#or inherently deserving of the throne

[woodlaflababab]

This feels like a conveluted set up to get a gay Aang ship to work.

On that note, I feel like perhaps donor Aang should be considered by the zukaang fandom more. We have the spirit magic route, the trans route, the polyamory route, and the divorced kataang route. But honestly, donor Aang works pretty well too imo.

1. Airbender children were classically raised by the temple as a collective. One of the things I thought was kind of sad about the Air Nation dying out was that unique child rearing being lost. Clearly Aang benefited a lot from having Gyatso as a main mentor but still being raised by the monks in general. I think part of the reason he found it so easy to get so close with the gaang so fast is, to Aang, found family is as natural as blood family is to other people.

2. Aang would still obviously be heavily involved with the kids bc like, he's the founder of the temples and the only airbender. It's not like he'd suffer any lack of getting to know/love his kids.

3. But also, on that note, one of the issues canon Aang had was how busy he was. Not just as an Avatar, but as an Avatar cleaning up a shattered world and rebuilding a forth of it from ashes. Donor method means no kids developing issues from a sometimes absent parent.

4. Who says he can only donate to one couple? More kids = more potential airbenders = baby Tenzin not growing up with the burden of the air nation solely on his shoulders. And also, we all know Aang is a kids guy. I refuse to believe he wouldn't be trying to pseudo-adopt all his friends kids and the temple kids. Uncle? Dad? General adult responsible for the kids in some way? Basically the same concept to Aang due to how he was raised. I just think it wouldn't exactly be odd for him to end up with a bunch of kids.

5. Great support for any gay Aang ship, and any adjacent yuri ship bc like, if you were looking to have a kid and needed a donor, the gay guy who loves kids and regularly pops by anyway is a pretty good choice imo. You get a kid and you also get to potentially contribute to the rebuilding of an entire fucking nation. Like, I'd go for it. And there are a LOT of great yuri atla ships.

I know some people probably wouldn't vibe with it for many reasons, not being comfortable with Aang not being directly the main parent of his kids, the implications of HOW donorship would happen in that era, or any other reasons, but it's a route I personally like.

Zukaang gets to be together and exclusive (not that I don't also love kataang, but I also can't deny the charm of Zuko being the sole home Aang returns to again and again), all my yuri ships get to have easy options for kids (the fire girls ot3 and jiangtara being my favorites), and better chances for airbenders.

I already had a hc that airbenders did have relationships with other people from the other nations, there's no way they traveled that much and didn't, and always figured the general method was any non-airbender kid stuck with the other parent and any airbender kid went to the temples (unless the parent wanted to keep them of course, probably still with regular trips to the air temples)

So, if the couple were okay with it, the tradition of airbenders being communally raised wouldn't be lost.

I've been seeing some stuff about Aang and trying to "repopulate" the Air Nomads (through his family) come across my feed. I don't think I have much to add to the conversation. What I do have, though, is a... potential head-canon? A post-canon AU idea? Something like that. I love the idea that Ty Lee has Air Nomad ancestry. Her acrobatic and leaping abilities are frankly abnormal. Her eyes read as grey in some scenes; the shape of her head/face are quite similar to Aang's. And why wouldn't there have been intermarriage and migration between the nations before (or even during) the 100 years war? She makes a lot of sense to me as an untrained/instinctive airbender. So let's start making some further assumptions. (1) Imagine a post-canon world where the Fire Nation has shed its imperialism and is seeking to repair the harm it has done to the rest of the world, which I think is more or less canon, including doing what it can to protect/preserve Air Nomad culture. (2) Imagine that that Azula recovers from (a) her Fire Nation / imperialist indoctrination (which we are told Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee all do) and (b) her mental illness/trauma, and thus (c) becomes generally aligned with Zuko and the Gaang (3) Imagine that Azula is a lesbian (pretty heavy subtext to many readers and my own personal interpretation of Azula) (4) Imagine that Azula pairs up with Ty Lee at some point post-canon (not insane, it's far and away Azula's most popular ship and one of her most positive / closest interpersonal relationships in canon) In that world, where Azula has been "redeemed" and Zuko is both Fire Lord and closely connected with the Gaang... wouldn't it make sense for Aang to be the biological father (donor) of Azula and Ty Lee's children (carried by Ty Lee)? It potentially uncomplicates succession (since Azula's children are not, biologically, descended from Ozai, reducing their claim); it has as high a chance as any pairing in the world of yielding airbender children; and it places kids with Air Nomad ancestry into the Fire Nation royal family as a living symbol of the post-100 years war vision of the nations living in harmony.

[floralovebot]

Is Geoff Johns’ Aquaman the best run on the character, in your opinion?

no... no it is not.... aldhgladhg

i mean standard disclaimer that this is just my opinion

geoff john's isn't like,, the Worst writer but he does have chronic refusal to care about any of the previous runs or characterizations. honestly, his portrayal of aquaman isn't awful (atlantis not fully trusting him, losing his friends, his obsession with orm and black manta, feeling like a sham, etc) and it's definitely not my Least favorite aquaman run! but there are absolutely some issues with it too like arthur's entire arc being reduced to man angst and the dumbing down of atlantis lore and politics. and yknow, arthur is an angsty guy, he's prone to anger issues, he's not above revenge and violence, but this run took it to an extreme and only for Extreme Male Angst instead of like,, actual characterization.

i haven't read all of geoff john's work but i know he has a tendency to write his hereos as Very Flawed. he really likes to explore darker themes and the mental and emotional angst that comes from being a hero. unfortunately, his portrayal of arthur just ended up feeling really flat for me. it didn't feel like an "accurate" portrayal of hero angst and loss (which has been shown spectacularly with arthur before), it felt like him just putting arthur through the angst wringer for the hell of it. it's like he's incapable of writing heroes without making them miserable.

something that makes arthur really interesting for me is that even when he's at his worst mentally, there's still a hint of his old, happy, carefree self. and like,, i get the appeal of completely getting rid of that, but personally, i think a huge part of arthur's characterization is that it's always there, no matter what he's going through. he's Not the most hopeful, naive, or confident character, but he knows what it's like to be happy and he always carries that with him. geoff john's aquaman really just felt like an attempt to,,, break arthur basically. and personally, i just don't think it was the Best attempt.

listenlistenlisten it's not the worst aquaman run but it's definitely not the best either. not to mention, a lot of my least favorite current arthur tropes come from writers only knowing geoff john's aquaman.

