i actually literally do not care if tolkien ever wrote in drafts* that elves are seven feet tall and stronger than humans bc it does not match up to his stories. like saeros being scared bc Túrin was stronger than elves and aragorn and boromir bragging about how strong men are in the snow. if legolas is stronger + taller why isn’t he digging them out? elves having lighter weapons and boats. elves not putting men in their tree houses but being okay with the hobbits bc they aren’t scared of them. why would elves need to hide if they’re stronger + have magic? why is the dragon-helm to heavy for them? why is aragorn the tallest of the company if legolas is seven feet tall? how could nienor disguise as an elf?

for one thing it’s boring to have them be both magical and also stronger but also so many of his stories just fall apart. there are entire plots that rely on elves being not as strong as Men. elves of varying heights has always been interesting to me with some reaching ten feet and some under five feet. and average elf soldier being stronger than average not soldier human is fine too but elves have super human strength is just not something that holds out against plots

like i do not care dungeons and dragons** can do whatever they want but from my encounters with folk tales elves being not as strong as Men is very on point and tolkien’s stories literally fall apart without it. not to say elves are weak. just to say aragorn is stronger + taller than legolas any way i’ve ever looked at the story. and i think elves stronger + taller and also having magic is just boring and i refuse to go by it. have all elves be seven feet tall in your stories or whatever. i will continue with my version bc i can’t make sense of tolkien’s stories without it and elves need a weakness for interesting points and to make the plot work

which is to say i don’t want to have to keep saying this in the fanfic i write you are not more right than i am and tolkien can say whatever he wants he wrote a structure into his stories i will keep in mine for Interest

*haven’t been able to pinpoint where this motion is from

**no idea if elves being taller and stronger is a thing from dnd bc i don’t know it but i see it pop up in some video games

Hi gueys 🧍 (run away again)

I think Ryne would have a kinda skewed sense of what's normal. Like, she may technically know what's "normal" for most people, but what's normal for her is way different. She's raised by two men who are both Weird, only one of which can even pretend to be normal (and like hell Thancred bothered with that while on the run with Ryne lol)

Ryne thinks that talking circles round pixies is common knowledge from her many stays in Il Mheg. It is not. She also thinks knowing how to and being able to stomach skinning and gutting animals for food is normal. It's certainly more common, but unless you're a hunter it absolutely does not come as easily. Being able to walk and run around quietly is something she technically knows is unusual, but since her company has mainly consisted of a professional spy and a man who barely leaves home she tends to forget that most people can't do that.

I can't come up with anymore atm but. Ryne should get to be just a little weird(er) I think

I'm at that part of chapter three my friends, so let me be a reminder that Colm O'Driscoll's plan to lure in Dutch after taking Arthur failed because nobody came looking for him.

He would have died being held captive any longer, he barely escaped.

The gang did not come for Arthur.

AUEGH

A while ago, I finished my mandatory She-are and the Princesses of Power rewatch.

So, I decided to redraw one of my old Catradora pieces. These two mean the entire world to me 💕

you know, i had a totk thought (uh oh)

soemthign thats really bothering me about the whole "actually, ganondorf didnt like the guy appearing out of nowhere marrying a hylian and just saying yep das our kingdom now and we can mine it barren under your nose and also i got laserbeam pebbles that i totally wont ever use on anyone come join me or die just bc of all of that but mainly bc the guy brought some weird tech with him that he dont like" - thing is that ......... we see almost not a single tech thing in the past (and for that matter see nothing of the oh so perfect and peaceful paradise hyrule was before big evil desert man didnt want to join our paradise- like what is the point about making the whole point of the game be -we need to restore hyrule to this paradise it once was- when you dont even see it or get to care about anything of it)

it might sound like a weird hangup but no really, the most we see is like two servant constructs, thats it, when they 'prepare for war' im pretty sure all you see is some lightly dressed ( ... is it just me or does their whole get up look alot like native american/other indingenous people too ... i still dont know how to feel about that- kinda adjacent to some of the sonau armor, the battery one i think??, also having that look...) hylians with spears, where the heck is all that tech?? is it implied to be all down in the mines hollowing out the underground (for no real reason either bc .... theres only two sonau left and no one else seems to want use nor need the tech otherwise there should have been more traces or soemthing left of it -unless it all just magically appeared out of nowhere in mostly prime condition while all shiekah tech jsut vaporized for bs non reasons just for it to be in tha game but oh dont you see its always been there lmao- so whats the point really????)

