#but for real that is my only quibble

[gemstarstarlight]

My parents (I suspect motivated by my father) are on a two-man mission to prove that Paris, and indeed all of Europe, is the City of Love.

[queenerdloser]

i have my own little quibbles with it, but overall the wicked movie was such a good time. i laughed, i cried, i got literal goosebumps during defying gravity.

[k-germsworld]

Trap

Sowon x M! Reader

2.7k words

According to the clues provided by the informant, the police successfully found the boss of the gang - Kahi. Kahi is now in a room. He leaned his elbows on the table and began to observe everything in the room. He observed that the room contained nothing but a table and two chairs. And there is no clock in this room. Kahi unable to tell whether he stayed here for two hours or two days.

Suddenly, the door of the room was opened. Kahi sees two women holding a stack of papers, one with dark hair, wearing a dark trouser jacket and a very short skirt, short enough for you to see her long legs. The other is her assistant.

The woman threw the documents on the table and sat down Her look is full of confidence and majesty. "Hello, I'm Sowon, a police responsible for arresting you. And she's my assistant - Umji. She's here to study, don't you mind?" Kahi didn't answer Sowon's question, his eyes just staring at Sowon's body. The clothes she wears make her look classy and the overalls she wears make her body look super hot.

Sowon doesn't mind that Kahi only stares at her body, after all Sowon finds her body sexy and she used to trade her body for her current position. Sowon took out several photos from the folder, one of which showed Kahi dealing drugs. This evidence is sufficient to prove that Kahi was involved in illegal activities. "I advise you to plead guilty as soon as possible. This evidence is enough to prove that you are guilty. It is useless for you to quibble." Sowon threatened.

"Are you sure that's me in these photos?" Kahi finally spoke. "These days, I have an alibi." She looked at the photos and told Kahi again with certainty: "Don't quibble, these photos clearly capture you, even if you don't plead guilty, the police have a solution to let you get the punishment you deserve.” He continued: “The day you filmed me doing drug dealing, I was eating with my friends and there was CCTV to prove that I was there.” She asked someone to find the CCTV records of the day. After a while, someone told her that he was indeed eating in the restaurant that day, and stayed until very late. "It seems that you are trying to fabricate evidence and accuse a good citizen," he said sarcastically. She looked at the photos in disbelief, she knew they were real but she didn't know why he could appear on the other side at the same time. She began to nervously retrieve the evidence in the folder, even if there was only one. She must find evidence that can accuse him. Kahi has started to laugh inwardly now because she has unknowingly fallen into the plan that he has laid out before.

Just as Sowon was about to leave the interrogation room, she felt her hands being grabbed and handcuffed behind her back. She turned her head to see that the person who handcuffed her turned out to be Umji. She wonders why her assistant is handcuffing her. Sowon was pressed on the table by Umji. "Ha...ha...ha...ha!!!" Kahi stood up from his chair and let out a devilish laugh. "Unexpectedly, the assistant you have trained is the undercover agent I sent to the police. And the evidence provided by your police informant is also what I asked him to tell." He pulled her hair so that Sowon could look directly at him and said: "I heard from your informant that Officer Sowon's sex skills are good until the people can easily tell their secrets." Kahi has already figured out how to treat her in his mind.

Kahi looked at her surprised expression when she was handcuffed and even anger couldn't hide her beautiful face, which made him lustful. He looked at her up and down and was surprised that she was really the most beautiful girl he had seen all these years. Her bumpy body, buttocks, and big tits made him think of countless ways to treat her.

Kahi told Umji to go out so that he could taste this police slowly.  Sowon, who was pressed on the table, couldn't resist, and could only watch his hand touch her tits slowly from behind.  His big hands were mercilessly squeezing her big tits.  "So fucking soft, Sowon!" He was fingering her nipples while grabbing her tits.  He could clearly feel her nipples slowly hardening despite the layers of clothing.  He pinched her stiff nipples with his fingers, making her yell no.  Her nipple looks like it's starting to leak milk as you can see from the outside of her clothes there are obvious watermarks where the nipple is.