[robertsbarbie]

seeing dany’s journey and knowing what happens to her is wild because like she truly is the only true queen and one capable of leading in a way of peace and respect

[fourraccoonsinacoat]

Heinrix van Calox Lore & Headcannons

Don't mind me, I'm just over here chewing on some random thoughts about our favorite agent of the Inquisition. Playing around with some of it for a fic and writing it out because it helps me organize my thoughts.

Knight World Culture & Heinrix's Internalized Hatred of Psykers

Having grown up on a Knight World, Heinrix would possess an internalized hatred for psykers (generally called "witches" on Knight Worlds) that we see him continually struggle with.

In Warhammer lore, many Knight Worlds survived the Age of Strife due to the fact that these worlds tended to shun psykers and not take advantage of the benefits of advanced machinery. So, when the warp imploded and AI told humanity to get fucked, many Knight Worlds were spared from the horrors of the Age of Strife and went on existing as they always had, led by a doctrine of tradition.

The noble families that lord over Knight Worlds hold to a rigorous belief in honor, fealty, social status, obligation, discipline and self-mastery. This creed is only reinforced by the Throne Mechanicum when, at 18, a prospective Knight pilot bonds with their Imperial Knight suit. The Throne Mechanicum is the cybernetic control hub of an Imperial Knight, and it connects to the pilot via neural interface implants in the pilot's brain. Through this neural connection, the Throne Mechanicum implants positive associations with the concepts of honor, fealty, etc., when the pilot bonds with their Knight. And it continues to do so over the course of the Knight's life. This is why these beliefs are so ingrained in Knight World nobles - because it is constantly reinforced by their bonds with their Imperial Knight suits.

On Knight Worlds, being a psyker is to be something impure, rotten and dangerous. They are the antithesis of everything the nobles hold dear and their shunning of psykers was what kept many of those worlds safe during the Age of Strife. Psykers are seen as unpredictable, violent and corrupted by the warp, and thus have no place in Knight World society. If not outright killed, they are always exiled and sent away on the Imperial Black Ships, just as Heinrix's family did with him.

Though Heinrix never went through the Ritual of Becoming - the rite to bond with an Imperial Knight suit - he was certainly being prepared to and would have grown up with the belief that psykers are corrupted and dangerous. Thus, when his psyker abilities manifested during his adolescent years, everything he believed about psykers was turned inward and became truths about himself.

Time and experiences have altered and evolved his beliefs, and we see him show empathy and understanding for other psykers like Idira and the RT, if they are a psyker. However, at his core remains the belief that psykers are inherently lesser.

We see this time and again, especially on his romance route, with how he talks about himself and psykers, in general. During his romance scene in Commorragh, if the RT questions why he remains loyal to the Imperium, Heinrix will say that the Imperium "deemed me stable enough to keep me as a sanctioned psyker" - refering to the Imperium's sanctioning process for psykers the Imperium wants to enlist. In Heinrix's mind, it's only through the grace of the Imperium that a corrupted individual like him is allowed to live. Which brings me to...

Heinrix believes it's his duty to die for the Imperium.

Heinrix literally believes he owes his life to the Imperium of Man. He grew up believing psykers were evil and corrupt individuals, likely deserving of death. And then his own powers manifested and suddenly he was one of those evil and corrupt individuals.

Something to understand about the Imperium is that sanctioned psykers are rare in Warhammer lore. While there are not any concrete numbers, conjecture from Warhammer books, etc., puts the ratio of those identified as psykers by the Inquisition as one in one billion. Then, in order to sustain the Astronomican, roughly 1,000 psykers perrish daily after being locked inside coffin-like devices bound to the Golden Throne. Inside, their essence is extracted and used to power the Astronomican. Psykers are constantly being shipped to Terra in order to fuel the Golden Throne, and the Imperium is, of course, holding onto backlogs of psykers in case ships don't come in or Terra gets cut off. This is what the majority of psykers in the Imperium are used for, and not many psykers are deemed worthwhile enough to go through sanctioning, which is also limited by the number of sanctioning implants available. Remember, no one is making these devices anymore.

The existence of a psyker in the 40k universe is not a happy one. If you manage to not get sacrificed to the Golden Throne, or used as a test subject or whatever else the Imperium is doing with psykers these days, the most common way to serve as a sanctioned psyker is to become an Astropath. Which sounds like it sucks. Very few are chosen for other service.

Considering all of this, it's hardly surprising that Heinrix feels he owes his loyalty to the Imperium. The Imperium allowed him to live. And then the Inquisition came along and saw something in him worth making him an acolyte for.

After being disowned by his family and having his implants ripped from his body, Heinrix likely thought all that awaited him after the Black Ship was death as a sacrifice to the Golden Throne. And yet he was pardoned and given another chance at life, as long as he uses that life to serve the Imperium.

If the RT passes a Persuasion check to get Heinrix to talk about what happened when he used the cogitator on Kiava Gamma, he even concludes his explanation by saying his "path leads to one place, and one place only."

This man fully expects to, and is ready to, die for the Imperium. The Imperium is the only thing giving him purpose. The Imperium accepted him after his family disowned him. The Imperium is all he has, and he will use the life they allowed him to keep and serve them faithfully until that life is used up. In his mind, he deserves nothing more and ought to be happy to be given the opportunity to exist and serve.

Heinrix is extremely self-concious about his appearance.

We get a hint about this in Act 5 when talking to Tanakia, a member of Calcazar's retinue. She mocks him by talking about the attention he paid to his hair and eyes, a sore point for Heinrix considering that, by the time he joined the Inquisition, he's lost an eye and had a chunk carved out of his head in order to remove various implants.

During his romance scene in Commorragh, he refers to himself as a "maimed freak" and talks about how he used his biomancy to repair his damaged cranium and eye in order to "look more like a human again."

If you're romancing Heinrix, he even leaves after you release him in the Anatomical Opera. When you find him in the Pit, he talks about how he didn't want the others, or the RT, to see him in the condition he was in.

Considering his childhood as a noble on a Knight World, care for appearance would be something strongly instilled within him. Knight Worlds are feudal worlds with highly aristocratic societies, so the concept of presenting a buttoned-up and well-kempt appearance would be important for children of noble families.

Heinrix talks about spending years working to reconstruct his eye, which I think also hints at him having a fastitidious and perfectionist personality. I have a personal headcannon that he dislikes the fact he wasn't able to perfectly match his original eye color, and it's a sore spot for him.

