#shoutydwarf

[chasindbae]

The Brides of Dracula, done in Prismacolor, various ink, and conte crayon. It took all of October for me to do it but I'm chuffed, boi!

[juneiper-art]

Fiona Aeducan, Hero of Ferelden and my heart (belongs to @shoutydwarf I jut love her so much)

[kal-sharok]

Hi!! If you’re willing to talk about it/up for it I’d love to hear more about the slavophobia BioWare has in relation to their dwarves. No pressure at all of course bc I’m sure it’s taxing, I’ve just not seen this before and would love a resource to reblog about it if that’s okay. Thank you love your blog ❤️

hello! im actually glad you asked, i'll try to be as coherent as possible 😅 and no u i love yr blog!!

i'd like to preface by saying i don't think bioware invented anti-slavic sentiment in games or in general and isn't the only company, game or otherwise, perpetuating it. it's found all over the western world, most notably in western europe (where we're still regarded as 2nd class citizens, pairs really well with imperialism towards people outside of europe imo), but it also gained a significant boost thanks to the red scare in usa in particular (and continues to thrive thanks to the absolute chokehold mediocre american media keeps everything else in the world in).

im also no social sciences expert, but i do have first-hand experience on the short end of the stick and a couple of books in my have read list so let's say im qualified to rant on 🤭 it turned out quite lengthy so i've hidden it under the cut below!

when it comes to bioware, the first hurdle is already at their utterly haphazard character naming policy. there's a considerable number of dwarves who bear names that range from mockingly slavic-esque to full-blooded backwater serbian, now in yr local fantasy rpg! examples:

gorim saelac. while i do appreciate they tried to give a dwarf a mountain-y name (gora is basically any kind of steep pile of rocks with trees and dew and wildlife over it), "gorim" is how you would say "i am burning" in multiple slavic languages. this is one of the rare ones that are not hurtful and are hilarious instead (and tbh naming him goran, which is what i assumed they were going for, would probably be more ridiculous in the long run. for example i still can't take jowan seriously despite my love for the mage origin bc someone really yassified jovan and thought nobody would notice. wrong!)

lucjan and myaja. these two (along with maybe wojech "we couldn't spell wojciech" ivo) are the classic example of non-slavs butchering the hell out of slavic names bc it suits them better, which is also something commonly experienced by all non-western cultures and communities and a worldwide sign of disrespect. the in-game pronunciation during the provings gave me a physical rash. "myaja" in particular is still in my top 5 wtf moments in origins bc 1) what kind of stroke induced spelling is that 2) it reminds me of kids speaking dialect A mocking kids' dialects B by adding y sounds (which is what set the dialects apart in the first place) at unnatural spots and 3) maja /ma-ya/ would've sufficed perfectly for ethnic coding if that was the sole purpose of her character. do better! sure it was 2009 but from the little i happen to know about the world beyond the atlantic, you're just bound to run into someone of slavic descent in alberta (maybe not exactly polish but anyone would give you a closer phonetics match than... this). it's kind of amusing how 3 of bioware's founders have very slavic surnames and this keeps happening.

bogdan vasca. we don't know anything about him apart from the fact bianca davri was forced into a marriage with him and that his very dwarven parents considered him to be 'a gift from the god' (which is what his name means. theodore would be an equivalent) when naming him. the same clan of dwarves that preserved castes topside (which is why the marriage was arranged) and thus are likely to either believe in the stone (that they do not worship as a god) or nothing, certainly not a very human god with a very human, quite possibly mage (a completely alien concept from common dwarven pov) prophetess and a very human doctrine of considering anyone not human as lesser. the jokes are writing themselves at this point.

all of this naming business falls more into petty territory rather than being outright offensive, but it does bring us to the more serious manifestation — typecasting. the western media simply cannot fathom slavic people in roles that are not violent, volatile (i.e. berserkers, though there are other influences in there), constantly infighting and better off killing e/o (i.e. the diamond quarter, the merchants' guild, the carta) and relating back to thievery, addictive abusable substances and trafficking (i.e. the carta, but also official channels of lyrium supply from orzammar to the rest of thedas). as a slavic woman, it was exceptionally painful to see bioware join virtually everyone else in depicting us as women whose major purpose seems to be to engage in prostitution and surrogacy lite (i.e. noble hunters, most evident in beraht's grooming of rica brosca into the role of one). while these practices are tied to societies of woman-hating — and orzammar, if not all of thedas very much is one — i just take incredible offence in someone naming them integral (dwarven birth rates and the blight anyone?? i hated every moment of that) for a society that's previously been coded with people like myself in mind. of course im going to relate to how someone who looks like me is treated, that's the very purpose of casting. doesn't help bioware's cause that the bulk of npc's with slavic names tend to be lower-caste or castless - with exceptions such as some minor noble houses (houses ivo and harrowmont, possibly meino too) and branka (who's again smith-born and a whole villain).

