#and i want to see if the characters themselves think its fair or if it works or if it doesnt because what is fate anyways

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part Three

For Xiantober Day Five: Past and Present, in which the author gets very unhinged about what parts of the past are shown and how that’s affected by the present!

(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)

The Power of Agency: Shaping the Narrative

When I've discussed Wei Wuxian's agency previously, I’ve talked about how what’s shown and omitted tells us about a character, and we’ve talked about the character himself. Though this is a niche topic, it’s not necessarily something out of the ordinary to analyse, and we can assume everything up to here has been in some way intentional.

This? Linking structure to a character’s in-universe preferences?

This is where we get unhinged.

Before I start, let’s quickly establish something which will be important later: although Wei Wuxian is the central character, MDZS isn’t strictly from his POV. While omitting events a character doesn’t like to dwell on and concealing things the character wishes to hide is common in books with only one narrator, MDZS has multiple narrators which it switches between relatively quickly. This includes Wei Wuxian, but it also includes nearly every major character that appears in the story, and omniscient narrator as well. As a default, this format doesn’t lead to this deliberate shaping and omission because of one character’s preferences, since we have many other sources of information and events – which is what makes Wei Wuxian’s influence over the narrative and structure so interesting. We could have access to a lot more information, and access to it at different times, than we do (and that’s not an insult, quite the opposite!).

To begin: we’ve established that times such as Wei Wuxian’s time on the streets, his three months in the Burial Mounds and his loss in the Siege aren’t shown because Wei Wuxian has little agency there. But that’s not the only special thing about them. They’re also the three most traumatic times in his life, and so moments Wei Wuxian himself either can’t remember, or doesn’t like to dwell on.

This is why discussing Wei Wuxian’s treatment of tragedy in his life was important. Firstly, it shows he doesn’t focus on the tragedy in his life, so the idea that the narrative not focusing on this tragedy relates to his character has merit; secondly, it affirms that this is not a passive trait, but a choice. Therefore, when the narrative omits events due to this aspect of Wei Wuxian, it’s respecting not only a character detail – which would be cool by itself – but also an active decision. One that shapes the story it’s made in.

In other words, its very structure is respecting Wei Wuxian’s agency!

Now, of course there are flashbacks to other moments of his past he probably wouldn’t like to dwell on, too. But within the structure, they’re only shown when Wei Wuxian is thinking about them (or when he has reason to)!

Wei WuXian hadn’t woken up yet. His eyes were still tightly shut, yet his hand didn’t let go either. He seemed to be dreaming, muttering, “… Don’t… Don’t be angry…” Lan WangJi seemed somewhat surprised. His voice was gentle, “I am not angry.” Wei WuXian, “… Oh.” Hearing this, as though he finally felt assured, his fingers loosened. Lan WangJi sat beside Wei WuXian for a while. Seeing that he was motionless again, he was about to stand up when Wei WuXian grabbed him with his other hand, hugging his arm and refusing to let go. He shouted, “I’ll go with you, quick, take me back to your sect!” Chapter 63, EXR translation

Which, of course, is him dwelling on…

Lan WangJi spoke one word at a time, “Go back to Gusu with me.” Hearing this, both Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng were surprised. Quickly afterward, Wei WuXian laughed, “Go back to Gusu with you? To the Cloud Recesses? Why go there?” He immediately seemed to realize, “Oh. I forgot. Your uncle Lan QiRen hates crooked people like me. You’re his proudest disciple, so of course you’re the same as him, haha. I refuse.” Chapter 62, EXR translation

…the painful flashback immediately preceding this. The third set of flashbacks (which are also painful) are a similar case. Look at the contex:

He lifted the bottom of his robe, revealing a prosthetic leg made of wood, “This leg of mine was destroyed by you, that night in the Nightless City (…)” (…) “Wei WuXian, I won’t ask you if you remember or not. Both of my parents died by your hands. You owe too many people. You definitely won’t remember them either. But, I, Fang MengChen, will never forget! And never forgive you!” (…) “In the fight at Qiongqi Path, my son was strangled to death by your dog Wen Ning!” “My shixiong died by poison, his entire body festering due to your cruel curse!” Chapter 68 (immediately preceding the flashbacks), EXR translation

And Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts and words:

Wei WuXian looked at the cultivators before the Demon-Slaughtering Cave. Their expressions were the absolute same as those of the cultivators from the night of the pledge conference, pouring their wine on the ground as they took the pledge to scatter the ashes of the Wen Sect’s remnants and him.  (…) Wei WuXian, “Now it’s time to ask just whom it is that treasures it so much. It’s like Wen Ning. Back then, some certain sects or so were scared to death of the Ghost General. They said they’d kill him on the surface, but behind their backs they hid him for over ten years. How strange. Who was the one that said his ashes had been scattered back then?” Chapter 79 (immediately succeeding the flashbacks), EXR translation 

Once again, Wei Wuxian’s own thoughts relate to the flashbacks we’ve just been shown. And, as I previously mentioned, though all the events which are shown are tragic, they’re also events which Wei Wuxian’s own choices and actions shaped – which he has this to say about:

“The things I did, not only do you remember them, I remember them too. You won’t forget them, and they’ll stay even longer in my mind!” Chapter 82, EXR

Admittedly, this applies more to the third set of flashbacks than the second (which is still fitting as the third set was the most recent), as in the second, although he still had agency within and influence over his circumstances, the majority of the pain was caused by others’ actions (excluding, of course, the Golden Core transfer… which is something we know stays for a long time in his mind, albeit with a caveat we’ll soon discuss). But it’s still important to note – especially considering that otherwise, focusing on this very painful time in his life wouldn’t seem like something very in-character for Wei Wuxian to do.

Of course, this can all just be explained by good writing. It is best to insert flashbacks when they’re relevant to the characters and events in the present day! But it is interesting to compare these to the start of the (not painful) Gusu flashbacks, which open this way:

At a later time, Wei WuXian pondered upon the reason why his relationship with Lan WangJi wasn’t good. Getting to the root of the matter, everything started when he was fifteen, coming to the GusuLan Sect with Jiang Cheng to study for three months. Chapter 13, EXR

Again, considering the circumstances around which these flashbacks take place – returning to the Cloud Recesses for the first time since the lectures, and meeting Lan Wangji once more – it makes complete sense for Wei Wuxian to be thinking about these events*. So it does fit the pattern of Wei Wuxian dwelling on something, thus leading to the narrative dwelling on it, too (and being shaped by his thoughts)… but there’s another layer to this. Importantly, it is the only flashback where Wei Wuxian’s present thoughts don’t lead to this happening, with his thoughts at an unspecified future time leading to it, instead. I like to interpret this as the text saying that, since these events aren’t something Wei Wuxian wouldn’t focus on in normal circumstances, he can dwell on them at any time. Therefore, they’re free to come up in the narrative at any time as well, even if he’s not dwelling on them in the present moment!

So, to summarise: Wei Wuxian’s decision not to focus on the painful times in his life directly influences the narrative to not focus on these times. When painful times are brought up and shown to us, it’s in the context of him thinking about them in the present day, and even then, his most painful moments still aren’t shown to us. His agency in this regard is still respected by the narrative structure.

This is the main way his agency influences the structure of the narrative, but I’d like to talk about the revealing and concealing of information, too. For example, I said I’d talk about the Golden Core transfer – though Wei Wuxian does think about this many times, as evidenced by his internal narration in Chapter 103. But unlike everything we’re shown through the flashbacks, this is something Wei Wuxian is actively trying to hide from others. And the narrative respects this choice (Wei Wuxian’s agency, again), never reveals it even when it would be relevant in the flashbacks, and we find out not through narration, but through a character’s dialogue!

And to clarify – I know these aspects may not be in the book for this exact reason. Showing flashbacks in relevant moments is good writing, concealing an important plot point you want to do a reveal for is necessary writing, and MXTX has said she didn’t want to write about Wei Wuxian’s time in the Burial Mounds, due to not liking to write transformation sequences (and also because it would not be pleasant at all, which likely also applies to Wei Wuxian’s death). That doesn’t prevent it from also being intentional – MXTX’s intelligence is shown in many aspects of this book, and there’s nothing disproving it – but there’s no proof for either option, so I won’t pretend there is. I bring this up because I know this feels like I’m overanalysing, as I feel that way as well.

But, whether it’s intentional or not, it exists in the text, and I adore it – so, regardless, it’s something I’ll explore. Because taking this into account… We aren't just told about Wei Wuxian having agency, we aren’t just shown it in the text, we aren’t even just shown it through which parts of his past are shown and hidden in the structure of the text (as I talked about in Part One). The parts of the past that are shown and hidden also have an in-universe reason for being shown and hidden, this reason being the choices he makes! Agency is the ability of a character to influence the story they’re in, but Wei Wuxian’s agency, as a property of a character who only exists in-universe, shapes the out-of-universe structure as well! That’s how we’re shown its importance! How cool is that?

At The End Of The Road: Summary and Final Thoughts

In this essay, we’ve covered how important Wei Wuxian’s agency is not only to the events of the plot, but to the structure of the narrative as well. The narrative omits periods in which Wei Wuxian has little or no agency, in favour of showing us periods in which he does, even when important events happened in the former. This indicates that who Wei Wuxian is without agency isn’t important enough to be shown to the audience, and therefore that his agency is an integral aspect of his character in MDZS. We’ve discussed how both in-universe and out-of-universe, tragedy does not define him – out-of-universe, the tragic events in Wei Wuxian’s life are used not to build sympathy but rather to show his strength of character and who he still is despite going through them; and in-universe, he chooses not to focus on the negativity and resentment caused by his circumstances or others’ actions, instead staying true to his moral compass and enjoying his life in the present day. Finally, we’ve also explored how this choice is another reason for the omission of certain events from the narrative, resulting in his agency shaping the story in a very literal way – it affects the out-of-universe structure, as well.

It’s quite fitting, for a story whose essence is about defying a conventional narrative – that of righteous clans rising up and defeating a great evil – and about a character who defies many conventional narratives on his own – that of status defining how skilled you could be, that for a golden core being necessary for cultivation and other paths being unavailable, that of a tragic but complete story of someone killed for staying true to their moral code (instead, that character returns to life and has a happy ending) – to have its own narrative play a role in such an important and interesting way.

(Or, if an image would be preferable:)

Thank you for reading!

(Part One | Part Two | Full version on AO3)

--

*This strong relation to the present day circumstances is another reason I love the flashback placement so much (and why I think it’s such a loss both screen adaptions altered it so strongly)! 

[torchickentacos]

The pokemon anime subreddit fascinates and frustrates me on equally deep levels

[burning-sol]

THE WORST TROPE!!! when people don't understand the trope and do nothing interesting with it </3

[calebrity]

love is a bitch

sylus x female reader

sylus will tolerate your tantrums if you insist on having them- but he’ll have to address them somehow, too.

▻ cw. smut, noncon elements, implied kidnapping, breeding if you squint, sylus is soft but the consent is still very dubious, 18+ characters, dark/yandere content, possessive behavior

▻ notes. no explanation tbh. its around like 6k words i think.. with SEEMINGLY minimum plot but sylus is so whipped for mc. like truly whipped. this dynamic has a very special place in my heart its like canon to me. i wanna make a dragon sylus fic next… maybe another caleb one OR do a siren! raf thing. hope the girlies enjoy this <3

ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 (๑´ `๑)♡

You’re stubborn, tonight.

Between two days spent enduring your mean cold shoulder and the precious vase you threw to the ground, sending it sprawling in a million bits across the floor that Sylus fears will end up lodged in your feet, he’s a little emotionally-charged as well.

Sylus has never been one to bend over, no- his two most reliable henchmen are there for that, and they do it gladly. But there is something about you that makes him stick his neck out time and time again… So, without a word, just a resigning glance thrown your way, he lowers himself to a crouch and sweeps the glass shards into a dustpan.

Love will do that to you, he supposes with the ghost of an obliging grin.

It’s not in his nature to roll belly-up, but he’ll meet you halfway somewhere on his side.

It’s not the first time he bent a knee for you, anyway, and certainly won’t be the last. Still, Sylus holds abundant self-awareness and knows this is more than a bad look for him; fortunately, his weak spots only ever reveal themselves in the privacy of his manor’s walls where you hold it down in his absence.

The twins- Luke and Kieran- they won’t enter your bedroom, not tonight, regardless if there’s a mess or not. Onychinus’s leader has plans for you and no intentions of allowing any interuptions. With a watchful eye trampolining between the fragments underfoot and your rounded shoulders as you curl up to the headboard and tremble, Sylus decides he can handle this little issue fine enough himself.

With a set jaw, he trawls through the glittering pieces until his gaze darts to something particularly shiny.

He lets out a breath.

…So you did throw it out; Sylus wondered what you were fidgeting with behind your back moments before your sudden outburst, but it’s with a pang of startle- and hurt- that he unearths the nitid wedding ring buried beneath layers of geometric shards. Discarded no different than trash would be.

It’s not like he needs physical proof to boast your marriage— even strangers can spare one look at the two of you- the arm forever wrapped around your shoulder or middle, the possessive flair in his eyes paired with a doting, bottomless affection- and make the conclusion that some sort of intimacy runs deep there...

