#i will rely on this post
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i have moved! like this post if you would like me to follow from the new blog. be warned: i reposted and reblogged a lot of headcanons and posts, so your dash will be flooded when first following me. sorry in advanced! i wanted the blog to be completely set up before launching it.
#i have a few links to hyperlink still and i am adding my additional verses page and touching up the theme but#like this post and ill follow you!#i only want people who legit WANT to follow me to seek being mutuals#so im not going to follow first to give you an out#i will rely on this post#this post will also be queued a bunch#i also still have like a bunch of tags to go through but all the hc stuff is there now#now it's onto fc stuff i already did deng's tag and the ottermelonart tags so now onto ji and such
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For those wondering - Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 #338 (Hobgoblin sprays Spider-man with poison) and #339 (Doc Ock reveals the poison only becomes lethal when combined with cocaine).
#spider-man#doctor octopus#not the last time doc ock relies on a network of killer satellites#just remembered i had promised to make this post like half a year ago
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
Plain-text version:
Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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Me: Is ao3 down? *opens tumblr*
Tumblr:
Me: Oh, yeah it is
#ao3 is down#ao3#I can always rely on tumblr to tell me if it’s down or of my wifi is the issue#original post
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we already have the percy whose scalp is always somewhat damp because he wants to feel the moisture on his skin. the percy who takes bubble baths twice a week soley so he can nap underwater when he's away from the beach. the percy who once drank four gallons of water in two hours and felt like he was king of the world for a week straight. but give me the percy who gets overstimulated from being in the water too much. the percy who spent his three-day weekend putting a stop to a war between the fish of the pacific and atlantic ocean. the percy who returned home with his hair dry as a bone. the percy who locked himself in his room and refused to touch water unless he was nearly dying of thirst. the percy who damn-near asked his father to disown him for a few days because being directly linked to water made him want to cry.
#i wish we got to see the extreme opposite of each demigod's respective domain#the annabeth who copes by doing impulsive shit every couple of weeks because constant meticulous planning makes her wanna tear her eyes out#the leo who migrates toward colder climates every few months to cope with constantly feeling like he's sitting in an oven#the piper who doesnt talk on weekends to cope with the consistent monitoring of her vocal inflections so she doesn't accidentally charmspea#the demigods who heavily rely on stimulation to function at 100 percent#but also have their 20% days so they don't drive themselves insane#percy jackon and the olympians#pjo text post#pjo#pjo headcanon#percy jackson#annabeth chase#piper mclean#leo valdez#the demigods
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ok sure you don't believe in god or the church anymore but what are you doing to unlearn the propaganda you wre taught? what are you doing to educate yourself about marginalized groups that the church attacked and that you absorbed subconsciously? how are you challenging your viewpoints on things such as addiction, sexuality, poverty, other religions, disabilities, illness, race, and more without it being through a christian lens? are you careful to not spread propaganda or harmful ideologies? youre ‘reclaiming’ shit for your poetry and healing and thats great i guess, i wish you the best, but what have you actually renounced?
#sometimes i want to shake some of the people here and yell at them to stop being a spokesperson for the catholic church#like it doesn't matter how you revamp it to fit the modern posting style!! youre using the same guilt tripping!#youre still spreading misinformation that you never thought to challenge after leaving the misinformation building!#i get its not on purpose but its your responsibility to educate yourself instead of relying solely on being corrected!!!!#ransom note
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About your language brainrot. I see your "Reader's writing can't match tyvat's long and flowery writing" and bring you "Tyvat isn't used to books over 50 pages long so a short story to the Reader is a whole dictionary to tyvat readers".
Seriously, have you seen how thin the books are? They don't wrote novels, they write short chapters formatted in the way really old stories are. As in, summarizing all the events down into one smooth story then adding a few quotes. Fanfiction writers are insane. They will willingly sit down and write hundreds of words at a time. To them, a proper modern day story of maybe, oh 10k words or so, would probably be like the Oddessy itself.
