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dark elf mafia 2
Jan. 25th, 2026 09:15 pmokay so at the moment this is in my docs as "chapter 2: aelrak" but it's either not complete or going to be formatted differently. but for now, this is the next part chronologically.
GENERAL PURPOSE WARNING BC I'M NOT GOING TO BREAK THIS ONE DOWN BY CHAPTERS: rape, slavery, sexual slavery, breeding, incest, torture, POV characters participating in or at least complicit in all of the above. Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. Starts out mild, gets a lot worse before it gets better.
This bit does have smut in it, fyi.
---
There were some small items that would make life easier around the manor that didn't cost so much that Veredi felt like it was fair to keep them back from Aelrak and Fara. A proper accounts ledger, a bound journal, an apron, some gloves for gardening. Soaps, seasoning, an extra set of clothes for each of them. The clothes were honestly the worst part, but they were a necessary expense if Veredi didn't want smelly servants or laundry dictating the schedule too much. He only bought himself nicer clothes than he bought Aelrak and Fara because he was able to get some second-hand.
After three days, Veredi had Aelrak join him for a hunting trip outside the city walls.
"I don't know anything about fighting, you saw that," Aelrak protested when Veredi told him to find a sturdy stick from the garden to take.
"You don't need to," Veredi said. "I'm not planning to fight fair, here. We find some mark, surround them, and beat 'em until they drop their weapon. You don't have to finesse anything, just don't bash their brains out or break anything a common healing elixir can't fix."
( Read more... )
GENERAL PURPOSE WARNING BC I'M NOT GOING TO BREAK THIS ONE DOWN BY CHAPTERS: rape, slavery, sexual slavery, breeding, incest, torture, POV characters participating in or at least complicit in all of the above. Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. Starts out mild, gets a lot worse before it gets better.
This bit does have smut in it, fyi.
---
There were some small items that would make life easier around the manor that didn't cost so much that Veredi felt like it was fair to keep them back from Aelrak and Fara. A proper accounts ledger, a bound journal, an apron, some gloves for gardening. Soaps, seasoning, an extra set of clothes for each of them. The clothes were honestly the worst part, but they were a necessary expense if Veredi didn't want smelly servants or laundry dictating the schedule too much. He only bought himself nicer clothes than he bought Aelrak and Fara because he was able to get some second-hand.
After three days, Veredi had Aelrak join him for a hunting trip outside the city walls.
"I don't know anything about fighting, you saw that," Aelrak protested when Veredi told him to find a sturdy stick from the garden to take.
"You don't need to," Veredi said. "I'm not planning to fight fair, here. We find some mark, surround them, and beat 'em until they drop their weapon. You don't have to finesse anything, just don't bash their brains out or break anything a common healing elixir can't fix."
( Read more... )
dark elf mafia 1
Nov. 15th, 2025 07:28 pmputting my ~problematic porn~ up on dw as well as tumblr bc it's less likely to get taken down, "lmao"
maybe this will get a real title at some point. i've got like 90k or something stupid like that, it should really have a title. but titles are hard.
GENERAL PURPOSE WARNING BC I'M NOT GOING TO BREAK THIS ONE DOWN BY CHAPTERS: rape, slavery, sexual slavery, breeding, incest, torture, POV characters participating in or at least complicit in all of the above. Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. Starts out mild, gets a lot worse before it gets better.
WITH THAT SAID
Veredi did steal the deed to the manor. Of course he did, he was an orphaned dark elf eking out a living as a bandit in the outskirts of the Fae Woods. He had no family from which to inherit a manor. But he did have a facility with languages, and the sense to go through the messenger's bags for interesting paperwork before getting rid of the evidence.
The solicitor wasn't even sure which family member was going to be taking possession of the manor! All they seemed to know was that the manor's prior owner had family living in the city of Inysa-Vehona, which would imply they were elven.
Veredi was elven.
( Read more... )
maybe this will get a real title at some point. i've got like 90k or something stupid like that, it should really have a title. but titles are hard.
GENERAL PURPOSE WARNING BC I'M NOT GOING TO BREAK THIS ONE DOWN BY CHAPTERS: rape, slavery, sexual slavery, breeding, incest, torture, POV characters participating in or at least complicit in all of the above. Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. Starts out mild, gets a lot worse before it gets better.
WITH THAT SAID
1. Veredi
Veredi did steal the deed to the manor. Of course he did, he was an orphaned dark elf eking out a living as a bandit in the outskirts of the Fae Woods. He had no family from which to inherit a manor. But he did have a facility with languages, and the sense to go through the messenger's bags for interesting paperwork before getting rid of the evidence.
The solicitor wasn't even sure which family member was going to be taking possession of the manor! All they seemed to know was that the manor's prior owner had family living in the city of Inysa-Vehona, which would imply they were elven.
Veredi was elven.
( Read more... )
Do you ever think about suicide?
