Estuans Interius Ira Vehementi @as-thou-will - Tumblr Blog

https://ellisand.carrd.co

#my god there's too much text on this #oh well

see I'm gonna make this my own post because I hate arguing and also being the stupid centrist on a post annoys everyone but.

video game should be accessible. because video games are, generally, a medium that requires a level of active input and interaction in ways that generally other mediums do not, there is an added layer to consider when you get into making the medium accessible. the method of interacting is not always accessible to everyone. because I am getting old and broken and brainfogged and my reflexes have always been approximately the speed of a particularly asthmatic turtle, if a game requires long stretches of play time and twitch reflexes and perfect timing I will not by default have the experience of the Average Gamer on Twitch. and I would argue that while I am not the average, I'm not exactly a distant outlier, either.

but the thing is whenever this argument starts someone always comes in with "but video games should be fun!!" and I always have the thought that video games is that while often they are a form of entertainment, they are also a way of making art

and like any artform, their job is to provide an experience. and that experience is not always going to be fun. sometimes it will be serious or cathartic or horrifying or challenging. in the same way not all books are light-hearted adventure novels and not all movies are action blockbusters.

these are not contradictory. A game does not have to be fun. but at the same time, when people are talking about "experiencing a game the way it was intended", it would be nice if perhaps they consider if people are all going to have the same experience, and perhaps shut up if people find ways to customise the experience so that it is actually accessible to them, including with outside tools.

#but yeah.#“oh but I know a guy with no hands who played elden ring”#okay but do you understand that he did not have the intended experience #he had an experience he chose #but I suspect it was not the one the developers intended #“this game is supposed to be challenging!!” yes but not everyone will be at the same challenge level #this is not hard to understand.#and no “git gud” does not magically fix that. gitting gud requires time and skill acquisition #the time and effort you have to put into gitting gud also! potentially changes the experience!#like I am not saying you have to play games you don't find fun #don't put that into my mouth #play what gives you the experience you want from games #but for some people that is not always going to be only fun and that's also okay

there's this very... cliche little prayer that people like to print on posters and fridge magnets in barely readable script font over a field of crocuses for religious middle-aged woman. you know the one. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change-"

I've always kinda hated it, not least because I became an apatheist in my early teens when the first major depressive episode hit like a train. but man. sometimes looking at fandom and the insistence Thing Must Be Canon or Life is Ruined and The World Will End, it pops back into my head.

mass-market media is not a thing you can control. may something grant you the serenity to understand and accept there are things you do not control. that even mass-market art has artists who have their own vision for their art. and then there are the constraints placed on that art by financial realities. by their budget. by ceos of companies who have money in that art and want to make more money. by whoever will end up hosting that art and also has financial stakes in it. by political realities, the political climate and the political leanings of all those people with a financial stake.

this is not to say you cannot criticise a show if it does a thing badly. nor is it a "hey you are not allowed a comfort media"- by all means, if you find a piece of media that gives you comfort *as is*, go for it.

but you really should not be hanging anything important on a piece of mass media art still in production, and you especially should not be hanging anything on any part of that art becoming canon. because that is not a thing you can control, and hanging too much hope on it- the best bet is that it simply does you no good.

#fandomdiscourse #IDK.#every bet is that someone will “media has changed because of audience outcry before!!”#sure jan #but do you want to hang anything important on *this specific* piece of mass-market media changing?#or “how dare you say I can't have comfort media”#which is not what I am saying either #the only thing you can control are the things you make yourself #why do you think fandom exists lmao #it is always ships #and like #you know me #ship freely #ship whatever makes you happy #but man. don't bet your mental health on that ship becoming canon #for the love of any deity in the room

watercolour of the sky over Caelid in Elden Ring

haven't done a thing I felt genuinely okay with for a long time, but here we are IG.

#ellis' personal nonsense #an art happened #elden ring has some v pretty sky boxes #and also who can resist the chance to use a shit ton of shiny gold paint #not me that's for sure

drives me a little up the wall when people insist art can only, *must* only treat certain topics with "sensitivity" and "metaphor" and "off-screen insinuation".

sometimes bad things happen to people. sometimes people have strong feelings about it that they want to express in art. sometimes that art will be loud and shocking and cruel and nasty and full of pain. because art is a way to express things, including feelings. and because not all feelings are soft and gentle and nice, not all art is soft and gentle and nice.

why are you expecting people to express loud shocking painful feelings in a soft whisper to save *your* comfort zone.

#generaldiscourse #IDK I am tired.#but man #'sexual assault should be fade to black off-screen'#'why couldn't it be done with pretty metaphors instead'#'why make art about it at all #okay but why #why are people not allowed to talk about it in ways that are angry and sad and painful #when they are likely to be feeling angry and sad and painful #and no you don't get to say “well I don't mean survivors”#one: you do not get to know who is a survivor #two: sometimes maybe survivors want art that expresses those feelings without putting their own to paper #art made by other people can be just as useful for catharsis sometimes

to be a petty asshole for a brief moment, which is how you know I am feeling relatively stable because petty assholery is only fun when you are mentally in a place where everything doesn't feel like the end of the world-

hearing news funko might be going broke and I am Perfectly Okay with that.

#look I just hate them. they creep me out.#the dead black eyes.#the featureless faces #the identikit mould poses #the way they have taken over the fandom merch world #the unavoidability of seeing them in every nerd shop and con #the fucking prices #the “ooh look at our special version” that is the regular version but all gold #or in a hat #anyway.#got a little personal at the start there #my bad.

feeling very Whelmed. not overwhelmed, because I associate that with crashing and freezing and I am skating on the barely functional edge, but like. the drop is in my peripheral vision.

