#touch type

[counting-stars-gayly]

I’m actually LOVING how Rick Riordan, and the other writers of the show, took his initial concept of a Percabeth rivalry fueled by that of their parents and kind of turned it on its head?

Now, instead of Annabeth being wary of Percy because he’s a son of Poseidon, he’s wary of her because she made a callous impression on him. They get off to a rocky start even before finding out who Percy’s father is, and when they finally do, Annabeth doesn’t care. Instead of them fighting because of who their parents are, they’re fighting over their own opposed worldviews.

Then, instead of them arguing over which of the gods is cooler and who was right in the story of Medusa, they realize that, just like Medusa, Annabeth is a victim of her mother and that, unlike Medusa, she is a far kinder and stronger person, unwilling to repeat the cycle of hurt. They realize that, like his father, Percy often acts without considering potential consequences and that, unlike his father, he is a far kinder and stronger person, willing to step up for someone he wronged and whom he cares about.

Instead of Percy and Annabeth’s rivalry being focused on that of their parents, it’s focused on who they are, themselves. But the path to friendship is still the same: a realization that they have each other’s backs, no matter what, because they’re not their parents after all.

[lucabyte]

even dogs pass the mirror test

[anbaisai]

Boop!

(Part 2)

[tamaytsuki]

Basically their dynamic in season 3 before it all went to shit

horay!

[gomzdrawfr]

Casual Intimacy

[javaclown]

🌈🌈🌈

[allimili]

I know this is probably an awful idea, but what would happen if you showed affection to Mr. Eyes? Since he's so used to being seen as scary, would he be confused? Would he appreciate it? He just looks like he needs a forehead kiss, maybe some head pats.

-🍋

They'll be confused but slowly liking it so now they want more of it.

Now whenever mr eyes sees you, they'll cut off their head for you to headpat them :3

[toasterkoi]

Never a frown

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In the world of heavy metals, love is denser than hate!

[raisinchallah]

honestly tragic there was never a star trek show weird and ok with showing gay people yet also homophobic enough at the same time to do a planet of gays episode where gay is straight and straight is gay i mean they sort of did that with the unbearably confused couldnt tell if it was being a gay or trans metaphor episode where that metaphor trans girl was most oppressed for desiring to be heterosexual in a world without gender but that was almost too self serious i mean it is star trek it would still believe the episode where riker endures heterophobia on planet gay was a really important mission statement episode and being boldly political but again whats really vital is we need the evil gay ruling class oppressing the poor sweet heteros we need the enterprise crew pretending to be gay for diplomacy purposes and it needs to be painfully dated and homophobic one can imagine different versions for different eras... in tos it would be like planet entirely of men or entirely of women and they wouldnt say it was planet of gays but it would be like all the most misogynistic moments of spocks brain but like with no respite and kirk would prove to the cold lesbian ice queen ruler of the planet that men are real flesh and blood and teach her how to love and spock would be really popular with planet lesbian if it was tng it would be like we are really bravely showing the homophobia thru the lens of straight people it would be exactly like the world where gay is straight and straight is gay viral youtube video and riker would save a poor woman from a life of cruel lesbian political marriage she doesnt believe in and teach her how to love... planet gays readily accepts captain picard as one of their own its all painfully serious and miserable if it was on ds9 it would be a ferengi episode where they delve into the deranged homosocial ferengi customs and its one of the worst episodes ever made they make sure that everyone knows part of the reason quark left ferenginar was because he wasnt "like that" but also keep making quark gay jokes anyways if it was on voyager they would use it as an opportunity to prove captain janeway is not a lesbian and really doesnt appreciate people saying that about her tom and harry would end up in an evil gay bar and get their kidneys stolen if it was on enterprise it would be a near constant unending barrage of unfunny gay jokes and the episode was never syndicated again after widespread protests as to its offensiveness malcolm and trip go to a bar and keep making more extreme gross out faces about getting hit on by men and have to put on a deeply painful gay stereotype performance to leave a situation unscathed t'pol experiences reverse homophobia heterophobia from the planets women but the enterprise crew keeps joking she might be gay and she gets it from both sides regularly rated one of the worst episodes of star trek ever made

[666strawberrymilkshake]

Men will be men.

Aka pure animal mind.

[idliketobeatree]

yea I think about the extremely unrehearsed hug Niko gave Edwin, and how delighted he was in those few seconds even if he wasn't sure where to put his hands about 8 times a day. wbu

[writersglock]

Captain Rex: I don't think Fox is doing too well, Cody.

Commander Cody: What makes you say that?

*Rex hands Cody his datapad.*

*Email from commander Fox*

'Good morning Rex. I have lost control of my life.

Please send assistance, Commander Fox.'

Cody, nodding: The emperor probably used his special mug again.

[acquired-elfroot]

The annoying thing is that reducing Solas to a dislikable two dimensional caricature in Veilguard didn't even come close to fixing the problem they set out to fix in doing so, and it was never going to.

I can’t pull up the exact quote, but I believe one of the writing team said something along the lines that they needed to make Solas less sympathetic because at the end of Trespasser too many people agreed with him and wanted to end the world. Which is why they chose to have him kill Varric, among other things. 

While I will say that I agree with the choice to have him kill Varric(I like the idea of him making Rook hallucinate him too, that could have been sweet if it had been well executed rather than a bland set up for a M. Night Shyamalan level twist) to raise the stakes and set Solas up as a serious antagonist for a new audience, or an audience that hadn’t been paying particularly close attention to him - but there is no way it could have ever suddenly made his goal to tear down the veil unsympathetic for those who found it to be so.

