#but at the same time they won't sacrifice their love either. hence ''i just can't live without''

[sigyn-foxyposts]

Do you have any headcannons for Smite! Logyn? 👀👀

I really want to play the game but i have no idea how it works-

I do actually, thank you so so much for asking!! I don't know what you mean by that but to hopefully be helpful, smite is a third person multiplayer battle arena game. I have it on steam but you can get it through other platforms like Nintendo Switch, ect. ✨👀

Onto the head cannons!! 🐍✨

Despite Loki's harsh and broken nature after his torment, he still has a huge soft spot for Sigyn and is loyal to her!

Whenever they're in battle, Loki will do everything in his power to assassinate whoever touches a hair on her head.

This is because Sigyn is always his support, both in their current battles and in the obvious past!

Sigyn before every battle will nag Loki about getting the right items, this can be annoying but Loki reminds himself that she just cares about his safety!

Teasingly, whenever Sigyn is trying to figure out what she should get, but is taking long Loki will make intentional nagging remarks about how slow she is.

Once while Loki was drunk, he told Ratatoskr to tell every pantheon how much he loves his wife! (Chill we know!)

The next day when everyone asked what the deal with that message was, Sigyn felt both emmberesed and honoured.

When they're training together, sparring and such! They like making up as they go what the other one has to do if they loose (how fun and..spicy!?🌶 👀)

There has been more times than Sigyn can count where she and Loki will see and catch up in the jungle only for Loki to almost be killed by another god!

What Sigyn finds funny is that he isn't offended that someone just tried killing him, but that they could've hurt her in the process! (Interrupts their flirting! 😈)

Sigyn sometimes find herself missing the old version of Loki, that was kind, mischievous and playful. So different from how unhinged he has become.

Yet, that doesn't mean she loves him any less. After all she's not any better in the head mentally either!

Both Loki and Sigyn laugh like crazy people.. They are crazy people (⊙_◎)

They're both very aware of how broken they are as well, and feel like the only way to continue life is to stick together.

Their deep bond, trust and support is all they have left. Family and sanity is what was left behind as tragic as it sounds.

Sigyn is almost Loki's guilty pleasure, because he knows he doesn't deserve her but can't help but need, depend on her and obviously treasure her!

Without her he would feel so lost, helpless and empty. Truly the only thing holding him back from genuinely going fully insane for good was his beloved.

It's the same way for Sigyn, but instead of insanity getting to her first, it would feel like she served no purpose other than to kill everyone in her way until she herself is killed. She is already numb!

Loki feels very guilty for never being able to truly express how much she means to him, especially after the huge sacrifice she made staying by his side.

Sometimes he just likes looking at her, turning away when she feels his eyes. He is secretly reminded of simpler times, the less painful memories.

This is both so comforting and annoying to him because he gets very emotional. Hence the real reason why he turns!

When Loki found out Sigyn was pregnant, he was afraid of history repeating itself. That his new children would be like the last three, monsters!

Luckily for him the twins looked human enough and he for once felt peaceful, full of relief that the gods had no reason to take his new sons away. (About that..)

While Sigyn recoverd from the after birth, Loki was very consistent in making sure her and their boys had everything they ever needed!

He kept checking in on all three so often it got to the point Sigyn had to remind him to take care of himself too!

Loki honestly admires how Sigyn is still able to have such close bonds with their oldest children, who won't even bother to look in his direction anymore.

Despite this, he still puts some effort into their ghostly son and wolf child, trying to learn from his mistakes and check in on them. Which doesn't go unnoticed, Sigyn is always so proud!

Even though she knows why Loki killed Baldr and refuses to truly blame him, whenever the topic is brought up she can't stare Loki in the eyes. She just gets so pissed off at him and Odin!

When you're plagued by dark thoughts, nightmares often follow! Both Loki and Sigyn struggle with this at night.

Loki is mostly haunted by his actions and the hatered he faced, while Sigyn keeps seeing that dark, cruel cave.

To soothe each other Loki will always spoon, cuddle or hold Sigyn close to make her feel protected. Kissing her scared burnt hands or wrists gently, letting her know she can rest like she used to, there is no bowl to hold.

Sigyn in return usually strokes his back or runs her fingers through his dark hair. Kissing his forehead, nose bridge and lips to remind him that he isn't bound.

