#critical post

[zaebeecee]

Why HuskerDust Isn’t Canon

I’ve seen a lot of Angel Dust-involved ship critical posts lately, all of them cruel and mean-spirited and all of them from those HuskerDust shippers who give the rest of them a bad name and go out of their way to attack anyone with a ship involving either Husk or Angel. They do this because “HD is canon”, and even those who don’t like the ship have resigned themselves to it being canon. But here’s the thing: in both the actual text of the show and in the meta, it’s not. And I’m going to go through several points to prove that it isn’t canon. (Note: these are all tropic flags and nothing else. Consider this a tiny media literacy course.)

Getting this out of the way: this isn’t anti-HD, a discouragement from shipping HD, or saying “it’s literally never going to be canon”. Obviously, people are free to ship whatever they want for whatever reasons they want; this isn’t intended to bully members of the fandom or to shame anyone who ships it, nor to attempt to convince people not to ship it. This is simply a response to claims of the canonicity of the ship being used to bully non-shippers, and speaking from the viewpoint of the narrative, the tropes, and the meta, it is not canon.

tl;dr: I don’t hate the shippers, I hate the bullies. This is not a discourse invitation, this is a trope analysis. If you don’t like what I’m saying, move on or block me. If you think I’m being mean, I really don’t care, because this is specifically a response to people who are being mean all the time. People in the fandom are terrified to be even vaguely critical of this ship because of the potential backlash, but I’m an Aquarius with a block button, idgaf.

HD was not confirmed canon by Medrano in an interview or on Twitter

To get this first point out of the way, the primary proof that HD shippers will use to claim their ship is canon is a Tweet Medrano put out after Episode 4 was put up on Amazon, as well as a Zoom interview where the interviewer asked her about HD.

The Tweet, which included a screenshot of Masquerade and asked what HD shippers thought of the episode, included the ship name. This is an example of engagement farming, a technique used in social media when people will use trending/popular tags, words, and phrases in order to increase engagement with posts and videos. The use of the HD ship name was not a confirmation of the ship; rather, it was used to capitalize on the ship’s popularity, ensuring that the algorithm would distribute it to as many people as possible. We know this was engagement farming because it was simply asking the people who shipped them what they thought of the episode. It didn’t call it a HD episode, nor did it say it was for the HD shippers.

In the Zoom interview, while the person conducting the interview used the term HD, Medrano herself never did. In fact, she went out of her way to avoid using the ship name, and instead, used the generic word “relationship” when describing their future interactions, a word she has also used to describe future progression between Charlie and Lucifer (so, if this makes HD canon, then it also means that Charlie and Lucifer will be a canon romantic ship).

HD was not confirmed canon by Blake Roman or Keith David

In much the same vein as the aforementioned Zoom interview, when Roman and David were interviewed about the interaction between Angel Dust and Husk, both actors carefully avoided using any terminology or wording that suggested a romantic relationship, only talking about the two of them as close friends. If the ship had actually been confirmed by Medrano months earlier, there would be no reason for the two of them to skirt around the issue. There was also nothing teasing the potential of the ship, simply straightforward information about their friendship.

Husk has been called Angel Dust’s “best friend” by Medrano repeatedly

Medrano has always, when referring to their future interactions, referred to Husk as Angel Dust’s “best friend”. Additionally, while she has never shied away from stating when a character has any form of romantic interest in another character, her only comment on Husk has been that he is pansexual, but she has quite specifically never once stated that he has any romantic interest in Angel Dust.

“Loser, Baby” is the “we’re not so different” buddy musical song

Much of Hazbin Hotel can only be understood through the lens of the form of media that it’s taking most of its cues from: namely, musical theater. There are many tropes that exist within musical theater, specifically in the types of songs themselves, that are used as shorthands to tell audiences what relationships are between characters and how they will be interacting going forward, because all storytelling in musicals are abbreviated by necessity, and songs exist to encapsulate large portions of character/story development in short periods of time.

