#and it's gonna have so many bugs and flaws

[irishbreakfst]

might be about to poison myself, will update later. or not. you'll find out either way

[glamourscat]

RECONNECTING | SUGAWARA X READER

time skip! | sugawara being... sugawara? | fate always has a plan even if it means waiting a few years to reach it

It’s strange, really, how life can change so quickly, so unexpectedly.

Sugawara Koushi was known for many things. For being kind. For being the mom friend though, in reality, he was more like the fun aunt who sneaks you candy when your mother says no sweets after dinner. He liked to think of himself as emotionally available. And yet, he had one big, striking problem: second guessing himself. Badly.

He prided himself on noticing things. The same way he had been painfully aware that Kageyama was a better setter than him back in high school. And despite being a third-year, despite wanting to play so badly, he had stepped aside for the sake of the team. He told himself he was fine with it, fine with standing on the sidelines, fine with only being subbed in at the last minute. As long as Karasuno won, he was okay.

What he hadn’t realized was how that very mindset had bled into the rest of his life, turning every decision into a relentless game of second guessing.

And that’s where you came in.

You, with your stubbornness. You, with your loud mouth and fleeting thoughts. You, who never let him get away with his twisted way of thinking. You called him out on a daily basis, or almost. And back then, at eighteen, he hadn’t understood it. He had been torn between wanting to cuss you out and just collapsing into your arms. Because how could someone see right through him like that? How could someone understand him so well it was almost terrifying?

But he never acted on it. Every day, he looked in the mirror and convinced himself it was nothing. That you were just in his thoughts too often because you were annoying. Loud. Always in his face. Always challenging him. Always—

But that wasn’t the truth. It never was.

The truth was that Sugawara had been deeply and utterly in love with you. With every irritating habit, every flaw you tried to pretend didn’t bother you but he saw through it anyway. He had been in love with the way your hair moved in the wind, the way your eyes lit up when you laughed, the way you always tried (and failed) to suppress your laughter, only for it to burst out louder than anyone else's in the room.

Or maybe, it was simply the way you looked that day in early January, at the shrine.

Cheeks rosy from the cold, bundled up in a coat so puffy you practically rolled instead of walked, with a scarf big enough for three people. Maybe it was the way you looked at him, maybe it was the realization that in less than three months, you’d both be graduating and he wouldn’t see you every day anymore. His heart had felt heavy in his throat.

It had been the first time you two hadn’t fought. No arguing, no bickering, just laughter. And yet, even then, he had been too much of a coward to say anything.

"You’re staring at me." Your voice pulls Sugawara out of his daze. He blinks, realizing he’s been watching you fidget with your scarf, adjusting it every two seconds like it’ll somehow keep the cold out better.

"No, I’m not."

"Yes, you are," you counter, narrowing your eyes. "Do I have something on my face?"

Sugawara exhales, his breath visible in the winter air. "Yeah. A giant bug actually. It’s kinda distracting."

You gasp, smacking his arm. "Rude! I don’t… right? Please don’t tell me i actually have something" you say, while swatting your face with your hands just in case.

He laughs, too easily, too fondly. 

You grumble something under your breath but don’t argue further. Instead, you focus on the shrine, your eyes flickering between the colorful omikuji papers tied to the stands.

"You gonna draw a fortune?" Sugawara asks after a beat.

You glance at him, then back at the small wooden box filled with paper fortunes. "Dunno. What if it says my luck is horrible?"

"Then I’ll steal it and replace it with a good one."

"That’s cheating."

"No, that’s strategic optimism," he grins.

Your laughter is softer this time. Warmer. "Alright, fine. But if it says I have bad luck, I’m blaming you forever."

You reach in, pull out a slip of paper, and read it. Sugawara watches as your expression shifts. For a moment, he swears he sees a flicker of something, hesitation? Hope? Then, you shove the paper into your pocket and huff.

"Well? What does it say?" he prompts.

"Not telling."

"Why?"

"Because," you say simply, "if I do, you’ll probably start second guessing things again."

And just like that, something tightens in his chest.

He wants to ask. He wants to press. But instead, he just watches as you turn away, eyes still locked on the omikuji papers board fluttering in the cold wind.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

And now he finds himself in an interesting position. It’s been a few years and at the moment he was torn between a) drinking his melancholy away b) dive into the nearest bush and make his exit c) pretend everything is fine while internally screaming for the choices he has made at 18 and that are coming back now at 23 to bite his ass d) all of the above in that order 

Because when Tanaka had said, “Hey man, you have to come to my wedding. No ifs, no buts. And you’re going to be my best man,” Sugawara had certainly not expected to be paired up with you.

And it was embarrassing, he was twenty three years old, yet he still struggled to look you in the eyes. Because you were even more stunning now. Because your light had only grown brighter. Because, despite the years that had passed, that same feeling still lurked deep inside of him.

And for a moment, he was eighteen again.

He didn’t know if Kiyoko and Tanaka had paired the two of you as best man and maid of honor on purpose or if it was a complete accident. All he knew was that, now more than ever, he wanted to make up for lost time.

His thoughts though, were interrupted by you. Which after a moment of silence, awkward glances your voice fills the silent space between the two of you.

"You know, my omikuji back then was right." 

He looks at you perplexed. There’s no way after years of not seeing each other, the closest contact being likes on instagram pictures and occasionals birthday wishes, you brought up as your first thing the same exact thing he had been thinking just now. 

"About what?" he asks, his eyes curious, with a hint of something he hadn’t had in years. 

"That fate is patient."

🔮 "大吉  = great fortune. An important connection is slipping away. If left unspoken, regret will follow. However, fate is patient. Paths that are meant to cross will find their way back to each other."

© GLAMOURSCAT (all rights reserved. do not share, modify, translate and re-upload my work outside of tumblr)

[daemon-in-my-head]

I'm gonna say smth and I need people to read and understand what I mean.

It is perfectly fine to critique games. It doesn't matter what exactly you critique. You don't like the story? Say it. You don't like the combat? Say it. You dislike the way previous lore has been handled? Say it. You dislike the character creator? Say it. You think certain aspects of the game feel lazy or odd? Fucking say it.

Games at this point of time cost 60-70 bucks. Just the game itself. And it's often not even a physical copy, just a digital key they can revoked at any moment if they feel like it. If you want an advantage or a pretty limited skin or what have ya its gonna be 80-150 bucks. Yes that's how outrageous the prices are becoming. Let alone any future DLCs.

And again, it's 60 fucking bucks for just the base game. That's a lot of money for games. Not too long ago you'd be chased with pitchforks and torches had you said your game was that expensive. Some phones are as expensive as two AAA games, games that usually shine with a shit ton of flaws, bugs, missing content, messed up lore and generally feel like the publisher just wanted to make a quick dime. And considering how little time they take to develop, the later often holds true.

But yk what else? If you don't express your disgruntlement or your anger with these practices it's gonna keep going. Shit is only gonna get more expensive while also providing a worse playing experience. Y'all know what the big guys said about BG3. That we, the players, shouldn't expect that to be the new standard.

But hey, listen, we fucking should. It's our money and time. Our enjoyment of long established series or the first title of many. We should expect it to be fucking good and finished especially for such a great prize. We should expect to find entertainment in the things we buy exclusively for entertainment.

