# 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐒𝐉𝐎𝐘 【 a private / mutuals only 】 headcanon-based portrayal of 𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐄𝐋 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐄 from 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍 𝐀𝐆𝐄. nsfw + potentially triggering themes present, please read 𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒 before interacting ♡ 𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈 + PERSONALS WILL BE BLOCKED ON SIGHT! ― ( reflected by 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓, 30+, Black, SWANA. ) THIS BLOG IS BIOWARE-CRITICAL + FANDOM-CRITICAL because fictional escapism doesn't take priority over actual people whose cultures are being demonized by said fiction.
𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐘 𝐎𝐅: instrumentality, abhumanity, imperfect victimhood, Faustian bargains, the ethical dilemma of the Trolley problem, incorrectly conflating morality with beauty, catch-22 situations, religion in a prehistoric / pre-colonial indigenous setting as written from an indigenous lens.
✱ potentially triggering themes on this blog include body horror, unreality, extreme body modification, relationships with severe power imbalances, genocide, slavery, abuse of power, imperfect victimhood, healing from sexual assault trauma, stockholm syndrome, abusive/codependent relationships, disordered eating
MOBILE RULES (SUMMARIZED) i will absolutely block if you follow without reading them:
FIRST OFF: this blog is not a feelgood circlejerk cracker barrel for folks who uncritically and continuously espouse colonialist + settler mentalities present in their favorite media. i'm extremely intolerant of racism, transphobia, ableism, antisemitism, etc. google is your friend; i'm not here to hold your hand and make you feel better about the role you play in the systemic oppression of people like me. if you've participated in the silencing of other minorities when they speak on their oppression in order to facilitate your own comfort, then congratulations! you're why the current global backslide into right-wing ideology is happening. as a general note, i also don't want to see whitewashed or other problematic face claims either. bigotry speaks in how we're more eager to criticize women and poc for doing the same shit that our favorite white and male characters do.
this blog is also anti-genocide. criticizing israel as a violently racist colonial ethnostate isn't antisemitism; you can still be oppressed while participating in the oppression of someone else. that said, whatever smoke you're giving israel, you'd better be giving the US government 10x more instead of acting like israel is somehow uniquely evil when US imperialism has done everything they've done but 100x worse. this is a personal issue for me, i'm north african and my home country shares a border with israel. i have family and loved ones who have suffered from israel's past and current aggressions against its neighbors. regardless, antisemitic conspiracy theories will not be tolerated.
TOKENIZATION: as a visibly Black mixed writer with a visibly Black muse, i am not here to be your token and neither is june. my ideas, my art, and my writing don't exist for the purpose of being reduced to an accessory to inflate your ego, or to make you or your character look like the good guy. if you don't give a shit about me and my ideas, that's fine! but what you're not gonna do is use myself, my muse, and my writing as a token to boost your own ego or to adjudicate your favorite white boy. tokens always get spent and i'm not gonna play accessory to performative "allies" who harass poc and never put their money where their mouth is.
BLOCKING: i block very liberally and sometimes without explanation. please don't follow me if you have no plans on writing together. if i have an issue with you, you'll know it: i'll either talk to you about it personally in a good faith effort to clear things up if we're friends, or hardblock you if it's bad enough or if i don't know you well enough to feel safe discussing it. i only softblock because of inactivity or a lack of interaction without hiatus. if we've been mutuals for months and you still haven't really interacted, it will eventually result in a hardblock.
MORALITY: this is not a "june and sylaise did nothing wrong" zone. this is a "june and sylaise were complex individuals and indigenous deities whose motivations are disregarded, robbed of nuance, and unfairly judged by a predominantly white fandom, especially when compared to humans and chantry-affiliated characters" zone. they both participated in genocidal warfare and used their authority to uphold a form of slavery rooted in classism (though it is implied by veilguard's lore that at least one of the pair likely did not own slaves.) regardless, i want to make it clear that the people they harmed are well within their right to be pissed off at them and don't owe them forgiveness.
WORLDBUILDING: i'm by no means a lore purist, but this blog has a fairly worldbuilding-heavy approach to writing, though my interest in the lore exists within specific niches (namely the elves, the dwarves, tevinter, and the blight. idk much about ferelden and orlesian politics, for instance.) because june's lore is very scattered and easy to overlook, i've made a post where you can easily find explanations! sadly, some parts of dragon age's lore reflect the bigotry and biases of the developers. while there are a lot of issues i'm not aware of, i do consider it an ethical responsibility to to try and rewrite and reframe certain things as much as possible while acknowledging (and remaining critical) of the fact that they exist in canon.
when it comes to portraying june, i take certain liberties because i have 9000+ hours in origins. i have receipts, i did the research. that said, my blog isn't a library for you to cherry pick ideas from and i would prefer that you didn't use any of my character development or meta without asking first. while i am profoundly critical of many aspects of veilguard, excessive veilguard negativity + acting like veilguard is uniquely responsible for introducing lore that was actually introduced or confirmed during inquisition may result in a hardblock.
