#tl;dr not bad!

[idolomantises]

“I don’t like that Sera is sharply dressed because it feels like a lesbian trope”

Maybe she just likes being sharply dressed?

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[himluv]

Okay, hot take coming in, but I've seen a few posts mentioning that Isseya's character was done dirty in Veilguard. And... I disagree. Here's why:

1. Isseya is already established as a morally gray character, willing to do basically anything if it meant ending the Fourth Blight, even when it went against her own personal morals.

2. Her Calling advanced quickly because of the blight, and it's theorized in Last Flight that all her use of Blood Magic probably didn't help, either.

3. She has been alive for CENTURIES after she should have died on her Calling. She is more Darkspawn than elf, more akin to The Architect or Corypheus than she is Davrin, by the time we meet her in game.

4. And this is the doozy, in the novel The Calling, we see what happens when Wardens don't die on their Calling. We know what happens when they let their taint change them. We saw what happened when the Architect advanced their Calling so that they might keep their minds... They didn't. After only months, Bregan starts to lose it. The blight is anger. It's rage. It is a literal plague of HATE. And it twists not just his body, but his mind too.

So, imagine Isseya, already angry. Already wracked with guilt, grief, and righteous anger when she goes on her Calling. And then she doesn't die, but Revas, her griffon, does. And so Isseya is all alone, festering in her own negative emotions for centuries, all while the blight in her veins slowly takes over and whispers nothing but hate directly into her brain. For over 400 YEARS.

And it all comes down to the Wardens. She blames them for what she became, for the fate of the griffons (understandably so), and her madness spirals into making an alternate Weisshaupt, recruiting her own order of Blighted Wardens.

(side note: was she working with The Architect? Because this is some Architect shit.)

And then Ghilan'nain shows up with an offer to help "save" the griffons. And Isseya is blighted, driven mad with centuries of unmitigated hate. So she takes Ghilan'nain's offer, never once seeing how she's being used all over again. Because the blight has blinded her with hate for the Wardens.

Isseya's character hasn't been botched. They didn't do her dirty. Her story is SAD. Heartbreaking even. It's a tragedy and a warning, of what that much hate can do to a person.

Did I wish better for her? Absolutely. I loved Isseya in Last Flight, and my heart broke for her then. But unraveling the Gloom Howler that first time? Realizing who she was and WHY this was happening? It was an amazing experience. (The way I said, "oh, Isseya"??? Tear my heart to shreds, Bioware.)

But, just because Isseya's fate is tragic, doesn't mean she was written poorly. From what we know about her, the blight, and the Calling, her character is actually very consistent and believable.

Just... really fucking sad.

[feroluce]

Not to make everything about my ship, but if I don't do it no one will, so today we are making meta analysis of Boothill's faceoff match about henghill, because the differences between Boothill's stand off with Luka and his one with Dan Heng- and what you can infer about Boothill himself and what catches his eye in a person- makes me chew concrete.

JUST. I loved the scene between Luka and Boothill so much. I love how wildly unrestrained Boothill is. He really just shoved the barrel of his gun in his opponent's face and put the fear of death into him as a way to test Luka's resolve. I utterly adore him. I hope he does it again. Anyway.

When confronted with all this, Luka freezes. His stress-induced hallucinations were already bad, but you can see how they really ramp up in this match, because before, they were always something familiar. Previous enemies became Silvermanes, or Belobogian automatons, or even Cocolia. Luka is far from home for the first time in his life, and he's so terribly homesick his brain is making everything familiar, because that is what he's desperately craving right now.

But Boothill.

Boothill is something so new, and unique, and horrific and terrifying, that he becomes something entirely unknown to Luka. His hallucination manifests as Something Unto Death, as the very fear of death itself.

And this stand off (which I love so much that this is how this match progressed, because like that's literally just Boothill's in-game skill; he locks the enemy into a one-on-one duel, so this was extremely in character for him) lasts long enough that Owlbert starts having to fill in the silence over the loudspeaker,

and even Boothill himself starts trying to push Luka into making a decision one way or the other.

