#datv I’m looking at you

[timethehobo]

Emmy being self-conscious of his age, and maybe even about how he looks. 🥺 Rook loves him anyway.

[trialsofthedas]

Viago: If you want my advice-

Rook: No offense but you're the last person I want relationship advice from. You tried to kill your significant other. Multiple times.

Viago: First off, that was before we started dating. Secondly, they've also tried to kill me.

Teia: It's true. It was mutually attempted murder. Crow business, you understand.

[bingsoo-jung]

I said this in the comments of someone else’s post, but I’m going to say this here. Taash identifying as non-binary is good actually, and in fact better than the dev’s making up some new term for them. Let’s get into it.

So for a bit of background, I’m non-binary and Thai. If you don’t know, Thai has specific terms for different gender-sexual identities, they’re quite old, they date back a few hundred years. However, the thing about culturally specific terms is just that, they’re culturally specific. The reason you use them is because you are tied to the culture in such a way that you gender-sexual identity cannot be disassociated from it. Because, to be clear, these terms are never just about your gender or sexual identity. They encompass a role you play within society itself.

For instance, in Thai culture we have tom/tomboys. These are AFAB folks who occupy a masculine societal role and date women. If you’re AMAB you cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and feminine? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and not attracted to women? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc and mostly date men? You cannot be tom. If you’re transmasc but don’t particularly feel like taking care of the girl you date, taking her out, being the ‘man’ in the relationship? You can’t really be tom.

Because the thing about culturally specific genders is that they come with a lot of rules. Being tom isn’t being non-binary. There are cis women who are tom, and there are non-binary people who are toms. You do not get eschew gender roles in these cases. You are quite literally taking one on. You have a role and place in society that has been made for you, and you are expected to carry it out.

Because of this, none of these terms are a one-to-one for other identities, and nor should they be. Being kathoey or hijra is not the same as being a trans woman or non-binary, and visa versa. You can be kathoey and not be trans. You can be trans and not be kathoey. Being aqun-athlok or any other specific term shouldn’t be either. The idea that it is, is more ahistorical and inaccurate than the word non-binary itself. Giving Taash some new, culturally specific term, would inherently tie them to a culture, and one perhaps that they didn’t feel apart of. Especially since Taash’s entire story is about struggling to figure out where they belong. Arguably the biggest issue with their story is that you have to make them decide, and fundamentally tying them to a term would’ve compounded that problem.

The reason I identify as non-binary and not a tom, is because I am not occupying some specific role in Thai culture. Despite living in LA, I rarely interact with other Thai people who aren’t my family. I do not live in a cultural context that would allow me to identify as a tom.

The thing about terms like non-binary, or trans, or agender, is that they’re meant to be acultural terms encapsulating the concept of truth to oneself and ones identity. Whereas culturally specific terms aren’t, they’re about the role you hold in society and where you fit in. It’s about your identity within a status quo. Taash is a character who is eschewing societal roles, and breaking the status quo, giving them those terms just wouldn’t work.

And finally? Using non-binary itself allows the writers to very specifically say where they stand. There is no space given to transphobes. You either accept that DA is queer-friendly or bust. And that’s a very important stance to make in an era where trans and non-binary folks are being actively targeted. There’s no ‘well Taash isn’t actually trans or non-binary they’re [insert term here]!’ Because people would’ve done that, we know they would’ve. This means people can’t do that. They have to just say that they have an issue with the term, and thus we can call them for what they are. Transphobes. Plain and simple.

So yeah, Taash’s identity does have nuance, it has a lot of it. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trick Weekes, a non-binary person whose wife is First Nations and thus from a group with culturally specific gender identities, knows about the difference between something like two-spirit and trans. And to be honest with you, using something like non-binary has nuance I doubt was actually afforded to Krem, considering they cast a cis woman to play Krem.

So yeah.

[dellamortethelesser]

hi am I insane or if you imprisoned Illario was there an actual image of him in like. A birdcage somewhere. Sorry if this sounds insane I’m not sure if this was real or if I hallucinated this experience

[redfinnbluefinn]

I’m not really understanding this discourse around Neve/lucanis/rook??

First of all. If I were around THE Neve Gallus I too would be a fucking mess every lifetime I lived. Honestly I’m shocked everyone else isn’t enamored every moment they’re around her.

Secondly. Neve has two hands and she deserves the burden and honor of having the two most pathetic wet dog partners in all of Thedas. In this essay I will -

[eurydia]

more Emmrook screenshots. I love them so much 🥰💚

[thatapostateboy]

my main fear for veilguard: a warden having to die to strike down the blighted gods (rook or davrin or hof etc)

my single coherent thought since seeing morrigan is back:

[umbershift]

I was so bewildered about how people can pick who to romance in Veilguard when like you don’t know them, you haven’t met the characters, how can you want to romance a character you haven’t talked to? Then I remembered.

[rooktofade]

yes, and?

[timethehobo]

Excited to meet them for real next month.

[strawberry-halla]

another silly thought i had through out veilguard:

morrigan is shown to be with the inquisitor at all times after rook meets them the first time. this is true for every inky, regardless of romance, but i’d like to think this:

morrigan retains mythal’s memories and she knows how much she hurt solas. lavellan was the one person IN THE ENTIRE WORLD OF THEDAS who brought back solas’s true nature: wisdom. mythal brought out solas’s worst: his pride.

i like to think morrigan is aware of this and as both the successor to mythal and the inquisitor’s friend, she makes a promise to keep lavellan safe so she could return not only the key to breaking solas’s chains with mythal’s essence, but the means of recovering his true nature of wisdom afterwards.

because that’s what morrigan is all about! she wants to preserve the lost histories that thedas has forgotten or tried to bury. she’s recovering an ancient spirit’s true nature! wisdom is one of the rarest spirits in the fade! of course morrigan wants to see the dread wolf simply be who he always was: solas, spirit of wisdom. and lavellan will be the one to help him recover this long-buried part of himself. for as long as it takes.

[cirwedh]

okay, again, I don’t want to talk about spoilers in any meaningful way (I agree, these last two videos have been spoilery as heck), but for really real, what did you think [companion]’s arc was gonna be? Because to me, it was always pretty obviously that.

[dandylion-virtual-adventurer]

Dragon Age has never exactly been photorealistic. Dragon Age: Origins was loosely based on fantasy paintings, filtered through the limitations of the technology of the time. In Dragon Age Il and continuing in Inquisition, we wanted to push our characters' designs to support their strong personalities. For Veilguard, we wanted to take a confident step away from the uncanny valley and toward even stronger characterization. The goal was to make personality and emotion read more clearly, in the same way theatrical makeup exaggerates an actor's features.

They never heard of subtlety.

[lyriumsings]

look at that face she should literally never know suffering ever

[trevisos]

they make me so fucking sick. GOD

[dellamortte]

i’m so obsessed with my rook… she’s soooo pretty omg