#//i will say nothing else on the matter

[lethalityandlustmoved]

He’s barred himself up in his room. He didn’t get any sleep last night, tortured by nearby screams and shrieks. He stopped crying many hours ago and is now comfortably disassociated, staring blankly into a dark corner. His brain aches, and he’s still hearing echoes of everything he’d rather not hear.

Through the murky waters of his mind, he hears a smash, wood splintering, and a furious growl from just outside his bedroom door. He cringes, wrapping his tail around his body and making a tiny little noise, but that— that growl. That tickles something in the back of his brain, like— like he’s heard it before. That same sound. And he might be wrong— most hellhounds sound the same to him— but the recognition brings back a semblance of lucidity.

The unknown hellhound growls again, and there’s a metallic screech followed by a high-pitched canine whine. That’s when Nikki finally snaps to, startling himself so bad that he almost falls off the bed. They’re in his fucking house!

He wastes no time, stumbling out of bed and onto his feet, barely being able to right himself before he’s running for his closet, throwing it open, and dragging the holy sword out. He’s off-balance and he doesn’t know how to handle a sword, but he’s lugging it over to the door, and his hand is on the knob, and—

A body is thrown through the door. Nikki barely has time to register the fact that a grown demon was just tossed onto his bed like a sack of potatoes nor the fact that he no longer has a bedroom door when someone something follows them in, lunging for their body and digging their claws in. Nikki presses himself against the wall, eyes wide and mouth shut as he tries to process the scene before him.

That is an Exorcist. In his room. A full-ass angel crouched over—

Oh.

Something in the deep, dark recesses of his mind finally emerges from its designated corner. A face. A snarling, canine face, red-and-white eyes blown wide and muzzle drenched in blood. And that is the same face that Nikki is currently seeing beneath the angel.

The hellhound’s eyes finally find Nikki’s, and Nikki feels like running. It’s eerily similar to the way that they lifted from Nikki’s parents’ bodies to find their new target, all those years ago. But those eyes have something different in them now. Fury, yes— bloodlust, also yes— but there’s fear in them too. And the hellhound’s mouth moves, like he’s trying to say something, but only blood bubbles up.

Nikki is faced with the same decision that he was faced with back then. He ran then. He ran, and he paid the price for it. Almost unconsciously, Nikki’s hand raises to gently touch his scarred cheek.

He makes his choice.

“Step away from him.”

Nikki’s voice is surprisingly calm. The Exorcist’s head swivels to look behind it, its virtual mask expressionless as always. Nikki meets its gaze coolly, lifting the sword slowly to point directly at where its heart should be.

“I said, step away,” Nikki hisses, baring his teeth and whipping his tail, an unconscious attempt to make him look bigger. The Exorcist cocks its head, making no attempt to move. The hellhound groans beneath it, and Nikki narrows his eyes. “You heard me, bitch. Move.”

The Exorcist does move slightly back, crawling away from the body to face Nikki more. They stand off like that for a moment, glaring into each others’ eyes. Then, predictably, the Exorcist lunges.

Nikki’s trained for this. He trained for this every time he started fights in crowded streets, every time he took on a target with more power than him. He sidesteps the attack swiftly, angling the sword in his hands to jab up into the angel’s stomach. It clangs unsuccessfully against the angel’s armor, and Nikki narrows his eyes again, scanning the angel’s body for any weak spots even as he continues to dodge the angel’s movements.

Finally, in a closer call than he would have liked, he spots it. A notch in the Exorcist’s neck-armor— not big enough for the sword in Nikki’s hands, but just big enough for his claws. He smiles maniacally, reversing his movements and searching for an opening.

The angel appears to be becoming annoyed with Nikki’s dodges, but hey, what can you do? He’s never stopped moving in his life, and he’s certainly not about to stop now— not when he’s holding both his and the hellhound’s lives in his hands. But maybe he was too cocky, maybe he thought he was better than he actually is, because it appears that Nikki miscalculated slightly.

He makes a wrong move, or maybe the angel makes a right one for once, but the outcome is the same. The Exorcist finally one-ups him, and Nikki just isn’t fast enough, because just as Nikki’s claws finally end up in that armor notch, the angel’s claws end up in Nikki’s eye. His good one.

He screams, stumbling back and putting a hand up to his eye. Everything’s red. Everything, everything, he can’t see, he can’t see, but fuck, he can’t stop now, because he took an armor plate with him, and he’s got his chance now. The sword’s still in his other hand, and even though he’s reeling and stumbling and crying, he can still hear where the angel is. Perks of hypersensitivity, he thinks to himself— surprisingly lucidly— and braces himself.

