#dragon smuggling

[ididmywaiting12years]

Doing a reread of HP and can we take a moment to appreciate Charlie Weasley. Ron sends him a letter asking him for help with an illegal dragon and he's just totally cool and nonchalant about the whole thing. Sure thing lil bro but can you also make sure to sneak out at midnight and meet some friends of mine on the astronomy tower to do the hand off

[saturdaysky]

Gale of Minrathous

Dragon Age AU where Gale is a Tevinter magister who accidentally infected himself with red lyrium. He's found a way to halt the lyrification. Mostly.

More tidbits:

Devout Andrastian with a bit of Leliana's "the Maker speaks to me" thing going, except it's "Andraste—so obviously a mage btw, I have 5000 words prepared and ready to go on this topic—sings to me, magic prodigy"

"therefore I am sure to be the one to unlock the secrets of this powerful, strange new lyrium that is singing to m—oh. golly. that went poorly"

joins the inquisition after he emerges from isolation and his former peers have all become Venatori. If his own folly has emptied the sand from his hourglass, why not spend the little time that remains to him serving Andraste's chosen?

0 moral qualms about blood magic except that all participants must be willing. All magic is neutral—its use determines whether it is good or bad

Tara is his possessed cat, who has lived far longer than a cat should, but Gale isn't complaining. who says abominations can't like chin scritches

talks about Minrathous, a lot

would break open the heavens to see the throne of the Maker, just for the experience

Final AU thoughts under the cut!

what the magisterium doesn't want you to see:

the staff that I know, deep in my heart, Gale uses and insists is artistic:

[tesalicious2]

Coruscant Guard headcanons-ish (mostly focusing on Hound):

There aren’t just massiffs

Coruscant has a lot of smuggling, including animals. Not only that but the Senators give them their pets to take care of (that is not a pet but a wild animal wtf)

But they end up with an assortment of baby animals that CAN be domesticated and do something with them

Quinlan started it when he handed a baby Nexu to Fox and said they were trainable and loyal. Fox passed this on to Hohnd and nugget was a part of the family since

Ever since then they got two more Nexu, both sticking with new shinies under Hounds command

Surprisingly they have one Narglatch, though Blizzard (dubbed by Stone) is rarely used. Often used for chases in the lower levels, able to chase and weave easier through crowds than a speeder (think Horses in police forces)

At one point, some 501st and 212th troopers found what they thought to be a massiff and happily dropped it with the Guard,

It was not a massiff and Hound broke many laws to get it to the Jedi temple and out of his hands fast

See they had found an Albek, a force sensitive creature that looks like a massif but is VERY aggressive and BERY untrainable, last Hound heard was that it was set free and is very happy

Another of the larger creatures that is used far more often than the narglatch is the Varactyl

Somehow a shipment of young had been smuggled onto Coruscant and were taken in by the Guard

Their ability to climb vertical surfaces and calm nature and silliness to listen to their rider made them perfect in the club districts; the tall buildings were close enough to jump between and had many platforms for people to walk and dance

They could weave above crowds and act almost like helicopters when chasing criminals, but we’re able to go into the crowds; only problem is that people had to get out of the way or be trampled

Hound and his infinite luck ran across a hurt Rancor with a shiny one night. Though they could not take the Rancor in, they sent it to the Jedi temple where it receives lots of love and treats from the younglings and troopers who visit

The Rancor serves as a guardian of the wing dedicated to dangerous artifacts and texts, and is watched over by the Temple Guard

AND AND AND

Spark dragons

ARF troopers ride them but due to fear, they are used to guard the prisons. Occasionally, they are lent out to other battalions with their riders

They are dragons native to Kiffu and can easily get their charge from the static electricity created by genorators

They were found as young babies and trained by the ARF

Quinlan was absolutely ecstatic and adores them, they’ve made a special attachment with him but prefer their troopers

On one occasion two were sent out with the Marine Corps, who were afraid as hell. Those troopers had a lovely time and many stores of scaring the ‘hardcore’ troopers

[meanlikeachild]

