#i have definitely killed him more times than ive saved him i know that much

[mythalism]

ok im going to try and parse through my feelings on the entire game in the hopes that expelling these thoughts from my brain will allow me to actually sleep because i am running on about 3 hours right now

i will start positive with the things i absolutely loved:

solas. whos suprised

just kidding i will elaborate further of course. genuinely, from a (mostly) objective writing perspective, he is the best part of this game. like hands down. his writing is bonkers insane. he has the best lines and the most complexity out of any character in the game (besides mythal perhaps). i was so so so afraid they were going to completely woobify him into someone who was right all along and never did anything wrong in his life blah blah to make him sympathetic to a new audience. they did not give a fuck however and i could not be more glad. he is exactly the dread wolf and bringer of nightmares of legend. he is so wonderfully in character, even if that character is not someone we saw in inquisition (we saw solas, not the dread wolf!). there are moments that solas shines through, like in his mentions of varric in the very beginning, when he mentions his love for the inquisitor, his convo with a rook he respects (which i do believe was genuine, even if he betrays them anyway. we know that he regularly betrays people that he likes and respects lol), the way he helps the shadow dragons and saves the dalish, and of course in his final scene with the inquisitor. he manages to retain that perfect back and forth, mask on and mask off, solas vs. fen'harel dichotomy with a different balance than the one we saw in inquisition. in inquisition, we saw solas with hints of the dread wolf peeking through. in veilguard, we see the dread wolf with hints of solas peeking through. ok i need to move on or i will talk about him forever. but they nailed the moral ambiguity with him. they nailed the theme of forgiveness being hard. i loved when harding said something along the lines of "there is no one who doesnt deserve forgiveness" this is one of the few consistent themes that this game was successful in exploring. ok ok moving on now i promise

i also loved mythal (fragment mythal, not morrigan mythal who was a flop). admittedly i am a mythal stan, but her integration into this story was a highlight for me. she haunted the narrative in such a great way. it added so much complexity to solas. hearing him GROWL at elgar'nan in rage "you have lost the right to say her name" made me scream in glee. i loved talking to her and having to prove my worth to her. i love that it was hard and she would kill you without hesitation if she found you unworthy. i love that if she does find you worthy she is instrumental in changing solas's mind. i loved her dragon appearance even if she was useless in the damn fight lol. morrigan mythal sucked tho but thats for later

similar vein but the main quests were fantastic, with a few caveats. but overall every main quest had me hooked, having so much fun, at the edge of my seat and screaming and flailing in my chair. weisshaupt was incredible, BLOOD OF ARLATHAN WAS INSANE (the solas elgarnan bitch fight will go down in history as a moment of all time for me) and of course the finale was some of the best writing ive seen from bioware. the way suspense was built was well done, the stakes felt high, and the twists were interesting.

choice and consequence was absolutely banger. i gasped when i went back to dock town after leaving minrathous to fend for itself and saw a gallows with bodies hanging from nooses and piles of bodies in the streets. i gasped when harding died. i gasped when bellara got blighted. definitely the best choice and consequence in the entire franchise and it was very satisfying. i feel motivated to play again to see different options play out.

the environments are fucking insane. genuinely insane giga brained genius. i have never been so gagged by a video game like this. not only were they beautiful but they were well-designed, interesting and diverse. i rarely got bored anywhere (except treviso lol) and i was regularly picking my jaw up off the floor. some highlights for me were the anderfels area where you first meet davrin with that amazing vista, kal sharok, the docktown catacombs, pretty much anything in arlathan, the deep roads, and honestly so much. absolutely beautiful.

this game felt incredibly cinematic and the direction was fantastic. the cutscenes were so well done and they transitioned so smoothly into gameplay. the animation was fantastic, and everything was so engaging to watch. my favorite cutscene has to be when solas is about to switch places with rook and you see him in the background out of the corner of your eye twice, though rook doesnt know. i was literally screaming it was so fucking cool. it genuinely felt like watching a movie a lot of the time

i genuinely enjoyed the gameplay loop of exploration. i had a lot of fun just exploring around docktown and arlathan, there was always something new to find, i loved the puzzles, and i loved finding codex entries. this is a crazy thing to say but it actually reminded me a lot of genshin impact LMFAO. which i know a lot of people would probably consider to be a negative but i thought it was engaging and fun.

combat fucks. it got a little repetitive by the end, mostly because i think i just wanted to find out the end of the story and fucking darkspawn were in my way, but it was a huge step up from previous games and i think action combat was a good choice.

this game has an incredible amount of genuine heart and soul put into it and you can feel it in every facet of the game. i can tell that the devs were passionate and their creativity was genuine. i could feel their love for the characters and the world. this game is unflinchingly sincere and not afraid of being cringe (though it definitely is cringe at times, i respect the commitment to it so i dont mind it). it genuinely does not feel like an EA cash grab, which is a huge win considering how likely it was for years that a cash grab was exactly what we were going to get.

i enjoyed the varric ghost twist. i knew something was up with him but i didnt fully call him being dead until right before the reveal. i get why people are going to be upset about it, its a pretty fucking crazy decision, but i think what saves it is the quote he gives rook in the fade about his choices being his own and still encouraging rook to try to get through to solas despite being KILLED BY HIM.... fucking crazy. it ties in enough to the overall theme of regret and forgiveness that i think it works.

ok time for the negatives

its hard to pick my biggest issue but i definitely have a top 3: the lore flopped majorly, much of the writing felt juvenile, and there was an overall lack of nuance to everything about the game except for solas's storyline that did feel very not-dragon age to me

i actually dont give a fuck about lore retcons, especially if they are explained well. i think they are often necessary and can be pulled off. but this game literally just pretended to answer decades long questions about the lore and then does not. which would be fine if we didnt have someone who knows all the answers to those questions hanging out in our brains and willing to answer them. we did not learn what exactly a titan was. we did not learn what they were like when they were alive and before they were blighted. mythal called them monsters. harding suggests they might have been violent like the elves. we literally dont know anything about them except for what solas and mythal did to them. i dont think anyone even actually gave a clear answer on what the blight is. ok it was the titan's severed dreams but what the fuck does that mean? it was their rage and pain? then why does harding say the red lyrium manifested by her rage and pain was not blighted, just red? if blight equals titan nightmares then that lyrium should have been blighted? so what the fuck is the blight that ghilan'nain cooked with? red lyrium? how did the original darkspawn get made? did she start injecting people with red lyrium? but we know what that does to people because we saw it in inquisition. it makes them red lyrium freaks but it doesnt make them darskpawn. WHAT ARE DARKSPAWN? WHAT IS THE BLIGHT? did i miss this in a codex entry or something guys im so serious. how did we play this whole game and not actually learn what the blight is. we also learned almost nothing about the forgotten ones, which is fine except we literally met one and all they really had to say about it was "evil spirit" ? ok. also um. where are the rest of the evanuris. ok they are gone but where did they go. we know where their archdemons went, but where did they go? ghilan'nain exists separate from her archdemon so its not like killing an archdemon kills the evanuris, it just makes them vulnerable. should they not all be still alive in that prison together, just mortal and archdemon-less? they literally just say "they're gone" and expect us to be like ok! WHAT THE FUCK??? WHERE ARE THEY?? WHERE ARE THEIR BODIES??? WHAT??????? also the explanation for archdemons was boring. it felt like the team literally did not know the answers themselves (and didnt feel like calling up david gaider) so they just gave us vague non-answers hoping we wouldnt notice. I NOTICED.

similar vein; we learned nearly nothing about elgar'nan and ghilan'nain, and they overall felt cartoonishly evil and one-dimensional. and this is a greater problem that ill talk about next, but they were afforded none of the nuance that solas and mythal were given, and it feels glaring in comparison. why was elgarn'nan evil? was he just born fucking evil? we know thats not true. he originated as a spirit, what kind of spirit? what was his relationship with mythal like? what was his relationship to the other evanuris like? he calls ghilan'nain "sister", were they always close? did they become close in their prison? what are his goals beyond tyranny? or do you actually want me to believe he is just full stop evil? if he was one of the original spirit born elvhen what virtue did he embody and what polluted him into something so terrible? why does ghilan'nain love the blight? why is she obsessed with creation? we only get a single codex about she and andruil (that i found). what was her and solas's relationship like before she ascended to godhood? he calls her "the best of them" but we never see anything about their relationship. neither of them has any nuance. they are just pure evil, corrupted by ???? something ??? power??? i guess. and we are supposed to just be fine with it lol. what are even their motivations? why do they want to cover the world in blight? what is their emotional connection to this pursuit??????? we get such an exploration of this for solas and just NOTHING for them. they feel so one-dimensional in comparison, literal comic book cartoon character villains.

