Where can I read about the envy demon stuff with Sebastian? :0 I’ve heard about the Nathaniel stuff but never heard of the envy demon stuff.
i am so glad you asked! unfortunately, there isn't really one place to read about this, but the idea comes from this tweet from one of the writers confirming that the envy demon as we know it in DAI was originally a concept intended for sebastian vael in the cancelled exalted march dlc.
the only other sebastian-related crumbs we have regarding this are a few pieces of concept art and notes you can find in this post but i'll also post the concepts here for youuu:
^ this is what i'm referencing in all my recent art! (obviously i cannot say with full confidence that all of these are 100% supposed to be sebastian, but. the boot fits. pale as the boot may be.. )
other than that, it's really just playing around with the idea of what it might look like and what it would mean for sebastian as a character if the dlc were to actually happen. i'm making the bold assumption that these two very different designs could potentially be the envy-possesed sebastian (or more like.. envy wearing sebastians skin, i guess) and the real one who's most likely locked away somewhere at the time, hopefully waiting to be rescued like the damsel in distress that he is (linking the wiki for the envy demon here too in case anyone needs it cuz it's a very special little critter). it's all just speculation and mourning what could have been based on these tiny bits of information, honestly. but you know.. sebastian fans will take any crumbs we're given. it's what we do.
i'm always happy to share more of my own thoughts/ideas about this! might post more art related to this in the future! i know exhausted-archivist also made a post about this some time back with some interesting ideas so i'll link that here too! but that's really all there is, as far as i'm aware. thank you for asking♡
I’m a big fan of reenactment archaeology. I think there’s a lot to be said for recreating a scenario to better understand decisions made in generations past. Usually there’s an inherent logic to them.
Which is to say, that now that I have a baby of my own, I understand so much better the common cultural practice in which unmarried women wear their hair loose and uncovered, while married women have their hair covered and/or bound back.
I doubt it was just for modesty, oh no. No, my friends, I see now that the reason for this common practice of mothers binding back their hair is because there is nothing, I mean nothing, a baby love more than YANKING EVERY STRAND OF HAIR THAT COMES WITHIN GRABBING DISTANCE OF THEIR STICKY, SWEATY, AND IMPOSSIBLY STRONG LITTLE HANDS.
It is necessary for my postpartum depression study for the moms to have their hair down (due to our science hats) and the second they put their hair down YANK
the job of the templars, and thus the knight-commander, is to further chantry interests. chantry interests have always been intertwined with orlesian interests. therefore, meredith is good at her job because she and elthina made the chantry (orlais) a strong political force in kirkwall, and greagoir is bad at his job because he's too busy being fooled by irving's old man yaoi tricks to help orlais invade ferelden again
went back and looked at the vague zevran references and this is just bc i enjoy being pedantic and also making myself mad for no reason ig, but the first time it's brought up, lucanis says oh the crows don't take many contracts in ferelden.
and then he waffles a little bit and says mmm yeah no we don't work there anymore, period. which could indicate a variety of things, but i'm choosing to interpret this as it's sort of poor form for a crow to a) talk abt this at all, especially to an outsider, and b) more generally, to imply that the crows are in any way tentative or anything less than professional. avoiding an entire country bc of an incident that took place two decades prior is, to put it mildly, what i would call unprofessional.
this also, quite frankly, demonstrates to me that it's not just house arainai that suffered the consequences of zevran's defection. this is a crow-wide understanding that ferelden is, best case scenario, heavily off-limits if not entirely forbidden.
lucanis is also, depending on how you interpret him shifting to saying crows don't take contracts there at all, wrong. awakening features not one, but two crow contracts in ferelden, and i think only one of them is choice-dependent.
the first is that bann esmerelle will take out a contract on the warden-commander's life. so either the crows try to kill a completely new warden (if the warden makes the ultimate sacrifice) OR they straight up try to kill the warden a third time after both zevran and taliesen fail.
