#Turned into something bitter

[peace-hunter]

For the haunted au I had an devilish little thought. Has Optimus ever had a really bad time and when the primes try to give him advice he just shouts "you guy's FAILED!" Like for all their wisdom they couldn't beat the quintisons or see Sentinels betrayal coming?

He feels bad but in his spark he wishes HE didn't have to do what THEY couldn't.

absolutely evil thought that was inflicted upon me months ago and that i finally get to inflict upon the rest of y'all OTL

i can see it happening with the caveat that he immediately regrets saying it. but it's too late. it's the kind of thing you say in the heat of the moment and then feel the ground drop under your feet because you never meant to say it out loud. but now it's out there and you can never unsay it.

it's just. a bad situation all around :(

haunted au

[crypticcanidae]

what's happening in the south of thedas?

throughout veilguard the inquisitor occasionally sends us messages from the front. they paint a pretty bleak picture as to what's going on down there and honestly, by the time vg ends, i think it's safe to say southern thedas is absolutely fucked. like irreparably so.

but! several times now i've seen the argument that it's not as bad as it sounds, that everyone down south will recover and be fine, and that anyone even slightly upset abt southern thedas being destroyed in a series of easily-missable notes is just overreacting. (that's probably a little bit of an exaggeration. but not by much.)

so. maybe i read those letters wrong and missed some obvious improvement to the situation! therefore, i've gone through all the missives and done my best to put the events in them onto a map. cause i'm very bad at visualising things. and it turns out uh. yeah no i'm pretty sure it's as bad as it seems down there. maybe even worse! i've also ended up with. yknow. even more questions tbh. i hope these fucking maps are readable. !! beware long post ahead !!

the fight for the south (obtained after meeting the inquisitor for the first time)

ostwick's shipping - what do they export? to where? whatever it is, the disruption's obviously enough for the inquisitor to notice and mention. (also, isn't a trevelyan inquisitor from ostwick? i suppose they don't say anything more about this?)

the antaam corsairs - are they harassing any other ships? have they cut the waking sea off from the amaranthine ocean entirely?

venatori-aligned nobles - which nobles, and where? are they spread across the country? do they have noticeable regional strongholds? more importantly, why have they allied with the venatori? what are they getting out of working with a fringe tevinter cult that was mostly dismantled ten years ago?

'far southern wilds' - is that just the korcari wilds in ferelden? or are the arbor wilds in orlais also seeing blight appear? (the blight consuming orlais later has to come from somewhere, after all)

the fall of weisshaupt (obtained after. well.)

'wherever darkspawn once had a presence' - every place that's had darkspawn? all of them? cause thats. most of thedas? including several regions we visit in vg, but i don't remember hearing anything abt darkspawn appearing in the silent plains, which you'd think might come up in the graveyard of nevarra's capital city. at the very least, this might explain why the south's hit so hard despite lusacan and razikale being on the other side of the continent, i guess? anyway i marked what i think are the the three largest, worst blighted spots, and i left my blight notes on the map too for lack of a better place to put them. you can see how many places might now be getting swarmed.

^^ - if i'm right and darkspawn are appearing everywhere they've been before. well. this could have been a fun way to incorporate worldstate choices? if the inquisition allied with the wardens orlais has warning of a horde emerging in the western approach, if the wardens were banished orlais suffers heavier casualties from having to fight unexpected darkspawn on top of the venatori. something like that.

'reports of darkspawn advancing to its very gates' - advancing to weisshaupt's gates? the fortress we just lost to the darkspawn? this sounds like the inquisitor's getting reports that weisshaupt's just under siege, not overrun entirely and abandoned?

'erasing all the gains that the wardens and dwarves had made' - the darkspawn getting to weisshaupt is erasing dwarf-warden gains on the surface, in the anderfels? or do they mean progress reclaiming the deep roads has been lost? because weisshaupt's gates are on the surface, and haven't had to be retaken before now (weisshaupt has been sieged by darkspawn before during blights, but it's never fallen entirely). unless they're meaning that darkspawn numbers in the roads during the siege were so high they've overrun dwarf-warden positions? or the loss of wardens assisting the dwarves and recalled to weisshaupt was that damaging?