So no, some filed-down gemstone, dazzling as it may be, doesn’t determine your relationship. It certainly makes him feel good, though, to see it wrapped around your finger as a perfect match to his- a tangible token of your bond. It’s a beautiful reminder of you that he absently toys with throughout the evenings to the backdrop of a silent stopwatch, mentally counting down the seconds until he can return home to you.

It’s all the more reason to adorn you in pretty things, anyway. Jewelry and twinkling beads that clang loudly together no matter how quietly your feet fall.

And he likes that, to be fair- not to be superficial, but it’s one of his simpler joys, to pamper you like a princess in every sense of the word.

You don’t need to like it, to want for it; Sylus has always stared at you like you were the epitome of royalty. And royalty only deserves the best, doesn’t it?

He dresses you in fine silks that you slip out of as soon as he’ll allow, trading designer brands you can’t even name out in favor of one of his sweaters or shirts. Stood behind you, he’ll insist on threading dainty, flax chains around your neck, smiling softly in the reflection of the full-body mirror.

You never meet him in the eye, then, too put off by the delight that practically oozes off him as he spoils you rotten to look at him right.

Sometime later that night, his hand- large but always careful- will resume that chain’s place around your neck, and thumb over your pulse affectionately.

You never did find much use, or joy, in any of his glitzy expenditures.

If- If you’re being perfectly honest you’d much rather he buy you a ticket home. Maybe that’s the one wish of yours he’ll never bring life to, much less humor in the first place.

But you’re nothing if not persistent. Oh, sweetie, Sylus has been made abundantly aware of that fact. He takes it like water off his back, though: just another little quirk of yours to catalogue to memory and dote over.

His stubborn, precious girl.

Tonight, frustration reaches its zenith in you and you snap. Grow teeth and snarl in his face.

You don’t want to be angry— ugly— God knows you loathe what’s becoming of you, but your captor doesn’t leave many other options on the table.

You shriek when he tries to coax you towards the plush fur draped over the bed and he watches with a resigned sort of sorrow as you throw things off the coffee table and shout.

You scream your throat hoarse. You taste copper on your tongue as if you’ve been running. Maybe, the truth isn’t all that far off. A man like Sylus is something to run from; all sentient beings with a sense of self preservation, no matter how small, would take off on foot immediately.

There’s not many places you can run to, though. Not when there’s constant surveillance on you- iron-wrought gates and a damned bird that soars watchfully overhead if you so much as step into the courtyard.

Your tantrum lasts all of three minutes before you retreat to the nearest corner- Sylus’s lavish bed- and quietly lick your proverbial wounds.

He’s never hit you before, no, not physically, but he’s the kind of man to leave everything within his radius reeling sooner or later. Doesn’t matter where his loyalties lie. It will happen.

And, you know, he’ll treat you like you’re some exception to that rule- to his streak of cruelty and the chaos that he lets unravel around him- but you’re not. You’re really not and you just desperately wish he could see that—

“Talk to me, sweetie,” a low tone draws you from your reverie.

You don’t let your eyelids flutter open right away; you’re re-experiencing a vivid memory in your head- a sunny afternoon in Linkon with a warm hand woven in yours by the shore- and don’t want it to slip away just yet. It’s a comforting piece of your past you want to hold onto.

As pathetic as that may be, despite Sylus having all but birched your hope for rescue to a bloody pulp, you still look back on better days with bittersweet longing and pray someone will come and save you. If not them- your old buddies in the Hunters Association and your closer friends that Sylus has voiced a particular enmity to- then yourself. You want more than anything to save yourself, but it’s not like he gives much opportunity for that.

This is your home, now. It always was. He’s dogged in his attempts to prove it to you, purring in your ear while he fucks you slow and deep that he’ll take as long as it needs to convince you of that simple fact. It’s indisputable: you’re his.

You’ll… come around to it eventually, Sweetie.

Biting your tongue, you hold off on responding to him.

There was nothing to say, really- you’d already just screamed your throat raw and still it wasn’t enough to make him budge or even at least reconsider this awful arrangement he’d launched you into a number of months ago.

If you open your mouth, you tell yourself in a mix of childish bravery and cooling ire, sloped against the headboard defiantly, it’ll be to bite him. Certainly not talk to him. Especially not in any civil manner. You think he’s lost that right ages ago- the priviledge of your softness.

You hear him heave a faint sigh, but for the moment, he leaves it at that. “Okay, then,” he murmurs with a tinge of understanding that you hate, “You cool off, sweetie. Take slow, deep breaths. Lie down if it makes you feel more comfortable.”

You remain sat upright. One half of it is because you don’t quite feel safe going prone right now with adrenaline still buzzing in your veins, and the other half is for the sole purpose of spiting him.

Sometimes it feels like you can’t. Spite him, you mean. His wounded eyes, which resemble a kicked puppy’s to a shocking degree, are as rare as they are effective. You really shouldn’t harbor any capacity of guilt for the man, but you’re human. Glaringly human. And his forlorn little frowns after you’ve winced under his harmless pets or refuse to face him after he’s fucked you within an inch of your life and wants to curl up to you like some overgrown cat- they tug on a vulnerable part of you.

It’s- It’s not Stockholm Syndrome at all, or even the latent stirrings of it. It’s just— It’s just a basic human trait to feel, and…

You suppose that might be the one veritable thing he hasn’t quite ripped from you. Maybe more so for his benefit than yours.

After Sylus is done sweeping up your mess, he approaches the bed and caresses the blade of your shoulder. The movement is just barely hesitant, like he doesn’t want to send you flying five feet in the air with some violent flinch response. It’s happened before on more than one occasion.

You don’t know whether to count his caution as endearing, oddly sweet, or fucking maddening. Perhaps it’s a fair combination of all of that as well as sickening.

Your consolation that came in the form of a now distant memory peters out into heavy, intermittent throbs of your chest. Sadness thumping a gentle song. The smell of sea salt spraying up from the ocean fully wafts away as he brings a hand up to your forehead, gentle as ever, and guides you to turn to face him.

His own scent- a base amber with notes of vanilla underneath, in two words: warm and rich- replaces that. You draw it in in small, shallow breaths and feel it tingle behind the bridge of your nose.

Sometimes it comes like a precursor to his hands- something that’ll have you bracing for impact in fetal position. Other times, when he’e got your thighs pinned either side of your head and his cock delving in and out of your pussy, hitting so deep in your belly you think nothing will sate your appetite for days, it’s a dizzying smell.

Consuming and concentrated, rubbing off on you like a bad influence as he grabs and gropes and nips.

You hate to admit it (and don’t know how it got to this point) but on occasion, Sylus’s scent is even comforting.

You would never tell him that. In fear of it getting to his head, if nothing else.

His warmth tickles the shell of your ear, his lips peppering a chaste kiss to your shoulder as he settles in beside you. Your frenzied heart, just as it began to slow, begins to thump faster, but you remain otherwise composed. When he moves a hand to lift the blanket over you, fuzzy and stupid-expensive, you make a grunting sound and shove his wrist away.

Stubborn, Sylus thinks, and bold.

But his. His and perfect.

Behind you, his chest rumbles. He lets out a laugh, gentle and light, but you wonder if it’s the remnants of exasperation that’s interwoven in it. He nestles up at your back and curls a possessive hand around your middle, his other brushing some hair off your shoulder.

You’re not quite dumb enough to interfere with it this time. Or, for that matter, the glittering ring he puts on your finger- back to its rightful spot- and reverently slips down to the slim base of your knuckle.

“You’re not cold, kitten?” He mumbles at your ear, taking you in through slow, decadent breaths,”I guess you did work yourself up by a few degrees, huh?” The proximity used to raise the little hairs on the back of your neck, but he has dulled your fight-or-flight response considerably over the past handful of months.

Kudos to him, for that.

He’s not entirely wrong, though. Your cheeks still feel toasty with anger, your fingers twitching and unfurling by your lap as if to test your own mood.

“Are you…” he starts, contemplative, “still frustrated?”

…Are you still frustrated? You don’t know. Maybe just sad.

Everything you want you can’t have. Everything you want- your veritable livelihood- he’s plucked you out of no different than a mother would her errant puppy, by the scruff. With possessive teeth that latch on painlessly and say mine.

“I don’t know,” you murmur, before quickly remedying the part of you that grows anxious at admitting your own vulnerabilities to him- “yes. I’m upset.”

Sylus gives a little sigh.

Long fingers skim the column of your arm. He leaves behind small goosebumps and a warmth that somehow feels cold over your human flesh; a brush that tingles like a static shock.

“Don’t be,” he murmurs, voice becoming oddly heavy. Breathy, rugged. And you wryly suppose the solution he offered is just so helpful, isn’t it?

The palm laced around your middle gradually slips downward, his hooked nose pressing into your jugular like he can smell the hot blood beneath and it’s appetizing, before a feeling of dread overtakes you.

Dread, and another feeling you don’t want to name— a thrill of excitement ghosting down your spine.

When he cups the seat of your panties, you shiver and revolt as if you’ve been burned.

“N-No—“

He’s ready for that, your… hesitance. His other arm, the one that doesn’t end nestled between your bare thighs, keeps you lassoed to him, his breath heavy at your collar. Growing more labored by the second.

He hushes you, using his cheek to stroke against your hair since his hands are otherwise occupied. You don’t give any more fight other than that- the violent flinch- but you remain stiff as a board as he notes your trembling with a genuine, deep frown. Furrowed, sad brows and all as if he actually has the fucking capacity to feel sorry for something—

“It’s okay, kitten,” he breathes out, “Hush.” Four fingers deliver a series of slow, tantalizing rubs to your pussy, marking the beginning of his painless assault as his thumb toys with the waistband of your panties, and you shudder against your will.

You scramble to hold onto his thick forearm, straightening against him as he leisurely works you into a writhing, fiery mess. Your veins warm, but not out of anger- not anymore, at least. Traitorous flames sprout in the pit of your belly, fanning heat across your face— hot-blooded and filled with want over just a few of his touches.

Oh, you hate him.

“Just relax, loosen up. I’ll make you come,” he murmurs against your neck, laving the fleshy space there with amorous kisses.

Man with a mission. Man with a promise. If you know him, then you’ll know he keeps them.

He suckles gently at the sensitive skin before breaking off with a soft pop, a hot tongue lolling out to chase away the redness, rendering you speechless. Speechless and on the brink of forgetting just why exactly you loathe him so much— but a vestige of that repulsion remains, melancholic and weak, and you try one last time to push him away, throwing an ineffective elbow.

He glues his front to your back completely, locking your joints in place, and slips his fingers down your panties. His knuckles peek out from the lacy hem.

Sylus lets out a little groan when you call his name, shivering behind you.

He doesn’t care if you say it like it’s a perjorative or an invocation of some reprehensible, filthy spirit— if he had it his way, it’d sound coated in honey, but he’s learned to take what he can get with you. It still makes his cock throb beneath the white folds of his robe. In any case, it’ll sound real sweet soon enough, ringing out from your lips in pretty, gasping moans as you gouge your nails into his back.

Grudge him all you want, honey. He’ll make you shake and scream, tonight. Squash all the enmity you doggedly hold for him within the span of an hour with worshipful hands and concentrated, ardent thrusts that leave you with little choice but to take it and moan.

When your struggling stops altogether, Sylus takes ahold of your little hand and appreciatively thumbs over your ring finger. “What sort of husband would I be if I left you all hot and bothered, hm? A poor one,” he answers for you.

Gently, he maneuvers you onto your back and insinuates himself between your legs. His eyes are aflame. The look in them steals the last of your shivering breath, your heart doing a perfect backflip in your chest.

Ruby eyes flutter with passion, his pupils so big you can hardly spot the red glint as they dilate unevenly, his lashes dewy. He sucks in oxygen with short, winded intakes, his silvery hair- still slightly damp from his shower- falling over his brow. And to be fair that’s bunched together, too; all the little muscles in his face tight and strained as he lets out a clipped sigh.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers on his perusal. His gaze flits all over the place when he hoists shiny silk up your breast (tonight, a royal-blue negligee) and unwraps a stringy pair of panties from your legs.

“You’ll be good for me tonight, won’t you? Or is there any more… frustration you need to let out?”

The invisible apple of your throat bobs. You retain your silence.

He dryly comments, “I guess I owe you that.”

Sylus unties his robe, eyes glossy and intense.

He does so with an affected patience, knuckles moving ridiculously slow as he feigns autonomy over his own rampant emotions. You eye him with a misty desire as he does so, your hips giving an involuntary shimmy as you prepare for what’s to come.

Sylus grasps for the very last of his self-control like a beggar would the lavish tailcoats of passersby, but it’s all for naught. His fingers are shaking when he finally flips open his robe and shucks it from his broad shoulders. Oozing less confidence and more need than anything, the tips of his ears flushed a bright red that you don’t get to see often and nobody else gets to see at all.

He stoops over, then, laying his naked chest flat to your breasts.

“This,” he says, pinning your hand- the one with a flashy wedding band- onto the silky duvet and intwining your fingers with his. “This belongs, with you. So make a mess. Throw your fits and say those cruel things to try to get back at me, sweetie… But don’t ever take this off your ring finger, do you understand?”

