worm posting? no no, WYRM posting

Reli // 26 // any // yeah solas did some things wrong but he's at the end of the day still right // I follow from @ether-doll

[eviscerateddove]

Hi my name is Reli and I decided to put containment on my dragon age babbling

... probably a lot of Solas posting. Mostly Solas posting. Yeah. (I fell down a slippery slope with that man. He's too relatable to me. And I adore him very much tbh)

Dualweilding my Solasmancing ships and no one can stop me I am Free

Also a Raleigh Samson enjoyer in my spare time

Yeehaw

Here's a series on AO3 I'm writing

Looking for stuff related to any character of mine here? It's now in the tags for convenience (you'll find both visuals and information on them in the tags have fun babes)

[eviscerateddove]

Does anyone else remember how in trespasser you can agree with Solas? Beg to go with and help him? Anyone? Because I do

And I know people change over a decade, however

100% could have had the option to have the inquisitor working independently of but in cooperation with Solas I'm JUST SAYING that could have fucked so hard

I don't remember if that's a romanced Lavellan exclusive dialogue branch tho but could you fucking imagine

[eviscerateddove]

1) thank you prev for leaving tags. I love when people do and they don't do that enough anymore and I wanted to make that appreciation first and foremost

2) yes yes I know this. This is why keyword is independently. Maybe he wouldn't know. Maybe he would only know there was a mysterious benefactor helping his spies (Inquisition disbanded) or that he's had remarkable luck in not running into Inquisition interference (Inquisition not disbanded) or something of the like. The Inquisitor being his (wo)man on the inside without his knowledge. (Hell, this could work for an Inquisitor that was just good enough friends with him depending on the Inquisitor)

Maybe he wouldn't know until the end. Maybe he would start putting clues together if say Rook was intentionally misguided by the Inquisitor in this particular case scenario. Maybe the Inquisitor would leave a calling card of some sort that he doesn't quite get until he's privy to some crucial detail that suddenly makes it fit.

Rook who is working against Solas being betrayed by the Inquisitor at the critical moment because they've been manipulating things behind the scenes. Or a plan from Rook not working because they were intentionally misled into something that rendered the plan inert, but that was the plan all along. Just not Rook's.

Again, very dependant on your choices and Inquisitor. But it could have fucked so hard ngl

[chanafehs]

Vivienne’s line about “a leash can be pulled both ways” is actually so fascinating because it can not only be applied to its original context (Mages & Templars) but to the Inquisitor themselves - as many have discussed the Inquisitor loses their standing, their heritage, their identity to this weird Andrastian cult up in the mountains regardless of what they personally believe. They are the Herald of Andraste, the leader of this massive powerful religious military organization that has its hands in every holding in Thedas and yet the Inquisitor is controlled by everyone else. You are locked into centrist diplomacy, the game is playing you as much as you are playing it. You can make choices but all of the choices you make are guided and picked apart by everyone else, you lose your entire personhood to become someone that everyone around you has molded you into and you cannot escape. The dichotomy between Vivienne and Sera becomes even more interesting because on one hand, Sera keeps trying to humanize you and tear down the barrier between you and the average person (or followers of you), while Vivienne wants you to harness your position since it is all you can do because escape is not an option - harkening back to her experience as a circle mage. Dragon Age Inquisition fundamentally gives you a protagonist sitting in the most powerful position in Thedas and the only thing you cannot control is yourself.

[raquedinal]

Varric

[kuttenberg-gauntlets]

the 3 rules of enjoying Any fandom are 1. follow everyone who you find funny 2. block everyone who you find annoying 3. when you like someone's art tell them

[lynnerdo]

Finished up this beautiful glam Rook last night.

