#WHICH??? I DO NOT??? i don't have like a Moral Issue with it but i just don't read rpf

[mikkeneko]

This kind of rhymes to me with a thing I encountered in the last WoW expansion, which sat oddly with me at the time but I've had difficulty articulating why.

The main plot of Dragonflight involved the leaders of the five Flights -- long established characters in the lore, NPCs we know and have been working with for years -- returning to the Dragon Isles to resume their ancestral kingdom there. That ancestral kingdom, it turns out, has been inhabited for the last few hundred years by a race of dragonfolk who have been maintaining and running the place the whole time; they are now expected to gracefully give way to the returning kings and renounce any independence and sovereignty.

Pretty predictably, not all of the dragonfolk feel especially gracious about that; some break off into rebel factions which you then have to deal with in the game. But there's one quest you can do with the Queen of Dragons about halfway through. You can bring word to her that you've been talking to some of the dragonfolk and they have some grievances with the new leadership. Alextrasza will then… offer you a quest where she runs around after you while you go around talking to the people who have been complaining, and offer commentary on what she thinks of their complaints.

And you'll get a lot of lines like "Wow, that's a concern I never thought about" or "I never saw it from their perspective before" or "Thank you for enlightening me about this issue. I guess I have a lot of work to do to be a good leader for these people"

And then the quest ends and, as far as I know, this is never spoken of again.

And I guess it just felt… really… lip service? Alextrasza is one of the Big Goods, so of course the game wants you to think well of her; she's also an absolute monarch and a fuckoff huge dragon who will eat as many people as she feels necessary to protect the good of the world. Having her act like an office manager who's opening a complaints box so that she doesn't get dinged by HR felt… extremely dissonant. What did this quest actually do, aside from look right out the screen at the player and say "Don't worry! Alextrasza isn't one of those BAD queens! Look at how much she CARES about her subordinates! You don't have to feel bad about supporting tyranny, we'd never do that!!!"

This was the most sharply dissonant moments in Dragonflight but not by any means the only ones; sanitized, smiley-painted moments where the game seems to turn to the audiences and say "Don't worry! We'd never ask you to be party to a bad thing in our fictional world!"

So yeah, to borrow a line from the OP: not to be a "political correctness has poisoned media" grifter on main, but wow, the padding of sharp edges to pacify players who apparently never want to be exposed to even a fictionalized moral injury sure does hobble the storytelling.

I got a party banter between Bellara and Taash about how the Lords of Fortune steal elven artifacts. And then Taash clarifies later that they have a Dalish expert on the team so they can check to make sure the Lords don't sell something culturally important and instead return it to the elves.

Like. I get it. You want the Lords to be fun swashbuckler Disney pirates and Robin Hoods instead of actual pirates who steal and plunder. Because we're only now in Western society realizing that stealing from indigenous groups is, uh, bad. But like. Writing really uninteresting factions for your "dark" fantasy (tho lbr Dragon Age hasn't been dark fantasy since DA2) isn't gonna solve real-world neo-colonialism, ya know? The Lords not stealing priceless elven artifacts and returning them to the elves doesn't signal to me that the Lords are total rascally good guys, it signals to me that BioWare itself is trying really hard to seem morally conscious. "See? We know stealing from other cultures is bad!!!"

And man. Not to be a "political correctness has poisoned media" grifter on main (tbh it's less political correctness itself and more the commodification of real-world activism) but I couldn't help but imagine how this convo would've played out in earlier games, potentially even Inquisition.

You could've so EASILY made this interesting while giving the Lords and Taash and Bellara a lot more depth, while also making it clear that stealing from indigenous groups is wrong.

Just have the Lords, yeah, actually sell those artifacts. But also establish that the Lords take in and help elves from all walks of life. That they free slaves, or collaborate with alienages. Then you could have Taash defend the practice by saying to Bellara that little orphaned elf kids being sold as slaves probably don't give a flying fuck about some artifacts they're never gonna see, but the money from selling those artifacts goes to buying them food. And have Bellara fire back that preserving elven culture is also part of its survival, and that there are Dalish clans that would be willing to pay for them or offer something in return. Or have her say that the Lords are doing charity for the sake of recruitment rather than actual altruism. And then Taash responds that those high and mighty Dalish elves don't do shit to help abandoned city elves, just because those aren't part of their correct elven subculture, and they care more about reclaiming old glory than helping the people that exist here and now.

Then you could have side missions or at least codex entries that describe maybe some Lord recruit being conflicted about what they're doing. Maybe a few of them are collaborating to hijack a deal or steal back an artifact. Have implications that some high-ranking Lords are, in fact, using those artifacts for their own gain, despite claiming otherwise. Have some Lords genuinely trying to help, and believing that gold and trinkets don't matter as much as people's lives, so they sell them in exchange for safety for refugees or slaves or some other helpless group.

But no. Instead it's "hey do you steal from my people?" "nah lmao we have a cultural advisor don't even worry about it" "oh wow so cool and woke of you!" And then that's it. No need for any further discussion. No conflict and no complexity. No bad actors and moral quandaries.

Weh.

