please, take my grapes.

rb that venn diagram post reminded me suddenly of the time someone vagued about me, saying, "youre not an anti-censorship rebel you just want to bully children for not liking your fetish". which was amazing for many reasons, but 1)the idea that being anti-censorship is a 'rebellious' position to hold and 2)i was living in hong kong at the time, had actively participated in protests against the draconian nsl, listened to the people there mourn their city and the erosion of their rights, and watched in real time as those rights were dismantled by a censorious government that arrested people for such crimes as 'publishing a childrens book about wolves and sheep' and 'selling jimmy lai's autobiography in your bookstore'.

some tarnished ages bc im bored af gideon ofnir - 54 lionel - 47 yura - 45 bernahl - 43 juno hoslow - 41 eleonora - 37 corhyn - 35 boggart - 34 dung eater - 33 istvan - 33 nepheli loux - 31 rogier - 31 darian/devin - 30 alberich - 29 fia - 28 vyke - 26 roderika -26 diallos hoslow - 24 lanya - 22

cannibalism in elden ring is nothing new. you have rykard eating people, the leyndell soldiers on gelmir eating their dead enemies, the raw meat dumplings, among others. all the same, i thought it was interesting you can encounter a kaiden rider just north of the coastal cave who sits at a fire, and collect a 'strip of white flesh' from the dead body laid out across from him. it made me wonder if kaiden riders are also cannibals, even outside of desperate situations like those seen in the battle on mt. gelmir.

i tried looking into the origins of the names darian and devin. the former seems to be a very recent invention (20th century, possibly a modification to an older name 'darius'), and while the surname devin reaches back farther, use as a given name is more recent(19th century). fia and rogier both have far older names(if we take fia to be a diminutive of sofia). all that is to say, it'd be kind of tragically fun if the twins' names are unusual in universe. say they were unwanted due to their curse, and as such were never named by their parents. so they named each other, but due to being ostracized, they had little to no frames of reference for what a 'normal' name is. they name each other these names that will sound strange to everyone else. and this is why they go by 'd' after being accepted by the order - they can't simply let go of the names they gave each other, but they also know very well what it is to be seen as an outsider, and the danger that comes with that.

i wonder if darian was the one to deplete half the black knife assassin's healthbar in the deathtouched catacombs. on one hand, he's nearest to her, and has reason to be found in catacombs. he's also later summonable for a fight with the assassin in the black knife catacombs. these two catacombs are further linked by the presence of paired talismans, the assassin's cerulean and crimson daggers. (which, fair enough drop with bkas for bosses. but, the assassins are found in other locations as bosses that could have also served these items as rewards) on the other, it's odd for darian to have been in the catacombs and left deathroot in there, esp since he doesn't seem injured. i guess he could've encountered her elsewhere on his way to summonwater to investigate the centipede graffiti, and she fled into the catacombs when the fight wasn't going in her favor. which, if he was the one who went after her, it could be a sign of his first attempt to track down a knifeprint for rogier to study.