If we were to combine the two headcanons. It would end up as many historians being intimidated by this insanely long written scripture in the language of the forgotten.
I'm going to take this a step further and say that if the creator asked some people to proofread their things, it would establish a hiarchy of who is able to actually finish the book the creator read and who isn't.
NOW THIS, THIS IS MY FUCKING JAMMMM
I'm so sorry this is so old!! u probably all know this by this point that I've really slowed down as the year has gone on, but I graduated university and then got my first job so its been pretty crazy!
Sun: Reader (you/they/them)
Orbit: Headcanons-ish
Stars: dash of all the book/nerds of Genshin, heavy on Sumeru?
Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: Cussing, 16+ Mature Audiences, Spoliers for Sumeru Archon Quests/Scaramouche, & Trigger Warnings: mention of shipping/characters shipping themselves with you.
Comment if any missed, please.
☆
FULL STOP.
THE AKADEMIYA, FONTAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE, HAVE BEEN WAITTTINNGGGG ON YOUR ASS LMAO
You fall from the fucking sky like a 5 star, or pop out of the Irminsul or whatever
and immediately are mobbed by scholars. LMAO jkjk (not really, bc that's what it’d feel like)
can you even imagine the dread older stories(”the classics” to them), that was instilled in the poor students around Teyvat??
id like to think ur works are the most preserved over the thousands of years of Teyvat archeologists excavating them, in comparison to other authors (teyvat just likes you more, suck it William Shakespeare)
also, bc I cant resist language differences/world building I'm sorryyyy 😭 😭
the vocab of Genshin lang vs. ours, has significantly less vocabulary like their actual dictionary is 1/3 the size of ours type of energy
(Omfg all ur fanfics being considered like insanely long realistic romantic classics or tragedies like Jane Austen-level, and only the richest and biggest play companies put on plays about ur stories bc the script goes on for hours)
(ur plays only get put on for rlly big events bc of this, like Lantern Rite or like a Summer/Winter festival/your birthday, which is, yes, an international holiday)
dude the sheer power move of anything you’ve written being essentially “Journey of the West” to them, like Damnnn.
endless like adaptations, plays, Teyvat-short stories condensing it, (THEIR OWN FANFICTION ABOUT UR STORIES)
the power is, in fact, going to your head every time another scholar both deflates at how long ur stuff is, but also lights up bc they get to read it
speaking of scholars… you know who snatched you up first. you know. you don’t even need to read the next line.
Alhaitham.
sneaky bastard he is, absolutely manipulated, mansplained (and manwhored bc he knows he’s handsome, cheeky little shit) his way into getting you to sit down with him and interview you about both translating other classics, your own, giving your own analysis of others works and ur own, and picking ur brain apart of how/why you wrote urs, etc. its fucking endless,
Kaveh had to come rescue you bc u were starving to death after getting stuck with the Haravatat scholar in his office for nearly 7 hours of interrogation discussion about literature
and Alhaitham wasn't even nearly done, he’d informed you as you left that he already had another appointment for later conversation scheduled (how?? you don't even know ur own schedule??? you have a schedule???) and was looking forward to more of your “creative and enlightening input” :)))
(you’re never going to escape him, not even Nahida herself can save you from his stubborn ass)
On another note, Xingqiu is quaking when you agree to autograph his copy of your stories (of which he has all hard covers of the first edition translations)
Zhongli/Rex Lapis is known for having a near-lifelong passion for searching for your works specifically, and learning how to translate them better into Teyvatian vernacular
like the same way he can absolutely speak on Rex Lapis facts/rocks/adepti info, is the same confidence he speaks about knowing ur work lol
(yes he did also ask for several autographs and another sit-down talk about the works, tho a lot more sneaky then Alhaitham bc he just casually gets u guys into it during dinner)