[velvetvexations]

My response:

hence the use of the word "potential" and not just the word "allies."

men who already know what feminism is about & support feminist ideals will just ignore the overly-normalized radfem rhetoric, that much is true. but movements can't keep momentum if they only ever keep the people who already believe in them without trying to appeal to the masses & grow.

most men would be more inclined towards feminism if they were able to enter feminist spaces without immediately getting met with a barrage of radfems saying "you don't belong here, this isn't for you, you are lesser than us, you are incapable of human emotions, you are inherently dangerous and violent, you are ontologically predisposed to being an abuser and oppressor, you do not belong here, we want you to die, the world would be better without men in it" completely unchallenged.

that's not, like, a debatable phenomenon. that's not a "what if." that's a thing that happens. that's the reason why many right-wing men buy into the "man-hating psycho liberal feminist" idea. most men who dislike feminism don't initially dislike it because it's Too Woke and Lame and they Hate Women. They dislike it because radfems run rampant in feminist spaces, completely unchecked, telling men to kill themselves and spouting eugenicist rhetoric about how men are biologically or ontologically evil and should be killed.

if people allow radfems to contiue to exist freely and unchallenged in feminist spaces, most men are never going to align themselves with feminism. And getting met with that kind of vitriol leaves them open to being manipulated by other more right-wing movements that will meet them with open arms.

you can't allow people who to claim to be part of your cause go around telling men they're worthless abusive sacks of shit & then expect those men to be willing and excited to be part of your movement.

---

anyway. sorry Velvet. it's just wildly frustrating to continue seeing no-nuance takes on this issue and having to keep my mouth shut because i'm not allowed to get into online fights anymore (bad for me)

like yes actually, feminist/radfeminist misandry can & does push men away from feminism & to the right. it's not because they're "weak" men with no morals, it's because their introduction to "feminism" is radfems screaming in their faces about what awful people they are, which immediately confirms to them that the "feminist = man hating liberal psycho" idea that's been passed around for as long as feminism has existed is in fact true (its not. its exclusively radfems. but they're allowed to exist in most feminist spaces completely unchecked & their rhetoric is becoming increasingly mainstream.)

Very, very well said. I appreciate you sharing this with me.

[bwat5-blog]

**Spoilers for all of Arcane**

A detailed refuting of the concept that "Vi is the Jinx"

So what are people saying when they make these accusations regarding Vi’s character? Well the only way I can think to take it is people are saying she is the cause of their misfortune and suffering. The cause of her loved ones demise, and the driving factor in the darkness and pain of their universe. No facet of the show supports this as I will explain below.

I have written about this extensively in a variety of posts. I am not unaware of this. I am also not unaware of the fact that ultimately, people are free to consume/enjoy/interpret this wonderful and heartbreaking story in any manner they see fit. What I aim to do here is an in-depth, detailed examination of the primary negative occurrences in the story, and given the information we are given demonstrate that Vi is not the issue. Why? Because I am continuing to champion understanding and literacy of one of the best stories/tv shows we have been blessed with in my lifetime. For any of you who are patient and kind enough to read this. It will be quite long, and it will likely repeat some content from other posts, but I believe that for those of us who love incredible storytelling, standing up for those stories that are worth it matters. To those who take the time, thank you. Continue to stand up for the importance of stories that live in you long after they are over.

Season 1: Act 1-

The absolutely vital thing to remember is that although this is the beginning of the story for us, we are in joining these characters just before the dynamite goes off that will shatter their world. Below is a list of factors that should be noted regarding this idea:

Vander and Silco's long running conflict, with Silco waiting for his opportunity to strike

Years and years of oppression and hostility between Zaun and Piltover

Jayce already being well into his hex-tech research (which as we will come to learn was being helped along by space jesus Victor even then)

The long developing of shimmer and machinations of Singed

The situation is a powder keg. Years of hostility and oppression, a brilliant and calculating criminal mind waiting in the shadows for his moment to seize control, an idealistic young scientist with no idea of the danger he is dabbling in, and a brilliant scientist utterly devoid of morals in the service of his goals. By the time we join our characters the ship is already sinking, we just don't know it yet. Now taking that into consideration, lets dive in.

The Explosion at the Lab: This is undoubtedly the driving force of Act 1 in terms of the incident and its effects. Keeping things simple, below you will find a bare bones list of all the negative effects in act 1 that can be attributed to this incident not considering blame or fault:

Death of Milo, Clagger and we are lead to assume Vander

Separation of Vi and Power and by extension, the birth of Jinx

Trial of Jayce Talis and by extension, his partnering with Victor, leading to the true birth of hex tech

Deaths of Grayson and Benzo, allowing Marcus to take Grayson's place as Silco's corrupt sheriff

Silco seizes control of the lanes and all of the negatives that come with it (shimmer, violence etc)

Now at a glance, its easy to say "See! These things only happen because of the explosion, and the explosion happens because Vi takes the kids there. So Vi is the issue!". This is extraordinarily simplistic thinking to the point of willfully ignoring the context. Lets delve deeper:

Order of events as we understand them:

Jayce Talis enters the undercity, purchasing equipment for his research. He interacts with Echo.

Echo tells Vi and friends about the lab after following Jayce

The kids go on their heist, causing the explosion

Jayce is locked up and put on trial, being banished and having his research taken

Enforcers enter the under-city causing conflict over series of days

Vi tries to turn herself in but Vander takes her place

Silco uses Shimmer mutant to murder Grayson and Benzo and take Vander

Jayce and Victor become partners taking Hex-Tech into the next phase

Vi, Milo and Clagger make rescue attempt ending in death of the two boys, vander, and the separation from Powder leaving her vulnerable to become Jinx.

