#special circumstance

[dinosaursmate]

to my friends who I am still in contact with, those who I lost contact with, those who were still around and those who, like me, have emerged from the woodwork due to tragedy - I love you I see you I’m thinking of you

[leminaus]

is it ok to be a little selfish

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

Warden: You've never killed an innocent?

Zevran: Now there's an interesting word, "innocent." How many men do you know who can claim to be truly innocent?

Zevran: But if you're talking generalities, such as children and relatives and bystanders and such… never on purpose, but it happens.

Zevran: It's unfortunate, but death comes to us all. If not me, then some wasting disease. Or a fall down the stairs. Or at the hands of a darkspawn. It's all relative in the end.

Zevran: "Death happens," as we like to say. And when I get paid for it, death happens more often.

-

Zevran: In Antiva, being a Crow gets you respect. It gets you wealth. It gets you women… and men, or whatever it is you might fancy.

Zevran: But that does mean doing what is expected of you, always. And it means being expendable. It's a cage, if a gilded cage. Pretty. But confining.

-

Davrin: Lucanis, how do you decide when one of your targets deserves to die?

Lucanis: Usually when the client pays up front.

Davrin: I'm serious. Do you just kill anyone?

Lucanis: No. There has to be merit.

Davrin: "Merit?" Who decides that?

Lucanis: The Talon of the house.

Davrin: And then you just carry out the order?

Lucanis: It's my job.

Davrin: Must be tough to sleep at night.

-

Lucanis: You kill for a living, too, Davrin. How do you sleep at night?

Davrin: Like a baby. The things I hunt are pure evil. Monsters. There are no shades of grey with darkspawn. But you...

Lucanis: Provide a service.

Davrin: What if your target doesn't deserve to die?

Lucanis: Who does? Good, bad, everyone dies eventually. We just speed things up.

-

Emmrich: Do you have any say in your... targets?

Lucanis: You want to know if my victims deserved it.

Emmrich: Forgive me, I shouldn't have asked.

Lucanis: Everyone wonders.

Lucanis: I've never killed an innocent, by my count.

Lucanis: I cannot say if yours would agree.

-

Emmrich: Lucanis, do the implications of your work never trouble you?

Lucanis: Everyone on this team has killed before. I'm hardly unique.

Emmrich: Yes, of course. But in your case, it's a profession, rather than an act of necessity.

Lucanis: I'm not sure the Venatori or the Antaam see the distinction as you do.

-

Emmrich: I find it extremely interesting, Lucanis, that you consider the point of view of your enemies in battle.

Lucanis: I have to. It's much more difficult to find and kill them, otherwise.

Emmrich: Exactly! A utilitarian attitude towards death, and yet you extend empathy to your victims.

Lucanis: Not that much empathy.

Emmrich: Enough to wonder how the Venatori and Antaam view your actions.

Lucanis: Death comes to everyone, in time. I get paid to deliver it. Like a letter not everyone wants to read.

-

I think about this a lot. I'm always... surprised when I see the talk that they're supposedly trying to make Lucanis into the perfect "cinnamon roll" in Veilguard, because his sweet personality doesn't "match" his profession and background. Like, no? That's a very surface level of looking at it, I think.

Zevran is like this, too. He is an incredibly chill guy, and when you romance him, he is also very sweet and vulnerable, despite being an assassin. They're not that different in that department. They were both trained to be assassins since they were children. They're both traumatized in various ways. But neither of them acts like a bloodthirsty, evil freak. But they both also take pride in the job they do (or did), and how well they can do it, and have no intention of stopping. And yet they both express surprising empathy. (Zevran argues against annulling the Circle! Quite extensively!) And they make pretty much the exact same arguments about being killers for hire, as shown above.

Death is a natural part of life. Sometimes it just comes sooner, because we're there to deliver it. There's (almost) no such thing as an innocent person, so my victims aren't innocent people. Therefore, I've never killed an innocent in my entire life, as far as I know. (At least not intentionally.)

And that's interesting and fun about them! It's beautifully deranged. Lucanis completes an assassination mission, slitting somebody's throat or what have you, and then goes on his cosy coffee break, satisfied with a job well done.

The fact that they both say that they've never, in their opinion, assassinated "an innocent", so it's all good, doesn't automatically make it true and doesn't mean it's not complicated, however. Not every line of dialogue can be taken at face value. As video game players, we're rather desensitized to this, but hearing this should normally be at least a little alarming. For a regular person, at least. And it is for the people in the game! Like Emmrich and Davrin. Davrin has several banters with Lucanis about it. Like, who decides when somebody deserves to die and which contract's going to get carried out? Well, the "CEO" of "the company," of course! What could ever go wrong that way? Emmrich tries to coax Lucanis into saying that he does feel something about the whole thing, because he really wants it to be true. While Lucanis is very matter of fact about it. He knows what the Crows are, and that's it. He doesn't glamorize or demonize it.

So, it definitely isn't that "Veilguard says that Lucanis has never done anything wrong ever in his life," just like Origins doesn't do it with Zevran. Both the men's attitude towards killing is warped in an interesting way, completely in line with their background and upbringing. It shows when Lucanis argues with Davrin about them both being killers, because it completely escapes him (or maybe he ignores it for the sake of the argument) how the killing he does (contracts where the targets tend to be people) and the killing Davrin (a monster hunter, a darkspawn slayer) does is of different kind entirely. His logic is flawed at that point. But to him, it boils down to the fact that "it's just a job," and "killing is killing," and "death is death" regardless of form, and that rightfully baffles Davrin to no end. If anything, it shows how the Antivan Crows are taught to hand wave the issue, because the arguments Lucanis and Zevran both present are too similar to be anything else.

Of course, Lucanis, unlike Zevran, as the grandson of the First Talon and her favourite, might have had some extra privileges and wiggle space in comparison, which might have allowed him to bend the rules sometimes, give him space to show more compassion and act more heroically, because people are complex and there are many layers to what each person might consider right and wrong (e.g. killing is okay in various circumstances, and slavers in particular can get fucked - hell, we do it in video games all the time), but still. The fact that his grandmother wanted to tap a new market, so she made Lucanis specialize for hunting mages, which ultimately led to him killing a lot of Venatori and blood mages, makes it cleaner, which is nice, but then again, we hardly know the full extent of all his work. Moreover, when you ask Zevran to tell you stories about his jobs, you don't get much dirt out of him, either. He talks about some of the goofiest ones he's had. One of his targets that he (unsuccessfully) participated in taking out, a royal that got his position through plotting and murder, he also describes as somebody so immoral he basically deserved it. Also very clean. (Compare both these guys with somebody like Blackwall who truly committed a despicable act of murder for money that we do know of. And this single crime sounds so much more upsetting than anything either Lucanis or Zevran describe. None of the things Zevran says is as awful, besides the murder of his lover, which is framed like it wasn't really his fault, because he was misled.)

It's also worth noting that Zevran talks about how he was the best the Crows had before he left and how it brought him respect, wealth, women, men, or "whatever it is you might fancy." All in all, it comes with benefits. By his own admission, he was well off. But of course that came with a catch, as well. The "gilded cage" Zevran talks about. But that's not what made him leave. It was the plotting, backstabbing, and ever present distrust in the end, which led to the biggest mistake he'd ever made. Much like him, Lucanis also mentions that he had a comfortable life before getting captured, in the same quest where he also talks about how he didn't actually have full control of his life. ("Even before I was captured, my life was not really my own. So much had been determined for me.") The gilded cage comes up yet again. And it was plotting and backstabbing that made him lose a year of his life in the underwater prison.

My point is: Lucanis and Zevran are both assassins, because that's what they've always been, they were trained to be assassins since they were kids, they have a very pragmatic approach to death and killing, which they were most likely taught or perhaps were forced to develop, and they both take pride in how good they are at their job, and express no intention of ever stopping. And yet they both show that they have a good heart in various other ways, turn out to be friendly and incredibly loyal, and even very sweet as lovers. Because people can be complex, and so can be fictional characters. Yes, they're very different men, with different problems and personalities, yet also not that different.

You can't think that Lucanis is "too good" without also thinking that Zevran is "too good." You can't have this problem with Veilguard unless you also have it with Origins, is what I'm saying. And I think this may also apply to some of the other Crows we meet in Veilguard.

[booasaur]

Special Ops: Lioness - 1x08

[magical-regical]

Hear me out.

Some of you will say this is Zayne, some of you will say this is Xavier, some of you will scream SYLUS at the top of your lungs but nay. Nay I say.

For I raise you this: this is MC.

This is MC once everything is revealed to her. Once she understands what she is and how many times her and the people around her had been fucked over by the thing called 'fate'.

[imababblekat]

Medic reader who’s part of a small team sent in with others to clear out a compound so the more specialized forces can go in and do their classified work, except in the heat of everything medic reader gets separated and ends up on their own. They accidentally find their way into a secret lab and are attacked by a scientist that had been hiding, having something injected in them before taking the enemy out. Suddenly they feel very sick and dizzy, but just before passing out a small team of four come rushing in, sounding aggravated when they radio back to whoever that their target, presumably the now dead scientist, has been neutralized so they wouldn’t be able to take them prisoner. Medic reader tries to get their attention but can only groan in ill pain, their vision blurring in and out as one of the men order two to guard the door while he and another come rushing over to confirm they’ve got an alive friendly. One of the men is checking them over for injuries while the one closest to them, with a firm voice, is ordering them to hang on and stay with them, but just as medic reader is about to pass out, the last thing they note as they’re being lifted up by strong arms, is the TF 141 patch on their saviors uniform.

[snifekinner]

nations locking eyes with their countries' child monarchs knowing that they are both puppets of the people who really rule

[beskarfrog]

but that's fine, i'd still do it all over again if you asked me to

[sesamebri]

smoke break with nii-san 🚬👹

[warningsine]

[intriga-hounds]

Will you be keeping Pilot for yourself or does he have a home lined up already like Eden does? Love seeing the pups, thanks for sharing your journey with them! All the love in the world for Ponzu!

pilot has a home with a wonderful couple who’ve been waiting TWO YEARS for a ponzu puppy. they come out to events all the time even tho they don’t even have a dog yet and are honestly just great company.

not super relevant, but i’m excited that both puppies are also going to queer families. it wasn’t on purpose but i’m loving it! i have a group chat with both families in it, and i think we will all be friends for a long time. sometimes a family is a bunch of queer people and their blood-related dogs. 😌

[cyber-corp]

So how are you doing?

Dog I thought I was doing so well. I thought my boulder reached the top. Then PM Seymour put me in his title and thumbnail and the boulder rolled alllllll the way back down again.

Other than that, I bought Hades on my PS5. I shall give you all updates as I play it

[simplydnp]

guys im still so overwhelmed by how lovely that show was 😭😭😭

[paradimeart]

commission for @ojamayellow !!

[ovaruling]

i’ve discussed this before, but as i lift heavier and heavier, i feel an urgency to bring it up again. wearing high heels for most of my late teens and early- to mid-twenties really has fucked up my ability to properly squat.

as i’ve mentioned in previous posts, all my center of gravity has, as a result of a life of wearing pumps, shifted forward onto the balls of my feet. i cannot naturally or comfortably squat parallel or deep with my heels on the ground (without heel lifts of some kind). my biggest struggle in lifting, including my Olympic lifts, is not falling backwards on my ass bc i physically CANNOT force weight back into my heels. and so in squats, sometimes in deadlifts, i often end up involuntarily bent forward at a 45-degree angle to compensate for this weight distribution, which of course sends me backward like a hammer, ass-first.

high heels are just… brutally dangerous. they have ruined my ability to do what i love in lifting. i am constantly working on mobility drills, but it’s been a very, very long time now and i have seen no change. i may just be facing the long-term or even permanent damage done by wearing high heels for so long.

femininity is outright ruinous. i wish i could go back and shake myself for being stupid enough to wear a literal “Disable Yourself” device on my feet—for no other reason than because i thought it was simply what well-dressed, mature women wore.

i hope so much i can get my mobility back one day, but as i age, with the other disabling limitations to my joints, i’m more than aware of the likelihood that that will not happen.

femininity ruins your body. it ruins your functionality. it binds and bends and breaks and warps your natural movement. it’s a portable medieval torture device, plain and simple.

[treviso-nights]

there’s something profoundly childlike about solas’s inability to grapple with the inevitability of change.

spirits don’t seem to undergo the developmental stages mortals do, and solas’s reaction to the shifting world around him almost feels... puerile. he watches the evanuris (as former spirits) change—granted, for the worse—and the elves evolve from manifesting bodies to procreating and inheriting them. in light of all these varying transitions, he thinks: “if I can just remain as Wisdom, i’ll be fine. i won’t be like them.”

but he does change. and he is like them. possessing a sort of intuited fore- and retro-sight doesn't mean anything when the choices you're making for other people also destroy the world.

during cole’s personal quest in inquisition, varric isn’t solas's counterpart due to “bad writing”, which i've seen some people argue. varric is The Storyteller, the narrator who frames entire games (da2 and veilguard). stories are a wisdom of their own, and varric knows this. he knows the power of alchemy and transformation, and how these processes are necessary to round out subjective experience. he is the perfect guide to help a changing spirit like cole reconcile those changes with his original nature.

yet even when you do encourage cole to embrace his spirit-origins, it is not enough. only when cole actively chooses to forget original!cole does he regress to a “purer” version of himself. until then, cole remains in torment over what he could've done for original!cole had he the support and resources. there is no alchemizing. there is no substantial transformation. there is a total or "complete" lack of catharsis, because—

—cole, even after forgiving original!cole's murderer (like a spirit would), finds that simply forgiving is not enough to make him like he was. and so he once again stands at a crossroads: integration of his new-found humanity or self-inflicted memory loss. full embodiment versus purification of the self. and solas, by contrast, doesn't choose either of these.

instead, solas clings to his regrets (like a child would a blanket) as well as his identity as Wisdom while refusing to fully embody the world he’s a part of. to me, solas becomes like an adolescent trapped in stasis and terrified by the idea of change in a world that he does not actually understand: “i am of Wisdom. i am in pain. i must not change.”