or up in the sky as most battle constructs are and they cant get them down in time bc *gestures vaguely*

or is it intentionally kept out of view bc idk seeing an army of robots on raurus side he can send out on a whim might not make him look as oh so good and perfect as they want him to look when he already got laserbeam pebbles (most of which hes been hoarding until ONE falls into hands not under his control) ?? like it just ... feels weird?? so many battle constructs that can even be a threat to link are jsut fully functioning strolling around in the present still, why wouldnt you want to use any of them to battle gan and if they DID why wouldnt you show that (no the 3 second unicorn cutscene doesnt count bc its just .. gan and his monsters isnt it) ?? (also ... why isnt there a big like battle ground , like fine you dont have to animate an army of monsters and robots clashing but... wouldnt it be cool to have you discover a giant flat plain in the underground (that magically got put under ground like gan just decided to stroll down there to get sealed lol) and its the only mostly empty field in the game littered with thousands of monster bones and dead constructs intermingled?? just to give it all a bit of weight?? evidence that it happened?? cool ass discovery????)

(also also i cannot let go of ganondorf apparently being sooooo anti tech but then clamgan uses the shiekah stuff??? shouldnt he also be against that then or is that suddendly fine bc- oh woops sorry, forgot clamgan is actually just something, not connected to gan at all actually, i mean why else would miasma turn into malice only to turn into miasma again haha none of that is connected actually what is a calamity anyway? also im sorry to bring this up again but i just cannot let go of the ppl in the present being so obsessed with using sonau tech in every part of their life now- they just lived through an apocalypse of a barely understood strange tech but CLEARLY this other even less understood strang tech is not dangerous at all lets make CARS OUT OF IT and what theres no danger in miasma and that tech existing at the same time LIKE SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE THAT IDK SEEMS LIKE A BAD COMBO--- oh sorry forgot that ceased to exist in both the world and peoples minds for *gestures vaguely* plot reasons- why why why are monsters mining the sonanium?? they dont even work with the yiga no that is also completely disconnected we dont wanna draw and interesting connections after all- whats the point if it means nothing but to be a loot box for the player-- actually, so much of totk is just a so built around throwing you into a box of toys with no substance to it- listen i know games are kinda like toys but if it doesnt make sense and offers you nothing interesting to think about even slightly whAT IS THE POINT)

so i found a new blorbo CHARLES SUN and…

you would have to sedate me i’m sorry

*feral* the show is so good, excellently paced and well-acted…. plus, it has all the stuff we enjoy the most:

whump, crime family, family drama, daddy issues (MAJOR!), mommy issues (MAJOR!), well-done action sequences, trauma, “protect the family” sense of duty mindset, lots of baking (by my poor blorbo charles as a coping mechanism), sibling issues, oldest son vs youngest son dynamic (- two brothers, who have both spent their lives competing for attention, approval, and freedom; in their own different ways -), conflicted tortured oldest son, did i mention major daddy/mommy issues and PLENTY OF THE GOOD OL’ EMOTIONAL WHUMP.

and oh their troubled mother is played by THEE MICHELLE YEOH !!!!!!! ✨MOTHER✨

ahhhh charles, his father brainwashed him, turned him into a ruthless killer and put him through so much trauma. my man just wants to have a normal life, bake pastries etc and reconnect with his mother and brother. like look at him (HE NEEDS A HUG AND SEVERAL CHURROS)

i am a sucker for this type of genre. 10/10 no notes. HIGHLY RECOMMEND MY FRIENDS, GO WATCH IT 🎉.

