#(also she’s actually incredibly morally :hands: which is interesting)

[malkaleh]

The :counts: duology I wrote between 10-18 (may have been a bit more in early 20s) is a journey in what I was reading at the time is like, there’s a kernel of some interesting ideas in there.

it was 9 chapters and aside from horrified (which i was), i was also embarrased i read those chapters outloud to friends

[gnomewithalaptop]

Y'know, it's so funny to me when people make out like Tim Drake would keep files on how to take down his friends when Tim has explicitly said he disagrees with Batman on this:

[Young Justice (1998) #36]

Like, yes, during his Red Robin tenure he does make a Hit List full of contingency plans for known heroes. But if you go and read that, you'll notice that, while the Justice League and Damian may be on there, Tim's own friends are decidedly absent:

[Red Robin (2009) #14]

In fact, a lot of these heroes are people that have either (a) attacked Tim specifically, (b) have a track record that includes turning evil/getting mind controlled, or (c) are on the JLA (meaning Batman probably already had those files compiled and Tim just stole them).

So yeah: Tim's not down with contingency-planning for his friends. You know which one of the YJ crew DID agree with Batman though? My favorite blorbina Anita Fite, aka Empress:

[Young Justice (1998) #36]

But yeah, this contrast is honestly fascinating to me. Because while both Anita and Tim have been shown to be incredibly loyal individuals, this exchange really highlights the fact that, between the two of them, Anita is far more likely to engage in this kind of pragmatism when she thinks it's necessary to get the job done

The whole Our Worlds at War arc actually does a really good job of illustrating how both of them react to betrayal from within. It's not just the Batman Files conflict either -- I'm thinking specifically about the hallucination-based torture Granny Goodness put them through, which showed them their worst fears. Most of the team ended up having to watch their loved ones die, but what's super interesting to me is that we really only see Anita and Tim hallucinate that their loved ones blame them for their deaths:

[Young Justice (1998) #37]

Like. It's not the same as a teammate turning evil at all. But it does give us a good idea of how they'd both react when faced with a friend or teammate doing harmful things, albeit on a smaller scale. Because where Tim kind of just accepts Superboy yelling at him and moves straight into bargaining for Kon's life, Anita actually flips the script, gets angry, and defends herself against her father:

[Young Justice (1998) #37]

(she actually gets so righteously pissed off that she manages to break out of the VR simulation Granny Goodness had her trapped in, but that's another point)

But yeah, it's super interesting, because by this point, both Anita and Tim have been set up to be very similar characters. They both can be a little bit obsessive, they both have some issues with boundaries and stalking (Tim with Nightwing and Batman, Anita with Cissie), and of the team, they're both portrayed as the "normal" members (Anita does technically have mind control powers but she barely ever uses them, and in a fight, she's basically just a very good, human-level fighter)

But at the end of the day, though Batman forces Robin to put on a cool front of objectivity, Tim (at least in his pre-grief-spiral era) ultimately wants to see the best in his team. When the people he cares about screw up, he wants to give them second chances. And when that trust gets broken, his first instinct is to try to use diplomacy, or, failing that, simply remove himself from the situation (as we see at the end of the Our Worlds at War arc when he quits the team)

Anita, on the other hand, while still incredibly loyal, does not hand out that loyalty unconditionally. We see this when she tries to keep her identity secret from the YJ squad, we see it when she gets pissed in Granny Goodness's hallucination when her father blames her for her mother's death, and we see it when she later blames Secret for her perceived role in Anita's father's death

Anita also happens to sit right smack dab in the middle of the YJ morality scale; while she's generally pretty chill and willing to abide by typical superhero codes of ethics (unlike Slobo and Secret), she's also been shown to bend those rules when she believes it's necessary (as seen here when she tortures and threatens to kill a man for trying to hurt Cissie). Ultimately, what this means is, between Tim and Anita, it's honestly Anita who'd probably be the most willing to put her personal qualms aside, buckle down, and go against her loved ones if it was the only reasonable option

Anyway. This is a really long-winded way of saying I think Gun Batman's biggest nemesis should be Empress

[kisseobie]

could you do what o6 ideal girl is??💗 love your posts btw!!

p1harmony and their ideal girl

pairings: ot6 p1harmony x reader

warnings: none

a/n: ofc u can and thank u :] by the way, i didn’t specify any race, nationality, or ethnicity because as a woc myself i find it strange when people act like we’re a rare desire and only certain idols would be romantically attracted to someone who isn’t korean or east asian lol

✴︎ keeho

most p1eces would probably agree that kyo would naturally be attracted to a girl who exudes confidence in herself, but isn’t arrogant and simply knows her worth without making it everyones business. keeho, although a sweetheart that would be incredible at helping you fight your insecurities (which everyone has!), wouldn’t want to be someones personal life coach at every moment. craves a girl who has an independent lifestyle, loves to let loose once in a while, and isn’t intimidated by having an equally confident partner. being as naturally funny as him isn’t a requirement in my opinion (he of course wants to be the comedian of the relationship), and i actually think he would prefer someone with a personality like jiung’s, someone passionate, maybe a bit reserved, and focused on themselves! he would also loveeeee a girl who dresses nice and can do makeup well, shows skin sometimes and has her nails done a lot.. i think femininity would be really attractive to kyo <3

✴︎ theo

i think taeyang is looking for someone who can match his energy well, be a source of comfort for him when he’s particularly stressed/exhausted, and is confident in her own morality. he seems like the type of boy to be interested in a girl who sees the world in a deeper way than most care to, someone who can teach him life lessons and make him a better version of himself. very attracted to femininity as well, especially when it comes to silhouettes. a big fan of slip dresses and such! i think theo would also really like someone who’s a bit more emotionally mature than he is, and makes him feel like the youngest for once, because he often does feel the weight of being the oldest in his group. despite seeking maturity, he still wants his girlfriend to have a similar sense of humor. wants to have lots of laughs within his relationship!

✴︎ jiung

the most likely member to fall for a lovely lady who mirrors his own personality! jiung is the epitome of hard work and passion, and i really do think he would seek out the same qualities in a lover. not a big fan of someone who would constantly need to be coddled, i think along with keeho, he is really attracted to independence and wants a partner that can handle balance between love and work! needs someone who knows that although his love for you is unwavering, there are other responsibilities and priorities that will often take up his time. i can see jiung swooning for a girl who is very kindhearted and soft spoken <3 being the one in the group who isn’t too fond of physical contact, any girl that shows her love with words of affirmation and acts of service is a winner of his heart! is obsessed with the idea of receiving hand-written poems of love from his girl, and also secretly likes a bit of a height difference, whereas i think the rest of the members wouldn’t really care abt that hehe

✴︎ intak

tak would loveee a confident girl who almost plays into the “hard to get” trope, as cliche as it sounds. he’s a big baby but is also the type to let intrigue walk him like a dog, therefore he’s probably the only member that would “chase” a girl until she finally opens her heart to him (and she eventually would, because honestly, who can resist him?). i think he’s the one who i would say has a combined tastes of all of the members. he’s very sensitive despite his light hearted nature, so i think he would value someone who can be in tune with his emotions and doesn’t shame him for it (kind of like soulie!). i think he would also really enjoy a fashionable gal who matches his own aesthetic, very slick with dark color palettes and silver jewelry! i think some canker sore girls might roll their eyes at this but i honestly think he would really be attracted to someone who models or does some type of work in the fashion world, not for superficial reasons, but because he enjoys that sorta thing!

✴︎ soul

i don’t think that shota has too specific of a preference for personality types, and it doesn’t really make a difference to him if you’re incredibly outgoing or very shy. he honestly just wants a partner that can silently understand him in a way most people can’t, someone who isn’t judgmental and just perceives who he is as something normal, something lovable. as long as that mutual understanding and trust is present, he’s not the picky type, in terms of personality, looks, style, hobbies, etc..! if he had to choose though, i think he’d want to be with someone who can bring him out of his shell when needed, not forcibly of course, but someone with just a general confident and friendly aura would inspire him to attempt to match your energy. (this is obviously very keeho inspired, since soul has always mentioned how comfortable he is with him, i think he would fit really well and be very happy with a girl who has similar vibes as kyo!). but like i said, the only thing that really matters to him is mutual understanding :3

✴︎ jongseob

for seob, since he really enjoys a lot of side hobbies such as photography and skating, i think his main attraction would be towards a gal with a consistent hobby, definitely more on the artsy side! like keeho, i think he would also be really attracted to someone who enjoys fashion and isn’t afraid to dress how she wants to! not too adamant on his lover having a set style, actually really appreciates someone who tries out different styles and surprises him everyday with a new look! would prefer to date a girl who isn’t camera shy, as photography is one of his favorite things and he would obviously want his girl to be his muse and personal model <333 doesn’t like being babied and treated like a kid, so an age gap (2 years or more) isn’t really in his line of sight .. would rather date a girl in the same grade as him or born in the same year!!! i think he’d also be the type to really enjoy banter in a relationship, that type of dynamic is really fun to him :DD

taglist: @woozixo @hearts4chanhee @kyokopi @astro-doll-the-star @soobiary @kyaaramello @t3ssamoodboard @angelcbf @idontknow-1s-world @vivienne-sim @elissasimp @imjustayapper @ihatewreckingballmains @sosaverse @seobing @www90kitsch @khfviq @barbiekh86t @bbyjjunie @taeyangi @fullsunstrawberry @jihnyah @intheemptymirror @watamotee33 @dreamer1299 @jixnnsie @wonootnoot @yukx-x047 @sundancearchives @chuuswifereal @seisyiss @fishsquishh @sunnyyangie

© kisseobie, please do not repost my writing!

