#it's peak stupid and evil
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Silm reread 7: the Darkening of Valinor
So Melkor loses his shapeshifting "soon after" he runs away from Valinor (hiding from Tulkas and Orome), but when exactly? I suppose when he empowered Ungoliant. Because later he doesn't disembody or go in spirit form again.
Yes, he takes his big bad form to talk with her— and so he stays. Forever, says the book.
Ungoliant is afraid of Aman and of the Valar. :D
Melkor promises her a lot, with no intent to keep it. I feel like this may have something to do with him being so much nerfed after the situation, unable to take his power back from her (if it would be possible anyway) and almost eaten.
The Valar do like to take CoI-like forms and eat and drink (and celebrate in general I suppose). It is canon.
Feanáro is ordered to come to the party. Huh. why? who thought they had the authority to do it? the book doesn't say, so maybe it was Ingwë, this would make sense and I see why he would think it was a good idea.
Finwë is still upset, and as long as Fefe is banished, he does not want to meet his people. So again, Fingolfin doesn't feel very usurpy to me here.
…and despite being named "Wise", he overtalks Feanáro too. :( This time it doesn't result in Fefe getting upset, but in a badly worded promise.
Ungoliant eats the trees, gets so big and ugly that even Melkor is terrified of her.
Darkness mentioned again!!!
(googling the english text of this part)
The Light failed; but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a Darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had power to pierce the eye, and to enter heart and mind, and strangle the very will.
Oh. Darkness that is a thing. No, It *seems* to be a thing. (see: Theodicy and all that.)
I'll have to make a mass analysis of all the capital D Darknesses and how to connect them all (bind? no, we're not gonna do the bindy-bindy) to one concept. But I feel like they should be all facets of one thing concept.
Another thing (a thought for @dfwbwfbbwfbwf especially, I think): It's not "if". It's whenever their deeds started failing too much, Darkness fell upon them and entered heart and mind, and strangled the very will.
I don't think I'll subscribe to this HC, not fully, it makes things too easy, their hand was forced and I don't like their hand being forced.
But partially? This I will subscribe to. They did call upon something, something that seemed to be true, something that seemed to have the power to compel them. I think this reading is very close to Tolkien's intent, because it stinks of "this is how evil works".
Am I portraying Ungoliant as more evil than Melkor?
I think that at least in some aspect I am. Because she feels like something that is not entirely, well, that not entirely *is*. I don't know how to explain it better. And he was a Vala.
Can you stop being? Can you turn from a being to a non-being? I don't think so… I do not subscribe to the "Ungoliant was an uMaia" theory. I don't subscribe to any theory of "Ungoliant was [something that objectively exists]".
Ungoliant as Melkor's (self-inflicted but still real) trauma given a illusion of form by his power? Mmm. I like this one. I don't think it will be popular, but I do like it. (Or: his hatered, his jealousy, something like that, if you prefer. I don't think those are far apart from one another in this case.)
(Why is it easier to me when something evil-evil is not really real? Is it philosophy or my personality issues? Good question. I think there is some philosophy there too.)
Tulkas gets paralyzed by the spider-induced Darkness and Orome gets a "silence" spell on him. So, not only Melkor is defeated by a spider, he's just the most defeated.
