#nothing else makes sense

[fiddleabout]

@ emma hayes do u think people will be happy enough to see dunn on the front line that they won't notice the glaring absence of lynn williams or the fucked up inclusion of Out And Proud Homophobe And Transphobe korbin albert

[beardedmrbean]

Two billboards with the face of Alexei Navalny were placed in front of the Russian Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. The action was conducted by DBS (Democrats for Strong Bulgaria) in memory of the Russian oppositionist, it became clear from their message to the media.

"There are personalities who rise above everyday life, above the grayness of pettiness, above time...

They have causes, they are a cause.

We don't always understand them, we don't always appreciate them when they are among us.

Their messages are here, their causes are here.

Their principles, their power, are here.

Their flight to freedom is here.

We have to show that.

Navalny!

A small gesture of adoration and respect, from Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, on the way to his immortality.

We will not be silent!", the message states.

We remind you that on February 16, 2024, Russian authorities announced the death of Alexei Navalny, aged 47, according to the Russian prison service. His passing led to demonstrations in Russia and several other nations. Western governments and international organizations have leveled accusations against Russian authorities regarding his demise.

[ithopoiia]

that checks

[quicksilverblue]

Student: Do we need to use MLA or APA for reflection paper?

Me: Reflection papers are informal, I don't care.

Me: Also no, always and only and forever Chicago!

[myhotmessandsoccer]

Donnie is definitely the Antichrist!

[sciderman]

well - webtoons is over, gang

[fuckyeahsnackables]

I'll waste my breath one more time saying it: between the interesting and subtle acting choices made by Nathaniel Parker and the TOTAL lack of logic in him betraying Igraine's child right when Uther is finally gone, in favor of supporting Morgana whom he might never have even met before, there only one theory I find remotely convincing:

Agravaine got fomorrah'd. Yup. Morgana snaked him.

Think about it. Having lost a brother and a sister to Uther, he'd stayed away throughout Arthur's life. Why show up when Arthur is newly crowned king? Well, if he sought personal advancement or to take the crown himself, that would make sense, right?

Except he doesn't.

Instead, Agravaine risks everything, time and time again, to win power for Morgana. But when would he even have met her?? Did they just bump into each other when she was hanging out in her hovel? Meet at a gathering of Priestesses of the Old Religion? He never even suggests familiarity with the old religion, let alone enthusiasm for its return.

But for the sake of argument, let's say they actually met at some point and Agravaine fell madly in love with her. That's a theory too, right? But why not a word of canon confirmation? Why is Agravaine almost paternal--or rather, avuncular--in his protection of Morgana? He doesn't scheme to share her power, future, or bed. Instead he serves her with slavish obedience, never advancing a personal motive. I don't buy the bad romance theory. There's just no evidence, and a lot of acting choices that point away from it too. It would have been easy to show amorous intentions, but instead all we get is total loyalty, unwavering devotion.

Okay, so what's left? Maybe Agravaine secretly blames Arthur for the death of Igraine, like Uther not-so-secretly does? I don't buy it. First of all, Uther blames Arthur because he knows himself to be responsible for his wife's death. But also, would Tristan duBois have fought Uther to the death if he didn't suspect Uther of personal responsibility for Igraine's death? Uther, not Arthur. And if Tristan was willing to challenge Uther and ultimately die to avenge his sister, doesn't it seem likely he would have shared his motivation and suspicions (or knowledge) with baby brother? There's every reason for Agravaine to hate Uther and stay away from Camelot until he kicks it, and every reason for him to want to support Igraine's child. Only irrational blame for an infant remains as a remotely plausible excuse for engaging in whole-ass treason from right in the heart of Camelot, where it would be most easily traced back to Agravaine himself. Not very logical, and certainly not very self-protective. And it still doesn't explain Morgana. Did he take out a "want ad" looking for co-conspirators with a legitimate claim to the throne? Makes no sense.

Now forget all that mess and consider this version of the story:

Agravaine couldn't save his sister or his brother from Uther's ruthless self-interest. That's all the family he had--except for the child Igraine gave her life to bring into the world. While Uther lived, Agravaine couldn't do anything for the boy. But with the news of Uther's death? Loyal, loving, bereaved Agravaine duBois rides straight for Camelot to support his nephew, the young King Arthur.