Okay, this is a lot longer than I originally intended for it to be. I've got more, but need to stop turning this man over and over in my head and get some actual work done.

[morningnoodles]

i am and forever will be a Bilbo Staying in Erebor girlie as much as the next person but there’s something so decadent in Bilbo Returning to the Shire and Thorin abdicating his throne and following after him a few years later. in the way that Bilbo staying in Erebor is empowering, Thorin going to the Shire is inherently healing. the stories are always so cozy and comforting and after years of serving for his kith and kin and being so hard on himself, seeing Thorin have a well-deserved rest with his beloved hobbit just does something to my soul.

[mariuspompom]

So let me get this straight.

If I believe that a particular character should be ruler/would be a good ruler/would have been a good ruler/deserves to be ruler/will probably end up being ruler/was unfairly deprived of their rulership, be it dany, or jon, or rhaenyra or rhaegar or arya or bran or stannis the mannis (ew) or my neighbour or your mother or whomever the hell you want them to be, I am classist. And royalist. And conservative. And going against the themes of asoiaf. Because no one can fix westeros, because there are no good rulers/there can be no good rulers/rulership is inherently bad/inherently moraly wrong/ the throne is doomed to be destroyed because it is the root of all evil-

But somehow if you believe that one particular character, coincidentally your fave, will probably be a ruler (queen in the north or in any other position of FEUDAL power- ruling is not just reserved to the iron throne btw), or that she should be a ruler or that she would be a good ruler, you are somehow not classist or royalist or conservative.

Can somebody tell me why that is? What is the justification behind your speculation in the first place? Why will she/why should she be a ruler? Because she deserves it? Because she has been through so much? Because she's strong and powerful and resilient? Okay? So, the only meaningful difference between your take and my take is that I actually (naively!) have faith in the possibility that a character that has been established again and again as a progressive and radical leader could possibly contribute to a meaningful radical collective change in the world while you just consider rulership as a prize, as a reward for individual struggle? And somehow that makes me more conservative? That makes me a classist? Besties, it is literally the other way round.

I don't even hate that character. I am pretty neutral towards her, I would even say that I am sympathetic towards her. And I actually believe she will end up in a position of power (not queen in the north but a position of power nonetheless). Yes, in a position of feudal power, that's what I mean, that's the only real power any character could ever have in a book series that is set in a pseudomedieval world. But you need to be very careful before you start throwing around classism and royalism and conservatism accusations at people for actively engaging with a pseudomedieval fantasy (fantasy!!) book series whose entire foundation is the question "what is a good leader?", "what makes a good leader?", "how does someone become a good leader?", "how could this system become slightly better?", "what are the powers that stop any real progress? how can these powers be defeated?" The answers to these questions in asoiaf are not easy or automatic. But they exist. All of these questions have answers in the text. Concrete, solid answers, whether you like it or not. Believing in the truth of those answers simply means we engage with the themes of the (fictional!) story. It simply makes us fans of the text. It does not make us stupid or naive, and it definitely does not make us conservative.

There is nothing that I despise more in this fandom than the double standard of "oh you are so lame if you actually believe someone could/will be a good ruler, nobody should be king or queen, meanwhile let's talk about my fave's ruling arc" (asoiaf version), or "oh you are so lame if you actually believe a particular character should have been ruler and not the other, that makes you a classist and we're not, all sides are bad because monarchy, meanwhile let's dedicate 99,9% of our posts explaining why one side is wrong. One specific side. Entirely coincidentally, since we do not take sides" (fire and blood version).

The meaningful difference between these two fandom "factions" is that one is honest and openly engages with the themes of the story in an organic and positive and hopeful way, while the other is just this annoying group of college kids repeating the same, holier-than-thou, pseudo-intellectual takes ad infinitum to appear smarter than anyone else while carefully concealing their obvious bias.

[agentrouka-blog]

Hi there! I was wondering if you think Lady’s death could symbolize Sansa’s own version of “kill the boy and let the man be born”—except for her, it would be “kill the lady and let the queen be born.”

I don't think this idea works well in the context and timing of Lady's death.

She is still new in Sansa's life and has seamlessly fit into it but she doesn't represent innocence or immaturity or carelessness. Lady's death is hugely traumatic to Sansa and it doesn't make her "grow up".

"Kill the boy and let the man be born" is a (deeply misguided) piece of advice given by maester Aemon in an attempt to steer Jon to embrace his adult responsibilities as Lord Commander without letting supposedly childish personal sentiments interfere.

"Allow me to give my lord one last piece of counsel," the old man had said, "the same counsel that I once gave my brother when we parted for the last time. He was three-and-thirty when the Great Council chose him to mount the Iron Throne. A man grown with sons of his own, yet in some ways still a boy. Egg had an innocence to him, a sweetness we all loved. Kill the boy within you, I told him the day I took ship for the Wall. It takes a man to rule. An Aegon, not an Egg. Kill the boy and let the man be born." The old man felt Jon's face. "You are half the age that Egg was, and your own burden is a crueler one, I fear. You will have little joy of your command, but I think you have the strength in you to do the things that must be done. Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born." (ADWD, Jon II)

In effect it pushes Jon to close himself off emotionally, isolate himself from his friends and reduce effective communication and accountability to the people around him. He becomes a lone wolf. (We know what happens to the lone wolf.) He recalls this advice in the process of bullying Gilly into a traumatic loss. Jon is not a better leader for following Aemon's advice. The boy had done pretty well for himself and didn't deserve to be killed for this idea of what a man is.

In a similar vein, Lady's death is is not a "necessary sacrifice" on Sansa's way to queenship. She does not benefit from it, and all it signifies is Ned's willingness to sacrifice his daughter to his larger goals, which has a deeply negative impact on her and their relationship.

A queen is not inherently different from a lady. A lady is not a child to a queen's adult. Sansa did need to learn how to embrace the agency and power and responsibility inherent in the title of a lady. But murdering her wolf did not teach her that. Ned's example in this moment did not teach her that. Her determination to hold on to her identity and ideals in adversity will be what help her learn how to be a queen.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

It is fair that Iroh and Zuko don't punished for their crimes like Ozai did? Does redemption mean they deserve to be rewarded?

Before we ask ourselves what's fair, what's more practical: forgiving and cooperating with the two Fire Nation royals that can (and want to) use legitimate means to not only end the war but also help make up for what their nation has done, or to lock them up somewhere and then try to defeat a nation that has been kicking the good guys's asses for a whole century and possibly having to stage a coup to put someone non-Fire Nation on the throne, which the citizens would obviously reject?

