#because it is lore /critical/

[wildstar25]

☩: Your muse is doing some intense spring cleaning. What is easy for them to throw out, and what is difficult for them to part with? Little bonus: Is there anything specific Arsay is particularly sentimental about?

OOh this is a tough question actually. Arsay didn't grow up with a whole lot, but her recent life as an adventurer has caused her to just collect so many little things. It can be hard for her to let go of stuff she had to spend any of her gil on, or things that were given to her by other people. Arsay is actually so sentimental. Any item she pulls out could be something that remind her of certain events, people or places...

I suppose the first thing she'd clear out is monster by products. Materials that she kept on her after a hunt thinking she'd find a use for it. Now she just kinda dumps the stuff with the researchers in labarynthos, thinking maybe they'd find a use for it. Oh and materia. Tbh i think she goes to a melder asks them to throw shit on her gear, and then donates the rest to the doman enclave so they can sell it.

--- The stuff she really really cares about though is always going to be the stuff she wears at all times. Her rings (one from each partner), the matching bracelet with Y'shtola, Her earnings from G'raha, her choker that has a chunk of syrcus tower crystal embedded in it. BUT The thing she is the most sentimental about is her ribbon. I've mentioned this in the past, but I always imagined it to be a large swatch of fabric and assorted charms that her parents bought in Kugane as they made their way to orthard. It was sent to Emrara's island along with a note for Arsay which would be their first and final correspondence to her. When Arsay was very very young, and still had hope of her parents return, shed carry the fabric around like a blankie almost. When she finally gave up on and accepted her parents forgot about her, she spitefully hid that fabric away hoping to forget it and her parents. It was on her last visit to her home island before leaving for Eorzea that Emrara presented her with the fabric again fashioned into the headband/ribbon. Emrara giving her a gift of any kind was a rarity, so of course Arsay accepted regardless of how it drudged up bad memories. She simply did her best everyday to remind herself not to think about it and to remember that this was a good thing she got from her aunt who maybe loves her. Once she learned that her parents died in orthard and did not actually forget her at all, she was all the more glad to have kept the thing. I don't think she'll ever be tempted to rid herself of it.

[artistic-cocoon]

Saw someone on twt say they wanted to see Percy drawn like Yusuf Dikec and I couldn't help myself

[bunabi]

there's a line between encouraging people to keep an open mind about DAV and pretending the layoffs don't matter & the grim internal reports regarding DAI's production didn't happen and I need 'True Fans' to find it quickly

[zombolouge]

The thing is, it's not about the Therapy Speak. It's not that everyone who disliked DAV hates healthy communication as a dynamic in fiction. It's not even about only being allowed to be a good guy, really, because most of us did do that anyways (though the option not being there is a loss I grieve even if I never chose it myself, but that's another rant for another day).

It's that DAV does all that stuff at the expense of being believable. At the expense of characters being permitted to have personalities. At the expense of emotions behaving the way emotions actually work for people. At the expense of letting the plot build tension through the stakes we're forced to grapple with.

Half the fics out there take the conflicts between the characters in the previous games and resolve them. I do it myself ALL THE TIME because I like to find a path to resolution through just about any conflict, that's what fascinates me about telling these stories. But the higher the stakes, the harder a conflict is to resolve. You CAN resolve any conflict, you CAN communicate healthily through any emotion, but you can't skip the time it takes to process it all to even be able to communicate it. As someone whose got CPTSD and recovered from many Traumas, I can tell you that the TIME it takes to work through it is not something you can fast track, and the ups and downs of your emotions on that journey can't be skipped. It doesn't matter if you know exactly how to do it, exactly how it's going to feel, or exactly what the end state will be, you CAN'T speedrun it.

DAV has stakes that are astronomical, but nobody treats them that way. Nobody experiences denial - a common psychological reaction to being presented with information that shatters your worldview. Nobody expresses any distrust in the establishments handing out this information - something common among cultures that have at times been at war, even if those wars are "resolved" in the present. Nobody really ever breaks down - something that any person is capable of under extreme circumstances, especially when facing multiple crises of faith that challenge everything they thought they knew about themselves. Nobody blows their lid because they've been repressing the hell out of everything. Nobody grieves for southern Thedas, the entire thing dying off screen and giving you, the player, NO way to engage with it in any way.

Not to mention there are barely any inter-party conflicts, when there should be a lot more. Why is everyone (except Spite) fine with it if Emmrich sacrifices Manfred to become a lich? Why is everyone fine with Illario potentially being set free if he was working with the venatori and Elgar'nan, two sources that have actively attacked everyone in the party? Why doesn't Neve resent Lucanis if Treviso is picked? Why doesn't Harding get pissed off at Nevarra for having a secret society of liches that never helped during the Inquisition's war against the breach and corypheus? Why doesn't Harding feel ANYTHING about Ferelden and the rest of the south? Shouldn't Harding resent the fact that she's stuck in the north while her home dies?

All of these conflicts ARE resolvable, but not easily. And it's not believable that they're never brought up. It's not believable that these characters skip through everything that happens with like, barely a frowny face most of the time. In DAO, Alistair leaves if you don't treat his conflicts with respect. In DA2, your party members try to kill each other if you don't pay attention to their conflicts/emotional needs. In DAI, people can leave or betray you, Cassandra throws a chair at Varric and tries to body him out a window. ALL of these can be resolved but it takes effort, and the characters get to SHOW that they're bothered by them and struggling the way a person would when faced with those emotions.

The problem isn't the therapy speak, or that everyone is loyal and won't leave, or that they aren't mean to each other enough. It's that it's toxic positivity. It's toxic as fuck to imply that anger or grief should be smiled over or else you're giving up, and it's damaging to people to avoid engaging with their own negative emotional responses to extremely negative stimuli. It's pasting optimism over very real, very weighty issues, sweeping it all under the rug, and you keep waiting for the lid to blow off the pressure cooker that creates, but it never does. It never becomes anything that emulates real emotions, which is why the whole damn thing feels hollow. Everything's dying and nobody cares, not even about themselves, and that's NOT healthy communication.

It's bullshit, half-assed storytelling that didn't tell us the actual story, just the vague idea of what it could have been.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

I could wax poetic about why Viktor's League backstory is inherently more interesting and more thematically resonant than where they went with him in Arcane season 2, but the cold hard truth is

a man covered in grease and probably blood who builds his own body out of scraps with his own two hands, can in fact build any contraption out of dinted metal sheets and a few screws including a deathray, performs deeply inadvisable operations on desperate but consenting people with his own tools, generates a cult following against his wishes because of his ability to inadvisably help people but the power's all his now anyway so he may as well, wants to clean up and save the undercity but is (only sort of) misunderstood as a walking Geneva Convention violation a freak and a supervillain, torments his arch-nemesis on at least a weekly basis and probably homoerotically hunts him for sport, had his life's work misattributed to people in the ruling class and is angry and tragic about it forever, tries to rip out his own emotions and is unsuccessful but pretends like he was not, is actually oddly kind to children, and is at the end of the day still just some guy,

is just hotter okay

[gh0st-0f-luke]

six excerpts from a wangxian fic told entirely through ratemyprofessors reviews

[mythalism]

call me crazy but there is a difference between treating your adult players like they are new to the world and treating your adult players like they have the memory of a goldfish and the vocabulary of a 9 year old

[genericpuff]

LORE | REKINDLED EPISODE 66 - BLOCKED

Previous episode | Next episode

Aaaand it's here! Thanks so much once again for your patience through all these recent delays ┬┴┬┴┤(･_├┬┴┬┴

I've been posting a lot less overall, this isn't intentional, just the consequences of both trying to implement healthier changes to my daily routine for the sake of my new medication, as well as coming out of a busy holiday season just to get bitch slapped by a bunch of life shit and routine changes that will take some time to fully move past / adjust to. Buuut some pretty cool shit's happened too! I'll surely be giving a more in-depth life update this week now that I have the time to do so with this episode completed.

