#I have no answers its just interesting to think about

[raichukfm]

It's a fascinating question and the answer doesn't speak to it at all. We're talking about swapping perceptions, you know, the hypothetical thing that could answer those "What if my blue is your red?" ponderings. Were that the case and you were to swap, you would start seeing everything red as blue and vice versa, but you would be able to tell this. That's a controversial point, but we aren't proposing a full qualia inversion here; your internal concepts of red and blue haven't changed, just the way that your brain maps sensory stimuli to your qualia has. You can imagine red, and it's red as you have always imagined it, you just look at a red delicious apple and you see it as blue. (Actually a fascinating question whether people would agree with this assessment, and has me wondering about people with aphantasia specifically about if they think their 'red as they have always imagined it' can be separated from the way things with that color look to them. I'm getting off track.)

But this swap is different. Semiotics refers to the meanings that things have; for instance, the way you are looking at these squiggles or hearing these sound waves and taking them as a message. I am intending a meaning now as I type these words out, and you are taking away a meaning as you perceive them, and though it won't quite be the same meaning it is related. There's a question of where exactly the meaning you perceive is; is it in the message itself? Is it just contained in the context around it? Was it put there by me? Is it only there when you read or hear it?

And now specifically we're talking about abstract objects, things which aren't concrete; for instance, words as words, not images or sounds but the thing that those patterns invoke. Things where it is already an interesting philosophical question about how exactly it is that they exist. (For those with the bent to ponder it and not just go 'Uh, they just do, duh' because yeah that's fair.) And that's just one example of an abstract object. It's not all messages. There are numbers. There are complex mathematical objects, like groups and rings and fields. Are things like "peace" abstract objects?

If we do this swap of perceptions, so you perceive the meaning of an abstract thing to be the meaning that I perceive... What are you perceiving, exactly? Is it the thing anymore? Is this even truly a swap of perceptions or is it rather a swap of thoughts? If you took one piece of my mental model of the world and swapped it out with one of yours, how would it fit in? Would it fit in at all? It's fascinating.

The world isn't shrouded in darkness. There's not some blinding fog that has settled over everything. You can observe the world, make sense of parts of it, peer into its mysteries and try to think of answers. Yeah, it's confusing and a lot of pieces of it are out of reach but that's just because the world is so fucking big and complicated and so many parts we simply lack the faculties to possess. This question is that lovely kind of philosophical pondering that is fundamentally unresolvable and by all rights has no practical purpose... But we can still talk about it, and in talking about it, we can share ideas and work through how it is we think of things. If nothing else, we can enjoy ourselves. And that's as practical a purpose as anything else.

Don't see something you can't think of how to answer and decide that it cannot be answered and that now is a time to shrink away to safe thoughts that can be trusted. Ponder whatever bullshit that strikes your fancy, and try to think about what the answers would be. Even if you can fundamentally never find out if you're right or wrong, the thinking itself is a worthwhile exercise. Encourage other people to do it too, though don't try to force it; different people have their own sorts of funtime questioning. I've got things like this, some people have how much prep time Batman would need to defeat Shrek in a fight.

equally confounded and obsessed by this quora question and response that i just stumbled onto

[saintsenara]

why do people portray walburga and her relationship with sirius in such an exaggerated way? like torture??? i get that we don't have a lot of information about what went down, but its such an extreme choice

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

unsurprisingly, the answer to this is under the cut, because it comes with a trigger warning for discussions of physical and sexual abuse.

my interpretation of things is that it's a really interesting bleed-through into fandom of two real-world views a lot of people have:

firstly, that it's uniquely horrifying when a woman who is also a mother is cruel to children [or, indeed, when she's anything other than completely self-sacrificing and nurturing].

grimmauld place is a dozen different gothic literature tropes in a trenchcoat, and the text hammers that home with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever. it is walburga in the portrait - haunting sirius, serving as a physical manifestation of the rot of blood purity, making grimmauld place seem as much of a prison as azkaban - rather than orion because the reader wouldn't find it anywhere near as disgusting or frightening to see a man in that role, and the narrative meaning intended by the portrait therefore wouldn't come over as clearly.

[the subtext to walburga's character - that the portrait and the house are liminal spaces between life and death, a hint at the extraordinary grief she carries which will be revealed in deathly hallows - would also be interpreted very differently by the reader if they belonged to orion. walburga's grief - for both sirius and regulus - is inextricable from what the series thinks is "true" about motherhood and womanhood.]

and this - i think - is why, even though sirius does talk about the emotional abuse he experienced coming from both of his parents, the fandom is laser-focused on walburga. she's a bigger presence textually and she's a bigger presence textually entirely because she exists in defiance of deep-rooted societal opinions about how mothers should act.

[which we also see in the fandom's responses to petunia versus vernon and molly versus arthur...]

the second real-world view which bleeds through into the fandom's treatment of sirius' childhood is one which lots of people hold and which therefore has major, major repercussions for people in abusive households and relationships: the idea that abuse which isn't physically extreme [or, in the case of children, but much less often adults, sexual] isn't "as bad" as abuse which is.

and part of this is that the social norms we live by treat extreme physical abuse [and child sexual abuse] as objectively wrong, but treat abuse which doesn't meet this threshold of extremity much more subjectively.

a parent who beats their child so badly that they almost die will inspire outrage from all quarters. a parent who hits their child with a belt once across the backs of the legs as punishment for misbehaviour, but claims this is a form of reasonable physical discipline which doesn't cause their child any lasting harm, will find plenty of people willing to defend them as well as plenty of people willing to condemn.

and - of course - societal prejudices connected to things like gender, race, class, and so on play a big part in these splitting of opinions. a man who rapes his five-year-old child will be - in public, at least - unambiguously regarded as a criminal by everyone in a community. a man who rapes his female partner will find plenty of people willing to argue that it's her duty to provide him with sex and he was merely requiring her to fulfil that duty. a man who rapes his male partner will find plenty of people willing to say that gay men are all hypersexual and the victim loved it.

this subjectivity of response is also one of the reasons why emotional abuse, financial abuse, coercive control, stalking, and other forms of non-physical abuse still aren't taken as seriously as they should be. there's a widespread perception - and not just among police - that they're not dangerous in and of themselves.

from the fandom perspective, then, it seems to me that the writing of abusive situations often focuses on extreme physical violence as a way of authors offering "proof" to their readers that they take the fact that the character was abused seriously.

there is a worry - i think - in many authors' minds that if they wrote walburga never laying a hand on sirius, they would be accused of claiming his childhood was normal, his experience was fine, his parents' treatment of him was justified, or that he shouldn't be thought of as someone who was abused.

but - of course - something it's crucial for us to do in real life is be alert to just how complex and individual abuse is, and how poor our pre-conceived notions about what it is and what it isn't tend to be. i think the same is true in fandom, and it's why i think portrayals of non-physical abuse which take that abuse as bad enough are so important.

[xetlynn]

an artists muse- a viktor fic.

eleven.

[ten] [eleven] [twelve]

faithful to its nature, its power never diminished.

Arms wrap around you sweetly, you lean into it. Wanting nothing more but to stay in the moment. “you’re so pretty.” And you look over to see Viktor. You smile, going in to place a kiss on his lips. It was perfect. The room was dark, only dimly lit by the laptop screen that played…

That played um… What is it playing? You pull away from the kiss, to look over at the device that was beginning to look weird. “What the-” “[Name]?” You look back over to Viktor who was now replaced by Powder. Your best friend. You furrow your eyebrows, slightly in disgust. You blink a few times.

“What?” You rasp and you hear Powder laugh, her arm rested on your waist as the two of you lay together on your bed watching a show. “Dude, you passed out.” She announces. “We’ve only watched one episode.” She tells you and you scrunch your face. Trying to register what was happening. “Sorry.” 

She raises a brow at you. “Have a nightmare or something?” Powder sits up, her arm going back to her own side. You frown momentarily at the loss of her warmth. “No, I- it was stupid.” You shrug your shoulders, sitting up as well. Staring down at your fingers as your face grows flustered. “Tell me about it.” 

You think back to the short, painfully short dream. “It was about Viktor. For the hundredth time.” You sigh, annoyed with your own brain. Creating such imagery in your own head that you now have to think about when you’re conscious. “Mm, not surprised.” Powder huffs out a laugh, leaning into you as she also pauses the show. “Thanks.” You scoff, sliding off the bed to stretch out your limbs. 

“No problem, but seriously I have a question.” Your best friend follows suit, jumping on the ground. Surely to give you guys another complaint by the people underneath you. “What?” You ask, heading over to your desk, plopping down on the rolly chair.