'called them all back to weisshaupt' - once again. worldstates. past events. what happened to that warden civil war that was brewing in inquisition? what happened to the orlesian wardens possibly breaking off from weisshaupt entirely? what about the wardens in amaranthine, possibly allied with the architect, possibly working with avernus to research the blight? all of them got orders to up and head to weisshaupt, and they all obeyed, despite the internal conflicts we've been hearing whispers of for the past few games?

the tide turns (obtained after fighting the dragons in hossberg)

the felicisima armada - nice to see the armada mentioned, obviously, but it might have been even better if we got to actually learn anything new about it. instead of the half-baked beach and arena we could have had a hub in llomerryn/estwatch, experienced some of what makes rivain so distinct from the rest of thedas. we could have seen isabela acting as an admiral of the armada, maybe had some quests that lead to the armada harassing the antaam. yknow, gotten to be involved in the interesting things happening in the world, instead of hearing about them after they've already happened. (mostly i just. really don't understand where the lords of fortune came from in the first place? a rivain-based pirate faction already exists? it seems like isabela's a leader in both groups? what's going on here?)

the venatori - did the inquisition just do a really bad job ten years ago? i was under the impression the venatori as a group were finished, that they'd failed their plans, lost their god, and splintered apart. hadn't tevinter even publically denounced them? i know that doesn't mean much really, but yknow. after inquisition it sure seemed like whatever group succeeded the venatori would be starting pretty much from scratch, or having to use a new name, at least. but they're not only openly back in power in tevinter, they've got the resources to stoke conflicts across the continent? yet again. worldstates. thedosian politics. what happened in the past decade??

val royeaux to kirkwall - so the venatori are marching forces across nevarran territory into the free marches, these forces presumably including some amount of orlesian soldiers? i know kirkwall/the free marches are apparantly busy right now (getting blighted?) but as far as i can tell. nevarra doesn't really have anything going on? but they're just letting hostile orlesian forces cross their borders to attack the marches? i would have thought that would provoke some sort of response, given that nevarra (and parts of the marches) have been invaded by and fought wars against the orlesian empire several times?

the coming storm (obtained after speaking to the inquisitor again)

'little trace remains of the antaam dreadnoughts' - i'm assuming the antivan resistance has picked up enough momentum for the antaam to struggle to maintain control by now, and that combined with the efforts of the armada has lead them to pull their fleet back somewhat to keep from overstretching their forces. but i do like the idea that the antaam, competent trained soldiers, were beaten and driven off by a pack of pirates.

the drums of war (obtained after discussing how to attack tearstone island)

'the free marches have unified' - i know extraordinary circumstances can force things like this to happen but also. we know the free marches are divided enough that city-states will make alliances just to spite their neighbours. we know blights don't really bring people together without effort. i would love to know what sort of political manoeuvring has been going on for the entirety of the marches to unite to assist ferelden - or just the inquisitor? if the inquisition disbanded, why does the inquisitor still seem to have so much influence? also. the marches are doing this when they're in the middle of conflicts? hasn't kirkwall been entirely evacuated to starkhaven now?

blight in ferelden - putting those words onto a map makes them look way worse, doesn't it? the darkspawn now have redcliffe, much of southern ferelden, and most of denerim (if not all, by now), they'll spread the blight everywhere they go, and the blight itself has reached lake calenhad. as a reminder, this letter in da2 tells us the land around lothering is poisoned so badly by the blight it'll take decades to recover, if ever, after only a year. other places still haven't recovered after centuries. vg's blight might be changed in some way, but it doesn't seem to be any weaker, and only the blight in minrathous is destroyed at the end. assuming vg only takes a couple of months, it ends with ferelden blighted even worse than after the fifth blight.

