#Execution discussion
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rubberduckyrye Ā· 3 months ago
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Okay now I want to talk about the execution I've made for Jaden so infodump time???
For Jaden's execution, here are the aspects of it that I made as a sort of "Character Study":
The first theme it runs on is of drowning. Jaden has a fear of the deep ocean and of drowning, so it's a given that would be the main themes of his despair.
However, he is also tied up, specifically his hands are tied to be above his head. He has issues with his vocal chords and unable to raise his voice about a low whisper, so he uses ASL as his main method of communicating in a non painful way--so tying up his hands essentially makes him unheard. Jaden is an advocate in many aspects and tries to use his "voice" to speak up for the things he advocates for, so to be essentially silenced is maddening to him. You can also see it as he killed someone under the influence of the Obedience Disease and not of his own free will, so this also symbolizes his "hands being tied" in the situation.
Also--for all of his life, people belittled him for being a digital artist and not a traditional one, making him resent the medium of traditional art--which is why he specifically drowns in a classic medium for traditional art, paint.
Jaden also hates street violence and gun violence especially, and you know what paint balls are shot out of? Guns.
Every aspect about Jaden's execution is made to make him feel miserable in his final moments. From the fear of drowning, to being silenced, to dying to a thing he resents, to dying to a violence he despises. This execution is tailor made to him--and it barely has anything to do with Digital Art.
... Honestly it makes me want to work on Kurochi's execution concept more, because while I do play with the Despair of wanting to live after it's too late, I think I can invoke more despair in his execution.
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st4rd0lly Ā· 9 months ago
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iā€™m sorry but i NEED yandere chuuya to fuck so deep and lovingly to the point where youā€™re just a pile of lovesick mush beneath him. another argument with your friends? darling, canā€™t you just see thatā€™s the reason why you only ever need him? they arenā€™t good for you, but chuuya treats you so nicely. burying his cock deep inside of you, going a nice pace, fucking you through every orgasm and letting those tears become tears of pleasure. he kisses and worships ever inch of your body obsessively and possessively. heā€™ll take care of your friends for you donā€™t worry about them right now. just focus your pretty little head on him <3
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isagrimorie Ā· 5 months ago
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Star Trek Voyager 5x11 - Latent Image
Janeway: It's as though there's a battle being fought inside him, between his original programming and what he's become. Our solution was to end that battle. What if we were wrong? B'Elanna: We've seen what happens to him. In fact, we've seen it twice. Janeway: Still, we allowed him to evolve, and at the first sign of trouble? We gave him a soul, B'Elanna. Do we have the right to take it away now? B'Elanna: We gave him personality subroutines. I'd hardly call that a soul.
Latent Image Gifset series Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
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fumifooms Ā· 5 months ago
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Did you notice that in the anime chilchuck blushes when he sees marcille in the red dress? I skimmed through the marchil crumbs master post and from what I saw you didn't mention it
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Also its not from the ale since he wasn't blushing right before that
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Ah yeah, donā€™t worry itā€™s because part 8 of the crumbs masterpost isnā€™t out yet, Iā€™ve been lazy with it but itā€™s been overdue ever since the second half of season 2 started, and it does have a buncha stuff donā€™t you even worry lol my godā€¦ I just need to get out some stuff for it first. Ahh good times
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On this though: I personally donā€™t give it much weight but itā€™s valid to read into it.
What we know:
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Against: - Kui does make characters blush both when theyā€™re drunk AND when they laugh. - Chil is confirmed drunk/tipsy in that scene because in the picture above his little mood chibi is drunk lol. - The point of the scene is that he laughs at her, the joke is that he laughs at her. If thereā€™s subtext itā€™s still very much secondary and easy to miss and ā€˜besides the pointā€™ anyways, buut does this subtext exist? Wellā€¦
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For: - In the dating sim cover, the other option was "tell her she looks pretty". None of the choices seem outrageous for his character so itā€™s not random throwaway lines, though of course the reasoning behind it may be as simple as ā€˜itā€™s formalityā€™. In the chapter cover, Marcilleā€™s section is the one on top of every other one at center stage, which makes sense since itā€™s for bicorn chapter and bicorn chapter is THE Marcille & Chil chapter. In all of the choice dialogue bubbles on the cover, out of the 7 ones the hand is always over the choice he picks except for Marcilleā€™s and Falinā€™s, indicating he might have hesitated. - Short of being a half-foot with a sultry face, Marcille is Chilchuckā€™s type. - The face heā€™s making in his little mood emoji in the dating sim picture lol? You may be drunk but pull yourself together omg - Chilchuck does deflect his more compromising feelings so this would be in character. Marcille is the only character he teases so much so often and itā€™s implied to be because he finds her reaction fun, full with shojo filter and sparkles all around her with his mind. Do with this what you willā€¦ Schoolboy pulling on the pigtails of the girl he likeā€™s pigtails.