similarly, this game lacks nuance overall. bioware is known for its exploration of grey morality on both personal and sociopolitical levels. this game has that only for solas and literally no one else. qunari antaam? evil (super fucking racist depiction as well). venatori? evil minions. elven gods? evil. forgotten ones? evil. meanwhile, crows? suddenly good. its okay. just forget the MURDER, child slavery and abuse. seriously its fine. caterina dellamorte is a sweet old lady :) dont worry about it :). every faction is good and every antagonist is bad. its genuinely insane coming from the studio who gave us dragon age 2 to now give us something so fucking boring and black and white. they got SO CLOSE with the wardens and isseya and in the end davrin still kills her. why does solas get a chance at redemption and no one else does? here we are with an entire story centered around this morally grey character, interrogating whether or not his actions are justified, whether his intentions matter, whether his abuse informed his atrocities, asking ourselves if he deserves forgiveness asking if he deserves to be saved, where do we draw the line? what is the point of no return? why do people do the things they do? its fantastic. and then you go and do a faction or companion quest and its just like, these are the good guys and these are the bad guys. dont ask questions. have fun! WHAT???? FROM BIOWARE??????????

this issue bleeds over into the companions as well. i genuinely liked all of them. they are likable. but holy shit they have no flaws. all of them are genuinely good people and their problems center around others rather than themselves. there is little to no complexity, to the point where honestly they did not feel like real people to me. harding is sweet and perfect and her worst trait is being *checks notes* TOO AGREEABLE? davrin's worst flaw is raising his voice at his pet too much. emmrich's only flaw is FEARING DEATH LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING? neve is kind of cold. thats it. bellara never does anything wrong. lucanis doesnt sleep enough? taash is the closes they come to any sort of complexity and i did genuinely enjoy their identity struggle and i loved seeing their complex relationship with their mother. but none of those are flaws. like these characters are cookie-cutter perfect. we used to have companions who committed acts of terror and blood mages and mean jealous little brothers and did horrible things and said horrible things to each other and struggled with things like internalized racism and complacency in violent corrupt institutions and addiction and facing your fucking war crimes and they are some of the most beloved of the franchise because they feel SO REAL. like genuinely going from characters like anders and blackwall to these companions was so jarring and disappointng. i LIKE them all, dont get me wrong. but they do not act like real, complex fully fleshed out people, and the writing overall suffers greatly for it.

again connected, the writing in terms of literal dialogue but also what i mentioned above comes together to feel incredibly juvenile. i know some big reviewers beforehand said that the game feels like a pixar movie at times, and unfortunately i dont think thats inaccurate. a little harsh maybe, but there are moments that are truly written in such a way that it feels like the audience is children. and that doesnt mean its bad, because i am a lover of childrens media and most of my favorite media of all time is actually for kids (avatar the last airbender, fullmetal alchemist, etc), but this game oscillates back and forth so violently it will give you literal whiplash. it reminded me a lot of the way young adult fiction is written. GOOD young adult fiction, where its well-done, but its deliberately written to be simpler in both diction and theme and focuses on concepts that young people can identify with. this is how i felt during much of the companion quests during this game. again, it was GOOD young adult fiction, but it had the narrative styling and lack of nuance and complexity that is characteristic of such things, and that is just literally not what the game is supposed to be like. and there are great writing moments that do feel appropriately mature and complex, but they are mostly in the main quest and their presence makes the lack of maturity in the rest of the writing feel even more jarring. i have no idea why they wrote it this way.

morrigan's mythal flopped and was out of character. i missed flemeth's crazy ass. they literally nerfed her. i think this is connected to everyone being nice and good and perfect (no abusive mothers allowed!) which is crazy because the other mythal fragment got to be a crazy bitch. so what the hell

the lack of world states is still a major L. it felt like things were missing that should have been present and had no reason not to be other than just no worldstates. well of sorrows needed to be there ESPECIALLY considering the solas/mythal/lavellan dynamic.

this one is self-indulgence but solavellan could have benefited from better pacing. packing so much into act 3 made it feel rushed. i loved the scenes themselves, but there could have easily been more build-up with a few codex entries.

no fenris. i will never forgive

ok im running out of steam and actually feeling more able to sleep now (thank god). i know i said a lot of negatives but i actually believe this game is very, very good, especially within the context of its development. i think a lot of the issues likely do stem from their fraught development cycle, and overall they did a great job of identifying their priorities and pursuing them to the fullest. i dont necessarily agree with what they prioritized or what their vision was at all points, but i respect the clear direction that this game had. i do not believe it will stick with me the way the previous games did, and while playing i often found myself just missing the characters from 2 and inquisition that i love, and the writing that so often had me screaming crying throwing up and/or giggling and twirling my hair. however, this game gave me the #1 thing i wanted which was a satisfying solavellan conclusion, and though yes it could have been done a bit more... artfully, i think its incredible considering where we were just a few years ago with this game. i will play it again a few times, and the fact that it has sold well enough to guarantee bioware gets to stick around and make new games is a major win. 7.5/10 thank u for listening

[jeanvanjer]

Hi, I hope you don't mind the question, but do you have a list of (historical) romance novels you recommend somewhere? I'm pretty new to the genre and would like some recs to start off with.

Thank you!

Of course I dont mind! I dont have a list here (but if you check the book recs tag or reading romance im sure youd find books ive read or books friends have recommeded) so I'll just post a few here.

Fair warning! I am horrible of keeping track of the books I've read so my recs will be a just a bunch of random books I like. @mermaidsirennikita and @triviareads are far more organized in their book recs than I am so you can always check their pages.

Please let me know if you'd like specific tropes!! Or more importantly if you have any TWs!

The Chief (the entire Highland Guard series actually) by Monica McCarthy. Tor MacLeod is a highland laird very much focused on helping Robert the Bruce with his secret plan to free Scotland from English Rule but his sudden marriage to sweet Tina is distracting him. They're forced to marry after she's found in his bed (her dad blackmailed her into getting herself ruined instead of her sister). The entire series is honestly a banger. It marries actual history with romance in a very clever way. The Chief is 1 of 12 so you have a lot of different tropes and stories to choose from if this one isnt for you!

Convergence of Desire by Felicity Niven - A TRULY WONDERFUL book with great disability rep. Harry (Harriet) is probably the biggest STEM heroine Ive read in HR (I know you love those based on your writing) and is on the spectrum. On paper Thomas is a rake that cannot fathom committing to only one woman but he needs to marry for money fast and she just wants to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. They enter a marriage of convenience and this book is just plain lovely. The very few books that have made me cry. Its emotional and the relationship that builds between these two is just🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽

The Winter King and The Sea King by CL Wilson. CL Wilson is an amazing writing imo. I haven't read romantasy since high school and these books were the first ive read and enjoyed after such a long time. The first book is a marriage of convenience/ forced marriage situation. Her brother killed his brother and fiance?? I dont remember the specifics. But he wants a bride as payment and Thasin (our herione) father is an ass and decided TW there is dubcon. The first sex scene is the wedding night and there are aphrodiacs involved. Second one Dilys is a merman. Thats always fun. Super feminist too. Dont remember the exact details but did have a great time reading this one too.

The Duke Gets Even by Johanna Shupe. Shupe is a great writer and from the very few books I've read of her, The Duke Gets Even is probably my favorite.

Anything by Lorraine Heath but the most recent book I remember reading is The Duchess Hunt where the hero appoints his secretary (who secretly loves him) to find his a wife. Preferably one who is as organized, wonderful, and knows him as much as she does LOL. Lorraine one of the best writers in the genre and they always hit emotionally. You won’t go wrong with anything by her.

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas. An all time favorite book of mine. Think Persuasion but with a revenge plot. Aline drives McKenna away when they were younger to save him and he comes back a rich ass bitch ready for revenge. The chemistry between Aline and McKenna is insane. One of the few times I truly believed the “soulmates” thing. These two are definitely soulmates. And there’s a wonderful secondary romance as well.

What I Did For a Duke by Julie Anne Long. An Age Gap romance where Alexander plans to seduce Genevieve as revenge against her brother (who slept with his mistress) but she susses him out quickly from there they become sort of friends? he helps her win over her crush, he tells her she has stars in her hair, and along the way they fall in love. Alex is one of my all time favorite heroes.

