linney, she/they/he, adult (pls no minors), grad student so assume i'm suffering but having a good time
dragon age. origins, awakening, & da2 primarily. always asking hey where's zevran. what's he doing. early modern vibes and by vibes i do mean vibes. what if i apply a bunch of otherwise usually fun but not esp practical info into helping a faux-medieval/renaissance setting make a little more sense to me specifically. ask me abt my playlists if u enjoy the shawm. ask me abt shakespeare/early modern english theatre if u want a new friend.
i am shy but friendly. house-trained!
ao3 here
fic tag here
will eventually compile some info abt ocs but for now:
my main girl is cat cousland, a walking anxiety disorder who is having a bad time. an autism diagnosis would not save her but it would make her brother go ohhhhhhhh wow.
my hawke is an andersmancer but more importantly, bethany is there (: ask me abt fenbelathany.
if you're here bc of my leandra posts. idk welcome and i'm sorry ig.
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here are four complete f/f fics that i have read recently or relatively recently that i enjoyed:
lady runaway by @the-cryptographer
i must own up that i read this a whiiiiile ago but i still think abt it on the reg. i'm not rly a dai person but this captures sera so well. she gets to be so irrational and so loved regardless — and she gets to be in the right, too. one of the reasons this fic sticks w me is how it handles the weird nuances of culturally specific homophobia. the complications of family and obligation to your community. everybody feels so lived in. the tags say that this story doesn't treat sera as a problem to be fixed, and they're true! i fell in love w inquisitor lady, too (':
2. flotsam and jetsam by @softeasun
i am a SUCKER for bethany and isabela, so this was a rly easy sell for me. BUT! if you like hijinks and daring rescues that underscore two women who have their own complicated relationships to freedom realizing that they are in love w each other, this is for you. the artwork that accompanies it is rly sweet!! i love how angry bethany is. i love how off balance isabela ends up being bc she isn't expecting to care as much as she does (but of course she does). just a pairing that should get more love and this is over 40k words of it. INCREDIBLE!
3. doubt by @thewardenisonthecase
i forgot to leave kudos on this one!!! but i don't even want to call this toxic yuri bc it's been memed to the sun and back. this is genuinely fucked up. it's rly vulnerable writing relationships that are meant to be interpreted as unhealthy and then sharing them. i think my favorite part of this, relatedly, is how much meredith dehumanizes hawke. meredith calls hawke by her given name ONCE and the rest of the time it's just 'mage.' that's a rly cool detail that has stuck w me. it's compelling how the way these women do not trust each other still feels so intimate.
4. imagination calling mirrors for you by @rosella-writes
here's another one i forgot to leave kudos on, whoops. anyway this is the gold standard of morrigan's relationship to sex to me. i love that being w a woman doesn't fix it. i love morrigan so much, and i love fics that love morrigan so much, and this is one of them. it made me so sad. i don't mean to neglect mahariel, i v much enjoy how hard she's trying to connect, but the circumstances of the dark ritual for morrigan will always be painful no matter who her partner is — morrigan's instinctual disgust at having manipulated mahariel's body is like a stand up and cheer moment i'm so satisfied kind of deal.
so josephine's writer, sylvia feketekuty, said she didn't have a specific age in mind when writing josephine, but that she's somewhere in the 27-29 range in inquisition. i'm going to err on the side of 29, putting the year she was born at 9:12.
leliana was born after the fereldan rebellion ends in either 9:00 or 9:02 — the lore is inconsistent. in the interests of trying to make leliana and josephine plausible peers, i'm going w 9:02, meaning leliana cannot be older than 39 in inquisition.
origins takes place in 9:30/9:31 w presumably when zevran asks her how long she was in the cloister, she replies 'just over two years' and i'm choosing to believe she's not lying. this places leliana's song (and marjolaine's betrayal) in 9:27/28 bc i'm assuming the majority of the blight takes place in 9:30 (battle of denerim is in 9:31). so leliana's bard career is over by the time she's 26. this means that when she and josephine are bards together, the oldest josephine can be is 16 in 9:28.
