#DAKOTA WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.

[intertexts]

haven't been back here in a while

[a-cat-in-toffee]

FINALLY FINISHED ALL THESE GUYS! racing au line up :)

[circus-k]

they stopped the mississippi purchase together dan and swampy told me so. besties who hate eachother

[tigers1o1]

I keep seeing posts about “omg if you go relisten to riptide, Chip is a complete bastard and Gillion’s accent is so weird”

No. Dude? I just started relistening to prime defenders. That shit is fucking whiplash. Dakota doesn’t have his high pitched voice and he falls asleep every few minutes, William is gross and falls every two seconds, and Vyncent had BLACK HAIR????? APPARENTLY???? AND A BLUE AND ORANGE TRACKSUIT???? I DONT KNOW WHERE THE PURPLE CAME FROM

[bugwolfsstuff]

thinking about that one Perpollo time travel reading the books fic/s I read that repeatedly bashed Annabeth (and Piper) and called her abusive and Percabeth co-dependent (Both during and post MoA, you know when one of them was missing for some months and after being in TARTARUS TOGETHER)

But then turned around and somehow accidentally made Apollo literally so so fucking groomerish (and not because Percy was 16 in it) and possessive it was almost funny

And how do I know it was an accident? Both the author and several fans of the author came into the comments to defend that it 'wasn't as bad as Percabeth' when people politely pointed out that Apollo was kinda being really possessive

Yeah so basically if anyone asks me this was the exact reason I dont ship Perpollo

[knifefangz]

Jrwi prime defenders spoilers !!

I was having a normal day until I remembered that tide could have fucking DIED back there btw. Like William could have accidentally killed him with that injection. BIZLY ROLLED FOR IT. It makes me insane to think about. "because his guard would never be up for you" FUCK YOUUUUUUUU BIZLYYYYYYY

[anachronistic-falsehood]

ik we have put the pd in worm universe. but what about isekaiing taylor hebert into prime defenders. how would that go.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

two wrongs WILL make a right! ive got another lease on life, and im using it well, who cares if this is all fucked up cause we're all GOING TO HELL! IM JUST WILLIAM WHO SHOULD BE DEAD, HAD TO FOLLOW THE THREAD, thought he was just chillin! now he is a villain! HES ALWAYS SUCH A BUMMER, HE WANTS TO TRUST HIS BROTHER WILLIAM IN A HALLWAY BY HIMSEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[acaciapines]

rereading random bits of descendants of olympus (as one does) and. vera <3 still soooo obsessed with how she takes lupa's divinity. like MAN.......there is something to how shes had to scrape and claw her way into every single good thing shes ever had. that she's never just been able to KEEP these things, that she is always always always fighting for them. and so of course she takes divinity. she wants to LIVE. and in this world where the fates themselves are trying to control her, its like--yeah. maybe you do need a gods power to finally get like, at least a year of the life you want. the life you werent supposed to have. forever thinking about vera's one line in her chapter thats like 'of course the fates are losing power. because they'd never let someone like leo into my life.' YELLS. FOREVER.

also have we talked enough about minnie I THINK WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MINNIE--

[tightjeansjavi]

now what would really spice things up is if the love triangle goes both ways (iykwim) what’s next? Photos of Pedro’s character smooching Chris Evan’s character? 👀

[a-cat-in-toffee]

the giggler. post belltech smokescreen

[no-light-left-on]

Let's talk about the Chaos System in Dishonored

“Your actions affect the city. A high number of deaths results in more rats, more weepers, different reactions from your allies and darker final outcome.”

The most important thing to note is that we need to distinguish between chaos and morality. A lot of people interpret Low Chaos as Good and High Chaos as Bad which is… not inherently correct. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that while non-lethal takedowns of key targets result in lower chaos, they are not the only thing that contributes to the chaos rating of a mission. I highly recommend reading these two posts [1] [2] by the lovely @kirtlandswarbler who looked into the science behind the chaos system.