“Do you love him or something?” The question catches you off guard and your eyes almost pop out of your own head. “Love?” You repeat.

“Yeah, if I’m wrong you can tell me but I only ask because this is like a heartbreak [Name]. I’ve never seen you this… disheveled over any break ups you’ve had.” Powder explains her reasoning. 

And thinking back to it, she’s right. With your past relationships, that was official, you’ve never really given it another thought when it ended. It was over and yeah you were sad for a little bit but this is different.

Your chest ached with the mention of Viktor. In most dreams there he existed, holding and loving you, and each time you pleaded it was real when you wake up. Only to be left with the harsh reality that you ruined that chance of being tangible.

You beat yourself up every second you're alone. 

“I don’t know. It had only been two-three weeks of getting to know one another. I feel love is a strong word for that.” You tell her truthfully. “Did you love him when he was your online friend?” She inquires and your eyes travel over to your phone. “I had love for him. He was a close friend but can you fall in love with someone you technically never met?” You question, it was something you asked yourself quite a lot. Did you love Ma? Could you fall for someone you never saw face to face. Was that possible? And if it was, is it pathetic? 

“I think so, I mean you know who he is now. Is the feeling the same for both?” 

“Why are you interrogating me?” You ignore the last sentence, now feeling on edge on how deep this was getting. “Just curious.” She hums. “I don’t know the answer.” And truthfully you didn’t. 

Love? You don’t even know if you’ve ever truly loved someone. As time passed you believed you weren’t capable of loving someone more than a friend. With your exes it never felt right. In those relationships you were honestly miserable. No motivation, putting on a mask, and not being true to yourself. 

You couldn’t enjoy your interests. Your art is forgotten about.

With Ma… or Viktor. Both. That never happened. If anything you were more motivated.

In high school you stayed up until ungodly hours, painting, sketching out sculptures based on the sound of Ma’s voice. The colors you saw, the feelings you felt all put into your art. 

Specifically the crowd paintings you created. Crowds of people. Crowds of familiar faces but not the one you wanted to see. A face that you hadn’t gotten the chance to meet blurred out but facing you in each painting. Only one figure that stood there, staring back at you. No features attainable to recognize.

And you hated it. You wanted to know who it was.

“Wonderful ideas, wonderful models. I don’t think I’ve had such intelligent and creative students as I do this year. Take this time to inspect others' projects and mingle with one another.” Your biology professor tells the class, everyone of you standing up to his directions. 

Viktor and you stick together, unintentionally throughout the room. No words said between either of you.

You admire your fellow classmates' work, clicking through the slides on each laptop. Reading thoroughly through their slides. Silently gushing at the way they decorated their boards. Viktor observes you the entire time. 

The words of his friends stick in his mind. You don’t entirely seem upset? But if they had seen it themselves, surely they’re not lying to him. His eyes scanned your face closely. A hardened gaze, his jaw clenching subconsciously.

Did he want to see you upset? Why would he want that? To know you’re hurting just as much as he is? Would he wish that pain on someone he lo- he respects? 

No, he wouldn’t.

You look back at him with a polite smile. “Right?” His eyebrows furrow, confused. “What?” He asks hesitantly, his cheeks fell warm as he is put on the spot by you. You snicker. “I said, their work is so organized, maybe the two of you would hit it off.” You repeat, your breath now caught in your throat. Wondering if that was too friendly too soon. He glances over to the people’s work. 

It had no color, monotonous and tidy. Is that what you think of him? Bland, tasteless and… boring? 

His head bows down, a ghost of a nod. “Sure.” He dryly replies, unfortunately feeding into your worries. “Did I say something wrong?” You quietly inquire as you guys head to the next board. A clique of students pushing past you. 

“No?” He averts your eye contact. Was he actually upset that you think of him like that? 

“Oh.” You puff out your cheeks, not knowing what else to say.

The voices of others cover the awkward beats of silence between the two of you.

“Am I that mundane to you?” He was almost inaudible when he asked the sudden question. You cock your head to the side. Your mouth opens to answer but he lets out a scoff shaking his head.

“Don’t answer that.” He walks ahead of you. 

Mundane? Why would he think that? You pointed out the person’s tidiness because of how put together Viktor is. You admired that.

He preferred things a certain way, his room showed that. He still had a personality outside of that. His energy drew you in. The way he held himself, the enigmatic essence but also the familiarity you felt.

And now you know the familiarity was Ma. They were the same person.

Ma used to tell you about the moon and constellations for hours. He enjoyed star gazing. He enjoyed reading and learning about living beings. Their struggles. But also their potential to be more than who they were raised to be. 

He was far from mundane. Viktor was more than who he thought himself to be. In your eyes he was far better than perfect. There wasn’t a word for how you perceived him. Because every word seemed minimal in comparison to what you felt.  

“You found your muse?” You hear your professor behind you. You glare down at your paper then up to them. “What? No, look at this.” You express, lifting up the sketch and shaking it dramatically. “I am. It seems you found it.” They place a gentle hand upon your shoulder. 

You drew a crowd. Just like your millions upon millions of paintings posted on your instagram. How is a crowd of people your muse? Your eyebrows knit together and you look up to Dr. Shoola once more. “This is just a random sketch?” You say in more of a question. You were confused. You drew this often, but it’s not your muse. 

“You’re a silly one, [Name].” They pat your shoulder, moving onto Ekko’s sketch in front of you. Your eyes land back at the sheet of paper. Found your muse? Where?

You observed your own drawing. What are you not seeing?

This is short, I did it on purpose because twelve and thirteen are going to be longer. :) And honestly I do have a concussion and this took me hours. I probably shouldn't have been on my laptop the way I was but I had to post thisssss.

Two more chapters left.

Taglist: @policedeer @ang3lz-lov3 @im-just-a-simp-le-whore @confusedgemposts @corpsepies @almostdrowningdown @obittwo @ren-ni @xx-siren-sings-xx @donnie-is-here @urmommt

[yandereunsolved]

.𖥔 ݁. ❆ Yandere Nines — RK900 ❆ .𖥔 ݁.

Humans have never adapted to change well. Whether it be death or life. They always seem to cling onto something to be emotional about. It's no doubt that the deactivation, well more like murder, of his interest's homemaker android will spark a chain of negative reactions. 

Grief.

That's what his programming tells him you will go through.

It's so trivial. 

The model you own is old, inefficient, and a waste of whatever money you spent on it. Every time he sees you, his processors sense your distress. So this Cyberlife creation's only purpose is a failure. What happens to failed androids? They are retired.

Although, for some odd reason, you have an emotional attachment to this one, as he has previously thought over so many times. It is not logical. 

Perhaps that's why you fail to see the deviations in his code. You are too busy being illogical to assess your cybernetic work partner's change of 'heart'. 

"I am better."

"Stronger."

"Faster."

"More resilient."

He shouldn't have to verbalize these things towards a dying android. It is clearly inferior. So why is there this need to—just this need.

"What makes you think you deserve them more than me?"

The other android begs for its life but gives no pertinent answer. How boring; well, if he could feel boredom. Perhaps he has that ability. He shouldn't have that capacity—to feel. That was the failure of his predecessor. 

Yet here he is, seemingly enamored by a human, going to great lengths to capture your attention and keep you fixated on him.

Pathetic, but still less pathetic than the thing that claimed to be your home android. 

clink. 

Its patheticness is no more.

That was over twelve hours, thirteen minutes, and forty-nine seconds ago. Now he stands beside you with a new objective. 

"Nines, help me find who killed my android, not just because we have been assigned to the case, but because she was my home android."

Soon he will be only yours.

[vespaer77]

Aside from the fact that I think I might be the only person on the planet who could genuinely be interested in the Executors (I say "could" because my faith in good storytelling from BW is on shaky ground), I fully agree with this post.

And I say this as someone who wasn't sure that the Veil coming down was the right move. But whether someone thinks the Veil should come down or stay up is immaterial. The whole point is that no arguments for the validity of either claim were really ever truly examined. The only reasoning in the game that we get for the Veil remaining intact is that its collapse would "drown the world in demons." Which is... almost a fallacy on its own. Aside from naturally occurring malign spirits (that we learn about from the Mournwatch), demons exist as a direct result of the Veil simply existing.

