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#this is the first line so far where I legitimately want all of them
bunnieebu · 1 year
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FRANKIE BEST FEARIDESCENT DOLL. we been knew. they actually have the most consistently good dolls in g3 so no surprise
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voxswhore · 2 months
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EEEEE i ADORE your work, ur vox is SOSOSO in character and i love him!! he's such a possessive insecure lil pathetic cringefail guy <3
anywho, could you write a vox x sinner!reader? like reader is new in hell, overwhelmed and naive and vox takes advantage of that by being their security, maybe even manipulating/hypnotizing the reader into signing away their soul so he legitimately owns them? ty for reading!!
thank youuuu, and ofc i can write that!
cw: themes of manipulation
ִ ࣪𖤐✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 ⋆。°✩ִ ࣪𖤐₊˚⊹♡
࣪𖤐 || you weren’t fully sure what you were doing or where you were going, just that you had been hit by a car and then woke up here.
࣪𖤐 || you had asked around and found out that you were in hell. for what? you weren’t exactly sure. pondering wouldn’t do anything for you, though, so you started walking around in search of what to do.
࣪𖤐 || you stumbled across an ad. a place called ‘voxtech’ was hiring, apparently.
࣪𖤐 || you called the number on the billboard, went over to the tower, answered some questions, and you were hired! (that was surprisingly easy)
࣪𖤐 || for the first few days that you were working there, vox didn’t really notice you,
࣪𖤐 || but when he actually did sit down and observe you, he saw it all
࣪𖤐 || how naive, innocent, and confused you looked, you were definitely a new sinner.
࣪𖤐 || vox decided to approach you, wanting to see what your reaction would be.
࣪𖤐 || your voice seemed to waver ever so slightly while you talked to him which gave him an ego boost.
࣪𖤐 || he had simply just asked you how your day had been so far.
࣪𖤐 || over the next few days, vox kept on talking to you, even flirting with you a tiny bit.
࣪𖤐 || i mean, you were pretty and all, but it was mostly the control that he had over you.
࣪𖤐 || it was obvious that he favored you way over his other workers.
࣪𖤐 || you were confused, but the attention was nice so you kept going.
࣪𖤐 || he told you that he wanted you to be the face of one of the ads for his newest product and ofc you said yes.
࣪𖤐 || you kept on doing little things like this for him, he was so nice about it, how could you refuse? you didn’t want to refuse.
࣪𖤐 || perhaps vox was pulling a few strings, hypnotizing you just a tiny bit into doing what he says, but come onn, its not thatt big of a deal!
࣪𖤐 || when he asks you to sign the paper, seal your fate and give your soul to him, you hesitate.
࣪𖤐 || vox encourages you, he only wants the best for you, after all. why would you doubt him?
࣪𖤐 || you start backing away, which causes vox to grab your chin to make you look up at his eyes harshly. see, you want to give yourself to him, dont you? just sign on the dotted line and…there! see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
࣪𖤐 || you don’t regret it, you don’t think, but your mind can’t be trusted at this point.
࣪𖤐 || dont worry, though, vox is more than trustworthy! he’ll take care of you.
࣪𖤐✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 ⋆。°✩ִ ࣪𖤐₊˚⊹♡
check out my masterlist!
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howdoesagrapewrites · 4 months
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𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐰𝐬
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Plot: Imagine being the legitimized bastard of Daemon Targaryen, and having a very devoted family.
Cw: fem!reader, cisgender female reader (I'm sorry mascs and nbs, I'll make something for you later) incest/targcest implied for later, platonic and romantic yanderes, yandere EVERYONE x reader, here's a list of every character that will be featured (not all of them are romantic):Rhaenyra Targaryen, Daemon Targaryen, Rhea Royce, Alicent Hightower, Otto Hightower, Viserys I Targaryen, Aegon II Targaryen, Aemond Targaryen, Haelena Targaryen, Daeron Targaryen, Lucerys Velaryon, Jacaerys Velaryon, Laena Velaryon, Laenor Velaryon
Notes: I go by a very strange mix of the series and the books, I haven't seen the series in a while so the timeline will most likely be a mess. I'd like this to be a series but I've been incredibly busy. Extra: at first I thought about making reader Mysaria's daughter, but this is a self insert, so it's best that you look however you like, leaving the mother anonymous. The only physical reference I'll make will be reader's silver hair
>After Rhaenyra was declared the heir of the iron throne, Daemon, insulted, flew away with his mistress, the white worm, who he would conceive a child with, even asking for a dragon egg for the prince or princess to come
>However, Viserys demanded him to go back to his home and wife, he sent Mysaria off to lys, where the stress of a storm in the trip back made her lose the baby
>Daemon never fully forgave his brother, and this left him less than eager to have another child anytime soon
>So imagine his surprise, when 7 years later, there's a rumour spreading in flea bottom like wildfire, about a girl carrying Daemon's bastard
>Many women had claimed to carry a royal child before, thinking this could give them any sort of prize, so Daemon didn't think much of it at first, but when he heard her name, he recognized her as one of his previous "favorites" who disappeared without a trace months ago
>She was said to have taken residence in Essos, and Daemon went on dragonback to find her. She was from the free cities, five years older than Daemon, and a heart as cold as a northern winter, or so they said. She was not expecting Daemon, running away to have the child in peace
>"They said I was too far along when I found out, moon tea would've only harmed me. Besides, it was lucrative in its own way" said the woman. Daemon did little to suppress the disgust on his face when thinking about her being defiled by other men while carrying his dragonseed babe
>She wanted no part in the baby's life, and Daemon, in his particular fashion, informed her he'd take the youngling as soon as it's out of her, may even pay her a few coins to make sure she won't do much as think about keeping it
>A few months passed, and he returned to king's landing with a babe in arms. Demanding an egg in honor of the birth of princess Y/N Targaryen
>This egg would later hatch into the dragon Dagahrion, the princess' bound dragon
>The court was a hot mess, according to Otto, he wouldn't be surprised if the young creature lost its left ear because of all the gossip and ill-speaking of her, just like her father. This was a scandal, considering he was still married to Rhea Royce, who he gravely dishonored time and time again, Daemon was always shameless, but this was crossing a limit, even for him, to call his bastard a princess while refusing to lay with his own rightful wife, disgraceful
>Daemon tried to use you as yet another attempt to get his brother to annul his marriage to "the bronze bitch", but even when he failed, he did everything in his power to legitimize his daughter
>Despite everyone on the council telling Viserys how foolish it'd be to do it, making enemies out of the Royce house, further insulting Rhea, and putting a whoreborn on the line of succession (no matter how far from the throne), all it took was a little yawn and the bright twinkle of your eyes to make him melt, he is fully committed to his role of uncle, even as a doting grandfather, considering his father passed long before her birth
>Viserys sent Daemon back to the Vale, saying he should do his best to give lady Rhea an heir, to make up for the slip and avoid causing the Targaryen house any more trouble. Viserys, for totally not selfish reasons wanted to keep the princess in KL, saying Rhea should not be made to raise his bastard
>Daemon said he'd rather be exiled again than to leave his daughter in Hightower hands to go try to fuck his wife. Viserys was greatly offended by the implication that the Hightowers truly ruled and schemed while he reigned
>To his outmost displeasure, he finally had to let his niece go to the Vale with her father
>Rhea loved you as soon as she set eyes on you, completely separating you from your father's actions, and seeing you as a pure angel in this horrible situation
>But it was so difficult with Daemon around, she just wanted to whisk you away and love you, she'd pray to the mother to be able to breastfeed you, crying when she heard you wail in frustration of your hunger, since it took several wet nurses to get you to drink milk
>But Daemon was always around to remind her you were not hers, that he considered her lowly, not worthy of you. He'd correct you when you learning to speak, and dared to refer to her as "mama"
>It was said the ground of the vale would shake upon them yelling when fighting over you
>But this joy to Rhea was short lived, as Daemon sent you to KL when he had to fight in the war of the stepstones, saying the "nest of vipers" was more deserving of you than she was. When you were three, your step mother had an accident while hawking, many said Daemon orderded for her to be poisoned when she was bed bound, others said the distress of your parting made her lose skill
>It was Viserys greatest pleasure when you were left at his care, his adorable baby niece was now an infant, and somehow you were even more charming, being able to speak, sing and walk
>To no one's surprise, Viserys' reaction was not generalized, with many not being keen on having a bastard running around the castle playing with the princes, by that point, Aegon was 8, Haelena was 7, Aemond was 5, and Daeron was 1, and almost all of them could see people treated you differently
>Rhaenyra was welcoming, baby Lucerys had just been born, and she was delighted to have a girl to spoil, it only helped that Jacaerys loved you as well, and would often fight his uncles for the chance to be with you
>Alicent in particular was not pleased with your presence, thinking you were an uncomfortable conversation to have with her children, especially resentful of the fact her youngest son would be attached at the hip with you
>To Otto, you were an annoyance, a living proof of Daemon's pure disregard for the norms, however, he could rest at night knowing you were ninth in the line of succession, and a girl, who would someday marry a son of a minor house and be too busy bearing children to present a claim to the iron throne
>Even though the Hightowers were tougher than the king, they did eventually succumb to your spell, and became just as enamoured with you as everyone else, in their minds, you were almost a product of spontaneous generation, completely ignoring your shameful father and prostitute mother
>Your arrival also caused the birth of Lucerys (who was again, born with a striking resemblance of Harwin Strong, just like his older brother) to be less gossiped about, after all, your case was much more interesting
>Some people in court starting referring to you as "The princess of flea bottom", this title costed quite a few tongues around the castle, ordered by Viserys, happily approved by Otto
>The Hightower hand was careful not to show too much affection to you, as it was improper and he knew how zealous was Viserys when it came to you
>Aegon was "already too old to be playing" in his words, and kept his distance from you, you reminded him to much of his sticky handed little brothers
>But as if you knew, you chased him around and praised him for his knightly demeanor (in your eyes) and how he's just like the heroes in Viserys' stories. It was not a long time before Aegon now appointed himself as your guard, watching like a hawk over his brothers and nephews when he thought they were being too rough on you
>Haelena loves you from the start, sees you as a little doll, she loves showing you her bugs, you're the only one who listens to her attentively
>Jacaerys and Daeron are only a year old, but always search for you, you think they're cute, something that spikes jealousy on Aemond, he wants you to think of him as someone worthy of admiration, like you see his older brother, he'd even accept being cute in your eyes, but he has none of those traits to appeal to you. You love him and love playing with him nonetheless, but he thinks he needs something else to win your favor
>The Velaryons dote on you too, with Laenor married to Rhaenyra and once your father marries Laena that same year, they are maybe too eager to become part of your family, and regard you as theirs
>Especially Laena, who Daemon allows (unlike with Rhea) to pamper and care for you, but still corrects you when it comes to remembering your origins, Laena may love you, but she's not your mother
>Maybe Daemon does this as a way to imagine you're only his, he doesn't care for the woman who abandoned such a precious treasure, she has been wiped away from your life and memory, you're only familiar with your father, you only belong to him
>You have his silver hair, you have his name, no matter who your mother was, you are his true valyrian heir, his dragonseed
>Unfortunately, Daemon is not the only one whose eyes light up when thinking of owning you
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itsclydebitches · 5 months
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Zevlor: An Angsty Character Analysis
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Hey, Zevlor simps. Can I interest anyone in 4,000 words about our favorite disaster tiefling? 💀
“We can’t stay, but we’ll be slaughtered if we leave—we’re no fighters.”
Back during my first play-through this is the line that turned Zevlor from another dime-a-dozen, exposition spouting NPC to a character I was legitimately interested in. “We’re no fighters.” My DnD ignorance abounds, but even I could see that wasn’t an accurate statement. Here’s a mountain of a man sporting fancier armor than my level 2 Tav knows exists yet, having wrecked half the goblin hoard with his crossbow and, if you let him, he'll happily turn to punching as a solution to verbal disagreements. Plus, he’s clearly the one giving the orders, so what do you mean you’re not a fighter?
Having explored the Grove a bit I chalked it up to a generalized assessment of the refugees as a whole. They’re mostly kids, civilians, and would-be protectors who only look the part of fighters in cobbled-together armor. One woman is grappling with the guilt of killing someone for the first time, even an enemy. Lakrissa is sure they’re all going to get slaughtered and is willing to put money on that fact. Meanwhile, the couple you meet are more concerned with what pet they’ll get when they somehow, someway, make it to the city. Don't worry about how that'll happen. You learn later that even those like Ronan are small potatoes compared to most of the baddies you’ll face. On paper he looks and sounds like the real deal—dressed in robes, talking up an apprenticeship with the famous Lorroakan—but scenes like the celebration light show and his own fury at needing to be saved, again, highlight how far he still has to go. The point is that Zevlor is right: these aren’t fighters and he at 18 strength, paladin, former commander, is definitely the exception.