Can the heroes (and the whole world) affort to NOT have the Avatar learn firebending just to make Zuko feel like shit for not being forgiven? Can the world afford to keep fighting with the Fire Nation non-stop instead of changing it from within just to punish Zuko by not making him Fire Lord? Does the world gain anything by imprisoning Iroh, the heir that got cast aside, the general that doesn't bother with battles anymore, instead of letting him fight for their side to make up for the evil he did in the past? Is that truly having the moral high-ground or is that simply being stubborn and stupid?

There's a reason most former colonies in the real world immediately create strong diplomatic connections and trade stuff with their former colonizer. Why terms for peace are constantly exchanged through wars, no matter how brutal the mutual attacks become. If you focus so much on punishing the bad guy that you forget about making sure the innocent survive, you're going to get everybody killed either by being obliterated by the enemy or by running out of resources (including people that are willing/able to fight for the cause).

Now, don't get me wrong, it's valid to wonder "Is it fair that Zuko and Iroh don't get punished?" But if we do that, we also have to ask "Is it fair to cause more suffering and death just to punish them?" and "Is it fair to put them in the same category as everyone else in their nation when they are genuinely sorry and making an effort to fix things?" Not to mention "Is it even fair to put Zuko, who changed sides as a teenager, in the same category as Iroh, who only felt remorse for his actions as an adult?"

People are complicated. Justice, as a concept, is complicated. War is fucking complicated, tough to end, and creates TONS of inherently unfair situations. The writers of Avatar are well aware of it, but their answer to the problem has been pretty consistent: rehabilitation.

We are repeatedly told "The people of Fire Nation itself are not inherently evil, they were literally indoctrinaded for a whole century" and "EVERYONE is capable of great good and great evil." Characters are redeemed in the show ALL THE TIME, and the last episode has Zuko, who was victimized by Ozai his entire life, say that he now believes even Ozai isn't beyond redemption - provided, of course, that he ever bothers to put any effort into it.

The show is well-aware that not everybody wants a second chance. Or a third, or a fourth, and so on. That not everybody even DESERVES said chances. But that the door should remain open anyway because that's the only way to move forward - and that doesn't have to mean "Let the bad guys walk all over you." Ozai, who has yet to show any remorse for anything, is still in jail, without his bending and political power, meaning he cannot hurt anyone (which he explicitly would have done if he could) and that's where he'll stay until he decides to change. Zuko and Iroh, who are already sorry, get to live in harmony with others.

This is as close to "fair" an inherently unfair situation could ever get.

[verysium]

i assume that you listen to the weeknd sooo may i ask for a quick the weeknd song associations w bllk characters perhaps? if possible. i like the way you think of each character and im curios if we have a common perspective at some point

😭 if you mention abel in any ask to me, there is no way it's going to be quick and easy. this took me like a week to process and even longer to formulate my answer. it's difficult to assign just one song to each character because the discography is just so versatile, so there may be some overlap.

THE TOWN

this song is basically kaiser if he left someone in his past prior to joining bastard münchen in his rise to fame. i envision a reader who was with him during the early years of his career (maybe as childhood friends), and he abandoned them when his big breakthrough finally came.

"you did many things / that i liked, that i liked" the covert narcissism here was the selling point. now i'm not saying kaiser is a pathological narcissist, but the way he thinks inherently revolves around himself. he only likes people because they have something he likes. you have to possess something he actually wants before he even bats an eyelash at you. and even when you do get into his good graces, it's conditional. in other words, kaiser's buddy-buddy system is entirely based on value. how much value are you going to provide him, and how long is that value going to last? hence why he's so obsessed with isagi because our little blueberry sprout protagonist has both the novelty and adaptability kaiser desires.

"you made me feel so good / before i left on the road" i know this sounds like some shit a frat boy would spew, but here me out. i think the reason why half the fandom absolutely bashes kaiser's character is because his actions come off as emotionally immature. making arrogant claims with nothing to back them up? having no personal boundaries? manhandling other people? projecting his own insecurities in the form of jealousy? that sounds a lot like some of the male specimens i've seen in today's society, particularly those who make podcasts for a living. kaiser is not a hot bad boy. he's just pure jerk in some cases, and a tragic backstory is not going to justify those actions. but to apply that to a romantic relationship? some of y'all are not ready to hear this, but kaiser is not going to make a good boyfriend. he would most definitely use you.

"you deserve your name / on a crown, on a throne" if there's one thing you should know about kaiser, it's that he will find a way to pay homage to his past, even if it wasn't a good time for him. so despite the way he absolutely ghosted you years ago, he will find a way to enshrine your existence within his. i have a running theory that kaiser's tattoos are actually for the girl he left back at home. he'd probably get your name inked on his knuckles or something.

"but i remember on the bathroom floor / 'fore i went on tour / like you said we couldn't do it again / cause you had a thing with some other man" i've read a lot of fics where kaiser has a possessive meltdown whenever reader finds someone else after their break-up, or even just the reddit theories that kaiser will flip out when ness finally leaves him. i'm going to add my own take on this. yes, kaiser will freak out but only after a long stage of denial. at first, he's going to be unfazed because there's no way you'd actually leave him. and even if you did find another man, you would inevitably come crawling back to him. in his mind, the fact that you two should be together is about as debatable as defying the laws as physics. which is to say, there is no debate.

"now that i heard you're single /...i'll give you something to live for" mr. steal your girl is back. kaiser may be rash and impulsive in his everyday life, but his patience is limitless when it comes to biding his time against his enemies. you're finally big enough to eat, yoichi...does that ring any bells? he will literally wait just so he can see your new relationship crash and burn. and when it finally does, he will swoop in during your time of emotional need and make you co-dependent on him. this man has the self-seeking opportunism of a whole vulture committee.

"and it feels so priceless to me / that you're always free" ok but this double entendre??? like priceless as in you're valuable to the point you're free from anyone's definition of value. but also priceless in the way you're worth nothing, and people can have you for free. this is literally kaiser in any relationship where the other party overcompensates for him. i'm going to use ness as an example. i think kaiser knows how much ness is willing to do for him, and he appreciates it (he better lol) since ness is one of the only people he can actually get along with. but at the same time, the fact that ness would literally do anything for kaiser is also the reason why kaiser takes him for granted. given the large supply of admiration and support, it's only logical that the demand for it should wane. the key to keeping kaiser's attention is scarcity. you can't be too distant from him, but you can't be too close either. if you're right in the optimal middle, then you're scarce, and all scarce things are rare and, subsequently, valuable.

