the way some ppl talk about lewy has driven me nuts....watching everyone scrutinize his every move and not allow him to adjust 2 ferrari. even BEFORE he went to ferrari ppl were saying stupid shit like "why would they want to replace carlos with some guy who has barely won anything in the past couple of years". it's got me going crazy mode how much everyone forgets how many amazing drives lewis has had RECENTLY. every time i see a stupid post where ppl think his legacy is ruined this flashes before my eyes
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da2's arishok is a good villain. if you have a fundamental understanding of the qun and listen to his thought process, the things he does makes sense. he uses the qun to justify slaughtering kirkwall's people, which is utterly inexcusable and what makes him a villain, but his character is complex enough to make dealing with him that much more thought provoking. he sends agents to kill petrice because she was killing his people, he doesn't give up the elves because they committed their lives to the qun, no matter how recently they converted, and he refuses to leave without the tome (and isabela) because his idea of justice hasn't been done. his logic makes sense, generally, though it is wrong on more than one occasion. he isn't moral, but he is methodical.
i feel this way about solas, too. i like da2's arishok for the same reasons that initially draw people to solas, i think. when we meet them, i find them interesting and educational to talk to, someone worthy of respect, and someone very honorable in their own way. similarly, many of my issues with solas compare with flaws in the qun/the arishok.
solas asserts that all of his beliefs are correct, and we're never allowed to challenge him on any of it. if he has high enough approval, he'll approach you to go, "yknow, i thought you were all [insert prejudice or stereotype] but YOU showed me that some of you guys are actually okay," which is NOT what it looks like for someone's beliefs to be challenged.
brief aside, i want to be fair in that we don't get this opportunity with many of the companions, and it's not even an inquisition specific issue. the dialogue format is agree, joke, be mean, and it's flawed, but it works in the majority of interactions. we don't really get to engage in nuanced discussions with characters, but there are positives and negatives to the system overall. it is possible to challenge and shape a character within this dialogue system (i.e., garrus vakarian) but in dragon age that really only comes in the form of harden/unharden. it was a little more doable with origins' system, but it really hasn't been a huge part of any dragon age game. most characters' beliefs remain largely unchanged by you regardless of how you play.
solas also possesses a strong sense of duty and purpose, though what duty he has, what his true goals are, he keeps hidden as long as he can. the most damning comparison though, to me, is how willing he is to destroy the world and bring back "his people," while the qunari fight to conquer the world and homogenize society into "their people."
in any case, with both him and the arishok, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. you can see why they do what they do, even if it's wholly immoral. it makes their threat a lot more personal, a lot scarier, psychologically, that a "normal" person, who doesn't want to cause suffering, can hold such specific beliefs and such strong conviction that knowing that they'll hurt people doesn't give them any pause. the root of their motivation is understandable. solas wants to right his wrongs, at his core. the arishok implicitly believes that the qun is safer, better for its people than life outside the qun. we can see that they're taking it too far, but they don't care. it makes them good villains.
"i am not corypheus, i take no joy in this." sure, which is a very similar sentiment, emotionally, to the qunari sense of duty. you can say you don't enjoy it all you want, you're still committing genocide. you can hate the qunari all you want, but you fight with their ferocity, their unshakeable faith in their own cause. their need to "do what's right," no matter who's caught in the wake.
i understand why people like solas, i go back and forth on it myself, but i don't think he's all that different from the arishok in method and motivation. they're each thrust into a world so different from what they believe is "right" that they demand it change around them. if we had to kill the old arishok, then if solas refuses to give up, he will have to die. he doesn't get to do genocide just because he's romanceable. he's a good character, he's a good villain, but he's not a good guy, and unless he stops before he does any real harm (which he will not do), he should share the arishok's fate.
i wouldnt be surprised if the divisiveness between folks who think taash is good nb rep and folks who think theyre bad nb rep is heavily influenced by age
taash was written by someone over the age of 30. i am also a person over the age of 30. a lot of progress has been made in the last decade wrt understanding and the acceptance of queer identities--when i was younger and figuring myself out, the process looked almost exactly how trick wrote taash, because it was a different time, and that journey therefore looked different.
i'm so happy for people who don't have to struggle with it in the ways i did, and the ways taash does. but i'm also so incredibly grateful that my experience was represented.
dark academia is not cigarette trousers and button ups. dark academia is not exclusivley reading homer and virgil. dark academia is a passion for knowledge and learning. so please, dont feel like you arent DA just because you wear jeans embroidered with flowers or pink blouses. DA should be a state of mind before it is an aesthetic. yes, the aesthetics of it are nice but unnecessary. so please dont feel excluded or exclude others just because they dont fit the picture of dark academia that you have in your mind.
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I see hundreds of people complaining about Dark Academia being too white, too westernised, which I find true.
I see thousands of people reblogging those posts, which is great.
Then you go looking for that content, and there are maybe a dozen accounts actually posting something poc/Eastern culture related within the Dark Academia aesthetic.
And that's the real problem in my opinion.
Most white people support the concept, but keep on posting the same stuff as always. Maybe they're not as concerned as they pretend to be; maybe they have no idea what to post, because they're not educated enough on the matter; maybe they don't feel entitled to post something belonging to another culture; maybe they aren't.
On the other hand, poc don't seem to be posting about their cultures as much as one would expect after all those "encouraging" posts. Is this just because they're a minority and those posts are harder to find? Is this because blending in with the more popular westernised posts gets more notes? Is this because, despite those supporting posts, Dark Academia is still too elitist for them to feel comfortable posting something related to their culture?
I'd love to read about your opinions, because these questions have been on my mind for a while and I feel like this needed to be said.
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P.S.: English is not my first language and I'm as white as a freshly printed book page, so if I made any grammatical mistakes or I disrespected anyone in anyway please let me (politely) know :)
