dalishious - Tumblr blog

[dalishious]

hi, bitch with minor scrupulosity tendencies here, i put this series down years ago but my special interest in it recently woke back up and i'm tearing myself apart both over this series' flaws and how fond of it i still am anyway and i just. don't know how to deal? especially in that way of deeply relating to elves but not knowing what to make of how the writers treat them other than "wow this sucks, that's awful wtf".

i've been reading your blog for years and it's always been great, so i guess that's why i'm coming to you about this.

i guess my actual coherent question is.. how do you do it?

I don't really see it as anything to 'deal' with - there's nothing wrong with overall enjoying something while still critiquing what could be handled better.

[dalishious]

Hi! Do you know of any good reference resources for the DA2 champion armor? It’s such a struggle to draw

[dalishious]

Have you ever licked a lampost in winter?

[dalishious]

You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

[dalishious]

Hello! I was trying to search a Marian Hawke blender model to take screenshot references of her face because I wanted to create her in other games, but I couldn't find it, so I was wondering if you could take some screenshot of her from front, profile and half profile?

Saved from an old deleted blog that did what you're talking about already:

[dalishious]

Leliana the woman that you are

[dalishious]

I haven't read the novels but by researching and also playing DAI I already know that Alistair is Fiona's son, Goldanna has no blood relation to him and from what I understand Alistair doesn't know who his real mother is. So he at least discovered the hoax? And is there any mention of Goldanna after DAO?

No, no mention.

[dalishious]

Do you have a tier list of Dragon Age characters including antagonists and advisors? Or have you ever thought about making one?

Tier lists are kinda boring to me tbh

[dalishious]

Not a question but Thank you for the Absolution watch party! it was wonderful getting to watch it again after so long! To turn this into a question Best Miriam moment? She's iconic!

Personal favourite I think, would be when she saves the little elven girl and says "Nobody saves us. So WE save us."

[dalishious]

Had a wonderful time re-watching Dragon Age: Absolution! Thanks everyone who dropped in, it was much more fun with others

[dalishious]

The Dragon Age Fandom’s New Favourite Charming Slaver

There is nothing wrong with appreciating and enjoying villainous characters, especially when they are done so well. Everything about Rezaren Ammosine makes a him a remarkable and fascinating villain. He’s very intelligently depicted; all aspects of his character matter to how he presents in the story. His design is that of a handsome young white man. He is animated with a graceful and gentle flow, not just in how he casts spells but literally how he carries himself. His voice has a soft and soothing tone, and he uses that soft tone as part of his powerful charisma and sway he has over the people around him, like Tassia. In fact, Rezaren uses all of these characteristics for his benefit. Because just like in real life, abusers do not always wear “I’m a shithead” signs on their chest. To the outside world, they are charming and gentle people who couldn’t possibly hurt a fly, could they? But make no mistake. Rezaren Ammosine is a villain to his core. And treating him as anything other than a villain is a grossly disrespectful interpretation to fans of colour, given the nature of his villainy.

From his very introduction, we see that Rezaren is used to getting his way, and becomes easily frustrated and angered when his will is denied. When he summons a spirit of memory to interrogate about the circulum’s creation, the spirit warns him that answering too much would be unwise. Rezaren ignores these warnings and orders the spirit to continue, to the brink of turning the spirit into a pride demon. This is called back into further example when Miriam refuses his plans for her. Again, he becomes easily angered and physically lashes out, using his magic to flare up the pain in her wound. Then to solidify the power he has over her, says “You live because I will it.”

