#otherwise I'm mad at everything
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what I'm gonna do on my 30th birthday, you ask? well, laundry, probably. such fun. 🫠🙄
#personal#how did I manage to get sick at the end of the year#ugh#I want to go outsiiiide#I can't even but myself meds#my granny has to do it for me#because if I go outside I'm gonna get sooo much worse#I want some red fish and veggies :(#I wanna renovate!#back to cross stitch instead#otherwise I'm mad at everything#on my 18th birthday I had a horrible fight with my dad#where he made me cry#so that has been one of the worst#this one?#this one is going to be one of the most boring and ordinary days ever unfortunately
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gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)
I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.
he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"
#red randomness#p. g. wodehouse#he was so known for not having sex with his beloved wife#that i truly didn't expect this at all#i feel like i see a lot of people saying with a great deal of confidence that he was sex-repulsed ace#especially due to the wife thing#but while he certainly may have been ace on some level#i feel like at the very least this casts some doubt on the sex-repulsed part lmao#i suppose it's possible he was lying but wouldn't this be such a specific and unnecessary lie in this context?#especially for a private letter to a friend he'd known and worked with for decades#because he really didn't even need to bring it up#of course i am open to evidence to the contrary#i just dislike seeing overconfident opinions broadly prevail#even when aspects of a real person's life suggest the possibility of otherwise#the study of history is meant to breed discussion!#and something that goes against the grain of past assumption is certainly worth discussing imo#also very grateful to the unpublished monograph by George Simmers about Honeysuckle Cottage#because that's how i found out about this letter in the first place!#great monograph mr. simmers please publish it someday#opened my third eye about the potential latent homosexuality in that story (among other things)#and at risk of having someone get mad at me or say i'm trying to like. diminish or slander the ace community by saying this#please don't assume that. that's why i've been afraid to share this before.#i'm not confidently stating wodehouse is anything. he's a real man who lived and i didn't know him#but by the same token neither does anyone else#i'm just as tired of people in history who have a fair amount of suggestion of being aroace being broadly assumed gay#despite evidence to the contrary#or people confidently assigning queerness to historical figures when evidence of them being queer in any way is ambiguous at best#everything in history is a maybe. we just collect facts and analyze them.#and my current analysis based on this line is that i'm not sure i think he was very sex-repulsed after all#(but like. i'm not going around insulting or fighting people about it in dms or something. and neither should you)
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As much as I love playing embrace Dark Urge runs (discussion in therapy pending), there's something so narratively satisfying about how a Resist Durge playthrough can go once you get to the Bhaal Temple. Your character steps into the ring with Orin, it's intended to be a duel, but odds are you're getting eviscerated pretty quickly. You then switch to one of your other characters in your party and throw an attack, effectively breaking the duel and setting the whole temple upon you.
(Adding a cut because this ended up being longer than I thought)
But, I think it's a very satisfying way to play. Your party members have grown fond of your Durge, seeing them as a friend, a family member, even a lover. They've watched you and your pain over your Urge and what it makes you do or want to do. Maybe you've slipped up once or twice, but you've been trying so hard to be the hero they know you can be, that Faerûn needs. So, when it comes time to finally face your demons and you're getting so horribly hurt in the process, they can't help but rush to your defense. It'll put all of them in danger, but it doesn't matter because they want and need to help you, their ally and companion.
Bonus points if you select your character's romanced companion as the savior/duel interruptor to make it extra delicious. They've fallen in love with you, stayed with you when your Urge craved their blood the most, maybe by this point in the game you've helped put their demons down as well. They see you in pain, a final valiant effort to overcome your Urge against the power of Orin, a whole cult, a god of murder himself. They want to protect you, save you as you saved them.
I'm also fond of the extra beauty of Astarion being your Resist Durge romance since it puts the two of you in very similar situations. Fighting against the will of your masters, finally defeating your demons with your newfound companions' help and being offered the greatest power you could ever fathom... only to deny it, ignore power in favor of your party and your love.
This isn't even mentioning just how goddamn good the Withers resurrecting you cutscene is. This skeleton in your camp with unknown and unfathomable power (also apparently supposed to be Jergal himself if I've done my research properly?) is able to bring you back to life, free of your Urge. The line along the lines of "Bhaal could only destroy what of you that he knew, but because you've grown past your Urge and become your own person, he couldn't destroy that new growth" is just so weirdly powerful narratively. Tav may be a default character for you to create upon making a new save file, but Durge is the canon protagonist and I think that entire scene shows it the best. It's a beautiful secondary climax of the narrative (primary being battling the Netherbrain of course).
And, perhaps it's just an oversight on Larian's part or something that'd be a bit difficult to work into the cutscenes mechanically, but I think that it could only get more impactful if your companions could comfort each other during these moments. Everyone and their mother wishes you could hug Astarion after he kills Cazador, but also imagine your romanced companion cradling your body after Bhaal kills you. It seems just a little odd that they all (meaning your party) kinda just stand around staring at your corpse, especially with how close y'all have gotten.
Idk, I have a lot of thoughts about this section of the game in this particular type of playthrough and some of them are hard to articulate into words. It's just such a damn good narrative peak and can really make you feel things.
I've completed I think two resist Durge runs and just hit this point on my third and it really stuck out to me this time (then again my new antidepressants are kinda fucking with me so that might be playing a role). I left it as my last mission before dealing with the Netherbrain and I think it helped build the anticipation of that moment. Everyone else has been helped by you, and now it's your turn to come into your own. I really felt so connected to my character walking into the temple, feeling like everything has been building to this, that regardless of what happens our suffering will finally end. And you have your party there to help you in your time of greatest need as you've done for them.
There's a reason this game was Game of the Year, the narrative is just so powerful and the replay-ability is just insane. I've beaten this game ten times, heading for my eleventh and it truly just never gets old and never fails to make me feel so many things so strongly.