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

I’M STUCK ON THIS FUCKING PLANET. I’M STUCK ON THIS GODDAMN EARTH.

Tap photo for better quality

That’s right!! I’m talking even more about sinner bodies because I’m CRAZY!!! RAAHHH!! 🤪 SHES SO CRAZY WE CANT TAKE HER ANYWHERE!! 😝 it’s 3 in the morning and I can’t stop thinking about this goddamn TV.

I think Vox is genuinely the most fucked up character in this rewrite currently. Not really morally fucked up, there’s definitely worse people, but physical alterations in hell out of the main cast he definitely has it the worst. In my last post I talked about how Angel formed in hell and I want to go back to this because Vox did not form in hell as a TV or even a robot at all. He got formed on the road after dying in a car crash and was literally just this fucked up clump of wires and metal panels and had gross little robot hands and he had to make everything else himself and wait for his body to adjust to it, so he literally cannot regenerate normally. He didn’t even have a face yet or screen of any kind, just a little camera to see out of. If his screen shatters he needs to get a new one or if his body breaks he needs to get it repaired, thats why he’s able to upgrade his body and stuff.

And like yeah some tech sinners do just form as robots but Vox just is a fucking mess and I think about it all the time and thats why his demon form is all fucked up like that and I think thats partially another reason he hates Alastor’s ideals so much sometimes because hes like “technology bad!” even though he literally is also partially a tech sinner and hes just stupid but like without technological advancements Vox literally would have nothing like they wouldn’t’ve met, Vox would not have a company, etc, etc and thatd probably help a lot of people yeah like the Vees would not fucking exist but ignoring that, just on a personal relationship scale I imagine your “friend” being like “man I really hate the thing that gives you life and allows you to live a somewhat normal existence” hurts a bit.

Technological regeneration is a bit more confusing and hard to explain than biological regeneration since machinery can’t really “heal” in real life. The concept sounds almost bewildering, like you can’t cut a wire and have it slowly heal like skin would, you’d need a whole new wire. But Vox internally, the things that allow him to move and live how he does now, it’s the only part of him that he can heal, and to him, it’s still “defective”.

Vox is disabled mentally and physically; he has Autism, ADHD, and epilepsy, all of which he is unable to be medicated for due to his new body. These are all things that he hates to acknowledge and will become irrationally upset by if they are mentioned to the point he will actively to deny certain aspects of disability. Being a man from the 1900’s-1950’s his views on mental disabilities and mental illnesses are… less than uh.. “acceptable” for today’s standards. He often disregards slurs towards this being called slurs and insists that “They used to just be words” or “It’s a medical diagnosis.” yet still gets incredibly upset when he is ever called a slur that actually could apply to him. In a way he tries to come off as purposely ableist so that he doesn’t have to confront this aspect of himself that he doesn’t understand. His knowledge in technology or sharks or economics aren’t “special interests” to him, they’re just “regular things a man likes”. He can’t process what a hyperfixation is. He doesn’t know that it’s normal for him to be unable to speak on occasion or that certain textures make him severely uncomfortable. These are either seen as weaknesses or “average people things”. Aside from how terribly disabled people were treated back around the 50’s, he views the neurodiverse aspect of his mind as something that only serves to further push him from grasping the feeling of regular humanity again.

For physical disabilities, he doesn’t lie or deny that he has epilepsy, yes he has an intense disdain for mentioning it, but for very few people he is close with he will disclose this information to them privately. There are a very select few people that are aware of this and two of those people are Velvette and Alastor. This post isn’t really about diving into Vox’s epilepsy so I’m keeping this concise because I have another post to put all of that in. Hope you all enjoy the wacky art :)

The binary says “Trust us” for anyone curious

[saintsenara]

do you go with word of god about how tom would have been better off if merope lived and raised him or that it would have been even worse for him and merope would have become infatuated because of his resemblance to tom riddle sr? (Similar to how part of the fandom believes snape would be if harry resembled lily lmao) which of do you think its more interesting route?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i go for the first of the two options - that merope living would have been so much better for wee tom riddle jr. - not because it's what jkr says, but because i tend to loathe any interpretation of merope's character which undermines the fact that so much of her life could have been changed at numerous crucial moments by anyone connected to the wizarding state giving a fuck.

merope is a teenage girl who lives in abject poverty, has a treatable medical condition [exotropia - eyes which stare in different directions] for which she clearly hasn't received any medical care, is denied an education, is subjected to physical violence by her father right there on the canon page, and is implied in canon to be subjected to incestuous sexual violence by her father and/or brother. the state has numerous opportunities to remove her from this experience - when marvolo fails to respond to her hogwarts letter, when bob ogden visits the gaunts - and yet doesn't, and while i don't think that just being taken away from morfin and marvolo would have solved everything, it would have given her the safety to start healing...

i get why the idea of merope as this sinister, unhinged, devouring, unchangeable bundle of malevolence, who would destroy her own son by becoming infatuated with him, is compelling when the genre demands it to be - i've written her as a folk-horror villain myself, and she was perfect for the role - but in fics which aren't intentionally going for that sort of supernatural, dark fairytale, horror-story vibe... i don't think it hits.

merope's great tragedy - much like her son's - is that she is someone capable of and longing for a normal life, but who is denied this by the corrosive forces of grief, poverty, abuse, and indifference and who goes on to perpetuate harm in turn.

as i've said elsewhere, her rape [and we should call it what it is] of tom riddle sr. doesn't actually need to have any undercurrent of sadistic, unhinged infatuation to be both morally abhorrent and canon-coherent - her treatment at her father and brother's hands would hardly have given her an understanding of consent or bodily autonomy [and might also have made her believe that drugging a man until you can totally control him is the only way to prevent him hurting you], while the fact that the state just leaves her on her own after marvolo and morfin are arrested [with - presumably - no income to speak of] means that she can be understood as seeing tom sr. as her only escape from sliding ever further down the ladder of destitution.

does that mean that she didn't also - selfishly - desire tom sr.? absolutely not. it just means that i find it much more interesting when the idea of her wanting him for herself is given equal weight with all the other things in her life which shape her character - and that i also find it much more interesting when these forces are recognised as commonplace, human, and having pretty much nothing to do with magic.

[the state would not - after all - have had to raise a wand in order to unravel the abuse to which she is subjected... since it does this all the time in the real world - and i am definitely a sucker for stories which acknowledge that the greatest flaws in the wizarding world don't depend in the slightest on magic, but on human corruption.]

if she'd survived childbirth - while i'm certainly not suggesting that i think she'd have been a flawless mother, nor that the absence of a wizarding welfare state wouldn't have made their lives incredibly difficult - i think it's legitimately implausible to suggest that she'd have done anything other than love her son as her son [so, without any incestuous vibe].

[her comment - "i hope he looks like his papa" - is, i think, meant as mrs cole takes it - that she recognises that she's someone who isn't conventionally attractive by any means, and that she knows that tom riddle sr. is.]

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #6 – Exordia by Seth Dickinson

This is a book I have been looking forward to for quite literally years, from someone who is easily one of my favourite working authors. I also read the short story the book was expanded out from before I even knew it was going to be a book, and so went in spoiled on the broad strokes of what turned out to be the climax of the whole thing. All to say my opinion on this is unlikely to match that of the typical reader, I guess.

Anyway, Exordia is a glorious spectacular mess that has no right to cohere anywhere near as well as it does. It’s target audience is small, but I’m certainly somewhere in it. Please ignore all the marketing it’s so bad you have to wonder if someone at Tor just has it out for the author.

Exordia is a, well, a profoundly difficult book to give any sort of plot summary for. The first act involves Anna, a 30-something survivor of the Anfal Genocide now living a rather unimpressive life in New York City, until one day in the early 2010s she sees an alien eating the turtles in Central Park. Then there’s a cat-and-mouse hunt between terrifying alien snake-centaurs for the future of free will in the galaxy, and the plot jumping to kurdistan, and six more POV characters from as many different nations, and nuclear weapons, and oh so many people dying messily. The first act is an oddly domestic and endearing piece of table setting, the second is (to borrow the idiom of the book’s own marketing) Tom Clancy meets Jeff Vandermeer or Roadside Picnic, and the third is basically impossible to describe without a multipage synopsis, but mostly concerned with ethical dilemmas and moral injuries. It’s to the book’s credit that it never bats an eye at shifting focus and scale, but it does make coming to grips with it difficult.

This is, as they say, a thematically dense book, but it’s especially interested in the fallout of imperialism. The Obama-era ‘don’t do stupid shit’ precise and sterile form of it in particular – the book’s a period piece for a reason, after all. The ethics of complicity – of being offered the choice of murdering and betraying those around you or having an alien power with vastly superior destructive powers inflict an order of magnitude more misery to you, them, and everyone in the same general vicinity to punish you for the inconvenience – is one that gets a lot of wordcount. It is not an accident that the man most willing and able to collaborate with the overwhelming powerful alien empire in hopes of bargaining some future for humanity is the National Security Council ghoul who came out of organizing surveillance information for the drone wars. It’s also not a coincidence that the main (if only by a hair) protagonist is someone with a lot of bitter memories over how the US encouraged Iraq’s kurdish population to rebel in the ‘90s and then just washed their hands and let them be massacred (the book couldn’t actually ship with a historical primer on modern kurdish history, so it’s woven into the story in chunks with varying amount of grace. But it is in fact pretty thematically key here).

