#is between me and my maker.

[fjordfolk]

mostly im wondering who all these people are, debating dog training ideology to themselves while their dog is running into traffic

[sunlight-shunlight]

suddenly sitting up awake at 12am: i think thedas has a genre of memento mori types of paintings, where they put a skull in with some fancy still life stuff to indicate that the patron/artist is wealthy, but also Pious and thinking about Inevitable Death rather than material things (even though they're lovingly rendering all the silverware and expensive fruits and lace tablecloths or whatever)

BUT. since andraste is associated with fire, this is done by including like a lit candle or an urn of ashes or something in the composition, to show the piety and focus on the impermanence of life! i think this would be common in orlais especially. presumably tevinter is trying not to play up the "whoops we turned the saviour into a burnt kebab :)" angle in their religion, so they'd have... idk. a knife or something? to indicate the sword of mercy as the pious symbol of death rather than the fire itself?

[bantersnatch]

it's been a full year since i crossed the rubicon (started writing vianca fic, thus dooming myself to all this nonsense)!! what a wild ride it's been <3

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today

[crazyhickofftheirrocker]

"Betsy's too cool to hug her Mum now."

No, Lisa Swain. Your daughter has never been too cool to hug you.

[eclecticmuses]

reupload of my original Emmrook vid because I fixed my graphics issues!

[helianthus21]

lestat gets maybe the shortest but most heartfelt decription<3

[crows-of-buckets]

Thinking too hard about Aviae and Zevrans friendship and it's making me Ill

[longing4yesterday]

btw shout out to all my talented friends here on beatles tumblr <3 yall are incredible no matter what your craft is and i am forever in awe of your abilities <33

[moinsbienquekaworu]

But what about... The OC......

[chericheribaby]

hello loopsie 🍒🍒🍒🍒

i hope u liked ur daily ghost post 🥰🥰

I ADORE daily ghosts, it’s like my favorite thing, make me smile sooo much<3

Adding this one after posting bc u little shit I almost forgot

[imitor]

houyi ..... i think i love all my bsd ocs on a degree that has me frightened

[bantersnatch]

I know you said ur on a writing hiatus til the end of S2, but every day I check ao3 for more vianca and yearn. No one does it quite like u, I fear.

Anyway, this is supposed to a compliment! Sorry if it doesn’t come across as such! I really enjoy your writing! I’m just needy like they need each other 😭

hello, anon! okay. so. here's the deal. when it comes to writing, i am incredibly stubborn. this means that if i fully commit to writing a fic, the fic gets written. this also means that if i've decided i'm taking a break, there is no amount of compliments or requests that will bring me back.

your options, therefore, are as follows:

reread what i have already posted (i like to think there are enough little details and subtleties sprinkled throughout my vip work that you'll find something new to enjoy while you're at it). leave comments as you go if you want to see my ego grow to an unsustainable and monstrous size. or...

your turn!!! write some vianca of your own, and see where that takes you. i'd certainly love to read your take on the dynamic.

[vaguely-concerned]

I cannot bELIEVE that teia and viago have managed to (seemingly amicably and mutally at least) fumble each other and returned to USTatus quo between eight little talons and veilguard and now they're standing there in the cantori diamond barely one foot apart abjectly, palpably pining for each other and they're just making me watch. (I mean I absolutely can believe that but oh my GOD!!!) sure I am going to have to save the world at some point too but this takes first priority because if these two motherfuckers aren't making out again by the end of the game I may die in real life

[thisfragilesky]

on the idea of godhood and my one giant lore catchall post

spoilers for dragon age, inquisition, and trespasser dlc, etc.

this plays off of a post i read recently (i didn't remember to save it) that referred to a word used in a codex entry that basically corresponds to 'the idea and worship of power/godhood made real', as in the worship of a figure, at sufficient quantities, granting them real power. the post theorized this was how the evanuris went from being mere generals in a war to being worshipped as mage-gods, same for solas and possibly mythal. i believe it also mentioned the idea that the way the 'gods' were worshipped would've affected the gods' demeanor as well, though that becomes more of a chicken vs egg situation.

anyway. here's some thoughts i've been having.

according to solas, 'Falon'Din's vanity and desire for worshipers was so great he started brutal wars to gain more, killing all who would not bow to him.' it's unknown if the other evanuris did similar things, but the general idea is that: gain worshippers to gain power through their worship.

the chantry's goal '...is to spread the Chant of Light to all four corners of the world and to all races... Once all peoples have accepted the Chant and practice its teachings, the Maker will return and restore the world to its former glory.' (emphasis mine, quoted from the wiki)

so.

would the idea of 'worship of power/godhood made real' apply to this as well? that the meaning of the chantry insisting on spreading the chant of light to all of thedas is to mean that once everyone/enough people worship and believe in the maker, he will have power (again) to affect the world, whether the chantry knows this or not?

going down this line of thought leads me to think.. regardless of whether the maker is Real God or a Powerful Mage Worshipped to Godhood, the concept of the Original Sin would line up with a very primeval 'had his children/worshipers turned away from him, thus diminishing his power' that may have happened before the actual original sin.

would the same apply to how the qunari leaders try to spread the teachings of the qun? as far as i can tell, the qun maybe honors the askhaari koslun, but he isn't venerated as a god or as in having powers aside from the tales of his visions and prophecy regarding his teachings. i think. i did a brief skim on the wiki.

in light of it all, this could be an aspect of atheism trying to quell all the powers vying for godhood in the world. don't believe in gods! any of them! you'll give them power! all you need is order and obedience!

in works, in theory.

anyway, the thing that's been on my mind the MOST:

the Forgotten Ones, the void, and the blight. bear with me.