“Loser, Baby” is, tropically speaking, a song that occurs during the main character’s lowest point in the first half of Act II. This is when they have encountered a massive hurdle in their journey (a breakup, a death, getting kicked out of their house or school, losing their dream job, etc) and are feeling hopeless and lost. In this instance, one of two kinds of songs will occur at this point during the show:

The first is the romantic duet, where the MC is dejected and negative, and their love interest is attempting to turn them around. This is the point when the love interest realizes they are in love with the MC, whether they confess these feelings or not, and is a plea for the MC not to give up.

The second is the “snap out of it, you moron” song. This takes place when the MC is on their own and is found by either a character we are familiar with who has realized they misunderstood the MC (who goes from being a point of conflict to a friend), a family member of the MC (usually either a sibling, an adult offspring, or a parental figure), or by a character we have never met before (generally one considerably older than the MC). This is the song where the other character confesses to the MC that they understand their pain because they were once in the same situation, or because they went through a similar painful progression if that situation hasn’t changed. This song typically carries a “suck it up, buttercup” message and is considerably more callous than the romantic duet, because it is a communication of tough love. It’s important to note that this is never a duet between the MC and their love interest.

“Loser, Baby” is quite firmly in the second category. It is not romantic in nature; rather, it’s Husk realizing that he misjudged Angel Dust and, subsequently, telling him “a lot of other people are in your position, I’m one of them, you aren’t special, stop whining”.

If “Loser, Baby” is romantic, Husk is a predator

For the entirety of the series up until this song, Husk has shown that he has absolutely zero interest in Angel Dust romantically. “Loser, Baby” comes on the heels of Angel Dust confessing to suffering from a great deal of physical and emotional abuse and manipulation, as well as crying in front of someone else for the first time, showing his first true moment of real vulnerability. If Husk uses that moment to suddenly show interest in Angel Dust, it says that either A) Husk is only interested in Angel Dust once he realizes that he is emotionally broken and in a vulnerable position, or B) Husk is willing to use this vulnerability to his advantage and subsequently manipulate Angel Dust. Both of these things are contradictory to Husk’s character.

Husk and Angel Dust have minimal interaction in Welcome to Heaven

Episode 6 has two plots: the A plot, which is Charlie and Vaggie visiting Heaven to attempt to bargain with the Seraphim; and the B plot, revolving around Angel Dust’s temptations to regress into his addictions. In the B plot, Husk’s only interactions with Angel Dust are judging him for wanting to do drugs (which directly contradict his claim in “Loser, Baby”, where he expressly states that he’s fine with Angel Dust’s hooking and drug addiction; it also comes while he is indulging in alcohol, his own vice, which is the definition of hypocritical), and being silently proud of him when he doesn’t do drugs. This is the behavior of the Shoulder Angel or of the Detached Father, not the love interest.

Angel Dust is a main character, Husk is not

Angel Dust is a member of the main cast, alongside Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor. Husk is a secondary character. It isn’t feasible to have a main character pursue a relationship with a secondary character; you can have an MC who is already in an established relationship with an SC, but you cannot build a relationship between an MC and an SC because the SC doesn’t have enough lines or screen time. Keith David is also quite expensive, and there is no way the show will be able to afford the price that would be required for Husk to be a larger presence in the show.

There is a forty year age gap between the two

Sinners do not age, nor do they mature. We see examples of this in every single Sinner throughout Hell; Angel Dust is a good example, as he died in his 30s in 1947, meaning he would be (at minimum) 110 years old. However, he acts like a young man in his early 30s who spent most (if not all) of his life in a deeply repressed home. Another good example is Cherri Bomb, who is clearly in her 20s, but would be at least in her 60s by this point. Because of this, it is easy to determine that not only do their bodies not age, their minds do not, meaning that the age they were at time of death is the age they will be, mentally and emotionally, forever.

