#lacking direction

[xtrablak674]

Can You Teach Self-Suffiencency to a Twenty Year Old Child?

Frankly, no.

After two decades of not witnessing it, and mostly seeing dependency modeled around you, standing on you own is a foreign concept, cognitive dissonance meant for another class of folks that ain't you, more than likely a conspiracy theory made up by the government. You witnessed your biological mother looking ghetto fabulous, always showing up empty-handed to your state-organized family visits. Your dad as equally unresponsive not ever receiving one Christmas present or a birthday card filled with cash from him. You never questioned this because this was the norm for your very disjointed family. If you knew no different, how could a different way exist?

I shared advice with him to the best of my capacity, but I think he lacked the ability to hear me. Meaning I don't think critical thinking was something that was even a footnote in his education, and I am sure his adoptive mother did the best that she could, but she was just trying to get him across the finishing line to eighteen when he would no longer be her legal responsibility.

I tried to get him to understand, who in their right mind would take on a nearly twenty year old dependent? A young person with no job, no discernible skills or potential prospects. He in essence would be a walking, talking and shitting money pit baby. And I am sure even those with the best of intentions wouldn't want a grown-ass-person sitting around their house burning up their electricity, eating up their food and using up all their resources. Its would be a sign of crazy behavior.

I encouraged him to see that he indeed had more options. But decades of indoctrination and isolation on the part of his paternal grandmother made him see enemies where he should see allies, made him dependable on the state and actually thinking that social security benefits was income. I attempted to dissuade him from that letting him know that little bit of money ain't shit.

I asked him how is a nineteen year old young person not working? Recalling myself getting my working papers at fourteen and working ever since, initially the Summer Youth Employment Jobs, then getting my first real job at Petland Discounts, where I worked at least two or three years for I think it was twenty hours a week.

Now it was my turn to have cognitive dissonance, because what he saw modeled around him were monumental Black women making their way through the world on meager jobs and supplementing their income with state and federal aid where they can and side-hustles where they couldn't. He saw his own parents subsist on nothing but public assistance and social security, there was never even a discussion of what mommy or daddy did for work, because neither did. They both lived way above their means on our countries financial safety nets usually with both their phones being turned off weeks before the end of the month.

So how exactly was he supposed to learn how to stand on his own two feet? He lied, and said he was going to night and day school to get his high school diploma, I told him at nineteen years of age it made more sense to get his GED, and get a job, because no one was going to be taking his grown ass in if he wasn't contributing. He may be cute, but he wasn't that cute.

I also made it abundantly clear that a high school diploma was worth only slightly more than premium toilet paper for the worth it has in the job market. I shared with him that at his age I was unhoused and in college, and that my first semester winter break I nearly froze to death in the stairwell of his great grandparents building in the Bronx. I was doing the right thing, I was in college and I was lacking a place to lay my head having actually rode the A train all night back and forth, a very typical homeless person journey.

He started the conversation telling me he had struck rock bottom, this was also a lie. An attempt to garner sympathy and encourage people to further enable him. I asked him how he defined "rock bottom", taking a stance of curiosity. After he finished I asked if I could explain back to him what I heard to make sure I understood correctly, and I said it sounds like you're being dependent on a whole lot of people for assistance, but I haven't heard one thing about how you're helping yourself. The math isn't mathing.

The platitude is, God helps those who help themselves. I said plainly that I attempted to help his father repeatedly, but sadly his father never knew how to accept help, and more importantly he never learned how to ask for it, or at the last, attempt to help himself.

My task was insurmountable and ultimately all I could offer my nephew was advice, and emotional encouragement. I knew that just like his parents, I couldn't save them from themselves. I deliberately never gave his dad money because I knew they would go directly to cigarettes, and I was proven right by his father passing and being a very diminished man at forty-four years of age from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the exact same age that our father had died.

The sad thing is I don't think I will hear from him again, even though I encouraged him to follow up and let me know how things work out, but also know that I was here to be an ear to listen support and guide him. I was very direct to him and letting him know that those words and support being offered were meaningless because just as his grandmother wanted, he didn't know me.