#we're gonna bypass how i have the withers big naturals mod installed#because it kinda undercuts the moment when withers comes in to resurrect you and he has these massive honkers#i'm a big fan of embrace durges since it's a great way for me to let loose without real world consequence#(my anticipation for patch 7 grows daily of course)#and it's also just fun to be your worst self and create the fucking legion of doom with your party#you'll never beat the sheer power of an evil durge/ascended astarion/dark justiciar shadowheart/minthara team up#I AM FULLY AWARE I AM SINNING WHEN I ASCEND ASTARION AND IT PAINS ME EVERY TIME BUT I LIKE EVIL NARRATIVES SUE ME#but a resist durge run makes me feel so many more things#helping shadowheart with her family helping astarion learn to be his best self free from cazador lifting the shadow curse among other things#plus everything I mentioned in the main post#and then the final crescendo of the score at the end of the epilogue party cutscene is a HUGE chills moment#although i will always be mad that in order to keep gale from ascending you have to make him seek forgiveness from mystra#she should be apologizing to him wtf no wonder i accidentally ascended him so many times him#gale telling her to shove it just MAKES MORE SENSE and is the healthier thing to do but it gets you his fucking bad ending wth#okay i suppose him blowing himself up is his bad ending but whatever#apparently him exploding the netherbrain can get you the win for honor mode and as someone who can't even get through balanced mode#you bet your sweeeeeet ass i'm not above sending gale to blow himself up to avoid a run ending fight if i got that far#honor mode is not about getting the ending you want it's just about completeing it and dude there's no way in hell i'll get close otherwise#i'll shut up now#fishgills speaks#fishgills plays bg3#bg3#baldur's gate 3#the dark urge#bg3 durge
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@remylong :
#newest broken telephone installment#the remy renaissance#or rather standard avvycc dms. broken telephone elements include ccsims designs of my old designs plus prev hp art plus the general sepia#of everything on fire. bonus to the chromatic aberration on hp it feels quite fitting (yknow bc the chorus behind his lines..) idk vibes#this colouring style is actl terribly fun i'm quite !!! about it. i'm also glad that I made reference sheets for them all long ago bc#otherwise i would have gone insane rrying to rmb them from scratch. lately despite the rainbow hp seems to overall be turquoise blue? which#is so fun compared to the more purple/ neutral blues and greys i have in mind for mark...#anyways doing well! getting back slowly into Making things again! having fun etc etc#have been in OC-land lately but nothing i'm ready to share yet haha#so occassional bit of fanart it is. i inexplicably want to draw hands now though i was walking back home#pondering my adamandi era (mad the most insane fanart i've ever made; no recollection of it now) and after enough mulling it over#it would be nice to return to it. don't think i'm as obsessed anymore but it's certainly not lacking in inspiration#ideas are there just havent reached the sweet spot where you get so taken by an idea you're compelled to turn it to reality#and i think itwould be fun. perhaps even gratifying to set wips to rest#so maybe. in the meantime px11 brokentelephone is sustaining my urge to make miscellaneous fanart haha#melliotverse so true. wonder why despite watching taopp i haven't been compelled to draw it but i get the inkling it's just that specific#aesthetic that doesn't do it for me. <blinks> it was very good and i enjoyed it immensely! i think i just surprised myself by being normal#about a musical for once. i think also bc irl i've been more Good Busy the drive to engage in fandom has dissipated somewhat..#so overall i think it's a good thing. just different. but then again this stretch of time is a transitory period for me so changing ought to#to be expected. ah well tldr don't overthink just do what sparks joy be happy? literally so lucky to be spoiled for choice wrt things#i want to do. so much to do and see and learn and time still to get to figure it all out!
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"There's this whole crew of gay folks and Usopp as the trophy hetero" you better speak right about my son before i break into your house
#really what the actual fuck#i really don't understand the part of the fandom who says usopp is a straight cis guy#they totally ignore usopp's grown as a character. they say he's just the comical relief. exclude him from everything#when the person in question is an artist they draw him with all the racist stereotypes#when it's a writer he's poorly written to be an idiot and fill space#oda already don't give him enough attention and people still get mad usopp has qualities and screen time#idk if this happen because people thinks he's not conventionally attractive or something#i'm always saying if oda just got rid of that stupid ugly racist mouth people would care more about usopp#“but the mouth makes part of his character otherwise he would be unrecognizable-” shut up shut the fuck up.#no one would miss it#sorry this was supposed to talk about people saying usopp is the only straight strawhat but took a turn lol#one piece#usopp#god usopp#rant
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sometimes my knee jerk reactions to things i see on the internet force me to deeply consider that i am, in fact, the problem here
#not vaguing anybody for the record this just happens to get triggered most often on tumblr#like look i get everybody has different standards and yes of course you always have to give some leeway if you just want to. fucking. u kno#enjoy media in a semi-normal way...otherwise you will just constantly be miserable#but that is just so incredibly ironic to me. and basically exemplifies why i get so fucking mad all the time about this#and i have to sit back and think. am i being unfair?#my instinct is to say that i am#surely i am also blinded by my own self-interests. i must be. because aren't we all?#but then the more i mull it over the more i think no actually! i work very very hard to stay in touch with objective perspective#and sometimes yes i choose to ignore that objectivity for the sake of superficial enjoyment#but never to the point of completely ignoring a huge contextual factor like that#and as always i don't want to be a dickhead so i'm not gonna make like. a fucking callout post or anything#i mean there's not even anybody to call out because no one here has done anything wrong#but i just find it hard to pretend like everything is fine and normal when every time i get reminded of it i get mad all over again#which AGAIN is why i'm like. this is a me problem. this is a *me* problem. THIS IS A ME PROBLEM.#i have to be able to behave on the internet with people who disagree with me.#at least when it's so insignificant like this
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#recently i am having to work VERY hard not to say something like “two men talking to each other isn't actually queerbaiting”#i've JUST SPENT YEARS (literally YEARS) being told that boyslash is so common because “men get all the good friendships in media”#except now if two men don't actively hate each other this is EXACTLY THE SAME as cruelly teasing us with them being lovers???#like don't get me wrong i read shippiness into everything too but i am aware that i'm wilfully misinterpreting most of this stuff#and i wouldn't get mad about how the shit i made up in my head is deliberately placed there as bait to get me to watch stuff#but then i don't even think sherlock was queerbaiting given that the writers KEPT TELLING US it wasn't a romance so...#(tjlc being of course a fantastic example of a fandom making shit up and then insisting it's true despite being repeatedly told otherwise)#disk horse (sorry)
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I hope Ingemar Patrick Linden, a dude who apparently thinks accepting death as a natural part of the world is bad and it's a good thing and "counterculture" to endlessly chase youth and immortality for oneself despite the fact that it's literally fucking impossible, and who read Lord of the Rings (supposedly) and thought the message was "science and progress are Bad" instead of, you know, Absolute Power Corrupts Everyone and Everything It Touches, has a very, VERY bad week.
