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zorosdimples · 9 months

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MORE, PLEASE, ALWAYS, FOREVER

pairing ༄ simeon x gn!reader

warnings ༄ minors: please do not interact! i will block you. suggestive content, religious/sacrilegious imagery, corruption, manipulation, dubious consent, drugging. simeon calls reader “little one” and “darling.” please let me know if i’m missing anything!

word count ༄ 771

notes ༄ this is my first time posting my writing, so please be kind! this drabble is darker than what i usually write; i’ve just been thinking about simeon and corruption for months… i have fluffier pieces in the works, i promise! <3

“but s-simeon,” you whispered, afraid to raise your voice lest desire drip from each syllable—as if the angel couldn’t see your trembling thighs or the glint of hunger in your gaze. your skin glowed, he observed, all dewy with want; he had never seen anything so beautiful, so vulnerable. your chest heaved as though you couldn’t catch your breath. “you’re an angel.”

“yes?” he hummed, trying not to sound too eager—all while his blood sang for you.

your tongue wetly floundered for a response, brain unable to comprehend anything other than the fierce fire that licked at your very core. oh, if he did not relish your sputtering, dumb state. you hung onto his every word as if he would lead you to salvation.

that’s what angels were created for, right?

“angels, humans, demons—we all have more in common than you think. we all have similar urges, similar needs,” simeon stated, lithe fingers traveling down your sides to dig into the soft flesh of your hips, forcing a breathy sigh from your lips. shame would have eaten you alive had it not been for your desperation.

“but you humans are rather self-centered, no?” he asked with an experimental squeeze that had your eyes fluttering dreamily. “you assume that your corrupted moral compass applies to the other two realms.”

you shivered as simeon leaned so close that you could smell the sweetness—caramel?—that clung to his skin. his lips brushed your ear as he whispered, “angels, as god’s chosen creatures, are encouraged to love deeply.” his fingertips grazed your belly as you swallowed thickly. his hot breath melted your resolve while his thinly-veiled words had your nerves thrumming in anticipation.

patience was a virtue that simeon usually embodied, but the thrill you inspired within him was cracking his restraint. he couldn’t help but push: push himself, push you. he needed to hear you to say it.

he gently cradled your chin between his thumb and forefinger, angling your face to meet his expectant gaze. if you had been in the right state of mind, perhaps you would have noticed how his azure irises were unusually dark, pools of midnight you could drown in.

the smile that tugged at his lips was almost wicked as he probed, “what do you need, little one? tell me.”

the endearment fell on deaf ears as you leaned into simeon’s grasp like a simpering pet. your eyes flickered down to his lips instead of answering his question, biting down on your own almost hard enough to draw blood.

“ah ah,” he chided, pinching your chin, still a hair’s breadth from your face.

you looked like a wounded animal for a moment, eyes wide and shimmering, staring down the barrel of a hunter’s gun. you tried to wriggle from his grasp in embarrassment.

the angel’s grip was unyielding, though. he was certain there would be bruises on your tender flesh come morning—the thought only heightened his arousal. his honeyed chuckle, like a potent sedative, lulled your movements.

“as much as i appreciate your enthusiasm,” simeon said with featherlight strokes to your burning cheek, “i need you to use your words, darling.”

you whimpered in response. your brain was fried, incapable of intelligent thought. all you could do was feel and act—instinct usurping rationale—more animal than human. all you could muster was a breathy and pathetic “please,” punctuated by the unshed tears that sparkled in your eyes.

“please what?” he cooed with faux sympathy. his free hand skimmed down the slope of your shoulder and the curve of your arm to ultimately settle on the fat of your thigh. the movement caused a tremor to ricochet through your body.

he looked at you like he wanted to devour you, to pick your bones clean, to consume you so wholly that not even your soul remained. and maybe it should have frightened you. but all you wanted was to lay yourself bare and let the angel feast on you until there was nothing left.

“i need you, simeon,” you finally breathed, soft as a prayer.

as soon as the words left your bruised lips, he lifted you onto his lap, wrapping your legs around his waist. you exhaled a warbled moan when he dipped down to scrape his teeth against the column of your throat. “that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” he murmured into your skin.

you were too far gone to answer—not that simeon cared. he finally had you where he wanted you, writhing and whining prettily. he made a mental note to thank solomon for the spell that had his little human begging for more, please, always, forever.

