#Last Flights

[last-flights]

"I wonder what he's thinking about..."

[doctorsiren]

doodles I did while on a plane yesterday

[morganbritton132]

Eddie, to his followers: Before I say anything, just want everybody to know that I love my husband. I love everything about him.

Eddie: But the thing is, he’s had a few head injuries and sometimes he forgets things. And that is okay!

Eddie: It happens! No one is holding it against him. I’ve got ADHD, I forget shit all the time, but.

Eddie: But he missed a couple shifts at work and a basketball game Lucas was in once thirty years ago, and I’ve been ass deep in calendars ever since.

Eddie: So, we have this *makes background the party’s shared calendar*

Eddie: And Steve has this *holds up Steve’s daily planner that contains all the same information*

Eddie: And this *shows calendar on their fridge that also contains the same information*

Eddie: And this *shows storage boxes labeled ‘Steve’s planners ‘1987-2015’ and ‘2016-‘*

Eddie: You know what that means?

Eddie: It means he’s going to know that I forgot to tell him that I gotta be in LA this weekend. He’s going to be pissy about it.

[buglaur]

i love the seasonal outfits mod so much

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

Transcript:

You flew the mother plane directly into the world serve center.

Hit the cuntagon!

Audio source

[southsideofchicago]

bro basically said "oh you sweet summer child, we're both very fucked."

[curlytsunamiart]

based on mcpig's joke about what gustavo's catchphrase would be

[nightingaletrash]

So here's a thought: griffons have a natural, inborn hatred of the Blight that is so overwhelming that they can't be put through the Joining. They will tear themselves apart before they accept it. Even Isseya's modified Joining couldn't make them accept it - the griffons simply became hyper aggressive and would fight to the death, no matter how badly wounded they became. They cared only to kill darkspawn, even at the expense of their riders.

Griffons are also hybrid creatures of cat and bird. You know who loved to create hybrid creatures? Who's whole deal is creating beasts and monsters? You see where I'm going with this.

So what if the griffons were created specifically for the purpose of fighting darkspawn? Like a sort of frontline defense to fight the physical symptom of the Blight, and their rejection of the Taint was a means to ensure that they wouldn't then be corrupted in favour of the Blight.

[introspectivememories]

im sorry but i choose to believe that tim drake is the most insufferable "my man, my man, my man" girl about bear. he does not shut up about him. steph is cooking smth in the kitchen? oh my man can do that. bear cooks really well. dick triaging some poor victim on an emergency site? oh my man is really good at that. mhmm, bear is on his way to becoming a paramedic. damian building something? oh my man is really good with power tools. have you ever seen him build ikea? it takes him less than an hour. for our anniversary, he built me a coffee table. mhmm isn't he amazing? yeah my man did that. yeah my man, mhmm that's my ma-

[vethale-fr]

All previous FR anniversary updates. Let's see what we get this year!

[last-flights]

Meet Aloha and his Deadly Nadder Companion. In this reference sheet, Aloha is 22.

From a young age, despite living inland and landlocked, he had the fear of dragons hammered into him. It was only after moving to an island between 3-6 that he had his first experience with hunting dragons.

He didn't they were anything but mindless killers. But it looks like a certain someone's flipped that idea on it's head for the hunter.

[greatpistachiopie]

it's mentopolis finale day!! i'll hate to see you go stacy fakename

[babe-a-yaga]

What was done to Isseya is one of my personal biggest upsets with this game. I loved her in Last Flight. She's a genuinely interesting, complex character, and given the themes of mistakes and regret present through Veilguard, it makes TOTAL sense for her to make an appearance! What makes no sense at all is for her to be reduced to a two dimensional villain with no clear motivation who's just...doing exactly the thing she fucked up in life? Except worse? I'm gonna summarize the events of last flight for the folks who haven't read it;

The first griffin Isseya put through the joining was already blighted in battle, and dying from it. Quickly. Griffins are extra sensitive to the Blight and any attempts made to join them resulted in the animals going berserk and tearing themselves, and anyone else in range, to pieces to get away from what was now in their veins.

In a well meaning, but misguided effort to save one of the animals she loved, she used blood magic to alter the griffon's mind, to convince it the Blight in it's system was just a regular cold, and it didn't need to fight it, then put it through the joining.

It worked, but it changed the griffon. Made it stronger, fight harder. More difficult to handle. The griffon ultimately went out in a spectacular blaze of glory, and people didn't know what she did, just that she did SOMETHING, and that griffon did ten griffons worth of damage on it's way out.

The fourth blight was far worse, far longer than any of the blights we have witnessed first hand. I think it lasted like 15 years? And it was going badly for Thedas. They ordered Isseya to do what she had done to the first griffon again as a last ditch to stand a chance at I *think* Starkhaven (it's been a little bit since I read last flight, so I'm sketchy on dates and what battles were fought specifically when). She hated doing this, but it was orders, and it was exploit this handful of griffons or watch the world die. She's a warden, she signed up to stop the blight at any cost. In war, victory. In death, sacrifice.

By the time her brother Garahel slays Andoral, she's had to blight a number of griffons, and the constant blood magic use has massively accelerated the blight in her own body. Her brother garahel is this golden haired pretty boy beloved by everyone who looks upon him, and Isseya looks so much like a ghoul at this point people are uncomfortable being in the same room as her. Even though this is completely due to her service to the wardens.

