#like the literal ruler of the nation
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the belobog history and culture museum event is so funny because i don’t want to do anything else. why would i want to do simulated universe or calyxes or whatever when i can play Museum Management Simulator
#museum management simulator in MY honkai star rail??? it’s more likely than you’d think#it’s so fun for no reason i manage this museum so fucking well. hell yeah#also the fact that you can have the cast volunteer there????#like imagine walking into the new museum expecting to learn some history and have a relaxing visit#and you’re met with local rockstar and former lead researcher serval landau#it’s like seeing taylor swift or something volunteering at your museum#even better!!! you walk in and the SUPREME GUARDIAN is giving you a tour#like the literal ruler of the nation#hsr
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Why do so many people unironically think the Fire Nation is the misogyny-less “girlboss” nation. What the fuck.
#avatar the last airbender#the fire nation#‘haha Zuko learns about misogyny’ he spent thirteen years around his dad I can guarantee you he knows what that is#like. the fucking weirdness of exalting the genocidal colonizer nation above all else aside#it’s just textually untrue?#Ozai kidnapped Ursa.#even if we don’t take the search as canon he still clearly has and wields power over Ursa#Azula becoming fire lord doesn’t mean Ozai is a guy supportive of girlbosses it just means he hates his son’s guts#and the title of fire lord he gave Azula was empty. it literally didn’t mean anything. like he pronounced himself Ruler of the World#and declared there would be no more nations it would just burn under him#like Zuko is not some enlightened feminist#like sure maybe we could argue that the fire nation in LoK is a lot better but also the Fire Nation is like…never talked about in LoK#and there’s something incredibly gross about all these headcanons about Enlightened Feminist Zuko (Fire nation)#showing the Evil Reductive Misogynists (water tribe) the light#like you realize how weird that is right#right.
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dying. dying. dying. the oracle's been going around Asking Questions. and i got cornered by her. and i relied on my past experience with her & her sister which Did Not Go Well for reasonable reason to refuse to let them peer into my mind again.
so instead, they cast zone of truth. and i had to lie the FUCK out of this without actually fucking lying. relied on the fact that there's this dude i could use as a scapegoat and the fact that i Never actually saw the prince die (i was on the other side of a wall lol). holy fucking shit that was so fucking nerve wracking.
and IIIIIIIIIII GOT A NAT TWENTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY for persuasion lmfao. that's TWO times we got a very good timing nat20 for avoiding suspicion from the oracle's questioning.
holy fuckin shit y'all im like trembling. that was so scary.
#speculation nation#d&d#FUN but SCARY...#trying to avoid implicating myself as an assistant to fucking regicide#while ALSO avoiding implicating any of my friends#'was anyone else there?' 'hmm there Was an assistant from the ship but i think he got killed'#dead can answer no questions. lol.#literally ANYONE else it wouldve been very bad to tell them they were there#i just Happened to be in the basement to try to rescue ppl. just Happened to see the prince there kind of#but there was this dude who made this explosion that was Totally at fault for all of this (in fang's mind that is true)#and he was Totally the one that caused the prince to die (in an extended way sure this is maybe true)#'do you have any ill will towards the prince' 'i dont think i knew him well enough to' said in a vague way of him being a Ruler#fang did not like him as a person but as a Ruler? he didnt know him well enough to say one way or another#that was the only thing that had the dm like '... is that true??' & i gave my vague extended truth reasoning lmfao#and THEN i had my nat20 persuasion. and god fucking damn. wow.#then i cast subtle spell (sorcerer ftw) message out to the wizard outside like#'theyre about to leave. get the Fuck out of there. now.'#so they didnt see anyone else. and we need to Keep it that way#we got really fucking lucky the last two times. i really dont think that luck is gonna hold#AAAAGH things r so scary. so very scary. and fang didnt get the meal he was promised :( the greatest injustice of it all#and now is. a waiting game. hhhhhhhhhhhhhooooo boy
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Idk man maybe if you're only defense as to why something isn't racist is "some people that aren't part of the minority group that it's being racist towards are racist towards me so it means it's okay" maybe. you aren't the correct person to answer the question that is being asked
#these recent posts kinda seem like im encountering some of the worst people huh#well. youd be correct#this also one of those 'everyones a Little racist (so we never have to unlearn not to be)' types so.#for a slight bit of context the writer of this novel seemed to have a hypocritical stance of imperialism = bad (but not when the mcs do it)#and someone (who is of the same race but not the same nationality) was asking if this changed#the comments. were as expected#one even claimed to have a major in economics and that. racism somehow was not intertwined with colonialism.#the book was partially telling a 'what if' scenario of if they stopped colonization in their country#while. also bulldozing over the fact they were colonizing a group simply called 'the barbarian tribe' 🙃#my own answer to the question is longer but to simplify: its written from a colonizers pov (and thats kind of the point)#the mcs are literally big names in the country (one literally being the prince later ruler and the other a marquis/general)#the prince is also mixed (mom was from the tribe)#and he winds up helping the tribe (but its still. colonizer talking points for why they Should be colonized)#but. the funny thing is about this is that the author even said this isnt her best work and she would/will make it different#and the author also has a tendency to write about characters and plots and themes that are different than her others#one of them completely disregards any nation even similar to this one
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I respect everyone's ship as long as it is legal but as you can see from my name...
Blossica is just Blossica and the entire event was Bluepoch being like "how far can we push the line to make this obvious but not get into trouble?"
And boom
"I like you... Staying by my side" (that just made it gayer tbh) and "you seem to really like me" *heavy breathing*
I don’t get people who don’t ship Blossica. Like not ppl who just aren’t passionate about it I’m talking ppl who try and put Blonney and Horropedia like FYMMMMMMMMM that girl is a lesbian with her pansexual gf leave her be. Horropedia is bitchless that’s why he’s in the Reverse 1999 sexy man list where they get shipped with every other available person their age and in their sexuality range.
The entire Blonney and Jessica dynamic during [A Nightmare at Greenlake] was Bluepoch going “they’re in love!” Followed by one of those comments “like friends, I whispered to myself in my apartment 2 years later.”
#Nothing against the honorary lesbian Horropedia#but he and Blonney would SO not stick together#girl literally exudes lesbianism everywhere she goes#and Horropedia looks like he wants a man#this comes from the Blossica fan#I respect your ship but that doesn't mean i have to like it yk#I'll be here on the Blossica nation forever#I'll be the ruler one day#just watch
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🍄 Retro - Astro 🍄
(Astrology Observations)
ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯
🍄 - I love to stare in the eyes of the natives with Neptune - Asc aspects, most of my friends have such aspects and they truly have beautiful eyes
🍄 - Pluto in Sagittarius Generation is really meant to give and normalize things back to normal, and for example bringing things that were used in the past and to normalize them again
🍄 - Wanna know why so many Aquarius Suns may act so different and unique? Sun is ruled by Leo and Aquarius is its opposite sign so sun acts different in Aquarius
🍄 - Neptune and Mercury aspects can indicate love for music and most times for old music or old music style, you know liking those songs from the 90's
🍄 - One fast way to learn your sign houses in your birth chart is to know the order of the zodiac signs, this method worked with me for example you have Gemini Rising and Leo Sun > Your sun will be in the 3rd house because Leo is 1 sign (Cancer) apart from Gemini
🍄 - 8°, 20° degrees on the Midheaven attract jealousy really fast, envy too and sometimes can even get hate without a reason, on the other hand people can become obsessed with them
🍄 - Sagittarius in your 4th/12th house axis can come from more nationalities/ethnicity/race like having more than 1 background country ancestry (or your ancestors/family members)
🍄 - Lilith in your 9th/12th or 4th house can indicate ancestors or family members working with the occult/witchcraft/magic/tarot etc...
