#there are other things

[notebooks-and-laptops]

in no way i mean to offend you but. my friend. your version of sebastian is just. i mean down to the last bit it's just leliana.

Hello! I'm actually glad you sent this because I've been thinking about their differences and similarities and would love the chance to talk about it.

So, heres the thing. I feel like its easy to model a Better Sebastian off Leliana. They are both people with awful pasts, who enjoy violence and try to rationalize it, and who find comfort in their faith. Also, I think it's easy to type cast a character as "religious" rather than exploring the personal links that person has to their faith and how it may differ from others.

But ultimately, my better version of Seb that lives in my head? He's still pretty chantry conservative compared to Leliana. And the violence thing is s l I g h t l y different. Leliana is a lot of things but I wouldn't say her main motivation is often revenge, whereas Sebs defo is.

1. Theology

Leliana, you'll recall has some WILD opinions about the maker. Her opinions remind me a little of Julian of Norwich, a fourteenth century anchoress who hints at universalisation, believes god spoke to her directly, and had intense views about the love of God (Leliana and Julian is a seperate post but god I'd love to chat about it someday). Leliana believes:

Members of the chantry should have sexual and romantic relationships including the Divine. These relationships are not only morally correct, they are gifts from the Maker and divine in themselves

God did not abandon creation but instead is in creation, everywhere

God can actively talk to individuals as God did to Leliana, usually in visions. He uses this to shape the world

Meanwhile, Sebastian is waaaaay more conservative. Like. St Anselm sorta vibes of the poor man running into the ditch and getting punished by God for it vibes. I mean. Think of all the changes Leliana makes if she becomes divine, even to scripture itself. Do you think Sebastian would uphold any of that?

And that's not necessarily a bad thing! I want Sebastian to think about what it means to be holy, but I don't think he should abandon basic chantry principles because he IS a conservative character. He's a member of the royal family! He has a lot to gain by sticking to tradition and will have been raised to do so.

So yeah, Seb should realise Anders and many others do more for the poor than the chantry. But also he should maintain basic principles of faith such as the maker has abandoned his children, people need to do penance before the maker to atone for their sins.

I mean, the REASON Seb is the way he is is that he thinks that a lot of what he wants/desires is sinful and that he should be punished for that. He's got the Catholic guilt that Leliana couldn't even dream of having.

Also I want Seb to be celebate for the right reasons (he thinks it's what the maker wants him to do rather than something he has to do to stay in the chantry) but that doesn't mean I don't want him to think that the maker wants him to do that. THE MAKER WANTS HIM TO DO THAT. It's how he remains close to the maker.

Basically, Sebs Theology aligns more with Cassandra than it EVER could with Leliana

Why did they turn to religion?

Leliana may have been a bad person before, but she hid in Lothering Chantry because she was already devout and religious. She had suffered tremendously, been tortured and her faith had steadied her through that.

Sebastian Vael? He's a prince and he was basically forced into this. He was an unruly third son so they bonked him in the chantry to try and make him well behaved.

And that's SUCH a difference between the two? Sebastian will ALWAYS feel that struggle between who he was and who is he now, and the fact that he was cohersed into the chantry even if he approves of it now. Leliana wasn't cohersed into anything and found a way to reconcile both her love of violence and her job with the chantry. Speaking of...

What is their violence used for?

Also. Another thing is. Seb doesn't use violence FOR the chantry. The closest he comes is invading Kirkwall for harbouring Anders, but again, that's more personal revenge than violence for the chantry itself to further the chantrys aims. Sebastian instead draws this VERY neat line between violence which is "more fun than the chantry" and the chantry itself which is a life of prayer and devotion.

For Leliana, by Inquisition, she is using violence FOR the chantry. Leliana believes that she is skilled at violence and enjoys using it, but it's not about revenge narratives for her, it's about furthering the cause that she deems right (which is why imo hardened divine Leliana is the most dangerous, because like. Hmm. That is a woman who could VERY easily start a crusade and feel it was justified). While her killing Marjolenne if you go down that route is revenge, it's also...practical? Lelianas violence is strategic, it's thought out, it's done for specific aims and reasons. Marjolenne could VERY easily become a threat again and stop Leliana entering Orlesian society once more. Her death frees Leliana in a very practical way. And most of Lelianas other violence we see in inquisition, the books or DA2 just. Isn't for revenge at all.

What motivates their violence?

For Leliana I think it comes down to the fact that she's good at it, that it's fun, and that it gets her where she needs to be. It's both entertainment and practical. She uses it FOR other people and herself, to further the aims of her in-group be it the chantry or her lover or the inquisition. Violence is mediated before it's enacted and it's enacted to get the correct outcome.

Violence for Leliana is also not really...personal? She can kill and hurt with such coldness and detachment as she shows throughout inquisition. She can even do so with old friends.

