Dragon Age Wank

Dragon Age, as a wildly popular role-playing fantasy video game with progressive politics that first came out in 2009 — the same year that RaceFail happened — and whose rise coincided with that of Tumblr fandom, has unsurprisingly provided fandom with over a decade of intense and often completely batshit wank.

A major theme of the game that drives a lot of political and interpersonal tension is that uncontrolled mages can be extremely dangerous, but the Chantry, the dominant religious institution in that world (Thedas), persecutes and abuses mages. Thus, the two characters who seem to draw a disproportionate share of wank are:

• Fenris, an elven ex-slave who escapes his master Danarius and shelters for months with the Fog Warriors, freedom fighters whom he admires greatly. When Danarius finds him again, he commands Fenris to kill the Fog Warriors, and Fenris obeys.
• Anders, a human mage whose traumatic experiences under Chantry control have turned him into an activist for “mage rights” and for the oppressed in general. He eventually uses his magic to blow up Chantry headquarters. As fandom puts it, “Anders did magic 9/11.”

Meme has extensively discussed major namespace DA wankers like Elfyourmother and Dalishious. Others who have come up on meme include millenniumfae, orsino, and the late grandenchanterfiona. In addition, there was “wankofthedas” on Dreamwidth, another anonmeme whose mods deleted it several times and which still exists but as barely a shadow of its former self.

DA discussion on meme has likewise been anywhere from fraught to just plain awful. A few recent (Sep. 2021) meme examples as of this writing:

• "Who in your canon had the worst childhood?" The DA subthread exploded into Anders wank, with bonus ableism wank because DA writer Jennifer Hepler based Anders on an ex-BF with bipolar disorder whom she had to care for. The topic was especially sensitive because Hepler was harassed IRL by dudebros and incels who were angry that she wrote canon m/m.

• In the next post, the longest subthread of the generic DA thread started by discussing Anders' treatment of Merrill, another controversial DA character, and then segued into the (literally) explosive “mage rights” topic.

A huge driver of Fenris wank is a nonny known as Fog Warriors Anon, who shows up every now and again to hate on Fenris. Some examples of FWA's greatest hits. As engaging with them is pointless, nonnies derail with capybaras instead.

One pairing that also gets wanked hard is Iron Bull/Dorian. Dorian is canon gay, which upsets a lot of homophobic hetshippers. Unpleasant comments on meme have included the following:

• That, and, in the grand scheme of things sometimes I can't help but think his problems seem kind of…small-scale? I know that's unfair, but I feel like having to get married, produce an heir, and then just living with a lover on the side is not that bad when it comes to fates dealt to people in Thedas. Dorian describes it as having to live his life screaming on the inside but, honestly, I feel like he can come across as overdramatic. He really couldn't find a woman who would be happy to have a kid with him and then they could agree to have lovers on the side and just be friends?

The same anon did not seem to understand that Dorian's storyline being a metaphor for RL conversion therapy does not require everyone to accept the most OTT meta from DA wankers about elf oppression.

Another charming comment:

• I don't like Dorian's storyline much. It feels like issuefic, especially in a canon that previously didn't give a toss about characters being gay. Also he and Bull are gross, keep it to the bedroom or come up with a code.

That might have been the nonny

• who is mad they can't accuse Adoribull shippers of being homophobic, so they accuse them of being Solas- or Cullenmancers who think Dorian is their Gay Best Friend just using the (perfectly viable canon) ship as an “excuse” for not being into their own preferred PC romance that is literally designed to be 75% personalized headcanon. They've done this before, using the fact that the Bull/Dorian Ao3 tag is overrun by interloping hetfic as proof that actual Adoribull shippers (who hate that shit more than anybody and even created a whole Ao3 collection to filter it all out) don't actually exist. They get very mad when you point out there are a lot of interesting lore implications in their relationship because it fucks up their already bad faith assertion that no one sincerely ships it.

Then there are anons who just like to come along and stir the pot….

• I gave him back [to his master Danarius] because clearly Fenris is a wreck without him (like can barely take care of himself financially). I'm actually surprised it didn't turn out so horrifying, only memory wipe being his bodyguard slave again.