#why can't he be a multi-faceted character?

[killerandhealerqueen]

When you get a comment on your elven war au saying that a character would not attack their own people to protect the people they are currently with like...do you not know how war works?  Sacrifices have to be made and sometimes a peaceful, non-violent method will not work.  Yes, I know that a prince would not want to attack his own people but he also knows that he cannot keep his hands clean if he wants to try and protect these people he’s grown to care about.  War is ugly and sometimes it makes people do things they don’t want to do

[zoe-oneesama]

Is Emilie's character just a joke to you, or do you just dislike kind/gentle/loving/motherly characters (like the rest of the internet)? I mean, you purposely went out of your way to portray Bustier as a terrible person and didn't even try to give her character growth. You know, actually have her BECOME a good teacher. This just makes all the Miraculous conflict over Emilie's fate (and Adrien's sadness) feel bitterly ironic, like "what was it all for" or "all of this madness, for THIS woman"?

As a matter of fact, Emilie IS a joke to me! (Literally, I'm taking shots at a character I made up and who does not exist in canon so I don't know what's got your panties in a twist) And so is Bustier! They are total jokes because it is a total farce that the show tried to portray either of these women as infallible beacons of good, motherly, perfection.

Yeah, Bustier is gentle and kind and condescending and plays favorites and ignores conflict until she literally can't. Emilie...I mean, we don't know Emilie. YOU don't know Emilie. The show does not show us Emilie. According to biased sources she was "kind/gentle/loving/motherly", but that's not supported by her actions.

How can Emilie be "motherly" AND Adrien's never had a real birthday gift? How can she be "kind" AND Adrien's only been allowed to be friend's with Chloe? How can she be "loving" AND Adrien's been trapped inside his house when he WANTS to go to school with everyone else?

As for why Bustier didn't get character growth in Scarlet Lady, it's because I didn't want to? You know, some of us HAD the "nice" teacher who actually wasn't all that great, and we just had to kinda live with it until we graduated and moved on. I'm not making time for them in my spite fic about fictional characters.

Look, it's nice you want to buy what that show is trying to sell you. If you want to believe that Bustier and Emilie are nice and wonderful and nurturing just because the characters all say that they are, be my guest. No one is stopping you. Canon is here for you.

But I'm not buying.

And in case you forgot, kind/gentle/loving/motherly people are allowed to be more than just that. They're allowed to be multi-faceted and have goals and interests outside of Being a Mom. Because moms are people to.

[periwinkla]

I think what I love the most about AA is that characters have a duality to them that I don't see often in media. They have actual flaws and do actual bad things, and it's not glossed over. Phoenix is a fundamentally good person, he helps people at the drop of a hat, risks his life for them. Has a penchant for taking strays under his wing. He believes in people... but also not really. He carries a literal lie detector with him at all times, and only employs people who can also peer into other people's hearts. So is he really that trusting? Sure he trusts his clients are innocent, but he doesn't trust they will tell him the truth at all (there's always something to lie about). He believes himself naive, and that's why he works extra hard not to be. Some people think he changed with his disbarment but I feel like when he actually changed was after Dahlia. He became less and less trusting as time went on. And Phoenix actually does forge evidence and risks his subordinate's career, and he says pretty nasty things sometimes (that one time to Edgeworth had got to hurt, badly, especially if you consider that the note could have been genuine at first, which we don't know for sure), has a pretty tactless and somewhat hurtful sense of humor, brings his daughter to cheat at poker, and doesn't tell said daughter she actually has some family left alive. He's secretive, elusive and cryptic, and masks it under a false pretence of goofiness. Miles is, by contrast, very easy to read. He may appear emotionally stunted but is one of the more emphathetic characters. He realizes when he's wrong and immediately needs to correct those wrongs. He grows uneasy and uncertain and eventually recognizes when he's mistaken. By the end of it he begins to help people naturally, without even thinking about it as much as he would have in the past. He helps so many people, he has basically got Phoenix's savior complex 2.0 but the healthy kind where he doesn't jump off a bridge. But... he was also actually cruel, and did send innocent people to their graves (was he really so naive to believe whichever defendant came his way was guilty?). He feigned his death disregarding other people's feelings, and while you could say he had no obligation towards Phoenix (apart from basic decency and respect towards someone who had turned his life around to save him), he still abandoned Franziska, who was still just a kid and had just discovered her father was a psychopath. She probably thought, at some point, that the apple didn't fall that far from the tree. That's it's somehow her fault as well. He may be rude and antagonistic, frank to a fault. Isn't afraid of telling stuff to your face. But he also cares about the people he loves so much, to the point he doesn't hesitate to risk his career and break the law multiple times. He may appear a pessimist but he's pretty idealistic at heart, it's quite funny that his favourite show is about an hero of justice, isn't it? Godot is... well, we don't know much about it from before his coma, but he definitely shared Mia's sentiments for helping people in their hour of need. But when he wakes from a 6-year coma he's so broken that he just pins the blame on the most absurd person to blame it on, settles on a complicated plan, and also prosecutes on that particular murder he should just confess upon. Iris was sweet, innocent, self-sacrificing. She knew absolutely nothing about the world apart from what Bikini or her sister told her. She was naive and falsely thought she could fix everything, that her sister was salvageable, that she could save Phoenix. But she still ended up lying to the person she loved and abetting a murder. That's why I love these characters so much. They're interesting and their stories make sense. People don't remain unchanged from what happens to them. People are multi-faceted and complex. You can't sum them up in a bunch of characteristics and aspect them to act on every single one of them, always, consistently. Sometimes people break. They make mistakes they regret, ...and some they don't.

[v-a-l]

Hi! I was just thinking about what made Hermione come to the conclusion that Sirius wants to live through them. Now I last read OOTP a month ago, but I can't remember anything from the conversation that suggests that he wants to live through them, he only said that they should know how to defend themselves because of the environment that will come and that is why the DA is a good idea. And even if Hermione was influenced by Molly during the summer what makes her think that the DA is a bad idea after Sirius says it's a good idea? He gave valid reasons why it is a good idea. Hermione is very smart but this scene just felt and she felt ooc here.

I know that sometimes JKR used characters like Hermione and Dumbledore as spokespersons about what she wanted the audience to know that's why we get Hermione saying that but if that's what she wanted us to think, she did a poor job because Sirius actually kind of right and it makes Hermione look biased against Sirius.

Same with Dumbledore in that conversation with Harry after Sirius's death and it sucks. She wanted us to think Sirius saw Kreacher as inferior because of his species but that's not true at all. Now, some scenes with Sirius and Kreacher made me uncomfortable and I am not going to lie about it. But Sirius hated Kreacher because he was a part of his abusive childhood and repeated the same bigoted stuff his family thought and let's not forget Sirius only got violent with him when he called Hermione a slur. So Dumbledore saying that just feels so ooc because usually he is so wise (but once i read a meta about him seeing Sirius as Grindelwald and thinking by that meta it gives us an interesting perspective about this conversation as well).

Sorry this is getting long 😅. Anyways my point is that none of it makes any sense. It is clear that JKR was biased against Sirius and to show that she brought two other characters down (though these moments can be seen as interesting flaws in them)

Have a lovely day! (Sorry about the long ask, I hope it makes sense)

Honestly, while JKR is a brilliant writer, I also find her fairly reactionary in her writing style. Sirius was one of the most popular characters in the story because she wrote him that way, he inadvertently became more popular than a lot of other characters she preferred because again, she WROTE him that way. Perhaps the creation of a character as multi-faceted and dynamic as Sirius is was entirely by accident, as she really seems to double down on the character assassination as the books go by, but regardless, there's little in the way of canonical proof to suggest that Sirius is trying to live a vicarious life through the kids. Especially cause he's the one who seems to understand what they actually need after all they've been through instead of just patronising them.

Sirius is the only one who takes Harry seriously, he is the only one who tries to not just physically be there like the others, but actually also provide emotional support. He's constantly been doing this since he escaped Azkaban, and at this point, both in the case of Harry generally, and the Weasleys specifically when Arthur was injured, he's repeatedly looking after others at his own personal cost. He gets Ron an Owl, almost tells Harry how to beat a dragon (and that's the kind of stuff Sirius Black simply just goes around knowing, how to take down Dragons), gets Harry his firebolt and Hogsmeade slip. Sirius is generally an emotionally intelligent person, and this is after 12 years of forced isolation from civilisation.

The tragedy of Sirius' arc in OOTP is that there's no one around him who can relate to his experiences. This makes it impossible for Sirius to find the kind of empathy and support he needs from the members of the order. By OOTP, Sirius' mental health, whilst constantly deteriorating is also displayed on technicolour before the entire cast. He's not allowed any secrets, his abusive childhood, his unprocessed grief, years of dementor and solitary confinement related trauma, the fact that he lost his entire twenties, his burgeoning alcoholism is all on display and not spared judgement from the self-righteous members of the Order who did not support him at 21 and are not going to support him at 33.