Jan. 1st, 2023 01:15 pmRazors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
I was four or five the first time I heard my father recite Dorothy Parker's Resume. You might say that's too young to be joking about suicide around a child, and I don't think I can disagree. It upset me a lot as a kid, to hear my dad talk so glibly about suicide and his personal suicidal ideation.
On the other hand, I was four or five when I decided how I would kill myself, if I ever felt like I needed to.
( Read more... )
The Killing Type Extra: Boss Letters
May. 6th, 2022 09:13 pmI was thinking the other day what The Killing Type must look like from Bastiaan’s old captain’s point of view. Bastiaan specifically doesn’t mention his relationship with Lennart when it first happens, and then I thought…when does he mention this? Does he bring it up before the wedding invitation or???
Because I did establish that Bastiaan’s captain has basically been looking out for him since he was a kid. Imagine being like a grizzled mid-30s mercenary and suddenly you accidentally adopt a traumatized autistic kid. And then 10 years later he gets a job offer to teach and is like “yeah okay” and like. What are you going to say? Teaching teenagers how to defend themselves is definitely safer than merc work. But also aaaaaa that weird kid is so important to you and he has no idea how to live around other people aaaaaaa
Anyway, here’s a set of letters exchanged between Bastiaan’s bosses.
—-
Dear Headmistress Agatha Maartens,
We spoke briefly last autumn, upon the occasion of you hiring one of my best mercenaries to teach at your Academy. I’m sorry to bother you, as you no doubt have many demands on your time, but I can think of no one else who might be able to help me in this situation.
( Read more... )
Because I did establish that Bastiaan’s captain has basically been looking out for him since he was a kid. Imagine being like a grizzled mid-30s mercenary and suddenly you accidentally adopt a traumatized autistic kid. And then 10 years later he gets a job offer to teach and is like “yeah okay” and like. What are you going to say? Teaching teenagers how to defend themselves is definitely safer than merc work. But also aaaaaa that weird kid is so important to you and he has no idea how to live around other people aaaaaaa
Anyway, here’s a set of letters exchanged between Bastiaan’s bosses.
—-
Dear Headmistress Agatha Maartens,
We spoke briefly last autumn, upon the occasion of you hiring one of my best mercenaries to teach at your Academy. I’m sorry to bother you, as you no doubt have many demands on your time, but I can think of no one else who might be able to help me in this situation.
( Read more... )
Having Covid-19 in 2022
Mar. 21st, 2022 03:12 pmContent note: Suicidal ideation
I’ve been sicker than when I had Covid. I had the actual flu once as a child, which knocked me out for an entire week. Most of my memories of that time are of lying on my grandmother’s couch in front of the tv, bundled up under blankets, sucking down orange juice whenever possible, with one or more doberman pinschers laying on my legs or next to me on the floor, attempting to protect me from my own immune system. Since I was under ten, most of the time when I was sick before that, I was over it in a day or two. That experience was the first time I spent a week or more laid up.
( Read more... )
I’ve been sicker than when I had Covid. I had the actual flu once as a child, which knocked me out for an entire week. Most of my memories of that time are of lying on my grandmother’s couch in front of the tv, bundled up under blankets, sucking down orange juice whenever possible, with one or more doberman pinschers laying on my legs or next to me on the floor, attempting to protect me from my own immune system. Since I was under ten, most of the time when I was sick before that, I was over it in a day or two. That experience was the first time I spent a week or more laid up.
( Read more... )
The Killing Type extra
Dec. 26th, 2021 02:14 amThe Killing Type extra, because I am incapable of not thinking about these things even if they don't fit in the story proper: Bastiaan and Lennart try more traditionally penetrative sex.
----
"If you don't want to," Bastiaan began, but Lennart cut him off.
----
"If you don't want to," Bastiaan began, but Lennart cut him off.
"I didn't say that," Lennart said. "I think it would feel very good for me. I don't see what you'd get out of it, though."
"I think it'd feel pretty good for me as well," Bastiaan said. "But even if it doesn't, that's its own kind of enjoyable."
"I suppose," Lennart said doubtfully, as though he hadn't gotten off on Bastiaan tying him up and stabbing him. Or as though he considered the two types of discomfort completely different. Maybe they were, for him. Bastiaan found he quite liked the idea of not physically enjoying something, but letting Lennart do it to him anyway, just because Lennart liked it.
"We don't have to do it again if we don't want to," Bastiaan said. "But I would like to at least try it."
"Then we'll try it," Lennart said.
( Read more... )on the road to amaranthine
Jun. 9th, 2021 08:44 pmthis is the start of an AU where my surana did not get recruited by the wardens but also survived the massacre at kinloch hold, and later became the inquisitor. i am nothing if not self-indulgent.
---
Mehren wasn't quite asleep, though she was tired. This journey to Amaranthine wasn't comfortable, physically or figuratively. Even a few weeks ago, she would have begged for the luxury of her own sleeping quarters, even if they were just a private tent, but now she felt so uneasy in only the company of templars that she was constantly on edge.
