do you guys ever see an arthur thats just. not how the arthur in your mind is supposed to be at all and its not like the arthur owner did anything bad its just wrong

i think the biggest reason kataang never sat right with me is because it wasn’t really satisfying for either of their individual arcs.

Aang always seemed to be more infatuated with katara than actually in love with her. Aang thought she was beautiful and strong, and she spends all of her time helping him train and fight. she protects him and cares for him, of course he has a crush on her. but it always seems like a childish desire, even in the 3rd season. aang should have let go of katara in the final fight, it felt like kind of a cop out to hit that rock. aang spends the whole series at war with himself over being the avatar, something he never wanted but was his destiny nonetheless. it would have been more satisfying (in my opinion) to see him fully accept the role of avatar at the end of the show, and know he was content with his destiny. Aang had so much responsibility at both the avatar and the last airbender, as well as so much trauma from spending his first year conscious after being frozen for 100 years immediately fighting and training in the war. for him to end the show in a relationship, and achieving that relationship being his ultimate happy ending just seemed very shallow for everything he had gone through.

for katara, i really feel like she settled. and i’m not going to bring any other ship into this, because there are pros and cons to all of them, so don’t take this as comparing ships or trying to say one is better than the other.

Aang did not understand nor accept katara. to not understand someone is one thing, but aang would not try to even accept katara if her feelings were vengeful, angry, etc. he preached forgiveness and being the bigger person, but that is not what katara needed from him. aang could never be a comfort to her because he couldn’t accept wanting revenge and holding grudges were valid feelings to have when you suffered what she did. and of all the people in the show, aang SHOULD be the one who understands the most. he is the last airbender, she is the last waterbender in the southern water tribe. the survivors guilt weighs heavily on them both. when aang lashes out in the avatar state, it is always katara who bring him down to earth, just by being there! but aang could never do that for katara. he had to turn it into a moral lesson, he could not help but preach to her when all she needed was for him to be there with her while she got her anger out. zuko did not have to do anything to comfort or convince katara not to give into her anger and take someone’s life. he just had to be there, to back her up and not judge her. she made the choice to leave on her own. she had to make that choice on her own, and aang was just not emotionally mature enough to let her do that. and he still wasn’t able to comprehend why she would let him live if she didn’t forgive him. katara wasn’t raised a pacifist like him. she raised herself, and her older brother. she had to be strong, and it took her looking her mother’s murderer in the eyes to realize that she didn’t have to kill him to be stronger than him. she didn’t need to kill him to make sure he would never hurt anyone again, he was already incapable. it’s the same choice aang made when he took ozai’s bending.

basically the point of this ramble is that i think katara deserved someone who could put her first, who could understand her, and who wouldn’t judge her anger. and aang is none of those things. he is the avatar, and katara would spend her whole life fulfilling HIS mission to bring balance. she was put into the role of caregiver over and over again. it was natural to her at that point, but i think she deserved to be selfish in at least one of her relationships.

edit: i’m not tagging this anti-kataang bc i’m not an anti. this is literally just me wishing that he had grown up a little and showed the same emotional maturity towards katara that she showed him

When a person belonging to a minority group says or does something bad, you are, of course, free to criticize them. But it still does not give you the right to be a bigot. Noah Schnapp sharing stupid, careless, and uninformed geopolitical opinions deserves to be called out, but it does not mean that you suddenly get to tell him that he should have been gassed by Hitler or killed by anti-Jewish hate groups or terrorists — both things I've read on Twitter and on Tumblr. It does not justify you calling him homophobic or antisemitic slurs.

"But he deserves it!" you argue. First of all, why do you think so? What makes it okay for any person to be given the green signal to get called slurs, or have people advocate for them to get hatecrimed? And more importantly, you are only signaling to your Jewish friends that you are actually capable of antisemitism. Same thing goes with your queer friends, or any friends belonging to a minority group. When you justify one form of bigotry, even to just one person — you justify all forms of bigotry.