Furthermore, the narrative repeatedly validates him. He insists that Harry should be told the truth, and he's right, he insists that he can do more instead of just being locked up and left alone and he's right, he wants Snape to restart Harry's lessons and he's right, he repeatedly and actively disagrees with Dumbledore's opaque methods and again, he's right. He gives Harry the two way mirror because Harry needs him to be there, and as Godfather, it is Sirius' responsibility to find a safe way to ensure that happens.

Whilst he's not at his best, he's still trying, he's trying so hard to be what everyone needs him to be even when its contrary to his own instincts and emotional needs which are either dismissed entirely by the people around him or mocked with derogatory catchphrases like "fit of the sullens" that its genuinely heartbreaking that despite him going out of his way to help the Order, not only is his devotion not returned it's barely even acknowledged. They never try to acquit him, there's no mission run by the Order to try and recapture Peter or get Sirius a trial or even an opportunity to give a press conference (which, with the political climate in OOTP would actually be a great way to discredit the ministry), Dumbledore pretty much just locked him in and threw away the key, a circumstance not entirely different from the past 12 years of Sirius' unfortunately short life. An acquitted Sirius would mean a discredited justice system and ministry and also a powerful wizard to run missions again, but this prospect is not even brought up let alone addressed. He gets a posthumous consolation through a footnote in the Daily Prophet, like that could compensate for the trauma and the decade he's lost.

I think it's very binary to put people into boxes and go "this person is only these set of traits and that's all they can be." Sirius is more than his grief for the Potters and love for Harry and years of isolation and torture. He's a brilliant detective, one of the order's most powerful duelists, someone who is blatantly not afraid of calling people out, be it Walburga or Crouch or Dumbledore, someone who despite growing up in a cesspit of bigotry and violence fights for people like Lily Potter and Remus Lupin and Hermione Granger. The guy who barely tolerates Kreacher but is distasteful of Crouch's treatment of Winky. Sirius, like most people, comes with facets and is possibly one of JKR's finest creations. Not that she seemed to realise it herself.

Not that that's surprising.

The most interesting thing about Sirius and Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's repeated refusal to trust Sirius is that unlike pretty much everyone else in the order, Sirius knows that Dumbledore and Grindewald used to be friends. Lily wrote it to him and Sirius read it. If Sirius could figure out the GoF plot while being half starved to death and living in a cave, a free healthy Sirius with a very much alive James Potter would probably have put the whole plot together. I wonder how much that influenced their dynamic in OOTP because whilst the others have nothing on Dumbledore, Sirius does. If Sirius can spare Dumbledore his judgement despite knowing the truth, Dumbledore can get over Sirius being a Black.

[allastoredeer]

What funny for me it's when I see some people in radioapple fandom saying why they can't see Alastor as a bottom is because "he would never be a bottom because of his ego!" (and right under a post with b!Alastor content, the nerve)

Meanwhile Lucifer, King of all Hell, Sin of Pride personified, the man who stole Adam's first wife and claimed to do the same with the second, and had two songs about how great he is compared to others: am I a joke to you?

EXACTLY! Preach Anon!

Lucifer's ego is just as big, if not bigger, than Alastor's. I was rewatching the show recently, and during the "Dad Beat Dad" episode, literally the only person he was nervous, bumbling, or awkward around was Charlie (and Vaggie, to a certain degree considering she's Charlie's girlfriend).

In every other interaction he was smug, arrogant, indifferent, unimpressed, or downright dismissive. His whole song with Alastor was just him flexing his power and getting more and more insecure & angry about how "close" Alastor and Charlie were. I think people forget that Lucifer is the Sin of Pride, and you can 100% see it in his behavior towards the other characters. Obviously, he got closer to the Hazbin Crew, especially during the last song in the finale, but that doesn't make his ego magically disappear.

And I love that about him.

I find his huge capacity to love (both Charlie and creation) so endearing, but it's better and so much more interesting, when it's paired with the fact that his ego gets bruised so easily. He's the most powerful being in Hell, while also being insecure as fuck, while also being the personification of Pride itself. Is that not the tastiest, most delectable character to ever character????

Look, yes, Lucifer is depressed. He and Lilith got divorced. He and Charlie were estranged to each other for years. He lost his will to dream after being cast out from Heaven. He spent all his time making little rubber ducks, locked away in his room. But that doesn't, by any means, make the man humble.

If you look at Alastor and say he's got too big of an ego to bottom, and then turn around and make Lucifer the most bottomy bottom ever, then I say go back and rewatch the show, cuz you're missing a few very important factors. Especially if you're basing someone's capacity to bottom on ego alone. (I, personally, love it when prideful, egotistical characters bottom. It's so much fun).

Mostly just...hhhhhh, please stop stripping away all of my short-kings most interesting characteristics. I don't want a small, wide-eyed, easily manipulated little UwU soft boi. I want snarky, powerful as fuck, insecure, egotistical, provocative short-king who gets pissy when his daughter talks to a homicidal deer man with a silly haircut instead of him (while also being very soft, loving, and caring). He's multi-faceted, and that's what makes him interesting.

Once again, this isn't me getting after people who enjoy top!Alastor and bottom!Lucifer. Do what you want, I hope you're having fun. Just don't go commenting below other people's posts with shit like "Alastor wouldn't bottom because of his ego," when Lucifer is just as much of an egotistical little shit as he is.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[tempenensis]

Hi Lele. For now seems that Gojo's character is finished, what thoughts do you have about him? I saw different opinions about it and from different extremes, people who believe that "his character arc was ruined and he never had growth", or "he's a very complicated and contradictory character", or "everything he was, did, didn't, motivated him, his whole character basically revolved around Geto", and people who believe "there is a possibility that he will return", etc.

I think he's a pretty complex character, and multi-faceted at that. Although Sensei commented that he "doesn't have personality", Gege accidentally actually makes Gojou more complex than what he actually seems lol.

I would disagree with "he never had a growth" actually. Gojou had a growth phase - that is the whole Hidden Inventory arc is about. He matured during that arc to be the Gojou that we know in the current storyline. So it's not that he never had a growth, he already did and what we get more is adult Gojou who had finished his growth.

I would agree actually with Nanami's comment, that Gojou is "a pervert who uses jujutsu for his own sake" (yes, he straight up called Gojou hentai in the jpn text lol). Since he's the strongest in jujutsu society, his ego would center on using jujutsu for his own satisfaction. But that's not all of him; he is also a teacher who cares for his students because he wants to see them grow strong, despite his motivation for them growing strong is rather egoistical too. And you can see here, that his character is a mixed of egoistical but also caring -- simply said, pretty human for one called to be strongest.

In jjk, to be strongest means to be alone. To stand on the peak that no other ever see, that no other ever feel. The only people who understand the feeling is the one who also reach that peak. For beings like Sukuna and Gojou, seeing others is like them standing alone on top of the tallest mountain, looking down at people who don't even have the motivation to even glance at the peak - because noone would ever want to try to compete to be the strongest while those two are around. This is the flowers metaphors that appears on the latest chapter; that you can grow the flowers but you can't ask them to understand. Gojou will help his students, people around him, caring and making them stronger, but he can't never ask them to try to reach for that highest peak, to that loneliness of being the strongest. They can't never understand how it feels to be a beings like him or Sukuna.

"his whole character basically revolved around Geto" - well, just no. Yeah, he holds Geto in high regard, but if he really does anything for Getou's sake, then he'd join Getou's case in destroying jujutsu society. But as we see, he doesn't. He becomes a teacher because he wanted to change jujutsu society so no one would become another Getou, not because of Getou's sake, but rather the sake of younger generation. So that he can prevent another youth being wasted by the jujutsu society tradition; which is why he picks up the most "troublesome" students that jujutsu society least cares for; from Maki, Yuta, Inumaki, even Yuuji.

"there is a possibility that he will return" -- this is oddly specific, but did their brain can still move the feet? Did they get a flashback-kinda chapter? If the answer is no and yes, then I'm sorry; they most likely won't come back.

[johaerys-writes]

I got u fam. Achilles was known to ransom captives rather than kill. Why? If he went to troy for glory, then why was he not out there killing left and right? Do you think that deep down it was against his nature and he was just “stalling”? What exactly was his plan to achieve glory? TSoA in a way implies Achilles did a lot of “stalling” to have more time with Patroclus, but I want to hear your take on the Iliad.

Hello, thank you for this ask! You raise a few different questions so let me answer them one by one.

Why does Achilles ransom captives rather than kill? What was his plan to achieve glory? In Book 1, Achilles explains exactly why he went to Troy, and his attitude towards the Trojans in general. This is what he says to Agamemnon at the agora:

For it was not on account of Trojans warriors I came to wage battle here, since to me they are blameless— never yet have they driven off my cattle, or my horses, nor ever in Phthia, where the rich earth breeds warriors, have they destroyed my harvest, since there is much between us, both shadowy mountains and clashing sea. But we followed you, O great shameless one, for your pleasure, to win recompense for Menelaos and for you, dog-face, from the Trojans; none of this do you pause to consider or care for.