Sowon's big tits can't satisfy his lust anymore, so his right hand slowly touches her tits to her waist, and then to her pussy. He just touched her panties when he found that her panties were already wet. "Unexpectedly, even you are yelling no, but your body is so honest! Look, your pussy is already so wet." He let her watch how his hands became wet after touching her wet pussy. After showing it to her, he continued to play with her pussy. He kept fingering the outside of her pussy through her panties. Slowly, he opened her panties and put a finger into her soaked pussy. Sowon was frightened by the sudden action and kept pleading with him, begging him not to put his finger in her pussy, but he ignored her pleading. Seeing her being so slutty, he became bolder and put his second finger in too. He started fingering her pussy. She begged for mercy but couldn't stand his thrusting and started moaning horny. He heard her moaning louder and louder, making his cock hard. He pulled his pants off with one hand, allowing that bloody cock to shine. He clamped his cock between her ass slit as if she was masturbating him with her ass. Sowon felt his cock against her ass. Her mouth hadn't been closed since just now, causing him to put his left finger into her mouth. His left hand keeps playing with her mouth, saliva, and even tongue. She has started to be conquered by him now because her tongue is unconsciously licking his left hand lewdly. As Sowon couldn't close her mouth, let the flood of saliva drip on the table. His right hand is wet from her pussy and his left hand is wet from her saliva.

His big cock can't stand her teasing anymore. After he stopped all movements and pulled Sowon up from the table, he made Sowon kneel on the ground. He shoves his cock hard into her mouth. Kahi grabbed her hair so that he could easily thrust it into her mouth. He held his cock down her throat and refused to take it out until she let out a sob. She got a respite temporarily, but he saw her pained expression and didn't want her to have so much rest time. He stuffed it into her mouth again. This time the speed was significantly faster than before. Looking at her throat from the outside it's obvious to see his cock constantly going in and out of her throat. Since he hasn't had sex in so long, he cums as he keeps pumping her mouth. Of course, he couldn't waste his precious first cum, so instead of taking his cock out of her mouth while he was cumming, he cums into her mouth. Her mouth is now full of his sperm but he hasn't got his cock out yet so her mouth can't contain all the sperm and it's flowing out of her mouth. Kahi shot all the sperm into her mouth and took it out with satisfaction. Her hands were handcuffed so she couldn't wipe the cum off her mouth. Seeing that she wanted to wipe it off, he did her a favor. He wiped the semen from the corner of her mouth with his fingers and put the semen-smeared fingers into her mouth. Although she was disgusted, she couldn't resist and could only swallow the semen forcefully.

At this time, he took out the key of the handcuffs that the female secretary had given him just now from his pocket.  Kahi helps Sowon to uncuff.  She thought everything was over, but then he put her on the table again.  He took off her wet panties and sat on the chair and licked her pussy roughly.  The sound of rough licking filled the room.  He also sticks out her tongue to lick her clit.  Sowon tried her best to push him away but she was almost get climaxed by his lick, so she had no strength to push him away.  He has an evil thought when he notices a baton beside Sowon.  He took her baton and put it in her mouth.  Kahi slowly pushed the baton deeper and deeper until she was almost out of breath. Then, he jams her pussy with that wet baton.  As soon as the thick baton was thrust into her pussy, she started screaming loudly.  Her voice now was no longer a simple moan, but a lewd yell.  Excited by these screams, he pushed the baton deep into her pussy until it hit the G-spot.  He keeps stimulating her G-spot.  Her climax was getting closer and her pussy started to leak.  He thought she was already squirting, so he took out his baton and licked her pussy again.  Unexpectedly, because of his licking again, she officially ushered in the first squirting.  Sowon's juices got all over his face, but Kahi didn't mind and happily drank her juices.  "Damn it, the water from a horny bitch is really salty." he insulted.

