#ageofdragon rant

[ageofdragon]

So Isabela not being monogamous according to Inquisition when with Hawke. I mean she LOVES Hawke that is never in question ever, she was falling for Hawke by the end of Act 2 hard and she would fight for their lives.

But Isabela is also pretty clear about the fact she needs an open relationship, because monogamy has too much weight to her. Her past trauma was ended when her marriage ended and it ended in the freedom of sex with some elf assassin she kinda sorta knew.

I completely understand in so many ways how it can be offputting and not what others want of her. Still it's a part of who she is and there needs to be that certain level of understanding and freedom in any relationship she dedicates herself to. So I mean...others might not be, but I'm up for Isabela and Hawke double-teaming the Commander for curiosity and fun sake.

[ageofdragon]

Okay, so I finished my first read of Faces of Thedas and while I'm sad they dropped a few of the canon character profiles in favor of minor ones (I mean...who really need yvette stat-ed?), it was overall interesting.

I love the fact they add Incarnated Spirit (i.e. Cole) and Ben Hassrath as player characters. But I think my shout out for favorite content has to be King Alistair's profile. Between the line "Alistair would rather talk about cheese than sex", the fact he has a custom pike for his "pike-twirler" extra, and the fact it recommends giving him stealth at higher levels to sneak away from kingly duties to vacation in antiva; he was peak content.

[ageofdragon]

Real talk for a minute

The LGBT+ as sexy, seductive evil villain is an overplayed and harmful trope, BUT so many of us LGBT+ people love them. This is in part because we empathize with them, we see ourselves in their mannerisms, motivations, and appearances.

But also, most of these villains are more interesting and developed than their hero counterparts. A lot of people (no matter sexuality) love a good villain and it is because so many heroes are pretty faces, with unknown/underdeveloped backstories, and are just there to conquer evil while looking good and getting their love interest. Your stereotypical hero is usually without flaw or at least ones that can be overlooked, while villains are riddled with them. And while heroes often conform, even if they didn't start out that way, the villains would rather die than change what made them stand out and reach the top.

It's why there are Those Villains in the LGBT+ community we seem to pretty much collectively hate. The villains who are fighting to conform, to change others to suit themselves. Because these are Our real life villains.

So yeah, love my lethal lesbians, guillotine gays, and bad bitch bisexuals, even though I know they we deserve better.

Anyways thanks for coming to my hot take.

[ageofdragon]

AO3 Tagging Rant

I’m going to offer two points of Archive of Our Own advice right now. I probably have more, but just two need to be said right now.

1. Watch Your Tagging: Try not to tag you fic like you would a tumblr post, like I know it is impulsive to do that, but AO3 tags are really for order/searching only. Tag your tropes, your plot points, your (MAIN) relationship, and any triggers/warnings; but as a interested reader I am not going to scroll through your tags to read your thoughts. I’m actually really glad you're excited about your story and want to scream into the abyss, but that’s why there is an author note’s for before and after the story/chapter. And as a reader, I am more likely to read those with fervor.

Most readers in my experience as a reader, writer, and friend to other readers and writers look for a fic that has Truthful tags about the tropes, couples, and plots they like. Perhaps the greatest longest epic in existence of the fandom has 12 plot tags (some in which they rant, but all relevant to the content within and only one is self commentary), the other 24 are character and relationship tags.

2. WATCH YOUR TAGGING/FILTERING: SERIOUSLY, I’m so tired of scroll past whole pages of fics that have either minute things tagged (i.e. a ship you read about for 5 seconds) or things they just don’t have, but are tagging for exposure. You should not ever have to put a #F/M or #Hetero in your AO3 tags, just click the damn F/M filter tag when publishing your fic. If we see Adoribull show up for a single, 5 second read I’m not going to be upset the tags didn’t tell me.

Don’t get me wrong, if your Secondary/Side pairing is just as prominent as the Main pairing go for it. But an implied, side ship, between two people who see each other once the whole story does not need to be in a tag that others will be scoping out for fics they actually want to read with that pairing.

It kills me how many fics have all the category (aka: relationship) tags checked on it, while the only pairing in the whole story is (MN) and not (YZ or FU).

