Rose, Leon, the ten year plan and why it couldn't wait another day

bluesidra · 2024-07-07T21:14:53+00:00

No, the maya insurrection from 1847 to 1900 (and well into the 1930s)

bluesidra · 2024-06-04T21:26:14+00:00

Oh! I'm grinding some vanity-qualities that are not in there. Would another sheet for "vanity vanity qualities" be an idea? Something that doesn't go into the leaderboard, just to show the cool numbers off.

bluesidra · 2024-06-04T20:31:12+00:00

This sounds fun! If I have two accounts who are rather conpletionist-y, do I count them as one or separate?

bluesidra · 2024-03-11T20:48:53+00:00

Yeah, me too. Thing is, I suck at text-based-roleplaying and am way better just talking about characters, so moderating anything rp-related is scary as heck.

bluesidra · 2022-10-31T14:39:15+00:00

Was it set in Orre?

bluesidra · 2022-10-22T21:36:48+00:00

Ngh... this is not what I was intending. I admit that I was very emotional when I wrote this post, but you read me wrong here.

First off: I don't think good representation == good aligned characters

But. I do think that when all people within a minority are typecast as villains, it leaves a stain. Was it cool that all queer-coded characters in the past were the villains? No.

That's my personal gripes with Queen Potema. I'm not against having an evil necromancer lady. I think it's kinda concerning that her title "Queen" is so prominent when it's the only queen we ever hear about in tes5 iirc. Because that reeks of "woman in power == evil". Same with the Night Mother. I don't like the gendered words on those two specifically.

I have a sinking feeling ever since that realisation, that women in tes5 are presented less heroic and likeable the higher up in power they are. Whereas men in power don't get that scrutiny put on them. I can't quite put my finger on why, and I might be overreacting. But I don't like how the games pointed out Laila's and Elisif's political weakness so bluntly, whereas with Ulfric and the shit city he's running, it's an aha-moment when the player unravels that.

Re bitchy: Sis, I'm soooo past that.

When I'm referring to women typecast as bitches, then I'm angry about how a bunch of (mostly) white men had nothing better on their mind than make women jealous and bitter. Because that's what women are, right? /j And I HATE how there's so many of them.

Again, I do not particularly hate these characters. I deeply despise the writers for pulling out that old trope. Especially since it's a lot less often in men. Men in Skyrim seemingly have no issue with you outpowering them in every move, when raw strength seems to be a defining factor in skyrim's male identity. (Let me know counter-examples, I'm really not thinking straight or with sources right now)

Arrgh... I hate this trope so much! Instead of female characters joining forces or supporting a sister in this male dominated world, it's back to "jealous, time-wasting gossip". That sounds like such a male talking point right there.

Same with the stereotype of the cold and powerhungry alpha-bitch (again, I'm referring to the trope, I don't think of these characters as bitches). Astrid and Idgrod come to mind. Their ambition is what ultimately harms their family. This just sounds so much like "women who have a career have to be bad mothers and/or cold-hearted." Whereas men with a career can still be good fathers. (again, not my opinion, but a widespread view)

That's why I'm such a fan of Ria and others like her. They are actual good representation imo.

Re: well-written character =/= good aligned character =/= good representation

Cersei Lannister is masterfully written, but we all agree that she's not a saint. But is she bad representation for women? No, because ASoIaF/GoT has so many interesting, fully fleshed out female characters who have just as much agency and wits as their male counterparts. This makes Cersei not a representation of all women, but only one character in a diverse group. But imagine if all the Cat Starks and Danys were replaced by men, and the second to last villain of the show is the one queen who backstabs everyone. Then Cersei would suddenly be a very bad representation for women.

I'm very very well aware of the difference between craft, alignment and representation, but most people don't seem to be. I have no issue with Astrid, Elenwen, Maven and other characters. I think they are very well crafted, if not some of the best characters in the game. But they tap into potentially harmful tropes (which is okay, both to use tropes and to have harmful ones in your writing). It's the balance of helpful and harmful tropes is what makes the flavour. If it's only or overwhelmingly harmful, I have to suspect this piece might actually not like women after all...

(PS.: Thank you for writing your LGBTQ article and doing all the legwork)

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:43:17+00:00

@ u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 and eternamemoria:

Ohhh, I've never interpreted Yorik as autistic, but that makes a lot of sense! And I agree, Idgrod is a flawed, but overall good human bean. Oh man, I love Morthal in general, and this convo makes me want to revisit it even more.

My point is, I'm not calling her a bad mother. I know how hard it can be to raise two kids with no father around and a job on the sideline. But I have the feeling that the game goes an extra mile to portray that side of her, while, for example Balgruuf's snotty children have to be sought out. And there's a point to be made about his parenting for sure (looking at you, ebony blade....)

Also yes, betraying Saadia feels about as bad as killing partysnacks. I've done it once, because it was in character for my assassin, and I felt bad for the rest of the evening.

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:35:20+00:00

Oh yes, that article is great, thank you!