As always, thanks so much for reading! I know I say this a lot, but I'm really excited for what's coming, the next couple episodes especially have been living in my mind rent free for months now so I'm super excited to finally get to them :'D

[briskchips]

Do you ship Purelily?

Sort of? Not really? I view their relationship through a very specific lens:

I think they mutually liked each other when they were young, maybe even had an actual relationship. But when Lily started to pursue her ideals of the origins of cookies, the witches' motivations, increasing the survivability of their species, etc, more and more, PV got worried. He dreaded who she was becoming, and his feelings for her began to wane. He didn't feel like this was "the lily he knew".

But PV is nothing if not forgiving. He convinced himself this was a phase she was going through, that she'd eventually figure out that this pursuit of strength and knowledge was fruitless and dangerous, and messing with dark moon magic was doubly so. But when Lily received her soul jam of freedom, her determination to learn more and be more only got stronger. She was (metaphorically) a new cookie now, but PV was still attached to the Lily he first fell in love with. He told himself that Lily was fine, just exploring things she shouldn't be for a little while, and then she'd get back to being the sweet, curious girl he thought he knew.

And then she died. Her pursuits led her to fall into the ultimate dough, and even then, PV refused to admit to himself that maybe Lily had changed before that.

When Lily was half brought back to life in the faerie kingdom, PV assumed she'd be herself again. She'd learn her lesson after dying at the hands of the witches, and everything could just be normal. But she still held her beliefs, and was still too different for PV. In an ideal world, they would've gotten the chance to talk through this, but some blue guy just crawled out of a tree to terrorize everyone's minds and that kind of takes precedent unfortunately!

Even now, with her being back, he yearns for who she used to be. He ignores the traits of hers that he finds undesirable, because he doesn't like that someone he loved so much has become someone who so adamantly craves something he disagrees with. I also think PV has a bit of a saviour complex as a subconscious defence mechanism against his own insecurities. He probably isn't aware of this specific feeling he has, but he doesn't like that Lily is so much more independent now. He liked being someone who could provide for her, who could protect her and guide her, and make her feel welcome when other cookies didn't, but she just doesn't need that anymore. She doesn't need him. And that makes him panic. Who is he if he is not needed? What's the point of him if he can't be useful? How can he possibly be of any worth to Lily if she doesn't feel the need to rely on him in some way?

He wants to be a benevolent, strong, kind leader; the kind of leader who loves all of his friends, no matter how they grow and change, but he just feels too differently about Lily to love her in the same way he once did. He's in denial. And he knows he is. Lily does too. That's the basis of their separation at the spire of deceit's entrance.

Their paths don't align in a literal sense, wherein they both have important physical goals that need to be achieved before the war kicks off, but their paths also don't align in a mental sense. They aren't partners anymore. They want different things. They care about different things. Neither wants to admit that they've both become cookies who aren't compatible anymore, but neither wants to change for the sake of the other, either. They still cherish each other, but not in the same way they used to.

So TLDR, no, I don't ship purelily. BUT I do think it was canon behind-the-scenes at some point in their past, and their feelings for each other is a critical part of both of their characters (and I think a lot of fan works are really sweet, I understand the appeal of the ship).

[iamespecter]

GAHHHHHH CAN I JUST SAY IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF WHEN PEOPLE SAY THIS END SCREEN OF LN1 MEANS THAT ANOTHER SHIP IS COMING???? TERICHO NEEDS TO STOP PROMOTING THIS THEORY ISTG

NO, THE FOGHORN THAT SOUNDS WHEN YOU PRESS ENTER DOES NOT MEAN THERE'S ANOTHER SHIP!!!! BECAUSE THE MAW IS FULLY SUBMERGED IN THIS!!!! THE FOGHORN IMPLIED THAT THE SHIP THAT WAS DELIVERING GUESTS ON BOARD JUST LEFT!!!! STOP SAYING THIS IS ANOTHER SHIP!!!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR LITERAL YEARS AND EVERYTIME, IT FEELS LIKE I'M SCREAMING AT A BRICK WALL!!!

