#I know elves are different from dwarves

[lady-zephyrine]

Ah yes, I live how we get Laios convincing Senshi that he didn't commit cannibalism within the same episode that Senshi turns into a sparkling elf.

[dunmeshistash]

Do you know where the “mithrun is the most grizzed masculine elf take” comes from. All I think about is the changeling thing but no one calls Marcille the most masculine elf for being ripped as an orc compared to Tade. Or that he trains a lot, which is also not an inherent masculine thing. To me Mithrun doesn’t really look different to any other (male) elf we see. Is it from the extra’s or something?

Yes that take comes from the changeling transformations of both Mithrun and Senshi. The joke is the Senshi is the "most femme dwarf" and Mithrun the "most masc elf" in contrast with how they look in their original forms

I do think the joke kinda got out of control in the game of telephone that fandom is, instead of a fun observation of how we might perceive Mithrun more feminine than he is and Senshi more masculine than he is due to our own biases based on their races it got taken way too seriously as "the only true and correct interpretation"

I don't think Mithrun is especially masculine or feminine when it comes to his personality, I understand some people have been peeved by others making him maybe too meek/girly compared to canon but I feel like the response of making him way more aggressive/manly than canon is just as inaccurate and it's kinda upsetting when I see "fandom vs (my interpretation of canon) canon" as if they're any more right for going to the extreme opposite

We don't really know if Mithrun is specially "masculine" for an elf either, the only elf that we know is especially "masc" is Otta, and we only know cause her bio says even elves mistake her for a man (I think for most of us she looks as androgynous as the others)

Here's a post discussing elf gender presentation more in depth if you're interested in the subject but all we know is that Mithrun works out a lot and is very muscular (which signals 'manlyness' for us but might not for elves) there isn't much that point out to him being especially manly or especially feminine compared to other male elves. He also has lost most of his desires and doesn't express his preferences much so I think it's safe to assume he doesn't really pick how he presents himself (clothing and such).

Other than that and being stoic (is that a super manly trait?) Mithrun is pretty average I think. He's also still super cute even as a tallman (as if looking manly would stop you from being cute)

But another trait of him that seem to make people read him as "super manly" it's that sometimes Mithrun is scary and aggressive, I'm not even going into why that's bad (correlating aggressiveness with manliness is uh…. not great….) not even to mention he only acts that way when he's triggered by wanting to take revenge on the demon, otherwise he seems to avoid hurting others.

Related to the "Mithrun is a super manly elf" take I've even seen people argue that drawing him looking too "cute" and small is incorrect (probably just because of his tallman self) but that's how Kui draws him herself.

I don't understand why correct others for drawing him the same way his creator does, he's designed to look this way, there's nothing to "fix" about his original design either (nothing wrong with drawing him in a way that appeals to you more tho, fanart is fanart just don't harass other people)

Anyway just to stress the point that he is very average let's compare him to Lycion and Pattadol

The average height for elves is 155 for males and 150 for females Mithrun is 155cm, Lycion is 170cm and Pattadol is 160cm, they're both taller and have a sturdier looking builds than Mithrun

Kui often draws Pattadol specially with a sturdier build than Mithrun actually

So no he's not the most buff biggest elf ever in any sense (although he IS a muscular elf), and I don't think the changeling transformations are too objective since they're magic. For example Pattadol as a human is pretty average even tho she's big compared to other elves (not to mention Senshi half-foot who has a huge beard that half-foots don't seem to be able to grow)

[nessacousland]

As much as I like the reveal that the ancient elves were spirits forging themselves bodies out of lyrium in-universe...

It's certainly a choice to bake pretty overt parallels between a species that for all intents and purposes should never have existed - whose existence is in fact the catalyst for almost every known misfortune plaguing Thedas - and certain real life peoples right into the worldbuilding.

But it’s an even more "interesting" choice to then retroactively whitewash all the horrific oppression their descendants have suffered for eons in order to justify the suggestion that modern elves may just deserve any "future" mistreatment and distrust coming their way.

[mabaris]

another thing that i just noticed is that the dwarves have now had done to them by the elves what we’d thought the elves had done to them by humans, at least before inquisition. cut down in their peak and permanently ruined, left to scrabble for the broken pieces of their history

not to say it’s an inherently bad choice because oppression isn’t that straightforward, but it sure was an interesting choice to shift the “they destroyed our way of life and fractured our society and we ARE allowing ourselves to feel angry about it and reclaim our history and maybe use that to rebuild what we once had” narrative from the elves to the dwarves. like if that’s the story you really wanted to tell, you could have also given it to like. bellara

[dalishious]

The Sanitized Lore of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Tevinter is the heart of slavery in Thedas. This lore has been established in every game, novel, comic, and other extended material in the Dragon Age franchise to date that so much as mentions the nation. But in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, when we are finally able to actually visit this location for the first time… this rampant slavery we’ve heard so much about is nowhere to be found. It’s talked about here and there; Neve mentions The Viper has a history of freeing slaves, as does Rook themselves if they choose the Shadow Dragon faction as their origin, for example. But walking down the streets of Minrathous, you’d never know. Because Dragon Age: The Veilguard, for all its enjoyment otherwise, has one glaring issue: It’s too clean.

The world of Thedas is full of injustices. Humans persecute elves, fear qunari, and belittle dwarves. Mages of any race are treated like caged animals in most places. The nobility is corrupt. Although, Dragon Age has not always handled these injustices well, mind you. Many, many times I’ve found myself frustrated with moments that just feel like a Racism Simulator. But what makes it worth it, is when you can actually do something about it. These injustices are things that a good-aligned character strives to fight back against, maybe even for very personal reasons. Part of the power-fantasy for many minorities is that this fight feels tangible. I cannot arrange the assassination of a corrupt politician in real life, but I sure can get Celene Valmont stabbed to death in Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example. Additionally, these fictional injustices can be used to make statements on real life parallels, like any source of media. For example, no, the Chant of Light is not real, but acting as a stand-in for Catholicism, through a media analysis lens we can explore what the Chant of Light communicates on a figurative level.

When starting Dragon Age: The Veilguard and selecting to play as an elf – this should be unsurprising to anyone who is familiar with my bias towards them – I was fully prepared to enter the streets of Minrathous and immediately get called “knife-ear” or “rabbit”. But this did not happen. I thought perhaps it was just a prologue thing, but returning to Minrathous once again, there was not a single shred of disapproval from any NPC I encountered that wasn’t a generic enemy to fight. And even the generic enemies, the Tevinter Nationalist cult of the Venatori, didn’t seem to care at all that I was a lineage they deemed inferior before now. This is a stark difference from entering the Winter Palace in Dragon Age: Inquisition and immediately getting hit with court disapproval and insults. Are we now to believe that Tevinter has somehow solved its astronomical racism and classism problems in the ten years since the past game? Or perhaps are we to believe all the characters who have demonstrated Tevinter’s systemic discriminatory views were just lying or outliers? Because it makes absolutely no sense at all for this horribly corrupt nation to not have a shred of reactivity to an elven or qunari Rook prancing around. But here were are, and not a single NPC even recognizes my character’s lineage. And because this is so different from every single past game, it feels weird.

As an elf, you have the option to make a comment about how “too many humans look down on us” in one scene early in the game. You can also talk to Bellara and Davrin, the elven companions, about concerns that people won’t trust elves after finding out about the big bad Ancient Evanuris… but this is presented as if elves don’t already face persecution. It’s all so limited in scope that it could be all too easily missed if you are not paying very close attention, and coming into the game with pre-existing lore knowledge.

All this made it easy to first assume that the developers simply over-corrected an attempt to address the Racism Simulator moments. And if that was the case, than I would at least give credit to effort; they did not find the right balance, but they at least tried. However, the sudden lack of discrimination against different lineages in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not the only sanitized example of lore present.

In Dragon Age: Origins, Zevran Arainai is a companion who is from the Antivan Crows; a group of assassins. He discusses in detail how the Crows buy children and raise them into murder machines through all kinds of torture. The World of Thedas books also describe how the Antivan Crows work, echoing what Zevran says and expanding that of the recruitment, only a select handful of those taken by the Crows even survive. When you start Dragon Age: The Veilguard as an Antivan Crow, you immediately unlock a re-used codex entry from the past, “The Crows and Queen Madrigal”, that says the following:

“His guild has a reputation to uphold. They are ruthless, efficient, and discreet. How would they maintain such notoriety if agents routinely revealed the names of employers with something as "banal" as torture.”

Ruthless, efficient, and discreet. Torture is banal. This is what the Crows were before Dragon Age: The Veilguard decided to take them in a very different direction. The Antivan Crows in this latest game are painted as freedom fighters against the Antaam occupation of Treviso. Teia calls the Crows “patriots”. And while I can certainly believe that the Crows would have enough motivation to fight back against the Antaam, given that it is in direct opposition to their own goals, I cannot understand why they are suddenly suggested to be morally good. They are assassins. They treat their people like tools and murder for money. Even as recent as the Tevinter Nights story Eight Little Talons, it is addressed that the Antivan Crows are in it for the coin and power, with characters like Teia being outliers for wanting to change that. It makes the use of the older codex all the more confusing, as it sets the Antivan Crows up as something they are no longer portrayed as.

I personally think it would have been really interesting to explore a morally corrupt faction in comparison to say, the Shadow Dragons. Perhaps even as a protagonist, address things like the enslavement of “recruits” to make the faction at least somewhat better. (They are still assassins, after all.) Instead, we’re just supposed to ignore everything unsavory about them, I suppose…

We could discuss even further examples. Like how the Lords of Fortune pillage ruins but it’s okay, because they never sell artifacts of cultural importance, supposedly. Or how the only problem with the Templar Order in Tevinter is just the “bad apples” that work with Venatori. I could go on, but I don’t think I have to.

It is because of all this sanitization, that I cannot believe this was simply over-correction on a developmental part. Especially when there is still racism in the game, in other forms. The impression I’m left with feels far deeper than that; it feels corporate. As if a computer ran through the game’s script and got rid of anything with “too much” political substance. The strongest statements are hidden in codex entries, and I almost suspect they had to be snuck in.

Between a Racism Simulator and just ignoring anything bad whatsoever, I believe a balance is achievable; that sweet spot that actually has something to say about what it is presenting. I know it is achievable, because there are a few bright spots of this that I’ve encountered in Dragon Age: The Veilguard too. For example, some of the codex entries like I mentioned, and almost all the content with the Grey Wardens thus far. It is a shame there is not more content on this level.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is overall still a fun game, in my opinion. But it’s hard to argue that it isn’t missing the grit of its predecessors. The sharp edges have been smoothed. The claws have been removed. The house has been baby-proofed. And for what purpose?

-----

Want to support me writing more essays like this? Become a Patron!

[macabrebatz]

SOMETHING THERE (Caged Warcraft Orc/Reader)

Summary: Orcs have invaded your world and you're tasked with taking care of a very angry, very injured imprisoned orc. But he's not the only one that's going to be taken care of.

Author’s Note: Hello, lovelies! A little while ago I got sent an ask here about the captured orc in the movie Warcraft (you can read the post here). I love the concept so much that I just had to write about him. He's unnamed in the movie so I just refer to him as an orc throughout this. This can be read as a generic orc x human story but just know this was written specifically with this big drooling guy in mind. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings/tags: 18+ MDNI, fem! reader, orc x human, canon divergent, smut with some plot, teratophillia/monsterfucking, injured character, conversation about mates, teasing, size difference (this orc is bigger than you no matter your size), let's pretend that Warcraft orcs would actually fit for a moment, fingering, standing sex, rough sex, unprotected p in v, some degradation, possessiveness, he's mean I don't know what else to tell you, choking, hair pulling, semi public sex (?), Lothar makes an appearance, no aftercare, NOT beta read

Word count: 4.7k

Your job had been straightforward for the most part. You were a handmaiden often tasked with cleaning and maintaining the kingdom's dungeons. There had never been many prisoners kept in the lower parts of the castle, not while you had been of service there at least. Most of the time the cells were empty and you were often tasked with taking care of other parts of the castle instead, places frequently overlooked by the other maids.

But all of a sudden you found yourself busier than usual when a handful of knights dragged in a nearly dead creature of the likes you had never seen before. It took multiple men to pull him down the steps of the dungeons and into a barred cell.

Lothar, a man you had become friends with, followed behind his fellow knights, watching as they hovered around the prisoner.

“What exactly is he?” you asked quietly.

You had met all types of denizens of Azeroth. Elves, dwarves, worgen….but never anyone like the large, tusked man that laid before you.

Lothar shrugged, not knowing the answer to the question.

“If I knew I would tell you. They just…showed up. I don’t know where they came from. Or how many there are. We took the other one to the king for questioning. She’s tiny compared to the rest of them,” he mumbled.

You looked down at the floor, staring at the smeared trail of blood leading from the stairs to the cell.

“He’s wounded?” you questioned, looking back at the cell.

“Yes, he was going to attack the other one we captured. Can you keep him alive?” Lothar asked.

You nodded. You had cared for injured and sick prisoners before. Some of them probably wouldn’t have lived if it wasn’t for you.

“I’ll need supplies though.”

“I’ll get you everything you need. Just be careful and try to keep your distance as much as possible. He doesn’t seem to be the friendliest,” he said.

Lothar left you with the other knights, disappearing up the stairs. After a few minutes, he returned with a box of supplies, far more than enough to heal any wounds. He ushered the other knights out and wished you luck as he sauntered away.

You had unlocked the cell and spent a considerable amount of time trying to remove the rugged bone armor and leather from the sleeping creature's chest. You then began cleaning and stitching the stab wound, silently cursing Lothar for creating such a nasty wound to begin with. Never once did the being move or wake. His breathing was weak and a part of you thought he might die right then and there from the amount of blood he had lost.

But his chest continued to rise and fall as you snipped the end of the stitches with your shears. A sigh of relief escaped your lips as you sat there for a moment, watching the sleeping creature.