Neutral: - we donā€™t see the milisecond of realization on Chilā€™s face in the manga. - we donā€™t see his face after spitting out all his ale in the anime lol. - what could be "canon" in the manga may not be in the anime and vice versa.
Also whatever the hell this is. We all know not to give too much weight to VAā€™s takes but also what!! I always thought in the manga that Chilchuck wasnā€™t the one calling frogsuit Marcille cute so that was already a steel chair to me but lol the point of him saying that in the scene was still very much to follow through on the bait she took lmaoo. I donā€™t thiiink Chilchuck would think the frog suit genuinely makes Marcille look cute idk. Kigurumi enjoyer Chilchuck confirmedā€¦ And I feel like if this is true then Chilchuck wouldnā€™t have much problem giving her a casual compliment over her looks in the golden kingdom scene either. But also?!! šŸ‘šŸ‘
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Chilā€™s jp VA has also said that Marcille is cute (Marcilleā€™s jp va said Chilchuck is cute too but thatā€™s besides the point. 16:05 here). And got into some trouble for acting overly familiar with Marcilleā€™s VA, somewhere in this havenā€™t looked myself yet. So there might be a whole unrelated thing there?? Iā€™ll cover it more fully in the crumbs masterpost hopefully, after some more investigation. Gdbdg so yeah several layers of putting crumbs under magnifiers like they could be fake gemstones to appraise their authenticity and thus value
Stare. Play it cool.
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I love it when he does this itā€™s so cute. Cheers, raising my cup to you
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carlyraejepsans Ā· 8 months ago
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for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience
i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).
of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.
i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.
but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.
anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.
#this is a very difficult topic to discuss imo because on Some level I don't completely disagree with people who make that argument for chara#in SPIRIT. if not in action. like my point still stands characters can just Be neutral. and if that level of customization had been intended#well Pokemon's been doing the ''are you a boy or a girl'' shtick for ages. no reason why that couldn't have been included as well#but i do feel that we're supposed to identify with chara within the story. not as in chara is us but as in we are chara#and i think someone playing the game without outside interferences and (wrongly) coming to the conclusion that chara IS literally#themselves in the story. and thus call them by their own name (the one they likely inputted at the start) and pronouns#will be someone who grasped undertale's metanarrative more than someone who went in already spoiled on the NM route who thinks of chara#(and on some level frisk as well) as completely separate from us with independent wills and personhoods at any time#who treats them as nonbinary. even if their approach is more ''appropriate'' to a gender neutral person#systematic error vs manually changing every measure to fit what you already think is going to be the correct result. ykwim?#of course this opens a whole new parentheses while discussing the game outside of your personal experience#because even if you DO see chara as a self insert then they are a self insert for EVERYONE. women men genderqueer people#i don't call chara ''biscia'' even though that's what i named the fallen human in my playthrough. neither do i use they because i also do#if you're describing the character/story objectively in how they are executed then you're going to talk about them neutrally#because you ain't the only sunovabitch who played the darn game sonny#so like. either way you turn it. even in the most self insert reading you'd STILL logically use they/them so ĀÆā \ā _ā (ā ćƒ„ā )ā _ā /ā ĀÆ git gud#answered asks
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scrapimmortal Ā· 4 months ago
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me before reading arc 4: i don't really think hua cheng was evil for what he did to those 33 officials, i mean it was a fair and square bet and they were enthusiastic enough to accept when they were sure they'd get their hands on his ashes. then when they lost it suddenly wasn't for reals. they fucked around and found out
me after reading arc 4: oh hua cheng would have had my permission to do worse SOMEHOW
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kismetconstellations Ā· 3 months ago
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ā™” ā™” ā™” for @sockdooe
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ahli-stuff Ā· 26 days ago
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WHATEVER YOU SAY BEAUTIFUL!!!
Bsd 120 raws
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Fyodorā€™s little stretchā€¦!
My thoughts? Honestly, itā€™s a bit of a nothing chapter (I say as I donā€™t know what any of the dialogue is but I know itā€™s just going to be Fyodor explaining more space-dimensional bullshit manga logic). It is exciting to have Fukuzawa face off against Fyodor, but Asagiri pulls this SO often man, where itā€™s like ā€œA new challenger enters the ringā€ every chapter and multiple times per fight.
