Evior Wolfsmal is a Big Lesbian & Kassandra is Super Queer. I stan queer assassin rights and more hot romanceable rpg women npcs who are big and beefy. Multifandom sideblog for @verberation
Alright, friends and folks, it's been a great as a niche AC Creed blog, but the hyperfocus just isn't what it was. But rather than let this Kassandra's Muscles Appreciation Society slide into a gentle death, I'm broadening the subject of this niche side-blog out a bit. So good news! There'll be way more og posts and reblogged goodness coming to dash near you!
I'm still reblogging Kassandra thirst and AC related content but it's also gonna broaden out into more video games and meta and gay thirst for hot video game women.
Expect hence forth:
- Assassin's Creed
- Mass Effect
- Dragon Age
- Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2
- Horizon Zero Dawn & Forbidden West
- Legend of Zelda
- and other video game nerd, memery, and gay thirst abounding.
(Average Metropolis reader after investigative reporter C. Kent's 452nd article on yet another case of landlords/business owners/factories' continued use of lead pipes/paint/gas/glass knowingly exposing the public to dangerously toxic lead levels) what the fuck happened to this guy
One day Bruce Wayne mentions in an interview that heroes like Superman are overrated, as the most effective way to reduce crime is to provide public resources and improve local infrastructure, then cites how neighboring city Metropolis has effectively lowered their violent crime by 13% after addressing their outdated water system and investing low income housing. the reporter conducting the interview suddenly starts looking a little uncomfortable
"Who, Clark Kent? Yeah, we're pretty sure he's a Meta. Is he a superhero? Like what, "Lead-detector guy"? "Captain pipes?" Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and it's a handy trick, but it's lead detection, not laser vision. He's not about to go running around in tights any time soon."
everyone assumes that kent is so squirrely around superheros because he’s just desperately hoping not to be conscripted to the JLA to fix their plumbing
(mob boss voice) What's the matter? Ain't you never seen a skald before? This here guy composes verse to record our, like, magnificent deeds an' shit. (LOUDER) Ey Bragi! Gimme one of those fuckin eddas again!
i wish sera got more credit for being insightful. "bull, you like overthinking, right?" is a cutting call, particularly when bull spends a lot of his conversational time making himself out to be a guy who doesn't like thinking, and in fact likes fighting and fucking preferably to the exclusion of all else.
Every time I see art of Kaidan glowing, I remember the line from the Citadel DLC where he says that he also glows blue when he's drunk, and I truly believe that there was a scene like this at some point in his and Shepard's relationship.
Kaidan (drunkenly stumbles into the captain's cabin): Shep- Sheprrrd! Sheprr... I just... I just wanted to say that I... that I love you and I need you and I'LL NEVER LEAVE YOU AGAIN! And when it's over and we win, we'll go to Vancouver and we'll get married and we'll adopt a dog or a kid or... something... and it'll be great. We'll be so happy and... and... MY PARENTS ARE GREAT! IT WILL BE SO GOOD!
Shepard, who has just fallen asleep after a 16-hour shift:
I was reading a piece of fan fiction about a girl so beautiful, all the heroes wanted to make her their wife, yet so powerful, no villain dared fighting her. Instead they sought legal action against her.
Had to lay it down, I can't stand these marry/sue characters.
I'm looking at you with very narrowed orbs right now
So, I can't say what the point of The Doomed City trope is - it's a useful trope and most useful things have many, many uses - but one of its functions is that it produces a narrative where saving only yourself is still heroic. In fact, the only thing you can do is save yourself.
The City will, of course, try to tempt you to stay so you can save others. But this The City's oldest and best trick. Everyone it traps lures a few more in. Everyone in the city is trapped there trying to save someone else. You could all leave if everyone let go all at once. But no one does.
No one but you.
The archetypical Doomed City is, obviously, Soddom and Gomorrah. It's a city doomed by god. The challenge to save it is to find ten good people. This fails. The people leave. They're told not to look back.
The one who does is turned to salt. Her family moves without her. They don't look back.
You can only save yourself.
It's an old story. Not perfectly told, but that's normal for things that invent archetypes. Easy to see now that it lowers the stakes if everyone there "deserved it". Who was she looking for back at then? The message is in the complexity - in the conflict. You want to save everyone. You can only save yourself.
Dragon Age II is frankly one of my favorite Doomed City stories. It's not as in your face about it as the other examples. In the beginning, Kirkwall looks like a safe haven. It has hope. You see the slums and the alienages and the desparation, but that kind of thing exists in every video game. You're different. You're the main character. You're Hawke. The city eats people, but it won't eat you.
It doesn't.
It eats your family. You arrive there, and you work, and you're trying to restore the family name, the crest, all of that, and your little sibling is joining with you, and no matter what you do, you will lose them to the city. One down.
Act II gets your mom next. Gamlem survives, but he does it through technicalities. He's so ruined that killing him would be a technicality. And he's so far removed from family that it feels like a technicality too. The city steals strength from its people. Gamlem has nothing left to steal.
And the circle only expands out. In some way during the rest of the story, Hawke will lose friends. Anders is not saveable. Your first time through, there will be more than just him. You can make up for your failures in saving your friends by trying to save the city, but even that's just a mirage. Anders takes that with him in the end too. You save the city from your enemies. You damn it with your friends.