I get the whole exposure aspect and all that, but honestly it makes searching a mess, I will hate you, and probably never read any of your fics because 🖕

tldr; I’m a salty reader/writer tired of seeing a fic in every tag not because you managed to hit all the good stuff, but because your trying to self-promote in/using tags. And it doesn’t make me want to read your story ever.

[ageofdragon]

jankkarinkatu replied to your post “AO3 Tagging Rant”

personally i like it when ppl put side/mentioned pairings in the “additional tags” section. like “x/y mentioned” or “background x/y” cause that way it won’t show up when you’re searching for that pairing, but if you really want to avoid it you know in advance.cause i know personally there’s some ships where even if they’re in the background it ruins the fic for me, so i’d rather be prepared. but i also hate looking for fics for a pairing and finding a million fics for some other ship that have the pairing i want in the background

You know what, yes fair. This.

I put “Mention of” on fics before. I don’t have issue with this. Especially since it does warn people there possible NOTP or a concept ship they’re not comfortable with is mentioned.

Just please, writers of the universe stop main tagging side pairings because two side characters stood beside each other for exactly one sentence the whole story.

[ageofdragon]

I've got a lot of thoughts on Legacy being canonically in Act 3 and it starts with Hawke being 20 at the start of DA2, two years older than the twins.

Goes into how Anders and Isabela are the finest 30 year olds Hawke could date in Kirkwall (not because their 30, but because everyone else over 29 in Kirkwall looks like a mustached potato).

And ends in how Hawke is TWO YEARS older than the twins and put in the place of their late father, looking after their sibling(s) and mother. In a way their mother should be doing, being that she is only 40 iirc.

I do not have the emotional capacity to actual delve into it right now tho...I'm gonna go cry. Relatability is Bad

[ageofdragon]

I may be in the minority, but I feel like Inquisition was an entire smear campaign against the Dalish. We have Minaeve who says she was kicked out at a young age by the Dalish for being a mage portraying them as cruel, Sera who says their all stuck up, whiny piss-babies and Solas who pretty much says they are idiotic and misguided. Then with the Temple of Mythal with Abelas declaring to a Dalish Inquisitor that they aren’t HIS people. As well with the revelation in Trespasser... 1/2

2/2 that not only were the ancient elves no better than Tevinter as they kept slaves but seemed to deserve their enslavement after Arlathan fell because of it. It just ignores the decades of slavery where they were beaten, used as sacrifices and Maker knows what else! I just wish that DA4 does a better fucking job in portraying the Dalish a lot better

I don’t feel like this is a minority opinion though. Like a ton of people were pissed and upset by a ton of this stuff, how every problem in Thedas was the elves and how the elves deserved to be punished because look at what all they did. Also I feel like it was all elves getting this slack not just the Dalish, we only saw more of the Dalish because we played a Dalish. But Sera was shit to city elves as well, Solas used them as his agents (most likely using half-truths like he did with the Inquisitor). Not to mention how the City Elves are kind of dismissed as a lost cause by other elves and overlooked quite a bit by Bioware itself. So really all the elves could use some redemption (that they shouldn’t need) in DA4

I mean, I hope this gets better addressed in DA4 too. Although I more yearning to see Andrastians get taken down a peg. It was the one thing that pissed me off in Trespasser. Is that we find out the Veil, the one thing that holds the Maker mythology together was done by Solas not “The Maker”. The Maker was said to create the Veil, in turn creating the first children (spirits), and that as such the Fade is his home, where he brings souls that deserve to be laid to peace.

EXCEPT Solas created the Veil, which means elves existed before Spirits or were spirits ],) . Which means either the Maker “worked through” an Elf, which they would have to admit. The Maker is an Elf, which Hoo Boy. OR The Maker doesn’t exist and Andraste used him as a rallying cry, which HOO BOY. Where is my Chantry discourse, Bioware! If elves have to address their religion being a lie , where is them shitty Andrastians who have to address an Elf being responsible for almost all Maker was said to have done.

[ageofdragon]

Hey so nugs having little human hands, like some racoons still messes me up. But not as much as nuggalopes having giant human fists ✌✌✌