So if you find yourself doing any of these, ask yourself why it's so easy to slip into bigoted rhetoric instead of simply focusing your criticism on what a person did/said.

no offense but i genuinely fear that their potential dynamic will go severely underutilized

I could never work in an American bookstore these days. I'd have to work in one in like Prague that's frequented only by elderly parishioners who want me to find old whaling ship logs for them. If I were employed at Barnes and Noble and someone approached asking where to find "enemies to lovers with slowburn" I think I would just tear them in half vertically without blinking

This election day, I'm thinking of my Nana.

I'm thinking of how as a young woman, she fled political violence in her native Colombia to build a new home in a more stable country. I'm thinking about how she lived a long life, but not long enough to see her home country elect its first ever progressive president (just a few months ago!).

Coincidentally, I was living in Colombia at that time (in the very city she grew up in), and I was able to witness what felt like a miracle. A very conservative country, suffering from the violent inheritance of colonization and catholic invasion and the war on drugs, against a backdrop of the dangerous global rise of the far right--this unlikely country managed to elect one of the most progressive heads of state in the world, in 2022. That's a pretty big deal.

And I'm thinking about this, this election day, because that election was won by a very thin margin. I'm thinking about how it almost didn't happen. I'm thinking about how it was only possible thanks to the highest voter turnout in 20 year. And I am thinking about the countless number of voters who chose to vote for the first time. I am thinking of the poorest and most disenfranchised citizens who showed up at the polls. I am thinking of the indigenous women who rode 12 hours on public buses to vote at the 'nearest' polling stations. I am thinking of all the money and corruption that went into preventing minority citizens from voting, and I'm thinking about how they showed up in the millions and voted anyway.

I am thinking that I would like to see a miracle like that in my own home country.

So if you're on the fence about waiting in line today to cast your vote, I hope that you will think--about the country you want to live in, the future you hope will unfold, and about all of the people it takes to make a miracle.

Because history may deem us nameless and faceless, but when we show up en masse, we are the ones who make history happen.

And yes, maybe also spare a thought for my Nana. Who was in fact a very angry and judgemental woman who supported the republican party for 50+ years, and who would be turning in her grave right now (if the family hadn't had her cremated). Think about the mean angry ghost of my Colombian grandmother, who very much wants you to not show up at the polls to support abortion and other sinful progressive values. Think about her. Do it for her. Do it for Nana.

i can't even pretend to appreciate all these girlboss redesigns/"updates" of female characters that seem to have had zero thought put into them beyond making her outfit more quote unquote "practical" anymore. like.. not saying i like the fact that every other woman runs around with their tits and ass out while all the dudes are fully clothed, but it's just like. please. for the love of god. if you're gonna redesign a character, redesign the character! don't just ctrl+t & drag the fabric down to cover her legs and call it a day!

idk!! like i realize this is a stupid, nitpicky little pet peeve, but there's just something so patronizing about someone resting on the brownie points they think putting a previously "scantily clad" female character in some uglyass pantsuit version of her original look will net them instead of bothering to put a little thought & effort into it and actually come up with something new for her? tits-and-ass designs are egregious & kinda annoying, yeah, but at least it (usually) feels like there was actual thought put into them lol

i am an unapologetically Pro Abortion On Demand At Any Time No Questions Asked and i think i am open enough about this that so is anyone following me so this is preaching to the choir. and i feel weird about it in some ways anyway because, again: the question of abortion is you trust women & others who are pregnant to make choices about their bodies or their lives, or you don't. period. end of story. don't care why, don't care about context, don't care about anything except: do you want to be pregnant anymore? no? okay, you deserve an abortion. but. even so. even with all that. i do still keep seeing takes on the internet (my first mistake) that make me want to print out copies of this interview with a woman who had an abortion at 32 weeks on every wall in the fucking country. i want everyone who feels the need ever but especially at this moment in time to proclaim that they're pro-choice but only up to X amount of time to read it and understand exactly what fucking cruelty they're supporting.

and i also want to point out that this woman was a woman carrying a wanted child, living in blue state new york, who found herself, against all her expectations, flying on a plane to fucking colorado and traveling back a day and a half later, because the alternative was spending another month pregnant and having a C-section to watch her child either be stillborn or choke to death in front of her right after being born. that's what people are endorsing when they endorse late-term abortion bans, and it is your first day on planet earth if you think that there is any degree of codifying medical exemptions that is going to prevent situations like this from occurring. and if your first response to that is to think about how lucky she was to be able to actually do that instead of how horrific it is that she had to deal with that in an already traumatic moment of her life, something important inside you has been badly broken and you need to reflect on how to fix it.

