#force mage

[vigilskeep]

Hi I saw you mention wanting to talk about schools of magic and specializations; do you want to talk about the arcane/primal earth DAO -> force mage DA2 -> rift magic DAI transformation and what that says about the different places that various protagonists learned their magic/what the fade is like in Kirkwall (I feel like I saw you mention that "fade is thin in Kirkwall" + "yeah rift magic, which has all the force mage spells, is a new school since the giant hole in the sky" was a bit of an odd take)?

Alternately, would you like to talk about the arcane warrior -> knight enchanter thing and how the chantry getting ahold of ancient elven battle magic might have occurred? And what that means for the Greater Lore?

Anyways love your blog and you have the best takes ❤️

i actually just made a joke about the obvious similarities of force magic and rift magic and it’s @miraculan-draws who had the really great take about the veil in kirkwall that made me take this seriously!

it really can’t be overstated how fucked the veil is in kirkwall. the sheer amount of demons out and about! the way you can just become an abomination with a snap of your fingers no trip into the fade to make contact with demons necessary! good lord! it’s also worth noting that it’s not even just the mass suffering and slavery that has happened here and is literally painted onto the walls; kirkwall, insanely, is intentionally built in the form of giant glyphs and iirc it’s implied it was used by magisters as a mass blood ritual for entering the fade, possibly even THE entering the fade? not to mention corypheus’ prison nearby or keeping the mages in the GALLOWS of all places or the histories of occupation or sundermount. mass death and suffering causes tears in the veil. nobody should live in kirkwall. nobody should fucking live there. it would totally make sense if force magic, a brand of magic specifically noted to be popular in kirkwall, required the same closeness to the fade as rift magic. kirkwallers don’t need a breach they literally just live like that

as for arcane warrior/knight enchanter, it’s covered really interestingly by ariane in the witch hunt dlc and velanna in the awakening dlc that a lot of the circle’s magical knowledge is essentially appropriated from ancient elven knowledge that they were able to preserve while the dalish were robbed of it. that’s what’s happening when you take ariane to kinloch to get information on eluvians and some random young human mage knows more than her and her keeper, and ariane talks about this at the time. velanna and anders also have this banter:

it comes up a lot in anders’ banters with dalish mages that he is coming from having grown up in a place intended for the sharing and discussion of magical knowledge, where bickering academic rivalries as well as political ones are commonplace, and learning from each other and living side by side is what makes them better safer mages. (which is one thing abt the circle i think he actually misses and tries, however awkwardly, to seek out. imo he’s just parroting “great civilisations are built on the sharing of ideas” here, it sounds way more like something that’s been said to him than something he would think. he wants to talk abt magic bc he’s lonely and on the run and used to be surrounded by people to talk abt magic with! vivienne talks abt this more intentionally, she makes good points abt mages thriving when they’re together among those who can understand them.) whereas merrill and velanna grow up in a background where magic is quite individual and private, shared from one keeper to one first and (according to merrill) never practised in public, and that’s a safety measure to protect them from templars and to protect elven knowledge from being taken away from them as it has been previously. so obviously they’re not engaging with the first human mage trying to blunder his way into discussion with no sensitivity at all by picking the kind of fights he’s used to, which velanna and merrill obviously wouldn’t have context for

that’s a tangent abt characters bc i love talking abt anders merrill and velanna and the way i think they think abt magic, ignore me. anyway. my POINT is i imagine the ideas behind knight-enchanter came into the hands of circle mages and the chantry in a similar way to finn’s knowledge about eluvians in witch hunt. that seems natural enough. i believe you can have a conversation with solas after taking the spec where you discuss what the ancient elven arcane warriors might think to see their abilities in the hands of the chantry?

[slaingelo]

yeah I'll drink to that @4dorks-1windmage-1shadow

[onedivinemisfit]

If she was raised in the church. I keep thinking about that. How different would that have gone down, would sothis have awakened earlier? Would rhea have brainwashed her? Would jeralt still be a part of her life?

FE3H (c) Nintendo

Art: Me

[nunalastor]

Reluctant Mage/Hero AU x Serial Roommates x Forced Family

Here is another idea that won't leave me alone. What if the reason Alastor is so disdainful of being good is because he used to be that way. Like he was one of those humans that were considered special. He got magic powers but got saddled with protecting the regular humans.

So his childhood up to early adulthood was just him and the friends he made saving the world anonymously. It was like all those shonen anime/dnd plotlines.

Alastor did not want to answer the metaphorical call but then who would keep his dumb and well meaning friends alive. Alastor thought he could have tolerated this kind of life at first until all his friends died sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

Once he was the only one left, he became disillusioned about the concept of good cause if there was any justice his friends would have been happy and alive. He made sure to seal the evil away though so his friends sacrifices would not be in vain.

Alastor found a very dark ritual that could suit what he wanted to do. It had the side effect of corrupting him and required the consumption of human flesh but he didn't really mind. Let him be damned to hell, he honestly could not give a flying f*** at that point. The serial killings began and the rest was history.