So please for the love of god stop attacking people for voicing their very valid and personal opinions. In fact do the opposite and join them and encourage others to do the fucking same. I'm so god damn tired of publishers doing everything only for the sake of sales rather than the art behind it. And yes of course 'the poor employees' and whatever excuses there are for these attacks. Guess fucking what buddy? You encouraging the Publishers behaviour by shutting down any and all criticism and buying whatever the fuck they slapped a name on is just telling them they get away with treating their people like less than shit.

Criticism is healthy. Criticism is required for a system to work and develop in positive ways rather than whatever tf is happening now. Voicing your opinion and critiquing aspects you find poorly handled is not hating a game. It's being disappointed that something you love and are absolutely passionate about was not treated well because some rich guy wanted yet another bonus check.

If a game is shit, call it out. If a system was handled poorly, call it out. If publisher try to limit the content and systems you're exposed to in the first 2 hours because you can still return the game in that period of time, call it the fuck out.

[toptophat]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!

(Translation: TopHat just watched Dragons Rising S3 part 1 and she's currently very happy!!)

TopHat's Thoughts on Dragons Rising S3 part 1!!! (SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!)

First things first, I had a great time watching this! I was hyped for weeks!! The fights never fails to impress me and the animation is beautiful as always. And now I'm really excited for the 2nd part, imma talk about the biggest surprise characters before the main guys

Obviously we expected Morro to show up and it seems that even when completely separated in the merged realms, he's still atoning for his actions in Possession by cultivating Wu's teachings and protecting people, which was really sweet to see, and of course his conversation with Arin was expected. I hope that after Thunderfang is defeated, Morro can actually meet the ninja again and team up with them, especially since there's a chance Wu is alive.

Pixal was definitely a welcome return, the team just didn't feel complete without her. It is kinda sad that she didn't realise how long she was trapped for but at least she's reunited with Zane and Samurai X is finally back! I really loved the way she intimidated the Freebooters, made Rapton shit his pants and everything 🤣 anyways, glad my gurl is back!

Dareth made a small cameo and it seems like he's still trying to be a ninja even after all this time! thankfully the Arrakore didn't grant that wish, and it's also nice to see my boi's efforts in restoring Djinjago are paying off, it's looking beautiful!

Now onto the main guys!!

Firstly! No, Internet, Arin was obviously not gonna be evil, he's simply being manipulated by Ras, but he's still kind to others, willing to reason with others as opposed to unnecessary violence and he even rejects some of his teachings and is still on somewhat decent terms with the ninja, especially with Sora and Lloyd, the latter of which he risks his life for in the first battle against Thunderfang. And with Jay/Rogue revealing to the others that Arin's parents are still alive, it looks like Ras was only lying to him and using his emotions against him to fulfil his own agenda.

Sora is most likely to master her spinjitzu in part 2, but it's great that she was able to have that moment to reconnect with her bestie! And it was even interesting that when they were kids, he saved her from literally being trafficked, like, holy hell, idk what else you'd call that! Hopefully the other ninja can tell her that Arin's parents are alive so she can convince him that Ras is using him. No pressure!

Frak was great this season, I may have said it before but it's nice to see some heroic serpentine for a change. Appreciate that he's also trying to get through to Arin, admitting that Ras' teachings are flawed, I feel like Arin could've gotten the same experience under better circumstances

Wyldfyre continues to be goated, it was nice seeing her get obsessed with the arcade games whilst looking for Jay with Kai and Nya, it's also pretty cool that she managed to find a cure for the decay affecting Roby (caused by one of the forbidden 5). Where would the ninja be without her? tsk tsk

Cole didn't really do much in part 1, like, I at least thought we were going to have an episode where he looks too! maybe he'll get to at least do something in part 2?

Zane, as always was my goat, I loved his solo episode with the train (really appreciated the reference in the title) although I did have one tiny pet peeve.... THAT GODDAMN SONG 😭😭😭 don't ask which one, you know exactly which one I'm talking about, how many times has that song played during his fake out deaths??? I wasn't even worried this time, I was like "oh, he's dying again" he did get that cool mech suit though! And him calling Pixal the smartest and most attractive member of the team is just... My heart 🥹!!!

"is this guy bugs? IS THIS GUY BUGS???" - Kai

I really enjoyed Kai especially when he showed his dad side saying "Did Roby break up with you? Let's kick his butt!" And also imagine spending your time and effort trying to beat your buddy's highscore only to have them take it back without even being there, it was a sweet moment but that's gotta suck 😭 bro is not hearing the end of it!

Nya, my goat!! It's great that she finally managed to find Jay, of course not as himself but it's still him! Also if there's one thing I could count on, is her and Kai's banter, even as adults you can't not banter with your siblings! Also it was kinda fun seeing her partake in a wish battle again, only this time the Djinn is on her side and not trying to marry her because she looks like his dead lover and through that marriage granting the Djinn infinite wishes causing her to get hit by a poisonous dart and die only for it to be reversed by her actual lover's wish so that only they would remember what happened!

Oh yeah speaking of which, we finally got more Jay screen time!!! Bro thought we wouldn't notice his goofy ahh, although I did love that he actually was a threat to Ras as the mercenary Rogue, it also seems that Kai was right, Jay was probably like "i sense a disturbance in the force.... DID SOMEONE JUST BEAT MY HIGHSCORE??" It's also clear that he hasn't lost his sense of humour ( guessed from his signature "Hoowah!!!" But the pun works too) also bro hasn't changed one bit 🤣 is his goodness still shattered, cus it doesn't feel like it? But I know they'll find a way to get his memory back I missed him so much 😭

La-loyd and Ras, two sides of the custody battle, it's nice to see that he isn't having those visions so frequently but it seems that he is in a lot of danger from Thunderfang who will definitely be back for revenge. So it also turns out that Ras is lying to Arin about his parents, imagine using an emotionally distressed, grieving child for your own gain 😭 that's 16/17 realms worth of fucked up!! I get that he wants his home back, but toying with a child's emotions and dependence is not it bro... Like I said, I really hope Sora is informed about this somehow, someone needs to tell Arin

The Forbidden 5, man, those fuckers were creepy!! Especially the decayer and the one made of bugs!!! Like, I have a phobia of creepy crawlies (spooders) and seeing the inside of him filled with bugs was just... ewww 🤮 I think they're either dead now or their power was slurped out by Thunderfang, either way I don't think they'll be any trouble for now, they sure were a handful though!

And finally, Mr Thunder "Source Dragon Senpai Wouldn't Notice Me" Fang, I had a feeling he wouldn't be easily finished with in part 1, so they're gonna have to give it their all in part 2! And since the Arc dragon of focus defeated him once, is his natural opposite, and is literally one of the newer Lego sets only for £85.97, we'll definitely see them in part 2!!

Moral of the story.... Don't do bugs, kids!!

Anyways, I literally watched this in one sitting hours ago, I was mad dedicated!!! But I'm glad I got to watch it! And I can't wait for part 2!! Idk if I've said this but DR is a great successor to the original series, because I feel like it's the best of both worlds, Lego obviously wouldn't get rid of the old ninja, that'd be awful for business so this is a good move! And honestly the new additions balance so well off of the ogs making a good blend of old and new.

Dragons Rising S3 Part 1 gets 100 corny lighting puns out of 1

[absolutelynotsanebaby]

do you have any major ninjago fandom pet peeves? or am i just being overly weird for having some?

No youre not weird I have many too lol

- designs for the main ninja where they're all either white or pale. Its sort of sus to me when people make kai tan(ish) but not nya. Like, why? (<- the answer is colorism. Obviously the prettly girl is pale but the angry guy is tan(ish) ). Also hate when the only tan or darkskinned one is Cole (and hes usually sort of grey).