Angel Dust died in his 30s. The only official number Medrano ever gave for Husk’s age at death was 75, and she has stated both that he died in the 1970s and he was born before the year 1900. While no specific age has been stated for Angel Dust, he is written to be between the ages of 30 and 35, meaning that there is a minimum age gap of forty years between the two of them. Additionally, if Husk was intended to be the love interest of someone in their 30s, he would not have been specifically written to be an old man.

Angel Dust has never once come on to Husk

Angel Dust is a flirtatious and sexual character. However, his only flirtations with Husk have been responses to statements Husk made that could be taken out of context. Not only does he never take the initiative and flirt with him first, he also never propositions him; the closest he gets is telling Husk he would be lucky to be propositioned by him. (As a side note, Angel Dust has only ever propositioned two characters in the entire show: Alastor, both in the pilot and the first episode, and Alastor’s shadow construct in the second episode).

It could be said that this is because Angel Dust has “true feelings” for Husk and is, therefore, too shy to overtly proposition him, which brings us to the next point:

HD as a ship is built entirely on homophobic writing tropes

There are several points about this ship that are, ironically, homophobic, but I’ll be focusing on the last two points: the age gap and Angel Dust’s sexual nature.

The age gap: the gay male community has, since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks, been plagued with this idea that enormous age gaps are not only fine, they’re expected. Age differences that would never be tolerated in heterosexual or even lesbian couples are waved off when the characters in question are men. This has created the false expectation that many older gay men have--namely that they are “owed a twink”, and that younger gay men are almost required to submit themselves to a much older man as a rite of passage.

Angel Dust’s sexual nature: Husk has quite expressly stated he has no interest in Angel Dust’s overt sexuality, to the point that he refuses to even look at him as a person until Angel Dust reveals other facets of his personality. This suggests that, for a relationship to work, Angel Dust would have no choice but to repress his urges, or that Angel Dust’s sexuality is a front and he actually isn’t that overt. In either case, this would be a direct parallel to Angel Dust’s life as a gay man in the 1930s and 1940s, where he would have been forced to be closeted under threat of prison or death, and either Husk himself or the audience would be forcing him back into a form of that closet.

Crimini has no stated relationship with Angel Dust

Crimini, a character who is slated to appear in Season Two, has been described as Husk’s adoptive daughter who will make up the bulk of his character plot going forward. Not only does Angel Dust have no stated relationship with her, he has never once been mentioned alongside her character at all. If Angel Dust was intended to be Husk’s love interest, that would make him (functionally) another parental figure to Crimini, if perhaps a reluctant one; that would make him an integral part of Crimini’s future plot, but seemingly, the two have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

Despite the fact that Medrano changes canon based on fan opinion all the time, the show is written too far in advance to change major plot beats just because one ship got really popular

We in the fandom know that Medrano has a tendency to fold in the face of fandom wants and desires. However, between the pilot and season one, the HD fandom was rather small; this would have been when Medrano was working with Amazon, getting future script approval and mapping out the way the story was going to go, and at the time, RadioDust was just about the only thing keeping the fandom alive long enough for interest to remain during the three year gap, and we all know that isn't going to be canon. Because of the sheer amount of overhead and advance planning that goes into something like this--particularly considering that season two was already in production in the wake of season one’s premier--the fact that the HD fandom grew after the season’s release would be unable to have any effect on the show because it would be far too complicated and far too expensive to make big changes. HD would only be viable if it was already planned from the beginning, which it quite clearly was not.

•

So what's my point with all of this? My point is that the content of media means things, and part of media literacy is understanding the difference between wishful thinking/projection and canon.

[michellemouse]

It's a strange thing for me to say, but I feel like the Maxley and Yax are very overrated and annoying ships...

I mean, it's annoying that I find things about those ships (mainly the Maxley) that Max himself does on his own tag, can't there be a minimal drawing of Max without any ships?

