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kazbiter · 1 year

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very interested in how the storyline of ronan's sexuality is developed in the dream thieves as a battle between kavinsky and gansey while adam is almost never present in these scenes, which makes it even more interesting that we found out in CDTH that ronan was set on adam the moment he saw him. i think that ronan is attracted on some level to both gansey and kavinsky (you can draw the lines of how much romantic intention you think he hold towards either of the yourself, that's a rabbit hole I would need a whole other post to go down) but more so I think he was attracted to the IDEA of both of them and certain qualities that each possessed, and that the real question wasn't does ronan want gansey or kavinsky because we know he wants adam but rather who's qualities resonate more with who ronan is, or who he is choosing to be at this critical moment in his character development. kavinsky is a dangerous thrill and often comes wrapped in ronan's other favorite self destructive attempts to outrun himself, while gansey is ronan's history and proof of his deep capacities for loyalty and love. he tells kavinsky it was never going to be me and you and that it's not going to be ronan and gansey because that was never the question- maggie was obviously always planning on bluesy and pynch. the answer to who ronan WANTS in adam. the question of who ronan IS- that's what he's trying to decide here. his self hatred is such a heavy weight on him and theme in tdt, and the kavinsky/gansey dichotomy represents the the path he will choose to take to deal with it- keep try to drive faster than his demons or accept that he can still be loved even if he isn't the person he once was. the dream thieves my beloved ronan lynch my beloved

#obviously I'm not the authority on this lmao these r just my thoughts but I would love to hear ur thoughts as well!!!#this has been in my drafts for a while while I kept updating and tweaking it but I think this is the best way to say what I'm trying to say #also lot of kavinsky posts here at kazbiter recently not very sure what's up w that #anyways yeah I really do think this is why she did it this way like I don't think kavinsky ever even says adams name?? i could b wrong tho #and I always found that interesting and while I appreciated he was the leader of ronsey nation I was like how does he not know abt adam #and this is my conclusion I think it was an active writing choice of Maggie's bc the dichotomy of gansey/kavinsky just really works for #ronans personal overarching plot of the book that is undoubtedly his in trc

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cerise-on-top · 3 months

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Hugging, Kissing and Cuddling HCs for König

I'm trying to see him in another light again after everything I've seen about him, so I decided I'd write something fluffy and nice for him. And then came the realization I never wrote some HCs like these for him in my original posts, so I decided I'd change that! He's Austrian, so naturally I have to love him!

When it comes to hugging someone, König is a bit hesitant. Considering he’s not the most physically affectionate person out there, it’s almost an honor to be receiving an unprompted hug from him. Whether his hugs are long or short depends on the occasion: If he’s proud of you for accomplishing something, then the hug will be rather short lived. Though, he might pick you up and spin you around until you’re dizzy. If you’re sad and need some comfort then his hugs could last a while. He’s not the best with words, he prefers to listen to other people, but if he knows a hug is what usually helps you then he’s willing to do so. Despite being a big and strong lad his hugs are surprisingly gentle, he’s worried about crushing you. He could put his all into them, but then you’d likely end up with a few broken ribs and he doesn’t want that to happen. König is also surprisingly warm, so receiving a hug from him is a rare, but nice experience. Although he does go rigid at the beginning, not knowing what to do, but relaxes into the hug eventually.

Again, he’s not a very physically affectionate person, but isn’t opposed to the occasional peck on the cheek or on your lips either. There is some anxiety whether you’d actually want a kiss from him or not, so he doesn’t kiss you very often, even if you do reassure him that it’s quite alright. He’s a bit tense at first when he presses a kiss to your lips, but calms down eventually. It’s especially bad during the beginning of your relationship, but he’s since gotten better at being calm about it. Since there’s a good chance he’s taller than you he loves giving you a kiss on the forehead. It’s a small but sweet gesture. He doesn’t need to bend down entirely to reach you but he still gets to be affectionate with you. However, if you’re on the taller side, or just as tall as he is, then he’d love to receive kisses to his temple from you. It makes him smile every time you do it. If he’s in the mood for receiving a kiss then he’ll lay his head on your shoulder and nudge you a bit. Or try to get his head in your closer vicinity. Kind of like that one bunny video where the bunny stretches to receive some kisses.

