bingsoo-jung

[bingsoo-jung]

Welcome to ‘theta makes up magical thesis for their novel’. Featuring such great hits as ‘Strange Attractors: a Stochastic Analysis of Magical Malfunctions in combined Spirit and Blood Experiments’ and ‘Nonsynchronistic Spacial Overlap of Spiritual Hot Zones’ and ‘A Mathematical Proof for Teleporting via Blood Yantra’

[bingsoo-jung]

You may be going ‘theta where did you go all these past months?’ Well good reader, where i went was down a rabbit hole and now i have 40k down for an original novel and a vague outline for the rest of it :D

[bingsoo-jung]

Elwing & Eärendil

For Valentine :) I love them so much your honor

The Valentine entry post for the event, write something for the drawing or draw it in your own style, can be found here with four other drawings :)

@ethanray thank you for reminding me of them :')

Support me on Ko-Fi - get early access drawings + WIPs

[bingsoo-jung]

Long time followers of mine might remember when I'd occasionally put on a Hunger Games styles event for Dragon Age OCs. It was an event that spanned several hours and was always a ton of fun. Well, due to nostalgia and peer pressure, I've decided I'd like to host another one so that we all get the chance to have our OCs beat the shit out of each other!

What I do: I'll be running our OCs through the BrantSteele Hunger Games Simulator and posting results as they come in. I'll provide colour commentary and reblog any related posts (use the "BOTC" tag).

What you do: Submit a picture (screencaps or art are both fine) of your PC to this blog with a short paragraph about their personality. Understand that I'll have to upload the pic to Imgur to use in the simulator, but will delete after the game is done. Use the BOTC tag to post art, writing, slander, shit talk, cheering, etc. for and about any of the OCs in the battle, so I can reblog and add to the madness. Mourn appropriately when your darling dies.

Limit of one OC per player.

Tag for the event: BOTOC

Cut off date for submissions of OCs: April 10th

Date of the battle: April 12th, 6pm EST.

Space is limited. I can take 24, 36, or 48 people and am willing to run a game of up to 48, but that's the cutoff.

If anyone wants to check out past battles, look for the 'hack n slash' and 'ocbattle' tags on my blog.

If you miss this one, no problem! I'll likely run more, and for those I'll give first priority to new folks.

Is there a prize? Just the ability to shove your victory in everyone else's face. I'll be looking at prizes in the future, but this is my first one in years, so I'm just going to get the basics down for now.

Feel free to send me an ask if anything is unclear or you've got any questions!

[bingsoo-jung]

Slightly incorrect DATV quote

Solas: Inquisitor Lavellan.. is a good woman.

Lavellan (being on the edge of mental breakdown for the last 10 years):

[bingsoo-jung]

[bingsoo-jung]

The bad rap Taash and veilguard as a whole get remains equal parts confusing and frustrating to me. It's one thing to see culture war chuds seething over woke or whatever, but really I expected better from Tumblr of all places. Whether or not you enjoyed DA:tV, it is objectively an incredibly inclusive game that did a lot more for representation across the board than most titles, and trying to debate that fact or tear it down because it didn't do its representation exactly to the letter of how you wanted it is, straightforwardly, poisonous to the fight for diversity in gaming as a whole. Call me dramatic, but every time you act like a spoiled child and pitch a bitch fit over a nonbinary or trans character not being exactly what you wanted, you are actively hurting your own cause. You don't have to like Taash, but if you care about the community it's the least you can do to restrain yourself from posting freezing cold, Steven Universe discourse level takes about how they are actually "harmful" or would have "put you back in the closet".

Here's the tough truth about portraying nonbinary and trans perspectives in media: these identities are not a monolith. Nonbinary, as a whole, is not a secret third gender with its own set of trappings, it's a wide, wide label that means many different things to many different people. That you can look at an nb character written by a nb person and say "they did it wrong" with your whole chest speaks more to your own limited viewpoint and disconnection from the greater queer community than it does to the actual quality of the character.