Because of the orgasm just now, she twitched continuously while lying on the table.  Kahi didn't miss any chance, he already stuffed his cock into her pussy.  After the squirting just now, her pussy became very wet, so he could easily reach the G-spot.  While fucking her, he took off her clothes and bra, leaving her naked on the table.  Her big tits shake especially hard as he fucking her.  Watching the tempting tits, Kahi stuck to Sowon's tits and started sucking her tits.  Her body was already very sensitive after just squirting and he kept fucking her and sucking her tits, She soon had a second squirt.  He felt his cock was very warm and took it out, seeing her juices all over his cock.

The two orgasms made her lay on the table weakly, but he would definitely not let her go.  Kahi, who was tired of seeing the front of Sowon so he turned her over.  Sowon's beautiful back and ass are perfectly displayed in front of his eyes.  He couldn't hold back and shoved his cock into her pussy from behind.  Then his hands played with her big tits and nipples that he had just wet.  He sniffed her scent greedily and stimulated her with kisses on her ear.  Although Sowon's sensitive point is not in the ear, all the teasing just now makes the ordinary behavior a sensitive point for her.  She is gasping for breath from his nipple touching and ear licking. His constant thrusting also made him finally want to cum.  Sowon begged Kahi not to have creampie, but he would not follow her instructions.  He finally cum inside her.  She felt a hot stream of cum being shot into her pussy and fell limply on the table.  He was content to sit in the chair and watch her cum trickle out of her pussy and trickle down her lap.  After he had creampied her, Sowon has completely become a slut who only wants sperm.

When Kahi sat down to rest, Sowon was supposed to rest but her sexual desire had overshadowed her sanity.  She straddled on his lap and started kissing.  She hugged his neck and kissed him.  She also stick her own tongue into his mouth.  He was startled by her sudden action.  He was confused as to why she suddenly kissed him.  She put his hand on her ass so he could feel her perfect ass.  Sowon, with her sanity broken, automatically puts his cock into her pussy.  She automatically thrusts herself up and down as if his cock is a dildo.  "It's so big, fuck me harder please!" Sowon said lewdly. He listened to her lewd words and started to hold her ass so that his cock could go deeper.  She doesn't care whether the person in front of her is a criminal now, she just wants this person's dick, and she wants this person to fuck her harder.  Sowon flicked her hair with obsession, and he saw her flicking her hair, which made him even more sexually aroused.  He picked up her and put her on the ground.  This time he lifted her feet on his shoulders, allowing him to thrust Sowon quickly and deeper.  Kahi noticed that her legs were very long and started licking her feet.  Lick from calf to thigh, and from thigh to calf.  He also licked her toes greedily, as if her toes were like delicious food to him.  His licking made her feel very itchy, but she loved it and moaned.  Seeing her expression of enjoyment, he said: "Bitch, you just have to be fucked harder to be obedient!" She really likes being called a bitch now, and even calling him the master.  "Yes, I am master's bitch. Master, please tutor your bitch Sowon." Although he had just cummed once, now she got him to want to cum again.  Unknowingly, he cum inside her again.  Her pussy was filled with his cum again but this time she didn't resist but was very satisfied.

"Bitch, get up and clean your master's dick!" he told her.  She happily took the cock in her mouth and licked it clean.  Kahi sees Sowon being so horny on licking his dick and starts facefucking his bitch again.  Umji has been standing outside the door of the room since just now to help guard and prevent others from disturbing them.  Standing outside, she could hear their physical collision, and her horny moaning.  In the room, Sowon gets fucked by him all the time.  As if the creampie wasn't enough, he put his cock between her thighs.  As soon as he put it in, he felt very refreshed.  He rubs his dick with her long legs.  Soon, he cums on her leg. She also gives him a titfucks with her big and soft tits.  Watch as the big tits wobble and keep holding his cock and she even sticks out her tongue and licks his cock head.  Soon, he cums all over on her tits.  He felt that each part of her gave him a different feeling, so every time he thrust and inserted, he had a different sensation.  Every part of her body is already getting fucked by him.  In this short day, he didn't know how many times he had fucked this officer. Although it was very tiring, he thought it was worth it to be able to fuck such a beautiful bitch.