Cuddles with him are a bit more common than hugs actually. However, he refuses to lay down on top of you. If you’re shorter and weaker than him then there’s no chance he’ll put his weight on you, he’s just that afraid of hurting you. If you’re taller or just more muscular, then he might, but he’s still a rather heavy lad. Most he’ll do is put his head on your shoulder while you’re cuddling in bed and are both lying down. Although it’d be a lie to say he doesn’t want to be held. König is alright with being the one to hold you, but sometimes he would prefer to be the little spoon as well. That urge gets especially bad if you’re roughly the same size as him. Sometimes just nuzzling into your chest does the trick for him as well, though. Loves it when you run your fingers through his hair as he does so. Another thing he adores is you sleeping on his chest as he holds you. He gets to hold you close, he gets to protect you and he gets to doze off a bit himself, it’s bliss to him. Sometimes he leans down to press a kiss to your head and accidentally wakes you up like that. He feels bad about it and apologizes profusely, but does chuckle a bit when he sees your disheveled hair and your tired expression that shows you just woke up.

#cod #cod x reader #konig #könig #konig x reader #könig x reader #he actually kind of scares me these days even if I don't want that to happen in the slightest so I'm trying to desensitize myself again #I know people always joke about fanon könig vs canon könig but I think I will write him a bit softer with his s/o again #just to combat all those awful things I've seen about him that I don't want to be true and that I also want to forget about #könig is a big lad so I knew from the beginning I wanted him to be good at hugging because this is self indulgent #I feel like if it weren't for his anxiety he'd be much much cuddlier #because that's the case with me even if I have other things going on as well #and what is a funny character you write about if not another piece of yourself?#I've put so much of myself into some of these characters and yet people keep requesting them so I must be doing something right #it's more fun that way as well when you put your characters through something you've gone through. more relatable too #but I think that's something pretty much every writer does. that's why some requests are so difficult to write #I got one about marrying Laswell and Nikolai and that was a difficult request for me because the last wedding I went to #was my parents' and that was almost 18 years ago. man time flies I was 4 years old back then #so naturally I don't remember much either. But I tried and that's what's important!#either way please enjoy this piece of fluff I wrote today!

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bixels · 3 months

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When I was getting my diagnosis, my psychiatrist told me right after giving me my prescription that I need to consider eating food a part of my medication, and that flipped a switch in my brain that oh. Maybe willingly starving myself and eating only one meal a day isn't healthy.

#typing this while i'm at work and so hungry my stomach is aching and hurting #personal #delete later #i don't even know why i starve myself i don't have an eating disorder and it's not like i forget to eat #it's just i have so little time to eat meals nowadays that i don't consider it important anymore #so i just try and tough it out #tw: eating issues #tw: eating problems #tw: disordered eating #idk what tw to put on this #tw: medication

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front-facing-pokemon · 9 months

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#salamence #THIS one is a good one. someone else mentioned the chin and claimed they look like lord farquaad. and would say “why YES this is Divine” and #i didn't like how accurate that was. anyway dragon/flying 4x weakness to ice my belovèd. if anyone says ice is bad #keep in mind how much of the competitive landscape it totally nullifies. ice is like. probably my second favorite type. behind electric #even though none of this is about salamence. they've got the whole primary colors thing going on but minus yellow #red and blue. red white and blue. american pokémon? big red wings that're just Flat. i really dunno what's happening here i just know it's #supposed to be really good in competitive. and also they got a paradox form which i Guess TPC is trying to market as totally new unrelated #pokémon but i'm always going to call them “paradox hariyama” and such instead of ~iron hands~ or whatever they're supposed to be called #don't want my pokémon names to have two words in them……

