#SO SHE'S BEEN HELPING ME OUT WITH STUFF

[wistrea]

OK I HAVE THOUGHTS, marvel thoughts (no one is surprised),

kira is the daughter of lilith and the supposed sister of the hunter. unlike her sibling, however, she wasn't saved by sara and instead whisked away by the newly - turned lilith to be housed in the temple of chthon which is where she got her connection to chaos magic in the first place, part of lilith's debt to be paid to the elder god. as an infant, she was locked away in a stasis within the temple where she couldn't age as she was being made into a vessel for chthon. little baby kira was supposedly lost when the temple was destroyed in the battle between the hunter and their mother.

unlike the hunter, lilith wants to take kira back because she has plans for her, and she hadn't rebelled against her during the era of the first midnight suns because..... kira was a baby. literally didn't age in that cocoon of hers. 300 year old baby.

fast forward to several centuries later in the modern age wherein the ruins of the temple was found by the hand in search for a branch of ancient magic in their pursuit of immortality. that's where they found baby kira and brought her back to their compound in japan where they began their experiments on her, raising her as a weapon and she was considered a mutant with the presence of the gene on her. originally believed to just be energy manipulation + energy construct conjuration until the yokohama incident wherein her chaos magic first manifested as a kid.

when they brought her back to their headquarters in new york to expedite their plans regarding her, kira was fifteen and escaped (again lol their security sucks) and after causing a bit of a scene in new york, she ran with some criminal groups for a while to get by, before eventually she made her way up to xavier's herself because she had her little brother with her: two year old yuuichiro who was also an experiment of the hand that she had brought with her. that's how she ends up staying and later on became a part of the x-men.

after finishing university and all that years later (she's very smart, she graduated top of her class), kira started working in the atlas foundation as an archivist + archaeologist though her public day job is a lawyer for atlas law.

only when the tides of lilith's awakening causes the true depths of kira's magic to awaken, causing fluctuations in her power suddenly becoming stronger and nightmares begin to plague her, does sara finally come to find her, revealing the truth of her origins. she eventually leaves the x-men to go back to the abbey and help the caretaker in putting together the midnight suns, which kira now leads.

[scoriarose]

She came up with a new activity

[crystalpallette]

ringo has never ever looked bad in an alt but my god she's hitting never before seen levels of Help Me lately

[lizzybeeee]

The Lucanis vs Illario story would have had greater emotional depth/intrigue if the writers didn't water down how fucked up the Crows are as an organization.

Just some thoughts about how, out of all the side villains, Illario had some great potential to be a really interesting/tragic character in my opinion.

TL;DR: Zevran Aranai has a knife with Caterina's name on it for good reason and Lucanis/Illario need therapy...or whatever the Thedas equivalent is called...talking to Rook, I dunno

Going into DATV as a new player, or even as a returning one, the whitewashing of the Crows has a lot of the potential complexities of that life simply ignored or barely touched upon. The entire 'Illario vs Lucanis' boils down to: Illario seething in the shadows about Lucanis being the 'best boy'™ of the family while Illario is an after thought - which he is.

Let's be real, Illario is not subtle and immediately comes across as the Scar to Lucanis' 'Mufasa'. It's a questline with a very straightforward villain who has pretty lackluster motivations from what info we're provided - being 'I want power and to be the First Talon'. The game does very little explore what motivations he may have beyond being jealous of Lucanis/wanting more power.

However, if you play the quest line knowing what previous games have set up about the Crows - about how cutthroat and brutal the life is behind the glamour - then you can see that the entire Lucanis vs Illario conflict has amazing potential to be a dramatic tragedy.

We've seen how the life of Crow can affect Zevran - someone who was sold into the life through child-slavery. How interesting would it be to see how the life of a Crow can affect someone who was born into it? It's pretty clear in-game that Caterina intends for her grandchildren to carry on the family tradition - despite the fact that this 'family tradition' has likely led to the deaths of most of her grandchildren and however many children she had.

If there's banter about how Illario's/Lucanis' parents/cousins died specifically I haven't heard it, but the impression I got in-game was that it was likely linked to the Crows/politics in some way? Feel free to correct me! Still majorly fucked up that she pushes her grandsons into this life regardless!