- 'girlboss' nya where shes dumbed down to 'strong woman character' which is a thiny vieled 'shes the mom of the group' fanonization ngl. Nya is strong and capable, angry and opinionated but none of that is actually captured in the baseless trope applied to her. I see it a lot in fanon Jaya and it bugs the shit out of me.

- misako slander/hate, its literally just misogny. Barely anyone talks about Garmadon the same way.

- lava shippers who feel the need to bring up lava on geode posts. Or lava shippers who hate on geode or geo in general I find incredibly annoying. Another thing is when some of them act like lava was Ever gonna be canon like. Broski, when and where did you find evidence of that?

- fanon jay like. Entirely.

- on a similar note, fanon bruise. I hate haaate the yaoi-topification of Cole lol. I find bruise's dynamic, both platonic or romantic, fancinating and its frustrating to see them so dumbed down.

- big hater of the idea that Jay has to short or cole has to be tall or this or that.

- wu haters die by my blade. Wu's tries so fucking hard and is flawed but apparently people can't view a character in full. Whatever.

- I incredibly dislike woobified morro. Espicially when people make his actions seem less bad or less his choice in a mock way to make him seem more "redeemable." I find it funny that people can't seem to accept that their fav is a bad person and/or did bad things. Recongizing that doesn't make him any less "worthy" of redemption. That's not really how redemption works, at least in my mind.

Ok thats all I can think of rn so hating session over

[thingsidrawgohere]

I just finished my first run of DA4 and let me say- I probably got my money's worth. If one wants to view the experience via a purely mercantile lens. I found many bits of cheese and touched the insides of many angry creatures. But if one wishes to frame the thing as Art- Hell, if one wants to solely discuss it as the Fourth in a series of lore-dense, narrative RPGs, then, Cousin, We've Got Problems. Three interconnected niggling ideas that kinda all lead to the conclusion- for me, at least- that modern design practices simply do not trust the player. News flash, right?

Anyways, I think I'm going to have some thoughts on this subject to avoid other thoughts, thank you.

Full-Throated Spoilers Beyond. And a lot of them. It's long.

Idea 1: DA2 is my favorite of the series. That's not the problem; it's the setup. I know what I'm about and it's interesting characters interacting over time. Flawed characters. Abrasive, opinionated, STUPID ASS ANDERS characters. The story was scaled well for a handful of total losers and it was political. The most humanly political of all the games, I think. That's a very low bar, particularly for AAA, but it felt better to stand in a street, to be personally effected by events, than to look at a literal map of icons and notes and distant decisions as in DA3. It's important, I think, for DA to be about Being, Getting Dirty. You aren't a king. You shouldn't be.

Side Note 1: DA2 is a fucking miracle. The old gag that FO New Vegas, blessed be, was made in 18 months is trotted out to display Can-Do Attitude and DEEPLY unethical labor practices. DA2 got less time, fewer reusable assets (due to a different art style), and had to rebuild most of the engine. A. Miracle.

DA4, on the other hand, has a series of supportive, well-adapted people who have all worked very hard on themselves in therapy and know all the fucking right words to say. They chat with one another with kindness and sober fondness. In the One Instance of interpersonal friction, it is resolved with grace and speed. I find this Horrid. They fucking forgot to give these people negative traits. It's likability slurry. They experience no hard growth, hold no horseshit ideas, suffer no lingering doubts. It's not only unnatural but it's lifeless. It becomes Written. I can see the fucking author waving at me. I've got a note from my run that reads 'Rook told the man who is forcibly living inside his head "Thank you sharing that" and I want to scream.'

And that would be bad enough except the ideas are there. You've got a reluctant father story. Someone trapped between two cultures. A older man, already terrified of aging, of death, taking a Much Younger lover. That's Fucking Meat. I can see the writers straining against something but what they deliver is still person-shaped missed opportunities that repeat, that repeat, that repeat. It's So Frustrating. There's flashes of Good Writing. Of good character beats. But Also- from my notes, a character had just held her brother as he died, inexplicably for a second time, and Rook gives her a little pep talk that ends with him asking "You good?"

And the fucking woman says "I'm good" in response. She seemed to mean it.

How does one- react to that as a viewer? I told a man who wanted to be a lich more than anything to Not and he was cool with it. He never brought up being a lich again. He wasn't even upset. I let a man's city die and he's like I Get It, Bro. No Harsh Vibes. It rings hollow.

Talking over Solas' memories, collectively pulling out the meaning behind them- that was some of the best characters-interacting writing in the whole thing. And it's HOURS into the game. A shame.

Side Note 2: A lot of a loved-one death as motivation in this old refrigerator. If you get a name and one line, Oh Boy Brother, you are prolly gonna die bad. Lazy.

If I'm going to talk about Emmrich, let's talk about his romance. I honestly thought it was bugged. I Am playing through another run as a comparative but Wow. Larian and BG3 absolutely reconfigured what's acceptable in these types of story beats. This particular romance felt regressive, in a sense. Like a last minute addition. The very definition of love coins. No charisma or honest affection between the characters. Nothing allowed to percolate (more on that in a second). Just- now you are ROMANCED. Which means on the Blue Moon instance he has anything to say regarding being in a relationship, the best you can get is a 'dearest' at the end of a sentence. I was Excited by the idea of Emmrich really struggling with a May/December situation but he Doesn't. He has a few lines implying that he Could but it leads nowhere.

And they fuck in a coffin (???) and it's not even hot (!!!). Unforgivable. Double Unforgivable. I heard there was spice in this game? This is baking soda.

Related, a few lines awkwardly dodged the question of Emmrich's previous relationships and I have an inkling, without experiencing the other romances, that this is the world's largest case of gun-shy after the backlash with DA3's non-playersexual romances. This man can not be confirmed to be Anything but Into Rook, whatever they might be. There was also a throwaway line with Taash how she prefers women and that's as much as I saw of explicit preferences. I don't envy anyone trying to address the rabidity of fandom but it feels like unnecessary acrobatics.

Side Oh No: It's so bad that I'm honestly thinking of doing a fixit fic regarding the romance/character writing. And God, I can't right now. I have to finish my other project first.

Idea 2: The pacing. That's what ruins so much. There was a scene of a gnarled, fucked-up gate, torn from its hinges. And my guy says "Something Big must have torn apart that gate" all ominous, building a sense of- Nope. The very big darkspawn is standing ten feet away on the other side. I hadn't even swung the camera around the hall to see it before my guy goes "That big darkspawn must have torn apart the gate!"

Yes, I know there's an issue in open world games these days wherein devs are allergic to a player's millisecond of not knowing where to go but this feels applicable across the whole game. A problem isn't allowed to fester. It is brought to attention and then swiftly dealt with. If there's a locked door, a difficult decision, a feeling beyond Protestant determination, it will be dealt with, Post Fucking Haste. It's like the game doesn't trust the player to hold tension.

This happens not just in barks or small set pieces. Whole arcs work this way. Like Harding's longterm personal quest. She gets a handful of lines about feeling vaguely angry or perhaps thinking she Should be More angry about Lore Dump Retcon and then at her culmination, she's fighting her own anger. A vicious, hot, searing thing- and it wasn't earned. At all. There was room to telegraph this theme, bury it in the dirt to let grow roots. They didn't. One Line was given about her people pleasing tendencies And she's not really shown to be people pleasing to her own detriment. This is Chekhov's Gun in running shoes. It doesn't work. It feels like it comes out of left field.

