#Golden Age | Scams

[xtruss]

Welcome to the Golden Age of Scams

— By Alana Semuels | September 18, 2024

Illustration By Dan Page For Time Magazine

Not Long Ago, Monica Cotelingham found herself stuffing cash into a Bitcoin machine at a gas station in suburban Maryland and weeping.

Earlier that day, she had received a call from a phone number with the same area code as Cotelingham’s father in Louisiana. When she answered, someone identifying themselves as a U.S. customs officer said the government had found a package addressed to Cotelingham that contained stolen passports and driver’s licenses. She was in a lot of trouble; law enforcement was going to call her back. When Cotelingham’s phone rang next, the number that came up was from local police, who told her the FBI would be in touch. Minutes later, she got a call from a number that matched the bureau’s. The person on the line told Cotelingham that she could get out of the mess by depositing $18,000 into a Bitcoin machine.

In retrospect, Cotelingham says, she should have known it was a scam. The game of law-enforcement telephone made no sense. All the callers had heavy accents. Each instructed her not to tell anyone what she was doing. The bank teller at Truist, where she withdrew the $18,000, asked if Cotelingham was OK, and warned her of scams. Even the Bitcoin machine where she deposited the money had a warning, in big red letters, to beware of scams and fraud.

But Cotelingham, who received the calls on her first day of a medical leave of absence from her job as a psychiatrist, believed at the time that they were legitimate. And so, sobbing in distress, she stuffed $10,000 into the machine until she asked the clerk for help to stop. “Even then, I think part of me knew,” she says. “It was incredibly traumatic.”

Cotelingham’s experience is increasingly common. We are living in the golden age of scams. U.S. consumers lost a record $10 billion to fraud in 2023, according to the Federal Trade Commission, a 14% increase over 2022. That tally is almost certainly an undercount. More than three-­quarters of victims, including Cotelingham, don’t report to authorities that they’ve been defrauded. We are constantly baited by scammers—by text, by email, by phone. The average smartphone owner in the U.S. gets an estimated 42 spam texts and 28 spam calls per month, according to RoboKiller, an app for screening calls.

The scams themselves are more sophisticated than ever before, capable of duping the most skeptical consumers. There are romance scams, investment scams, and fake-job scams. Scammers target everyone from pharmacists in Wisconsin (trying to persuade them to send money because their credentials have supposedly expired) to employees of specific companies (sending emails or texts that say they’re from the CEO and instructing employees to buy gift cards). “We are at an epidemic level of fraud,” says Kathy Stokes, director of fraud-­prevention programs with AARP.

The COVID-19 pandemic is one reason. It made people lonelier and more isolated, which research shows makes them more susceptible to fraud, and it pushed more transactions online, where we can more easily fall victim. One in 3 Americans experiences feelings of loneliness at least once a week, according to a recent poll from the American Psychiatric Association. Members of Gen Z are more anxious and depressed than previous ­generations—and three times as likely to fall for scams as baby boomers.

But there are other factors. Technology enables scammers to reach more marks, robo-­dialing many more numbers in a day or using AI to send carefully crafted emails and text messages. It’s also given rise to online marketplaces selling hacker services, scam scripts, and other tools of deception. Social media helps scammers find information about individuals and use it against them. And fraudsters have more of that information because of increasingly common data breaches, and can use it to trick us into thinking they’re someone they’re not.

That specific kind of grift is known as an impostor scam. A perpetrator reaches out, pretending to be a government official, a bank representative, or a law-­enforcement agent. Impostor scams like the one Cotelingham fell victim to were responsible for nearly half of all frauds reported to the FTC in 2023, with about 490,000 people reporting them. Americans said they lost $1.1 billion to impostor scams last year, three times what they lost in 2020. The success of the impostor scam ­illuminates ­another reason criminals are able to bilk Americans today. Our trust in institutions has collapsed, making it easier for scammers to pose as authority figures, says Stacey Wood, a fraud expert and professor at Scripps College in California. “Authority can look very different now,” Wood says. “If someone is skeptical of the U.S. government, they often trust someone else—who can scam them.”

Americans may not believe in the government or the media, but we want to believe in ­something—and sometimes that’s a stranger who says they can solve our problems, or love us, or give us our dream job, or take our money in exchange for a better life.

Doug Shadel, a Fraud Expert and Consultant who recently directed AARP’s Fraud Watch Network, has fought scammers since the 1990s. Back then, employed by the Washington State attorney general’s office, he used to bust so-called boiler rooms—places where dozens of people made scam calls, reading from prewritten scripts and dialing numbers one by one. The scammers might reach a few hundred people in a day, Shadel says, and would have to pay long-­distance charges for the phone lines. Now, Shadel says, voice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology allows scammers anywhere to dial hundreds of thousands of phones in a day for free—what Shadel calls “spray and pray” dialing. They can “spoof” phone numbers, making it look like they’re calling from a government ­number. And they know much more about who they’re calling than ever before.

There were 3,205 reported data breaches impacting around 353 million people in 2023, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. As a result, many of our Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, or affinity-­group memberships are available to resourceful scammers. One California family, who requested anonymity for fear of being bilked again, lost $400,000 when a scammer, armed with one of their Social Security numbers, called Bank of America 16 different times to try to change the password and information on an account, according to the family’s lawyer, Nick Barthel. Fifteen bank representatives refused, but the 16th was duped, according to Barthel, who says the scammer wired the family’s savings out of the account. The bank has not refunded the family, Barthel says. (Bank of America says it cannot comment on pending litigation. Police eventually found the perpetrator, but he was deceased and the money was nowhere to be found.) “This could happen to anybody,” says Barthel. “All the guy needed was the basic information you would get from a data breach.”

This data often finds its way onto messaging apps like Telegram, says Frank McKenna, co-founder of PointPredictive, an AI firm that detects frauds. Cybercriminals can buy and sell tutorials and scripts for scamming people, as well as victims’ personal information. For $500, you can purchase a live scamming class, 25,000 U.S. phone numbers, and instructions for sending spam links, according to a report from the security firm Guard.Io. “Social media platforms like Telegram began to emerge as these hubs of scam knowledge and transfer,” McKenna says. (Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was taken into custody in Paris on Aug. 24 and faces charges stemming from the platform’s alleged role in enabling criminal activity; Durov calls the charges “misguided.”)

Scam syndicates exist all over the world, from Southeast Asia to Mexico to the Middle East, says Marti DeLiema, a professor who studies scams at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work. “This is the new mafia,” DeLiema says. The work can be lucrative. A 2024 report by the U.S. Institute of Peace found that transnational criminal networks based in Southeast Asia steal $64 billion annually through scams. In Myanmar, according to the report, there are “scam compounds” where people who have been lured by fake online job ads are held prisoner and forced to make calls to try to swindle Americans.

The rise of artificial intelligence has been a boon for these scammers. A decade ago, you might have been the target of a poorly written email from someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince and asking for money to help them regain access to their wealth. Today, AI helps non-English speakers write more convincing missives. The technology can also be used to copy voices and likenesses to convince people that their family members are in danger. That’s what happened to Fauzia Vandermeer.

Vandermeer, a 51-year-old radiologist who lives in Baltimore, received a call earlier this year from a number she didn’t recognize. She ignored it, but the person called again, so Vandermeer picked up, worried that something had happened to a family member. She heard the sound of her sister’s voice, sobbing and asking for help.

“I was totally freaking out,” Vandermeer remembers. The voice that resembled her sister’s told Vandermeer that she was at a Walmart and had gotten into an accident. Then a man came on the line. He said that Vandermeer’s sister had hit his van, which had kilos of drugs in it, and that he needed to be compensated. Vandermeer was in her car, ready to drive to the Walmart, when the man told her that the matter needed to be dealt with “sensitively,” she says. Suspicious, Vandermeer asked one of her children to try to locate her sister, which they did with the Find My Friend function on their iPhone. Vandermeer’s sister was at home. Vandermeer sidestepped the scam, but says she easily could have been victimized. “To hear a loved one on the phone, crying for help,” she says, “immediately you are kicked into this stress response.”

People are more likely to fall prey to scams when they are in a heightened emotional state. That’s why scammers try to target your emotions, telling you that you’ve won some sort of prize or money, or that something terrible has happened. It’s a big reason people get duped by frauds that strike observers as obvious. A 2021 AARP study found that scam victims reported experiencing twice as many stressful life events in the past year as nonvictims.

The Department of Justice says it has stepped up efforts to catch and prosecute scammers who target Americans, even when those criminals are in other countries. From July 2022 through June 2023, the department says it pursued 300 criminal and civil actions against more than 650 defendants who collectively stole more than $1.5 billion from over 2.4 million victims. U.S. authorities also partner with foreign law-­enforcement offices. One such collaboration last year led Indian police to raid call centers, arresting 26 people and seizing equipment used in scamming, according to a senior DOJ official, who says a similar effort is under way in Ghana.

Some people, frustrated with the government’s inability to combat scammers, have taken on the task themselves. They’re known as scam baiters, and they embrace a kind of vigilante justice—working to lure the scammers into targeting them and then hacking into their computers or collecting evidence they can turn over to authorities.

One such scam baiter is Jim Browning. He’s an IT specialist in Ireland who got frustrated by the bombardment of scam calls and emails he was receiving. Browning, who uses a pseudonym, tries to catch scammers and turn them over to authorities, as well as to educate viewers on his YouTube channel, which has 4.3 million subscribers. His technological prowess offers him—and his ­viewers—­insight into who the perpetrators are and how their operations work. In one of his most-­watched videos, Browning accesses CCTV camera footage to watch Indian scammers run the same grift that duped Monica Cotelingham. The footage shows young men sitting in cubicles in a call center, dialing potential victims until eventually one finds a mark. The scammer instructs the target to deposit money into a Bitcoin machine before passing the phone to his superior—a “closer,” Browning explains, someone with better English and more experience.

Browning’s channel illustrates how hard it is to stop people from being scammed, even when they’re made aware that a crime is unfolding. In the video, Browning hears where the scammers tell the victim to deposit the money, calls the location—a store in Michigan—and reaches a clerk. Browning tells the clerk that the woman stuffing money into the store’s Bitcoin machine is being scammed. The clerk acts quickly, passing the information on to the woman. But she can’t be deterred. “She’s not budging on thinking that it’s real,” the clerk tells Browning. It’s also why Browning, who has worked as a scam baiter for a decade, is skeptical about law enforcement’s ability to counter fraudsters. “I have encountered thousands of scam operations,” he says, “and the percentage of people who actually get arrested is tiny.”

Another scam baiter, an American who uses the alias Kitboga, tries to torment or prank the scammers as a form of payback. Kitboga, who has 3.6 million subscribers on YouTube, will give scammers access to his computer and then go into theirs to delete files. He says he takes these steps because law enforcement isn’t equipped to deal with all the scammers out there and he wants to educate people about the risks. “This is,” he says, “a pandemic-­type situation.”

Pierogi, the nom de guerre of a popular YouTuber who runs a scam-­baiting channel called Scammer Payback, says he has started feeding federal authorities information about scam rings. “All different sorts of agencies have knocked on my door,” says Pierogi, a onetime cyber­security expert who adopted the pseudonym because his wife is Russian. (Yes, he knows pierogi are ­Polish.) Yet even when police get involved, it can be hard to put scammers away. A conviction can require law-enforcement cooperation across multiple countries and victims willing to testify. Scammers sometimes still escape with just a slap on the wrist. “We’re making it harder for the scammers, but they’re also getting smarter,” Pierogi says. “It’s this cat-and-mouse game.”

The true toll of these scams goes far beyond the financial losses. In the age of scams, consumers are stuck in a vicious cycle: a lack of faith in institutions makes us fall victim to fraud, which in turn makes us even less trusting of institutions. Monica Cotelingham is still reeling from the scam that targeted her in 2022. She says she’s less trusting and never answers her phone if it’s not someone in her contacts. “I’m very careful about what information I reveal,” she says. She was too trusting just once, she says—and now she finds it difficult to believe in anyone at all.

[thinkbolt]

Fool Coverage (WB, 1952) - dir. Robert McKimson

[creature-wizard]

Scams, Hoaxes, Conspiracy Theories, & Cults Everyone Should Know About

Jilly Juice: Jillian Mai Thi Epperly claimed drinking sixteen cups of her super salty cabbage concoction each day could regrow missing limbs and cure everything from cancer to homosexuality. In reality, overdosing on so much salt caused followers a host of health issues that Epperley dismissed as "healing symptoms."

Nonhuman Body Hoax: Jaime Maussan attempted to pass off mummified human remains as nonhuman beings to the Mexican government. (This isn't even Maussan's first hoax, by the way. He has a history.)

