#years ago people were really shitty to solas fans! I was there!

[coffeeworldsasaki]

Why did people in the server tell me that Solas doesn't get hate, in what alternative reality do they live because in the span of 30 minutes I saw Solas hate in 2 different social networks

[isolctions]

▌real name: zephyr warren brigham — a middle name that she actually despises after learning her mother was going to name her ‘warren’ if she was a boy. so fuck her. ▌single or taken: subject to change depending on the vibes, but permanently she’s engaged to @blackplanct​‘s maliq azad. ▌abilities or powers: this bitch can’t do shit. ▌eye color: dark brown. ▌hair color: she wears as assortment of wigs with an array of colors, but naturally her hair is a very light brown. ▌family members: whew, okay. her family’s kinda fucked up. paigon (pay-zee-ohn, in case anyone was looking at her name like what the fuck is that ghetto ass shit) reed is allegedly her mother, if mothers are allowed to be literal pieces of shit (antonique smith). dion brigham is her formerly estranged father (khalil cain). tristan brigham is her aunt, and her guardian since the age of fifteen (tia mowry). tinnia brigham-mayfield is her other aunt, tristan’s twin sister, and Not the fun aunt (tamera mowry). eamonn brigham is her uncle who is surprisingly only three years older than her (tahj mowry). a shit ton of cousins on her father’s side that she either doesn’t remember or doesn’t care to know, two aunts and some family members on her mother’s side that she definitely doesn’t want to know. unknown to her, she has an eight year old half-sister named lisa reed-perez. ▌pets: claims her aunt’s cat named alex. shares two cats named munch & baby with maliq. ▌something they don’t like: her mother. but, she also doesn’t like people that overshare. she’s very turned off by sudden contact, and doesn’t warm up to people immediately unless they’re really interesting, so people talking zephyr’s ear off and treating her like family that she’s just met like five minutes ago really bothers her. she also doesn’t like being emotional, and abandonment is a pretty traumatic topic for her. ▌hobbies/activities: online shopping, eating hot wings, and being a bitch. but artistically, she’s really good at making and producing beats and her own songs — zephyr actually taught herself how to make beats as a coping mechanism after suffering a miscarriage at nineteen, and eventually taught herself to rap and eventually sing. however, getting her to be committed to this hobby and release material? i think the fuck not. she prefers vibing. ▌ever hurt anyone before: emotionally and physically, yes. zephyr has been in multiple fights before with multiple people and multiple genders, and she’s very aggressive and tends to win majority of her fights. but, as mentioned earlier, she’s also a bitch and has hurt feelings before, intentionally or otherwise. ▌ever killed anyone before: no! she’s a bitch, not a monster. ▌animal that represents them: a bodega cat. just chilling, unbothered, surrounded by food. ▌worst habits: she’s very emotionally closed off. so getting her to open up, specifically about her family or her life while living in chicago, is basically an uphill battle and she’s not very nice about it. she’s also very self deprecating, and is prone to suicidal ideation when her depression is on high. but in general, she’s very aggressive so if she feels trapped by something, she can resort to foul language and violence. and really, she holds grudges like her life depends on it, so forgiving her father probably took up all free chances of her getting over things. she holds onto the things that hurt her, even if it’s detrimental to her health. ▌role models: honestly...none. but her aunt tristan really seems to have her shit together, so that was really her only positive familial role model during her teen years. it hits her harder much later in life, after realizing that a woman only ten years older than she was had been made to raise her depressed brother’s out of control daughter while struggling to keep and maintain a business during a recession in brooklyn and love her as if she were her own. ▌sexual orientation: demisexual. ▌thoughts on marriage/kids: at first, zephyr was really shifty about having kids, especially since her upbringing wasn’t the greatest. her father worked nonstop to support her and her mother after barely finishing senior year due to her birth, while her mother was an addict who very openly cheated on her father and treated zephyr like shit (see: calling her own daughter a whore, wishing she’d never been born, blowing smoke in her face, etc.). after being abandoned by paigon, her father fell into such a deep depression that he kinda stopped noticing zeph — and self aware of her own shit, she never wanted to put a child through that. it only worsened after miscarrying during her first accidental pregnancy and her then boyfriend leaving her. she had her objections on marriage as well, because she’s not the marrying type and while her mother was terrible, her words had an affect on her. she wasn’t worthy of a man loving her. of course, now? she’s the mother of two daughters, and engaged to be married to a man that adores and supports the fuck outta her, and loved her when she needed it the most. so, that’s that. ▌fears: abandonment, above all. also, heights are pretty terrifying. and spiders. and being broke.  ▌style preferences: visually, it’s very much on par with that of her faceclaims. she doesn’t follow any particular trend, and couldn’t give a shit about what people think of her outfit choices. she enjoys bright colors, faux furs, and very gaudy clothing, and really kinda adjusts her clothing based on either her mood for the day or what wig she chooses to wear. her choice in clothing is also considered eccentric, but falls into the category of urban streetwear or even a sort of afro-futuristic or punk vibe. basically, she wears whatever makes her comfortable and makes her feel pretty, and given her curvy stature, she has to get a lot of things custom made or adjusted by tailor cause babes got thicc thighs and hips and tummy pouches and rolls. ▌someone they love: first and foremost, her aunts tristan and tinnia — without then, she essentially would either end up killed in a fight or in jail...due to a fight. she also loves her fiance maliq unconditionally (but she will deny every word of that and there are indeed conditions), otherwise they wouldn’t be such an iconic couple. she loves her best friends, which are only a handful, but she prioritizes time spent with @armsdealing​‘s jerome kendricks & marcelo reyes, as well as @saturnrang​‘s jasmine higgins because they essentially egg on her chaotic energy. it was a long time coming, but she loves her father very much. and lastly, she loves her daughters sola & sinead azad, because they’re truly the best things to ever come out of her. ▌approach to friendships: very hard to say. it really depends on the circumstances behind meeting a person — she doesn’t make friends at work because that’s just weird. if she meets someone during an outing with mutual friends or otherwise, and if food and alcohol are involved, she’s a little warmed up to conversation after indulging in either. she’s not exactly awkward as a person, but instead pretty stand-offish, and can come off as either intimidating or simply uninterested unless they happen to share some personality traits. and in friendships, she’s not responsible whatsoever. it doesn’t matter if she’s the oldest, she’s immature and whiny. and a bitch. and a little messy. but when she does make friends, she’s the sweetest and most reliable there is — and in return, you get to be apart of her little family! hers is pretty messed up, so any friendship she has is considered a found family in her book. ▌thoughts on pie: sweet potato or blueberry. ▌favorite drink: she likes teas and cold pressed juices, and will sometimes indulge in a fancy cappuccino or frappe. will only drink water if it’s fruit infused because she’s a child. very big fan of milkshakes and smoothies. keep her away from hennessy, d’uesse, tequila...basically anything with alcohol unless you want her to act a goddamn fool. ▌favorite place to spend time at: her aunt’s flower shop. somehow, flower arranging brought a lot of control in her life as well, so she essentially spends all of her time there due to work and being around tris. she likes being anywhere with maliq, until he does something weird. other than that, she’s comfortable anywhere where there’s food. ▌swim in the lake or in the ocean: zephyr doesn’t swim — she’s the kinda girl who puts on a cute bikini just to sit and take pictures by the water. she may even get her feet a little wet here and there, but she actually doesn’t know how to swim. ▌their type: i gotta say, it’s pretty difficult to describe considering she’s up her fiance’s ass so much that i can’t imagine what it is — mainly because maliq is not her type. at all. she’s into articulate, well-spoken, fresh smelling, hood ass dope dealers essentially. but she also likes people who are creative and enjoys being in their element, people with drive and ambition and actual goals, people who are open minded and vocal about things that they want, and although she’s pretty shitty at it herself, someone who’s first instinct is to communicate when things go wrong instead of reacting in anger. also anyone who’s sexually open to exploring things and can make her cum multiple times.

tagged by: @armsdealing​ tagging: myself. steal + tag me in it!