Barbatos/Venti has written some of the most famous songs based on your stuff, he has his favorites too,
but he always claims the best songs are any that have been written in the story, like either when a character sings something, or there are like quotes from songs ur fanfics are based on lol
(he also demanded to hear what they actually sound like from you, yes, you have to sing them for him lol)
Venti also can surprisingly drunkenly ramble the entirety of at least one of ur stories, like, word for word lmao
(Diluc gave in and did give him a drink on the house for that one, just once, Venti doesn’t remember it lol)
(I forgot to mention, u guys still speak the same language, just like, different versions of it)
ur works being one of the few things all the Archons can freely talk about with each other, like it’s neutral ground bc they’re all fangirling about it lmao
Furina and Neuvillette have had like,, fierce debates over the decades about character dynamics and the general drama of ur stories, they’ve gotten into it enough they’ve stopped talking to each other for a couple days a few times lol
Albedo, Sucrose, Kokomi, Yae Miko, Ei, Raiden, have read every single work they’re gotten their hands on in Teyvat (it took them like a literal year or longer)
Albedo drew you fanart for every single story, bc he’s hyperfixated on everything related to you ngl,
Kokomi had commissioned smaller pocket versions of ur works (which later got popular thanks to Yae Miko) both the OG and the Teyvat shortened versions
THE HARBINGERS ARE THE MOST DOWN BAD LMAO
Childe has literally tried to recreate battle scenes from ur works lmao
and gets especially riled up about fighting someone who resembles any characters from them (esp villains, what a cutie)
You cannot fathom the amount of research throughout Teyvat that has been secretly or indirectly funded by Pantalone/Tsaritsa
from the experts to analyze them, to funding play companies to act them out, to actually excavating places to get more of ur stuff unearthed
(the Harbingers absolutely are the first group of people that got to read several of ur stories first bc of this, like the world’s most exclusive secret book club lol)
Scaramouche used to clown on Childe all the time about how he was too impatient to even “sit down and read the King’s classics”, and he was downright insufferable when he found out about Tartaglia’s habit of recreating battle scenes/that being what motivated him to fight sometimes lol
that being said, Wanderer surprisingly never forgot ur stories.
Even when his memories were wiped for a bit, he found comfort in these fantastical epics still sticking around, even when his old names did not
(he mayyyy or mayyy nottt have secretly namedhimselfafteroneofthetragicprotagonistsherelatesto- )
oh btw, Nahida also found joy and comfort in ur stories when she was trapped, they also helped her literally grow as a person bc she had ur stories to help her sort of process the world/what life was like outside of her dreaming prison 🥺💔❤️🩹
◇
OMFG
ANYWAY FULL TONE SHIFT LMFAO-
the ABSOLUTE SPIRAL-RED-STRING-CONSPIRACY-THEORY-BOARD ENERGY IF THIS WAS A BLUNT LANGUAGE AU LMAOOOO
like specifically how Teyvatians like to give all the context ever thru their words, but older deities/beings like you just do simple phrases that can have deeper meanings (whereas teyvat just explains all the meanings behind their words)
STOP there’s like an official display at the Akademiya and Fontaine Institute of red string theory boards 😭😭 (look what you’ve done to themmm LMAO)
for like every story of urs, INCLUDING THE FANFICS STOP
IMAGINE THE SHIPPING WARS IF U EVER WROTE ONE THAT WASNT EXPLICIT OR LIKE ONE OF THE MAIN ROMANTIC INTERESTS HAD CHEMISTRY WITH OTHER CHARACTERS HAHAHAHAA
that's actually what Akademiya scholars argue about the most viciously, it’s like politics you can’t just bring up ships from ur stories casually in regular convos 💀
(poor Cyno has to deal with a shipping war once a year bc someone always makes the mistake of reading ur work for the first time (without being told to not talk to others abt ships lol) and it starts an all out brawl in the cafeteria every time LMAO)
Also yes.
Cyno is a fanboy.
(he has read Creator x Reader-insert fanfiction.)
