#xkatchy

[elfrootcollector]

Can we stop whitewashing dark-skinned characters?

Teia Cantori has beautiful dark skin, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the post by @woundedsoul12 on the left shared by @teiaweek2026. To the mods credit, they removed it after I messaged them.

As a person of color, I’m tired of seeing people who look like me portrayed insensitively. Please do better.

[saessenach]

OK WAIT I HAVE QUESTIONS. I wanna know the lore behind your Cantori Diamond !!!!! Spill the tea I'm INTRIGUED!!

HIIII

First of all THANK YOU for your wonderful comments and your enthusiasm, I'm so !!! 🫶🫶🫶

Second of all - this will hopefully be the topic of another fic I've got on the backburner, about Teia's rise to Talon-hood. it'll be a while yet before that materialises lololol, I have only a very sketchy outline and on pride, freedom and Treviso took a LOT out of me, but I'm playing around with so many ideas of what might or could have happened to her, that she got to the point where we meet her in 8LT, and later in Veilguard.

In short though, we know she was taken in by the Crows at roughly 8 years of age. We know she considers Caterina her mother, BUT she is very distinctly of a different house. Now, there are all lot of ways as to how that might have played out, and I'm only doing guess-work here and finding what feels fun to me, but I would imagine that when she was first, ahem, recruited, somehow both Caterina and the then-Cantori Talon were involved (I'm delighted at the idea that she might have tried to pickpocket Caterina, because that would be a fun little way to outrage the First Talon, AND set a precedent for the way they bond over beautiful things in 8LT. But that's just me) What were these two Talons doing in Antiva City 30 years ago? idk, you decide. I imagine between the two of them, Cantori took her in as being the weaker house, but Caterina couldn't help but also be charmed by the brazen little street urchin.

This is where HC territory truly begins. Here is what we know: given the sheer size of Villa Dellamorte and the way Lucanis personally identifies with Treviso, it's a safe bet that Treviso is the Dellamorte city, the same way Salle and Rialto belong to de Riva and Cantori. We know Crows have specific territories, but also that they forge alliances - so it could be possible that the Cantori Diamond was a concession in that sense, and a show of allyship between the two Houses. I imagine it might have been an establishment Teia was spent a lot of time in as a child, since her relationship with Caterina didn't wane over the years, so for that you need proximity. Perhaps House Cantori moved between Rialto and Treviso a few times a year! Perhaps Fledgelings were trained in one place and Crows worked in another! I don't know, but Teia needed to be in Treviso.

Now then, the scene is set, and from here we get certain glimpses over Teia's life, in lines such as the infamous "cruel men seemed drawn to her" or "we cannot let the cruelty of others define us" - between that and what we know from Zevran of how Crows were treated back then, the picture is quite not pretty. I don't think House Cantori would have been particularly kind, or particularly stable - and yet, it is a point of pride for Teia to be a part of it. You don't get a whole back piece you keep on display about something you're not proud of. As such, I imagine Teia's meteoric rise to power happened against a backdrop of cruelty and intrigue, with the Diamond as the seedy setting. No one in their right mind is going to consider a twenty-something year old, no matter how charismatic, the right choice for head of House, not unless every other option is so much worse.

SO to end this rant that I'm not 100% sure answers your question, I went with the idea that the Diamond is a piece of the Cantori legacy she inherited - a place where at least one of her precursors were brutally killed, where she might not have been safe, but at least she could be close to Caterina, and where her idea of family first coalesced. Somewhere that married the horror and wonder of being an Antivan Crow, and a place that she ultimately turned, later in life with her partner-in-crime, into the seat of a resitance movement. I think it's an experiment, for her, for what the Crows could be, and I am obsessed with that.

[flowersforthemachines]

If you feel like sharing, what is your favorite music in the game? I've been listening to the themes for Flying Waters and Sirène on repeat they're just so gorgeous.

Of course I feel like sharing, this isn't a secret at all :)

Flying Waters is actually my favourite song in the entire game! I was in its top 0.4% listeners on Youtube Music in 2025 which honestly doesn't surprise me even the tiniest little bit ksfjklsjdflasdf

Out of boss themes, I'b osessed with Aline and Une vie à peindre (specifically peinder, and not t'aimer. like t'aimer is good, but peindre just hits sooooo much harder for me).

And I'm in love with all the music from the DLC!! Both Whee Whoo Days and Time To Swim Swim are gorgeous. Their whimsic atmosphere is just So Good!!