Speaking of complicity, the book’s other overriding preoccupation in (in the broadest sense) Trolley Problems. Is it better to directly kill a small number of people or, through your inaction, allow a larger number to die? Does it matter is the small number is your countrymen and the larger foreigners, or vice versa? What about humans and aliens? Does it matter whether the choice is submitting to subjugation or killing innocents as a means to resist it? What about letting people around you die to learn the fundamental truth of the cosmos? Does the calculus change when you learn that immortal souls (and hell) are real? This is the bone the story is really built around chewing on.

All that probably makes the text seem incredibly didactic, or at least like a philosophical dialogue disguised as a novel. Which really isn’t the case! The book definitely has opinions, but none of the characters are clear author-avatars, and all perspectives are given enough time and weight to come across as seriously considered and not just as cardboard cutouts to jeer at. Okay, with the exception of one of the two aliens who you get the very strong sense is hamming it up as a cartoon villain just for the of it (he spends much of the book speaking entirely in all caps). There definitely are a couple points where it feels like the books turning and lecturing directly at the reader, but they’re both few and fairly short.

The characters themselves are interesting. They’re all very flawed, but more than that they’re all very...embodied, I guess? Distracted with how hot someone is, concerned with what they ate that morning or the smell of something disgusting, still not over an ex from years ago. Several of them are also sincerely religious in a way that’s very true to life to actual people but you rarely see in books. The result is that basically comes as being far more like actual humans than I’m at all used to in most fiction (of course, a lot of those very human qualities get annoying or eye-roll inducing fairly quickly. But hey, that’s life). Though that’s all mostly the case at the start of the book – the fact that the main cast are slowly turning into caricatures of themselves as they’re exposed to the alien soul manipulation technology is actually a major plot point, which I’m like fifty/fifty on being commentary on what happens to the image and legacy of people as they’re caught up in grand narratives versus just being extended setup for a joke about male leads in technothrillers being fanfic shipbait.

Part of the characters seeming very human is that some (though by no means all) of the POVs are just incredibly funny, in that objectively fucked up and tasteless way that people get when coping with overwhelming shock or trauma. It’s specifically because the jokes are so in-your-face awful that they fit, I think? It manages to avoid the usual bathetic trap a lot of works mixing in humour with drama fall into, anyway.

Speaking of alien soul manipulation technology – okay, you know how above I said that the points where the book directly lectured the reader were few and far between. This is true for lectures about politics or morality. All the freed up space in this 530 page tome is instead used for technobabble about theoretical math. Also cellular biology, cryptography, entropics, the organization of the American security state, how black holes work, and a few dozen other things. This book was edited for accuracy by either a doctoral student from every physical science and an award winning mathematician, or else just by one spectacularly confident bullshitter with several hundred hours on wikipedia. Probably both, really. I did very much enjoy this book, but that is absolutely predicated on the fact that when I knew when to let my eyes glaze over and start skimming past the proper nouns.

The book has a fairly complete narrative arc in its own right, but the ending also screams out for a sequel, and quite a lot of the weight and meaning of the book’s climax does depend on followthrough and resolution in some future sequel. Problematically, the end of the book also includes a massive increase in scale, and any sequel would require a whole new setting and most of a new cast of characters, so I’m mildly worried how long it will be before we get it (if ever).

The book is also just very...I’m not sure flabby is the right word, but it is doing many many different things, and I found some of them far more interesting than others. I’m not sure whether Dickinson just isn’t great at extended action scenes or if I am just universally bored by drawn out Tom Clancy fantasies, but either way there were several dozen pages too many of them. The extended cultural digressions about the upbringing and backstories of each of the seven POVs were meanwhile very interesting! (Mostly, I got bored of the whole Erik-Clayton-Rosamaria love triangle Madonna complex thing about a tenth of the way into the book but it just kept going.) It did however leave the book very full of extended tangents and digressions, even beyond what the technobabble did. Anna herself, ostensibly the main protagonist, is both utterly thematically loadbearing but very often feels entirely vestigial to the actual, like, plot, brought along for the ride because she’s an alien terrorist’s favourite of our whole species of incest-monkeys. The end result is, if not necessarily unfocused, then at least incredibly messy, flitting back and forth across a dozen topics that on occasion mostly just seem unified by having caught the author’s interest as they wrote.

It’s interesting to compare the book to Anna Saves It All, the short story it was based on – quite a lot changed! But that’s beyond the scope of this already overlong review. So I guess I’ll just say make sure to read the book first, if you’re going to.

[mythalism]

ok im going to try and parse through my feelings on the entire game in the hopes that expelling these thoughts from my brain will allow me to actually sleep because i am running on about 3 hours right now

i will start positive with the things i absolutely loved:

solas. whos suprised

just kidding i will elaborate further of course. genuinely, from a (mostly) objective writing perspective, he is the best part of this game. like hands down. his writing is bonkers insane. he has the best lines and the most complexity out of any character in the game (besides mythal perhaps). i was so so so afraid they were going to completely woobify him into someone who was right all along and never did anything wrong in his life blah blah to make him sympathetic to a new audience. they did not give a fuck however and i could not be more glad. he is exactly the dread wolf and bringer of nightmares of legend. he is so wonderfully in character, even if that character is not someone we saw in inquisition (we saw solas, not the dread wolf!). there are moments that solas shines through, like in his mentions of varric in the very beginning, when he mentions his love for the inquisitor, his convo with a rook he respects (which i do believe was genuine, even if he betrays them anyway. we know that he regularly betrays people that he likes and respects lol), the way he helps the shadow dragons and saves the dalish, and of course in his final scene with the inquisitor. he manages to retain that perfect back and forth, mask on and mask off, solas vs. fen'harel dichotomy with a different balance than the one we saw in inquisition. in inquisition, we saw solas with hints of the dread wolf peeking through. in veilguard, we see the dread wolf with hints of solas peeking through. ok i need to move on or i will talk about him forever. but they nailed the moral ambiguity with him. they nailed the theme of forgiveness being hard. i loved when harding said something along the lines of "there is no one who doesnt deserve forgiveness" this is one of the few consistent themes that this game was successful in exploring. ok ok moving on now i promise

i also loved mythal (fragment mythal, not morrigan mythal who was a flop). admittedly i am a mythal stan, but her integration into this story was a highlight for me. she haunted the narrative in such a great way. it added so much complexity to solas. hearing him GROWL at elgar'nan in rage "you have lost the right to say her name" made me scream in glee. i loved talking to her and having to prove my worth to her. i love that it was hard and she would kill you without hesitation if she found you unworthy. i love that if she does find you worthy she is instrumental in changing solas's mind. i loved her dragon appearance even if she was useless in the damn fight lol. morrigan mythal sucked tho but thats for later

similar vein but the main quests were fantastic, with a few caveats. but overall every main quest had me hooked, having so much fun, at the edge of my seat and screaming and flailing in my chair. weisshaupt was incredible, BLOOD OF ARLATHAN WAS INSANE (the solas elgarnan bitch fight will go down in history as a moment of all time for me) and of course the finale was some of the best writing ive seen from bioware. the way suspense was built was well done, the stakes felt high, and the twists were interesting.

choice and consequence was absolutely banger. i gasped when i went back to dock town after leaving minrathous to fend for itself and saw a gallows with bodies hanging from nooses and piles of bodies in the streets. i gasped when harding died. i gasped when bellara got blighted. definitely the best choice and consequence in the entire franchise and it was very satisfying. i feel motivated to play again to see different options play out.

the environments are fucking insane. genuinely insane giga brained genius. i have never been so gagged by a video game like this. not only were they beautiful but they were well-designed, interesting and diverse. i rarely got bored anywhere (except treviso lol) and i was regularly picking my jaw up off the floor. some highlights for me were the anderfels area where you first meet davrin with that amazing vista, kal sharok, the docktown catacombs, pretty much anything in arlathan, the deep roads, and honestly so much. absolutely beautiful.

this game felt incredibly cinematic and the direction was fantastic. the cutscenes were so well done and they transitioned so smoothly into gameplay. the animation was fantastic, and everything was so engaging to watch. my favorite cutscene has to be when solas is about to switch places with rook and you see him in the background out of the corner of your eye twice, though rook doesnt know. i was literally screaming it was so fucking cool. it genuinely felt like watching a movie a lot of the time

i genuinely enjoyed the gameplay loop of exploration. i had a lot of fun just exploring around docktown and arlathan, there was always something new to find, i loved the puzzles, and i loved finding codex entries. this is a crazy thing to say but it actually reminded me a lot of genshin impact LMFAO. which i know a lot of people would probably consider to be a negative but i thought it was engaging and fun.

combat fucks. it got a little repetitive by the end, mostly because i think i just wanted to find out the end of the story and fucking darkspawn were in my way, but it was a huge step up from previous games and i think action combat was a good choice.

this game has an incredible amount of genuine heart and soul put into it and you can feel it in every facet of the game. i can tell that the devs were passionate and their creativity was genuine. i could feel their love for the characters and the world. this game is unflinchingly sincere and not afraid of being cringe (though it definitely is cringe at times, i respect the commitment to it so i dont mind it). it genuinely does not feel like an EA cash grab, which is a huge win considering how likely it was for years that a cash grab was exactly what we were going to get.

