Pathetic wizard enjoyer @adrabeetle - Tumblr Blog

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My name is Martin. I'm a white gay trans guy. I post about Pillars of Eternity here. My main is @weaselshaped. DNIs don't work but I block Zionists and transmisogynists.

Links, etc:

Armor reference images: PoE, Deadfire, Avowed

AO3

OC tags: Watcher Gavroth, Envoy Cynemaer

Generally speaking if I'm liveblogging something it will be tagged as "Martin plays [name of game]"

I tag spoilers for Avowed but not for PoE1 or anything before the ending of Deadfire.

Mechanically speaking, the reason I got the "person of rare kindness" line in Aloth's +1 approval conversation is that I triggered it pretty early in the game and Benevolent is the easiest of Gavroth's main dispositions to raise quickly, but I do think there's something in that. Like, I think it would be meaningful to Gavroth for that to be the first thing someone jumps to in describing him, for reasons related to the Galawain baggage. And also because it's distinct from—I don't know what the line here for high Diplomatic would be, and I couldn't get the console command to raise a disposition to work so I wasn't able to check, but they are different categories and I am including that in my interpretation. It's a remark on his actions and the motivation behind them rather than on the appeasement behavior he uses to make himself nonthreatening and palatable.

#thinking also about this being a quality of his that particularly sticks out to Aloth. there's the obvious reason of Aloth's background and #the fact that it was one of the things about Gavroth that became apparent earliest in their initial journey together + in terms of #dispositions as named by the game it was not affected by his mental deterioration the way diplomatic/rational would have been and is #therefore what he's demonstrated most consistently. Honest not really impacted by the awakening problems but that would be a weird thing to #comment on for Gavroth because it's not like a philosophical position he's just bad at lying directly. It is interesting to think about lik #Aloth being exposed to aspects of Gavroth's personality that were less at the forefront when they met. I don't think it necessarily affects #his inclination to jump to this descriptor first. but just in general I think the opportunity to get to know each other again now that #Gavroth has adjusted to the Awakening and to being a Watcher and is in a more functional state despite also experiencing some issues from #the recent soul damage is significant to their being able to have an actual relationship now. Anyway #Gavloth #least used recurring tag on this blog

Pillars of Eternity players on Youtube love nothing more than to upload every piece of a character's dialogue except the specific one I'm looking for

#Have to do everything myself around here

The problem with getting anxious and deleting 90% of your ship posts immediately after posting them is that those posts are gone and you can't find them when you want to

#Honestly probably fine my concept of the relationship dynamic has evolved a lot over time #“Over time” it hasn't been that long but whatever #But it would be useful to see what I've been thinking.#Unfortunately comma

virtualcamelselfies

couldnt help myself

happy Aloth rolls his eyes 🎺 month

pettynun

I made a pic for my aumaua Watcher from pillars of eternity deadfire. This one’s supposed to be for my lawful evil pirate playthrough but man she looks so peaceful

#art

That's truly the worst I could possibly have written that post. Absolute nightmare sentence structure.

#At this point I'm basically microdosing writing the godlike gender post. I'm never going to do it properly

Like the type of alienation Gavroth is experiencing in the Living Lands is not totally detached from his sexuality but just in the way that like, you can extrapolate from things like the orientation of Giatta's arc around her relationship to her parents' work and the direct inheritance of the governorship of Fior by Maxim's son that ideas about family legacy and continuity still have cultural significance there. So being unable to participate in that is a dimension of his outsider status and it means that his relationships are inherently denied a certain kind of legitimacy in a milieu where that kind of thing matters, but this would still be true if he were not gay because of the nature of godlikes, and he's not really experiencing, like, interpersonal hostility because of his sexuality. And if he were a normal human he would still be in this situation irt legitimacy of relationships and it would be specifically as a result of being gay so it's like. The problem doesn't not exist. But he is experiencing it as a different problem, and it is exacerbated by the other ways he is marked as an outsider, right. And either way it would still be a different experience than living somewhere with a strong social stigma in addition to the structural issue