#read a section of his book ''The Case Against Death'' and now I'm pissed#like I totally get that growing old sucks in our modern world!! everything hurts and no one takes you seriously!!#but that's a SOCIETY thing. being immortal and eternally youthful won't fix society.#also if anyone has read that book please tell me what he says about gatekeeping youth/immortality and how he thinks that'd be addressed#because he has the vibe of someone who thinks once people gain Absolute Power they're cool with sharing it and uhhhhh#no!!! people with power Do Not like sharing!!! congrats dude you are advocating for a society where a very small selection of ppl are elves#and the rest are even further reduced in personhood!!!!!!#I SHOULD BE ASLEEP BUT INSTEAD I'M MAD AT A PHILOSOPHER FROM NEW YORK#anyway death and aging are morally neutral and anyone who says otherwise wants your money
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does your doctors ever just drop something on you much later about your meds or your conditions and it explains a lot
#Like my seizure meds can make me dehydrated#I've been on them three years and just kinda chalked up being thirsty to ya know...needing water but nope Keppra can make you dehydrated#Or when I was taking sucrafate for 6 months before a Dr told me I had to take it several hours before eating BC IT PREVENTS UPTAKE#OF ANYTHING INCLUDING MEDS SO I BASICALLY WASNT TAKING MY MEDS FOR MONTHS AND WAS GETTING SICK AND DIDNT KNOW WHY#BC NO ONE BOTHERED TO TELL ME I SHOULDNT TAKE IT WITH OTHER MEDS JUST NOT FOOD??#AND THE DOC DIDNT EVEN TELL ME INTENTIONALLY SHE JUST MENTIONED IT OFF HAND AND I WAS LIKE WAIT WHAT#SHE WAS SO SHOCKED NO ONE TOLD ME AND IT WASNT LISTED ON THE BOTTLE#I'm still mad about it I was getting extra seizures for months for no reason bc of an oversight#Since I got that info I've been taking my meds properly and I haven't had a seizure for almost a year#:)#Remember to ask every question you can think of and ask aggressively#Every interaction with other meds every side effect#You NEED to know you're not being pushy it's your body and health#ASK THINGS OF YOUR DR ITS WHY THEYRE THERE ITS FOR THE BEST#chronic illness#medicine#Medication#Even if you are being pushy it's your right to know everything about why and what they're giving you#I also thought Ativan was a neasua drug for a while bv they always give it to me in the er when I have a cvs episode#But it's for anxiety and they use it to put me out while the actual drugs work and that's okay!!!#But I didn't know so I stared asking for Ativan (and zofran) when I went in and got denied because they thought I was a junkie/on detox#For a med a doctor would otherwise order for my distress bc I didn't know better#Know your meds and know them well it can only help you in the long run#Keeping a list written or digital that you can show doctors also helps so they know how drugs can interact if your an er frequent flyer#Like me
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wow!!! nothing better than watching your AO3 subscribers stat go down every time you post a new chapter of your current fic!!!
#/sarcastic btw. i am. Not happy about this recent development#Seven.txt#writing stuff#ao3#like. don't get me wrong i do understand why and i can't fault anyone and i'm not like.. Mad. but it does hurt a lil#but alas. tis the nature of creating and posting things. not everything's gonna be received well and that's fine#it does suck to see a fic i put so much time and effort and love and part of myself into flopping so hard#not because i wrote it for anyone's sake other than my own#but i'd be lying if i said i didn't want people to enjoy the things i create. that's like. a normal and common desire#and i think i maybe killed it before it could get going with how i tagged it and the bigass disclaimer at the beginning#i think those turn a lot of ppl off that might otherwise read and maybe even find that they enjoy it??#but i would rather over-warn ppl for the triggering and non-canon aspects than under-warn them and potentially trigger or upset someone#and i can't blame ppl that subscribed for some Other thing when they open their email and see a notif that i posted smthn#and it's a mile of upsetting/negative sounding tags for a fic abt a guy they either don't know or don't wanna see mischaracterized#and so of course they unsub and that's okay. it's okay.#anyways. enough bitching abt my fic not doing well. i don't have much room to complain!#most of my stuff is fairly well received imo. so i can stand to have a flop fic every once in a while. gotta balance things out lmao#the good thing is it's already fully written so the lack of engagement can't stop me!! there's no motivation to kill! it's done already!#anyways. i'll post a chapter a day as planned and then it'll be out of my system in a week and i can post other stuff again finally#next up will be an [N]MbD oneshot. then i'll finally post the Dew Ghost Band OCD fic. then another [N]MbD oneshot ehehe#and thennn ES Ch.5! fucking finally. i can't wait to continue that story#the Dew fic is a oneshot too btw. once AEIWNF is fully posted then the only multi-chapter project i'll have is ES. and that's Enough
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this ear infection toothache nightmare combo is severely fucking up my enjoyment of tlou i swear i will kill someone i will cut my ear off like van gogh
#im so mad fuck everything#i have to take my earbuds out every 2 minutes and use a heating pad#i think i'll take a hot shower and take more meds and see if i can power through#otherwise i might have to save this episode for when i feel better :((((#i'm so fucking sick of my body fr
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May Whomstever-the-FUCK decided to make it so Internet Routers need a MyFuckin' App to set up the password and security settings step on randomly generated Lego pieces of various shapes and sizes and pain intensities for the rest of their fricken life.