THEN the crows steal the warden-commander's sword if the warden has it forged. and then they fucking lose it. so yes, i would say the crows repeatedly humiliate themselves in ferelden.
however, lol, lmao even, etc, only the first attempt on the warden's life was TECHNICALLY at loghain's behest. rendon howe is the person who contracts the crows on loghain's behalf, and loghain is like fine sure whatever, but loghain didn't ask him to do it and quite frankly doesn't seem thrilled. now granted, no reason, i suppose, for the crows to know that. the second and third crow contracts in ferelden have nothing to do w loghain, however. they were just abject failures without the sheen of foreign royalty to give them a little dignity.
then he backtracks. then he's like oh no it wasn't loghain, it's all house arainai's fault actually. this is more evasion on his part to me for several reasons, foremost among them is that house arainai is still like. a crow house. they still have a talon who participates in crow leadership decisions at least as of eight little talons. they weren't strong-armed into cuchillo status like house velardo was. lucanis can delicately imply that the crows did an internal review and make some cuts all he wants: nothing fundamental changed except crows like lucanis can single house arainai out as an embarrassment and an aberration. oh the rest of us? soooooooo good at our jobs.
i rly do think that it would have been more than possible for zevran to leave the crows without aligning himself w the warden — the crows repeatedly demonstrate that particularly when operating outside of antiva, they're not nearly the smooth, slick, sexy group of unflappable killers they assert themselves to be. even ignacio, for his own reasons, could v well at least try to kill zevran when he encounters him, but the most he can muster is some snide remarks and a shrug.
what zevran is lacking when he wakes up after failing to die on the job is not a will to live, but a purpose. he's spent his whole life being molded and tortured into being a crow. he's built his whole identity around it. he says he was arrogant, he says he felt himself to be the best crow out there, and it rly is rinna who seems to have shaken him out of it simply by.....................having convictions. eyes that gleamed like justice. being the sort of woman who'd align with a cult whose only stated aim seems to be putting their own choice of royal bastard on the throne instead of letting a crow house do it. she's willing to die before selling rosso noche out.
so he wakes up, realizes wait i'm not ready to die. maybe i don't want to die, maybe i just want things to be different. relatable! he has heroic impulses. he seems to love stories and poetry and romance. what's more heroic and romantic and worthy than saving the whole world? of course he's all in. of course choosing to annul the circle or massacre the dalish are the moments when he takes a stand. he doesn't know who he is, but he has, at least, a better idea of who he doesn't want to be.
but if you don't talk to him, if you don't show you're paying attention to what he says by giving him gifts that mean smth to him, if you treat him badly and make choices that repulse him.....................................like is the warden, at that point, any better than a crow master or grandmaster? oh so he's killing a bunch of ppl on behalf of this person who sees no reason to get to know him or treat him like a person? he's a blade in the warden's hand, and that's it? no wonder he'd go back to taliesen in that case. at least, in that scenario, if he goes back to taliesen, he's going back to someone he loves, someone who cared enough to come after him.
the crows don't have to be this all-powerful, always-competent organization. they just have to be zevran's whole world. the warden has the opportunity and ability to show him that there's more out there than what the crows would have his life be, and once he gets there, he's loyal to the warden to a worrying degree. the warden can choose to give him a new purpose in life, and then, if that warden cares abt him, to encourage him to do what he wants, whatever that might be. his arc is abt agency.
the crows' power, over zevran and just broadly, is all in their reputation. that's fragile. they need ppl, even ppl outside of antiva, to rly believe that they are the be-all, end-all of antivan government, antivan lethality, antivan honor, all of it. but they aren't. they're entirely reliant on the loyalty and fervor of the ppl they raise to be assassins, or at least for those ppl to believe the devil they know is better than the devil they don't. threatening that is what zevran ultimately does. "no one leaves the crows and survives!" but given the chance to be his own person, that's exactly what he does — and moreover, he doesn't spend his life hiding and on the run, he spends his life becoming the legend of the man who left the crows. he is publicly a crow who left the crows and survived.
by da2, it's established that he's actively trying to dismantle the crows. that codex entry is incredible. if he's alive, he's got ppl PANICKING. regular crows who aren't guildmasters are like. well maybe this guy has a point.
and that's the threat. that's the terror. that's why the crows won't take contracts in ferelden. it has nothing to do w loghain, and it rly doesn't have all that much to do w the blight or the grey wardens or indeed The warden. it's bc that's where a crow went to stop being a crow and succeeded.
