#problems rather

[cherrycoloredphoenix]

Day 6: Forbidden - Ai Chang, Jia Ziyin, and a life that can never be

-

To tie Ai Chang to him in that way would be like caging a nightingale, damming a mountain stream. It would be keeping all of that beauty and charm and clever mind to himself, dimming its brilliance for anyone else... And eventually, the nightingale would cease its song, and the stream would become foul and stagnant. Better to let things be as they were. But oh, how one could dream.

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[luckylsoer]

“Much more efficient than dragging my eyes down there” — Senna

Also, Happy New Year y’all :D

[aroace-madness]

Batfam headcanon

Whenever Jason, as Red Hood, does something that Bruce doesn't want him to do, instead of yelling or scolding him in any way, he just picks Jason up and carries him away from whatever he was doing (a habit that stayed with Bruce from Jasons Robin days)

And the thing is, Jason never knows when he might get picked up, so whenever it happenes

Well, the whole scene is giving a big dog getting picked up

Like this:

[tallymali]

one of the many things i viscerally hate about br*t*sh small c conservative culture is the way people take weird pride in enduring things they don’t have to endure. nobody actually wants to change anything for the better. this is why new build houses are falling apart at the seams from day 1 and old houses are all uninsulated and structurally held up by black mould. deeply ineffectual and cringe country.

[flowersforthemachines]

Ghilan'nains's comments about Rook's romances at the Crossroads (and their reactions)

No romance

Elgar'nan: But surely the knowledge you gained… Ghilan'nain: My champions offered themselves willingly. More works of precision laid low before finding their full potential! Elgar'nan: You will have new subjects, in recompense. Whatever you wish. Ghilan'nain: Rook's companions seek to fight as one. Combining their traits into a single form would be edifying. Elgar'nan: Inspired. Consider it done. Rook: Ignore them. We're taking these bastards down before they ever get the chance.

Bellara romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's foolish tinkerer toys with our old works. Let her be flesh-bonded into a Sentinel's armor. Bellara: Rook. She means…

Davrin romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's dearest Warden. He is half blighted already. I would see if I could make him crave griffon flesh. Davrin: Let her try.

Emmrich romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's necromancer. An excellent subject to test how long one could go back and forth between life and death. Emmrich: Don't listen to her, dearest. It won't come to that.

Harding romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's Titan pretender? There are many things I could do with one so tied to the stone. Harding: She's not saying what I think she's saying, is she? She probably is.

Lucanis romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's assassin. His flesh could be given true wings. And a face that better suits one who carries a demon. Lucanis: She is welcome to try.

Neve romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's delver of the truth. A mage who would provide me with both blood and ice from her veins. Neve: Rook. She means…

Taash romance

Ghilan'nain: Rook's fire-breather. I would see if there is enough dragon blood in their veins to begin a new Archdemon. Taash: She can try.

Final line (all romances)

Rook: If they touch you, death will be the least of their problems.

My DAVG Extracted Audio Masterlist

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Fenton, aka Phantom, has been given a new task!

In short, literally no one in the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms wants their mostly peaceful afterlife to be rocked by a certain Gotham rogue named Joker. Which, when he dies, is almost sure to happen because of whatever the hell was in that vat he dropped in included ectoplasm. So, yay, he’s also a little ghostly too, meaning he *is* pretty hard to kill. Unfortunately, there’s also a certain vigilante that is quite keen to murder him in recent years.

So now Danny has to keep the mass murderer trauma clown alive for as long as he possibly can while attempting to keep the Joker from. Well. Being the Joker.

Oh, and naturally, Danny got this assignment AFTER Joker got out of Arkham. Again. And entirely blew up the asylum. Time to join the Goonion, he is NOT doing this without getting PAID, thank you.

[anghraine]

It's interesting (if often frustrating) to see the renewed Orc Discourse after the last few episodes of ROP. I've seen arguments that orcs have to be personifications of evil rather than people as such or else the ethics of our heroes' approach to them becomes much more fraught. Tolkien's work, as written, seems an odd choice to me for not wrangling with difficult questions, and of course, more diehard fans are going to immediately bring up Shagrat and Gorbag.