Perhaps the danger is in not knowing what would happen to all of the mundane, unmagical folk when confronted with the full power of all the raw, unfiltered, chaotic magic of the Fade. But that's still thinking of magic within the confines of the Fade itself. We have no perspective, outside of Solas, on what magic really looks like when the Fade and the mundane world combine. Does it change? Is it still dangerous? Who does it endanger? Are we wrong? Are we right? Who knows? The whole point is that there's never an opportunity to ask those questions. And we have at least three characters fully immersed and available in the story who could provide concrete, first-person, lived and experienced answers.

But we never ask.

We have a spirit of Wisdom who loves answering questions.

And we never ask.

Hell, in addition, we have two dwarves that are connected, isatunolly, with the Titans, who were also there before the Veil.

And we don't get to really ask anything of great value. Even our characters are canonically frustrated with how little we get to ask.

I just think it's very interesting that this game was called Dreadwolf for so long, and then it wasn't. The game we got has very little to do with, and makes very little use of, the Dread Wolf at all. So the game is called The Veilguard. But at no point does the Veilguard really ever.... guard... the Veil. Or make any mention of guarding the Veil. Or have any discussion on why guarding the Veil is so super important or what it even means, especially considering that, in the first 20min of the game, the only real element threatening the Veil is neutralized until the last 10min.

The game, called The Veilguard, isn't about the Veil at all.

In my humble opinion? This game should have been given a title that had more to do with the Blight or the gods or something. Or, given how many times it gets said in game, it could've just been called, "Dragon Age: It's Just So Hard." Even on a meta level, that's a title I could've believed, lol.

All this without even mentioning that one mural memory. We all know the one. The one that falls somewhere between a shameful, textbook retcon and a blatant attempt at gaslighting.

Whoops. I mentioned it, didn't I? Maybe I'll make a longer post about that someday. That's the part of this game that really grinds my gears, the status of the Veil notwithstanding.

In short, I firmly believe that the vilification of Solas is purely based on a retcon (and one that makes no logical sense when properly examined) and it's a hill I'm prepared to die on.

Anyhoops, if someone told me that, even though this game had been in development for 10yrs, the final version of this game was produced from start to finish in 16mos or less, I'd honestly believe it. I also feel like they were 100% shooting for a game that would have DLC afterwards and were told late in their development cycle that there wouldn't be so they tried to gift wrap everything with the ribbons and bows that they had. Like... go to the Halls of Valor and tell me that this is a fully finished game that was intended to be complete from the very beginning.

Castles in the Fade, or What Was the Point of the Veil Anyway

Something that will now haunt me until the end of time is why was the concept of the Veil ever introduced into this series.

We’ve been hearing about it since the very first game. There’s a codex entry about tears in the Veil in Origins. Tamlen mentions a thin spot in the Veil if you play a Dalish elf. Sandal has a prophecy in Dragon Age 2: “One day the magic will come back—all of it. Everyone will be just like they were. The shadows will part and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see.” Admittedly, this is just one line said by a character who often says odd things, but it hinted to the fact they were planning to do something with the Veil from the very beginning. The state of the Veil is repeatedly brought up. It all had to mean something! Or so I thought. 

When I saw “The Dread Wolf Rises” quest in Veilguard, I said, “Oh, here we go!” The Veil is coming down, magic is coming back, and it’s going to set up such an interesting story for the next game. 

Alas, no. 

I hadn’t really enjoyed my time playing Veilguard up until this point. It felt like the game was ducking and dodging every bit of world building and lore that could possibly bring nuance or complexity to the story. Every returning character or faction was a cardboard cutout of themself. They shoved Solas is a time-out box and gave him nothing to do. They refused to let him have any impact or influence on the story when he had been set up to be our main antagonist back in Trespasser. This game used to be called Dreadwolf! And while we learn about his past… we never talk to him about it. In the present, he’s in stasis.

Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain are our villains. And they are your typical evil for evil’s sake villains. They are mad, bad, and only as dangerous as the narrative will allow as to not give Rook and co too much trouble. They are surprisingly patient while Rook fixes all their companions’ problems… until Elgar’nan moves the moon to cause an eclipse. A vital component in making his own lyrium dagger. For some reason. This guy can move a satellite!? And he just let Rook walk away in previous encounters… twice. Ok. Sure.

The Evil Duo need their own dagger ostensibly to tear down the Veil, because they want to unleash the full force of the Blight onto the world. Because they are evil. And they were thwarted last time they tried to Blight the entire world. Why do they think Blighting the world is a good idea? What’s the point of ruling a world if everyone is dead? I guess they haven’t thought that through, because of the madness and the evilness.

Ok, I thought. Perhaps the gods will be the one to tear down the Veil. Or maybe we’ll have a choice to let Solas do it his way before they can, which will be less chaotic and less full of Blight. Because the Veil has to be coming down one way or another? Why introduce the concept of the Veil, especially a Veil that has been thinning and failing since the series began, if it’s just going to… stay.

There is a principle in storytelling called Chekov’s gun. If something is mentioned in a story, it must have a purpose. If you keeping mentioning that gun hanging on the wall over the fireplace, it’s because at some point in the story, someone is going to take it down and use it. The Veil felt like Chekov’s gun to me. Chekov’s Veil, if you will. It’s been here from the beginning of our tale, the spectre hanging over our protagonists’ heads for multiple games.

The Veil has been a character unto itself. It was the central focus of the third game, and its dissolution was set up to be the core conflict of the fourth game. We learn everything we thought we knew about the Veil was a lie. It was not created by the Maker to separate the Fade from this world because of jealous spirits, it was created by a guy named Solas to trap the elven gods and the Blight from destroying the world. Also, the elven gods were never gods, and they are also evil.

This reveal will surely throw the Andrastian religion into chaos! This puts the very existence of the Maker into question! The Evanuris are a lie; it’s only fair Catholicism—oh, I mean—the Chantry is a lie too. We briefly touch on that in Veilguard… then it is quietly discarded. Religious crisis averted.

But I digress.

When the title of the fourth game was changed from Dreadwolf to Veilguard, I started to see the writing on the wall. Still, I held out hope the Veil would have some greater purpose in the story. That its introduction as a concept was for a reason. That something in this world would change.

Instead, from the get-go, the question of the Veil is no question at all. We only get Solas and Varric making oblique or catastrophizing statements about it. Solas says little beyond he has a plan. If I ever wanted to hear a villain monologue about their plan, it was now! Varric, on the other hand, decries Solas’s plan. He warns that should the Veil fall, it will destroy the world and drown it in demons. And that’s that.

We never really learn why Solas wants to tear the Veil down, or why he thinks it will help anyone. “The Veil is a wound inflicted upon this world. It must be healed,” he says. And that’s basically all he says about it in Veilguard. In Inquisition and Trespasser, we learn it took the immortality from the elves. It cut most of magic off from the world. Spirits are trapped and are being corrupted into demons, and most of what we know about spirits and demons is wrong. There are ancient elves possibly asleep? That part is left vague, but ancient elves are still about. We meet some in Mythal’s temple. There seems to have been some merit in bringing it down, because elves were flocking to Solas’s cause at the end of Trespasser. He had agents working for him already. What do they know that we don’t know?

Apparently nothing, because by the time Veilguard rolls around, there are no mention of agents. He is working alone. His only motivation now seems to be he’s too deep in his sunk-cost fallacy. The Veil is unnatural, so it must be removed—consequences be damned. We are never given any reason to think Solas has a leg to stand on in his pursuit of tearing down the Veil. We never hear any kind of counter argument from anyone, not even Solas, as to why the Veil should come down. We are only told it will destroy the world. It will drown the world in demons. This is all Solas’s fault.

There is no nuance. No complexity. No moral quandary to mull over. The game gives us vague warnings with no explanation as to what exactly is so world-annihilating about the Veil coming down. We must take Varric’s word at face value. We’re the heroes; Solas is the villain. Stop him.

It makes me wonder why Solas was ever a companion in Inquisition, let alone a romance option. Solas was presented to us as a complicated character in Inquisition. We had the potential throughout the game to make him see the value of this world, to help him realize he was wrong about it. “We aren’t even people to you,” the Inquisitor says in Trespasser. Solas replies, “Not at first. You showed me that I was wrong...again.” He began the third game viewing the world as tranquil, seeing the people in it as nothing more than figments in a nightmare, just as we saw our companions in the In Hushed Whispers quest. He ends the game having made friends, having recognized he was mistaken. He might have even fallen in love. (Or he may still seen no merit in this world if the Inquisitor antagonized him the entirety of their time together.) But something makes him continue with his plan to tear down the Veil, despite recognizing this world is real. He must know something we don’t. Something we’ll learn about in the next game.