Lord Of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase. As much as I love the hero of this book, Dan I recommend this book a lot solely for the heroine. Jessica Trent has my heart. She is that bitch.

Heartless Duke by Scarlett Scott. An intense romance between Leo, an agent for England and Bridgit, a fenian rebel. Lots of angst and sexual tension. So good.

Lost in Your Arms and That Scandalous Evening by Christina Dodd. These books were one of the first books I read when I started my own reading journey so these hold a special place in my heart. LIYA is about Enid who’s living her life as a widowed caretaker but then someone comes to tell her husband is alive and on the brink of death so she’s forced to nurse him back to health. The love confession that happens is honestly one of my favorite confessions of all time. TSE is about Jane who is back from self imposed exile after a scandal that ruined her ten years back. Ransom, the cause of her scandal and her last crush, suspects of being a spy and tries to stop her. With his heart (and dick).

[vechter]

thoughts on girldad dick grayson? god it holds such a special place in my heart i could talk about it for agess! also i think dick wanting to start a family eventually but his life always being too "unstable" is really interesting. dc had SO MANY opportunities to give this man a daughter but its only canon in elseworlds! i dont wanna take away from roys whole shtick but dick having daughters would be such a fun direction to go in if its written while. like he would definitely mess up and have a lot of problems but he would love with his whole heart. a fic ive always wanted to read is a different ending with sophia or even dick getting to keep the grayson desert baby and raising it like ahhh chewing on my nails.

also any headcanons on dick + rose + sophia or dick and olivia desmond or the grayson desert baby? BASICALLY ANY HCS OF DICK WITH A DAUGHTER(S) AAA.

ur gonna wanna kill me for this but in most of my imaginings before n52, a biological daughter is not in the cards for dick. one of my fav headcanons for dick is long-term consequences of being at ground zero during chemo (briefly talk about this here). so, a possible consequence for that is sterility. i need him to have crazy feelings about being the last flying grayson.

but to answer your question properly, i think dick adopting a girl could be soooo interesting if done by someone other than taylor (olivia desmond who). just look at how hard his dynamic goes with sophia tevis.

if we veer into headcanon territory for this:

one of my fav ideas would be dick keeping in touch with sophia after blüdhaven got nuked (briefly talk about this here). possibly during the one year later arc... maybe he takes sophia to new york with him (instead of his no stakes arc of being on yachts with tim & bruce lol). he doesn't send her to boarding school immediately and instead, they spend time trying to recover from the shit-show their lives have been recently.

oooh, maybe a rlly fun arc where sophia gets past her hero worship/crush and properly considers dick's role in what happened to her family... which wars with how much she knows he cares about her (how he visited her at the halfway house, how he saved her from chemo, how he made sure she healed from the radiation). shared grief over how their fathers loved them but often failed them.

you can have some great rose stuff here too. instead of joining the teen titans, she follows dick to new york and ends up becoming a regular presence in his shitty little apartment where she bullies dick about how he lives. she gets to know sophia and comes to care for her. maybe a kidnapping plot where she's the one who saves sophia from some mobsters who didn't get the tevis family memo.

a lot of bullying from the og titans (esp donna and roy who are also in new york) about dick essentially parenting two teenage girls. at dick's insistence, rose hesitantly reaches out to people she sort of let down during her evil era but only after she pulls an uno reverse on dick saying she'll only do it if he does it. she mocks him a lot by calling him 'renegade'. it never fails to make sophia laugh who calls him 'crutches' occasionally too.

sophia eventually joins a public high school in new york. dick and rose make rlly embarrassing banners for her graduation only for sophia to mock them saying wow look at how much you care... aren't you embarrassed?

also, i love the desert baby arc soooo much but i think the weight of dick saving this little girl + all the costs he bore to make that happen... is much more impactful if he never meets her again. maybe he does occasionally check up on how she's doing (is she loved? is she safe?) but only from a distance. the people who adopt her often get random tidbits of information about raising a meta-human and the family collectively refers to dick as their guardian angel.

i would be remiss if i didn't mention mar'i grayson bc she had me hooked with just that cameo in titans '99.

ur right anon... dick should be a girldad.

[lizzyaka]

I hadn't seen your blog since ages!!! And I really do love your takes because they are so different from others (and sometimes me too)

I did make a post about that Bunny wasn't sad about the farmer dying. It is how I interpreted it from the book. I do think Bunny was gonna eventually tell the police about it. I just don't necessarily think it was because he felt bad for the farmer's death. It was HIS friends who killed the farmer and that's what made him feel so guilty and go down the spiral.

If he was in the bacchanal with them and they had all accidentally killed the farmer, Bunny's not the type of person to turn himself in. He WOULD have done the same. He would have tried to save himself. He wouldn't have minded then if the farmer had died because he himself was involved in it

Even if this a hypothetical situation as you said, we don't know how Bunny will react to it.

It is clear he is more human than all the others and more capable of feeling remorse and empathy. But that doesn't mean in a situation where he is going to jail, he won't try to cover it up.

He will definitely feel more guilty than all the others did

They just went "oh well, what can we do"

Bunny would have eventually spilled the beans because of the humanity in him. Maybe to his gf or friends or anyone. Like he told Richard.

Bunny is STILL NOT morally superior in my eyes just because he wasn't directly involved in murder. It is because he wasn't involved that it makes it so much more grey.

We don't know a lot about Bunny in general.

What if he was involved in the death? Wouldn't he be in the same plane as them?

In this case they wouldn't kill Bunny, and they all would be in the same situation. Henry didn't kill Bunny cuz he was a sociopath.

They seem worse than him because they killed him but if they didn't, we won't consider them worse.

He would have done the same as they did but with more guilt and remorse.

To me it seemed like Bunny wasn't upset the farmer died but he was upset that his friends killed him, lied to him and hid their crime, that made him feel an intense amount of guilt on behalf of them.

That's all I want to say.

(I don't agree with all your opinions on TSH but I don't mean to hate on it 😭😭😭😭. I saw the post of you calling me out and felt I needed to explain myself. Again, I just wanted to give my opinions on Bunny, I know he is more hated than the rest and it's BAD. It's just we see so little of Bunny being good that you can't blame people for not liking him. My opinions of him have softened each time I re-read the book and he definitely didn't deserve to die as some people say)

Sorry for the long ask lol, I just had a lot of emotions 🤧🤧🤧

Im so sorry for the late reply really ive been suuuper drained and ive been waiting until i get my energy back to reply but days have passed and im still mentally and physically worn out and i just feel rude at this point😭 i really wish i could give a longggg reply bc i love yapping about tsh but theres a stopper in my brain that prevents the thoughts from flowing so ill leave this post here where i talk in length about this topic and why i dont think bunny could have ever been involved in the murder.

Anddd i dont blame people for not liking bunny!!! I think thats a very valid opinion. I dont think hes a good person but i love his character

And tysm for what u said abt my blog! I loveeee hearing opinions that differ from mine so pls feel free to debate me on my takes i find it really enjoyable <3 my interpretation of the book is after all just an interpretation and i love hearing how other people come to different conclusions based on the same text

And wdym by the post i called u out on? Im kinda confused on that bc i dont remember having called anyone out on my blog 😭 but sorry if u somehow felt attacked by one of my posts, it def wasnt my intention

[hyperanaemia]

Sorry, I don't mean to disappear for months, but I've been getting back into reading comics after taking a super long break to play bg3. So, I've finally gotten around to reading the Knight Terrors: Robin issues that have been sitting in my 'to read' box months after they've been relevant. I’m sure everyone else had a bunch to say when it came out but here’s my two cents. 

The issues just really fall flat to me. Like, I wasn't expecting a two-shot to be a deep dive into Tim's dead-dad trauma or anything, but I do feel like it misses what the core fear/horror that surrounds Jack's death is. 

Like, the KT issues posset that what Tim fears the most is failing to save people, with his dad's death being the figurehead of that. That this failure is what makes him unworthy of being Robin. I'm not going to say that isn't true, that reasoning definitely factors into Tim's trauma. But it also just feels basic to me.

Like, 'failing to save a loved one' is one of the most basic superhero tropes at this point. I'd be hard pressed to think of a hero who hasn't failed to save someone they know. It might as well be a rite of passage.  

(In fact, here's a panel of Tim thinking as such about his parents in an issue literally called Rites of Passage.) 

Also, Tim has already had a 'crisis of faith' arc after failing to save someone with the character of Eldon Adams (Young El). It had a very big impact on Tim and the fallout of that lasted for several issues.