🍄 - Sun in the 12th house natives have an ongoing karma, basically they are working on their karma constantly
🍄 - Virgo Moon's beauty is underatted, they are so beautiful and they can actually look younger because of the Mercury's youth effect
🍄 - I remember once checking on google about Jupiter in Virgo husband (my sidereal Jupiter placement) and I got this:
I can't tell if this is real or not tbh 😭😭
🍄 - Neptune aspecting Chiron will literally empower your subconscious with a lot of intuition, spirituality like you really have the chance to heal your subconscious in case is hurt with those placements
🍄 - Everyone I know with Cancer Placements gets so DEPRESSED based on the weather, and omg I'm not joking or something if the weather outside is bad they're gonna be depressed or in a bad mood
🍄 - Every time I see someones chart with 10th house placements especially Sun and Venus there I know they got the cash bag 💰💰
🍄 - Not gonna lie knowing how organized Virgo placements are, I think natives with Virgo in the 4th house have the most most most most most most organized house-castle ever just like in Cinderella and everything looking perfect
🍄 - You can spot health problems in a chart by looking at their 6th house sign (both in tropcial and sidereal) looking at the ruler/lord of the 6th house and of course the planets (if there are) in the 6H house
🍄 - Stelliums play a very big role in a chart (A stellium is when you have 3 or more than 3 planets in a house) and indicates a big focus in that area
🍄 - Empty houses play a very big role as well, and an empty house is not a bad thing or something but spirituality talking it indicates an area you already completed in your past life
🍄 - Let me tell you how tricky Venus in Capricorn can be to make you fall in love with matured enough people and sometimes the karma comes and strikes and says "They're not the one for you"
🍄 - Moon in the 9th house is another tricky placement to have because in harsh aspects it can indicate a religious trauma and sometimes it can indicate love for religion/beliefs you understand what I mean...😭😭
🍄 - A lot of people who happens to get betrayed have Pluto/Saturn Lilith and sometimes Neptune in the 11th house, (I know all the people can get betrayed but these are just some indicators
🍄 - Sagittarius/Jupiter in the 11th house can be blessed with friends or in general having luck with their friendships and social networks, sometimes their friends can come from a different background than them
🍄 - Mercury at 10°, 22° degrees really can have a deeper voice than others (depends on aspects) but their voice is so damn attractive
🍄 - Uranus and Lilith in the 5th house can get confused if they will want or not to have kids like is difficult and in the same time draining for them (Lilith in general in that house natives don't want kids but is just my thoughts on it)
🍄 - Sagittarius Midheaven/Midheaven in the 9th house or in Sagittarius Degrees 9°, 21° really need to chose something the job/career they're passionate about because it grants them luck
🍄 - Midheaven at Aries Degrees 1°, 13°, 25° or MC in Aries have a big chance to get a leader position at their job or having the main character energy
🍄 - I tell you Gemini Moons and Moon in the 3rd house natives have the best tea ("Tea" as a gen z slang means gossip) like gossips stories i honestly wonder from where or who they know so many things im so invested y'all 😭😍
🍄 - 2nd house and the Moon Sign represent food in the birth chart, and I know water/earth ones love sweets so much
🍄 - If you want to know more about your true self check your Ascendant ruler persona chart, AND if you have 2 planets rulers check both persona charts for ex if you are Scorpio Risings check your Mars and Pluto persona charts, sadly for Leo Risings their natal chart is pretty much their true self (There is no Sun persona chart😭)
🍄 - Leo in the 7th house can have the same problem like your natal chart pretty much tells you about your future spouse because there is no Sun persona chart to look for in case you wanna look for your 7th house ruler persona chart 😭
🍄 - Cancer Risings in your D9 (vedic) chart can indicate a nurturing spouse or in general your partner has a very nurturing and kind energy
🍄 - I admire 6th house Placements for how much they want to keep themselves healthy like is a top priority and i respect that so much, because your health matters so much in life ♥️♥️♥️🙌🏼
🍄 - Aries Placements especially Aries Juno I love their energy. They just give that leader and confident/powerful vibe (boss vibe) in the chart also someone very bold and funny I love them
🍄 - Draconic Chart is the chart of your soul before reincarnation/coming to earth and the placements are indicating how your soul expected to be on earth (like their life), and im gonna cry I have Saturn in the 7th house in this chart as well. my soul knew I will have to wait for that specific person to come 😭 I'm done...
🍄 - Mercury in the 11th house makes socially open natives they get along so good with most people because of their social skills, they're also smart, creative and very open minded too
🍄 - Pluto in the 12th house has a chance to become very powerful in this life because this placement usually indicates an painful karma, you will certainly experience a lot of good and bad things in your current life
💝 This post was more like at a spiritual level 💝
Be blessed you all who read my observations 💝
ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯ྉ☯
#astrology#astro observations#birth chart#astro notes#astrology observations#placements#astro community#horoscope#ascendant#spiritual#subconscious#venus#astro#astro mind#astro.com#astro.seek#retro#Retrogade#7th house in astrology#7th house
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mastermind
from aree: The Harbinger Trailer has consumed me yall are getting a brainrot. (I made this when the trailer first came out and have never posted it so here it is).
tw for yandere content
Yandere!Harbingers with a "darling" who is the right hand of the Tsaritsa herself. Not a Harbinger, but nonetheless important because they're the main strategist of the Fatui. I can just imagine the pain for the Harbingers because although darling is within arms reach, they're not allowed to make a move lest they anger their ruler.
Childe who first sees you akin to a younger sibling amongst the Fatui - you're no underling, on par with a Harbinger in importance if not more, protected almost as much as the Archon Herself - it would be hard not to be protective of you. And yet as you fix his wounds after another fight he started, telling him off in place of Her Majesty, giving him tips on how he could've fought better in whispers in between, his growing need for your attention consumes him. When he kisses your cheek (as thanks, he says) in front of the other Harbingers he's already looking forward to you treating the injuries they're sure to beat into him.
Scaramouche who grins when the Harbingers bristle as you walk side by side in the halls of Zapolyarny Palace - he says you should consider it an honor to walk with him, and it inflates his ego when you reply with a small nod and a smaller smile. Behind the others' backs, he follows you like a lost child, always walking behind you, gripping on to the back of your clothes like you might slip away if he's not careful. He's obsessed with the way you look at him and ask him questions about his creation. He fails to see that the adoration you hold for him is as hollow as he is.
Signora wonders if you know when she is at her lowest, that would certainly explain things, wouldn't it? She thinks she has lost her mind when she sees glimpses of her lost love when turning corners too quickly, haunting her when she lets her guard down but then you're in front of her, greeting her with a soft smile that feels all too familiar and she realizes she has gone mad in other ways (she welcomes that newfound madness like the lover that it is, finally coming home).
Pantalone who believes that one of life's greatest pleasures is to own what others cannot - to collect the rare, the exquisite and the hard to obtain - and to have you, a person of great mind and ranking, be dangled right infront of him on a piece of gold thread held by the Tsaritsa, who was he to resist the urge to make you his? (after all, he deserves only the best) The longer he does not have you, the more your worth rises in his eyes.