When she first heard it, she thought she was mistaken, or it had only been a leaf or something, hitting her tent on its way past. Then she heard it again, someone scratching at her tent flap, and then a voice softly calling: "Mehren?"
Her insides turned to ice, and her stomach turned over. That was Cullen's voice. Cullen was standing outside her tent. He'd called her by her name, which he hadn't done since before Uldred unleashed all those demons in the tower.
He said, barely loud enough to hear, "I need to talk to you, Mehren."
( Read more... )puberty 2: this time it's personal
Jun. 6th, 2021 04:12 pmmoving my transition blogging over from tumblr bc. let's face it dreamwidth has had a much more stable history than tumblr.
extremely long compilation of text posts under the cut!
( Read more... )
extremely long compilation of text posts under the cut!
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Nov. 5th, 2020 10:26 amSo I finally got a mental health professional to take me seriously when I said I thought I might have ADHD. My psych gave me some assessment paperwork, and oh boy, turns out I have ADHD! She gave me an adderall prescription and I started that last weekend and holy shit y'all. Holy shit. It's like I'm possessed by someone who can do things.
Like, the act of psyching myself up to do a task is no longer a task in and of itself. The other day I was like, jeez I need to take a shower today. And when I got in the bathroom I thought, I should really shave the sides of my head down, which I have been thinking every time I shower since like...September. But this time, I just...did it. Got out the shaver and fixed my hair and then still got in the shower. I did laundry! I swept the floor! I did homework! I went to a social event! I still managed to feed myself and shower and go to sleep at reasonable times! What the fuck!
I can definitely see why my psych warned me about stimulants potentially triggering manic episodes. There are times when I'm so excited that I can do things that my brain does start running like 100 miles a minute. But, and here's the fucked up part, I can then redirect my attention and focus on one thing. It's like a superpower. Is this what it's supposed to feel like? People are supposed to just be able to do things? Like, rationally evaluate whether a thing needs doing and if you have enough time and energy to do it, and if you do have the time and energy, just do it???
So now I have anxiety meds, an anti-depressant and plans for preventing SAD from getting too bad, and adderall, and I feel better than I have in years. Like, this used to be a one or two days every couple of weeks or months things, but it's been like. A week straight of being able to focus and get going without needing a bunch of lead time.
I mean the real test is how I do next summer break, because long breaks from school are currently the bane of my existence, but I suspect with the ADHD and anxiety handled, it will be easier to stave off the depression by staying busy, instead of intending to do that and then floating through time and space in a fog.
Like, the act of psyching myself up to do a task is no longer a task in and of itself. The other day I was like, jeez I need to take a shower today. And when I got in the bathroom I thought, I should really shave the sides of my head down, which I have been thinking every time I shower since like...September. But this time, I just...did it. Got out the shaver and fixed my hair and then still got in the shower. I did laundry! I swept the floor! I did homework! I went to a social event! I still managed to feed myself and shower and go to sleep at reasonable times! What the fuck!
I can definitely see why my psych warned me about stimulants potentially triggering manic episodes. There are times when I'm so excited that I can do things that my brain does start running like 100 miles a minute. But, and here's the fucked up part, I can then redirect my attention and focus on one thing. It's like a superpower. Is this what it's supposed to feel like? People are supposed to just be able to do things? Like, rationally evaluate whether a thing needs doing and if you have enough time and energy to do it, and if you do have the time and energy, just do it???
So now I have anxiety meds, an anti-depressant and plans for preventing SAD from getting too bad, and adderall, and I feel better than I have in years. Like, this used to be a one or two days every couple of weeks or months things, but it's been like. A week straight of being able to focus and get going without needing a bunch of lead time.
I mean the real test is how I do next summer break, because long breaks from school are currently the bane of my existence, but I suspect with the ADHD and anxiety handled, it will be easier to stave off the depression by staying busy, instead of intending to do that and then floating through time and space in a fog.