Rezaren explains to Tassia, “Her name is Miriam. She's my sister. My mother owned her. She was to be my personal spy, assassin. Whatever was needed. My left hand, as it were. But she raised us as siblings.” Except we see how Miriam and Neb were really raised in flashbacks. We see how they were beaten for Rezaren simply tripping while playing with them. We see how they were forced to do hard labour, and told they were not allowed to own anything. And we see how Rezaren’s mother sacrificed Neb so that Rezaren would not become an abomination during his Harrowing, sending the demon into Neb’s body instead. And that raising has obviously shaped how Rezaren views this so-called siblinghood, because while he may call Neb and Miriam his brother and sister, make no mistake, he still views them belonging to him. Rezaren has no respect for their autonomy. Even in death, he defiles Neb’s body by using blood magic to put a demon inside it and controlling him. And Miriam? He cannot bare to accept that she refuses to submit to slavery again, no matter how pretty a picture he paints of them being like family. But you don’t own a sibling. “Selfish bitch! You and your ungrateful brother. You were mine!” he shouts at the very end, before Miriam fatally stabs him.

So, Rezaren is a villainous slaver. Why is it, then, that people are writing reviews praising his character while calling Miriam and her party the real baddies? Why are people saying he “deserved” a redemption arc? The only assumption I can come to is simply that people are so not used to the white guy being the one to lose in the fantasy genre, that they’re willing to bend over backwards to try and paint the only white person in the show as a victim of the #mean brown woman. Think about it. How many stories are out there where the hero is a white man? White people are conditioned to always be the centre of attention, so when they’re not for a change, they need to seek it out by shining a spotlight on whatever white man they can find. This is of course nothing unique to the Dragon Age fandom, but rather a disease found in fandom spaces as a whole. Hell, look at the Star Wars sequels, and how the bizarre love for and babygirlification of Kylo Ren was so strong it led to ruining the second and third films. This is why it’s such a relief to me that Rezaren dies in the end of Absolution, because otherwise it would truly end up a fear to me that the writers would try the same with him.

When you’re pushing Rezaren into the spotlight, you are pushing Miriam out of it. And Miriam is such a treasure of a character, it’s a crying shame to see her get so much disrespect. I have nothing against people who like Rezaren, but if your like for him goes to the extent of putting down Miriam in order to put him up, then we have a problem.

[dalishious]

If you could rewrite Varric’s character what would you change?

Give him actual opinions of his own besides "Dwarves suck lol look how better I am for not being so dwarfy"

Have those opinions challenged throughout the story, maybe even resulting in development of his character to either reinforce his views or change them

[dalishious]

Let's do this, then!

Dragon Age: Absolution Watch Party is happening on 27-Apr-2024, from 12:00 - 14:45 Atlantic Time! (Use a time zone converter to find your local hours, if interested)

We'll be using Hyperbeam, which is a free browser extension / app that allows for group streaming. You will not need anything but Hyperbeam, as I, the host, will be providing the episodes.

English subtitles will be included.

If we have tech troubles, we'll have to reschedule later in May, as I will be away on vacation for the beginning of the month.

[dalishious]

I wanna watch Dragon Age: Absolution again but I wanna watch it with a bunch of people, you know? But idk how to do that rip

[dalishious]

Varric is truly the Garrus of Dragon Age. Constantly shoved in your face and told he's The Best™ and Right™ all the time, and yet here I am, not caring about him one bit, at best.

[dalishious]

Screenrant is a content mill and apparently was paying around $10 an article during covid, so if it helps, when you see badly written posts on a highly read website, it's because it's words to feed the google machine, and not something pitched by anyone who actually wants to be writing about dragon age. depressing, but hopefully that helps you calibrate!

Damn, that does make me feel a little better.

[dalishious]

hi! you seem to have experience with modding games, dao in particular, and i wanted to ask you about it, if you don't mind.

i have a warden that i am generally happy with. there is just one problem. i'd like that warden to have one of the vanilla tattoos, but i can't just recreate them and make sure to add the missing tattoo, because i just... can't remember the preset and sliders. all my attempts end up being something similar, but not quite that.

i have the dao toolset installed, and i know that you can make a morph from scratch in it, but i am unsure if it's possible to take a morph(?) of an existing player character and edit it. is that something that can be done with the toolset or some other tool? if not, do you or someone else have a recommendation for this situation, maybe?

i understand if you don't want to deal with a request like that for whatever reason. hope you are having a good day and thanks in advance if you do reply!

If I'm understanding you correctly, what you want simply cannot be done, sorry.