However, BG3 is the sort of detail-heavy game where I’d expect them to include that exception in the dialogue. “We can’t stay, but we’ll be slaughtered if we leave—these people aren’t fighters.” Zevlor’s inclusion of himself in this assessment continued to nag at me and it didn’t start to make sense until I delved into his tag here on tumblr, with more patient players than myself posting everything there is to know about the tiefling. (Thanks, all.) Zevlor is fascinating to me in part because he has this contradictory nature, one example of which is that he’s a very talented fighter who desperately doesn’t want to be a fighter anymore.
…but also he totally does.
We overhear in his dialogue to Tilses that Zevlor is adamant about shedding the titles he’s earned through combat: Hellrider, Commander, Sir. He insists that they’re just civilians now and it’s not like he’s being disingenuous here—note that he introduces himself as just “Zevlor” to Tav. Zevlor means what he says to Tilses and we can see that he’s trying to both reinforce his point and lesson the blow by referring to her as “Tilly.” The nickname is a sweet one, hinting at their close bond in just a single word, reminding her that he’s not saying this to hurt her, he cares for her… but the nickname is simultaneously something he never would have used as her commander. The intimacy meant to comfort is also a hard blow to weather. They're now people who use nicknames inappropriate for the hierarchy of battle.
So Zevlor means what he says here, means it enough that Tilses is convinced and drops her use of “Commander,” but there’s definitely a hint of bitterness in his voice. At least, I’ve always heard it. Zevlor is steadfast in his conviction here, even going so far as to say, “I’m done soldiering, Tilly” when discussing what will come next at Baldur’s Gate. Yet for all of that his tone conveys (understandable) anger and disappointment that it’s come to this. Zevlor doesn’t act like someone who truly wants this change, but rather someone who’s been forced to accept it.
Is it outside forces unwillingly influencing him then? Did Avernus truly change things irrevocably? No, not really. At least, not in the way Zevlor likes to claim. Tilses herself states that being a Hellrider is for life; nothing can take away that title. You lost your post? Your whole city? Most of the people under your protection? Doesn’t matter! You’re a Hellrider forever, no matter the circumstances. I can easily picture a time in Zevlor's life where he would have agreed with Tilses wholeheartedly. They are Hellriders, dammit, and so long as there’s one person looking for their help they will wield that title alongside their blades. And right now, Zevlor has a lot more than just one person in need of his assistance.
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So it’s not that Avernus truly stripped them of that identity. Nothing can do that. Zevlor is not rejecting titles and planning retirement because the mechanisms of fate are forcing him to.
He’s doing all that because he’s lost confidence in himself.
Even as someone with a shaky understanding of DnD classes, I love the parallel between a broken oath and the rejection of a lifelong title. If Zevlor can fail in his oath—or in his faith entirely, according to the memories stemming from his pod—why-ever would he think that any other ‘permanent’ part of his identity was worth fighting for? If you can loose the very thing you’ve built your entire life around, every important aspect of yourself, tied to your very soul… what’s a bestowed title compared to that? Zevlor doesn’t believe himself worthy of being a Hellrider anymore, but I think that goes deeper than a string of horrific circumstances making him feel incompetent. As an Oathbreaker, Zevlor likely believes that if he couldn’t uphold that, he can’t uphold anything. Calling himself a Hellrider would be a lie. A fiction. A pathetic, dangerous, insulting fiction at that. It’s like calling yourself the “Hero” while continually failing those around you. Sure, others might insist it’s a title you’ve earned, one you will always carry with you, but you don’t believe them anymore and at a certain point calling yourself that feels worse than embracing the title of “Villain." You don’t want to be the villain… but you want to pretend you’re the hero even less. Pretending is exhausting.
We see this struggle in the many ways that Zevlor fails, or almost fails, to uphold the ideals that originally guided him. I use the term “villain” above deliberately because Zevlor is not merely a former hero-type who’s self confidence has been shattered, or who has been reduced to a civilian, or who thinks themselves useless; he’s actively fighting against temptations that, under less stressful situations, he’d never even consider. I don’t think he is a villain, I think he’s a flawed, struggling victim who sees his own, inevitable mistakes as villainous—and the longer that warped perspective continues the easier it is to fall into bad behaviors. This cycle is perfectly summarized in the autobiography Zevlor keeps by his bed:
“When every passer-by thinks you a thief and a heretic, it is deeply tempting to become one.”
We don’t know if this is Zevlor’s autobiography (as far as I’m aware, anyway) but even if it’s not the words have clearly resonated enough for him to keep them nearby. This particular line paints a pretty clear picture of Zevlor’s struggle. If everyone you meet says you’re devil-kin, vermin, or would-be criminal, isn’t it easier to just give them what they want? If you can’t persuade them otherwise, why put in the effort of trying? If he can’t be Faithful to his God, why have faith in anything at all? If he can’t save these people—setback after setback, mistake after mistake—why is he even making the effort?
Zevlor obviously is trying, very, very hard, which is why such thoughts are merely temptations rather than actual, questionable actions. Still, the Grove gives us numerous examples of the precipice he’s balanced on—and the ways Tav can tip him in one direction or another. You can talk Zevlor down from his anger and get him to acknowledge his disgust in nearly sinking to Aradin’s level. You can also let him boil over and punch the human at a time when the last thing anyone needs is more violence. You can convince Zevlor that there are peaceful ways of stopping Kagha's ritual, or you can help him in pursuing the darker temptation to kill her. It’s a “low” thought, but at his own admission he hasn’t been above entertaining it. Zevlor’s requests for help, though always polite and humble, carry a spark of manipulation in them too. He’s not above leveraging your previously selfless good deed to his advantage—"She owes you for saving this grove"—and if you approach him before speaking with Kagha he’ll claim that the ritual will “be trouble—for all of us.” Except, no? Not really? Tav can make it clear that they’re just here for a healer, they’re only passing through, and as a fighter they are not beholden to the Grove’s sanctuary as the teiflings are. It’s not trouble for everyone involved, yet Zevlor frames it as such in the hopes that (unnecessary) self-interest may motivate you if selflessness fails. Finally, if Zevlor dies in your play-through and you use Speak the Dead on him, he will admit to having “plenty” of secrets, none of which he’ll share. Admittedly, this may be the result of cut content, specifically a story-line in which Zevlor knowingly betrays the tieflings rather than being tricked by the Absolute. Still, the game as it stands is the story we have and within it we’re given a man who is both fighting against these dark urges (ha) and has a past riddled with secrets. If Zevlor is anything, it’s blunt when it comes to his own failings, accurate and otherwise. So how terrible must these secrets be that he outright refuses to divulge them when, generally speaking, most corpses speak freely in death?
However, out of all of this the struggle I’m most intrigued by is the one surrounding the gate. Zevlor represents the tieflings: persecuted refugees, vulnerable civilians, people seeking to survive through cooperation, specifically by joining a community. Kagha represents the druids (or at least a vocal subset of them in Halsin’s absence): bigoted individuals, powerful fighters, people seeking to survive by giving in to their fears, specifically by keeping themselves isolated. This is the moral dichotomy of the Grove and it is symbolized through the gate. Zevlor wants to open it to everyone whereas Kagha wants to close it, permanently.
So isn’t it odd that Zevlor is the one ordering it shut?
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When the scene first starts Kanon shouts down that no, he won’t open the gate. Zevlor said that no one is allowed in. Notably, he’s saying this to Aradin and his crew, people that the Grove is at least passingly familiar with, given that Halsin left with them to search the temple. It’s also notable that Zevlor isn’t expecting goblins to attack the Grove. He’s shocked that this is suddenly a problem, brought about by Aradin’s decision—“You lead them here?”— and the entire point of staying at the Grove is that it’s at least comparatively safe. Yes, there have been more attacks lately, but Zevlor seems to be relying on the Grove’s relatively unknown location, as well as the fact that goblins are normally disorganized. The safety is only compromised because Aradin brought a hunting party back, so Zevlor has no reason to expect any visitors, let alone ones that would be a threat.
More importantly, he should welcome such visitors even if he did expect them. After all, that’s precisely what the tieflings are: strangers with no ulterior motives other than to survive. Broadly speaking it makes perfect sense why he'd shut the gates. Zevlor’s first priority is to his people, so anything that keeps them safe is, theoretically, a good thing. But through the lens of his specific characterization and this specific, moral dilemma, it’s an awfully hypocritical decision. Based on everything we’ve seen, our party would not have been welcomed by Zevlor if we’d arrived without danger on our heels and a rescue to endear him to us. So his people should be welcomed, trusted, kept safe, given the benefit of the doubt… but Zevlor isn’t necessarily willing to extend that same trust to others. At the end of the day, he and Kagha want a version of the same thing: safety for those they deem are worthy of it.
It’s precisely these flaws and temptations that make Zevlor such a great character to me, even before he’s tricked by the Absolute. The fandom has leaned hard into Zevlor’s self-loathing and let me tell you, I love it (kisses, hugs, and cookies for you all), but canonically I think he has more reason to fear himself than we tend to portray in the H/C fics. I’m not saying he’s a bad person. Rather, it’s precisely because Zevlor is such a good person that he has the capacity to fall so far. It’s his all-consuming desire to protect his family that leads Zevlor to do and consider so much that a paladin would normally balk at. Denying others the safety you’ve been granted. Subtly manipulating others to do your dirty work. Considering murder.
Zevlor is someone torn between doing the Right Thing and the thing he believes will help those under his care survive. Importantly, when we first meet him he considers these to be two separate courses of action. So can you imagine what goes through his head when he first sees Tav saving everyone and doing so righteously? I think it’s integral to Zevlor’s characterization that the game all but forces you to play the Good Guy in that initial encounter. A cut scene starts, you’re thrown into combat immediately afterwards, and unless you plan to start attacking the Grove members alongside the goblins (which the mechanics discourage through the coloring that distinguishes enemies from allies) you will always finish this fight as Zevlor’s hero. Sure, you can be an asshole afterwards and demand payment. You could already be plotting your betrayal and the slaughter of all the refugees. But in this moment you are nothing but a miracle made flesh in his eyes. Right from the start Tav is succeeding in all the ways Zevlor feels like he's failed. You're the hero.
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More specifically, you’re an Every-Man Hero. We might have epic backstories for our Tavs, but within confines of the game you’re largely a nobody when not playing an Origin character. How powerful must that have been to witness then? A total stranger, someone who has no ties to the tieflings or even, depending on your class, any sworn reason to help others, putting their life on the line to save what is most precious to Zevlor? I think a lot about the fact that he never asks Wyll to step in and try to change Kagha’s mind. She owes him just as much as she does Tav—Wyll is an equal participant in that fight and, if your shoddy play style is anything like mine, he likely did more damage—and Wyll is clearly invested in the tiefling’s survival, training the kids as he is. Now, obviously Zevlor’s reticence is largely a question of assigned roles (we need to be the one engaging with Kagha because we’re the protagonist/player) but, like Zevlor’s choice to include himself in the Not a Fighter group, it would have been all too easy to explain this away within the narrative. One comment about how Wyll already tried and failed, or how Kagha doesn’t trust Warlocks, or hell, maybe you don’t meet Wyll in the Grove at all. It’s an easy thing to accomplish and though this is edging more into the realm of headcanon than anything else, I can’t help but think that Wyll isn’t the kind of person that Zevlor could turn to for help right now. Because he’s a folk hero. The Blade of Frontiers, known far and wide for his impressive, selfless deeds. Zevlor is struggling so hard to keep the tieflings safe, tempted by all the unsavory solutions that might achieve that, drowning in self-hatred as his past and current failings catch up with him, wanting nothing more than to be his peoples’ protector:
“I would be a paladin again—with a god’s purpose, a god’s power. Everything I needed to protect my people. And all the while, the cult tortured them. They fought, and ran, and died around me, while I imagined myself their savior.”