Hell, there was a mission that was like SURVIVE IF YOU CAN and it was like- literally a long hallway. The Pacing is all Off.

Idea 3: I don't like that I must do this but DA4 doesn't understand its own flavor. The One Thing you Cannot Do is have Minrathous, the city of slaves and blood mages, seem nice. Particularly in the poor parts of town. You Cannot have the Crows be a lovely dovey band of scamps. You Cannot have the Blight be reversible. You Cannot CANNOT say "elves have it pretty good" as my Elvish Rook said with his face flaps. No. NO. You Cannot side-step the politics of this setting. These are the bones on which these characters are hung. To lessen the world is to lessen, to decomplexify them.

You know what my elf didn't hear in the town that canonically trades in bodies that look his? Knife ear. Eh to fantasy slurs but my point is no one said a cross word to my guy. The Qunari living in the town that had been warring with the Qunari for Centuries seemed totes fine. There were no alienages. There were no proper templars- even from other regions. No Mage Circles. No mage issues at all. Hardly anything whatsoever regarding the Chantry or Andrastianism, even as the game takes place in the Super Anti-Pope town. I had a literal demon-possessed man in my party and the world did not react.

I had a friend describe this Thedas as feeling smoothed out and Yeah. It feels like all the nasty bumps have been deemed undesirable. I don't know what to make of it. Is this simply taking the world in a different direction? Is it a mandate to tone down the unpleasantness, for sales? A shift in design ethos? Is this a sign of a very troubled project as it was with Andromeda?

I don't know. Is this still a Dragon Age game without its politics? There's enough here for me to wonder if Bioware is even Bioware anymore. There's a TREMENDOUS amount of work, of skill in DA4. Just Absurd. The environments are thick, Thicc. But work alone is not a virtue. Have we ship of Theseus'd so far that the people- the real people, not the logos- who have interests aligned with what made DA1 special are no longer there? Something went wrong with this project, narratively. Something I don't know how to fix without addressing basement level assumptions I'm clearly not privy to. I hope they can.

Final Thoughts: Game development is a fucking hole into which one pours one's relationships, time, and health, physical, mental both. It gives satisfaction very rarely. They shipped. In that way, huge success. It's not even, fundamentally, a 'bad game'. But it is a victim of a modern philosophy of pre-chewed ideas and player distrust. VGs are ultimately a business and, in these last few years, there's been a unimaginable devastation to the workers in the industry- even as the money flows ever upward. The desire to sell well has morphed into a NEED to sell well, even among the 'kept' studios. Big studios, Grand Dame Studios sitting on top of past critical and financial successes, been killed by their overlords recently. No one is safe. It's suddenly quite dangerous for large studios to make anything remotely niche, remotely unclear and Bioware has both Andromeda And Anthem under its belt. They're probably feeling the pinch. They needed a hit and hits, these days, are increasingly smooth. And DA4 is very smooth.

That's just my feeling on the matter. I'll see what a second run yields.

Smaller thoughts:

I don't care about the combat but that was- odd. The illusion of depth with all the skill trees and types of damage and subsystems of attack- all boiling down to a one button push. It's odd. I played rogue on PC so perhaps it's different for other classes, on console. But I pressed the button at the man and when I got a halo, I pressed another button and then pressed the first button again. No matter where I was on the skill tree, it never changed, never felt different. I don't know. It felt. Odd?

There was a Honest To God "It's quiet- Too quiet" and it just Happened. I would have pulled out every one of my teeth to avoid that. I get the jokey-okey but fuck, man.

Where's the chest hair? WHERE? Body hair? ANYTHING? Davrin has plastic chest. It's freaky.

Gloom Howler Gloom Howler Gloom Howler. Frankly, that whole storyline had a large gulg of the farcical. I laughed my ass entirely off when, upon her defeat, the Gloom Howler said "I'm sorry" and took a nap so hard that the scene wiped to 'some time later'. That was insane editing. PACING. And- naming. Gloom Howler. Gloom. Howler.

Teeth. Dear God, the teeth.

The devs were in a real pickle here, no doubt. My great sympathies. There's an Overwhelming abundance of world states that DA3 could have left on the board and I understand the balancing act between acknowledging the events of older games and staying generic enough DA4 could apply to All of them. Is Cassandra the White Divine? Or is Leliana? It's a nightmare of choices. Any of the people that Could be Divine can not be mentioned without lore issues. Who's on the throne in Orlais? Ferelden? Where's beloved so-and-so? Dorian canonically did return to Minrathous so he can 'safely' appear in game- but he fucking can't talk about Iron Bull, who may or may not be alive. Isabela canonically goes back to piracy but she can't talk about events in Kirkwall because she may not have been there for them. Oof. That's not a lot you are Allowed to acknowledge. The Poor Bastards.

Watched a braid slip off a person's shoulder, organically, as they were talking. Started at the bottom and look where we're at, technologically. And speaking on the technical, a lot of textures didn't load right. For the entire game, my guy's left shoulder armour thing had a much lower rez texture than the rest. Three hard crashes, which isn't the worst. One Wonderful mission wherein Lucanis' hair and his knives were the only bits of him to render.

I'm not touching the non-binary storyline. It was clunky, for sure, but the greatest sin was using Our words. There is canonical words for NGC/NB people in fiction and to not use them shows a fundamental distrust towards the source material and the players both. It's the linguistic version of the quest marker or the barks telling you where to go.

I still don't know how I feel about the dead Varric twist. Feels goofball but he got to hang out in his little pajamas. I wish I was in little pajamas.

Solas was pretty fucking tight but I think a lot of that was due to his VA. Something about the voice direction, in general, felt- flat? But old Solas was doing it good.

Ending. God, I get it. People are tired and satisfying endings are hard. And DLC exists, more cynically. But Hells Bells, I'm getting to the point wherein even the slideshow is annoying. Give me a fucking Ending to the Choice Game. Don't you fucking 'Spider-Man Will Return' at me, you bastard. I'm a child of fucking god.

Yes, I got the secret ending. I know. That was Also bullshit.

I feel better getting that all out of my system. Thank you for sharing that.

[cynthiaandsamus]

(While reading Olympus I've been thinking about the philosophy of Part 2 and part of it has always kind of bugged me, like each Lostbelt seems more perfect than the last and we just happen to find some wrinkle to justify it being bad even though I'm sure a lot of people suffering in this world would take that tradeoff for some of these places, like regardless of how bad some of them are underneath it would be better for people to live like that even if we see it as 'unearned' from the outside perspective and it felt like the bad stuff was just tacked on as an afterthought to be like "Oh yeah blow it up, it's okay, it doesn't have the suffering of the real world so it's not REAL. And that bothered me, it read to me like the point of living in the real world IS the suffering, like if we somehow managed to cure world hunger we'd be the next on the chopping block because the unanswering weird force that decides what good history is wants us to keep suffering. And I get the whole "Kingdom Hearts is Light" thing they're going for with the best in humanity and all that but it just seemed so weird on a humanitarian level to be like "yeah this is fine" to all the abject suffering in the (Fate version of the) world.