Achilles doesn't have anything personal against the Trojans. He didn't come to Troy for the singular purpose of slaughtering them and their families, nor does he seem to revel in that violence, even though he also says that of all the Achaeans he is the one that conducts 'the greater part of furious war', as the strongest among them. He takes pride in his skill but he isn't bloodthirsty. He came to Troy as much for honour (i.e. winning recompense for the Atreides and restoring Hellas' honour as a whole, which is how the war was framed), as for glory. Therefore, helping Agamemnon win his war and bringing Helen back to Menelaus would have been Achilles' 'plan to achieve glory' if you want to call it that. I know that the take of Achilles being obsessed with his own glory and doing everything in his power to make sure he gets as much of it as he can is quite popular, but I believe that his reasons for fighting in the war are much more multi-faceted than that. And it's also something that he very eloquently explains throughout the Iliad as well.

Later on, in Book 21, when Lykaon (one of Priam's sons who had been sold by Achilles to slavery and managed to find his way back home) implores Achilles to spare him once more, Achilles tells him that he used to spare the Trojans because it is what his heart chose once, but that is no more. And then he kills him—which comes to show us that brutally slaughtering the Trojans he encounters isn't like him at all, and it is not what others expect of him.

As to whether it is in his nature or not, I really can't say. I do think that, as I said earlier, Achilles as a character isn't bloodthirsty or violent for the sake of being violent, he does not kill needlessly even when he does have that choice—we only see him slaughtering like that after Patroclus' death, which is essentially the breakdown of his character. But I believe it also has to do with his upbringing: in a previous ask I mentioned that Euripides in his Iphigenia at Aulis has Agamemnon explain to Menelaus (and the audience) that Chiron raised Achilles to be honourable and to stay away from wickedness. Achilles himself says that Chiron taught him to keep a single heart (i.e. to be steadfast and keep true to his words and actions), to be respectful of the gods and those he chooses to follow (the Atreides in this case) and do honour to them with his spear, unless they lead him or the people astray. That doesn't sound like someone who kills people left and right, nor like someone obsessed with glory no matter what is required to achieve it. And this is a portrayal that is encountered in other works of antiquity as well. Which tells me that this is the way Achilles was intended to be perceived: stubborn and hotheaded, but at the same time honourable, law abiding and very rigid in his moral code leader and warrior.

2. Was Achilles stalling? That is a question that does not really have a straightforward answer imo. Miller chooses to have Achilles stall so he can have more time with Patroclus, but the truth is that in the Iliad we have no evidence of that. Even the extent to which Achilles knew of the prophecy isn't conclusive: in Book 1, he already knows that he will never be leaving Troy and that he'll die there, but it is only in Book 18 that Thetis mentions that Achilles' death will come soon after Hector's. It is not clear in that exchange, at least to me, whether Achilles hears of it for the first time or if he has known it all along. So we can't really know whether he was delaying his own death, nor if he did it for the sake of Patroclus. I believe that anything we say on this topic is pure speculation.

As to why the war took as long as it did: there is no straightforward answer to this either. Perhaps the armies were evenly matched for the most part. Perhaps Troy's walls were just that strong. Perhaps it is the result of bad leadership: as it is hinted a few times in the Iliad, Achilles would get into arguments with Agamemnon and other leaders, presumably because he disagreed with their ways of doings things, which could mean that Agamemnon was just, well, an incompetent leader whose decisions caused the war to go on longer and longer. Perhaps it is a combination of all of the above. For all we know, Achilles, as the extremely straightforward and honourable person he is, wanted to do his best to make sure the Atreides win their war so they can all go back home—and he has already planned and prepared for his death in that case, as he tells Patroclus before he leaves to fight Hector that he expects him to come back safe from the fighting and take his son to Phthia to meet his grandfather and his clansmen after Achilles is gone.

That doesn't sound like someone who fears or stalls his death, but as someone who has prepared for it even if it saddens him. Besides, Achilles' greatest descriptor, 'swift-footed', does not imply a person who would be stalling when it comes to anything, rather a person that sees what he has to do and simply does it; although whether he was ever entirely sold on Agamemnon's and Menelaus' war is also debatable, if you ask me.

I hope I answered your questions!

[kismetconstellations]

Shiro from Voltron for the character ask game

To spare my poor followers' dashboards a massive wall of text, my answers will be found behind the cut. Let's regroup there, shall we?

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I love Shiro because he demonstrates so perfectly that a person's trauma does not have to define them. No matter what kind of Hell they've been subjected to, they always have the option to remain gentle, compassionate, and kind. Even when they're afraid. Even when they believe themselves to be "broken", or monstrous because of what they had to do to survive.

One can rise above attempts to break them, and be so much more than the people who mistreated them tried to force them to be.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

His personality. Even when he isn't being everything that epitomizes a true hero- brave, selfless, strong-willed, empathetic, always looking after others and willing to risk his life for them at the drop of a hat- he's so much fun to watch. From his moments of tired, resigned irritation and bemusement with others' antics,

to his quiet fascination with Altean technology and concepts, like water pouches and their time measurement system,

to the moments where he's just a great big dorky sweetheart.

People who think he's "boring" because he's a workaholic soldier who isn't as inclined to shenanigans and over the top reactions as his younger comrades aren't paying attention. He's an extremely dynamic, multi-faceted character just begging to be explored by someone who loves him and all of his depth and multitudes.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

How he's handled by the team of inept showrunners who helmed this messy disaster of a cartoon.

He has no real support system, something I can only imagine is due to him being the commanding officer to a group of teenagers he can't truly confide in, and the intention to have him fill a Doomed Mentor role, despite him being inadvertently written as The Chosen One. His biological family is virtually non-existent. The only other proper adult he could look to for advice is the designated comic relief. There were opportunities for him to be taken in by the Holts, given their mutual fondness for each other, or even Allura and Coran. Allura and Shiro seemed to have developed an even stronger bond (offscreen, of course) after she saved his life.

(I have a theory that Allura's quintessence alchemy altered Shiro's DNA, which is why his new arm could only be safely powered by the Balmeran crystal from Allura's tiara, and the Atlas, similarly powered by Altean magic, responds to Shiro and Shiro alone, establishing a mental link with him the same way Allura had with the Castle of Lions. But, that's for another unhinged essay.)

And, when Coran confronts Iverson about strapping Shiro to a table in the pilot, he refers to Shiro as "our Shiro".

But, neither of these avenues were ever explored, as Shiro was "retired" and relegated to side-character status, leaving him isolated from everyone, including his best friend who loveshim.

The ableism surrounding his disability is disgusting. He's a forced amputee twice over. He spends most of an entire season standing mute on the sidelines without a right arm, and there's absolutely no acknowledgement of his missing limb, that his best friend is the reason why it's gone, or inquiries into how being rendered effectively "useless" after coming back from the dead is affecting Shiro's already poor mental health.

(Does Shiro sleep? Does he have pajamas he can even change into, or is he supposed to wear the Black Paladin armor the entire trip back to Earth? Is he able to shower with that stump, or does it pose an electrocution hazard if it comes into contact with water? Is there anything available for him to do so he isn't standing silently around, losing his mind?)

His best friend's mother tells him to stay out of a fight, and he meekly accepts the order, never making another attempt to be anything other than a helpless bystander until he's been outfitted with a new arm that he, once again, has no say in the design of. An arm that is bulky and over-sized, impractical, likely extremely uncomfortable, and sickeningly mirrors his abuser's.

The same abuser who filled his head with taunts about his previous prosthetic being the "strongest part" of him, and the same abuser who tortured him and is implied to have raped him.

An ally tells him that he would be stronger with "two robotic arms", almost mocking the fact that Shiro's right arm was deliberately taken from him to be replaced by a weapon. And, this is never called out or questioned.

A punch that he lands on his abuser with his organic fist only incites a mocking sneer before Shiro is flung across the body of the ship that they're fighting on like a ragdoll.

After being made to feel washed-up and old at twenty-six, Shiro participates in an arm-wrestling tournament that he wins-- using the ill-proportioned prosthetic modeled after his abuser's.

I don't know if there was no one on the staff who was aware of the vile implications in this handling of a disabled character, but when one considers the similar grotesque handling of intense trauma and passive suicidal ideation... It doesn't exactly paint a pretty picture of the ideas and beliefs that went into the writing on this show.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

This is so silly and indulgent, but... What immediately comes to mind is, instead of him dying in the second season's finale and spending four entire seasons helplessly roaming and languishing on the Astral Plane, I would have him magically transported to the beach episode of a slice of life anime.

