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bitimdrake · 1 year

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pssssst hey quick question on the dl - who is helena bartinelli??

i cannot answer anon questions on the dl, so answer on the up-high, which she deserves:

HUNTRESS

a.k.a. Helena Bertinelli, a.k.a. Gotham's coolest and most notable antihero, crossbow-wielder, and purple bat-associated vigilante.

Helena was born to an Italian mob family, but spent her childhood blissfully unaware of the family business--until her entire family was slaughtered in front of her when she was eight. She stayed with family overseas for the rest of her childhood, learning how to fight and protect herself.

She came back to Gotham for both vengeance and justice, and became one of Gotham's many vigilantes. Though her focus is on the mob, she'll step in to stop any crime.

She's also a schoolteacher! Good for her.

She is discerning in who she chooses to kill, but she does kill. As you can imagine, this put her at odds with Batman for a long time. Helena is pretty much the premiere example of Bruce trying to claim control over every vigilante in Gotham, no matter how little right he has. The argument on killing/ethics is valid, but his default was basically "do exactly what I say and fall in line under my command, or stop completely," which is why he's an asshole control freak and why I'm constantly mad about how she was treated 👍

She was an absolute mainstay of the Batfamily before Flashpoint (2011) and it is personally hurtful to me that people don't know her. (Like, to be frank? She had far more of a presence than Damian or (living) Jason in the post-crisis era.)

You could count on seeing her in any major Batfamily crossover, from Cataclysm to Battle for the Cowl.

She was central to the biggest Batfamily crossover ever, No Man's Land, where Gotham was locked off from the rest of the country and turned into a lawless wasteland. Bruce left to sulk for the first couple of months and in absence of any other vigilantes in the field (only Oracle having remained in the city), Helena donned the mantle of the Bat for herself to protect the city. And when Batman came back, in return for all she'd done, she got...yelled at, assigned impossible tasks and criticized for not achieving them, her costume stolen and given to someone else, lied to, abandoned in the face of impossible odds, and shot multiple times protecting kids. Absolute fucking hero, honestly.

She also was on the Justice League for a while, though admittedly I have barely touched that run. To my understanding, despite nominating her for the position, Bruce was also the one to revoke her membership there.

Fortunately! things improved!!

In the early/mid 2000s, Helena joined the Birds of Prey, Oracle's team, and found legit friendships and support there with teammates like Dinah Lance/Black Canary. She finally got more respect in the community, and had a much better time.

Additional relationships include:

A big sister/annoying little brother type thing with Tim, who may disapprove of her killing but simply likes making friends too much :)

A great relationship with Vic Sage/the Question

One single issue where she met Steph that presented SUCH interesting potential that I desperately wish had been followed up on

On and off romantic/sexual tension with Dick, depending on the writer, which culminated in a single hook up that apparently most people around here would rather pretend didn't happen, though I really don't think it's that bad

A complicated relationship with Barbara, partially due to clashing personalities and conflicting morals (with Babs being nearly as much of a control freak as Bruce), and partially due to a shared history with Dick because DC loves making women be catty

Surely others from her first solo or time on the JLA that I don't know well enough to list!

She's rad and determined and takes no shit but cares a lot, and I love her. We deserve more stories tying her teaching day job into her night work. We also deserve more stories with her in general.

If you would like additional Helena beyond just cruising my tag, I recommend:

Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood - far more Huntress than Batman, this is a great 6-issue miniseries about Helena reckoning with her past, ft the Question.

Batman: No Man's Land - if you have the time for it, a big storyline but worth it.

Birds of Prey vol 1 (1999) - Helena starts to appear around issue #57 and becomes a central character from there.

#*#ask #anon #*dc #dc #dc ref #helena bertinelli #huntress #batfam #batman #10to2

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clonehub · 1 year

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Episode 12 of the bad batch

One day. One day I'll write video essay on this series and it'll just be me struggling not to say "mediocre" and "grand waste of animation" over and over

Oh her name is eleni

Given everything rampart is a solid antagonist. Altho I guess it's because the Kaminoans (Nala se) are being rehabilitated? Almost. And rampart just got that Cunning Patient Energy that characters in his position tend to have.

I'm not sure his undercut goes low enough lol

Oh I've always loved chopper

I love when they get like normie ass voices for side characters theyre a breath of fresh air in this show

Why do they have the gonk droid? Is he just like a pet?

Also lmao @ "he's a defective unit" I see this was meant to be like a "we collect defects this is the misfit club" Emotional Line. Too bad it didn't work because they went out of their way in the first like 3 episodes to make sure we don't understand them as defective. At all. In fact that they're multiply enhanced and better than everyone on purpose.

GIRL NO YOIRE NOT?????? YOURE NKT DEFECTIVE AAAHHHH--

Tech pls. "Children often overreact" bc......you have so much experience w children lol

Also how does "the empire took my parents" sound like an overreaction

Yeah this is what Omegas arcs tend to be--convincing tbb to help other people. I can see how this would be written as a Good Conflict to consistently have, as one could argue tbbs lack of concern for other folks and their unwillingness to help others stems from them originally doing that with regs all the damn time so no they're self centered as a default. Like I can see how that could be a potential understanding here but unforch the execution of it :/

Assassination attempt? I thought he was dead

The rare presentation of hunters special senses

I wonder how they divide the sectors

They. Always have Hunter at the worst angles for his close ups he's always got his head bent but eyes upward like he's looking at something while Posing idk

Hunter has a point and omega has a point wow. The most like. Moral ambiguity we get in this series so far

Meilooruns!

Now crosshair is gonna feel the need to prove himself since it's been implied that howzer (a reg) might replace him for this job and be proven to be better than him. If the series could lean in more to Crosshairs insecurity issues (at least they look like that to me) it would be massively improved

Brother? Him? Yeah Hera yeah....

But this is literally the first time Omega calls them her brothers.

Nice use of a pause I think

This is some of the most emotional VAing I've heard from this man in literal years.

I like that Echo and Tech are taking her seriously

I think Hunters face model is just weird

I wish they'd do a wider variety of body types for bg characters

The way chopper moves is so fnsndnaksnaka

Pls he's so violent

How is Echo climbing??

Omega needs kids her age to be conniving friends w I feel like she should get into trouble

I just have to tune out techs British accent

Not him closing the curtain fansbaknsajaj

"I should have stopped this sooner" is kinda crazy because he's one guy like

Look at crosshair underestimating his enemy 😊

Chips having a wear off is an interesting mechanic. As dehumanizing as this show can be to the regs the ability for them to get their humanity back is nice

I think Hera might just be tall for her age

Crosshair having a whole face journey and I am not deciphering a single part of it. Seemed like conviction and hesitation in equal measure

#ch posts #tbb rewatch

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batmansymbol · 3 years

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hi riley! read this recently and would love to get ur perspective on this as a YA author https://tinyletter.com/misshelved/letters/did-twitter-break-ya-misshelved-6

hi anon! yeah, i read this the day it was posted. thoughts/supplementary essay below.

firstly, i'd put a big "I AGREE" stamp across this essay. i think it's well-cited and thoughtful, and i agree with pretty much everything in it. i especially appreciate it for introducing me to the terms "context collapse" and "morally motivated networked harassment" - seeing internet sociology studied and labeled is ... odd, but useful.

i left twitter in 2017, but i keep an eye on things, which seem similar now to the way they were four years ago. the essay describes the never-ending scrutiny, the need to seem perfect, and the pressure on writers to out themselves. all of that is spot-on. twitter is an outing machine. there is so much harassment and anger on the platform that in serious conversations, good-faith engagement becomes something that must be earned, rather than something that's expected. and in order to earn good faith, strangers expect you to offer up an all-access pass to who you are. otherwise, things might take a swift left turn into verbal abuse.

obviously twitter is a cesspit of harassment from racist, homophobic, and transphobic people, but i think the most painful harassment comes from within the community. i, and most people i know, wouldn't give a single minuscule little fuck if ben shapiro's entire army of ghouls came after us and told us we were destroying the sacred values of Old America or whatever. but the community at large does care about issues of racial justice and queer liberation and economic justice. which is why it's painful to see this supposed "community" eating its own over and over again.

how cruel can we be to people and pretend that we are their friends? that's the emotional crux of the essay to me. what we're doing to ourselves - people who do share our values and want to achieve the same goals - because this one platform is built on rewarding the quickest, most brutal, and most public response.

god forbid you don't have your identity figured out. god forbid you have an invisible disability, or are writing a story about something sensitive you've personally experienced but had an off-consensus reaction to. on twitter, if you are not a paragon of absolute and immediate clarity, you may as well be lower than dirt morally, because you're unable to do what the platform requires of you: air every private corner of your identity, up to and including your trauma, to justify not only your everyday actions and opinions but also your art.

(this is all honestly incompatible with interesting art, but i'll get to that in a bit.)

it doesn't take a genius to see how troubling this environment is when combined with twitter as a marketing tool. i remember that around the time of my debut, i'd tweet out threads of private, painful, personal stuff, which felt terrible to recount, but i'd watch the like count increase with this sense of catholic, confessional satisfaction. all of this was tied to the idea of my potential salability as a writer.

i was around 21 at the time. i felt a lot of pressure as a debut. i wanted people to like me and think i was exceptionally mature and confident. i wanted to do my job and build buzz for my book. i saw that all these publishing professionals and authors spent day in, day out angry and exhausted on twitter. every few days, a new person fifteen years older than me would say, "i can't take this anymore, i'm so fucking tired of this, i'm logging off for a while." i thought, well, this must be how online activism feels: like running on a sprained ankle.

i can still remember book after book after book that inspired blow-ups, big explanations, and simmering resentment: carve the mark (whose author was forced to admit that she suffered chronic pain after relentless criticism of that element), the black witch (a book explicitly about unlearning racism that was criticized for depicting ... racism), ramona blue (a book about a bi girl who thinks she's a lesbian but winds up in an m/f relationship, because she's still discovering her identity) ... etc

each book, each incident, followed the same pattern. firestorms of anger, a decision of where to place blame, the desperate need for a single consensus opinion in the community. i think a lot of people on book twitter see these as bugs inherent to the platform, but really, in twitter's eyes, they're features. the angrier and more upset twitter's userbase is, the more reliant they are on the platform.

i wound up leaving around the time i realized that not only was twitter making me anxious - NOT being on twitter was beginning to make me anxious, because of vaguely dread-infused tweets all around like "i'm seeing an awful lot of people who are staying silent about X. ... why are so many people who are so loud about X so silent about Y?" etc.

that shit is beyond poisonous. people will not always be logged on. the absence of someone's agreement does not mean disagreement. actually, someone's absence is not inherently meaningful, because it is the internet and silence is everyone's default position; internet silence in all likelihood means that that person is out in the universe doing other things.

this is already a ridiculously long response, so i'll try to wrap up. firstly, i think that progressive writers and readers have GOT to stop thinking that a correct consensus opinion can exist on every piece of fiction, and on every issue in general, and that if someone diverges from that consensus, they're incorrectly progressive.

secondly, i think that progressive writers and readers have got to uncouple the idea of a "book with good politics" from a good book, because 1) there are books about morally grimy, despicable subjects that help us process the landscape of human behavior, and

2) if, in your fiction, there is only one set of allowed responses for your protagonist, you will write the same person over and over and over again. you see this a lot in religious fiction. the person is not a human being but an expression of the creator's moral alignment. (not entirely surprising that this similarity to religious correctness might crop up with the current state of the movement. i read this piece around the time i left twitter and it shook me really, really deeply.)

i understand that in YA, there's a sensation of immense pressure because people want to model good politics and correct behavior for kids. this is a noble idea - and maybe twitter is great for people who want to be role models. but i've become more and more staunchly against the idea of artist as role model. the role of the writer is not to be emulated but to write fiction. and the role of fiction is not to read like something delivered from a soapbox, or to display some scrubbed-clean universe where each wrong is immediately identified as a wrong, and where total morality is always glowing in the backdrop. it's to put something human on paper, and as human beings, we might aspire to total morality, but we fall short again and again. honestly, that's what being on twitter showed me more clearly than anything.

#reply #ya lit #personal #the discourse tm #essay

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itsjustthechems · 3 years

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Musings on Danse's political/moral alignments

I saw a post mentioning how a lot of the Fo4 fandom associates Danse with current American conservatives. I disagree, and just want to ramble about my feelings on the subject.

Yes, he is a meathead asshole.

I totally understand taking Danse at face value and assigning him mentally to the "bigoted bootlicker" category. That's totally valid. Unless you travel with him extensively and pay close attention to his ambient dialogue, it's understandable to figure that's just how Bethesda wrote him.

Danse's backstory

To understand Danse's moral and political standings, we have to take a look at his origin story. As far as Danse is aware, he grew up alone in the Capital Wasteland. He was an orphan that scrounged for scrap metal and other junk, which he sold to get by. He had no known family, parental figures, or mentors of any sort. He had one friend, Cutler, who was around his age. The Brotherhood of Steel, much like the real U.S. military, preyed on people like this for recruitment missions. Teenagers of low socioeconomic status - hungry, lonely, desperate, unsure of their purpose. Of course Danse and Cutler would elect to join the Brotherhood, which promised them food, protection, somewhere to sleep at night, and above all else - camaraderie. During one of his affinity dialogues, Danse admits that joining the Brotherhood seemed like the only way to escape his situation.