To his right. No, his left. No, in front of him, no—

Behind him.

He turns, swings, and—

He connects.

He hears the head hit the ground. And then, as if from a distance, he hears himself slide to the ground next to it.

He hears the hellhound try to drag himself up. He hears coughing, and then a hand on his cheek. A sigh. “Sorry, kid,” the hellhound mumbles. Nikki can’t even find it in himself to be angry— he’s too busy trying to not feel the pain.

More footsteps. Wings fluttering. A sharp intake of breath. Nikki’s brow furrows, and with difficulty, he lifts his head so he can hear better, then he unceremoniously rolls onto his back. He squints, and carefully opens his once-good eye. Through a red haze and blazing pain, he sees a—

Fuck.

Another Exorcist.

The angel calmly steps into the room, scanning it slowly. It bends to pick up the dropped sword, looks at it with an unimpressed expression, and looks at the hellhound.

One swing, and all of Nikki’s efforts are wasted.

The angel turns its gaze to Nikki then, and he closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see himself die. But all he feels is the point of the sword against his throat. It’s gentle, and when the angel nicks him, it doesn’t hurt. Not at all, even when he feels the blood pouring down the side of his neck.

The sword clatters to the ground, and there are footsteps again.

Then there is nothing.

[lotus-pear]

the dialogue choices in this game should be more diabolical

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[valentinaonthemoon]

Speaking of boycotting Eurovision, after my latest reblog (linked), I need to express my thoughts, since this morning I've read the worst takes ever.

Some people saying "I just won't watch the Israeli entry" or "Actually boycotting doesn't work, just let us have this fun thing when the world is so awful right now" or "Boycotting from your sofa is just performative activism".

My gosh. Get educated.

The Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel asked for a boycott of the whole contest. A quote from the linked article says:

Participating in Eurovision for Israel is “a dream, in particular this year, when it has even more meaning.” Since October 2023, Israel has murdered more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 12,300 children, and injured a further 70,000. Understanding the contest’s propaganda value, particularly in the time of genocide, the Israeli president Isaac Herzog says, “it’s important for Israel to appear in Eurovision.”

So, "just watching anything but the Israeli entry" does not count as boycotting.

"The world is awful right now" because awful people try to make propaganda out of "this fun thing", participating in a grandiose festival while people are still being killed and attacked every day.

This is exactly the right moment to think about Palestinian people! (Or the Armenian people who were killed and displaced by Azerbaijan during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.)

I am tired too, but I live in a privileged nation, where nobody is trying to actively harm me. I have a choice to watch the fun and the glitter and listen to silly songs or I can try to think of someone else who is getting attacked on the daily.

Mind you, you can still find a way to boycott the contest and listen to the songs, if you can't LIVE without them. Just don't add views or interactions to official channels who make money out of it, and don't use the hashtags. Talk to your buddies in DM and don't make it trend! How is that complicated??

And if this is still too much of a "performative activism", here's something else less passive that you can do, without even standing up from your sofa:

This google doc has a list of Palestinian people who need donations right now:

Donate hygiene kits:

Donate eSims:

Daily clicks:

And now you can block me if my post on your Eurovision tag is clouding your fun.

Please do not be antisemitic or islamophobic in the notes of this post and be respectful.

[butchvamp]

i do think that for me personally. there is no version of taash's storyline that i can get down with except one where they reconnect with their qunari side. my main problem with their arc is that it perpetuates this idea that someone has to "choose" one culture, that they have to turn their back on parts of their identity in order to be the right kind of trans (the white western kind) and all of it just makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. and to be clear this is not me like... trying to make anyone feel bad, there are parts of taash's story that i personally connect with as well, like there is nothing wrong with the way taash does gender in general and there's nothing wrong with it resonating with people. it's when we put it all together in context within the game that it becomes a problem for me.

we know the qun does not have the same ideas around gender as the rest of thedas, we know that their identity, including gender, is connected to their duty. and so it doesn't make sense that taash's mother cares about them wearing dresses. why would she care about that. i'd ask if we've ever even seen any qunari in dresses but i'm pretty sure we've only seen three qunari women total and two of them are in veilguard and are scholars wearing what i personally consider a robe. the third is in trespasser and is ben-hassrath, and is definitely not wearing a dress. if anything, their mother should be concerned about the fact that they fight, since the whole point of leaving for rivain was to avoid taash being designated as a soldier. and to be fair, we get this a Little bit with the fire-breathing. but everything else about shathann's disapproval doesn't make sense in-universe.

