[ustalav]

cole • he/him • bisexual • twenty-six

do not follow if you are under 18

i have a doberman and i do dog sports

i have ocd and tag my posts about it "ocd tag"

love dogs love stories love games

icon credit: @molochka-koshka

ao3 - fic drabbles - oc directory

[library-windows]

Kiersau is an old abbey, Andreas, and sometimes even I wonder if it - if we - have outlived our purpose here. . . . Sometimes I wonder if we were meant to change and we just... forgot to.

So here's something I thought was interesting.

Between Act I and Act II, the townspeople of Tassing age and change. Some of them begin going gray (or go grayer). Some grow longer beards or hair. Some have cheekbones become more prominent, or have lines on their face that develop or deepen, even subtly. And of course it's especially obvious with the kids of Tassing, who are growing from babies into children, and children into teenagers.

Even those characters who don't have visual changes to their faces or hair have differences to their clothing to show that time has passed. They've changed, even if it's only replacing or restyling old clothes, or growing out their hair. People have died, been born, gotten married, moved into town, built new businesses, taken up new ideas - the growth and change is often modest, but it's visible.

But at Kiersau Abbey...

... nobody changes - so much so that most of the monks and nuns don't even have different portraits between Act I and Act II, despite the passage of seven years.

For those that do, the only change is to the color of their habit (the seven years between Act I and Act II would encompass the entire period between entering the abbey and solemn profession, so anyone who was a novice when Andreas was there in Act I would have necessarily professed by Act II). The only other one who changes is Aedoc, whose "image" becomes more worn - but even he doesn't change facially. (Compare him to the visible aging of Ill Peter, another elderly male character.) None of the members of Kiersau physically change, visually, in those seven years. No lines on their faces, no gray hair, no wrinkles, no beard growth, no drooping, no aging, nothing.

The only ones who change regardless of the outcome of Act I are Cecilia, who was far more worldly and savvy than her counterpart, more proactive and less caught up in Kiersau as a bubble; and Piero, who understood and accepted that change was inevitable and didn't fear it. And the only way that they could change was to die, and disappear altogether.

And for all that there's been at least one major change to Kiersau with the closure of the scriptorium (and possibly more, depending on Ferenc and Matilda's fates in Act I), almost nothing has changed in terms of how Andreas/the player sees and experiences the abbey. Of those characters in the abbey who have "grown up", Zdena is still half-heartedly tending to the remains of the library under Illuminata's supervision (and Illuminata herself, though she's now Mother Superior, is still in the library sorting books). Lukas is still in the kitchen, and still can't quite figure out what to do without Wojslav directing him. Volkbert is still doing the menial, grubby work nobody else wants to do. He even lampshades how taking his vows hasn't really changed anything except the color of his habit:

I'm a monk now. . . . I still do the same work, but now I have the same robes as the other brothers.

One expects the abbey to change more slowly than the town, given that the monks and nuns aren't likely to be getting married or having children (one presumes, at least); but even those characters who have, in name, taken on new roles are still functionally doing mostly the same things they were doing seven years ago.

The only members of Kiersau that we see change, grow, take on visibly different roles, and age are the ones we see in Act III, after the abbey has been destroyed and they've moved on elsewhere.

Obviously Kiersau Abbey is not some kind of actual pocket dimension where time doesn't move (unless . . . ?). But it's posited even within the text of the game as a deliberate anachronism, a medieval holdover in the early modern age; and it's set against the inescapable presence of the Church's inertia versus the looming Reformation, and the growing social unrest against the feudal status quo. A major theme of the game is the inevitability of change and loss, and how being able to accept it and move on is essential for growth/survival. And it's clear that the stagnation has reached such a point that there can be no lasting change on a social scale in Tassing until the abbey burns.

This is Kiersau, Andreas. You should know by now, nothing here changes.

[bitterflames]

so tragic when you're an enjoyer of characters who are toxic destructive messes and then the majority of the fics are like "what if they communicated healthily and were nice to each other :)"

like if i wanted to read about wholesome well-adjusted relationships i would NOT be looking for stories about these freaks in particular i promise you!!!