(Alex Jordan made him)

Emmrich's going to eat his heart out. 💚💀

[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

[plloish]

I wanted to hop on to this trend 😄😄

[amellslittlestar]

// hinterlands & redcliffe in autumn //

Dragon Age: Inquisition

[atiya-nagrano]

tbh anders as a religious character and indeed religion being a deeply important thruline in da2 is compelling 2 me bc yes The Chantry as an institution is bad. full stop. but anders doesn't blow up the chantry bc he hates andrastianism — the way he talks abt andraste indicates that he admires her, that he's trying to emulate her, even, that he doesn't think she would appreciate what's been done w her teachings re: mages. he believes himself to be adhering to a truer version of andrastianism, and tbh i think from there it can be p easily extrapolated that he doesn't consider blowing up the chantry to be a desecration so much as a purification. by fire!

he also lives in darktown, where ppl openly complain abt having been abandoned by the chantry. in the context of a religion where the maker has abandoned EVERYONE, i think that's way more loaded than even the accusation of hypocrisy that potentially resonates w the player.

i like that in awakening, he expresses explicitly that he thinks abt andraste as a real person who really existed. to me, that casts his sexual comments (lmao) towards andraste as both a kind of annoying, passive aggressive way of yanking the rug out from under anyone who gets too precious abt andraste and also, yeah, he says sexually annoying things to needle ppl.

i think a lot of faithful andrastians might have a v difficult time praying in a chantry like the one in hightown. but esp for someone like anders, who is in over his head trying to take care of all the ppl that specific chantry has abandoned, like. the religious vibes of that are v compelling to meeeeeeee.

[eviscerateddove]

Hi I'm alive I've just been pointed in a different direction on the fixation roulette biggest apowogies to the mentions in my notifs-

[latedawnsandearlysunsets]

[chrismiris]

What's the old Dalish curse?

May the Dread Wolf take you?

And so he did💔

[rederiswrites]

Forever wondering what the presence of free undead labor does to the Nevarran economy and the power of low-paid labor. "There are no slaves here," Emmrich says, nobly, two rooms away from a skeleton with a pickaxe.

[wotzka]

I'm split on this, because on one hand, I do not love that the game gets away with depicting unpaid labor as morally okay without examining it more closely or unpacking it.

However, on the other hand, whenever I am introduced to a magic system in a world with a similar social structure to ours, I'm like, "why haven't they used to magic to solve capitalism". Literally, like that is the first thing I would do with magic: solve capitalism. So why aren't the wizards working on it??

And hey! Nevarra did that. The spirits enjoy experiencing new things, that is presented with some level of internal logic, and the mages have turned Death Magic into a renewable energy source.

That said if someone wants to write a Communist Manifesto for the Necropolis spirits, I say go for it! Rise up brother! You got nothing to lose but your mortal coil.

[rosella-writes]

Solas shows us how he feels about the slavery of spirits in Nevarra specifically in the TN short story, The Dread Wolf Take You, when he kills the Mortalitasi at the meeting, then frees the wisp she's bound to forever stir her tea.

Dorian (who practices necromancy and trained in Nevarra) and Solas also argue over the use of spirits as unpaid, bound labour in Inquisition, where Solas directly links the practice to the idea of modern day slavery.

Solas is too busy freeing spirits to write the above Manifesto, of course, but there's room in the world of Thedas to make the case to free them.

[rederiswrites]

In the OP I was actually specifically thinking about how this would affect the human residents of Nevarra, but these are all excellent points and I especially appreciate you for pulling receipts on Solas's take on this.

Emmrich does address this at some point and say that the wisps used as labor have very little independent will and thought, but he is very much steeped in this culture and has had no outside view on it whatsoever. Solas' reaction to the stirring wisp is a very interesting counterpoint to exactly Emmrich's point. Otherwise, in fairness to the Mortalitasi, that one especially was nasty business and hopefully not representative of the organization.

But though both sides absolutely deserve discussion, the side I was originally thinking about was the low-paid human laborers whose work is devalued by the availability of free labor. No doubt skeletal labor is much less common outside the Necropolis, but Nevarra is a very stratified society. Ingvellar's origin story illustrates very clearly that even after death, the nobles are treated with far more agency and respect than non-nobles.

Krem talks about this from a Tevinter point of view in Inquisition--how the existence of slave labor made being poor "free" people an almost untenable position for his family growing up.

Then there's the fun possibility presented in the tags:

@sleepingfancies said:

#some truly frightening possibilities that nevarran aristocracy can and will condemn innocent people to death to bolster an unpaid workforce

Echoes of the Chantry condemning mages to Tranquility to gain unimpeded access to their labor.

[fenrelmercar]

[virevas]

what a broody wolf

[pinnipurr]

There's a personal hell for the character fan and that is the character's main tag on tumblr dot com