i love neuvifuri’s dynamic and relationship. like. imo they are the epitome of “we are inseparable, we are in love in every way, we are soulmates not by birth or due to fate binding us inexplicably but because we spent those 500 years being the one constant in each others lives and weve come to know each other the best, but we are simultaneously strangers. we never truly knew each other during all that time.“

and neuvillette knew for so long furina was keeping a secret from him and it pained him to force that secret into the light, but he knew he had to in order to save fontaine, and despite that he still wanted to do it as gently as possible. to make the trial the last resort if the travelers conversation didnt work. after the final events of the archon quest, he let furina go wherever she wished, he (if im remembering correctly) gave her a nice house and enough funds to do as she pleased and live comfortably. he used his new authority over hydro to give her a vision made specifically for her, the very first vision he has given out. he has made it as clear as day that she is welcome to talk to him, to ask to have tea, to ask him for whatever or simply just to talk.

neuvillette using those actions to say “i hope you let me know who you truly are, and allow me to stay in your life for as long as you wish, but i love you so i will not force you.”

i have somewhat of a different interpretation about The Mind Electric

> It's less of a diss track and more of using Heart's tactics against him to get him to listen [while also still definitely being a diss track]

somewhat disorganized rant below the cut [also lots of my own interpretations of the album that may very well be inaccurate, so take everything with a grain of salt] :]

The Mind Electric has a bit of a different topic when it comes to Mind's songs/lyrics, to say the least. while Mind does jab at Heart a lot, he does often try to reason with the other in between insults. The Mind Electric has much less of trying to convince Heart to work with [or behind] him and instead focuses on.. insulting the shit out of them

this is extremely funny, but it seems somewhat abrupt and out of the blue for Mind [see what i did there?]. however, i have a.. semi-theory as to why he suddenly just goes off on Heart. he's playing into the other's tactics

and i don't mean that Heart is constantly baraging Mind with insults. in fact, compared to Mind, Heart very rarely verbally attacks the other head on. instead, Heart builds up this fantasy around themself that paints themself as completely innocent, whereas Mind is this irredeemable villain that wants nothing more than Heart's head on a platter. and while, yes Mind definitely isn't fond of Heart, from what we've seen and heard, he is at least somewhat willing to work with Heart—although his idea of "working" with them seems more for Heart to sit in the backseat and shut up while Mind is the one actually in control, but I digress. this fantasy that Heart builds is most clearly seen from both sides in The Heart Acoustic and Be Born

Throughout Mind's songs [Be Born especially], he is trying to reason with Heart and get them to understand his point of view. he tries to explain that he only wants the best for the person that they make up. but Heart either argues with or outright ignores Mind, holding fast to the facade that they built up—that Mind is the bad guy trying to hurt them, and Heart is the good guy trying to save them. they don't want to hear anything that goes against that. so all that Mind says just ends up hitting a brick wall. this might also be a reason as to why Mind sees Heart as childish [their stubborn nature and them "playing make believe" to a much more serious degree]

at the end of Storm and a Spring, Mind and Heart sing over each other, almost sounding like an argument. this is Mind's breaking point. here, he throws his hands up and pretty much goes, "Fine. You want to see me as the villain? I'll play the villain." cue The Mind Electric. this song serves two roles, in my view. One, the one I've been building up to: Mind is leaning into this role that Heart has forced him into in a last ditch effort to break through and actually get him to listen for once. that's why the song eases up at the end. the last few lines of the song are literally, "Though I seem harsh in all my assessments / We each seek a life lived in the light / Yet there lies our Heart, engulfed in resentment / Stubborn, pale akaryocyte." aka, "Although you see everything I do as cruel and unforgiving, I'm not trying to hurt us. I'm only trying to make things better, and yet YOU refuse to see that, no matter how much I try to tell you this. You're being stubborn and resentful with practically no reason other than to perpetuate your own lies."

The second reason is that Mind is beyond frustrated at this point. he has tried and failed so many times to talk to Heart and get them to see the truth. he's tired. he's fed up. he needs an outlet, so he takes this opportunity to air his grievances [this is what i meant by it still definitely being a diss track, lol]. not only is it a method [albeit a poorly thought out one] to get through to Heart, it's also an excuse to let out his frustrations

that's all from me. i have no clue how to end these so. yeah. please don't execute me :]

So apparently the whole "should wheelchair users be allowed in D&D" argument is starting up again on a few social medias (mainly tik tok) and I'm just... I thought we were done with this?

Do I have a lot of thoughts on this? Yes. Am I going to talk about them today? No, because I was there during the shitshow that was "mainstream" players finding out about the combat wheelchair homebrew and I really don't want to go down that road again.

