luckyheavens

Unfortunately I LOVE being passive-agressive I post whatever comes to mind

[pawthorn]

As always, I'm so here for Aabria and her attention to the world, both the small details and the larger implications, how grounded her character is in its histories and realities, using that character knowledge to put things together and move things forward so swiftly elegantly, cutting through confusion and argument.

"Wasn't Thjazi called Shadow?"

Tossing the Iron nail to Julien.

Quickly cutting through all the noise to reveal the truth.

While playing Thaisha, Aabria is so conscious of the world and Thaisha's worldview. As a woman whose religious culture has been persecuted nearly to extinction. As a person from a race that every other race of Aramán was happy to leave in subjugation; the suffering of the Runjani was a fair price for their comfort.

You can viscerally feel this in her gentle but clear acknowledgement of Bolaire, her tone when she asked him why he was so angry.

"What exactly do you find to be foolishness, Bolaire?"

The calm, despite the fact that, when it comes down to it, he is angry that the actions Thjazi set in motion blew up his comfortable life. The same actions that liberated the Runjani afterlife. He doesn't think "a couple hundred" Runjani souls are worth it.

"So you're not angry, you're afraid."

It reminded me of when Aranessa was breaking down and overwhelmed because her life was blown up and she has to make hard decisions to move forward. Thaisha used the same gentle, but firm tone then.

"You always had to make a choice and the world was always chaos. It's just touching you now."

There's such weight and truth behind the way Aabria carries Thaisha. I look forward to her Soldier table, but I feel for what the rest of the tables will be losing without her presence.

[shinobicyrus]

The private meeting between Yanessa and Primus was such a great guide into their characters and ideologies. Really, the crux of it for me was Yanessa asking: "Do you discount the utility of commoners, Primus?"

I think Yanessa understands better than any of the other Sundered Houses that the greatest threat to their rule comes from ordinary people because, in the end, they depend on those people. She was old enough to remember the Shapers, the gods, and saw their demise. "I suppose to the Shapers, we were all commoners," she added in a pointed comment to Primus.

One he doesn't even pick up on. He scoffs ordinary people as "dretch" and is trying to build a world in which he will never have to concern himself with them. Regardless of what the Tachonis' ultimate design is, it's the classic project of an oligarch drunk on his own power: just create a world in which you never have to interact or even worry about the poors ever again. He's Bezos on his island fortress, he's Elon trying to get to Mars. It's stupid, short-sighted, and relies on the brute force of his magic to plug all the holes in his leaky submersible of a plan.

Yanessa, meanwhile, took the lessons of the Shaper's fall and created the Candescent Creed, a new faith, to fill the religious void left by the toppling of the gods. It's quite clever really, because it's a system of control that uses the illusion of consent for people to happily embrace the rule of a new god.

Through the Creed, House Halovar is able to expand its wealth and influence further than any other Sundered House. Through the Luxes, they're even able to create an entirely new pool of spellcasters to bolster their power that don't need to have been born to a sorcerous bloodline. No other House can boast that except perhaps House Cormoray and its taking over the education of wizards through the Penteveral. Which is only one institution in one city.

Wizards are still rare, but Luxes seem to be everywhere.

Primus is twisted, dangerous, and as arrogant as he is powerful, but I don't really think he'll end up being the Final Boss of this Campaign. Yanessa Halovar, the Photarch, the "resurrected" theocrat dissolving entire governments to the applause of new converts feels like a much, much bigger threat to our party of freedom fighters. Because unlike Primus, she's so very good at convincing commoners that obedience to her bright and shiny lie is freedom.

[everroth]

Hey so have we all considered that these are the thoughts that kept indigenous kids from running away from residential schools? Or was that just me because I already see her as a scoop baby?

"and I do look back realizing that every opportunity I have had to leave the house of the Candescent Creed has been a really big party for me. I love to be out, and I love to meet people, and I love to see the goings on of the city around me. This time doesn't feel so good. And I'm realizing, as I sort of shake some rain off of my little floppy ears, that I'm maybe a little bit more domesticated than I once thought I was." / "Doing the right thing, that's supposed to come with immediate rewards, right? Otherwise, what makes it the right thing? Certainly, your material conditions having immediately deteriorated past the point of familiarity, that can't be what good deeds are rewarded with. If that were the case, then people would be behaving selfishly all the time."