(no subject)
Aug. 18th, 2020 06:30 amposting fic on dw like it's 2005 (i cannot remember if i ever actually posted fic on lj)
uh ethan of athos fic? twenty years later? about elli quinn? it is my firm belief you get the children you deserve
( Read more... )
uh ethan of athos fic? twenty years later? about elli quinn? it is my firm belief you get the children you deserve
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jul. 19th, 2020 04:10 am(child sexual assault, sexual assault)
been thinking lately about how distant/unimportant sexual abuse felt to me, as a small "girl", and how most of the stuff i dealt with was like, catcalling and inappropriate questions and old men taking pictures of me without my consent when i was in costume
and how my older (female*) relatives who explicitly protected me from these things were all survivors of much more invasive sexual assault
like honestly the worst sexual abuse i ever experienced doesn't like...feel like it to me. it was only by thinking about it happening to someone else that it really registered to me that. it was definitely abusive. like it seemed fine to me, and to some extent still seems fine to me, because at no point did i feel like i was in actual danger
and idk if i have a point to this, i've just been thinking about, how the survivors of sexual abuse in my life did the most to shield me from experiencing it myself, to the point where, it never even seemed like a real possibility to me until i was like. much older, living on my own, and dealing with the return of my anxiety
like i'm not actually a girl and i have my doubts about my mom's commitment to gender but also: women are the most important line of protection for other women. like i know my dad and brother thought about at least like, appearances, and not leaving me alone with strange dudes, but idk that they were ever thinking about it as much as my mom and sister were
been thinking lately about how distant/unimportant sexual abuse felt to me, as a small "girl", and how most of the stuff i dealt with was like, catcalling and inappropriate questions and old men taking pictures of me without my consent when i was in costume
and how my older (female*) relatives who explicitly protected me from these things were all survivors of much more invasive sexual assault
like honestly the worst sexual abuse i ever experienced doesn't like...feel like it to me. it was only by thinking about it happening to someone else that it really registered to me that. it was definitely abusive. like it seemed fine to me, and to some extent still seems fine to me, because at no point did i feel like i was in actual danger
and idk if i have a point to this, i've just been thinking about, how the survivors of sexual abuse in my life did the most to shield me from experiencing it myself, to the point where, it never even seemed like a real possibility to me until i was like. much older, living on my own, and dealing with the return of my anxiety
like i'm not actually a girl and i have my doubts about my mom's commitment to gender but also: women are the most important line of protection for other women. like i know my dad and brother thought about at least like, appearances, and not leaving me alone with strange dudes, but idk that they were ever thinking about it as much as my mom and sister were
the thing that really gets me is people talking about the bisexual community and pointing to years-old (sometimes decades-old) evidence of trans-inclusivity and being like “see, we’ve always included trans and/or nonbinary folks in the definition of bi”
and here’s the thing
someone was. y’all weren’t.
i feel very confident saying this as someone who has identified as bisexual for most of their life, and who is also nonbinary. trying to act like the entire bisexual community has been welcoming and inclusive of trans folks since the 70s is a literal lie. if folks meant to be welcoming and inclusive of trans folks in the early 2000s and 2010s, they did a shitty job. if queer teens are not getting that message from you, then you are not putting that message out there enough. a 17 year old bisexual who is just realizing they might have some gender shit going on isn’t doing the fucking reading on queer history, they’re absorbing the most accessible messages
and the most accessible messages when i was a teen and a young adult were literally binaristic and often explicitly transphobic. they were always implicitly binary and transphobic.
and to say, ah no, look at these bisexuals from before you were born, being inclusive! that’s disingenuous. i am here, a nonbinary bisexual, telling you i have experienced transphobia and binarism from other bisexuals, and acting like anyone who’s ever identified with a related but distinct label (pansexuality, polysexuality, etc) is making up a distinction that doesn’t/shouldn’t exist is
literally erasing the experiences of other bisexuals. like me. who were told, well no that’s not really what bisexuality is about. that’s not really who bisexuality is for.
and no, i’m sorry, i can’t pull out receipts on this, because lots of it happened in the years before 2010, when i was a baby gay trying to convince myself i was hetero, or looking to media primarily made by cis gays in an attempt to find something even remotely recognizable
but i have been hearing this messaging for years now that no, bisexuality has always been inclusive, was always meant to be inclusive, pansexuals (or whoever) are making up a distinction that doesn’t need to exist, and it’s. so fucking annoying. y'all, i did not hallucinate all the weird transphobic shit i heard from other bisexuals, about bisexuals. i did not somehow misinterpret all the biological essentialism and fixation on genitals. i didn’t invent the idea of not being welcome or wanted under the bisexual label.
and it’s one thing to be like “we are trying to do better now” and another thing entirely to be like “that never happened”. there’s a world of difference between “that shouldn’t have happened” and “that didn’t happen”. one of them is acknowledgement, and one of them is fucking gaslighting.
anyway the first time i was explicitly told by a sexuality label that people like me existed and people could be attracted to them was someone explaining what pansexuality was, so sorry for not reading minds and somehow intuiting that i was supposed to ignore the transphobes and gender essentialists and that, in five to ten years, bisexuals would largely agree that i existed and was capable of being attractive
and here’s the thing
someone was. y’all weren’t.
i feel very confident saying this as someone who has identified as bisexual for most of their life, and who is also nonbinary. trying to act like the entire bisexual community has been welcoming and inclusive of trans folks since the 70s is a literal lie. if folks meant to be welcoming and inclusive of trans folks in the early 2000s and 2010s, they did a shitty job. if queer teens are not getting that message from you, then you are not putting that message out there enough. a 17 year old bisexual who is just realizing they might have some gender shit going on isn’t doing the fucking reading on queer history, they’re absorbing the most accessible messages
and the most accessible messages when i was a teen and a young adult were literally binaristic and often explicitly transphobic. they were always implicitly binary and transphobic.
