I encountered you through your fenhawke art and was so confused at the style like I swore up and down I saw this style on twt before. After looking at your blog, I realized you are the twt artist, I followed for your trigun and ff7 art and it"s so nice to see you again by some random chance! ＼(◎o◎)／
Aaaaaah oh my gosh, thank you so much! ;; It– means SO much to see somebody travel the fandoms with me, hahah! Yeah, I was wondering when the Thedas hype would finally catch back up with me. The fact that it’s for DA2 instead of Veilguard is just. Funny. :’)
It means the world that you can actually recognize my style. I’m forever anxious about it and– thank you so much for real!! This is making me beam! ;; <3
I’ve been having one of the DaysTM, so since I’m emotional again, I think it’s a good time to once again declare my endless love for you, guys.
Thank you so much everyone, who have followed the doujin/fancomic!
It was your comments that kept me going. The lovely notes and messages in tags/replies. Each time I dropped a new part publicly, I came here first thing next morning to check what you guys thought.
Numbers are great and all, but nothing compares to words. I am absolutely delighted and happy to see my silly little take on these two made you actually feel things. Be it sorrow or happiness. I was so worried about so many parts, I was dreading some of them, you guys have no idea.
But seeing you guys writing all the nice things really made this worth my while.
The new corner of the net over at the butterfly place is great too, but that’s still new and I do enjoy coming back here a lot lately.
So… I just wanted to say another little thank you for keeping up with the fancomic for such a long time and for being so lovely and supportive!
I’ve been tried, and you know I’ve been tested But I won’t back down, no I’ll never surrender I’ve seen the proof, I know the truth This is what I was made to do
My take on the chained Wolfwood finished and posted at last.
So… everyone pretty much hated Veilguard’s “secret ending”, right? Beyond speculation about the Executors themselves, I haven’t exactly seen anyone excited about its presence, and for that matter, haven’t seen many people talking about it at all.
The closest way I can describe my initial reaction to it was an immediate, visceral disgust. I think I remember uttering at my screen something along the lines of “Fuck off! What the fuck?! Are you fucking kidding me???” and ever since then I’ve wanted to put into words exactly why it made me feel that way.
For the 88% of you (according to Steam achievement statistics) who didn’t see this ending due to not picking up three very specific codex entries by complete chance, you can watch it here. In short, the clip depicts a mysterious voice who sounds suspiciously like Matt Mercer talking about how a group of shadowy figures has “balanced, guided, and whispered” over scenes of villains from the previous DA games, implying that these shadowy figures have been at least partially responsible for all of the bad things happening in Thedas, towards some unknown nefarious purpose.
Now obviously, this sucks. This is hamfisted, unimaginative writing that simultaneously retcons and re-contextualizes elements from DA’s past that absolutely no one thought needed further explanation, as well as being exactly the kind of irritating sequel-bait tactics that people have largely grown tired of these days. But why does it suck so much? Why did I feel such palpable distaste for this scene?
For starters, it simply reeks of entitlement, and a lack of respect towards Bioware’s own past games. Remember those villains you loved and thought were compelling? Well, their own personal, very complex and thought-out motivations were really just the Executors whispering in their ears the whole time! Loghain making a difficult and calculated decision at great personal cost for a greater good he truly believed in? Executors. Bartrand succumbing to his own greed to the point that he betrays his only family and devolves into a tragic husk of himself? Executors. Corypheus and the Magisters breaching the Golden fucking City??? Executors.
Ignore the infuriating lore ramifications for a second and consider: what do all of these things have in common? They’re all instances of complex character motivation; of people in this world doing things for their own reasons that ended up having massive ramifications. In short, they’re not events that can be explained easily in terms of black and white morality. And from what we’ve seen in Veilguard, the current dev team has a serious inability to work with any story elements that do not have absolute moral clarity: the Venatori and the Antaam are Evil. The Shadow Dragons and the Crows are Good. Any nuance; any potential questioning of this duality is quickly explained away or snuffed out.
And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do, retroactively, with the rest of the series. Having a hard time deciding whether Loghain was right or wrong? Well, worry not, the Executors are Evil and if they were guiding him the whole time, then what he did must have been Evil too! Grappling with how the plot of DA2 was about the inevitable tragedy of a series of oppressive systems reaching their natural breaking point? Well, wrestle no further, for if the Executors were involved then Meredith and Bartrand must’ve been Evil, no question! What the Magisters did was definitely Not Great, and what do you know, there were consequences for it that they and the whole world very much did pay for. But if the Executors were behind it all, then it was someone else’s fault, some Evil power reaching in and making them do what they did, rather than their actions being the result of a horrific series of power abuses done by actual people.