[evergreen-femme]

im just so happy i live in a time period where actual meaningful biological transition is possible. even if we lose rights or the ability to exist in public, nothing can turn back the clock on that, and just by having any sort of access to that our lives are made immensely better. millions of our sisters throughout history would never have dreamed of a day where they could have what HRT does for us.

please don't lose the plot of this. if you're a trans person on HRT you're a living miracle, the dream of hundreds of millions of your ancestors. your lives are all deeply meaningful no matter what anyone says.

[t4t4t]

תפילה להפך – מאבן בֹחן | Prayer for Transformation, from the poem "Even Boḥan" by Rabbi Ḳalonymus b. Ḳalonymus ben Meir (1322) • the Open Si

A prayer by Kalonymus b. Kalonymus ben Meir that appears in his poem ספר אבן בוחן, יג Sefer Even Boḥan (§13), describing the author's wish t

[unabashedllamamusic]

Cursed be the one who announced to my father: “It’s a boy!"... ...How could he twist the course of the stars so much? How could he have erred so in his astrology? A lying tongue, a fool’s mouth it had given him For he foolishly transformed justice to poison He altered the law and transposed the lines

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman... ...I would say "how lucky am I"

Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water... ...Who would then transform me from a man to woman? Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness...

What shall I say? why cry or be bitter? If my father in heaven has decreed upon me and has maimed me with an immutable deformity then I do not wish to remove it. the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition that we bless both, the good and the bitter I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [HaShem] who has not made me a woman.

I think I'm gonna go lay down for a little while.

[rockabillywife]

Does anyone want to get matching tattoos and immediately have an unsalvageable falling out

[ustalav]

working a job that is both very technical/specific and also involves info that is confidential just means i can only complain about work to most people by being like 'today my numbers did not do what i wanted them to do :/'

[pathologising]

[mini-wrants]

The thing that’s always missing from the “women didn’t fight for the right to work they were already working they fought to get paid” is that many women also very much wanted to work.

Women wanted to be lawyers and engineers and chemists. They wanted to use their brains in challenging and interesting ways. They wanted to get the satisfaction from solving problems and inventing new shit and getting attention for it.

I know not everyone is born with intellectual curiosity or drive or determination but some people are and many of those people are women.

[mini-wrants]

[sh1fr4]

sorry my hands are so cold all the time it's cuz i died a few years back

[sydrichie]

[thethirdromana]

The 100 best novels of all time

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

How many of the Guardian's 100 best novels of all time have you read?

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

Voting ended onMay 19

Bonus: add in the tags which one is your favourite.

[sabrinasource]

SABRINA CARPENTER via Dior

[stephexmachina]

when i was a kid i was so mad all the time bc i thought someday i'd have to be somebody's wife i didn't know it was optional. is everybody reminding the young girls in their lives that it's optional.

[stephexmachina]

AND SO IS BEING SOMEBODY'S MOTHER‼️

[stephexmachina]

it is about being a woman. hope that helps!

[vibrantstarfire]

reading comprehension questions for the notes:

is wanting to be a wife and mother a requirement for being a woman?

why might OP be annoyed with replies assuming that this post is about being aroace or transmasc if a woman doesn’t want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to sexuality and romantic interest that might make a woman not want to be a wife or mother?

are there reasons unrelated to gender identity and expression that might make a woman not want to be a wife and mother?

core concept: what is gender essentialism?

is it gender essentialism to imply that all women inherently want to be wives and mothers? could this be what OP is critiquing?

look at the notes OP responds to. is it gender essentialism to imply that being a wife and mother is so affixed to womanhood that to not want to be those things means you’re incapable of sexual/romantic feelings, or not a woman?

what trait are you perpetuating when you assume that women who do not want to be wives and mothers must be aroace or trans? is it gender essentialism?

[savedtiktoksofcats]

[exuberantocean]

That boy is going places.

[ustalav]

I rarely miss living in Texas but today I remembered puffy tacos……..

[ustalav]

me looking at my steam catalogue lately like: which of these games will run on a macbook air.....

[ustalav]

every day i am reminded that 'they/them' pronouns are so hard for people to grasp UNTIL its a trans person that uses he/him or she/her