brainrot

26 - he/him 🏳️‍⚧️ do not take anything i say here seriously I am just here to yap about da

[fellamorte]

Nick, 26, he/him, aus 🏳️‍⚧️ dragon age blog so I don't drive the people in my real life crazy. I post a lot about #myfreaks, the qunari, morrigan, lucanis, and critique/analysis.

My Art | My Fics | Keep (WIP, PC Only) I am most active on tumblr but you can also find me on: AO3 | Tiktok | Twitter

Heads up - 18+ only - I enjoy media criticism! I criticise the things I love! If that's something you don't wanna see, I tag these posts as dao criticism, da2 criticism, dai criticism, datv criticism - I have AuDHD and I'm studying/working full time, so I can be quite bad at responding to messages/tag games. I'm so sorry, but I do genuinely appreciate any tags/messages! 🫶 if i've missed something, don't be afraid to dm me!

World State 🌟 Ffion Tabris Warrior | Reaver/Berserker | 💌 Morrigan | Art Tag | Tag | Ffiorigan tag 🌟 Junior Hawke Rogue/Warrior | Assassin/Shadow/Templar | 💌 Kirkcule (Anders, Fenris, Isabela, Merrill) | Art Tag | Tag | Kirkcule tag 🌟 Ira Lavellan Mage | Rift Mage | 💌 Dorian | Art Tag | Tag | Dorira tag 🌟 Mikhal "Rook" Aldwir Rogue | Saboteur/Veil Ranger | 💌 Lucanis | Art Tag | Tag | Mikanis tag

[petaltexturedskies]

Mary Shelley, in a letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley written c. July 1814

[fellamorte]

Saw this tiktok about tattoos as a NSSI behaviour (in relation to a character in the pitt) and it was such a "OHH" moment for mikhal and his tattoos.

(putting the rest under read more just to be safe. cw general references to sh/ideation)

When i first played vg i went in w/ no real plan so the tats were just a vibes based decision. later when i thought on it + gave him custom tats I kept thinking about why he would get so many and why those tattoos. Especially because he is so particular about control. That tt made something finally click.

The period of time he gets the majority of those tattoos is in the first few years of him being stranded in Tevinter and forced into crime work. He's at his most emotionally volatile but he has no way to express that that wouldn't put him in danger.

That's where the tattooing comes in as a form of passive suicidal ideation, a way to harm himself without actively doing it. I don't think he's conscious of this behaviour. In his mind, the tattoos are a strategy to blend into society, to protect himself in Tevinter. At a glance, people see the tattoos and assume he's tal-vashoth/vashoth. But he only needed a few tattoos to do that and he has at least like. 20 tattoos. and a chunk of them aren't even visible.

There's also the element of a desire for control over his body as well as an active disassociation from it, which is a desire I think he is more conscious of/active in. There's the aspect of the Qun I find interesting about how you are not your body. In a way, Mikhal getting these tattoos is him exercising this belief in a somewhat... toxic way. The tattoos he gets are meaningless (and kinda shitty) and he lets his toxic situationship practice tattooing on him. It's like they're this permanent reminder that this body is not his. Nothing that happens to this body matters. When he looks into the mirror and sees someone he doesn't recognise its a sick kind of validation that everything has gone wrong. The life he is living is not his and therefore his actions don't matter.

He does continue to get them after leaving the thorns, one when he's with the vjs and one when he joins up w/ varric and harding. They're both very on the nose, like one is a halla, the other is a rook chess piece. He's loudly telegraphing "I'm this person now!". Both tats are very much done on a whim.

The first tattoo he gets that has any thought put into it is one he gets post-vg for lucanis/spite; two interwoven wyverns. Even still, while there is intent, it's almost ritualistic how he enters a new stage of his life and has to get a tattoo to represent it. like that tiktok says, yeah you can get the tat because you like the art and like how it looks on your body but there still is that secondary effect. The desire for control over his body and whats done to is has only doubled after finding out about solas' blood magic so whilst yeah, it is a romantic gesture, there is that aspect.

Which makes me think maybe he gets a lot more than just that tattoo post vg 💀

[merrinla]

The Soul of a City cut content

During The Soul of a City quest Rook must confront Knight-Commander Lenos. There are very few specifics in his plans. But originally, Rook was supposed to not only find evidence against Lenos and fight him, but also actively thwart his plans. Most of this content was removed, but some of it can still be found.

In the Undercity, Lenos and the Venatori planted several bombs that, when detonated, would release the blight into the streets of Minrathous. One of the Venatori was so terrified of this that she shared the information with Rook. The script includes lines of this dialogue.

Lenos is in the catacombs beneath the city. He and the Venatori planned to release blight into Dock Town. The devices were meant to release blight? Yes! To breach the catacombs beneath the city. There's blight hidden there! If there's as much as I suspect there is, and if the streets collapse… I sensed more blight recently. A lot of it. I should've known. Pardon me if I don't believe a lick of this. Could be a trap. She's Venatori herself. This lines up with what we got from the source at the Swan. I thought the Venatori offered a better life, but I don't want this! My family lives here! And if the streets collapse… everything down there comes up here. It was Knight-Commander Lenos's plan. He and the other Venatori are probably still down there. Good luck down there. The Venatori have been selling lies to people for years. Promising them they'll make things better. It seems whatever we do to stop them, it's never enough. We need to catch Lenos. He knows the rest of the Venatori's plans.

