#and i'm like ?? i have no clue what youre talking about?

[iamnmbr3]

re: your chamber of secrets post:

Someone made a post about this already but tom riddle absolutely helped orchestrate Ginny’s poem and I cannot decide if it’s funnier if Tom actually thought it was good or was being completely malicious about it because if he couldn’t kill students right away he would do his damndest to ruin an 11 year old girls love life

lollll that's such a funn concept.

Tom innocently: Did he like the Valentine?

Ginny: 😭 😭 😭 No!!!

Tom: Really? I'm shocked.

Still wild to me that Ginny spent an entire year being pen pals with young Tom Riddle and in 6th year it never even occurred to Harry to talk to her about what she might have learned. Especially given the version of Tom she talked to was the post Horcrux version, so he might've said something that could give clues as to what other Horcruxes he planned to make or what their weaknesses were. But Harry was too busy thinking about Draco to notice Ginny. And he never viewed her as an equal or ally the way he did his actual friends. Also bizarre that JKR made that choice given that hinny is supposed to be endgame. Like, it's a ready made reason for them to spend time together and bond over their traumas and similarites. But nope. Instead she wrote the Harry Potter & The Year Of Drarry and then got mad when people shipped draryr.

[laiqualaurelote]

writers ask from ages ago! 9, 10, & 11 🖤

thank you for the asks! (from this ask game, never too late to play)

9. What is your favourite line/interaction in your fic?

I'm really fond of this exchange from gig officially gigged:

That said, Crystal has zero clue what’s actually transpired between Edwin and Thomas, and Edwin certainly isn’t telling.  “If you must know,” he informed them primly, “he asked me to play for him. That is all.” “Oh yeah?” Crystal demanded while Charles seethed. “What’d you play?”  “Just the classics. Clair de Lune, that sort of thing. It was hardly a chore.” “Huh,” said Crystal. “Guess you really put your whole Debussy into it.” Charles put his fist through the drywall. “Oops, innit,” he said balefully when they turned to stare.

10. What is your favourite AU? Have you written anything for it?

My dream AU is a noir AU and I have never successfully written a full one! the closest I've ever come is the saviour of the broken, the beaten, and the damned, in which Edwin as a noir detective is the framing narrative for the time travel AU. I would love to do a proper one someday though.

11. Is there anything important in your fic you think readers have missed/overlooked?

I would like to talk a little bit about Maren in still my heartbeat with your bare hands! she is the only female character (my bad - that said, question mark over the gendering of Edwin's Hell-forms?) and she is acting as a cup-bearer and most likely a peace-weaver (a woman from a warring tribe pledged in marriage to prevent further bloodshed), in the way the queens Wealhtheow and Hygd do in Beowulf. (Maren trying to give Charles the torc is a reference to the necklace Wealhtheow gifts to Beowulf after he kills Grendel, which he then regifts to Hygd). I thought it would be fitting for Maren to be a cup-bearer in this AU because in canon that is sort of what she is, and also it is how she manages to poison Brad and Hunter, because she is expected to be the one pouring their drinks.

Maren is the one name that I would not have had to change, had I Anglo-Saxonified the characters' names (Ceorl, Ēadwine, Sæmund, etc). One etymology of the name links it to the Proto-West Germanic 'mari', from which you get the Old English 'mere'. Another suggests it is a Danish variant of 'Maria', which is related to...you guessed it! Mary-Ann. So I like that even though she and Edwin do not meet in this AU, there's this connection between his canon death and his AU dwelling, woven together in her name.

[theotherrookie]

"I have to trust my marks."

The runes were still mostly inactive, only reacting to Bill's presence and quietly telling her she should have a shot. They were promptly ignored in favor of the candy bar. The situation was bad enough without their nonsense.

Hopefully, Bill would settle this peacefully once the time came. There was enough going without them getting tangled up in needless conflict worthy of a soap opera.

"You bet I'm asking Lucien what the hell was he on about when he wakes up and we should have another look around the shop as well. I only had time to clear the way, but there might be some other clue and maybe there's enough of that stuff left for Leofric to examine. It's really nasty, Bill. I stepped inside for a second and I felt about to throw up."

So she couldn't really be blamed for not dying to go back immediately. Rook nodded and started heading back to the car.

"Well, uh, I wanted to ask if you're doing alright. It isn't nice to have someone in your head forcing you to do things— Lucien could really be nasty, so I know what it feels like." She shrugged, "If you need to talk, I'm here."