There are so many "runaways" that were never heard from again, or who were found dead, like Chanie Wenjack. Chanie Wenjack was 12 when he died of exposure and starvation after running away from a residential school in the Fall of 1966. The peak in number of residential schools was in fact after that in 1968/1969. Meaning that his story hit national news and they opened more schools within the next two years. The last residential school funded by the Canadian government closed in 1997. For 31 years there were still kids who ran and went missing, and we'll likely never know who went missing and how many are just dead because there are stories of the bodies being burned and there are hundreds of unmarked graves of children whose parents are themselves long dead by now.

And they would've heard the stories and been sent away by their parents and told to stay because it would be "safer" that way, and that if they couldn't stay, then come straight home. There would've been so many that would know that once they're 21 they lose status and have to leave the reserve, so "you gotta listen up so you can make it in the world without us and get your citizenship".

Tyranny is very much the kind of demon that always going to have to live in Aramán, so the parallels to Tyranny's dad sending her to the Halovars, who he knew to be harvesting souls through his warlocks, and demanding Tyranny return to the Pit immediately upon the breaking of her contract with Wick if that happens, and Tyranny not being encouraged to explore the wider world at all except under chaperone from these people she was sent to until completing the deal where she gets taught how to be a good religious girl despite knowing it's fake and not believing are stark to me. Especially after Tyranny's question to Tsul'Rekshi and the notes about having an Aramán language name rather than a Pit language name and the way the pious demon there acted about Tyranny fitting in with the Creed and 'being saved'.

If you thought conversion therapy, that too, but also what do you think residential schools were if not conversion therapy for being not white?

They were designed to "get rid of the Indian problem" and the intention was "to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question" by teaching them how to be Christian and good. And yes those are exact quotes of the man who introduced the legislation that made it mandatory under the Indian Act to send your indigenous kids to residential school.

Also, there are still federally funded "Indian Boarding Schools" in the US. There's less abuse, but as of 2023, at one school students were not taught about the history of the very school they were in because the principal believes, and I quote "All I can do is just go forward from where we are now and not dwell on the past. I'm not a person that looks in the rearview mirror all the time, I don't let things like that distract from the work that we're doing now and what we want to do." So it's not like it's a retired issue at all.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

I liked what episode 31 changed about the dynamic between Hal and Bolaire.

It’s clear that they have been very close for years, with Hal’s kids even callung Bolaire “Uncle Bolaire”. This is someone Hal has trusted implicitly. Hal killed a man and put Bolaire onto an enemy to possess them. He has been unsettled – by the revelation of Bolaire’s nature and the enmity between Thjazi and Bolaire – but it didn’t fundamentally change things until now.

And it chamged things because Hal walked in to see Bolaire possessing a friend, an employee, a man for whom Hal was responsible and to whom Hal had offered sanctuary. Hal’s anger and worry in that moment were completely natural, and I think it altered how Hal saw Bolaire.

That doesn’t necessarily reflect well on Hal. Up until now, the people Bolaire was possessing were anonymous or enemies. Now that it’s a friend, the implications of Bolaire casually considering hinself entitled to do this to whomever he likes, whenever he likes hit home. And I think the fact that Bolaire is wearing Misha through the rest of the conversation strongly affects how Hal is responding to him. I think he’s starting to realize why Thjazi regarded Bolaire the way he did.

It’s not that Hal stopped seeing Bolaire as a person. It’s that, for the first time, the person Bolaire was wearing was a person to Hal.

To me as a viewer, it also further highlighted a element that’s already been shown: Bolaire is a sadist. We’ve seen it in how he taunts the people he possesses, and in his focus on spells that distort people’s minds, but in this episode we saw how easy it was for him to make it not unpleasant for his hosts to be worn, which made it stand out all the more that he has been choosing to torture them for no reason other than personal enjoyment. (It’s not yet clear to me whether being worn by Bolaire inherently kills his hosts, or if it’s because of his neglect of the bodies; either is possible.)