And then something kinda clicked for me, I remember watching Apocrypha and that anime is very weird because I dunno about the novel but the anime makes it seem like they're not really sure why Shirou Amakusa is bad until they get to his place, like they don't know what his fucking plan is and just kinda assume it's bad and will kill as many people as possible based on that baseless accusation, but when they finally hear his plan for the Salvation of humanity there's no Human Instrumentality darkness behind it, like it would fundamentally just be good for everyone but they still reject it based on the idea that "If you hand salvation to humanity they'll never know if they could've done it themselves." now in Apocrypha because this kinda comes out of nowhere late in the game it just sounds like Sieg's butthurt about Shirou killing his waifu and basically committed to stopping the 'evil' plan they all sacrificed so many people for and makes it sound like people have to "earn" the right to not suffer and die for nothing which again I get the idea it's going for but you're still saying "Hey the world is on fire but I'm not gonna fix it because Shirou Amakusa's not a present-day dude, sorry Haiti, keep starving".

But I think FGO does this a lot better because if you apply the "If you hand salvation to humanity they'll never know if they could've done it themselves" moral to the Lostbelts something becomes a lot clearer, the salvation humanity receives in every Lostbelt is flawed BECAUSE it's not something humanity earned for itself, because it was something gifted by divine force and powers beyond the peoples' control and also because if they wrote actualy good places for us to blow up it'd be too dark to sell to horny teenagers but shhh. It's not saying that if we stop suffering humanity will stagnate, it's saying that the only end to suffering that will be worth it is one that humanity creates itself. Something that isn't human can't create a truly perfect ending for humanity. This also kinda bugged me in Apocrypha because they start talking about how human magic can reach the point of being soulblobs on its own if people believe in themselves or whatever and that's just not something applicable to real life since that power system doesn't exist and the idea that we can create anything like that in any sort of realistic world is hopelessly naive, but as far-flung as the FGO version of it is, even if it'll probably never happen, it emphasizes it's the only thing worth doing.

[the-way-astray]

i hear the katria bug is catching? well i'm going. to make it worse.

presenting to your askboxes (this is a dual pov fic and a version of this will go out to katie too), with worldbuilding inspired by "the other woman" (other woman anon if you're out there know that i'm thinking about your fic.....)

note that this is au to real life keepblr events and their chronology. for the most part.

~~~

Agree To Disagree (Stria's Version) [Part One]

Stria was sitting at her computer, Tumblr open, and checking out the girl she'd met that morning in the Keeper Forum.

She'd been a nice girl, Katie, with a bright smile, pretty eyes, and an adorable cat trotting along beside her. From the outset, something about her had screamed 'popular' to Stria, even though there was no gaggle of followers and mutuals behind her as there tended to be around popular people in large fandom forums. When they'd bumped into each other, they'd smiled, chatted about the fine weather, and swapped Tumblrs since Stria didn't have an AO3 handle. And that had been that.

But something, something indefinable about Katie, had fascinated her beyond idle username swapping. So here she was, looking up myfairkatiecat on Tumblr.

Stria opened the page to Katie's blog, and read through the pinned post and its long, extensive list of fandoms. Right after those she found a few random anon asks answered indulgently by Katie, along with pictures of her cat Gracie. There—that was more than proof that she was a popular blog. Stria wouldn't follow, of course—her circle of mutuals was quite small. But there would be, she concluded as she scrolled further on, no harm in keeping up casual conversation. Katie quite enjoyed character analysis, after all, or so she'd told Stria that morning.

And then, Stria saw the fateful post. The type of post that had contributed heavily (among other things) to her discerning taste in follow-backs.

Oh, she thought. She likes Keefe.

Stria was well aware that a large contingent of people who actively frequented the Keeper Forum were Keefe lovers. While she couldn't even hope to understand why they did it (after all, she was the one who'd written and posted an anti-Keefe rant that was seventy-five pages in its first part alone), she had no real issues with them. Fanon Keefe was alright with her, and she was a believer in ship-and-let-ship and all its many variants.

However, her Keefe-haterism and other sadly controversial takes (such as that Alden did not deserve the hate he got!!) had made her somewhat notoriously famous. It had encouraged people to take to arguing with her about her opinions—which she would not have minded if the arguments had been well-thought-out. She was glad that most of these were directed at her Alden thoughts and staunch denial of the Elwin-is-Sophie's-bio-father theory, and not her Keefe rant, since responding to badly-thought-out responses to her passionate rant would have been enough to make her deactivate, probably. But, that said, she'd been aching for a challenge. A worthy opponent. Someone who loved Keefe as fervently as she hated him, without excusing his character flaws, ill-addressed though they were.

Could Katie—Katie who defended her liking of Anakin Skywalker, who reminded her large circle of unabashed Keefe lovers to consider their love through the lenses of his flaws—be that?

A notification came up on her screen. A comment on her Keefe rant. From myfairkatiecat.

Ok as soon as I have time I’m reading this whole thing, so just a fair warning, I’m a debate team girlie and I’m probably gonna disagree with you on a lot of things, and since you said it’s ok to argue I probably will. But I want to say up front that since it is a work of fiction it’s not that deep even if I treat it like it is and that if you want me to stop I will :) basically I really like debating so I’m probably going to go all out but it’s not meant to be taken personally at all [A/N credit to @myfairkatiecat this is directly from her comment reply to Stria's rant, which she made in June 2024.]

Ah yes. Stria couldn't resist a little giggle. This is going to be fun indeed.

~~~

so, thoughts? if you want a part two i'll make one :)

katie's version @myfairkatiecat @/the-other-woman-writer (i don't think they'll see this lmfao they seem to be mostly wrapped up in isa/katie's mutual circle's drama)

KATIE BRINGS GRACIE TO THE FORUMS AWWWW

"something about her screams popular" nobody on tumblr is popular and everyone here is lame. this the lame uncool site. hope this helps

CHATTED ABOUT THE FINE WEATHER LMFAOOOO

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY CIRCLE OF MUTUALS IS SMALL ANON HOW (it's true but like. how.)

this reminds me that i still need to post that pro alden essay. whoopsie

STAUNCH DENIAL OF THE ELWIN IS SOPHIE'S BIO DAD THEORY IS UNDERSTANDABLE THAT THEORY SUCKS

not the anakin skywalker mention . . . i know nothing about star wars at all but if i'm not wrong he's the villain? idk man just trying to see where katie's coming from. this feels very relevant to my "arguing that villains are well-written while at the same time arguing that good guy characters are poorly written makes perfect sense" argument

my thoughts are that anon, you're walking through a minefield here. one wrong interpretation and me and/or katie and/or her anons might blow you sky-high (/j we're very level-headed i swear we are so fun to talk to trust)

part two would be hilarious lowkey

[chakotaybodypillow]

A collection of my Ensign Chakotay doodles :D

Some very brief headcanon lore I've come up with:

His 1st command is where he has all the classic trek style adventures. I've included some small canon details from episodes Emanations and Innocence.

Chakotays stubbornness and contrary nature get him into trouble a bit. He has to learn how to keep those flaws in check as an officer. Once he overcomes that, he begins to mature into a well-respected officer.

As for his friend Bugagon (Bugs), he loves to terrorize chakotay lol. They are bunkmates, so it's not hard to do. Chakotay is annoyed by it at first, but he eventually warms up to him and learns that terrorizing bugs in return is just as fun. Bugs is an overconfident jokester who loves a good laugh. But he loves his friends even more. Deep down, he is very thoughtfuland kind, and this is a quality chakotay comes to know and love about his pal. They are the best bros ❤️.

