Problem is, Solas did something he believed was right for a noble reason; (...) Good intentions with bad consequences can be more forgivable than cruel intentions with bad consequences.

Cool motive; still murder though.

Blackwall's story is one of a man who made terrible mistakes for terrible reasons, and spends every waking moment of the rest of his life trying to fix or make up for them. Solas' story is one of a man who made terrible mistakes for pretty reasons, intends to make many many more for reasons that are not so pretty anymore, knows what he's doing is wrong, and still intends to do it anyway.

It is absolute hypocrisy to reduce Blackwall to his crimes and ignore that his entire storyline is about redeeming himself (not the Inquisitor redeeming him through the power of love, mind you, him redeeming himself through his own actions), while forgiving and coddling Solas for supposedly having noble reasons (that do not excuse his past, current or future actions). And it is absolutely not fair how fans will so easily dismiss Blackwall with a handwave of "I don't like redemption stories" while at the same time falling all over themselves to redeem Solas at all costs.

If the difference in treatment between these characters was truly about good or bad intentions, one would figure that the guy who intends to redeem himself of his mistakes by doing as much good as he can would be given more slack than the guy who intends to essentially genocide all current life forms because his nostalgia goggles don't like where the world went without him, no? So yeah, there is a big difference in how fandom treats both characters, but it's not at all about whose intentions are nobler. It's more in who (and particularly, why) people choose to allow to get away with his academic rethoric of murder for a good reason, and who they choose to condemn for never being good enough to make up for his faults.

(sup thread, just passing through)

Ah, thanks guys. Yeah, I had a feeling I was just going to have to play that part for him, but that doesn't sound as bad as I expected. I think I'll still skip the boobies, and he complains at the kissing, too. LOL I'll just have to be prepared for when it triggers. We're doing the ball right now. 

The scene comes after the quest that starts the romance. You'll have to get Cass flowers and a poetry book and after that there'll be the marquee trigger to start the relationship - that will send you into the scene that ends up with the nakeys.

I can't remember what was the mod that replaced the nude model now, but I'll look through the nexus a bit to see if I can find it again. I'll let you know if I run into it again!

There's really not any dry humping in Cullen's sex scene either. It fades to black before it gets that far. (I might *just might* have seen that scene a time or two... maybe...    )

Well, granted it lasts only a split-second, but I remember most of us did notice he was doing a humping motion way before Flycam came out and we could look at the scene from the other side and confirm he was indeed humping the IQ's thigh. It's there if you're looking for it.

And frankly, I think I need to do a speed run through the Cass romance youtubes because Number One Son has chosen her as his girlfriend. gulp. I understand there is s. e. x. 

There's no graphic sex (not even implied dry-humping like Cullen's desk scene), it just fades to black after a kiss, but~ the scene after that does have the IQ and Cass talking shirtless, and her boobs do show for much of that conversation. Can't link to a screencap here, but if you google Cassandra romance scene, the first or second image result should show you what I mean.

I do think there's a mod at the nexus that replaces the naked body models with the swimsuit from Trespasser, so you could cover them up for Little R2 if he's too young for that yet. That's really the only risqué content of Cass' romance, the rest is all cuteness, flowers and poetry. I thought Cullen's romance was a lot more spicy than Cass' despite having no boobs on display, what with the dry humping and kinky double entendres everywhere.

(of course, nothing beats Blackwall's and Sera's in terms of spicy. sex in the barn, BJ and fisting jokes in public, pubes-shaving as a gift... those romances are definitely not for kids. )

Rank the hot NPCs: Nate, Barris, Michel, Rylen

 

I was going to rank them myself but I think I just did. No, exchange Rylen for Michel; I prefer brunets!

Barris, Nate, Rylen, Michel for me. Barris is perfection, 10/10, insert good sht meme here; Nathaniel = dat nose + dat voice; Rylen I actually like for his sarcasm and sass more than even the tattoos; and Michel I love as a complex character but aesthetically he's not really my type. Maybe if he was older and had crows' feet and facial hair and a bigger nose? ...but then he might as well be Cullen, lol. Can I trade Michel for Fairbanks? Fairbanks was right up my alley.

And hey, as long as we're ranking hot NPCs: Cassandra. That's it, that's all, everyone else can go home. 

Arl Bryland

By the way this is only very marginally related to Cullen, but did everyone read that super creepy codex entry about Fennecs in DAI, about the girl who begged her father for a new pet every week and they all mysteriously died or disappeared the next day? Yeah, that creep is Arl Bryland's daughter. You can see her at the market square in Denerim, and you can actually hear Bryland telling Alfstanna that his kid keeps asking for a new puppy every week all the way back in DAO. Continuity!

