#suicide tw —

[dalishious]

Zevran Arainai is an Underrated Delight

There is so much depth to Zevran Arainai’s writing that is often overlooked in favour of either sexually objectifying him or ignoring him altogether… which is kind of ironic, considering that’s how so many people in his life have treated him within universe. And then, of course, there’s the biphobia directed at his character back when Dragon Age: Origins first released. He was a joke in many Gamer Bro circles about how they killed him for flirting with their male protagonist. It’s such a shame, really. Because personally speaking, Zevran is one of my favourite characters in the entire Dragon Age franchise.

Zevran’s introduction to the game immediately sets him apart from every other character who is capable of joining the party. He first appears as an enemy; an assassin hired to kill the Warden by Loghain, the Warden’s political opponent. You immediately have the option to either kill him, or add him to the party roster. Zevran does not initially join the Warden’s cause out of the goodness of his heart; he does it because he knows that the Antivan Crows who essentially own him – which we’ll get to – will kill him for failing to assassinate your character. This really paints his original placement within the group’s dynamics in an interesting light. No one really trusts him; Alistair and Morrigan both outright voice this. Zevran himself believes he is only safe with the Warden so long as he makes himself useful, per how he sells his worthiness to the Warden when trying to convince them to let him join. There’s tension there that really makes getting to know him extra interesting, because before anything else, you need to build trust. So, when he’s finally ready to start revealing parts about his personal history, you the player really get to feel like you’ve earned something special from his character.

Zevran’s mother was Dalish, but fell in love with an elf from the city and left her clan behind. Unfortunately, Zevran’s father was assassinated, leaving her with nothing but his debts to pay. She turned to sex work, until she died giving birth to Zevran, and all that debt fell onto him in turn. Zevran was raised by the sex workers in the brothel his mother worked at, until the age of seven, when the Antivan Crow Guildmaster Talav Arainai bought him for seven sovereigns; one of eighteen children made into “compradi” (recruits) that year. In his training, Zevran was tortured in a variety of ways, and in his own words, “taught to know nothing else but murder”. Of those eighteen, Zevran was one of two who survived the training, the other being a human boy named Taliesen. Then, a woman named Rinnala (“Rinna”) was placed into House Arainai from the Azul Contract that dictated the Crows were to take in unwanted bastard children of the Antivan Crown. For a time being, Zevran, Taliesen, and Rinnala worked well together as a professional and romantic trio. But when Zevran and Taliesen were tricked into believing Rinnala betrayed the Crows in an internal Crow scheme, they killed her. When they learned otherwise, Zevran took it particularly rough, combined with the realization of how little he himself mattered, too.

The trauma that Zevran has experienced is something he often makes jokes about, or speaks detached from. I’ve been called out many times on doing the same thing with my own trauma, and I know it’s a pretty commonplace response in others as well. That makes it feel all the more real; his responses are so authentically relatable. It’s also in a way, I find a little therapeutic to get to comfort a character whose survival mechanism has been to downplay his trauma for so long. The Warden is able to tell Zevran that what he’s been through sounds horrible, and even though Zevran tries to excuse things as not being that bad, you gain significant approval from him, just for showing him sympathy. Sympathy is something he’s severely lacked in his life. For all Zevran jokes about his traumatizing experiences, they clearly left a mark on him. Zevran eventually admits to the Warden that he did not actually anticipate being able to kill them, and that what he really wanted in taking on the job was to die. Again, sorry to get personal here for a moment, but I too have attempted suicide, and honestly I still struggle with ideation sometimes. And yet again I must say that I find something really beautiful in a character like Zevran, who is able to find peace and happiness on the other side of surviving such a thing.

As for Zevran’s romance… oh, Zevran’s romance path is such a delight. He is so multidimensional in that he’s very flirtatious and fun, while also showing genuine vulnerability in time. He admits that his role as a Crow meant he was encouraged to use seduction as a tool. His only experience with a true relationship ended very poorly, with Rinna’s death and a wedge forming between him and Taliesen, who he is eventually forced to kill too in the game. One of my favourite moments in the entire game, is when you invite him to your tent and he says no… and if you accept his consensual rights, that is what changes everything for him and the Warden’s relationship. Zevran feels safe and loved, and he gets to be happy. As of Dragon Age: Inquisition, a romanced Zevran is still at the Warden’s side, too, if they’re alive.

I love Zevran Arainai so much. He truly is an amazingly well done character, and deserves so much more respect and interest than he gets.

*Sourced from in-game dialogue and World of Thedas vol. 2

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

npd culture is feeling randomly suicidal but you remember you have to outlive your opps

.