In the end, the only person Hawke can save is themself. By leaving. And in turn, that seems to be what saves the city.
In terms of things that I really like, having the story pry all the heroism out of your fingers is kind of a unique experience in a game. It's strange to have such relatable goals, save your family, save your friends, save your town, and still fail. You get a sense of all those people that arrive in the city, thinking they'll be different. And you strangely aren't. You fail the same way they all do, just in a bigger way. Same type, different scale.
Fantastic writing for a 7/10 game. My go to wire mother.
Cyberpunk 2077 pulls the trope off less well, despite being a much better game. It's my go to cloth mother. The setting is so bleak, and ever quest is so brutal that you never really feel like you're going to be an exception. The game makes it extremely clear, right off the bat, that there are no happy endings in Night City. And in doing that, it kind of spares you the slow breaking the DA2 inflicts. Instead there's just a slow horror. You're always waiting for something to go wrong. It always does.
The heist fails because there's no other way it could go. Almost every character you befriend has their life made worse for it. The one time that isn't true is Panam, but even then it's... iffy.
The Devil ending is horrific. The Sun ending is, no matter what, a final blaze of glory that will only lure more people to Night City. Your legend will only add to that of the city. Temperance kills your character, but Johnny lives... and then pursues his own happily ever after by leaving town.
The happiest ending is the Star. You leave. You don't look back.
I've never played DA2 but this description paints a really interesting picture. Agency (the player's ability to change things) is one of the biggest things that is unique to games as a medium. Tragedy as a genre often explores the idea of powerlessness, of your best not being good enough. We often like to imagine that if it was us, we'd escape the tragedy. We'd pull the right levers, we'd know when to give up, we'd save them. But put a tragedy in the game medium and you can show the player that no, they couldn't escape it any more than Orpheus could refrain from looking back. Games are about giving power to the player, so taking that power away can be really interesting, especially if you leave the player wondering if they could have saved them had they just made the right choices.
Dragon Age II is one of those games that, tragically, is much better on paper. It had a horrificaly rushed development schedule (18 months) so it's combat is kind of jank, and they reuse dungeons to the point that it is EXTREMELY noticeable, and it's just kind of a messy and poorly executed game. Despite having extremely, extremely good writing.
It is the #1 wire mother game in my heart. #2 is Mass Effect 1, if that gives you any sense of comparison.
i always forget that fenris is a mercenary in general, presumably as well as what he does with hawke. how offended do you think the party acts when he’s busy with a different job
PLEASE let there have been a job where hawke got hired to attack some place and fenris got hired to guard it and hawke is like “we aren’t seriously doing this are we” and fenris is like “does my word to my employer mean nothing to you” and hawke is like “really” and fenris is like “do the two sovereigns i am getting for this job mean nothing to you”
#da2 is literally the best b/c they're a bunch of dried up 30+ year olds with a regular bar spot #and problems that scale from stupid to state warfare (via @pendwick)
there are many dragon age lines that hit. but your abusive alcoholic mom dropping this on you as a casteless dwarf has got to be one of the rawest realest quotes in the franchise
"You can try, but you'll never get it off you. Dust Town... it sticks to the skin. You don't bleed red enough for them, and nothing's gonna change that."
Any thoughts on alcohol in the Avatar universe? (Lt. Jee is sitting down for a drink in my fanfic and all I can think of is “fire water” which is pretty basic and I think a western/fantasy thing.)
I would recommend against using the term "firewater", as it has been associated with racism and abuse towards the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Something to consider is that "Asian Flush" would be very common in the ATLAverse. For those who don't know:
Alcohol flush reaction is a condition in which a person develops flushes or blotches associated with erythema on the face, neck, shoulders, ears, and in some cases, the entire body after consuming alcoholic beverages.
The reaction is informally termed Asian flush due to its frequent occurrence in East Asians, with approximately 30 to 50% of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans showing characteristic physiological responses to drinking alcohol that includes facial flushing, nausea, headaches and a fast heart rate.
In short, anywhere from a third to half of all East Asians cannot fully metabolize alcohol. I'm partially East Asian and I get very intense Asian flush, meaning that I cannot handle my liquor at all. I turn bright red after drinking half a can of IPA beer. After two cans of IPA, I actually become obnoxiously hyper and loud, and the effect will last for hours. Basically, alcohol is to me, what being fed after midnight is to a Mogwai.
In the context of the ATLAverse, this make me wonder if alcohol is more tightly regulated in their world than ours. After all, a significant percentage of their world's population can manipulate the elements, so combining that with an inability to metabolize alcohol seems like a recipe for disaster. Maybe there's a prohibition movement specifically for benders in Korra's time?
There's also a theory that there's a strong correlation between historical rice cultivation and Asian flush. According to one study, only 14% of Tibetans get Asian flush. Similarly, Inuit people generally don't Asian flush, either. Both of these cultures traditionally practiced nomadism, rather than sedentary rice farming.
Meaning that in a social drinking scenario...
Toph, Zuko, and Suki would get absolutely shit-faced
Toph and Zuko would become literal safety hazards
Aang, Sokka, and Katara would be left to deal with the chaos
Meanwhile, Suki would probably just be drunkenly singing "Secret Tunnel" for the hundredth time in the corner.
This is an interesting subject so I think I'll split it into two parts. In Part 2, I'll cover possible alcoholic drinks in the ATLAverse.
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