We’ve been hearing about the Veil for three games now. We’ve set up our complex antivillain for the next installment, and he’s going to tear the Veil down. We swear to stop him or save him. But it has to be more complex than that. It can’t be so straightforward. Uncomplicated. Simple. Boring. Right? Right?

Nope. He really is just the villain, mustache-twirling and all. He apparently had no greater motivation, no as of yet unrevealed knowledge that would put this whole Veil thing into a new context. It was really as simple as the Veil falling will destroy the world, so Solas must be stopped. There is no new information that is revealed which makes us question what we are doing. Solas is never given any nuance or complexity to his actions. Nuance and complexity have actively been taken away. Both him and the Veil are looking like they are the worst things to be in a story: pointless. Why introduce the Veil if it’s just going to remain unchanged? Why introduce a character like Solas, bother humanizing him (for lack of a better term), giving us his backstory, setting him up as a cunning antagonist, only to make him look stupid, then put him on a shelf until the last ten minutes of your game?

Solas was the trickster archetype of this tale. He was our version of Loki from Norse mythology. What is the role of the trickster archetype? To challenge the status quo. To bring about events of extreme change, like say, the tearing down of a Veil that holds back all of magic. Loki is a huge contributing factor in Ragnarök. Through his manipulation, he causes the death of the beloved god, Baldr. This ushers in a long winter, which signifies the beginning of the end. Loki is imprisoned for this crime. When the final battle between gods and giants begins, the sun and moon are swallowed, plunging the earth into darkness. The earth shakes and Loki is freed to fight on the side of the giants. The world burns in raw chaos, falls beneath the sea, and is reborn. The world is remade, and a new realm of the gods and a new, better earth is formed.

It really felt like this was the setup they were going for. Solas causes the death of Mythal, and this is his catalyst for creating the Veil, which ushers in a world without magic. This could be seen as equivalent to the long winter. Solas falls asleep, trapped in dreams. He wakes and sets in motion bringing about the apocalypse. It’s not a perfect one to one, but it’s there if you squint. We have a war against the gods in Veilguard. I was expecting a few remaining Titans to wake and join the fight. But we don’t get any of that. There is a final battle, but it does not end in the end of the world. Or a better world. It just ends, and everything is the same.

It seems our trickster god caused his apocalypse thousands of years before our story started, when he created the Veil. His role in this tale was over before ours began, and he really is just some relic from a long-past age. He has no role, no purpose in this story. He is here to be thwarted. He is no Loki at all.

If you can’t tell, I wanted the Veil to come down. Did I think the Veil coming down would be painless? Have no negative consequences? No. Of course not. But keeping it up has negative consequences too. And it made for an interesting story. Or at least it could have. But we never explore that. The game presents no counter argument to having the Veil stay up, which, again, begs the question: what was the point of introducing the concept of the Veil at all?

Did I think the Veil coming down was actually the best solution to help Thedas become a better place? I don’t know, and I never will, because the game never argues for it one way or another. It just tells you to want it in place and to stop asking questions. In real life, a catastrophic event is not the best way to solve any of the world’s problems. But this is the realm of fiction. We have gods and monsters, magic and myth. We have introduced the status quo of Thedas, recognized it needs to change, then our trickster god appears ready to fulfill his role in the narrative. 

Instead, it all comes to nothing.

I got to the end of Veilguard… and everything was more or less the same as it was at the start of Origins. Veilguard actually tries its hardest to pretend any previously mentioned problems don’t exist, so of course the Veil coming down has no merit. There are no problems to solve in this world, apparently. Solas is just stuck in the past and can’t get with the times. Silly Solas.

The Veil isn’t even a permanent solution. It wasn’t to begin with. It was some duct tape wrapped around a broken pipe, and we’ve just slapped an extra piece of tape on it. It’s still leaking. It is still unnatural, and will fall eventually one way or another. Large amounts of bloodshed weaken it, so I guess Thedas better achieve world peace real quick to avoid any battles. There were seven super-powered mages holding it together… now there is just one. Ironically, the Veil was going to fall after two more Blights anyway. The Wardens were doing Solas’s work for him! It would also have released the full force of the Blight at that time… which Solas was trying to avoid, I presume.

It feels like keeping the Veil up just pushed a big problem onto Thedas’ future generations. We’ll keep slapping bandaids on it until it all falls apart. Someone else can deal with the fallout, but we’ll be dead by then, so who cares.

Primarily, I wanted the Veil to come down from a storytelling perspective. The Veil was an interesting concept and I wanted the story to do something interesting with it. Conflict is what makes stories stories and the Veil coming down could create so much compelling and complex conflict. And the Fade is weird, and I like weird. Stories are also about change, and I wanted to see Thedas change. Yet, Veilguard is over, and barely anything has changed. Instead of magic coming back being a conflict for the next game, they went with Fantasy Illuminati. Oh.

The Veil turned out to be a nothing-burger, and no problems in this world are even close to being solved. Slavery is still rampant in Tevinter. The elven people are still oppressed everywhere. Mages have no more rights in the South than they did in Origins. Spirits are still trapped and being corrupted. The Calling still exists, though might be different somehow now? They don’t really get into that. The Chantry’s validity is still not allowed to be questioned. The Blight still exists in some form, but again it’s vague. Oh, and we learn the dwarves have been gravely wronged, and the Titans are still tranquil. At least if you redeem Solas and a romanced Lavellan joins him, they can work together on healing the Blight and helping the Titans. Oh, good. One problem is being acknowledged and some action will be taken. Offscreen. Hurray? Solas doesn’t have a really great track record of fixing problems, so Lavellan is definitely going to need to be there to make sure he doesn’t fuck it up.

For some reason, this game seemed terrified of letting us think about anything for more than two seconds. It shied away from complexity or nuance at every turn. The game is called The Veilguard—ironically, that word is never uttered in the game—but we are given no real motive for guarding the Veil. We’re unquestionably the hero. The villains are uncomplicatedly evil. Save the world… never wonder what you are doing or why.

I wanted the game to make me question if the Veil staying up or coming down was the right choice. I needed to be given a real counter argument. Convince me the alternative would actually be better or worse, because as I mentioned… things suck quite a bit in Thedas already for a lot of people right now. Let the Veil’s fate be a difficult choice to make. If the conflict cannot be what to do about the Veil, it should be am I doing the right thing about the Veil. If the heart of your game is so thin on motive, everything else falls apart around it.

I hoped they were setting up a complex, Thedas-sized existential conflict for this game in Trespasser, but no. I wanted something to happen, but nothing did. 

I want to feel challenged and changed by a story, not left feeling empty. I’m tired of superficial entertainment. I want to sink my teeth into a narrative that doesn’t paint the world in broad strokes of black and white, good and evil, heroes and villains.

Ultimately, I think my issue is why even introduce a concept like The Veil if you’re not going to do anything interesting with it. Or anything at all. What I thought was Chekov’s Veil turned out to just be a MacGuffin. And that’s disappointing.

[sgiandubh]

I love your style, intelligent, down to earth, very practical, not in the 5-10 children in 7 years part of the fandom. Guess that’s why I’m very intrigued by your take on recent events. I feel a massive shift in their public behavior, very different from the last 6-7 years where they tried very hard to separate themselves from their characters and each other. Why do you think that is?

Dear @i-ship,

Thank you very much for the kind words. I try to keep things in check and base my opinions on solid facts. Not 'FACTS', mind you, but as much as possible publicly available documents and data. The not so public things (meaning you have to pay for those, which indicates a different confidentiality level) I keep for myself, because I am not an idiot: in no way, however, do they contradict the rest, in which case I would immediately recalibrate my analysis. I also know very well that confirmation bias has often been mentioned as a sad excuse across the street, when things didn't look good for them. That is wishful bullshit, because no legal professional would prostitute their skill in order to shoehorn reality into a given scenario. Papers speak by themselves - there is no need to stretch the information they contain, but yes, you can (and you should) interpret them. Therefore, all I did was to translate in everyday English what is often not accessible to everyone and wrap it in a bit of context. This is, apparently, a mortal sin and I know it is the main reason I am being hated with a passion, by many.

All of the above just to stress the fact that I am not easily swayed by sensational pics, tidbits and gifs. I may sound like a damned party pooper to you, but I prefer to patiently follow what I think is interesting, rather than childishly bounce on my chair every single time people see what they really saw a thousand times before, in eleven years of saga. Nor do I need to have confirmation four times a day of something that simply exists, irrespective of the fact I know about it or not.