The Brotherhood took advantage of Danse and other soldiers' naivety and lack of experience by instilling fear and hatred of the misunderstood (synths, ghouls, mutants) and using those negative feelings to shape their training. Dare to disagree with their belief system? At best, you would be disciplined. Verbally abused by the Elder and shunned by your friends and mentors. At worst, you'd be booted out - back to the Wasteland you had been taught to fear unconditionally. Back to starvation, radiation, poverty, and isolation.

After a year of service, Cutler disappeared on a mission. Danse searched for him for three weeks, finally tracing him to a super mutant hive. Cutler had been exposed to FEV and had become a super mutant. Danse killed him. He admits that he doesn't know if it was the right thing to do, but it was what he had been trained to do.

That was the first circumstance that really gave me a glimpse into the nuance of Danse's beliefs. Like...wait, he questions his oh-so-precious-and-infallible training?

Is he still a douche to almost all non-human NPCs? Yes. However, I don't think he knows how to be anything other than a condescending, militant, Brotherhood heavy. That kind of attitude is what got him promoted so quickly. It's what got him out of his bottom-of-the-pecking-order trainee position, where he had felt singled out by his superiors. He learned that bigotry and cold-heartedness were the only methods of survival and success in the Brotherhood.

His character arc

Danse is not meant to be a one-dimensional, blatantly bigoted character. If he was, I don't think Bethesda would have made him romance-able. In fact, that's why you can't romance him until after his character arc quest: Blind Betrayal.

Spoiler alert! On this quest, you find out that Danse is a synth. He had no idea, and has a subsequent identity crisis that leaves him suicidal. This is the breaking point in the struggle between his own innate morality and his Brotherhood training. His default stance is that he should be killed to uphold the Brotherhood's code — he even offers to do the deed himself to protect the Sole Survivor from disciplinary action (a true testament to the brutality of the Brotherhood — Danse would rather die than allow Sole, his best friend, to face Maxson's wrath). However, through charisma checks, you can remind him of his own humanity and convince him not to harm himself. This breakthrough leads him to recognize that synths are truly nothing to be afraid of.

After Blind Betrayal, he will agree with most dialogue options supporting synths. According to the wiki, any leftover dislikes regarding synth-related dialogue are glitches.

There are other moments in separate quests that reference his moral confusion — for example, he likes when you help Kent, who is a ghoul, but doesn't like if you flirt with Holly, also a ghoul (maybe that's just some jealousy, lmao).

He also dislikes when you give Virgil, a mutant scientist, the serum that will help him return to his human form. My personal headcanon is that seeing Virgil cure himself forces Danse to address the fact that he might have been able to save Cutler, but killed him instead, due to his Brotherhood brainwashing.

Evidence of Danse's fiscal/economic beliefs

Danse is a COMRADE. You heard me. This man's pussy pops for socialized medicine. When you walk through Milton General Hospital, he says: "Facilities like this were funded by privately owned corporations more interested in making a profit than helping mankind."

You heard me, this man hates capitalism. Behold:

"Vault-Tec built places like this to conduct unethical experiments on human beings. Just thinking about it makes me sick."

"It was corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for mankind. They exploited technology for their own gains, pocketing the cash and ignoring the damage they'd done."

"Private corporations like Vault-Tec ruined mankind. All that brainpower put to waste..."

"This is disgusting. I can't believe Mass Fusion dumped these barrels here. This is the perfect example of how environmentally irresponsible the ancient corporations behaved."

"This is exactly the reason that science never belonged in the private sector."

Ugh. Really gets me goin'.

Conclusion

He has several other comments that suggest he is generally anti-war, is very pro-education, shows appreciation for the arts, loves children and animals...several things that conservatives couldn't care less about. He reacts angrily to greed, assaulting or harassing any non-hostiles (including synths, ghouls, and mutants), turning your back on beggars, harming non-hostile animals, etc. In my opinion, he's a pretty stand-up guy once he completes his character arc.

Does he still love the taste of boots? Yeah, and he probably always will. :/

Bethesda did him so dirty by not finishing his character arc. The fact that he still gushes about the Brotherhood and acts as if he's still in their ranks after Blind Betrayal is pretty clear evidence that he's a generally unfinished character. I think he had the potential to become a more accepting, radicalized, philanthropic individual after recognizing the shortcomings of the Brotherhood's ideals.

But yeah. I love this handsome dumbass, and I personally consider him a comrade, not a conservative. Kudos if you read this far into my crazed ramblings!

#paladin danse #danse #fallout 4 #fallout #fo4 #blind betrayal #spoilers #tw suicide

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soranis-sunshadow · 3 years

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Why Hordak and all of his brothers are cult victims suffering from Religious Trauma Syndrome

A detailed (and very, very, veeeeryy long) explanation on why I take issue with dismissing Hordak’s trauma as “daddy issues” that is frequently done as a way to hand wave his background and the context for his actions all while attributing said cultic abuse and indoctrination narrative to a character that, though has a tragic, abuse-laden past has never actually been part of a cult. *cough* Catra *cough*

Lets see how deep the rabit hole goes shall we?

First off: The Galactic Horde is based on a suicide cult, with Horde Prime as its leader.

That is irrefutable fact. It has been stated by the show runner and there are plenty of in-show examples of religious speak, religious themes pertaining to Horde Prime and his acolytes and even the interior design of Horde Prime’s ship is that of a grandiose Cathedral.

The source of this is an article by Polygon where the show runner breaks down what went into creating Horde Prime. (link in the notes)

Onto The Etherian Horde – though totalitarian in nature, it is not a religious institution – merely a military operation. Though the argument could be made that propaganda is used to instill an anti-princess agenda, no horde members are ever seen spouting doctrine or discrimination against their very own Princess in the ranks – Scorpia. Not only is she not discriminated against, she holds the rank of Force Captain. She also has the respect of her peers.

The only person that seemed to have taken it seriously is Adora, who - due to Shadow Weaver’s personal attention – has been raised with the specific mindset of a self-sacrificing martyr. After learning of the fact that Shadow Weaver has always known about the Heart of Etheria, it is not a huge leap to assume that in her bid for more power, her plan had always been to have Adora unleash the planet’s magic, possibly sacrificing herself in the process. Shadow Weaver had groomed her for this specific purpose. (It’s one of the reasons for which the subject of Adora’s martyrdom hurts Catra so deeply –she had been witness to the manipulation taking place but was powerless to do anything about it for most of her life)

The other cadets are more well-adjusted and don’t seem to care much about the horde’s ideology or goals, not even Catra who has suffered the brunt of Shadow Weaver’s psychological and physical abuse and has been subjected to her manipulation too.

The above exchange proves that even if there had been any indoctrination in The Etherian Horde, it has failed in affecting Catra’s judgment. I am legitimately surprised on how little credit her own fans give her and on how her perceptiveness and intellect is dismissed to have her fit into this “brainwashed victim“ agenda for more “sympathy points”.

With that having been said I’ll start this off with a bit of a definition: Religious Trauma Syndrome is a common experience shared among many who have escaped cults, fundamentalist religious groups, abusive religious settings, or other painful experiences with religion.

The symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome are comparable to the symptoms of complex PTSD. The symptoms are as follows.

(link in the notes)

I will discuss all of the symptoms and causes by turn and expand upon them.

1) Cognitive: Confusion, poor critical thinking ability, difficulty with decision-making,

negative beliefs about self-ability & self-worth, black & white thinking, perfectionism,

Hordak’s whole misguided crusade on Etheria is an act of confusion. What on green Earth had ever convinced him that it would work in proving his worth to Prime? Hordak had been confused on the reason of his rejection, self-delusional even. Hear me out:

Despite what Hordak himself believes, he wasn’t excommunicated because he was useless, he was abandoned for being born defective, aka for existing as he was created.

His inborn defect, by nature of being an unchangeable fact was not something that he could overcome in order to earn back the acceptance of his Maker. To a certain degree, he was aware of this but had refused to acknowledge it and as such, he has framed it to himself as “his defect makes him worthless”.

By overcoming uselessness and proving his competence in furthering Prime’s goals, he had convinced himself that he would be welcome back into his brother’s flock.

He had convinced himself that by proving his usefulness, it would erase his defect. He had given himself a reason for rejection that, unlike an inborn one, could be overcome - worthlessness. His logic being that Worthless=Defective, if he were useful, he wouldn’t be defective anymore.

He has framed his accidental stranding on Etheria as a trial of faith, not a chance at freedom or bid for power and self-actualization.

In his confused reasoning, he had not realized that by attempting to prove his worth to Horde Prime, he would be in essence, proving that Prime had been mistaken about his deficiency. This was anathema to Horde Prime’s own doctrine – that Prime is all knowing, all powerful and Horde Prime is Never Wrong. His attempts were always destined to fail from the start, the premise was flawed at the core but Hordak’s own wishful thinking prevented him from seeing the fault in his mission.

This is how Hordak sees himself:

This defect => useless => worthless mentality can be observed when he projects onto Catra. I swear, everyone projects onto everyone else in this series.

This is an example of him emulating the only leadership he’s ever known - that of Horde Prime and exerting Prime’s judgment over a supplicant or Prime – In this case Catra (what Prime would have done to him in the same situation). He imitates Prime’s way of speaking and even his facial expression during Prime’s “speeches” (look at position of his ears in this scene and that little dimple damnit!!!)

(yes, *sigh* I did a spacebat ear position diagram)

Horde Prime has that ear position even when possessing his little brothers to give his grandiose speeches:

Hordak’s and other little brother’s “default” ear position:

It’s worth adding that perfectionism is not only part of a symptom of his cult trauma but also a tenant of Prime’s doctrine making it a double whammy.

2). Emotional: Depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loneliness, difficulty with pleasure, loss of meaning

As they say, a picture says a thousand words…

To call Hordak depressed is like calling the ocean mildly humid.

He is alone, on a planet of primitive aliens (from his perspective) surrounded by potential enemies and in an incredibly vulnerable position due to his illness with no clear end to any of it in sight. He feels nothing for this world other than irritation at his inability to leave it. His only meaning and purpose is returning to his congregation, a purpose he is no closer to fulfilling than he was when he had started a few decades ago. The only open displays of emotion he manifests are that of anger, self-loathing., frustration, fear – in the blanket scene before he comes to his senses completely and starts masking the fear with anger… at the blanket… there was nothing else in the room to be angry at… ridiculous spacebat.

After Catra deceives him about Entrapta, he openly manifests grief and apathy as well.

3). Social: Loss of social network, family rupture, social awkwardness, behind schedule on developmental tasks, sexual difficulty (no snu snu for religiously repressed spacebats... yet *wink wink*)

This one is self-explanatory. He is in essence an exile on Etheria, away from all he has ever known. He is the only one of his kind on the planet, even Imp - his attempt at replication is not a proper replacement for the community provided by the Hive mind.

From a social perspective- he is a recluse and is not seen interacting with anyone in anything but a “professional “ manner. The only exception to this is Entrapta’s interaction to him. Due to her indifference to his posturing, she is immune to his attempts at self-isolation. “Get out!” and vague threats of reprimands don’t work on her. Their shared interest in science allows Entrapta to force the interaction on him. (At least in the beginning of their collaboration)

Later, after having become accustomed to Entrapta’s companionship and having that ripped away, he tries to form a connection – at least of commiseration – with Catra:

Even after she did this to him:

he still tried to form a connection through their shared need to prove their own worth.

Did you catch that little detail? : “Victory is ours” not “mine”.

4.) Cultural: Unfamiliarity with secular world; “fish out of water” feelings, difficulty belonging, information gaps (e.g. evolution, modern art, music)

…

Do I really need to expand on this one? *Sigh* … he is literally an alien to this world, “fish out of water” would be an understatement.

As we have established, he fits the bill of Religious Trauma Syndrome to a T. He presents all of the symptoms.

Now let’s move onto the causes of it:

1). Suppression of normal child development – cognitive, social, emotional, moral stages are arrested

This one is self-explanatory. The horde clones and by extension Hordak are severely stunted in their psychological development and that is by design. They are deliberately kept from developing an adult mentality so as to never become a threat to Horde Prime or ever be able to break away from his control. Prime keeps them in a child-like dependency on him as a way to exert his power over them. Should they ever develop even a budding sense of self, their indoctrination compels them to submit to correction and erasure ensuring that they never surpass this state of learned helplessness. Horde Prime encourages this self-flagellating behavior, deeming it a mercy, even a favor to be granted – to suffer in His Name.

Hordak shows almost no emotional coping mechanisms and manifests child-like tantrums of frustration as an only outlet for his emotions throughout the show. He attempts to hide any other attempt at emotion, with differing degrees of success.

Wrong Hordak is emotionally unstable and is prone to fits of crying. (However, due to the comedic fashion in which his arc is written, I suppose that this could be taken with a grain of salt)

The clones are not only prevented from growing and maturing mentally, they are also robbed of childhoods –having been born in adult bodies and with the necessary knowledge to serve Prime literally programmed into them so as to make them able to serve efficiently from their first breath. As such, they are robbed of their formative years where one individual grows and develops naturally. Those precious experiences are replaced by Horde Prime’s literal programming through the hardware they have installed in their bodies to facilitate Horde Prime’s control over them (without their consent). In essence, they are a people born pre-”chipped”

Regardless of their actual age, and despite the fact that they are intelligent, capable and responsible individuals, I see the clones as having the emotional maturity of toddlers.

They never had the chance to develop any emotional coping skills, they were never allowed to have emotions to begin with.

2). Damage to normal thinking and feeling abilities -information is limited and controlled; dysfunctional beliefs taught; independent thinking condemned; feelings condemned

This is The Galactic Horde’s core belief:

Along with:

Incidentally, Hordak does his version of this speech trying to puff himself up in front of his soldiers… buuut Catra pushes the Failure button and that snaps him out of his little Prime impersonation moment.

More dysfunctional beliefs:

Condemnation of independent thinking:

Results in this:

No further explanations are necessary…

3). External locus of control – knowledge is revealed, not discovered; hierarchy of authority enforced; self not a reliable or good source

Prime exerts his dominance throughout S5 by force,

and coercion:

He is even petty and vindictive enough to force himself into Hordak immediately after his speech and to kill Entrapta with Hordak’s own body.

As for the self not being a reliable narrator… Hordak believed this about his former position.

He is not prone to exaggeration or deception being woefully incompetent in the latter – both perpetrating and spotting it. We have to assume that this is the way he saw his position in the Galactic Horde.

Season 5 revealed that all of the clones are equally disposable and interchangeable, there are no ranks. They are all equal tools whose sole purpose is furthering Horde Prime’s agenda. Horde Prime has no need for generals or delegating since he is able to inhabit his little brothers and be in more than one place at the same time. Hordak’s job in S5 was that of hall monitor and planetary acquisitions guy…

@cruelfeline goes into detail about the dissonance between what Hordak believes and what is actually his position in The Galactic Horde. A link to it is in the notes because Tumblr is being fussy.

4.) Physical and sexual abuse – patriarchal power; unhealthy sexual views; punishment used as for discipline

Some people have seen this, ugh… form of penetration… ugh again… as rape allegory.

Not a hard thing to do since Prime himself is rape personified and he consistently forces himself onto and into his little brothers, Catra and later, the chipped Etherians. Prime does nothing but "bad touch" people all of S5 and is particularly enjoying his disciplining of his "wayward little brother", the most unworthy and unlovable amongst his brothers. (According to the extended scene)

Here’s some more of Prime’s touching with rape subtext:

Here’s more of Prime forcing himself into his little brothers – they all seem to fight it and find it painful to some degree despite the fact that they have been conditioned to accept it and welcome it. Prime’s touch is a good thing, even when it hurts them.

Ironically, the one who fights this violation the least is Hordak himself. (this could be either because he’s extra repentant and wished not to further draw Prime’s ire or that his condition of chronic illness has raised his pain threshold)

The process of possession is not seamless and some of the clones appear to be unsettled by it after prime retreats from their bodies.

As much as this Utter Disaster of a clone wanted to finish his little speech about dirt and as much as he was gleefully enjoying it, after Prime was done with him… he just wanted his task over with…

The very nature of their indoctrination makes them unable to escape what has been done to them nor change their whole world view without outside intervention – which is exactly the help that Wrong Hordak received immediately after being abducted from the collective by people who slowly de-indoctrinated him and offered him a supportive environment for all of that growth and healing to happen.

When the Best Friend Squad kidnapped him, he was ardent about his service to Prime and he only followed them because they deceived him in believing they were servants of Horde Prime.

By providing clear irrefutable evidence of Prime’s fallibility, deceit and the squad’s (mostly Entrapta and Glimmer) moral support throughout this moral crisis, they (just Entrapta here *coughs* ) were able to wean him off of his programmed behavior and offer him an informed choice.

This is information none of the other clones, not even Hordak were privy to.

Even with this information, Wrong Hordak is still in emotional turmoil (though the show plays it for laughs – yuck)

The closest Hordak ever gets to walking away from Prime’s doctrine is this moment:

He was considering indefinitely putting it off to stay here, with her, and her worldview that he could be worth something, imperfect as he is. He is offered her emotional support and guidance.

Unfortunately... Catra nipped that in the bud before it could lead anywhere.

After convincing Hordak that Entrapta betrayed him, her message of inherent worth was rendered null, to him - her unconditional affection and the notion that he could to live apart from Prime were a manipulation. This further radicalized him in his faith and need to prove his worthiness.

Not only did Catra remove Entrapta’s influence over him, she goaded him even further with this cursed little speech and her whole “yass queen moment!”. you know the one...

“Get.Over.IT! You don’t need Entrapta. You never did. You don’t need a Princess in your life telling you what to do. Look at what you’ve done without her. You’ve build an army. An empire! You and me, we don’t need anyone. Forget them all. No one matters, nothing matters but this mission. You want to prove yourself, prove your worth? Then do it! You and I are going to conquer Etheria. And then, they’ll all see!”

Both of them were in clear downfall in S4 and they amplified each other’s most negative tendencies. I will not hold this against her.

The last thing I want to mention is that for cult victims, it is incredibly hard, if not, almost impossible to leave their cults by themselves. The first step for leaving a cult in the real world is looking for outside assistance.

It takes enormous amounts of strength – an almost imaginable degree of resolve – to leave a cult, particularly when you may have been born into one and have no friends or connections on the outside world. Cult survivors are often ostracized by everyone they have ever known who remain within the organization. To a cultist, the world outside the cult is a hostile, sinful and dangerous place. The assistance of someone from the outside is crucial.

Only with the assistance of a “friendly outsider” or a support group can the former cultist change the world view with which they had been indoctrinated with (sometime since early childhood).

A cult and set of beliefs warps your whole world view to the point of delusion. Faith in the cultic creeds is more important than factual evidence. As a matter of fact, the evidence in itself is evil, a contradiction to the creeds of faith and successfully denying it is an act of faith fulfilled. This mentality is encouraged in cults.

Many people in this fandom have claimed that Hordak, once pulled through the portal was free to do as he pleases. (he didn’t chose to come to Etheria – his arrival on the planet was accidental)

This is not really the case. Hordak never decided to leave the cult. He was still part of the cult when he was sent to his death on the battlefield for his defect and he was still a believer when the portal delivered him to Etheria.

In essence, Hordak didn’t leave his cult so much as he was forced apart from it, physically. In spirit, he still believed in Horde Prime’s dogma. His experience is the equivalent of a religious man getting stranded on an island in the middle of the ocean. He is apart from his church, but his faith is still with him. Hordak’s faith hadn’t waned in the decades of separation. His purpose had always been returning to Horde Prime –hence the focus on building a portal and not on levelling towns with an arm laser cannons. He has proven in S4 that, had his main mission actually been conquest, he could have done it with not much difficulty – He wasn’t half bad at it actually. Instead, he delegated the conquest to his underlings and focused most of his attention on attempts at reuniting with Horde Prime via investigating rogue portals and trying to build one of his own.

Due to the nature of his “upbringing”, Hordak’s whole world view is warped. He has not had the benefits of a “moral” education from a human’s standpoint. Why would training cadets to become soldiers in your army be morally reprehensible when you, yourself, had been bred for war and have served your God with your first breath?

This was Hordak’s idea of a “normal” childhood:

What could he possibly know about the healthy raising of children?

Why would conquering a planet be a morally reprehensible thing when his God did this to places?

And this:

Before one ascribes evil motivation, for the sake of evil – one should bear in mind that these creeds were literally programmed into him. This is not a life he has chosen for himself– this is something he was born into, literally manufactured for, this is something that was done to him.

And for those that would have wanted him to regret his actions on screen, keep in mind that it will likely take a lot of therapy and reeducation before he even comprehends the nature and magnitude of his crimes on Etheria.

(besides the fact that he had spent 99% of season 5 in an amnesiac daze doesn’t help with the whole remembering his crimes bit either)

The show runner has declared in one of her post show interview that he will make reparations for the damage he’s caused.

What more do people want from a person born and flung into an impossible situation besides his head on a plate?

Phew!

Long post was long

#hordak #horde prime #catra #spop discourse #spop meta #cultic indoctrination #religious trauma #will you stop calling them daddy issues now?

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fruitless-nonsense · 3 years

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So long time no see huh?

I just wanna say that I never thought that anybody would acknowledge my input in a million years. No one in my friend group really watched either tvd or to, so this blog is the first time I’ve ever let this out, and the fact that there were people that actually liked what I said meant so much to me I can’t even describe.

Onto why I haven’t posted in a while, that’s just my slow brain. With work and family, my brain likes to fixate on something related to writing and I become obsessed for a while. What started to grind on me was the amount I was putting out versus everything else I had to do in my life, so I decided to take a little break in which time I relearned my love of drawing, but I digress.

I still wanna post on here and plan to do so (maybe some actual tvd analysis idk), but it’s not gonna be as frequently as it was last month. That being said, I still adore each and every one of y’all especially those interacting with me and would still be honored to answer any asks I get the privilege of receiving.

With that introduction out of the way, I’ve decided to talk about some characters rather than another ship (mostly because I’ve already tackled the big ones as far as to is concerned), and these characters are none other than Matt Donovan and Jackson Kenner!

Finally talking directly about the vampire diaries (yay)! Confession: I don’t like Matt. Here’s the thing, the show tries to position him as the “nice guy” of mystic falls. This worked because they place him next to the other male characters (all problematic) during season one. I mean, there’s Damon (narcissistic psychopath), Stefan (recovering addict and vampire), Tyler (abusive bully), and Jeremy (temperamental and moody addict). When we look at Matt next to these guys of course we’d be forgiven for thinking he’s a good person, but what happens when he’s placed next to humans that are considered good individuals?

First example, Caroline! Disclaimer: if you are the kind of person who thinks Caroline was a horrible character until she became a vampire and basically like to tone police her for being an alpha female with completely human flaws that made her such a relatable character (not for me specifically, but even I could notice how real she felt), you’re wrong. I’m not gonna get mad at you, I’m just asking you to take a good look at what you consider a “good female character” and ask yourself what that says about you. That being said, as much as I love Caroline’s characterization in season one, I don’t like how the writers just made her story being a victim the entire time. The most obvious case of this was with Damon, which I know might take y’all a second because Damon fans love to sweep his season one actions under the rug just like the writers. What Damon did to Caroline was disturbing and made me uncomfortable (and they say Klaus compelling Cami was the first time compulsion was broken down with how messed up it could be). The worst part is seeing other characters be aware of this and doing nothing to help her, but this isn’t about Damon. That was the first half of the season, the second half shows a potential ship of Matt and Caroline which was…yikes.

I don’t wanna assume the worst, but I do find it rather clever in a sick way how the writers placed Caroline in a physically abusive relationship with Damon only to place her into an emotionally abusive relationship, so we’re too busy comparing Matt to Damon that we miss how Matt would stand on his own (but that’s just a theory). I know this was season one, but after rewatching a fiftieth time, I can’t help but notice how much Matt belittles her (ex. calls her crazy in a diagnosis kind of way instead of joking), this doesn’t even get into the Elena situation. I do respect him flat out telling Caroline that he’s not over Elena, but there’s that and reminiscing about his relationship with her in front of Caroline and Stefan! And they show Caroline so upset by it and Matt doesn’t even care, but he can’t do anything wrong! Seriously, looking back every argument always ends with Caroline being completely in the wrong and needing to apologize while Matt doesn’t have to do anything. Matt treated her like she was second best, something we knew from the pilot was a big insecurity for her. Why is this ignored?

Second reason: he’s so controlling. Like, it’s not just the writers and the characters singing his praises, he does it to himself. He can hate vampires, but it’s the fact he goes around saying “man, it’s hard being the only nice guy in this town, I have to be the moral center while all of my friends make horrible decisions which I will repeatedly tell them because I’m so smart and know what’s best for them. Man, it’s so hard being me.” This Matt challenges Damon for most insufferable character on screen. Best example is in season three when he drugs Elena and drives her out of town because it’s what’s “best for her” (okay dude). Again, I get he hates vampires, but so does Bonnie, yet despite this she still respects her friends choices because she understands it’s their lives (also I hate that every time Bonnie does get judge mental of her friends the show treats it like she’s being unreasonable and a bad friend, but Matt’s like that the whole time and it’s waved off as “he’s just being a concerned friend”).

Lastly is something everyone already talks about, when he’s not being incredibly toxic he’s so boring. Like, I understand that’s the point in a way, he’s the human, but after seeing how well they integrated Cami into the story in the originals despite her being human that excuse lost all weight for me. He does nothing but complain! If you’re not gonna do anything interesting with him, get him off screen (the later seasons are boring enough! I mean what?)! What really concerns me about Matt as a character is if he is what the writers genuinely believed was the perfect example of a “good guy.” The worst part is it worked! Technically, Matt is the best guy in the tvd cast by default and calling him out for being a toxic human is only a recent trend. Conclusion, Matt Donovan is trash and we deserved better male characters in tvd.

Now, if you think I’m stopping there you’d be wrong. Matt really is a bad person and character, and what kills me is how the community likes to compare the tvd mains to characters in to. Ex. Hayley is Elena (kind of accurate, but at least Hayley had her own story separate from the men in her life in season one) and Bonnie is Davina (I mean, they both do get screwed over by the writers, but I’d argue Bonnie is closer to Vincent since the pain they endure throughout the seasons is much more personal and vindictive). Lastly, and most frustratingly, Cami is said to be the originals equivalent to Matt because they’re both human. At least, I think that’s the reason because I have no idea why else people would say that (is it because in their deluded minds Cami is boring despite being so much fun for reasons I’ve already explained in another post?). So you’re probably thinking who do I think resembles Matt more if anyone? Who could it be? Or maybe I already spoiled it.

So…Jackson Kenner. It’s not a perfect comparison (Jackson has an active story in the show that plays a significant part in seasons one and two). However, in terms of personality they have the most in common. If it’s not clear from what I said about Matt, I don’t like Jackson either. I find him to be an insufferable hypocrite who always talks about keeping the peace yet is quick to start beef with the vampires (who are always portrayed as being the perpetrators and werewolves the victims and showing the conflict as black and white instead of gray on both sides, but I might be the only one who has a problem with how the werewolves treat the vampires in both shows). That’s in season one! Then there’s his controlling behavior towards Hayley and trying to get her to leave the Mikaelsons just cause he can’t be big alpha male next to Klaus (disclaimer: as much as I think Hayley is wrong for trying to abandon the Mikaelsons for good, I did stand with her on getting away from and daggering Klaus for a temporary amount of time. Complex discussion for another day). Then there’s season three where he gets so angry cause Hayley chooses to help find Rebekah (y’know the woman who protected Hope for months!) that he storms off to the Bayou and ignores his wife and insists she must choose between the wolves and the Mikaelsons (keep in mind Elijah never insists she has to choose a side and always refers to both as her family). This is a grown man by the way. I mean, at least the show doesn’t make Hayley bend to his will like season two (progress I guess?). So controlling, egotistical, hypocritical, and the show treats him like he’s the messiah of men because everyone around him are the worst (except Marcel). Sounds like a Matt clone to me.

Why are these two considered the prime example of how men should be by the writers? If it isn’t clear, just because they aren’t killing people every five minutes does not make them good! That could’ve been a decent message if it was noticed by people, but instead we hear how great Matt and Jackson are when they are the most relatable (in a bad way) kind of men in the show. That’s another problem, why are all the men in this show such toxic individuals to be around. The closest exceptions are Stefan and Marcel who personality wise are good, but are killers. Matt could have been what the writers wanted, but what we got was disappointing and annoying. So the women are butchered shells and the men are toxic, so I’m not allowed to like anyone!

#anti Matt Donovan #anti Jackson Kenner #the vampire diaries #the originals #Caroline Forbes #Elena Gilbert #hayley marshall #cw has terrible rep for men

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lucky-sevens · 4 years

Text

on doctor carmilla and her relationship to the mechanisms

welcome to my carmilla analysis post! all her lore is too big a subject to handle in one post, so i’m starting with this more specific one and seeing where it goes!

the main thing i’m going to be talking about here is the fan interpretation of her. i’ve collected all the evidence that supports fanon carmilla*, and i’m going to use it to discuss why fandom interpretation, while it has a basis, could be better done/more accurate to the character. i’m collecting evidence here both to support the fan interpretation and criticize it; this is very much not a discourse post, it’s an analysis post!

*i’m defining this as unnecessary experiments on and/or further abuse of the mechanisms.

(that being said, please don’t make her racist/ableist/homophobic; i’ve seen far too much of that, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable as she is a disabled japanese lesbian and is also most likely trans. i mostly see this in modern aus, but it’s in ‘canon compliant’ works as well- the largest offender here is the popular headcanon that she forced jonny to change his accent to a british one, which for what i hope are obvious reasons given this section doesn’t sit right with me.)

rest under the cut! warnings for medical trauma, including non-consensual drugging and mind alteration, and discussions of abuse (both from a parental figure and from a significant other). it gets heavy; please stay safe!

first off: this isn’t really on the lore of her backstory, but i will touch upon that occasionally as it’s important to understanding her character! i would really suggest to listening to exhumed and (un)plugged (bandcamp / youtube) and ageha (prototype edition) (bandcamp / youtube) and reading her wiki page to get a grasp of the deeper lore; not necessarily before reading this, but definitely if you’re planning to make her a major character in your work.

we only have two first-hand sources into carmilla’s interactions with the mechanisms; lashings (part one / part two / transcript) and homesick (video / transcript). in both of those, we see that the mechanisms- or at least jonny and nastya- are very uncomfortable with and/or afraid of her. lashings has a few examples of this, regarding nastya; her tone is noticeably quiet and cold whenever she speaks to carmilla and near the end of the show, carmilla hugs her from behind without warning, making her freeze up.

homesick is even clearer in this regard- after the song is performed, carmilla and jonny have this exchange, which i’ve copied from the transcript in its entirety as it’s all potentially relevant.

[JONNY] (very, legitimately afraid) ALRIGHT ALRIGHT- Stop stop stop stop stop, whoa whoa whoa okay okay okay- I can’t take it anymore! Are you going to kill us or not? Cause I’m (stuttering)- It’s lovely when we’re playing songs, and it's great. But we shot- well, one of us, shot you out of an airlock, and I wanna know. What are you going to do to us? Other than killing me?

[DOC C] Now is not the time, Jonny, I’m feeling a bit tetchy.

[JONNY] Watch it. You’re- you’re planning something. Something.

[DOC C] Medication time.

[JONNY] Yes-- (cutoff)

the video ends here. the lines at the end are most likely a leadup to the song welcome to medi bay co, but given carmilla’s tone in the recording, it could also be a threat towards him. this implies she has non-consensually drugged him in the past. his conviction that she was going to kill him also suggests that that has happened as well.

from this, we can conclude carmilla’s actions in the common fanon are not out of character, but her motives and thoughts towards the mechanisms could often be considered so. the default motivation for her seems to be to experiment- she’s driven out of boredom or curiosity, and is simply using the mechanisms as test subjects. there are a few cases to directly cite in canon of her experimenting on someone (out of something other than necessity so that they survived)- the first one is from exhumed, and is not in reference to the mechanisms, but instead a clone of herself (x). (i won’t elaborate too much on the post i linked as a source here, but it’s very interesting and i’d suggest giving it a read!)

doesn’t fit too much here, but you know what does?

Highly amused by the moral ambiguity of the events leading to his supposed demise – where both Brian and the priest believed themselves to have the moral high ground, she rebuilt Brian with a slight modification – an inbuilt morality core, with two settings.

brian’s switch. the bio straight-up says she made it out of amusement, which is a huge issue as anyone can flip it (except brian himself; don’t have the source on hand, but there was a post a while back that mentioned it was on the small of his back, which he can’t reach) and it changes his entire mindset!

however! this is the only case of something like this happening!

maki has said that carmilla cared for the mechanisms, and considered them her adopted children. while the evidence i’ve noted earlier almost becomes worse with that knowledge, it’s a different mindset than test subjects.

this is getting into a bit more of personal thoughts/headcanons, but we know carmilla had a lot of trouble with healthy relationships, including familial ones. she could wholeheartedly care about the mechanisms, and just not know how to form an actually positive relationship with them. in addition, if you view my personal headcanon that carmilla made loreli into a vampire instead of the other way round, she sure does have a problem with people she’s attached to dying, doesn’t she? she’s more sympathetic in general than she tends to be painted, and she has had good interactions with the mechanisms. (mostly drawing on what maki has said on the mechscord for this- sadly, invites are currently closed).

not elaborating on it too much here, as there’s a lot to unpack vis a vis lore and red stringing, but it’s also likely that carmilla does grow and change and get better as a person- she left the mechanisms most likely of her own volition, as maki has said she ‘didn’t leave via the airlock’, and made an active effort to fix her past mistakes. this is in contrast to the other mechanisms (except possibly brian) who never make any kind of effort to stop being terrible people. (may write a meta/lore explanation on this eventually, but it’s too large a topic to cover here!)

tl;dr: carmilla was abusive towards the mechanisms, but she was more likely to be well-meaning, rather than bored or curious.

#the mechanisms #the mechs #dr carmilla #my posts #meta #compiliation post #kinda

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cruelfeline · 4 years

Text

That earlier post got me thinking about the difference between Horde Prime’s anger, and Hordak’s. Namely in terms of where it comes from and what its purpose is. Because my word, but there is a discrepancy, and it’s the sort of thing that I feel sheds quite a bit of light on how differently the two of them see the world.

When we meet Horde Prime, he is the picture of calm and collected, the classic affably evil villain who appears entirely in control of everything. And for a good portion of his time in the story, he is. He controls what we understand to be a vast empire. He controls the physical, mental, and emotional lives of countless clones who worship him entirely. He is totally in command of everything he interacts with.

So when we see his first angry outburst, it is less an “outburst” and more a targeted weapon. Horde Prime turns his vicious ire onto a trembling, pleading Hordak specifically to frighten him. To dominate him. To terrorize and punish him for the moral crime of taking a name and exerting his will. There is no loss of control here; once Hordak is dealt with, Prime calmly returns to his default cool, collected state. He is entirely the master of this situation, and when he exhibits anger, it is specifically to harm someone over whom he has power.

An important aspect of this, one that differs from what we see in Hordak and adds a significant level of cruelty to Prime, is that he is so legitimately mighty that this sort of fear-based punishment has nothing to do with self defense or personal safety. It truly appears geared towards inflicting suffering on others for his own glorification. Essentially: when he turns his anger on Hordak, it is not because Hordak poses any sort of actual threat that needs to be fought off. It is purely to hurt him in a way that strokes Prime’s ego.

This use of anger, of violence, to hurt and punish others seems to be the chief purpose Prime has for the emotion. Granted, as the show continues and he loses his dominant position due to our heroes’ efforts, his expressions of anger fall more in line with frustrated outbursts, but to my mind, this is the exception rather than the norm for him. After all, he has been dominant for so, so long. And because he has been comfortably in charge, he has had little to be frustrated about. Thus, Prime’s anger is largely a weapon of manipulation and enforced fear, rather than a reaction to a lack of control until the very latter portion of the series.

Now: Hordak.

Hordak is very different. Hordak, given the deeply unfortunate circumstances he faces, has had everything to be frustrated about: his illness, his failed projects, his precarious leadership position. And because of these things, particularly said precarious leadership position, he does not enjoy the easy dominance that Prime enjoys. Every moment Hordak spends in command of the Etherian Horde is one during which he has to hide his defect and maintain the facade of all-powerful ruler. It is a stressful thing that threatens to fall apart the moment his ruse falters, not only shaming him but putting him in potentially great physical danger.

which... y’know... happens in season four via Catra; so not a false worry

Because of this, Hordak exhibits anger far more constantly than Prime; he is almost perpetually grumpy, ready to snarl at a moment’s notice since his reasons for anger are ever-present. Furthermore, he uses said anger less as a tool to hurt people for his own personal pleasure and more as a negative coping mechanism combined with a method of personal defense.

The negative coping mechanism is probably what we see most often: whenever things don’t go Hordak’s way, he lashes out. The most common casualty of this is a piece of property (RIP lil’ green wrench) rather than an actual person, strongly marking this form of anger as one used to vent frustration rather than to influence others in any way. Hordak, along with his brothers, functions under a doctrine of minimizing emotional expression. As a result, his ability to cope with negative experiences via a healthy expression of the resulting emotions is heavily stunted, leading to the outbursts we see. It’s not a positive aspect of his character by any means, but it is an understandable one: he never learned how to manage failure and disappointment in a constructive way, so he suppresses the related emotions until they come to a head and manifest in violent anger.

This is akin to what Prime exhibits in the late stages of his life, but because Hordak constantly experiences such vexing frustration, he expresses this sort of anger far more consistently than Prime does, to the point that I would hazard to say that it is his norm.

Now, looking at Hordak expressing anger and using violence targeting other people, we again can see that he differs from Prime. Prime, as stated before, has all of the power and thus no real need for this sort of violence-based maintenance of control and self-defense. When he wields his anger, it is to cause hurt. Hordak? Hordak has that fragile leadership standing alongside a frightening lack of personal agency, and so he does use his anger to attempt to maintain both. He wields it both to protect himself from people and to regain control when he loses it. Various instances come to mind (besides him trying to drive Entrapta out of his sanctum via Yelling (c)).

One involves Adora in the moments leading up to the portal activation at the end of season three. When Adora threatens to thwart Hordak’s plans and utters that awful word, “fail,” he reacts. He reacts to two things: the concept of Adora has a dangerous enemy, and the loss of control over his own life via the threat of failure. When he turns his anger on her (and later displaces it onto Entrapta when said anger causes his armor to glitch) it is to combat these two adversarial things in order to maintain his own safety and stability. Hurting Adora as some sort of twisted moral punishment is not the intent here; protecting himself, from both physical and emotional threats, is.

Another instance involves throwing machinery and yelling at Catra after the portal incident, once she mentions Entrapta. This marks another moment of Hordak combating the sense of losing control. He experiences emotional pain due to Entrapta’s mention, likely suffering feelings of loss and shame and abandonment, and in order to regain control over the situation, to feel less vulnerable, he directs his anger at the source of discomfort: Catra.

In a similar instance, he throws a chip at Imp when the little spy teases him with Entrapta’s name, again seeking to defend himself against the unpleasant feelings her memory brings.

When Shadow Weaver and the Princesses invade his Sanctum, he loses composure and turns furious, throwing a column at them in an attempt to defend himself and his most private quarters.

He does the same once he learns of Catra’s lies, erupting into a true rage once she further prods at his insecurities by asserting that Prime will not want him due to his being a defective mistake.

Over and over, Hordak uses his anger to both protect himself from potentially dangerous people and to attempt to regain control over situations he feels are slipping from his grasp. Often when facing increased personal vulnerability. All of these moments show this very different set of reasons for expressing this potentially violent emotion compared to Prime.

It’s an interesting contrast, isn’t it? And one that serves to highlight the very different lives these two characters lead: one a cruel cult leader who has almost unfathomable power over his worshipers, the other a traumatized man trying to obtain power and security and stability in a life where he has nearly none. And their anger provides an intriguing lens through which to assess this contrast.

#hordak #catra #entrapta #entrapdak #horde prime #adora

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noddytheornithopod · 2 years

Note

The two most non-controversial men: Steven Universe and Kylo Ren

(For this)

Wow, trying to get me cancelled much? :P

Steven

My favorite thing about them: Just a really positive role model for masculinity, being someone pretty nice and sweet and open about his feelings, and his failures are when he fails to live up to those things. It's good he's not perfect either.

My least favorite thing about them: IDK... I guess maybe he's a bit of a handful in the really early episodes? But even then, it kinda makes sense.

My favorite canon relationship: Relationship is very open ended and doesn't specify if it means romantic or in general, so I'll cover all bases. Ship wise, I ship him with Connie, they're just really sweet and compliment each other well while bringing out the best in each other. In terms of general character relationships, I think all of the main Crystal Gems have really great dynamics with him, they all have their nice features while still having specific nuances to them. I enjoy his dynamic with Peridot too, for similar reasons.

My favorite non-canon relationship: I mean, Steven being the viewpoint character has a dynamic with pretty much every character on-screen. :v So it's Rose Quartz by default, because she's the only major character I can think of he wouldn't have met. Would be interesting to see what a conversation between them would be like, even if neither can exist.

The sexuality I headcanon for them: Probably pan if you ask me.

What I’d do if I could spend the day with them: Make sure he's taking it easy and enjoying himself, I don't want him to have another SU Future incident. :P

Random fact about them I like: Nothing really comes to mind?

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo

My favorite thing about them: Hmm... I feel so indifferent this is actually really hard. Until I can think of a better answer, I'll just say Ben Swolo memes. :v Okay fine, for a more serious answer... I do think there's potential in the whole "kid of galactic heroes feels isolated" and parallels to IRL radicalisation into harmful ideologies thing.

My least favorite thing about them: the fact that people either love him so much he becomes all they care about, or that people hate him so much like they have a vendetta against him they think his mere presence ruins everything I kinda feel like he's kinda safe as a character, in a way? The most interesting thing he did was when he killed Snoke to become the big bad and go further into darkness, making any potential redemption harder, but then as we know, "somehow, Palpatine returned". In general, I just kinda get this sense he feels so manufactured to be "sympathetic evil but secretly not that evil deep down" guy. I find the internal conflicts and moral ambiguity of characters like Anakin, Maul and even freaking Dooku more interesting, personally. I feel like whenever I'm watching him I'm seeing an "I'M SO CONFLICTED" sign. I don't dislike the character or have anything against him like some people who seem to fume at his mere existence, but I feel like there's just more interesting dark side characters. It's not even that he's a failure at living up to the legacy of the dark side or anything, it's just again I feel like they played it too safe with him.

My favorite canon relationship: IDK, Rey? *sees pitchforks* Oh shut up, I'm not even a Reylo shipper, I'm completely indifferent to what people do and don't ship with the character. I purely mean this in terms of their dynamic and chemistry.

My favorite non-canon relationship: I like the idea of him being in his Darth Vader phase and then learning about what Anakin was like, maybe ghost Anakin can show up and tell him "lol I moved past all that".

The sexuality I headcanon for them: I barely care enough to even answer?

What I’d do if I could spend the day with them: Try not to piss him off in case he gets violent. :v

Random fact about them I like: The idea that he talks to Darth Vader helmet all the time but it's actually secretly Sidious amuses me to a degree.

#ask #meme #star wars #steven universe #kylo ren #ben solo

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linklethehistorian · 3 years

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Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Part 48/???)

Bones' Biggest Changes & Greatest Failures — The Tragedy of Arthur Rimbaud (27/?)

In his final years, the thing that Mori’s predecessor valued most in his men, from what we were shown and told, was pure brute strength that could overwhelm and crush any and all of the Mafia’s enemies, with no strategizing or defensive measures necessary, and our eternally freezing frenchman was most decidedly not it, by any possible definition; given that it took many, many years before the foreigner himself was even able to recall that his special ability possessed the power to subsume the dead and use them in battle, his trademark subspace was thus, at the time, understood only to have been built primarily for defense, to the best of anyone’s knowledge — something which, in the Godfather’s eyes, would have been practically useless.

Still, I doubt if that was the only reason why he was so rejected by the old man as a potential candidate for anything other than cannon fodder; no matter whether it is blatantly apparent to you by this point in the article yet or not, considering that Randou was, by default, just about as far from an eager warrior as one could hope to get, it’s only natural that this would have made his life of even less value to said previous leader than it was already; after all, even if he had happened to possess the most ideal ability in the world, so long as his conscience would still continue to drive him to shy away from engaging in violence and cruelty as much was humanly possible for someone in his position, it would not have been of any consequence or use to the corporation. No, indeed, if he was not willing to become a murder machine that would kill ruthlessly and indiscriminately under his superior’s orders, then the only way to make effective use of him in a similar manner would be to throw him headfirst onto the front lines, where he would have no choice but to either defend himself and his comrades by participating in the fight, or lay down and die, letting everyone else that he could potentially protect die with him.

Even after he was eventually released from this personal Hell by Mori’s ascension to the throne, though, his trials and struggles were still not entirely over. Undoubtedly, his recognition by Mori for his gift and the promotion to associate executive that he received thereafter made his life much easier and more pleasant, as it afforded him greater opportunity to live it at least a little closer to the way he wanted by giving him a boss who appreciated him for his talents and largely respected his wishes, understanding that his skill set was, on the whole, best suited to things other than killing; however, these were not the only personal hardships he had to face in this sort of job — merely the only ones which anyone could make go away for him.

As heartening and constructive of a thing as it may be in all other senses, in a cutthroat world such as the one he was now in, Rimbaud’s purity could only serve to put him at a significant disadvantage to everyone else in his field in all too many ways, whenever it came down to his own self-preservation, or being able to properly assess his allies and foes completely objectively.

Now, I absolutely do not want you to get me wrong on this; in no way am I suggesting even in the slightest that Rimbaud isn’t intelligent or insightful enough to deduce these sorts of things about the criminal underworld as a whole, or even to recognize some more subtle signs of danger, because despite how it might initially sound, that is definitely not the case nor the issue here. If anything, the hyperspace user has actually proven himself to be extremely clever to those ends under the right circumstances, in light of not only his aforementioned statement during the setup of the party about the prevailing force behind violence and conflict in the world, but also his keen instinct towards Dazai’s sinister intentions in setting up the supposed ‘celebration’ — to say nothing of the fact that he had even pieced together enough information from their short time together to suspect Chuuya of being Arahabaki whilst someone like Dazai remained entirely clueless about it until the reveal.

Indeed, looking back upon it all, it cannot but become all the more clear that the only thing which was likely holding him back from being just as masterful as Dazai in every sense was one very simple, yet key truth — that Osamu was very cynical about the world around him and more than capable of thinking diabolically and selfishly even on a regular basis, whilst Rimbaud was not.

Had Randou possessed even half of the brunet’s skepticism, ruthlessness, and self-interest, then he doubtlessly would have risen to his high station as associate executive long ago, under the old boss’ reign, and effortlessly gotten away with his supposed traitorous acts against Mori — no longer held back by the inherent honesty that gave birth to the singular, fatal flaw within the otherwise careful forethought and planning that went into his elaborate “trap” for Arahabaki, nor the morally-fueled hesitance or countless acts of compassion that inevitably led to his defeat and death; however, this was just not who he was or could ever be, even in situations where his life might very well depend upon that capability that he lacked, and so he instead remained the exact opposite of it all as ever before, paying many a price and facing many a struggle over all of the difficulties and disadvantages that came along with that path he so diligently walked.

Yes, for all of the effort the animated adaption may put into convincing its audience of the contrary, the truth of the matter will always remain that nothing Randou had ever done was truly selfish at heart, nor did he hold any disregard or lack of respect for the absolute preciousness of life and all those who lived it; as I have said time and time again, he is a kind soul with an optimistic and loving heart that wants only the best for others, even at the cost of his own happiness, and the only motive he truly had behind his ‘scheme’ was that of recovering enough memories of a tragedy he survived to find and save the person he considered to be his best and dearest friend from what, to him, he imagined to be a life or death situation — no matter the cost to himself.

This way of life is not just a facade, as the show will foolishly try to tell you; it is simply the kind of person he is, through and through, and that in itself is where the trouble comes in the most for him; because he has no other side but this in the way he acts and perceives things, this means that it can often be difficult for him to put himself in the shoes of others who do not think in the same way — even if he might know for a fact that they think very differently from him, and comprehends the general, bare concept of what compels them — without projecting at least a little of himself and his own code onto them and what he sees within them.

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fpinterviews · 14 years

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Jaclyn Santos

FP: We've spoken about the subject of the male gaze, and even part of the mission statement of FP is to question what it means when women artists control the power of their own objectification. There have been other artists who have paved the way, ie. Vanessa Beecroft, why do you think it is still considered controversial and shocking for a female artist to portray her sexuality as outwardly powerful and/or vulnerable?

JS: While many women artists have displayed their own sexuality in their artwork, every girl and woman still has to confront this topic individually and form her own convictions. It's something we continuously re-examine as we age and deal with new personal struggles. There are so many conflicting messages in society regarding a woman’s stance on her own sexuality and most women are still trying to figure it out for themselves. On one hand, society definitely rewards physical beauty yet, in many other ways, it can be an impediment. Increasingly, I think people turn to media figures as a barometer for their own morality. For the "Shock Challenge" I wanted to generate discussion about the way women are often criticized because of images they present of themselves – particularly the way certain female celebrities objectify themselves by posting sexy personal photos on social networking platforms such as Twitter. Often these photos are low-resolution and snapped from cell phones. I decided to photograph myself in this manner as a sort of contemporary “self-portraiture” and elevate the photos to fine art status by re-contextualizing them. I then displayed the images in the gallery and allowed the audience to physically alter the work in any way with sharpies, which draws attention to the way women are criticized online. I titled the piece, “Triple Self-Portrait in Bathroom,” which references Andy Warhol, an artist known for working with the idea of celebrity persona.

Another reason it may still be considered controversial is because of female competition, which occurs in part due to socially imposed myths of female worth. The scrutiny with which women can judge each other is incredible. Growing up, I wasn’t horrendously unattractive but I did go through an “awkward phase,” and for five years of my life other girls ridiculed me nearly every day. Now that I am older and have grown into my looks, I am condemned by some women because I keep up my appearance, when if I didn’t I would be put down for it. The world sets up a standard for beauty, then criticizes those who admit they struggle with it. I’m willing to honestly examine this contradiction through my artwork.

FP: You've also mentioned isolationism in your statement...a theme that seems to be prevalent in American culture today, particularly because of the internet, and our ability to be alone yet still remain virtually connected. Can you speak about how that relates to your work?

JS: I think the piece I did for the "Art That Moves You" challenge on WOA, "11x17", touches on the issue of isolationism in contemporary urban culture. It also examines voyeurism, a somewhat natural response to isolation. While most people do not spy on their neighbors' with binoculars, voyeurism has transcended to the internet in a more diluted version, where many of us use social networking platforms and blogs to comment on the lives of those we see on Television and other forms of Media. The pseudo-anonimity of the Internet offers protection while potentially causing further isolation. I think this has affected women in a very specific way. Oftentimes women display sexy images of themselves in an attempt to garner attention or praise, yet this often backfires into “unwarranted” criticism. Too often photos or explicit videos are released without consent.

FP: In regards to the nudity on the show...it really was a missed opportunity as you said for the production to discuss the current state of feminism as it pertains to the art world. Such a HUGE topic and yet (for the sake of time constraints? titillation of tv?) Bravo chose to edit down your provocative "shock value" piece to a hot girl defaulting to her own voyeuristic sexuality more than anything else. How did you feel about that? What could they have done to further the dialogue? What do you think would have happened if say one of the male artists had asked to photograph you naked or had photographed themselves naked...do you think more or less would have been made of that episode?

JS: So far my character has appeared very one-dimensional. The fact is, I am not a "bimbo" in any capacity. Instead of portraying my true personality, they jumped on every opportunity to dumb-down my character. I was very disturbed by the way my piece, “Triple Self-Portrait in Bathroom,” was depicted on Work of Art as well as the way my character and art making process were completely distorted. I don’t think this was done because of time constraints; rather, it was done to create a very simple story arch that any casual viewer could follow. This was problematic because it made me look like I default to nudity without any thought behind the concept of the work, which undermines my art process. I am not shy about my appearance as they suggest, but I did feel incredibly vulnerable being taped in the nude. There's a huge difference between presenting a photograph that I have carefully selected and composed, verses handing over raw footage that can be manipulated in any way whatsoever. I was very hesitant about doing this but I believed in the piece and the producers said they needed the footage only to display my process. Yet in the episode, the rest of my process was barely discussed, then it was falsely made to look as though I was not responsible for conceptualizing the final product.

The treatment of sensitive issues on set was different for the boys. A male contestant was not required to film himself ejaculating on a piece of art, which caused some tension on set.

FP: In The Art of Reflection: Women Artists' Self-Portraiture in the Twentieth Century, Marsha Meskimmon states: "If the task was to find oneself, then the crisis for the postmodern subject is that nowhere is home, everything shifts and changes. What is the reflection in the mirror that 'vanity' holds? She refuses now to be the 'site' of another's desire and reflects back to you the insubstantiality of your projections."1

Do you think it's possible for the physicality of an attractive female artist to ever be a separate entity from her work, particularly if she is the subject matter of her own work? Is vanity and the mirror important to an artist?

JS: To answer the question, if the womans' chosen subject matter deals with nudity or sexuality in the form of self-portraiture - i.e. Marina Abramovic, Cindy Sherman - no, I don't feel the artist's appearance could be a seperate entity. If the subject matter involves sexy images of other women or the imagery is more illustrative - i.e. Lisa Yuskavage, Hillary Harkness - I think it will be much less of an issue. I think it can only be a non-issue if the artist completely plays down her appearance or doesn't acknowledge it in her work. Yet this doesn't necessarily mean it won't be an issue. At a college critique, a guest artist was invited to our studios and the minute he saw me, before he ever saw my work, he blurted out, “you are the artist”? “You don’t look anything like an artist... YOU are as interesting as your work." This sort of thing happened so often that I made a decision to incorporate my appearance into my work.

FP: Another great quote from this same book: "One of the key issues in feminist theory has been that of women's voice in male language. To what extent is it possible to enunciate a truly different position when you are already within the structures which mark your difference?"2 Do you think the art world is still a predominantly masculine one or is it now equal...what has your experience been thus far?

JS: While certainly more doors are now open to female artists, there’s no denying the highest paid artists are all still men. There’s also no denying that the vast majority of Art collectors are men. I worked for Jeff Koons for two years and there were very few women who came in to purchase work. Granted, this may simply be because men still make more money than women and if women had more spending power, more of us would invest in contemporary art. I think it is a challenge to make work about women that can appeal to both a male and female audience on the same level. We respond to images of the female form rather differently, and it's hard to subvert the provocative aspect of a sexualized image.

FP: The high-low art status is interesting in your pieces --do you think anything can be elevated to art status by redepicting it?

JS: Yes, it can, if done in a particular way. Intent is important -- low art must be appropriated in an intelligent way. For instance, a high school student copying his incredible hulk comic book is entirely different than Jeff Koons appropriating the hulk into his personal iconography.

FP: You worked as a studio assistant to pop art icon Jeff Koons. Has he influenced your work? And who are your biggest influences?

JS: Before I ever worked for Jeff Koons, I loved his Made in Heaven series as well as his Luxury/Degradation series. Speaking of Made in Heaven, that’s a prime example of low-art being successfully elevated to high -art. Jeff Koons is brilliant and there are very few people who love art as much as he does. Working at his studio was an incredible learning experience. It was so interesting to see how he spoke with visitors about his work and I learned an incredible amount of technical skill while at his studio. Jeff talked "acceptance" quite often. We must accept who we are -- our individual and collective pasts -- our shortcomings, failures, weaknesses, and strengths. As artists, we must be honest with ourselves in order to make work that is personal yet transcends to a wider audience. So many artists have influenced my work, but to name a few: Damien Hirst, Marilyn Minter, Laurel Nakadate, Liz Cohen, Vanessa Beecroft

FP: Where do you see your work evolving now that you've participated in Bravo's Work of Art? Has the show inspired you in a new direction? What's on the horizon? Where can we see your work next?

JS: Participating in the reality show was an experience like no other. It really made me more aware of the internet as a portal for criticism and dialogue in fine art. It also opened my eyes to how incredibly critical and voyeuristic our culture is, and I think I would like to comment even further on these qualities in my new projects. The show also allowed me to branch out into other mediums when appropriate, something I think I may have been afraid to do before. Since the show wrapped up, I’ve been continuing my series of figurative paintings as well as a new series of explosions that respond to the war and oil spill.

Check my website, www.jaclynsantos.com for frequent updates of my new work.

#Jaclyn Santos

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sheanam · 3 years

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y’all are so nice!! just for kicks then here’s some long pointless typing-up of mass effect AU thoughts i did for my own amusement, because my thoughts always return to mass effect eventually and this year’s N7 day announcements got me real excited

no real plot outside of the ‘edmund has a big fancy spaceship/home/whatever that he hangs out in with all the various other characters he’s collected as friends’ trope that multiple of my for-fun AUs seem to default to, though i suppose it’d mostly take place on illium, with the occasional jaunt into space, and it’d be set during the me2/me3 era and then during the post-reaper war rebuilding phase

walt fully uses they/them pronouns here, they’re from a rich family from a vibrant colony who probably got exposed to eezo in utero during a parental business trip to some other planet, a very talented biotic who got amp implants and sent to the grissom academy for education and full biotic training and everything; they could probably be a very successful adept, except they don’t give a shit about the military or mercenary work or anything big like that, they shoved all that aside to lead as quiet a civilian life as they can manage, working in various restaurants and dreaming of opening one of their own with keeg

chary was born and raised in some podunk colony in the attican traverse and has spent time in various other colonies in that general area for education and work, ending up in one that was probably a little too close to the terminus systems ‘cos it got raided by pirates once and he got fucked up, chary’s doing okay tho ‘cos he’s got a cool scifi cybernetic arm and other implants to make up for it, he’s still a lawyer and specializes in helping sapient beings protect their personal rights, especially ones who tend to get screwed over a lot like quarians

hoshiko’s a cool tough turian of course, she did her time in the turian military and keeps in shape with exercise and weapon practice but now does more desk job-y stuff as a lawyer alongside chary, they’ve got their own little practice and everything, it’s hard going on a planet like illium but they do their best, once they get pulled into edmund’s orbit she probably switches to part-time and becomes head of security for him

keeg’s a huge and beefy but surprisingly friendly krogan, probably from clan jorgal or korten, much to his surprise and the envy of his peers he successfully managed to reproduce and has a kid back on tuchanka, he went off into space to do standard krogan mercenary and bodyguard work so he could send money back to support her and her mother, he got tired of it though and has way more of an interest in cooking, also slightly unusual for a krogan; he eventually winds up working for edmund as both cook and bodyguard, and has a weird but nice friendship with walt where they talk food and restaurant dreams

heck and jamie are from a shitty colony in the attican traverse as well, one with a lot of mining that resulted in a lot of eezo exposure to people there, so they were both born with biotic tendencies; heck’s powers were prominent enough for him to get forced into amp implants and some training by his father, but he’s not particularly powerful (outside of managing a big burst of something if he’s really ticked) and dropped out of the training pretty quickly, prefering to live life as a quiet civilian and wandering to other parts of the galaxy with jamie in tow to find something better

meanwhile jamie had his usual shit luck, in that technically he has biotic powers, but they’re so weak and sporadic that he wasn’t considered a viable recipient for amps, so he just has the rare little moment of weird slight accidental biotic activity, usually at stressed or sufficiently inappropriate moments, and chronic health issues that are the more common result of eezo exposure; he gets by though, he’s handy with electronics and is still a musician, who performs now and then in clubs with musician friends he made along the way

edmund’s still a clone of course; not entirely sure if edmund sr. would’ve been a part of cerberus or not, but ed’s ‘father’ was at the least definitely a very shady and powerful businessman who eked out a small empire on illium, and when he was old and dying he spared no expense in having a high quality clone of himself made to continue it; but as usual ed turned out to be his own person with his own mind and set of morals, so while he took over the business and has to play fast and loose a little to stay afloat on a world like illium and keep potentially dangerous rivals at bay, and while he still has a fondness for luxurious living, he’s doing his best to turn the business around into something more straight-laced and positive with a good future, bringing various new friends into his protective nest to help him do so, but also largely for the company because he’s a social lad who doesn’t like loneliness

#AUs #mass effect au #walt #chary #iko #keeg #heck #jamie #edmund #text post #long post

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

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Bottom Ten Three Houses Characters

I decided after a while that I couldn’t fulfill an anon request to do a top 10 list for the whole series, because it would overlap too much with ones I’ve already done - lord privilege is a thing that exists, and I’ve ranked those before - and because it’s really difficult to compare so many characters (~600 if we’re being thorough) across so many different games. Instead I decided to go negative with it, although around 2/3rds of these ought to be totally uncontroversial at least in my corner of the fandom. Starting from the one I dislike least:

(Dis)honorable Mention: Anna, for putting in such a lackluster showing that she doesn’t deserve a spot on this list despite technically being in the playable cast. It’s not only the lack of supports, although that hurts, but also how obvious it is that the writers have no new material for her. Anna’s gimmick worked fined when she was an NPC and perhaps for the space of a single game as a playable character, and Fates originated the meta idea of making her paid DLC so you have to shell out real money to use her, but that’s the extent of her here too. As a unit she’s far from spectacular, and her paralogue isn’t even good for much but a ton of (mostly mediocre) drops and a tiny bit of context for that Pallardó guy from non-CF Chapter 13. Here’s a revolutionary idea: for the next original FE it might be good to have Anna back to being only a wacky dimension-hopping NPC shopkeeper.

#10 Constance - It pains me that she’s on this list, more than anyone else by far. I really wanted to like Constance, and at first glance she’s right up my alley as a haughty impoverished aristocrat coping awkwardly with her diminished status. I like the dark flier class she’s built around, and her default personality is an even louder pre-timeskip Ferdinand whom you know I love. However, it’s that “default personality” bit that sours me on her, because she’s got two of them. What could have been an interesting take on Constance’s struggles with identity and self-esteem in the wake of her family’s disgrace is presented in such an over-the-top comedic manner that it’s impossible to take her very seriously. It’s more reminiscent of FE13′s Noire than anything, and at least she has the excuse of a mother who performed dark magic experiments on her and fractured her psyche. Constance also supports Jeritza and yet somehow they do no more than lightly allude to their personality issues which is as much a missed opportunity as you can get with such a terrible character (see below), opting instead to try softening Jeritza with his fondness for roses. Lovely.

#9 Leonie - Fandom exaggerates her Jeralt fixation, although it does pop up at the worst times (see: her Byleth support right after his death). As I’m not very concerned with Byleth’s nonexistent feelings though this placement more comes down to general indifference. Leonie feels completely disconnected from the rest of the Deer, and although she’s a supposed reflection of the house’s more egalitarian bent there’s nothing connecting her to the politics or larger culture of the Alliance until you learn about her student loan debt. She really is best understood as a Jeralt fangirl first and foremost, which is why perhaps the most surprising thing about her is when reality comes knocking in her endings and it turns out she picked up her mentor’s vices as well. Jeralt himself would be even further down this list were he playable, but as he isn’t I’ll have to settle for side-eyeing all of his adoring fans. Which brings me to....

#8 Alois - Remember that dating sim Dream Daddy that people were talking about a few years ago? The one that willfully misunderstands what the term “daddy” means in gay male spaces to write fluffy dad joke-laden romances intended for a presumably not-gay audience? Alois is the spirit of that game personified as an FE character, which is not something I ever would have thought to know that I didn’t want. He’s got some funny lines here and there, but that’s the most you can say about him when otherwise he’s just passable midgame filler (of a unit type each house including the Wolves already has one of) standing in Jeralt’s imitation Greil shadow. I don’t even mind the platonic S support all that much because it’s still only Byleth, but it occurs to me that just about the only thing that would have made Alois memorable would be if his S support was romantic but he remained married to his wife. I can’t think of a time when this series has allowed the player to indulge in adultery, so even if it had been limited to an option for f!Byleth it would have been a fascinating option.

#7 Cyril - This isn’t about his devotion to Rhea, which is fully understandable given his circumstances. Nor is it about his performance as a unit which in my experience at least is actually rather good for a Donnel/Mozu-style villager archetype. No, what gets me is that he’s a self-righteous workaholic which makes for quite the grating personality trait. I understand that he finds meaning in his work and that he’s got some entertaining supports calling other characters to task for their terrible work ethics or ignorance of the lives of commoners (VW should have really dug more into his back-and-forth with Claude), but the lectures on not interrupting him or telling Byleth to get back to work are as tiresome as they are frequent. It’s petty I know, but one can only hope he grows out of it eventually. At least he doesn’t wear a pot on his head....

#6 Mercedes - Like Constance, she’s the type of character I wanted to like from the start. She’s pious pseudo-Catholic clergy, with a quirky thing with ghosts and some quiet lesbianism with her BFF that I can take or leave but that I know some people really enjoy (and also she’s bi-for-Byleth, but no one talks about that). Unfortunately as I touched on when talking about Marianne in my Top 10 characters list, Mercedes’s appealing points are sharply contrasted against her more annoying ones. The breathy voice acting I can mostly get used to, but her backstory is unnecessarily convoluted - three families and two flavors of evil adoptive father - and as is also true of Constance her association with Jeritza drags her down a fair bit. To this day I still have no idea what we’re meant to make of the Lamine siblings’ dynamic, but Mercedes’s eagerness to overlook her brother’s crimes and unrepentant bloodlust so she can coo over what a sweet boy he is deep down say some pretty odd things about her personal moral code. Maybe it was implied all along with the paranormal fascination that she’s not as orthodox as she appears to be, but the dissonance is real especially in CF where she gets a support line with Jeritza that tries to woobify him and affirms how much she loves him...and meanwhile in monastery exploration she’s wringing her hands over how much she hates the idea of fighting Faerghus and the church. There’s no through line here, and as justification for characters siding with Edelgard go this one is pretty flimsy.

