#been replaying da2 and it's put me in such a mood

[unboundmagic]

soooooooo............... i got locked out of my account for a year which is why i haven't been around -WHEEZE-

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

Catching Up

thanks for the tag @galadrieljones and @roguelioness:)

THREE SHIPS:

I guess I have more than I think as I cycled through them and there’s many I adore, but right now I love Cullen x Inquisitor (Obviously lol they live in my head rent free at all times) from DAI, Jamie and Claire from Outlander, and I’ve also been thinking about FenHawke again (Da2, I need to replay that game.)

LAST SONGS LISTENED TO 

Listening to “California Dreaming” by The Momas and the Papas as we speak. “You Showed Me” by the Turtles has also been living in my head rent free. Very swanky, I recommend it. 

(In case you were wondering I am aware there is music made this century.)

CURRENTLY WATCHING:

O U T L A N D E R. Watching it slowly though, I started season one in November and have been going through it since. I’m on season four and I’m enjoying it a lot as (Spoilers) they moved from Scotland to America. I liked all the seasons to be honest but two was probably my least favorite, which was weird because they were in France...

that being said though it had some amazing moments (Like when Jamie said goodbye to Claire? OH MY GOD. It hurt so good)

And since Gala talked about it I’ll just say I have like several games I bought but I have not been in a mood to play any of them at the moment. Just not in a gaming mood. AC Valhalla is kind of fun  but I’m not that invested, and I’m too worried my PS4 will blow up if I put in Cyberpunk. (Might give it a try again tonight however.) 

CURRENTLY READING:

Outlander, book one and Claire’s inner monologues crack me up. And I’m cycling through my reading list for this big test I have to take in March for my MA, please send me good vibes...I’m listening to Pamela on audiobook and hoo boy.. >___< I hate Middlemarch. I’m also reading Mary Rowalndson’s captivity narrative for the test currently, hoping to knock it out this weekend. 

HOW’S IT GOING?

I have anxiety from the aforementioned test but I was looking over the reading list again, and a lot of books I have read already, and I feel like what I haven’t read is relatively manageable. I just wish I started reading books I knew I would have had to read sooner. I also have to go back to remote work, which is fine and how it should have been from the get go. Bonded with a student over writing the other day and it gave me warm fuzzies--she wants us to talk about our work with one another.

Tagging @idrelle @ladymdc @kunstpause @lavellanvibes @alyssalenko @wintersongstress

[theharellan]

So it’s Dragon Age Day, and the prompt for this year is “How has Dragon Age changed you?” and while I didn’t submit anything, this was partially because of how busy I was the last few weeks and also it’s hard summarising the ways the series has changed or affected my life. I still wanted to talk about it somehow though, so I’m gonna write about it here! CW for mild discussion of depression and heteronormativity.

I first picked up Dragon Age completely on a whim, I wanna say the summer of 2011 because I’d just finished my first year in undergrad. I think I’d seen my dad play it once or twice but I actually thought it looked bad, because like... Origins is ugly. I love it, but it’s not a pretty game, and its gameplay didn’t do much to sell me, either. But I picked it up because I was bored, and immediately after I hit “new game” I saw I could play as a dwarven princess and I was hooked. My first true Dragon Age love was actually Gorim Saelac, and Alistair would always be a step down from him, sorry Alistair.

I blazed through the game in a matter of days, and I saw that Dragon Age II had been released earlier this year. I also saw it was getting pretty mixed reviews, and said to my dad I probably don’t want it. He didn’t listen to me and bought it anyway, which is also how I ended up with AC: Unity, but in this case I’m glad he didn’t listen because DA2 is my second fave in the series now, after Inquisition.

I went into the game sort of expecting to romance Fenris or Anders, I’d never actually picked a woman to romance in these types of games. I grew up on Harvest Moon, where you were sort of forced to play as a man and romance women, and it was a novelty to get to be a woman and date men. Also, I’d been a big fan of Final Fantasy XII and loved Fenris’ voice. Only then I met them and they were both very angry and intense and I was immediately turned off.