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theminecraftbee · 11 months

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okay now that i'm no longer trying to keep a project secret from certain people i can complain publicly about a thing i've been losing my mind about:

why the fuck is the evo wiki like that.

listen. i know. i know fandom wikis being decent entirely relies on whether there are people who both want to obsessively categorize things enough to fill out the wiki, with the free time to do that kind of obsessive categorization, and the desire to manage it all as a wiki. believe me, i know. but please i'm just trying to do research please, please at least bigb's page was just Entirely Empty so i knew i had useless information and just left. why the fuck did the mafia's page, by contrast, have this:

a sentence that is actively LESS USEFUL THAN IF IT WERE NOT THERE.

and then grian's page - GRIAN'S. GRIAN'S. THE ONE PAGE I THOUGHT MIGHT HAVE A SHOT OF BEING FILLED OUT. JOKE'S ON ME I GUESS.

BECAUSE IT HAS THIS????? I'M LOSING MY MIND. WHY ON EARTH IS THE WIKI LIKE THIS. WHY IS IT THIS BAD. PLEASE I'M JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT EVERYONE'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH JIMMY AND MARTYN WERE PLEASE,

anyway thankfully i had friends who could help me with their own knowledge and who also found the evo recap but in conclusion i have been being driven mad by this for weeks, thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#evo smp #wailing and screaming. why is it THIS BAD #and like i know. i know fandom wikis can be very abandoned.#it's not like the hc wiki is actually all that good either (especially for less-watched hermits)#but this feels like 'bad because abandoned and lots of blank pages' and more ACTIVELY TRYING TO UN-HELP ME #ITS MAKING ME CRAZY #anyway. ANYWAY. i can FINALLY do this rant publicly because this project had to stay secret until today but now it can be public #.......which is to say hi i'm writing an evo thing don't worry about it.#anyway. the only vaguely useful page was the watchers one and even that one didn't have much detail in the places i actually wanted it #this is a call to action for any evo fans who really like wikis i guess? mostly i just wanted to share these two screenshots #because like. look. me having trouble figuring out who salem was because her page is blank is one thing #getting a 'i can't bother' in the ACTUAL TEXT OF THE ARTICLE is another #once again: thank god my beta found the recap.

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fromtheseventhhell · 7 months

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"Arya wouldn't have been able to survive in KL" is really one of the dumbest fanon takes where you can tell someone only believes it because they like the idea of Arya and Sansa being "exact opposites and perfect complements" (even though it goes against the books). Actual evidence from the books to back it up? Never anywhere to be found despite how confidently people make this claim.

And not only does it severely mischaracterize Arya and ignore what she's been through, it also ignores her importance as a political hostage. The Lannisters weren't searching for her, and lying about having her, for no reason. They needed her because having only one Stark after executing Ned put them in a poor position to negotiate. So Arya would have been more than capable of handling herself (thoroughly shown in her Harrenhal chapters) and the Lannisters would've done everything in their power to keep her alive but, somehow, she wouldn't have been able to survive? It's truly one of those takes that falls apart if you think about it for more than two seconds but apparently, that's too much effort for some people.

#arya stark #asoiaf #as song of ice and fire #anti sansa stans #cause they're the main culprits #the story comes secondary to putting Arya down to prop Sansa up for some people though #it's just one of the dumbest and easily disprovable takes in this fandom #I don't even get mad when I see it cause I know it's not based on anything in the story and it's just fanon misinterpretations #and then they try to be neutral and say that Sansa wouldn't have been able to survive what Arya did but they NEVER point out Arya's #skills + intelligence or talk about what Sansa lacks in comparison or why she wouldn't have been able to survive #a majority of the time it's just /Sansa wouldn't have been able to pass as a boy/ cause they hate complimenting Arya #I'm supposed to buy Sansa as the smartest character in the books but there's nothing in her chapters that her own stans can use to prove it #they have to rely on dropping the intelligence and skills of other characters to make room for her and we're just supposed to ignore that #/Arya wouldn't have been able to survive/ instead of pointing out Sansa's actual skills okay okay got it #personally I'm going to use quotes from my faves chapters to prove their intelligence but I guess that's only if it's actually there...