Doubtless Agravaine would have reached out to Arthur and announced his intentions, and we know Morgana's intel and espionage game is solid. She's obsessed with Arthur. She would know he was about to receive support from a powerful ally, precisly when she'd hoped to find him at his weakest.

So she ambushes Agravaine and gives him the snake treatment. It's even possible that, because she had him under the fomorrah's control for weeks or months compared to Merlin's mere days, that even the eventual destruction of the mother beast would have come too late to save Agravaine from her control. (I mean, Agravaine wasn't the greatest warlock to ever live/the embodiment of Magic itself. He was just some guy who had lost a lot of family and had no idea that Morgana would turn him into a weapon to ruin the very last person he'd ever want to harm. He had no warning and no defense against Morgana’s power.)

In many ways, Agravaine never met his nephew, and Arthur never knew that he so had a living family member who truly cared for and was loyal to him.

And I think Agravaine would have been loyal. I think the devotion we see him show Morgana was stolen from Arthur. She would have taken cruel pleasure in robbing Arthur of that, and we see how deeply it wounded Arthur to discover that he'd been betrayed again, by his mother's kin, no less.

So that's my theory. If I could blaze a post to Merlin blogs only, I would blaze this one because it drives me crazy. Watch season 4 again and notice all the tiny acting choices that Nathaniel Parker makes. He feels creepy because he doesn't make sense. There are moments when I swear you can see something lost and confused behind his eyes. He bestows on Morgana the loyalty he intended for Arthur, but on some level, he knows something is wrong.

But this is why I believe Agravaine to be such a tragic character: he *doesn't* make sense, and deep down, some part of him feels it. Only Agravaine doesn't have anyone in Camelot who knows him, as Gwen and Gaius know Merlin. There is no one to save Agravaine. And so he will always be remembered as the worst kind of traitor, both to his nephew and to his beloved sister's memory.

Ultimately, Agravaine is just another casualty in a war that isn't even of Morgana’s making. It is Uther Pendragon-- with his guilt, his fear, and his selfishness--who poisons his children's lives and brings Camelot to the brink of destruction.

Tl;dr - Agravaine is not the villain. He is the victim.

I love how the Merlin fandom doesn’t agree on everything, but we all can agree that Agravaine is a slimy bastard

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Me when I really want to draw fanart for a fandom because it looks so cool, but I haven't the slightest idea about any deeper lore than surface level plot and symbolism

[vaguely-concerned]

on the one hand I think inner demons could stand to have a bit more romanced rook specific content, but on the other hand the underlying in-built implication that 'yours is the one true voice of comfort and safety in my inner world' is a sentiment and intimacy so way beyond the romantic or the platonic or any secret third thing you could care to name that it makes me lose my entire poor little mind a bit. it's so big and fundamental — near-existential — that in that exact moment at least the distinctions kind of seem irrelevant.

all the people lucanis' mind conjures up along the way are relationships he has that are unavoidably mixed and fraught in some ways even when they're also full of love (they are fraught BECAUSE they're full of love) — the good in them inseparable from things that hurt him at the same time. (it's about: the basic disorganized attachment patterns this poor guy is dragging around with him. careful with those, they're dellamorte heirlooms. what you love also inevitably hurts you and you won't be allowed to have one without the other, you have to surrender parts of your soul to hold on to what little you have left: this is the story up until now.) and the idea that rook isn't that to him — that beneath the fear of wanting them when romanced (which is more its own separate thing because within this psychology, actively wanting something and not just clinging on for dear life to even a meager status quo lest you lose it is in itself dangerous bordering on catastrophic), this is a relationship where there isn't resentment, or guilt, or shame, or dread, or rage, or self-hate, or any of the other emotions that keep him paralyzed, unable to move this way or that. no debts, nothing owed of yourself and your soul's substance except what you can freely and safely and happily give. love and freedom don't coexist — but, I mean, you're almost starting to make me think........... unless...👀👀👀. the unconditional and undramatic 'you are here and I am here with you, you can be exactly how you are right now with me and it's safe for us both even though you're afraid it won't be, I'm not going anywhere' acceptance rook shows him here that he returns to them in the big romance scene, when it's rook who needs it. the way he's just. standing there in the center of it all, like a child desperately helplessly waiting to be found, hiding in the place he hopes you'll know to look first. (rook does know. it's one of the first things they say in there.)

in short the most important room in his little mind palace for the romance is the very first room — the one where rook isn't. where, in fact, rook cannot be, because they disprove the entire structure of the place with their existence and presence in his life. with everyone else he's putting words in their mouths about what they think of him, and rook is the one who actually gets to come in to speak their own words to him — and have him listen. ('he'll listen to you, he always listens to you', 'your voice is a comfort'.) of course rook isn't present anywhere else in there — at the risk of stating the obvious to a tedious degree, they aren't one of the locks, they're bringing the key. in the very finest 'the messenger and the message' sort of way.