personally, this is great, bc as a certified crow enjoyer, i'm in my wheelhouse re: incredibly fucked up and violent institutions exploiting children. she can tell the inquisitor that she fell into the bard life as a young noble, influenced by all the other young nobles jumping off a bridge.
need to caveat here that josephine says she first discovered she wanted to be a bard while in university. this, quite frankly, doesn't make any fucking sense unless she's an exceptionally gifted student — and ppl in their mid-to-late teens did attend university in the period of history that i am currently studying, so i'm saying josephine was one of those types. it makes it pleasantly plausible to me that if she's younger than her peers, she feels under more pressure to prove herself by keeping up w the rest of them, and becoming bards is apparently what disaffected antivan nobility do.
if you remark to josephine that there prob weren't a ton of firstborn heirs raring to be a bard, josephine will reply that she was 'a rather foolish exception.'
crucially, leliana says that she didn't become 'good friends' w leliana until After the blight in 9:31, when josephine is ambassador. at this ball, sometime after 9:31, leliana and josephine sneak out around midnight to have the sort of night that ends w 'someone's small-clothes [...] pinned to a chantry board.' josephine would have been 19 at that point, leliana, 29. this is 'v new ambassador' behavior to me.
it also makes sense that leliana would view josephine as more of a baby who needs someone to bully her suitors and take care of assassins for her if the last time she and josephine worked together, at least as coworkers, josephine was in her teens and leliana was in her early-to-mid 20s, and even when the relationship becomes what leliana describes as a true friendship, josephine wasn't even 20.
i could be wrong, but i don't get the impression that leliana was around for josephine murdering that guy and renouncing the bard life. correct me if i am indeed wrong! but if i'm not, that means josephine became an ambassador sometime between 9:27/28 and 9:31. this leaves her plenty of time to establish herself as an accomplished diplomat before inquisition.
the picture this paints to me is of leliana trying her hand at being what she conceptualizes as a 'marjolaine figure' for josephine — older, worldly, and yeah, sexy. she's prob not even taking that much especial interest in josephine even keeping this in mind, bc teenagers can be a tough hang when you're in your mid-20s and know everything.
and josephine is 15/16 playacting at being a dangerous person in a way that's prob romanticized in antiva bc of the crows. and she is behaving like a lot of kids who go off to college and lose it a little, ESP kids who come from high pressure family situations the way josephine does.
they interact w each other at the point in their lives where they are Just abt to be catastrophically disillusioned and then meet back up while they're kind of still processing the aftermath of that. and then over the next decade they sink into their respective roles of ambassador and left hand of the divine.
i just think. that it would be cool. if halliserre was treated like an incorrupt virgin martyr in that she died super young, her body showed no signs of what killed her, and she's the prophet's half-sister. and i think it would be even cooler if there were in-world art abt it like this.
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Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
#i agree with most of this but tbh i think leliana is just in such extreme headass denial about how she was abused by marjo#i think she may seriously be unable to clock morrigan's abuse by flemeth in any way that's not just like-#how can i best exploit this info bard style
this is a good point and while i disagree i don't think it's an unfounded or incorrect interpretation. for a brief moment i lived in a world where there were debates abt how much of leliana's perception of her own identity is abt how she operates as a professional bard or how she operates as an exploited bard, and it was a good world. sebastian parallels to me, tbh. what abt being subsumed into the chantry relatively late in life after a period of 'sin' makes you go 'i will not see the abuse in front of me unless it supports my worldview'?