#oh god now i need to figure out the tags #pray for me #obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me x reader #simeon x reader #simeon x mc #simeon x you #obey me simeon #obey me smut #simeon smut #simeon #obey me shall we date #om! smut #tw dubcon #tw dark content #i’m trying my best here #please lmk if i should tag anything else!#༄ kae writes

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babsaros · 22 days

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hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.

they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.

trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny. like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up. stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.

#cw transmisogyny #cw discourse #cw transphobia #longterm tme mutual pissed me the fuck off bye #everybody else gets to read this now #if you still don't get it idk maybe go stick your head down a toilet and flush #that might help #its so fucking simple stop drinking terf koolaid #if u are transmasc and have experienced transphobia i'm really sorry that happened to you.#and if calling it 'transandrophobia' makes u feel less dysphoric then whatever fine #but its not like. a systemic issue.#pls understand that #transmisogyny is a systemic issue we should be talking about. because misogyny is a systemic problem we have not yet solved.#i hope i never have to talk about this again #lmk if i should tag it as anything else #or if i've worded anything in a way that should be corrected

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zaacoy · 1 year

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That one dumb tweet has put this outfit that HE ONLY EVER APPEARS IN ONCE IN THE ENTIRE SHOW into the forefocus of my brain for like 3 days now so have this

#He is SO silly it is UNREAL #And that color of purple looks so good on him they should bring smth like this back omg #It is criminal that he only has like. 4 minutes of screen time in this outfit. please lego please #Ignore how wonky some things are im eepy and stressed weewoo #lego monkie kid #monkie kid #lmk #tang lmk #pigsy lmk #freenoodleshipping #freenoodles #I don't think tang in this outfit has a specific tag very sad #THE NEW LEAKED OUTFITS AREN'T HELPING WITH MY DELIRIUM NOW I NEED TO DRAW HIM IN THAT ONE-#IMMEDIATELY TOO AUGHHH #If anything else cool drops before I get done with my exams I might actually just die #I just need things to hold off until may 20th after that I'm good pleaseeee Lego pleaseeeeeeee #Back to the scorpion outfit they should really put him in purple more often it's so good on him nfndhsnm #It's definitely just the floor length robe thing and the long sleeves but it gives me ao lie vibes #so silly it's criminal heehheehoo #Zaacoy art💫

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beannary · 11 months

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haha sure glad we defeated the kraang and none of us were irreversibly changed by the experience! hey did raph always look like that?

#my art #tmnt #tmnt 2018 #2018 tmnt #tmnt 2k18 #2k18 tmnt #rottmnt #rottmnt raph #rottmnt raphael #tmnt raph #tmnt raphael #gore #eye gore #i think #lmk if i should tag anything else #i hate this but sometimes you have to post stuff that you hate

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cj-the-random-artist · 5 months

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Welcome to Trader Scar's are you here to buy, sell or trade?

Scar's Life series POVs are some of my favorites every time, they do ample emotional damage and are also extremely silly and fun and I love that vibe so have a Secret Life Scar

Also notably. I'm making efforts to be on social media less so that I can detach my artistic self worth from likes and such (because that's been. Really bad for my ability to art lately) and so I can put less pressure on myself to make stuff - especially stuff that follows certain "requirements" that I've unintentionally imposed on myself - and it's working SUPER WELL so far. Art is becoming fun again and within a day of doing this my art block has been significantly lessened. That said if that's related to me not being on here as much there's why lol

This has been PSA and a random Secret Life Scar. Enjoy and have good day :D

#goodtimeswithscar #goodtimeswithscar fanart #secret life smp #secret life smp fanart #trafficblr #trafficblr fanart #also lmk if i should tag as spoilers?? i didn't because this isn't based on any namemc spoilers or session spoilers or anything #but if i should spoiler tag it (or anything else tag it) lmk and i'll do that when i see it #also this didn't take super long despite it being all pretty and painterly and stuff??? which is both a shocking epiphany and the best ever

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mesh-siv · 9 months

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body like beryl, face like lightning, eyes like torches 🔹⚡🔥

#ultrakill #gabriel ultrakill #blood #injury #eye strain #puter art #lmk if i should tag anything else!#i like to think he's like. gaseous under there #cumulobimbo or whatever #the suit and helmet help him keep a solid form yea?#between the pixel brushes and the everything else going on #i uh. really hope this is readable what so ever #i went a uuuhhh a lil wild w/ the blood maybe #I SHOULD SPECIFY this is supposed to be a take on helmetless gabe #i promise his head isn't blowing up. maybe a little bit. it's fine it's healthy for him