i enjoyed the varric ghost twist. i knew something was up with him but i didnt fully call him being dead until right before the reveal. i get why people are going to be upset about it, its a pretty fucking crazy decision, but i think what saves it is the quote he gives rook in the fade about his choices being his own and still encouraging rook to try to get through to solas despite being KILLED BY HIM.... fucking crazy. it ties in enough to the overall theme of regret and forgiveness that i think it works.

ok time for the negatives

its hard to pick my biggest issue but i definitely have a top 3: the lore flopped majorly, much of the writing felt juvenile, and there was an overall lack of nuance to everything about the game except for solas's storyline that did feel very not-dragon age to me

i actually dont give a fuck about lore retcons, especially if they are explained well. i think they are often necessary and can be pulled off. but this game literally just pretended to answer decades long questions about the lore and then does not. which would be fine if we didnt have someone who knows all the answers to those questions hanging out in our brains and willing to answer them. we did not learn what exactly a titan was. we did not learn what they were like when they were alive and before they were blighted. mythal called them monsters. harding suggests they might have been violent like the elves. we literally dont know anything about them except for what solas and mythal did to them. i dont think anyone even actually gave a clear answer on what the blight is. ok it was the titan's severed dreams but what the fuck does that mean? it was their rage and pain? then why does harding say the red lyrium manifested by her rage and pain was not blighted, just red? if blight equals titan nightmares then that lyrium should have been blighted? so what the fuck is the blight that ghilan'nain cooked with? red lyrium? how did the original darkspawn get made? did she start injecting people with red lyrium? but we know what that does to people because we saw it in inquisition. it makes them red lyrium freaks but it doesnt make them darskpawn. WHAT ARE DARKSPAWN? WHAT IS THE BLIGHT? did i miss this in a codex entry or something guys im so serious. how did we play this whole game and not actually learn what the blight is. we also learned almost nothing about the forgotten ones, which is fine except we literally met one and all they really had to say about it was "evil spirit" ? ok. also um. where are the rest of the evanuris. ok they are gone but where did they go. we know where their archdemons went, but where did they go? ghilan'nain exists separate from her archdemon so its not like killing an archdemon kills the evanuris, it just makes them vulnerable. should they not all be still alive in that prison together, just mortal and archdemon-less? they literally just say "they're gone" and expect us to be like ok! WHAT THE FUCK??? WHERE ARE THEY?? WHERE ARE THEIR BODIES??? WHAT??????? also the explanation for archdemons was boring. it felt like the team literally did not know the answers themselves (and didnt feel like calling up david gaider) so they just gave us vague non-answers hoping we wouldnt notice. I NOTICED.

similar vein; we learned nearly nothing about elgar'nan and ghilan'nain, and they overall felt cartoonishly evil and one-dimensional. and this is a greater problem that ill talk about next, but they were afforded none of the nuance that solas and mythal were given, and it feels glaring in comparison. why was elgarn'nan evil? was he just born fucking evil? we know thats not true. he originated as a spirit, what kind of spirit? what was his relationship with mythal like? what was his relationship to the other evanuris like? he calls ghilan'nain "sister", were they always close? did they become close in their prison? what are his goals beyond tyranny? or do you actually want me to believe he is just full stop evil? if he was one of the original spirit born elvhen what virtue did he embody and what polluted him into something so terrible? why does ghilan'nain love the blight? why is she obsessed with creation? we only get a single codex about she and andruil (that i found). what was her and solas's relationship like before she ascended to godhood? he calls her "the best of them" but we never see anything about their relationship. neither of them has any nuance. they are just pure evil, corrupted by ???? something ??? power??? i guess. and we are supposed to just be fine with it lol. what are even their motivations? why do they want to cover the world in blight? what is their emotional connection to this pursuit??????? we get such an exploration of this for solas and just NOTHING for them. they feel so one-dimensional in comparison, literal comic book cartoon character villains.

similarly, this game lacks nuance overall. bioware is known for its exploration of grey morality on both personal and sociopolitical levels. this game has that only for solas and literally no one else. qunari antaam? evil (super fucking racist depiction as well). venatori? evil minions. elven gods? evil. forgotten ones? evil. meanwhile, crows? suddenly good. its okay. just forget the MURDER, child slavery and abuse. seriously its fine. caterina dellamorte is a sweet old lady :) dont worry about it :). every faction is good and every antagonist is bad. its genuinely insane coming from the studio who gave us dragon age 2 to now give us something so fucking boring and black and white. they got SO CLOSE with the wardens and isseya and in the end davrin still kills her. why does solas get a chance at redemption and no one else does? here we are with an entire story centered around this morally grey character, interrogating whether or not his actions are justified, whether his intentions matter, whether his abuse informed his atrocities, asking ourselves if he deserves forgiveness asking if he deserves to be saved, where do we draw the line? what is the point of no return? why do people do the things they do? its fantastic. and then you go and do a faction or companion quest and its just like, these are the good guys and these are the bad guys. dont ask questions. have fun! WHAT???? FROM BIOWARE??????????

this issue bleeds over into the companions as well. i genuinely liked all of them. they are likable. but holy shit they have no flaws. all of them are genuinely good people and their problems center around others rather than themselves. there is little to no complexity, to the point where honestly they did not feel like real people to me. harding is sweet and perfect and her worst trait is being *checks notes* TOO AGREEABLE? davrin's worst flaw is raising his voice at his pet too much. emmrich's only flaw is FEARING DEATH LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING? neve is kind of cold. thats it. bellara never does anything wrong. lucanis doesnt sleep enough? taash is the closes they come to any sort of complexity and i did genuinely enjoy their identity struggle and i loved seeing their complex relationship with their mother. but none of those are flaws. like these characters are cookie-cutter perfect. we used to have companions who committed acts of terror and blood mages and mean jealous little brothers and did horrible things and said horrible things to each other and struggled with things like internalized racism and complacency in violent corrupt institutions and addiction and facing your fucking war crimes and they are some of the most beloved of the franchise because they feel SO REAL. like genuinely going from characters like anders and blackwall to these companions was so jarring and disappointng. i LIKE them all, dont get me wrong. but they do not act like real, complex fully fleshed out people, and the writing overall suffers greatly for it.

again connected, the writing in terms of literal dialogue but also what i mentioned above comes together to feel incredibly juvenile. i know some big reviewers beforehand said that the game feels like a pixar movie at times, and unfortunately i dont think thats inaccurate. a little harsh maybe, but there are moments that are truly written in such a way that it feels like the audience is children. and that doesnt mean its bad, because i am a lover of childrens media and most of my favorite media of all time is actually for kids (avatar the last airbender, fullmetal alchemist, etc), but this game oscillates back and forth so violently it will give you literal whiplash. it reminded me a lot of the way young adult fiction is written. GOOD young adult fiction, where its well-done, but its deliberately written to be simpler in both diction and theme and focuses on concepts that young people can identify with. this is how i felt during much of the companion quests during this game. again, it was GOOD young adult fiction, but it had the narrative styling and lack of nuance and complexity that is characteristic of such things, and that is just literally not what the game is supposed to be like. and there are great writing moments that do feel appropriately mature and complex, but they are mostly in the main quest and their presence makes the lack of maturity in the rest of the writing feel even more jarring. i have no idea why they wrote it this way.

morrigan's mythal flopped and was out of character. i missed flemeth's crazy ass. they literally nerfed her. i think this is connected to everyone being nice and good and perfect (no abusive mothers allowed!) which is crazy because the other mythal fragment got to be a crazy bitch. so what the hell

the lack of world states is still a major L. it felt like things were missing that should have been present and had no reason not to be other than just no worldstates. well of sorrows needed to be there ESPECIALLY considering the solas/mythal/lavellan dynamic.

this one is self-indulgence but solavellan could have benefited from better pacing. packing so much into act 3 made it feel rushed. i loved the scenes themselves, but there could have easily been more build-up with a few codex entries.

no fenris. i will never forgive

ok im running out of steam and actually feeling more able to sleep now (thank god). i know i said a lot of negatives but i actually believe this game is very, very good, especially within the context of its development. i think a lot of the issues likely do stem from their fraught development cycle, and overall they did a great job of identifying their priorities and pursuing them to the fullest. i dont necessarily agree with what they prioritized or what their vision was at all points, but i respect the clear direction that this game had. i do not believe it will stick with me the way the previous games did, and while playing i often found myself just missing the characters from 2 and inquisition that i love, and the writing that so often had me screaming crying throwing up and/or giggling and twirling my hair. however, this game gave me the #1 thing i wanted which was a satisfying solavellan conclusion, and though yes it could have been done a bit more... artfully, i think its incredible considering where we were just a few years ago with this game. i will play it again a few times, and the fact that it has sold well enough to guarantee bioware gets to stick around and make new games is a major win. 7.5/10 thank u for listening

[karalovesallthegirls]

ooh would you share any of the fics you read obsessively and always return to?

Excellent question thank you for asking!!!! I tend to read pretty much anything I can get my hands on, but I prefer re-reading stories that make me feel a very specific kind of pain lmao. If I read a story that has a moment where I feel an ache in my left arm and my chest in general - which is, of course, where all the love and sorrow lives inside my body - then you can bet I'll be rereading it again and again. Here are some of those fics and the moment that make my body ache.

where it bent in the undergrowth by abcooper Fucking banger right here. Incredible, 10 out of 10. I always have a weak spot for a morally compromised and confused Lena. -Pain moment: Lena freezes, and then rolls to the side. “I’m sorry,” she says distantly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I... thought maybe you wanted me to.” A Ribbon in Time also by abcooper I think abcooper has a very interesting way of writing supercorp. Their approach to Lena always allows her to be more grey in her morality and values, which creates a richer, more interesting story. This one has such fun dark themes and nuanced pain, with many pain points. -One pain moment: This is a set-up, Kara realizes. Lena asked her to pick up this package specifically because she needed Kara in her office for this.

where there's desire, there's gonna be a flame by Valkyrees the moral of the lesson so far is that I love a Lena that's a little evil actually!!!! This fic delights me

-Pain moment: “So you said that to save me from feeling embarrassed?” Lena snorts. “No one said anything about love. Your articles are just the highlight of my week. It’d be like if your favorite YouTuber fell off the face of the Earth. Or died suddenly, by your own hands.”