sorry i got cold feet and was gonna make my own post about it but since we're in dialogue. not sure how much i agree or disagree here really at the end of the day, because at some point we're maybe just splitting hairs over definitions on perception, but i do think there is a lot of evidence in leliana's dialogue that she views marjolaine's betrayal of her as starting and ending with what is essentially a murderous break up where she got tossed over for harwen raleigh and not like- a betrayal that started when she was picked up as a teenager and sexually groomed into both a profession and a relationship consistently happening on this older woman's terms. and it is very vivid in my mind that leliana insists on the interpretation that they were exes who were once in love to the point where it was a plus for her and not a negative when my warden who was romancing her told her that she hoped one day leliana would love her as much as she loved marjo. and this is all very embarrassing for me to witness when it comes to her inability to process her own trauma is having backlash on a woman a decade younger than her, but the parallel i was making here wasn't particularly that she was so similar to zevran but rather to wynne.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wow i had forgotten you have that dialogue option as a warden. i agree that we're doing more agreeing than disagreeing as;dlfkjsd like this is kind of just how leliana ends up where she does by dai.
the wynne parallel being put into conversation w the way wynne doesn't slut-shame leliana when she has the 'you don't have time for romance' conversation w the warden is agonizing 2 me. in that post i created a dichotomy between a female warden who is able to be educated vs morrigan who is an irredeemably bad woman in wynne's eyes, but the secret third category strikes again. woman who actually is doing womanhood correctly, and if she's doing it correctly bc it's similar to wynne's womanhood except leliana has a 'redemption arc' and no motherhood baggage (from wynne's point of view), then that's like, total coincidence. for sure.
Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
#i agree with most of this but tbh i think leliana is just in such extreme headass denial about how she was abused by marjo#i think she may seriously be unable to clock morrigan's abuse by flemeth in any way that's not just like-#how can i best exploit this info bard style
this is a good point and while i disagree i don't think it's an unfounded or incorrect interpretation. for a brief moment i lived in a world where there were debates abt how much of leliana's perception of her own identity is abt how she operates as a professional bard or how she operates as an exploited bard, and it was a good world. sebastian parallels to me, tbh. what abt being subsumed into the chantry relatively late in life after a period of 'sin' makes you go 'i will not see the abuse in front of me unless it supports my worldview'?
the games do a lot wrong. however, naming a dlc 'witch hunt' w all the cultural baggage that comes w that term and then having your beloved mabari who are animals revered for their loyalty and instincts bound up to the witch who kneels down to greet him w the saddest smile ): that was the right choice ):
Dog: (Plaintive whine)
Morrigan: Another? I just gave you one, fool dog.
Dog: (More insistent whine)
Morrigan: Perhaps you should go and hunt something, then. For a warrior beast you are remarkably over dependent.
Dog: (Happy bark!)
Morrigan: Oh, very well. But tell no one.
this dialogue by one of the guards in howe's estate... ouuuu. 'a few nights in a castle full of corpses' so they left the bodies after the attack on castle cousland. and cousland hearing this while infiltrating the estate to rescue anora...........
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Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds.
Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this.
Leliana: You know the stories about--
Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth?
Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends.
Morrigan: Hmph. My mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age.
Leliana: I… uh… I see.
Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.
i don't even have to pull the two dialogues where leliana is proselytizing p aggressively to morrigan bc leliana, who is a former bard, who is not the sheltered woman she is pretending to be, who is in fact extremely good at reading the room and extrapolating clues bc it was her job, is smart enough to know that if she wants to be kind, she shouldn't push morrigan on her childhood after morrigan tells her this. leliana has in fact experienced sexual abuse — i do not buy, even a little bit, that she can't pick up on the fact that morrigan is doing everything but explicitly saying, 'i am traumatized by the sexual abuse i endured as a child.' does she have to use the word 'trauma' for that to be communicated?
leliana gets told all of this information, and then she pushes morrigan again in a manner extremely similar to alistair, who at least has the excuse of actually having spent his formative years in a monastery:
Leliana: Do you have any tales of the wilds?
Morrigan: None of the sort you like. No princesses in tall towers or knights throwing themselves at whole armies.
Leliana: That's not all I like!