Kendra deserves her own post ngl, but I'll still tell a bit. She is the Navigation Officer and pilot of their vessel. Chakotay serves in her department as co-pilot/lee-helm. She's an incredibly talented pilot and was Nova squadron at the academy. Her interests are singing jazz and motorcycles. Chakotay finds her very interesting and looks up to her in many ways. He may have a crush on her lol

(The 🤟 pose is the only emote he knows 😔 it's cause he is awkward when taking photos, and he freaks out a bit and thinks it makes him look less awkward... who's gonna tell him it looks goofy 😔)

(Also, these characters have been in my brain for about 10 years 💀 they've gone through many changes in my head, and it's only now that I feel comfortable enough to share them 😁)

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

Ask game, Danzo?

ask game ^_^

My first impression: i distinctly remember seeing him being set up as a villain and wondering if we were gonna see his tragic backstory or not since he was like. old.

My impression now: he's the best shinobi ever shown to us he's despicable he's just doing his job he makes me sick he's just some guy. i will get up in arms for him because nothing he did was all that worse than anything else anyone was doing but i'm not an apologist because he's never done anything good in his life. i love him

Favorite thing about that character: his hypocrisy <3 this guy will go ON and ON about how willing he is to sacrifice everything and how selfless he is but when push comes to shove hiruzen ends up living an awful long time... i love the fact that he is just lying to himself about his actions LMAO he sucks

Least favorite thing: uhhhhhhhh idk i think his flaws are what make him interesting. i guess the fact that he doesn't show up at all before shippuden because he did not exist yet ?

Favorite line/scene: i kind of love his fight with sasuke,,, both of them are spiraling into beautiful self destruction. it's martyrdom at its finest babyyy!!!!!! also the choreography is just really good for most of it.

Favorite interaction that character has with another: oh hiruzen for sure. their weird gay longing compels me. toxic old man yaoi at its finest. neither of them will ever allow themselves to indulge in each other so they keep inventing new ways to love. such as assassination attempts. i love when kakashi tells hiruzen that danzo's planning to kill him and hiruzen does nothing about it because he knows. that's how they flirt.

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: KAKASHI!!!!! like ok i know there was the whole anime only filler stuff but if i'm being honest??? it only makes me want more because like what the fuck. in my head danzo had a weird situationship thing going on with sakumo and after the 3rd war started for many complicated reasons most of which tie back to the fact that the people in the highest positions of power benefit from war and danzo led a smear campaign to pin all of the blame on sakumo so that no one would think too hard about it things kinda fell apart... yes this is meant to parallel the fact that danzo eventually is used as a scapegoat for the uchiha massacre so that no one had to think too hard about it. anyways kakashi doesn't really remember the era where danzo was his dad's shitty boyfriend but danzo does and later when he reaches out to have him assassinate hiruzen its like. weird. its weird. because the assassination attempts are the closest thing those two will ever get to sex. i need kakashi to stop disassociating for 0.5 seconds and think about this because i think it would be funny. and thematically relevant. like. this paragraph is already way too long i'll elaborate on this some other time but GOD i need to lock those two in a room and watch them like bugs

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character: idk. is anyone doing it like him? wait actually manfred von karma ace attorney

A headcanon about that character: i don't think he intended for itachi to kill *all* the uchiha! he thought that he had figured out suchhh a clever way to cripple the uchiha to the point where they would no longer be capable of unionizing while still keeping them in the village and therefore a utilizable tool. like. i don't think he though itachi would be capable of killing every uchiha including the ones who had mangyeko sharingan??? idiot didn't consider the existence of obito. rookie mistake.

A song that reminds of that character: freefall by rainbow kitten surprise ^_^ because what is he doing if not claiming to save everyone while killing himself. and them.

An unpopular opinion about that character: uhhhh the fact that i see him like a person at all i think? naruto fandom at large is not concerned with danzo as an individual which is sort of fair i guess. because neither is naruto the show.

Favorite picture:

is it just me or does he look kind of cute here

[kaimactrash]

Gonna post the little headshots used for this piece of many of my favourite characters, but in alphabetical order rather than the order they appeared in the gif

This is part 2!

Annontation of each below the cut

The Collector from The Owl House! The character design is right up my alley as a space-obsessed man-child, their attitude, flaws, and the complex feelings he experiences throughout the show are really interesting, also their changes to the world may have been horrific, but the aesthetic? To die for.

Dale 'Coop' Copper from Twin Peaks, more the original run than the 2017 series version of Coop, he's just neat, I like him, I love how much he loves people, and how people just seem to be drawn to love him. great character.

Right beside Coop is an old friend Denise Bryson, probably one of the (wildly) more controversial characters of Twin Peaks, but she holds a special place in my heart being a character who is treated equally by our main character and audience surrogate. Plus she's so damn smart, funny, and pretty.

Dr. Ariel Celandine is the best part of Neopets mobile game Tales of Darcadia. Sweet, ditzy, yet incredibly intelligent? and I'm a sucker for an anthro bug, they look cool af.

Drifloon, One of my favourite pokemon, scary and cute all together.

Ekko from Arcane is the most recent addition to my endless list of fave characters, Ekko is probably the BEST part of Arcane IMO, and helps work to cover some of the weaker parts of the series. He's just a great man, doing everything he can to create a safe and healthy community for the people he cares for, and the nature he nurtures. I would die for him.

Frankie Stien, specifically g3 but straight up I love every gen of Frankie, this one just has a special place in my heart for being an enby, and in a very cute relationship with Cleo.

Glad0s! I think she's the most visually iconic characters of this set, shes just so damn cool, her voice acting is fantastic, back story is engaging and exciting, and she gets way too many good lines. she's the GOAT.

Grace Monroe from Infinity Train is one of my favourite problematic fave, partly because shes a literal child and has more reason than any adult to be as problematic as she is, never mind her familial back story explaining why her judgement isn't the best, even for a teen. She's wicked and I wish we got to see more of her, and infinity train as a whole.

[songoftrillium]

Hey, so I'm reading your Hearthbound Supplement, and I wanted to ask why the Fianna were such unified enemies of theirs. From what I can tell, (this is more something that just bugged me) Fianna are one of the tribes with a stronger, healthier relationship to their Kinfolk (inasmuch as any tribe broadly has a good relationship with their Kinfolk) (though I have been known to miss Implications from time to time). Plus, it seems like the younger Fianna have a much kinder view of the Crinos Born, so I'd think they'd be heavily split along generational lines on whether the Hearthborn are enemies or not

Now, granted, my knowledge of WtA is only deep in certain areas, so this might just be me not having gotten to certain books yet, and the Finna really are Like That.

(Or it could be my draw to the whole keeper of history and knowledge, craftsmen, and tendency to adhere to the "Canon is a box of scraps in a cave and I'm Tony stark baby" approach)

Thank you for reaching out! I'm glad you asked, and I have hoped someone would ask me about this. I'm gonna give a wordy answer that addresses your concern and elucidates how I analyzed all the tribes to draw my conclusions.

I want to preface my answer by voicing my fondness for the tribe. At the top of it all, I completely agree that their biggest strengths are their existence as master artisans and storytellers. These aspects are absolutely worth holding onto and even expanding upon. I also appreciate their Celtic origins, but I wish it encompassed all Celts, not just the Irish. That veers a bit off-topic from your question, though.

My depiction of them as the primary antagonist of the Hearthbound stems from both their treatment of the crinos-born, as well as the objectification of their Kinfolk. In the book I call them crinos-born, but in WtE the writing team and I settled on Warborn as the title of choice, so I'll be using that term from here on out.