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fearandhatred · 2 months

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the cucumber aziraphale to the bestie @crowleys-bentley-and-plants' tomato crowley!! i got really into it for some reason so it's way more detailed than i intended it to be lmaoo

#fearandhatred #fearandart #i was supposed to be finishing my fic and then doing work but i was doing this instead #god i have so much work #anyway yeah i went a little insane i don't even know why i used this brush i just picked it randomly from my recents #also this might be my first ever successful realistic aziraphale drawing #the other night i tried drawing him and couldn't and i swear it sent me into a fit of rage #so i was like ok you know what i'm just gonna try again another day #and it turned out pretty good!!!#good omens #aziraphale #good omens fanart #good omens art #art #THIS IS A QUEUED POST. i am asleep

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artkaninchenbau · 9 months

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An AWS comic

#My art #For the record I am not a medical professional and as far as I know AWS isn't even something you can be diagnosed with???#It's so hard to describe what the two sensory hallucinations really *FEEL* like #Like the time one... You know how a dramatic slow motion scene looks like in an anime?#It's like that but if you made it a 60 fps interpolated version of it #It is an absolutely bizarre feeling #Meanwhile the hyper awareness and everything feeling intense feels like how a fisheye lens shot in an anime feels #No I could not be bothered to try to figure out how to draw that for this comic #For the record I haven't actually had those visual hallucinations since I was a small small child #Hell I don't even think I had any hallucinations in my teens at all like #The sensory ones just kinda started happening again in the past 7 years or so?#Also the swelling sensation I've only had once so far. Usually I get the hyper awareness sensation #(Also sometimes I get this intense feeling of swaying when I go to bed but that might not be an AWS thing??)#(Like there's other things that could make you feel like you're rocking on a boat when laying down so I didn't include that)#No I have never talked to anyone about these hallucinations because for the longest time I didn't know what they were #And they are like. Harmless. Like I'm 100% aware they're just strange sensations but not real at all #They last max 15 minutes if even that long and they happen like super rarely #Only once have I had the hyper awareness be SO INTENSE it made me feel distressed #So like. It doesn't really affect my life at all? So why bother with it?#Also IDK if I could even go to a doctor and ask about AWS and have them know what that even is #And even if I could as far as I know there is no treatment for it so like. Whatever #As long as I don't start having distressing hallucinations or visual hallucination's I'll be fiiiiiine

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originalcontent · 5 months

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I can't find art of my ship anywhere so I GUESS that means I have to make it myself, here are some doodles.

#ugh i can't believe i have to make my own shipping fanart #tfw you're complaining to your sister that you can't find any content of them but then you remember you have the power #man i do not know how to draw kissing or hugging or any of that romantic stuff #mostly i just know how to put paragraphs of dialogue in between two talking heads #but this seems to be something of a rarepair even though they are obsessed with each other so i suppose i gotta try #karlach #lae'zel #shipping #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #karlzel #i think that's the ship name but i have found so little of them that i'm genuinely not sure #laelach #(just in case)#but come on they're perfect! they're sunshine/raincloud! dog energy/cat energy! tall/small! hot and cold! canonically into each other!#character who represses sadness and character who doesn't understand happiness! pretty girls who can both bench press each other!#considering what their banter looks like i don't get how this isn't a more popular pairing. who else does karlach wistfully sigh over?#my sister tells me that lae'zel is not well-liked by the wider fandom and that that may be why (so sorry if other people have bad taste)#or maybe people don't often put the barbarian and the fighter together in the same party at the same time #anyway now that you're 100% convinced feel free to draw them making out so that i don't have to k thx <3

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uncanny-tranny · 1 year

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Other people have discussed this more eloquently, but the thing people don't always seem to get about "passing" (think "cis passing" or "straight passing", for instance) is that the concept of "passing" relies on more than just appearance.

