#muse opinions

[ribesrubrum]

✘ Any unpopular opinions about your muse?

//looks at some of this fandom and sweats. LIKE Y'ALL KNOW CARMINE ISN'T THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL, RIGHT? seriously, i see just a bunch of nasty shit thrown around at her and solely her pretty much and just. yikes? fuckin' yikes.

//like, to heavily derail for a moment and get on my lil sable soapbox here--my favorite part of the kieran and carmine conflict is that they are both wrong in very, very different ways, and they are just so delightfully fucked up because of it! because they are both perpetrators and victims of fuckery! because they are idiots! carmine is queen idiot and has some of the worst moodswings known to man and that does get saddled on poor kieran, but she still like...cares...about her brother??? she just has the emotional regulation of, you know, an actual teenager. girl makes mistakes! girl can be egotistical as fuck and stomp all over people's feelings whether she actually means to or not! she's not fucking pure evil???

//and on ANOTHER can of worms, likewise kieran isn't just this like, irredeemable monster that some sides of the fandom see him as? he's no flawless softboy either but like. holy shit. the boy ain't perfect but that's what makes him interesting, and boy got pushed to his breaking point by lies and being deceived, which is like. good! call out the people who did this! even if they wanted to keep you safe they could've at least explained it??? go off man--okay MAYBE NOT THAT FAR PUT THE [SPOILER FOGHORN] DOWN--

//...anyway this got significantly out of hand but tl;dr can we just accept that this is a solid ESH on the AITA rating scale and stop trying to demonize one sib for the benefit of the other. thanks!

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[kaos-incarnate]

Me when ppl say KAOS has too many inaccuracies-

[luckthebard]

Something I was musing about this morning is how if there’s one major critique I have of C2, it’s that Matt was almost too inflexible with the rules, often seemingly against his own instincts and sometimes to the detriment of the game’s momentum. I remember almost cheering when he firmly decided to stop looking something up they were going in circles over in episode 76 or so (“and that’s how I’m ruling it in my game”) and I think for a long time I blamed it almost entirely on Matt being way too aware of fan back-seat gaming, which he has thankfully really seemed to move away from or at least care less about.

But something I hadn’t considered until it groggily occurred to me on my commute this morning is that that change for Matt’s stance on the rules in C2 might also have been influenced by their massive campaign-long deal with DnD Beyond as a digital toolset.* Hard to be promoting a tool that puts the rules at your fingers if you’re not following those rules, or so I could imagine the logic/concern around the issue. But that also made me think about which players were not necessarily shy about brutal honesty about the way the tool didn’t work for them. DND Beyond in 2018 was a far cry from the functionality it has today. And Liam, whether simply from playing a wizard and having a complicated character or just being a straightforward and set in his way guy, would frequently turn to books/spell cards rather than deal with his tablet. Which also led to the funny ongoing phenomenon of Sam announcing improvements to the tool in an ad which just happened to coincide with something that was making issues for Liam a few weeks before lol.

Anyway, this post is rambling and doesn’t have a point other than that I’m glad Matt feels more free to houserule in C3 for whatever reason (mostly cause he seems more comfortable) and reminding myself of how funny it was how thinly concealed Liam’s dislike for the virtual character sheet was for at least the first half of C2.

*important context for this for people who joined CR later is this was also waaaay before WotC bought DnD Beyond. It was a start-up that was acquired by Fandom in 2018 (around the time of the CR partnership) and would remain a 3rd party toolset until WotC paid good money for it in 2022. Just to level-set about the business relationship that happened in C2.

[ghost-bxrd]

Do you think Bruce was in the wrong in utrh? Do you think he should have killed the joker, or that he failed Jason?

I think Bruce handled the situation completely wrong. In its entirety.

Yes, he failed Jason. Both as Batman and as a father.

Killing Joker isn’t necessarily something I would want Bruce to do… well, no, I do. But I understand that he can’t. So that’s really not the hard part I got hung up on.