Three of the things Zevlor mutters while trapped in the pod are “Hellrider… for… life…,” “Trust… in me…,” and “Children… look away… look at me…” He wants to be the protector, the one children look to for reassurance, he wants his words to Tilly to be a lie and he wants a way to prove that he is a Hellrider for life… but he’s not. At least, Zevlor doesn’t believe it. He lost his titles while Wyll still proudly bears his. Wyll trains the children to fight while Zevlor can only get swept up in anger at them being threatened. The people trust Wyll, adore him, he’s the hero and Zevlor… is not. Not anymore.
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It’s too painful to approach Wyll and admit all that. That would be a hell of a blow to Zevlor's pride. But Tav? A stranger? A nobody? The Every-man who had no reason to help or reputation pressuring them, saving them anyway? That’s inspiring. Someone like Tav could be the answer and even, perhaps, the proof that Zevlor could redeem himself. Neither of them are folk heroes, untouchable in their assumed perfection. Tav is a living, breathing example of how the flawed, everyday adventurer can be everything Zevlor strives for.
No wonder he won’t shut up about them in the Shadowlands.
All of this is why it’s so tragic that Zevlor wasn’t given a redemption arc. Sure, you can recruit him for the final battle against the Netherbrain, but there’s no quest to change the cast’s opinion of him—or change Zevlor’s opinion of himself. All his content at the end of Act 2 and Act 3 reinforces that self-hatred.
Let’s make a list, shall we?
Nearly every line of his reunion with Tav has Zevlor painting himself in the worst light possible, from “a lie kinder than the truth” to his refusal to join you because he believes he’ll stab you in the back. You cannot convince him of the Absolute’s manipulation and there’s no response to his belief that such horrors start within the person like, “Of course it does! Because we’re all flawed and equally capable of good and evil deeds! That potential doesn’t make you irredeemable, Zevlor, it makes you mortal!!”
He’s utterly failed as his peoples’ champion and he’s also deemed “unworthy” of being a True Soul. Obviously not being chosen by the Absolute is a good thing, but for a man drowning in self-loathing that’s one hell of a complicated rejection.
Nearly all the tieflings hate him now, all those people he’s been sacrificing his soul to keep safe. I found it particularly devastating that this is one of the rare occasions where nailing a persuasion check doesn’t change the person’s mind. There’s at least one tiefling at Moonrise (I’m drawing a blank on her name) who will believe you when you explain how the Absolute influenced Zevlor, but that doesn’t lead to forgiveness.
Zevlor is deemed unimportant on a literal, narrative level. He is very easy to miss in the pods (I nearly did on my first play-through) and the game does incredibly little to dissuade you from that mistake. Putting aside for a moment that obviously an Origin companion is more significant than a minor NPC, compare this to Shadowheart screaming from her own pod, the game making it abundantly clear that this is someone in need of help—someone worth rescuing. She’ll even say later that you could have run past, more concerned with your own survival and the big picture heroics to bother with her. How must it feel then, if Zevlor ever learns that Tav was there and never stopped for him?
If you do miss Zevlor… oh boy. We’ve probably all seen at least a recording of Orin’s so-called gift. There are plenty of characters who can meet untimely and devastating ends, but very few go through this level of horror. Zevlor—after being held captive, remember—is tortured by God’s Favorite Torturer. He is stripped of his personhood and reduced to a mere “message,” a “pet.” Zevlor is further humiliated in death by being literally stripped of his armor—not just vulnerable in his nakedness, but denied the last symbol of his faith, his status, his power—and it’s always struck me that this is the closest we see to him 'enjoying' an intimate moment, this parody in Orin’s painting. Zevlor is one of the NPC’s most in need of physical comfort and instead he’s forced into this torturous mockery of a sex scene. It also hits hard that when Tav first spots his body the narration says that Zevlor “might almost be sleeping.” Undoubtedly this is a man who isn’t taking good care of himself. He needs a good night’s rest, yet this horrifying trick is all he gets.
As if all this weren’t enough, most of your companion are VERY critical of Zevlor while commenting on his demise. It’s one thing for the tieflings to believe the worst given their ignorance and the fact that they are the ones who suffered from Zevlor’s failure, but your company understands the Absolute and the ways that she gets her hooks in people. Still, Astarion calls him a “wet rag” even if he did deserve better than this. Shadowheart wouldn’t have wished this on him either, but she can’t help but slip in a “no matter his failings.” Lae’zel, often the most blunt, straight up says that he was “always destined to fail his people—and to fail us.” Wyll shakes his head and intones that “even good intentions can lead us down deadly paths.” Only Gale and Karlach stick to mourning the dead rather than airing his shortcomings.
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When I spoke to my allies before the final battle Zevlor didn’t have a cut scene. It became clear to me later that this must have been a bug in my play-through, but at the time it only reinforced my feelings that his story was incomplete. Looking on Youtube I’ve found recordings of him saying that he is a Hellrider once more and he would “die a proud man if [he] were to die this day”… but that rings as terribly hollow given where we left him. Last we were together, Zevlor was saying in no uncertain terms that he could not be trusted, he would fail again, he was unworthy of forgiveness. Where did this change of heart come from? It makes perfect sense that he would help Tav in this moment—he begs to be of some use after getting free—but not that he would present himself with such confidence. Within the story as it’s been told this feels… fake. Like Zevlor is putting on a mask to fit the mood of this lively, optimistic party. Which, in turn, gives the “I would die a proud man” line a terrifying implication to me. Does Zevlor expect to die this day? Does he intend to? What would persuade him not to lay down his life here and now? His mission is complete. The tieflings are safe—though not by his hand. There's no hero's welcome waiting for him after this battle. They hate him. He hates himself, and by his own admission the one thing that could still make him proud would be to die at Tav’s side, trying to do one last bit of good. If someone said that to me after everything Zevlor has been through I would keep them far away from the front lines.
(I did, for the record lol.)
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I’m not saying anything new then when I go, “Larian, PLEASE add more to his story.” Give us a Zevlor side-quest to renew his oath. Let us invite him to our camp. Something to link the broken man mid-game and the confident fighter at the end so that the latter doesn’t feel like an alarm bell with two legs and a tail. I mean yeah, I get hooked on minor characters so 75% of this is simply me wanting more content of a fave, but I also I do legitimately believe that BG3’s story would benefit from tying up loose ends like this.
Zevlor is a fantastic character, someone who contains an astounding amount of complexity for so little screen time. You have to follow up on that complexity though. If he’s meant to be a purely tragic figure, okay, fine, that’s the ending you get with Orin. But one where he joins you with a smile and reclaims a title he's previously rejected with such fervor requires more work in the middle; a through-line that explains how someone with so much self-loathing learns to think of himself as the hero again.
Because it does all come down to Zevlor’s perception of himself. He was always a hero, flaws and all. He always was and always will be a Hellrider.
The UI knows what's up :)
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eggcats · 10 months
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Bowuigi fic where the entire reason Bowser spends all his time kidnapping Princess Peach to marry her is because the first time he kidnapped "Princess Peach" it was actually Luigi and they had an actual connection.
Like, the first time Bowser does his whole "kidnap the princess" scheme, he's intending it more as a show of force to take over another kingdom or negotiate terms of trade or something. (Not saying he's Right, but hey he was trying as a new monarch.)
So he shows up, and is like "Surrender to me the Princess, or I deploy my troops and destroy your toads!" Like an ultimatum or something.
So! In a panic, Luigi and Peach swap outfits and they go into disguise as each other. (This ultimatum gives them the time to pull this off.) Peach so she can escape and rally help to rescue Luigi, and Luigi because they don't know what Bowser intends and they don't want Peach to be in any legitimate danger. (They've literally never met Bowser before this, who knows what he's going to do!!!)
Except! Peach!Luigi and Bowser never get to determining terms of trade or anything, because they start talking and hit it off. Peach!Luigi meets Jr and Bowser sees how good "she" is with his youngest kid, and now suddenly Bowser IS thinking of marrying her and making her Jr's mama.
Bowser even says a cringe-corny pickup line to Peach!Luigi and while Kamek is facepalming in the background, "Peach" is blushing and laughing at it, enjoying their banter.
By the time Mario shows up to rescue "Peach" all "her" and Bowser have done so far is have dinner, say cringe flirts to each other, and play house with Jr. Literally nothing was accomplished except Bowser thinking he has a girlfriend now.
(Luigi might have forgotten that he probably shouldn't flirt with the dude kidnapping him, especially not dressed as someone else. Listen, he's under a lot of pressure and Bowser made him dinner and introduced him to his son, sue him.)
Luigi then assures Peach that Bowser wasn't doing anything mean or cruel to "her" and that he's actually pretty decent, all things considered (he did still kidnap her, after all.) So now they know that the next time Peach is captured (for real this time) they still, obviously, need to rescue her but it's not a critical life or death situation.
Except the next time Bowser shows up, he just tries to talk to Peach. But she won't even listen to him or give him the time of day! So! He kidnaps her, hoping that doing the same thing as last time will reignite their chemistry, but nothing he does works! She's not even that interested in talking to Jr this time around!!
Obviously Mario did something to make his Peach no longer like him! How dare he!
And so, the "kidnap the princess and marry her" schemes arise, because Bowser KNOWS somewhere in there Peach still likes him, he just has to remind her! If she spends enough time with him she'll come around!
More drama is that sometimes Bowser will kidnap Peach!Luigi again and they hit it off fine, so Bowser KNOWS his plans are working!! Peach does actually like him, he's just not trying hard enough.
Luigi doesn't even think HE'S the cause of all this Bowser drama because, like, of COURSE Bowser would want the princess? She's a princess? He doesn't realize that the ONLY reason Bowser wants the princess is because of him. (Luigi in no way thinks he's special enough to have caused all this. This could be in part because he doesn't know that "marry the princess" was never even Bowser's original scheme.)
Maybe one time during a kidnapping Bowser will lament to the real Peach about what changed since the first time he kidnapped her? They had such a connection! And Peach has to reveal to Luigi after the fact that, hey, I think I'm getting kidnapped because Bowser has a crush on you? What did you SAY to him???
Who knows what turn of events will eventually reveal the truth on who he actually connected with, or how he handles it.
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equestriagirl16 · 2 years
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NRC staff and their guardian status with MC~🌹
Notes: personal headcannons cause I absolutely cannot get enough of the NCR staff being caretakers/parental figures to MC. It’s just so wholesome to me, and a lot of this isn’t new info just my take on said renowned info.
Inspired by: @wolken-himmel @hunniepotts @adrianasunderworld @mashed-potato101
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Dads: Crewel and Crowley
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It’s basically canon at this point that our dear professor would assume the main dad role.
He would have a long history of taking care of “unruly pups”, and having you come around like a lost stray in need of proper training. Well he just couldn’t help himself now could he?
Spoils the hell out of you, yes he would take you out shopping for actual clothes and necessities, yes he would pay for everything, and no you absolutely do not owe him anything in return. Would probably get genuinely upset if you insisted.
Would be the dad to actually remind you, in a reassuring way, that you are in fact a child/young so you really shouldn’t carry the world on your shoulders at least not by yourself.
Fairly overprotective and strict, he only wants the absolute best for and from you. Which means unfortunately you won’t get a sliver of favoritism in class, and no amount of batting eyes or cute little excuses in baby talk is gonna change that. “Well you should’ve thought of that when I specifically gave you a weeks notice before the assignment went out pup.” And then he pats you on the head with his stick(affectionately).
No dating no boys no nothing, in fact no friends. Just spend your time with your loving father figure, he’s sure that’d be much better for your mental health. “I hate men.” “But you are one.” “My point still stands.” He’s spent more time around the student body than you have so he knows, LORD does he know, that plenty of them will leave you worse for wear despite how nice of a person they are. And if anyone, no matter who they might be, leaves his little pup sad and whimpering. He’ll make sure to remind them why he adorns the name of Crewel.
But at the end of the day he absolutely loves you, and you bring a special light in his life too. He may be a little young for it(in his words), but a set of adoption papers happen to make his way on his internet browser more times than he can ignore. Only if you’d like, perhaps he could bring the proposition up in conversation during your next shopping spree.
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Oooooh Crowley, honestly this is mostly because he was the first adult to find you. We all know how this man operates, and yet he’ll insist that he takes care of you like his own child! *looks into the camera*
The man is on the complete other end of the dad spectrum. Ya know instead of responsible and nurturing he’s more so flighty and excitable. Literally just- “We gon need nutrition.” “So your kid likes apple juice?” “Oh no they love orange juice, but they’ve been bad this week.” “What grade is your kid in?” “Sixteenth grade.” “That’s not even a grade!-So they graduated college?” “No they…where is my kid??” He left you in the grocery store…again.