A reminder that male and female charr have different horn/ear set ups!

(Of course, do what you want but- It seems a lot of newer charr people just don't know!)

The thing about Kai Winn's storyline ultimately being a tragedy is, it's not only a tragedy because her fate (in the eyes of the non-linear Prophets) was already known and nothing she did or said was ever going to make them acknowledge her- not only because she wanted so badly to have a big role to play in the grand, historic story of the newly independent Bajor and just couldn't handle the fact that she was never meant to- not only because the Prophets spoke to Sisko and Bareil and Kira and literally even Quark but not her- not only because she was deceived and raped and killed in the end- but most of all because, it was partly her love of Bajor that killed her.

Think about it- her whole regression during that final arc with Dukat is so tragic precisely because she was THIS close to redemption! Throughout the show, we see that her brain processes information in very rigid, binary ways: if you are not my ally, then you are my enemy. If you disagree with even one of my opinions, you are my enemy. If you refuse to endorse and support me in this mission, you are my enemy. That's part of why she's so easily swayed by fascist rhetoric, I think- she's just unable to cope with nuance. (This is foreshadowed in 'Shakaar', where she puts the whole of Bajor under martial law just because Shakaar disagreed with her over how she was handling soil reclamators.) Her personal narrative is I am the one who will save Bajor -> anyone who gets in my way is my enemy and therefore an enemy of Bajor -> I must stop them using any force necessary for the good of Bajor because I am after all the one who will save Bajor.

But when Sisko discovers the city of B'hala in 'Rapture', she is for the first time forced to accept the truth that he really hasn't been faking this whole "talks to the Prophets" thing- he's the real deal. We learn later on (when she tells "Anjohl" about how she honestly felt nothing the first time she saw the wormhole open) that a small, small part of her actually always doubted the existence of the Prophets. Now, she is faced with definitive proof that they are not only very real, but they also really do have a bond with Sisko. And for a while, she even comes to terms with this! In fact, at the end of the episode, she and Kira have possibly their first completely honest exchange:

KIRA: Maybe we're the ones who need to trust the Prophets. For all we know, this is part of their plan. Maybe they've told Captain Sisko everything they want him to know.  WINN: Perhaps. I suppose you heard that Bajor will not join the Federation today. The Council of Ministers has voted to delay acceptance of Federation membership.  KIRA: You must be very pleased.  WINN: I wish I were. But things are not that simple. Not anymore. Before Captain Sisko found B'hala, my path was clear. I knew who my enemies were. But now? Now nothing is certain.  KIRA: Makes life interesting, doesn't it?

Like, YASS babygirl- you too can learn to handle nuance!! I believe in you!!💪💪

And later on, at the onset of the Dominion War, she comes to Sisko for advice herself. She doesn't want to see her planet colonised again, and she's even willing to put aside her desire to be the main character to ensure it doesn't happen. Driven by pride and the need for power as she is, she is also driven by the desire save Bajor (and preferably be the one saving Bajor, which is the subsection of this desire that ultimately ends up being her downfall) - and she does briefly decide that cooperating with the Emissary is the best way to do this! I think about this scene from 'In The Cards' so much:

WINN: ... I have asked the Prophets to guide me, but they have not answered my prayers. I even consulted the Orb of Wisdom before coming here and it has told me nothing. So I come to you, Emissary. You have heard the voice of the Prophets. You were sent here to guide us through troubled times. Tell me what to do and I will do it. How can I save Bajor?  SISKO: You want my advice? Then this is it. Stall. Tell Weyoun you have to consult with the Council of Ministers, or that you have to meditate on your response. Anything you want, but you have to stall for time.  WINN: Time for what?  SISKO: I don't know. But I do know the moment of crisis isn't here yet, and until that moment arrives we have to keep Bajor's options open. I'm aware that this is difficult for you, given our past, but this time you have to trust me.  (Winn holds Sisko's left ear.)  WINN: Very well, Emissary. We put ourselves in your hands. May we all walk with the Prophets.