If you haven't read LOTR recently, Shagrat and Gorbag are two orcs who briefly have a conversation about how they're being screwed over by Sauron but have no other real options, about their opinions of mistakes that have been made, that they think Sauron himself has made one, but it's not safe to discuss because Sauron has spies in their own ranks. They reminisce about better times when they had more freedom and fantasize about a future when they can go elsewhere and set up a small-scale banditry operation rather than being involved in this huge-scale war. Eventually, however, they end up turning on each other.

Basically any time that someone brings up the "humanity" of this conversation, someone else will point out that they're still bad people. They're not at all guilty about what they're part of. They just resent the dangers to themselves, the pressure from above, failures of competence, the surveillance they're under, and their lack of realistic alternative options. The dream of another life mentioned in the conversation is still one of preying on innocent people, just on a much smaller and more immediate scale, etc.

I think this misses the reason it keeps getting brought up, though. The point is not that Shagrat and Gorbag are good people. The point is that they are people.

There's something very normal and recognizable about their resentment of their superiors, their fears of reprisal and betrayal that ultimately are realized, their dislike of this kind of industrial war machine that erases their individual work and contributions, the tinge of wistfulness in their hope of escape into a different kind of life. Their dialect is deliberately "common"—and there's a lot more to say about that and the fact that it's another commoner, Sam, who outwits them—but one of the main effects is to make them sound familiar and ordinary. And it's interesting that one of the points they specifically raise is that they're not going to get better treatment from "the good guys" so they can't defect, either.

This is self-interested, yes, but it's not the self-interest of some mystical being or spirit or whatnot, but of people.

Tolkien's later remarks tend to back this up. He said that female orcs do exist, but are rarely seen in the story because the characters only interact with the all-male warrior class of orcs. Whatever female orcs "do," it isn't going to war. Maybe they do a lot of the agricultural work that is apparently happening in distant parts of Mordor, maybe they are chiefly responsible for young orcs, maybe both and/or something else, we don't know. But we know they're out there and we know that they reproduce sexually and we know that they're not part of the orcish warrior class.

Regardless of all the problems with this, the idea that orcs have a gender-restricted warrior class at all and we're just not seeing any of their other classes because of where the story is set doesn't sound like automatons of evil. It sounds like an actual culture of people that we only see along the fringes.

And this whole matter of "but if they're people, we have to think about ethics, so they can't be people" is a weird circular argument that cannot account for what's in LOTR or for much of what Tolkien said afterwards. Yes, he struggled with The Problem of Orcs and how to reconcile it with his world building and his ethical system, but "maybe they're not people" is ultimately not a workable solution as far as LOTR goes and can't even account for much of the later evolution of his ideas, including explicit statements in his letters.

And in the end, the real response that comes to mind to that circular argument is "maybe you should think about ethics more."

[astral-herald]

Viktor's (subverted) Aristotelian Tragedy

A common sentiment I’m seeing throughout post-finale Viktor discourse is an understandable concern or distaste for the element of choice lost throughout his story. I know a lot of us – myself included – expected more time spent on his transformation, along with emphasis on the anger/rage/betrayal fueling it. But seeing him allow Singed to “begin the process” in episode 8 reminded me of Arcane’s origins – tragedy. Bear with me for another long analysis :)

Aristotle wrote the following on the tragedy: “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself…with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” He also emphasized that the true tragic hero couldn’t be perfect, and his downfall into such catharsis-inducing circumstances was reliant on a fatal flaw, oftentimes pride.

Viktor fits this mold, as do many Arcane characters, and it stands to reason that this was intentional since the writing team has reiterated that the show is a tragedy, at its core.

Regarding Viktor’s fatal flaw, I’d argue it’s pride, but it manifests very uniquely. He never makes any grand declarations about his success and doesn’t draw attention to himself in any clear way throughout season one (“Progress Day” comes to mind). Instead, his pride manifests as staunch independence and self-reliance that lead to his downfall; his unwillingness to break his stoic mold arguably led to his use of the Hexcore…so it goes.