Given that Boothill is a hunter by trade and is proven to have all the patience to track his prey and then some, this was more for Luka's sake than any impatience on his part, to try to shove him out of his freeze reaction.

And Boothill isn't really hard to read throughout this whole exchange, he all but says outright what he's looking for.

Boothill wants to see him surpass this test and come at him! You can see it in his face when Luka finally takes a step! And in how he congratulates him!

And then he fucking shot him snxhsjksjsn

Boothill admires courage, and bravery, and decisiveness. He admires a person's ability to put their life on the line and still fight in the face of danger and overwhelming odds. Those are the things that catch his eye.

And Luka does kind of get there eventually, but it is a stalling, halting motion that gets him there, and he fell to pieces immediately afterwards. This is his first time with this, and he's still figuring it out.

Dan Heng, on the other hand.

Boothill's stand off with Dan Heng from 2.2 is so fucking far in the total opposite direction that it is HILARIOUS.

Boothill literally breaks into the Astral Express, ambushes Dan Heng, and Dan Heng still has the balls to not only demand info out of Boothill- like doesn't even ask nicely, demands it- he also just straight up calls Boothill a liar. Right to his face! And he still isn't nice about it!!

By the way, that entire conversation? This is how it takes place.

Boothill, phrasing!!

Boothill has him at gunpoint! Dan Heng does not have his weapon with him! He does not flinch, and even stands there with his arms crossed seeming simultaneously pissed and utterly unimpressed. He looks like he should be irritably tapping his foot and looking down his nose at him. Dan Heng could not give less of a shit.

For that matter, Dan Heng even turns his back and walks away from Boothill- right in the middle of him talking, too! Not a single attempt to be considerate of the man who could decide any moment he feels like decorating the wall with Dan Heng's brains.

Dan Heng is brave and courageous and completely unflappable in the face of danger. He is ruthless and decisive in how he conducts himself, even when staring down the barrel of a gun. And through his efforts in Penacony, he shows the ability to put his life on the line and fight through overwhelming odds to save his once-in-a-lifetime companions.

No wonder Dan Heng caught Boothill's eye the way he did, no wonder the two of them were working together and bantering not even minutes after Boothill pulled a gun on him haha

[equalperson]

BTW "destigmatizing mental illness" doesn't just mean being tolerant when someone says they have a psychiatric diagnosis or go to therapy, it also means investigating how your own view of "evil" may overlap with the signs of madness.

this is because the mainstream idea of what a "bad person" looks like is heavily influenced by sanism, thus most people's perception of what makes someone bad is literally just them being mentally disabled.

to support the crazy, you must accept that grandiosity, delusionality, attention-seeking, rage, homicidal ideation, and many similar experiences are not inherently dangerous. likewise, you must also understand that love and empathy are not the ultimate goods that everyone makes them out to be.

madness can easily be an abundance of the former and a lack of the latter, not just the quiet insecurity that most people reference when they talk about "mental health."

ultimately, the world will never be a truly safe place until it's a widely acknowledged fact that there's no such thing as villainous cognition or emotionality; prejudice is the source of all evil, not abnormality.

[archie-mp3]

The whole “The Marauders where teenagers when they bullied Snape!” Argument is the same as “Boys will be boys.”

I’m currently a 15 year old, teenage boy. The same age as the Marauders when their school years are shown in the canon. No matter how much I hate someone, I would not THINK of bullying them.

“It was a different time!” Erm… human empathy as always existed, they just lacked it.

They did not even mature! Sirius and James still mocked Snape well into their adult years! People hate on Snape for telling Voldemort the prophecy, but when he realized his mistake, he did all that he could to do make sure Lily (and begrudgingly, James and Harry) made it out alive. Pettigrew is ultimately the reason why both Lily and James died.

“Snape didn’t care if James lived—“ Fuck, if I was tormented to no avail for 7 years, I wouldn’t care if my bullied/abuser died as well!