 After a long but short time, Umji came in and reminded Kahi that it was time to leave.  As soon as she entered the room, she saw Sowon still giving him a blowjob.  Seeing Umji walking in, he knew it was time to leave.  He signaled her to stop the blowjob and he started to rub his dick with his hand one last time.  It didn't take long for him to cum on Sowon's face for the last time of the day.  After he had cummed, he hurriedly put on his clothes and left the police station with the assistant.  Sowon also fell to the ground, gasping for breath.  If you look closely you can see that she is full of his cum all over her body, especially her pussy which has a lot of cum and the cum that just cums on her face.  Although she was unwilling to be fucked by criminals at the beginning, she smiled with satisfaction when she thought about what she had just done with him.

[jozor-johai]

This is just a short note I will expand on elsewhere, but GRRM has this somewhat infamous quote about LOTR, about what to do with the orcs after the story ends. This is about rulership—what happens after the conquest?

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?

Part of what I love to death about ASOIAF is that it seems fundamentally more interested in these questions than the excitement of the conquest itself.

I see this quote brought up about the Others every once in a while, but I also think that we might be seeing one iteration of this idea with Dany in Meereen and the children of the slavers:

“The Sons of the Harpy are laughing in their pyramids,” Skahaz said, just this morning. “What good are hostages if you will not take their heads?” In his eyes, she was only a weak woman. Hazzea was enough. What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children? “These murders are not their doing,” Dany told the Green Grace, feebly. “I am no butcher queen.” (ADWD Dany IV)

There are obvious differences—for a start, humans have the potential to grow up to be anything, rather than the known entity of the inherent evil when it comes to orcs.

In an ASOIAF-relevant context, though, the question is similar: you won, do you eradicate your enemies? Their remaining families? What if it looks like a direct path to peace for those you were fighting for? “What good is peace if it must be purchased with the blood of little children?”

Considering that slavery is some of the clearest evil we’ve seen in the books thus far, I think this is one way GRRM is be bringing his thoughts on fantasy rulership to a more human context in ASOIAF.

The issue of letting the children live (or not) also makes for another very interesting parallel between Dany and Robert Baratheon, who is another key figure in ASOIAF’s exploration for how one rules after the battle has been won. Barristan makes the connection nearly explicitly for the reader, standing up for Ned’s name:

“Your Grace,” said Selmy, “Eddard Stark played a part in your father’s fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand.” (ADWD Dany II)

Robert was faced with the same choice and, over the course of his reign, has been given two different takes, one to start his reign and one at the end of it. Robert’s peace was bought with the blood of Rhaegar’s children, the young Aegon and Rhaenys, delivered—albeit unsolicited—by the Lannisters, to cement Robert’s legitimacy and their own stake in his rule. At the end of his reign, Robert is faced with the premise of a new Targaryen baby being born and Ned offers an contrary opinion much like Dany’s own (in spirit if not in allegiance):

“Robert, I ask you, what did we rise against Aerys Targaryen for, if not to put an end to the murder of children?”

There’s plenty more to be said, but I just want to point out this angle for interpreting the GRRM LOTR quote. For one, sometimes people take issue with how literally GRRM himself is enacting his criticisms (saying things like, 'we never see Robert's tax policy either')—but this is a great example of how GRRM can raise a criticism that fits for a different series and make it work within his own world by adjusting the circumstances.

Also, I think that for discussions that attempt to predict where the story will go from here based on comments like this from GRRM, it’s important to see where GRRM is already exploring these ideas. In ASOIAF, this sort of application doesn’t require this idea to be explored with some kind of similarly-undying evil like the orcs or like Sauron, GRRM is applying these ideas to much more human evils, like slavery, and much more human applications, like any kind of military victory.

[assumptionprime]

I need to rant about the Fallout show

Because this is the person I am. Full spoilers, so I’m putting it behind a Keep Reading:

I’m a huge sucker for Fallout (yes even 3&4). And I went into the Fallout show with some… trepidation. Amazon has been a mixed bag on adaptations, we could have been blessed with a Good Omens, or cursed by a Rings of Power. But early buzz and reviews seemed positive, so I slammed the whole thing in one night with my spouse (we were staying at my in-laws house and they have Prime. Time was a factor.)

