#anyways end rant.

[frownyalfred]

I'm seeing a lot of "ugh, so we can't even criticize fic authors anymore?" posts popping up on here and the ao3 subreddit and I just want to say, for the record: No one's saying you can't criticize (fanfic) authors publicly. They're saying it's rude and antithetical to positive fandom experience. And, yes there's a difference.

If this website was a conference and I had just spent a whole afternoon listening to a presentation on [unpopular fic trope] and after that was done, I got up on stage and very publicly told the audience that [unpopular fic trope] was illogical and anyone who writes it is woefully misinformed and should be banned from writing [relevant character], that would in fact be a dick move.

"But the canon character would never--" it doesn't matter. You're shouting down the hall at the person who just happily did a whole seminar on their OOC version of that character. "But I don't like that the author chose to make them--" good, you're well-acquainted with your likes and dislikes, time to find another fic.

We all run into fics and interpretations we don't like. But there's a huge difference between loudly talking about it on Tumblr where the author can see it, and just venting in a private discord or other group. Also, gentle reminder that this is a hobby for most writers and something they do purely because they enjoy it. Stop being massive dicks just because you feel entitled to a certain flavor of fanfiction you will probably be chasing until the Reformation of Krypton.

[baejax-the-great]

One of the things missing in Veilguard is any sort of meaningful power struggle. By keeping to the poorer parts of the city-settings, we don't really deal with corrupt or powerful nobles. By defanging the Crows, an organization who famously has lethal squabbles between factions, they turned them into some weird, benevolent family organization. Even the assassin trying to make "evil" power plays doesn't actually manage to kill any of his targets, and his ruthless relatives? Also don't kill him in revenge. In the end, the status quo is maintained. Nothing has changed.

In Tevinter, we have the Threads, an organized crime unit who we know runs "protection" rackets on the locals and is involved in some kind of smuggling (it's Tevinter--so presumably this would involve slavery and dangerous artifacts, but it's Veilguard, so I guess not). Instead of them beefing with the Shadow Dragons, who presumably ruin some of their deals with their pesky "freeing the slaves" thing, and instead of their main issue being with any sort of law enforcement, something which doesn't exist in Veilguard beyond one singular templar who does all of jack shit the entire game, their main power struggle is with the Venatori, who are evil just to be evil.

And instead of the Veilguard siding with law enforcement or the threads and enlisting their help to, idk, unseat the corrupt head of the templars or otherwise deal with the venatori shit, the threads are highly favored by the storyline, and in the end the only real choice is to make Neve a thread or to make her... idk, the same Neve? The game calls her an "inspiration", but it's not like she's part of any organization, so we can't call her a figurehead. It's just like, see that random citizen right there? She rules. And I don't really see how that increases the power of the rule of law, because even if one good person is working within rule of law to get things done, she's not part of the system, and everyone already know the system is corrupt in Minrathous. Random citizens in fucking Ferelden know the system is corrupt in Minrathous, or they would if they weren't all dead. Neve is now just playing on hard mode to appear righteous, which, good for her, but I'm sorry, won't inspire all that many people who are still paying "protection" money to the local mafia.

(Putting Neve in charge of the Threads is an absolutely whackadoodle decision by the devs that I don't even know how to respond to. She has a single Thread contact. Presumably the Threads have a hierarchy. She has never demonstrated interest in being a smuggler. Being a detective really has no overlap with being a crime boss. Telling a group of criminals that they are all detective's helpers now is sure to go over like a lead balloon. What the fuck was that. Why did that happen.)

Maevaris and Dorian arguing came out of nowhere and lasted a fairly long time, which was interesting, but after the most recent election in the states, Maevaris's position sounds unbearably naive and trite, and this hardly counts as a power struggle as they both say they will support the other depending on what some random outsider thinks should happen. (That is soooo not a basis for a system of government. Why would Maevaris OR Dorian cede their power to Rook, someone they don't know and who doesn't matter)

The power struggle within the Wardens is also very stupid and easily solved. The First Warden is a moron. He dies (kind of). For some reason the extremely hot and competent couple who we first encounter in the middle of nowhere are next in command, so, phew. Problem solved there. A question of what the Wardens will do now that the Blights are over would have been interesting. Do they keep recruiting lest the Blight somehow reoccur and nobody remembers the Warden secrets? Or do they disband? Do they set themselves to seeking a cure and nothing else?

The closest you get to that is deciding what the griffons will do, which, again, why the fuck is Rook deciding that, but also there are 13 of them, in two or three more generations they will be dead unless a lot of mages bone up on genetics real fast.

Who is left? We have Rivain, which is just pointless in this game. I played as a Lord of Fortune, but you could drop that faction and not a single thing changes in the game. Pirates who don't loot valuable artifacts because they are elvhen? Give me a fucking break.

Same for the Mourn Watch. There is pretty much nothing going on in that region. You could excise it from the game and nothing changes in the slightest. There is not a single excuse for them not using the Eluvians to help the Veilguard earlier in the game, given just how little they have going on.

The Veiljumpers are just missed opportunities all over the place. They could have had factions debating whether to join the god of vengeance in fucking up the human civilizations as payback for, you know, everything. They could have had people joining Cyrion in thinking that a Forgotten One might be the best way to face down the gods, given they'd done it before. There could have been a HUGE cultural impact on "what do we do now that we know our gods are evil fuckfaces--what do we keep and what do we throw away," but Veilguard ain't that deep. They could have had knowledge of a super-weapon or some elvhen bullshit that would help the Veilguard fight the gods... but nah.

In DAO, your decisions not only affected the political futures of the various regions, but they decided who would help you and how. Did the dwarves have golems? Did you have templars or mages? That whole wolf thing with the Dalish that I no longer remember that well? And the Dalish deciding to help changed how they were viewed in Ferelden. The mages helping you meant the monarch would treat them favorably. It fucking mattered.

In Veilguard, the only situation remotely close to that is the dragon decision at the beginning, which was one of the fucking dumbest plot points in a video game I have ever played. It was the first thing that made me set my controller down and go... what? What the fuck? The idea that Rook, a nobody, is the only person singularly capable of driving back a dragon in the entire north is laughable. What the fuck was Dorian up to that day? How is Rook more capable than every single Crow? How is it the two companions you sent to the other city were absolutely useless? If Lucanis/Neve + two companions were unable to drive a dragon away, what makes them think Rook would be the deciding factor? What makes them blame Rook when they themselves couldn't fucking do it? Neve in particular was a big part of fucking up that ritual and releasing the gods, so why is Rook taking all the fire for this?

AND WHY IS THEIR RESPONSE TO A BLIGHT TO FIND A SINGLE DRAGON HUNTER? HEY DIPSHITS, THE DRAGON IS HUNTING YOU. YOU DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT THAT PART. YOU NEED AN ARMY.

But Treviso or Minrathous being spared doesn't change the global political situation at all. It would have been really interesting if it did. Tevinter hobbled? How many kingdoms would be salivating to take a bite out of their territory? With the trade princes of Antiva being absolutely fucked over by the Blight, who is taking over that trade? Who is getting rich?

Nobody, I guess, because why would Rook know or care about that, because, as previously mentioned, they are a nobody who doesn't matter and honestly shouldn't be listened to.

The stakes in this game are nothing because the bad guys are all so obviously bad that you know, as a video game player, that you are going to defeat them. Oh, the Antaam are just mindless, faceless brutes fucking up Treviso? Okay, let's kill them. Venatori again? I'm pretty sure they aren't the heroes of this game. There's no power struggle, and in the end all we've done is revert to the status quo, (except i guess Treviso is no longer occupied).

Except for the south. The south is dead. but we didn't have anything to do with that for some reason. Couldn't even be bothered to house some refugees in our safehouse that was built specifically to house refugees. The Inquisitor, who has access to the eluvians, couldn't figure out how to get other people through them or something so... sorry, every single Orlesian, Fereldan, and Marcher.

[rachiebeee]

they are best friends and siblings and i love them both so dearly. featuring piercings bc i stand strong in my belief that they would

[tenderjock]

I’m with you, my love The lights shining through on you Yes, I’m with you, my love It’s the morning and just we two

[alexandriaellisart]

team meeting

[duncanor]

Million Knives is for the marginalized who felt like the whole world was against them and their only option for survival was to march on and bite back.

Which sound based until you realize you're biting everyone, including friends, family and yourself. It's not even survival anymore, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.

You're not even an ally to your own nor to yourself, just a sick and lonely creature.

[egberts]

ALSO if prisoners could get educated then prisons could run themselves more reliably and function like communities which is conducive to a growing/healing/learning/absolving mindset

[ganondoodle]

got this reblog on one of my posts were i talked about being anxious about the future of the zelda series after totk and-

i even went back and unblocked them just to check my own post and check twice what they meant exactly- but i still dont know how they got to these conclusions

i never said i 'want a good uwu ganondorf' (bc that would mean hes aligned with hyrule bc thats how goodness works!!!!11!1!!!), i also dont think of any of the zeldas as 'whores' (seriously, where did that come from?? neither me nor the addition of someone agreeing with me said anything like that??? did they think bc the addition called tloz misogynistic means we think zelda is a whore????? huh???)

its also funny how they say they want zelda to stay a simple fairytale rather than have 'people like me' bc .. one point i talked about in the og post was how the evil arab thing VS good white people media likes to do so much is so normalized here that its simply seen as a simple harmless fairytale trope instead of a big underlying issue in general media and the writers might not even realize it (which is worse) bc the most 'generic' appeal is to people who dont think of it as a problem in the first place, because it is so normalized