(As have most of the characters mentioned, and those not lol)
…
(I'm gonna make a whole Creator x reader fanfic post one day i stg lmao)
☆
an iced coffee? for me?? :0
ok but real talk…
wtf do you guys wanna see for new years!!
i didn't do a inktober/october days thingy bc i felt too unprepared (and bc id wanted to post that 1000+ followers eldritch au for Halloween)
but now i kinda wanna, at least for a few days :o
ill post a poll in a minute, so check it out!! but still, please feel free to comment some ideas here! :)
Safe Travels Deafening Dreamer,
💀♒
If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"
(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")
♡the beloveds♡
@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily
#this looked a lot longer on desktop#fuck it#anyway sorry if im slower again guys!#i got sick again :(#my voice was completely gone for days#im onyl just recovering#so finally felt decent enough to write more#check out my other posts for the poll btw!#genshin sagau#genshin impact#sagau#genshin isekai#genshin imagines#genshin impact sagau#aqua asks#genshin x reader#self aware genshin#genshin self aware#more like isekai heavily but this does rely on u understanding they could/have had ur stories for years in their world#so kinda#<3 u guys but DO NOT TAG AS YANDERE/DARK#bc its not <3#gonna start putting that reminder in the tags
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Me: how do I study as a neurodivergent person?
Google: how to help your autistic child study
Me: how to study as an autistic adult/teen
Google: teachers guide to how to deal with autistic children
Me: how do I study as an autistic teen/adult
Google: study tips for autistic people(-written by this allistic man that will talk about autistic people like they're zoo animals)
Me: how to study as a neurodivergent adult, tips from neurodivergent person to neurodivergent students, on how to study independently as an autistic person, no reliant support needed
Google: high functioning autism and school
Me: fuck just. How do I focus during this test that I'm in rn as an AuDHD person
Google: ok, so, to focus on this thing that you currently are doing and need to get done TODAY; weeks before the test you'll need to eat healthy and exercise, meditate, study, set timers, take breaks, drink water, sleep, find the secrets to a happy life, adopt five children, sacrifice a goat, take short showers, brush your teeth
Executive dysfunction:
My fucking deadline:
#adhd#actually autistic#im so fucking sick#of the tips for people taking care of people with autism when im sesrching SPECIFICALLY on how to manage my own autism#im so sick of getting infantalized#im so sick of getting alienated from the fact that im human#im so fucking sick of autistic adults getting forgotten#im tired of searching for how to help myself and getting tips for people who dont struggle with what i do#im sick of getting callef high functioning#im sick of getting told when i look for study tips to rely on other people to help me#rant post
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i have a headache can someone please give me an ibuprofen
#rp#I have a headache right now so i can't be funny im relying on you to make the post funny please just reply with an image of a hot dog or so#ething
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How Aziraphale Responds to being Pinned to a Wall
Aziraphale trusts Crowley more than God, part 1/?
bonus:
#Aziraphale trusts Crowley more than God#good omens#good omens 2#good omens meta#aziraphale#aziraphale x crowley#ineffable husbands#ivoc#if somebody catches this at 666 notes send me a screenshot#it is at 660 but I have to go to bed I am gonna be so mad if I miss this post being blessed by Beelzebub I'm relying on you guys#this post has been Blessed by Beelzebub and surpassed 666 notes thank you everyone!!!
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btw terfs can fuck off. You all are really obvious when you show up in my notes. You will be blocked on sight. I am very trans and do not have time for you.
#text post#not always possible to weed out but sometimes the really obvious names give it away#as does bright red shinigami's eye#takes usually about 2 seconds then just to check their blog and confirm they are infact very transphobic#does rely on me reading all my notes and all the usernames which I don't always do because there is a lot
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ive been drawing the nightmares from Stormrage for fun cos i'm Knaakpilled now
also i wanted to draw a new gross malfurion tree
that was malfurion's this is tyrande's
ok this last image isn't in the book. but it's what would happen next. also she's making the spongebob walking noise
#stormrage#warcraft#malfurion#tyrande#illidan#reading the book for real this time#i skipped a lot before#like i never read the no take candle nightmare lmao#so silly and on purpose!#sylvanas's is also good ill prob draw it#long post#relying on tumblr to crop this stuff i think it works ok right?