Morrigan: Do you want tales of the Chasind Wilders who dwell in the marsh? Do you want to hear of the slow deaths they inflict on their enemies? Perhaps a tale of the poisonous creatures of the Wilds that lay their eggs on your skin so that their young may eat you alive when hatched? Or a tale of my mother's marsh cuisine? That, in my opinion, is the most terrifying of all my tales.
Leliana: Uh… no. I don't want to hear about those things…
Morrigan: Then I have no tales for you.
morrigan, again, does everything but say, 'i was abused as a child,' mainly bc i don't think she's capable of admitting that at this juncture. this gets p close.
i get that we all got a kick out of morrigan showing up in dai in a copy of the dress leliana describes here, but i am also cognizant of the fact that leliana is deploying a specific type of plausible deniability in the below dialogue:
Leliana: You are very beautiful Morrigan.
Morrigan: Tell me something I do not know.
Leliana: But you always dress in such rags. It suits you I suppose. A little tear here, a little rip there to show some skin. I understand.
Morrigan: You understand I lived in a forest, I hope?
Leliana: Maybe we could get you in a nice dress one day. Silk. No, maybe velvet. Velvet is heavier, better to guard against the cold in Ferelden. Dark red velvet, yes. With gold embroidery. It should be cut low in the front of course, we don't want to hide your features.
Morrigan: Stop looking at my breasts like that. 'Tis most disturbing!
Leliana: You don't think so? And if it's cut low in the front we must put your hair up to show off that lovely neck.
Morrigan: You are insane. I would sooner let Alistair dress me.
Leliana: It'll be fun, I promise! We'll get some shoes too! Ah, shoes! We could go shopping together!
i do think this is one area where she and zevran are similar. leliana, as a result of her work as a bard, does not have a v firm grasp of sexual boundaries. leliana has used her sexuality and her body as weapons and is thus a little bit cavalier abt using her sexuality to keep ppl at arm's length or assert dominance — the reason she does this less often is bc she has another model of sexuality, i.e. chantry norms, with which to navigate the world. the difference between leliana and zevran, which i think is gendered, is that zevran is sly but i wouldn't call him subtle lmao. leliana leers at morrigan so intensely that morrigan tells her to stop, and then leliana tries to play it off as dress up. she infantilizes herself in a way zevran doesn't, bc her infantilization is a version of 'sexy baby' that is just kind of expected of women.
leliana knows what morrigan has experienced, bc she has been trained in high stakes environments to gather and consolidate information. again: that was her job. leliana understands it, bc she's been placed in similar positions, albeit in a different way.
then they get into the weirdness that is romantic rivalry over the warden. this is if the warden is exclusively wooing leliana:
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: It is almost as though you wish he would feel your gaze upon him, and notice you.
Morrigan: And maybe he does notice you, but what does he see? A girl, skinny like a boy, with wild, ragged hair.
Leliana: What is your point, Morrigan? That I am not attractive?
Leliana: I do not need to make disparaging remarks about other women to make myself feel better. I know who I am.
Leliana: You say that I am the one who tries to be noticed, when it is you. He has ignored your advances, hasn't he?
Leliana: Perhaps it's time you stop projecting your own troubles on someone else.
i've been p harsh on leliana! i think this is a good example of the ways in which morrigan expresses misogyny towards other women: morrigan has been brought up, explicitly, to be a lure. she is w the wardens w the express intent, dictated by her mother, of getting pregnant. morrigan conceptualizes 'correct' womanhood as being attractive in a heteronormative way, so her deciding that the best way to take leliana down a peg is to mock her for being the mildest form of gnc 2009 could handle...............................a joan of arc bisexual bob that multiple ppl inexplicably call 'boyish'....................that is as far as i want to delve into whatever the fuck the writers were thinking bc i find this dynamic familiar, relatable, and interesting even as i am like 'yeah they Would write that, wouldn't they.'
anyway leliana saying that she doesn't have to put other women down to feel good abt herself? that she knows who she is? that she thinks it's high-time that morrigan stop projecting her troubles onto other ppl? that displays a staggering lack of self-awareness on her part, and i think it's interesting that what prompts it is ultimately her relationship w the warden — and the game typically assumes a warden romancing leliana will be a man.
it gets, somehow, even thornier when morrigan and leliana are romantic rivals:
(variation if romance with Morrigan is active)
Morrigan: The way you look at him so intently, so hungrily… one would think you have never seen a man before.