They even stroke the outlines of their scars on each other, either after an emotional session or out of boredom.

Sigyn is still very clearly upset and sensitive over what their sons had to go through, including what happened to herself and Loki. (It was unfair tho!)

Sometimes Loki makes unflattering remarks about himself, thinking his looks were ruined by the snakes venom.

Sigyn very much disagree's with this statement and insists he is still as handsome as the day they met.

Loki still enjoys the efforts in trying to make his sad sack of potatoes for a wife to smile or laugh! It works every time, no matter how much Sigyn protests.

Loki turns invisible to scare Sigyn and what's exciting with this game is that sometimes he actually manages to catch her off guard, or it's the other way around and he tastes his own medicine!

If Loki ever needs to go anywhere but wants to stay with Sigyn, he makes a decoy to do the trick or job for him!

(Which one is real though? 😏)

Thank you for reading everything!! This is what I have so far, I might update in the near future if I get more 💚✨

[niceness-before-knives]

I have to do a full replay to gather the odd notes and actual quotes instead relaying on my loose memories about this, but the day after I finished Veilguard, I was thinking while walking home.

“Why was Davrin or Harding?”

Part of my slight annoyance towards the section is simply that it’s unavoidable. And that isn’t bad in and of itself. There are hints and clues scattered throughout the game about the sacrifices taking on Gods requires. It is shocking during the course of the mission, and I don't think it’s not poorly written. But that fact that I can’t sacrifice anyone else during this portion of the game, that it’s only them, just sticks out as an odd choice.

It begs my silly mind to ask: why?

And I understand the limits of branching and assets. Sometimes, there's only so much you can do and that's a fine enough answer. It’s a part of the issue with the second choice too, but it's one I understand more. Bellara and Neve both have been disabling enchantments through the whole game. Emmrich could be choice too (honestly should’ve been), but I get why it was a choice between the two of them. We do need bodies to miss in the Regret Prison, and we need someone to control the blight at the end.

So. Make a choice.

But then, why Davrin and Harding? It's for a leadership role, which makes enough sense on its own. But it's to lead a distraction against the Antaam force on the island. Lucanis is needed to stab a god, sure, but what about Taash?? They can’t lead or scout or cause a distraction??? Bellara and Neve are needed for Part Two, so it bleeds backwards into this choice too.

Is it then only because Davrin and Harding are the easiest pawns? Companions, beloved, but not important enough to the core of the story? They’re there to grieve, and only grieve? And Emmrich is possibly a lich by this point in the story, so it's not like he can't really die like them if that choice was made.

It feels like Kaiden and Ashley again, a harder choice (for me) but one I feel more disconnected from at the same time. What’s the parallel? What’s the connection? Why them two together? Why not anyone else outside the limits of time and assets and writing yourself into a corner?

And my mind was just, “it’s the Blight."

They’re the two most connected to it. Davrin is a warden, hence blighted. Harding is connected to the Titans, the origin of the Blight. And they both fall, into the Blight itself, and just vanish.

And that thread? It's just fascinating to me.

You go to remember Harding, your companion, among the plants she loved. Rook laments there was no body to be found and promises if there’s a way to find her, they’ll do it.* There is a finality to the conversation, so it doesn't feel like a red herring or a wink and a nudge. It feels different from the ones about Bellara and Neve too. It is a goodbye.

But I can still see a slightly cracked open door, and that excites me.

There's no DLCs planned, at least there wasn't the last I checked, but my mind keeps writing the idea of one. In the Deep Roads, buried in the everchanging and calling Blight, finding our lost friends changed and tormented, and trying to bring them back. Because Wardens have changed with the archdemons now all gone, and Davrin is more than just a sacrifice waiting for death. Because Harding can do anything, and she’s more than just the Titan’s pain.

And I just like that idea?? While I do know it won’t happen, I do think it could be fun. It could be garbage too, but this is my fantasy DLC living in my head. So, I’ll just collect more tadbits and inspiration and make it as rad as it could be~~~ c:

(Also. Just a note. This isn't a theory. I doubt it's even all that original of a thought, and I won't be debating anyone over it either way. I just thought and continue to think that it's a neat connection, and one I’m definitely biased towards. I love going into the Deep Roads and I just miss exploring them in general, lol. We should go back to it, and we should find some trace of Davrin or Harding while there.