In the earlier seasons, Winn would often casually make claims that the Prophets had "told her" something, or that she was just "doing what the Prophets asked"- and her political position as Kai always allowed her to just lie about being in contact with them all the time. Now, you can see the sheer humility- the embarrassment, even- on her face as she (for the first time) openly admits to Sisko that she has never actually heard them speak before; and that they clearly "prefer" him. Yes, there's some (understandable imo) bitterness here- but not at him, at THEM. And when she tries to read his pagh at the end- something she probably does to dozens of people every day, most of whom would unquestioningly believe anything she declares afterwards- she doesn't even try to pretend she felt anything there. It's one of her most genuine moments in the whole show, you can just SEE the redemption arc in reach and it's so heartbreaking!!

I think 'The Reckoning' is a huge episode for her too, for many reasons- but let's talk about how it sets up this fascinating parallel between her and Kira (who Odo describes in this episode as having "both faith and humility"). The Prophets choose Kira as their "vessel" because she was "willing"- meanwhile, Winn was right there just begging to be a part of this! Here she is, with a Prophet right in front of her face- and she prays and postures and begs and prays some more, all just to get ignored. Kira's brand of faith is very, "I am ultimately insignificant and I surrender my power and my body and pagh to the Prophets"- Winn's is more, "if I do all the right things, then I will be able to prove to the Prophets that I am worthy of their attention, worthier than everyone else, and maybe then they'll appoint me the saviour of Bajor! It's My Destiny, You See!! (Why Isn't This Happening For Me??)" And the events of this episode are kind of a big slap in the face to her honestly, because they sort of prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Prophets have no interest in her. Maybe stopping the battle was also an attempt at regaining some kind of agency with them- I DID THIS, I pulled a switch and it had a direct effect on the Prophets, so there!! (Whatever that effect entails). She does care about Bajor. Of course she does. But her ideal configuration of Bajor involves her being a major player in its salvation, which she was just never meant to be. And this is why she's so tragically susceptible to Dukat's manipulation- he was the first person ever to tell her everything she always wanted to hear.

And the intriguing thing about Dukat's deception is, it doesn't all fall apart at one go. It falls apart in layers. And this makes for some excellent, excellent Winn characterisation imo.

First, she thinks the pah wraiths are the Prophets- and they tell her, hey, The Sisko has faltered, Bajor needs you, and only you can fix this. Good lord, imagine finally getting to hear those words after a lifetime of silence! And it's very telling that her first reaction isn't to gloat like she would've in the earlier seasons, but instead to humbly- even anxiously- pray. Bajor needs her, the "Prophets" have asked her to do something, this is her moment! Then, this random lovely Bajoran farmer comes in and tells her even more things she has always wanted to hear- that her activism during the Occupation (ignored by Kira and Sisko alike) saved lives, that he always wondered why the Prophets would choose an alien as their Emissary, that surely Sisko and his followers were mistaken- and finally, "our world will be reborn- with YOU as its leader". Sounds good, right? But THEN she finds out she's been speaking to the pah wraiths and the lovely farmer is a devil worshipper actually. And she tries the "wash away my sins" approach- she wants some kind of quick fix ritual that will "purify" her, so she can continue to be Kai the right way. She even admits to Kira that she's always been power hungry and she wants to change- and I believe her! Unfortunately, Kira then tells her something she doesn't want to hear- that she has to step down as Kai. And surely that can't be, right? She's the saviour of Bajor! She's so complex... it's not simply her love of power that this scene reveals imo, but more significantly, her inability to see herself as not a vital part of Bajor's history; of this whole larger narrative. Like-

WINN: I'm a patient woman. But I have run out of patience. I will no longer serve gods who give me nothing in return. "GIVE ME"!! ADAMI MY BESTIE MY GIRL MY BUDDY THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM!!!