Fascinating caveat: Viktor’s pride is a defense mechanism, a necessary tool he built in order to survive and succeed in a hostile environment to people of his station. His self-reliance is increasingly desperate as his illness worsens. He’s cornered by fate but banks on the sanctity of choice at every turn – in season one, Viktor is bound by the conviction that we all have a choice. It’s why he’s so distressed when Jayce makes the wrong one regarding weaponizing Hextech.

“There is always a choice.”

Viktor’s choice to fuse with the Hexcore is the classic Aristotelian fatal flaw moment, the singular incident that opens the flood gates for eventual catharsis. We watch Viktor make an irreparable choice, one that we know to be bad, and endure the repercussions. He then makes the choice to abandon the Hexcore, and end his life, but audiences can’t shake the feeling that those consequences aren’t leaving anytime soon.

So why is Viktor so anti-choice in his final season 2, act 3 form?

Choice is Viktor’s weapon. Pride is what leads him to abusing it. Despite how uncomfortable and depressing it is to watch, Viktor’s slow descent into the Herald is a perfect twist of fate. The Arcane is even so insidious that it meshes with his original intent, to help those suffering in the undercity, while convincing him that their subservience is healing. He becomes responsible for their choices. He knows what’s best because he’s relieving the Gloriously Evolved of their suffering, right? The utopia is for the greater good, yes?

Admittedly, it was really hard watching act 3 Viktor descend fully into his choiceless ethos. But we can still relate it to his tragic flaw – his pride has mushroomed into coldhearted omniscience; not only does he know what’s best for everyone, evolution, but he also has the sense to make the choice for them to supersede their “baser instincts.” The grief we feel upon seeing this perverted, violent version of himself, as far removed from Viktor as possible, is the culmination of Aristotle’s treatise on tragedy. The catharsis is the rock-bottom Machine Herald.

"Choice is false."

But then Arcane decided to basically make Jayvik canon (get out of here, Christian Linke) and destroyed the early drafts of this post. I’m going to rapid-fire this next bit:

Jayce forces Viktor back to life. Viktor has no agency in his season 2 inciting incident. Again, it’s distressing when we mourn his agency, but it remains in accordance with Aristotelian tragedy.

Viktor clings to humanity as long as he possibly can. When Jayce calls out Viktor’s trajectory, alleging that his old partner had died in the Council chamber, whatever is left of Viktor gives way to the Arcane because his last tether has been snapped.

Jayce knows the game – Old Man Jenkins Mage Viktor told him so. Jayce becomes the linchpin in subverting Viktor’s tragedy. He knows what must happen. He understands now.

Machine Herald Viktor is given the chance to undo his fatal flaw, to reverse the catharsis, when he sees Old Man Jenkins Mage Viktor. With Jayce’s help, he takes it.

Given that it’s a version of Viktor who ultimately frees him from himself by empowering Jayce, we can gather that Viktor has liberated himself from his tragedy.

Aristotle’s catharsis is rapidly transformed from something based in release to something healing – Viktor’s tether to humanity returns. He grasps it. The walls of his pride and self-reliance collapse. He accepts Jayce’s help, finally being seen as the full individual he is. Catharsis ensues, for sure, but I don’t think it’s based in the typical tragedy genre.

All this to say, I think Viktor’s arc was, in fact, carefully constructed. He represents the Aristotelian descent into a fatal flaw and that’s very distressing to see unfold, especially since he embodied the tragic hero archetype so well from day one. However, Jayce undoes this narrative and we’re given an incredibly subversive ending that I, personally, never saw coming.

I’m sure that Mage Viktor has a much larger bearing on this analysis than I’m accounting for. But for now, suffice to say that he is Viktor’s way out of the tragedy. TALK ABOUT CHOICE!

This doesn’t erase anyone’s discomfort for Viktor having less and less agency, but I’d like to emphasize the logic and literary precedent behind the story decisions.

PS: here's a quick source I looked at about Aristotelian tragedies. I hope to re-up on Greek tragedies so I can get more specific about the parallels Arcane draws from them.

