#i just dont really agree with him

[idleindy]

That strong right hook that Rook landed on Solas in the ending of the game that I got was so cathartic. Like, I respect all you Solavellans and everyone who likes Solas, but I could not stand the man even all the way back in Inquisition. He's a very interesting character and has a lot of nuance don't get me wrong, but everything he says irritates me to a point beyond reason.

One of the amazing things about Dragon Age though is the ability to have your own personal canon (and opinion on characters and world events)! I've seen some people saying that the only ending of Veilguard that is 'canon' or 'right' is the Solavellan ending, and that the other endings are out of character. Personally I'm glad to have had the options that I did at the end of the game rather than the alternative of not having a choice in how it played out at all.

I will say though, I wish we were able to call Solas on his bullshit in those little fade chats cause I totally knew that he was messing with us the whole time, and even if I hadn't, there's no way my Rook actually would've listened to an ancient elven 'god' stuck in his head lmao

[verflares]

(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:

"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"

[mortysmith]

while we're on the subject of "morty-prime teamup" what if there was another two crows situation

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

hi! i saw on your shipping chart you had meenah and cronus as moirails and noted 'would have prevented all problems' and ive never really seen that take before. id love to hear your thoughts on that if you wanted to talk about them, your analysis in general is always amazing

Sure! I know this one's going to be controversial, but TBH I'm kind of fascinated by their dynamic. So please bear with me here and come into it with an open mind; I was also really surprised when I noticed what was going on.

Also, standard disclaimer that nobody has to agree with me or ship my ships, I literally don't care, HCs are valid, death of the author, etc. etc. This is just a canon discussion blog, and there's kind of a weird amount to read into in the canon between these two.

Okay, so, first of all, quick refresher on moirallegiance: it's not necessarily about being BFFs, it's very specifically about pacifying each other, keeping each other calm and stable, and preventing each other from causing harm to oneself or to others.

Ergo, the marker of moirallegiance rests not on "do these two get along as BFFs?" and instead on "do these two keep each other calm and/or mitigate each others' harm".

So with that out of the way, Cronus and Meenah. We know that Cronus has a redcrush on her, echoing Eridan's redcrush on Feferi, and that Meenah is not interested at all. Cronus shoots his shot with her, she's like ick, no & leaves, and that's that on that. Cronus then rounds on Mituna and says some unbelievably cruel and shitty stuff, but here's Point #1 - Meenah shows up again, and Cronus stops immediately, and then is noticeably calmer and friendlier to Mituna. Compare:

CRONUS: you are a brain damaged reject on a team full of rejects. a rejects reject. i vwould havwe culled you myself if that vword meant vwhat it should havwe on our planet.

-

CRONUS: vwell, this is clearly absurd, but nyeh, vwhat the heck. CRONUS: mituna, i just cant take it anymore. i think my ghost is going to kill itself. MITUNA: WH0W4H L375 FUCK!!!!! CRONUS: vwait... CRONUS: really? MITUNA: N0 0Y0 P135H3 0FF 1ND107 FUGG1NG G4R484G3  #FUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0UFUCKY0U CRONUS: oh.

So at the very least, SOMETHING conciliatory seems to be happening here, whether that's pale or ashen. But I'm going with pale, because it continues.

Their second conversation together is really interesting - not only has Cronus stopped redflirting with her, but he no longer even seems interested. Compare this to the section with Mituna above:

CRONUS: oh sure. no grub sauce on your hands! MEENAH: wow you did it MEENAH: ampora you totally changed my mind about you lets start makin out immediately  #not CRONUS: just admit it. you havwe it vwithin you to be just as harsh to our behelmeted buddy as i am, if not more

Like, he doesn't even ACKNOWLEDGE the "let's make out #not". Not even in an indignant "see, you keep playing with my collapsing and expanding bladder based vwascular system" kind of way. Literally just breezes right by it, which says to me that he isn't even really that into her concupiscently.

But more interesting are the actual contents of the conversation. Cronus is the only person on the entire team who's able to make Meenah have misgivings about how awesome the Condy is.