Identity Crisis certainly has its flaws and at times I question the need to kill off Jack in the first place. But, to me anyway, Jack's death is beautifully written and manages to tie his and Tim's decades-long storyline off in an interesting way. 

The important point to make about Tim in relation to all this is that he chooses to be Robin. He was never picked, he was never fated, he was not born to do it. Robin is something he actively chooses to be. At first, it's an easy choice to make. Tim reasons that since his parents are off doing their own thing it won’t be an issue if he’s gone all the time. But, as time goes on, Jack starts spending more time at home, wanting to spend more time with Tim. The issue "resolves" in this instance by having Jack's time get taken up when he starts dating Dana Winters. But this tension continues to be a major subplot throughout Tim’s series. Tim and Jack’s already strained relationship is constantly made worse by Robin.     

Tim feels guilty that his duty as Robin keeps getting in the way of his relationships. Tim's friends like Ives and Ariana are constantly stood up or brushed aside. Anything that ties Tim to the normal life he used to have is always being balanced against Robin. And for as much as Tim tries to maintain it, for as much as he says his normal life is what keeps him grounded when push comes to shove Tim always ends up choosing Robin.  

The thing that makes Jack's death different from all the other parental deaths in the Batfam, and the Identity Crisis did right, is that they made it a direct consequence of Tim choosing to be Robin. Bruce's parents were killed at random. Dick's were targeted in a situation outside of his control. Jason's mother was killed for her involvement with the Joker, which started before he even met her (and his dad with Two-Face).  

Jack was killed because his son was Robin. In Identity Crisis, Jean Loring targets the family members of heroes. She never would have hired Captain Boomerang to kill Jack if Tim wasn't Robin.  

(Obviously, none of this is to minimize any of these characters' pain or to say one is worse than another.)   

The added twist of the knife is that Tim had been spending that week with Jack instead of helping everyone find the killer. It's the one night that Tim chooses to go out as Robin again that Jack is killed. If Tim had stayed just one more night, even just one more hour, he could have saved his dad. And Jack lets him go because he knows how important Robin is to Tim.

This is more of an aside, I love this sequence of Tim ripping off his Robin uniform. Like obviously the intention is that Tim can't be seen wearing it when the police arrive. But the subtext to me reads that Tim is ripping Robin off, this thing that's come between them at every moment. Tim, before he even knows if Jack is alive or dead, doesn't want Robin to come between them anymore.

And Jack's death is something of a 'point of no return' for Tim. Before this, many of the people who know Tim is Robin have pointed out that he could always return to a normal life if he wanted to. Tim himself believes that he'll probably retire being Robin at some point. (I have my own thoughts that aren't relevant here about how that's more about him being practical as opposed to his genuine wish for his future, but I digress.) But after this, Tim is locked into the vigilante life. There's nothing normal he could return to. If he can’t be good at this, then what was the point? 

KT Robin just feels uninspired. It doesn't try to extract what makes Jack's death unique or interesting. It just picks the most surface-level takeaway you could have from it. Like, it's not just about being not good enough for the job. It's losing everything because you chose to do this job and you still don't know if you're good enough to do it.

[liverpool-enjoyer]

footballers as taylor swift songs

requested by my swiftie in Christ @yudgefudge!! thank you luv <3

leo: you're on your own, kid. ive been associating him w this song way before i knew that everyone else was doing the same lmao. it rlly does encompass his entire journey, from humble beginnings n jus being a little kid playing for fun (from sprinkler splashes/to fireplace ashes), to being the best in the world n all the struggles that come with it (i search the party.../just to learn that my dreams arent rare). the man gave his blood sweat n tears like hed be saved by a the "perfect kiss" which here is a metaphor for the wc obviously. n ohmygosh "everything you lose is a step you take"!!!! BRUH???!?!?! every line, from "i didnt chose this town (ie paris)/i dream of getting out/theres just one who could make me stay", to "the jokes werent funny, i took the money/my friends from home dont know what to say" are all SO leo coded.

ney: anti-hero. i ADORE him n theres a lot of people that like him. but theres also a lot of people who like not liking him. hes one of the best in the world, and as great as that is, he has, unjustifiably so, garnered a significant amount of haters (its me, hi, im the problem, its me/at tea time, everybody agrees). hes rlly endured a ton of it throughout the years, but keeps going (pierced through the heart/but never killed). after facing so much backlash, youd probly worry about the people that still support you and how much longer you can hold on to that (one day i'll watch as youre leaving/and life will lose all its meaning). also, hes a rich person. which makes the bridge pretty relatable for him but like in a funny way.

gavi: nothing new. this one is more based off my inner musings than actual like evidence. i have no idea whats going on this lil dudes head. but i know that IF i were in his position, i'd relate to this song a FUCK TON. its basically a song abt being in the spotlight, n being the shiny young thing that has peoples attention. but what happens when thats not true anymore? (Lord, what will become of me/once ive lost my novelty?) what happens in a few years when an even younger prodigy comes around n impresses everyone? (are we only biding time 'til i lose your attention?/and someone else lights up the room?/people love an ingénue). im not gonna write down the whole birdge but its basically abt the inevitably of meeting your replacement. the song basically asks: "will you still want me/when im nothing new?" he seems like a happy dude who probly doesnt think abt this stuff, but if i were a famous promising young soccer player, this stuff would definitely weigh on my mind.

muller: the story of us. Lord forgive my mullendowski heart. i tried to think of a song that would fit jus him n leave shipping out of it but,,, yeah it wasnt happening. in my mind theyre a package deal. anywho the song's about being around someone youre still in love with after youve broken up (now im standing alone in a crowded room/and we're not speaking and im dying to know/is it killing you like its killing me). ik theyre on good terms n all but in my mindbrain i imagine him them being in the same place for the first time since lewy left him bayern and poor thomas jus "nervously pulling at my clothes/and trying to look busy." and my gosh "but you held your pride like you shouldve held me"??? the AUDACITY. i can go off about this whole song tbh. oh n also even tho speak nows a country album this song is kinda,,, rock/punk-ish kinda??? which is to say, its very loud. much like a certain someone. fun fact i almost put seven for him bc of "before i learned civility/i used to scream ferociously/anytime i wanted" but i figured one line wasnt enough for me to put the whole song.

mbappe: evermore. this is a brooding song. a depression song. so i can definitely see this as a post 2022 world cup final song for him. it actually relates to a sports loss very well. (i used to listen to this song n think a oikawa from haikyuu,,, heh). if theres one thing abt mbappe its that hes dedicated. i can see him "replay(ing) my footsteps on each stepping stone/trying to find the one where i went wrong," yknow, jus thinking abt the final over n over. very "i rewind the tape but all it does is pause/on the very moment all was lost." but at the end of it all, hes young, hes talented, n has more world cups ahead of him. ie: "i had a feeling so peculiar/this pain wouldnt be for/evermore."

klopp: dear reader. this whole song is just advice. its taylor dishing out advice to her fans, most of whom are younger than her. kloppo loves his players, he wants to give them good advice that applies not only on the pitch, but off it as well. (dear reader/bend when you can, snap when you have to/dear reader/you dont have to answer, just cause they asked you) however its no secret that our lovely manager can be pretty hard on himself. so its possible that while he gives advice to those he loves, he feels like hes not worthy of giving it (you wouldnt take my word for it/if you knew who was talking).

again, everything stated is speculation, fueled entirely by my delusional lil mindbrain. as i dont know these ppl.

[kitsunefaux]

Hey!! Anon cause I'm shy, but I'm a big fan of your writing! Ive left some guest kudos on your fics and am always waiting patiently for the next update! I was wondering if you had any recommendations for fics since you seem like the type to have good taste... I'd love to read more stuff that reminds me of your work!

Hey! Thank you! I definitely do have some recommendations I’d like to share. These are in no particular order.

Ryou-centric (and/or tendershipping)

Corruption by firetrap

After seeing the pharaoh off to the underworld, Ryou comes home to find that his own spirit hadn’t left like he thought.

The Last Puzzle by tenderwulf

11 years after the Ceremonial Duel, Atem and Bakura inexplicably find themselves back in Domino. When they meet their previous hosts, they realize how much things have changed: Yuugi, the now world-renowned King of Games, is going through a marriage crisis, Ryou is struggling to balance studies, work, and his brittle mental health, and Malik... well, Malik is living his best life—and his own yami is nowhere to be seen.