As much as I wanted the best for all of my brother's children I had no legal standing in helping them become great individuals. I just had to remain on the sidelines and watch another generation of children being ruined like the ones before, and feeling empty, helpless and frustrated that there wasn't a damned thing I could do to prevent it.

[Photo by Brown Estate]

Let's Discuss My Role

I Wanted So Much More

Visit with Uncle Trevor

Breaking Cycles

[24bughours]

Happy pride, have a half formed idea i had at 2 am

[adokle]

Bree and Neo.

[vintagerobin]

Sometimes I feel like a lot of people focus so much on the most dramatically angsty points of Dick and Bruce's relationship that they forget that these guys actually get along and genuinely like each other most of the time.

Like!! It's the fact that they HAVE gotten along like a house on fire for so LONG that makes the angst so incredibly intense when it happens. Dick hasn't spent the majority of his life secretly hating Bruce or whatever.

[fourgottencoast]

> covid shares significant parallels with HIV, (depletes immune system, but while HIV targets t cells, covid can target most cells in the human body and while hiv targets nuclei, covid targets mitochondria) but with the additional trait of being airborne

> can affect virtually every system/organ of the body, including heart/lungs and brain (even with a mild case) and is also cancer causing/accelerant

> has a viral persistance (how long it remains in the body) of at least a year throughout the body, including the brain, even after death .

> multiple infections may happen yearly since there are little to no precautions, meaning not enough time or treatment is given to clear viral load. also means that it is being allowed to consistently evolve.

> disability rates in the US have jumped by 40% since 2020

> can literally cause a new form of AIDS

> virtually all precautions have been dropped since 2022, peak infection rates (according to wastewater data) were in jan 2022

> risk of long covid/damage from covid compounds with each infection

> over half of all covid infections are asymptomatic, most people will not know how many infections they've had because cheap/free consistent testing is not widely available

> treatment often expensive/doctors do not take long covid seriously and/or are uneducation on it and its treatment, meaning most will go without treatment that acknowledges the root cause

> if left untreated, HIV will nearly always progress to AIDS , and chronic HIV usually progresses to AIDS in 5-10 years (may be faster in some people)

it's been 5 years since it's onset in late 2019/early 2020, and 3 years since 2022. it's becoming more and more apparent that more and more people are unwell and i am genuinely terrified at what the very near future will look like, especially when the overwhelming culture is still so resistent to acknowledging covid.

[bikananjarrus]

live action star wars is never going to give us the heartfelt emotional scene of ezra seeing lothal again for the first time, at least not in the way that we deserve. seeing him land on the planet and walking wistfully through the tall grasses, loth cats trailing in his wake; walking through the city with a bit of a heavy heart because these streets and buildings are so familiar, and yet so different at the same time, because the city has grown and thrived in the empire's absence. we're never going to see him crying quiet, joyful tears because he's finally home.

[corseque]

I honestly just wanted one single plot step that I could not predict given the 10 year wait. More behind the cut, I talk about Emet too, and I'm comparing his writing favorably to Solas' writing and why it worked better for me personally, but I am just talking about the writing skill that went into the games and not the dudes themselves, I love them both dearly of course. idk this is a mess and I am not going to edit it for clarity

For me, the game was a series of me saying

"ok I knew that. cool."

"oh yeah, I knew that. I guess it's good that the larger fandom knows about that now."

"nice, but yeah I already knew that too"

"that was something we've been talking about a lot for years"

"this thing they are acting like is a huge enormous reveal that the characters could not possibly have deduced through simply thinking about it in depth over the 10 years... the fans easily figured out by thinking about it in depth 10 years ago. So you would think his girlfriend would be able to figure it out more easily than we did. Like, why couldn't the game have been like 'oh lavellan already figured that out a while ago' it would have cost them nothing"

"this is something I've been thinking about for years, and now that it's being revealed, the companions' reactions to it are very irritating and jarring and unnecessary and I really dislike the experience I'm having right now, in this, the hour of my greatest triumph"

"this thing that is happening on my screen right now is something that I wrote an essay about 2 years ago describing how it would be a letdown if it happened without the correct setup"

"this way that they're characterizing Solas makes him less likable and less interesting than I have been finding him for all these years, and I have had people tell me 'no, he's simpler than you think' for years but I guess I was wrong, he really is simpler than I thought, so that fucking sucks. I wish I could take that information out of my brain."

