#onehandedly

[paradife-loft]

11 questions, DA flavor:

I was tagged by both @hweanaro​ and @onehandedly​! why thank you, friends! hope this is... not boring or halfassed? sighs forever at the evolution of my relation to the DA franchise.

1. Who would win, your Warden or your Inquisitor, if they got into a fight? Mmm, I think probably my Warden would win. Not that I’d ever want them to fight, oh my gosh x____x They’re not the sort to be best buddies, I don’t think, because of the different way their lives have turned, but they see fairly eye to eye on enough things that GOSH BABIES WHY WOULD YOU ARGUE MUCH LESS COME TO BLOWS EEEEK. But uh yeah, as to why - at any given point in their personal timelines, I’m fairly certain Irsae (my Tabris) would have more brawling/combat/kicking things and running away experience than Sireth (my Lavellan). Sireth certainly learns a lot through experience during the course of DA:I, but prior to that she tends to resort to fighting as a very last self-defense resort, and doesn’t have any real finesse at all. She’s a lot more nervous about being in physical scraps in general. Irsae, while also not having any proper Lessons or anything before getting conscripted, he was a lot more prone to literal ‘fight me’ incidents as a kid in Denerim, and gets more vicious much faster. They’re both rogues class-wise and combat pragmatists disposition-wise (...and both relatively small and skinny), but Irsae just has an edge psychologically and in experience.

2. If you could make a team out of companions from all games, who would you choose? Oh geez, that’s hard... I don’t even know. Like, I could just pick a favourite from each game, but they probably wouldn’t get along very well. Hrm. As far at least as characters who’d be interesting and mostly pleasant company, while also a balanced party, I think I’d want Merrill, Cole, and Cassandra. (Add a bonus Morrigan for Team Maximum Autistic Babbies, hello >_>)

3. Did you sacrifice the Chargers? No, I haven’t. It was a hard decision for Sireth because she was trying very hard to do things that were strategically sound, not endanger the Inquisition’s chances of victory because of what she knew were her own lackluster political abilities. But when it came down to it, she couldn’t make a decision that would be sending her friend’s friends to their deaths thinking they’d been betrayed.

4. Mages or templars? Take a wild guess though! *eyeroll* Mages. The templars as they currently exist are a horrible organisation as regards both their charges and their own members. Ick.

5. Your favourite Thedas location? I do have a massive sort spot for Kirkwall, of all the places we’ve visited. Places I really like conceptually and/or in others’ headcanon and fic I’ve read are Nevarra and Tevinter.

6. Choose one of your playable characters (Warden, Champion, Inquisitor) and describe them. Looks, class, weapons, partner.

Ahhh, oh gosh... Y’know even though I haven’t talked a lot about any of my protags here except maybe Sireth via liveblogging, I think I’ll talk about Lenore here, since she’s the most... current and updated, I guess, of my older ones?

So Lenore is my alt!Hawke, which is to say, she’s one of the characters I played through DA2 with, but in my canon verse there’s a different one of my OCs who is Hawke, and Lenore is a different person who interacts with the main cast and has some similarities in her backstory to Hawke’s but e.g. doesn’t become the Champion of Kirkwall. She’s a dual-wielding assassin-spec’d rogue (because I’m terribly predictable), and typically of the grumpy violent red!Hawke persuasion. Rather tall and somewhat lean in a muscular-ish way - she tends toward fighting work to pay the bills when it’s available to her (the way she originally meets the DA2 cast is through Carver, who knew her vaguely as another soldier at Ostagar) - but also a bit top-heavy and generally awkward about what to do with her body and in how she moves. She’s got short black hair in basically the default Marian haircut, pale skin, a fairly prominent nose and eyebrows, and a perma-scowl - except for around Merrill (precious darling girlfriend who she will snarl at and/or stab just about anybody for), Fenris (laconic snark bffs who trust each other with things like hanging out silently while down and kind of fucked in the head and not up for anybody else), and not!Bethany (younger sister she wants to protect forever). She also actually doesn’t get along suuuper well with my canon!Hawke (Tamzen), because he’s massively purple to the point of accidental assholery, except when he cares way too much about politics. Whereas she is aggressively neutral about politics as a general question, and her assholery is very much not accidental and she has no time for bullshit and nonsense.

7. Your opinions on Eggma- I mean Solas? Uhhhh well. I started out pretty fond of him, I mean, I like people who are interested in things and enjoy questions. I got... progressively less so hearing more of his comments on the Dalish, his... entire series of conversations with Iron Bull as much as I heard of it at least (wooo banter bug >:( *sigh*), the inability to disagree with his characterisation of spirits’ natures in Cole’s quest, and the little snippets of stuff regarding Mythal’s temple and Trespasser that I’ve heard on here. (Yeah, I haven’t actually finished the game. For a variety of reasons.) At this point I just am Not Interested and kind of grouchy.

8. Your most hated opponent/s? Or opponent who took you the longest time to beat. Geez it’s been such a while since I’ve played any of the DA games I probably don’t remember. Probably some of the demon/arcane horror/revenant groups in the weird little temple structures in DA2 would count :| That and the... despair? demons (the ice magic ones in the cloaks?) in DA:I. Evil little shits. I remember running into a number of them while underleveled like a dumbass, so. ALSO TBH I hate the dragon opponents in DA:I because I always end up thinking about how I’m unprovokedly attacking a sentient creature and wincing throughout the entire thing because it’s not even a quick mercy kill on behalf of all the nearby townspeople either, it’s a drawn out battle :( It’s a wonder I manage to play dark side in SWTOR, istg...

9. What do you want in DA4? MORE DETAILED WEIRD DWARF LOOOOOORRREEEE

also less irl and fantastic racism

cities instead of a fake-bethesda sandbox

I dunno honestly I’m kind of just not liking the direction the series is going and so it really depends if I’m even going to pick up DA4 when it happens :/

10. What is your favourite mount?

Iiiiiiiiiiii didn’t explore the mount system at all when I did my (thusfar only) playthrough, because I was already overwhelmed by Too Many Things and I didn’t really see the benefit of getting rid of my companions while exploring at all since I was already hearing barely any conversation. So I have no idea :|

11. How did you name your dog in Origins?

Oh gd. I don’t even remember. It’s been aaaaaaaages o___o Pretty sure I was just like DO NOT SPRING THIS ON ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME, NAMING THINGS IS STRESSFUL EVEN IF IT’S A PET DOG and did something random and tried not to really think about it much. I’m probably a bad DA player and/or Fereldan. (Well I mean, I never really got in the spirit of being Fereldan, tbh; I’m far too attached to cities vs countryside and villages, and I was playing a city elf. Soooo yeah.)

[fieldofheathers-stuff]

@hweanaro, questa è per te!!! Buon Natale, vecchiaccia scorbutica.

Di Thingol e Melian, 

una poesia liberamente tratta da Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poitiers di Paolo Villaggio e Fabrizio De André 

scritta per mano di Canafinwë Makalaurë Feänorion fieldofheathers-stuff e @onehandedly 

ATTENZIONE: Si raccomanda precauzione a causa dell’ovvia natura irriverente dell’opera. Le autrici sono due brutte persone prive di scrupoli e con la sensibilità di una forchetta da pesce, quindi se vi piace Thingol e non avete alcun senso dell’umorismo, pussate via. E fatevi una vita. Per tutti gli altri, qui è la festa. 

A seguire, il testo:

Re Thingol tornava dalla festa lo accoglie la foresta, cingendolo d’ allor, la pallida luce delle stelle illumina la pelle del sire, sbronzo ancor.

Il vino del Sinda e del Noldo arrossano il suo volto di identicol color, ma più che del corpo l’urgenza s’insidia la semenza de’ bramosie d’ amor.

Se voglia di sidro e sete di vino spengne la festa ad un cretino Non ti concende un secondo per star solettino.. e questa cosa, in particolare, dovesse uno esagerare con troppa birra può essere quasi letale.

Così si lamenta il re Silvano, scostando qualche ramo, schivando qualche fior. E giunto in giusta camporella, lui scova una fraschella adatta al suo lavor.

E mentre si tira giù il calzone, nel bosco si compone mirabile vision: dall folto di lunghe trecce nere una con gran sedere gli ammicca già da un po’.

“Mai non ho visto sì gonfi labbroni e quel gran paio di grossi meloni!” Disse re Thingol veloce tirando i calzoni. “Orsù, signore, non v’allargate, ivi ristoro certo non trovate per la vostra cupida brama di sere sfrenate!”

Sorpreso dall’ esser rifiutato già ch’ era bello pompato Re Thingol s’ arrestò; ma più dell’onor poté il digiuno, fremente il calzon bruno il sire si calò.

Era questa l’ arma sua segreta, da Thingol spesso usata in gran’ difficoltà: Lui era un idiota brancolante ma nei clazon’ gigante le apparve sua maestà.

“Se voi non foste dei Sindar padrone...” - Thingol gasato si sfila il maglione- “… io vi direi che a donne mai andrete lontano! Ma poichè siete di alcuni sovrano…” - Thingol per poco si dà in testa un ramo- “… non posso a voi già negarmi per il pudor’ che amo!”

Arciere non era assai valente, eppure in quel frangente il centro lui colpì; e giunto alla fin della tenzone, ripresosi il calzone, tentò di rivestir.

Veloce lo afferra la Maia, con urlo da ghiandaia a terra lo bloccò “viè già che sembri uno sfigato, un favore beneamato adesso ti farò.”