Dottore who initially wants to pick apart your brain (quite literally) but his interest shifts and doubles when he reaches an epiphany that what he truly lacked from the Akademiya was someone who shared his intellect, a genius to match his own. Maybe you don't share his affinity for biology, but he loves the way your conversations keeps him on his toes (if you weren't a being close to perfection for him before, then you certainly are now.)
Arlecchino who watches as you care for the children in the orphanage, checking in on them even long after they've joined the ranks of the Fatui and compares it to the frigid ways of the other Harbingers. For the first time since being a part of this cold nation, she is envious of the warmth you give (why must you have so much love to share?) She thinks that should the day come she turns her back on this frigid country, she would surely take your hearth with her.
Marionette who finds herself being drawn to the way you move around a room and hold yourself up in front of people, marveling at the intricacies of each part of your body and the way they make up the being that is you (you could trip and fall and she'd still sigh in awe). Her fascination turns you from muse to future subject. Surely such a specimen must be preserved, right? Not to mention, there would be no greater honor than to turn the Tsaritsa's best into a perfect unchanging doll.
Damselette who usually goes quiet when you're in the same room as her, always eager to hear you talk, almost hissing when a Harbinger tries to speak over you. She finds your voice is the one in her head who speaks reason to her when she gets a bit out of control (Does she listen? No, but your voice is always ever so lovely). Wouldn't it be so nice if you're the lone voice she hears always, the same way you're already always in her thoughts?
Capitano who is thankful his mask covers the fond look he gets when you turn to him - not with fear like the lower ranking Fatui or haughty like the Harbingers - but as an equal, leveling him with a gaze that leaves him fooling himself that it means something more. He's less thankful for his mask when someone calls your attention away from him and he can't control the glare he sends their way (maybe if they saw the way he looked at them, they'd finally be put in their place).
Pulcinella is quick to put you in a pedestal - you are someone to be respected and someone to be kept at a distance. And yet as he watches the Harbingers fall deeper and deeper into obsession, he takes it upon himself to protect the Tsaritsa's favorite and the Fatui's brain from whatever his co workers are plotting. As he spends more time with you (making sure the others do not occupy all of your time), the pedestal he keeps you on crumbles until all he sees is another child to keep under his wing. He fails to see he has only fallen into a different hole as the rest.
Strategist!Darling who may pretend to be oblivious to the Harbingers' feelings but is actually letting it all happen to make sure they all stay under the Tsaritsa's rule one way to another.
Does Pierro know what you're doing? Maybe. It's not like he is blind to how the Harbingers act around you, subtle as they try to be. If you spend enough time with him, you might be able to tell that he enjoys watching you play the part of a fool, dancing around the others and making them dance for you, too. He might even step in once he thinks the other Harbingers are stepping out of line, but it all depends on what he gets out of sticking into your business.
I also like the dynamic where although the Harbingers cannot make a move to claim what is "their's", darling is just as trapped. Although they always sometimes want to leave, they know as much as anyone that the Tsaritsa is the only thing standing between them and the others. The moment they try to leave the Tsaritsa's side or they lose her favor, it's all fair game for the Harbingers.
Everyone is stuck in a stalemate until someone makes a misstep.
✨ Masterlist ✨
Taglist: 💛@anime-allover 💛@faeriessky 💛 @prksolon 💛 @dai-tsukki-desu 💛 @wonpielle
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and belong to their respective creators. Their portrayal is merely my own interpretation of them and may not be accurate to their intended characterization. I stake no claim to the original works, only to the ideas and plot of the fictitious stories I’ve written them into.
#genshin impact x reader#yandere genshin impact#childe x reader#scaramouche x reader#signora x reader#marionette x reader#capitano x reader#pierro x reader#pantalone x reader#dottore x reader#pulcinella and reader#arlecchino x reader#harbingers x reader#genshin impact harbingers x reader#yandere childe#yandere scaramouche#yandere signora#columbina x reader#yandere marionette#yandere capitano#yandere pierro#yandere pantalone#yandere dottore#yandere arlecchino#yandere harbingers#damselette x reader#yandere damselette
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I understand how important it is to be able to criticize the President, and am not at all of the belief he should be beyond critique, but the critiquing of Biden makes me so nervous. (That's not to say I agree with every decision he's made - I absolutely do not). But I feel like people see things he's done wrong and decide they won't vote for him because of it. I'm not sure if enough people have the ability to see that he's done things wrong but also is our only hope of staving off literal fascism.
So many people talk about how sick they are of it constantly being a lesser of two evils situation, constantly having to vote for a candidate they hate because the other side is worse (I heard it in 2020, 2022, etc), and I guess I just- I don't really get it? We're here because they didn't do that in 2016. All of this could've been avoided had the result been different then. I just feel like people don't comprehend how different of a place we'd be in if Hillary won and engage in all this cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel better about being part of the reason she didn't.
Like.... this has been a long-running topic of discussion on my blog, not least because it is so inexplicable and maddening. It also shows how terribly shallow most people's understanding of the American political process is, and how toxic the "I can only vote for a candidate if every single personal belief/position of theirs matches mine" belief is, as well as how much damage it has done to American democracy even (and indeed, especially) by people who technically don't identify as right-wing. Yell at Republicans all you like (God knows I do, because they're the worst people on earth) but they vote. Every time. Every election. Every candidate. Whereas the Democratic electorate still holds out for Mister Perfect, and it very definitely is Mister Perfect. The amount of "evil HRC!!!" Republican-poisoned Kool-Aid that so-called progressives drank in 2016, and then afterward when they insisted they could have voted for someone like Elizabeth Warren and then didn't do that in 2020, is... baffing.
Frankly, I don't care if Hillary Clinton's personal positions on XYZ issue were the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill to Ever Shill (and Online Leftists' intellectual skills being what they are, I seriously doubt that they were using any of those words correctly and/or accurately). American policy is not made by "personal dictate of the ruler," or at least it shouldn't be, because we are not an absolute monarchy. We rely on the operation of a system with input from many people. As such, if Hillary had been elected, we would have 2-3 new liberal justices on SCOTUS and have secured civil and environmental rights for the next generation. Roe would be intact, and all the other terrible rulings that SCOTUS has recently handed down wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have had January 6th, the attempt to stage a coup, all the tawdry scandals, our national security being at risk because of Trump stealing classified documents and probably selling them to Russia and/or Saudi Arabia, etc etc. If you think that's in any way an equivalent amount of evil to what would have happened if Hillary was elected, or if she was "still evil!!!," then I honestly don't know what to tell you. She could fucking murder puppies in her spare time if she had preserved SCOTUS for us, WHICH SHE WOULD HAVE, BECAUSE SHE WARNED US EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
(Hoo. Sorry. Still steamed. 2016 war flashbacks, again.)
In short, Hillary would have been a solid continuity Democrat and she would have signed whatever legislation a Democratic House and Senate passed, not to mention been hugely inspiring as the first female president. But because it's so important to the Online Leftists' moral sense of themselves that BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, they can't possibly acknowledge that ever being a factor, and/or admit that they have any culpability in not voting for her in 2016. It's like when you read the British press about any of the UK's equally numerous problems, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to avoid mentioning that Brexit might be a factor. They just can't mention it, because then that means they might have made the wrong choice in pulling for it as hard as they did, and blah blah Sovereignty.
Basically, if HRC had been elected president, everything would be so much less terrible and terrifying all the time, we would be talking about her successor in 2024 as someone else who could be the "first," we could explore handing the reins over to Kamala as a Black/Asian woman, we could promote Buttigieg as the first gay president, etc etc. But because 2016 was so catastrophically fucked up, we are in damage control mode for the immediate future and every election is just as pivotal. And yet, because people think that the only thing that matters is a presidential candidate's personal views, we're stuck having the same old arguments and desperately begging people over and over to please vote against fascism, since that somehow isn't self-evident enough on its own. Yikes on Bikes.
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Literally made an account just to vent my thoughts because DATV is beyond disappointing and actively destructive of the previous games/media in the series.
The story/lore choices made concerning what happens in the south of Thedas during DATV are devastating and a clear attempt to create a 'clean slate' for the franchise going forwards.
Spoilers to the game are mentioned going forwards -
Simply put: Ferelden, Orlais, and the Free Marches have basically been wiped clean - any previous influences that our characters may have had on these areas is wiped away by the Blight (aka BioWare) and therefore will likely not be mentioned in any games going forward.
Ferelden is basically left blighted, save for Redcliffe and small pockets of resistance in Denerim.
Ferelden, if it ever appears in the franchise again, will likely never address who rules the nation or whatever influences the Warden had on the land. The land will claw itself up from the ashes devoid of the influence we had on it.
Kirkwall suffers the same fate, and what remains of its residents have fled to Starkhaven.
Kirkwall has been over-run and those who escaped are held up in Starkhaven. Whatever influence Hawke had on the lives of those within Kirkwall has been waved away and destroyed by the Blight, likely to never be mentioned again.
Orlais has been over-run outside of resistance around the area of the Winter Palace, and venatori infiltrators have made the political situation within Orlais tenuous.
Orlais has been set-up with the venatori threat for a coup to completely invalidate whatever choice of ruler was made in DAI. Whomever the Inquisitor backed will likely be assassinated, and if Orlais appears in the game again it will be with a new ruler.
As someone who has been so invested in the lore, characters, and story of the game...this is devastating. It would be one thing if the game was bad but the story contained to Tevinter, for example - but this goes beyond as it retroactively changes everything for the worse and literally wipes everything clean. The greatest appeal and strength of this series was that it felt that you shaped Thedas - I adored every little bit of dialogue or codex entry that popped up in DA2 and DAI about things that happened in previous games!
It's baffling, and honestly comes across as mean-spirited, making the decision to deliberately target the places that our characters had the most influence.
The Warden may as well have let Urthurmiel win since Ferelden appears to be utterly blighted and Denerim, the heart of its nation, is destroyed.
Nothing Hawke did ever mattered, at all - and what little mattered was never from their own agency thanks to the Executors.
The Inquisitions efforts to restore order across Thedas was all for nothing, because nothing remains of them from in-game.
Unless if Dorian pops up in a DLC with his bloody time amulet and big reset button for the game then this is world of Thedas that remains.
With each game in the series up till now I finished each game with the feeling that the world was getting bigger, more complex, and now it just feels empty, shallow, and hollow.
Also fuck the Executors.
#datv spoilers#dragon age spoilers#dav#dragon age veilguard#dragon age the veilguard#bioware#bioware critical#datv critical#what the fuck bioware#duncan didn't die for this#carver/bethany didn't die for this#hawke/alistair/stroud/loghain didn't die for this#but i bet bioware would say that if they did die it was the executors all along#*pulls off loghain/urthurmiel's face* it was the executors all along!#*pulls off meredith/orsino's faces* gasp! the executors!!!#*pulls of corypheous' face* surprise motherfuckers#maker take the wheel
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thinking about how people who watch the emperor's new groove and somehow come out of it shipping pacha and kuzco, or thinking yzma only became evil when kuzco fired her and that she would've been a better ruler than him, are both so wrong in so many different ways and are also missing one of the things that i absolutely love about the movie. which is that, the way i see it, pacha and yzma are counterparts. as parental figures to kuzco.
like, just to get this out of the way first, yzma was a dismissive asshole to a peasant whose family was starving. and yeah, if kuzco had been in her place he definitely would've also done that, which... is why she would not be a better ruler than him. she'd just be the same because they're both horrible people in the exact same ways. her reaction to being fired is to plot murder, and as soon as his funeral is over she sets everyone to work on replacing paintings of kuzco with paintings of herself and covering the palace with imagery that makes it clear that it's all about her now. i'm not even sure why this is a discussion tbh.
and also, kuzco is literally a teenager. he's barely 18 years old. source: in the movie, yzma says at his funeral that kuzco was "taken from us so tragically on the very eve of his eighteenth birthday." she also claims in the movie to have "practically raised" him, to which kronk replies "yeah, you'd think he would've turned out better". and sure, she could be exaggerating, but what evidence do we have that she is? we learn absolutely nothing of his parents, who are never mentioned even once in the movie, or of anyone else who could've raised him, and she's his advisor who for some reason sees no problem with attending to royal duties in his place. most likely because she's his regent. also, i'm not exactly a fan of the sequel tv series "the emperor's new school" but it does have something that backs up my point: kuzco is revealed to be an orphan and just before his father went and got lost at sea, he asked yzma (who was also his advisor) to take care of kuzco if anything happened to him. so, yeah, the writers who worked on the series clearly thought that yzma genuinely did raise kuzco, and nothing in the movie contradicts this.
and i find the idea of her being his only parental figure for pretty much his whole childhood incredibly interesting because, and this also goes back into why she wouldn't be a better ruler than him--she mirrors him as a reflection of what would've become of him if he'd never met pacha. they're both incredibly arrogant, power-hungry, selfish, and cruel, with a tendency to blame their problems on everyone but themselves. yzma was even originally going to have her own reprise of kuzco's theme song "perfect world", which i really wish had been kept:
[ID: Lyrics that read:
I'Il be the sovereign queen of the nation And the chicest chick in creation I'm the cat with all the cream and ooh-la-la This deadly concentration Will put an end to my frustration Now this perfect world begins and ends with moi
What's my name? Yzma, Yzma, Yzma Yzma (what's my name?) Yzma, Yzma (What'd you say?) Yzma (Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!) Yzma. End ID]
(this song can be fully heard in "the sweatbox", the documentary about the making of the movie, and is also on youtube btw)
anyway, i'm sure yzma would not exactly have been the most nurturing or hands-on guardian, especially given that she and kuzco don't exactly treat each other like family. but it makes a lot of sense to think that her behavior influened kuzco's throughout the years. and for the entire movie, she remains determined to kill him. when he tries to reason with her and admits that he should've been nicer, she says the same thing to him that he originally said when he fired her. she never grows or changes and in the end, she hurts the one person who was willing to stand by her (and even then, kronk had never fully been on board with her plan) and he ends up trying to crush her with a chandelier. kuzco on the other hand is able to realize the error of his ways, come to regret who he was in the past, and start taking steps toward being a better person. his theme song gets a reprise where it's changed from a song about one person being the center of the world to a Power Of Friendship song. why? because, as i've already mentioned, he has pacha.