#melkor#and his trauma#and his trauma-spider#[feanor's trauma: in the next episode]#ungoliant#everlasting darkness#too much psychoanalysis XD#but it does work for me#ungoliant is the afterimage in melkor's eyes when he's angry that he can't have the Flame Inperishable for his own#the darkening#darkening of valinor#silm#silmarillion#tolkien legendarium#the silmarillion#the silm#silm reread#i feel like even though it's technically too early i should from this part on start tagging him:#morgoth#so here it is#“i will feed my trauma so it can eat your bliss and you will have trauma too”#on the list of “unhealthy coping mechanisms” this one is so high that elu thingol can go below it without banging his head at it#seriously man what's wrong with you#no “everything” is not an answer#though narratively it kind of is#protip: do not do this#any of it#feeding your trauma and sending it to kill someone's magic tree#and such stuff#it's peak stupid and evil
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to my all little liars!! (edit: wtf happened to my english? 😭)
we’re at 24.6k words rn 😟 if you plan on reading it next week, i recommend you read it on the weekends when there’s no school or work for you waiting in the morning 😀
calling in the troops rn ‘cause there’s still one final scene i have to write and it’s gonna be LONG (this isn’t including the bonus scene btw) but it’s extremely important for the story to continue, and without it, the rest of the story literally cannot go on 😭
we’re locking in guys. it’s 100% gonna border 30k words for sureee. sm has happened in that ONE chapter and i literally cannot wait to release it for all of you, you have no ideaaa
gonna go to bed and then wake up, study, break, write for the fic, repeat. had to randomly drop an update here cuz i’ve been edging you guys for so long i’m sorryyy, but it really is nearly here <333
edit: fck it guys i’m writing it rn (the immediate comments got me motivated)
#the little asks and messages and dms have been so nice tho#like yes pls remind me of ur existence so i can know why i was put on this planet despite the reason that life is a test of faith#think of this chapter as the main one before everything stars to fall crash and burn#the fall is VERY slow tho#the crash is VERY loud tho#and the burn is enough to kill#do they survive it?#maybe#idk 👀 (i do)#but you don’t so muahahahahahaha#feeling like megamind rn#the bonus scene is gonna be pretty long too#so it’s definitely gonna be above 30k words for sure#100%#i am excited and you should be too#this might just be my most fav chapter so far#sm happens#you learn a little more about the stupid things megumi and y/n have done together as kids#and the stupid things their family have done too 💀#chaotic family fr#(we watch it happen in real time guys)#*AHEM* toji and gojo fighting again *COUGH*#that’s all i’m giving you guys#no sneak peaks before i release it cuz i want all of you to go in BLIND!#i’m evil but you’ll thank me for it i promise#<3#ty for ur patience!!!!!
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hi .. 😨 so super recently i read this rly neat fic and have had brainworms ever since. basically ever since mephone left, the final 4 have been left to their own devices in the contesting grounds which r actually pretty far from the hotel. they sort of just have to fend for themselves. these doodles r sort of between fic fanart and a little bit of a concept for my own take on the idea ?? but yeah :P
if i hear any ii s2 e15 spoilers from this post ill delete my blog
#pls be nice this is sooo self indulgent#i also havent fleshed out any of my idea and might never. but i like doodling it theyre funny 2 me#ii#ii lightbulb#ii knife#ii baseball#ii suitcase#ii paintbrush#also mentioned lightbrush#this is kind of just an excuse to make silly meme redraws of an overly angsty concept and if that isnt the peak of fun idk what is#ii au#inanimate insanity#super self indulgent ughhh but i just think the concept of mephone just abandoning the final 4 has so much evil potential#sort of since it seems like most times the contestants were teleported to and from the hotel so they do NOT know their way there#i cant even decide whats in the surrounding forest. i like both the concepts of it being mostly harmless animals like deer and rabbits but#itd be so useful for it to also have animals like bears and wolves. idk#this is so stupid teehee SEND TWEET UGH
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this is, by far, the worst thing I've ever made. AWWP Tedros you will always be famous
#not joking I made this in about 15 minutes I have to leave in like 5 minutes#awwp really is the unintentional funniest book in the franchise and its mostly because of how fucking stupid these two are#I was gonna add more text to this but couldn't be bothered#also. flipped Aric scares me. I dont like it.#I like how I went to the effort of putting the text in front of Tedros' hair but couldn't be asked to change “friendship” to “relationship”#im proud of the gradients#sge#tsfgae#school for good and evil#the school for good and evil#sfgae#aricposting#this is like 2% japethposting#revisiting this now home. and I think this might be a new graphic design peak for me actually
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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, YA GOOBERS!!!!!!
these took me SO LONG i hope you enjoy, i love you!
