#Now to make some slides

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."

[dandelion-roots]

[ID: a digital drawing of riz gukgak from fantasy high. in the front is a relatively small drawing of riz juggling books that are falling out of his hand and a phonecall, and he has a huge backpack on. he looks a bit overwhelmed, hair flying in all directions, and has a nervous smile on. in the background is a large shadow of riz, only one glowing eye and a shining gun visible. the background is red, giving an eerie feel. End ID]

Kill your best friend

Cheat your way to your rogue teacher

Announce your presidential campaign

Don't let them know how angry you are

LEARN TO RECOGNIZE A MONSTER

[revvethasmythh]

tbh i think the idea that predathos wouldn't go after lesser idols or celestials because they're not big enough sources of divinity for it to want is one of those things that feels the most...idk, ridiculous to me? like, if predathos even consumes any minor divine healing that happens around it, it feels a bit silly to think it would ONLY eat the gods because it can ONLY attack large sources of divinity, or whatever. like what is about the gods that makes it attack them personally and not anything else? IS it sheer volume of divinity? is it something else? I literally don't know! and if it does specifically consume divinity, it feels like there's no reason it wouldn't try to eat lesser idols and celestials except as a pulled punch cop-out for why releasing predathos wouldn't completely decimate the cosmic ecosystem. this is, tbh, my biggest ???? about this whole thing

[butchvamp]

i finished the game last night, here are my unpolished thoughts about the final act and what i liked & didn't like. this is very long and probably incoherent lol

what i liked:

the whole final battle was awesome, i loved the combat, and i really enjoyed the huge cutscenes of everyone fighting together. i had been really disappointed earlier about the lack of a battle scene at weisshaupt a la ostagar in origins, and this definitely made up for it

i liked the suicide mission and actually getting to assign people their roles in the battle

i LOVED Solas's betrayal, that whole section in the fade prison with the statues was one of the strongest scenes in the game, i think the entire relationship between Rook and Solas is really well developed. as the player, we know Solas is manipulating them, but i think they did a good job making it so it's still believable for Rook to fall for his tricks, especially with the Blood of Arlathan quest before this. (also it's very obvious Solas is Weekes' favorite, wish they would have just stuck to him and not all that other dogshit...lol)

i liked the idea of Varric's role here, but not the execution. i'll come back to this lmao

the giant dread wolf and archdemon fight was cool as fuck. no notes. that's just classic rule of cool, baby

also i had Davrin in my party while fighting alongside Solas and i really enjoyed his banter with him and how hard he laid into Solas's ass. it was very satisfying. yippee go Davrin!

okay. now. what i didn't like (sorry not going to bother with bullet points, it's going to be longer down here lol):

while i liked the suicide mission structure, i hated how the game all but told you who to assign where. there were no stakes at all, there was no way to get it wrong unless you did so intentionally.

this also brings me to. The Choice. between Davrin and Harding. i understand the need for a "fallen hero" here, it ties into the entire theme of regret with Solas as we see in the fade prison, it was necessary for Rook to be the person "at fault" (aka directly make the choice that ends with someone getting killed) but this choice was dogshit. it also was really fucking stupid to see Harding climb up and stand atop a giant stone pillar, and then NOT use her stone magic!!! i don't hate the idea of someone dying here, but this was just a series of failed choices over and over again. we should not have pitted returning fan fave Harding against the single Black companion (who comes in late and barely even gets his own story outside of his damn pet)-- it should have been Harding (narratively satisfying, she's been here since the beginning and dies for the fight) or Lucanis (he is literally the guy taking the shot), we also shouldn't have tied all the dwarf lore revelations to a character that can just fucking die at the end, and we shouldn't have had her stand on a giant stone pillar when she has STONE MAGIC!! i knew this choice was coming but her death still caught me off guard cus i was fully expecting her to collapse that stone pillar on her, not use her stupid puny bow 😭