[pinkfestivalpeanuttree]

this really is the yuri update.

she says something more like, "my name is eternal sugar cookie, the other half of the soul jam of happiness, your other half." in korean

shadowsugar mention

it sounds like eternal sugar's asking hollyberry to elope

eternal sugar cookie? more like. escapism sugar cookie

TOXIC YURI!!

fellas what's gayer: being gay or locking the literal other half of your soul in your precious jewelry box so that they may be "happy" and "safe" in your twisted fucked up escapism paradise prison

[rodentlegalteam]

While I do think using the four sword causes some bad physical/mental side effects, I ultimately think that the biggest drawback ends up being that none of Four’s colours ever do what he wants unless it’s a life or death situation. Four has a lot of work so he decides to spilt to get everything done on time. It does not go well.

Red and Blue both run on emotions so they immediately get distracted by whatever’s more interesting and leave. Red might eventually get back on track (if he remembers) but there’s still a 50/50 chance that he goes “oh but I don’t wanna do that now.. hope the others do it for me! <3”. Blue’s better at remembering but if the conditions for doing The Task are slightly Off it’s going to make him want to rip his own hair out so he just calls it quits. Green and Vio are more likely to actually get stuff done but the second someone asks Green for a favour he’s gone. He’ll end up spending the entire day running around delivering pastries or something cause people keep asking him for things and hes incapable of refusing. Vio will spend thirty minutes coming up with some sort of convoluted loophole to avoid The Task before disappearing into the woods for the next three days. He could’ve completed The Task in those same thirty minutes but he just didn’t feel like doing it in the moment. Four eventually reforms and literally nothing had been done. The real reason he keeps the four sword a secret from the chain is because he’s embarrassed about the fact that all the colours are literally so fucking stupid on their own

[ranticore]

thinking of the unique experience of being a scholar studying a historical figure and being the first person ever to get their hands on primary sources, not just retold myths and legends. the weird one-sided relationship where you know more about someone long-dead than anyone else alive, more than anyone in their own life knew of them too. feeling that you understand them. you'd even be friends if you met - you've stayed up countless nights compiling memories of them and you've thought of the exact right words you could have said to maybe ease their burden just a little. you could have saved them, they would have liked you, and no relationship is easier than when one of you has no say in the matter

[sun-e-chips]

A rough start to Suns day, then back at home some delivery people had the audacity to talk shit about the park

Yeahhhhhh Suns learned to have a lot of patience but once that’s crossed… oh boy

[kelpermoosee]

Guy who thinks his love language is gift giving, but in reality he feels obligated to give people lots of stuff in order to make them stay

[ippilulu]

what does a golden boy do when he fails? - a Caleb fic

a/n: I'm getting into a bad, bad habit of writing Caleb fanfic whenever life troubles me for longer than usual. Anyways ya girl's graduating and job hunting is stressing me outtt This is inspired by Caleb's 'Pathless Realm' anecdote, and I'm sure I speak for all Caleb girlies when I went 'uhhh Caleb what' when I read this bit. And then the pain of theorising what he'd been through in the lab hit again. Infold when I catch you infold

Caleb tread lightly, his laughter cutting through the nervous chatter that surrounded them- yet another joke of his had fallen flat. If it were not the moment that it was, perhaps the joke may have seen a different fate, but for now all it did was cut a path through the crowd that allowed him to easily get to the front- where the scores of their final tests were there for all to see. He looked from the top, his easy smile tightening as he realised his name was first.

But that wasn't what caught his attention.

As others realised the same truth, the chatter grew louder, now accompanied with stares and fingers pointing at him. Not because of him coming first (which may as well have been a universal truth at this point), but because his scores were perfect across the board, except for one- where he'd failed so horribly it may as well have been on purpose.

Gideon came from behind him, hitting him on the shoulder. "Hey man, did you decide to give a chance to the rest of us too by flunking your mental health evaluations or something? You could have atleast seemed like you'd tried, ya know..." The nervousness of the crowd dissipated into laughter, and Caleb smiled along, nodding and shrugging. "Something came up that day, so I missed the test. Not like I did it on purpose." "Sure, sure, our star cadet could never have failed anything after all!" The laughter became louder, Caleb's smile brighter.

He quickly excused himself, saying that he needed to share his scores with his family. But as soon as he was alone, he frowned at his screen, a mail icon blinking up at him innocently.