I find Bolaire a fascinating character, and “he’s a poor little persecuted woobie whom everyone is mean to” is the single least interesting take on him. (Or on anyone. Nothing turns me off even a character I’m enjoying faster than posts on how everyone else in the party is mean and/or neglectful of poor little them – I’ve seen it for Occtis, Azune, Julien, Wick.) I’m really hoping more of the contradictions in him get dug into in the next arc. Because it’s not fair that he, a sapient being, was created only as a weapon and created in a form that can only exist by possessing people; it’s complicated that revolutionaries seeking freedom used this means of doing so; it’s complex that Thjazi likewise blackmailed and exploited Bolaire. He’s a being who is inherently, and always, both exploiter and exploited, and within the thematic context of the story I think there’s a ton that can be done with that. (And the ideas about ‘ploughshares’ and transformations suggest that it may not be an inalterable condition…)

[reineydraws]

i'm so invested in them 😭💖 the not-couple of all time tbh

based off a screenshot of aabria and liam!

they gave us so many good halsha moments in the convergence episodes :') thank youuuu aabria and liam!!! 🙏🙏

[pippinsqueaks]

So episode 30, huh?

[jadeiivy]

This was supposed to be a little fun doodle before bed. I was supposed to go to sleep 4 hours ago. I LEARNED DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR THIS!!!!

(I fear Thaisha is a fucking badass and this scene has me in a chokehold. Aabria knocked it out of the park with this one.)

I might do some edits at some point but I am simply ✨too tired✨ to care. I hope this sparks joy in some of the Critters and may the Light shine on you☀️

Bonus of the individual frames:

[honourablejester]

Oh my fucking god, Thaisha fucking Lloy. Wreathed in storm, surrounded by her people, priestess of her city, telling this foreign false faith to fuck right off before they get hurt. Oh my god.

Like, the difference between the Thaisha of the ritual, the gentle shepherdess guiding lost souls through grief and joy to freedom, and then this Thaisha Lloy, stone cold, stone faced, just flatly daring anyone to touch what is hers. No explanations, no nothing. Just flat, this is the way it is because I say so. Do we have a problem?

I am getting Delenn of the Minbari flashbacks, because Thaisha Lloy just made a whole combat just go away. Tail between their legs.

There's all these Magpies in the background with their crossbows, Vaelus, Azune, Hal, Murray, half of damned Dol Makjar ready to have a fucking go, and none of it is needed.

Just Thaisha. Just a Lloy. Casually ready to stand her ground.

Hot damn.

[samuraiko]

The language that Azune is using...

So after C4E30 and hearing Luis use the word "Inxolotle" for "remember", I was racking my brain trying to figure out what language he might be using. (The joys of being a linguist.) At first, I thought it might be Nahuatl but no (though I wondered if it might be a related dialect), so... I just asked him!

Now we have it straight from the sorladin's mouth. :D

EDIT: Apologies for forgetting to put alt text on the screencap, I have updated it!

[junglejim4322]

90% of age gaps don’t matter when you’re a grown adult as long as you don’t have a repeated pattern of dating people barely legal. I would date someone 30 years older than me if I liked them who gaf

[junglejim4322]

This entire conversation is somehow 90% people infantilizing themselves and 10% actually people talking about the issue of men who never grow out of dating 18/19 year olds. No it is not a big deal when a 25 year old dates a 35 year old please get a grip

[junglejim4322]

Honestly if you’re in your mid twenties infantilizing yourself on this level maybe you shouldn’t be dating anyone

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Chimes with a thought I've had for a while, actually; sleep deprivation might mean I explain this badly, but:

What a red flag actually means: something here is an indicator of a potential problem (but might be fine with a reasonable explanation)

What people have now decided it means: abuse

I've lost count of the number of times I've now had to read variants of "My partner takes all my money and gives me back an allowance because he says it's a man's job to control finances, but he's racking up gambling debts" being met with "Wow this man is a walking red flag" no Becky that is abuse. That is not an indicator. He is an abuser. Call the police. We have lost the concept of a proxy: a thing that indicates a more important thing. And it's relevant to this conversation because I'm actually going to go out on a limb here:

With the obvious exception of paedophilia, age gaps themselves aren't a problem at all - they are a proxy for the actual harmful phenomenon. Hea me out, let me explain

The reason we don't like age gaps is because of the implied power dynamic. If one partner, usually male, is older than other - particularly if the other is still quite young - the risk is that what we're seeing is a worldly wise predator who is exploiting the lack of life experience of a young beautiful woman by mentally abusing her until she's no longer young and pretty enough to satisfy, at which point he'll move on to the next. There have been enough examples of this in human history. It's unfortunately not an uncommon pattern. Genders can also be diverse in this scenario

We can't necessarily see that dynamic from the outside. But we CAN see an inherent element of it: the ages of the people involved. So age becomes a proxy for the abuse. And, hey, it's often correct.

