#and for characters that can take on different identities

[siderealcity]

I will always love the spectacular tragedy of this trio of characters. How each one tries to save the others and fails in a different, horrible fashion.

Hythlodaeus gives his life, everything he has, including his hope of living and dying with those he loves, to save Azem and Emet-Selch, and for this selfless act: Azem is torn apart. Hades lives for thousands of years in torment, slowly twisted into a monster. They kill each other, at the last. Did it work, in the end? Was his sacrifice worth it?

Emet-Selch backs a plan to save life on the star, only to lose everyone he actually wanted to save in the process. One trapped forever, unable to rest in peace, the other violently vivisected and then forgotten. The only way to release the one is to destroy the star he died to save in the first place. Repeating the murder of Azem over and over. Azem, who is beyond salvation, anyway, since if all this destruction pays off, they'll be sacrificed to take Hythlodaeus' place. Did it work, in the end? Was any of this sacrifice worth it?

Azem gives up their identity, their place in the world, and severs every connection that gave their life meaning, in order to try to find a route out of the catastrophe for everyone, and fails. They die alone, ripped apart by their mentor, to be tortured and murdered by Emet-Selch and Elidibus countless times, mostly by accident, an afterthought, an acceptable casualty of the grand plan, unmourned and unrecognized, and in the end the only thing they can do for the people they loved is deliver their souls to death. Did it work, in the end? Was any of their sacrifices worth it?

Has your journey been good? Has it been worthwhile?

Sometimes I think about Hythlodaeus existing as part of Zodiark for so long, being the first to go of a trio of people who intended to live and die together, people he gave his everything to, and then returning to his senses and moving on after 12000 years of stasis

And despite all those years passing, getting to reunite with the souls of those two dear companions and maybe even fulfil the promise of returning to the Star by their sides after all

But Emet-Selch is twisted by millennia of grief and anguish, warped into a villain by a desperation to restore that which he lost, and Azem was sundered, soul split and reborn a thousand, thousand times, another person entirely

Of course he is not a negative person, and he - better than anyone - can see that they are not gone. Emet-Selch’s actions prove that he has not lost himself entirely despite all he has been through, and even though the Warrior of Light is not Azem, they still carry their legacy, and the parts of Azem that were so fundamental to their self that they were burned into their very Soul

But even so, they are undeniably different in a way that would be clear to anybody who had known them as intimately as Hythlodaeus had. How must that feel, reuniting with the people you loved so deeply and learning that they have changed so much while you have remained exactly the same

[loopyn3]

Great God Grove spoilers/character discussion ahead!

And some spoiler-y doodles

About Hector because of course it’s about him.

His entire arc is just so melancholic and tragic,

If I may, I’ve been taking a sort of deeper look into his mental goop so-to-speak, and I feel like his jealousy/anger surrounding King can be read in a lot of different contexts. It almost seems like it didn’t stop at simply King being the hot new thing and him being nervous he’d lose his place, but more so the idea that King didn’t have to change all that much about herself to be as deified as she seems. From what we know she’s very confident with herself, her God form even being pretty faithful to how she looks as a human(mentioned in the art book which you should totally go buy, it’s so lovely seeing all the concept art and the commentary is such a treat :]).

Meanwhile it’s kind of implied that Hector really had to claw his way up the spire, working tirelessly to help people, yes, but also to earn his place amongst the gods. He’s stressed out of his mind, he’s always working- I really can’t imagine he was all that stable to begin with in terms of self-identity/worth.

Plus, most if not all his relationships seem to be tied to this one purpose. I can’t imagine the thought of “if I fail I won’t have anything or anybody to go back to.” hasn’t crossed his mind AT LEAST once.

I reblogged a post showing screenshots of Robart and Peeps talking about how, as a human, he tended to act concerningly selflessly, almost seeming desperate. That really doesn’t come across as a normal reaction to just wanting to do good by people, at least not in a ‘normal’ capacity.

Hector, to me at least, comes across as a very self-critical guy. He’s always striving to do good by others… but also to be praised and adored by them. I can only imagine after so many years of toiling away, feeling that pressure building more and more to do well, spending years of his life hoping that he’ll be voted in that he’s sort of lost a piece of himself to this whole process? Something something ship of Theseus.

There’s this thing that happens when a project consumes your life, when it almost seems like your entire life’s purpose is built around this one thing that, once it’s done, it really doesn’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything. What’s left is this sort of numb emptiness, the absence of said purpose.

What are you supposed to do, then? Now that it’s over? Is there anything left for you to do?

Did you even have a purpose in the first place?

So you desperately grasp for new projects, trying to find anything to fill that ever present void that just seems to never go away no matter how many sleepless nights you spend working and working and working-

Or maybe I’m reading too deep into it teehee

Point is, Hector is just so important he is my reason to wake up in the morning he means so much to me asjfkkfksfc ;;;;;

[zhakyria]

8 and 10 from those OC questions, for Kahl?

This really made me stop and think cause I had a general idea of answers to these but none of the specifics, so this became a longer answer then I anticipated.

8. Describe the place where they sleep.

Kahl’s more permanent places of rest have changed over the years and I felt like exploring the most important ones.

