#Moderate Spoilers

[caffinatedcastiel]

Did I stay up until 4 to finish this?

Perhaps.

[uu-bookclub]

Our antagonist isn't interested in explaining anything to Fuuko. And why would he be? Fuuko is back to being a tool of Unluck, a potential means to an end. He only needs to know her power's weakness and what could be done with her, and she only needs to know that she's coming with them.

I'm sure it hurts more to receive such a rough bit of contact after having a genuine moment just a minute before.

Time for a little bit of STORY SPECULATION below the cut! SPOILERS up to Chapter 36!

We never actually get any indication of what Union might've actually been planning to do after capturing Fuuko! By the time we meet Juiz, all she does is apologize and say that she was trying to contain a threat. But we can speculate!

I think Fuuko is an unknown quantity... Juiz never gives any indication of knowing her from a past loop, and she doesn't seem to have any knowledge about Unluck itself. Juiz might feel a bit bad about it, but I don't think that'd stop her from handing her over to Nico for experimentation, particularly with Andy thinking Unluck might finally kill him. Given what Juiz wants from looping...

Well. I don't think she'd hesitate at all. At least Fuuko would only be tasked with murdering one person.

[mushimallo]

A perfect moment :')

[srslylini]

this is how it currently feels like to be here lmfao

[dr-pipis]

OH FUCK OFF😭😭😭

[tylrowens]

#yeah i slept here overnight. #speak your peace and keep walking

[nyxofdemons]

okay so the main criticism i've been seeing against episode 8 is that beelzebub (among other things) is "too nice" to be the sin of gluttony, because she's an attentive hostess, because she expresses worry over blitz's excess drinking, etc., and i wanna talk about it.

the thing is, i feel like this complaint is rooted in the most basic, somewhat cliche idea of the sin of gluttony, and a somewhat boring approach to bee's character in general. the idea is that, as the sin of gluttony, bee should be encouraging over-indulgence, excess, and the self-destructive aspects of party culture and drinking.

but she's the queen bee. she clearly explains that she can feel the "energy" of everyone at her party, and i think that's very important to analyzing exactly what gluttony means to her. instead of indulging in food and alcohol and drugs and being selfish (as gluttony is generally expected to be about), bee feeds on the ENERGY of the demons around her. and in order to get the best energy she can, she needs to be making sure everyone is actually having FUN and having a good time. gluttony, in this sense, is about EXTRAVAGANCE, having the best quality of everything, rather than just everything in general.

i also think this is why she was so put-off by blitz's actions. when he chugs the entire barrel of alcohol and then is absolutely wasted beyond all reason for the rest of the party, he's NOT actually engaging in her sin. he's not being gluttonous; he's not drinking to have a good time or to indulge or to have fun - he's drowning himself in alcohol because he's trying to forget and ignore all his problems, which is a sin much more akin to pride. his energy feels bad to bee because he's not having fun, he's deeply hurt and trying to distract himself by being self-destructive, which is NOT what her sin is about.

(also, remember, this is supposed to be part TWO of the finale. meaning, this episode (and the introduction of bee's character) directly goes hand-in-hand with the introduction of asmodeus, who's entire club IS about indulgence and depravity and everything you'd expect from the sin of lust. bee and the gluttony party are meant to be a direct foil to the energy of ozzie's.)

[nacrelysis]

changed my mind sukuna and uraume are my favorite dynamic ever. oh my god. sukuna who insists that power is worth the isolation because it was his power that isolated him - who took in uraume, someone whose power isolated them. and yet,

"why is it that, when sukuna-sama is near me, he doesn't get cold?"

"that goes for you as well, uraume - why you did not get cold being by my side."

uraume meant it literally, sukuna meant it figuratively - but both are asking the same question:

why are you not scared of me? why do you stay by my side.

and maybe the answer is as simple as that sukuna saw himself in uraume, taking them in in an act against his own ideology. because despite being alone for so long, you can still crave that connection that was repeatedly denied you. sukuna was human, is human, and therefore can never truly relinquish the humanity he claims to have abandoned.

or maybe sukuna and uraume are content to leave that question unanswered, as they walk into the gentle night - because after centuries of living, it doesn't really matter why someone stays by your side, does it?

it just matters that they stayed. it is devotion, plain devotion - your attachment to one another that makes you human. it is attachment that keeps sukuna's soul human, even after centuries of metamorphosis, that allows him to finally concede to yuji's ideals, that allows him to move forward while mahito cannot.