and to say, ah no, look at these bisexuals from before you were born, being inclusive! that’s disingenuous. i am here, a nonbinary bisexual, telling you i have experienced transphobia and binarism from other bisexuals, and acting like anyone who’s ever identified with a related but distinct label (pansexuality, polysexuality, etc) is making up a distinction that doesn’t/shouldn’t exist is
literally erasing the experiences of other bisexuals. like me. who were told, well no that’s not really what bisexuality is about. that’s not really who bisexuality is for.
and no, i’m sorry, i can’t pull out receipts on this, because lots of it happened in the years before 2010, when i was a baby gay trying to convince myself i was hetero, or looking to media primarily made by cis gays in an attempt to find something even remotely recognizable
but i have been hearing this messaging for years now that no, bisexuality has always been inclusive, was always meant to be inclusive, pansexuals (or whoever) are making up a distinction that doesn’t need to exist, and it’s. so fucking annoying. y'all, i did not hallucinate all the weird transphobic shit i heard from other bisexuals, about bisexuals. i did not somehow misinterpret all the biological essentialism and fixation on genitals. i didn’t invent the idea of not being welcome or wanted under the bisexual label.
and it’s one thing to be like “we are trying to do better now” and another thing entirely to be like “that never happened”. there’s a world of difference between “that shouldn’t have happened” and “that didn’t happen”. one of them is acknowledgement, and one of them is fucking gaslighting.
anyway the first time i was explicitly told by a sexuality label that people like me existed and people could be attracted to them was someone explaining what pansexuality was, so sorry for not reading minds and somehow intuiting that i was supposed to ignore the transphobes and gender essentialists and that, in five to ten years, bisexuals would largely agree that i existed and was capable of being attractive
(no subject)
Apr. 1st, 2019 09:43 pmokay so someone in a zelda community i’m in linked a long-ass video analysis of ocarina of time. “oh ani i bet that was your shit” WRONG because it was BAD ANALYSIS
I mean none of the conclusions this dude came to about oot or its themes were incorrect, but they were...really obvious and surface level stuff. he was like “oh it’s subtext” but then literally his examples were...lines from the text of the game. my guy. my dude. my man. that’s text.
he was also (fairly, mostly) comparing oot to princess mononoke...except some of the shit he said made it clear that he had ALSO misanalyzed parts of mononoke, and fundamentally misunderstood how the cultural contexts in which those texts were created functioned at all (eg, chalked everything up to shintoism, which is...more of a factor than the entire context)
he also literally compared lady eboshi to ganondorf, which is when i closed the fuck out of that video, because, you have fundamentally misunderstood one or both of these texts to a comical degree
lady eboshi is explicitly not the bad guy. in fact, in princess mononoke, no one is “the bad guy”. that’s part of the entire point of the film. she also has motivations that aren’t entirely selfish, ie she is providing a space for women and injured people to live freely and do things they wouldn’t be allowed to do elsewhere, and acting to protect those people and that space. ganondorf in oot, however, is never shown to have any motivation other than “i want it all”. he does not make things better for the gerudo people he is supposedly the ruler of, and when he is the king of hyrule, he does not make things better for any of the people or the land.
he also misunderstood the point of the first three dungeons, where you go through the deku tree, dodongo cave, and jabu-jabu. he described this part of the journey as “purification”. that’s...not really what’s going on? i mean there is some literal cleansing happening, but mostly he is given those tasks as a means of proving he is trustworthy enough to give these relics to. like, he doesn’t have to purify jabu-jabu because jabu-jabu needs purifying. jabu-jabu appears to have been doing mostly okay with the weird electric parasites in him. likewise, he doesn’t even really cleanse the deku tree--the deku tree is ALREADY DYING, which the deku tree is implied to know. it’s the effort and the defeat of a large enemy which proves that he is ready to take on this quest.
like no wonder this guy thought “ocarina of time is a game about how the passage of time is inherently bittersweet” was a deep dive into the game’s subtext, since he missed the point of THE FIRST THIRD OF THE GAME so hard.
like the bits of link as a child are...link literally going through coming-of-age rituals. the deku tree tests him to make sure he’s ready to leave the forest. the gorons test him to make sure he’s a goron brother (arguably the state of goron adulthood, at least in that game), king zora and ruto test him to make sure he’s literally ready to get married. this...isn’t subtle? this is link going through rites-of-passage one right after another, double-time.
and the kicker is, that’s still not enough. in attempting to save hyrule, he lets ganondorf in early, and he’s still not enough of an adult to save hyrule. he’s barely taller than the sword destined for him. which is why he’s put in stasis for seven years.
and like...people in the game talk about how he lost that time? how, for the good of the world, link’s childhood was literally sacrificed? at the end, when he’s allowed to go back and live those years over again, that’s the happiest ending we get, and that’s bittersweet, because, he knows things he shouldn’t know. he had a taste of late adolescence/nominal adulthood, and even if he can be sent back to that time to live those years, he still has the knowledge and experience he gained as an adult.
