#same reason i'm fascinated by volcanoes

[defira85]

So far you've tagged a volcano and a sword dancer as Dhraoibhan on your DA Tumblr, and that paints an absolutely fascinating picture and I really look forward to learning more about them.

Also, seeing those posts got me curious and I can't recall if you've said before now: Have you decided which of your Rooks you'll be running for your first playthrough?

Haha someone noticed! The volcano pics were my nod to the Void where the Forgotten Ones are imprisoned, because of many reasons - one, it's cooler than just a black void of nothing, this idea that it's still a place of power and death in the bright heat of it, two, the Blight possibly came from the Void and when the Blight infects lyrium it turns red (like lava) and three, elves who are assumed to be followers of the Forgotten Ones have bright burning red vallaslin

Absolute madness, no real chance of it being anything remotely canon, it's more of a "wouldn't it be cool if..." moment for me. Canon is my playdough and I'm squeezing it in my hands. The Tirashan borders the Hunterhorn Mountains which would inevitably have volcanoes in my mind, and the idea of the Void being a place not of cold entropy but of violent brutal creation appeals to me

Also makes it cooler to say you're a Voidwalker if it means traversing via magma pools tee hee

The sword dancer is because I did say that Dhraoibhan is a berserker, but not in like the same way that Bull was for example. In my mind it's almost more akin to sith rage, Darth Maul or The Stranger, it's beautiful and it's violent and it's about rage and primal emotion and diamond sharp control

AS TO WHO IS FIRST. I DON'T GODDAMN KNOW. Beren is intended to be THE Rook, just like Carmela is THE Tav, but that doesn't mean that someone won't come in and snatch my attention like Kass did from Carmela. I also don't know if that means I need to play someone else other than Beren first so that I can play her run perfectly. MY CANON HAS TO BE FLAWLESS TO ME, THESE DECISIONS ARE EXCRUCIATING

[thepalmofyourfreezinghand]

"I also think it's interesting that IWYW is halfway through the album, and Clean kind of ends that cycle. And there are still a lot of angsty feelings in Clean, you're right. It's more about forcing yourself to get over something you're not over yet, than about truly getting over something."

Yeah that's what I meant! To me (and emphasis on me, I'm hardcore projecting here) I Wish You Would feels like being in the off phase of an on an off, really unstable, relationship. That phase when you're angry, frustrated and just want the person to change and do something (same feeling as YLM bridge "do something babe, say something" but with a little more guilt involved because your heart is still in it) and Clean is the aftermath, the moment you force yourself out of the vicious cycle and embrace whatever comes with it.

To me Now That We Don't Talk will fall right in the middle of these two, like a more bitter version of Clean but a more "tired" and maybe melancholic version of IWYW. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it but in my head it feels like the bar scene in Someone Great (the film inspired by Clean that supposedly inspired DBATC) where they see each other for the first time post breakup or the supermarket scene in Normal People.

And all this analysis reminded me about The Story of Us and these particular lyrics "Now, I'm standing alone in a crowded room and we're not speaking and I'm dying to know, is it killing you like it's killing me?"

Yes, the supermarket scene in NP! That’s such a great parallel!

1989 is so fascinating to me… I think that 1989 Taylor feels like a volcano in the moments before it erupts (this image might not be geologically correct, sorry to all the geologists who are reading my blog). 1989 Taylor feels like she has soooo much stuff bubbling and boiling under her skin, but all that stuff is not yet ready to reach her brain/mouth. Does that make sense? There are a lot of “violent” images in that song (the bad blood, punching a hole in the roof, the lights that blind you, burning’ it down, the stitches in the hospital room, the bullet holes…), there’s so much secrecy and hiding away (IKP, Style, Wildest Dreams…), there’s so much running away from something or running towards something (every MV for that era features a running scene, except for SIO, she’s either running from wolves or running from her co-star or running with her weekend lover in a jokey wish to make him breathless and crazy about her…), there’s so much mention of being crazy…. but all of this feels mitigated, in a way? Because there’s a solution to all of this? The flood comes and takes away the pictures, Taylor walks away from the woods and “saves” her partner, she always come back to her muse even though sometimes it hurts because it’s just the way it is (they never go out of style, their secret hooking up is painted as nbd and as something inevitable, even though those relationships are often hurtful in a lot of ways, see illicit affairs)…

Am I making sense? I don’t think I’m expressing myself so well. But basically in all her other albums her emotions are right on the surface, imo, but not in 1989. And that happened for a million reasons, but in the end the picture the album paints is that of a giant volcano that’s about to erupt and there’s a lot of anger and sadness and desperation but it’s still not quite on the surface yet…

[bard-llama]

I just learned cool shit about how global climate cycles work, which means worldbuilding yay!

Different fics will draw on it different amounts, but this is what the world generally looks like: 

Conjunction of Spheres triggers start of a glacial period in the north. The south flourished while in the north, elves starved and freak weather events happened and shit. And then the human expansionists came for the elves' resources. 