Because at the end of the day, if you're against it, why do care? Honest to goodness, if someone wants to play a character in a wheelchair in a game of make-beleive with their mates who are fine with it, what impact does it have on you? Especially if the player is in a chair themselves.

"But it's not realistic to have them in a medieval setting!!!" Ignoring for a moment that DnD (and other similar ttrpgs) are not strictly medieval settings because tech and magic, and that wheelchairs have existed since the 2nd century, in a game where a telepathic squid man can fly through space on a living ship, you can fuck devils and gods, shoot fire out of your face or hands, shape-shift into a dragon, be a robot and make a black-hole with two bags, you're choosing to draw the line at "person uses a chair with wheels and maybe some magic"

At the end of the day, it doesn't effect you. Let people play make-belive with math the way they and their friends want to.

mikhail lermontov // fatima aamer bilal // anne carson // taylor swift // june jordan // janet fitch // truman capote // ethel cain // ottessa moshfegh // emily axford // unknown // black tabby games

the witch.

guys i think my kinito is depressed:( i'm trying to return to fanarting! and i had some matching stickers so yee!

Once more frustrated by people seeing Light's various moves as stupid because they're looking at it from a point of omniscience and not from the perspective of Light himself and the information he had access to :')

Okay don't mind me I'm in the middle of a Crooked Kingdom reread and feel overwhelmingly inclined to rant about Jesper Fahey because this fandom just doesn't give him the treatment he deserves. I'm specifically going to incoherently ramble about the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Colm and Wylan are being shot at because I feel like that scene is representative of Jesper's arc - but, before we dive into that, let me contextualise a few things first. Jesper does things for the thrill of it: he thrives off chaos and spontaneity, hence why he "always felt better when people were shooting at him". It's because the sound of gunfire "called the scattered, irascible, permanently seeking part of his mind into focus like nothing else" - and it also provides a distraction from his pain and trauma, because whenever he'd think about it, "everything in him recoiled. Trying not to die was the best possible distraction". Whenever anything to do with his past or his debt is brought up, "his hands returned to his revolvers" because he found himself "longing for the cool, familiar feel of their pearl handles beneath his thumbs". It steadies him as much as it possibly can when he's not in a dangerous situation, momentarily calling his mind into focus, an attempt at distracting himself from his afflictions.

Based off similar instances, the scene in Crooked Kingdom where he, Wylan and Colm are being shot at should have brought him that same satisfaction that any other shooting would. He "should be buzzing from the excitement of the fight. The thrill was still there, fizzing through his blood, but beside it was a cold, unfamiliar sensation that felt like it was draining the joy from him." What makes this situation so different to the others is that he can't ignore his problems and trauma now: it's staring him right in the face. Colm is right there. The thrill of the fight doesn't feel the same because "all he could think was, Da could have been hurt. He could have died." And we know that Jesper's debt would cost Colm the jurda farm Jesper grew up on, forcing him to acknowledge the reality of his problems: with Colm being right there, Jesper just can't ignore his afflictions because all he could think about is how his father would "suffer for his antics". If you ask me, this is so representative of his character arc as a whole.

This is further emphasised by how he's reflecting on the first time he spun Makker's Wheel right before this ambush, its intention being merely "harmless fun", but it ended up evolving into an addiction that "split [his life] like a log into two distinct and uneven pieces: the time before he’d stepped up to that wheel and every day since". The rush of a high-stakes situation is the equivalent of the "harmless fun" - it's a thrill that Jesper enjoys feeling, but in reality it's doing much more harm because it's preventing him from acknowledging and facing his pain. And he's indeed in so much pain: there's so much anguish inside of him, but he'd do anything to distract himself from it because the reality is just too painful.

