kinda wanna write kinda wanna take a nap

I don't usually celebrate people's deaths like this, but she was one of the nasty ones.

Anti LGBT+

Supported conversion therapy

Anti abortion

Anti women's rights

Anti black and spread antisemitism

Anti immigration

Conservative turned Reform UK promoter

She once was quoted saying that science might one day "produce an answer" to being gay.

She converted from the Church of England (CoE) to the Roman Catholic Church following the CoE decision to ordain women as priests.

Climate change sceptic

Compared Brexit to slaves revolting against their owners and to a colonised country rising up against occupying forces.

"Never! Yield? To you? I'd rather die than yield to you, f'lah! You must be a coward to even imagine such a thing. Knights and gentlemen do not yield to animals. I despise you. Go ahead. Kill me, if you can. And I shall curse you with my dying breath."

queer, particularly trans representation hasn't come all that far in 20 years. maybe there's less blatant transphobia, but there sure as hell isn't any widespread positive representation. we have multiple generations of trans women and men who were only able to explore their identities during adolescence in online spaces. and kids today are being stripped of that.

significant age gap

parentified older sibling

the two of them living as the scions of a great Hero, and only one of them being able to live up to the legacy

the parallel experiences with The Crawler

Her whole life she's had to be perfect to deserve the right to be alive because one slip means being found out by the Divine Prosecution and being executed for it while her family is punished for harbouring a werewolf. All the while, no one really assumes too much about what's going on with her internal life because what's there to assume? She's perfect, she's god's favourite princess, the literal sun shines out her arse - what's there to worry about?

Being around Kyriel and Orion on Solstice probably brings it on because they've always been in the shadow of her perfection, always unaware that it was her sole lifeline to justify their father's inability to kill her when she first turned. Kyri is especially very bratty with Niraen, always provoking and demanding and acting like the most wounded party of all and assuming that big sister has never suffered once. But all the while, big sister is having to grapple with facing her own murderer while everyone just assumes she's okay and fine. She's Nirri after all, and Nirri doesn't let anything keep her down forever. She'll fix the mess and put everything back together, no worries.

And maybe she gets mad about that. Maybe she's tired of being the strong one, the perfect one, the one who never falters when things get hard - they weren't there when she crashed out over Cadwell's 'death' in Elsweyr, none of them were there with Tharn in his final moments, they didn't see the shit she clawed through to reach her acceptance of her role in the cycle or what she lost to get there. They just assume she shakes it off and keeps going because that's what she does.

Esterdel's fate affected her too. A young altmer woman turned against her will because she chose a different path, it is so familiar to Niraen and she fulfills Esterdel's wish to kill her because sometimes she wonders if she would have wanted her father to have had the strength to follow through and kill her too.

So she goes through all of this emotional turmoil, confronted by all the things wrong with her and her people, the realisation that Ayrenn's dream will never be fulfilled unless the Altmer change, so much pain and anguish that leaves her doubting who she is...

And she's left alone. Maggie returns to High Rock, Venaya disappears, and Niraen is forced to contend with politicians and bureaucrats to force them to accept the need to work together, then attend parties and ceremonies that she doesn't fucking care about because it's all classic altmer dress up. Smoothing over the unpleasantness and lifting up the stains so no one can perceive how deep the rot goes. And she has to do it alone because her friends bailed, assuming that she would be fine on her own. After all, she didn't lose anyone! Didn't lose the love of her life, didn't lose herself, didn't lose the entire basis of who she is and what makes her Niraen. Because Niraen is perfect and untouchable, she can handle anything.

Then in Elsweyr, Tharn contacts her over the others because she's the safe option, she's the reasonable one, she's the one who will cooperate without too much fuss. She's the annoying honorable sort, but perfection becomes her. She's less likely to kill him than the other two.

And then she snaps and punches him in the face when he tries to lay some of the blame for the dragons at her feet, as if she only went along with everything on the pretense of keeping an eye on him. And the cracks begin to show. Cadwell 'dies' and she goes on the warpath. Her emotional state suffers and she struggles to control herself - she's probably abusing the shit out of her stabilisers to prevent outright transforming, and only when Cadwell returns does she come down from her rage state, but it's now evident to Tharn that he's gravely misjudged her character and wellbeing. Once Elsweyr concludes, he essentially dismisses her from the mission and tells her pointblank that she needs to take time and get her shit together because if she breaks down, she is going to have an impossible task in putting herself back together.

You know it's bad when Abnur Tharn sees your suffering and doesn't snark about it. It's even worse when he offers words of comfort. Brusque Tharn-style comfort, but more comfort than anyone's offered you since you were a child, because comfort couldn't be afforded. You had to be perfect, you had to be in total control, and comfort suggests you slipped, and slips are fatal where the Divine Prosecution is concerned.

So Nirri goes off, not knowing what the fuck she's supposed to do now because she's alone again and Abnur fucking Tharn has called out her one weakness and vulnerability and told her that she needs to find a new sense of self or at least a foundation for a healthier one before he'll let her help again. She goes through the Lycanthropy Arc with Moonhunter Keep, meeting Narazda and beginning to wean herself off of her stabilisers in favour of building her new sense of self as a more consistent means of control. Not rejecting the Beast so hard that she requires potions but letting it breathe so that it doesn't need to claw its way out.

Then it's off to help Kasura and reuniting with Sai to get back in on the Dragon Problem, and she finds herself coping far better for longer. And Sai notices the change in her. He notes that she seems better balanced now even with her rougher edges. It's good. She seems better, healthier, maybe even happier. Bonding with Nahfahlaar and embracing her wolf and being generally more free with herself, Dragonhold is where she begins to really shed the persona of pure perfection, but all the while she's so very aware of how far removed she is from her friends. She still feels alone and isolated from them but doesn't reach out because maybe they don't want her to. Maybe Summerset drove them away for good, or seeing her would only bring back painful memories.

She wants to be generous to them. She knows they've both suffered too, and doesn't want to put her problems upon them... but Tharn saw her problems and told her to prioritise herself for once. When was the last time anyone told her she could do that? Who else has ever told her that she didn't need to be perfect, she needed to be whole? It doesn't feel fair that they always got to be messy while she always had to be the perfect one.

So while her Burnout Arc is resolved by the end of Dragonhold, her Perfection Arc remains simmering in the background. Gates of Oblivion pokes at it when she reunites with Venaya, but it's only on Solstice where it really rears it's head in full because she's surrounded people who just assume that she's perfect, untouchable Niraen. The Fighter's Guild Champion, the Hero of Coldharbour, the one who champions Auri-El's light and blazes like the sun. And of course, Kyriel and Orion (mostly Kyri) keep rubbing salt into the wound with snippy remarks.

But then that sun burns them during the Writhing Wall and she turns around and snaps at them all. Because none of them fucking know her. None of them were there when she was broken and hurting, none of them saw how deep that pain went or how badly she needed help. It took Abnur fucking Tharn noticing what was wrong for her to start rebuilding herself from the shell she was hollowed into by her condition, by her father, by everything the world has put her through, and the rest of them only want to know her when she's useful to them. When they need to be healed or they have a problem that needs solving. None of then want her, only what she can do for them.