He was large, bigger than any human you had ever seen. He had long greying hair and an untamed beard. Although his eyes were closed you could tell that one had been previously injured, the skin around it scarred and almost red. On the opposite side of his face, a deep scar ran from his lip up the side of his face. There were pieces of metal embedded in the skin where the wound had been closed and healed over the metal.

There was a part of you, deep inside your mind that found the rugged stranger quite attractive. But you ignored that part of your mind, pushing those thoughts aside. You knew nothing about the being that laid before you and you weren’t going to let curiosity get the better of you.

You wrapped a bandage around his shoulder and chest, something that proved to be quite difficult with how large he was. But you managed to do it regardless, securing the bandage so it wouldn’t move.

You stood up and walked out of the cell, closing the door behind you.

There was still blood all over the floor and you quickly turned your attention to that, scrubbing the floors by hand, something you had done time and time again.

About an hour passed and as you found yourself on your knees, scrubbing the last bit of blood off the floor you heard shuffling. You glanced over your shoulder to see the creature waking up, slowly sitting up, reaching for his chest and grimacing in pain.

He shook his head and looked around, growling as he slowly became more conscious. His head turned, stopping when his eyes laid on you. For a moment neither of you moved, staring at each other, but then the creature lurched forward toward the bars and let out a roar. You jumped back in surprise, almost knocking over the bucket of water sitting beside you.

The roar ceased as he grabbed his chest once again, falling onto his knees in pain. Your fear was quickly replaced with worry, standing up quickly and walking closer to the cell.

“You can’t do that. You’ll make the wound open back up,” you said.

He snarled and said something in a language you had never heard before. He sat back against the wall, glaring at you.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” you said.

He didn’t say anything else. He just sat there, grumbling and holding his chest.

And that’s how almost every day had gone for weeks. He would over-exert himself out of anger, trying to break through the bars of his cell. You would scold him, telling him he needed to rest, which he would ignore. He would yell at you in his native tongue and you would ignore him, setting down food and water in front of the bars, just enough for him to reach the plate but not you.

Some days the yelling and banging on the bars would get so loud that the knights that stood guard at the entrance of the dungeon came rushing in, scared for your safety. You would shoo them away, assuring the worried knights that you were fine. They were honestly happy to leave, not wanting to be so close to the creature behind the bars.

Not all days were like that though. Sometimes he was quiet, too tired to do his usual routine of raging. On those days you would talk to him while you cleaned or while he sat and ate, filling the void of silence with your voice.

You would just talk about things on your mind, gossip from the other handmaidens, stories you had heard from the knights that would try to flirt with you and impress you with their war stories. The table and chair that had been set out for you slowly inched closer every day as you sat and talked to him during lunch.

You rarely ever had anyone to talk to throughout the day. Sometimes one of the knights would join you for lunch or Lothar would talk with you as you cleaned when he wasn’t busy, but it was a rare occasion. So now you found yourself droning on to the prisoner during your time spent cleaning and your breaks. He didn’t seem to mind but you honestly couldn’t tell. His face often had some form of a grimace on it, a snarl always daring to creep up.

You weren’t sure if he could understand you either until one day, while the two of you ate, you finally asked him a question that had been on your mind.

“What exactly are you? Lothar hasn’t answered the question yet. You’re not human…not an elf. Your teeth are kind of like a troll’s teeth. A bit smaller than theirs though,” you rambled.

You didn’t expect him to say anything. On days like this, he never said anything. After a moment, he broke the silence with one word.

“Orc.”

You looked up from where you sat, glancing through the bars of the cell. He was looking back at you, his working eye staring at you.

“An orc? That’s what you are?” you asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“So you’ve been able to understand me this entire time?”

“Yes.”

He leaned his head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the day.

A couple more weeks passed and the caged orc had seemingly calmed down. He no longer yelled and raged on, often sitting in silence.

But sometimes he would speak, occasionally answering questions you had about orcs and his culture. He was often cold, even mean when it came to replying, but you simply shook it off.

You asked him about his cloudy eye and the large scar running up his face. That seemed to perk him up. For the first time in almost a month, his cold demeanor dropped. He told you about the fights he won, boasting about how many times he had come close to death. It was the first time he had ever been talkative. Usually, he would give short responses to your questions but now he was painting vivid pictures for you as he told a story for every scar.

“And this,” he brought his hand up to the healing stab wound on his chest, “is nothing. A scratch.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle.

“You laugh, but it’s true. Your tiny knights couldn’t kill me if they tried,” he said.

“Lothar came pretty close,” you chuckled.

He frowned, a growl escaping his lips as he stood up and slowly walked towards you. You sat just out of reach from him, you had moved your table even closer to the cell over the past few days. Despite his gruff attitude he had begun to grow on you. You enjoyed talking to him and maybe even staring at him a little.

You took a sip from your water as he stepped closer, gripping his hand around one of the metal bars.

“You talk about that one a lot. Is he your mate?” he questioned, his voice low.

The question took you by surprise, causing you to choke on your water.

“No…no. He’s not. We’re not…no,” you said in between coughs.

The orc hummed, sounding almost amused by your answer and frantic coughing.

“No? One of the other knights then? Or one of those handmaidens you’re always talking about?” the orc asked.

You shook your head as you sat your glass down.

“I don’t have a…mate.” The word felt foreign to your lips. You could feel your face heat up as you frowned, averting your eyes from the orc.

There was a small moment of silence before you heard him chuckle, the sound of his voice echoing off the stone walls.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m sure you’ll find a puny little knight one of these days. Although I doubt they could keep you satisfied,” he said.

Your jaw dropped a bit, shocked by the sudden forwardness of the orc.

“I think I’ll be satisfied,” you said, scoffing.

“I highly doubt it. The men of your species seem…inadequate,” he said, sitting back down.

You couldn’t help but stare at him. Why was he talking about this? What was he getting at?

You shook your head, deciding to change the subject.

“How is your wound?” you asked.

“I told you. It’s just a scratch,” he mumbled.

“You were stabbed with a sword. You’re lucky you’re even alive,” you sighed.

He scoffed, sounding offended that you would even suggest that he could’ve died.

“May I please check it? To make sure it’s not infected?” you asked.

“I guess,” he grumbled.

You stood up, walking closer to the cell. You swore you could hear Lothar in your mind scolding you for doing exactly what he said not to do. But you couldn’t exactly keep your distance if you wanted to do your job properly.

The orc leaned towards the metal bars as your hands snaked through, untucking the bandages and slowly pulling them off of his chest. The orc grimaced at the sensation, traces of dried blood had caused the bandages to stick to his skin. You hadn’t had the opportunity to clean it. It was the first time since he had first arrived that you felt comfortable enough to get close enough to examine him.

“It looks…fine. It could use a little cleaning though. Wish I had a healing potion to give you but I don’t know any alchemists,” you said in a quiet voice.

“I don’t need any of that,” he grumbled, looking down at you.

“At least let me clean it. Surely dying from infection isn’t the way you want to go,” you joked.

“Fine,” he chuckled.

You smiled. It was odd hearing the orc laugh but you found it slightly endearing.

You turned, grabbing your supplies from the table and turning back around to the orc. You hummed to yourself as you cleaned his skin with a washcloth, wiping away all of the traces of dried blood.

“No mate,” the orc said, snapping you out of your thoughts.

You looked up at him, confused.

“What?”

“You have no mate,” he said.

Really, this subject again?

“Yes, I thought we established this?” you asked.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why are you so interested in this subject?” you mumbled.

“You ask stupid questions all the time. Why can I not ask you a question?” he said.

You rolled your eyes and looked away from him, focusing your attention back on his wound.

“I don���t know. Just haven’t found the right person. Why do you care anyway? It’s not like we could be mates,” you huffed.

“And why is that?”

He was looking down at you. You felt your face heat up a bit as you averted your gaze.

“You’re too…mean. And grumpy. And I’m ninety percent sure you were going to try to kill me for the first few weeks you were here,” you said.

You turned away from him, grabbing a new roll of gauze.

“I’m not trying to kill you now,” he said.

You unrolled the gauze and started wrapping it around his chest.

“Yeah…I know. Can we please drop this subject? It’s not like I would be your type anyway.”

“Type?” he questioned, not understanding the phrase.

“Your type. It’s what you’re attracted to. Now shush and let me finish,” you said.

There was a moment of silence between the two of you. All of a sudden it was becoming very hard to think clearly. Something about being so close to the orc while he was watching your every movement was managing to make your head foggy. Sure, you found him attractive. Something about his ruggedness and size was alluring. But you never expected him to make your knees weak. And he hadn’t even done anything to you.

You did your best to ignore whatever feelings were brewing inside of you as you finished bandaging his chest.

“There,” you said, “all better.”

“Thank you,” the orc grumbled.

The rest of the day came and went quietly, all without a word about the previous conversation. You found yourself staring at him. Your stomach felt fluttery and it was becoming more and more difficult to suppress what you had felt all along.

When you went to bed that night you couldn’t help but repeat the conversation in your head, completely puzzled by the orcs’ fascination with the fact that you were ‘unmated’.

Such an odd thing to be hung up on.

What was worse was that your own fascination with the orc seemed to be getting stronger.

So much so that you couldn’t sleep. You tossed and turned all night, your mind racing just at the thought of the imprisoned orc.

So much so that when you finally did fall asleep, you dreamed about him. You were being held by him in your dream, the same way you had hoped to one day be held by a knight or maybe even a skillful mage. But for some odd reason, the thought of being held by the orc brought you more comfort than every silly knight fantasy you ever had.

So much so that the next day you found yourself scooting your table and chair closer to his cell. Something you had already done but now you were repeating the process every day for a week, slowly inching it closer and closer.

So much so that you started to purposely loosen the laces at the top of your dress. At this point, you weren’t sure what was overtaking your mind. You found yourself wanting to tease him, something you never thought you’d do.

So much so that you had been lingering in the dungeon well past the curfew given to the maids. You wanted to be in his presence. To say he was growing on you was an understatement.

So much so that about a week later when you bent down to pick up his plate, something you had done every day since he arrived, you didn’t walk away from the cell.

This time the orc gripped you by your hair, yanking you back hard against the bars of the cell. You yelped as the plate dropped to the floor. He let go of your hair and his hand snaked through the bars, wrapping it around your throat. His other hand rested on your stomach, holding you in place.

“Are you done teasing?” he asked as his grip tightened around your throat.

“Teasing?” you squeaked.

“Do you really think I’m clueless? Every day you get closer and closer to this cage. You’ve been staying in here late at night. And your breasts have practically been falling out of your dress. It’s almost like you’re begging me to rip it off you,” he growled.

He was absolutely right. You had been caught red-handed.

“Are you going to explain yourself, human?”

He had you pressed against him so tightly that it was almost hard to breathe. You could feel something hardening against your backside and that fluttery feeling started building in your stomach.

“I just…”

“You just what?” he said.

“I just want you to touch me,” you said just above a whisper.

“Say that again. I didn’t quite hear you.”

You couldn’t see his face but you just knew there was a smirk plastered across it.

“Touch me. I want you to touch me,” you repeated.

“Just a few days ago I was ‘too mean’ for you but now look at you. All needy. Maybe if you ask nicely. Maybe if you beg,” he hummed.

Now he was the one teasing. He didn’t move, his hands didn’t even flinch. He just held you tight, pressing you against his erection.

“Please. May you please touch me?”

You were almost whining, pushing back against him. He chuckled, finding your neediness amusing.

He let go of your throat and turned you around so you were facing him. Sticking his hand through the cell, he brought it up to your bust and gripped your dress, ripping the fabric down the front like it was a piece of parchment. You gasped as it fell to the ground, leaving you in nothing but your underwear.

“I liked that dress,” you pouted.

Not to mention the fact that it was technically your work uniform. A problem you would deal with later you supposed.

“You look better without it. Now take those off unless you want them ripped as well,” he said, looking down at you.

You nodded as you slipped off your undergarments, tossing them to the side.

He pulled you closer to the bars until you were almost pressed against them, lifting up one of your legs with his hand, cupping underneath your knee. His free hand snaked down and one of his large fingers found its way to your cunt, spreading apart your folds.

“You might as well be dripping. Already so wet and I haven’t even got started yet,” he said.

The orc didn’t give you time to respond as he slowly began pushing his finger inside of you, stretching you out as your walls wrapped around his massive digit. A moan escaped your lips and it echoed throughout the room.

“Sshhh, be quiet,” he shushed you, as he began to pump his finger inside of you.

His thumb rubbed against your clit, drawing little circles around it as his other fingers thrust in and out of your pussy.

You mindlessly ground into his hand, adding to the friction and causing ripples of pleasure to shoot through your body. You had never felt this full before. The size of one of his fingers was almost triple the size of a human’s.

Soon he was adding a second finger, gathering your wetness and pushing into your entrance, curling with every thrust of his hand.

“Gotta stretch you out if you want to take me,” he mumbled, fucking his hand into you at a quicker pace.

Your legs were trembling and you could feel yourself clenching around his fingers. His thumb rolled over your clit faster, pressing down on the sensitive bud.

You did your best to stifle your moan as your orgasm hit you.

“There you go. Cum on my hand,” he said.

One of your hands gripped onto a cell bar while the other reached through, reaching up and pressing against his shoulder for support.

He didn’t give you time to recover before his fingers slipped out of you and his other hand let go of your leg. His hands unfastened his pelt, revealing his hardened cock underneath. It felt like there was a lump in your throat as you swallowed, looking down at it. You could see why he insisted on stretching you out beforehand. You were a bit worried about it fitting inside of you.

“Don’t worry, it’ll fit,” he said as if he could read your mind, “Now turn around and bend over.”

You did as he said, turning your back towards him and leaning down. His hand grazed over your ass for a moment, giving it a light squeeze before he reached forward and grabbed your arms. He held your wrists behind your back, his large hands covering them completely. His other hand held his cock, sliding it against your clit, teasing you with the head.

You groaned, wanting to push back on him, but he held you firmly in place.

