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wild-at-mind · 1 year

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I’ve always wondered about the whole razor blades behind facist or transphobic stickers thing, because articles about it happening are often frustratingly vague, and often without pictures which is odd as these days most people carry a device with a camera! Wouldn’t you want proof?

I found the below by an anti-facist writer about the issue: https://libcom.org/article/sticking-it-razorblades-and-anti-fascist-folklore-f-bear

The main conclusion the writer comes to is that it may have happened a few times for real, but it is also an urban legend that can be found referenced in the press as early as 1976. He notes that the razor blade articles tend to recommend not removing the sticker and reporting to the police instead, therefore leaving the message behind for the next person to see. (Tumblr and twitter posts tend to prefer a rather vague ‘be careful when removing!’) He points out that the razor blades would greatly increase the cost of the stickering, the time to apply the sticker, and the penalty for the stickerer if caught doing so. So yeah, I’m inclined to agree with all these points. I think sharing round the razor blade sticker one source articles from local papers, or tumblr posts, is subtly encouraging inaction and spreading fear in marginilised communities. There is no need for this. The writer says keep taking down stickers as your social duty- a 50p can help scratch off the stubborn ones, or a black marker to cover the message if it really won’t come off.

#razor blade stickers #interestingly he specifically mentions the white rose stickers #i saw a tonne but i never took them down because they were both terrible at conveying their message and impossible to quickly peel off #or slowly peel off!#they went in for very long screeds of unreadable text on small stickers #i would love to know if they successfully radicalised anyone into thw NWO conspiracy #they were mainly a lockdown reaction i think as there have been no new ones in ages #and hilariously the ones already there faded very quickly to become blank #though i did notice while getting my tattoo that there seemed to be a lot up in that particular parlour which... :(#most of it was anti mask anti lockdown covid is fake stuff but that is a gateway so i'm not saying they didn't get anyone #sadly they probably did :(#wish i'd carried a black marker...#also someone has been doing adult human female stickers round here but they are VERY easy to remove #to the point where i wonder if the person sticking them was half assing the 'message' or just cowardly

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lairofdragonagelore · 1 year

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The Raw Fade - Part 2

Main Quest: Here Lies the Abyss

The Raw Fade is a section of the Fade which its “raw” characteristic doesn’t seem to be related to physically enter it. In DAO, The Raw Fade was a section of the Fade that belonged to a demon of Sloth, and we entered it via dreams. In Inquisition, this section of the Fade is the domain of a Fear demon of phenomenal size and power called the Nightmare. The Inquisitor also discovers this is where the Nightmare sealed their memories of what occurred during the Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

This post contains the following sections

Bifurcated Path: The Tevinter Path

Bifurcated Path: The Beach Path

[This is part of the series “Playing DA like an archaeologist”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

The Tevinter Path

At the barrier where the path bifurcates, we can go upstairs and cross a corridor which has several Free Marches eagles. As we approach, we see more Keepers of Fear.

This is another of the most important points in the Fade, in my opinion. We see a set of Tevinter artefacts: four of them have this object I called “injector” [always placed in configurations that suggest it injects red lyrium or Fade essence into something] clipped with “Artefact of Temple of Dumat” which triggers the Codex The Temple of Dumat. The codex may imply that Dumat has been feeding fear to the Nightmare demon due to the terror that his silence inspired back in the days. What is a bit disorienting is the way it finishes: “inscription written below the demon statues”, when we trigger this codex in one of these artefacts. Unless these artefacts could be considered demon. If anything, these metallic artefacts look closer to dragon heads than demons.

In front of this system of artefacts there is another using one of the diapason-like objects [trail-marker since Jaws of Hakkon] that activates the quest Broken Window. The quest tells us this place is the heart of the Fade.The artefact, made of these hexagonal objects with a sun engraved on them, contains a puzzle that gives a worthless reward.

On the artefact we also find “scrying orbs”, which I assume have the function of letting mages see beyond [as the spell Scry in DnD does], which gives even more sense to the quest being called “window”. By the name of the quest and the configuration we see, it seems to imply that this is the reflection of a place where the Tevinter could, at least, peek into the Fade if not straight walk into it. With all the Free Marches eagles around this region, one is encouraged to keep thinking this is Kirkwall, where the Sidereal Magisters may have stepped into the Golden City. We know since the moment we enter this place that the Black City is quite close even though it’s not clear which of the many suspended isles in the sky it is.

To even reinforce more the idea that this place could be a reflection of Kirkwall and it could have been the place where the Magisters entered the Fade, we find more Kirkwall elements spread on the ground. Most of these books, blueprints, and diagrams belong to DA2, the unmistakable book of the story of the Champion is there too. The element that is a bit disconcerting is the dead Grey Warden, since at the time of the Breach into the Golden City, the Grey Warden Order did not exist, even though apparently, the griffons predate them, since they seem to appear as symbols in ancient Tevinter buildings and we still have the mysterious The Still Ruins, Main Chamber and Hall of Silence, which hall of silence may imply a place to worship Dumat, but its entrance if flanked by Grey Warden’s typical griffons [which contain the chalice of the Joining too].

This spot could also be a hint of the devs to tell us that historical facts may have been different to what the stories tell. The dead Grey Warden, as well as those books, and the book of the Champion, are all “stories” at the end of the day, that in most cases, have been demonised or romanticised to the point to lose their accuracy. As it is the tale of the Sidereal Magisters entering the Fade. Thanks to Corypheus, we know that the event was a bit different than what the Chantry tells us. So, stories and legends are things to be aware of and careful. And like Solas says, do not confuse them as History.

