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attractthecrows · 2 months

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OC INTERVIEW

I was going through my Sy tag and found this old tag game from [checks timestamp] 2015. Since I'm dusting her off for a new playthrough I thought I'd update it.

Tagged: some 9 years ago by @ofwolvesandshatteredshields (HAHA SURPRISE!)

Tagging: oh god oh fuck um. uh. hm

@storybookhawke @hawkeykirsah @greywardan @dammithawke @warden-mahariel and ive run out of people. do it anyways its fun

Pick one of your characters and answer as if you're them being interviewed. Tag some others.

CHARACTER: Sylaira Mahariel (Longbowman, Ranger, Assassin, HoF, died bringing down the Archdemon)

If I get into it I may compile like an actual article written by Brother Genitivi about Warden Mahariel (interviewed after the Landsmeet but before the battle of Denerim) but thats a bigass maybe lmfao

ANYWAYS LET's BEGIN

1. What is your name?

Sy Mahariel.

2. What is your real name?

That is my real name. Sy is short for Sylaira, if you wish to be pedantic. Most simply call me Grey Warden, which suits me just fine.

3. Do you know why you were called that?

I'm called Grey Warden because that's what I am. …Oh, you meant the name?

My parents died before I had the chance to ask them. Ashalle told me once that my mother honored Sylaise; I assume that's why. Our names are similar, though I'm not exactly the best disciple of the Hearthkeeper.

4. Single or taken?

Taken for granted, primarily. Next question.

5. Have any abilities or powers?

I am a Dalish hunter. What does that tell you?

…Oh, all right. We - the hunters, that is - are proficient with longbows, shortbows, light blades, and simple potion-making, though we usually leave that for the craftsmen. Basic survival and tracking skills are also standard. Personally, I prefer longbows. Mine is dragonthorn and sylvanwood.

And over the course of the Blight I've picked up the skills of a ranger, and Grey Wardens have their own abilities.

6. Some have called you a Mary Sue. Thoughts?

Is that a reference to some shem hero? There are far too many.

7. What's your eye color?

I'm sitting right in front of you. Have you not eyes? They are blue, last I checked.

The color used to be deeper, in fact. It's faded out some in recent months. Blight sickness will do that.

8. What's your hair color?

…Black, as you can see. Have you received a blow to the head recently? What is the relevance of this, anyways? If you're committing my likeness to paper, focus on the vallaslin. It is the Hearthkeeper, Sylaise's pattern of clan Sabrae. Also in blue, I may add.

9. Have you got any family members?

My clan is my family. I had to leave them when I was recruited by the Warden Duncan, or risk spreading the Blight to them all.

10. Oh? What about pets?

There is a wardog that imprinted on me after the battle of Ostagar. Clever thing, highly loyal, obsessed with food. He reminds me of an old friend of mine, so I call him Fenarel.

11. Now tell me about something you don't like.

You don't have enough paper in that little notebook of yours, Genitivi, nor do we have time. In summary, though: Darkspawn. The Chantry. Wastefulness. And arrogant shems who think they know what's best.

12. Do you have any hobbies you enjoy?

Look around us, old man. We are in the midst of a Blight. I am one of two total Grey Wardens remaining in the entirety of Ferelden. Do you think I have time for hobbies?

Before the Blight, I enjoyed assisting Master Ilen, the clan craftsman. He tells me I have a good hand for bowmaking.

13. Ever hurt anyone before?

I challenge you to find me a Dalish hunter who has not.

14. Ever killed anyone before?

[She stares deadpan at me.] Are you serious?

You're serious.

Yes, I have killed people, you stupid shemlen.

Humans threatening our clan. Bandits. Carta. Blood mages. Tevinter slavers. Overzealous templars. Casteless thugs. Deeply, deeply stupid farmers hoping for reward money. Idiot knights defending the honor of an honorless man. At least two Arls and a Teyrn. Shall I continue?

15. What kind of animal are you?

I am an elf.

Ah, metaphorically. I've no idea. Wardens are associated with griffons, are they not? Likely one of those.

16. What are your worst habits?

I hold onto hope when I should be practical, according to Sten. I am too forgiving, according to Morrigan. I am too compassionate, according to Shale. I catastrophize too much, according to Zevran, which seems silly, to me; we're in a Blight. This is a catastrophe. I am too reckless, according to Alistair. And I drink too much.