Which leads me to where my initial disgust comes in. Because in a world which has always had core themes of power and its many abuses, actions that have consequences, and the idea that there are no true higher beings; every horrible thing that has ever been done was done by people, the simple act of putting shadowy figures behind key moments in history completely debases and neuters all of those themes. The whole point of Dragon Age as a series up until this point has been to illustrate the complex relationships people and societies have with power, choice, and morality. To remove that link - to place an external force between those characters and their choices - is to rob the series of any meaning whatsoever.
There is a staggering difference between the messaging of a game that tells you ordinary people are to blame for society’s wrongs and a game that tells you a secret shadowy faction of evil forces are to blame for them. The former invites thought about one’s own society; it has the potential to be uncomfortable and difficult to reconcile with. The latter assures its audience of the fantasy it is couched in. It gives the audience a boogeyman to be angry at, and in so doing deflects any potential for introspection. And that, I think, is the real point of the scene in question.
In a time where our media has become inundated with bland, unchallenging liberal politics, the idea of “cozy” stories have become a growing trend. These types of stories often sport a broad rejection of complicated themes, painful emotions, and nuance, preferring instead to provide a “safe” place to escape to. And with that “safe” space comes a directive not to engage in critical thinking about a work, and not to draw any message from that work and apply it to the real world. Yet this is exactly where Bioware seems to be heading nowadays.
Veilguard has already been faced with heavy criticism about playing things overly safe; removing anything that might be potentially uncomfortable for the player. And the end credits scene is no different. Don’t think about things too hard, it whispers to you seductively, in Matt Mercer’s soothingly Evil voice. See? The Bad Guys were behind everything, all along.
👉👈 so I"ve never done this before and I"m not 100% sure of the etiquette but I"ve (finally) been working on a fic inspired by the chiffon dress Zakkura art. Before I got too far into it I wanted to check with you and verify that it"s okay, but also to check in on how you would want to be credited if it"s alright with you that I post it at all.
(I almost sent this anon and then realized it might be. a bit odd to do that. it"s been a while! I hope you"re doing well!)
Hii! Oh absolutely no worries!
Sure! Go ahead and please, do let me know when you finish it, I’d love to read it. :)
If you’d like to credit me, I’d be happy! I go by Alas and the handle’s featherfangart here/bsky/ig/twt. Whichever you choose. <3
Firts of all, I’ve wanted to thank you all for the years of kindness and support you’ve shown me here!
I’ve been thinking about this for years and years, since 2018 to be precise, but I’ve been too afraid. I’d just started attending artists alleys and I wasn’t sure if I could afford losing my name even if I wasn’t really comfourtable with it at the time already.
I switched to using the nickname of Alas / Las last year.
And now - here I am.
Remember the Moon Moon boy? Yeah? I’m using him as my avatar sort of (fursona for the true believers) now.
You’ll find me around as FeatherFangArt here, on i/g and on b/sky now.
I’m holding the artofalassa handle here and artofalas over at butterfly lands, so you know it’s me, when you stumble there using the old nick.
Thank you so much for your patience and support!
PSA over.
(… before I drop another note where I declare my undying love to you for all the lovely comments and notes in the tags and stuff under my art <3)
Based on the questions I got elsewhere
Feel free to call me Las or Alas in normal conversations! Just please leave out the one more ’s’ I used to have in the name. :)
Firts of all, I’ve wanted to thank you all for the years of kindness and support you’ve shown me here!
I’ve been thinking about this for years and years, since 2018 to be precise, but I’ve been too afraid. I’d just started attending artists alleys and I wasn’t sure if I could afford losing my name even if I wasn’t really comfourtable with it at the time already.
I switched to using the nickname of Alas / Las last year.
And now - here I am.
Remember the Moon Moon boy? Yeah? I’m using him as my avatar sort of (fursona for the true believers) now.
You’ll find me around as FeatherFangArt here, on i/g and on b/sky now.
I’m holding the artofalassa handle here and artofalas over at butterfly lands, so you know it’s me, when you stumble there using the old nick.
Thank you so much for your patience and support!
PSA over.
(… before I drop another note where I declare my undying love to you for all the lovely comments and notes in the tags and stuff under my art <3)