#ash williams#evil dead#evil dead 2#army of darkness#stu frightmare#frightmare 1983#dale cooper#agent cooper#special agent cooper#twin peaks#dinosaur bob#love and a 45#dino bob#my art#sams stupid scribbles#jeffrey combs#bruce campbell#kyle maclachlan
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as usual i feel obligated to say that i don’t actually have a problem with popular fanon being popular. what i have a problem with is popular fanon being conflated with actual canon to the point where having a conversation about what actually happens in the fucking book becomes almost impossible, because fanon is treated like canon.
#salty peak sect 🧂#i mean i do personally think evil jgy fanon is stupid and reductive#but if people who like this fanon at least acknowledged that his canon character is more complex then i wouldn’t actually give a fuck#but that. is not what happens in these discussions. 🫠#same with fanon nmj
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I feel like every review of the Barry series finale that's like 'it was just meh...' is intentionally missing the point cause if they actually had to confront 'hey we as a country venerate service members to an insane degree when, just like normal people cause that's what they are, some of them are bad people. we will jump through hoops to absolve any wrongs these people commit. the police do get it massively wrong sometimes. justice is not always dished out. and we will make a butchered spectacle out of a tragedy for ticket sales.' they wouldn't get many clicks.....
#the way law enforcement overall were portrayed through the series alone I have not seen really talked abt anywhere#but GODDDDD like Janice was ~one of their own~ and they're all still so incompetent and stupid they can't even get her case right#like this show is screaming at you that this dude is PEAK delusional at the end#that's not what god wants for me#Sally tells him. to his face. if he wants to be absolved. he must take responsibility for what he's done.#but he doesn't. and he's absolved anyway. cause they twist his story to fit the#brave marine doing the best he can narrative#when really he killed his friend who was *also* a marine. he killed a lot of ppl. and never took responsibility.#and let's not even touch on how Noho Hank and Christobal are ENTIRELY written out of and forgotten#in the new narrative the movie makes. like those pesky queers further ruin this sterling service member triumphs over evil tale#I'm *obsessed* at this point idk. I've had all night to ponder cause I was up sick all night 😞#hbo barry#hbo barry spoilers
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is resident evil death island a "good" "film"? no. but it does have my best friends in the whole world in it. so.
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i have decided i am officially a billy hargrove s1 steve harrington jason carver defender. i do not care that they are assholes thats why im obsessed with them.
#billy hargrove#still my number one in my heart always my evil rat husband#stranger things#but also steve was serving in s1 he was so ben affleck gone girl i loved#and jason i feel is so tragic i feel bad for him. hes like a twin peaks character misplaced in this stupid netflix show#steve harrington
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brainrot
#garuru#aroma kurosu#mikan shiratama#pripara#my art#i actually cant stop thinkin about these guys i love them so much#garuru is like peak character design and writing#like are you seriously going to tell me the “evil” version of a character isnt always a solid 10/10#that aside#garuru is peak just by virtue of being the most optimistic lil guy#she was literally born from other peoples despair and is still trying her best to become something she didnt know she could be at first#shes not naturally skilled like the other minis she has to work her ass off and i think thats exactly why i like her (and mirei)#shes just here to have a good time now and hang out with her friends and oh my god the dopamine release that causes in my stupid head#i just think gaarmage are like perfect#shout out to neko being one of the best managers too
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this mindset that comparing other genocides to the holocaust is so immoral and wrong and offensive is so nonsensical. comparing in this case is not about evaluating what was/is "worse", downplaying the severity of it, or erasing the unique contexts and characteristics that EVERY historical event obviously comes with, or anything like that, it's about identifying what genocide looks like and how it happens so that we can act to stop it if we see it. the "exceptionality" thinking when it comes to the holocaust has not helped anyone. in fact it prevents solidarity to others suffering a similar fate.
#i started that book once that spent an endless section debating whether the exceptionality of the holocaust was legit or not. i never even#reached the conclusion bc it was so unnecessarily long and the answer was so obvious to me.#yes it was unspeakably atrocious and a failure of humanity but to claim it as the single worst thing to ever happen... it is among one of#the worst things to ever happen certainly but to position it as the peak of evilness that no other events can ever come close to is stupid#and inhuman in its own right.#t
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to be fair his father did claim him to be the devil and make his early years hell and then he was praised like a god by his mother when he finally killed him, so he may have obtained the complex t h e r e after being unable to feel emotion until that point.
