#and yeah i just dont like the Implications

[mythalism]

Watching a video of the "fight Solas" ending and I find myself really disliking the fact that Rook declares that the Veil must be tied to the life of an elven god. It is treated like a fitting punishment for Solas, and even in the redemption ending, Rook all but orders Solas to sacrifice himself to maintain the Veil (or the status quo). I also can't help but feel that Solas, the last of the elven gods, is being sacrificed to maintain the Veil that he, alone, is somehow expected to magically maintain, allowing everyone else to go on their merry way. The implication here is that the elves are losing the last of their history, or pantheon, and this is a GOOD thing, and now we can all move forward and live peacefully. Am I overthinking this? 'Cause if this was the intention it does sound kind of bad.

yeah. i do agree and i dont think you're overthinking. and even if you were, im about to overthink way harder so don't worry. forgive me for getting on my legal philosophy soapbox but thats my whole brand at this point so here we go: it is a very retributive view of punishment and desert (deserved-ness) that i morally disagree with and feels outdated in the political landscape of 2024 to me PERSONALLY!! the foundation of retributive justice is:

(1) that those who commit certain kinds of wrongful acts, paradigmatically serious crimes, morally deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment; (2) that it is intrinsically morally good—good without reference to any other goods that might arise—if some legitimate punisher gives them the punishment they deserve;

obviously this is how much of the western world conceives of punishment and western media is consequently saturated with narratives that espouse this. most of the time, restorative justice is seen as mutually exclusive with retributive justice, though there are some people who say they can be used in tandem. i disagree anyway.

i think solas's endings grapple with these ideas in a way that is... messy. its confusing because we dont actually know if he is truly imprisoned, in the sense that he cannot leave. we know he is in A prison, though its unclear whether its the new regret prison that rook was in, or the black city (epler refused to clarify this during the AMA because of "spoilers", while trick said the implication is he is "going back to the prison", the epilogue slides imply he is in the black/golden city, as does his quest to heal the blight which only exists in the black city). we also do not know what capacity he has to leave. with lavellan or after being "redeemed" by willingly binding himself to the veil, he does not have the lyrium dagger but he does have the capacity to free himself from his regrets (if hes in the regret prison) or heal the blight (if he's in the black city), exemplified by his golden epilogue slides. if he is tricked or fought, he is not in a mental space to overcome his regrets and does not swear to atone by healing the blight, but he does have the lyrium dagger with him, so we can assume he can just use it to leave, the way we literally see him do earlier in the game lol. whatever message they are trying to send with his "punishment", i think it is muddied by the vagueness of what actually happens to him in the end and where he goes.

if the message truly is that he "deserves" to be imprisoned in the fade for his long list of crimes, i find that lazy and nonsensical. first of all, he loves the fade and has been dying to return to it so thats not really a gotcha, but more importantly, which crime warrants this punishment? and is his punishment proportional? this is impossible to answer because we do not know what the punishment truly is. we also dont really even know what crime he's being imprisoned for. taking down the veil? he didnt actually get to do that. are we punishing him for something he didn't do yet? is it for killing varric? sure, i guess that one works. its the strongest of the options we have, but the game is also pretty clear that its not what varric would want. what about all of the other people he has killed? the spirits he sacrifced in that siege on elgar'nans temple? the mages who summoned and corrupted wisdom which he incinerates alive? flemythal and felassan? do they deserve retribution via solas's imprisonment? would they want that? would they find it just and satisfying? the game does not ask these questions. so we dont know. does he deserve to be imprisoned for for what he did to the titans? ok, maybe. this is stronger than the others at least. but in the trick/fight endings he doesnt vow to heal the blight, so what does his imprisonment do for the dwarves and the titans spirits? this is what i mean when i say his imprisonment is retributive, but it is not even thoroughly retributive. it does not think deeply about what solas deserves for his crimes and the proportionality of such a punishment, but it is clear that we are supposed to that he deserves to be in prison, it is morally good that he is receiving "justice", and rook is a hero for imprisoning him. his punishment is presented as a moral good because he deserves it. unfortunately for veilguard, i dont think i would ever be convinced by this message in any narrative anywhere, even if it was better written, because this is not a moral philosophy that i subscribe to.