the beginning of the end (obtained after escaping the regret prison)

blight in ferelden - (continued from above) by now, ferelden's certainly lost the korcari wilds, brecilian forest, hinterlands, and a decent chunk of the bannorn to the blight, as well as possibly all of lake calenhad and its shores, depending on how blight spreads in water. that's the majority of the country's settlements, farmland, and natural resources uninhabitable, unusable, or obliterated - again, the blight poisons the land, it takes decades to centuries for anything to grow there again. on the bright side, the tiny amount of unblighted land left in the bannorn will probably be enough to support the surviving population, since the refugees were few enough to fit into skyhold. from veilguard on, ferelden is likely reduced to amaranthine, highever, west hill, the northern edge of the bannorn, whatever region runs above lake calenhad, the island of brandel's reach, and the islands home to jainen and alamar. the new ferelden capital would probably be highever or amaranthine, possibly amaranthine given the arling's run by the wardens, and they'll likely become far more influential now that ferelden's blighted nearly as badly as the anderfels. at least they got to keep the circle in jainen!

blight in orlais and the free marches - it would make sense to me if the blight here has spread out from the wastelands of the western approach and the silent plains. honestly i might have overestimated how much land's been consumed? but equally we're told the blight's moving fast so. maybe i'm underestimating. who knows. regardless, orlais has probably lost it's southern regions, as well as a large part of the heart of the country. like ferelden, it looks like a lot of what's probably farmland has been blighted, as well as several major cities. that combined with the venatori-supported civil war they've been fighting this whole time means orlais is. possibly in a worse state than even ferelden! i don't know how they'll recover honestly. maybe orlais will fracture into a dozen smaller states, maybe they'll somehow have enough military strength left to attempt to expand and claim nevarra's unblighted land. either way, they're probably not a major power anymore. also, the dales are probably blighted too, though maybe not entirely? which is unfortunate for the dalish, assuming they haven't been completely absorbed by the veil jumpers and given up on the dales for arlathan. for the free marches, again assuming the blight's spread from the silent plains, kirkwall, wildervale, starkhaven, and tantervale are most likely to have been hit, if not lost entirely. the eastern city-states are likely alright. also. a lot of nevarra's probably been blighted? most of it, even. including the capital. and grand necropolis. cumberland might be fine though.

blight in tevinter? - we aren't told anything about what the blight and darkspawn are doing in tevinter, i think? aside from minrathous being miraculously cured so it can become the center of civilisation in the future, obviously. we're bringing back the pre-andrastian empire! anyway. the silent plains would be the main threat here, and if the blight spread up to the nocen sea it could split the imperium in two, which could be fun i think. and the blight from the anderfels could affect the western border somewhat too.

orzammar - yet again, worldstates could have had an impact here, affected whether orzammar has alliances that could help it hold out or not, things like that. but honestly, considering everything else that's been going on, it seems safe to assume orzammar's been entirely wiped out. kal-sharok might be the last surviving population of underground dwarves, aside from the ambassadoria in tevinter. who might now have lost their home entirely.

blighted leviathans - *blackwall voice* i would have liked to have seen it. but yeah once more the cool things are all happening in the background. seems like we could have run into these in a felicisima armada questline, or possibly with the wardens if the ten year old griffons were adults instead of hatchlings still. i don't even know what to say here honestly. this makes recovery even harder now, i suppose. orlais and nevarra have lost sea access, ferelden and the southern marcher city-states might struggle depending on how far the leviathans spread towards the amaranthine ocean. fishing might be a little difficult now too.

conclusion

rivain and antiva seem to have come out largely unscathed by the blight, and we know from rivain that andrastianism, the qun, mages, and spirits aren't entirely incompatible, so there's a real chance for things to improve there. the eastern free marches are probably fairly stable, all things considered. tevinter and the qun might be forced into peace, however temporary, given that the antaam's been decimated and the imperium's apparently going to be doing some restructuring. ferelden and orlais have effectively suffered an apocalypse. nevarra and the western free marches are likely only doing slightly better. the anderfels are. probably largely unchanged, tbh. very cheerful! what's happening in the south? nothing good!