He slid his cock towards your entrance and began slowly pushing into the hole. You stretched around him, the feeling felt so new to you that it sent shivers up your spine. Although his fingers had done a good job stretching you out, it was still nowhere enough to accommodate the size of the orcs’ cock.

You felt him tug ever so slightly on your wrists, pulling your entire body closer to him, sliding into you at an agonizing pace.

Another moan began to slip from your mouth, unintentionally loud. Before it could come all the way out, his hand moved from your wrists to your mouth, muffling your moan as he continued slowly pushing his cock into you. He growled, a low rumble coming from his chest.

“Shush, you don’t want your little knights to come running in here, do you? You want them to see you like this?”

You shook your head, slightly horrified at the thought of a knight walking in, especially if that knight happened to be Lothar. You hadn’t even given that possibility a thought.

“Then be quiet for once,” the orc said.

You nodded, and his hand slipped away from your mouth. This time it settled on your shoulder, his other hand slipping off his cock and gripping onto your hip.

He held onto you as he began to slowly rock into you, thrusting the rest of his length into you. Your back arched as pain and pleasure crept up inside of you.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked in a patronizing tone.

His hips were slamming against you, he was giving you no amount of time to adjust to his size. His balls slapped against your cunt with every thrust. That and the sound of you squelching around him radiated through the dungeon.

He reached forward, gripping your hair once more, pulling you all the way to the bars. You hissed as he yanked your head back.

“I asked you a question. Is this what you wanted?” he questioned.

“Yes. Ah-yes, this is what I wanted,” you said.

He let go of your hair, pushing you back down with his hand as he continued to pound into you through the cell bars.

“Look at you. Pathetic human. Taking my cock like a greedy slut,” he chuckled.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back your moans. Every thrust was unrelenting. You could feel him sliding against that spongy spot inside of you and it was slowly pushing you closer to the edge.

You were getting louder and louder, whimpering as the orc fucked you.

His thrusts suddenly halted and you whined.

“No, why’d you stop?” you asked, near tears.

“I thought I told you to be quiet?”

“You did but-“

“But what?” he said.

“Please keep fucking me. I don’t care if they hear us. I only care about you,” you pleaded.

You weren’t sure what had overcome you but it was true. In that moment all you cared about was the orc behind you.

There was a brief pause before the orcs’ hands were wrapping around you, pulling you as close as he possibly could despite the cell bars between you. It was like something snapped in him as he began rutting into you, burying his cock deep inside of you with every roll of his hips.

You moaned, not caring if anyone heard you. You were so wrapped up in the pleasure that you weren’t even sure if you cared anymore if someone walked in.

“You’re mine, do you understand? I’ve ruined you. None of those pathetic knights can have this,” the orc growled behind you.

You were at a loss for words as ecstasy washed over you, too in a daze to answer.

“You don’t want them anyway, huh? I’ve stretched you out so much that only I’ll be able to satisfy you.”

You didn’t say anything but your body answered for you, clenching around his cock as he fucked you. And he noticed, grip tightening around you almost immediately like he was afraid you’d somehow slip away.

“Oh, you like that? You like that I’ve ruined you for everyone else? You want me to make you my mate, don’t you?” he said.

You found yourself nodding your head, not even thinking about it. Maybe it was just the pleasure or maybe there was truly something else. Something there deep in the back of your mind that wanted more of him.

“All mine,” he groaned.

Your body shook as you reached your second climax, moaning as you tightened around him.

“That’s it. That’s it. Cum on my cock. Just like that,” he grunted, still thrusting into you.

You were whimpering underneath him, slowly becoming overstimulated as he chased his own high, bucking into you. His cock twitched as he moaned, cumming deep inside of you. His hands were still wrapped around you, holding you through the bars as he filled you up.

Before you could pull away there were sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs.

Your mind was too foggy to even react when you looked up, seeing the all too familiar face of Lothar stopping at the dungeon entrance.

“Oh my….what are you two…put some clothes on!”

Lothar had covered his eyes with his hand, completely in shock.

The orc chuckled, letting go of you completely. Your legs buckled underneath you and you stumbled forward, slipping off his cock and falling to the ground.

You heard the jingle of keys before they were tossed near you, sliding on the stone floor.

“I was coming to let him out. He can thank his chieftain. I’m just…I’m going to go,” Lothar said, rushing out of the room.

You laid on the floor for a moment. Too exhausted to move, too embarrassed as well. You could feel the orc’s cum leaking out of you onto the stone. You would’ve fallen asleep right there if it wasn’t for the voice of the orc pulling you back to reality.

“Are you going to lay there all day or are you going to let me out, my sweet mate?”

[merrinla]

DATV - FINAL BATTLE CUT CONTENT

What changed during the fight with the final boss. The Archdemon was supposed to die from a cannon shot in the Archon's Palace. Bellara or Neve would boost the cannon with the red lyrium the Venatori had pumped into them. Or Emmrich would cast enchantments on it. Solas didn't turn into a wolf, he was holding back a portal of blight. The wolf was his beast, which was supposed to be a distraction. Rook meanwhile fought the demons, and then Elgar'nan, who took on different forms of Pride, Envy, and Rage. There were more banters during the fight. I wouldn't say these dialogues are very diverse. But if someone wants to read it, here it is.

Soals: Rook. Our only chance now is to work together! Rook: Really? While you drown the world in demons? Soals: If you recover the dagger, I will do what I can to stop Elgar'nan! Soals: I must hold back the blight! My wolf will distract Elgar'nan while you take the dragon!

Soals: Rook, I will hold the portal as best I can!

Elgar'nan: The Dread Wolf? Elgar'nan: You cannot stop me! You never could! Soals: No! Elgar'nan: Yes! The portal opens! Feel the true power of the blight, Fen'Harel! Soals: You will not bring your poison into this world!

Rook: Let's move. As long as any of us are still alive, nothing gets to Bellara/Neve! Emmrich: We'll protect Bellara, no matter the cost! Lucanis: We'll give Bellara/Neve the time she needs! Neve: For Bel. Whatever it takes! Taash: For Bellara/Neve! Bellara: We'll keep you safe, Neve! Emmrich: We'll shield Neve, come what may! Harding: We've got her back! Lucanis: Just give me something I can kill! (if romance with Neve)

After the fight with the demons

Bellara: The cannon is ready and targeting the Archdemon! The firing panel should be nearby. Neve: Cannon's ready, and the Archdemon's in sight! The firing panel should be close. Emmrich: The cannon is ready and aimed at the Archdemon! The activation panel should be nearby.

Bellara: The mechanism for firing the cannon must have gotten damaged in the fight! Davrin: The mechanism to fire the cannon broke during the fight! Harding: The firing mechanism was damaged in the fight! Lucanis: The cannon must have been damaged. Neve: The firing mechanism—it got damaged in the fight! Taash: The demons broke the thing that fires the cannon!

Rook: Bellara/Neve/Emmrich, the firing panel's damaged. Is there any other way to fire the cannon? Bellara: Let me see.... Yes, there's a manual firing mechanism, but it's all the way over on the Archon's throne! Neve: Damn it. Wait—there's a manual firing mechanism, but it's over on the Archon's throne! Emmrich: Let me—Yes! A manual firing mechanism, over on the Archon's throne!

Solas: Rook, I cannot reach the mechanism while keeping the portal closed, but I can make you a path! Rook: Appreciate it.

Rook: Crystal's down there. Let's move!

Elgar'nan: Bear witness, mortals, to the power of a god. Bellara: Still not a god! Davrin: I haven't been impressed so far! Emmrich: History will record your fall here! Lucanis: Do you ever shut up? Neve: (Laughs) You think a speech will impress me? Taash: You talk too much! And your dragon is ugly! Elgarnan: You cannot harm me. All you can do is flee. Davrin: I've got a few moves left! They all end with you dead! Emmrich: Your fellow god thought so as well! Harding: This is for the Titans! Isatunoll! Harding: It is no longer your time, it is ours! For the Titans! For the dwarves! Isatunoll! Lucanis: We'll see about that. Neve: I run toward disaster. Bad habit! Taash: Davrin/Harding wouldn't give up! Neither will I! Taash: Lace is gone because of you! (if romance with Harding) Elgarnan: You will fail. You will fall. And then you will submit. Bellara: The elves will never bow to you again! Davrin: Wardens don't know how to do that! We fight to the end Emmrich: Neither the living nor the dead shall ever bow to you again! Harding: I am the memory of my ancestors. I am the heart of the Titan. I will never submit! Harding: I am the child of the Titans, and it is you who will fall! Neve: Not my style! Taash: You're not even that tall! Lucanis: Say that again when my knife is in your back.

Lucanis' last line gives the vibes of his narrative sketches.

Elgar'nan: You cannot win! Elgar'nan: I am your god! Elgar'nan: This world is mine! Elgar'nan: While my dragon-thrall lives, I am invulnerable. Yet still you fight. Pathetic. (ingame line) Rook: We killed an Archdemon at Weisshaupt, and we saved the Dalish at Arlathan. Rook: I don't need thralls. I've got a team. Rook: That was enough to take down Ghilan'nain, and it's enough to take down you.

Elgar'nan turns into Pride

Elgar'nan: This is my moment of triumph. Nothing shall interfere with the dawn of my empire! Bellara: What is this? It's more than just a demon! Davrin: What is this thing? Has he got a demon impersonating him? Harding: What is this thing? Did he force his form onto a demon? Lucanis: What the—? Is a demon impersonating him? Neve: What is this thing? Not a demon impersonating him? Taash: What is this vashedan? Has he got a demon impersonating him? Lucanis: This is no demon. This is Elgar'nan's will. Bellara/Harding: It's not a demon. It's a manifestation of Elgar'nan's will! Neve: It's not a demon. It's Elgar'nan's will—a full manifestation of it! Taash: It's not a demon! It's his feelings or some crap! Emmrich: This is no spirit. It's a manifestation of Elgar'nan's will!

Rook: Keep him off Bellara/Neve!

Reaction to Pride v.0.1 Taash: This thing's tougher than a regular demon! Bellara: That demon's going to be tricky! Davrin: That's one tough demon! Lucanis: This demon is not going down easy. Harding: This one's a lot! Why isn't it down yet? Neve: This demon's a damn pain! Harding: It's not a normal demon! It's Elgar'nan's will, in physical form! Emmrich: This isn't a mere spirit of pride, but a manifestation of Elgar'nan's will! Taash: I don't think it's just a demon! It's Elgar'nan's feelings or something! Neve: It's not your typical demon! It's a manifestation of Elgar'nan's will! Lucanis: This is not just any pride. This is Elgar'nan's pride. Bellara: Not just a demon! It's a manifestation of Elgar'nan's will!

Rook: Bellara/Emmrich/Neve? Elgar'nan's taking a personal interest in the crystal. We might be a minute. Emmrich: I'll ready the cannon while you see them off! Neve: You get that handled. I'll get us a cannon! Bellara: You can do it. I'll get the cannon ready!

Elgar'nan turns into Envy

Rook: Right. We got him. Elgar'nan: I am rulership. I am authority unchecked over all the sun touches! None who live will oppose me! Rook: Here he comes again! Elgar'nan: All who serve me are extensions of my will. My power is manifest across this world... while you stand alone.

Elgar'nan tries to mindcontrol Rook

Elgar'nan: "Goodbye, Assan." The final words of the elf who sacrificed himself for your failure. (in this version, Assan survived) Elgar'nan: "Tell my ma I love her." The final words of the dwarf who sacrificed herself for your failure. Rook: Oh, you really wanna do this? Rook: "Elgar'nan. I had such plans." Ghilan'nain's never gonna finish those plans, is she? Rook: She died a failure, because Harding/Davrin chose to give her/his life like a damn hero. Rook: And you're not saying anything about Bellara/Neve, are you? Because we got her back.

Elgar'nan: Empty words from a mortal who was little more than the Dread Wolf's tool. Rook: Yeah, I got played. And then my friends were there to help. Rook: But you have no friends. All you can send against me are copies of yourself, because you have nobody. Rook: And when we're done with you, you're gonna die alone. Elgar'nan: (Roars in anger)

Elgar'nan: (Straining) You will kneel! Rook: (Straining) Not today, and not to you!

Rook back

Bellara/Davrin/Emmrich/Harding: Rook, you're back! Are you all right? Taash: Rook! You good? Neve: Rook—Trouble! Are you all right? (romance line) Neve: Rook—you're back! Everything good? Rook: Never better. Neve: I'm done with his mind games! We're ending this. Neve: You don't give up, do you? So let's finish this! (romance line) Neve: Good! Now let's kick him out of Minrathous—and the rest of Thedas, too! Bellara/Davrin/Harding: Then let's finish this! Taash: Good! Now let's kick his ass! Lucanis: Then let's finish this bastard. I have a contract to fulfill.

Bellara: How's it going down there? I can't finish with the cannon 'til you destroy that crystal! Neve: Rook? Hate to bother you, but I can't do much with the cannon until that crystal's destroyed. Emmrich: Are you all right, Rook? I can't do anything with the cannon until you've destroyed that crystal. Rook: Soon as we're done with Elgar'nan!

Elgar'nan turns into Rage

Elgar'nan: I am fire and darkness! If you will not bow, you will burn!

Bellara: This feels like a lot of manifestations of will for one person! God. Whatever. Davrin: Oh, come on—how many forms does this guy have? Harding: How many of these shapes does he have? Lucanis: Mierda. How many shapes does he have? Neve: Another side of Elgar'nan—well isn't he charming! Taash: How many damn different shapes does this asshole have?

Solas: Rook! I cannot hold the portal much longer! Rook: Hey! You wanted this fight! Don't you dare give up on me now!

Bellara: Now! Take him down! Davrin/Emmrich/Lucanis: Now! Finish him off! Harding: Now! Finish it! Neve: Now's your shot! Take it! Taash: There! Take that asshole down!

Rook: Solas! We've got the dagger, but we still need to kill the Archdemon!

Solas: Rook! Here! Solas: With my power, you can stand against him!