#aleksey headcanon.#( fatui content makes aleksey peak his stupid fuckin g head in )#( his little bull horns have no explanation - touch them. do it. but also he'd SEETTHHH EE )#( devil son. evil boy. perish )#⋆ ┊ALEKSEY. ╱ : ❝ ʷʳᵃᵖᵖᵉᵈ ᶦⁿ ᶦˡˡᵘˢᶦᵒⁿˢ ; ᵈᵉˡᵘˢᶦᵒⁿˢ ; ʷᵉ'ʳᵉ ᵃˡˡ ᵐᵃᵈ◞
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Alright, I'm sick of seeing TERFisms on my dash, so here's a handy list of TERF dogwhistles and talking points to think about before you reblog a post.
I've seen a few of these before, but it doesn't hurt to make more. Especially when we're seeing a lot of radfem rhetoric popping up in LGBT spaces from people who might not know better.
SCREENNAMES: these are terms that commonly appear in radfem usernames across the web
rad or radical
fem or femme
vulva, clit, uterus, womb, ovary, vagina, etc.
febfem
anything along the lines of "angry woman"
xx or chromosomes
wombyn, wimmin, womyn, etc.
LGB
feminist
BIOS: things that show up in radfem bios
♀ or ⚢
febfem
female separatist
female, human female, adult human female
xx
something along the lines of "the scary feminist you were warned about"; being an angry woman, being sick of being silenced, being an evil woman, being an angry lesbian
detrans (NOTE: detrans people are absolutely not always transphobic)
dysphoric female
males/men do not interact
LGB✂️
misandrist
feminist (NOTE: again, very few feminists are actually terfs, but this is commonly in terf bios alongside some of these other terms)
TERMS: terms that radfems use in their circles
TIM - trans-identified male, a way of saying transfems, trans women, and other trans people
TIF - trans-identified female, same as above but the other way around, less commonly seen
DSD - disorder of sexual development, a way to avoid saying intersex and to categorize intersex people as "still male or female" (you might see "males with DSD" or "females with DSD" for example)
females or males instead of women and men
alternatively, women and males to dehumanize men
"peaking" or "peaked" - referring to becoming radicalized as a radfem or TERF
womyn, wombyn, wimmin, wo**n, and any other spelling that takes "man" out of the term woman
mentally ill men/women
sex-based oppression
gender critical
"TIRF" - trans-inclusive radical feminist (don't be fooled by the name, they're very much not)
TRA - trans rights activist, derogatory
sex-based rights
female separatism/"women's land"
WBW - womyn-born womyn
autistic girls/children
troon - (ridiculous) slur for trans people
RHETORIC: general ideological themes in radfem rhetoric
men are inherently more violent than women
women don't or rarely rape men
(woman on woman rape is ignored by almost all radfems)
being nonbinary is a way to "stop being" your assigned sex while still acting as your birth sex
lesbians are not attracted to men/penises and can never have sex with men/penises (otherwise, you're bisexual)
men can and will never be lesbians
there is no such thing as a bi lesbian, only lesbians and bisexuals. labels are rigid and sex-based
all of the world's suffering is driven by men
women would be better off separate
an all-female society is utopia
sex is binary, and intersex people are "glitches" or "still male or female but DisorderedTM"
men should expect to be feared by women
female/female relationships are safer and more pure than straight or gay male relationships
men and women are more different than similar
intersex people should not be allowed in sports
intersex people and trans men are never in men's sports
terrible world events wouldn't have happened if women were in charge
men are stupid and aggressive
being a man is not a positive thing
men's problems are lesser than women's
penises are disgusting and vaginas and vulvas are beautiful
trans women are performing at being girls
trans men see themselves as above lesbians
attraction is sex-based
porn is rape
porn is inherently violent
watching porn makes you predisposed to inflicting abuse
BDSM is inherently violent and misogynistic
transitioning children (whether socially or medically) are being abused
"bitch" and "cunt" are slurs against women
only gay men can say faggot and only lesbian women can say dyke
When you see a few or more of these together, RUN! It's a terf.