SHIPPING: i love shipping, but relationships with june and sylaise are liable to be somewhat problematic. i will not romantically ship any of my characters with muses who are children or characters who are children when my muses first encounter them, even if they are aged up during a later encounter. needless to say, i'm not okay with pedophilia or actual incest. heteronormative cis m/f relationships and cis people will not be the focus of this blog, either.
top 3 common elvhen phrases that invoke june by name:
"june's tears!": exclamatory (contextual equivalent of "omg!") and irreverent, but to the extent that it's fairly parlance among the elves. you'll hear dalish with june's vallaslin use this one quite a bit. this doesn't bother june at all, as he is actively responsible for encouraging the elves to use this phrase by using it in reference to himself (unbeknownst to whoever was around him at the time, as he often disguises himself as an average everyday guy and walks among his people.)
"june's teeth!": exclamatory (contextual equivalent of "goddamn it!" or "jfc!") and explicative in nature. this phrase is much less common. june is not personally responsible for disseminating this phrase, but he finds it extremely funny nonetheless. (example of usage: "june's teeth, child! hasn't anyone taught you to knock?") not fully contextually exchangable with "june's tears", as "june's teeth" is reserved for reactions that are more extreme and abrasive.
"by june": often used in the context of lamenting a situation that hasn't happened or is otherwise unlikely to (example of usage: "by june, if xyz hadn't happened, we wouldn't have needed to change course so abruptly.") this phrase used exclusively by june's faithful.
sorry for being quiet!! i'm definitely on discord if yall wanna chat. i've just been busy playing in the garden and being really fucking irritated for the past week or 2. something something mercury retrograde, mars conjunct uranus in gemini, saturn still in aries. i've ordered groceries + i have some lavender seeds, chives, thyme, and rosemary to plant today too! the blackberries are flowering so it's not phruit time yet (i'm SO excited for when they're done giving fruit later this summer so i can sell it, then dig these fuckers up and cut them back!!! they're strangling my poor roses and making it insanely hazardous to navigate the surrounding area without getting surprise stabbed by thorns.) my help will also be needed by the neighbors for the neighborhood-wide yard sale in about a week or so. needless to say, activity will be kinda sparse this month.
the type of people june elevates in his service are the people who do things like inventing tiny assistive devices or prosthetics for animals who are missing limbs…
the Beauty: Beloved, beautiful, naive, innocent—or at least, perceived this way. The one representing goodness, in all its purity, to others. Smarter than they let on.
idr which one of yall referred to the elven leg armor as compression leg wraps in a thread or ask response, but you're 100% correct as far as my assessment of june's design motivation goes! speaking from personal experience, long walks barefoot or in sandals is speedrunning your way to plantar fasciitis, bursitis, achilles tendinitis, and haglund's deformity issues. while i do think upper echelon blood magic practitioners were capable of fixing flat feet and physical deformities rather easily and did so regularly (the caveat being that it's like building computers: a lot of people can do this, but there are way more who can't), preventative measures through armor design would've made more sense. i'm bought and sold on there being a semi-cushioned support strap that is positioned just beneath the arch.
there's a LOT of smoke around being the main character/starring role that june really just does not want. he was never a piece on the chessboard, he's one of the guys playing chess.
LMAO you're not wrong!! and if it was a video game with dnd rules, his casting animation would be the most goddamn theatrical and heart-wrenching performance of all time, only for us to find out later on that this asshole is not, in fact, dead and he very specifically feigned death because he just simply did not want to deal with bs anymore + wanted a clean-yet-memorable exit stage moment
thinking abt sylaise sneaking june little lunches and snacks into his aravel or his saddlebag (she has to be sneaky about this, otherwise june will fuss at her and tell her not to worry about him. he's always grateful for it though, and i think her experimenting with ways to cook and prepare food came both from the sheer gratification they mutually experience with tasty or entertaining food/beverages as quasi-immortals who don't necessarily need to eat the way mortals do + june is also A Challenge to figure out in terms of what ends up being a hit or a miss for him in terms of satisfaction.)
alternating between playing in the backyard garden to regulate my nervous system while deadheading the roses (the fucking blackberry vine has somehow grown like 17ft across the yard and up into the roses! it's absolutely fucking MASSIVE and strangling the rose plants) + doing coursework for a couple of online courses at harvard. replies will be a bit sparse, apologies!
the final boss june has to confront during origins isn't the hof - it's himself. he always has to accept letting go, moving on, and the shedding of old skins and ideas as something that is not only necessary for the world to progress, but also part of his inherent purpose and nature as an entity. he loses sight of this because part of his nature to evolve and expand means he gains the capacity to love others, formulates the desire to want to fix things, protect those he loves and do good, to the extent the becomes deeply entrenched and ultimately stagnant. the world cannot wait indefinitely and therefore june cannot wait indefinitely, the music cannot be paused, and show must go on.
via made an extremely good point about the crossroads being magical and potentially sapient and reflecting or 'borrowing' notes and various stuff like journal entries and whatnot that wouldn't really make sense to be randomly left lying around by their respective authors. june even makes a point about the crossroads reflecting parts of the world as that is shown.