i think this choice is also weakened by the fact that it's THEE only choice. it's obviously an echo of the earlier Treviso and Minrathous choice, which also didn't really seem to affect much outside of potentially losing the corresponding factions (and i think Lucanis's romance gets locked out?) i saved Treviso, so i got the Treviso questline later, and i assume that you get a Minrathous specific questline with the Shadow Dragons if you save the other instead (haven't seen myself tho so i'm not sure, just guessing). but it's very easy to recover the Shadow Dragon's reputation, and the final battle takes place in Minrathous no matter what. the only way for companions to die or the battle to fail is to just straight up ignore quests. you can't lose a faction's support at all unless you intentionally try to do so. i don't even think you can lose companions at all unless you intentionally ignore their quests and place them in the wrong spot. though the game still holds your hand through the battle and basically Tells You who to put where so they survive.

and to be fair. this is true for the suicide mission in mass effect 2, but the thing is, there is so much more dialogue and variations with how you can play your character and interact with the companions and the world than there is in veilguard, it makes it feel like you do have more control over your character and the narrative, even if it's just the illusion of choice.

and then with Solas, it doesn't matter, he always ends up trapped/linked to the Fade, it just changes how he feels. (they also do this with the First Warden. i was excited for a potential variation between punching/not punching, but all it changes is his attitude when you find him later in Davrin's quest) okay.... well. is he going to return again after that post credit scene? and are they really going to write 3 (or 4, with lavellan i guess) different branching personality variations?

i think the powers that be just wanted to get rid of him in a way that would still leave the dragon age setting ultimately unaltered and open for more games in the future. especially given the secret post credits scene. which i also have an issue with. we're going to go from "it was all the Evanuris fault" to Actually, it was this secret third thing and everything we did was for nothing! AGAIN! if they want to make more dragon age games, they can just... start a new story. do they know that. (the fact they're implying Loghain was influenced by some outside force to do what he did at ostagar actually has me livid lol. leave origins alone!!!!)

anyways. now the fade prison. i have two issues, my main one being Varric. i actually started to suspect early on something was up with him, because he just sits in that damn infirmary the entire game, no interactions, barely any dialogue. i think Varric was horribly underutilized in this game, and it results in all of the emotional beats around him falling flat for me. of course, it's emotional for ME, the player, because Varric is a fan fave returning character and one of my own personal favorites. as far as i've seen in game, though... Rook has no relationship with him at all. i think this game would have been vastly improved with short playable origins that showed the two meeting and developing a relationship, and also he really really needed to have more scenes and dialogue in general. he's barely in the second half of the game, literally just sitting all by himself in that damn room, and even when he is in the cutscenes he has one single line that everyone obviously just ignores. it sucked. very disappointing finale for a really beloved character... it could have been so good if it was good....

because i DO love the idea of Solas using him to manipulate Rook (and i really like Varric and Solas's relationship & the way they contrast against each other), and also the idea of how being tricked in that way would actually affect Rook-- what's real, what's not, can they even trust what they're seeing at all anymore? especially when Solas "glitches" between Varric and Lucanis (idk if it's always him or your LI? would be cool if it's your LI, that's what i assumed) after slaying Ghilan'nain-- this could have tied in with the final romance scene. but of course the game doesn't get into any of that at all.

and now issue 2. how the fuck did Solas do that LOL. how did he switch places, how did he get out, how did it take Rook in his place when it was designed for elven gods? where are the other elven gods (did i just miss this explanation? did the other two just kill them in there)? 🤷 when did this place suddenly turn into a prison of regrets? was that Solas's presence influencing it, or did he do that intentionally for Rook? dont know! who cares. moving on...

