#oh she’s also an elf

[tourmalinaer]

She’s a ten, but when she was eleven years old, she accidentally flooded one of the biggest cities of her realm and got herself banished from her kind’s civilization.

When she was about fifteen, she also PURPOSELY flooded the capital of another species’s nation.

what do we think

[ktzart]

a roster of bug npcs for @peatbogdyke @unseelieofficial >:3c this was so unbelievably fun to work on >:3c

[mightnotfeelrealbutitsok]

all of Aragorn and Arwen's love story in the ROTK appendices is so beautiful... first meeting in the woods of Rivendell at sunset?? Aragorn singing the Lay of Luthien and Arwen looking just like Luthien and him crying Tinuviel just as Beren did???? meeting years later in Lothlorien and Aragorn dressing up nice enough to make Arwen fall in love this time?? (Galadriel the wingwoman. she so set that up.) walking together barefoot in the elanor and niphredil?????? Arwen making the standard as a symbol of her faith that Aragorn will become king???? (and having this sent to him as a gift/message during the course of LOTR) Once Aragorn dies Arwen going to live alone in the waning Lothlorien (where they fell in love, remember) until she dies on the hill where she chose their love over immortality?????

[dailypearldoodles]

Day 521

This week's outside Pearl is from @justl-12 !! Her SL!Pearl design was actually what kinda inspired me to design Pearl a little differently because like, I love her Pearl. Scrappy lil gal. Love the flower details and whole vibe, especially her hair oooh its cute

[cinnamonsikwate]

i'm really curious about what marcille's mother's deal is. seems like she's not too big on the rest of elven society. here's what we know about her so far:

mage at a human royal court (adventurer's bible)

courtship with marcille's father donato lasted 17 years (adventurer's bible)

specialty is roast pork, which was also donato's favorite (chapter 81)

had a cheerful personality up until the point donato got too sick to eat his favorite food. her extreme emotional reaction to this left a lasting impression on marcille (chapter 81)

remarried to a gnome and moved away from the city at some point after donato died (adventurer's bible)

several portraits of her appear in marcille's nightmare (chapter 42); this is the second time we see marcille dream of her (chapter 3)

preferred non-elven food and didn't introduce marcille to any traditional elven dishes (chapter 74)

from the canaries' reactions in chapter 74, it appears elven society looks down on elves who go to live among and work for short-lived races. they seemed especially put off that she would have a mixed-blood child. when they're talking about the lyrikmumare to get marcille to trip up, marcille envisions her mother saying that the food "here" (i.e., the northern continent) tastes so much better. so the picture we're getting here is of an elf who has removed herself from elven culture, but the question is, did she do it willingly or was she forced to?

keeping her other actions in mind, i'm leaning more towards the former. the most intriguing thing for me is that she eventually married a gnome, despite elves and gnomes having infamously waged war against each other over differences in the practice of magic and presently tending to discriminate against the other on sight. (one thing's for sure — marcille's mother is winning the idgaf war!)

marcille never talks about her gnome stepfather though, and it's unclear what she thinks of her mother's remarriage. the timing of the remarriage is also a mystery. donato married marcille's mother when he was 32 (after having courted her for 17 years) and died at 82, meaning they were married for 50 years. marcille is also currently 50 years old, but we know she wasn't born immediately after the marriage: in chapter 81, donato's doppelganger says marcille was born when he'd started "getting on in years." based on marcille's memories of him and the established fact that the average tall-man lifespan is 60 years, i'd hazard that he was in his 50s then. this gives him 30 years or less with marcille — definitely less than 35, which we know is the age at which she left for the magic academy.

we don't know if marcille's mother remarries before or after marcille leaves (if before, than that's definitely a shockingly short time), but it's interesting that she chose to marry someone from a long-lived race this time. maybe this is her way of ensuring she spares herself another heartbreak? or maybe she *is* still heartbroken and is trying to cover it up.

but. i can't help but kind of agree with chilchuck in chapter 81, that marcille's parents are not blameless for marcille becoming the dungeon lord. since it's apparently well-documented, they surely must have known — as well-educated people — that mixed-blood children face not just discrimination but also mental anguish that comes with their unstable aging (not to mention the sterility). so the way they raised marcille feels frankly irresponsible 😭

anyway. i'd love to get spin-off content where post-adventure marcille and her mother meet again. i feel like there's a lot of unresolved issues there (that can of course be hashed out over a good meal).

[possamble]

I absolutely really need to be writing anything but random ideas while I procrastinate and this is so awful rough bc I literally wrote it on my phone in one sitting while avoiding work but

Do you see my vision. Her Nosy Bitch Syndrome would actually be good for him when they've both chilled out a little in the postcanon.

[dunmeshistash]

Semi-related to Thistle talk but it's interesting to compare him with Yaad's generation, because they too are stuck in a perpetual adolescence while still having to carry out adult responsibilities. Given Yaad's entire arc and the apparent ease at which the citizens have worked for centuries on end, one very optimistic take might interpret this as them developing more maturity than Thistle… But then it's pointed out that they're doing all of this because routine is the only thing keeping them sane anymore, and even then they still struggle to find meaning and joy in things other people take for granted, like food. So to other people what looks like maturity is actually repression or apathy for the sake of survival.

And while their situation is definitely not the same as Thistle being taken away from his culture and raised entirely by tallmen, the Golden Country citizens are also disconnected from where they came from and what they "should" be - the previous generations that had a frame of reference for the outside world and a normal lifespan are now gone. That's how we end up with scenes like Chilchuck being unnerved by the brewer that looks like a teen but casually mentions running their own business for 600+ years. They and Thistle all have that dissonance of looking young but having taken on too many duties, much too early, for much too long.

