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driftfleet2015-06-10 06:17 pm
birdsbirdsbirds) wrote in driftfleet2015-06-10 06:17 pm
(no subject)
Who: Robin
Broadcast: Video!
Action: None!
When: Now!
---
[hey, it's Robin. he's lounging around in his captain's chair, feet up on the control panel. he's twirling something around in his fingers--it looks kind of like a glow stick? it's a glass cylinder filled with some sort of glowing, red liquid.]
Back in those casino stations, I won one of these.
[he stops twirling the cylinder. when he holds it up closer to the camera, you can see that it's capped with silver on one end. the insides seem to be bubbling a little, as if the liquid is carbonated.]
This is a Luxilizer... though most people below the surface just called them Dummy Sticks, as in, you were an idiot if you walked around the lower levels without them. They're filled with a liquid extracted from a luminescent fungus that grows in the caves of my hometown.
[he twirls it again. Robin himself doesn't seem particularly delighted about the thing, he's just casually explaining, perhaps out of boredom.]
They were originally designed as a backup light source, in case a person got lost in the tunnels. It also makes it easier for others to see them. It can get pretty dangerous down there, in the dark...
[after a pause, he grips the glowing tube and smiles at the camera.]
It's funny to me. No one where I'm from would give these a second thought, but I've learned that underground cities are not a familiar concept in most worlds.
---
[PRIVATE TO JASON | TOTALLY HACKABLE, HE AIN'T NO COMMS OFFICER]
Hey, remember me? [waving from his side of the video feed.] Mr. Mean Everything?
Broadcast: Video!
Action: None!
When: Now!
---
[hey, it's Robin. he's lounging around in his captain's chair, feet up on the control panel. he's twirling something around in his fingers--it looks kind of like a glow stick? it's a glass cylinder filled with some sort of glowing, red liquid.]
Back in those casino stations, I won one of these.
[he stops twirling the cylinder. when he holds it up closer to the camera, you can see that it's capped with silver on one end. the insides seem to be bubbling a little, as if the liquid is carbonated.]
This is a Luxilizer... though most people below the surface just called them Dummy Sticks, as in, you were an idiot if you walked around the lower levels without them. They're filled with a liquid extracted from a luminescent fungus that grows in the caves of my hometown.
[he twirls it again. Robin himself doesn't seem particularly delighted about the thing, he's just casually explaining, perhaps out of boredom.]
They were originally designed as a backup light source, in case a person got lost in the tunnels. It also makes it easier for others to see them. It can get pretty dangerous down there, in the dark...
[after a pause, he grips the glowing tube and smiles at the camera.]
It's funny to me. No one where I'm from would give these a second thought, but I've learned that underground cities are not a familiar concept in most worlds.
---
[PRIVATE TO JASON | TOTALLY HACKABLE, HE AIN'T NO COMMS OFFICER]
Hey, remember me? [waving from his side of the video feed.] Mr. Mean Everything?
2/2 | private transmission
Yes, so. [right back into the topic, like nothing happened.] I can accept the fault for a blunt, sweeping generalization, but yes. I would like to have this explained to me.
private transmission
[ Hawke holds up a forefinger, eyes to the ceiling, because he will do this theatrically or not at all. ]
Once upon a time, about a thousand years ago - [ this could be hyperbole or it could be literal, it doesn't matter ] - there was born to some barbaric tribe or other a woman named Andraste. There was also, at the time - and still with us today! - a nation called the Tevinter Imperium, which is important mainly for its ~tyranny of magic~.
[ The tildes are audible. He pauses himself, in a continuing vein of all the drama possible. ]
Well. Magic and having cornered the market on the slave trade. Converges nicely when Tevinter's main practice is called blood magic, and that's exactly what it sounds like. Naturally if you don't want to use your own blood it's awfully convenient to have all those warm bodies at hand. So! Andraste was a slave, and due to ...a lot of religious goobledegook we won't get into, decided one day enough was enough, and gathered herself an army. Composed in significant part by elves, what with a lot of them being slaves and all. With me so far?
