#da thoughts

[sins-of-the-dragon]

Two Sides of a Coin with No Edge - Anders and Fenris Parallels

A little analysis that isn't really that well organised right now but I have plenty of thoughts around how these two are opposite and yet so similar...

More beneath the cut~

Names - Anders never had a name, or he likely doesn’t remember it. What he uses is what was given to him. It has little to no meaning. Fenris gave up his name, and had it replaced with one with meaning. The meaning being almost derogatory, another form of ownership over his identity, but it’s one that eventually he could drop and take his original back when he meets Varania. He could...but no. He's not Leto any more, and can't be. That's lost. As lost as Anders' original name and who he might have been before the magic manifested.

Family - Anders has no way to ever know or track down his family. They're gone, all knowledge of them severed from him. (Unless this is covered in a book or comic I haven't got to yet). Fenris actually has a chance to reunite with his sister Varania, to know more about their mother too, but...he also can't. She's a mage, a symbol of everything he has learned to hate and fear from years of pain. How could he resume that connection?

Safety - Anders is being hunted. He’s always going to be hunted. The phylactery can track him, and if not he can likely be traced by what he’s done, where he goes. Even when the Wardens mean he can stop being pursued as an apostate, leaving them means getting chased down for that instead. Fenris is also being hunted. He has been for a long time…but once Danarius is gone, he’s free. He has an out.

Persecution - As a mage, Anders has always had that prejudice towards him. But in other ways he could blend in if he wanted to. He’s human, he could choose not to use magic once he has control over it and wear less obvious robes. He could potentially hide properly. Not that he would given who he is, but the option is there. Fenris will always be an elf, and his tattoos can’t be hidden. They’re going to mark him apart even from other elves. He was born in a place where not only was he going to be a second class citizen from day 1 as elves are across most of Thedas, but most of his people are enslaved too.

Control - Both of them have little control over the powers that are bound to them, even though both chose it. Fenris might not remember, but it is clear he made a decision to have the lyrium bound to him. Just like Anders chose to bring Justice into himself. They both show that emotions can bring out those abilities or that side of them. Fenris glows with his rage just as much as Justice comes to the fore when Anders is in a strong emotional state or faced with certain situations.

Emotions - They are also both highly emotional people. Anders shows more of the swings back and forth, with all kinds of emotions felt more strongly than most people - whether that is how quickly and deeply he falls in love, or how furious he becomes with injustice. His emotions are at the fore, strong, powerful, because that’s how he is, who he is. Fenris on the other hand struggles more purely with anger, frustration, and a very violent reaction to certain situations and people. He doesn’t allow himself to feel close to people easily because that might be a weakness someone can use against him. It takes him a lot to hold back from hurting Varania when he hears about his past, and he’s clearly still struggling with anger even after Danarius is gone.

Forgiveness - Both of them have a strong sense of justice, just aimed in different directions. Anders has felt the oppression of being a mage and everything that goes with that for most of his life. Fenris has felt the same but the source of that has been mages. Anders can’t forgive the Templars any more than Fenris can let go of his fear/hate of magic. They both know and eventually accept there can be good people on the other side, but it takes them a long time to get to that point. And neither can forgive the society that enabled their persecution.

They have so much in common but they can never see it, never truly reconcile. Anders sees someone who is determined to oppress his people, who only believes them to be dangerous and violent, who thinks the only way to prevent harm is to lock them all up and control them even if they’re innocent. Fenris sees someone who wants to unleash danger on the world, to let criminals and enslavers run wild and free to use people like him for their own power, who wants to set every mage free without supervision, inviting abominations to destroy everything good and precious in the world.

By design they can never see eye to eye, even the most determined therapist would concede they both have too much pain to reconcile as acquaintances.

Two sides of the same coin with no way to balance on the edge.

--- That's about all the thoughts I have in me for now~

#dragon age #fenris #anders #dragon age 2 #da2 #dragon age ii #DA thoughts #character analysis

[kaija-rayne-author]

Really starting to feel like a conspiracy theorist over here with Dragon Age, but I'm just thankful the special interest is sticking around.

In the scene where you ask Solas if he wants the power of the well... he sounds pretty vehement in that scene. And shuts the possibility of him being the one down rather abruptly for such a smooth speaker.

What if he knows it'll enslave him again?

There's a working theory that Mythal enslaved him based on a few bits of lore, one of which is his forehead scar. It's canon that he got it when he burned Mythal's vallaslin from himself.

Which, if he was entirely pleased with her/her actions, why would he do that? "Burn the vallaslin"... that must've hurt like blazes.

In his time, they were supposedly slave markings. I don't think he was lying to Inky about that. He generally doesn't lie smoothly or well. He can act, but only to a certain point.

Finished Tevinter Nights and was absolutely blown away by The Dread Wolf Take You. Charter is my new favourite bad-ass.