Accusations people make from this information:

Vi got Vander, Clagger, Milo, Benzon and Greyson killed

Vi is responsible for hex-tech because the explosion she caused pushed Victor and Jayce together

Vi makes Jinx because she hits powder, yells at her, and calls her a Jinx

Since Vi got Vander killed she is the reason Silco is able to take the Lanes and flood them with Shimmer and so on

Responses:

Vi is the reason for hex-tech: This is quite simply untrue. Jayce is well into his research when this incident occurs. In fact when he is found out he insists he has almost cracked it. Victor is Heimerdinger's (the leader of the city and a preeminent scientist who already knows Jayce personally) assistant and a scientist with self-admitted ambition to become more. Not to mention their wealthy benefactor in Mel who is looking to make a name for herself and finances them. Now sure you could make the argument that the explosion is what draws attention to hex-tech bringing Mel into the equation. But Mel by her own admission is searching for that way to earn her place in the world and Jayce was absolutely going to keep going. This was a matter of when, not if. And every single person involved bears more responsibility than the girl in her early-mid teens who had no idea it was there when she lead her family on an adventure trying to feed them.

Vi makes Jinx: I have covered this extensively and if you are reading this that means my writing doesn't bore you to death so you have probably read my thoughts already. So i'll try to keep this brief. Silco made Jinx. The grieving teenage girl who had just watched her whole family die violently and barely survived herself lashing out at her sister in a moment she clearly immediately regrets is not to blame here. The broken man/crime lord taking that shattered little girl and weaponizing her grief and guilt is to blame. and if you want to say it's Vi's fault for leaving Powder in the first place. She defends Powder to everyone. She tells Powder she believes in her and that her gadgets will work. She tells Powder her differences make her strong. She only leaves Powder behind after being lectured by Vander on her responsibility to keep her safe, and after seeing the horror of the shimmer mutant unleashed.

Vi is the reason Milo, Clagger, Benzo, Grayson and Vander are dead: Each of these characters is dead because of one person. Silco. Milo, Clagger and Vander all die during the rescue mission of Vander from Silco's hideout. Sure the explosion Powder sets off is what kills the boys, but they are only in this mess because Silco took advantage of the chaos to kidnap Vander drawing them there. Vi's part in this is fighting for her life against multiple armed adult thugs even though she isn't even grown yet. Silco stabs Vander and Vander sacrifices himself taking Shimmer to try and get Vi out. Benzo is dead after verbally confronting Silco, and Grayson is murdered as an opportunity for Silco to install Marcus as his puppet.

Vi is the reason Silco can take control: This is really just an extension of everything we just discussed. This is quite frankly silly. Silco has been waiting for years. He has an army, weapons, and most importantly Shimmer. Which brings us to Singed. A brilliant scientist utterly devoid of Morals who manufactures this substance turning the downtrodden people of Zaun into Silco's monsters.

Conclusion- Yes, Vi leads them on the heist which causes the explosion and the related ripples. But she is not to blame. The tragedy that unfolds is the result of years of suffering in the under city, the machinations of a crime lord so secure in his convictions he will harm anyone he deems necessary, and the innocent overreach of a young scientist who brought forth the end of the world in his dream of improving lives. Vi may be the deer that walks out in front of the car. But the driver is drunk and angry, the mechanic he just left cut his breaks, and years of neglect by the city have left the roads broken and jagged making everything worse. Vi is not the perpetrator, she is just another victim

Season 1: Act 2-

Act 2 of season 1 sees a very different world for our characters. Vi has been imprisoned for seven years. And in those seven years Vi's sweet, clever little sister Powder has become the feared notorious criminal Jinx. Silco has risen to power, smuggling shimmer with the assistance of the corrupt sheriff of Piltover and conducting his operations under the sheriff's protection. Hex-Tech has become globalized. And the firelights have risen in opposition to Silco.

The Hunt For Jinx Begins: The driving conflict in this act is Jinx's attack on the city, theft of the hex gemstone, and the hunt for her that leads to Caitlyn and Vi's mission.

In this act, there is much less for people to try and link to Vi in terms of trouble but for a barebones look at the various conflicts:

Jinx attacking the firelights, enforcers, and stealing the gem

Hex Tech development into the Hex core, and the ousting of Heimerdinger when he protests

Jinx mental turmoil ratchets up in the discovery of Vi being alive and their reunion

Accusations:

Vi made Jinx, so Vi is responsible for Jinx's crimes

Vi caused Hex tech, so every progression toward the bad thing we know is her fault

Vi's reentry into Jinx's life and trying to help her be Powder again makes everything worse

Responses:

Vi made Jinx so she is responsible for her crimes: No she didn't. No she isn't. see above

Vi caused Hex Tech so every progression is on her: No she didn't. See above.

Vi's reentry into jinx's life and trying to help her be Powder makes it worse: Vi spent every day for seven years hoping and dreaming of finding her sister again. When she does and jinx tells her she is different and "did things" Vi does not judge her or shame her and welcomes her back as family. When Vi is taken driving Jinx further into that mental darkness its's against Vi's will after being knocked out by firelights

Conclusion: This act is the result of the changes all brought into the world at the end of the first act. So not much to discuss. Primarily as Vi did not make Jinx, her sister's crimes are not on here. Not that that will stop her from feeling guilty since Vi has a good heart and loves her sister.

Season 1: Act 3-

Act 3 primarily deals with forcing Vi to see that her sister is not who she was, through the "Dinner Party" and the attempted and failed making peace with Zaun. In terms of Vi, there isn't much new here to discuss in terms of what people are trying to blame her for. Anything Jinx does is blamed on Vi for the erroneous statement that Vi made Jinx, including by Jinx herself. Its important to remember at this point Jinx is giving her own sister the choice between killing Caitlyn or "Getting Powder Back". There is no getting Powder back. This is Jinx at a peak of manic and aggressive behavior. Her blaming Vi is a way to cope and hurt someone besides herself. There are however important developments that will be extremely relevant to this entire conversation moving forward into Season 2:

With Singed's help they progress hex-tech into the hex core and we also see the hex core kill for the first time.

Ambessa's arrival

Jinx's killing of Silco and murder of three Piltover council members moments from Zaun being given independence.