pacha, who similarly to both yzma and kuzco is in a position of authority as the leader of the village but unlike either of them is gentle and humble. who isn't afraid to stand up to kuzco and be honest with him even though he's the emperor, who agrees to take him back to the palace but has no obligation to be so helpful, kind, and caring toward him--and just about every reason not to be--and still chooses to be anyway. pacha who is 45 years old (also stated in the sweatbox documentary) and can see that kuzco is practically still a kid, not a single day over 18, who has time to grow and change. pacha, who already has a wife and two kids with another on the way, but practically treats kuzco like one of his own. who acknowledges that if kuzco dies all his problems will be gone and then still worries about him and goes out of his way to rescue him after he wanders into the jungle. who sees kuzco shivering at night and covers him with his poncho, who carries him when he's genuinely too weak to keep walking, who refuses to give up on him even after repeatedly being betrayed by him because he believes there's good in everyone.
also, while yzma ends up repeating kuzco's harsh words of dismissal as she tells him of her plans to kill him, kuzco had previously repeated pacha's words that "nobody's that heartless" after he saved pacha's life. and as the movie progresses kuzco and pacha's relationship becomes more and more equal and is constantly contrasted by moments of yzma being cruel and unappreciative of kronk's kindness. a good example of this is how kronk is constantly being forced to carry yzma everywhere on his back while yzma literally walks all over him and steps on his hands when she gets down, whereas when pacha briefly carries kuzco after the latter collapses he tells him he'll have to walk the rest of the way later and kuzco doesn't even protest.
idk if i'm even explaining well what i'm trying to say here. but basically, if yzma actually raised kuzco and contributed to his current behavior, then she and pacha both are figures who guided him and helped him grow. only yzma helped him become the tyrant that he was at the start of the movie, who was selfish and callous and saw everyone else as beneath him. whereas pacha helped him see the value in being selfless and considerate of others. and in the end, yzma is stuck as a cat and nobody is concerned about her. kronk has found a new job that makes him genuinely happy, while kuzco has decided to build a hut on the hill next to pacha's and effectively joined his family. in the sweatbox documentary it's even mentioned that chicha and the kids were at risk of being removed from the film, but it was decided that they needed to be there because having just pacha as a single guy who lived alone wasn't interesting enough--kuzco needed to go from having basically an empty world where he had nobody to being able to come together with pacha's whole family. and i just think that's incredibly satisfying and beautiful. it also leads up to one of the few things i really do enjoy about the emperor's new school, which is the fact that during the show kuzco moves in with pacha and chicha and pretty explicitly thinks of them as basically his parents while he's like a son to them.
idk. i feel like my mind went in a million different directions while i was writing all this. but i guess i just think that for all of the praise the emperor's new groove gets for its comedy and for how hilarious yzma and kronk in particular are as a duo, the movie also has a lot of genuine heart that gets overlooked. kuzco's character growth and his unique dynamic with pacha is, for me, really what elevates the movie from just a funny movie that i like to one of my favorite disney movies. and i wish more people appreciated that aspect of it and saw it as a found family story in the same way that treasure planet, brother bear, and lilo and stitch are all found family stories.
#disney#the emperor's new groove#help i wrote a whole essay about this movie#and i didn't even mention how much i love the way kuzco's home life is contrasted with pacha's#ugh. they have one of the most interesting and unique dynamics ever in a disney movie. i love them#love how kuzco gets away from yzma's toxic influence by way of accidentally being adopted#by the guy whose village he almost destroyed for a theme park#they're ENEMIES to FOUND FAMILY.... sobs#kuzco#pacha#yzma#kronk
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I have decided against my better judgement to be weird about the Dawntrail MSQ
and we can't talk about an expansion set in the fantasy americas without talking about
COLONIALISM
oh yeah, we're going there baby
So disclaimer that I may be brazilian, but my ass is white as hell, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also if any native americans have made posts on this please let me know so I can boost their analysis as well
Also also I'm more than happy to delete this post if I mess up. I'm genuinely trying to make a thoughtful analysis, so if I fuck up just say the word and this thing is gone from this website
Oh also also also, Dawntrail MSQ spoilers ahead!
So FFXIV has had a... messy relationship with colonialism over the years
The fact that the major antagonists for the first half of A Realm Reborn a literally called "beast man tribes" is absolutely not a good start to this story
Add to that the fact that The Twelve (Eorzea's gods) are shown to be kind all powerful deities, while the Primals (the tribal gods) are evil spirits summoned to bring destruction to the world
and yeah no ARR is not good with that shit. It's EXTREMELY not good. If I hadn't been told it got better later on I would have dropped this shit before I got to Titan
But they have been taking steps to unfuck things. First we're shown that even the "civilized societies" (in this case the catholic elves) can summon Primals, then that Primal summoning isn't an actual native custom but was introduced by foreigners with malicious intent, and that not all "beast man" practice that
Then they changed the names of the "Beast Man Tribe Quests" to "Tribal Quests" and then finally to "Allied Society Quest"
Which would have been an empty gesture had like half of the post-Shadowbringer patches, as well a lot of Endwalker, not been about forming alliances with those people and working together with them, recognizing that they have as much right to the land and to life as any Eorzean, this all culminating on the Primals being summoned with the express purpose of helping you protect the world you all share
I guess they realized that they couldn't have their big bad for most of the game be the evil expansionist empire, if they didn't like actually reflect in their own imperialist fantasies they were propagating
Then the teaser trailer for Dawntrail drops and everyone in the fandom is like "wait... are we gonna do a colonialism?"
