#like i always kinda wanna romance fenris with an elf...actually i wanna romance merrill with an elf too

[the-cryptographer]

2 for Fenris and for Merrill for the question meme!

Best boy and best girl <3 <3 <3

Thank you <3 I feel like I'm just going to repeat all the things I've already said about them in various other places but, whoa-kay, let's go!

002 | Give me a character: FENRIS

How I feel about this character: Ugh, god. Best boy in the whole series. I relate a lot to his feelings of betrayal, his fear of vulnerability, the obsession with his own capacity for evil, and his everpresent need to rationalise and overthink to try to justify or curtail the needs propelling his behaviour. And outside of me, I think his capcity to be adoring and gushy with the people he loves is very endearing. He’s also imo the companion who has the best visible character growth arc in the series. It’s so lovely watching him come into his own identity over his time in Kirkwall, and I love seeing how he changes between the three acts of the game &lt;3

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Anders. Justice. Isabela. Merrill, kinda. In the unlikely circumstance that she gets to do something fucked up enough in the name of protecting him to give him a boner. Hawke, when Hawke looks and behaves in ways that are nothing like actual canon Hawke. (Rant incoming.) Aveline and Donnic, maybe? I feel like I haven’t figured out a way to make it work that’s not just him being their exotic unicorn which makes me want to punch them both (hope you understand) so I can’t actually justify this one. Velanna would be funny too. I have the need to see it happen.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Merrill. God, she is just- a friggin hilariously awful troll to him in canon and I always wanna take it further. Her talking down to this amnesiac, making excuses for the fact that her little brother elf is very stupid ‘forgive him! he only has seven years of life experience to draw from!’ In a terrible, awful, and funny way, I think Merrill having this connection to another elf she can relieve some of this First to the Keeper condescention onto is nice for her. And Fenris having an elf blood mage in his life that the last thing he needs to do is try to protect or even be nice to is nice for him. They’re both great. Five stars.

My unpopular opinion about this character: He’s got the worst canon romance in the whole game. (Rant incoming.) But within the worst canon romance of the whole game, he has the best scene for helping Hawke grieve Leandra. Idk, I’ve been in Hawke’s shoes there, and I wish I’d had someone like Fenris with me. Who knew there was nothing to say to make it better, but was willing to be there regardless.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: (Rant) Literally any overt textual acknowledgement anywhere that Fenris has made Hawke the outlet for his conditioning with Danarius - following Hawke around to protect him, killing people on Hawke’s command, wearing the Amell coat of arms in the romance, voicing his love for Hawke in the terms of possessive ownership (‘I am yours’), and showing unwavering devotion in the midst of the people around them saying dehumanising racist things about Fenris that Hawke makes absolutely no efforts to stop (ie. Carver calling Fenris Hawke’s ‘pet elf’ in the combat commands). Literally any overt acknowledgement that Hawke is a Hightown noble and Fenris is an elvhen foreigner and second-class citizen that relies on Hawke’s goodwill for immediate physical protection against slave hunters. Literally any overt acknowledgement that, in the fenhawke romance scene, Hawke decided that Fenris impulsively kissing them, directly after Fenris faced down his abuser and learned he had a sister, was an invitation for both pinning Fenris against a wall and any sex that followed after. Literally any overt acknowledgement that this is a completely unreasonable situation to expect someone with a history of abuse and slavery and child grooming be comfortable flexing their own agency and right to not consent to sex. Except perhaps after it’s already happened, which is when Fenris finally does so. I don’t know - I don’t even fully blame Hawke for not understanding some of this but... Man, I want Fenris to get ANGRY about some of it. I think he should go a little feral. I want him to unapologetically do more things that aren’t in Hawke’s best interests, but his own. Maybe unapologetically do some things in his own best interests that screw Hawke over entirely.