What got to me was the way he didn’t even try very much to compromise. Not a single second of genuine joy over Jason being alive, overshadowed by his actions as it may have been.

And yes, Jason was being downright nasty, but Bruce “greatest-detective-slash-everyone-deserves-a-second-chance-slash-philanthropist” almost killing him and leaving him there in favor of saving Joker?

Nope, sorry. There aint no coming back from that sort of shit.

A real father— or hell, even a good MENTOR— would have tried to compromise with the miracle of a (child) man standing there. Would have gone weak kneed with disbelief-grief-hope.

So yeah, I think Bruce failed Jason in almost every way possible.

Bruce saw a cold hearted killer in the Red Hood, a failed project. A rogue soldier. His mistake.

In reality, Red Hood is a scared, angry teenager that just wanted a single ounce of proof that he wasn’t discarded like a stray dog at the first chance they got.

[library-fae]

i see posts about people saying you shouldn't say "going nonverbal" or use the term nonverbal if you arent always nonverbal and it makes me feel like yall forgot about variable disabilities

ambulatory wheelchair users exist

chronic pain doesn't always make people immobile every single day (depending on the person)

so why cant being nonverbal also be a spectrum, much like so much of autism is?

[xaviers-school-dropout]

I think the ideas that

“Raven is a bad parent”

And

“Raven loves their children”

Can and should co exist. I will never sit here and say Mystique is a good parent, but I think acting like they don’t love their children is just being willfully ignorant of their characterization since the 80s.

I see a lot of people try to claim Raven doesn’t care about their kids. I actually think they care a LOT, it just, doesn’t deter their actions. And they’re not a good parent, don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love Kurt and Rogue and I think trying to claim they don’t actually does away with a lot of Raven’s character nuance.

A lot of the tragedy and depth of their relationships come from the fact that Raven DOES love their children, but it’s not enough. And Kurt and Anna Marie know that, and that’s part of the tragedy of it too.

I’m not a Mystique defender, but I am a Raven Darkhölme characterization realist. A lot of people flatten their character to add more sympathy to Kurt’s story especially, which feels kinda iffy to me. But that’s for another post.

From a storytelling perspective, it adds so much more depth and tragedy to all characters involved to not make the relationship so shallow and one sided as “Oh Mystique doesn’t love them”, and even to juxtapose Raven’s relationship to them with Irene’s is a whole other thing I may talk about one day. But like, you do the story injustice to flatten it down to just “Oh Mystique sucks”

Tl;dr - Raven Darkhölme is a shitty parent but they do love their kids. And that’s the whole tragedy of the thing

[otherworldseekers]

I've seen so many people express disinterest in Dawntrail by saying something along the lines of "there's nothing in it for me". And I'm going to be honest, I don't really understand this sentiment.

When I began playing ARR, I didn't know anything about the world or the people or the characters or why my own character should care about any of it. I was set down in an unfamiliar world and expected to just walk around doing generic quests waiting for something interesting to happen to my character. With Dawntrail, the WoL is a well established character with a characteristic love of travel, discovery, and the world and people at large. The WoL is traveling with well known companions, and has clear goals to pursue while getting to explore a whole new continent. Comparatively, there is far more "in it for us" in DT than there was at the beginning of ARR. (Unless you played 1.0, but the majority of players have not.)

You never have investment at the beginning of a story, whether it's a game or book or movie or anything else. You become invested over the course of the story, as you learn more about the world and characters. Going into Dawntrail, we have the advantage, first, of knowing that the devs have an excellent track record of creating complex characters, fascinating worlds and compelling stories. And second, we have the advantage of having been shown a great deal of the world we are about to enter.

Personally, I have found all of the images and information about Tural hint at some amazing worldbuilding. It's a completely different kind of place from what we're used to and I find that very exciting. I love diverse regions and intricate cultures and getting to explore them in game. If you don't... well I have to wonder why you're playing this game.