as i've seen some others say, i don't inherently dislike the idea of the south, the places we're most attached to, suffering some catastrophe in service of underlining how high the stakes are. my problem is the way it's executed. all these events were thrown together into a handful of codex entries that were very easy to miss entirely. there was no attempt to work with the very different worldstates people could have, despite marketing reassuring us that our past choices would be respected. it felt like an afterthought added into the game to try and cheaply increase the emotional impact of a somewhat lacklustre story. many of the things people felt were missing from veilguard - the politics and intrigue, the relations between nations and peoples, etc - aren't missing at all, it turns out. they've simply been relegated to the background. we can see where they might be happening, guess at how our protagonist could have been involved, but we aren't allowed to actually participate anymore. and i think that's unfortunate for a series that used to be so determined to think about those things, even if it didn't always handle them very well.

[jojaxcola]

WAIT WAS THE DANGANRONPA v3 CHUCK E CHEESE EMPLOYEE AU COMIC I FOUND YEARS AGO YOUR DOING?

Actually my comic was based on the official chuck e cheese twitter account posting an animal crossing pic that happened to have shuichi saihara in it with no acknowledgment that he was there

I didn't know that AU existed, I only learned about it after the fact. shu e cheese was just meant to be i guess

[mymarifae]

i'm in tears. do you know how beautiful this subversion of expectations irt death is to me. do you even understand how important it is. she's all warmth and love, always surrounded by vibrant displays of life - rather than the expected wither and decay. because death is not the antithesis to life: it is life. they are a part of each other. saying goodbye is always hard, but you have to let everything go, eventually. it's okay, it's not a punishment, it's not scary, it's not lonely - it's one last well-earned rest. releasing your borrowed energy back unto the universe so it can feed a new budding life, starting the cycle anew. and she's here to hold and cradle you until you're ready to go. you lived well. you were loved. sweet dreams, okay?

[bassboosted-moon-chao]

Oh, come on! He looks fine!

you don't know how much these two gripped my brain when I was younger. god I wish the comics had continued just so I could've seen how they cooked with Lalinde. not just her relationship with Light but just how fucking cool she almost was.

Original Panel:

[tiredandoptimistic]

This is another passage that's in the running for my favorite scene in TMI. I love the acknowledgement that "vampire" isn't just a quirky personality trait; it's death. Simon is in a unique position as a vampire with friends who know about his condition and accept him anyways, which ironically makes it even easier for him to deny the fact that anything's changed. When Raphael visits his family he needs to go out of his way to hide his vampirism so that they never suspect anything, meaning that he's constantly actively thinking about what he is and how to hide it. Simon, on the other hand, can walk in the sun with Clary and doesn't need to worry about her noticing that his heart doesn't beat. He's literally still living with his mom and going to band practice! He can still act like a sixteen-year-old, because he is a sixteen-year-old, but he's a walking corpse too. Gradually his body will be more and more out of sync with his mind, but for now he can feel like he's alive because there are people who treat him like he's alive.

[inquisitor-apologist]

Like I do like Twilight of the Apprentice for the most part but does anyone else think it’s a little weird that the REBELS season 2 finale 1. Excluded 3/5 of the main cast and 2. Was emotionally centered around a relationship between two characters from Clone Wars?

