#elven focus

[the-northern-continent]

My favorite bit of the Dawn Will Come scene is when Solas is laser-focusing (heh) on the orb, meanwhile the Anchor has already decided what its focus is, and it is so transparently NOT the orb.

Solas is all “elven focus” this, “stolen power” that, meanwhile the Anchor is totally ignoring the shiny titan ball and sprinkling focus bars on the Inquisitor and all their companions. Something something the power of a god comes from their people.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Veilguard vaguing:

It's not automatically a good thing, actually, that the game de-emphasizes or even outright removes racism against elves, and bigotry against other groups, from the story

[y-rhywbeth2]

'Those rare few who transcend the normal boundaries of any skills or trades and excel due to passions within them for their art become very attractive to elves.'

'Irresistible' is a word used later in the paragraph and I could say something about how this is how most half-elves are born because elves apparently go nuts for non-elves who are obsessed with a chosen discipline.

Instead I'm just cackling in my brainrot over my version of durgetash where a certain N'Quess's engineering skills and mad scientist drive really did win the heart of a murdergod elf and cause them to lose their damn mind. Bhaal was a little too accurate in his imitation of an elf.

[asterdeer]

really been struggling with finding good mindless queer audiobooks to distract myself with lately. today i started not one but two different poorly written fantasy romances where the main characters bone within 24 hours of meeting each other (one of them was literally 5 minutes after meeting). allos are wild

[rosykims]

i dont like the idea of everything being linked to the fade or the elves and mages etc etc and i think ive said that several times atp. but yknow what i DO want linked to everything? the deep roads actually. and im being serious abt that

[lexisglitching]

Fantasy au elven!izuna ranger!tobirama please and thank you.

[social-cocoon]

I've been feeling like I should do a dwarven or qunari Rook since I have 2 human PCs and 1 elven PC, but I'm leaning sooo hard towards playing another elf given who and what the main villains are. Also I rly want to be an angry Dalish to make up for what my Inky couldn't be

[dhwty-writes]

for oc asks - ghost for you most haunted oc and secret for your least haunted oc!

Thanks for the ask!

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

Most haunted is Eridis. At twelve years old, she witnessed the slaughter of many, many nobles including her best friend and her surrogate father. She then was raised by the church and became a knight who is just... the most dutiful. During that time both her parents died, only weeks before she was knighted and could have helped them. So now she is grieving for two families she's lost and on a quest to reclaim her ancestral blade and destroy all the other magic blades that caused that much death and destruction with it.

secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

My least haunted OC is maybe Morys? He's an alchemist journeyman who desperately wants to advance to master but can't because his father and older sister are already masters and the guild won't allow for that. Besides that, he is just happy to be there and included! His (not so secret) secret is probably that he is very much in love with Amalinde, who's his parents' tenant and also a princess in exile. While that would already be an obstacle, she's also, unfortunately for him, a lesbian.

Send me some OC asks!

[the-northern-continent]

How many random magical knicknacks does this guy own though. The knife is supposedly his, the orb (deceased) is his, and let’s not forget that mask from Redemption. Is the jawbone necklace the only thing that didn’t get raided from his junk drawer while he was sleeping.

[mithrun-house-of-kerensil]

Lately, I've been thinking about Mithrun and the ways he is dehumanized in canon.

Before I get started, we know that elven society is incredibly afraid of death and illness. This is obvious in how they look down on the short lived races and see them as weak and childlike. We also know that Mithrun himself had ableist views toward his brother and these values did not leave him once he, himself, became disabled. He is a product of the society that raised him, but I also think how Mithrun is currently being treated contributes to his view of himself.

Mithrun has had three different caretaking groups over the years. The first are the ones his brother hired for him. From what we can see, they did the job, but we can understand that they did not know what to do with him. No one had ever recovered from having their desires eaten so the focus was less on rehabilitation and more on keeping him alive.