Similarly, if you've developed your WoL to be someone contradictory to their canon characterization, someone who doesn't like to travel and experience new places and people and who would not be interested in Wuk Lamat and Krile's goals... Well, it's kind of on you if you don't feel there's anything "in it for you" in this expansion. Because it's clearly been purposefully crafted to appeal to the canon WoL, the one that SE is telling their story about.

And while I completely understand the desire to develop characters that deviate from the msq and experience the world of FFXIV in other ways, I don't quite understand playing the game but not wanting to experience the story as the devs have made it. You can so easily do both.

Getting to experience the devs' story, to explore their world and meet their characters, is always what's most exciting to me about new expansions. I can enjoy the story for what it is and then decide how I want to apply it to my WoL's development. And I appreciate how much work they put into creating this experience for me and the fact that they do encourage us to create alongside them.

Of course, it's not wrong to feel that there's "nothing in it for you" in this new expansion. But they've been very clear about the fact that this is the beginning of a new story full of unfamiliar elements. So I'm just not sure what some people expected.

[bogkeep]

it fascinates me how often a choice of first or - gasp - second person storytelling can create so much derision and discourse. having preferences is fine obviously, and as a writing choice it Does matter, because all writing choices matter. i don't really... notice?? anymore??? or like, i DO notice, but more in a "what information will the narrative give me access to" kind of way.

i know second person especially can be jarring if you're not used to it, because it's "he would not fucking say that" but for yourself. but it's also like... so many song lyrics have "you" and "i" and to me they're just. a story that exists separate from me. (to the degree lyrics exist to me at all as something other than Sounds that are part of a music piece, but that's the audio processing disorder/'did not grow up with english as a first language and never bothered to decode lyrics' of it all speaking)

i suspect a lot of derision towards first person narratives comes from a derision towards the genres in which it is a staple, rather than that it's somehow uniquely bad. there's really not much difference between a first person perspective and limited third person perspective??

[writesailingdreams]

Never been able to see the parallels between Usopp leaving the crew and Sanji leaving. I suppose they both fight Luffy but the reason and context is completely different. As far as I recall, Usopp is the only one who ever leaves by questioning Luffy's authority and saying he had been thinking about it for awhile e.g. that he couldn't keep up with the others (Luffy).

Yes I know there's more complexity to it than that, but he is explicit about the fact that he wants to leave. In comparison, when Robin leaves its "I have a darkness chasing me you can't understand so we must part ways"; with Nami its "we spent time together but it was never for the long haul"; with Sanji its first "gotta go deal with something, don't worry" and then its "you're beneath me, I'm a prince". In none of those statements do any of them expressively say "I want to leave and I will fight you over this issue that you are making a bad decision over"*

There's variety over how to understand what they each mean (with Robin it's figuring out where she stands; with Nami its just sticking around; with Sanji its forcing him to admit how he really feels). None of which would have worked with Usopp -- it seemed clear as to where he stood, sticking around for him was counter to what he was saying, and if Luffy had pressured Usopp to say how he really felt (if what he was saying wasn't what he meant) then Luffy would have dismissed Usopp's conviction to challenge him in a fight.

I could maybe see an argument that the situation with Usopp gave Luffy more insight when Sanji left, but on the other hand, it has more in common with Robin and Nami than Usopp -- someone vanishes without explanation and tries to drive the others away. That's not at all how Usopp left.

*which Luffy is ultimately right about

[ribesrubrum]

✍ Has new canon material ever forced you to adjust your headcanons?

//lmao. so about indigo disk!

//yeahno i'm still clinging to like, a few of my headcanons mostly in regards to carmine's relationship with briar, because like. when i started this blog i was originally not planning nor expecting to be one of the few carmines here and mostly just made this as a companion account to my main pokeirl OC.