Take me for instance, where I do pass as a man, but I have never (and will never) pass as a cishet man. People know I am queer, even if they don't see that I am a trans queer man. Passing is more than wearing certain things or saying certain things. My mannerisms are queer, my speech is queer, my inflection is queer, my stance is queer. People pick up on that. There's nothing wrong with me being seen as queer, but I'm still treated like a queer man, for better and worse. It seems that people forget that, you know?

My point is that passing is very conplex, nuanced, and individual. I use myself as an example, but that by no means indicates that I have a standard experience. I've noticed, however, that many people have over-generalized these conversations, and I think that doesn't do us - as a community - a service.

#lesbian #gay #bi #bisexual #trans #transgender #queer #lgbt #lgbtq #that's why the whole 'bi people ALWAYS pass as straight' and all that doesn't make sense...#...because even the cis bi people i know still are noticably queer. even if you don't know HOW they are queer you can pick up on it #i don't contend that i pass as cis in most *social* settings but i also don't pass as not queer #and there are PLENTY of instances where i literally CANNOT pass as cis OR het #such as going to doctors/voting/using banks/getting my testosterone/flying and having a passport #interactions with police/going through college and rooming/getting an apartment/applying for jobs and keeping a job #i cannot pass as anything other than a trans male and all the things that may arise from that - good AND bad #so my experiences are not one of always passing and that's something i have noticed a lot even from other trans people who regularly pass #this isn't trying to be a doomer or anything - i'm trying to be realistic about my experiences and some other experiences i have noticed #ftm #mtf #nonbinary

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presiding · 5 months

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a doctor turned serial killer turned doctor again, an actor who paints, a gang leader, a mining baron, and a vice overseer walk into the room.

oh yeah and they lead karnaca now.

dishonored 2 is my fav game but i think it's mid, story-wise. here's why dh1 works and why dh2's overarching story sorta misses

tl;dr: story integration is critical for gameplay that offers audience payoff, but emily's personal arc from dishonor to honor is inconsistently demonstrated in the story, and is not an interactive part of the gameplay.

essay/long version under cut >

recap: what's dishonored's deal

[skip if you want] dh1 is an underdog story: corvo is an honorable man swept up in the machinations of a callous city, so his canonical ending being 'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation being restored in a more hopeful city, due to his & the player's rejection of the violent connotations of the tagline 'revenge solves everything.'

similarly, in dh1 DLCs, daud's story arc is that of an anti-hero: a dishonorable man who realises too late he has done irreparable harm. he sees the error of his ways after a single monumental death, and eventually a single life redeems him when he/the player stepped in to circumvent a terrible fate for a child, enabling her to rule unfettered.

daud & corvo come to a satisfying conclusion within the extent of their narrative arcs. it doesn't matter that a child on a throne isn't really a fix for a decaying empire - the player's actions throughout the city of dunwall was what mattered - and these stories could be framed as parables. in that sense, young emily as a ruler is a metaphor for a hopeful future for the city & empire.

dishonored 1 & its DLCs are also great examples of storytelling with perfectly integrated gameplay - you, the player, worked towards the outcome that redeemed the protagonists.

in your efforts to save young emily, you either achieved a good outcome (corvo) or prevented a worse outcome (daud).

bringing us to dh2 -

what's emily's arc

emily's arc is a coming of age: we're introduced to a reigning empress who questions her role & skillset ("am i the empress my mother wanted me to be?"), then her titular fall from grace occurs. from there, she learns to reject the violent, selfish connotations in 'take back whats yours' tagline (a la daud & corvo!) while rediscovering why her rule is critical to the empire.

