#I'm back on tumblr and there's still no DA4 out

[spizgany-lipejs]

Me 6 years ago: Babying a fruity, deeply traumatised man who deals and masks his trauma with humour and sarcasm. Has problematic views of racism and pro-slavery flavour. (Dorian Pavus from Dragon Age: Inquisiton)

Me now: Babying a fruity, deeply traumatised man who deals and masks his trauma with humour and sarcasm. Has problematic views of racism and pro-slavery flavour. (Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3)

[queenaeducan-writes]

2024 writing round up

i saw it on my dash and wanted to do it! tagging: @blackjackkent, @theshirallen, @dreadfutures, @theluckywizard, @ anyone else who would care to do this!

words posted: Not counting Tumblr RP or I'd be here forever, 76,581. 35,245 of those were Var Shiral'vhen.

additional words written: 21,585 on VS, plus some other WIPs means I have typed about 33,109 words. There are more in my notebook (but probably not a significant amount).

grand total of words: About 109,690 words! <3

fandoms: Dragon Age, HotD, BG3

highest kudos: 187 on The Queen's Pleasure, making it the first fic I ever posted to break 100 kudos.

highest hit oneshot: 2667 on The Queen's Pleasure.

new things I tried:

New fandoms! BG3 got me back into writing for fun before DA reassumed its throne, and I published HotD for the first time, too!

Smut! I published five smut fics on AO3, one on Tumblr, and another that will probably not make it out of the docs I'm gonna be real.

Long fic! Technically I've tried before, but writing Var Shiral'vhen with @theshirallen has been a pretty new experience as someone who mostly writes oneshots. It's been fun, though!

fic I spent the most time on: Var Shiral'vhen on the basis of it being a long fic. For one shots, probably The means by which art is made due it being my first attempt at Solian smut and that ship being very dear to me (and it was originally started back in like 2022).

fic I spent the least time on: I wrote Stronger Where it Breaks (Veilguard spoilers) after I beat DA4 in a short space of time. They will learn was also written similarly quickly.

favorite thing I wrote: I'm going to list multiple answers bc I deserve it.

I think it might be the unpublished Var Shiral'vhen chapter "Rift test take 2" just because I adore the Solas/Ian conversation in that chapter. It really encapsulates what I find fascinating about their dynamic, put them in a room together and they will start vibing even when I wasn't planning on it.

(Veilguard spoilers in the link) They will learn, a fic I mostly wrote for Joly but ended up getting more attention than I expected on Tumblr! I really enjoyed working with Elvhenan worldbuilding and I'm looking forward to doing more with the OCs I started crafting for the purposes of the fic.

(Veilguard spoilers in the link) The shape of you, a really abstract fic that's sex but also isn't sex. It was more a picture than words in my head so writing it down was difficult, but I enjoyed how it turned out esp since I didn't spend too long on it (it was like two sessions of writing).

favorite thing(s) I read:

(Veilguard spoilers in the link) keep my body from the fire (Solas x Felassan) by Almalexiasgf. I loved the depiction of Solas's [redacted] and Felassan's handling of it. It captured everything I love about the new lore surrounding the elves in DA4.

deus proditus (dame aylin & ketheric thorm) by @darethshirl. Such a neat exploration of these characters and their hostile relationship to each other, their love of Isobel, divinity/mortality. Highly recommended!

The History in our Skin (nb!lavellan & keeper deshanna) by @theshirallen. You were a fool if you thought I wouldn't include Joly in this. I love the pain and the peace in this, the impossible choice Deshanna saddles Ian (still a child but in choosing becomes grown) with. "There is no right answer" but only because the world is hostile to everything they are.

it ends, or it doesn't (felassan & an ensemble cast) by @dreadfutures I'm still making my way through this one (VG put a huge dent in my reading habit I carefully built over 2024 lmao) but I love Blue's Felassan POV and the worldbuilding they do for the Dalish/ancient elves. It's so inspiring, and the mystery is so good.