Guy, his hero party, and some very interested angels are now doubly convinced he should be in heaven. Alastor and his Hazbin family would like him to stay in hell thank you very much. Although Alastor wouldn't be opposed to visits.

👀

[alienturnipp]

The Champion of Kirkwall destroyed her own statue.

And yet, despite her efforts to not be remembered, this half-broken figure has become associated with her image, an icon that Thedas in the ages to come would remember her by.

.

Part of my DA Vietnamese clothes AU (but she did this in canon too 🥰)

[teeth-draws]

“What do you mean he’s scary!! Look at him!”

— taking artistic liberties to scrunkle the face of @shepherds-of-haven’s Blade Bronwyn - a man with 0.6% body fat lol

[talasdoodles]

Wanted to play with style a bit. And was looking through wips before finding the sketch of this.

Been a bit since I drew vaati so it was fun

[v-arbellanaris]

i dont think im done talking abt this, actually. i'm going to try and explain how stupid this whole thing is because there's always SOMEONE going on about how if it wasn't for the circles, and the parallels of the circles to real-life atrocities, "the mage-templar debate" would be a two-sided issue.

actually, it's not.

the "mage-templar debate" is not an issue of ethics even before addressing the conditions of the circle, because you have other options.

the basic premise of the argument is "mages are inherently a danger to themselves and everyone around them. is locking them up to reduce the harm they pose to the general population the correct ethical decision?" but the entire concept is already bullshit even before you address the conditions of the circle, which is where most people claim the civil rights movement comparisons come from.

because. CANONICALLY. you have other options. you have options within the context of the games to reduce the "threat" or "danger" of magic. there's no cases of mass abominations in rivain. there's no cases of mass abominations (as we know understand & abominations anyway) amongst the avvar. there's no cases of mass abominations in tevinter. from the get-go the idea that "mages have to be locked up for their and everyone's safety" is already bullshit, before you even touch the issue of the circles. even before you get to the conditions of the circle, the very existence of mages in rivain and nevarra and the avvar and tevinter already renders the argument null and void.

from it's very inception, the entire premise -- mages are inherently a danger to themselves and everyone around them -- is proven to be a belief, not a fact.

[sembaze]

@raberris дала мне свой планш и я воспользовалась этой роскошью

Теперь у меня есть гифка с Зараки который шлепает Маюри по жопе я так собой горда

[kirstenly]

There is something just... so satisfying about enchanting Cazador's weapon with daylight... forcing him to carry a sphere of pure sun that chips him for 20 damage per turn. :)

Get fucked, my good sir.

[ecce-felix]

I like parts of the Maester conspiracy theory but what I don’t like abt it is it’s used to blame everything that’s ever gone wrong for the targs on someone else & absolve them of any responsibility for negative actions. I can believe they hate magic, because all the types of magic we’ve seen in asoiaf is destructive and/or requires sacrifice of an unwilling innocent, and they want order and peace for the realm (how is that a bad thing??). I can even believe they may have poisoned the remaining eggs during aegon III’s time to prevent another dance from ripping apart the realm. I don’t think they are anti woman troglodytes who do things just to cause mass suffering, that’s not in line with what we’ve seen of any maesters besides maybe pycelle (besides, making targ women suffer is the hobby of targ men). I don’t think they somehow killed aemma arryn/baelon to install Alicent hightower. I’m willing to be generous and see how that’s a plausible theory to someone being told the broad strokes & not all the facts bc hightower = oldtown = citadel and all that. But we know the maesters were the ones telling viserys to leave her alone for a few more years, we know that her trying for kids too young is what made her weaker, which then eventually killed her. If the goal is to see her dead, why the hell were they trying to preserve her health? Wouldn’t they have encouraged viserys to start impregnating aemma the moment her cycle began? The situation is very clearly written to show viserys’ desperation to not be like jaehaerys & to have a son and heir, which culminates in him losing his wife and their most recent baby all at once. I don’t think the maesters caused summerhall. Even though I unironically love egg & will be saddened if I’m proven right & he’s the one who did the deed (again, willing to be gracious & say the experiment got out of control, but it’s more likely to me that he was intentionally sacrificing family members to hatch the eggs), it makes no sense for maesters to have done it just bc pycelle & tywin were alive and shady at the time. I think egg doing it makes sense with what we’ve seen of targaryen self destructive obsession & how desperate egg was to have dragons bc of war/trouble with the lords. Also some other things mentioned in dunk & egg that I’m not arsed to fully flesh out in my ramblings lol. Idk my point is some things abt the theory are plausible and some things sound like qanon supporters talking about The Deep StateTM to avoid talking about the failings/losses of their favorite politicians.

[vaniliens]

Im cringe and im free

[dailyfinnokorie]

Daily Finn 207!

parody account cafe meetup :)

[alienturnipp]

Another art collab with beloved @leyrey (I've missed u!) and I'm so happy that we got to finish this as a holiday gift for ourselves 💖 This time we painted our Hawkes and their puppers having a nice outdoor day, sharing gossips & cookies!

