

There is a biological/magical aspect to the Calling, of course, in that it gets its very name from the fact that Wardens succumb to the Taint eventually and feel “called,” but unless/until a Warden is so completely lost that they’ve become a violent ghoul, free will remains a factor.  If the Calling is a kind of ritualized way of dealing with this tragic situation, not entirely a biological imperative, surely there are Wardens who choose not to participate?  Who survive long enough to experience the physical and mental degredation of the Calling, but reject its manner of death?  

It’s certainly a selfless and honorable death, an agreement to die taking out as many enemies as one can before the end, but it’s also hopeless and gruesome.  It’s suicide, essentially, but a long, drawn out suicide, waiting and suffering from near-madness and pain with a body that’s betraying you more the longer you keep living, not knowing when it will finally end.  In darkness and filth, with limited supplies- or none?  Imagine going into the Deep Roads to die against the Darkspawn, but dying instead of starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, (EDIT: I have been reminded just now that the Taint eventually sustains the body so that one does not need food or drink, as it does the Darkspawn themselves, and that adds a whole extra level of horror to all this holy shit just absorb that) alone and unmourned, unburned or unburied.

I just wonder how many Wardens would choose another way out.

Posted 2 months ago With 56 notes

I just realized that in Dragon Age the pendant the Grey Wardens traditionally give their newly Joined recruits, containing a little bit of Tainted, magic’d-up blood from the Joining ritual, is actually an immensely practical object.  Given the importance of the Wardens in ending a Blight, that little bit of blood could be used to perform a sort of… emergency, triage Joining.  It doesn’t seem like recruits need to drink much to be Joined, just a mouthful… probably just the right amount to fit in a little vial still small enough to practically wear.

There’s probably a time limit on how long the Joining blood remains viable, but in a situation like the Hero of Ferelden finds themselves in, that little vial could spell the difference between disaster and success.  Shame Alistair and co. are ignorant to the actual significance of having Wardens present to kill the archdemon until endgame, eh?

Posted 3 months ago With 44 notes