#(were nothing alike)

[akanemnon]

I don't like this place. It's turning everyone edgy and sad.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

I'm enjoying the shades of DA2 that exist within the DATV characters. Varric and Harding— area surface dwarf struggles despite being a grounding influence on their friends. Isabela and Taash— saucy Rivaini pirates and their complicated relationship with themselves and the Qunari. Neve and Aveline— jaded justice on the streets of a broken city. Lucanis and Anders— an intense possessee is community obsessed and sleep deprived. Davrin and Fenris— an intense warrior elf is uneasy with weird magic and finding his footing. Bellara and Merrill— neurodivergent academic elves and their feelings of acute alienation.

[beetrotxo]

vi and jayce bookstreet allegations but its kai and morro

[distressed-bird]

Kalina is the most interesting character to me because of all she has going on…

she is Cassandra’s familiar, she is simultaneously a pet and a friend and a servant and a family to a goddexx that is simultaneously her owner and friend and creator and parent and her god and reason to be—Kalina’s relationship to Cassandra is hard to put a name or label on (since what does being a familiar even mean?) but the bottomline is that this cat loves her deity enough to put everything and everyone on the line for her…

And adding in that she is a child of divorce. So to speak. I am extremely normal and haven’t been driven mad by the detail that baby itty bitty kitty Kalina was at Cassandra’s wedding to Ankarna and is remembered to have been toddling after her as she walked down the aisle…

Kalina will be the death of me /lh

[astrarche-x]

thinking about how we never have an actual flashback from the Ouyang clan execution and how that adds to the unreliability of Ouyang's narrative about his life and death. [sorry, long rant incoming bc i have feels]

Especially in regards to the scene when Ouyang is tasked with execution of Zhang Jr.: he thinks that he willingly chose to avenge his father and to bear the suffering of his fate when he was 10. But did he?

''He was giving him a chance for his death to have meaning. He should be grateful", he thinks in regard to Zhang Jr. So did he himself just stay alive for his death to have meaning? Or - what I suspect - did he just invent all this a posteriori to justify his will to live?

Apart from the fact that the scene with Ouyang killing Zhang Jr. is one of the most memorable in HWDTW for me for the layers that it has, it highlights one of the most fascinating facets of Ouyang: his will to live vs. his deathwish.

Obviously as his whole arc is about falling downhill, we as readers don't see much of the former, while the latter is in abundance especially in HWDTW. But nevertheless this tension is very much there.

As I said, we don't see - even through Ouyang's eyes - what went down that fateful day of the massacre; did he really beg for his life to avenge his family or just for the sake of it. But personally - I'm betting for the latter. Like, come on, he was 10 AND - more importantly - he DIDN'T know that Chaghan would have him castrated as he begged for mercy. He had no idea what the consequences would be. He might have thought about revenge; it's evident that even at 10 yo, the masculine ideals were already drilled into him. But he DIDN'T choose that with full awareness; it's something he told himself over the years to justify his will to live.

And I think this is the deepest root of his shame: that he so desperately wanted to live he could do anything. Him being an eunuch was shameful too, but not so much as the fact that he PREFERS it to being dead. This is what Chaghan calls him out on and this is why the scolding is such a turning point (something I didn't catch at first): Ouyang realizes that if he wants to live free of shame and justify his existence, he must have his revenge. But to do that - ironically - he must destroy himself.

The excuse he came up with over the years to make up for his will to live is that he is a tool of revenge; he is allowed to exist as long as he is this tool. Where the tragedy lies is that he never allowed himself to imagine that he could exist after his revenge is complete. Which is, I think, part of the reason why it took him so long to start plotting it: he wanted to live. He wanted to be with Esen. (The passage "He felt a surge of hatred towards the monk. [...] Without him, how much longer might Ouyang have had with Esen?" is one of the most heartbreaking in SWBTS imo). And I think that deep down he didn't even think his revenge was actually doable.

"[...] the monk had triggered the start of his journey towards his purpose. He couldn’t find it in himself to be grateful. It felt like a violation. A theft of something he hadn’t been ready to give up. Not innocence, exactly, but the limbo in which he could still fool himself that other futures were possible."