i romanced Lucanis, and i was really disappointed with his romance. the final scene was sweet, but.... i think particularly with Lucanis you can tell so much of his story and arc ended up on the cutting room floor, it feels disjointed and as if we're missing pieces, and you can feel it in his romance, too. i also really didnt understand the "keep flirting (not a lock in) or end it now" choices that didnt feel like they did anything at all. why was i given like 3 different times to break up with him when we weren't even dating yet lmao. the romance was a bummer, of course i love the setting and the story but i go into these games expecting strong romance along with it and i was really banking on that being the highlight in this mess of a game but. alas

this also segues me back into the whole "trapped in the Fade prison" section. why was there no reunion with both your LI and everyone else? apparently Rook was in there for WEEKS!!! they hardly communicate this and Rook just reappears and jumps straight back into leading the team, no tears or questions asked about how they found them, how they got out, what everyone was thinking while they were gone... we also get a deus ex machina knife, how convenient that they did all that while i was gone and no explanation is given as to how it could possibly fool Solas, just trust us bro! 💆 i feel like trying to craft our own copy of the knife should have been something actively happening in the background throughout the entire game, and it gets finished while Rook is in the Fade. but this truly came out of nowhere lol

again i think it's obvious things were cut and rewritten and maybe this was the result of a frantic scramble to come up with something that would work, and i'll be generous and blame it on that, i guess...

when we finally get to the final confrontation with Solas, i was very excited, because again i feel like Rook and Solas's relationship is the best in the game, Solas's writing is consistent and strong, i knew this scene had to be good.... and i guess it was? but it felt so unsatisfying. i chose to fight him (my Rook would do anything to get him to shut up) and i was hoping for. an actual fight. you can do it with Mythal earlier in the game, and we already saw his giant wolf form, i was so excited. and then. no<3

okay! sure. we beat him with the power of friendship (not surprised and not even making fun of it here, it makes sense narratively, i knew some version of this was coming after the whole comparing Rook versus Solas bit in the Fade) but come onnnnn i wanted to fight the giant wolf.... sigh. i did check out the other endings as well, and it's clear the redemption ending is the "true" ending and also the best written one imo.

overall. this was a bad dragon age game. i had a lot of fun playing it though, so it's not a bad game game. the gameplay loop never got boring, i never got tired exploring or doubling back, i loved the maps, i loved the combat, and i did love the companions. but the writing is atrocious and racist. this is a horrible dragon age game. i don't know where i fall on recommending this. again, i've had a lot of fun playing and dissecting it, but i dont know that i could recommend this to dragon age fans. this would have been way more successful as a completely different fantasy game. the changes to the lore, disregarding the majority of the games that came before it, the horrible depictions of returning characters (the inquisitor and isabela were the worst offenders for me) the setting and characters feeling watered down and incomplete, the complete lack of the classic "grey morality" shtick (even if it's not always been implemented well)... idk man. bummer! it's obvious there was a cohesive vision at one point, i do think this game is a casualty of the current state of the gaming industry (i was honestly surprised it was functional on launch. not shade at bioware just in general that is rare to see now) we know EA thrashed bioware throughout development, and bioware made a lot of really bad choices, too (the racism is absolutely their doing, they made that choice back in inquisition). but we can see, particularly in the artbook, that there were good ideas & an intention to actually tie everything together and give this story the finale it deserved... but it all got lost along the way in a very ugly, chaotic development. and the game really suffers for it.

[sandreeen]

Sung Hyunjae || The S-Classes That I've Raised

[lil-vibes]

hc that dazai only eats food that 1. came from a can that he just opened or 2. food that he can confirm was made by chuuya. sometimes he'll wait until chuuya takes a bite out of dazai's food because he is paranoid enough to think that it's poisoned

[i-am-church-the-cat]

I didn’t want to hijack the person’s post bc I don’t care what they think but I am a defensive bitch so we’re talking about this

Logan and Oscar met when they were 13/14. The next year they were on the same karting team together but didn’t race each other directly. This would be the last time they don’t race each other until 2019 when Logan moved up to F3 and Oscar was still in Formula Renault. They had a championship battle in F4 and F3, they were teammates in 2020, they haven’t raced each other since then which has been the biggest gap since they’ve known each other.

That still doesn’t mean they’re friends though. You know what does? Them literally saying they are.

Oscar saying “I’m quite close with Logan Sargeant” on that podcast. The Miami GP 2023 post. Them playing paddle together. Logan in that interview where they asked about “Loscar.” Now the podcast episode.