PRAY FOR ME

this song could work for so many characters, but i'm going to go with noel noa because i haven't talked about him much. he fits into this model for "the strongest" character (akin to gojo in jjk or "the little giant" in haikyuu!!) this mentor/role model archetype is incredibly significant in the protagonist's journey to the top. noa is isagi's primary motivation and presumably his greatest obstacle if he were ever to become the #1 player in the world. the tragic aspect to this archetype is that we often aren't given the full picture for these characters. their internal consciousness is eclipsed in some way because the story is written from the perspective of the protagonist. noa grew up in the slums of france, but the manga doesn't actually focus on any of the struggles he had to face. all of that is implied and sometimes even expected. his strength (or at least the image of his strength) becomes everything, and he can't afford to lose any of it. i think that's the saddest part about any character considered the strongest. they push themselves to the top but simultaneously back themselves into a corner.

"if i'm gon' die for you / if i'm gon' kill for you / then i'll spill this blood for you" i know noa's peers like to shit on him for being so serious all the time, but when you're raised in the kind of environment where everything has been against you from day one, the survival mentality is literally ingrained in you. a lot of his advice to isagi is centered around this idea of eliminating any wishful thinking. he can't count on anything that isn't certain. so if he's going to have to make a sacrifice, it has to be worth it. i think that's also why noa doesn't relate to any of the other world class players. he isn't driven by greed or fame or popularity. the egoist mindset doesn't arise from his own personal ambitions. it's simply how he's learned to live life from a young age.

"my heart don't skip a beat, even when hard times bumps the needle" noa is solid. like rock solid, 10 on a mohs hardness scale. but more than solid, he's incredibly sharp in his focus. he specifically tells isagi not to try and play god because he's seen so many other players try to do that and fail. they get caught up in what their goal could mean: victory, prestige, grandeur, control over others. but to noa, a goal is simply a goal. he doesn't care if this is a win or a loss for his team. he doesn't care if this will put him at rivalry with others. all he needs to do is figure out the most efficient way to get a black-and-white ball through the net. and he's so goddamn good at this. he's mastered it to the point he can focus on what he desires right now in this moment and block out everything else as unnecessary noise. hence, he doesn't get overwhelmed by external pressures. everything about him, even his ego, is intrinsic. and that's what makes him the best.

i'm running out of room, so i'm just gonna list the next few below:

starboy: i've seen this song being assigned to either rin or kaiser, but now that i re-evaluate it, i think the self-deprecative and bitter tone fits sae best.

call out my name: reo listened to this the day nagi left him. i was there, so this is a reliable primary source. it is his breakup song.

heartless: i would assign this one to sae. the melody, the vibe, not so much the lyrics. the overall impression just fits him. i don't know how to explain it.

the hills: this song suits barou, and you cannot tell me otherwise. i'm gonna blast this every time he makes an entrance in the manga.

lost in the fire: this is oliver's pre-game anthem. he's not actually as cool as the song implies, but he likes to think he is.

don't break my heart: this is rin when he's acting butt-hurt. his first big heartbreak was from a 180-cm redhead who drinks salted kombucha every morning and has ugly shorn-off bangs.

die for you: honestly this song was made for the children of divorce who grew up with a messed up conception of love and avoidant attachment style, so obviously i'm going to assign this one to hiori.

too late: kaiser plays this from his stereo while he sips on a martini and contemplates self-destruction. he recognizes that he was in the wrong, but is he actually going to apologize? hell no.

moth to a flame: this is isagi being the homewrecker he is. he's not innocent enough to be completely pardoned. i would classify him as either chaotic good or lawful neutral.

gasoline: niko would suit this song cus he can be somewhat nihilistic if he wants to be. also because i headcanon him as someone with a disorderly sleep schedule.

the morning: uh....honestly idk. this one stumped me. it's giving that one barou backshot where he was training shirtless. but it also reminds me of that one kaiser panel with his 300,000,000 salary.

sidewalks: kunigami plays this song while working out. he is the og grinder. started from the bottom and clawed his way up to the top.

how do i make you love me? ness plays this while doodling in his "operation make kaiser fall in love with me" notebook.

less than zero: this is kira after isagi ousted him from popularity. not much else to say.

[22degreehalo]

I think, to me, House of the Dragon s2 has the same base conceptual problem as the Barbie movie: it wants to tell an aspirational story about women succeeding in ways that real women usually aren't able to, by means of a fantastical setting, but also wants most if not all of its messaging to be relevant to real-world women.

To overcome that conflict - to spend so much time making the character 'relatable' while also putting them into an intentionally and purposefully unrelatable position - you have two major options.

Firstly, you can tie in some sort of inherent 'essence' of womanhood: that a woman in that position would be kinder, more generous, and more nurturing than a man would.

House of the Dragon season 1 didn't especially try to do this, but season 2 sure did. Suddenly, characters started telling us that Rhaenyra was the kindest and most peaceful contender for the crown, despite absolutely nothing in season 1 indicating that that was an especially tangible aspect of her personality. It's not clear when or why she started 'valuing the common people', as Mysaria puts it; she simply does, because she is Rhaenyra.

Unfortunately, the most basic possible plot elements of the story struggle against this characterisation: this is about a bloody civil war. If Rhaenyra were truly peaceful, she would not be going to war at all, and if Alicent were the same, she would never have goaded Aegon as she did, or gone along with Otto's plans. Not only does this heavily constrict the action of the story - the two must continually Not Do Things to show how peaceful they are, even as the other characters and audience alike scream for some sort of action on their part - it threatens the very premise of this 'aspirational' figure: Rhaenyra can't claim the throne merely because she deserves it, just like men have done before her, because that would not be Peaceful Enough. So instead, the writers concoct the prophecy - already loosely relevant to Rhaenyra at all - so that her grasping for power can be considered generous and good. Rather than standing her ground and having faith in herself, she instead becomes a passive receptacle for men's dreams (her father's and the original Aegon's alike).

In Barbie, this conflict is less obvious; however, when we consider the next problem below, it becomes quite jarring how much the Barbies' superiority is treated as ultimately inherently kinder than the Kens', without much real evidence. Any action the Barbies take is portrayed as good because it is non-violent, unlike the Kens, despite being intentionally hurtful, deceptive, and cruel.