personally, i could see june's sneaky little notes found near the lighthouse going either way! on one hand, june is accredited for being very mysterious and seemingly elusive; we don't hear even half as much about his actions in dalish myths the way we do many the other gods + the nature of the writing could be interpreted as something he was just noting to himself rather than intending for anyone to see or find ("an eluvian has two faces, after all" really feels like a veiled confession of some sort when we consider the amount of evidence behind june wanting to fix what was done to the titans + his stuff being found in both rebellion strongholds and anaris's space in vg too! he wanted to be everyone's friend and help everyone, i fear. local man brutally mistreated, objectified, and imprisoned for the nth timeline, doesn't give a shit, continues to believe in others' ability to change for the better and hope for the best.)
on the other hand, however: the page is specifically described as being torn out of a grimoire, which indicates a very deliberate course of action on june's part (as a woo-woo guy, let me tell yall: you do NOT tear shit out of your own personal grimoire without a good reason. as their name suggests, 'grim' + 'noir' effectively gives us 'shadow book.', grimoires are usually a practitioner's innermost thoughts and a space for the shadow-self that they don't necessarily show the public. knowing june, it was probably something along the lines of a junk journal style grimoire, which makes it slightly different than mythal's grimoire by virtue of its purpose and nature and how he uses his own. the common factor here remains, however: grimoires are generally deeply personal objects to the practitioner.) june is also the guy who seemingly created a puzzle that you literally cannot solve, which were then seemingly distributed or made known about or available to his worshippers(???) and his overall underlying intention seems to wanting people to figure things out for themselves. thus, we absolutely couldn't put it past him to deliberately place that there as a little easter egg for rook to find. (he seems to know stuff before it happens, kieran says that morrigan is 'the inheritor' and morrigan 'inheriting' some of mythal's essence and memories specifically is exactly what happens. foreshadowing.jpg)
it could very well be a combination of both (the crossroads yoinking it because it's responding to june's will and thus making his true intentions known regardless of whether or not june personally intended for that to happen) - although solas is credited with creating the crossroads, it's effectively solas's lego project made out of june's legos. magical stuff like eluvians, vir eluvelin, etc., much like the lyrium dagger, are explicitly stated extensions of their creators' will and being, even if they aren't necessarily [fully] sapient the way a person is. not to mention the very telling line on june's mask code entry about his will hiding in the action of others.
Thank you, Black people in fandom spaces. Thank you, Black creators and Black lurkers. Thank you Black artists, Black writers. Thank you, Black bloggers, Black influencers. Shoutout to those Black characters, both canon and original. Thank you, Black people, both queer and cishet.
Your perspectives matter. Your representation matters. You are not bothersome for demanding equal treatment in fandom. It is not your responsibility to make fandom more welcoming and inclusive to you. It is not your sole responsibility to create all of the Black-centered content. You are not "ruining" anyone's fun for demanding better for yourself, and anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves. Any fandom worth being a part of should have no room for racism in it.
Black people in fandom, you are wanted. You are needed. You are loved and appreciated. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
And since they don't get told it near enough, thank you, Black women especially!!!
sorry yall, i won't be around much today! i woke up overstimulated due to hooligan ass behavior at 4am (banging pots and pans, hooting and hollering in the kitchen) and i've had to wait a grand total of 6 hours on hold over the past 2 days just to talk to a nurse about refilling a (necessary, life-saving) prescription
"You are familiar, but you are not me. I feel sadness, longing, and hope as I witness you."
Slay the Princess starters
“ I don't know what that means, for my friends have yet to teach me. ”
The response given by the maiden feels slow and deliberate, words that resonate more like a song wrought from something that is entirely new for this strange and inscrutable being. Whatever this elusive creature is, there come to mind neither words nor sentiment that might otherwise serve to indicate her identity or her nature; no face but the one she crafts with the preferences and predispositions of others. The concept of being a 'her' exists, but it is unstable, protean; bordering on discomfort that has yet to be realized or expressed. The magic about her provides a sense of familiarity and Fade, yet it is not like that woven within the realm of dreams where spirits dwell. The soft vibrato of vocal chords rubbing together remains a decidedly visceral experience despite her tenured corporeality.
In mimicry of something taught by another, rosy palms press together at the heels to form a cup-like shape, as if to somehow contain or cushion Eltalim's glimmering and ephemeral shape. The one yet to be named June is something of a mystery. None know how she sculpts flesh and earth alike with the same; a walking phenomenon that refuses to be studied. No one knows how she is able to sculpt flesh and earth alike with the same sudden and fluid ease of those who have yet to become corporeal (and those who never will.) To be viewed unsettles her in the same manner that light behaves differently once it is beheld by the observer.
The energy about her seems to swell as eyes like the reflection of a crimson eclipse cast upon the surface of dark water fix on Eltalim with something that isn't quite curiosity or desire, but a powerful and explicable compulsion to change, to adapt, to transform, to evolve, to advance, to become by whatever means necessary. As wisps are wont to evolve slowly over time, whatever this entity is, she has evolved rapidly in a remarkably short space of time. Only a few feet away, the ambient energy begins to coalesce into something new — something that can be much more easily named and identified: Learning.
“ Would you explain these things to me, spirit? It would make me very happy to learn, I think. I could craft you something in exchange. ”