Later we see Milsiril take an interest in him because of his desire to return to the dungeon. Since she did not bother to visit him for decades after finding him, we can assume that there is an ulterior motive here. Timeline-wise, this was when the majority of the canaries had just been wiped out. They needed more men, and Mithrun is set up to be the perfect single-focused soldier.

Honestly, we can assume that Milsiril doesn't really care about him or see him as a person. Mithrun is just a new project for her to play with. We can see this in how she's focused on superficial level concerns like the fact that he doesn't look nice and wanting him to be overly grateful toward her. She also talks about him like he's not in the room and can't hear her. This is a dehumanizing trait shared by many characters when talking about Mithrun.

When he finally does recover enough to return to the canaries, the military does not make any effort to accommodate his needs. We know the canaries are understaffed and the ethics are already bad, but they really did not even try to care about Mithrun's safety at all.

Entrusting a criminal with his care was questionable at best, especially when Cithis immediately took the opportunity to abuse her power over him and no one stopped her.

While acknowledging the light-hearted nature of the manga, it's uncomfortable that Mithrun was treated like a child and an animal by Cithis for her amusement. Regardless of her 'learning to respect him' later, the point is that Mithrun was taken advantage of and degraded because she believed he couldn't say no. No one bothered to do anything about this until Pattadol yelled at her.

Truly his treatment is summarized well by Milsiril here. Mithrun is extremely vulnerable to being abused by those taking care of him because he won't advocate for himself. He has one desire so he won't fight for himself in any other way.

It is obvious that Mithrun was not treated well by his caretakers and this has resulted in him identifying his needs through a disconnected and frankly, infantilizing lens.

I understand that it may have been a translator's decision, but I always thought it was interesting that Mithrun says that he's "not sleepy" which is a childish term. Otherwise, he speaks like everyone else, if not rather posh.

This, followed by the fact that he is responsive to Kabru treating him like a literal infant to get him to eat, paints a clear picture of the fact that Mithrun is not unfamiliar with being treated like this. He responds to it because he's used to it and has no desire to argue with being treated this way. When we consider the fact that the chapter started with Milsiril treating an older child Kabru in the same way, it is likely that she also did the same thing to Mithrun when he was under her care.

In these panels, we see that Mithrun does not believe that he can sleep without magical assistance, even though it is immediately refuted when Kabru takes the time to bundle him up and help him relax. Not only does he fully believe he can't sleep without external assistance, but he states directly that there is no point in him getting comfortable.

As Kabru observes, Mithrun's inability to recognize his needs applies to needs such as hunger and exhaustion, but it obviously also applies to emotional needs. Kabru just wanting to feed him something delicious and not wanting him to give up on life is the most consideration someone has given Mithrun in years.

The relationship they form over the course of a single week is enough to shape Mithrun's behaviour completely. Mithrun ignores Cithis's demand in favour of asking Kabru's opinion. It is Kabru's hand Mithrun takes to pull him out of his defeated state. It is Kabru Mithrun confessed his true desire to.

Do you realize how depressing that is? All it took was the new perspectives from Kabru and Senshi to make him consider the fact that he should keep living despite no longer needing to fulfill his duty. Being treated well could have helped Mithrun much sooner and this shift in the way he sees himself contributes to his recovery going forward.

TLDR: Mithrun has no desire to be respected, but why does that make people feel comfortable acting like he doesn't deserve it? Someone not caring about being treated well doesn't give you permission to treat them poorly. This feels like a playschool-level consent lesson: just because he's not saying no to a humiliating or degrading act doesn't mean it's a yes and therefore okay to do. Acknowledging this is the bare minimum of treating him as a person.

[ajdrawshq]

i finished 7th dragon a lil while ago n some of the worldbuilding is so funny i cant stop thinking abt it. why is the lost city of atlantis populated by catgirls

[velvet4510]

Here’s the thing.

Many Bagginshield shippers, especially in fics, focus on how Bilbo never got over Thorin, to the point where some describe Bilbo’s entire life as sad and empty and unfulfilled because of that loss.