**Vi's guilt over stopping Caitlyn from hurting Jinx only to then witness Jinx kill Caitlyn's mother is a very important moving forward, but we must remember Vi is a young woman in her early twenties in a terrifying situation trying to keep her sister and the woman she loves from killing each other**

Conclusion for season 1: So quick recap. Vi did not make Jinx. She is in no way responsible for Hex Tech. She is not responsible for any of Silco's actions and she is has been victimized and hurt by most of it.

Season 2: Act 1-

Season 2 picks up in the immediate aftermath of Jinx's attack. Vi is in the terrible position of grieving the loss of who her sister was, guilt over not being able to stop her sister in general, and IMMENSE guilt as her sister killed the woman she love's mother. I'm not going to repeat myself in terms of Hex-tech or Jinx related guilt unless its needed for new context.

Ending the First Hunt for Jinx: This act is primarily the conclusion of Vi and Caitlyn hunting Jinx together in terms of Vi' story and in terms of what fans are trying to lay at Vi's feet there isn't much here. Primarily there is a lot of talk over her decision to put on the uniform of the enforcer and what the strike team does while she is on it.

The Accusation: Vi putting on the uniform is a betrayal of her people and her family

Response: I have addressed this in depth in another document so will try to spare you all the rant. Put simply, The use of the grey was morally questionable. That is not debatable. But it's not fatal like people make it out to be, as we see characters exposed who walk away unharmed other than some discomfort. Vi explains to Jinx it was to keep innocents off of the street during the fighting. And in terms of putting on the uniform itself, some things to remember:

She refused the first time

Piltover retaliation was already guranteed. Then after the attack on the memorial it was exacerbated.

Caitlyn shares she is afraid if she goes after Jinx alone one of them is coming back in a box (AKA Vi's worst nightmare)

Only agrees after the memorial attack and sends everyone but her and Cait away as soon as they find Jinx

Conclusion: Vi was between a rock and a hard place and did the best she could in an impossible situation

Season 2: Act 2-

Act 2 of season 2 finds Vi at her lowest point. She has lost everyone. Jinx seems totally beyond redemption and her beloved Caitlyn, the first person to show her kindness in seven years left her after hitting her and telling her she was no better than the woman who had killed Caitlyn's mother and so many others.

The Primary sources of conflict in this act are: The finding and losing of Vander (included within this is Vi and Jinx starting to become family again), Caitlyn's redemption, Victor's losing himself to the hex tech/arcane completely.

Of these sources of conflict none of them can be laid at Vi's feet. But to tally the losses since the "Vi is the Jinx" people are still holding on to this:

The loss of Vander again-

The death of Isha-

The "death" of Victor and his cult

Accusations:

*disclaimer I have not seen anyone saying these specifically. Just tracking the logic for the people trying to blame her for everything*

Vi got Vander killed again-

Vi got Isha Killed-

Vi got Victor and his cult killed-

Response:

Vi got vander killed- Vander was "killed" again due to the attack by Ambessa and interference of Singed who was willing to sacrifice him for his own goals. The only part Vi played was having to watch her father die. AGAIN.

Vi got Isha killed- see above but swap father for little girl.

Vi got Victor and his cult killed- Jayce killed Victor on Victor's orders (weird time is relative cosmic stuff) but nothing to do with Vi

Conclusion: Vi's story sees her at her lowest point in this act. absolutely devastating to see her smile during that brief moment of happiness before its all ripped away. But none of what she loses is her fault

Season 3: Act 3-

This is the big finale and this act has been the primary driving factor in this idea that Vi was the problem all along. For those of you have stuck with me this far I appreciate you more than you know and hope this has been worth your time to read. Lets dig in.

The Big conflict driving the conclusion of this story is: The war with Ambessa/Victor, The destruction of Hex-Tech before it ends the world, and the fate of Jinx. I have addressed each of these topics throughout this post and will not be laying out the accusations/response/conclusion format. To begin with, we have to talk about the AU Episode-

The AU Episode:

Echo finds himself in a seemingly idyllic Piltover/Zaun. Hextech never was fully realized. Benzo, Milo, Clagger and Vander all live. Jinx is Powder, grown up and happy. Silco and Vander are reconciled. But Vi is dead, the explosion during the heist having taken her life. Powder keeps a shrine to her sister. Vander has a tattoo bearing her name. People have taken this to mean that it was in fact Vi all along that was the issue. This is, in a word, nonsense. The point of this universe in the words of the showrunner himself (see Arcane Afterglow for Season 2 Act 3), is for Echo to see that there is a version of their world still worth fighting for. He sees a world without hex-tech and how things could be. The world is not better without Vi in it. The world is better because Vi's death drew attention to something terrible and dangerous before it went even further. Imagine in our world there some new toy that is shaping up to be very popular with children, until a flaw in its safety is revealed when an innocent child days from an accident involving the toy so the the toy is taken off of the shelves. and children everywhere are safer, the world is better. But it's not because it was that Childs fault or they did something wrong. They were the victim whose blood paid the price.

*Additionally, something I don't see brought up enough is that Heimerdinger had years in this universe before Echo even arrived. He has clearly has been putting the time into the Undercity he didn't in the main universe*

Vi and Jinx: Vi and Jinx both learn a similar lesson in this act. While Jinx learns that she has to walk away, to break the cycle, to stop running in circles, Vi learns she can't keep chasing Jinx trying to save her. She has to live for herself and allow herself to be happy. That's why despite the accusation that she is a bad sister, Vi's romantic encounter with Caitlyn is Vi finally letting herself have what she wants, rather than chasing after Jinx and panicking and spending what could be her last night alive continuing to ride the roller coaster. Instead, she steps off the ride, and allows herself to know love, and pleasure, and warmth with the woman she loves. People really focus on the location of it but in that moment the location was irrelevant. Vi has finally seen the light in this regard and the woman she loves has redeemed herself in Vi's eyes.