#anti terf#anti jkr#anti jk rowling#radfems fuck off#radfems dont interact#fuck terfs#trans rights are human rights#transphobia#bioessentialism#not a rb#intersexism#queerphobia#pro sex work#pro trans#transblr#transgender
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The following is not my idea; it was the original brainchild of a friend of mine named Omicron, with help from various others including EarthScorpion, TenfoldShields, @havocfett and ShintheNinja:
So, you know what I want to do one day? Run (or play in) a D&D campaign in which the Big Bad Super Dragon that is fuckoff ancient and unfathomably powerful and whose actions have shaped history and bent the course of nations and had repercussions on the whole culture and society in the region where it's set; the Bonus Special Boss for some endgame optional quest after you defeat the direct BBEG and win the campaign...
... is a white dragon.
To explain this for people not deep into 5e monster lore; D&D dragons are sapient beings, and known for their instincts and tendencies, and whenever you meet an big evil dragon that's really old it's usually this ancient creature of terrible intellect Smaug-ing it up all over the place.
Except white dragons are fucking stupid. Like, they're still capable of speech and thought! They're just… feral, hungry morons. And you almost never see them portrayed as ancient wyrms for that reason; they lack majesty. Critical Role did it, yes, but even then, Vorugal is explicitly the most bestial member of the Chroma Conclave, and the others are the more intelligent planners and long-term threats. An ancient white as a nation-defining endboss, though; not a thug for a smarter master but as the strongest and biggest threat around is just not the sort of thing you tend to see.
Adventurers: "Oh wise Therunax the Munificent, gold dragon of Law and Good, what can you tell us adventurers of the evil dragons which rule this land?" Therunax the Munificent, 500-year old Gold Dragon: "Good adventurers, know this: this land is torn apart by the evil of Tiamat's spawn. The eastern marches are the dwelling of Furinar the Plague-Bringer, black dragoness whose hoard is a thousand sicknesses contained in the body of her tributes. The southern volcanic mountains are the roosting of Angrar the Wrathful, the fiery red dragon, who brings magmatic fury on all who do not worship him. And the northern peaks are home to Face-Biter Mike, the oldest and most powerful of all, of whom I dread to speak." Adventurers: "F-Face-Biter Mike???" Therunax: "Oh yes, verily indeed; two thousand years has Mike lived, and his eyes have seen the rise and fall of five empires, and a hundred and score champions have sought to slay him; and each and every one he bit their fucking face off."
Like... I want to see a campaign where Face-Biter Mike is genuinely the most powerful dragon in the region, if not the entire world. Where sometimes he descends on a city to grab himself some meatsicles and causes a localised ice age by the beat of his vast wings and the frigid wastes of his mighty breath and by the chill his mere presence brings to everything for miles around him, and everyone just has to deal with that for the next decade. An entire era of civilization comes to an end, an empire falls, tens of thousands starve in the winter, all because Mike wanted a snack. Where his hoard is an unfathomably vast mass of jewels and artefacts and precious stones frozen in an unmelting glacier, except he is a nouveau riche idiot with fuckall appraising skill, so half of his hoard is coloured glass or worthless knicknacks, and he doesn't give a shit.
"Your Draconic Majesty, this crown is… It's pyrite." "Yeah, well, it's brighter than this dusty old thing made out of real gold, it's my new best treasure. Throw the other one away." "…throw the Burnished Tiara of Bahamut, forged in the First Age of Man, your majesty???" "See? I can't even remember its fucking name." "But my lord-" "DO YOU WANT TO BE A MEATSICLE" "…I will fetch a trash bag, your majesty."
But at the same time, he's not stupid, he's just simple, and in some ways that makes him more dangerous than the usual kinds of scheming Big Bad you see in these things, while simultaneously justifying why Orcus remains on his throne (because he's lazy). Face-Biter Mike doesn't make convoluted plans or run labyrinthine schemes; he just has a talent for violence and a pragmatic, straightforward approach to turning any kind of problem he struggles with into a problem that can be resolved with violence. Face-Biter Mike has one talent and it's horrifying physical power, so his approach to any complicated problem is "how do I turn this into a situation where I can fly down and bite this dude's face off?" with absolutely no regard for the collateral damage or consequences of doing so, because those are also things he can turn into face-bitable problems.