#I just spent TWO HOURS troubleshooting only to be told 'you need an app' over and over#no alternative! it wont LET YOU connect to the IP like ANY OTHER ROUTER would! only app! otherwise BLOCKS YOU!#only to find out for SOME REASON the internet person who came and set it up for my parents#HAD IT ACTIVATED ON THEIR OWN APP!!! So I had to FACTORY RESET IT like THREE TIMES#TO BE ABLE TO ACCESS AND SECURE! MY OWN DAMN ROUTER!!!#Why didn't you have one of the like 7 people here who have phones do it my dude???#We don't want some random person having permissions to our internet!#THIS APP LEGIT GIVES THEM ACCESS TO EVERYTHING TOO#DEVICE INFO#DEVICE BLOCKING#NETWORK INFO AND BLOCKING#LETS YOU DISABLE ACCESS TO CERTAIN WEBSITES AND APPS#A STRANGER SHOULD NOT HAVE THIS INFO!!#also they were rude as shit but thats whatever I really don't care bout you being a bitch#UNLESS YOU BE A BITCH BY MAKING ME SPEND 3 HOURS TRYING TO GET ACCESS TO MY OWN ROUTER CAUSE YOU FOR SOME REASON GAVE IT TO YOURSELF INSTEA#I don't want some rando walking around with a phone that has an APP that lets them DO ANYTHING THEY WANT to our internet#from changing the PASSWORD to disabling the SECURITY FEATURES to telling my mom she can't get on FACEBOOK ANYMORE#not that I think that last one is entirely a bad thing BUT NOT FOR SOME RANDO TO DECIDE#THE AMOUNT OF THINGS I CAN DO TO EVERYONE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD WITH THIS APP IS ALARMING TO THINK ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE HAVING#yes they probably deleted it off immediately but that also doesn't help! me! make sure our router is SECURED. BRO.#anyways I'm Mad why is everything APPS these days why do we need this
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The problem with a lot of body horror for me is it's just gross without being compelling
Like yeah you had that person tear their leg open and pull muscle away from bone in a way that's very uncomfortable... but I don't care. Or a lot of Hostel style horror for me it's just kinda... yeah... grossing me out isn't some kinda win
Cause it's not that I don't like body horror, I love Dead Space for instance which... kinda the core pillar of that is body horror if we're honest
Could be a matter of that that kind of body horror is more fantastic making it easier to digest, I will advance that as a theory, but personally I kinda think that it's more that they do something actually interesting with it
Like if I wanted to I could probably see a really fucked up leg wound (and worse) in looking online about this shitty world
Can't really find dead bodies contorted into killing machines though
So I kinda feel like it's my problem with a lot of horror, of that it's horrible in a mundane way where as I'm looking for some unfathomable secret out of horror
So there's a difference between some stabbing a person in the eye cause they're just a shitty person, and doing it to try and create a replica of an alien artifact that gives unlimited energy but also drives people crazy and then turns their bodies into horrible monstrosities
One is just way more interesting to me
#also most of that shit looked stupid and goofy and like bad cgi#like yeah you managed to make some brutal looking stuff; congratz; I don't care about that#but the actual monster stuff you did just looked silly#bleh... glad I skipped my way through out of 10 kinda horror movie (ie almost every horror movie)#the only problem with Dead Space is that I can't play it cause ammo management stresses me the fuck out#you'd think it's because it's too scary#but no; it's cause it brings out my perfectionist where I need to make every shot hit perfectly#I don't do well with scarcity; too much in my own life#which means I don't do well with horror because by necessity things are scarce cause otherwise that's just a power fantasy#but also! it's hard for me to watch stuff like that cause I get bored real easily of watching people meander#also I don't want them talking#basically what I need to find is somebody that... let's be honest; that's a cinematic artist#knows how to collect everything with good pacing; knows how to win without making it too easy#this is my curse with Dead Space; in many ways it's one of my favorite bits of horror in the world#and yet I can hardly interact with it cause of how my brain is#maybe the real Dead Space was the dysfunctions we had along t he way#but nah... too much horror is screamy backrooms; not enough is MyHouse.wad (or whatever the Doom extension is)#which... is another thing I'll never play; but I got lucky and found a video that really nailed what I needed it to#which is funny cause I don't really enjoy anything else on the guy's channel; mostly cause he covers analog horror which...#I so want to like analog horror; but I never do; it always feels so bland#all of it has sparks of brilliance but then goes way too silly with it#horror is one of my favorite genre's; which is I guess why I hate all of it so much and I'm so so so so so so so picky#legit part of my problem is there's a very real extent to which I feel like 'if it doesn't drive me literally insane; what's the point?'#like; 'if I don't have a literal break with reality and become infested by madness from another world; is it even horror?'#which I gotta be honest; if it actually happened I wouldn't enjoy that much#I want some unknowable truth... horror makes me hungry for something I can't put my finger on#like a memory long since passed#but there's stuff I do end up liking and end up thinking is effective#mm tag so i can find things later
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nobody knows me how i want to be known
#both perception wise and otherwise#idk i don't even know myself and even my close friends don't feel really close#i see people talking about their close friends and i'm like#“damn. thats way different from how i am with my friends”#and they're talking abt a friend group like 2x the size of mine#i just wish i was better at socializing and communicating#i have so many goals socially but i have no idea how to achieve them#i want to be close with someone the way best friends in movies are#i want someone to know everything they can know about me and i want to know about them#i want to be comfortable with telling them everything#but i just cant do it#also if you're one of my irl friends hi! i was expecting you to see this (you know who you are)#i'm not like. mad at you or anything#just frustrated with the limits of my abilities and knowledge#this is not about you#love ya <3
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The Insidious Cycle of the Abuser Who Says They Love You: Mythal and Solas
Likely goes without saying, but Veilguard spoilers all under the jump.