Don’t get him wrong though, he can step up to the challenge when need be, he’s still a whole principal. If anything he’ll at least make sure your academics are in line and your school life is decent, and thankfully he does play favorites!
However he definitely values independence, and just tends to think you can handle things on your own and believes a ton in your potential. Much to both your favor and detriment, sure there’s nothing you can’t handle but that doesn’t mean you should handle it all at once!
Does get serious when the situation calls for it. Like if you’re legitimately broken up about anything, or just in a bad place the secret dad switch in the far reaches of his brain finally switch into hyper gear. He can catch the slightest wind of it, and he’ll be the first one there to comfort you which he’s surprisingly good at. Both in physical comfort and advice, it gets you every single time.
He would never let you know this, nor could you really guess, but he would do anything for you. You mixed up his life in a very unexpected and interesting way, and even if he’s not good at showing it he does love you very much. Man would kill for you. Die for you though? Hmm, give him a sec to think.
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Uncles: Vargas and Sam
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To me he comes off as someone who definitely cares about you but doesn’t show it on as intimate of a level if that makes sense. He’s a gym bro, he shows his affection more in words of motivation and making you run just a few more laps. Cmon, he believes in you!
Obviously he values your physical health, but also because he knows that can translate into mental health. He may not be there for everything but he does what he can in the time he has with you.
Honestly he probably just figures that you already have a lot of people looking out for you, and he doesn’t want to overstep. So he’ll stay in his lane and make sure you’re working at maximum efficiency.
Of course that doesn’t mean he won’t be there for you when you need it. Is also ever so slightly protective, but aims to lift you back onto your feet more than anything. He knows your someone deserving of respect so he’s gonna remind you of that every time he has the chance, and won’t stop until your confidence is through the roof. “Come on, you’re really gonna let them tear you down like that! Remember what I taught you, no one’s strong like Y/N!”
But if you need a hug then maybe, just maybe, he’ll sweep you up and jostle you around until you’re too dizzy to even remember you were sad. You’re a rarity in this world, and you’re just as capable as anyone else. As long as he’s around he’ll never let you forget that.
Also, head pats for days and 100% calls you kid.
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I feel like I barely have to even explain this one. It’s Sam, he’s younger and more extravagant. Not rly dad material, he gives off more older relative/big brother vibes.
He’s got his own stuff going on plus a shop to run, he may not be around you 24/7 but would definitely encourage you to stop by and visit literally anytime. He absolutely loves your company and showing you all his little tips and tricks.
You can guarantee he’d sometimes let you’d off the hook when paying for supplies, for no particular reason at all of course. “I’m closing up shop for the night anyway, now run along little imp ‘fore the shadows get ya!”
Likes teasing you, just playful little pranks and jabs to keep you on your toes. Would never dream of doing anything remotely malicious, even does check-ins if your reaction isn’t the happiest.
Speaking of check-ins, I feel like he’d ask you about how things are going every single time you visit him. Since he’s on the younger side too he’d definitely be more in the know about how to deal with certain things, and give you more down to earth advice. The jump from free spirited shop keep to serious guardian is wild.
Also for any of my black/poc MCs out there, he has your back(especially if you were homesick). Another fully welcomed slice of culture, I have a personal headacannon that he’d be extremely helpful on hair days too. Not to say no one else is, but he would take pride in you sticking close to your roots(heh, get it). As well as picking out really cool styles for you. Maybe even have some spells to let you color it, the possibilities are endless.
A little protective but he doesn’t outright distrust anyone neither believes in shielding you. You gotta fight you’re own battles, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be there every step of the way. When you’re knocked down he’ll pick you right back up, now equipped with a few new tricks up your sleeve. And perhaps on some days many may notice that you have more than one shadow following behind you.
Loves you to death and beyond that, he’ll make sure everyday is full of laughs and you have what you need to stand out from the rest.
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GRANDPA TREIN
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This man has gray hairs, years of wisdom, and put multiple kids through college. He has earned this category.
I want to say since he already has a family of his own he wouldn’t completely take you in, but he’d definitely put you under his wing. Simply put he owns most the brain cells between all the staff, so he’d know not only how to but for your own sake that he should take care of you.
The amount of times he’s had to steer you away from the advice of a certain principal, and to be the guy to refute the extra baggage anybody put on you is ridiculous. “But Crowley wanted me to get the supplies from the town this weekend, and then I have to host a tutoring session with the guys, and run another errand-” “You’re not doing that.” “But-” “No buts, none of it. Now sit down and finish your tea, I fear you’ll collapse if you think for another second.” Firmly believes no one as young as you should be dealing with the sheer amount of bullsh!t you deal with. And trust that he’s seen a lot of it in his time working at that place.
He’s the epitome of responsible caretaker, will set your priorities straight and be very transparent with you. If your getting too distracted to focus on your academics, or putting yourself last after everything/everybody you have to deal with. He won’t hold back, you’re apart of the equation, the most important part.
He’s also very well versed in the emotional aspects of a young ones life too. Sure he’s not the most touchy feely type, but on like a psychological level he understands and gives arguably the best and most proactive advice.
This isn’t his first rodeo, honestly a lot of it is just second nature to him. He just has a lot of sympathy for you and your situation, and despite his demeanor he’s not one to leave a literal stranded child to fend for themselves. He’s a professor not a monster, and of course you remind him a lot of his prime parenting days. Which he’s secretly very fond of.
He won’t say it out loud, well at least not in front of other people. Perhaps during a nice quiet evening in his office he’ll tell you how genuinely proud he is of you and your progress. You’ll always have a means of support in him, but don’t misunderstand him he doesn’t play favorites.(yes he does)
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warrioreowynofrohan · 6 months
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Mansfield Park - Henry Crawford and Fanny Price
I want to lay out how I see these characters and their relationship, because to me they seem to be set up as a deliberate contrast to Pride and Prejudice. At the tine of Henry’s first proposal, they are in a similar place to Elizabeth and Darcy at the time of Darcy’s first proposal, albeit with extremely different personalities than those characters: Fanny refuses him despite his wealth and her economic precarity because she cannot like or even respect him. However, Fanny, who is far shyer than Elizabeth, cannot lay out in direct and specific terms the foundation of her disapprobation of him.
From there, Henry sets out to win her regard in ways that very closely recall some of the events between Elizabeth and Darcy.
1) He does a great favour for a relative of hers. In his case, it is getting his uncle the admiral to have Fanny’s brother William promoted to lieutenant; in Darcy’s, it is saving the Bennets from disgrace by getting Wickham to marry Lydia. Darcy’s favour is far greater, and much more personally unpleasant for him, and he keeps it intentionally secret; he does it out of love of Elizabeth, but not to make her feel obligated. Henry’s takes only a few days of his time, its goal is get to Fanny to like him better, and he leverages it both at first and later to make her feel obliged to him.
2) He changes his manners to suit her. In Darcy’s case this means being polite rather than rude and haughty; in the case of Henry, who has always been charming and gregarious, it involves softening his manners to suit Fanny’s shy and quiet personality and engaging in more serious talk. In Darcy’s case this is a fundamental change in response to Elizabeth’s reproof; in Henry’s, it’s a simple adaptation to one person’s taste rather than another. He’s intelligent and able to engage in serious conversation when he wants to, but that’s not indicative of any fundamental change in his thinking.
3) He is polite to her family (the Prices, in Portsmouth) even when they are embarrassing.
4) He speaks with Fanny about reforms he is making on his estates to make sure his tenants are being treated fairly. These feels like a parallel to Elizabeth’s improved opinion of Darcy upon visiting Pemberley and hearing how well his servants speak of him. The difference is that Darcy has always been like that, whereas we are told early in Mansfield Park that Henry has been little on his estates during his adulthood: “To any thing like a permanence of abode, Henry Crawford had…a great dislike”. Darcy is acting in line with deep-seated principles; Henry is doing it as part of his courtship of Fanny, so he can bring it up to her and look good. He also tries to get her to counsel him to continue in this current vein, to engage her in a desire to fix/improve him, which Fanny shuts down laudably: “I advise! - you know very well what is right,” and when he reples that he always knows what is right when she tells him: “We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person could be.” The weakness of Henry’s motivation is seen in the ending, where he puts off a visit to his estates to set matters right there in order to flirt with the now-married Maria Rushworth.
In short, Darcy is already good in many concrete ways, and sincerely improves in the ways where he is faulty, not in order to get Elizabeth to love him but because he thinks about her criticisms, agrees with them, and wants to be better for its own sake; and he helps her family solely out of love for her and deliberately hides it. Henry changes his manner and talk as part of his courtship, but his deeper values and attitudes do not change, and everything is directed at getting Fanny to fall for him.
The second area of contrast is in what the heroines object to. Elizabeth’s aspersions on Darcy’s character, regarding his interactions with Wickham, are found to be mistaken; her legitimate objections are to his attitude and arrogance, and he amends this. Henry’s manners are impeccable and his company charming; Fanny’s objections are to his character. She sees him deliberately flirt with both her cousins at once to a degree that implies an intent to propose, and play them off against one another; she sees him make some very deliberate and mutually-understood innuendo towards Maria, signifying that she should break off her engagement and be with him instead, all with zero intention of actually proposing if she did do so; she sees him use the theatricals to continue this pursuit of Maria. And this is very usual behaviour for Henry; his sister says he has broken many hearts, and when he starts courting Fanny his goal is to make her fall in love with him and then leave her “feeling she will never be happy again”.
This is what makes me judge Henry much more harshly than his sister Mary. Mary can be selfish, but she is not malicious or cruel, and she can be kind when it doesn’t inconvenience her (and one of her better traits is that even when she is unhappy or disappointed she never takes it out on other people). In contrast, Henry’s principal diversion and entertainment for years has been deliberately making young women miserable, leading them on, getting them to reject other suitors in hopes of him, and then departing without a care, to please his own vanity. He is, in truth, doing not once but habitually, what Willoughby did to Marianne: always implying enough to seem on the edge of an engagement but never following through, and then pretending it was all nothing. It’s a casual cruelty he finds amusing as a proof of his skills. In short, he’s a deceptive playboy. Even after Maria is married, he can’t resist flirting with her, which is what leads to her disgrace and social destruction.
Even though Austen lays out an alternative scenario where Henry might have married Fanny if not for that final flirtation with Maria Rushworth, all of the above does not lead me to believe she find that scenario desirable. She’s painstakingly laid out all the contrasts with her previous novel that make this scenario a very different one from Pride and Prejudice.
In addition to Henry’s serial seductions, one of the biggest red flags is his attempt to make Fanny responsible for his character, with an attitude of ‘you’re such an angel, you can make me do whatever you want’. This gives me Tenant of Wildfell Hall vibes, where Helen’s aunt tries to warn her off thinking that an older man of the world will let himself be guided and led by a younger woman who is in his power. Fanny rejects this idea: Henry knows what is right, can make his own choice to do it, and she will not let herself be appropriated as his conscience. Henry isn’t debauched like Huntington, but if Fanny married him the chances of him feeling bored after some years - when he no longer has the thrill of the pursuit to keep him interested - and pursuing other flirtations and affairs to Fanny’s misery, seems pretty high based on his character; and he’s skilled enough at skirting the line that he could easily brush away any objections from her as “oh, it’s nothing, just being sociable.”
On top of all the faults of character - even if Henry did reform, I have trouble seeing Fanny and Henry being happy together. At the core of his personality is a need for change, for stimulus, for challenge (the latter, rather than sexual desire, is the main thing driving his string of conquests), and for company. Fanny, in contrast, very much prefers quiet and the company of a few people she is close to, and I think this is her genuine personality, not something that needs to be overcome by “bringing her out of her shell”. Henry would be bored to misery living the kind of lifestyle that Fanny is comfortable with, and Fanny would be deeply unhappy living in the social whirl and flurry of activity that Henry prefers. In contrast, Fanny and Edmund are both “me after a quiet day in: time for a quiet night in” people.
So, with all this, why is Henry/Fanny a popular AU? Apart from fannish dislike of Edmund (which I don’t share), I think part of it is that we don’t get an open confrontation between Fanny and Henry, the way we do between Elizabeth and Darcy, where she lays out her objections to him: I saw you flirting with both my cousins at once, I saw you making them both unhappy for your own amusement, I saw you repeatedly tempting Maria to break her engagement with no intention of following through if she did, just because you liked the challenge of winning an engaged woman. And the lack of this naturally raises the question of: how would Henry react if this confrontation happened? Which provides fertile soil for AUs.