They aren’t forced to be around each other, if anything they’re so busy they don’t have time to hang out, yet they still seek each other out when they have the opportunity. Obviously we don’t know anything about their personal lives but at the very least we know they’re friends?? Not brocedes level of friends, maybe lestappen level of friends cause I don’t think they’re actual friends either, definitely not galex level of friends but that can also be attributed to the fact they don’t talk about themselves a lot, compared to Alex or George who post everything about their lives.

Like, have you ever seen them interact? They’re chilling they’re casual but they are friends. Whatever you think about their dynamic they are at least that.

[arendaes]

It's 5:30am, I can't sleep because I had a bad night last night and I need to vent.

Sometimes I wonder if not being more open about my offline life is to my detriment, because it never fails that I seem to attract people who see me as someone who's easy to walk all over. So many people I've known both online and off really like to treat me however they like, including being rude, condescending, and sometimes just downright cruelly, but the moment I have enough and draw a line in the sand they just want to wipe it away and tell me all about how I'm the one in the wrong.

I once had a friend who ignored my existence for six months and then got mad when I told her I wasn't coming to her son's birthday party. When I say "ignored my existence", I don't just mean unanswered texts; I mean I worked at a store in town and saw her in there multiple times. Every time I would wave and say hi while she was looking right at me and she would walk right by me as if I wasn't there. She knew I worked there too because we met working there. Literally we went from hanging out every day off we had together to that and still she got mad when I was hurt and just didn't want to come to a child's goddamned birthday party (when I have no kid of my own) because of it. The kid was only a year old so it wasn't like he knew who I was, either.

And online has been worse in a lot of ways. I made a friend a few years ago back when I first started getting involved in fandom. At the time I was resistant to the idea but now I realize I befriended him out of pity, because no one seemed to really want to be involved with him and he'd always been so nice to me. That was a mistake, because it turned out he was an alt-right chud who waited until he thought we were close enough and then started deliberately baiting me into arguments where he'd say horrible shit to me and make me upset and then fucking laugh He admitted it was fun for him to upset me. He stopped laughing when I finally stood up for myself and cut him out of my life, only to repeatedly ignore my requests for him to leave me alone. He would send me messages and like my posts, along with asking his friends to do the same and even writing a fic about one of my favorite characters where an unnamed OC treated said character poorly (all while said OC said things that were word for word things I said to him in out last conversation) and posting it where he knew I'd see it. Thankfully his conscience got the better of him with that last one and he took it down just a few days after posting, but the damage was done. He's the reason my ask box is closed most of the time and I have it set to where only followers can message me or comment on my posts. I think he's moved on - I hope he's moved on - but I live with this ever-present fear he hasn't and if I let my guard drop he'll start again.

And this is just two of the biggest incidents in a long line of family members saying I can't have boundaries with them because they're faaaamily and honest conversations with friends about how they've hurt me only to have them turn around and blame that hurt on myself. I'm just...so confused about what I can even do anymore. It feels like no matter what I do I just attract people who want to use and abuse my good nature. Hell, it's been so bad that I typed that and immediately thought "are you good-natured or do you just have an unnecessarily high opinion of yourself?" Which I know is the brain demon talking, but sometimes it's hard to drown it out, especially when this is all I've ever known.

[toytulini]

me, stupidly and weirdly resistant to listening to audio books vs reading a physical book for no real reason: man i wish there was a way to like, read a book while i crochet like i do with tv shows and movies and podcasts

[newtness532]

i know that graduating one semester later is not that big of a deal and i haven't made any plans about what comes next so it doesnt even make a difference. so why does it feel just so terrible

[skitskatdacat63]

Thank you guys so much for all the cute picrews you replied with 🥹🥹🥹 im obsessed seeing what you've come up with!!!! Here are some I made 🤭🤭

+ ones my friends who know nothing about f1/vettonso made:

Friend on the left: why did she make Fernando into such a fuckboy 😭😭 and i was like "...hahaha yeah that cape outfit is from another thing I made :)"