All that the Maker has wrought is in His hand Beloved and precious to Him. Where the Maker has turned His face away, Is a Void in all things; In the world, in the Fade, In the hearts and minds of men.

(emphasis mine, quoted from the wiki as from the canticle of threnodies)

i've read and may or may not subscribe to the theories about the blight originating from the void, from the implication of andruil going hunting in there for the Forgotten Ones and becoming Infected, bringing a plague back to her lands. assuming this story is true, then that is where the initial taint came from that could have affected the primeval thaig in the free marches (it being somewhat close to the forest of arlathan could lend credence to this) before the tevinter magisters ever entered the fade.

according to the wiki, the codex for fen'harel gives us that 'Forgotten Ones are a dark mirror presiding over the worst aspects of existence: disease, terror, spite and malevolence. They serve not as shepherds of the elves, but rather as figures of fear and dread.'

SO. IF:

andruil's plague = blight the plague = came from the void the void = either 'the maker turned his face from it' or 'the maker is not present here' The Forgotten Ones = worst aspects of existence, reside in or were born of the void the evanuris = aspects of the maker? (i THINK morrigan mentions this idea)

the evanuris as the relatively more positive aspects of the maker warring against the forgotten ones, the objectively more negative aspects of the maker, while both try to spread their versions of.. idealogy, i guess?

i say this because i question what the whole point of the blight is. but if the blight comes from the void, and the void is where the forgotten ones are or live or come from, and if the forgotten ones are.. possibly.. negative aspects of the maker... it's less that 'the maker is sending us trials by cleansing fire via the blights' and more 'this splintered part of the maker (the forgotten ones) wants to spread this negative blight to make themselves more powerful'.

the evanuris, though relatively More Positive, also apparently just want to make Themselves more powerful (because ambition can be both good and bad). and maybe initially the war between the evanuris/ancient elvhen and the Forgotten Ones WAS a war against the negative aspects of the maker, to prevent the bad from overtaking the good.

(but perfectly good and perfectly bad are in no way perfection, in and of themselves)

solas says the evanuris were mortal. there's theories that they're spirits, whose identities depend on how they are remembered and worshiped.

i say: who is to say that solas's insistence on their mortality ISN'T just another way to alter their state, to MAKE them mortal just be believing that they are. spirits can alter their reality. and with how cole made himself corporeal, the idea that spirits can just become Real and Physical if they Believe it (or are believed in?) hard enough has implications on, maybe, how some things came to be:

the evanuris: the practice of vallas'lin dedicating (unhappy, ungrateful) slaves to the evanuris affecting their later behavior (madness, vanity, betrayal) the avvar gods: powerful spirits(?) given stewardship over the avvar clans by their reverence and worship. one can even be bound to a dragon, just like how the grey wardens bound demons. just like how you could bind cole, if you wanted. the void: did the maker turn away from those dark parts of himself, whether in fear or shame? did they fester in resentment and give rise to things void of love? the forgotten ones: because every light makes a shadow, whether intended or otherwise. these shadows are black and forgotten, and they want you to know that you are, too. the dragons you fight: were they heroes worshipped to dragon-godhood, like the ancient human tribes of old did? which hero was hakkon made to possess and subvert? which angry soul perverted hakkon's purpose? the old gods: who created them, and for what? (i have ideas.) the titans: did they make the dwarves or did the dwarves make them? (i'm thinking about this) the archdemons: like demons. a spirit's purpose, perverted. the blight: a perversion of life? or the spiritual equivalent of terraforming the world for an incompatible race? the inquisitor: are you who you are or are you what they believe you to be? how do you know? you are, inevitably, a product of society and what it expects from you. the maker: did someone make him, too? what did they expect of him?

...and, you know, maybe i'm a bit crazy to theorycraft in this direction. but you know what?

i wonder if the impression of teyrn loghain on the fade is ultimately that of a traitor or a hero. i suppose that depends on how you, the player, altered his story and what people believed of him, how they remembered him. if he is remembered as both, is he both? can he only be one?

does this make you a spirit? does that make you a Maker?

[whoviandoodler]

you ever go into a tag for a show or whatever and find several painstakingly created gif sets from interviews with the actors where they're just like. fully mocking fans? talking about them like they're the most despicable thing on this earth kind of bitter mocking. and on the one hand you're like, okay, i get it, fans can really be shit and get overly parasocial and think you owe them something beyond the work you created but on the other it's like. bro this makes me not want to engage with anything you do at all. ever. you don't have to sing your fans praises but you can do them the basic courtesy of professionalism and not ridiculing the entirety of everyone who both engages with your creative work and whose interest ultimately results in your paycheck.