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insanelyadd · 2 years
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Knight Papyrus Theory
Before we start I am going to lay out everything we know about the Knight so far in Deltarune:
The Knight is choosing abandoned and little used rooms as locations for the fountains.
The Knight seemingly only makes one fountain a day.
The Knight hid in the closet from Noelle and Berdly, making the cyberworld fountain in there which rules out anyone with an alibi for this incident.
The Knight is a lightner because darkners cannot make fountains. 
"Evidence" about the Knight I will ignore on purpose because it holds no weight to me:
The use of exclusively it/they pronouns for the Knight because the use is obviously to maintain the mystery.
The Queen’s holographic depiction of the Knight’s hand cannot be taken as a literal and accurate depiction because the actual film in the mansion states outright that the stream of darkness from the fountain obscures the Knight's true appearance, and the implication is that the Knight immediately left this world unlike the abandoned classroom.
The line about Communion from Spamton because Spamton is deeply unreliable as half of what he says are infomercial taglines. The words in parentheses can easily be interpreted as being synonyms or associated words to what he actually means to say. Plus the line is divorced from its full context in the conversation where his first use of communion without relation to the Knight is about his "transformation". The use of the word communion here is very unlikely to be literal or even religious (as the word communion's very definition has a non-religious variation). Spamton speaks in religious terms because a good chunk of spam emails are about religion, not because it's a legitimate hint.
The rest of this post will be under a read more because this is a Big Boi, like literally almost 4k
Step 1: Discussing Alternative Theories 
I thought Kris was the knight?
We may have seen Kris open a fountain at the end of chapter 2 but this doesn't mean they're The Knight. I feel like the end of the chapter is another misdirect just like chapter 1. "Oh is Kris evil? Are they possessed by Chara?" Nah, they're just a little shit who wanted to go eat some pie. Chapter 2 brings about the same kind of gut reaction questions, which is a fair response, though I feel the need to point out that no mystery in UT or DR is ever so easily handed to us.
Kris, upon seeing the first dark fountain they and Susie encounter, reacts by fearfully backing away. Kris seemingly doesn't know what it is and their gut reaction is that it is scary. This wouldn't be how you'd expect them to react if they had already made one. Secondly the computer lab dark world had to have been made when Noelle and Berdly were already inside (with the closet flavor text implying that the Knight was in there). When the fountain is dispelled they're sitting at a desk with their homework out and they just think they fell asleep while doing it. Kris and Susie come to that world when it has already been made and when it's dispelled they're by the door.
If the characters' physical, light world bodies moved in conjunction with their dark world selves then at the very least they should all be right next to each other because they're so close together in the dark world. I also don't think Noelle and Berdly would have been able to easily dismiss the dark world as a dream if they had (somehow) walked into a Pulsing Darkness. I highly doubt Berdly would have needed more than one look at that to realize it was probably evil and shouldn't be messed with. Noelle is easy frightened and likes to be afraid but I think Berdly isn't the type of person who would make Noelle feel encouraged to do something spooky.
I heard a theory that a dead person reanimated by the dark world is the Knight?
Well to start I know this theory! And darkners can't make fountains. This is not subtext or implications, this is directly stated in chapter 2 by Queen, and Ralsei, who knows even more about how dark worlds work, does not refute this claim. This is why she tried to get Noelle to make a fountain and didn't try to make one herself.
Now this also applies to every theory that supposes a Darkner like Rouxls for instance could be the Knight.
What about Alvin?
I find the supposed motivations for this character to be completely disconnected to what we actually know about him. Beyond that Alvin is literally such a minor character that you could simply never interact with him and that doesn't build very much feelings towards him that would be in some way dismantled by the reveal of him as the Knight. Also the game itself sees him as such a minor character that he doesn't have a talk sprite and if you pick his name when you make your character before chapter 1 the narrator makes no remark about him at all, not even an "Interesting".
What about Asriel?
The man is not even in town. As previously stated the cyberworld fountain had to have been made with Berdly and Noelle already in the room.
What about Sans?
Sans doesn't feel like he wants to end the world or find escapism (the two major Knight profiles that could be argued). There's really nothing I can think of that casts suspicion on him at all. Yeah Sans is a little weirdo but not in DR. All the weird stuff about him is text options we say, that Toby wrote with the major Sans theory hype in mind. Nothing about him specifically is actually suspicious or unusual.
What about Gaster?
Gaster is already heavily implied to be in some way responsible for the creation of the secret bosses. The person responsible for making Jevil lose his mind is talked about by Seam in a way that implies they are a separate character from the Knight as well as giving the impression that Jevil (and Spamton if you consider where he is) were made to be what they are and in the positions they're in for some time before the fountains were made.
Using Gaster, a character we know nothing about, feels like an easy answer that is simultaneously not very compelling because we don't know anything about him. His supposed motivations could be anything, whether he's got good intentions or evil intentions are irrelevant because there's just no way to know. Narratively it means nothing if a man with no history is trying to make dark worlds for reasons none of us can properly guess.
What about the mayor?
Once again the cyberworld being made with two people already in the room (especially since one of them is Noelle) would imply that the mayor left in the middle of the day, but when we check with her aids in the office none of them mention her having left which feels like something notable since she keeps herself so busy. I also want to propose the idea that while she may come across as potentially harsh, I think there’s a non-zero chance that she just threw herself entirely into her work after whatever happened to Dess and has lost touch because of her grief.
What about Dess?
Dess is seemingly lost or even dead with one major possibility being that they are trapped inside the code. For a character in such a position we can't even say if it's possible for her to open the dark fountains. But there's also the still remaining factor that the Knight is sneaking around and doing this. Choosing little used rooms on purpose and hiding in a closet when people enter a room to use it, which isn't something someone who is trapped in seemingly total darkness would feel compelled to do.
What about the player?
Since we are the player I think we can rule us out since we didn't do anything.
The Knight is someone we haven't met yet and have never seen before
For the same reasons as the Gaster theory this doesn't make sense except it would be even worse because we have scraps of info on Gaster (speaks like how old people text, science nerd, possibly malevolent, perhaps deceased but very likely undead)
Step 2: Building a Profile of the Knight
Does the Knight have bad intentions
I feel like there is insufficient proof that the Knight is acting with malicious intent by making these dark worlds. At the moment what we have seen is that the Knight seemingly makes only a single dark world a day. If the Knight wanted to bring about the Roaring, there's no need for them to actively choose little used or totally abandoned rooms and no need for them to do so slowly, if they even know about the roaring at all (which seemingly no one but Ralsei did before the end of Chapter 2).
I feel confident that the probability the Knight even knows about the end of the world side effects is low. If they do know about it, it’s also possible that how ever the Knight even found out how to make dark worlds gave enough information about how they function that they could reason themselves into continuing to make them by saying “oh just one a day isn’t so bad” which once again circles around to the Knight being more irresponsible than outright. Homicidal. Plus it really doesn’t vibe with Toby’s storytelling methods for there to be just a straight up villain who wants to end the world (if you mention Chara I will stomp you to death with my hooves, they have nuances that people ignore).
Does the Knight have "good" intentions
So if it's very unlikely that the Knight wants to end the world on purpose then conversely we must consider the possibility that they have "good" intentions. It's very likely that they could have intentions that align with the kid's intentions in chapter 2. Every single one of them (including Kris despite their lack of vocal approval) loved the dark world because it gave them a sense of purpose and importance, it made them feel like they had control and were given the recognition they craved.
These are not purely noble intentions of course, they're pretty selfish even, but in this scenario the Knight doesn't know about the apocalyptic side effects of opening dark fountains, so self-fulfillment from stabbing the ground until it gives you a magical world doesn’t sound so bad. The desire to feel wanted, helpful, strong, and in control in ways you are not in the light world, I feel, could be a strong and compelling motivation for making dark worlds. Plus, since the Knight hid in the closet knowing two others would be in the dark world when it formed it could also be the desire to be seen as a cool figure since the leader of the dark worlds always seem to revere the Knight to some extent for what they've done and this effect may bleed over onto them, or maybe the Knight thinks that they’ll come to love the dark worlds like they do.
Inferences that can be made if the knight just has similar intentions as the kids did
The Knight feels like they lack purpose in the light world. The Knight is unlikely to have very many friends or social connections and is likely lonely. The Knight may feel strongly powerless about something. The Knight is unsatisfied with their life and wants to find an escape. 
Step 3: Papyrus Points of Interest 
Papyrus is the only main UT character who has yet to even speak to us, and that feels significant somehow. The steam page mentions him, and says he’s “busy”. I know some people who are worried that he won’t even make an appearance but he definitely will, when you type in his name when you make your character you get the response “Interesting” to typing in Papyrus, and also his text voice blips are in the game files.
A quick reminder of something that I find “interesting” is that in UT when you check Papyrus’ closet he says “There’s no one in my closet, except me sometimes”, which, given the place the Knight undoubtedly hid in chapter 2 it’s. Interesting.
You know what else is interesting? All the references that seem relevant to Papyrus (and Sans) specifically that are in Deltarune. The teleportation doors are identical to Sans’ door from undertale, the lounge chairs that Lancer and Susie relax on are almost identical to the one Sans is seen relaxing on in a kickstarter trailer for Undertale, Susie says she invited the guard she beat up to visit the garbage can which is a reference to something Papyrus says if you check the garbage can while on your hangout at his house, Ice-E’s pizza and the word search of course, I think it’s interesting that the first dark world is completely puzzle themed, checkers, legos those make sense for a room for small children but playing cards? CHESS? Those feel out of place for a kindergarten-preschool type room.
Continuing on with the references in the second hospital room when you check the two sinks it says “Perhaps there was one tall sink that was cut in half to create both of them” which is simultaneously a reference to the theory that Sans and Papyrus are pieces of Gaster and to Papyrus’ own Tall Sink from UT that is also referenced in the winter alarm clock dialog. This one probably isn’t a reference but the popup about making a knife out of spaghetti is interesting.
This concludes the little interesting tidbits section.
Step 4: Connections Between Papyrus and the Knight Profile We Have Built
What could Papyrus’ motivation for making these dark worlds even be?
My first instinct with this is actually solely based on the fact that when I was younger my family moved nearly once a year and I never was able to make long time friends. He just moved to town, it’s very unlikely that he knows anyone there, so I think he’s lonely. Sans’ first thought was trying to get Kris to hang out with his brother so surely Sans must be aware that his brother needs to make friends. 
Now, I feel it isn’t a stretch to assume the base personality of every character is roughly similar to how they are in Undertale. Toriel is still motherly and a teacher, Alphys is still a pop culture nerd with anxiety who wants to be liked, Undyne is brash and assertive but good hearted, etc etc. There are - of course - notable differences, but not knowing people or disliking someone they normally like doesn’t really change the core of who they are.
So if we assume that Papyrus’ base personality is the same then it is very easy to say he is lonely and wants friendship, it’s also easy to assume that he would be a bit single-minded and ignore potential risks in his pursuit of his goals. 
How could Papyrus even make the dark worlds?
I feel like just like you could presume that your preferred Knight candidate read about it in a book or heard about it online or something, you could presume the same about Papyrus. I feel like how the Knight even learned it will probably be explained in a later chapter, because it must be something that’s not written anywhere, but that’s all theory crafting for a different post.
Here’s a single sentence about the circumstantial evidence to support Knight Papyrus: The fountains only recently started opening and only recently have the skeletons moved to town. An interesting coincidence.
The Thematic Evidence
Now it’s time for the thematic evidence. There’s actually two sets of thematic evidence I want to go over with this.
I won’t tread too much on this ground when I can just link to the post that goes over one thematic point of your choices not mattering and how that matches Papyrus. Essentially, no matter what you do with Papyrus will change the outcome of your interactions with him, which matches the stated theme of your choices not mattering in Deltarune, which also reflects Flowey and his set up as the main antagonist of Undertale by making the stated theme “kill or be killed” which is something the player must show defiance towards by being merciful. In Deltarune it’s very likely that the final confrontation with the Knight will involve showing that the choices the Knight has made are detrimental and dangerous and they need to change their choices.
As for the other set of thematic evidence…
A continuously recurring theme in all of Deltarune is the theme of being forgotten. From Don’t Forget and nearly every song in chapter one having the leitmotif of it, to all the main characters feeling in some way left behind and abandoned, to all the dark worlds, even the one Kris makes, being in rooms no one uses anymore, and above all else ESPECIALLY the secret bosses.