#5 Gilbert - Similar to Cyril, I don’t dislike Gilbert for the reasons that most of the fandom does. Yes, he’s a crappy father, but as I’m pretty indifferent to Annette and to father-child bonding in general I can appreciate the fresh spin he places on the archetype of the devoted knight. In short, he’s a knight who wasn’t devoted and ran away from his duty, and his arc in AM is all about making up for his past failures both to his family and to his liege. This is an angle to knighthood FE doesn’t delve into often, and it makes him an explicit foil of Dedue as explored in their supports. The reason that Gilbert is on this list though in fact has more to do with that opposition, because I am painfully aware that had AM not killed off Dedue by default in service of self-insert romance Gilbert would not have had to be scripted as Dedue’s replacement both as a unit and as a retainer figure. It’s not his “fault” of course, insofar as one can ever blame fictional characters for the actions of their writers, but whenever I’m running AM and have to take those randomized supply run quests from Gilbert instead of the route’s actual retainer I’m reminded of how we were robbed of power couple Dimidue (in AM anyway - CF of all routes delivers on this point). Gilbert could have been father of the year to Annette and freely given Byleth his (grand)daddy dick and it still wouldn’t overwrite the fundamental problem that Byleth screwed over all three AM-exclusive characters in different ways. As to that, well...look at #1.

#4 Raphael - It’s hard to describe just how much wasted potential there is to this guy. Along with Ignatz and Leonie he could have illustrated the greater social mobility of the Alliance and the increased opportunities non-nobles enjoy there, but all three are mostly side characters. He’s repeatedly positive in the face of tragedy and remains motivated by his love for his remaining family, but 90% of his dialogue revolves around either eating or training to the point that he’s arguably the closest FE16 comes to gimmick character writing (something almost every FE is guilty of, but that has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years because of how much Awakening and Fates used it). He has a sweet friendship with Ignatz with even a bit of chemistry that sits in good company with the kind of simply affability he has with almost everyone he supports, but they have a no homo ending involving one of the game’s eternally offscreen characters. He supports Dimitri, but the bara content is thin on the ground and their line stands out as easily the least substantial of the house leaders’ cross-house supports. Even as a unit he’s lackluster, in the same repetitive category as Alois with nothing that makes him really stand out from the other axe-and-brawling guys. Highest HP growth in the game...whee. I’ve seen arguments that Raphael’s simplicity is the source of his charm, and while I can sort of see that he feels like he belongs in a game like the GBA or Tellius titles where characters have a much smaller amount of overall content to their name. In a game like Three Houses the sheer torrent of lines about food and training wear thin quickly.

#3 Bernadetta - see #8 here. To sum up, she’s annoying, her sex appeal falls flat with me and is frankly just kind of confusing, it bugs me that a significant portion of the Ferdibert fandom headcanons her as Hubert’s bestie when the man clearly does not do besties, and the most positive thing I can think to say about is that based on her habit of befriending known murderers among other things she might be a bit of a sociopath. That’s not very flattering, but at least it’s somewhat interesting. Oh yeah, and Edelgard setting her on fire at the Gronder rematch is good for a meme although I suppose that isn’t technically attributable to Bernadetta.

#2 Jeritza - Jeritza sucks. Everyone, apart from the small number of fans into Bylitza for some reason, is aware that he sucks. He’s a bloodthirsty serial killer we’re meant to like because he killed his father to protect his sister and also because he likes ice cream and kittens...and because he’s clearly mentally ill in some way and Edelgard is weaponizing his illness for her war which means all the murder is okay, I guess. Jeritza is like FE7 Karel if he was somewhat important to the plot and that instead of a redemption arc between games he got Karla and some other characters swearing that he’s really sweet deep down and also he can romance the male self-insert - yay. I love the line of thinking sometimes espoused in anti circles that M/M Bylitza is the only non-Problematic™ Byleth ship because he’s their only gay romantic S rank partner who’s not one of their students, a loli, or Rhea who is obviously the most evil character in the game. As I’ve mentioned above Jeritza also makes other characters he supports worse by association, although he’s not quite as bad in that regard as #1. Do I even need to bring up the painfully affected voice acting? It’s ironic that the vocal director for the English localization turns in unquestionably the worst performance among the named cast, and I have to assume he picked the role for himself solely because he sounds like an imposing Death Knight and not because his voice is at all suited to the troubled twunk underneath the armor. Just about the only thing that would have salvaged Jeritza for me would be if he and Hubert got to have an epic competition to determine once and for all which of them is more evil. Hubert would wipe the floor with this poser.

#1 Byleth - see here at the bottom. They fail as a self-insert, they fail to be a properly realized character even more than previous Avatars, they damage other characterizations and arcs all over the place, and Three Houses overall would have been vastly improved if they didn’t exist or at least weren’t the PoV character. In that previous post I listed just two reasons why I still prefer Byleth to Robin as an Avatar, one being that their significance to the plot is set up before the game even begins and the other being that their lack of a voice makes f!Byleth a less obtrusive presence when it came time for me to have her S rank all the guys to fill out the support log...not enough to where I could treat her as a self-insert, but any amount helps. I do however have to add a third small bit of praise for Byleth, in that they apparently drive antis up the wall for the most asinine of reasons which is always entertaining to witness. I recall when this game’s school setting was first revealed that everyone in the fandom nodded their heads and made the easy prediction that there would be teacher/student sex because that’s just how FE rolls, but somehow still there’s outrage over it. Even so, Byleth is horrible by every significant parameter, and it’s a shame we’ll only be able to imagine what FE16 would have been like had the developers not felt the need to write the whole thing around an Avatar.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses

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cinaja · 4 years

Text

Before the Wall part 19

Masterlist

Summary: Five hundred years before Feyre Archeron is born, the world is much different from the one she lives in. Humans are slaves, seen as little more than animals by the Fae who rule. But things are beginning to change. Talks of rebellion is spreading and on the Continent, some Fae territories begin to consider the potential gain of War. All it takes is one spark and everything will explode.

----

It has been more than a week since the battle. The camp is mostly rebuild, the only sign of the destruction are scorch marks on some tents and a few soldiers who are still limping. The Seraphim army has set up camp right next to the human one and so far, both sides seem to be getting along fairly well.

Jurian has praised the Seraphim army thrice already to Miryam – his not-so-subtle attempts, she is sure, to get her to let them keep their new allies around. After all, he has always been fascinated with aerial legions and the prospect of having one that actually lets itself be commanded has him beyond excited. In the end, the Alliance council beat Miryam to it in making the decision. Apparently, they went right over her head and decided it would be best to keep half of the Seraphim legion with Jurian`s camp as reinforcements, while sending the rest of them to take over Pelior`s camp.

Miryam finds the Prince outside with his soldiers, overseeing a training sequence and chatting with a few of them.

“I hope you`re just watching”, Miryam says lightly and nods towards the training ring, “And not thinking of participating.”

His wound has been healing nicely, but that doesn`t mean he should be running around wielding swords again this soon. However, soldiers have a tendency to be remarkably idiotic when it concerns their health.

“Wouldn`t dream of it”, Drakon replies, “After all that trouble you went through to pierce me back together.”

Miryam smiles slightly, then takes out the letter. “We have something to discuss. Camp commander stuff. Would you walk a few steps with me?”

“Sure.”

Drakon holds out his arm to her. The gesture is so… princely and completely unfitting for this camp or her that Miryam has to bite back a laugh. Drakon seems to quickly think the better of it for whatever reason. He pulls his arm back and instead runs his hand through his hair in an entirely futile attempt at appearing casual.

Miryam does him a favour and pretends not to notice. “I assume you got a letter as well”, she says.

Drakon nods. “I`ve been meaning to talk to Jurian and you about it today. I`ve thought about putting Sinna in charge of the soldiers who will remain here, but since it`s your camp, I thought I`d discuss it with you in advance.”

“So you aren`t staying.” Miryam feels a pang of disappointment she can`t quite explain.

“I don`t think it would be wise.”

“Why not?”

Drakon is suddenly very interested in his weapons belt. “I know my presence here puts you in a… difficult situation.”

Miryam blinks. “Excuse me?”

Drakon sighs and turns around to look at her. “No matter how much I may want to, there is no getting around the fact that I´ve been engaged to that… monster. I agreed to marry her.” He shakes his head. “I don`t know how you can even bear to look at me after everything she has done to you. You`ve been very kind, but it`s not a situation I wish to put you in.” He gives her a small smile. “Leaving is the only decent thing I can do, really.”

Miryam stops walking to stare at him. It`s very considerate, she supposes. But what is she supposed to reply?

“Why did you do it?”, she finally asks, “Agree to marry her, I mean. I never understood.”

Nothing she has seen of Drakon so far explains why he`d get engaged to Queen Ravenia of all people. He seems kind, with much regard for all lives. Not at all ambitious and most certainly not the type to value power more than his morals.

Drakon runs a hand through his hair, his wings tremble slightly. “I wasn`t really… needed as a prince”, he says, “It was clear pretty early on that I was horrible at Continental politics and I had two older sisters who were far more suited to the position than I was. But since I was good with the theoretical side – laws, societies, such things - my father considered giving me a seat on his council once I was done serving in the military for a few years.” He sighs. “Only then, Ravenia offered him an alliance. One that included a marriage. And my father… he wasn`t a bad male, but he was ambitious. The offer was too good to refuse.”

“He made you agree?”, Miryam asks softly.

“No”, Drakon says, “I sometimes wish I could claim that, but he didn`t force me. He told me about the offer and I obviously didn`t like it, but I felt it was my duty to my people to agree. Besides…” He trails off and refuses to looks at Miryam.

“Besides?”, she prompts gently.

“I thought…” Drakon begins fiddling around with his belt again. “Cauldron, I feel stupid saying this. But I thought she couldn`t be so bad.”

Miryam can`t help it, she snorts.

“I know, I know”, Drakon says, “But I just couldn`t imagine it! I had spent most of my life studying at university or at the palace, I never even visited a country that allows slavery. But I had studied it and I had all these arguments about how slavery was horrible. I thought that if I just talked to her about it, she would have to see the error in what she was doing. It was so reasonable, I thought anyone would have to see it.” He shakes his head. “I couldn´t imagine a person just being… bad. I was so horribly stupid.”

Miryam hesitates. She has a hard time imagining the life he describes. Living to adulthood without having seen so much death and suffering that you can`t even count it anymore. Being able to look at people and believe that they are all good by default, because you have never met anyone who was truly bad. A life without fear, without scars. Absentmindedly, she rubs the brand on her arm.

Drakon is looking at her, now. With a start, she realizes that he expects some kind of response from her. That somehow, he deems it her place to judge his actions.

“You are right”, she says carefully, “It was stupid. But one stupid choice does not define you, especially when you made it without ill intent.” Now, it is her who looks away as she continues, “And I know that you`re a good person. You were the first Fae to ever treat me like a person, not a… thing. You helped me escape without a second thought, even though it made breaking off the engagement into a bigger insult. You allied yourself with the humans even though you didn`t have to. All this weighs far heavier than that engagement.”

“I…”, Drakon begins hoarsely, but he trails off, looking over Miryam`s shoulder.

She turns around to find Jurian walking towards them. It takes Miryam exactly one look at him to see that something is wrong.

Jurian nods at Drakon before turning to Miryam. “Can I talk you you?”, he says.

Drakon looks between them. “I´ll get going, then”, he says and gives Miryam a tight smile. “Thank you for… everything.”

“You`re welcome.” Miryam smiles back. “I truly wouldn`t mind you staying.” To her surprise, she finds it is actually the truth.

Jurian frowns after Drakon as he walks off. “What is it between the two of you?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are… rumours.”

“Please tell me this isn`t what you came to talk to me about”, Miryam says. When Jurian doesn`t reply, she rolls her eyes. “The answer is no, I didn`t sleep with him, if that`s what you were wondering about. I`m surprised you even have to ask.”

Jurian eyes his boots. “Well, I didn`t think you`d sleep with him willingly. But… well…”

Miryam goes still. “It wasn`t him”, she manages to say, “I wouldn`t be talking to him if it was.”

“I`m sorry”, Jurian says, “I shouldn`t have brought it up.”

“No, it`s alright”, Miryam says, even though she is shaking slightly, “But really, it was nothing like that. He never even touched me.”

“That`s good to hear”, Jurian says, “He seems like a nice enough male. I would have hated having to kill him.”

Miryam laughs, even though Jurian`s expression says he isn`t joking. She stops, though, when Jurian takes a letter out of his pocket. He looks at it like it`s burning his fingers.

“Clythia replied”, he says, “She wants to meet me in three days.”

Miryam`s breath catches in her throat. “Oh”, is all the reply she can manage.

For a while, they just stand around awkwardly, not really looking at each other. Miryam doesn`t know what to do with her hands, her body. Don`t go, she thinks, but she doesn`t say it. Whatever it takes, she repeats to herself. This is bigger than her, bigger than either of them.

“That`s… great”, she manages.

“Yes”, Jurian replies bitterly, “really great.”

----

Mor has chosen her most scandalous dress. It is bright red and only barely covers the intimate areas of her body. When she steps out of the tent, she is pleased to have several soldiers stop dead in their tracks to stare at her. Head held high, Mor struts through the camp, aware of every person who stares after her.

It is a good kind of attention – the one she chooses for herself.

Jurian barely gives her more than a brief glance when she stops in front of him. She supposes she could turn up naked in front of him and he wouldn`t care, simply because she isn`t Miryam.

“You`re leaving?”, he asks.

Mor nods. “I think I`ll be back by evening, but I`m not sure. It depends on what my uncle wants this time.”

“Well, kick the bastard`s ass for me, will you?”