And y’know? I was really enjoying it! The characters were fun, the plot was engaging enough, and the costumes and visual design were extremely on point. There were some minor lore quibbles to be had: Ghouls needing some kind of medicine to not go feral. Really, more Enclave holdouts? Timeline and date whoopsies. Wait are they in California? Where the hell is the NCR?

I made a face at Shady Sands being bombed and the NCR collapsing. But I wasn’t completely out of the story. Based on what I had seen so far, I thought it was building to a reveal that the Brotherhood had done it. That the more zealous turn they took in Fallout 4, which has clearly carried to how they are portrayed in the show, lead them to bombing the NCR. War never changes, as they say. Maximus even says when asked what happened to Shady Sands: “The same thing that always happens.” Yeah, it leans into Bethesda’s weird desire to keep the Fallout world in a state of perpetual wastelands full of raiders and no civilization, but it wasn’t so terrible that I couldn’t still enjoy the show.

But then.

BUT THEN.

Episode 8, and the reveal of Vault-Tec apparently being the ones who dropped the first bomb in the Great War.

I was surprised to hear that some fans have apparently been debating over who fired first? Some even asked Tim Cain about it?

That’s really odd to me because, in the games, there is already a pretty definitive answer to which side sparked the Great War:

Who fucking cares?

The world ended. What does it matter who shot first?

There is no China, no United States, no communists or capitalists left to fight about it. 

It's a powerful little bit of lore.

For all the posturing, all the promises from each nation that their way is the true way, all the nationalism, the militarism, and blind loyalty to flags over humanity, they both lost. Everyone lost. All that remains of the ideologies and nations that were so important to the people of 2077 is faint echoes over vast expanses of radioactive ash.

Who started the end?

No one knows. No one cares.

It only matters that their conflict was so bitter, so all-consuming, that one of them dropped their bombs, and the other dropped theirs in return.

The truest legacy of the old world is the devastation left by their final, most horrific war.

Can we do better?

Then the show says "Nah, Vault-Tec did it. It's not a commentary on human nature and the futility of self-destructive conflict, it was actually these guys, these mustache twirling villains huddled in a darkened room literally plotting to end the whole world so they can rule what's left."

And I can see the attempt to make this a critique of capitalism. I actually paused the show to praise a bit of writing when Coop is talking with Charlie before the war, when Charlie tells him that the “cattle ranchers are in charge” to illustrate how capitalism and corporations hold too much sway over the government, it felt very in line with how in New Vegas one of the recurring critiques of the NCR is that all the real power is in the hands of the “brahmin barons.” Nice parallel, spot on!

But “we’ll set off total thermonuclear war so we can rule the ashes and have a True Monopoly” isn’t capitalism. It’s just dumb “we’re the baddies” writing.

And then Shady Sands was also Vault-Tec?! Forget any meaning in the NCR falling to the same corruption and/or factional fighting that consumed the old world, they were literally just bombed by the evil shadow conspiracy that apparently also killed the old world. Hank gives this speech about factions fighting and the futility of it all while we see the Brotherhood fighting Moldaver’s NCR remnant, and like, no! You can’t say that when you’ve made it so neither the old world or the NCR fell to war with another faction! It was you! You and your band of cryogenic supervillains!

I don't care that they changed it. Timelines and dates and little retcons don’t bother me all that much. I care that they changed it to something so much worse.

[enbysiriusblack]

december jily bingo: dinner with the inlaws/meeting the parents @jilychallenge

"So, James, what sort of career are you thinking about for your future?"

James paled slightly, "Um. Well, my dad owns this haircare company, which is the most popular in the wizarding world."

Lee Evans nodded, "So you're going to be taken over your old man's business?"

"Oh, no. Probably not."

Rose Evans frowned, "You aren't?"

"No?" James shrugged, "It seems kind of boring."

"Then what do you want to do?"