Kris possibly feels left behind by their brother, Susie was basically left behind by the whole system and all their classmates, Ralsei literally lived alone in a completely empty dark world, Noelle lives essentially all alone because her sister is missing, her father is in the hospital, and her mom is a workaholic, Berdly outright says that he feels like no one cared about it before he became “smart”.
The three dark fountains we’ve seen so far have all been made in rooms that see no use or are totally abandoned, the classroom has likely not seen anyone since Alvin was a child, the computer lab has had a few people in there but is definitely not the bustling hub it presumably used to be with the internet down in town, even the living room hasn’t seen much use because Toriel and Kris just aren’t TV people, leaving the TV dusty and the room unused.
Now the secret bosses are the epitome of this theme, I actually realized this entire thematic throughline and connection to Papyrus because I was using it’s thematic connection to the secret bosses to try figuring out who the secret boss of this next dark world could be. Jevil is forgotten even amongst those of the forgotten classroom not just because he’s been locked away in prison for who knows how long but also because joker cards aren’t needed for most card games and you have to specifically buy packs that include them.
Spamton is forgotten not only because he was evicted from polite society and all traces of his existence have been pasted over with images of Queen so now he lives in a dumpster (the trash bin on a computer), but also spam emails most of the time are automatically flagged and put directly into a special folder you probably don’t even look in unless you’re trying to find an email that might have been accidentally put there by the automated system.
Papyrus is a character in Undertale who tries in every way that he can to be noticed and appreciated. Despite this, you’d be hard pressed to find a single character in Snowdin who even knows his name. His mailbox in comparison to Sans is surprisingly empty, and while you can read it as him just checking his box more often, he refers to his mailbox as his “emptiness” and the already discussed implication seems to be that he just doesn’t get mail from anyone. He says that he’s a dozen followers away from double digits online. He says “I NEVER WONDER WHAT HAVING LOTS OF FRIENDS IS LIKE” which is an obvious lie.
And of course. In the no mercy route, what does his check information say?
Forgettable
Papyrus has been on theme for Deltarune since 2015.
Step 5: But What about These Things?
How did he know of the classroom
Toriel spoke with Sans the day before Kris and Susie discovered the dark fountain in the abandoned classroom, it’s very possible she mentioned something about it to Sans and Sans passed that information on to Papyrus.
How did he get in there
There’s this sick little thing called Breaking And Entering /lh But also yeah it really isn’t out of the question that he broke in. Any Knight candidate that doesn’t actively go to school there or work as a teacher would have to break in to make that world? Seems not out of the realm of possibilities at all.
Why would an Undertale character get such a major role in Deltarune
This is just a personal observation but I think Toby obviously likes Papyrus a lot. He has the most lines of any character in UT by a long shot and is only about 300 lines behind THE NARRATOR. Toby Fox commissioned art of him over a year before the game's release. Toby made a special version of bonestrousle for UT trailers and it has been featured in nearly every single undertale trailer that’s been made. 
Outside of that rather subjective line of reasoning I also think Papyrus could have a major role because, as I have previously laid out, he thematically has very strong ties to deltarune, and we know literally nothing about Papyrus’ backstory in UT. I feel like Papyrus, despite all the lines he gives, is rather understated in his presence in UT. Like you can’t get the TP ending without his help, and if you kill him and only him, Undyne still manages to rally monsters to overthrow Toriel. But these aren’t big flashy moments like Sans’ fight, so they’re rarely acknowledged.
I feel there is potential for him to be important, and it is irrelevant that he was originally from Undertale. The amount of lightner characters (specifically because only they could open the fountains) exclusive to Deltarune are miniscule and most are very obviously not the Knight. Just from a pure numbers perspective the odds of the Knight being a character exclusive to DR are much smaller because there’s still more characters that are here that are also in UT.
Also Toriel is obviously going to be in the darkworld in this next chapter, so the Undertale characters are obviously not totally banned from partaking in the actual Plot.
Why would he be similar to his UT counterpart
As I mentioned, none of the characters at their core are super different to their UT counterparts. This isn’t like the fandom where you can make up whatever personality you want and then have it inhabit a Sans shaped shell. Toby has an obviously different interpretation of AUs, and in his AU the characters are a lot like they are in UT. It would be way more unusual at this point if Papyrus is revealed to be drastically different than his UT counterpart at all. He’s not going to be an asshole, he isn’t going to be internet famous, we’ve already observed that he isn’t outgoing (which, contrary to popular belief, does still fit how UT Papyrus is). You could even take the sounds of trousled bones growing farther away from us when we check the door to mean that Papyrus is moving away from reality and sinking further into the fantasy of the dark worlds.
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crushedsweets · 7 months
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Do you have and hcs of how Toby and Ben would act together? - Hoodie
YES SORT OF . u know the drill this is my au and bens story is one that i changed a lot so here we go :9
ok toby younger brother family trauma issues lonely grew up isolated etc. ben only child got killed by neighbor for absurd vr theory now inhabits a virus-ghost-form that he partially shares with several other dead kids.
toby and ben wouldnt have gotten along before ben died. only because ben was just. a 13 yr old boy addicted to video games ... those kids r mean, and toby was heavily bullied in his childhood. the ONLY reason bens not a huge dick anymore is bc his 'form' itself is fucked up (he glitches, he has an electronic vocal fry and occasional stutter from glitches, he has a weird glow to him, sickly drowned boy skin, veins look like those green code lines, red/black eyes, HE'S LITERALLY DRESSED LIKE LINK). bens not exactly insecure about any of this, but he knows damn well he cannot make fun of a tic without toby shooting back 10x harder.
which ok yeah kinda sad that ben has to look weird for him to not be mean but .. . like . . yeah. it is what it is.
they met mmm... maybe when toby was around 21? jeff would be 16, and ben wouldve been 14. SOOO toby doesnt really TRY to befriend ben. he's too old for him and has no interest in being besties w some kid. but he has a job to stop ben from tormenting people online and drawing attention to weird ghost sites and whatnot, so he started talking to all sorts of ai- cleverbot being the main, of course.
of all the proxies, tobys the only one ben likes. tobys a dick, but he has his moments where he's funny and gets distracted during a mission, so he's sat and rambled and bickered with the ai on slow nights. ben immediately knew everything about toby, because he has access to every single file on tobys computer, phone, etc.
ben SCARED THE SHIT out of toby upon their first meeting. he crawled out of tobys janky ass computer one day and toby nearly threw up from being so freaked out. yeah, he's killed people and whatever, BUT GHOSTS R FUCKING SCARY (and he has .trauma with ghosts and hallucinations of them (lyra)). ben already knew exactly who toby worked for, what toby was doing, and thought it was beyond funny. ben was the first being who already knew all the slenderman lore because he spends literally. every. second. on the internet. he is basically the internet. and he watches them, listens through their phones, watches, etc. he doesnt know the details perfectly tho cuz technology gets weird around slednerman/the operator. so toby thought that was helpful, in a sense.
so pretty quickly ben was fond of toby. thought he was like, that cool older brother of your friend. the main issue was the proxies at this time were trying to find and kill jeff because he was infected by the operator and slenderman deemed him 'too far gone.'
ben was actually the one who proposed the whole 'okay. so you want me to stop terrorizing kids online. fair. now ive noticed you keep trying to kill my friend(jeff). stop that and we can be cool :3'.
eventually they all came to some weird agreement where. ben will stop haunting people, the proxies will stop trying to kill jeff, jeff has to stop doing his 'full course' murders, and eventually, ben just likes them enough to start helping them with cctv, police files, etc. it was a complicated agreement that eventually ended in friendship, sort of?
they play video games together. eventually toby does see him as a little brother. it's kinda unsettling because the proxies realize just how much power ben has when it comes to just...... leaking everything. toby thinks that 'ok well, if ben leaks stuff about us, we leak stuff about jeff, and now he has no friends and is lonely, so he can't.' but tim and brian are legitimately freaked out at the thought of their lives being ruined anymore than they already are, so theyre pretty courteous to ben
ben will really just hang around. toby can just be eating breakfast and ben will pop up and ask whats up. he's annoying and clingy, and he can tell toby is biting his tongue half the time. . but toby is grateful sometimes. bens laid back and funny, and toby could use some laughs, so its a decent time for them both
again, overall, toby is just kinda too old for ben(although ben wouldve been a year older than toby if he was alive), but ben is really funny, he's nice to toby, he plays video games with him, he comes and checks in on him randomly. so toby appreciates having a freaky ghost little brother thing hanging around. bens one of his fave people (which is only saying so much when the other people he talks to are like . . jeff)
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pyxilatezero · 2 months
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Why I Think March 7th is Idrila the Beauty
March 7th is one of the top characters that HSR fans want to see obtain a 5-star variant. However, like with Dan Heng’s Imbibitor Lunae, she’ll likely come with extra story development, and I think that it will reveal she is the Aeon of Beauty, Idrila.
On the official Honkai: Star Rail Wikipedia, it states “The Aeon of Beauty suddenly vanished one day. It was just as mysterious as when they first appeared.” Guess who mysteriously appeared, concealed in a block of ice? None other than March 7th, signature unironic comedy of the Nameless.
Additionally, Argenti refers to March 7th as ‘a thing of true beauty’ (Don’t quote me on that, I know it was something similar but it’s been a while since I’ve done the quest). A few of the so-called Knights of Beauty are aware that Idrila has gone missing, including Argenti. Though none have never met her, they will supposedly know her when they see her- which this may be referencing.
March takes pictures with her camera. Additionally, she is on the path of Preservation. This could be viewed as her ‘capturing beauty’ with her taking pictures, to preserve it. Since she’s so concerned with taking pictures, it’s not a far stretch. While those alone don’t form a substantial theory, there is other evidence.
I just haven’t found it yet. I hope I convinced you, and thank you for coming to my HSRtalk.
But there’s still one other question: what type of character would she be?
For a Preservation character, March’s Ultimate is pretty destructive, meaning that if she was a 5-star she’d likely be a Destruction character. And I’m almost certain at least one character somewhere said something about destruction and beauty in the same sentence, albeit I don’t know where. It would also be likely she’d be wind.
Here me out on that. Wind is the element that HSR devs use on characters that should really be Physical but since they don’t want too many characters it’s Wind instead. A boomerang for Sampo, a spear for Dan Heng, and a gun for Bronya. Blade? Sword. All of them could believably be Physical characters, and so I believe that because of March’s bow, she could be a passable, legitimate Wind character as a 5-star. 
On Reddit, I’ve heard people say that it’s not plausible. I’ll admit they’ve all put forth compelling ideas. But I watched a YouTube theory video- ahem. Another thing I wanted to add, albeit it’s a stretch, is her skill has the accompanying voice line of ‘the power of cuteness’. Cuteness could be another form of beauty. And either way, it could make a fun story plot- we already have sentient trash cans. MiHoyo be crazy, we can almost never predict what they’ll do. It’s also an amazing idea for fanfiction. Either way, I think we could all have fun with this theory, so do with my concept what you will :)
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dawnfelagund · 11 months
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This Week in Fandom, from a Small Site Owner's Perspective
This past week has offered an interesting example of synchronicity in fandom history. On 5 May, a comment on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild Discord about "AI fanart" prompted the mods to collectively make a uncomfortable noise like, "ummmm ..." and swiftly open discussion on whether AI-generated "fanworks" were actually fanworks. (We decided no.) The next day, 6 May, the OTW Signal highlighted the interview with legal chair Betsy Rosenblatt, where she expressed excitement for inclusion of fanworks in AI training and pissed off a bunch of fans. By this point, I'd mostly written the SWG's AI policy but was giving my comods the weekend for further research and discussion on the issue before turning the document over to them for comments and edits.
As a small archive owner, it is interesting to undergo this process, first with my comods and now with SWG members, at the same time as the OTW/AO3 is wrestling through theirs. Yesterday, my afternoon was spent researching and implementing, with the help of my co-admin Russandol, strategies to block as much AI scraping of the SWG as we can. In the aftermath of that work, I wrote this post about a small archive owner's perspective on the issue and how it has unfolded on the SWG vs. AO3.
Then, in a second instance of synchronicity, while I was writing this post, AO3 was clarifying their stance on AI. First, as a PSA to anyone reading this, AO3 does block AI scrapers and has since December 2022 (though I'll be petty and note that it doesn't seem that they've gone as far as the SWG in the tools they're using, at least based on this post). But AI-generated "fanworks" are allowed: "If fans are using AI to generate fanworks, then our current position is that this is also a type of work that is within our mandate to preserve." This is what I predicted in my [synchronous] post, and I was right.