Like with many anthologies, some stories I blew through, and some, the author's voice just didn't work for me. In one or two, the antics the characters got up to dearly needed a 'hey, uh, physics doesn't work that way and have you ever actually seen a great coat?' poke or three from a decent developmental editor.

By and large, most of the stories were good. I've definitely added to my list of things I think likely in Dreadwolf. I get the strong impression we'll be seeing at least some of those characters, monsters, or locations again in Dreadwolf. Highly recommend reading the books and comics, btw.

They're quite fun, and add a lot of lore and context to the games. I've still got The Missing to read, then the companion books. I will say the first book, The Stolen Throne, is a bit rough and feels anticlimactic. But the rest are good to mind-blowingly awesome.

#dragon age series #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #solas #solavellan #inquisitor lavellan #solavellan hell #solas dai #DAI Charter #da thoughts #dragon age theories #Tevinter Nights

[daisymeade]

Just read the latest issue D/A comic.

So...las leaving that letter like "I don't want to be the villain in your stories and I'm going to minimize the damage as much as I can."

Like ah yes, purposefully trying to do something that'll cause worldwide death, destruction, and chaos but not as much as it could be! You're just soooo sad about all the unnecessary harm that you have to cause when you could just...idk...train and teach modern folks you think aren't really your people.

And don't get me started on how the fandom talks about elves getting their "perfect world" back, actively ignoring that dwarves were there too and it was far from perfect for THEM. No one cares about dwarves though.

#i used to find his character really interesting but he has so many fans and a lot of them are obnoxious horrible & hypocritical #i would tag this as him crit but it would show up in his tag anyway so here's what i'll use #so...las critical #da thoughts

[sylaiselavellan]

Realized something.

Zevran likes things that are beautiful and dangerous, yes? So imagine Zevran with a Surana/Amell Warden and they're doing their thing and fire/electricity goes fwoosh and Zevran is like 😶. Maybe Zevran thinks they did something wrong and Surana/Amell is awkwardly explaining/guessing its because they got too excited (a la DoriBull) and Zevran is doubly excited now. Maybe they can get shocked?

And then you have Hawke and Fenris. Fenris plunging their hand through someone's chest and Hawke going to 10 immediately.

What I'm saying is that 2/3 of my romances are about one person finding dangerous situation top-tier mood making and I don't know what to do with this information.

Edit: Thought about Pavellan and they're into danger as well. Dorian's, "Haha I could do this all day" and Lavellan "Practically a second honeymoon".

#what does this say about me? #do I live on the precipice of gut wrenching angst and spicy fluff? . . . maybe #DA thoughts #DA headcanon thoughts #DAO #DA2 #DAI #Surana x Zevran #Amell x Zevran #FenHawke #Pavellan #Dorian #Fenris #Hawke #Zevran #spicy

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #Crowley #Aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens meta #unfortunately I do not have trains of thought #only long meandering strolls of thought #sorry about it #anyway tl;dr Crowley is a nerd #also I have a strange emotional attachment to the idea of 1500's Crowley... #...facedown in a pile of Mona Lisa sketches; drunkenly info-dumping about Aziraphale #and Da Vinci is just like. 'Ahhhh mio amico Antonio. You fucking simp.'

[dustyhyena]

if nintendo isn't gonna elaborate on how agent 4 is involved in side order then im gonna do it myself in the stupidest way possible

#dusty art #side order #side order spoilers #splatoon #order #smollusk #riptide #agent 4 #das my agent 4 btw. i love her very much #this originally started out as a joke (this comic) but ive thought about riptide and smollusk and the fact theyre both lonely #and its becoming less and less of a joke. you guys'll see

[aarthurs]

Seems like a waste of a perfectly handsome elf.

#daedit #gamingedit #dailygaming #gameplaydaily #videogamemen #dragon age #dragon age 2 #fenris #*da #*gif #i don't know who to tag so if u wanna be tagged pls let me know <3 #he does not look like he's chuckling but i thought this was funny

[muffin-snakes-art]

The full painting from my animation!

Used "Lady with an Ermine" by Leonardo da Vinci as reference

#at first i was gonna keep the painting simple to get the animation out sooner #but then i thought it would be more funny if i actually locked in #king dedede #dedede #bandana dee #bandana waddle dee #waddle dee #kirby #fanart #hal laboratory #nintendo #clip studio paint #leonardo da vinci #painting

[romans-art]

"Für mich gibt es auf dieser Welt nur eine Mrs. de Winter."