[wolgrahas]

tagged by: @falkreathh thank you!!  sorry for doing this so much later u_u’ tagging: whoever wants to!! (◡‿◡✿) 1. favourite game in the series ok... i don’t know if you already figured it out but my total fave is dao. why? maybe is the nostalgic feelings this game gives me or... i played it so many mcfucking times that i just get this hollow feeling inside my chest when i haven’t played it for weeks... idk. the trespasser dlc was spectacular too and gave my lavellan a lot of personality (what i thought the dai base game lacked, bc it made me feel like my inquisitor was an empty shell with no personality, solas’ romance save the dai base game to me tbqh). but... you can create such complex personalities in dao for your warden, and the relationships are so so realistic. i think (dao) is neat lmao. 

2. how did you discover dragon age? before being a dragon age fan i was a dark souls fan; i breath dark souls, i read dark souls, i ate dark souls, i was quite obsessed with dark souls, and before dark souls i was an obsessed skyrim fan (oNLY SKYRIM, not the previous games ashdgjasdgh) and with skyrim that was the first time i made video game oc's, like... they had such complex personalities and i cannot make complex character now... aNYWAY i'm getting carried away: i knew dragon age bc dai was being lunched and ALL the people i followed reblogged stuff about dai, and then i bought dao and loved it!! 

3. how many times have you played the games? hfgsdjfhsjfshd fffUCKKKK SHITT... alright... many mANY TIMES, but how many times i haven't finished my game?? countless times!! i think i finished fINISHED dao maybe... pls don't laugh at me... 10+ times. yes they are so so so many times, shame on me! shame on my cow! blah blah, but i lOVE dao. da2 maybe.... 3-4 times? and dai 6 times?? it's funny bc i played dao and da2 in many different ways but dai... m8, always the same, fuck you solas sdhfjdshjsdf 4. favourite race to play? qUNARIIIII!!! i lOVE tieflings so.. i obviously love the qunari too, but in the dai the first race i chose was qunari but then i talked to solas and i was like... bITCHHHHH i'm gonna create an elf to romance this egg, and then... my canon inky became an elf lol. and last favourite race are humans... ok don't hate me, it's not bc they are """boring""" or shit like that, it's bc they are the upper-class of thedas and i LOVE the "from zero to hero" trope... so... yeah agfshsdfhj 5. favourite class? mages!! bc i love the lore behind this class, it's fantastic, precisely blood magic. but if i didn't care about this, i would choose archer, tho in the first games it sucked but in dai is pretty cool :^) 6. do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time? as i've said before i have made many different decisions in dao and da2 but in dai are always the same lol 7. go-to adventuring group? origins: alistair/sten, morrigan, zev/leliana da2: aveline, anders, isabela/varric dai: solas, cassandra, cole/sera 8. which of your characters did you put the most thought into? i think prim/anika??(they're the same but one is a human and the other an elf lmaoo), she was my first da oc, and obviously the one i put most thought into bc i uSED to have a lot of creativity some years ago, what a pity my brain is useless now lmao 9. favourite romance? pfffff... solas, alistair, leli and cass!! i think?? idk i gotta play again dai bc i'm not sure :/ 10. have you read any of the comics/books? i've read aLL the books but not the comics :/, i want to read the comics but idk where i could read them online and free (sorry i'm poor lol), so... mi gozo en un pozo lmao 11. if you read them, which was your favourite book? my fav book was "the masked empire"!! patrick weekes is a good writer and i loved the orlesian politics, and i adored seeing these characters in dai! (tho briala was whitewashed lmao) 12. favourite DLCs? obviously: awakening and trespasser. these two dlc's were mcfUCKING AMAZING. i mean, with dao i expected the same quality of the base game, but trespasser was such an excelent and good experience, it gave a lot of insight to our inquisitors and also: sOOULASSSSS, so yep! i mainly lOVED trespasser and i hope weekes guides the team to make a game at least as good as this dlc! (tho, if ea is a greedy bintch this time [as always lol] it doesn't matter how many times the bioware time tries, ea will force them to do a shitty game :/) 13. things that annoy you how viv, anders and sera are written, i mean, i loved anders the first time i played da2 but his personality is obviously written to annoy the fuck outta you, tho i loved how he expressed his ideals freely (tho sometimes he even seemed too traidtional to me about topics like blood magic :/), but sera and viv were a lil harder to befriend and like, and i still don't like much viv, but i love her as a character, y'kno 14. orlais or ferelden? tbh, if i gotta live in one of those two places i would choose ferelden by fAR. but, now, if we're talking about which is more interesting; orlais. 15. templars or mages? like @/blckwall said: all templars are bastards :). i would love if thedas had independent magic schools, that there were no higher representatives or charges, that every village or city had its own magic school, and the crown would be the responsable of manage its needs. i haven't thought much about this so my thoughts are quite vague :/ 16. if you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one? they're from different universes, tho i'd love the idea of all of them being in the same universe, but some worlds states are incompatible with others. 17. what did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc) in dao: barkspawn (i'm extremelly predictable, sorry u_u') 18. have you installed any mods? all my dragon age games are modded as fUCK. i mean, i think dao is the most heavy modded game i have?? (mainly bc i cannot install many mods in skyrim lol) but when i have my gaming computer again i will mod the shit out of dai >:) 19. did your warden want to become a grey warden? prim had been working in the circle her entire live to be in the higher ranks, and then she saw how all her work was lost made her really conflicted: she didn't wanted to leave bc she yearned to be more powerful and make the circle a better place for mages (yep, she's deeply anti-circle bc of her traumatic past), and she was going to die if she refused duncan's offer. even so, she was never sorry for supporting jowan. and, she became the king of ferelden's mistress; she loved him obv, but she could also take some advantage of his power to make the mages and marginalize people's situation better, and gain fortune by that; alistair was well aware about her plans by prim's words herself, but he never objected. altho the main cause prim made alistair king is bc she wanted him to have a good life and not waste it as a grey warden, so... anyway, i got acrried away... this is long af ghdjsdgf 20. hawke’s personality? red mostly, tho he used to be purple/red in the first and begining of the second act :/ 21. did you make matching armor for your companions in inquisition? yes i did!! i lOVED to be fashionable in dragon age instyle!! 22. if your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change? prim : she would have tried to convince jowan and wait some months until she could convince him. also: sometimes she wishes she didn't make alistair king, mostly bc of her daughter (her daughter is the only heir to the throne of ferelden, and basically she doesn't even know that prim is her real mother, mostly bc anora adopted her bc alistair and she couldn't have children), sometimes, in her alone saddest times, thinks how things would have been if alistair was still a grey warden, they would have a happy family and wouldn't even had to hide inofensive stuff like a cheek kiss. but anyway, her duties as a grey warden are more important and doesn't have time to think about it. garrett hawke: he regrets not defending carver, he would have prefered to sacrifice himself instead of any of his siblings. he also regrets going to the deep roads with bethany, letting the grey wardens make her one of them (obv he doesn't know that if he didn't she would have joined the circle lmao). and obv her mother's death... if he had been there, with her mother, he could have done something... :'/ maia: she regrets not being strong enough when that shem tried to hurt her when she was a litte girl, that made her mother kill him to save her bc she was too defenseless, she should have been stronger, that caused her mother and she part ways, because now maia's mother was a criminal and she had more proabilities of getting caught, so maia should go on her way and find the next village, but she found the lavellan clan. she deeply regrets not going after her mother. she also think she was too stupid to not found out the true identity of solas and try to convince him that this world has meaning :'/ 23. do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon? mmmm... no? :/, i like my decisions to have consequences?? 24. are any of your characters based on someone? sahgdashsd pls don't make fun of me but in the first stage of prim's/anika's 'personality creation' was inspired by mother gothel, then she was inspired by...... mikasa ackerman dsfgdjsdf, i'm still inspired by that character tHO i know that shingeki no kyojin is nazi propaganda and i no longer watch that anime lmao. maia is inspired by... a mix of me and rapunzel (from tangled)?? she's basically a shy rapunzel :') 25. who did you leave in the fade? some of you will hate me bc i had to choose between hawke and stroud but i still chose hawke dsfgsdf. m8, hawke is just a 'figure' who isn't widely recognized in thedas, while the grey warden are 394789x more useful, idk i always put myself in the shoes of my characters even if their decisions hurt me (tho, tbqh, i'm not tHAT attached to hawke so this choice was easy lol) 26. favourite mount? royal sixteen!! she's so pretty!! ♡♡♡ thanks for tagging me!! ♡♡