by only allowing us to fulfill such roles, we are effectively barred from actually engaging storytelling to spend our eternity on the writers' back-burner. hell, even the witcher has been sanitized for the western eye (despite literally being made in poland) and i am yet to find a piece of modern media that doesn't reduce baba yaga to a quirky chicken-legged aesthetic (while also forgetting she's specific to the eastern slavic people). not to mention that if tevinter and par vollen are truly inspired by byzantine and the ottoman empire respectively, guess which mfs were both their vasals. now guess who built the deep roads and guess what tevene mages need to fuel their magic. if dwarves have already been declared the slavs of thedas, let's at least give them/us some space to be such.

[jadeempire]

white hair? purple eyes? regarded with awe/fear bc of their appearance? thematic and literal ties to dragons and dragon-based fuckery?

[holds up Adaar]

THIS IS A TARGARYEN.

[shoutydwarf]

people don’t call inquisition/da:d “elf simulator”/”elf age” because they hate elves and elvhen lore. Let Me Be Clear: 

- elves have the most special dialogue options. even more if you’re a f!mage. bioware accidentally forgot dalish elves know who mythal is for ONE dialogue wheel and people really used it to run with the idea that elves were somehow narratively shafted during inquisition; meanwhile dwarves in the descent dlc, you know, THE DWARF DLC where you get your Crumb Of Dwarf, you get next to no special dialogue options besides being told by valta that you’re not a Real Dwarf and you don’t have stone sense (which isn’t even true. stone sense comes back to all dwarves if they’re underground long enough. this is more of bioware trying to prove all the disgusting corrupt systems in place are Acthually Correct Trollol.. that or they just forgot bc they dont care.) 

- eluvians, the fade, fen’harel, everything that comes out of solas’s mouth, a chunk of WEWH, inquisitor ameridan being a dalish elf, etc is not at all narratively relevant to anyone but an elf inquisitor. spin all the stories you want to make eluvians and elvhen gods important to your non-elf OCs but off what we get in the games alone, without doing an ungodly amount of work to make it fit, what BIOWARE has established, it means nothing. you can argue that all of this is important to the inquisitor on principal of them Being inquisitor but... be fucking serious

- elves seeing the crossroads differently than other races. just another special elfy thing

- every single religion is being geared up to link back to the elves. i think we can all agree by now that andraste is flemythal and the maker is mythal (whether u think the theory is good or not is neither here nor there, bioware is so predictable at this point). and thank god she freed the dwarves from the titans, amirite! it’d really suck if the dwarves had something exclusive! (bioware if you try to paint the titans as slavers and mythal as the Dwarven Savior........................)

- you can make an argument for any of the origins in da:o fitting “the best” as canon. the dalish elf is as ignorant to the world outside of the forest as the player is. cousland is your classic betrayed hero thrust into saving the world tale. dwarves are intrinsically tied to the darkspawn/wardens. the mages are freed birds but the world outside their cage is corrupted and torn asunder. tabris/brosca is your saving the world that never fought for them back tale. they all equally mean something in unique, valuable ways to the main story and it shows through ample unique dialogue options and main quest relevance. 

- can you REALLLLYYYYY say the same for all of the non-elf da:i origins? what do we got, a mercenary vashoth. a carta dwarf. a human noble or mage. all random NPCs fr. but the dalish elf who unlocks the power of an elvhen orb which leads to a slew of world-shattering reveals about the lore they grew up with and believed in? meanwhile ur dwarf/human/qunari inquisitor didn’t even know there WAS a plot twist. they didnt even know there was a plot

- all of this extra elf stuff would be perfectly fine. the countless elvhen ruins, lore reveals etc. if it was even REMOTELY evenly distributed across all the races. BUT IT’S NOT. 

- it would also be fine if inquisition was a one-off elf-focused game but they used the opportunity to take from every other races’ lore and make it about elves, so now A. there’s no going back, B. the 4th game’s title is literally dreadwolf wow i wonder who the story is going to be written for, C. if i ever have to hear with my own two ears “i’ve been through shit that would make the deep roads look like a cake walk!” followed by the dwarf at the receiving end of this Dying From Being Pwned, i’m going to get violent

- the point is that it’s bioware’s fault, not the elves. “elf simulator” is poking fun at biowares pandering to solavellan twitter, not at elf players lmao

[paarthursass]

If it was confirmed on the old BSN forums I would LOVE to see that. However as far as what I've been able to find in my own searches through various lore and other archived BSN posts:

a) Wardens aren't infertile, they just have lowered fertility (this discussion page on the wiki references an old BSN post discussing this specifically)

b) If we're bringing up old BSN posts then I feel like this old interview David Gaider did is relevant where he discussed the possibility of female wardens becoming broodmothers.