Rook finds evidence of this (Minrathous target map in the bar) and reports it to Dorian.

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Rook: I found this. The Venatori are targeting parts of Minrathous with these bombs. Dorian: Kaffas! Nothing like an attack to cause chaos in a city. Dorian: You should head there immediately. I'll send a message to the other Shadow Dragons to meet you. Dorian: You're going to need support.

In the Undercity, Rook was supposed to meet the Viper and possibly Tarquin. Unfortunately, almost nothing remains of their conversations.

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Rook: Dorian said he'd get someone to meet us. It'll likely be one of the Shadow Dragons. Rook: There's the Viper!

The Viper (and Tarquin) stayed with the firtst device, while Rook went to disable the two bombs leading to it. Lines from the script:

This one's linked to two others that need to be destroyed first. Then Tarquin and I will deal with the rest of the Venatori up here.

Each bomb was guarded by the Venatori. After fighting them, the device had to be deactivated. It's unclear whether this was a special mechanic or just a one-click action.

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Venatori combat 1 Rook: Venatori guarding the bomb! Venatori combat 1 end Rook: Let's disable this bomb. Davrin: Careful. Don't want it going off in our faces. Harding: Rook, please be careful with that. Lucanis: Careful, Rook. Taash: Try not to get blown up. Device 1 disarmed Rook: All right. We got one. Let's keep going. Venatori combat 2 Rook: More Venatori! Device 2 disarmed Rook: That's both devices now. Let's check in with the Viper.

After that, Rook returned to the Viper, but the rest is up to speculation. Perhaps they defused the last bomb together and then went on to fight Lenos, or he was already dead idk.

[fellamorte]

speaking of mikhal's tattoo's. off the top of my head his tats and the order in which he got them + who did them. You can safely assume that he was drunk for 98% of these.

thorns tramp stamp: 17, by this time he’s been with the thorns for a year. Kinda insane to give a 17 year old a tramp stamp but that is unfortunately the kinda shit that the thorns were doing

Diamonds on bicep: done by a rando

Dice behind ear: done by Anke

Weird little sea monkey thing on ankle: 18, done by rando

Nails on wrist: done by rando

Arrowhead on hand: Anke, by this time he’s earning a reputation as an archer.

Stars on hips: 19, Harrin. Wonky as shit!!

Wicked Grace angel on chest: Harrin, also wonky as shit.

Broken wishbone on knee: Harrin

Dogs on elbow

Dog & sheep above ankle: both done by Harrin around the same time. Not so subtle dig about mikhal being "their bitch" :/

Fish under the eye: 20, drunk DIY in a mirror (egged on by Harrin). He HATESSSS this tattoo.

Arrows on nape: Harrin, trying to outdo Anke’s arrow tat

Tied-up snakes on shin: 21, Anke

swords on knee: 22, Harrin

Finger tats (8 in total): 25, Harrin, by this time they’re getting better at tattoos. In world they have no rhyme or reason, however I did give him a Hawk and foxgloves (ffion)

Rooster on thumb: Anke, flexing on Harrin.

Halla getting eaten by a griffon on shoulder: 27

Halla getting attacked on thigh: Anke, joint pieces that took the most time. Around the time when mikhal is looking at the exit.

Winged Halla on his bicep: 29, done by a vj(?) Did not consider the comedic timing of him getting this after the previous tat but uh. lol. lmao even.

Rook chess piece: 32, done sometime in his travels with Harding and Varric. It’s pretty small so I think he gets it done in like 30 minutes in a rare bit of downtime.

(post-game) inter-woven wyverns (placement tbc): 33, for lucanis and spite 😋 loverboy antics.

he also has nipple piercings. He used to have facial/ear piercings but they got ripped out 💔

photos under cut

[fellamorte]

inspired by that recent twitter trend :3c

[fellamorte]

@loveydoveymerrillsabrae funny you say that, he does have this funny little guy on the inside of his ankle

[gyrovagi]

ULMCSD Final Round - "Reach Heaven Through Violence" - Dak-wai vs. Caden Trevelyan

Dak-wai (bg3 dak-wai tag on main, da dak-wai tag over here) featured in: There Must Be Candles (aka wyllfic), autism be damned this qunari i found in the desert can blow up darkspawn, that comic i reblog every 4 months

my personal friend, and yours. dak-wai began life as my 10 charisma paladin durge, and then i became so fond of them i keep putting them in other games. morally conflicted agender lesbian with a flat affect who only really knows how to kill things, and is trying to work that into a justified, fulfilling purpose in life by pursuing vengeance or making themself into a shield for others. more successful at this in bg3, where they do save the world, than in datv, where they become an abomination and let the veil fall because they wanted to kill solas really bad. but they have cool wings