The second and much more concerning way to find harmony between a high-ranking, high-status female character and the real-world oppression women face? Simply ignore all other oppressions rather than misogyny, and ignore any privilege the aspirational female characters have.

In both Barbie and House of the Dragon, the main character is treated by the narrative as an underdog, despite all evidence to the contrary. Barbie is a member of the elite, of an oppressive class who intentionally keeps her lowers underfoot. That isn't a malicious reading; the Kens are explicitly and intentionally compared to real-world women on multiple occasions (e.g. when it's joked that they might "someday" be able to become Supreme Court Justices). Rhaenyra at least has Aegon and his immediate family to compare herself to, as the currently-reigning king rather than the ousted 'true heir', but she is to literally every single other citizen of Westeros (and possibly Essos, too!) a higher power.

Despite this, House of the Dragon repeatedly shows an unwillingness to consider Rhaenyra's actual, practical power. Other characters gush over her kindness to the smallfolk, but when Rhaenyra comes on to a servant who repeatedly refuses her, is nonetheless treated as the victim due to her gender. And then again, when she begins a relationship with a servant, it's never considered for a second that there might be some abuse of power or coercion, merely because they are both women.

In Barbie, this cognitive dissonance is even stronger: the societal oppression of the Kens is treated as positive, merely because they resemble our world's oppressor class. In this sense, the movie posits an extremely simple, gender essentialist understanding of privilege: Women - inherently and regardless of their material or other circumstances - are victims, and Men are villains at worst and pathetic privileged crybabies at best. There is no room for any greater examination of discrimination; the secondary-character Asian Ken is treated just as much as an oppressor to the (white) Barbie as any other. Womanhood, it seems, is defined by being an underclass, even in a world in which by definition they are the rulers.

But nowhere in House of the Dragon does this mis-match of aims become clearer than in Alicent. Season 1 does well to show the ways in which she, despite being among the heir to a powerful noble family, is nonetheless oppressed on the basis of her gender: she is coerced to marry a man far older than her and to bear him many children regardless of her wishes, and may only wield true power in the realm when her husband is indisposed.

However, that oppression is still contextual - not absolute. Where Season 2 errs is in treating that oppression as fundamental to her entire character and plotline, despite she in truth being a proactive and significant mover of the events of the story.

When Alicent gives up Aegon's life to Rhaenyra - when she is told that she has not sacrificed anything, but must do, and she hesitates and agrees, because only with this will she finally be 'free' - she is treated by the narrative as a woman who has been so thoroughly controlled and degraded she has been driven to extremes. She is presented as a war-torn victim; somebody grasping at this one, limited, terrible piece of leverage in an attempt to save herself from the Hell she has had thrust upon her. For many women in real life, that would be an understandable and harrowing story, but for Alicent, it is simply not true.

Alicent is, in fact, a powerful political operative within Westeros. She had the ear of the King for many years, and attempted to use it to turn him against Rhaenyra and her children. She is the mother to the current reigning king - now barely into adulthood - and has had his whole life to mould him into whoever she wishes he could be, which - again! - she mostly seems to have used to convince Aegon that Rhaenyra is a threat who must be put down. She was not heavily constrained or controlled by the king, and did not fear him; nor did she fear her son, who she on multiple occasions slapped (an entirely ordinary mode of discipline for the time period). When her husband died, we got an entire episode of her conspiring and manipulating to take advantage of her family's position as the first on the scene so as to place Aegon on the throne, despite his lack of will or foreknowledge, in order to further their own ambitions and protect themselves.

Alicent is not merely an innocent victim of the patriarchy, however much the writers would like her to be in order to make the feminist statement they wish they could make. She is in fact far more responsible for this civil war than Aegon himself is, and arguably maintains a high level of influence and control over him even after he was crowned; certainly, once he was badly injured and disabled, it's easily apparent that she has more power than him, something Alicent herself admits when she attempts to defend his life to Rhaenyra.

Misogyny, unfortunately, does not justify her actions. She is simply in too different of a position from ordinary women for that to make any sense at all. If the writers had committed to the aspiration nature of the show and presented her as a powerful woman using everything at her disposal to get her way, just like men have done both within that universe and in our own, they could have told a compelling and unique story. The attempt to simultaneously craft a traditional feminist narrative of persecution and triumph despite the odds, instead, falls horribly and discomfortingly flat.

[utilitycaster]

To your point this isn't about breaking thrones: either in cooldown or the episode itself, Matt called the beings Ashton was interacting with 'elemental lords and ladies', iirc. There is no sidestepping this issue, which is why fans who can't tolerate criticism of the character resort to these false accusations, or single out a handful of hateful comments the character gets over the legitimate critiques. It's become so transparent to me -- thank you for continuing to point it out, honestly.

Right, like these are also immortal, eternal, immensely powerful beings! They're different from the gods but again, if the issue is a power differential, then why are titans exempt?

One also has to acknowledge that Ashton told the entire Accord they served the weak and then when Ka'Mort said the weak would be "remade" he was like "yeah sounds great". I even at an earlier point said that Ashton isn't hypocritical, they're just prioritizing their own pain, which they've largely misplaced on the gods when it was in fact largely due to multiple shitty mortals, most of whom were either also seeking the power of the titans (the Hishari) or at least doing business with the Ruby Vanguard (Jiana), or as far as we know totally secular (Greymoore Asylum...where they ended up because of the Hishari).

I also said this in the tags but like. If you are an internet stranger and you're like "well I relate to this character so if you don't like them I am sad" it's like, why the fuck do you think you're inherently likeable? Like yeah actually if you agree with that statement and don't see any issue with it, I think you're someone who at the very best is worryingly susceptible to indoctrination by fascists, and that's not someone I want to be around! If you genuinely are like "oh, no, this person can't be an asshole because they are dressed like a Good Person, per punk lace code" you are like, cartoonishly stupid, literally, like I bet I could lure you into running into a wall if I painted a train tunnel on it! If you say such disingenuous things as "why are people so afraid of change" when the issue isn't that things will change (once again. I have to point out. that there's fucking aliens from the moon showing up and I haven't seen anyone take issue with that provided they're, well, coming in peace) that just tells me that either you're deliberately manipulative or you're extremely easy to manipulate yourself by any charismatic leader who says "why won't you do what I say? Why does change scare you?"

