#even if this dragon's service is purely emotional support he deserves it

[synonymroll648]

y’know how some people have service dogs? fitz deserves a service dragon. if alvar gets to have a pet raptor then fitz should get to have a dragon to help with his echoes. (bonus points if he names them after mr. snuggles)

[jodiwalker]

The Best Things Happening on Game of Thrones Right Now

If the current season of Game of Thrones is fan service, then consider me — a fan — serviced, and sign me up, baby. We've been through the hard stuff, we deserve this. This series has finally broken through the stratosphere of TV criticism and into the land of pure joy where Arya can be both a raging lil' sociopath and a beloved protagonist.

So this is neither a review nor a recap, a critique nor a thoughtful analysis influenced by my superior status as a "book-reader." Instead, it is the most advanced of all literary art forms: a list of I've been tickled by in the first two episodes of season 7. The best things happening on Game of Thrones right now definitively are:

Very Silly Reveals That Are Supposed to Change the Game (of Thrones) But Are Kind of Just Really Obvious Solutions

1. There's a Shit Ton of Dragon Glass at…Dragonstone

Of all the things I expected out of this season—reunions, rifts, Cersei dramatically guzzling wine, Arya masked-murderin', Dany sittin' on thrones, hopefully the glorious return of Gendry's biceps—I never anticipated quite this much focus on igneous rocks. Jon Stark's laser focus on digging up dragon glass is starting to sound like a Goop newsletter, and it's not that I wouldn't subscribe (imagine: the fur recs! the tips for sultry lashes! the straightforward syntax without any annoying exclamation points!), it's just all a little more plainly sated than I expected. Jon calls, like, eight Big Chamber Meetings to tell all the Northern elders, plus Lil' Lyanna Mormont that their number one priority is to find dragon glass because it's the only thing they can create weapons out of in mass to kill white walkers. Those meetings go a little something like this:

Jon: How are we gonna kill white walkers?!

Northerners: DRAGONGLASS!

Jon: And where are we gonna find it?!

Sam, from Oldtown: AT—AND YOU'RE REALLY NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS—DRAGONSTONE!

[Ed. note: I've edited out the regular interruptions from Sansa that give me extreme conflicting emotional anxiety, but we'll get to those later in the "So You're Co-Ruling with Your Half-Sister Who's Actually Your Cousin and She's Recently Developed a Mind of Her Own After Surviving Extreme Trauma" section.]

Sending Sam to Oldtown to train as a maester is like the coconut oil/Franks RedHot of Westeros: that shit works on everything. At the Citadel, Sam begins scooping soup, souping poop (in a scene I would have exchanged for an hour-long loop of gruesome murders), and most importantly, sneaking into the restricted section of the library like some sort of chubby lovechild between Voldemort and Harry Potter. He even gets shut down by Jim Broadbent (aka Archmaester Marwyn, absolutely killing the wise, gives-no-shits maester game) and sneaks in anyway. And what did Samwell find in the restricted section?

Well, Sam steals maybe five books and finds the exact answer he needs, plus one he didn't even know he should be looking for—more on that in a minute.

And you know what? That's kind of dumb and unrealistic, but Sam deserves this. He's had a tough life and his dad is a jerk that wanted to kill him and his brother is (well, used to be) the hot guy from Unreal, and everyone shits on him all the time even though he is legitimately the nicest person alive in their godforsaken, feces infested world — dude has earned finding the solution to saving mankind after exactly 10 minutes of cozy reading with his cute wildling life partner and their ageless baby.

So, Sam finds out (via a super lame picture that Jaime could have drawn with his strong hand) that there's a big ol' dragon glass mine at—you're not going to believe this—Dragonstone. All they've gotta do is dig it up. Well, and, y'know, get past Daenerys Targaryen, heir of Dragonstone who recently arrived on its sandy, glass-filled shores. And that other thing that Sam found?