E’ mai possibile, oh porca Este, che le avventure in queste foreste debbano sempre finire con un nozze funeste? Anche sul fatto ho poi da lamentare, ben mi ricordo che pria di cominciare La mia staturaa questo cespo non riuscia a superare!

Ciò detto tentò con uno scatto di filare via ratto, Ma lei giù lo bloccò. “Magari ancor non l’hai capito, ma fai quel che io dico, è un gesto di favor.”

Re Thingol tornava dalla festa lo accoglie la foresta, cingendolo d’ allor, la pallida luce delle stelle illumina la pelle del sire, sbronzo ancor.

[ultraviolet-eucatastrophe]

Based on this post by @onehandedly. Please don’t take this seriously, even though I sort of did. 

The lights were often there, but never when he looked directly, Fingon had realised, early on. They were there in the dark, like glowing after-images of something lost. When all the lampstones were covered for the night, the stone hallways of Barad Eithel silent, empty and dark.

Fingon never knew if his father saw it too; he never asked. 

He never asked because that would only lead to another question: father, do you know what they are? 

Because I think I do.

Fingon was almost certain what the lights were, those brilliant, sparking colours. He knew exactly, although he did not know how. Fingon trusted his intuition though; he knew as well as any that the world did not always quite work as one expected it to.

Some nights, when everyone else was abed, he slipped from his chambers, nodding at the dozing guard in the corridor and walking on silent feet down the hall. He would pause, and turn his head expectantly. 

If it was there, it would be just in the corner of his eye, caught for a scant moment in his peripheral vision. 

There. 

A flash of vivid violet, a burst of blue, flickering to nothingness before starting up again, always just out of direct sight.

He blew out a breath he had not even realised he had been holding, and let himself smile.

“Hello Arakáno” he whispered into the darkness. “Turno and Irissë aren’t here anymore, I’m sorry, there’s no news of them I can tell you this time. Father is well though. How is it where you are?”

[paradife-loft]

tagged by @onehandedly for top 10 characters I identify with! not in any particular order mostly except that which I remembered them in, and who knows how that works. woo, here we go...

1. Curufin, The Silmarillion. Less, actually for the ways we’re alike, I think (though there are certainly plenty) and more just because I do not spend this much time with a character leasing space in my head and not come to feel their interests and desires and pain as being also my own.

2. Breq, the Imperial Radch series. Breq and I have such similar thoughts and emotional desires and ways of thinking about the world and the people in it to the point that it can be sometimes hard to read, or at least something I need to take in small bite-size chunks because otherwise I get overwhelmed. The dual understandings of the universe being horribly fucked up and caring about that, but also confining one’s main attentions to her people, the small sphere of things she can reasonably affect? Check. Forward momentum-y impulsivity in the face of crappy situations needing split second decisions? Check. Coldness when the situation warrants, but intense intimacy to those whom she loves, and loves in a way that’s fundamentally different from the humans around her; unhappiness at current embodied situation that she mostly tries to not think about; unorthodox ideas for her home culture and generally not giving a fuck.... Yeah, I’ll stop now.

3. Azula, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Intelligent and talented child who doesn’t quite get how socialising works and is going to have to claw her own way out of the shitty mental conditioning her parents have bestowed her with, because she damn well doesn’t have any sort of substitute parental figure looking out for her. ‘Nuff said.

4. Clariel, the Old Kingdom series. My grouchy aro autistic darling who empathises with the “villains” and is willing to take the dangerous and morally questionable options for a solution to a bad problem so long as she feels she can take precautions <3

5. Cole, Dragon Age. INCESSANT COMPULSIVE DESIRE TO FIX EVERYBODY’S SADNESS! Unusual ways of communicating and thinking and feeling compared to those around him. Emotional contagion galore.

6. Kreia, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (II). Embittered but passionately hopeful person with her own sometimes unpleasant-sounding philosophy and ethics that she’s come to as a result of all the other options she’s found failing her? An intense grudge against her world’s metaphysical Powers That Be. And a strong desire to change things coupled with a very sad understanding that she’s never going to be the charismatic leader who can convince people to actually follow her and help her change things - and for that matter, accompanying deep appreciation for the few people who do take the time to listen and pay attention and care for what she thinks. Oof.

7. Anders, Dragon Age. Radical politics, fear of intimacy, intense protectiveness of friends, neurodivergence, y’all know the drill, y?

8. Noatak/Amon, The Legend of Korra. One feature here that hasn’t been covered in any of the other characters - “selfishly ditches sibling and leaves them in a shitty place to get own self out of an abusive household”. Wheeeee :D

9. Celebrimbor, The Silmarillion. Also a lot of things I’ve already covered, but too, an intense need to prove himself on par or better than the other great creators and intellects that inform his lifetime. He’s a lot better at actually acting upon it than I am though lol.

...and I’m just going to leave it at nine because at this point I’m starting to run into the blurry area between “identifies with” and “really likes a lot but not quite because they’re like me exactly” *shrug*