[thatswhatsushesaid]

as always i remain absolutely gobsmacked by the preponderance of takes in certain corners of this fandom that boil down to "lan xichen missed all of jin guangyao's red flags" while rarely if ever considering that nie mingjue himself should qualify as a walking red flag. the personification of a parental advisory notice. the human embodiment of a surgeon general's warning.

hangs this sign around nmj's neck like a cowbell

[morsmortish]

strawberry blond by mitski, but it’s chinese sirius about his ‘friendship’ with (white) james. james, who has the life sirius wants: charisma, home life, skin colour. james, who seems to get everything he wants so easily, with his easy charm and captivating laugh and glint in his eye. james, who represents everything sirius does not have, and who sirius desires more than anything. james, who makes sirius ache every time he looks at him, longing and jealousy and lust getting tangled in his chest. james, who loves everybody, and who, in turn, is the only one sirius loves.

i love everybody because i love you

all i need, darling, is a life in your shape/i picture it soft, and i ache

reach out the car window, tryna hold the wind/you tell me you love her, i give you a grin

all i ever wanted was a life in your shape/so i follow the white lines, follow the white lines

i love it when you look my way

[katakaios]

been thinking so much on the trailer and castorice honestly just saying 'i want to be a normal person' and immediately phainon is just so distraught but seething just as much because why shouldn't castorice be allowed to be a normal person ? the fact that her being normal and a person she considers a 'wish' when it's a right every person should have makes phainon both apalled and seething with fury and anger that the world won't give it to her; that it won't fulfill the wishes that are just normal wants of his fellow heirs who he considers to be his second family.

when aglaea says she wants to open a tailor shop and aglaea, selfless and never thinking of herself as millennia went by and she lost so much of herself, yet never strayed from her beliefs, her drive for helping humanity regardless of how it mistreated her, regardless of parts of her slipping away, the core parts of her remained and were not unnoticed, he's just as silently heated, in a quiet yet firm kind of way (joshua's delivery in particular) saying simply without hesitation on his wording, 'it wouldn't be bad to live for yourself. '

and it's ironic because in this trailer castorice dies for aglaea, when in canon, aglaea herself staged her death for the flame-chase journey and for phainon's success as the one to inherit her leadership role and wishes just as with each patch, phainon is constantly receiving the wishes of others, in short, he's a vessel of wishes and desires for humanity, which leaves room for him to back his own words almost...ironic? contradictory given the deliverer can't really have wishes.

he hears his fellow heirs wishes, and as the deliverer, as the person who has the hopes and dreams not just of the common people but his own comrades on his shoulders ( ignoring their 'prophecies' or not ), and a part of him is genuinely furious that the world has been so cruel that they think of their wants as wishes when everyone should be born to want and feel it's alright to want, which is a contradiction for phainon, ironically, who feels he cannot want himself.

this is shown a lot with his brief flashback with anaxa in aedes elysiae's wheat fields, ' phainon of aedes elysiae, what is your dream ? ' and i think a lot of people consider this, and given phainon at his core, while complicated and full of humanity and contradictions, is simple in his wish, but in the trailer for 3.4 / his release, we don't see him able to even answer it before the images switch from farmland to flames.

' in truth - i just want . . . ' but we never hear phainon's wish, but we can see an inkling of what it may be in the images and memories he has of those around him, those he loves and those he works to protect.

and he never has an answer, but we see him and unsurprisingly most of his wishes involve the other chrysos heirs and innocent civilians and children, we see him among the people, we see aglaea, mydei, children eerily resembling castorice and polyxia, we see people that aren't suffering and in pain, we see people safe and happy.

we see no endless loss and tragedy or death; and i think that's the most complicated yet simple wish a person could have - which fits and aligns with phainon's character as a whole. a complicated and troubled character with simple desires that are so out of reach that they have become more myth than normalcy, and not just something phainon alone struggles with, but all of the main characters of amphoreus.

that happiness and natural human want has become a fairy tale to those he loves, that is what makes phainon seethe and hurt. and if the 'deliverer' is a vessel of humanity's collective wishes, prayers and hopes for not just salvation in a ruined world, but their own lives finding happiness and safety, things you shouldn't have to beg for, then that fury and quiet he keeps well concealed burns all the brighter in him.

