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jamiewintons · 10 months ago

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Boromir Relationship Headcanons

Boromir x F!Reader, headcanons are both SFW & NSFW (so no minors, please!). This is based on the movie version of Boromir, so if anything contradicts the books, I apologise 🙏

These are just some of the first headcanons that came to me, so I may end up doing a second post at some point! Anyway, hope everyone enjoys, and if you’d like to discuss Boromir headcanons, my askbox is always open!

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SFW Headcanons

- Boromir is quite the romantic. He’s never really been in love before you, so it catches him by surprise how strongly he feels for you. Like he finds himself randomly thinking about you while he’s training and ends up all flustered and distracted. He never saw himself getting married either - he’d always been too busy defending Gondor - but once he falls for you there’s no doubt in his mind that he wants you to be his wife.

- Even if you’re of a proper status to be Boromir’s wife, there’s a good chance that Denethor won’t think you’re good enough for his favourite son. But Boromir will not relent in his desire to marry you, even if that means defying his father and marrying you in secret. There’s a good chance that Denethor will get past it eventually anyway, because in his eyes Boromir can really do no wrong.

- He is incredibly physically affectionate - he loves giving hugs, and cuddling, and picking you up and carrying you. He loves being the big spoon, wrapping his arms around you and holding you close to him while he buries his face in your hair. Even if he’s had the most stressful day imaginable, holding you in his arms makes all of the stress and bad things in the world seem to melt away, even if only temporarily.

- Boromir hates being away from you, though obviously his duty to Gondor means he often has to leave for battle, sometimes even for long campaigns. But he keeps you on his mind always, and he fights in your name just as much as he fights for his country and his people.

- One of the ways to make Boromir melt is to show him gentleness and tenderness. Like you tending to his wounds after a battle? You washing his hair? He’s going to fall even more in love with you and look at you with pure adoration in his eyes, just feeling so lucky to have married the most wonderful woman in Middle Earth.

- I think he’d want to have a big family, maybe four or five kids, and a mix of daughters and sons! Of course if you’re not comfortable with that, he’ll defer to your choice - he understands that when it comes to making a child, he’s really got the easy job. If you do end up having children, he’d be such a sweet and attentive father - just imagine him playing with your kids the way he did with Merry and Pippin in Fellowship 🥹 - and I like to think that he would encourage his daughters’ interests just as much as his sons’! He’s definitely making sure not to play favourites at all either, because he saw how much that hurt Faramir when they were growing up and to this day.

- (I saw an imagine post talking about dad Boromir where he plays knights with his daughters and it solidified girldad!Boromir as my favourite headcanon, but I’m having trouble finding it again - if anyone knows the post I’m talking about please send me a link, I’ll love you forever ❤️🙏)

NSFW Headcanons

- Boromir is a very attentive lover, and so so handsy. This man will be touching you all over while you’re making love, particularly focusing on your hips, breasts, and thighs. I think he’d love it if you’re on the thicker side, because it makes it even more satisfying for him to touch you.

- He can be a massive tease - especially if you have particular sweet spots that he knows how to exploit in the best way possible. When you moan loudly, he’ll look at you with the biggest grin on his face as he asks you if you’re enjoying yourself. He’s a tease with his words too - sometimes he’ll whisper something dirty in your ear in an otherwise innocent situation just to see you blush - but he’ll certainly follow through on any promises he might have made to you later.

- When Boromir’s not being a tease he’s still talking a lot, mainly a lot of praise and whispered sweet nothings. If you talk dirty to him, it drives him crazy.

- This man absolutely has a breeding kink. I don’t know what exactly makes me think that but I just get that vibe from him. Like I said above, he wants to have a big family, and he certainly fantasises about getting you pregnant. If you beg him to cum inside of you he will fold so quickly. And when you are pregnant, he can barely keep his hands off of you, though he makes sure to be extra gentle as to not accidentally hurt you while you’re in such a delicate condition.

- He eats pussy like he’s starving and you’re the first food he’s seen in weeks. If he could spend all of his time with his head between your thighs he’d probably die happy.

- Also he loves it when you sit on his face.

- He’s very proud of himself when he makes you come really hard, and he usually won’t think about his pleasure until he’s made you come at least twice, maybe three times. As such, he’s not really into quickies, he wants to take his time.

- His favourite places to have sex are in bed, and also sometimes in the bath (but touching each other in the bath usually leads to him taking you to bed).

- Boromir prefers to be able to look you in the eyes when you have sex, so any position that facilitates that will be a favourite. He does like putting your legs over his shoulders, but he also likes watching you ride him.

#boromir x reader #boromir x you #lotr x reader #lotr x you #lord of the rings x reader #lord of the rings x you #boromir imagine #boromir imagines #lotr imagine #lotr imagines #lord of the rings imagine #lord of the rings imagines

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meraki-sunset · 8 months ago

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This is a long letter of gratitude. Embrace my endless words of pure gratefulness.

Dear Autor of the most amazing thing I've ever read.

I was writing this letter from the moment I reached the middle of your Crow Strider AU fanfiction. There is so many things I want to say and I'm so happy that I can say it to you all here without words limit. Forgive me for exuberance, I'm squeezing out all my abilities to express what I feel in this foreign language that's not of us first language.

Let me list all the things I'm grateful for, because I'm autistic and I love listing:

1. Crow Strider

The arc of Davesprite you created is masterpiece of writing. The process of deconstructing his personality, forgiving and letting his part behind as well as embracing his new identity and new body is written so thoughtfully with such a care of details. I love how you made him so different from Dave as well as still kept his Daveness in full glory of Striderness. You made him happy and more emotional available and open, at the same time it felt so natural for him to be that way because of the proper build up you gave him. Thank you so much for creating Crow Strider and letting us read his well written arc.

2. There's a Dave for everyone

THERE'S LITERALLY DAVE FOR EVERYONE. You have no idea what struggles I went through trying to understand what person Dave ended up with in canon, and then being sad of what happened in epilogues. I wanted Dave for Karkat. I wanted Dave for Jade. I wanted them to be happy. And you did it. You made it possible. You made them all happy. I love it so much. Thank you so much for making them happy. You even gave Teresi one Dave for her. I can't believe it. It's so beautiful it's unreal.

3. More Davepeta

This part is simple, I simply love Davepeta and you gave me a lot of good Davepeta content. Thank you for that.

4. You made me like characters I didn't like

I wasn't big fan of Tavros. I got tired of Vrisca by the end of Homestuck. I didn't really see Hal as an interesting character. I honestly hated Gamzee. And Jasprosesprite squared was so annoying for me

Well, not anymore! You somehow managed to write these characters more compelling for me than Hussie did. Now I love Tavros and Hal, I mean, cat Hal? Is there anything more cute and cool at the same time?

And NGL I genuinely wanted Gamzee to die and I can't believe that now I'm not, because I just read a very good redemption arc of this clown. I also love the way you dealt with Vrisca. Heck I love all characters written by you!

5. God tier Karkat

I've dreamt of seeing a good piece of god tier Karkat. I was so curious how does it even work to be Knight of Blood, we didn't see any version of Blood god tier in canon. I'm big fan of your version, it fits the character and the aspect so well, and the execution of his arc as he is chosen to open the door... Honestly? I prefer that over canon, though it wouldnt make as much sense as in your fanfiction. It just feels like you took a much better care of Karkat than official ending of Homestuck. Don't get me wrong, I love Homestuck an it's ending, your fanfiction wouldn't exist without it. I honestly think that Hussie didn't really have as much time and space to give his characters as extended arcs as you gave them without losing the dynamic of his story. But you could. And you did. Thank you so much.

6. So many people got better, more extended arcs

Like above. You made Jas much better. You gave Nanna much better, more compelling arc than she had in canon. You made Hal and Tavros much more relatable and gave them very well character development plot, even if short. You took your time to write very needed and wanted dialogues between characters than didn't have their time to interact in canon. Like Jake and Dirk (ESPECIALLY THEM OMG). Like Erisol and Feferi. Like Jas and Rose. And I didn't even know that I needed the last one. Thank you so much.

7. You made ships that I didn't know where even possible and I like them????

Seriously, Tavros and Jane?? Erisol and Arquius??? Josh and Dirk??? I love how your brain works

8. You absolutely nailed the delicate topic of transgender

I used to not be a big fan of June, because there were no realistic signs of John having any kind of thoughts or doubts about his gender in canon. You made a very much needed and really great thoughtfully written arc from June and Josh, even caring about the topic of transition and executing it really great. Thank you so much for yet again being so good at writing arcs.

9. Eridan and Sollux

I love them both and their weird toxic rivalty, and I absolutely love that you gave them some attention and let Eridan grow and try to redeem himself while also helping Sollux with hii2 p2iioniic problem2. I download almost every single frame of it.

10. YOUR ARTSTYLE

You're artstyle. I don't know where to begin with that. It's so amazing. Expressive, dynamic, cute, beautiful, colorful. I love every line of your comics. Your style is the way I always wanted to draw. It's just perfect. And also perfect for Homestuck fanfiction. It's just so similar, yet gives it a bit of softness as well as the kind of expressiveness I love, that makes every single shot more appealing. Warm scene are so warm, sad scene are so sad, dynamic scenes are so epic, it's like so delicious. Yes, I just ran out of words. Let me grab a dictionary...

Your style is outstanding. It gives me this feeling of familiarity, it's similar of Homestuck style, yet so different, its fresh and new while also feels like home.

I wish you have a printed version of your fanfiction (but I probably can't afford it sadly). There is something so soothing in this simple colors, it's not too loud, not too many colors, yet so many and smooth colorful lines. I will learn to draw like you, I'm sorry for adapting your style, but I really want to draw like that and you even posted some tutorials how to draw like you.

Thank you so so much that you put so much time and effort into making this wonderful comic and then share with all of us completely for free. You drew so many expressive pages, sometimes even 10 pages per static dialogue, which means you officially outbested the master of overdoing Andrew Hussie himself, that did maximum of 3 pages per 1 static dialogue scene. I noticed you slowed down a bit at the end and drew much more simplified panels as well as you started using same panels many times. Good. It's okay to go the easier way. No one wants you to overwork yourself and burnout. No one wants you to have trauma with drawing and not wanting to draw comic ever again. It's extremely generous of you that you posted for absolutely free such a wonderful and huge piece of art. I'm endlessly grateful.

11. The plot

I love how you started from one simple idea of giving Crow more arc, and then gradually extended it into a whole huge fixfiction. It went so smoothly it looked like really one different decision of one person can change the whole timeline. It went so naturally, it felt so realistic as if I read something that Andrew Hussie wrote as a coexisting canon.

I have to admit, the whole idea of not doomed and not canon timeline is pretty ridiculous, and I love every bit of it. Paradoxally, it sounds so much like something that could actually exist in Homestuck canon. I love it

A few little things I didn't like that much

I wouldnt be myself if I didn't comment on some stuff that wasn't perfect. I'll be bery brief with that, because these things didn't really bothered me that much, I just want to share a little bit of criticism I have.

I hope it won't sound rude when I say that I didn't really felt like you understand the character of Nepeta very well? She didn't felt that like Nepeta in your fanfiction, at least for me. I felt like some stuff were explained a bit too many times. I know that characters needed that, yet we as viewers already know some stuff and didn't need to read it again. Also, I really missed the type styles of characters. I know how hard it is to keep it through entire fanfiction, especially writing some of the characters with quite complicated type style. I just missed it a bit. On the other hand it made a few characters much more comprehensive.

I hope I didn't hurt you with this few words of critics. Now I want to share a few of my favorite pages, I hope you don't mind if I end this letter with fangirling over your drawings. I actually wanted to do a lot of comments during reading your fanfiction, but the website didn't let comments. Sadly. That's why I'm writing here. And now is time I will do what I wanted to do back then:

This scene, my fav scene in Homestuck, got so extended in your fanfiction, I felt so gifted and it wasn't even my birthday

I cried.

This. Made me laugh so hard. And it's even funnier without context.

I just reached photos limit. Sadly. I'm so grateful for your comic. I love it so much. Thank you again for making it. You're a wonderful person

Hey there! Thank you so much for the letter, and for taking your time translating it to English for me to understand. Since it’s in a list format, I guess I’ll answer as list as well! So:

Crow strider

It was challenging writing Crow because I needed to basically write Dave but with a twist in his personality due to living with the Harley-Egberts and their grandma, in a very cozy and caring environment.

Honestly I don’t think I managed to portray enough Daveness, his personality is very particular and difficult for me to replicate, but I did the best I could and my friend and editor will help me reach the right amount of striderness in the epilogue

2. A Dave for everyone

Indeed, there’s Dave for everyone. The homestuck epilogues made me realize how lonely Jade ended up, and I always loved Davesprite and jade, but with one being human and the other one a Sprite the relationship was bound to fail, and even tho I wasn’t fond of JadexDavepeta, still i would’ve prefered it to jade being all alone and Davepeta dying fighting Lord English. So now, not only Jade has Crow, and they’re happy, but the Karezi – davekat – daverezi mess all got fused into one, because I love them and their trip was a Little different from in canon. And also Davepeta is around, I don’t think they’ll end up with anyone, but they’ll vibe on EarthC.

3. More Davepeta

They’re alive, and I like showing the craziness that comes from them knowing all timelines but being above them and detached from them.

4. The characters you didn’t use like

I like exploding underused characters. Because with them, you’ve only seen the Surface, but at the same time you have info about them that can be used to make them more profound. If Tavros got revived, why isn’t he mad at Vriska? What was he doing those 3 years in the bubbles? If Jasprose is a seer and has knowledge of all timelines due to being ultimate self, doesn’t that make her the ultimate clairvoyant? Doesn’t that mean she’s the key to winning? Does she miss the mother like rose does? If there’a already an Arquius, why make another? Why not have just Hal as a Sprite and have him figure out what being alive is actually like?. You get the Surface of the characters and knowing what you know about them, you dig deeper, until you find their humanity and write about it.

5. Godtier Karkat

I love Karkat on Homestuck, but I feel like the character lost weight towards the end of the story, he stopped being the leader and while everyone went and fought someone important like the Condesce, the jacks, the dogjack, or Lord English, he was just somewhere else doing whatever. I wanted to give him his hero moment that closes his development.

As for the door, I feel like in canon john was the right choice to open the door, he’s the hero and the leader, not to mention it’s a human session, it makes total sense and I wouldn’t change it

Every story has things that don’t get to be explored, because that would make them too long and cut the flow, making it unreadable. That why we love fan fictions and AUs so much, they take the pieces and reassemble them into something new, filling the empty spaces.

What makes the events on AUs fun is that they didn’t happen in canon. So if John opened the door in canon, and it was right, then Karkat can open this one, and it can be right on this specific timeline. He gets closure from the door he never got to open, and takes back his role as a leader, even if it’s just for a moment, since the battle is over by now. He’s the leader once again, but this time he understands the weight of it in a way he couldn’t grasp when he was 13, claimed he was in charge and let everyone down. He now understands it’s not just something you ask for, it’s something you earn, he’s now the Knight of blood, god of bonds, he took down the Condesce in the name of his species, and will open the door for his peers to enter the new universe they created together where they’ll create a free society, he became what the signless predicted, his rightful successor. His arc is completed.

6. Extended arcs

Jas was planned since the beginning to close crow’s arc about his rose and his regrets about leaving her behind. It’s only when he’s made peace with losing her, has left his old self behind and is ready to face the battle and his future, that he gets his reward. He gets her back, in the strangest way

With Nanna, i just though nobody ever focused that there was an actual adult around during the whole adventure, Nanna would’ve spent a lot of time around john and jade, them being each others remaining family. So I tried to give her the role of a guardian, breaking a Little with this “orphaned children on their own” that all characters have.

Honestly I tried to make it as interesting as I could, sometimes I would take characters that didn’t have any screen time and think, what can they do? What’s in their mind at this moment that they could tackle in conversation? And with whom? Who else needs screen time?. And that’s how you get, Jake and Tavros bonding, Nepeta, Fefeta, Davepeta and Feferi ship-chat, Arquius telling Terezi and Karkat about Erisol, Hal comforting Eridan, ect.

It’s actually a really cool writing exercise I do sometimes. I grab two characters that have nothing in common, and write a conversation between them. What’s the common ground? Are their stories alike in some way? Do they have a common hobby or worry? It’s really cool because you find stuff about the characters you never paid attention to before

7. Unlikely ships

Tavros and Jane came from me wanting Tavros to be more assertive. In canon Vriska instructed him to not interact with the Alpha kids during those 6 months, but since this Tavros doesn’t listen to her because he took self-esteem lessons from Rufioh, I felt like he probably spent that time actually being a guide to Jane and then becoming Friends while solving puzzles, Jane being a fan of mysteries and Tavros probably missing his flarp days. Also theres a funny thing about Tavros and Jane, and it’s Tavros is supposed to represent Peter pan, while Vriska is supposed to represent both Tinkerbell (she dressed up like a fairy for him and later became an actual fairy) being attracted to him but being short fused when rejected, and also represent Captain Hook, Peter pan’s enemy (with her flarp persona and her ancestor being a pirate), but she’s not Wendy in any way, and I feel like Jane is, she’s the homeschooled girl, with blue eyes who looked through her window waiting to be free because her father wouldn’t let her out (also Wendy’s brother was named john who used big glasses). She’s a normal girl coming in contact with this fairy boy from a world of only children. Idk, makes sense to me. (besides, Wendy darling’s daughter, who Peter pan later takes on adventures too was named Jane, who also has blue eyes)

Erisol and Arquius was a crack ship that suddenly made sense, because it’s one-sided, and I feel like arquius is a caring person, he just has a difficult time socializing like a normal person. He’s just really happy to be a sprite and is pissed by Erisol’s insistence on wanting to explode.

Also, Arquius promising Fefeta that he wouldn’t break Erisol’s neck unless he had a good reason ( he kinda wanted to) and eventually having to break his neck for the good reason of god tiering him (he now doesn't want to and feels bad about it) was something I planned for months

Josh and dirk, i think it’s funny. Dirk wouldn’t have dated jade because she’s a girl, but Josh is a boy so it’s good, AND, he’s like a more direct, version of Jake who takes no bullshit.

8. The topic of transgender

Originally the second spaceship post retcon was supposed to arrive empty, or with only Davesprite, but I saw an opportunity to solve a division in the audience. Some people were interested in John remaining as he was, while others wanted to see June. Since John never showed any doubts about his gender in canon, it wasn’t in my original plans for June to make an appearance during CSAU, because the comic only covered the same period of time as canon. But when it came time to write the retcon I realized I had an opportunity to make them both coexist, making a shift in the timeline, but said shift being there both since the beginning and for the purpose of surviving the recon. Making June and Josh a reality since the beginning, so the timeline would survive the consequences of the two Egberts crossing paths post retcon.

It’s nice to hear you liked it, I know not everyone did. I tried to be respectful but at the same time be true to the nonsensical nature of canon Homestuck that makes timelines twist and change to the story’s convenience, making the events real but chaotic. Also since i knew John’s dad wasn’t coming back and Jane’s dad wouldn’t make it, June would be the last remaining conection to John’s old home and so John would be June's, relying on eachother for comfort when it comes to the loss of their father and home.

9. Eridan and Sollux

I want to cover Eridan’s redemption in the epilogue, since all we know is he grew as a person during his time in the bubbles, leading to his change of heart interacting with Sollux and Kanaya

10. Art style

Thank you! I like to give the characters a full range of emotions and for the surroundings to accompany that

No need to be sorry for learning through my art, in the end my style, like everyone else’s, is bits and pieces from other artists we’ve seen, admired and/or learned from. Just make sure to add your personal touch to make your artstyle trully yours

It’s true that by the end I reused more static panels for dialogue, both because there was a lot for the characters to say, not that much action left, and my battery was running low haha

11. The plot

I tried my best for the story to be a big butterfly effect steaming from crow’s decision to ascend, working towards the most possible outcomes like Crow getting grimdarked by the Condesce too, the sprites surviving because of Nanna and so on

I wanted this timeline to coexist with canon because I don’t like the idea of overwriting it, canon happened and was important, CSAU just happened to be taking place close by

12. Things you didn’t like

I do in fact not understand the character of Nepeta very well, I reread Homestuck in order to get the original troll's personality better, but Nepeta is a character I don’t get. On top of that, she doesn’t appear much in CSAU so didn’t have much time to develop her.

I do struggle with over explaining, I think is stems from not wanting the reader to be confused (it has happened on discord that people come and ask me what was going on in the story when i thought I had written it in a way people could understand with no problems), which leads to me explaining everything too bluntly sometimes, so the characters sometimes ramble TOO much, and I wish I could go back and reduce the dialogs, but that would involve going back to the page’s codes to delete certain pages and replace others, and also changing the programming for the page’s backgrounds, not to mention my computer crashes when I try to modify pages too far back, since they’re 4000 of them. It’s one of those things I can only learn from and try to do better in the next project

The character’s typing was a core part of Homestuck because it was mostly portrayed as blocks of texts and the quirks made it easy to know who was talking even with people having the same typing color. The reason I didn’t use them it’s simply because I could barely write good enough in English, let alone add quirks. My friend offered me to add the quirks at some point when we were revising the dialogs, but I declined because some people found it easier to read without them and I didn’t want to add another step to the render of the pages.

13. Favorite pages

I also cried with that Gamzee panel, I planned it for months and i waited a long time to draw those last panels, I’m glad they made people laugh

Haha, also yeah, the Strider reunion got really extended with so many extra striders. Davepeta, Crow and Hal making the reunion complete

Thank you for this message! i'll do my best to write a good epilogue (which by now is actually a secuel) and i hope you have a great day🌻🌻🌻

#csau extra #homestuck #homestuck au #meraki

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writers-wrongs · 8 months ago

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Have you seen Arkham Knight VR? Riddler's self-aware in it! Could have some existential horror potential if you wrote headcanons or something for that version of him as a yandere >:-D (or just about self-aware Eddie from the mainline games...?)

as a ddlc fan, i love self aware game characters. and if anyone in arkham knight was gonna be sentient, itd be him. unfortunately, i havent seen AKVR, so this is just regular arkham knight

yandere!self aware!arkham!riddler x gn!reader

-edwards the most intelligent man in gotham, of course he noticed that his life was a game. and over time, he learned how to manipulate the game around him and "see" into the outside world

-the disc hes on was sold by the original owner, and now gets passed from person to person from secondhand game shops. the disc is always returned because somethings wrong with it. nobody puts two and two together and realizes they only start having game issues when they look up answers to the riddles

-then you buy the disc. edward is mildly interested in you, as he is with everyone who buys his game, but he assumes it wont last when you struggle with his riddles. whatever, at least he can enjoy messing around with your game

-but then you dont look anything up. he watches you intently, he even hacks onto your phone to check if youve been searching answers, and youre all clear. sure, you struggle at some of his puzzles (who doesnt?), but you never cave and look up how to solve it, no matter how long it takes you

-now that hes poking around on your phone, he sees that youre kind of a shut in. you dont have many contacts, and the one social media you have is tumblr. but it looks like you fixate on him a lot, almost to an unhealthy degree. its flattering- of course someone as excellent as him deserves sycophants! and he especially deserves one as devoted as you! youre smart, and determined, and oh lord, hes in love

-you have things to do during the day, you cant spend all your time with him on the disc, so he listens in on you from your phone. theres not much to do when youre not playing the game, so its his favorite way to pass the time. when you get home and start playing, he tries to interest you in his sidequest over everything else. he even keeps an eye on you as you sleep! he has to make sure youre safe, after all

-when youre not playing, he focuses on finding a way out to you (or bringing you in to him). he needs to be able to hold you, to keep you safe himself, and if he has to drag you kicking and screaming into the game with him, he will. not that he really knows how to do that, but he'll figure out something

-on your end, you dont notice anything at first. maybe his lines when you play are a little... flirtier? but other than that, the game is fun. you feel particularly drawn to the riddler sidequest, hes your favorite character after all. then, you notice that his lines are strangely specified to you, making references to your interests and personal life. maybe its just reading your console? yeah, a fun little meta thing!

-but then it gets concerning. he calls you by name. not the name on your console, your real name. hes talking like he knows you as a person. hes saying how much he needs you, how much he adores your dedication to his riddles, your dedication to him. you decide this is too weird, you have to return the game. so you go to take it out, and-

-you wake up in what looks like the abandoned orphanage from arkham knight. you try to move, but you feel arms squeeze you tight

-"there you are, my dear player. we're going to have so much fun together"

#writing the wrongs #yandere x reader #edward nygma x reader #riddler x reader #yandere riddler

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soren-apologist · 2 months ago

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i feel like people who say ike is a mary sue/gary stu in radiant dawn don’t realize that fe10’s supposed to be the ending of his arc as a character, where he’s reaching the very last part of his development.

at its core, fe9 is a coming-of-age story; ike goes from being a hotheaded, impatient teenager to a much calmer, more mature version of himself after having the responsibilities of handling a mercenary company and later an entire army thrust on his shoulders at far too early of an age. as such, while fe9 on its own initially seems as if it’s an entire character arc, we actually get to see how ike further grows into himself after 2 years of peace and coping with the events of the mad king’s war, a privilege that remains extremely uncommon for most fire emblem protagonists.

the ending of part 2 introduces us to a 20-year-old ike, now having physically grown up to match his personal growth from the start of fe9. while a more mature version of himself, he never turns on the morals and ideals that make him who he is, having decided to leave the crimean court to return working as a simple mercenary because he knows it’s where he belongs. despite this, however, he still finds himself dragged into conflicts and subsequent positions of power he doesn’t want. even though all he wants is a simple life as a mercenary, he still willingly chooses to take on the role of a general of sanaki’s army because he’s just not the kind of person to turn away someone in need, especially when he’s quite literally the only person qualified to fit the role asked of him (commanding armies of both beorc and laguz).

to clarify, ike isn’t already over with his character growth by fe10– he’s just nearing the end of it. while it’s a lot more subdued, you can absolutely still see the stubbornness and sass that characterized him in fe9; he’s still backtalking the enemy commanders he fights and giving people in positions of power above him a hard time whenever they do or say something he doesn’t like.

on that point, even as the “mature” version of himself, he honestly still kind of puts his foot in his mouth a few times there. it obviously never reaches the extent of him snapping at the entire council of begnion because they were being rude to elincia, but instances like this, where ike could have literally gotten himself and his entire army killed if he had genuinely offended dheginsea, whether through death-by-black dragon king or getting thrown back into the kauku caves:

or this, by which point in the story he’s so tired of everything that when oliver decides to defect from his own forces to the greil army, ike’s just like “eugh” and says right to oliver’s face that he’d rather fight and kill him then have his support as an ally, something he probably shouldn’t be doing (and most likely wouldn’t if it wasn’t oliver asking) considering there’s a very finite number of people available to fight ashera:

(i can’t entirely blame him for this one though, because, again… oliver)

or, hell, even this, where ike is standing directly in front of ashera who is about to kill everyone in the tower and turn the entire world to stone, to which his response is to tell her to pick a god and pray:

…are all pretty good instances of ike not always managing to catch his tongue. i mean, if nothing else, you can’t deny the guy’s got balls of steel, but shit-talking pseudo-immortal beings entirely capable of killing him on the spot probably isn’t one of the wisest decisions out there. still, though, it actually matches his fe9 characterization pretty well; in both games, he tends to snap and say or do something ill-advised when he’s frustrated and believes someone else is in the wrong in some way. the main difference between the games is the extent to which ike reacts, though, as now he’s a little calmer even when angry, and no longer charges headlong into danger like when mist and rolf were kidnapped or when facing the black knight for the first time. he’s still making some questionable (bad) decisions here and there, it’s just now they’re a lot less severe than they used to be, and he’s grown up enough that he doesn’t need titania to lecture him whenever he does something dumb anymore.

besides this, the main thing ike is still dealing with in fe10 is his tendency towards self-effacing behavior— and yeah, on its own “too nice for his own good” does sound like the sort of flaw a gary stu would have, but in this case it genuinely does affect him. he’s constantly bending over backwards to help those in need, even when his own kindness is constantly shooting him in the foot and leaving him to deal with even more problems. it actually coincides with his tendency to speak before he thinks, because as a person he just can’t sit by and watch as someone or a group of people is treated unfairly, even if it means getting himself wrapped up in a mess he could have avoided by staying quiet.

on that whole “shooting himself in the foot” thing, it’s important to keep in mind that the “rewards” ike receives for his kindness are more often than not things he doesn’t actually want. as a smaller example, his good looks, bravery, and gentle heart are constantly getting him attention from women when he himself has no interest in their flirting, to the point it makes him uncomfortable. as a much larger example, ike doesn’t want to be a wealthy nobleman, but he still accepts the title of lord to help elincia, and chooses to hold it for a year and a half after the war for the sake of giving legitimacy to her newfound regency over crimea. after this, he finally manages to give up his title and return to running the greil mercenaries, only to be contacted by bastian after a few months and have to go into hiding for the sake of launching a surprise attack on ludveck’s rebel army. he’s then immediately drawn into the begnion-laguz alliance conflict, something he’s actually okay with because he’s being contracted as a mercenary commander and not a general, except that as soon as their army combines with crimea and sanaki’s forces he’s promptly guilt tripped into being a fucking general again. after, like, 2 weeks of commanding sanaki’s army, they accidentally set off the apocalypse, and now ike is the general of the army facing off against literal god. when all of this is said and done, he still doesn’t get what he wants— a simple life as a mercenary— because now he’s known across the entire continent as the radiant hero, the savior of tellius. after everything he’s gone through, he doesn’t even get to have the quiet life he wanted because he’s simply too impactful of a person to be forgotten by history. ike doesn’t want fame, riches, and women; he just wants some relative peace and tranquility, something he is continually denied while the former is frequently pushed upon him.

ike’s ending is where i personally believe it marks the true conclusion of his arc as a character. like a lot of other people, i wasn’t initially sold on the idea of him just up and running away from the continent forever, leaving behind loved ones like mist and titania. after thinking it over a lot, though, i eventually realized it’s actually a very fitting ending for someone like him. the unfortunate truth of the matter is that, no matter what, if ike had stayed in tellius he never would’ve gotten his true happy ending— his fame as a general would have followed him forever, and it’s almost guaranteed he would have found himself dragged into yet another conflict he didn’t want to be a part of, something he himself definitely seems to be aware of.

as such, ike packing up his belongings and taking off either alone or with someone dear to him was actually the best solution to this perpetual dilemma; after years of pain and struggle, finally finding a way to escape the world that had ripped away his childhood and demanded so much out of him must have been cathartic. no longer was he the radiant hero, savior of crimea and tellius— now he was just ike, a traveling mercenary, and that was all he wanted the entire time. it’s also part of why i like the idea of him going with soren so much, as anyone else, including ranulf, would still have ties back to tellius, and could potentially come to regret leaving permanently in the way ike wanted to (hence why someone like mist could never be an option). with soren, however, all he wants is to be at ike’s side, regardless of wherever it takes him. in fact, i’d even argue the two of them leaving together is the best-case scenario, where they both can get exactly what they’ve always desired. as ike and soren get to finally escape the world that had caused them so much grief together, they actually both attain their happily ever afters, living the lives they always wished they could have had.

at no point is ike ever a “perfect” character; at his very core, he’s a person who refuses to stray from his moral compass, something that causes him to make as many mistakes and brings as many issues as it does successes. in fact, it’s so prevalent of a trait it stands as one of the themes of fe9, where even as he grows from a stubborn child to a calm, mature adult, he never loses that earnest belief in doing what’s right. as such, while it can be easily mistaken as doing so, path of radiance was never meant to contain the entirety of ike’s development as a character— it was merely intended to portray his growing pains as he gradually develops into the person who would one day be hailed as the radiant hero. mirroring this, radiant dawn stands as the very ending to this story, in which his selflessness finally grants him a tellius at peace and the freedom to seek out his own happy ending. he was never meant to go through an entire, second arc in this game— he was simply finishing the one he started four years ago.

#oof that was long #at some point i’m gonna have to come up with some sort of tag for these tellius analyses #but i can’t really come up with any sort of clever or funny name for it right now #anyway it’s also probably good to note that another reason why ike’s development is a lot subtler in this game #is because the story needed room for the growth of several other major characters in this game #like miccy/pell/elin/skrim/etc.#so like even with everything i said here there’s also just the obvious occam’s razor lol #fire emblem #tellius #fe10 #ike #long post

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antianakin · 3 months ago

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hey, just wanted to say that i appreciate you creating this space to discuss more uh....unpopular takes on star wars. obviously fandom is a hobby and i don't want to ruin anyone's fun! but i also want a space to push back against fanon interpretations without treading on anyone's toes, you know?

like the whole obi-wan catholic guilt trope, jedi repression trope at large...i'm being dramatic but as an asian person, sometimes it sucks that this is such a prevalent idea about a heroic group that was influenced by buddhism and is very asian-coded. i'm not wording this well but just like how stories about european knights often reflect *the very best* of western values like chivalry, honor, gentility, i could really see a lot of the best of asian culture (a huge over-simplification) in the jedi.

but all that being reduced to "oh actually it's totally catholic guilt" or a inadvertently a regurgitation of prevalent asian stereotypes (the jedi as a group suppress individuality, they don't express emotions, they are too harsh, too unforgiving, lack compassion) is...frustrating to see, even though it's everyone's right to interpret & relate to things as they see fit.

especially when focused on obi-wan! even if we assume that obi-wan is repressed, secretly attached to an unhealthy degree but hiding it, or whatnot - the man quite literally airs the dirty laundry in front of mace and yoda, perhaps the "highest" members of the jedi. he says that he thinks anakin is arrogant, isn't listening to him. i dunno but a repressed person who hates confrontation and vulnerability probably wouldn't do that. he should've gone "haha nope anakin and i are totally fine masters, totally fine" instead of looking for advice & airing out his frustrations.

people getting angry at obi-wan for putting the jedi order over anakin is still annoying, but at least accurate. like yes! obi-wan does put the good of his culture and the galaxy at large over his old padawan! good for him!

but honestly all popular fanon obi-wan tropes go round on a roulette wheel waiting for me to pick one to be petty about lmao.

I definitely get what you mean about wanting a space to push back on common fanon interpretations without stepping on anyone's toes. That's obviously exactly why I made this blog in the first place. It's why I named the blog "antianakin" at all, it's supposed to be a giant neon warning sign to people that I'm not going to feel ashamed of some of my more negative opinions. It's why I use anti and critical tags as much as possible, and don't use the more general tags most of the time (aside from just... "star wars"). This is my space to put my feelings out there, positive AND negative, and I work really hard to make sure I'm not invading spaces that are meant for being positive.

I also often don't reblog people's posts that I completely disagree with JUST to talk about why I don't like their take. I won't invade someone's Jedi critical post in order to tell them that they're wrong about Star Wars. People have tried to tag me into posts like that, but I'm not interested in doing that kind of thing. If I DO want to say something about what I've seen, I make my own post about the issue.

It's interesting that you mention that stories about European knights often reflect what's viewed as the best of Western values, because so often when I see people talk about what would make the Jedi BETTER (or Legends versions of the Jedi that they think were done better), it's usually pretty clear that the Jedi are being turned INTO your more typical European knight to reflect those exact values. They're often wandering on their own, doing what they personally believe to be right whenever and wherever they want, defending the helpless wherever they find them by just riding in on a white horse and slaying an enemy or a monster. And of course some of those values they uphold are about what love and relationships should look like, too, so they all end up in committed monogamous relationships (even if it's with more than one person, it's still usually monogamous). This is one of the reasons I started getting frustrated with the High Republic novels by the third one because it started having that vibe that the "good" Jedi who stuck to more "traditional" ways of doing things and "traditional" values were so much more like your typical European knight, while the Jedi character doing something more modern and more political was losing his way and struggling with a desire for things he was repressing.

It's a feeling we've seen come up time and time again and it keeps getting tossed out in more recent shows, too, the idea that the Jedi "lost their way" from what they should've been, that they once used to represent something worthwhile and losing those traditional values is what caused their destruction and the only way to keep it from happening again is to go back to that. It's not hard to see where that storyline feels compelling, obviously, but it IS sad to see the values that the Jedi DO have in the Prequels in particular getting tossed aside as unworthy and to see their defeat being rewritten as THEIR failure instead of everyone else's.

I've had people tell me that this story feels like it has more nuance to it than the Jedi simply being the heroic victims and the Sith being pure villains. And I get why people think that, I just think that there's a lot of nuance they're MISSING in the story being told, and that that nuance exists EVEN WITH the Jedi still being the heroic victims and the Sith being clear villains. I am more than happy to help critique some of the WAYS that that story got told in the Prequels, the issues in the structure of the Prequels and how it maybe muddied some of the messages that the story was trying to get across, but I also think that that critique is SEPARATE from my feelings on the intended narrative itself. I don't think that the narrative itself is bad or lacking in nuance simply because it may not have been told perfectly. And, personally, I think that some of the more "nuanced" Jedi critical takes often seem INCREDIBLY simplistic themselves.

As for Obi-Wan, fandom will do what fandom does to its darlings. I've certainly done my fair share of simplifying my faves down to shadows of themselves because I happened to enjoy the shadow sometimes in its own right. But I do think that there's plenty of evidence to contradict a lot of people's more popular interpretation of Obi-Wan as a repressed, damaged, traumatized waif. I don't mind a LITTLE of that sometimes, usually when I read fics set in the early years of his apprenticeship with Qui-Gon following some of the events of Jedi Apprentice, but it comes with the context that Obi-Wan is still VERY YOUNG at the time and is dealing with some fairly specific things that have just happened to him and is still learning how to do that in a healthy way.

By the time you hit The Phantom Menace and ESPECIALLY the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan should no longer be a repressed, traumatized waif of a person. That's when it stops being believable to me because the character we see on screen in that time period never fits that description. Like you said, he's ACTIVELY confrontational to his superiors. He does do it with Mace and Yoda (and he does it in ROTS as well as in AOTC) and he does it with Qui-Gon during his apprenticeship, too.

The one other time I was willing to accept some of this characterization was in the Kenobi show where we do see him being more repressed and traumatized and less willing to stand up for himself when faced with confrontation with people like Owen. But one of the reasons this worked for me is because, much like with those JA fics, it comes with a VERY SPECIFIC CONTEXT, and it's done with the intentional purpose of giving Obi-Wan somewhere to develop. He also doesn't stay particularly submissive or waif-like for long, we see him gain back a LOT of his willingness to stand up for himself and confront people by the second episode. The message wasn't that Obi-Wan had ALWAYS been damaged and traumatized or that he was always "meant" for sadness or whatever, but that he had the capacity to find happiness IF HE CHOOSES TO ACT LIKE THE JEDI HE ONE WAS. The only reason he's struggling is because he ISN'T acting like a Jedi anymore. He's not finally figuring out how to handle his traumas, he's GOING BACK to being the person who can handle his traumas.

Anyway, yeah, I feel you, I have definitely experienced the roulette wheel of petty frustration at fandom interpretations of Obi-Wan lol. I can barely handle the "he drops his lightsaber all the time" joke because I feel like it often makes him come across as childishly incompetent.

#star wars #obi-wan kenobi #jedi #pro jedi #fandom wank

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blacknedsoul-blog · 1 year ago

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Lenore Vandernatch: the rogue, the gothic heroine and the courtly knight. A review of archetypes

Okay, after going over my notes, here we are again. In case you don't know what this is all about, here is the first of these posts where I'm doing a review of some of the archetypes that Annabel and Lenore seem to be taking notes on.

Just so this doesn't end up being another 3000 word post, let's get started.

The Rogue

In 1554, the first written version of "El Lazarillo de Tormes" was published, the foundational work of what would become known in Spain as the "picaresque novel": stories centered on the rogue, a poor rascal who uses trickery to ensure his survival.

At this stage of the game, we have rogues in a variety of flavors and colors. It would be difficult to make a comprehensive list, so let's talk about these characters in general.

The first thing to note is that rogues are, by definition, outsiders. In the traditional picaresque, the rogue is simply someone from the lower classes, but as this archetype has grown, it has become less about class and more about criminality.

Yes. Rogues are criminals: thieves like Robin Hood, swindlers like the Lazarillo...

Fraud, arson. You name it.

Getting back to the issue of the rogue as an outsider, they may have been one from the start, or they may have become one after attaining their criminal status. Regardless of the reason, these people operate outside of the law, the authorities generally give a shit, and, depending on your rogue flavor, may even actively fight against it.

One thing to note here: this goes a bit beyond Lenore's rebellious attitude. Like a good rogue, she derives enormous personal satisfaction from the thought of getting her way. The world has turned its back on the rogue, so the rogue will not hesitate to turn her back on the world.

In Lenore's case, this attitude of throwing all authority to the wind and actively ignoring any rules imposed on her is a mixture of personality and trauma. In the flashbacks, we see that Lenore has always had a certain disdain for protocol and formalities, but of course, after being locked up for at least a year because the rules of the society she lives in have decided to make her an outcast for her brother 's death, she no longer finds any reason to listen to what they have to say to her. The rules will never go beyond the feeling that she has agency over her life.

From this follows the methods of the rogues: opportunism is one of their hallmarks. Ingenuity, cunning, and creativity are common traits among these characters, something that is usually tied to their status as outsiders and criminals; they don't care about rules, so they think outside the box, either because they are highly intelligent or because they lack common sense.

Maybe both.

So, yes, when Annabel tells her dashing rogue, she's not wrong in the least. But there are more interesting things to look at here

The Gothic Heroine

When some theorists say that Gothic heroines are bland and uninteresting characters, it's...true. But there's a reason for that, so let me get that out of the way for a moment: the image of the maiden in this period is used as a symbol of purity, chastity, goodness, and her corruption, death, or disease works on both a literal and metaphorical level. It is like when you see grotesque religious images in horror movies, there is a powerful and disturbing charge in the idea of seeing something "pure" destroyed.

So the thing about gothic heroines is that, at worst, they are not characters who contribute to the story they are in, but tokens, quasi-sacred representations who are there to die, get sick, or fall victim to a villain who might sexually harass them. Yes, unpleasant.