He breaks off from your hickey-dotted neck to get a close look at you, pressing his forehead to yours. And right then you’re almost scared to look at him, an instinct existing deep in your gut saying you’ve just been taken into the maw of a big bad wolf— but his nose brushes with yours and he feels… human. Fleshy, warm. Shockingly vulnerable in the moment.

His hands that hold yours greedily are callous and big, sure- and you’ve seen firsthand the destruction they can raise- but they’re not clawed and malicious as they touch you. No, actually, they tremble with unbridled excitement at the opportunity to make you feel good.

And— And you hate him, y-you do.

Sylus cradles you close and nurses a few indulgent kisses from your lips, eating up every precious gasp you can’t stop from slipping in time.

Reluctantly, you return them all with budding desire.

“Do you understand?” He manages to heave out after a breathless moment. There’s no threat masquerading behind his candied words (no, he’s never been one to hold things over your head, surprisingly) but his timber is firm and meaningful. You have the implicit understanding that you must say yes- or, that’s your best option for the moment.

You look up at him and his eyes are wide, unblinking, not exactly the heavy-lidded picture you were expecting and had just witnessed mere moments prior.

And it’s a million things all in one— reverent and intense, enigmatic in its roots, you think, because you never could wrap your head around just what he saw in you and why, but he’s completely besotted. It brightly reflects in his eyes like chopped moonlight over calm waters- and you never once denied that. If you’re being honest, he made denying that- his very real, and unabashed feelings for you- an impossible task.

“Yes,” you mumble. “I understand.”

He seems contented, at that. Sighing and tempered.

He pants and nudges his brow to yours, one hand unloosening from its knot with yours to make a slow descent. Torturous and controlled like he wants you to shrivel up and die from the grudging need for his touch- for him to pivot deep up inside you and erase all conscious thought from your brain.

Sylus captures your lips in another kiss, more heated this time, raunchy and a bit toothy, as he takes his cock and, without any anticapitory strokes or anything, lines it up with your hole.

“M��� sorry, sweetie. I just don’t think I can stay away tonight. You…” His skull throbs with blunt, scalding want. “You’re worth all your trouble, you know that?”

A ripcurrent of fondness, unbidden but strong, gusts through your chest.

There’s just nothing in this world you can do to ward him off you, is there? No way to spook him?

The epiphany, dulled by a lust broiling between your thighs, is as comforting as it is horrifying. You don’t- You don’t know anything more. You just can’t be sure of what Sylus is to you, how he makes you feel— all his disservices done to you a cruel piece of your reality or not.

Tonight, you’ll blame it all on him.

He nudges apart your folds (growingly wet: an unfortunate discovery of yours that makes his chest puff with pride) with the fat head and begins his entrance. It’s grand but gentle; painstaking, almost, as his pelvis draws closer to yours but only at a snail’s rate.

A lewd squelch sounds out. You suppose you’re not entirely beyond the luxury of shame quite yet, because you toss your head to the side and refuse to meet his piercing gaze, embarrassed.

You… suppose you’re also a bit wetter than you’d thought, or wanted, for that matter.

You wince as he feeds inch after inch into you. Sylus is twitching; maybe you’re just hypersensitive or your fresh bout of anger has you experiencing everything in overabundance, but you can feel his long member writhe inside your gooey walls— every ridge and curve as you struggle to make room. On instinct, you clamp down on him and he hisses like he’s been slapped.

“R-Relax, kitten... Let me in. I’ll be gentle with you, I promise. Are… you scared?” He pants.

You swallow hard. Sylus tracks the movement with alarming precision, cardinal eyes watching your throat bob. Sweat beads there. He licks it up without thought, with half the brain to follow up his question with, “Don’t be. I would never hurt you,” he whispers. And to be perfectly honest, you believe him. In his own weird, roundabout way, he wouldn’t hurt you. Not in any physical regard, at least.

(Although, perhaps bullying his thick cock between your plushy, tooth-marked thighs is the exception to that statement.)

“Y-You’re mad at me,” you caterwaul, but it’s really a question in its own, uncertainty blipping past your wet eyes. “You’ll punish me.”

Something like hurt reshapes the hard lines of arousal in his face, tanned skin unfurling with brief sorrow. He looks sweet and puppyish- all momentary, of course, all his slips of vulnerability compiled into these isolated, intimate moments with you.

He frowns, “I won’t punish you, sweetie.”

“I broke the vase. Threw it, and- and my ring.” You reason in a thin voice, your fingers curling thoughtlessly. He takes them in his own. Kisses all the tips of them.

“So?” He dismisses with a breath, “I can buy a million more, honey. You forget who I am. As for your ring,” he pauses, gaze rapidly flipping across the bridge of your nose, as if trying to discern whether or not you’ll do it again somewhere down the line. Of course, it’s an impossible task to tell the future. Sylus wishes that wasn’t the case, though.

“…You wouldn’t do that again, would you? Throw it away, take it off. You’d cherish it, just as I do my own…” he alludes to the own band on his finger, resplendant and with a price tag you’d prefer not to count the zeroes on.

It glitters in the mellow lamp light when you briefly glance to it.

“I want you to look at it,” he decides after a beat, “and think of me. I want it to… make you happy.”

With that, you blink and he’s withdrawing, straightening his back to loom over you again- resuming that position of dominance without issue. He paints the most traditional idea of authority. Tall and muscled, with stoic eyes that glow with the silent dare to challenge him and hands that can make putty of the most rebellious spirit. He molds you like clay on a potter’s wheel. You reel underneath the unexpectedly soft ministrations of his worn palms.

Funnily enough, there was a time where you were convinced he wanted nothing more than to erase your person and rewrite your identity, but now you’re not so sure… It seems if anything, the only thing he wants to strip you of is your fear. Most notably, of him. He’s so violent but… painless. Sylus has always confused you, in that way.

With men like him, you’ve quietly wondered, maybe it’s just better to close your eyes and let your breathing slow.

“You’re doing so good,” he rewards with his words, “Relax your hips… yes, just like that. Maybe I’ve been away too much, mm? I’m sure the twins have been… more than talkative with you. Bothersome. Fuck,” he shudders.

“…You’re all pent up,” he determines out loud. “But don’t worry. I’ll make it better. I’m only asking that you’ll,” you think he gasps faintly, bringing a hand to touch over your belly, “make some room for me here. Could you do that for me, kitten?”

Without fully understanding the possible implications of his words, caught between the sweltering heat of his body and a confusing, inner blend of desire and fading resistance, you give a nod.

Sylus digs a fang in his bottom lip and forces himself to look away. His too-intense eyes settle on the syrupy juncture of your bodies, where he disappears into you and you, for once, eagerly invite him in.

“Sweet kitten.” His praise is cloying. Genuine, sappy. It sticks like frosting to the roof of your mouth— a feeling you can’t quite squirm away from because it’s lodged inside you. He’s smitten, and you think you hate him. You must. You were only screaming your head off about it moments prior and throwing precious, ornate vases to the floor, confessing your repulsion to the whole entire world (more accurately, Luke and Kieran, overhearing it from somewhere down the hall and the damned bird currently perched in his cage).

His words of encouragement, bitten and breathy, keep you from bucking your hips up and away, but only barely.

Your husband keeps you anchored beneath him with a fervid, loving stare and fingers that constantly remind themselves not to dig too deep into the fat of your hip lest they leave bruises. Save for the petal-like hickeys spiraling the pillar of your neck and your thighs- the ones that made you yelp with pleasure as he left them- Sylus doesn’t want to leave anything behind that exists for the sole purpose of hurting.

Right now, everything does. Your pussy lips mouthing around him and desperately trying to receive him, the prominent vein at the base of his cock throbbing under the tight fit.

It doesn’t matter how many times he’s nailed you against the headboard or taken you folded over the marble kitchen counters as the twins hurriedly scuttled out— you’ll never quite get used to the sheer length of him. All thick and pulsating, the upper half of it flushed and curved under its own weight.

Terrifying, the first time you saw it and he pried apart your legs all attentively and soft, tracking each and every expression that passed your face despite the drugs in you making every tiny muscle go almost entirely lax.

And it was terrifying the second and third time, too.

…It’s terrifying even now, but that sense of startle is buried deep down under gritty layers of hopelessness and bitterness and a disloyal arousal- your core throbbing with want as it nudges aside all rational thinking. It says to let him in. Let him inside your panties and heart but you still dream of homeward during every sleepless night, familiar, Linkon paths surrounded in hazy serenity. You dream of the sun, too, the buttery light that waits just outside of the N109 Zone and its boundless darkness—

Outside of him. Your stalker, your captor. With the recent addition of a big sparkling gem on your finger- your apparent husband.

Sylus is neat, down there; fine white hairs tickle above your clit as he bottoms out with a final groan- seconds before he stoops back over you and recoils his hips.

He fucks you good and slow. Expert thrusts that he pairs with tentative, darting looks from your pussy to your eyes to note every zipping emotion.

He coaxes honeyed moans out from you with relative ease. Admittedly, it feels heavenly where his body meets and parts with yours— your head made so dull, devoid of thought, your limbs weighed like bags of sand as he ruts into you like a man possessed.

He makes a pleasured sound, pulled deep from the barrel of his chest. “I love you.” You believe him. He definitely looks the part; in love. He can hardly speak. “Kitten. Tell me how it feels, tell me how you want it,”

“Good,” you cry breathlessly. “Feels good.” He watches you clamp your eyes shut and groans with dissatisfaction, taking your jaw in his whole hand and pressing his nose to yours. If he has one wish right now, it’s that you’ll understand in indisputable clarity that you make up the very atoms of his world, that in a wasteland of slate grey and white— you hold color. Hold it like a fully saturated sponge. With every piston of his hips, he drinks his fill from you.

Bitterly, you think with withering rationale, he drains.

“Then open your eyes. Look at me,” he demands. So close he’s near suffocating- every fibre of your being consumed by five letters and an adoration so heady it feels treacly. It emits from him like radiation, poisonous and insidious.

Sylus puffs out humid, minty breaths, and you take them in, recycling it between each other. Your lungs feel like a hearth. He’s gasping like he’s just concluded a several mile long run, perspiring at his temple.

Belatedly, you flutter open your eyes.

He’s handsome. He’s wolfishly handsome and the way he looks at you is both precious and earth-shattering all at once, crushing you under the sheer weight of it like a flimsy object placed under a hydraulic press: you stood no chance. Not against someone like him.

Obedient, you stare at him and whimper, half-tempted to cup his V-shaped jaw and indulge in the feeling.

Sylus moans and rewards you with a hot tongue pressed flatly to your neck. You slam your head as deep as it can go in the duvet. Your eyes fall back into your skull and you hold him tight- tighter than tight- squeezing his thick forearms like they’re fruit to juice. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Your back makes a crescent-moon. He relishes in the way you cling onto him for dear life, branding him with the tips of your fingers as he imparts mind-numbing pleasure. Euphoria thrums in your veins. It’s hard to breathe, your cheeks bloating before you dazedly remind yourself to breathe.

Your inner voice resembles Sylus’s to an unexpected degree.

“Breathe,” he really says, rasping. “Breathe, kitten.”

Your slick cunt winks around him with satisfaction, a gusty breath pouring down your throat.

Pointed teeth tickle your jugular. For a split second, you experience the very real, but perhaps needless fear that he’ll sink down and tear tendon from bone. That he’ll pull away with red spittle and a predatory smile and say, I’ve won. You’ve given in, sweetie.

It’s all for naught, however; instead, he washes you with sloppy, suckling kisses and you mewl unabashed for each and every one.

Molten pleasure sends a violent jolt through you, his saliva marking you and right then you feel no different than a bone to a dog.

Sylus wonders vaguely if you’ll ever come to the realization that while yes, he is a dog, you are his master— you give him name and purpose and occasional tugs on his leash that tell him where to go and what to do. He’ll trail you endlessly. Follow you to hell even if he smells the char clear ahead.

And you just don’t get that, do you? It’s as humorous as it is exasperating.

“Look me in the eyes, sweetie. Tell me how you feel. I want to know how- far you think I reach.” He shudders.

You whimper, “Far. S-So far, Sylus.”

A visible shiver racks his broad shoulders at the sound. His palm, callous and large, cups your chin tenderly and his damp lips shift against yours with every dull clap of his pelvis to yours. His free hand leaves its perch at your waist in favor of your breast, hovering over the valley of them with splayed fingers.

“And what about here?” He croaks, “Am I reaching this spot here?”

Your neck is straining as you plow it deeper into his fancy, expensive mattress. There’s a small uncertainty in you that raises the silent question of whether or not you’re trying to escape the man looming over you or you’re just overstimulated from his handling. Either way, it goes unanswered, put on the back burner to make room for a rattling pleasure.

Comprehension slips away. It’s taking you several seconds to grasp onto what Sylus is asking of you.

You take ahold of a pillow beside you and grab it so hard you think feathers might erupt from your fingertips. You’re getting close, you can feel it; a foamy wave in the distance growing taller and taller as it nears the shore. He’s not fairing any better, the threads of his composure splitting like dead ends.

Your heart, you finally realize in a blink. Is he reaching your heart? And it’s almost delicate, the response your chest has to it, your lungs drawing in a short breath and keeping it there for a long moment as if you need the extra time to process that morsel of information. That unexpected smidgen of fondness that bowls through you and scrunches your brow as you flit between his eyes. Cherry red and agog, wholly invested in your answer.