Different editions were never meant to supersede each other, but rather, build on one another to depict a continuous meta reflecting the evolution of Garou Society in response to their developing war against the Wyrm. For example, the Storytellers handbooks from 2nd edition, revised, and the companion all offer unique tools with very little overlap.

While more experienced people versed in the literature like you and I can read between the lines and handpick the bits we like most, it ignores that the flaws inherent to the tribes are intentional and meant to be confronted by players at the table. To that end, I conducted my research behind my writing with consideration paid to the narrative voices depicting each book, the Garou within them sharing their subjective knowledge, and use that to coalesce a perspective behind my group. When I started writing Hearthbound, I decided to form my conclusions based on three narrative perspectives:

The way a tribe's leadership wants other tribes to view them, their kinfolk, and their warborn.

The way the kinfolk within that tribe feel like they're being treated.

The way the warborn within that tribe feel like they're being treated.

Hearthbound makes a more naked depiction of these problems specifically to confront them, though I admit I should have taken more of an effort to make it clear that these depictions are reflecting the worst aspects of these tribes, rather than the whole of them. These problems represent the worst outliers from each tribe, and are not meant to entirely replace these tribes. When it comes to systemic oppression, it's not always the laws and customs that cause the problems. Still, there are those who hide behind the veneer of hierarchy to abuse those customs in a way that they seldom face repercussions for it, and the Hearthbound are those repercussions. This is a reflection of other forms of systemic oppression, like laws alleged to be 'tough on crime', which on the surface looks great, but glosses over the way those crimes unfairly target marginalized groups and keep them from rising to prominence.

I draw my conclusions on each of the tribe stances from three sources:

Kinfolk: A Breed Apart offering a depiction of Kinfolk the way the tribes represent them, or rather, the way they want other tribes to see them. It does hold many positive depictions on the relations between Garou and Kinfolk.

Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes, in contrast, represents a perspective from Kinfolk that is a little less flattering and is more closely representing the perspective of the Kinfolk themselves (and is taken as such.)

Guardians of the Caerns has a chapter dedicated entirely to the Warborn, and lends their perspective on what it was like growing up in a Sept of a particular tribe. This represents the sentiment of what it's like being a Warborn from any one tribe, opposed to the way these tribes want to be seen.

To answer your question in short, yes, the worst of the Fianna really are that way. They are more likely to outright kill a Warborn and their parents than to accept them, and those Warborn who do exist within their tribes seldom hold rank, are often hidden from view, and subject to rather terrible abuses by their fellow tribemates.

Contrast that with the blatant and plainworded phrasing in the tribe description of them trending towards violence:

Combine that with their lackadaisical ways of speaking of their own families in Guardians of the Caerns, pg. 94:

Merryck's comments: It's not without a certain sense of irony that the Fianna, self-avowed masters and mistresses of passion and abandon among the werewolves, despise the [Warborn]. They believe that physical deformity shows a malevolence in the spirit as well. But at the same time, they're really into having wild, raucus parties, orgies if you ask my opinion. The Fianna dismiss any potential risk with this kind of activity their answer to slowing those driving passions is "find a Kinfolk to slake your lust." How practical. Don't kid yourself; there are many [Warborn] running around with red hair and green eyes, both in their tribe and outside it.

When you combine multiple sources and add a human perspective wrt consent, it starts to paint an incredibly unflattering canonical picture of the tribe, and a narratively compelling one, to boot.

For others reading this, below is a link to my supplement in question OP is referencing, if anyone wants to take a look!

[noitsbecky127]

rebecca watches ds9: sanctuary

interesting opening! dropping us right into sisko’s office

poor kira’s been in a zoom meeting lmao

ugh what does quark want with her

that bajoran has no earring!

is this the fuckin pied piper or something

why did he call kira about this. tf is she supposed to do. just fire him if it’s that big of a deal

who is he to kira? why is this so important to her?

hello there gamma quadrant aliens

uh oh their language isn’t translating

odo the being that you are

handling these guys is like herding cats

what happened to taking them to the infirmary?

oh ok they’re still en route there

why is kira the only one they trust?

when in doubt, offer food

man i’m hungry. i didn’t eat much last night

the translator had better figure out their language soon

ok good it’s getting somewhere

that’s a lot of people in need of help!

matriarchy! yay!

ohhh that’s why they would only listen to kira

terogarans? gamma quadrant’s got its own occupiers i guess

again with the dominion! when i asked what they were a couple episodes ago i got some interesting reactions in the reblogs. i feel like i should be worried about them

“don’t you sleep with your males?” she is a LESBIAN

oof that dress is an exercise in miscommunication

nvm they bonded over hating it, that’s oddly sweet

jake and nog!!! love their friendship

“the study of bugs” “she wants to be a chef!” that’s one way of interpreting it

why are skrreeans so bumpy

and why do they have such atrocious hairstyles

i think there might be too many of them

odo is trying to keep order on the promenade. that’s the definition of a losing battle

odo dragging nog away by the ear is hilarious

quark is the WORST influence

they flake? that’s weird

oh christ how is the musician guy gonna tie in with this

haneek’s leader now! good for her!

i’m not sure we’ve ever seen kira as happy as we have this ep

varani doesn’t look old enough to have been a musician before the occupation. was he playing for cardassians? or has he just aged really well

shoutout to jake for trying to mediate

oh god things are about to go bad between the skrreeans and the station aren’t they

nog’s tiny hisses are hilarious

you found kentana???

i don’t think kentana can be bajor

what’s the population of bajor? how big of an increase would three million skrreeans be? that definitely affects things

guess it’d be enough that it’s not an option!

i think they should at least get a chance to make the land thrive. trial run maybe. give them a teeny bit of land and see how it goes

maybe i’m supposed to take the projections as gospel but as a viewer in 2025 i do not! ai is flawed!

i don’t think they want draylon 2

the skrreeans have figured out the replicator

ah. guess someone’s taking matters into his own hands re: no bajor

general you’d better fucking rescind those orders

well that was a depressing outcome!

[demhen]

when it comes to the flaws of TNR's designs, I feel like these are the main flaws. Thunder's anatomy is just... weird and I feel like he should be more like a light fury. Feathers needs actual feathers. those are scale-sausages, not plumage. Wu and Wei need knees, less bulbous snouts, and for their yellow scales to be made purple, I feel like the gold works better as an accent color. Plowhorn needs an ocular transplant because why does the dragon have human eyes. and Webmaster... his. his everything. his legs look so clunky and just kinda squished together.

So this is gonna be a long rant...

Thunder is a mess. He is probarbly the worst dragon from this show. I wouldnt even say because he has too much black because we are shown that the Hidden World is big in Dragons the Nine realms, now if you want to belive them or not is your decision seen as their are so many realms but they also are all near that one place in scandanavia (or north america... thats where the meteor seems to land in the opening sence.) So I can belive that their are more nightfuries in their. But if we go down the route of their arnt anymore... either nightfuries live long lives or the gene is just that dominate, or its really an inbreeding thing (which is canon John tellegren confirmed it)

To go more into it his entire body is a mess.

His head?! Weird, its a deformed nose. He always looks this smug even in the last shot that we see of him in the end credits of the last episode.

Why does this face move like that?! Its too much. And Thunder always looks like this. He is having too much facial expressions.

His neck? Its so... horse neck? Idk how else to descibe it. Seeing Thunder fly? It doesnt look good. Same thing with his wings. Why do they look like this. Also a cool thing on Toothless and the light fury was the aquatic thin after the wings, because it looked like toothless evolved from being a water dragon. But here? It too is weird. Thunders tail thin?... is that a trident? Thunder flying is also a nightmare.