So I romanced Merrill.

There are problems with that romance, no question, but romancing Merrill was probably one of the first positive ways I’d been able to express my attraction to women ever, even if I wouldn’t quite realise my romantic orientation until years after. Like, before it had been put upon me, because developers didn’t realise that Harvest Moon fans had a significant female fanbase and made me play as a man, or shell out more money for a second version of the game, and there was no option to be queer. Or it was things like when my internalised sexiam and internalised homophobia got tangled in a net when I was a child and I wound up disliking fictional female characters I had a crush on until I grew out of it. Or assumed heteronormativity made me believe it was just friendship I was feeling. Being able to choose to play a woman and choose to romance a woman meant a lot to me, especially as Merrill quickly became my favourite character in the series. I joke sometimes that “Merrill made me gay” but these games-- and other Bioware games or those like it-- gave me space to explore what I hadn’t explored in reality, thanks to heteronormativity and the struggles that I find a lot of ace people have with figuring out their romantic orientation.

But that wasn’t the only way Dragon Age helped change me. As I said, I started the series after my first year in college, and by the time Inquisition came out I had just graduated a few months prior. I was unemployed and wasn’t sure what to do with myself, and was in a deep depressive episode that in some ways I’m still trying to claw myself out of. Inquisition was the main thing I was looking forward to, albeit with some apprehension as I was overall disappointed with Mass Effect 3. As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry, as it became my favourite. Playing Inquisition, as well as replaying the other two, helped alleviate my mood, as did writing. I had made an rp blog for my Inquisitor, Thora, the day before the game came out, and after the Temple of Mythal I made a blog for Solas.

Writing both of these characters has really helped me over the years. Through Solas I was able to better understand my own mental health issues, researching his symptoms and seeing myself reflected in them. Same with Thora, the expectations put on her and the anxieties she has, some she could meet and some she couldn’t.

I also started writing Solas around the same time I started drifting farther left, and while I can’t credit Dragon Age for turning me into a leftist, that would be doing a disservice to the real, living, breathing activists who influenced me, it was unquestionably a lens through which I could see corruption in power structures and the importance of them being dismantled. My first time playing DA:O I was sort of neutral on the concept of Circles, I sided with the mages, thought things like the Rite of Tranquility were cruel, and advocated that Jowan be let go, but with our main perspectives coming from Wynne, who is pro-Circle, and Morrigan, who has a very Randian view of “they didn’t stop this so they deserve it,” it wasn’t until DA2 and replaying DA:O that I began to question its existence entirely. Which I think is one of the brilliant things about DA:O, it introduces the world in such a way that you step into it as though you lived it, rather than dropping you into the world similar to a TES game. It grants the player an opportunity to learn to question the existing power structures through slow experience and learning, rather than an rpg where you have so little context that you question it because you are a stranger dropped into an unjust world.

The last thing I wanted to talk about the way Dragon Age has changed me is through the fandom. Korth knows we have had our differences and frustrations, but as I said I started writing Solas five years ago, and in those five years I’ve met a lot of people through this fandom. Many of the people I was writing with five years ago aren’t around anymore, but some still are and I want to say I appreciate your presence so much, whether we talk or we are just comfortable mutuals, whether you’ve moved fandoms and still follow me or still talk to me on Discord. Through writing Solas and Thora I’ve met some of my best friends, and my darling Joly, which is more than I could ever ask of any game. It’s strange to think that something I picked up on a whim one boring summer is why I have the happiness I do now, but I’m grateful to it, to the hundreds of people who created the game, and most of all the people in the fandom I’m lucky enough to call ‘friend.’

[himboholhorse-moving]

1 2 4 7 8 9 13 18 20 26 27 29 30 32 39 40 41 43/44 45 46 49 51 53 55 56 57 59 63 65 that is. so many dghsdghsdgv I'm sorry I just see an ask meme and go crazy aaaa go stupid aaaa. You can just answer whichever u like from those!! also 69(nice): you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash

HDSKFJKS I completely understand but lucky for u I LOVE to talk !!