[albinokittens300]

!Spoilers Under The Cut!

Last critical leaning post, but warning I am gonna boarderline vent here. Hopefully after this I can take up enjoying the vagueness the ending left us with but. Still gotta get this out.

Gonna say it: I swear they just were to scared to give Jinx a positive ending. Like they had such a perfect set up for it and plain and simple the writers were not brave enough to give her the ending she should have gotten.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this idea of her running away is a good ending. It's a terrible one, because it doesn't allow her to heal anything. It allows her to run away from what she needs to heal. It's avoidance not growth. Guess I can be happy she wasn't really dead but that's kinda the most positive thing I can say about her exiling herself by leaving. And this being what is probably a sacrifice for Vi's happyness when it also takes her away from whatever is very clearly being built between her and Ekko? Again. That's not good in my opinion. It's going backwards for her. Chooseing things based on what someone else wants, not herself.

And let me be clear: leaving behind the two people she loves and has a connection with? Is completely out of character for her.

So unless it is intentionally meant to be a short lived absence, which we have nothing inplying that to be the case, I think her leaving is only a few points better than her actually dieing.

It would have made so much more sense to show her coming back and joinning the Firelights and the others who were fighting with them. Her sacrifice, than her walking in amongst a group of Zaunites and Ekko noticing her and a laugh as she plays with him for a minute. It's an open ended thing- we don't know if she really is fully joinning them, how she feels about the new situation between the cities, or Vi- but she is there and faceing the new.

THAT would be so many worlds better than her just being assumed dead and leaving her life completely behind. Because doing that doesn't break the cycle of killing the way Silco was encourageing her to do- it just prevents her from having to make any changes.

Whew. Okay. There, off my chest.

I do have a whole post like this about Episode 7 that I might get the heart up to actually post. Though, I almost refuse just on grounds so many Timebomb fans are loving and enjoying it. The last thing I want to do is tear it down, even if I haveing a harder time of it.

But hopefully with this out I can play with some of the freedom this ending did bless us with. If nothing else, I can have any ending I want because they just let Jinx fly off.

[sephirthoughts]

so we need to talk about this...thing

not caelus, i mean this…whatever this thing is.

apparently it's associated with the trailblazer's new ability. whatever it is, it's godawful, and i am very unhappy to see it in star rail. it looks like it was made by an AI specifically to be the most lazy, cloying, repulsive, corpo-cutesy object in existence. it's assembly line design trash and worse, it seems to be the irrelevance bell tolling for star rail. it happened a lot faster than it did for genshin, too.

this sucks especially bad considering all the really GOOD character designs and interesting story stuff and environments we've seen that will be coming with the amphoreus update. but it looks like if we want to enjoy any of that, we're going to be stuck with this obnoxious sentient carbuncle stuck to us.

i was SO RELIEVED to be rid of paimon and this is how you do me hoyoverse? also who is the target audience here? do you seriously think all your players are six-year-old girls?

what it looks like to me is the first warning signs that star rail is following genshin down the garbage chute into incomprehensible design trash. don't believe me? this is the kind of garbage genshin has been subjecting players to for the past 18 months.

most people are probably not bothered by this stuff and will just tolerate or ignore it, which is fine. i am simply venting some frustration i have and have heard often from other players. if you actually like this kind of rancid aesthetic, there is no help for you, comrade, and i am not talking to you in this post (also what are you doing on tumblr you have to be at least 13 to have an account).

but for myself and most other players i know, the downhill slide into this cloying, overwrought, over-designed garbage is literally the reason most of us stopped playing genshin and moved to star rail. that and a lot of fontaine was intensely boring, and natlan is a complete top-to-bottom shitpile.

this is coming from a place of caring deeply for genshin and being burned pretty badly, and starting to see the same thing happen to star rail. it's just...extremely disappointing. especially when there was SO MUCH i loved about both games, and SO MUCH that was good and truly fun and wonderful to experience.

i know it's too late to turn the design ship back since this is the way it's headed now, and no amount of bitching by the players who care will help, so i'll just say i will always appreciate and miss the sense of wonder and joy these games brought me, for the time that they did.

also seriously screw you hoyoverse THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

[queenlachimolala]

Can we bring back the time when teens were reading YA? Because I'm tired of having to argue with 13/14 years about books like Acotar or Haunting Adeline. At their age, I was reading Percy Jackson, Eragon, Vampire Academy, Hunger Games, Princess Dairies, Divergent, and the list goes on.

