Crimes of passion

Unstoppable Force meets immovable object: an Inquisitor x Warrior love story. [And other SWTOR content]This blog's authors are: · 30something · ladies (she/her) · bi · a couple

[luna-azzurra]

The thing about a good character flaw is that it has to be the same thing as their greatest strength just turned up too high. the person who loves deeply and therefore controls. the person who sees everything and therefore trusts nothing. the person who is so loyal they lose themselves. there are no clean villains and no clean heroes and once you understand that in fiction you can't unsee it in people. everyone is just their best quality at the wrong volume.

[villainship]

SWTOR Ops AMA --

List one boss in our ask box and I will give you a highlights walkthrough of mechanics for your role

(Story/Vet mode + ops name + boss + Tank/Healer/DPS)

For extra detail, include your main class and a second, backup option

(eg. Guardian tank main, Shadow tank alt)

[auspex]

where would we be without friend OCs... nowhere good!

[grocki]

sci fi is all about getting so scared and ripping tubes out of yourself. people miss this

[grocki]

sci fi is all about desperately trying to reclaim your violated bodily autonomy. it’s all about asserting that you are a being with agency, and you can choose what happens to your own person, even if that’s ripping tubes out of yourself. and also sometimes an alien is there

[world-enough-and-timerogue]

my fav relationship ship dynamic is where it doesn't matter if you call it platonic or romantic or queerplatonic because they always act the same in every type of relationship. and the way they act? fucking weird.

[bloodydamnreaperofmars]

via @endless-natterings

[bixels]

i can't express how absolutely important it is that when you make an edgy, brooding, badass character who's tough as nails and good at fighting and whatever, you HAVE to give them at least one reason to become completely helpless and pathetic. you have a panic attack quota to fulfill.

[forcemalarkey]

do you guys think cathar sith inquisitors have problems with static electricity. do you guys think they do their zappy lightning and all their fur stands on end. are they always having the worst hair day ever.

[frauleiiin]

[spiderfeathers]

[cherrypikkins]

Time to clean the blorbo! Pick an action

gently run a lintroller over them

steam clean

handwash only

machine wash hot, longest cycle

use a power washer

sandblast them

let them stay filthy

other

Voting ended onJun 3

plz reblog for sampo size

[villainship]

He didn't want to get into a discussion on the subject of "better life choices" ...

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

aftercare for posting on ao3

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

your fic was good you did grammar good you’re the kind of freak people like everything’s cool dude :^)

[escuerzoresucitado]

[darthmarrapologist]

Favourite SWTOR locations 3/? - Copero

[callmeaiden]

SWTOR NON-PC SHIPS TOURNAMENT

MATCH-UP 7/16

Darth Arkous/Colonel Darok vs Darth Malgus/Eleena Daru

Arkous/Darok

Malgus/Eleena

Voting ended onMay 12

[wifiwuxians]

my own personal take on this (op deactivated or i'd link directly)

[villainship]

… Unresolved (& for the given example, unrequited) sexual tension: the only reason Quinn escaped with his life?? Possibly he is just too pretty to die…

[sainamoonshine]

so @darthmarrapologist has asked me to write my thoughts on why I think it makes perfect logical sense, storyline-wise, for the sith warrior to not kill Malavai Quinn during the vanilla story, and I aim to please.

I'm gonna try to be brief and also approach this in as neutral a way as possible, but full disclaimer I am a light side warrior player and Quinn-romancer, so that probably colours my interpretation here

But basically, short version is: it makes sense not to kill him because killing him is what Baras wants us to do. Do you really honestly think Darth Baras fully expected a non-force sensitive guy (as competent as he is) to be able to kill his extremely OP former apprentice? Maybe Quinn managed to delude himself into thinking it was possible (your milleage may vary on how much he entered that confrontation expecting to survive it), but Baras' entire thing is that he has plans and counter-plans.

So, what are the two most likely ways that Quinn's betrayal might play out, from Baras' point of view? Either Quinn succeeds and the warrior dies (smaller chance), or Quinn fails and the warrior kills him (bigger chance). Either way, both options ultimately end up benefiting Baras.

Wait, what, you may ask. How does Quinn dying benefit Baras? Well, it benefits him because at that point of the story, Quinn is almost certainly doing 90% of the work on board the Sith Warrior's ship. We know he's taken on the role of medic, pilot, strategist (three things he offers to do from the moment he begs us to let him join our crew, if I remember correctly). We also know from the letters he sends the player that he's taken it upon himself to order parts to repair and upgrade the ship. And he's the one preparing the mission briefs. He's coordinating with the military authorities. He's probably also writing all the after-mission reports, because look me in the eyes and tell me you think Pierce is properly filling his paperwork (if he does so at all).

Darth Baras allowed this guy to be assigned to our ship knowing he's a workaholic, desperate to prove his usefulness, used to (and expects to be) the only competent person around, and deeply paranoid that if he doesn't pay attention, someone will make a stupid decision that will end up getting everybody killed. He micro-manages everything, all the time. You know Baras fully expected this guy to just naturally end up doing the bulk of the work on board our ship without being asked, and you also know Vette, Pierce and Broonmark probably happily let him. As for Jeasa, she's probably focused on Jedi/Sith stuff way more than on the day-to-day functioning of the ship.