1) How are you?

Pretty good, actually!! Which is a nice change of pace. I went to Walmart with some friends yesterday and got a few things, baked a family recipe that my friends LOVE, and finally did my laundry (it’s been a couple weeks we love depression and executive dysfunction dfhkjsfd). I went to Cracker Barrel with some friends and earlier and played a 4-way game of Tetris after. :3c

2) Post a picture of yourself.

Here you go !!

4) What is your entire name?

Sierra Alexis and my last name is something constantly misspelled so I’ll give you the name of a historical figure whose name is a letter off from mine: George B. McClellan, to whom I may or may not be related because last name variations are fuckin’ WEIRD.

7) Your zodiac/horoscope and if you think it fits your personality.

I’m a Capricorn sun and moon, and Libra rising !! And from what I’ve read on Twitter from various astrologers, like Milkstrology, I LOVE her, I’d say it’s pretty accurate with my personality!! I like to say Capricorn’s aren’t cold bitches but, I Have A Tendency To Be One !!

8) What did you do on your last birthday?

God what DID I do on my last birthday… it was in January, so like, I SHOULD remember… OH I went to IHOP with my friends !! I share a birthday with another friend and I got a JoJo notebook and something called a Fuggler! They’re stuffed animals more or less but designed to be “ugly.” I got one that looks like Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty because I LOVE Gritty… he’s so fun and funky.

9) What is one thing you’d like to accomplish before your next birthday?

Get all my requests in my inbox over on my writing blog done KJHFDJKSF it’s been a few months and life has been. Hectic to say the least.

13) If you could change your eye color, would you?

There’s so much weird as hell brown-eye-phobia so like… I think blue eyes would be pretty neat. OR PURPLE… give me some unnatural eye colors pls...

18) Do you have any tattoos?

Not yet!! I’m going to get one the next time I go back home for break. :3c And I have a few ideas for other ones!! I wanna get a big-ass “Dragon Age: Origins” tattoo that’s the dragon on the cover on my thigh. I also wanna get a DA2 and “Inquisition” tattoo… and the Joestar birthmark… too many ideas… 

20) Left or right handed?

Right-handed !! I could have been left-handed or ambidextrous if I broke my arm AFTER I started kindergarten, but alas that was before.

26) Something you are working on right now:

This !! But also the script for my next podcast episode that I record on uhhh Monday I think. Should probably figure that one out dsjfjhsf

27) Do you have any “rules” about food?

I answered that in the last ask !!

29) What would you say is your best quality?

I also answered this in the last ask !!

30) What do you think you’re really good at?

Writing, I’d say! And memorizing trivia about the stuff I’m super into. If it’s stuff pertaining to “M*A*S*H” or old movies or TV shows or actors or specific historical events, I will know that shit FOR LIFE. Don’t ask me to do math pls thank u

32) What talent do you wish you’d been born with?

I wish I was able to do stuff with music. That was never really in my blood, despite all the music classes they make you take in elementary school. I just never learned how to memorize or read sheet music. :/ I would have loved to play violin, tho… my friend plays and she says I would have been a good cellist.

39) Do you sleep with a stuffed toy?

YES… have for years. I still have my Care Bear from when I was 5, Gritty as mentioned above, a plush of my school’s mascot, and a little Fugo !! He’s so tiny.

40) What do you think about the most?

Everything and constantly and all at once. But the past really because I can never let stuff go and even the small things I mess up on haunt me forever… Wish that wasn’t the case but it is !!

41) Share two habits:

Biting my nails and having a very specific routine in which I get ready when I wake up. Like, I’ve gotta go brush my hair before I put my important cards in my left pocket, then put on my silver bracelet, then my beaded bracelet, then my earbuds in my right pocket, then put my earrings in. I HAVE to do it in that order…

And other oddities that include, like, if I need to go around something I HAVE to follow the urge to go one way and not the other, lest I feel the need to go back and fix it. And then which foot goes first before I reach a crack in the sidewalk, or up or down a curb, etc.

43) What are your career goals?

