#and forge it he did. and then. the parallels

[lifestilled]

hi, below are very brief summaries for different moments of basil's life which i will treat as my canon, seeing as they end where the book ends basil's life. in another post, i will note down the aus that get a bit more cannon divergent.

london at dawn — basil is an only child to a man who has found his name in the victorian british society as a pakistani man in the millitary. his father was ambitious but level-headed, his mother was pragmatic but gentle. together they raised a wide-eyed son with the interest for the world around him, for art, history and literature. basil spent his years growing up conforming to his parents' every word, taught well that he best keep his head down, and keep it educated.

oxford, or the portrait of the artist as a young man — an acquaintance of his from one social outing or another, young henry wotton, has gotten into his head. for the first time ever he found himself disobeying his father's wishes. instead of sandhurst, he chose oxford as his alma mater, where he would study the literae humaniores. his parents would support him financially through his degree, in spite of his father's initial anger, with the hopes of him securing a name for himself, even in a non-millitary field of work.

london at noon — basil becomes an artist. his father does not take it well. though he allows him to stay at the family home in the city, he provides no further support. his mother tries to help in the little ways she can, but in the end basil is forced to stand on his own two feet. calling on favours from oxford, calling on acquaintances he's gathered from henry wotton and the likes of him, doing commissions, and ceaselessly perfecting his craft. he's lucky enough to capture the attention of a handful of patrons who are happy to have him, though sometimes he is not sure whether it is so his art may be a part of their collection, or he himself, as exotic as the rest of it. he keeps his mouth shut, he's lucky, after all.

london's golden hour — so he has made it. a little over thirty and he has it all. his people, his art, his home. everything scraped together out of what his parents taught him and what he had the courage to ask for. he's good, he's humble, he's grateful. sure, he may be somewhat quiet and reclusive — but which artist hasn't been? society will find him whether he wants to be found or not. oh the great burden of society. that's when dorian gray steps into his life and tears it all apart. a breath of fresh air. a gentle, innocent presence.

london at dusk — following his meeting with lord henry, dorian's very presence turns bitter. for a long time, basil refuses to see it, caught up in the shallow perfection of it all, in the melody of the voices rather than their meaning, in the deep blue of the eyes rather than the ice-cold distance with which they view him. he's inspired, still. working as if running out of time because his very heart can feel the storm that's coming.

london in the dead of night — following his confession, dorian has his very own confession to make. that is the night that basil dies in the book.

[hyperfixatinator]

I have a few doubts about how Phoenix could've forged that bloody fifth ace in AA4. I'm not outright denying he did it, but if so it's probably different from how Turnabout Trump framed it.

Let's start with what we know logically about Phoenix and Zak's last poker game.

There were two decks of cards; one red, and one blue.

Each deck had four of each card. This means each deck started with four aces.

The last game used the red deck.

The above point means the fifth ace Orla snuck into Phoenix's hand was a red card, making five red aces in total that game.

Kristoph took the real (fifth) bloody ace with him out of the crime scene.

Based on this and other information we have from this trial, I have two questions:

When did Phoenix forge the bloody ace?

Where did Phoenix get the red ace he used for forgery?

Phoenix said that he picked it up while he was at the crime scene, but this contradicts the evidence!

There were five red aces in play at the time of the murder. Kristoph already took one, and using a blue ace was out of the question. If Phoenix really took a red ace before the police arrived, he would've only had four to choose from.

Yet, all four were still at the crime scene after Phoenix was arrested. They were even submitted into evidence by the prosecution at the trial.

Unless there was somehow an unspoken sixth ace in the red deck for no reason, this tells us Phoenix lied about taking a red ace with him that night. Plus, having forged evidence on his person during arrest and detainment could've ended terribly for him.

He couldn't have forged it before the match since he wouldn't have known he needed an ace card at the time. And his pockets were clean when Zak searched him.

This leads us to believe the forged bloody ace was created sometime after Phoenix was arrested. But how can he do that when he's stuck under surveillance in the detention center?

The secret is Trucy.

(this is where it progressively dips further into headcanon territory)

With Phoenix locked up, Trucy would be the most likely candidate to pull off a stunt like this. As a magician, Trucy is all about illusions, and she's not above using them to get loved ones out of legal trouble.

Trucy's magic profession also means poker cards are a natural tool to have in her arsenal. Cards are her "stock and trade" after all.

As Phoenix put it, it's a naughty magician's trick. One she felt was necessary to save the only family she had left.

Now, here's why I still think Phoenix could've been telling the truth about forging the bloody ace himself. Even if Trucy was the mastermind of this plan, I don't think Phoenix would let her be the one to actually forge it for an important reason.

Apollo.

Him unlocking his latent perceiving ability was crucial for the trial, but it could've also become a double edged sword.

Phoenix only had his prodigy daughter for reference as to how strong a perceiver's senses are. If Phoenix ever had to lie about being the forger to protect Trucy, the risk of Apollo seeing through it would've been too much to stomach.

Even after the trial's over, it's better for Apollo to hold a grudge against Phoenix instead of Trucy. He couldn't let their secret sibling bond die before it could start.

So what better way to hide a lie than to make it true? All Phoenix would have to do is put a blot of red ink on a card Trucy snuck in during visiting hours and let her work her magic.

It's a technicality, but at least Phoenix can distract Apollo with a custom-made truth.

[1tsjusty0u]

im just noticing the foreshadowing in apollo justices first case and oh my god its so heavy handed once you look back

[lookwhatyoudidithasanxiety]

“I don’t think I wanna be Eclipse” is EERILY SIMILAR TO “I don’t think I’m Sun” or whatever he said rhhfhfhfjj

Disintegrating rn

:))))

[aceof-stars]

Ace Attorney is really good at writing parallels between the game's main prosecutor and the case's witnesses. For example, I've seen a lot of posts about the parallels Franziska has with the characters of Big Top & Reunion.

But there's a parallel that I haven't seen many people talk about. In Rise from the Ashes, there are three characters that represent how Miles Edgeworth views himself: Ema Skye (past self), Lana Skye (present self), and Damon Gant (future self).

Ema, like Miles, thought she accidentally killed a man during a traumatic event in her childhood. Both of them later find out that this isn't true and was in fact orchestrated by someone else.

Lana represents a lot of Miles' feelings and misbeliefs in Rise from the Ashes.

Lana shut everyone out when she was under Gant's control, she "fought crime alone", just like how Miles operated pre-Turnabout Samurai. But despite teaming up with Phoenix and having support from more people (Gumshoe, Maya, and Larry all fighting for his acquittal in Turnabout Goodbyes), Miles still sees himself as operating alone. He still feels alone: "I do despise criminals. I planned to dedicate my entire life to fighting them. But in order to fight crime on my own, I'd need a "weapon."

Miles also sees himself as deserving of punishment for his use of forged evidence as the prosecutor in the Darke trial, when it was Lana who actually forged the evidence and is punished for it. This is something Gant loves to take advantage of: "ultimately the responsibility falls on the prosecutor in charge."

After finding out that Gant has been blackmailing Lana, Miles says: "Ever since her appointment as the Chief Prosecutor, everyone who knew her... said she changed. Perhaps... it was easier that way for her. [...] To follow Chief Gant's orders. She must have shut herself up deep inside to force herself to do anything and everything the Chief told her to do." While Miles wasn't forced by anyone to become a prosecutor, he also shut himself up deep inside. He buried his feelings of guilt and grief in order to focus solely on getting guilty verdicts.

There is also the fact that Miles was likely the one Gant originally intended to frame for Bruce Goodman's murder (considering the body was stuffed in the trunk of Miles' car and stabbed with his knife).

And finally, Damon Gant is the person Miles sees himself becoming if he continues down the prosecutor's path. Miles says it himself, "who knows? Given enough time, I might have tried to pull something like Chief Gant did. That thought terrifies me. That's why I can't continue on as a prosecutor!"

[faemytho]

At the Peak of Truth, Despair Not

story analysis of the Diverged Paths costume set story with pure vanilla's truthless recluse and shadow milk's sage of truth, chunk by fucking chunk because i am INSANE and the parallels keep stacking up. they are the same in every universe. even this one.

this is an essay post and it is long. i am rambling a lot. i dissect certain lines in the story and talk about word choice. i also talk about how many parallels there are in this story to beast-yeast ep 7-8. i swear to god it makes sense. i am a writer by the way. fuck. anyways enjoy my insanity.

-

"Quiet, quiet! Our lecture will resume shortly! Please take your seats in a timely fashion!" A sonorous voice filled the old, quaint square. The voice belonged to a peculiar Cookie dressed in white and gold. Surrounded by a crowd of spectators, this mysterious Cookie now stood in the center of the square. He had just finished reciting an epic poem and was now explaining a convoluted philosophical concept to a freshly-baked flock, wide-eyed with wonder. "The Sage of Truth," they called him.

Setting the scene here, this is an "old, quaint square". The Sage is described here as "peculiar" and "mysterious", indicating that the cookies around him think he's odd. I'll return to the word "mysterious" later.

The word "flock" used here is also an interesting choice; a "flock of sheep". It's a backhanded way to call these cookies "sheep", which is used often in a derogatory way to indicate someone is unable to think for themself or unable to think critically at all, and just plays follow the leader instead of forging their own beliefs.