Post fight

Bellara: Okay! Destroy the crystal before Elgar'nan returns! Emmrich: Quickly! Destroy the crystal before Elgar'nan returns! Harding: Get the crystal before Elgar'nan can come back! Lucanis: Now! Smash the crystal before we get more trouble! Neve: Quick! Destroy the crystal before he comes back. Taash: Come on! Destroy that vashedan crystal before that vashedan elven god comes back!

Crystal broken

Rook: Crystal's shattered! Bellara: Perfect! I'm finishing with the cannon. Just give me a minute! Neve: Knew you had it covered! I've almost got it. One minute! Emmrich: Perfect! I've nearly aligned all the enchantments. One more minute!

Rook: Solas! It's time! Solas: Ready when you are, Rook!

Solas: Elgar'nan! Elgar'nan: Nothing is over. I am eternal. You are an insect. Solas: Surrender now, and this insect will let you live. Elgar'nan: You cannot kill me. You cannot even hurt me. And yet you expect me to yield. Solas: No. Solas: I expect you to gloat. Solas: I was just the distraction.

Bellara: (Grunts with effort) Come on... Neve: (Grunts with effort) Damn it! Come on... Bellara/Neve: Almost got it... Bellara/Neve: (Final scream of effort) Bellara/Neve: (Breathing hard) Rook, the cannon's ready! The firing control is on the Archon's throne! Rook: Got it! before the shot Bellara: The Dread Wolf won! Neve: It's the only shot. Neve: I'll set the dogs on you!

[malewifegustave]

knowing the truth about solas being a spirit and regretting it, and being responsible for the tranquility of the titans and loss of connection to the Stone makes. me. insane when looking back on his conversations with varric. and just their relationship on the whole.

"why do the dwarves not know? why have they forgotten? did someone make them forget? how can they not care what i did to them?"

"do you miss the stone? do you know what i took from you?"

"look at what i did to you. your people are mutilated, forever forced to change from what they once were. and i did this to you."

"you don't even know what i did to you. the horrific crime i comitted against you and your people. you have no idea what you lost or what i did. you're not even angry at me. why aren't you angry at me?"

"you should be angry at me and trying to restore what i took. how can you continue on the way that you are? how are you even whole?"

and then we have harding's comment in da:tv

this comment from harding, after all of the conversations with varric, in hindsight, really does highlight something about solas. for all his guilt and regret, being practically one of if not THE only person who knows what truly happened to the titans. being one RESPONSIBLE-

at no point does he make attempts to fix that until he is convinced to potentially at the end of da:tv.

his conversations with varric are clearly some self projections, and wondering how varric can't be like HIM- he DOES know what the elves lost and what was done, and so he DOES want the old world to be restored. it's to absolve himself of his own guilt, along with trying to fix his mistake. how can he NOT fight? how can his own people not see what they lost and not try to put it back? he has to undo what he did.

but he never does this for the dwarves.

he often will say how he doesnt relate to the elves, and how when asking him 'who are your people', he avoids the topic. because the elves are NOT his people. he is a spirit! and his priorities always align with one simple thing:

that he regrets being made flesh. if he could go back to being a spirit, if all the elves could, if it could all just go back to the way it was before, everything would be fine!

it takes at least four people at the end of da:tv to make him see that this is ultimately selfish and unrealistic. that no amount of regret or attempts to put things back the way they were will undo what he did. in his obsession with self absolution, he completely forgets about the titans, and the blight, all being because of HIM.

he talks to varric, he talks to harding, all the while knowing what he did and being oh so sad about it but never stops to think. wow i actually may have the power to help with this!

he is so, SO focused on his own crusade for himself while also convincing himself that it's for the greater good. telling himself that oh! this time his great plans for the 'right thing' will go well, surely! the last few times, with the titans, and the blight, getting mythal killed, the sealing away the evanuris and changing the world because he messed up the ritual, then trying to awaken his orb only to give it to an immortal blighted magister that explodes the veil- those were all just! flukes! this one will go right FOR SURE!

and is that not just very similar to varric? how varric repeatedly also makes mistakes, and then doesn't face them? he brought hawke into the deep roads and put them in danger, possibly got their sibling blighted, brought back the red lyrium which led to (gestures) all THAT, introduced hawke to anders which led to (gestures) BOOM, led hawke to corypheus, told bianca about the deep roads which led to corypheus getting his hands on red lyrium.

but their key difference? varric simply accepts his mistakes and attempts to do better the next time. varric accepts that the past cannot be changed, no matter how badly he regrets it. he has to move on, he has to do better, he is still here, people are still here, and theyre worth trying for.

"That's the world. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes. And it's gone forever."

"The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That's as close to beating the world as anyone gets."

like of course. of course solas couldnt keep rook inside a prison of regret by using varric as the catalyst! because that's just not who varric is! that's who solas is. solas saw parts of himself in varric, but didn't listen enough to what varric has always been saying. he never does! he doesn't self reflect, he doesn't consider, truly consider that he's wrong until he is being held at knifepoint and confronted with the literal specters of his past telling him to stop fucking self flagellating and convincing himself that he knows best or that this isn't just out of self pity. 'it's for the elves', he says every morning when he wakes up.

for all solas' wisdom, he truly is poisoned by pride and regret. it's just so. (clenches fist)

he spent all this time using varric's memory, surely he is familiar enough with how varric thinks and feels at this point? surely he undersands now?

you have to stand with him at the edge of the world, teetering on the edge of the abyss and decide if he's worth putting in the effort to make him truly take everything varric said and did to heart. to take what we have now and make it better, instead of dragging a corpse of guilt around for eternity.

[thatfanficstuff]

In Dreams - Thranduil

Pairing: Thranduil x reader

warnings: just canon stuff

Every step through Mirkwood dragged at you, the forest path winding in endless turns that led nowhere. The shadows around you seemed to be living things and you once again cursed yourself that you hadn’t tried harder to convince the Company not to travel through its depths regardless of what the wizard said.

“Are you alright, lass?” Dwalin asked.

You answered with a quick shake of your head. “There is only trouble here.”

No sooner had you spoken the words than the spiders attacked. You held your own as well as you could, but you weren’t too proud to admit relief flooded you when the elves came to the rescue. Now, you were being led to the palace and the king. Great. This would go well, you were sure.

“How does an elleth come to be in the company of dwarves?” an elf with long, blond hair asked.

You eyed him a moment before recognizing him as Prince Legolas. You glanced away. “Half.”

“Half?”

“Half-elleth.” You caught his look of surprise as he took in your features which greatly favored your elf father. Fortunately, your life expectancy took after his as well. “And Mithrandir, to answer your question.”

He chuckled. “That answers a lot of questions, actually. And where is the wizard now?”

You sighed in irritation. “Wherever he usually is, I suppose. Which is anywhere but where I need him the most.”

That got laughs from several of the guard and Thorin shot you a narrow-eyed look. “Do you know these elves?”

You smirked at your friend. “No, but I suppose they find my company more pleasurable than yours.”

“Cheeky elf,” Thorin grumbled though his lips twitched in amusement.

As you neared the palace and the inevitable meeting with the Elvenking, the conversation died away. Partly in grim anticipation, and partly in awe as you took in the world around you. The halls of the palace opened before you, carved into the very heart of the wood. Opulent and vast, possessing its own quiet beauty so vastly different to Imladris. Even the dwarves were taken with the halls around them.

“This way,” one of the guard said as he directed the Company down a branching corridor.

Ori stumbled, his eyes locked on the grandeur around him instead of where he was going. You caught him and he nodded his gratitude as you made sure he was steady on his feet. Thorin gave you a nod of thanks as well, though he should know by now you looked out for all of them as if they were your own kin.

Your mind raced as you neared the throne room wondering at the destiny of the Company. What did Thranduil intend to do with all of you? Before you could even guess at an answer, you were led over stone bridges and stairs until stood in a vast chamber. It was a masterpiece of elven design and at its center stood the throne, towering over everything around it. And upon it sat the Elvenking, his presence commanding, his form striking. Long hair like spun silver framed his regal face, and draped over a resplendent silver robe. Upon his brow sat a crown reflecting the branches and boughs of his kingdom. You gasped in surprise, never expecting him to be so beautiful despite the descriptions you’d heard.

His gaze moved over the company, cold and assessing. But when it landed on you, it was no longer indifferent. The chill in his eyes turned into something else, something that made your pulse race and your skin prickle. Something deep and intense that lingered far longer than it should but you couldn’t bring yourself to look away.

Finally, his focus shifted to the leader of your group. “Thorin, son of Thrain. I did not expect to see you here again.”

“Nor would you have to had your guard allowed us to continue on our way,” Thorin replied, defiance in every word. “What is your business with us?”

The king stood, every movement elegant and deliberate, his eyes never leaving Thorin. “Your presence is…unfortunate.” He paused and his gaze slid back to you with unsettling focus. “You trespass, yet I am merciful.”

“Merciful?” Dwalin spat. “To us?”

Thranduil’s lips curved into a faint smile. “I offer you freedom. You may go, all of you.” A pause, a beat of silence, then, “provided you leave the elleth behind.”

You sucked in a breath as every eye turned to you. The words hung heavy in the air. Seeing they surprised you as much as any of them, Thorin’s response was instant and fierce. “No. She is one of us. You cannot have her.”

The Elvenking’s laugh was a beautiful, bitter sound. “So loyal.” His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. “Would you rather rot in my dungeons?”

When you started to protest, a hand grasping yours quieted you. Dwalin pulled you back with a shake of his head. “Leave it,” he hissed.

Thorin’s gaze moved between the two of you before he looked at Thranduil once more. “Better to rot than to break faith with a friend.”

Thranduil arched a brow before nodding slowly. His face was unreadable though a flicker of something flashed in his eyes. He was calm, controlled, yet his interest in you remained unwavering. “Then to my dungeons you shall go,” he declared, gesturing to his guards. “We shall see how long loyalty keeps you warm.”

And that was the last you saw of the dwarves for many weeks.

While Thranduil held true to his word and had the dwarves placed in his dungeons, you were led to an opulent room with a comfortable bed. You were dressed as befit a proper elleth and more than once you joined the king for a meal where little was said beyond your pleas for him to release your friends with promises you would remain behind. For his part, Thranduil always seemed to be watching you, waiting for something and seemed utterly disappointed when it didn’t happen.

Most of your time was spent alone as you waited for something to change. You read. Paced. Laid in a bed you seldom slept in. Days flew by, each one much the same as the one before. Until the day you heard a commotion in the hall outside your room. Before you could ask the guard what was going on, the door swung open.

Thranduil stood framed in the opening, his composure cracked, his mask gone. It was a shock to see him so unguarded, so vulnerable, and even more of a shock to see the relief that washed over him when his eyes found you.

“You’re still here,” he said in a breath. “Did you know of their plans to escape?” The question an accusation and a plea.

You met his gaze steadily, unflinching. “How could I? You haven’t allowed me to see them, let alone speak to them, since the day we were captured.” Your words were bitter, short. Filled with the resentment you couldn’t help but feel at the thought they’d left you behind, though you knew they’d had little choice.

He searched your face looking for deception and found none. “I should have known,” he muttered to himself. He took a step closer and hesitated as a thousand emotions flashed across his face. Then, as quickly as he came, he turned away. The silence rushed back in to fill the space he left behind, but it was somehow even lonelier than it was before.

You didn’t see the king again until he announced you would accompany him on his journey to the mountain to reclaim from the dwarves what rightfully belongs to the elves. He ordered you placed in one of the wagons, afraid if given your own mount you’d disappear like your companions. Two of his guard rode beside the wagon to ensure you stayed where you belonged, their presence watchful and silent.

When you saw Thranduil, it was always at the end of the day when you were led to his tent to dine and find your rest on the cot he had placed on the opposite side from his own. Or early in the morning when you both rose, broke your fast and prepared for the day’s journey. His gaze followed you as the guards led you away until you were gone from his sight before going to find his own mount.

You didn’t understand your purpose. Why he brought you. He could have easily left you in Mirkwood. Or perhaps he meant to trade you for whatever treasure he believed Thorin would keep from the elves. Despite your friendship, you found it unlikely Thorin would make that deal.

Finally, on the last night before you made camp in the shadow of the mountain, you could take it no longer. “I don’t know why you brought me,” you confessed, hoping for answers.

And for a moment, you thought you’d get them. But he only studied you, eyes deep as the skies above your head, his expression unreadable. “You will, in time,” he said at last. Another beat passed. Two. “Stay close to my guards when we reach the mountain.”

The camp beyond your tent laid quiet. “Why?” you ask, the word meaning so much more than it seemed. Why did he want you to? What did he know? Why did he care?

“There will be danger.” He answered only the obvious, sidestepping your unspoken plea. “I would not see you harmed.”

You nodded in frustration. He looked at you a long moment. Studied you as if you were something precious, something he was afraid to lose. Finally, you turned away, faced the wall of the tent and pretended to sleep.

Thranduil had left you guarded in his tent since you’d arrived at the final destination, your promise to remain with his guard apparently not enough for him to allow you to roam beyond the flaps of your temporary home. You’d made your displeasure known by refusing to speak to him so you’d received no more answers to your many questions. And now you were afraid you’d never get the chance.

The world went from ordinary to chaos in an instant and you now found yourself engulfed in battle. A cacophony of screams and steel surrounded you as you fought, swift and sure. Yet it was never enough as orcs crashed around you. There was no sky, no ground, no respite. Only bodies, blood and blades. You weren’t certain when you’d become separated from the guards, if they even still lived, but now you fought alone, growing weary and desperate.

Orcs were everywhere. An unending flood of enemies. Their blades crashed against yours until you shoved them away with the desperate grace possessed by your father’s people. You sliced, stabbed, cut them down any way you could. You fought with everything you were, but you could not fight them all.

An orc charged toward you, monstrous, larger than the others. Time slowed, stretched as his weapon arced above you, prepared to deliver the fatal blow.

