#--; they really just rebellion and rebellion and rebellion

[monamipencil]

when strawberries bloom (teaser)

“When the strawberries bloom, I'll be by your side.”

premise. mingyu is content with his life in the capitol as a victor, although he's haunted by the images of the nightmare he lived ten years ago. but all that comes to an abrupt stop, when he discovers that you—his greatest demise had been alive all this time.

content. hunger games! au, victor! mingyu, f! reader, pseudo major character death, hints of trauma, mingyu is a blink away from alcohol poisoning, capitol shenanigans, mentions of og hunger games characters, this is set in the period of second rebellion, slow burn, jealousy, both of them are in denial, fight scenes, friends to lovers (?) to strangers to enemies (it's one sided) to ???, angst, fluff, crack, smut. heavy fruit metaphor, yearning, pining, happy ending.

warnings. will be added in the fic post.

word count. tba.

release date. around december end.

author’s note. this is a part of the ‘catching fire’ collab hosted by @vitaminkyeom. i'm very excited to write this and share with you guys. though i'm barely done with fic, i thought i'd put out as a teaser to fuel me to finish it. and pls feel free to come to my inbox and scream abt this fic <33 send an ask to be added to the taglist !

Mingyu controls a deep sigh as yet another woman presses herself against him in the name of dancing. He fakes his gaze, pretending to be enamoured. The strong perfume she’d used makes his head throb, and irritate his nostrils. 

The woman whispers sultrily, “I can’t believe I got you all to myself tonight.”

She flutters her eyelashes at him, her hands playing with the tie of his masquerade mask. It only covers the lower half of his face—a skillfully sculpted skull mask, lined with golden chains. He avoids looking at her, eyes darting all over the room to find something to fixate on. 

His lack of attention doesn’t seem to faze the woman as she only steps in closer. He bites his tongue and focuses on the details of the mansion. Gold painting lines the ivory walls that are basked in the dim lights of the party now. Grand, maroon curtains hangs by the arched windows, slightly swaying as the wind flows in. 

Awe turns into confusion which is replaced by disappointment when his eyes land on a glowing liquor fountain. But if he’s really honest, he’s a bit intrigued and his tongue feels dry, aching for the bitter taste of alcohol on it. 

Another shift of his eyes lands on a familiar lady, adorned in a black gown and dancing with an old man. He recognizes you as the lady from the balcony though your face is now obscured with a masquerade mask. Relief floods through his system, if he had to catch another glance at your face, his heart would stop beating once and for all. 

But as Mingyu had discovered long ago, things never really go the way he wishes them to. You turn your head, catching his gaze. Heat floods his cheeks and all the oxygen trickles out his lungs. He sucks in a sharp breath as you maintain eye contact. He doesn’t realise that he had stopped dancing till the woman whines. The sound prickles his skin, sending a shot of annoyance through him. 

All the voices around Mingyu drown out, turning into a mere buzz. A vine wraps around his heart, its thorns puncturing the gentle muscle. He watches as you shift your attention. Your beautiful lips curving into a smile, reacting to whatever the man had said. Your body leaning towards the old gamemaker, drawing attention to your cleavage. Rage courses through his veins along with another feeling. Jealousy. 

The feeling is foreign to him and he can’t even deduce why he’s jealous. Or, he knows why he’s jealous but even that mere idea seems incredulous. Still envy coils in his gut, rattling its tail at him and mocking him. Your eyes land on him again, and his heart skips a beat. 

Just then, the song switches, carrying a seductive note. Soon, the woman is whisked away and not even a second later, you end up in his arms. His hands skate down your silk gown to the small of your back and he pulls you flush against him. The proximity makes your breath hitch and you place your arm on his shoulders, swaying to the notes. Your breaths mingle together, body heat diffusing into one.

Maybe it’s the alcohol in his system or maybe you look too much like her, but he doesn’t find it in himself to care. With a sudden craving of intimacy, he holds you tight against him and the other intertwines with your left hand as you both sway to the flowing music. 

Any rational thought is chucked out his mind. The more he looks into your eyes, the more you look like her. In contrast to his prior wish, he wants your mask gone now. It obscures most of your face, cutting off near your right cheekbone to expose your right eye. 

He brushes stray hair aside. His soft, manicured nail beds caress the exposed skin off your face. You tighten your hold on him, doe eyes staring up at him with something he can’t pinpoint. His heartbeat quickens, a strange nostalgia permeates the air. Mingyu swears that this has happened before, a sense of deja vu fills his veins. 

Before he could comprehend his own actions, he undoes your mask. The sultry note tunes out into nothingness and the world seems to have stopped spinning. The mask hits the ground with a clank that gets muffled in the shock of the revelation. 

And there stands Kim Mingyu with his long lost lover and best friend who’s supposedly dead. 

You mirror his expression, horror staining your face as you shuffle to retrieve your mask. All while he stands still, going over the millions of possibilities. Why and how are you alive? Or is this a sick joke that someone is trying to play on him? 

You try to slip away from him, but he catches your hand, stopping you in your tracks. His grip tightens when you try to pull your hand away. His fingers brush over a bump on your skin, drawing attention to it. His eyes land on a scar that runs from the palm of your left hand to your wrist. 

Just then, you free yourself from his grip and escape into the bustling crowd of the party, leaving him alone. Though the mansion is filled with hundreds of citizens, an impermeable bubble seems to surround him—as if no one had witnessed what had occurred. It makes Mingyu question whether you’re real or if he made you up, like a mad man. 

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[ferrarifinnick]

WHO WANTS TO BE A DADDY | THE HUNGER GAMES HEADCANON

i absolutely loved exploring this with thg boys. we only ever really see katniss’ opinion on parenthood in the books, and it was so much fun exploring these perspectives. also i know everyone hates gale but honestly he’s so fun to write for. moody and stoic. just how i like ‘em!

set post-rebellion. if they want kids + how many/genders that suits them best.

includes: gale, finnick, peeta

warnings: none

gale would absolutely want to be a father, but just not for some time after the rebellion is won and over. i can see him moving back to the new district 12, building a new house for you both to live in, far away from the ruins he watched go up in flames. i think this would be his project for a while. it would be his way to grieve the loss of his old life, while focussing on building a new one. with you. i can see this being therapeutic for him, and i can see his younger siblings helping him with painting the walls and his mother cooking a meal for you to eat together once the project is complete. and as gale is eating in your new home with his family, i think he would realise that he no longer has to provide for them like he has since his dad died. they will be alright without him now, and he can finally live a life of his own. after his family goes back to their new home, i think he would finally tell you that he’s ready and wants to start this new chapter right away. but most importantly, he wants to start it with you.

i think gale would shine best with two boys, partly because he can fill the void his father’s death left in him, and to turn them into better men than he was growing up.

i’m going to defy canon and say that finnick doesn’t really have a preference. i think his attitude would be that if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. it would be something he’d like fate to decide, i think. after all, finnick is much more interested in all things you than about what you can or can’t give him. but that’s not to say he wouldn’t be completely overcome with excitement if you did happen to fall pregnant. i think he would occasionally wonder what your baby would look like, if it would have your eyes or his smile, and he’d spend a lot of his free time thinking of names that incorporate your favourite flowers and colours, just in case. but if you didn’t ever fall pregnant, i can see him being equally content in taking the number one spot on the list of people that you love.

finnick is definitely great with kids. i think he’d shine best as a girl dad or as the fun uncle katniss and peeta’s kids see occasionally for holidays.

peeta has three priorities in life: propose to you, marry you, and then have beautiful babies with you. plural, because peeta has so much love for you that it couldn’t possibly be contained to just you. no, he needs extensions of you, so that he can share his love with them, too. i think peeta would take his role as a husband and father incredibly seriously, and that would include cooking every meal for your family, organising family game nights every week, etc. but he would even do little things like filling up a vase with fresh flowers every week for you, crafting his own stories to read to your kids every night (and he’d definitely make a picture book to go along with it), and really taking the time to meet the emotional needs of your family. most of all, he wants to make the kind of loving family that he wished for but never had.