Orphanage: Kahl grew up in an orphanage his mother operated. He shared a bedroom with several other children. The room was decorated with drawings the children did, a colorful rug, and toys were always strewn about the floor. It was a bright and airy room that felt welcoming if a bit chaotic.

Starship: His ship became the closest thing he had to home for many years. But years of training and circumstances forced him to keep personal touches to a minimum. He didn’t want to risk anything tying him to his past or his work. He kept his room clean and sparse. He slept with a vibroblade under his pillow and a blaster within arms reach alongside his datapad and comlink. He didn’t use fancy or expensive bedding, and didn’t really care what color the bedding was either. The room only served as a place for him to sleep and was in general moderately safe.

Rishi: Unknown to Lana and Theron at the time, Kahl did live briefly among his father’s mercenaries on Rishi. Though he still kept his room sparse, it was a more vibrant and welcoming space then his ship. It was also a place where he allowed himself to have a few personal objects on display, such as a small painting of the rural landscape where he grew up, that his sister painted and a small deactivated droid that he’d built with his father during one of his visits to the orphanage.  

Odessen: Even now, old habits are hard to break for ex spies, and Kahl’s room on Odessan is still fairly sparse when it comes to personal touches. The bedding is higher quality now. He still sleeps with a vibroknife or blaster under his pillow. He’s not alone in that considering who he sleeps with. The walls are bare. The furniture is a simple utilitarian style. A red jacket usually hangs on the back of one of the chairs or is thrown across the end of the bed. The table is almost always strewn with tech in various stages of assembly/disassembly. The most telling change however are the small holopics located on a shelf. One of a bunch of kids all making silly faces, one of a young Theron with Master Zho, one of Theron, Zahkiel, Lana, and Vector sitting around a camp on Yavin 4, one of Theron and Kahl surrounded by Kahl’s family (many of whom look like older versions of the kids from the first pic), and the last is of Zahkiel’s parents holding them as a baby (this one glitches frequently and appears physically damaged).   

   

10. What objects do they always carry around with them?

He carries around a lot more then I thought he did before thinking about this.

Small vibroblade, usually in an ankle or boot sheath.

A blaster pistol, either his primary gun or a concealed holdout blaster.

Emergency beacon - when activated it sends out a pre-coded signal to a set of specified frequencies along with current coordinates.

Two rings that he usually wears on a cord around his neck. One given to him by Theron and one made from beskar that belonged to his mother (one of a pair of beskar rings, his sister has the other).

Woven into the cord is a small piece of kyber crystal that came from the remains of his father’s lightsaber that was shattered by Malgus.

A small medallion engraved with a killik saying that Vector gave him. He uses it like a worry stone and fidget toy.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[jessamine-rose]

*lovingly tackles Aine*

Read my Yandere! Pierro longfics first ♪( ´▽｀)

Last week, my beloved mutual @ainescribe surprised me with Savior! Darling fan art and AHAI9232@2-!/! CRYING SCREAMING I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS ART AND WORSHIP YOUR VERSION OF SAVIOR THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BLESSING ME WITH YOUR ART—

*clears throat* Anyway, now that I finally have the time to properly sit down and comment on the fan art, I’ll do just that. Feedback will be in the tags and it will be unhinged. Once again, thank you so much to Aine for drawing this <3

[ponytailzuko]

the love square as a concept in miraculous ladybug is literally brilliant i need it divorced from miraculous ladybug immediately so everyone can write with it without being accused of copying.

[martyrbat]

habeas corpus – detective comics #1086

(ID in alt!)

[questionablecuttlefish]

I feel similarly about the Bilgewater possibility; it'd be a lot of fun, Jinx tearing up pirate town and getting with tangled with Sarah Fortune's crew would be FUN (and sell a lot of Pirate Jinx skins) but feels like a step back from the journey of reflection and self-rediscovery s2 put her on.

Demacia would make sense for a lot of reasons listed here. I am biased toward lightcannon, but that's offering the perspective that Lux and Jinx have insane narrative synergy and are in many ways mirrors of each other's story. More than any other potential ship on either character's radar, they complement and support each other's stories without requiring that the other character become a fundamentally different character. Lux’s story is about identity and self-acceptance, and that's also something Arcane Jinx is struggling with throughout her whole life. Lux gets someone in her camp who finds the light inside her perfect and beautiful against all shes been raised to believe, but without any agenda to use her, and Jinx gets someone who doesn't care who she was before, only who she is now and can be, and who understands the hard choices Jinx had to make to survive because she's had to make her own.

So if they will ever meet in canon (and we have been waiting ten long years or more, and had it teased and snatched away again and again...) now is the perfect hour.

Imagine Lux drawn to the pathos and mystery of a kinder, softer Jinx trying to live a peaceful life as a tinkerer or a toy maker or a worker at an orphanage (remember Lux is canonically a charity worker herself) but as the two bond, Lux’s struggle with her magic, decision to trust Sylas and the outbreak of the mage rebellion put Jinx where she must choose to leave behind that sliver of peace and take up arms as Jinx again - this time on her own terms, to protect someone she's come to love.

