#i choose freedom

[general-yasur]

Going into my filtered tags to attempt to block the conversation of Lloyds age only to find that I’ve already tried before… when will i be free from these chains

[shenarilends]

ima just leave this here

[redvelvetwishtree]

[rosefires20]

My brainrot today is thinking about just how incredible for a character Eowyn is.

Genuinely. The series might not have many female characters but the ones we do get go so fucking hard.

To me, Eowyn is literally the definition of defining being a woman for oneself. She rejects the roles she is given despite acknlowdging the importance and its mostly because she knows part of the reason is that she is a woman.

The reason why she is obsessed with Aragorn isn't because she loves him but because she wants what he has. She wants the freedom and courage and bravery that Aragorn has at every turn. She literally has multiple conversations during the Two Towers about how what she fears most is a cage. All this girl wants is the freedom to be and not be forced into a role. The best thing is that she literally gets that.

The segment of Return of the King about Eowyn and Faramir is literally about her piecing together what she truly wants. She doesn't want Aragorn. She wants freedom and the ability to choose. Faramir does nothing but encourage that in her. Their love story is literally one of the healthiest love stories I've seen in a long time because at the heart of it, their love is a place to return home to for both parties. Both go off to lead and help their people for a considerable amount of time before returning to each other but that does not diminish their bond. Even Faramir, I believe, falls in love with her bravery and dedication to her loved ones. The reason she went to Pelenor Fields and Gondor with the troops of Rohan was because she had things she wanted to fight for. She wanted to fight for herself, her people, and her loved ones. She is the one who protects Theoden after he is killed so that his body gets the treatment it deserves. She encourages Merry and helps him go to the battle because she sees her struggle in Merry. They feel helpless standing around when there are things to be doing.

Let's also not forget the fact that she was around Grima Wormtounge just as much as the King was. She was exposed to the same poison and awful words that eroded the king. It's even implied that her care for him is part of the reason why Theoden was savable when Gandalf showed up. She had the same power and bravery as everyone else even if she didn't see it in herself.

Then at the end of the day, SHE decides where she wants to go and what path she wants to walk. She walked the path of a warrior. The path of a princess/ruler. The path of a caretaker. But in the end she decides which elements truly mean something to her outside of gender definitions. That is what makes her character so incredible to me. In this she literally kills one of the biggest enemies in that battle with such a badass line.

[silna-pdf]

On my break, you know I whipped out that sketchbook again

[formulanni]

If you're taking requests can you draw 41st US president bill clinton?

I am not taking requests but absolutely I can draw 41st US President Bill Clinton do u have any additional things to add here

[liesmyth]

My Coronabeth Dominant Twin manifesto is simple and it's as follows: there's no way the twins could have planned for Canaan House.

John requesting new Lyctors wasn't something anyone in the Houses would've expected to happen in their lifetimes with any meaningful probability. This means that when the Tridentarii started the double necromancer ruse, they expected to carry on for life. It was an arrangement that benefited Corona vastly more than Ianthe.

What Ianthe got out of it, as far as we know: Corona would rule Ida, which she isn't keen on (as per NtN). But it also meant that Ianthe signed up for a life in her sister's shadow, with everyone regarding Corona as the perfect heir and Ianthe as the lame spare. Worse, for Ianthe, everyone believed Corona was the better flesh magician (as per As Yet Unsent). There's a lot more in for Corona in this arrangement and a lifetime of mild humiliation for Ianthe. As we see during the reveal in GtN, she was just dying to tell anyone that SHE is the necromantic genius of the pair, actually.

On their relationship with Babs: in GtN, Gideon notices that Babs obeys Ianthe's orders over Corona's. She also notices that Corona looks shocked about this — to me, this means that it's NOT something Coronabeth is used to. Pre-Canaan House, they are equals in their ruse. At Canaan House, it becomes obvious that if Ianthe ascends she'll leave Corona in the dust, and their relationship has to change. I don't think the way they act around each other from Canaan House onwards is at all representative of their relationship back on the Third, and I don't think Babs deferring to Ianthe over Corona is something that has happened often before, if at all.

There's the bit where Corona routinely threatened suicide to get her way since they were teenagers. In NtN she's doing it to save Camilla's life, but she reminisces fondly about it like it was something she did often to get her way, like it was a fun mind game they played with each other.