Mien'Harel (solas/felassan, solas & ensemble) by @bodysnatch3r Again, making my way through it, but Matty has such a great use of language and the worldbuilding is so good. I'm going to have my heart broken (more) when I continue I'm sure, but I'd highly recommend checking this one out.

these violent delights (Zevran x f!Tabris, Lucanis & Zev/Warden - Rated T) by @inquisimer. I love love love the Zev/Tabris pairing in this, and the playing off Lucanis is also excellent. I'd highly recommend it for its intrigue and character dynamics!!!

writing goals for 2025:

Continue Var Shiral'vhen

Not burn myself out on exchanges

Try to satisfy the need for engagement w/ more realistic means

Stop comparing myself/my headcanons/my divergences to others

new works: It was only after listing them that I realised I was supposed to just say how many, but I wrote it so it's here now. Anyway. 13!

Var Shiral'vhen (Solas x Nonbinary!Lavellan - Rated M) An adaptation of Solas and Ian's love story as well as Thora's journey as Inquisitor. About finding love in impossible places, undoing the damage the world has done to you, building trust from the ashes of other people's fires.

They will learn (Solas & Original Elvhen Character- Rated G) Veilguard spoilers. The world is new, and so are the people. Solas meets a new invention and sees the beauty and horror of creation.

The shape of you (Solas x Nonbinary!Lavellan- Rated E) Veilguard spoilers. Solas asks Ian a difficult question that Ian has no trouble answering.

Five, Seven, Five (Solas & F!Cadash - Rated G) Veilguard spoilers. Set in Inquisition. After a visit to Cadash thaig, Thora is inspired to write poetry after a lifetime of reading it. She shares it with Solas, as she shares everything with Solas.

Stronger Where it Breaks ( Solas x Nonbinary!Lavellan- Rated G) Veilguard spoilers. On Ian's suggestions, Solas takes up journaling to deal with some of his issues.

Pawn Takes King ( Solas x Nonbinary!Lavellan - Rated E) Technically Veilguard spoilers for the game's hub/home location. After a game of chess results in a rare victory, Ian claims his spoils.

The means by which art is made ( Solas x Nonbinary Lavellan! - Rated E) After Solas discloses his preference for bottoming, Ian tops him for the first time. It is not a night without its setbacks.

In Defense of Spirits (N/A - Rated G) A meta about the spirits of DA:O and how they can be read more sympathetically with the future game's lore taken into account.

The Art of Reading Aloud (Gale x F!Tav - Rated E) Ophelia (Tav) gives Gale a blowjob while he explains the history of the Moonshae Isles to her.

A Study of Hands (Gale x F!Tav - Rated T) An exploration of Gale's mental state throughout act I of BG3 as well as his developing feelings for Ophelia (Tav).

Chip Butty (Gale x F!Tav - Rated E) The morning after the party with her Tiefling kin, Ophelia wakes up with two headaches. One, from wine. Two, everyone expects she bedded Gale the night before.

The Queen's Pleasaure (Alicent x Rhaenyra - Rated E) When the King calls, Alicent does not linger longer than she is wanted. Her return is interrupted by a wayward princess, fresh from a foray into Flea Bottom, and hungry for companionship. Or: What if Rhaenyra had found Alicent before she found Ser Criston?

A Little Light (Jowan & Connor - Rated G) After years of young apprentices giving him a wide berth, lest they catch his talent for mediocrity, Jowan finds himself in the position of tutor to the young Connor.

[iapetusneume]

For my friends who have been coming back to Tumblr because of Twitter imploding: hi! Great to see you again!

I'm not really active in the Dragon Age fandom anymore. I occasionally reblog things if someone else i follow has something cool, but I don't really parooze the tags anymore. I am not sure if I'm gonna get back into it with DA4.

In June 2022 I had two family members die in the span of a week, and then at the end of the month my dad almost died. My wives and I moved to Michigan to help take care of my parents in August. I lived in Philadelphia 1 month shy of 10 years.

During COVID, my job went WFH and then I was transferred to a new position (also WFH), and then I got another job within the company (also WFH). Oddly enough my current department didn't used to be WFH and used to be based out of Orlando but became it permanently, so me having my current job is a direct result of COVID. I've never actually seen my team in a physical space, only over Webcam. I still don't know how I feel about this.