MEENAH: man MEENAH: a girls gotta have fuel for her pimp ride know what im sayin MEENAH: like MEENAH: i probably took care of him good MEENAH: you know how it is someones gotta take care of the guy anyways MEENAH: and... yeah #38(

This is the first and only time that Meenah even acknowledges that the Condy - herself at her worst - is kind of shitty. This is the first and only time she's ever expressed any emotion for the Condy other than fangirlish admiration or rage against Caluborn for enslaving her. For whatever reason, she actually listens to Cronus when Cronus takes her to task, and he's actually able to make her genuinely reflect on her worst tendencies.

But maybe more damning is the fact that in their first real conversation together for nearly an eon, she almost fixes him:

MEENAH: i heard a rumor you think youre a human now MEENAH: that true CRONUS: its a privwate matter. i dont see vwhy i should havwe to talk about it vwith you, and open myself up to more of your judgmental scorn. MEENAH: sounds like another desperate cry for attention imo

[...]

CRONUS: to be honest, she might be right. sometimes i think i might only be saying im a human to get attention. maybe i should givwe it up.

Cronus's fundamental emotional problem is a sense of purposelesness and ennui. Born into a caste of high privilege, with his identity overshadowed by said position, he's been handed an unpleasant cocktail of entitlement, lack of true emotional support or connection, and lack of a real, authentic personal identity - especially because the thing he DID seem to derive a sense of identity and purpose from - his little Harry Potter wizard backstory - was driven out of him. In other words, he's kind of a shitty rich kid that doesn't really know who he is outside of that, and his humankin stuff is an attempt to fill the wizard hole without addressing his real underlying issues. It's a Bad Thing for him to be doing, and something he should drop in order to start addressing his genuine insecurities, feelings of emptiness, and lack of identity or purpose. In other words, it's harm he's performing on himself, and a single conversation with Meenah being enough to make him reconsider it? Hmmmmmm.

In fact, I'm not the only one picking up on the pale vibes. The specific way that Kankri interrupts the two reads as incredibly pick-me in pale:

KANKRI: Listen, I was d9ing y9u a fav9r. Y9u d9n't need t9 6e dating any9ne wh9 can't appreciate y9u f9r wh9 y9u really are, 9r m9re imp9rtantly, which fantasy versi9n 9f y9urself y9u m9st str9ngly identify with.

[...]

I just wanted y9u t9 kn9w that I'm here f9r y9u, and am prepared t9 lecture t9 y9u extensively, I mean, listen t9 y9u extensively, a69ut y9ur ultra-imp9rtant pr96lem.

"Don't take Meenah's advice about your problems! Take mine instead, I care about you sooo much more than she does!" lol. I have a whole essay on how Kankri and Cronus are actually super toxic for each other, in an interesting foil to Karkat and Eridan, which I'll link here in a bit (I'm on mobile RN and it's hard enough C/Ping my sources).

In any case, Kankri slides in at exactly the moment where Meenah's about to fix Cronus, and proceeds to make Cronus worse. The details are in the Cronus and Kankri essay, but TL;DR it's kind of implied that Kankri is the one who talked Cronus out of the wizard stuff in the first place, which pretty much disqualifies the two's relationship from pale, given how harmful that was. This whole thing is pretty reminiscent of Gamzee coming between Karkat and Eridan when Eridan is trying to comfort Karkat about Sollux dying, because it's implied Gamzee has a palecrush on the guy. That might be subjective, though.

What isn't subjective is the fact that Meenah unironically defends Cronus's wizard beliefs when Aranea starts shitting on them.

ARANEA: Whatever the case, it was pro8a8ly for the 8est, since pretty much everyone who had half a think pan thought [Cronus's wizard beliefs were] all a 8unch of ridiculous nonsense. MEENAH: serket why do you got to hate on other peoples religions MEENAH: dont you kno they just as much a load of crackpotty bunk as all your spiritual bullfuck ARANEA: 8ut I........ ARANEA: Yes, I guess I was out of line.

She doesn't do this for anybody else. Not long after, it turns out she's absolutely joking about defending Kurloz:

MEENAH: wow serket MEENAH: just wow so rude MEENAH: poor clown ARANEA: Don't give me that! I seem to remem8er you having more than a few unkind words for him 8ehind his 8ack. MEENAH: yeah im messin witchu he sux

And even proceeds to shit on HIS spiritual bullfuck:

MEENAH: )(ONK ARANEA: Honk honk! ::::) MEENAH: lol im glad we can both agree that clowny fuckin soda cult is the dumbest shit ever

So... weird, huh? Seems like she gives Cronus special treatment for some reason.