Don’t get me wrong: I do agree that he suffered terrible loss and undeserved torment by the Ring. And the fact that he never married probably did have some connection to the memory of Thorin.

But, y’all, don’t forget or ignore the fact that, in Tolkien’s text, Bilbo does move on from grief and live the rest of his life well.

He does not become bitter from his pain. He retains his kind heart.

He is generous with his wealth, helping in every way he can the very community that ostracizes him.

He sees in Frodo a kindred spirit and takes it upon himself to be the parental figure that Frodo so badly needs as an orphan.

He and Frodo develop an uncle-nephew (really more like father-son) relationship built on trust, keeping no secrets from each other, to the level where he tells Frodo the truth about his encounter with Gollum. (And probably the truth about his feelings for Thorin, too.)

He and Frodo have so much fun, going for walks every day, studying the Elvish languages, and throwing big birthday parties to show the community a good time. It’s plain to see that caring for Frodo filled that massive void inside Bilbo, finally giving him someone to love and devote himself to looking after, after his first chance at that (albeit the first being a different kind of love) was taken from him.

He does not see himself as superior to the lower class despite his riches, and always treats the Gamgees with the utmost respect.

He teaches Sam to read and write.

He tells his story to the younger hobbits, inspiring more of them to want to learn more about the outside world and not be so sheltered and ignorant…an effort which ultimately saves Middle-earth because the Travelers learn from him to be curious and interested in the lands outside the Shire, and he inspires them daily, as they constantly say to themselves “if Bilbo could go there and back again despite great danger, so can we.”

He even learns to love having a tarnished reputation, ultimately taking advantage of being “mad” to play a fun prank.

When he is no longer at rest in the Shire, he gifts Frodo all his property which will ensure Frodo is set for life, and through all his passive aggressive gifts to his relatives, he gives the Gaffer genuinely useful items that he knows will help him, including ointment for creaky joints.

He gets a peaceful retirement among his Elven friends, which he spends writing his memoir so that future generations will know all about his lost friends.

And ultimately, he embraces the special gift of an exception from the Valar and rare permission to set foot in the Blessed Realm for one last adventure, where he will continue to look after his beloved nephew.

And the fact is, he never would’ve gotten any of these things if he’d stayed in Erebor. He would never have developed that special bond with Frodo - he may never have even met him - and consequently, Frodo may never have met Sam.

Yes, a lot of his life was lonely and somber. But much more of it, even after experiencing such a tragedy, was full of love and joy and fun and excitement. He became an invaluable caretaker and mentor to the next generation of hobbits, got a taste of fatherhood, passed on his expertise and his story, and spent his last years surrounded by friends and family.

Bilbo Baggins may have lost the love of his life, but he did not give up on life itself, and he lived a full one. Don’t forget that.

[aragornsrockcollection]

This would have been a normal thing to say if we were playing by LotR trilogy rules, where the elves were a monolith, but the Hobbit decided to start introducing different races of elf just to have a possible inter-class romance with Tauriel that goes nowhere and does nothing except make me demand internal consistency for Tolkien elf cultures.

So no, movie Legolas. We’ve established you’re a Sinda now. So you don’t get to claim your kin made that sword. The Noldor made that sword. Your dad and grandfather moved to the Greenwood to get as far from the Noldor as possible, and then in the war of the last alliance your father blames the Noldor for getting your grandfather killed.

Your people actively clash with the makers of that sword. They are not your kin. Shut up.

Random Legolas Greenleaf moments: 155/?

[thevulturesquadron]

This is a good time to talk again about how important the relationship between the Inquisitor and Solas is, regardless if it's a romantic one or not (maybe with even more weight and clarity on Solas’ character when it’s not the romance version because there’s less of those muddy feelings).

The way their connection, the trust and respect they have for each other, form and take shape during Inquisition is so organic and meaningful. Fen’Harel is a prideful bastard who doubles down on the things he knows even if they are wrong because he thinks it’s on him to fix them, and his arrogance keeps him blind to other options. But Solas, the one that walked by the Inquisitor’s side is, at the end of Trespasser, giving the Inquisitor the chance to ‘live well while time remains.’ But he knows them, he knows that the Inquisitor won’t be spending that time running away from this. That is Solas’ way of asking for help without saying ‘Please, don’t let me be right. Please find another way. Time is all I can give, see you at the end.’