[trashyshrew]

[thedreadvampy]

Losing my shit about this article in which a transphobic Tory was so busy panicking about existing in the vicinity of a Trans that she almost certainly misheard "jeans" as "penis" and decided that not only was this a problem with the other woman, but also that the world must be informed of this pressing danger.

"a trans woman! I had to stand directly behind her....I thought, 'this is going well', I'm handling The Situation fine'..."

translated: I saw a tall woman with broad shoulders. How would I get out of this alive? I thought. she has a PENIS. PENIS PENIS PENIS. through some force of PENIS I mean will I managed to PENIS behave normally towards her. My hands were PENIS PENIS PENIS shaking as I tried to dry them. summoning up all my PENIS courage I said 'dryer's crap innit'. she turned to me and said " yeah I'm just goiPENIS PENIS PENIS"

It's been a week and I'm still shaking. This proves trans women are the problem and I'm not weird. I'm fine. It's fine. If you think about it I'm the hero hePENIS!!!!!

very this

[park-jimin-isnt-real]

Theory one: min yoongi has read three tangerines and has actively decided to be an absolute menace about it

Theory two: you, ryen, are actually min yoongi and have actively decided to be an absolute menace to us

Theory three: you, ryen, are actually dating min yoongi and you have both actively decided to be absolute menaces together

[ 3tan6 ] listen

—

—

—

a/n: as much as i squeal whenever y’all send me screenshots of passages, i don’t screenshot my own words often.

but. i🧍‍♀️

JUSTICE FOR FCKING FRIENDS I GUESS AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH‼️

[girlevanbuckley]

still can’t believe that the will scene is a real thing that 911 did. like eddie diaz, known man who’s scared of relationships and letting people into his life actually did in fact tell evan buckley, known man who’s only wish ever was to be wanted and to belong and to find a place to call home, that he’s had a home and a role in eddie’s family since the second year they met. EDDIE DIAZ tells EVAN BUCKLEY that he’s not expendable. tells him exactly what he needs to hear. that his life IS worth it. that he DOES matter. looks into his eyes and tells him he wants him to stay in this world to take care of their son. and from that moment on, as an audience we see buck stop being so careless with his life. because hey, he has a family to go to home to. people who need him around. and you expect me to move on.

[butchvamp]

i do think that for me personally. there is no version of taash's storyline that i can get down with except one where they reconnect with their qunari side. my main problem with their arc is that it perpetuates this idea that someone has to "choose" one culture, that they have to turn their back on parts of their identity in order to be the right kind of trans (the white western kind) and all of it just makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. and to be clear this is not me like... trying to make anyone feel bad, there are parts of taash's story that i personally connect with as well, like there is nothing wrong with the way taash does gender in general and there's nothing wrong with it resonating with people. it's when we put it all together in context within the game that it becomes a problem for me.

we know the qun does not have the same ideas around gender as the rest of thedas, we know that their identity, including gender, is connected to their duty. and so it doesn't make sense that taash's mother cares about them wearing dresses. why would she care about that. i'd ask if we've ever even seen any qunari in dresses but i'm pretty sure we've only seen three qunari women total and two of them are in veilguard and are scholars wearing what i personally consider a robe. the third is in trespasser and is ben-hassrath, and is definitely not wearing a dress. if anything, their mother should be concerned about the fact that they fight, since the whole point of leaving for rivain was to avoid taash being designated as a soldier. and to be fair, we get this a Little bit with the fire-breathing. but everything else about shathann's disapproval doesn't make sense in-universe.

