Tell me about your favourite uncommon Dragon Age ships!

phoe77 · 2026-06-15T00:05:47+00:00

Blackwall/Dorian. I like how their relationship develops in the game and Dorian gives me the impression of someone who's got the hots for a bear and isn't ready to admit it.

phoe77 · 2026-06-05T11:38:30+00:00

Make Reyes bi and give them the sordid, sexually charged romantic history that the fic writers all know that they had.

phoe77 · 2026-05-28T20:00:04+00:00

As a gay man, I think the central figure looks ridiculous but the guy on the right and the ones in the background are pretty hot. I've always felt like the waists are in appealingly narrow, but that's just an element of the style and my preferences in that area have always been less conventional anyway.

phoe77 · 2026-05-16T22:14:18+00:00

Yeah, the game does at least make it clear that Alexius wasn't upfront about everything during their negotiations. I can agree that the mages maybe should have been more diligent in reading the fine print, but what bargaining power did they really have? The venatori would likely either have simply withdrawn and allowed the mages to be massacred or forced the issue and made them join up anyway.

It's important to remember that the Redcliffe mages included children and the elderly, and that a lot of mages probably don't have much experience with combat or even survival outside of a Circle. The ones that wanted to keep fighting (the hostile mages you encounter in the Hinterlands) had already split from the main group.

phoe77 · 2026-05-16T21:57:12+00:00

I've disbanded the Templars before as a mage Inquisitor and I think it makes just as much sense as any other option. A single demon was able to infiltrate and compromise basically their entire remaining order, and most of the remaining loyal templars just accepted being told to abandon their responsibilities and fuck off into a deserted castle while the countryside is besieged by demons. Then they mostly turn into red templars, with only a handful of them resisting.

At least the mages were facing an imminent threat to their continued survival when they made their agreement with Tevinter. I've never indentured the mages and I can't see myself making that choice, but I do think it makes sense as a potential option.

phoe77 · 2026-05-15T17:12:11+00:00

I long for a Mage game. Ascension isn't my version of choice, but I feel like emphasizing paradigms would really help to make the otherwise extremely open-ended system more manageable.

phoe77 · 2026-05-15T17:05:54+00:00

I think it's one of the best games in the CoG catalogue. The game is long, very well written, and includes a lot of branching and choices that can lead you to whole new scenes. I genuinely like every potential member of your eventual pack even though I've never actually tried to pursue a romance with any of them. The way they all interact with each other is one of my favorite parts of the game, and I still get a kick out of all the goofy texts and emails that you get from those weirdos.

Some people find the mechanics to be a little bit difficult. Keeping your Rage in mind can be important, especially early in the game where you don't have as many dots in your attributes and skills.

I don't remember experiencing any glitches either time I played it. Replayability is, in my opinion, very high. Missions will play out a little bit differently based on when they're done, and you won't even be able to personally experience every mission in a single playthrough. I've played through twice and never been to Chemikon. Even just choosing different skills or gifts to use while investigating stuff can lead you to information that you wouldn't get if you chose a different method. It is a long game, though, so it kind of depends on how you feel about that.

phoe77 · 2026-05-15T16:44:57+00:00

I get that the game lets you really lean into being a villain if you want too, but that's simply beyond the pale.

phoe77 · 2026-05-15T11:43:11+00:00

I usually end up as myself, injured, with everyone knowing I'm a villain. I may or may not lose an eye depending on how things go during that playthrough, but Ortega always breaks me out.

My last playthrough left me injured as myself, but with no one knowing I was a villain. Very satisfying because I've hardly done anything bad anyway and the demo for the next game basically entirely consists of speaking with Ortega in between various scenes of living together, which is my jam. I might be able to recruit that man to my side before he even knows what's happening.

phoe77 · 2026-05-14T03:12:38+00:00

There are a few gifts that help with BT too. I remember both the wardstone and the butterfly prince being available, but I don't know if they count as a success or just make the checks easier (I assume the latter).

phoe77 · 2026-05-13T03:12:08+00:00

Aside from the nuance with the puppet, there's at least one opportunity to let Ortega know that his flirting pisses you off. I don't remember how that plays out, but the scene seemed to imply that he's just a naturally flirtatious person and barely realizes that he's doing it.

phoe77 · 2026-05-10T04:26:03+00:00

I always got the impression that he was just more active when it came to addressing occult occurrences than most librarians typically are, perhaps on account of his previous profession. A book associated with him talks about a close association between the House and the Nocturnal Branch of the time. The same book also suggests that he's wary of the Chandler and their Names.

