monolorialet
i don't tag shit, look away
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Latest Posts by monolorialet
Ghilan’nain’s Elvish
People seemed to enjoy the psychic bitchfight post so I figured I’d do one for Ghilan’nain’s lines in the ‘Siege of Weisshaupt’, too. Once again, I'm no expert, all glory goes to to [ FenXshiral ], and remember this is a vibe-based language so results vary with context, inflection, speaker and so on.
In the lead-up to the boss battle, First Warden Jowin will show up to take Davrin’s place as final sacrifice, only to be snatched up by Ghilan’nain before he can deliver the blow. After remarking on the quality of his blood, Ghil rips out his heart, turns it into an archdemon strength buff, then drops the used-up Warden like hot garbage. A moment later Wyrm!Razikale emerges from the moat to start the fight.
Ghilan’nain has two lines in this cutscene:
“Lasa hedallin ghellara”
(Spoken either to or about the First Warden as she manipulates his blood/heart).
Lasa = grant/allow/give
hedallin = blood of a noble kill/sacrifice; blood of [your] defeat
1. hel/hell (adj. noble, moral, just) + dala (v. kill, destroy) + lin (n. blood, person m.)
or 2. [hela (v. contest, oppose, fight) + dala (v. kill, destroy)] + lin (n. blood, person m.)
The use of ‘noble kill’/‘blood of your defeat’/‘sacrificial blood’ feels very deliberate here. Just before Ghilan’nain grabs him, Jowin recites the Grey Warden motto, “In war, victory! In peace, vigilance! In death, sacrifice!” . She’s throwing his words back at him, saying his ‘sacrifice’ would’ve been a waste... she'll put it to better use. She even taunts Rook with this later in the fight: “Witness! A Warden’s blood to birth your own destruction.”
ghellara = [my] beast more strong
ghe (n. monster, beast, creature) + elvara (v. to make difficult, hardy, sturdy, complex; from adj. elvar) + el (more, much, many. Used as a superlative) + ara (pron. sb. poss. my)
= “The blood from your sacrifice will strengthen my beast.”
"fenathra mellas”
(Spoken as Razikale’s transformation completes)
The natural assumption is fen = wolf, which would result in: fen (wolf) + ath (embodiment of) + ra (prn. it) or ara (my, possessive), making it, ‘the wolf’ in a kinda roundabout way. More like, “that wolf guy” or even, "my wolf guy" instead of a name or title. But I don’t think Ghilan’nain is invoking Solas or "the wolf” here. He isn’t an opponent at this point in the game, and neither her nor Elgar’nan see him as a real threat anyway. Additionally, the way she says the word ‘fenathra’ is quite soft — almost wistful — especially by comparison to the deep, guttural, delivery of, “mellas”. I think the root word she’s using here is actually ‘fenor’.
She calls Razikale her greatest creation. She mourns her death; pitifully telling Elgar’nan that Rook took her away. Razikale is more than just important to her — she is the very embodiment of the word 'precious'.
fenathra = My Precious One
fenor (precious) + athe (used to change the meaning of an existing word into, ‘physical manifestation of’, or ‘embodiment of’, eg. “the dead” from death) + ara (my)
Mellas = Allow now / Go!
melana (adv. now, in relation to ‘time’ or ‘when’) + lasa (v. grant, allow, give, let - imperative verb form)
= “Go, My Precious One!”
I've been working on her remaining lines for several days now and am currently tearing my hair out about it, but I will add them to this post as a reblog once I finish!
As a bonus I'll throw in Solas' dialogue to Davrin when he briefly joins your party at the end of the game.
Dialogue source: Solas Interaction with All Companions [ x ]
"Mala shivanas ar athim"
mala (your) shivana (to do one’s duty, conjugated) ar (I) athim (humble, humility)
The Elvish scans in Solas’ Hallelujah cadence, so I preserved it for the translation.
