#{meta]

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[artbyblastweave]

So, my understanding is that in the backstory of RWBY's setting, the major world-war analogue that produced the start-of-canon political order was fought against an authoritarian movement dedicated to suppressing emotion and individuality as much as possible, under the logic that the Grimm feed off emotion and maybe that would help suppress them. (The fact that every single named character has such an aggressively curated personal aesthetic is also intended to be part of the ongoing cultural backlash against that regime.) Now on some level this is a very aesthetic worldbuilding beat, platonic faceless-regime-vs-forces-of-individuality vibes-based stuff. But on another level I think this is actually an interesting example of a setting where the in-universe ideologies are allowed to notice and be informed by the genre-typical loosey-goosey fairy-tale logic. "Regime dedicated to hating emotions and fun" would be a lazy caricature in our world but follows pretty logically as an idea someone would eventually have if they were constantly under attack from armies of sadness-fueled murderwolves. It's not necessarily a metaphor, it follows from the presented premise!

[probablybadrpgideas]

Roll 1d20 every long rest, if you roll a 7 then the artificer has made another Useless Doohickey™

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[flowersintheimpala69]

The way demon dean is flirting with Sam..

“Will we? 🤔 cuz rn im doing all i can not to come over there and rip your throat out.. with my teeth 😏😘”

“And what I’m gonna do to you Sammy… 🥰😏well that ain’t gonna be mercy 😘”

Like stoppp ur embarrassing yourself just ask him out on a date like a normal person

[dalishious]

Zevran Arainai is an Underrated Delight

There is so much depth to Zevran Arainai’s writing that is often overlooked in favour of either sexually objectifying him or ignoring him altogether… which is kind of ironic, considering that’s how so many people in his life have treated him within universe. And then, of course, there’s the biphobia directed at his character back when Dragon Age: Origins first released. He was a joke in many Gamer Bro circles about how they killed him for flirting with their male protagonist. It’s such a shame, really. Because personally speaking, Zevran is one of my favourite characters in the entire Dragon Age franchise.

Zevran’s introduction to the game immediately sets him apart from every other character who is capable of joining the party. He first appears as an enemy; an assassin hired to kill the Warden by Loghain, the Warden’s political opponent. You immediately have the option to either kill him, or add him to the party roster. Zevran does not initially join the Warden’s cause out of the goodness of his heart; he does it because he knows that the Antivan Crows who essentially own him – which we’ll get to – will kill him for failing to assassinate your character. This really paints his original placement within the group’s dynamics in an interesting light. No one really trusts him; Alistair and Morrigan both outright voice this. Zevran himself believes he is only safe with the Warden so long as he makes himself useful, per how he sells his worthiness to the Warden when trying to convince them to let him join. There’s tension there that really makes getting to know him extra interesting, because before anything else, you need to build trust. So, when he’s finally ready to start revealing parts about his personal history, you the player really get to feel like you’ve earned something special from his character.

Zevran’s mother was Dalish, but fell in love with an elf from the city and left her clan behind. Unfortunately, Zevran’s father was assassinated, leaving her with nothing but his debts to pay. She turned to sex work, until she died giving birth to Zevran, and all that debt fell onto him in turn. Zevran was raised by the sex workers in the brothel his mother worked at, until the age of seven, when the Antivan Crow Guildmaster Talav Arainai bought him for seven sovereigns; one of eighteen children made into “compradi” (recruits) that year. In his training, Zevran was tortured in a variety of ways, and in his own words, “taught to know nothing else but murder”. Of those eighteen, Zevran was one of two who survived the training, the other being a human boy named Taliesen. Then, a woman named Rinnala (“Rinna”) was placed into House Arainai from the Azul Contract that dictated the Crows were to take in unwanted bastard children of the Antivan Crown. For a time being, Zevran, Taliesen, and Rinnala worked well together as a professional and romantic trio. But when Zevran and Taliesen were tricked into believing Rinnala betrayed the Crows in an internal Crow scheme, they killed her. When they learned otherwise, Zevran took it particularly rough, combined with the realization of how little he himself mattered, too.