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Every night Bug and Bianca cuddle together. Bianca grooms her while Bug “nurses” from Bianca’s neck. I’ve been trying to break Bug of this bad habit (with no luck) and now I just found little bald spots she is leaving on Bianca’s neck. Hmmm… wherever could those be coming from.
#cannot rely on Bianca to correct this behavior because she loves it#they both purr so loud#but alas. I don’t want Bug to have the craziest hairballs ever. and I don’t want Bianca to have a bald neck#my post#Bianca#Bug#no bug pictured but it does pertain to her so
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❝The Earth's axial tilt gives us 24 hours a day. If it'd been upright, we might've had only eight hours a day.❞
LOVE PATTRANITE as SUN and MILK PANSA as ONGSA NANNAPHAT episode 9 of 23 POINT 5
#23.5#23.5 degrees#23.5 series#23 point 5#th: 23 point 5#ongsasun#milklove#milk pansa#love pattranite#tosunset#userlovevivi#the place where i get the episodes to gif still didn't post eps 8 and 9#so i have to rely on yt and vpn#vpn makes the connection so slow it barely loads anything#should be thankful i at least have that option tho#anyway ongsa's flirting game is on point#bibi gifs
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I’m putting these words on a high shelf until you guys can actually start applying these words to actual situations where it would be important to apply them to and not fictional content
text behind read more
Text on box: the words “glorify, normalize, sexualize”
text pointing to kid: people who think the depiction of a certain dark topic without demonization equates to endorsement of that dark topic irl
#little something ��🐚🐁⌝#for legal reasons this post is meant to be light hearted#I don’t seriously think people should be banned from saying these words#just kind of tired seeing them being applied to fictional media#profic#pro fic#pro fiction#proship#anti anti#media literacy#I guess#really just hate the argument of#“It’s ok to depict these things! Just make sure you show they aren’t ok!”#because like…maybe for kids media#but for older audiences I’d expect them to have at least a bit more of a moral compass#and not rely on fictional media to tell what’s right and what wrong to do irl to people.
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when you first start the cousland origin, you can have some conversations with arl howe, teyrn cousland, and duncan that shed some interesting light on the political situation in ferelden. it’s definitely the origin where you get the most context on the rebellion and on cailan and his father. while howe isn’t exactly the most trustworthy of sources, he is also one of the most openly critical of cailan that we have access to, which i think is worthy of interest
howe remembers maric with what the toolset describes as “genuine fondness”: “your father hasn’t spoken of our time with him? that man took care of his friends. as they say, he was large as life and twice as tall!” i think we should pay particular attention to that man took care of his friends.
what howe’s talking about is a really important aspect of kingship, where you win the consent and enthusiasm of the nobility for your rule by offering rewards like wealth, land, and prestige to the loyal. kingship is always less stable than it’s portrayed, and this is one of the ways that kings must essentially sell to the nobility that answering to them is worth their time, which would be especially important in ferelden given everything we know about its culture. fereldans believe someone only has power when it is given by the loyalty of those below them, who have the right to freely rescind that loyalty. the dao codex says that “the sight of [fereldan kings] asking for—and working to win—the support of ‘lesser’ men is a source of constant wonder to foreign ambassadors.”
i suspect howe is remembering a maric fresh from the victories of the rebellion, who was able to reward those who had followed him with the spoils of those victories. at the end of the stolen throne, we see that in the final days of the rebellion, maric was killing those who had betrayed his mother to the orlesians even when they arrived under truce to meet him on holy ground. in dao, we see no lingering orlesian nobility except for those who married in and continue to be met with marked hostility. i think we can safely surmise that maric elected to make no conciliatory measures and give everything to those who had followed him; with the orlesians on the run and his people out for blood, he was in a strong enough position to do so, and it certainly served to win the fond memories of men like howe.