my OTP: Ugh, yeah, it’s fenders. And I hate saying that right after I’ve gone on that (Rant) up there ^ because I feel like it definitely makes me look like bitchy ship war trash. I swear it’s not like that! (I’m not sure I’d believe me either) Anyhow, yeah, disclaimer is I know Anders is a racist no-boundaries asshole menace. And I think any portrayal of this relationship worth a damn has Anders dial back the aggression and at least tacitly acknowledging that it’s unfair to ask Fenris to take up mage liberation as his cause. But, man, they want so much of the same things out of a realtionship. Like, a connection that fulfills their every cathartic desire for family and domesticity and safety - the safety to be just unreservedly gushy and devoted and adoring with their partner and ‘I’d commit attrocities for you’. They are both sooo intense in their romance scenes. It is TOO MUCH. Too much for anyone but one another, I mean. They should try fucking that out with one another. Also, like, nice tasty foils goodness of two ex-slaves with WILDLY different experiences of it. I think what gets me about Fenris is that he’s clearly internalised a lot of apologist rhethoric about his own slavery. Like the idea that someone sufficiently dangerous should be enslaved for the safety of others. Which you know is something that people in Tevinter said about him, Mr LyriumWolf BioWeapon. I think Fenris is quick to project this POV onto Anders and, in the moments when Anders makes these angry comments about how Fenris is a violent monster, I feel like you can hear Fenris bracing for the conclusion that he thus does not deserve to be free or deserve Hawke et al’s help fighting off his would-be captors. Because I don’t think he has the self-confidence and rhethoric to really argue against that. But, like, even if he’ll talk a lot of smack about Fenris in other ways, this just isn’t somewhere that Anders is going to take things. Because Anders believes that there are inherent rights to being a person and violences nobody deserves. And this is also something Anders has had the self-assuredness and presence of mind to argue for himself and other mages, even when the entire rest of the world is working against him. And that’s something about Anders that I think in the right circumstances that Fenris could be a little awed by and take inspiration from. A little more willingness to burden others with his problems, and to believe in and advocate for himself - that he deserves better, and that he deserved better even when he was at his worst. That’s what the ship is about for me.

my cross over ship: I got nothing.

a headcanon fact: I seem to have a lot of opinions about the books he likes to read. He likes reading nonfiction, history and economics and architecture. And also poetry. He does not like Varric’s pulp novels, lol.

--

002 | Give me a character: MERRILL

How I feel about this character: Ugh, god. Best girl in the whole series. I love how sweet and thoughtful she can be, and how she’ll extend goodwill towards the other companions at their lowest even when they obstinately haven’t done much to ‘deserve’ it from her. But it’s the moments when she’s not being sweet at all that that I really start to love her. Like, the way she’ll bait people like Aveline and Sebastian and Anders and Fenris with these ‘innocent’ questions that are so brimming with passive-aggressive missle-guided criticism (Asking Aveline why she doesn’t arrest them, and whether Aveline’s a bad guard, and watching Aveline get defensive about it, is one example of many that come to mind.) She’s just very cutting and insightful in all the right moments. And... even though I don’t feel like I agree with the general dogma of the game about blood magic, I do think through that conflict they captured Merrill’s own inability to accept critique well. I think it’s something you see a lot in people with a history of emotional abuse like Merrill, where she’s been criticised so much for anything she tries to do, that she’s just become completely unable to engage with any well-intentioned critique anymore, so she gets very withdrawn and stubborn instead. This is actually the last section of the meme I’m filling out and I’m a bit out of steam. I don’t feel like I really did best girl justice with this description but WRAAAAGH- Know that I love her to pieces.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Anders. Hawke. I realise that Hawke is pretty patronising and paternalistic with her in the canon romance, and I’m not sure I can even say it’s less exploitative than fenhawke up there ^  But she is the character that I tend to come around on wanting to romance as Hawke most. Hopefully I find ways to make it work that aren’t, well, upsetting. Fenris, kinda. And Isabela, kinda. As described up there ^ and in the Isabela ask here, respectively. Bethany/Merrill seems cute enough. Carver/Merrill interests me too, but only really in specific circumstances. I feel like the appeal of the ship is them both having inferiority complexes out the wazoo, and all this baggage about their families and not being taken seriously. And then they both come together to act this out on one another and ultimately work past it. Also farmboy hick Carver really projecting the idea of Merrill being this innocent, naive, out-of-her-depth sweet Madonna that knows even less about the world than he does - and then getting slapped with the fact that there are a lot of assumptions he’s making there as a man and a human that are wildly offbase. Haha, get wrecked, Carver! Also Aveline, kinda? It’s hard for me to wholly imagine going much of anywhere without Isabela between them (also because, you know, the Guard’s violences against the Alienage) but I think their friendship is underrated. They have a lot of cute and snazzy banters. I like the one from Mark of the Assassin where Merrill says they should get matching costumes and be crime-fighting partners together. Morrigan, in an angry ‘fuck you shem Eluvian stealer’ way. Dagna, in a ‘magic researchers and science nerds’ way. Pol, in an ‘evil arachnophobia horror’ way. Audacity, in an ‘awful incel tries to posess your mom when you reject him’ way. I have written a LOT of Merrill ships at this point.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Fenris. As per the above response in his section. That said, Fenris actually imo says the worst and cruellest thing anyone says in the whole game, to Merrill. Anders definitely takes the next 4+ spots on the Worst Things These Characters Have Said to One Another List, but #1 for me is definitely Fenris calling Merrill a monster in the immediate aftermath of Pol’s death. What a dick (affectionate).

