Dragon Age + Other Vices

Em, she/they, nearly 30, minors dni. Spent many years here, fell off entirely for a few years, and now a brand new account. emisformagic on ao3

[mir-lethallen]

Current Obsessions/Things I'm likely to post about:

My d&d character, Nadezhda (Nez) Hillsdottír, her backstory and things happening in that campaign

The handful of in progress DAI fics I'm working on at the moment (tranquil origin inky, which is mostly written but needs editing; a Nezquisition AU; and what if Lavellan actually did sleep with everyone)

Dragon Age lore

I'll update/edit this over time but tbh I don't see these changing for a while

[kremlin]

uninstall adobe acrobat. it is malware. it has been malware. these aren't opinions: acrobat meets the definition of malware.

it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually

it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity

this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need

adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups

i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:

open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable

no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever

not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof

cheers

[andmaybegayer]

Firefox's built-in PDF.js viewer: does everything you could want from a basic viewer, fast enough search, and can now do annotations for filling in forms and such

KDE Okular: is a decent viewer and can also do basic annotations, and is so not-a-toy that you can even download it on the Windows app store.

LibreOffice Draw: I don't ever really like having to open this but if you have to edit a PDF in detail it does work, and doesn't just vomit up a bunch of polygons when you give it text to work with. Better as an authoring tool than an editor.

[ms-demeanor]

I've 100% replaced free acrobat with the firefox built-in and it works wonderfully for general office use and research/reading/viewing. It doesn't have robust redaction capabilities, but if you need to fill and sign and highlight a form it's actually much more intuitive than acrobat reader.

[theoutcastrogue]

My only problem with firefox's PDF viewer is that it only shows single page, and doesn't have a facing/book view option. (AFAIK!) So for reading, I use Sumatra PDF, which is free, open source, portable, and comically lightweight. (Adobe Acrobat is 426 MB, Sumatra is 10 MB.) No edits here though.

[jame7t]

I hate when animals are ontologically evil

[greenlabcoat]

not even true i saw you give a demon blade to a house fly last week

[jame7t]

that fly was pure of heart & dedicated it’s life to protecting women. Think before you post

[sunlight-shunlight]

anyway dai solas you will always be famous to me. nothing but respect for my boy who wandered off mid-cutscene in the hinterlands to go help out refugees, is extremely good at Lies Of Omission™️, has a whole spy/agent/informant network of elves who followed him, fervently argues that it's unethical to be happy about killing bandits bc they had lives and loved ones, describes his own temple(?) prison(?) as having "indecipherable" elven writing, has ferocious debates with dorian and iron bull about slavery, set himself on fire once by mistake, and within about a year of his 10000 year lifespan, went from seeing all the world as disposable emotionless husks, to developing actual friendships and even falling in love.

and then! still thought it was necessary to destroy and reset the world! but he would treasure the chance to be wrong again!!

[this-is-trans-joy]

I’m trying to look for synonyms of sneer and i’m fucking dying

yeah that looks normal… yeah these are all— um. hold on. hang on.

what

[the-ravens-king]

[cpunkhobie]

This is the funniest thing I've ever read. I would have LOVED to see that

[arbis-official]

three types of people

[edgar-allan-possum]

Maybe quantum physics is different in a universe where a mob boss built a working supercollider that could create portals to other worlds in 2018

[belethlegwen]

@abominablesnowdude's tags are too good to let vanish

[fadetouchedlurker]

@to-a-merrier-world, come play Dalish mage thoughts with me.

Minaeve is who you are thinking of.

So. Do some clans limit mages to three? Entirely probably, and they definitely trade them. But then we get the Veil Jumpers who have a whole bunch of mages running around together in the sketchiness of Arlathan Forest. Bellara can definitely do magic, but she mostly uses a bow. Vivienne says it's three mages to limit the risk of abominations, when you speak with her about it, but I wonder how much of that is actually true, and how much of that is what you, as a Dalish clan, let the Chantry believe in order not to have Templars descend upon you. (I think a lot of it is letting the Chantry think that, especially pre-Inquisition.) Dalish of the Chargers is very definitely a mage, but insists her staff is a BOOOW. So I wonder if, perhaps, it's not somewhat common to just not do a lot with mages who show minor talents, and let them become hunters or crafters instead. And this would make sense too, because Dalish clans are led by a mage, but being a mage doesn't make you good at leading a clan.