The impossible challenge that creators face when their writing hits fandom spaces is that people want many different things from art. I've seen people adamant that the correct and most helpful way to do rep is to have a character turn directly to the camera and say "I am transgender" and then have that part of their identity explored for the next 300 pages. I have also seen people, just as adamant and righteous as the first, claim that representation is best and most correctly done when queerness is an incidental background detail in the same vein as hair color or favorite food. The truth is that neither of these perspectives, nor any in-between is inherently more or less correct than the other. Different people will want different things, because at the end of the day different people have different experiences with their queerness and would like to see that reflected in the things they love.

The only real way to be incorrect here is to malign and defame a story for daring to depict something outside of your particular experience - as I see many people do with Taash. I had to read with my own eyes a post about how their romance with Harding is predatory or some shit and that it reflects poorly on the nb community. Quick question: could you please go do your moral crusade about 50 Shades of Grey or some other piece of work so I don't have to see it? You help no one with this hyperbolic bullshit. The only thing you're doing is handing the worst people in this world further unsubstantiated ammo for casting genderqueer people as inherently sexually abusive. Think for a second about who and what you sound like for the love of God. Taash and Harding are both into what happens on screen, your weird moral panic is your own problem. Once again, you don't have to like it, but please do not try to frame something as ontologically evil and harmful to the community because it doesn't suit your tastes.

Taash is fine nonbinary rep. As a nonbinary person, especially one who is afab and spent most of my life feeling a bit out of place and uncomfortable with what the world expected of me, I think it's just right. They managed to represent me. Sorry that it didn't get to be your experience that got put in the game, but it's impossible to tell every single queer story at once. If you really give a shit about the community, celebrate the wins of your fellows, not just your own.

And the sad thing is, I see two big 'critiques' about Taash's questline - either that it's all about their gender identity, or that it doesn't explore their gender identity enough. Sometimes I see these takes in the same post and I can only imagine what sort of doublethink Koolaid the culture war nonsense has gotten you to drink. Taash's gender is front and center, and that's great! But it's a part of a larger story - a story about a difficult family relationship. Taash's story is about the ebb and flow of their relationship with their mother more than anything else, and to be honest? It's one of the best in the series.

Family drama has been a mainstay of Dragon Age - you have Hawke's personal tragedy in DA2, Dorian's alienation over his identity and beliefs in Inquisition, and hell, Morrigan throughout the series tends to be more tied up with family dynamics than anything else. Taash is the continuation of that tradition, and I love what they have. The binary choice at the end is pretty weak and downright misunderstands the experience of being mixed race, but the dynamic between Taash and Shathann is fantastic. It's pained and restrained in such a realistic way, two people struggling with the old and new who dearly care about each other but can never seem to see eye to eye, and end up falling back on their worst vices - anger for Taash, and discipline for Shathann.

Veilguard has a tendency to pull its punches and make everyone a bit too chipper and chill, that's a legitimate criticism given the series' history, but I was deeply struck by how unforgiving Shathann's death was. It was really, unrelentingly realistic - life happened, and Taash never got the chance to sort out their relationship with her. They didn't get to reconcile or ever see eye to eye. Despite spending most of their screen time together bitter and simmering, Taash is so devastated by their mother's death that you have to pull them out of certain death. It was cathartic and brutal for me, a nb person who has had a really really poor relationship with my mother in the past, it made me go plan a lunch with her because I was so grateful that things didn't end like that for us, that I did get the time to work through it.

And sure, you can accuse me of going easy on Taash because their story resonated with me - but isn't that what a story is supposed to do? Reflect the real and sincere, evoke emotion in the audience and crystalize experience and feeling on the stage? Isn't that proof of its value?

At the end of the day, representation has no single golden standard. The only real end goal is to be represented at all - not only by shining heroes and perfectly squeaky clean moralists, but also by characters who are just as human and fallible as the real life people they draw from. Taash succeeds there, and I think they deserve a lot more love and grace than many in the fandom want to show them. If you still want to slander Taash as harmful or bad, why don't you call me that too? Why not call every non binary person who fails to meet your rigid standards evil and degenerate while you're at it? See how much of a community you're left with, and who the ghouls cheering for you actually are.