My unpopular opinion about this character: She is a person capable of evil. That’s what having agency and power are - the capability to do good and evil. That does not mean I think it’s a power that she shouldn’t have and shouldn't cultivate, quite the opposite. So I need more fic about Merrill being sexy and evil (and also taking it up the butt).

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: It’s a shame Merrill’s quests are really so much Dalish infighting. I wish we could have had more information about her actual goals. What she is trying to accomplish with the Eluvian and her work in the Alienage. In her banters we see some pretty scathing opinions about humans and their culture. And I think any work she does organising and helping Alienage elves is ultimately going to be pretty violent and revolutionary, knowing the kind of disenfranchised that Alienage elves are, and knowing Merrill’s own skillset for helping is, um, highly specialised (murder, blood magic, crafting, and more murder). It’s extra disappointing knowing that Justice & Velanna were the original plan for DA2 instead of Justice & Anders. I wish we could have seen Dalish issues be given the kind of weighty treatment that mage issues ended up getting. But, idk... I feel like Trespasser went more in that direction and then just used it to shit all over indiginous cultures so... :/

my OTP: Merders, or Anders/Merrill. I wrote a post once about how I felt these two characters were far more similar than the game wanted to allow, and how I didn’t feel the game gave proper weight to Andrastian Chantry Imperialism as the base cause for both the mage and Dalish genocides. Those are still the ideas I like being at the centre of Anders and Merrill’s relationship. A lot of the vibes from Act 3 in the game are when I really start to feel this relationship because, like- they’re both at that point struggling with the fact that they’ve made huge sacrifices and concessions to seeing through their goals, and neither are sure that they can actually accomplish those goals anymore, and neither really feels like they can be dogmatically assured that they alone are correct or that the ends don’t justify the means they have each chosen. And I like how she seems a bit in awe of his determination and resillience in spite of that. Also Merrill’s nonreaction to TLS, lol. Going off what I said about Chantry Imperialism - I think of all the companions, Merrill easily has the most reason to want to see Anders wipe the Kirkwall Chantry off the face of the damned map. On a more personal note, I like exploring the kind of condescending protectiveness that Anders feels towards Merrill as another mage, and how Merrill both invites this and rejects this at different points, as it reminds her of Marethari’s controlling/sabotaging protectiveness. And also I like when Anders is a racist asshole and harangues Merrill about her differing cultural ideas about things like blood magic, and then she smacks back and slaps him with her own aggressions. Idk, so many of the companions she’s different levels of complacent with when they talk down to her or belittle her. I just kinda love that Anders gets her riled up enough to smack back.

my cross over ship: I don’t think I have one.

a headcanon fact: I don’t headcanon the mage characters actually walking around Kirkwall with staffs most of the time. I think for Anders just casting with his hands works best, both because it kinda plays up the feral abomination angle, and because I think him needing to get his hands on everything suits his boundary issues. For Merrill I imagine her weapon/casting focus of choice being an obsidian knife from her clan. It keeps showing up in all the fics I write about her :’)

[elvesofnoldor]

had a thought that MIGHT have been sort of cursed yesterday night. Anyways here goes: “dorian and f*nris swapped places” au where f*nris is in da:i and dorian is in da2, also f*nris x lavellan and dorian x Garrett/male hawke 

[dent-de-leon]

I’ve seen you blogging a lot of Dragon Age (and a lot of other ppl I follow too, honestly) and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about it. It seems pretty cool!