and we also already know about the aqun athlok, which shathann even tries to bring up but the game shouts her down because....? i get that shathann is meant to be overbearing and kinda shitty, but this is not the way to do it. all this does is imply that aqun athlok is "wrong" and not as progressive as this other identity that rook has to teach taash about (and that also isnt even specific to rivain, or related to them connecting to their rivaini culture. it's the shadow dragons that teach them all of this along with rook. in general transness and the nonbinary identity are not integrated into the world in any meaningful way which makes it feel even worse). there are various cultures that have their own specific gender identities that do not adhere to the gender binary, and taash should have been given the chance to connect to their own culture in this way. and even if they really wanted to make it so taash just didn’t feel right with aqun athlok, that identity still should have been properly discussed as an option and handled with respect, rather than so carelessly thrown aside as “wrong” (though again not a depiction i would personally like but it would still be better than what we got).

and just. i really disagree with the idea that gender identity under the qun is More Rigid than elsewhere. it’s different, as we know from comments from iron bull and sten-- and we could argue in circles about inconsistencies with the things they say, obviously there have been retcons previously in an attempt to better develop the qunari beyond what we see in origins and da2, but i think this kind of development is a good thing, and is exactly why the regression with taash irritates me so much-- but when we look back at characters like warden tabris, dorian and his father and tevinter's obsession with bloodlines, the entire experience of playing f!hawke in da2 (and also da2 literally has a whole subplot about women being murdered for like 3 years and no one cares. these games just have a misogyny problem lol) and even tarquin in veilguard commenting about how his father forced him into being a soldier because he's a man(!!)-- there is a lot of rigidity, expectations, and violence around gender throughout thedas. but for some reason these rigid gender ideals and a lot of this gendered violence is held up as the status quo and not challenged at all by the writers in the way the qun repeatedly is. the exception being dorian (though you're still incentivized to forgive his father), but a lot of the characters in tevinter-- magisters, templars, the literal black divine-- are still allowed complexities and to be the good guys working with the shadow dragons, a grace not given to any qunari character besides iron bull (who ultimately still has to leave the qun or die later). i’m not trying argue that the qun is perfect and can never be criticized-- i like the flawed characters and societies within dragon age. but the qunari also deserve to be given the same depth, complexities, and engagement as everyone else, too. and it’s worth pointing out that it’s always the qun that’s depicted as backwards for the same harmful “rigidity” every other culture in the game reinforces.

and ultimately with the way the game inserts this very modern, anachronistic, and condescending language in a poor attempt to be as "correct" as possible to "teach" the player, while simultaneously writing such a careless, racist arc about their culture kinda just , makes me feel like they were actually trying to imply that one identity is more correct and progressive than the other. or, if nothing else, it's a bias that got amplified due to their unwillingness or inability to engage with taash's character beyond using them as a mouthpiece for corporate "representation."

there absolutely are people out there that are like taash, who don't necessarily have or want a connection with certain parts of their culture, and maybe they do identify closer with one aspect of it over another. this is all fine! this happens in real life, everyone has different relationships with their identity and heritage, there is no universal experience, and people are allowed to write about their own. but the thing is. this is dragon age. and taash was written by weekes. and both dragon age as a whole and weekes specifically has a repeated pattern of racist writing when it comes to depicting the qunari. and taash's quest along with the way the antaam are portrayed-- faceless, voiceless, basically naked bodies for you to kill-- makes this a series of poor choices that i don't feel generous enough to excuse.

and it sucks. so bad. that this happened. i want to like taash so bad. but.... man.

anyways if you read this far you should read this article, which is far more eloquent than anything i could write and really dives into the whole "civilized versus savage" binary that we see in a lot of fantasy RPGs and is really epitomized in taash's quest-- in dragon age, it's always the qunari and dalish elves versus a (usually white and/or human) andrastian:

[knifearo]

i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a binary i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as a sliding scale of "less" to "more" i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the only two options i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as significantly different things i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as all encompassing i hate the concept of platonic and romantic as the two halves of a shallow concept of love that doesn't actually encompass anything at all i think we need to overhaul every popular conception about "types" of love so we can talk about things that are real and true for once

[ohitslen]

Intrusive thoughts

[sergle]

you bitches have got to watch Scavengers Reign if you haven't yet, i'm only a few episodes in and it's already completely unlike anything else i've ever seen

[gutfaced]

so anyway when anyone holds the belief that the career kids were evil and were natural born killers you are equally dehumanizing them like the systems of training they were put in. you are adultifying children who were brainwashed and forced to learn the ways of slaughter for sake of glory. we could talk about their parallels to war also, but the main thing here are these are children taught that in order to appease their district they must kill ruthlessly and without second regard for anyone else in th equation. their win and their path of success only, even if in the end they're still cannon fodder like all other victors. like how many time does it have to be said that the careers are VICTIMS. not villains like they're portrayed as by the narrative.