So, okay, fine, now she's swayed over to the side that maybe the Prophets aren't that great, and maybe the pah wraiths are the true gods of Bajor (because they were willing to talk to her), and maybe she's okay working with the devil worshipper. But then it turns out he's DUKAT- and at this point, she's literally murdered someone, she's ready to stop this, to go back to Sisko and set things right- but then the book of the Kosst Amojan lights up because of the blood she spilled. She did that. It happened as a direct result of her actions. She's just so desperate to be acknowledged... to have a role to play in all this, no matter who offers it to her. So the pah wraiths actually giving her a reaction isn't something she can resist. And here's where things get even more tragic.

WINN: But the prophecies! They warn that the release of the Pah wraiths will mean the end of Bajor.  DUKAT: The old Bajor, perhaps. But from its ashes a new Bajor will arise and the Restoration will begin.  WINN: Who will be left to see it?  DUKAT: Those the gods find worthy. It will be the dawn of paradise. And you, Adami, are destined to rule it.  WINN: You're sure of that?  DUKAT: It is meant to be.

Again with the ease at which she's swayed by fascist rhetoric! Let's be clear, she was (and is) absolutely against the Cardassian Occupation. But her worldview is built on the pursuit of being "worthier" than everyone else, of being "closer to god" than everyone else- her expectation of faith is that it's some sort of determiner of who's doing it The Most Effectively, rather than it being a practice- and she just completely misses that any sort of plan that executes masses and spares whoever is deemed "worthy" is... literally exactly what people like Dukat did to her planet. Something something faith as competition, faith as determiner of inherent superiority, faith as a way to gain power via proximity to god… never faith as submission. And the worst part is she’s self-aware. It’s heartbreaking.

And it's about to get even more heartbreaking, because she truly believes she has arrived at her girlboss moment in the finale (I think the tragedy of her being a rape victim and knowing this and having to hide the body of the one (1) person who was looking out for her while being stuck with her rapist speaks for itself.) After kicking Dukat out on the street (lol), she studies the eeevil texts and realises that to set the pah wraiths free, you need to make a sacrifice. So now she gets to deceive him in return. And she does! The look of shock on his face when he discovers she poisoned him is priceless imo, and her triumph as she taunts his dead body, the sheer joy on her face as she casts off her Kai robes, when she recites those incantations and something actually happens- and that too such a large pyrotechnic spectacle- is so sad knowing what's coming. Because ultimately, the pah wraiths want to destroy Bajor, right? And Winn just doesn't. Of course they don't choose her. Of course they choose Dukat over her! She really thought that by tricking and murdering him, she'd made him the unimportant piece of the puzzle, that she was stealing back his thunder- but tragically, it turns out even the pah wraiths see her as disposable. Of course they resurrect Dukat (a man who's proved time and time again that he wants to see Bajor & Bajorans destroyed) and turn her into the sacrifice. The way she screams "NO!" here breaks my heart- she's betrayed her planet, and it was all for nothing. (Dukat's "are you still here?" is particularly devastating.) I think it's very significant that her final words are "Emissary, the book!"- it shows that in her last moments, she's owning her mistakes- she's stepping away from power and putting Bajor first, and leaving her own fate in the hands of the Prophets. Who, of course, once again ignore her, and choose to save Sisko instead. God.

The utter tragedy that even in the pah wraiths' plan, she was just a pawn. That she died at the hands of the gods she thought chose her, but used her, all while the gods she'd coveted her whole life stood by and did nothing. The Prophets chose Sisko because they believed he would put Bajor's interests over even his own- and now they ensure he will be back one day to see the new Bajor. She never will.

