#...yaaaaaay

[zundely]

Playing DAI again and I have some thoughts about the Varric/Solas banter. Those aren't entirely nice thoughts however so so be warned if you don't like hearing negative takes about DAI, which is totally cool btw, this is what is coming under the cut.

So what I feel like most often gets praised about the banter between Varric and Solas is that they perfectly encapsulate their opposing wirldviews. Varric who embraces change vs Solas who can't let go of the past. And I do get that. I think the old man on the island part is great.

What is not so great is... a lot of their banter leading up to that part. I am not a fan of Solas asking questions about dwarves, dwarven culture- some of which I would love to get an actual answer to- and Varric just shrugging and going "Dunno don't care, all the dwarves that care are stuck up pricks" and then Solas marveling at him being not like other dwarves.

And the thing is- that is kind of the point like, Varric not caring much about past and embracing now is the core part of this philosophical debate. Embracing the change is the key element of Varrics prespective. What I dislike is how we end up putting all of dwarven culture on the chopping block to drive that point home.

I already made a post once about how Varric's approach to his heretige is very close to Sera's. And, even if Sera is not the most perfect representation of internalized racism... there is only one Sera, and there are 6 other elven companions, all of whom have diffrent perspectives on their culture. There is less then half of that for the dwarves, and no other dwarven companion in Inqusition meaning Varric is the only point of view on the dwarves we get. Imagine if through both DA2 and DAI the only elf companion we got was Sera.

Now why do I care about that. Because the "people who care 'too much' about their traditions and culture need to chill out" narrative is something that perminates a lot of Dragon Age writing about minorities. The elves do get it most often and the worst, but other races like dwarves and qunari aren't getting off the hook either. And with dwarves it annoys me specifically for quite some time now- because the racist and kind of anti-semitic writing in dwarves slips under the radar a lot of the time, especially since the writers did make a point to state the Jewish inspiration in Andrastian Elves openly and they get a lot more focus in the narrative.

So we end up with Varric, whose internalized racism not only goes unexamined, it is something that earns him praise and awe from an elven god. The message, however (hopefully) unintended is "Rejecting your cultural roots in the name of assimilation is a better way to be then worrying and caring about what you might be loosing ". And idk, I just. Don't like it. I think it sucks.

[seagiri]

me puse a llorar dibujando

[3lsmp]

hello limited life enjoyers. sparkle smajor sunday

[turnipoddity]

what a cool cardigan huh

[fischlich]

two mimir

[meggn]

🔩 👻 🕸️ 🧛

[soapyakships]

reunion

[kaithefirst0127]

hahahaha jm so funnt

[pestilentbrood]

You guys don't understand how abnormal this new breed is going to make me. Like even putting aside that they're fat little grubs, which means everything to me for biased reasons (I am an entomologist), this fits my headcanons for Arcane v. Light dynamics so. So hard. I'd always interpreted Arcane and Light as not particularly getting along because their search for knowledge takes them in opposite directions, with Light looking to the past/history and Arcane looking to the future/beyond.

And now. Now the ancients for both reflect that. Arcane's ancient is Aethers, moths that were sent into space to search the cosmos. And now Light's ancients are Everlux, caterpillars still cocooned in old books.

I'm sooo. Normal. I'm so unbelievably normal. I need to make an Aether + Everlux duo that hate each other sooo bad.

[cupid-tune]

Hehe Hal warmups

[fisherrprince]

various balloons of varying quality

[p0kern1ght]

is it a safe space to talk about how these 3 are so absolutely fantastically fucking

[angelkissedface]

sister, o my sister; the knife in my back.

[remanedur-art]

a comic from 2019 that i did for velvetomo, with her sona and the struggle of the MMO grind 😔⚔️

[supernormalblogname]

thaaaat's right, c'mere... I've got you...

(minors dni please)

[stanfordsweater]

1129: there's meaning as long as there's someone to need it

for @wincestwednesdays, week one: performance