[deaths]

this straight up changed me as a person. killing myself in front of you to forever change your bond and the trajectory of your lives

[nyancrimew]

reblogs off since im tired of the dumb fucking discourse happening here, go read this long post and reblog it instead please.

ok so tumblr also really needs this reminder based on some posts ive seen around lately, the "babygirlification" of JSTOR is bad. like Bad Bad. did you all just collectively forget history? did you alll just forget they have blood on their hands? just because they publish science stuff in an ever so slightly more ethical way than springer and are a little silly on social media sometimes? JSTOR killed aaron swartz (wikipedia). in his fight for freedom of information he downloaded papers off of jstor (with acedemic access from MIT) to share and make freely accessible (as all information should be), for this he was charged with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer. he was facing up to 50 years in prison and a 1 million USD fee for a simple act of downloading files he lawfully had access to. with this court case the US government drove one of the most important online activists and programmers (he is behind so much stuff you all take for granted) into suicide in the name of JSTOR.

JSTOR isn't the cool girl on the block. this isnt a call to boycott them (though please learn how to use things such as sci-hub and fight for open science and freedom of information in general please <3), but please dont glorify them as some sort of cutesy platform.

[bellamuertes]

CONSTANTINE (2005) dir. Francis Lawrence

[thefoolsprocession]

There is something deeply wrong with some of you I’m ngl

[peri]

one of the most frustrating things to hear when you're suicidal is "you don't really want to kill yourself." you have to be ready to hear that, and 99% of the time, you wont be. the truth of the statement comes in a way that people don't hear followed up as often (a shame), which is "- you just want a different life." you don't really want to kill yourself, you just want a different life.

i think that clicked with me, almost. i still wasn't ready to hear it, i rolled my eyes, but it made its home in my brain, for the moment i'd be ready.

it's 50/50, coz sometimes the things that make you wanna kill yourself are things that cannot be changed-- or at least, not changed easily. you have to jump that huge hurdle before something changes most of the time. break up with that abusive partner, move out of your parents' house, quit that job, drop out of college.

it didn't fully click for me until i woke up from my 3-day coma, after a suicide attempt. i felt what it was like to be dead, and i realized, hey, i don't want to do that. i want to live. i just needed things to be better. i haven't been suicidal since.

so maybe things suck a lot, maybe it'd be really, really hard to get to the point in life where you feel it's worth living. maybe it'd take moving out, maybe it'd take a near-death experience, maybe it'd take risking leaving that abusive partner. it's not easy no matter what you have to do.

but you don't really want to kill yourself, you just want a different life. remember: we love you, always have, always will. and if it helps; you will die naturally someday, why not fuck around til then?

[anthonysperkins]

Mike Dytri and Craig Gilmore The Living End (1992) dir. Gregg Araki

[gertritude-art]

HEARTBREAKING: local food blogger thinks it's funny to put on a rude persona in their recipe videos

[mysharona1987]

This Reddit story is frigging nuts, though.

Were you depressed before? Well, now here’s some crushing medical debt!

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

npd culture is upsetting your chosen AND equal person (talking abt one person but hes both my chp and ep) and going "oh my god i upset him i need to kill myself immediately"

-🪻

.

[nyancrimew]

i can’t express how much i hate the word “slay”. stop saying it you sound absolutely fucking retarded. if you still say it today aug 14th IN 2024; you need to kill yourself, you are the reason the world has gone to shit faggot.

i think you need to calm down

[dunmeshistash]

Monster Tidbits - Demon

[vaspider]

A closeted person, forcibly outed as having a trans online persona by a "conservative news site," died by suicide after being publicly ridiculed after the outing.

Then, the head of that "news site" sent condolences to Bubba's "victims and family."

There aren't any victims, of course, because the clothing you wear in private and the fiction you write isn't anybody's business, but it's important to understand that these people really do think that trans people have "victims" bc we are somehow hurting people just by existing.

Do not add any kind of transphobic or anti-closet rhetoric to this post.

Turns out there were plenty of good reasons for him to stay closeted, nu? Show his memory the same grace and gentleness you'd want shown to someone you love.

[filmnoirsbian]

Joan Tierney

[even-disco-baby]

THOUGHT GAINED: INFERNAL ENGINES

PROBLEM

The world is ending. You know it, your neighbor knows it, the dealer knows it, the jailer knows it, the king and all his men know it. All one has to do is look around to see it— the future is curdling into something pale and incorporeal. The infernal machine that is this stupid world is going to blow, sooner rather than later. So what are you doing? Why are you still here? Why is anyone still here?

SOLUTION

You are doing the only thing worth doing. You are living. *Why,* you ask? Try and remember now. Remember your mother’s hand on your shoulder. Remember the taste of a fresh catch. Remember the times when you were kind to the dogs in the valley and they did not bare their teeth. Remember the weight of a child on your shoulders. Remember the stars throwing their light against the wall of sodium and smog. Remember singing until your throat was raw. Remember crying just as loudly and publicly, and the gentleness with which someone opened your curled fist and pressed a handkerchief into your palm. Crying, laughing, running, eating, screaming, haunting, loving, fighting, fighting, fighting. The fight fuels you, and you fuel the fight. You run yourself ragged just for a chance to keep running. You never stop. You cannot stop. The world depends on it. *You* are the infernal engine. You are the world. And, simply put: you want to live.