James glanced between Lily's parents before replying, "I'm going to fight against this group of well, terrorists, I suppose. And once we've won, then I'll start a family. Look after our kids, take care of our home, and I was thinking about starting a kid's quidditch club."

Lily interjected before her parents could reply, "Since I'm going to become a healer, I'll have a lot of busy hours and quite a hectic schedule so it works out well for us."

Petunia snorted, "With having a husband too lazy to provide for you?"

Lily's face grew red, "That isn't-"

"Girls", Rose interrupted, "We have a guest, this isn't the time for your little quibbles."

Rose turned to James, apologetic, "Siblings", she shook her head, "Do you have any brothers or sisters."

"Sadly not, I'm an only child. But my mum and dad always wanted a large family, just never got the opportunity."

"So then", Lee pointed his fork between James and Lily, "You two are planning to have kids?"

"Four, we were thinking."

Petunia huffed, "You're too young to be taking this relationship that seriously, Lily. Vernon has shown me what a true adult relationship is, and this is not that."

"Oh and where is Vernon?" Lily mocked, "Too coward to come have dinner with your witch sister?"

Petunia narrowed her eyes at Lily and straightened up, "Actually Vernon is with his family. We agreed to spend Christmas apart this year since next year everyone will be coming to our house. Well, everyone but you and him."

"What?" Lily frowned, turning to her parents, "She's joking, right?"

"You can come on Christmas Eve", Lee shrugged, "Then we'll be going to Tuney and Vernon's for Christmas day. At least that way there will be no fighting for once."

"And what am I meant to do on Christmas?" Lily scoffed.

"Go to your little Wizard boyfriend's", Petunia hummed, smugly, "At least you'll actually be wanted there and fit in with the rest of the freaks."

James grabbed his wand and discreetly turned Petunia's chair legs into real legs. She screeched as her chair suddenly ran around the dining room. Lee and Rose continued to eat their roast, pretending everything was fine.

Lily grabbed James' hand from under the table and leaned closer to him.

"Thank you," she smiled at him.

[yamisnuffles]

DATV Spoiler Free Review

I beat Veilguard a couple days ago and have had some time to let it settle in my brain. So, without getting into the nitty gritty and more spoilery things, here are my overall feelings on the game.

The Great:

The world itself. The scenery. It was really gorgeous and felt fully alive in a way that none of the previous games have quite managed. Since it wasn't as open world as DAI nor as narrow in scope as DA2 (nor as old as DAO lol), it felt more vital. Definitely a place where the advances in graphics helped, I'm sure.

The Good:

The companions. I wouldn't say any of them blew me away but they all at least ranged from enjoyable to very good. I definitely had my quibbles here and there but I think they were all pretty solid. As such, though I've only done one romance, I'll suppose they're all good. A bit... sparse in my experience and from what I've been hearing, but nice enough.

Overall, I also think the story was pretty good. Like much in this game, nothing that blew me away, but solidly compelling.

Also, mechanically, the gameplay and the glamour system. It still doesn't feel like DA to me but it was enjoyable once I got used to it. It works well with how I play games. And it was nice to just set looks for myself and my companions and not worry about stats vs appearance.

Rook. I have some definite Complaints, and so this point is probably closer to the good to mid range, but they did a pretty good job with letting you pull in your faction stuff. I'm prevented from saying great because it feels like, even with what are supposed to be rougher dialogue choices, you're limited to being mildly pleasant.

The Mid:

The music. This is tragic to me because every previous game had some really standout songs and DAI especially was such a solid soundtrack. I love soundtrack music. Also because Hans Zimmer! I love Hans Zimmer. But the entire thing felt very generic epic fantasy to me. It wasn't bad but it didn't feel good. The only times I ended up moved by the music was when they lifted DAI songs.

The lack of imports. It wasn't the end of the world but did make some cameos feel really off. And for all the talk of making what few things were imported matter, that really didn't feel like the case at all (unless you were in a specific subset of players). I didn't care too much, but it was just enough to make things feel weird, especially with characters like Harding who are so attached to previous stuff.