It is perhaps easiest to imagine as the DnD alignment of Lawful to Chaotic. Low Chaos aligns with Lawful, the player character going after their targets and not dragging bystanders into their mess. All the takedowns are tactical, some might even say deserved – the Lord Regent hanged for his crimes, Campbell branded as a heretic that he was, Hypatia cured of her madness caused by the serum, Delilah locked in a painted world she desired so. The achievement for completing the game with non-lethal ways is even called Poetic Justice in DH and In Good Conscience in DH2. If the game is completed in a self-serving, bloodthirsty, anger satiating way, the chaos ends up being high – or plain chaotic on the alignment chart. But that is what the chaos means for the playstyle.

Chaos within the world is, in short, the way the world reacts to the player’s actions. The good and the bad, but every move the player makes in the world is a choice, and the world responds accordingly.

Let us set the scene, first, in general terms. In both games, the Empire is at a point of heightened anxiety. In DH it’s the plague, in DH2 the Crown Killer. Both games deal with brutality citizens face from the City Watch/Grand Guard, religious anxieties and terror from the Overseers, gang activity and a tyrannical regime from the Regent or the Duke respectively.

This is the world we walk into as Corvo, Daud or Emily. Everyone is uneasy and somewhat distrustful, and the player character then descends into the streets with a blade in hand, carving their way through a crumbling city to reach their goal. Loved ones go missing. Fathers don’t come back from work, cousins stop responding to letters. Even the elite in their palaces aren’t spared, slaughtered in cold blood with their loyal guard lying close by, staining the expensive hardwood floors. This is the world the player creates in high chaos – a world where no one is safe, and the few survivors live in terror, afraid that every breath they take might be the last. They see no reason to trust their neighbours, become more selfish, angrier- even your allies become more cynical, watching you slaughter your way back to the top, and why are they helping you again? To replace one tyrant with another?

In low chaos, however, the people remain safe. The civilians are allowed to continue going through their day to day life, however harsh it might be. The guards and overseers are spared, for the most part, and the nobles and rich that might go missing? That is their problem. They never cared for the smaller people. Both games open with a large shift in the political landscape – the assassination of an empress, a coup that seats a witch on the throne. And yet people still die of the plague or to the bloodflies. If a couple more members of the parliament die, that is, at the end of it all, just politics. It is among those who meddle with political issues, and not the business of the rest of the world.

The chaos is calculated by the absolute body count, along with a few special actions that the player can take. Most of them make sense. The chaos is higher if Daud blows up a slaughterhouse, killing many in the process, harming an industry, terrifying people who only hear of the event. Saving a young woman and her brother as they are harassed by the overseers over witch crimes they never committed lowers your chaos, because Corvo helped people in need. It’s a balance of the good and the bad you do, in total, rather than the simple distinction between killing and not killing the key targets. The overall chaos remains low even when all the key targets are taken down lethally. However, even if they are all spared, if the player killed every guard in sight just to reach these targets, the chaos will be high.

Something that I see (wrongly) be brought up is that killing key targets grants you a High Chaos ending, while the non-lethal takedowns result in Low Chaos ending. As mentioned above, that’s not true – they do count towards your total body count, but their deaths do not have a greater weight towards High Chaos. The non-lethal neutralization thus helps maintain lower chaos, but it does not necessarily mean that these choices are the right ones to make. The best example of this is probably Lady Boyle, which is oftentimes brought up as “oh but the morality of this game!!” critique. Death vs. poetic justice has little to do with morality in these games. After all, the protagonist (not counting DLCs) is out for revenge, to an extent, on people who have wronged them and caused them to fall on hard times. Just because a character lives does not mean there are not fates worse than death – like handing a woman to her stalker under the threat of death.

Morality and lethality in Dishonored are two things that don’t necessarily overlap. Lobotomizing Jindosh is, most definitely, a horrible thing and Jindosh ends up begging the MC to rather take his life than let him live without his intellect. There is no doubt that he is a horrible person, and many people tell you so during the game, but is this really the right way to go about things? Is an existence without the one thing you truly value about yourself worth it? On a similar yet completely opposite side of things, when you overhear one of the guards talk about how they have fun killing people who break curfew, is it truly a bad thing to kill them? One or two more deaths won’t affect your chaos all that much. It gets even more worth considering with the special actions that decrease your chaos which involve saving people from getting murdered by overseers or the guard. These actions are often difficult or impossible to perform without killing the attackers (like the guard harassing the girl that worked for Bunting).