Jinx has meant many things. Maybe she can decide what it means now.

Imagine both of them encountering Fiddlesticks together - if there is one final boss to a story of identity and acceptance, it's the incarnation of all you dread and reject about yourself. And he has words for both of them...

Thinking more about where Jinx is going next and as much as I love the idea of Jinx in Bilgewater, and think she would fit in perfectly there, from a character building perspective it would be kind of a dead end, I’m afraid. Like, I just don’t see anything for her to do there except backslide into a criminal lifestyle again in “Zaun but with boats.”

Demacia I think actually has the most potential to evolve Jinx’s character in an interesting way. I’m honestly neutral on Lightcannon, but Jinx interacting with Sylas and/or Morgana and getting involved in the mage rebellion has some really cool potential.

Also, guess who else is in Demacia?

Imagine, Jinx being forced to confront her trauma in the most terrifying exposure therapy ever? There’s some amazing character drama and growth potential there.

[meringuejellyfish]

old er. not particularly creative but its healthy to draw quickly without tons and tons of planning every once in a while. the apprentices have a lot of potential for interesting and fulfilling designs of which ive already seen a drawing or two of which makes me feel like i cant really do much better and also a bit of it being too early in my eyes to land on clever motifs for a future agott and coco (versus tetia and richeh which do have material) Bye

[catboyidia]

its june so i wanna share my lgbtq+ headcanons for ffvii characters just for fun, starting with the main playable cast:

(except they’re hcs by an obnoxiously trans gay person that projects onto their faves at all times, spoiler alert: they’re all trans and gay)

- cloud: he/him gay trans man - starting off strong with a gay trans guy (i warned that i would be projecting a lot with my hcs in this post) … but i’ve noticed a lot of other people hc/portray him as a trans man too so i know i’m not alone on this one! i cant explain exactly why i hc like this but i just do, probably cause i like him

- tifa: she/they transfem lesbian - i cannot be convinced that she doesn’t like women considering how she is with aerith and jessie tbh, and i like her so i’ve lovingly hit her with the transgender-inator beam out of love

- aerith: realistically- they/them nonbinary lesbian - i have no basis for this tbh except it just seems right to me! as for my actual hc for her (which is a pure projection, pls bear with me) - he/they gay transman - this is purely my own projection because aerith is really like stereotypically feminine(?) in ways that i am also feminine, so it comforts me to think of her like me if that makes sense

- barret: he/him but willing to test out she/her, unlabeled gender that is not quite cis but he’s only now exploring it and hasn’t quite figured it out yet, bi-curious and experimenting - thats so long but i’m not sure how else to describe it, i feel like he grew up all “traditional” and stuff, and then being a single adoptive dad and being a huge part of avalanche, he probably hasn’t had the time to really think about any of it too much or explore his gender/sexuality, but now he can with being surrounded with others that can help him explore, realize it’s alright to be uncishet, and help him learn about these things

- cid: okay i’m not gonna lie, canon wise he gives me major homophobe vibes (maybe its the raging misogyny that makes me think he’s bigoted in every other way…) but ignoring that he/she nonbinary bi - definitely exploring a lot and isn’t quite set in stone about what he is yet but he just knows he’s not cis or het and with those being more broad and spectrum like labels, he feels most comfortable with those over anything else, and he feels like they’re just right for him

- vincent: he/they transmasc gay - i’ll be honest this is also projection on my part because i love vincent a lot and want him to be like me! also he gives me major gender envy…

- reeve (in place of cait sith): he/him transman and gay - again, i just love him a lot tbh, and i feel like he is the kind of guy that knew who he was from a young age and tried to help out other people that are trying to navigate their queer journeys and find out who they are, i feel like reeve would be a major inspiration and advocate for the queer youth

- yuffie: they/them demigirl lesbian and arospec - she’s definitely still figuring herself out but she has very little interest in pursuing romance, but any relationship she can imagine wanting in her future is with another girl

[anonygowose]

Am I the only person horrendously weirded out by selfcest???

I see SO much Artificer (RW) selfcest, shipping Arti before and after the incident with the pups and..... why....? Just. Eugh.

I do not understand the appeal of romanticizing a character with themself? It's just kinda gross imo? Tags will have more opinions :/

[maxgicalgirl]

Carlos is the kind of autistic I am and Cecil is the kind of autistic I want to be

[llitchilitchi]

calling out acephobia in fandoms and fanworks is so weirdly difficult because there's always Some Way to jargon your way out of it that would never fly with most other identities

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

The only time gender locking classes would be justified is to leverage it towards signaling a gender transition (e.g. mtf character who the pegasi treat like one of the women) that happens later in the game/going into a sequel, but fe would never be so brave.

.

[moonmoonthecrabking]

"chaotic bisexual-" i don't find this particularly encourages me to read the book, actually. i might anyway, because of the concept (and in a partial hope to prove my preconceptions wrong), but i think that a mistake was made somewhere in the marketing stage

[bardicious]

I'm writing out my superhero comic idea and it's history, and it's like embarrassingly obvious what my favorite shows are. lmao.