I have been absolutely wrecked by the end scenes in Veilguard for weeks now, and I want to do a deep dive into Solas's relationship with Mythal and how it absolutely reeks of abuse. Long post incoming!
CW for heavy discussion of cycles of abuse, trauma response, and abuse tactics.
When I finished my first playthrough, this moment hit me like an absolute freight train. His visceral response to her presence and the way he instinctively retreats and flinches back/puts out a hand to protect himself is a full-blown trauma response.
And then she starts talking and moving towards him, and it gets worse.
Solas curls in on himself; his body goes even further into self-protection mode. His face is downcast, not the way he bowed to his vhenan moments before with a straight back and open posture, but shrinking.
And then as she advances, he cowers.
He completely folds inward. He crumples; he shakes, he hyperventilates, and the moment she reaches for him, he fumblingly offers her the lyrium dagger to kill him with.
Is this shame? Yes, of course, but it's far, far more than that.
For the sake of brevity, I'm going to limit this list to the four most widely recognised trauma responses:
Fight
Flight
Freeze
Fawn
As someone whose primary trauma response is fawn (wooo CPTSD), which is intensely common among people who experience complex trauma, especially through emotional and prolonged physical/mental abuse where their needs are discarded, pushed aside, or otherwise steamrolled, I felt this right alongside Solas. My own body responded to seeing it. This is, quite frankly, one of the most visceral and realistic (and extreme) fawn responses I've seen depicted in media.
Mythal in this scene is...phew, something else.
"She was the best of them," Solas tells us in Trespasser.
But she was not good, everything tells us in Veilguard.
Let's look at his regrets in chronological order.
Through Solas's memories of regret, we see this germinate in his foundational regret: leaving the Fade to take a physical form.
He does not want to do this. He tells her he does not want to do this. From the conversation, it's clear it's not the first time she's asked.
And the way she asks? Outright coercion.
"You have so long observed the world. Why not consider joining it?" [I want you to do this thing, so I will frame it as logical for you to make the choice I want you to make.]
"But I have no desire to live as humans. Besides, this talk of taking on a solid form. I think you underestimate the danger." [I don't want to do that. It does not feel safe to me.] "When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?" [This is dangerous and selfish.]
"The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the Fade; we are the best of both physical and Fade." [It makes us powerful, so I don't care about the risks.] "I need your wisdom, Solas, to withstand the louder voices like Elgar'nan's who would go too far." [If you do not come with me, a tyrant you abhor will make others suffer.] "I need you."
"This is madness. You must know that." [I don't want to do this at all. This will hurt me. I don't want this.] "I will always follow where you go." [Because I love you and trust you.]
Mythal's words in this part are classic abusive framing. When appealing to his natural curiosity does not work and he expresses strong rejection of her logical thought process (just because I have observed this place does not mean I want to go there, echoing his comments to the Inquisitor in DAI: "Many Orlesian peasants dream of travelling to exotic Rivain. But not everyone wants to go to Rivain!") and expresses that there is significant danger to continue to build bodies out of lyrium, she changes tactics.
Her second tactic is that it gives them power--she implies that he is limited and not enough for being only of the Fade. If he follows her, he will be the best of both, like she is. She clearly already sees herself as above him.
Her third tactic is pure emotional blackmail: "I need you. I will give in to the tyrants without your wisdom, and having your counsel in the Fade is not enough. If you don't go against your own nature and desires, people will suffer...and it will be your fault for not being by my side."
She doesn't say those things outright, but they are implied by everything she is saying. He says again he doesn't want it--that it is madness and that she must be aware of that despite her ignoring any suggestion that she actually is. All she is seeing is power and her desires: for Solas to do what she wants him to do.
So he agrees. Because she is his friend, and she says she needs him.
As far as core wounds go, this one is a doozy. It's absolutely brutal, because it's irrevocable. It's a point of no return. It's the first in what will become millennia of regret, of her ignoring the Wisdom she coerced out of the Fade to do what she wants regardless, to continue to push him to twist his nature under the guise of the greater good, to continue to cede to Elgar'nan and enable the very tyrants she promised him to balance.
This regret was deeply painful for me to watch. The nuance here is easily lost if people don't understand abuse tactics and how this sort of manipulation is used. It also serves to bind Solas to Mythal, an enormous sunk cost fallacy in the making--once he has made this choice, there is no going back.
And you see Solas curled in on himself in anguish and regret from the trauma of taking a physical form. It is in deep, painful contrast to his open, free wingspan as a spirit of Wisdom; he will never be the same.
"Have you created what we need?" From the outset Mythal is framing this as his idea as much as hers, when from everything he says, that is not true.
"With this, the proper ritual will sunder every Titan from its spirit. But you must know, those severed dreams will certainly be driven mad, a disembodied blight of pain and anger. It--is--awful what we are doing."
"And the only way to end this war."
Again, Solas offers the wisdom she claimed she took him from the Fade to listen to. He warns her, again, of the danger. He does not want to do this. Just like he warned her of the earth quaking when they made their bodies--they, the Evanuris, started this war by taking what they wanted regardless of who it hurt. He never wanted to participate in it, but now he is in the middle of that war. Mythal was one of the initial perpetrators of this war; she brought Solas into it against his will because he loved her, and now he's stuck. He is past his point of no return. And she is still using his heart against him. She has isolated him from everyone he knew in the Fade; he has no one to support him. He. Only. Has. Her.