The Bad:

The world felt so sanitized. I have no issue getting rid of real life bigotry that makes so sense in the context of the world. For example, the sexism in DAO especially made no sense. That said, there was a lot of in world nastiness that is just... gone. The game does a lot of telling us the elves have it bad but doesn't show it. No one bats an eye at a Tevinter mage running about outside of Tevinter. No one cares about a Qunari in occupied Treviso. I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world but it feels weird, especially when it's so central to Solas' motivations.

This sanitization carried on through pretty much everything. All of the factions are presented as good and heroic, even the ones that are historically pretty shady. Your companions are all pleasant and palatable. They have the occasional minor squabble but even when they almost have actual beef, it's solved super easily. You might get some disapproval for decisions but companions never seem to much care or hold it against you, even on really big things. I don't need DA2 levels of interparty drama but, boy did I want a bit more tooth sometimes.

The Awful:

I can't get into it without spoilers but it did a Thing that Bioware sometimes likes to do that I absolutely loathe. This is definitely personal but it ruined some of my desire to replay.

Overall:

I'd give the game a 7/10 or maybe 6/10, depending on how I'm feeling. It was enjoyable for the most part but it had so many things that felt like splinters. Lots of little things that stuck under my skin and bothered me. Would I recommend it? Genuinely depends on the person.

[whetstonefires]

So the thing with the Matrix for me, right, was I could never get past the assertion that the motivation for keeping humans alive was as a power source.

That pinged as so so stupid, and was presented so late and half-heartedly, that I could not understand it as a sincere part of the premise. Like. We're told very dramatically and pretty early that the world was mostly destroyed by humans 'scourging the skies' to block off all solar radiation in the effort to shut down the solar powered robots, evidently forgetting that all life on Earth is solar-powered also. Too comedically dumb to be really tragic imo.

So to pivot from the premise 'there is no life on earth, other than human beings, because the sun is gone' to 'the humans were kept alive as batteries' is an impossibility for me. Our ludicrous mammalian bodies, incredibly inefficient engines entirely reliant on continuous indirect consumption of solar energy to even survive, were somehow yielding a net output? Not only that, but one superior to nuclear or geothermal???? Bullshit.

I mean. Bull. Shit. I cannot. We just underlined in the backstory how all life on earth relies on the sun! Because life is expensive just to maintain and requires constant external energy input! We get milk from cows by keeping them alive, but that's because they turn the grass energy into something easier for us to process; no such mechanism is proposed for humans consuming dead humans and somehow producing a form of energy more useful to the Machines than just waiting for the corpses to dry out and then burning them to run a goddamn boiler.

This makes the direct opposite of sense.

It had to be in-universe propaganda, right? Another layer of the deception? It couldn't be the real reason. It was too implausible. Which meant I was still waiting to find out why the machines were really bothering with humanity and the Matrix.

I would have accepted without quibble the revelation that humans have special psychic energy that the machines were harvesting; that's dumb but in a comfortable, comprehensible, and above all internally consistent sci-fi kind of way.

I would have been quite open to the idea that the machines relied on human consciousness for their own development to true sapience, and the Matrix was primarily an AI nursery with the enmeshed human brains providing complex inputs, that one's actually cool.

There are a lot of explanations out there aside from the dumb official one, or the Occam's Razor one where they were just keeping some humans alive out of sentimentality! I'm really not that picky!

So anyway I never managed to emotionally engage with the Matrix films well because I had this unresolved 'motives of primary antagonist??? cause of fundamental scenario??????' thing making most of the actual plot twist and drama feel kind of boring.

My sister maintains that this is something wrong with me, that I'm refusing to suspend my disbelief and engage correctly with the text, and this constitutes a hostile, bad-faith and therefore illegitimate reading.

(She hasn't actually said this last part and I'd respect her position more if she did, but this seems to be the broad thrust of her emotional position when she starts shouting.)

I maintain that if a central plank of your sci-fi premise relies on going 'fuck the basic principles of thermodynamics and biology this is a vibes-based system' you should be very careful to avoid invoking the relationship between basic thermodynamics and biology in your core worldbuilding.