More importantly, Bryland is actually the brother of Nathaniel's late mother, making that puppy-killing she-devil of his daugher Nate's cousin (poor guy has crazy on his family from both sides, he just can't win). Even more importantly, Bryland is arl to South Reach, where the Noodleforths reside now; thus making Nathaniel and Cullen marginally, remotely almost maybe vaguely have something to do with each other through a series of completely unrelated obscure trivia! Which means I now have an excuse to remind ya'll how hot Nathaniel is, because I'm staring at him in Awakening right now and really needed to express my pain at the fact that we can't smooch him ~sigh, and LOOK I'M STILL ON TOPIC while doing that because Cullen and Nathaniel are like second cousins or something via six degrees of Kevin Bacon logic now, spoilers semi-confirmed.

Not according to David Gaider. They knew of their existence, but not how they were created.

http://swooping-is-b...om/1286233.html

edit: Or like, what riverbanks said, but WITH citation.

I'm actually amazed by your ability to immediately produce receipts for everything.  Your catalogue of bookmarks must be impressive!

Wait what? Sorry to bring this up again, but I'm pretty sure Wardens knew about how broodmothers were created prior to the Fifth Blight and the game DAO.

The Grey Wardens did know that broodmothers existed and that darskpawn were created from them prior to the 5th Blight, but they didn't know how the broodmothers themselves were made. The citation is in an interview Gaider gave where he was asked whether the discovery of how broodmothers came to be would affect the Wardens' inner policies about the Calling - would female Wardens have to be accompanied on their Calling by a male one now to make extra sure they really died and weren't captured to be turned into a broodmother instead, would they be forbidden from taking their Calling in the Deep Roads, etc. His answer was something vague like, yes things will probably change with this discovery but we haven't really thought about how, but it did leave the implication that this was new to the Wardens, a complicating factor they weren't aware of before the HoF found out what happened to Branka's crew, and would have to deal with from now on.

South Reach the town or South Reach the Arling? Because Lothering is or was part of the Arling according to the Codex. Depending on the boundries of the Arling, it may have taken a large hit.

Arl Bryland abandoned South Reach with his troops soon after Ostagar, by account of the Templars in Lothering. By the time you reach Denerim you can see him at the Gnawed Noble chatting with Alfstanna, and he claims the entire South Reach arling has been overrun by Darkspawn at that point. So regardless of whether the Noodles went through Lothering or directly to South Reach the city or anywhere else in the arling, they probably took a long time to actually get there, possible staying in refugee camps until after the Archdemon was killed and the horde scattered. The alternative would be walking right through the darkspawn horde to get to a South Reach overrun by them, which is... improbable - even the Hawkes took the long way around to Gwaren for a ship, because crossing northwards through South Reach would send them right into the horde.

I'm not entirely sure about the timeline: When Honnleath was overrun by Darkspawn, wasn't Cullen still stationed at Kinloch Hold? Wouldn't his siblings know he was there? After all, it wasn't far away from the Circle Tower.

Considering that the Circle went up in revolt as soon as Uldred came back from Ostagar so Broken Circle has to be placed pretty early in the timeline (as early as the first time you reach Lothering, you can hear the gossips outside the tavern talking about it), and that geographically it's not likely that Honnleath would be destroyed immediately after Ostagar (since the horde came up from the wilds through the Imperial Road leading to Lothering first), timeline-wise the Noodles probably left Honnleath some time after Broken Circle happened.

They did know Cullen was in that Circle, and Mia did try to contact him, but by Cullen's own admission, after the trauma he suffered during the revolts he deliberately ignored Mia's letters and left them with no word for years. At that point, with the Circle in such a state, communication from outside would be difficult, visits would be out of the question... so the siblings did know where Cullen was supposed to be, but not whether he was actually still there. Cullen might have learned of his parents' death soon enough through Mia's letters, but according to her first letter in DAI, she didn't know whether he was even still alive until she tracked him down in Kirkwall years later.

Since we still haven't figured out what triggers the Hawke dialogue with Cullen, I've decided to just go ahead and upload/share the updated version of the Restored Cullen Dialogue mod. Here ya go! The dialogue should trigger after Varric has introduced the Inquisitor to Hawke. Let me know if you run into any problems!

Thank you, font! We wouldn't even know these lines and the unused banter existed if it wasn't for your efforts poking around through the text files, and it's great to be able to hear them in the game now!