This is another classic abuse tactic; if the person being abused has no one else, they will continue to enable that abuse even if it harms others, because they cannot see a way out. If you don't do what I say, it will destroy our children, our family. If you don't do what I say, this war will consume all you have, and you no longer have a home to return to. If you don't do what I say and hurt yourself and the Other, more will suffer, and it will be your fault.
Again, his posture, curled up and broken, appearing to cradle a now-tranquil Titan beneath him--and be embraced in return. This is an interesting artistic choice here, one that aches. It speaks to the depth of his own wound and how much it rent his own spirit to follow through with Mythal's wants here; that it sundered him from his spirit as much as it did the Titans.
"You cannot do this, Elgar'nan! You swore we would give up our commands when this war was over!"
"Our people need our leadership. If you are unwilling, leave."
From Elgar'nan, this is expected. From Mythal?
"Our people must rebuild. And we must help unite them."
Solas, once again, betrayed. He put his trust in Mythal and in the other Evanuris to follow through with their promise. Everything he has done thus far is poisoned in this moment; had the Evanuris indeed stepped back rather than stepped on necks, perhaps Solas could have healed, found a way to live with what he had done, maybe even to make amends. But this starts his war anew--and Mythal is standing with his enemy despite her promises, despite every wheedling word she's used to get what she wants from him over the centuries and longer, despite him turning from everything, everything, he loved to love her. This is the moment where he understands that he has only been a tool to her all along.
"So we did not fight for freedom, but to conquer this land and our own."
Let's pick apart Solas's words.
So we did not fight for freedom: He truly believed that he was fighting for freedom, that no matter how bad it got, that he could bear it for freedom.
But to conquer this land: Literally the land, I think, because of the Titans. To subdue them at all costs. This was not what he came for, but he believed Mythal.
And our own: Our own, our people, more spirits we gave bodies for this war, more who may not have wanted to leave the Fade. Our own, our people. To Solas, he is one of them. In this moment, he realises how much Mythal holds herself above all of them.
Elgar'nan's words are all too telling: "We fought to win. And now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal's annoying lapdog."
They all--all--see him thus. As her pet.
Because he is. She has, until now, controlled him utterly with her manipulation and "need" for him.
"The people are afraid. They must believe in something." Mythal does not even stand up for Solas here; she does not reject Elgar'nan's perception of him. All she does is further distance herself.
The people are afraid: The Evanuris made them. They are as controlled as Solas and more.
Elgar'nan asserts, "They need strength."
"And wisdom." Mythal has the absolute gall to attribute this to herself, when Solas is the source of the wisdom she "needed" for so long. (Belated addition: And another level here: she may also be saying again that she needs him, but doing so in a way that doesn't require her to stand up for him directly. Honestly, fucking gross.)
"They need gods who can protect them," Elgar'nan continues.
"We are not gods. You will learn that." Solas's voice here is pure defeat. The scales are falling from his eyes.
"Every lapdog holds a wolf inside," says Elgar'nan.
Solas knows that Elgar'nan's "protection" is hollow, based on subjugation. And I think in this moment, he learns that Mythal's is based only in her belief that she is better than those beneath her, who cannot possibly handle themselves.
So her lapdog becomes the Wolf.
"I was not certain you would come."
Solas's opening words in this regret show the distance between them already and how much he has realised he does not know this woman who called herself his friend.
And her response is to instantly blame him.
"You are the one who walked away. I never turn my back when my friend needs me."
In putting this post together, this line absolutely sucker punched me. I've watched these several times already, but the absolute audacity to blame him for standing up for his principles for the first time against all her manipulation? Hoo.
She blames him for doing just that, "turning his back when his friend needed him." She needed her enabler, and when he stopped, she turned bitter. Just like any abuser.
That he goes straight into "The Evanuris seek the magic of the Blight" instead of engaging, honestly shows that he's still Wisdom. That is one battle that is unwinnable, trying to stand up against an abuser's bullshit like that.
"Impossible," she says. "The Blight is safely sealed away forever."
Gaslight, girl boss, gatekeep.
"Though I wish I could believe you." [You have lied to me so many times.] "I have sensed the breaking of the wards."
And her answer is patronising. "I will investigate your claims." [I don't believe you.] "If they forget the danger of the Blight, I will endeavour to remind them."
Solas knows this is futile. "What if, instead, you left the Evanuris and remained with me? Do you not wish for freedom from this struggle?"
He asks her, again, to veer from the dangerous path. He desperately wants to believe he was not completely wrong about her, I think. If she were to leave, he could heal somewhat, for not having so thoroughly misjudged her character.
Am I enough for you? Was I ever enough? is the unspoken question here when he asks if she will remain with him.
And in return, he gets back even more patronising bullshit and hubris. "Be at peace, love. I will stop them."
(Can you tell Mythal pisses me off?)
She calls him love. What an unbearable insult after everything, to go on telling him she cares for him whilst ignoring his wisdom--the very wisdom she coerced him into leaving the Fade so she would have by her side--and consolidating her own power at the expense of his people.
"As you must," he says. "The Blight is our mistake."
Might be unpopular, but I do not think Solas bears a split fifty-fifty custody for whose fault the Blight is. Could he have said no about the dagger? Could he have pushed then? Maybe. But by this point, he'd already had probable millennia of complex trauma and a deeply abusive codependent relationship, probably also a level of magical bond. Like, sorry, Trick and BioWare, if you want to retcon everything you shared with us in Inquisition about being in service to the Evanuris ("You have given yourself into the service of an ancient elven god! You are Mythal's creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her.") AND Mythal casually overriding her servants' will and Solas burning her vallaslin off his face and leaving a scar and devoting himself to freeing the elven people from the Evanuris's domination, fine, but I don't buy it. Even if there was no magical compulsion on him all this time, that is immaterial.
Complex trauma literally rewires the brain to survive. She spent lifetimes programming him, isolating him, stripping from him every bit of agency he had. This man did not have the capacity to say no.