Before you can provide a real one— the wave crashes.

Bigger than you’d imagined, more powerful. Tsunami-like in nature: it casts its shadow over you in its entirety and steals the breath from your lungs as it curls and flattens. It rolls over you and sprawls to the crown of your head to the tips of your toes, your whole body convulsing as you’re swept up in its waters.

“Y-Yes,” you gasp without consciousness, fucked into perfect dumbness. “I love you, Sylus- I love you I love you I love you—“

Sylus’s hips stutter and fail.

“Fuck, sweetie!” He growls, “Do you mean it, do you—?” He delivers one last onerous ram into your twitching hole before letting out a roar and stilling completely. Rope after rope of hot cum glutting into you, your spasming walls feeling volcanic as he unloads his fat balls inside them.

You tremble and lose your tether to reality, for one moment. Cut off completely and barred from it.

Eventually, he lets out a deep, sated sigh and collapses over you. Drawing your boneless body to his front, tucking you safely under his muscled wing.

You numbly slant yourself against him and press your cheek to the damp, hard planes of his chest. His heart is hammering wildly beneath your ear and you don’t know whether to feel flattered, startled, or a fair mix of both. Perhaps you’re beyond the point of caring- although, sometimes it’s hard to get over the knowledge that Sylus indeed has a functioning heart capable of sorrow and anger and joy.

It’s… confusing, to say the least.

A long while passes afterward.

In the dewy afterglow, he plants a lingering kiss to the crown of your head and uses his center fingers to move away the hair pasted to your forehead. You can tell he’s holding back on something, just don’t know quite what.

Then, he murmurs, with a vulnerability that will never not look stupefying on him— cocksure, devilishly-handsome face warping into the gentle portrait of doubt—

“Did you?” He blinks, slow as he drifts along your sleepy face and watches your eyes hazily lift to meet his. “Mean what you said? Just now, when you came... Did you mean it, kitten?” He whispers softly.

Your mouth opens and wavers.

A plethora of contradictory feelings make quick work of the last of your common sense: loathing, trading itself out for hesitant affection; deepseated fear ducking out the way for the inexplicable want to unfurl your tight limbs against him and allow yourself just to be held... By him, of all people.

Your captor, who utterly uprooted you from your home and cut off every string connecting you to the people you considered most dear. Your tormentor and kidnapper and husband, whether you liked it or not, the relation only recently scrawled in paper in sloping, flowery letters. You signed yourself to him. (Albeit, you had very little say in the whole ordeal.)

You shut your eyes, hard. Your jaw follows.

You don’t give him an answer. Maybe you don’t truly know it anymore, not for certain. What this man has done to you is all too confusing and he’s made you all too tired, tonight. Nothing can keep its foothold for long in your fogged brain.

With a rapid thump of his heart, devastation falling headlong into the pit of his belly, Sylus thinks your silence, that in itself, is your answer.

…Nonetheless. He’s nothing if not persistent. And you’re warming up to him, he can tell— those fuzzy, latent feelings part of your willing acknowledgement or not.

So he arms you impossibly closer and nuzzles his hooked nose into your hair.

You think it’s a wry little smile that prods your temple. “You’re still playing the long game, hm, kitten? …It’s alright,” he breathes. You note the microscopic hitch in his otherwise even words with an unwanted pang of guilt.

“I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

[angrykittybarbarian]

Things that bother me about Dragon Age: The Veilguard part 3 (final thoughts)

I have finally finished the playthrough. I endured because I wanted to give this game a fair chance. I wanted to see it from start to finish in the hopes it would deliver something, anything capable of redeeming it. But it just didn't. Or more precisely, not in a way sufficient to make its flaws easy to overlook. These are my closing impressions on the game. I have already done two posts about this in which I documented my observations and comments as I progressed. I will link the posts here: Part 1, Part 2.

Let's finish this ride for now.

!Spoilers below the cut!

The music

I don't know what the direction of the music was meant to take. When it was announced Hans Zimmer would compose the OST I had high hopes. Hans Zimmer is a houshold name in Hollywood and skilled at what he does. I listened to a number of movie OSTs of his making and they were all excellent. So what happened here?

The music sounds generic most of the time without a clear theme or a unique piece that got me searching for it on youtube.

The main theme has sort of a recognizable composition but isn't anything outstanding. Emmrich's theme sounds like a halloween piece written for Wednesdsy Adams and the rest of the OST seems to mimic Trevor Morris' work for DA:I, namely the Lost Temple and In Hushed Whispers themes, but without the emotional impact the original pieces created.

It's as someone has already pointed out and I agree: Bioware has bought the name Hans Zimmer but not his quality. It sounds like he didn't even seriously create something but half heartedly whipped something out of his sleeve and called it a day.

The facial animations

The main problem with these is they often don't fit the emotions the VAs are communicating.

The VAs actually did a fantastic job. The scene that touched me the most was the one Rook confronts Solas in after they escape the regret prison in the fade. That was the first time Rook felt involved, raw and real.

But what broke the atmosphere in an otherwise flawless scene was how unmoving their facial expression was. There was the VA shouting their lung out and the animation couldn't even give half a fuck about it.

I don't even see an excuse for this lack of facial animation. It was possible to do since DA:O, hell, even since the first Mass Effect back in '07. Why is it not possible in the year of our Lord 2024, when technology is presumably better?

The handholding of the player

The plot is tightly paced. This is not necessarily a bad thing as I didn't really like the Open World approach of DA:I since it stretched the main plot too thinly and the maps created weren't filled with interesting side content but boring and pointless fetch quests.

But Veilguard went into the opposide extreme as it leaves only little room for the player when and how to do things. The quests are activated and must be completed in a specific order. They have also only one outcome without room to make different decisions.

Rook can never be truly ruthless. They can never disagree and butt heads with their companions.

And I hate how on the side of the screen the game exactly tells you what you have done and how it affects your companions' behaviour. It doesn't bake it into the interaction organically. Instead it has yet again, explained to me what I did and why it has this very specific effect without any of the characters discussing it. But the beauty of consequential decisions lies in the very unpredictability of its outcome. That's what creates the emotional impact. It doesn't work if I am being warned and explained to like a small child.

It's this lack of trust the game puts into the intelligence of its players that is so experience breaking, insulting even. It doesn't trust its players to figure stuff out themselves. It assumes we are too stupid to get any of the things it tries to tell us.

The ting is though, dear Bioware writers, if you think you have to overexplain your story because you think your audience won't get it then that's a telltale sign of the story being actually badly written.

Another area where this becomes appearant are the "puzzles". I used the quotation marks because there isn't really anything to solve. The solutions are obvious and at times your companions go out of their way to tell you.

The romances

Romances have always been a nice bonus on top of the otherweise amazing game content. They added some enjoyable extra fluff purely for enjoyment and some cases even deepened the main storyline.

In Veilguard they don't do that. In almost all of them the flirting is so meaningless that your cutscene with them just proceeds as if nothing happened.

There is no shift or change to their tone towards Rook. You don't build up the relationship with them. There is no last goodbye kiss before the last mission or passionate affirmations of love and trust. It just leaves you cold.

The only romance that seems to have that old depth is Emmrich's. The rest however, they don't add anything significant. There virtually is no difference to the game without the romances.

Companion relationships

Let's begin here with the simple fact that all deeper interactions Rook has with the companions are strictly scripted which ties back into the handholding part of this criticism. Rook cannot initiate a conversation and ask them some general questions about their histories and opinions on certain matters.

Rook only gets to interact with them when they happen to want something from them. Otherwise they cannot be bothered to acknowledge Rook with more than a one sided oneliner.

And then there are the relationships between the companions themselves. They either get along swimmingly or the game feels the need to stage some immature conflict between them without any deeper purpose.

Like Harding not understanding why Emmrich brings so many books on the road despite it literally not being any of her damn business bevause it doesn't personally affect her in any way.

Or Taash not understanding his profession as a Mournwatcher as they call him names so Rook has to point out Taash in turn likes dragons which is an interest he doesn't share only to culminate the discussion with a "We need to respect our differences" sort of statement.

These are not conflicts, these are squabbles of children and like children Roik talks to them which is brought ad absurdum with Emmrich because he is literally old enough to be Rook's father.

Why bother at all with writing conflict if it is only to be something as inconsequential as this?

Varric's death

This one is a .... choice.

I won't go into why the decision to let him die or not is good or bad because I feel like this is highly subjective.

However the impact of the reveal of this fact is only partly executed well.

Why?

Because it only hits hard when the player has known and cared about Varric at least since DA:I if not DA 2. The execution of this plotpoint thus relies too heavily on nostalgia instead of building the tension up within its own setting.

When thinking about Bioware also wanting to be newcomer friendly with this game I am left to wonder then why they didn't introduce Varric properly and didn't give the players time to build up the relationship? Why would a new player care about Varric? They don't know him.

Bioware cannot in good conscience claim they designed the game to be new player friendly while simultaniously heavily relying on knowledge from previous games, dlcs, comics, novels and other spin-off media. They cannot claim this and have anything but DATV do the heavy lifting when it comes to executing their plot.

The final mission

For my final point I also want to lose some positive feedback about this game.

The ending was actually well written.

In relation to Solas it comes full circle. You can actually feel what's at stake and the decisions Rook makes actually matter.

The final questline roughly follows a Mass Effect 2 approach where it is classified as nothing short of a suicide mission.

Companion quests essentially function as loyalty missions and Rook gets to assign various posts in battle. Just like in Mass Effect 2 assigning a companion a post completely outside of their expertise may get them killed.

The dialogue is actually written well at this point in the game. There isn't really much to complain about.

But even this part is not entirely without faults.

For one I don't like the non negotiable sacrifice that has either to be made by Harding or Davrin. Rook doesn't even get a chance to save any of them. But again these non negotiable companion deaths where you only make the choice who's it's going to be isn't anything new (i.e. Hawke and whatever Warden you happen to get, Kaidan/Ashley in ME 1). So maybe a bit if a bummer but nothing experience breaking.

A stronger point however is that Rook will always keep the Veil intact in the end.

I suppose this outcome already is part of the game title itself but was it necessary to take it so literally?

With everything the elves have lost and the discrimination they faced it should absolutely have been an option to agree with Solas and tear the Veil down.

But since we don't talk about racism and slavery I guess Rook doesn't reflect on these points either. So I guess keeping the Veil intact is in line with the game's general sanitization of the world.

So in conclusion?

The game is far from great, not gonna lie. It feels like the devs actually wanted a new IP but were too afraid of the risks that come with such an endeavor and thought gutting an existing franchise that already did the heavy lifting of building a fanbase and using it as a package would save their ideas from flopping. Surely no one will notice it is actually something else if we market it as Dragon Age, right?

But we are not that stupid. This behaviour is insulting to put it plain and simple and I am heartbroken, angry and said that this was done to Dragon Age. I wanted to love this game. I was optimistic before the release. Everything looked fine, nothing in particular to worry about.

But I cannot continue to defend this without breaking my basic brain function.

The most frustrating part is that with the ending the devs showed they can write a story and meaningful dialogues. It left me wondering why it couldn't be done like this for the rest of the game and living with the reality that I will never get what this game could have been.

All in all this is not a good Dragon Age game. It is a massive disappointment and does not live up to the promises made by the devs.

I am sorry for everyone who preordered.

I am sorry for everyone who paid the full release price.

Nominating it for Game of the Year is not justified no mattee how you look at it.

If you are genuinely enjoying the game, I hope you continue to do so and all power to you.

For the rest: let's stop excusing Bioware's disrespect towards the fans and enabling them by paying them too much money for it.

Don't buy at release. Don't buy spin off media. Wait for sales. These people only understand the problem when you give them a good run for their money.

[dr-spectre]

I wanna say one final thing about the Marina stuff that went down.

Seeing all the cool fan art that has sprouted due to what has been going on and people sharing their love and passion for Marina is absolutely incredible and reminds me of the importance of the character.

Marina as a character speaks to such a wide range of people and i think it's incredibly sweet and powerful stuff. This character and the culture she embodies is important to a ton of people and as a community, we should NEVER... EVERRRRR forget that!!!!

Marina is my second favourite Idol, i find a lot of relatablity in her despite my appearance looking absolutely NOTHING like her. It feels amazing to know that there is a HEAVILY autistic coded character out there who i can find some comfort in. Not the same kind of comfort as Callie, but different.

I really do love Marina, and I wish my brain would hyper focus on her instead of the magenta squid woman...

I hope we can move past this and learn how to treat people who look different from you much MUCH better. Although the Splatoon community can be very accepting of others and is genuinely one of the more kinder communities out there, it still has a really awful and down right racist side to it, that makes me sick to my stomach.

The stuff i saw about the situation involving Marina and her VA really pissed me off, and i felt so incredibly disappointed. I want this community to do better, and i want minorities to feel safe and comfortable here. It's not fucking fair man.

It's insane to me that the series that's an allegory for racism is full of racist individuals who freak out over seeing a person that isn't white and straight... UGHHHH! It makes so angry, SO. ANGRY. God forbid a woman has a darker tone of skin...

We got 4 idols based on Japanese culture and its different aspects in terms of Idol popstars, a Brazilian singer, an Indian performer, and a black octopus woman. Being racist and defending the act of white washing in a series full of diversity and representation is such vile shit and there is no place for you here, or anywhere else for that matter.

