#b) doesn't work very well;

[teplejtrouba]

a detective who has a partner🔍 and a partner💕 who are friends so the three of them end up doing a lof things together and the detective refers to them as "my partners" and doesn't realise this makes everyone think they're polyamorous (they do end up polyamorous by the end of the story)

[vaguely-concerned]

Origins is of course the DA game most closely in conversation with and playing around with Tolkien (right down to the walking talking poetree haha) -- and even more so than most works in the larger western fantasy tradition derived from Tolkien's work that DA:O also hails from and owes a lot of its Stuff to, what makes the game so great to me is that it's doing so very deliberately, and is subverting and deconstructing those tropes and entrenched ideas in some very interesting ways without at all denigrating what it's commenting on. (it doesn't have the almost disdainful undertones of the vein of fantasy that seeks to make the world more 'realistic' ala the more tedious reactions to G.R.R.Martin's work, for example, despite having the darker fantasy bent to it.) among other elements it adopts, what I find the most fascinating is the choice to use the same literary device/conceit Tolkien did in ostensibly only having in-universe biased sources and works to deliver the world through (which I feel is an underappreciated thing about his approach but is part of what makes his world so enduringly compelling and real-feeling -- the feeling of real scholarship devoted/applied to a made-up world. the grounding effect of a good diegetic footnote about source criticism, truly).

many things to be said there, and I'm glad each following game has taken on different perspectives and lenses and traditions to view the world of Thedas through because if you stick with that one too closely for too long I fear we could teeter precariously close to Pratchett's famous and bitingly accurate accusation of most modern fantasy of that era just being about rearranging the furniture in Tolkien's attic lol. and while you could accuse DA2 (my perfect wife who has never done anything wrong in her life to be clear) of many things, that's not one of them, they are pulling on some completely different strings for that one and both the game and DA overall is better for it, to my mind. as so many things in this series: worth staying with and exploring for an installment even if it might get stale if all of it was like this! people are understandably sad about the elements from previous games that they liked which were lost along the way, but that capacity for reinvention is to my mind a huge strength of dragon age as a whole.

(I think Veilguard is coming in as a close second in Tolkien conversation-ness if only in outlining/revealing the worldbuilding that indeed may have been planned since DA:O around the animosity that SHOULD by all rights exist between dwarves and elves in this universe (as per Tolkienesque tradition standards). but doesn't really because you see: politics and the many pitfalls of conservation of knowledge over the ages. our ancestral enmity got semi-intentionally lost between the floorboards of history and you know what. maybe for the best. the humans are already up to so much shit you gotta keep your eyes on them at all times you can't be brawling with each other in the deep roads while they're still around getting up to their nonsense or they'll just pile up even more of it)

[torchickentacos]

who needs encouraging fathers when you can get fortune cookies that tell you you're doing a good job and that it'll all be okay

[vigilskept]

i know this is my fault for forgetting the cardinal rule of tumblr (never check the notes after a post hits 100 notes) but it’s KILLING me how badly some of u are misrepresenting the minrathous/treviso choice

[daisywords]

\

[crazyw3irdo]

congrats, everyone, dickwing is officially yuri 🎉

steph: aaand got it!

dick: really? ah thank you steph, that looks great!

steph: so how are you going to edit it to look like you're... y'know, interacting?

dick: babs lost a bet and officially owes me one.

steph: ahaha, nice. send me the photo once its done, yeah?

dick: oh, of course.

tim, walking in: hey have you guys seen my-

dick:

steph:

tim: what are you doing?

steph: we, uh-

tim: did you guys superglue butterfly wings to my headphones

dick: well i mean, i use air pods and steph uses earbuds so it wouldn't have worked with-

tim: wait. wait. is this that vocaloid song.

steph: wait you know- i shouldn't be surprised actually that makes sense

dick: we didn't use glue, anyway. see, the wings come off just like-

tim: dick.

dick: ...yeah?

tim: you're not doing it again are you

dick:

dick: whatever could you mean, dearest brother of mine?

tim:

dick: have i ever told you you're my favorite sibling?

tim: give me one good reason not to report you to bruce right now.

dick:

dick: cause i'm your brother and you love me?

tim:

tim: yeah i'm telling

dick: WAIT WAIT NO- I'M NOT EVEN GONNA POST IT ANYWHERE PLEASE-

[gilfrespecter]

Listening to coinstar by the growlers and thinking about mel so hard I get nauseous

Ridiculous stream of conscious in the tags apologies but not really

[artemistorm]

Through what medium do you primarily write? (Pencil, computer, voice to type, old timer typewriter, what?)

I type on my laptop in microsoft word. I used to write with pens and notebooks or booklets of printer paper folded in half and stapled when I was a kid (I wasn't allowed to have my own phone or laptop until I turned 18). I do occasionally write on paper if I have an idea when I'm traveling or if I'm doing a description study.

A description study is when you sit quiet and alone in a place and descriptively write down on the paper everything that you can see, hear, smell, feel, and notice about the place you are at. It's very handy if you travel to a different biome than where you normally live, like a desert or the prairie. You can save the description and use it later in a story when the characters are in a desert. (and then people ooh and ahh over your on-point setting descriptions as secretly cackle with glee)

[kakusu-shipping]

I’m making a Mario Series Shipping Chart and Bowser is making it incredibly difficult to format

[the-busy-ghost]

Warning- this is a very petty post, but I think I'm entitled to at least one petty, pissed-off reaction every time I finish a classic novel that hit harder than I expected so take this as my quota for the year.