The trauma that Zevran has experienced is something he often makes jokes about, or speaks detached from. I’ve been called out many times on doing the same thing with my own trauma, and I know it’s a pretty commonplace response in others as well. That makes it feel all the more real; his responses are so authentically relatable. It’s also in a way, I find a little therapeutic to get to comfort a character whose survival mechanism has been to downplay his trauma for so long. The Warden is able to tell Zevran that what he’s been through sounds horrible, and even though Zevran tries to excuse things as not being that bad, you gain significant approval from him, just for showing him sympathy. Sympathy is something he’s severely lacked in his life. For all Zevran jokes about his traumatizing experiences, they clearly left a mark on him. Zevran eventually admits to the Warden that he did not actually anticipate being able to kill them, and that what he really wanted in taking on the job was to die. Again, sorry to get personal here for a moment, but I too have attempted suicide, and honestly I still struggle with ideation sometimes. And yet again I must say that I find something really beautiful in a character like Zevran, who is able to find peace and happiness on the other side of surviving such a thing.

As for Zevran’s romance… oh, Zevran’s romance path is such a delight. He is so multidimensional in that he’s very flirtatious and fun, while also showing genuine vulnerability in time. He admits that his role as a Crow meant he was encouraged to use seduction as a tool. His only experience with a true relationship ended very poorly, with Rinna’s death and a wedge forming between him and Taliesen, who he is eventually forced to kill too in the game. One of my favourite moments in the entire game, is when you invite him to your tent and he says no… and if you accept his consensual rights, that is what changes everything for him and the Warden’s relationship. Zevran feels safe and loved, and he gets to be happy. As of Dragon Age: Inquisition, a romanced Zevran is still at the Warden’s side, too, if they’re alive.

I love Zevran Arainai so much. He truly is an amazingly well done character, and deserves so much more respect and interest than he gets.

*Sourced from in-game dialogue and World of Thedas vol. 2

[aprillikesthings]

Ngl, one of my absolute fave bits of popular post-spop-canon headcanons/fanon, is Catra becoming Glimmer's advisor and close friend.

It's one of those "oh, of course" kinds of things. Catra is extremely knowledgeable about the land that was under the Horde's control, far more than Hordak ever was. (He shoved that work off onto Shadow Weaver and then Catra.)

And...admittedly this includes land that became Horde-controlled under Catra's leadership. She still knows a lot about it. Geography, trade routes, that kind of thing.

But also, we know Etheria is, in general, not big on retribution or punishment--that was something only the Horde did. Instead people might be wary of you for a bit but if you prove yourself to have changed for the better, it's all good.

(This is so obviously not limited to Catra--Adora, Scorpia, Shadow Weaver!, Entrapta--they all worked for the Horde at some point, and/or did shitty things, and were all given a chance to be better. Whether SW was actually better is its own essay lol, but the rest of them. Yeah.)

So Glimmer making a public point of having Catra as her advisor would also be a very public way of saying "The past is in the past and we can all work towards a better future together."

[kafkaesquedyke]

I’m a little confused by some posts I’ve seen about armand breaking down the door in the book, because they frame armand as either ‘lol he’s so random’ or ‘that proves he’s abusive too’ when everything that happened before explains armand’s actions

break down with tva book quotes under the cut TW: discussions of csa

the initial event that triggers everything is Marius sending Armand to a brothel to have sex with other boys (which was preceded by Marius sexually abusing Armand for a couple of years atp (all of the following takes place while Armand is 17), including already having sent armand to another brothel to have sex with women)

this basically differs from his previous sexual encounters in that he 1) has sex with other guys, 2) they’re most likely around his age, and 3) he enjoys it (I consider basically every sexual encounter Armand has in tva non-consensual but this, and the following encounters, are the closest to “potentially consensual” within a fictional narrative, that this book has to offer and the closest we get to Armand’s real sexual preferences)

following that Marius grows incredibly cold towards Armand, which he clocks as him being jealous (Armand knows Marius is a supernatural being and that he can read his thoughts) though Marius is also potentially stressed because of his duties towards Akasha and Enkil

So, Armand leaves and has sex with Lord Harlech, some noble man he just met (again, I don’t consider this consensual, but mostly because of the age gap)

(not included in the screenshots, but they switch and Armand tops and doms Harlech and deliberately makes a point about enjoying it, which contrasts his relationship with Marius where he is not allowed to reciprocate intimacy (mostly due to Marius’s vampire nature) also Harlech behaving like a lunatic after lol)

then he goes to Bianca (a close friend throughout the novel) and they have sex as well

she calls him out on his relationship with Marius, as well as that he was hiding from him

once Armand returns, drunk after stirring over Marius’ treatment of him in a tavern, Marius is madly painting with vamp speed disturbing the other boys

he’s also painting Armand, further implying that his rage is about Armand sleeping with others, again, something Marius ordered him to do!