Then Thranduil was there. He moved like light, like the wind, and intercepted the blow meant for you. His swords flashed, lethal and precise as he dispatched the orc. As he saved your life. You stared uncomprehending as your world narrowed to the figure before you. To the king who fought like a man possessed.

“Why?” you pled even as you spun to stop another blade, to end another life. “Why risk yourself for me?”

His eyes met yours briefly in the chaos. “I have dreamed of you,” he finally confessed. “My entire life, you have haunted me.”

You could not breathe. Could not think. His words crashed over you, more devastating than any blow you’d yet taken in the battle. You were his soulmate? It was impossible. You would have known.

“Have you not seen me?” he asked, his voice heavy with yearning, as you fought side by side.

You shook your head, unable to do more. You had no answer for him. No truth that would make sense of his claim.

“You are my dream.” His voice broke as surely as his heart. “My curse. My constant.”

As he slayed the last orc in the group that had charged the two of you, there was a brief lull. He turned you to face him, hands on your arms as he studied you.

“I had never seen your face before that day in the throne room,” you managed, the words a confession, an apology.

He swallowed before drawing you closer and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. The gesture, so filled with emotion, with longing, stole the breath from your lungs. “Be careful.” He whispered the plea then he was gone, leaving you with the echoes of his confession.

When you next saw Thranduil, he rode astride a great white elk, a beast that you had seen only in your dreams until that moment. The image seized you, an echo of all the dreams you’d ever had of the soulmate you thought you’d never find. The battle raged around you as the pieces fell into place. He cut through the enemy lines, regal and relentless. The motions the very ones that had danced in your mind since before you could remember. His twin blades flashed with deadly precision as the majestic beast carried him forward with grace and fury. He was your vision brought to life. Everything you never let yourself hope to find. You lost sight of him again as you turned back to the relentless horde, more determined than ever to survive.

It seemed like days before the chaos calmed and the battle ended. The elves swept across the field, ending the few orcs that still breathed and moving their brethren that needed to the healing tents. You’d fought to save the Company. The Durins were injured but breathing. You’d done the duty charged to you by the grey wizard and now you sought your reward.

You spotted him at last, his form unmistakable as he dismounted from the great elk and issued commands. You ran through the chaos, closing the distance in a blur. You didn’t give him a chance to brace before throwing your arms around his neck, clinging to him, afraid he’d disappear if you let go.

He stiffened in surprise as you collided with him but then his body relaxed in your hold. One arm wrapped around your waist as the other hand found the back of your head to keep you held tightly against him.

You pulled back just enough to see his eyes, just enough to lose yourself in the wonder you saw there. He studied you, searching for the reason, for what had changed between you.

“I never saw your face,” you explained, your words tumbling in your joy as you smiled. “I only saw a regal form upon a white elk. I have found you.”

His expression transformed as confusion gave way to realization. To a joy that mirrored your own. “I had given up hope.” His voice was raw with emotion.

“But I had not. And I am so glad it is you.” You laugh through your tears, filled with the joy that can only come from finding your soulmate. Finding the one destined to be your perfect match.

His arms encircled you, holding you as if he could not bear to let you go. The world faded until there was only him, only you. And it was everything you had ever let yourself hope for.

[postcardsfromheapside]

This game has been out since Halloween.

In that time, there have been numerous Veilguard positive posts in which patient, loving, wonderful, insightful and intelligent individuals attempt to impart lore onto a fanbase which doesn't deserve their time and attention.

I can't believe I'm running across posts made within the past five days which express disgust and frustration towards the devs over things which have been explained in great detail multiple times on this site, BUT IN THE DAMN GAME.

AND Y'ALL KEEP COMPLAINING THE GAME TELLS BUT DOESN'T SHOW. AND YOU DON'T EVEN LISTEN OR WATCH.

"the crows are presented as wholesome" - they are not. this site has a crow fanbase which has run off and lionized Viago as Daddy, conveniently ignored all the in-game details which either hint or baldly state things Definitely Aren't Cool, and generally fetishized what it means to be a Crow because of Zevran and Lucanis. Then the same people, or others who weren't paying proper attention, whined when the headcanon crowded out the actual in-game material, and they said "Antiva is whitewashed." There have been multiple posts about this.

"slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter and we don't see that" - we aren't everywhere, we're specifically in Docktown which is poor and people generally can't afford slaves there, but we do see evidence of slavery, and we run around with abolitionists and help save people from fascist slavers and free people who will either be slaves or victims of blood magic so IDK what to tell you, there have been multiple posts explaining this too, maybe leave your slave or savior fetish somewhere else.

"Racism is supposed to be rampant" - fuck off. I actually will not be explaining this because for once it was nice not to be called a slur. If you need this to feel "immersed" or to feel there are actual problems, I need you to check yourself fucking hard. If you want to masquerade what it feels like to experience bigotry, go play one of the prior games. This has also been discussed in multiple posts.

"Handling pure lyrium is fine now" no handling the dagger is fine Solas cleansed it, the dagger woke something up in Harding specifically she talks about how some dwarves are connected to the stone, she previously had not been one of them and maybe the dagger woke something up in her, or did you need a pop up explaining this? Were you paying attention during cut scenes and dialogue?

"Adult Dalish without vallaslin" - in the 10 years since Inquisition/Trespasser, doubtless some dalish have come to adulthood and found out what assholes their gods were and made the decision not to go through that specific cultural rites. Or maybe city elves joined the Dalish. Who knows who made up the elf population at that ritual site. Elves are not a monolith. We've made multiple, multiple posts about elves not being monoliths.

"Solas' opinion on blood magic went from neutral to negative" SOLAS FUCKING LIES. We've made multiple posts about Solas lying, if you need this explained further I suggest you play the game all over again, he lies to you throughout the entire game.

"Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction" it's recontextualized because now we know who and what they were to each other. Learning new information does that. This is literally what happens all the time in science and history. You recontextualize what you thought you knew with new information. You're supposed to change your position, not whine about how the new information makes everything different.

These are just some of the things I pulled from a list on a post in which someone was really just upset about everything. Everything. Varric, Morrigan, Solas, everything. But I can't take their criticisms seriously, because they're upset that "too much was told" and "not enough shown" and yet didn't even pay attention to DA lore or in-game dialogue or context clues around the world of Northern Thedas to answer their own questions.

Everything in this game makes complete sense if you use lore from prior games and a single iota of imagination to see how it fits. We've had many delightful posts discussing this, seeing how things could be explained, when approaching the game from a place of curiosity rather than being upset because personal headcanons weren't satisfied or long-held expectations weren't met.

[prokopetz]

I'm asking you because I've seen people ask you similar questions before. Why are kobolds, as a fantasy creature, so nebulous?

Generally when people say orc, goblin, elf, dwarf, werewolf, vampire etc. a person can have a pretty solid idea of what traits that animal will have. I guess because they're usually copying that species from the same similar source works?

What happened to kobolds? I used to know them as a kind of german folklore creature, but then also as a short lizard person, and most recently there's been Dungeon Meshi, which gives the name kobold to anthropomorphic dogs.

Well, the trick is that none of these terms have a standard definition. In folklore, the words "elf", "dwarf", "gnome", "troll", "goblin", "pixie", etc. are used more or less interchangeably – all of these words might refer to the exact same folkloric critter, and conversely, the same word might be used to refer to several completely different folkloric critters, even within the same body of regional folklore, to say nothing of how their usage varies across different regions and over time.

Literally the only reason any of these terms have "standard" definitions in modern popular culture is because one specific piece of media got mega-popular and everybody copied it. For example, Tolkien is responsible not only for the popular media stereotypes of elves and dwarves: he's responsible for popularising the idea that "elf" and "dwarf" are separate kinds of creatures to begin with. Similarly, while Bram Stoker's Dracula isn't solely responsible for cementing the idea of what a vampire is in popular culture, it did standardise what vampire magic can do, and it helped cement the idea that a "vampire" and a "werewolf" are different beasties, which hasn't always been the case.

So the short answer is that there's just never been a mega-popular work about "kobolds" to provide a standard template for the type. Most modern depictions in Anglophone popular culture ultimately point back to the interpretation set forth by Dungeons & Dragons, but D&D itself has gone back and forth on the whether they're tiny dog-people or tiny lizard-people, with the tiny dog-person version being the earlier of the two, so even folks who are directly cribbing from D&D will vary on this point depending on which particular edition they're name-checking.

[kenomacreature]

A META-HISTORY OF ELYSIUM CORONA MUNDI

Chronicling (almost) everything we know about the development of Robert Kurvitz's quasi-sacral object complex

This post represents an attempt to gather (almost) all the reliable public info we have about the broader worldbuilding of Elysium Corona Mundi (the series to which Disco Elysium and Sacred and Terrible Air belong) and how it developed over time into one place, presented more or less chronologically and in a way accessible to fans unacquainted with the, shall we say, more arcane lore of Elysium. In the original incarnation of this post, basically every sentence was scrupulously referenced; however, referencing is a major pain in the ass on tumblr, so instead I just have a broad list of sources at the bottom and if you want to inquire any further into a specific claim you can just message me.

I'll also warn readers that the sections discussing the Torson & McLaine campaign and the (currently cancelled) sequel to Disco Elysium contain potential (albeit relatively minor) spoilers for the planned plot of that game. The creators still hope to make that game one day, so if you want to go in totally blind, you know what to avoid.

Evermier

The first serious worldbuilding project that Robert Kurvitz embarked on dates back to at least the year 1997. It was developed with his childhood friends in Estonia, including later Elysium worldbuilders Martin Luiga, Argo Tuulik and Kaspar Kalvet, and went by the name Evermier. This was a medieval fantasy setting formed around a tabletop roleplaying system that Robert Kurvitz and Martin Luiga have referred to as “bootleg Finnish Dungeons and Dragons,” but which Argo Tuulik suspects was actually a Powered by the Apocalypse framework. The vast majority of the boys’ time with Evermier was not spent actually playing any campaigns, but rather formulating the setting and mechanics (both Argo and Luiga ended up never participating in a roleplaying session of Evermier). Argo splits the time spent conceiving Evermier into two broad periods – one he dubs “Evermier 1.0,” which stuck close to traditional Dungeons and Dragons – and one dubbed “Evermier 2.0,” where no tabletop campaigns were ever actually played and all the time was spent system-building. Argo estimates this latter period lasted some 2-3 years.

Scope creep quickly hit the project, with character sheets evolving into whole character books. Luiga alleges that that “the wizard book” was supposed to have 350 spells altogether, each with at least a half-page story about the spell, in prose, and that “about a healthy third of the book got done in the end.” Argo gives a different number, stating that early estimates for it had more like 900 spells, but agrees that two-thirds of each page would’ve been reserved for “juicy literary stuff” about the spell in question while the rest of the page was dedicated to stats, and says that Luiga and Kaspar wrote a lot of excellent stuff for these spells.

Argo says there were about twenty different schools of technology (such as “metallurgy” and “optics”), at least twelve classes of mages, and “so many” subclasses of elves. There was also a subclass of dwarf that, instead of being stocky, chubby and bearded like traditional dwarves, were veiny and more like “Russian miners.” When implementing necromancers, Robert “zoned in on this soul aspect,” which later became the basis for Elysium’s pale. Argo describes these necromancers as “hobbits, but with these little lanterns that guide spirits or souls from this massive fog.” Luiga places the invention of this “fog of death with whom some could communicate” as happening late in Evermier’s development and likewise considers it a primitive precursor to what would become the pale.

The worldbuilders spent a lot of time gearing up for an ultimate roleplaying session that never ended up materializing, but their artist friend Jüri Saks drew illustrations in anticipation of it, including character portraits. Luiga’s character was a “sickle-elf” whose class was called “saint.” This saint character was a handsome elf with small pointy ears and a neat little beard, who wielded two “light swords” (possibly katanas), and a crossbow called Crucifix on his back. The character was from a “grim northern land” and was a “religious lunatic type” who believed in a “grim, monotheistic God.” Argo alleges that Luiga related to this character so much that it almost became a part of his persona; he “developed this mode that sometimes when we were drinking he happened to slip in, where he would start judging people. I would like to say that it still remained within the boundaries of normalcy, but uh, unfortunately it didn’t.”

Kaspar Kalvet at some point played an archer character named Minor Mortifer (“Small Death-bringer”), and there was also a dwarf king named Fuirum Thundergate.

According to Luiga, the name “Elysium” was suggested by someone on the dragon.ee forums, but it took half a year for Robert to start seriously considering it. This was back when the setting was still a medieval fantasy world. Luiga and Argo both agree that the historicized Elysium as we know it now was born around the time when Robert decided to get rid of fantasy races, because – as Argo puts it – “they were kind of stupid.” With this decision, Evermier underwent a modernization process of sorts, an attempt to bring the setting closer to real life, where many other fantasy elements were stripped away in favor of more realistic representations of cultures, mostly in the form of nations. Argo says that many of the fantasy races transformed over the course of this process into the nations of Elysium – the dwarves became the nations of Graad, the elves became the great desert isola of Iilmaraa (formerly Armaghast, a nod to Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, still referenced to this day with Iilmaraa’s Erg desert), the night-elves or star-elves eventually became Seol, and the snow-elves became Katla (which apparently has not changed too much since the Evermier days, and whose namesake is the dragon in Astrid Lindgren’s novel The Brothers Lionheart). Among the first innovations of the new modernized setting was the concept of floating magnet trains, later described in Sacred and Terrible Air.

After the Evermier setting had been discarded, many of its ideas ended up being repurposed into historical periods within the new historicized Elysium setting.

The Elysium tabletop campaigns

Between the years 2003 – 2007, three tabletop campaigns were played in the then newly formed Elysium setting. These all took place in Revachol during the Current Century and featured Robert as dungeon master. The first campaign seems to have been called Soul Milton’s World Autumn, the second one Riget and the final one known simply as Torson & McLaine, or alternatively the RCM campaign. The first two were played at Robert’s old apartment in the concrete block project at Mustamäe, while the third one was played in the house of Luiga's dad, which the three later lived together in following his death.