It's scary to see girls at those ages defending characters like Zade Meadows.

Those books shouldn't be read at their age, especially if they don't have a parent (an adult) to discuss those scenes with, especially the problematic ones.

A lot of young people are romanticizing very problematic behaviors coming from male characters.

[gentlemanjimcraddock]

gonna make enemies of the entire dragon age fandom here on tumblr.com by saying half of you are looking at taash, the most interesting and complex character in veilguard and saying either "how dare there be an interesting and complex character who has interpersonal conflict in this game i'm criticising for having no interesting and complex characters with interpersonal conflict" the we love fucked up messy queers website really can't handle one fucked up messy queer smh my head

[shewolfofvilnius]

Uuuu, I really want to know about #17 (pet peeves) :)

I could write a textbook about this, but: I actually am not keen on an overemphasis of smut in fics to the point that I've seen writers skip the story to get to the smut (even when not tagging it as that kind of story). At certain times in certain fandoms fic is deeply associated with smut, and I really wish that weren't the case.

At my core I like reading fan fiction so that all my friends from the game or show or whatever can go off and have more adventures, less so for, well, *makes kissy faces while smashing dolls together*. For BG3, it fills the hole in my soul that DLC should be filling. That is generally VERY evident in the stories I write (it took Lia and Gale THIRTY CHAPTERS to bang, and Tavaria/Rolan are MUCH SLOWER).

If you like reading that stuff fantastic! If you like writing that stuff fantastic! But for me, I think that fic emphasizes smut over story too much, and writers (not necessarily you obv, just in general) often gloss over the story to get to the sex.

And then at the same time, because it's so over-emphasised, plenty of people who would make GREAT fic writers absolutely won't, because the sex isn't their thing and they feel like they're 'supposed to'. Like, yes,

[clairedelune-13]

Trying to edit out every time a name is said unnecessarily within the same sentence is really difficult in this game.

Veilguard needed its script heavily edited. 

The handholding is worse than Andromeda.

And trust me, Andromeda had a major handholding issue.

The amount of time SAM or your party members told you to do something made me feel so stupid. 

[petiolata]

Me: *backs out of a comment section bc I'm not about to waste time fighting online about English grammar altho 75% of the people on that post are wrong*

English is a stupid language anyway sorry not sorry. Having no regular stress pattern for syllables is a giant PITA and frankly cruel. And that is just one of my many complaints.

[cityelf]

I have to vent about this before it drives me insane.

The more I think about it, the more I think I didn't at all enjoy Alien: Romulus.

First things first: David Jonsson is possibly the best actor the franchise has boasted since Sigourney herself. Unfortunately he also ended up portraying the only character I was in any way attached to - and that's no fault of the other actors, but the scripts they were given.

This movie had the best visuals of any Alien movie, music rivaling the original, and the freakiest damn monster they've come up with yet. The initial worldbuilding was also fascinating! I want to know more about it! But that wasn't on the cards.

Plot-wise? Hugely disappointing, went nowhere. Andy the synth conveniently got an upgrade that provided them all the possible knowledge on the xenomorphs and the operation of the ship... and then the original synth who originally betrayed the original cast imprinted its betrayal into him, too. Who could have seen that coming, beyond everyone who has ever seen Alien?