his redemption endings feel so much better and more satisfying because his vow to use his immortality and knowledge to heal the blight that he created is restorative and has a direct correlation to his crime of creating the blight by tranquilizing the titans in the first place. his imprisonment achieves nothing outside of removing him as a "threat", which is ruined by the fact that he has the dagger and can just leave lol. devoting the next significant portion of his life to alleviating the titans suffering is not just reparative remedy that directly affects the people and creatures he has harmed, it also actively makes the world of thedas a better place. to be clear, im not saying solas is innocent. he is guilty. of a lot of things. he bears responsibility for a lot of things. he would qualify as a war criminal. but i do not believe in retributive justice. veilguard having solas kill varric because trespasser made me sympathize with him "too much" is not going to make me believe in retributive justice. for the non-atonement imprisonment endings to feel satisfying you have to subscribe to this ideology of moral desert and punishment and a lot of people do. the entire american carceral system is founded on it. so is christianity. and bioware clearly subscribes to it as well. you might disagree with me and subscribe to it yourself. thats fine. but i believe it has caused a lot of harm to our world and continues to do so. seeing it manifested in media is always disappointing to me.

regardless of the technicalities of his imprisonment, his binding to the veil is the one thing that happens regardless of his ending, and i agree that it is icky for similar reasons. the veil is his responsibility, as is the blight which he will be keeping contained with his life, so i guess you can interpret it as proportional? but again, what crime is he paying for with binding his life to the veil? is he not paying for a crime at all? is binding his life to the veil even part of his punishment? or is it just something he has to do because he's the only person alive that can do it? if that is the case, that it has to be him because he is the only proper sacrifice, and not that he deserves it, then what does it say about rook that they sacrifice someone undeserving? if he is deserving, why exactly? if he wasn't the only elven god left alive, would he still be deserving of such a fate? if the answer is no, then he does not deserve to be bound. what gives rook the right to make this call? based on the convo they have before the ending where they plan to bind him to the veil, its not clear if rook binds him because they think he deserves to be bound to one of his greatest regrets, or because he's quite literally the only option. either way, i think there is an argument for it being cruel, and unearned coming from someone like rook, who really has barely been a victim of solas's sins outside of a 2 week time-out. literally harding binding him would've been far more satisfying. or imagine if fragment mythal went rogue and did it, or morrigythal did. mythal would not be justified either but at least it would be fucking banger and evil and interesting of her. anyway.

i think your point about what it means for the elves to lose their final living god, outside of mythal who is [redacted] ? is a fantastic point. through solas's binding, they also lose the veil-less future he represented that was promised to be a better world for them. would it really have been? probably not. solas clearly thinks so. but we will never know lol. the failure of the story to grapple with the dissolution of the elves entire belief system is one of its most egregious ones, and i think this is a symptom of it. dragon age's elven lore got itself into a weird spot by veilguard and i think they just abandoned it rather than attempting to write themselves out of it. i love stories that grapple with the average person's culpability as complacent in imperialism. this is part of why fullmetal alchemist is my fav story of all time and you should watch it (fullmetal alchemist:brotherhood on hulu please im begging. but you have to watch the "brotherhood" one not the other one. its complicated dont ask). veilguard seemed to want to do something like this, but they got themselves into weird spot with the elves because their evil, slavery-based empire is a thing of the distant past, and in the present they are systemically oppressed and have no social or political power.

usually in these sorts of stories, someone currently living in an imperialist society who is directly benefiting from that imperialism is confronted with their complacency and asked to rise to the occasion of standing up for what is right, despite their material best interest. they often sacrifice their privilege as a benefactor of imperialism in the present to attempt to make up for the evils that system has inflicted on others. fmab does a wonderful job of this. there is at once both an acknowledgement that no, this is not literally YOUR FAULT, you did not order a genocide or press the nuke button, but you have benefited from it and/or participated every day of your life, whether that is through the stolen land you live on, the fact that you have never seen war in your home country, the way you can buy whatever fruit you want at the grocery store any time of year, or the way your tax dollars fund the bombs being dropped on children thousands of miles away, and you do have a moral obligation to do whatever you can to fight back. i believe this is a very important lesson for the average american (and canadian since we are talking about bioware), and anyone that lives in an imperialist country, that a lot of people have not yet learned ... lol.