That's it for the diegetic stuff to go over, which, yes, means that there's a bit of non-diegetic stuff to discuss. It's not much, but here's Hussie's commentary from the Act 5 Act 2 book, on Mindfang's journal entries about Dualscar leading up to the 3x showdown (emphasis mine):

In the end, even though violets are the ruling class, she doesn't care much about them either. All she cares about is keeping her stranglehold on power with this complex, staggered, oppression-based sort of pyramid scheme. Note how it says the Condesce doesn't even know who Dualscar is. That's how insignificant he is, ultimately. Similarly, all Eridan was to Feferi after a while was a tiresome pest. The way that situation played out could also be seen as long-delayed karmic backlash for Dualscar's irrelevance to her, at least from a very Amporan point of view.

Now, while the specific context here is about how, from the point of view of a shitty entitled guy, Eridan killing Feferi is kind of a retribution for the Condy not giving a shit about Dualscar, all of Hussie's commentary is meant to be interrogated just as much as the base text, and it just makes me wonder. The dancestors very much treat their Alternian counterparts as alternate versions of themselves, consistent throughout their interactions, meaning we ought to consider Duascar and the Condesce to be versions of Cronus and Meenah.

If it is, in fact, the case that Cronus and Meenah would've made for excellent, harm-reducing moirails for each other, then murderstuck being a karmic backlash for their ultimate irrelevance to each other takes on a much greater implication - one that traces back to Cronus's classpect.

Bards start off massive karmic chain reactions, resulting in improbable victory or abject defeat, sometimes both; Hope is an aspect whose main application is making fake things real.

So I'm not saying that Cronus believing that an evil wizard attacked him when he was younger but was inadvertently sealed away and that Cronus was therefore karmically destined to defeat this wizard, but then having his beliefs shattered halfway through, led to him karmically contributing to the eventual creation of LE via his Hope abilities "inviting destruction" by making only the first half of his fake prophecy true, but - oh, no, wait, I am saying that. Man, that really sucks for everybody. If only Cronus had a friend who was, for whatever reason, willing to stick up for his dumbass wizard faith.

If only.

[storywestistrash]

watched mouthwashing finally. the fact that i saw people be more aggressive towards curly than jimmy is kinda strange. kinda real weird

[rainofthetwilight]

what people dont understand is that the way arin is special is bc he's. just a guy. just a kid who's a ninja fan, that somehow managed to learn spinjitzu entirely by himself. no official training, no nothing bro, just watching his idols do their things and he just. copies them. and he somehow succeeded. he doesn't need any powers, he doesn't need to be a reincarnation of the fsm, he's special just like that

[seiwas]

hello sel!!! hru doing??

The ask game is super fun! How about Gojo + vindictive.

I hope u hv had a lovely day 🫶

zuro anon

zuro anon hello!! thanks for sending in a prompt!! i'm doing good 🥺 spending this lil vacay at home, mostly 🥺 and happy to be back writing 🥺 i hope you have the loveliest weekend 💗

contains: non-canon, childhood enemies to lovers (ish), (modern) arranged marriage, reader wears a braid and dresses

gojo + vindictive

you hate gojo satoru. you have ever since you were 5.

he's a bully―a real cocky one at that, with no regard or remorse for how his actions affect those around him.

on the day before your 6th birthday, right as your parents gathered together for the annual countdown, he gobbled up the entire plate of your favorite milk cakes before you could even take a bite. this marked the start, the beginning of a vengeance stewing inside of you.

at the age of 8, when you first learned how to do your own braids, he would tug at them, pull them free and unravel all your hard work for the past hour. you used to chase him for it, yell "satoru!" with all the strength your little lungs could muster and he would merely laugh and run faster.

the name "satoru," you've learned, must be synonymous with "sabotage," because it's all he's ever done. he threw the flower geto suguru handpicked for you straight to the ground, and purposely splashed gutter water all over the white dress you intended to wear on your first date.

not to mention, he's always rubbed in the fact that he's better than you, at everything―dangled all his accomplishments in front of you as if he knew they were just centimeters out of reach.

gojo satoru is solely responsible for tainting your childhood memories a miserable cerulean blue.

so, when your parents sit you down one day and tell you that you'll have to marry him, you feel transported in that moment, to each and every instance gojo has ever wronged you. it flips through your mind like a montage of flashbacks in a movie.

it's both surprising and not. your families have always been partners, in everything―business, education, and now you guess, life as well. you hate gojo's guts but this creates an opportunity you don't think can result from anything else.

so, sure, you'll agree to the marriage―only to make his life a living hell.