“Alicent was poisoning viserys!!” Yea idk if it’d take two decades for her to poison and murder him. Also, did you not watch the scenes of her bathing (ew) and giving viserys milk of the poppy and tucking him in bed (also ew), the milk of the poppy certainly made him weaker but he always was, so. She literally took care of him whilst his daughter ran off to dragonstone and married her murderous uncle, who viserys literally disinherited and named rhaenyra as heir to keep daemon away from the throne bc it doesn’t take einstein’s iq to know that daemon would be a shit ass ruler. And while we’re on the topic, “The maesters were poisoning the targaryen’s and their dragons!!!” rumor, don’t make me laugh. Again, I don’t think it would’ve took them three hundred years to kill the targaryens off, especially during viserys reign, it would’ve been very easy to, since viserys eliminated Aemma himself, simply trick daemon into a brothel by putting an “underage girls in here” sign on top, rhaenyra would probably be following him so it’d be killing two birds with one stone, with rhaenys she’d obv go back to the capital on corlys’s advice and simply outnumber the velayrons. Personally i don’t think it’d be difficult considering that entire family is full of alcoholics. And poisoning the dragons? Now how the hell would have that had happened if the dragons were guarded by the dragon keepers who main purpose were to look after them 24/7 🤦‍♀️ even if the maesters got some how physically close enough to the dragons, how would they poison them? inserting poison to the hard ass dragon eggs with their non existence syringes? or with their elaborate secret mission impossible spy plan of sneaking into the dragon pit and feeding the dragons poisoned food? and that is if the dragons didn’t notice them and burn them alive.

[alicentflorent]

I think the helaena’s bravery of standing up to Aemond inspired Alicent, she was probably reminded of all the time she was afraid to stand up to Otto when he intimated her and Helaena’s line “I was happier before is was queen” She probably saw her younger self at that moment “i like to believe I’m still the lady Alicent but now all people see when they look at me is.. the queen”

They had the perfect set up here to have Alicent come to the realisation that the cycle is continuing with her own children and instead of having Alicent go running off to Dragonstone maybe have her try to end the cycle. She asks helaena if she wants to leave this place because she wants to free Helaena from a life of misery, they could have used the screen time to have Alicent try to put things right by hastily trying to make a plan with her daughter to leave, maybe she even talks of finding daeron and helaena looks at Alicent with a sad smile and says “it’s too late, our story is already completed and it always ends the same” because she knows there is no changing their fates. Helaena has already played out every scenario in her head and no matter how hard Alicent tries to put things right she can’t save her children just like helaena could never save her son.

[crossdressingdeath]

Alistair: You're... you're taking advantage of the Templars! Encouraging them! And for money! You... despicable, profiteering crook!

It is very interesting seeing this line and then remembering that the context is Alistair being very upset that a Circle mage is... selling (smuggled) lyrium to the Templars. Alistair. Honey. If anyone in this arrangement is taking advantage of anyone it's not Godwin. Also given Godwin can't leave (meaning he can't really do a lot of shopping) I doubt it's just about the money? Like, it would make a lot of sense for part of the reasoning to be "If I'm supplying them with lyrium they'll probably be nice to me". I would love the option for a mage Warden to actually comment on the fact that... yeah, a lot of mages probably have arrangements of some variation or other with the Templars to keep them more or less friendly! Smuggling lyrium for them is probably one of the less upsetting options! The moments where Alistair's Templar training and lack of experience with mages and the Circles come to the surface are so fascinating to me, I'd love to actually discuss it with him.

[glitchgeek]

i dunno the media but these dragons look sick 👍

YEAHHH, Cynder is the very best 💜🩷🖤

She's from the edgy, grim reboot trilogy of the Spyro games that was done in the mid-aughts. uhhhhhhh TL;DR synopsis in the tags it... it's long. i'm sorry but this series WAS my childhood

[variousxcruelties]

inky wip

[chaosinthehousepart2]

The Adventurers of Bandior

Hi everyone, just a lil bit of advertisement! I have started a podcast with a friend called the Adventurers of Bandior, where two friends and that rando who happened to be there go on a really quite random adventure, smuggling criminals across the island of Bandior! If you like DnD, fantasy, crazy adventures and random planes that probably shouldn't be there, this is for you! We'd love for you to come along for the adventure and chaos. Here's the link!