[to-a-merrier-world]

Ah, yes, Minaeve! Thank you, my mind was saying Mauve and I knew that wasn’t right😂

(You’ll have to forgive some of my knowledge gaps here, as I have yet to play Veilguard.)

(Gonna use a Read More so this post doesn’t get crazy long lol)

I think it’s possible the Dalish have a combination of things going on. I agree that the “only 3” rule is likely a Chantry understanding and not the whole truth, but given both Lavellan’s lack of denial (which can be read as either agreeing that clans have a limit of 3 or further obfuscating the truth) and Minaeve’s story, I’m inclined to believe there is a measure, at least, of controlling how many mages a clan has, and that it isn’t a lot.

Dalish’s cheeky “I’m not a mage, and this isn’t a staff” dialogue can be read a few ways imo. It could be an indicator that the Dalish clans may conceal their true number of mages by having some of them take up other weapons/crafts. But it could also indicate that, perhaps, Dalish (the character) has had to hide her status as a mage—both to avoid accusations of being an apostate and perhaps to hide while she was with a Dalish clan (by which I mean, hide the fact she was a mage from other Dalish elves). I’m more inclined to believe she’s only hiding to avoid apostate accusations as a member of the Chargers, but I could also see it being either 1) a tactic of Dalish clans to conceal the true number of mages or 2) a tactic of Dalish’s parents specifically to hide the fact she’s a mage from the rest of her clan. There’s a lot of possibilities really.

I can’t speak much on the Veil Jumpers, beyond wondering if they were founded more recently (relatively) and whether they count as a “traditional” Dalish clan. If they’re already bucking tradition—and, I do believe the limiting of mages may have more to do with tradition and over caution than perhaps actual risk, at least as far as abominations go—then having more mages may be seen as a non-issue, especially if their clan is, like, always taking risks by simply living in Arlathan forest. So, that clan may be singular in its make up of mages and their roles / weapons of choice, rather than indicative of wider Dalish culture.

As for clans being led by mages: I’d theorize it has to do with the holdover from when all elves had magic. It would likely create a culture that sees those who still retained their magic as better able to lead and protect others. However, I can also see the influence of humans / the Chantry impacting how the Dalish view their safety in regards to mages in their clans/the number of mages. Perhaps there’s also a pressure that, if there are too many mages among the Dalish, it puts a bigger target on their backs than there already is? Like, I don’t believe the Chantry would just take their word for it that there are only 3 mages per clan, there has got to be a history of investigation / harassment there imo, especially given the Exalted March. So, perhaps 3 visible mages is all that’s allowed, but not many other mages besides that (and perhaps only adults who are better able to hide / control their magic).

Overall, though, I do find the abandonment of children very odd given what we know of the Dalish, magical children or not. Which makes me wonder if perhaps Minaeve’s experience was also unique, in that her clan in particular was extremely harsh, while other clans may have acted more like Lavellan’s and traded? Hm…

[frigbob]

Person who wants to do stuff trapped in a body that needs to lie down

[0alix0]

At some point bioware decided to ignore that the most obvious dalish courtship ritual is GIFT GIVING, i think its a huge missed opportunity for a pure comedy gold

Like imagine mahariel making gifts for their LI over and over again but they just... don't get it for some reason!?!? Their partner says "it's nice" and "thank you" but that's it??? What if their LI don't actually want anything serious?? Was mahariel just misunderstanding their flirting this whole time???

Or Merrill getting extremely tense when Hawke gifts her, like, a wooden spoon or some shit. and immediately goes "things are moving way too fast hawke, i mean it's nice but so sudden!! and keeper Marethary knows you but you're a human and she won't bless the wedding and-- " and Hawke just 🧍 Stands there. With a wooden spoon.

Or lavellan being just BUFFLED by the amount "marriage proposals" they're given from the nobles, and frantically ask Josephine to tell people that they're not interested or that they're already taken and Josie has to explain the meaning "cultural differences" to them after figuring out wtf are they're even talking about

Like come on

[yolebrat]

Nan literally every day of DAI.