[bingsoo-jung]

We are still reblogging pieces for Taash Week 2025-- and remember to mention us/use the tag if you finish, later!-- but as this week is sadly coming to an end, I (hyperion) wanted to give a HUGE thank you to all of the mods who worked so hard to make this week a success by commenting, reblogging, posting about and creating for Taash Week 2025!

Thank you @flowersforthemachines for providing screenshots, making wonderful gif sets and mods, as well as reblogging and commenting on Taash Week works!

Thank you @mageofquandrix for modding the Taash Week streams, and for providing such wonderful screenshots, as well as being so dedicated to commenting and reblogging people's fanworks!

Thank you @thedissonantverses for writing such wonderful pieces, and for being so assiduous with reblogging and commenting on everyone's work, as well as making sure we never missed anyone!

Thank you @theunsinkablesappho for writing such lovely pieces, providing screenshots, and for interacting with people's work!

Thank you @ofcrowsanddragons for writing such excellent pieces for so many days, reblogging and liking people's work, and for helping promote Mage's screenshots!

Thank you @biowaredisasterbisexual for running the blog when Taashy was busy, modding for the Taash Week streams, and creating so much gorgeous writing for the prompts! Also, for being such a consistent commenter and reblogger for everyone's work!

And finally:

THANK YOU SO MUCH @taashyvashedan for all of your hard work running the blog this week, and for sharing your immense love for Taash! This week could not have been so successful without your incredible dedication-- it is truly inspiring! Thank you so much! 🩵

AND, a HUGE thank you to YOU, my fellow Tumblr blogging, for sharing your incredible art and your enthusiasm for Taash! We could never have made this a success without all of you sharing, liking, reblogging, and commenting! THANK YOU!

We hope to see you again, soon!

[bingsoo-jung]

the most aggravating fans are the ones that become huge fans of a villainous character but just can’t handle the fact that the villainous character does villainous things and instead said fans invent a million assbackwards headcanons about how the villain is TOTALLY not a villain at all and is some tragic blob where nothing is their fault even up to and including murder and genocide

i am just so baffled by this

[bingsoo-jung]

rosemary and morning glory for the rook flower asks! 🩵

For the Language of Flowers Rook asks (Rosemary already answered here)

So, there was an excellent post by @pinayelf talking about how Davrin cares. He cares for Assan, he cares for the Wardens, he cares for the Dalish even if he left his clan. Well, I agree.

He likes to play cocky, but Rook soon finds out he is very supportive and actively "takes the lead" in being the one who looks after them as a couple. And for Rook - with her already leading the veilguard team, and especially with her being the older one in the relationship (she's not looking to "play the mom" with her partner) - this really means a lot.

Special mention to that time Davrin started to talk about their future together with their half-bird, half-cat kid, 'cause well, her heart totally exploded out of her chest :3

[bingsoo-jung]

thinking about how solas was running around minrathous reliving his glory days as god of the revolution or whatever FOR WEEKS while rook was in gay baby jail, while thinking about how dorian was ALSO running around minrathous with the shadow dragons because That's His Fucking House

do you think they made eye contact across the street while fighting a bunch of venatori like that it's always sunny meme

[bingsoo-jung]

Elgar'nan: God, I hate that Veilguard hero Rook! That one Venatori from Blood of Arlathan: I know, right? I bet their dick is too big. Elgar'nan: What was that? Venatori: [stammering] I bet they're like... really good at sex!

[bingsoo-jung]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @serensama! Here is your Birthday gift! 100% what you wanted and totally not Lucanis. Enjoy everyone else and thank you for the votes!

[bingsoo-jung]

mods edits

[bingsoo-jung]

Neve Gallus is a detective but she is a detective SECOND and a community organizer FIRST

[bingsoo-jung]

the varric effect

[bingsoo-jung]

So i can officially say i’m writing a novel. Mainly because i’ve written 32k words and i’m not done with act one. So clearly something is there