What's also an interesting thing to note is that the cookies call him "the Sage of Truth". The way this is phrased implies he didn't come up with that name, that he let the cookies name him. That, or he was waiting to be asked his name and was never asked, which I believe is also likely.

It almost seemed as if the Sage of Truth had always stood in that spot, sharing truths and teachings with anyone interested. With time, more and more Cookies came to listen to the Sage. Some said he was a professor of magic, others claimed he was an archivist, until an eager disciple decided to put an end to this dispute with a question. As always, the Sage welcomed the query with a graceful gesture. Pointing upwards, he uttered, "I hail from a peak so tall and narrow, it pierced the firmament itself!" His confounding reply caught everyone by surprise. Only then did the disciples realize that never once had the Sage spoken about himself. Yet, they wished for the lectures to continue and chose never to pry again.

The phrase here, "always stood in that spot", makes him seem more like an object, and less like a person with his own thoughts and feelings. The fact that the cookies begin to come up with things to say about him, that being that he's "a professor of magic", or that he's "an archivist", instead of asking him directly further lends to this line of thinking of him as an object.

This next part, where he is finally asked a question about himself, he exhibits two pieces of body language that show up later in the story at crucial moments. First, when he "welcomes" the query, he is being truthful about it; he wants more of these types of questions about himself. Second, when he "points upwards", he is lying; he claims to "hail from a peak so tall and narrow, it pierced the firmament itself!"

It is an exaggerated fib about the truth. This statement is immediately described as "confounding", meaning surprising or confusing especially in the context of not aligning with the inquirer's expected answer. The disciples then immediately realize that the Sage had never spoken about himself. Paired with such a confusing statement, one might think that such a realization would prompt more questions about the Sage himself, but instead, the disciples decide to focus on the knowledge he gives instead of wanting to learn about him, and so, never ask him another question about himself again.

This is why the Sage is described as "mysterious". They have never asked, and he has never told. The one time he was asked about himself, he said something exaggerated and outlandish; one can only assume he was trying to bait more questions of that nature, only for them to never come.

Another day, another fascinating lecture came to a close. The sky above began to tinge with red and Cookies headed back to their homes when a stranger entered the square. The visitor was draped in a dark cloak and donned an enormous hat that cast a shadow over his face. The Cookie stood there without saying a word and watched the Sage. The silence was broken by the Sage’s courteous greeting, his eyes having already discerned the shadow of despair hanging over the guest. "I don't believe I've seen you here before, my friend…! Alas, today's lecture is over. Care to come back on the morrow?" Yet, the dark visitor paid no heed to his words. "Stop teaching about the Truth." "Why must I?" inquired the Sage.

Setting the scene again for the debut of the Truthless Recluse. He approaches the square when the sun is setting and the sky is turning red, which is a nice bit of contrasting symbolism to Pure Vanilla representing the sun itself.

The Sage takes initiative to greet the Recluse, and immediately defaults to letting the Recluse know that he's done lecturing for the day instead of asking the Recluse about himself (not even a "How are you doing?"). One could speculate that this is a learned behavior; he is used to being used by the cookies who want knowledge from him, is never asked about himself, and as such, never asks personal questions of anybody else either.

But next, the Recluse addresses him directly, talks to him directly about the nature of what he does instead of asking for knowledge or treating him like something to wring answers from. This is probably the first time he's been talked to like this. It's a command, and he answers with a question of his own; the holder of the virtue of knowledge... answers with a question. "Why must I?"

The guest only grinned in reply and stepped closer. For the first time, a ray of light illuminated his face, and the Sage of Truth exclaimed delightedly. "Aaahh, if it isn't the Truthless Recluse himself. To what do I owe such a pleasure?" His monocle glistened with genuine curiosity. "It is said that the Truthless Recluse never descends from the Peak of Truth… How may this humble scholar be of service to you?"

It's interesting that the Sage recognizes the Recluse as soon as his face is revealed. It might indicate that they've met before, especially considering the Sage previously claimed to hail from what we can assume is the same peak the Truthless Recluse has stationed himself at.

The Sage is delighted to see the Recluse, and finally asks the Recluse a personal question, but phrases the question in an interesting way. "How may this humble scholar be of service to you?".

Calling himself humble could mean two things; that he is really a prideful person and is lying by calling himself humble to hide this fact, or, that, in choosing a passive adjective to describe himself with, he is attempting to deflect any aggression he might receive by asking a personal question. It could be both.

He also takes care to point out that he is "being of service".

The Recluse's eyes brimmed with sorrow. "Stop pretending. You know all too well that there is nothing at the Peak of Truth." The Sage clapped his hands. "Eureka! At last, the answer to the age-old question is found! Why the Recluse never leaves his beloved peak vacant! Why every Cookie who neared true enlightenment was inevitably pushed back from the ascension they so craved!"

The Recluse directly calls him a liar. "Stop pretending". The Sage of Truth is a liar! He tells lies and the Recluse can see right through them! But at least he has one thing going for him; he didn't name himself the Sage of Truth. The cookies did. They assumed he would never lie, and because nobody questions him, he has never been caught lying.

Cross referencing to canon Shadow Milk, we know that he holds resentment towards other cookies for just believing every word he said was truthful; being called out on a lie is probably something that's never happened before, especially not to the Sage of Truth.

On top of that, the Recluse is previously described as "a stranger", and the Sage mentions never having "seen him before" in the square where this takes place. All of that tied together means that the Recluse never heard the Sage's exaggerated fib about being from the Peak of Truth, and yet, somehow knows that the Sage is from the Peak of Truth. This is further evidence that the Sage and the Recluse have met before.

Upon being called a liar, the Sage of Truth reacts with delight, only to immediately deflect and deceive again. He turns the subject away from himself.

He tilted his head, expecting a confirmation. "All this time, my best hypothesis was that the Peak of Truth had been seized for good by some petty curmudgeon. Do you mean to say you sought only to protect seekers from disappointment?" The Recluse did not bother to deny the Sage's words for he loathed the Sage for guiding Cookies right into the maw of the cruel Truth. "I, too, once made the same mistake, and for that, faced despair upon the Peak… There was no Truth expecting me. No Truth to save us all. And I cursed myself hundreds, thousands of times over for my folly." And all his sorrow and despair surged forth in a single question. "Why do you persist?!"

"... seized for good by some petty curmudgeon". There's so much going on in this sentence.

If the Sage really does hail from the Peak of Truth, saying it was "seized" puts himself into a "helpless" position. If he cared about the Peak of Truth, what's stopping him from going to take it back? He is, after all, the holder of the virtue of knowledge, a godly power in his own right. Saying it was "seized" puts him in a helpless position and absolves him of any blame for anything that happens to it. Holding the power that he does at his fingertips also implies he doesn't care about the Peak of Truth at all, and is content to let it fall.

He says he'd thought the Truthless Recluse was a "petty curmudgeon"; I'll admit I had to look this word up, but it means a stubborn, ill-tempered person, typically an old man. Really funny actually, but he's negating this insult.

The Sage asks if the Recluse is turning cookies away from the truth to protect them from disappointment. The Recluse doesn't deny it; he "loaths" the Sage for guiding cookies towards the truth. Inverting that sentiment would imply that the Recluse turns cookies away from the truth to avoid disappointment, and uses deceit out of compassion for them. This is to prevent them from getting hurt, because "he too made the same mistake" of ascending to the truth, finding only despair instead.

The truth being described as a "cruel" "maw" is also such interesting imagery. It reminds me of Shadow Milk's snake that devours the sheep on the loading screen of the Awakened Pure Vanilla update. I'll also point out the fact again that the Sage's listeners were explicitly referred to as a "flock".

And finally, the question the Truthless Recluse asks the Sage of Truth. "Why do you persist?"

Because as far as the Recluse is concerned, he just got done explaining why the truth isn't worth it, so why should the Sage continue to preach it? Why do you persist?

It's a question asked out of a genuine, haunting, need to know why the Sage continues to send cookies into the hungry, crushing maw of Truth. It's asked out of desperate compassion for those cookies.

To that, the Sage only pointed upwards and said, "Alas, the Truth is imperfect by design… and yet, one must not turn away from the light of one's own Truth." And with a welcoming gesture, he added, "Not unlike yourself whose Truth is to protect others from anguish." The Recluse never answered. The Sage knew the answer anyway.

Here, the Sage points upwards; a previous indication that he's being deceptive. The statement he gives, "One must not turn away from the light of one's own Truth", seems to imply that he wants anyone listening to him to think that he thinks the truth is a good for cookies, of course, why wouldn't it be? However, throughout the entire story, the truth is regarded by the Sage as something negative, something that's been used to hurt, used to treat him like an object. So to truly answer the Recluse's question, what he's really implying here is that he guides cookies towards the truth because he's hurting, and he wants them to hurt too.

Next, he welcomes; a previous indication that he's being truthful. A welcoming gesture; spreading his arms wide, inviting the Recluse in. He truthfully wants the Recluse to call him out on this lie. He truthfully wants the Recluse to continue to speak with him. He sees an equal, a companion in the Recluse. Someone who understands.