Leliana: Where I look is not your concern.
Morrigan: True enough. There is no way I can deny you this… but why would he choose you, when he could have me?
Leliana: You're confident, for a woman raised in a swamp, far from anything remotely resembling civilization.
Morrigan: And maybe that is my appeal? A woman like you, why, he could find in any city in Thedas. You think you are cultured? Worldly?
Morrigan: Powdered, perfumed, you ooze elegance, but what man wants a woman who lies limp beneath him, frozen in place by the thought that she might ruin her hair?
Leliana: So you're saying you're wild and uninhibited? I suppose he must like your shrieking, you sound like a genlock being murdered--a sweet, sweet sound to a Grey Warden.
Leliana: You should try a little harder next time he takes you. I don't think they heard you in the Anderfels.
Morrigan: Tsk, tsk, Leliana. Watch your jealousy, or you'll give yourself wrinkles.
Leliana: Get away from me, or I shall have to take drastic measures.
Morrigan: Resorting to violence. And here I thought you were civilized.
again, morrigan resorts to 'you're ugly and unwomanly.' she rly, rly gets under leliana's skin here, and it's tempting, as it is w alistair, to say that leliana is consistently a victim of morrigan's aggression and that she can't hold her own.
but leliana does indeed push back, and you can tell it bothers morrigan in return. leliana sneers over morrigan's uncultured upbringing. barefoot and pregnant in the swamp, right? i'm not an unattractive woman, you're an unattractive woman!
what happens if leliana 'wins'? does she affect a kind of benevolent pity? or does she somehow, get worse?
(If the Warden dumped Morrigan for Leliana)
Morrigan: So he has chosen you. You think this is a triumph? Look at him… look at him and know that you will never truly have him.
Leliana: Jealousy, Morrigan. Tsk, tsk… it is not becoming--
Morrigan: You mock me, but when he is in your arms, in your bed, telling you he loves you, know that there will be moments when he is thinking of me.
Leliana: Andraste forgive me, but you, Morrigan, are a bitch. A cruel, cruel bitch, and you will get your comeuppance.
Morrigan: Perhaps. But even so, you know in your heart that I am right.
again i am struck by the leliana/alistair parallels. does anyone else in dao explicitly call morrigan a bitch?
morrigan, up to this point, has been completely and utterly fooled by leliana's facade that she was a sweet city girl who slipped into a cloister to devote her life to the maker. like morrigan BOUGHT IT. she rly thought she was more sexually experienced than leliana and even if she was insecure abt leliana having been in 'the real world' of a major metropolitan area, she felt like she could go toe-to-toe w leliana. and morrigan is ultimately there to get pregnant, and leliana is a former bard w connections that go up all the way to the highest echelons of power in the orlesian chantry. justinia is going to be divine in 3 years. hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
(After starting Leliana's Past)
Morrigan: So I see you are quite the little deceiver, after all.
Leliana: Finally decided to gloat, have you?"
Morrigan: It simply suits my view of the Chantry that one of their devoted sisters should turn out to be so full of hypocrisy.
Leliana: There are good people in the Chantry. Many good people who are just there to help others.
Morrigan: And apparently at least a few who are simply pretending to be good.
Leliana: At least I was trying to be better than I was. At least I regretted the evil I'd done. Better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself. Anything but that.