"hello, fiancée," he greets you, for the first time since the agreement.

you don't do anything to hide your disgust, face scrunching up as you spit out, "shut up, satoru."

the wedding planning is horrendous―at least, you hope it is for him. you pick out every single cake flavor you know he hates and choose the brightest venue possible for the event. the lights you pick for the afterparty are strobe lights, and you make sure to do multiple test runs just to play with his eyes. it doesn't occur to you that the solution to his light sensitivity is simple: just a plain pair of shades.

you wear plumping lip gloss on your wedding day, just so his lips burn when you have to kiss him. but gojo is either extremely numb or just good at faking it, because all he does is grin as he whispers quietly before parting, "spicy."

in preparation for your married life, you create a ledger of some sort―a book of accounts housing every single thing gojo has done wrong. you write down your plans to get him back for each of them, a list of pranks and inconveniences to make him regret ever messing with you all those years ago.

at half a year of marriage and 25 years of knowing each other, he casually tells you the big "i love you," but you're sure he doesn't mean it. you tell yourself your heart is racing from how infuriating his existence is; at how stupid his face looked when he'd said it. not anything else and most especially not the little dimple on his cheek that shows itself every now and then.

(you didn't know it yet then, but he'd found the ledger you kept and read through it all. the one-year plan, the three-year plan, the five, and so on. and it does nothing but strengthen how he feels about you, since he was 6, 14, and a few years ago at 24.

it's at your third year of marriage that you find out―how gojo's known all this time, but more importantly, how there were reasons behind every single instance you thought he was out to ruin your life.

with intelligence far beyond his age, gojo has always preferred the company of adults more than children. at age 6, he would listen in on conversations his mother had with her friends, roughly comprehending complex worlds with the simple ones he understood. someone had mentioned something about their daughter being allergic to milk. and so, when your birthday came up and all he saw were milk treats, he gobbled them all up in an effort to make sure you wouldn't be subjected to an adverse reaction―even though you were far off from any dairy allergy.

what he was sure of, however, was that you were severely allergic to bees. and when he spotted one perched right on the buttercup stem geto handed you, he had no choice but to smack it right out of your hand and down to the ground, stepping on it too, for good measure.

and, okay, maybe he was a little naughty for tugging at your braids when you'd just spent all that time doing them, but he always liked how they flowed into waves when they unravelled; how you'd chase him afterwards, angry but so, so pretty.

if there's one moment gojo will consider real sabotage, though, it's that date he stopped you from going to. like there was any way he was going to let another man see you dressed like that. he isn't nice that way. when gojo wants something, he's not sharing, and the sight of you in white―that was meant to be his and only his.)

[s0fter-sin]

i’d love to know how much of early day's spn subtext was deliberate or just a happy accident bc the subplot of 1x08 bugs is sam and dean butting heads about how they were raised and sam hating it while dean tells him he should accept it as they protect a family; predominantly a father and son

the father and son argue bc the son is different and not who the father wants him to be while the son feels ignored and shunned (aka sam). sam spends the episode empathising with him and telling him he can look forward to going to college to get away from him just like he did while dean cuts in to say he should stick with his family

the entire episode, dean defends john and the way he raised them ("maybe he needed to raise his voice but sometimes you were out of line"), it even starts with him and sam arguing over their illegal ways of making money and how they were brought up in the life; dean adapting to and enjoying it and sam wanting to be honest and straight

they talk about sam being sure john is and always has been disappointed in him just for dean to say john used to go to stanford whenever he could to check on him and something about his expression is so bitter; like he knows john would never express that care for him

but at the climax when they're trying to get matt to convince his dad to leave, sam is the one telling him to tell the truth and make his dad listen whereas dean tells him to lie; implying he wouldn't trust his son enough to believe him