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malpracticing-homosexual · 4 months

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🫀+🧠

#hilson #house md #dr wilson #james wilson #dr house #malpractice md #medical malpractice md #everyn draws #dr greg house #gregory house #blood tw #tw blood #blood #anatomy tw #pls lmk if there’s anything else i should tag !!#oh no the motifs !!!!!#hilson fanart #house x wilson #house md fanart

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agropuff · 2 months

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would u consider drawing echo zane ninjago perhaps...... or maybe harumi...

first time drawing echo i hope he looks okay :3 i kinda got carried away drawing harumi,,, tempted to finish her idk

REQUESTS ARE OPEN BTW!!!

#ninjago #lego ninjago #echo zane #ninjago echo zane #ninjago echo #princess harumi #harumi jade #uhh #ninjago harumi #jacks.art #ok lmk if i should tag anything else #ataraxixx

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liketheletter-l · 1 year

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som fanart for @trubblegumm ‘s bloodbath au. couldn’t resist drawing the boy after a bit of light murdering

#cw blood #cw eye strain #cw violence #lmk if i should tag anything else #rottmnt #rottmnt leo #rottmnt leonardo #rottmnt fanart #rise tmnt #rise of the tmnt #hamato leonardo #leo rottmnt #leonardo rottmnt #rottmnt bloodbath au #rottmnt bloodbath fanart #letter art

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feengoid · 7 months

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old ocs from when i was religiously into slendytubbies (around 2017? 2018ish). dont think i ever gave them names, and their designs were very bland (i think my basic idea for them were twins, like xerox copies of the brute twins if anyone knows those), so i did a lot of changes and other stuff for them. kind of fond of them now

not much of a backstory to them, but theyre def from post-custard infection stuff. maybe from a more secluded area of teletubby land, like the brute twins were even though i dont remember if theyre that canon to the lore (and to be honest i dont really care about that, i have my own personal story rewrite. in my brain). no idea on the origins of the scars other than to look deranged, but it could be tied to either attacks on one another or like, custard side effects or whatever. i really need to flesh them out more lol

#my art #slendytubbies #oc #slendytubbies oc #gore #lmk if i should tag this with anything else

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celestial-scribbles · 4 months

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Got way too many feelings about two dudes who don't even interact lmfao...🙃

#One Piece #Monkey D. Dragon #Sir Crocodile #Dragodile #Blood #Nudity #Suggestive #lmk if there's anything else I should tag jkhsdf #I was gonna spew a bunch of said thoughts in the tags but they're just a jumbled mess so I provide no context #Some times you read a few headcanons and that's the end of it #You're lost in the sauce forever #Bye #Also ignore the fact that there is no consistency here I was still trying to figure out how I wanted to draw them....

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water-you-doing-bro · 2 years

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Random headcanon: Percy suffers from chronic migrains and chronic pain!

Tension headaches! He gets them all the time.

Before he was claimed and knew what he was, whenever he'd get a migrain, Sally would tell him to go take a shower.

He would sit under the blisteringly hot shower until he felt better, and it always made him feel a bit better. Sally would make sure he drank an astronomically large amount of water, too. And while this wouldn't get rid of the migrain entirely, it would lessen it and make it more bearable.

Percy learned to live with his migraines. He'd drink a lot of water, take showers whenever he felt one coming on, and just kinda cope, yknow?

Once he was claimed though, and learned he was a demigod son of Poseidon, everything started to make a little more sense.

Of course the water helped him feel better!

It wasn't until the first time he was fully submerged in the ocean that he realized just how weird his body was.

And he didn't know for sure until he got back on land. But underwater, he felt more full of energy than ever, entirely pain-free and the world was sharper, his senses heightened. Everything was clear.

When he climbed out of the water and back onto land, though, the world seemed to dull and cloud over, like he was looking at it from inside a bubble or tank of some kind. And immediately his joints started to ache, which he hadn't realized wasn't, yknow, normal, until the pain returned full-force after climbing out of the ocean.

He asked Poseidon about it, once, and the God had winced and given him a pitying look before explaining that Percy's body is built to withstand the immense pressure from being deep in the ocean, and being on land puts a lot of stress on his body so it has to work really hard to keep him functioning like normal.