Marius ends up flinging paint in his rage, after Armand enters (presumably reading his thoughts?) and orders everyone out of the room

Marius does not respond to Armand’s pleas to once again talk with him, so they can resolve the situation. Armand begs him to simply admit that he’s angry with him and Marius continues to ignore him and then flees

he locks himself in his bedroom (which Armand shared with him so far) then he tells Armand to go sleep with the other boys in a way that implies an end to their relationship. tbc, at this point armand ties all his self worth back to Marius and how much he is desired by him, specifically because Marius is the only person who ever “cherished” him

so Marius rejecting him like that signals to Armand that he is no longer special to him and has therefore lost his unique worth, which Armand has built his entire self worth on (by Marius’s design)

so Marius acting jealous over Armand having sex with others (partially under Marius’s orders), Armand questioning him, not getting a response, leaving to further explore his sexual options, which makes Marius even more jealous, while the entire time refusing to talk about it, despite Armand begging him to, and then rejecting Armand completely is what ultimately leads to Armand breaking the door down. Marius was a 100% more immature here than Armand despite being a thousand-year-old beefing with a teenager (who he’s abusing)

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

Y'all. As someone who has been writing in this fandom since 2016, I am OVERCOME. I just starting playing in this b-pairing sandbox with new friends, not expecting anything canon out of it, just a good time.

And yet here we are. Fake dating. Dramatic Reunions. Obiyuki HUGS.

And now even OBI CRYING (the penultimate fanworks will-never-happen-in-canon moment)

"Keep this for me." (my heart)

"I'll hold onto all of you."

I am not okay.

[rainingfishandfrogs]

something i find very interesting about blitz is that it doesn't seem like he's afraid of fire:

S1E1 moxxie sets the office on fire and then later he and millie are not-burnt at the stake and the entire time he's just unimpressed

like he sets loo loo land on fire

in S1E5 he's enamored with a fire-horse

S1E6 he sets off a bazooka that explodes on the humans creating like a gust of fire

after everything we learn about the circus fire in S2 i just find this so fascinating; like fizz developed ptsd over fire itself which is beyond understandable and believable

but it doesn't seem like blitz did and we could think "well maybe it's just green hell fire he's afraid of" but i don't think so

even in S2 he starts that fire on purpose and is more scared about fizz than the fire

i think fire itself just doesn't scare him and idk i just find that really fascinating given what happened

as a fun bonus tho! check out this neat bit of foreshadowing i figured out today when i was looking for screenshots :D (from S1E2)

[biggesthomuradefender]

ngl i honestly don’t think that homura was planning to genuinely kill sayaka in ep. 8.

i mean, if u just take the scene of face value, it obviously seems that way: homura declares that she doesn’t care abt sayaka or if she lives or dies (which is 100% a lie, she may not like sayaka very much but she def cares abt her just like she does the other girls), and then raises her soul gem to her face in a threatening manner before kyoko shows up.

but that’s exactly it: homura puts her soul gem in front of sayaka’s FACE, not her soul gem, which is the only thing that can actually kill a magical girl.

so why wouldn’t homura just attack her soul gem directly? it wouldn’t be hard to do; sayaka is incredibly weak and depressed/suicidal atp, and homura could easily just snatch her soul gem/ring and break it, esp considering her time manipulation.

and when kyoko shows up, homura doesn’t put up a fight at all; she just stares stoically at sayaka. and even when homura DOES use a bomb to get away, you see how she doesn’t go to sayaka to finish the job. why would she have given up that easily, despite the fact that killing sayaka would still be very easy to do?

i think it could have been a last, desperate attempt to maybe "wake" sayaka up, a threat to get her to heal herself before her inevitable turning into a witch or smth. homura isn't above being harsh or using deception to achieve her goals, as she's done it multiple times (esp in rebellion), and i don't think it's necessarily any different here.

[gffa]