this feels along the lines of what veilguard was going for (or maybe they werent and this was accidental, idk which is worse), but it fails because the elves are not currently benefiting from their past empire, like at all. actually, they live in squalor and at risk of constant violence from human empires. they have experienced centuries of genocide, violence and slavery at this point in modern thedas. the imperialistic success of the elvhen empire has absolutely no bearing on their current lives, it provides them with no privilege, and it gives them no culpability in its evils. they are thousands of years removed from it. and its not like "oh the british empire was dissolved 50 years ago so imperialism is over" no. because britain's wealth and power are a direct result of that imperialism, thus they do still benefit from it presently, even if the "official empire" is dissolved. this is true for most empires. but with the elves of thedas, they have none of the power or privilege that the elvhen empire accrued through its evils. if anything, it is tevinter that benefits most from the lost elven empire considering how much of their society is founded on its technology, and the fact that. you know. they are currently, modernly, presently an empire based on slavery. OF ELVES. so why, then, does veilguard present the elves as culpable? why does the angry titan harding creature say they are "thriving" at the titans expense? why does bellara take personal responsibility for the evils that elgar'nan and ghilan'nain commit when she had nothing to do with them? the messaging with this is so strange. it would make sense if elves were still the ruling class but... they're not. the only remnants of the empire that they have access to is their own bodies... which are systemically, bought, sold, and mutilated. though the game does erase much of the racism they face in what i can only assume was an attempt to make this work.

the combo of this + solas's trick/fight endings for what is fundamentally, according to this game itself, a desire for a better world for elves and spirits, no matter if it is misled or his methods are violent, is a depressing, bleak message that i find to be irresponsible to be sending in 2024 and considering the real world groups of people that elves are based on, most notably of the dalish as indigenous north americans. veilguard sees elves lose not just their understanding of their past, dissolving their entire worldview, their conception of their cultural identity, and their relationship to their religion, all without sufficient (or any) exploration of how devastating such a process would be, but by imprisoning solas, erasing his followers and supporters from existence, and binding him to the veil, it also robs them of the possibility of a more just future... while asking you to cheer because he deserved it. dont try to make the world a better place unless you do it the right way. work with the world as it is. your attachment to the past (when you werent being genocided regularly) is a disease. you deserve to go to jail because you tried to change the world in a way that that was too disruptive. get over it! move on! rot in jail!

[deusvervewrites]

Anyways since ive been thinking about monomas quirk. I find it kinda intresting how little we actually know for sure of its limits regarding what it can copy or how it interacts with more complex quirks. Like yeah part of that is because he is a side character and he didnt get enough screentime to really necessitate those explanations, but i can only remember a total of seven quirks that he actually used in the main series off the top of my head - which sounds like a lot but all but two of them were rather simple emitters with little/no physical changes so theres not much data on how copy interacts with just about anything else. The most explanation there is is him talking about blank quirks when he meets eri - but even then interpretations of that scene range from “he can copy them but cant make that much use of them due to having no fuel but there might be ways around it” to “monoma physically cannot copy these quirks.”

Honestly the minimal explanations on copy itself compared to the wild possibilities due to the fact that the quirk system is so varied is probably part of why monoma lives rent free in my head lol. Theres simply a lot to think about. Hope you dont mind this random ramble lol

Apparently in the Light Novel he copies a Mutation Quirk, though if I recall correctly that was part of an incident involving something so spicy it forcibly activated Quirks which, uh. That seems like it'd have some Implications so I don't know how canon that was.