Snape is the most human (said by JKR herself) out of the entire cast. His reactions are human. I find it so infuriating when people water down his characters into nothing more than an obsessive creep. (Which is in no way canon! Please still to CANONICALLY facts for FUCKS SAKE.)

I am by no means saying that Snape is this saint, and that he has done no wrong. He has fucked up a shit ton, and he is an asshole 90% of the time. I’m saying that if I experience the shit he did, I wouldn’t be surprised if I came out the same way.

[f4gwithf4ngs]

currently smothering my face in a pillow because AAAHHHH I WANNA KISS A BOY!!!! I WANNA KISS A BOY SO BAD!!!! MAYBE MAKEOUT A LITTLE… AAAHHHHH

[genericpuff]

those of us who have read the fastpass know how false this advertising is LMAOO

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I used to despise Eridan and think he was the absolute worst character (barring Cronus ig) but you have shown me the light and completely turned my opinion around and now I think he is such an endearing little freak <3 I read your whole blog already but if you've got any more thoughts on eri or anyone else then I hope you post them bc I'd love to hear more abt it!

i have sooo many controversial opinions about the dancestors you have noooooo idea

[lissa612]

No, but really…Why bring in a character with such potential to fit in with the main cast of characters and then never use that? A character who could add a new dimension to the overall excitement of the show and then not capitalize on it?

[lazylittledragon]

Feel free to ignore if this is intruding but I remember you posting about dealing with caffeine addiction and I hope you're doing ok <3 Addiction is really hard to deal with so I hope everything is going alright for you!

!! thank you for checking in <3333

i haven't cut it out completely (i really don't think i'd be able to) but i'm still doing much better, i've cut down from 6 shots per cup to only 2. i've also changed my sleep/eating habits so now i don't feel like i need the caffeine as much because i just don't feel as shit anymore.

it's been very nice :3

[hoofpeet]

I'd probably have to read the printed version and web version back to back at some point to note all the differences but... ough

[pareidolla]

For the bingo game!! I'll let someone else ask you about Broken, what are your thoughts on Smitten?

polite dearest i am so sorry for taking forever to answer! here's scarlet hollow smitten - i ruminated on it a bit and decided smitten talking to animals is very, very funny ♡ vv excited to finish up his stp design i think he's coming along very cute

and oh right my opinion of...! smitten...! wowie, isn't he just... a character... who exists...

yeah, i'm sorry, i have to confess that i've never loved smitten the way everyone else does, and i feel terrible about it. he's cute! he's funny! his little "narrator!" towards the end of razor makes me stim. everyone has turned on him after the epilogue, and i'm like now you're thinking he's creepy? the "in a way, we still got a romantic end" comment after we tried stabbing thorn didn't hint to the fact that maybe he's kinda a major freak?

and its the combination of his uncomfortable lines mixed with the fanbase's reception to him that really sours the character for me. i adore characters who are toxic and weird about love (milgram mahiru shiina >>>) but everywhere i look, i see supporters defending his behavior or high-fiving him for being the haha funny simp guy, which drives me crazy. esp smitten fans who hated broken for having an unhealthy love for the princess, but hail smitten as a chad for it. actually makes me gag.

but despite being my least favorite voice, i think it's a shame we don't have more of him. in particular, i was truly rooting for him to be an extra voice in fury-adversary. the devs have explained we get cold because we're telling vera we love her while denying what makes her happy, but she should have been able to say it to our faces! i want him to properly adore a big monster princess without it functionally being a joke, to deal with not wanting to harm her but wanting her to be happy, and to have his shit repeatedly demolished by her. justice for smitten honestly

[mewwfr]

Oh my god, staff.....