If you think you're entitled to my approval not just of you but because of your blorbo based on identity that's a massive point against you, in my book, actually. Like why should I like you? You seem needy and annoying. I think you deserve all human rights and should live comfortable freely without fear of violence or discrimination but you sound like a self-absorbed dick who's exhausting to be around and I don't want to feed your shitty ego! You're not being nice to me or taking my concerns seriously or showing me you're fun or caring or even interesting and worth befriending; you're just reciting a list of your blorbos and your oppressed identities at me as if you think you can pressure me into putting up with your whiny ass. And yeah, if you can't articulate why it's totally okay if the strong will survive and the weak will be remade, you're not going to contribute to this discussion in any meaningful way, because that's the point of contention.

[venusintheblindspots-blog]

More on the dynamic between Rhaenyra and Nettles…

One of my biggest qualms of ASOIAF, is the inherent racism displayed in the text, and the fandom, when discussing characters like Nettles, Elia, Baela, Laena and Rhaena.

My introduction to ASOIAF was House of the Dragon, and after watching, I was an avid team black supporter ( still am, Rhaenyra was Viserys’ heir).

After finishing the main series, and watching half of Game of Thrones, I reread Fire and Blood, focusing mainly of the Dance of Dragons.

Of all the interesting characters during the Dance of the Dragons, the one that caught my eye was Nettles, the first and last rider of Sheepstealer.

Her introduction alone was enough for me to fall in love with her :

“Unlikely dragon rider”, “the first and last rider of the dragon Sheepstealer”, “fearless”, “cunning”

Very little is known of Nettles’ upbringing, as the accounts of Eustace, Munkun and Mushroom are biased with racism, classism, misogyny and second hand information.

I’m not particularly sure if it was George’s intention, but the language used by Gyldayn and the a portion of the fandom is a prime example of how black girls are robbed of innocence and agency when being accused of ‘wrong’.

Going back to her relationship with Rhaenyra, the two women are not on equal footing. Rhaenyra was awarded privileges even other noble women in the realm could only dream of,(not that she lived without suffering, she still faced misogyny & sexual abuse), as opposed to Nettles, who lived as a commoner with nothing to do but survive.

Coming around to the Dance of Dragons, Nettles fights for Rhaenyra’s claim as the rider of Sheepstealer. She grieves Rhaenyra’s children, and the loss felt in war.

Daemon and Rhaenyra’s are implied to have an open marriage in Fire and Blood.

Mysaria is Rhaenyra’s Mistress of Whisperers during the Dance of the Dragons, with no implications of animosity between the two. Yet, upon the hearing of Daemon and Nettle’s rumored romance, Rhaenyra is angered?

Rhaenyra’s disdain for Nettles reminds me of another harmful dynamic in real world history,- a jealous white woman, and a young black girl being cut by the blade of her vengeance. Rhaenyra dehumanizes Nettles, going as far as to call her a creature and demanding a brutal death for Nettles, so that Daemon could be free from her ‘sorcery’. She cannot conceptualize how Daemon could be attracted to Nettles, so she accuses her of using magic to bound him to her.

Their dynamic reminds me of the relationships between wives of white slaver owners and the enslaved women that their husbands would abuse sexually. The blame is never casted on the husband. Whether or not Nettles and Daemon had a romantic relationship or a father-daughter one, she did not deserve the treatment Rhaenyra gave her.

To close this, I still like Rhaenyra as a character. She’s interesting in a sense where, regardless of what she’s done, she was the better option for the Iron Throne, especially if we are going off of her character in the show. However, she still reads to me as the epitome of white feminism. Her fight is for no one else but herself.

[swordsswordsswords]

That quote about Kastor vs Damen like "you wanted a throne more than you wanted a brother" yeah ok. So we admit that the concept of monarchy as a power structure is inherently flawed? That the events of captive prince are put into motion because of the power imbalance caused by arbitrary succession rules? And we get a happy ending only because the "right" monarchs end up in power, the ones that "deserved" it according to those arbitrary rules? Insert here that Le Guin quote about "free your mind of the idea of earning, of the idea of deserving"

[spirit-meets-the-b0ne]

Not for nothing but Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys deserved so much better for an adaptation focusing on their family and the Dance. It’s been said before but the time skips were so destructive to character development. If the series had started around the adolescents of Daemon, Vizzy T, Corlys and Rhaenys a lot of these issues and confusions could have been avoided. I mean Corlys has some of the most incredible content behind his character even before he became Lord of the Tides. He traveled extensively around not only Westeros but Essos, even as far as the Jade Sea and Asshai which would have been really fun to explore as an audience member. Or the fact that his journeys made him so rich that he effectively built his own throne at High Tide and subsequently Hull and Spicetown. Gasp, an asiof character using their wealth for the betterment of their people? I know! Corlys’ glory days could have given us as such great content and funny “fisherman tales” that get back to the mainland of his adventures. It also would have been inherently better to explore the relationship between him and Rhaenys as well as the impact of the Great Council of 101. I’m so sorry these two will likely never get the character recognition they deserve.

[avatar-legends-confessionblog]

and peasant historically has been used by racists irl and has racist undertones to it

The shamelessness with which people continue to toss around ‘racist’ is truly wild. You’ve destroyed the potency that word once held and still don’t understand how racism or classism functions.

Do you think Azula would call King Kuei a peasant? Of course not. He occupies the same social class as she does, and if she did refer to him that way, she would sound as inane as someone who claims ‘peasant’ carries racist undertones. That’s not to say she respects him, but would she ever use that word for a king? No. The same goes for Yue and Toph so long as she knows who they are.

The historical notion of classism would posit that Azula, as royalty, has more in common with fellow royalty and the nobility, even of other nations, than Fire Nation peasants—an inherent moral superiority over the vicious, unwashed masses.

She knows that, and it’s why she mentions the ‘divine right to rule’ while eviscerating Long Feng in her ‘you were never even a player’ speech. He’s just an uppity peasant and always will be. She’s royalty and deserves to sit on the Earth King’s throne. There’s no reason to believe she uses ‘peasant’ to differentiate based on race—and it’s far easier to hear her calling her own people peasants than Kuei, Yue or Toph.

Not everything boils down to racism.

X

[no-light-left-on]

Let's talk about the Chaos System in Dishonored

“Your actions affect the city. A high number of deaths results in more rats, more weepers, different reactions from your allies and darker final outcome.”

The most important thing to note is that we need to distinguish between chaos and morality. A lot of people interpret Low Chaos as Good and High Chaos as Bad which is… not inherently correct. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that while non-lethal takedowns of key targets result in lower chaos, they are not the only thing that contributes to the chaos rating of a mission. I highly recommend reading these two posts [1] [2] by the lovely @kirtlandswarbler who looked into the science behind the chaos system.