For Sebastian, violence is intrinsically linked to revenge and so is ALWAYS personal. Revenge is at the core of Sebastian's character. Every act reminds us of that. Leliana is, in her way, merciful particularly softened and I think that's her natural inclination. Seb? He's revenge driven. He can't see Mercy without a strong religious hand to make him. Kill those who hurt you and the ones you care for is basically his motto. He doesn't know how to exist outside of this paradigm of revenge and shows he hasn't learnt by the end based on his decision to invade Kirkwall because Hawke didn't kill Anders. And he doesn't ever really think about the outcome of these things? Like. Annexing Kirkwall?? Seriously?? That's gonna have huge political implications but Sebastian can't care because Elthina is dead and that's PERSONAL.

So yeah. Big picture Leliana vs. personal small picture Seb in terms of how they operate with violence.

How well do they know themselves?

I think Leliana is VERY honest with herself and very self reflective. Even in inquisition when she "nearly lost herself" she still thinks hard about how to get what she wants. She KNOWS she's an instrument of violence and she knows she's good at it and is going to use it self conciously to further the inquisitions aims. Otherwise she wouldn't be as good as she is at it! She clocks exactly why she might have made a mistake and if her emotions got involved. ("I was being sentimental" about pulling back her scouts)

Sebastian is deceptive. He's deceptive from himself. He wants to be the good guy and he pretends he is, but he's actually a shadow of revenge sneaking about. When he wants something he tries to justify it over and over even if it isn't logical to the rest of his belief system because hes the good chantry boy and he needs people to believe that because HE needs to believe it because otherwise he's a bad person and he wants to be good SO bad.

Leliana is okay being religiously a bit of a weird one and so doesn't need to conform to some ideal standard. Hell she LIKES being seen as a bit odd as the gauntlet for the sacred ashes reveals. She likes being unique. Seb doesn't want to be unique he wants to be the perfect religious choir boy....he just also wants all this other stuff that's counter to that so he has to be self deceptive about it.

To conclude

In my head, Seb and Leliana are distinctly different characters. They may have some surface level similarity and they are arguably two of the most overtly religious companions in the games, but Seb is personal, vengeance driven and conservative and Leliana sees the bigger picture, is self conscious and very liberal in her theological thinking.

[yuenity]

what are your thoughts on tua s4?

Oh boy how long of an answer do you want baha 😭😭

The short answer is I generally enjoyed the season despite its many many flaws. The two major things that I hated with all my soul was Five and Lila’s whole thing (for so many reasons) and Klaus’ arc. Did I love the ending?… no, but I saw it coming. I can’t say I hated it, even if I would’ve liked to see them finally happy.

But if we really want to get into the nitty gritty of it… (Long, half-coherent ramblings below cut)

The show definitely felt… off this entire season. The characters didn’t really feel like their characters and they were always making decisions I didn’t see them making. But the first 4 episodes were generally fine. They still sort of felt like the umbrella academy. It was the last 2 episodes that stuck out as the worst. They felt rushed, and they kept putting in new information last minute (like all that shit with Abigail, woof).

I won’t talk all that much about Five and Lila cause I’ve already reblogged so much about it, and there’s nothing I have to say that others haven’t already expressed. The things that bother me the most about it is how it destroyed Five’s character and how unnecessary it was. Obviously I understand how Five and Lila would fall in love after 7 years of being stranded together. I mean… Five literally fell in love with a mannequin last time he was stranded. But at the end of the day, he would always choose his family. My man was literally stuck in the apocalypse for 45 years and STILL never gave up on finding them. He abandoned Dolores for them. He would not give up after 7 years because of Lila fucking Pitts, especially after all the trouble he’s already been through to save them. But the big thing is, NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN 😭 it literally didn’t affect the plot whatsoever, it just made Five and Diego hate each other in their last few minutes of existence. ALSO it literally sours every joke about Five and Lila from season 2 and 3. The whole reason they were funny before was because we thought the idea of them was ridiculous. We thought it would never happen. Ugh poor Diego, I felt so damn bad for him this season

Now Klaus… sigh. I spent the whole time thinking “there has to be a reason for this right? There has to be a reason he’s doing his own irrelevant thing on the side right? He probably knows some important information that the group doesn’t and that’s why” but noooo. It was just pointless. I missed him so much, but to just get that was 😭😭 also the fact that nobody fucking went after him?? Every time someone else tried to leave the group, they protested, but then they literally just let Klaus walk away. I. also the germaphobia… I already made a long ass post about that in February, it should be below this post if you wanna read that lols

the possession prostitution was uh… interesting. I can’t say it was out of character, especially when drugs are involved, but it is strange that there were no protests despite his last experience with possession. I haven’t thought a lot about that aspect though tbh