This auraboa issue with the lore being (most likely) unintentionally racist is especially maddening to me, because the concept they seem to want to portray (based purely on the encyclopedia entry) is very similar to an OC I have, and so I can say with experience, it's incredibly difficult to convey! ESPECIALLY when you try to portray it inside a short story where you're cutting lines for word count (their forum reply mentioned they left out some lines to keep it short)

Instead of getting across the concept the encyclopedia entry seems to allude to, the short story just accidentally walks into like 10 racism rakes in a row and its truly agonizing for me to watch, knowing what i assume the actual lore's intent is.

encyclopedia quote: "Older generations of Auraboa existed in a constant state of communion with their fellows. They refer to this connection as The Loop. In this persistent state they perceive time and memory in a non-linear manner; their intertwined considerations for past and present events are such that it became difficult for a dragon outside The Loop to grasp the intentions of these ancient wyrms."

what seems to be the intention is that the auraboa are a hivemind that doesn't experience time the same way other dragons do- they experience past, present, and future all at once and thus cannot communicate well NOT because they have a different language, but because they aren't experiencing TIME ITSELF in the same fashion as the dragons! However, in practice, in the story, the auraboa seem to speak with words in the proper order, just haltingly, since otherwise the story itself couldn't work at all.

another encyclopedia bit: "The newest generation of Auraboa is not linked to The Loop in their waking hours. While they move through the world, they are less directly accessible and read as "silent" to Auraboa who are within the communal state. This disconnection has allowed the young Auraboa to experience time in a linear fashion, and with this new understanding they have begun to form connections with other species of dragon that have never before been possible."

The encyclopedia seems more clear about the Linear Time thing, and that being why they can actually communicate sensibly, but in the act of having a story where the older ones DO communicate with the outside dragons and get a point across, they've kind of not shown the reason why dragons and auraboa COULDNT communicate before! which is! a big thing!

If they'd implemented the auraboa speaking with everything in the wrong order instead of halting single words at a time, i feel like the intention would get across better. As it is, it just smacks them directly into the 'simple native' stereotype with a truly awful tripping into the 'having our kids be taught by outsiders' which is. a really wretched parallel, as many native people have spoken of the unimaginable violence of residential schools.

I feel like the encyclopedia entry Alone isn't nearly as awful (still not great, but not as bad) as the extremely poorly implemented story that managed to ddr dance onto a bunch of horrible tropes.

they were literally so bad at conveying the fact that the auraboa are a hivemind that is unmoored from time, that i see people misinterpreting the lore as auraboa having their own weird language that other dragons can't understand! there was not enough effort put into conveying the ideas they tried to convey, and what WAS put forward was literally chock full of the most unfortunate parallels physically possible.

[ratwithhands]

Fun fact I used to consume a lot of Land of the Lustrous stuff.

Anyways this is one of my many Land of the Lustrous OCs, Vivianite. Mohs hardness of 1.5, dark green/blue in colour, and very old. Due to the nature of his weak composition, Vivianite can't actually do much of anything, and has had to live under very specific conditions.

Vivianite wears a tight full body uniform to hold any chipped pieces in place, and is kept in a box stuffed with loose cloth to ensure minimal damage. If he comes into contact with light, he begins to oxidize and darken, so he's kept in a windowless room with curtains over the entrance.

That's all to say he's isolated and bored. He spends much of his time inactive, but he'll jump at the opportunity for conversation if there's someone around. Certain gems visit him to chat, get guidance, or give him the recent news. A task given to some gems is to clear his room of dust, and maybe bring him some books if he's up for it.

Vivian sees himself as an older sibling/friend to many of the other gems, and as such he's very keen on providing a listening ear and giving advice where possible to those who need it. He's essentially emotional support in a can.

Other notes/details:

not all gems know Vivian exists! He's hidden away so most gems wouldn't see him unless they were actively looking for him. A lot of the older ones know about him, but the younger ones don't

Rutile is endlessly tired of having to glue him back together so often due to his softness, which is part of why he has a tighter uniform to keep all his broken pieces in place

Vivian struggles with walking, he tends to be slow and stumbly

the tanks in Vivian's room are for jellyfish. Gems who are sent to clean his room have to switch out the jellyfish too. They're there to provide a faint light source so he doesn't go completely inactive

Vivian, despite living in a box in the dark, has a lot of technical knowledge about things as a result of millennia of going through the library collection. He' a living encyclopedia and can usually offer some answers if a gem has questions on a particular subject

his internal structure is basically a lot of shards stuck together like fibers, so he does minor repairs on himself by affixing strands of his hair into empty spots. He's had his fingers repaired and replaced this way often

In the few instances where Vivian has gone outside, he has an abnormally high amount of energy as a result of his inclusions being able to work at full capacity in the light

If I remember anything else I'll add it, anyways have a good day!

