Empyrean Williwaw

Just a place to say my thoughts, post cool pictures, and just be weird

[ppyuuingles]

"…it's because you're that sort of person, that i've learned to rely on others. that's why i too, will share with you something i have but you lack…"

[xiaq]

One of the best things about being a writer is thinking of something small you can add to your work that’s just. Devastating. Like you’re sitting there going. Oh. That would be diabolical. People would get really riled up about that. Exquisite. Let’s do it.

[ryan-sometimes]

I wonder how it feels to be a therapist or psychiatrist in 2026 and watch the despair of young patients and realize it’s not attributed to mental illness but a rational response to the state of the capitalist hellscape world we live in

[cluemami]

[json-derulo]

when we started talking about getting a small-breed dog I was like, "I will NEVER turn into one of those people who treats their little dog like a doll or an accessory by forcing them to dress up in ridiculous outfits. Dogs HATE that. They should get to be DOGS, and that means not having to wear anything but a HARNESS and being FREE to ROLL in the MUD." and then I adopted a dog who throws a fit if you try to take him for a walk without letting him pick out a bow tie first. a dog who loves wearing pajamas so much that I'm about to spend a disgusting amount of money on several sets of linen ones for summer. a dog who watches me wave at him to follow me through a mud puddle and just stands there blinking up at me like, "are you fucking serious? and get my paws wet?"

[json-derulo]

me: I will raise him no differently than the two 80-lb labs I had growing up. absolutely no hoity-toity frou frou little yapyap dog stuff. he's gonna be a good ol' fashioned, rough-and-tumble, capital D-O-G—

—never mind. the boy yearns to be ensweatered

[json-derulo]

to celebrate the popularity of this post, I ordered him another set of the linen jammies in yellow. now he looks like paddington bear

the etsy seller threw in a little miniature hermes silk scarf as a freebie and I dare you to tell me he doesn't know how handsome he looks in it. whenever we take it off of him he broods like he's a wealthy victorian orphan child in desperate need of a seaside holiday to restore his delicate aristocratic constitution

[phantomofthehoepera]

I want the record to state I have never been this hard in my entire life

[bleedthebeat]

the shadow dragons could’ve been so good if they were good. instead they were so laughably bad in every possible way. largely a product of the complete sanitization of tevinter but good god what a mess of a faction. led by 3 wealthy human mages one of whom directly profits off of slavery as his day job another of whom is the “man on the inside” in the government but see the only people who do slavery in this game are evil venatori! so why do you even need a man on the inside in the government then, it’s not like he’s even accomplished anything in his 8 years of holding a seat, he almost punched a guy once but that’s all we hear of. and the third of whom is literally one of the richest people in tevinter and maybe thedas who has used her immense wealth and monopoly over tevinter’s business ties to orzammar to apparently do absolutely fuckall. there’s also a human templar for some reason. there is one named character who is a former slave but you learn this from a codex entry and you cannot talk to her about it. and she operates the front end of the pawn shop: she is the first in the line of fire. she is expendable. if you save treviso you find her body in the street.

so what do the shadow dragons do? they assist in slave revolts, apparently. but when you work with them in one of the first missions in the game you’re tracking down a red lyrium “relic.” no explanation as to what this is or why it’s important other than the venatori have it. so surely during the shadow dragon companion’s quest you must do something dealing with slavery right, since that’s the shadow dragons’ whole thing? no? aelia is (checks notes) trying to unleash a demon sealed beneath minrathous, for evil reasons i guess? if i want more context i have to read tevinter nights? apparently she’s venatori but there is no connection between what she’s doing and what the other venatori are doing in the main plot of the game, and neve’s plotline is about the threads, not the shadow dragons? the shadow dragons are just kind of fully irrelevant?