[corseque]

I wanted to publish/answer the asks I got because of the bullying thing because they made me emotional and I’m really grateful to you guys. like, genuinely, I was overwhelmed by the support that day, and I’m feeling 100x better about the whole thing now.

Anonymous said:

I’m so sorry you went through that! I haven’t had a tumblr in literal years but after TLJ came out I somehow found your blog through Pinterest and wound up creating a new one because I admired you so much and wanted to follow you lol. Keep doing what you’re doing, and thank you for being so cool and like a beacon of positivity

holy shit, this is such a nice message. ;_; I’m so happy you like my blog, and I hope you have fun. I actively work and concentrate on being positive when sometimes I might not want to be, and I’m not perfect, so I’m glad that it at least comes through in a noticeable way.

morphinepudding said:

Confession: you're the only blog on this hellsite I've been following for years, since it seems we both love scar-faced, emotional, broken men with ominous masks and a soft spot for (not so) vulnerable little birds. I am a silent lurker outside of my art posting but know how much I appreciate your insight, your humor and your tags, and how I audibly squealed when you reblogged my latest piece since your posts were such an inspiration for it. Never let them bring you down.

this message made me burst into tears at my grandma’s house when I got it in my inbox. I adore your art so much, whenever I go to your page I have to like clutch at my heart with the emotions they give me. When I saw your latest piece, I was overwhelmed with like ‘oh my gosh, this is so relevant to my interests, how did they know???’ I genuinely felt like my heart was being read. My posts were an inspiration for it??? oh my god, I thought it was just because of Wayward Jedi’s videos or something and we were mutual fans of the theory ;______________; 

hahah, I’m tearing up again.. good to meet you after so many years

Anonymous said:

As someone whose not a reylo shipper I’ve always loved seeing your analyses of the scenes and what it means for the ship because it makes me happy to see you happy; to see thousand upon thousands of other fans happy. I like to do the same exact thing for my ships (like I’m a fan of finnrey) I can not stand those anti posts about reylo. Literally why on earth am I going to hate something that brings someone else joy and is not causing harm to anyone. I hope you continue loving what you love ♥️

This ask gives me so much hope. This is like, my goal, to just effing talk about stuff that makes me happy and draw people to me who like to talk about the things that make them happy. I actually love following blogs of people just talking about their interests, even if I know nothing about them. I’m glad my posts are a positive and not annoying to you, because I genuinely adore Finnrey. I think it’s literally only that I’m so married to certain extremely specific tropes that made me ship reylo more. And I’m just utterly annoyingly myopic about stuff until I feel like I’ve ‘figured it out.’

Anonymous said:

I love your Reylo metas!! It's a real shame that some in the tumblr Star Wars community are so closed minded and think it's cool to bash and make fun of viewpoints and interpretations that are different than theirs. Your posts are so well thought out and articulate. I am glad you are not deterred by the haters, and wish you well.

Thank you!! It was so fuckin bizarre to me because I don’t even mind being disagreed with. for a minute, I was almost like ‘why didn’t anyone I know tell me politely that I was writing foolishness?’ but then I realized it was all just middle schooler bullshit and bad takes. Thanks so much...

Anonymous said:

This is a fan who loves your blog and meta and interests!!! I’m sorry you have to deal with antis but I think you’ve really touched on something that I relate to in terms of the male characters I’m interested in as a heterosexual in theory but rarely in practice female. We are both interested in raw, emotional, flawed male characters and I think that’s just fine. Screw everyone else and do you! You’re fantastic. Sorry, this is a tired rambling late night ask haha

God, thank you. Like, this whole blog is me trying to figure out why I’m interested in these emotional male characters, especially in terms of my sexuality and gender, and I’m glad the wild stabs in the dark resonated with someone else in any way. “we are both interested in raw, emotional, flawed male characters and I think that’s just fine” BEAUTIFUL, I want ‘’and I think that’s just fine’’ tattooed on me. I feel like I’m constantly thinking ‘it’s not fine’ because this site’s culture gets to me sometimes, and having to shake myself out of it. This site is hell on earth.

Anonymous said:

I saw that stalking post & the bullying post. Someone I used to chat w/ (I left the Solas fandom & Tumblr about 2 years ago) was completely delighted by it & participated.For what it's worth,she is an incredibly miserable person who hates herself, her body, her family, her boyfriend.Everything/everyone. It's nothing about you, it's these sad people who would rather tear others down because it's easier than building themselves into better people who make genuine & sincere connections w/ others.