[kradogsrats]

something something the worm emerging from Aaravos’s mouth and “I swallowed her”

[tovaicas]

friend and I were discussing it and it's so fucked how the ishgardians literally have nowhere to go even if they wanted to run

[colorisbyshe]

I always bring my own cup to the theater and get like five refills during the movies (the staff at Showcase do NOT give a fuck)

At my theater (I primarily go to cinemark) they do all the refills themselves behind the counter, so I can't do this but I respect the Thirsty Hustle so much.

We, as a society, deserve infinite drinks, especially at the movies.

[jackals-ships]

me: yeah idk who ill end up romancing yet bc the Fucking Egg has a death grip on me. davrin is cute as hell tho. + i am A Sucker for a good crow so maybe lucanis-

a clip of emmrich on YT: :3c hey if you die what do you wanna do with ur body? can I help? :3c

me: .........huh.

[wanton-votaress]

Dragon riding but it’s like a demolition derby.

[skullmoss]

gildred might be a silly name but she's a pretty serious about getting shit done.😊

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Why Fenris could Never Cameo in Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In the run up to Dragon age: The Veilguard, I was almost certain that Fenris would be our main legacy character from previous games. Not only has he been central in the comics released between DAI and DATV, he is an escaped Tevinter slave who's plot revolved around magisters, magic and the structural prejudices surrounding elves in Thedas. Not only that, but he's canonically in Tevinter killing slavers currently so he's geographically in the right place for us to meet him.

About halfway through the game though, it was clear to me: Fenris could never cameo in The Veilguard. Because he'd break it.

How the Veilguard treats Thedas is...odd to me, to say the least. I will be writing another post about how much I adored the expanded big lore in this game (the titans, ancient elves were spirits, where the blight came from etc.) and yet while these large lore expansions worked for me, the actual culture of modern Thedas is entirely softened, its sharp edges filed down until it's a sanitised fantasy world devoid of what made the franchise so vibrant and compelling in the first place.

So let's start with Fenris and slavery. In all three games, the reality of slavery is pushing at the corners of the world. In DAO Loghain allows Tevinter Magisters to enslave elves in order to raise money for his war effort. In DA2 Fenris is fighting to be free from slavers who will not leave him be, let alone the reminders that the city was built by slaves which are everywhere. In DAI one of the two possible mini-bosses is Calpurnia who was a slave, and characters such as Gatt and Dorian both show us how much slavery is tied into Tevinters culture and success.

But DATV the first game actually set in Tevinter where we get to see the famed Minrathous...it's like the game purposefully wants to avoid the issue. I can feel it tilting the camera away to not allow me to see. Slavery is mentioned, but never talked about in depth or as a specifically ELVEN problem in Tevinter. This might have been done to be less problematic, it feels ignored.

We are in DOCK TOWN. We are at the DOCKS. You would think that slaves from all over Thedas who are being smuggled and bought by various groups would be everywhere. You would think that the injustice in dock town would be partly built on the back of ships we've seen in the comics crammed with elves in chains. This is the world Dragon age set up for us. And yet...nothing. zilch. A tiny easily skippable side quest where we free a couple of venatori slaves, but only one of whom is an elf.

None of our Tevinter characters seem to have been influenced by their culture even a little bit when it comes to how they view elves; there is no moment when Neve fucks up and says something prejudiced, no moment when Bellara or Davrin are distrustful of her for being a Tevinter mage.

The same goes for Zevran; a character who epitomised the issues with the crows. The crows have consistently been characterised as very morally dubious assassins who kill for the highest bidder and who buy children on the slave market and torture them as they grow in order to assure that they reach maturity able to withstand torture without giving away a client's name. Zevran is very explicit about the fact that if you fail a contract your life is forefit.