//and then indigo disk happened and kind of made me scramble to like, actually realize carmine and be able to put my best foot forward in trying to play her. and i don't know if i do a good job! but i am at least trying. indigo disk didn't throw TOO many curveballs my way at least, especially given that kieran's dive into the edgezone was something i sorta thought would happen lmao

[sciencegothic]

you know, i think people who like the great gatsby on broadway shouldn’t have to clarify that they “know it’s not a good adaptation” any time they say something positive about it. sometimes you can just like things! that’s okay! i’ve read the book, i know it’s different, but that means you can look at it as a separate story from the book. similar narrative, similar themes, but through an entirely different lens. it is its own thing! i just think it’s unfair people who genuinely like something feel like they have to preface and justify it. the musical is fun! it’s enjoyable! let yourselves enjoy it!

this goes for most media, honestly. sometimes the things i enjoy inherently kind of suck and that’s okay. people can still enjoy “bad” movies or shows or whatever without having to give a disclaimer every time, y’know?

[kaos-incarnate]

Plz vote and reblog! Also if anyone would like to share their thoughts on how the character they chose should be written/characterized/casted, I would be delighted to read! 🌩️

[gloochi]

Something I didn't expect that I've noticed since I started reading SAO is that Kawahara is constantly trying to actually say something when writing this series and that he's a lot more left-leaning than I would've thought before I actually started diving into any of this. Like, look at this incredibly important bit from the Alicization epilogue.

Or this bit from Moon Cradle.

When I was showing my girlfriend these bits, her reaction was rather succinct and kinda mirrors my general thoughts.

Like, when I started this series, I kinda expected it to be some kinda okay VR isekai slop, and that's definitely how it started, but the deeper in I've gone, the more I've found that this series wants to say. I've already posted about the scene at the end of The Safe Haven Incident where Kirito and Asuna literally turn to the camera and say "women aren't your fucking property," but there's also stuff like the surprisingly genuine attempt at depicting Kirito's and Sinon's PTSD in Phantom Bullet, the attempt to show how Yuuki still deserves to live a fulfilling life despite her terminal illness in Mother's Rosario (and the fact that it's specifically AIDS in particular feels rather bold), literally saying outright that unjust laws shouldn't be followed in the first half of Alicization, literally depicting a straight up tyrannical fascist cult in that same arc (and really feeling like it hits what makes cults so fucking sinister), even going so far as to dismantle the fucked up concept of a truly "evil" race in the back half of Alicization, and I haven't even started Unital Ring yet. There's also probably more that's slipping my mind. Even the sexual assaults, as uncomfortable and excessive and truly unnecessary as they are, are depicted as horrifically as they should be. There's no lingering on anything for pleasure or attempts to play it for comedy, and the perpetrator always gets their fucking shit kicked in afterwards, sometimes even To Death (with the exception of Yanai, who initially gets away with it until karma catches up in Alicization). Kawahara may be clumsy, heavy-handed, and still a little more misogynistic than I think he realizes (though he's clearly been improving there over the years), but he seems to almost always be sincere and well-meaning in the things he writes. It honestly kinda makes me sad that this series has the reputation it does.

[butcharium]

When we're each to our own my girlfriend and I are normally not bothered so much by harassment as butch lesbians but when we're together it sure spikes👍

[padfootastic]

hohoho i am writing a remus & sirius confrontation that is ending up a little too mean and it’s verging on the edge of not fitting into FoD but by god, is it satisfying 😈😈😈

“Oh, stop pretending, Remus.” There’s a part of Sirius, not insignificant, that tells him to shut the fuck up. To bite back the words as he’d always done. They don’t expect it of him but he is perfectly capable of maintaining a civil tongue when needed. He just doesn’t want to, today. “You’ve always resented us, haven’t you?”

“Padfoot, do you even hear yourself—?” Remus’ amber eyes are bright, almost feverish, and Sirius knew that all he had to do was push.

So he did.

- brought to u by ‘i’ve been thinking about remus and i also recently read a fic that blindsided me w commentary on james’ and sirius’ social positions intimidating remus into compliance as an excuse for his cowardice and general temperament and got incredibly annoyed at how he is, yet again, victimised so i shall now endeavour to turn that idea around on its head using the ‘ol ‘u cannot help someone who does not want to be helped’ adage so help me god’