Then, the remaining joined griffons start going mad. And then it starts to spread to the other, non-joined griffons. In using blood magic to convince the griffons the blight was just a disease, she had caused it to become one. A contagious one.

It's one of the most interesting examples of how dangerous blood magic actually is we ever see. We're just told over and over "blood magic bad, slippery slope to killing people. Bad. Even if you use your own." And we never really see explicitly why it's an inherently dangerous form of magic until this.

Back to Isseya though. Garahel's lover's Griffon had a clutch of eggs sired by Garahel's Crookytail. Isseya, knowing there was no stopping what was now in motion with the griffons, set out to do her one last act of penance. She took, and purified those eggs, hid them in a ward that kept them in stasis, so that they might only hatch once the griffons were gone, and this disease had died with them, so they might have a chance. And then she hid the clues to their location, and begged that whoever find them not let them be used by the wardens again.

And then she went on her calling.

These are not the actions of a villain. Isseya EMBODIES the warden principal of sacrifice. But it isn't glorious battle rewarded by a quick death alongside an archdemon for her. It's death by inches, by blight, knowingly and willingly accelerated in her own body to stop it from consuming the world. Sacrificing her ideals, the animals she loves, her brother, Garahel. Isseya gives it all for the wardens, to end the blight, and is not thanked for it or remembered kindly.

And she did everything she could to seed the slightest bit of hope, that both in spite of her and because of her, griffons might return to the world, as free creatures.

Her Veilguard arc feels like really egregious character assassination, and I wish she had been given an ounce of the sympathy that other characters had been given. It made sense for her to be here, thematically, mistakes and regret, and good intentions still leading to bad ends, but she deserved the same opportunity for forgiveness and/or redemption that Solas, Mythal, Cyrian, even Illario got.

Isseya was done dirty by Veilguard.

[himluv]

Okay, hot take coming in, but I've seen a few posts mentioning that Isseya's character was done dirty in Veilguard. And... I disagree. Here's why:

1. Isseya is already established as a morally gray character, willing to do basically anything if it meant ending the Fourth Blight, even when it went against her own personal morals.

2. Her Calling advanced quickly because of the blight, and it's theorized in Last Flight that all her use of Blood Magic probably didn't help, either.

3. She has been alive for CENTURIES after she should have died on her Calling. She is more Darkspawn than elf, more akin to The Architect or Corypheus than she is Davrin, by the time we meet her in game.

4. And this is the doozy, in the novel The Calling, we see what happens when Wardens don't die on their Calling. We know what happens when they let their taint change them. We saw what happened when the Architect advanced their Calling so that they might keep their minds... They didn't. After only months, Bregan starts to lose it. The blight is anger. It's rage. It is a literal plague of HATE. And it twists not just his body, but his mind too.

So, imagine Isseya, already angry. Already wracked with guilt, grief, and righteous anger when she goes on her Calling. And then she doesn't die, but Revas, her griffon, does. And so Isseya is all alone, festering in her own negative emotions for centuries, all while the blight in her veins slowly takes over and whispers nothing but hate directly into her brain. For over 400 YEARS.

And it all comes down to the Wardens. She blames them for what she became, for the fate of the griffons (understandably so), and her madness spirals into making an alternate Weisshaupt, recruiting her own order of Blighted Wardens.

(side note: was she working with The Architect? Because this is some Architect shit.)

And then Ghilan'nain shows up with an offer to help "save" the griffons. And Isseya is blighted, driven mad with centuries of unmitigated hate. So she takes Ghilan'nain's offer, never once seeing how she's being used all over again. Because the blight has blinded her with hate for the Wardens.

Isseya's character hasn't been botched. They didn't do her dirty. Her story is SAD. Heartbreaking even. It's a tragedy and a warning, of what that much hate can do to a person.

Did I wish better for her? Absolutely. I loved Isseya in Last Flight, and my heart broke for her then. But unraveling the Gloom Howler that first time? Realizing who she was and WHY this was happening? It was an amazing experience. (The way I said, "oh, Isseya"??? Tear my heart to shreds, Bioware.)

But, just because Isseya's fate is tragic, doesn't mean she was written poorly. From what we know about her, the blight, and the Calling, her character is actually very consistent and believable.

Just... really fucking sad.

[dovalore]

my internet went down for a bit earlier so i decided to draw all of the sprites, with the catch being

i have to use my mouse

the only colours available to me are the default palette from paint

no looking up references for the sprites (because no internet)

additional notes under cut

the order i did these in was light, water, earth, lightning, nature, arcane, shadow, wind, fire, plague then ice

i did the light sprite without realising that you could use the pencil for anti-aliasing, i didn't want to redo it

the nature and plague sprites have somewhat mirrored poses on purpose

my internet did come back up while i was in the middle of these but i continued since i didn't want to leave a set unfinished

the earth sprite has a boulder because... from my recollection they're the least visually interesting one, i also think they'd be pretty strong (poor earth, getting shafted during festivals was there from the start u_u)

wind's my favourite one that i did, followed by arcane

the colours were kind of a struggle...

i did the ice sprite twice since i wasn't satisfied with my first attempt, but i'll still post it anyway because that's what i do

the eeper

[hellomayu]

krtsk pilots au no one asked for