[ None of this is colored by personal perception or opinions about the Andrastean Chantry at all, by the way. ]
private transmission
it's easy enough to understand with all the context he got from Nor, and other places. the mention of "blood magic" puts that little spark of recognition on his face, but he'll stay quiet until the story is over. he just hums and nods his head to show that he is, in fact, getting everything.]
private transmission
[ Not that he's enjoying the chance to recount Chantry history by leaving the Chantry out of it entirely. At all. ]
At the time, Tevinter was not having what you'd call the best run in its history. There had just been a Blight, you see [ which he doesn't elaborate on seeing as he's noted Robin apparently already has some idea about darkspawn ]. Everything was all ...dead and black and icky. Still not exactly easy to conquer, but doable. You didn't ask for the history of the religion centered without so much as a by-her-leave around Andraste, so we're skipping the whole bit with the burning at the stake and the Maker turning his back once again on a terribly sinful world, etcetera etcetera. The point is that elves were already pretty--what's the word you used? marginalized? already, what with Tevinter conquering their homeland years before and everything.
[ The political context of 'marginalized' is obvious; he can work that out even if he might apply it to mages first. Internal bias and whatnot. ]
So in return for assisting with her little global rebellion and everything, Andraste promised the elves land where they could presumably go about their elfy, elfy ways without being bothered by pesky humans. Naturally, the pesky humans hated this, and after many years of nice, quiet anxiety, someone or other declared the Maker really wanted them to have that land back - these were Orlesians; I can only imagine they intended to use it to grow a lot of cheese or something - and so marched willy-nilly all over the Dales, killing a lot of elves in the process. Not that they didn't fight back, mind you! You can't swing your arms in Thedas without hitting a place someone's killed someone else over their ideals or something.
Which brings us more or less to today, wherein if you're an elf you have two options. One, you live in an alienage. Delightful places, alienages. Full of all the rights, privileges and amenities you'd expect any living person deserves--wait. No, that's wrong. Generally they're poverty-stricken messes.
[ Yeah, this would be the part Sera was a little bit miffed about, re: humans talking about the problems of elves like they have any real idea. The best that can be said for Hawke here is that he's aware of this. ]
Secondly they can live in the woods shooting anything that moves. And being very elfy. I could've just said they've lost everything repeatedly, I suppose, but then we wouldn't have had all that colorful Thedosian history. I can only imagine you're extra glad you asked, now.
private transmission
Hm.
[that's... that's it, that's his thought. or, it is at least the only thing he chooses to verbalize at the moment.]
private transmission
I'd say we can conclude the history lesson there.
[ A glorious spasm of dry. ]
private transmission
[half-attentive. thinking carefully, for a moment.]
I still think that my question stands, even if only towards a higher power... But I fully understand why she'd be mad at a clueless human making such a broad statement.
[and of course he does nothing to correct the bit where everyone thinks he's human--no matter how much he thinks that being the King of Pain gives him a little more authority to speak on such subjects than anyone with a two-digit lifespan. he lifts a finger to gesture, swinging backwards to an earlier point.]
So, blood magic. Let's go back to that.
no subject
[ Droll. Meanwhile, his eyebrows lift a little. ]
What about it?
no subject
Is "everything" an acceptable answer? I've been accused of it once, without fully knowing what it is I'm being accused of.
no subject
The very short answer is that it's magic powered by blood, but you probably want something more than that.
[ He's just assuming the accusation came from a Thedosian, considering he hasn't heard anything similar from any of the other mages here, so: ]
On its own it's ...magic. Just like any other magic. The problem tends to be what people do with it. Summoning demons, mind control. That sort of icky thing.
no subject
no subject
[ He starts attempting to answer the second question, then changes his mind mid-thought. ]
You know, I feel like this conversation's much better had unable to see straight. Drink?
no subject
Whether or not I agree... Who would I be to turn down drinks with a charismatic man such as yourself? [haha, oh, he's so funny...] Absolutely. Name the place.