[stevethehairington]

OH BOY book announcement. on the one hand im excited because MORE EDDIE HELL YEAH and also ive heard good things about the other books, but on the other hand nO i LOVE the backstory that we as a fandom have created for eddie, i don't want anything else!!! i don't want to see it any other way!!!

and im also hellllllla not looking forward to the upheaval it surely WILL cause when Certain Things do/don't get "confirmed"

[frankiebirds]

[bunabi]

Hi Bunabi, pls ignore if this is too ranty

Dragon age has had me in a chokehold for 10+ yrs at this point, but the representation and racial dynamics in this series is bothering me. The Dalish and elves in general are just so painfully whyte. I guess it is more comfortable for white ppl to relate to oppressed whites rather than actual POC… My lavellan is dark-skinned, but she looks out of place among elves like Sera, Solas and Abelas. Even most Dalish npc are white. I am getting tired of the worship of European aesthetics in media, not only in terms of beauty standards, but also in fashion, architecture and art. Do you feel like Dragon Age is eurocentric?

I agree about the diversity of NPCs but I don't think the fashion & environments are strictly European worship, we've just been stuck in Fantasy France & England for three straight games.

And as far as whiteness helping players relate to them: no. 😭

Considering how fans talk about the Dalish in the wake of DAI, how they're treated ingame, how many Lavellans ditch their clan and culture in fanon, and everything that's been added to their lore post-DA2, it aint helping lol.

[the-dragon-girl-27]

this is one of those things where it was funny in my head but now that i drew it i realize it was probably not worth the effort  but no point in not posting it i guess i find watching the Mu saga unfold extreamilly funny for some reason i wish i had a quality pic of the % being even lower

[quadrantadvisor]

I started shipping Dick Grayson and Percy Jackson as a joke and then got accidentally invested. Help.

The thing about them is that I think they would Know. They would each know that the other had been though more than any one person could be expected to bear. They would feel secrets like a weight between them. And they would just. Not ask. They would decide to be eachother's simple thing. A bright spot of good in a world that's too hard.

Dick comes across as a ray of sunshine but he keeps up with Percy's snark. Percy's bleeding heart for the downtrodden and disdain for any authority endears him to Dick. They just have complimentary energies.

What makes this funny is how everyone else reacts to them.

Dick's family is panicking, since Percy is The Most Suspicious Man on the Planet. He works six months out of the year at summer camps that don't exist. He was accused of terrorism as a twelve year old. They keep trying to bring this up with Dick, who is exaggerating oblivoiusness. "What, Percy, suspicious? Never. He's great with kids, I'm sure the campers love him, isn't that sweet?" Tim is pulling out his hair.

Meanwhile, Percy's telling Annabeth (who he is still dating, polyamory ftw) all about his new guy, and Annabeth is like, "Let me get this staight. You're dating a rich trust fund kid, who's also a police officer, named Dick? That's not a real guy. That's a parody of a person. Who are you and since when do you tolerate cops."

[nonsensechemicals]

crying whenever i talk about Cookie9 because all my friends have these interesting and unique theories on them while i take everything too literally and they all just stare at me like “dude… uuugh we r TIRED” <-they dont actually say this they are very kind to me but i can Feel It

[sydmarch]

was shit talking waterparks to a friend who only knows of them through me (as any parx fan does) & I'm like no really some of the more recent lyrics are so bad. read this. show him the genius page for fruit roll ups & he's like "STOOOOP YOU LIKE THIS BAND?? but you usually have good taste" lmaooo

[pagesofkenna]

i wanted to make a post about a thing but the more i think about it the more i want to say and it's just going to end up being a big ramble essay, so instead i'll just give the thesis statement, thusly:

as the #1 Ratgrinders Apologist (self-appointed), of course they're the final boss fight to the death. i expected nothing less and the people trying to make discourse about it are ignoring the entire context of this being a Dungeons and Dragons game

[qcoded]

You guys don't know how mentally ill I got over these screenshots like!! Ok I know Collector is under the impression it's Raine BUT just the thought that Belos is technically the one there just AGHHHHHHH (Mouth foams)

