#Fen Mercar

[fenrelmercar]

[crows-of-buckets]

Veilguard is great bc I just cannot stop designing rooks. It's so fun. They all exist in my worldstate but they themselves aren't always rook (Ena is my canon rook). My Aldwir still gets to meet Davrin in Arlathan and my Thorne has a meet cute with Taash and my Mercar builds a lasting relationship with Neve and my Ingellvar gets to be a dork with Bellara. It's great I am having a great time. Yeah maybe it's cringe to throw all my ocs in the same worldstate and have them all still end up with their love interests but I DONT CARE IM HAVING FUN YAY YIPPEE

[woundedsoul12]

Yay finally made a WIP Wednesday

Going to get Neve (the Lighthouse's unofficial therapist) some love with Rook's sister

Using my M!Qunari!SD!Rook romancing Lucanis

“So, are we sure that's his sister?”

Taash asked the question that had definitely been on Neve's mind. It wasn't just that the woman was an entire head shorter than the Qunari she was currently squared off against, but she was also human. And despite the bruises and cuts along her skin after her capture, she was undeniably gorgeous to look at.

“I believe so,” shrugged Davrin as everyone watched with rapt attention. Neve maybe a little bit closer than everyone else.

The pair seemed to have forgotten their audience as they circled each other in the center of the Shadow Dragon hideout. For having just been rescued, she looked like she was ready to tear him apart.

“Nice of you to finally fucking show up,” she snarled.

“Look I came as soon as Ashur sent word. I don't know how fast you think I was supposed to get here but-”

“Whatever. Always the same excuses. Always dragging me into your shit.” She cracked her knuckles before her hands went to the daggers at her hip. Neve noticed Lucanis tense across the room. His eyes had that purple glow to them, and she knew this situation might turn real ugly real quick.

“Oh don't start with me. You knew what you were getting into when you joined the Shadow Dragons.”

“Fuck you, Rook,” she made a face as she said his name like it was a joke. “You can act like a badass because your friends are here. But I know you. I'm the one who always has to clean up behind your messes.”

Neve had never seen anyone talk Rook like this. She was fairly certain none of them had. Their usual carefree leader looked ready to throw hands. His face was twisted, and he was chest to chest with the small woman who looked just as furious.

“Well I'm sorry we couldn't all be mom's favorite-”

His words were finally too much. There was a loud crack as she hit him then. Square in the nose. He fell back clutching his face as blood flowed freely. Neve saw a flash of movement. Thankfully Davrin and Taash were able to restrain Spite before the demon could rush forward.

“Ah the new boyfriend I see,” she chuckled with a dangerous edge as she cast a look at the man being barely contained. “You always did have a thing for a pair of big brown eyes and nice ass. Good to finally meet the reason you let our city fall. Why there were enough Venatori to kidnap me in the first place. Thinking with the wrong head yet again.”

The color drained from Lucanis’ face. He didn't like what she was implying. And Rook was fighting through the pain as he tried to regain control of the situation.

“Leave Lucanis out of this, Fen,” he growled as he straightened while holding pressure to his nose.

The Detective could sympathize. She had been similar when Minrathous first fell.

Fen. Neve rolled the name around in her head. First impressions were that Rook and his sister had some serious family drama to work out. This woman was hurt, and lashing out at anyone she could.

Fen surveyed the chaos she had caused, a satisfied grin on her face as she slipped her hand in her pocket. “You may have these people fooled, Riley Mercar, but you can't fool me. You're still the same scared boy who ran off to the Inquisition when things got tough. Who abandoned me and the other Shadow Dragons. How long until you abandon them too?”

With the damage done she turned, disappearing out the door as everyone just stared after her.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Taash as they let Lucanis go.

The Crow rushed to Rook, checking him over before throwing a murderous look to the door Fen had just left through.

“That,” began Rook with a sigh. “Was Fennec. My sister. Fence for the Shadow Dragons and best spy I have ever met.” Lucanis growled at those words but the Qunari just ignored him. “And obviously we have some- things we need to work out.”

[githjanken]

i can be your angle….or yuor devil

Fen Mercar, Shadow Dragon, Fighter, and almost a bear if it weren’t for the fact that there’s no body hair in Thedas.

[thedinanshiral]

Revas, The Beast

Faction: Shadow Dragons

Lineage: Elf

Age: mid 20s

Gender: Male

Class/Spec: Rogue, Duelist

Kewywords: Loyalty and Retribution

Also The Tactician.