I will say only this: C definitely looks as she DGAF about the whole circus anymore. It started with the piggyback pics, on March 25, continued with the Taylor Swift concert (the only time I allowed myself to oooh and awww at 4 AM) and is now seemingly confirmed by these new promo pics and interviews. Yes, they screeched 'it's fan service', but as far as I know nobody forced C to behave the way she clearly intends to show everyone. It's Season 7B, for Christ's sake, the script is hogwash and the acting is not so good (yes, I will need a rewatch to write something decently balanced about it), the audience numbers are dwindling and OL is on its way out. Hard truths, no matter how you turn it: why would she open again the door to 'speculation' (ah, but what's in a word?), especially considering this cesspool of a fandom's obsessive-compulsive collective behavior?

Unless...

Unless, @i-ship. Let's not write the script, but you got me. I hope this answers your question - at any rate, it was a pleasure trying to.

[acourtofthought]

can you genuinely say at this point in time, Elain wants lucien? I'm not asking for theories or headcanons. I am asking if you genuinely think that Elain in any way is secretly pining over Lucien, and what textual evidence supports that.

People have argued about her mentioning his name, but I don't think that has to do with romantic feelings for him, moreso basic respect for another. People have talked about a "half-step" which I must've missed bc I do not even remember that - but i don't think a "half step" necessarily conveys anything romantic.

I'm trying to form an opinion in this ship war, but its hard when I see a ton of misinformation from every side. The elriels have their own faults, but they can point to text now that shows Elain wants Azriel.

Can Eluciens do the same? I'm not trying to start a fight, I really just want to know what portion of each ship is backed by the current books vs. how much is just people theorizing they are end game and what they want to happen. And if the Elucien ship is purely just "SJM will always pair fated mates together" that's also fine and valid imo, I just want to know if there's anything in the books you can point to that shows Elain wants Lucien at this moment in time. I don't want to argue about hypotheticals and foreshadowing and what a rose symbolizes. I want cold hard words on the page.

Please note: I know just because it might not be there YET doesn't mean it's not going to happen. I want to evaluate the current standing of these books and the rationality of each argument. But to do that, I need people to be honest about what's there and what's not. I'm asking you because you run one of the more...logical shipwar blogs. But if you don't want to answer this - I also understand why.

At this point in time I don't think that canon supports Elain wanting anyone and that includes both Az and Lucien.

The only person Elain ever confessed having feelings for is Graysen. Real feelings. The "my heart belongs to you" kind of feelings.

Elain specifically said she did not want a male or a mate and those are categories Lucien and Az fall under, despite the almost kiss with Az in SF. It's canon that a FMC in a SJM book can hook-up with a guy but not want a relationship with him (Feyre / Isaac, Nesta with fae who were not Cassian, Mor / Cassian, Mor / Helion) so Elain's actions in the Az bonus don't prove Elain wants him for more than a night of fun. In fact, the text in canon has her agreeing to "just a taste and that would be it". That's not a confession of long term commitment nor was there any to be found in any other interaction she's had with Az. Even crushes don't mean you're wanting forever with someone. Not to mention she was not written as looking towards either Az or Lucien in the 5 months after Solstice so absolutely no canon supports that she wants to hook-up with Az anymore. Elain's past actions from months ago (including those with Az) can't really be used as proof of canon of now, otherwise we should all be claiming she's still in love with Graysen since she never specifically stated she no longer has feelings for him. Nobody says that though, we use the canon of her no longer breaking down over Graysen to show she's moved past wanting to be with him and currently the canon suggests she's also moved past whatever she was about to do with Az on Solstice since there are zero signs to argue otherwise. There is also zero evidence of Az still wanting to be with Elain in any way now that we're 5 months beyond Solstice. 7 if you count HOFAS.

Right now I think the only thing canon truly supports is that Elain is showing no romantic interest in anyone, male or human. 5 months is a long time. Feyre left Tamlin then was mated to Rhys within 5 months and Elain was not mentioned as shedding a tear for Graysen in that same length of time, not mentioned as looking Az's way in that time, not having a reaction (good or bad) to Lucien in that time.

So to your question, canon does not support Elain wanting Lucien but it doesn't support her currently wanting Az. Canon also never supported her wanting to start a relationship with Az, canon doesn't support her wanting a mating bond with Az, canon doesn't support her having any desire to go forward with a forbidden love with Az.

Does that mean it's what she's actually feeling for Lucien or even Az? We can't say for sure because we don't have her POV but if we're truly basing this discussion off canon alone than Elain doesn't currently seem interested in anyone. It's not fair for e/riels to claim she still wants Az 5 months later as no canon supports it, that is their headcanon. Not to mention it's their headcanon she wanted to have a relationship with Az in the first place. There is no canon proving she'd be willing to seriously date him.

But as far as what I genuinely think (your phrasing)? I think Elain is struggling with the pull she feels towards Lucien and it scares her.

I don't think all Elucien's assume Sarah will pair Elucien together simply because they're mates. There are many layers behind what we feel.

I do think Elucien's use logic based on Sarah's writing and that logic tells us that characters don't simply ignore a mating bond. In canon, the bond creates a tug to the other that can never be truly forgotten. Based on that canon we hypothesis that there is a lot going on under the surface which is why she's hidden Elain's thoughts from us. She's the only main side character from the original cast who has never been given a POV and there's got to be a reason for that. Sarah was willing to share her almost kiss with Az but never her actual thoughts for Lucien who she suddenly began ignoring in ACOFAS after the events of ACOWAR and that seems a bit purposeful doesn't it? How a kiss isn't a secret but what she feels about the bond she says she doesn't want is?

While we've got no proof showing she wants Lucien, we were given so many examples of the author making an effort to show their compatibility. We were given a bunch of crumbs as to where Elain's future journey could take her and many crumbs placing Lucien in those same places. The author wrote Lucien (not Az) meeting Elain's father. We were given a bunch of scenarios where we're left wondering WHY Elain behaved a certain way towards Lucien especially after she defended him to Graysen, after she took a step as if she'd stop him from searching for Vassa, after she did follow he and Feyre instead of staying behind at her father's grave, after they were left together to wash up after the war, after she invited him to come back to Velaris but only after all that she began completely ignoring him for unexplained reasons. Based on Sarah's writing that pull and push typically means a character is struggling with her pull / desire for the other person and things aren't so one dimensional as "she doesn't like him!" If she didn't like him then why take a step as if to stop him? Why follow him instead of staying with her father's grave? Why peer up at him? Why invite him to Velaris?

We've been in this place before with a Sarah book. "Why did the character do that only to do an abrupt 180?" We saw it with Nesta, who was willing to die with Cassian in ACOWAR only to do the most 180's of all 180's by giving her virginity to someone else in the novella. To telling Cassian she wanted nothing to do with him though we knew she did. So Elucien's are only waiting to see how the author deals with Elain and her inner thoughts of Lucien. We don't think Elain's setup is going to be any less complex than Nesta's was. We believe the author is going to tell a story that is deep and meaningful. And while Elain's current setup doesn't prove this to us just yet, it is canon that Sarah has given that exact treatment to every single one of her mated pairs, whether the FMC was struggling with what she felt or the MMC (as we saw with Rowan and his bond with Aelin), so it would be silly for us to think Elain would be the only one who isn't given that same complexity.

While the textual evidence does not necessarily prove Elain has feelings for Lucien, I think it's valid for Elucien's to use textual evidence of Sarah's past writing patterns to predict the direction she's taking them.

I have no problem admitting that current canon doesn't prove Elain wants Lucien but I've never seen a e/riel admit that current canon, by the end of SF, also doesn't prove Elain wants Az. That canon never proved she wanted a relationship with him at all. Canon doesn't even prove she called his scars beautiful considering Feyre said she wasn't sure if she was referring to his Siphons yet they still hold on to that one.

Canon proves Elain loved Graysen though he was an asshole, canon proves that she was willing to hook up with Az with no proof of anything more, and canon proves that she shares a mating bond with Lucien that she'll never be able to completely forget ("it will be a bond that will trail her for the rest of her existence") though she's currently trying her best which results in weirdness for everyone. That is all the canon proves.