After all, the idea of 'we need someone to control the blight at the end' would be such a fun parallel to play with if the team ventured into the Deep Roads and found the same again, albeit maybe in a more malicious context.)

*: I played through both endings, but Davrin in my first and Harding in the second. Harding scene sticks out in my head more now because of that and the fact I had this idea in my head while playing through hers. Sorry, Davrin. :(

[kalmeria]

when 'our song' said "i've now realized what my love is about / it's something small that i just can't live without"

and after ep11 we were all like "so that was a lie"

...only to find out a week later that it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

well played, bad buddy

[makiema]

Snk 123 and “Family”

Imo Yams deliberately emphasized on “family” during the EM talk and not made it a direct confession like with Falbi, to make the message sort of more universal for Eren. Like, family to him is all the people featured in 123, people he grew up with in Paradis. The final affirmation he needed before dirtying his hands rightly comes from the closest family member— Mikasa but I think what Eren realised is that, not only Mikasa, but all of them always genuinely loved him and cared for him.

All the superficiality like the Ackerbond and Titan Powers don't matter— Mikasa associates herself with him because she genuinely cares about him as family, and in a broader context, the same goes for all the others. This also explains Eren's eyes lighting up for a brief moment here in Chapter 105 right after Levi expresses his hurt and his utter disbelief regarding Eren's actions.

It is because Eren realizes how much they all love him simply for who he is and doesn't see him only as a victory machine and/or a savior. And this is exactly why he can't afford to sacrifice them, like he said before ; they're just too important and more than anybody else, because they know love. Love without the bounds of expectations and conditions.

And he loves them too, just as much as they love him; he even explicitly states that he wants them to live long, happy lives. In Chapter 123, that is exactly the vision that Eren gets when they engage in their drunken shenanigans. He observes them, he smiles assured because that is the image he knows he'll be fighting to protect from there on out— the image of happy families in Paradis with no fear of an impending danger that threatens to wipe them off the face of Earth forever. He feels too strongly for all of them and this deep, almost familial bond that he has formed with everyone in Chapter 123 over the years is what directly influences his last monologue.

Hence, the stress on “where I was born and raised.” The words carry strong familial connotations. Eren's choice was difficult. More so, because Falco and Reiner are people like him, those who wanted nothing more than creating a safer future for their families. This is why Eren is truly empathetic towards them. He understands.

But, when we're almost instantly yanked back into the grim reality that there can't be any appeal for appeasement with Marley, right after Mikasa says “you're family” and all the squad have a merry time, we're reminded that it's really one or the other.

It's up to Eren to choose: to give up on his own family (by pitying the rest of the world) or to protect them against the world. And he chooses what he'd regret the least, he chooses to protect his own.

On a side note, the fez haired kid reminded Eren that the world hasn't changed in 2000 years- he was affronted by the oppressive society just like Ymir had been in Chapter 122 and if Levi hadn't interceded for him, he'd be abused like Ymir too. I think this confirmed for Eren how oppressive governments that hold too much power will always continue to victimise and abuse innocent, naive children. It's a cycle of oppression that won't end, no matter the era in such a corrupted world. The world did not present him a middle ground. He found no hope there. Only war lust and racism. All of it culminated in him deciding to go ahead with the Rumbling because even after staying in enemy territory for so long, even after experiencing the world, he discovered nothing positive- it's just hate, inhumanity and oppression. He found nothing that suggested an improvement from Ymir's times. So, it can be said, that in the end he chose the hell of doing away with the entire outside world because that's the only way he can save his own little world- his family that raised him and loved him; he would take all the blood in his hand if it meant his people would have a future where they are free from oppression. What drives Marley to commit ethnic cleansing is pure abhorrence of the Eldian race. But, what drives Eren is his infinite love and tenderness for Mikasa, for his friends and for all his people- his extended Eldian family. He has been saying it from the very beginning: nobody has the right to take our birthright and our freedom away from us. And that's exactly the essential line of thought he's still following.

