#aging off

[lesbianfakir]

You’re placed in a room with an animal. The door is closed and you cannot leave. The animal is completely calm and has no intent of harming you. You are in no danger unless you provoke the animal in some way.

[mothwriter]

[blighted-elf]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - Morrigan Reveal

[bitchofdarkness]

I hate how fandom has become "if you haven't created anything in this very specific time frame after the release of the show/movie, everyone will have moved on"

And call me old fashioned, but that's just not me. I sometimes take ages to create and publish. And I will love a show or movie for such a long time (years, babes, years) that I just can't relate to the fast consumerism that's going on.

Because, let's be real, it can get really lonely in a fandom if most have simply moved on to the next shiny thing. Is what's created less worth, just because it was created outside the hype? Why is it such a taboo for this new fandom generation to love an old or "late" fic or art?

It's so tiring and I'm too old for the 30-seconds-hype-tiktok-shit. Just tired. So, so tired.

[zaahvi]

GLORY TO THE RISEN GODS

[joesferatu]

I’m not immune to pretty dragon age elves

[curioscurio]

I'm rewatching Steven Universe and I will never forgive Fandom for what it did to her

[i-mode]

silly

[dapper-lil-arts]

One of my many arguments as to why Equestria needed 2 rulers

[ell-vellan]

Solas: Our people used to be here. Sera: Pfft, you say that everywhere. Solas: It is more true than you want to believe. Sera: I bet, right? Who wants to think about stepping on dead elves? Solas: Din elvhen emma him? Sera: Oh, you felt that one.

SO. This dialogue.

Setting aside that this is a running theme with Solas/Sera banter - that he trying to persuade/push her into becoming something more, either more Elvish or more of a leader, which may or may not just be Solas messing with her in return for her putting lizards in his bedroll - I was curious about the Elvish that he speaks here.

In the wiki, it says "din elvhen emma him?" is "meaning unknown." Which is curious because don't we know the meaning of these words separately, already?

(Stop me if this has been done before; I'm no expert.)

din = dead/death, not/isn't, "someone who is not". Falon = friend, Falon'din = friend of the dead, makes sense.

Elvhen = "Our People," the collective term for the elven race

emma = my, mine, i am, or within/full of.

him = become.

Taken altogether literally, "dead our people mine become." Elvish isn't a literal language, it's very figurative, with multiple possible meanings based on context.

Solas mutters this under his breath with disgust after Sera's disregard of his people's deaths. (For me, this dialogue happened in the Emerald Graves, though I don't know if it's location-specific; either way, he obviously finds this very disrespectful.)

I propose this phrase is Solas saying to himself something along the lines of, "My people died to become this?"

Which is. Yeah.

[hinamie]

thank u canon plant nerd megumi for my life

bonus:

[almiacastle]

Trying to learn that it’s not my responsibility to create or maintain harmony in the lives of those I care about. They are allowed to have difficulties in their lives and struggles in their relationships with others and it’s not something that I need to ‘fix.’ I am not responsible for their happiness or peace. Their struggles do not make me a failure. All I can control is how I interact with them.

[shotmrmiller]

oh to be at some rugby game with your boyfriend who's a total fan, face painted and all, and he squeezes you into a jersey of some player you don't care to know, couldn't even find his number on the field because they're all just slamming themselves into each other with enough force to cause brain damage but then a big man with the number you've got on your front eventually comes up to the stands and your bf's losing it because finally, here comes his #1 player but his eyes are on you, and you alone.

he blows you off when you tell him that actually, you don't know who he is, you're just here because your bf is.

"don't care. you've my name on your back."

(fisting your jersey he tosses you to the guy below, who had been standing there with his arms stretched above him as if expectant. "ya can wear mine next week.")

[spookberry]

Bad Cujo! Do not eat a mud!!

[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.

[royalelemental]

If any of the turtle tots needed a baby leash it was Leo.