[0alix0]

AAAAAAAA this is so cute 😭💗

[sunlight-shunlight]

i haven't played dao in a really long time but my most important opinion is that i think mahariel should have made zevran the dalish gloves. it would just be really cute ok.

[sunlight-shunlight]

part 2 of zevwarden gloves comic here:

i burst in 2 months later with my own tags and several jpgs

[virgoos]

sub this dom that. what if they are both completely chained to their devotion to each other. they’re rendered powerless by it. nobody is driving the bus.

[wrigglewormz]

Quite frankly yall need to be projecting more on the doms. Make the DOM have guilty sexual fantasies !!! Maybe the DOM is shamefully staring at the ceiling after waking up from a dream!!! Yall are cowards. Do none of you have any appreciation for the noble dom identity crisis. Do none of you have any respect for guilty sadists with control issues and who desperately want autonomy for once in their damn lives and who just want to Keep someone, for once, who want to be allowed to Want and Take . Do NONE of yall have any respect for sadists realizing with horror how badly they want to hurt the person they would do anything to protect and take care of and make smile? Cowards, all of you.

[the-muffin-master]

Cute, insignificant detail I love about Lucanis Dellamorte #098: the fact that he's often holding his little cup with both of hands. Llike, he doesn't HAVE TO... he could put a hand in his pocket... or just down at his side... but no, he just cradles the cup instead...

[mixelation]

remember like an actual decade ago, there was a post giving advice for what to do if The Heterosexuals asked for your celebrity crush, and the advice was to just say "chris" and let them guess which chris and then just agree

and as your local ace i understand why such advice is appealing because i have been 13 and feeling a rising panic that i would answer "wrong" and bad things would happen. however as an adult i now understand that most people asking this are just asking you a question on par with asking what movies/music/whatever you like. they're not testing you, and if you give a fake answer, you're going to end up fielding follow-up questions or being sent memes or whatever, because they're trying to engage with your answers. just say a celebrity that you actually like (regardless of if you find them attractive or have a "crush"), or if you don't have one, say you don't pay attention to celebrities

anyway, i went out to drinks with people i didn't know that well, got asked that question, and said i wanted to study robert pattinson like a bug. now i get sent weird photos of him

[bigbigtruck]

quotes taken from the source

(the 4th one is Bumpus wanting dinner, friends can back me up on this)

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

come back to me most perfect of comics

[foldbaron]

[homunculus-argument]

The Odyssey but retold as a low-stakes modern adventure of one guy out with his girlfriend leaving the bar with his buddies to do just one (1) simple thing real quick, it'll take like 15 minutes tops, he'll be right back, but then some bullshit happens and the trip keeps getting more complicated as more bullshit keeps happening while he just tries to get back to the bar because he promised his girlfriend that he'd get back and he knows that she's still there because she told him she'd wait there.

And by the time he finally gets back it's almost 3 am and the bar is about to close while she's sitting there stone cold sober, surrounded by 5 drunk guys unsuccessfully trying to convince her to give up on waiting for him and go home with one of them instead. And the guy shows up to proceed to beat the shit out of them before explaining himself to her like hey sorry bullshit kept happening, my phone fell into a storm drain and my wallet got stolen when I was trying to find someone who'd borrow me a phone so I could call and

[thekijs]

His girlfriend had been fending off the 5 drunk guys for most of the evening by explaining that even if she was going to ditch her boyfriend, she can't possibly leave without finishing her beer, which she is keeping perpetually full via careful sleight of hand where she's just pouring it back and forth into and out of the pitcher.

However the drunk guys are also drinking, and eventually she can't afford to buy another pitcher for the table so she can't keep up the ever-full beer glass trick. At this point she has to resort to setting up the pool trick shot that she's never seen anyone but her boyfriend pull off, and says she'll leave with whoever manages the shot first.

That buys her another hour or so and then, finally, her boyfriend makes it back. He looks like shit, hair down and just a mess, he's wearing an entirely different jacket that he got from an alley, and barely recognizable—especially to 5 guys who've been drunk for hours now. He lurks for a minute, finds out what's going on, and proceeds to pull off the trick shot first try. Throws the jacket off, fixes his hair with a hair tie his girlfriend lends him, finally looks like himself again, and THEN beats the shit out of them with the pool cue.

[weaselle]

yuh i was there, that's how it happened