#lits muses.

[meanwhilepoetry]

Every woman I have ever loved is still working out how to love herself. Has a closetful of ghosts and has been to a hundred funerals of the women she used to be. Wonders what wounds her mother carries that she will never know about. Hopes that the weight of the world doesn't eventually crush her, that she is strong enough to handle it all. Wishes a day will come when she can put it all down, give her aching shoulders a rest. Wants someone to truly see her and not make a feast of her kindness and dreams. Is forever hiding a secret hunger for what calls to her in the dark. Holds a universe inside her, but has been told to make herself smaller despite the paradox. Praise be that universes are not in the business of listening to anyone but themselves. Every woman I have loved has thought about it. The art of disappearing. To be here one day, and the next, like smoke, simply gone.

- Nikita Gill, Every Woman I Have Ever Loved

[elle-rph]

People are so lucky I don’t fully speak my mind.

[mournfulroses]

Alexander Blok, from a poem titled "To The Muse," featured in The Twelve & Other Poems

[theartoffresco]

[words-at-night]

[excerptum]

In films, we are voyeurs, but in novels, we have the experience of being someone else: knowing another person's soul from the inside. No other art form does that. And this is why sometimes, when we put down a book, we find ourselves slightly altered as human beings. Novels change us from within.

Donna Tartt, Chatelaine Interview (2013)

[citrangulus]

the whisper of turning pages feels like a secret conversation with history

[ride-a-dromedary]

#also *is* it canon that he’s like 7ft at least?? bc he has to be#average elf height is 6ft I know this bc. yknow. I’ve read the elf parts of the 5e descriptions#and iirc bg3 moooooostly follows that#so everybody saying ‘oh Halsin is 6ft tall’ THATS NOT EVEN TALL FOR AN ELF THAT IS AVERAGE

@whatever-man-whatever I have been summoned!!

The short answer is no; Halsin's height has not been canonically confirmed in game as far as I'm aware (though I would be a little dodgy if it was anyway, and you'll see why in a moment, but mainly due to the fact that because Halsin is still considered a medium creature, as an elf, the game lists his weight as 75KG - look me DIRECTLY in the eye and tell me that man is 165lbs). And, as far as I am aware, there hasn't been any confirmation of his height from Larian either (though I am happy to be corrected if they have).

But you know whose height has been canonically confirmed? Astarion's. And you know that that leads to? The long answer, which is: logical approximation time with yours truly.

Larian tweeted Astarion's height as being 5'9" in 2021:

Which is slightly contradicted by the fact that, when playing as a Gith character in the full release, you can choose the option to describe Astarion literally to him when he asks:

Which - while understandably says 'approximately', so it is just a logical guess on Tav's part - obviously contradicts what Larian indicated previously by implying he's 5'11". Likely this was changed in the two years, or just tossed out there as a joke, or genuinely just mixed up (but I much prefer the 'gith count hair as height or are just not very good at height estimation' and @winter2468's theory that Astarion just wears lifts in his shoes).

However, what this does give us is a point of reference, with the possible height range of Astarion (and I suppose by extension the lithe elf body type in player characters) being somewhere between 5'9" and 5'11" (both a little on the taller side of the average for an Elf in 5e descriptions, but very tall for - say - 3e descriptions).

Now, this has to be taken with a grain of salt because all of the smaller male body types are the same height, so a visual doesn't necessarily say TOO much, however:

(Note that this is the two of them standing side by side in their idle pose, which means they are balancing weight on one of their hips, cocking it to the side. Astarion's idle pose also has him lifting his chin considerably, which makes him look a little taller. These both affect the measurement slightly but bear with me. I have also made an estimation as to where Astarion's skull would actually begin in relation to the bouffant of his hair)

So what this immediately tells me is that Halsin cannot be only 6ft - he stands significantly taller than an individual who is allegedly between 5'9" and 5'11"

A few more for good measure:

(The left bottom image is Astarion standing straighter with Halsin still bent at the knee - I have also noted that Halsin's left shoulder slopes lower than his right when standing idly)

So it's evident, by visual average, Astarion stands pretty consistently at about Halsin's shoulder. The only times they don't stand at this same relation in height difference is in character sheet screens (and level up screens by extension):

Which is what I meant by a little dodgy in visual base, so for the sake of this we'll keep outside of menus.

The average height between the shoulder and the top of a head is approximately 1 ft (with of course variations of neck length and head size in between, but let's stick with average for ease)

THEREFORE - if it looks to be that Astarion stands pretty consistently at the height of Halsin's shoulder, give or take an inch or two, Halsin is approximately about a foot taller than he is. And if Halsin is about a foot taller than he is, and Astarion's canonical height sits somewhere in the range of 5'9" - 5'11", that leads to reason that Halsin stands at somewhere in the range of 6'9" - 6'11".

(The other source of this conclusion is that I feel it in my heart that Halsin is pushing 7ft because I reason his height would need to be significantly above average for everyone to make a comment on it)

[ninasdrafts]

I think that even if I hadn't met you by chance all these years ago, I would've ended up right here. In this city. With its old buildings, history carved into every brick, and its bustling centre. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic but I want to believe fate would have put me into your path no matter what decisions and mistakes I'd made. That all this time I've been navigating life, it would've ultimately led me to wherever you were. You would have found me here. Or I would have found you and brought you back with me. It doesn't really matter. I want to believe that if two people are just right for each other, circumstances can't help aligning in just the right way. If that's true, we can do no wrong - fate would always bring us back here. Together. Right?

you & me & this city / n.j.

[meanwhilepoetry]

Have you ever felt like you are the quiet ghost everyone can see but chooses to look through. Like your body is there, just transparent, you speak but no one hears you, not really. The act of disappearing is not so hard truly. You can do it even in a room surrounded by people who love you. Just pretend you aren’t there, and everyone around you will pretend you have vanished too.

- Nikita Gill

[elle-rph]

I’ll be fine, I just gotta stress about it for a while.

[mournfulroses]

May Sarton, from Gods & Mortals: Modern Poems on Classics; "The Muse as Medusa,"

[theartoffresco]

[words-at-night]

[lebuc]

green tea musings

* from my lofty perch on high, lowered onto the landscape - the realm of flora & fauna

precious few things rend a tear of regret

as much as watching the destruction of said 'scape one property contract at a time, brick at a time, excavation by excavation

for ostentatiously austere hovels stacked, not sprawled

with the attendant coffee & noodle - ahem, palaces of baristas, noodlistas young, hip foodies posturing…

against this backdrop walks this - i swear i'm not jealous -

grossly-nostalgic, jaded jackalope of a scrawler, scraping barren boulevards in literary lost cities of angels,

still freshly paved over what once were cobblestones carefully laid by craftsmen, brick by brick by brick.

in them i keep walking until *we* hit an unending field of green, green grass - me & my two bare feet. * 3/24 - lebuc - green tea musings

[excerptum]

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream, and he sometimes wondered whose it was, and whether they were enjoying it.

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy