#there are other things
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notebooks-and-laptops · 2 years ago
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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.
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oreo-creampie · 1 year ago
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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 🙃🙂🙃🙂🙃
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delicatebluebirdruins · 1 year ago
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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
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crazywolf828 · 1 year ago
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God I really do miss writing fics... The worst part is the reason I'm not writing is literally because I'm going outside 😭
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jellogram · 28 days ago
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On my first day in Germany I got to my hotel and I couldn't get the lights to turn on. And I was like "Eh, fuck it, I'll just take a shower in the dark." And then the shower wouldn't get hot. I waited and waited and it stayed ice cold.
So I go down to the front desk and I'm like "My lights won't turn on and my shower won't get hot" so they send this guy up with me. We get into the room and I flick the switch and nothing happens so I'm like "See?"
And he goes "You must put your card in the slot."
"I... what? I have to put my room card in the light switch?"
"Of course!"
Now I have been in many hotels in the US and never encountered this concept, but apparently it was something most of their guests already knew. So I'm looking like a fool at this point. I feel like an idiot. The dude is fully grinning at me. I put the card in the slot and voila, the light turns on.
Then he's like "Ok, let's see if the shower works. You know you must wait for the hot water?" and I just know he's thinking I'm an idiot who also can't use a shower. This stupid American can't wait for the hot water! She can't even use a light switch or a shower!
And I guess he was distracted by these thoughts of my stupidity, because this dude fully stepped into the shower. In his nice dress shirt and slacks. He just. Gets into the shower.
And turns it on.
Have you ever seen a playing field get leveled instantaneously
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koobiie · 9 months ago
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shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this
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some-pers0n · 1 year ago
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I hate how people will look at popular indie artists who had one or two songs go viral on TikTok and start making fun of anybody who listens to them. "Oh you listen to Lemon Demon, Will Wood, Jack Stauber, Glass Animals, and Mother Mother? Tsk, don't you know that is stupid TikTok neurodivergent white transmasc preteen music? It's so mid and bad you should listen to real music–" you are a pit of misery
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the-moon-loves-the-sea · 19 days ago
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Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook. (ETA: Gaining inspiration from other authors is great. Lifting passages and avoiding giving credit isn’t.)
Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here and here .
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problemnyatic · 3 months ago
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when will we talk about the willful helplessness epidemic on here. So many people on this god forsaken website demand to have any and all things that exist outside their personal experiences directly, personally pre-chewed and spoonfed to them. And when you do, they'll then ask for you to swallow for them, too, because, you see, in THEIR experience..,
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marlynnofmany · 3 months ago
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If that doesn't have potential for some fairytale nonsense, I don't know what does.
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dramatic-dolphin · 4 months ago
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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.
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swan2swan · 7 months ago
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Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.
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bakerstreet-and-beyond · 22 days ago
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There seems to be a general malaise on most of Tumblr about TikTok getting banned in the United States.
I understand the problems, "brain rot", whatever but- A government banning a social media app that opened the world for many people is legitimately scary and upsetting. Say what you want but, there are MANY global and local issues that would not have gotten the same traction, recognition, and outreach without TikTok.
And then add to this that Meta/Facebook was one the largest lobbyists working to get TikTok banned... Like- I think folks should be more concerned about the implications of what this means, especially since the ban goes into effect the day before inauguration.
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batcavescolony · 8 months ago
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Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.
#katniss everdeen#the hunger games trilogy#the hunger games#primrose everdeen#hunger games#batcavescolony reads the hunger games#suzanne collins#'now it seems i have become someone precious' NOW? GIRL BFFR you're their hunter girl#and this isn't negative just bffr girl#your WHOLE DISTRICT did the three finger salute that you yourself says means admiration thanks and goodbye to someone you love and on top is#old a rarely used. your WHOLE DISTRICT decided in that moment that they needed to bring back this sign of respect for YOU#...................................................................#idk why some people are thinking i mean this as negative i don't she is unreliable but its not intentional. like when Peeta heart stoped in#CF she doesn't know what Finnick is doing at first cus she doesn't know off the top of her head what cpr is. she also thinks Peeta after the#reaping is acting for the cameras. he isnt we dind out later his mom basically told him Katniss was gonna win and he would die. obviously#shes not doing it on purpose shes just for lack of better words uneducated? as in she doesn't know everything shes not omnipotent#so when Plutarch (? second games guy) shows her his mokingjay hiden watch shes like *wtf that's weird?* then the people traveling to#district 13 show her the mockingjay cookie and explains it and she then goes on the difference between his watch and their cookie#and why does eveyone act as if district 12 is as bad as the capital? they CANT help Katniss and Prim in the way you want. they cant give#them food. none of them have any! and im not putting iton Katniss but they hid they needed food so they could stay together. it sounds like#some of you are in this our world mentally of what people do after a loved one dies (brings food constantly checks on them etc) district 12#cant do that. they dont have food and they're all suffering. you cant give someone food when you have none to give. then theirs the fact#that peeta DID help. Peeta buring the bread and tossing some to her then taking a beating from his mom is a HUGE thing in the books.#he used his resources to help her like you all said someone should.#district 12 DID (rip) care about Katniss before the hunger games. why do you think she was allowed to hunt? or how her trades were good#these are the little ways 12 can shows Katniss they love her. but again Katniss doesn't see this and YES its because she had ptsd before the#hunger games as well. i swear some of you make it seem like d12 was all living a life of luxury and glaring down at Katniss.#other things that show Katniss is in hight standing with at least her people of d12 is her dad was known enough through d12 for peeta dad to#comment on his singing along with his commenting on her mom. also her mom is a healer in the community. yeah her parents arnt the top but#of d12 but they are/were definitely high staning in the Seam.
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larkiethings · 3 months ago
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shaking my head while playing neko atsume so people know that I don’t support outdoor cats
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