my hot take is if leliana and morrigan were men they’d be the biggest ship in the fandom by now
like half the fandom already ignores lel as a character for the crime of woman but these two… they’re foils of each other they’re parallels they’ve known each other for decades they’re both represented with the same bird they are both manipulated by older women to be people they’re not and don’t even mention THE GODDAMN DRESS AT THE WINTER PALACE ??? leliana’s veneer of kindness and morrigan’s veneer of cruelty… and they both conceal so much complication and grey morality that overlaps perfectly. where lel chooses dark morri chooses light and vice versa. these two could simultaneously fix each other and make each other worse why are we not talking about this.
recurring characters since day one whose stories have been dancing around each other and intertwining all this time? if they were both mediocre straight white men yall would be FOAMING AT THE MOUTH be so serious
The Matron favors Vax so much that it’s hilarious. Pike is having an emotional breakdown because the Everlight won’t answer her, meanwhile Vax goes “uh a little help here?” and Death Mom promptly gives him a helmet and holy daggers and X-ray vision as a special treat
Just beat the first Mass Effect game. I loved it! My Shepard and Liara are so cute together. As an enthusiast of the ancient world myself, I really like Liara’s role as an archaeologist and the plot of the Prothians was awesome. I’m excited to play the sequel and see more of my beloved space lesbians :)
Pike Trickfoot did terrible things, and that's wonderful.
In this essay, I will..
Ahahahaha alright alright alright, the last three episodes of season 4 were a lot and I wanna talk about the various reactions I've been seeing to Pike. Also included are my thoughts (that nobody asked for) on why her terrible, immoral choices are actually a great thing for her character.
Let's first recap what Pike's been dealing with since the season began:
1. Felt abandoned by friends who haven't checked on her and Grog in a year.
2. Sees first-hand the damage caused by the Chroma Conclave and blames herself (and to an extent Vox Machina) for not stopping it faster (Survivor's guilt! Get your fresh survivor's guilt over here!).
3. Encounters a former mentor/priestess of the Everlight who mysteriously turned completely fucking evil (and necrotic).
4. Starts having weird visions about an ancestor no one told her about who is somehow connected to sealing away the Whispered Prick.
5. Loses her grandpa in a horribly traumatic way.
6. Not only can't convince Scanlan to join them but overhears him say that leaving the team was the best decision he'd ever made.
7. Loses Grog - the one person she could count on to be by her side.
Throughout all of this, she receives NO help from the Everlight. Whether this was because Pike cut herself off (like in season 1) or the Everlight was cut off from her by other means, we don't know. What we do know is that this is a lot. I wouldn't expect ANYONE to be thinking rationally by this point.
And even then, it took THIS MUCH for Pike to reach that point where she became broken and hopeless an vulnerable enough to be manipulated by the WO.
I'm not gonna argue Pike's innocence. She brought the WO back by willingly giving her blood. Fought her friends. Stopped them from getting to the WO. Hurt Grog. Put the entire world in danger. NONE OF THAT IS OKAY. No matter how she was manipulated or how her mental state was or what she had going on, that doesn't make her actions excusable. They are, however, understandable - even as understandable as Keyleth risking the entire realm for the hope of saving Vax.
But I've seen posts saying Pike should have been stronger or "helped herself" or that her actions were disappointing or that she's blaming everyone for her problems and I think that's completely missing the point. Plus, it gets addressed BY HER IN HER OWN LAMENT:
"Who heals me?"
She's already been strong - for way too long! Pike is always the one to help and heal. Just this once, she's allowed to be weak, angry, and even cruel. Her grief, helplessness, and depression skewed her entire world. It cast everything through a negative lens and made her genuinely believe her friends didn't care about her aside from what she could do for them.
So...Pike did bad things when bad things happened to her, and it makes her such a realistic character whose redemption is going to be all the brighter for it. Because the Everlight is the goddess of...say it with me...
*REDEMPTION*
That's the thing with dynamic characters...they have arcs. They make horrible choices that have lasting consequences. They grieve in unhealthy ways. They do things that we, without the trauma and grief that they've been through, would never do.
I cannot imagine how dull it would have been if Pike had just been a-okay this entire time, or if Gideon's words hadn't gotten to her. She made her choices. She fucked up.
And now she gets to make it right because she is Pike Motherfucking Trickfoot and that is what she does.
I know we all knew Andy Serkis was the perfect choice for Vecna. But my god he really was wasn't he.
He essentially played three different versions of Vecna:
"Gideon" who was a sympathetic, misunderstood, man.
Pre-ascension Vecna, playing up a stereotypical "mad mage" villain to sell his plan.
And Ascended Vecna, who is far more calm and calculating, showing that this was all just moves in his game of chess.
"hey so I had a guy and I put a mineral in his skin to like, yknow, make him more powerful. The process was excruciating. Anyway, I fucking lost my mineral man. Filled him with minerals and now he's gone and I keep sending guys to get him but low and behold, the whole mineral thing it worked well. It worked really well. No one can capture him cause he's powerful and full of Magic Mineral. Fuck."
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