17. Do you look up to anyone?

In the clan, I looked up to the hahrens; we all do. I looked up to Duncan, when he was alive. Neither of those are available to me now.

18. Orientation?

Looks to be… south-southwest.

That's not what I meant.

I know what you meant and am giving you an easy out.

19. Did you go to school?

Isn't that what shem nobles do with their children? No, we don't do that. We follow the Vir Tanadhal or Vir Atish'an, and every hunter knows the Vir Banal'ras. Dalish children are taught our history and culture by the hahrens. But no, there is no "school".

20. Would you want to marry and have children one day?

I did, once. I was… you humans call it 'betrothed'? I had hoped to marry Tamlen. But that is not possible anymore.

21. Have any fans?

Preoccupation with me tends to lead more to assassins than 'fans'.

22. What are you most afraid of?

I do not hold fear in my heart.

23. What do you usually wear?

I spend most of my time on the battlefield, so, armor.

24. Do you love someone?

Yes.

24a. Care to elaborate?

No.

25. When was the last time you wet yourself?

[she levels an icy glare at me and does not answer]

26. We're not done yet…

Then stop asking stupid questions.

27. What 'class' are you?

What, like noble, commoner, mage? The Dalish don't do that.

28. How many friends do you have?

More than you'd think, although likely I will not see many of them again. And the people traveling with me will always be important to me.

29. Thoughts on pie?

Leliana's mentioned that. It's a type of food, yes? I've never had it.

[We take a brief intermission while I find us some pie.]

This is… fruit? In a pastry? It's good. Impractical - we could never make such things in the aravels - but tasty.

30. Favorite drink?

The only 'drink' we get with any regularity is… I'm not sure how to describe it, actually. Alistair calls it "Grey Whiskey". It's quite something.

In my clan, we make honey mead and wild fruit wines. Those always remind me of home.

31. What's your favorite place?

There is a birch grove in the Brecilian forest. I imagine it's fallen to the Blight, by now. I used to go there with Tamlen, a long time ago.

32. Are you interested in someone?

[She does not meet my gaze.] Even if I were, such follies are dangerous.

33. What's your cup size?

[I had barely enough time to notice her glare before her fist shot out and collided with my nose. In lieu of an answer, she threw a rag at me to staunch the blood.]

34. Would you rather swim in a lake, or the ocean?

[She laughs. It's unexpected, but a lovely sound.] Have you been to the Ferelden coast, Genitivi? It'd be safer to swim in Orzammar. Lakes, thank you very much.

35. What's your type?

Not you. Next question.

36. Any fetishes?

[She glares at me.]

37. Top or bottom? Dominant or submissive?

[She stands to leave.]

38. No, please don't leave. I'm sorry. Do you prefer camping or sleeping indoors?

[She sits back down.] You, old man, have a fondness for dangerous and inappropriate questions. This I will answer, though my patience wears thin.

I prefer camping. My entire life prior to the Blight, I remember being able to hear the wind in the trees and see the sky. It is comforting to know one's place in nature. Walls and roofs have their place, but I don't like them, and I particularly dislike being underground.

39. Do you carry anything sentimental?

…Yes. All Grey Wardens wear a pendant that we receive after the Joining. And I've kept my old hunting gloves; Ashalle gave them to me when I received my vallaslin, and they were made by Master Ilen. [After a long, heavy moment, she slips a ring off of her finger and places it in my palm. It is a simple band carved from wood, detailed with elfroot leaves, warm in the hand.] And this - you call it a promise ring, I believe. Tamlen gave me this, a long time ago, before we came of age, before the Blight, to declare our intent to marry. Ma vhenan. Ma abelas. It reminds me of what I have lost. I will carry it until my death.

40. Thank you for your time.

Mhm. I recommend leaving the city, old man. You're in no condition to defend yourself from hordes of darkspawn, and they're approaching quickly.

#warden mahariel #dragon age origins #oc interview #sylaira mahariel #hero of ferelden #atc arts #cuz the portrait #anyway she's romantically entangled with alistair bc he reminds her of tamlen #long post

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nobody-knose--archive · 3 years

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i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

#lemon demon #spirit phone #pretty sure this is my first bit of spirit phone content on my blog. hi greater lem dem fandom nice to see y'all. go listen to deporitaz #loolin liveblogs #i enjoyed this less for the content the commentary contained & more for the way i handled it. more pleasant than some times ive had #tis i #i havent listened to spirit phone in general in ages. i know why. so this was nice #to the world and back again

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