#anti anti-aging

[elvendeity]

available here

[mediocre-megs]

honestly more media should portray the anti aging industry as horrific and decidedly unhuman. it IS body horror it IS grotesque it DOES go against nature*. it WILL kill you. yes.

*this is NOT anti-hrt or anti-vax or anything of the sort. i love criticisms of the anti aging industry + sci-fi/horror. i also love trans people and vaccines and medicine and science. i also don’t care if you personally have botox. this was a shitpost i made while high and 2/3 of the way through the substance (2024). terfs dni. cheers.

[tariah23]

Oh brother

[urloveangel]

my favourite anti-aging methods are inner peace, forgiveness and minding my business

[scribeofmorpheus]

Why Dragon Age Veilguard isn't a "Cathedral"

Concept art by Matt Rhodes

"To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals."

What is inherent with Veilguard that keeps bothering me is the fact that the world's choices truly didn't matter--and it doesn't simply bother me from a player perspective, it's not simply a grievance borne of frustration to what I (as a longtime fan) have lost. It's about the very culture of the arts under capitalism's new media habituation cycle [x][x].

Yes, I spent hours of my life playing and replaying each instalment of Dragon Age. Yes, I painstakingly curated a 'canon' world state by replaying what came before in preparation for Veilguard. Yes, I am even more unsatisfied with the end product--time hasn't helped, it's just widened the divide. But, and I can't stress this enough, these very personal gripes aren't what hit home the most. It's the inherent disregard of legacy. A legacy that the previous writers and game developers were building towards.

In the DAV artbook, "cathedral" is the word used to describe the process of making a game. Matt Rhodes' exact words are: "One artist can make a painting, but it takes a team to build a cathedral." Cathedrals took centuries to build. The architect who drafted the first blueprints would likely never see his work realised, he had to rely on those who came after him, like-minded and passionate, to see it through--for the culture, for the future, for legacy. Painters took on several apprentices for this reason too--giant frescoes were not completed by one man's hand, even if it is one man's name that immortalises them. Similarly, if you weave a narrative around choice, what good does it do to take it away at the final act if not to fall to caricature?

To disinherit the storylines of past games goes directly against the notion of building cathedrals.

Late-stage capitalism and profit-margin-obsessed game producers forcing developers to churn out meager content, to make a known brand into something it's not, to chase a fad or a popular trend... o, how reductive and cliche you've been forced to become Bioware. We have lost the cultural thought patterns relative to Cathedrals. We know only of barn-raised churches--done in a day but unlikely to last the turn of the seasons.

And don't even get me started on the music of Veilguard either. From Origins to World of Warcraft to Everquest to Baldur's Gate to Dungeon Siege, you can hear the intricate interconnected weave of sounds inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons-esque fantasy genre. You hear it in the repeated use of certain instruments, in the harmonic weeping notes of a bard-like singer or the foreboding echoes of drums as if of war. In tavern songs. But then, rather than hire someone who loves these worlds and this genre, who is a hungry artist looking to make a name, a legacy if you will, for themselves with a spectacular score, you hire any already sated composer, one well-into the encroaching years of career fatigue, whose notes repeat in countless projects, who feels less concise and more uninterested with each new project. One who has long since cemented his legacy. Someone in it for a paycheck and nothing else! And, to top it off, you let him compose something so minimalist? I am offended actually.

Cathedrals! We should have witnessed the final tile being placed on the Dragon Age cathedral. Instead, some architects walked up, tore down the interior and installed IKEA furniture and called it authentic before having to call the previous architects to come and fix the "load-bearing issues", forcing them to rush and add a coat of varnish and a few 'aged' details for authenticity.

[dalishious]

The Sanitized Lore of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Tevinter is the heart of slavery in Thedas. This lore has been established in every game, novel, comic, and other extended material in the Dragon Age franchise to date that so much as mentions the nation. But in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, when we are finally able to actually visit this location for the first time… this rampant slavery we’ve heard so much about is nowhere to be found. It’s talked about here and there; Neve mentions The Viper has a history of freeing slaves, as does Rook themselves if they choose the Shadow Dragon faction as their origin, for example. But walking down the streets of Minrathous, you’d never know. Because Dragon Age: The Veilguard, for all its enjoyment otherwise, has one glaring issue: It’s too clean.

The world of Thedas is full of injustices. Humans persecute elves, fear qunari, and belittle dwarves. Mages of any race are treated like caged animals in most places. The nobility is corrupt. Although, Dragon Age has not always handled these injustices well, mind you. Many, many times I’ve found myself frustrated with moments that just feel like a Racism Simulator. But what makes it worth it, is when you can actually do something about it. These injustices are things that a good-aligned character strives to fight back against, maybe even for very personal reasons. Part of the power-fantasy for many minorities is that this fight feels tangible. I cannot arrange the assassination of a corrupt politician in real life, but I sure can get Celene Valmont stabbed to death in Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example. Additionally, these fictional injustices can be used to make statements on real life parallels, like any source of media. For example, no, the Chant of Light is not real, but acting as a stand-in for Catholicism, through a media analysis lens we can explore what the Chant of Light communicates on a figurative level.