I'm enjoying Padawan's Pride a lot so far! I am this close to making the effort to clip out some of the book's moments to shove them at you all because the Obi-Wan & Anakin banter is delightful and the author has so far done a really good job of showing the awkwardness and stiffness between them but with an undercurrent of genuine affection and care and the glimmers of the pillars of each others' lives they're starting to grow into. I'm really enjoying the gentle hints of their deeper dynamic, the way Obi-Wan and Anakin don't fully understand each other, the meta conflict of their individual points of view that view a given scene differently, that Anakin thinks of Obi-Wan as distant and unfeeling at times, but then you see Obi-Wan's internal dialogue and you understand just how hard he's working to guide this young kid, and he constantly surprises Anakin with moments of warm humor or opening up about his own emotions. But it's also good on the front of how Anakin is having trouble as a Jedi and it's making me feel a lot of heartwrenching feelings for him, because yeah I see how these can be red flags (the craving of adventure, the misunderstanding of those around him, the way he doesn't really seem to want to control his feelings) but the author presents it in a way that's very sweet and sympathetic to the character, that it's not about fault or pointing fingers (and I think it would be a severe misreading of the story to frame it that way in either direction) but instead about presenting characters as they are, that they're a great fit in some ways and not in others. That Anakin just. Is who he is, in a lot of ways. He misses his mother, he misses the excitement of podracing, he feels trapped as a Jedi--and it's not that the Jedi way is wrong, but that maybe it's not fitting Anakin very well and that's not wrong either. It just is. Mostly the story seems to be focused on the mission--a podracing mission! I'm enjoying how much fun this is--and I'm a little disappointed that Obi-Wan and Anakin are separated about a third of the way into the book, but up until now we've gotten delightful banter--I've laughed out loud at least three times--moments of characterization worth chewing on, and a fun experience. It's a short story, just under four hours long, but one I would cautiously say is worth it so far.

[marzipanandminutiae]

thinking about Lucille's ability to ignore pain

like

grabbing a hot pan handle with her bare hand and not flinching

taking innumerable small slash and stab wounds while fighting Edith, and not seeming to register any of it

how did she get that way? how many blows did she take as a child before pain just ceased to mean anything? how long did she spend having to push past it, because Someone Else was even smaller and more helpless and in greater danger, and that had to be more important?

I have something in my eye give me a second

[artbyblastweave]

Interesting that Eidolon is so vocally hesitant about Alexandria's plan in the flashback to the founding of the protectorate

[probablybadrpgideas]

Start your post-apocalypse game off by telling the players how long it's been since The Event. Keep them updated each time you have a session.

See how long it takes them to realise they forgot your birthday.

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[flowersintheimpala69]

Samdean married canon 💕

[wistfulwatcher]

in an era where every show without record-breaking ratings gets axed immediately, i would just like to say how deeply grateful i am that crazy ex-girlfriend managed to air for four whole seasons and tell one of the most beautiful and moving stories of self-acceptance and love i've ever seen.

i just finished rewatching it (yet again) and every time i do i just think what an absolute shame it would have been if it had been cancelled after one or two (or even three) seasons. because, while it was clever and fun from the beginning, rebecca's mental state required the show to be so boy-crazy that it was a little tough to believe that the show would end up seeing the story through to where we eventually end up. the audience certainly got hints as to its final message early on ("love doesn't need to be a person, it can be a passion"). but because rebecca was rejecting those messages, the audience sort of had to, too. and if the show had been cancelled while rebecca was obsessed with josh? certain that her only path to happiness was romantic love and validation from a man? if we had never seen her truly understand and acknowledge ghost!akopian's words? i'm sure there would have been articles speculating on where the series could have ended up, acknowledging with resigned tones that the show had potential, with the seeds that had been planted.

but god, discussion of "the potential" of the show would have paled in comparison to what we got. because hot damn, did cxg end up doing character growth better than the vast majority of other series. (and not just for rebecca! almost every character in the large ensemble got to grow in a very organic, subversive, and meaningful way!) for a show that was consistently in danger because of their extremely low ratings, it was pretty ballsy of cxg not to rush through rebecca's story to prove its intention. for them to let rebecca be as frustrating and unlikable and unhealthy as she was for so many episodes, simply because they knew how necessary it was to show us the depth of rebecca's mistakes and struggles before she finally sought help and began to heal and grow. and the story was so, so much better and poignant for it. rebecca's season four growth feels very earned, and her end of series resolution to pursue her passion (her true love!) is so satisfying because it feels realistic. the audience has spent four years seeing her love for theater (and how it got tangled up in josh/the idea of romantic love) and when rebecca eventually realizes the same it's such a satisfying sense of finally.

it's an experience that has become painfully rare lately; too many series feel as though they're trying to cram as much into the first season as they can for fear of cancellation, and allowing no room for characters or relationships or story to grow naturally. they don't allow for anything other than the bare minimum plot. their characters can't breathe.

cxg didn't do that. they continued to tell the story they were telling, at the pace at which it needed to be told. and the series was truly phenomenal because of that choice. because of that trust in its own story and characters. cxg is a perfect example of what television can be, how powerful it can be, when it's allowed to be treated like the long-form storytelling medium it is. and i am so grateful for that.