#Curiosity and Closeness

[lil-lemon-snails]

Moon is king of half-lidded eyes...

Transcript: y/n: I wish you wouldn't watch me like that when I work...

As promised, the moon version of this post :3 + textless version below!

[nenoname]

stan ignoring mysteries and weirdness for 30 years balancing out his family's innate curiosity and being why the blind eye ignored him for that long

[ulteri0rm0tives]

Now.. I'm not doubting Johnny somewhat (?) loved Alt in his own convoluted and severely misguided ways but uh.. to call them soulmates? Did we uh.. did we not play the same game? Watch the same scenes? Because it's crazy y'all r saying that when we literally play as his actual soulmate

[cesaray]

[octosan]

Had some rambling thoughts about Emmrich and his questline,

It's funny, aside from Solas with his exclusive "is he an asshole or is he a victim?" interpretations in the endgame, I think Emmrich is another example of where they jammed two conflicting characterizations of the story into each other and just let one win out depending on which decision the player made so that each option looks Valid and Good and relatively consequence-free.

like, Emmrich becoming a Lich should have just been a bad thing, right?

Not in the sense that I think the game itself should have pointed at the player and gone "you picked the wrong option", but as a logical extension of Emmrich's arc, was it not a bad thing?

I remember at one point writing that Emmrich becoming a lich didn't do anything to conquer his fear of death even though him letting go of Manfred is supposed to be him finally coming to terms with him parting from people, and how that was bad. But I think I missed the point

I think (especially when you look at the concept art around Emmrich,) the original point was supposed to be that becoming a Lich was Emmrich giving in to his fear of death, ironically dooming himself to an immortality where he is surrounded by death, starting with Manfred's death. That losing people to death, like his parents, is the real source of the fear that he was grappling with, but he does not understand this and grasps it only as a fear of his own end. That it is, actually, on the player to understand that and counsel him wisely. It's an ironic tragedy, a very classic story of someone meeting their fate on the road to avoid it. And that's why it makes sense that he's still not over Manfred, why he's afraid of losing a romanced Rook, why he apparently mourns Manfred still (something I missed.)

But the narrative wasn't really built around this? You understand what his fear of death is about immediately and then the choice to be a lich was presented in most of the dialogue as like, "neato! he conquered his fear of death because he won't ever die! yeah Manfred is dead now but at least we honored his sacrifice and let him rest :)" no one has a problem with what he did, no one calls him out on it, no one but Spite even really cares that Manfred is gone even though Emmrich could have saved him, it's just Cool that he's a lich now. The liches are heroic and so Emmrich's desire to join them is heroic, his fear of death is not what motivates him to make some eldritch monstrosity of himself, it is preventing him from achieving this noble goal to help the dead forever, and leaving Manfred behind is a noble sacrifice that will prevent him from becoming a tyrant lich who just resurrects people at will.

I think the idea of "don't resurrect someone who died just because you miss them, you have to let the dead rest" is a completely separate idea that, in this specific situation, doesn't mesh well with "you shouldn't screw over your loved ones just to preserve your own life, and you should treasure your time with people while you have it," but they interjected both morals and just let them respectively theme the lich and human routes, as if I'm not supposed to think about the bittersweet poignancy of the human ending, where Emmrich proudly watches Manfred grow and achieve, while everyone is high-fiving him over being a skelly man in the lich ending. Or for me to look at the human ending as heartwarming after they already said Emmrich was disturbing Manfred's well-deserved rest and giving up an opportunity to do a lot of good by doing this, and that no one really cared that he was "dead".

(Also, like, as a spirit, Manfred's "rest" was him being sent back into the Fade, which we can now understand to be a spirit prison that Manfred specifically possessed that body to escape, so u know.)