(huh, i wonder about what kind of person that part was about .. hmmmm)

(ALSO funny they mention princess hilda as nuanced villain ... like ... wow they are so nuanced about purple haired people!!- like guess why we want a nuanced/less badly/less flat written ganondorf and what he, in particular, has not in common with other villains! its not his hair color! .... or was that point supposed to mean .. look we have one female character that is a villain, its not misogynistic! idk honestly)

(and the classic, "you just call it this/dont like it bc its not what you wanted !!!!!!!2!"1!112!!")

also funny how its 'never gonna be progressive enough' like asking for the franchise to maybe put a little more thought and nuance into their white divine right vs evil desert man simulator instead of making it worse is already asking too much

(i dont know what the last point has to do with anything??)

(also yes totk is racist, like most if not all of the franchise and a alot of other media as well, shocker- you can still like it though, i and plenty of other people are still fans of it, we just wish they did a little more with their stuff and maybe not make the racism problem WORSE)

(also yes the hyrule monarchy is also evil :))) )

(and also not so secretly so either :)) )

[destructo-range]

'helen is so underdevelopped as a character!' 'helen's boring!' stfu u just don't like her bc she's a woc and because she doesn't behave exactly like michael. yall put so much effort into developping michael's character inside your minds and completely look over her because she's 'poorly written.' stop.

[bilolli]

I finally finished and edited it! This time there shouldn’t be problems with sizes and messed up colors.

Anyway, this scene lives rent free in my head and I HAD to draw it.

Solar Lunacy belongs to the talented @bamsara​ , (seriously, it’s a wonderfull fanfic, read it.)

Process GIF and variants under the cut!

On PC this one looks better, but on my phone it’s wayyyy to saturated and dark. Ujsdbidfshf I hate screens differences.

[soren-apologist]

time for more soren character analysis:

petrine’s battle conversation with soren in chapter 23 has always been a favorite of mine, and now that i’m looking at it again i noticed a few extra details:

it’s important to mention that this battle takes place directly after ike and soren’s a-support, in which soren confesses he’s a branded and expects to be shunned, only for ike to tell him that it doesn’t matter and he wants soren to stay by his side regardless.

anyway, besides “Now let me show you true fear!” being a really hard line, it’s really cool to see how soren’s reaction to his branded status being pointed out changes so sharply over the course of a handful of chapters. i already analyzed his reaction to nasir’s betrayal where he’s agitated over the fact that he could have prevented it if nasir hadn’t threatened to reveal him being branded to the army, so seeing him being so confident in himself is great, and i’ll touch on why here.

one of the reasons i like to say the game treats ike and soren’s a-support as canon is actually this particular conversation. soren, having just been reassured that ike will always want him at his side regardless of who or what he is, now suddenly has had his biggest fear and insecurity taken off his back. he doesn’t need to hate himself for being branded because ike, the only person who’s ever truly mattered to soren, doesn’t care at all.

back to the conversation, soren’s judgment over the situation at hand is no longer clouded by his own self-loathing. instead of comparing them as branded and seeing himself as just as horrid and disgusting as petrine (tiger branded, fun fact), he’s able to instead compare them as individuals and realize that what he’s done up to that point will never measure up to the atrocities she’s committed. i think the best part personally is just how disgusted soren looks by the notion he and petrine are the same, because he’s right— him being cutthroat and pragmatic is nothing compared to everything petrine has done in daein’s name— and the fact he can clearly see this means that, for the very first time, he’s finally starting to heal from the mental wounds inflicted upon him by his childhood.

overall, i like this little nod to soren starting to learn to grow and change from who he was at the beginning of fe9. it’s more clearly seen in radiant dawn, where he’s calmer to the point ranulf even comments on it, but these little inklings implying the start of soren’s healing are really cool to see.

[cnl0400]

Obviously normally a gacha game will never make drastic changes to their characters, and Simeon has the 'appeal' of being marketed as an angel, but I just don't like how they are trying to make him an angel again? Like he wants to be an angel because of Raphael/Luke now, not because of any real attachement to the CR. Hell, even If he were to made It back to being a archangel, he would just be Michael's errant boy, he would still be demoted, and every problem he had with the CR before being turned in a human would still be there, he would be in square one again I guess.

Like even If I don't like human!Simeon, in the Devilgram Coffee Someday, he talks about how he dreams of opening a cafetería and how he never thought an angel could 'dream of something like that' (this being in the NB timeline, a obvious reference of him opening the Angel's Halo in OGS3) Is he just suposse to abandone his dream like that? To return to the Celestial Realm just for the sake of Raphael & Luke? I do wonder... Is there really a life for Simeon in the Celestial Realm?