"I hadn't really considered whether they'd stop doing the Calling. I think if anything it makes it more problematic for female Wardens to do the Calling. That may be something we could incorporate into the future...I could definitely see a female Warden who would rather kill herself than allow for the possibility that she could be transformed into a Broodmother."

Also a lot of people seem to be missing the point of this post, which is not "can wardens become broodmothers" and is "the fact that the writers clearly didn't think about how this would affect women is kind of fucked up." We shouldn't have to dig up old BSN posts or look to old interviews David Gaider did on livejournal. We should have codex entries that say, concretely "female wardens cannot become broodmothers." We should have something in the game to assure female wardens, concretely, that they cannot become broodmothers. But we don't. As David Gaider admits, they didn't even think about it. That is the primary issue here. The point is "hey, the writers didn't think about women" which. They did not.

not to advocate for MORE sexism in bioware games or anything like that but like...the "gender equality" in DAO is so poorly thought out and by that I am SPECIFICALLY referring to women in the Grey Wardens.

Sure yeah Alistair makes that off-hand comment about how "there aren't many women in the wardens" that's more indicative of the writing team's sexism than anything else, but genuinely speaking I think there's actually a valid reason for women to not be allowed in the Grey Wardens.

You cannot tell me that Alistair and the HoF were the first to discover what Broodmothers were and how they were made. You cannot tell me that Grey Wardens have been fighting back Darkspawn for centuries and they do not know about Broodmothers. And if the Grey Wardens know about Broodmothers, then they must know that sending female Grey Wardens down into the Deep Roads is a bad fucking plan.

I can understand concessions being made during a Blight; hell, being a Grey Warden is such a Shit Job that I can understand the Grey Wardens being willing to take in anyone. But like...the women who join cannot go down into the Deep Roads for their Calling. And I would argue that them going down into the Deep Roads at all is a bad plan unless they've got some equivalent of a suicide pill with them in case of capture by Darkspawn.

It honestly is baffling to me that there's NO mention of protocols for female grey wardens during their Calling or expeditions to the Deep Roads being different AT ALL. All it would take is Alistair saying something along the lines of "So that's why there's so few women in the Wardens" after they discover the Broodmother.

Because a women joining the Wardens isn't just risking death.

She's risking a horrific, violating transformation that turns her into a creature that endangers everyone.

[carlsdraws]

tagged by @tadpal ! to choose four (or more) of my favourite artworks and let people decide which ones best suits my vibe!

admitting to artist crimes rn but i literally can’t remember paintings ever unless it’s like. the guinevere and lancelot in the tower stairs or other classics yknow. soo i AM gonna take all these paintings from ones i’ve seen irl in the last few months bc those are ones i can tie real emotion to. so:

tagging!! @chloedrawss @shoutydwarf @ammoniteflesh @knightsickness @wildflowerwi1dfire andd @scrollofgrease !!

the journey home wasn’t actually my first choice from matthew wongs collection i just fully could NOT find the name of my fav so sun triptych it is! the colours and lines are always just!!! raaaaaaaaghhh and the color progression throughout the series… man….

i saw a really cool exhibition on mummy portraits that would be painted on wood and placed above the face on the sarcophagus and it made me cry and this is one of my favourites from that exhibition. the soul in her eyes……. i think there is research into who she was and who might’ve painted her but i didn’t take pics of that info and there’s nothing online :(

portrait of a woman inspired by lucrezia is one of my faves for mostly outfit reasons LOOK AT HER!!!! SLEEVES!! but i adore the defiance and glare and provocative necklace placing and everything going on too

the kien valley!! the colors are literally incredible enough said. this was in the room with van gogh i think and i was fully not looking at those to stare at this piece and the pink one also . it’s just!! it feels so!!!!! aaaaaa

anyways yeah!! that’s them!! sawry i didn’t actually do the bit properly genuinely don’t know paintings like that paintings are for seeing in museums and going ooo

[selkiesoup]

9 People You Want To Get To Know Better Tag

I was tagged by @ziathal ! Thank you :D

I'm gonna tag @mrs-theirin @carlsdraws @sapphosdirtyhoe @bog-mummies @shoutydwarf @jdoewrites @highladyofdusk & @lunarwanderer , but no obligation to join if you don't want to!

Three ships: Solas/Lavellan (ft. my nonbinary Lavellan thank you), JJ/Emily Prentiss (Criminal Minds gang, rise), Hawke/Fenris/Isabela

First ship: oh god, I can't even remember. Probably Wolfstar before HP was ruined for me forever.

Last song: Leader of the Pack - Wunderhorse

Last movie: Captain America: Civil War. Quite literally as I'm writing this. Marvel is one of my flatmate's comfort series & they're going through it so. It eez what it eez, we're watching through all of them. I don't remember them being this bad.