Here we also find a Fear of a dreamer, in this case, the child.

As we continue, the bifurcation of the paths resumes once more in one single path, in an area where we find more and more Keepers of the Fear, red lyrium, Claw of Dumat, and Eroded dragon skull

The Beach Path

If we take the path down towards the “sea”, Cole immediately adds something strange, similar to what he says about the dwarven spirits that awake as demons in the Fairel’s burials all over Hissing Wastes. The creatures that Cole is mentioning now still think they were higher. It’s not clear to me what Cole is referring to. We can’t see what he is observing to say this. The second part seems a bit more reasonable: he has used this speech before, using “it” for Titans. The second part of the sentence seems to mean that when a titan woke up, everything fell. Now, the “they” in the beginning of the sentence is a mystery, does it mean Tevinters or Elvhes? "Being higher” fits both groups, but we don’t truly know to what extent the Tevinters have ever been affected by Titan’s stirs.

When we examine the rocks where Cole said this, The Laws of Nature in the Fade triggers. It’s a codex that comes from an enchanter of the circle of Magi. It seems to be a codex given in this exact place for us to understand the previous path, where a bunch of items were shoved into the scene and it seemed hard for us to figure iout its meaning. This book says that “while the placement of items may seem random, those items usually operate as we would expect them to in the real world” which means that the objects we have just seen may be located in strange patterns, but their functions remain. The Broken Windows is still a windows to the Fade/Waking World [and thanks to the DLC Jaws of Hakkon, we can suspect it was a trail to carry energy to open up the “door of the Fade” or weaken the “wall” that separates it, aka Veil, as we use similar devices in the Frostback Basin to weaken a wall of ice, see Frostback Basin: Frozen Gate for details]. Then, the enchanter explains that this happens because the purpose in the objects remains in the Fade, pretty much working as spirits do: they get stronger in their function as long as they are fed into their own purpose. Even though this is said by an enchanter, it seems to carry Solas’ Fade logic and Avvar’s logic in it, so I give it some degree of certainty.

This part of the Fade has a sea. It’s not clear if this water is originally from the Fade or it is from the Waking World, when Crestwood had an open rift inside a lake. At the shores we see bodies that may suggest slave workers due to the presence of chain [remember that all this Fade has a strong resemblance to Kirkwall and it may reflect it in many aspects]. The boats clearly have details that may suggest Fereldan-making [mabari heads with swirls]

From this place we can see the “Tevinter path” up, specially the artefact that triggers Broken Window. A gigantic dragon gargoyle is merged with the rock of that place.

The combination of this artefact and the gargoyle is similar to the energy trail makers we see in Frostback Basin [DLC]. They inspire the idea of “artefacts to weaken Walls”.

Returning to the Beach Path, close to the centre of the Beach we find a codex that finally explains these statues: The Keepers of Fear. It seems to be an alamarri narrator, saying that the darkspawn and their Blight came from the North. They interpreted them as spirits that came to feed upon the screams of Fears, so they created these Keepers of Fear, erected wherever the darkspawn came. They think that these statues, that “hold the scream of the alamarri in its stone”, would feed the darkspawn with their screams and leave the place once they are satisfied. If with this the darkspawn did not leave, they would scream into the statue all their fears, burn it, and go to the battle. This applied to men, women, and even kids.

We see several variations of these statues all over the game [I’m trying to keep track of them in the vast tag called Keepers of Fear], but there is one we see in rare opportunities, like in Flemeth’s Fade or in Hinterlands: The Unknown Ruin [Mihris], which looks like the snout of a deepstalker, but it seems to be more clear the burning aspect of it than in the others.

Although the codex speaks of the Alamarri, I think it’s sure to assume these statues as part of the Avvar as well, since we saw them carving these versions in the Stone-Bear Hold [check Frostback Basin [DLC]: Stone-Bear Hold Avvars]

A nice detail I noticed when looking from above: the sand of the beach has a swirly pattern.

These swirl patterns are very present in old Avvar design [for example, all the buildings in DAO that were erected by Avvar or Alamarri display similar patterns, specially on their ceilings] as well as Elvhenan [present in statues such as Myhtal’s or Fen’Harel, or in the elvhen murals]. We also find it in alamarri monoliths, such as Monolith with swirls. I mean, there are a lot of [circular] swirls in different cultures. Even among dwarves, who make these swirls a bit more squarish.

Anyways, returning to the beach:

At a side of this place, we find a pair of urns which trigger Walking the Fade: A Harrowing, and it narrates a standard Harrowing. Due to the strong presence of cats, and the particular use of the verb pounce and the posterior description of the harrowing as evil and unjust, and because this is a journal without name found in Kinlock Hold cistern, I’m inclined to think this is a reflection of Anders’ fear when he was a child facing his Harrowing. Maybe the closest cameo in DAI about him.

In this beach we also find the last Fear of the dreamers: the scholar [check the post that contains the Fear of the Dreamers].

By the end of the beach, there is a small graveyard where we can find the fear of each of our companions in a gravestone.

To go out of this place and reach the point where the bifurcated paths join again, we have to walk upstairs along corridors flanked with Keepers of Fear.

#main quest #Playing DA like an archaeologist #fade #anders #Tevinter objects #tevinter design #tevinter artefacts #broken window #dragon gargoyle #mabari statues #red lyrium #claw of dumat #Eroded dragon skull #book of Champion #Free Marches eagles #scrying orb #Artefact of Temple of Dumat #trail-marker #Keepers of Fear

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