You've also got Ianthe calling Corona a bimbo and insulting her and whatever, and me arguing that Corona pulled the few strings doesn't make Ianthe good but as things stand I'm much more inclined to believe that, before Ianthe attained Lyctorhood, Corona was the one in charge — and I’m also firmly convinced that she’s using BoE for her own ends, and we’ll see her Fuck Shit Up in AtN.

[dykealloy]

the catholic rejection of it all

[divorcedwife]

#1 chancellor in ferelden babyyy

[balkanradfem]

Do you think that low birth-rates are a problem?

I think they're the opposite of a problem :)

[sarcasticscepticles]

Raphael is the funniest antagonist in the game to me, he's a powerful devil trying to steal your soul and speaks to you in rhymes that he probably practices in the mirror, he has his own incubus that says he's a bottom only and bad in bed, and then you can call him out. You can go and rob him blind and then kick his ass in his own house.

You can ask some guy he had you kill if he wants to help you kick his ass, and if you convince him he'll go 'yeah sure I bet you'll win' while Raphael is standing right there.

[usertoxicyaoi]

"Are you crazy? Why did you forcibly suspend your cultivation and bring about your own destruction?"

FANGS OF FORTUNE (2024). EPISODE THIRTY TWO.

[hermesmoly]

Headcanon: when Hephaestus chained Hera to her chair, it took a night before Dionysus could convince him to free his mother. Hera spent overnight trapped in that chair in contempt and guilt. Zeus, for all his sleaziness cheating, and arrogance over his wife, never left her side during this. He wouldn’t sleep in his marriage bed nor in the bed of another that night. He slept right next to her on his own throne, clutching his hand with hers, their rings gently gleaming.

[kradogsrats]

Revisiting the Arc 2 Opening

So particularly @raayllum had done some detailed analysis and predictions based on the comparison of Viren and Callum's variant arc 2 openings, but I want to return in the post-s6 space now that we have Claudia's opening as a third point of comparison because that addition has an impact on how the original two relate to one another and what each one is saying.

The basic sequence of each opening is the same: from the initial star-map zoom (associated with destiny/time-blind vision of future events) the camera circles the principal character, placed at the celestial Sea of the Castout, as they turn to stone. Aaravos's giant hand swoops down and plucks up the statue, now contextualized by size as a pawn or other game piece, to admire from within his prison with a satisfied smile.

The most important point to understand about this sequence is that Aaravos doesn't personally turn Viren, Callum, and Claudia to stone, but is able to capture and manipulate them as pawns because of it:

This doesn't seem like much of a distinction at all, particularly because the petrification that results in Aaravos's satisfied claim on each mage is a representation of dark magic, which is... what allows Aaravos to influence/control those who resort to using it.

We get the direct link between the heart, dark magic, and Aaravos's influence/control explicitly spelled out by s6, and (as many noticed before)... go figure, in all three openings the corruption petrification begins at the heart.

Now, Callum is actually the only one who knows explicitly about the connection between dark magic and influence/control by Aaravos. Viren has sort of intuited it by the end of s5, in that we can see by portions of his dream that he's aware on at least a subconscious level that he was not in his right mind during at least the latter half of s3. This is why the distinction between the petrification being a factor allowing Aaravos's control, rather than an effect of it, is important—the conflicts and dynamics being represented are more complex than that. For example: Viren's opening, it turns out, isn't about Aaravos at all.

That's a Reach

When the primary arc 2 opening, featuring Viren, was revealed as part of the lead-up to the s4 release, there was a decent amount of speculation as to what it meant—the connection with Avizandum's death was recognized immediately, but what did that signify? Would there be further-reaching direct consequences of Viren's involvement and the archdragon-killing spell? Would Avizandum himself somehow have expanded significance? What is Viren reaching for: Aaravos, redemption, another chance at life?

Mostly, it set the tone for s4 and arc 2 in general, particularly regarding Viren's character arc, with strong mood and themes of helplessness, the past, regret and consequences, cyclic harm, and (of course) death. Not even to mention the looming presence of Aaravos and his relationship with Viren as his pawn. It was a vibe.

It wasn't until after s5 and/or s6 that the opening came into full context: Avizandum, in his final moments, turns his back on the battle with Harrow—the cycle of violence that he, himself, has contributed to perpetuating—and reaches for the child he will now be unable to protect from that violence.

Viren, as it turns out, does the exact same, as we see explicitly in s5 and continued implicitly in s6. Like Avizandum, he reaches for his children, unable to save them from the damage he has already done—all of it through dark magic.