It makes me uncomfortable to think that someone who knew me from Dragon Age was enjoying this, cause like... man. That’s worse. I thought I had a relatively good reputation, so that’s kind of sad to me. I guess I’m falling for the fallacy of thinking ‘if I behave well enough x won’t happen to me.’ I don’t understand the draw of being so negative, but I hope someday they can self-reflect and figure stuff out.

Anonymous said:

what i don't understand about a lot of antis on this site is why they have to be so mean. look, i have characters i dislike and ships i dislike and if someone asks me about why i dislike them i'll tell them but otherwise why would i actively seek out things i don't like? i stay away. instead people have to mock and act like child bullies. we are just trying to enjoy, they are the miserable ones. don't need to publish this but just want you to know there are people that appreciate you.

Thanks, I have no idea either. I think getting worried and interfering about what other women are doing or interested in sexually is a thing people start doing when they feel powerless in other parts of their lives. The whole thing is pretty transparent because you just don’t see this kind of patronizing moral policing on websites populated by mostly men. Anyway, it always feels nice to have a Holy Crusade to believe in, and feel like you’re protecting children and doing good. Even if you’re not doing anything productive, it still feels great and the rush of moral superiority is addictive.

Anonymous said:

i like the assertions from people that folks use too much freudian stuff in talking about analysis in film and talk about how it's discredited and, ok sure but if people took a few film theory classes they'd find themselves running into freudian theory an awful lot in the context of, well, most films and especially hollywood films. (this is about tlj specifically though)

Yeah, like, it’s deliberately used in symbolism in movies. Full stop. Nothing more to discuss.

reinaben said:

Hey, corseque, you rock and you were right! I'm so happy today I'm bouncing like Adam on that gif. I remember reading some of your posts tagged #shitty wizards after TFA and wondering maybe she likes Kylo Ren? because he is like the shittiest wizard ever. I was so happy when you started posting meta about Star Wars, I still am. Anyway, I'm sorry to bother you and I'm sorry that the antis were assholes. Have a nice day!

Kylo Ren is such a #shitty wizard and I have loved him from day one. It’s just that this website is such a bad one that I was convinced not to post about the boi. Part of the reason why I’ve been posting So Much in like a flood is like... I was censoring myself for 2 years, so there’s a lot to catch up on. Glad you enjoyed my transition to Star Wars <3

[therealdragonnerdagain]

I thought I would explain the reason why I have spent the last few years obsessively ranting about the racism and sexism in Bioware's games. Might prove interesting for the anti-pc fanboy fucks and bitchy Bioware fans who stalk my blog.

Because game developing is a business, most developers, rather than try something new or try to be inclusive, would rather stick to the tried and true formula of Straight White Morally Grey Male Hero who is out to avenge his dead family/ dead wife/ someone's attempted murder on him. Same old pandering to the same old audience.

Bioware was the first game developer to be openly inclusive of minorities. Not only that, but they proved once and for all that minorities really were in the audience and that it was possible to include us and still make a profit.

Once Bioware offered up this evidence, other game developers tentatively fell in line, while at the same time remaining careful to kiss Straight White Male Ass so they wouldn't anger their precious male fans.

I remember the first time I played Origins as the female city elf Kallian. It was amazing to participate in a story with actual content that was FOR ME. Not the straight dude they just assumed was in the audience.  

After fifteen odd years of playing video games that ignored me, suddenly, I was being acknowledged.

It was amazing.

And it's one reason why Dragon Age Origins will always have a special place in my geeky heart.

So to eventually come to the conclusion that the developers at Bioware are just as sexist and racist as every other developer . . . it was pretty crushing.

David Gaider is racist. Yes, he is. The only reason Bioware is inclusive to queer people is because of David Gaider. But the racism is still painfully evident in their games, and the way they treat their female fans and female characters is nothing short of disgusting. (Patrick Weekes' shitty "joke" for Solas fans in Trespasser was the last straw for me.)

I don't care how many people are pissed off by my saying this. I don't care that Gaider is gay -- that doesn't mean he can not possibly be a person who sees other races as inferior. In fact, racism among white gay men is a prevalent problem within the gay community.

Dorian from Dragon Age Inquisition is pretty much David Gaider's self-insert.

Dorian is an innocent bigot.

Yes, he is.

Just because Dorian had elven lovers doesn't make him any less racist. You understand that it's possible to have sex with someone while at the same time not seeing them as an equal, right?

Dorian sees the elves as inferiors. And not out of any hatred or malice, but simply because he's been taught to think that way. He even admits to the Inquisitor that he never bothered to give a shit about racism until he left Tevinter and suddenly had the epiphany that "Slavery bad."

Dorian remains an innocent bigot, a racist who is racist because he doesn't know any better, for the duration of Inquisition. He has a little speech at the Well about cultural appropriation, but the reality is, he still has little empathy toward the elves and their plight.

Dorian is a sheltered child who didn't even notice how fucked up the elves had it until he was forced to leave home. He even assures you that slavery is better than the way Fereldan elves are treated, instead of coming to the realization that both situations are pretty oppressive. The city elves are wage slaves, which are basically slaves without the chains. They are expected to work for next to nothing, and when they wind up stealing to feed their families, they are condemned -- it's slavery, just not chattel slavery.  

Even by Trespasser, Dorian *still* only gives a shit about Tevinter. He never talks about ending the slave trade -- and I know he doesn't because I had a character romance him.

Solas despises Dorian because he's an ignorant bigot who doesn't give a shit about anyone except humans (ironic, I know, coming from someone who doesn't give a shit about anyone but ancient elves).

Solas has several banters where he calls Dorian out on his bigotry, asking him why he doesn't seem to care about freeing the elves. Dorian gets nervous and says something about how it's impossible for him to do that.

Dorian doesn't get it.

The point is not that Dorian isn't able to end slavery. It's that he doesn't even care enough to try.

Solas continues to coldly, tersely force Dorian to realize his own bigotry, each banter more angry than the last. Unfortunately, none of his points ever get through Dorian's brick wall.

Dorian can not be argued with or reasoned with. Just as all racists can not be argued with or reasoned with. I imagine a lot of angry people will respond to this or else complain about it in tumblr groups with their friends, while entirely missing the point . . . which is kinda my point: these people will likely be ignorant racists too.

People who are racist do not live in the same reality as everyone else. And Solas -- who is racist himself and who is just a self-insert of Patrick Weekes and his White Guilt moaning -- can not teach Dorian that he is racist when he himself isn't living in reality (literally if he was actually sleeping during the whole of Inquisition and only just rejoined his body at the end, as I theorized).

In the same way that Dorian is vaguely aware of his own ignorance, David Gaider is vaguely aware of his own ignorance (or else he couldn't have written such a character) and yet he makes no attempt to change.

I remember a couple years ago, this fan tried to talk to David Gaider on twitter about his shitty bigotry. The fan was pretty polite, but Gaider completely shut them down. It's what he always does. He is notorious for not being able to take criticism about any of the games he’s worked on and has no problem insulting fans who try to have a conversation with him. It’s partly the reason why he is so unpopular with many fans.

