#Thinks abt this really hard and also abt aveline and aveline's inexperience w women#And tho it's a different flavour to the young sweet thing u encounter w merrill and bethany#There's a thrill to being the one who knows things when /aveline/ doesn't#Taking her and showing her all the things she's missing out on.... Sorry this is only half related to the post
@dick-hardboiled ACTUALLY!!!! this is NOT only half-related to this post, and you are so right!!!!
so first of all
Isabela: Do men find you intimidating? What about Wesley? Did he?
Aveline: Isabela...
Isabela: What? Too soon?
Aveline: Too soon, too personal, too... everything coming from you!
Isabela: Ooh, sore spot?
Aveline: If you don't shut up, I'll give you a sore spot.
i think it's interesting that both aveline and isabela have a Past in which they were Married. isabela has a v specific framework for what marriage looks like, and aveline explodes that on multiple levels:
aveline doesn't put much if any effort at all into looking conventionally feminine or attractive, and this has zero bearing on how she wields her own personal authority and the authority she gains later as captain of the guard, whereas isabela was in luis' sights primarily bc she was young, beautiful, and vulnerable
aveline clearly and continuously demonstrates that her relationship w wesley was one where both parties felt treasured and loved. she's protective of his memory and others' perception of him
while she maintains a firm boundary, she still talks abt wesley in a vulnerable and sincere way
aveline is completely foxed when it comes to 'attracting a man' or expressing herself sexually, and imo it's not bc she's insecure or has a poor self-image (or at least not primarily those things). it's bc she doesn't want smth shallow. she's nervous abt wesley bc she genuinely cares abt him and can see herself having a longterm future w him — she's not interested in empowering herself thru her sexuality, she wants to pursue the kind of life that would have eventually killed isabela
isabela does not want to confront any of that at ALL, particularly point #4, so she tries to 'help' aveline as if her problem is ONLY that she's just too shy and sweet to make a move on donnic. like she makes up a sweet baby version of merrill, she makes up a sweet baby version of aveline who just needs ol' captain isabela to give her a few tips.
Isabela: You have such pretty hair. What a lovely color.
Aveline: Other children used to laugh at me for having ginger hair.
Isabela: Really? Aww. I bet you were cute. Did you have pigtails?
Aveline: Sometimes.
Isabela: How precious! Little Aveline, running around the village with her flaming orange pigtails streaming behind her...
Isabela: ... and little boys all scattering and screaming for mercy as she approached.
Aveline: Shut up, whore.
and yet part of reducing aveline to a handful of traits that don't rly seem to actually apply to her is to assert her dominance in a v anxious way — isabela's pulling on aveline's pigtails. aveline rly unnerves isabela, and it's not just the institutional power of it all, tho i think it would be a stretch to say that isabela isn't threatened by the easy access aveline has to information that could blow her whole cover.
aveline mainly experiences this as isabela being unnecessarily and frequently sexually aggro.
sometimes i see these two dialogues as an expression of isabela's empowerment and aveline needing to get on her level or even an acknowledgment on isabela's side that they're two women w a lot in common.
Aveline: How are you so successful with men? You're not that pretty.
Isabela: Cast a wide enough net, and you're bound to catch something.
Aveline: (Laughs) At least you're willing to admit it.
Isabela: Trust me. I've heard, "Get away from me, you pirate hag!" more times than I care to count.
Aveline: Doesn't that bother you?
Isabela: Why should it? They don't know me. I know me.
and tbc, aveline has also accepted notions of femininity that don't actually fit the person in front of her. and what's remarkable to me here is that isabela.......................................chooses to be a little bit vulnerable to set her straight. no, isabela's issues have little to do w her appearance. she's doing this on purpose. she's not the eternally sexy siren luring men w her wiles, she's a person who has to consciously choose to protect her sense of self.
and she gets a little flippant abt it, for sure. but it's maybe the most honest thing she's said to aveline that the player gets to witness.
then they follow it up w this.
Aveline: You're right.
Isabela: About?
Aveline: About knowing who you are.
Aveline: I'm the captain of the guard. I'm loyal, strong, and I don't look too bad naked.
Isabela: Exactly. And if I called you a mannish, awkward, ball-crushing do-gooder, you'd say...?
Aveline: Shut up, whore.