Two big points emerge from my consideration so far of this issue and how it has been handled on a small site (mine) and AO3:
People want/need AO3 to be something it's not because there aren't any other options for the vast majority of fans. (Tolkien fans, you do have options. Not a lot, but trust that there are people in other fandoms wishing they had even the few small independent archives that we do.) OTW/AO3 need to take a principled stand that all fanworks deserve to be preserved. And fans often want spaces where all of the fanworks that ideal encompasses (like AI-generated ...) aren't included. Both are legitimate! But when AO3 is the only option for most fans, they turn their energy to trying to change a foundational value of the one option they do have, and that's fruitless and frustrating and contribute to the comments along the lines of "no one will listen or care."
Big organizations are big, and changing or responding to anything is like trying to port-round the Titanic: It's going to be slow and cumbersome and possibly involve catastrophic collisions with icebergs despite best intentions. In eight days, the SWG went from never having discussed AI formally to having a draft policy in front of members for comment and implementation of AI bot blocking. In the same span of time, OTW managed to rouse themselves to an apology that has been widely perceived as half-assed, and AO3 managed to inform people, after a week of worry, that they've been blocking most AI scrapers for months. This isn't a criticism of those organizations (really!) but an acknowledgement of the difference between big organizations and small ones and an argument for diverse options for archiving fanworks because both options have advantages to offer.
As I said above, I wrote much more about this here.
Of course, what should be done? The options are what they are, right? Right now, yes, mostly. That's the sad place where we've ended up, but we can reverse course. There was a time when many fandoms had dozens or even hundreds of options for archiving fanworks. Those small sites, archives, and communities died due to a variety of factors: closure of the platforms on which they were built (e.g., Geocities and Yahoo! Groups), low to no traffic (due to everyone reading and posting exclusively on AO3), and deteriorating software (e.g., eFiction ... and again at least partly due to low demand, again because everyone thought AO3 would be everything they ever needed).
However, there is hope that more options will become available (or already have).
Neocities is a resurrection of Geocities for personal homepages.
Bobaboard "lets you create moderated, privacy-oriented communities for all your fandom interests."
Dreamwidth is still around, fandom-positive, and underused.
eFiction is being rebuilt, ideally with the ability to host a site through their servers, much as you can build a Wordpress site without downloading Wordpress onto your own webspace.
Fandom Coders is a resource for educating fans who want to learn the skills to build and run website.
I'm working on a tutorial for how to build a fanworks archive in Drupal, the software we use on the SWG. I have the whole thing outlined and will be recording it this summer. Watch this space.
So what can you do?
If fanworks are hosted somewhere other than AO3: post there, read there, comment there, interact there, link there. I cannot overstate how vital this is for small sites.
Make sure your fanworks are archived someplace other than AO3 (like Dreamwidth), even if you're not getting clicks, comments, and interaction there ... yet.
Nearly all of the options for independent sites that I linked above accept donations toward their projects. eFiction is one where I know progress has stagnated due to a lack of funding.
So this turned into another tirade/plea for small sites, but it really is unfair to OTW/AO3 to ask them to be something they were never intended to be, and it's also unfair to fans that they don't have a place to put there work that they feel reflects their needs, wishes, and values.
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twiststreet · 3 months
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2023: for the "record", my favorite experiences with comics this year--
#5: Junji Ito's Dark Paradox. This was the year the Viz App became available, and that had a lot of great classic experiences over there-- switching between Ranma 1/2 and Cross Game has been ridiculous. Hall of fame, excellent material. Junji Ito's Dark Paradox was the first manga I checked out on there, and it's just ... it's just a fun "bad dream" of a comic, you know? I have a very particular range of horror that works for me, and this is in that range, something like Phantasm where there's a goofiness but the nightmare logic of it carries you through...? American comics are so bad at horror, though-- they're so bad at it that there are American comic creators who wrote entire essays about how "horror doesn't work in comics." And then you read these Japanese things and it's like... the entire continental United States, not even in the race! Not even in the race!
#4: Osamu Tezuka's Paper Fortress. It's not available legitimately as far as I know-- I think it's just too short and maybe too tough a read. It's his war memoir, and it's just... it's a rough little comic. There's an innocence to his style, that he knows how to use against a reader-- you can see that in a lot of his comics-- and I think it really becomes especially tough with Paper Fortress. If you saw Godzilla Minus One, and if you saw Boy and the Heron, I think you have to read Paper Fortress to really complete the trilogy. It's an essential third part of that trilogy. I'm not a Tezuka expert, like other people-- there are big ones I haven't read... but for me, I think it's Tezuka's best comic, or the best I've seen.
#3: Katsuhiro Otomo's Sayonara Nippon, which I wrote about at numbing length over here. It's the greatest action comics artist of all time, but doing a hang-out, edgelord comedy (with nods to R. Crumb!) set in Harlem that is probably unprintable now because of its, uh, "political incorrectness", let's go with that, let's use that phrase. It held my attention, haha. But despite the parts I have a discomfort with, it's Otomo-- he's one of the best to ever do it, for me-- and it's Otomo doing something I'd never seen him do. I had a good time. I don't necessarily recommend it.
#2: Fumi Saimion's Tokyo Love Story. Another scanlation-only deal-- I don't think it's available legitimately. I misidentified it as a josei comic, while it's technically seinen-- either way, it's just a comic about young adults trying to figure themselves out romantically. I think you'd call it a "manic pixie dreamgirl" story, but Saimon's a woman, so-- I think a manic pixie dreamgirl lands differently when it has a woman creator. Maybe that's a mistake on my part, but-- I see that more as a kind of wish fulfilment, and interesting as such, I guess?
But I don't know-- for me, it's just how Saimon draws... It's so loose, but it's just enough. It's not burdensome at all, when you look at it. So you just get to be with the characters-- the art's never trying to get in the way. It's the kind that makes you want to draw because it doesn't seem impossible to draw-- like, "oh drawing's fun." I see comics now, American comics, and none of them make drawing look fun-- they all make drawing seem like work. All the lighting effects, you know?? What kid is at home with a pen saying to themselves, "Oh I can do that" and copying a drawing with that much lighting going on, where you can't see the lines because they're all holding colors, etc. When I look at these comics... it's certainly not "lazy art" or "bad art." It's just that you get to be with the characters.
And then easy #1, mentioned briefly here, is Kowloon Generic Romance, particularly the first volume, which is available legitimately (rare for this list haha!), and is just... It fucking knocked me out, man. It's hard to articulate the why of it, but it's like... if I made comics more often, it's something I wish I could make. It's off the charts horny, which I don't think I could do in a comic, not as unashamedly as that. But it's just got this-- it's just the vibes are immaculate, man.
Like, I think the thing that unites all the comics I've mentioned... comics having a breath of life to them. Where ... you feel like you're watching people that exist. I think when you're a kid, you get that from comics, and a lot of the angry people you see online are people for whom "Spiderman is no longer alive" because they can't keep it up as they get older, and their imaginations wither, and they think the reason why is "politics" and not... you know, the sad clawing of mortality against their flesh.
But like-- Kowloon Genric Romance, it's not just that the characters are breathing but they're like... hanging out in apartments, smoking cigarettes, being hornballs, swooning, feeling nostalgiac. They're alive and they're in a Wong Kar Wai movie?? That is ... That's pretty gnarly, to me.
There's a science fiction element that was dragging it down in the last volume I read (I think a couple came out since then, I'm behind, but). But it's just-- it's very much a manga set to Citypop-- you can hear the soundtrack in your head, and I bet if I compared notes to other people who read it, our soundtracks would overlap significantly. It demands it, you know? It's just... It's vibes. It's just so good at vibes...
Worst Comic: the Viz App has Hot Gimmick and Hot Gimmick is a mess. I had a fun time with it because the wrong choices have a sort of... they're almost funny because it's like "why the hell did they make this like this" quality to it. But that is trash. I can't defend it. It's kind of unacceptable. I read every page.
Honorary Mentions: like I said, Cross Game and Ranma 1/2. I thought Yasuda Kasumi's drawings on Fool Night were very very pretty. I thought Wild Strawberry started strong in that respect too, though it's lost my attention fast when it became more of a standard shonen. I'm very confused by One Piece lately but continue to enjoy that and Chainsaw Man (where I'm very behind as I figured out I enjoy it more binging it a little).
I decided to be a manga guy about 3 years ago, and get American comics out of my life, and stop writing about them, and blah blah blah, but that said, I continue to be very involved with the comics, in all kinds of weird ways, whether it's stuff I can't talk about, making notes for future projects, trying to get into "drawing shape" again (that is *not* going well), etc. I had a very, very good year as a reader this year, too-- that hasn't always been true, but ... I feel like as a reader, this was a year far above average for me, or what little I settled for as average prior to 2020. I hear things are rough out there but I hope that's true for other people, too. Anyways, that was my year.
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sunshineloveskindness · 3 months
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About Jimin and Jungkook's upcoming documentary that will air soon
It is a known fact that the value of Hybe shares fell after all the members went to the army, and during the solo promotion of the members, several activities of their own choosing and the company were scheduled to make a profit in their absence.
You can learn more about that in this article: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2024/01/602_336319.html
With that in mind, we know that Hybe is selling different types of products on their behalf, and with their new documentary "Beyond the Star" airing, it's become clearer how they are recycling various moments into a repetitive narrative of their story and journey. It's an editing run sold as a "product" rather than showing more new authentic sides of them as artists and their parallels as normal people who experience the success of their hard work. More importantly, It creates a cycle of them repeating implicit and explicit questions that have already been asked, not giving the boys space to explore this side that they have wanted to talk about with the armys for a long time, in the documentary.
Personally, I don't know who is in charge of production but the cuts of the boys' lines and moments are not in good quality either. But we as armys are happy for the content they proposed to make to keep us entertained until BTS returns.
Now, about Jimin and Jungkook's travel documentary, which Jimin came up with the idea for and the two of them worked on:
They have probably already talked about this privately before and then discussed it in one of the meetings with the company. We don't know what the process was like for the company to agree to this program between them, nor if they accepted the idea at first (which I don't think was the initial case), but Jungkook himself said that the company suddenly brought them together in this idea, which was created some time ago.
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What we have to consider here: If they had this idea for a while, why did the company suddenly bring them together on this?
In my point of view, the two must have revived this idea in a meeting with the company again, as there was a sudden resumption of the program, already close to their enlistment. This was when they were beginning the tiring process of the buddy system, which was uncertain.
So what can we expect from a company point of view with an awareness of what the format of content released by the company is currently like?
We can expect a lot of direction from the company in the content format, so we will have them filming each other with their own cameras, as well as the production team capturing the surrounding environment. As it is a documentary between the two, we can expect something very relaxed and fun so the edition will be more like In the Soop.
Don't expect something more "legitimate" in how the program will treat their dynamics, as we are talking about how the company wants you to see them, and a type of content created to consume as a product. So don't be disappointed with the steering management, but it's not something to worry about after all. We will have moments full of kookmin in a way never seen before!
Some people may be confused where I'm going with this so I'll clarify:
The purpose of the program is both for them to have fun and for the armys, especially the armys, the boys always think of us, and JM and JK worked hard, despite their busy schedules at the time, to record content for this program. The aim is to ENTERTAIN, and not to show "look, this is how we deeply are", I've seen several posts commenting on how this travel program will prove romance and that's NOT what they're going to show, nor is the company. They will have fun and we will enjoy it, so the edition will be as I mentioned, In the Soop, which is relaxed, fun, comforting, with funny storys to tell.
Thanks for reading this far~
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radnewspaperroom · 11 months
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Wow, so uh....that new lesson huh?
I have.... thoughts.
Michael is getting a little too...all knowing and omnipresent 👀 I feel like.
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Each time, he's spoken to MC without showing himself, and saved them while stuck in the past....but this time he's not...sending them back to their proper time?
Just helping them move?
It's rather strange.
The first time was when Solomon made food and they ate it. They woke up in the past when the boys were angels and we assume it's Michael, speaks to MC in a shinning light, like what happened in 13.
He sends MC back to their time, and tells them the conversations they've had with the boys will stick with them.
But this time...idk seemed different. Maybe it's because of how fresh the war is? But he seemed a lot...more standoffish?
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and rather than just, yeeting MC through time and space again--he's just breaking whatever curse is on them so they can move.
Yet he's fully aware of how displaced they are, and that Nightbringer put them there and goes as far as to warn them.