If I can just make people happy or get some kind of joy out of the things I do, I’d call that enough. :)

44) What is your ideal career?

Mmm, either a film historian or a film professor !! Preferably at the college I’m at right now but wherever the wind takes me, I’ll go! Or a Twitch streamer or YouTuber, it really depends on my mood jdhfjskf

45) Is your life anything like it was two years ago?

It was pretty much the same !! Freshman year was pretty lively, I didn’t have a job on campus yet though, or my podcast. Everything else is basically the same!

46) Do you replay things that have happened in your head?

CONSTANTLY… good or bad it’ll play back over and over and over again.

49) Do you have any phobias?

HOO BOY, DO I… fear of heights; fear of insects/bugs/arachnids/bees/wasps; I have a strong dislike of the number 13 but I don’t know if it’s a phobia, I just. REALLY hate it; the unknown, more or less what lurks somewhere beyond where I can see. Not so much a fear of the dark with that one, just what could BE in it.

51) Are you allergic to anything? If so, what?

I answered this in my last ask, as well!

53) Ever come close to death?

Two or three times, maybe? Two of them involved what’s called a laryngospasm, typically it can happen when your sick, which is what happened to me both times. Basically your throat just closes up on your for a hot minute and you can’t breathe. The first time I genuinely thought I was going to die (and my dad still sent me to school that day… HOE), the second time I was also sick and was losing/had lost my voice DURING A JOB RETREAT and it happened in the middle of the night so that was funny sitting there gasping for breath in the pitch dark.

At the FIRST retreat I went on for that job, you had to take pictures as part of a scavenger hunt, and the place used to be an old military fort, so there were still the old bunkers there. We had to take one on top of it and I was taking the picture, and it’s a wide shot so I go to take a step back but before I do I look behind me. If I hadn’t I would have fallen a good 10-15 feet down onto solid Civil War-era bunker concrete. I’d consider that being a “close to death” moment because I really could have died!

55) A random fact about yourself:

I have a half-brother !! My sis and I finally found him after her 23andMe results came back (which she decided to do despite us being like THE GOVERNMENT WILL COLLECT OUR DATA) and we didn’t think our mom would be happy she found him but she was !! My sis might reach out and contact him, she just wanted our mom’s permission first to do it.

56) What are three things most people don’t know about you?

Well, that I have a half-brother. I don’t mention it a lot. Aside from y’all on here and my sister, most everyone else doesn’t know I’m nonbinary! Everyone else knows I’m bi though lmao. And that there were times I’d stretch or bend the truth or lie about something just to impress someone else. It’s a… Bad Habit. Another thing is that most people don’t know I like coffee? Like I need to put a shit ton of creamer in with it because I’m a Bitch, but yeah.

57) An unknown fact about your life:

I wouldn’t call this an “unknown” fact but I’d used to go to work with my dad every now and again when he worked at the Home Depot and he was assistant manager. I’d either chill in the back room which was an office he shared with two other guys, or walk around the store with him. I had my own apron, too, which was my name with “Mini Mac” next to it, “Mac” being my dad’s nickname and something easier to say than my last name. I actually helped a few customers out so I wonder if I should have gotten paid for that despite being like, ages 9-13 when I’d go jshfkjd

And I guess I technically tested video games as a kid? Basically, when my dad was stationed at Fort Knox, they’d get demos of video games that hadn’t come out yet to test I suppose? and I still have a few somewhere. He’d hand them off to me and I’d play them so there’s that.

59) Five weird things that you like:

Eating globs of wasabi for no reason.

Scaring my friends also for no reason.

I wouldn’t say using cotton swabs to get wax out of your ears because it feels good is weird, just more medically inadvisable if anything.

When I was younger I’d like to floss really hard because the slight pain from it felt good. Young me was a #Freaque KJHDFJJDHF

I don’t know if being fond of alphabetizing and reorganizing things is considered weird but I LOVE doing that.

63) A quote you try to live by:

“It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll; / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.” It’s from the poem “Invictus” and the last two lines are what I’m getting tattooed !!