= “I am humbled by your duty," or, "Your sense of duty humbles me"
I feel like something that’s obvious but nobody’s actually pointed out is that the Blight (which we now know to be corrupted Titan spirits/Titan nightmares) perpetually creates darkspawn to replace the dwarves. The dwarves used to be some kind of vast, populous hivemind before they were severed from their dreams/the Titans, and the Titan’s spirits were separated from the Stone, yeah? Dwarves practically WERE an extension of the Titans until that point. Point to Inquisition dialogue where Solas describes them as a “severed arm”. But once those two separations happened, the Blight had to create new bodies to maintain the structural integrity of isunatoll/the song, now that the two were separated. The darkspawn are a lesser hivemind because the Blight/the Titans no longer have access to the dwarves. And the darkspawn are typically mindless + hostile because the severed spirits/dreams that are attempting to pilot them have gone mad with rage from the sheer violence and isolation of the mutilation they’ve experienced. It’s astounding writing and worldbuilding. But in Veilguard all we got was “oh the darkspawn aren’t people” :) :) :)
"You’d murder countless people?"
"Wouldn’t you, to save your own?"
I MISS THIS!! THE DILEMMA OF EVERYTHING
i dont remember the post i saw or who made it so this doesnt count as a vague but 'actually it's good bioware retconned the agents of fen'harel because it would've been Bad Representation to have an antagonistic faction made up of the in-universe oppressed minority' well no it was straight up cowardice and the refusal to grapple with the reasons why marginalized peoples might come to believe their best recourse for a world that wants them dead top to bottom is fundamentally changing the nature of the world in a way that, yes, may read as apocalyptic to those currently in power, but the alternative is for the forgotten to continue slowly bleeding out to sustain their comfort
Not that bioware could have landed that but don't pretend it's More Nuanced not to even try. and it's literally just narratively stupid as hell
Slay The Wolf
You are on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a wolf. You're here to slay him. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.
...I wanted to make three of these but I got tired of seeing this in my drafts
using background art by Abby Howard
felassan things that kept me awake last night:
the 4,000 year time span between the veil and the masked empire during which felassan could only ever have spoken to solas in dreams when at all.
the years solas spent in the lighthouse with all those fucking notes from felassan around. "don't cause too much trouble before i get there."
the only time anyone says felassan's name out loud in the video games is when solas says it in an ancient arlathan memory
solas not painting felassan a mural in the lighthouse and only referring to him as "my agent," once, but still regretting what happened with him so much that it's one of the three big revenants powered by his regret, after the titans and mythal???? sir your repression
the ambiguity of "the betrayal of felassan" as the name of that revenant. whose betrayal of whom.
the heart of corruption/revenant dragon residing in the same place felassan used to go to get away from everything.
felassan calling it "our rebellion."
felassan being aware that he would die if he reported back to solas, seeing a plausible way he could run instead, and reporting back anyway.
the tone he takes during his death scene being so friendly and nonchalant, "what's the harm really" and "i suspect you'll hate this," like he's still trying to talk to solas like they are friends and equals even while he is aware solas is about to kill him.
felassan isn't even his real/original name and in one of his veilguard notes he refers to being felassan at all as being "solas's friend felassan" like that identity is inextricably tied to his friendship with solas, he cannot be felassan without also being solas's friend.
"and you are the slow arrow?" / "i hope so."
in conclusion,
Every early game conversation with Solas starts with "why on earth are you talking to me" "I like you" "oh ok" and it's the funniest thing ever
doodlin the lad while Not at ECCC table L-23 😂😭😭
can't wait to set up tomorrow during the middle of the con!!!! (despair)
this whole idea in both the fandom and the games themselves that being a people attached to their past & a lost civilization is a failing whereas a celebration of the present is something to strive for wrt elven & dwarven culture is something that reads as fundamentally western & liberal to me.
Like...everyone unquestioningly parrotting the 'god of lies' thing like that isn't strongly implied to be Evanuris propaganda?
Reason 1: he's not a god. None of them are. They just declared themselves that.
Reason 2: there's a codex entry in the Vir Dirthara section of Trespasser which talks about Solas going among the people in disguise and persuading them to his point of view and how this is lies and corruption...except he's currently running a slave rebellion.
Depending on the story indeed...such as the stories of slave owning megalomaniacal mages who wanted those who might potentially sympathise with Solas to distrust him?