When our no is trampled even for a few months or years, we stop trying to use it. We comply. We, as mortal humans, cannot begin to comprehend the compounded trauma of millennia of this happening with the stakes of worlds in the balance. Solas, quite simply, has lost the entire ability to consent. No one of us can even imagine.
Yet he managed to walk away from her somehow, when she chose Elgar'nan. This man is stronger than anyone gives him credit for.
The dagger was clearly Mythal's idea. The plan to sever the Titans from their dreams, clearly her idea. To end the war. For there to be "peace". For there to be "freedom". Except that never came.
His loyalty was to her and to their people; hers was only ever to herself.
And again, she walks away and lets Solas suffer.
What a good friend.
[screaming from the general direction of Scotland]
She put her trust in monsters instead of her oldest friend, and the monsters ate her face.
Anyone surprised? I'm surprised. (I'm not surprised.)
And on top of this, Mythal finally, finally giving Solas one tiny breadcrumb that she had any principles remaining? I think that cemented his bindings to her forever. Not just that the Evanuris killed her, but why they killed her: because after millennia, she listened to him.
For someone that deep into trauma and abuse? Well. We know what happened.
It cannot be overstated that with his imprisonment of the Evanuris and the Blight, Solas saved the entire world. The entire world. Every living being in Thedas had a chance at life because of him. Only because of him.
Morrigan says it early on in the game, that for all the consequences of the veil (which, it also must be said, was not supposed to be global!), "his imprisonment of the Evanuris was just. Had he not done so, all of Thedas would have fallen to the Blight."
And the world has hated him for it.
He woke after sleeping for millennia, exhausted by this immense act of magic, to discover that not only had it gone horribly wrong, but that it had cost his people everything. That Tevinter had come in and enslaved them, released a trickle of the Blight after breaking into the Black City, used so much blood magic that the veil itself all over Thedas has been in tatters--not least because in releasing the Blight, the survivors had had to face down and kill the dragon thralls (archdemons) of the Evanuris, rendering five out of seven of them mortal, and with their deaths over the intervening centuries, the veil had grown threadbare with only two Evanuris sustaining it.
The risks were catastrophic, the price unbearable.
Everything he'd ever done to protect the world could still come crashing down...and in a sick twist of fate, he would be alive to see it.
And, shockingly, so would Mythal.
Mythal, whose fragment has just been chilling in a swamp for centuries in human form. Mythal, whose abuse of him lasted through the entirety of the world's history. Mythal, who, due to the Evanuris's betrayal and her abusee's abandonment, has become little more than retribution.
Mythal, who could have set him free at any point in all this time and didn't, because he was hers.
Mythal, who is the only remaining person with the power to do what he feels must be done.
I find it interesting that they chose not to use the post-Inquisition dialogue at all. Interesting also that they used Mythal's voice actor and not Flemeth's. This feels like a retcon, but we'll go with it. Whatevs.
"I knew that you would find me soon enough. You need the power of a god, the strength that I alone still carry."
She's still asserting her own godhood.
He's not having it. "The blighted Evanuris will soon break free from their prison. I must make a stronger one that can contain them."
He's not wrong. Not even a little bit wrong. And he's also right that she won't help him. Why would she? She never has.
"While the prison is important, it is not the only goal you seek."
"Why should I not tear down the veil? And bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it."
And this is where I get even more raging, because Mythal's answer is this: "The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love torn apart to salve your conscience."
I'm sorry, what?
The world they love? The world that has offered them nowt but literal genocide for thousands of years? The world where in Tevinter, they're chattel slaves and worse, fuel for blood magic without a thought? The world where in the "civilised", slaveless nations to the south, they're either confined to alienages and subjected to repeated genocide (that's what a "purge" is, if anyone isn't clear on that) or the remnants of the Dales, who are the descendents of another enormous genocide? The world where elven magic has been pillaged but elven mages in human settlements are confined to Circles and abused or made tranquil or also genocided by Templars invoking the Rite of Annulment? The world where they're called "elf savage" and "rabbit" and "knife ear" and cannot participate in Thedosian religious life because the Chantry erases every instance of elves from even the Chant of Light? The world where it took the Inquisitor installing a perpetrator of genocide on the Orlesian throne (both Celene AND Gaspard fit this bill) and either having Celene reconcile with Briala (Briala and Celene's relationship could be a whole other post. Boak.) and blackmailing them to give a single elf lands and a title? That world????
What the fuck, Mythal, die faster.
I got real mad there for a second. I'm fine. I'm fine!
Solas, once more, simply says, "I must fix what I have broken. I am sorry."
More than she deserves, frankly. Man's a mess, but at least he tries. She's been chilling in a swamp and pulling puppet strings for ages and abusing her kids. Nudging history like it's some sort of hobby, because it has always just been pieces on a board to her. They have never been people in her eyes like they are in his.
"As am I, old friend."
Aye, get tae fuck. Friends don't treat friends the way you treated Solas. The closest thing to an apology Solas will ever get from her is that she pretty much just lies down and dies when he comes to kill her. And she still won't set him free before he does. Has to continue to twist her own knife.
This scene has me riled.
And this takes us back to the beginning of this post.
To her essence showing up to release him from her service.
In what is, to me, the least accountable, bare minimum non-apology (she never actually says she's sorry) I've had the displeasure to witness in a videogame, with Solas literally cowering before her and offering her a knife to kill him with since this is the first time he's seen her actual, non-Flemythal face since she died.
This was never a friendship of equals. Ever.
She got one thing right. She did break him. But she knew it all this time, and she never took a single step to put it right until pushed. Her corner of the Crossroads, which he built for her in the desperate hope that she would show a glimmer of the friend he believed she was, notably has a pair of wolf statues. Both beheaded.
She's spent all this time punishing him further.
He never went to visit her? I wouldn't either. I could not blame him.
This has gone to an angry place. So let's conclude with what is, I think, the entire point.
Grace.