65) Weird things you do when you’re alone:

Practice the “Lucky Star” dance. I GOT THE LYRICS DOWN… JUST NEED TO DO THE DANCE NOW…

69) Leave me a compliment:

“you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash”

Anon pls 🥺 I do my best to be nice but my friend really do test me sometimes... my feelings bounce back n forth like if they do something my feelings can switch to angry or like, hate, and then if they do something nice I’ll like them again. It sucks but ! I just take it one day at a time. Anon I care for u 💜💜💜

[sarasa-cat]

Writing vs Exhaustion - Part 2:  Low Hanging Fruit

Okay, unlike that last f-bomb of a crankfest post, this is me documenting some constructive ideas to just Make Low-Stress Words Happen.

Behind the cut is 100% constructive thinking:

On and off today I have poked at a private file named: New Priorities, New Writing Goals: 2K17 Edition.

Really, it is just me prioritizing a shit ton of writing projects and trying to figure out where I should combine ideas, how to direct my focus, etc. A bunch of those projects are high stakes and, frankly, medium to high stress. Some of it is literally rage-fueled writing in which the rage needs to be the fire that is used when forging the sword -- the final written pieces. The rage cannot be the fire that becomes a firestorm of words on a page. Big difference. And that makes writing very difficult because so much editing and idk. THINKING. So much. Just. (brain turning off. brain... off.)

!!!!SO LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT THOSE PROJECTS RIGHT NOW!!!!  :D

After all, rewards are needed and the best rewards are candy projects that also happen to be low hanging fruit.

OC development in fandom land is low hanging fruit. 

Trying to decide between various Quizies and Hawkes. Maybe the goal isn’t to decide and just go with whatever the mood strikes?

I need to start gaming again for a break. 

So, without getting into details (for some readers, the details are probably obvious or easy to guess or feel guessable), I no longer feel the same way about Thedas as I did before DAI came out, before fandom split along the predictable lines of the current cultural split in american (and british) politics and ... yeah. So.

I sort of don’t know what to do with Thedas’ elves after DAI happened, especially when combined with things I have heard Gaider say about elves (now deleted). So ... just like some players step away from the whole mage-templar thing, I have been feeling inclined to step away from the whole CANON portrayal of the elven characters (perhaps with a couple of exceptions as long as they are pre-DAI or ... something. idk how to define that something.)

Likewise, DAI’s portrayal of Cullen disappointed me in 2014-5 for how it ignored KEY ISSUES that really should have been addressed to explain Cullen’s *cough* transition into who he became in DAI. I mean, it was sort of insulting and while the romance is cute and feminist(tm) good, the parts that aren’t addressed have gone from an annoyance that made me pissyfaced back in late 2014 to OHFUCKHEADINHAND i just don’t even know what to do except Fanfic to the rescue or put Cullen on my ignore list. And this is only the tip of the iceberg here. I have never had a fannish situation where I have 180-ed so hard on a character.

[uh. the exhaustion is creating a blurry static noise in my head. need to step away.... get some water... finish this post later...]

.

Right. So where was I?  Low hanging fruit in order of easiest pickings.

1.  Gary Stu Hawke:  I have been itchy to replay this bastard. He is a bastard -- a purposefully shitty truth-via-wicked-parody Hawke who is the embodiment of the worst sealioning false ally you’ll ever meet who refuses to acknowledge his privilege cards and plays up his victimhood in ways that are painfully cringeworthy. Imagine a tonedeaf egotistical racially bigoted, misogynist MRA (m=men’s rights activist, but Gary is also a mage) who is also the worst kind of Tevinter fanboy. I originally created him as a nasty little private in-joke, many years ago, but I used his initial play through to rival Aveline and Varric (because normally I Just CanNOT DO THAT. omfg.)  And then add in the rivalmance hellmess he has with Fenris. For some reason it feels like his time has arrived...  (DA2 is far quicker to play thru than DAI so Hawkes in DA2 are always easier to select as low hanging fruit ;)