Soul Milton’s World Autumn

Of the three campaigns, Soul Milton’s is arguably the one most shrouded in mystery as it stands. It took place in Revachol and Martin Luiga played the titular character Soul Milton. The character has been described as “one of the cornerstones of the Elysium mythos” and an “aspiring world-historical person.” By the time of the campaign, Milton seems to have become an amnesiac as a result of “suppressing his own mind to protect himself from his enemies,” and in this process apparently also adopted a disguise by “putting another skin on himself” (what precisely that means, we don't know). He was “very rich” and came from a well-off family, had a complicated and possibly romantic relationship with his sister and was a “politician slash businessman” who “wanted to be the innocence of consumerism.” As it turns out, the enemies who were chasing him were the Therriers of Elysium’s final innocence, Ambrosius Saint-Miro (a major figure in both Sacred and Terrible Air and Full-Core State Nihilist, to be discussed later), who Soul Milton met at one point. Saint-Miro apparently told him that “there has never been an innocence who is also not an innocence.” This encounter places the Soul Milton campaign firmly after the events of Disco Elysium, possibly in the late Fifties or Sixties. During this campaign, Argo played Soul Milton’s horse carriage driver, a man by the name of Elroy Quint Duval.

Also associated with Soul Milton are two other characters. Before Sacred and Terrible Air was conceived, Robert had planned to tell the story of Elysium in three books; one starring Soul Milton, another starring a character named Dister, and the third a character named Dallasz.

Dister, or Marius Dijsters, was an extraphysicist and published author hailing from Oranje. He was a son of diplomats, one of them the grand ambassador of Oranje on Iilmaraa. He seems to have been a significant enough figure to have an entire strand of thought – Disterism – named after him (mentioned in the inside covers of Sacred and Terrible Air), and like Soul Milton, he had an antagonistic relationship with Ambrosius (as made apparent by an incident where he was threatened by the innocence’s Therriers at age 25). He is also apparently involved in some way with Theo Van Kok (of Sacred and Terrible Air fame), along with a Paul Messier (presumably the husband of Disco Elysium's Joyce Messier), apparently the beneficiary of such prestigious titles as "Enemy of the Press '67" and "Worst Person of the Year '67."

Information is rather scant on Dallasz, but during the making of Disco Elysium, there were plans to repurpose him into another project, a comic book named Mercurio Dallasz and the Twelve Kojkos which was going to be illustrated by Aleksander Rostov. This project unfortunately fell through, but we know the premise: a band of kojkos under Dallasz’s leadership attempt to assassinate innocence Saint-Miro. This was presumably an Inglourious Basterds type affair. 

Riget

“It’s better to die in the Kingdom than live in a shithole.”

This was the tagline of Elysium’s second tabletop campaign, Riget, whose name is Danish for “kingdom” and was taken from Lars von Trier’s mini-series of the same name. Once more, the setting was Revachol, but this time it was limited to a peculiar part of it: Le Royaume (French for, again, “the Kingdom”) a vast network of dungeons and burial chambers two kilometers beneath the city, housing ancient ruins and remnants (quite possibly of the Seraseolitic civilization mentioned in Disco Elysium), along with treasures such as bioluminescent plants which have adapted to living in total darkness. The stars of this campaign were three impoverished children, all between the ages of 10-12 and members of a gang named “Earthworms,” who decided to venture down into the catacombs in search of valuable artifacts to sell. At some point, these kids somehow found themselves unable to get out of Le Royaume, supposedly trapped underground by demons who sought to use the children as vessels to escape back to the surface. When this campaign was being played, demons were still a part of the setting and haunted the halls of the underground network, along with monsters – such as the armakhaan beast, also known as Lelo Lelo, a terrifying blind and flightless hunter killer bird which was a mix between the xenomorph and cassowary. As for whether demons are still part of the setting in any way; both Argo and Luiga's statements are too ambiguous to reach any firm conclusion. Argo does note that the concept of 'demons' connotes something subtly different in Estonian than the scary red guys in popular Western culture, and are more like a primordial evil.

In the campaign, Argo played a boy named Miron, whose nickname was ‘Sneaker’, while Luiga played Joschka, a crippled boy with a bad leg. During the campaign, individual roleplaying sessions with Robert were held where the players’ stories evolved in parallel without them being kept on the same page. Each of them would get info the others were not privy to: Argo’s was that Joschka is unaware of the fact that he’s not considered a true member of the gang; in reality, he’s an outcast generally considered a weird, creepy weakling, and was only brought on for his lockpicking and mechanical skills.

Eventually, the Riget campaign got quite far into “Lord of the Flies territory.” Near the end, Sneaker and the third boy (played by another friend) conspired to kill Joschka deep underground.

Torson & McLaine

The worldbuilders continued to refine the roleplaying mechanics they were working with for the campaigns. By the time of Riget, the basics of the Metric system had been introduced, with the now familiar INT, PSY, FYS, and MOT. But according to Argo it was the RCM campaign, known principally as the Torson and McLaine campaign, which was “the first mature cycle of Elysium storytelling.” It took place, once more, in Revachol – this time in a ghetto called Jamrock, named after a Damian Marley song, and was focused on the goings on in Station 51 (renamed Precinct 41 by the time of Disco Elysium), the RCM’s lone precinct in Jamrock. The campaign took large amounts of inspiration from the TV series The Shield and its depiction of corrupt police officers and the intermingling of gang warfare and state-sanctioned violence. A central concept was: the cops are a gang, and the gangs are cops.

The RCM campaign began on a sort of prologue session, wherein Argo and Luiga played characters named Antwone Novak and Trinidad Tranquile respectively, two junior officers newly recruited into the RCM. Antwone was a “petit bourgeois type,” whereas Trinidad was a young communist who had recently been given time off work due to excessive violence. Luiga describes him:

He worked at a meat shop that belonged to Carson Torsson, Mack Torson’s dad, and had a system of stealing from work in order to ‘adequately compensate for his labour’. He also liked to practice a crude type of critical theory in the vein of ‘this building has been made that large to humiliate me, to show off with a power greater than me, to scare me into submission’. And he had a system of smoking no more than five cigarettes per day to cut down on smoking costs — Kim’s single cigarette habit might be a distant echo of that. He had, I think, a 7 in PSY (at least 5) and 2 in INT and mediocre physical stats, the core system was pretty much set by then.

At the end of this prologue session, Station 51 became the target of a terrorist attack. We don’t know much about the perpetrators beyond them being “Church of Evil type guys” in Luiga’s words, but the dice was rolled badly and Antwone and Trini both ended up dying in a “horsebombing” attack, falling onto the bridge outside the station.

Map of Station 51, located in a repurposed steel mill.

Going forward, Argo and Luiga had to find new characters to play, and they ended up going with ones they had earlier conceptualized, half-jokingly, on one of their many walks around Tallinn from parties and other events, since public transportation was notoriously unreliable. These characters were Chester McLaine, played by Luiga, and Mack “the Torso” Torson, played by Argo. Torson was derived in half from Vic Mackey, the protagonist of the Shield, and half from Argo’s own personality. Argo says that Luiga put his own personality into Chester as well, but isn’t sure where the other half of that character came from.

The main plot of the campaign centered on a revenge operation against those who perpetrated the attack on Station 51. In the second session of the campaign, Torson and McLaine are involved in a church raid; though Argo takes care to mention that he doesn’t think this is the church raid mentioned in Disco Elysium, and that it’s not a Dolorian Church but rather the “Armed Church of Saint-Michelle.” Among the tasks of Torson and McLaine were gathering “guns and drugs” for the “big revenge operation.”

Mack Torson was an idiotic body builder, an admirer of Lieutenant John “the Archetype” McCoy, the Station’s resident mass murderer, and altogether “way too stupid to concentrate on the main plot and politics of the police station,” focusing his attention instead on matters like “how to get it on with the captain’s secretary and tattooing the word ‘Jamrock’ on his body hundreds of times over.” Chester McLaine was a little more perceptive, wondering about things such as “what the hell is going on with the armour maker or Nix Gottlieb,” but was still an all-around uncritical person who put a lot of stock into “loving the captain” and “being a communist memebot.” McLaine was also “a sword guy,” since at this point in the worldbuilding swords were still viable weapons, with guns being slow to reload. Torson and McLaine lived together, along with two other cops, Sundance Fischer and Elfboy Williams. “Elfboy’s thing was being the dexterity bro, in which he continually lost to McLaine, and Sundance’s thing was having a fat ass and cleaning his guns all the time.” Torson had a wife named Tessa Torson, and later in life both Chester and Mack would apparently raise adopted daughters, Tessa and Triss (whether these Tessas are separate characters or represent the same character at different stages of development is unclear; Argo and Luiga seem to contradict each other, unless there's something very weird going on).

Torson and McLaine both regularly abused their powers, as RCM officers in general were prone to do, and in their heads they were justified in doing so. A highlight of the RCM campaign had been sessions dubbed “the Ballad of Chad Tilbrooks and Émile Mollins,” centering on two junior officers who were ritually abused and exploited by the older members of their station, including Torson and McLaine. At one point, Torson and McLaine were also involved in an interrogation of a local religious figurehead which devolved into mutilation torture, which only the “bullet-lobotomized” officer Damien “44” Latrec called out for what it was (enthusiastically). The interrogation ended up being ineffective as the religious leader simply “retreated into a happy place inside his head.”

The Captain of Station 51, Ptolemaios Pryce, was immensely respected and glorified by its officers, whereas the station’s lazareth Nix Gottlieb, while also respected, was generally resented and found hard to tolerate for being “an absolute horrible cunt.” In spite of this, Nix Gottlieb was known to have a curious friendship with Pryce, talking alone with him in the Captain’s office long into the night. This fact regularly perplexed the officers of Station 51.

Eventually, at some point in the campaign, Torson and McLaine would come to the focal point of the story, when they make a shocking discovery: the reason for Pryce and Gottlieb’s strange friendship is that they are both members of the top-secret underground anarchist organization the Ultra, and not only are plans underway for a national liberation movement freeing Revachol from Coalition control, known as THE RETURN, but the two have set their sights on a much larger goal: world revolution. 

The novel cycle

No more campaigns were played in the Elysium world after 2007, when the boys stopped playing the RCM campaign (with the story unfinished). Robert Kurvitz instead shifted his attention to writing a book in the Elysium universe. Eventually the plan became for it to be the opening to a cycle of novels, totaling eight altogether. We have the English titles of each book and their epigraphs, along with the order of the series, from a post by Kurvitz on the dragon.ee forums.

They are as follows:

#0 A SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR My heart will not rest until it rests in you. - St. Augustine

#1 THE COUNTERMEASURES What am I searching for in your dreams? I am not searching. I am merely cleaning up. - Christian Emmerich

#2 NO TRUCE WITH THE FURIES Man-kind, be vigilant! We loved you. - Julius Fučik

#3 MADRUGADA It must be lit as dreams, by lightning flashes only. - Witold Gombrowicz

#4 TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE DAYS REMAINING Evening brings the child back to the arms of the mother. - Sappho

#5 COALITION WARSHIP I don’t want to be in no indie shit. I want to be in the big ones. I want to be in the ones that matter. - Mickey Rourke

#6 WE ARE THE WAITING What remains, is longing for something completely different. - Luis Althusser

#7 INDIFFERENCE A great silence, some low pressure front is forming. - Arvi Siig

Sacred and Terrible Air was eventually released in Estonian back in 2013, and after the success of Disco Elysium plans were made to translate the book into English. Rumor goes that this translation was very far along or even finished, but unfortunately all plans for releasing this translation to the public have been halted with the ongoing legal dispute.

Fortunately, dedicated fans have taken it upon themselves to translate the book into English for those particularly interested. The most successful translation by far is the one by Group Ibex, which still receives updates to this day.

Read it here.

Full-Core State Nihilist

Many don’t know that Sacred and Terrible Air is actually not the only written work predating Disco Elysium. Before even Sacred and Terrible Air was released, Martin Luiga wrote a short story later given the English title Full-Core State Nihilist, which was uploaded to the old ZA/UM blog. While obviously not as meaty a text as Sacred and Terrible Air, it deals with some overlapping themes and gives us our first proper window into the nation of Mesque, so important to the broader narrative of Elysium.  

Full-Core State Nihilist was later heavily edited and uploaded to nihilist.fm, another blog site which many of the ZA/UM members were active on.

Finally, in 2022, Martin Luiga translated the Estonian story, basing his English version on the original ZA/UM blog version, and uploaded it to Medium. This translation itself could be seen as a third edit of the story, featuring new references to Disco Elysium.

(As it happens, I have also arrogantly taken it upon myself to create my own translation of this brilliant story, which combines elements from all three versions, and is an attempt to render the prose in slightly less idiosyncratic English, closer to the “house style” of Disco Elysium, while remaining heavily informed by Luiga’s own translation.)

You can find Luiga’s translation here and my version here.

THE RETURN

In 2014, Robert Kurvitz pitched an idea to his friend and associate, novelist and businessman Kaur Kender, to turn the Torson & McLaine roleplaying campaign into a full-fledged video game for PC. The pitch proposed a 3000 EUR investment to produce a vision document, with design and artwork handled by Aleksander Rostov and Juri Saks, detailing the setting, plot, game mechanics and art style. In 2015, this document was finished, and by this time a provisional name for the project seems to have been settled on: THE RETURN.  

This vision document reveals that the game was once planned to feature turn-based tactical combat. The plan was also for the player to create their own character from certain “archetypes,” each with different personalities, talents and appearances. Over time it became clear that these plans were too ambitious; by 2016 the archetypes had been narrowed down into a single character – the “disgrace to the uniform” Harry du Bois – and the prologue chapter of his story, set in Martinaise, was split off into its own game. This smaller project received the title that originally was given to the third novel in the planned cycle (which was almost certainly anticipated to center around the story of Precinct 41 in the year ’51) – NO TRUCE WITH THE FURIES.