Suddenly, conveniently, the xenomorphs were inexplicably scared of the presence of firearms. Which they infamously didn't give a fuck about before. Suddenly, conveniently, they didn't care about using the perfectly good male characters as hosts for their spawn, killed them right off. But they kept a woman alive because she was injured and not... suitable? What for, food? The creatures who tear apart every human they come across for no apparent reason, not a food source, not as a defense measure, just... because? Oh, sorry, you wanted to keep her alive purely for specifically female-oriented body horror. How could I forget.

Also, the two male human characters were so unremarkable they could have been interchangeable without notice. Bar one of them being incredibly cruel with no repercussions on one occasion. Even their deaths were a flash in the pan - they were there then gone, and I didn't care at all.

Speaking of deaths, I think the sorest spot of the entire runtime for me? Alien by and large has been remarkable for not inflicting sexual violence on its female characters. When sexual trauma including imagery involving pregnancy has been involved, it has been shared broadly across the male (majority) of the cast. Face huggers, chest bursters, egg hatching - although the insinuation of rape was there, the camera didn't linger. We didn't watch a pulsating length uncoil from someone's throat as they choked.

But that's exactly what I had to see in Romulus: an Asian woman being the first to die after we watched an alien being unload itself in her throat. It was vile and grotesque, and not in a welcome way. The way the chestburster was subsequently handled was incredible, which just makes the prior scene more egregious, disturbing, and upsetting - not from a "well crafted horror/gore" lense, but from a "I thought we were past inflicting sexual violence on women/WOC for shock points" lense.

That doesn't even begin to touch on the element of the film where they introduced a young woman who quickly revealed her pregnancy then all but disappeared from the plot until she could be used for a gory "plot twist" that was as predictable as it was disappointing. And again, the creature design that came from this was incredible. But what came before made it sour.

So, what was the point? A bunch of young people went into space to escape their living conditions and instead just escaped from living. Desperate and impoverished labourers brutally murdered because they dared to aspire for better. Remember when it was corporate greed at the price of any human life that got people killed? I do, because I rewatched Alien for approximately the tenth time earlier this month.

Not to mention; the sole human survivor treated the being she insistently considered her brother like he was completely disposable... right up until there was nobody else left. Contrast to Ripley repeatedly risking her life for a cat that didn't even like her.

All in all, I don't know what went wrong there. Some elements felt intentional. The mining colony as the setup, the emphasis on cryotech as defensive/offensive measures, the baller new hybrid design. But everything else felt like they just worked backwards from that one "really cool thing" they wanted to achieve. And what I was left watching was a mess of scavenged parts from better movies, and a far cry from anything I could positively recommend to others. That's it. I'm done.

I'm just so disappointed.

[zaebeecee]

I basically never make x-critical posts (y’all know I like to keep it positive) but this has been bothering me for months so I just need to state it

Personally, I don’t find any romance in the sentiment “I found you annoying when you were confident and self-assured, but now that I know you’re an insecure and scared abuse victim, I’m romantically interested in you”

If Loser, Baby is a romantic song, then Husk is a predator who takes advantage of the emotionally vulnerable, and that’s not how I want to see him, and I find it depressing that so much of the fandom thinks this is sweet and endearing

[fooloftheunknownworld]

Yeah, this needed to be said.

[haru-kuneko]

Same here! I think this was set in 2012 as far as I know hence the dated memes and references (especially the possum joke). I like how they didn't go for the "technology bad" but instead went for a nuanced direction where it reminds you how we've grown so dependent on technology that it distracts us from forming genuine relationships with people.

I thought Katie was gonna be the unlikable girl who is very disrespectful to her parents but no! I've grown to hate the dad at the start because he just broke her laptop which she obviously needs for college. Her films were indeed amateurish but meant to be resourceful and unconventional.