he wants people he loves and those around him to live safe, happy lives where wants are not so farfetched that they are considered a luxury or a 'wish' but a common day occurrence, something they had a right to ever since they were born. that people are denied this because of the tragedy of life in amphoreus and 'fate' as a whole, something phainon clearly wishes to crush underfoot if it causes nothing but heartache - is an endless source of fury to a long kindling spark and flame.

basically phainon at this point is a powderkeg, a spark near a bomb, he's so many things. he's rampantly insecure beneath a veneer of confidence, he's terrified of losing anything dear to him and out of a genuinely good nature and equal measures desperation to not see more lost, he works himself without care for himself to the point of borderline fatal abandon, he utterly has no regards for himself and sees himself more as an object of other's hopes and desires than someone who can have his own desires.

something he seems all too easy to be content with in contrast to the others. he's a walking contradiction of concealed anger, trauma and rampant grief warring versus a good nature, a kind heart, and like aglaea says spot-on, a deep sensitivity to the people around him, a deep empathy for their suffering, something made more potent given his role as the 'one who bears the world'. the one meant to save amphoreus, the one meant to hold the desires of all save for one: himself.

he is so many things, and he is so painfully human and flawed, and it's these things that will ultimately determine how his story and the word 'fate' which he so vehemently wishes to defy and deny, turn out. in either victory or futility. that tenderness and goodness and fury can all co-mingle together with fear and courage, each good 'trait' phainon has is also given a very human flaw .

and i'm sure phainon has and had plenty of wishes. but if there's one thing absolutely certain is that he wants everyone to be able to live happily and without suffering if it can be helped, without war and grief, without duties and having to abandon one's self.

'if suffering has an end, then i will become the deliverer. '

and if it doesn't, it's all about who phainon means to become no matter how many times he has to defy 'fate'. / personals / non-rp blogs please don't reblog <3.

[laufire]

the month is almost over and I am so ready to be done with it. I will not think of you fondly, june2025.

[silverstone2024]

lewis thinks so deeply and cares so strongly about everything … being in his life must be an absolute joy ☹️❤️‍🩹

[missycolorful]

dammit i miss qsmp

[forcedhesitation]

It is kind of ridiculous that Wyll is the only companion who can offer to join Karlach in Avernus. I feel like it would have made sense to have Selunite Shadowheart and Minthara offer to go with her as well! In the place of Wyll, I mean, because fuck does that man deserve to REST. And he isn't the only who cares about Karlach! Minthara is literally in love with her, and Larian seems to like suggesting Shadowlach, so why couldn't have Shadowheart have been an option too? In the case of having all four of these characters in your party, the order could be:

Wyll offers to go with her.

Selunite Shadowheart can offer to go in his place, saying he's done so much already. If Wyll's father is alive and hers are not, she could also say how Wyll should take the chance he has to spend some time with his father.

Minthy can offer to go instead of the other two, maybe using her experience as a drow matriarch as a reason for why she'd be the best equipped to protect Karlach in Avernus.

If you just have Selunite Shadowheart, and her parents died, she could say how she doesn't want to watch anyone else she cares about die. If her parents didn't die, maybe that could be the one case where she couldn't offer to go? Or maybe she could still offer to go, and give the reason that she wants to do something that her parents could be proud of? Minthy could still give the same reasoning, because I think it makes a lot of sense.

I would argue that it would make perfect sense for Spawn Astarion to volunteer as well, as there is no sun in Avernus, he can be as much of a little murder freak as he wants down there, and it would really emphasise his personal growth for him to want to protect someone else...but I get that you'd have to change how that whole scene is coded and there are already enough issues with it (particularly with the order of Lae'zel's endings). So, I get why he doesn't exactly work well as an option.

[fireworkss-exe]

thinking about the kid and weeping

[opiumvampire]

ummmm yeah i just typed out a really long Exposé that probably would have been uncouth to post because i woke up pissed off so im practicing good karma and Not exposing my favorite little sinister individual for all of his crimes against the great state of Women and instead im going to walk to my favorite coffee shop and get a ham and cheese croissant. and it will be FUN