"this thing is a retcon of information I have been thinking about for 10 years, and so I don't know how to follow along with this new direction, and I'm not sure if I even want to because it's not particularly interesting anyway"

"aw that was sweet"

"why is it like, so very impossible to have an honest back-and-forth with my favorite character about the dilemma that was most interesting to me about the previous game"

and then, as soon as, like, the other fans had caught up to the Solas lore that was really obvious from the other games, the game was.... over without anything surprising happening, or introducing a new element or plot point or perspective, or a real true twist (or two, or three) for those of us who have thought about it too hard for too long. It was very simple and easy, much, much, much, much easier than I was imagining. It all felt sort of like that Nicholson quote:

The thing was, the whole story was so interesting to think about because in 10 years, I couldn't figure out a good solution to it!!!!! It's why I was never able to write post-game fanfic about it. So I was stoked to find out some reveal we never knew about, some new information, in maybe a SERIES of steps of new information, that made the situation more complicated but also something that could be navigated by everyone involved. I know it was asking for a lot, but they had TEN YEARS, and they seemingly had set up the things they did in DAI on purpose, so surely they had some idea of a complex and satisfying narrative that would reconcile everyone.

The reason why I was expecting this is because FFXIV did a very similar story arc, which was started AND concluded WITHIN those 10 years (so it took the FFXIV team far less time to deliver as well). And the conclusion to the story in FFXIV did what I was expecting Dragon Age to do. So I thought, "holy shit, if this is the FFXIV version of this plot, how much more complicated is DA4 going to be!?!?" The DA devs also PLAYED FFXIV so they were completely aware, several years ago, of a satisfying story ending that was pretty darn similar.

People are probably going to think "oh, well Chelsea was disappointed because she spent too much time building it up in her head" but that's exactly it - I actually speculated and thought about FFXIV's story IN DEPTH NONSTOP for a year+ before its ending came out, and the ending absolutely blew me away. FFXIV Endwalker managed to introduce information and new story elements that I was not able to figure out in the YEAR I spent speculating on the ending of FFXIV's story. It took a complicated situation and revealed several several more facets to it that I was not able to predict, but were very interesting and thematically compelling, and took us all to surprising and climactic places that we could not have predicted.

Endwalker ("end" is in the title on purpose) too, was written to be THE ULTIMATE SATISFYING ENDING for a very long-running story in the exactly way that Veilguard SHOULD HAVE for Dragon Age, so while this complexity is being explored, FFXIV also gave catharsis to many different plot threads that have been built up through the previous expansions, until finally it ends with a bang. The story is desperately good to me, I loved it, it gave me closure for Dragon Age long before Veilguard was even revealed, and going back and looking at its story has made this whole thing far less painful for me.

So, I actually did not have a picture in my mind for how things SHOULD go. I just had the thought "I hope it's complicated and there are points of view or facts that we haven't before been exposed to, and the situation is resolved respectfully for Solas, not making him look like a fucking idiot (lol, the only thing I asked for). I don't even care what happens to Solas and Lavellan, I just need the story to be complicated and interesting to think about. Please, god, don't let it be "solas is wrong and he just needs to be convinced" because that's like the simplest story you could tell with this setup"

(btw they managed to tell Emet-Selch's story without making him seem like he's being an idiot on purpose or can never get anything right, and in fact the more the story goes on, the more you think of him as smart and capable and cool, so it is possible to write.... I wasn't asking for the entire moon)

And I played it and... yeah. Most of the story beats were more simple than I wanted them to be, a lot of them didn't make sense in my heart given the writing from Inquisition. (This is another essay, but if Solas' thematic story arc was always about him needing to let go of regrets, why was his personal quest the way it was? After that quest, doesn't he end up regretting not doing more....? Why did he never really talk about regret during Inquisition? If he was so trapped by regret, why was he able to do so many actions? It doesn't mesh well to me. The whole regret thing was very quarter-baked to me, I don't even like thinking about it.) His story never seemed like one that was as simple as being about one man's regrets, but then, I guess, it was always just about one man's regrets.