Humans adapted better than the elves, partially because it was all new to them and partially because humans helped change the ecology elves relied on to feed them. Changing herd land to farming land and such changed everything for the elves. Meanwhile, humans survived and thrived. 

The White Frost (and the lead up to it) triggered the start of an interglacial period in the north. Initially, this means that they have unstable weather and such, but in the longterm, it means more land is open to explore and settle, more resources are available, and land that was once arid is now farmable. Meanwhile the south goes the opposite way - unstable weather and its effects (i.e. crop failure, food shortages, extensive damage, etc.) is why they wanted to seize the resources of the north. That plus the transition of power in Nilfgaard and the general aftermath of war and conquering territory means the South is in for a rough future. In a good world, the North helps out.

[ganymedesclock]

Words are like rocks

I feel very bad about the way that language is often wielded with active cruelty (intellectual snobbery, prejudice against certain accents and dialects due to racism) or treated as inherently cruel because of those things (people that become hostile and presume you are mocking them the second that you use an unfamiliar word)

Aside from that there are a huge number of different fields that have a lot of complex concepts and benefit from having very specific language the way that a high-end wood shop benefits from having access to extremely specific tools, there are so many words out there that are just plain fun and this is the primary place I operate from.

Yes, as a writer who likes moody atmospheric stuff, gothic horror, and whooshy magic stuff, words like ephemera, antediluvian, and ecclesiastical are very useful in a pure mechanical things-go-brr manner but also they are terribly fun to say and read. I think we should enable people to feel excited and curious about new words, because really, the main reason people seem to be afraid of big words is feeling like they are some kind of test or demand that you meet them exactly where they already are with no respect to disability, language learning status, or just plain if you had the opportunity to run into it before.

At its worst, it's like seeing some guy in a comics store size up a shirt you're wearing for fun and quiz you on an obscure detail. I don't know, are you really smart if you don't know what "oneirocritical" means?

This is, of course, ridiculous. I do know what oneirocritical means, but it's not because I'm any smarter than anyone else. It's because I am reading a silly book about words written by someone who clearly likes to play around with them (The Horologicon, by Mark Forsyth, if anyone's curious). I just happened to be exposed to it, picked it up like a shiny rock, went "ooooh!" and put it in my pocket and sometimes to facilitate conversations or just for kicks I will show people the rock or put it in some art because I think it looks lovely.

Words, like rocks, are not that scary. They're quite ordinary and we are surrounded by them most of the time. We barely think about rocks. At this very moment you are almost certainly in range of at least one rock and the same can be said of words. You might think about them more if you have a disability or other life condition that causes you to think about them more, which makes them an obstacle or a hazard, or if you are parsing them differently.

Even the most boring and ordinary of rocks, however, have something twinkling and fascinating about them. They have interesting properties, history, chemical composition. You might pluck a lump of granite from a sidewalk- you're holding something that might be thousands of years old and forged in a volcano! There's no words we pulled from primal flame in that way, but even just within human history, every word we use has been tumbled forwards by some pretty incredible forces to get there.

There's no such thing as a completely, objectively boring rock. And I think there's no such thing as an objectively boring word.

Meanwhile, there's some rocks, and words, that are brandished at us with such an obvious air of demanded importance that it's hard to approach them at all. How do we feel about the Hope Diamond? Mt. Everest? Six Grandfathers? They just seem like monoliths in our world. It's hard to imagine that we as individuals have a human relationship with them, even if we can- a very tragic one in some of those cases.

So okay, language isn't some kind of perfect playground utopia. Some of the sharpest weapons we've used to cut people down have been words. There is a reason why one thing a lot of minorities ask of people is to watch their mouth a little, be careful about words, mindful of the weight and context.

But a rock is a rock is a rock. It is real. Just because it has the capacity to be thrown at your head or struck into you like a weapon doesn't mean that all rocks are evil and every instance of a rock is a threat. We can do many things with rocks to make them less threatening; split them, divide them, explore their pieces or the chemistry or history of them, put them on our shelves where they catch the light. We can attach new meaning to them.

The same is true with words. They have the capacity to have immense power. But also, far more often, they can just, exist, sitting there and waiting.

If you find an interesting rock somewhere on my blog, take it with you! Most search engines will give you the dictionary definition of a word entered as a search term (especially if you slap a handy "define:" in front of it) and I'm also happy to talk about why I use the words I do.

[winterinhimring]

i was kinda asking what you thought about each of them individually? still a good answer though!

Oh! Whoops, sorry about that. Here goes, then -- more of me ranting about what I love about the House of Dumpster Fire! I'm going to use my WOTR versions of them for details, since there's not a whole lot of individual character differentiation for some of them in the Silm.

Maedhros: A lot of my thoughts on him made it into my previous answer, since he's the head of the House and thus at least nominally responsible for most of the things they collectively did (the Lúthien incident excepted). But I do admire him for stepping down from the High Kingship in favour of Fingon. Even if he did it for somewhat Machiavellian political reasons, it still took a spine, and a certain amount of virtue, even. Especially in Tolkien's world, giving up power is a good sign, and I think that supports the general fandom portrayal of him as sympathetic even in his villainy.