Yes, it was her pride that got her here. Her mean streak. Her inability to cope with nuance. Her inability to see herself as ultimately insignificant. Her inability to surrender to a higher power in any way that didn't involve becoming more powerful herself; more relevant, more "close to god". But it was also her love of Bajor. Because if she'd cared about Bajor less, then maybe the pah wraiths might have chosen her- or at least spared her, or taken her to their realm after she burned, the way they did with Dukat. Now, she ends up being the one thing she never wanted to be: insignificant.

Honestly if I had to summarise the tragedy of her arc in one sentence, it would probably be Kai Winn: Too Evil For The Prophets, Not Evil Enough For The Pah Wraiths. She and Dukat are not the same! She is a perfectly pathetic, sad and wet blorbo and I am holding her gently in my hands while apologising for her crimes <3

I don’t care who you are or what your headcanons may be but I will die on the hill that, if Kuroshitsuji was set in modern times, Ciel would be a goddamn fucking fiend for dinosaur nuggets and there is absolutely fucking nothing Sebastian can do about it.

Honestly I think the most unforgivable crime comitted by the new ATLA adaptation is bringing back the fucking kataang/zutara discourse🥰

Like, I can forgive a lot, but I can't forgive the fact that my own eyes, in the year of our lord 2024, have to be subjected to takes I first saw on 2011 DeviantArt

hello lindi! i've been following you since you were starting out pulse, and it's been an honour to see you grow both as an artist and as a person⏤the way you approach sociopolitical issues with strength and optimism is simply incredible, and it teaches me a lot about my relationship with activism as well.

in that vein, i wanted to ask a question. on twitter, i've seen people asking others to completely cut down on posting personal art or about special interests and focus 100% on talking about palestine for the whole week. while i am doing it the best i can, i have some reservations and doubts about this approach of striking, especially since it's not a sentiment i'm seeing on any other social media platform or even on different twitter communities.

i just wanted to get your opinion on this⏤do you think it's effective or necessary? i fear i may be being too pessimistic about it, which is the last thing i want to do.

thank you always, i hope these asks aren't wearing on you.

hello anon :) It inspires a lot of awe in me that you're still here after four (five?) years - i'm extremely honoured and humbled to have earned your patronage for so long.

for the twitter/social media strike, I have the stance where I don't think the message for palestine is dampened by people still posting about their special interests, mainly for a few reasons.

While it would have been incredibly powerful to have a general posting blackout besides pro-palestine messages, it was never going to realistically happen. There are people who aren't online who won't learn about the strike until it's too late, people who maintain a main and an alt and only post fandom stuff on the alt (which is private or has 12 followers so who cares, they'll post their genshin husbands), people who just prioritise their escapism over anything else. I can't hold it against them too, because trying to impose a "you can ONLY post about palestine" decree (even for just a week) will breed resentment in droves, which i think would make the movement lose steam incredibly fast. For most people, social media is escapism. It's a privilege afforded to those who can turn off their phone, or close a tab and leave all the horrors behind. But at the end of the day, we all do it, and to some extent I think that balance is necessary so that you stay sane. Activism is a lifestyle, not a brief stint, where balance has to be maintained to make sure you can do as much as you can for as long as you can.

You kind of have to realise that nobody can reach through a screen and police someone's social media use or thoughts. I've been observing the general rules of the strike, but to be fair I'm in the boat where that's not very different to how I've been posting for the past few months anyway, so it's no big sacrifice on my part. There are people out there on social media right now who deserve shame for their "escapism". The type to proudly boast about muting words like "palestine", "israel", "genocide" - they're callous, and cruel, and lonely souls searching for a brief high in attention and outrage. But I am seeing people on my feed observe the strike, I am seeing more resources about Palestine, I am seeing dipshits get shamed. The strike's goal to push Palestine resources to the forefront of the feed, to get it trending, has (so far) been working.

