#I can't believe I finally remember this show

[dearest-and-nearest]

That's my canon and most lovely route, but with one little thing: Aretha is a mage herself. She simply doesn't feel she's a part of magic as social group.

As we all know, Malcolm's personality changes to match Hawke's. So in my canon it was hard, cruel even man, who raised the same hard and cruel daughter. For me it seems fitting why Carver feels so unconfident and nervous

But back to the post. I was talking about this many times and yes, game almost begs you to support mages, always giving you an opportunity to change your mind if you're going with Templars, but almost never - if you're with mages. If you support none in the start of act 3, Orsino is the one who gives you quests, not Meredith.

And honestly, I think it's bad. Like mages are dangerous, no matter what Anders says and wants, they are dangerous. Just remember Broken circle quest or Redcliff. Orsino helped fucking maniac simply because he was a fellow mage. Do I feel sorry for ordinary mages, who will be slaughtered? Yes, and you can still don't kill them, btw. But mostly - mages here deserve their fate, they turns to demons more quickly, than I write this post.

And honestly? I have no wonder why Meredith gone mad, she hadn't even need red lyrium for that, just imagine: you're a head of a templars in city full of mages. Your superiors do nothing, but gossip about your cruelty behind your back, while you have to do all the job, they're so useless than even can't capture apostate who came right in their arms. You're working all the time, but no matter what you do, this city is still full of bloodmages, apostates and other dangerous people.

And by the way, act 3 starts with Orsino in hightown reading speech almost right near church (i feel he would be do this near church with pleasure, but near our home is more comfortable). He left the Gallows, swimmed to docks, then went through it, all Lowtow, almost all high town, all the way we do through finals of act 2 and act 3, and nobody stopped him. And in this time game tells us that Meredith is especially tyrannical in this act

I know it's probably devs' mistake and consequence of no time and money during development, but I don't care. I'm judging the story game shows me and it what it shows and what it tells me conflicts from the first act 3 scene and even before that. And I have tendency to believe my eyes and ears, not what devs wanted to imply, but couldn't.

So yeah, I genuinely think templar route can be perfectly logical for Hawke, should we remove sympathy for circle mages for whatever reason. Does Hawke dislike their sister or do they not think that all mages are their friends - boom, they have a good reasons to support Meredith. And it's really underestimated route in fandom, because people mostly play as good ans don't know what a cool things can be in "bad" routes

While writing that Dragon Age 2 post the other day, I made a narrative connection I had never made before.

I was writing about the Templar route, and about how the game makes no bones about how the Templar route is the evil route, it's clearly narratively marked as such. Because the structure of the game sets itself up from the start to make Hawke have some sympathy for the mages: they are the child of a mage and the sibling of a mage. This is an issue that Hawke cannot exempt themselves from having opinions on.

But that said, yes, you can choose the Templar route. You can decide that the tragedy of your family being ripped apart by the mage plight has hardened Hawke's heart against them. You can join forces with the Order that has hunted your family members their whole lives. You can choose to tighten the iron fist, instead of choosing to break it. You can become the ruler of Kirkwall. You can kill your sister.

And then I realized: That's Meredith's story.

Meredith, whose sister was a mage, the sister who died from it and ripped her family apart in the process. Meredith, who hardened her heart against people like her sister and dedicated the rest of her life to punishing others like her. Meredith, who joined causes with the Templar order who made that happen. Meredith, who took over the city.

You can choose to become Meredith. The game lets you do that. But you have to know -- as you climb over her corpse to ascend her bloodied throne -- that it's not a 'good' choice.

[lemotmo]

I can't believe this is an actual discourse, well actually I can, but if you would like to choose your fighter, I'm curious where you stand on the issue as well. For what it's worth this makes sense to me. I'm good with this. And the Buck girlie thing feels accurate.