But good gothic heroines (besides possibly having tuberculosis) are characters with arcs related to corruption, especially mental corruption. And this is where it gets interesting.

But we go from less to more. In her flashbacks, Lenore's physical appearance is almost exactly that of a gothic novel protagonist: pale, almost cadaverous, slender, languid in her movements (because, in this case, she's drugged a significant percentage of the time), and long hair.

Her background in this part of the story, like that of the best gothic heroines, is one of mental corruption: she is here, imprisoned, withering and losing her mind, giving in to despair. There are those who point out a rather strong resemblance between the scene where Lenore tears the flowered wallpaper from her room and the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by the writer Charlotte Perkins. And although this story is not gothic, it definitely retains the most important trope of the genre.

Another element in which we can find Lenore is in the Gothic ballad of the same name, written by Gottfried Bürger in 1773. This poem tells the story of Lenore, a girl condemned by narrative for blaspheming against heaven after the death of her beloved, who is later visited by the Grim Reaper himself to take her to him.

A heartbroken woman committing blasphemy in the name of a lost love? I wonder if that sounds familiar.

And if I had to point out one particular gothic heroine with whom Lenore shares important similarities, it would be Laura from Carmilla.

With the first, she shares two very important things: isolation and a penchant for women who can murder her, a complicated relationship with a gothic vampire.

Laura lives in complete isolation from the world, with the only company of maids and her father; within the first few chapters, we know that she can barely remember the last time she had the company of a woman her own age. Like Lenore in the flashbacks, Laura is something of a secret, hidden from the world (though for less horrific reasons).

And that isolation is broken by the arrival of an elegant, almost supernaturally beautiful upper-class lady who almost kicks in her door with a "Hi, I want to be friends. You'll like me."

Both Laura and Lenore are not afraid of the vampire, though they are not unaware of her strange behavior and will raise a puzzled eyebrow at her promises of affection, as well as her obvious tendency to insist on a fucked-up secret that they are in the middle of and can't share. Another important detail is that both characters have a certain difficulty in describing their feelings as romantic: both are very obviously obsessed with this mysterious lady who has come to interrupt their loneliness, but Laura never fails to refer to Carmilla as her "friend" (a behavior that the modern reader may interpret, with more than fair reason, as comphet), and Lenore is little more than that, at least until the mansion arch where the shingle falls on her.

Last but not least, just as Lenore is treated as "crazy," there are several events in Laura's life (such as her first encounter with Carmilla when she was a child) or that occur throughout the novel that are dismissed by those around her as her being a little touched in the head.

The courtly knight

Here it is necessary to make a distinction: knights are a far-reaching figure, but before and during the Middle Ages they mainly starred in two types of stories: the canta de gesta (which was intended to tell great deeds of inspiration for certain peoples, such as the Song of Mio Cid in Spain or the Song of the Nibelungs in Germany. This last one is the best Canto de gesta in history, I do not accept arguments) and the Novel of chivalry or courtly (focused on the individual story of the knight and introduces elements of the court).

What is the main difference between the knight of the canto de gesta and the knight of the court? Well... the latter is much more horny. And we are talking about Lenore, so you have until the end of this paragraph to imagine which of these knights we are talking about.

The first thing to keep in mind is that the Courtly Knight has a pretty strong moral compass: nobility, mercy, loyalty, and honor are values they firmly believe in; these characters are heroes, and that means that while they are not perfect, they represent ideals that are considered important in this time. And we're talking about vassalage, so you get it.

This is the first thing Lenore has in common with the knights of the court: her strong sense of morality. Yes, she's not afraid to play dirty like a rogue, but she's pretty clear about what things are important to her in that regard, and she's willing to uphold those ideals even in the context of Nevermore, which actively encourages its students to kill and betray each other.

However, the personal agendas of these knights have one important thing in common: the conflict between their own desires and their duty.

What are those desires? Well...

Good courtly knights usually have to choose between their love/sexual interests and where their personal loyalties lie, which, due to the era in which these stories take place, are usually their feudal lords or even kings.

We already established that Lenore doesn't give a shit about authority, but her personal loyalty is to her friends. And this is where it gets tricky for her: So far in the comic, Lenore has kept her relationship with Annabel a secret from her friends, and she has kept the fact that she wants to save her friends a secret from Annabel. A conflict that may eventually blow up in her face, and on the face of it, really befits a courtly knight (though if she were a real one, the Misfits might ask her to kill the Deans or something in exchange for accepting her relationship with Annabel).

To continue with this, we need to stop for a moment and talk about another little thing: courtly love. There are many definitions of it, but my favorite is the one that defines it as an attempt to reconcile mystical love with eroticism. Fun fact: these stories were written in the Provençal language, something that would associate romantic tropes with "vulgar language".

In any case, courtly love usually speaks of the beloved maiden as an idealized object, a figure who inspires an almost religious devotion. And the most recurrent theme within courtly love is what is called "love from afar": it focuses more on the journey in search of the beloved than on the couple's relationship as such (this journey can be literal or metaphorical), the knight has symbols associated with the pilgrim, there is a certain hatred of the image, the maiden is seen as an almost religious figure, and...

Yes, the color associated with the so-called "love from afar", specifically with the beloved maiden, is damn blue.

Now that we've got all that out of the way, it's time to break down why Lenore fulfills some of these things and why she doesn't.

Going with the tropes that are fulfilled, we can say that Lenore is on a more or less metaphorical journey. A journey to recover her memories and her identity. One at the end of which her lover waits for her "until the abyss claims them both".

Like a knight, Lenore is willing to make great personal sacrifices in pursuit of the things she cares about: she is willing to die for the people she cares about (the misfits) and for her lover (Annabel). The Living Long Thing is something the Knight don't know about, and since Lenore is in Nevermore, apparently neither does she.

With all that said, it's worth noting the biggest difference: courtly love features relationships based on vassalage and a huge power differential. Something that does not happen here. No, Lenore calling Annabel "my liege" doesn't count.

To explain this further -and to summarize, because it's a subject that bloody books have been written about-t he relationships in courtly love have two different levels of power: the knight must perform feats to be worthy of affection, and the maiden is little more than a prize to be won.

This unbalanced power dynamic is something that simply does not exist in the White Raven: an important part of their relationship is that both are equal in charisma, intelligence, and resourcefulness. The unstoppable force and the immovable object. Annabel is as willing to die for Lenore as she is for herself, and Lenore would probably go into berserker mode if anyone dared to treat Annabel as a prize.

Yes, you could argue that the balance of power is a bit weighted toward Lenore because Annabel is willing to make sacrifices for her that Lenore wouldn't make because she has some, you know, morals. But I think that has more to do with Annabel's character than her relationship with Lenore (that's another analysis I have a pin for when the season is over).

Conclusions

If the archetypes that Annabel seems to take note of are all quite related, Lenore, on the contrary, is much more like a mosaic: these characters have little in common and some (like the Rogue and the Knight) directly contradict each other. This woman is chaotic in her conception: opportunistic and rebellious as a rogue, pious and with strong values as a knight, and condemned by the narrative as a gothic heroine.

Another thing that stands out is that two of these three archetypes are traditionally male characters. Personally, I don't think Lenore is "like a man": her entire background and personal history is meant to work in terms of her status as a woman in the time period she lives in. She can do all the shit these male heroes do and better (though the hc that Lenore is somewhere on the non-binary spectrum is not a reading that conflicts with that).

And I use the word "hero" because another detail stands out here as well: yes, many of these characters are not only often the protagonists of the stories they are in, they are heroes within their historical periods and literary movements.

I'm going to do a third part of this comparing Lenore's archetypes to Annabel's because, believe me, there's some really crazy stuff to unpack there.

#nevermore webtoon #lenore nevermore #white raven #lenore vandernacht

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bluespiritshonour · 1 year ago

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Oh my God!

I just caught up with World's Finest: Teen Titans and I absolutely have to write this out:

First of all, I love this cover:

The thing that caught my eye: “you're grounded.”

Not the dramatic “you're fired” as if the motherfucker didn't raise that damn kid in his own damn house for YEARS.

(I know. I know. Bar on the ground, but what would you?)

Also, the anger palpable on Bruce's face and Dick's absolute disregard for it. I'm laughing here y'all. This is what teenagers act like. This is what fights between parents and children look like.

Also. Dick Grayson, I've been missing. You're back from war!

I love how curt he is. The “Get lost” hits in all the right places. We love a strongly-principled character that stands for what he believes in. With all the lukewarm Dick Grayson writing floating around I felt like walking into a coffee shop while it's snowing outside.

More of this writing, please.

I'd been waiting for this moment all through this series.

This conversation.

I compare things all the time. It might not be the right thing in every field but I think it serves well when it comes to comic books. We all have personal “canon criteria”—for example, mine are “Darwyn Cooke wrote this Bruce so I'm taking it as valid characterisation ” or “Every version of Bruce played by Kevin Conroy is valid”. (Minus Bruce Timm bullshit!)

Which was what cinched my hatred for Bruce after reading a Robin short story that Cooke wrote and alluded to Robin: Year One in it. I mean, I might not fuck with Dixon, but am I going to call even Cooke's Bruce OOC? No. It means Bruce is a jerk. Full stop.

Waid is one of the writers I respect (excluding Kingdom Come. I hate it and I can't put my finger on the why. But I just do: I hate it. I hate it for Clark. I hate it for Diana. And I'm a professional Bruce-hater so let's not even go there. I hate it for Dick too.)

And Dick and Bruce's relationship has a lot of baggage from the fact that a) Bruce is himself traumatised and fails to meet Dick's emotional needs b) he wasn't ready to be a father when he adopted Dick c) Dick simply suffers from being the eldest—the test child.

And very rarely have I seen writers manage to walk on the thin line of complicated-but-dedicated-and-strong.

Young Justice cartoon did it. Dick and Bruce's relationship is going strong. But they fight and have different values. And Dick can see all that is wrong with Bruce's approach to vigilantism in particular and life in general.

Grimm (Legends of the Dark Knight #149-154) did it right. Where Bruce hurt Dick deeply and made him feel unwanted all the while overthinking about Dick's well-being. Way to go, buddy! You can see the repercussions it has for Dick while simultaneously stare at this man who's tying himself into knots trying to think how best to parent.

I think that's what most Bruce and Dick comics miss: the excessive worrying. They don't show the worry, make them fight for drama, never address it apart from throwing out a “it's because Bruce's worried” (bitch, where?) and have Dick running back to Gotham at the first chance. It sounds an awful lot like “your parents hurt you 'cause they love you” bullshit.

I think World's Finest manages it well because foremost, Bruce says, in words, that he's worried about Dick's well-being. He's taciturn, he's putting constant pressure on Dick all in the hopes of making him quit Titans. All this makes him a jerk. But I don't hate him for it.