And just like his creator, Dorian can not be reasoned with. You can not convince Dorian that slavery and "endless cycles of poverty" are both things that should end. Dorian will continue to validate slavery to your face, then he will tell you that you can't *possibly* form an opinion about slavery since you've never been a slave! The Inquisitor is set up to be shot down by him, and he stands there, arms folded, triumphant in having proved his ignorance valid.

The racism in Dragon Age hurt me so much for the reason I stated above: Dragon Age Origins was the first game I played where I felt included. It hurt to realize how bigoted the overall narrative actually was and it hurt to have white fans (more ignorant racists) *mocking* me for being hurt by racism.

But white people always mock people of color for being hurt by racism. What the fuck else is new?

Some times I wonder if Gaider and Weekes realize how hurtful they've been and how they've lost several fans because of Dragon Age -- No, I'm not the only one who sees the racism in the games. I'm just the only one who talks about it all the time.

And I feel this way because Dragon Age saved my life. I was going through a tough time when I found it. So to finally see something I loved so much for what it truly is. . . . it's just awful.

And I know there's no reasoning with any of the developers, so I don't bother addressing them. (I haven't used twitter in several years now, so I wouldn't do that anyway.)

Because much like Patrick Weekes, Gaider will carry on under the belief that there is nothing white people can do to end institutional racism, when in fact there is. Bioware made a great first attempt at not being assholes by including queer people and depicting them as human beings. All they have to do now is show women and people of color the same consideration.

All straight cis gendered white people have to do is treat other people like PEOPLE.

That includes not objectifying female characters in video games. (Miranda's Mass Effect ass shots and unncessesary camel toe come to mind.)

That includes not mocking your female fans for loving the character you created. (Solas, Cullen, and Thane fans were either disregarded completely or treated like shit by the developers.)

That includes not presenting every woman of color like a stereotype Jezebel. (Long-time followers know who I mean here.)

That includes not trashing every religion that's not Christian. (Paganism is not demon worship. Come off it.)

And that includes not depicting indigenous people as inferior savages too “proud” to convert to your “superior” culture.

[therealdragonnerdagain]

To the people who wanna talk shit about this blog in the forums . . .

Couple years ago, I said that Mass Effect 3 would have been perfect if not for that shitty ending.

I said that because I would have been willing to overlook the garbage that was in the rest of the game if the ending hadn't been such shit.

But anyone who actually read most of my Mass Effect 3 posts here would know that I complained A LOT about the whole of Mass Effect 3 -- specifically Shep's auto-dialogue, the botched Mass Effect 2 romances, and Kai Fucking Leng.

Mass Effect 3 also had some really gross stuff in it, like FemShep taking advantage of her rank to basically rape Vega (because I guess the writers thought male rape was funny) and all this other shit.

Yeah. Mass Effect 3 had its fair share of problems. The Ending was just the icing on an already sour cake.

Also, I understand what a "protagonist" is, asswipes who love talking shit about this blog.

I didn't mean that Solas was actually the protagonist. I meant that he stole so much of the story, he might as well have been the protagonist.

This was done to the point that Corypheus wasn't our enemy, he was Solas' enemy -- we and Corypheus just didn't fucking know it.

This was done to the point that it was never our Inquisition -- it was Solas' Inquisition. This is something the Inquisitor can even SAY during Tresspasser "Was it ever MY Inquisition?" Of course, Solas denies that he was ever really in charge, but he was in the background pulling a lot of strings, even if he didn't have the final say.

Also, people are saying Solas won't even be important in DA4, so we Solasmancers should stop bitching.

Well, if Solas isn't important, then why weren't we given the option to deal with him in Trespasser and end his story there?

We are given the option to murder knife, join, or spare Morrigan and Anders (the other "evil" apostates) but we are not given the option to deal with Solas in a similar fashion? That's bullshit.

And if Solas isn't that important, it will just be a symptom of yet more sloppiness on Bioware's part.

See, all this happened because

1) Bioware did not have a plan from the beginning. They didn't plan for this series to be more than one game, then couldn't decide whether or not to bring the Warden back -- because some people had a dead Warden (myself included).

They got around this by inventing Hawke, who was then supposed to pick up the rest of the series as the main protagonist, leading the Inquisition and so forth.

But things changed AGAIN. Probably because lots of fans didn't like being forced to play a predefined, human character. Dragon Age 2 was nothing like the first game we all loved. Dragon Age 2 was basically Pseudo Final Fantasy, with it's own Cloud (Fenris) and everything.

So Bioware tried to go back to its roots with Inquisition, scrapping Hawke as the protagonist and inventing the Inquisitor, yet ANOTHER human noble character.

People didn't like being forced to play another human noble. Most of us (myself included) got into this series because we loved choosing who we were. I have always identified with oppressed outsiders (because I am an oppressed outsider) so I always play elves. I did not wnat to play a human again.

Bioware listened and added multiple races, but by then it was too late: the series had become a butchered clusterfuck, a thin shadow of what it had been.

2) The second reason all this happened? EA thought it would be great to take an rpg with depth and maturity and water it down into some streamlined mess. Somehow, they equated butchering a story with appealing to a wider audience and gaining more money.

So we have this MESS before us today that is Dragon Age (god, I fucking HATE EA), where every protagonist after the Warden has a clusterfuck story where they never defeat their own arch-nemesis and instead pass them off to some other hero.

I'm sorry, but Solas DOES belong to the Inquisitor as a villian. Just as Corypheus *really* belonged to Hawke (because Inquisition was originally a continuation of Hawke's story).

Just as we would have been pissed had Hawke stepped in at the last minute to kill the archdemon, thus stealing the Warden's enemy (who we worked so HARD to defeat) from them.

The Inquisitor is *not* coming back as a protagonist. Bioware has denied the arm has anything to do with it (they don't want to look ableist but being anti-indigenous is fine and dandy!) but no matter the reason, the Inquisitor's story is over and they are not going to be the protagonist anymore.

This means I don't get to end Solas' story as the Inquisitor.

That SUCKS.

That's like . . . ending Morrigan's story as Hawke, even though I romanced Morrigan in the game before and had history with her (and I did on two playthroughs romance Morrigan, so I waited for Witch Hunt just like everyone else).

That's like . . . ending Anders' story as the Inquisitor, even though Hawke had personal history (including betrayal) with him.

Remember what it was like after DA2 dropped? Remember all the gamers who HATED Anders and were foaming at the mouth about his betrayal? Imagine for one SECOND if they were not given the option to deal with Anders as Hawke and he instead carried over to Inquisition? As will Nerd Rage, the outrage would have been perpetual and unending.

And yet, I, a Solasmancer, am expected to just accept the way the story was handled, without criticizing it or even lamenting it. I, a Solasmacer, am expected to just . . . quietly accept something I don't like.

I suppose Nerd Rage is purely reserved for straight white homophobic dudes who want to kill Anders because he hit on them once.

Why are Solasmancers ridiculed and mocked for wanting to end Solas' story AS Lavellan? Why in FUCK is that such a god-awful thing?