No Truce became Disco Elysium and the rest, as they say, is history. But unlike many fans who view Disco as a singular statement that needs no further comment, the developers were far from done with the world they had created. The dominant internal view, especially among the original worldbuilders, was that Disco Elysium was merely a minor project to get ZA/UM’s foot through the proverbial gate. Work on the true game – the one they had wanted to create all along – could finally begin now.

As far as we know, the plot of the game would’ve stuck fairly closely to the events of the Torson & McLaine roleplaying campaign. The game was to open with an attack on Precinct 41, and the rest of the game would’ve been a revenge story of sorts. Players would assume control of Harry again, and this time his primary partner would be Jean Vicquemare, although there would be an assortment of other potential party members. The map would be at least four times bigger and set in Jamrock.

Plot points which would be explored in the sequel had already been set up in Disco Elysium – among these are Pryce and Gottlieb’s revolution, Le Royaume, Edgar Claire, and La Puta Madre. Cuno and Cunoesse would’ve featured as returning characters; not much is known about how Cuno and Kim would’ve been integrated into the game given how variable their endings in Disco Elysium are, but Argo says that he would’ve insisted on Cuno returning. X7 – the now-cancelled DLC project which Argo worked on for the remainder of his time at ZA/UM after Robert, Rostov and Helen were ousted from the company, would’ve featured Cuno as the protagonist. Meanwhile, Cunoesse was planned to reappear in THE RETURN as a leader of a gang of kids in Le Royaume, according to Martin Luiga.

Obviously, the characters of Precinct 41 would've featured heavily, and we'd be introduced to many familiar names which we were already given glimpses of in Esprit de Corps checks in Disco Elysium. One of these would be Lt. Berdyayeva, a superior of Harry’s, whose daughter is Jean Vicquemare’s ex. A character we know nearly nothing about except for the fact that he was conceptualized back in the tabletop days as a sort of joke character, but survived all the way into the planning stage for THE RETURN, is “Marivald the Merry Butcher” – what his role might've been, your guess is as good as mine.

Pryce and Gottlieb’s goals in the game might've involved an attempt to unite several diverse groups with a common interest in an independent Revachol; this would’ve included the besmerties, the West Revacholian crime syndicates mentioned in Disco Elysium. Prominent among them would’ve been La Puta Madre, a Mesque gang leader and drug manufacturer, a man of such immense power that he has RCM officers tending his poppy fields in terror (his influence also seems to survive past the events of the game; he gets a mention in Sacred and Terrible Air). The Madre would’ve apparently been an attractive feminine-presenting man, impeccably dressed and wearing beautiful makeup; his gender-nonconformity a way of projecting power over the traditionally macho culture of Villalobos. The rival gang, Ahura Mazda, led by a gangster known as the Mazda, would’ve presumably also featured prominently – Rostov recently released old concept art depicting one of their gang members.

There were more plans for the sequel that only came along after the development of Disco Elysium itself. Robert has talked about wanting to double down on events like the Mercenary Tribunal, handling big action scenes within the more closed literary format of the FELD dialogue system, hopefully allowing for even more variation than was possible in Disco's big confrontation. Another infamous idea was the inclusion of a second protagonist – a pregnant woman, about 5 months along. Kurvitz has mentioned this idea in interviews, saying that it would be "an incredible writing challenge" within Disco Elysium's internalized skill system: "It would be unbelievable to use our skill system to speak about the bodily sensations of having another organism inside of you, while you're in the setting and talking to another person." That said, the addition of an entire new protagonist is very ambitious indeed – it's not clear whether the idea would involve alternating perspectives of some sort, or a choice in the character creator of which one to go with, but Kurvitz made it clear that these would be entirely different characters, unlike many games which offer only a superficial choice between male and female playable characters. Kurvitz expressed some doubt about being able to include this in the game, but at least expected it to be integrated via an expansion post-release if not.

Miscellaneous info

Argo and Robert have both hinted that there is a metatextual element to the overarching Elysium narrative. Whenever presented with readings or theories that contextualize the game as some sort of story-within-a-story, they act coy and refuse to give any clear answers. Argo outright offered an interpretation of the pale which presents it as what happens as the narrative starts “leaking out” of the head of a reader or audience member no longer actively absorbed in the world and said that “Elysium is a fictional world that is aware that it’s fictional.”

Apparently related to this aspect of the narrative, according to Argo, are the three satellites in orbit above the world of Elysium – Iikon, Zenith and Shakermaker – which have been there since “before the 8,000 years of recorded history” and before “the Polycarpeum event.” The satellites have only been mentioned in niche corners of the currently published materials, and the innocence Polycarp has only been mentioned in secondary materials, such as the artbook and the inside covers of Sacred and Terrible Air, leading to speculation about him being involved with the pale and the memory of his reign being wiped from history.

Also related to the metatext, again according to Argo, is a character known as “the Man Behind the Black Sun” – he gets one mention by the Paledriver in Disco Elysium, but curiously she seems to refer to it as the title of a movie that was released in Mesque during the revolutionary era, potentially a boiadeiro picture starring the actor Gabriel Buenguerro.

The magical elements of the pre-Elysium fantasy world morphed over time into what is called “extraphysics” in Elysium. The innocences, the pale, and “plasm” all testify to this supernatural aspect of the setting.

At some point, Ambrosius Saint-Miro apparently constructs nihilist death camps, which Triss and Tessa (the adopted daughters of Torson and McLaine) end up in and eventually escape.

"Magpies" are not a real thing and were never a part of the original plan for the Elysium narrative. The concept artist who made the image from which the term was popularized has gone on record saying that he invented this idea himself and that it was taken from his own worldbuilding ideas. There is nothing to suggest that this was integrated into the game; Argo and Luiga reacted with confusion at the mention of this concept.

Kurvitz had an insanely ambitious list of projects he wanted to make in the Elysium universe before he was ousted from ZA/UM; "The last one I want to make, when I'm 50 or 60, that I want to absolutely go crazy on and throw out all commercial considerations and get this as conceptual as possible, is the tabletop setting. The working title for the tabletop setting is You Are Vapor. It will be a really, really, crazy pen-and-paper game."

List of sources:

All parts of Argo Tuulik's Human Can Opener Podcast episode.

Martin Luiga's Human Can Opener episode.

Martin Luiga's Medium account and other blog posts: Interview, 8 years ago..., Hello Fellow Worldbuilders, Correction, A Policeman In Revachol, Fuirum Thundergate (Substack)

Tweets by Martin Luiga: 1, 2, 3, 4

Tweets by Argo Tuulik: 1

The dragon.ee post about the novel cycle

"Welcome to Revachol" on the devblog

"Outro" by Robert Kurvitz, featured in the official Disco Elysium artbook.

Disco Elysium, Sacred and Terrible Air, and Full-Core State Nihilist. Obviously.

Possibly more that I'm forgetting. Feel free to ask.

[kiis1k]

LOTR Legolas VS. The Hobbit Legolas

Ok. so. I know i wasn't the only person who, when watching the hobbit, was very put off by Legolas' appearance. Elves are supposed to be eternally youthful and beautiful! So how, and why, does Legolas look so much different than he does in the original trilogy?

To me, it's not a matter of Orlando Bloom being 10 years older, because he still looks amazing (and always will that man is gorgeous), but it is infact a matter of COSTUME DESIGN.

Now you may be wondering, “Costume design? But the same people worked on both trilogies, it can't possibly be that different.” and you’d be right. The big details are consistent, with all the races of middle earth, across the Peter Jackson films. But it is the little details that sell something, and they were kind of botched in the Hobbit, specifically with the return of Orlando Bloom's Legolas

Lets start with a quick spot the difference:

whats stands out to the viewer immediately? the hair, for one, and then the eyes.

In the LOTR trilogy, the hair is much looser, and therefore, more free. it creates a sense of youth in a character that, because though he has a fair face, he is probably 2,000+ years old. There are multiple instances in which Legolas, and his compatriots, are in battle, and his hair gets fussy and frizzy and tangles. it's not perfectly done. He hasn't combed it 500 times until there aren't any bumps left. Because that's not realistic, and it's not his character.

The flyaways are what sell his youth, the messy little ear braids, random hairs flung over his shoulder, knots and waves from movement. Even when little baby hairs around the face fall down, all of this makes a character seem younger. and all of this was removed from the Hobbit version of Legolas.

His hair is combed back perfectly. It looks like he's put hairspray in it. His braids are tight, perfect, and lack any of the original fluidity. His hair doesn't have a single knot, even once he's done flipping and killing spiders and jumping over dwarves. This makes his character seem years, decades, or centuries older and more experienced than he was in the Lord of the Rings, which takes place like 80 years later!

The wigs, though they were beautiful, were not properly styled in order to retain the familiarity of the character we all know and love from the original trilogy. That's not the worst offense though. that goes to the eyes.

BECAUSE WTF IS THAT.

The costume department really failed here. In comparison with Lee Pace (Thranduil), Orlando Bloom's contacts were abysmal. I'm not sure what the aim was, but if it was to launch Legolas 10 miles behind the enemy lines of the Uncanny Valley, they succeeded.

I'm truly not sure why they didn't just keep his original brown eyes, since it is very difficult to get contacts to look right on such dark eyes, but I would have paid to be in the room when they made the decision to put this image out into the universe. The eyes are just so piercing that every time his character came on screen, it was one of the inly things i could focus on. its especially jarring because THRANDUIL'S CONTACTS LOOK FINE.

It just makes the character seem so plastic, and so much older and less kind than he was. but honestly, the hobbit kind of served as a character assassination for Legolas anyways. I have opinions on how he should have been portrayed, but that's a separate post.

Honestly, I'm just not sure what there is left to say here. everything that could be said about the eyes has been said, and we were universally creeped out by it, me thinks. so that's my excuse to move on the the actual OUTFIIIIIIITTTTSSSSSS but only quickly.

So technically, I'm nitpicking, but these things are important in my opinion! So I'll just make a little list to make it easier to explain and quicker because everyones exhausted at this point.

the clothes are too tight, and too restricting for a "warrior"

the cut in unflattering and cuts him straight across the body, which does nothing for him and makes him look frumpy? somehow?

they're also too clean. He's a warrior, not a councilman.

The collar of most of the clothing in the hobbit is too high and mature, and also restricts movement.

all of the restricted movement makes the character seem stockier and less agile than we know, and see, him to be.

Basically, he looks like he's wearing a costume. (P.S. it shouldn't look like that)

and also, NONE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED PROBLEMS are helped by the fact that the editing and quality of these movies makes even phenomenal costume designs, like that of the dwarves and of bilbo, look so, soooooo costumey. And also the makeup department is its own can of worms, mostly with everyone having zero flush, but oh well.

anyways. That's just me.

feel free to add anything i missed, or disagree, by all means! to me, i just found not only the character's demolished personality and strange appearance a little too much to be able to look past it and truly enjoy his presence in the movies, but i still love the movies.

[kateksmallcuteowl]

June 29: Single Parents/Uncles AU for an event by @bagginshieldweek24

I deeply regret that the challenge is a day late! Exams are merciless to me, and even though I started drawing in advance, I still couldn’t handle the deadline 😅 I promise to catch up with feedback tomorrow, after passing bioinformatics exam.

More headcanons and details under the cut>>

— It’s an alternative Middle-earth universe with hobbits, humans, dwarves, and elves, but set in modern times.

— Thorin grew up in Erebor in a royal family (which makes sense), is accustomed to good coffee, can distinguish different types, and knows which brewing devices are best. Now he has moved to London for work and discovered that both dwarf and human coffee shops would often use cheap beans or bad coffee machines, or they grind the beans incorrectly, or even set the wrong amount of grams of coffee per espresso shot. In general, they save money wherever they can, mostly selling the vibe and relying on the fact that taste isn’t important to most of the customers. Elves occupy the niche of coffee connoisseurs, but Thorin would rather drink filter coffee from a kettle on the roadside than go to elves. And then he discovers that hobbits, little hedonists, love good food and GOOD COFFEE! Of course, in hobbit cafes, he has to sit on low chairs and by the small tables, and at first, the other patrons looked at the dwarf in their company strangely, but it’s worth it. Thorin is willing to sit with a bent back if he gets a quiet and cozy atmosphere, excellent Wi-Fi, and delicious coffee (an office in London is good, but sometimes you need to get out of the four walls to not get nuts).

— Thorin rarely drinks pure espresso, preferring softer variations. He also has a sweet-tooth.

— Bilbo is a children’s book writer, mainly known for a series of fantasy novels about a brave hobbit who traveled over and under the mountains, rode in barrels, and played riddles in the dark (Bilbo, in canon, wrote his memoirs, which all hobbits except Merry and Frodo knew primarily for Hobbiton children, so I think he would primarily write for little hobbit kids).

— It’s not a real feather he uses, but a ballpoint pen with attached feathers, like those sold in souvenir shops. Bilbo bought it after a tour to the Tower of London. He likes the ✨vibe✨ and the fact that he can twirl the feather part around his lips when he’s thinking. (It’s literally an instruction on how to seduce Thorin)

— Mr. Baggins only drinks doppio. The cup is big compared to him because it’s hobbit ceramics, and the portion sizes for hobbits, who love treats, are no smaller than human ones.

— Bilbo has taken care of Frodo since his parents drowned in an accident. Frodo is about 8-9 years old here.

— I love the headcanon that hobbits’ ears react to their emotions, so the fact that Frodo doesn’t lower them when Bilbo scolds him is a good sign. Bilbo is a good uncle.

— Thorin and Bilbo have seen each other several times on Wednesdays. Usually, they don’t care about other patrons, but barista keept trying to serve a doppio to the stern scowling dwarf in black leather jacket, and a cappuccino with whipped cream to the little curly hobbit in a plaid sweater. They’ve had to swap their drinks several times.

— Thorin read Mr. Baggins’ books to his nephews in Erebor and quickly figured out who always sits at the table near the window in his favorite cafe. Thorin likes Bilbo’s books but doesn’t know if he’s married because he keeps his personal life private. Seeing Frodo, he immediately assumed he was Bilbo’s son, considering how the little hobbit looks at him.