He would get to play volleyball with and be fawned over by a bunch of pretty, shirtless men with glistening, sun-kissed skin. As he deserves. ( ᵘ ᵕ ᵘ ⁎)

5. What’s the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

"Lazarus Drug", by Meg Washington. Longtime followers of my silly little blog might be aware of my love for Bluey, which is how I was introduced to this gorgeous piece of music. It was used to masterful effect in the twenty-eight minute special episode, The Sign.

When I was struggling to come up with a title for my Shiro-centric character study/fix-it fic, "Lazarus Drug" proved to be a lifesaver.

"And when I hear you calling, Like you were always there, I rise until I'm hanging in the Middle of the air

And when I hear you calling, I split like I'm a snake With golden light like fingers And, then I start to break

Into a billion pieces Oh, I shatter into constellations Like I've never been more here Like I completely disappear

I'm nothingness, but shining And everywhere at once I'm everything and everyone Who is or ever was."

6. What’s something you have in common with this character?

Less than stellar mental health as a result of trauma.

7. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

There are so many jaw-droppingly stunning and breathtaking pieces of Shiro fan art out there. I also greatly appreciate fanfics, meta, and analyses that take all of his trauma and his disability, and how they would realistically impact his daily life, into account.

Christening him "The Unkillable Gay", and "Gay God", is also pretty darned fantastic.

8. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Dark Shiro, Shiro-bashing (usually in tandem with Allura-bashing), sidelining him due to ageism, ignoring his canon sexuality to give Keith reason to angst over Shiro not accepting him in K/L fics, minimizing Shiro's role in Keith's life to focus on their preferred ship, having Shiro adopt or be biologically related to Keith, especially if Adam is co-parenting and Keith has more of a bond with him than Shiro (it's pretty obvious why certain shippers do this), depicting him as high-libido and sexually aggressive/an Alpha/dominant/top, even more so when he gets off on being called "daddy", expressing a belief that he should have stayed dead in service of Keith's character, treating him and his clone as the same person... Just to name a few.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

I don't see why not.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

I'd love to think that we could be. But, realistically, I'd be too nervous to ever approach him and strike up a conversation. >////<'

11. Would you date this character?

Though he is undeniably gorgeous, we are romantically incompatible, I'm afraid.

12. What’s a headcanon you have for this character?

Shiro moved to the United States with his grandfather in late childhood, between the ages of eight and ten. That's why he speaks perfect English with no trace of an accent.

13. What’s an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

☆

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

Classic Hollywood pilot aesthetic; aviation jacket with (faux) fur lining, patches on the sleeve, and a tight t-shirt or tank top underneath, sometimes with aviator sunglasses folded over the collar or worn over his eyes, military dog tags around his neck, the sort of clingy, curve-flattering pants that he canonically favors, and knee-high combat boots. Scarf is optional.

I also love a soft formal look on him. Crisp dress shirt and tie with a vest over top, perfectly tailored slacks, and shiny black loafers.

15. What’s your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not.)

I'm going to go with Shiro/Keith, though I very much have a fondness for Shiro/Hunk, as well.

Keith's devotion to Shiro is exactly the level of devotion that Shiro deserves, though Keith could stand to tone the intensity of it down just a tad. His willingness to throw his life away for Shiro would be a massive source of anxiety for Shiro, and something they'd have to discuss, among many other topics, before entering a serious romantic relationship.

And, Hunk is such a sweetheart, he'd spoil and pamper Shiro in all of the best ways. When he's of legal consenting age, of course.

16. What’s your least favorite ship for this character?

Romantic Shiro/Pidge, and Shiro/Sendak. An adult gay man and a female child, and a trauma survivor and his personal tormentor is a great big "no thanks" for me.

17. What’s a ship for this character you don’t hate but it’s not your favorite that you’re fine with?

Shiro/Lance, and Shiro/Matt. I prefer Shiro and Matt as friends, and overexposure to Lance thanks to a hyper-zealous fanbase has done a fairly good job of putting me off of him. Which sucks, because I genuinely like him just fine in the show, itself. I don't mind either ship, and have read fic for them. They're just not prospects for Shiro that I ever seriously entertain.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

I love Shiro and Pidge's relationship in the early episodes. The way he is so gentle, encouraging, and protective with her, basically becoming a second older brother, and how she comes to trust and rely on him as a confidante, enough that she personally seeks him out to tell him that she plans to leave the team to search for her father and brother, knowing he will understand, stole my heart almost immediately, and stole it hard.

It's incredibly disheartening that, after his resurrection, we only get tidbits and table scraps of that relationship.

Why did Shiro start riding with her in the Green Lion on the journey back to Earth? Who knows? The writers certainly weren't going to tell us, because Shiro was so thoroughly a side-character, by that point, he and Pidge- if I'm recalling correctly- only talked to each other onscreen one time.

Never forget what they took from us.

(Also ignore that they forgot to draw Shiro's scar.)

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don’t like?

No offense to Mr. Set-Dressing, but there is nothing that points to these characters having any sort of even platonic relationship, let alone the kind of chemistry that would lead to a marriage a few years down the line. They never address each other by name, or at all, when they're not exchanging commands in the heat of battle. "Curtis" has more personal interaction with Acxa. And, I swear Shiro only looks away from the console on the Atlas's bridge to physically acknowledge this man once.

The animators certainly did poor "Curtis" no favors, either, by making him look like a sad, pathetic older man who couldn't lift or dip his strapping younger groom on their wedding day.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn’t matter?

I adore the idea of Shiro and Allura as best friends, and would have loved to have seen some genuine interaction between the Real Shiro and Matt, after Shiro attacked Matt to save his life. Alas...

21. If you’re a fic writer and have written for this character, what’s your favorite thing to do when you’re writing for this character? What’s something you don’t like?

I've only very recently started writing for Shiro, and don't see myself doing much more than the aforementioned character study/fix-it fic. That said, I love getting into his head to really flesh him out, his psychology, his illness, his failed relationship, his experience in captivity, and using the members of his found family as conduits for him to realize just how special and good to his core he truly is. Like what should have happened in canon.

I don't like writing about him suffering, but part of recovering from trauma is processing it. And, processing often involves reliving the traumatic event as you walk a trusted friend, loved one, or mental health professional through it in the hopes that they will then offer you the greatly needed comfort and support and skills to cope that you didn't have, at the time it occurred.

22. If you’re a fic reader, what’s something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don’t like?

I love in-character portrayals of Shiro in Hurt/Comfort settings that address the sheer magnitude of his trauma, and emphasize how unfailingly brave, strong, compassionate, and altruistic in spite of it all that he has always been and always will be.

I'm not a fan of him being treated like he's "oblivious", or "emotionally constipated" for not immediately acting on an Anguished Declaration of Love that Keith gave to "Kuron", and prefaced with, "You're my brother".

And, I've covered before, in detail, how much it irks and baffles me when Lance fans give Lance traits distinct and exclusive to Shiro in an effort to try to turn him into Shiro, instead of accepting him as he is.

23. Favorite picture of this character?

Tough call, since there are so many, but, I do think this one is the winner:

I love that, despite his strong jaw, his features are so gentle and soft, and the silver hair truly lends him an ethereal quality. That arm is ghastly, but it doesn't detract from just how pretty Shiro is, and how much that Admiral coat flatters him.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

I don't participate in the fandom at all, but I've carried a torch for Leonardo from the 2003 incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the show was still actively airing and in production. There are so many similarities between Shiro and 2003 Leo that one could almost say there's a specific type of character that I'm drawn to like gravity hurtling a ship into a planet with a crash-landing imminent and the projected number of casualties astronomical.

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

My first impression of Shiro, when I watched the pilot and second episode back in 2016, was that he was my favorite character of the lot. I was drawn to him for all of the reasons stated above. But, once I became aware of the online fandom drama, I backed off, only watching three more episodes (A Little Adventure and Lions' Pride I and II) in 2018 for Shiro/Keith shipping reasons before becoming a lurker on the peripheral, exploring fanmade content without engaging with the show, itself. It wasn't until earlier this year that I finally grit my teeth, braced myself, and committed to watching at least the seasons where the Real Shiro is featured in full.

I both immensely regret that decision for the sheer levels of frustration, fury, and deeply-rooted sadness at all of the wasted potential that I opened myself up to, and don't regret it at all. Because, I sincerely love Shiro and wish with all of my heart that he, and especially Allura and Coran and even Hunk, were handled by infinitely better writers in an infinitely better show.

