are you with me? always.

blorbovember day 6: memory

ouuugh i need this show back immediately i miss her

Life drawing

[ID: a photo of a sheet of paper with lots of pencil sketches of rats on it. A gray and white rat holds onto the page from below and gazes up at the drawings. End ID]

I got a party banter between Bellara and Taash about how the Lords of Fortune steal elven artifacts. And then Taash clarifies later that they have a Dalish expert on the team so they can check to make sure the Lords don't sell something culturally important and instead return it to the elves.

Like. I get it. You want the Lords to be fun swashbuckler Disney pirates and Robin Hoods instead of actual pirates who steal and plunder. Because we're only now in Western society realizing that stealing from indigenous groups is, uh, bad. But like. Writing really uninteresting factions for your "dark" fantasy (tho lbr Dragon Age hasn't been dark fantasy since DA2) isn't gonna solve real-world neo-colonialism, ya know? The Lords not stealing priceless elven artifacts and returning them to the elves doesn't signal to me that the Lords are total rascally good guys, it signals to me that BioWare itself is trying really hard to seem morally conscious. "See? We know stealing from other cultures is bad!!!"

And man. Not to be a "political correctness has poisoned media" grifter on main (tbh it's less political correctness itself and more the commodification of real-world activism) but I couldn't help but imagine how this convo would've played out in earlier games, potentially even Inquisition.

You could've so EASILY made this interesting while giving the Lords and Taash and Bellara a lot more depth, while also making it clear that stealing from indigenous groups is wrong.

Just have the Lords, yeah, actually sell those artifacts. But also establish that the Lords take in and help elves from all walks of life. That they free slaves, or collaborate with alienages. Then you could have Taash defend the practice by saying to Bellara that little orphaned elf kids being sold as slaves probably don't give a flying fuck about some artifacts they're never gonna see, but the money from selling those artifacts goes to buying them food. And have Bellara fire back that preserving elven culture is also part of its survival, and that there are Dalish clans that would be willing to pay for them or offer something in return. Or have her say that the Lords are doing charity for the sake of recruitment rather than actual altruism. And then Taash responds that those high and mighty Dalish elves don't do shit to help abandoned city elves, just because those aren't part of their correct elven subculture, and they care more about reclaiming old glory than helping the people that exist here and now.

Then you could have side missions or at least codex entries that describe maybe some Lord recruit being conflicted about what they're doing. Maybe a few of them are collaborating to hijack a deal or steal back an artifact. Have implications that some high-ranking Lords are, in fact, using those artifacts for their own gain, despite claiming otherwise. Have some Lords genuinely trying to help, and believing that gold and trinkets don't matter as much as people's lives, so they sell them in exchange for safety for refugees or slaves or some other helpless group.

But no. Instead it's "hey do you steal from my people?" "nah lmao we have a cultural advisor don't even worry about it" "oh wow so cool and woke of you!" And then that's it. No need for any further discussion. No conflict and no complexity. No bad actors and moral quandaries.

Weh.

'Estraven gave me his brief dark stare and said, "We need protein." And tossed away the pelts, where overnight the russy, the fierce little rat-snakes, would devour them and the entrails and the bones, and lick clean the bloody snow.'

Oasis in the Sahara. Camels in Guelta d'Archei, Chad. Breathtaking

"Yo yo, everybody! Put your hands in the air! Who's ready to get FUCKED UP TONIGHT!?"

"Wooo!"

*gentle woodwind music*

Judith Anderson as Mrs. Danvers

Rebecca (1940) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

okay okay okay

it is a little jarring that this is happening in the second conversation I ever have with Taash. I mean yeah that does frequently happen IRL but I kind of wanted to get closer to them first. at the same time I think it probably happens so fast because the transphobia would have been even worse if players got used to thinking of them as a cis woman.

the actual dialogue is. yeah it's basic and extremely on the nose. it's also so accurate it's coming for me in my home in a way that a video game never has before

up until this moment I don't think I really thought that deeply about how it would feel to play a nonbinary character in a video game. or how it felt that I never have been able to before. In BG3 I could play not a man or a woman (stupid clothing and body type restrictions aside), but that wasn't the same as actually playing a character of my gender the way cis people have always been able to.

seeing Rook say this stuff, suddenly I was my PC in a way I never have been before. Like, I've been able to empathize with PCs, feel their feelings, but I've never had any sense that my PC is an avatar for actual me, myself, the person typing right now. And suddenly Rook was saying the stuff I've said, about my own life. What I would have said to Taash if it were me.

I'm sure- I know- lots of people find this stuff cringe, or unrelatable or condescending. But I appreciate getting to have that new experience.

the new American Gothic. // artist unknown, feel free to tag and tell me who painted this.

This is by Mexican American artist Crieselda Vasquez. Her words on this painting is as follows.

“The two most important people in my life, my parents, are also the two who motivated me to develop such a strong concept. When my parents pose for these paintings, their faces are reduced to extremely raw and somehow vulnerable expressions. Sadly, they strive to be invisible every day. They don’t have to pretend to illustrate the invisible. They have dealt with constant rejection, suspicion and fear so long, that it seems now that it comes naturally to them. I strive to capture how their expressions deliver that sense of tiredness, resignation, and quiet acceptance. It seems relevant to show that underneath all the politicization and undeserved labeling this community receives, these are regular people just like all of us. In the long tradition of immigrants that come to the United States, they have made homes here and they are just trying to live a simple life with a bit of security and hopefulness for their children."

I freaking love Kim! This is the stuff she uses: https://www.paltiya.com/

i hope you live. i hope we both live

it just feels right when a librarian is a lesbian. like yea, that's how it's supposed to be