it’s also pretty explicitly bittersweet that, in order to have a hero who could save hyrule, hyrule had to go to shit for seven years.
the game explicitly calls time cruel. this isn’t subtext. the game is about growing up, and growing up too early, and how that fucks someone up, and it’s also about the passage of time changing things that were safe and familiar into something unfamiliar and dangerous. to a lesser degree, it’s about being powerless to fix your situation and having to wait for something to change, and we see people in hyrule reacting to that in different ways, but there’s a better argument for THAT being subtext than like...the. the main theme.
like what did this guy think the main theme of oot was? “time travel is cool”? “always fight evil sorcerers”? “a hero will always come but sometimes it will be late but don’t worry about that because he came”? like it’s not the most profound game of all time, but it’s a little more complicated story-wise than like, pac-man, so it does have themes. the obvious candidates for thematic threads are...time and music. Because the game is called [musical instrument] of time. it’s about time. jesus christ dude
I mean none of the conclusions this dude came to about oot or its themes were incorrect, but they were...really obvious and surface level stuff. he was like “oh it’s subtext” but then literally his examples were...lines from the text of the game. my guy. my dude. my man. that’s text.
he was also (fairly, mostly) comparing oot to princess mononoke...except some of the shit he said made it clear that he had ALSO misanalyzed parts of mononoke, and fundamentally misunderstood how the cultural contexts in which those texts were created functioned at all (eg, chalked everything up to shintoism, which is...more of a factor than the entire context)
he also literally compared lady eboshi to ganondorf, which is when i closed the fuck out of that video, because, you have fundamentally misunderstood one or both of these texts to a comical degree
lady eboshi is explicitly not the bad guy. in fact, in princess mononoke, no one is “the bad guy”. that’s part of the entire point of the film. she also has motivations that aren’t entirely selfish, ie she is providing a space for women and injured people to live freely and do things they wouldn’t be allowed to do elsewhere, and acting to protect those people and that space. ganondorf in oot, however, is never shown to have any motivation other than “i want it all”. he does not make things better for the gerudo people he is supposedly the ruler of, and when he is the king of hyrule, he does not make things better for any of the people or the land.
he also misunderstood the point of the first three dungeons, where you go through the deku tree, dodongo cave, and jabu-jabu. he described this part of the journey as “purification”. that’s...not really what’s going on? i mean there is some literal cleansing happening, but mostly he is given those tasks as a means of proving he is trustworthy enough to give these relics to. like, he doesn’t have to purify jabu-jabu because jabu-jabu needs purifying. jabu-jabu appears to have been doing mostly okay with the weird electric parasites in him. likewise, he doesn’t even really cleanse the deku tree--the deku tree is ALREADY DYING, which the deku tree is implied to know. it’s the effort and the defeat of a large enemy which proves that he is ready to take on this quest.
like no wonder this guy thought “ocarina of time is a game about how the passage of time is inherently bittersweet” was a deep dive into the game’s subtext, since he missed the point of THE FIRST THIRD OF THE GAME so hard.
like the bits of link as a child are...link literally going through coming-of-age rituals. the deku tree tests him to make sure he’s ready to leave the forest. the gorons test him to make sure he’s a goron brother (arguably the state of goron adulthood, at least in that game), king zora and ruto test him to make sure he’s literally ready to get married. this...isn’t subtle? this is link going through rites-of-passage one right after another, double-time.
and the kicker is, that’s still not enough. in attempting to save hyrule, he lets ganondorf in early, and he’s still not enough of an adult to save hyrule. he’s barely taller than the sword destined for him. which is why he’s put in stasis for seven years.
and like...people in the game talk about how he lost that time? how, for the good of the world, link’s childhood was literally sacrificed? at the end, when he’s allowed to go back and live those years over again, that’s the happiest ending we get, and that’s bittersweet, because, he knows things he shouldn’t know. he had a taste of late adolescence/nominal adulthood, and even if he can be sent back to that time to live those years, he still has the knowledge and experience he gained as an adult.
it’s also pretty explicitly bittersweet that, in order to have a hero who could save hyrule, hyrule had to go to shit for seven years.
the game explicitly calls time cruel. this isn’t subtext. the game is about growing up, and growing up too early, and how that fucks someone up, and it’s also about the passage of time changing things that were safe and familiar into something unfamiliar and dangerous. to a lesser degree, it’s about being powerless to fix your situation and having to wait for something to change, and we see people in hyrule reacting to that in different ways, but there’s a better argument for THAT being subtext than like...the. the main theme.