If you *critically* think about it, it ABSOLUTELY MAKES NO SENSE THAT IT WOULD BE ANOTHER SHIP THAT'S ARRIVING.

Because:

The Maw is fully submerged at this point.

We are very much shown that The Maw ONLY accepts Guests WHEN the top part/the "mouth" has emerged. As shown in this sequence of the game, and in the concept art.

It's stated that The Maw "arrives" ONCE a year. NEVER in the same place, but ALWAYS at the same time. SO NO, IT'S *NOT* ACCEPTING GUESTS OVER BECAUSE IT'S CLEARLY FULLY SETTLED BACK DOWN AGAIN. WHY WOULD IT WASTE RESOURCES TO SUBMERGE ITSELF IF IT WAS GOING TO RE-EMERGE AGAIN MOMENTS LATER.

The door Six exits out of is likely a maintenance door; for cleaning the Chimney in case of blockage. Especially because of the fact that there is a visible staircase that leads up to the smokestack. PLUS, IF IT WERE FOR THE GUESTS TO COME THROUGH; WHY IS IT A SLIM ENTRANCE UNLIKE THE ACTUAL ENTRANCE OF THE MAW? BECAUSE IT'S ONLY MEANT FOR WORKERS LIKE ROGER/THE JANITOR.

It's heavily implied that while Six and The Lady aren't related, nor are they stuck in a time-loop-- coughcoughlikeMonoandtheThinManCOUGH-- it's still possible that Six is intended to be The Next Lady of the Maw. Mostly because of the whole boss fight that doesn't really resemble a fight, but moreso a ritualistic passing of the torch. And the implications of multiple Ladies existing throughout the millenia.

To be clear; I don't think Six will be stuck inside The Maw for long. As her description states, she belongs elsewhere.

Which could mean that my girl *might* make a comeback for LN3, but I wouldn't hold it against Supermassive Games if LN3 doesn't even make a single cameo towards Six/making her appear. Because either way, I fully understand each outcome.

[knight-commander]

My post-Schreier thoughts:

I remain unconvinced that Veilguard's chronic writing was anything but a skill issue on the part of (some) writers. We now know that rewrites were thought necessary at several stages due to poor reception—it was slop from the beginning, with nothing to salvage and no talent remaining to pull it back from the brink.

Changes not possible due to voice-acting strikes? Okay, sure. What about the written content? The pitiful attempts at what this game considers "codex" entries. The failures in tone and voice in them compared to previous games. The notes, my god, the notes.

What about the disappointing or even self-destructive narrative choices made that were entirely unvoiced, and in fact never mentioned in dialogue? The absolute travesty of a decision to write off the South in a few lines?

What about fundamental parts of Tevinter, Nevarran, Rivaini, Dalish and Antivan lore missing from the game that could have been tucked away in the codex in a pinch, but weren't?

What about the characters from Tevinter Nights—all the faction leaders—who you only know if you read Tevinter Nights, because the game doesn't bother to explain who they are, even in little slivers of readable lore dotted around the world? I found out more about Rylen or the Mayor of Crestwood from picking up notes playing Inquisition than I did about Antoine, or Myrna, or even Viago in Veilguard.

I was cautiously neutral on Weekes' leadership, but I also thought of them as more of a "clever" writer, as in, they often leaned into being clever over something substantial, deployed enjoyable turns of phrase, relied on double entendres and misdirection. Good stuff, sure! But if that's all you've got in your toolkit, and what you instead need is something solid—the nuts and bolts to make a story stick—you get something lacking complexity, depth, nuance, and heart. Something shallow. Something like Veilguard.