As the movie went on, you start to learn about the dad's perspective and why he is the way he is. It's about mending the generational gap between the older and younger folks. Kids are likely to vibe with you if you not only know but also appreciate what they're into. It is about finding a common ground.

random confession but i never got through the mitchells vs the machines. i thought the main girl (katie?)’s films were dumb and obnoxious and i did not like her but i also thought that it was fucked up of her dad to suddenly trash her aspirations like the day before she left for college and then break her laptop and cancel her flight and the thought that the film would vindicate him in any way pissed me off too much to want to keep going. i got a bit further than that but also the humor was very bacon pizza screaming goat (the furby sequence??) and also iirc they have a throwaway joke about possums giving them rabies when possums dont carry rabies #slander

[adhdisgay]

Friendly reminder to listen VERY VERY CRITICALLY if someone tries to convince you not to register for federal disaster assistance following a declared disaster. Helene is still moving north and I see the usual rants picking up steam already.

That person trying to win social commentary points online is not your friend. That person can’t give you funds for house repair or to restock on food and meds. And if they say they can - that is a scammer and not someone you can trust.

Scammers and developers trying to take advantage after a disaster intentionally spread rumors/misinformation to convince survivors not to apply for federal disaster assistance. Many well meaning people pick this misinformation up and spread it further without understanding how the assistance process works. It’s happened more and more over the years and it will happen with Helene.

If you do not apply for assistance, you lose the chance to receive federal funds. APPLY APPLY APPLY. This doesn’t guarantee you will meet eligibility requirements, but you definitely can’t meet them if you don’t apply. The application process isn’t perfect but it continues to be updated - and was updated in 2024!! - to try and make it easier for survivors. If you have damages or lost power for an extended time, APPLY.

You can check on FEMA.gov or with local news to see when disaster recovery centers will open, how long the application period will last, and what information you’ll need when applying.

[patopq]

mother

[deaddaygal]

Full respect to everyone who likes the Lich choice for Emmrich….I WILL say that I think that the Lich route should have more consequences. Emmrich wants to become a Lich because he’s afraid of dying, so there should’ve been more of a personal sacrifice. Yes, being a Lich in this game means he HAS to die in order to attain Lichdom and he will lose the trappings of a body and….certain instruments….but I feel like this needed to have more of a stark contrast between saving Manfred and Lichdom.

Emmrich’s biggest asset in my opinion is his sensitivity and his emotional intelligence. He just tend to the dead, he SPEAKS to them, learns their stories. His interest in the necropolis and spirits feels so interpersonal, he has developed relationships.

The choice between saving Manfred and Lichdom should have been “are you willing to choose humanity, your relationships and the mortality it guarantees OR give it all up for Immortality?”

I haven’t played the Lich route so I could be wrong, but the only thing that happens that I’ve seen is that his fear of death transfers to you if you are dating him and his feelings actually heighten for some reason? I honestly think too, and I’m very sorry to LichEmmrich romancers (I love you), but romance should feel superfluous to him after attaining Lichdom. You forever loose the man that he was. He let his fear of death destroy his humanity.

Choosing Manfred SHOULD mean that he truly comes to terms with his fear of death. It SHOULD mean that he chooses his humanity instead of becoming something he isn’t, letting fear rule him. Dying is apart of life, and he definitely understands this already but not internally until that moment.

I sincerely hope the Grand Necropolis’ Lich Lord recruitment team has the common courtesy to slip in the “oh by the way, we’re chopping off your dick” clause before the whole undead ascension bit. Just a little heads-up! A quick bullet point in the brochure! So poor Emmrich knows exactly what kind of lifestyle adjustment he’s signing up for.

Because imagine thinking you’re about to ascend into velvet-draped, arcane immortality (centuries of quiet study and making sweet, sweet love to Rook in candlelit crypts) only to walk into the ritual chamber and find Vorgoth standing there with a giant ceremonial cleaver like:

“THE HOUR IS NIGH TO PART WAYS WITH YOUR MORTAL MEAT SCEPTER.”

Cue Emmrich: “oh my”

(yes, i will keep making fun of liches)