Emet-Selch's personal storyline (and the way it interacts with and affects the larger story) is very similar but much more cohesive and satisfying to me. It would be difficult to explain why without the aforementioned 5-hour essay. Emet-Selch's story IS about grief and anguish on a world-shaping scale in a similar way that Solas' was apparently always about letting go of regret, but Emet's story was also very pointedly and beautifully about that one theme for the entirety of his story from every tiny detail, from beginning to end - meanwhile, it seemed to me that they tried to introduce 'regret' as the main thrust of Solas' story only in the short story with the Regret demon onward.

From Inquisition just by itself, the closest I personally could get to a story theme for Solas was his inability to trust others hurting him and the world, but his trusting others in DA4 wasn't really addressed to my satisfaction. He is never required to trust anyone before the ending, he never opens up or makes himself vulnerable at all. People find out information about him, he never really dynamically opens himself. So the personal story I thought he had was never addressed at all, while a new one about regret was introduced that never made a ton of sense to me. And I don't think this is just because of my expectations - my reaction to FFXIV proves that I am able to meet good writing where it goes in surprising directions, as long as it's interesting and thoughtful and clear.

And I think this might be part of what people felt was off about the ending - Solas is sort of uninvolved in the revelations that are about him, and doesn't do much to be part of his own ending. Part of what I loved about Solas in Inquisition is that he is not controlled by you in any way, and so he feels like his own person with a very strong sense of character.

Anyway, Emet-Selch, in a very comparable and arguably more extreme plot position, is very involved in the revelations about himself, he always feels like a very strong character who cannot be affected by the player, and the whole situation is handled with deft emotion and care and delicacy. The story is comparatively very uninterested in litigating Emet-Selch or putting him on trial - the story allows you to simply feel the way that you feel in an organic way, and Emet's story spends that energy instead actually exploring his thematic material about grief and legacy, and the larger story theme of existentialism instead, in a way that is very refreshing and interesting. I've seen a lot of western stories tie themselves in knots over "redemption" and frankly it's almost never been interesting at all. Who cares about any of that. lol

(Now, I guess this is a matter of preference, because some people really like being able to shape a character's story, but idk I rewatched the ending of FFXIV and even though there wasn't a choice with Emet, because it isn't a branching story, his story felt more satisfying to me, maybe because there isn't a patronizing choice to be made for him. He is who he is, and he fulfills a very beautiful narrative role and purpose that no other character could in the story.)

I don't know how this could have been improved to me and still allowed players to choose Solas' ending for him, but I can actually think of a few different methods, none of which involve Rook condescendingly and patronizingly lecturing Solas as if Solas had never thought about a single aspect of this horrible situation he's in before that very moment that Rook lectures him lmfao.

All this to say... idk I'm writing this and I am not going back to edit it so it's stream-of-consciousness. But yeah

I just wanted the story to be complicated on a few more levels than I could have predicted. I genuinely don't care what happened, but I thought of a few twists like the Veil coming down and yeah, I was expecting A Single Twist or reveal to happen. In a Dragon Age game.

I wanted Solas to seem cool and capable and noble and smart, and actually feel like he was as old and experienced as he is.

I wanted a clear theme I could sink my teeth into

Like notice I didn't even say anything about Solavellan. Like I never in 100 years thought they were getting a happy ending where they were both alive in bodies, and I like that we got that, but I would honestly trade it for a more complicated story. To me, if a story is sad you can always write fanfic, but if a story isn't COMPLICATED, that's a much more urgent issue.