The Keep will periodically update your data and unlock tiles as you go (though when it will update is anyone's guess - sometimes you need to leave the game running for a while), and some tiles will only unlock after you've finished the game. Companion ones should unlock as you complete their personal quests, but note that only the specific choice you made will unlock - if you made choice A for a certain companion, that tile will unlock, but choices B and C won't show up yet to avoid spoilers, so you'd have to unlock them with a second or third playthrough. (or rolling back a save, making a different decision, waiting for the Keep to update, but that's the most roundabout way)

If you don't care for spoilers and just want to see every tile avaiable to edit your world states as you wish, you can also just turn off spoilers entirely in your Keep settings. That will show every single tile (minus DLC ones at the moment) and let you change them as you will.

I can hear it now...

"Invincible, hmmm?"
"Don't let it go to your head, Hawke."
"But it's so nice to know you secretly cared all these years."
"Maddening woman."

Yes, that's exactly how I see it going down! He'll be pouting at the Inquisitor for weeks for revealing his deepest, darkest secret: he's a Hawke fanboy at heart, just like the rest of them.

CULLEN [IF HAWKE SACRIFICED DURING HERE LIES THE ABYSS and WAS FEMALE]: (Sighs.) She seemed invincible then.

Aaah, so the "invincible" line was about Hawke after all, as we suspected. Pity it has to be tied to both siding with the mages and killing Hawke, I'd love to have heard that line on my game, but those conditions are nah.

Still, good to know Cullen secretly considers Hawke invincible. She'd never let him live it down if she heard that.

everyone would be a mage

I'd hope this would be a player choice made at the ending of the last game, because otherwise this would also be the day I'd quit this series.

We were on about this on another thread the other day, weren't we? As the final choice we get to make for the series, press X to make everyone mages, press Y to eliminate all magic from the world, roll credits.

The thing is, having Kieran seems to soften Morrigan a great deal - her dialogue is kinder if she's had him - and he's a polite little kid.  GW Alistair does not seem to hate him, and I suspect King Alistair would not either.

 

It's all speculation - and we have to take a very specific path of choices to get to this one option where there is a potential Theirin heir - but I have a hard time imagining Alistair being so dismissive of his own child, at least as soon as he sees that Kieran has no scales or horns.  It would seem too out of character.

Haven't seen this brought up on the thread (eta: actually it was brought up earlier, sorry!), but... another issue with Kieran having any relevance as heir to Alistair is that Alistair isn't the only parent he (maybe) has. Morrigan is the one raising Kieran, and she's made it vehemently clear that she does not want him involved in politicking. If she had a mind to make Kieran a contender for the throne, she had the perfect opportunity to raise him inside the Orlesian court, learning all the secrets of the trade, but instead she's shielded him from all that and kept him as far removed from politics and nobility games as she can.

She's been raising Kieran for a completely different life, teaching him the principles of protecting and preserving the old magics, etc, not how to eat with the right fork at fancy dinner parties or how to rule kingdoms and inspire courage in the hearts of armies, you know? Even if Alistair wanted to make Kieran his heir, I have a hard time picturing Morrigan ever agreeing to that.

Doing a quick round of Ostagar again for research, and the very first line the Ash Warrior voiced by Greg/Jonny says...

"You there"

*dead*

Fan theories are not considered to be fact last I checked.

If you bothered checking the rest of the thread too, you'd see I'd already acknowledged that a few posts later.

Most of the DA2 fanfics I've read have left Hawke's name as default.

See, I don't like that, because Marian Hawke is such a non-entity to me. Like, who is this character? Steelbloom Hawke, Judith Hawke, Adelaide Hawke, I know who these Hawkes are and I can instantly get myself in that headspace for a new fic. Marian... unless I know the author and have read several fics in their universe to establish who their character is (like R2's), I'll struggle with not just picturing a blank space. Same with Trevelyan now. I know Audrey, Maerwynne, Rhiannon, Roxane Trevelyan... Evelyn? Evelyn can be so many different people's PC that I don't know how to begin telling them all apart. :3

What will really throws me out of a fanfic sometimes is if a character doesn't have an origin-specific name... like Alexander Lavellan or something lol I wanna see an elfy name on a Lavellan, unless of course there's a backstory for why they have a non-Dalish name.