'Caleb Xia, you are recommended to sit for a re-evaluation of the mental health examination. This includes:

10 sessions with a mental health counselor

1 session with your academic counselor

A final retest at the end of the sessions

Please report to your academic counselor at the earliest to discuss further details.

Onward and upward!

DAA Adminstration'

What bothered Caleb wasn't the fact that he'd failed (although it did sting quite a bit- after all, he was the star cadet who effortlessly got everything he wanted- something he took pride in even if he always made it seem otherwise), but that he didn't know why he failed. Every other subject he just needed to memorise the text, memorise the angle or the signal or whatever it required and he'd be set. And his practicals were even easier, his Evol and general... himness making it almost effortless. But mental health... all he had to rely on was himself. And that scared him a bit the day of the exam, but he'd shrugged- How bad could it be?

Looking at his grand score of 0/100, apparently- very, very bad.

---

"Caleb, we know you're not the type of student to do these things on purpose. You've been taking your academics very seriously from the start... so what happened here? Why did you choose to write..." His counselor pushed his answer sheet between them, gesturing at his handwriting. He glanced at the question on top of it- 'What do you consider to be the greatest challenge during flight missions?' Below it, he'd written- "It's hard to get home on time."

Caleb took a deep breath, remembering Gideon and Patrick's reactions to his answers. He'd joked around at the time, trying to make it seem a smaller deal than it was, but this bothered him quite a bit.

It was obvious, after all- if he asked someone, Hey, what are the right answers for this one?- he'd get weirder looks and possibly attention he'd rather do without.

"I'm... I'm deeply sorry for this, Professor. I think I'd fallen ill that day... But still, I'll make sure not to repeat this again."

The older lady nodded, her face softening. "Caleb, you're a good kid- you've had your head on straight all this time. But if you ever need help..." Her eyes swam with concern.

Caleb chuckled, tilting his head at an angle that would belie lightheartedness. "That's awfully sweet of you, Professor! But I'm alright, honest. If I ever do need anything though, you'll be the first I come to, I swear."

She laughed softly and gestured him out of her office, assuring him he didn't need to bother with the re-evaluation if he truly didn't feel like it- after all, it didn't even count towards their scores. Plus, one would be hard-pressed to find someone as dedicated to their studies and ambitions as Caleb, so it was all rather unnecessary.

Caleb was relieved as he walked out. Now he wouldn't need to ask Gideon any weird questions that'd make him more concerned, nor would he have to face the test and what it represented once again- that both of them had left something behind in that lab. She, with her multiple deaths and short lives, and him... apparently with what made him human.

---

"Caleb! You're coming home soon, right? I promised all my friends I'd treat them to your braised chicken wings..." He laughed, shaking his head to get rid of his thoughts. "Aren't I the one who'd be making them? How come you're already treatin' people to it?" She whined, and he hid his smile as he walked into the sun. "Caleb, you dummy! Weren't you the one who said you'd be my personal chef last year? This is the least I can do, then. Hmph." "Sure, sure. Whatever you say, pipsqueak. All you miss is my food, I've got the memo."

"I..." Caleb saw his friends wave to him, and he nodded to them, almost missing her soft voice. "Hmm?" "I... I miss you more. Come back home soon, dummy." She quickly cut the call, and he looked at her contact photo- a picture of him and her together, clicked last year when they'd gone to the amusement park- before keeping his phone back inside. Like instinct, his fingers grabbed the dog tag she'd gifted him, touching it to his lips softly like a prayer- before he let it fall back in its usual place.

There was no need to bother with the mental health evaluation scores. It's not like they'd help her if they were better. He was already her perfect Caleb, and that was what he'd continue to be, mental health be damned. He'd manage, as he's always been... Even if it was getting harder.

All he needed to do was become stronger.

Just as he'd always been.

[starcurtain]

Hey! I apologize if this question has been asked before since it seems like a pretty obvious one, but where do you think the idea of Aventurine being a sex slave came from? Other than the obvious factor of it being something fun for the fandom to mess around with, I mean.

It's something I kind of took for granted as being true before playing his quest, but after finishing it I realized there wasn't really any indication. The only thing I can really think of is his master's comments about him having a good body. Is there anything in his behavior you can think of that would lead to this conclusion if it wasn't a popular fan interpretation already/kind of just an easy conclusion to reach with a slave character?