like what did this guy think the main theme of oot was? “time travel is cool”? “always fight evil sorcerers”? “a hero will always come but sometimes it will be late but don’t worry about that because he came”? like it’s not the most profound game of all time, but it’s a little more complicated story-wise than like, pac-man, so it does have themes. the obvious candidates for thematic threads are...time and music. Because the game is called [musical instrument] of time. it’s about time. jesus christ dude
(no subject)
Mar. 20th, 2019 04:45 ami've been thinking a bit more about my tabris and what makes her, you know, different or special to me, why bother writing about her in my alistair/warden/zevran fic instead of another warden (though she's the only alistair-mancer i have so that's the doylist explanation).
mehren sometimes comes across as unsympathetic to other people's problems. as warden, she's more eager to fight, as a way to take out her feelings/revenge on the world. in my warden-as-inquisitor au, where mehren doesn't get rescued by duncan but effectively gets a stay of execution from uldred's whole mess, and ends up just sent to ostwick, she discovers that same martial prowess and thrill from a fight, but she's not allowed to just, go off the rails the way warden surana is. this is probably healthier for her in the long run, but it also means she gets an additional ten years to stew in her resentment until the circle rebels. she has very little patience for anyone involved in the templars or the chantry, though she's much more willing to at least not snap at circle apologist mages than at non-mages. she's grimly determined to fix things, and she does enjoy the fighting, but when people (especially templars or chantry folk) are like "woe is me" she's like "what about my woe. when were y'all going to address that." she can be a little callous, like "look, everyone suffers, it's part of life, stop whining about it and pick yourself up."
kallian, whose name is absolutely going to change bc that is the default ftabris name lmao, might also initially come across as callous, or even flippant. but that's because she has decided, if the world is going to be shit, and she's going to be responsible for part of it, then dammit she is going to be responsible for all of it. she will shoulder every burden she can to spare the people around her. it's a little bit "i'm already broken, so what's this burden to me; if i can spare my friends/this stranger/anyone the pain i've been through then what's a little more". idk if she would say it like that, or even talk about it at all, but even when she was trying to be as practical and pragmatic as possible, she didn't harden alistair or leliana, and she didn't make alistair be king, even though it was the better decision politically. if kallian ended up inquisitor somehow, she would gladly make every hard decision and take as much weight of the whole fucking south of thedas as possible. she wears the wedding ring of the man she didn't get to marry through the whole fifth blight, partially because she made a promise, partially because she couldn't save him, and partially to remind herself that she can't rely on other people to solve her problems. it doesn't work.
she's trying to be pragmatic and practical, but underneath it, she's an idealist. which is part of why i think it charms her when alistair is like "you're so pretty and competent", especially since he initially was like "haha what kind of warrior could you even be". she's made a difference with him, to him, and he noticed and appreciated her.
i also, in her playthrough, which was my first, avoided denerim until the very end, because i didn't know she could go back without like...repercussions, but also, i think it reads very well as, she's scared to go back. what if all this new warden stuff, all this responsibility and companionship, what if it just...goes away. what if she can't do it in her old home. what if they see where she came from and are like "oh haha nvm". she tries to keep everyone else's spirits up, and takes on too much herself.
she was also absolutely prepared to die to defeat the archdemon. i the player was about to lose my fucking mind to keep that from happening, but she would never have allowed alistair to do it. the relief, when morrigan offered an alternative, was overwhelming, but she definitely had decided that was just one more burden for her to take on, to prevent other people from hurting themselves.
(if she ever saw the leliana from the inquisition alternate future, she would have absolutely broken. she did all that work and she still couldn't even save her dear friend from the bitterness of the world. it didn't even matter.)
she asked about all her companions' lives and stories, and when they asked about her, she deflected or lied. she downplayed things. i think over that year her friends picked up on it, zevran and leliana right away since they were doing the same thing, and morrigan and wynne, and maybe even oghren and sten a little bit (though i have no idea if sten would have read anything more into it than her being a good leader), but alistair was the only one she ever like...told things to in detail. he was the only one who ever got to see her panic or break, and that was mostly accidental, since they were the two wardens and spent the most time together. regardless of their relationship, she would have been so so hesitant to show that to him.
okay, i think writing all that shit out helped me remember why i love her so much and why she is the only other warden besides mehren i can like...remember. even though i'm so attached to all my inquisitors.
(mehren as inquisitor, or even just as lived-through-the-blight, fucking idolizes [kallian]. she's like DID YOU SEE THAT BADASS LITTLE ELF WOMAN. DID YOU KNOW SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVED THE WORLD. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT HER DETERMINATION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY SHE'S SO COOL. which is funny, bc if they were fellow warden recruits, mehren would think kallian was boring and holding everyone back lmao)
mehren sometimes comes across as unsympathetic to other people's problems. as warden, she's more eager to fight, as a way to take out her feelings/revenge on the world. in my warden-as-inquisitor au, where mehren doesn't get rescued by duncan but effectively gets a stay of execution from uldred's whole mess, and ends up just sent to ostwick, she discovers that same martial prowess and thrill from a fight, but she's not allowed to just, go off the rails the way warden surana is. this is probably healthier for her in the long run, but it also means she gets an additional ten years to stew in her resentment until the circle rebels. she has very little patience for anyone involved in the templars or the chantry, though she's much more willing to at least not snap at circle apologist mages than at non-mages. she's grimly determined to fix things, and she does enjoy the fighting, but when people (especially templars or chantry folk) are like "woe is me" she's like "what about my woe. when were y'all going to address that." she can be a little callous, like "look, everyone suffers, it's part of life, stop whining about it and pick yourself up."