2. The Cure for Greyscale is Just…Peeling Off the Greyscale

Well, no fucking shit, Sam.  I mean, listen, I know I was just singing the kid's praises, but it's pretty crazy to act like you just found the magical cure for Greyscale in your magical secret books when that cure is…peeling off the Greyscaled skin and then putting a bunch of medieval Neosporin on it. But whatever, it's really sweet that Sam wants to help Jorah Mormont so badly because of his affection for Lord Commander Mormont and is willing to flay him to save his life (and definitely give himself Greyscale with the way he's using those gloves). So go ahead, Sam, peel off that Greyscale in your secret Dr. Pimple sessions—your solution might be obvious, but at least it's not dumb, dumb, dumb…

3. The Dragon Feller That's Just…a Crossbow

So, John is concerned with defeating the white walkers because, y'know, strong moral fiber and a her survivor's guilt complex and all that. But Cersei is mainly concerned with defeating anyone who would try to take the Iron Throne from her that she didn't already blow up with magic fire. And that means she's got to look alive about the tiny blonde Targaryen heading her way who's bringing, along with her legitimate claim to the throne, her three big ass dragons that were, coincidentally, born from a magic fire.

It's going to take something big to defeat those dragons. Something magical. Something much more powerful than even wildfire. Something like…

A BIG ASS CROSSBOW, BABY! Yeah, that will be great for killing dragons — if the dragons are sitting still, 1,000 years old, and already dying peacefully of natural causes. It's okay, Qyburn. They can't all be skull-crushing Frankenzombies held together by Husky R' Us armor level ideas, buddy.

Arya and Her Whole Thing

I remember when How to Get Away With Murder premiered there were a bunch of think pieces that were all, Finally! A Female Anti-Hero for Us to Love Just Like All Those Dude Anti-Heroes We Loved on A&E and HBO! Of course, no one loved Viola Davis' anti-hero like they loved Walter White because people don’t like to love flawed women like they like to love flawed men (and the show's not as good, but Viola is). And so, when Arya gave the best revenge performance of all time at the top of the season 7 premiere, there were a bunch of (to be fair, legitimate) articles that were all Should We Really Be Rooting for Arya? Is Arya a Sociopath Now? Arya Sure Looked like She Wanted to Kill Ed Sheeran, an Innocent Soldier, Who We Will Tell You Later How WE'D Like to Kill, But for Different Totally Valid Reasons.

So let me just say, yes! Arya is a probably a semi-psychopathic now, and yes! We should be rooting for her. She is but a simple mercenary setting out to avenge the death of her loved ones using humble blood magic. Yes, she killed Walder Frey, and yes, she fed him to his sons, and yes she then skinned him and wore his face in order to poison all those sons who she had just fed a pie made out of their dad, but you know what she also did…spared the women who hadn’t done anything wrong except be born into that nasty family. And yes she maybe only spared them to have this bad ass parting line, delivered with just perfect level-headed menace by Maisy Williams: "When people ask you what happened here — tell them the North remembers. Tell them winter came for House Frey."

But she is Arya and I love her, and I support her in anything she does…unless she kills any of the characters I like, in which case I will have to write some think pieces.

Sibling Dramzzz: Stark Edition

And speaking of Starks you have to keep your eye on, Sansa and Jon are having kind of a hard time co-parenting the North, and that's probably because people just loooove putting Jon in charge, even though Sansa should kind of technically be in charge, the only problem is, that Sansa's so annoying. Now, Sansa has made large strides toward being less annoying. But for every two steps forward (occasionally telling Lord Baelish to go fuck himself, knowing about war, not being a moralizing idealist), she interrupts Jon six times in their council meetings and tells him how stupid he is.

And listen, I get it — I have siblings. No one knows you better, and no one knows they know you better. When someone acts like they understand you better than you understand yourself, and worse, they're probably right, it can be trying. When Sansa tells Jon that he's going to get his head chopped off like his virtuous father and brother before him, she's not necessarily, but she is annoying. In a made-up world with dragons and child-sacrifice and, like, constant incest that's often not very relatable, I find this Jon and Sansa stuff frustratingly relevant.