"My lord, the dread necromancer Nikodemion is using his undead dragons to attempt a conquest of the eastern kingdom; his agents are everywhere, his plans are centuries in the making, what can we do against such a mastermind?" "I'm gonna fly over the capital and eat the eastern king." "M-my lord???" "The kingdom will collapse without leadership, Nikodemion will win his war, he'll take the capital and crown himself king." "And that helps us… how?" "Once he does I'll fly over to the capital and eat him." "…" "This is why you advisors all suck. You're all about convoluted plans when the only thing I need to win is know where my enemy is so I can fly down there and eat him. Stop overthinking things."
And, like, yeah, it's a simplistic plan, but when you're several hundred tons of nigh invincible magical death, you don't need brilliant strategy; the smartest way to win a war is, in this case, the simplest. He's not even all that clever at figuring out the consequences of face-biting, he's just memorised the common consequences of doing so.
(If you want to go all in on Mike being the major mover and shaker in the region; Nikodemion only even has a pet zombie dragon because Mike killed the last dragon to show up and contest his turf but wasn't going to eat a whole dragon by himself. Nikodemion got to stick around and amass that much power because Mike ate the Hero of the Realm while he was adventuring because he figured the Hero would come and try to slay him at some point. Nikodemion got started because Mike ate half the leadership of the Academy of High Magic who typically keep evil wizards and necromancers in check. And then eventually this product of Mike's casual, careless actions becomes a big enough problem to bother Mike personally, at which point Mike eats him too.)
He doesn't even really fail upwards, either! He is regularly reduced to nothing but the glacier he stores his hoard in, but he's Face-Biter Mike so nobody wants to commit to actually ending him forever lest they get their faces bitten the fuck off. And his hoard's in a huge-ass magical glacier so nobody can get to it without running into the Invading Russia problem; it's hard to wage war when everything is frozen over and you're both starving and freezing to death. Once he's been beaten back to his central lair and has lost all his holdings… I mean, he's still a problem, but he's a far away problem. So he loses his assets and spends a decade in a cave brooding it up while no one dares risk trying to actually kill him, and then a generation or two later he flies down to a kobold colony and gets himself some minions, or a dragon-worshipping mage comes to offer his service against a pittance from his hoard, or a particularly stupid cult starts thinking they can get in good with him and leech off his power, and then he's (hah) snowballing again.
He's also got a very… well, the kind of weird Charisma that Grineer bosses do. Like Sargas Ruk, who's a malformed idiot, but oddly charismatic. As he's a dragon, that makes him a natural sorcerer and thus Charisma is all he needs. He's pretty relaxed when he isn't in a face-biting mood, and he's kind of infectiously optimistic, because his life has taught him that he will succeed as long as he perseveres. So he just believes it.
And sometimes that's really refreshing to work for, as an evil minion of darkness! It's like, you're coming to your Evil Dragon Lord with terrible news; you've worked for evil overlords before, you know how it goes. You fall to your knees weeping and tell him that you've failed to seize the incredibly powerful magical artifact, you think your life is forfeit. And he's just like "Eh, it's okay, these things are all over the place. Better luck next time. You remember the guy who took it, right?" and you go "Y-yes, oh great lord!" and he's like "Sweet tell me his name later and I'll grab it" and then eats a frozen adventurer he kept around as a snack.
His followers tend to quickly realise that if they fail him, bringing some temple's silver or a sack of brightly coloured beads or a couple of dead cows means he's super forgiving because at least he's got something out of the day. "Oh boy, cows? It's been forever since I had those, ever since the Orc Steppe Nomads took over it's all about goats and onions. Today is a good day." He's a master of delegation by dragon standards, in that he just tells you "Just go get it done, I don't care how" rather than micromanaging you and constantly appearing as an image in smoke or taking over your campfire.