Maglor: Can go from soft and caring (looking after twins) to terrifying violence (making orcs very dead) in 0.1 second. Complete and utter drama king who spends five thousand odd years singing sad songs on the beach because of all the murder he did. Once sung up a hurricane by accident in the WOTR 'verse because he was sad, and I fully believe it's in character.

Celegorm: What I love about him in WOTR is exactly what makes him so thoroughly and seemingly irredeemably evil in the Silm: the sheer feral glee with which he hunts his enemies. It's almost the exact same attitude when he's going after Shelob as it is when he's going after the Doriathrim. I find this both fascinating and a little concerning.

Caranthir: This is an Elf who does not care what you think of him, at all, unless you are (a) his brother or (b) a dwarf. Everyone else's opinion can go yeet itself into a volcano for all he cares. The result of this is that Caranthir is tied with Pippin for my favourite character to write, ever, because he will say what comes in to his head when it comes in to his head, and this leads to some absolutely hilariously blunt lines.

Curufin: Hmm...I'm going to say that my favourite thing about him is his absolute hypocrisy in pretending to be "the sensible one" who keeps Celegorm from going off the deep end and doing stupid stuff, and then as soon as he's left unsupervised, going off and doing something that's as least as dumb and reckless as what Celegorm would have done, if not worse.

Amrod & Amras: This is really only applicable to the WOTR versions of them, but in my defence they have approximately no canon characterisation. They're the only ones of the seven whose methods of coping with massive trauma do not fall under Crying, Weeping, Sad Songs, or Stabbing Things. They prefer to cloak their not inconsiderable power under a facade of harmless fun. Not that they don't genuinely find their pranks hilarious, but they are deliberately choosing to be entities of mild and harmless chaos so that everyone overlooks their prowess and history as warriors -- and so they have something else to think about than that themselves. Of course, this makes it all the more terrifying when they do cut loose and everybody realises that just because they're not Maedhros who can practically burn a city down with his feä doesn't mean they're not dangerous as heck.

Sorry for the confusion -- I hope you enjoy this answer v2.0!

[blackestopiiium]

(I know I asked this on CC (XD)) as a Scorpio I would like to know what's the reason behind my attraction towards a Taurus? I mean they are the opposites, right? Wouldn't that make things too complicated?

Haha, no problem! I wasn't sure where to respond so I'll make it here more lengthy. Since I don't know the circumstances behind the reason for your attraction; I'll explain it differently. Judging from what you said, I can safely confirm the 'attraction' is there from your side. Me and fellow star readers often discuss the connection of polarities based on common knowledge but also by our experience.

Do you like danger? Probably /yes/.

My guess is you must be attracted to natural strength.

We're talking strength & intensity here. Taurus, as one of the strongest Zodiac signs, is a manifestation of power & endurance. As a Taurus myself I must say it's normal you feel fascination and trigger by your cosmic opposite; just like magnets. The constant question if you 'like' or 'hate' this person may be so conflicting and reach such an unshakably frustrating scale you don't know what to do about it. No matter how strange it looks like -- it happens quite often, there's nothing to worry about. As soon as both signs get through the main obstacle which is dealing with each other's temper { + ego tantrum } it can be considered safe. Paradoxically, these two are like two sides of the same coin. For 90% they get along much better than one would expect.

You're asking if it wouldn't make things more complicated? Well, it varies. Yes, and no. I have no specific answer for that. A lot depends on the personality you're dealing with. I can name a few things that might help you consider the benefits. For analysis of negative traits, it would be better to message me personally. Let me say something positive about their compatibility: When Taurus & Scorpio meet during an exchange of a few cheeky grins, sparks fly around the place uncontrollably until it erupts into an unstoppable volcano. Both signs are daring in their own way. They like to fool and laugh with each other, if they fight it's deadly. While Scorpio is destructive, Taurus is a master manipulator. They attract each other physically the most. Not because one of them would be a beauty idol, absolutely not. Something else and different works here (carefully, the physical connection can get obsessive! Because the link here is not just physical but reaching far beyond the mental state of mind). [ Gosh, I'm trying so hard to not write an entire essay about this ].

Don't forget Taurus is ruled by VENUS ( the planet of love ) and Scorpio by PLUTO ( the planet of death ).

Elements of Earth & Water. Good combo if you ask me, flower needs water to grow n bloom, and water needs form to shape and stay balanced. If you have a Taurus around you, be careful how you behave around them, they may love to see your fierce side but not rude! Once you get to know them well, you can freely relax and feel like at home.

Both of them have a high sense for loyalty & security but at the same time developing trusting issues toward each other; just because -- 'opposites'. This needs a lot of work to function.

Just like Scorpios desperately can't hold back from anything sensual, Tauruses can't restrict themself from jumping headlong into anything dangerous. If they make a move towards each other, there's no stopping them. Planetary sympathies? Yes. Love and death? Yes. Remember the marriage quote? Till death do us apart.

(gif by endlessly fascinated)