And this fight really shouldā€™ve been Akutagawaā€™s time to shine. I know heā€™s going to get back up, but man.
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autumnoakes Ā· 2 months ago
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i have been sitting on the realization that hyrule in echoes of wisdom has capital punishment for weeks (ever since the gameplay demo) and i have been unable to mention it to NO ONE. like what the fuck nintendo????
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failonade Ā· 2 months ago
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I can't get over the emperor, at the very end of the show, processing Fang Duobing's name and then looking at his father and saying "I'm sorry, you named your kid WHAT????"
How long has your daughter been engaged to this dude? Were you down with forcing her to marry someone whose name you didn't even know???
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system-of-a-feather Ā· 11 months ago
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Okay so I have known this, but it came up on my feed again so Im once again bewildered by this.
People with an inability / difficulty planning in the future and imagining themselves in the future (executive dysfunction, ADHDers, etc) - how do you... operate in a day to day? How do you start actions? How do you like... go about your life and things you want to do? How do you... do?
I imagine that this is part of executive dysfunction for a lot of people and that I do understand cause I get it episodically
But as someone who has an unironic 20+ year plan and lives "in the future" to an unhealthy degree, its baffling and beyond my understanding to have a limited ability to do so.
I could also ask the one or two parts that tend to front when our executive function is shot cause in the past they used to have that as well, but Im really curious what people outside of my brain have to say on this.
Id be more than willing to answer questions as the opposite extreme. I just like to compare and contrast seemingly opposite extremes of experiences
Anyone is encouraged to welcome to respond and bring in any thing they feel is relevant to the topic at hand.
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sludgewolf Ā· 7 months ago
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We need to talk about the lack of "filler" in series that're been released recently
I just watched a video about ATLA and it's filler or lack there of and, they're right, ATLA doesn't have filler episodes as we define "filler episodes" now. Our understanding of filler is closer to what's used for anime that is, non canon episodes that are made so the anime doesn't catch up with the manga. Applying this to western animation (I say animation bc I graduated in it thus a better understanding and I don't really watch many live action series so I don't have much of a say) we ended up with the impression that it means "episodes that don't move the plot forward"
Which, doesn't make sense with Western animation since most of it isn't a adaptation of something else, or with comic adaptations for ex, they're mostly adaptations of various arcs coming together as a single story. Smt very different from the manga to anime adaptation process
Comparing ATLA who positively doesn't have "filler" and X-men 97 who negatively doesn't have "filler" is a good example of what I'm trying to say.
Not all of ATLA episodes move the "learn the elements and defeat the firelord" plot forward and that's good thank fuck not all episodes are rushing ahead to throwing this 12yo we barely know into a battle with a full grown adult who's perpetrating a war against the rest of the world. Instead we actually get to know the characters, we see them traveling from the South to the North Pole instead of spawning where the plot demands, we see Aang adapt to the world post iceberg nap and learn to be the avatar, we see the effect the 100 year war had in this world. And most of all, the more "filler" episodes contributed to the pacing of the series, when binging the series now I still feel like the Gaang traveled across the whole world and didn't just teleport to the plot.
Opposed to X-men 97, don't get me wrong I'm absolutely loving it but the story is always being racing forward at a breakneck speed. They did try to pace it better inter cutting the main plot with Scott, Jean, Madelyne, Wolverine's whole deal and the "LifeDeath " plot, but if there wasn't the weekly wait for the next episode we would not have any time to breathe and digest what happened in the episodes.
I'm still confused on how Madelyne went from trying to have a normal life outside the x-men to being in Genosha's council. Still on Madelyne, I didn't care that they had to part ways with Nathan, ik he's their baby and all that, but as soon as they named the baby Nathan I knew they were throwing that baby to the future to complete the time loop of him being in the original series. And that's because they never got the chance to try to make us care, the writing team couldn't waste time with that since they only had 8 episodes to tell all these stories, the speed that the plot is being taken makes me believe that when writing this season Disney still hadn't signed on the second season and when they did it was too late to rework the script.