This is such a blatant parallel to Compassionate Pure Vanilla offering friendship to Shadow Milk in episode 8, I would just like to point that out.

The Recluse never answers, but the Sage knows the answer anyway. Whether or not that "answer" is an agreement of companionship or a rejection of it is unclear, and is probably meant to be left ambiguous.

A long night passed and a new day dawned. Yesterday's guest was long gone, and the square was as peaceful as it could be… But the Sage could hear them. The footsteps of many seekers, stepping forth towards the Truth.

"The square was peaceful... But... the Sage could hear them."

This ending is very painful. The cycle of hurt continues. It would imply the Recluse rejected the Sage's offer of companionship, which is probably more likely here. However, the nature of the ambiguity means the Recluse could have accepted, and the seekers of truth may be what links the Sage and the Recluse now that they are apart. It's less likely.

Either way, they are the same in every universe. Even this one.

As I put it in a previous post, the difference between Pure Vanilla and Shadow Milk, no matter which path either of them are on, is their compassion.

The Truthless Recluse pushes cookies away from the cruel truth, while the Sage of Truth encourages them to seek out what he knows will hurt them.

Because even on diverged paths, Pure Vanilla will always care, and Shadow Milk can't ever find a reason to.

[fenharels-chewtoy]

I get being a fan of Solas but you gotta appreciate Lavellan herself too. She’s the other half of the ship and part of what makes Solavellan so fascinating to me. Sure, you can play Cadash or Adar or Trevelyan and get something interesting but there’s something so compelling about Lavellan as the Inquisitor.

All Inky’s can be kind, caring, compassionate, but it takes a special level of strength to be kind after losing everything. Lavellan is taken from her old life, turned into a religious symbol for her oppressors, and stripped of her identity and culture. There is an undeniable alienation she experiences, both from the shemlen, and then from her own beliefs (and her People/Clan) as she goes through the events of the game; she learns that the history she worked so hard to study and preserve was built on the backs of slaves, that her gods were tyrants and slavers, and that Fen’Harel’s name was ruined through millennia of propaganda and perpetuated lies. She is changed from her time as the Inquisitor and from falling in love with Solas—mentally, physically, and spiritually. She fell in love with the god, with the monster, her people were taught fear, and as the stories go, Fen’Harel’s touch leaves you forever marked.

The Dread Wolf’s name is not worshipped in reverence; it is invoked in fear, in anger—it is a curse, reviled, and spit like the most corrosive of poisons.

But that isn’t who Lavellan falls in love with. Just like the Inquisitor, Fen’Harel is a title and mask worn by a broken man forced into a role he didn’t want.

She was taken, twisted, turned into something she didn’t want, but she did not let it break her. The world had taken so much from her time and time again, yet they continued to demand. She gave up her home, her life, eventually her friends, and even the very organization she dedicated everything to. Forced to make decisions that shed as much blood as it saved. The rest of her life was spent in pursuit of a man looking to end the world, long after she’s already saved it once before. She holds her head high and bears the weight of the world like she was Atlas himself. The Inquisitor bends and bows, but never does she break. Despite this, despite it all, she still remains kind. And Solas? Sweet, gentle Solas. His heart is still so kind but he’s hardened it.

A romanced Lavellan wants to help Solas, to save him from himself. She sees the mask for what it is and knows the man—the spirit—hiding behind it all. Wisdom, taken from his home, turned into a weapon and then a symbol—a god. Forced to fight for what is just, Fen’Harel breaks under the trauma wrought upon him and by him.

He is weighed down by duty and service—to Mythal and to his People. The world was broken by his actions, and he seeks to rend another to restore what was sundered.

Wisdom was lost, turned to Pride. It hides under the guise of Fen’Harel because he believes it is not what the world needs.

The Evanuris claim that Fen’Harel is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, when he was a weapon forged by their own hand.

Lavellan chooses to walk the Dinan’shiral with Solas. Maybe for some, it is because they, too, believe the Veil must come down, and the world restored to its natural state. But, as loredrinker said in their fantastic post, it may be because of connection. They see that Solas is suffering; that he’s been alone. This path would break what was left of the gentle Wisdom underneath it all. The Path of Death, he called it.

She said so herself: “I will save you.”

She walks the Dinan’shiral, not as Solas does, but parallel to him. She does not walk it expecting to reap death, but to stop it. They’ve both experienced loss—lived through horrors no being should ever experience. Leaders, symbols—burdens taken on by shoulders that shouldn’t bear them alone.

And Lavellan will not allow Solas to bear this alone. As she had done with her friends in the Inquisition, she is offering him connection. She will ease his burden if he would let her. Despite the isolation she no doubt feels, she makes sure none of her friends ever feel alone. She supports each of them, gives them a shoulder to lean on, and takes their pain as her own because that’s just who she is.

I will bear this weight with you. You are my heart. We walk this path together. Pain, terror, a terrible future, but you do not have to go alone.

And in the end, the wolf finally takes it. And oh, what a relief it must be after all this time. Millennia, suffering. Alone, lonely, on a path he set for himself, believed to end in eternal isolation. After all, Solas’ worst fear is dying alone.

But no. This is not your fate, vhenan. Ar lath ma.

[yokelish]

Solas sees himself in Rook is the lie in Veilguard I cannot get over.

"Solas sees himself in Rook, perhaps even things he doesn't like to acknowledge", they said. There are no two people more diametrically opposed than Rook and Solas. Outside of Rook doing that thing that pissed off a bunch of people in some sort of authority over them, there is nothing between the two to connect them. All their parallels are utterly superficial.

Well, they are both leaders! Solas lead armies, agents, spies against seven powerful mages with armies, agents and worshipers of their own. He had to be ruthless, to sacrifice, forge alliances knowing he'll break them, to manipulate. His friendship with Felassan suffers because it's exceptionally difficult to be emotionally open with a person you give orders to, who you know might die in your name, for your cause, willingly. Solas know it. That's why Felassan writes about how Solas is planning something and is not telling anyone, even his closest friend. It's nothing good. Both know that and neither can do anything about it because there is massive wall between them made of their complex relationship, their cause, Solas' devotion to Mythal and his vengeance for her murder. Solas cannot be a true friend to Felassan just as Felassan can be a true friend to Solas. Love and care are there there but there are things bigger than them and their relationship at play. Solas had to go along with the Dread Wolf narrative even if he hated it. Rook has to prove they are a really good guy to factions and therapyspeak their team of professionals into working under a lot of pressure. Rook suffers none of the consequences of leadership unless they utterly ignore their companions' side quests. What does Rook lose? Their moral codex? Not once did they have to do anything morally questionable. Their relationships? Hardened mechanics is utterly meaningless in the narrative. Since Hardened mechanics is the only thing that was brought from Origins, it's fair to compare it to Origins: Neve is not Leliana who becomes ruthless and thinks murder might actually be an answer to many questions; Lucanis isn't Alistair who accepts that he must become First Talon. What does Rook lose? One companion who willingly sacrifices themselves.

Solas made choices. Stupid ones, yes, but choices. His actions had terrible consequences. Rook is not active in the narrative. They only react. The choice between cities is so in the moment that it isn't about what Rook is willing to sacrifice, what terrible consequence they are more likely to accept, it is not about "all choices are terrible and you have to choose" but reacting to having to choose at all with very little information based on your companions 3 seconds explanation before they ran away. In inquisition, the choice between mages and templars is also quite early in the game. But it influences how you meet Cole and Dorian, it influences who comes to attack Haven, which enemy you are more frequently encounter in the world. Antivan Crows and Rivain apparently have business dealings going all the time, about supplies and Antaam, but after a dragon attacks Treviso, the Lords of Fortune do not offer a dragon hunter (who is big Crow fan) to help out their assassin business partners and consequently Rook. No, it's on Harding to find the dragon hunter. They see a blighted dragon in D'Meta Crossing, hear Ghilan'na speak through it, and not even say that this might be a big fucking problem very quickly and no one nearby knows how to handle it. It's after a city gets blighted that Solas is telling you to find a dragon hunter. Thank you, dear, but I knew that 6 hours ago. Rook somehow didn't tho. The choice between the cities is utterly superfluous, influencing only your gameplay (which companion can't heal you, which city's side quest get cut, which merchants aren't available) rather than the world. Minrathous is no better for fending off Elgar'nan in the end whether you save it or not. UNFORTUNATELY, due to AMA and John Epler, they resolved the artificial moral quandary of this choice as well. Because the Blight in Minrathous will calcify and die at the end of the game, the blight in Treviso will not. Thanks, I hate it. Though the Archon you choose is very much aware that there are blighted gods with an equally blighted dragons but no preparations for any war marches, attacks, sieges will be made. Antiva doesn't reconsider its governance after having a city invaded and blighted. You chose Treviso? Cool. MInrathous' blight will die at the end, Dorian will become Archon and outlaw slavery and cults. Crows rule unchallenged. You chose Minrathous? New Archon is outlaw slavery and cults, your blighted mage will be just fine, Crows rule unchallenged, not a single Talon is blighted. Sad about Treviso, though, that place might just have to be Chernobyl of Antiva.