he would do best as a father to at least one girl and one boy, if not more. he would definitely make saturday mornings a baking day, with you and the kids helping to bake some treats for game night later that day.

lmk what other headcanons you’d like to explore. like, comment, reblog. love <3

[eurydicees]

re what they are saying about fiyero on twitter - gosh there is too much stuff. they talk about how uninteresting he is, how his presence has no effect on the leads, how he shouldn’t be elphaba’s endgame and doesnt deserve to be, how they want to delete him from the plot (somewhere along those line), how they want to block anyone making any fiyeraba or fiyero tweets or content and much, much, MUCH more like i genuinely do not understand the obsession?

i of course get not liking him, thats normal about any character lol but the way they just cannot shut up about how they dislike him is so….. like really no one is challenging your gelphie content 😭 we really are not interested to challenge your ship. you really dont need to focus on this guy 24/7 but ig you do you i hope they remain sane amidst all the apparent misery lol

well. you know. disappointed by not surprised. a partial fiyero ted talk under the cut. sorry.

it's like. it's just so frustrating to write him off as uninteresting and as having no effect on either elphaba (or glinda). like guys why is the media literacy not happening right now. also how the fuck would you delete him from the plot???? guys his plan is literally how elphaba escapes dorothy. he's the one who saves her from the gale force, TWICE. he literally sacrifices himself for her escape and its his sacrifice that makes her spiral into "wickedness" during no good deed.

also, fiyero is elphaba's endgame in part because he does what glinda cannot bring herself to do. WHICH IS SO VITAL TO THE ENDING. fiyero is the one who makes all of the sacrifices for elphaba that glinda refused, and he both pays the price for it and reaps the reward of it.

glinda and elphaba have a profound effect on each other, obviously, but it's not like fiyero is left unchanged by elphaba. i dont get where this idea that fiyero and elphaba have no dynamic because like??? that's just not true?????

fiyero goes from refusing to confront the difficulties of life to choosing the more difficult path for the sake of morality and loyalty and love because of elphaba (which is also really interesting given how he's, like, kind of a casualty of war in the book more than he is an actual rebel....mostly fiyero's book to musical adapation is #Rough but that's a cool parallel i hadn't noticed before).

glinda begins to see the flaws in the wizard's society, but she actively chooses to be a part of the system anyway. and she regrets it. that's the whole thing abt thank goodness!!!

fiyero, on the other hand, begins to see the flaws in this society and he chooses elphaba--and the life of rebellion that she's chosen--over everything that glinda admits to being unable to resist.

and GOD. guys that's so interesting. HES SO INTERESTING!!! how are you not interested by all of this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wicked is such a cool study on morality and what the "right" thing to do in such a world is, and what it means to make the decision to do the right thing vs the comfortable thing. fiyero chooses to follow elphaba and he pays the price, but he also doesn't regret it. glinda chooses the "safe" option--but in the end, even if she chooses good then, she's entirely alone in it all.

and that's SO INTERESTING!!!!!!!!! god. whatever. twitter just doesn't get him like you and me get him, anon.

just. it's totally fine to dislike him! i'm not refuting people's right to dislike him. the nature of fictional characters is that sometimes people will dislike them. like that's fine.

but being incapable of shutting up about how much you hate a character just...it stops being "harmlessly disliking a fictional character" and starts being "you are insufferable to talk to." like sorry you're so miserable about fiyeraba but i'm gonna be over here just having fun because that's what fandom is supposed to be about :)

(also, just a major issue with breaking this movie up into two films released a year apart is that any movie-only fans just don't get the point of fiyero's character. it's kind of devastating. ik not all of the people saying that stuff are movie-only but man. the people who are...im BEGGING you to give him a chance in part 2. literally BEGGING you. fiyero is such a good character. he has so many good moments. let the green girl go lives in my head rent free and if they cut that i'll riot.)

tldr; fiyero is SO neat and twitter is just full of cowards.

[lumitradora]

i will absolutely elaborate onto this!

since 2020 when the first season was all we had, people have been comparing the owl house’s story set-up to h*rry p*tter due to classic tropes, but i think it aligns much more one-to-one with the wicked/oz universe, especially without the problematic elements of the former’s world-building.

of course there’s lumity being an obvious parallel to gelphie — i mean, seriously, GREEN! even though amity mirrors galinda rather than elphaba 💚💚💚 — but aside from that, belos very clearly takes the wizard’s role by suppressing/banning usage of magic in the demon realm and oppressing its inhabitants. then luz becoming a wicked (wild? the double-‘w’! 👀) witch isn’t that far-fetched when a) she’s following eda’s footsteps, and b) the plot’s uprising really kicks into play during the latter half of s2 and all of s3.

i would actually argue the scene in the first episode, “a lying witch and a warden”, when luz frees the prisoners of the conformatorium and encourages them to live in rebellion to the rules (indirectly referencing the lyrics “i’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game”), matches quite well with casting that spell on the monkeys and evolving them from/into spies.

also, i remember back before 2021, fans were speculating how amity would react to what went down during eda’s almost-petrification and how corrupt the whole system was after it had been her lifelong dream to join the emperor’s coven. we weren’t sure if they would be at odds, so for a wicked au it would make perfect sense for their paths to go separate ways on good terms, i.e. with the whole “so though i can’t imagine how, i hope you’re happy right now” & “i hope you’re happy, now that you’re choosing this” & “i really hope you get it, and you don’t live to regret it” when it comes to amity staying compliant — something that initially wouldn’t have been that out-of-character for her, considering her initial lack of stand-up action in “escaping expulsion” due to fear of taking that leap.

so now i wonder how much inspiration dana took from wicked as someone who only just got into the franchise after watching the movie yesterday. i would love to learn it’s at least partly intentional!

dear fandom, please consider:

Lumity Wicked AU / Lumity Wicked cosplay (@ fanartists please fulfill my dreams if you want)

Luz and Amity singing Loathing together

Luz taking Amity to see Wicked in the human world and Amity is just like 😳 the whole time

Amity singing "I'm Not That Girl" to herself when she's feeling her crush blues, yknow, for the angst

Luz and Amity singing "For Good" when Luz has to go back home

Lumity is just a (hopefully) happier version of Gelphie, change my mind

But then again, they are both lowkey Fiero - protective of each other, willing to go against social norms and conventions for each other

Feel free to add onto this

[esoteric-crow]

hey actually isn’t there something kind of really sad about the fact that the hardest difficulty (that isn’t just like. hell or hell. which is just ‘haha hehe Blow up.’) is called Dante Must Die. i think about it a lot. i can’t quite put my finger on why it makes me miserable but maybe someone else can.

but you know what i CAN talk about and i DO have actual fully formed thoughts about?

regenerating like crazy is great. but isn’t there something kind of inherently fucked up about the fact that, because of the regeneration dante and vergil have, neither of them will ever have tangible evidence to themselves or others of their suffering? asking themselves, was it really that bad? did it even happen at all? no matter how much you put vergil through hell and how afraid he is inside, there will never be a mark on his skin that says “i have suffered”. the world leaves no proof, nothing to take home from this experience aside from a more broken mind. vergil doesn’t say his feelings, or even allow them to surface properly, because that’s a kind of vulnerability he cannot handle. the only way he could perhaps earn someone’s sympathetic care is by expressing what he has suffered through, but he cannot verbalize that. and he looks perfect. unmarked by time or trauma. there isn’t a single part of his body that could scream out for him that something horrible has happened that he cannot figure out how to deal with alone.

and dante is just as poor off. and he’s very difficult to figure out emotionally to a passerby. dante purposefully puts on a happy face every day, and to the majority of the world, it’s convincing. there’s certainly no evidence to themselves contrary. not a scratch on him. but he is like kind of constantly getting the ever loving fuck beat out of him. stabbed and jabbed. when you look at him, you see happy, sweet, goofy dante. for all the years of pain he’s gone through, there isn’t a single marred inch of his skin that could tell you even a day of the agony unless he told you. and why would dante do that when he can pretend it simply isn’t happening until he’s alone and can sit with the terror that’s constantly in him and the loss he’s been living with, over and over losing people and being surrounded by the ghosts of their presence. whether the ghost is a wayward descendent, a gun, or just a lingering smell of ash in his childhood home. but that will only be private. he can be the walking dead, he can treat himself like shit, but his body refuses to show anything for it. and he’s certainly not going to die.