(On the left are my Cirilla & her chonky boi Brandy, drawn by leyrey. And on the right we have leyrey's Glenn and her golden girl Dora, drawn by me 🐕)

[ryuto12-gaming]

My main canon for Inquisition is a female Lavellen in love with Solas. She’s a rogue and specifically an archer. Because if Solas was truly going to take the hand of the woman he loves, of the woman who would’ve died for him, he’s going to take everything she has from her.

She’s going to lose her ability to fight, she’s going to lose something that brought her great joy.

I want to make them both suffer so much.

[cosmik-homo]

Running here to say someone JUST told me they will read death gate, so the pyramid scheme is working :)

I'm really glad I read it, I had a lot of fun! The final books didn't quite hit the mark for me but as a whole it was a really nice series :) what are your favorite parts if you don't mind me asking?

Yayyyy my empire grows!

I've been really rotating in my mind how to answer this, for basically the whole day. There's very much a case here of "the thing you latch on to as a 12 year old is gonna stay with you forever", and this series helped me unlock a lot of things that have become central to my life, from grappling with sexuality and gender in my tweens and teens to. Very actively opening the door to question the Zionist assumptions I grew up with.

And I do think that despite certain pitfalls (looking at you pryan) the politics of the series are pretty cool, for a fantasy shlock- the validation of rage and vengence instincts on the side of the opressed as real and human (as opposed to bestial or barbaric) while also being unconstructive to creating actually better futures to any sides involved, and the necessity of solidarity and empathy and models of shared life and whatnot are all kind of relevant to what I believe and do with local circles.

But more than that, I really love the character dynamics. Haplo's arc is just a really good examination and deconstruction of fantasy masculinity tropes, and its beautiful and cool and explains how toxic masculinity as we refer to it today functions very well for something written before the phrase was coined.

And Alfred...

Ok, I am entirely incapable of being impartial about Alfred "dopamine creator in chief" Montbank but before I go down that rabbithole, i think what I really want to say here is I often feel the way i recommend or advocate for the death gate cycle in itself kind of ruins for others one of the things I like about it the best and the most and find delightful, which is the entire Bait And Switch ordeal.

It's unique, it's fun, it manages Layers, and it's so interesting in it's meaning.

AUTHORS NOTE: I am going to literally physically cut off the incoming alfred rant when it reaches 300 words. i will let myself write it as much as i want cuz god knows i need the serotonin, this is my version of chasing my own tail, and then just cut it at that cuff.

~~~

What Alfred means and represents and does and is in the books is so cool, and it's another thing that being fixated on dgc changed for me. I used to enjoy star wars the way a normal person would, once upon a time. It was Alfred-Majoring that made me c3po crazy. cuz its like, what kind of people are important to a story, what kind of abilities and attitudes and emotions and symptoms are "normal" and "good" to have on screen or page, as opposed to how we as people react to traumatizing or difficult situations in real life? He's an active expriment in discomfort with the pathetic in yourself and in others, in empathy, in being allowed to exist and be loved and meaningful Ugly and Weird. yeah in some ways its just an ugly duckling but. the whole swan/dragon side coming to the foorefront doesnt make the duck not there, hes just an extremly wonderful and powerful ugly, neurotic swan and its awesome.

The fact that being outside a system because youre too weak or odd to belong or manage to fit in it brings you unique opportunity to question if it's necessary or good.

I read a lot of margaret weis interviews and she never directly talked about writing alfred but she does often mention she doesnt read a lot of sf/f- her favorite authors are actually dickens and austen, and between that and the prufrock connection tm I wouldn't be surprised if alfred was purposefully designed to be a Literary character dropped into a SF/F story- and its sooo interesting in how it interacts with the genre convetions of power/magic/masculinity/trauma/danger etc.

~~~

OK that 278 words but I'm gonna cut it off now, I finished my entire coffee and then some crackers. normal behavior ensues-

On a less Analytical viewpoint of "favorite parts" I will say that the plot, dynamic and Imagery of fire sea is the one I find myself returning to most on a sf/f level - being reminded of it whenever necromantic societies come up, or Life Changing Enemies To Working Together Field Trips, or whatnot- Serpent Mage is i think the best constructed and I am often thinking about the social dynamics Alfred experiences there, and I have a deep and unbridled affection and obsession to the iconic mess of a jumble of a novel that is seventh gate because. sometimes, you just need dragontorture/ xars murderous paternal bedwarding / ghost handhold/ psychicthreesome/ dog based ressurection / closing the gate/ epilogue with children serotonin in life. that was balls to the walls the entire way through. and it rocked.

As i recently explained to a very cool person who ran a lecture on deathgate in a local convention: "When i was thirteen i was like oh i love basing my identity on dragonlance lets go for a fun ride. ooh its kinda slashy yayy. and then the existential teenage conditions hit and i started appreciating the Mental Health Representation, and then the panic attack representation looked me in the eye and said Become Leftist. NOW. we were not joking about the opening your worldview arc it isnt a metaphor this is directly about you. YOU need to fight the horrors in a radical kindness and peace way, even though you have crippling fear, right now. and then i did".

AND there's dogs, and dragons, and gay people devotion. so,