It's between Dick's “you don't trust me” and Bruce's “no, I don't trust them.”

Most teenagers clash with their parents. It's normal. That's what Waid has shown here and I love it. It feels very—normal?

Especially when the Bats aren't normal! Bruce sure as fuck ain't a normal parent. But there was something very bitter-sweet coming-of-age in this conversation.

Bruce does all those things that are bad for Dick and his growing independence. You're not supposed to handle teenagers like that.

He's worried and taking desperate measures. “If I punish him, then maybe he'll obey me and quit Titans and then he'll he safe”—lots of parents who don't know how to deal with teenagers do it.

But the sequence of it: Bruce is worried → Bruce wants Dick to quit Titans → for Dick it means proving himself to be better, to not get hurt (as if he can control that beyond a certain point) → Bruce being alarmed at Dick's insistence to stay with the Titans and taking desperate measures like benching him.

At least it makes sense.

Compare it to Dixon's Nightwing origin story, which honestly, personally I think was lazy writing. Drama for drama's sake. “You’re fired because you're spending too much time with the Titans.” The same writer also had Bruce say that he did it because he wanted Dick to strike out on his own. Blah, blah, blah.

And no matter whatever happens he'd never ever say it to Dick's face that he's worried about him because—well, reasons.

Robin: Year One logic:

I'm worried about Dick's health so I fire him. He runs off and can get hurt? He joins a school for assasins? None of my business. He can get hurt on his own, I don't care as long as it is not on my conscience. Peace.

—Bruce “professional narcissist” Wayne.

So, yes. When faced with this book(WF: TT), I'd call Dixon's writing lazy.

I'm also comparing this to several other instances when Bruce verbally says (never to Dick, mind you) that he loves that Dick's a better person and better vigilante than him. But in the same book he'd yell at Dick for exactly the same thing. (I consider that lazy writing, since BTAS made sure to show a shot of Bruce smiling whenever Dick was happy/not like him).

I like this thing here where he says it to Dick's face. He's still grounding him for “discipline's sake” or whatever—very, very IC for Bruce.

But he also lets Dick know that he appreciates his values, that are different—better—than Bruce's own.

I can stomach that.

Honestly Bruce's writing in this book felt like BtAS writing (pre-Bruce Timm fuckery). That's a compliment.

P.S. Waid's a good story-teller overall. His Superman: Birthright was one of the first Superman comics I read and I fell in love with Clark right away.

Peace ✌️😂

#dick grayson #bruce wayne #batman #world's finest #teen titans #robin #titans #wf: tt #world's finest: teen titans #dc #comics

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mecchantheotaku · 1 year ago

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Slay The Princess: The Damsel and Simplicity

SPOILER WARNING - This is my personal take on the Damsel. Enjoy. Or not.

i see a lot of people criticising or backhandedly complimenting the damsel's route because they looked very heavily into it, but in my opinion i think the fact that they looked so heavily into it is what caused these criticisms in the first place. and that's likely intentional.

the route is a lot less weird if you rescue her without asking questions and don't listen to the narrator, the only really weird bit being right at the end where her simple and joyful nature clashes harshly with the complicated nature of the story as a whole.

because the damsel's character, as a whole, is... simple. a dainty princess waiting to be rescued by her heroic knight in shining armour. if it wasn't for the shifting mound taking her at the end, this would have been a simple "hero saved princess and they lived happily ever after" tale.

however, if you ask her too many questions, that's when it gets weird. you ask her all these questions because you want more than what her character is and it feels weird that she really is as simple as she appears. continuously asking her what she wants causes her to deconstruct even when there's nothing left to see.

and if you kill her, the idealised fairytale takes a dark turn, but even as the grey, her motives are still simple. she's convinced that the cabin drives you to kill her, so she sets it ablaze, taking you with it so you can join her in death. all still with a simple smile on her face.

both of these more unnerving possibilities are the result of you being unsatisfied with her simplicity. and for a lot of people, that's understandable. but for those that embrace her simplicity, it's a heartwarming tale of rescuing a princess (up until the very end that is, which is fitting for the game as a whole, especially if this is your first path).

don't believe me? ask the shifting mound during the fight regarding the two different versions of the damsel vessel.

here's what she says about the deconstructed damsel:

"Love melted into skepticism, and you pulled back layer after layer after layer until all you were left with was the knowledge that you did not know me. You sought the truth then. Will you hide from it now that it is within your grasp?"

now here's what she says about the regular damsel:

"But the stakes meant nothing to you. You had a desire, and you set that desire free, you lifting me and me lifting you, forever and ever and ever. Consumed by true belief, there was nothing that could hold us back."

it can be that simple and heartwarming... if you want it to be. if you don't want that, you get a shell or a shadow of what it could have been.

the voice of the smitten reflects this as well. he is also a simple character. he is motivated by one thing and one thing alone: love. even when presented with the weird parts of the damsel should you choose to explore, he loves her in spite of that. warts and all.

and should you kill her and intentionally make the story dark, he has nothing left to live for and goes mad with grief, putting his simple desires under a dark light. (i will admit the burned grey was painful to go through because of this, seeing such a simple and optimistic character transform like that from sheer sorrow)

in a way, i would say that the damsel and the voice of the smitten are perfect for each other. a bit weird to everyone else, but to each other, nothing but pure and simple happiness.

and if you don't like that? of course you wouldn't like either of those characters. because you want more than that. most people want more than that. i'm personally fine either way.

but yeah, that's my take on the damsel (and by extension the voice of the smitten). a simple character. nothing more. will you embrace her simplicity, try to tear her down to the bone, or twist it into something horrifying?

either way, there are no wrong answers. and that's why i like this route. and this game.

#slay the princess #slay the princess spoilers #the damsel #i feel like a lot of people are going to hate me for this lmao #but fuck it might as well weed them out

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starvcives · 3 months ago

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and top 5 dick & bruce moments <3

vechh you know me and you know how much i LOVE this question!! i'd take literally any excuse to talk about them.. there's just soo much to choose from so i was dying while doing thiss. the one's id choose are pretty generic but i love them all the same::

that moment from obsidian age when faith tells dick about what bruce said to her. dick being so surprised that she assumed bruce was his father and even more surpised at what made her think that way? u are both freaks. the fact that bruce can so casually say this to anyone else but never actually say it to dick's face.. they r CURSED. also dick's expressions!! genuinely jla obsidian age is such a foundational nightwing comic.

"The only time I ever feel pride is when I look at Nightwing. Sometimes I think he's the only thing I ever did right."

their wholee argument during prodigal. love it when they ream each other out, or more likely, dick reams bruce out while bruce stands there because everything he does has a reason dick, and he has a good explanation!! but also because they are soo unwell. bruce thinking dick would never wanna be batman because he has already built nightwing for himself-- which is so much better! bruce truly believes that nightwing is an essential part of the hero community. he believes in dick's ability to lead and inspire. he also believes he doesn't have any right to be a subject of that ability. he doesn't think he deserves dick's loyalty and he outright says this in gotham knights. dick has already done so much for him, how could bruce call him back, especially for this.

robin 13 u will forever be known for this..

"I didn't have the right to call you back."

"The right? I'd die for you bruce."

obviously, just copy pasting the entire comic of bloodborne here. bruce leaving flowers at the graysons' grave every year.. alfred saying he's never missed the occasion so it's obvious something's gone wrong. the flashback... "i dodged the bullet, robin. i always do. okay?" dick setting off alone to find bruce in the middle of the cold harsh weather with nothing but a heartbeat monitor.. SCREAM.

another over used one but also one that altered my brain chemistry. that one panel from infinite crisis. I KNOW IT'S EVERYWHERE-- but that's because it is one of the most insane and fundamental changes that re-routed comic history! alternate superman telling bruce that everyone on this earth is a worse version of everyone on earth-2. telling batman that they should be overwritten, it's only for the best after all. AND WHAT DOES BRUCE SAY??

"And what about Dick Grayson?"

"Yes?"

"Is he a better man on your Earth than he is on mine?"

yeah. bruce's faith in dick transcends alternate realities. the world could be on fire and the incorruptable could become corrupted but bruce wayne can not doubt dick grayson. bruce just casually judges the potential of an entire world by the standards of dick grayson. if the dick grayson on this earth is still a good person then it is still worth saving.

last but not least, a bit of a controversial one, but that scene in forever evil where dick is strapped to the bomb and it's about to go off and he tells bruce to leave him just like bruce has told him many times before. BUT BRUCE CAN'T. he says that the only way they are getting out of this is together as if there aren't like 3 other people in that room with them lmaoo- if dick grayson dies then bruce might as well die too because there is no reality in which he can live without him. his son, his brother, his best friend, his saving grace, his boy OUGH. and then we get the whole spyral fight scene yada yada and it's like a knife cut clean through your heart. one of the first dick & bruce scenes I read and one that will always hold a lot of weight in how I view them.

please bear with me i cant find the panels rn

bonus:: sooo much good robin dick and bruce content coming out omgg -> batman and robin: year one, world's finest

and then there's year one: batman/scarecrow, batman and robin 2021 and i can not reiterate this enough BLOODBORNE!!!

there r also so many single issues of comics i can name but that's a whole list for another time

#dick & bruce #letters to the editor #blowing u a big kiss this is my fav ask #dick grayson #bruce wayne

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crime-scene-psychic · 23 days ago

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As I continue my Titans rewatch, I feel as though I've been unfairly harsh towards it. No, it's not perfect by any means. The writing goes from standing out, to half-way decent, and then to CW-levels of awful all in the span of a single episode. The special effects leave much to be desired for an HBO production. Sometimes the characters would simply Not Do That. It's literally impossible to see anything due to the lighting choices. Timeline? What's a timeline?

But it also gave me live-action versions of a lot of characters we haven't ever gotten the chance to see in that particular format. It gave me a pretty complex Dick Grayson character, something that, until that show, hadn't existed in a live-action sense either. The only other characterizations of that character that existed before Titans that were that complex were animated (namely the original Teen Titans and Young Justice, though they also didn't get a chance to truly develop the character as fully, in my opinion, because they were A. shows geared towards kids, and B. looking to focus on the entire team as a whole, which Titans sometimes had a hard time doing).

A lot of critique towards the end of the show came from people (rightfully so) complaining that the show focused too much on the Batfamily and that they should've just made a Batfamily show if that's what they wanted to focus on, which I agree. Don't get me wrong, I think a big reason why I can see so much potential in the show and why I enjoyed it so much is that it focused on the characters I loved so much. However, I realize that the show is called Titans, not Batfamily, so I totally understand why a lot of people were pissed. They signed up to watch the Titans, not whatever problems Bruce Wayne and his gaggle of children were dealing with.

I'm just biased and I recognize that.