obviously, the same thing can be said for the opposite side of the spectrum: scars can be a constant reminder in the mirror of what happened that you cannot erase, always to some degree a part of you. among other stuff. so both sides of the coin are full of The Pains and The Anguishes.

on a side note, i really like when people give them like, one scar. i don’t really have a favorite one that people give vergil but i really like dante with just the one bigass gnarly one in the middle of his abdomen from the rebellion gettin jammed in there. his One scar. a treate. like it defies his regeneration somehow.

i love making a scarred up guy. i have plenty of scars n marks myself, and i feel like they should definitely be more normalized, so like, no this post isn’t anti scars or something. they’re normal and not ugly or whatever the hell people try to say. this side note is probably entirely unnecessary, but i’m tired and i’m worried about someone misunderstanding me i think. anyway i’m trying to say ooh scar angst yeah but sometimes No scars is also fucked up too. that’s the point here.

to sum up: i believe there can be something Fucked Up and angsty to be said about the fact that the sparda boys heal perfectly fine, but only externally. it is 3am. this is not articulated as well as it could be i don’t think. aaaand post.

[romanology]

tropes i plan to make jegulus fics out of

hitman (James) vs target (Regulus) Regulus is some sort of important figure like a politician or a CEO and James absolutely hates everything Regulus' business stands for, so he and his rebellion called the Marauders (which Sirius isn't in) decide that they're going to kill Regulus to send a message. But when they storm the building and when James runs upstairs to hold Regulus at gunpoint, he doesn't expect Regulus to be so young. It was as though he'd been thrust into this job. But as soon as a sentence comes out of Regulus' mouth, James realises just how wrong he was. Also enemies to lovers because obviously.

gentleman thief (James) vs corrupted detective (Regulus) 'Come on, don't you want to join the dark side?' 'I accept bribes. I'm already on the dark side, moron.' 'Harsh words from a guy with a pistol.' 'I can literally see your gun in your pocket.' 'Are you sure that's a gun, Detective?' '...shut the fuck up.' Rivals???? to (reluctant) friends to lovers

soulmates destined to kill each other When your souls are bound together, you feel trapped. There's nothing except the title of soulmate on your head. Like the blade of a guillotine hanging over your neck. Nobody can handle it for long. But Regulus seems so sweet. Why would anyone want to kill him?

lovers to friends to strangers Sometimes, things just don't work out. And that's okay. Regulus didn't really expect to stay with James forever. He saw how James sometimes looked at Lily. Regulus looked at Barty the same way too, sometimes. But no matter. They didn't work out. It's okay. They can still be friends, of course.

reverse hanahaki disease Instead of coughing up flowers, people would instead go into a zombie-like state where they start gorging themselves on flowers instead.

one-sided hatred + holiday fic 'James Potter? Is that the overly pretentious Chaser on the Quidditch team? Gryffindor, yeah? God. I hate him. He's awful.' 'Regulus Black? Oh, yeah, he's my best friend! My boyfriend, if my confessing to him this Christmas works out! <3' 'Sorry, James said he was going to what??'

WELL. I was going to add more but I can't find more tropes to twist into my weird mind. Anyhow. Which one do you think you'd read! ^^

[midnightwind]

Summary: A summons home with an air of unease. Viago's talks are always a unique agony as a de Riva.

Warnings: if you aren't okay with stabbing, violence, and poisoning, pass this by

Word count: 2367

~◇~

Renn

Return to the Nest. No eyes.

Viago

She creased the corner of the short letter on loop, folding and unfolding it, brows furrowed. It had been a very long time since Viago had summoned her like this. Granted, usually she was just a room away and he could send a servant or come himself when she was needed. Being barred from bringing anyone likely meant it was de Riva business. No eyes meant no watchers, no one waiting, no one knowing. Did he have a lead on the traitors? Were they within her own House or was this a precaution because the Diamond was compromised? Given the state of Treviso and the country at large, the chance of it being a large contract felt slim. She was already on a job, anyways, he wouldn’t burden her with a second like that.

A heavy sigh slipped free and she chewed her lip. Telling no one she was leaving felt like a terrible idea. What if the gods made a move while she was gone? If the group needed the lyrium dagger and she wasn’t there… She ran a hand through her hair almost frantically, squeezing her eyes shut as she warred with herself. She could tell Lucanis, he was a Crow, he would keep the secret. He would respect the rules. But she had already broken the rules once for him and doing it a second time caused an ugly feeling to curl in her stomach, all sharp edges and claws. She had kept quiet about Spite out of shared sympathy. This was House business and he wasn’t a de Riva. Her hand snatched a sheet of paper she kept for letters, penning a quick note.

Personal errand, will be back soon! Keep this safe in the meantime.

-R

Vague enough, left out on her table in the open, and with the ringed hilt of the lyrium dagger left atop meant it was impossible to miss. She hoped. By the time they started looking for her, she’d be back, surely. Now she just had to sneak into the Eluvian room and make it to Treviso without incident. About a fifty-fifty chance on the Crossroads having hulking brutes rampaging through the market when she passed through. The Maker had gifted her quite the lucky streak, afterall. She changed into her usual leathers, unease settling over her like a second skin. She hadn’t really been out alone in a long time. After Viago had sent her away, she always had Varric or Harding. Then it was always some variation of company from the ragtag team she had assembled. It almost felt wrong not having someone following along behind her.

Shaking herself once, she crept silently from her chambers. No one was lingering on the balcony for a blessing, but she forwent the stairs, opting instead to lower herself directly from the upper platform to the steps below. There was a quiet scuff as she landed and she held her breath, ears straining. If someone had been in the main room, they could have heard it. Pressed into the shadows and taking quick steps, she didn’t wait to see if someone was coming to investigate. The Eluvian room felt emptier, more intimidating alone. A tall monolith looming over her. She swallowed that fear and passed through. It was a quiet walk to the Treviso mirror, the Caretaker not making a comment on her lack of escort. It made her wonder if Solas wandered off like this, too, during the rebellion. It had her stomach doing a sickening flip.

She pulled her hood low to her eyes as she passed through the mirror, just another Crow in the gathered masses at the Diamond. Taking to the rooftops, she arrived at the de Riva apartments shortly after her feet touched Trevisan brickwork. The window to Viago’s office was ajar, inviting, and that made her frown. It was meant for her, that much was obvious based on the letter, but that unease lingered. Dark curtains were drawn over the egress, sending up a cloud of dust as she swung inside. Muffled coughs announced her presence to the Talon long before she stepped in front of his desk. His eyes were fixed on bundles of what she assumed were contracts, neat piles of information and receipts organized on the tabletop. He didn’t look up.

“Clumsy entrance.”

She half shrugged. “Haven’t had to sneak through a window in a while.”

A disapproving scoff was her only answer before he waved a hand towards the window. “Close it.”

Mutely she obeyed, a finality to the action as the wood thudded into place.

“Have you been keeping up with your daily doses?” He shuffled the page he had been reading to the back of the pile in front of him.

“Uh,”  she started awkwardly, blindsided by the direction of the conversation, “more or less. Some concoctions are hard to find while on the move like I was. I’ve had to take smaller doses of the rarer brews since returning. But… you didn’t have me come here in pure secrecy to ask about my poison habits, right?” A weak half smile jumped to her lips.

“A simple wonder.” He placed a palm flat over the stack of papers he had been reading, finally looking up. “One of many. Mirenna, am I a mark to you?”

The question had been uttered with a frigid edge that had every alarm bell in her mind screeching. It was the sharp danger she remembered from their early days together, the voice he had used in their training when she was too weak to pass a test. It was a knife to the heart and she felt a cold sweat coming on.

“I don’t-”

“Don’t play coy with me, child.” His voice was a whip, stealing her breath.

She swallowed thickly. “Vi, I really don’t know…” She felt lightheaded, hand clenching and unclenching next to her mageknife. Her heart was hammering against her ribs so hard she felt it would leave bruises.