I wish we would’ve had more Ben and Klaus moments :(( I MISSED THEM SO MUCH it’s not even funny. That’s the thing I was looking forward to most, but alas 😔 we get a greeting and that’s it 😔 it feels like the show just forgot how important they were to each other. Obviously sparrow Ben is different from umbrella Ben, but Klaus was the only one to make an effort to connect with him last season. I thought they had gotten somewhere, but now they’re practically strangers. For the second time they didn’t get to say goodbye to each other. Sigh

don’t even get me started about the whole Durango thing. Look… I’ve always found it easy to put aside plot holes when it comes to this show. And I did for a lot of this season. But the fact that this particle is apparently so important to setting things right, and we get no explanation for how Jennifer has it is crazy. That seems like a pretty important thing to explain 😭😭 WHY WAS SHE IN A SQUID??

Also no dance sequence :(( no, Jean and Gene’s didn’t count

…

These are my main grievances, but there was also stuff I liked about the season

Like Jean and Gene!! They’re such classic tua antagonists, I love them.

And finding out Ben’s death!! 6 years of speculation and not ONCE did I think that’s how it was going to happen. I was happy to finally have answers, and holy shit was it shocking. Do I like that it was bc of the Marigold and Durango situation? No, but whatever. Small victories. One thing that I couldn’t help wondering though, was if Klaus knew what happened. Like surely he and Ben had to have spoken about it before? And I remember Klaus making a comment like “I know you didn’t ask to die violently at a young age” back in season 1, which was more than anyone else had ever said about it. Hm just thoughts

Also Luther’s entire character. Seems fitting that he would be my least favorite of the family in season 1 and my most favorite in season 4 lols. He was like the one characterization that didn’t get fucked. The way he kept bringing up Sloane and looking longingly at Diego’s family :(( the return of his stress eating 😭 I love that guy

I also really liked seeing all the characters at the end. The gasp I gusped when I saw the Swedes and the tears I cried when I saw Hazel and Agnes…

Anyway yeah

[oreo-creampie]

My charger is plugged into my computer at work, and when I put my phone on charge it asks if I want to share pictures. No I wouldn’t not like to share my jjk porn 🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃

[crazywolf828]

God I really do miss writing fics... The worst part is the reason I'm not writing is literally because I'm going outside 😭

[delicatebluebirdruins]

I like Shannon but I hate her setting up the camera in the den. I hate it. I hate her using it.

I hate Maddy not really being allowed to be angry about it for long afterwards

[bog-horse]

so. early this morning i had an anxiety thought (after having an (unrelated) anxiety dream lol) about like

“oh gods what if hades is only here to help me deal with [passing of a family member that may be happening soon] and then after that we’re going to part ways??? oh god what am i going to do??? *panic panic panic*”

anyway. woke up, started the second leg of my drive home from being out of town in denver for my christmas break (i had like, a 9hr drive ahead of me). about three hours ago, as i was driving and idly contemplating things to add to my altar, i remember seeing that a lot of people put coins/money on their altar and i realized that

i. have had an absolute fascination with foreign money my entire life. so much so that my brother brought me back money as a souvenir from when he was deployed overseas

and i was like

“goddamn it. goddamn it.”

and i couldn’t even do anything about it because i was fucking driving!!! i still had three hours to go before i got home!!!!!

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[william-snekspeare]

hater of socks

[goldensunset]

advice i think we should tell children is that when adults say stuff like ‘now that i’m an adult i get really excited about stuff like coffee tables and bathrooms and rugs etc’ they don’t mean ‘and now i don’t care about blorbo and squimbus from my childhood tv shows anymore’ bc your average adult still loves all the same pop culture stuff they always did; they just have a greater appreciation for the mundane as well. growing up just means you can enjoy life twice as much now. you can get really excited about a new stuffed animal AND about a new kitchen sponge. peace and love

[trudlejack]

(+part 2)

[dramatic-dolphin]

when we were studying the bible in literature class (so we have the context necessary for later works that reference the bible), i think we were at the book of jonah, and one of my classmates was studying the text very intently, and then looked up and earnestly said "professor, i don't understand the will of god"

the teacher was just like. well sadly i am a literature teacher and not a priest so i can't help you there. but if it helps, many people throughout history had the same problem.

[baristabomb]

...weird amount of dunmeshi fans have been saying being a caretaker in a relationship is the worst thing ever..marcille must want to killl everyone soo bad because doing things for people suuuucks sooo muchh

it's an act of love, not just a job i promise. we all want someone who's willing to take care of us in some way, just like how senshi shows care for others by cooking for them :'|

[cozylittleartblog]

i dont know how to explain it but joining extremely small fandoms with only a few people in them feels like this

[beebfreeb]