From a moral pov, it isn't right. Eren knows that. But like I've said before too, morality and freedom are two very different ideas and more than often, one doesn't comply with the other. Eren sees his reality as free or unfree and his actions are inspired from love for his people and are intended for achieving freedom. They have nothing to do with ideals. He knows there's no right or wrong if we take in consideration the narratives of both the sides. He knows Marleyans have enough reasons to justify their antipathy for Eldians just like, Eldians are not wrong in enforcing their right to life and freedom. That's why he doesn't sugarcoat anything and directly tells Reiner he might just destroy the world before waging war against Liberio. He knows exactly what he is doing. He's still chasing freedom, chasing a better and secure future for his people. He won't let his family die for naught. He isn't prepared to sacrifice them. And sacrifice them for what? Peace? Justice? There is no peace or justice in the outside world. Even if there are no Eldians, there'll be other refugees who'll have to take Marley's shit. (This point is proved by the fez haired kid) So is sacrificing his family for such a cruel outside world really worth the price? What does it matter if they're majority? Majority can be in the wrong too and their number certainly doesn't justify all their ill doings.

In conclusion, it would be genocide either way, the numbers don't matter. Either a small race of people take the brunt of the world or Eren does away with the world. None of the two course of action is ideal but at least, we can say after Chapter 123 that Eren is acting out of love for his family, but Marleyans are acting out of plain spite.

[fillorian-pocketwatch]

The Makings and Fate of Quentin Coldwater: What Were the Writers Thinking?

Trigger warnings: Quentin Coldwater, seasons 4 and (briefly) 5, mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation, outdated ideas about the purity of women.

General warnings: Spoilers for the show and the books.

Buckle up, darlings, and my apologies in advance: this is a rough ride, and I don’t recommend reading it if you aren’t in the right headspace for it right now.

I hope that those who do read it might drop some LGBTQIA+ positive book/tv recommendations in the comments as a pick-me-up for others. I will add some myself if I can think of some good ones.

So as it turns out, I ran into something entirely by accident: the inspiration behind the character of Quentin Coldwater.

I knew that Eliot and his "will-they-or-won't-they" dynamic with Quentin in the Magicians books were both borrowed from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (Grossman has said so himself)--

but I didn't realize there was an actual preexisting character Grossman borrowed from for Q:

Quentin Compson, from The Sound and the Fury.

This explains so much for me. So much.

I ran across information about the character the other day while doing something completely unrelated (looking up some other book if I recall correctly), and when I saw the similarity of the two names and then learned about the first Quentin’s fate, I thought, could this be LG’s inspiration?

Further research revealed that yes, Lev has said as much in articles. And even if he hadn’t, the fact that he has written extensively *about* TSatF online makes it a relatively easy conclusion to draw.

While the two Quentins aren't actually much alike (at least on the surface; I haven't read TSatF yet, just in-depth summaries/analyses of it)--other than the fact that they are both mentally ill over-achiever college students, are preoccupied with the idea of another world (the world as they each wish it was), and constantly associated with symbolic clocks and watches--Quentin Compson's fate explains everything for me in terms of how to understand Quentin Coldwater's series-four fate.

Quentin Compson ultimately kills himself in the famous classic novel; he does so by drowning after jumping off the Anderson Memorial Bridge in Boston, Massachusetts. Today there is a plaque there to commemorate the character:

In the Faulkner novel, Quentin associates the smell of honeysuckle with his obsessions over his sister’s purity--an ideal he comes to feel let down by after she loses her virginity and then seems to lose herself further in the company of men he feels are unsuitable.

I can’t help but make a parallel with the “drowned garden” of season 4, episode 12.

Quentin makes the following speech in the drowned garden, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s the closest thing we get to a suicide note:

You know the worst part of getting exactly what you want? When it's not good enough. Then what do you do? If this can't make me happy, then what would? Fillory was supposed to mean something. I was supposed to mean something here. But it's all... it's just... it's random. It's so random that the only way to save my friends is to yell at a fucking plant! Honestly, fuck Fillory for being so disappointing. You know what, maybe I was better off just believing that it was fiction. The idea of Fillory is what saved my life! [laughs.] This promise... that... people like me... [weeping] People like me... Can somehow... Find an escape. There has gotta be some power in that. Shouldn't loving the idea of Fillory be enough?

But the idea of Fillory is not enough, in the end, because the idea of happiness is also not enough. And by the end of his time on the show, that’s all Quentin has: the trappings of happiness (or at least the ones available to him, the ones he thinks might get him there), without the actual emotion.

Maybe he realizes, in the drowned garden, that he is at the end of his rope. Maybe that is where he decides to give up.

