on solavellans against dreadrook
i'm a yapper i fear, so i'll try to organise this with extra information in a sort of footnote system and shit. also, please keep in mind that i'm writing this as a person who is a solavellan first and a dreadrook second. i love solavellan and my lavellan is my favourite oc of all time. not that it matters, but since some of you love pushing the ship war idea, i thought i'd mention it.
there's this one post [1] that's currently going around on tumblr that seems to have been written without malice by the op, but the reblogs have been hijacked by batshit solavellans who, for some reason, feel personally targeted by the dreadrook ship even existing in the first place.
i'd also like to point out that none of these people seem to understand what a crack ship actually is, so let's start there:
Aย crack shipย is aย shipย that is highly ridiculous, bizarre, disturbing, and/or unlikely to ever becomeย canon. The characters don't have any chemistry, never interact, are in different canons or timelines, are different species, one is anย inanimate object, etc. via fanlore.org
you might not find the ship appealing, and your headcanon of solas might not give rook the time of day, but these are factors entirely conditional to you and your imagination. calling it a "crack ship" just because you don't like it and can't see it happening in your own hc is flat out bad fandom etiquette.
especially since, when you strip dreadrook to the bone, the ship comes down to this:
protagonist with antagonist [2] stuck in their head (have none of you played cyberpunk??? silverv??? come on!!!)
enemies to reluctant allies to lovers (whether this is hero falls in love and is convinced by villain [2] to join their cause or vice versa)
some will graham/hannibal lecter type of love
literally just basic, classic enemies to lovers
why are some of you acting like this is the craziest most outrageous thing you've ever heard of? like its very existence is offensive to you? like your lavellan is being dragged to the cuck chair against her will? i think it should be obvious to pretty much anyone that dreadrook is not a crackship.
and yet, posts like the one i'm referencing at the beginning cross my dash all the time, saying all kinds of weird bullshit like dreadrooks having "an amusing illness", "delusions", some kind of agenda, or "a need" to do this or that when all it is is just. shipping two fictional characters. two fictional characters whom a developer admitted to having chemistry [3]. i don't know how to say this without sounding patronising, but you need to calm the fuck down.
this obsessive aversion to dreadrook is so odd to me, because i cannot to save my life figure out where it's coming from. is it feeling possessive of solas? is it the same homophobia that fuelled the m!lavellan x solas insanity? is it misdirected anger at the game bc it didn't turn out the way you'd hoped? because you're angry with people who dare to enjoy something you hate and feel let down by? because you're bald and you're torturing people who have hair?
i genuinely don't know, because it doesn't make any sense to me. why do other people have to respect your feelings about your headcanon? why is your loudest response to someone having a different opinion than you to assume that you're being attacked? why do you insist that you and your perfectly popular ship is being attacked?
in case you weren't aware; there are plenty of dreadrook shippers whose inquisitors had nothing to do with solas at all, and who don't have solavellan as a part of their hc. this is going to sound harsh, but again, i don't know how else to say it: dragon age is so much more than just solavellan, and the fandom doesn't revolve around you. it doesn't revolve around praising you, and it doesn't revolve around tearing you down. people shipping the pixel man with someone you wouldn't ship him with should not warrant this weird and obsessive anger from you.
i am incredibly tired of this narrative, especially because this reputation of people shipping dreadrook either out of spite or because they hate solavellan is so untrue. i am especially tired of it because i suspect this reputation is based off of the actions of one (1) insane and weird person months ago who, by the way, has been thoroughly disowned by the dreadrook community [4]. me and my beloved oomfs did not fight that person tooth and nail about their misogyny and entitlement and hatred and weird self-proclaimed "essays" just to be continuously smeared by their shit. i cannot explain to you how frustrating it is.
i'm not making this post because i want to stir up some kind of fight. i'm also aware that the solavellans who do participate in this behaviour and in these conversations are nothing but a loud minority, and i'm also aware that i should not let it bother me at all. i'm just so sick of seeing it because i've never seen anything like it anywhere else (except for the fucking one direction fandom about larry stylinson, which.... is not a good look for y'all), and i don't see any other so-called "crack ship" [5] be treated with the same venom as dreadrook. it's weird and i wish you would spend your time in this fandom looking for and creating joy and fun instead of this.
