#Dark Critic

[hoshizoralone]

reflection

[princesskuragina]

wizards are predisposed to evil bc that's just what academia does to you

[oddthesungod]

A good man at war

[chaosroid]

I am once again lamenting how neglected resist!Durge has been for months. The final climactic scene to their arc is met with some of the most milquetoast companion reactions I've ever seen.

We literally die.

Like Durge just stops being alive. Where's the angst? The emotion? None of this half-assing shit, give us the shock and denial. Hell, give us weeping! Make it unflattering, because loss can be ugly.

I wouldn't even be opposed to Withers not showing up immediately? Maybe they have to physically drag Durge's dead body back to camp. Show us Gale using the only revival scroll he has and his face falling when it doesn't work. Shadowheart being the healer, desperately expending all her energy to bring you back to life as a last hail mary. Minthara not caring that Bhaal is a god, vowing to make him pay. Lae'zel threatening you to wake up, and the devastation that follows when she realizes you won't. Wyll thinking of bargaining his very soul to Mizora just for the chance she could bring Durge back. Astarion and Karlach praying to whatever gods they can think of even though they don't believe in them anymore.

Show the grief, the exhaustion. Then Withers appears.

As it stands, the emotional weight of what happens to Durge gets resolved so quickly, there's never a moment for any of us to really react to it.

It's an issue all across the game tbh. Why do the companions have no reaction to Kressa's reveal that she tortured Durge? Why are there no consequences to your relationships when they find out you were behind the Absolute plan? Outside of Astarion, the other romanceable companions have very little unique interactions with Durge, which is a shame because there are plenty of them who share many parallels to Durge's experience of being used by a god/higher-power.

I feel like I'm playing the world's smallest violin when I complain about the lack of resist!Durge content because good god, Wyll and Minthara are fighting for their lives over here. But man, it really sucks knowing that patch 7 is allegedly Larian's last big content patch. Like if there was ever going to be an update where this sort of thing was added, it had to be this one. But it doesn't seem like Larian has any intention of closing the content disparity gap.

[matchapancaekes]

You’re telling me that Wyll Ravengard knew Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward?

You’re telling me that not only did he know him, his father was his second in command?

You’re telling me that, as a boy, Wyll witnessed the proof that Bhaalspawn could reject their calling and pursue a life of their own choosing?

You’re telling he was definitely there the day Abdel was killed, that a young Wyll Ravengard witnessed a Slayer running rampant in the city with his own eyes?

The reason Wyll is one of the only companions to fully believe in Durge that night in the Shadowlands, that tells them to fight, to fight with everything they have, is because he knows it can be done.

He trusts them because he trusted Abdel.

He believes in them because he believed in Abdel.

Because Abdel was Wyll’s hero, maybe his second favorite person next to his own father.

Larian, Larian, please, Wyll literally writes himself

[itseghost]

some essek portrait doodles :] still figuring him out but i do love 2 draw him

[molly-yasha]

#scaredycat

[happycattail]

I can't stop thinking about this moment. How sudden it was. How Orym just leapt to hug Imogen after realizing that she talked with Keyleth. He's been on the edge for so long and now there is hope.

[ariadne-mouse]

Upon hearing there might be a M9 episode interlude now in C3:

[shadydruid]

Bells Hells x Candela Obscura 🖤 💜 Finished Laudna and Imogen together 💞Which outfit do you like more?

[poppitron360]

Thinking about names having power in the Riordanverse- because it’s exactly the kind of literature motif that I LOVE.

Thinking about “Leo” being short for “Leonidas” who was a Spartan King who sacrificed his life fighting to save his people in the Battle of Thermopylae.

Leo, similarly, gave his own life to stop Gaea and save the world.

That comparison has already been made before, but there’s more-

Leo rejects the name “Leonidas” and chooses to go by “Leo”- in a way, rejecting the fate he’s assigned to. And he doesn’t suffer that fate in the end. He lives.

Yeah, names have power. But what you choose to name yourself has even more power. For example, the fact that Thalia rejected the last name “Grace” because it associated her with her mother, but then taking it back up again when she found out Jason was alive. And Leo chose to not go by “Leonidas” and he also chose to take the physician’s cure and come back.

And here we get onto what Calypso’s doing. By calling him something that he asked to not be called, she is taking away that agency of choice. She is taking away that power.

It’s a small moment, but it REALLY bugs me. Because, like Leo, I go by a shortened version of a longer name, and often one of the ways bullies used to hold power over me was by calling me by my full name repeatedly, even after I asked them to stop. It’s also a way a lot of transphobes hold power over trans people- by deadnaming. By taking away the power of their name, their choice, their identity, who they are, who they’ve built themselves to be, and their right to control all of that.

Now, I’m NOT saying Calypso is going as far as deadnaming Leo, but it’s a similar premise. It’s a manipulation tactic used to knock people down.

Now friendly nicknames -e.g. “Seaweed Brain”- are different, because Percy consents to it. It’s a term of affection between them (and notice how it’s different when Thalia used it. It’s a name that symbolises percabeth’s love, and it’s a name only Annabeth can use). But this is a name, while said in a jokey, banter-y manner, that Leo has SPECIFICALLY ASKED to not be called. And she does it anyway, ignoring the boundary he’s set, ignoring his choice to shape his own identity, ignoring everything that symbolised INCLUDING the fact that it’s literally Leo saying “I choose life” by rejecting the name that fated him to death. It’s just a big red flag for me. And if you put that on top of the fact that she also physically hurt him in this (enough to make him say “ow”) then you just get a whole host of Reasons Why This is NOT Leo’s “Happy Ending”- which the narrative paints it out to be.

[alicentsgf]

What was it i was saying 2 years ago about rhaenyra acting selfishly by sleeping with Harwin because it put both Alicents and her own children in danger? And I got told i was slutshaming.

Well now Jace himself has criticised her for it can we talk about it?

[ificouldflyhome369]

Now this is proper concert photography

[polturn]

Todays scribblings

[shikisai-san]

In which Essek explains the theory behind his most powerful spell.

page 1

[juusbox]

he got tadpoled because he failed an intimidation check against orin, but he doesn't remember that