he outright scoffs at sam and asks him what he was thinking for trying to get matt to tell the truth

the entire episode, dean is advocating for the kid to work it out (almost to just take it) and stay with his family but when push comes to shove, he tells him to lie

sam who spent years resenting john and his family for how they were raised, fell back on "making him listen"; echoing all the arguments he had with john, trying to force him to understand who he is while john's too blinded by vengeance to even begin to try. the same way sam refuses to see how they were raised and why they were raised that way from john’s point of view, hinting at how similar people they are (which still isn’t an excuse but also not the point rn)

dean winchester, the king of repression and masking (and fawning), dean who at this point is still staunchly defending john, tells a shunned kid with a harsh father to pretend in order for his father to care enough to listen to him and believe him

dean knows reasoning won't work bc he's watched it happen over and over again with sam and john

even the way matt tries to say, “but he’s my… (father)” feels like he’s coming over to dean’s point of view; that matt as a son respects his father to enough to tell the truth and no matter how much they’ve fought, that should trump everything. but dean still insists he lies. and matt tells the truth. and his father doesn’t listen

there's no way they intentionally made dean subconsciously know that a man raising his son in a mimicry of how john raised them wouldn't respect or trust his son enough to believe him about something potentially life threatening after half a season of john ignoring them about something potentially life threatening

right?

[velvetsssapphic]

Me whenever this scene comes up

[welcometogrouchland]

Batman #149 by chip zdarsky is mostly unremarkable, but I'm really fascinated by how it makes a great case for 'good' endings not saving 'bad' stories*. Because there's a lot of interesting concepts in this issue (bruce having to deal with his rapidly aging and decaying clone making him think about his own life, re-establishing a 'nest' so to speak for his family after pushing them away, etc) but bc of the OOC slog that came before it, almost every moment w/ the batfamily comes off as unearned and disingenuous imo.

Like, everything with Damian is the perfect example in this. Because in isolation it's...fine. admittedly it's a missed opportunity to not go deeper into how Damian would feel about a clone of his dad who tried to kill considering Damian's relationships with clones of himself (the heretic rejects and respawn) or with former enemies who wanted him dead but who were manipulated and/or brainwashed (like suren and maya).

Zdarsky doesn't go into any of this but you could maybe excuse it as the issue not being about Damian. However, coupled with the previous bizarre characterizations of Damian in 147 and 148, it ends up not being fine- instead it starts to feel...icky how Damian (who, despite often being drawn and written as white, will never have his connection to the non-white al ghuls forgotten and will always be effected by racism even when not portrayed as a poc) is constantly written as overly violent, uncaring and narrow minded in this run. Coupled w/ trying to recanonize the morrison origin for Damian it's like. OH this is badly written and laden with subtle bigotry, sick**

That's me going into detail on it with Damian but it's applicable to other things in this issue- the way Cass, Steph and Duke have all been ignored or turned into jobbers makes their inclusion in the 'family' here feel hollow instead of satisfying. Bruce proclaiming that Zur was still a part of him and he needs to accept responsibility for his actions (when it means taking in clone son) wrings hollow when just last issue zdarsky was bending over backwards to separate Bruce and Zur bc otherwise the Jason thing would get really awkward. Ends are achieved through means that feel hollow or strange. I'm at my destination but damn why'd the bus have to do all that???

I only really have opinions on this latest arc of zdarskys Batman bc it's the one I've read the closest (bc I'm a hater, masochist and avid follower of even the bad damian storylines) but it's not saying great things.

Bc zdarsky can do one thing good in this book, and it's write Bruce and Tim. And yet this entire story, whether of his own volition or editorial mandate, includes other characters who aren't Bruce and Tim, the fabric starts to unravel in very telling ways.