Other friend of the right: she said she was trying to make them look like other characters. I think she said Fernando was one of the Three Musketeers and Seb was Luke Skywalker djkfkgl. And she also forced me to give a "presentation" on the racesuit ref PowerPoint I made 😭😭😭

I love how they didn't question the shipiness of it at all hahaha, one of them was like "oh are these your gay racing drivers? Very cute :)"

[shiroselia]

Play 13 Sentinels I am no longer asking

[ectonurites]

does anyone have that ‘sometimes things that are expensive… are worse’ meme on hand. because the branding company we’re working with is pissing me off

[spicyicymeloncat]

Okay here’s another controversial “Green family take” tell me if I’m wrong.

“People who hate Harumi and Lloyd family dynamic ignore that Lloyd and Morro also shouldn’t have a family dynamic, when Morro did the exact same thing”

Because besties I agree I honestly think green cousins doesn’t make much sense either since yknow Morro and the whole possession thing, but at the same time if you look at canon, they just aren’t the same thing and yknow I need people to actually stop looking at Harumi as the girl version of Morro and the only reason we hate her is because she’s a girl.

Because she’s not.

Like yes I agree there’s definitely a lot of bias towards Morro, if he was woman he would be demonised to hell and back but since he’s man then he is adored, and vice versa with Harumi and sexism fucking sucks.

But Harumi and Morro are different guys. Harumi is portrayed as worse in canon in Lloyd’s eyes. Yeah Lloyd got possessed by Morro and that’s obviously bad tm but other than what people assume possession entails, Lloyd was never as shaken as he was with Harumi.

In s5, we never saw Lloyd be conflicted about the possession thing. He had no fear of Morro. We have no reason to believe that a ghost possession feels worse than being a sleep and maybe having a vague awareness of what’s going on. He barely mentions Morro after s5. And I will say I think this is a writing flaw, obviously it would’ve been cooler if Morro actually had some kind of impact on the ninja, but regardless this is the canon. Lloyd hates Morro but he’s not traumatised yknow. It’s not to the point that Harumi got to.

I feel like getting possessed should be worse than getting lied to, but Harumi did on top of it, start a cult in his name, Kill actual Characters (the royal family and Hutchins) and then kidnap Lloyd and his mother and his uncle and then resurrect his father removing vital parts of his father’s mind/personality/emotional cognitive abilities etc. on top of that she also nearly killed the ninja and wu (which Lloyd believed she did).

Somehow she was much more dangerous than Morro was, she was a much more successful villain.

Additionally I would say Morro has more of an excuse to be seen as family, even if I I’m less of a green cousins fan. Because Morro and Wu actually have a father son relationship, in which Wu was actually responsible over Morro. They had a normal albeit imperfect dynamic before Morro left. Regardless of Lloyd and Morro’s interactions, that dynamic was still present even in the very end.

It doesn’t mean and Lloyd and Morro have to be buddies, just because there’s a family connection doesn’t mean shit (this is the show of found family have we learned nothing? Blood connections don’t matter, only friendship).

But like in comparison to Harumi and Garmadon’s absolute parody of a relationship, where Harumi turns to the man who doesn’t remember what love is and asks him to be her father (at this point neither of them know what “father” even means), Morro does have a family dynamic and Harumi does not.

So in response to the original quote, Morro has a much more solid claim to any kind of family dynamic bc his relation to Wu is much more family esq, and also he was bad yeah, but the show portrays Harumi as worse especially in Lloyd’s opinion.

I just don’t like the argument that Morro and Harumi have done the same things, when the severity is definitely different imo and they aren’t just copies of each other. Imo it’s an oversimplification to reduce their characters down to each other.

[puppppppppy]

save me old flipnote studio MVs.......

[lunatic-pudge]

I do love I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. I truly do. But I cringe inside every time I see people being down bad for Harlan Ellison. Like, guys, please, he wasn't a good person when he was alive. You should NOT be worshipping that man. I know you wouldn't be doing that for someone like H.P. Lovecraft, so WHY are you doing it with Harlan Ellison?