stayathomejester

[stayathomejester]

Lobmeyr champagne bowl, ca. 1900

[stayathomejester]

Very polite

[stayathomejester]

sketched my faves ❤️

[stayathomejester]

The Spectral Realm

[stayathomejester]

it's messed up that men with long hair can just cut their hair and then no longer be a man with long hair

[stayathomejester]

Jean Paul Gaultier: ‘Les Marionettes’ Autumn/Winter (2004)

[stayathomejester]

[stayathomejester]

minos was such a pussy. if my wife gave birth to an epic minotaur baby i wouldn't have locked him in a labyrinth. i would have taken him to the mcdonalds play place (athens) every day and let him eat as many stray mcnuggets (athenians) off the floor as he wanted. i love you hungry son

[stayathomejester]

da2 isn't the best dragon age game *because* it's openly a tragedy, but being a tragedy forces a level of narrative coherence that the other games in the series don't have, and *that's* what makes it a better game.

okay, so. dragon age 2 runs on nested foreshadowing and a limited set of themes that almost every character and plot beat fall into: love is not enough, wealth is not enough, power is not enough, good intent is not enough. the problems you run into are structural, rather than individual, and your ability to resolve them as one person is strictly limited. the arishok is a central figure for this, because he prefigures every other tragedy and makes the game's thesis statement as clear as possible. he doesn't want to be in kirkwall, but he is compelled to remain until he gets back what was stolen. he doesn't want to lead a coup attempt, but he is compelled by qunari codes of justice to act. he does not want to die and fail his duty, but but he is compelled to by the other two impossible demands. every tragedy in kirkwall is the result of too many people with wildly different definitions of justice crammed into one place specifically designed to maximize human misery and suffering, and so you get a wonderfully nested narrative onion where each quest reinforces that idea, where there are no good options, just positions you can take — even the affinity system plays into that, where constantly gassing up your friends or constantly pushing them to change are equally correct ways to go, but ones that won't ultimately make a huge difference in their lives or characters, because no matter how much they like you, they're not under your control.

this coherence is even justified by the framing device. of *course* the moral of the game is "insisting on a dogmatic, narrow idea of justice destroys individuals and societies," it's a yarn being spun by varric the con artist to a chantry cop!

neither origins or inquisition play with that sort of narrative complexity. origins is a jaundiced hero's quest, certainly, but it's still basically a hero's quest; inquisition has a number of characters who question what you're doing and why, but the multitude of voices pulls the game in too many potential directions. DA2 was so constrained in its production that it pulled on decidedly ancient theatrical traditions, and it worked so, so well

[stayathomejester]

every time i see someone call kirk and spock the oldest ship, i'm filled with the urge to go "hmm actually the holmes and watson girlies have been here for a hundred years now", and i refrain because i know the natural conclusion of this game is gilgamesh and enkidu

[stayathomejester]

some Duncans as I try to figure out his face again

[stayathomejester]

who up romanticizing they companion's beautiful brown eyes

[stayathomejester]

Carl Frederik Sørensen (Danish, 1818–1879), "Danish Ships in Rough Seas" (details), 1877

[stayathomejester]

enough with the forcefem and the forcemasc, I’m trying out forcestrange

I’m gonna turn you into something unrecognizable and inhuman, and you’re gonna like it

[stayathomejester]

Venetian Masks, Photos by Dieter Strauß

[stayathomejester]

holding hands - persepolis, iran.