Lucanis/Illario's situation was not like Zevran's - who was sold into the Crow's through slavery, with no one to speak up for him. Caterina was a woman who had power, who knew what the life of a Crow meant, and who still pushed those she 'loved' into it because is consolidated her place in the system. For all the Crows talk of 'family' Caterina doesn't seem to give a shit about them unless if they're contributing to the family business in some way - not to mention the whole 'you fail and we kill you' clause of being a Crow in the first place.

In the 'Wigmaker Job' from Tevinter Nights Lucanis talks about how Caterina hit him [also Illario] with her cane for mistakes and had him spend days without food/water. How he used to hate her but now 'realizes' that it was her way of ensuring he survived the life of being an Antivan Crow. Did it end up protecting them? It likely pushed them both to refine their skills out of fear. It's likely that simply by association with her they would be targets and thus needed to know how to take care of themselves and fight.

But why have him as a Crow in the first place? Why not simply train them well to defend themselves? You can't deny that she doesn't benefit from having her grandchildren in the family business - intentionally wanting Lucanis to take over her position as First Talon. The Antivan Crows are a force to be reckoned with and being one brings a whole lot of power in Antiva - being part of the elite of that group even more so.

If the game showed us the ugly reality of the Crows - the brutality of the lifestyle and how cutthroat the organization is, it could have really added some depth to Illario's betrayal - having it be more than "I want more power/respect" to "this is the result of what you taught me was valuable in life."

Warden: "Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?" Zevran: "And why not? There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected. You are feared. The authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. Even the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at."

Illario, bitter about Caterina favoring Lucanis - resentful of the fact that she has already decided that Lucanis will be her successor, being offered power by the Venatori (at the expense of the Crows) and accepting because why not? How different is it from what the Crows do? Isn't power and status the whole point of working yourself up in the Crows? Getting into a relationship with Zara because why not? Isn't sex part of the allure of being a Crow? Why can't he have this? Why shouldn't he have this?

Rook: "When we met, it didn't seem like Illario and Caterina were close." Lucanis: "It was hard to be close to her. Even for me. And...I was her favorite."

Why would he have connections to his family? Why should he? Caterina certainly never seemed to value 'family' beyond what they could do for her and their family legacy. Most of his family is already dead, and of those that remain the only parental figure he has obviously favors Lucanis. We don't have a lot of evidence in-game to show that Illario ever really cared for Lucanis, but the prequel story 'The Wake' and Lucanis' own banter imply that they were practically brothers, best friends. Perhaps he did care and then ceased to at some point, perhaps he didn't at all, or perhaps he accepted that an early death for them both was inevitable like everyone else in their family. Dead now or later - what was the difference? At least if Illario sells him out now to the Venatori then he'll get something from it instead of another dead family member to bury.

It's the tragic result of raising a child in an environment where he was taught and experienced the need for self-preservation at all costs. Constantly threatened, punished, and made well aware of that fact that his life was an expendable commodity. Then, when things in the world went to shit he picked the only option that made sense to him. To save himself.

The irony of the potential fall of the Crows, the fall of House Dellamorte, coming at the hands of one of their own - not because he had a change of heart but because he was taught too well by them. The Crows view those that fail them as disposable, someone to be discarded - if the Crows fail Illario, what is to stop him from applying that mindset to them?

But this would require the writers to acknowledge how messed up the Crows are and we can't do that to our 'Noble Freedom Fighters'™. They'll also need to address Zevran's existence and what lore was established in past games...and we can't have that either lmao.

[tariah23]

This is such a harmful sentiment to push considering that you don’t necessarily have to be “attractive,” (beauty is subjective, yada yada) in order for men to want to harm you in the slightest… like man, what…

[ganondoodle]

so with echoes of wisdom .. i havent watched any of the trailers beyond the very first one and the thumbnails/screenshots and what others have said about it-

but with the world inside the rift being called "Welt des Nichts" aka "world of nothing/void" in german ('still' in english, for some reason) and demises title in french being "avatar of nothing" ... yeah my anxiety is shooting through the roof again

(hopefully you can be a little more forgiving for me being anxious/weird about it bc demise is my blorbo)

i had similar worries with totk, that werent proven true thankfully, but the darn book is making it all worse again with all those weird lore things the game doesnt even so much as hint at AND potential retcons- im in for a really rough time huh, not just stress in real life (more in tags.. its alot) but now about my specific hyperfixation from two things even (AND artblock still..)