----

Thank you so very, very much for asking! ❤

[peachysunrize]

Sorry to come here to rant but I love your blog and I don't know where else to talk about this. I saw the leaks for the finale because some asshole didn't tag them as spoilers and now I'm fucking shaking. I hate the writers with all my heart, why did they have to do this? I wish I had known sooner that the show was going to be about Condal's obsession with the Blacks and I wouldn't have wasted my time watching this second season. The complete character assassination of all the Greens because it wasn't enough to make them look like villains, they also had to make them weak and pathetic and incompetent. What did they do to my girl Alicent? What was the point of Alicole apart from making Alicent feel guilty for having consensual sex once in her life? Aegon the realm delight? Is this a joke? And I can't even think about what they did to Aemond. They completely butchered his character because they saw how popular he was becoming and it would have taken the spotlight off the precious Blacks. I wish they had made him a full villain from the beginning, Ewan would have shined in the role anyway. Instead they built a multi-faceted character, showed us his trauma, and for what? Aemond acting this way towards his sister and mother is unrecognizable not only from s01 but also from the beginning of this one. But hey, if we're lucky we'll get another Daemyra incest scene because apparently groomer Daemon of all people deserves a redemption arc. In the meantime the Greens have been humiliated and shamed in every way possible. I’m crying and I don’t know what to do

Oh my love please don’t cry i love you so much this show doesn’t deserve anything especially your tears🫂🫂🫂🫂🩷🩷😭😭😭😭

I’m gonna answer under the cut<3333

LEAKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

This season’s mission was to villainize the Greens as much as possible, especially Aemond because he got INSANELY popular in such a short notice and Ryan couldn’t have that.

This is probably the worst leaks we’ve ever gotten for all the greens: Aemond being this bad villain who doesn’t care about anyone at this point, Aegon the realm’s delight and thinking about his fucking cock, Alicent begging Rhaenyra and saying Aegon will bend the knee after having his son killed, Helaena being a subject to everyone’s unnecessary cruelty…

This is horrible writing with no regards that this series should be AN ADAPTATION. But it’s far from anything GRRM has written in F&B…

[anneapocalypse]

Why Anders and Fenris can't be friends (in the game)

Recently I made a short post that was supposed to stay that way, but instead it took over my brain for several days so I'm going to expand on it. In that post, I said:

"Why can't Fenris and Anders get along? Why can't they see what they have in common?" Because it's a story about how people can be practically and philosophically correct about a specific thing, and also get so mired in their own pain and trauma that they can't relate to people whose pain and trauma comes from a different source and who are right about something else, especially if trying to reconcile those two things would threaten their sense of self. And that is, imo, both more interesting and more true to the human experience than if they simply looked past all that without any difficulty.

So, with that as our starting point, why don't Anders and Fenris find common ground by the end of the game? Wouldn't that be a strong character arc for both of them, and aren't both characters lesser for not getting there? Is this an oversight, rushed development, bad writing?

I think the answer to these questions lies in the journeys that Anders and Fenris are each on over the course of the game, and in this post I'm going to explore both of their arcs a bit, where they’re both going and why their paths are divergent in the game. Specifically I mean to argue here that they cannot find common ground during the game because Fenris spends the game finding safety, while Anders spends the game becoming progressively less safe.

Disclaimer time! This post is not meant as a refutation of anyone’s ships or headcanons! You do you. What I hope to explore here is why things go the way they do in the game itself.

I’m also aware that this game has been out for over a decade, that there is nothing new under the sun, that both of these characters provoke strong feelings in a lot of us, and that some fans are just tired of hearing about them in general. If the latter is you, please feel free to scroll right on by; no need to inform me.

This analysis will necessarily involve discussing both characters’ flaws as well as their strengths (as well as those of some other characters), but it’s coming from a place of love and appreciation for these characters as complex and multi-faceted. Please refrain from expressing character hate on this post.

Content warnings: discussion of slavery, the Chantry explosion, abuse and trauma generally.

Anders' Journey

It has been said that Anders' character arc in DA2 is a downward spiral while Fenris is on a slow road to recovery. And I basically agree with that, but I don't think of it as a downward spiral in terms of negative character growth, precisely. While I do think there are ways in which Anders becomes less able and willing to empathize with others over the course of the game, I consider that more of a side effect of what's happening to him than a sign of him being on some kind of moral downturn.

To me, the downward spiral is that Anders spends the entire game losing hope.

As an apostate in Kirkwall (and a possessed one at that), I think it is important to recognize that Anders is never truly safe. It seems likely to me that the only reason he remains free for so long is because he happens to befriend some very powerful and influential people in Kirkwall—most notably, Varric Tethras, who is known to pay people off to keep his friends safe from the city's various criminal organizations, and I don't think it's unlikely that he's payed off templars as well.

Even in his closest circle of friends, Anders isn't completely safe. And it isn't Fenris who poses the greatest danger to him! The one character who actively suggests they turn in Anders (and Merrill) to the templars is Sebastian in Act III—and it's Fenris who brushes him off, telling him to "work it out with Hawke." I don't think Fenris would lose any sleep if it happened, but he actively declines to be a part of it. While Fenris is not above turning in mages generally (he will rat out Emile de Launcet to the Knight-Commander if brought along for “On the Loose”), there's no evidence that Fenris has ever made an active attempt to turn Hawke's mage companions over to the templars; if nothing else, he has too much respect for Hawke.

There's another companion who we know has turned mages in. Aveline and Anders get off to a pretty sour start right in Act I when Aveline asks if she can "consult" with him, and Anders guesses (rightly, it seems) that she just wants information on how to fight and kill mages. Needless to say, he is not forthcoming with help. Their Act II banter begins with Anders pointing out that she isn't a particularly mage-friendly Captain of the Guard, where Aveline counters that she’s only turned “a handful” over to the templars. Between Act II and Act III, there is a mounting tension between the two of them, with Anders in the final act doing his best to nudge Aveline away from defending the templars. Not even ideologically—he knows that's a losing battle with Aveline—but by bringing up Meredith's overreach and the fact that even Donnic doesn't agree with the Knight-Commander. When explaining to Hawke why he hasn't included them in the Mage Underground, Anders cites Hawke's connections to the nobility and to the Guard. It's no mystery who he's talking about.

There are people among Hawke's companions who pose an actual danger to Anders—and Fenris is not at the top of that list, no matter how much they may despise each other. And I think Anders' interactions with Fenris are especially vitriolic, not in spite of that fact, but because of it. I'd say similar of Merrill, the other companion Anders arguably has the most acrimony with. Neither Fenris nor Merrill poses any true threat to Anders. They are both elves who do not benefit from drawing attention to themselves; Merrill is a blood mage and Fenris an escaped former slave. While both of them hold views that make them philosophically or potentially dangerous, neither has ever actually acted against Anders.

Now, Anders does argue with Aveline and Sebastian. Repeatedly. He's not shy about stating his opinions and questioning theirs. But notice how the way he argues differs with each character. With Aveline, he appeals to her sense of order and propriety. With Sebastian, he appeals to his sense of righteousness. We see this particularly in Act III, once things have gotten especially dire. And he does start out similarly with Fenris, trying to draw a comparison between mages in the Circles and slaves in Tevinter—a tactic which utterly fails to move Fenris, and Anders drops it pretty quickly.

I think Anders' dialogue with Fenris gets especially nasty a) because Fenris is a rival against whom Anders can afford to vent his anger with less restraint, and b) because Fenris's existence makes Anders feel threatened in an entirely different way than Aveline and Sebastian. Anders knows that the Captain of the Guard and the noble-turned-Chantry-brother are not on his side, and it is in his best interest to be persuasive toward them, but also philosophically they're opposed to him in a way that he finds easy to refute. He is very firm in his convictions that the Circles are unjust and that they are a corruption of what Andraste taught and fought for. He may have little chance of actually persuading Aveline and Sebastian, but he's also in no danger of being persuaded by them. In other words, they may threaten his physical safety and that of other mages, but they do not challenge his core beliefs, his sense of self.

But Fenris does.

Anders has spent most of his life locked up for being a mage, running away and being caught, and subject to profound abuses. Since his final escape and joining with Justice, he has found purpose and hope in fighting for the cause of mage freedom. If his cause is just, then it is worth living for and fighting for, what he has lost he can endure, and what he’s had to do for that cause is justified. If he admits to himself that magic is itself a power that can be abused, that magic has anything to do with the atrocities Tevinter, that calls his purpose into question. If the unchecked use of magic has the potential to create a society just as unjust as the one he knows, that unravels his present idea of justice, which is quite literally part of his identity!

And maybe if this were a different story, Anders' arc would be about confronting those challenges and deciding how to move forward with them. But this isn't that story, because this is a story set in Kirkwall, where the templars' abuses of power over mages are happening right now, right in front of him, and every effort he makes to change that is systematically crushed.

This is really critical to Anders' arc! He is not a character who has spent the whole game achieving his goals and then escalating those goals. Almost everything he has tried to do has failed. And it's really not due to any strategic failing on his part; the Circle is just too powerful. His attempt to save Karl introduces this theme right at the beginning. Anders does his best; he does everything he can. But he is up against forces he cannot stop. Karl is doomed by the narrative so that we can understand what Anders is facing.