Mor huffs a laugh, but the comment doesn`t quite manage to ease her tension. The problem isn`t meeting the High Lord – that, she has done plenty – but the fact that he asked her to come meet him in the Hewn City. She isn`t even sure if the High Lord chose the meeting place to unnerve her. Far more likely that he simply doesn`t understand what this place means for her.

She manages a small smile towards Jurian, then she starts walking towards the edge of the camp, where the wards end. She is almost there when she hears a voice calling after her.

“Mor! Wait!”

She turns around to find Miryam running after her. Panting, the female stops.

“Can you drop me off at Telique?”, she asks, naming the capital of the human kingdom and the place where most Alliance meetings are being held.

“Sure”, Mor says. It`s on the way, after all. “You got a meeting?”

Miryam is wearing a dress (long and modest, covering her entire body – the opposite of the dress Mor choose) and she only does that when she has to go to an official meeting.

She shakes her head. “I`m being sent to another diplomatic trip.”

Side by side, they continue walking towards the edge of the camp. A diplomatic meeting is not unusual, but somehow, this one feels off. The decision must have made at a short notice, too, if Mor doesn`t know yet. After all, she spent most of the night in Miryam`s tent, while the other female tried to reassure her that her visit to the Hewn City would be fine.

“Where to?”, Mor asks.

Miryam hesitates for half a heartbeat. “The Autumn Court”, she says.

“What?!” Mor stops dead. “No. They can`t send you there.”

“I can handle myself.”

But Mor is barely listening. “They have to send someone else. Not you.”

“It is very nice of you to worry, Mor”, Miryam says softly, “But I`ll be there to represent half the Continent. And I`ll be a guest. There are rules, they wouldn`t dare to touch me. It isn`t the same.”

She doesn`t specify what she is talking about – Mor told her months ago about what happened to her.

“Tell me you won`t be alone”, Mor says softly, “Please, at least tell me that someone will be with you.”

Miryam sighs through her nose. “Thank you for the vote of confidence”, she mutters, “But yes, Helion will be with me.”

Mor has to keep her relief from showing. She doesn`t want Miryam to think she doesn`t trust her abilities. But sending Miryam – half-human, beautiful, female Miryam – to the Autumn Court is like sending a doe to negotiate with a bunch of wolves.

Before Mor can say anything else, they reach the edge of the camp. Hesitantly, she takes Miryam by the arm and winnows them both to the human capital.

“Thank you”, Miryam says as they reappear, “And good luck with your meeting.” She gives her hand a squeeze, then steps away.

Mor is confused for a split second – over her worry about Miryam`s new mission, she almost forgot her own issues. But now, she remembers.

“Be careful”, she whispers – and winnows before she loses her courage.

She reappears just outside the mountain under which the Hewn City is built. The guards waiting outside have the nerve to stop her, but one cold look from Mor – one she learned from Jurian – has them stepping aside. Mor takes a deep breath and enters the mountain.

Lucky for her, it is still day and most of the members of her father`s court are still asleep. Still, some are up and staring at her. Mor imagines their whispers. Whore. Disgrace. She walks past the corridor that leads down to the chambers where her father brought her after he found out about Cassian. Where they spiked the nails through her.

The High Lord is waiting in his study. He smiles at Mor when she enters. Sometimes, she forgets that he actually does like her – maybe because his actions so rarely reflect it.

“Sit down, Morrigan”, he says and motions to a chair, “How are you? Well?”

“Yes, My Lord.” Lie, lie, lie. Sometimes, it feels like her entire life is one giant lie, only waiting to come crashing down around her.

He nods distractedly. “And your work?”

“I like it.” She forces a smile. “I have the opportunity to meet many interesting people.”

The High Lord shoots her a look. “And you`re good at it, too. I have to say, I`m surprised. You know I only appointed you because that… girl demanded it. Yet, your results are satisfying.”

“Thank you.”

“There`s just one thing”, the High Lord says softly, “Why aren`t you staying in Telique?”

“I`m not needed there most days”, Mor says carefully.

A look of annoyance passes over her uncle`s face. “That does not explain why you are staying in Commander Jurian`s camp.”

Mor hesitates. She does not think her uncle would approve of her fighting in battles – or of her friendship to both of the camp`s leaders. “I like it there.”

“Well”, the High Lord drawls, “You are my emissary to both the humans and the entire Alliance.” His voice becomes sharp as a knife as he continues, “And that… arrogant, half-breed bitch is not the head of the Alliance, no matter how she may act.”

Mor has to bite her tongue to keep from saying something to defend her friend. She curls her hands to fists, but disagreeing would only make it worse.

The High Lord jumps to his feet and starts pacing. “What I`d like to know”, he hisses, “is how that female keeps rising in power. Even when she messes up – completely blows the most important meeting of the decade – it somehow turns into a victory for her. The whole Cauldron-damned council follows her lead without so much as a question.”

Mor doesn`t know what to say.

“But not me”, the High Lord hisses, “And not you, either. So you won`t be staying in her camp anymore. You`ll move to Telique right away.”

It is all Mor can do not to gasp. He might as well have punched her. That camp is her home, these people are her friends – and he`s just going to make her leave. But with the way the High Lord is acting, it`s pretty likely that he will kick her out as emissary if she objects.

So she forces herself to nod. “As you wish, My Lord.”

----

Jurian is stalling – he knows it pretty damn well. He was supposed to leave the camp roughly fifteen minutes ago, but he keeps finding excuses not to. Talk to one of his captains, organise the patrols, give advice to some newbies in the sparring ring. All to push back the moment of departure a bit further.

It will be fine, he tells himself for the millionths time, It`s just a stupid meeting with one female. I`ve faced worse.

Still, the thought of what he`s about to do makes his stomach roll. He tries to push away the image of Clythia during the meeting, touching his arm. Whispering into his ear. The idea of allowing her to touch him (and do more than that) is almost too much to bear.

He clenches his hands to fists. For his people, for their freedom, he can do this.

He finds Prince Drakon far more quickly than he would have liked. The male is standing with his general, overseeing half of his army packing up. When Jurian walks up to them, Drakon looks up and smiles at him.

“Already heard the news?”, he asks, “Looks like we`re going to be around for a while longer.

“Yep”, Jurian says, trying not to smile.

After his experiences with the Illyrians, he was pleasantly surprised by the Seraphim army. They don`t start fights, they don`t insult his soldiers. Add to that that they fight pretty damn well and Jurian is very much for having them remain at his camp. He had already worked out a strategy to get Miryam to do it, but it seems the Alliance council got the idea without him having to beg. All the better.

“Well”, Jurian drawls, “since you`ll be staying here for the while being, you might as well make yourself useful.”

General Sinna arches an eyebrow at him. “Need us to save your asses again?”

Jurian rolls his eyes. At first, he was offended by her brisk style, but ever since he found out that she treats everyone (with the exception of her lover, perhaps) that way, it stopped bothering him.

“I have to leave the camp for a few hours”, he tells Drakon, “Can you take over command for the time being?”

“Sure. Where are you going?”

“On a patrol”, Jurian lies.

He takes his favourite horse – a midnight-black stallion who runs as fast as the wind – from the stables and mounts the saddle. The guards at the camp`s borders salute as he rides past, Jurian nods in return. Then, he snaps with his reins and the horse breaks into a sprint.

He passes two patrols on his way, but soon, he is out of the guarded area. Still, Jurian keeps riding.

The place he told Clythia to meet him is almost an hour away from the camp. It`s not exactly practical (quite the opposite, actually), but the last thing Jurian needs is for one of his soldiers to run into him while he is having a private meeting with one of Hybern`s crueller generals. That is a scandal he`d rather avoid.

Finally, he nears the small waterfall Clythia is waiting by and flicks his reins to get the horse to stop. He dismounts and carefully approaches, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Clythia is sitting on a small rock, already waiting for him. She looks like she picked the position in advance so that her slender body is illuminated before the splashing water. Like him, she is wearing a light armour and weapons, but her deep red hair is untied and flowing over her back in a cascade.

She looks beautiful.

It is all Jurian can do not to spin around and run – or draw his sword.

Instead, he gives her a lazy smile. “Good evening, beautiful lady.”

----

A/N: This is a semi-cliffhanger, I know. But i already have the next chapter mostly ready, so it should take less than a week for the update to come ;) Anyways, I hope you liked this chapter. As always, I`d love to hear what you think - your comments always make me so happy.

Tags: @sjm-things @herpowerisdeath @clolikescloquetas

#miryam #jurian #drakon #mor #helion

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carelessgraces · 3 years

Text

a few notes on origins-era astoria —

ON COMBAT. astoria is a dual-wield rogue; she was trained to fight by an assassin, who taught her what he knew. her focus is on speed and stealth, and that’s really the only way she can win a fight. though she was trained by an assassin and as an assassin, she is not an assassin, and if she needs that handled, she goes to an expert ( lorenzo, or zevran, or another crow ). “assassin” reflects her fighting style, rather than an occupation, or any practices. her second specialization in an origins timeline is as a bard.

ON FERELDEN. astoria is the daughter of the bann of the storm coast, and has spent the several years leading up to the blight with her time split between the university at val royeaux and the storm coast. she is familiar with fereldan politics, and with the major players; however, she doesn’t consider herself fereldan until after the blight. until then, she considers herself entirely antivan; after the blight, she considers herself as fereldan as she is antivan.

ON MAGIC. astoria is terrified of magic; her major experience with magic leading up to this involves regular and vicious abuse at her godparents’ hands. more recently, she’s seen what unchecked magic can do, and her experiences in redcliffe don’t do much to alter or challenge that fear. if she is brought along for broken circle — which is only possible if the warden completes redcliffe’s quests first, either by killing connor or isolde — she won’t advocate for annulling the circle, but she will ask if perhaps that’s the best option. she can be convinced by being told there are children in the tower, and that’s enough to get her moving.

ON A COMPANION ROMANCE. while astoria is very fond of alistair and leliana, and considers them both dear friends, i don’t think a romance would work well with either of them — she is too fundamentally different from them both, especially in terms of morality. astoria will typically be involved in a casual romance with zevran, with the both of them fully expecting that it won’t go anywhere; if this is the case, she offers zevran sanctuary in seleny whenever he needs it, and he is a welcome and frequent staple in her court. she eventually offers him control of house vescovi, when lorenzo becomes her right hand. if she and zevran become more serious ( as in verses with @worldelivered ), astoria considers zevran seleny’s prince consort, grants him a title and a position in her court, and makes him her spymaster — her left hand to lorenzo’s right.

and some changes by the time of inquisition —

ON COMBAT. astoria goes in with some assassin skills, but chooses to train as a tempest; during the blight she had a habit of throwing herself into the middle of the fray to drop a grenade, should the battle seem near-impossible to win, and here she learns how best to do this. she has a penchant for grenades and poisons, and should not be encouraged to continue learning how to make things explode, but nobody stops her. it’s a bad move on their part.

ON ORLAIS. astoria actively and openly favors ferelden over orlais; she considers the inquisition a fereldan endeavor, and she will offer her friendship to ferelden’s regent(s), whether alistair or anora ( or both ) while actively refusing any such familiarity with the empress. part of her choice to allow celene to be killed at halamshiral is the knowledge that destabilizing the orlesian state will mean that gaspard will depend on her, and the inquisition; as far as she’s concerned, she gave gaspard his throne, and she will take it away from him if necessary. so long as he’s willing to cooperate, she’s willing to keep her own interference limited. the orlesian alliance with the inquisition is tenuous, and is solidified through the potential of mutual manipulation and interference: astoria leaves an agent in orlais, who becomes gaspard’s mistress and champions the inquisition’s interests, and gaspard sends two ladies of the orlesian court to serve the inquisition, guaranteeing orlesian voices.

ON MAGIC. she’s no less afraid of magic — if anything, she’s more afraid — but she recognizes mages as an oppressed population. she also recognizes the value of magic in fixing the breach. her plan is always to ally with the mages, until she learns of fiona’s alliance with alexius. as far as she’s concerned, an alliance with tevinter is unforgivable. she hopes to return to redcliffe after sealing the breach, but the mages ally with corypheus instead. she ends up very happy with the alliance with the templars, enjoying the reliability of a hierarchy she can adjust to fit her needs.

ON A COMPANION ROMANCE. i’d assumed that astoria’s in-game romance would be with iron bull, but i think she’d work really well with josephine, blackwall, or cullen as well. ( or cassandra, if the devs didn’t want to hurt me, personally. ) i love bull’s romance and i think it would be really fulfilling for astoria, but i also think she’d work beautifully with any of those others, and i’m not married to any one option. i may make her default blackwall ( again, @worldelivered‘s ) because i’m Perpetually Weeping abt thom & astoria.

#i. she had a marvelous time ruining everything. ( about )#(i'm replaying origins and keep forgetting astoria's not in the game ;___;)#(i love my terrible girl !!! i wish she was there !!!)#(i like origins best in terms of quests - orzammar is stunning - and 2 best in terms of plots and companions)#(and there are origins and 2 romances that just Get To Me)#(but i think inquisition maybe had the best romances - in part bc the game is so long! - and so i think astoria would have)#(SUCH a wonderful narrative arc with any of those romances in-game)#(i've played cullen's w/ eleri and am PROBABLY gonna do bull's w/ astoria)#(i've watched them all)#(i knew for SURE she'd be best with zevran but she'd be... so good with almost anyone in inquisition)#(also: this is a love letter 2 rachel and their zevran / blackwall)

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