These 3 things DA4 didn't give me in a way that satisfied me but FFXIV did. anyway idk the way my hyperfixations work, I completely switch to a new subject so talking about Dragon Age is actually hard for me right now.

[anininas]

Screenshot redraws because I'm being nice to myself today

[superoscars]

[arcadecoconut]

There's a lot of great meta about how Bells Hells never seemed to realise how powerful they became over the course of the campaign, and how this skewed perspective gave them a strange and at times hypocritical relationship to authority. There's also been a lot of discussion about how having a single-focus plot established early in the campaign was detrimental to individual character development, but I don't think I've seen much about how the single-focus plot is directly connected to their ignorance about their own power level. I think one of the key benefits of having various smaller arcs across c1 & c2 was not only that it supported individual character development better, it also gave the parties a sense of their own growing capability and power scale in the greater world. By having distinct arcs with enemies who were overcome and defeated, the PCs have concrete evidence of their own growth. Each arc follows a mini heroes journey too. For the MN, the Lorenzo and Obann arcs both involve PC characters being killed or overtaken early on, setting high stakes and establishing difficulty. Eventually, with persistence and planning, the Nein were able overcome and eventually defeat them. For Vox Machina, it's the Briarwoods, then the Chroma Conclave, then Vecna. At the start of each arc, every mission feels like an impossible task but again with persistence and planning, they conclude each arc in a stronger position - not just on their character sheet, but with concrete in-world elements too - the resources of Whitestone, key allies in powerful government positions, etc. These victories give each party a material sense of their achievement, which is mirrored by their internal acknowledgement, which is so natural it's mostly not explicitly acknowledged unless they're pointing out how they're capable of stepping up and helping more people. Bells Hells, by comparison, got very few distinct arcs. As a result, they never really achieved the same smaller victories to give them a sense of escalating power and agency over the course of the campaign. To be clear, it was possible this could have been achieved anyway, even within the constraints of the moon-plot. Defeating Otohan, defeating or flipping Lilliana, severing the alliance between the Unseelie Court and Ludinus, explicitly winning allies out of The Volition, or the Grim Verity, or Vasselheim and the Judicators - each of these could have been distinct arcs with victory conditions that would have served as markers of Bells Hells growing power. If they'd had concrete mini-goals to achieve along the way to dealing with Ludinus/Predathos, they could have taken time to focus and plan. In this way, we could have gotten larger investment into the world and NPCs. Imagine what it could have done for her personality if the party had to research Otohan’s role in the Apex War! Maybe if they needed to broker peace between the Grim Verity and Vasselheim to unite them against a greater threat, we could have seen Bells Hells establish their own authority in Exandria. Instead, all these potential villains and world building hooks ended up largely ignored or accidentally achieved along the path of some other muddy goal. By not giving the characters this sense of growth, BH and particularly Ashton and Laudna ended up with a very skewed perspective of themselves. They never realise their power grew well above average, putting them in a much more privileged position than the average Exandrian. It’s this skewed perspective - and their resulting attitudes towards various NPCs - which gave many viewers an 'ick' factor about their interactions. I also can't help but juxtapose this with exu: divergence, where the party's relationship to power (both their own and others') has been a core element. Their story has also been conducted over a very short time period in-world, yet their responses show a marked difference in awareness and empathy.

[namisweatheria]

One Piece means a lot to me as a disabled person, which I think would be pretty surprising to anyone who only has a surface understanding of it. The supposed central theme of "follow your dreams" would be pretty alienating to someone like me, right? It really, really would be, if that's what it was actually about.

However, that ignores that Luffy's dream is to be the most free person in the world. And to attain that goal, the first thing he does is find friends to live life with. Over and over again, from the very beginning, he takes on their burdens, all in the name of being the most free.