Like, yeah, the show is far from perfect, but even with it sometimes focusing a bit more of Dick than other characters, I still feel like there are well-rounded story lines for the rest of the characters, at least the main cast, especially as it finds its footing a bit in the later seasons.

I hope in the near-decent future we do get a Batfamily show (or, heaven forbid, because I would NEVER shut up about it) a Dick Grayson show, because just from New 52 and DC Rebirth there is SO MUCH MATERIAL and that's not even scratching the current runs. There's so much to do with these characters, especially Dick, and I can't help but with Titans getting canceled (I'm surprised it made it 4 seasons, in all honestly) feel unsatisfied. Even with what was able to do, I was still disappointed when it came to how they handled certain story lines (mainly Slade and Dick, because I really feel like they had a missed opportunity not including the Apprentice story line. Like, they could've made it the big secret Dick was keeping from the rest of the Titans in season 2, that during his time with the first Titans group he was forced to work with Slade, but they did the Jericho thing, which is fine, but I think if they'd stuck a bit more to the source material they would've been better for it, especially since the Apprentice arch is such a fan favorite).

I've been rereading some of the New 52 pre and post Forever Evil, mainly the Court of Owls run and the Grayson run, and there's so much untapped potential there! Just as I was revisiting Grayson, I couldn't help but think about how badass some of the panels would look in a live action show. We've barely gotten Court of Owls content, and when we do, they make it all about Bruce, which is fine, I guess, but Dick Grayson in the current Prime Earth lore was LITERALLY BORN to be a Court of Owl Talon and it's such a missed opportunity not to explore that further (which is probably one of the few grievances I had with Gotham Knights because if they were able to show Jason going through the Lazarus Pit again then GODDAMMIT they could've at least HINTED at Dick's ancestry!).

Side note, Court of Owls wouldn't have made much sense in Titans, but then again, they didn't seem too bothered playing fast and loose with the timelines, so why should I? It would've been a really interesting Dick Grayson arch, especially in comparison to Gar and Conner's time with CADMUS in season 2. Like I would love to see the Court sink their Talons into Dick and fuck him up a bit, but again, I'M BIASED!!!!

I hope with more and more people getting into the Batfamily that it'll lead to more content, especially live-action, but it just seems like studios aren't interested, which is insane because it seems everyone else is? I don't get why they're so hesitant. I talked about this in another recently long ass post, but I don't really get why studios are afraid to put Robin/Dick Grayson into the DCEU. He's such a cool character if done right and his fighting style is super sick to see live-action, as demonstrated in TItans. I love that they incorporate acrobats into his style, it's fucking awesome to see.

I dunno. Just back on my DC bullshit and thinking things. That's it.

#titans #teen titans #titans 2018 #dick grayson #robin #nightwing

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skyward-floored · 2 months ago

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On the topic of Wild having a memory attack in Ages’ era,

I can only imagine how alarming it must be to see wild do that, especially without having any context to what’s happening.

Like from the outside, a memory attack probably looks pretty concerning.

Like especially if you’re familiar with the concepts like an absence seizure. (It probably looks kinda similar)

like say Mipha (who spends time treating people for injuries) or perhaps Age’s father (who would probably be somewhat trained to look out for that sort of thing bc of knight first aid training or something )

(And tbh, I’m not entirely unconvinced his memory-attack-things aren’t some sort of seizure-adjacent neurological event, related to whatever brain damage caused his amnesia in the first place (regardless if it was caused by the shrine itself, or the injuries that put him in it))

Aaaa There’s so much potential you can explore here!!! This sort of crossover thingy(? I forgot the word) has so many interesting concepts to play around with!

Thoughts?

(Also ps I think you nailed Mipha’s character)

Yeah!! I mean Wild suddenly going still and not reacting to anything is definitely alarming, and I'm sure Mipha can tell something is wrong with him (even if she doesn't know exactly what it is). Maybe she'd even have some ideas on how to help him with them? Make them a little easier somehow? Maybe. She'd try and help him either way I'm sure.

Age's father would be just so concerned by the whole situation anyway, adding memory attacks is just icing on the cake. His son who's not his son but is his son but like x10 traumatized version sometimes get memory attacks or seizures or something. Sure. Why not. His life is already so gosh darn WEIRD.

#answers from the floor #anon #lu wild #lu age #just for ease of tagging

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wildcreativemastermind · 2 months ago

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SWTOR: Jedi Consular Companions

Listen, I like the Jedi Consular story in SWTOR. It was the first story in the game I completed, and I still enjoy replaying it. I downloaded the game to play a Jedi, and the consular story gives, at least I think it gives, a better Jedi experience than the Jedi Knight story does. The big drawback for me however, is the companions.

We'll start with Qyzen, the first companion. He's a trandoshan and friend of the PC's master. At first, I actually liked him. The thing of him declaring the pc to be the Scorekeeper's Herald was not good, and I really think shouldn't have been there in the first place, but it was a single drawback. The Jedi Council is shown to have concerns about Qyzen and Yuon's (pc's master) friendship. When I first started playing, that last point got some eyerolls out of me. I've seen the movies, I know Jedi are allowed to have friends. However, on this 2nd playthrough, I'm fully on the Jedi Council's side concerning Qyzen, if anything my opinion is harsher than theirs'.

Qyzen, as he is, should not be allowed at the Jedi Temple. This guy has hunted Wookies for sport and shows no remorse for doing so. He doesn't believe hunting wookies is wrong. What if there are any wookie Jedi? Padawans? Initiates? Younglings? Their safety is more important than Yuon's or Qyzen's feelings, get him away from the Temple and off of Tython.

What I think should've been done with Qyzen: honestly, he doesn't need that many changes, two are all that are needed. 1. no calling the pc Scorekeeper's Herald. This never made sense, the pc is not trandoshan, not part of trandoshan culture, and does things that many Jedi could do. A nickname does make sense, both in universe and from a game development standpoint. I think something like "young hunter" (possibly "master hunter" later) would make more sense. It would be an acknowledgement of the Consular as a fellow and friend in a transdoshan way without placing undue importance on them.

2. don't have Qyzen be a wookie hunter. This is really the big one. It would resolve a lot of the issues that are created by Qyzen's presences as it is in the game. Maybe there's a group of trandoshans who think there should be limits on what can and can't be hunted, sentient species can't be hunter the same way animals can. Qyzen could have been part of this group (or even still is). This could even tie into Qyzen's side quest later of the wookie killing trandoshans based on information from a trandoshan. In the version I'm suggesting, the trandoshan who gives the wookie info on who to kill is telling the wookie to kill trandoshans who have sworn off hunting wookies. The wookie kills these trandoshans anyway because they're blinded by vengeance. When Qyzen and the Consular encounter this wookie, they could help get said wookie off the vengeance path or kill them to avenge the dead trandoshans.

We'll do Tharan next. Why is he there? He could find excitement, and probably be happier, without the Consular. He doesn't seem to like much about the Jedi, especially not their using the Force. I interact with this guy and I wonder why he doesn't try to find excitement and adventure elsewhere. Surely it couldn't be that hard for him to get his own ship.

My ideas for Tharan: scrap him, introduce him many planets later, or change his character to fit someone who'd hang out with Jedi.

Ideally, I think he should be scrapped, I simply do not find him likable. If we're going to change him instead, I think I have a solution. Make him a scientist who used to study the force. Instead of seeing something he doesn't understand and being rather averse to it, he wants to understand how it works. His dreams and aspirations on this were crushed by not finding enough funding, or something else happened to prevent him from studying the force. Working with the Consular on Nar Shadaa could than reawaken that ambition, and maybe he could use the Consular for his research (if they consent of course), it would give a clearer reason for him to travel with the Consular specifically. And maybe Syo and Fain tried to help with that study back in the day. It would change Tharan's focus, but it would make his extensive time around Jedi make more sense and explain why he'd have an anti-mind trick device (is that really part of exo-tech? that bit struck me as odd). Perhaps Tharan's working on Nar Shadaa could have been him seeking the most profitable work he could get since he couldn't fulfill his ambition. He could still have his tech knowledge, it just wouldn't be his main interest.

Now for Zenith: Zenith on his own is okay, not great but okay. He doesn't quite have the glaring issues some of the others do. My problem with him isn't really him, so much as that he's yet another companion who doesn't approve of the Jedi Consular acting like a Jedi. I think if we had at least one companion before him who did, I'd have a better opinion of Zenith.

Finally talking about companions I like, let's talk about Felix. Felix himself is fine, good actually. He's the only Jedi romance I actually like (I'm squicked by master/padawan romances, and Doc is just awful). The problem with Felix isn't Felix, the problem with Felix is that he shows up far to late. He's the first companion the Consular who fits the bog standard playthrough and is one of the romance options, and yet he doesn't appear until the last planet of chapter 2. This means he doesn't get the time he needs to be explored, as his own character or his relationship with the Consular.

Given his being a love interest and having the Sith holocron in his head that does absolutely nothing during the class story, Felix just screams underexplored to me. The fix with him, introduce and make him a companion in chapter one, maybe he could be on Tatooine so he could still be on a miserable middle of nowhere planet. And do something with the holocron during the class story, maybe we run into a Sith who knows about the holocron in Felix's head, and Felix and the Consular have to work together to deal with the problems that come from this. The love between Felix and the Consular (whether friendship or romance) could be used to help him in this. Also, don't end his romance with marriage. Instead, just have him and the Consular agree for them to be permanent, it accomplishes the same general goal without doing something that would make certain the Consular would have to leave the Jedi.

Now for Nadia, I like Nadia as a character, but there are some problems, especially with her as a love interest. The big issue with her, like Felix, is that she becomes a companion to late in the game. I think she should have become a companion at Quesh. This would allow her and her and the JC's relationship more time to develop.

As for the Nadia romance, it has so much wrong that I'm seriously considering saying it should be thrown out. The game's romances in general have power imbalance issues, but JC/Nadia has got to be one of the worst in this regard. I can ignore it with Felix cause it's not highlighted (it also helps that Felix is the one pursuing the Consular), but I can't do that with Nadia.

Okay, so the JC becomes her Jedi master and she starts to see the male JC as something of a father figure. This would have been genuinely adorable if she wasn't expressing romantic interest in the JC, and soon after her father's death.

Another part of the power dynamic in this is that Nadia is a Senator, she is the JC's boss. This doesn't get highlighted in the game with Nadia specifically, but it is the case.

Honestly, Nadia just shouldn't be a romance option, so much would have to change to make it not concerning that I don't even want to bother.

But what about male consulars? Shouldn't they get a romance option? A female one since this game came in 2008 and queer romance wasn't gonna happen?