#obviously there is an extent to which I am choosing to extrapolate the presence of this structural problem but to be fair it is hard to #imagine any other context for a fixation on continuing one's family legacy in those specific terms. Giatta's investment in this is also due #to the sudden loss of her parents obviously but it doesn't seem to be a huge departure from the norm that she cares about it so much #I have a vague thought also about godlikes in places that are more concerned with gender roles and sexuality (I know these are inherently #connected I am just trying to be clear about what I'm saying here) getting more social leeway for 'deviant' behavior in these areas because #they already fail to fully fit into their assigned gender role. but anyway #this post is a cousin to the draft I have that just says 'Gavroth haunted by the specter of marriage' but it does not communicate everythin #I would want to get across in a full version of that post and also this is kind of haphazardly written.#anyway sorry I know nobody was asking for this

Partly, I am thinking about the Living Lands being known for a degree of permissiveness that is not equally present everywhere else in the world, the Dyrwood's remnant Aedyran cultural influence and its proximity to Readceras, the ways reincarnation might influence societal pressure to have children, how being a godlike might mediate one's experience of homophobia given that influence, that kind of thing

#Originally I was just thinking about Readceras in relation to the disappointing fic thing. I should probably not keep calling it that #actually I don't know what the people want. But anyway. I don't think we have a ton of hard data on attitudes toward sexuality in the #Dyrwood but I do think it is reasonable to assume that between the voyage to the Eastern Reach and the various groups he encounters there #Gavroth is having to navigate some things he did not have to deal with in the same way for the first 35 years of his life #I guess Deadfire might be kind of relaxing for him in that regard. 5 years in Caed Nua smiling politely at people who #won't stop talking about inheritance and looking at him in a particular Way. But I digress #Anyway sorry for posting about this and not even really saying anything. I can't even say it's a writing post I am not writing anything at #all today I'm just reading The Works of Vermin and doing chores and shit. And also thinking about this for no reason

gothyanki

Thinking about gender roles or lack thereof in Rauatai again (with a side of thinking about gender roles or lack thereof in the Deadfire). Rambling and headcanons behind the readmore:

It only comes up a handful of times in Deadfire, but I’m so fascinated by the idea of Rauatai as a matriarchal-leaning society where “hard” power (military might, sailing ships, guns) is gendered feminine. The Biha quest in the Gullet hints at this - if you’re playing a female character, she thinks Sedūzo will take you more seriously. She also points out that pretty much all the highest-ranking Rauataian military officials are women, which seems to be borne out by the game. (Karū, Sedūzo, and the hazanui from Tekēhu’s story are the only people of that rank we see or hear mentioned, and they’re all women.) Atsura also has an incredible turn of phrase where he refers to something as “like a child picking up her mother’s pistol” [might be paraphrasing a bit].

So if “hard” military power is seen as feminine in Rauatai, does that mean “soft” political power is seen as masculine? Maybe! There’s the divide between Karū and Atsura as the most obvious example; she’s the head of the operation who gets to be very blunt and straightforward about her intentions, while Atsura is the power behind the throne influencing events much more subtly. The ranga nui himself is a man, though I don’t think the gender of a ruler holds much weight without knowing the genders of previous rulers. It’s 100% headcanon, but I’m imagining that high-ranking politicians skew male the same way high-ranking military officers skew female.

It’s worth noting that I don’t think Rauatai has strong gender roles; absolutely nothing about their society or the characters we meet suggests that. There are plenty of men in military careers (including among the higher-ups) and they don’t seem too concerned with gender as a whole. If this divide exists, it’s more like mild background radiation that influences the way people view themselves and each other. I do feel like it adds something to both Maia and Kana’s characters if this is yet another pressure they had to deal with growing up. Some of Maia’s bluntness and in-your-face approach to life is just personality, but another part is her trying to be a Proper Rauataian Lady! Kana has to be skilled at playing politics whether he likes it or not! He talks about his mother pushing his sisters hard to succeed aaaand all three of them ended up in a military/sailing career. There’s a lot going on there!