Love Has Won: Amy Carlson, a woman who'd walked out on her own children, started a New Age cult in which she presented herself as "Mother God," the creator of the universe. She claimed to be in contact with dead celebrities and alien beings, and taught a conspiratorial worldview. As her health declined, she attempted to treat herself with colloidal silver and alcohol, and her behavior became increasingly abusive. When she finally died, her followers sincerely believed she would return to life and kept her body in a sleeping bag. (She did not return to life.)

Seed Faith Offerings: Reverend Gene Ewing came up with the perfect get-rich-quick scheme to prey on desperate Christian believers: tell believers that if they "sowed seed" by giving money to him, God would bless them with even more money in the future. He made millions of dollars from these donations, while most of his followers never saw the miraculous returns they were promised.

William Walker Atkinson: In the early 20th century, William Walker Atkinson wrote around one hundred books, many of which he wrote under various pseudonyms. Some of these pseudonyms included alleged Hindu mystics. That's right - this guy was practicing literary brownface to sell his mystical ideas.

The LDS Church: In the 19th century, a man named Joseph Smith claimed that an angel had told him where to dig up a set of golden plates that were supposedly written by ancient Hebrews who'd come to North America. Smith even had eleven close associates who vouched for the plates' existence. Yet the script they were allegedly written in bore no relation to actual ancient scripts of the Near East, and the the names the locations in the books he "translated" were very obviously derived from placenames he would have been familiar with. (For example, Oneida/Onidah.) Oh, and actual archaeology and DNA studies have discredited pretty much everything from this guy's weird racist narrative.

Fake Cancer, Fake Cure: Wellness entrepreneur Belle Gibson claimed that she'd cured her brain cancer with natural remedies. Gibson never actually had cancer in the first place.

Medbeds: Back in 2020, QAnons and QAnon-adjacent people started circulating claims that a new form of healing technology was about to become available to the public within the next several months or so. Depending on who you asked, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and even the Galactic Federation of Light were involved. The time of their supposed unveiling came and went, and what do you know, there are still no functioning medbeds used in actual medicine.

COVID Vaccine Zombies: Conspiracy theorists have been claiming the government practices high-tech mind control for ages now. One recent iteration of this is a conspiracy theory claiming that people who'd received COVID vaccinations would have malicious DNA code activated by 5G on October 4, 2023, turn into zombies, and riot. The time came and went, and no zombie outbreak happened.

Ms.Scribe: In the early 2000s, a Harry Potter fan known as "msscribe" or "Ms.Scribe" faked her own harassment through a number of sockpuppets, with the apparent goal of becoming friends with some Harry Potter fandom bigwigs. She manipulated the fandom for a few years until the deception was finally uncovered.

[planckstorytime]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Strangled by Gentle Hands

*The following contains spoilers*

“You would risk everything you have in the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find the future you shaped is worse than what was?”

– Solas, Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

I. Whatever It Takes

My premium tickets for a local film festival crumpled and dissolved in my pants pocket, unredeemed as they swirled in the washing machine. Throughout that October weekend in 2015, I neglected my celebratory privileges, my social visits to friends, and even my brutal honors literary theory class. All because a golden opportunity stretched before me: a job opening for a writing position at the once-legendary BioWare, with an impending deadline.

The application process wasn’t like anything I’d seen before. Rather than copy+paste a cover letter and quickly swap out a couple of nouns here and there, this opening required me to demonstrate my proficiency in both words and characters – namely, BioWare’s characters. Fanfiction wasn’t normally in my wheelhouse – at the time, I had taken mainly to spinning love sonnets (with a miserable success rate). But I wouldn’t balk at this chance to work on one of my dream franchises – especially since the job prospects for fresh English BAs weren’t exactly promising. So, I got to work crafting a branching narrative based on the company’s most recent title: Dragon Age: Inquisition. Barely two months prior, I saw the conclusion of that cast’s story when the Inquisitor stabbed a knife into a map and swore to hunt her former ally, Solas, to the ends of the earth. Now it was my turn to puppeteer them, to replicate the distinct voice of each party member and account for how they’d react to the scenario I crafted. And if it went well, then maybe I’d be at the tip of the spear on that hunt for Solas. Finishing the writing sprint left me exhausted, but also proud of my work.

The folks at BioWare obviously felt differently, because I received a rejection letter less than a week later. Maybe they found my story trite and my characterization inaccurate, or maybe they just didn’t want to hire a student with no professional experience to his name. Regardless, I was devastated. It wouldn’t be until years later that I learned that, had my application been accepted, I likely would’ve been drafted into working on the studio’s ill-fated looter shooter, Anthem (2019), noteworthy for its crunch and mismanagement. My serendipitous rejection revealed that sometimes the future you strive to build was never meant to match your dreams. What seemed like an opportunity to strike oil actually turned out to be a catastrophic spill.

Still, my passion for the Dragon Age series (as well as Mass Effect) persisted in the face of BioWare’s apparent decline. I maintain that Inquisition is actually one of the studio’s best games, and my favorite in the series, to the point where I even dressed up as Cole for a convention one time. The game came to me at a very sensitive time in my life, and its themes of faith vs falsehood, the co-opting of movements in history, and the instability of power all spoke to me. But I will elaborate more on that at a later date. My point is, I held on to that hope that, in spite of everything, BioWare could eventually deliver a satisfactory resolution to the cliffhanger from their last title. Or perhaps it was less hope and more of a sunk cost fallacy, as an entire decade passed with nary a peep from Dragon Age.

As years wore on, news gradually surfaced about the troubled development of the fourth game. Beginning under the codename “Joplin” in 2015 with much of the same creative staff as its predecessors, this promising version of the game would be scrapped two years later for not being in line with Electronic Arts’s business model (i.e. not being a live-service scam). Thus, it was restarted as “Morrison”. The project cantered along in this borderline unrecognizable state for a few years until they decided to reorient it back into a single-player RPG, piling even more years of development time onto its shaky Jenga tower of production. Indeed, critical pieces were constantly being pulled out from the foundations during this ten year development cycle. Series regulars like producer Mark Darrah and director Mike Laidlaw made their departures, and the project would go on to have several more directors and producers come and go: Matthew Goldman, Christian Dailey, and Mac Walters, to name a few key figures. They eventually landed on John Epler as creative director, Corinne Busche as game director, and Benoit Houle as director of product development. Then came the massive layoffs of dozens of employees, including series-long writer Mary Kirby, whose work still made it into the final version of DA4. Finally, the game received a rebranding just four months before release, going from Dreadwolf (which it had been known as since 2022) to The Veilguard (2024) – a strange title with an even stranger article.

Needless to say, these production snags did not inspire confidence, especially considering BioWare’s been low on goodwill between a string of flops like Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017) and, before that, controversial releases like Dragon Age II (2011) and Mass Effect 3 (2012). The tumult impacted The Veilguard’s shape, which scarcely resembles an RPG anymore, let alone a Dragon Age game. The party size is reduced from four to three, companions can no longer be directly controlled, the game has shifted to a focus on action over tactics a la God of War (2018), the number of available abilities has shrunk, and there’s been a noticeable aesthetic shift towards a more cartoonish style. While I was open to the idea of changing up the combat (the series was never incredible on that front), I can’t get over the sensation that these weren’t changes conceived out of genuine inspiration, but rather vestigial traces from the live-service multiplayer iteration. The digital fossil record implies a lot. Aspects like the tier-based gear system, the instanced and segmented missions, the vapid party approval system, the deficit of World State import options, and the fact that rarely does more than the single mandatory companion have anything unique to say on a quest – it all points to an initial design with a very different structure from your typical single-player RPG. The Veilguard resembles a Sonic Drive-In with a mysterious interior dining area – you can tell it was originally conceived as something else.1

That said, the product itself is functional. It contains fewer bugs than any previous game in the franchise, and maybe BioWare’s entire catalog for that matter. I wouldn’t say the combat soars, but it does glide. There’s a momentum and responsiveness to the battle system that makes it satisfying to pull off combos and takedowns against enemies, especially if you’re juggling multiple foes at once. Monotony sets in after about thirty or forty hours, largely due to the fact that you’re restricted to a single class’s moveset on account of the uncontrollable companions. Still, this design choice can encourage replay value, as it does in Mass Effect, and free respec options and generous skill point allocations offset the tedium somewhat.

While the character and creature designs elicit controversy – both for the exaggerated art direction and, in the case of demons and darkspawn, total redesign – the environmental art is nothing short of breathtaking. I worried that this title would look dated because of how long it had been in development and the age of the technology it was built upon. Those fears were swiftly banished when I saw the cityscapes of Minrathous, the cyclopean architecture of the Nevarran Grand Necropolis, or the overgrown ruins of Arlathan. But like everything in The Veilguard, it’s a double-edged sword. The neon-illuminated streets of Docktown, the floating citadel of the Archon’s Palace, and the whirring mechanisms of the elven ruins evoke a more fantastically futuristic setting that feels at odds with all three previous titles (even though all three exhibited a stylistic shift to some extent). It aggravates the feeling of discordance between this rendition of Thedas and the one returning players know.

All of these elements make The Veilguard a fine fantasy action-adventure game – even a good one, I’d say. But as both the culmination of fifteen years of storytelling and as a narrative-based roleplaying game – the two most important facets of its identity – it consistently falls short. Dragon Age began as a series with outdated visuals and often obtuse gameplay, but was borne aloft by its worldbuilding, characterization, and dialogue. Now, that paradigm is completely inverted. The more you compare it to the older entries, the more alien it appears. After all these years of anticipation, how did it end up this way? Was this the only path forward?

Throughout The Veilguard’s final act, characters utter the phrase “Whatever it takes,” multiple times. Some might say too many. I feel like this mantra applied to the development cycle. As more struggles mounted, the team made compromise after compromise to allow the game to exist at all, to give the overarching story some conclusion in the face of pressure from corporate shareholders, AAA market expectations, and impatient fans. Whatever it takes to get this product out the door and into people’s homes.

This resulted in a game that was frankensteined together, assembled out of spare parts and broken dreams. It doesn’t live up to either the comedic heights or dramatic gravity of Inquisition’s “Trespasser” DLC from 2015, despite boasting the same lead writer in Trick Weekes. Amid the disappointment, we’re left with an unfortunate ultimatum: It’s either this or nothing.

I don’t mean that as a way to shield The Veilguard from criticism, or to dismiss legitimate complaints as ungrateful gripes. Rather, I’m weighing the value of a disappointing reality vs an idealized fantasy. The “nothing”, in this sense, was the dream I had for the past decade of what a perfect Dragon Age 4 looked like. With the game finally released, every longtime fan has lost their individualized, imaginary perfection in the face of an authentic, imperfect text. Was the destruction of those fantasies a worthy trade? It doesn’t help that the official artbook showcases a separate reality that could’ve been, with a significant portion dedicated to the original concepts for Joplin that are, personally, a lot closer to my ideal vision. I think it would’ve done wonders to ground the game as more Dragon Age-y had they stuck with bringing back legacy characters, such as Cole, Calpernia, Imshael, and the qunari-formerly-known as Sten.

I don’t necessarily hate The Veilguard (I might actually prefer it to Dragon Age II), but I can’t help but notice a pattern in its many problems – a pattern that stems from a lack of faith in the audience and a smothering commitment to safety over boldness. As I examine its narrative and roleplaying nuances, I wish to avoid comparing it to groundbreaking RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) or even Dragon Age: Origins (2009), as the series has long been diverging from that type of old-school CRPG. Rather, except when absolutely necessary, I will only qualitatively compare it to Inquisition, its closest relative.

And nowhere does it come up shorter to Inquisition than in the agency (or lack thereof) bestowed to the player to influence their character and World State.

II. Damnatio Memoriae

No, that’s not the name of an Antivan Crow (though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking so, since we have a character named “Lucanis Dellamorte”). It’s a Latin phrase meaning “condemnation of memory”, applied to a reviled person by destroying records of their existence and defacing objects of their legacy. In this case, it refers to the player. When it comes to their influence over the world and their in-game avatar, The Veilguard deigns to limit or outright eliminate it.

Save transfers that allow for the transmission of World States (the carrying over of choices from the previous games) have been a staple of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises. Even when their consequences are slight, the psychological effect that this personalization has on players is profound, and one of many reasons why fans grow so attached to the characters and world. At its core, it’s an illusion, but one that’s of similar importance to the illusion that an arbitrary collection of 1s and 0s can create an entire digital world. Player co-authorship guarantees a level of emotional investment that eclipses pre-built backgrounds.

