#aged with grace

[alazarrr]

Then & Now…

- Kelis

[hinamie]

corvidae

[somewhereincairparavel]

"jason is a knockoff watered down percy" NO hear me out, jason actually parallels annabeth immensely, sharing SO many similarities with her personality, not percy, in this essay I will-

edit: my full analysis is out now! here

[ltwilliammowett]

Brig La Grace

[vaguely-concerned]

I understand and agree with a lot of the frustrations about the shortcomings of Inquisition as a story. but sometimes when I hear people complain about the chosen one narrative in it I do want to just be like... you know it's a deconstruction of the concept more than anything, right. the inquisitor isn't actually chosen by anything except stumbling into the wrong (right?) room at the right (wrong?) time because they like, heard a noise or whatever. or if you think they are chosen, as many do in-universe, that's something you have to take on faith, the maker-or-whoever moves in mysterious ways indeed-style. the Inquisitor isn't actually a Destined Chosen One, they're a Just Some Guy in a fancy hat, self-delusions of grandeur to taste as you'd prefer.

a running thread that goes through all of the personal quests of the companions is the concept of a comforting lie vs. an uncomfortable truth, upholding old corrupt structures vs. disrupting them, and the role of faith in navigating that. (blackwall the warden vs. thom rainier the liar and murderer. hissrad vs. the iron bull, or is that the other way around? cassandra and the seekers -- do we tell the truth about what we find, even if it means dismantling the old order of the world? and so on.) and your inquisitor IS at the same time a comforting lie (a necessary one, in dark times? the game seems to ask) and an uncomfortable truth (we are the result of random fickle chance, no protective hand is held over the universe, it's on us to make a better world because the maker sure as hell won't lift a divine finger to help anyone, should he against all odds exist). faith wielded for political power... where's the point that it crosses the line into ugliness? is it before it even begins? what's the alternative? will anyone listen to the truth, if you tell it?

interesting how you also get a mix of companion agency in this -- you have characters like dorian who ALWAYS choose one side of the comforting lie vs. uncomfortable truth dichotomy. he will always make up his own mind to go back to tevinter and try to dismantle the corruption of the old system no matter what you say, or how you try to influence him. meanwhile iron bull is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum -- so psychologically trapped and mangled, caught in an impossible spiritual catch-22, that his sense of identity is left entirely to you and your mercy. you cannot change dorian in any way that matters; you can be his friend or not, support him or not, but he is whole no matter what. you are given incredible and potentially destructive-to-him power over bull's soul. it's really cool (and heartbreaking) to think about.

this is a game about how history will eat you even while you're still alive, and shape you into whatever image it pleases to serve it, and for all your incredible power right now you are powerless in the face of the gravitational force of time -- of more than time, of History. you won't recognize yourself in what History will make of you, because you belong to it now. you don't belong to yourself anymore and you never will again. the further you were from what it needs from you to begin with, the more you will find yourself distorted in its funhouse mirror. (why hello there inquisitor ameridan, same hat!)

and to me this is so much the core of what Dragon Age is about right from the Origins days -- how and by whom history gets written, the inherent unreliable narration of it all. I hope you like stories, Inquisitor. You are one now.

I do think it's probably still the weakest of the games narratively, and it's hampered by its structure and bloated systems. but I also find it disingenous to say that there's nothing deeper or actually interesting going on with it, thematically. if you're willing to engage with it there is Some Real Shit going on under the high fantasy-tinted surface.

[bishicat]

I think he actually really wanted to go :(

[thelostmoongazer]

yeah he's baby girl or whatever

[aroaceleovaldez]

my hot pjo take is that Jason isn't a second Percy, Jason is a second Annabeth. Jason is just if Annabeth was a guy and also a Big 3 kid.

[sharon-tate]

Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn photographed backstage at the 28th Academy Awards, 1956

[greelin]

“well gray hair is hotter on men than it is on women generally—” well what if i killed you.

[thaliasthunder]

the entire camp half blood is literally just fucking lucky nico has a problem with sacrificing himself for the people he loves because if he was actually vengeful and grunge holder as rr claimed him to be, they all would not have lasted a fucking day in the battle of manhattan after he had decided to join luke

[ryukolighter]

Pov Thalia when she comes back to consciousness and the guy who was supposed to be her best friend turned to Kronos, committed numerous crimes (including POISONING HER TREE)

[breninarthur]

personally, if i were the hero of ferelden trying to find a cure to the calling, my first port of call would be the wilds flower that saved my tainted dog in ostagar. but what do i know!

[dollarstoreartsupplies]

gay awakening - @femslashfortnight

does it count as a gay awakening if something was awoken one day in her childhood but she'll literally never acknowledge it?

[emmieexplores2]

[abyranss]

She felt a momentary sadness.  She tapped her pinky with her thumb twice, and the embedded magnets noted the signal.  She’d recorded her own brain activity and movements when contemplating the Bonesaw clones, and it was this that she drew on, manipulating her own body much as she had manipulated Blasto’s. Her body language wasn’t her own.  Her smile, the way she walked, the gestures, all were fine tuned to match the Bonesaw of before.

Great tragedy of Riley that when she first came to comprehend that she's a bad person, or perhaps not even wholly in control of herself at all, when she found herself unable to act cheerfully the way she used to towards her atrocities, she didn't have anywhere to go or any idea of how to live in a way that isn't Bonesaw. She's been Bonesaw for so much of her life after all. So she reprogrammed her body to act that way for her and she halted her aging so she'd never be able to stop being Bonesaw, not in her actions, and not in the way she's viewed by others. Forever.