Also spoiler warning for a book that came out over a century ago but still, I didn't know the plot going in so don't want to ruin it for anyone else, if you haven't read it shut your eyes. (Also Local Tumblr User Going Wild Over Book Published a Hundred Years Ago That Everybody Else Already Read should probably be categorised as akey part of indigenous tumblr culture at this point).

Anyway I just finished the War of the Worlds and in between studying I've thinking about Themes and Motifs as you do, and idly looking for further analysis. I then accidentally ran into an article called 'A Quiet Place II Succeeds Where the War of the Worlds Failed' and:

Now I haven't seen any of the Quiet Place films, this is not a rant against them and of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But re: the ending of The War of the Worlds, I have to ask, did this guy somehow miss, uh, the entire point of the book or am I just utterly insane?

[vaguely-concerned]

I've been trying to figure out a dynamic between neve and rye that I find more compelling, because right now there's not much of anything there for me to sink my little teeth into. but I think I've landed on something delicious with the idea that especially after minrathous gets fucked, rye looks at neve and sees myrna -- someone he feels he keeps letting down horribly no matter how hard he tries not to and can't quite achieve the approval of/connection with that he wishes so it's better to just pull away completely and disengage rather than stay in that unshifting shame. neve is (very understandably) measured and distant with him after what happened, and he's flashing back to his student days of myrna gazing at the perpetually hungover heartbroken heap of a person of him on the other side of her desk every time he missed the deadline of a paper or project like '...can we at least both agree that this is. a bit disappointing. especially considering your potential.' (and him all smudged black eyeshadow and numb ruefulness being like 'sure that's a very kind way to put it myrna thank you'.)

aside from the 'if I let him get too deeply into this he'll go the way of brom and it'll be all my fault (again)' element, neve thinks rye is dismissing her and her city/being a bit callous in the same way he was after varric's death (listen. how fucking wild must rook's reaction to losing a beloved mentor seem to the rest of the crew who aren't seeing the blood magic paper doll ghost varric the whole time, especially those who got to see them interact. you WOULD think 'there's something wrong with this guy. putting the job first is one thing just not seeming to react at all is another this is fucking freaky', wouldn't you, especially after seeing the warmth in that dynamic in action beforehand.) perfect storm of two people who grit their teeth and turn inwards in pain deciding that not talking about it is their best bet (NEWSFLASH: IT ISN'T) lmao

(rye spent his last year of watcher training on a mostly joyless bender and then got it together enough to finish the eternal orb project last moment in a fevered near-sleepless week instead of the half a year that was intended. emmrich is both astounded and distressed to hear this. "a week? but -- but that is an astounding accomplishment rook!! and also why in the maker's good light would you ever do that to yourself?" ("well you see there was no one to stop me from doing it like that but me. and under those conditions these things tend to happen".) rye was working through/looking up stuff around transitioning and doing every kind of OTHER high level watcher research through that whole time, but ultimately he's an excellent watcher and a terrible student, at least under traditional methods. adhd from here to the fucking moon. touched by something akin to divine inspiration in moments of high tension that pulls all the threads into one coherent unbreakable cord, a bit of a frayed mess in most other settings. in our world he'd be dropping out of a masters program at the very last hurdle in this moment maker bless and protect him)

[eyepatchdate]

ok. i read tom king's mister miracle run and tbh? i don't think i vibed with it. but it DOES read interestingly as a proto-strange adventures though.

[adore-gregor]

study smart not hard (altough both is best actually) this saying is so true

[biff-adventurer]

it makes me really sad to see how many people feel the need to say "i interpret the story within reason, i promise i'm not breaking lore."

lore is great for supplying a world, a stage, a context for the characters to inhabit. it's not meant to discourage creativity. a lot of fandom writing bends lore or works with pieces that haven't been established because they weren't important to establish in the story. as a fandom, we have the power to rewrite biases and write against/rewrite the narratives that perpetuate social problems. we have the ability to dream beyond what the original creators have offered. adhering so strictly to the rules of others isn't necessary to love the original - your love will show up in what you create.

[da-riya]

Unfortunately, as much as it would make sense, "Rush B" has nothing to do with the fact that the Russian "В" means "In". In reality, it came purely because Counter Strike Source was, and still is, MONSTROUSLY popular in Russia and so it just kinda... got into the lexicon.

Брате(( Это была шутка... (Excuse my bad Russian)

Like, CS 1.6 was crazy popular here as well! We just called it Кантер and it basically came with every single PC including the informatiks computers at school. During Highschool my whole classroom had 15 minute matches during brakes (and sometimes they'd extend during class)

[ryanthedemiboy]

An aborted fetus can also be considered something that was alive without it being a moral issue to end its life. Many things are alive that are harmful to some but not to others.

An embryo can be considered alive and still be aborted without calling it murder.

You can consider it just as alive as a child you are raising after giving birth to it. And that doesn't make abortion a moral failing!

You don't have to jump through hoops to consider it not alive in order for you to get an abortion, or think access to it is important.

Abortion is the death of something once alive, but that doesn't make it evil.

It's okay. However you view it, whatever you decide to do or not do, please just be as safe as you can, take care of your health if you can, and know that I love you and trust your decisions. And you should, too.

"aborted fetuses are not technically lives and it's harmful and not medically accurate to refer to them that way" and "people who have early miscarriages of wanted pregnancies are still allowed to grieve and consider them their child" are two statements that can and should coexist