But here's the thing: the ages themselves are not causing harm.

The power dynamic is. The abuse is.

Plenty of age gap relationships are loving, healthy and steadfast. Two people met and genuinely fell in love regardless of the outer packaging, and have a relationship with all the highs and lows and challenges and rewards as any more traditional pairing. This happens all the time

Is the age gap a red flag? Sure! It indicates a potential issue.

Is it inherently abusive? Absolutely fucking not.

OP is right - we need to stop focusing just on the numbers and twisting the facts to fit by infantilising the younger partners, and start focusing on the actual harms. The DiCaprio Pattern of only dating under 24s repeatedly is itself a proxy, too, actually - but a much stronger one than the simple presence of an age gap.

(Even so, in DiCaprio's case, until any of his former partners come forward and describe him as abusive, actually, even that is up in the air - my personal interpretation, given how strong a pattern it is, is that he's a loser who views women as trophies (consciously or not). If any have come forward and I don't know about it, of course, fair enough. But those women were adults capable of making their own decisions, even if they might later come to regret it. And regretting poor decisions is part of life! That's how it goes, particularly with relationships. As long as they weren't abused, there's no biggie. And just as he was looking for young-and-beautiful, there's no way they weren't, on some level, looking for rich-and-famous; it goes both ways.)

Also, another element of this: I think a lot of modern extreme puritan discourse on this is actually ironically down to the age of those taking part. Up until your late 20s, ten years is actually a huge span of time to you, because in your own life you were in a completely different developmental phase ten years ago (teenager), and a completely different phase again ten years before that (child). That skews your sense of what a ten-year gap means. Whereas once you're in your 30s and beyond, ten years is like. Yeah I was an adult ten years ago, and I still am now. That's two adults. Who cares.

(Anyway I am hoping and praying I explained that well enough, and also that Tumblr's famous reading comprehension skills are solid enough to follow)

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

Kattigan, man who lost his daughter in extremely traumatic circumstances was just stuck in a sack listening to Primus being like: "Yeah I killed my son, what of it?"

Kattigan was ruined for years. Primus is clearly only emotionally disturbed by the idea that he shot his alliance in the foot.

[prizefightr]

one of my favorite things about campaign 4 is the un/intentional allegory of dol-makjar, a city of orcs who can see in the dark because of darkvision, getting overtaken by humans who "wield the light" and have absolutely no darkvision. and it got really hammered down in episode 31 when the sons of the dawn and the grey tower guard were surrounded by magpie orcs and the wind snuffed out all the lights.

Welcome to our fair city. I hope that you enjoy your stay.

absolute fucking banger. i'll be forever thankful that brennan made araman and campaign 4 as a love letter to the orcs of lotr, the first and greatest victims of sauron.

[galactic-rhea]

The Little Slave, The Little Queen, The big Villains, The Little Farmer, the Little Princess, and a Little Happy ending,,,

Happy Star Wars day!!!! and happy birthday to me...Veeery late on the day, but I had 6 hours of no electricity nkjs. Anyways, I'm happy i took my time with these <3

[Tip jar!] || [Commissions Open!]

[macabre-muses]

the naberrie family is so cool and i love to think about them and their dynamics so much so i often find myself wishing there was an official book about pooja's time as senator and her meeting leia but then i remember there is an incredibly high chance it'd turn out to be a queen's trilogy repeat and god forbid. but also the idea of padmé having a family she always feels a little out of place with because she chose a dehumanizing political path as queen that set her apart from them when she was just fourteen years old and her dying JUST when she was thinking of leaving that life behind is sooo crazy to me. and then her familly is told she was secretly pregnant and the child died with her. like the idea of them realizing they maybe did not know their daughter at all and that she had a whole life hidden from them as senator more than she did as queen and thinking they'd never get a chance to even see her child just to find out she had very alive twins one of whom works with pooja. there is insane potential here guys.