Do you see what that would mean to me, as someone who needs more help to get by than is considered culturally normal, to the point that it puts me in a whole socially manufactured category of "other"? Not to mention, because of the infantilization of me due to that category, because of being forced so squarely into the "cared for" role, taking care of other people is deeply meaningful and empowering for me. However, the myths of independence and universal natural ability often make it emotionally difficult for my loved ones to accept that care.

The fear of asking for help, the guilt of being cared for, the weight of someone you loved who could not be as free as you, the insecurity of not contributing enough, the fear that you were born wrong, the self-hatred that says you are not worth the effort, Nami Sanji Zoro Usopp Robin Chopper Franky Ace they all explore the painful obstacles to free connection. Through deeply impactful stories that weave beautifully into the larger one.

All centered around this one person who views loving them and living with them and carrying them as essential to his freedom. Who cannot, for countless reasons, live a normalized life of Structured Relations. Who views exploring and bickering and suffering and laughing with them as the ideal way to live. Who repeatedly puts his life and limbs on the line to do so.

To me, it is an ultimate privilege and freedom to carry other people's burdens. To care for them and live with them. This is central to my whole perspective, and is completely informed by my life experience as a disabled person. I rarely see it reflected back to me. Let alone as powerfully and beautifully as Luffy does.

Nor the other half of it, of wanting to create this life with people in ways that aren't socially normal or approved. Of creating many varied lifelong intimate relations among equals, rather than conforming to the expectation of choosing One Person to live life with and then Creating More.

The utter lack of roles and norms is just as integral and powerful to the exploration of freedom and connection! It is meaningful to me as a queer person, yes, but even this is deeply influenced by my disability. I could never be that One Person, despite everything I have to offer, there is logistically far too much that I cannot do to be someone's equal partner in this society that demands so much from all of us. However, even if I could, I wouldn't want to! It doesn't make any sense to me to only have two people navigate life together on such intimate terms. Can't the demands of society be more comfortably met in a group? Isn't life more fun that way?

We are taught that we can and must do everything ourselves, I just happen to be one of the people that never had a chance to buy into that lie. To learn very early not just the necessity of interdependence, but the joy in it. To learn that it is most comfortably lived with more people involved. To me, close relationships are, love is, a natural extension of that understanding. One Piece celebrates interdependence constantly from the start, while never pretending that it is always easy.

The obstacles to free connection that I mentioned before, they are interspersed throughout the story, and they are always met with "I do the things you can't do, and you do the things I can't do." With, "Of course I can't use swords you dumbass! And I can't cook either! I don't know a damn thing about navigation! And I can't lie! I know I can't live without help from a lot of people!"

These are intentionally impactful moments, and they define the series. I found it very fitting that the Fan Letter focused on a character who was empowered by Nami to feel free and live adventurously despite not being the most physically capable. The character is able by our definition, but the story is very affirming in a disability way, and it was extremely One Piece. I loved how it acknowledged this deep connection between One Piece and the lived reality of disability and celebrated it as integral as it is.

I also believe that absolutely none of this is intentional. It is simply an earnest exploration of human relationships, emotions, and behavior, and it naturally arrives at a radical and disability-affirming viewpoint. Because we are the monkey wrench in the deeply unhealthy (lol) and dominant line of thinking that independence is all. So naturally anything that also disputes that thinking has a disabled-perspective feel to it. The best part is how much it doesn't give a fuck! One Piece is aggressively against conformity in human relationships, in a way that is hard to find in our new world of self-conscious authors.

It's also, you know, the worst part, in terms of all the outrageous bigotry and offensive character design, but god damn it if it doesn't elevate the good parts to unbearable heights. Even the bad character designs can sometimes be more impactful for their intentional "ugliness", when those characters are inevitably taken seriously despite their appearance and the stereotypes they play on, it hits hard every time. I do have a simple hatred for many choices, there is no pay-off for much of the awful problems in numerous character designs and dialogue. But no matter how upset I can be by those things, in the end they can't succeed in pulling me away from One Piece. It's just so crazy and unique and great and terrible and beautiful and I LOVE IT.