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

I love the new chaoter, but I’m having a hard time visualizing Xingqius injury. If it’s not too much trouble, can I ask for a bit more detail for that scene? Also, was it healing or uh. A full resurrection art because Qiqi can fully revive teammates at c6. Very curious about how bad it was by the time the two were in position to help him.

putting it under a cut just in case the description ends up being a bit too graphic for some (understandable) (but also it turned out a bit too long so that too)

this will all come up in the next chapter i'm pretty sure? but probably not in a lot of detail, so i see no problem in just telling you here. can't really think of it as spoilers so

(i feel like i should also preface this with the fact that i'm not a doctor, so take the accuracy and feasibility of all this as artistic liberties hahah;;)

xingqiu got slashed downwards, which means the blade entered through the lower part of his shoulderblade and crossed a good chunk of his back until it swiped off near the end of his ribcage, like this:

(the line isn't 100% accurate in placement bc i made it w the mouse but you get the idea)

the blade cut five of his ribs, a chunk of his shoulderblade, and like three discs of his spine. since it cut through the ribs, it also managed to get to his right lung, and cut open a good gash on it. as you can imagine it tore nerves and tendons and muscles along the way. now, there's also the fact that the blade used was a spiritual weapon, which means it was imbued with energy and very literal very tangible killing intent, which means it also sent a sort of… shock, through xingqiu's spiritual channels (which while not strictly undeveloped, are like still on the process of being trained if that makes any sense. he can't use any spells yet but he will soon). think of it like being electrocuted while he was at it.

so basically by the time zhongli got to him, not only was his body in shock from the pain and the fall face-first to the ground (which only made his fractured and broken ribs and spine and open lung worse), but he was also in a different kind of shock from the energetic assault from the blade to his functionally undeveloped spiritual channels. with the blood from the wound getting into his cut lung (and the pain and the shock) making it hard for him to breathe, xingqiu had been more or less on his last breaths there. if the blade hand't been a spiritual weapon he wouln't have been on death's door so quickly, but alas.

when zhongli and qiqi got there they essentially had two options: use a normal healing spell to keep him from dying and leave the rest of the tedious healing to baizhu and co. (co. here being mostly time ngl) and risk xingqiu sustaining lasting consequences AND traumatizing a bunch of them by the severity of the injury, OR- have qiqi use a direct resurrection rite, since while not quite dead just yet, xingqiu had been more or less slipping away when they got there. like normal medicine wouldn't have been able to save him basically, since his spiritual channels were attacked and those were a good part of the problem. using the resurrection rite would've not only guaranteed his surivival regardless of further treatment (normal or spiritual), but it would've also saved him from most if not all consequences and spared everyone a good chunk of the trauma (if not all of it)

zhongli didn't know for sure whether this world's baizhu used spiritual healing or just normal medicine, so he couldn't risk the first option on that front either (because while yes normal medicine would've still somewhat worked there, it would've left xingqiu with lasting consequences no matter what, and even worse consequences at that), not to mention all the other drawbacks of it too. so basically either they used a normal spell and put xingqiu's normalcy on the line, or used a resurrection rite and pretended zhongli did it to make sure everything would turn out fine

for the record, baizhu does use spiritual healing. idk if it's ever gonna come up, but he's a student of chansheng here, who is a master in one of the chenyu clans (and a human. he does also have a pet snake. unrelated lmao). since lingmeng guhua is technically a chenyu clan, that's why he gets called to these events, bc they all sort of know eachother.

anyway- i hope that made sense? hopefully that answered your question hahah;;