so what about rook mercar? as a rook who works with the anti-slavery faction, you must have some input on literally any of this, right? no, you don’t know your base of operations or the leaders of your organization or the fact that mae lost her seat which happened years ago and is the reason the shadow dragons even exist and it was a public smear campaign so rook not knowing this is literally insane. you’re explicitly raised by a wealthy military family from a city that isn’t this one, and there’s no explanation as to how you got to minrathous or why you started working with the shadow dragons. the only mercar-specific dialogues you really get are saying “shadows stick together :)” a few times. you have broken chains in your bedroom from a slave rebellion you helped. why the fuck did you keep those? rook mercar is useless and toothless and stupid on purpose so that you don’t think too hard about the issues that supposedly drive your character but are barely present in the game. and at the same time, they were sent away from the shadow dragons for being too radical and not going along with the safe plan! 😭

and then for some reason you get to choose the next archon—the ruler of a system that is built upon slavery. for some reason one of your queer liberal friends gets to be president even though it’s an internal election process within the magisterium and dorian has probably fewer than a dozen allies and mae is believed by most of the imperium to have committed some sort of vaguely-alluded-to treason. we are not even going to confirm whether all the magisters blighted by elgar’nan were killed or not. literally don’t worry about it kitten ❤️. nothing about the system is going to change. dorian using spies and blackmail and assassins to accomplish his goals is framed as radical when he spent an entire game making snide jabs about how that’s the essence of tevinter politics. mae says you can get the people on your side and show them the truth as if tevinter being a complete farce and magisters doing blood magic and the nation running on slavery isn’t the stereotype everyone outside of the country knows and as if all of that isn’t known more deeply by the people who live there. as if “having the people on your side” means anything in tevinter and can accomplish change without revolution and without any violence.

it’s just all such a nonsensical disaster it hurts to think about. and of course weekes says that they didn’t want to write about revolution because they “don’t have that sort of attitude”—it’s so painfully obvious how terrified they are of actual change and addressing the deep-seated issues of empire and colonialism (and they make it blatantly clear on a panel about writing about empire. lol). it’s obvious that they just didn’t want to deal with the intricacies of a society built on slavery because they are perfectly fine with their status quo and not examining what the settler state they live in is built on. obviously weekes is not the only writer of this game but this mindset bleeds into its entirety and certainly does not come from only weekes. it shows so clearly in every part of tevinter and dock town and the shadow dragons, both in what they are and in what they aren’t

[bleedthebeat]

also all of this is not even to mention that iirc veilguard doesn’t show or describe any slave uprisings that were successful without the aid of the shadow dragons—again an organization that is headed by 3 wealthy highborn human mages. this is to demonstrate that “hey, look, the shadow dragons do do something!” but what happens as a consequence is it gives off the impression that the writers believe enslaved people cannot gain freedom on their own without the aid of these extremely privileged people who are cosplaying rebellion from the comfort of their estates. when you do interact with slaves in like one or two quests they’re helpless captives and you rescue them and then they sing your praises. it’s a blatant white savior fantasy and it’s rancid

[bleedthebeat]

ALSO also. sorry i’m not done with this post. the shadow dragons being The Queer Faction is very intentional. do not think about the slavery do not think all the suffering and exploitation going on in tevinter. see, our leaders are a trans woman, a gay man, a trans man, and (squints) matt mercer i guess. the shadow dragons are an idyllic queer haven and that is the part of tevinter you are shown. there’s no corruption just your faction of fun cool gay and trans friends who would never do anything as evil as profiting off of slavery or owning slaves or working for the state to capture escaped slaves (tarquin is literally a templar and sure he’s “corrupt” (in a good way don’t worry) and “looks the other way” but he wouldn’t still have the job if he never did it.) mae is your nice friendly mom friend who wouldn’t hurt a fly, dorian i cannot emphasize enough has done absolutely jack shit in the magisterium, ashur may or may not be the black divine wink wink we’re going to give you enough information through missable codices and banters to confirm it but we’re not going to outright state it or you’ll realize this whole faction is a sham. but i digress i have too many thoughts on ashur. anyway. tevinter is progressive actually look at all your trans friends❤️. the pinkwashing happening here is off the shits!!! hello!!! insert weekes quote

I can write people living in an empire despite that empire. Because I am several things the United States has currently said they're making it a priority to get rid of. And I'm not going to write a novel about destroying the United States because I'm not good at that. I don't have that sort of attitude. I don't want to destroy the, I don't want a civil war. So many people would die. But what I can do is write a novel about someone who is neurodiverse, someone who is trans, someone who is not straight, living defiantly because that is something in the empire that I can push back against directly.