This whole thing is reminding me of Hazbin Hotel's pacing problems, analyzing it as if I didn't watch the pilot, we just met the characters and suddenly had to care that they were going to die in six months, we don't really know Charlie other than 1. she's Lucifer's daughter, 2. daddy issues that aren't rly addressed besides jokes, 3. she's with Vaggie (other character we didn't get to know) and 4. she's the owner of the hotel and wants to rehabilitate the sinners. The worst part of it is, we teleported from the start of the season to 6 months later out of nowhere and suddenly we're at the finale with the big boss battle. Of course HuskDust is a more popular ship than Charlie and Vaggie, we never got the chance to see them being together other than in episodes when the characters are being dragged by the plot while Angel and Husk had an episode where we met them and got the time to see them interact without being pushed by the extermination plot
This is exactly why "filler episodes" are important, we should actually know who these characters are before the big fight at the end so we can actually care about what happens to them. X-men 97 may not suffer that much from it but it's because we already knew most of the characters, but we never got to meet this version of Madelyne, see her going out alone to a world that hates her existence, see her morn having been forced to send her baby off to the future and maybe not being able to see him ever again and finally see never see how did she even end up in Genosha.
Or Storm, sure we got a two parter, but how did she get to fuck knows where to meet Forge in that bar, what did she go through during the time she was traveling alone, it's not as if people wouldn't recognize her as a x-men even if she'd left the team, maybe see more of how the relationship between her and Forge developed, cuz I didn't get why she still wants to be with him even after he basically created the tec that was turned into the weapons used to kill mutants, that's smt one can't just forgive, and yes I'd like to see her as she struggles with not having her powers, smt other than she feeling lonely without the wind (this would work even as just a montage with sad music as she travels to the fuckall haunted desert)
On a rly quick note on Invincible I do think they did a good job with their pacing and character development with the time they had, I'd like to have seen a bit more of Rex's development from complete douche to Lizard Leader homemade lobotomy to where we are now, but on the Grayson family whole thing they did an amazing job at showing how they're dealing with the aftermath of season 1, there was just a little jump from Debbie downing a bottle of wine every day to full bug mom mode but I do think she'd step up to it no doubt.
Maybe just some scenes of her still working through s1 trauma and questioning wtf is wrong w Nolan bc from her perspective he just killed hundreds of ppl on Earth, almost killed Mark, fucked off to space and suddenly there's a purple half bug baby living in her house calling her mom. But I don't think that's strictly necessary since there's always fanfiction to bridge this gap and it's just a minor thing that bothered me
TLDR: Filler in western cartoons isn't really filler, these are just episodes to help develop the world or characters without having to rush with the plot and also episodes that help with the pacing of the story, thus showing the passage of time or great distances being crossed without having the characters spawn at the next plot point. And we do need it specially for shows that are intended for binging, such as most shows now. What determines good filler from bad filler here is good writing
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ilynpilled Ā· 1 year ago
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i can fully understand the gripes with certain misogynistic tropes/writing issues that are present in the execution of some of cerseiā€™s writing, but i will never understand the ā€œshe should have a redemption arcā€ or ā€œshe should be more likeable/less morally darkā€ perspective. that is not what her character is or has to be to make it great. wanting more female anti-heroes or ā€œredemption arcsā€ with moral greyness and complexity of the level that asoiaf gives to primarily male characters is entirely understandable, but do some of you people even like cersei as a character, like at its core? like this is not about criticising the execution of certain things when it comes to this character, this is about taking issue with her as a villain fundamentally, which i just do not agree with at all
#i also do not understand why she is juxtaposed only w her brothers#in this respect#like if u wanna take issue w not as many female anti heroes that r allowed the level of true moral greyness of j theon etc i get that#but thats a whole text problem like a family isnt a monolith they r different characters with different drives its not a competition between#them#all three r dealing w some very very diff things too like they r distinct characters#and i honestly dont think cerseiā€™s character set up works with a redemption story like she specifically is way more interesting as she is#she is a discussion of tropes when it comes the ā€˜female villainā€™ and u can take issue w the execution but i like the concept a lot#like she is written the way she is for a reason why do u want her to be a different character entirely#like if u want this why not advocate for george making a female character whose story would actually work with the redemption trope instead#of making their writing weaker and less trope busting#ig i just really like with cersei the idea that her being an evil perpetrator doesnt erase her being a victim of misogyny and vice versa#like i like that challenge that she is deserving of sympathy for these things without the need to redeem her or make her ā€˜likeableā€™#patriarchal violence will affect all women#and the story deserves to work just as well with someone u r not supposed to root for#its about the humanization of these people#evil doesnt exist in a vacuum#and it makes perfect sense that these specific systemic conditions create it#and then perpetuate it
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hjbender Ā· 2 years ago
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Some days convincing myself of doing even the most basic of daily functions is like negotiating with a toddler:
"Why don't we take a shower?"
"Meh."
"It'll feel good."
"Meh."
"It'll pump us up to do other things."
"Meh."
"We can plug in our bluetooth speaker and listen to music."
". . ."
"Music that makes us think of our blorbos."
". . . And our fics, too?"
"And our fics, too."