[triglycercule]

can the mtt commit more crimes that just murder please i know theyre the MURDER time trio but ppppleasse,,,, please,,,,,,

they'd be terrible to be next to on the highway. horror's going 160 mph amd has long past gone over the speed limit. dust's out for BLOOD and by blood i mean your tires. he's somehow sniping those round rubber wheels from the high moving vehicle with the precision of a master fruit ninja player. if your car explodes or flips over in the process that's not his fault. and then to make matters worse for everyone on the highway killer's in the backseat scratching up the doors and windows of your car with a knife everytime horror gets close to another car and oops he accidentally just disfigured your face also did i mention theyre all drunk during this

ok so theyve all got the classic face WHY DONT THEY ABUSE IT!!!! horror gets to do a little paper mache to cover up his head hole and then wearing glasses. killer i dont know what the FUCK he can do to get rid of his perpetual tears but let's just pretend that theyre conveniently gone for now. and then all dust has to do is put down his hood! anyways identity theft is cool. imagine how much they could totally fuck up classic's reputation with this. set up fake tinder profiles and then scam people for their credit card info/free dates (while ordering every expensive thing) and stealing wallets. walking into various grillby's's around the multiverse and telling terrible jokes. like ACTUALLY bad jokes. and then of course just being a huge piece of shit at the bar. god theres so many things they could do pretending to be classic. which one of us is hikaru looking ahh except the only difference between the three is the color of the stains on their clothes (either gray (dust) black (killer) or red. well faded red (horror))

ROBBERY!!!! ROBBERIES PLURAL!!!??? train robbery gas station robbery bank robbery GOVERNMENT robbery (what would you rob the government for?? documents??? idk) anyways. mtt robbing a train except its just a really shitty plan and they dont know jackshit about what theyre doing. killer's taken over the conductor's cabin and now he is booking it. how fast are trains allowed to go idk but the maximum. anyways meanwhile horror's on the tracks fucking up the rails with his strength or whatever (listen i know he's weak but picking and choosing what hcs i believe in is my art) and dust is there to teleport him away before the train crashes into him and turns him into a trolley problem victim. and then of course that shit doesnt fucking work and the train just ends up flipping over and catching on fire or something (killer survives because of course he does he's killer). and then in the end dust just has to flip the entire train over and they just stroll into the part that actually HAS the money

and then they go out and get ice cream. sometimes the murderers need to take a break from murdering and just do NORMAL crime yk???

[running-with-kn1ves]

sooo you know how you wrote jealous bf x reader...would you ever considered writing the same reader witnessing someone flirting with jealous bf and flipping the roles on him?

On a crunch time so I'll just write some shortsie stuff for this ^^

I think jealous bf would want to see what reader would do before he acts. They'd be at a bar together, maybe reader went to the bathroom only to come back and find another pair of hands trying to roam against their boyfriend's shirt, a new untouched drink on the counter that this mystery person is tempting him to drink. Malachi would purposefully entertain them, subconsciously testing reader to see what they would do. Do they love him enough to stake their claim? How far are they willing to go, as far as he would?

I imagine reader wouldn't be as aggressive as Malachi-- likely stunned for a moment, before coming up and trying to drag him away.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Reader might ask, feigning cluelessness while wrapping his free hand in both of theirs, gently pulling him away from the bar rat.

"Nothing, just waiting for you. Seems i've caught the eye of a few others."

He'd prod, trying to invoke a reaction out of reader, not letting this sink into unspoken discussion like so many things between them do. He wanted, needed, you to verbalize your thoughts on watching him potentially get snatched up like a prize for the taking. He'd never betray or abandon you like that, but what did you think?

"Yeah? Maybe we should start wearing rings whenever we go out then."

Reader would joke, but the idea strikes Malachi so wonderfully that he won't hesitate to start shopping for garishly obvious promise rings for you both to sport before the night is over.

If it was a friend of reader's who kept pushing themselves onto Malachi or shamelessly flirting, I imagine reader would get pretty pissed, complaining and ranting to Malachi how they had the audacity to act so cutesy around THEIR boyfriend. This, Malachi likes best. He likes seeing reader pissed, upset over someone else wanting him. Makes him feel like maybe he's not the only obsessed, needy one in the relationship. He'll soothe reader, saying he's not going anywhere, that no one could replace them. And yet, the next time someone tries to flirt with him around reader, you won't find him discouraging their advances as obviously as a boyfriend should. He wants you to come in and be his savior.

[sophiefostersno1stan]

i know it’s inevitable but a part of me will die when sophie isn’t on the unravelled cover

[statictay]

I don't know what let's player needs to hear this but you should put the name of that indie game you're playing in the title of the video