And it does not get any better! There's another tumblr post out there about how every companion quest for Anders is basically you go to see how he's doing, and he's doing bad. And it's true! Because things just keep getting worse. His Act II quest "Dissent" gives us a firsthand glimpse of the abuses taking place inside the Circle. "Dissent" is sometimes read as an example of Anders' paranoia, because both the Knight-Commander and the Grand Cleric had rejected Ser Alrik's plan to make all mages tranquil. I don't fully agree with that reading. Anders knows that such a proposal has been drawn up, and he is absolutely correct about that. He just doesn't know it’s been rejected, and frankly from where he’s standing, he has every reason to worry it might not be. Furthermore, Anders tells Hawke that there are templars within the Circle, most notoriously Ser Alrik, who are misusing the Rite of Tranquility even by Circle standards and who enjoy torturing and abusing mages—and then we see exactly that firsthand with Alrik and Ella, so Anders was entirely correct in that case.

By Act III, the Mage Underground has been completely dismantled, the Knight-Commander has openly seized control of Kirkwall, and half of Anders' own social group will still barely admit there's a problem. His ambient dialogue as early as the end of Act II is "I can't go on like this." It's hard not to feel the sheer despair radiating off Anders by the third Act.

His attack on the Chantry is not something he was always planning and working toward. It's a last resort he undertakes because every other avenue has failed. In seven years, he has helped to free individual mages, but he has made no progress toward dismantling or frankly even improving the Circle as a whole; in fact, it's only gotten worse. Now the lives of every mage in the Circle are threatened as Meredith seeks the Right of Annulment for little more than suspicions of blood magic. Individual rescues are not a solution. His written appeals to the public have had little practical effect. If he wants to save Kirkwall's mages, he has very few options left.

And if you listen to the way Anders speaks—if you look at his face after the explosion as he waits for Hawke's response—he is not happy about this. He is not dancing on the ashes. In fact, he looks heartbroken. There is collateral damage from the Chantry explosion and Anders knows there will be and he does not take that lightly. This is foreshadowed very well in a piece of banter with Isabela:

Anders: There is justice in the world. Isabela: Is there? You want to free the mages. Let's say you do, but to get there, you kill a bunch of innocent people. Isabela: What about them? Don't they then deserve justice? Anders: Yes.

Anders accepts this justice. He leaves Hawke out of his plans regardless of whether Hawke would have supported him because he means to accept the consequences for himself. He accepts whatever sentence he is given without resistance.

Regardless of how you feel about Anders' attack on the Chantry (and I'd prefer not to fight with anyone about that here), I recount all of this to make the point that his arc in the game is a long slide into despair and desperation, and for what I think are very understandable reasons. And over these seven years, it's pretty clear that Anders feels increasingly alone in his efforts. He feels like everyone is against him. There are things he feels he cannot tell even Hawke, no matter how supportive Hawke may be, because of Hawke's connections.

These are basically the worst possible conditions for a person to be able to extend patience and empathy to someone of very different experience with whom they are ideologically at odds.

Anders straight up doesn't have any energy, or emotional bandwidth, or whatever you want to call it, left for that. When he says, "I am the cause of mages. There is nothing else inside me," he means it. He is drained—emotionally, spiritually, probably physically, in all possible ways. He is particularly caustic in the back half of the game, and at times says some truly mean and petty things to and about other characters and I will not defend those things, but it is so understandable to me why he gets like this, stretched absolutely to the breaking point and ready to snap.

Anders' journey in Dragon Age II is a tragedy. Depending on the choices Hawke makes, it may not be the end of his story; there is still the possibility that he lives to see a changing world in which he himself can begin, after all these years, to breathe easier, to heal. I think that's going to be a long process, but it is absolutely possible.

Within the timeframe of the game itself, I don't think it is possible for Anders to go on the journey he's on and also figure out how to get along with Fenris. In fact I think those two things are antithetical to each other. Post-game, the world is wide with possibility. But not in the game itself. "Learn how to play well with others" (especially others who are diametrically opposed to everything he believes in) is so emphatically not the story being told with Anders in this game, and the entire climax of the game is built on top of the story it's been telling us with Anders. Because of that, I cannot see "Anders and Fenris become friends" as what could have been or what should have been. It's not just an add-on in this case; it's a change that rewrites the whole story.

Fenris's Journey

Upon arriving in Kirkwall, Fenris's history does at first glance share a lot of commonalities with Anders: he is an escapee who's managed to evade his captors for a few years now, and in Kirkwall he finds reason to settle down, though he is not out of danger yet.

But their paths start to diverge pretty much immediately.

First, let's just acknowledge that Kirkwall is, objectively, a safer city for Fenris than it is for Anders. That's not to say it is truly safe; Danarius is still hunting for Fenris and has connections in Kirkwall, and no human city is particularly safe for elves. Fenris finds himself pursued at some point in every act, culminating with Danarius himself in Act III.

Fenris is, however, much more able to defend himself against hired mobs of slavers operating illegally in the south than a lone apostate is able to defend him against an army of templars who have the backing of the city guard should they decide to actually come for him. Fenris's pursuers do not rule Kirkwall, and they don't have the guard on their side; they do not have a base of operations just a short boat ride away, and they are not sending troops to daily patrol the streets and look for a person of his description.

Had Fenris stayed in Tevinter, that would be exactly his situation, and if Anders had fled north, the templars tracking him would likely have faced more difficulty apprehending him. But this story doesn't take place in Tevinter, it takes place in Kirkwall, and Fenris has some advantage here just by nature of have escaped to the south.

Is Fenris truly safe in Kirkwall? No, and that's the setup for his whole character arc. The critical difference is that Fenris's arc is toward finding safety, while Anders' is not.

Let us note also that there is no one in Hawke's immediate friend group actively threatening to sell Fenris back into slavery. The Captain of the Guard, while she needles him about squatting in Hightown, also does not take the side of slavers. Even the pirate is against the trafficking of people. The only one in that group who has the potential to do such a thing to Fenris is Hawke, and only if Hawke decides to recruit Fenris, pretend to be his friend for seven years (even rivalries are still fundamentally friendships, just more challenging and complicated ones), before selling him out for, at most, a sum that should frankly be an insult to Hawke at that point in their career.

Hawke’s mage companions feel like threats to Fenris, yes, because his life experience has led him to conclude that no mage is truly safe. Anders and Merrill in particular represent the additional dangers of abominations and blood mages, respectively. But Anders’ core convictions pose a particular challenge not only to Fenris’ worldview, but to the very sense of safety he has only just begun to have.

Fenris spent most of his life enslaved and subjected to profound abuses. Since his escape to the south, he has found a sense of safety in the black-and-white concept that mages are dangerous and only non-mages can be trusted. If this is true, it means that in a world where mages are locked up, he can be safe. If what happened to him is, even in a broad sense, not unique to a land ruled by mages, then it could happen anywhere. (And unfortunately, that’s true. The slave trade is alive and well in the south, illegal though it may be, as we see in our many encounters with slavers.) If he admits to himself that many mages are just like him–subject to profound abuse and deserving of freedom—that sense of safety he is building for himself as a free man in the south is shattered. While he is still on the run, actively evading capture, this is not a possibility he is emotionally able to entertain.

It may be said that Fenris’s arc is about learning to let go of his anger; I disagree with that reading, or at least I think it is a very incomplete one. For one thing, it misses the very important point that the person his anger is for is still alive and actively pursuing him for most of the game. It’s easy to take Flemeth’s remark to Fenris, “The chains are broken, but are are you truly free?” as like, a philosophical statement, but no! He literally is not truly free so long as he still has to live as a fugitive, always looking over his shoulder, always waiting for the inevitable. He tells this to Hawke right in Act I: he will never truly be free until Danarius is dead, and if Danarius doesn’t show up eventually, Fenris will go hunt him down himself.

He is angry about this. He carries a deep rage not only for what has been done to him, what has been stolen from him, but also that even now Danarius is still taking from him and fucking up his life. Listen to the fury with which he says, “I was a fool to think I was free,” during “A Bitter Pill” in Act II.

And he needs that anger. Right now, that anger is still protecting him. It gives him the courage, as he says, to “turn and face the tiger.” His hatred of Hadriana compels him to seek her out and kill her rather than running again. And killing Hadriana is absolutely the right decision! There is nothing to be gained from leaving her alive, she certainly doesn’t deserve his mercy, and taking her out of the picture eliminates one more tool Danarius can use against him.

Where this scene shows Fenris’s need for growth is when he then lashes out at Hawke, regardless of their response. His anger isn’t the problem; his anger is valid and necessary. The problem is that it sometimes targets the wrong people: mages generally and his own friends in specific. But until Danarius is dead, Fenris cannot let go of that anger because it is necessary for his survival.