Where Lamps Go to Die by WastedOn God this fic fucking SLAPS. I feel it so deeply in my chest so many times. I love a plot that tricks me with its silly goofy premise only to smack me in the face with pain and love. It's always a top five for me. - One of many pain moments: They hug. Lena relaxes into it, then says "I'm so worried about you" into Kara's shoulder. It's simultaneously the best and worst feeling in the world.

it's a boy! by bs13 This fic is my white whale. I yearn for this fic to be finished with every fiber of my being, but it seems very unlikely. The author replied to my desperate comments saying the muse has fled for this one, so I will just long for it forever. It's fine. -Biggest pain moment: “Hi, baby,” Lena breathes against his head. “I missed you.”

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Honestly Lord Livius Erimond of Vyrantium might be one of inquisitions biggest missteps. Which is kinda wild, because on the one hand he's a very fun, over the top villian, and his existence leads to one of my favourite Cole lines. But on another...

IDK man. The wardens have been characterised, repeatedly, as doing incredibly dodgy things throughout both DAO and DAI. They are heroes, yes, but they are also the type of people to kill those who want to back out of their joining ritual and build crazy secret bases where they lock up demons with blood magic they forced a mage to do on threat of him not seeing his wife or child ever again.

I think Inquisition tries to turn the wardens into something much more gallient than they are. It wants them to be on Corypheus side for plot reasons, yes, but it also wants them to have been tricked into doing so, so that the player can still be like 'yay i love the wardens'.

But this was unneccesary! We've already met wardens, well before all this, that were fighting on the side of getting to understand and possibly work for talking darkspawn. That's basically the plot of awakening and of the Legacy DLC. There are wardens who think that talking darkspawn need to be investigated and may even be worth siding with even if those talking darkspawn were responsible for the fifth blight. You, the player, may have made that decision in Awakening.

So like. Just cut Erimond. It would make the whole thing more morally grey and interesting. Clarel doesn't need to be tricked, she doesn't need to 'I will never serve the blight' about it. She can be working directly with Corphyeus because she wants to understand more about talking darkspawn or because he convinced her that darkspawn aren't the real evil but Orlais is, or because she thinks he ALSO wants to kill the old gods or for a million other reasons.

We can have some fucked up messy wardens AND some wardens who think this is stupid hiding out with Alistiar/Loghain or simply submitting to the calling. And we can have them both without some manipulative, over the top, campy villian prancing around and telling everyone how evil and clever he is up until the moment you kill him.

IDK i feel DAI really killed some of the talking darkspawn buildup by the way they wrote Corypheus and the way they had his minions act and they also kinda made the Grey Wardens appear way more put together just 'corrupted by Clarel' etc. when the wardens are historically a very corrupted, actually physically corrupted group who do batshit things to save the world and are basically only tolerated because they're effective at stopping the numerous almost-apocolypses that rear their head from time to time.

[sugarsnappeases]

quillkiller headcanons?

HELLO!! thank you so so soooo kindly for this ask im kissing you rn bc there’s nothing i love more than talking about my darling angels

so here goes…

- bellatrix calling rita baby!! BELLATRIX!! CALLING!! RITA!! BABY!!!! this one is actually canon to me and it’s something that can be sooo beautiful and special and AAAAAA

- in a similar vein, rita calls bella darling… this one is less near to my heart but i still think it happens in literally every fic ive ever written lol

- okay this one’s a big one: rita is worse than bella at the start!! she’s offputting and more than a little stalkerish and hurts people for basically no reason and not a single soul likes her bc she’s AWFUL! and the only person who likes her is bellatrix who thinks she’s the most perfect person to have ever walked the earth, the best thing to ever happen to her even if their relationship is actively making her worse…. like i think rita doesn’t really have many morals when they meet whereas bellatrix is like. still trying to be good. i think at the start she wants to be good… and then that turns into wanting to be good for rita which is a slightly different thing that nonetheless drives me insane… but then also there are external factors and what not and she gradually loses sight of this etc etc and it ends w rita coming face to face w a line that she wouldn’t cross, a line that bella has crossed and that’s the point of no return for them in many ways (the dark mark)

- referring back to the last one again, when i say rita hurts people for no reason, to her there is always a reason, i think she cares a lot about the justification of all her actions even if it’s petty or a little irrational and ridiculous… like i think there’s always some logic that makes sense maybe only to her behind her actions and that’s why bella getting the dark mark is so unforgivable bc there’s no world in which she’d be able to somehow justify genocide even if she doesn’t actually care about the war at all

- bella on the other hand is the loyalest dog that has ever walked the earth and that’s why rita’s articles are unforgivable to her (this is the hc that rita writes an article about bella/the black family/whatever… i always think this comes just after bella gets the dark mark so rita justifies the 'betrayal' w the fact that bella betrayed her first) bc she just can’t forgive or even really fathom how rita would betray her like that bc she never would've done the same bc she's loyal to her very marrow and would've remained so even if her and rita were sworn enemies

- interesting to me also that if rita had been the one to get the dark mark (not that i think this would ever ever happen. but hypothetically) bellatrix would absolutely have followed her into being a death eater and everything. and if bella had been the one to write the article, i reckon rita would’ve probably forgiven it, probably even respected it a little…. so like even tho the two of them are so similar in many ways there’s this fundamental irreconcilable difference between them that leads to them falling apart no matter how desperately they try to cling onto each other :(

- a lot of people are like oh, they’re so toxic! but jen @quillkiller and i were talking about this the other day (most of these are things i’ve talked about w jen lmao and it wouldn’t be a post about quillkiller without jen being involved somehow… no one understands me and them like she does) and really, i think that removes a lot of the nuance, and i HATE when nuance is removed, bc i think that sure, to anyone else their relationship would seem toxic and unhealthy or whatever but for them it’s probably the healthiest thing they could have, probably the best thing that’s ever happened to either of them, i just think there’s SO much love

- so much love and sooo much romance, like to me it’s so incredibly romantic that the two of them have like allowed themselves to be shaped by the other, let someone so wholly into their soul that it’s unlikely they’ll ever be without them again, and then as it inevitably starts to fall apart the two of them are clinging by their fingertips to the edge of the cliff, just such sheer desperation as they try to make it work and complete devastation when it turns out they can’t…. like. that’s love to me. drives me crazy

- and that’s another thing!! they’re haunted by each other for the rest of their lives!! constant perpetual unending haunting, there’s no escape, there’s that fine line between love and hate and even if the feelings are all complicated now, it’s the sense that they’re SO intertwined that even though they’re apart and they don’t know what they would do if they actually saw each other face to face again, they can still see each other in everything. EVERYTHING.

- and it’s worse for rita imo (in terms of the haunting i mean) bc bella’s in azkaban, out of sight but never out of mind, and then she’s back and it’s horrible but then she’s dead and that’s even more horrible and rita carries that ghost around with her for the rest of her life, probably the only person who could still say she loved bellatrix by the time she died, even if they hadn’t spoken in decades… bellatrix is in every word she ever writes and every plan she ever makes and every single part of her life in some way. she lives in a flat that bellatrix has never been to but she’s still there in every corner of every room

anyway i could go on but ive just clocked how long this has gotten lol…. hope this is satisfactory <3

[teethcritter]

Alright, so. Finn and Princess Bubblegum. Yeah, yeah. Hero and the princess, a story as old as time. We all know the princess in question is by no means into boys, as Patience put it.

So what happens when we look at their relationship from a purely professional standpoint? A lot!

So, let's start with some background information, at least in my view of the characters. I think personally, that it makes sense for PB to have known Finn for a while before season 1. I like to think that she actually helped Jake with raising him, as she probably would've checked on the tree house from time to time with all her surveillance issues and a certain vampire breakup. And I mean, who's to say she wasn't in contact with Joshua and Margaret as well? They had, supposedly, the only human left in their hands. She would've been interested in that. She would've been very interested in that.

Now, let's take a moment to consider what being partially raised by a princess / mad scientist would do to your brain. Let's take a moment to consider what being a knight at such a young age would do to your brain. Clearly a number since the very first episode of the series is Finn and PB causing a zombie apocalypse.

PB was shown in a very morally grey light right from the start. What Have You Done?(s1ep24) is one of my all time favorite episodes because of how well it's portrayed.

Finn is pretty willing to cross her in this episode once he realizes that the right thing is not what she asked of him, but it certainly sets the groundwork of the CONSEQUENCES for doing so; as well as "The princess is always right," mentality he seems to have for most of the series. (A/N: these clips are taken out of context of the full episode, I highly recommend you watch the full thing to understand what happens in it, why PB and Finn do what they do, etc. This goes for all the eps I'll mention.)

As Finn ages, we see his relationship with PB change a LOT. Even after he gets over his crush, he still seems to worship her. In a way that she's kinda conditioned him to.