Solas had moral complexity. Rook doesn't. Varric handpicked the goodest, goofiest little guy to go against a morally dubious ancient being (MW Rook seems to have committed some cultural taboo but don't worry that will not influence how Emmrich views you. MW is EASIER to gain rep with instead of harder. Strife being that way about VJ Rook who saved lives of their people is nonsensical because Strife sided with helping a human mage instead of cutting off said mage's limbs to free himself. LoF background is nonsensical. Why a bunch of pirates give a shit what nobles think? Because trade? They trade fucking lost treasures, not freshly caught salmon. If not those guys, it's gonna be the other guys. Every nation has insufferable rich people who like to put "exotics" into their home decor.) WHY Varric picked the goodest, goofiest little guy in Thedas to stop an ancient mage who fooled an entire organization (and possibly his lover) a decade ago before disappearing into mist that Spymaster of Inquisition couldn't find him until he wanted to be found makes no sense. The man who has lived and actively participated in the shit happening in Kirkwall and Inquisition. The man who fucking lies for a living. Yes, Varric is a overall a good man, but he isn't the paragon of goodness, far from it. It's not Varric who approves you helping refugees in Inquisition. In fact, Varric approves of Inquisitor deciding to let soldiers to fend for themselves. Varric greatly approves of bullshitting your way through thing, including lying, and protecting what is yours. Hawke was never the goodest guy, they are either a smuggler or merc he hired to go through the Deep Roads. Without committing to either choice presented in DA2, Hawke was presented with moral choices where either pick can be dubious. Hawke had to have picked either mages or templars. A bunch of people who are without a doubt dangerous. Or an order who will commit atrocious crimes because they can get away with given that the crime is against a mage. Hawke had some sort of relationship with the guy who bombed the Chantry and either executed him or let him run, either choice without being canonical presents a moral quandary of its own. Varric writes books about how underhanded tactics, lying, spying, and manipulation with a dose of blackmail can actually be for the benefit of the greater good if done with right intetions. But by choosing Rook, it's like Varric thinks that goodness of Inquisitor is what gets one through Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, and not ruthlessness, self-service, and a lot of Varric's own favourite hobby - lying. Why Varric you meet in DA2 and Inquisition picks Rook? Well, he CALLS Rook clever and adaptable, but all Rook's cleverness is bulldozing through obstacles and killing obviously evil guys. Rook is stubborn, determined - no doubt. But Rook isn't clever, cunning, or crafty. They prioritize saving life in droves, which is something that would be on Varric's mind IF Varric was to believe Solas was a heartless bastard with no regard for the damage he causes and we know that's NOT what Varric believes about Solas.

Solas has to fight against his downfall - pride. I genuinely don't know what Rook has as a flaw they struggle against. Their compassion doesn't get them in trouble, they don't get tricked or betrayed. But Solas puts them in prison! Yes, but the reason Rook gets caught isn't due to Solas's trickery but because they can't do shit in the moment. They just fought against Ghilan'nain and her darkspawn puppets alone while trying to free their companions, get knocked on the head a few times, hangs upside down like cattle while their friend gets skewered. How Solas gets them into the prison is TACTICAL. Rook is weak, Rook is tired, Rook is vulnerable, and the Veil is thin so he can actually reach through. It's not trickery. But Rook and Co couldn't shut up about Solas' inevitable betrayal so the payoff is due in whatever way possible. Solas thinks he alone can fix what he has broken, he alone has to face Elgar'nan because many ancient grudges and regrets are knotted up in there. Solas turns on his friends because he thinks what he must do is the thing he must do or all is lost (elven immortality, magic, spirits, knowledge, the world he knew and its history). He thinks he alone knows better than anyone. Partially because he is one of the very few beings who lived since it all began, before the world was changed by the Veil. The Prison sequence wants you the player to believe Rook carries the responsibility in some internalized way, but it's not fucking written in any way until this point, so why would you consider it an issue Rook has to actively face and has struggled with and not just an excuse to have Solas out? My brothers and sisters by the Maker's grace, Leandra scolding Hawke for their sibling's death was more scathing than choosing a whole damn city to be left to burn.

"I've molded you into someone the prison can accept in my place". How? You've done nothing. We had like 4 conversations. 3 of which you spent telling me about the Evanuris, the Blight, their dragon thralls, and how much you fucking hate Elgar'nan. Solas says nothing that changes Rook in any way, how they view their leadership, their actions, or themselves. I think the prison will accept anyone with a formed frontal lobe, honestly. Solas makes you say "I'll do whatever it takes" in the dialogue! Again, that attitude Solas tries to push on you is: a. fucking necessary? you have immortal beings with pet dragons and almost unlimited power to fight against. b. the attitude is more embraced by your companions than Rook. c. Rook is never pushed into doing anything morally questionable or even debatably interesting to reach their objective. Not once is Rook saying "i don't want to do this, i hate to do this, but i have no choice." Rook doesn't even have to lie! Not fucking once!

Tricking someone doesn't make you right. It's one of the things Rook and Solas will discuss. And regardless of anything, Rook will go Shiro Emiya "just because you are correct doesn't mean you are right" on Solas's ass. And that's good. It shows that Solas is shit with introspection just like Elgar'nan and Ghian'nain are. It shows why he is stuck in the prison. On the other hand, his fucking murals are shows very nicely why he is stuck in the prison: he immortalizes his regrets that he wishes to forget instaed of working through them. And by bringing the point of trickery without engaging with what it actually menas to trick... It creates a problem. Well, two problems, actually. A. Where the Solas you meet in Inquisition and Trespasser and when can we get him back? Where is the man who tricked a whole ass organization, played chooms with a Seeker of Truth, Qunari spy, published liar, Spymaster of the Divine, and most ruthless diplomat? Never once does Solas feel superior or above the people he tricked there. He is in fact very fond of the Seeker of Truth who not once found truth on her own (I love you Cassandra). He is very fond of the Antivan diplomat who cheats, lies, manipulates, blackmails probably even better than he did as Dread Wolf and he doesn't feel any superiority for having outplayed Josephine. The reason Solas is the trickster is because it's his only weapon. He was never as powerful like Elgar'nan or Mythal, doesn't have a bunch of other somewhat powerful egomaniacs standing for his cause. Wits, trickery, deception are his only damn weapon, were his only damn weapon for centuries. That's why he is so good at it. The problem of Solas isn't in being a fucking trickster who thinks he is right because he can outsmart you, Veilguard, it's that he goes about solving the problems he creates the same way he goes about making them in the first place: alone, through deception. His trickery is a double edged sword and he constantly cuts himself, refusing to lay it down. He alone tricks the Evanuris into containing the Blight with their life force. Boom! The Veil. He lets the Venatori get his orb and bring it to Corypheaus, thinking he outsmarted them all and soon will unlock his orb and tear down the Veil he created. Boom! Corypheus lives, there is hole in the sky! So he slithers his way into the only force he thinks can fix what he just fucked up - the Inquisition - through deception, alone. That's his torment nexus. You tried and you came close, Veilguard, I giveyou that, but you slightly misrepresented the issue. B. The other problem is that Rook never has to trick anyone. Not even their enemies. Rook can never truly testify for the claim "outsmarting someone doesn't prove you were right" because they never had to. Rook is never confronted by the idea that tricking someone might actually good, put you on that high horse and it can be hard to get off. So Rook's words are just lipservice and not proven experience or tested issue.

"Solas sees himself in Rook". Only if Solas views himself as an insufferable goodie-two-shoes fool who thinks in straights lines and is about as easy to trick as a toddler.

[truly-sincerely]

Obsessively reading everything in game by and about Gortash and the dude is

On a philosophical trajectory that ends in immortality thru technology / the machine

Doesn't have an original bone in his body, but he can backwards engineer anything

Halfway to being a decent scientist but doesn't have the education and is deeply impatient

Overconfident in the veracity of his own results and conclusions

Accurately predicted that the brain would metamorphose and become more difficult to control and then did nothing about it

Outsources his propaganda / arts and humanities

Charming, but he got there in a Pavlovian way (learned from trial and error and probably doesn't consciously know how he does it)

Vindictive af (learned / reinforced)

Darwinian (in the worst way)

Sociopathic, obviously, but extremely Rationalist about it

Never asks questions he doesn't know the answer to and probably thinks this makes him sound more authoritative

Completely incompetent as a strategist (but doesn't know it)

Not nearly as narcissistic / full of himself as he pretends to be

Thinks what he wants is praise but it's never enough because it's not actually what he wants (he wants to be wanted)

Bane makes him feel wanted (conditionally)

Durge made him feel wanted (unconditionally)

Understands intellectually that Durge got ambushed, but he feels abandoned

See also: thematic parallels between Gortash and

Silouv Yali (the Adamantine Forge & the construct Grym)

Oliver (in the shadow-cursed lands)

Astarion and Gale, obviously

[reflectingiridescent]

Watching The King George Job after seeing Leverage: Redemption

Wow, it is MEATY. Poor Sophie.

Up until now, the show - through Sophie's impeccably selective language - has been very careful in suggesting her art theft as a fun game she played with the rich and powerful, something relatively in line with the premise of Leverage in general. This is the first time the show really leans into how art theft links to terrorism, a link that is drawn out explicitly in Redemption S2 in dialogue between Sophie and Eliot.