When starting Dragon Age: The Veilguard and selecting to play as an elf – this should be unsurprising to anyone who is familiar with my bias towards them – I was fully prepared to enter the streets of Minrathous and immediately get called “knife-ear” or “rabbit”. But this did not happen. I thought perhaps it was just a prologue thing, but returning to Minrathous once again, there was not a single shred of disapproval from any NPC I encountered that wasn’t a generic enemy to fight. And even the generic enemies, the Tevinter Nationalist cult of the Venatori, didn’t seem to care at all that I was a lineage they deemed inferior before now. This is a stark difference from entering the Winter Palace in Dragon Age: Inquisition and immediately getting hit with court disapproval and insults. Are we now to believe that Tevinter has somehow solved its astronomical racism and classism problems in the ten years since the past game? Or perhaps are we to believe all the characters who have demonstrated Tevinter’s systemic discriminatory views were just lying or outliers? Because it makes absolutely no sense at all for this horribly corrupt nation to not have a shred of reactivity to an elven or qunari Rook prancing around. But here were are, and not a single NPC even recognizes my character’s lineage. And because this is so different from every single past game, it feels weird.

As an elf, you have the option to make a comment about how “too many humans look down on us” in one scene early in the game. You can also talk to Bellara and Davrin, the elven companions, about concerns that people won’t trust elves after finding out about the big bad Ancient Evanuris… but this is presented as if elves don’t already face persecution. It’s all so limited in scope that it could be all too easily missed if you are not paying very close attention, and coming into the game with pre-existing lore knowledge.

All this made it easy to first assume that the developers simply over-corrected an attempt to address the Racism Simulator moments. And if that was the case, than I would at least give credit to effort; they did not find the right balance, but they at least tried. However, the sudden lack of discrimination against different lineages in Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not the only sanitized example of lore present.

In Dragon Age: Origins, Zevran Arainai is a companion who is from the Antivan Crows; a group of assassins. He discusses in detail how the Crows buy children and raise them into murder machines through all kinds of torture. The World of Thedas books also describe how the Antivan Crows work, echoing what Zevran says and expanding that of the recruitment, only a select handful of those taken by the Crows even survive. When you start Dragon Age: The Veilguard as an Antivan Crow, you immediately unlock a re-used codex entry from the past, “The Crows and Queen Madrigal”, that says the following:

“His guild has a reputation to uphold. They are ruthless, efficient, and discreet. How would they maintain such notoriety if agents routinely revealed the names of employers with something as "banal" as torture.”

Ruthless, efficient, and discreet. Torture is banal. This is what the Crows were before Dragon Age: The Veilguard decided to take them in a very different direction. The Antivan Crows in this latest game are painted as freedom fighters against the Antaam occupation of Treviso. Teia calls the Crows “patriots”. And while I can certainly believe that the Crows would have enough motivation to fight back against the Antaam, given that it is in direct opposition to their own goals, I cannot understand why they are suddenly suggested to be morally good. They are assassins. They treat their people like tools and murder for money. Even as recent as the Tevinter Nights story Eight Little Talons, it is addressed that the Antivan Crows are in it for the coin and power, with characters like Teia being outliers for wanting to change that. It makes the use of the older codex all the more confusing, as it sets the Antivan Crows up as something they are no longer portrayed as.

I personally think it would have been really interesting to explore a morally corrupt faction in comparison to say, the Shadow Dragons. Perhaps even as a protagonist, address things like the enslavement of “recruits” to make the faction at least somewhat better. (They are still assassins, after all.) Instead, we’re just supposed to ignore everything unsavory about them, I suppose…

We could discuss even further examples. Like how the Lords of Fortune pillage ruins but it’s okay, because they never sell artifacts of cultural importance, supposedly. Or how the only problem with the Templar Order in Tevinter is just the “bad apples” that work with Venatori. I could go on, but I don’t think I have to.

It is because of all this sanitization, that I cannot believe this was simply over-correction on a developmental part. Especially when there is still racism in the game, in other forms. The impression I’m left with feels far deeper than that; it feels corporate. As if a computer ran through the game’s script and got rid of anything with “too much” political substance. The strongest statements are hidden in codex entries, and I almost suspect they had to be snuck in.

Between a Racism Simulator and just ignoring anything bad whatsoever, I believe a balance is achievable; that sweet spot that actually has something to say about what it is presenting. I know it is achievable, because there are a few bright spots of this that I’ve encountered in Dragon Age: The Veilguard too. For example, some of the codex entries like I mentioned, and almost all the content with the Grey Wardens thus far. It is a shame there is not more content on this level.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is overall still a fun game, in my opinion. But it’s hard to argue that it isn’t missing the grit of its predecessors. The sharp edges have been smoothed. The claws have been removed. The house has been baby-proofed. And for what purpose?