Oh, this is so true. I don't need names to be taken from previously screened and Gaider-approved lists of canon-compliance or anything, but... try to keep them somewhat lore-friendly? Stuff like... Sindaril Hawke, or Peggy Mahariel makes me squint. (disclaimer: these are not actual examples or anything, just came up with them on the spot)

That's why I didn't like the idea someone posted in General Forum some time ago. About set name for next protag. Just nope 

Oh no no no, that would be the worst. I already don't like the idea of "iconic" character appearances, I would hate a set name. But I doubt they'd even consider it at this point, when full characterization is such a hallmark of their games. (And specially with Fallout now raising the bar so high with a list of names recorded for audio recognition too. Keep up with the game, BW! )

On the matter of Leliana and Aveline being Andraste's descendents, I don't think being good persons has to relate them to her, behavior and moral are not genetic

As a side-note of this, we don't even actually know if Andraste was a "good person" either. All we know of her are legends and accounts that have been heavily distorted and embelished over time. She might've been a saint, but she might as well have been a mad tyrant, too, and we just haven't heard that side of the story yet. We have no idea who Andraste really was beyond what the Chantry (with its own biased interests) tells us.

Andraste's paint on the Chantry during Leliana's quest portrays her as a blonde.

Should also be noted that this angelic figure of Andraste portrayed in Chantry frescos and paintings is likely as historically accurate as our own portrayals of white, blonde, blue-eyed Jesus. Andraste was Alamarri, a barbarian rebel who incited a violent uprising  from the Southern tribes... her real appearance was probably nothing like that pristine, saintly figure we see in the Chantry of a thousand years later.

I have heard the following as to what the Free Marches are supposed to represent
(...)
Honestly, it probably is a missmash mix of all the above....

 
Yup. From Marcher Misconceptions:
 

It is strange how some people view the Free Marches. On a map, they see its name emblazoned on the vales south of the Minanter River and assume it to be a nation just as Ferelden is. They imagine a single ruler, a single army, and a common culture, but nothing could be further from the truth! (...) We are many nations squashed under one name on a map because the truth won't fit inside the borders.

The Marches are not supposed to represent one culture, but a bunch of different little subcultures that occupy the same general geographic space. It's more like Europe at large, with its dozens of tiny little countries occupying the same space but being nothing like each other, rather than one big country with regional differences but more or less the same culture overall.

I always want unique names for my PCs so I don't discover half a dozen fanfics with the same name (and disturbingly different personalities )

I knoooow, I always google around first when I think I came up with a good name, because I don't want my precious unique snowflake PC to be confused with others... and I definitely don't want to be that one poor girl who came up with a cute name for her character and then got mobbed by people accusing her of "stealing" the name from one of those super famous OCs with 30 chapters-long fics and lots of fans behind them. (yes, that happened was a super ordinary name like Kate or whatever, too)

It's funny that I first played all the origins in DAO with the default names because they seemed good enough, but then as I got more and more involved with reading and writing fics, it super bothered me to see everyone's Elissas and Kallians and Seredas were so different from mine, so that's when I decided to go back and give them unique names. It hadn't bothered me to use the default name for "my" character until I realized she wasn't "mine" at all. Since then I never used the default anymore, I now find that giving the PC their own name helps me characterizing them as their own person right from the start.

Yeah okay the last time I played DAO was probably in 2012 or 2013. I only have two complete playthroughs, although I did start all the origins except human mage and the poor dwarf... not-noble dwarf... forget what it's called

 

I've played DA2 a million times but the dog seems like just a special ability instead of a companion.

Dwarf... Commoner? (weird name for this origin too, since the PC is actually casteless, which is even lower than just a commoner)

The dog in DA2 seemed like just an ability at first, until I discovered (like three playthroughs in, I'm dumb ok) that you can click on it and these adorable little scenes will play out with each of your companions. Gotta say, Sebastian's and Aveline's scenes with Dog are some of the favorite moments of these characters. Carver's is really sweet, too.

All of my Dragon Age mabari have been named Apollo, after this handsome devil:

 

 

Cullen will just have to follow suit

Eeee, he's a cutie!

I did give a couple of them a less generic name, but I get a bit bored with picking names...

Nah, it's not bad. It really depeneds when you played DAO. I remember both DAO and DA2's names because I used the same every pt 

Yah, I replayed my DAO/DA2 canons several times over to get the details just right (back when having the perfect save game file to import into the next game mattered, loooool) and I always named my Warden's dog Mera and my Hawke's dog Boy, so those names got fixed in my memory and the dogs even developed little personalities of their own. Mera's a good diligent girl and she's dutifully watching over Alistair now like mama Cousland asked her before she died, while Boy's a giant goofball who's made it his mission to tackle the gallant Prince of Starkhaven to the floor and lick his face with terrible breath at least once a day, just to keep things interesting until mama Hawke comes back.

But with other characters I would often get bored or anxious about thinking up other names, so I'd go for zero effort and they'd all just be Barkspawn over and over in DAO, and Dog with every other Hawke. It's bad enough coming up with good names for my own characters, leave alone each one of their dogs!