emily's rule is no longer metaphorical, but:

a literal thing for audience assessment (is emily a good ruler?) AND

the crux of her storyline.

at the beginning of dh2, emily is introduced as a disengaged leader ("i wish i could just run away from all this;" "i dont know if whether i should sail to the opposite side of the world, or have everyone around me executed"). the antihero has a precedent for the dishonored series in daud, so it's not at first glance an issue*, however, the fact that emily has ruled poorly reframes corvo & daud's endings as being less than ideal (a moralistic retcon) *we could talk here about how ready an audience was in 2016 for a flawed women as a protagonist, hell, even in 2023,,,

throwback to the beginning of this essay when i said:

'this child will rule over an empire' isn't about the child's rule but rather about corvo's reputation

emily's story arc, unlike for daud & corvo, is literally about the quality of her rule. we're no longer in metaphor territory (ironic phrase): a parable-style ending doesn't work.

does emily become a good ruler

we know she becomes a good ruler because the game says so. it is narrated to the audience via a (literal) word of god in the space of 30 seconds, after the final boss. the outsider tells us that emily becomes known as Just & Clever.

drawing a distinction here - this narration is not the same as the player actively being involved.

the player does not throughout the game become aware that emily has made political allies. during the game, she doesn't talk to these characters about saving karnaca or being a better ruler to the empire (there's a few lines might imply it, but you need to be actively looking and being careful to wait for every voice line. it's a far cry from daud & corvo's fight to save emily being unmissable - even though daud doesn't know at the beginning that's the goal).

how does the game show it

you can coincidentally not kill most of your subjects and never be aware that emily is looking to restore karnaca by means of instating a council - it's never brought up. it *couldn't* be brought up, because that council serves under the fake duke (armando), who is the last person she speaks to before she leaves for dunwall. its her suggestion that he rules karnaca, but armando's condition is that he will rule as he sees fit.

to back up a bit, emily's canonical method of restoring karnaca is by banding together key allies - hypatia, stilton, [byrne &or paolo], pastor, under a council beneath the duke's body double. they are passionate people who would each individually make worthwhile advisors, but if you think about those characters sitting at a table trying to reach an agreement, it feels like an assortment of people that emily didn't kill along the way and doesn't feel organic (up to interpretation). it's not stated if emily herself banded this council together, but logically she must have (worth a mention these are mostly characters that you as the player had reasonable rationale to kill during a high chaos run, except pastor). the underlying concept may be that karnaca's power is returned to its people - which is interesting given that the monarchy remains and armando's decision is final.

this overarching solution could also be taken as a critique to dh1's 'put your kid on the throne,' which is another reason its worthwhile looking at how emily was shown to be a better leader. obviously my point isn't that her solution was bad given the circumstance, but i mean she has very little agency here in all. if emily was shown to be more controlling as a leader, this could be interpreted as character growth, but that's not the case.

coming of age

how do you learn & grow when you can't specify your failings? emily doesn't really touch on her shortcomings as an empress. she non-specifically worries delilah makes a better empress than her. it's hard to argue her worries are meaningful when someone good at their job will still worry when lives are in the balance.

emily's best 'aha' moments (eg. crack in the slab comment about gaining perspective) are consistently undercut by a conversation with sokolov or meagan afterwards in which she demonstrates she hasn't learned anything (before the grand palace, emily condemns 'toadies sucking up to me' and is reminded by meagan that she's part of the problem). the story is confused about what it's trying to say about emily's progress, and when she's meant to show progress, if she was meant to show any progress at all. it could be argued that emily was never even a bad ruler, she had just been fed misinformation about the problems in karnaca and been the victim of slander by her political enemies. the game doesn't make this clear - it's easier to argue that the opposite is true given that her allies only have criticism.

worth a mention here that the heart quotes about armando - a fake ruler - interestingly mirror emily's character concerns. "see how he sighs? his life is a gilded cage." but this essay is already long.