He explained that his kids often dealt with chronic pain or chronic migraines, but it was unusual that they suffered from both. However, Percy was the strongest child Poseidon had ever sired, having control over the entirety of Poseidon's sphere of influence where most of his kids only had control over part of it (meaning one could only control water and another could only control the earth, and some could only talk to horses and sea creatures. Though they could always breathe underwater).

He also explains that there isn't much to be done about it if Percy wishes to continue spending time on land outside of what he already has in place.

So Percy just continues to drink absurd amounts of water, take a ridiculous number of showers, and whenever possible, just spend a few hours under the ocean to relieve his pain for a while. Being submerged in other bodies of water helps, too, but only the ocean removes his pain completely. Baths and pools give him the least amount of pain relief, but do still help.

After holding up the sky, his wrists get even more fucked, and he takes to wearing braces on them to help lessen the strain somewhat.

And after Tartarus, his body is super out of balance and completely disjointed and discombobulated, but he pushes through it and ignores how out of touch with the world he feels because they have a job to do, the world to save, there's no time for him to wallow in his wacked out senses. (The others, if they knew how fucked up his body and senses and everything were, would have told him they absolutely had time and it would definitely be better to have him at the top of his game, but he didn't tell anyone, so no one told this to him.)

Once they do save the world and end the war and everything has settled down, Percy tells Annabeth he's gonna take a quick dip in the ocean (she knows abt his chronic pain and migraines and stuff but he never told the others) and then, once he's under, it's like the world comes back into hyperfocus, like his body has finally snapped back into place.

He hadn't realized just how, almost disassociated he had felt until then.

He just let himself sink to the ocean floor and settle into the sand, intending on a short nap to give his body some more time to readjust and recover. When he woke up and walked back out onto the beach, however, he was greeted by Annabeth running up and shaking him violently, screaming at him because apparently his 'little nap' had actually been three days long and Annabeth had started to panic that he'd gone missing again. He was quick to apologize and sheepishly explain how fucked up and disoriented he'd been since coming back from Tartarus and how he now finally felt settled in his own skin again.

Annabeth smacked him on the arm and berated him for not telling her about how he was feeling before and consistently beating down his excuses of 'we were busy,' and 'it wasn't important,' and what not.

After that fiasco, he told the rest if the seven abt his chronic pain and migraines and how the only real relief he got from them was being in the ocean (because of course they had all been worried and searching for him too) and they all nodded in understanding and gave him hugs and told him that next time he had better just tell them he was feeling shitty and disjointed instead of fucking off into the ocean for three days with no warning. He promised he'd tell them, but honestly, he hadn't meant to be gone for that long, and it was probably only because he had been so far away from the ocean for so long and then hadn't been in it for even longer and wouldn't disappear for that long again.

Usually, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours were enough, depending on how bad he felt and how long it had been since he'd last spent some time underwater.

On a funny note, after all this, Percy was explaining how his senses were duller on land, and Jason asked him if he thought he needed glasses too and Percy just kinda stopped because no he had never considered that glasses might be helpful on land so he brought it up to Sally after their reunion and she took him to the eye doctor and he got glasses! And they helped! His prescription wasn't too high, and he could obviously get by just fine without them, but they were nice to have. Eventually, though, he got tired of them constantly slipping and sliding and flying off his face whenever he got in a fight or was practicing ect and went and got contacts! He liked that much better lol

Other random tidbits:

Percy gets really agitated and his chronic pain and migraines get worse the farther he is from large bodies of water, so going inland sucks. In tlt that trip across country was probably the worst he had ever felt (until Tartarus that is). They try to go on vacation or something in a landlocked area of the US and Percy just gets so agitated, and his joints hurt so much and get so stiff and the whole time he has an absolutely awful migraine and not even showers help and feels just so bad but also kind of disconnected and floaty, unable to focus od think clearly at all and when they get back to NY and he heads to camp for a bit he ends up staying underwater in the Sound for a day and a half.

They try not to go anywhere landlocked for any period of time ever again. And if they do have to travel cross-country for any reason (quests, vacations, ect) they make sure their route always takes them past rivers and lakes and ponds and make frequent stops by them so Percy can spend a few minutes underwater.