He has a twin sibling and is very protective of them, the only family he has left; his mother named them both in the hope that they’d fight for their people’s freedom.

Their master's estate mysteriously burned down one night, officially leaving no survivors, so the twins had to live on the streets for some time until the Mercar family took them in.

There’s a bit of purple left in his eyes, an almost imperceptible vestige of ancient elvhen blood in his lineage.

Their blood has unusual magical properties so even without being mages they are very magic-sensitive and sometimes can almost touch the Veil which feels very weird and tingly. The Magisters in possession of their lineage took measures to ensure no elven slave under their control, no matter how special their blood, could fully connect with the Fade in the way mages do.

He’s strong, stubborn, hot-headed, doesn’t have much faith in people and has an almost telepathic connection with his twin which doesn't help him improve his social skills much.

They’re devoted to fight for their people, their freedom and a better world, so as elves reclaiming their cultural identity they do believe in the Creators, although with a conflicting reverence for Fen’Harel; while they understand the Dreadwolf’s role as a God of Rebellion who helped the People -in his own way but help he did- and invoke him often when dealing with their enemies, they also know the “lore” and resent Fen’ Harel for setting up the world as they know it, for trapping the Evanuris away and abandoning the People to a fate arguably worse than death.

[frecklef0x]

Enoch with his sibling, @laelish’s Fen! They were both adopted by the Mercars, Fen as a toddler and Enoch at 14 when he left his dalish clan. Enoch calls them ma’lin, “my blood,” and these inseparable bastards are the bane of Minrathous

They/them pronouns for Fen pls

[fenrelmercar]

Woobification of Solas.

This is a fandom critical post. Proceed at your own risk.

Let me start this piece off by saying that this post is not meant to target a specific demographic of the fandom. If you feel targeted, that’s on you. 

In this essay, I want to talk about the infantilization, woobification, or just good plain headcanoning the bad out of Solas. Mostly it comes down to a few of the most regurgitated lines of thinking: he is a spirit of wisdom despite everything he does or has done and he is just confused and perverted from his natural state, Solas is his true self while Fen’Harel or The Dread Wolf are just select masks he wears. The sentiment is so strong that at points it comes down to disregarding or ‘uncanoning’ the entire storyline of The Veilguard because in the minds of individuals that follow this school of thought it does injustice to the character of Solas they have created in their minds. In their minds, it is bad writing to show Solas being a prideful, treacherous liar. 

Because the man, who led rebellion for centuries using dubious means, using creatures he claims to respect as if they are expandable, killing his closest confidant because he dared to oppose him outright somehow is a paragon of virtue that is just bent out of shape by his misguided loyalty. All the atrocities he has committed through thousands of years he had a physical form comes down to him being manipulated and emotionally abused by his former closest friend Mythal and later by grief and anger of losing her. Slapping the label of emotional distress and trauma on a perpetrator of … well, quite literally, war crimes, does make them more palatable, but it does not mean it should be seen as a normal practice. The acts Solas commits during the war with Titans, his rebellion against the Evanuris, and later on in current day Thedas are being construed as desperate actions of a broken man, wisdom twisted from his purpose and left to fend for himself, despite his self-induced isolation. So let me ask you this: how many acts of desperation does it take to realize that they are becoming choices? 

Yes, he was manipulated through their shared emotional bonds by Mythal. Yes, he was coerced to leave his spirit form in favor of a physical body. Then Mythal used his wisdom as a weapon, warping him against his own beliefs, making him participate in the war in ways he did not wish to. Yes, he was pushed by Evanuris’ cruelty to rebel and then lost what he perceived as his only friend to their arrogant ways and later had to live through her death by their hands. He was broken to the point he could not see a way out and doomed the entire way of Elven existence just to win the fight against the cruel and the unjust. Yes, he is a man who lost his people and his version of the world due to his own actions. He is a traumatized, sad, lonely man, who has predetermined himself to the path from which he cannot see a way back. And yet, many of the steps he took along the way cannot be downplayed as acts of a spirit of Wisdom that was bent out of shape by grief and desperation. Destroying the Titans and leaving their children orphaned is seen as an act of devotion and unconditional love towards his manipulator, Mythal. But as the world’s best detective, Jake Peralta has once said: “Cool motive. Still a murder.”

And now we arrive at the most beloved sentiment. Solas is his true self. Fen’Harel is just a mask. Oh, boy.