A very important thing to note while I talk about this, especially around this part, is that I STRONGLY believe that neither of these characters are in the wrong in the relationship. I don't think one is abusing or manipulating the other. It's a two way street. They are both making it worse.

The next episode I'm going to reference is Princess Cookie(s4ep13) (Another A/N: I apologize for the google drive links from here on out, Tumblr only allows one video per post. Cringe.)

By this point, Jake is willing to cross PB AND FINN in the name of doing the right thing. Finn however, is not. As we can see clearly here. Jake has a criminal past. Jake understands that crimes are often committed by people with a very messed up mental state. Those people need help, not a lifetime in the dungeon. But clearly, Finn doesn't get that. Which is not his fault whatsoever. He's been a knight since at least age 12.

I also find this dialogue from the same episode incredibly interesting. I know Jake was playing a part here. I know he was trying to de-escalate the situation so that PB wouldn't send in the guards, but these words still left his mouth.

And I don't know, the fact that he quickly had to correct himself makes this seem genuine to me.

This concept can actually be explored further in Burning Low(s4ep16) which is literally two episodes after this.

I was originally going to avoid Burning Low in this analysis, despite it being one of my favorites, but it is pretty important to the relationship between Finn/Jake and PB. It doesn't take much for Jake to flip out on PB in this episode, which is a drastic contrast from his demeanor in the first half of it. It really makes me consider the fact that he could have some deeply rooted issues with her. Or even, some deeply rooted issues with how much time Finn spends with her.

Another small note from this episode, is this.

We know for a FACT that this is not romantic jealousy in the slightest. I think that Bubblegum has gotten so used to being worshipped by Finn, that now that there's someone in the way — especially someone who she has such a strained relationship with — there is this weird jealousy. Not because she's in love with Finn, but because he's growing up. Because she isn't the sole princess in his life anymore. Because she has one less person 100% fixed on her and her alone. Because Finn is HER knight.

Alright, now before we move onto season 5, there's one more thing from season 4 that is worth talking about. This scene in The Lich(s4ep26).

This scene is one of the most disturbing scenes in the whole show for me, because of a few reasons. First of all, this is after Burning Low. This is after both of them have their explosions at her. But this is about Finn. Finn, right now, thinks that PB is jealous of him and Flame Princess. He thinks that now that there's someone in the way, that suddenly she cares. Which isn't entirely wrong, as I stated in the previous paragraph.

I think that her reaction here was partially a trauma response. Her reaction to Finn in general around this time period could be in relation to Mr. Cream Puff as well, since as we see in Bonnibel Bubblegum(s10ep4), was not a consensual relationship. Of course though, his pursuits were unwanted. Her reactions don't have to be because of a specific thing. She said no, case and point.

Now, I'm not going to get into the insanity of Farmworld Dimension, but I do think it's interesting that this interaction is the last one between the original Finn and PB. Of course Finn after Farmworld is still technically the original because of the paradox Jake created, but it's still interesting to me. Anyways, like I said, I'm not going to get into that in much detail.

Onto season 5! Frost and Fire(s5ep30) is a hard watch. But I rewatched it for this and actually made a connection that I've never made before. Jake says to chase the Cosmic Owl dream, which leads Finn down this road of manipulation. I don't put Jake at fault whatsoever, I highly doubt he expected Finn to do what he did. Finn fucked up — Aaand... I can draw some pretty distinct parallels between Finn and Flame Princess' breakup, and PB and Marceline's breakup.

Frost and Fire

Obsidian(AT:DL ep2)

After the breakup, Finn is not in the best mental state, obviously. He still doesn't understand what he did wrong and I think that's partly what's eating away at him. He doesn't understand what happened. But in a desperate attempt at getting back to normalcy, he gives himself entirely up to PB again. And then we get this line from the episode Rattleballs(s5ep46)!

PB tells him to relax, and he goes off to fight things in a dump. As you do. He finds Rattleballs there and after some training, Finn asks how he ended up here. Rattleballs explains that he escaped Bubblegum's mass execution. And he asks Finn to not out him, but loyalty to the Princess comes first.

Finn thought that Rattleballs and PB could talk it out at this point. Which they did kinda end up doing. But that is so goddamn interesting to me. He doesn't know the lengths of which PB goes, but it's so clear that deep down he DOES acknowledge that something is not right with her. Which means by proxy, something's not right with him either.

I'm going to break away from the show here to reference the comics. I know they're not canon, however the Princess and Princess graphic novel doesn't really contradict anything from the show, so I think this is of note. Finn isn't scared of her, he's scared what she'll do to other people. Very interesting.

Okay, back to the show.

In Hot Diggity Doom(s6ep42), PB loses the crown. This interaction is one that stands out to me.

Obviously the situation is tense. They don't want to serve a dillweed, but "We pledged our allegiance to you," freaks me out a bit! We didn't see this happen. This was before Slumber Party Panic(s1ep1). We don't know how Finn and Jake became her knights. They also seem to be aware of something relating to Cream Puff, as both of them know he died somehow. They both mention in it Slumber Party Panic. Besides exploding when scared, candy people don't die of natural causes as far as we've seen thus far. I do wonder what happened to that guy.

And this monologue in The Thin Yellow Line(s7ep25) doesn't make me feel any better about it. I am fully aware that implying PB did something to him is grasping at straws from what we're given, but hey! It's PB. And boy oh boy, is it interesting to consider that maybe Finn and Jake knew that.

Moving on from that random headcanon though, I want to talk about how Finn reacts to all that information from Banana Guard 16. Obviously he embellished the truth there. PB did what she had to do for the most part, although... not very ethically. Finn knows that. He knew a good chunk of that by this point in the series, and his opinion on her hasn't seemed to have changed. When he actually sees PB at the end, he realizes that maybe Banana guard 16 was right. Maybe she is gonna take him apart. So he, y'know, does a super sneaky thing and switches the guards. Instead of taking to her about it, he puts an innocent guard to death, as far as he knows. And we all know that she didn't actually do anything to anyone in that episode, she even says she's not proud of her past!! Growth!!! We love to see it. Though Finn, seems to have gotten worse.

He's gotten better socially, as he makes up with Flame Princess in Bun Bun(s8ep6), but worse professionally.

And here we go! Another parallel in Varmints(s7ep2).

At the beginning of Islands, we get my favorite scene in the whole show. We get Fern, PB, and Marceline seeing the gang off. And then we get a very interesting interaction between Finn and PB. She explains that if he finds humans, he might find out some heavy stuff about where he came from. She makes him promise that he'll come back to Ooo. And he doesn't promise. They hug, and he leaves. And she says, "He'll be safe." But clearly she doesn't believe herself. Finn, in my eyes, is probably the most important person in PB's life next to Marceline. And she's terrified that he's gonna leave his family for blood.

In season 9, when Elements starts, and Finn and Jake are greeted with the candy tree house, Finn automatically assumes that it was PB, which is something I don't see talked about a lot.

And wow, speaking of season 9! Fern would not have died the first time if PB didn't install a FATALITY SETTING TO THE WEED WACKER. Just a thought. Just an observation, if you will.

Then by season 10, he pretty much spends the entire season trying to prevent the war she's starting. And then in Obsidian, he's still ready to be by her side at the drop of a hat. And to top it all off—

In Together Again, even in death, his first thought for outside help, is her.

This never ended. They never fixed any of these problems. Finn is the knight of a dictator. Even if he wants to be ethical, he can't be. And I think somewhere, he knows that.

I'll probably go into seasons 7-10 deeper at some point in the future but tumblr's image limit for this post was hit a while ago LMFAO

TL;DR if you're going to talk about PB's wrongdoings, you can't pretend Finn is innocent. I strongly believe neither of them are bad people, and that they really do need each other. But that's not good. They actively make each other worse.

[daubigny-stan]

If you used to be a fan of HP, please read Witch Hat Atelier

I am so serious. I think everyone who's read WHA will tell you this, it is a more refined and perfected flavor of HP's lore and worldbuilding. Moreover, the mangaka of WHA isn't a complete bigot unlike someone else who wrote a witch based story. It's so good even, that I think it's an insult that I'm comparing the two, however HP is the most familiar reference I have and in this post I'll be comparing and breaking the down.

HP feels like a 'chosen one' story whose world was haphazardly built around it, meanwhile WHA's story feels like one that is naturally developed from its well executed worldbuilding

Ok, this is not an elegant title, so allow me to explain. The HP method of worldbuilding which puts the ideas first and makes the world bend to the ideas is apparent in two concepts: how Harry is the chosen one and the separation of wizards and non-wizarding folk.

How is Harry positioned by the writer to be the chosen one? Because of the prophecy! And that's marked with him surviving the death curse which is an impossible thing to do lore-wise, so here's the complicated bad magic which explains why Harry did the impossible thing! See, it's like they thought of a cool design for a boat, but the boat wasn't able to float on water, so they just kept adding patches to the plot holes. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing in my opinion, the horcruxes were an interesting bit to the lore and does bring up the idea "oh killing someone splits the soul in half" which is a fine metaphor, I guess. But it feels like the world revolves around Harry and Voldemort rather than Harry and Voldemort living in it.

Meanwhile, Witch Hat Atelier? Airtight. Coco doesn't feel like a chosen one for the sake of being the protagonist. The ongoing battle after against the current magic policy of secrecy and limitation and the goals of exposing magic and unleashing its potential has existed long before Coco was around. Coco feels like just one of the Brimhats' many attempts to expose the witches' secrets to the Unlearned. At the moment we don't know if Coco was deliberately chosen because she has some special property or not, but even if she doesn't it just feels more special. Coco's protaganism is not defined by being special or powerful, she is birthed from the current circumstances and worldbuilding.