And memes were abound of how all those lessons from before don't apply to the "New World" of Tural
THANKFULLY the actual questline leading to Dawntrail helped to settle some of those worries
We're not going to Tural to explore a new uncharted land, but are actually being invited over by the local royalty in order to aid them with their right of succession. We get introduced to the nation of Tuliyollal and how it's a thriving land with its own culture and not just a "terra nil" waiting to be colonized
Still there are some worries that this is gonna turn out poorly and that we're just gonna end up being white saviors
But I think they managed to avoid that pretty well
For starters neither the Scions nor the Warrior of Light are the protagonists of this story. You're all simply supporting character's in Wuk Lamat's story
A story that centers her people, her culture, and her family
And it's not even one culture. They don't portray Tuliyollal as this monolithic mish mash of every single native american culture
No, the lands of Tural are in fact comprised of multiple different people's and nations, each of them with their own customs and traditions which are informed by their history and the lands they live in
In fact learning about their cultures and partaking in their customs is the whole point of the Rite of Succession. It's all set up so that the next Dawnservant would be someone who understands and respects each of the peoples that comprise Tural
(I could, and probably will, write about what Dawntrail has to say about what makes a good ruler)
And our girl, Wuk Lamat, is shown to be the rightful heir because she really goes out of her way to understand each of the nations and show her appreciation for their customs
Putting her well above her Sharlyaboo brother Koana, The King of Unresolved Daddy Issues Zoral Ja, and whatever the fuck is going on with Bakool Ja Ja
(I joke, I love my two headed traumatized dumbass)
Tho I will admit that this does end up giving the tribes a somewhat "planet of the hats" vibe. Like their named NPCs are diverse and interesting, but you can just assume that most random NPCs of any given people are gonna act according to the stereotype
Which is unfortunate, but I have hopes that with the next few patches and the addition of Dawntrail's own Allied Society Quests, we'll get to see more to them
But that... is only up to lvl95 and the end of the Yok'Tural (southern Tural) segment
because then we get to Xak'Tural (northern Tural) and holy shit does it feel like they drop the ball there
Like they really COULDN'T keep themselves from making Shaaloani a fucking Wild West map
Instead of doing anything with the actual cultures and histories of Native North American people, they just do wild fucking west
Because there's ceruleum in them thar hills! And apparently Koana turned most of the region into Sharlyaboos too
So we get a bunch of Wild West frontier towns mixed with native american tribes and mud brick cities. We have trains and guns and a sheriff and a duel at high noon, but now everyone got native american names
At least there's one group off to the northern side of the map who seems to stick to tradition and live in harmony with nature, and that group is shown respect by the other people of the region
so we at the very least avoid the "cowboys vs indians" crap, but my god does that region just feel bad compared to everything else they had done so far
Then we get to the big twist: THE CYBERPUNK PORTION OF THE GAME
because yes, we go full fucking cyberpunk
so turns out that a whole segment of Xak'Tural got colonized by the kingdom of Alexandria, including the lands of the Shetona (Erenville's people)
And I feel like this is the most poignant section of the MSQ when it comes to colonialism
Because here we have Alexandria, an empire that has reached the limit of what it can do sustain itself on its own world, and so has decided to spread out and colonize others in order to gain resources
We see the Shetona and other natives of the region being separated from their families and kept in isolation from the rest of their people
And tho Queen Sphene is shown to be a kind and caring ruler who gives people a choice when it comes to joining the empire, WELL SHE'S STILL THE QUEEN OF A FUCKING EMPIRE
Like her form of kindness and just stagnant peace is put in stark contrast with Wuk Lamat's own love for her people and more proactive pursuit of happiness and harmony
(again with the "what makes a ruler theme")
Also the people that choose to be assimilated into the Alexandrian Empire? Yeah, they're doing so because Alexandria has advanced medical technology and you can only receive their aid if you're a citizen
Not only that, but you have to be a working citizen. We see later on a character being denied medical aid, because he lost his job, thanks to the King's decision and at no fault of his own
yeah this is cyberpunk, not just sci-fi
ALSO can we talk about how the technology used for that medical aid and the little gizmo they give you to signify you're now a citizen, will literally erase the memory of the people you lost
So the Turali who are assimilated into Alexandrian culture not only lose ties to their culture and their loved ones, but are not allowed to grieve their loss, because what they once had is slowly being erased
How their choices add up to survive on their own OR be assimilated
How this all takes place IN NORTH FUCKING AMERICA!
THE CYBERPUNK CITY IS LITERALLY SET IN THIS WORLD'S EQUIVALENT TO THE UNITED STATES
So yeah, I don't think is is accidental. I genuinely thing that they're making a point about the realities of imperialism and colonialism, as well as taking some shots at the US while they're at it
Of course this part is still centered around Wuk Lamat, and instead of having a moment of "the only ones who can stop the evil white europeans are the GOOD white europeans", we have Wuk Lamat be the one to save the day, defeat Sphene, and save her people from the colonizing empire
So I would like to argue that everything that happens from lvl97 onwards is them picking up the ball again and making a real point
buuuut that comes at the cost of us being unable to engage with the native peoples of Xak'Tural outside of the context of colonialism
Which genuinely fucking sucks, and I hope it will be remedied with the post-Dawntrail patches
As well as handling the whole shared land situation they ended up with and how this might end up in a Land Back sort of movement, and oh boy can they mess shit up royally there
So in conclusion FFXIV has had a messy relationship with colonialism and imperialist fantasies and tropes, but the devs seem to be making a concerted effort to undo their mistakes and show respect in their depictions of american natives
They still fuck up
boy do they
but they're at least trying, and I'd say Dawntrail so far has been quite well executed
so yeah, look forward to more insane rambles like this one I guess
#dawntrail#ffxiv dawntrail#dawntrail spoilers#ffxiv spoilers#wuk lamat#tural#sphene#solution 9#media analysis
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Pjo atla au! Was comtemplating on who should be the avatar and I went with nico just because he’s my fav. I feel like the au wont go exactly as the plot of atlau due do drastic changes like the air nomads never getting wiped off, given that the new avatar during kronos’ reign was from the earth kingdom, but i also didnt want the plot point of nico being the *last* earthbender because if i do expand on the au, id want some characters like hazel or grover to also be earthbenders (sue me for adjusting stuff to my liking), so lets just assume kronos didnt went as far as completely annihilating an entire race of benders cuz he thought the real avatar is already dead, and based on the cycle, the next avatar should be from the fire nation, and he probably would not destroy his own homeland, which leads to the next fire lord, zeus, sending jason to search for the supposedly 100 year old fire nation native avatar, that is until they eventually figured out nico’s status
Also! I thought about making jason an actual fire bender at first because, well, lightning. But i figured that in the hoo books, jason was more adept on the flying/sky/storm related aspects of zeus, so i thought, what if hes from the fire nation BUT an airbender? Boom.
And as for percy, hes kinda like an outcast after being banished from his tribe for practicing blood blending. Even if it was in an urgent scenario like the fire nation army attacking the place with no mercy. so he just wanders around until he eventually found nico. Certainly, if he helped the avatar in defeating their tyrant ruler, his tribe would let him return and be with his mom again right??? But maybe he should consider recruiting other people in team avatar eventually if him and nico kept getting chased around due to the big bounty on his head (other than the fact that he is with, literally, the avatar)
lmk if u want more of this au!
#pjo#percy jackson#pjo fanart#heroes of olympus#jason grace#nico di angelo#pjo hoo toa#atla fanart#pjo atla au#avatar the last airbender
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In the decades leading up to the formation of Israel, there were multiple pogroms against Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini (the Arab ruler in Mandatory Palestine during the Holocaust) literally collaborated with the Nazis
Palestinian Arabs revolted against Britain because they hated how Britain had allowed so many Jews to flee Nazi Germany to Palestine after Hitler came to power, and to appease them Britain adopted a policy that ended practically all Jewish immigration during the deadliest years of the Holocaust
None of this history in any way justifies violence against the innocent civilians of Palestine, nor should it EVER be used to paint Arabs, Muslims, or Palestinians with a broad brush, much less to demonize them
And there were exceptions: there were Palestinian Arabs who were friendly to Jews in Mandatory Palestine, just as there were Jews who were friendly to Arabs—there was even an antifascist association in Palestine during the 30s (one of the oldest know organizations to use the name “Antifa”) built around antifascism, Arab-Jewish solidarity, & bi-national zionism. Just as there are still to this day Israelis & Palestinians working together against their respective governments’ actions for a mutually beneficial peace.
But just as it would be offensively dishonest to use the modern peace movements to ignore the atrocities being committed in Israel-Palestine today, it would be dishonest to do the same with atrocities in 1920s-40s Palestine. To portray that era’s Palestine as welcoming a fledgling Israel with open arms, willingly “sheltering” it—in fact nurturing it like a loving caretaker looking after a defenseless cub he took in—is such a cartoonishly obvious distortion of reality it would be hilarious if it weren’t preying on so many people’s ignorance to simultaneously revise & deny Mandatory Palestine’s role in the Holocaust and compare Israel to Nazi Germany (itself a form of Holocaust Revision called Holocaust Inversion)
#I could go on for 20 paragraphs about how this image conflates Jews w/ Israel & Palestinians w/ Palestine#as well as conflating Mandatory Palestine with the State of Palestine#antisemitism#shoah#pogroms#i/p#antifa
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i rewatched Dune Part Two recently and one of the most striking shots for me was the one of the Fremen attacking the Sardaukar on wormback, while holding the Atreides flag.