(p.s, I think pennyworth manor is an interesting idea but I feel like in execution it's just gonna be 'bruce living in a house haunted by the memory of the people he couldn't save' but with a different dead guy this time. Illusion of change and whatnot)

*whether or not the ending is good is up to you ofc, as is your opinion on the proceeding arc! I saw some ppl complain that the ending was too "WFA" for them, which I get even if I dont think it'll literally be the same premise. If anything it's probably a lead into the new tec run. Likewise many ppl who aren't in the weeds of Damian and Jason characterization liked the previous arc! But I have my opinions and rest my case before the bench

**disclaimer, I'm white and portrayals of bigotry in comics are complicated and subjective, but I am basing my point here off what other poc comic fans on socmed have been saying about 149. Also the "sick" is sarcasm incase that wasn't obvious

[fwob]

the absolute universal agreement that sabo is fucking deranged is so funny

[coolnonsenseworld]

Omg your instagram story is so right! I can’t believe I’ve never even noticed that, probably because in fanon keith and shiro are so close that I’d forgotten that isn’t canon :0

Deserves this awesome quote which I had to dig out of my sideblog reblogs

[sadkachow]

And Then It Is Monday - Why Sunday's plan did not (and could not) work

So normally I don't really make longer analysis posts, but I kept seeing people on social media outright supporting Sunday's actions in 2.2, and I wrote something out about why I personally think that Sunday's plan is wrong. I don't know if this is an issue with tumblr as well, given that the people I saw supporting him were on different forms of social media, but regardless.

Before I begin, I'd like to pose a reminder that the opinions in this are mine and mine alone. If you agree, awesome! If not, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, so long as you're respectful! I have no idea if this is well written or will make any logical sense, but here we go!

(Spoilers for the 2.2 Trailblazer quest under the cut, if that wasn't already obvious)

So the first thing to get off the table: I feel Sunday is a very sympathetic villain, but a villain nonetheless. I understand the people that sympathize with him. I do too, to an extent. He was raised on unhealthy ideals and the belief that he was a "religious figure," one that people looked up to. Other people were allowed to just be, but Sunday always had to be better. He loved his sister, and the people around him, and he wanted to make a better world for them.

But that does not excuse what he did. Making a 'better world' can never come at the cost of taking away people's free will, because that world will never be "better". That's where Sunday's plan falls apart.

Because, yes, there are shitty people in the world, and yes bad things happen. Would it be amazing if we could stop all the bad things from happening ever again, and make the world a much better place? Yes! It would! I would love to live in a world where I don't have to fear for my life and my freedom for an assortment of reasons! But that world doesn't exist--in real life or on Penacony--, and getting it to exist shouldn't be the result of subjugating and controlling other people, because that in and of itself is violence. Albeit a different kind of violence, but violence nonetheless.

Not to mention that things like Sunday's plan and the concept of forcing everyone to act a certain way just to fit this "better world" to me almost serves as a condemnation of human nature and of the very act of choice itself. Your better world starts by saying that some choices are bad, so those choices get taken away, but where does it end? What if someone in charge views a harmless choice as a bad one, and takes away that one in return? Does it stop there, or does it continue, until no one at all is allowed to make any decisions, except those in charge? Who, really, does that benefit?

Consequences for certain choices exist. Generally, society says murder is bad (except for specific circumstances such as self-defense, which technically at that point is no longer even considered murder (at least where I live, it may be different in other areas, but I'm basing this off of my own experience)), so there is a concrete consequence to people murdering people--assuming that they don't get away with it. It doesn't stop people from murdering people, because the liberty of choice is still there, but it shows that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should or that you will escape without consequence.

People are going to do bad things. That is, unfortunately, how humans are. But our responsibility lies in holding ourselves accountable and in promoting growth and healing. That is how you build a better world. Not trapping everyone inside a dream world without any care for their feelings or beliefs, but in getting people the help they need, in fostering a society of positive change and human connection.

And that is why, as "golden" as Sunday's dream may have seemed, it was never going to work. In the end, as the story quest shows, human will and the desire for freedom wins out in the end. When there's a will, there's a way.

[egg-on-a-legg]

freeing my inner 12 year old by posting michaelwave of fnaf fame

five billion images of him under cut

i am cringe.... but i am free

[ghost-bard]

I feel like every time i hear about solavellan its talking about like “oh when they reunite and solas and ooooo” or like. Something angsty like one of them dying or something.

Anyone elses lavellan wanna just kill him like straight up

And i dont mean this in a hating solas way (irl) but at least in my lavellans case they went through hell and back in inquisition, and finding out solas wants to tear down the veil, effectively destroying the world as they know it, was the final straw. As in they were barely keeping it together before, and this caused them to spiral. Like a mental break happened. And that manifested in a very uh. Violent and hunting down solas at all costs kinda way.