So...this was longwinded but - tldr; we were always gonna have people who prioritised their fandom over a genocide so you can't really be too disappointed by it (well, you can, but I'm not since it's just a "*shrug* that's how most people are"-type situation) but there are people who are observing the strike halfway and people who are doing it all the way and they're lifting us all up, so the strike's call to action did work and is currently doing what it's supposed to.

Red Hood Characterization

This is really long so I'm putting a cut here, I've been thinking about Jason Todd's character motivations and the question of whether or not his actions are based in a Moral Code (I don't think so, not to say he's without any morality) and I talk about that in more depth here.

I saw someone say on here that Titans: Beast World: Gotham City was some of the best Jason Todd internal writing they'd seen in a while, and I've been a Red Hood fan for 8 years or so now? pretty much since I read comics for the first time, so I went and checked out and I thought it was good! The way the person I saw talking about it as if it was rare and unusual made me wonder though, because as well-written as i thought his stances on crime were, there wasn't really anything in it that went against the way I conceptualize Jason?

This kinda plays into a larger question I've been thinking about for a while with Jason though, which is that, do people think that the killing is part of a fundamental worldview that motivates him a la batman, and that worldview is the reason he does the things he does?? Because 8 years ago i was a middle schooler engaging with fiction on the level that a middle schooler does, so I simply did not put much thought into it beyond "poor guy :(" but ever since I actually started trying to understand consistent characterization, I don't really see Jason as someone who's motivated by a moral code in his actions the way batman or superman is!

tbh my personal read is that he's a very socially-motivated guy, his actions from resurrection to his Joker-Batman ultimatum in utrh always seemed to me like every choice made leading up to his identity reveal was either a. to give him the leverage and skill necessary to pull off his identity reveal successfully, or b. to twist the knife that little bit more when he does let Bruce find out who he is. Like iirc there's a Judd Winick tweet like "yeah tldr he chose Red Hood as his identity because it's the lowest blow he could think of." And I think that's awesome, I think character motivations rooted so deeply in character's relationships and emotions are really fun to read! I also think it's where the stagnation/flatness of his character comes from in certain comics, because if his main motivation is one event in one relationship that passes, and he is not particularly attached to anything in his life or the world by the time that comes to pass, it's a little harder to come up with a direction to go with the character after that, because there isn't much of a direction that aligns with something the character would reasonably want? But I do think solving this by saying "all of the morally-off emotionally driven cruelty he did on his way to spite Batman was actually reflective of his own version of Batman's stance that's exactly the same except he thinks it's GOOD to kill people" isn't ideal. To be fully honest, it seems to me like he never particularly cared one way or the other about killing people to "clean Gotham of crime," he just did everything he could to get the power necessary to pull off his personal plans, and took out any particularly heinous people he encountered along the way (like in Lost Days.) Not to say I think the fact he killed people keeps him up at night anymore than everything else in his life events, I just never really thought he was out there wholeheartedly kneecapping some dude selling weed or random guy robbing a tv store for justice.

Looping wayyy back to my question, Is this (^) contradictory to the way he's written/the overall average perception of the character? Because like I enjoyed his writing in Beast World i have zero significant issue with anything there, I just didn't believe it would be a hot take, like yeah, that is Jason. It's been a while since I've read utrh and lost days, but I don't think my takeaway directly contradicts either of those too bad iirc. Idk all this to say I think Jason killing and being alright with killing is an obvious and objective fact, but i guess i've always seen it as more of a practical tactic than a moral belief, and I think taking the actions made during the lowest points of a character's life where he is obsessively focused on this ONEEEE thing and trying to apply it as a Motivating Stance to everything he's done after that, doesn't really follow logically for me.

"forever is a bad dad to richa-" SHUT UP!!!!!

Why Every BG3 Origin Character Could Work Romantically with Every Other BG3 Origin Character (Astarion Edition)

Just so everyone knows before reading this, I haven't finished the game yet so some of these might get updated later. I just started Act 2, but I was spoiled almost entirely for Astarion's, Lae'zel's, and Shadowheart's stories, partially for Durge's and Gale's, and almost none at all for Karlach's and Wyll's. Please do try and avoid putting spoilers in the comments and tags, because I would still like to experience some of these moments in game first.