Yeah, I agree. Zevran has probably reached a level of folk hero and high status defector - famously a participant in the lightning fast suppression of the Fifth blight, now turned outright advocate for dismantling the Crows - that he definitely poses an ideological threat that might undermine Crow leadership's control over its junior members. I can't imagine Crow leadership isn't terrified by the insinuation that they are not the be all and end all of Antivan national and cultural identity - in fact we see Teia and Viago get really defensive and nasty about this with Antiva's bureaucratic and royalist factions. And we know it's an ongoing power struggle, we heard Zevran in the first game talk about the Crows' efforts to control Antivan government. So when Zevran might possibly be the most famous Antivan in Fereldan's recent cultural memory - and one who has sided emphatically against the Crows - it's definitely a risk that any Crow who goes there might listen in on people talking favorably about this guy, who is both quintessentially Antivan and also staunchly anti-Crow, and might start to get ideas(tm) about how that could be them.
But I also must wonder about cause and effect, how much of this is top-down vs bottom-up? The Crows really are integrated into Antiva as a major cultural/political/economic institution. I can't imagine that institution doesn't have international political and trade interests. And refusing to take contracts with a whole country, when taking those contracts is a means of infiltrating and exerting control over the country who is putting out those contracts... It's a huge arena to just write off in its entirety. And it doesn't seem impossible to me that Fereldans themselves have become less willing to work with the Crows. As you mentioned, Loghain doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of the institution, and we might assume his daughter, would-be-queen Anora, doesn't hold them in high esteem either. Would-be-king Alistair seems to have a similarly low opinion. The Crows seem in stark contrast with the Fereldan cultural values. And their role in the story of the Fifth Blight, and their failures in DAA, seem like it might discourage other potential Fereldan clients. So I do feel I'm left to wonder how much the avoidance of Fereldan is the Crows not wanting to play in the dog den, and how much it's the dog den no longer wanting to play with them. Deterioration of cordial international relations on both sides.
rly RLY love this aspect!!!!! loghain i think is so generally opposed to foreign interference, good or bad, that his displeasure makes sense — and howe and esmerelle are meant to be p unambiguously distasteful ppl, not upstanding fereldans. now i'm rly enamored of a worldstate where the crows sort of try to extradite zevran. anora has good cause to refuse bc she? doesn't know that guy? she has a country to rebuild. way more loaded if it's king alistair who can give all the diplomatic responses he wants, he's going to be stuck looking like he's protecting zevran bc they're rumored to be friends.
it also tracks that the crows would be far more inclined to say WE chose not to do business with THEM rather than having to admit that it's v knotty and embarrassing and the exact opposite of sexy/suave/cool. ewwww dogs
it's interesting to try and figure what, exactly, antivan royalty is doing. like this is still not, you know, a constitutional monarchy or whatever. part of it is that the crows are in bed w the crown in one way or another and certainly seem super used to fucking around w the line of succession. but then you have queen mother asha campana who made sure antiva is so interconnected w the rest of thedas that "any hostile act would force half of thedas into warfare." another point in the 'fereldans think the crows are more trouble than they're worth' column: brother genitivi fucking HATES the crows. this codex entry is so mean and funny!!!
so antivan royalty does have a significant part to play in international relations. and the crows deciding they're breaking up w ferelden is extremely funny w that context bc the crows are always fighting for antiva, blah blah blah, and also they have this big petty grudge that's rly causing problems for whichever poor (maybe literal) bastard is on the throne who has to sit next to anora or alistair at some banquet. important to me that zevran is causing international incidents.