From a romance standpoint, only one of those storylines typically has staying power.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

(DATV thoughts with spoilers ahead; i think my tags will keep it filtered but just in case it doesn't since i dont want this in the actual game tags)

i just... man. i don't have a well formulated thought for this yet (and its my PERSONAL OPINION and other people can feel as different as they want, this is not an attack) but it keeps bouncing around my head, so. i know the popular thing right now is coming up with in-universe justifications for The Pantry Almost-Kiss Scene in ways that imply Lucanis didn't mean it/it doesn't represent him as a person/he was Faking It.

and i just don't like any of them. they make me sad!!!!!! i don't like the idea that one of the like 4 romance scenes we get in this game is him Pretending in some way, even if he does at that point like Rook back at least somewhat. None of the justifications i've seen make me feel Better about that being the point where we declare him as a romantic interest, which is what it is in the game, functionally. It doesn't lock you in yet but that point IS where the game says "they will take your flirting more seriously now". I did those same scenes for Davrin, Emmrich, and Taash and this is the formula the game uses (the "interrupted almost-kiss/confession" happens for almost all of the companions).

so if the answer for Lucanis' is "actually he stopped because he Didn't like what he was doing/feel that way yet" or that he felt he had to pretend for Rook's sake... it's kind of a letdown you know? esspecially when it comes right after what seems like an actually authentic moment (dispelling his "perfectly gathered clouds of doom"). Because, at that point in the game from my/Rook's perspective, it was like he finally was reciprocating. It made me hope that he'd acknowledge whatever was between him & Rook more in future scenes, especially because you get so little else from him at any other point, in terms of flirting back/showing you he IS interested. like up to that point I felt kind of bad for continuing to flirt at him, when he'd just change the subject right after! if someone did that in real life i would take it as a hint to stop. This is pixels and not real people so I didn't but they have done "reluctant/fearful interest" better in other characters if that's truly what they were going for in this one.

so after finishing the romance and getting the rest of content... idk. I don't like saying "one of the major chunks of characterization we get needs to be Thrown Out Actually because he was Pretending". because it's not like he or Rook ever actually address it in game--you just don't get to talk about feelings until some dialogue choices only in the act 3 romance scene, and then his speech at endgame (not even a full conversation, so much as his personal declaration). like it takes until the VERY end of the game for him to say the thing about "he was afraid to want you", but that comes after you've already hooked up, even.

I think truly what annoys me is that it's a story choice that can only make sense in HINDSIGHT not AS PLAYING. Only once you have all the scenes can you say "this one is out of character" and then you either have to accept it as bad writing, or come up with some in-universe justification to explain it... and so far none of the in universe ones feel good to me. i wish they did because maybe then I'd be less annoyed, rip. but at the end of the day i think even if there was some intent there, it was a poor choice for his story arc, because it doesn't effectively convey anything... and the reason why we can project a lot of different explanations onto it is simply because it is never addressed again (and again, Lucanis Dellamorte is NOT A PERSON he is a CHARACTER used to further a story for you the player, and so the reasons I don't like this choice are story-level and not a dig at how real life people feel or act).

So yeah at the end of the day. that is simply not a narrative device I would ever personally use in this way on a player/reader. certain kinds of hindsight revelations have their place (see: what the devs tried to do with Varric though I also think that falls apart on close inspection, but at least it has justification in-universe), but for a romance it just makes me embarrassed for Rook. In a game where you don't have nearly as many back-and-forth conversations with characters and have to resort to eavesdropping on them talking to each other, it's sad that one of the like 5 times you actually get to talk to Lucanis one on one we're maybe supposed to believe he wasn't being authentic, and also that Rook can't respond to this ever. It would be different if it had any kind of follow up, imo. or honestly as i've said before i would rather it have been swapped out with something entirely different or where we get to talk about their feelings instead, before i get labeled as one of the "people mad he's not Zevran 2.0/a sexy latin sterotype".

But having to step back to player-level analysis versus in-character analysis when looking at his whole romance arc just feels sloppy. but i'd much rather stick to "bad writing" than "intentional character choice" in terms of how to interpret the scene I guess, at this point, for poor Rook's sake. and i know people disagree with when I've said that before bc as much as I love Mary Kirby in other areas, she has said many times that she doesn't like writing romance, and I think it really does show here. As much as I love Lucanis and the scraps we got I wish I didn't have to do so much filling-in-the-blanks on our own.

[lotsofsq]

THANK YOU SO MUCH I COULD CRY i was grinning wider with every word oh my gosh thank you so much i’m so so happy to hear about you noticing, and finding joy in the little things i add!!

id love to tell you about my process! i love rambling about why i do certain stuff because sometimes i don’t even realize until after it’s down! often i have a feeling of a picture in my head and i just need to think of how to capture it

overall i try to do what feeeels right, but i often focus the most on differentiating eyes, i like for my designs to have distinct eyes and i was really able to do that with TMBS.

also with the colors they are a perfect set like the minimum pack of crayons

for reynie: i really wanted him to look gentle but not completely round, he’s very dependable so that leans more toward square shapes. reynie has always had a very specific look in my head because for years i pictured him looking like one of my childhood friends. his eyes both, look more asian, and lower eyelids often make a character appear more calm. the clovers are a little indicator i put often to show like?? good will almost? idk how to describe it but like when you can see the genuineness of someone.

for sticky: he’s such a nervous ball of energy and so sweet, he has this really round visual energy his eyes really mirror the shape of his glasses, big open eyes can be nervous or observant, in this case both! sticky has always been that deep blue color in my head, deep blue is a great indicator of vastness; the ocean, the night sky. fits well. yes little nervous sweats.

for constance: the epitome of angry squishy little kid, the almost white hair actually makes her look younger, since most people’s hair darkens as they age. i love her little tiny eyes, it makes her look like a stuffed animal. and i feel like the hair clip shows there are people who care enough to put it there. the little jagged lines always make me think of glaring and intensity

for kate: out of all the kids her eyes are the most realistic, she has a true eyelid and a natural shape to her eyes. i’m not entirely sure why i like to do that but i might be because i find her very wise, old soul kind of deal. i tried to make her look slightly older than the boys and i just adore her sunny disposition and humor, it’s so important for her personality. of course hee symbol is little rays of light coming off of her.

all these answers are kinda all why i did things instead of how, if you want that for anything i’d love to tell you if i can but i’m not sure that will be very interesting its a lot of trying until it feels right.

-

once again thank you so so much for this i hope you enjoy my response! it really touches my heart to hear people try to pick apart my art it makes me so happy

THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY!!!!!!

i’ll be posting most of my stuff chronologically so enjoy my journey

[ID copies from alt text: four headshots of the four society members: reynie is smiling calmly, his hair is sweeping left over his forehead. he is wearing a green sweater vest with a line of little sprouts on it over a button down. sticky has a nervous expression, he is fully bald. he is wearing a blue sweater over a button down. constance looks peeved and has wispy blonde hair with red hair clips. she is wearing a red coat over a yellow shirt. kate is excited and winking, her gold blonde hair is in a high ponytail. she is in a red and white striped t-shirt. all 4 have emphasized lines around them in their respective colors: reynie has green flowers, sticky has blue sweat beads, constance has red jagged lines, and kate has yellow radial lines around her. ]

[kingofthewilderwest]

I know tumblr isn't the largest space for TwoSet fandom, but in case anyone wanted a summary of last night's livestream:

The livestream was cozy, comfortable, and lowkey. We started it by ordering bubble tea. They were in their old, beloved Brisbane location.

They will restore all the videos, probably sometime today or tomorrow.

They will also try to reinstate the Instagram posts, though asked for patience because they're not sure how to do that.

They hid the videos because of an underestimation of fan sentiment. They didn't think people watched those old videos anymore, so they figured curate the chaff and just leave a few they were proud of for people to dig into and interact with.

They were receptive to this being the wrong choice, apologized, and talked about how in retrospect they could've done this better and communicated faster. They seemed in the know about different fan theories that popped up during the 50 days of silence.

B2TSM was definitely a passion project and it was a ton of work over the course of a year. They said they paid mid-six figures for these music videos and will be losing money off them.

They are closing down their store and once the latest round of merch for their music videos is gone, there will be no more merch.

They will not quit touring. There is now an official interest sign-up for a 2025-2026 World Tour on their website.

Their immediate plan is to take a break. They got as exhausted as they were during the kickstarter days when they were busking 24/7 on the streets.

After that... they don't know. They admit it's scary. But they want to keep forging new ground and finding new ways to advance classical music. Their mission to keep promoting classical music is ongoing.

Their last video (released today) is meant to speak to how they've felt about the last eleven years. They spoke positively and said they will never forget this chapter of their lives.

They are done-done making videos. Not to say it's impossible another won't happen (ex: TwoSet Talks), but it's best and most accurate to just say they're done-done.

TwoSet Academy is still being talked about in a vague fashion, though they did mention they have interest in promoting classical music education. So feel free to still sign up for that. Frankly it sounds like they're still figuring out what it'll entail.

