Written for @drarrymicrofic 's prompt "Follow". The moment I saw the prompt, this basically jumped in front of me and demanded to be written down. (G | 66)
Follow You
“Where are you going?”
“To Hogwarts.”
“Okay, I will follow you.”
(*)
“Where are you going?”
“To the Burrow.”
“Okay, I will follow you.”
(*)
“Where are going?”
“To the Godric Hollow.”
“Okay, I will follow you.”
“Don't.”
“...Ah, okay. Sorry to intrude. I guess you want privacy—“
“No, idiot! I don’t want you to follow me. I want you to go with me.”
“...Okay. Let's go!"
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I'm doing a cleric of Selune playthrough of bg3 and have been excited to reach the end of the Gauntlet of Shar and Shadowheart's crisis of faith, and BOY did it not disappoint. In particular, I keep thinking about this moment:
The game gives you two Selunite specific dialogue options: one where you tell Shadowheart to kill Aylin, and one where you tell her to spare her.
Both choices lead to her killing Aylin.
And I think this is great. I was shocked, at first, that option 4 leads to Shadowheart killing Aylin, but I really shouldn't have been.
Shadowheart has been having a crisis of faith for a good chunk of the act already, which she is open about with a romanced Tav. She feels conflicted about what she knows is coming. She knows that what Tav is saying is true. Shar will never stop asking sacrifices of her, and she is struggling with whether she can make her peace with that.
But at this crossroads, hearing a Selunite Tav point this out only strengthens her resolve to go through with it. Tav doesn't even have to invoke Selune -- Shadowheart makes that connection herself and flinches away from it.
I just really like that narrative choice. I think it's very well done.
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Interesting(?) Corollary on Aroarce!Euden
So, I've kinda already dug up the more obvious scenes that hint that Euden seemed to be Aroace (as seen here if you missed it).
But as I was spamming Dragalia to my friend today, I found another thing that I think is an interesting addition to this previous evidence.
Specifically, Orion's stories. His base form doesn't exactly give out any flags, aside from his continuing absolute blind spot re. romance...
...But his Valentine's alt has an interesting line in it indeed.
The exchange is as follows:
Again, pretty innocent. Euden thinks he's 'too young' essentially, to be worrying about that, etc. Fair enough.
But this concept seems to be echoed again all the way later in Summer Mym's story.
I'll stress the 'not mature enough to understand what it means to be in love' part for this one.
Here's where it gets hypothetical, but to me, it almost comes across as if Euden, growing up, has learned to associate 'romantic love' with 'maturity' in some fashion. It might stand to reason: kids are often told that, when they see couples behaving certain ways that are weird to them, etc, 'you'll understand when you're older/an adult/when you find that special someone/etc.' So child!Euden might have had a similar moment or three, and associated that romantic love=maturity.
The mere omnipresence of romance as a major theme in society probably doesn't help to dissuade the notion that it's the 'normal' state in the world, and that he is the weird one as he grew up to never having that spark of 'oh now I get romantic love'. Combined with the aforementioned connection he's made, Euden might believe that since he still doesn't feel it, it means he's not mature/too young.
Combined with his other comments over the years like flat-out stating to Naveed he doesn't understand the kind of love he's talking about (romantic) to Malora's story where he says "(romantic love/'capturing someone's affections') [is] just not the kind of thing [he] think about", Euden is consistent on the notion that he just flat out doesn't understand what people mean and feel regarding romance and the corresponding love.
At the very most, he can echo some of the trope sentiments people commonly say word-for-word in media, but even that kinda reinforces that he can at best throw out the most common tropes when trying to come up with what 'romantic love' is: this fanciful 'love at first sight' devotion where one puts absolutely everything about their partners ahead of anything else.
Even then, he doesn't mean a word of it and doesn't really understand why Elisanne is acting all weird about it, because he understands it was an act, she knows that, why would anyone react to having that spoke to them? He was just mindlessly repeating tropes from romance books to upset a dumb fiend. At most, he could see why it was uncomfortable - because it is uncomfortable having that kind of stuff professed to you when you don't like someone, which Euden would perceive Elly as feeling (Heck, he doesn't even really know Elisanne is big into romance novels, thinking 'it's not like her'). In fact, he more bases this comment on making her uncomfortable from a religious sense with the whole 'undying love of Ilia' thing she's forsworn above all else.
So yeah. Valentine's Orion provided an interesting prequel to Summer Mym's story that I felt added a new little layer of elaboration about what Euden thinks of love. All in all, it's surprising just how consistent they were in the messaging some of Euden's thoughts regarding romantic love and its associates.
Bonus round:
Also, apparently the dev team was being funny, and decided to add a running joke for Orion's anniversary lines that Euden just immediately starts walking away and ignoring him whenever he starts waxing poetic about love:
Which, as my friend said, "Honestly what a mood for Euden to walk away/zone out when it comes to things he doesn't experience, aka romance. If he doesn't know what it's like then it's hard to focus or even relate"
The idea of Euden just getting a glaze over his eyes and meandering off whenever somebody starts talking like this is a funny one, though!
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i've always found it surprising whenever anyone said that everyone in succession "talks weird" because one of the first things i loved about the show was that fact that the dialogue felt so real to me? i mean, sure, the business jargon sounds undecipherable to the average ear, but it makes sense because why would the characters be talking in layman terms, as if they are aware of an audience who doesn't understand business esoterica? also, i feel like a lot of movies/tv shows have clear-cut dialogue with a lot of straightforward answers and eloquent emotions, but the messiness and vagueness of the dialogue in succession is precisely what makes it so accurate to real life. i mean, sure, some of the clever quips are clever quips, but some of these characters are clever and/or funny people (roman, gerri, etc.). the way everyone in succession talks feels more natural to me than a lot of other shows -- with all the "uhhhs" and "umms" and "likes" and indirect answers and even the "maybe the poison drips through"s.
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Why do I get weird comic books vibes from the story in ff7 rebirth? Well not the story, but the way they treat the characters/having to have played a MILLION side installments to make sense of some of the story beats(Kingdom HEARTS CODED). I think this is mostly focused on Sephiroth, not necessarily in the game but also in the fandom. Like I acknowledge that some of us probably have not played thru the original ff7 in a minute...but I'm not the only one that read/understood the little thing of green vs. blue eyes Seph in the end and the understanding from databook entries that basically canonized that at least HALF of Seph going off the rail involves Jenova fucking with him?
Idk implications of the little Gi Arc notwithstanding I'm being given a sour taste of the fandom and their dialogue around Sephiroth as a character that draws halfway on his characterization from games like KH, Dissidia, and memes(basically him cameoing in any fighting game that can afford him). Also the way the narrative is treating him. No asides I can find or any data/information you can gather that might, idk, FILL HIM OUT? At least the version of him without the multiverse nonsense???
Don't get me wrong I am DEEPLY enjoying the spectacle of the games, but as a story it is falling really flat for me. Idk it's not like it's anything egregiously BAD, but I feel they are simultaneously relying on fans of the original understanding all of the underlying and connected story, while at the same time inserting really unnecessary changes into storylines that don't need updating, instead of ones that might benefit from a deeper focus or minor changes that might align more with the multiversal themes?
I also think it's because of the action set pieces not feeling well-put together with the internal world building in mind that makes it harder for me to engage with the storybeats.
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