One time though, Percy gets a quest and takes Annabeth and Piper with him and it leads them to fucking Arizona out in the middle of the desert and it ends up falling mostly to Annabeth and Piper to finish the quest because the lack of water pretty much everywhere really gets to Percy and once it's all taken care of, the girls have to practically drag Percy to nearest hotel and they get a room and fill the bathtub and just let him soak in there until he's cognizant enough for them to get him somewhere better. The closest large body of water is the Rio Grande, so they get over there as fast as they can, then make their way back to camp traveling along the coast or by rivers. Percy doesn't come fully back to himself until they get to the Gulf of Mexico, and then once they leave that behind, until they get back to camp.

Percy refuses to ever go into a desert again.

However, he does love rainforests. He goes to help Grover in the Amazon once and absolutely thrives! It doesn't take away the pain like being in the ocean does, but the air is always humid and everything is always damp and wet so even though he's kinda far from the ocean, he doesn't feel any different than if he were to be hanging out on the coast.

Speaking of, Percy absolutely loves the rain! He's not a fan of thunderstorms, and makes sure to stay inside if there's lightning (because we all know zeus would try to strike him with it) but otherwise, he'll be outside it in running around and just tilting his face up into the rain and enjoying it. Rain always makes him feel calm and eases his joint pain some.

Related: he loves to watch old movies and musicals with his mom and if he's out in the rain, you can usually hear him humming Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain! Sometimes he'll even do the dance

While on land, Percy's movements, to him, always feel a little stiff and clunky, he feels heavy and unwieldy on bad days. But to everyone else, he has all the lithe, effortless grace and power of a big cat stalking it's prey. Underwater, his beauty is indescribable. His grace is unmatched, he moves as one with the water around him, quick as lightning. His movements are easy and sure, in tune with every part of himself and all the movement of the water surrounding him. Few people get to see him move underwater, and fewer still have been able to see him fight underwater, but those who have are always astounded by it.

Okay so this kinda stopped being me talking about Percy having chronic pain and migraines but! Yeah, he does. And he's still badass and while he's bad at recognizing his own limits, he has people that care for him and help him take care of himself when they notice it getting really bad.

#percy jackson #pjo #eliot writes #hoo #annabeth chase #percabeth #grover underwood #piper mclean #jason grace #the seven #percy jackson headcanon #percy jackson hc #percy jackon and the olympians #chronic pain #chronic migraine #lmk if i shouldnt put those tags tho pls!! idk if its bad for me to tag a fandom post with those #i might come back to this with more thoughts later lol #hope u enjoyed and lmk ifni should tag anything else specific

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anneapocalypse · 1 year

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On Dragon Age II's Ending

The ending of Dragon Age 2 has always felt to me like the least morally ambiguous of any of the games' mage-templar decisions and frankly one of the least ambiguous "big" decisions in the series.

DA2 makes it extremely obvious that the Circle mages are about to be executed for something that absolutely none of them had any part in and no one, not even the Knight-Commander, is arguing that that isn't the case. You can feel whatever kind of way about what Anders did, and still recognize the staggering injustice of killing all the Circle mages for something that everyone, including the Knight-Commander calling for their deaths, is fully aware they did not do.

And just in case that wasn't clear, someone made a point of dropping in that bit of ambient dialogue telling us that Meredith is already trying to get clearance for the Right of Annulment before the explosion; she's just looking for an excuse. The game is pretty clear about the injustice of this situation, regardless of how many demons and blood mages there may or may not be in Kirkwall.

I'm a chronic replayer who enjoys making up new characters every time to see things I haven't seen before and I didn't have a particularly difficult time coming up with in-character, circumstantial reasons why a character might annul the Circle in DAO or recruit the templars in DAI and believe they're doing the right thing. For the former: dwarven noble who knows little about magic and believes what the Knight-Commander tells her, and chooses the wrong dialogue option with Morrigan in the party so Wynne attacks and therefore is not present in the party as an emotional anchor and a voice for the mages, and listens to Cullen when he says it's too dangerous to let any of the mages live. For the latter: non-mage human noble from a Chantry-connected family who just implicitly trusts templars, as he was raised to. Or Dalish elf who walks into Redcliffe, sees a magister stinking up the place and says "Well, the Dread Wolf take the lot of you then" and turns around and marches straight to Therinfal, conscripts the templars, disbanding the Order in the process. Just a couple of easy examples I've actually played.