*Vi speaks on how she always chooses wrong and it has cost her everyone. People have also taken this as a sort of mission statement for their undeserving campaign against this character. The thing is, the show proves her wrong, and does it quickly:

Caitlyn immediately and passionately shows Vi that Vi has not lost everyone. She is there, she loves here, and knowing she was going to make the choice to free the woman who killed Caitlyn's mother, she does it anyway

Even though Echo seals the deal, Vi didn't choose wrong by believing and trusting in Jinx. Jinx comes back to her, leading the under-city forces and turns the tide of the battle. She was the hero her sister believed she was

Vi got Jinx Killed: And at last we come it. The final of the great injustices people are laying Vi's character. I covered this in a recent post as well but the short version is as follows:

Sees her birth parents killed

Sees her adoptive father die

Gets him back (in a heavily mutated form) for a punishingly short time only to lose him again horribly

Watches him die again.

She is literally standing over him at the end of all the horrible things they have been through, sobbing and going to cradle his head. We see her flashing back to the first time she watched him die. It was just too much. I and many others have said it really seems like she can't even hear Jinx in that moment. When "Vander" pops up to his feet Vi doesn't even fight. She scrambles back afraid saying Vander's name and sounds like a scared little girl who just wants her dad. Its HORRIBLE. And even though she is not dead, Jinx takes the opportunity to make sure the older sister she loves, who never gave up on her gets away.

Vi's ending is bittersweet. She is sitting alone, drinking, humming the song we hear in the beginning of the show. People with no understanding of human behavior have claimed she looks too happy, she doesn't care about her sister. Yes she does. She is finally on a path that can lead to happiness with Caitlyn' because of her sisters sacrifice for her.

[mdhwrites]

Sunday: As Exciting and Concerning as the end of a Weekend

Sunday is, rightfully so, a decisive character. For some, he is the peak of all Star Rail writing. A nuanced villain with grand thematics, imagery, a tantalizing moral quandary and a gray to his morality that is rare to see. To others, he is a narcissistic man with delusions of grandeur that embodies the excesses of Penacony. That he takes too long and too many words to finally get to his point, all while still just being someone who in the end wants to, you guessed it, rule the world. But where does he lie in reality?

That... Well, doesn't have an actual answer because both viewpoints are equally valid. It's akin to how Aventurine suffers from the fact that even when he's good, the writers are so worried about you GETTING. THE FUCKING. POINT. that they hammer it in in a way that is genuinely unpleasant and reveals the hand of the author. Like as a reminder, we get told the story of the Charmony Dove at least three times, in excruciating detail, before we get to the festival to actually have that come to a point. Three times in the SAME. PATCH. To the point of being detrimental to building up his relationship to Robin, which is both more powerful when brought up with his ideals but also just more important to the character in the present in general than this one story. We get it, it's his backstory but how that has compounded over time is far more fascinating.

But on the other hand, I was genuinely invested when he posed the question to us: If you know pain and suffering is the extremely likely outcome of a situation, would a gilded cage be better than the freedom that will lead to death? Should those better and stronger than those around them take on the burden of protecting them? Made even better by the fact that Sunday would have been an invisible hand in it all. Entirely alone and so the only joy he could get would not be adulation and worship but just that of a job well done. It's genuinely compelling and something that is hard to answer and the characters themselves recognize it's a tough conundrum and the final point that tips things one way or another being that people deserve a choice, and that choice being what gives us even a chance to win, is all very effective thematically.

But that's not the only problem here. When I say he's an encapsulation of the issues of Penacony, for those the planet wronged, he really is a big problem for them. Robin's character suffers for the sake of Sunday, just like Acheron is given less attention than Aventurine. He is given a shocking death as the end of a patch... Just like Firefly and Robin the patch before him to the end result of... Jack shit. They were all fake deaths because fuck you. Even if technically had a point, it was a lie to the audience for cheap drama and a false cliffhanger. That's going to leave a pretty bad taste in your mouth.

Buuuut for those who like Penacony, he's also a wheeler and dealer who's quite good at his job, only beat by Aventurine because Aventurine had help above and beyond what could have been expected and Sunday was essentially working alone. He's an antagonist but it's hard to call him a villain, like any of the major players in Penacony, because he genuinely doesn't wish for harm and is operating off of a complex set of goals that he has set in motion and needs to meet. He's got more depth to him and his relationships than would be expected, like how Jade hides parts of herself from her protege or SAM and Firefly's connection, while also being a genuinely entertaining fellow to watch as he goes through his scheme and has brilliant VA work to back up his scenes.

Way... WAY too much VA work in my opinion, the script for Penacony NEEDED to be trimmed down, but that is probably my most firm stance on Penacony as a whole. I think the only patch in Penacony with proper pacing throughout is 2.3 (and now 2.6).

Where do I fall on Sunday though? Well... I don't. Not yet. This is mostly because we know he's about to come back and he's to some extent repenting. How much is to be seen, his stated goal is to still make his paradise after all but that's also Robin's goal and Robin isn't evil so shrug. I think Star Rail is nuanced enough to write him well but...