So killing Quinn, at that point of the story, where we don't have any other allies left (remember, we haven't met Vowran yet)? That's basically shooting ourselves in the foot. Baras knows that. He knows that if we kill him, we suddenly go from a threat who is part of a highly-organized team, to a threat that's just a barking dog who doesn't actually have the logistical support and know-how to achieve their ambitions, and needs to basically retrain their crew and rebuild their operation from the ground up. It would be possible, everyone on that crew is very competent and Quinn would be fully replaceable after some adjustment, but again, at that point in the story it is NOT THE TIME to hobble ourselves like that by offing him. It'd be like walking up to school the day of a presentation that's worth 90% of our grade and pushing the guy who's done most of the group project and has the only copy of the files on his laptop in front of a bus.

But Baras thinks it's a done deal, because he cannot conceive of a scenario in which a Sith Lord gets betrayed and doesn't immediately kill the offender. Which is exactly why the smart move by the Sith Warrior is to keep Quinn alive. Because we have been the one putting Baras' plans into motion before, so we know how he operates, and we can figure out when we're being baited and manipulated. I literally do not care how impulsive and dark-sided someone wants to play their Sith Warrior, at this point of the story the Warrior is NOT the bloodthirsty brute everyone thinks they are -- or, at least, not entirely. They ARE capable of managing their anger and thinking things through. The very fact the Warrior recruited Jaesa instead of killing her proves that, and it's probably one of the things that made Baras want to kill us in the first place, because it proved that we were capable of playing the power-consolidation game on some level instead of being nothing but a rabid dog that kills on command, and that made us a threat. So, yes, the character of the Sith Warrior at that point of the game, regardless of force alignment, would indeed be capable of stopping for two goddamn seconds to wonder if killing Quinn is the best way of dealing with the situation.

Furthermore, on a thematic level, the Sith Warrior has just spent the entire story watching Sith Lord after Sith Lord waste the empire's resources and even impede the progress of the war by squabbling between themselves for stupid reasons. Everybody wants to serve their own interests and become the most powerful guy around, and nobody is willing to just put their ego aside and put the interests of the empire first. But that's what Quinn does. That's what Quinn always does. Sure, he's an idiot to think that Baras is in any way better for the empire than the emperor. But he's not wrong to think the emperor is also a shit emperor that doesn't care for the empire and that things need to change. And once his own personal obligations to Baras are fulfilled (he owed the guy his life, his career, and his reputation; when asked to repay that dept, he couldn't refuse without destroying both his honour and his sense of self, which are the only things he has left) -- after that, there are no more reasons for him to not be loyal to the sith warrior anymore, because that betrayal was never personal, at the end of the day. He was just doing what he thought needed to be done, which honestly, I can respect. Compared to Pierce, at least Quinn has convictions.

He's also, of course, a cautionary tale, like all the companions are on some level. Quinn, despite his honour and his morals, is a pawn. He's a pawn who is beholden to a master and is therefore forced to do things he probably would never have done on his own. And isn't the Warrior exactly that, too? We're Baras' pawn, and then we're the emperor's pawn, and neither of these are good masters who have our best interests at heart. And we are consistently asked to do some fucked up shit on behalf of these masters, with no way to say no. Isn't it nice that at the end of the day, we can look down at another pawn who has just finally finished repaying his obligations and we can say "hey, I get it. I get why you had to do that. Now you get to choose who you actually want to be loyal to. And I will let you do that. Come back to the ship, and I will be the only person who has ever given you the option to choose."

Or, you know, you can just enforce his cooperation I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't really think the dark side options are thematically interesting but ymmv

[villainship]

So on point. 👍

I think it is worth noting how Quinn has been betraying the warrior for Baras all along by being a spy in the crew.

If Baras did install him to be able to pull the trigger later, he also had a purpose for him before that -- but it was reaching a point where Quinn had spent so much time with the warrior (working for them, fighting alongside them, developing whatever feelings and opinions he might have about them... which canonically includes the possibility of falling in love), Baras couldn't be 100% confident Quinn would follow this order.

It's a test of loyalty. By betraying the trust he's built with the warrior, Quinn is--ironically--proving that once he swears his loyalty, it can't be broken (even to the point of life or death). Baras just got there first.

After everything is out in the open: Quinn passed half the test and failed the other, but he's clearly no use to Baras as a spy anymore. He's Baras' tossed garbage. He can never go back. The warrior /could/ kill him just for the personal satisfaction of it, but there's no point doing it to hurt Baras. Baras would kill that guy himself rather than leave the loose end.

(This also explains why Quinn would stay. If an extremely powerful Sith Lord prefers him to be dead, he'll need very special protection against that.)

Waste not want not: the most loyal possible guy (who still has many potential uses to the warrior and--as they now know--might have inside intel from /working for Baras/) is free to ACTUALLY devote himself. It's so much more rational to let him.