And Shirahama sensei's explanation for the separation of witches and the Unlearned don't feel arbitrary and contribute to the plot. Witches aren't special, they are just this group of people that were deemed worthy of learning magic. And magic is still shown to non-magic folk, it is not void from their world. This feels like the mangaka actually took from how real-world politics, it doesn't matter who is at the top actually, there is just an inherent injustice from the fact that some people can wield magic and some cannot. And this message is echoed with almost every story arc thus far. Coustas as a character is an incredibly example of how magic is also analogous for privilege or power. He is underprivileged for both being Unlearned and coming from the slums.

On the other hand, HP's idea of magical folk feeds back into how there are ideas for people first and then the world revolves around it poorly. This is not a novel complaint about HP but if magical babies are born randomly and can even be born to non wizard folk... how have they been concealed all this time? Like, I get it, magic and achieve amazing things including concealment and memory erasure but there is not concrete argument to keep concealing. The story and characters accept that rule without questioning it which really paints them as shallow. And also since magic is something you are born with, the idea that some people are born special and some are not? Really rubs you the wrong way.

HP's concept of morality is just... bleugh

A lot of the points I make here and in the previous point I think I'm echoing from Shaun's video on Harry Potter which you should go watch. The point I'm taking here is how arbitrarily good and evil is decided in the HP world, if you are the snake house or the snake KKK, you are evil. I didn't know you could strawman people in prose but there you go. Meanwhile, in WHA there is not necessarily an evil. People have different goals and those goals contradict with each other. That is the definition of conflict in this manga. It is also possible that characters have the same values but different goals so it makes for so many interesting foils.

Voldemort and the Death Eaters, I feel like their status as a bad guy with bad values is poorly rooted in the world. The wizards already have this pure world void of non-wizards and non-human wizards and they keep their magic to themselves, they're already plenty fascist against non-wizard folk. The Death Eaters don't really have a reason for existing. They feel evil for the sake of having a bad guy with fascist aesthetics, not because they are the consequence of the rules of the world or because they have goals that make sense. They don't really need to rid the world of non-magic folk, they already have a world to themselves. They don't need to rule the entire earth for its resources, they're already not sharing magic. They don't need nuclear weapons or oil or whatever. And it's not like the good guys are going against magic separatism either. They're just protecting the status quo and maybe asking "could we be a bit nicer to magic kids born out of non-magic families pwease?"

Meanwhile, the Brimhats, the antagonists of the WHA world, they make so much sense both the readers and the main characters are in this constant state of questioning who is right or wrong. Heck Coco, the main character, is the embodiment of the story's moral conflict. We are first introduced to Brimhats who are more hungry for power or unlimited magic that they will harm children so we accept with little hesitation that they will be the bad guys, but then we are introduced to Ininia. Ininia is also a little girl, much like the main gang, with the same values. Magic brings people happiness and can heal. Forbidden magic can do that much better so why not use it? And so far, even the protagonists don't have the answer! We are only shown the consequences of using forbidden magic. But throughout the story we are also shown the flaws of the current system.

There's so much more I could say, like about how WHA's characters are so well written, to the ACTUAL representation of gay people, disabled people, and class in the manga; but those are the two main points of why the story of WHA is so much better. Shirahama sensei does not treat her readers like dumb idiots. She trusts us to be intelligent and shows us scenarios that will leave us thinking for hours. GO READ WITCH HAT ATELIER

[meenawrites]

Seo Yul Deep Dive - Part 1

Well, since my class ended early and I have 20 min to kill, why not.

SO Seo Yul.

First off, I think he's a fantastic second male lead, specifically because he's more complex than just being a secondary love interest to bring drama to the main couple. He's not at all, in fact he's the opposite of that.

Seo Yul is everything all the adults wanted Jang Uk to be in terms of obedience, principles, and morals. He is upright with a strict moral compass, obedient to his elders, and is prone to agonizing over what the right thing to do is, especially once Naksu enters the picture.

He is the foil against which Jang Uk is being measured.

It would have been quite easy and probably acceptable to just make him one dimensional and have him be there mainly to pursue Naksu and be another obstacle in the way of our main couple, but they didn't do that AT ALL! And I'm glad they didn't. In fact, Seo Yul is one of Jang Uk's dearest friends and he cares about him a lot and vice versa continuously throughout the run of the show.

Seo Yul's love for Naksu, or lingering love from his romanticized memories of his time in Danhyangeok serve to further Seo Yul's own character development as well as highlight just why Jang Uk is actually a better romantic partner for Naksu.

The way they love her is very different. I'm not trying to discount Seo Yul's love for Naksu in any way, I think he definitely does and did love her, but he is someone who is incredibly committed to his principles and to following the rules; it's just how he's constructed himself across his life. So Naksu's very existence throws him completely off balance. On the one hand, he's so glad the girl he once loved and thought would never see again is alive. On the other hand, everything he's been taught and everything he believes in is screaming at him to kill her, that her existence as a soul shifter is not right and cannot be allowed to continue. Yet she is also giving his best friend, Jang Uk, everything he's ever wanted–she is making him HAPPY. So Seo Yul is just kind of going back and forth in his agony over what to do. He feels a great sense of responsibility because he believed he was the only one who knew her identity for a while, and he's generally relied on by the adults in his life like Park Jin and Heo Yeom to kind of be their sword and do the right thing.

Jang Uk on the other hand (as I've seen described in a post somewhere) is more loyal to people than he is to principles, whereas Seo Yul leans a bit more towards the opposite.

So for Jang Uk, he's willing to bend his morals or defy what everyone around him says is wrong out of loyalty to the people he cares about, and Naksu quickly becomes one of those people to him. Like she tells him, everyone has always wanted her dead; no one has ever actually attempted to save her. And I think that strikes deep into Jang Uk's heart and he makes a decision very early on that he will be the one to protect her, and he accepts any collateral damage that comes with it.

Where Seo Yul is sitting and agonizing over the principle of Naksu's existence, all Jang Uk is thinking is how he's going to protect her and keep her by his side. There's no question in his mind, no moral quandary about it. He is as loyal to her as he is to Seo Yul or Park Danggu, or Maidservant Kim–some of the most important people in his life.

In essence, Jang Uk is the type of male lead who would let the world burn for the person he loves while Seo Yul would be willing to make the sacrifice if it meant saving the world.

I don't know if either is necessarily better as an attitude, and I don't feel qualified to comment on that. But Jang Uk's attitude is why he is better of a romantic partner for Naksu, because she needs someone like that, to feel like someone will love her to such an extent. She's been betrayed and discarded and used so many times across her life that she needs and wants that kind of unconditional love–chosen unconditional love, I should say. Because Jang Uk CHOOSES to be loyal to her no matter what.

This stark difference between Jang Uk and Seo Yul really comes to a head in the conversation they have (can't remember the episode) that goes something like this:

Seo Yul: We have a duty to protect the world from monsters. [referencing soul shifters and citing what he's been told his whole life]

Jang Uk: But we can also protect the monsters from the world.

I'm totally paraphrasing because I don't have time to go look up the quote, but yeah.

Underlying this conversation, they're both really talking about Naksu, but I'm not sure how aware both of them are that are each referencing her.

This continues on later, once Seo Yul has kind of finally made the decision to let them be, to let Naksu be happy because he does really want that for her. He was even planning on whisking her away to Seo Fortress to protect her and to take responsibility for her which weighs heavily on his shoulders. So we know he cares about her a great deal, maybe even more than his principles, which is what puts him in such mental agony in the first place.

I'm really glad actually that Seo Yul and Naksu got to have a closure conversation near the end of Part 1 (even if it all went to shit after) because they had so much history that needed to be addressed.

This conversation was really a turning point for Yul (again before the tragedy of the last episode) because he had finally made his peace with disregarding some of his principles that have been drilled into him and that he's held onto steadfastly for so long in favor of both his friends' happiness. His loyalty to people superseded his loyalty to his principles.

But then the tragedy happens. And not only does his worst fear come true that Naksu will run wild and cause havoc upon his world, but it comes with a huge price. Danggu and Choyeon's happiness is ruined, many people are killed by her hand or injured, and worst of all, Jang Uk dies on her sword.

Just when he's finally made peace within himself, it all falls apart, and he interprets it as the world telling him that he was wrong. That he should have intervened, done something, even if that meant killing Naksu. That he should have been more pro-active. That everyone else was right, and he should have done something about the monster.

He's a very subtle but very interesting character, especially when contrasted with Jang Uk.

He puts a lot of pressure on himself (possibly an attitude adopted because of other people's expectations of him growing up as the only Seo heir but we don't really know) and tends to take on everything quietly. He loves very deeply, and you can see it in the way he interacts with all the people he considers dear to him. He's very thoughtful and considerate and is always thinking of others at his own expense. His love for Naksu and for Jang Uk only added complexity to his character, and I absolutely love him. I think he's one of the highlights of the show.

I have to go to class but I will return for my thoughts on Seo Yul in part 2.

Let me know what you guys think or if I missing anything you thought was important!

[greenerteacups]

OK I’ll bite…. can you expand more on the obliviation as murder idea from a recent post?

And do you think it’s realistic that Hermione thought she could reverse it and restore memories after the war?