-----

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[lovl3igh]

"Rhaenyra tried to put bastards on the throne"

[ripplesinthesand]

the funniest thing about smallville is the fact that they basically took your typical lighthearted #thepoweroflove superman story and put a succession character in there. like lex is out here trying to escape the Cycles and suffering under the thumb of his abusive father while clark is like man i wish my dad would let me play football :/ like i love smallville clark, he's one of my favorite guys of all time, but he is incapable of understanding why lex is the way he is, not only because he grew up with a family that loved and cared for him but because he is living inside a completely different genre. he's out here saving people, making the world a better place through goodness and compassion, while lex is sitting inside his million dollar estate on his fourth glass of bourbon talking about how he doesn't know how to love people because he was raised in a business instead of a family. and both of these are very good and interesting stories, but they are so fundamentally different that i think the show struggles to reconcile them at times, which is why you have scenes where clark is like "well lex you should've just tried harder with your dad because love and family conquers all in the end" while lex is just sitting there looking at him like he's insane.

[crazycatsiren]

"Anti-aging"? Nah bro, I'm pro-aging. Aging is a privilege, a blessing.

[space-station-nursery]

◜ 🛷𓂃 Childsafe Holiday Movies ‧ 🦌◞

⁺　　◍ 　 . 　 ⁺　　☆　　⁺ 　 . 　 ◍　　⁺

Hello stardust babies ! As the holidays creep near, i decided i would make another movies list similar to this , just for Christmas! We hope you all enjoy, and remember.... These ages are just suggestions, you can enjoy these movies a younger/older age

⁺　　◍ 　 . 　 ⁺　　☆　　⁺ 　 . 　 ◍　　⁺

⧼ 🎄 ⧽ Ages 0-2

Elmo Saves Christmas Sesame Street: A Sesame Street Christmas Carol Frosty the snowman [1969] Jingle Jangle Frozen Klaus A Charlie Brown Christmas The Grinch [2018] Mickey's Once/Twice Upon a Christmas Winnie the pooh: Seasons of giving

⧼ 🧤 ⧽ Ages 3-5

The polar express The grinch [1966] Rudolph the red nosed reindeer The Christmas Chronicles Arthur Christmas Do not re-write and post as own Santa Paws / Santa paws 2 The Santa Clause Mr Magoos Christmas Carol Barbie: The Nutcracker Miracle on 34th street

⧼ ❄️ ⧽ Ages 6-9+

Home alone How the grinch stole Christmas [2000] Christmas with the Kranks Elf A Christmas Carol [2007] National Lampoons Christmas vacation Unaccompanied Minors The Nightmare before Christmas A Christmas story Ernest saves Christmas

⁺　　◍ 　 . 　 ⁺　　☆　　⁺ 　 . 　 ◍　　⁺

18+ blogs // DD!LG, AB!DL and variants [even "SFW"] // 27 and older // DNI

Fact OTD: "Jingle Bells" was the first piece of music broadcast in space, as a prank by two astronauts during the Gemini 6A mission.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt in Memes 5

Once more, have a prompt entirely in memes because I'm too lazy to properly write one right now lol.

[soup-mother]

how do people keep getting suckered into "this goes against nature" as a "left wing" argument?

it's like the ~divine soul of art~ thing again where half the ppl will go "um actually we don't really mean it like that, it's just hyperbole" and the other half will go "wait you guys don't believe in souls?"

[urdeftonesgrrrl]

me when people call Aemond a coward for fleeing a 3v1 when Rhaenyra was too scared to go against Aemond in a 1v1:

[stolenkissesdiaz]

it’s insane to me that ppl are SHOCKED buck and tommy broke up? from the beginning we knew it wasn’t going to last? tommy was a plot device? they didn’t know until last minute if they were gonna do it with buck or eddie iirc? tommy literally got buck basketball tickets for their 6 month anniversary, when buck hating basketball was one of the reasons bucktommy even became a thing? and ur…mourning a queer relationship talking about how it’s HOMOPHOBIC to break them up? i’d actually say keeping buck in a relationship he wasn’t appreciated/heard/seen in is homophobic and dumb. like it was HIS FIRST KISS WITH A GUY AND NOT TWO SECONDS LATER THEYRE DATING. like let buck explore and enjoy??? it’s also so unrealistic to make them endgame when, again, ITS BUCKS FIRST QUEER RELATIONSHIP. *blank stare* be so serious rn. don’t even get me started on how fucked up them getting together was after the shit tommy pulled by leaving buck, WHO JUST REALIZED HE WAS QUEER, on the curb after their first date bc buck didn’t come out in the middle of the restaurant to his best friend and his gf. as if tommy himself wouldn’t understand EXACTLY how buck feels or why he would panic and not tell eddie like. *wide eyed blank stare*

[crazygnomenclature]

"Saving Face pt. 1-4"

That straw is real, btw. Marketing at its finest.

Webtoon | Insta | Bluesky

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[zutarawasrobbed]

I’m sorry, but the Netflix showrunner referring to Kataang as an “issue to tackle” in the future is some of the funniest shit I’ve ever read/heard.