[mutedsybille]

Guys, is it cringe to want to replace oneself?

Unscanned versions vvv

I need this gender, why can't I have it, oh my fucking goodness-

[harrywavycurly]

One Direction brought me to this hellsite and as much as sometimes I truly do not like it here, this place is still what I’d consider a safe space for me because it’s filled with people who just get it, when it comes to the boys and tonight I’ve seen people back on my dash I haven’t seen in months because when news like this hits this is still the main place we come to for comfort and to feel free to let out our emotions without having to explain ourselves because we all just get it.

[revvethasmythh]

listen. there are a number of aspects in which c3 and divergence are not comparable and fundamentally work differently (namely the difference in construction between a long-form campaign and 4-part mini-series), but thematically? not only are they comparable, they are designed to be. divergence is being aired directly after the conclusion of c3 in order to further explore concepts introduced in its conclusion. a world with less connection to the gods, the effect of that on the faithful, how the average exandrian approaches the concept of faith in general (in multiple aspects), the connection between the divine and their mortal children, burgeoning hope from post-war darkness, etc. these are concepts we're being asked to compare with the finale of c3. so if someone says that divergence's handling of faith and exploration of the gods blows c3's out of the water, that's valid. if we were meant to be avoiding comparisons, a) they wouldn't have aired this immediately after c3, b) there wouldn't be so many overlapping concepts, and c) they wouldn't be holding off on having the wrap-up until divergence is over. divergence is in conversation with c3, actively and intentionally, and it puts a stark contrast on how poorly faith was handled in c3, but also things like. understanding character motivation. which yes, is going to shine more strongly in short-form content because you have to get the information out quickly, but is a valid thing to discuss if you genuinely feel you understand a short-form campaign character's goals better than you do a character you spent 4 years watching. it's the difference between a woman who has never been shown to seriously engage with the gods at all stating "i don't know if i want to save gods that don't love me" and the moonweaver saying "if the love is true, it will pass through the barrier" and us knowing that divine magic will continue to be granted to mortals, by the sheer love the primes hold for their children, complex as that love might be. and, fundamentally, divergence is an exploration of consequences. the consequences of the calamity on mortals and the gods and the earth itself, decimated as it is. so when people compare it to c3, when a major complaint of the campaign was lack of follow-through and exploration of consequences, divergence shines for being about exactly what a lot of people felt c3 was missing.

[mage-ical-character-person]

Why does he tell the player this. AND NOT HIS BIZZZYBOYS?? His boys are so scared…

Spoilers. And rambling

Shouldn’t it be the other way around if he wants us to “leave it to the professionals”? Wouldn’t it be better if he let us be afraid and not his boys?

Why does he tell the Godpoke at all? Isn’t sowing seeds of doubt and distrust the whole point of what he’s doing? He wants the player to stay out of his way and telling them stuff like this seems counterproductive. He could’ve not told us that without looking suspicious, he’s definitely got the plausible deniability on this one. No one’s seen Cobigail in years. Even she doesn’t remember for certain if she eats people or not.

SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER! Gosh, just… her genuine self-doubt over this. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t eat people… but what if they’re right, what if she is a monster? This bit breaks my heart, poor Cobi

I wonder if having her question herself that way was part of the plan.

ANYWAY! Inspekta could’ve easily told the player he doesn’t know if the blood sacrifice stuff is true or not, but considering the other letters it’s probably part of “King’s” plan, and that he and his boys are looking into it and the Godpoke should stay out of it until they know things are safe.

Again. Cobigail is not doing herself any favors. And again, Inspekta has the plausible deniability, and isn’t creating distrust towards the other gods the whole point of his plan?

She is NOT helping her case.

MA’AM!! I love you so much but you are making yourself look very guilty as far as the whole blood sacrifice thing goes. I AM TRYING TO CLEAR YOUR NAME RIGHT NOW MA’AM AND. YOU’RE REALLY NOT HELPING

Like

She even says it’s an understandable mistake to make. (After all the trouble that lie caused her… Cobi, how are you so sweet and understanding?) Inspekta could’ve played dumb. I guess his pride wouldn’t allow that, and he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make King look bad.