I hadn't thought much about how young the golden kingdom people are I just assumed they were adults but they DO look younger than what we would consider adults.

I theorized on another post that they might all be 16 (but I also say I think they're older there, now I'm not so sure) because that's the age of maturity for Tallmen.

Age of maturity usually means that's when you're considered an "adult" socially (as in now you have adult responsibilities and is expected to carry your own) that's why I think Thistle hasn't reached that yet, its what would thematically fit him the most as a kid with adult responsibilities (wouldn't make sense if he was already the age that's expected to take on these responsibilities)

The golden kingdom citizens don't really feel like they have a stunted growth like thistle to me.... I don't know how to explain how I feel but... it's like they have stunted experiences instead? They don't know what really is like to be alive, they are just going about their lives in a clockwork manner trying not to think about it and missing out on how it feels to live (exemplified by how they don't eat).

What made me feel like that the most is that when Yaad is in Delgal's body it doesn't feel like a teen trapped in an old man's body, it feels like an old man with finally a body that matches? To me the golden kingdom citizens feel more like someone forever trapped in a body much younger than their minds?

That's just my interpretation tho! I like your interpretation too, it's making me think about it more, so I might end up changing my mind. Some of them really do act like kids/teens like the girls asking Marcille to do a fashion show for them, that was very cute, they probably haven't gotten to play in a while.

[bumblydumbly]

if i see one more post about letting dunmeshi characters be “problematic” when its LITERALLY just cultural differences colliding im gonna SNAP

[detectiveneve]

alright with 30+ hours. I'm gonna yap about my personal itching beef, since I'm having a ton of fun. but.

I think by far one of my biggest issues with the game is how much they flattened out thedas' social & political landscape. maybe for ease, maybe out of fear of tackling their topics "badly," but the way that they both want to address tevinter's slavery, but have also extremely downplayed elven subjugation & oppression as a longstanding lore, is sooo... frustrating.

I think the story so far is pretty solid, I'm having a GREAT time, I enjoy all the cast, but it does feel like it could've been a lot deeper if they'd fully accounted for the breadth of these longstanding lore realities that come with magic & class & whether one is human or elven or dwarven. I've gotten NONE of that, AS an elf shadow dragon. davrin going "that'll endear us to the world..." about the gods being elven is insane -- elves are already oppressed under the structures of thedas! tevinter is where all of this STARTED. similarly, the lack of interaction between magic & class is like... craaazy to me.

these structures are present throughout the entirety of each game, it should feel different in each location. it just feels clumsy to both want to address the social issues of slavery, etc. present in thedas, and ALSO flatten out the differences between city elves & dalish, not emphasize it more especially with an elven origin... like wdym. wdym. that one of the biggest mentions of it with an elven rook is the scroll lore where rook goes "it's about time someone acknowledged what my people did..." about some guy who praised the elves. a shadow dragon elf rook will have been living with a very specific systemic structure of oppression for their entire life. WHY isn't that here. the story structure I'm having a good time with, the characters I'm having a good time with, but goddd it could have been so much deeper if it had actually incorporated some of the complexity & nuance of these social structures in thedas. you look silly trying to both include these themes of shadow dragons breaking slavery and ALSO pussyfooting around The Origins Of How We Got Here. that's not even getting into MAGIC, and how being a MAGE should mean something different in different places. like. whahrhrrhrhrhrr.

[hanzajesthanza]

ida emean is the most mysterious witcher character to me. like she literally just showed up from the blue mountains (i thought the elves were starving up there last time we checked) (also last time we checked the elves which lived in the blue mountains wanted nothing to do with humans ever and that’s why they live in said mountains) (like filavandrel whom sapkowski said intentionally never showed up again after time of contempt because he was an old and wise elf that could not be fooled and was not persuaded by the nilfgaardianian bequeathing of land)

and she just shows up as francesca findabair’s plus one to the who run the world girls meeting. you know. which contains humans. and then her only thing is that she’s an elf. she showed up. and oh yeah she fucking slayed that shit so hard not wearing any stones or metals at all in her jewelry in a daffodil dress. and her red hair. of course. but her dialogue is basically just: “yep confirming that’s magic” and “you are being a bit racist don’tcha think”

but the thing that REALLY makes me throw my hands up here is that she’s an AEN SAEVHERNE ?? literally a title we know best from it also belonging to LARA DORREN and AVALLAC’H?? but she was just hanging out with francesca in dol blathanna like going over to her friend’s for tea, when it is said even among the elves it’s rare to known an aen saevherne. so what relationship do they have that… ? dunno.

and but of course, because she is an elf, she is aloof, taciturn, and inscrutable as all hell and so we learn practically nothing about her.

[gilliontidestriderchampionoftheu]

drew my ocs as riptide characters :3

[mysticgeekzartz]

Well here's the WIP that I had In my last post I finished it up finally I added more and made it more of like a bust Yes I am aware the hand looks kind of weird but hands are hard especially when I'm doing a hand up close lol but you can only learn by keep drawing them and seeing what you did wrong I love you like this little silly doodle of Eve

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Trying to transliterate Leara's name into Quenya, and it somehow becomes, uh,

Lëarra

Which basically means "You Sealion!"

And I'm just, "Oh yes, this is That Sealion Woman, and she can breathe fire, as all sealions do."

If Leara, for any reason at all, needed an actual Quenya or Sindarin name for any fun Elvish shenanigans, we'll just use Calairie/Calearil, which is "Light of the Sea" in Quenya and Sindarin, and what Leara actually means.

[electoons]

giving my ldb a daughter. embarrassing for all involved. mostly me

[zuutiomi]

Dagoth Ivris with sixth house traditional robe

[moghedien]

It does genuinely shock me how few people in the DA fandom are willing to acknowledge that the Grey Wardens are kinda extremely horrific and fucked up