would you look at that, fandom.com has started adding completely content-blocking popups to their page that totally prevent you from using the site unless you turn ad block off.
it sure would be a shame if people went to their URL bar and typed "anti" in front of "fandom.com" in order to go to the antifandom.com mirror of the page they were trying to reach, which shows all the same content but without any ads,
I have many dreams of soaring hawks, eagles, and vultures and sometimes my favorite dreams are simple ones like this. Unfortunately I tried carving this on rubber so I could print it on a shirt later, but with my blade the rubber just wanted to tear in jagged edges, the original idea was much cleaner, but hopefully this conveys the joy of riding thermals.
I’m reading this book about the changing arctic and the author stayed with the Nunamiut people of inland alaska for a while and talked to this high school kid who was like “ugh I hate going to school in the spring I wish I was hunting caribou” and I thought that was charming. you often hear about people who are devoted to preserving their traditional culture and knowledge but it’s rare to hear about someone who’s invested in the old ways out of pure teenage selfishness. school is lame and hunting caribou is awesome
Personally I feel like Anders and Justice are a Venn diagram of a person? I've seen some people interpret them post-possession as being two different people and others as being one person, but to me the "not even the greatest scholar could tell you where he ends and I begin" line feels more like they overlap? Like, sometimes it's 100% Anders (eg. terrible jokes) or 100% Justice (eg. Night Terrors), but most of the time it's varying degrees of both? Plus they'd influence each other's personality.
[ID: a venn diagram. on one side reads “Anders” and on the other it reads “Justice.” where they overlap it reads: “Poor Ser Pounce-a-lot. He hated the deep roads. He was a gift. A noble beast.” End ID.]
So for y'all who don't know, Everclear is some serious shit. Your typical hard alcohol is gonna range from 30-50% alcohol by volume. Your vodkas, rums, and gins will sit around the 30-40% range with whiskey and bourbon being closer to the 50% mark.
Everclear? Everclear is at a minimum 60%, the good news is that bottle is thankfully the minimum 60%. (You can tell by it being 120 proof, to get percentage you just halve the proof.)
Everclear is grain alcohol and not flavoured, so it's pure; unadulterated alcohol taste in that bottle. And, the amount she poured in to that tin based on ratio basically turned the concoction in to citrus flavored paint thinner.
Everclear is the stuff you like, get to spike a big punch bowl of something, not usually something you use in a cocktail.
Everclear used to come with a warning on the bottle to make sure you store it in a cool place, refrigerated if possible, because if stored above a certain temperature it can spontaneously combust.
Would you happen to have any idea of why Bug type Pokemon are strong against Psychic types? The leading theory is that it's a common phobia overpowering the mind, but that doesn't feel like a route Japanese developers would take, what with bugs having much stronger positive connotations in their culture. The idea that bugs' minds are too simple to be effected by psychic powers also doesn't feel like something they'd go for. It just seems like utter nonsense to me.
Pokemon in general is based on kaiju and tokusatsu, and insects are simply the most iconic recurring aesthetic for tokusatsu heroes, which I've discussed before as the reason bug type beats dark type
HOWEVER, I think I forgot to ever get into why psychic would be included, which is that the VILLAINS in tokusatsu itself are almost always psychic or magical or employ psychic or magical underlings. I only say "almost" because I can't rule out an exception is out there, but I've actually never seen an exception. 100% of tokusatsu I'm familiar with have magic or mysticism somewhere in the bad guy faction, and it's often that the evil big boss is some kind of demon, witch, yokai, wizard or god themselves.
So thanks to one television genre, there is an unspoken cliche in japan that a beetle or a locust would be the archest nemesis of a telepathic warlock, and usually win.
I do wonder why Bug is weak against Fairy, though. From a game balance standpoint I would've expected them to want to give the Bug type another advantage if they got the opportunity. Is a fairy more heroic than a bug?