Morrigan: It seems that at least you got the self-righteousness down pat. Well done.
and for some reason, leliana reacts to morrigan going WOW SO YOU'RE A LYING LIAR WHO LIES JUST LIKE EVERYBODY IN THE CHANTRY in a way that is shockingly reminiscent of how she reacts to morrigan needling her abt her romance w the warden. and i think that says fascinating things abt how leliana conceives of her identity and her agency. immediately shooting back at morrigan, 'at least i regretted the evil i'd done. better that than be someone who's never loved anyone or anything, least of all herself.' I'M not the deceitful bitch, YOU are, morrigan!!!!
even if the warden doesn't romance leliana, leliana is in an abusive relationship w the church, which is overwhelmingly female. leliana, like morrigan, has been groomed by older women, who has had her body and its capabilities exploited by an older woman, but both of them are so fixated on how the other woman is doing womanhood better than she is that they would rather rip each other to shreds than stop and go, Wait A Second.
like i do get that morrigan says and does some unbelievably cruel things. i'm not trying to argue that she doesn't. but alistair doesn't just get walloped over and over again. when he hits back, he hits back p hard, and he hits first p often, too!
Morrigan: You... do not truly think I look as my mother does, do you?
Alistair: Have you really been thinking about that all this time?
Morrigan: I am simply curious.
Alistair: And not insecure in the slightest, I'm sure.
Morrigan: I think I look nothing like her.
Alistair: I don't know. Give it a few hundred years and it'll be a spot-on match.
Morrigan: I said that I look nothing like her!
Alistair: All right. Got it. Totally different. I see that now.
like this is a weirdly sad exchange to me, and it's a turning point in their dialogues, bc alistair goes on the offensive after it. like he realizes How Much it bothers morrigan, and he presses that advantage — their dialogues start out w her initiating them p aggressively, but after this, it's him needling her.
Alistair: So tell me something, Morrigan. Did you live there in that forest your entire life?
Morrigan: I left it on occasion, but I always returned. Why? Is that so strange? It was my home.
Alistair: But it was just you and your mother there? No one else?
Morrigan: Mother occasionally had... company.
Alistair: What? Company? Do I even want to ask?
Morrigan: No. You really don't.
genuinely horrific. fine, he's nineteen, and he doesn't understand the full scope of what's being implied here, but he knows he's hit a nerve, and he tries to push.
Alistair: Why do you always go on about how stupid I am? I'm not stupid, am I?
Morrigan: If you need to ask the question...
Alistair: Because it hurts my manly feelings, you know. All one of them.
Morrigan: Then I'll be sure to write you an apology once all of this is over.
Alistair: I was educated by the Chantry. I studied history. They don't make stupid templars.
Morrigan: Then I must have been mistaken. I'm very impressed.
Alistair: No you're not. You're not even listening to me.
Morrigan: My, you are smarter than you look after all. Your Chantry must have been very proud.
and then he's like why don't you like me. why won't you tell me i'm smart. and all of her replies are just. like i have to do this w a lot of ppl in my life, where i repeat whatever it is they want me to say so they'll leave me alone, but usually by that point i've been worn down such that i can't mask my irritation. these ppl are usually men, for what it's worth. yeah i'll write you an apology, whatever. i was mistaken. i'm impressed. you're smart, you're sooooo smart, your chantry must be proud. LIKE. she just wants to be left ALONE. he could back off at any point and not interact w her at all, but he wants to get under her skin.
Alistair: All right. I've come up with one, a question that you can't answer.
Morrigan: Are you talking to me?
Alistair: That's right. You think you're so smart? I've got an academic question that I bet you won't be able to answer.
Morrigan: Oh, I doubt that.
Alistair: So tell me, then: what was the name of Andraste's husband?
Morrigan: This is a religious question, not an academic one.
Alistair: You're joking, right? A five year-old could answer that question. Do you not know more than a child?
Morrigan: I care nothing for your religion. And this game of yours is over.