And that is one amazing and strong connection, and a proof of trust, maybe even more so if the Inquisitor is not of elven origin, but a dwarf, qunari or human.

This isn’t meant to take away something from anyone. It's just that a lot of the focus in these online conversations falls on a Lavellan relationship or a romantic relationship, and the story of the inquisitor and Solas has more nuance to it, an often less talked about one.

[thesummerestsolstice]

Only the elves really see Elrond as "half-elven." They focus, of course, on who he is in relation to them. He's sort-of an elf– enough that they can accept him into their society, but not enough to erase his differences. They understand the different parts of him– his propensity to get sick, his elvish-sharp hearing, his need for sleep, his immortality– as "elvish" or "not-elvish." And while they can be rather condescending about anything they see as "not-elvish," they aren't usually very curious.

Most men regard Elrond vaguely as a fae being. This isn't unique to him– much of Middle-Earth's changling and fairy stories were built on the strange human-and-not-human nature of half-elves. Of course, different humans regard them very differently– sometimes with respect, even reverence, believing that "fairies" are beings of great wisdom and knowledge. Others see them with suspicion and fear, viewing them as sources of danger and deception.

To the Numenorians, Elrond is just one of them– a kind of "immortal man." He is like them in several key ways– he gets ill, he needs sleep, he regards the passage of time in a very "human" way. More importantly, he is their kin, a living remnant and reminder of both their mythical founder and non-human blood they share. He acts as a healer and counselor when they need him. This is all well and good until some of them start thinking that if Elrond could make the choice to be immortal, surely they should be able to as well.

The dwarves see Elrond as an elf. They absolutely do not care enough to tell the difference between him and the others. He's immortal, he's always with a bunch of elves. He's an elf.

The Maiar do not really understand what Elrond is, and have kind of defaulting to seeing him as one of them but like, small. Look, they're all uncounted thousands of years old, he's a child to them. They dote on him and think he's adorable, but sometimes forget that he's also part-elf and part-human, and can't just drop his physical form whenever he likes to go be a disembodied spirit in the clouds. Gandalf encourages all their antics. Elrond is working on it.

(Contrary to popular belief, the average hobbit does not have any kind of opinion on Elrond Peredhel. Bilbo Baggins, who lives in his house and has written several long, extremely personal ballads about his family history, is a statistical outlier and should not have been counted.)

[meo-eiru]

Not sure if you ever answered an ask like this, so if you did please forgive me.

But would having a child with Silas cause him to tone down his mothering tendency, or would it make them worse?

Like would Silas focus his desire to be a parent onto his child, or would it become a weird dynamic where he's acting like a mother to both Y/n and his child?

Actually no, in fact his mothering might just increase because he would think you'd need extra care after having a child.

He just has two people to mother now but that doesn't mean you'll be getting any less attention and care from him.

It was asked before so I'll answer it here as well but I think you'd need to have a long talk to him about how the family dynamics would work. He wants to mother you even after realizing his romantic and sexual attraction to you but you'd need to explain to him how the same dynamic won't work with a literal baby and I think he'd instinctively understand it too to certain degree. Both by viewing how you take care of the baby and the roles you take at taking care of it, and also the roles that falls on him.

Elven family dynamics are quite different than humans. And being a mother is something Silas idolized in his head based on the story books he read, he prefers being a "mom" over being a "dad" because based on the books he read mothers often had a deeper emotional connection with their kids, and they were the ones who took care of the baby's basic needs most of the time. He would take the title of a "dad" for the baby but I think he would still want to be a nurturing parent. Feeding the kid (with actual food), putting it to sleep, reading it stories... Those moments where he gets to form a real connection are what Silas always dreams of, a connection he can't form with elves.