catsandlizards

[catsandlizards]

Look i dont wanna sound like a Fandom Mom or whatever but what do you think women over 25 or so are supposed to do? Do u really think theyre supposed to drop all their interests and just talk about taxes and marriage or whatever? It seems like 25+ year old fanboys do not receive this kind of “ooh cringe” reaction either. There are guys in their 40s with comic book collections and shit and people might think theyre a nerd at worst, not a freak who shouldnt be trusted

[catsandlizards]

- Playing Shadowbringers for the first time -

Emet-Selch: Remember us…and know that we lived…

Me: :( wow how sad, I actually feel bad.

- 2 months later -

Me: actually you know what, fuck your ‘remember us’, you inflicted similar cataclysmic loss and suffering upon millions, all because you didn’t consider them ‘whole’ enough. Dozens, maybe hundreds of civilizations were wiped out directly by your hands, and you’re gonna tell us to remember you? The fuck out of here. Who is going to remember them, asshole? You don’t fucking know, all of those fragmented souls, across different worlds of experience, the parts now are probably greater than the whole for what they all have known and lived could have amounted to making them much greater and more whole than anything they could’ve known in any other form. ‘Remember us’. I’m gonna remember that you were a little bitch.

[catsandlizards]

soooo, I kinda let this slip. a lot.

I defs don’t wanna just abandon it! just need to work on doing something interesting and meaningful with it!

[catsandlizards]

I definitely did not make another alt. Definitely not.

Introducing Narantuya Malaguld!

[catsandlizards]

Introducing Narantuya Malaguld!

[catsandlizards]

Emet-Selch is a Hot Topic

I was going to post this as a reply to another post I saw on my dash, but I know that my words can come off as aggressive, so I’ma make this a standalone post so as to not make anyone feel personally attacked. However, I enjoy lively conversation and discussion, so if one feels so inclined, feel free to add your contrary opinion for me to read/ruminate/respond.

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Emet-Selch does not have empathy, trust, or affection for you. My dude literally tells you that you are not a person; if anything this man pities and is frustrated by your existence as you are a shade, and all of existence is a constant, painful reminder and perversion of what used to be and what he has lost. He loves, misses, and longs for his family, his friends, his loves, and his world. You are none of those things as you are. And only in your death, in everyone’s death, is it hinted that you could potentially return to being one of those things.

He also says that the only reason he doesn’t attempt to kill you outright in the beginning, is because he he has seen how Lahabrea and the other Ascians have attempted this in the past and failed. Thus, he is experimenting with a different approach(”helping you out"), as he figures that you will absorb all the light from the Light Wardens and become one unstoppable one yourself, thus finishing his original plan of flooding the First with light, killing everyone including you, and ushering in the catastrophe in the Source towards the goal of the Rejoining.

He doesn’t follow you around because he believes in you, he doesn’t tell you things because he empathizes with you. He follows you around because he is expecting you to, like the Warriors of Darkness before you, go about slaying things, only for the result to not be what you expect, you to die, and for his plan to come to fruition. He tells you things about the past, about his home, because he figures your journey doomed from the start, and with him being immortal, what harm is it in telling this desperate, fleeting, and annoying curiosity about what used to be? Especially since you seem so adamant in misunderstanding the point of him and the other Ascians, calling them evil when from his perspective he is anything but. Also to potentially lessen the feeling of despair you will experience when you fail and everyone you know and loves dies as a result, because from his perspective, something immeasurably better and more worthwhile will come for him to experience. It is both patronizing and wholly selfish, despite how it might appear as caring initially.

Throughout the entire expansion he constantly tells you that your actions do not matter, even though from your perspective, you’re saving the day, because from his perspective, you’re turning yourself into The Ultimate Light Warden and solidifying your own destruction anyway.

It is not that Emet-Selch in and of himself is unsympathetic, or lacks various emotions. He is sympathetic because he has experienced such devastating loss, despite doing everything in his power to prevent it all from happening(same as the WoD). He is sympathetic in his tenacity, whether borne from tempering or not, or some combination of both that and his own will, to undo something he views as unimaginable tragedy and save his world(same as the WoL). He’s sympathetic because a lot of people can relate to the desire of loving something, someone so much that you would do all within your power to ensure their restitution or protection(presumably the same as the player).

The issue that a lot of people bring up as being warped/glossed over/unacknowledged after reading fan literature and seeing fan art is that these sympathetic qualities that warm you to him are not reciprocated in canon. He lacks these warm emotions towards you. Towards anyone who is alive on any of the shards today. Thus, there are various people who see these romantic headcanons/arts/stories(which you should all keep making if it pleases you), and say as is their right, “wait, that’s not really how he’s presented…”

[catsandlizards]

All dolled up!

[catsandlizards]

Contemplation in Ahm Aareng

[catsandlizards]

I think… that some acts in the MSQ are shown specifically to make clear that the people of the 13 shards are no less capable, no less human, no less incredible than the Amurotine, and that Emet-selch is wrong; he refuses to see people as his equals when they are, and had he been able to accept them as such, maybe bitch coulda lived in peace.

The two major facets of the Amurotine we see are their ability to create anything they imagine, and their willingness to work in concert… but are these not things we see explicitly, things we witness and participate in in the first?

The Amurotine could simply will art into existence, but could it be better than Alphinaud’s portrait, painted with love and respect? The Amurotine could band together to create powerful beings, but can’t the first build a Talos big as a mountain? The Amurotine worked together to face threats, but that’s the entire fucking point of the back half of the MSQ… how willing, how EAGER, how ready!! The people of the first are to work alongside you to save their world.

Amurotine were incredible, but there isn’t anything about them that we cannot do, and people are in no way lesser compared to them, and I could talk all day about how often the story seems to directly compare Emet-selch to ordinary people specifically to show how fucker could’ve done something OTHER than try to destroy billions, and may have at one point been a force for good, but could no longer be anything but a monster.

[catsandlizards]

Ninja practice!

[catsandlizards]

MEOWDY NY’ALL

[catsandlizards]

Naby takes in the sights of the first with her missus!

[catsandlizards]

Naby’s collected a few different looks through Shadowbringers!

[catsandlizards]

Reader of the Stars

[catsandlizards]

apologies for my lack of activity and interaction! I’ve been just absorbed in ShB. More of Naby, Akane, Sara, and Orq will be coming soon!

[catsandlizards]

Naby modeling the latest in mob fashion!

[catsandlizards]

The cutest chicken breast