weird as it may sound, i dont want demise to get more lore, partly bc i dont believe theyd do anything with him that i would like (given their track record) but much more importantly- the fact that he has this little lore about him is precisely one of the reasons why i fell in love with him, i tend to like characters that are neglected by the narrative, and his story being both so flat and already done meant i can be very creative with what i come up with for him without necessarily contradicting anything in canon (which is ... or was a big point of how i wrote destiny's story and lore, working with canon in a way that reframes it all without straight up ignoring it ... but i suppose i urgently need to let go of that and accept i spend alot of time working things that will go to waste :( ) AND not having to worry that there will be more stuff with him that would massively change not only what im writing but also potentially how i feel about him since the game he was briefly in was the oldest chronologically and ended with his death- i didnt expect them to mess with anything that far back and thought theyd just go forward and leave the timeline behind and wouldnt mess with it again, given how botw seemed to be a sort of 'fresh start' that seemingly regarded the past as the past that needs to rest and that the timeline was finally no longer a discussion if everythings unified through botw and one thing going forward

but i suppose i was very wrong with that .__.

right now the only thing that motivates me still is the left over determination and spite to work on my zelda comic, since i have never gotten this far and really want to get something done for once, but i cant lie that im feeling like i should pause all work on it too to wait and see waht the book and the new game will do .. either to determine if i still have the will to keep working on it after those things are out (my love for tloz has been taking alot of hits lately ..) or if i have to change stuff (mostly bc of my lore problem trying to not ignore it ..)

[celestriix]

i heard they have a "complicated connection" with each other

[finalfantasyx]

"她還能撐多久 你便還能悟多久" | "the longer she lasts, the longer you'll have to apprehend it."

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"對帝王而言 有些珍貴是無關緊要的." | "to an emperor, there are precious things that become unimportant."

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SNGX Xiaoluo gifset: [11/?]

for @a-sea-with-no-shores, Qianluo's incredible six-hour standoff as promised months ago--and all my Xiaoluo babies. Tagging @jianghushenanigans, @eunuch-enjoyer5, and @feng-huli. Merry Christmas :)

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bonus:

[shikai-the-storyteller]

AWH... I'm skipping through Roier's QSMP Day 1 VOD because I'm looking for a specific thing, and I just noticed that when Jaiden stands in front of the group to do her introduction and her mic isn't working, Mariana laughs (not in a mean way, I laughed too) and Roier immediately smacks him and tells him off for laughing.

[Timestamp ~36m 50s, volume warning for Quackity's awful mic]

It's such a little thing, but I think it's really sweet in retrospect, especially considering how Roier and Jaiden have become such good friends in recent weeks :')

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Mods are asleep, post Valery in his suspenders

[sleepvines]

What happens when a handful of average folk have had enough of missing persons cases, lost pets, and stolen goods, and decide it's time to form a secret club for fairy hunting?

Very bad things.

The Greyhound Circle was nothing more than a club of Alderhill's most staunchly anti-fairy residents at the time (the 60's). They genuinely believed that if they braved the wilderness to figure out how their enemy ticked, they could purge a good swath of fairies from the woods in the name of safety. They were wrong. So wrong in fact, that most of their members never escaped the Hill, and the few that made it out alive never set foot in the forest again.

The conflict they stirred went unbeknownst to the village, but the impact it had on the Hill and her people made history. Even with their small headcount they cleaved a brutal wound through the fairies' domain. And it cleaved through them in turn. On both sides things have undoubtedly changed, but only the Hill's people remember.

[quilleth]

Bioware made a mistake bringing Isabela back for da4 because like hell she wouldn't tell the entire da2 crew about what's happening with Solas which means they'd all show up ready to curb stomp him about Varric. Even moreso if hawke was left in the fade. That's two of their number down because of this fucker. Also Merrill should get to deck him specifically while also being like "what, like it's hard?" about fixing the eluvian that was blighted and cost her two of her closest childhood friends (potentially), her place in her clan, and her home. Again, going back far enough, because of him.

I just miss them 🥺

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Blehhh

[keeps-ache]

sigh. i think i just do not like dogs very much lol

[magpie-trove]

I don’t think the “mad at and separated from everyone because they lied to me (ie didn’t tell me the whole truth) so I’m storming off” plot device would work on me, rip to every character that’s been used on ever but I’m different

[carnage-cathedral]

there was a lady who had fallen on the sidewalk and somehow none of the several people near her were helping her up and I'm kinda mad about it