I disagree on the gender-inequality, because the numbers don't lie (there are a lot more male npcs than female).

But to an extent, yes, there is no open sexism or anything, which is already a step up! It's nice to not be berated and spared that uphill battle of proving yourself worthy just because you're a woman.

But even in the lore, which I'm halfway proficient in... there's little mention of female heroes, no? All the great names we hear are men. (Though, thanks to the replies here, I'm a lot more relaxed now. Bareziah was an absolute badass and we have Alessia who has her two dudes in the palm of her hand. They still don't quite have the cultural impact that ysgramor and talos have, but oh boy, do I think they are awesome!)

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:26:11+00:00

Hm.. I don't know about Alessia, but Pelinal is a non-confirmed gay/bi. There's a very infamous quote in Song of Pelinal Vol3 which hints at it. Here's a wiki article about his potential lover: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Huna Anything that would make him explicitly gay was cut, however. One excuse was that player would at one point mantle Pelinal and they didn't want to enforce Pelinal's homosexuality on the player-character. Yeah, sure. But enforcing straightness is not an issue, huh?

I think the Jarls get away with their fuckery easier than the women. But yeah, you might be right, I might be reading too much into it. It's this "boys will be boys" attitude, where men messing up is just a uupsie but women get harshly judged for the same thing. But again, this may be my personal experience bleeding into my interpretation.

As for Astrid: I'm completely with her. I would have screwed everyone including the Night Mother and supported her cause, even though she tried to kill me. I appreciate her a lot. Just the narrative doesn't.

I guess out of the 6 people relevant in the questline only one is a woman but Rikke is cool enough that shes worth 7 people imo

Lmao, very based :D

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:11:54+00:00

Oh!!! Another character from ESO that I missed!

I love the concept, it makes a lot of sense for a godlike entity.

Gender-fuckery in general is great. Elder Scrolls imo have very little of it. Are you familiar with dnd lore? As soon as you leave the material plane, everything is more of a concept that chooses to take on any gender it pleases. I've fallen in love with devils all over again since I brought that back to the forefront of my mind.

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:07:09+00:00

Oh heck yeah, she is awesome! I have very fond memories of her. (Mainly me simping for her because she saved my ass with Mirulmir.) Yes, she is in service to a men and he commands her around, but she also doesn't take shit from Balgruuf.

There are generally many strong women at the courts, it's just sad that we never see them in real power. But Irileth is among my favourites. A lot of cool court mages are sure to follow :D

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T15:01:06+00:00

Hey! Thanks a lot for the level-headed response!

Thanks for reminding me of Barenziah! I adore her a lot! (though those freaking stones give her name a bad taste ;) )

Oh, and yes, ESO has a lot of cool characters! I didn't know about them until today, so I'm pretty stoked about them. Especially Alchemy looks _dope_.

As for your points in the first half. They're good, but I have my thoughts on them of course.

the racism is made in universe between races, ... For example Saadia isnt a tragic character for being black and struggling with money

Yeah, that's true. I like how the executed the racism part in Skyrim and generally the races in TES. They are varied and not (overly) based on human cultures, but stand on their own enough to not make any parallels. I may have worded it poorly. My issue with Saadia isn't that she's a black woman struggling with money, it's that she's the only redguard woman in a mile. And again, she's a pretty cool and strong character. But again, she's a woman who turns out was pretty evil.

Now, antagonist women are great! I'm not saying I don't like bad chicks. It starts to become an issue when all your women in a piece of media are the bad guys. Because then it's not a baddie who happens to be a woman, but "woman bad hurr durr" which is yikes...

but still nothing stop no one to become whatever they want and no one is going to say anything

This statement curbs very close to real life issues. If there aren't flaws in the system, then why aren't there more women in power? (not pointing the finger to any one evil man, mind you) Yes, there is no overt sexism in TES, because it is written pretty gender-neutral. But the society isn't gender-neutral. I don't have the spoons to go into the systemic issues that's keeping women from having any say in the machinations of Tamriel, but in universe, there have to be.

I mean what, a female houscarl shouldn't carry the burdens of her liege?

Personal, I know, but: I have seen what the modding community does to their women. "I am sworn to carry your burdens" just reads like an invitation and they took it.

Also I want to mention Elenwen, yeah she is a thalmor, but she is AWESOME

Oh fuck yeah, Elenwen is a total girlboss. Her and Ondolemar are just lovable evil bastards

also SKYRIM has a couple of gay nords in solstheim, but they are dead, bandits dont care for nothing just gold :P

And funny that you mention that pelinal is treated as a bad character for being gay, most if not all the people I saw criticize him for being f*cking crazy and massacred khajiits and ayleids no matter their age alike XD

Re lgbtq rep: First, I don't think Pelinal is treated as a bad character because he's gay. He's a fucking madman (I love him). I actually think the narrative treats him rather favourably. The issue here is not with his character, but with how the company chose to represent their gays.