Q. Do you believe Eddie is gay? And where do you stand on his relationship with Shannon?

A. So I will start by saying the fact that you all think this needs to be an actual sticking point is asinine to me. He's demi sexual. If you want to headcanon him as gay, knock yourself out. But the show isn't going to be that deep about it. As far as the show is concerned Eddie is going to have been in love with Shannon and now he'll be in love with Buck. That's it. And it's fine. But I believe he's demi. The first thing he always tells people is that Shannon was his best friend. Eddie needs an emotional connection to someone. The emotional connection is what allows him to feel everything else. But the show is not going to spend multiple episodes having Eddie realize he's gay and then declare he never really loved Shannon. That's not what's going to happen, and I don't know why you all believe it would or should happen. There's nothing wrong with him having genuinely been in love with Shannon. And even if he does end up being gay he can still have genuinely loved her. Him being gay does not erase Shannon. And she doesn't need to be erased for him to be in love with Buck. I say this as a Buck girlie, but this entire discourse feels like a set up to declare that Eddie isn't worthy of Buck if he ever loved anyone else. And we're not doing that. These are men in their 30's. They both have a past, and they have both loved other people. That's life. Eddie loving Shannon won't make his love for Buck less than. I'm not saying the show won't or can't have Eddie say that he loved her differently than he loves Buck but they don't need to do that. Eddie is allowed to love them both. You're asking a show that can't be bothered to know the age of their characters to be nuanced enough to tell a full-fledged sexuality storyline and that's not this show. Buck apparently doesn't even know he's bisexual yet. Eddie loved Shannon and he will love Buck. That will be how the show handles it. And that's fine. As long as it ends with Buck and Eddie together the labels should not matter. I understand that representation matters but that's not what this discourse is about and we all know that. But as far as I personally am concerned, Eddie is demi. Ryan is not going to do any Cameo videos encouraging one headcanon over the other so if you want to headcanon him as gay that's your right. I just don't think anyone should be demanding the show give him a hard stop label. Because I don't see them doing that.

Thank you Nonny!

For me the answer is pretty simple. I've ALWAYS believed Eddie is demisexual. All the signs are there.

He loved Shannon after he was her friend for a while. They made a connection first and then he fell in love. He went straight into dating Ana and Marisol, didn't make that connection of friendship first and, while he liked them, he never loved them.

And now he loves Buck. He was his friend first, they made that connection and then he fell in love. Only this time I don't think he realises he's in love. I think his love for Buck will hit him like a sledgehammer somewhere in 8b and I'm so here for it. 😋

I agree with Ali that they probably won't label him. They haven't really labeled Buck either and I don't see them doing it with Eddie. He'll just realise, maybe struggle for a while and finally accept that Buck is the one.

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[coffeegnomee]

for the inevitable day I can be proven wrong, I just want to say just how many times I think Kab and Mane are secretly working together and I get really convinced it all makes sense and if she is as good of an actor as she insists then this is just not a crazy take at all.

But then I remember what she says on her streams and I remember I have zero belief that that could be true in the slightest.

But then something like Hannah conveniently being logged out right above the claymore and becoming the perfect scapegoat for how mane found it, or the signs that mane could have found it himself covers up the concept of a mole on the team. How much it reminds me of what spoke was like in the s3 finale. How much it's in the little moments that expose a liar regardless of what they say.

How zam literally gave her the example of working with mapicc to kill pangi and how that showed how dedicated he was to him getting the mapicc kill. How convenient it is for her if the claymore fails so she can be the one to kill mane. How easy it would be dm mane that. and mane can take care of covering for her by saying he found it. how i definitely believe he would be intrigued and pleased with the possibility of a story like that.

how much mane targets her and how easy of a justification that is for her to infiltrate the opposition. How incredibly offended she gets when anyone implies this isn't her kill, while she stays to the side making other's plans come to light.

How much she insists on knowing all of zam's plans. always asking questions.

how much she insists that she cares about zam but has also said multiple times she wants to do a crazy arc on zam. the two can be true because they do care about each other outside of the server.

how she picked mane's iron farm for the conversation with bacon way back when. How she flew off to mane's lag machine area when talking to woogie. How coincidental that of all the places it was two manepear locations in the same week. How much i believe that that is the kind of audacity that kab would love to write into a story.

I just can't shake the Jumper paranoia since s5. How convincing jumper was for being a part of the team. How there were clear points of her being a traitor that got so completely brushed under the rug with easy excuses from her. How easily Spoke s3 got in on zam's team without trying because zam was willing to trust him instantaneously because they once shared views. Zam did all the heavy lifting for making Spoke not look sus, spoke just had to go along for the ride and make tiny silly mistakes that implicated every other member of the server while systematically leading to clown finding the bases himself.

But then i remember Kab is simply always happy when something benefits her, and so not being upset in the slightest over mapicc's claymore not working is so much easier explained as her just being happy her plan can work. Rather than already knowing it was never going to work.

And then I remember how afraid she gets about doing a plan and how much she overthinks before doing it. How much it feels like she's a bad actor when she turns on the acting, so it feels like she's just not good at acting. But what if she isn't.

The possibility is so low and yet the examples are there.

Because she's either the worst manipulator in the world and cannot read people and has only succeeded due to the shortness of other servers, or she holds out for the long con and can handle lying over a very long period of time and covering it by talking about her random other plans as cover for the long term, and she's lying to chat as well in every moment she is streaming. Which is a mind fuck I was not prepared for.