The complexity of familial bonds is a language that spans universes (I mean, I guess that's ignoring the thing I just said about near-constant incest), so when Sansa says just the right bratty thing — "Joffrey never let anyone question his decisions, do you think he was a good king?" — to set Jon off, or when Jon and Sansa get on the same page about something, then he immediately changes his mind and announces it at the dinner table, so she questions his decision in front of all their gossipy cousins…it's normal family stuff, just at much higher, head-chopping stakes.

My great fear is that the tentative but often sweet partnership these two eldest "children" of Ned Stark have formed will somehow be ruined by Littlefinger. So boyyyyyy was it gratifying when Jon choked his old ass out when he was all I wanted to fuck your step-mom and now I want to fuck your half-sister, just thought I'd tell you that right here in front of your dead dad's crypt. And mannnnn was it concerning when Sansa backed down from publicly challenging Jon about his decision to leave the North and sale to Dragonstone the moment she learned he was leaving her in charge of the North in his absence, then immediately looked to Littlefinger for…what? Approval? Guidance? Shared joy? None are great options.

Just get though this Jon and Sansa  — I promise you’ll be best friends when you’re adults!

Sibling Dramzzz: Greyjoy Edition

Yo, this family is Messed! Up! Theon jumped off a ship rather than risk saving his sister Yara from their super-pirate uncle who's now taking Yara, Ellaria, and the last remaining Sand Snake, Tyene as his gift to Cersei which will totally make her want to marry him so he can be king, I guess, and not just of his raggedy salt islands.

It will never not be distracting how much Euron looks like Pacey though. If Pacey had a run-in with an H&M clearance rack and the entire smoky eye section of Sephora.

Sibling Dramzzz: Lannister Edition

And speaking of Cersei's current romantic status: Jaime is giving her a looooot of side-eye because she's, y'know, terrible. But she is doing a really fun thing this season where she's constantly recapping how much she hates everyone while subconsciously remaining us how much everyone hates her in return. While roaming around her Etsy map of Westeros, Cersei tells Jaime: "Enemies to the east. Enemies to the south: Ellaria Sand and her brood of bitches. Enemies to the west: Olenna, the old cunt, another traitor. Enemies to the North: Ned Stark's bastard has been named King of the North, and that murdering whore Sansa stands beside him. Enemies everywhere, we're surrounded by traitors!"

Girl, anymore zingers and maybe a concluding paragraph, and they'll give you a byline at Vulture. It is my one true hope that Jaime will realize his sister is insane and kill her before she kills him or Tyrion.

Everything Lil' Lyanna Mormont Does

I don't care if it's Disney-Channel-level precocious, I don't care if they're just giving us more of what we want…actually, I do care. Give me more of what I want! And what I want is the Lil'est Lady of Bear Island repeatedly telling a bunch of giant grizzled dudes to STFU. "I don't plan on knitting by the fire while men fight for me," she says when it's proposed that girls should be trained to fight in the war to come. "I might be small and I might be a girl, but I am every bit as much a Northerner as you. And I don't need your permission to defend the North." Yes, my tiny queen! I don't know if they heard you in the back, but at this point in time, just about every major house in the realm is run by a woman And speaking of…

Jon and Dany Said Each Other's Names and Hopefully That Will All Be Fine

That's it, that's all I needed. Now they can either become best friends or fall in incestuous Targaryen love, there is no other option.

Images: HBO; BlondieTVJunkie/tumblr

[qrhymes]

Tales of Berseria Analysis - Velvet’s character arc - Blindness and Toxicity.

And there you are, one day, traveling through the eleven seas and then you spot this awesome looking ship…

That’s nice but I’m not talking about that kind of ship.

Cute, but still no.

You are almost there…

Hahahaha….there it is, the magnificent Van Eltia and what you saw aboard of it…it can be?…yes the main party of Tales of Berseria….The troupe of mischievous misfits…Magilou’s Menagerie…

ACT.LIKE.A.DOVE.