That, in my opinion, is why he begins to seem so shut down: it isn’t uncommon for people to distance themselves emotionally as a precursor to suicide (hence Jason being accused of “refusing to act” toward the end of S4).

I think it’s also why he doesn’t stop to wait and see how Eliot is after Margo strikes the Monster with the axes: he has given up on the idea that the things he thinks will make him happy actually will, or that happiness is actually attainable for him in the first place.

Quentin Coldwater drowns not in the fading of honeysuckle; for him it’s peaches and plums. In any case, he is definitely in over his head, and the water that spills out of the mirrors after his death feels like an homage to that literal drowning of his predecessor.

The TM writers found ways, as the show progressed, to tie the books back in to the show; the way they did it, however, was often roundabout to say the least. Their takes on how different plot points should occur, or be interpreted from book to screen, were usually close to abstract. They did do it, in many ways, but theirs was far from a faithful adaptation.

It fits, therefore, that they would tie The Sound and the Fury into S4 the way that it appears they did.

It also tells me something about how blame for their decision can be distributed, because either the showrunners:

a.) really did their research re: Compson and put together that this was the character that inspired Lev

or, as is much more likely, they:

b.) discussed it all with Lev himself--or LG was the one to broach the subject to see what sort of take they could spin.

Whatever the lead-in to the decision, I think three things combined to give them the idea for Q’s fate:

1. Quentin Compson;

2. Alice’s description, in the third book, of watching an old god kill herself to make way for a new world (which was when Umber and Ember emerged);

3. The following lines from The Magician’s Land: “The truly sad thing was that Ember actually wanted to do it. Quentin saw that too: He had come here intending to drown Himself, the way the god before Him had, but He couldn’t quite manage it. He was brave enough to want to, but not brave enough to do it. He was trying to find the courage, longing for the courage to come to Him, but it wouldn’t, and while He waited for it, ashamed and alone and terrified, the whole cosmos was coming crashing down around Him.

Quentin wondered if he would have been brave enough. He would never know. But if Ember couldn’t sacrifice himself, Quentin would have to do it for Him.”

So, it appears, the group of writers (LG included, however actively) apparently decided to take Quentin’s thought from book three and put him in exactly that position: make the choice, or fail to make the choice.

But the need for him to make that choice was never horribly convincing. They were very mistaken if they thought it was. And no matter what, it was ultimately a horrible, damaging idea. It hurt the audience, and it killed the show. The only sacrifice that was made was made in the name of ego and “clever writing” that the writers thought was edgy and risky in some desirable way.

[Quote from vulture.com]

It's not so deep.

What they did, ultimately, was borrow from more than one outdated work, and use those as excuses to do the wrong things re: mental illness and LGBTQIA+ representation:

Evelyn Waugh’s characters fail, once again, to live their lives and desires freely and openly (What a waste to rehash the long-denied dynamic from Brideshead Revisited only to deny it again);

Quentin Compson’s legacy of suicide and hopelessness lives on (and this is made all the more offensive when you learn that Compson’s suicide was based largely on ideas of spoiled purity which were solely the burden of women to uphold).

They took what could have been made right and beautiful and instead used their story to perpetuate the same sad old traditions of queerbaiting and Burying the Gays.

Tragedy is not more profound than happiness (just ask Quentin Coldwater). I'd argue that to make something really beautiful, you need to mend what's broken.

The world is a broken place. It's easy to break things here.

The worst thing they did to Q, by far, was to use the beautiful concept of minor mending against him like it was the fuse on a stick of dynamite: the thing he’d spent his whole life seeking--his specific field, his special skill in the actual real world of magic--was what he used to kill himself. He killed himself by *fixing something.* We need no further evidence that Q had given up hope.

What a terrible message, and what a slap in the face to viewers who put their trust in this atrocious writing.

And they did nothing to redeem themselves after the fact, either. If anything, they made it even worse, somehow:

Eliot, by the end of the show, has even less than he started with.

Eliot, apparently, is us: left without Q, stripped of the comfort of a world we thought we knew. Utterly let down by the writers who had the power to make things different.

I hate to end this on such a terrible note. So let me just say that if you were let down by the show, and you miss Q, you’re far from alone! I see you, and I hear you, and I share your pain.

TM got it all wrong. But I have faith that others will get it right.

And no matter what, in the last book, Quentin lives, and has nothing but a whole world of possibility open up before him.