Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that trauma was a game to you. If it's so easy to just stop being traumatised, then you should've said something to Elain about that a whole book ago? Or perhaps said something to Mor 5 centuries ago. Since Cassian made it clear 50 times a day that he's 'seen it before' and 'knows what she's feeling' or whatever, he must clearly be the expert on the situation. Imagine how much easier life will be now that everyone can just stop being traumatised.
Let's be serious for a moment though, if it was that easy, Cassian might have actually stopped making himself the victim in every scenario regarding Nesta throughout all of ACOFAS and ACOSF.
The fact SJM wrote it so Cassian, who said shit like this, was the one in the right the whole time in ACOSF makes me wanna puke.
I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.
The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.
I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.
I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.
Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?
For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.
I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.
It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.
If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.
But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.
Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?
Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"
And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.
My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.
Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.
He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.
Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?
We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.
Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.
"Who's idea was it to put the cone on your head for the parade? Was that all you?"
"Zach Eisenberg [Director, Executive Operations]—I think is his name—he takes care of us a lot at Amerant Bank Arena. I don't know his exact role with the team but he's just kind-of always around, and helps us out. He's friends with Brooks [Koepka.] I think he helps Brooks when he comes to the games. Anyways he found a pylon or I think I might have told him—I was pretty drunk at the time but I think I told him to go get a py—'if you could find a pylon, find one!' 'Cuz they sprung that speech on me, kind-of, last second, you know, five minutes before I was supposed to go up there. I'm like, 'What the fuck am I gonna say?' So I had him go grab the pylon and I grabbed it on the side of the stage right before I was gonna do my speech. And luckily all the clips are of that, you know, me telling him to go fuck himself... 'cuz the rest of my speech was terrible. There's really nothing to it! And I'm so happy that, you know, all the clips are only of that so!"
"Yeah, we didn't know you said anything else! I thought that was the entire speech!"
"That's all that matters!"
"Exactly, exactly! I got away with it there!"
The Cam & Strick Podcast | 7.30.24 (x)
i love finding out they basically told ekky he was gonna have to do a whole speech 5 minutes before he was up while hes been drenched from rainwater and alcohol for like the past 6 hours absolutely pissed out of his mind like yeah no wonder his speech basically culminated to THANK YOU SOUTH FLORIDA AND ALSO GIVE IT UP FOR MY D PARTNER WOOOOO yeah that tracks
"But what golf tournament* were you at shortly after that? Somebody was dressed like a cone? Was that Lomberg who was dressed in like a costume? A cone costume?"
"He came—Brooks came up to you—"
"No, that was his buddy, that was his buddy. He was actually a Sunrise police officer. I actually saw him last night at the Zach Bryan concert! But yeah, no, that's one of his buddies. No, he was completely put to bed the day after. Right? Like he texted me—I personally didn't care, like, how many people at a hockey game are calling me a cone and telling Barkov he's got no hands like it's—you know, that's hockey. That's sports, right? So I didn't give a shit but—yeah, no, it was all in good fun. And then I got a way to get him back! It's perfect!"
"But when you did see the first video of him in the box—and I remember watching that, I'm like, 'this motherfucker is rolling esctasy!' His eyes were fuckin' gigantic, he's like, 'Aaargghh.' Like, 'I can't take him, he's calling me a cone! I can't—' But that is kind-of odd that a professional athlete is gonna call you a cone and he's like a fan of yours...it's just—it was really bizarre!"
"Goofy!"
"Yeah..."
"And his eyes were black which, you know..."
"What does that mean?"
"I just know what that means... and he was fucked up, you know..."
"Yeah, yeah! He was definitely fucked up and he agreed that he was fucked up. And he apologised so I didn't care, obviously. And then when I was at that golf event I should've thrown a beer at his backswing or something—at the LIV event when he was actually competing? I should've fucked with him but I couldn't do it... I couldn't—I couldn't find the courage to throw something at him..."
"So did he reach out to you like that night? And say, 'Hey, dude... I was just joking, you know...'"
"'I took some pills and...'"
*2023 LIV Golf Team Championship (Miami) held from Oct. 20-22 in Doral
[and i suppose more context here lombo and koepka are friends and he even showed up to his cupday when he went golfing in parkland and not to mention that lombo facilitated koepka apologising to ekky so its why the whole cone costume came to be really]
theres a lot more context about this incident and the ensuing storm after it so for archival sakes here are articles about it (x)(x)(x)(x)(x) because its quite a saga but its water under the bridge and there's only so much tabloid-esque coverage thats been reignited after the ekky speech i can take about an athlete who's dumb enough to insult another guy while hes drunk off as his ass in a fucking public setting
but anyways i think its really funny that i said to myself wow thats an oddly petty thing to admit to you know the whole wanting to throw a beer at his backswing ekky... for such a good vibes sweet man who like the only thing youve particularly said about the cone novella is "we'll never be buddies" to which you quickly retracted and then went "holding ill will against somebody and pulling negativity in your body is never a good thing"
and then i remembered who he attended the liv event with and it all made sense
behind every aqua whos being a little mean there is a much worse much more evil looming presence who is encouraging them down this dark path (a gem but especially a june gem)
Ok, during lunch i was goofing off by browsing the dat*ng app and came across a profile who 'liked' mine that was some blonde haired pretty boy with this as a tag line: "looking for the sophie to my howl". My heart flew into my throat....was i about to live out some teenage fantasy? I got incredibly excited until i realized with dawning horror that this dude possibly meant movie!sophie...