Nobody responds particularly to you if you're an elf. Nobody trusts rook less for it in Tevinter. Nobody treats Rook any differently. Even DAI had better mechanics for this; with nobles in Orlais less likely to trust you as an elf.

Considering one of the main plot points of this game and what makes Solas sympathetic is the fact that he was fighting against the slavery of ancient elves...you'd think the game might want to mirror that in modern Thedas. It might want to show us how characters fighting to end slavery in Tevinter are similar to Solas and how the society Solas fought against was similar to the one that characters we love such as Fenris have fought against in modern Thedas. Maybe we'd want to explore how in a world of slavery like this, how could the answer NOT be to tear it all down? Maybe we should have that option at the end of the game so it really can chose whether we agree with Solas and his plans or not.

Adding Fenris to this game would entirely break the game because Fenris refuses to allow you to look away from this horror. He is a sympathetic character who had to learn to trust mages again because of course he didn't trust them. Of course he didn't. Fenris wouldn't allow the camera to shift focus because he's literally covered in the lyrium scars that show how slaves are used as experiments in Tevinter. Fenris WOULD question Neve on how she feels about elves and slaves. Fenris WOULD have things to say about Lucanis and the crows (let alone the fact Lucanis is an abomonation). So he could never be in this game; he'd drop a bomb on it's carefully constructed blinders to the very society its supposed to be set in.

And yet, in DATV, the crows are presented as...a found family of misfits and orphans? The politician who opposes the crows having absolute power in Antiva is framed as a comically evil idiot who doesn't understand that the crows are ontologically good. Yet...they're NOT. Crows in this game act more like a secret rebel group than an assassin organisation. We see no crow taking contracts with the VERY RICH venatori magisters despite being hired killers. We see crows just refuse to kill people despite having a contract because 'its crueler to leave them alive'. The crows don't feel like the crows here, they feel like a softened version of a cool assassin group who are cool because they wear black and purple.

Our pirate group are also sanitised; the Lords of Fortune are good pirates who only steal treasure that's not culturally significant. Theyve clearly read the modern critiques of the British Museum and have decided to explicitly stop anyone levelling similar critiques at them. There is no faction of the Lords of Fortune who aren't like this, no internal arguments about it. Everyone just. Agrees. And is able to accurately tell what a cultural artifact is vs. what treasure that you can have yourself is. Rather than showing us why a pirate stealing cultural artifacts might be bad (like in da2 where such a situation literally causes a coup and a war) it just tells us it's bad. But also pirates are cool so we still want them in our world.

This issue seaps into Thedas and drains it of any of the interesting complexity and ability to SAY anything that this franchise had before this game. It becomes a game about telling and not showing rather than the other way around. The games have ALWAYS asked questions about oppressive structural systems and their interplay with society, religion and culture and how these things can affect even the most well meaning character. Dragon age at its best IS a game about society and how society functions both for and against it's characters and what happens to societies built on cruelty and indifference. The best bad guys dragon age has given us are those who are bad because they embody these systems or have been shaped by them. Our main characters have had to wrestle with questions surrounding how to exist in these systems, fight against them, learn and grow.

Yet every group you come across in DATV is sanitised and cleaned up to the point of being as non problematic as humanly possible. None of our cast of characters have to wrestle with where they came from or the world that shaped them. None of them have to confront their own biases. They start the game perfectly non-problematic and end it that way too.

And this just...isn't what Dragon Age has been in the past. It isn't why I love the franchise. The whole game just felt, in a way, hollow. And this was a CHOICE and it is why the legacy characters are few and far between. Too many dragon age characters are just too...angry and complex for this game. You can feel them pulling their punches on this one. I have to imagine they did this because they didn't want to be criticised or have too much controversy? But I think it honestly goes far too much in the other direction and just makes it bland.

I can't imagine what I say here will be unique, but it is the basis for a LOT of my other thoughts on this game so I wanted to get it out of the way first. The softened Thedas and characters make this game by far the weakest in the franchise.