They have multiple ideas of what to do next, but it'll take time for those to be honed into something good.

You can sign up for a newsletter for project and life updates to hear when they get around to it.

Since everyone was asking about health, again, they did get exhausted, but both are healthy. Brett's mysterious medical condition from 2020-2021 that people were concerned was an ongoing life thing sounds more like it was a one-time deal that exploded out from stress. He told us it was life-threatening, though, which was.... information. Relieved all over again that he got better.

They honestly but respectfully went through all the major controversies that have happened in the last year because fans asked about them. They tried to avoid going into drama or ripping into privacy, but acknowledged when something had already played its course, so answers were now okay to say. There were a few times where I think they didn't know both sides of a situation, but that's the normal and inescapable experience of being human, and insofar as everything they knew, they came off authentically and honestly in how they handled each scenario.

Controversies they went through included: the workplace allegations on reddit from 2023, the falling out with Jordan He after Fantasia, their distanced relationship with Ray Chen, and issues with content creators being inauthentic and chasing measurements like views and subscribers.

They seem like genuinely good and authentic guys. My respect to them, and I feel at peace with the whole situation.

Whole livestream just felt healing. If you want to go and hang out with Brett and Eddy, go do it there.

If you stumble into them on the streets, please go up and still say "hi."

[aranarumei]

what would separate hirano and kagiura?

so. about that preview of the adult au… I’m sure everyone’s wrecked right now. and I. have some thoughts.

so like, for the adult au to exist at all, harusono sensei has to contrive a situation for both hirano & kagiura to not get their romantic drama in high school, and the same applies for sasaki & miyano. it’d be easy to say that these couples are separated just because they need to be, but i think it’s worth giving them a look. under the cut because i'm being thorough.

for sasaki & miyano, it’s simply that they never meet past their first meeting. hirano doesn’t tell sasaki what miyano's class is, and that’s that. kinda mundane, isn’t it? like… cmon, you’d expect sasaki to try a little harder.

except. well. if there’s any word that defines the sasaki of middle school and most of his first year of high school, I’d say it was apathy. I think sasaki's got a very strange relationship with the idea of force—he uses too much of it on his sister once and subsequently avoids using any kind of physical strength to an extreme degree. he doesn’t break up that fight in the beginning by brawling, and when those kids retaliate he doesn’t hit back (ch 1, 2, and 4 of sasaki and miyano show these scenes, but it's ch 2 of sasaki and miyano: first years that explicitly confirms that sasaki threw no punches) and in a friendly arm wrestling competition he uses basically none of his strength at all (2020 sosenkyo extras). he’s careful in how he speaks to miyano and he feels bad for asking him to quit the crossdressing competition (ch 23, sasaki and miyano). he’s really patient about getting his answer.

in its best form, I think sasaki & miyano's relationship is about Care—miyano is so into his interests and so bright about them, and i think that overwhelming sincerity attracts sasaki, and i think it's a large motivating force in making him a more active person. so in a certain way it makes sense that the way they "miss" each other, in this au, is something that amplifies a negative trait/feeling that exists in the original.

for hirano and kagiura, they don't room together for the next year, and then... they drift apart. but here's what interests me. in the adult au, kagiura gets 61st on his exams. you know what he gets in canon? 60th! that's a difference of one place—the difference is so very clearly not the grades itself, it's internal. @raihanstrapinch suggested that this is perhaps an AU where kagiura took the "one day off" mentioned in ch 19 (you can find the post here) and I think this makes sense for a one place difference! (that one place being the possible cutoff for being able to be roommates again is tragic, though)

interesting is that kagiura says that he doesn't want to look back and regret taking that day off, because then he'll never forgive himself. I think this is exactly what motivates kagiura and hirano drifting apart: shame.

in ch 18 of hirano and kagiura, the topic of "equality" in a relationship gets discussed. kagiura wants to have a relationship between equals, and so that's why they start doing stuff like taking turns waking each other up, and it's why hirano gets kagiura to teach him some basketball. this isn't a new topic, since kagiura's been wanting hirano to be needy with him for a few chapters now, and it's one that gets extended on into ch 24, where hirano makes clear that his 10 seconds is distinct from kagi. reciprocation... it's beautiful.

point is, a lot of hirano and kagiura deals with what hirano and kagiura can do for each other. that's because it's central in establishing their continual understanding of each other. hirano is learning to fall in love with kagi, little by little. they're figuring out their relationship. of special importance is how both hirano and kagiura influence each other in the spheres of basketball and studying.

basketball is obvious: in ch 1 and ch 2, hirano takes care of kagiura so that he'll recover quickly from his cold, and he also helps him handle his loss. it's in ch 17 where we really see the full scope of how it applies to both of them, though: kagiura takes his 10 seconds and gets recharged for practice, and then hirano thinks that he really wants to study right now. despite their differences, hirano and kagiura sharing space with each other makes both of them better at their goals. it's a direct repudiation of the ideas that are floated in ch 11 and ch 13: that kagiura came to the dorm to focus on his club activities, while hirano came to the dorm to focus on his studies. their focuses, then, should naturally be pulled in opposite directions. they might just end up distracting each other.

something that's fascinating about the preview of the adult au is that, after waking up, kagiura demeans himself by saying he essentially has no self-discipline / control. here it's in the context of getting basically blackout drunk, but I think it also reflects how he might've felt back then, getting that grade. he didn't have the self-discipline to balance both studying and basketball well enough, in his own opinion, and since he feels like he didn't try his very best at it ("one day off"), I think he might have concluded, personally, that it might be best to pull back. it's not the first time that kagiura's drawn back, after all: he was like this when he started reacting too much to hirano's touch, and he's still like that because he keeps carefully calculating out his 10 seconds. as hirano says in ch 23, he looks annoyingly miserable when he's like this. he worries so much about crossing the line, about not being as good as hirano thinks he is... to me it's perfectly reasonable that there's a world where kagiura retreats.

in their character descriptions for the adult au, it's noted that hirano is mostly taken up by studying and doesn't socialize much, while kagiura doesn't really talk to anyone outside of basketball-related matters. i think this really shows off that idea of the adult au kind of expanding on a theme that gets introduced in the original, but in a negative direction: instead of balancing and positively influencing each other like they do in canon, here hirano and kagiura have retreated solely into their own focuses.

i think hirano is genuinely rooting for kagiura's success in basketball. he's always so impressed by his passion for the sport, so I think here, along with kagiura's self-inflicted withdrawal, he'd probably rationalize to himself that kagiura's working hard on basketball, and it's... good for him that he's doing so. honestly he seems kind of slow on the uptake with emotions in general so even if he did circle around to thinking about reconnecting, he might've already graduated and it would've felt too weird for him. i also think that, to sort of mirror kagiura's own hard work with basketball, he'd also work hard on his studies. in some strange way, they're still powering each other forward.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Sorry to be a bother, no pressure to read or answer I just got tea feelings

but I saw you tag something with how tea is currently popular due to imperialism and that feels strange given that the names for tea - tea/te and cha/chai stem from the regions of modern china/south east Asia they traded from. Tea is native to most global areas in many forms and that particular bit of analysis confused me because it's not necessarily just a product of imperialism.

Its a huge part of many cultures but also the types of tea that are popular are influenced by imperialism. However something about that throw away tag hit me because one of the things that's always united my cross cultural friendships has been tea. Brewing herbal tea for medicine or late night talks, milk herbs and cha at my friends house, all kinds of tea across the middle east, various tea like things. I feel like the insistence on the type of tea might be a more fitting analysis than just tea as concept.

If anything Jon's insistence on tea that Harrow doesn't like suggests more about how he experienced it as opposed to the concept of tea. I imagine that Alecto would have so much to say about interesting psychoactive plants if given the chance to be the earth and not Alecto, and that she'd view tea as a gift to people. A way to consume so many flavors, odors, and feelings in the plants she loved so much. So Jon forcing lukewarm unpleasant tea seems more like a horrible personal choice than a condemnation of "variety of hot leaf juices".

Finally, tea is always offered with options in most households, at least in my experience. It's not about forcing one tea - tea is just a time to chat and have a nice snack and beverage. That comes in so many forms and is often beautiful. Jon making it a dominance ritual fits more with the worst parts of his character than it does with the existence of tea.

Thank you for the question!

The tag was alluding to the fact that British tea culture, and by extension the tea culture of former British colonies such as Aotearoa New Zealand, is in part a consequence of the role tea played in British imperialism (Opium Wars, Indian tea plantations, Boston Harbour, etc).