(And as for Epler? Man, pick a different profession.)

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[milramemo]

(World lore ramble?)

Nelyne is not an elf, or at least not like that. People in the world of Wasteland Mage are all humans (same species.) They have different ear shapes, which are hereditary but don't tell much about that person. They're not an indication of their ethnicity or magical ability. It's just a facial feature. Their usual lifespans are the same as irl humans. Nelyne is in her 20s if we don't count her time in the stasis pod, but due to a lot of arcane experiments done on her, it is unknown if she's mutated or what her lifespan would be.

[durgeapologist]

God give me strength. Today I saw a Solavellan call Harding "Karen levels of offended" over what Solas did to the titans. This fandom really does not give a shit about what Solas did to the dwarves. Heck SOLAS cares more about what he did to the dwarves than the fandom does.

HUUUUUUHHHHHH??

"karen levels of offended" WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY EVEN MEAN BY THAT???

solas literally severed dwarves' connection to dreams. he severed their connection to the titans. he likened them to a bloodied, severed arm while in conversation with varric, a dwarf. he walked past, smiling at harding daily and playing nice, knowing what he did. she literally says as much.

if you think harding is a karen for being mad at solas for quite literally comitting a war crime against her ancestors, or if you believe the titans were 'monsters' who 'deserved what they got', close the app and go touch grass because i fear you actually don't know how to engage critically with this series.

[vvitchllng]

The Raven Queen came to the god of death before her in his frozen enclave. They danced through words over the years and while at first he may have seen her as a disciple, eventually they became friends, and she thinks she loved him at the end. They worked together to craft the Ritual of Ascension, and now he is at peace, though his ghost may live on in the cold of winters, in the darkness at the corners of the world, and she cares for him still in the way she cares for all beings

[swordscleric]

I'm only halfway through the second phase of Predathos (which, to be clear is an incredible vibe for a bossfight, love a good head & hands/multitarget-same-entity boss) but I cannot shake the feeling of disappointment and just dissatisfaction I have had with this campaign that definitely started with Dusk/Yu, got followed up handily with the first Delilah/Sun Tree fight and then has been unfortunately reinforced with every discussion surrounding the Prime Deities since Hearthdell. This campaign is fascinating to pick apart, I have been really enjoying pulling apart why it isn't working compared to C1 or C2. But as much as I'm having fun dissecting where the worldbuilding has led to the current weaknesses in the gods' argument or reading other people's incisive commentary on the lack of personalities on the Ruby Vanguard's end, the "girlfailure" nonsense, etc etc, man do I wish this campaign was better than it is.

There are so many avenues of improvement -

Matt telling everyone to prep and write characters for this campaign instead of a C2-esque character-focused campaign.

Matt working religious organisations into the world properly.

The cast engaging with Marquet as a genuine location rather than set-dressing.

Otohan, Ozo and the rest of the Vanguard having more than "*insert snappy line here*" for their personalities.

No Delilah.

Bell's Hells having an iota of curiosity for anything outside of their own selves, including but not limited to: the gods, religious worship, the Elemental Titans and why they were sundered, how the people of Exandria feel about the gods, Vasselheim and its role in suppressing information about Predathos, Ludinus Da'Leth's plan and how it would still break the world if they did it in his place

I don't know why all of this fell into place in the way that it did, but it did. We can endlessly speculate why - the cast resting on their laurels after C2, not having enough time between the animated shows and Daggerheart and Candela Obscura and, and, and - but at the end of the day I really do hope that whatever form the final campaign wrap-up takes, they burn the damn questions asking the cast "what if the world was made of pudding and this character and this character kissed?" and instead pick questions that get them to introspect for a potential Campaign 4. Otherwise I don't know what will happen, but it sure as hell won't be Mighty Nein part 2: Issylra Boogaloo.