They soon realize they all have to work together in order to solve the mystery of the yamis' return: some to make sure that they stay, and some to make sure that they don't.

Haunted by Ehtar

Ever since receiving a strange artifact from his father, Ryou Bakura’s life has changed. He gains the friends he’s always wanted, and the bullies are disappearing. At night, though, he dreams of the life of a thief in ancient Egypt. A young boy who was the sole survivor of his village’s slaughter, who must turn to thievery and worse in order to survive on his own.

Ryou knows that something is wrong when his friends begin to fall to the same malady as the bullies, that something is wrong with him. It’s not until he makes some new friends in Domino City, including a boy who has an artifact similar to his own, that he realizes he harbors the soul of that thief within himself – that he’s been possessed for years by the spirit of a killer.

He should rid himself of the evil spirit, save himself and those around him. The only trouble is, now he doesn’t know where one of their souls begins and the other ends. After so long, he’s not even sure he would reject the spirit if he could. After all, no one knows him so well as the spirit that haunts him.

Cornered by YadonushiRyou

Life is different for Private Investigator Ryou after a too close encounter with a maniacal killer. Ryou has to deal with physical and mental scars, navigating through life only to find that he can’t forget Bakura as easily as he would have liked. His partner Malik tries to help him along the way, but things between them are much different than they used to be, causing tension in their close relationship. Meanwhile, time is running out when it seems the killer on the loose has already chosen his next victim.

An Unwhole Half by SheIsHoldingACat

The problem with being one half of a whole is that the other half has to agree. The problem comes when the other half wants it all to itself.

Or:,

Ryou wishes he had the bond with his spirit that Yugi has. He wishes it was possible.

Philosophy of a Knife by crushedmary

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Ryou learns this the hard way when he becomes the vessel for Zorc's power.

A canon rewrite where Bakura wins.

Other Yugioh

Gratitude by Resuri

Amir is an assassin. His job is easy. Someone give him a target, he kills them, and he gets paid for it. Not to mention he is really good at it. However, never could he had imagined his job would have him to be acknowledged by the most beautiful and horrific creature he ever saw.

But, hey, Ryou just wants to thank him for the meals!

Our Scars remind Us that the Past was Real by Sesshy380

Imagine waking up, and everyone is trying to convince you that the things you 'remember’ never happened, and that those 'memories’ exist only in YOUR head. The Thief King doesn’t have to imagine…because that’s exactly what happened.

-or-

The Thief King get’s a second chance at life.

Martyrs by SheIsHoldingACat

the history of the shadow games extends three-thousand years, to Ancient Egypt...

~

A rewrite of the events of Memory World, with emphasis on moral greyness, political intrigue, and the premise that Thief King Bakura was entirely justified

These are a few of the fics I really like. Thank you for your ask!

@resuri-art @worldendercharles @tenderwulf @crush3dmary @sesshy380 @millenniumringg

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

I feel like how quick Hart switches sides might be something that doesn't work for some people but I love it so much. He starts out as an averagely decent person, a bit snarky about his subordinates but how does one keep from going mad over the winters if not by cracking the occasional snarky quip about the other residents of Fort Spencer, he goes out of his way to try to make newcomer Boyd feel included, he keeps the fort functioning on a minimal level but doesn't have too high standards--which you could see as a good or bad thing, I feel like Reich would want there to be higher standards and more discipline, but this is Fort Spencer at the edge of buttfucknowhere, the place where fail soldiers get sent to rot, they're not important and Hart knows it and it seems like he mostly leaves everyone alone to do as they please. But he takes command when necessary, getting everyone together to look for and then care for Colqhoun and then organizing the attempted cave rescue. He doesn't seem overly worried about the supernatural but also isn't stupid about it and takes the precaution of tying Colqhoun up when he starts exhibiting some bloodlusty behaviors. He studies "classical" ancient languages as well as the languages of the local Native Americans. He's a neat character.

And then he gets stabbed multiple times! He starts to die, he knows he's dying and he panics. Ives feeds him and he accepts what cannibalism offers him wholeheartedly. Not just not dying, but a complete and rapid recovery, strength, health, better eyesight, his hair starts to un-grey. And he just has to kill people! So he kills people! He kills and helps cook at least two of his own men and is downright jolly about it! This guy just had a traumatizing near death experience during which everyone else in his party either died or disappeared and now Ives is like "I've saved your life. Join my cannibalism club™" and he does. He does do that.

The way he tells Boyd that by the time he was conscious enough to understand what was happening it was already too late says a lot to me. I think he wants to believe he has no agency in the cannibalism so he doesn't feel guilt about it. So he's deep deep in denial until that talk with Boyd, thus the outburst, and then finally he really looks at what's going on and he's like. No yeah you're right I can't keep doing this. Please kill me I can't keep living at the expense of others.

The fact that while he was coughing up blood and actively dying at the cave he encouraged Boyd to leave him behind and go try to save Toffler from Ives, and then later on he definitely ate Toffler...

It just all makes sense to me. He's a very human character, with moments of cowardice and of heroism. And I really like the acceptance of death framed as something heroic. And this is not long after an extremely painful and traumatizing first death! He willingly chooses to die a second time rather than keep living the way he's been living. I love him.

[v-arbellanaris]

Re the power struggle between the Grey Wardens and the Chantry. You can also snatch Anders right from the templars grasp and it's possible that a big reason why he's left alone in DA2 is because he's a Grey Warden. Anders hardly makes his actions in DA2 a secret. He is loudly rebelling, yet the templars leave him alone.

That's why the whole Warden arc in DAI makes no sense. The Chantry and kingdoms of Thedas have no authority over the Wardens, but an upstart order who is effectively nothing but a branch of the Chantry does?

YES! i started writing the post abt the wardens in the middle of collating more info about it but i was so gobsmacked at how much there was just pre-ostagar that i wrote the post before getting to the rest of the series and then the post blew up LMAO

i think part of anders not getting snatched up by templars when he's in the party with you is just nonsense mechanics stuff (they should've had a quest like they did in dao -- tho i think that quest was deleted lmao -- where if you try hand morrigan over to the templars, she leaves the party permanently, or even like in lothering where they can ask that templar what he'd do with an apostate and he susses out that you and morrigan are mages and goes "ive got bigger problems than apostates atm") BUT there is dialogue & quest stuff confirming that the templars raid darktown fairly often looking for him outside of whenever he comes on quests with you, so i dont think he was untouched because he was a warden.

if anything, i think him being a circle mage seemed to be more important than him being a warden since the chantry explicitly sends templars after him while he's with the wardens. to repeat: the chantry sends templars to hunt down warden mages, which is fucking illegal. wardens exist outside of the jurisdiction of the chantry! they have no right to drag warden mages into the circle, even if the warden mage was originally an apostate OR if they were a circle mage. AND justinia was canonically looking for the warden to become inquisitor before she sent cassandra looking for hawke -- the implications for a surana/amell are pretty horrifying.

i hated HLTA for so many reasons, but mostly, i hated it because it justified the inquisition taking action against the wardens, as if they had a right to it. "we're going to stop the wardens from summoning demons to fight the darkspawn and kill the archdemons" and that's a bad thing because Summoning Demons Is Bad, as if blood magic isn't the most effective thing against darkspawn (which! considering the implications of red lyrium being magic repelling is so fascinating. does being a grey warden mean some of your connection to the fade is messed up???). as if wanting to end the blights is bad -- we have solas calling the wardens ignorant and stupid as if the wardens killing archdemons and fighting darkspawn isn't the only thing that has saved the world every time a blight has erupted. and it pisses me off that no real reason is ever given for WHY it's a bad idea, we're just supposed to take it at face value that because solas, an elven god who definitely knows more than we do just trust bioware ok, says its a bad idea, it's a bad idea. the warden's plan is a bad thing because Someone Else Will Use The Demons To Take Over The World and Only The Wardens Could Ever Summon This Many Demons as if kirkwall doesn't have shades popping up outside of the hanged man every other day. corypheus was literally in kirkwall???

it would've been something if corypheus was using the wardens to get the location of the archdemons. wouldn't it tie into his crisis of faith and the sense of danger so much more? he's gone looking for his gods but raising them is definitely going to cause a double blight. but why bother raising the stakes or creating any level of danger for corypheus, right? that's not the point of the game :)

and yeah, the inquisition 100% has no authority or leg to stand on to engage with the wardens or even to kick them out of orlais. yet the quest -- and most of the game -- is framed in such a way that these actions seem justified. in general, this quest was a clumsy way to end a conflict that's been building over the course of the entire franchise -- which can be said about any of the longstanding conflicts addressed in dai tbh.