#ellis' personal nonsense #people who are trying to be kind #keep suggesting i find some kind of volunteer work #get me out the house type stuff #but then I get 2-3 nightmares a week about being back in retail #they're not even particularly *bad* dreams per se.#no scary monsters #no unaccountable terrors #just retail #and all the people that includes #I do not want to sleep if I'm gonna dream of retail tbqh #at least when I dreamt the sun turned into a giant rotting eye it felt worth feeling like shit the morning after

it's been a bit of a bumper harvest this year for menu-driven rpgs on playstation, huh.

(yes some are rereleases but hey, I'm gonna be the weirdo who's okay with that if they come with bug fixes and QOL updates and aren't unreasonably priced.)

#I can afford none of them right now #but I can sure stare longingly at Digimon Story #maybe it'll be on sale in a couple of months #enjoyed the first two and the demo #my wishlist is getting A Little Bit Long these days #and I swear 2nd hand games just aren't much cheaper than new these days unless the game is years old and the store has like 5 copies #(some of those re-releases are first time releases to me too lmao)#(PAL always did get a bit left behind on the menu RPG front)#(and even if there were releases sometimes getting a copy was Pretty Difficult)

as-thou-will

sometimes when I am listening to video essays on youtube or watching people talk about fictional stories in the discourse hellpits I have the immense urge to shake the person speaking and yell in their face "hero and protagonist and good guy are Not The Same Things!"

as-thou-will

actually I'm gonna add a 4th circle to this: there is no element of inherent *sympathy* to being a hero, a protag, or a good guy.

sometimes you are not meant to sympathise with the protag. that does not make them a bad protagonist.

#generaldiscourse #maybe I'm a little tired of the discourse acting like of course a protag is supposed to be inherently sympathetic #sometimes the protag is a dick #dickishness is not inherently a bad guy or a villain trait #this is perfectly fine #sometimes the protag is just kinda Neutral #this is also fine

#generaldiscourse #please note this is entirely hyperbolic #between anxiety manners and aversion to being within 3 feet of other people I would never #but nature is healing when I can get peeved at stupid irrelevant discourse okay #the protagonist is neither inherently good or heroic #the hero is not necessarily good or the main viewpoint of the story #the good guys are not necessarily heroic or the main character #do you understand my pain #villain and bad guy is probably a little more analogous but bad guys is a wider circle that mostly encompasses villain #villain and antagonist are not synonymous either

well, my autism referral went through. Indefinite amount of wait time for an actual assessment. ditto counselling. fuck only knows about the adhd assessment.

ah, the NHS. I appreciate the not-paying and I was aware the wait times were Fucked in advance, but lord.

#ellis' personal nonsense #the RL update #the Wait Mode is annoying enough when it's like... one day #Wait Mode for what might be years is a weight #yeah I know just don't wait and get on with things #but there's only so much I can kick my brain before we both just get tired

yeah, I still don't know how I feel about a cartoon of homestuck.

like. Homestuck was my fandom for a few years. I was on the forum with my obnoxious avatars, I went to RL meetups, I was on the LJ-later-DW kinkmeme, I cosplayed, I was in a tiny loose LJ roleplay comm, of all my fandoms it might have been the one I was most involved with.

but the thing is that Homestuck will always be a weird, (quirky)-text-heavy, mixed-internet-media-format-text/gif/FMV/flash game time-fuckery-built-in with a little too much 2nd-person-as-(fake)-prompt Thing to me, and like. I know it started getting published in dead tree, too. but the format of the webcomic is for me inevitably intertwined with the story and the voice of it.

by definition, a cartoon, even if it jumps back and forward in time, is not gonna be the same. and maybe that's actually a good thing for new viewers, lmao, god only knows there's A Lot of problems with HS, but I think it's gonna stay firmly in the Not For Me box.

#fandom nonsense #in my fandom feelings lmao #you could probably call it an excessive fondness for nostalgia #I couldn't say you're wrong #I cannot remove my love for the thing from the way I experienced it the first time #but yeah #less seriously #I say I was on the kinkmeme #mostly I picked up SFW prompts #lmao #and read other peoples' somewhat less sfw work :P #but man there were some stupid-good writers on there

you came back wrong but the people who you thought loved you don't even notice- the colour of your eyes the length of your teeth the cracks in your heart the holes in your soul

#not exactly original #but hey I like turning words over in my head #and IDK #something about the idea of people not noticing a secret that by all rights shouldn't even be a secret you can keep #is a weird kind of fear IG

I haven't really been thinking about my OCs much but IDK maybe it's a little comforting that my guys are still there in the back of my head. Mostly the low fantasy political schemer ex villains and girlfriend quad, but also my superhero/villain trio. and my slothcubi.

#rotating my own OCs in their happy little poly ships #things are complicated for them #but they are happy regardless #giving them that because I can #excep vara but vara's whole thing is Being a Concubi #ergo relationships are kind of just another job to Vara #all my problematic ace feelings go on vara

a-silly-poll-side-blog-yay

all of your oc are after you now, will you survive?

yes

results

Voting ended onSep 21, 2025

#I mean #if we're running on the premise that they hate me #absolutely not #the ex-villains (and girlfriend) quad are enough on their own #their whole point is being pragmatic schemers #they're usually too tired and busy for one person #but with a personal enough reason they would probably take down a god or two

"everyone uses genAI for something-" nope, at least not knowingly or willingly. giving myself a "why would I want the Predicted Averagest Bullshit Content" gold star, actually.

#things people say on youtube that bug me and make me lose a little respect for the person who says them #my obnoxious opinion remains that art communicates #genAI does not understand communication even exists #never mind have anything to communicate

fell off my meds, first day back on them and I have slept like. almost a whole day. and now I'm drowsy again, like 3 hours after I woke up. fucking mirtazapine.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Estuans Interius Ira Vehementi