This is where the tables come in: later in Crooked Kingdom, when the crew are being ambushed by the Khergud, Jesper "could feel the pull of East Stave" because he didn't have anything else to occupy his mind with. Then, the minute he thinks about facing his father, "the need to be at the tables was overwhelming" because he desperately needs to distract himself from the reality of his circumstances: "since Kaz hadn't obliged him with something to shoot at, Jesper needed a pair of dice and long odds to clear his mind". He can't use the ambush as a distraction, so the tables it is. As Inej tells him, "they feel like medicine. They soothe you, put you right for a time. But they’re poison, Jesper. Every time you play, you take another sip." This isn't the first time poison has been used to represent something that is preventing the Crows from healing - we also see it with Matthias, when he tells Brum in Six of Crows, "the life you live, the hate you feel - it's poison. I can drink it no longer". Just like how the exploitation of Matthias' grief and pain as a means of fueling hatred prevented him from healing because it kept exacerbating the anguish within him (he had to stop drinking the poison to do so), Jesper's addiction - and, by extension, the thrill of a high-stakes situation - prevents him from acknowledging the wound inside him and working towards healing it. It gets to the extent where “he had always thought of himself as lucky… what if he’d been bluffing this whole time?” - he’s gotten so used to suppressing his pain that he, in a way, loses sense of who he is. His façade has distorted his perception of himself. It's not until Colm arrives in the Barrel that Jesper is forced to acknowledge just how deep that wound is and how much it's festering - just like how he couldn't even feel the thrill of a fight properly because of the possibility of his father getting hurt.

That scene is one of many cracks that start to form as Jesper continues to bottle up all of this pain and trauma, until he finally breaks when Wylan proposes that he's such a good shot because being a Fabrikator allows him to direct the metal of the bullets. Jesper protests, asking Wylan why he can't "just let things be easy" - why can't he just let him keep ignoring his problems, when it's so much easier than facing them? But Wylan stands his ground, explaining that "they’re not easy... You keep pretending everything is okay. You move on to the next fight or the next party. What are you afraid is going to happen if you stop?" This is why Matthias calls Jesper “angry and frightened” - he’s afraid of stopping, because he knows stopping means that he’s forced to face the reality that he’s deeply wounded. This is when he finally breaks under the burden of his own pain, under the reality that he can't keep ignoring it anymore - hence why he chooses to put his share of the reward in Colm's name because, as he explains to Kaz, "I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of money just yet". For the first time, he's acknowledging his problems and working towards fixing them, no matter how much time it takes (because trauma and addiction don't just disappear overnight).

n e ways this ended up being significantly longer than anticipated but this is what happens when I start analysing these books: it snowballs out of control and suddenly I can’t shut up.

one of the few zelda youtuber guys that seems to actually love totk made a video about it (i guess bc so many talked about why they dont like it) and while i didnt watch it i took a peek into the comments and of course its full of people going "LMAO people only dislike it bc it didnt validate their crazy theories!!" "its always the same when a new zelda comes out lol at first they hate it and then later its a classic haha idiots" "people who dont like it are just caught up in their nostalgia and cant accept anything new being introduced!!"

also thanking him for "speaking up" about loving the game ... which i find kinda mind boggling bc the internet is full of praise and 10/10s for it

i obviously dont want to villainize people that love totk but like .. these kinds of comments are so unecessarily judgemental? how dare someone NOT like an entry in the franchise and voice legit criticism, how dare someone not worship the game just bc it has zelda on it! CLEARLY they are just made delusional by their own fantasy and will realize later just how wrong they were! hah! those fools!

on my rants there were quite a few people who actually said they like the game but agree with alot of my views on it regardless, it is very flawed but i can also see that the good things outweigh the bad stuff for others, even if i legitimately hate it; but i also had to block multiple people bc they got so butthurt about me criticising it

and i dont think its 100% just an opinion thing either, totk, even when i disregard my personal feelings on the matter, has alot of problems, moreso than the other zeldas (each judged for how it was in their time) and in pretty much every part of the game too (story, lore, continuity, gameplay and rewards, UI-) and i think alot of it stems from its conception, they have never done a true direct sequel before and it came from a DLC idea, and it shows (though i still believe even coming from that you could have done something way better..... bc they also made botw, which seemed to prepare fertile ground for more storytelling that was all discarded for NO reason)

BUT that doesnt mean you cant like it anyway! there are some very horribly shitty games out there that are beloved by people anyway! and thats fine! i love ww and botw, both of which HAVE flaws too! and thats okay!

you dont need to be dismissive of any hint of criticism like that, there is no holy honor to defend, it just makes you look like a jerk