and uraume walks with him, as they always have, because -

despite everything, it's still you.

lies down and cries. goodbye you all this was really our sukuna kaisen

[funnywormz]

this is a random comparison lol but something about chimera falin reminds me of moder from the ritual

the most obvious similarity is that they're both human (or at least human-like) torsos stuck on top of completely animalistic quadraped bodies. but i think the main thing that made this similarity click in my brain was how both characters use their hands, and the contrast between their hands and their bodies.

in both the ritual and dunmeshi, right before killing someone, both moder and falin are able to touch that person with a kind of gentleness with their human hands

idk i think there's something inherently uncanny about the ideal of a 6+ legged mammal that can manipulate objects with the dexterity of a human despite being very not human. i'm not sure how to explain it other than that there's a visceral horror to both characters, in that your brain can't really categories them in the way that it would a normal animal. they're Something Else.

both falin and moder seem like brutal mindless animals at points, but then they'll gently touch or hold something and you can tell there's an intelligence there too. even during the fight with falin i feel like you're almost lured into a false sense of security of thinking about her like she's just a monster, but then her human hands come into frame and it's that weird uncanny unexpected feeling that really makes it work.

tldr i think weird monster womanbeasts are pretty awesome

[vigilskept]

i just want to say i saw your tags and i do agree with most of them!! i just think we also cannot overlook the role of racism in that, because of how many of those people who walked away with more attachment to assan than davrin talk about that exact sacrifice. it is a recurring problem in the dragon age fandom that many other players do not LOOK for depth in Black characters, then complain about its absence. So I am much less generous about it personally! But thank you for your thoughts, they were interesting to read. (Sending as an ask cause I don't want to reblog and make a whole post about it in case anyone gets aggressive, feel free to answer me privately if you want too at all - no worries about doing so! But I made the post partially because of my major frustration with how racist a lot of people were being about davrin and that choice, so it was something I took into consideration while writing the thing up)

i do know what you mean, fandom has been terrible with reading any depth into characters of colour in this franchise... there's a tendency to assume they have no more complexity than whatever image of themselves they're projecting outward (see: zev, bela, vivienne)

and based a lot of the discourse around wyll in bg3 over the last couple of years, i don't think we've seen much change in fandom when it comes to this. it's still a big issue, and that kind of bias (consciously or not) factors into how a lot of people have been interpreting davrin's character/arc for sure

i just think that the writing also plays into this a little

that first scene where you welcome him into the lighthouse struck me as particularly off because davrin's literally just lost two friends in the wardens before joining us and we don't even get the option to ask him how he's feeling. the whole conversation is about assan, the grey wardens and the griffons

now assan's isolation from his siblings is being deliberately paralleled with davrin's isolation from his clan (and now the wardens), but on it's face this conversation comes off as though rook is more interested in the griffons than in davrin. especially when you compare it with the other early-game lighthouse conversations! just 1 more dialogue where you actually get to check in on davrin could've mitigated that, if only a little

the heart of davrin's quest isn't buried between a dozen layers of metaphor or anything, it's not hard to find the parallels with assan when you put some time/thought into it. but the writing elsewhere in veilguard is so unsubtle, and the opportunities to talk to davrin directly about himself are so much fewer that it becomes much easier to write off his character than the other companions...

[vaguely-concerned]

lucanis swearing up and down that spite can't learn or be reasoned with not thirty seconds after rook has gently but firmly reasoned with spite... such a hilarious moment of the narrative seeming to turn to you and blithely raise its eyebrows like 'hm. interesting'

[essektheylyss]

Okay but how often do you think Essek or Caleb has called before bed and had the other person pick up in the middle of some kind of minor fight and have to go, "HELLO sorry if I seem distracted, in the middle of something, but that's not important how are you dear how was your day—"

[sparring-spirals]

bell's hells at any given enemy: friendship? :)

bell's hells, after battle has already kicked off, casting Command, Fast Friends, using telepathy, trying to immobilize them, etc: >:( Friend. Ship.

[ruushes]

wait ghilan'nain centipede arms REAL??? 😩👌👌💯💯 ‼️‼️❣️ghilan'nain if you read this im free on thursday night and would like to hang out please respond to this and then hang out with me on thursday night when im free

[vancalox]

can i say something. can i be mean.

they did not need to hire matt fucking mercer to play manfred lol

[anxresi]

Wut.

ONE TICKET PLEASE.