I've really been into Final Fantasy XIV, What We Do In The Shadows, and Warhammer 40k (the lore) recently. I really want to write fic for these, but its been hard to do with *gestures at everything.*

I hope life has been treating you well. And if not, I hope you've been able to come back from it.

[mineoldtimegirl]

Ty for still coming back on tumblr to post about DA whenever news is released, respect

Thank you though. it means a lot to me. Honestly i have like three sketchbooks full of dragon age doodles. this series has taken up so much head space. so i still check on it often. I'm always tempted to come back and post again. Sometimes I see a tiktok trend and think its perfect for the aeducan bros but yeah lol. maybe when da4 comes out and i cant hide anymore. Thank you again for following/sending the ask. :D

[meggannn]

Can I ask, what's the beef with Greg Ellis and Mark Darrah? I haven't been keeping up with BioWare in general and the Dragon Age fandom & company division in particular (I'm more of a Mass Effect person) so all I noticed is that two big names (were?) quit a few days ago so I am genuinely puzzled at that exchange. Did Ellis get screwed over by BioWare/Darrah somehow or is he doing some unfounded shit-stirring?

Oh for sure, so I don’t know all the details, but I’ll try

Greg Ellis

Greg Ellis is the voice actor for Cullen, a character who is in every Dragon Age game. the actor has been a pretty shitty person for a while—I’m sure there’s a callout post for him somewhere on tumblr—but he’s the British equivalent of a Trumper, transphobic, hosts a podcast/contributes to/does audio readings for a right-leaning website that complains about liberals and universities, often gets into fights with LGBT+ folk on twitter and block them (so many that a lot of DA fans couldn’t read his tweets today lol).

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “I praise @Ayaan for supporting @jk_rowling in standing her ground. They are heroes of our times. /end ID]

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet: “Today on The Respondent @GreggHurwitz discusses the challenges of identitarianism on college campuses. /end ID]

From Wikipedia: Identitarianism: “The Identitarian movement or Identitarianism is a post-World War II European far-right political ideology which asserts the right of Europeans and peoples of European descent to preserve the culture and territories.”

[ID: Greg Ellis tweet from June 2018: Indicative of our current culture that I tweet about inspirational free thinkers & up pops a trolling SJW who can’t separate me from my work. Conflating my inclusive & equitable opining with a video game character I voice is SJW indent politicking full blown.”

Greg Ellis tweet replying to a disappointed fan who was upset about his support for Trump: “Speaking ‘on behalf of thousands of fans’ of a video game & suggesting I ‘broke their hearts’ because I support ALL who hold Presidential office is ludicrous. VG fandom is not exclusive to LGBTQ or those not hate filled about @potus. I believe in equity & inclusivity.” /end ID]

to demonstrate how much of an attention-seeking child he is, Ellis also likes to tease his fans with hashtags and get them up in a tizzy to gain followers, tagging things #Cullennites and #DA4 just to wind up bait-switching and actually talk about something completely different, or maybe even nothing.

[ID: Tweet from Greg Ellis, I don’t have the date but I believe this was from spring of 2018: “I’ve been officially authorized to disclose details about the game only when I reach 10k followers. I feel like a puppet. Will you help pull the strings? I’m positively itching to share. #videogame #announcement #cullenites” /end ID]

Beef with Mark Darrah

I think what specifically started his beef with Mark Darrah was this summer, Ellis tweeted in support of Ayaan/JKR (above), resulting in a lot of upset fans replying to him. He got in lots of fights with them, blocking several, prompting fans to make more tweets expressing anger/disappointment about DA4/the future of Cullen, and even tweet at other Dragon Age developers asking if Cullen could be recast if he comes back at all.

Mark Darrah made a tweet saying basically nothing substantial about it, but he said: “It’s important to us that the people we work with are aligned with our BioWare values. This will be apparent when we’re ready to announce what actors will be lending their voices to the game.” He even replied directly to a few fans throughout the tags/search results who were concerned, including @theherocomplex​ which I saw, so it’s a safe assumption he was at least taking the anger seriously.