The key part of Face-Biter Mike as a threat to players (because he exists in the context of a D&D campaign) works well in that you can rely on several known quantities:
He will not pull sneaky shit that you don't see coming
He will not make convoluted plans that you must work to unravel
He will consistently attempt to come down and wreck you personally if he finds the opportunity and you are a threat to him
You cannot fight him head-on (at least not until the last leg of the campaign, and ideally as an optional boss rather than mandatory)
So as long as you are good at staying under the radar, thwarting his minions (whom he gives broad orders to with almost zero oversight) and not putting yourself in face-biting range, you can deal with him. If you succeed, it won't be the first time Mike has lost his assets and had to go brood in his glacier for a decade or two before rebuilding. It happens; he can deal with it. And that's a win for you within the context of a single campaign, so take the win.
And if you're not going to use him as an enemy, he works pretty well as a quest-giver, too! The costs for failure are obvious and straightforward, and "do whatever, just get me mine" means that players have a lot of freedom in accomplishing their goals. As far as evil overlords go he is actually one of the least dangerous to work for; his pride is relatively subdued by draconic standards, his goals are simple and typically achievable, and he is easily pleased.
(There's also a good chance he is the forefather of any draconic sorcerer in your party, because Face Biter Mike is a deadbeat dad.)
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they announced one of the main writers for FFXIV: Dawntrail is the one who wrote the Shadowbringers trial series, "Sorrow of Werlyt", and the amount of people going "ew no that's the one that redeems Gaius" drives me kind of insane
That storyline takes Gaius and says "Behold this idiot, watch and be stunned as everything he ever said to anyone turned out to be fucking obviously wrong. Watch as the fascist imperialist philosophy he ingrained into his beloved children makes them run to their deaths, even as he pleads them not to, and they tell him to fuck himself and do it anyway. Marvel as he watches them die by your hand, you, who destroyed Gaius himself at the peak of his life, and he can do nothing to stop it", and that's a redemption arc to people
The only surviving kid only makes it because her brother acts to protect her, she doesn't make it because of any act of Gaius'
The entire story is literally "In case you somehow missed it in ARR and most of Stormblood, everything Gaius believed in was horseshit and there's no such thing as a 'noble general in the evil empire'". All his meritocracy bullshit vanished the second he was gone, no-one but his own children believed it or held onto it, and the empire put someone directly opposed to that belief into his old seat when he vanished. No-one cared, no-one else "believed", the Empire was never about that, it was only propped up in his own singular legion by him being there and the second he was gone the legion dumped it and moved on and only Gaius was too naive and stupid to see it.
I mean for fuck sake, the Empire digs up the chemical gas weapon he explicitly had sealed away and destroyed all record of after he's gone and if it wasn't for a particularly dedicated and enterprising catboy and his comedy crew of hardcore engineers, it would have caused the eighth apocalypse
Even the follow-up in patch 6.4, of the family portrait, isn't some "aw he good now" thing. The family portrait you help organise for him has to have four of its six members be projected onto the scene via a machine's reconstruction of them as normal people because they're dead, they threw their lives away because the ideology Gaius taught them meant they could only think to die fighting and nothing else. That's his loving family portrait: four ghosts stood at his back as his last living child smiles through her pain.
"well the people of Werlyt didn't kill him for conquering them" they let him clean up the mess he made (which meant watching his children be killed) and as "thanks" they're letting him stay there to live out the last third of his life or so attempting to atone by fixing the damage he did.
He's 56 at the time of ARR; the Empire he gave 3-4 decades of his life to is gone, it's a smouldering ruin, all but one of the people he loved is dead, his surviving daughter is scarred by the path he led her down, and what few friends he had are also dead. He learned that his beliefs were all horseshit and pretty much everyone around him except for himself knew it, he must live knowing that those beliefs got his children killed, all that he achieved that he once considered "good" was for nothing, he learned that the cool old emperor he idolised who had no magic but built an empire by pulling up his bootstraps and who told him that magic and gods were bad was actually an ancient incredibly magical sorceror attempting to resurrect his own god.