On its own, it's an elegant implementation of the parallels TDP is so fond of to demonstrate that both sides of this long-time conflict have inflicted harm on each other and themselves in very similar ways for generations. Even at the time of s4, however, we had Callum's opening obviously derived from Viren's, and after s6 we have Claudia's, as well—both of which come with their own context that builds off of Viren's in different ways.

Lost Child

So while Viren's opening actually has very little to do with Aaravos (prior to Aaravos's actual appearance grasping him as a literal pawn), Claudia's (and Callum's, which we'll come back to in a bit) is difficult to interpret as not being related to her personal dynamic with Aaravos.

Interestingly, Claudia's opening places her at a very specific point in time, since it's visibly between two major physical changes to her body/appearance—her lower leg is missing, severed by Rayla in the Sea of the Castout at the end of s5, but she still has her long hair from before prompting Terry to cut it off for her early in s6. Even more specifically, she has the half-and-half split of black and white hair, which is already majority-white in s6e1:

This is Claudia in a moment we don't see on-screen—when, having failed to collect Aaravos's prison and not knowing that Viren has been offered and rejected the Infantis Sanguine spell, she turns to Aaravos in the dark of night and is willing to do anything to save her father.

I could do a whole thing here about the nature of Claudia's perception of Aaravos as both a paternal and divine figure, but the relevant part is that her only association between dark magic and Aaravos is a positive one—as far as she's concerned, Aaravos gave humanity dark magic as a benevolent gift, and her main reason (at least that she's willing to voice) for hesitating to give it up is that Aaravos kept his promises to her and it would be right to keep her promise to free him. In her opening, she goes from pained and defeated to looking upward with total trust and hope—looking to Aaravos the way she would have looked to Viren.

Her petrification shares the single tear with Viren and Avizandum, really cementing her place as another loop in the cycle of harm between humanity and Xadia that has dark magic at its heart. That callback to Viren's opening also puts hers in dialogue with him as much as with Aaravos, placing her in the same position as he is in a reflection of his horror and dismay that she has followed his path and example so closely.

Given that Claudia dramatically changes appearance (and, to an extent, attitude) immediately after this opening is introduced, it's possible that we'll see a different variant for s7... but given the end of s6, she actually hasn't really changed all that much. She has doubts about how to proceed with her life after Viren leaves, but as soon as Aaravos re-enters the picture, her conviction is back. She may not have done any dark magic after s6e1, but I don't think that's because she's decided to give it up.

Key Framing

Given the context of Claudia's opening, Callum's opening becomes unusual because it references Viren's without tying back to Avizandum and that cycle of harm. It's still on some level about dark magic, but Callum's relationship with dark magic isn't tied up in family and inheritance like Claudia's and Viren's are—instead it's focused entirely on fate vs. freedom, and on Aaravos specifically.

Callum's opening appears only for s4e4 ("Through the Looking Glass"), where he is possessed by Aaravos and it is established that his single use of dark magic is what allows that control, and for s5e8 ("Finnegrin's Wake") when he uses dark magic a second time. The shared opening puts those two episodes in obvious dialogue with each other, since s5e8 never makes explicit that the danger of dark magic for Callum is control by Aaravos—something he has already asked Rayla to end his life in order to avoid.

The focus in Callum's opening, both by its visual prominence and Callum's own gaze directed at it, is the Key. While Viren and Claudia's petrifications end the way Avizandum's does—with the single tear—Callum's ends with the Key in a blaze of light.

I expect we will see Callum's opening return for s7, possibly even as a primary opening, but it will almost certainly be recontextualized at some point and possibly even changed to a variant that reflects that new context. The Key is an element that will contribute to Callum's doom or salvation—or both, as a key can both lock and unlock—and its prominence in his opening reflects that and will likely be informed by how that resolution develops.

All of Us, Stardust

Speaking of alterations to the openings:

The final, altered version of the Viren opening kicks off s6, acting as a last, fun little extension of the "is Viren dead?" cliffhanger of s5. Aaravos's hand reaches down as usual, but instead of firmly grasping the petrified Viren, he very briefly hesitates before pushing it slightly, instead. The petrified Viren then crumbles and collapses into dust.