Because you don't need to actually characterize people well in order to manipulate them. You just need to understand yourself. And you just need to craft a narrative that makes enough sense for others to fill in the gaps.

but that's just a conspiracy. one that blossoms in every zam stream and dies in every kab stream. Hopefully I'm wrong but either way we'll know at the end of the season.

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Be ready for disagreement...

The Shinigami absolutely belonged in the finale of this Arc!

As with 100% of plot holes and missing lore, we have no information on why the Shinigami didn't visit Ichigo in their gigai.

At best with have fanon meta about a direct order from Central 46, forbidding them to contact Ichigo in order to flush out Ginjo (who wouldn't have approached him if during those 17 months he'd seen people like the Kuchiki Siblings, Renji et all dropping by for a visit.

As for the theme of the Lost Agent Arc, it is Bonds.

And we see that the humans have really weak bonds. Mostly from miscommunication, yes, but also because they weren't exactly close friends at the beginning of the series. They're people that had to come together for a common objective.

In this point of the story, one of the people I hate the most for keeping secrets from Ichigo is his supposed buddy, Chad...

Dude had been training with the Fullbringers and didn't remember to mention that? So much for friendship.

I expect nothing from Isshin, therefore I'm not surprised that the dude didn't come forward with the truth about his origins throughout that time.

Urahara also cut contact with Ichigo and yet everyone (almost everyone) praises him for coming up with the Reishi sword.

(There was still a law in place about transferring powers to a human. And I don't think Mayuri cared the least about Ichigo. And I don't like the dude...)

When Tsukishima unleashes Book Of The End, we see exactly how frail those bonds are.

Even his sister's, who undoubtedly loved him, but siblings are siblings... And there was a layer of mistrust towards him, again because of all the secret he himself kept... And they weren't like against, against him. They just wanted him to "stop being rude to cousin Tsukishima" (And let's be honest... Ichigo has a past of being a little shit. A punk. A rude person...)

Chad, — his supposed best friend — stands against him in battle to protect Tsukishima.

Inoue — the girl who thinks what she feels is love — heals his enemy and can't put Ichigo first.

Remember:

Tsukishima didn't ERASE Ichigo. He included himself in the memories. That's what he does.

In the "flashbacks" we see Ichigo too... It's just that Tsukishima is also there.

Which means all the actions he took were still in those two's memories. And yet they chose Tsukishima...

Now the Shinigami...

Of course they're not the Heroes of the series!

But they're also not the villains. They're in the grey area...

No one who followed the previous arcs with their full span of attention would believe for one second any of those people would so much harm one hair in Ichigo's head...

Either people want it or not, the one who represents the change in the Soul Society and their relationship to Ichigo, is Byakuya.

The one who had the most drastic change of heart. The one who threw the fight so he could keep his honour while allowing Ichigo to save Rukia.

The one who, after bringing Rukia and Renji back to Soul Society, ended up sending them to Hueco Mundo to fight alongside Ichigo.

The one who actually appeared to help Ichigo against Yammy, — with Kenpachi in tow!— and the one who pushed Ichigo to go to Karakura to protect his hometown and fight Aizen.

Now, in this Arc, he's the one who's tasked with fighting Ichigo's tormentor.

He fights Tsukishima in Ichigo's name!

He gets cut, and yet, Shinigami that he is, Head of the Kuchiki Clan that he is, Stoic that he shows to others he is, still goes against the fake memories of the mentor figure and takes him down.

For Ichigo. Because of Ichigo. In his stead.

And comes TYBW, the Karakura Team still can't communicate and still don't trust each other!

Uryu goes on a rogue mission that could have gone awfully wrong.

Inoue and Chad are left in Hueco Mundo, because Ichigo is worried first and foremost about the Shinigami.

Ichigo arrives there and the first actions he undertakes his getting Akon to safety, fly over Rukia and Renji to check if they're alive (doesn't stop apparently, but I digress...) and goes straight to Byakuya from whom he receives this banner of protecting the Soul Society. A tearful plea he goes above and beyond to fulfil.

There's also this weird moment of Chad and Inoue believing Ichigo would run away from the fight... Which... Excuse me?!?

Why would they say that?

Chad? The one who had been protected by Ichigo all that time ago?

Inoue? Who went along with Ulquiorra (that was the weirdest kidnapping ever, btw...), causing all of those people to go and try to save her? Ichigo at the head of the rescue team?

So no...

The Karakura Team aren't best friends and they learned nothing throughout the series.

And the Shinigami, — at least some of them — deserve better than being considered as the bad guys, since they have always fought for Ichigo since the Soul Society Arc.

You're such a fucking idiot, Uryu...

Yeah, you should have fucking told him from the get go! You're supposed to be a part of the Karakura Team! You know the supposed "real friends" group?

Oh, right... Sorry...

You're actually just acquaintances with a shared goal.