I've kind of been burned too many times to be too hyped. I've seen charismatic villains lose a LOT of themselves after their fall and that usually comes with losing a lot of what was interesting, compelling or evocative about them. It's very easy to think that the way to redeem a character is to strip them of all traits that made them negative before instead of asking how those traits could instead be used in more constructive ways, or how those traits would interact with noble goals. I don't even know if this next patch will give us enough of an answer one way or another. I literally saw across three movies for My Little Pony one of their most compelling characters go from a charismatic force of personality, to the personality of a brick, to getting some of that initial personality back and it playing with her world in interesting ways and even recontextualizing the second movie's more languid period as essentially her figuring herself out.

Sunday's biggest problem in this regard is that his devotion to the themes of Penacony may now tie him down from being able to stretch his own wings. He did have a personality but it was so dedicated to that version of his dream that I don't know what to expect of a Sunday who is willing to seek other answers to his goal. It's part of the problem with a methodology as blunt as Penacony's. It's very easy to hyper dedicate a character to their narrative role, or even to a specific scene, and leave them lacking as a whole because of it and I feel like that has the potential to happen to Sunday.

I want to end this on a different note and that is him mechanically since the livestream has happened and we know those details. A lot of people think that because he pushes summons forward, he is not a hyper carry support but a summon support. But... No. He's a hyper carry support. His kit is all about maximizing damage. He can make other summons go faster but if he's making a support summon go faster... That support summon needs to be doing better work than he would by supporting the main DPS in the team because your team at that point is a single DPS, two supports and a sustainer. You know: The hyper carry setup.

There is a reason why Acheron mixed with Pela and Jiaqiou is called Acheron Hyper Carry. It's not called debuff, despite that being a core part of the strat, because the debuffs are just the version of support you're going for in order to maximize damage with Acheron. Sunday supporting Jing Yuan is not some new summon meta, it's a hyper carry setup where the best option for the hyper carry is a summon. As such, we may indeed end up with a lot of summons in 3.0... But he'll only be useful for the ones that act like Jing Yuan who is a DPS.

That's why I'm not pulling for Sunday. He's hyper carry in a way I am not interested in so I'm not planning to pull for him and I think that is the correct way to look at him if you are feeling mechanically pressured to pull for him. Just remember: Meta is not individuals in this game, it's teams.

I hope this was all a little insightful and helps you understand people on either side of the Sunday debate. See you next tale and good luck on your pulls!

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[marquessofendos]

purity culture was a mistake. i miss the days when you could just read a book and there were no morality olympics about it online, you just found people online drawing their ideas of the characters and shipping them with characters from a different book of the same author's the pandemic destroyed fandom spaces irreparably and as a consequence that destroyed system spaces (but they were kind of already fucked and had been fucked since the advent of the "syshop" blog and its owner, who made up rules for validity that tumblr followed like the fucking ten commandments, which you can still see a LOT of in modern sysmed culture - INCLUDING the ""age range for developing DID"" concept) as a result? people see fictives and assume they're not people. they don't treat them normally. we have personally been a victim of one such person who treated our fictives as their "blorbos" rather than the people that they are. stop policing systems when it comes to fandom spaces and related content. systems fundamentally interact differently with media than singlets, especially systems with introjects. i know damn well OUR fictives like looking up art and content of themselves and the individuals they actually had relationships with in their original world, but oops, this world's labelled it "proship" content because unlike in their memories, their partner, who was an adult when they knew them and had been an adult for a while before they even started dating, is portrayed as a minor in this world. let me say that again because i know someone illiterate is going to read this and yell at me. IN THE FICTIVE'S MEMORIES, SOMEONE'S AGE WAS DIFFERENT THAN IT IS IN THIS WORLD. like, say, persona 5 akira - ours was 19 in his memories. NINETEEN. YEARS. OLD. that's even the age he showed up at! the thieves were also all adults, except for futaba sakura. this means his relationship, with goro akechi, who canonically is 19 while akira is 17, was a relationship between consenting adults, due to akira being 19 in his memories. but in this world, after he got here, he had to contend with the fact that he is portrayed as 17 years old by his source. this is an extremely common occurrence in systems, and not really an "extreme" example. you see stuff like this all the time in plurality. much as you see people who are exactly like canon. you see a mix of both. you know akira who i mentioned earlier? yeah, literally everything was the exact same except for the fact that he was 19. he missed a whole year of school due to abuse related issues and was still in highschool. oh well! it let him become a phantom thief and make friends and find a boyfriend and have a happy life. purity culture makes it extremely hard for others to wrap their head around systems being different. "but canon!" nobody asked. nobody cares. an introject is a whole fucking person, not a piece of media on a screen. and hell, even if they're the exact same as the media on the screen, who the hell and fuck cares? they're still a real person. you can't just treat them the same as the media on the screen. this is why applying "proship" and "antiship" to system members falls fucking flat. those are not fictional characters those are real fucking people. you can't judge them at all on the contents of canon, even if they DO fully align with it! it physically CANNOT be a ship! THOSE ARE REAL LIVING HUMANS! the moment people understand that systems interact fundamentally different with media, then we won't have as much of the same problem as the queen described. the moment people start escaping moral purity culture that modern fandom is drenched in, then this will finally be a cold take. which it should already be.

hot take it’s okay to be/have an introject of a problematic character or person that ISN’T canon divergent or whatever. and it’s okay to not constantly apologize for being/having that person. you don’t owe people explanations. “ohhhh but we don’t support their actions—“ ok? nobody needs to know that. you shouldn’t have to explain one of your headmates’ existence every time they meet new people.

[mllemaenad]

The issue with reccomending people to the Wardens is that, unless you're already blighted or condemned for a capital crime... your odds of surviving the joining seem to be significantly worse than 50%.

Alistair says that he was the only member of his group to survive, and the joining at Ostagar had, depending on how you count it, either a 50% or a 33.3333333333333% survival rate.