[vacantgodling]

Another ask!! 🌚🌚 For the white shirts and the Virgin of Mt. Heredosa?

i was HOPING someone would ask about the white shirts cuz that’s the story i really wanted to just talk about lmao because honestly idk when i’ll ever commit to writing it but i have so many thoughts about it (cuz ive had this wip since an abandoned roleplay in middle school LMAOOOO)

so tw for Heavy spoilers of 2 of my wips and death, ambiguous and or slightly dubious (perhaps) relationships, sex, aaannnnnd manipulation or.. is it? 👀

THE WHITE SHIRTS

so, to fully explain the white shirts—it takes place at the tail end of an apocalyptic mega event (removed by a few decades). prosper and jane morning (twins) were born during this time and live in a small town in what was once middle-america where fires are frequent and the HQ of their “village” is out of a gutted old fire department building from the before times. jane is more of an optimist while prosper is more of a pessimist but they care for each other fiercely; they’re attached at the hip. all of this changes when the titular White Shirts (dubbed this by jane) come to their town in sleek black lincoln town cars (from the old days), white button downs, shades, and slacks. they also have machine guns and uHHHHH unfortunately slaughter everyone in the town. prop and jane manage to escape this random violent act, however, they are pursued because no one was supposed to make it out alive and tbh they don’t even know why they’re being hunted. when they manage to make it to one of the abandoned “old days” cities, they run into someone else who’s alive: a boy named marin. and i want to specify ages now, prop & jane are 16 and marin is 19 — and that “slight” age gap is important tm. anyway prop doesn’t trust marin immediately but jane is softened by the fact that marin is injured AND he knows that they’re running from the white shirts because he is too. it turns out marin came from what was once california and has been running from the white shirts ever since because he Also wasn’t supposed to escape. he calls them something else but quickly adopts the name white shirts like jane. prop doesn’t want him traveling with them but they’re forced to worry about that later when the white shirts descend upon them and they have to flee again, marin’s smarts proving to be very useful (since prop and jane were p sheltered. well, sheltered for an apocalypse anyway). marin tells them that his goal is to head to the east coast to get on a ship that goes to the rest of the world to try and escape the white shirts and with no other plan, prop and jane decide to follow him. during this time, the three become close. ish. jane is definitely the glue that holds them together but prop and marin definitely have TENSION, which ends with them making out at one point while jane is off … idk somewhere. she volunteered to find supplies or something bc it’s possible prop is also injured by this point whatever. it’s fucked tho bc while they’re making out and jane is off, she’s captured by white shirts and long story short she ends up being killed which nearly breaks prop. but marin keeps pushing him and them to make it to the coast bc he’s like listen jane wouldn’t want you to stop she would want us to escape, and prop is all she would’ve wanted me to save her it’s a mess. marin uses the newly established physical nature of their relationship to distract prop and keep him from the deepest throes of grief and they keep pushing to make it to the coast, managing to hop on a still working train line heading there. the train is hijacked by white shirts and more pandemonium ensues, which ends up with prop deciding he’s going to blow up the train and he pushes marin into the main engine after kissing him a final time, saying he’s going to see jane. it’s clearly implied he dies in the explosion, and marin continues on, making it to the east coast. when there, he sees how much more advanced it is than the west coast and middle america and he’s able to gain passage to a ship to europe. the book would end with some line referencing prop’s name (prosper) and would end ambiguously cuz you dk what happens fully to marin.

so, there’s a lot of STUFF going on with this story, and a lot of things that i know will make people FEEL some type of way and part of that's the point. there's a reason that marin is purposefully older than prop and jane: i want him to feel ambiguous and i want the reader to be more on the side of prop who are somewhat suspicious of him. none of marin's actions FULLY make it so that he's a bad guy; like he still goes out of his way to help prop and jane and he genuinely grows to care about the two of them, but i want it to still be left ambiguous at the end if he decided to travel with prop and jane so that he could use them as meat shields to get to the coast? type energy yknow. the fact that he and prop have a physical relationship as well with somewhat dubcon vibes after jane's death is also a thing bc prop is consenting to the stuff that they do but he's also completely grief-stricken. and while 16 adn 19 is only three years i KNOW people are going to argue that its a problematic age gap and tbh i want that bc it adds credibility to marin being an enigma of a character. i want people to not know what to think of him because all we know about him (aside from his actions) are all based on what he tells us. we never get flashbacks to his backstory, and maybe some of the things he said are a bit contradictory and that's part of it. its also the fact that we end the story with marin. the guy we know nothing really about after watching the twins go through it and inadvertedly save his life time after time even since they first met, yet it seems like he almost dragged them into this.

but at the same time you remember that prop and jane were being hunted anyway. that marin in the beginning offers to go his own way, and refuses jane's help but she insists. that jane insists to go foraging on her own because she doesn't want to be a burden on the two of them that are already injured. that prop clings to marin, even if he pulls away because he's crying while their kissing because he wants to feel something. so imo you can argue that marin is also just a guy who is also stuck in a shitty situation just the same as them and unfortunately even though he tried to save them by bringing him with them, they weren't meant to live. obviously i am (as the author) a bit more sympathetic to marin BUT i really do like the ambiguity, just as i like the ambiguity of the white shirts in general. i'm never going to go into detail about what they want or why they're trying to hunt and kill them, that's not important. what's important is the relationship between these three characters, survivor's guilt, and how to power through grief, or let it consume you. yknow?

i also didn't realize it until now but its also definitely got some parallels to slavery and the black struggle bc all of the characters (prop, marin and jane) are black, meanwhile the white shirts along with wearing white shirts are also. well. yknow. its almost like a reverse underground railroad situation going from deep in america to the east coast to lands beyond on a boat. that was unintentional but it exists and sure you can look at it from that angle.

there's probably more i could ramble about because i have a lot of Thoughts about this wip i just unfortunately don't have the brain power to sit down and try to write it lol. maybe one day though!!

THE VIRGIN OF MOUNT HEREDOSA

this wip is a take on the "age old" question: if you were being sacrificed to a deity because you were a virgin, could you nullify your eligibility by no longer being a virgin?

nyoka is a xenabi, this universe's word for foreigner and came to this particular city (that is not named LMAO) when they were just a child because their parents were traveling merchants. unfortunately, their parents passed away during a plague at the time, and orphan nyoka was taken in by the sanctuary (or the religious body of the city). it seems like a kind gesture at first, but in actuality the caveat for them taking nyoka in is that they will be eventually sacrificed to the city's deities and so they have to adhere to a vegetarian diet and "keep pure" until its decided that its their time. unlike some of the other people who were "rescued" by the sanctuary, nyoka never adheres or converts to the religion in question and has been trying to find ways to escape being a sacrifice and they constantly get in trouble for sneaking out. one day in another attempt, they are stopped, caught, and then called before the council of elders where they learn that the next full moon, which is like a short amount of time (either 3-5 days or smthn) away, they're going to be thrown into the volcano as a sacrifice.

nyoka is freaking out. eating meat won't buy them time, they realize what they have to do is become not a virgin. after they learn this they are able to successfully sneak out the next day and during the daytime they meet a handsome spice merchant who is also a foreigner in this land. the two of them hit it off, though nyoka doesn't tell him of their predicament and the spice merchant offers them food. as the sun sets nyoka realizes they have to go to start their plan to become not a virgin and so they hurry off to the red light district. there, they manage to hide the fact that they're a sacrifice (all sacrifices are branded with magic so that people will know they are to be sacrificed) and sell themselves to a brothel for the night and they are quickly purchased when its discovered they're a virgin. when they're taken to a back room, the patron quickly discovers they're a sacrifice and flees, making a huge ruckus and nyoka is thrown out of the brothel (because people are terrified that if they taint a sacrifice that the gods will come for them). the sanctuary is called and nyoka is dragged back and locked in solitary confinement until they're supposed to die.

however, they manage to sneak out again despite the added restrictions but even still are late for their planned meeting with the spice merchant, the sun is nearly set. when they do meet, nyoka ends up breaking down and explaining everything that happened and how they're probably going to die tomorrow and the spice merchant offers to take nyoka back to his home since they "have nothing to live for". instead of going back into the city, the spice merchant leads them deep into the jungle until they are standing before a giant seemingly dilapidated mansion, however inside is warm and inviting. they talk and nyoka learns the spice merchant's name, verin. if they paid attention to the religion this would have perhaps tipped them off sooner because verin is the name of the god of destruction who was cast off of the volcano by the other gods in this city's religion. verin flirts openly with nyoka who doesn't seem to understand what he's hinting at, until finally, he laughs and asks them if they're too shy to ask for his help. nyoka doesn't understand and verin explains that if they no longer wish to be a virgin, he'd be happy to help them with that "problem" to save their life.