We first saw (or rather, had described to us via frantic convention attendee note-taking) this opening at the first reveal of s6e1, which was originally shown without any of the scenes revealing Viren to be alive. There are a lot of ways it could be interpreted, from a straightforward "he'd dead, Jim," to my own kind of fanciful theory from the time regarding Viren, dead or alive, having been made unusable by Aaravos as a pawn.

One way to contextualize this opening is with this old illustration from Patience, which ties in closely with the Aaravos chess/pawns motif (and was a significant part of contextualizing the arc 2 opening as "pawns"):

Now, there are a lot of things about this image that are important, not least the confirmation/reinforcement of the chain of manipulation of dark mages by Aaravos across thousands of years from Ziard to Viren, with the implication of Callum in the future. What I'd like to call attention to is that in chess, tipping over a piece is a gesture specifically used only with the king, and specifically to indicate that you are resigning the game and the opponent is victorious.

I don't think there's anywhere we've seen Aaravos truly lose, except for possibly when he was imprisoned, because his plans have levels of redundancy that mean they don't depend on any given individual—a game of chess hinges on the king, but Aaravos is essentially playing six or eight interconnected games at once, and a loss on one board only reinforces his remaining pieces on another. Losing Viren, deliberately or not, empowers his influence over Claudia... exactly as we see in the sequence of arc 2 openings. It would be difficult for them to have replicated the tipped-over/toppled king imagery with the petrified Viren without having to do some labor-intensive camera work on the existing opening pattern (e.g. do they show the ground when he falls? What even is the ground?)—so I think there's a strong likelihood that him crumbling to dust is meant to have a similar resonance.

Anyway, I'm kind of dancing around some complex theorizing and analysis of Viren's death that I go back and forth on depending on the day, but basically I do still think the important takeaway from this opening variant is that as far as Aaravos is concerned, Viren is off the board. That it's the opening for s6e1, rather than a special use for s6e8 (as Callum's variant openings are handled) is also IMO a positive sign regarding Aaravos's loss of control and direct manipulation of Viren over the course of s6. I don't think we've heard the last about Viren, and between Claudia, Soren, and Kpp'Ar there will definitely be a multifaceted interpretation of his legacy with significance in s7.

Opening the Final Season

Ultimately, given the dialogue between the three (four?) variant openings we have seen so far for arc 2, I think for s7 we can expect:

the Callum variant will appear at least once

at least one new Claudia- or Callum-based variant, OR possibly even an Aaravos variant

a new variant (possibly one of the ones from the previous point) to close out the arc for at least s7e9

That's my fevered ramblings about this 20-second repeated sequence, thanks for coming to my continuing insane TED talks on this and other ridiculous topics.

[lyss-sketchbox]

Op can I have more information about the swap au pleaaaaase ?

I love these fucking guys I want to shake them and eat them and aaaaaaaaaaah

And in your artstyle they are so fucking immaculate hfjgkgkhlhk

Hdudhdhs thank you, im not really that deep into developing it since it came from a random ask but heres some of my thoughts

The swap is only between Wrio and Neuv. Everyone else stays the same.

Neuv being offered the position of Warden/Protector of the Sluice Gate by Focalors that 500 years ago instead of Chief Justice.

Reason being Focalors think that if Sovereigns think if humans are mislead and tainted under the jurisdiction of archons, then a Sovereign would know a more proper way to make them repent.

Furina let the people elect Chief Justice but still seeks Neuvillette's guidance, even prefer it over the current Chief Justice

After all humans would NEVER talk back against an ARCHON right..........?

Wriothesley's entire backstory still happened.

Except the fortress is alot more strict, almost no-tolerance level of strict so while Wrio doesn't have to fight for food or safety, it's not built for redemption.

He focuses more on his engineering machinery side over his boxing side.

Becomes an engineer once he's out then afterwards the newest Chief Justice.

Definitely a more sympathetic kind of Chief Justice, often taking up special interest in cases with no clear black and white judgement.

Idk about how the melusines were in early Fontaine years but i do think it's probably the only time Neuvillette ascended from the fortress to fight for something in 'Focalors domain'

Wrio only got sticker ambushed after Sigewinne noticed that Neuvillette seems to favour the new Chief Justice and proceeded to spread the news amongst her sisters

[r0semultiverse]

Hey Digital Extremes, why are you limiting our play style to only one romance? Thought this game was about player choice. Let us choose to have the gameplay option of polyamory! 💕

There should also be a platonic New Years night option too that involves no romance for those not comfortable with it!