The girl at the beginning is almost certainly and purposefully written as being around the same age Astrid would have been when Sophie left, which already has Sophie primed to think about her past, the "archeology" of her crimes. Were the things she stole used to fund deeper crimes? Maybe, maybe not. But the damage to Astrid has been done. She just hasn't told anyone.

Just a few episodes ago in The Three-Card Monte Job - a heavily Nate-centric episode - we saw Sophie get unusually firm about civilians being used as pawns in crime. The thematic exploration of collateral damage continues in this episode.

Sophie's more upset than usual during this briefing. Nate clocks it early on.

When Parker says that she should have gotten into this line of work (stealing unregistered, uninsured art) years ago, Sophie is visibly uncomfortable.

Nate goes after Sophie and tries to get her out of her head. It's refreshing to see that dynamic reversed. The suggestion that works? Basically asking her if she wants to run a game on Keller.

I'm biased, but it's REALLY NICE to see Sophie in her element, with all of the art. And! When Sophie takes point, you learn and you con!

Sophie takes over when the first con doesn't work, and everyone rolls with it.

Little pause before Sophie introduces herself as Charlotte Prentiss. It's like you can feel the weight that the persona carries for her.

Cute that all of the beats about the more exciting parts of royalty happen between Sophie and Parker. Sure, they're the women on the team, and we don't know it yet, but they're both living out rags-to-riches stories of sorts.

"Good guess. *little wink*" / "It's not really a guess if it's that good, is it?" The Sophie/Nate dynamic is much more understated this season, but it really, REALLY works. I love seeing them at partners, in crime some more.

PARKER WHEN DID YOU STEAL A CORPSE JFC?

I can't say enough how much I like seeing Sophie teach. Also she is very pretty this episode (and every episode, but I'm obsessed with her black cutout dress).

We see the beginnings here of Sophie teaching Hardison how to forge, which carries over into Redemption. Hardison likes learning about art and culture but doesn't always see how it ties into his speciality. Sophie helps him.

The past few episodes have really leaned into the Sophie & Parker dynamic, and I like it a lot. Through Parker, Hardison, and Eliot, they cover the three senses involved when really analyzing a relic: smell, touch, and taste.

"But to a mark that's always in his head, the heart con's the only one that works." I should start a list of lines that are super core to who Sophie is, because this is def on the list. It's about William and Nate and Sophie's entire career and Sophie herself.

"Some say she became a commoner in Massachusetts. Some say she died at sea. Some say she never left London at all." I've also never paid attention to the parallels between Sophie and the story she tells Keller about the mistress of King George III, but they are RIGHT THERE. This show makes me want to climb walls.

Nate is considering if Charlotte is Sophie's real name. He asks about it, in his way. She deflects and asks about the con. Notable here is how Sophie's doing all of this for the team. This is going to help them get to Moreau. Any effect that it has on her is something she's going to deal with on her own time.

This is the second time this season Eliot is stalling by taking people on a city tour.

A lovely shot of Sophie being excited during the auction - is it over the diary, about the way that Parker's playing the auctioneer, or both? I think it's both.

Watching Sophie and Nate hustle the auction crowd is incredible. Sophie uses neurolinguistic programming. Nate and Parker gang up on another guy in the crowd. 😂

"Is Sophie a princess?" We don't know it yet, but Sophie actually fulfills several roles in the Cinderella story: she is evil stepmother, fairy godmother, and Cinderella herself rolled into one.

"That storage locker was filled with some of the very first things I ever stole." Charlotte's past scandal has hurt her reputation deeply, but it doesn't matter. The team's done their job, with a lot of personal investment from Sophie.

Eliot gets a great fight scene with a belt!

Sophie is shown to be very motivated by the little girl throughout the episode, but the beats with the girl at the end happen with Eliot, who actually had contact with the girl and speaks her language. Much like Sophie's done with Astrid since leaving, Sophie's benefaction happens in the shadows.

It pales in comparison to everything else that's going on in this episode/this season, but earlier in the episode, Sophie says that The Mummy's Tiara is virtually impossible to pull off in a country with an actual monarchy. Our favorite team rewrites the book on crime, once again.

[dragonmuse]

Keep It In The Box : An Essay on OFMD Season 2 and the Failure to Heal

(here in is my season two reaction. It contains many many spoilers. It's also about 3k words long so you know what you're getting into.)

“See, I have a system for dealing with all the terrible things I've seen. There's a box in my mind, and I put the things in the box..” -Frenchie, Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death

…..and then he never opens it. Chekov’s locked box has no key in season two.

On first watch, it seemed clear to me that Frenchie’s declaration was a narrative plant. Clearly the whole season would be about that box of pain and trauma being opened, sorted through and at least the beginning of healing. The show had developed a reputation after season one of being kind and focused on queer narratives of healing from childhood. Ed and Stede’s parallels in their childhood traumas were frequently on display through season one and were repeated in flashback throughout season two. Jim’s season one arc about becoming someone who doesn’t think just of revenge and can now forge meaningful connections was profound, beautiful and often funny. Izzy is an antagonist because he doesn’t want Ed to move on or stop acting like the trauma-response version of himself. The antagonist wants to stop healing. The point is to grow, to change, to learn how to love. It’s one of the things that made season one work for me at the time, despite reservations about pacing and tone.

So naturally season two should follow suit. It’s a kind show! About healing and falling in love!

For the first several episodes, the remaining crew on the Revenge go through a gauntlet of trauma, forced to do and receive violence at Ed’s whims as he careens from self-destructive behavior to self-destructive behavior. This is the wounding setup. It was dark, but it seemed like it would have a payoff and at first it did.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of the season comes in one of the small respites in those early episodes as Jim recounts Pinnochio to Fang to soothe him through his grief. That was the show that I expected. The kindness of that moment struck me very deeply. It gave me some understanding of Archie too, who seems to fall for Jim right at that moment.

That scene is the show season one promised. Season two led with packing Frenchie’s box full to bursting. Here is the fight to the death between lovers, there is a first mate who is mutilated and rotting in the very walls (the rot of the Revenge itself), and there is the storm of Ed’s rage and pain that threatens to consume all of them.

So surely these remaining episodes would concentrate on finding the humor in healing from those moments. That is the setup. Frenchie has a box. The box must eventually open.

Except time and again, all the characters who suffered are told that the only way to deal with what they’ve been through is to stick it in the box and never open it again.

Pete tells Lucius that he’s unable to move on and needs to let it go. Izzy has a story about a shark. Ed’s apology to the crew which doesn’t even contain the words ‘I’m sorry’ is just…accepted. I kept waiting and waiting for a meaningful apology to the people Ed had hurt the worst with his actions, but it seems all we get is Fang saying ‘eh, no problem, I got to hit you back so I feel better’.

The playful theme of ‘pirates are just violent sometimes’ from season one becomes a grinding horror machine in season two when every atrocity visited on someone is forgiven because the narrative needs it to be. Ed and Stede spend more time making amends with each other over the bloodless night on the beach than either of them spend trying to repent for their actions towards anyone else.

And let’s talk about Ed. Arguably this season pivots on his narrative, on his path to healing and growth. A path that starts at a very low point. His moment in the gravy basket, deciding he wants to live because there are still things to live for is so great! So one might assume that what would follow would be him pursuing those things, making amends, making connections. He and Stede have a wonderful moment, talking about being whim prone and how they’ll work to avoid that, build a relationship by going slower.

Yet, at no point do either of them stop following whims. They never heal or learn from what’s happened to them. They both keep running from thing to thing, particularly Ed. It’s a whim to sleep with Stede, it’s a whim to run off to fish, and the finale gives us just more of their whims. Ed drops fishing as fast as he picked it up. He finds those leathers in the ocean, murdering the symbolism of leaving them behind. Even the inn is a whim, one of those things Ed decided he’d be good at without evidence. And Stede joins him in that without a single on screen conversation about it ahead of the moment.

Ed needs to heal himself and to do that he needs to confront what he’s done and do the work to heal the wound. Instead, he doesn’t meaningfully apologize to anyone, besides Stede and Fang. Despite Izzy’s dying words (we’ll get to that), not only do we never see the crew caring about Ed, working to make him family in the same way they do with Fang and even Izzy, he also doesn’t choose to stay with them. So what is the point? Where is the healing? Or does even Ed, beloved main character, have to live with it all stuffed in a box?

He ends the season in the leathers he threw away, in a relationship that’s barely stabilized, going to live in a house which we are told by the narrative (in that they are very very clearly paralleling Anne and Mary with Ed and Stede or why do we even get that whole Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? episode) will only end in them setting fire to each other to stay warm.

But Vee, I hear you cry, it’s a ROM-COM. This is all meant to be ha-ha funny and you are taking it so seriously!

Cool beans. Then why the hell isn’t it funny? Healing is often filled with comedy because people deal with pain with humor. You can heal and laugh at the same time. The finale especially is almost entirely devoid of laughs, almost entirely devoid of joy until the last minute for that matter. The episode that should show off with a flourish how far everyone’s come, mostly serves to show that no one has grown.