He rose to his feet with a serpentine grace, slow and fluid. Dangerous. “Lucanis Dellamorte.” She felt ice in her veins as he took measured steps around the desk. “Imprisoned for a year by Zara Renata, known blood mage and Venatori leader. The Ossuary was her personal laboratory. Notes and remains recovered speak of experiments to foster demonic possessions to create more powerful abominations.” He circled her slowly, coming to a stop mere inches from her face. “But you knew that already.”

Not a question, stating the obvious. Her knees felt weak. “I…” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I wanted to be sure first. After my last job, I didn’t want to waste your time-”

“No.” He cut her off sharply, his voice quivering with rage. “You wanted to protect him. Be it because you fancied him, felt sorry for him, or have proper malice for this House, I don’t know. But you lied to me, Mirenna. To me.”

If she hadn’t spent most of her life learning to fight by his hand, been taught each strike and cut of a knife under his instruction, she wouldn’t have been fast enough to deflect his blade. She had to catch his offhand with her own hand, flesh meeting blade. He hadn’t given her enough time to summon her orb. Her backstep was cut short, years of training her giving him every tell and shortcoming she had as he hooked a leg behind hers and pulled. She tried to turn the fall, to twist in the air, but he snatched the front of her leathers in a fist, pushing her forcefully into the floor. He had a knife to her throat, knee pinning her chest, and his face a cold mask of indifference. She whimpered.

“Was this a solitary betrayal or have you been working against the House this entire time?” The words were calculated, all emotion drained from them.

A wheezing breath slipped free. “Viago, I didn’t mean-”

“Are you working alone against this House?” The knife bit deep enough to draw blood.

She could feel tears stinging her eyes, her heart breaking. Her voice was a hoarse whisper, wavering. “I am not a traitor.”

There was no warning of the strike. The dagger was pressed to her neck one second and then buried deep in her shoulder in the next. Her training allowed only a quiet choking noise in place of a scream, the pain white hot and blinding. Unbidden, her body reached for the Fade in self defense. She wanted to shout a warning to him as the familiar connection was made, unable to stop the electric swell of her magic, but there was an agonizing twist in her lungs instead. The magic was a screaming fury in her veins, molten fire replacing her blood. He almost had a look of pity in his eyes as she writhed.

“A clean entrance would have spared you that torture.” For a moment, he was simply her teacher again, no malice or disappointment in the words. Simple fact to teach a lesson.

She wanted to laugh. That hadn’t been dust. Viago would never have his home be that unkempt, she should have known better. Instead a choking wheeze slipped free, a smile that was more bared teeth than mirth on her lips. It all hurt.

“Did Dellamorte put you up to this?” He slipped so easily back into interrogating her.

“No,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears slipping free, “I was scared.”

The pressure on her shoulder lightened slightly. “That’s not enough, Mirenna.”

She struggled for a moment to pull in enough air to speak. He simply waited. “Wouldn’t have been fair.” Shallow breaths wheezed out the words. “His secret.”

“Is your loyalty to House Dellamorte or House de Riva?” He was leaning on the dagger once more and this time it dragged a low keening from her.

“To you.”

His eyes narrowed. “Still not enough.”

“Didn’t want to tell you.” Her teeth were grit as if she could cage the confession behind them. “Solas used blood magic. He’s in my dreams. Felt too similar.”

Through the haze of agony, she caught the brief flash of horror across his face. His weight disappeared and she pulled in a shivering breath. It left her in a painful fit of coughing, but she didn’t move otherwise. He paced twice from her to the desk and back. A manic energy seemed to hum in his veins. Distantly she could hear the sound of crumpling paper as he clawed hands onto the desk.

“I’m taking you off the contract.”

“Too late, Vi.” She was trying to smile again, a twisted facsimile. “No one else can do this. Too deep.”

“I am your Talon.” Swift and sharp, like a crack of thunder. “You work the contracts I say. You walk away when I say.”

Her head lolled slightly to the side. “Can’t put Solas in anyone else’s mind. That’s beyond you. Crossroads won’t know your next agent. Team won’t trust them. You’d doom the world.”

Something crashed to the floor, glass breaking. “Damn it, Renn, I sent you away to keep you out of trouble.”

“Trouble finds me.” She whispered.

A long silence stretched between them, the only sound her labored breaths. Faintly she could hear a drawer being opened, bottles being shuffled as he rummaged inside it. When he loomed over her suddenly she tried to smile. He dumped a vial into her mouth as her reward. Part of her wondered if he was simply done with her, the final draught he would gift. She swallowed it anyway. He was gone in the next breath and she simply laid on the floor waiting to see if death came to visit. The agony in her veins slowly burned away, leaving her with the throb of the knife in her shoulder. Slowly, achingly, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her leg felt bruised from his strike, throat stinging from the knife, shoulder agony, body aching from the poison, hand screaming. But she was alive.

He was sitting at his desk again, his head resting in one hand as he poured over his paperwork. “Get out.”

She lingered on the floor, letting the pain settle into her bones, until he looked up just enough for her to see his eyes. They were sharp, furious, but in the depths, buried deep, there was guilt. He blamed himself for giving her the job, didn’t he? Her laugh was a wheezing bark, tears streaming down her cheeks before she could stop them. It was never supposed to be this messy, but wasn’t that the story of all her jobs? Swaying to her feet, she dragged herself to his desk. Wrapping a hand around the hilt of his dagger, she pulled it out steadily and deposited it on the nearest stack of papers. Ruby red blood spread like greedy fire across the parchment. With a half bow, she saw herself out through the door.

A trail of blood followed her through the apartments and out into the streets. There was a ground entrance she could use in the Diamond, a long climb along stairs back to the mirror, but it would be easier than the ziplines and trellises. She was maybe halfway back when a familiar shadow dropped from the rooftops next to her. She gave him a bright smile as he pulled his hood down.

“Oh, I think I know you.” She swayed on her feet as Lucanis braced her with a hand on her good shoulder.

“Rook, what happened? We’ve been tearing the Lighthouse apart trying to find you.” His concern was almost absent as he pulled at her leathers to examine her wound. He sucked air through his teeth. “Mierda, that’s deep.”

“Hmm, Viago doesn’t hold back.” She could feel a sob trying to claw up her throat. “He found out I lied.”

His face fell into a grim understanding. He ducked under her good arm, wrapping the other around her waist. “Let’s get you home.”

A wheezing laugh shook her shoulders as she leaned heavily against him. “I’d settle for the Lighthouse instead, I think.”

[mumms-the-word]

Notes on a Caretaker

I find something about this note so fascinating. Every time I pick it up or scroll back around to it I have to sit with it and just...linger, trying to understand it.

So this is my attempt to break it down and sort through my thoughts about this note, which I think is so obviously from Solas. I think it hints not only to his spirit background, but also his perspective on the path he feels is set before him. Which, idk, is cool!

Mini analysis under the cut! Also a lot of Veilguard spoilers!

This note has a smear of paint on one corner: Have they always been here? There are beings in the Crossroads unknown even to the wise, though the most ancient ones make any domain their own. Certainly, this Caretaker belongs here now.

We’re led to believe this note must be from Solas because of the smear of paint. And I would argue the paint perhaps clues us in to when this might have been written. No doubt Solas was painting murals when he was running around as the Rebel Fen'Harel, since we see some of them in Trespasser, but I think he painted the murals in the Lighthouse after he left the Inquisition (in part because we have that last mural where he kills Flemythal, and he left his paint pallet in the music room after recreating the Inquisition murals there). So it could go either way, but...

I can just imagine Solas, lost in the throes of his regrets, painting his sins on the walls of the library and his memories of the Inquisition in the music room, finally noticing the Caretaker who has arrived, or perhaps was always there. Perhaps he pauses to consider the nature of the Caretaker, and the mystery of when it arrived. We find this note in the kitchen/dining area, where Solas still has a single place setting laid out for himself. So perhaps the Caretaker arrived to take care of him?