The writers seem to have been under the impression that members of the audience sympathised with Solas’ plan to tear down the veil not on its own merits, but for the draw of his sparkling personality alone. Not for well established lore related reasons, or for extra-narrative reasons rooted in a desire for emotional catharsis and narrative satisfaction (which a fictional body count has even less bearing on besides) but because he’s a sad pretty elf boi and we want to kiss it all better.

I’m going to be real with you, if they had surgically transplanted Ogrehn’s personality onto Solas and had him stone cold murder every other beloved character in the series, I would still want the  Veil to come down, or at the very least a better solution than leaving it just as it is. How likeable he is or isn’t has fuck all to do with it? 

Making Solas more dislikable does nothing to change the effect the Veil has on spirits and mages, it does nothing to address the question of the value of mortal lives weighted against immortal ones. It does not change the narrative role of a trickster in bringing enlivening chaos and upheaval to a stagnating world, in this case one that’s been forced to stagnate in service of the illusion of player choice; nor does it quiet our desire to see the rotten roots of Thedas’ corrupt institutions torn up and put to the torch ect. ect.

Most annoyingly, attempting to use Varric's death to accomplish this betrays the writer's assumption that players that did sympathise with Solas’ goals did so out of a naive misapprehension that he’s some sweet uwu softboy that could never do anything truly ruthless or cruel in order to accomplish his goals, and that once we had been disabused of that belief we would clutch our pearls in horror(you mean he’s willing to kill people? In a video game series with protagonists that each have kill counts numbering in the thousands? Quick, summon my fainting couch!) and tidily dismiss the notion that he might have ever had any worthwhile motivations at all. 

Look all you silly little girlies that want to kiss the fictional man, I feel like you don’t understand that he’s the *bad guy* here, glad we’ve cleared that up for you sweetheart. And isn’t he just sooo condescending?

It does not seem to have occurred to the writers that, to his fans, his stone cold ruthlessness is both one of the most well understood and deeply compelling features of the character.

I would happily give that writer a pass on a wicked case of foot in mouth, but the way Anaris & Cyran are written seems to very much enforce their the stance that an overabundance of sympathy for Solas as a person, as well as a desire to see him vindicated are the primary reasons any of the audience would ever agree with his goals. 

So to fix this issue, it stands to reason that the writers needed to de-emphasise everything that humanised(for lack of a better term) Solas and made him sympathetic as a person. Because apparently the problem is that their attempts to do so in the previous game worked a little too well on some people, right? 

As @mythalism pointed out, we cannot see him comfort his friends through their panic or grief or their crisis of faith, or have hushed philosophical conversations with them. We cannot see him flirt awkwardly, or try to pretend he didn’t just set his own coattails on fire.

We never see the god of liberation free so much as a wisp bound to a teaspoon.

And all of those compelling character motivations you thought he had about free will and self determination? Don’t worry kitten, we’ve sanitised all of the conflicts those might be applicable to right out of the setting anyway. Yay <3

At the same time, it feels like they’re too scared to upset the very same audience that they imagine has this woobified rose tinted view of the character, lest they scare them away. They’re too afraid of the audience to let him be truly unwaveringly ruthless, prejudiced, bitchy, vindictive, and even genuinely sadistic towards his enemies, because that might upset our fragile sensibilities too much! 

He can’t ever say anything mean to Rook - that might hurt our feelings!

He doesn’t really do anything bad, and if he does he doesn’t really mean it. He committed war crimes, but only because Mythal asked him nicely. He killed Varric, but it was an accident. He makes Rook hallucinate Varric, but he doesn’t use that to manipulate them; Varric just hangs out and vibes. He uses blood magic on you, but he doesn’t do any of the truly fucked up violating things that we know full well blood magic is capable of. He misleads you when he says “the Veil will not fall by my hand”, but it’s so transparent that it’s laughable. He’s never allowed the conviction to really follow through on any of his misdeeds, while still he’s bizarrely framed as outright villainous for them. 

So what we’re left with is a character divested of most of his admirable qualities, but with most of the rough edges filed off as well. Toothless. Boring.

It feels so much like they’re talking down to their audience? Like they don’t trust us to see a character with BOTH vices and virtues in spades come to our own conclusions about them? 

So we get this bland mealy-mouthed version of the character that we apparently need watered down further with ‘our team’s’ insipid commentary, much of which is blatantly based on bad takes people were spewing online almost a decade ago, and many of which have no bearing whatsoever on the actual story we’re being told because ohh my godd apparently we need to have our hands held while we’re walked though every opinion the audience might theoretically  have about the character and gently reassured by proxy that it’s a hashtag #valid opinion and why does this game insist on speaking to us like we’re morons??

For all that they incessantly bring up how condescending Solas is, I’m not sure if I've ever felt more spoken down to by a story I had been so invested in.

So Solas is boring now and I still l wanna tear down the veil lol

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

got a worm nibbling my brain. can someone help me find a piece of obscure media?

webcomic/indie comic from the 2010s. basically a sci-fi short story about a young girl (with red hair?) who was being raised by scientists as part of an experiment. she receives a haircut/has her head shaved, in preparation for her annual brain scan/testing. it is revealed that while her body is human, her "brain" is artificial, made of computer implants throughout her skull and spine. at some point her biological mother (also a scientist on the same campus?) encounters her and is repulsed, viewing her as a machine who has murdered her daughter.

it was very poignant and it bruised my heart and i can NOT find it anywhere