If you’re a Fenris fan, you know that moment in Act III in the Hanged Man, when he’s come to meet Varania and he sees Danarius. The expression on his face when the camera zooms in is nothing like the way he looks at Hadriana, with unfettered rage. The look when he sees Danarius is pure horror. He’s been waiting for this confrontation for ten years, but I think in that moment we realize he has also been terrified of it. He remembers what happened the last time he had a taste of freedom and Danarius came for him, and though he knows he has grown since then, those emotions are still there—the horror of having turned on the people who sheltered him, the shame of realizing how deep his conditioning was, the revulsion at what Danarius had made him. Anger has kept those feelings at a distance, but now, with Danarius before him at last, he must confront them all over again. Only this time, with friends at his back, he will fight.

With Danarius dead, it’s finally over. And whether Fenris chose to kill or spare his sister, he is now forced to confront the person he’s had to be to survive until this point.

The point of Fenris’s restlessness and dissatisfaction following his victory isn’t that killing Danarius was wrong or pointless. On the contrary: we have seen throughout the entire game that there was no other way for him to truly find freedom. At the risk of getting too clinical here, trauma (which includes long periods of unrelenting high stress) tends to leave people with emotions and coping mechanisms that were necessary for their survival at the time but become maladaptive once they are away from their trauma stressors. We have already seen this with Fenris, in the way his anger sometimes targets the wrong people, and Fenris himself is aware of this, at least in his interpersonal relationships: on his own initiative he seeks Hawke out to apologize after lashing out at them. In Act II, I think we even see the early stages of Fenris beginning to extend his circle of empathy after “Dissent,” when instead of calling Anders a monster, he suggests that Anders realize his limitations, adding that it was a suggestion, not a condemnation. I think it helps in that moment that Anders seems to take responsibility for what he did, or almost did, to Ella, even if he understandably does not react well to Fenris’s “suggestion.”

And now that Danarius is dead, Fenris is beginning to realize that while his fight for freedom is over, his path to healing has really just begun. There’s a reason he isn’t ready for a romantic relationship with Hawke until Act III, and it isn’t just that intimacy was triggering or the brief recovery of his memories upsetting. Until Danarius is dead, Fenris’s emotional growth really can only go so far, because he is still at least partly stuck in survival mode, and the anger and the blanket concept of “mages dangerous” are coping mechanisms he has developed in order to survive.

With Danarius dead, now Fenris can begin to let go. Now he can go further in examining who deserves his anger and who does not. Now he can begin to truly heal. And can he learn to sympathize with mages one day and stop seeing magic as the ultimate evil? I actually do think the answer is yes. But that’s at least a five-step plan, and his arc in the game is mainly concerned with accomplishing step 2. Step 1 was “Get out of Tevinter.” Step 2 was “make Danarius dead.” The next few steps are a lot less cut and dry, involving a lot of difficult emotional work. He has begun that process, but it’s a work in progress.

With friends to support his journey, I do think Fenris can still come a long way. I just don’t think he could possibly have gotten there before Act III.

Conclusions

Fenris and Anders are on very different journeys over the course of Dragon Age II. They cannot be friends or sympathize with one another in the timeframe of the game, not because they have nothing in common, but because neither of them are in a position to let their guard down in the ways they would have to in order to connect with each other. Neither of them have reached the level of healing they would need in order to do that, and it’s not possible for either of them to reach that point in the journeys they’re on during the game, with the stories the game is telling.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s not possible for them to reach that point in the future. Under the right circumstances, both of them may have the rest of their lives to heal and to grow.

[blood-and-pizza]

So I just saw somebody's rant about how Funtime Freddy was supposedly "massacred" because of how he was portrayed in "Count the Ways". How he's not supposed to be a sadistic killer but a happy, party-loving guy.

UM... I hate to tell you this, whoever you are, but Funfred is both a party-lover AND a sadistic murderer. He's BOTH. And it's totally okay to love the guy even with all his faults because HE'S A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.

I love my murder bear, thank you. I loved his portrayal in "Count The Ways". Yes, he's unhinged and what he does is wrong, but that's part of the reason he's such a compelling character. Yeah, he's also a fun-loving party guy, and I love that about him too. He's multi-faceted, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a wonderful thing!

I know I have an entire AU where none of the animatronics or humans have ever killed anyone, but that doesn't mean I don't love FNAF's original incarnation, bloody horror and all. Why else would I name my FNAF blog "Blood and Pizza"? I just like having a separate little world I occasionally like to visit in my mind to give me comfort, and sometimes I share it with people in order to exercise my creative muscles.

Funtime Freddy is a horror villain who is enthusiastic about his role, and I wouldn't have him any other way. I can't wait to see him again in Help Wanted 2.

[endoyamato]

i wanted to get into it in a diff post but basically i think it's. very cool/sad/interesting/amazing (depending on your personal read of this) that endo basically "fandomifies" his own life. he isn't living in the real world because he can't connect to reality, which is boring and unpredictable (<he thinks it's predictable, but i think the issue is that it ISN'T and that's why he has issues here). instead he views himself and people around him as characters to analyze, put in roles (the "the villains role is to destroy the world the heroes have built", positioning himself and takiishi etc as the villains in a movie), and described like works of art. look at how he talks about takiishi, yes, but also look at the meaning he put behind his tattoo (and probably his other tattoos, too) - he explained the sort of analysis you find in essays and "what did the author intend", not usually what you say about yourself/others. look at how he described takiishi and umemiya's fight, with the metaphors and everything, put in neat little boxes. endo cannot connect to reality, so he's made reality into his own fantasy. this is his inability to see other people and reality as multi-dimensional, but also.... his inability to see himself as such, too. he doesn't know his own depth and feelings and he's just now starting to understand the different facets people have - including himself.

[beesmygod]

JJBA PART 5, VENTO AUREO IS THE UNDERBAKED MESS I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT FIXING...PART 2

FIX 2: WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A PROBLEM LIKE GIORNO?

thats the homo photo of my dad

answer: i dont know.

the unfortunate and honest to god truth of the matter is that the protagonist of JJBA part 5, giorno giovanna, fucking sucks.

what if that little shithead from the twilight zone episode "it's a good life" was gay and watched "goodfellas". you might think "wow that sounds great" but, well, somehow it's not.

it is months later and i have been struggling with writing this for a bazillion reasons: i got sick, real life events occurred, i had to work on comic, i died, etc. but the most strenuous reason of all in the end was facing the impenetrable, tangled, and deeply complicated gordian knot that is the little ladybug loving bitch named giorno and not knowing where the fuck to even begin.

i had to think long and hard about how to approach the problem of "giorno giovanna". he is like a diamond of sucking ass: multi-faceted and beautiful in his perfection but is, ultimately, just a stupid fucking rock from the dirt. he completely lacks the innate charisma and personality inherent in previous jojo protagonists AND antagonists; despite having both the joestar AND brando gene pools to pull from, he manages to snag a net total of 0 personality traits. this problem is multiplied 100 fold once he starts actually doing things to move the plot along and the universe repeatedly bends itself like a pretzel in order to gift him undeserved and unrewarding (to us, the audience) win after win after win.

his theme goes hard as hell tho

if you were to ask me what is wrong with giorno, i would have no problem making a long and detailed list of why i want to slap the little cinnamon rolls of his head. i have no idea how to organize that list into a more coherent form of criticism that points at the overarching structural weakness of part 5. part 5 really, really wants you to like and root for giorno. it hinges on it. his victories are explicitly supposed to be emotionally and morally gratifying. they are instead trite and annoying.

for years, YEARS, my only experience with the entirety of part 5 outside of infamous panels and the most basic information about the story, was this incredible, evergreen and laser targeted tweet:

i thought this was a funny shit post. all i knew giorno had some kind of "life creation" power. what i didnt know was:

giorno says this exact line and then turns cars into frogs so that they (the bad guys) cant catch them (they do catch them)

giorno's power IS fucking stupid

i fucking hate him

he should stop using it

abbacchio was right. he was right about everything

how DO you talk about giorno? giorno's blandness permeates any situation he has the misfortune of attending and the parts of the narrative where he's missing for one reason or another are significantly improved by his absence. in comparison with the deuteragonists (bruno bucciarati) and tritagonists (the members of bruno's squad in the mafia family passione), he has all the flavor of a communion wafer. his character arc is non-existent. emotionally, he might as well have just gone to the store and back by the end of the story.

and, look, araki likes to play fast and loose with how powerful a stand is or what its abilities are. im not here to measure power levels or fucking whatever stupid shit people get up to. the more wild and insane he gets with his incredibly "unique" ""understanding"" of science and geometry, i'm 99% on board for. but giorno's stand, gold experience, is whatever the narrative needs it to be at any given time with no consistency. it's OP as hell long before he gets the 11th hour power boost; his stand has the extra trans-dimensional ability to remove any tension from a fight scene. through this, gold requiem can destroy the psyche of the audience, truly making it the most powerful stand of all time.

people used to love to bitch about not understanding how the villain's stand works in this part, but if anyone tells you they understand what the fuck THIS means they're lying to you.

anyway, there is only one solution i can think of when it comes to how to approach this: assess the major story beats in order. i think jumping around in the progression of events to highlight individual flaws in the character will not adequately impart the suffering one feels as an audience member while the narrative yo-yos between being rollicking good fun and being at the mercy of the little 15 year old twink with god mode on.

and so, having made it past koichi's tiny ass role (and his tiny ass) in the story and addressing how we can proceed, we can cover bruno (a genuinely wonderful character), polpo, and the wasted character building opportunity of the piss drinking scene, which vexes and infuriates me to this day. [thinking about the piss scene and getting mad again] ooooh!!!!

