#fay complains about the shivering isles | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ehlnofay · 1 year

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if you’re comfortable with sharing, i would love to hear your thoughts on the shivering isles :)

friend I am ALWAYS down to ramble

I've been doing a bit of writing exploring my hero of kvatch's super-fun holiday (turned long-term - as in eternal - occupancy) in the isles and while I don't think any of that will be ready to post for quite a bit I'm having an absolutely delightful time generating and sorting through thoughts on it. I talk all the time about how my conceptualisation of sheogorath is very different from canon (listen. I've had a special interest in psychopathology since I was eleven years old. the amount of both clinical and personal introspection I have done on my own mental disorders is off the fucking charts. you can't give me that kind of disastrous attempt at a character embodying "madness" and expect me NOT to run with it) (I have just posted an almost sixteen thousand word story about my sheogorath, incidentally, if that sounds like something that might interest you) and trying to change the isles to match the way I see it in my head - without making it completely unrecognisable - is an absolutely fascinating challenge.

I've talked a bit about my thoughts on the mania/dementia split so I won't repeat that here, with the exception that I think the geography of the isles is inconstant, so while there are mania places and dementia places nobody fucking knows which is which. (mania is always to the north, but directions also don't really work in the isles, so north is also wherever mania is.) in general I picture the isles being... I guess the best word is kaleidoscopic. not hostile, but extremely trippy. in its natural state - what I refer to as the wild isles - it's uninhabitable, but there are a number of places that are more livable where people have settled down. it's kind of a chicken or the egg problem - are those places livable because of the moderating influence of the people inhabiting them, or do people inhabit them because they're livable?

the mortal denizens of the isles don't often venture into the wilds, and when they do it's always alone. the wild isles fuck you up bad. they strip you down to emotion and instinct and adrenaline - the results of which vary drastically based on the individual. some people have a really cool time. some people come out fundamentally altered, for better or worse. some people never return. (for their part, my hero of kvatch likes the wilds; she always comes out feeling relieved, a bit like having finally thrown up after feeling sick for hours. she also comes out almost invariably covered in tears and sweat. she's doing very well and normal by this time.)

I also think the wilds are very important to the isles' more religious sects and are key to a lot of their rituals and traditions. tangentially related, I don't think that sheogorath being venerated religiously is particularly common, even in the isles (perhaps especially; there might be more cults without than there are within.) sheogorath doesn't really care for worship and the people of the isles are too familiar with its sphere to feel like it makes sense. this is not necessarily something others will be able to relate to, but for a long time I would end every night sitting on the roof and talking to god/the universe/the benevolent spirits of my backyard/whatever would listen to me about my day, and that's the kind of relationship a large portion of the isles have to sheogorath; they're very aware of it, and it isn't irreligious, but there's not exactly much piety to it. they talk to it like one talks to the moon: respectfully, of course, but simply a fact of life, a part of the environment as inherent as breathing.

I've been going on for a fair bit so I'll wind up. I will say that something I'm finding most interesting is reconciling the very unsettling and inhuman way I picture the shivering isles with its large population of regular-ass people; considering how people could manage to survive or learn to thrive in that kind of environment is super fascinating, and also something I want to be thoughtful and considerate about. I really want to make sure I'm not falling into otherising the denizens of the isles here - god knows the games do that enough as is.

#thank you kindly for the query! I had a lot of fun answering it #asks always brighten my day #sorry about the obscene amount of (parentheses) in this. I banged it all out without bothering to look it over and I love to make (asides)#fay talks #sheogorathposting #ask #fay complains about the shivering isles

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ehlnofay · 1 year

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Commiserating with you on the SI expansion. It’s sad to say that when you mentioned a particular npc being triggering that my mind immediately thought of six different ones that had truly upset me. *offers snacks of your choice and a punching bag shaped like the Bethesda logo*

Feel free to not answer this and instead rant in my dms if you want. I’m off to set Todd Howard on fire now *waves*

haha thank you kindly. playing through the shivering isles while having been mentally ill for what is almost half of my life and definitely most of the parts of my life I remember is definitely... an Experience

I would really like to extend compassion to the characters of the dlc but I'm frankly finding it hard at this point to look past the blatant mockery inherent to almost every single one of them. and this may sound awful but I was so blindsided by the things that affected me in part because I tend to have pretty internalised and symptoms that I didn't expect to be targeted... most of my fucked up nonsense is either invisible to outsiders or, in my opinion and looking at it clinically, kind of boring. so seeing characters pantomiming my nonsense was a lot more personal than I expected it to get

#I DO think some of my shit is clinically interesting. dissociation for example #but I would bet GOOD MONEY that the writers didn't know what that was #I could've kicked their asses at an abnormal psychology kahoot at the age of twelve. and that's embarrassing for them #because I did not know very much when I was twelve!!#ask #fay complains about the shivering isles #(making a tag for this bc I KNOW I will keep doing it)

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