[deoidesign]

I'll either succeed or I'll learn trying

[jerreeeeeee]

as much as i enjoy the more wholesome fantasy high parents like jawbone and sklonda and the thistlesprings there’s something so compelling and achingly real about bill seacaster that makes him my favorite. he and fabian have a relationship that is so deeply unhealthy and entrenched in distorted ways of viewing other people and parenthood and the world, and yet is so fiercely and undeniably loving. like, is bill seacaster a good dad? what does being a good dad even mean for someone like bill? bill seacaster has such unrealistic and toxic expectations of fabian and a myopic, entirely self-centered way of relating to him for most of his life, and yet, you truly get the sense that even if fabian disappoints him again and again and never steps out of his shadow and never becomes the man bill wants him to be, bill will never love him any less than completely and unconditionally. bill seacaster is a man who has built his entire life and sense of identity around doing whatever he wants and never facing consequences and never thinking about anyone else. bill seacaster becomes disappointed in his son. and he finds the idea of that so unacceptable that, instead of demanding that fabian meet his expectations, bill loves him so much that he reconsiders his entire concept of himself and the purpose of his life, and he grows. a man whose legacy and identity was based around selfishness and narcissism and unwillingness to bend, and fabian makes him change.

[torahtot]

you can always tell when someone doesn't have maga men in their life and god it makes me angry.. "if you're nice and compassionate you can be the one woman that makes them realize women aren't mean!" my mom bent over backwards for my dad for 25 fucking years he has plenty of other women kissing his ass and it never changed anything. do you really think that before being radicalized they never knew a single kind woman? they were never friends with a nice girl? alt-right men's problem with women isn't just that they've experienced too many mean women and they need to be shown that women can be nice, it's that they think women are inferior and don't deserve rights and don't understand anything so you can do what you want with them. and it takes a lot more than being nice to show someone that you aren't inferior. this isn't a case of being nice even when it's hard for the sake of deradicalization, it's about spending every fucking interaction with someone trying to get them to see you as a human being with value and a functioning intellect while they just laugh and show you that's never going to happen.

i cannot stress this enough: random women are not just going out and Being Mean to men. ur average guy interacts with plenty of women throughout his life- close women amongst their friends and family, casual interactions etc. most people don't start out being shunned by women, they start out being treated as NORMAL. & when they show their disrespect in normal society, it isn't tolerated, but when they go to alt-right spaces (which they're pushed towards online) they're told they're allowed to be as horrible as they want with no consequences because they're entitled to everything. it isn't "women aren't welcoming and the alt-right is so friendly so i'll become alt-right," it's "women don't let me disrespect them and the alt-right tells me fuck them, do whatever you want, you're entitled to it all" and why would you choose the group where you have to be a normal accountable person when there's a group that will reward you for being a shithead who gives no fucks?

the alt-right can afford to be more friendly and welcoming because they can allow bigotry. this can't work the same way for progressive spaces because we can be as kind & welcoming as possible but at the end of the day we have lines where we have to say "this behavior/speech isn't allowed in this space," and for certain people, that just can't win against a space where you can be as nasty as you want. these posts always end with a disclaimer saying "of course being kind doesnt mean you need to tolerate their bigotries" but what they don't realize and what drives me crazy is that women not tolerating bigotry IS the "women are mean" that radicalized them in the first place. they perceive you pushing back on any bigotry or bullshit as you being a meanie and treating them like they're ontologically evil. the 'kindness' they need to be deradicalized is you letting them walk all over you.

idk what the answer is to deradicalizing them and im sure relationships are part of it but you can be as kind as you want and all it will do is destroy you ime. i cant stand to see people (who have never even successfully deradicalized any man by being nice btw they always speak in hypotheticals and not from experience) double down on telling women to do things that will see no results and only hurt them, especially when any woman who has tried can tell you exactly how it went

[faaun]

the way that diff languages sound r so fascinating they're all different and all so vivid

[fishjellylou]

[chelseasdagger]

JON BERNTHAL as FRANK CASTLE

Season 1, Episode 2: Two Dead Men

[xxplastic-cubexx]

kinda cryin at learnin my cats favorite toy was a lil captain america but also that dhe got his eyes ripped out