That's not a redemption arc, he's the most owned man still alive in XIV
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christ more dragon god sy yapping:
all those b-points he got from finishing that first quest? gone. my mans got like 100 every time he blessed a new generation of peak lords, plus the 500 he got from finishing that first main quest {From the Ground Up}, plus whatever he got from fighting off all those beasties who tried to kill his little cultivators way back when.
but when he unlocks his human form, he does not unlock clothes, and he has to buy them from the system store! truly unfair! he looks pretty similar to how he looked in his first life, just a little less sickly. he also has to buy a sword from the system, which is frankly bullshit. but lanrui is a lovely sword—an almost pearlescent sheen to the blade, with peach blossoms inlaid in the hilt and a dragon scale sheath that…it’s almost certainly made from his scales, actually. weird. after buying everything he needs from the bullshit system’s scam shop, he’s left with about 150 B-points.
after his magical girl transformation from gigantic dragon god to gangly human wrapped in way too many layers of sumptuous green and blue silks, shen yuan is sent off the mountain on a couple of missions from the system. pop into the demon realm to slay this evil, fend off these fierce corpses attacking this little town—tutorial shit. it’s weird having such a small body again after six (or seven hundred???? he’s not thinking about the enormity of time right now) years as a gigantic dragon. his steps feel a thousand times lighter, and the first time he tries to pick a fruit from a tree, he kind of explodes it with spiritual energy. the tutorial is, unfortunately, necessary.
the system is almost helpful when it shares his stats and all his cool dragon skills. his official name here is lord canglong, but honestly it would be so hard to explore this world if people were falling all over themselves when they heard his names. did dragon gods get personal names before courtesy too? fighting with the system gets him a corny, half-assed compromise.
he still gets to be shen yuan, but while his first life’s yuan was 垣 yuán (wall), in his second life it’s 愿 yuàn (desire, hope), and the shen he has is… very transparently 神, shén (god, deity). he’s got stupid amounts of spiritual energy, he doesn’t need to eat or drink, and sometimes plants bloom around him since he’s the also kind of the god of springtime?
right when he gets excited thinking about how he’s a god!! (the dragon god in PIDW!! that bastardization of qinglong that airplane wrote who never did shit to defend the realms until his mountain was being destroyed by binghe merging them!!) the system butts in to remind him that there are limitations. he can’t kill humans except in certain circumstances or else he’ll be punished, which—fine, he didn’t plan to go around murdering people anyway? his dragon form will be locked whenever he’s not on canglong peak (bullshit!! what kind of half assed nerfing—) and there’s a permanent penalty on his account, [Dragon Ex Machina], that threatens to penalize him if he uses his dragon god powers to bully the plot into going his way.
so what’s the point of being a dragon god, then!?!??!?!
he spends days bickering debating with the system while he learns to use his sword and qi without exploding whatever he touches, but the system refuses to budge. if he tries to bully the plot too much, he’ll be punished. it’s bullshit, but so is this whole novel he’s found himself in, so…
shen yuan is ready to spend a few more days acclimating before he gets a game plan together but that flies out the window when something starts burning at the back of his mind, screaming that something’s wrong, something is in danger, part of his territory is threatened. he hasn’t felt that since the last demon invasion, and before he can stop himself, he’s mounted lanrui and darted off toward that feeling that something is wrong, wrong, wrong.
he ends up having blown in a wall of qing jing’s discipline hall, the tail of shen qingqiu’s whip caught in his fist (and fuck, that hurt to catch!!! his hand is definitely bleeding) as he stares down the man who was really just about to start whipping a child. a couple of disciples have gone white; a couple others have fallen over. the only ones in the room unaffected are shen yuan, luo binghe whose eyes are wide as he gazes up at him, and fucking scum villain extraordinaire, shen qingqiu. and the scum villain’s first words to him, lord canglong, dragon god of qing jing peak???
“move, or i’ll beat you too.”
#shen qingqiu has A Lot Of Nerve#i didn’t mean to ramble this much im sorry#im fully incapable of speaking or writing in a straight line#dragon god shen yuan#dragon god au#svsss#luo binghe#shen yuan#shen qingqiu#scum villain au#scum villain’s self saving system#scum villain#ren zha fanpai zijiu xitong
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