But the ending of DA2 is a choice between "Yes, I will help to execute these people for something everyone knows they didn't do" or "No, I will not do that and I will help them defend themselves and escape." Of course it's possible to come up with in-character reasons to make the former choice, and I have! But it's much less of a choice a character could just stumble into, and you have to do a lot more ideological contortions for a character to do that and believe they're doing the right thing.

Yes, there are a lot of blood mages and demons in Kirkwall. While we don't get a lot of opportunities to treat blood mage NPCs with much nuance apart from Merrill as most blood mages are programmed to attack on sight (and this is likely a product of the game's tight development deadline), the game itself offers an explanation for this in the writings of the Band of Three, the Enigma of Kirkwall codex entry that you can collect throughout the story. While you have to look to find it, this history does make it clear that Kirkwall is meant to be an outlier, for reasons both political and historical (which is another post for another day). And Merrill herself, whether you agree with her viewpoints or not, does offer an important counterpoint: a character designed to be sympathetic while giving a more nuanced perspective to the player on why a mage might choose to use blood magic.

And yeah, even with the fact that the game makes you fight Orsino in the mage ending, I still think this. It's clumsily executed, yes, but Orsino going all blood magic harvester abomination is just one more example of what the game has been showing us all along: that mages (like most people) turn to extreme measures when they're backed into corners with no sense of hope, and the templars then use those extreme actions to justify further abuses of mages. I don't think it was strictly necessary (and for what it's worth, Mark Darrah agrees with that; it's a decision that was made out of concern for gameplay balance more than narrative and in hindsight he's said that he thinks it was a mistake), and I definitely think it could have been executed better, but as it stands it does fit an ongoing theme, and Orsino's actions still do not justify the murder of every other mage in the Circle.

And then there's that thing where Hawke can only receive the support of the nobility and become Viscount if they side with the templars, thereby agreeing to uphold the existing power structures in Kirkwall. It's easy to miss if you've never played through the templar ending (and also because Hawke doesn't hold the position for long and Inquisition doesn't really acknowledge that they ever did Correction: It is actually mentioned in the Champion of Kirkwall codex entry, and possibly other places as well, my memory just failed me), but to me that outcomes is absolutely inspired. It serves to highlight how deeply intertwined the nobility are with the Chantry. The nobles of Kirkwall want Meredith deposed because they feel she's overstepped her bounds by denying them a proper viscount, but they are not anti-Chantry or anti-Circle; they still want mages locked up, and they probably also remember what happened the last time Kirkwall's nobility decided to try and contest the Chantry's power in their city (see: Perrin Threnhold).

I find the templar ending genuinely interesting to play through in terms of seeing the story from that angle, and in terms of what it has to say about power structures and politics in Thedas generally and in Kirkwall in specific, which I also wrote about recently. (To say nothing of how differently it frames Varric in Inquisition when the Hawke he idolizes is the Hawke who slaughtered Kirkwall's mages to a one.) I would honestly recommend playing it at least once for lore reasons if you're into that sort of thing. But I would hardly say that you as a player come out of that ending feeling like you're playing the good guy.

And I'm not even arguing that all choices in the games should be this in-your-face. On the contrary, I don't think they all should. I like it when it's possible for a character to make a choice with unintended outcomes, or get accidentally locked into a worse choice because of previous decisions (like annulling the Circle and then being forced to kill Connor or Isolde). Those are some of my favorite kind of choices in these games. In this particular case, I do think the extreme nature of the choice is important to the story, both as the catalyst for the mage rebellion and to underscore why Anders did what he did.

So when people tell me that DA2 "both sideses" the mage-templar conflict... I respect that it's possible to feel that way about it, but I just don't see it. The game allows the player to role-play a character who might make various choices within its narrative; that is not the same thing as presenting all choices as morally equivalent in-universe, and it has never been the same thing, in any of these games.

If you're looking for one mage-templar choice that puts the injustice squarely in your face, I think the ending of DA2 is very much that.

#dragon age 2 #dragon age #blunders of thedas #dragon age meta #chantry explosion #i've had this unfinished in my drafts for a while but today's the day i guess!#lmk if there's anything else i should tag this #i realize this is stuff we all have very strong feelings about #if you disagree with me that's fine #i just ask that you be civil please #there's some very gentle criticism of the game in here but mostly re: the rushed development

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