[some-pers0n]

Why does Scout have like three different personalities.

Like, yeah, yeah I know that Expiration Date was different cause it's kinda hard to tell a story like that when the character you're doing it with is this loud-mouth obnoxious guy, but like...he's so violently different in the game, comics, and Expiration Date.

I'm not the only one seeing this either, right? Like the comics flanderize him to hell and back. He can't read, has the social awareness of a walnut, and generally kinda lacks the wit that his in-game characterization has. The game itself shows him as his cocky and in-your-face dude who is a one-liner machine and basks in the glory of victory. Expiration Date takes a more nuanced approach, where he's more reserved and less obnoxious in exchange for honorably listening to Spy's advice and generally being kinda...calm and normal?

Like compare how Scout is treated in the comics to Expiration Date. It's like night and day. Expiration Date Scout has him sitting among all these books and reading, which Comic Socut doesn't know how to spell machine guns. Even the game version is different than them. I'm not the only one noticing, right?

Same character apparently

Could this be that he's a multi-faceted character? I highly doubt it, but, hey, more power to us idiotic fanfic writers who try to decipher this mess. It's pretty obvious TF2 was never really supposed to have a story and stuff like Expiration Date and the comics are different interpretations of the same vague character archetype. You're not supposed to think about his character so much as you're supposed to hear the funny words that they say and laugh. It's comedy first, story and plot second; which makes it a bit of hell to try and write about, but it's fine. We'll live

[midgardian-witch]

I am multi-faceted and can't decide between fluff and smut today. Lol. So, NSFW Snuggle and/or SFW Clothing for 🐺 (duh)? If you do the clothing one, maybe Jack wearing his girl's shirt? It's always the girl wearing the guy's stuff. Let's branch out. Lol. Jack is smol. It would work. Hah.

Sideways related, because wolf, but I'm enjoying the 10th Kingdom gifs you've been posting too. 👍

Glad you enjoy the 10th Kingdom content! I put that in my queue when I rewatched it some time ago so this is just perfect timing for more woof content 😂

I am going with the sfw prompt because it immediately gave me an idea (took a bit longer though because I saw your ask really late last night and was already half asleep by that point 😅). You did say girl's shirt (and I agree more boyfriends should wear their girlfriend's clothes) but it turned more gn!reader other than the mention of reader owning dresses (fashion has no gender but ya know).

Hope you like it 💙

Tangled Up

Send me a prompt and a character and I'll write a reader drabble

tags: fluff | Scent Kink (hinted) | established relationship | mentions of reader owning dresses | gn!reader

ships: Jack Russell/Reader

AO3

(edit: I just now realized I totally forgot to put the tags in. I am so sorry 😭)

(edit 2: added AO3 link)

[CLOTHING] Person A finds Person B wearing their clothing.

You were exhausted. If everything had worked out like you had planned you'd have been in bed cuddling with your boyfriend hours ago. But of course things didn't go like you wanted them to. 

The door falls closed behind you with a heavy thud. You throw your bag to the side carelessly and walk into your flat but there is no sign of Jack. You expected him to perk up at the first sign of your arrival but alas neither hide nor hair of your werewolf boyfriend in either the living room or kitchen. 

"Jack? I'm home, baby!" 

Your call is left unanswered. That's unusual. Your brows furrow as you wander your flat until you stand in front of your bedroom door. Inside you hear a soft whimper. Your heart sinks into your stomach, dread pulling it down heavily. 

Was Jack hurt? Is that why he didn't greet you as soon as you entered the flat? 

With panic rising in your throat you open the door. The sight that greets you takes your breath away. 

In what can only be described as a nest of clothing lies Jack, dressed in nothing but a very familiar looking hoodie. He's curled around your pillow, your pajamas squished between it and his face. Every inhale of air is followed by a soft little whine from Jack. 

He looks so cute that it hurts you physically. 

You clear your throat awkwardly and at the sound his face immediately pops up. As Jack sees you his eyes grow wide and with an excited yelp he tries to scramble off of his makeshift nest. In his haste he gets tangled in some of the laundry. It's an adorable sight, like a puppy stuck in a blanket. 

You try and fail to stifle your giggling as you watch Jack struggle to get out of his nest. You decide to have mercy on him and walk over to him. He looks up at you as you stand at the edge of the bed, his eyes sparkling with joy. Dear god, you were only gone for a while but you've missed him. And by the Look in his eyes know he missed you too. 

You lean down and place a soft kiss on his lips. 

"Sorry for keeping you waiting, love" 

"You're here now. That's what matters, mi amor."

Your eyes wander his handsome face and travel downwards to the hoodie he had wrapped himself in. On closer inspection you realize why it looked so familiar. 

"That's mine, isn't it?" 

Jack tries to hide his embarrassment and his face inside the hoodie. His antics make you laugh again. He mumbles something into the soft fabric that you don't quite catch. 

Your hands cup his face and you tilt his head up tentatively, his eyes looking right into yours. No words leave your lips, you just raise your eyebrow, silently asking him to repeat himself.

"It's all yours,” he admits, gesturing towards the piles and piles of clothing. Shirts, pants, dresses, underwear, everything he could get his hands on, “I missed you, mi vida. So I-...well…"

You can feel the heat in his cheeks against your fingers. You're breathless for a moment, your heart pounding in your chest. He had missed you so much that his first instinct was to surround himself with your things, your scent. 

The love you feel for him swallows you whole, like crashing waves pulling you down. It’s too much all at once, this ocean of emotion in which you'd gladly drown.

“I love you,” you choke out the words, tears of joy threatening to spill out at a moment's notice. His kind eyes watch you, his own breath caught in his throat as he recognizes the raw emotion on your face. His hands find yours against his cheek and he pulls them to his mouth, his lips peppering soft kisses to your palm and wrist.

“I love you too. More than words can describe.”

Jack pulls you towards him onto the bed. You follow his lead and join him on the pile of laundry that you’ll have to take care of at some point. But those thoughts were for later. Much later.

You lay together and bask in each other's presence. Jack curls around you like he had with your pillow before you found him and mirroring his movements you entangle your limbs with his until you don’t know where he begins and you end. You bury your face into his neck to breathe him in. You don’t need his enhanced sense of smell to notice how the scent of your favorite perfume that still clings to the fabric of your hoodie mingles with his own. You’re usually not the possessive kind and yet heat coils in your stomach.

You try to pull him even closer to you, only your clothes as a barrier between your two bodies. You want to feel his skin on yours but for now you are too comfortable just existing like this, with him curled around you and you curled around him in turn. A pleased sigh escapes Jack as you squeeze him tighter, his hands holding onto you like he never wants to let you go. And you return the sentiment. There is nothing that could come between you now, nothing that could make you let go of him. At least until you decide to strip Jack out of your favorite hoodie. 

[stormyoceans]

This couple even has multi-faceted breakups😂 (😭)

that's probably the one thing i can appreciate about this tbh, the fact that both mork and day are incredibly complex characters with very realistic emotions and motivations that, even if i don't like how they are being handled, i can still understand

this is why im kinda wondering if i would feel slightly better about the break up if they had led up to it a bit better, because while i get where the characters are coming from, i also feel like some of their feelings happened completely out of the blue. for mork in particular, it was obvious from the beginning that he carried a lot of guilt for p'rung's death, but before the second part of this episode, i've personally never felt like he lived in this constant fear of losing day to the point that he didn't trust day to be able to take care of himself without someone's hell. idk if i can explain myself but like.. in episode 10 day took a cab and got to mork's restaurant all by himself and mork didn't worry about it at all. in the first part of this episode he was the one to tell day's mom, "day's normal. he just can't see", and in this case the audience can believe he means it because throughout the show he has constantly tried to help day regain his agency and independence. so when, exactly, did he grow so paranoid?

and similarly, while day has never wanted to be pitied and the break up was as much because of that as it was because nothing else would have made mork actually take that job offer, it doesn't really match with what day has been saying all this time: "even if you want to [let go of my hand], i won't let you", "don't disappear"...... obviously it wasn't an easy choice for day, but. was there really no other way?

idk i just can't help but feel like there's something missing here that, if it really had to happen, would have made the separation at least feel more organic within the narrative