"I lied. I betrayed you."
"I forgive you."
Has anyone--anyone--in all his long life, ever said those words to him?
I'll say that again: has anyone--ANYONE--in all his millennia of existence, EVER said those words to him?
I forgive you.
Mythal certainly didn't.
The world certainly didn't.
He has shouldered all the blame of an entire pantheon, a war that broke the world, a blight, everything, always, and while people have come alongside him to help him, I am not sure anyone (certainly not anyone he cares about) has given him the grace of forgiveness.
The beauty of this final scene for me wasn't just Ilaana, wasn't just Ilaana reuniting with the man she has loved for a decade who has spent all that time pushing her away so he couldn't--in his mind--inevitably poison the love of the only person who has seen his spirit and cherished it without twisting him.
It was the slow realisation that Rook trusted his love enough to try.
It was Morrigan, who carries all Mythal's memories and her own of Flemythal's abuse and machinations, who responds to Rook's question about her views of Solas with: "Or do you mean to discover if I would stand directly against the Dread Wolf, were there a need? I shall aid you in any way but that. What has passed between Solas and Mythal...I beg you: do not ask this of me again."
Morrigan knows. She will not raise a hand against him. She will not try to stop him. She will let the veil fall. She will not fight with Rook. Because she knows this being whose memories she holds has harmed him enough.
Solas, in these final moments, even before Mythal shows up to gut punch him, realises all these people have somehow, somehow, banded together to help him.
Not work for him.
Not be his agents.
Not worship him.
Not follow him blindly.
To help him. To help Solas. To help him, after all this time, take the first steps towards himself. Towards his own essence, so long twisted into something he never sought or wanted.
The Inquisitor and Morrigan certainly understand what it's like to be seen only as the symbol others raise in your image. Rook will learn that someday, but is still naive.
But even with that naivete, willing. Present. Able to put aside being a chess piece on his board. Able to see that they would never have succeeded without his help. Able to trust two people who know him better than they ever will.
Able to offer him grace.
And when they produce Mythal's essence, how that must brutalise him; to think that perhaps all this has been to let his abuser kill him back. He clearly thinks that's what's happening. He breaks. He fawns. He offers her the blade that has caused so much pain.
Her release of him is the bare minimum she owes him. I've already railed about that.
What is transcendent here, transformative--it is the mortals.
The mortals offering grace to a god who never wanted to be a god.
It's them together showing him a way out of an endless cycle of trauma and abuse. No one of them alone is enough. Without Rook, they wouldn't have Mythal's essence; Morrigan can't go get it, and she can't do what is needed because she's not actually Mythal, only has her memories. Without Morrigan, who can stand there with those memories but from the compassionate perspective of someone who has watched them in horror from the outside. She's far from objective, but she can do this one thing to help.
Without the Inquisitor (romanced or not, still someone he let know him as he most desperately wanted to be known--the Fade-walker, the Dreamer, the humble mage who desperately needed a friend). The Inquisitor, who kneels before him to comfort him. Who sees his hurt and responds.
If romanced, without Lavellan, who kneels to repeat back words he once shouted at the Nightmare in the Fade after Adamant.
"Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ema mar din." (Speak, traitor. Your victory was fruitless. Your pride gives way only to your death.)
To which Solas replied, "Banal nadas."
On the surface, nothing is inevitable, but can also be taken to mean that nothingness is inevitable, entropy, the final void. (Thanks to Dumped, Drunk, and Dalish for this excellent long post on this scene.)
And here is Lavellan, kneeling beside him with those words. "Banal nadas ar lath, ma vhenan."
Nothing is inevitable but the love we share, my heart.
I see everything you are, all you have done, and I love you. I forgive you for the pain you have caused me. I understand, see, and forgive.
No one has ever shown him grace like this.
Ever.
And Solas, this shattered man, sobs.
He sobs.
Someone has taken the trouble to isolate his voice in the video. This man has nothing left. And, after millennia of this trauma cycle repeating over and over, he is finally free to make the choice he wants to make. It's not the outcome he wants; that has to be said. He doesn't want to leave the veil up. He doesn't want to be bound into prison forever with no hope of seeing the world he fought for ever return.
But he is done.
In the Fade after Adamant, there is a cemetery with the worst fears of every companion scriven on shrines and stones. Solas's is dying alone.
After all of this, he is willing to face just that--and would, if not for her.
She knows his deepest fears. She has faced the demon Mythal made of the man she loves. She has given unwitting comfort to the spirit of Wisdom still within. She has seen his sweetest self. Nurtured him, cherished him, and has been nurtured and cherished in return.
Does she want to leave the world behind and spend eternity in a Fade prison? Probably not her first choice. It's not my Ilaana's; she has been on his side all this time, dreaming of a world where the spirits she loves can be reunited with the world in peace and ready to make that happen.
But it was not supposed to happen this way. It did happen this way anyway.
He has sacrificed everything--everything--including his own spirit self, his soul, his life. How could she not offer him what no one ever has? A friend forever, a lover willing to walk the din'an shiral by his side, a companion to ward off the forever alone.
Together, the two of them can begin to heal, with their counterpart who has always seen through the burdens of the world to the soul within.
This is the only thing I've ever had any faith in. Grace I know you carry us Grace And it was such a mess Grace I don't say it enough Grace You are so loved
#solavellan#a solavellan heart beats in my chest#bellanaris#solas x lavellan#solas x inquisitor#solas romance#veilguard spoilers#da4 spoilers#datv spoilers#fen'harel#solas x female lavellan#ilaana lavellan x solas#these two are my everything forever#breaking trauma cycles
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Friendly reminder to schedule your system Maintenace's regularly or you will suffer and be forced to take them at inconvenient times.
#I have so much shit to do#But I need to sit here#drink water and eat food#Otherwise I will massively hurt myself trying to everything done#And I'm trying not to be mad at myself or my body for needing it#Ugh#slowly crawling towards the right direction
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