— Bilbo immediately noticed the stern ( handsome) dwarf sitting with his eyes glued to his phone, but he always felt too awkward to speak with him. How do you even start a conversation with a stranger, especially from another race? So when Frodo, rather bluntly, commented on his appearance, of course, Bilbo was embarrassed. No, he absolutely agrees with Frodo. The exotic braids, unusual for short-haired hobbits, look amazing on the tall dwarf, and the iron clips highlight his blue eyes perfectly, but isn’t that a bit rude to point that out? Wouldn’t a dwarf decide that he is trying to mock his culture?

— Bilbo saw that while he was scolding Frodo, Thorin turned away and for some reason tugged angrily at his braid, so he decided to muster the courage and compliment him himself to ease the awkwardness and not seem rude (not at all because he would gladly say what Frodo did himself and not because Mr. Dwarf has much more attractive features he’d also like to make a comment on, not at all, what are you talking about, no-no-no).

— The dwarf didn’t seem offended at all.

— They started talking and found out that Thorin’s nephews love Bilbo’s books (Bilbo was flattered by this news. He’s still surprised when his books are read by anyone other than hobbits. (Gandalf didn’t tell him that his books are popular among all races. Mostly because for other races they play the role of kids books where main protagonist is a cute mice)).

— And in the end, as we see, they exchanged numbers 🌚🌝

— They will meet again, but without Frodo and not just for coffee.

— The end✨✨✨

I’m still experimenting with a flat-color style and lineart so I’ll be glad to know what do you think about it. Hope the comic was enjoyable!

[tathrin]

The next story I am Definitely Not Writing: a fic where Legolas and Gimli make it all the way to the Undying Lands before they realize that in addition to loving each other more than anything else in all of Arda, they are also in love with one another (this is less a realization on their part and more an assumption that just about everyone else in Aman makes on sight, and eventually they hear about it and go oh...dang...maybe...? and Legolas's mom facepalms forever) and hey what if they got married, then...?

Only the thing is, while an elvish marriage is very simple and requires literally nothing but the folks involved deciding to do it (and no, Thranduil is not allowed to demand that Gimli fetch some priceless jewel from the Fëanorian section of Tirion in order to prove himself worthy of Legolas's hand, although he tried very very hard to convince everyone that it was a great idea) a dwarven marriage is an elaborate ceremony, requiring the participation of both a dwarven officiant and several members of one's kin to perform the various elements of the ceremony.

...all of which are in short supply in this land of elves and valar.

Except. well. there aren't any other dwarves in Aman...but what there is, is the guy who made the dwarves. And he is VERY fond of Gimli. So when he learns that Gimli is kind of moping about the fact that he can't marry Legolas in dwarven-fashion, Aulë ENTHUSIASTICALLY volunteers to be the officiant and to set everything up and arrange just the BEST DWARVEN WEDDING EVER...

Because, you know. he's never actually been to one?

Gimli is stricken with horrified shock to realize just how much his own Maker has missed out on interactions with his beloved dwarves over the years, and immediately agrees to this plan (even though he knows it won't be a real dwarven wedding without his family there; but he'll swim back to Middle-earth before he says one word about that anywhere that Mahal can hear! he is going to do everything in his power to make this the best wedding ever for the sake of his Maker, dammit!).

So he gets to work crafting all the necessary accoutrements (with enthusiastic help from Celebrimbor and all his other elf-smith friends that Gimli has acquired since coming to these shores which is, let's be honest, quite a few) and carefully teaching Legolas all the necessary Khuzdul phrases and ceremonial steps that they can do to mimic as much of a proper wedding as they can without anyone else to help...

And when the big day comes, Aulë is vibrating so hard he's on the verge of setting off seventeen different earthquakes across the island, and not even Yavanna can get him to relax. Gimli and Legolas arrive to the appointed place, and find that they aren't alone: Aulë has invited Celebrimbor, too, seeing as he's the only elf in Aman who has actually participated in a dwarven wedding before with makes him the local expert as well as the closest thing to "kin" that Gimli is going to find on these shores...except.

Well, Mandos might be in charge of elvish souls, but dwarves? They belong to their Maker. And if Mahal decides he wants to...well, who is going to stop him from waking some of them up early, before the breaking of the world? Especially if he doesn't ask permission first. So when Gimli and Legolas hesitantly walk into this foreboding stone chamber, eerily close to the Halls of Mandos, wondering wtf is going on and have they offended the valar somehow and are they in trouble and if so how bad is it...?

Well, turns out Gimli will have kin at his wedding after all.

Mahal can't bring any of them back to life, not without the intervention and permission of Eru and probably Mandos too; but as long as they're in his halls, he can wake anybody he wants. So soon there is a great crowd of bewildered but enthusiastic dwarves gathered around Gimli, as he tries to explain what the heck is going on to a whole passel of relatives and friends, some of whom died even before the Lonely Mountain was reclaimed and don't even know how the Battle of Five Armies ended, let alone the whole thing with the Ring and the Fellowship...

And Legolas and Celebrimbor are standing near the entrance watching fondly, Legolas weeping around a great big smile and Celebrimbor torn between joy for Gimli and his own ever-bitter sorrows and then...

"Khelebrrimbor?" calls a deep dwarven voice, in a thick Khuzdul accent, and Celebrimbor stiffens like he's just been shot.

Suddenly there's a ruckus as a very burly dwarf is shouldering through the crowd, and Celebrimbor stumbles forward and throws himself at Narvi with a wail, and it's at least ten minutes before anyone can get a coherent word out of either of them (although it takes considerably less time to catch the gist of Narvi's lecture about how dare you and lucky he's already dead, or I'd have a gift for him he wouldn't forget in a hurry and what were you thinking???).

Legolas gives Aulë a very pointed raise of his eyebrows, and Aulë shrugs around an unabashed grin. "Who in all the ages of the world is more of an expert on marriages between elves and dwarves than the two of them? I am a craftsman, Greenleaf; of course I would want to make use of their skills and experience in this endeavor. Nothing more to it than that."

Legolas hums noncommittally, but his eyes are dancing.

Mahal ignores him and steps forward to start the wedding. It takes even him three tries before he can shout loud enough to be heard over the tumult and get everyone's attention, but eventually he gets them all to quiet down enough for the ceremony to begin. Not everyone in attendance is entirely thrilled by the prospect of Gimli marrying an elf (that elf) but no one is so cross that they walk back into their dreams of stone to avoid it, which Gimli chalks up as a victory.

(Legolas's terrible Khuzdul pronunciation doesn't help, but the very enthusiastic way he praises Gimli when the ceremony reaches that point makes up for a lot. By the time he finally runs out of words, a few of the more recalcitrant attendees have changed their tune about him. The fact that he's so good at weaving the required braids doesn't hurt, either.)

There aren't nearly enough refreshments for a crowd that size afterwards, of course, since Gimli and Legolas weren't expecting anyone but themselves and Aulë to be there; but that doesn't much matter, because 90% of those in attendance don't have the sort of corporealness that would allow them to eat the dwarven delicacies that Gimli spent all morning fussing over anyway. (That doesn't stop some of his more elderly relatives from scolding him for not following their recipes better.) They're solid enough that you can hug them or kiss them, in the case of a certain former smithlord of Eregion or get half-knocked off your feet by their congratulatory backslaps, but they aren't alive. They're still the dreaming dead...it's just that for the moment, they're dreaming in a bit more wakefulness than usual.

In the end it's not what one would call an orthodox dwarven wedding, no; but it's a lot closer than Gimli thought he would get, and since he's hardly an orthodox dwarf, the small tweaks and oddities of their strange situation don't bother him in the slightest.

As for Aulë, he's never been happier.

And if it takes a long, long time for Celebrimbor to finally leave (and if he tries to devise a way to prop the door open on his way out)...well, Aulë is enjoying himself far too much to do anything but pretend not to notice. Even when Námo clears his throat at him very pointedly.

Twice.

And then again. And again.

"Aulë...!"

[raymurata]

Just scroll (or go ahead and block my #dav critical tag) if you don't wanna read me whining abt Bellara's Archive choice again, but I'm not done with the salt.

What bugs me isn't that the choice to destroy the archive exists, it's that the game frames it, through its UI (which is the closest thing we have to a nonbiased narrator in this medium), as equally weighted against the opposite choice.

If they had worded it like this:

"Free the archive (the knowledge will be lost)" x "Keep the archive (the knowledge will be kept)"

With no extra commentary, then that would be better. If you got to be openly racist against the Dalish or openly in favor of the Dalish, period. Just like in previous games.

Bellara says "(the archive would help us) get back what made us who we were," and "With it, we could be that again."

Which is funny because... People don't study history to return to the past. It's fine if Bellara is idealistic and saying whatever unrealistic, grandiose dreams she and Cyrian had, but the Dalish would never (could never) become like the ancient elves again. For starters there is a Veil now. So what it would in fact do is help them understand where they come from, what they've been through, and trace the changes in their culture.

Of course our modern historians and scientists have tried to reclaim lost technology, too. They've figured out how the Romans made their extra sturdy concrete, and scientists in Brazil have long been trying to replicate the extra fertile Terra Preta from indigenous peoples that lived in the Amazon basin, and several South American historians would love to know how exactly the Inca used the quipu as a writing system aside from counting tool, etc... And that's super cool!!! And maybe (but that's a big maybe) the Archive could give the Dalish a technological edge to carve a corner of the world for themselves without the constant struggle with Tevinter trying to enslave them or Andrastians trying to subjugate them.

But I personally don't think anyone's reading Aztec accounts of human sacrifices to replicate the same practices in modern cults, or that there is an army out there utilizing Roman decimation as a method of discipline. We're using different horrific methods of control now, lol.

But let's say a modern general does decide that the best way to punish a battalion for one man's insurgence is to force every group of ten soldiers to violently murder the 10th man.... Do you really think that the fault would lie with the historian who unearthed that information and put it on Wikipedia? Or the insane general that decided to do this? Would modern morality and laws allow for that punishment to be executed? Do you think that the existence of that article online is inherently dangerous and controversial, and that it should be taken down? Do you think this general would have been a good and non-violent general if he hadn't ever read about Decimation? Or is it clear to you that violence and ingenuity are both inherent to mortals as a whole and can't be so easily blamed on the spread of knowledge?

Because it's not clear to DAV. The game (not Bellara, not Varric) words it very unambiguously as a dichotomy: The only safe way to deal with this Archive is to destroy it. Keeping it is inherently dangerous because the knowledge could fall in "the wrong hands."

What Bellara says is "Cyrian is gone because of what that thing knew," and "what about the bad side, the other things we did?" and "We stole the dwarves' dreams."

Again, she gets to say whatever she wants because she's a character and she's an anxious, idealistic mess. Love her for it. I like that she feels guilt here too because she has been established (through her way of dealing with Cyrian's first death) as someone who takes the blame for mistakes she didn't even commit (She certainly isn't responsible for Solas' actions). She's someone who drives herself sick cooking up the most horrific scenarios in her mind, and she's so compassionate she can't stand the thought of being the one perpetrating violence against innocents. Her misplaced guilt and dread are the emotions that lead her to consider destroying the Archive.

But no matter how guilty a young german may feel about the holocaust, destroying knowledge about gas chambers is not what will prevent other genocides from happening around the world. Individual guilt is barely productive.

Furthermore, Corinne Bursche says that DAV gives you a choice between "destroying" or "sharing" elven knowledge, which is not how the game worded it. But the point still stands even if the Veil Jumpers, for some condescending plot reason, completely lost control of this knowledge, or were so flippant as to put everything on Thedas' wikipedia without curing it at all.

Let's accept, too, that the Archive contains knowledge of how to build something equivalent to nuclear weapons, which one could argue is in fact truly dangerous, but... Well. Do you think it's fair that the countries that have nuclear arsenals are some of the most vocal about the dangers of other countries ever developing their own?

Because that's what it feels like, to me, when the game calls elven knowledge dangerous without ever allowing you to question -- what about Tevinter rituals and magic? Tevinter's millennium of slavery, still in practice at present day? Should we destroy all their libraries too to keep the world safe from dangerous magics? Why do we only get to tell the Dalish, the nomad nations severely subjugated in present Thedas (If you ever played the previous games and have the context, at least, since this game that happens in Tevinter somehow manages to completely gloss over racism against elves as if it never existed) to destroy a one-of-a-kind, ancient trove of knowledge? And have it be framed as good and safe? As "moving forward"?

If you choose to free the archive, Rook says "The elves deserve the chance to chart their own course" to which Bellara answers "Right. Define ourselves by who we are, not who we were," but once again that writing just makes me question Bioware -- Do they not understand the point of history at all? Do they think indigenous peoples are monoliths stuck in the past if they choose to study the history they lost to colonialism? What purpose do they think that keeping that history and culture extinct serves? Who do they think it benefits?

If you step outside of what the game is telling you as fact and think for yourself, with the context of the other DA games in mind, do you still agree that it's inherently dangerous to keep the Archive? Do you still think these are equally morally weighted choices?

Or would you agree that DAV has to subtly convince you, out of character, that keeping this knowledge is inherently dangerous to make this dichotomy make sense?

Again. This wouldn't bug me if they just owned up to the fact your protagonist can, once again, genocide elves/their culture, just like in previous games. And scapegoat present elves too for the sins of their thousand-years-old tyrants, now suddenly returned (it would make so much sense for characters in the narrative to scapegoat the elves, and for us as heroes to fight against that. But no, they don't even go there except through Bellara's guilt.). It's just bizarre to have an elven historian guiltily agreeing with destroying the Archive and then telling us "The Evanuris broke us and kept us broken" without anyone, either Rook or her, ever mentioning a thousand years of Tevinter slavery and several centuries of Andrastian persecution and subjugation.

No. The Evanuris are the be-all and end-all of evil and everything bad that ever happened in Thedas, ever, can be traced back to them.