I think that these ''other futures'' were futures in which the opportunity for revenge never came; not so much as in ''his enemies were dead by other means'', but as in "Ouyang kept waiting but he just didn't get to meet the Khan" etc. And I think that in his mind, it would have been the best possible option - he could keep on living, waiting for the opportunity that somehow never came, but hey, his excuse of being a tool for revenge was still valid, right?? nobody could tell him that he didn't want it or forgot! he just didn't have the opportunity! oh, such bad luck, sorry not sorry. (And one day he would have died on the battlefield, possibly in Esen's arms, and it would be the best life he could have imagined).

But Zhu gives him the opportunity and he feels he must act on it, which means that his excuse for existing will soon be no longer valid, and it makes him so angry. I still don't get why he couldn't imagine a life after revenge; possibly because despite everything he LIKED this life - or, at least, liked it more than the alternative. Revenge meant destroying everything he enjoyed: his life as a general of the Yuan, and - more importantly - Esen. He probably didn't imagine a life for himself after revenge not only because he thought himself a tool to be discarded, but also because he didn't see in there anything worth living for. And this is when his deathwish comes in. It practically appears as soon as Esen is dead; and the rest is history, with Ouyang's ''I have to live because I must have my revenge and I sacrificed too much for it to walk away now!". But still, it strikes me how at the beginning of SWBTS he's clinging to life as he knows it despite it not being ideal, and how in HWDTW he is awaiting death eagerly.

And - circling back to Zhang Jr. - this is why Ouyang kills the boy: for Zhu it might have been tying up loose ends, but Ouyang at this point sees that staying alive wasn't worth it. He does what is better for the boy in his opinion; he even lets him die with honour, something he himself wants. He wishes he had chosen death all these years ago.

[ohboi]

since my brain is in multifandom mode right now...

Savage Opress 🤝🏽 Sevika

losing their left arms due to their undying loyalty

[334iwatchshit]

unfortunately, they could never make me hate you Katsuki Bakugo

[outlying-hyppocrate]

modern adaptation of dorian gray except they make dorian's and basil's artist / muse relationship even more homoerotic

[gelarshiesprofruitboarder]

look, look at that girl /ref

[aquareegia]

thinking about that one person on twitter like a year ago, who was unironically 100% sure that Will Ramos is Vessel. bless their heart, i hope they're doing well.

[longagoitwastuesday]

I finally met Nanami

[halifaxafterdark]

I haven't had the energy to draw in forever but I was going back through my refs folder and found all these Desmonds I made in picrew like 7-8 years ago? I wish I still had the link, I tried to find it but no luck... will add if I find it!

I still really like them though and feel they capture him better than any time I've tried to draw him myself or make him in another creator (sims, elden ring, BG3) so I just wanna post these here because it's been so long since I've posted any of my ocs - under a cut for length

plus some bonus Jess at the bottom <3

They just really capture his Gremlin energy, yanno?

Bonus from the trial (he was Prince for 3 months after blood-bonding the Prince to become Seneschal (for attention) but then she disappeared under mysterious circumstances which he actually genuinely had nothing to do with so now he's just in terminal debt to the city)

And bonus sad baby Jess... she's shy so she doesn't get made or drawn as much (actually started a run of BG3 with her too and she's just like "Mm. No, thank you.")

[faceeeeee]

Jax is very gay to me but if they ever cave and give him a wife i hope shes really butch and stinky. You know. To contrast his twinkish charms. I hope shes the strongman of the circus too. Hes the side of a cell phone compared to her.

As much as I enjoy some of the different ships people come up with I always interpret them as alternate/ hypothetical situations and I don't really think he should have a canon partner (also given by the fact that goose herself said that there will be no romance in the series).So in regards to this hypothetical ship....

It's still kind of a funny thought but I don't think it would really work?? I would agree if Jax was a snobby know it all with an ego the size of the universe and that could make for some interesting interactions with a 3 meter titan of a gal that towers over him and grabs him around (think of "My girlfriend is an orc warlord" by Marko Raassina). Then I would be all for it but because I see Jax as a real piece of shit who craves for control I think this supposed gal would punch the ever living shit out of him.

[tethrarisms]

I'm so normal about Varrichawke....

[katsmtmsdoodles]

"Were there ever two twins more different in all of Lyssia?"

(I know the wereworld fandom died in 2016 but where you at??)

[sheisbeautyweareworldass]

when patroclus killed hector’s brother and he fell in the field and patroclus made a whole speech about how troy should be full of good divers based on how cebriones’ body dived from the carriage to the floor 😭😭 he was such a menace oh god