These actions then reflect on your surroundings – the more corpses litter the streets, the more weepers and rats there will be, the nastier the bloodfly infestation. With a killer on the loose, there have to be more guards around. Mind you, the special actions that cause your chaos to grow are not enough to tip you over into high chaos alone. And as you, and Corvo/Daud/Emily by extension, grow more cruel, your allies grow more cynical. The Loyalists see Corvo butcher the city, and, well, it’s working. So why shouldn’t they get more cruel to achieve their goals, too? Emily is the most impacted, in Low Chaos growing to be Emily the Wise, the beloved empress of the Isles, asking Corvo innocent questions, while in the high chaos she talks about executions, asks how many people he's killed. Some grow to despise you, like Samuel, seeing the growing corruption and wishing for the quest to be done because they now see that the person they were helping was as much of a monster as the ones they are opposing. If you are cruel, the world will be cruel back, and the world involves those you might hold closest, like your daughter or your second in command.

The world, then, behaves in the way you mold it. Chaos reflects it, the destruction or kindness that you leave in your wake. Of course the murder of a noblewoman on a party she hosted, guarded by tallboys, will cause people to worry. Of course panic will spread when civilians are murdered in the streets. The general population of Dunwall will worry when the medicine that was meant to cure the plague suddenly turns everyone into weepers. But just the same, if people are shown kindness by a stranger without having to ask, they will be soothed. A cruel political leader being executed for the crimes he committed will make people excited, hopeful even. When Emily switches the Duke for his body double, the common people won’t notice. There is no need for fear, with the non-lethal takedowns. Not for those who are not directly involved.

Chaos, at the end of it all, dictates how the world evolves from the brink of collapse. The Outsider says it best, in one of his many speeches. “I have to wonder whether you're going to give if that final nudge, or pull it back from the edge.“ You have the power to tip the scales with your actions. Your choices matter, the big and the small, each life you save and each life you take, because at the end of the game, you are the one that has shaped the world that you will rule.

[misiahasahardname]

can’t think of any original content? redraw some screenshots!

[rueisblue]

what the FUCK do you mean Dakota dies.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

also dude im fucking terrified of dakota finding out about all this........ i think he is either going to feel just. so betrayed and horrified or alternately understand the horrific situation completely& Not freak the fuck out like will & vynce think he will. but like regardless... godddd. william must be just. bone deep terrified of having him find out or having to tell him.!!!! insane ghostkicksisms in my brain tonight!!!!!!

GODDD THE GHOSTKICKSISMS GO SO CRAZY I PROMISE. here in the final stretch of episodes. without spoiling anything just know that they get soooo much clingier. so much. clinging onto each other like their life depends on it. vyncent too. its all 3 of them. god. legally i cannot comment on any of your predictions but. i know youre gonna like what happens a lot. holy shit. lifechanging stuff

[intertexts]

hey ros. i feel insane over literally everything about dakota when wiwi came back btw!!! "what's wrong with you!!!" "i never stopped believing in you, not even when you died *voice cracks* okay maybe a little bit when you died" "dakota passed out because william is here and ashe is here and he feels safe" IM GOING TO EAT MY ENTIRE COMPUTER!!!!!!! dakota cole finally passing out and letting someone else fucking handle shit for a second!!!!!! william immediately catching him!!!!!!! im going to start throwing things!!!!!!!!! the ghostkicks is ghostkicking!!!!

YEAH. YEAHHHYEAHYEAH YEAH YEAH. GOD. YEAH. WILLIAM CATCHING HIM. william fucking catching him & dakota yelling and shoving him going whats wrong with you!!!!!!! can i hug them? i hug them. i-- i hug them. dakota hugging william's gored mess of a body. dakota and vyncent immediately finally coming down from the adrenaline & passing the fuck out. he fucking catches him. hey what if i fucking ate glass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^us rn thinknig abt fucking ghostkicks