(also kind of related but what do you think of the idea that he sleeps around/with his clients to make deals? he's obviously willing to sexualize himself with the boob window, but that doesn't necessarily mean he goes further.)

As far as I can tell, the idea that Aventurine was involved in sexual slavery comes from three (maybe four) places:

First, the comment from the master about Aventurine's appearance. People were holding this comment up as refutable proof that Aventurine was used in sexual slavery on top of being tossed into the Hunger Games; however, the response from other players on this interpretation, especially the Chinese side of the fandom, was very mixed, with a lot of people pointing out that the context in the game probably meant the slave master was talking about Aventurine's ability to attract attention from fans watching the literal Sigonian Hunger Games, rather than having a direct sexual-slavery connotation.

Second, the comment from Sparkle about stripping naked and getting on his knees for Sunday. This one has way more implication in English than I think it might for an Eastern audience, actually. In English, this pretty much sounds like Sparkle saying Aventurine trades sexual favors for success in his gambles. However, I suspect the original intention in Chinese was more about humiliation. Western audiences don't have as much history with honor-based prostration, i.e. accepting corporal humiliation as a form of reconciliation that Eastern audiences might be more familiar with. And in any case, Sparkle is Sparkle. She probably just went for the lowest blow she could think of here.

Third, the general assumption that if Sigonian slaves were being chained, branded, beaten, sent to death matches, etc., it seems logical that they would also be taken advantage of in other ways. I honestly think this is probably the fairest take--many, many real slaves around the world faced (and still face!) sexual abuse, so if slaves from Sigonia were treated so poorly you could make them fight to the death for entertainment, it stands to reason they were probably also not safe from other forms of assault. We also have no idea what happened to Kakavasha in any of the years between his being a tiny child fleeing the massacre and then being purchased as a slave as a late-teens-early-twenties person. That's a very long time for a child to have to survive on their own on an extremely hostile planet and not face risks of all kinds or end up needing to do unspeakable things to survive. So I think this is at least not that far-fetched, although it's important to say there's nothing in the game that directly confirms this.

And fourth: I read a tweet semi-recently that stated that one of the Chinese (or maybe it was Japanese) names for a quest Aventurine was involved in was actually a reference to a book about a teenage sexual assault survivor. However, when I tried to verify this myself, I couldn't find any quest Aventurine was in that was based on a book about sexual assault in either English, Chinese, or Japanese. It's possible I just missed something, but I'm taking this one with a bit of a grain of salt currently, since I can't confirm it personally.

Regarding your other question, about whether I think Aventurine sleeps around to make deals...

I definitely think he does not, for one major reason.

First, I will admit that Aventurine is definitely willing to use his appearance to his advantage. This is pretty obvious. He wears incredibly flashy clothes, baths himself in cologne, overloads on glittering golden jewels, and absolutely calls attention to his appearance when working with clients.

We see him actively doing this in his Moment Among the Stars video, where he is clearly using his looks as an equal tool (to his wealth), to daze his target.

It's not an accident that he says things like "Use me as you wish," with all the explicit connotations preserved. The implication is there. However, unless he was absolutely backed into a corner, I think that implication is all it will ever be.

The reason I think this is that the devs go out of their way to give Aventurine three fairly noticeable physical behaviors in his in-game scenes:

For one, he has some of the most closed off body language of any character in the game.

Aventurine's default conversation pose is arms crossed directly and tightly in front of himself. This is like "Defensive Body Language 101." By crossing your arms, you put a symbolic barrier between yourself and the person you're speaking to, and also ensure that your hands are up and available in case you actually need to physically defend yourself.

Virtually all of Aventurine's conversations take place from this stance, no matter who he is speaking to (from the Trailblazer all the way to Topaz). He deliberately closes his pose off and tightens up his silhouette, which just sends a glaring "Don't touch me" message.

This closing off is also blatantly apparent when you compare it to the deliberately open poses he strikes while trying to make himself seem accessible to others (like tempting clients) or seem powerful (to intimidate):

Complementing this habit of closing himself off is a second noticeable aspect of his body language: He frequently avoids eye contact to the point that he even holds conversations while entirely facing away from the person he's speaking to.