Alistair: Oh, how the mighty have crumbled.
and then he belittles her for not knowing smth he knows in a p bald attempt to make himself feel smart by making her feel stupid. he also just straight up calls her a bitch! he was written to be a more drawn out version of xander from buffy and it shows! he doesn't hold the default 'good' position all the time, he's not a barometer for moral righteousness. like all the other companions, he has moments where his values rly shine and moments when you're supposed to go ugh. ew.
on the one hand i simply should not let bi vs lesbian internet discourse get under my skin as if it is a decade ago. on the other, the idea of posting a work that gets into smth incredibly vulnerable and misogyny-related in a way that isn't me turning to the camera and saying I Think This Is Bad, Btw just got. much harder.
i really think people need to stop acting like attraction does or should have any influence on predisposing someone towards misogyny. like it's obvious nonsense, straight and gay men can be just as misogynistic as each other and are equally as capable of reducing women to sexual objects. and lending any credence to this idea indirectly implies that women are more worthy of your concern if you want to fuck them. like where am i. what's going on. let's start with viewing women as people
within the context of fandom and fan content there's always an overwhelming inclination to focus on (normative) romantic relationships as the most popular or Only subject that anyone cares about discussing or creating content for. but this being the only angle anyone wants to use while talking about fandom's treatment of women adds another really darksided layer lol.
Sigrun had the least text responses (though she was rated positively by 85.2% of respondents and negatively by virtually nobody), with all the Awakening companions getting between 80-100. The non-DLC character with the fewest responses was Inquisition Leliana
Josephine inspired relatively few and relatively short responses, but 94.7% of respondents rated her positively
reblogging this mainly bc i have seen the kind of commentary that would have sent me into an utter spiral a decade ago and now just fucking annoys me. to a certain extent, i don't care what and how ppl ship, in that i simply cannot put any energy towards smth that is going to drain my ability to be a charitable, patient person. i am not denying that there is a significant problem w the dearth of f/f fics as well as just fics that are focused on the interiority of female characters more generally. i agree. i do not like it.
however. the thing that genuinely bothers me the most. is how much fucking space is given to how ppl SHOULD be interacting w female characters, and how ppl NEED to be interacting w female characters, and complaints abt how NO ONE is INTERACTING w FEMALE CHARACTERS...........................to the exclusion of actually talking abt female characters.
i have gotten tags on posts that said 'x female character is popular in fandom and this is the first meta i've seen abt her.' and i hold two contradictory positions, the first of which being idk i've seen meta! i'm building off of other ppl! but that is a product of having scooched myself into a v specific corner of fandom bc of the above paragraph.
the second position i hold is yeah, i bet. bc what this always, always turns into is a proliferation of posts that wrestle w this issue in ways that i think are unproductive at best and actively nasty at worst, and yet i don't see any increase in engagement wrt f/f or female characters more generally. all i see are posts abt how awful it is that it's not happening.
this is the core of my discomfort. i am tired of all the female characters i care abt (and i'll go thru and tag my meta so there's proof that i am in fact thinking abt female characters on the reg!) being reduced to bullet points in an argument. can we ever talk abt women without veering into what they deserve? i'm tired!!!!!!
and i get that other ppl are tired, too! i get that it's exhausting and isolating and frustrating and lonely and demoralizing. but while it is frankly cruel and condescending to tell ppl that if they want more f/f fic they need to be writing it themselves as if a systemic issue can be solved w some elbow grease, i do, quite frankly, hold that position wrt meta engaging w female characters.
if most of what you post abt female characters is not actually abt female characters but how and why ppl never engage w female characters, i am asking you to make a commitment to yourself to keep advocating for those characters! but for every idk two posts you make abt misogyny in fandom that uses female characters as examples, pls write one post abt why you like them, abt a choice they made that grips you, abt how they treat other women, abt how they relate to their own womanhood, abt their place in the story, abt their childhood. take your pick. and then tag me in them and i will so, so happily engage and reblog and add commentary, bc at the end of the day, that is what i want.
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i did a v brave thing today! i let myself be scared abt it, but i didn't let it stop me from doing it! i'm going to go get sushi and a fun drink, and then tonight i'm going to have the brainpower to actually answer the meme asks
