For me a core feature of Galex's relationship is that Alex wants to be seen as strong and unflappable and respected and always in control, right. And Gene wants to be seen as a kind of unquestioned alpha male in charge who never shows any weakness and who deserves the blind respect and obedience of the rest of the team even when he yells at them and verbally abuses them. And they do see each other that way, to some extent. But they also both know that to some extent all of that is bullshit, because they've willingly allowed each other to look deeper.
Because, see, to me another key fact about them is that Alex actually really likes being looked after, and Gene actually really likes having someone to look after, and this is each of their deepest and most personal vulnerabilities that they only really show to each other.
And then almost never directly and outwardly acknowledge, because that would mean acknowledging their own secret hidden layers.
They're perfect for each other. But they're horrid for each other because they're both equally shit at communicating or admitting weakness.
This is a long rambling post I just have a lot of thoughts. I just love them.
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Lo and Li and their (not) looking after Azula and Zuko in "The Beach"
I have talked a lot about Zuko and Azula lately because “The Beach” episode gives a lot of context for their relationship, but it would be a crime to omit the most funny detail (implication) coming from this episode: the presence of Lo and Li.
Those two older women were introduced into the series as Azula’s teachers (that definitely fueled her unhealthy sense of perfectionism) and some sort of advisors before the princess recruited Ty Lee and Mai on the hunt for Zuko, Iroh and later, the Avatar. The story alone gives little about Lo and Li, but considering their relationship and influences on the princess, we can assume they had, if not outright trust, then at least Ozai’s approval to keep an eye on his “precious”, prodigy daughter. As they were the only adults connected to Fire Lord and at whose house the Royal Siblings and their friends stayed in "The Beach" episode, I thought of them as not really nannies, but more like chaperones.
Zuko and Azula faced Avatar and survived, Mai and Ty Lee proved to be capable of beating down full grown men one on one (or more precisely, one vs many). So fine, ok, Ozai may trust his kids to be able to defend themselves - if the thought about their safety even occurred to him at all. But Zuko and Azula are, and I can’t stress it enough, teenagers sent on vacation and teenagers may do stupid stuff for fun just to taste the little freedom granted them. So it makes sense to me that Lo and Li should supervise the Royal Siblings, because vacation or not, they are still prince and princess, the precious heirs to the throne. And like, Zuko is with his girlfriend (official fiancee?) and you can never be sure what teenagers in love and with buzzing hormones will do, right? Same with Azula, who as we learn through the episode, will happily grab the occasion to flirt with a handsome, popular boy and the innocent kiss turned out quickly into her passionate rant: “Together, you and I will be the strongest couple in the entire world! We will dominate the Earth!”.
Azula’s mind really jumped from casual fun (no harm done if Ozai won’t learn about it) to the conclusion that boy she knew for what? a few hours at best will be her boyfriend and part of the future (military?) plans and understandable Chen freaked out and ran away. The taste of freedom affected even Azula, our so emotionally composed, clever girl, because again, a teenager, adolescent curiosity, lack of supervision and buzzing hormones are a dangerous mix.
(I suspect Zuko getting Mai pregnant would be less scandalous than if Azula - the princess - ended with a bastard child at the age of 14/15. If Ozai would even allow the kid to be born.)
And what Lo and Li were doing the whole episode? Either giving some cryptic speech about how Ember Island is a magical place or encourage kids.
“Time to hit the beach!“ they said
while never bothering going with kids there
(or did Lo and Li have fun on their own ignoring the bunch of their temporary wards?).
And when Azula, Zuko and Ty Lee talked about Chen and why Azula didn’t betray their Royal Family status (and presumably of going to the night party)? Again, the two old women did nothing besides giving some more cryptic advice and saying “to the party!”.
Like, they were totally okay that Fire Royal Siblings (in range of age from 14 to 16) planned to stay at house of unknown boy(s) for the whole night. Again, Zuko is 16, at best almost 17, but Azula is 14 (at best 15) and I don’t think this is an appropriate age to let a girl - especially the princess you are responsible for - go to a party with presumably much older boys.
(Unless this is why Azula demanded Zuko, her older brother, to be invited alongside her? Not like he checked out if she is alright before he was kicked out for the fight with Mai over some guy but I guess, with a sister like Azula it is easy to assume she doesn’t need babysitting, because Azula could and would kick Chen or anyone else’s ass if they pissed her off).
My point is, Lo and Li could give the girls and Zuko some serious talk or at least ask to be careful or anything the supposed chaperons should say (or like, outright demand from Zuko to keep an eye on his younger sister and the noble girls as the oldest and you know, the guy). Because Azula is first and foremost a princess, the same as Zuko is the prince and like, the Royal Family does not need any teenage drama and scandal (and from the previous episode we know Azula and Zuko are now the public figures at the capital).
I’m not sure if perceiving Lo and Li as some sort chaperons to the “banished for a weekend” Royal Siblings was author’s intention or not, but there is something incredible funny how those old women introduced as strict teachers criticizing Azula for not perfect hairstyle while she is working on her lighting technique - a skill absolutely amazing to have at the age of 14 - won’t even bother to keep an eye on the same girl and just let the whole bunch of emotionally stunted and traumatized teenagers freely roam on the “magical” beach and go to night party to total strangers. It is pretty hilarious if not a bit sad. Because wow, Ozai did not give much fuck about any of his kids one way or another.
Aaand this is what I get when rewatching ATLA as an adult lol.
I know this is animations for kids/teenagers, but what if Chen didn’t freak out? Would Azula be curious enough to experience something more than just a kiss? And well, we assume Chen and Ruon-Jian are in age close to Zuko & Azula (as if they were adults they would be enrolled into army, I think?) But there is still a room for them being older than Zuko who himself is two years older than Azula. Also, them inviting Ty Lee & Mai specifically for how they look without bothering to ask for their name and the way a group of boys cornered Ty Lee to the point she needed to chi-blocking all of them kinda gives me the feeling the party was an occasion for them to pick up girl for night or something along the way. Dunno if I read the scene/intention right but it gives that vibe I guess…?
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This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.
I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.
For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.
I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.
Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.
If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.
That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"
Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.
For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.
The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.
At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.
The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?
Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.
Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-
But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.
Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.
To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.
"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.
"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."
And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.
What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.
I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.
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