However, The Veilguard limits the scope to just three choices, a dramatic decrease from the former standard. All import options come from Inquisition, with two just from the “Trespasser” expansion. One variable potentially impacts the ending, while the other two, in most cases, add one or two lines of dialogue and a single codex entry. Inquisition, by contrast, imported a bevy of choices from both previous games. Some of them had major consequences to quests such as “Here Lies the Abyss” and “The Final Piece”, both of which incorporated data from two games prior. The Veilguard is decidedly less ambitious. Conspicuously absent options include: whether Morrigan has a child or not, the fate of Hawke, the status of the Hero of Fereldan, the current monarchs of Fereldan and Orlais, the current Divine of the southern Chantry, and the individual outcomes of more than two dozen beloved party members across the series. Consequently, the fourth installment awkwardly writes around these subjects – Varric avoids mentioning his best friend, Hawke, as does Isabela ignore her potential lover. Fereldan, Orlais, and the Chantry are headed by Nobody in Particular. Morrigan, a prominent figure in the latest game, makes no mention of her potential son or even her former traveling companions. And the absence of many previous heroes, even ones with personal stakes in the story, feels palpably unnatural. I suspect this flattening of World States into a uniform mold served, in addition to cutting costs, to create parity between multiple cooperative players during the initial live-service version of Morrison. Again, the compromises of the troubled production become apparent, except this time, they’re taking a bite out of the core narrative.

Moreover, the game’s unwillingness to acknowledge quantum character states means that it’s obliged to omit several important cast members. At this point, I would’ve rather had them establish an official canon for the series rather than leaving everything as nebulous and undefined as possible. That way at least the world would’ve felt more alive, and we could’ve gotten more action out of relevant figures like Cassandra, Alistair, Fenris, Merrill, Cole, and Iron Bull. Not to mention that The Veilguard’s half-measure of respectful non-intereference in past World States ultimately fails. Certain conversations unintentionally canonize specific events, including references to Thom Rainier and Sera, both of whom could go unrecruited in Inquisition, as well as Morrigan’s transformation into a dragon in the battle with Corypheus in that game’s finale. But whatever personal history the player had with them doesn’t matter. The entire Dragon Age setting now drifts in a sea of ambiguity, its history obfuscated. It feels as gray and purgatorial as Solas’s prison for the gods.

Beyond obscuring the past, The Veilguard restrains the player’s agency over the present. When publications first announced that the game would allow audiences to roleplay transgender identities and have that acknowledged by the party, I grew very excited – both at the encouraging representation, and at the depth of roleplaying mechanics that such an inclusion suggested. Unfortunately, The Veilguard offers little in roleplaying beyond this. The player character, Rook, always manifests as an altruistic, determined, friendly hero, no matter what the player chooses (if they’re offered choices at all). The selections of gender identity and romantic partner constitute the totality of how Rook defines themselves, post-character creation – exceptions that prove the rule of vacancy. Everything else is set in stone. The options presented are good, and should remain as standard, but in the absence of other substantive roleplaying experiences, their inclusion starts to feel frustratingly disingenuous and hollow, as if they were the only aspects the developers were willing to implement, and only out of obligation to meet the bare minimum for player agency. In my opinion, it sours the feature and exudes a miasma of cynicism.

Actual decisions that impact the plot are few and far between, but at least we have plenty of dialogue trees. In this type of game, dialogue options might usually lead to diverging paths that eventually converge to progress the plot. You might be choosing between three different flavors of saying “yes”, but as with the World States, that illusion of agency is imperative for the roleplaying experience. The Veilguard doesn’t even give you the three flavors – the encouraging, humorous, and stern dialogue options are frequently interchangeable, and rarely does it ever feel like the player is allowed to influence Rook’s reactions. Relationships with companions feel predetermined, as the approval system has no bearing on your interactions anymore. There are so few moments for you to ask your companions questions and dig in deep compared to Inquisition. Combined together, these issues make me question why we even have dialogue with our party at all. Rook adopts the same parental affect with each grown adult under their command, and it feels like every conversation ends the same way irrespective of the player’s input. With the exception of the flirting opportunities, they might as well be non-interactive cutscenes.

Rook’s weak characterization drags the game down significantly. With such limited authorship afforded to the player, it’s difficult to regard them as anything more than their eponymous chess piece – a straightfoward tool, locked on a grid, and moving flatly along the surface as directed.

III. Dull in Docktown

On paper, a plot summary of The Veilguard sounds somewhere between serviceable and phenomenal: Rook and Varric track down Solas to stop him from tearing down the Veil and destroying the world. In the process, they accidentally unleash Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, two of the wicked Evanuris who once ruled over the elven people millenia ago. With Solas advising them from an astral prison, Rook gathers a party together to defeat the risen gods, along with their servants and sycophants. Over the course of the adventure, they uncover dark truths about the origins of the elves, the mysterious Titans, and the malevolent Blight that’s served as an overarching antagonistic force. Eventually, Rook and friends join forces with Morrigan and the Inquisitor, rally armies to face off with their foes, and slay both the gods and their Archdemon thralls before they can conjure the full terror of the Blight. As Solas once again betrays the group, Rook and company have to put a decisive stop to his plans, which could potentially involve finally showing him the error of his ways.

The bones of The Veilguard’s story are sturdier than a calcium golem. Problems arise when you look at the actual writing, dialogue, and characterization – the flesh, blood, and organs of the work.

I’ve seen others chide the writing as overly quippy, but that better describes previous titles. Rather, I think The Veilguard’s dialogue is excessively utilitarian and preliminary, like a first draft awaiting refinement. Characters describe precisely what’s happening on screen as it’s happening, dryly exposit upon present circumstances, and repeat the same information ad nauseum. This infuriating repetition does little to reveal hidden components of their personalities, or their unique responses to situations. You won’t hear anything like Cole’s cerebral magnetic poetry or Vivienne’s dismissive arrogance. Many exchanges could’ve been uttered by Nobody in Particular, as it’s just dry recitation after recitation. It almost feels like watching an English second language instructional video, or a demonstration on workplace safety precautions. Clarity and coherence come at the cost of characterization and charisma.

Words alone fail to make them interesting. Most companions lack the subtlety and depth I had come to expect from the franchise, with many conversations amounting to them just plainly stating how they’re feeling. Most rap sessions sound like they’re happening in a therapist’s office with how gentle, open, and uncomplicated they feel. Compare this to Inquisition, where every character has a distinct voice (I should know, I had to try to copy them for that stupid application), as well as their own personal demons that it betrays: Sera’s internalized racism, hints of Blackwall’s stolen valor, Iron Bull’s espionage masked by bluster, or Solas’s lingering guilt and yearning for a bygone age. These aspects of their characters aren’t front and center, but things the audience can delve into that gives every moment with them more texture. The Veilguard’s companions lay out all their baggage carefullly and respectfully upfront, whether it’s Taash’s multiculturalism and gender identity issues or Neve’s brooding cynicism towards Tevinter’s underbelly. You’ve plumbed the depths of their personas within the first few minutes of meeting most of them.

Small exceptions exist. Professor Emmerich Volkarin stands out from the rest of the cast as a particularly inspired character: a charming, Vincent Price-like necromancer. His attachment to tombs and necromancy as a way to cope with his crippling fear of death makes for curiously compelling melodrama. The way in which he ultimately has to face his fear – either by foregoing his opportunity for immortality to save his beloved skeletal ward, Manfred, or by allowing his friend to pass on so that he can transcend into a new type existence – rises above the other binary choices in the game by being both narratively interesting and legitimately difficult to judge. Still, I feel Emmerich’s whole “lawful good gentleman necromancer” conceit, while a unique and clever subversion of tropes, would’ve worked better if it actually contrasted with anyone else in the party. Instead, the whole crew is full of unproblematic do-gooders who are forbidden by the game to nurture any meaningful interpersonal conflict. While I’d appreciate this lack of toxicity in my real-life relationships, fictional chemistry demands more reactive ingredients.

The Veilguard’s developers frequently positioned the game as “cozy” and about a “found family”, but I can guarantee you that there’s more tension at my Thanksgiving dinners than there is anywhere in this title. This family would get along swimmingly even during a presidential election. The thing about the “found family” trope is that it’s more satisfying when it’s earned. Here, it represents the default state, the starting point, and the status quo that they will always return to. Any minor squabbles (Harding wanting to sleep in the dirt, Emmerich taking too many books on a camping trip, Taash not liking necromancy) are introduced and squashed within the same scene. They all feel so extraneous. There’s so little friction among the companions here that you’d think it disproves Newton’s Third Law. The previous games never struggled in this regard, which makes the choices here all the more baffling.

Beyond the intra-party dynamics, characters lack grit or darkness to them – even when the narrative absolutely calls for it. Remember how I described the necromancer as lawful good (to use traditional Dungeons and Dragons alignments)? Yeah, that’s every character. Even the demonic assassin. Lucanis is a notorious hitman possessed by a demon of Spite, and possibly the weakest character of the game. This may or may not be due to the fact that his writer, Mary Kirby, was laid off mid-development. Regardless, he has noticeably less content than the other party members and generally feels unfinished. The demonic possession storyline goes nowhere; he doesn’t exorcise Spite, nor does he learn more about it or how to live with it. Instead, Spite is just an excuse to give Lucanis cool spectral wings (which he will use to fail several assassination attempts). The demon itself mostly just comes across as rude rather than threatening. The biggest issue, however, stems from the absence of any edge to Lucanis. When confronting his traitorous cousin, Ilario – the man who sold out Lucanis’s family to an enemy faction, kidnapped his grandmother, and made multiple attempts on his life – our grizzled, hardened assassin, pushed to the brink, demands… due process. Seriously, if your choices have led Lucanis to have a hardened heart, his method for dealing with the grievous traitor is sending him to jail. That’s The Veilguard’s idea of vindictive brutality among a clan of unforgiving murderers-for-hire. By contrast, Inquisition features Sera insubordinately murdering a stuck-up nobleman for talking too much. I believe that if modern BioWare had written The Godfather (1972), it would’ve ended with Michael Corleone recommending his brother-in-law to attend confession and seek a marriage counselor.

The writers seem intent on making the cast wholly unproblematic, with no way that the audience could ever question their morality or taste the delicious nuance of seeing someone you like do something bad. Measures were taken to child-proof every aspect of the good guys so that they couldn’t possibly be construed as anything else – even if it constricts them to the point of numbness and eventual atrophy.

To make things as palatable and accessible as possible, the language itself was dumbed down. Characters make frequent use of neologisms and bark phrases like “Suit up,” or “These guys go hard.” It emulates popular blockbuster superhero stuff rather than staying true to the diction the series traditionally employed. It’s all about the team, and the entire Dragon Age world has been stripped down into simplistic conflicts and recognizable stock characters.

This is why The Veilguard’s story largely fails. Despite being ostensibly being about the characters, they come off as an afterthought. Most of the time, only the sole requisite follower has anything to say on a given mission. Even in combat, their wholeness as fully-implemented party members falls short of expectations. Their damage output pales in comparison to the Rook’s, they have no health and cannot be downed in battle, and they mainly exist to give the player three extra ability slots. That’s the game’s true ethos for the companions, whether in combat or dialogue – utility, tools to make things happen rather than elegantly crafted identities. We end up with the largest amount of content per companion among any game in the franchise, only to have the weakest roster.

I know these writers can do better, because I’ve seen them do better. Trick Weekes wrote Iron Bull, Cole, and Solas in Inquisition, as well as Mordin Solus and Tali’Zorah in Mass Effect 2 (2010) and Mass Effect 3. Mary Kirby wrote Varric throughout the series, as well as Sten and Loghain in Origins. Plenty of other experienced writers, such as Sylvia Feketekuty and John Dombrow also contributed, so I can’t put any of the blame on a lack of skill. I don’t know if the mistake was trying to appeal to a wider audience, or if the constant reorientations of the DA4 project drained the crew’s passion and left them lacking in time to polish things.

I personally suspect that the writers had to rush out a script for all of the voiced dialogue. A video from August of 2020 showed off the voice actors for Davrin and Bellara, more than four years before the final game’s release. I think the codex entries, letters, and missives that you find throughout the game, which consist of only text, are much better written than the dialogue. My theory is that the writers had more time to revise and spruce up these tidbits, where edits were minimally invasive, as far as production is concerned. But my knowledge is limited; after all, BioWare rejected my application almost a decade ago.