It is perhaps easiest to imagine as the DnD alignment of Lawful to Chaotic. Low Chaos aligns with Lawful, the player character going after their targets and not dragging bystanders into their mess. All the takedowns are tactical, some might even say deserved – the Lord Regent hanged for his crimes, Campbell branded as a heretic that he was, Hypatia cured of her madness caused by the serum, Delilah locked in a painted world she desired so. The achievement for completing the game with non-lethal ways is even called Poetic Justice in DH and In Good Conscience in DH2. If the game is completed in a self-serving, bloodthirsty, anger satiating way, the chaos ends up being high – or plain chaotic on the alignment chart. But that is what the chaos means for the playstyle.

Chaos within the world is, in short, the way the world reacts to the player’s actions. The good and the bad, but every move the player makes in the world is a choice, and the world responds accordingly.

Let us set the scene, first, in general terms. In both games, the Empire is at a point of heightened anxiety. In DH it’s the plague, in DH2 the Crown Killer. Both games deal with brutality citizens face from the City Watch/Grand Guard, religious anxieties and terror from the Overseers, gang activity and a tyrannical regime from the Regent or the Duke respectively.

This is the world we walk into as Corvo, Daud or Emily. Everyone is uneasy and somewhat distrustful, and the player character then descends into the streets with a blade in hand, carving their way through a crumbling city to reach their goal. Loved ones go missing. Fathers don’t come back from work, cousins stop responding to letters. Even the elite in their palaces aren’t spared, slaughtered in cold blood with their loyal guard lying close by, staining the expensive hardwood floors. This is the world the player creates in high chaos – a world where no one is safe, and the few survivors live in terror, afraid that every breath they take might be the last. They see no reason to trust their neighbours, become more selfish, angrier- even your allies become more cynical, watching you slaughter your way back to the top, and why are they helping you again? To replace one tyrant with another?

In low chaos, however, the people remain safe. The civilians are allowed to continue going through their day to day life, however harsh it might be. The guards and overseers are spared, for the most part, and the nobles and rich that might go missing? That is their problem. They never cared for the smaller people. Both games open with a large shift in the political landscape – the assassination of an empress, a coup that seats a witch on the throne. And yet people still die of the plague or to the bloodflies. If a couple more members of the parliament die, that is, at the end of it all, just politics. It is among those who meddle with political issues, and not the business of the rest of the world.

The chaos is calculated by the absolute body count, along with a few special actions that the player can take. Most of them make sense. The chaos is higher if Daud blows up a slaughterhouse, killing many in the process, harming an industry, terrifying people who only hear of the event. Saving a young woman and her brother as they are harassed by the overseers over witch crimes they never committed lowers your chaos, because Corvo helped people in need. It’s a balance of the good and the bad you do, in total, rather than the simple distinction between killing and not killing the key targets. The overall chaos remains low even when all the key targets are taken down lethally. However, even if they are all spared, if the player killed every guard in sight just to reach these targets, the chaos will be high.

Something that I see (wrongly) be brought up is that killing key targets grants you a High Chaos ending, while the non-lethal takedowns result in Low Chaos ending. As mentioned above, that’s not true – they do count towards your total body count, but their deaths do not have a greater weight towards High Chaos. The non-lethal neutralization thus helps maintain lower chaos, but it does not necessarily mean that these choices are the right ones to make. The best example of this is probably Lady Boyle, which is oftentimes brought up as “oh but the morality of this game!!” critique. Death vs. poetic justice has little to do with morality in these games. After all, the protagonist (not counting DLCs) is out for revenge, to an extent, on people who have wronged them and caused them to fall on hard times. Just because a character lives does not mean there are not fates worse than death – like handing a woman to her stalker under the threat of death.

Morality and lethality in Dishonored are two things that don’t necessarily overlap. Lobotomizing Jindosh is, most definitely, a horrible thing and Jindosh ends up begging the MC to rather take his life than let him live without his intellect. There is no doubt that he is a horrible person, and many people tell you so during the game, but is this really the right way to go about things? Is an existence without the one thing you truly value about yourself worth it? On a similar yet completely opposite side of things, when you overhear one of the guards talk about how they have fun killing people who break curfew, is it truly a bad thing to kill them? One or two more deaths won’t affect your chaos all that much. It gets even more worth considering with the special actions that decrease your chaos which involve saving people from getting murdered by overseers or the guard. These actions are often difficult or impossible to perform without killing the attackers (like the guard harassing the girl that worked for Bunting).

These actions then reflect on your surroundings – the more corpses litter the streets, the more weepers and rats there will be, the nastier the bloodfly infestation. With a killer on the loose, there have to be more guards around. Mind you, the special actions that cause your chaos to grow are not enough to tip you over into high chaos alone. And as you, and Corvo/Daud/Emily by extension, grow more cruel, your allies grow more cynical. The Loyalists see Corvo butcher the city, and, well, it’s working. So why shouldn’t they get more cruel to achieve their goals, too? Emily is the most impacted, in Low Chaos growing to be Emily the Wise, the beloved empress of the Isles, asking Corvo innocent questions, while in the high chaos she talks about executions, asks how many people he's killed. Some grow to despise you, like Samuel, seeing the growing corruption and wishing for the quest to be done because they now see that the person they were helping was as much of a monster as the ones they are opposing. If you are cruel, the world will be cruel back, and the world involves those you might hold closest, like your daughter or your second in command.

The world, then, behaves in the way you mold it. Chaos reflects it, the destruction or kindness that you leave in your wake. Of course the murder of a noblewoman on a party she hosted, guarded by tallboys, will cause people to worry. Of course panic will spread when civilians are murdered in the streets. The general population of Dunwall will worry when the medicine that was meant to cure the plague suddenly turns everyone into weepers. But just the same, if people are shown kindness by a stranger without having to ask, they will be soothed. A cruel political leader being executed for the crimes he committed will make people excited, hopeful even. When Emily switches the Duke for his body double, the common people won’t notice. There is no need for fear, with the non-lethal takedowns. Not for those who are not directly involved.

Chaos, at the end of it all, dictates how the world evolves from the brink of collapse. The Outsider says it best, in one of his many speeches. “I have to wonder whether you're going to give if that final nudge, or pull it back from the edge.“ You have the power to tip the scales with your actions. Your choices matter, the big and the small, each life you save and each life you take, because at the end of the game, you are the one that has shaped the world that you will rule.