Those are lousy, lousy odds, even if you are from the wrong side of the tracks. And if you're in your early 20s or late teens, you're probably still cutting your life short, and ensuring that you die alone in agonizing pain down in the deep roads.

It's just... really not a good deal for anyone who isn't already literally at risk of imminent death.

It's not really an issue ..? I mean, I'm not having an issue, and neither is Warden-Commander Brosca, since I assume this relates to my post about Seanna cheerfully recruiting everybody. :)

For a start. Eh. Honestly, trying to work out how dangerous the Joining should be is a mug's game. I accept your examples, but I could just as easily counter that in Awakening five of six companions come through it just fine (Six of seven? Are we counting Justice, since Kristoff survived his Joining?).

If you recruit Loghain to the Wardens, he's fine. If you send Bethany or Carver to the Wardens, they are fine. If you send Blackwall to become a proper Warden, he is just fine.

Honestly, how dangerous the Joining is just seems to be related to how interesting you are. The deaths of all possible recruits but the Hero of Ferelden and Alistair occur because it is imperative that there be functionally no Wardens left – so there can be no more youngsters than that for Duncan to protect. The Awakening companions are mostly fine because we need a new party for a new adventure, so we can't just keep killing off candidates for hours.

I realise that's the most Doylist viewpoint possible, but honestly it's just not worth worrying about. Does the Joining carry with it a risk of death? Absolutely! Do I need to consider it so very risky that one should never offer it to anyone? Nah. It has its share of "everybody lives" scenarios too.

But regardless – I said Seanna never met an apostate, runaway slave, casteless dwarf or petty thief she didn't try to recruit. She's not recruiting people whose lives are going well. Even if they're not facing literal death right this second, these are all people whose lives are likely to consist of crushing poverty, imprisonment, torture, captivity, Tranquility, and an appalling lack of personal agency and dignity.

Are the Wardens kind of taking advantage of Thedas's horrific levels of prejudice and inequality? Yep! They're a bit dodgy, as many of the best things in Dragon Age are. Seanna takes her duty seriously and does her best by her recruits ... but she did get her start as the muscle for a Carta crime boss. Her morals don't have to be 100% pure all the time.

On the other hand – the Wardens largely do deliver on the promise of a better life. Yes, there is a duty and there are drawbacks, but they are one of the few genuinely multinational and multicultural organisations in Thedas. You see elves, mages and branded dwarves in positions of respect and authority. These people can marry, travel, own property, raise children if they manage to acquire any – and genuinely live their lives in a way they very likely would not be able to elsewhere.

How many casteless dwarves will expect to live to a ripe old age? Seanna didn't. There were so many ways she could have died young. And even if she somehow made it past forty (which is hardly old), she was terrified of ending up like her mother – or even worse, out starving on the streets.

Instead of that, and because of the Wardens, she is Commander of the Grey and Arlessa of Amaranthine, and she will absolutely keep telling just about any poor, down-on-their-luck bastard she meets that the Wardens have food and a steady pay cheque, and if the Templars or the slave hunters or the Carta come looking for you, you'll have dozens of your brothers and sisters watching your back.

[skippingthroughfields]

one thing that's missing from these convos about amc not submitting assad zaman for a golden globes nom that makes it 10x more malicious on amc's part is that a nomination isn't just like oh... ~simple appreciation for an actor's performance. even if there's no win, it results in a profile boost for these actors & them being able to command a higher salary when it comes to future projects. it's something that gets notice on their CV. these studios and networks love being able to market their shit with things like "starring golden globe nominee john doe" or "emmy winner jane doe." the emmys are more prestigious than the golden globes which are more prestigious than the critics choice awards (the one they submitted him for with two other actors lol). actors get nominated and have the opportunity to get attention from social media posts, article mentions, attending the red carpet, having their name announced and a little clip of their acting shown. that's not nothing! attention from possible new fans, publications, execs, peers, producers, directors, fashion houses & other industries which could lead to $$$ and sponsorships. I won't make any presumptions about the cast's finances but I do know amc is probably not paying them their worth, least of all the bangladeshi muslim who barely had any major roles in tv/film prior to the show.

there are fees and costs associated with submitting for awards consideration and FYC ads. the network basically took a look at assad's brown skin and name and said they don't think he's worth the money over the white actor who had less screentime and narrative importance (to the season ig) which is absolutely crazy lmao. it shouldn't be controversial to say that and you can't not discuss this without bringing up sam's name. this has nothing to do with whether he "deserved" to be submitted (and even if I said he doesn't deserve it over assad who's gonna beat my ass?). this white man isn't being persecuted by conversations about blatant racism. but I'd expect nothing less from this fanbase x.

[ferryfoam]

I think about The Seige of AR-558 all the time. It's probably one of my absolute favourite ds9 episodes (along with In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light which can not be topped) that one part where Julian is treating the wounds of one of the star fleet officers who've been essentially abandoned in this war zone and the officer is clearly so deeply traumatised by his experiences there is one of the most poignant moments in the entire show to me. The dialogue is so good and it really reminds you that this is an actual war theyre having, not just some flashy space battle where the good guys win and then everything is fine- it's had lasting impacts on these people who star fleet is meant to protect but really they send out a group of officers to a planet and then leave them there for months longer than they were supposed to be and so utterly do not care about these people because they see them as disposable. Even after Sisko and the ds9 crew realised how awful the conditions were everyone was expected to stay there - a position too important to the federation for them to let these people go home but not important enough for them to send backup or replacement officers (I though Quarks presence in the episode was really good as well for providing a perspective of someone not in StarFleet and a lot of the things he said about human nature and the actions of the federation really reflected how I was feeling about it as well haha)

Also the music was really good

(Edit if you want to hear more of my take on star fleet corruption I have put it in the tags)

[naamahdarling]

.