oh ya sure!! oh boy this is gonna be a lot lmao,, but,, Dragon Age is an RPG by Bioware–they also made Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, in case you’ve heard of those–and the DA series are easily some of my favorite video games. They go super in depth with lots of lore and there’s tons of world building,, I’m embarrassed by the number of fantasy Elvin words I know and I can tell you way too much about the history of fake countries cause that’s where I’m at lmao,, 

To try and summarize: the first game is called Dragon Age: Origins, and the focus is very much on fleshing out and playing through a backstory that you handcraft for your PC. You can be everything from an elf trying to reclaim their lost history, to a privileged human of the ruling nobility, a sheltered mage that’s locked away from the rest of the world for “their own good,” a dwarf just trying to survive whose always been a fighter at heart–skilled enough to champion a tournament, and so on. I played the City Elf origin and it just about killed me. 

The appeal here is you can start with various different branching paths and backstories, all of which culminate in your character becoming a Grey Warden. Essentially, DA has these monstrous sort of demonic creatures called darkspawn and usually they’re very disorganized and attack at random. But sometimes there’s a more powerful demon that can connect to them and control them as a kind of hive mind; they become a more organized army force, and spread a “Blight” and its taint wherever they go–it causes sickness and a long suffering death, makes the land completely uninhabitable, lots of bad shit. There’s only been four Blights before Origins, so they’re pretty rare, usually centuries apart. 

In the event of a Blight, the only thing that can stop the lead demon and its army is a Grey Warden. They’re a,, supposedly “neutral” party in political affairs; they’re meant to be an outside force from other armies and they aren’t divided by nations or anything, if you’re a Warden, you’re a Warden everywhere. So they’re also kinda above the law. Wardens can requisition land and resources, forcibly recruit condemned criminals and high ranking nobles alike–“anything to stop the Blight.” They’re elite warriors, and the only ones who can actually sense the darkspawn. That’s because they’re already tainted by them. You drink some darkspawn blood,, probably you die, but maybe you don’t,, and if you survive,, congrats!! You’re in the Wardens. Forever. You can run, but they’ll probably find you. There’s really no running from the fact that the taint will get you eventually in a few decades though. In Origins you end up being one of the only two surviving Wardens left to defend the country of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight–you have to travel the country, gather allies, try to prove you’re not a war criminal, save the whole world, and don’t forget to pet your dog :’) 

Dragon Age 2 is a lot simpler to talk about with all that context out of the way–you’re Hawke, a Ferelden refugee fleeing from the Fifth Blight. The Warden saves the world and everyone throws a big party just as you’re getting settled in your new city. Kirkwall is…a lot,, real creepy place. Maybe it’s that it used to be the center of the Imperium’s slave trade and is still called “The City of Chains.” Maybe it’s all the centuries of blood magic and death that’s seeped into the walls. Maybe it’s those architecture plans you find for the city that point out it’s been built in the shape of one big magical glyph. But there’s something weird there and the whole place is incredibly unsettling. Way more demons crammed into one city than most of the country combined, templars ready to turn on every mage in sight, there’s a lot happening in that one little place. 

I always say that other Dragon Age games are more about the player, but DA2 is really about your party members. It’s your companions’ stories–Hawke is sort of this unsuspecting bystander that just gets dragged under by all the city’s malevolent machinations. And ultimately–accidentally, so very unfortunately–they wind up at the very epicenter of it all. Maybe it’s about Hawke, a snide, sarcastic refugee just trying to provide for their family and take care of their friends. But it’s probably more so the story of a quintessential Byronic antihero tortured by his past and sparking a war for mage freedom, or a charming pirate captain in search of her mysterious lost treasure and who knows more about the city’s supposed “invaders” than she lets on. Or the silver-tongue dwarf with a love of telling stories, and a penchant for extravagant lies–the narrator of it all, and entirely unreliable. 

At its core, DA2 is about mages and templars. The mages typically being locked away in towers known as Circles because they’re seen as “too powerful, a danger to themselves and others,” etc. They’re guarded by knights that work for the dominant religious order known as Templars. Only the Templars frequently harass and systematically abuse the mages in their charge instead of “protecting” them. Ultimately, it’s also about betrayal and redemption, how far someone can go before they’re beyond redemption, etc. 