then they fuck PFFFF and while this happens, verin changes from a beautiful dark skinned man into a larger 4-armed, blue skinned deity and nyoka FINALLY puts together that he's not human LMAO. hashtag this is monster-fucker territory. but as they're yknow, nyoka's sacrifice mark disappears.

the next morning when they wake up, verin is still in his deity form and he does tell them that they're free the mark is gone, what will they do. nyoka isn't sure, but then decides that they want to travel with verin, and thus they head back into the city to get supplies for their trip. while there, they run into those from the sanctuary who have been looking for nyoka all night and when they try to grab them, nyoka informs them that they're no longer a virgin and thus can't be sacrificed. when its discovered their mark is gone, this enrages the head mother and she tries to kill nyoka, but verin steps in and stops her, burning the woman with acid. this is very reminiscent of stuff from their deity lore and the other nuns (or whatever) realize that he's verin the destroyer and thinks nyoka has been bewitched. nyoka shuts that shit down, says they love him, and throws their shoe at them until verin drags them away, laughing for how sweet it is for them to try and defend his honor. later that evening they've finished packing for their journey and then head off into the night to explore the rest of the world that nyoka has never seen.

this story is definitely a short story and technically i've started writing it. i may try to finish it soon cuz i get excited for it whenever i think about it BUT i dont wanna put too much pressure on myself to. its also supposed to feel folk-tale like! i love nyoka and verin they're so sweet and so good for each other <3

[aeirithgainsborough]

Honestly a TLOU2 about Abby going on her revenge journey and still having all her bonding time (or, you know, more) with whatstheirfaces and then... you know, basically giving her Ellie's arc, where she has to choose NOT to enact revenge against Joel... that would have been a good game.

oh definitely! if their goal was to parallel abby/lev’s journey with joel/ellie’s that would have worked SO much better. if we had met her on her journey TO jackson and travelled it with her and along the way she met lev and yara maybe trying to escape seattle and the seraphites (for a different reason plssss cus idk why we still have to have transphobia 20 years into an apocalypse) and there’d be that same arc but fleshed out and over a longer period than 2 fucking days (their day 1 together hardly counts lol) and through that bond growing abby begins to understand why joel saved ellie cus she’d do the same for this kid - in fact, she does in a way when she kills all her own people for him but it would have stuck better if a) it had been longer than a day to get her to that point of turning on the people she’s known and fought beside for years and b) we’d seen a moment of clarity like ohhhh now i get why he did it and why my revenge was unjust and wrong. it’s really amazing how they wanted to parallel abby and joel but they couldn’t even make that basic connection of abby gaining some clarity and ppl say it’s well written lmfao???!!! it was right there in front of them… but yeah anyway if she’d had that moment of understanding why joel did it and then be able to grapple with this revenge she’s set out on it would have been SO much better.

the issue is this. neil wanted to tell his story about abby. that in itself is not an issue. the issue is that bcus he wanted to pull in those big numbers, he decided ellie and joel needed to be a big part of the story too. the result is a ham fisted and heavy handed mess that doesn’t work narratively or structurally. the way it’s structured to accommodate for all the different parts makes it feel like such a slog to get through. ive played longer games that felt shorter to play than tlou2. and narratively it’s just a mess bcus the stories have been forced together in a way that doesn’t work and ends up being a hypocritical, unsubtle mess. if neil had just told a story about abby in which ellie and joel aren’t there in person (only in presence through abby’s journey) or are just there at the end when abby gets to jackson, it would have worked better narratively and structurally. and like fix the abby issues too pls - it’s extremely weird to be trying to make me sympathise with her when she’s so brutal (the way she killed joel, being sad she has no time to torture seraphites, the fact she’s top soldier in her authoritarian militia and has no qualms about wiping out a whole group and killing children etc) and generally unpleasant (horrible to mel, sleeps with owen when mel is pregnant, has a serious lack of empathy towards ellie ‘we let you live and you wasted it’ ok well u also killed someone clearly very important to her, maybe show remorse and empathy bcus losing ur dad was so painful to you?? again it’s wild the point of the game is to find empathy for abby when she behaves as she does). but again, if there’d been more than 3 days and we’d been able to see her grow and change from that person to a better person the way joel did, it just would have worked better.

[dayurno]

No but fr. Kandrew win. Let me EXPLAIN Gansey and Ronan to you (the characters that post is about) so you can know how much

So Richard Campell Gansey III is a fancy rich boy who believes he has a Destiny™. He died once and a ghost told him has to find a Lost Ancient King and so he built his entire personality around that. Also he is going to die again but that's nbd

Ronan Lynch is an ANGRY rich boy. His dad was murdered a couple years back and his life has spiraled out of control since, including the dreams/nightmares he kind of brings to reality once in a while, and a lot of drag racing and other general bad ideas.

They are BEST friends. They go to the same private school. When Ronan was on his self-destruction spiral, Gansey saved him from being killed by a nightmare and they have been attached at the hip since. Ronan goes on countryside walks to satisfy Gansey's obsession. The only time Gansey, a famously moral person, did shady things was to keep Ronan on school and therefore by his side. He also punched a man to defend him once. They would die for each other.

There are more parallels than this but it would get too long. You can even cast Adam as Neil.

The best part of trc is that literally every relantioship is too unhinged not to be a little romantic. They are all canonically in love with each other

HAHA THIS WAS SO SERIOUS AND PASSIONATE youve convinced me anon youve already convinced me on the first line i believe in you! dearly and honestly!

because of this i did pick up trc again! i do have some thoughts so far and youre right adam can be cast as neil because they have a very interesting brand of self-flagellation and snark! also very observant and somehow detached from it? can't quite explain it but i really see it!

gansey oh well ive always liked him :) reading trc now ive really only grown more fond of him, hes smart and beautiful and gentle........ i dont know yet about him being anything alike kevin but i do really see how his little gangly pack of mutts' loyalty for him is alike to how andrew and neil (and jean!) look at kevin..... i think perhaps gansey is a manic pixie dream girl-fied version of kevin, which is not quite how he is in reality, but is definitely how the remains of the perfect court see kevin! so in a way they are the same. but more so kevin is a shadow of ganseys shadow if that makes sense

and for ronan i was surprised at how much i actually liked him! ive seen him going around on tumblr and well i need you to know i dont trust bald men or even men with buzzcuts so in my first read of him back in 2020 i didnt like ronan at all. now that im older and more mature and such i do like him a lot though! he is angry and child-like which i see in andrew, but because he is so undeniably 16 years old about it there is an earnestness to him andrew has since lost. nevertheless i really see how he trails after gansey like a puppy on a leash so yeah in the end. kandrew

as a final and perhaps funny consideration i think kevins trcsona might actually be blue.... a little gruff and clumsy and moved by a lot of guilt (im only on book one!) but still with a lot more bite than youd expect..... im not yet sure though. just throwing ideas around. for now lets stick to gansey

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

ok buckle up because I'm going to go on a Stargate Atlantis gush so long I'm not going to bother turning it pink

this series is EXACTLY WHAT IVE BEEN NEEDING ok ok listen yes it has scary monsters and fight scenes and blowing stuff up BUT it also has substantial fluff

we get to see the characters making a home in small ways from a favourite food in the cafeteria to rc car races in an unused hallway

THEY CALL THEMSELVES A FAMILY THATS MY LIFELINE A FOUND FAMILY CALLING THEMSELVES A FAMILY

the words "we can't tear this family apart" in life threatening situations give me life and they are said a bunch of times

the creators hate killing characters off as much as we hate losing them so a lot of mc deaths get "well, actually"d in a way that made sense (such as getting really upset that my fave Carson died only to have his clone be rescued half a season later and be reintegrated into the mc circulation)

and the series finale was AMAZING. spoiler alert skip this paragraph if you don't wanna read details about the finale. it gave a reasonably hefty threat for a finale, but everyone survived (other fave Ronan got well-actually'd and I'm thankful because he's the teddy bear protector and I would've cried) and found a home. atlantis is on earth, the family is together, and it ends with the well-loved all mc's are on a balcony overlooking a beautiful view and saying that theyre each other's home and there are always going to be other adventures. - end finale spoilers -

even the bad guys are personified. you mightve seen my post about Todd, and Todd is The Original Funnyman. this guy has the best sense of humour in the whole show. then there's Michael, and you feel for him. the replicators... uhh... yeah most of the replicators are unremarkable personality-wise, but hey they're robots.