Im not even talking about the person who made that pale skin Marina art, they have said sorry and will focus on improving themselves, only time will tell if they do. But, the people who defended them and then got mad at others who crictised something as important as a character's skin tone... Fucking despicable behaviour.

I really wanna believe in good and hope that the Splatoon community can really grow from this and actually fully embody the messages the games have shown us. But so far, it seems like some of y'all haven't got the message drilled in your fucking heads.

If you freak out over two dark skinned fictional women like these girls right here, then I'm genuinely worried about how you act towards real-life women of colour.

Do better. Seriously. Get better at how you perceive others and really reflect on yourself and what you say towards people who look different than you.

[hanatagami]

sagau imposter au (part 1)

i was just introduced and am now an avid enjoyer to sagau, especially imposter ones, so i wanted to make some hcs. this is gonna be your pov, but i would like to do povs of the actual characters too.

Upon “descending” to teyvat, under circumstances you know now, you find yourself to be incredibly lucky that you arrived where you did

you woke up in a domain of all places

it was a weird thing to wake up to, being in the middle of a strange platform with a golden tree not to far from you

you weren’t certain what domain per say, but you could confidently deduce its domain-hood, though it never acted like a typical domain

as in monsters didnt spawn and there wasn’t a challenge for you to face

instead it acted like your own personal sanctuary

if you wanted to sleep: a bed would appear inside

the same with a bathroom (which was weird to use in a space that seemed almost alive) and any other luxuries or necessities you needed

you made sure to compliment the space you were in, just in case, and was surprised when the tree tinted pink, but in a situation like this

more shocking things were bound to happen

like looking at your body and noticing veins of gold which was plenty shocking, the gold seemed to be able to glow or dim to your desire.

You could make it so looked like your body was covered in rivers made of stars (which did wonders for your confidence, way better then any tattoo you could’ve gotten irl) or dim it to where the gold looked completely unnoticeable 

now youve read your fair share of sagau fics, and you deemed its probably safest to stay in a domain for now, until you figure what tropes may await you

god forbid-

‘(Y/n) forbid...? no thats weird’ you think to yourself

god forbid it was an imposter au or smth and you get smited by whatever archon this domain resides in

luckily, the people in the world dont seem to be checking domains you      h o p e

your content residing in the domain till you’ve figured out the full extent of your abilities, and it was only then that the domain provided enemies for you to practice on

(thankfully they weren’t actually alive, cause they are supposed to be your subjects now or something)

you figured out what you could with the guidance of a space that couldn’t physically speak with you, but you did your best

you were surprised to find that a lot of abilities weren’t really used by you per say, but rather that things followed your requests, if that made sense

you didn’t conjure wind to blow enemies away, but you gave silent requests and was gleefully answered

you didn’t create waves of water to send crashing against opponents, you asked and something, maybe Teyvat itself, listened

your hypothesis was that the original creator could manipulate things, but that is either learned or wasn’t passed on to you? 

you thought yourself not as the original creator, but a reinvention of them. Almost like Nahida, you aren’t the orginal creator but perhaps the creator remade themselves into you and placed in another world to be raised as peoples equal and learn things like morals

 perhaps tired of an eternal, all knowing, and all powerful existence.

it was a good idea to keep yourself free of the burdens of immortality, a self-imposed somewhat-life cycle

well that was your hypothesis, you didn't know for sure

but what you did know is that almost everything would answer your requests, even vague concepts like time, space, or gravity

you were even able to control the size of your body, growing big enough to fill the void below the domain, or small enough to be a molecule no one could see (you weren’t sure what was responding to you to do that, but it still worked) 

‘the original creator mustve been amazing...’ you often thought to yourself

You goofed around a lot with these abilities before deciding to go out and venture into actual teyvat, to figure out what you were actually dealing with 

imposters, killer characters, or whoever...beware, you know what your doing (kinda)

and as you stepped out into the land (after giving the domain a big thanks and promise to visit again) you grew a little surprised at the outfit change that happened the moment you stepped on land.

rocks and minerals from the earth arose and surrounded your body, not stabbing or poking you in anyway

instead it felt secure and comforting

you spun and gazed down in awe as all kinds of materials formed garments around your body

it was like a dream outfit for you, something celestial that you could only see in your imagination

and it looked like it came straight from Liyue

and which upon surveying your surroundings of the things in the area, seemed to be Liyue

when you turned around, there wasn’t actually a domain there, so you couldn’t use it as a landmark or anything

(it must be some personal creator domain? that would make sense)

maybe your “holy” garments change depending the country you were in?

Interesting theory, but you didn’t feel like testing it out just yet

requesting the materials to form something a little more Liyue casual to hopefully blend in

and with that you set off!

it only took a few minutes to realize you weren’t quite sure where you were going, but don’t worry, Teyvats got you

a beautiful path made of stone that was embedded with cor lapis arose from the ground to guide you to the city, your desired destination

and as you gazed behind you noticed the path disappeared a couple steps behind you

‘only i get the red carpet, eh? how kind~’

 and with that NOW you set off

it was a very wonderful walk, really

much more peaceful then any walk you’ve had playing the game

no hilichurls or slimes or abyss mages trying to test your patience like they did with your designated traveler

well they did approach, but they approached bearing gifts! it was actually cute watching hilichurls walk up to you with their most valued item, and its like just an apple or something

but you thanked them, gave them a pat to which they always did their little dance which you couldn’t help but chuckle at (it was so much better in person) and that only seemed to make them more cheery as they went back to their tribe

slimes came up for some pets, which how could you not

when you pet the first slime that came up, a pyro slime, you were amazed at the way it felt. It didn’t turn its element off, cause apparently it didnt need too. when you touched it you could feel the pure heat it eminated, but it wasn’t painful. there was a firmness from slime section but the fire itself only seemed to keep you warm

it was then your goal to experience petting slimes of all elements on your way to Liyue’s city

and the results of your petting: electro had a pleasant tingling (especially if you have one hand on a purple one and the other ona yellow one), hydro was more water then slime, anemo felt like putting your hand above a air hockey table, dendro was disappointingly normal but it smelt really nice, and cryo felt like a thin layer of ice on top of water, and geo was rough (unshockingly)

it made your trip to the city very eventful and quick, you didn’t notice time passing at all

it was upon approaching the big gate of Liyue did you really stop to think of a plan

what were you gonna do when they recognize you? cause according to the fics you’ve read, they always do

eh you’ll wing it, you just wanna try Xiangling’s cooking tbh

and maybe one of Chongyun’s popsicles

would they recognize you and agree? would they think you were an imposter or something? you were kinda excited to find out

to avoid the small fries (the guards) from pulling anything, you covered the rest of the distance using a form of teleportation (thanks space) and entered straight into Liyue

you had appeared in an ally to hopefully avoid people spotting you fade into existence there

willing yourself to appear a little more confident (you’ve heard looking confident can really get you places when trying to sneak or fool people)

you began to trek through the big city you’ve grown so used to seeing from a screen

and you really arrived at just the right time, since it was dark from the night sky so all the lights and lanterns were lit, lighting up the city beautifully

so much more beautiful then in game, thats for sure

it kinda made you eager to see the lantern festival! the big deer lantern (the deer was actually an adepti wasn’t it? you kinda forgot) was sure to be breathtaking in person

and maybe it was your outfit, or maybe the lack of guards, nobody was really clocking you on your appearance

(you were only now deliberating that they may not know your appearance, it may be a vibe thing but who knows)

you didn’t see any statues dedicated in your honor, which was kinda a plus. no direct comparisons can be made

you had come up to Xiangling’s restaurant and she was, thankfully, the only one there

“Uh, excuse me.”

“Yes, how can I- Your grace!?�� 

ah, she knows

“SHHHH, I dont want anyone to know!”

“How are you here? Where are your guards?? It isn’t safe-”

“Don’t worry about it! I just want some of your food is all, I promise I’ll go back right away.”

 So there was an imposter...how interesting.

“I could of just delivered it to you Your Grace, or someone could of picked it up!” She was looking at you with great concern, you weren’t entirely sure what would threaten the “creator” in this world to begin with, but they may just be paranoid.

“I mean with this imposter going around, who knows what they may try and do...” The thought itself seemed to bring Xiangling great distress, her body visibly drooping at her words.

It felt weird for her to be so concerned over you, when its not actually you shes concerned for. Not you, but someone whose trying to be you, so ig in concept shes concerned for you?

whatever

“Come on, this is definitely one of the safest cities to be in, you know that. By the time they tried anything they’d already be getting chased outta here! Besides, your right here, you can protect me!” It was weird trying to comfort her in this situation, and you could only guess if you were mimicking the actual imposter correctly.

“Well...I guess so...” She didn’t seem completely convinced at that, but she seemed to be letting it slide slightly at the thought of protecting and spending time with you. How sweet~

“Hey, do you think you can make me your signature boiled fish?” You were trying to stay vague...you wanted to try it, but you weren’t sure if the imposter had already, so you had to be picky about your words.

“Uh, sure. Yeah! I can do that for you!” She was channeling some optimism now, her face bright at the thought of “your grace” trying her signature dish. It was really cute!

You were lucky no one heard her shouting “your grace” however many times, there weren’t any other customers and her dad wasn’t there for whatever reason.

But that didn’t stop someone from recognizing you though.

You had felt something pulling on the lower half of your clothes, so naturally you look down and see 

the one and only

former god

Guoba was gazing up at you with sparkles around his eyes

he seemed really excited to see you!

“Oh, aren’t you the cutest!” You were quick to scoop him up and give him the bestest of cuddles you could muster, and he seem to respond in kind

he was so much softer then you could of thought, and he emitted such a nice warmth

people in your world were told not to hug bears, so you werent gonna pass the chance to do so in this one

“Wha--Guoba?!” You both pause in your cuddling sensation to give Xiangling a shocked look at her interuption. Her attention had completely left the food she had been preparing previously (impressively enough her hands still seemed to be cooking it perfectly) and was focused solely on your interaction with the little guy.

“What’s the matter? Should I not be hugging him?” 

“No no! Your more then welcome too Your Grace! Well at least I say but...the last couple times Guoba completely...disregarded you! I guess I’m just shocked.” Her gaze had bashfully returned to the food, potentially embarrassed at having such an outburst in front of you.

“Well I don’t know, maybe he just needed to get used to me.” You focus back on the little guy in front of you and part of you knows thats not really the truth. He’d been so “disregarding” because it was the imposter he had been presented with, not you. He didn’t really make expression but you could tell that he was really excited to see you and be held by you. he’s so freakin cuTE-

Another part of you was thinking, surely someone must’ve seen that as strange. You thought back to the “monsters” too, someone surely must’ve picked up that the imposter being ignored by animals or attacked by “monsters” should be very suspicious. But according to this whole imposter fiasco, it wasn’t suspicious to warrant a check. 

“Here you are! A Wanmin Restaurant Boiled Fish, our speciality!” Xiangling placed the meal in front of you and gave you one of the brightest smiles you’ve ever seen, you almost had to squint at it. A mix of Guoba’s sudden acceptance of you, and trying her signature dish must be really exciting.

Sitting Guoba down in the chair next to you (to his displeasure, as he made sure you knew with an unhappy grunt) you pick up the utensils and look down at the meal in front of you. It smelled heavenly and you made sure to give it a good sniff before getting a spoonful and getting a taste.

The flavor embraced your tongue wonderfully, it was so delicious it was easy to think you wouldn’t order anything else at this establishment. I mean the characters always said Xiangling was a good cook, but this meal was just a whole other level of good.

During your food-caused glee, you didn’t take notice on how Xiangling had looked at you. She couldn’t help but think you looked especially radiant today, not to say you didn’t anytime else, but there was something about today that gave you such a...glow. Watching your eyes shut in delight, humming at the taste of the meal, she felt a warmth from your presence she hadn’t realized was lacking before. Even in a common Liyue garb, every aspect of you invited people to be enraptured by you and your presence. Her heart raced as your eyes cracked open happily to indulge in another bite. She hadn’t seen you so pleased trying food before, though she wasn’t really around to see you eatting

but the face you were making...part of her wishes you only made that face when you ate her food

she knew that if the rest of her life was spent only cooking for you, it’d be a life worth living. (she knew that before hand, but now more then ever did she feel that way)

Guoba had grumpily forced himself into your lap, making you have to scooch your chair back a bit to fit him while still eating (not that you minded, it enhanced the experience tbh)

Letting out a sigh at your full and satisfied stomach, you wrapped your arms around Guoba and buried your face into the top of his head

He let out a small sound of satisfaction, which was very cute

Gazing at Xiangling she seemed to be flustered trying to find a topic of conversation, which was kinda shocking cause she didnt seem like the type to struggle conversationally

(it was probably cause it was you)

“Bleh...I don’t really wanna go back after such a nice meal. I wanna have fuuun! Is there anything we can do that won’t get me caught?” You interrupted her internal dilemma with your own dilemma. 

How do we get more out of my time in Liyue before im wrongfully exposed?

“I know! Are Chongyun or Xingqiu busy? We can hang out with them!”

She seemed conflicted at your suggestion, probably wanting to take you back for safety reasons, but also not wanting to cut your time together short.