Still, there are aspects of The Veilguard’s plot that I enjoy. The lore reveals were particularly satisfying2, and many felt rewarding after a decade of speculation. I called that elves were originally spirits, as well as the connection between the Archdemons and the Evanuris, but I wouldn’t have guessed that the Blight formed out of the smoldering rage of the Titans’ severed dreams. I’d concisely describe The Veilguard’s story as the opposite of Mass Effect 3: Whereas ME3 did excellent character work, the characterization in The Veilguard leaves much to be desired. Whereas ME3’s tone was overwhelmingly grim, The Veilguard feels inappropriately positive. Whereas ME3’s lore reveals ruined much about the series’s mystique, The Veilguard’s helped tie the setting’s history together. And whereas ME3 fumbled the ending about as much as it possibly could, The Veilguard actually coalesces into a spectacular third act.

While I think the twist with Varric’s death is weak (outright pitiful compared to the Dread Wolf twist of Inquisition), the actual events that make up the finale carry a momentum and urgency that the rest of the game severely lacked. Everything from the sacrifice and kidnapping of Rook’s companions to the slaying of Ghilan’nain to the awe-inspiring battle between the Dread Wolf and Archdemon Lusacan – the whole affair takes the best parts of Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission and elevates it to the scale of an apocalyptic series finale. Ultimately, Solas takes center stage as the final antagonist, and the drama crescendos to a height the rest of the game desperately needed. He remains the most interesting character in the game and perhaps the franchise, and thankfully, the resolution to his story did not disappoint me (though I would’ve preferred the option for a boss battle against his Dread Wolf form if the player’s negotiations broke down). So in that sense, I think the worst possible scenario was avoided.

But is that really worth celebrating? Averting complete disaster? Exceeding the lowest standards? In many regards, The Veilguard still could have been – should have been – more.

IV. A World of Tranquil

In my essay on Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (2024), I briefly discussed a trend in media to sand off the edges so as not to upset the audience in any way. The encroachment of this media sanitization seems to be an over-correction to the brimming grimness of late 2000s and early 2010s fiction (to which the first two Dragon Age titles belong), which earned comparable levels of criticism. Like Solas, I occasionally feel trapped in a cycle of regret, where it feels like our previous yearning for less aggressive, mean-spirited content led to a media landscape that prioritized patronizingly positive art. Now it’s clear to me that, in order to have a point, you need to have an edge.

Dragon Age historically drew a very progressive audience, and many of them congregated around Tumblr in that website’s heyday. Tumblr has garnered something of a reputation for overzealous discourse and sensitivity among its userbase, and I think that the developers of The Veilguard, in an attempt to cater to one of their core audiences, may have misunderstood both that passion and the fundamental appeal of their products. They became so concerned about optics, about avoiding politically charged criticism, that they kneecapped their world-building, rendering it as inoffensive and sterile as possible. It’s not so much “PC culture” as it is “PG culture.”

To that end, the various governments, factions, and societies of Thedas lost their edge. Dragon Age previously presented itself as anti-authoritarian by showcasing the rampant abuses of power across all cultures. Whether it was the incarceration of mages under the Chantry, the slavery practiced by the Tevinter Imperium, the expansionist anti-individualism of the Qun, the restrictive dwarven caste system, or the rampant racism against elves, social strife abounded in this world. I think that’s one thing that drew so many marginalized fans to the series. But the correlation of fictional atrocities with those of real life frequently prompted volatile discourse, with many concerned about how allegedly allegorized groups were being represented. You began to see countless essays pop up by folks who use the phrase “blood quantum” more than any healthy person should for a setting about wizards. BioWare responded to this by making Thedosian society wholly pleasant and the people in power responsible and cool and the disparate cultures tolerant and cooperative. If nothing’s portrayed negatively (outside of the cartoonishly evil gods), nobody can take offense, right?

For starters, the Antivan Crows have gone from an amoral group of assassins to basically Batman. These figures, which previously purchased children off slave markets to train them into killers, are now the “true rulers” of Antiva, by which the official government derives its authority. The Crows in The Veilguard stand against the insurgent qunari army as heroes of the common folk. They’re not an unscrupulous faction that Rook is reluctantly forced to ally with for the greater good; no, the Crows are simply good guys now. When the pompous governor of Treviso rails against them, with such audacious claims as “assassins and thugs should not represent the citizenry,” we’re meant to laugh at the governor’s foolishness. The unintentional implication this sends is that lethal vigilantism and unchecked power are cool because the people who use it are cool and stylish. The slave trade goes unacknoweldged; Antivan children want to grow up to be assassins now. The Crows never do anything wrong in The Veilguard – the governor is later revealed to be cooperating with the invaders for their own power. BioWare avoids the unpleasantness inherent in the Crows’ concept by pretending it never existed.

Perhaps more ridiculous is the Lords of Fortune, a new faction of pirates and treasure hunters based out of Rivain. Except they don’t really do piracy or treasure hunting. The game goes to lengths to ensure that the audience knows that the Lords don’t steal important cultural artifacts from any of the tombs and ruins they raid. What do they steal, then? There is no such thing as an ethical treasure hunter – plundering indigenous sites for souvenirs is inherently problematic – but the writers wanted to reap the appeal of adventurous swashbucklers without any of the baggage, regardless of whether it makes sense or not3. It comes across as a child’s idea of a pirate: they’re not thinking about the murder and looting, just the funny men with eye-patches who say “ARRR!” The developers want us to like the Lords of Fortune, and to that end, they can’t do anything culturally insensitive – even fictional disrespect toward a made-up culture. This is doubly amusing because the Lords are represented by Isabela from Dragon Age II. The same Isabela that kicked off a war with the qunari by stealing their holy book, the Tome of Koslun. This irony goes unacknowledged by the game.4

When these rogue buccaneers aren’t busy giving land acknowledgments to displaced Dalish elves or whatever, they’re enjoying their nonviolent coliseum. Pirates revel in bloodsport, but only so long as no actual blood is spilled. The Lords refuse to fight prisoners or animals in their arena, as they find such acts too cruel. I guess they’re all big Peter Singer readers. Instead, they summon spirits to adopt the visages of common enemies so that the player can kill them with a clean conscience. It’s another example of wanting to have your cake and eat it too – they wanted to create a glory hunter/gladiator faction, but couldn’t stand the underlying implications of such. So they twisted and bent them to fit into their unproblematic paradigm, leaving the Lords flavorless and lame. They barely even contribute to the main story, and they’re practically the only look we get into Rivaini society (which remains criminally underdeveloped).

More tragic is the handling of the qunari, once one of the most unique and nuanced civilizations in the Dragon Age setting. The Qun, as portrayed in the first three installments, is a society that demands all of its composite parts work in harmony. Thus, they have predetermined vocations for their children, rigid gender roles, strict codes of conduct, and an ambition to “enlighten” the rest of the world. While the Qun has often been presented as antagonistic toward the heroes, the series has commonly balanced its portrayal by showing how seductive its absolutism can be for people without hope. In some cases, life under the Qun is preferable, as is the case with former Tevinter slaves. Conformity becomes comfort when the world is regularly threatening to split apart.

The Veilguard opts for a different approach. See, Rook’s not fighting members of the Qun in this game – they’re fighting the Antaam, the former qunari military. The Veilguard constantly reiterates that the Antaam, which makes up one of the three branches of the Qun, has broken off and decided to invade, pillage, and stoke chaos. BioWare didn’t want the questionable morality and complexity of fighting an invading people from a humanized, multi-faceted culture, so they removed their culture. Their efforts to turn the non-Western-coded qunari into something digestible for their mistaken conception of a modern audience instead results in two caricatures: one being a fetishized, perfect society where there are no perceivable social ills; and the other a bunch of rampaging brutes.

Contending with a realized conception of Plato’s Republic mixed with the Ottoman Empire makes for more compelling drama than a horde of murderous giants. Again, BioWare wanted to have it both ways, and they still needed nameless, faceless orcs to kill. So every bit about the qunari’s militancy, imperialism, and repression coexisting alongside some of their more progressive ideas and communal unity is stripped of its context and meaning. Blame is placed solely on the Antaam, who no longer represent (and retroactively, never represented) the Qun’s ideology. It’s a cowardly compromise, attempting to pin the blame of all the Qun’s failings on a renegade military and seeking to exonerate the political and social apparatuses of their culpability.

At one point, a minor character named Seer Rowan lectures to an ignorant human (a proxy for the audience absorbing these retcons) that qunari society has always been egalitarian in practice, with mages enjoying freedom there. Previous games showed that the qunari shackle their “saarebas” mages, stitch their mouths, cut out their tongues, and teach them to commit suicide if they ever stray from their masters. However, we’re now assured that this is only practiced under the Antaam, and No True Qunari would ever do such a thing. Ignore the fact that, in Inquisition, we witness the enslaved saarebas under the supervision of the Ben-Hasserath, a subdivision of the Ariqun (i.e. not part of the Antaam). In fact, the Antaam that Rook fights in The Veilguard never command saarebas at all. They’re completely absent from the game (likely because the image of the bound, mutilated minority was too much for The Veilguard’s sensibilities). Seer Rowan’s weak, conciliatory retcon can’t even justify itself in its own game. The scolding diatribe communicates an intrinsic misunderstanding of the Qun by the writers – namely, it continues the pattern established with the Antivan Crows that the mechanics of power in society are fundamentally good as long as aberrant forces aren’t in charge. While I understand the desire to be conscientious about the portrayal of fictional cultures that draw upon non-Western traditions and iconography (which have historically been demonized in media), glamorizing the Qun and stripping it of its realistic nuance does little to alleviate any problems with representation. If anything, it creates new ones.

But hey, now we have our faceless orcs to guiltlessly slaughter. That’s what the Antaam’s been reduced to, bereft of the ideology that made them people. We kill them because they’re strange and scary and foreign and seeking to destroy our cities for fun. They remain the most prominent representation of the qunari in-game, barring our party member Taash. BioWare’s attempts to reverse what they viewed as problematic components to the qunari instead devolved into the very tropes they wished to avoid.

Which leads us to the elves. Much of the series’s discourse has surrounded the portrayal of the long-suffering elven people, who endure slavery under Tevinter, expulsion from their homeland in the Dales, confinement in ghettos, and the general disdain from other races. The games’ stories use symbolic shorthand of real-life oppressed peoples to communicate these tragedies, and this has led to a variety of intense, emotional interpretations over the years. The unending misery of the systematically marginalized elves hasn’t gone unnoticed by the fanbase – and their criticisms haven’t gone unnoticed by the developers. To quote The Veilguard’s creative director, John Epler, in an interview with Polygon:

“Dragon Age has not always been the kindest to the Dalish [elves]. Somebody once made a joke to me, and it’s not untrue, that it’s possible to wipe out a Dalish clan in all three of the games in some way.”

He and others on the development team must’ve thought elves needed a break, because the omnipresent racism against them vanishes completely in The Veilguard. Tevinter, an empire built on the back of chattel slavery, doesn’t show any of that. Consequently, it feels like players in the know still haven’t seen the true face of Tevinter, despite spending half a game there. The notion that the capital of Minrathous gives now is one of a prosperous city that’s centuries ahead of the countries down south, rather than a cruel regime cracking the whip at every opportunity. Perhaps the writers weren’t comfortable portraying this, or felt that their audience might not be amenable to it after years of incendiary argumentation. Nevertheless, it castrates their established world-building and robs us of the opportunity to witness true elven liberation in the climax. With both the fall of Minrathous and the toppling of the tyrannical elven gods, we could have delivered a much needed catharsis after four games of oppression, but The Veilguard forgoes this storytelling opportunity to play it safe.

I worry that this hesitancy originated from anxieties about the sensitivity of depicting marginalized peoples in brutal, dehumanizing conditions, and how that might look to more fragile viewers. But I think it’s important for all players, watchers, and readers to know that, though there might be aspects shared between them, fictional minorities are distinct from real ones.

Dragon Age’s elves are aesthetically Celtic. Their residency in alienages evokes images of Disapora Jews in Europe. Their Long Walk after being driven from the Dales calls back to the Trail of Tears, sharing an experience with Native Americans. Their subsequent migratory nature is reminiscent of the Romani people. And their ancient empire of Arlathan, with its large columns and temples of worship, headed by ascended humanoid (for lack of a better term) deities that cast down an enemy called the Titans, and which has since had its religion and culture co-opted and renamed by Roman-inspired Tevinter invites comparisons to classical Greece.

My point is, the elves of Dragon Age don’t represent one group of people, because fictional cultures are constructs drawing from countless inspirations. If they represent anything beyond themselves, it’s the idea of a proud people that’s fallen under the yoke of conquering powers – a supervictim to embody all. The idea that one must be limited in their storytelling options based on how the portrayal might reflect upon or disrespect an existing culture is flawed, in my opinion. In the overwhelming majority of cases, coding cannot be read as a 1:1 allegory, especially in speculative fiction like science-fiction and fantasy. I believe the most mature way to evaluate a story isn’t to try to pigeonhole what it’s trying to say say about who, as if there’s some insidious encrypted message in the text. Rather, it’s to see the forest through the trees and interpret the work as a complete whole in itself.