It pisses me off because I already decided -- long before Trespasser was released -- that I would no longer be buying anymore Dragon Age games. Their anti-indigenous hate-screed (on top of the over-all sad dumbing down of the game into an MMORPG) had already convinced me to quit the series. So learning that my character would not get a proper ending to her story until the next game was beyond annoying.

But whatever. Go on mocking me on fextralife and bsn and whatever forum you like.

What I can't understand is why people even pay attention to my blog. I am just one fan ranting bitterly to myself about how a video game disappointed me.

I'm just one fan. I'm not hurting anyone.

And I'm allowed to have whatever fucking reaction I want to these games.

I'm allowed to have an opinion.

Hard to wrap your head around, I know.

EDIT: And to Steel Can.

I have watched for years as you behaved on the forums like a racist asshat about people of color, hiding behind your hatred of the Dalish to justify it. I wish you’d just shut the living fuck UP.

NO. The Dalish don't expect nor force city elves to worship their gods when they join them. Play a Dalish in Origins sometime. You might actually learn something -- not that you care to learn that you’re wrong. 

You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the religious oppression of the elves. You're trying so DESPERATELY to justify the shitty way Lavellan was treated for her beliefs by everyone in the game -- even her friends -- by building false equivalences (the white man’s favorite passtime) and pretending the elves are just as bad as the humans.

But they're not. This is something Manifest Destiny, racist white men, would have you believe. They need you to believe it in order to justify history’s crimes. They need you to believe that indigenous people were violent savages who warred upon each other, so this made it “okay” and even “good for them” to be invaded, enslaved, and oppressed. 

I mean, it’s not like white people didn’t treat the Irish and the Scottish like garbage or anything. White people were always good to each other. They never tortured each other in dungeons and beheaded each other over loaves of bread . . .

Dalish elves were not forcing anyone to their religion when they joined their camps. Pol never gets vallalsin in the ten years he’s with the Dalish. Because he doesn’t have to. When you meet him in Origins. he is being taught to hunt and survive. The Dalish Warden tells him to just make himself useful, and he is welcome. No religious conversion required. He is not forced into elven religion.

And even if Pol was forced:

Nothing can justify what was done to the elves. 

Nothing can justify imperialism, invasion, genocide, cultural genocide, and slavery.

Just as nothing can justify what was done to real indigenous people. 

I bet you hated the Thalmor in Skyrim and sided with the Stormcloaks to protect their religion even while hating the Dalish -- a people facing religious oppression -- in Dragon Age. Because only white men are allowed to have cultural, religious freedom, and any culture that’s not white isn’t worthy of respect, right?

But why am I wasting my time, Steel Can? Your sorry racist ass will never understand. You enjoy shitting on real indigenous people and using Dragon Age to justify it. Because Bioware's racism gave you the tools to do so.

That does not make you or Bioware right.

Also, Red Crossing started when two HUMANS killed an elven woman while trespassing on Dalish land.

[therealdragonnerdagain]

This is a retired gaming blog, blah, blah, blah. But I wanted to post this.

So I was playing Skyrim (Vilkas is a crappy follower -- Farkas is better) and for some reason, I started thinking about how I made that Loghain post about two (?) years ago and how Dragon Age fans misunderstood it.

I remember having some fans attack me, astonished and self-righteously outraged that I was "defending" a racist slaver. Meanwhile, other fans approached me in a friendly manner, shocked that I had apparently killed Loghain in the game even though I pitied him. These two groups were both under the impression that I liked Loghain, which was . . . utterly baffling to me.

It occurred to me that these fans must've been very young, because they were still thinking with a very black and white mentality. To them, pitying Loghain was equal to liking him (except it's not) and explaining why he did what he did in Origins was somehow the same as condoning his actions (again, it's not).

If I recall correctly, the purpose of my post was to recount Loghain's sins in a list where I explained why he committed each one through codexes, letters, and info I'd gathered in the game (working with Howe, Anora's schemes, etc).

Also, keep in mind that I always tended to write such posts after having taken my meds and right before going to bed, so they were often incoherent, drowsily written nonsense.

So ironic that I was accused of ableism while too out of my mind to write a decent post due to a medication for my MENTAL ILLNESS.

So ironic that I was accused of racism and condoning slavery, only to have my accuser turn around and make racist insults at me.

But whatever. Back to Loghain.

I think Alistair summed it up best when he said that people like Loghain and Anora think they're the only ones who can get anything done. Loghain thinking he was the only competent and trustworthy person in all of Feralden is half the reason Feralden nearly burned to the ground.

Yes, I pity Loghain. But, no, I don't like him. He's an asshole and I've never had a playthrough where I spared him (especially since I played elves so much).

I pity Loghain because he has PTSD and his wild paranoia was sad to watch. He truly believed Cailan was going to marry Celene when he clearly wasn't (something Inquisition and The Masked Empire only further proves -- Celene is queer, power-hungry, and in no way willing to marry a man) and if you take Loghain back to Ostagar, he rants and raves about Cailan's "betrayal" wildly. It reminds me of mentally ill people I knew personally.

So, yes. I pity Loghain because he is a broken soldier. And how could anyone have helped him? Thedas doesn't "do" mental illness well. As I mentioned on another post, Cullen is probably the first templar in (recent) history to open a rest home for broken soldiers.

What was more, Loghain had too much power. There was no one to stop him in the heights of his paranoia. Even Cailan couldn't do anything because he needed Loghain's help against the darkspawn.

Also, Anora would probably never speak to Cailan again if he sent her father away. I believe Cailan really loved Anora and was never going to marry Celene. Eamon (so high on having the king's ear) kept telling Cailan to find a new wife, and Cailan kept telling Eamon to mind his own business. So Eamon's letters, combined with the complete businesslike letters from Celene about an "alliance" both led Loghain -- in his feverish brain -- into believing his son-in-law was casting Anora aside, when nothing was farthest from the truth.

If you pay attention at Ostagar, Cailan is clearly annoyed by Loghain but can't be rid of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he suggested having Loghain retire to a chantry somewhere, only for Anora to become upset with him until he called it off. Remember, Anora practically worshiped her father.

Also, yes, I enjoy understanding the reasons why Loghain did what he did. That's because I'm a writer and I enjoy knowing the entire story. That does not mean I condone Loghain's actions.

I recall fans sneering on me for talking about gray morality and how the Gray Wardens were called GRAY WARDENS because gray morality is the entire theme of Dragon Age.

The fans were sneering on me because they thought I was using "gray morality" to excuse the elven slave trade. Only I wasn't. I never said it was right or necessary to sell the elves off to Teviner. In fact, it was completely unnecessary (when is slavery ever necessary?). And given the fact that my favorite Gray Warden was Kalian (and my second favorite was Mahariel) it was downright infuriating. (Kalian's father almost gets sold.)

Also, it wasn't Loghain that sold the elves. It was Howe, as theorized in another post of mine. Howe led a massacre against the elves after Tabris killed Vaughn, and when that wasn't enough to cow them, he used bio warfare and slavery to be rid of them. In fact, he did just about everything that has been done historically to people of color in real life -- why in FUCK would I excuse or condone this???