Like, we just saw the Sardaukar forming up with their numerous flag bearers, even trying to maintain their flags raised after the nuclear detonation (in a shot that mirrored the famous "Raising the Flag in Iwo Jima" statue to me btw, nice nod to imperialism).
And then the Fremen arrive, but they're not bearing their colors, their flags, not fighting in their own names, instead it's the Atreides colors. The colors of their new, imperially appointed rulers. New pawns in the warfare between Great Houses, soldiers instead of freedom fighters. Urgh. Wish i could make gifsets.
Yeah yeah yeah it's horrifying!! You are watching a national liberation movement get successfully co-opted by a superpower and it's awful!
They did such a good job making it feel creepy and foreboding when the Atreides symbols and motifs start re-appearing in the last hour or so of the movie. The second Gurney shows up he immediately re-introduces the Atreides way of looking at the world, and it's disturbing how easily Paul falls back into thinking like that, seeing the planet and its people as tools to be used in an inter-imperial power play. (It's right after Gurney tells him about the family nukes that Paul has the signet ring out for the first time since the beginning of the second act and we're like OH NO.) This is before he drinks the Water of Life; he is already starting to think like a colonial duke again some time before he declares himself one.
After the opening montage where we see the piles of bodies being burnt, we don't see the stylized Atreides hawk symbol for most of the movie. The next time it appears is on a vault of nuclear weapons, which are never treated as anything but a curse. It's so important that Stilgar and Chani are with Paul and Gurney when they open the vault so we can see their horror at these weapons and the gleeful, casual way Gurney talks about them. Chani is also seeing an aspect of Paul that she hasn't really witnessed before--Paul, the Future of House Atreides--and she does not like it.
And then of course the whole ending battle is making the point over and over again with repeated imagery that Atreides and Harkonnens are exactly the fucking same. All the imagery from the initial Harkonnen attack on Arrakeen in Part One--which at least shows the Atreides as brave in the face of overwhelming odds--gets inverted into something that's supposed to make us shudder. That scene of Gurney hacking his way through the crowd of soldiers with someone carrying the Atreides flag behind him? Nightmarish.
All of this stuff is super important to what the movie is trying to say because it is very very easy for us to buy into the Atreides' propaganda about themselves being the good guys. If we're paying attention to what Chani tells us in the literal first 3 minutes of the first movie, we already know we should be viewing them with a bit of critical distance. And while I think there is plenty in the first movie to make us side-eye their noble image (Leto saying we will bring peace to Arrakis?? fucking yikes dude), it's easy to forget that because Leto generally seems like a good dude to the people close to him, and he dies tragically so we never get to see much of what kind of colonizer he would have become. And I think it's easy to start thinking well if only Leto the more reasonable parent had lived then things wouldn't have turned out this way.
But fucking desert power?? That was Leto's idea. This is Leto's dream being realized. The plan was always to use the Fremen as pawns in the power struggle between the Great Houses. Maybe not quite in the way that Paul does cause he definitely goes off with it, but the end result is just as much a product of Atreides imperialism as it is of Bene Gesserit religious colonialism. The Atreides aren't inherently any more noble or benevolent than the Harkonnens in their intentions, they just have better PR. But the end result is exactly the same: a pile of dead bodies being set on fire.
#dune#dune part two#paul atreides#house atreides#asks answered#thank you so much for this ask cause it gave me a chance to go OFF lol
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I have a hot take.
And I understand that a lot of it comes down to opinion and interpretation. The "official canon" for the game is your own damned canon, and I frankly love that for all of us. It's beautiful and freeing and sets us up to celebrate a variety of different worlds and that's pretty rad.
But (of course there's a "but") I'm coming to understand that…
…my canon interpretation of this line is very different from a large majority of this fandom.
And I guess it's not really a hot take. No one's interpretation is wrong, and I would never want someone to think that. No one should ever have their fun taken out of the game, it's a game. I think mostly I'm just looking for folks who read this the same way I do. Because to me?
Solas' greatest fear is not to literally die all alone.
Like, all by himself.
Not only do I believe that that's a large oversimplification of the meaning behind that statement, but I'd also argue that dying all by himself is precisely what Solas intends to do. He has had every opportunity to avoid it, especially in a Solavellan run, yet he's made zero moves to do so whatsoever.
At the end of Inquisition, he was still a member of the single most powerful and influential religious and paramilitary organization across the entire southern half of their continent. Aside from defeating a sea of demons and darkspawn horrors, and closing a breach in the sky between the Fade and the material world, they've also singlehandedly redesigned the flow of commerce between two nations, they've seated a ruler on the throne in Orlais, and chosen the next Divine to serve on the Sunburst Throne in the Chantry. They're responsible for shaping the future for the whole of southern Thedas, and the leader of that organization is potentially very sympathetic to Solas' beliefs and perspectives. There was much they could have accomplished together, and yet…
He left. Vanished into thin air, even, for two years. With no word.
And when we finally got the chance to confront him, and wrestle a larger kernel of truth out of the man, he told us that he walks the din'an shiral. A journey of death. And he made it unequivocally clear that he intends to walk it alone.
By himself.
There are a lot of ways to interpret what the din'an shiral even is, but the solemnity and weight he used when he referred to it carried a sense of finality. He intends to bring about the death of the world, that much we know is true, whether he sees it that way or not. But could his own life be the cost?
His ritual artifact is a blade, believed to have been fashioned from his red lyrium idol after having been recovered and cleansed. But it could've remained an idol, or it could've been made into an orb. It could've been a staff or a crown, or a necklace with the jawbone of some other critter. But it's a blade. Is it simply because rending the veil involves a certain act of piercing or tearing? Or is it still a weapon? An implement of violence or self-defense? Or even… of self-harm?
Regardless of the interpretation, there's nothing about Solas' future that suggests to me that he's safe. Or accompanied by anyone who intends to keep him safe. And there's nothing about Solas that suggests to me that he isn't acutely aware of all of this.
I don't think Solas has any fear whatsoever of literally dying all alone, at least according to my personal canon. To me, I think Solas views his death as his duty and he will not bring anyone down with him.
I believe that "dying alone" means something much bigger and deeper and more meaningful to Solas than it does to us, the player. And he goes to great lengths to identify and define what this fear means to him through a series of conversations he has with Varric during party banter.
There's quite a bit of self-discovery Solas conducts through this dialogue. It starts when tells Varric that he read Hard in Hightown. He then asks him if there are other trickster figures in dwarven literature, presumably because stories of Fen'Harel stated he walked as kin amongst both the Evanuris and the Forgotten Ones and there could could be some tie or some clue about that here, whatever that means. He goes on from there to begin asking pointed questions about Orzammar and what he perceives to be a lack of dwarven ambition. He makes remarks about how they could have a larger hand in shaping global affairs through their control of the lyrium trade and he seems genuinely confused why Orzammar would never consider reuniting with Kal-Sharok.
But he really circles down into the heart of the matter when he asks Varric if he ever misses a life beneath the stone. Varric responds by asking how he could miss something he'd never had, having been born a surface dwarf. And he tells Solas that even if the stone called to him in the manner he's describing, he's very happy with who he is and the life that he has, and he has no wish to change anything.
