song shuffle ellis for 4!
would like to point out that never love an anchor was the first option, but I've already broken it down here. i do believe that i may have talked about this song with you in regards to Kakashi? but it is integral to ellis' characterization. when he meets morrigan, he is not quite a whole person yet. neither is she. their love was a survival tactic, it wasn't love for the sake of love. they never learned to hold each other gently & that's why they couldn't have worked where they met in his timeline. later in life he marries @softersinned's astoria & he learns how to treat someone gently as she is someone who helped him grow while encouraging him to do so on his own. someone who was always going to be one of his forever people. but with morrigan it couldn't have worked in a way that would have been worth it. morrigan & ellis had chemistry but chemistry wasn't enough.
but since i had already broken down never love an anchor, i went ahead & shuffled again & ended up with brave as a noun - ajj which is actually one of my favorite songs of all time. i have it on ellis' playlist because i feel like it really hits the nail on the head about how he processes the world around him. he has wildly invasive thoughts revolving good & bad & he feeds both sides of himself. he wants to stay safe, remain where h& how he knows how he can function even if it isn't sustainable.
but he has hope that he can be something more, be a better person & comes to understand that he has to be the one to make that decision. he has to be the one to ' get the brains to get out of bed in the morning ' [ a line from the song ] but anyways i am gonna dive on into this because ajj is my all time fav & this is my favorite ajj song & it's off my favorite ajj album so applying it to ellis is just fucking sublime for me. it's so on point. like even the way it sounds, raw & a little shitty is reflective of the way his brain works. down to the patterns in the banjo & the emotion behind how the lyrics are presented. this song was one of the songs that shaped his concept.
I could go off the deep end
I could kill all my best friends
I could follow those stylish trends
And God knows I could make amends
so ellis has always kind of walked the metaphorical line of what is 'too much ' if that makes sense? he was the second son of the couslands. he was the sheltered secondborn of an influential family. he was always swimming in a million ' what ifs' that were based on how he perceived stories & how he wanted to be perceived. he didn't have many expectations on his shoulders to ground him & so he sort of ran wild emotionally. he would throw fits, ruin friendships & partake in a thousand destructive & self-sabotaging behaviors growing up.
after the blight he expects to be a different person entirely... which he is, in a way. he's more tired, less patient but those habits & thought processes he developed as a child still linger. he still ends up in tears after a minor inconvenience & he's always terrified the people around him secretly hate him. only his sister & astoria are really able to ground him to any degree & even then he really cannot stand being that kind of burden to the people he loves. of course he learns how to cope with time & effort but for a long time he's really stuck in fight mode. for at least a couple years after the blights, going into awakening & witch hunt he's Deep In It & super easily triggered.
like he feels guilt surrounding it but he doesn't feel like he can make amends because his responses are genuine? like he is upset about how he treats the people around him, in any context whether it is positive or negative. but he isn't sorry for how he feels, in the same stride? it's almost like he feels sorry for existing in an interactive world. there'll be more on this bit later. also directly following the blight his sister, lily, is at her worst as well. she's younger than him, he feels the weight of her suffering on his shoulders. she kept him in line for the whole blight where he was constantly giving into this impulsive & often cruel part of himself. she kept him from becoming a monster & though they are technically both warden-commanders, he bears the brunt of the responsibility in the beginning of rebuilding ferelden's grey wardens. so again. there is no time to make amends or get closure. only to react.
But I’ve got an angry heart
Filled with cancers and poppy tarts
If this is how you folks make art
It’s fucking depressing
of course, he's angry. how could he not be? he lost everything. i love exploring the thought of losing yourself & having to rebuild but this is such a big concept when it comes to ellis. he loses not only his family, his home, his known life... but he loses his idealism, his mind & his faith. plus ellis feels like he's lost his closest friend [ astoria, who he finds out has magical ability. he is afraid of mages / believed in a lot of anti-magic propaganda before the blight. ] anyways he's got this rage that's always on the tip of his tongue during the blight. he feels it in every heartbeat & it feels like a horrible disease. but he kinda likes it.
he likes the way his heart races when he starts to get a little scared. a little angry. it makes him feel horribly alive. if he weren't a rogue i would probably compare it to raging in dnd as a barbarian. he lovesss the adrenaline & cannot stop craving it. his overreactions distract him from having to react to these loses he's facing. there are a lot of people who try to tell him to temper his emotions, to tread a little more carefully. to that, he wonders how boring their lives must be without that horrible, wonderful feeling.
the feeling that all you have to lose is the body you exist in is very real for ellis. if not for lily & astoria being in their travel party he probably would have died much quicker, but they give him something to live for. even when he's not happy with them, they both remind him that he is a person outside of the gore. he still struggles thinking that other people do not react on the same level as him, though.