Or maybe this is a really, really old letter from when Solas first retreated to the Lighthouse and began to use it as his base of operations. How ancient is the Caretaker? Did they arrive to see to the Lighthouse during the days of the rebellions against the Evanuris, or did they arrive later? Did they arrive because they were drawn to the needs of dozens, hundreds of rebels and refugees, or drawn to its echo after they were gone? Which is it?

I personally go back and forth about it, but it's fascinating that the letter subtly supports both perspectives. Anyways!

I wonder what we look like to them. Need is a scaffold, and the needs of the living ever rise and fall upon it. Hunger, thirst, sleep... imagine the constant cacophony to one sensitive to such things.

The "we" suggests maybe this is a much older letter. I can see a much younger Solas leading his rebels to the Lighthouse and contemplating the nature of this Caretaker, worrying about how so many physical bodies in one space might affect a spirit sensitive to physical needs. But I can also see a much more recent Solas pondering this new (or new to him) creature, so I don't know.

Either way, "we" vs. "them." Solas is well and truly part of the living here, as opposed to viewing this all entirely as a spirit. It's like he's wondering what these spirit-born elves, or even mortals in general look like to a spirit like the Caretaker. A spirit whose focus is on needs, surrounded by these elves with physical bodies who now have very real, tangible needs. Hunger, thirst, sleep, things a spirit does not feel. But the Caretaker does, at least, sense these things in others.

The chorus of one person's needs must be a lot, but the cacophony of dozens, hundreds, as there would have been when the Lighthouse was in its prime? No wonder Solas has a moment of concern for this benevolent spirit.

Or am I too simple? Wants are fleeting; needs have deeper roots. Perhaps that's why I find this particular spirit's presence both comforting and disconcerting. The prospect that our heart's desire and our truest need could differ—or are even at odds—is hard to contemplate.

This. This is the most fascinating part of the note.

Or am I too simple? I think this is a hint, super early in the game, that Solas is a spirit. Spirits are the pure manifestations of emotion and thought. Complexity comes with personhood, with being part of the living in the tangible world. But spirits in the Fade (even before the Veil) are always pretty simple.

Solas is grappling with his nature here.

Wants are fleeting; needs have deeper roots. Perhaps that's why I find this particular spirit's presence both comforting and disconcerting.

I wonder if this is Solas struggling a bit with the unique experience of being both spirit and elf, undying but also very much alive, originally intangible but now physical. Wants come with being a spirit—spirits want to see beyond the Veil, if they're curious enough, or Cole as Compassion wants to help, he wants to look like the boy who died in the Spire. But here it's like Solas is suggesting that need is an intrinsically mortal or at least physical thing—something he didn't need to consider much before he had a body.

After all, spirits who don't have purely physical bodies don't seem to have the same needs. Like when Dorian talks with Cole about having a body, despite him not seeming to have physical needs:

Dorian: Do you need to eat, Cole? Or sleep? Cole: I thought I had to. But I don't. The Old Songs can pull me.

Or Blackwall suggesting that now that Cole is more human (if you take that path) the physical needs will likely come up:

Blackwall: So now that you've dealt with the templar, you're a real boy? Cole: Realer. Blackwall: Good enough. I suppose you'll stop looking into people's heads soon? And you might want to look into, I don't know, eating. Cole: Blech.

Often I think Solas struggles with where he stands, what he is, what he can be, what he should be as someone whom was first a spirit and then a person with a physical body. Short of dying, it sounds as though the process of going from spirit to elf is irreversible. He cannot return to the Fade as a pure spirit anymore. After the Veil, he can only return in dreams, at least until he finds ways of tearing through to the Veil to enter physically again.

But time and again he thinks and acts like a spirit with a simpler, focused nature rather than a complicated nature like a person might have. When he asks, Am I too simple? it feels like he’s acknowledging this. Is he too simple, too focused, too spirit to understand the experience of being fully, complexly mortal or physical?

The Caretaker’s presence is both comforting, because Solas knows that his (or others’) needs will likely be tended to, and yet disconcerting because it’s probably weird to even have those needs.

Ah but here we come to my favorite part.

The prospect that our heart's desire and our truest need could differ—or are even at odds—is hard to contemplate.

I’m sure this is hard to contemplate even for a normal person. How often do we struggle with knowing what we want isn’t always what we need? We may want the sugary cake, for example, but our bodies may need the healthier vegetables or fruits instead.

But going deeper, it’s easy to conflate needs and wants when it comes to abstract things. Like, say, vengeance, penance, atonement, or restoration.

Solas wants to repair the mistake he made thousands of years ago by creating the Veil, but he doesn’t need to do that. Yet in his mind, he treats it like a need, with roots so deep he can’t escape being bound up in them.

He wants to honor Mythal, who died because of his mistakes, who died again at his hand, but he doesn’t see that he can let go of that purpose, because somehow this want isn’t fleeting or fading like wants normally do. It sticks around. Therefore it must be more than want, right?

His heart’s desire is for the elven people to be restored, immortal, free, prosperous, and he throws his entire being into making that goal come true, that dream a reality. But he doesn’t see that his truest need is actually to be freed himself. Free from the purpose he’s given himself in the wake of Mythal’s death. Free from a path of vengeance that no one asked him to take, but that he feels obligated to walk.

His truest need, which he can’t see, because he can’t seem to sort through what is more want versus what is more need (and who can really, when they’re in the thick of things?), is not to cling closer to Mythal and honor his friend (or whatever it is they were), but to be freed from any and all entanglements with her.

He doesn’t want to let her go, but he needs to.

But without her around to release him, he clings to his plans to restore the elven people, restore her people, and hope that that will be atonement enough.

I think that’s why in the redemption ending, when we do see Mythal release Solas, he nearly collapses with this mixture of grief and relief. When he finally straightens up again, yes he’s hurting, but he’s the calmest he’s ever been in the entire game. As in, not tense, not plotting, not agitated. You get the sense that he can see or think with clarity now. Perhaps even breathe freely for the first time in ages.

And he finally sees that what he needs to do is not fix his mistakes, if doing so only causes more chaos and heartache and death for thousands or millions around him, but to seek atonement.

I love the line Rook can say when they’re trying to talk him down and make him bind himself to the Veil.

“[Making the Veil collapse] is what you want. Making amends isn’t about what you want.”

It doesn’t convince Solas, because he still doesn’t see removing the Veil as a want. He views it as a need. Not his need, but the world’s need. The world needs to be restored to the way Mythal would have wanted it, or so he believes.

I think that’s why Mythal has to release him before he can see everything clearly. She is the only one who can give him what he needs but does not what—freedom from her service.

It may not be everyone’s favorite choice, but I understand how we get here, especially since we find this letter so early in the game. Whether this letter is Solas from the distant past or the more recent past, it sets up a trajectory that we can trace all the way to the end of the game. And I just find that fascinating.

[vigilskept]

Saw your tags on the last few posts and hard agree! Between the ever present Fen'harel foreshadowing AND Sandal's prophecy AND Mythal's reckoning? It always seemed like the Veil coming down was that proper big bang finish that would rewrite all the rules in a satisfying and interesting way. One of my issues with Veilgaurd is I feel like it took the series' opportunity for a destinct ending away. Personally, I believe good stories end. I don't want 30 DA games in a MCU verse. And now, to have the series end they have to come up with a stopping point that makes more sense than the Veil. Or revisit the Veil. And what would be the point in that when they wasted all the foreshadowing?

yes, exactly!! i felt like i was going insane on my soapbox there, thank you!! it really feels like they ran up against the natural end point for the franchise and just decided to do a little shimmy around it. i just don't see what exactly that achieves except to set up a new, bigger bad which we have no real stake in.

was i curious about the executors prior to veilguard? yes! but i expected them to appear in this game since they clearly had an interest in solas' plans!! not for them to have 3 completely missable interactions followed by the worst idea of a post credit scene i've ever seen. whatever curiosity i had about what they were up to & how the kossith relate to what's across the sea is pretty much gone at this point.

a "shadowy cabal" who's secretly responsible for all of the evil enacted in this world by people in power is not a plot i care to see play out in bioware's hands. it's a stupid, elders of zion ass direction to take things and was not worth trashing over a decade of build up.