This led me to thinking about gender in Huana culture(s), because I’m also endlessly fascinated by the similarities and differences between them and Rauatai. Gender doesn’t seem to matter to the Huana at all, not even in a very minor sense; caste is the main determiner of your role in the community. Tekēhu refers to Ukaizo as the “land of [his] mothers”, which is a friendly little reminder that There Is No Patriarchy Here (no legal marriage, no nuclear family, no tracing the bloodlines of children or differentiating between “biological” vs “adopted” kids in a household, children aren’t seen as “belonging” to their parents…) but aside from that, very little is gendered. We do see more women in leadership than men (Ruānu is the only male ranga I can think of, and he’s quite easily displaced by Nairi), but the sample size is small enough that that’s probably a coincidence. I feel like this is what enables Ahimi to shrug off Durance’s misogyny - it does bother me that the Watcher can’t answer back, but in her case, I don’t think she even sees it as worth acknowledging. She’s never had to deal with any kind of shame around or restrictions based on gender/sexuality, so he’s just saying words. (This is a point of friction between her and Pallegina, whose experience of godlike-ness is inextricable from painful gender expectations.)

…this headcanon also makes a minor in-game sequence infinitely funnier to me. There’s a moment where Onekaza and the Watcher can get into this little political back-and-forth which Karū clearly has no patience for; she’ll eyeroll at them and be all “If we’re done comparing cocks…” I like to think Rauataians use this phrase when people are diplomatically faffing around, being overly subtle, or arguing verbally without accomplishing anything. Stop using your words and punch her in the nose like a WOMAN!

#Sorry to randomly reblog this I am just thinking about Eoran gender and sexuality stuff in general and remembered having seen this post #It's a good post

Now I'm like. Could I write an actual full novel in the format of a series of "randomly" selected scenes leaving the reader to fill in the blanks of what happened in between based on what's implied by the existing scenes. And the answer is that I probably could technically do this but I am not sure it would be a good use of my time, and also it probably wouldn't actually be novel-length because then the implied full text would be ridiculously huge. And also this doesn't have anything to do with the subject of this blog it's just vaguely connected via my fanfiction thoughts sorry

#I say it wouldn't be a good use of my time but maybe it would be a fun exercise #Sort of akin to some epistolary fiction but without the framing device. Maybe someone's done this before and I just don't know about it #Not that that would mean I couldn't also do it but if it did exist I would want to see it.#ANYWAY. Maybe I should carry over the part of my main blog's bio where I call myself pretentious to this one huh #Just to set reasonable expectations

adrabeetle

I am constantly becoming possessed by ideas for random oneshots that are mostly a conversation

adrabeetle

I've said it before but something I appreciate about fanfiction as a form is that I can just write what is in some sense one scene from the middle of a larger story and present it as a finished standalone work

#You can do this with original short fiction as well but it's more difficult* and harder to find an audience for #*I am good at it and don't find it that much more difficult. But it is higher effort in the sense that you do have to communicate more of #the context more actively when you're not drawing from a source text your audience has already read as we know

I am constantly becoming possessed by ideas for random oneshots that are mostly a conversation

#Gavroth Pallegina late PoE1 conversation about their philosophical similarities and differences go #By which I mean I've written five words about the weather conditions. But this is the type of thing I will finish quickly #It's maybe unwise of me to do things like this in between Perspectives chapters instead of just buckling down and finishing the thing #But I've been wanting to examine this relationship for a while and I've figured out something to focus the conversation around. So #There's this and there's the disappointing Adaryc thing and there's the rewritten Aloth romance scene #And I have three chapters of Perspectives left. So I guess I could finish one of these between each. Technically #Who knows how I will actually parcel these things out though #Main thing is just not repeating the 6-month chapter gap

gods-fave-chewtoy

birthday boar 😌

#Happy boarthday to him :)#art

less-than-hash

Hi! Could you please give us a timeline of what Ydwin was doing? Like what's her age, when did she leave the Lands, how long was she in Vailian republics?? I assume she's around Vatnir's age but she doesn't really age because of her fampyric condition right??

Unfortunately, I can't. It's been too long since I worked on Pillars and I don't have access to the Obsidian documentation. The wiki might have the answers you're looking for. If I had to guess, she's the elven equivalent of being in her late early/mid thirties to Vatnir's early/mid twenties. But truly that's a guess based on half remembered work from almost a decade ago.

If I recall correctly, though, her condition was relatively new, a fairly recent experiment. She hadn't really begun to see the potential long term consequences (which is what my proposed potential companion quest would have focused on).

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