2.  Inquisitor Fenris:  Strangely, and it is hard for me to find words explaining why, Fenris is one of the only Elves in Thedas I want to continue exploring after my moment 2 years ago of handing the elves back to Bioware with a “thanks, but no thanks” sign on them.  (or, requires such massive rewriting I just can’t even without creating my own original fiction...)  Putting Inquisitor Fenris into the same continuity as Garrett Steward Hawke (above) just makes it all the more tasty. Fenris/Dorian. Not sure how that will work out. I’m certainly not the first to think of this much less the first to do it, but I suspect most of us who have considered this road have similar reasons. (I should probably read some of the fic? perhaps?). Anyhow: Tevinter worldbuilding galore and minus the crappy evil-orientalist shit that came with the canon.

3.  Mari Hawke version 3.0:   I ... idk. Well, I do know.  ... Okay. So, I have always liked femHawke/Isabela as my #1 feel good OTP. It’s just pure player enjoyment for me. Candy ship.  There are other canon Hawke ships that are more interesting to me for writerly reasons because of the DRAMAZ, and ... idk, maybe it would be fun to write something that is pure fluff and candy (well, I never write true candy fluff, but close enough, at least for me). ALTHOUGH, I cannot play a mage Hawke in DA2 without it morphing into my Cullen/fem!mage!Hawke player-supplied DLC. ;)   ...and given how DAI and everything about the past two years have changed my feelings and opinions and comfort level with everything elven (except for Fenris who used to be my least favorite character in DA2 and now, heh, nope. now I like him) and EVERYTHING about Cullen’s transformation from DA2 to DAI, I just ... maybe I just wanna kick Merrill out of that weird threesome and make it a thing where MariHawke(mage) and Isabela have an extremely tight yet *open* relationship and where Mari and Cullen have a far more strained (lol, and it was already strained) and difficult relationship. I just ... idk. I sort of want to compost 70% my million words of old Mari/Cullen verse and see if any of the themes are useful in orig fic while keeping whatever needs to remain in Kirkwall in Fanfic land and radically changing the nature of it. More like Bela/Hawke+Cullen with a very different flavor that is more .... idk. relevant to 2017? Bitingly critical?

4.  New Fruit Just Ripened -- I never thought about making an Inquisitor Isabela until right this very moment now:  Huh.  Hm.

That could be an interesting follow on to #3.  I don’t even know who she would romance in game or how I would mentally adapt the Trevelyan parts to her (lol, impersonation?!) although I guess out of game it could continue the Bela/Hawke+Cullen story? Orsomething. Iguess. i... Brain twists. For some reason I see Bela/Josephine like whoa.   I mean WHOA.  Maybe this gives me a space to fix all of the omissions I cannot stand in Cullen’s DA2 to DAI transition? idk. 

5.  Rozina Trevelyan -- a normal vanilla playthrough, more or less: So, originally this was an excuse for me to do a load of personally meaningful worldbuilding and thedas-reclamation in Ostwick. I need to make Thedas more purposeful to me. (it is a writerly thing as compost for other projects).

Originally planned a Roz/Cullen PT with Roz siding with the templars but then the templars quest creeped me the fuck out so hard I sort of stopped playing and then I think I finished the quest(?) but that was back in late September and then I had no time to play up to skyhold and ... Maybe I’ll just have her romance Josephine? Because of my Cullen issues (above). Except if I have a Bela/Jo game then Jo is already covered? I am just so befuddled what to do here. I guess I just have to return to that game (maybe review a few key scenes/saves) and then do an OC writing questionnaire to help myself find this OC?  I almost want to restart her from the beginning for the 3rd time except ugh, the beginning of DAI is such a slog. ;)

...

All other Hawkes and Quizzies do not feed my muse atm. Same for absolutely all wardens. 

So. There’s a list!

It is constructive!

I really need to just grab some low hanging fruit from the tree and go go go.

It sounds like a mess but just naming my mess is constructive.

At the very least: inspo blogging and character development memes.

All of this will happen on my side blogs that are 100% fandom (currently inactive) but I will reblobbulate here so it won’t be even more of a mystery than it already is.