Okay, basically, I think a person's memories compose an incredible volume of their personality and general 'personhood' (if, simplistically, personhood = action + reason + feeling) to the extent that removing them is a cardinally unforgivable violation at best and straight-up killing at worst. We don't really have an analogy for this kind of wrong in the real world except drugging someone, i.e. taking away their autonomy and senses for a period of time — except obliviation is worse, because you're retroactively doing that for whole swaths of their life, plus you're influencing all their future decisions, because they don't know what they actually would have wanted. Once you're exercising control over someone's literal thoughts — which is what you're doing, if you Obliviate them, you're forcing them to think things that aren't true, or forget things that are — there's basically no way to avoid dominating them on a level real-world normal humans would consider unforgivable.

I have a lot of Thoughts about the ethics of mind magic in any scenario, from love potions to legilimency to veritaserum, but what I find most striking about Hermione is that she views her parents' Obliviation mostly as a loss to herself. That's a fascinating insight into how the books treat mind magic, because you could say, on the one hand; yeah, the Grangers are happy; they're off in Australia, and they're safe from an awful war. Objectively, they are safer there than they would be in a life with Hermione in it. But on the other hand, you could also say: No, the Grangers don't exist anymore. The Wilkins do. You turned your parents into people so radically different that they would not recognize their own daughter, a defining feature of their life for the past 18 years. Whoever they are, they no longer want to live in the city they've resided in for two decades, if not longer. And hey, fuck all of their friends and loved ones, right? Who cares if they get to see their friends from work ever again? Or your aunts and cousins? Grandparents? Gone. That is a death, for all those people. And if I was faced with the choice to get what happens to the Grangers, I'd consider it as someone killing me, too.

I'm astonished that Hermione is capable of a charm that does that, especially since a lot of magic in HP seems to work on the basis of "meaning it." (Intention, admittedly, is broadly understood; Harry is able to perform Sectumsempra without knowing exactly what it does, just that it's bad news bears for the other guy). It is, in my opinion, by far the worst thing Hermione ever does, and it's jarringly outside her moral event horizon — which is itself probably the broadest envelope of any light-sider in the books. Can she reverse it? I mean, maybe! There aren't hard rules to the magic system in Harry Potter, and nothing about Obliviate suggests she's wrong in the assertion she could reverse it. It's Hermione; I'd bet she did her research. (I'm also interested by a different interpretation of your question, which is "is Hermione lying to herself about this, on some level," and/or "is she lying to Harry," both of which are very tasty for headcanon purposes but ultimately strike me as unlikely based on the portrait Book 7 paints of Hermione, which with the exception of this one insane jaw-drop moment is fairly wholesome.)

So yeah, she might be able to reverse it. But I have no idea what she expects to happen afterward.

[ripgray-moved]

AM HC DUMP ( please i'm obsessed with this little freak please think he's cool too )

full name is asmodeum but peter insists on giving him a nickname because "that's what friends do"; he settles for am because he hates "azzy" and "modi" ( almost pronounced like "moody" bc grump teehee ).

he is what's known as a guardian. his kind exist suspended in deep space within the d-16 dimensional region ( the highest tier of dimensions, where the deities, guardians and likewise ilk reside ) waiting to be called on. think of it like a "prayer" being answered, only it is exclusively for supernatural / magical matters. they typically are granted to those looking to hone magical / cosmic power and act as their teachers. they are impervious to morality, meaning a guardian in the wrong hands is potentially a universe-ender. luckily, peter is pure of heart and seeks only to release himself from his curse. typically, when the goal has been achieved guardians are then put down as they are simply too dangerous to leave laying around in other dimensions. however, when peter murks the cult and frees himself of paimon, he refuses to do so with am, claiming that they're still friends and he still has so much to learn.

has an ego, but it's arguably deserved. this isn't to say his arrogance can't be annoying / even a little mean, but he is factually a denizen of the highest ranking dimension in the entire universe lmao. unless you are also from there, you are naught but a speck of dust on his radar and he has no problems letting you know that if you get smart with him. is a total tsun ( i actually loathe that term but i know people will understand what i mean if i use it lmao ) once the Fee-Fees start setting in. you mustn't know that he enjoys your presence. that would be ridiculous. totally unfounded and foolish of you to assume that a being of such standing would care for you. don't be daft. is not even technically a "he", but peter asks how he should refer to am and am responds that he is indifferent as he has no need for gender. hilariously, when peter asks if he's a she, he reacts with a dissatisfied noise and so peter goes with he ( his first suggestion is actually they; he persists because am himself sounds unconvinced / vaguely unsure and he wants to get it right ). in the case of humans, he finds bodily functions SO WEIRD. when i tell you peter once got the hiccups and the first time that sound left him am jumped and demanded to know what was wrong with him? yeah. when he finds out y'all need to excrete? -50 friendship points permanently. refers to his brain as "the database". guardians are incredibly knowledgeable creatures ( it's kind of their purpose, to know things, lmao ) and are capable of gleaning information about both objects and people in a few seconds via 'scanning' them. he's like a sentient google without the shitty capitalism. on the topic of referring to stuff, refers to peter as "[his] master" and seldom uses his name until later on. another common term is "[his] wielder". this is typical of a guardian, as despite their great power they are adopted into a subservient role. peter has mixed feelings about it as he views he and am as equals and friends from the beginning. will offer assistance to others if they ask directly, but typically is very driven and dedicated to peter. keeps his interests at the forefront and doesn't take kindly to 'distractions' ( though cannot separate 'distractions' from friends just being friends until later ). NOT receptive to touch. only peter may hold him unless you gain his permission ( which he is rather tight with ). you'll get zapped if you try to grab him without his express consent; if you persist, the zap will increase in voltage until it eventually becomes powerful enough to end your life. thankfully, once is enough for most people. i have to reiterate: AM IS A STAFF. HE IS NOT A PERSON. that being said, later on into his development he becomes aware of the importance of connection between humans and opts to adopt a form to better communicate himself to them. THIS FORM IS A PROJECTION, but he is such a powerful entity that it is a corporeal one. he can be interacted with as you might a person unless he wills the opposite.

[lunarflux]

Hi it's Lyra, I'm back, so sweet that you like my name. 😭❤️

And I've actually been reading through your asks too! I loved your take on Aemond's love + duty! I'll admit that's something that has already bothered me too, whether he'd be willing to love or not and if the person he loves maybe would never be "important enough". But the point you make is a good one, that it's natural that we care about our own goals, and that doesn't mean love is less important. I would like to think that's what Ewan means when he talks about Aemond as well, that yes duty is important to him, but he wouldn't necessarily place duty so above someone he cares for, not to the point of making them any less important to him, right? They would coexist, as they should.

I honestly have this vision of Aemond confiding his goals to his beloved and seeking support, and as you said, loving her even more when that support is given; it's very endearing to think of tbh, and I agree that it feels unfair to say he'd abandon the person who loves him.

As you said too, we just don't see it because Aemond literally has no one that gives this to him :'). But from what we've seen of him, that's what I interpret.

Maybe I'm delusional? But because of all he's been through, I think if Aemond met someone who actually loved him dearly, he'd be incredibly devoted??? I think he'd eagerly reciprocate that love because it's literally been something he's been after for his whole life pretty much. That's why it also bothers me to see people saying love would not matter to him, because honestly I think it's the very opposite. Don't you think?

Sorry I rambled a bit. 🫶🏼

Hi, Lyra, I have insomnia. And feel free to ramble in my Asks, I welcome chaotic thinking.

The "not important enough" argument is such a.... Not complex, but I guess multi-tiered concern for a lot of people. On one hand, someone can absolutely make their partner feel insignificant (ie. All time spent at work, little time spent together, shallow communication, poor listening skills). On the other hand, insecurities can lead people to believe that nothing is ever enough. However, one issue is through actions and the other is an internal struggle.

I don't think I've ever felt like I wasn't important to any of my partners. If anything, I felt burdened by how much they prioritized me because I didn't want them to. If I'm focused on my career, no amount of emotional appeal will ever convince me to pivot my goals and refocus. It made it even more troublesome when I try to be very communicative and empathetic with my partners because nothing ever seemed like it was enough to make them feel secure. At some point, the blame can't all fall on me for having other priorities. Like, you can't have all of me lol You get the parts that need and crave human interaction, but my mind will not sacrifice ambition which helps only me and no one else. To be there at the start and feel at peace with me until I achieve my goals is something I've yet to find with anyone (please I hope to God this isn't an insane ask).

In terms of Aemond, he might prioritize security in a relationship. The boy doesn't need anything else stressing him out, and the last thing he'd want is for an insecure partner to keep vying for his attention (I mean hello Vhagar is right outside and she needs attention, too). And security encompasses comfort, reassurance, confidence, and a mind at ease. Just let him sleep at night beside someone who isn't constantly asking him why he did something or why didn't he do this or that. Let him rest his head in silence and he'll talk on his own.

As for your thoughts, I know the Aemond girlies are naturally more biased and want him to feel loved, but I also find it interesting because loving him won't change his stance on the throne, his morals, or his ethics. Hell, loving him might cause him to be more determined with a powerful partner at his side. And HONESTLY, I love that. Team "I can make him worse" is always a fun one. His self-interest for power puts him above Team Green and Team Black.

You date Aemond - you're Team Aemond LOL I had a mild "oh God why did he do that" when he nuked Sharp Point, but when the showrunners explained it was strategic, I immediately changed to "oh well OBVIOUSLY there was a reason duh"

That being said, you're not delusional. Or maybe we all are. A community of delusion. And it's dark in here.