Or maybe a part of him recognized that he went a little too far with that one. Cobigail isn’t really a threat to him the way he perceives the other gods to be. And accusing her of blood sacrifice when she’s already been isolated for 20 years is disproportionately harsh compared to like… forging a breakup letter and sabotaging a roundabout love confession. (If you could even call it that. Those two probably would've went at least another century without admitting their feelings without Inspekta's meddling prompting the Godpoke to slap Clicky in the face with it)

Anyway now I’m imagining Hector apologizing to her after the events of the game and her responding with a similar “I can see how you would get that confused” and uh Hector saying like, “No, Cobbie, I new yew we-aren’t a blood drink-her. I lied ‘bout yew”

and Cobigail just going like: Oh…. Oh! That was a good one, then! You even had me going for a bit there! and then she does her scary face at him and tells him to never do that again or she’ll barbecue him. And then she says she’s just messing around but seriously dial it back next time.

And I dunno something like how she responds to you throwing her own jumpscare prank back at her.

Wanna draw that now. But alas I have other projects on my plate at the moment

[essektheylyss]

Because I'm going to be thinking about this forever, I do want to talk about how Caleb speaks, because I think there's something to be said for how his protectiveness (in general) actually presents itself.

Caleb uses epithets and allusions a lot. He refers to Nott as "my goblin friend," to Jester as "my blue friend," to Yasha as "my barbarian friend." Yussa is at one point "our wizard friend," and Essek is "my Kryn friend," in the two-shot.

He is also, notably, paranoid about being surveiled. He wears the amulet of nondetection for most of the campaign, and it's not unwarranted, given that Trent locates him and nearly burns down the Blooming Grove the moment he's able to get a lock on them. Trent in fact has been shown to use any and all information he can get ahold of about or from Caleb against him, to a truly extreme level. His seemingly single-minded goal is expressed to be to ensure that not a single aspect of Caleb's life and loved ones is safe at any moment, to perpetuate the threat of harm from any direction in order to essentially control and monopolize Caleb's every thought.

In Echoes of the Solstice, Caleb does suggest that he is not concerned with Trent being able to surveil him any longer, but Trent is not the only threat, and, timey-wimey plot nonsense aside, the Hells' inability to scry on him since then suggests that he is likely wearing an amulet at least by that point in the timeline.

The extent of Trent's focus on him and his ensuing paranoia is extreme, and even beyond when he may no longer feel that Trent is a threat to him, he seems unwilling to allow him to pose a threat to others, and people he cares about in particular.

Within that context, it's not difficult to read his use of epithets, particularly in referring to people who are not currently present (rather than using their name aloud), as a form of protection. Some of his manner of speaking implicitly or explicitly presumes that he is being surveiled, even outside of the context of protectiveness; after Vess Derogna's death, he frequently refers to Lucian only by epithets, most often, "our old friend," and at one point establishes "Lady D," (to Jester's glee) as a code name for Vess Derogna for the specific purposes of countersurveilance.

This method of protection, I would imagine, goes double for Essek; not only does Caleb have the habit of worrying over those who would use his loved ones against him, which is of course borne out in Echoes of the Solstice, but he also must consider that Essek has his own enemies, and a stray mention of his name in the wrong company or setting could get his partner killed. It seems even in that gifset, when Caleb says, "I am worried for Essek," after the encounter with Trent at Vergessen, that he first considers obfuscating, stumbling over allusory phrasing before acknowledging that Trent already has the information he needs, and at that point Trent is their only real concern about who might care, given Lucien is far too focused on reaching the Astral Sea to worry about hostages.

When Caleb answers Jester's, "And he's going to hurt Essek," with a silence and an oblique reply, it feels most to me like a further measure of protection, knowing that knowledge is power that can be used against him and his loved ones, and silence is the weapon he has against it.