And it’s sad
To know
That we are not alone
And it’s sad to know there’s no honest way out
he lamets over the connections he has to this world. whether it's lily, astoria, morrigan or any of the other friends he picks up on the way... he hates that they anchor him to his flesh. he would much rather crawl out of it or rot in the ground or whatever else can happen to his fragile body. he's soooo okay with dying. he's so into the idea of being thrown into a shallow grave & being forgotten. of course he fears it, but it's not the scariest thing on his plate at the time. but he is not okay with leaving his loved ones to fend for themselves, even as he has difficulties understanding how to maintain or fix those relationships. he still treasures them, deeply.
it's sad to know there is no dying on the end of a darkspawn's blade without affecting not only the people he has left, but also the potential outcome of the world. there are three grey wardens in ferelden, one of them is him, one of them is his sister & one of them is a king's bastard( & as far as ellis is concerned in the beginning, an oaf ). they don't know what will happen to Alistair by the end of it all, as he is a decent contender for king. if ellis were to die, that would leave lily as the single hope ferelden had of survival. he could never damn her to that fate.
I’m afraid to leave the house
I’m as timid as a mouse
I’m afraid if I go out,
I’ll out wear my welcome
this sets up a perfect set one lines to dip into the next big arc of his life. after the blight, ellis is tired & half-mad. he perceives every threat that could be there, not always able to differentiate which ones are real & which ones are from his mind. when amaranthine is left in he & lily's care, it's like throwing salt in an open wound. he walks whalls that he had traveled once with his father, a constant reminder of a friend's betrayal. being in charge of rendon howe's estate really messes with his mind. during this time, lily is also Suffering intensely & can barely face the public let alone run anything. so ellis takes a lot of the responsibility.
but he is struggling too. man is paranoid & overactive to every little thing. if he see's a shadow dance in the corner of his eye he's sure it's a darkspawn. maybe it's the desire demon he let keep that man in the mage tower? maybe it's there for him next. he doesn't know but he thinks he knows. if this makes sense? this makes it hard for him to reach out to apologize, to process feelings. he lashes out often & usually walks away from emotionally intense situations in tears. so he often tries to avoid them altogether. he would rather exist as a myth, an idea [ which he doesn't like but is preferable ] than be seen or known to any degree.
he doesn't care so much about trying to temper himself as much as he cares about avoiding situations in the public altogether. especially since he has trouble feeling bad for his reactions, because again, they are genuine. when he's royally pissed off he feels that feeling in earnest. if he's hyperventilating in the throne room it's because he can't stop it. for as much as he hates to be seen, he hates trying to keep his emotions on any sort of leash either? which lends to this vicious cycle of ' please don't look at me, i can't hide, fucking stop looking at me ' if that makes sense?
I am not a courageous man
I don’t have any big lasting plans
’m too cowardly to take a stand
I wanna keep my nose clean
during this time he feels like he does not have it in him to seek the help he needs. he doesn't have the time. it's not that he doesn't have the support. in fact, he has the support of an entire [ mostly grateful ] nation. not even counting his new friends, surviving family, astoria or his recruits. he's constantly planning for a future he can't see. one he's not sure he'll be a part of, despite the fact that he is at the center of building it. though he is able to plan & navigate social niceties via letters [ not face-to-face. he actually often comes off as rude in social situations. he's generally unexpressive or too expressive if that makes sense? it's expanded a little more on one of his schizophrenia posts ]
but anyways despite him not feeling like he can be apart of what's to come [ though he will be & cannot see it ] he is afraid to stand up to certain parties. though this is a conversation for another day, ellis is very blatanlty anti-chantry. he loses his faith during the blight & is pretty open about it. it complicates things often so in a lot of other situations he tries to do what he's supposed to. even if he's not always good at it, he still tries to build this new & better reputation for the grey wardens. it doesn't really come together until lily & astoria act as buffers for the public in seperate ways.
astoria acts as an emotional buffer, as she is someone who takes the time to understand why he is like this. she is one of the only people he ever feels really knows him outside of his family. she helps support him when he needs support, though she is also balancing her own duties surrounding her homes at the same time. but anyways there are a lot of reputations outside of his own he has to consider & with him already being in bad standing with such a large power in ferelden, in contrast to the masses of people who have immortalized him as legend, he has to tread carefully where he is better at stomping if this makes sense? idk it is like 10am & i haven't slept yet but i had to finish this
And it’s sad To know
That we’re not alone in this
And it’s sad to know there’s no honest way out
In this life we lead, we could conquer everything
If we could just get the braves to get out of bed in the morning
again, reiterating the sentiment that the people in his life keep him in line. they keep the invasive thoughts from winning. it's hard to maintain his relationships while trying to balance his own shit, but they ever stop being important to him. he thinks about them in retrospect of every action,how the people he cares about may be affected by any destructive or self destructive thoughts. but if he can stay alive for them, why can't he stay alive for himself?
the first step he takes in healing & seeking help for this cycle he traps himself in is realizing he wants out of it. it's okay to ask for help, it's okay to rely on the people you love. but they cannot fix him. he has to want to heal & adapt himself. otherwise, he will weigh his loved ones down because he is not carrying any of the weight. he's hollowed himself out for so many causes that he decides to fill that space with someone better than he was. he just has to take that leap with his own two legs.