I might be a bit lenient and say maybe he's doing this to on purpose to be mysterious, whoo~~ But... in all honestly, he just does this with everyone, even with Ratio while trying to talk about an actual important issue (wanting to look into Acheron's real identity). Hell, even the fake Aventurine does it to himself!

We can even say that wearing the rose-tinted glasses in the first place is another intentional barrier, one Aventurine deliberately removes in specific moments to give people the (false) impression that he's "letting them in" to his circle:

Now, this might be a bit more complicated in Aventurine's case, because eye contact has a whole extra meaning when eyes are the defining trait of your species and come with particularly challenging racial stereotypes. So it may be that Aventurine is simply used to conducting conversation while looking away to minimize racial prejudice against his eyes' unique appearance.

However, I'd also argue that the devs deliberately turned his entire model away in cutscene after cutscene to create a clear sense of being inaccessible, unapproachable, and unwilling to engage in the physical intimacy of standing closely, directly facing, and staring at his conversation partners.

While he faces away, he controls both the figurative and the literal direction of conversation, forcing people to keep their eyes on him while he is free to move as he pleases. Over and over again, it just says "I want to be the one in control. I'm not afraid to show my back to you, but you are not welcome to come near me."

And, in fact, that's a third aspect of his character's body language that I am sure the devs did not include accidentally: More so than other characters, many of Aventurine's conversations are conducted from weirdly far distances. Like, half the time he's talking, he's standing all the way on the opposite side of the room!

This habit of speaking from a-larger-than-normal distance is apparent in the first scene with Himeko...

And then in just about every other conversation too:

The bubble is twenty feet in every direction.

Like yes, he does approach and have conversations like a normal person... sometimes... But it is significantly more noticeable with Aventurine than with other characters that he often conducts whole conversations--even with his allies--from a distance. Just genuinely weirdly far apart.

Leaving space for Gaiathra, I guess.

And it's because these significant decisions were made with Aventurine's in-game body language that, when he deliberately alters his own behavior, it is instantaneously noticeable.

In 2.0, he closes the distance, the glasses come off, and he gets directly up in the Trailblazer's face.

It's uncomfortable not just because the player is suddenly being loomed over, but because this behavior has already been subconsciously established for the player as out of character for Aventurine.

The barriers the character himself was putting up are deliberately stripped away so that he can use physicality and demanding eye contact to intimidate his target. He has to reverse his own normal body language in order to come across as domineering (and, I guess if you're into that, appealing in a domineering manner).

And ummmm, just a tiny aside here because I can't resist:

This does mean that when the game goes out of its way to demonstrate Aventurine altering his own normal habit of distant and defensive body language, it is absolutely intentional.

Yes, this is a Ratiorine post in disguise. There literally isn't any other character in the game that Aventurine is shown being comfortable standing so close to and interacting with in this manner. This doesn't occur in every one of their scenes, but Ratio is the only character that this happens with repeatedly. It's not an accident that the devs literally added "They were walking side-by-side" as flavor text.

But look, I'll be fair: There's a great example of this in Aventurine's scene with Acheron too, where he closes the distance and attempts to make eye contact with her--seeking her guidance and closeness--and she is actually the one stepping away, speaking with her back turned, demonstrating her power and control (and issues with connection!) in that scene.

Anyway, this was a whole longggg tangent into analyzing Aventurine's body language, but my point is that, overall, the devs deliberately adjusted his model's actions in-game to give the impression of a person who clearly wants to be in control of every interaction he has with other people, who insists on distance over intimacy, and whose stances and habits suggest that he is significantly less accessible and open than his "Use me as you wish" motto might suggest.

Long story longer, I think that there is almost zero chance Aventurine is willingly ceding control over himself or the actions expected of him to anyone he isn't 100% comfortable with, and I think that using physical intimacy of any kind would be an absolute last resort for him. Frankly, he comes across as more likely to shoot himself in the foot than let someone he doesn't trust lay hands on him.

To me, he reads very much as "You may look, but you may not touch."