I certainly don't think there's anything sinister about the social enjoyment of a cup of hot leaf juice per se! I myself am the worst sort of British stereotype who will pop the kettle on to deal with any situation ranging from Monday to death.

And I don't doubt that John's social tea drinking is, to him, part of his self-construction (and perhaps self-understanding) as a regular guy. He is, in his own rather twisted way, trying to be kind (and part of what makes John so genuinely compelling and terrifying is the fact that part of what he's doing is genuine).

But thematically, John tries to assemble a group of friends and family and creates a Freudian hellscape of coercion. John, an indigenous man from a colonised country, recreates the violence of empire on an unfathomable scale. Tea's historical role in imperial violence certainly isn't the main thrust of what Tamsyn is doing here, but it sits somewhere in the background of how tea functions thematically in the narrative.

[gjsxj0]

the dragon prince's last season was below mediocre, the finale was terrible and the major reveal was the worst thing i have ever witnessed. this post is long and strongly worded and typed up at midnight.

harrow being in pip was predicted since s1. everyone knew because they laid it out clear as day. it was intentionally set up and like all good bits of writing, the audience sees it and knows what is coming up.

why 6+ years into tdp's lifecycle was it made canon. after years of not answering it or just giving "half truths" (aaravos much?) all to just say "screw the audience" and make it confirmed in a scene that has its own issues and it was AFTER A TWO YEAR TIME SKIP.

not only that, it ruins harrow's and viren's relationship to such a degree i can only assume the creators just hated these two in the end. harrow being in pip implies:

viren intentionally did it without harrow's consent, costing harrow his autonomy whilst also making viren never actually caring about harrow in the end (which the canon does not support, i have eyes and reading comprehension). this begs the question: HOW COULD VIREN NOT HAVE UNFINISHED BUSINESS aka show up in the inbetween? harrow was the one relationship he cherished and then they pull this stunt and said "actually no viren is terrible even tho he DIED saving a kingdom that never deserved him."

viren did it and harrow WANTED it to happen which makes harrow look even WORSE than he was already set up to be. a king who struggles with the responsibilities and weight of his crown and is tired of these issues that he... kind of lets happen. it was interesting to see where it goes but wow this makes harrow an asshole if he just flew out of that window and did NOT come back to katolis for over 2 years.

viren... didn't?? do it??? which doesn't make sense because this show never has a mage unless its callum or its for plot convenience (and they die or are a one off character) and we are just back at square one. if they go this route, i will have to applaud the audacity for them thinking their audience is really that stupid.

not to mention the whole "black person spends a good chunk of time in an animal form" trope, which they should have just dealt with early on.

pip theory being canon in a two year time skip... let's pretend i accept this for a second:

they said arc 3 would be another time skip. 7-12 years possible. what the fuck. so harrow is never coming back (he said fuck katolis or he is DEAD EITHER WAY) or its gonna be relegated to a graphic novel or book (if they even complete the draft in time for publication YEAH WE KNOW WHY BOOK 3 NEVER HAPPENED). and even then. the original 2 year time skip. there is not going to be any actual explanation for it just like there was no good reason for rayla to leave callum bc there will be nothing to show for it.

they really couldn't just let this one theory never get addressed. it could have been a poorly done red herring but no. this is a massive fuck you to everyone that watched the show since day 1.

that interview on cartoon universe's youtube page where they just admitted they were tired of being asked where harrow was for so long they just did it. it was intentional and it was to spit in our faces.

their relationship means barely anything now, its too late in the story for them to fix this NOT LIKE THIS SHOW COMMITS TO ANYTHING ANYWAY and i hope aaron ehasz and justin richmond never write another cartoon again.

[all-pacas]

the houseswapped au is fascinating to me. how do you think chase hires his fellows in this au, and how do their interviews go?

@ppthsworstlapdog has gone into this a bit i think - but here's my take, because i agree, this au is incredible, the universe that keeps giving:

Chase probably had a couple fellows before House (much as House had a few before Chase in the 'real' world). He's less abrasive, but his apathy and less-than-involved teaching style made him shed fellows pretty quickly: Chase didn't really want a fellowship; Foreman probably foisted it on him, and Chase passive-aggressively ignored his applicants until they quit or found other jobs. House interviewed because, hello, diagnostics? Mystery cases? It-doesn't-matter-if-you're-nice-it-matters-if-you're-right? and Chase hired him because why not, he doesn't really care.

House's interview did not go well. He more or less interviewed Chase; is his reputation bullshit? Is he really that cool? What happened to his back? What's his deal? Anyone else would have been offended, and it's not like Chase loved it (or answered any of the questions), but… I think he understood the nosiness/curiosity as a form of caring and passion; House wants to know things, he's interested, he's engaged, and it's been a long fucking time since Chase did. He never really wanted to be a doctor, he never even really wanted to start a Diagnostics department, and House's blatant excitement was… nice. Genuine.

For a while it was just the two of them, but House was naturally a problem child from day one, starting the tradition of breaking an entering and really pushing Chase down the road of Malpractice Medicine (not that Chase was all that inclined to not break the law beforehand, of course. They just made one another Worse.) Foreman wanted House fired almost from day one, Chase by this point likes House and is passive-aggressive at the best of times…

He hires Wilson.

Chase was theoretically always hiring, although again in practice he never had a single interview or was all that interested. (Sometimes, okay, if there was a female applicant and she wasn't too young… but he wasn't interested in hiring, just using it as the world's laziest dating service.) House had thrown Wilson's application into the pile and Chase had figured out it was House's doing (House only has one friend, and why would an oncology resident even apply for this?), but he still couldn't be bothered to hire him……… until he did.

Wilson's interview went okay. Wilson was trying to impress and it worked, but Chase had already decided to hire him and didn't really care about him or what he said. But… actually, he gets along with Wilson in this universe. Wilson's great at the manipulation and smarm school of malpractice, and just off his first divorce, and Chase is kind of like………oh, same hat. Oh, a romantic disaster who likes to pretend to be nice to people. I can deal with this. In a way, he probably gets along with Wilson better than House, which is in its own way a weird fucking love triangle situation: House and Wilson have only been friends a couple years, are not fully intertwined and obsessed, Chase is House's mentor, thanks, lay off Wilson, it gets kind of weird.

House actually looks up to Chase in his own weird stalkery House way (going through Chase's trash, etc.), and Wilson isn't actually here to undermine his boss; Chase is also really good at his fucking job and gets to use all his perceptive asskissing powers to keep the kids in line. That said, there are definitely moments where the two of them sort of… overpower Chase with force of personality, not least because Chase is not super interested in being a boss, being any kind of leader; he's here to do his job and try and teach and what the kids do in their time isn't his problem as long as they don't undermine him. Which means that often House kind of acts like he's in charge and gets away with it because he's the strongest personality in the room.

This probably led to a The Mistake or even a Nobody's Fault type scenario, where House goes too far, does his House thing and gets someone killed. Chase goes to bat for him, but the whole thing is a mess and gets written off as failure to supervise; Chase gets a brief suspension… and more than that, it drives him to realize that maybe the dynamic is a bit fucked.

So he hires Cuddy.

Again, he was "always" "hiring," just not actually doing interviews or reading resumes. Chase is assertive and sticks up for himself, but he also doesn't care or really want to overrule his team when it's not medically necessary; he sees Cuddy and her medical administration degree and goes you know what could be interesting. She's a completely strategic hire, he hires her to balance out the teams and provide a counterweight to House so he doesn't have to be one. (Chase is a good strategist and a lousy leader.) He doesn't know that she and House are already acquainted at the time, but when he finds out he thinks it's absolutely a plus. Cuddy sort of struggles with the medical/diagnostic elements of the job, but she's really good at dealing with people — difficult patients and House — so she slots into the group really nicely. She's furious when she finds out Chase didn't hire her for her medical skills, though. ("What medical skills?", House asks.)

Once House leaves the team, hiring gets much easier, because he doesn't have to hire based on group dynamics anymore lmao. And, you know… he likes his team. He likes his weird dysfunctional kids. He even gets better at mentoring/teaching after a few years. Kutner and Thirteen are just normal hires who Chase picks because he likes them and thinks they're smart. Amber kind of doesn't work out — he picked her for her House-ish qualities and then realized he doesn't love those qualities when they're not on his favorite student — but by the time he hires Park, Chase is basically just going out of his way to hire misfits who are struggling in other jobs and grooming them into deeply capable doctors, so he does eventually learn.

[thethespacecoyote]

contemplating what exactly it was about ford that made bill feel important now

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?