And you all fell for it.
until the world fades away
what is friendship if not inflicting poorly made memes which make no sense to anyone else on them
At my most bitter, it genuinely feels like they just did not Know how to write the elves in a way that wouldn't invite discourse (i.e, they didn't know how to write their struggle compassionately. or they didn't want to.) So when they realized that they were getting highly criticized for increasingly treating them like disposable punching bags, they decided to just write them as little as possible. Which feels like the height of incompetency to me, but that's where we're at.
Like how (at least it feels to me) they took out the Chantry from the story entirely when they got criticized for (in Inquisition) constantly giving the Chantry a pass for their genuinely evil history. They'd rather not write it at all than criticize it.
I want to believe that there were writers on staff who genuinely cared about these things, but they either left in development or lost influence on the final product to people who only cared about getting better optics.
let me share with you this post i reblogged a few days ago that has stayed with me ever since
This is exactly how that convo went
sometimes self-care is consuming a piece of media for the 174th time
I drew Fen'Harel from Dragon Age: Inquisition. I referenced a mural from the game, specifically the scene where the Elves are freed from their Vallaslin.
Less magic schools. More magic universities. Unlearn the simplified models of your secondary education. Discover how to reference scrolls written by a wizard possessed by a different wizard. Identify bias in the voices that whisper from beyond the veil. Have your institution be accused of promoting a Merlinist agenda. Become addicted to energy potions.
Discord has added generative AI features to servers.
Here are THREE THINGS you need to do today.
1️⃣ YOUR SERVER
Go into server settings -> roles -> Default permissions
Search for "external apps" and disable it
2️⃣ YOUR FEEDBACK
Access Discord support -> https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Go into Help & Support > Feedback/New Feature Request
Denounce generative AI and request the feature be removed. Bring up privacy concerns for yourself, your data, and for minors.
You will get an automatic reply to this request- PLEASE REPLY TO THE EMAIL TO PUSH IT TO THE TEAM or else it will get discarded.
3️⃣ ON MOBILE
Access your app store
Leave a 1 star review and publicly denounce generative AI and Discord's use of it
Reblog this to spread the word, I'm tired of the enshittification of the things I use in my day to day life.
i just fucking love dragon age
the way they just uhh
age all those dragons
Will never be over this friendship and how Solas is always seen both as Wisdom and Pride to this spirit of Compassion who trusts him completely and how Solas reaches out to the point of giving himself away so many times because he wants to help Cole adjust to the world.
dragon age 4 catering to me and me specifically by having a goth sword wielding bird lesbian
The text of Solas' romance card at the start of DATV ("Even the Dread Wolf could not foresee what it would mean to fall in love") does confirm for me that Solas had never been in love before Lavellan
I just love that solas is an artist
he speaks in poetry, he covers his homes in murals that permanently alter the walls, plays stringed instruments, and composes music
the world he was shaped by rang together in song and beauty created from the force of life itself and even if he’s irrevocably changed how that world works, he’ll keep creating — if only to remind himself that his bloodied hands and shattered voice are still capable of it
They made Solas dumb in Veilguard, and that's worse than making him more villainous. I would have preferred him do the shittiest things imaginable over what they did to him. At least then, it would have been interesting.
Things Tranquility does:
Cuts you off from the Fade
Prevents you from doing magic
Sunders you from your emotions
Things Tranquility does not do:
Affect your intelligence
Render you incapable of reasoning
Turn you into a subservient, mindless drone
Cause lapses in judgement
Get rid of your morals and beliefs
Cleanse you of opinions, prejudice, or preconceptions
Make you immune to posession
Make you less of a person
07/29
"the elves needed a win so we made them a monolith by erasing city elves from the narrative so that only the dalish matter & also had them embrace the Ultimate Truth of their deities being evil mages so that none of them are swayed because certainly nobody would want to follow an evil person" is not the good idea these execs thought it was
Dragon Age: Inquisition - concept art - early rejected pitches for multiplayer characters by Matt Rhodes [source]
Art by Matt Rhodes.