while corvo & daud spend their games (and through the gameplay) 'earning' their redemption, emily is being led by the NPCs around her to a conclusion and a fix for the political mess in karnaca: meagan & sokolov guide emily to her missions, and there's no recurring quest for emily to investigate possible allies. she is able to gather the people she hasn't killed to herself by manner of... post-game narration. during the game, she's primarily concerned with getting her throne back.

an easy fix: if there had been less dialogue & narrative focus on emily's failings perhaps the ending would have felt more satisfying. it has the feel of cut content, but i don't know what was cut to be able to comment on it.

so what went wrong?

i can't help but wonder if arkane were worried they would lose a certain demographic if corvo wasn't playable (may have been deemed too much of a risk - 2013 was a different time), and so they had to take out story elements that were unique to emily's growth as a character/empress, because the usual storyline/gameplay integration had to work for both characters - in other words, gameplay that made sense for both corvo & emily was prioritised before emily's story & character development. which is a silly problem to have in a game that added character voices for the sake of improving characterisation - maybe emily's tale would have felt more akin to a parable if she had less lines that betrayed her ignorance (to the disdain of those around her).

i wish more care had been taken with emily's story. most players will never really notice the large variety of different endings - they're not particularly satisfying in and of themselves.

it's ironic that one of Emily's complaints is about her father/protector being overbearing, when his (parallel universe) presence in the gameplay may be one of the reasons her own narrative arc falls flat.

what are the upsides here

changing tune from what didn't work - don't you think the concept is fantastic? it's a great idea overall - can you imagine if the coming of age storyline was better integrated into the game?

it's valuable to talk about the integration of story and gameplay and characterisation from a craft perspective. dh2 genuinely is my favourite game - it's beautiful, the imm-sim design philosophy makes the world a delight to explore, the combat gives endless creative options for tackling any fight, there is a far greater diversity of cast in an in-text canonical way. there's loads to love!

i love emily as a dodgy leader, to me it adds interesting dimensionality to the outsider's narrations - of course in dunwall there's never a neat happily ever after! emily, like the outsider, both work well as characters who hold ultimate power but aren't necessarily worthy of it - and this makes perfect sense for the dishonored universe's morality & critiques of power. however, within this grey area there's still plenty of room for a satisfying ending, which isn't what we ended up with, whatever the true reason for that was. and also, damn, emily's a marked assassin empress, if she can't lead well then who can?

while dh1 was criticised for its narrative simplicity, dh2 in contrast and in hindsight shows us that simplicity isn't so bad - there's satisfaction in gameplay achieves a clear, simple narrative goal.

#are you a dh1 enjoyer but less so a dh2 enjoyer?#have you ever wondered why you don't love dh2 as much?#here's 1.8k words that might articulate some of that.#light reading.i guess #this essay wasn't meant to cover everything - just the core of the plot and why its important to integrate story & gameplay #and to compare dh1 & 2 #dishonored #dishonored 2 #dishonored 2 spoilers #emily kaldwin #daud #corvo attano #this week i'm cracking things out of my drafts!#<333 don't get me started on doto.#some of this might be contentious. idk i try to live in a bubble #the meme version was easier to read i know i know #this essay would have been a lot longer had i integrated more references from the game #i know a few others have said this but imagine if they went a different way with emily #like she realises shes not fit for the job and maybe no one is and says fuck the system cause shes got a rebellious streak #and does a kickflip on the monarchy and institutes something else. i dont even care what. make it funny #and then for the sake of continuing the trend we spend dishonored 3 undoing the horrible leadership emily instates <3 #i think they really loved emily as a character. i FEEL the love i believe its there.but didn't think enough bout how she would be perceived #there's a good couple comments from baldur's gate 3 devs about how much work goes into writing women to account for sexism #there's more that i could have added to this essay but for brevity's (ha.ha) sake i'll leave it there #other textposts about this game that i see around tend to romanticise dishonoreds story a little more

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