[felassan]

this blog was mentioned in tumblr's 2022 'My Year In Reviews' under 'Blogs I reblogged the most' by @martyelise, @thebookworm0001, @asongofwitchesandwilds, @ketallpot, @mass-effect-galaxy, @nerdierholler, @maharielhawke, @merrybandofmurderers @xkatchy and @caerwn. thanku!! 🥺

[swaps55]

Happy N7 day friend. In the spirit of all things Shepard/Normandy/Bioware, mine has been a flaming disaster 🔥 If I only had a krogan to keep shit in line for me 🙁 and then blow some fun paty horns. Lmao. #letsgetwreckedwithwrex

HAPPY N7 DAY!!!! I am so sorry you had a rough day!!! Hopefully your tumblr dash brings you some happy. The art, fic, and love that comes out of N7 Day is overwhelming in the best way. I love it so, so much. I'm always fried by the end of the day because I expend so much emotional energy. XD

[saessenach]

ok so. a mutual this morning said she was unwell over the season finale of gilded age. and my brain immediately went, 'oh no! saessenach!' and I almost messaged you right then, but didn't want to unintentionally spoil. SO. tl;dr I don't watch but I see your posts and I hope you're coping emotionally~ 😂😭💕

Friend, I am in the trenches 💀

Otoh it had some of my favourite moments of the new season, scenes I'd waited for a VERY long time, and a sequence of two balls that reminded me of why I fell in love with the series in the first place.

However.

The ending was like. How do I explain it. Imagine that 20 years into their partnership, Viago wakes up one day, midlife crisis in full swing, spends a few weeks shouting at & belittling Teia right up until he dumps/leaves her because he cannot forgive her for being an ambitious Talon who kills people for a living. It doesn't matter that this is their shared job and why they've been together all this time. He suddenly doesn't know if this is what he wants from life and then he leaves her. And it's allll her fault. Oh and the final shot is her crying face watching him go.

I promise I'm fine 🫠🫠🫠

[felassan]

I have a friend that has never played the games (They're very close to my heart, I forgive them this sin 😂) but they are really interested in watching Absolution. Do you have a basic run-down or know of a pre-existing post that would have the most important bullet points of the games to get the most out of the series? Appreciate your immense wealth of knowledge!! My wife and I intended on watching just the first 2 episodes and at the end all 6 were like.... that's it?! We need more 😭

hello! tysm and I know what you mean, more pls!! (๑*ᗜ*) that's a good question. the Dragon Age wiki has plot details/summaries of each of the games (DA:O, also DA:O, DAII, also DAII, DA:I, also DA:I). lots of YouTubers have done Lets Plays of the games over time. Ghil Dirthalen has a series of YouTube videos on Thedas lore here. in the one called "Nations of Thedas", the segment on Tevinter starts at timestamp 9 mins 30, and "A Brief-Complete History of Thedas" covers the history of the world. IGN did a "Dragon Age in 5 Minutes" video that covered the story so far/general broadstrokes lore up until before DA:I, Kotaku wrote a beginner's guide to all things Dragon Age article designed to help new players to DA:I who hadn't played DA2 and DA:O which could be useful, and The Kingdom has a series of 3 videos explaining the history of Tevinter (one, two, three). and to help get the most out of the series it might be helpful if they browsed the wiki pages on Tevinter, mages, blood magic and spirits/demons/possession.

I think the most important bullet points would be that:

the world is called Thedas and in it, being a mage often comes with a cost due to risk of demonic possession or perceived risk of this. because of this in most of the countries in the world mages are made to live in a system which is part of the main in-world religious organization, the Chantry, called the Circle, which keeps an eye on them and is policed by an order of knights called the Templars. however in one country, Tevinter, the country's government is made up of noble mages called Magisters, and it's effectively a magocracy. lots of bad things, dark magics and corrupt stuff goes on in Tevinter so it doesn't have a good reputation among the other nations

the Chantry religion is centered around a god called the Maker and his prophet, a human woman called Andraste

Tevinter has its own version of the Chantry, its own Chantry leader and its own Templars

Tevinter is a socially stratified society which has slavery

there are 4 races in the world, humans, elves, dwarves and Qunari (a tall horned people). elves are oppressed by humans who are the dominant race. in Tevinter elves are often enslaved. members of the other 3 races are also sometimes enslaved in Tevinter.

blood magic is a form of magic powered by blood (usually through sacrifice), it's very powerful but most people fear it and consider it to be evil. it's usually forbidden. it carries increased risk of possession. there's lots of blood magic stuff going on in Tevinter

a few years before the show begins, a corrupted ancient Tevinter magister from long ago basically came back to life and tore open part of the veil/barrier between the waking world and the magic dream world where spirits and demons live because he was A Bad Guy. this was called the Breach and demons from the other world poured through. a group of heroes got together and set up an organization with Chantry backing called The Inquisition. it was led by the Player Character from the most recent video game in the series. they could close mini-holes in the veil because of a magic mark on their hand. their title was the Inquisitor and some people thought they were chosen by Andraste so they called them The Herald of Andraste. many people joined the Inquisition to help. after closing the holes and saving the world, the Inquisition did some other stuff and then eventually disbanded.

I feel like those are the main things someone would need to know? (I tried to pare it down and put it into like, non-DA fan general fantasy terms)

I hope something here is helpful and that your friend enjoys the show ^^

[swaps55]

So I do a lot of puzzle books and this one particular clue for alliterative initials was "1979 Pulitzer winner for Drama". Are you aware there was an American actor and playwright Sam Shepard? You probably are, but made me think of you nonetheless!

Ha! I did not know that!!!!

I am laughing hysterically over the irony that he won a Pulitzer for drama.

Thank you for sharing!!!!!!!!!!!