[straight-to-the-pain]

I don't know if anyone else in the whump community has read 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' by Anthony Marra but it is genuinely a really good book and also has some of the best depictions of torture and its aftermath that I have read in fiction.

I wanted to share some of my favourite quotes, hopefully without too many spoilers as it is out of context, but maybe skip this post if you don't want to know anything at all going in.

To give a brief summary, the book centres around the lives of people in Chechnya during the first and second war between the Russian government (Feds) and the separatist rebels. The main story focuses on a man (Akhmed) who is trying to save his neighbour's daughter from being killed by the Feds after her father is taken away in the middle of the night. He does this by taking her to a hospital where he then volunteers. One of the people in his village (Ramzan) becomes an informer for the Feds after being tortured, and this is explored in the excerpts below.

‘Information the Feds would torture them for was written here on the walls for all to see. It was well understood among the men that the Feds had as much sense as two bricks smashed together. It was also understood that pain, rather than information, was the true purpose of interrogation.'

'During his first detention in the landfill, in 1995, in the first war, he had refused to inform. They had wrestled down his trousers, shown him the bolt cutters, and still he had said no. Screaming, thrashing, with his manhood half severed, he had said no. He had done that, and now he was ready to start saying yes.'

'He would have confessed everything, but they didn't ask, weren't interested, threatened to cut out his tongue and put pliers to his teeth if he spoke one more fucking word. Electric wires were wound around his fingers. A car battery was drained into his bones. God might have been watching, but it wasn't God's finger on the battery switch. The interrogating officers didn't speak. Instead he was an instrument they played, performing a duet, and in their own way they conversed through his sobs. They both wore very shiny shoes. That was all he would remember.'

'He had trouble walking, He had forgotten torture could be so exhausting. The new interrogator, the one with less shiny shoes, held him upright, using his whole body as a crutch, and helped him walk. He carefully wiped Ramzan's forehead with a handkerchief before opening the door to the next room.'

'The interrogator with less shiny shoes crouched behind him. His hands were wet. Ramzan promised everything, and the interrogator, like the parent of a child too old to believe in ghosts, watched him with disappointment, his clear eyes saddened by Ramzan's sincerity. The interrogator took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, laid the live wires on Ramzan's chest and mapped the border of their shared humanity. Ramzan offered his soul. He begged to be enslaved. The known universe contracted to the limits of the cement floor, and on it, the interrogator was both man and deity, prophet and god. By ten o'clock the interrogator with less shiny shoes asked his first question. By eleven the electrical wires were unwound from Ramzan's fingers. By noon he was allowed to dress. By one he was on the FSB payroll. He kept thanking the interrogator with less shiny shoes.'

‘Greed didn’t motivate his informing, at least not primarily; primarily he informed by necessity, to survive, for his love and hate and above all awe of the power wielded by the interrogating officer with less shiny shoes.'

'That was his greatest fear. Could he stay silent? Could he withstand what awaited him? He told himself that his love for the girl should fortify him against any torture, but this, like so much of what he told himself, was a lie. After all, he was squeamish at the sight of blood, what would he say when lying in a puddle of his own? But he saw no other way. He would pray for the strength to stay silent, for a quick heart attack, and leave the rest to God.' (This is Akhmed POV)

'When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing, Akhmed. When they threatened to beat me, I said nothing. When they threatened to electrocute me, I said nothing. When they threatened to castrate me, I said nothing. I said nothing, Akhmed. Whatever you think of me, you remember that once I said nothing when a wiser man would have sung. And the interrogators, they couldn't believe it. They called in others to examine me. I was there on the floor, and above their faces were dark ovals silhouetted by the ceiling lights. They had beaten me hard and I couldn't hear right, but I kept saying no, with every breath I had. The main reason they let me go, the only reason they didn't shoot me right there was out of perverse respect, some sort of professional courtesy. But I wish they had shot me, Akhmed, because the good part of me died there, and all this, everything since, has been an afterlife I'm trying to escape.'

‘I knew what was coming. I knew it never stops. They put a shame inside you that goes on like a bridge with no end, the humiliation, the fucking humiliation of knowing that you are not a human being but a bundle of screaming nerve endings, that the torture goes on even when the physical hurt quietens. People treated me differently when I came back the first time.'