It seems even Barbatos, up until the question of "where did you come from", doesn't realize you're from the future. And his whole ish is time and AUs.
If you choose the future option he cuts you off and makes the assumption your being an ass by referring to the human world as the future as humans see themselves above demons and comments on how it's a typical human answer: arrogant and rude.
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I know angels aren't supposed to interfere too much, more to sit back and watch but it makes me wonder: did Michael send them back last time because they were in the Celestial Realm, and he doesn't care as much or isn't as concerned since they're in the Devildom this time?
Also, in his warning he says
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And removes the curse of Snow White/Sleeping Beauty from MC.
Is he just curious how things will turn out? Does he not have the power this time to put MC back?
And why is he referring to the Celestial Realm that way? It almost reminds me of Simeon and his disconnect with the CR, speaking about it as if it's not his own decision that would be the call. We know Michael is basically Father's second in command, he's in charge of the CR basically from what we've seen.
Has that changed? Is Father going to be more present in this time? Or is it like the Devildom in the way of, there's a ring of command in the CR and they can over ride Michael if they all agree? Like how it seems the House of Shitlords tried to oppose Diavolo?
Also-- WTF?! Even if he passes everything he may still not be appointed King?!
Not the point of the post but, wtf?!
But yeah, so it seems Michael isn't Nightbringer, but he's aware of NB and what they've done, but isn't interfering too much.
I've had a theory in my head, partly as a joke, that Michael is a blonde, blue eyed Lucifer to be the day to his night (black hair, red eyes) and no one sees the resemblance
But what if Michael is Father in disguise? A way to connect to his creations on another level? He'd still be Omnipresent, powerful etc just in a different skin with his power hidden to pretend to be someone else.
I have no concrete proof to make this a legitimate theory, just a nagging voice in the back of my mind:
1. Michael is in charge, despite everyone fawning over Lucifer when he was an angel.
2. he's so seemingly "all knowing" and powerful.
3. Father has been missing or absent for a long time according to Simeon in the og Obey me (Boogeyman trial)
4. Everyone is terrified of Father, even if their biggest fear isn't of him. (Again, Boogeyman trial. Simeon's and Lucifer's biggest fear was him, when the boys wanted to go with MC to the CR, Lucifer asks if they really think Father would let them in)
5. He was represented in the Boogeyman trial as a bright, particular light, with no physical form. Simeon says "I haven't seen that light in a very long time" or something along those lines. Anytime we'ved talked to "Michael" it's been the same, aside from peeking at his texts.
At any rate, I loved it, loved how it flowed and already marked the calendar for 10-11 more days (should be around the 23rd-24th) so I can pounce when it's released
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hirazuki · 1 year
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Sauron 🔥🔥
Haha, oh dear XD I hope an essay is what you were looking for!
I feel like most of my opinions on Sauron are unpopular in varying degrees with one part of the fandom or another lol, but let's go with one that, until very recently, I legit thought was pretty universally accepted as canon-established fact (but is, apparently, unpopular):
Sauron's relationship with Melkor -- regardless of how one prefers to interpret the exact nature of that relationship in the course of their fandom-ing -- is not abusive! :D
There is much about Sauron that we don't know, especially his early days, but one of the very few things Tolkien is explicit on is that Sauron's service to Melkor was due to awe and respect, and was the culmination and product of what remained of his "good" nature as a Maia; and not out of fear.
It was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him. (Morgoth's Ring, p. 396)
Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the beginning he had adored. (Morgoth's Ring, p. 420)
I'm too tired right now to look up every instance across, like, four different books, but the words that keep being repeated with regards to how Sauron views Melkor are admiration, desire, adoration, etc. and linking it to his lingering goodness.
I suppose you can read the "in the beginning he had adored" part as Sauron losing his love for Melkor due to Melkor's treatment of him, but, really, there is absolutely no evidence towards that. Given the passage the line is in and that Tolkien is discussing the motives of his villains, I read it more as Sauron's adoration fading from its initial intensity due to his distance from Melkor after the First Age and due to his increasing focus on himself and the ordering of Middle Earth in the Second Age; and once the one ring comes into play, Sauron's mind is pretty much consumed by that obsession.
On the other hand, the only times I can think of where the opposite is implied are: 1. Luthien threatening him that he'll tremble in scorn before Melkor (Silmarillion, p. 206); and "for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong." (Silmarillion, p. 342). Both of which can be considered to be outside perspectives -- Luthien, obviously, knows nothing about their relationship, and assuming that Melkor's cruelty would be inflicted upon his servant for failure is reasonable from her POV; and that second line is in a passage that carries an overall tone of "some hold so-and-so to be true," so not as seemingly omniscient as other parts of the Silm come across as. Also "bonds" is fairly vague; I don't think it's a stretch to consider that as either simply something that exists between any Vala and their Maiar -- they are beholden in some way to their service -- or even just the bonds of loyalty and adoration that Sauron developed towards Melkor.
Obviously, I don't think their relationship was all sunshine and sparkles; no relationship of any kind is. And it's true that the more favored you are, the farther you have to fall personal experience ✌️ I do think this is a fear that Sauron legitimately could have had -- one can conceive all sorts of reasons, from seeing how Melkor treats his other servants to residual feelings Sauron experienced in his days with Aule, but that goes way into headcanon territory and I'm trying to stay away from that here -- hence why Luthien playing on it was so effective. But -- and I haven't read every text available; yet! -- nowhere that I have seen so far does the text ever use words like fear, loathing, etc. the way it does when describing how, say, Orcs feel towards Melkor, to describe Sauron's relationship with him. Those words were available to Tolkien; if he had wanted to use them, he would have!
I've also seen people cite Sauron's absence after the incident at Tol-in-Guarhoth as evidence that he is terrified of Melkor and Melkor was abusive to him, hence he avoided him. Sure; you can take his absence in the text literally, and consider him MIA until he resurfaces in Eonwe's camp at the end of the War of Wrath. That's a valid interpretation, and you can choose to ascribe that absence to Sauron's fear of Melkor. But, again, there is no instance in which Melkor so much as punishes him, and also there's this bit:
In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. (Silmarillion, p. 24) [emphasis mine]
So, yes, Sauron isn't mentioned by name in any events subsequent to Huan tearing his throat out; but also, you can absolutely interpret him as having gone back and continued under Melkor until the end of the War since the text clearly states that he had a hand in every single deed. That is also a valid interpretation! Tolkien's omission on the matter can be taken either way.
And since I've been absurdly long-winded already (here's a cookie if you're still with me! 🍪), let's just make this even longer and look at the other side of the relationship :D
Angband was a fortress and armory that was created "to resist any assault that might come from Aman" (i.e., first and arguably most important line of defense) and it was left to Sauron to command. (Silmarillion, p. 44)
Melkor thought that the coming of Men to Beleriand was significant enough an occurrence to warrant his personal attention on the field, "leaving to Sauron the command of the War." (Silmarillion, p. 164)
Sauron was "the greatest and most trusted" of Melkor's servants. (Silmarillion, p. 341)
Concerning the making of Orcs, "The details of the accomplishment of this wickedness were, however, left mainly to the subtleties of Sauron." (Morgoth's Ring, p. 420)
Sauron repaired Angband in secret "for the help of his Master when he returned." (Morgoth's Ring, p. 421)
Also, Sauron's only thought upon beholding Luthien -- and the text makes special note that the fame of Luthien's unparalleled beauty and song had long been known to him -- is to capture her to give to Melkor (Silmarillion, p. 205). Leaving aside the details of why Melkor would want her (I can't remember if this is mostly-canon or if it's my own headcanon-extrapolated-from-canon, and I'm too lazy to look it up), what's important here is that he is literally the only character who is not taken with her or doesn't act upon some kind of desire towards her. No thoughts, head empty, only Melkor.
As we all know -- and struggle with and/or revel in, depending on the day -- there are a great many inconsistencies and differing versions of almost everything among Tolkien's writings; which only serves to highlight the exceptions! This -- the little we know of Sauron's relationship with Melkor -- is one of the exceptions, where literally everything I've come across suggests a relationship that is surprising in its... benevolence? almost, especially given how each party tends to treat others. It's rare for a villainous superior/trusted second-in-command relationship to not incorporate some type of plotting, backstabbing, seeking to overthrow, etc., or some kind of lashing out on the part of the more powerful party towards their subordinate. And especially set in Tolkien's world, which is very much a mythology constructed of opposing forces such as Good and Evil, it's unexpected! A complete oddity, contrary to what stories such as this would lead us to expect -- and all the more compelling for it! And, for the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would insist it is toxic and abusive instead -- such a take is terribly reductive and does huge disservice to the crafting of both characters involved.
To be clear, idc what people do in their fanfics, fanart, etc. It's your enjoyment, your headcanons, it's free real estate, go wild! No one can stop you! My issue is that I've recently seen an increasing amount of insistence that reading it as abusive is the canon interpretation and, no? And I do have to wonder how much a certain final episode of a certain show has to do with that, because "a great, clenched fist had released its grasp on my neck" is just. nowhere near how Tolkien characterizes this relationship and I mourn the fact that, given the far-reaching, multi-million dollar production that it is, this will be the "official" read of this relationship for a great deal of the general public.
(And, if you've made it to the end, here: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪 all the cookies!)
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mr-president · 11 months
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what is fear and hunger it looks cool
CW: gore, blood, and body horror; some spoilers for F&H 1 and Termina
It is very cool!!! Fear & Hunger is basically an indie rpg that reimagines historical “turning points” in a lovecraftian horror aesthetic. Counter to other indie rpgs (like undertale or omori), F&H revels in its ethereal, gorey beauty:
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The gameplay further sells the “horror” aspect of the game by being extremely punishing—one missed line of battle text or failed coin flip, and you could be sent right back to the beginning of the game with nothing left. Not to mention, items in the game are few and far between, randomized to add that extra level of difficulty. The enemies are challenging as they are terrifying in design—everything about this game screams “horror.” If you want to learn more abt F&H’s incredible game mechanics, SuperEyepatchWolf already did a video that goes in depth abt it:
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For me, other than its mechanics, what makes F&H so good are its characters, particularly in F&H: Termina. There are 14 main characters and 8 playable characters, but each are distinct from one another and even if you don’t play as all of them, all 14 are bound to make an impact in your run.
For example, one of the biggest shocks in the game is when Tanaka, the salaryman, inevitably dies in your first run. He’s not a bad dude, in fact, he’s probably one of the kindest characters in the game. He’ll put himself in danger to give Olivia, the botanist who cannot walk), a wheelchair, and he’ll help you out if you’re an idiot and get stuck in a well.
But his sudden death (be it beheaded by bonesaw, being shot by German revolver ocelot, or transforming into a lovecraftian monster after being driven to insanity) shows how the world of F&H is indifferent or even hostile to average people. Tanaka’s death is often the first wake-up call to the legitimate cruelty of F&H; very easily his fate could be yours or another character’s.
Which makes it all the more remarkable when you somehow do keep Tanaka alive and he forms a friendship with Marcoh, the boxer, and Marcoh teaches Tanaka how to fight! And if you fight Tanaka after this, he’s legitimately stronger.
If Marcoh mutates into the Monster, Tanaka will be nearby, but rather than being kind of a pathetic little bitch, his resolve is steel and he wants to avenge Marcoh for the gods’ injustice against him.
And this all happens OFF SCREEN. Without much player input (aside from keeping Marcoh and Tanaka alive).
And there are many of these interactions (Marcoh and Olivia, Marina and Levi, etc) where the player is rewarded for keeping characters alive via unique interactions keying into their personalities/philosophies. I haven’t even discovered them all, but each party talk and playthrough reveals more and more abt these characters. And in a game where knowledge is so essential, that’s beautiful.
F&H 1 doesn’t have explicit character interactions, but what is there is fucking hilarious. Cahara the Mercenary, will ask Ragnvaldr the Outlander not to “destroy my anus with those big muscles of yours” when they fuck on a ritual circle. When you get thrown into the primordial green soup, you find Enki the Dark Priest in a random hole in the ground, and instead of acknowledging that, he just spits lore at you before rejoining your party.
Moonless, a dog that looks like this
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protects the little Girl in this hellscape. This game is just as committed to its gameplay as it is the characters living through this hellscape, and that’s why I love this fucking game.
You have to be a masochist to play it, but god dammit is it worth it to see these silly little characters have their silly little interactions, being human in the face of absolute terror and starvation.
This answer is probably completely deranged and nonsensical, but hope it helps? :3
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