“And Guoba doesn’t me to go either, see?” And indeed you were correct! The bear was giving Xiangling the best puppy eyes he could while in possession of bear eyes, and you could tell it was working wonders on her

you could tell by the sudden slump of her shoulders that her internal battle had concluded, and you let a bright smile at her sheepish nods.

Now what misdeeds can you guys get into before getting caught??

[melverie]

Last post on the entire date ticket thing and then I will forever shut up about it, but I feel like most people arguing in favor of the price tag are just….missing the point on why people are so angry about the date ticket being $30

I think the one thing we can all agree on right from the get go is that everyone in the staff deserve to and should be compensated fairly for their work. And that obviously includes certain features and items having to cost actual money considering the game itself is free

But the thing is, that $30 price tag doesn't just exist in a vacuum

First off, we can all agree that charging something like $3 would have made the ticket sell far better, right? Several people have already pointed out that they can buy a week's worth of groceries with $30 and depending on how much you earn, the date ticket isn't exactly something anyone can just buy on a whim. Again, $3 would have been far more affordable for most people, and I'm sure many more people (myself included) would have been far more willing to spend $3 just to see what the date ticket is like, and maybe also buy the tickets of multiple other characters. But $30 for a single date ticket is a luxury a lot of people just cannot afford, or would rather put into something else. Even if they lowered the price, they'd surely break even and make profit with how many players there are

And judging by its contents, I think it's fair to say that the date itself is not worth $30. And I feel like Solmare themselves know this because why else would they have bundled it with 300 DP? The only reason is to justify this price tag because "look at how much DP we're getting with it tho!!" when that's not the point. It doesn't matter whether the DP are included, because there is a lack of choice here. We have other options to earn and buy DP, but we don't have a choice when it comes to the date ticket itself. Either you pay $30, or you miss out on a feature that many of us have wanted for a while now. And since it's the DP raising the price tag,what you are essentially paying for is 300 DP with a date ticket as your purchase bonus, even though it should be the other way round

And honestly? Considering the price, the only two times it would make sense to buy this bundle is if you were already considering buying DP anyway, or if you are financially well enough off that the current price doesn't matter to you. You won't convince most casual spenders, and you most definitely will not convince a f2p player to pay for this feature

The other thing is that we had no idea what the date ticket actually entailed because we weren't given any information on it. Thanks to people in the community buying and reviewing this feature for others we now know that the date consists of one phone call, a ~10 minute long, partially voiced date story-line and a Majolish background. Except, those are things that Solmare themselves should have told us right as they announced this feature, ESPECIALLY considering the price point. If you don't, you can't complain if people are accusing your company of trying to rip its player base off and of being greedier than the Avatar of Greed himself. But also, that's the thing!

We shouldn't have people in the fandom be the ones to go out of their way to give us basic info on new features, or to even explain certain business decisions in the first place. That's the company's job. Yes, certain explanations should be a given (such as microtransactions existing so that the staff can be paid the money they obviously deserve), but there are other things that should have been explained by Solmare themselves

Open communication with the player base is the key phrase here, and imo Solmare has been doing worse and worse on that front as of late, resulting in several unexplained choices that just seem questionable at best and scummy at worst, as well as a player base that grows more and more disgruntled by the day. And that frustration within the player base shows in the amount of people dropping the game, as well as in the amount of money it's making

People are willing to put their time and money into something they deem a good, quality product with a justified price considering the content. If your player base isn't putting in the money you are expecting, then maybe you should listen to their feedback and re-examine your product instead of overcharging a feature because "look at this thing you're getting extra that no one asked to be included in the bundle in the first place"

Literally part of the reason LaDS has grown to be so successful in such a short amount of time is because they keep making adjustments based on player feedback, even on some minor things. I mean they literally pushed out an update to correct the color of one of the character's tongue in the newest card because people were complaining, like hello!! Imagine Solmare listening to complains as minor as this

Anyway, whether intentional or not, this entire thing just feels scummy, and that's the problem. The choice we have is either "pay 30 bucks per character or miss out on this feature entirely", the price is artificially inflated with the inclusion of DP that we have other ways of getting, romance is slowly fazed out of the story only to now be put behind a heft paywall, we weren't told what we are even paying for exactly in the first place, and there has been a severe lack of proper communication from Solmare that have soured the relationship to the game's fanbase and, most importantly in this context, their customers

No, companies aren't our friends. Yes, they need to make money. Yes, they should pay their employees fairly. And no, we as consumers shouldn't expect nor are we entitled to everything about the game being free because again, the people working on this game deserve to get paid fairly for all the work they put into it

However, people are still allowed to be critical of a company and its decisions, especially when they feel like they are getting ripped off. The 300 DP might soften the blow, but that doesn't stop everything that has happened before from being a slap in the face. That's why people are pissed right now, and honestly it's been a long time coming

[ckret2]

This is the first time I see someone saying that Filbrick kicked out Stan as primarily a protective measure. To me, honestly, he sees his children as investing to make money and found the perfect excuse to throw away the son he never wanted on the streets when a convenient excuse appeared. After all, he already had a bag full of clothes when he throwed Stan in the streets.

It's a cartoon episode that had 22 minute to pack in the entirety of Ford & Stan's backstory. He flung a duffel bag at Stan as a way to tell the viewers "he's serious about kicking Stan out" and we didn't see him pack it because that would've cost 30 seconds to animate a boring scene that's unnecessary to the flow of the story, and where else in the episode would that 30 seconds have come from?

The show takes tons of visual & narrative shortcuts to tell its story. We don't question how a digital clock appears on Stan's desk between one shot and the next in Boss Mabel. We don't question where Soos's Burrito Bites went before and after traveling into Stan's mind in Dreamscaperers. We don't question where the remains of Quentin Trembley's ripped pants vanish to in the crate after he tosses them aside. The only reason we question the duffel bag is because there's a way to weave it into the narrative to make a bad character look even worse; but I think it ignores the spirit and intent of the scene to treat that, and that alone, like it's indicative of Filbrick's character rather than indicative of the restraints of the cartoon medium.

I don't think he saw his kids as investments. I think, prior to discovering Ford could be worth a fortune, he saw his kids as his responsibility. It was his duty to get them to adulthood and make them into proper men. What we know about their upbringing is:

When he thought they were wusses, he sent them to boxing to toughen them up.

When he thinks Stan stole a gold chain from the pawn shop, he also berates him for stealing from other people, starting a crab-fighting ring, and "pickpocketing and monkeyshining." He's opposed to Stan committing illegal or dishonest acts even if they're profitable.

And when he kicks Stan out, yeah, he says Ford "was gonna be our ticket out of this dump," but he also says "All you ever do is lie and cheat, and ride on your brother's coattails."

Before Ford is revealed to be a genius, we have no evidence that Filbrick saw them as future moneymakers. And in fact, given how the show emphasizes how hard he is to impress and how newly impressed he is at Ford's genius, it seems like he DIDN'T previously see any such potential in his kids. This was a new development. Before that, we only know of two things he wanted out of his kids:

For them to be tough enough to protect themselves

For them to be honest, law-abiding, and hard-working

His dreams of making money off one of his kids lasted a few days tops—high school science fairs don't exactly last long. If he was hotheaded enough to kick out one of his kids for dashing some pie-in-the-sky dream that was only a few days old, then either they woulda been kicked out long before then, or they woulda almost been kicked out enough times that that would be their dominant impression of their dad that they'd report 40 years later, not "hard to impress." Yeah, he was mad he could've made a fortune and then didn't, but that alone wasn't the main motivation behind disowning Stan. He was taking out years of frustration with Stan all in one moment.

"All you ever do is lie and cheat" "This time you cost our family potential millions!"

You've been a bad kid and a troublemaker for a long time; this time, your behavior has impacted someone other than yourself—it's harmed your brother and your family—and I won't let you do it again.

(And this is pure headcanon/conjecture, so I'm keeping it as an aside—but I think there's something to his relationship with Caryn in all this. We know from how he treats Stan's lying that Filbrick highly values honesty. We know that Caryn is a pathological liar—it's one of the only things we know about her. We know from out-of-show interviews that Stan's "—the girl snuggles up next to you, next thing you know you gotta raise a kid, your life falls apart—" is him repeating something his father said. We know Filbrick sees their current living situation as a "dump," but lacks the financial means to get out of it. We know now the baby WAS intended to be Shermie, which makes a nearly 18 year gap before the Pines decided to have another kid. I think the twins were an accident, that Filbrick married Caryn out of a sense of duty to his sons and their mother, that he does love his family but still feels trapped; I think he hates that Caryn is such a liar, that it would have been a dealbreaker if there weren't kids involved, and that now he doesn't feel like there's much he can do about it because that's his wife; and I think that's a major motivating factor in his demanding honesty out of his sons—because he doesn't want them to turn out like their mother.)

To be clear—I don't think Filbrick is a good father. But in interpreting him as a bad father, I want to interpret him as the bad father he ACTUALLY IS, not make up some new, different bad father and paste it on top of his characterization. Sometimes fandom has a tendency to take a bad parent and stick entirely new bad parent traits on top of them, in a way that makes it seem like some fans think "well, if they're a bad parent, they MUST do THESE THINGS too, because ALL bad parents do that (and therefore, if they're not doing these things, they must not really be a bad parent)."

And at times I think it's important to hold the line. Based on what we know of him, Filbrick is bad enough to be a Bad Father even if he doesn't do XYZ that fandom assumes all bad fathers must do. Filbrick is bad enough to be a Bad Father even if he didn't see his kids as a way to make money.

I think he raised his boys the way he did because he thought that was the best thing for their future happiness—and he was wrong, and his ideas about manhood are outdated and toxic, and he was a bad father.

I think he saw them as his responsibility rather than as profit machines, and that he cared about their well-being—and his decision to express his caring through emotionally distant tough love was harmful and neglectful, and when he got angry he was verbally abusive, and he was a bad father.

I think he was devastated at the loss of potential millions not because his primary motive as a person is greed, but because his primary motive is being a good caretaker for his family, and his family was in a tough financial spot and that kind of money would turn all their lives around—and even though pinning his financial hopes on his son was a recent development, it was still an awful position to put his kid in, and he never should have done it, and he was a bad father.

I think he cared about his family MORE THAN their finances—but he still prioritized their finances too much, and in a moment of anger prioritized their finances more than one of his own sons, and he was a bad father.

I think kicking Stan out wasn't a consequence of thwarted greed, but of years of anger at Stan's delinquency, and that the issue wasn't the lost money but rather the fact that he thinks Stan deliberately harmed his brother for selfish reasons—and it was still a cruel thing to do and the man seriously needed some anger management classes, and he was a bad father.

He's a bad father even if his intentions are good. He's a bad father even if he cared about his sons. And that's why I'm insistent on maintaining his characterization that way—because it's worth remembering that a parent with good, caring intentions can still be bad, and their intentions don't excuse their actions.

[krems-chair]

Daily Dose of Solas-Posting Time/just a love of what love can achieve I guess?

I think a lot of people in this fan space struggle to distinguish the apparently very blurred line between "oh look, this poster likes Solas and must therefore condone murder to achieve one's goals", and "rad, she understands that this is a game in which characters do things she would never approve of in real life but given the fact that these are all tiny people on a screen she enjoys extrapolating larger themes"

And for those of you in that second camp how freaking beautiful is it that we get to see one of the oldest saddest elves go on an absolute bender and still get the chance to make things right because he has a friend/lover who knows his heart and refuses to let him hide from it any longer.

Varric disapproves of trying to save him at the end of Trespasser and clearly at some point within the next eight years goes "you know what? This sassy nerdy passionate guy was my friend once and I believe in what he could be if he gives up on the self-destructive path he's chosen"

Harding struggles to fathom what the Inquisitor sees in a disingenuous clefted egg but knows that if nothing else she trusts her friends and for all my critiques of Veilguard I do think Bellara gets a baller of a line with the "trust your heart, it is a good one" banger. Harding may not know exactly how she feels about Solas (and yeah that is so fair) but she knows the Inquisitor's heart is a good one, and if they're trying to save him, she trusts it. She chooses to believe that in an ever-darkening world there is power in restoring a little bit of light.

Your Inquisitor has the option to be like "wow this guy was my friend, occasional confidante (and potentially the most brutal love of my life), fought alongside me and guarded my life as I guarded his, and spoke so wistfully of things I did not understand at the time but now realize came from a place of deep grief. The way he's acting now stems from hurt and trauma and I know it'd be easier to just stab him with his own dagger but what if what if what if..."

And if you're able to look at his story at its simplest (if you're able to see past the broken man and into the spirit of wisdom he once was, if you will) it's really just the grandest version of pre-EA Bioware's bread and butter theme for at least a few companions per game: even the most broken people are capable of changing themselves and ultimately the world for the better if those who can reach out a hand do. And the Inquisitor only has the one hand to reach out, in fact they only have that one hand because of the very man they're hunting down, but if they can find it in themselves to extend it, damn. It brings a broken man back to his feet after an absolutely brutal confrontation of his past and helps him stand tall and face what's coming next in a way he wouldn't have been capable of otherwise. It lets Solas, who is at his absolute lowest, know that someone he strongly admires, who can relate to the challenges he once faced as the young leader of a massive movement, sees the parts of him that just want to do what's right but can't quite remember how anymore.