[the-busy-ghost]

Me normally: Let people love what they love

Me, after a Test Match Special commentator expresses their belief that the new All Creatures Great and Small is somehow "better" than the 1978 version: This is pure insanity and TMS can no longer be trusted on anything, how can they even be trusted to know about cricket, do they have no TASTE

[ohbo-ohno]

bo bo bo i am so glad you kinda sorta mentioned the asg bc i was definitely thinking of you the entire time as i watched the dogg make big fuckin' heart eyes at sid in front of god and gritty and everyone. threatening/bribing other teams not to draft sid??? calling getting him on his all-star team a dream come true???? saying he spent all night thinking about getting sid on his team???? some the fuck ON nathan have some decorum -391780

oh my god watching mackinnon and crosby talk about each other at the asg made me SICK!!!!!! they were literally GIGGLING!!!! did you see the interview sid did where he was wearing nate's jersey????????

(i typed this before realizing i was just repeating what you already said but-) mackinnon telling the other team captains not to draft sid?? auston matthews literally saying "well, nate said we can't take sid"?? sidney wearing nate's hoodie in an interview??? nate saying "my lifelong dreams have come true" talking about playing on the same team as sid??? and that's not even TOUCHING on how nate mackinnon said he thought it was "fate" that his hotel room for the playoffs (the year he won his first stanley cup) was 1787 (87 is sid's number)?? like oh my GOD how am i supposed to just go along with my day after this

i cant even with them

anyways!!! how very ghost and soap of them (with some personality shifts ofc....)

[pa-pa-plasma]

kind of frustrating that people took "fat does not equal unhealthy" to mean "fat is not unhealthy." sometimes being obese IS unhealthy & excess fat can cause a lot of problems. ignoring health issues isn't progressive. real "oranges kill people with depression" moment

[phoenixcatch7]

The problem I'm having with one of my stories is that it is compelling - but not clicking.

It's a sephiroth gets reincarnated into mdzs. Straightforward. I've got several branching paths: lwj, jc, nmj (my personal fave) and the jade twins (one mind in two bodies). All five of them have great potential, but for some reason my heart is set on sephiroth!lwj, because the aesthetic is sublime.

But! It's! Not! Working!

My main problems are a) despite similar surfaces, sephiroth has fundamentally different morals and life experiences to lwj and lwjs morals are a huge part of his and wwx's stories. B) I can't NOT have wangxian. I don't ship often at all, but when I do I'm pretty set on it lol. I don't want to deny soulmates. Unfortunately I HATE writing romance. C) I do not think sephiroth should be in any sort of romantic relationship at all nor can I see him wanting one. I've read tons of fics where he is in relationships (healthy or otherwise) and they're amazing, yes, but... Under my pen it's just not in the cards. And I do feel pairing him with wwx would just amplify wwx's worst traits, which is the opposite of what lwj does for him.

Everything's in conflict, but the lure of sephiroths second childhood in strict gusu and his complicated feelings about it, wwx being a perfect mix of all his important people with a spine of steel and righteousness that they all lost as everything fell apart, the relationship between sephiroth and his new mother, and how he'd inexplicably lose her too, the white on white aesthetic, the older identical brother, the cruel angels aesthetic with the benevolent demon, the angst of wwx's defection and death, his relationship with qi as a planet's overflowing life force, the tragedy of the mourning angel, monster x monster.... It calls to me.

But there's also the way wwx becoming a demonic cultivator was so vital to winning the war, and the way that affected things, gave him a legitimacy. Involve the silver soldier, and well. Everything else becomes a little extraneous lol. And sephiroth himself is such a big mover and shaker, I don't know what I could do to manage that without wiping out 80% of the remaining jianghu after the burial mounds siege with sephiroth appointing himself king lmao. He's not the kind of person to make small ripples, you know?

And I'd love a twin jades au to sort of turn the chaos inwards a bit (nmj and jgy would be Excellent foils) but again, I can't separate wangxian and imagining scenes feels a bit too close to incest for my tastes, even when it's ONE PERSON in identical bodies!

It's frustrating, wanting to write a non romance fic set in a love story lol. I just. I hate writing romance. But wangxian just don't want to be parted.

But the image of lwj in the xuanwu cave secretly covering a feverish wwx with his wing, only to notice a handful of white feathers pushing through the black as he unknowingly becomes a better person through showing care for other people, shaking his own deep belief that he is a horrible irredeemable creature incapable of love. Caught in an act of love. Hnggh.

Any ideas?!

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 7 :)

[tieflinglich]

i do think its fucked up to see actual arguments on here about how AI is good, actually, and if you think calling someone out for using AI and then blaming some sort of disability on it then you are an inherently horrible person. like yeah.

AI generated content is based on theft from tons of artists across the world due to scraping from the internet. it is bad. even ignoring any of the environmental effects, it is a horrible fucking thing to just rip apart the efforts of your peers in order to spare yourself a bit of time because you want to make a product but don't want to put in the effort. and trying to spin it as 'oh poor artist has a disability, they cannot create art, how dare you expect them to hurt themselves for your petty moral argument' ignores the tons of actually disabled artists who actively work with their bodies in order to create content that they are proud of.

it feels like instead of actually listening to anyone you're just willing to throw disabled artists under the bus because you want to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort.

[edwardshundredyearoldspunk]

I really think you're telling on yourself if you actually think that people are diagnosing themselves with every and any mental disorder in the DSM-5 from a tiktok. chronically online of you to think this tbh. it's giving, "I don't actually talk to people irl and all my information about this is from social media."