One of the cool things about toothless was that it was really plausible that he could fly, at least he looked like he could. Thunder? He looks horrible and I am 100% sure that he couldnt fly if real.

Feather while she is the stead of the Queen has too few feathers I agree.

She also needs more colours! More feathers and more colours. With the rest of it I am actully fine.

Wu and Wei are a mess and when I am gonna redesign this I fear I will have to come up with an entire new dragon. I just dont like them.

The Colour scheme just isnt good. Also their mouths are too big and round. Also the wings look to be more of a water dragon and it doesnt look to be great at flying, but I can excuse that since other dragons that arnt nightfuries had this too. But why does this need to be a 2 headed dragon? I get that its to mirror barth and belch but why do that. One head that does fire and the other does water/ice?! I just dont like it very much.

Plowhorn also is a mess.

I like the bug wings and shell, what i cant get behind is the gems? That giant gem stucking out of her head... how does that grow? Httyd dragons were always great when they made sense in the real world (yes i know they are dragons) but that belivablity is what got me into the franchise. And a gem growing from her forhead? I just dont see how that can happen.

Webmaster.

He is also a mess. From the wings to the main body, the legs and the tail. I love the spider idea. I also have to assume that they used the silkspanners (a dragon form the comics) desigin. And put some wings on it and make the neck longer. (this graph is form the dragons rise of berk game.)

And while I get that the Dragon needs wings, because of all the exploration they do in the show. But why not just use another dragon all together?

What they tried to do i think is to base the dragons off the once form the HTTYD gang.

Thunder being Toothless

Feather being Stormfly

Wu and Wei being Barth and Belch

Plowhorn being Meatlug

And Webmaster... being...

I guess Hookfang doesnt have a counterpart.

TLDR: They are all horrible and I will redesign all of them for my TNR rewrite.

[genericpuff]

I always enjoyed reading LO, though as of late I've gotten more critical of it and aware of the flaws in storytelling, art, pacing, etc (one can still like trash while recognizing it's trash, I guess), and it's been super weird being the only one in my friend group who's not seeing it as this perfect flawless comic anymore. Your retelling so far has been super refreshing and a joy to read, the art and character design is recognizable yet distinct and great on its own (I LOVE YOUR DIONYSUS SO MUCH HOLY CRAP HE'S SO GOOD), and like... I'm interested in where things are going! It's fun reading this! I still do enjoy LO (maybe it's the sunk cost fallacy, idk), but I'm invested in your version so much more now. So thank you for your work, it's really great :)

I know the story is focused more on H&P than the mostly cast of side characters, but are there any other myths that might get revisited as well? Eros/Psyche, maybe Ariadne since Dio is here...?

Absolutely, I say it a lot when the topic of "LO stans vs. LO critics" comes up but none of the criticism is meant to be persuasive debating, while it can be frustrating to voice our criticisms and be met with "yeah well that's just your opinion", we're also not criticizing the comic purely to convince you that it's trash, we're legit just engaging with the comic in our own way. The best way any LO fan can react to it is either to acknowledge the criticisms and move on, or not go out actively seeking the criticism in the first place if it's something that bugs them. But in the end, no one is talking about the comic in this way as a means to strong arm people into riffing on LO, we'll still be talking about it way past everyone's bedtimes regardless of whether or not you chime in and/or agree. I think a lot of people who enjoy LO have a hard time separating those two things because they love the comic so much that any criticism is automatically flagged as "they're trying to make a hater out of me". And yeah, maybe we are a little bit (because it's fun to riff on this comic and the crit community has genuinely some of the nicest and funniest and most creative people I've ever met) but for the most part it's not our goal to make you hate the comic, we can't take your enjoyment of it away from you, even if you do recognize its flaws yourself. By all means, enjoy LO if you want to, we won't try and tell you not to! Just don't think that gives you permission to tell the critics to stop criticizing because that's a double standard we just ain't gonna stand for LMAO

All that aside, I'm glad you're enjoying Rekindled! As for the other stories, I'm trying to reel in Rekindled's plot to focus solely on H x P because I feel like that's what it should have stayed as. One of Rachel's biggest mistakes IMO was when she stated she "wanted to include as many myths as possible" because it's clear it's resulted in her prioritizing low effort Google-level lip service and Marvel-esque nostalgia referencing over telling an actual cohesive story. I'm taking a lot of the additional myths that Rachel tried to do in LO and leaving them on the cutting room floor, but when Rekindled is done, I'm hoping to pick up what was discarded and do them as little side stories after the fact. I feel like that's the best way to do it especially considering so many of the myths Rachel included didn't happen until after Hades and Persephone were married (including Eros and Psyche). I'd especially love to tackle Orpheus and Eurydice, it's one of my favorite myths :) Dio x Ariadne is also one I'm hoping to tackle, though that one I'll probably work more into Rekindled itself as Dio plays a huge role in Persephone's character arc, we'll see !

[bolszaja-miedwedica]

it's been a challenge for me to understand why i should trust humanity. there's so much negativity from other people. everyday scrolling online i mostly see hate and people arguing, all the flaws of our nature. its hard to not be tired of that. it's hard to not see people as bad. especially since I'm very connected to nature and i mourn every little bug or every little plant that dies or gets killed. its to the point where i cut contact with a friend because they kept sending me pics of insects they were killing because "its on my property so it deserves to die". for a very long time i thought that humans are the plague of the planet and I'm of course not a saint. i was praying for the fauna and flora to get their revenge any day and i would be okay with being killed by a giant plant ngl /hj. but my god made me realize that I shouldn't hate humanity and that humans of course are flawed but theyre loving and caring and they're needed here. Yeshua told me he wants to help me with changing my opinion on humanity. of course at first i fought the idea. why should i change? i was met with so much hate and bullying and abuse in my life. but i started volounteering on a local anime con yk trying to socialize and mostly buy trinkets but! it was so fun! everyone was so nice! no one was hateful! so many nerds and geeks and so many different people at once! and me helping them? it was so fun and i felt so good in that role. last month i went to a meeting with all those people that were on the con and! i had so much fun! we were playing card games and i even did some tarot for! completely random people! and they were so excited! so many smiles and positivity! and so many good emotions! i felt energized! no one was homophobic! no one was shocked at my deep voice! no one made sexist remarks! they were normal young adults! their humour was different than mine but everyone was laughing because we felt comfortable! there were snacks! no politics talk! just fun and rpgs and making jokes and getting to know eachother! i felt energized and tired in a good way after that! when usually i feel drained after talking to people! it made me realize how humans are such nice creatures! we have our flaws but everyone has a story to them. everyone has hobbies, favourite food, color, everyone is similiar in their own way! it wasn't the humanity that's the problem it never was. i mean of course there are some bad people out there but internet makes it seem like everyone is bad and a nazi when in reality you just kinda need to seek a different community and just,,, chill...like genuinely...some things are not that deep. its like in this meme that people online are debating whether someone is valid for being a transmasc lesbian and people irl are like "hi how you doin". yeah so uhh its my opinion and it helps me to just think that its not that deep. this post is for me btw like obviously because my blog is my diary but its basically for me its my congratulation post that i want to put out there to remind myself always whenever i get too angry at online comments that its just better to touch grass for mental health and go play some board games instead of arguing with stupid people. so yeah. im nor gonna tag this because yeah bur if you read to this point basically hi yeshua helped me not hate people by making me hangout with some interesting creatures :]