On that basis, I ask: would it have been so bad to see some of those enslaved elves, praying for salvation, side with their manipulative, nefarious gods? To add some nuance to the conflict with Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, would the story of elven liberation not have been better if the game actually engaged with it? Could we actually have a moral quandary with those whom Rook ends up fighting, even if the content might be seemingly problematic?

Epler might respond in the negative, per the Polygon interview, claiming that the gods “simply don’t care” about the elves.

“Those blighted, decrepit gods, they’re not bothering with the soft pitch. Their pitch is, We’re going to make a horrible world. We’re going to give you a lot of power, and maybe you’ll be OK.”

Like a chess board, the core conflict of The Veilguard is black and white. BioWare abandoned the chance to make Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain more interesting villains because it was too risky.

Similarly risky was Solas’s role as an antagonist, since his motivations, as explained in “Trespasser”, are deeply sympathetic. Perhaps too much so for the developers’ comfort. Unlike the Evanuris and their disinterest in the elves, Solas wants to restore the elven people to their former glory. At least, that seemed to be his pitch in the last game. Frustratingly absent from The Veilguard are the Agents of Fen’Harel – elves who swore fealty to Solas’s cause. They infiltrated and compromised the Inquisition, effectively precipitating the final decision to end the organization in its current form. The idea that Solas had amassed an army of common folk who found the idea of a renewed elven empire appealing made him appear formidable and intimidating. “Trespasser” implies that a mass uprising of elves under Solas’s leadership was imminent, and anyone could be in on it.

None of this happens in The Veilguard. Not only does Solas lack an army, but their absence isn’t explained or even acknowledged. As a result, Solas remains a passive antagonist until near the end, since the player has no disciples of his to contend with (either physically or ideologically) along the way. It wastes a side of his character that had been foreshadowed in a decade-long cliffhanger – that of a charismatic leader, capable of coordinating a rebellion that could spell disaster for its own followers.

In a Reddit AMA after the latest game’s release, Epler answered where the Agents of Fen’Harel disappeared to:

“Solas’ experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories – the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him – he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his ‘followers’ and went back to being a lone wolf. There are Dalish clans who are sympathetic to his goals, but even there, there’s an understanding that he’s too dangerous to have a more formal connection with, and that he will, ultimately, sacrifice them to his own ends if necessary.”

I find this explanation unsatisfying, not the least bit because the narrative offers next to nothing to imply this. The disappearance of Solas’s agents represents my biggest bugbear with the game, depriving it of the full potential of its highly anticipated antagonist in favor of the more generically villainous Evanuris. Moreover, this omission fits into the aggravating blueprint for The Veilguard’s inoffensive direction. The motivations, emotions, and backgrounds of the Agents of Fen’Harel would be sympathetic, and therefore might problematize the otherwise cut-and-dry conflicts. Epler seemed concerned that audiences might think Solas was “a little too sympathetic in his goals,” according to an interview with GamesRadar+.

But that’s the thing: sympathy isn’t endorsement, and portrayal of sympathetic characters isn’t endorsement either. But neither does that invalidate the emotions and experiences that generate that sympathy, even if the character’s actions ultimately turn toward evil. I’ve noticed a trend (especially in symptomatic criticism, which I generally dislike5) to view art as propaganda, and to evaluate it from a moralizing, top-down perspective. Antagonists with complex or understandable motivations (in this case, revolutionary villains) are often judged by this framework as tools for stories wishing to champion the status quo. Common arguments that I’ve seen imply that the relatability that we often find in villains is not a strength of the writing, but a devilish trick of ideology by which writers can reinforce conservative doctrine, to scold us away from certain beliefs. Any decent writer knows this isn’t the case, and that people don’t write morally or emotionally complex antagonists for didactic purposes. Instead, characters such as these embody the anxieties of their creators – the fear of losing yourself to your passions, the fear of going about things the wrong way, the fear of sacrificing too much to achieve your desired ends. The concepts and feelings that compel these characters remain authentic to the writer’s heart and the connection they established with the audience.

Art isn’t propaganda. To read it as such reduces it and promotes intellectual dishonesty and foolhardy myopia. Stories are irreducible (otherwise, we would not waste our time with them), and so I believe interpretations should be formed from the bottom-up, rooted in the text as much as possible. The “message” cannot be imposed from the top-down, but symptomatic readings, in their focus on tropes and cultural context, frequently condemn without a trial. Hindering your story in order to future-proof it for the sake of optics is a safeguard against this, and one that leads to bad stories. Artists should have confidence that their text will hold its ground on its own. To quote Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay “A Message about Messages”:

“The complex meanings of a serious story or novel can be understood only by participation in the language of the story itself. To translate them into a message or reduce them to a sermon distorts, betrays, and destroys them… Any reduction of that language into intellectual messages is radically, destructively incomplete.” (67-68)

BioWare’s doctrine of passive writing violates this wisdom by surrendering to their fear of (bad) criticism. The Veilguard lacks punch, stakes, and empathy and becomes incongruous with its established lore because it’s not willing to take risks that might alienate or upset players. They’re more concerned with making sure their work is inoffensive than they are with conveying a moving story.

I believe all of this was inherited from an incestuous feedback loop between a vocal minority of critics, of which I might’ve once counted myself among the blameworthy, and the apprehensiveness of out-of-touch corporate board room decision-making. Dragon Age’s genome mutated, and it slowly lost its teeth.

Over the course of a decade, we bred the Dread Wolf into a Dread Pug.

V. What It Took

The Veilguard’s lack of confidence in itself and lack of faith in its audience contribute to its capitulatory nature. In many respects, it feels like the developers lost their passion for it over the course of the ten year hellish production and just wanted to be done with it. This resulted in a decent game that nonetheless feels divorced from what came before it. It tries to juggle being a soft reboot while also trying to close out the series’s biggest and longest running story arcs, but inevitably fumbles.

Nearly everything done by The Veilguard was handled better by Inquisition. And Inquisition was certainly the more ambitious title. Perhaps more returning characters would have established a sense of continuity between the two, or at least made it less awkward by having them present for the story’s grand finale. For as strong as the endgame is, it could’ve benefited from the presence of slave liberator Fenris, elven history aficionado Merrill, possible Evanuris soul vessel Sera, or Divine Victoria (any of them). The core pillar of Dragon Age is the characters, and The Veilguard’s under-performance (and in some cases, outright dismissal) in that regard sabotages its integrity. Without this to anchor it, the changes to gameplay, visuals, and roleplaying depth become more alienating.

Personally, what do I take away from this? The Veilguard is far from the game I dreamed about for ten years, and not the one that loyal fans deserved either. I’m no stranger to disappointment at this point in my life, and yet this still leaves me with a hollow feeling. Will I still be able to return to Inquisition, a game I truly adore, and see it the same way as before, knowing now where all this is leading? The true cost of The Veilguard, for me, has nothing to do with the price tag: it’s the loss of that perfectly tailored dream, now that the possibilities of the future have shut their gates.

Where do those dreams go? Are they doomed to fester in their lonely, incommunicable agony? Will they be twisted by their enmity, like the blighted dreams of the Titans, and spread their corruption into those important happy memories?

In 2014, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: Inquisition helped me to see the light and come out of it. In 2024, I was depressed as fuck, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard made me feel nothing. There’s no less favorable comparison in my eyes. It’s disheartening to behold something that once meant so much to me and be greeted with numbness. I have to wonder if that affection will ever return, or if I’ve just grown out of it.

But as I wandered the streets of Minrathous as Rook, I heard a familiar song. It was one of the tavern songs from Inquisition, its nostalgic chords filling me with wistful sentiment. I know, deep down, there’s still something there. Maybe I just need to dig it up. Maybe it’s time to look back…

To be continued…

– Hunter Galbraith

Further Reading

Le Guin, Ursula K. “A Message about Messages.” Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, Abrams Image, 2018, pp. 67–68.

Incidentally, this was an anomaly my friends and I pondered over and eventually solved. It turned out to be a former Wienerschnitzel. ↩︎

You could argue that this credit goes more to Inquisition and the previous games for laying the groundwork for said reveals, which were obviously planned out ahead of time, as confirmed by the aforementioned official artbook. Regardless, the payoff satisfied me and gave me proper closure. ↩︎

I’ve been informed that there is a hidden conversation that explains that the Lords of Fortune do, in fact, sell cultural artifacts at times, but only to the rightful owners. This just makes me wonder what they do with the artifacts if the prospective clients can’t pay. Do they shove them back in the ruins and re-arm all the booby traps? ↩︎

I would argue that this does not represent character progression on Isabela’s part, as her (possible, depending on the player’s choices) return of the Tome of Koslun in Dragon Age II was a pragmatic sacrifice she made to save her friends and the city, rather than an acknowledgment of the qunari’s inviolable ownership. In fact, in many continuities, she never returns the Tome at all. ↩︎

I prefer more formalist criticism because it allows the text to lead the dance, not the critique. I think it’s only fair, given that the creators likely spent more effort crafting the piece than I spent consuming it. Symptomatic criticism mandates that the reader consider everything around the text, typically at the text’s expense. In the worst cases, symptomatic critics make their arguments about seemingly everything besides the text in question. ↩︎ Link to article: https://planckstorytime.wordpress.com/2025/01/01/dragon-age-the-veilguard-strangled-by-gentle-hands/

[stjohnstarling]

This article is so crazy, following a librarian as she discovers that she had unwittingly purchased more than a hundred AI audiobooks by possibly nonexistent authors:

Robin hadn’t initially noticed it was an AI narrator because she never pays attention to the narrator when there’s a patron report of a problem with an audiobook: “It’s always file problems, not narrator problems.” “And it’s probably still not a narrator problem. It could have happened to any file. BUT, it sent me down the rabbit hole of ‘oh shit, I bought an AI narrated book?’ “I wonder how many of those I bought on accident.” “OH SHIT, we have HOW MANY?”

It's a bit of a cliché at this point to say that we are living through a golden age of scams, but it's mind-bending to see stuff like this penetrating even into public library systems.

[punkpandapatrixk]

🎡Cosmic Messages for Workers of Light ♦︎ Timeless Pick A Card

Those of you who’ve always had a feeling that you were born to do something important; those of you who’ve recently been feeling like you’re being called to something higher than the mundane; YO, this reading has appeared in your Reality now to signal that the lights are green~🥝🥦🥑

Many people have been on different timelines that are now converging as one singular trajectory of where Humanity is heading. It’s a little bit more convoluted than that tho, because we each experience this Game a whole lot differently, too. But essentially, we’re wrapping up karmic cycles and entering a Golden Age of Workers of Light~★

Technically speaking, the essence…the theme…of the New Age of Aquarius is accountability. This is an era of accountability, folks. People can no longer be supported by any kind of cosmic power to perpetuate deceit and the misuse of knowledge.

‘But when knowledge is abused or put to the servility of coining wealth for a few, without respect of the treasury which all inherit, then humanity departs from the machine and all is toil without profit. For the false-hearted who would tear knowledge apart, diminishing the light and shielding its beams from us, will make mechanicals of us all.’ – excerpt from Manifesto of The Guild of Artificers; The Steampunk Tarot

What’s your current timeline? Which trajectory of the future of Humanity are you on? This reading serves as a prelude to what’s going to be revealed more in-depth in the ‘Lion’s Gate Portal to XXX’ PAC~💋

INTELLIGENCE: Mission Mind Control (1979) on Nuclear Vault

TECHNOMAGY: Probability Alteration and Luck (Energetically Programmed Audio) by Sapien Medicine

deck-bottom: XXI The World Rx, Silver Geographer (Francis Drake) & Priestess of Shine

[PAC Masterlist] [Patreon] [Paid Readings]

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – You’re Going to Change the World by Making It Innocent Again

ANGEL NUMBERS: variants of 585, 627, 657, 757, 818, 828

the meaning of NOW – 6 of Pentacles Rx

Have you ever had glimpses of imagination, or a sense of knowing, or it’s just a feeling, like you were dropped to Earth by mistake? Perhaps it’s a feeling as if you were a Greek god banished from the realms of the gods and entered Earth as a form of punishment? Or a bit of a feeling like you got scammed and arrived on the wrong Planet? LMAO Why am I thinking of that Bollywood movie called ‘PK’?

The alien kid arrived on a strange Planet: Earth. And Humanity—Indian primarily—befuddles the living shit out of him XD I think you’ve known for quite a while that you’re not from around here. You’ve never really fit in. I think you weren’t treated nicely by most people—could be your own blood ‘family’, could be your schoolmates, teachers, neighbours. Just basically, you’re seen as a bit of a freak.