…Leaving pointless introduction aside let’s begin…its character analysis time…

MAGIKAZAMAZAM!!!!!!

The cast is great guys, the main party is awesome, the main villains are awesome and support cast is great (And Zaveid is awesome. Period) so let’s go…one by one.

So, Velvet is the first female SOLO Tales protagonist…and I actually don’t care, not because I don’t give a fuck a about gender issues and all that talk but because it’s not the gender of a character that is important to me (Unless his character arc revolves around its gender, in that case you can go as deep as you want) but if the character is enjoyable/relatable and/or interesting and in that matter Velvet is both and, in my personal opinion, one the solidest protagonist of the series (Been honest with you guys, the only one who stands a chance against her is Luke…who of the two is the better is a difficult choice. Both are extremely different characters, both have a distinct approach to their respective arcs and, most important of all, I have been sucking The Abyss dick for 6 years now, so it’ll take me a while just to make a fair comparison between the two and even more just to decide who I like the most…) so…why is she so great?

Velvet is a Therion type Daemon, who wants revenge against the men that kill her brother and transform her in a Daemon, Artorius Colbrande; the problem is that he is the head of a militant church, the only ones capable to use Malak Arts and the only ones that can face the world menace of the Daemonblight, that transform humans into monsters (And Malakhim into Dragons), and for all of his deeds he is regarded for the crown and the people of Midgand as “The Shepard”.

Yes, Velvet wants to bring down Berseria’s version of the Pope…And from here it just gets more interesting because Velvet is the pure embodiment of everything that is wrong with a life led by pure raw emotion. She is not only harsh and aggressive, we are talking about an irrational, obsessive, toxic and auto-destructive person, so blinded for her pure hate and pain that she would step and crush in everything and everyone to reach her goal, she hurts innocent bystanders, she doesn’t have problems in using people, she deliberately makes choices that affect and destroys entire villages. She is the corporal manifestation of all this talk of Artorius, and the rest of the exorcist, about “The sin of the emotions” and, ironically, she is also the reason of why the Abbey wants to seal the emotions and the freewill of its people…Because people can be this bad, she is, our lowest point and the representation of how our own emotions can blind us and transform us in monsters (Literally) that consume everything and everyone that surround us.

And is a fantastic setting for an arc because it takes us out of our comfort zone almost immediately and stays there for almost all the game (just stepping out in the last hours of the game) developing and playing with these ideas.

The game never hides Velvet’s evilsh, Berseria is a story of perspectives and exploring these perspectives, in change it put us (as the player), and her, in this situation of “until what point Velvet’s actions are justifiable”. We now Artorius’s actions during the Scarlet Night and through Seres we confirm that he, and the Abbey. are to no good. And even if the Abbey has, indeed, does some good, the overall situations is too fishy, there is a lot of thing that aren’t right, they must have an agenda…so we (And Velvet) push, and keep pushing…until we break the limit...first with Teresa and Oscar and later with Innominat.

Oscar and Teresa’s deaths are relevant here because they end up representing the one thing that Velvet never would want to do, murder a younger brother in front of her impotent big sister.

Laphi’s murder in front of her was what through her over the edge, she knows that pain better that everybody else, is a crime, a crime without forgiveness or justifications…now committed by herself. It’s a way to acknowledge Velvet own villainess acts until now but is also a great comment in the very extremes of “the End justify the Means” and to tell that even someone like Velvet has a line she that doesn’t want to cross. (And, of course, she is devastated when she acknowledge this)

Then Innominat enter the scene and brings these ideas to next level. It’s not anymore about crossing a line that she didn’t want to cross but the true that there was no reason to cross that line in the first place.

It is a great development that is also in service to Artorius character, when we see his perspective of the all situation during the “in universe flashbacks” in the Earthpulse.