Ellis replied to the public tweet: “What r the @bioware values @BioMarkDarrah? Don’t the loyal #Cullenites & @dragonage fans have a right to know? Don’t u have a responsibility to tell them? DO u support cancel culture? Do u support defamatory comments like this? Careful how u answer ~ u might lose ur job”

I mean, it’s pretty ballsy to threaten a lead creative at a company responsible for a chunk of your fame when your character’s arc is effectively over and they don’t need to have you in any games anymore... there are tons of crappy British actors out there to replace you, and it’s not like they don’t already have Gideon Emery in a dozen different wigs, lmao

What Happened This Week (Dec 3 and Dec 4, 2020)

Mark Darrah was, until recently, a staple in the Dragon Age team. A lot of people were worried when his resignation yesterday came out of the blue, and Casey Hudson (also a lead creative/big name) also resigned from the Mass Effect team at the same time, which to me is pretty concerning.

Yesterday after the news broke, a fan asked Darrah if his beef with Ellis might have had anything to do with his departure (basically asking if it was a forced resignation): “If this has anything to do with a recent blowout with a VA from Inquisition who publically called for @BioMarkDarrah to be fired, I'm going to be so sickened and disappointed by this company for siding with bigotry.” Darrah replied with just “lol” which to me was a little concerning, because if you read it sarcastically, it seemed to imply the drama with Ellis did have something to do with it. without proof, it’s difficult to say, and of course Darrah and Hudson gave polite goodbyes but are silent on the real reasons that prompted them to go.

Today, Ellis has managed to convince himself that he did get Darrah fired, likely over the stink he raised about Darrah publicly for siding with LGBT+ fans over him. but in his replies to that, Darrah mentioned pretty open skepticism in his tweets that Ellis would ever be rehired by BW again, so.... maybe the Ellis drama is not it. IDK.

TLDR: basically, Ellis is a bigoted right-wing voice actor who picks fights with fans who call him out, and he is still coasting off the attention highs he got from voicing a highly controversial video game character in a franchise that hasn’t hired him since 2014. in summer 2020, Ellis threatened Darrah’s job (not at as if he has any power to threaten him with), basically because Darrah stood up to him, and now that he no longer has to play civil as a BioWare employee, Darrah finally snapped and called him out on twitter for being unprofessional and implied Ellis wouldn’t be asked back to BioWare anyway even if Ellis WAS the reason he left. other Dragon Age developers (who still work at BW) are liking and replying to Darrah’s tweets with supportive gifs/emojis, so I think it’s a fair to say Darrah’s attitude is prevalent in the company but current workers just can’t say anything, and they do not want Ellis back again.

[doberbutts]

I love DA2 and the hate on it is so boring and makes me sad :/ I just love (LOVE) the animations. It feels so much more alive than even DAI does. Just the way, visually, it's put together is so much better than DAI and DAO (duh). I'm trying to get through DAI, it's my sister's favorite game. But I spoiled myself for the ending by mistake and it just makes me so demotivated. Why is it like all the mages are "bad"? I love them all so much and I just don't get it. :(

An older ask but- yes ty DA2 is and always will be my favorite Dragon Age unless DA4 somehow surprises me but I kinda doubt it. Doesn’t seem like the direction the series wanted to go after DAI and all its DLCs. I’m sure I’ll still like it, but I probably won’t replace DA2 with it.

I think the writers wanted people to feel conflicted no matter what side they chose. I don’t think it was executed as well as they wanted it to be (apparently they were expecting an even 50/50 on mages vs templars but the initial fandom response was overwhelmingly pro-mage), but it does show that people always let out their ugliest sides in times of conflict and by the time an “outsider” is set to mediate the situation, it’s already blown up to the point where something big is going to happen and no one is going to like it. I was really upset by the ending with Orsino, he was one of my favorite characters and I was not expecting him to do that, but it is true that when your back is against the wall sometimes the only way out is to be exactly as vile as the person attacking you thinks you are. If it makes you feel better, all of the templar characters are also either “bad” or “complicit” as well, including Cullen who became a tumblr favorite after DAI.