Astarion x The Dark Urge: Astarion has a deep seated well of rage and fury that manifests into a very palpable bloodlust. He likes murder. He is a vampire spawn after all. His very existence requires causing some kind of suffering, and it is all made easier if he enjoys it. It's something he could either indulge in or struggle to unlearn, and Durge's character arc mimics that. Astarion also values trust, something he is afforded very little of because of his nature. In Durge, he would find someone who struggles with themselves and also struggles with the lust for death. They would either become the greatest and most horrific power couple there ever was, or they'd support each other in their mutual struggle to be good.

Astarion x Gale: Astarion craves power. Above all else, above even his want for revenge, he wants the ability to protect himself, whether that be through murder and theft or through a good-old fashioned illithid tadpole. Power for protection is his M.O. Frankly you could make a case for every character on this list being a potential romance because they have power and he wants it; however, he likes power that is from beyond the pale. Pure brute force is not something he tends to approve of unless it is an entertainment for him; if given the option, he'd prefer something subtler, something that can continue to give and grow. Gale fits that description perfectly, and is both subtle and not shy about his magical prowess: both things that would draw Astarion in.

Astarion x Karlach: He doesn't tend to like pure brute force, but Astarion does like hot people, and Karlach is Hot with a capital H. Not only do they have a shared experience of being taken advantage of and being forced to do the bidding of beings that they couldn't even pretend to hold a candle to, but that same feeling of requiring freedom no matter what unites them. They would both do whatever they have to to remain out of the clutches of those who want them back. There's also that wonderful dichotomy of Astarion being supernaturally cold and Karlach being supernaturally hot, and I imagine they'd find each other very pleasant to cuddle. Imagine being warm in bed at night for the first time in 200 years.

Astarion x Lae'zel: Of all the origin characters, Astarion and Lae'zel's morals and opinions match the most, even more so than Durge's. He likes being brutal and unforgiving, and Lae'zel is so much more pointed in both of those aspects than anybody else on the list. He would find her brutally strong in a cunning sort of way, someone who potentially could and would stand up to Cazador and any other number of enemies with him once she has marked him as an ally. I think he would view Lae'zel as a challenge to woo, and I think her almost complete refusal to engage with him in a way that he understands (she never smiles and her requests for a good time are blunt) would make him try all the more to get her to do something other than scowl at him.

Astarion x Shadowheart: At first, I think Astarion would find Shadowheart kind of cagey, but that's okay because he'd be cagey right back. She's cunning and manipulative to those she doesn't like, and he could very easily mimic that. I think they'd have a mutual distrust and dislike of each other that extends into a kind of regretful appreciation for the other's manipulation tactics. The two of them would ironically be the most real with each other compared to everyone else because they both know the other one is hiding something and hiding it well. They know what manipulation looks like, and Astarion might appreciate someone who knows how to manifest that. Also, they both carry secrets that would justify people murdering them/expelling them from society, and I think once they both reveal that to the other, they'd quickly become friends and companions, something they both sorely need.

Astarion x Wyll: The epitome of the 'I can fix him' arc. Wyll and Astarion could not be more at odds with their morals, and I think at the beginning Astarion would be upset at how constantly and unfalteringly kind and compassionate Wyll is, even to those he doesn't like and doesn't want to save (Karlach). After all, where was the kindness and compassion for Astarion in over 200 years, right? Why did no one stick their necks out for him? But when presented with the kindness over and over again, with Wyll making sure that Astarion is okay, I think he would warm up to Wyll. There's also the fact that both of them were/are under the thumb of something much more powerful than them, and Astarion would have some sort of pity in his cold dead heart for someone still clearly in the throes of a demon's grasp. I think he would try to 'fix' Wyll by making him care more for himself and think of himself sometimes over others. It also helps that Wyll is noble born, so things that Wyll would do for flirting and romance would be more graceful than Astarion is used to.