It’s hard for you to feel a sense of community. No matter what stage of Life you are in, it’s always felt like that. If at the moment of reading this you’re older in age, I think you’re managing a lot better now. You’ve learnt to be OK with your own company because you’re the most smartest and interesting person you could have conversations with. But if you’re comparatively younger, you’re probably still going through the motion, and that’s OK, because it’s just part of the lore building ;P

bridging the future – King of Wands

The simplest truth about your existence is that you aren’t meant to ‘grow up’ in the same sense as most other people do. Growing up is a wonderful thing, of course, we all need to grow up and become smarter and amazinger! But what doesn’t sit right with you is people’s twisted idea of ‘growing up’ is all about. To most lame-ass Humans on this Planet, ‘growing up’ means abandoning the core essence of what makes you, you.

On this Planet, ‘growing up’ means letting go of your innocence and simple kindness in exchange for survival and brutality (in the workplace, I guess). Here on this Planet, ‘growing up’ means burning your passion to ashes; not living Life fuelled by a burning passion. Here, ‘growing up’ means being punished for authenticity and the childlike courage to question authority. Growing up, here, means becoming complicit to evil abuse of power and greed.

How are you supposed to comply to any of that? Don’t you realise how pure your Heart is? Your sense of justice is clear since day one. It’s something you may not be able to express clearly but you know what’s right and wrong on the basis of what’s good and bad for people as….just people…not numbers or statistics or traffic or casualties. ‘People are PEOPLE, dammit!’

you’re going to MAKE IT – 3 of Cups Rx

You’re befuddled? This world is befuddled! If you’ve chosen this Pile as your main pile, you have it written in your Soul’s blueprint that you’re going to be involved in the politics of the world. Yes, some of you could become politicians or activists, but even those that aren’t interested in any of that, you’re still going to have opinions and perspectives that touch on the subject of Humanity and how psychopath politicians are fucking things up for Humans.

You know what I mean? Some of you could become world players that implement new laws and principles in your society. Some of you will have the power to influence public opinions so that people begin to demand accountability from their corrupt governments. Back to basics, baby. What is Humanity, basically? What does it mean to even be Human living in a Human World, basically? You’ve questioned all of this and you will one day have a platform to extend this musing to a larger audience.

The lights are GREEN now. You’ve experienced so much personal conflict with people who don’t understand your values, all so you would learn to forge connections with people who are just as innocently passionate as you are. That was your training ground, bitch~♥︎ Your personal experiences were a microcosm model of what’s going to sweep out the entire world in the coming decades, if not centuries.

Basically, it's time nations started actually taking care of their own issues before they raid and destroy other nations for resources is what your Soul is understanding.

TIMELINE🔻💛

daydreaming – Gold Magus (Johannes Faustus)

engaging in Reality – Priestess of Innocence

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – You’re Not Confused; This World Is; So You’re Alright

ANGEL NUMBERS: variants of 111, 123, 222, 414, 444, 647

the meaning of NOW – 9 of Cups

Head in the clouds, baby? You’re the type of person who has many dreams and ideas, and it’s like, it’s easy for you to get interested in all kinds of pursuits. But then, it’s also just as easy to lose interest in all of those novelties; it feels like your heart and mind are always being pulled by newer interests or topics. I’m reminded of this meme or whisper that says something like, ‘Not tonight babe. A YouTuber has just posted a 4-hour video about a topic I’ve never heard about before.’

You like to study new things or basically just drown yourself in new hobbies/interests because you’re trying to make sense out of your very existence. I think you’ve felt incredibly confused your entire Life. If not ‘confused’ per se, it still feels like you’re lacking a sense of direction. You don’t really know what’s the purpose of being here on this Planet. You’re weirded out by the fact that you’re not motivated by the same things that others have convinced you to get excited about.

‘Why am I not motivated by these promises and achievements? Damn, I simply can’t be motivated by something as unromantic as that. There’s no Life in any of those pursuits. My God, what should I be interested in for me to motivate myself to make something out of myself? I really don’t know what to pursue in this world. I don’t even know how to live…’ So you continue to daydream but your heart is quite heavy sometimes.

bridging the future – Ace of Cups Rx

Pile 2, you are magic, you know that? Being the way that you are, you aren’t in the wrong for being rather ‘impractical’. If anything, you’re so high-vibrational that you still remember that physical manifestation comes from the dream world first. I think you’d resonate with being a very Feminine person, aenergetically speaking? Maybe you have a strong Moon/Neptune placement in your birth chart as well.

You remember on a Soul level that all dreams can become real as long as you keep on to them. Your being a dreamer who dreams ‘too much’ is not wrong; it is this world that’s too rigid and restrictive. It’s grotesque how society has set up so many rules that limit what a being as divine as you can and can’t do/create. They say the sky’s the limit; in your case, your faith’s the limit.

There are many wonderful things that you want to make manifest but you often tell yourself that you’re dreaming too much or that there’s no way someone like you could ever achieve that. That’s where you’re doing ‘wrong’: the not believing in your own ability to create your dream Life. Remember that successful people usually say that the Life they have now exceeds even their ‘wildest’ dreams.

So dream wild. Dream big. Even if you don’t believe you can exceed your expectations, can’t you still believe that you’ll manifest something very similar?

you’re going to MAKE IT – 9 of Wands Rx

Stop stopping yourself, OK? Stop gaslighting yourself for fuck’s saké. Right now, you need to stop believing that Life’s supposed to be hard work and lived logically. You literally deserve to get paid for just existing. That sounds extra narcissistic but hope you get the idea. This modern society that favours hard work and believes that only after you’ve worked really hard can you then be worthy of a lot of abundance is stupid. This world is confused. People have forgotten the essence of dreaming and living in ease.

Some of you will resonate with being a fairy or an elven soul, and so you believe from the depths of your heart that people should be allowed an easy existence in harmony with nature. Some of you will resonate with being a futuristic alien android being who believes that human lives can be made easy with the right use of technology.

All in all, cosmically speaking, your Soul came into this world to be a ‘lazy’ genius who will switch things up for Humanity so that everybody can have an easier time existing on this Planet. Geniuses are never lazy, bitch. Not in the mind! If wanting things to be more streamlined and easy to do makes a person ‘lazy’ that’s hilarious. So what’s a not-lazy person? A low-IQ idiot who perpetually works hard because they got scammed by capitalism?

TIMELINE🔻💙

daydreaming – Green Magus (John Dee)

engaging in Reality – Priestess of Ambition

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Pile 3 – Illuminate Others’ Paths by Simply Expressing Your Truth

ANGEL NUMBERS: variants of 211, 217, 303, 522, 814, 999

the meaning of NOW – 3 of Swords Rx

Do you know that you’re an energy worker? I almost feel you’re a miracle worker. You’re somebody who has a special power in the way that you express yourself, whether in writing or spoken. It’s not so much what you say or write or do, it’s HOW you say or do or write your truth that moves people’s hearts. You have the power to stir some shit up in people’s aenergetic fields LOL

You have both the power to destroy your enemies and heal those who want to get better in the world. If your power is speech, it’s the aenergy with which you talk that empowers people. Ionno, think JFK, MLK? Or some fascinating YouTubers who make us feel like, ‘Oh this guy/gal is my spirit animal!!!’ It’s their aenergy, right? Same with writing or any other thing that you do. It comes natural to you to create some kind of a ripple in people’s consciousness.

For other people, just tuning in your aenergetic space stirs them. That’s why you experience a lot of extremes. Good-hearted people feel immensely healed, comforted and uplifted in your presence or when they talk/text with you. But the false-hearted ones, they also know there’s something about you that calls out their bullshit even when you’re not ‘saying’ anything. There’s something about you that inspires people to be better! And that’s fucking annoying to narcs and the losers of the world LMAO

bridging the future – 10 of Pentacles Rx

I see that you’re honestly not the kinda person who’s ambitious about changing the world, about influencing the world. Not in that ambitious manner like some activist or whatever. Your Soul is very incredibly superbly soft; you ain’t an activist, you’re an artist; you ain’t a fighter, you a lover, baby~ So I get that you sometimes don’t really know what to do with yourself XD Like there’s this desire to heal the world, but you don’t think of yourself as someone who’s fighter enough or strong enough to do any of that.

WRONG. You’re the kinda entity who’s already doing all that healing stuff by simply being the amazing person that you are. Your aenergy is like a combination of both Pile 1 and 2. The half of you is superbly soft and dreamy and you’re so kind and empathetic; the other half of you is fiercely protective of those who are hurting, and you do a lot to make things better and easier for them—in your own practical, seemingly small ways.

The good news is, you really don’t have to be a fighter if it doesn’t suit you. Basically, you just have to be yourself and express your truth. In whatever way you find most suitable to you. Your power lies in your communication, self-expression, connection. You’re going to be a trend-setter, babe~ A trend-setter of authenticity, yup, ‘real authenticity’, ironically; not ‘fake authentic’ that’s propagated by a lot of narcs on the Internet LOL

you’re going to MAKE IT – 3 of Pentacles

With narcs who are pretending so HARD at being good, you know it’s all skin-deep; it’s all just jargon. And they’re gonna get really good at weaponizing self-love concepts to justify shit behaviour, deadbeat behaviour, toxic tendencies, gaslighting atrocities and all that shit, you know? With you, your VIBRATIONS can’t be faked, let alone emulated. The world needs a role model like you. That’s why you’re going to make it. Your Soul Mission ain’t just about you, babe~

You’re literally going to be the example whom people bear witness for what being authentic is all about. They will watch you and come to their own conclusion what a genuine soul looks like. You’re reminding me of Dr Jordan B Peterson. Yep, that kinda vibe. Be weird all you want, be scandalous all you want, the right people will see that your INTENT has been good all along. And in that sense, the people who CHOOSE to view you badly are the CLOWNS, and they’re gonna be proving that to themselves.

In essence, most people’s idols are all LIARS!!! You’re meant to break that, destroy that, and usher in a new era of influencers/celebs/thought leaders/spiritual teachers/all kinds of public figures that actually operate on Light—real information and real intent—instead of fake-ass jargon that lies to people’s faces with semantics and optics! Your aenergy is insane it’s literally gonna change the world massively, and upon finding this reading, you’re riding on the winds of CHANGE so get fucking READY, bitch~! \`★_★`/

TIMELINE🔻🧡

daydreaming – Green Astronomer (Nicolaus Copernicus)

engaging in Reality – Priestess of Illumination

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

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[mitsua]

Silvery orb, I love his golden orbs

Warnings: none Genre: slight angst to fluff

Series: Obey me! SWD? Words' count: 0.71k

Pairing: Mammon × GN! Y/N

You've felt very uncomfortable since you were brought by force to the Devildom. Never expecting to meet angels and demons and not just any sort of demons or angels—but some are the ones that are biblically spoken of.

Some were very kind towards you while some weren't, as in every new classroom each new scholar year. By your age, you've come to terms with not getting along with everyone and just ignored them.

Not like you weren't afraid enough to even talk to them anyway.

Excepting the one who has been in charge of you since the beginning by Lucifer—the oldest of the brothers.

Mammon.

Just as you weren't expecting to meet demons and angels, you weren't expecting to befriend one. But here you are—laughing your ass off as Mammon shows you the latest scam he's gotten involved in.

There you are—feeling anger for him when he's unable to stand up for himself when his brothers talk badly about him.

There you were—taking care of him after his older brother had beaten him down for breaking the rules once more.

You couldn't really recall how many days or nights you've spent doing it anymore—not like there was any sun to call day.

You've craved to take Mammon with you to where you used to live before this cursed place and never come back again.

You knew he wouldn't accept because as much as he loves you and has told you so after building a romantic relation with you—you see how much he loves his brothers as well.

So you propose him to visit the human world with you, just for a day and a night.

You're aware Mammon has visited it hundreds of times, but you've never gone together as a couple.

You spent the day at your beach house, teaching Mammon about some human things that you'd sometimes only got to spoke about at the Devildom but weren't able to exactly show him how they function.

As the sunset came, you finally went out of the house to bury your feet in sand and play in the sea—explaining him that at that hour you've got a secret spot for yourselves until the next evening came.

So you stand there, peacefully watching the big shiny circle at the horizon come down and let the rising orb called moon bathe with its white, gentle light.

You missed this, Mammon could see it. The nostalgia in your eyes was too much to hide and it made his heart hurt.

You've spoken about moving to the human world with such an excitement that he's never noticed he's done that when giving you rational arguments to stay with his brothers.

—You know what Mammon?—you talked after so long, gusts of wind hitting your face and making your hair go along with it,—after today I've realized two things will forever stay the same for me.