Caden Trevelyan (tag link) featured in: i know you’d kill me if you could stand the sight of blood, god will give him blood to drink, when the wolfsbane blooms

the neglected, unruly youngest child of the trevelyans was transformed into the perfect templar thanks to the influence of knight-commander havard trevelyan, his great-uncle. caden’s entry into the order under havard’s guidance allowed him the opportunity to transition, and resulted in the most fucked up repressed blond man to ever hit thedas. he is faithful to the maker, dedicated to serving the chantry, and fundamentally convinced that he deserves to spend his whole life suffering because there’s something unnameable wrong with him. 100% committed to embodying the role of andraste’s herald. has really normal relationships with older authority figures, such as cassandra, who he made divine, and solas, who he literally just likes. and also punched. and also kind of blames for forcing him to go back on lyrium after secretly trying to quit. it’s complicated.

who is the definitive best character?

dak-wai

caden trevelyan

Remaining time: 11 hours 12 minutes

[spindlewoed]

bioware: fenris hates merrill, he can’t stand her me, putting sunglasses on: I cant read suddenly I don’t know

[valtsv]

i hate it when people ask me to "explain my thought process" like hell if i know

[valtsv]

"what's going on in that head of yours?" nothing i want to be a part of

[dalishious]

Lets be real though. It is a goddamn shame that the opportunity to really explore a) what it means to be a woman in Thedas and b) what it means specifically to be a woman who loves women in Thedas, is never really seized to its full potential. Like, the setup is there to easily talk about how women are idolized as a theoretical thing (Andraste) but treated like garbage in practice (pretty much every female character ever).

And the moment a female character becomes unavailable to a male player, either because she's a lesbian or "too mean" to them? They make the Straight Sera mod and Slap Morrigan mod, etc.

And then of course there is specifically the misogynoir over characters like Isabela and Vivienne and even minor characters like Teia I've seen some real bad behaviour from fans about... Let alone the treatment they get from the actual devs themselves, because that shit is like a disease the way creators and fans just pass it back and forth.

[cheaploafs]

Courts in session <3

[fellamorte]

[hymnism]

[chainofclovers]

Put in the tags the completely finished (whether cancelled or wrapped up on its own terms) TV series that has YOUR perfect ending, however you define that

Please don’t include huge spoilers for the specifics of the endings, and it would also make me happy if people don’t use this to talk about the shows whose endings they hated

[ursacircusart]

It's like the stars aligned for them...

[loopofrosewood]

something i think is super interesting is how tevinter is also kind of motivated to keep every country under the white chantry afraid of mages and magic. there are ways in which it is inconvenient for them, but we can probably assume they aren't cut off from trading with anyone but the dwarves and we also know for a fact the white chantry is willing to work with tevinter on occasion (lord seeker lambert). and with the myth of mages being unable to be enslaved in tevinter being so ubiquitous, mages will often attempt to flee from the circle to tevinter, giving tevinter the options of a) passing them back to the white chantry as a show of goodwill or b) getting free mages to press into service/enslave/sacrifice! this doesn't completely outweigh the general inconvenience of the stigma against them, i'm sure, but it's not not useful either

[mousidy]

a lot of my disillusionment with the trans "community" comes down to the fact that too many of you take "gender is different from sex" and go "ah ok, so instead of saying women are fragile and men are strong, I should say afabs are fragile and amabs are strong. to be Inclusive"

then you just treat gender like a surface level aesthetic draped over what someone "actually" is. really is indistinguishable from terf rhetoric

[mousidy]

you all need to unpack your bioessentialism, but we also need a better theory of gender than "it's just dressup." I will pick my words carefully here, but the word "gender" itself refers to so many different phenomena that have been lumped together, and we need to un-lump them

[mousidy]

in a feminist context, "gender" has historically referred to externally imposed categorization and the internalization and performance of said categories. in a paper I wrote on this subject, I called this sense of the word "extrinsic gender"

"intrinsic gender," on the other hand, is what I used to refer to the sense of the word "gender" that a lot of trans people are talking about when they discuss social gender dysphoria and euphoria. it's the internal sense of category that's resistant to external impositions

but then we also use the word "gender" to refer to subconscious sex, which is the term Julia Serano coins in Whipping Girl to name the phenomenon we're talking about when we talk about bodily dysphoria. it is the "gender" being "affirmed" by gender affirming healthcare like HRT and bottom surgery

so, "gender" is: a social classing system, a performance, and at least two internal phenomena as well. and I really don't know if it's doing us a service to conflate all of these things!

[mousidy]

a lot of people lately seem to be going heavy on the "performance" use of the word, ignoring (intentionally or otherwise) social classing, intrinsic gender, and subconscious sex. this seems to have led to a lot of "progressive" people treating trans women like men "amabs" who wear womanhood as a costume, and nobody understands why that's wrong because they also think gender is just a performance

[mousidy]

see also "why can't you just be a femboy/feminine man/etc"