Okay that’s Ed. I want to talk about Lucius next. Our former audience surrogate (that’s taken away in season two when he doesn’t get enough screen time to perform that role and no one takes his place) really goes through the wringer. He experiences many many terrible things, including sexual assault (which is made into a grimace-laugh line that doesn’t take away from it’s seriousness because oh hey, that can be done as it turns out). He’s nervous, he’s smoking, it’s clear he’s suffering.

There’s a beautiful moment where Pete tells him ‘hey, I was also in pain. I grieved’ and that’s great. It’s good that Pete sets a boundary about Lucius not obsessing over the past to the point of occluding their future.

We even get our comedic moment where Lucius pushes Ed off the boat (still not apology, but I’d lost hope for that by then) and that doesn’t help enough. So Izzy comes in with a shark and the advice that you just have to move on.

Just…you know. Play pretend. Forget.

Shove it in a box. Ed didn’t take my leg, a shark did. Ed didn’t kill you, a shark did. Live with the person that tried to murder you because it’s your fault you dangled your leg over the side of a boat. That is the show’s message. I thought on first watch, that surely this would also come back up and be explained that you can’t live that way, that that is no way to heal. That it would become clear that this was no way through. You cannot make everything into sharks.

Lucius can move forward and still carry pain. He can still want a meaningful apology and still want to talk to his lover about what he’s dealing with while moving forward toward a brighter future.

And what of the flirtatious promise of relationships and connections being the way to heal? Look to Oluwande and Jim, whose heartfelt romance from season one was relegated to the bins of history in favor of a narrative that made him a brother Jim once had sex with. They could have had Archie AND Oluwande, who in turn could also have Zheng, but that never seems to be an option. With a single short conversation, they are broken up with, despite a brief tease at the birthday that they still ‘dance’ together, it never actually manifests. Jim and Archie never talk about what they went through. It’s swept under the rug as fast as knives are lowered.

Lucius also no longer flirts with other people, the solution to his pain is to propose and get married (but not too married, lest we forget that they’re two men, they don’t even get to be husbands or even the more respectful mates, no. They’re mateys.) This season proposes that the only happy endings are monogamous ones, where no one talks about anything painful that went before.

To ensure that message, beyond assuring the success of Oluwande and Zheng’s relationship, Jim and Archie almost entirely disappear from the narrative. Sorry you guys were given layers of trauma and no growth and not even much to do this season, we need to make sure that everyone remembers Oluwande is the break in Zheng’s day so when he says that to her five minutes later we know exactly what he’s referencing. No time for Archie to learn what an apology is or for Jim to get one line in with Oluwande that isn’t affirming their newfound broship. Must do more flashbacks to things we just did two episodes ago!

The show even dangles the conversation of the Revenge being a safe space. Why would any of them ever feel safe when the man who tortured them is allowed to walk among them and they are expected to forgive and forget? What’s safe about that? The ship is never made safe for any of them, but that’s never addressed.

And Zheng! Amazing, hysterically funny Zheng! She loses her ships, her entire way of life, the kingdom she built for herself and then…she doesn’t even get to captain the Revenge. We don’t know what becomes of her fleet, of her plans, her ambitions. Don’t worry about it, she has a romantic partner and isn’t that what every lady wants in the end?

(But Vee, I hear you cry again, there will be a season three! Maybe it will be All About Zheng! To which I say: then why did they present us with the most series finale feeling episode ever? If there’s more, I have no idea where it’s going. BUT VEE: BUTTONS AS SEAGULL ON THE GR- Fine. It’s time.)

Let’s talk about Izzy Hands.

Izzy manages more healing than anyone else this season. He reaches his lowest point, suicidal in the bowels of a ship that’s become a prison (very much in contrast to Ed’s suicidal low). The person he loves most in the world has shredded him physically and emotionally (and if you’re in the camp that thinks Izzy deserves the abuse that Ed gave to him, I would really like you to sit quietly with yourself and ask why you think there is ever anything anyone can do to deserve that treatment). He’s low, he shoots Ed to protect everyone, and then seems to plan to drink himself to death, mourning his losses.

And then another beautiful moment! The crew move past their own pain to help him. They work together for the first time and it’s to give Izzy mobility back. He treasures it. He cries over it. He uses that kindness extended to him to reach a new understanding of Stede and help him succeed, doing the work to make real amends. He sings in drag, he’s vulnerable and beautiful, celebrating the side of himself that he must’ve loathed in the first season. He’s an elder queer man, coming into himself.

He never gets an apology though. (‘Sorry about your leg’ without eye contact is not an apology. There is no responsibility taking, no acknowledgement of the weeks of torture that came with it.) Izzy also never really has an honest conversation with anyone about what it means that the man he loves punished him so severely for the crime of trying to protect the crew (yes, lest we forget, Izzy lost his leg because he was trying to keep Ed from re-traumatizing the crew and himself).

Izzy does all this work, but even he’s not allowed to take it out of the box. It’s a shark, not Ed. Ed is just ‘complicated’ (the language of abuse here is so upsetting and I think not even intentional).

And then he dies. His last act? To apologize to the man who tortured him and shot at him. To have done all this work, to take on all the blame. And then die.

In a rom com.

This show ends in a profoundly unfunny moment of telling the audience: this is the one character that did the work, that made amends, that tried his hardest to accept the parts of himself that he had a hard time embracing and formerly embittered him. He’s fully accepted his queerness and turned it into beautiful music. He’s disabled, and he worked hard to accept that. The man he loves will never love him back, so he worked hard to make Stede able to meet Ed on an even playing field. The Giving Tree gave up its limbs and its trunk, and it’s not even allowed to be a stump to sit on.

Kill the queer elder, who has managed to figure out how to live and in his own way how to heal. Kill him before he manages to teach anyone else how to meaningfully move forward (he almost gets it with Lucius, almost, but it’s meant to be rule of three, you know. Cigarette..shark…and then…and then fuck it, Lucius doesn’t even get to say a word at his funeral).

The message of this season again and again is that there is no healing, just moving forward. Like a shark. Like a bird that never lands.

That is not a kind show.

Season two is not a kind season.

It splinters people up and jams them back together without purpose or reason. It tells everyone who experiences pain that they should shove it in a box and not deal with it. No one who really needs one gets an apology of any sincerity. No one puts in the work to gain forgiveness. (Ed wearing a onesie is not The Work. Ed fixing a door is not The Work. Ed broke people that the show wants us to care about. Ed never does the work of making those amends. He fires off a Notes app apology at best. After all, it’s what he told himself via Hornigold in the gravy basket: you move on or you blow your brains out! Good thing he took his own advice and therefore had to change nothing to get his just rewards.

I would’ve taken just fifteen minutes of Ed trying to actually make amends. It could’ve been hilarious! Imagine awkward Ed trying to dance around what he’s doing with Jim and the two of them having a knife throwing competition about it. Or him and Frenchie attempting to make music together, writing a song about the raids they went on! It’s not just the crew robbed of their healing because of this, it’s Ed himself. He never meaningfully changes or makes amends. How is he any different at the end of the finale then he is standing on the edge of that cliff with Hornigold? He hasn’t moved on, he hasn’t healed. He tried one thing (fishing) that doesn’t fucking work and then he runs right back.

No one leaves this season better than they went into it. They’ve lost an elder queer, they’ve lost their joyous and queer polyamory, they’ve lost a chance for meaningful reconciliation with Ed and Ed lost any chance of looking like he gave shit if they did. Stede grows enough to accept the crew’s beliefs as important and then leaves them behind without a care.

Izzy gets a beautiful speech about piracy being larger than yourself. Ed and Stede, within twenty minutes of that speech, leave piracy. They are incapable of giving themselves to something bigger, apparently. They haven’t learned to be a part of a community. They haven’t healed from their childhood trauma or their fresher wounds. They are still just following their own whims.

Zheng’s life work is in tatters, but it’s fine, she has love. Oluwande and Jim aren’t together, but it's fine because they both have dedicated monogamous partners. Lucius was deeply scarred by what happened, never recovers much of his first season personality, but hey he got-well it’s not married exactly- but you know good enough!

Frenchie, who has a box forever locked in his head, is captain. Because the key to success is to lock it all in a box and never open it. What a message. What a show. Conceal, don’t feel. Smile because it’s a happy ending. Don’t mourn the dead, don’t try to tell people what happened to you (they will literally run away or cry too hard to listen and really you’re just bumming them out), and any meaningful change you make is only rewarded with death.

Frenchie is now a pirate captain with a box in his head full of trauma that’s never been opened, leading a crew with more wounds than scars. Wonder how that could turn out? Wonder how many years before he might want to retire and then happen to run across a gentleman pirate. As if no one learned anything at all.

[piratefern]

Regarding your most recent post, Has Dyo ever been broken or shattered?