by contrast, howe goes on to say, “it’s too bad cailan isn’t half that.” the toolset notes establish very clearly that it’s the same issue, elaborating on howe’s thoughts: “bitter turn, i don’t get as much from the current king”, and “disdainful, i have no use for him, he does me no favours”. this isn’t a minor character detail, if howe’s last words when killed by the player are anything to go by. “maker spit on you... i deserved... more...” whatever it is that howe feels he should have been given, by the crown or anyone else, it characterises his actions and his defining treachery.
it’s in these same conversations that we see another side of this demonstrated. there are two points where howe can openly criticise the king, and bryce immediately admonishes him for both. one even has the toolset note: “speaks sharply, as a lord to a lesser man, not a friend to an equal”. it definitely comes across that way; the way he tells howe “that’s enough” is not far off the voice he uses when the player, his child, displeases him. bryce can’t tolerate any criticism of cailan, as the couslands in dao are ardent supporters of the king. to venture some hc, i suspect that this is not merely royalist fervour, and that howe’s resentment for having been given less is matched by bryce’s awareness of the precariousness of having more.
over the centuries, the theirins have consolidated their power and eradicated almost all the teyrns (the noble rank that is second only to the king). with the only other lingering teyrn being loghain, who is essentially part and parcel of the royal family, the couslands stand alone as the only real rivals to theirin power within ferelden. there are rumours that bryce was once considered for king instead of the theirins; he too could have decided to believe he “deserved more”. but unlike howe, and perhaps understandably given his strong position and happy growing family, he is satisfied with what he has. he will not take the risk of even the slightest challenge being made within his hall
(i expect that bryce’s satisfaction with the current situation further spurred howe’s dissatisfaction to its heights, given the complicated cousland-howe history and the fact that he was expected to accept a friend he had fought beside as a superior for the rest of his life.)
i don’t think howe’s judgement on cailan is likely to be without basis. we don’t hear about any victories the young king has to his name, from which he could have passed around spoils. (to be fair, cailan had harder luck than maric in this regard. a king who raises a successful rebellion gets to bring glory and prestige to everyone who follows him, whereas a king trying to rebuild after that rebellion mostly gets to bring, uh, taxes probably. especially on wealthy centres of trade like howe’s amaranthine, one might assume.) cailan also takes a far more diplomatic approach to the question of orlais, which perhaps predictably did not win over many nobles of howe’s generation. it makes sense that cailan’s strongest supporters would instead be men like bryce who hope for things to simply continue, peacefully, as they are. perhaps in another world where cailan had won the battle of ostagar, he might have earned wider respect. (you could actually argue on this basis that there’s more sense and purpose to cailan’s glory-seeking than he usually gets credit for.) but howe already acts before ostagar, which can only demonstrate his certainty in cailan’s failings at this point: his belief that even if cailan could win, he would not be stable enough to pursue justice for the couslands
#i dont like first naming bryce. it made sense here but feels disrespectful#anyway i think that covers most of the thoughts i have here#possibly a lot of this is surface level and obvious but i think abt this a lot so i didnt want to assume anything#you can go on to make a point here about how howe gets land and titles left and right from loghain#because loghain is a battle strategist not equipped for rule so he’s relying on maric’s tactics#and also that land is cheap to him right now (or not a thing he HAS in order to LOSE it when he gives it away)#because theyre at civil war#there’s not a lot of foresight in it is my point its just about winning this whatever it takes and howe is easy to buy now#wouldve caused a lot of problems for anora down the line in a very different timeline maybe#ANYWAY. my point is that im *not* saying all that bc im tired and this post is finished goodbye
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