so like. i know there's some theories about fen'harel being shartan, but i'm reading through some codex entries from inquisition and origins and shartan and andraste got really close during the war, and so did andraste and the maker, but what if the 'maker' was just shartan, who also happened to be solas aka fen'harel and would that mean that the 'maker' is just solas
the andrastian faith was created by her, and it was the second chance for the maker to return his gaze to humanity (the first time the gods went silent was when the fade was created - the first time the maker turned away from mankind)
and maybe what andraste was trying to get him to do to help mankind was bring the veil back down, to return the magic and gods back into the world, back with mankind.
shartan is often described as just an ideal and not a singular person, a kind of moniker. and if the maker was speaking to andraste through her dreams (assuming), couldn't it have been solas, who's been exploring the fade and witnessing real events through dreams, who was speaking to andraste as the maker?
and because not a single person would take an elf as their god, andraste created shartan, and described him how she saw the maker (solas)
21 notes
·
View notes
I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.
What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.
What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.
What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.
The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.
And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.
But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.
I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.
26K notes
·
View notes
Yes, Greece still exists, we didn't all die 2000 years ago. Yes, people speak Greek. You people are so fucking stupid for real. So many of you claim to love ancient shit but can't even acknowledge the actual living culture of the people whose mythology and classics you romanticize. You keep leaving annoying comments about how you just forget Greek people still exist, thinking you're being quirky because you love ancient stuff soooo much that you forgot about the people it came from. You think about it so little you don't even realize that an actual Greek person has to read this shit, making it clear how little you actually care about the culture beyond the romanticized (and westernized) mythology. Don't claim you love Greece, don't use our mythology anymore if you can't acknowledge that we're still around without making it about how little you think about us. It's mind boggling that you'd think a Greek person would read this and think you're anything but obnoxious. Explode.
31K notes
·
View notes
Apparently, my decision to be silly and make fanart of someone's writing (because I genuinely enjoy the story the person is writing and I was struck with inspiration upon reading a particular scene) has benevolent and wildly unforeseen consequences.
I apparently gained a bit of control of the canon because said writer really loved the art and decided what I drew/draw is canon.
2. Writer put said artwork into the document of his story right below the scene, so now it's IN the story where people who read the story will see it (with a link to me)
3. He sent the artwork to all his friends and people he knows because he was so excited
Wholesome interaction and I watched him do all that in real time, good stuff. However...there are two more consequences I was notified of today...nearly a full week after I gave the artwork.
Seeing the artwork caused his friends to become interested in reading and hearing about his story, which means more people are reading what he's writing and giving him critique on the story (which he actively asks for).
Apparently, upon seeing the art, his writer friends got a sudden second wind to pick back up writing they'd abandoned for a few months. Because, I quote, "seeing that someone enjoyed {his} writing enough to take the time to make art of it gave them the motivation that maybe THEY can write something that will inspire someone to also create something." I have accidentally caused a writing frenzy among his writer friends and my silly idea to make art for someone has had a butterfly effect for people who I don't even know.
Uhh...I'm pretty sure there's a moral here but I am tired and have a great deal of emotions about this.
30K notes
·
View notes
Little things adults and older people can do to help younger people and children feel included, safe, and respected as an equal individual:
Ask before touching the young person - even for hugs. Ask before you take pictures of them, and let them see photographs of them before they are printed or sent to others (even family).
Apologize when you are wrong
Ask for a young persons thoughts on a subject, then engage with them after they have spoken
Demonstrate behaviour you want to see from them (see: apologizing). Say "excuse me," say "thank you," say "please" to them
Validate their feelings, even if they don't know how to express them just yet
Remember that this is the first time they've been alive, and that you've had way longer to "figure it out"
These are some things I wish other adults remembered when engaging with young folks. We so often forget what childhood felt like and how unfair it all was because we were often awarded freedoms as adults that we never had as children. These kids are equal to adults, and they deserve the same courtesy, respect, kindness, and understanding we give to other adults.
6K notes
·
View notes