This is the closest I'll get to seeing Belos treat Collector so sweetly (like please, look at how they smile at each other he's holding the Collector's hands AAAAA) so I'm loosing my crap

anyways! I loved Watching and Dreaming and have never been this emotionally devasted

[waywardsalt]

was going through my blog trying to track down an old post i made talking abt my feelings on jolene and it was. much longer than i remembered it being. and haha yeah i still agree with it. i need to fucking. sort out my feelings on that character and that subplot

[flowers-that-sing]

"baby, if it feels good, then it can't be bad"

(a post s3 steve harrington songfic based on Gibson Girl by Ethel Cain)

TWs// sexual content, dubious consent to put it lightly but it's more implied to be sexual assault, past csa, grooming, it's not super detailed (the csa much less so, and told through memories where steve doesn't even exactly know what's happening), but like. you know. it's pretty bad. referenced physical abuse. referenced past incestual sexual abuse. alcohol consumption, smoking. lightly implied drugging.

also, disclaimer: this is all told through steve's eyes—the way he sees things is very warped, his relationship with sex is unhealthy to say the least, and just because he's saying he feels good does not mean that anything that happens in this is good. it isn't. nothing about this is good or healthy at all.

She approached him in the dark behind the bar, where Steve was half-considering lighting up in spite of his promise of quitting to Robin. He had drank enough that it didn't seem to matter. She had leather pants on, and sunglasses, despite the dark. 

"Corey Hart fan?" he asked lightly. She didn't bother to answer. 

"Just saw you leave the bar. I'm glad you stuck around."

Steve didn't recognize her, and she didn't seem to recognize him either. She was dragging her eyes across his body, and Steve was suddenly all-too conscious of his scars on display, his sweat-melted hair wax. 

He was sick of it, he was sick of feeling ugly, and this girl had desire in her eyes. Steve was craving desire. 

And he was craving thrill. His thoughts had been rapid all week, his body more fidgety, his stomach constantly filled with bees and his energy so high he hadn't needed more than a couple hours of sleep a night. He had so much time in every day, but nothing to fill it with besides the monotony of work, and he needed adrenaline. There weren't any monsters to fight now, and there weren't any basketball games to play since high school, and he needed the feeling. The melting, excruciating, nauseating excitement, racing heart, the feeling of something about to happen, the fear, the risk. 

"You came alone to me—from however far away," he mused, lighting his cigarette, delicately placing it between his lips, exhaling into her face. 

"How'd you know?" she asked with a grin. 

You're all the same. 

Steve shrugged. "Lucky guess." 

She stepped in, so he could feel her breath on his face. "You gonna buy me a drink?" 

Steve put the cig out on his thigh. He didn't feel the burn. "I was just about to ask." 

If I'm still walking straight, I need another drink anyway. 

They went inside together, sat back at the bar. Steve opened a new tab. 

By the time he had a glass of whiskey in his hand, she had a hand on his thigh. She didn't even pretend to drink the vodka she'd ordered, and he was still downing his last gulp of whiskey when she pushed it into his hand with a little half-smile. He drank it. 

The lights were bleeding all over him. 

He felt a hand in his back pocket, and when he looked up, she was pulling cash out of his wallet. 

You wanna love me right now? 

"You wanna get alone with me?" Steve asked. Her eyes were bright, and she nodded, pulling him to his feet and all but dragging him out of the bar. He wasn't exactly sure when he'd gotten there, but he was in the trunk of a car, the backseats folded down to make room. "You wanna get my clothes off and hurt me?" 

He hadn't meant to say 'hurt.' But she just laughed and grinned, and ripped his clothes off.

☤

"Baby, if it feels good, then it can't be bad," Lynn says. Steve's eight now, beginning to question if it was wrong. He's remembering his Sunday school teacher talking about how nakedness was wrong, or something. And a new word, he doesn't know what it means. 'Chastity.' 

Lynn's touching him, she says it's to make him feel good. He doesn't really know how he feels. It reminds him a little of his grandfather, but Lynn's a woman, and she's not family, so it's different. It's better. If he closes his eyes and lets himself sink into it, he likes it. Is he supposed to like it? Lynn says he's supposed to like it. 