Currently reading: Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Never read it before but I'm trying to cram it in before I start my Master's degree next month.

Currently watching: Listen, I'm on the first season of Criminal Minds: Evolution, aka. I'm on season seventeen of Criminal Minds. It's been 5 months.

Currently eating: nothing rn, but I made lamb kofta kebab wrap situation with mint yogurt and tabbouleh for dinner. I have some lychees in the fridge I'm really excited about, but they're for later.

Currently craving: aforementioned lychees. We never get them here and I found them in Sainsbury's for two quid (extortionate but necessary)

[vhenad4hl]

so since ive finally gotten into mass effect, decided to commission commander alana shepard from my bff @shoutydwarf

[deeplord]

all socials for pinned

main blog: @shoutydwarf

twitter: deepl0rd

cara: deeplord

ko-fi: shoutydwarf

discord: chyna6963

discord server: invite link - for dragon age/gaming

commissions: check this google doc or DM me

asks always welcome, DMs always open 💜

[evrythnginbtwn]

@shoutydwarf

@chasindbae

we were just talking about this!

I love the labyrinth bc it’s a fantasy coming of age story about growing up and the main character says “goodbye” to all the whimsical creatures she made friends with on her journey. but then the last scene is like SIKE dance party with them all in her room!!!!! bc growing up doesn’t mean forfeiting fun or losing the wonder of your childhood

[chasindbae]

Her Highness, the beauty Jenebel Marwood, Fable 3 Hero of the love of my life @shoutydwarf and elder sister to my Oc Opheila. A royal portrait, imitating the style of royal, oil paintings of the Renaissance era, full of symbolism, I hope I nailed the intention. I'm utterly in love with what a classical beauty she is, with rich, dark hair and there's a secret in the picture for those who know how to find it. She's the tear in my heart I'm alive She's the tear in my heart I'm on f i r e

[juneiper-art]

Spend my days locked in a haze Tryna forget you, babe, I fall back down Gotta stay high all my life to forget I'm missin' you

So excited to play as my Rook, Mika Thorne, former blood mage, Gray Warden, Hot MessTM. Veilguard can't come soon enough

(Fiona belongs to @shoutydwarf)

[carlsdraws]

tagged in the 15qs for 15 mutuals by @swanfey !!

tagging @anonymousbathtub @tadpal @courtjesterart @shoutydwarf @vhenad4hl @shorthairzuko @chloedrawss @pvz1 @renegade-skywalker @dakotawritesif @junkoandthediamonds @kt-the-destroyer @drk-et-al @demandthedoodles @pyreios

and whoever sees this and wants to do it lmao go for it

1. Are you named after anyone?

yepp on both first and middle name i’m named after my maternal grandparents, my first name after my grandfather and my middle after my grandmother

EDIT: whoops i forgot 2: When was the last time you cried?

may fourth during the last visions episode aau’s song just got to me idk

3. Do you have kids?

lmao no

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

yes very much so. also deadpan humor. my two besties

5. What sports have you played?

uhhh gaelic football when i was a kid, gymnastics (do you Play gymnastics) for longer when i was a kid, camogie when i was a tween for a few years. oh i did badminton for like a year. i lost a jersey i really liked at a badminton camp….. OH HORSE RIDING TOO i did that for years um i may be forgetting one but honestly if i am it was probably for such a short time that it’s irrelevant

6. What’s the first thing you notice about someone?

probably their hair? or their voice? idk it depends what about the individual person is most striking to me i guess

7. Eye Color?

brown :)

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

both in moderation and sometimes at the same time

9. Any special talents?

i can do fun eye makeup? not a particular talent but i think it looks good. and i have a knack for putting together cohesive outfits imho

10. Where were you born?

ireland. im not getting any more specific that’s already a teeeeeeeny tiny place

11. What are your hobbies?

ttrpgs if playing like twice a year counts, video games, uhh art sometimes if i’m not burnt out from uni, reading? OH and buying comics i don’t read bc i’m so behind on all of them i physically cant bring myself to start catching up

12. Do you have any pets?

my family have a dog :)

13. How tall are you?

5’3”

14. Fave subject in school?

probably history or english. or theatre the last couple years of high school but honestly the class was more an extracurricular than a Class

15. Dream job?

comic artist baybeee. i was gonna make a joke about my incredibly unattainable dream job here but honestly couldn’t come up with something funny. uhh. guy whose job at lucasfilm is to tell dave filoni he’s only allowed one cameo per project and physically prevent him from adding more if necessary

[evrythnginbtwn]

@shoutydwarf

behold, the beauty beyond your comprehension

[cobaltash]

Amaryllis: Pride, a hard won success 

Featuring @shoutydwarf ‘s gorgeous Fiona Aeducan! Thank you for playing!

Send me a flower and an OC that fits it and I will draw them!