now for mc's. this is a no-rodney mckay-hate blog, so if you say anything hateful about him I'll stab u. yes he's arrogant and a know-it-all and he thinks he's better than everyone and has the social skills of a stale cracker BUT he has GROWTH and is slowly RECOGNIZING AND TRYING TO TREAT PEOPLE BETTER and he's My Boi so fite me 9/10

Sheppard is hilarious and is responsible for the awful placeholder names for individual wraith. he has serious Burnt Out Gifted Kid Vibes and is definitely smarter than he lets on. atlantis crew is definitely the first Family he's had and feels safe with. I love him 11/10

Teyla is awesome and would absolutely kill for her adopted earth family. also turns out to be Best Mum 10/10

Ronan. my beloved puppy Ronan. played by the absolute unit that is Jason mamoa. he is a man of few words and many guns. atlantis crew saved him and he's the last of his people and now the base is His Home. Sheppard calls him "chewie" affectionately and Ronan smiles every time. 20/10 I would absolutely feel safe with him around

Dr Carson beckett. a Scotsman who will even try to heal his enemies. besties with Rodney McKay and keeps him in check. he's so lovable and sweet 11/10 his clone goes away for the Pegasus galaxy version of doctors without borders 9/10 I'm just glad he's back

Radek zelenka. his most common subtitle is [mutters in Czech] he's so soft and squishy I love him. he shares a braincell with Rodney and they finish each other's sentences it's like they're very competitive twins 10/10

Elizabeth weir. not quite the Mum but definitely the Older Sister In Charge. I miss you so much. rip 11/10

there are a lot more that I love but I'm just gonna leave it here. you should absolutely go watch it.

[blazerwyvernmaster]

FE10 Thought: Ike is boring in FE10

Ive been thinking about it and Ike is a lot less interesting in Radiant Dawn than Path of Radiance imo. He's at borderline Mary Sue territory.

Like I still love Ike but... mostly because of most of the stuff in Path of Radiance.

Radiant Dawn does so much to make you like him. And you do but... I don't think I remember seeing Ike have...a flaw. Or struggle that much really.

The Greil Mercenary's are much stronger than the other two parties.

They save Lucia(who I feel should've died/become too injured to fight) in one of the coolest scenes in the series.

Ike is the only one who can kill the final boss with that being the literal ONLY time that's happened in the history of the games as far as I know.

He gets two personal swords

Him Vs BK is still awesome to this day.

Etc etc...

It's...kinda a lot. He didn't really need this much to be cool. He already is/was in the first Tellius game.

He overshadowed Micaiah in what I feel like was her game, considering she IS on the box.

And everyone sorta hates her because of gameplay, and also FE10 bringing up the blood pact when it could've easily been told to us in FE9.

It also doesn't help that she dislikes Ike, even if she does have a reasonable explanation as to why.

Plus there's the whole branded/magic healing/cool background, but like... She's not really that much of a Mary Sue.

Imo a Mary Sue is someone who controls the entire setting they live in, bending the story and narrative to their will to make them likable. And she definitely doesn't do that.

I saw a video once saying you could remove her from the story entirely and nothing would really change, besides a few details here and there.

And even Ike doesn't bend the story too much, but a LOT is done to make you like him and his group more than the other people.

That's concludes my mini essay/rant/ whatever this is on FE10 is really wierd.

Back to your regularly scheduled...

Wait what do I even regularly do here-

[navire190413]

i am exhausted. i really need to stop drinking so much. i almost didnt make it into work today just because i wanted to sleep more. probably since i've been going to bed around 2 every night. i really gotta adjust my life style soon or i feel like there will be serious consequences somehow.

ive been considering giving up on x-chan. its been 4 months since we broke up, and then 3 months as "friends", where we're just doing this stupid game of ohhh we like eachother so much one week then dont like each other the next week, repeat. we met up after work yesterday and went to 神田 to go to 神田屋. idk why we even went there, x-chan hates chain izakayas. we only had one drink then decided to walk to 秋葉原。we found another chain izakaya to go to since they allow smoking at your seat. usually when we're together he always holds my hand, but he didnt reach for it at all last night, so i didnt reach for his either. i felt like, oh maybe its actually over now and we're just actually going to act like friends and not be all ラブラブ like we are most of the time. 

we left pretty early after having 2 mega lemon sours and some food. he was exhausted from work and was basically falling asleep at the table. we said bye and didnt kiss or anything. i went to my usual bar for a drink or two before going home. most of the usual people were there but i mostly just drank by myself and played with my phone. i was too exhausted and over thinking everything to even try to communicate in japanese. 

i texted x-chan while i was there saying i wanted to hold his hand earlier but didnt know if it was okay or not so i refrained. he told me its always okay and he likes when i do it, so i guess i will from now on. i also told him i still like him and after i got drunk i asked him to please tell me if he ever starts talking to a girl romantically so i can stop pursuing him out of respect for the both of them. he agreed, so i guess i should stop worrying about if he's talking to anyone until he tells me he is.��

my old drinking buddy ended up coming to the bar while i was there and we drank until 11:30, which is why im so fucking exhausted today. he's american from texas and has been in japan for less than a year. he's kind of sort of studying japanese but he hasnt really made much progress lately haha. he teaches english and is stuck in that terrible cycle. i couldnt do it. all of the people i know who are english teachers are miserable and on the verge of offing themselves. the pay is too low and their hours too long and they have weird ass fucking contracts with barely any time off. i definitely got lucky when i decided to go to language school. but also extremely lucky i had the means to save up for it and afford it. i love japan but i dont love it enough to become an english teacher just for a visa. i would absolutely move back to the states before i even considered teaching english as a job. which is why i was so panicked the entire time i was job hunting. 

im sure if i didnt come to work today it would have been fine, but i had a cold two weeks ago and something about me missing 3 days of work in a month when i just got my work visa 2 months ago doesnt sit right with me. i got ready in 10 minutes today so i could sleep in the max amount of time possible and didnt even bother with makeup. i really gotta get my shit togetherrrrrrr. x-chan also doesnt want to drink as much anymore and wants to save money, so if i stop hanging out with him as much i wont be drinking as much or spending as much money either. but if i dont hang out with him as much, he'll start hanging out with other girls! i dont think he will but my ocd is killing me. i want to give up so bad. i tried my hardest to make things right between us, but they keep going from good to bad and then from bad to good and i am frankly emotionally exhausted. he texted ME good morning today, and that made me more happy than it should have. i need to stop wasting my emotional resources on this and focus on myself. its so hard. 

i think im gonna go pray at a temple this weekend. it usually helps me clear my head and i feel like my luck usually turns around when i do. fighting the urge to look up 縁結び祈願 temples because i should pray about getting my life together, not getting back with x-chan haha. i typed this then immediately invited him to go with me.

i do the money management and accounting at my job. im still being trained on how they like their stuff organized and how to do everything the right way in japan. japan's tax system is so complicated compared to how "streamlined" it is in the states. also having to add up big amounts of money here is kind of comical. so many 0's. so. many. 0's. also dont ask me to say any number larger than 999万円 outloud because it takes me like 10 seconds to count from the end of the number and backwards to understand if its 万 or 億.

i need to go shooting soon. i have a photo series in mind, but it requires me being out all night long until like 6am, and i dont feel comfortable doing it alone since random men always approach me when im by myself so im kind of relying on my friends to go with me. i also keep blowing off my friends to hangout and try to woo x-chan. my life is a mess. i also need to study instead of drinking every night. and i need to not go to the bar as much so i can save up to move. and and and and. and i need to buy more film for my camera. and i want to play pokemon in my free time. and i need to study more japanese grammar for my job because im forgetting a lot of it now that im not going to school everyday. and and and and. i need to go to the grocery store after work today.

yesterday on my way to the station after work, there was a guy puking on the sidewalk. first thought was, okay gross? and at 5:30? kind of fucking early to be hammered… then i looked at his vomit and it was a giant amount of unchewed ramen noodles. like. so so so much. we made eye contact and that man was in PAIN. i wonder if he just overate or something instead of being drunk ���� that image of those fucking noodles will stay with me forever.

i need to do laundry and clean my room when i get home tonight.