#if i have i havent finished or posted it

[wall-eye]

Favourite characters! i had to go with my classics, Hope and Lyndell!

[hinamie]

trick or treat!

[heartorbit]

if we could stay connected, just like this

[ahhrenata]

[butchvamp]

i finished Harding's quest... whew... i don't like Harding. or i should say i don't like how nice the game treats her. she gets all of the emotional beats around the lore revelations while the elves are left to go kick rocks.

i pointed this out previously in another post, but the dwarves (and Harding specifically, and thus by extension Andrastians, too) get so much more sympathy from the game than any of the elves. you can clearly see it just in these two screenshots-- compare dialogue choices when comforting Harding after the reveal about the Golden City (and also important to note that the game assumes my elf is Dalish multiple times before this choice, but for some reason i can suddenly make her Andrastian):

versus the first real discussion you get to have with Bellara about the truth of the elven gods:

Bellara implies that everyone is right not to trust the elves, actually, because the elven gods (the same ones that enslaved her people btw) are bad and we should all feel bad about it.

and Davrin is unfortunately distanced from the Dalish, remarking that they're too traditional and stuck in the past (a racist trope that Dragon Age really loves for the elves), and only seems to care about how the elven gods make elves "look bad." we do get to see Davrin reconnect with one of the members of his clan later, which is a sweet moment that shows us a new side of him, but it exists more so to push along the griffon storyline than anything to do with Davrin (a problem i find quite annoying when it comes to Davrin's writing... they care more about Assan and "turlum" than him or his feelings. but that's a different post)

when we finally get to Heart of Stone, Harding has her big, emotional confrontation with a titan, and gets granted the memory of the titan's loss and all of their pain. she says some Choice lines, here.

who is thriving? the elves that were enslaved en masse by the Evanuris? the elves that are still enslaved and live in alienages? that are wholly, systemically oppressed throughout Thedas? then to follow it up with both of these lines, spoken to an elven Rook:

and i understand that this is the titan speaking through Harding, and we can be generous and say that they are addressing the Evanuris, and not elf Rook personally. but. uh. why doesn't my elf get to Say Anything. it's repeatedly insinuated that everything is the elves' fault, that the elves should feel guilty and that they should be held responsible for what happened to the dwarves (and by extension, the blight and everything bad that's ever happened including what's happening right now), and that they deserve to suffer because of what "they" did to the titans.... and there's no option to challenge this line of thinking at all.

and it's really frustrating that none of the elven companions are allowed this kind of emotional catharsis with the Evanuris. up until that one (bad) dialogue with Bellara, all of Bellara's comments/her reactions to the gods are treated as comic relief. none of them get to grieve their gods like Harding is allowed to grieve the titans-- they're not even allowed to be as angry with Solas as Harding is in some scenes. even Andrastians, in that one single dialogue choice, were afforded more sympathy and grief than the elves in this game.

it's a baffling choice, considering the plot, that elves are given so little grace or consideration. and i do think part of it has to do with the way this game has tried to distance itself from previously established lore as well as scrub itself clean of anything morally dubious-- it's all black and white and the game needs someone to blame, so the elves are bad because the Evanuris are bad, nevermind all that other stuff, because see, the elves actually deserved it all along! i don’t even think it’s unreasonable that Harding may have these feelings (even if they’re racist lol) but the fact you just have to accept Blame and the narrative never challenges her or Bellara’s guilt or Davrin’s apathy and instead just agrees with all of them and forces Rook to agree as well is shitty and takes it from “this character feels this way” to “the game is implying that everyone feels this way, and also that they’re right.”

it's really unfortunate because i do think this reveal about the titans and why the dwarves can't dream or use magic is exciting, it could cause some compelling conflict between the companions (but that's not allowed in this game at all unfortunately and you especially Cannot be even slightly rude to Harding, ever). and i do like the idea of her quest and what they're trying to convey here-- confronting this old, repressed trauma, and finding a way to reconcile with it and move forward.... but not at the expense of the elves, who also suffered massively at the hands of the Evanuris (and continue to suffer. right now)

bioware has been criticized repeatedly about their depiction of the Dalish, their indigenous coding, and even the mages, too, and i really do not understand what they were thinking with this, because it's just racist (and exactly what people have repeatedly criticized them for). this is why a lot of "fantasy racism" fails. you can't write a marginalized group as being responsible and deserving of their own oppression, that's not how it works!

[in-study-hell]

Lone warrior: 50%

[athina-blaine]

if you're so straight why are you, a man, promising to share a meal with another man as both a fraught goodbye and, if it were up to you, a future hello

[howdyfriend]

(You dreamt you were eating your friends whole.)

[creepycoffins]

Inspired by this post 🔫🔪

still (and grayscale) under the cut

[tianhai03]

smoke and mirrors

i finally finished this drawing.... took me almost two months at this point because i kept getting caught up with other things </3

here's just him without any of the smokes and bg because i am Incredibly proud of how everything turned out :)

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about how Pete used to be a priest and Kevin's (unnamed) mom was a nun. The fact that Pete was clearly stripped of his title. And we don't hear anything about Kevin's mother beyond the fact that she's dead. Thinking about how Diane says that she thinks of Pete as her "creepy uncle" and hates him. Thinking about how Kevin being born was likely a huge scandal for Pete and his mother and led to him being kicked out of the church. Thinking about how Pete doesn't seem to have any remorse at all for the potential abuse of power that occurred which led to Kevin's conception. Thinking about how Pete was the one most likely to make jokes objectifying women with Kevin. Thinking about how Kevin was likely raised believing he was some sort of miracle or chosen one, destined for great things solely because acknowledgment of the shame surrounding the circumstances of his birth would require Pete admitting fault. Thinking about how normalized it must have been in his childhood to see women being talked down to, objectified, sexualized and made into nothing more than plot devices to powerful men. Thinking about the sense of entitlement he must have had baked into him, and the deep fear hiding underneath all of it that one day everyone is going to realize he's his father's biggest skeleton in the closet. Thinking about this show having one of the most nuanced and complex portrayals of the cycle of abuse and patriarchal violence that I've ever seen!!!

[ladybugboots]

my ace attorney investigations looks weird.. where are the attorneys..

speedpaint

started with this pose but it felt weird with his arms not behind his back

[heartorbit]

creatures

[strangecowplant]

💛

[mosaixe]

WIP: based off that one centaur x rider painting

[cozylittleartblog]

diversity win your spam emails are queer