[ginawankenobi]

The PCs of Campaign 4 are Walking Contradictions & Unreliable Narrators

Julien Davinos hates everyone and everything, except that he doesn't. He's bitter and selfish, except that he isn't. He is impulsive to the point of recklessness, except that he's also a soldier who knows how to make and execute a plan tactical His idea of certain people is skewed, and his emotional regulation is stunted, but he's learning.

Occtis Tachonis, despite being very fundamentally different from most (if not all) of his family, was still raised by them and has absorbed many very abnormal things as being normal. He's alive but he's dead, he's not a Tachonis but he is.

Azune Nayar is a sweet, soft boy (who never really got to just be a boy), but he's also a hardened soldier. He's the most sincere person there is, but he's also the best liar out there. He has the capacity to love SO intensely it's almost earth-shattering, but he also has the rage of dragons inside him. He does not see himself for the wonder that he is.

Murray Mag'Nesson, brilliant as she is, sometimes sees so many things that she waaaay overthinks and convinces herself of something that has no basis in (this) reality.

Vaelus has spent decades in service to a fallen goddess, she put forth all her energy to find and protect an artifact of said goddess, then decided to destroy it. She's been hardened by her experiences, yet she shows tenderness and affection to the most unlikely companions.

Tyranny is a literal demon, made in the Pit and put on the material plane for nefarious purposes, and yet she wants to be good and, perhaps even more amazingly, she IS good. She is only just beginning to see it herself.

Wicander Halovar is a scion of a noble house, spoiled and privileged and yet wholly unselfish at his core. He dislikes the discomfort of the outside world, yet is willing to put himself in harm's way to help others. He is incredibly naive and yet wiser than even he knows.

Thaisha Lloy is a druid of the Old Path, whose job it is to guide the dead to follow it, and yet she urged her friend/pseudo-son NOT to walk it. She loves a being who is neither living nor dead; she bade one she loved to turn from the Path, and others to walk it so effectively she created angels.

Bolaire Lathalia is quite literally an object, and yet he has more of a soul (literally and figuratively) than many humans. He has killed, and done so selfishly, yet takes every opportunity to learn how to be better. He is wildly intelligent, yet there is still so much he does not know or understand. He’s nearly a century old with the emotional intelligence of a teenager.

Kattigan Vale doesn’t see himself for all his goodness and potential, he is fixated on his failures, none of which are truly his fault.

Thimble has the utmost faith in her departed best friend Thjazi, but doesn't always see the darker and more complicated parts of him.

Halandil Fang is the raddest dad around, so charming it’s off-putting, and he does not seem like a threat at all, but heaven help anyone who threatens someone he loves.

Teor Pridesire...he was the best of them. He was the opposite of Hal, in that he was outwardly intimidating, but a big ball of goo inside. He was someone who saw past the flaws of others, right to their core. He believed in them when they did not believe in themselves. RIP, lion man.

[ginawankenobi]

I hate Primus Tachonis to the very core of my being…

But Petra and Ryah Tachonis scare the ever-loving shit out of me.

For all his power and bravado, Primus is, at the end of the day, just a MAN. He’s arrogant, he’s prideful, he’s short-sighted and impulsive, and that will be his downfall.

Petra and Ryah are (at least by comparison) far more humble, measured, and intelligent, which makes them infinitely more DANGEROUS. They’re playing 5D chess while Primus is preoccupied with crushing his own pawns.

I want Primus’s head on a pike, but we NEED Petra & Ryah eliminated as quickly as possible, or I fear they will destroy everything in their path (and quite possibly the path itself).

[luckyheavens]

I think the twins are absolutely more of a threat. Primus is scary for what we know he's willing and able to do. they are threatening because for the most part we have no idea what they can do, and also to fight them in any capacity would almost certainly mean having to split them up and doing that physically or emotionally is maybe not impossible but very very difficult. I don't think the players can scheme petra and ryah apart, maybe they go for wick's fiancee and that gives wick an excuse to get involved with them and distract them possibly

[m4--k11]

"flowers, flowers, flowers, panties, flowers--"