And to someone who hasn't fought in a war or forged the tools that wrecked entire civilizations, sure maybe that wouldn't hit as hard. But who amongst us hasn't betrayed the core of who we are to make others happy and regretted it? Who hasn't charged down a path that sent thorns digging into their skin with every step because to stop and turn back means facing everything they've done to get there? Means admitting they were wrong? Who hasn't hit a low and crawled their way back to themselves again because that hand came down and refused to let go?

To someone like that, like me, it can make all the difference in the world to see it go down on that tiny little screen.

Mmmmm there's just so much power in having even one person who sees you self-destructing at your worst and goes "not on my watch" and I love that most of these games have brought us such beautifully simple yet meaningful ideas in so many different ways.

[olderthannetfic]

www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/771823370694213632

You need the say the bit about the way canon treats characters way louder because I really think that the way the character is... framed, I guess? accounts for huge chunks of it.

I remember when the Disk Horse was about Finn vs. Kylo Ren from the Star Wars sequel trilogy and I got called racist for trying to point out that Finn was always framed as the comic relief/unserious by the canon. He has a character arc in the first movie, but his emotions and his trauma and his personality are mostly played for laughs (ha! ha! Black janitor guy is scared because he's a coward! - and him being a janitor is a change that came pretty late, he was originally meant to be the top of his class). OTOH Kylo Ren has the camera linger on his anguished face while sad music plays and he monologues about the moral conflicts that he's facing.

The average viewer/reader - especially in the case of visual media - doesn't really stop watching to form non-prejudiced independent opinions on every character (and really shouldn't if your narrative is well-constructed!), that'd take up too much of their mental bandwidth! They let themselves be guided by how things and people are framed, so of course they'd see Ren as Serious and Tragic and Finn as the funny guy, which is inherently less sexy to most people!

Same thing with F/F: when canon treats its women with any degree of complexity and gives them the sort of character traits that are conductive to blorbofication people are all over it!

My dash's been drowning in Rhaenycent for a year now, and that's a show that arguably sorta botched its female characters in the attempt to make them complex! But it doesn't matter, because they set up all these juicy dynamics and the fans are all over it!

Fans LOVE Claudia from IWTV even though the tragedy of her canonical role is that the guys always sideline her for each other.

I went to the Anora tag after seeing the movie and saw a bunch of Anora x reader fic in between the gifs the same way I did for Feyd Rautha from Dune or any other feral unhinged character fans love imagining themselves having sex with (and then blocked it lol).

Like, my taste in women and men is exactly the same but the large majority of characters that fit it are men, because we just don't get a lot of women who are composed, charming rogues on the outside and crippled traumatized messes on the inside, with a narrative that gives this sufficient weight, and also lets them be feral and unhinged. And I actually prefer minority characters because where I'm from I'm from a minority group myself, but again, most of them don't fit the bill personality-wise or framing-wise.

Fandom's a hobby and it's meant to be fun - I'm not gonna be constantly swimming uphill from what the canon is trying to present to me just because a character shares a demographic category with me. I think this is the case for most people, really.

--

My read on a lot of this is that people are sad about the status quo (fair) and are lying to themselves that the culprits are nearby where they can reach them.

If we confront the fact that the real source is the director or the cinematographer or the studio head, it all feels so much more insurmountable.

Of course, one can opt for niche, indie media, but a lot of people don't want to do that, so they fall back on this shitty coping mechanism of pretending that they can yell at the people around them and effect meaningful change.

[elainsgirl]

I tried to get myself to like gwyn and azriel but I just couldnt. Ill look at fanarts and stuff but I just cant SEE it.

I fear they would be boring. People call elain and azriel boring and cliche but be fr... thats literally gwyn and az. you can literally see how their story would develop. it would literally give feysand and nessian.... im tired of seeing the same stuff.

Hey anon 🫶

You’re so right. At one point, earlier on in the fandom, I too tried to get myself to see where gwynriels were coming from and what the appeal about Gwyn and Az were. It’s nothing special. There is nothing unique or interesting about Gwynriel.

I promise this is related to my poimt. Lately, there’s this discourse going on about the decline in individuality and quality of books. After 2020, people have started to notice that recent books are no longer as intricate as books once were. Every book within a genre feels the same. The plots, characters, dynamics, tropes etc - are all mirrors of each other. There isn’t individuality anymore when it comes to books within a set genre. Now, a genre that rlly increased in popularity was romantasy. Over the last few years, which trope has become increasingly more prominent? Enemies to lovers. Which fmc character type is more favoured? The sassy, “I can do it all”, powerful warrior who is the best at everything and is great at wielding a sword type. Almost every single book thats comes out will be advertised as enemies to lovers. The fmcs themselves have all become similar. Another point I would like to add in: when it comes to these sort of books, there will be lots of banter between the couple and the fmc always proving the mmc wrong - sometimes even challenging him. Aside from acotar: many of us are also readers who consume other genres and books/series. I think its fair enough to say, many of us consume all types of “popular” books. I can guarantee that many of us have read enemies to lovers books or even have it as a favourite trope. When you are constantly consuming a specific type of media, as a reader, you will want more of whatever you are consuming, limiting your mind to other possibilities. As an example, if you constantly are reading enemies to lovers books’ -> you won’t really like anything that is not enemies to lovers. Obviously, we all have our favourite genres and tropes we love to consume BUT we should always be open minded to try new things. Ok, slightly of course but back to my point:

Gwynriel fits in the checklist for your standard couple: in a fantasy, “enemies to lovers”, book. . Girlboss FMC that can do it all and shoves it to do the dark, broody MMC.

. “Banter”. The couple “challenging” each other

. MMC’s dark trauma and past that only the FMC can help him to heal

you get my point. People love gwynriel and it is so popular due to its lack of originality. They are such cardboard copies of a typical EtL book + we have literally gotten not much scenes on them -> it is so easy for their stans to self-insert and virtually put on any HC they want onto gwynriel.

Now compare that too elriel? There are not many “soft”, “feminine” fmcs. The recent one I can think of is “Evangeline Fox” from once upon a broken heart. So you already have Elain Archeron that stands out as an fmc from the norm - people aren’t used to her character type therefore view her as weak and boring. Elriel is far from enemies to lovers. They do not banter. They’re not the type of characters to draw attention to themselves or their relationship. Their dynamic is more mature instead of fun and childish. They have more dangerous stakes then anything gwynriel can have. Their story is more unique -> people aren’t used to that as it isn’t often potrayed in books anymore therefore they are disliked and people find them uninteresting.

Gwynriel is popular as it lacks originality. Elriel is hated due to their unique dynamic.

When I see gwynriel fanarts, the concept is lovely but knowing that Gwyn and Az don’t even like each other romantically and Az was ready to beg for another woman, it usually puts me off. I can’t view them as a couple since the books do not potray them as potential LIs.

[powerfultenderness]

König and Ghost and their respective partners talk a big game about how hot it would be to swing. Several discussions both as a group and as individual couples gets everyone heated and leads to crazy hot sex. So they all agree on a set date and location.

(18+ MDNI below cut)

They find a resort with a large bed, even bigger than König’s bed. The initial suggestion was for König and his wife to host, since they have a bigger bed, but after a group dinner there, everyone agreed that it felt a little weird to start this in one of their homes.

Since they were already at a resort, everyone took advantage of the spa and spent the day relaxing and preparing themselves for the night.

It's awkward at first, but with a little alcohol and a drinking game on which losers had to answer sexually charged questions, everyone is soon completely nude, König’s wife kneeling on the edge of the bed in front of Ghost, and Ghost's wife laid back with König half kneeling above her.

Ghost looks at König’s wife, who timidly glances at him before turning her attention to the other two. Neither of them can bring themselves to touch the other.

Clearly those two can't start it, so König and Ghost's wife take a calming breath before leaning on to kiss each other. Respectively, the worst kiss they've ever had. They try again, it's more of a peck on the lips than any kind of sensual kiss.

König can't get hard and Ghost's wife is dry as can be.

"Uhm," all eyes turn to König’s wife, "Maybe I should blow him first?"

Quick nods and agreements all around.

"Ja. Ja." "Good idea." "Yea, why don't you spread your legs for me, baby."

And so, the men quickly trade places, "just to start off".

It's hot certainly, fucking next to the other couple. Ghost fucks hard and relentlessly, thumb circling her clit as he pistons in and out of his wife until she's about to come. He pulls out completely and slaps her clit to stop her orgasm, denying her release and building her back towards orgasm until she is begging.

König fucks differently. His wife gives him sloppy head, unable to deep throat him. Even so, they generously lube up as König lays on his back so she can ride him. Initially its a slow pace, too absorbed in each other to even think about the couple coming apart next to them.

Ghost and his wife, hips stuttering only for a moment, watch as König plays with his wife's tits as she bounces on his thick cock. The sounds they make, his babbled pleas in his native language and her moans along with how obscenely wet they sound, only spurs Ghost on faster.

König and his wife see how hard Ghost is fucking his wife and try to match his lace, König’s hands gripping his wife's hips to help her bounce faster, slamming her down on his cock as Ghost rams into his wife's pussy.

König comes first, filling his wife as he rocks her hips against his until she also comes, clinging onto to him tightly.

Watching them come sends Ghost's wife to her own orgasm, one hand clawing at Ghost arm while her other stabilizes them against the headboard. When Ghost comes, he pulls out just in time to spare his cum onto his wife's pussy, marking her as his.

Yes it's hot, but it's not swinging because all four of these idiots are so codependent on their partners that even after several discussions and assurances that everyone involved wanted this, turns out no one did.

Still, they're all closer as friends after this.

--

End notes: lol not gonna lie, I imagined this as a reader insert with the reader character being König’s wife. But didn't think it was idk...fair? So this is what we got instead.

[hamliet]

Hazbin Hotel Has Better Theology Than Most Modern "Christian" Stories

As a Christian who was raised in a fundie cult and escaped to now have a far healthier and vital faith, I genuinely really like this show. The songs are bops. The characters are well crafted and interesting, and likable too. The art design is bizarre but appealing.

And, as a theology nerd who studied theology as part leaving said cult and also has since gotten papers published in theology, I'm actually fairly impressed by the show's handling of theology.

No, I'm not expecting the story to preach or even like, be explicitly Christian in a lot of ways. But it's taking a lot of the really beautiful aspects of Christian theology and re-contextualizing them in a way designed to provoke thought: by juxtaposing them with the antithesis of what you would think, by making demons heroes. In my opinion, this makes the beauty shine brighter.

Yeah, yeah, it's designed to be offensive and obscene in a lot of ways. Yet, it's never (thus far) mean-spirited. On the contrary, it seems to have a big, beating heart at its core that is perhaps best embodied by Charlie Morningstar, its protagonist and the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith.

Critique of the Church, with Caveats

The story works best with an interpretation that heaven isn't actually heaven or God (who has been conspicuously absent), but instead as a critique of the church. Specifically, the evangelical American church, and specifically, white evangelicals. (Same as She-Ra's premise, actually).

God's absence therefore makes sense, because while Christians do believe God is present as a living reality among us, we also can't like, see him physically now. So, God being not even mentioned in HH makes it seem more like a mortal reality rather than an immortal one. Honestly I kinda hope God doesn't appear in the story, not only because I think it could cross some lines (which is admittedly personal), but also because I don't see that the story really needs it.

Adam in particular reminds me of every "theobro" on Twitter (I'm not calling it what you want me to, El*n). Basically a dudebro coopting his supposed salvation to flex in an often misogynistic way, who doesn't realize that he has absolutely no love in him and therefore is actually a worse human being than everyone he condemns on the regular.

(Which is kind of why I'm expecting Adam to wake up in hell next season...)

Think red hats. And Mark Driscoll. And, I have a list of pastors. Sigh. They advocate for how "simple" Christianity is, except they themselves make it ridiculously complicated and don't even examine what they suppose is "simple" if it requires them to take the planks out of their own eyes. "Shallow" is a better description of what they actually preach.

But what sends people to hell or heaven anyways?

Eschatology and Atonement Theory

Hazbin Hotel combines a lot of theories, throwing not only the idea of a physical hell (albeit mixed with Dante's idea of what hell is the Inferno, but to be fair a lot of the church has adopted that idea too) but the idea of annihilation, which HH calls "extermination."

See, in Christianity, there's a lot of debate about hell. Like, since 2000 years ago. The reason is because a lot of Bible verses seem to indicate hell, but others indicate the eventual redemption and salvation of absolutely everything in the universe, so you have Christian universalism tracing itself back just as long. But, setting aside universalism, people who do believe in hell tend to fall into one of two camps:

Physical hell, aka suffering for eternity, or annihilation: the idea that souls that aren't saved end up annihilated, or snuffed from existence. HH combines both of them, wherein everyone lives in hell but then every so often heaven "exterminates" a certain number of sinners.

And then you also have Catholic purgatory, which is also adapted in HH in that... for most Christians, physical hell doesn't offer the ability to redeem yourself. Chance over, you're dead. But, Catholic Christianity, which draws on ideas of praying for the dead, has the idea that people can improve themselves or be prayed out of it and into heaven. This seems to be somewhat similar to the idea of Charlie's hotel, in that sinners can improve, redeem themselves, and rise to heaven.