OOOOOOOO the answer is a definite yes :3 And its one of the main reasons Hasel leaves

Near around WW1 Hasel started breaking down again because of the vine resurfacing (due to all the bloodshed), making him more absorbed in his head and distant, and in this way he feels he could never be a good enough partner for Dyo

Then due to this distance he ended up in the grey dimension again, his physical form attacked Dyo when he tried to help Hasel and accidentally ended up chipping his mask. This put the nail in the coffin for Hasel, despite not being his fault, and he decided Dyo would be better off without him (instead of tackling his issues head on and learning to be a better partner) so he left, leaving his briefcase as memorabilia. He’d convinced himself it was for the better, now he can focus on finding the cure for the vine and Dyo will be “safe”

Dyo had creeping suspicion that he might up and leave one day as he got more distant, making him anxious up until Hasel’s departure. Of course he didn’t think it would actually happen, but this explains why he didn’t think he’d just walked off for firewood or something, he had a dreaded feeling he’d left, and he did.

This leading to Hasel (up until present day when he’s captured by the facility a century later) to resume his search for a cure. He starts remembering something from a dream in his past, of a far away land he’d visited as a child, where he’d met a masked child of similar age. He brushed this off until it kept coming back, and you know Hasel he’s really irrational so he decided this place must be real (and he was right, somehow!)

So he starts researching about places that sounded similar in odd libraries and archives, eventually finding a place called “Alagadda”. An old explorer who fell into a pocket on earth winded up there. Hasel realised the same must have happened to him in his youth. The explorer ended up documenting the place, finding a way to build a portal between the realms, however he never fully completed this research and it is unknown what happened to him.

Hasel ends up finishing the portal, believing the answer to the cure lies on the other side

He goes through and eventually meets the Black Lord, (not knowing it was Dyo). He can’t quite place why he looks familiar. As time doesn’t work linearly in Alagadda and doesn’t parallel with earth time, he is meeting Dyo before he became Dyo when he was still Anguish/The Black Lord. Anguish believes he is sick and begs the Doctor for a cure, turning out that The Black Lord being under the control of The Hanged King was the “sickness”, sparking the event for Anguish to eventually escape through the portal just after Hasel. Hasel (by some mirical) ends up exactly at the time where he left, as if hed never been gone at all, after which he is immediately found by Facility researchers from S.C.P who had been tracking strange fluctuations in unknown energy (Dyo has been caught at the same time and they end up in the same van, im debating changing how this happens so we’ll see :3)

Dyo on the other hand emerged 2000 years in the past before the portal was ever created, this creates a paradox and as a result he loses his memory, causing him to forge a new identity to cope (of which he eventually believes is completely true)

However, since the portal is built in the future, Dyo eventually starts picking up memories he’d lost, and remembers who he was

Thats the gist of the story :3 some things ive altered slightly from my last explanation and ill probably keep doing this if I find plotholes, this is basically my first ever attempt at a fully fleshed out story so its definitely not going to be perfect 😭 but im glad you guys are liking it so far :3

I might change what the purpose of the vine is, perhaps what the vine actually does is warn Hasel when death is imminent, but he thinks that when someone has the vine they are infected, so he ends up killing them to stop the spread, however they were only ever going to die because he was going to kill them because he thought they were infected. This sorta makes sense since he was guilty that he couldn’t prevent his family from dying, so now he has the means to prevent others from dying. It also clears up why the vine is still around after he learns to accept his family’s deaths and that they weren’t his fault. So he’s convinced that the vine is his punishment and he thinks that it means he needs to find a “cure” for some disease, when really he was the “cure” all along, and was supposed to be helping people and healing people or comforting them if death is imminent, like how he did in his former life. This ties into his healing and death-touch powers and it makes more sense why he has these. He can kill at a touch of his hand, but thats to help people who have no chance at survival reach peace and not to be a midas’ touch sort of situation. He also never hears directly what his daughter wished for, just what his wife told him before she died, so his daughter easily could have wished for him to be alive again so he can help people :( And since the brothers death would have answered this wish, it makes sense why he was brought back in the way he was, being a crow (the omen of death) with healing and death-touch abilities.

so the whole time he was misinterpreting what the vine was, perhaps the manifestation of the vine and his wife wasn’t ever anything to do with the vine at all, he just assumed it was, when the vine manifestation was actually just mad intrusive thoughts due to guilt, this also makes sense why the vine manifestation turned into Dyo after he left him since its directly linked to his guilt and not the vine itself

Some silly side notes are that Dyo’s original body is like SUPER tall and he gets it back when he returns there, also when Dyo and Hasel are apart after WW1 they start taking on traits of the other, Dyo obviously has his poncho making him hooded, but be also gets more grumpy and bitter (not enough to change his whole personality though), Hasel on the other hand stops tiding his feather so they get really unkempt, eventually making his fur resemble Dyo’s hair (at the end of the series they both have it tied back :3). When Hasel winded up in Alagadda as a child he adorned a bird mask, but upon returning he doesn’t have one. We never see what Hasel looks like as a human either, this is because I have an unbridled hatred for when monster characters or characters with masks/full face helmets take them off or transform back into a human, its like its not the same character anymore even though it is, like what was the point of the character being a monster to show character development or learn a lesson if theyre just gonna be human at the end of the story, it annoys me every time LMAO (obviously exceptions being human au’s of characters, i specifically mean like when its part of a narrative in cannon material) Even if I do a post where I make concepts if they were human, Hasel specifically is keeping the Black square (not dyo though since he never was human in the first place :3)

which makes me think, what would a personality swap AU look like for these two? Theres so much to be explored, like Hasel taking up partying and drinking to deal with the death of his family of which he blames himself, and Dyo becoming closed off and reserved because he never made up a past as a coping mechanism, he just has no idea who he is which makes it hard to form any sort of romantic bond, like would any of you like a full concept of that? Im curious

[rosemaryentombed]

homeboy really kickstarted the extinction of the human race, and did not give a single FUCK. now he's getting ready to die and go home to his mama. i don't even know if robots have souls in this manga, or if they go to heaven, but i don't think it matters. i think bc HE thinks he's gonna get to see his mama again, then it's gonna happen. bc he willed it. bc despite hating the human race, he too became more human with every act of kindness after having forged humanity's final destruction. i'd say he and phos paralleled each other perfectly. kongo's brother being the OG phos...... ichikawa, you goon

[baphometsss]

On Solas's romantic history

Okay. I know what the consensus is. That he’s way too smooth in Inquisition to be inexperienced but... (and I’m fully prepared to get shat on for this lmao don’t kill me)

When he kisses Lavellan, that doesn’t read to me like he’s super suave and seductive. It reads more like—endeared by them trying to run away after kissing him, then being so surprised by how good the kiss felt, that he grabs Lavellan, kisses them again, pulls back with a surprised look on his face, and then goes in for more. It’s touch-starved, desperate, hungry. It’s not really all that smooth because he’s literally bending them over backwards lmao like Solas can you chill maybe

He is very smooth when flirting with Lavellan, but he's also an absolute gobshite who's spent thousands of years sassing the hell out of wannabe gods so that's not a surprise. He's witty af and enjoys some back and forth.

Solas is a very lonely man. He keeps everyone at arm’s length because he’s seen what getting close to people can do to him. His biggest fear is dying alone, and he almost gives into that because it’s what he believes he deserves for all he’s done. His life has been so stressful for so long that he's almost totally unable to consider anything else but his battles. He even says explicitly that he's tired.

That doesn’t make me think of someone who was out there in Ancient Elvhenan sleeping around all those years. No doubt he considered it, but he likely didn't pursue much with anyone physical; he enjoyed spending as much time as possible in the Fade. (The banter with Blackwall doesn't count to me personally since Solas himself thinks the whole idea is preposterous, which speaks for itself really.) Especially after being a slave/servant to Mythal seems to have voided him of his agency for some time. Then he led a rebellion and fought for thousands of years against brutal tyrants. Any one of the people he was close to could’ve been trying to kill him. Lavellan, however, has no reason to do so, so he can flirt with them freely. In all that time, it seems as though the only people he allowed to get close to the real him were Felassan and Mythal. I don’t think he slept with either, because the relationship was familial. Felassan was also loyal to Mythal, but didn’t burn his vallaslin off. (Is this a right hand/left hand of the Divine parallel again? Two brothers and their mother? Idk, I need to think about that one). For creatures with bodies made from the blood of Titans, they don’t have blood families. They would’ve had to forge their own, which is what Solas did with Mythal and Felassan.

And then there’s his ‘it has been a long time’. Most have taken this to mean that it’s been a long time since he’s been intimate with someone, but given what we know now and that he spent thousands of years in the Fade while his body was in uthenera… I wonder if he’s actually saying-- ‘it has been a long time since I lived in a body’-- ie. ‘it has been a long time since I felt physical drives, a long time since I have felt so physically real’. To me, this makes a lot more sense than the ‘he’s thousands of years old he can’t possibly be a virgin/inexperienced’ take bc like... My friends. It probably didn’t feel like thousands of years to him bc he’s essentially always existed. Time is different for spirits. It’s not like he’s gonna go: ‘well I’m nearly 4000y/o, better lose my v-card’. Time is no object when you are a timeless being. Then, given the path his life took, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for him to be that experienced given how hard it is for him to trust.

I also personally headcanon him as heavily demisexual/demiromantic too. His true nature is so non-physical that the idea of him being very promiscuous or something just doesn’t fit his character. He needs a mental connection, to feel something, before sharing much of himself, or allowing himself the vulnerability intimacy brings, something he clearly feels with Lavellan based on how shaken up by it he is.

