#thekikicienta

BTS: I’ll write a DVD commentary about my personal favorite passage from [that fic]

Limiting this to one of the bits I wrote, let’s go with “You don’t have to Stay” which is one of my favorites that I’ve written overall, and is a nice piece with just Des and Selene together.

Under a cut for length?

“You don’t have to stay.”

No worries! I like answering this kind of stuff!

Though I’ve mostly answered it in bits and pieces elsewhere, most of those posts are earlier and a bit hard to dig out. So:

Basically, you’re right on the second count. Everything belongs to the evanuris, including their followers. Followers are basically given permission to use stuff, to ‘own’ stuff, but everything they own also belongs to their respective evanuris. One of the dramatic aspects of being traded to a different leader lies in that - because everything you own is actually your boss’ property, if you get traded, you can only take stuff with you if they also agree to trade your stuff too. 

In amicable trades or if the person being traded is still favourably regarded by their evanuris (and depending on the evanuris themselves), usually this means that they do get to take at least some of their belongings with them. But in a lot of cases, being traded means you have to start over from scratch with only your reputation to go by.

(For example, in one of @scurvgirl‘s recent stories, Guidance gets traded from Elgar’nan to Sylaise and gets to keep most of her personal effects. Given that Elgar’nan is currently pissed at Sylaise over the trade, this is likely because he favours Guidance, and not because he’s feeling generous towards his daughter.)

This is one of the reasons why merchants and traders are such prominent people in Elvhenan, though, because they have the certifications and permission needed in order to trade goods between the evanuris, acting as proxies for their leaders and representing their economic interests. Elvhenan operates mostly on a barter system between traders (exchanging goods for other goods, services, or information), but also has a credit system whereby individual servants of the empire can accumulate a certain amount of wealth based on commendations or other avenues of compensation, and exchange it for, y’know, goods and services. And finally there are tokens, which are an Arlathan-only currency, and can essentially be ‘donated’ to the city in exchange for credit, or be collected and redeemed as some modest property rights (Ess got her tavern, for example, by accumulating enough credits to get the rights to own the shop - as Arlathan is neutral territory among the evanuris, technically none of them own the whole place, so property distribution works a little differently than it does everywhere else.)

Social classes are mostly enforced in Elvhenan by way of restricted access to certain goods or services. For example, some dyes are limited to use by high-ranking elves. If you’re a low-ranking elf you could maybe ‘own’ some things that were dyed such a colour, if they were given as gifts or payment for something, but you couldn’t wear them or use them. If you had enough credit you could maybe commission a very fancy artisan to make something for you, but they’d be limited to using materials that were within your rank. (Basically how commissioning works is you have to be able to purchase the materials for the project, or else reimburse the artisan/crafter for them - if, say, you’re a low-ranking elf who isn’t allowed to wear rubies, you’re probably also not allowed to buy them, so you wouldn’t be able to commission something with rubies in it either.)

Labour is technically free in Elvhenan, but so are necessities. You don’t really get paid for just doing your duties, but food is widely available, and housing is provided (where and what kind usually depends on your rank and leader). Some services are also just considered a given, i.e. you can get clothes befitting your rank from any similarly-ranked crafter, you can get healing from a healer, if you’re a musician you can get basic instruments from their makers, and none of it costs any currency. Luxuries, however, do require currency - if you want something nice to wear or you want, like, a fancy lute that impress everyone at a recital, you’ll need to shill out.

Compensation mostly comes from a system of commendations that’s organized by elves in managerial positions. The higher your rank, the more your commendations can be translated in worth. In theory, the idea is that if someone does really great at their job, a bunch of elves will say so, and they’ll basically get bonus points they can spend on nice stuff or on expanding their operations or whatnot. In practice, though, it mainly just means that all the most highly ranked elves can make or break everyone else and pass around the majority of commendations among themselves.

Oh my goodness you are so sweet! Thank you so much! That really does mean a lot to me. It was unfortunate, because I was dealing with a pretty bad depressive episode at the time so I figured the best option was to just...leave Ghilan’eth alone for a bit while I dealt with how I was going to move forward.

I’m feeling a little better about her thanks to awesome people like you, and hopefully I can start posting stuff with her again soon.

2/2 charm! I also always love the little Curious chapters; especially this last one. Seeing Solas' perspective, I re-read Emma's POV because I remembered it being very, very different. It's funny how they're both misreading each other's intentions so much, which is extra fun and adds a new spin when I'm reading the main stuff. I also like that you've made Solas a bit of a screw-up when it comes to constantly wanting to fix things but not necessarily thinking about the other person's choice in2/3

3/3 (I LIED WITH 1/2!) the matter? Anywho, I'll stop clogging up your inbox. Just think your writing is really cool and that you should know how thought-provoking it is. :)

Thank you! The pacing is as slow as it is because I want to take my time with this sort of thing... There’s so much to explore, and like a fool, I decided to explore it all with one story rather than doing a bunch of smaller ones like a sensible goddamn person LOL. Every day I’m glad that’s to some people’s tastes. 

I’ve gotten a lot of really nice comments and compliments about Dorian’s Friend Dilemma from this last chapter, and I’m really happy to see it resonate with so many people. Perhaps it’s not a very explored aspect of his character? I listened to a lot of dialogue while outlining for this arc, and the one overarching theme I found in Dorian’s companion dialogue... was that no one really liked all of him, lol. I thought it was really sad, and so much of it was just because he didn’t know the culture, and no one thought they needed to try and understand his, because it was just “evil.” Whether or not that’s true, it’s not like he could learn everything overnight. So I thought he must be a really lonely person, emotionally exiled from home but not belonging here, either. 

(2/2) then as the book progressed, it felt like the book wasn't--reflective?--enough on that point. Especially after reading your commentary, there's no real highlighting of the fact that de Chevin's racism is a tragedy of his environment but also a wicked choice that he's making to protect himself. Instead it's portrayed as "lucky him not getting found out" and "yes he's a rather tasteless man", but it lacks depth. I think your comparison to being in the closet is best, in that the narrative...

(I LIED IT'S 3/3) ... supports de Chevin being in the closet and his storyline is about getting freed to be "straight". It's like the narrative (inadvertently, because the story is about Briala The Hero) approves of his behaviour, or rather normalises it when it should be highlighted as more villainous or tragic or... something. I think I'm trying to think of "how would I keep de Chevin nasty as is while fixing it" and I don't know where to start other than nix narrative's approval of asshole.

Yeah, like, that’s the difference between Michel and Sera to me? Because while this with Sera also should have been written way better, at least I can tell that the intent was what you describe first. 

my favorite part is that this is actually the self-confident, smooth, heart-throb version of Selene, and she still turns into an awkward goober around @feynites Dirthamen. Some things never change. 

1) This is adorable, thank you for sharing and 2) this is hilarious to me because Aili is sort of notoriously bad at taking pictures with her phone. XD I don’t have a Snapchat so I’ m not completely sure what all goes on there, but I feel like any social media Aili had would just be like…”Here are the 5 new books I’m reading and also I made friends with this stray cat!!!1″ 

I can sort of see her running a book blog, actually. Writing reviews and getting into heated debates with Fadescholar43 about the various inaccuracies of historical texts and how Elvhen passages have been mistranslated. XD 

I can also sort of picture her sending a picture of a snail to Uthvir at like 6:30 in the morning with the caption ‘effervescent’. ^_^;