#rebecca das musical #rebecca by daphne du maurier #rebecca the musical #mrs danvers #danvich #roman does art #willemijn verkaik danny + joan fontaine ich is my dream pairing for these two tbh #my mind is expanding at the thought #'one time my boss brought home a new wife and I didn't realise I was gay I just thought I hated her guts' #'so i wrote her a letter that just said GET OUT OF MY MANSION'

[cozylittleartblog]

a little Postlet. . because i Miss them

#deltarune #queen #rouxls kaard #lancer #art #doodles #comic #rouxls is a leetol different. for fun :) idk i drew him like that and i didn't hate it #Twelve Percent More On Model Than Usual #i have lil bits of dialogue scrawled down everywhere and i found that second one i thought it was funny #i have so many drawings and doodles and entire posts that ive started. that i just don't finish for so me reason #no energy. why do i have the energy to start them and go 'omg this is gonna be IT ill TOTALLY FINISH THIS' #and then i don't lol. why don't i just finish something instead of starting something else #its da adhd babey!!!! #anyway thats why this post is small #normally i sit and over-analyze things before i post them. are all the layers on. did i forget anything. does anything is badly drawn. etc #i'm not doing that. i am scheduling this for atime when i am asleep and it will be posted by the time i wake up #and whatever is in the art is what is posted. it is what it is.

[teenagenutant]

for some reason i have been thinking about fusions a lot recently... here's some of my takes ^_^

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #rottmnt #tmnt fusions #my turtle art #listen. what is a fandom blog for but to post about my most recent niche-of-a-niche variety of brainworms #ill prolly talk more later about my thoughts on design/character choices but! just wanted 2 throw these out... into da world.. #though i will share this here: galileo's name is galileo because that's perfect. and parmigianino was the nickname for a renaissance painte #which was literally 'the little one from Parma' and also sounds like the cheese. So. #fusion mayhem au #fmau

[sneez]

my lord of autism

#discworld #havelock vetinari #artwork #i have read. A Lot of discworld this year #i just finished the watch series so im moving on to moist next. very excited for moist #anyway i love 100% of the characters but vetinari is probably my favourite hes a massive bitch i love him #other characters who are my favourites include sybil angua carrot and constable visit. and vimes but he goes without saying #also vetinari is about as close to canonically acearo and autistic as a character has been since sherlock holmes which means da world 2 me #i was talking about this yesterday but i think him and holmes would get along. steepling their fingers at each other #i have a lot of thoughts about vetinari but i cant really express any of them i just rotate him in my head often #i hope you are all doing well my friends and that you are enjoying the end of the year :D i luv you

[meggannn]

having to pay for sebastian, the only straight romance option in da2, is still funny on its own but I feel there’s also metatextual humor if we take the “varric is narrating this whole thing” to another level

like it’s no secret varric cannot stand this guy so the thought of cassandra piping up like “wait, wasn’t the champion also friends with the prince of starkhaven? you haven’t mentioned him at all”

and varric rolls his eyes so far back into his head he almost gives himself a migraine, then she insists “no, he is! I know I heard this, stop lying to me dwarf!”

he’s like “andraste’s nutsack, fine, but if you wanna hear about him I’m gonna need some financial incentive to jog my memory. he was so boring I often forget he was even there”

“you can’t be serious, are you saying you’ve completely forgotten everything about him?”

“seven sovereigns for the choir boy, seeker, take it or leave it”

#cannot get over the thought of him charging cassandra to make him tell dlc stories #Varric is the ultimate gaslight gatekeep girlboss of the da2 narrative #da stuff #da2 #varric tethras #cassandra pentaghast

[sacredsymbol821]

Sexy of the bis in dao to be like: help me handle my ex bc I'm not sure I can by myself and need a friend/ potential lover to help me deal with them.

#I just realized this the other day and I was yellin #da thoughts #dao thoughts #I think Im funny #adri.txt

[starflungwaddledee]

this is probably why meta knight moved the conversation to the hallway

based on @das-a-kirby-blog's comic based on my comic. comic inception. colour palettes are from das.

#just to be clear 100% of the colours here are yoinked straight from das' work as an homage!! i did not come up with these #unfortunately the crisp and tasty colour palettes only look their best if you have really banger lineart like das does but ah well #sorry this is the saga that just keeps going but i couldn't shake this when i thought of it. they're so annoying to each other #also a pal said that meta knight and starstruck's relationship is “your dad and the pet he told you not to get” and i think they're right #anyway... someday i'll do the tasks i'm supposed to do but not today!! ha ha! #meta knight #king dedede #starstruck dee #my art #my comics

[clownsuu]

Painful doodles cause m a n

cw minor obsessive/possessive behavior

These two has me in a death grip smhhh (specifically obsessive Colt- he’s really soft for some reason UDHDDH) @thelone-copper

#And y’all thought I got my fix smhhhhhhhhh #Welcome home #welcome home oc #robbie robs #colt cattleman #Art block sUCKSKSKSSKS #def gunna take a break tomorrow and play a game to help ease da pain