And it’s also canon that Solas has never been in love before meeting Lavellan. So. If he went however many millennia without falling in love, it’s also possible he went without intimacy for a long time too.

To be clear I’m not trying to say that this is the correct conclusion. My opinion has just changed a little since Veilguard (I used to think he was being smooth etc bc he's old af/v experienced, but with confirmation of former spirit Solas it’s changed my perspective somewhat)

Also:

‘Things have always been easier for me in the Fade’

‘I am not often thrown by things that happen in dreams’ my man is shooketh guys SHOOKETH

[osiiiris]

2025 is Meliora’s 10th anniversary and I’m not going to be quiet about it.

Recently, I’ve been focusing a lot (…again 😅) on the cultural movements that inspired the entire Meliora era, especially Futurism.

Knowing from Bishop Necropolitus Cracoviensis II that Terzo studied the Futurist manifestos during his formative years in Krakow (most likely Marinetti’s), I like to believe that the main inspiration for Meliora’s aesthetic came from the architectural drawings of Antonio Sant’Elia. The parallels between Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Antonio Sant’Elia with Terzo and Necropolitus are quite evident:

(...) We would sit down to studying exciting Futurist manifestos, sketched the blueprints of utopian metropoles, spiked with shiny skyscrapers stabbing at the heavens belly... Wantonly swollen zeppelins would to carry our gospel of indulgence to the farthest corners of the globe to summon and enslave.

BP Necropolitus

We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits, shining like them with the prisoned radiance of electric hearts. (…) Alone with stokers feeding the hellish fires of great ships, alone with the black spectres who grope in the red-hot bellies of locomotives launched on their crazy courses, alone with drunkards reeling like wounded birds along the city walls.

F.T. Marinetti - Manifesto of Futurism

Easy to imagine Terzo and Necropolitus—half stoned, half dazed, and inexorably intoxicated by a party that had been going on for hours—retracing, for the hundredth time, the highlights of the Futurist Manifestos they had read over and over, fervently discussing the future and the modernity they dreamed of bringing with his papacy.

Sant’Elia was a contemporary of Marinetti, fathers of the Futurist movement, and his Manifesto for Futurist architecture shares much of Terzo’s vision for Meliora, the city he created.

Each generation will have to build its own cities. Sant’Elia said.

that, just as the ancients drew their inspiration from natural elements, we – materially and spiritually artificial – must find our inspiration in the new mechanical world we have created, and our architecture must be its most beautiful expression, its most complete synthesis, its most effective integration; (…) by architecture, I mean the effort to freely and audaciously harmonise man with his environment, that is, to make the material world a direct projection of the spiritual world; 

A. Sant’Elia - Manifesto of Futurist architecture

(...) Forged in nostalgia of steam and fire, this brave new world of ambition, vice, lust and greed - all so inherent to the enlightened modernity, was always with him through all these years.

BP Necropolitus

The Futurist movement embraced all forms of art, from painting and sculpture to architecture, music, and literature. It was characterized by a burning hatred for the past, which they wished to destroy, and a glorification of machinery, new technologies (we’re talking about first 20 years of 900), dynamism, speed, modernity, and rebellion. Nothing was meant to stay still, everything had to move, transform, evolve… very much in line with what Terzo seemed to believe.

But there was a downside. The original Italian Futurism became closely tied to fascism. It also celebrated violence and war, seen as tools to “clean up” and make space for the new. Most of the founding artists died in a war (World War I) that they had glorified and willingly taken part in. And when the dictator fell, so did the Futurist movement.

The lives of these artists were brief, but they remained true to their ideals, for better or worse, from beginning to end.

Erect on the summit of the world, once again we hurl defiance to the stars!

F.T. Marinetti - Manifesto of Futurism

At this point, I’d like to explore the association between the shapes in Futurist painting and the shapes of Terzo’s face paint, slipping swiftly into Cubism and Piet Mondrian’s simplification of form as a parallel to Terzo’s geometric, minimalist design… but that’s a story for another time.

[deontoillogical]

Heaven Official's Blessing seems to be about the nativity of Xie Lian at first. It seems to be about situations where there is no right answer and a decision on who to save must be made. Xie Lian is in fact embarrassed about his former idealism, his goals to save the common man, his youthful optimism.

Spoilers ahead:

When we learn what his preceptor asked him 800 years before, about the two dying humans in the desert. If you were a god, and you could give either one of them a cup of water saving their life but leaving the other to die, who would you choose?

It's a type of trolley problem, a distilled hypothetical meant only to enlighten its audience to the methods of their personal ethical frameworks.

For example, Mu Qing, the practical one, the utilitarian, asked about the qualities that might allow him to decide who is more worth saving.

Feng Xin, the honorable one, the deontologist, answered that they should discuss it among themselves.

On the other hand, Xie Lian was an idealist. Give them two cups of water. Reject the premise of scarcity. I am a god. Why can't I save both?

After the prince faced so many versions of this problem in the present... from the Banyue people to the Wind Master and his brother... and so many trials in the past... from the fall of his own people, to the fall of Yong-an's king at his own hand... we are told there are situations where someone must suffer. We are told that Xie Lian was naive. Xie Lian believes it himself, as the idealists he had taken under his wing (Banyue and Lang Qianqiu) crack in the face of a harsher reality.

His idealism failed him time and time again.

Except, as we learn the history of Wuyong and its fallen prince, the text also starts to reveal that there were two cups to begin with. One had always been artificially taken away.

Would Banyue need to betray her own people if they did not hoard the oasis? Would the country of Banyue need to fall so harshly if they hadn't intended to take out their enemy as soon as they met their defeat? (Problematic caricature of a "savage" culture aside)

Would Wind Master's brother need to change his fate if White No-Face hadn't made the creature who destroyed his life to begin with?

Would Xianle have fallen to Yong'an if the financial aid hadn't been skimmed by every official along the way? If the poor had the opportunity to pray and Xie Lian could have found them sooner? If the refugees weren't treated worse than dogs? If more than just the richest refugees were allowed to stay in the capital city? If other gods had helped Xie Lian carry water to Yong'an? If White No-Face hadn't artificially stuck his hand into the disaster and created the plague that sealed Xianle's fate? Every step of the way there was someone hoarding the water, both metaphorically and very literally. There was no way to save everyone, but a bit more reprieve could have stopped the civil war before it even started.

This is in parallel to Wuyong that fell not because its prince was naive, but because every other god refused to give their aid with no benefit to themselves. There was plenty of power to save the people, to forge the bridge and keep it steady. Every other god refused to use it.

But in simple acts of selflessness, you can bring back the water. Ironically, the motif that represents this aspect of the narrative is in the blockage of the rain. What kept Xie Lian sain just a bit longer if not an umbrella given to him by some random mortal soul? One passed to the boy devoted to him, that ultimately blocked the rain of blood once more upon their first meeting since Xie Lian's 3rd ascension.

The same style of hat that created the rains--the gift of water gifted out of the rain master's kindness--protected Xie Lian from the downpour in his lowest moment. As he sat in the storm waiting for the moment that he would unleash plague, finally admitting defeat of any hope for the humanity of the common man, a stranger stumbles over him. He cusses him out. Why wouldn't he? He was splayed out on the street, an inconvenient obstacle. A pathetic piece of performance art left to suffer the piercing of his own blade for almost three days straight. Only his enemy to relieve him from such pain. So there he was. In the way.

But as the stranger carried on, he stopped. He turned back. He handed his own straw hat to the poor figure in the streets. Humans are selfish. And humans are also selfless. Humans are human. And luck would have it, a human was human to him right before it was too late.

It's something White No-Face never realized, with his heart hardened by the betrayal of his own people. He saw the common man he slaved for for 5 years turn against him. He still persisted. He built their bridge to heaven as they turned from him. And just as their world was about to end, he suspended that bridge on his will power alone. If only they didn't swarm him. If only they could just trust him, and listen.

They died. His faith in people died with them. And everything that he existed for turned out to be fruitless. So, he broke.

And if Xie Lian didn't break as well, then it meant that everything he'd done for the past 1200 years, 2000 years was meaningless. If he couldn't show Xie Lian the world didn't deserve him, then maybe the prince of Wuyong just wasn't good enough for the world. Xie Lian had to be wrong. Because in turning against his people, White No-Face turned against himself.

But what he didn't realize is it was never the common man's fault for not believing in the gods. It was the gods' fault for hoarding the water. He blamed humanity, when the problem was the system.

He tried to break Xie Lian by taking away all of the water, but in taking away the water he proved that there was always more to begin with. In being the reason Xie Lian failed, he proved that Xie Lian never had to fail.

The problem was never with the people, who just wanted to survive. It's with those who hoarded the water. It's with those who believed there to be no other choice, and those who forced that choice in their greed.

White No-Face was wrong. The state preceptor was wrong. Disillusioned Xie Lian was wrong. Reject the premise. Reject the lies they sell you. Reject the illusion of scarcity.

Xie Lian was naive, but in his nativity he had stumbled upon the truth. There were always two cups of water. There were always two cups of water.

He should never have been embarrassed about his idealism, because in the end he was right. And in the end, he realizes he was right. He had always been right.

There were always two cups of water. And because of that he's finally able to save the common man.