DA2 always hits this very melancholic note that neither of the other games quite reach. I think it’s because Origins and Inquisition are very grandiose in scope and scale,, you’re a chosen hero,, you’re saving the world,, the player is incredibly empowered. But in DA2, it really does feel like you have no power. Like you’re just trying to scrape by and look out for the people you care about. Like everything keeps going wrong no matter how hard you try to help, like you’re a failure to your family and somehow lost your friends. DA2 is confined to a single city and so much smaller in scope and scale, but the little glimpses of intimacy that you do get from that unique experience really hits you in the end.

Lastly, there’s Inquisition. You can choose your player’s race like in Origins, but you don’t really get to play out your backstory or anything, you’re just kinda thrown right into it. Inquisition is very go big, so everything is big–lots of exploration, lots of questing, LOTS OF DRAGONS,, THIS GAME IS IMPORTANT SOLELY FOR THE 13.5 DRAGONS YOU GET AS OPPOSED TO THE 1-2 IN EVERY OTHER DRAGON AGE GAME,, SERIOUSLY LACKING ON THE DRAGON PART THERE HONESTLY IT’S KINDA FALSE ADVERTISING,, but yeah I’d say DAI is the most like an open world sort of deal,, very classic high fantasy like Origins (though not so brutal or grisly like Origins), very You are the Chosen Savior stuff,, big departure from Hawke running round the sewers 

DAI builds directly off the previous games and decisions players made in them, but it’s also actually very easy to jump right into with no info on prior games. I’d say it’s also the most user friendly, and it’s probably better for new players to start with it to see how they like the world. Combat and mechanics in Origins can be very tedious, and parts of it just haven’t aged well. DA2 is easier mechanically, but much more punishing and harsh with its consequences. DAI is very forgiving by comparison, and you won’t accidentally get party members killed for the calls you make. And while DAI is very lore heavy, I think it’s the perfect place for newcomers to kind of run around and try to explore the living breathing world crafted from that world. 

The essential plot is that you’re following on the heels of the Mage Templar War, and rogue members from the Chantry (church basically) are looking to upstart the Inquisition again, a huge military organization that waged holy wars back in the day. You end up accidentally being in charge of everything because, and I quote, “You killed everyone who was in charge.” Oh yeah, there’s also demons tearing open rifts from their world into yours and you’ve been blessed/cursed with a magic mark on your hand that makes you the Only One who can close those rifts and save the world. Build your army, get drunk with your friends after slaying dragons, dance with your partner after usurping the empress at her own ball, try not to get torn to pieces by the magic in your own hand, get good at reading tarot cards, and maybe don’t romance the Elven God of Trickery on your first (heartbreaking) play through,, 

Lastly, there’s actually a fair amount of queer characters in DA, which is pretty cool. And a lot of them are romanceable partners for your character, so you can definitely play a queer PC. So,, off the top of my head–Bi characters (and romance options): Leliana and Zevran [Origins], Fenris, Anders, Isabella, Merrill [DA2], and Josephine [Inquisition]. There’s also Iron Bull, and he’s a pan character who’s romanceable in Inqusition. Dorian is gay and romanceable, and Sera is a romanceable lesbian, both also from Inquisition. Krem is a trans man and Maevaris is a trans woman, the former is a side character (and best friend of Iron Bull) in Inquisition, while the latter only appears in supplementary sources like comics, but she does get mentioned from time to time in Inquisition as Dorian’s close friend. Oh! Also--Solas and Josephine’s routes in Inquisition don’t culminate in a sex scene, so lots of people headcanon them as asexual. And you can also swing Dorian’s romance so it doesn’t have a sex scene if you wanna romance him but kinda play an ace Inquisitor, which is cool! Sorry for the long rant lmao but uhhh, I hope this helps?? :’)

[musingmycelium]

ship-a-thon

thanks for the tag @allisondraste <3

and i’ll tag @goblin-deity @dirthara-mama ​ @my-da-phase ​ @mocha-writes ​ and @sulevinblade ​ <3 no obligations of course <3

1. First ship you ever wrote fic for:

uuuuUUUHH fanfic would be dorian x bull x lavellan because i have a massive soft spot for polyships and i never ever ever get to see content for them in canon spheres and rareeeeeeeeely in fanon circles so i decided to make my own