Isabela: That's my girl.
i just don't read this as aveline trying to tell isabela 'wow you've rly fixed my problem! i def needed you to tell me how to know myself and stand by it, bc that's not smth i learned to do over the course of my adult life which has included caring for an aging parent; a marriage that included discussions of when it would be appropriate to have children as well as presumably the usual things like shared finances and how to communicate our feelings; a grueling job as a soldier where i managed sharing a workplace w my partner, which is not easy to do; fleeing to an entirely different country and fighting tooth and nail to get a job; defying my boss' orders despite my precarious position as a refugee AND SUCCEEDING; and also before all that, the death of a parent, when i learned that no one gets to tell me how long i get to grieve.'
my interpretation of this is that aveline is like. extending smth real in recognition of isabela having been sincere w her. just a little bit. she reestablishes their comfortable dynamic p quickly, as isabela had. but it's sort of like yeah there is mutual respect here even if that's not how we talk to each other. i listened to what you said. i saw you.
isabela misses aveline's wedding to donnic, if she marries donnic, bc she's fled the city. and yet aveline doesn't have any dialogues w isabela abt how she ought to be grateful to hawke for saving her the way fenris does or resentment for the way isabela's absence hurt her. they just sort of resume their former vibe w this added bit of sweetness????
like isabela is still, quite frankly, inappropriately invested in aveline's sex life, but it doesn't seem to upset aveline except when it does, and then isabela backtracks and says hey no what this is actually abt is me telling you donnic is a good husband. aveline consciously invites isabela further into her domestic space even when isabela is inclined to be a little flaky:
Aveline: You didn't come to my solstice dinner party.
Isabela: Look at you! Dinner parties, cooking... do you have a lace apron yet, or should I get one for you?
Aveline: Don't change the subject. I sent you an invitation, and you didn't show up.
Isabela: I thought it would be... I mean, I don't know. I just don't do family gatherings.
Isabela: Besides, one day you and Donnic will have children, and I'll be the last person you want around them.
Isabela: Imagine all the awkward questions you'd have to answer. "Mother, what's a Slattern?"
Aveline: I'll just point at you and say, "That's a Slattern."
again, normalcy reestablished w some jokes. but this is also isabela just outright admitting that she doesn't think she belongs in familial spaces, and she heavily implies that the reason she doesn't want to get too invested in being a part of aveline's home is that it would hurt her to be excluded later when she's no longer deemed appropriate. and while steering them back into familiar territory, aveline takes the time to say, not in so many words, 'you being there would be easy. it wouldn't be a problem.'
and even as, yes, isabela is deeply weird abt aveline and donnic's sex life, again, she does take the time to tell aveline that certainly by isabela's standards (which might be more complex than 'is a good lay', not that she wants to Get Into It), she's picked a good partner who loves her and cares abt her. 'you're lucky to have a man who wants to please you.' if aveline doesn't marry donnic, isabela still brings him up and seems idk. concerned abt how things played out, even if aveline does NOT want to talk abt it.
aveline consistently demonstrates a faith in isabela that she will be okay:
Aveline: You know, Isabela, if someone had told me that I'd put up with you for all these years, I'd have punched them flat.
Isabela: And if someone had told me I'd still be here, I'd have done the same.
Aveline: Save your bits, you'll have your ship one day.
Isabela: And what would you do without me as a constant headache in the Rose?
Aveline: Someone would rush to fill the hole. You know, like you never left.
Isabela: That's my girl.
Aveline: Maybe you win once in a while.
if isabela DID get a ship out of castillon, then aveline asks why isabela's still around — as if she is worried isabela will leave again.
this is the next dialogue:
Aveline: (Laughs)
Isabela: And then he says... he says, "I swear I had two when I came in here."
Isabela: You know, those stains never did come out.
Aveline: You are horrible. Every inch.
Isabela: You love it, big girl. And you owe me for the bottle.
Isabela: Hawke.