kallian, whose name is absolutely going to change bc that is the default ftabris name lmao, might also initially come across as callous, or even flippant. but that's because she has decided, if the world is going to be shit, and she's going to be responsible for part of it, then dammit she is going to be responsible for all of it. she will shoulder every burden she can to spare the people around her. it's a little bit "i'm already broken, so what's this burden to me; if i can spare my friends/this stranger/anyone the pain i've been through then what's a little more". idk if she would say it like that, or even talk about it at all, but even when she was trying to be as practical and pragmatic as possible, she didn't harden alistair or leliana, and she didn't make alistair be king, even though it was the better decision politically. if kallian ended up inquisitor somehow, she would gladly make every hard decision and take as much weight of the whole fucking south of thedas as possible. she wears the wedding ring of the man she didn't get to marry through the whole fifth blight, partially because she made a promise, partially because she couldn't save him, and partially to remind herself that she can't rely on other people to solve her problems. it doesn't work.
she's trying to be pragmatic and practical, but underneath it, she's an idealist. which is part of why i think it charms her when alistair is like "you're so pretty and competent", especially since he initially was like "haha what kind of warrior could you even be". she's made a difference with him, to him, and he noticed and appreciated her.
i also, in her playthrough, which was my first, avoided denerim until the very end, because i didn't know she could go back without like...repercussions, but also, i think it reads very well as, she's scared to go back. what if all this new warden stuff, all this responsibility and companionship, what if it just...goes away. what if she can't do it in her old home. what if they see where she came from and are like "oh haha nvm". she tries to keep everyone else's spirits up, and takes on too much herself.
she was also absolutely prepared to die to defeat the archdemon. i the player was about to lose my fucking mind to keep that from happening, but she would never have allowed alistair to do it. the relief, when morrigan offered an alternative, was overwhelming, but she definitely had decided that was just one more burden for her to take on, to prevent other people from hurting themselves.
(if she ever saw the leliana from the inquisition alternate future, she would have absolutely broken. she did all that work and she still couldn't even save her dear friend from the bitterness of the world. it didn't even matter.)
she asked about all her companions' lives and stories, and when they asked about her, she deflected or lied. she downplayed things. i think over that year her friends picked up on it, zevran and leliana right away since they were doing the same thing, and morrigan and wynne, and maybe even oghren and sten a little bit (though i have no idea if sten would have read anything more into it than her being a good leader), but alistair was the only one she ever like...told things to in detail. he was the only one who ever got to see her panic or break, and that was mostly accidental, since they were the two wardens and spent the most time together. regardless of their relationship, she would have been so so hesitant to show that to him.
okay, i think writing all that shit out helped me remember why i love her so much and why she is the only other warden besides mehren i can like...remember. even though i'm so attached to all my inquisitors.
(mehren as inquisitor, or even just as lived-through-the-blight, fucking idolizes [kallian]. she's like DID YOU SEE THAT BADASS LITTLE ELF WOMAN. DID YOU KNOW SHE SINGLE-HANDEDLY SAVED THE WORLD. DID YOU KNOW ABOUT HER DETERMINATION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY SHE'S SO COOL. which is funny, bc if they were fellow warden recruits, mehren would think kallian was boring and holding everyone back lmao)
(no subject)
Sep. 22nd, 2016 12:18 amI hate knowing I only feel like this when my medication isn't right
but I hate feeling like that makes it a less valid thing to feel
I hate spending all my time trying to accommodate other people's needs and not a getting a damn second spent on mine
I hate thinking that I let myself mind it less when I'm medicated as like a backslide into old behaviors
I hate always apologizing like my feelings don't matter just as much, like I don't deserve an apology, like there was literally anything I could have done past a certain point
I hate constantly worrying that even wanting my own needs to be met is abusive
I hate pretending I'm not fucking bleeding because what if saying I'm hurting is manipulative
I hate it I hate it I hate it
but I hate feeling like that makes it a less valid thing to feel
I hate spending all my time trying to accommodate other people's needs and not a getting a damn second spent on mine
I hate thinking that I let myself mind it less when I'm medicated as like a backslide into old behaviors
I hate always apologizing like my feelings don't matter just as much, like I don't deserve an apology, like there was literally anything I could have done past a certain point
I hate constantly worrying that even wanting my own needs to be met is abusive
I hate pretending I'm not fucking bleeding because what if saying I'm hurting is manipulative
I hate it I hate it I hate it
