I mostly ramble about Dragon Age these days. Two has my favourite cast of characters. Origins is my favourite in terms of gameplay, plot design, level design, and worldbuilding.
The characters I like best are Fenris, Merrill, Justice!Anders, Morrigan, Zevran, Sera, and Sigrun. Also I'm obsessed with the Tevinter class system.
I used to post a lot about Yu-Gi-Oh! which is also class conflict and thus good.
Other things I like include dated JRPGs and literature.
I take things too seriously. I like to pick things apart and complain about them and roast my faves sadistic haterism style.
Sometimes I commission or am gifted art. Please have a look.
Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
#i agree with most of this but tbh i think leliana is just in such extreme headass denial about how she was abused by marjo#i think she may seriously be unable to clock morrigan's abuse by flemeth in any way that's not just like-#how can i best exploit this info bard style
this is a good point and while i disagree i don't think it's an unfounded or incorrect interpretation. for a brief moment i lived in a world where there were debates abt how much of leliana's perception of her own identity is abt how she operates as a professional bard or how she operates as an exploited bard, and it was a good world. sebastian parallels to me, tbh. what abt being subsumed into the chantry relatively late in life after a period of 'sin' makes you go 'i will not see the abuse in front of me unless it supports my worldview'?
sorry i got cold feet and was gonna make my own post about it but since we're in dialogue. not sure how much i agree or disagree here really at the end of the day, because at some point we're maybe just splitting hairs over definitions on perception, but i do think there is a lot of evidence in leliana's dialogue that she views marjolaine's betrayal of her as starting and ending with what is essentially a murderous break up where she got tossed over for harwen raleigh and not like- a betrayal that started when she was picked up as a teenager and sexually groomed into both a profession and a relationship consistently happening on this older woman's terms. and it is very vivid in my mind that leliana insists on the interpretation that they were exes who were once in love to the point where it was a plus for her and not a negative when my warden who was romancing her told her that she hoped one day leliana would love her as much as she loved marjo. and this is all very embarrassing for me to witness when it comes to her inability to process her own trauma is having backlash on a woman a decade younger than her, but the parallel i was making here wasn't particularly that she was so similar to zevran but rather to wynne.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wow i had forgotten you have that dialogue option as a warden. i agree that we're doing more agreeing than disagreeing as;dlfkjsd like this is kind of just how leliana ends up where she does by dai.
the wynne parallel being put into conversation w the way wynne doesn't slut-shame leliana when she has the 'you don't have time for romance' conversation w the warden is agonizing 2 me. in that post i created a dichotomy between a female warden who is able to be educated vs morrigan who is an irredeemably bad woman in wynne's eyes, but the secret third category strikes again. woman who actually is doing womanhood correctly, and if she's doing it correctly bc it's similar to wynne's womanhood except leliana has a 'redemption arc' and no motherhood baggage (from wynne's point of view), then that's like, total coincidence. for sure.
Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
#i agree with most of this but tbh i think leliana is just in such extreme headass denial about how she was abused by marjo#i think she may seriously be unable to clock morrigan's abuse by flemeth in any way that's not just like-#how can i best exploit this info bard style
this is a good point and while i disagree i don't think it's an unfounded or incorrect interpretation. for a brief moment i lived in a world where there were debates abt how much of leliana's perception of her own identity is abt how she operates as a professional bard or how she operates as an exploited bard, and it was a good world. sebastian parallels to me, tbh. what abt being subsumed into the chantry relatively late in life after a period of 'sin' makes you go 'i will not see the abuse in front of me unless it supports my worldview'?
sorry i got cold feet and was gonna make my own post about it but since we're in dialogue. not sure how much i agree or disagree here really at the end of the day, because at some point we're maybe just splitting hairs over definitions on perception, but i do think there is a lot of evidence in leliana's dialogue that she views marjolaine's betrayal of her as starting and ending with what is essentially a murderous break up where she got tossed over for harwen raleigh and not like- a betrayal that started when she was picked up as a teenager and sexually groomed into both a profession and a relationship consistently happening on this older woman's terms. and it is very vivid in my mind that leliana insists on the interpretation that they were exes who were once in love to the point where it was a plus for her and not a negative when my warden who was romancing her told her that she hoped one day leliana would love her as much as she loved marjo. and this is all very embarrassing for me to witness when it comes to her inability to process her own trauma is having backlash on a woman a decade younger than her, but the parallel i was making here wasn't particularly that she was so similar to zevran but rather to wynne.
Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
to be extremely basic, klimt's the kiss fandom parodies always get me. anyhow, has anyone done one with fenris getting smooched on the cheek? like, yeah, shortie, wishing to be engulfed and enmeshed in someone else's visual motif, and a luxury few can afford. he's perfect for it.
this technically is true but I think this also perfectly encapsulates why I am inherently distrustful of like. “”cozy”” “turn your brain off” fiction lmfao. like okay WHO gets to turn their brain off and who has to suffer through bigoted caricatures of themselves while everyone else is having cozy silly no brain time 😐
my chocolate consumerism struggles continue but the specific aspect of it that's been bugging the shit out of me recently is that a lot of fair trade brands kinda double up on vegan and health conscious and like- i'm gonna be real i just want milk chocolate with toffee bits and i feel like it should not be a huge ask to find that without child labour AND YET
tony's chocolonely mildly pisses me off every time i eat it. like yeah i get it ur doing a whole symbolism thing about unfairness and whatever, but its actually SO DIFFICULT to eat fucking. gerrymandered chocolate. your symbolism is ruining my chocolate experience.
like. ur already more expensive. i understand this. i am willing to pay more money to have slave-free delicious chocolate. why must you punish me further by making it a goddamn puzzle to break a piece off.
Tony's Chocolonely does not ensure a living wage for cocoa workers in West Africa (see 2020 report by Voice Network).
Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:
transparency about the country of origin for cocoa
if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)
if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")
this isn't perfect, obviously, but it is much more grounded in the rights of workers than the various certifications (e.g. Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, etc.) you'll see on product packaging
I think it should be noted that the Food Empowerment Project specifically only lists companies making "at least one vegan chocolate product" and that they only ask about the companies' vegan chocolates specifically. Their list is not an exhaustive resource for every type of chocolate.
[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]
Before I found that link I was curious as to why I didn't see any Norwegian manufacturers on their list(which makes sense now, as their chocolates are almost exclusively milk chocolate) and looked up where our companies source their chocolate from and found Nidar gets theirs from the Rainforest Alliance and Freia from Cocoa Life, both of which have been under scrutiny for not preventing child labour and not paying farmers a living wage among other things. So it appears Norwegian chocolate is out of the ethical picture.
I stated this in the comments of the post already, but it’d probably be better to add it as a reblog, so it’s more visible and doesn’t need to be restated by anyone else in the future.
So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)
About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)
Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.
If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here:
Below is a list of chocolate companies that only use ethically grown cocoa. Find out how you can tell if the chocolate you are ea
And it doesn’t have the vegan product restriction the other list has, which solves @aloofraven’s issue.
I think tumblr should have a self-plagiarism alert feature I want a pop-up that says “you already made this exact post with this exact phrasing two weeks ago. there is no hope for you”
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age (Video Games)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anders & Justice (Dragon Age), Anders/Karl Thekla, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Characters: Anders (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Karl Thekla, Hawke (Dragon Age), Nathaniel Howe
Additional Tags: Character Study, Medical Procedures, Self-Harm, Trauma, Angst
Summary:
Anders starts a clinic in Darktown.
—
anders clinic fic is posted 🎉 content warnings are in the end note for chapter 1
really do sit down like 'okay, it's 11pm, tonight let's get all ten of those reviews you've been sitting on done and completely rewrite the end to that chapter' like, yeah, totally realistic goals that won't end up in you panicking and getting nothing done, executive dysfunction monarch
This is my personal shit taste take, but tbh I also wish film would ask me to suspend my disbelief for a stylised puppet or an actor in a mask sometimes instead of an uncanny valley cgi animal. Like, it's a fable. Nothing is real. If you tell me a kid wearing a fox mask is a fox that's just less jarring to me at the end of the day than being asked to believe the unnaturally animated computer blob is.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I wrote a thing!
12k words of Sera/Lavellan and the Exaulted Plains and the Unadin Grotto and the Dalish Encampment and Loranil and so many ugly unresolved feelings about cultural alienation and heteronormativity. So many of them.
idk, i feel kinda weird because i did kinda absorb the idea that it was my responsibility to contribute to the f/f fanfic scene if i wanted to see more of the content about women i wanted to be reading even if i didn't have a specific obsessive hyperfixation with any particular f/f ship the way i'm confidently able to say fenmerders or ettushipping are my otps in the da or ygo fandom or whatever. like i don't think my f/f fics are written entirely out of social obligation, eat your veges, as much as like- maybe require a little more initial investment of energy before returning the warm fuzzies of creative satisfaction. and yeah that does probably contribute to me getting generously to like 15k words with my f/f works when i've written novel length f/m and m/m. and maybe you can call me a performative hack for that and i will go cry insecurely about how i'm a shitty bi person with no meaningful solidarity with other sapphic ppls. but i think what i'm ultimately trying to say is that i will definitely commiserate about the unfairness of the world and the lack of interest in female characters and wlw and the ways this is systemic, but the absolute hostility when anyone suggests that maybe, if you want more of x content on the post your own fanfic website, you should write and post more of that content does freak me out a bit because when people said that to me i was like 'okay' and then did go and write a bunch of f/f stuff i am legitimately happy to be able to read