[zebbros]

Lavellan 3Ds from zBrush

[stivkagall]

Anders | Dragon Age

[bigbigbigtruck]

i’ll be real, kitten, daddy needs multiple wealthy and powerful folks to die in a painful, drawn-out, and generationally humiliating manner

[voltairinedecl3yre]

Avery with some alocasia! This was such a blast to paint <3

[fishing-princess]

I Defeated the Demon Lord but it Turns Out the Demon Army was Largely Unaffected and I Fell Victim to a Flawed Belief in Great Man Theory

[leftcosine]

I Executed The Demon Lord With One Flawless Strike And After A Brief Power Struggle The New Demon Government Is Substantially More Committed To The War Because Of Some Reason I Don't Know

[humanfist]

I Successfully Overthrew The Demon Lord And Instituted Demon Democracy But They Voted For A Commie So The CIA Not Some Fantasy Equivalent The Actual CIA Who Have Known About Magic And Alternate Realms The Whole Damn Time But Won't Just Unisekai Me Launched A Counter Coup And That's When Things Really Went To Shit

[sunlight-shunlight]

almost 100...!!! thanks for coming to my triangles chantry schism ;o;

to be cheesy and earnest, it is a somewhat odd concept, with borderline false advertising on the ship so far, and it is a very funny decision for me to go insane about a long fic project in an Actively Dying Fandom haha. so i'm very glad other people besides me like it ;v;

[sunlight-shunlight]

;o;

[sunlight-shunlight]

[3liza]

do you live in seattle (the american city)?

yes

no

Remaining time: 3 days 1 hour

please reblog to get this poll out of my bubble, i want reach

[3liza]

so ive been meaning to do this poll for a while because my hypothesis is that seattle is the most Tumblr city, likely in the entire world. tumblr has a huge american majority userbase obviously, but just for comparison going forward, only 0.22% of the american population lives in seattle. as of this reblog, this poll is showing 4% of respondents are seattleites. given, this isnt scientific at all, because my blog just has a lot of seattle connections and seattle followers, but it's still an impressive bias

[toastpotent-deactivated20250619]

tumblr user making a post: "damn i love pasta carbonara"

terf blogger in the notes: "Yes, my female brain agrees with this post whole-heartedly! As I read the words of this post, I could feel the eggs in my uterus shifting in their ovaries happily, as my vagina clenched in understanding. This post really made my understanding of the gender binary more concrete, and made me once again so so glad of my womanness"

[worknpain]

[anarchistmemedistro]

[anime-to-the-t]

ムーンプリズムパワーメイクアップ！

[throathole]

Oh thanks but what the fuck does any of that mean

[anariel-the-elrond-apologist]

I’ve seen quite a few of these in my time, but this one takes the cake.

[throathole]

This is fucking killing me

Golp: a roundel purpure.

Repeat this to yourself until it begins to have meaning

[a-book-of-creatures]

Okay then since some of you need to be reminded of this:

Roundels are circles in heraldry. They are named according to their color, which also has its own lingo. Let’s meet them!

Bezant: roundel or (gold) 🟡

Plate: roundel argent (silver) ⚪️

Torteau: roundel gules (red) 🔴

Pomme: roundel vert (green) 🟢

Hurt: roundel azure (blue) 🔵

Golp: roundel purpure (purple) 🟣

Pellet: roundel sable (black) ⚫️

If your field is strewn with roundels, you can describe it appropriately as being bezanty, hurty, golpy, and so on.

[cognitohazardous]

[sunlight-shunlight]

i keep rotating it in my mind that the veilguard Conceptualization of slavery is like

slavery is bad, and therefore, the majority of the population knows this, and is against it! and slavers are extremely obviously and exaggeratedly evil, and will be using their slaves as human furniture, so you know that it's just needless cruelty for the sake of it. and this is all in the context of the Redeemable Democratically Reformable Empire, where the average people at the bread markets (we are not going to question who bakes the bread or harvests the wheat or grinds the flour) are nice. so therefore slavery is not actually intrinsically tied to the economy, it's just this evil act that people do purely bc they are villains.

however. if you blood magic bind solas and use him as a sort of forcible battery to hold up the veil.... that's fine, bc it is actually for the greater good to support the continued existence of the bread markets. even though this should actually be considered as enslavement or forced captivity. which is even sadder if you consider that he was the most anti-slavery character in the games up to that point.

so then the conclusion incoherently becomes like... slavery is actually ok, as long as it can be justified as being in other people's benefit(?) and the person being held against their will is Problematic and Not Nice To You(?). putting my head in my hands and lying down on the floor and rolling myself down the street like a tumbleweed.

[sunlight-shunlight]

please write the paper ;0; i would read it ;0;