All the things that she has done until now were meaningless, all the victims, all the misery, all the pain, all just for nothing…Well Phi (and Colress) disagree…

Velvet is indeed a bad person, but no without some redeemable qualities. She may be the toxicity and blindness of emotions but she is also embodies it highest qualities. Determination, diligence, passion, etc…Velvet is the bird that flies because she wants to fly, there is no reason nor logic just the unwavering wish to surfing the skies…the biggest parallel here is with Prince Percival and Griffin during the search for the Therions (And the main reason of why that arc of the game is not pointless, redundant or filler, because it attach its themes to the main story) and in the same way that Percival admires Griffin, the party (And some of the side cast) admires Velvet.

Rokuro and Eizen have a scene in which both confess that they admire Velvet’s resolution (It also doubles as a great character scene for both of them), Magilou is a little more ambiguous (and I would dissect her character later…) but we can argue that she also admires Velvet and Phi and Eleanor…maybe they don’t feel an admiration for Velvet but both are inspire for her, and in that regard it would be Phi’s work, in one of the best scenes of game, make Velvet remember that she is, not only, not alone but that she is also not that bad, been Phi the living proof of that (Again I want to talk about each character particularly…so wait a little)

This is the turning point for Velvet, the moment that completely breaks her (Again) but also the moment that allow her to finally express, in a sincere manner, all of her pain, all her hate and all her emotions and the moment of which she can, finally, start to heal and move away for the trauma of the scarlet night. She doesn’t become good and she is still pretty harsh and mean but she loose this toxicity and auto-destructive aura that surrounded her during all the game, she is a little more nicer, she looks more happy and this is specially notorious in all the characters interactions and skits post-Innominat, I’m especially fond of the Velvet-Magilou Skit in the final dungeon, when this two fairly emotionally distant people finally come to acknowledge and even show an open affection for each other, both in her own way of course, is a subtle but heartwarming moment and a perfect close to this strange friendship who start with that awkward first encounter in Titania. (And also I ship them so hard…Magivel to the death)

Velvet transition here would be the one of a Villain to an anti-hero and…it’s amazing.

But Velvet’s arc still has a pair of steps to climb up…

Despite her grown, Velvet is still seeking revenge against Artorius although the context of the situation has change significantly, starting with the fact that Artorius and Innominat embodies the same toxicity as Velvet just in the logic side, being that both want to wipe the freewill and emotions of humans and Malakhim and that, starting here, the game stops to give focus to Velvet’s morality quest (Because it gets resolved) and the clash between the extremes of both ideologies (Innominat’s domain is bad…same as early game Velvet)…the final encounter with Artorius would bring back the topic again but in that case it’s more about Artorius’s hypocrisy (More of that later)…leaving aside just one last step in the Lord of Calamity arc…Her redemption.

Velvet sacrifice to seal Innominat is…well just sad. We (and her) had acknowledged that she has done a lot of wrong and a redemption act is indeed fitting, but that do not less the sadness of the moment…I really wanted see Velvet overcome…well the whole situation. For she to have an emotional close and a second chance, even if we needed a redemption arc, we could have her wandering the earth, you know, alongside Magilou (Sorry for that but I really ship them so much)…seeking atone for her actions but, also been happy…but what we have was the two representations of emotions and reasons, all that can be good and bad with them, feeding of each other, in an endless cycle, meanwhile they dream about this ideal world that they could have had…and it’s not a bad ending, quite the opposite actually, it’s powerful, meaningful and a fitting close for the game story…but, in the same way that Julius did it, her ending got the best of my and,  again, every story or character that can do that deserves acknowledge…Velvet is amazing and I ended loving her character more that I could expected…just the time would tell if she would become greater than Luke in me eyes, but for what’s matter now she is, again, an incredible character.

Part 1: Tales Series Retrospective

Part 2: The Elements of a Wonderfull Game

Part 4: Rokuro’s and Eleanor’s character arc - Obsession and Conflict.

Part 5: Laphicet (Phi)’s and Eizen’s character arcs - Coexistence and Romanticism.

Part 6: Magilou’s character arc - Contradictions.