"Hm. Okay!"
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randomnameless Ā· 2 months ago
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I seriously hilarious how after a year people are still treating Engage like it burned their spouses and fucked their crops. If they love "moral grayness writing" that much, they have tons of other rpgs with similar themes to play, 8 seasons of Game of Thrones to watch and lots of grimdark fantasy books to read.
Seriously, there's only 3 times (if we want to count 3h that badly) where this franchise has tried to explote more nuanced and complex plots, and those games were the Tellius duology and the Jugdral games. The rest have milquetoast fantasy rpg plots. Why they sticking with FE when it's clearly not the franchise for these kinds remains an enigna.
Mmh,
I wouldn't say GOT's seasons are grim d4rk, imo they're trash in the same vein as the Kadarshians TV show, you're watching it to see how ruined things will be
(c'est quoi l'Ć©quivalent US/UK de l'Ć©mission "les marseillais"? )
I feel like Martin's books were more in the lines of "deconstruction then reconstruction" of the "traditional" fantasy tropes, with his own choice of depicting very grim and dark things that participate in the "deconstruction" side of his works... even if at times it borders on misery porn and, tbh, misogyny.
Fantasy settings, in general, always have some sort of monarchy and morale of "the good/rightful king returns home and everything is better!" - you can add some twists here and there, but in general, and especially FE, it's that kind of frame. We're not in game where Bob and John feel like Hector charges them too much for the sewer tax, and file a claim to his court to be discharged from paying said tax.
I'm not saying you can't add twists and add some sort of depth to the game, hell the Tales of franchise often tries to add some greater theme to their general "hero with a sword whacks people and is ultimately involved in a greater quest to save the world while eating appel gels", Symphonia tries to tackle racism and how being a victim or racism doesn't give you a pass to create concentration camps to turn people you see as "inferior beings" as fuels/devices to upgrade you and your chosen ones (even if that plot point utterly vanished when the MC goes "i wish we could have been friends" which is, uh, I guess where i found Kishimoto's inspiration for Obito I guess), Abyss tackles the existential crisis of clones/people created to be spares, do they have the right to exist beyond the purpose of their original creation or not? - etc etc.
Funny how you mention Tellius, because IMO, Tellius is even more shaky/wonky than Fodlan (or at least it's a serious competition) with its general message of "racism BaD but miscegenation BaD too" which is, uh... well.
That leaves Jugdral with all of the stuff it wanted to convey - and managed to do while being a SNES duology (I think?) - and yet Jugdral is, at its core, a story of "rightful heir returns to his throne" with some emphasis, especially in FE5, on what "rightful" means but the premise is the same, it's not Dalshin who's going to become the Lord of New Thracia, it's Leif because Leif is Quan'n'Ethlyn's son : his journey in FE5 is all about learning to become a good leader/king.
Back to your post, if people want a game where you "smash the patriarchy" and bring "the revolution"... well, the FE series is not (or wasn't, who knows how it will turn out to be in the near future) for you.
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Are there any companions you can't stand?
I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.
The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.
I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.
I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.
Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?
For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.
I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.
It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.
If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.
But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.
Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?
Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"
And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.
My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to runā€¦ so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.
Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.
He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.
Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?
We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.
Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.
#asks#dragon age#dao#da2#dai#sebastian vael#aveline vallen#carver hawke#dai sera#cullen rutherford#vivienne de fer#i have to stop myself before i go on tangents about morrigan and wynne and anders and isabela and merrill and dorian and varric and-#literally everyone sksksks i can't help it#also on the flip side of this type of discussion i also love looking at characters that most people adore and discussing their flaws#like i love alistair he's my favorite companion in dao BUT it's easy to forgot that he can be just as petty and selfish too y'know?#if you don't execute loghain he can straight up just abandon you and leave and you'll find him in da2 as a drunk like... babe really left#and let you deal with the blight because he was so blinded by revenge and thirst for loghain's death and that's not great??#not really something that gets brought up because it's unflattering it's an ugly part of his character but it's there mingling with the goo#and if you have a good relationship with him but don't know how he'll react when you spare loghain that can be devastating too#but it's also super understandable WHY he reacts like that WHY he leaves even if it's a selfish move on his part and hurts you#i dunno i think sometimes we're scared to talk about the ugly parts of our favorite characters because we love them#and don't want them to be wrong especially in fandom with a lot of pissing matches and bad faith arguments y'know?#i dunno this is my spiel of the night: i love all my companions except sebastian who is just a character that exists to me#i wasn't joking when i said i'd like to be enlighted about sebby and his romance like....... explain elaborate educate
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