David Gaider stated on BSN (I believe the thread is gone now with the rest of the forums) that Loghain didn't even know what was happening in the alienage until you wave the slaver documents in his face during the landsmeet.

Loghain wasn't given a short stick by the plot. He was written wonderfully. He was written just well enough that you could pity him and hate him at the same time. And he felt very human. And very real. More real than Coryphshit, anyway.

Loghain had a full story arc with multiple outcomes. It's pretty much everything a fictional character in a video game could ask for. He wasn't given the short end of anything, in my humble opinion.

Even though Loghain wasn't directly (but was indirectly) responsible for the slave trade, he was still responsible for a lot of seedy shit. He was responsible for Uldred. He promised a man -- a slave -- his freedom, only to go back on that promise, which led to Uldred committing suicide by giving his body to a demon and wreaking havoc on the tower: the real Uldred was dead by the time the Warden arrived.

Loghain was also responsible for Redcliffe but couldn't be bothered to manipulate the Dalish into his control. No, they were already destroying themselves in a neat little plot about how the writers think white people aren't responsible for modern day oppression or whatever.

Anyway.

It's supposed to be ironic that Loghain depises the Gray Wardens and yet acts just like them, committing atrocities to do what is necessary (or what he THINKS is necessary) but not what is right. It's almost like the game was building up specifically for him to become a Gray Warden. Especially if you read the books, you can see what I mean. (The same kinda goes for Solas, though he's just a Loghain-expy anyway.)

My point is, fans of the game are too young to grasp its more mature themes, which reach beyond simple black and white ethics. Dragon Age: Origins is a world were nothing is black and white and nothing is supposed to be simple (again, not "condoning" slavery. Slavery is pretty simple: it's wrong). It's a world full of anti-heroes who do bad things to save the day.

Again, Howe wasn't doing something "necessary" in selling off elves, so I'm NOT talking about him when I speak about gray morality. I'm talking about Loghain, who firmly believed he was doing the right thing at Ostagar, even though he really wasn't. Loghain firmly believed that saving his troops and pulling them out would protect Ferelden, even if it meant sacrificing thousands of lives -- just as Solas believed sacrificing all those people on the mountain by tricking Corypheus into opening his foci was necessary to save his own people.

As a side note, it kind of pisses me off that Patrick Weekes wrote that segment for Solas where Solas talks about the battle at Ostagar being not so black and white. He tries to make it seem as if Loghain's actions could have actually been right in some way, but anyone who's paid close nerdy attention knows that Loghain was clearly WRONG. I believe this was done mostly to honor the player's interpretation but . . .

If Loghain hadn't barred the Orlesians from entering Ferelden, then pulled out his own troops, Ostagar would not have happened. Period.

During the first act of Inquisition, you can actually get in a fight with the quartermaster at Haven about Ostagar. It's another example of Patrick's Weeke's shitty writing, where he tries to get an emotional reaction from the audience by appealing to the player instead of the Inquisitor. He basically has no idea how to write for a video game and instead writes like this is a novel. 

The Inquisitor has no reason to care so passionately about Loghain and Ostagar, while those of us who played Origins do. Yet the Inquisitor is so angry, they act as if they were there (because we were there) when they really shouldn't give a fuck. This is immersion breaking, also stupid, and Weekes uses this method to pull us into the story emotionally multiple times throughout the game: Morrigan's introduction where the Inquisitor is smiling at a dangerous stranger as if they know her, the popular and much loved Teagan being a jerk in order to play on our feelings (and again not the Inquisitor’s feelings), etc.

Loghain wanted desperately to keep the Orlesians out because the war against Orlais had left him paranoid and suffering PTSD. Orlesians raped his mother and killed his father. Orlesians mounted the heads of his family and friends on pikes. Orlesians made his life a living hell.

And it was so, so easy to blame everything on Cailan once he was dead, wasn't it? But I don't think Loghain was really even blaming Cailan out of power-hungry maliciousness: he actually believed Cailan was a stupid child (Calian's name even means child) and would forever see Cailan through the "father filter."

Loghain has a Fade nightmare that was cut from the game and buried in the game files. In it, he is trapped with child!Cailan in the Fade and is bogged down by guilt and anger. He will always see Cailan as a child and will hate himself for killing him, even while still hating Cailan.

Yes, Loghain hated Cailan, possibly because he was the child of Maric and Rowan, Rowan being the woman he loved. He believed Cailan was a little boy who wanted war and had miscalculated the battle, when in fact Cailan was pretending to want war to keep his troops in good spirits (Wynne confirms this). Cailan knew they were going to die at Ostagar thanks to Loghain -- this is why he sends you and Alistair to the tower. I think he might have even known Loghain was sabotaging the tower.

Again, all of this is mentioned in Return to Ostagar. Nothing about Ostagar was "morally gray" as Solas (and Patrick Weekes, who apparently doesn’t know the story) would have you believe.

And yet, while Loghain's actions were very wrong, he was also not the mad, evil, cartoony villain Alistair saw him as.

Loghain was a sick man who believed he was doing what was right: THAT is what makes this situation morally gray.

Also, Loghain's an asshole because he's racist. I recall one playthrough he called my Mahariel a wild elf, insinuating that she was worthless because she was Dalish. And even though he worked with the Dalish in the books, he and Maric never really treated them like people. The elves fought in the war to liberate Ferelden and then got all of nothing for it and went right back to being socially, religiously, economically oppressed (correct me if I'm wrong). Sounds a bit like the Revolutionary War, huh?

All those nobles at the landsmeet screaming about how Fereldens don't believe in slavery, as if oppression ends at whips and chains.That entire scene at the landsmeet was very realistic, actually. How many white people today think people of color aren't socially, economically oppressed and that oppression ended with slavery? They'v got freedom and don't even know what it is. But if it was suddenly taken away, they would know. Oh, they would know. 

This grimdark crap is why I enjoy breaking the theme by playing a Warden who is not an anti-hero but a hero. Which means that Loghain always dies in my games because a hero would kill him, while a pragmatic anti-hero would make use of him.

The fact that Dragon Age: Origins is grimdark is what makes playing a shining hero so great. Dagna's line about the Gray Warden "It was a time of darkness, she was the only light" was perfect because of this.

I loved playing a hero who saved the day without resorting to pragmatism. I loved it simply because the real world doesn't work that way, and I wish desperately that it did; I wish that people could just be good for once.

I loved playing a hero and having Loghain realize my character was everything he should have been and everything he could not be. (Again, it's the same with Solas and a good, morally upstanding Inquisitor.)

That being said, I also believe a "good" Inquisitor would let Blackwall live. I believe the difference between Loghain and Blackwall is that  while one has a chance to overcome his own darkness, the other does not. Loghain never goes on a killing spree again should you let him live, but he also has to live in misery the rest of his life. Frankly, I always viewed his execution as a mercy kill. And if you defeat him in combat, he pretty much asks you -- with a content smile -- to kill him.