I do believe Emmrich becoming a Lich is at its core meant as a selfish/cowardly act to preserve himself at the cost of someone he treated like his own child, because that was the motivation they gave him from conception. Concept Emmrich was turning himself into a lich to become immortal. In the game, he specifically sought out the liches because he was afraid of death. This is the case even if they interject dialogue later making it seem like he's trying to do this for the sake of the "dead" and it's really important and him resurrecting Manfred would be selfish of him. I don't mind Emmrich saying these things, but I feel like they needed to be lies he was telling himself, something that is not backed up by other Mourn Watchers, or by Rook not being given the option to call him on it, or by the liches having a morally stringent screening process that he passes with flying colors and stuff like that, with the entire narrative just taking the things he says for granted. Maybe the liches should just not be heroic at all, actually. And like if we're going to have it be a plot point that there have been powerful, immortal liches. In Thedas. All this time. They needed to not give a shit about Thedas to at least help me with my suspension of disbelief.

Am I making any sense here, like there's two different reasons Emmrich wants to be a lich and how his fear of death is interacting with it and they don't feed into each other very well imo.

And like, the way he is now this character, who was written to deal with a fear of death, has nothing actually helpful to say about coping with a fear of death, imo. The routes' messaging is either "You don't need to fear death because you can just Not Die" or "You don't need to fear your loved ones dying because you can just Bring Them Back" instead of "Death of some kind is inevitable, so cherish the life you still have instead of spending it in fear."

Idk how psychiatrically sound it would have been. There were apparently people who struggle with Thanatophobia who were helped by Emmrich's character, but like, just talking narratives.

[h1tmanmode]

important question guys.

btw dont pick the last option if you simply dont think that your dad acts like any of them. just pick the closest one. even if its just a tiny thing

and if you have multiple dads just. pick the dad that fits closest to one of the s1 archetypes. or do whatever you please honestly its up to you

[buttercupshands]

I've been thinking a lot lately

ref to the quote under the cut

under the cut for maybe some people that would like to try and guess *shruggs*

[nadiajustbe]

Five-year old Nathaniel, looking out the window of his attic — standing on a stool, because otherwise he is too small to reach the view — marvelling at the distant silhouette of the Crystal Palace.

Johnatan Stroud what have you done.

[astrobbie]

“this show is making me like the men more” when the shows literally been setting this up from ep1. they literally eat people did you think they WERENT going to lose their morals more and more as the show progresses? did you think the hunting scene in season 2 was the worst it got and not the beginning of their descent into violence and horror? i feel like i’ve entered some alternate universe because half the complaints about season 3 make no sense to me and i just think a lot of you need to stop watching the show and just stick to reading fanfic or something because a lot of the complaints just sound like you dont like the season bc its not going the way you made up in your head

[chandralia]

there’s something about katsuki looking at deku in the backseat through the rearview mirror and when I articulate what that is it’s so OVER

[obscenicon]

scourge sister weed for @lactating 🔥

[gaylittlebillionaires]

TERROR MOOTS it looks like they ARE filming the rsc hamlet production with jared harris!

ofc this doesn’t necessarily guarantee it’ll be released but i have a good feeling that it will be

[findmeinthefallair]

Therapist already warned me that today and tomorrow's sessions will be the most painful. Lots of bad memories have come back, I leave in around 1.5 hours to go to today's session.

I found an old photo of smol me; it's heartbreaking to look at. It's a good sign that I'm feeling protective of her. Instead of the years I spent thinking how pathetic she was. But I'm going to hold the photo up at a good juncture in today's session for them to see, and finally feel bold enough to say it: "You tried your best, but you still put her through absolute hell."

[not-equippedforthis]

shout out to the very distinct feeling of 'oh god i'm going to become at least mildly annoying about this aren't i'. binging ds9 season 1 and i outright giggled at a very small mannerism julian did. got hyped when o'brien showed up. grinned widely at kira just Being There. felt the urge to yell and cheer and scream at the slightest hint of whump. the character dynamics and friendships are beginning to interweave like strings in a tapestry and i almost detonated upon realising this. uh oh.

[loveinhereyes-flowersinherhair]

Any opinions on the fact that we were so close to getting a plaster cast of Robert’s dick but were absolutely ROBBED after the girl started doing to much?

oh believe me i mourn what we could’ve had everyday 💔

if i think about it too much i’ll cry.

[justkillingthyme]

Happy Flora Friday!

Living in the shadow of someone you never knew.