And from there, we watch Solas grapple with his answer. To him, Varric is someone who is just as sundered from his own identity, and he cannot fathom finding satisfaction in a life like that - a mundane life without magic or the song of the stone. He cannot rationalize it against his guilt and his regrets and his pride, and cannot let it go. So he then spins up an anecdote of a man he saw in the Fade.
He saw a man, alone on an island. His tribe had fallen to beasts and disease, and his wife had died in childbirth.
He was the only one left.
He could have left to find a new land or a new people. But instead he stayed. He spent his days catching fish in a little boat and he spent his nights watching the stars and drinking fermented fruit juice. (That's wine, Solas. That's called wine. You can just call it wine.)
To Solas, this man has surrendered to his defeat. And he gives us our first glimpse into what his fear might actually mean, right here.
"Knowing it will all end with you."
From there, Varric even asks him, "What's with you and all the fallen empire stuff, anyway?" And they go on to discuss what it means to give up and what it means to fight back, what costs are truly associated with each, and how those meanings can vary so widely between individuals whose lives have been so different. The analogy we didn't see at the time however, that we can now examine through hindsight, is that the man on the island wasn't just a representation of the old dwarven empire, but also of the Elvhen.
The man on the island was supposed to be representative of Solas himself.
(I also think it's cool that Varric mentions Orzammmar being too proud to ask for help.)
We are supposed to hear the anguish in his voice when he asks Varric whether he has any concept of what his capitulation to live as a surface dwarf has cost him.
Because Solas knows. For whatever reason (that we're about to discover in Veilguard), the remaining Evanuris were so horrific after the death of Mythal that the only solution he could devise that had any hope of protecting the world was to create the Veil and drive a wedge between the dreaming and waking worlds. To create a divide between magic and reality. To silence the song from the stone. To create a barrier that the blighted gods could never cross.
But one that also trapped the spirits.
And afterward, while he slept a dreaming sleep for centuries, the toll of creating the Veil having been so great, he watched as his people also began to quicken and die. He watched as their spirits also crossed the Veil to be trapped behind it forever. Everyone he ever knew and loved. All the chains of slaves he broke were for nothing. They simply traded one cage for another. Because of him.
And while Abelas and his company still guard the Well of Sorrows, they are bound to Mythal. (Also, I'm pretty sure you can make a choice to kill them? I never have, but I think you can?) They are still creatures that are beholden to her, and thus they are expendable. Mythal was even willing to sacrifice Flemeth to gift her power to Solas, to cure his weakened state after waking from uthenera, and hopefully prevent the risk of future mistakes being made. Like Corypheus.
Even Solas is expendable in the line of his duty, if it means he will succeed. He would gladly sacrifice himself to rectify his greatest mistake, and restore his people to themselves. Because they've been sundered for so long, they've forgotten who they are. And they are not his people anymore. He will make them remember.
He will restore their connection to the Fade, he will reveal lost paths to ancient libraries, and he will reawaken their relationships with their spirits - archivists, and spirits of purpose and wisdom and valor and faith and all of their ancestors that lived before them. He will make them what they were, as they were when he knew them. Because without that, they are incomplete. The spirits are incomplete. He is incomplete.
Our job in Veilguard will be to either help him find a better way to accomplish his goal, or help him find a way to find satisfaction and completion in this world. (Or, you know, kill him, but not in my canon, thanks.) Either way, we have to get him to accept help.
Because the burden that he carries within himself is the sole memory of a vast nation, and it is heavy. Far too heavy to bear alone. He is the last living key, a fragile remnant, a final, solitary link through dreams to the history, the knowledge, and the entire cultural identity of the Elvhen people. (The People people? Is that redundant?)
And without him, all of that is lost.
Forever.
To him, he is the last of the Elvhen.
So, my interpretation of Solas' greatest fear is not that he is afraid to die all by himself. It is something I feel is truly much more heartbreaking.
It is that he is afraid to die the last of his kind.
He is afraid to die alone.
#dragon age#dai#dragon age inquisition#dragon age trespasser#datv#datv spoilers#da4#da4 spoilers#dragon age the veilguard#dragon age the veilguard spoilers#veilguard spoilers#fen'harel#the dreadwolf#what it really means to be afraid to die alone
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Degrees Series: The Hidden Power of Cancer Degrees: (4°, 16°, 28°)
In astrology, we often associate Cancer with emotions, home, family, and nurturing energy. It carries the archetype of the healer and the divine mother. But the degrees within Cancer hold even deeper, meanings, especially when specific planetary placements activate them.
﹙♡﹚ The Influence of 4° Cancer: People, Home, and National Identity =
At 4° Cancer, the theme of people—whether as individuals or in a collective—becomes paramount. This degree speaks to the human race, crowds, and gatherings of individuals. It connects to feelings of patriotism and loyalty to one’s nation or homeland.
Jackie Kennedy has Mars at 4° Cancer. Known for her grace, poise, and connection to the American people. Kennedy was driven by her connection to people, especially during her time as First Lady. The 4° Cancer degree ties deeply to national identity, patriotism, and the well-being of the collective.
If you have placements here, you may find a deep connection to your hometown, feeling rooted in your origins. This degree reflects the home, but not just the physical structure—it taps into where you feel safe and grounded. It’s a degree that nurtures national pride and family ties, creating a strong bond with the place you come from.
4° Cancer is also connected to water in all its forms—lakes, swimming pools, even the tears we cry. It can indicate the emotional waters we swim through, as well as the literal fluids we consume like milk or beer.
16° Cancer: Patriotism, War, and National Tragedies 🇺🇸⚔️
The 16th degree of Cancer brings a sharp focus on national identity and the deep patriotism we hold for our country or homeland. This degree connects the nation with its people, often indicating leaders or public figures who carry the weight of their country’s identity.
However, it can also reveal the darker side of nationalism—leaders driven by a warped sense of patriotism, often leading to war and tragedy. We see this influence clearly in the charts of dictators and rulers whose actions brought great suffering to their people.
Adolf Hitler had Venus at 16° Taurus—a Cancer degree—conjunct Mars (war) in the 7th house (war and conquest). His nationalism drove him to conquer lands (Taurus/territory) and wage war in the name of his people (Cancer degree). The degree here shows not only his nationalist agenda but also how it manifested in destructive ways, leading to mass atrocities.
28° Cancer: Public Opinion, Family Legacy, and Collective Emotion
Finally, 28° Cancer represents the power of public opinion, how collective emotions shape the world, and the legacies passed down through family. This degree governs how individuals and families fit into the larger narrative of society and public life.
With planets at 28° Cancer, you’re likely deeply influenced by your family’s emotional legacy and societal views. Your reputation may be closely tied to your family, your heritage, or how you’re perceived within the public eye. There’s a strong connection to collective emotions and how they influence both personal and national events.
This degree also rules stadiums, sports gear, and sportsmen—spaces where the collective gathers, whether it’s a family reunion or a crowded sports event. It’s where personal and public lives intersect, often on a large scale. 🏟️
Let me know if it resonates...
#astrology#astro community#astro#astro notes#astrology community#astro observations#astrology notes#astro posts#astrology placements#astro placements#astrology readings#astro tumblr#astrology signs#moon#sun#gif#gifs#art#artists on tumblr#crystals#summer#dark academia#light academia#cottagecore#naturecore#photography#cottage aesthetic#love#cozycore#grandmacore
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