Full offense to the movie but the artists shaved off all the harsh edges on both sophie and howl to the point of unrecognizability beyond basic plot points. So anyone who is searching for the soft, gentle, pleasant version of sophie in the movie absolutely could not handle the slightly manic cleaning lady who enjoys bullying fire demons from the book. Book sophie is quite literally a bit of an obnoxious witch(with a b). She gets angry and expresses herself by murdering weeds. She enjoys teasing howl mercilessly. She gets panic attacks and wears the curse around her like a blanket to protect herself from anxiety and uncertainty. Book sophie is a fully flawed three dimensional character in the same way that movie sophie is a picturesque daydream meant for someone more in love with the idea of being in love than wanting to actually be in love.
But it also just annoyed me because this dude was unwittingly buying into the exact flaw of movie howl. Movie howl was remade into the idea of what women want: he's perfect, he's courtly and an utter gentleman, he acts like a prince. Movie howl is what book howl pretended to be when he went off on dates.
And the entire point of the book is that it took these disguises coming off (howl's princely fake romance character and sophie's literal old woman curse) for these two idiots to fall in love. Sophie starts out as a shy timid mouse, too scared to even talk to howl - she literally runs away from him when they meet in the market. She's so insecure and unable to be selfish that the curse is a blessing in disguise for her. The minute she becomes an old woman she no longer has anything to lose, all her fucks are gone, she's for once in her life just being herself. And she marches into howl's castle looking for a place to sleep because she thinks an old woman would be safe from howl's heart stealing (womanizing) ways.
And howl, meanwhile, doesn't know anything about this crazy old woman except Calcifer likes her (and calcifer represents howl's true heart so it's essentially his gut instinct), and he sees through the old woman disguise before she sees through his but the point is he's still seeing the real sophie - not the shy timid one (movie sophie).
And sophie sees behind howl’s entire facade! The book emphasizes that howl's towering powerful ‘castle’ is hollow smoke - it’s really a tiny three room cottage. Sophie gets to meet howl's real family and find out his working class plain mouse-brown hair background from an unmagical unglamorous world. Sophie cuts up his fancy suits immediately when howl tries to put on his disguise and ‘steal hearts’ again. That was the entire theme of the book: real love doesn't need disguises and artifice.
THAT was the teenage daydream: struggling with insecurity and posturing and a whole bunch of nonsense to discover honest true love underneath. And the movie was about none of that.
Teenage me never wanted the stupid princely version of howl. Teenage me wanted the messy, vain, spider loving, too soft hearted, cowardly, loyal, andre aggassi, stubborn-assed wizard from the book. I will never never forgive the movie for taking all that and turning it into something some guy who fancies himself a handsome courtly prince can put into his d*ting profile.
Anyway if any wizards are in need of an old cleaning lady to befriend their fire demon let me know. Fire demon not required - i have my own, my blue teardrop of a car named Clacifer. And i have the spiders. And i have the facade of success thats on the brink of crumbling. And i keep heartlessly rejecting everyone who wants to date me. Shit fuck ive turned into howl. Except im also my own manic cleaning lady so maybe ive just hyper independently doomed myself to lonliness \o/
Person B, going through the restaurant’s menu: No. Ugh, where’s the good stuff?
Person A, half jokingly: I thought you were an alcoholic.
Person B: Exactly. I’d need at least, like, four beers — without food — to get slightly buzzed, and my stomach can’t fit over 2 beers in it. I’m small. I’ll have a rum, neat.
He was eleven years old and a little menace in life. He liked to pee anywhere when he was angry, take long walks, and bark at dogs bigger than him. Cats were his mortal enemies, particularly the ones who hung around on the roof of my house and especially the ones who meowed or didn't care to look at him.
He was a playful, annoying little thing, always demanding attention and snacks. He liked to jump; doors were no barriers to him, for he was a clever one and opened or climbed them.
He was a faithful companion; when he was in a good mood, he liked to snuggle and lick my face, and when he was angry, he ignored me (that only happened once, after I took him on a long walk to the dog hospital for castration).
On his last days, he was quieter than usual, his clear and clever eyes observing around, like trying to commit to his memory everything. He came to receive pets, and I gave plenty. My hands smelled like hand cream the last time I petted him; he didn't want to lick my hand, but still, I rubbed behind his ears.