He tells her he does, and opens his eyes when she's done, and she's smiling. She promises him a new teddy bear. But for right now, it's his turn to make her feel good.

☤

Steve likes to think he's a good person now, but he knows he's still a whore, and he can't deny the high that comes with being immoral in a stranger's lap. He's kissing over her chest and grinding down onto her leather pants, and she's digging her nails into his back. He still doesn't even know her name. She doesn't know his. Maybe it's better that way. 

She hasn't taken off more than her shirt still, but he's fully naked. It's dark, the only light coming from a dim greenish streetlamp outside the car, and he thinks maybe she can't see his scars, but she's running her hands over the scar on his chest, from where the Russian guards had cut him open. She looks at it with something he can't quite decipher. It almost looks like fascination, but he knows that isn't it. Her eyes are wide, her pupils dilated. 

Ah. Desire. 

"You know, I was serious about hurting me. You wanna add some more?" 

☤

"I'm in love with your body. That's why I'm fucking it up." Steve listens to Lynn's voice from where she sits on the back of his legs. He is on his stomach, face turned to the side so he can breathe. He can’t see her. He sees his disorientingly patterned wall. He smells rosewater and orange zest, and his head feels fuzzy. Something hurts. Everything hurts. He doesn’t think about it too much. He just focuses on the warmth, the heat from the points of contact between him and his babysitter, the sweat in the backs of his knees, on his upper lip. The bedsheets are damp. It’s itchy. 

☤

Steve tasted his own blood on her teeth as she bit his upper lip. He was starting to see colors in the spaces where she'd been after she moved. And then his face was between her thighs, and when had her pants even come off at all? His heart was racing, exactly like he'd wanted, and his body was wracked with tremors. He listened to the music coming from her lips, the moans rising from her chest, and his heart leapt. I did that. I'm making her feel good. 

His arms felt a bit numb as he reached up to rub his thumbs into her hips. She was panting hard, and he was giddy. 

"Oh, fuck—you really are special, baby," she hissed. 

Steve's eyes widened, watered, and he whimpered against her. 

I'm special. She said I'm special. 

Steve was going to ride this high for at least a week. He was desirable, wanted, special. He basked in her attention, even if he knew he wouldn't see her again after tonight. 

He felt like he was being shown something he could never have. Something he'd searched for all his life. For a second, he could pretend it was love. Love for his brain and his scars and his body. Him taking all of her attention and giving back anything she wanted in return. Just to feel special. He'd do anything. 

Because that's what love was, right? Love, want, attention, specialness, was just tied to sex. Maybe his parents didn't love him since they couldn't fuck him. His grandfather loved him, his babysitter loved him, and for one night at a time, anyone could love him. And growing up, it was the only way he was really touched, with affection, at least. In ways other than a beating. 

He knew that wasn't right, because him and Robin loved each other. He loved the kids—never in that way, ever, and he still loved them. It was a different kind of love. But then, it was another different kind he was looking for, anyway. Maybe he was ungrateful. But he was hungry for attention, for someone to call him special, to want him around, he was starving for it. 

His thoughts weren't making much sense anymore. 

She was holding him in her lap, his boxers were back on, he was resting his head on her shoulder. He assumed she'd finished at some point, he didn't remember, and he knew he hadn't, but he hadn't really wanted to anyway. 

He was drooling, and he couldn't stop himself, and he couldn't see much, but her body was warm. He crawled closer, squirmed in tighter. It felt good to be held. He felt good. 

He woke up almost naked on the sidewalk in the sun with drool pooling at his chin and the rest of his clothes on a pile next to him. 

[micahdotgov]

i fear this is going to do devastating damage to my google docs

[puttingwingsonwords]

Renfield (2023) was a lot of fun but I have to say at the end when Rebecca was like ‘no you shouldn’t be punished you should be an example that it’s never too late to better yourself’ I was like ummm 🤨 girl you are a cop? So un-self aware lmao

[suffarustuffaru]

hi again i ranked every parent i could think of in rezero based on parenting skills + how much they give a shit