Everyone says that they hate one-dimensional characters until they are served a multifaceted one on the platter. Then they get to declawing and defanging them, ripping their personality apart into this and that, robbing them of parts of them that make them whole, and when that is not enough, they take on dulling off any edges they might find too abrasive. Assassination of the character is just the beginning; the remains have to be sanitized and scrubbed off any wrongdoing whatsoever, so supporting them doesn’t seem like a moral failing on fandom’s part. 

Cutting Solas and Fen’Harel apart as if they are some conjoined twins, where Fen’Harel is the evil one, is stripping Solas of things that are inherent parts of his character for the sake of feeling more comfortable with his actions. Solas is kind, caring, and wise. Fen’Harel is prideful, scheming, and treacherous. These two sides of him are now separated by their representation in the Inquisition and Veilguard. In Inquisition, he is Solas - a thoughtful mage obsessed with dreams, a soft-spoken man keen on sharing his knowledge. Except for the part where he doesn’t see current Thedosians as real people. Where everyone is tranquil in his eyes and thus, lesser. People, who he is willing to sacrifice to achieve his goals. The thoughtful things he said by the end of the road to the Inquisitor he supposedly cared for:

“I will do what I must, but there is no benefit in allowing harm to come to innocents before it's necessary.”

“I will save the Elven people, even if it means this world must die.”

“As this world burned in the raw chaos, I would have restored the world of my time... the world of the elves.”

And then he mutilated them. Yes, he did it to save their life. But the Inquisitor had no choice in the matter. What if my Inquisitor would have rather died than lost their arm? Doesn’t matter, because our thoughtful, kind apostate knows better. A kind apostate who sacrificed his world to avenge Mythal, but then by the time of the Inquisition killed her all over again. For power, of all things. And then he stripped the dignity of the one who carried what remained of Mythal through ages by depicting her as an elf, proving once again that he does not see current Thedosians, humans, as real. 

The most egregious crime of Solas’ portrayal in Veilguard seems to be painting him as a liar. Because in the Inquisition he didn’t lie. He just avoided telling the truth. He shaded it in a comfortable tale that no one would question. He spun the narrative. Solas made himself appear as an apostate mage who has gained all his knowledge from the Fade. He crumbled just enough truth without revealing his hand. Or simply said he was lying by omission. Luckily to him, no one would ever ask a random mage if, by chance, they are the infamous Fen’Harel, so he doesn’t need to lie outright. 

And what did he do in Veilguard while not being his true self and wearing that mask of Fen’Harel, that degree of separation from his true, kind self and the trickster god? He spun the narrative. He said just enough truth to be believed. He was deceitful. Solas can be caught saying one outright lie—“I abhor blood magic.” Oh, wait. He can be caught lying exactly one time in Inquisition too—if you confront him about missing court intrigue. So much for a completely different man in Veilguard. 

Fen’Harel as a mask is such a beloved statement that it disregards thousands of years of his life. “I was Solas first. Fen'harel came later, an insult I took as a badge of pride.” A badge of pride Felassan used to flock followers to his side. Badge of pride he wore all through his rebellion. The one he tried to reclaim once meeting Dalish of the current day Thedas. One he used to amass following during the events of Trespasser. How many millennia can a person willingly wear a mask and not have it be a part of who they are?

And then we end up here, where somehow the portrayal of Solas in certain parts of fandom becomes an eerily similar story to that of Portrait of Dorian Grey. We have this beautiful, virtuous man, who’s telling you the most fascinating stories of the Fade, lulling you with his kind voice and beautiful eyes. One who was manipulated, traumatized, desperate, and pushed to act against his good nature. One who would tear down the Veil to restore what was lost and make the world right again. An idealist, working towards his goal. Damned be the sacrifices it requires. Because being hurt in some minds absolves people of guilt. Some agree with his goals and damn his ugly side to the attic. The one who manipulated, one who deceived and killed. One who has the blood of countless lives on his hands. One has to exist for the other to reach that goal. One who is just as much part of his true self as the other. 

Solas is Fen’Harel. Fen’Harel is Solas. One could not exist without the other. And to love someone truly, we must accept the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because to be loved is to be seen fully. Loving a villain is not a moral failing. And yes, he is a villain. Doing something horrible for the sake of something good is still, at the core, doing something horrible. 

Love him because of the awful things he did and in spite of them.

[fenrelmercar]

[fenrelmercar]

[fenrelmercar]

copying the idea from this amazing post because I can't help myself

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[fenrelmercar]