The point I'm trying to make, what I'm getting at is this:

I suddenly understand why series with more "mature," thought-provoking themes like Dragon Age and Mass Effect have been dumbed down and watered down into childish, cartoony, bullcrap.

The fans are too young to get it.

That's not an insult. It's just the truth. We're all naive and inexperienced at least once in our lives. That's the very definition of youth.

Look at Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World. The first game -- while still a bit ridiculous, adolescent, and cliched -- at least has more mature, thought-provoking themes, situations that leave you questioning if you did the right thing. The second game is a bunch of adolescent whining, cringey cliches, and utter nonsense.

Dragon Age: Origins went from characters with depth, meaningful choices, and interesting npcs to Inquisition, the light-hearted, bubbly, bland, cliched, MMORPG/Skyrim wannabe, where your choices don’t matter and your own followers treat you like shit long after you’ve befriended them -- but only if you’re Dalish.

Mass Effect went from the same deal (mature themes, blah, blah, blah) to watered down . .  . everything. Tactics, choices, any seriousness or depth was all replaced with button-mashing combat and campy comic book drivel (yeah, I went there). Though don't get me wrong: at least the combat for Mass Effect was fun across all three games.

It's like the writers went, "Fuck it. The audience wouldn't appreciate or grasp mature themes anyway!" and gave us a bunch of cartoonish, ridiculous shit.

I wish they’d stop. If young fans don’t get it, then they don’t get it. Why change your games when the audience is still the same?

[therealdragonnerdagain]

I found myself scrolling through the #Bioware hashtag this evening for some unholy reason (after avoiding it for years like the plague), and honestly . . . there are more people in that tag whining about the fandom than actual fans do anything wrong.

So people complain about Bioware and their video games? So fucking what?

Spoiler Alert: nerds complain about video games.

It's our favorite pastime.

After coming to tumblr almost three years ago and seeing just how shitty and toxic the fandom was, I learned it was pretty easy to avoid that shit once you got the lay of the land (i.e. which crappy blogs to avoid). Your tumblr experience depends mostly on who you follow.

And if you can't handle shitty messages in anon, just do what I did and turn them off. It's just too bad you can't turn off tumblr's stupid private chat feature, because I get way too many people being rude to me there. To the point that I just don't read messages anymore.

But yeah. People are allowed to have negative opinions about the shit you love. Welcome to life.

Also, it's not the elves that Bioware hates. It the indigenous people they represent.

Dragon Age does nothing but demonize and crap on the Dalish. Over and over. Because they think indigenous people in real life are scum.

Maybe you're too young to understand that. Maybe you just don't have a real grasp on racism. But for everyone who's seen this shit before, we can recognize it.

Believe me, I didn't believe it either until I really started paying attention to how the Dalish are depicted in each game. Inquisition brings that underlining theme of Manifest Destiny to the forefront, but it's a racist theme that was always there.

The hatred was more subtle in Origins yet became shitfuck obvious in Inquisition. So it makes me very tired every time someone makes a post going on about how much Bioware must "love" the elves just because they've made their lore the main focus.

You understand it's possible to fetish a people's culture and want it for yourself even while hating the people who belong to it, right?

Hence the way only white humans in Dragon Age (the Avvar) are allowed to be tribal, worship spirits, practice magic, and at the same time are depicted as nuanced people, while the elves are almost exclusively depicted as cruel savages, snobs, blood mages, demon worshipers, and have been so stripped of all humanity by the last game that it's impossible to sympathize with them any longer.

The elves are depicted as inferior fuckups and humans are always presented as better. Morrigan is "better" than Merrill with eluvians, Morrigan knows more about the Dalish than an actual Dalish Inquisitor, Mythal would rather entrust her spirit to a human, the Dalish in The Masked Empire are too stupid to unlock the eluvian (to let Solas out) and yet, Briala the City Elf and Michel the Human can open it just like that, because humans and elves who have assimilated into human culture are superior to those dumb pagans!!!

The elven Grey Warden Iselya made the griffons go extinct. But her brother ended the Blight, so I guess even an elf can't fuck up simply DYING.

Elves are always dying in droves because they are presented as irrational and stupid by throwing themselves against the player for seemingly no reason, all so that white people -- sorry, I mean the player -- can absolve themselves of any wrongdoing when they commit genocide OVER and OVER in each game.

The elves asked for it! Why can’t they just surrender!

Slaughtering entire groups of indigenous people and then going, "Well, it was irrational of them to fight me. Why be angry that I invaded their land, raped their wives, outlawed their religion, and stole their children!" is the entire essence of Manifest Destiny.

Manifest Destiny: indigenous people are violent, irrational, inferior, can't achieve a damn thing without fucking up, and thus must be put out of their misery. Manifest Destiny. It's the belief that indigenous people are inferior and that killing them is so sad and beautiful because it's "for their own good."

Dragon Age is FULL of poems that romanticize the deaths of elves (mainly the original Dalish) who refused to surrender to human invasion and were "regretfully" slain by humans who begged them to stop fighting.

Yeah. The Dalish should have just surrendered. They should have just not been so proud! Why not just give in and become wage slaves in alienages who aren't allowed to worship their own gods? Their gods are demons anyway!!!

Solas, an elven god, is the embodiment of indigenous foolishness and pride. Because naturally, the elves were foolish for not simply submitting to human rule! Solas, a god, is so inferior that he can't even open his own fucking foci and needs the originally-human-Inquisitor to do it for him.

Only humans can do anything right in Dragon Age.

The Inquisitor was originally going to be a HUMAN who wielded the anchor better than Solas. The only reason they added races in at the last minute? A bunch of fans said they would not buy Inquisition if they were forced to play human -- AGAIN.

So while Bioware has an obvious fetish for indigenous culture, they could give less than a shit about indigenous people, and are perfectly willing to strip them of all humanity game after game, to the point that even ex-Dalish elves (Sera (arguably), Minaeve, and Dalish of the Chargers) hate and despise the Dalish as well.

We are not meant to sympathize with the elves. They are supposed to be buffoonish "inferiors" whose foolishness destroyed themselves and the old world -- true to Manifest Destiny and delusions of white superiority.

Canadians are super racist against their indigenous people, and this translated into Dragon Age. Unfortunately.

It took me a long time to make sense of this, as I didn't know much about First Nations people or Canadians (we didn’t really study them much in my anthropology classes). But now, after doing some reading, it all makes perfect sense.

Canadians only value First Nations people who have assimilated into white culture, thus the city elves in Dragon Age are treated ten times better by the narrative than the Dalish. Thus, we have Varric in Trespasser giving Clan Lavellan the opportunity to forget their own shitty pagan culture and assimilate into human culture. This is seen as a good thing that "helps" the Dalish: erasing their culture like it's inferior and being human is preferable.

So yeah, Patrick Weekes. Your wife being First Nations doesn't make you any less racist for everything that was done and said about indigenous elves in Inquisition by your hand.

And of course, David Gaider is racist too: he created the original lore that made the Dalish out to be inferior in the first place.

But silly me. Bioware "loves" the elves so much. That's why their culture is center focus, to the point of being handwaved as inferior demon worship.