Ok, genderbend Tharan and make her the male Consular's love interest. Keep Holiday, she could be a friend and assistant instead of a girlfriend (maybe there could be subtle hints of Holiday and lady Tharan being friendly exs) No I'm not elaborating more on that.

#star wars #swtor #jedi consular #qyzen #tharan cedrax #zenith #felix iresso #nadia grell #so it turns out i had a lot to say about this #i actually like my make tharan cedrax a woman idea #this game has to few female companions #the consular gets one #it's ridiculous #sorry Nadia romance fans I got to lazy to think of how to make it work

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adobe-outdesign · 6 months ago

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Have you reviewed the Farfetch'd line?

Back in the early days of Pokemon, it was more common to see Pokemon based on specific Japanese references that English audiences wouldn't necessarily understand (not that this doesn't still happen, but they seem to acknowledge they're an international brand more these days).

In Farfetch'd's (that name looks so wrong as a possessive) case, it's based on the Japanese proverb "a duck comes bearing spring onions". Ducks are often cooked with onions, so the saying is referring to something that's an unlikely opportunity (the closest English version would probably be a "sitting duck").

The concept is fun, but being a Gen 1 design, it's also maybe a bit too straightforward—it's a duck with a leek, nothing less and nothing more. I do like the expression with those big ol' brows, and it's perfectly fine-looking, but it feels like it could've been pushed more. (I'm kind of surprised it didn't have leek elements built into it and be part grass-type, given that it already has the leak shape built into its head feathers.) It always seemed like the perfect kind of Pokemon to evolve, and apparently GameFreak agreed... kind of.

My major beef with Galarian Farfetch'd is that it exists in the first place. That sounds harsh, but what I mean is that regional-only evolutions are fine when they only make sense coming off a regional with a different concept. For example, Cursola wouldn't make sense when evolving from regular Corsola because the bleached coral theme would come out of nowhere; Obstagoon wouldn't make sense evolving from regular Linoone because it has no reason to turn into Gene Simmons out of nowhere, etc etc.

But with G. Farfetch'd? It's not really all that different from regular Farfetch'd at all, and I definitely don't think Sirfetch'd needed to evolve from a regional; it would've made just as much sense evolving from Kantonian Farfetch'd. So all G. Farfetch'd does is make regular Farfetch'd feel even more obsolete than it already did.

Now, I will say that visually, I do prefer G. Farfetch'd's design. The stupidly huge leek is super fun and brings a lot more to the table conceptually when combined with its extra serious expression and increased strength (especially because it's apparently based on how leeks are bigger in England than Japan). The darker colors are also nice, and it's a nice little touch that the head feathers switch orientation. It's a good improvement over the original, just once again frustrating from a practicality standpoint.

I should also mention really quick that originally, Farfetch'd had this scrapped evo called Madame. I'm... not a big fan, to be honest. I don't know if it's meant to have an SM thing going on with it or if it's just meant to be masquerade-themed, but either way that element comes out of nowhere and the main focus of Farfetch'd, the leek, is too de-emphasized. The feather detailing also feels like too much.

Pre-evo beefs aside, I do really like Sirfetch'd as a design. The concept of just taking the leek and making it into a sword and shield is extremely fun and straightforward, and I like the little details like the sheer length of the sword, the handle being the unpeeled base, and the leaves being the shield. The white body works well with the white parts of the plant and gives it a "white knight" kind of vibe, which is really emphasized by its super stocky body. Conceptually it makes logical sense as an evo; visually, it's fun and easy to understand. No complaints here.

As a whole: Farfetch'd is fine but feels like it could've been pushed more conceptually. G. Farfetch'd has an improved concept and design, but also didn't really need to exist and robs original Farfetch'd of an evo. Regardless, the evo itself is a great design with a solid concept.

#farfetch'd #galarian farfetch'd #sirfetch'd #pokemon #pokemon reviews

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seeker-ophelia · 5 months ago

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Hallelujah

(There are no Veilguard spoilers in this content, it was all created in early September, I’m only posting it now).

So I found this old Bioware article from 2014…

Its about what the writers listened to when they wrote their characters.

I was immediately struck by Weekes’ (writer of Bull, Cole, & Solas) comment that he wrote whole swaths of Solas dialogue listening to K.D. Langs cover of Hallelujah.

Because when I was playing Origins, way back in 2009, as soon as I heard the words “The Chant of Andraste” I thought of Hallelujah.

No better parallel could exist for me. Hallelujah, if you listen to the lyrics, is not really church related, yet it got absorbed into the church as a hymn. Its fucking sad, and yet we’re praising god or some shit?

Kinda like how I feel The Chantry has changed their religion, their original purpose, Andraste and the Maker and all that, into something horrible (subjugation/lobotomization of mages, feeding templars crack, you know, nOrMal StUfF).

I love the parallels there. And I love that Weekes used this sad-ass fucking dirge for our sad-ass fucking egg, especially considering what KD Lang said about it:

Canadian singer k.d. lang said in an interview shortly after Cohen's death that she considered the song to be about "the struggle between having human desire and searching for spiritual wisdom. It's being caught between those two places." (Be still, my heart.)

And I thought about how Legends Shouldn’t Be Given The Weight of History, and how The Chantry’s purpose has been twisted, and how Hallelujah’s purpose has been twisted, and at the time, I was completing The Temple of the Emerald Knights in DA:I. I was thinking about how the Elvhen temple is littered with statues of Andraste and Mythal (dragon), how there’s a Knight, Andale (which is so obviously Andraste, prob Flemythal reincarnate of some sort).

The blending and melding and mushing of cultures and religions as time drags on, how originally good or pure purposes are changed or shifted, or corrupted.

And I thought of Andraste again.

I have been unhealthily obsessed with this artist named Aly, who is a Bard in Thedas and sings at The Dread Halla Tavern (you can find them on spotify here);

(for clarification, this human is not me, I am not a singer, she is very good, you should go listen to all her songs-after you read this).

Anyways, I got to thinking…

What would Andraste’s Hallelujah sound like?

I had to write it.

Its sad and beautiful and tells the story of a woman flighting against forces she has no hope of defeating (But we still have to try).

[Andraste’s Lament]

And I got immediately transported to a smoky, dimly lit tavern in Southern Thedas. Aly has just sung Andraste’s Lament, and is approached by Neria, a lone Dalish Elf who clutches a scrap of paper tightly in her hand.

Aly listens to this elf tell her a story of a sad song her mother used to sing her when she was young, before she got killed by bandits. And could she sing this song for her, please, she even has a few coppers.

And Aly sits down, scans the paper, and realizes it’s a different version of Andraste’s Hallelujah.

Written in small looping script at the top, in Common, is Dirge of the Dread Wolf.

And she sings it softly to Neria, a strange story of mothers and gods and tricksters and wolves, and Neria’s eyes well.

[Dirge of the Dread Wolf]

She ends the song, the last beautiful Hallelujah trembling through the thickness of the tavern air.

Neria sniffs once, and then begins a new story. Aly listens to this Elf speak of a crumbling Dalish temple deep in the middle of nowhere, where she found a piece of paper beside a four legged statue that has since eroded to expressionless guardianship, of words crossed out and changed and smudged.

Then she shakily hands Aly a different piece of paper.

This velumm is significantly older than the first, thicker, almost crumbling around the edges.

And its Hallelujah again, but its spelled wrong, and some strange name with too many n’s in it is written at the top.

And Neria asks Aly if she can sing this.

But it’s written in Elvhen, and Aly shakes her head, she doesn’t think she can stumble through all the strange Dalish a’s and ash’s and am’s (there's so many damn vowels in Dalish…).

But, Aly halts the elfs falling face, she is more than willing to sing this in Common, if Neria will stay to act as translator.

So the two bend their heads close over the bar, and Aly pulls out her small precious notebook where she writes down the lyrics to her own tunes, and they quickly make work of the Elvhen words, Aly humming and hawing as she changes some words to better match the pattern of the song.

And soon they have a brand-new Hallelujah, and Aly asks Neria to pronounce the name at the top.

Ghil-an’nain, Neria says, and make sure you spell the hallelujah right.

H, a, l, l, a, l, i, e, u, y, a.

What does that mean in Dalish? Aly asks the elf.

And Neria shrugs. Halla is like a halla, she assumes. But this word lieu, she doesn’t know.

Aly assumes in the context of this song it must mean birth, but Neria shakes her head. Shena is the verb for born.

Well, what about victory? But Neria shakes her head again. Ena’sal’in is the word for victory, or triumph.

Aly blows out a breath. She’s a lyricist. What would make this poetic.

What about truth?

The elf thinks, and a small smile grows on her lips.

She can’t think of a Dalish word for truth.

Ghilan’nain’s Truth of the Halla?

Aly’s beautiful soprano soon fills the room, and her eyes widen when a soft Alto joins her, singing along in the original Elvhen.

[Ghilan’nain’s Truth of the Halla]

A haunting melody, completely changed by the understanding of the root of halla lieu’ya, not a praise to The Maker, or the curse of a trickster, but the story of a young god, beaten and battered and blinded, and her creations, and her destruction of them.

[Ghilan’nan’es Halla’lieu’ya]

The tavern erupts when they finish, and poor Neria blushes furiously as her back is slapped, and her hair is tousled, by the patrons of the establishment.

Aly and her new friend make their way to the bar, where foaming tankards await them.

They cheers, and as they tip the beer back, a city elf approaches them, dressed like a Dalish, but he has no vallaslin. He pushes his cowl down to reveal a bald head and shocking purple eyes. His voice is quiet, with a deep, romantic lilt.

“Where did you find that song?”

…

Please be gentle with any constructive criticism on my voice, I am absolutely NOT a singer, I know I don’t have a superstar voice but I’m also not tone deaf, so just… don’t be shitty to me, internet. Listen to the lyrics, not the delivery.

If anyone’s actually interested, I'll message you the lyrics. I also did record all four songs (Andraste, Dread Wolf, Ghilly (English), and Ghilly (Elvhen),) but can only put one video per post. Maybe I'll link them later if people are interested.

*It did not even occur to me until after writing Andraste’s Hallalujah that someone might have had this idea already. I did a little googling afterwards, and someone has put solas’ dialogue to the tune of Hallalujah, but no ones “re-written” it yet in this context (that I could find). My query to you is, why would Solas speak in Leonard Cohen's hallelujah/iambic pentameter if he had never heard it before?

---

Obviously, this can never be turned into a real song, because Sony owns the rights to the OG Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. But the romanticism of this song, changing through the ages, was too good to pass up. I hope you enjoy it, sincerely, and if you are a better singer than I, by all means, use my lyrics and record it, and please send me the link so that I can listen to it!

Thanks to Weekes, Leonard Cohen, & The Dread Halla Tavern for inspiring this.

Bare your blade, and raise it high.

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