Mammon gulped, awaiting for you to tell him that you want to stay in your world and that you're better off without each other. He of course didn't want any of that, but his nerves were starting to get into the surface just as the dolphin you watched hours ago jumping and splashing around.

He stayed silent, rather letting you break the subtle silence between you two and the uproar of boats passing ever so far,—I love you and after sunlit days, rises the moon in here.

You glanced at him,—I'll be wherever you want to be—. You clarified after noticing the hint of confusion on his furrowing brows, laughing softly.

Mammon had never felt so tranquil than after hearing you say that and seeing your alluring smile. He hugged you tightly and you could swear you heard him sniffle on your shoulder.

—Oh MC, I've also accepted something,—he revealed, keeping his hands on your shoulders to look you in the eyes. —You're the one I want to spend my life with, and if that comes with us having to move from the HoL, I'll go wherever you are too—.

Such fools in love you two were, weren't you?

But finally, you've come to an agreement to spend time wherever you want to that you both feel comfortable in.

—I love you to the moon and back—.

Tried out a new format!

All writings' rights reserved © 2024 Mitsua. (Credit to the respective owners of the pictures and tagged anime character.) ⌇ my navigation!

[nicherayyy]

Giorno Giovanna with Sibling!Reader hcs

Attention: you may see some spoilers to Golden Wind, so if you're still in process of watching anime/reading manga I advice you to return here after you're finished

A/N: starting to take requests again, so if you have any other ideas don't be shy and hit that ask button!

Let me say it, you and Giorno are inseparable since childhood

I mean, with how abusive your childhood was, you alway tried to look out for each other

At least you had each other in all this mess

But of course, everything changed after you've encountered that strange man

Giorno and you didn't even understand what happened before you were under protection of the mafia

The kids that were bullying you suddenly became nice

Your stepfather stopped hitting you

And life suddenly was.. not that bad

That's when you two realised who you helped that day

And since then Giorno knew who he wanted to be

And you happily followed him

But it more looked liked:

"let's join the mafia"

" ..yeah sure why not"

And then both of your hair colours suddenly changed

That was the moment when you discovered your abilities as a hairdresser

Because what can be better than sibling bonding through braiding your brother's hair?

You looked through a lot, and I mean A LOT tutorials to make Giorno's hair presentable

And he's really grateful for that

"Are you done?"

"Stop moving your head or I'll take those scissors and chop your hair off"

Then you started to scam tourists at the airport

It's such a funny concept actually, two 15 year olds scamming people as a taxi drivers

Well, Giorno is the one who drives

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

*Giorno, having his Formula 1 moment* "Absolutely"

And well, you trust your brother with your life

But still, you hold onto that seatbelt for your dear life

"I lived a pretty good life"

"Shut it"

And then there was Bruno

Not gonna lie, this guy kind of scared you

But hey, after a fight and some torn off limbs, everything turned out just fine

And then Polpo..

Remember the lighter?

The fire in it died down.. like the first hour

And it was kind of your fault

"Hold the lighter for a bit, I.. WAIT DON'T SNEEZE"

And again, everything worked out in the end

(You still got scolded by Giorno)

(And he forgave you almost instantly)

So yeah, that's how you got in the mafia at the ripe age of 15😀👍

And it turns out, Leone treats you slightly better than Giorno

Overall, the whole gang treats you well

And you even became good friends with Narancia

But the most important thing is, you're just glad to be there for your brother

Hashtag supportive sibling

[froody]

The craziest thing about the Wild West is that many of the prominent figures who spent their prime years crossing between both sides of the law, rustling cattle, shooting people in broad daylight, bounty hunting, robbing stagecoaches, gambling, scamming and swindling etc. just got out of the game and died peacefully in their own bed at age 80. It was the same with pirates in the golden age of piracy. If you didn’t die violently, you just retired and started living like a normal civilian. Imagine your 75 year old grandma telling you about how she used to seduce and rob lone men on the Oregon trail. Your grandpa calculating how many people he killed in bar fights and coming to the conclusion it was upwards of 30. The law was not equipped to investigate and prosecute every criminal in the west so if you left the game, there was often this uneasy truce.

[pepper-makes-art]

relavity falls stans, graunts, n friends

oK THEYRE HERE NOW AND NOT JUST FIDDLEFORD!!!

fiddleford can be found here!!!

i wish i could've done more sketches but im a bit busy atm </3 will def do some on the weekends though!!

on the au:

instead of taking place in 2014, it takes place in 2024 now! which doesnt rlly change much outside of appearances and slang lol.

bold is what their au name is

stanford (ford) <--> dipper

pretty self explanatory! i feel like stanford'd be an x-men fan, hence the x patch on his shoulder lol. also yes, dipper is a trans woman here. and she has glasses bc fuck dude i hate drawing regular eyes.. i thought the design looked a bit empty, so i decided to make that cool glove thing ford had dipper's robot hand thingy!

stanley (lee) <--> mabel (mason)

stanley now wears a hat. hoorah. nothing much to say here besides him also smuggling shanklin in (w/o the knife unfortunately). mabel's still impersonating her sibling (who, before the portal scene, doesn't know that she's a girl now) under the name of mason, but has ultimately shed her sibling's fashion tastes for her own. mabel wears a turtleneck UNDER the suit bc she doesnt feel heat apparently!

candy <--> wendy

candy's now a 15 yo asian kid who took up the cashier job under grauntie bc she needed more extracurriculars and the experience. totally cant relate to that haha. wendy's now a 12 yo mischievous lil lumberjack who's best friends w/ stanley (i thought it'd be interesting since theyre all now still associated w each other) and who has ALL the middle school tea (which is A LOT)

grenda <--> soos

as much as i want the ages to line up relatively (haha get it.), i think it'd be funny if mabel just hired a bunch of teenagers to run the shack (not sure what to call it). grenda's the 15 yo handy(wo)man who has the voice of an angel and the golden mentality of "smash with couch"! soos is now a friendly n equally naive 12 yo who's best friends w stanely (yada yada) and who somehow always solves problems

on dipper and mabel (will be using he/him for pre-transition dipp):

hoo boy. i see SO many ppl arguing abt their relationship, and i just gotta say, i can tell who has siblings and who doesn't! (joke. thats a joke. mostly) anyways, theyre good siblings!! up until high school, where after drifting apart somewhat, they have a big argument abt where theyre going in life - dipper wants to go to insert rlly good college name and become a scientist while mabel, well, she doesn't know where she wants to go. unbeknownst to them, while theyre fighting, their parents are also fighting. suddenly, their parents split, and mabel is forced to live with her mom and dipper with his dad, far apart from each other. dipper (wearily) accepts this while mabel silently resents dipper for his submission

dipper attends his dream school but is unhappy in his schooling years. afterwards, with his 12 phds or whatever the hell, he goes to a quaint town named relativity falls... mabel becomes an artist of sorts, taking commissions n such, but finds that this doesn't exactly lead to profit. she then becomes a sort of con(wo)man and psychic in attempts to capitalize the strange. she DEF doesn't get into as much srs trouble as stanley did back in his day, but she still lands herself in hot water from scamming and stealing across state lines...

im tired rn so lmk if yall wanna hear more lol.

[redlenai]

So... hear me out, this is my re-do of Umbrella Academy season 4 and also the finale. So, we know Allison made a deal with Reginald and they ended up in a new world without powers and all that, and instead of getting new, weird ones, they get their original powers back, but they took only a sip of the marigold, so they are failing and not always active at will (Otherwise, Klaus, Allison, Laila and Viktor would be too OP again).

Allison got her daughter back, husband left her, I prefer that that way. I also LOVED HER in season two so why not let her be a hairdresser still? With a succesful one amongst old ladies and vintage enthusiasts. She doesn't want any of her clients dating her siblings, she is keeping her business!

Luther instead of a stripper, what about bringing back him being number 1? But not necessarily a glamorous job, but a fullfilling one with people like him who wants team work and maybe start doing some personal healing, so let's make him a Camp Counselor. He is the leader of a group of kids, kids that listen to him better than his siblings, he is nice, he is there for them, he may not be the wisest but he is attentive and sensitive, so I think that would be a good spin for him. Some moms would fawn over him, who doesn't love a big teddy?

Diego and Laila, I love they got twins, I would have liked to see them more. I would have loved for everyone to be more involved to the niblings, so Diego, I would have left him all his fighting techniques, those could had nothing to do with his perfect aim powers so he still had them. I could see him having a Dojo in a Mall and secretly teaching his daughter how to fight. Yes, Laila being totally against.

Laila I really like that growth in the beginning, mom of three, doing undercover. I liked she acknowledged being an assassin almost her entire life then this change its too sudden, yes, secrets aint good but instead of being nasty to her family, keeping that bag out of the house seems correct for me.

Klaus, hear me out, him being a germaphobe, sober, clean is golden. His fear of permament, genuine, death is glorious, and I feel so sad they didn't dive more into him stepping up for Claire, you could tell he loved his niece and even with all his flaws he was there for her and did those changes for her too, not only because of Allison's support. I think his world should have been his niblings now, he'll endure the germs of his niblings and only theirs, his siblings need to wash their hands three times and use some alcohol before touching him.

Ben, nothing much to say. He is Sparrow Ben so yes, to me him doing a bitcoin scam its perfect, I think its the only thing from the beginning of the season that I won't change one bit. I'm also keeping Luther being the one trying to incoorporate him to the family. Still a bitch, but behaves in front of the kids

Viktor, what did they do to my man. Listen, instead of him being a douche with ladies and being so far away and in a damn bar, hear me out. Violin teacher, close to family, simple as that, some of his students are making progress... his ears are no longer bleeding during sessions!

Now, Five. You know, he was in his 60s. Reaching his 70s after this one final timeskip right? (I'm not good at math). I think I would have spin things very differently for him, first, a young body is just that, a young body. He is still older than all of his siblings, he still experienced solitude, trauma and more. So I can picture him not being as sharp as before, mind sliping, stubborn, everyone tries to deny it, but Five is aging, he needs help. Instead of working for the CIA, just an old man in a young body, winning some chess contests for the thrill but tired, maybe sharing a decent apartment with Luther and Ben since the first was the first one to notice these changes.

I wouldn't have changed much of the plot, Marigold and Durango? Having to destroy all timelines? Ok, let's keep that but let's chance the way how it works. Besides, I would have introduced the Fives hanging around in the Subway quite a bit earlier or removed it entirely.

Main plot: Finding Jennifer, Reginald and Abigail come to the conclussion that the clearance IS the monster, IS the end of the world just like how it happened, but it isnt.

Sub-plots: Diego still not trusting Laila or not appreciating what he has, Klaus having a panick attack and afraid of losing all the progress he has made so far, Five's slowly going senile (Getting his powers and being able to access the Subway makes it worse), Viktor wanting closure about all the abuse Reginald has caused them.

I did like the Cult and the Umbrella effect, but lets not involve the CIA, that was a bit just too much. But I liked Abigail sabbotaging her love, I think the gang deserved to get to know her a bit better and see what was that their father longed for so long.

But understanding doesn't mean forgiving.

Laila and Five do get lost for 7 years in the Subway, Laila seeing now instead of Luther how Five IS older, IS an old man, IS aging and NEEDING his family close. I really got this image of the scene being them taking shelter in that green house, nothing romantic happens between them, just Five appreciating Laila is there just to make an odd comment "Wish the others cared to visit", then Laila having to remind him they were lost and needed to get back.

Diego, instead of having his awakening in the CIA, he just goes from sibling to sibling, yes, he does the talking! He still jumps into conclussions but now seeks imput!

Klaus as said is terrified of having his powers back, all his terrors come back to haunt him, he doesn't fall back onto the drugs in an instant, nor the alcohol. Instead of taking that TV, I really wanted Claire to be his anchor, I know, she shouldn't have such a responsability, but who wouldn't want to help the family that choose to keep the closest when you needed the most? He forgives Allison, then instead of the whole medium thing and being buried alive (despite the last being actually a reference to the comic and how originally Reginald trained him), he slowly goes back, sometimes its hard to remember too all the progress you made with your gift/curse, and thanks to not have used too much marigold helped him to gradually get used to it, especially alongside his sister and niece.

Ben and Jeniffer are in the run from Hargreeves and the Keepers, instead of them getting that rash then evolving into a monster, let's go back to my point of interest: Niblings.

Well, instead of a fricking monster, what if Ben and Jennifer just got a baby on the way, one that was growing way too fast, but not as much as the 43 children. Ben doesn't trust nor feel the others are family, he doesn't want them, his real family is dead, that's a fact.