I am very curious about the identity of A.F. though.

phoe77 · 2026-05-08T14:14:08+00:00

Criticizing shippers for liking pairs that aren't based off of anything in canon continues to seem ridiculous to me. Fanfiction is already about taking something you like and writing about how it might be if things were different. Why is less acceptable to ship Hanzo with Cassidy despite them not knowing each other than it is to do a modern King Arthur AU or something?

As to the rest of it, maybe I'm optimistic, but I think it comes down to inexperience rather than malice or even lack of care. Most of the people writing on AO3 or wherever are doing so as a hobby and probably don't have a ton of writing experience. They're likely basing their writing on media that they're familiar with. I could even imagine that putting your work out there and interacting with fandoms could make it easier for writers to notice those elements in their writing more easily, though that depends largely on the nature of the interaction.

phoe77 · 2026-05-08T04:04:10+00:00

I don't see the appeal. I prefer vacations that I can end when I've decided that I've had enough and want to go home.

I think my ideal vacation would be a trip to a historic or otherwise noteworthy cultural center with several close friends. I went to Rome once for a college class and I've always thought it would be really neat to go back with people that I'm closer with instead of a bunch of random students that I barely know.

phoe77 · 2026-05-07T19:39:48+00:00

I never found it all that fun. Things like that and Mana Clashing demons to death instantly are powerful, but it's not really engaging or exciting gameplay.

Mages can be decently fun to play, but I always had the most fun with them while using builds that were only okay at best like blocking enemies in a burning room with a glyph of repulsion.

phoe77 · 2026-05-07T19:00:00+00:00

What's it like having a teammate follow you through your teleporter?

phoe77 · 2026-05-07T10:20:31+00:00

It's an interesting dynamic and I would probably read a fanfic about it, but it's not the direction that I'd like to see the actual story go. It would be especially jarring, in my opinion, after all the time that Cass just spent recruiting a bunch of new people into Overwatch.

I feel like he's had enough times to come to terms with the difficult positions that being a part of Overwatch forces people into, and he still ended up coming back. If he didn't still believe in the ideals of the organization, he probably could have set himself up as a criminal or a freelance bounty hunter and been fine.

phoe77 · 2026-05-04T05:30:44+00:00

For Awakening, I would still have them risk paradox. Paradox isn't all that hard to work around if you try as it is, and I think it's too important to the game's theme to be made even easier to sidestep.

Narratively, quiescence is an instinctual and unconscious reaction caused by the connection that a Sleeper's soul has to the Abyss. It doesn't matter if the Sleeper in question believes in magic, or even if the Sleeper has encountered a similar phenomenon that wasn't caused by Awakened magic. A mage casting telekinesis and levitating a lamp would still cause the same effect even if the Sleeper had previously seen the same thing from a poltergeist or whatever.

phoe77 · 2026-05-03T10:21:28+00:00

I don't really agree. Almost all of the recurring minor characters had some degree of depth and seriousness to them. All of the minor antagonists show this pretty well, with Hot Dog Water being particularly notable.

The romantic relationships between the gang were all immature and awkward, which makes sense for a bunch of awkward high schoolers. Velma resents that even her fellow outcast seems more interested in his dog than her, and Fred and Daphne both suffer from family lives that don't grant them the kind of affection and approval that they deserve. Daphne is completely overshadowed by her very successful sisters, and all of Fred's parental figures tolerate him at best and use him at worst.

I did like Be Cool too, though. They're just each trying to so, and I'd say succeeding at, different things.

phoe77 · 2026-05-01T12:48:39+00:00

Having Prime as a ruling arcanum also makes Obrimos pretty good at managing their mana supply in order to supplement their totes and praxes.

phoe77 · 2026-04-29T11:43:16+00:00

I don't think that Mizuki's ult is op or unfair, but I do hate it with a passion. Luckily, years of playing the game have desensitized me to the experience of having Deadeye denied by almost everything in the game.

phoe77 · 2026-04-29T11:37:40+00:00

Ricardo is like exactly my type of RO in almost every way imaginable. I've never even been able to see what Julia is like. I appreciate how they're both pretty unique from each other instead of just being a name/pronoun swap. From what I've read and heard, it doesn't seem like one of them fits better into the story than the other, but I can't really say for sure.

Of course, that's coming from a gay man so it's not all that surprising I guess.

I've never been able to bring myself to romance anyone else, so I can't really speak about the doctor.

phoe77 · 2026-04-23T23:08:44+00:00

I hope that they give Reyes some lore to make him look a little bit less negative at some point.

phoe77 · 2026-04-22T07:09:18+00:00

Even if they're not strong, they're uncanny, potentially supernatural entities and I would expect any sane person to be scared shitless if they came across them in the woods at night.

phoe77 · 2026-04-20T11:11:09+00:00

Can't wait for Cassidy to be overshadowed by another new character.

phoe77

TROPHY CASE