there is nowhere they could take that plot thread (already relying on the worst possible trope...) that would give dragon age a more satisfying conclusion than dropping the veil.

it would've resolved or set up a potential resolution for all of the major conflicts that have been established up to now!! (mages under the chantry, tevene class structure/slavery, oppression of elves, the blights, the waking titans, etc. etc. i could go on!)

and with the way veilguard ends... it looks to me like they wanted to somehow get the implied resolutions that would come out of dropping the veil without committing to it. that's why no matter what you do, dorian or mae will become archon and singlehandedly restructure tevinter society. the load bearing piece of "mageocracy can't function if everyone's a mage now" is gone, so we have to have a poorly executed sideplot to resolve this plot thread for us instead...

i'm sure people will feel differently, but i personally would've found it more satisfying if the veil fell and the franchise wrapped up there. for good or ill, it changes everything and we can all have the time of our lives speculating about the Implications thereafter.

if they really wanted to(/needed to promise EA they could) make more games in this setting — they could've gone backwards! there's lots of stories you could tell throughout thedas in the gap between the fifth blight and solas' ritual! there's lots of stories you could tell about the centuries between andraste's rebellion and the fifth blight! there's so much happening in the background here that they've hinted at through codices that if they really wanted more content in this setting, there is so much room to expand on those.

could they set up world shattering events like "tearing down the veil" again? no. but i think that was a very obvious one and done situation, and i don't think anyone came into this franchise expecting their dragon age games to have stakes that apocalyptic until trespasser! i think there absolutely would've absolutely been an audience for a game about the assassination of queen madrigal or the fog warriors' resistance on seheron if they hadn't fumbled this....

[thedreadcandlehop]

Watching the cut scene where the team discusses this particular regret of Solas frustrates me. Honestly most of the cut scenes of about his regrets frustrate me.

At the end of the cut scene of this regret Rooks says: 'Solas has a war on his conscience.' But he doesn't? Was Solas a part of it? Yes. But he didn't start this war all by himself. The earth started shaking when the first elves/spirits took lyrium to make themselves bodies (all the Evanuris and Forgotten Ones, however many there were) and its been made very clear Solas is not a Firstborn but came later.

The Titans didn't wait until Solas made himself a body to fight back. If Solas hadn't made himself a body the war would have began anyway. Solas was one of many elves that took a body at that time. All the elves/spirits that took part in taking lyrium and making themselves a body are to blame for the war between elves and Titans. And it really bothers me how to game makes it sound like Solas himself is the reason and he should shoulder the blame for the war with the titans.

The one thing I do feel like Solas can and should be be rightiously blamed for is creating his dagger to tranquilize the Titans. That is, in my opinion, his greatest crime and the one thing I'm not sure he should ever be forgiven for. Or if forgiveness can be given, it can only come from the dwarves.

In the cut scene after this regret Davrin says he thinks Solas doesn't regret what he did to the Titans but only regrets that it created the Blight. I personally think it's both. In Inquisition if you as Inquisitor sentence someone to be made tranquil Solas very much disapproves each time. I think there was even a conversation somewhere where he does outright says it? I think Solas truly finds making people tranquil very wrong and it probably stems from what he was a part of with the Titans. His dagger tranquilized the Titans and created the Blight and both I think are his greatest regrets.

I love Solas, as a character and as a Lavellan, but I'm not sure he should be forgiven for this. I'm not sure I can roleplay my Lavellen to ever forgive him either. It's too big a crime. It's the one thing I very severely judge him for...

Everything else that happens after is mostly elves fighting amongst eachother and vying for power and wanting to rule and be worshiped. Solas beginning his rebellion should never be something he should be blamed for. He saw tyrants try to raise themselves to godhood (and succeed) and tried to free his people from slavery. He can't be faulted for that. It's damn brave. So blaming him because the Evanuris decided to use the Blight to stop a rebellion? How can anyone see that and think 'Yes, the Evanuris using the Blight is Solas' fault'??!

And it was also brave of him turning to Mythal to try and stop the Evanuris from using the Blight. As far as he knew she could have had betrayed him to the Evanuris. I get that he regrets that it ended with Mythal being murdered but that's not something he caused. The Evanuris are to blame for betraying her and killing her, and acting like Solas is to blame is just the game trying to make the player hate on Solas. Him regretting it because it ended in Mythal's death I understand, but the team acting like he's responsible for her death is very strange. Mythal was betrayed by the Evanuris, not Solas.

And then Solas trying to lock the Evanuris away after Mythal's murder and them actually starting to mess with the Blight is not something anyone should blame Solas for? He did the best he could to stop them. The Evanuris were literally using the Blight and getting corrupted and were making plans to blight the world. But somehow the game wants to make this seem like Solas is evil for the creation of the Veil? Like he destroyed the elven empire on purpose to avenge Mythal? No he didn't! He wanted to lock the Evanuris and the Blight away and the Veil was an accident. (And yes just because something is an accident doesn't mean he's not respeonsible for it, but come on, what's worse? A Blighted world or a world with the Veil?)

I made another post about this once and I really think a blighted world under the full power fo the Blight is far worse than the world with the Veil (remember that most of the Blight is still locked away in the prison during the events of Veilguard, but during Solas' rebellion all the Evanuris had access to the full power of the Blight. That's seven blighted fully powered Evanuris!)

The creationof the Veil was an accident and ended up crumbling the Elven empire. But if he hadn't done what he did, the elven Empire would have been the Blighted Empire and stopped existing anyway.

And Solas killing Mythal? I still have mixed feelings about it. Obviously I understand his regret because he killed a piece of his very much beloved old friend. But on the other hand it's not that Mythal was a beacon of goodness either. One of the team once called Mythal 'the one good god' but I don't think Mythal was good. She wasn't bad like the other Evanuris, but she did want to be worshiped like a god and kept slaves. She convinced her loyal friend to do something she knew he didn't want, convinced him to create the dagger that tranquilized the Titans, and went along with the Evanuris to become a god.

And yes, Solas is the one who made each decision in the end and holds full responsibility for that. I'm not saying he doesnt. What I'm saying is that Mythal carries at least as much responsibility as Solas, if not more. And it bothers me a lot that the team discusses these regrets as if Solas is the only one who carries blame for everything while Mythal get's the be the 'one good god' that got betrayed by Solas, as if she didn't commit the exact same crimes herself.

Mythal is as interesting and complex a character as Solas and should be treated equally. But somehow the game pretends she's a 'good god' and a victim of Solas, while Solas is burdened with each and every crime that is equally Mythal's crime.

Anyway, I do love The Veilguard >< I just have some frustrations with some of the story-telling here and there. And while the regrets explain a lot about Solas and I'm glad we got them so we can better understand him, the way the team is written to react to these regrets is one of my biggest frustrations with The Veilguard.

Before The Veilguard came out I was afraid they'd make Solas too good, and I wanted to see Fen'Harel The Dread Wolf at work. But instead I feel they tried to make him too evil and ignored how nuanced and grey a character he is.

I can't get enough of this game though! It's so good!

Edit: I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this! Maybe I'm missing something? I don't know. I also just want to talk about The Veilguard!