Aveline: She's not so bad. Except when she is.
like THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. they get to a point where both of them do rly see the other person and not the Facade. i think that's significant for both of them, bc neither of them, for different reasons, and for similar reasons, comes across as the type of woman who easily makes friends w other women. and a lot of that would come down not just to their own reluctance, but how women like them are treated by other women.
anyway, aveline just doesn't play isabela's game. carver will play up how hot he is now that he's no longer a baby, isabela never quite manages to let merrill love her as much as merrill wants to, and bethany disappears after act 1. but aveline is, crucially TO ME, old enough and experienced enough to dismantle the framework isabela tries to impose on her — without being cruel to isabela abt why she might use that framework as a defense mechanism.
the fact that they specifically mention the bone pit as where anders’ fereldan refugee patients get themselves badly hurt is always jaw-dropping to me. who class traitors like hawke
I think mage!Hawke is a terrible healer. Hasn’t got the patience for it, does an absolute hack job. She has a limp from healing a broken bone herself rather than hobbling back to Anders and setting it wrong. Loads of massive scars because she never pulls the edges of a cut back together before healing it. Other companions get injured while out on the wounded coast and she’s like ‘oh I can sort that no worries’ and gets upset when they insist on being carried back to Kirkwall for Anders to do it instead. He’s tried to teach her but she’s super disrespectful he’s explaining how you need to heal different layers of the injury in particular orders and she’s going ‘It’s just touching the wound and emitting healing energy Anders idk why you have to make it so complicated’
Japanese is an incredibly fun and rewarding language (if you’ve ever wanted to learn it for ANY reason, most importantly including the “silly” reasons) but the fearmongering and capitalist intervention involved in the language learning process have given it a reputation as an “impossible task” for English speakers, leading to confusion and dkn learners and weird pessimist attitudes about the whole thing. In this thread I will explain how to effectively learn and retain Japanese. This is a tried, tested and true method; probably 99% of all people who try to learn Japanese give up, but everyone I’ve met who has tried and stuck with this has been at or above N3-N4 after 6 months or less including me
You can teach yourself Japanese for free if you have a little free time every day and a computer
1. Drill yourself on hiragana and katakana. These are the phonetic building blocks of Japanese, think of them as equivalent to english letters. This site is a good resource in general. Once you have a solid grasp on this, DO NOT LINGER HERE; move to step 2. You will master kana later.
2. Download Anki. This is a flashcard service. They have a paid app if you’re willing to invest for it, but if not, they have a mobile website (create an account and sync it with your computer).
This is the deck you’re going to download. Import it to Anki and do this every day. I have learned the hard way (twice) that skipping this is bad. If you become overwhelmed, you can change the number of new cards and reviews by clicking the cog next to the name of the deck!
3. Cure Dolly (Youtube, grammar) + transcript. She has kind of a posh accent, you might want to turn subtitles on. Watch a few videos when you feel like it but most importantly set up 4 and 5 as soon as possible
4. Yomitan (must have) is a browser extension that functions as a pop-up dictionary. you need to install dictionaries for it to work. here are some dictionaries you can use with yomitan and explanations of what they do
5. READ. DO NOT LET YOURSELF GET STUCK BEFORE THIS STEP. JUST READ!!!! Most people who fail to learn Japanese do so because they are afraid of not being ready to move on, which is counterproductive. Just read. When you were a child did you spend years on vocab and grammar before reading? No I bet you did not. Pick something to read and learn what you don’t already know by reading in Japanese.
Jiten.moe has a list of novels and visual novels that you can read on your computer sorted by difficulty. So does jpdb. There’s also this document. There’s also this document. Hey look this website is cool too
For visual novels: download LunaHook. It “hooks” to your VN and allows you to use Yomitan on words you don’t know. Turn off the translation feature, it does nothing to help you learn
For literary texts: ttsu e-reader supports epub and htmlz files.
You can also learn Japanese by watching anime, but it’s a little more convoluted and requires a lot more patience.
For manga, utilize Mangatan, but I don’t recommend this right out the gate because when you’re first learning sentence structure you’ll want something with complete sentences.
Set your computer up for mining vocab before you start reading. Once you finish your kaishi deck, you can drill your mining cards (I didn’t do mine until after finishing kaishi because it was too much).
Most importantly: reading is going to be hard at first. It is going to piss you off. You need to muscle through with this because this is where the bulk of your learning will happen. After a while you will just feel like reading because you love reading! Try not to pick something too hard for your first read, but if you’re interested in the story you might be able to muscle through something a little tougher.
Remember to consult yomitan and cure dolly where needed, that’s what it’s there for. As you can see I am quite normal about the Japanese language, so if you have any other questions or need help with anything else feel free to shoot me an ask and I will get back to you promptly. Japanese is not your enemy and it is not impossible. It is your friend
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