Rook glanced to the side as a camera appeared in an empty spot on the bookshelf. She hadn't really meant to summon in, but the pocket sometimes responded too quickly to her thoughts.

"Well, I've got the equipment for sure. I just hope this can be solved for good. We don't need one more threat to watch out for whenever we go outside."

One Unkillable was enough to deal with as is. Rook waved her hand as she headed off in the direction of another portal. "It's not as mysterious if you put it that way. I'll be fine, it'll take more than a smelly bomb to get rid of me."

Upon leaving the pocket, Rook made sure everything in the house was in order so they could leave without looking too suspicious.

The cold didn't bother her in the least when she stepped back outside and looked at Bill when he apologized. "...Yeah, a little bit. This whole thing really got you worked up, didn't it?"

She pulled out a candy bar and unwrapped it. All this bouncing around was quite tiring and with Antonio hanging out in her pocket, she didn't really feel like recharging her marks.

"So, this is done. Now we just have to figure out who attacked Lucien. Mind controlled or not, that person is bad news."

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[wizardnuke]

um personally i think that if your girlfriend is insecure over you being friends with another girl you should run far away really fast. but i may be misreading the situation. i don't think i am though.

[eruditegeek]

I feel so disconnected all the time.

[lexkent]

kind of funny how both of my grandma's vote progressive & despise Tr*mp and both have a sister who'd been their life-long best friend, but not so much anymore since both sisters vote for Tr*mp (in the most air-headed, naive, ignorant way imaginable I must add)

[irritablepoe]

Little rant about my friend and consuming media lmao

Ok how do you consume media and still have NO IDEA who even the main character's name is? I recommended tma and bsd to a friend - well he started both. I ask him about it - like who his favourite character is or what he thinks of it - and he's so.... Confused almost? Like he just shrugged and said that he actually had no idea what was going on - which ok is kinda fair with bsd but like. you know the characters at least. Each one of them is introduced in some dramatic way, you can't MISS any of that and surely there's at least one character that gets your attention/that you relate to/that you find interesting. I mean ok maybe you forget the name or sth, but you at least remember the characters when I describe them to you, right? But no, my friend had no idea who for example Dazai was - DAZAI?! Like. What???? Or Atsushi.. the fucking main character???? Or chuuya???? Or - anyone??? I was so perplexed. How can you watch something and still have no idea about what you're watching?

The same happened with tma. I recommended it, he listened to the first few episodes. I asked him what he thought of Jon. HE DIDN'T KNOW WHO JON WAS I MEAN WHAT???? Oh idk he's just the guy reading the fucking statements. Before every statement he says "audio recording by Jonathan Sims" like how can you... miss that?

Idk, am I just consuming media so intensely or is he just... I don't even know.... Disinterested in engaging with the media one is consuming? It's not even that he doesn't like it. I asked him and he said it was good. But what exactly does he find good when he has no idea about. like. anything.

[blujayonthewing]

my mom is fishing for a specific opinion about this song my brother's working on and I don't know what it is

[antisocialxconstruct]

Just kinda... putting this out into the universe for right now, but I've been thinking really hard about getting my old enamel pin collections back in circulation, as well as maybe releasing them as stickers as well (for a budget option and also for things you can't put enamel pins on). I had to throw out basically all my remaining stock when I moved (which... oouugh it still hurts), so I might essentially run a "reboot" kickstarter to get another batch of Dire Hounds made and then try again to get the full Grimalkins set funded. A few things this would let me do:

update the templates for slightly cleaner manufacturing, and update the backer cards with accurate artist info because man that was really bothering me

like I said, hopefully get the second half of the Grimalkins produced so they're a proper six-pin collection like the first one

network! Now that I'm in a big city I think I honestly might have better luck with consignment stores and craft fairs than I ever did with only an online shop, and more visibility can only mean good things.

I'm also still definitely planning to make idog merch, and beyond that I'd potentially love to lean even further into the cyberpunk and y2k aesthetics to really hone my Brand™, but obviously that requires original thought and creative effort while getting the dogs and cats remade just requires pulling the old AI files off my poor aging iMac.

[lunar-fey]

oh yeah not sure where we're at w money btw. we might be able to get some of it back but we wont know anything concrete until friday

[obnoxiousarcade]

im thinking again

[fallingnebulae]

i fucking HATE stats i want to die

[aretrothing]

.

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[nostalgia-tblr]

Today I wrote about 900 words \o/ But only 100 of those were in the thing I wanted to add words to :( And most of them are in the wrong chapter. :( :(