[jess-the-vampire]

Quick question one fan to another. Do you think Phillip knew he was related to Eda & Lilith? And would have knowing about his family made any difference or was he just too far gone?

genuinely? hard to tell

i mean dana claims "Some people do know"

and philip COULD of been one of them, and you could say that's a factor in why eda and lilith are targeted the way they were

but on another hand, you can also kinda sum that up as a result of remembering lilith from his past and therefore disliking her from that, and eda herself being the prime example of rebellion against his authority

there's nothing in the show that concretely proves he knew

especially since a lot of it relies on knowing about what happened with caleb and evelyn, which once again, is left with a lot of wiggle room

like we don't even know if philip actually knew evelyn's last name at all, or if he knew of her or about her long enough for that

when that stuff is all pretty vauge it's just yeahhhhh

if we are to assume Philip knew evelyn was pregnant he would have to be AWARE caleb has witch decedents probably, but he wasn't in power till 50 years ago, so i don't also see how he could keep an eye on caleb's entire family line either for 400 years

also also, maybe philip went after evelyn and said kid, maybe he just...gave up after caleb died and moved onto other things (It's still not even clear how evelyn got his door after all, if we are to assume it's evelyn's doing, because the door appears to be post caleb death)

(Look, i've been over this a few times, this timeline kinda doesn't really make sense, i'm kinda not convinced the crew planned out a proper timeline of events for the wittebanes because there are things that currently kinda don't make sense)

yeah idk, it's kinda left more up to your interpretation, like if you see belos as knowing nothing really proves you wrong

but yeah, nothing proves it right either, philip had plenty of other established reasons to single out lilith and eda outside of that concept.

i don't think it would of made any difference nonetheless, like maybe if philip saw his niece/nephew as more human then witch there could of been a dynamic of him thinking he could "Fix" them, but on another hand philip is shown to not trust anything and anyone who isn't a human like him.

The guy is very much been brainwashed by how he grew up to believe everything he doesn't understand is trying to manipulate him and hurt him, and i don't think any family he may have in the clawthornes would make him see witches differently

honestly i wouldn't be shocked if in his mind, evelyn and caleb having a kid to him is like a demon stealing someone he held dear to use for offspring because of how deluded he is about this stuff

granted, that also depends heavily on how you think philip assumes about the situation, him believing caleb was under a spell and him believing Caleb did everything of his own will have DRASTICLY different implications about why he did what he did.

so yeah, if you're to ask me this is all more of the same "This is kinda supported by canon but is also kinda not" stuff that is kinda all over the wittebane backstory in general

if we ever get that wittebane backstory, they have a lot of clear up here because there's a lot left to interpretation and it's kinda why people have very drastically different opinions on how aspects of this character were handled.

guy should of been destroyed at the end no matter what of course, but

people seeing him as a more tragic unredeemable villian doomed from the beginning due to growing up in extremism as a child and no guidance to pull him out of it so he just got worse and worse, and people who see him as just an asshole who never cared about his brother and was perfectly capable of getting out of his brainwashing is very much a result of leaving a lot of this stuff kinda up to interpretation

[puddingforg]

Can... can I maybe beg for info dumping about Owen and Hubter's original designs/story?

OFCCC!! I LOVE talking about my ocs so if you have any questions from what I’m about to tell please ask, now brace yourself this is a long one,

Ok lore, where do I start, imma give some world-building context first: Thousands of years ago there were these dudes each from a different species whose sole purpose was to protect their nation. Nobody really knows how they appeared but they had been protecting their nations for generations. As more Nations appeared and more wars started happening, lesser and lesser of them started appearing, first, it skipped a generation, then two, then three and so on until nobody knew what had happened to the fearless warriors that once fought for their nations, in some cultures they were forgotten, in others, they were treated as a myth and in others, they were treated as a curse who would come and cause chaos and destruction. There are 5 of them, they are an elf, a dragon, a vampire, a mermaid/man and a faun. Here are some Sketches as to how their designs might look but I’m probs gonna change them

forgot to mention but the world is kinda in a medieval era¿, it's like a DnD campaign of some sort lol

Ok so- Hunter and Owen being part of the main cast obviously are these previously mentioned “warriors” - Kinda… let me explain, I’ll start with Owen cuz’ his backstory is simpler, you have your stereotypical perfect mermaid, however, these mermaids are a pretty discriminatory species, if someone doesn't follow their very strict beauty standards, which ofc is being a cutesy little fish-tail mermaid, they are categorised as a sea monster. Sea monsters live in separate places from the mermaids. Mermaids have the most territory residing in a huge and radiant city, like Atlantis, where everything and everyone is perfect living a perfect life. Then we have sea monsters, that, despite being way more, are left to live in a small, not very fit-to-live territory with little access to food and resources. Now, there is a deeper reason as to why that is. The normal mermaids have no idea of this but within the royal family there is this prophecy, which is engraved in a rock that they keep hidden, that someday a shark-tail mermaid ( like Owen, who just so happens to be who is meant to protect the people ) will appear and take the throne from those who aren’t meant to have it ( the mermaids ) The royal family for generation has kept the sea monsters oppressed in hopes that they don’t rebel and take the throne. So, Owen lives with his mother in a little house on the sea monsters side, he’s pretty liked and well-known bc he is one of the few ppl, like members of the revolutionary army, that dares to go to the mermaids side for food, ( little parenthesis, the revolutionary army has asked him multiple to join but he refuses each time bcs “he doesn’t like conflict” )  he’s pretty cocky with his abilities so for him it's no issue to go to that side bcs he is sure that he’ll never get caught (he has, he just escapes rlly easily ) it was actually in one of these occasions that he met Hunter, and finally I have a drawing of that! 

here’s the full page, it also comes with their designs and size difference 

I’ll explain how the hell Hunter is underwater and his reason to do so later btw. To summarise what happens next, they break out of prison, Hunter realizes Owen might be the one Caly is looking for (I’ll explain who she is later) Hunter asks him to go with him to the surface, Owen agrees, they go, adventure commences! ( for anyone wondering, yes Owen does end up making a rebellion and taking the throne but much, much, much  later) 

Now to Hunter, 

He’s a shadow-shifter, which essentially means that he is just a shadow w/o any real physical form so he can shift into whatever he wants, however, while he can make small alterations to his body like growing an extra pair of arms, grow wings or grow a couple of feet, to make big changes like increase his size exponentially for example, he needs a huge calorie intake that he can transform into mass/shadow that he can shape. Now I just said that shadowshifters don't have physical forms, that’s not the full truth, due to evolution they have developed a “base form” that resembles humans except that they are slightly taller ( around 7 feet ) and have black with purple eyes, like in this drawing here. 

Shadowshifters are still, well shadows they just look human to sort of blend, but Hunter for example when faced with very strong emotions loses control of himself and turns into a shapeless shadow. 

Onto Hunter's backstory, shadowshifters were a nomad nation, never really given their own land to call home, so they just wandered in caravans around all the lands. They were a hated species being seen as less by almost everyone because they didn't have a physical form. ( the real reason is that they were afraid of what they could actually do if they wanted to attack a nation, bc shapeshifting is a very broken ability 🙂‍↕️) They were so hated that other species began to hunt them, the fact that they were taller and had black eyes made them an easy target as they were easy to identify. One day the shadowshifters were crossing through the woods that sat in between the border of humans and fawns. They were playing music, the children were playing and an overall happy aura was taking over. As Hunter was playing with the other kids he ran over to his mother to ask her for her necklace so he could use it in the game they were playing, his mother happily handed it over. (This is important) Suddenly they heard a big crash followed by screaming. A huge group of not only humans but dragons and hybrids as well had attacked them. Then, the fire started, the dragons began burning everything as the humans and hybrids hunted them down. Hunter's mom grabbed him by the hand and started running away, Hunters mom knew that they wouldn't be able to outrun them, so she hugged Hunter tight saying her goodbyes and instructing him to run away as fast as he could, and to not look back for any reason. Hunter ran nonstop into the fauns territory until his body gave out and he fainted. He got woken up by a kid faun, close to his age, who was slightly shaking him and asking if he was okay. The kid looked at him confused, asking again if he was okay and reassuring him that he was safe. He said that his name was Kamal. Here’s how he looks like as a young adult