2. Ship you write the most now

zevran x ellanis tabris

by like, a lot. ellanis has absolutely dominated my muse energies for a while now and i love him so much so most of my time is writing about him and zevran

3. Ship you read the most now:

i wish i had more time to read! gaaaah! with grad school maniacally stealing all but a handful of my spoons i generally have to choose between reading and writing and generally choose to write. BUUUUT i am reading (slowly, so slowly oh my god) @trvelyans amazing hawke x quizzy fic, fire on fire,  @veridium-bye ‘s superb cassandra x f!quizzy fic, fire in her mouth, and @dalish-ish ‘s beautiful lysette x adan fic, see fire and go towards light all of which i cannot reccomend enough

4. Newest ship:

anders x surana

listen, listen. i have no excuse noure just kinda sprung into being and drop kicked me in the head hollering about mage rights. i didn’t mean for them to end up with anders, originally they were going to be a morriganmancer, but getting to know them and exploring their backstory i found out they’re in love with anders and boy howdy its been a wild ride

5. Rare ship you wanna read more of:

i need more awakening ships in my life -non hawke andermancing, nathaniel howe ships, VELANNA X SIGRUN LIKE HELLO?! i love love love love the awakening crew and anything i can find with them in it has me absolutely catatonic with pleasure

6. Your taboo ship:

uuuUUUH one that i ship or one that i find taboo? i guess a ‘taboo’ ship i think could work if done with utmost care is fenris x anders but honestly the way fandom takes both of their characters and twists them i don’t think i have ever nor will ever see it done the way it needs to be handled in order for it to be a) not fetishistic b) not abusive and c) healthy/growing/loving

a ship i find ‘taboo’ that many others ship [and that can be done well if handled well but it just doesn’t sit too well with me] is any templar/mage ship [especially templar/mage elf looking at you cullavellan] just because there are inherent power imbalances involved and most of the time they’re either overlooked or portrayed as nothing and that unsettles me

7. They never met in canon ship:

HMMM i guess technically anders x surana? noure doesn’t have the, uh, typical origins storyline so their canon is batshit and even if they would have met in awakening if ellanis hadn’t been the warden they still didn’t meet canonically in the circle technically

8. Your unexpected ship:

oh definitely anders x noure -like i said noure took their creation and ran and i’ve been playing catch up ever since

9. The ship you always forget to give love to:

ALL OF MY DA2 SHIPS HOLY FUCK

wren and galahad are so forgotten in my writing hachi machi. i love them and their stories but woof i always seem to put them on the backburner. galahad and fenris have a fuckin sweet almost romance until they gt their shit together and commit and grow and wren is a fucking trainwreck of a lesbian and her relationship with merrill and isabela is something i want to explore in depth but don’t have the spoons to do at the moment

10. Ship your OC with a canon character (if applicable):

literally all of them lads, literally all of them

11. Ship you’re embarrassed to ship:

well. since allison mentioned it in hers i guess the single most embarrasing thing i’ve evr posted and unironically enjoyed to write and partake in an evening of endulging was a sosie [solas x josephine and no you read that right] piece called wicked grace -i’ve even thought about continuing it because it actually had some interesting dynamics and i’m lost in the sauce of appreciating good seduction romance juice

12. Your most romantic ship:

i thought this was going to be an easy answer of ellanis x zevran but honestly? my lavellans are all so romantic? idrilla and solas are all about soft romance, da’ean and bull and dorian show their affections in little things that add up, and linayel romances cass who is the single most romantic character in dai so like, the boy knows what’s up catch him reading her poetry or kissing her forehead or holding her hand 24/7 just because he can

13. Your sexiest ship:

oh fuck probably ellanis x zevran because they have an electric connection and, after they admit it, a strong caring relationship.

14. Your most tragic ship:

i see your solavllan and raise you suranders -idrilla and solas at least have end goals and aspirations and big grand arcs. noure and anders get ash and brands and shattered souls

15. A ship you want more content for:

hoooOOOOOO boy i don’t know i’m starved for like all content but if i had to pick probably more f/f content because my wlw ass is desperate to see other women and feminine-aligned people falling in love and having happy endings