And, I mean, it's already kinda worked. Sir Pentious acted out Jesus' words: Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

But anyways, the branch of theology that deals with the afterlife is eschatology. And Hazbin Hotel takes on a related form of theology as well, a type of theology I've only seen covered in stories once before (The House in Fata Morgana): atonement theory.

Atonement theory is something I remember well from my theology 101 class, as in I remember sitting with a friend and her turning to me and being like, "okay, so we know Jesus' death and resurrection give us eternal life, but we have no idea how or why?" To which the answer was "basically, yeah."

Most of the white, American evangelical church is very "penal substitutionary atonement," but the reality is that this theory has only been popular for the past few hundred years. It's also, imo, somewhat scripturally unsound. But there are a lot of other theories, and sometimes the theories overlap. Here's a fairly decent summary. (I'm in general a believer in Christus Victor.)

So how does atonement theory tie into Hazbin Hotel? Well, essentially the scene where Charlie and Vaggie are debating with Emily, Sera, Adam, Lute, and others in heaven is them going over various atonement theories and realizing that they actually know nothing at all. How does one get to heaven? How is one saved? They don't know.

Sera criticizing Emily for asking questions was also very relatable, and I feel for Sera. She's genuinely scared but the truth will set you free, Sera. John 8:32. Anyways, the point is like... the angels are an organized religion, an evangelical church, that preaches about simplicity but mistakes shallowness for simplicity and discourages depth and discovery.

Anyways, the whole crux of theological study and atonement theories is that they should promote humility. We don't know for certain on this side of the curtain. That's okay. So what do we have to guide us?

Love. After all, God is love (1 John 4:8).

Charlie is Jesus

"Why would you endanger your immortal life for these sinners?" 

Adam, the absolute worst, says the above to Charlie in the finale.

I mean... look. That's literally the premise of Christianity. That the immortal son of God comes down to earth, lives with sinners, loves us, and dies to save us. However that happens. Charlie even responds:

"They're my family!"

In other words, she loves them. Yeah, sure, they're destined for extermination, but they are going to be exterminated over her dead body.

In a lot of branches of Christianity, and even in some creeds--though I'm going to give into my pet peeves here and state that it is NOT Scriptural and relies on the faulty assumption that God is bound by time, when I think God exists outside of it--state that Jesus descended into hell after his death and took all the souls of people who were saved prior to his coming to earth to heaven. Again, I think that's small-minded at best. But, the idea that Charlie is working among them to bring them to heaven is pretty reminiscent of this idea. And I don't hate it lol.

Charlie sees worth inherent in everyone, and no matter what they've done, thinks there's a future for them. Honestly we need people like her on this earth.

Angel Dust

Angel Dust is clearly my favorite character. Bite back your shock, I know (I have a type). But his name is also a fascinating multi-layered pun.

Angel is clearly foreshadowing his endgame. Let's be real, we all know Angel is ending up as an angel. And "angeldust" is of course a name for PCP, and considering Angel's drug habits, yeah.

But, dust also has another meaning to it. See, when Adam was created in Genesis 2:7, the words in Hebrew are "apar min ha'adamah," which is translated literally as "dust of the ground." So the dust is what creates Adam, literally "ground."

In other words, I very much expect Angel Dust to end up being foiled with Adam even more so. Adam might be the first man, but Angel is the first sinner working towards redemption. And let's be real, for all Angel's flaws, he's already a better person than Adam. And if there's any hope for Adam (not that I particularly care if there is but) it'd be through realizing that he and Angel aren't actually different after all. Conversely (and not necessarily mutually exclusively), Angel might serve as a more symbolic "adam" in that he becomes the person all sinners look to for hope. Which, y'know, since "the last Adam" is also a Scriptural term for Jesus...

And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45).

I fully expect Angel's arc, alongside Charlie's, to bring life and redemption for everyone around them. Maybe, maybe even the dramatic "all" of Colossians 1:20 (which means, literally, all, everything, everywhere, in the entire universe).

Closing Thoughts

But honestly, regardless of how the story ends--besides that it will presumably end happily because HH is at its core feel-good despite being profane--season one at least has got good theology. Why? Because it's digging into the questions that theology is concerned with. It's digging into the ideas of human nature, of what it means to be a good person, of what it means to redeem oneself, of affirming how precious each individual human soul is.

It doesn't offer cheap answers, and it specifically calls out the white American evangelical church for how it purports to be simple but actually just confuses people and punishes them for things they can't help, that creates more stumbling blocks than it does shine a light. And it does it in a way that is scandalous. Offensive to many religious people.

But, y'know, Jesus was pretty scandalous too.

So I really love the story so far because it emphasizes what I find so beautiful about my religion, and criticizes the parts that have also hurt me. I don't think it's remotely aiming to be a Christian allegory or anything like that, and I don't at all think anyone has to be religious to enjoy it or gain the core message of it, but I do think that it's doing a hell of a lot more good in the world message-wise than most evangelical movies of the past 30 years.

[latecommentevryday-blog]

I originally responded as a repost to this post by asgardswinter but I think it's important that the entirety of the fandom knows this.

Edit: I've been blocked by the OP :(

Below is my response:

There's a few problems with your take here and I'll break it down in the most respectful way possible.

1. Motion Capture and Actors

Call of Duty uses Motion Capture to animate its characters in game, which reflects the actor's real-life motions, and consequently (In Call of Duty's case) the image of the actors themselves.

"big cod fanartists draw the characters eerily similar to the VA’s even though the characters look VERY different from the VA’s."

When we look at Neil Ellice and John MacTavish's character model, the similarities are very close because the game developers have based Soap's looks off of Neil.

Here we have an in-game screenshot of Soap from MW3 2022 and Neil Ellice

The player model looked so similar, that they even had Neil do a live action sequence for advertising (Sources: Neil Ellice's Instagram).

Link to advertisement reel on Neil's Instagram

Link to sneak peak inside the studio on Neil's Instagram

"It also bothers me that these fanartists draw some of the characters such as Gaz and Simon exactly like the zionist VA’s even tho they clearly look very different."

Ok, I see that you mentioned Gaz and Elliot Knight. Let's analyze them.

Here's an image of Elliot Knight (Source: imdb.com)

Here is a skin available in the reboot MW3's store.

Elliot also appears as Gaz in the live action sequence for the Call of Duty advertisement (Again, Link to advertisement and an image from the live-action set from Neil's Insta)

Do you see the similarities? When the animators and sculptors were creating the characters, they essentially scanned the actors into their data-base and used them as the base models for each character.

A few other examples are:

Alejandro Vargas and Alain Mesa John Price and Barry Sloane Phillip Graves and Warren Kole

The fanbase, and in extension the large COD artists, are making assumptions that Simon 'Ghost' Riley's face will also reflect Samuel Roukin's facial structure because of the techniques the game developers used when creating the other characters. I encourage you to look further into how Motion Capture was used during the making of the Call of Duty Franchise.

2. Zionism, the Actors, and the Character's themselves

"Like u have no problem with drawing characters looking like real people that support genocide. Its despicable. Get a grip and stop being complicit in this."

Has it ever crossed your mind that there are other, different ways a person could protest Zionism?

Your way is completely erasing the Zionist actor's participation, which includes trying to change how the characters canonically look (With an exception for Ghost). While I respect your choice, it is simply not easy to change a game character's appearance, especially if we can clearly see the similarities between actor and character.

Drawing and creating such masterpieces is hard to do from scratch and artists use references from the game, which will, in extension, reflect the actors.

Does that mean the artist agrees with the actor's support of Zionism? No. Unless explicitly stated that they support Zionism and the actors, the only thing you've made are very damaging assumption.

These artists are paying tribute to a franchise that they enjoy interacting with and they have free will to choose what they want to look at, receive, and contribute.

Wombywoo blocking people for accusing her of being a Zionist is a fair and reasonable action, especially if the messages you are sending contains cursing, slurs, and other offensive and rude language. It's considered spam.

If you want to point out that an artist is supporting a Zionist actor, respectful language is the best way to get your point across.

Do I support Israel and Zionism? No. Hard no. I am extremely disappointed in both Roukin and Elliot for having such viewpoints and supporting such groups. The slaughter in Palestine and other surrounding countries needs to stop and Israel needs to be held accountable.

However, the game material and the characters do reflect the actors and the artists who portray 141 like their actors are doing so because they want to stick as close as possible to the original content.

The character's personalities are different from the actors and their careers are completely different, as well.

The best thing to do if content reminds you of something is to block that category and move on. Especially when the content reflects the in-game designs and consequently look like the in-real-life actors.

You are entitled to your own opinion, asgardswinter (this reply post does not encourage any user to go harass the original user), but there is more to these characters than just their voice actors. Find something else to associate the 141 with instead of their VA's and continue spreading the information that Roukin and Elliot support Zionism, but don't harass artists that draw the characters like their in-game designs who have not explicitly stated that they show support for Zionism themselves.

[celestesinsight]

Kalki 2898AD Release Trailer - Bhairava Character Analysis!

There are many theories circulating about Bhairava's character and its importance in the movie. Here's my two cents regarding this. And to be honest, it isn't entirely my views too. It's what we came up when discussing in the Varadeva Discord Server.

First of all, there's a huge chance that Deepika's baby is red herring and Bhairava is the real Kalki. Ashwathama will realise this at the end of the movie and change his stance.

But my favourite theory is Bhairava being Lord Shiva. When Bhairava called himself the 'living legend in Kashi' in the Bujji & Bhairava series, it kind of stuck with me. Who's more legendary than Lord Shiva in Kashi? And the story goes that Shiva gave Kalki the divine weapon, the all-knowing talking parrot and the white horse. Bhairava have all the three; we saw the weapon in the first promo and Bujji's brain and body are the talking parrot and white horse equivalent. if Bhairava is Shiva, he's actually protecting the baby while pretending to hunt him for the Complex as well as testing Ashwathama's determination for redemption. In Mahabharata, Ashwathama was born after Dronacharya performed several years of severe penance to please Shiva as he wanted a son who possessed the strength and bravery of Shiva. So, it would make sense that Shiva aids him in his journey of redemption.

What if Bhairava is neither Kalki nor Shiva? Then what is his character doing in the movie?

"Despite the endless opportunities spanning over the generations, man fails to redeem himself and he never will."

I think this quote by Kamal Haasan's character, Kali is the key to Bhairava's significance in the movie, if he is not the titular character 'Kalki'.

There are many worlds in Hinduism, but our Puranas predominantly talk about the Swarga (abode of Devas), Prithvi (abode of humans) and Patal (abode of demons). There are also three worlds in the film: Complex, Shambala and Kashi. Unlike Puranas, where there were three races inhabiting the three worlds, in the film, the three worlds are inhabited by the humans only.

The Complex is the place where God is banned. They treat Supreme Yaskin as the God. They have conquered the world and taken all the resources for themselves. In appearance, the Complex gives the illusion of Swarga, but it actually embodies the demonic qualities of Patal.

Shambala is the place where they still believe in God and hope for his return to save them. They fight the Complex and their unjust actions. They are safe haven for anyone who wants to escape the hold of the Complex. In appearance, they are an underground society (Patal), but they are actually the forces of righteousness in the desolate world, fighting on the side of God and thus symbolises Devas of Swarga.

Then there is Kashi, the last surviving city. They are neutral. They are neither the evil conqueror nor the righteous warriors. They are humans who are trying to survive in an unfair world. They are not on anyone's side, but their own side. They represent the humans of Prithvi.

"In this world, there's only one side to be on. Your own side."

Bhairava and the bounty hunters of Kashi are the representation of the man in Kali's quote. They embody the qualities of selfishness, greed, and going to any extent to accomplish their goals, without caring about the consequences of their actions.

To be fair, Bhairava isn't doing anything wrong. He's trying to survive in a world which has lost all hopes. But he's so caught up in this mode of survival that he can't recognise this new hope for a better tomorrow, that Ashwathama and the people of Shambala are seeing in Sumati and her baby. All he sees the 5-star bounty that is his one shot at entering the Complex. He's not realising that he's fighting for the wrong side, that he's fighting to keep the old hierarchies intact that had made this world a hopeless place for him and others like him in the first place. He's helping the people who are the cause of all his problems under the illusion of becoming one of them.

Bhairava represents the man who is given numerous chances by the God, but he's so trapped in the Maya (worldly illusion) that he fails to recognise him and hence, is forever doomed to be trapped in the cycle of suffering.

Will Bhairava recognise the truth before it's too late? Or he will handover Sumati over to the Complex?

Bhairava's action would decide if the world is worth saving or not. If God should keep his promise and take birth to save all the humans? Or he should just let the humans rot in the hell, they have turned the Earth into.

The movie is not just about Ashwathama's redemption, but also the redemption of the mankind, represented by Bhairava.

As Kali said, humans have given numerous opportunities by the God to redeem themselves, but they have failed each time. Like Duryodhana failed when he refused to give even five villages to Pandavas, when Krishna asked, leading to his defeat in the Mahabharata war. Maybe that's why Ashwathama is having flashbacks of Mahabharata when fighting with Bhairava. He is seeing his past self in him. When he went against the Lord himself, blinded by his ambition and loyalty for Duryodhana.

Humanity is given another chance. Kali is sure we will fail this time too. It's up to Bhairava now, if humans fail again or they finally succeed in redeeming themselves this time.