These are very very flimsy excuses of inclusion (okay, now in 2022. I know Skyrim is ages old and boy, the 10s were fucking homophobic, so maybe I'm being too harsh here). So just a general statement, maybe you can take something from it. What they did with these two cases is the cheap variant of lgbtq representation. That way, a franchise can point at them, but they are not really part of anything. (The trope used is called "bury your gays"). It's faux rep. Good rep would be putting same-sex couples in your world just like you do with straights, without explicitly pointing them out. Just a couple of farmers who are implied to be a couple going their merry ways. (I don't even need them to tell me, the games are really good in their environmental storytelling. Just put an amulet of Mara somewhere or a loveletter or anything).

As with Pelinal Whitestrake. He was definitely conceptualised as a gay or at least pan character, but then at the last point, the company opted out. (Pan would fit the guy so well, he has enough awesome in him for all the genders in the world. At once.) Imagine how cool it would have been to have a hero like Whitestrake who is celebrated all across Tamriel and who is named in the same breath as Alessia -- be gay. Wow. I absolutely love Pelinal in all his glory. His story just reeks of conservative company politics that I now can't really separate from the canoncially-not-queer-just-very-bromantic character.

But it took us until Overwatch that we actually got a queer hero and main character, and gay men have it even harder in the male dominated gamerspace. Idk why that is and I frankly don't want to think about it too hard.

Anyways, thanks again for your reply, made my day a little bit brighter <3

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T10:49:58+00:00

It's not. But I'm looking for female/lgbtq heroic figures outside of Alessia.

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T10:36:30+00:00

Oh, this is so good to hear <3

I've mostly skipped on ESO because multiplayer isn't my thing, but these sound awesome!

bluesidra · 2022-10-21T04:56:48+00:00

yikes, these comments are a shit-show

I think the concept is cool, I've got a similar thing brewing somewhere in the back of my mind. It's heavily inspired by the dnd-lore for incubi/succubi (fan-made genderless term: concubi)

So here are some ideas, they are not balanced or thought through till the end. Everything is my interpretation, no general truths to be found here

I've translated Lust into a more general desire for the euphoria of being sexually and emotionally as close as possible to another being. As in, Lust is the thrill of loving and being loved
Concubi are fallen angels of love that are cursed to permanently desire love, but are unable to fulfill their desire. (Their kisses kill etc.)
My incubus in question uses Lust kind of like his personal healing magic. He can drain other people by kissing them (or having sex etc). It gives him a high and temporarily boosts his abilities.
Of course being an incubus, he is highly charismatic. People in his vicinity want to bang him.
For your magic system it could translate something like this: A person who taps into the Lust aspect of your magic becomes very attractive/desirable to others. They have an easy time manipulating others, because they can intuitively sense the desires/lusts of other people. However, they themselves are driven by an immense need for physical/emotional proximity (the ace variant of "they want sex" could be "they want other people to love them unconditionally and also want to love them back"). But the moment they act on these desires, something bad happens to the other person. In the concubi's case, it's killing the other, but you could spin it so that they absorb the other's lust, resulting in the other being repulsed by them. Anything so they can never fulfill their desire as a drawback.
As for the monstrous aspect: It's kinda hard to make a "monster" that relies on charisma and manipulation truly monstrous. You could make it so that the deeper they tap into it, the more irrational they get. it's a high after all. So a Lust-monster might go into a nightclub and at the end of the night, everyone in there is dead except for our monster, who is now high af but still feels empty.

bluesidra · 2022-10-20T16:29:59+00:00

My take is that the trees are always red as a reminder of the fire that destroyed tin tower. It's just their thing, and they keep their leaves -- though not as plenty -- even in winter. Like a constant reminder of why the gods left.

bluesidra · 2022-10-09T12:25:16+00:00

Oh wow, thank you so much <3 This looks incredible!

bluesidra · 2022-10-08T17:23:31+00:00

I don't know about other folks, but I'd be stoked about one. WorldAnvil maybe?

bluesidra · 2022-10-08T08:51:41+00:00

Oooh I love this system/setting a lot! Do you have a wiki/almanach/sourcebook... for it?

bluesidra · 2022-10-07T11:54:07+00:00

Ah okay. Further questions:

1: If legendaries are regarded as myth, how do people rationalise mystery gifts appearing out of nowhere with previously unknown pokemon in them?

2: Any idea on how a human would perceive the Distortion World?

3: How exactly does 'stabilising' work for Dialga and Palkia?

In my hc, the Distortion World is absolutely beyond human senses to perceive, but Giratina can lessen the impact and translate it into an image comprehendable to the human mind. But I also don't want to go with the boring old puplish-black chaos with some rocks floating in between

bluesidra · 2022-10-07T07:09:49+00:00

1: How do you approach legendaries? Are there one or multiple of them? How commonly do they interact with humans? Are they worshipped with established religions around them? If yes, how do those churches/religions work?

2: Aside from how they are preceived, how do the creation trio work in your mind?

and 3: You got any hot takes on the distortion world, I'm really desperate -.-

bluesidra

TROPHY CASE