and we also already know about the aqun athlok, which shathann even tries to bring up but the game shouts her down because....? i get that shathann is meant to be overbearing and kinda shitty, but this is not the way to do it. all this does is imply that aqun athlok is "wrong" and not as progressive as this other identity that rook has to teach taash about (and that also isnt even specific to rivain, or related to them connecting to their rivaini culture. it's the shadow dragons that teach them all of this along with rook. in general transness and the nonbinary identity are not integrated into the world in any meaningful way which makes it feel even worse). there are various cultures that have their own specific gender identities that do not adhere to the gender binary, and taash should have been given the chance to connect to their own culture in this way. and even if they really wanted to make it so taash just didn’t feel right with aqun athlok, that identity still should have been properly discussed as an option and handled with respect, rather than so carelessly thrown aside as “wrong” (though again not a depiction i would personally like but it would still be better than what we got).

and just. i really disagree with the idea that gender identity under the qun is More Rigid than elsewhere. it’s different, as we know from comments from iron bull and sten-- and we could argue in circles about inconsistencies with the things they say, obviously there have been retcons previously in an attempt to better develop the qunari beyond what we see in origins and da2, but i think this kind of development is a good thing, and is exactly why the regression with taash irritates me so much-- but when we look back at characters like warden tabris, dorian and his father and tevinter's obsession with bloodlines, the entire experience of playing f!hawke in da2 (and also da2 literally has a whole subplot about women being murdered for like 3 years and no one cares. these games just have a misogyny problem lol) and even tarquin in veilguard commenting about how his father forced him into being a soldier because he's a man(!!)-- there is a lot of rigidity, expectations, and violence around gender throughout thedas. but for some reason these rigid gender ideals and a lot of this gendered violence is held up as the status quo and not challenged at all by the writers in the way the qun repeatedly is. the exception being dorian (though you're still incentivized to forgive his father), but a lot of the characters in tevinter-- magisters, templars, the literal black divine-- are still allowed complexities and to be the good guys working with the shadow dragons, a grace not given to any qunari character besides iron bull (who ultimately still has to leave the qun or die later). i’m not trying argue that the qun is perfect and can never be criticized-- i like the flawed characters and societies within dragon age. but the qunari also deserve to be given the same depth, complexities, and engagement as everyone else, too. and it’s worth pointing out that it’s always the qun that’s depicted as backwards for the same harmful “rigidity” every other culture in the game reinforces.

and ultimately with the way the game inserts this very modern, anachronistic, and condescending language in a poor attempt to be as "correct" as possible to "teach" the player, while simultaneously writing such a careless, racist arc about their culture kinda just , makes me feel like they were actually trying to imply that one identity is more correct and progressive than the other. or, if nothing else, it's a bias that got amplified due to their unwillingness or inability to engage with taash's character beyond using them as a mouthpiece for corporate "representation."

there absolutely are people out there that are like taash, who don't necessarily have or want a connection with certain parts of their culture, and maybe they do identify closer with one aspect of it over another. this is all fine! this happens in real life, everyone has different relationships with their identity and heritage, there is no universal experience, and people are allowed to write about their own. but the thing is. this is dragon age. and taash was written by weekes. and both dragon age as a whole and weekes specifically has a repeated pattern of racist writing when it comes to depicting the qunari. and taash's quest along with the way the antaam are portrayed-- faceless, voiceless, basically naked bodies for you to kill-- makes this a series of poor choices that i don't feel generous enough to excuse.

and it sucks. so bad. that this happened. i want to like taash so bad. but.... man.

anyways if you read this far you should read this article, which is far more eloquent than anything i could write and really dives into the whole "civilized versus savage" binary that we see in a lot of fantasy RPGs and is really epitomized in taash's quest-- in dragon age, it's always the qunari and dalish elves versus a (usually white and/or human) andrastian:

[ohitslen]

Intrusive thoughts

[sundogsandrainbows]

"Whoever wrote this shit fucking hates Origins or has never played it and no fukkin clue what the hell the Grey Wardens even are. But it is really no coincidence, the Grey Wardens have been treated like shit in every single game (x)"

Couldn't have said it better.

But also wooah, I thought I have seen all of New Bioware's disdain for all that came before them™ by now, but this here, going complete scorched earth, is yet another level of spite for the old games and the people who worked on them (and left/were fired without severance pay since then) that even I would have not expected. Way to spit in the faces of longtime fans, "bioware" Good job!!! 🤢🤢🤢

Fuck this game, srlsy.