Well, let's say seeing your love at first Durango suffering a weird pregnancy that is causing those weird stuff (I liked the Earthquackes, dead animals, people dead by ink), enemies right and left, not sure if she survives, she dies, there is a baby or monster on the way... kind of makes you want the group of nosy assholes back, especially if something bad happens to you or the mom.

II like that Abigail seemed to care about the gang, I was surprised Reginald even talked about them, so I can imagine her just wanting to care for them, so what if the gang talked during their "visit" about their kids too, wait, does that mean Reggie has grandkids? Are these my grandkids? or step-grandkids at least?

So I think the finaly argument between Reginald and Abigail should have been, yes, he should have left her die, that they were wrong, that's not the end of the world, that is a new beginning. Reggie, do the right thing, that's the 4th grandchild you won't be able to meet.

We have part of the gang trying to help soon to be Daddy Octopus prevent the Keepers, Hargreeves agents and yes, the CIA as its own thing, from entering. Then another half helping Jennifer, the birth happens.

And that is the ending, everything fades to white.

"In October 1st of 1989.... nothing out of the ordinary happened. To be exact, the actual date is (Insert modern time). I'm just watching over a... peculiar family that found each other"

Then we have in said park the whole gang, people that didn't die nor did go to the Temps Aeternalis. Umbrellas and Sparrows as well.

There, happy ending.

[misctf]

Age Burner

“Getting older ain’t easy”. My dad would often say that when I was growing up, and like most things your parents tell you, I didn’t take it too seriously. But 30ish years later, I started to appreciate those words of wisdom. I was a college baseball player, the ladies were all over me, and I actually had hair on my head and not everywhere else. But now I can barely throw a baseball around with my son without an ache or pain. And with him about to go off to college and play baseball, it was like he was reliving my golden days.

So with father’s day and my birthday coming up, another great reminder of my age, I decided to get something for myself. I happened across an internet ad, big letters flashing “Age Burner!” Initially thought it’d be some type of scam supplement or something. But I ordered it and a few days later, a small package arrived with a single pill. I had half a mind to throw it out, but I already spent the money. I took the pill right before I went to bed as instructed, and had the best sleep of my life. When I woke up the next morning, I immediately noticed a difference. No aches or pains! My skin felt youthful and firm. No hair anywhere but my head! I ran to the mirror and was shocked- it was like time was turned back and I was my old 19-year old self. I could barely keep my hands off my firm pecs and my abs. I even flexed to show off my guns. It felt so good to be back.  

After some time, I rummaged through my closet and found my old baseball glove, a grin forming on my face. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to play ball with my son, show him what his old man was capable of back in his youth. I ran over to his room, excited to spend the day with him when my heart sunk. The man sitting in my son’s bed looked nothing like him: bald, hairy, a small flabby gut sitting between his legs. He looked up at me, a handful of his gut in his hand, too shocked to say anything.

After the initial shock subsided, and my son had two cups of coffee, we went and investigated. The pill does in fact burn away age, almost like a fat loss supplement. But that age had to go somewhere and in this case, it all went to my son. Reversal should be easy enough, he would just need to take the pill too. The problem was the pill was on back order for at least a few months- apparently it was very popular and the company was having a hard time keeping up their supply.

It’s been a few weeks without them taking any new orders, but my son seems to be adjusting well. He’s enjoyed keeping up with lawn care and found himself a construction job. And the other day, he offered to fire up the grill for me and my new buddies from the baseball team. I even came home and found him sipping a beer on the patio and laughing with a few of his new work buddies. I'm just happy he's happy. To tell you the truth, the longer things stay like this, the more I wonder if we’ll want to go back. I for damn sure know my answer.

[toskarin]

Any opinions on your mind today, boss?

while I think that the alarmist "tumblr is going to shut down tomorrow" trend is definitely wildly off-base, I also can't help but feel that tumblr shifting out of growth mode is more concerning now than ever, given the end of zero interest rate policy

it's not clear what's going to happen and anyone who tries to sell certainty is either being irrational or scamming you, but you really can't look at tumblr's past to know what's going to happen now. tech was largely built on the idea that loans were free and you could worry about paying them back later

and now that's not the case

the past ten years have been godawful, but don't forget that this decade is the end of a golden age of tech startups. the money is running out everywhere, and if you've ever wondered how companies have stayed extant while hemorrhaging money, that reality is about to come crashing down

[moss-ridden-owl-creature]

Introduction Post :DD

(last updated: 27/12/24)

I don’t know exactly how to do this but I’m doing it anyways!

‼️BEFORE THE INTRO: please do not ask me for donations. I can’t tell which are scams and which aren’t. I’m a minor and also cannot donate along with the fact that hospitals and severe injuries often shown in the asks are massive triggers for me and can send me into panic attacks very easily.‼️

+🌑+🌘+🌗+🌖+🌕+🌔+🌓+🌒+🌑+

Name: Call me Mike, Millard, Cassidy, Telemachus or Owl :) (generally don’t care) (nicknames for friends/moots: Cass, Mills, Millie, Tem or anything else you wanna call me)

Age: 15+ (I’m a minor)

Gender: Non-binary (pronouns: any except for neos)

Orientation: biromantic & Demisexual :)

Religion: Hellenic & Nordic pagan (Greek & Norse deities. Probably won’t post often about this stuff but I do reblog things relating to it) (No, I am not interested in converting, don’t try it. Believe me, the Mormons at my school have tried.)

I’ll post my art once in while! Nothing on my blog in terms of interests is set in stone, but you will often see art from fandoms I’m in, or of my ocs/fursonas!

I am endo-neutral. I will interact with both pro and anti endos. I genuinely do not care what your stance on it is. Just don’t bring syscourse to my blog or DMs.

VERY VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE:

‼️‼️DO NOT FOLLOW, INTERACT, COMMENT, REPOST OR REBLOG ANY OF MY CONTENT IF YOU SELFSHIP WITH ANY OF MY FICTOTYPES. IT MAKES ME PHYSICALLY ILL.‼️‼️‼️

theriotype: Tundra wolf! (Spiritual) hearttypes: border collie & crows! (Spiritual)

kintypes: Cryptidkin, & dragonkin (These are either spiritual or/and emotional.)

Fictotypes/fictionkin: Micheal Afton, Millard Nullings (MPHFPC), Cassidy (Vengeful spirit/Golden Freddy) (FNaF), & Telemachus (EPIC: The musical)

Matthias Helvar (SoC) fictionhearted!

Am I okay with doubles?

Micheal: sorry no!

Cassidy: ehh- it’s iffy

Millard: Sure?

Telemachus: nada, sorry :< (fictives are chill though if I know you)

Some form of relation/connection to the FNaF franchise besides a kintype. Potential hearthome or idk maybe I’m just sad about my family lmao (damn. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say in regards to the Aftons.)

THIS IS NOT A ROLEPLAY BLOG. THIS IS PURELY MY THOUGHTS AND DUMB SHIT. THAT WILL INCLUDE MY FICTIONKIN EXPERIENCES.

Depending on if I’m feeling shifty or having really strong emotions in regards to something related to my sources, my post text color may change and I’ll sign off the message but basically: Micheal, Cassidy, Millard, Telemachus

my alts!!:

@y0ur-l0cal-1nvisible - a MPHFPC-centric blog about my source and Millard Nullings kin stuff

@mikes-hideout - a more angsty teen-Mike FNaF-centric blog about FNaF and my general Micheal Afton kin experiences @prince-of-ithaca - EPIC! The Musical and The Odyssey (+general Greek mythology) centric blog with my Telemachus fictotype

@tr4sh-b4stard - just a regular alt acc for me, this will probably end up being deleted as I never use it for anything.

Fandoms: Grishaverse, Riordanverse, The MCU, Good Omens, The Folk of The Air, Murder Drones, FNaF, Heathers, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Lunar Chronicles, The Hunger Games, The Song of Achilles, EPIC: The Musical, Aru Shah, Hamilton (technically), Warriors, Avatar: TLA, Iron Widow, The Furry fandom, and many others! (These are in no specific order) (green text indicates hyperfixations)

I’m a batshit insane Kaz Brekker simp lol :)

Hardcore Jason Grace (HoO) defender (fight me /hj I am willing to hold conversations about it though.)

Other things: I’m a furry (my fursona is named Halskë! I will post about these things.) I am diagnosed with ADHD, Slytherin, Cabin 7 (Apollo), I’m a fan of bones and taxidermy :) I also bow hunt large game such as antelope, deer, elk and big horned sheep :)

C!Technoblade (DSMP) synpath! (Not a kintype!Just relate to the character:) )

Milo Rossi (Miniminuteman) fan :)

I am a diehard FNaF fan. I will talk about it for HOURS. I love FNaF. Mention it and I will vibrate at a frequency strong enough to shatter glass. So yes, please talk to me about it :)

DNI: Basic haters, bigots, pro-Nazis, zoos, racists, or fans of The Human Centipede (Gives me PTSD-like triggers.) Those who are “Nordic Myth” kins of any type. (Marvel kins are not included. Y’all are fine.) & NSFW blogs, I’m a minor and on the asexual spectrum and it makes me uncomfortable, thanks! :)

also please note, even if you are not in my DNI list, I do block freely, I do not stand for people who are constantly pessimistic. I don’t care if you’re pessimistic in general, myself am a realist, but what I mean by that is if you are more than 80% of the time just a negative being, I will most likely not interact with you. I am endo neutral. Don’t bring discourse to me.

another thing! My content is considerably 13+ (I will not respond to asks if you under 14 years old, as it makes me uncomfortable.) and if you are older than 25, do not interact with me (EX: asks. The exception for this would be like if I follow you and send you an ask.), as you are between 10-5 years older than me. (The under 14 rule does not apply to those who are regressors, and regressors ARE allowed to interact with my content, but be warned, not all of my content is suitable for littles, be safe!)

I accept people of all gender, sexual, and/or identity. Don’t come on to my profile with your phobic bullshit.

online friends! (Aka the beings allowed to call me Cass) :D @kirshimadenkisero @the-bineapple @writingnotes520 @popatochsp @thelab-experiment @im-just-another-pony (These goobs are also my mutuals!)

@crooked--compass is my IRL bestie 🫵 (don’t be alarmed if he says dumb shit on my posts)

my tags!

Original posts: #Cryptid whispers, #Dragon Growls, #The Wolf Bites #N Rambles, #Cassidy’s Rambles

art: #The Moss Owl Creature Has Taken To Scribbling, #Owl Draws Will add more as the list grows!

reblogs: #Dragon Rumbles

That’s all! Have a good day/evening :D

(FNaF plushie divider made by @sister-lucifer here on tumblr!) (Millard user box made by @clumsypaws here on tumblr!)

[superman-the-secret-third-thing]

Context: This man was scamming children out of money with carnival games. Superman disapproved.

To highlight the difference between Silver and Golden Age, below is what G did in a similar situation.

Superman #143 (1961) & Superman #8 (1941)

[rainestorm05]

Ramshackle Origins Perditions/Head canons

First up, the somewhat easy one, Stone: Since us doodle followers for the Ramshackle fandom, we already know about Stone's sister Avrill. Knowing that our boy was from a rich family, I can guest two causes on what I think became his downfall to the streets. The first one being they lost their parents at a young age, giving big sister all the inherited money to spoil rotten. Leaving Stone resenting both her and the rich assholes he had to deal with for most of his life. And since he probably had no one else to talk about his problems, he resulted in one of adult's common solutions to cope; alcoholism. My guess is that during his drunken state, he did something so ridiculously embarrassing, Av disowned him into the streets to save her and the family's public image. Or two, parents never died and just favored Avrill more for probably being more sociable. And instead of being somewhat good parents and teach their son the ropes, they just expect him be like that and be disappointed when he fails. Same outcome would happen, only the parents diched him in the streets.

Next, the golden retriever incarnated, Skipp: I like to think his parents were good people who loved him very much, however, unfortunate circumstances happened. Mom was a sweet town baker until dying from childbirth, and dad was a kind and musician dreamer who tried to raise him as best he could but couldn't financially do it in the end and had to give Skipp to an orphanage for a better chance in life. Unknown to him at the time, that place became his son's number one hell until he met Vinnie, who both decided to take their chances at the streets knowing they're not wanted, and no one wants to adopt them.

Lastly, Vinnie, the goblin leader: Judging by her natural chaotic nature to scam as much people as she can, I like to think either both or one of her parents are wanted criminals. Why they gave her up? Either they didn't want their kid out on the run with them for all her life and wanted her to have a better life, or they got her by accident, and didn't want any parent responsibilities to distract them from their heists.

If I get right in any of these for the show's futures, then yippee! If not, then all when, I just did this for fun.