Kamal took Hunter to his village where Hunter would tell Kamal’s mom what happened; Fauns being a very docile species did not have any hate towars shadowshifters btw; Kamal’s mom decided to take Hunter in and raise him, the people of the village where also very kind and accepted Hunter. He lived a fairly happy life, until he was around 17. See the one who was supposed to protect the fauns was Kamal, and both he and Hunter decided that the best way to do that was to become bounty hunters and roam the borders of the fauns territory to make sure no one dangerous came in, they started doing this when they were around 13 so by the time they were 17 they were pretty good at it, however, as most teenagers, they believed themselves to be invincible, or at least Hunter did. ( This part is still in development so it's not gonna be that well-written jsjs ) One day, as they were doing their jobs and patrolling the borders, Hunter noticed a group of fairly known criminals entering the forest, so being as reckless as he was, he just started running w/o thinking, Kamal being more cautious decided to check the wanted posters he carried with him, he saw that the leader of the group had a danger level of 4 and a torch stamp ( Wanted posters rank criminals with danger levels ranging from 1 to 5 and if they have a torch stamp means that they have magic ) Kamal rushed to stop Hunter from doing something stupid but when he got there he had already started a fight, Kamal joined knowing there was no way Hunter could win on his own, While they were fighting one of the criminals launched at Hunter’s back with a sword while he fought someone else, Kamal saw this and rushed to push Hunter out of the way getting himself stabbed. Kamal's powers began going haywire, the ground shaking, plants and trees growing fastly everywhere, this scared the criminals away but the damage was already done. Hunter just stood there holding his brothers body, as the last bit of air left Kamal's body Hunter's necklace began glowing and something green started coming out of where Kamal's heart was, and the crystal on the necklace started absorbing it. When it stopped, the crystal was glowing green and the realisation of what just happened dawned on Hunter and he started screaming and crashing out, this caused him to lose his physical form and become a huge shadow that moved frantically everywhere, until he eventually passed out. When he woke up he was in his house, but not in his room, he was in Kamal's room, and his (adoptive) mom was hugging him asking him if he was okay and where Hunter was, he just stood there trying to make sense of everything, then he heard it. His mother called him Kamal. He rushed to the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror, there in the reflection stood Kamal. 

And that’s it ✨✨ there is soooo much more I have to say abt their stories but to do so it was very important to have hunters backstory clear so parts of the actual story are clear, I left a ton of things un explained so please ask if y’all wanna know something, I might take some time but I assure you that l WILL respond so dw. Gosh, I didn’t even touched the reasonings behind their designs, not only that but a bunch of other stuff happens in the actual story that’ll love to tell but I feel like this post is long enough so maybe I’ll post that another day.

[elendsessor]

while i doubt we’ll be seeing a twewy 3 for awhile especially because squenix really seems to hate giving twewy anything, my biggest fear if it does come into existence is it getting rid of the stylization.

regardless of if you find the games pretty or not, the visual direction squenix took with its properties, especially final fantasy and kingdom hearts, took out a lot of the identity in favor of “realism.” in general a lot of modern games prefer the realism angle and while it can be done well in certain circumstances, it has made the market all the more same-y, and for squenix’s biggest franchises to be whimsical in nature yet fall into that same trap is insanely worrying while also instantly has them cross into uncanny valley territory. no their older games didn’t have the most stellar of models, but there was an identity to it. if it weren’t for the recognizable faces, you wouldn’t be able to tell if their realistic-looking games were theirs or not. regardless, they seem to be going all in especially for those with nomura’s footprint.

twewy and neo aren’t just visually distinct, but their art style is important to the setting and themes. being uniquely punk to capture that teenage angst and sense of rebellion/social outcast vibes, considering how the games are about societal outcasts in a game where dying a second time means your existence gets erased, it does help set the tone. also the graffiti inspiration for noise designs, reaper wings, and some other elements are some of the best in terms of staying power.

getting rid of the visual identity of twewy would mean not just ditching what makes it stand out but would genuinely hurt the thematic buildup. i hope to god squenix never tries to, but the worry is there.

[girl4music]

YES! Finally! Catra’s redemption! I’ve been waiting for this moment for the whole fucking show. I knew it had to take a long time but I didn’t expect 4 full seasons.

So they’ve got 1 season (technically 10 episodes) to really make something out of this redemption arc for Catra. We all knew she cared. That she was only so awful to people because she didn’t want to feel weakened and without purpose. But taking her out of her familiar and comfortable environment and completely stripping her of her friends (or those that tried to be her friends) would have an immense effect on her. Would make her go the opposite way because she’s got nothing left to prove except the fact that she could do one good thing. Unlike Hordak or Shadow Weaver, Horde Prime has no use or value for Catra unless she’s of the Horde hive mind. Unless she’s completely erased of all autonomy…. Just like Hordak. She knows she doesn’t want that. No autonomous being in their right conscious mind would want that.

So they did all that well. I don’t think it needed to take 4 full seasons but… the point is that she’s turned the corner now and she’s ready to help the Rebellion even at the cost of her own safety and well-being. So heroic.

And her heroic efforts won’t be in vain because now they have to return the favour. They have to save her.

I’m assuming (I don’t know for sure) that from this, this is when Catra and Adora reconcile their differences, become friends again and hopefully… fall in love. I mean strong and deep feelings for each other were always there no matter which side of the spectrum they fell on. Hate or love. In fact I would say that’s the only reason why the hatred was that intense between these lead characters. Because it was formed from and by such an intense love for each other ever since they were kids. So it has to come to the forefront at some point otherwise there wouldn’t be any reason to make it so intense. It’s a culmination of so much left unsaid, unheard, undone and I know you can’t just do it without all the build-up.

After all, that’s exactly how you do enemies-to-lovers.

Or… friends-to-enemies-to-lovers. It’s complicated. But the aim of the game is to show the intensity of feelings there no matter which is on the side of “good” or “evil”.

They’ve done that well and then some. Now they have to show what all of that intensity was cultivated from.

And the answer always is love. Deep romantic true love.

I could make a million predictions on this because there’s so many ways you can do this. But the best way - in my opinion - is to put them both in dire straights and then have them prove to each other what’s more important to each other. The mission or each other.

Now the mission as it stands now - from this episode and onwards - would be to escape Horde Prime’s clutches and return to Etheria to the other Princesses and leave Catra to deal with her betrayal on her own.

But they won’t do that because that undermines the lesson of the mission as a whole. To protect their own.

Catra is one of their own now that she saved them. This is what makes the difference between good and evil. The good guys don’t ever leave one of their own behind.

The arguments of the greater good always falls to love and when you’re put in those dire straights - one thing has to be accomplished from the narrative undertaking.

That is that the greater good and love aren’t conciliable. Even in a kids TV show the honesty of that is important.

In all respects leaving Catra behind would be the greater good thing to do for the betterment of Etheria.

But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do between them. Between the love that’s there and always has been there between them. It would still feel very wrong.

So the prediction is that they’ll save her because how could they not after she’s risked herself to save them?

And even if she didn’t - how could Adora not want to? Strong, deep and intense feelings determine the plan whether it be for the mission or against the mission.

That’s the way I’ve always known it anyway but then I’ve always had the best example of what true love really is and all my mindset, personality and worldview is informed by that representation of what true love is.

It goes beyond the greater good. It goes beyond destiny. It goes beyond life itself. It’s that profound.

If I didn’t have that lesson ingrained into me from when I was a child, then I would say leave the cat behind and get on with your lives in the way you deserve to live them. But that’s not who I am and it never has been.

[a-cat-in-toffee]

Civ blinks a handful of time, kinda just staring at Painter for a second. "R... right? Okay?" He rakes a second to get over his confusion, sorta trying to relax. "I dunno. For as much as I claim to be ordinary- I'm honestly really not. I'm a hero in training back in my universe, I sneak out to hang out with my... ah..." he hesitates. "My... friends..." His friends who he kissed on occasion, you know how it is. "But beyond hero stuff and general teenage rebellion and angst, I don't got much going for me."

Holds out painter, he should be released into the apartments me thinks

HE SHOULD BE..... WHERE DO YOU WANNA RELEASE HIM. MECHANIC AND GHOST ARE PROBABLY IN THE GARAGE BUT TBH WOULD ASSUME THEYD BE WITH HACKER RN. SMOKES IN HIS APARTMENT. UH. I don't wanna just throw Smokes at him cause Smokes is boring but the others would probably be with theur respective partners :( except civ civ would either be in his universe or on the roof

[mummer]

rhaenyra outsourcing motherhood to rhaena and assigning her that passive feminine role was REALLY interesting….. rhaenyra as a character is at her most fascinating when she is forced to navigate and ultimately perpetuate the gendered structures she despises and wishes she could transcend— the seeds of her tragedy already sewn here. just great character work