[alexanderwales]

The worst thing about creative AI right now is that it produces bad results. The writing is bad, the images are bad, and the video is bad. It's impressive, sometimes, that the technology works as well as it does, but it's still bad.

I think if you sit down and go through a few hundred generations, then tweak and edit and inpaint and think intently, you can sometimes get something worth putting in front of people, if you have the right eye for it. I could definitely edit up an AI-written short story into something worth reading, especially if I was the one who had fed it the prompt and gone through the work of having my own ideas to insert. I think at least part of the output would be the AI's, and I could carve away everything that was nonsense or just bad, leaving only a few turns of phrase or some general boilerplate structure ... and this would take more time and effort than just writing the thing myself.

Most people who use generative AI do not want to do any work, and in fact, have no conception of what work would be required. Most of them are consumers, not producers, and they're used to the modes of content consumption, where you don't look closely at the details. Generative AI, in its current state, just kind of sucks when you're in a "press button, get results" mindset.

The stuff generated by "press button, get results" is the vast, vast majority of AI art that you will see, even accounting for filtering effects. There are a lot of people who have no love of artistry producing artwork via machines that are not good at making artwork, sometimes just for a lark, sometimes with profit in mind, and it's threatening to drown out other stuff in spite of being bad.

This is my thesis: generative AI produces bad results, and this is possibly the worst thing about it. If it were able to produce good results, I think that a lot of people would be less opposed to it. If you could get a short story that was worth reading, or a picture worth looking at, for no additional effort of manipulation or prompt engineering or whatever else, then we would be flooded with good art instead of bad art.

When it comes to art, I care about how it makes me feel, and what it's trying to say, and where the intent is, and what ideas it has. AI is not there. Possibly it will never get there. But sometimes I see a picture that the AI has made, and I do feel something in the sweep of the lines, or the composition, or just the juxtaposition of elements. It's just really really rare, and the product of either chance or really careful work on the part of some human. It's not something that the AI can do reliably, at least at the moment. You can also quibble about intent, because the AI "has none", but I find beauty in nature too, which is not trying to make a statement with its sunsets, and whose intents, if they can be said to exist, are mostly about things that are orthogonal to my perceptions, like the plumage of a sparrow or the curved leaves of a fern. To me, art is art because of the way that it can be read and the emotions that I feel when I look at it. Contentious, I'm sure, but I don't find other definitions all that useful.

But the art that the AI makes is, unless expertly guided, bad. And there's a ton of it, and it's impacting the ability of real artists to make superior work.

I think the future I see, if the AI doesn't get better, is one where we have a bunch of cheap shit that's replaced a lot of good expensive things. I am in favor of cheap things, but I'm not in favor of shit. I would love for translation to be as simple as pressing a button. I would love to have a good painting to go with every chapter I write. But we're in a world where the results mostly suck unless you're willing to put in quite a bit of effort and have some expertise in a field of creative endeavor, and that means we're in a world where the products are bad.

I'm interested to see how the conversation shifts if the results start getting better, because that seems to me like one of the sticking points.

[braveseeker3]

scrap yeah skydive plushie!!!

Reblog chain of wip pictures and comments here

He's finally real! My favourite transformers character of all time!! The blorbo!!!!

Skydive is made using a slightly modified version of @milk-sharks' Seeker plush pattern, two kinds of fleece, and satin. He's stuffed with batting offcuts from quilting, kindly given to me by a friend who also printed the pattern out for me (since the printers in my house can't print. . . yay. . .). Delightfully squishy, though I think he could've been stuffed with more.

Modifications and additions to original pattern:

Didn't do stripes

Only made one upright tailfin, since Skydive is an F-16 in comparison to the Seekers' F-15

Did hearts instead of stars for the faction badge

Gave him lightning bolts for his wings and upright tailfin

Fabric colours and types:

Yellow, gray, and blue: regular fleece

Black: arctic/polar fleece (would have gotten regular fleece, but the Fabricland didn't have it in stock at the time)

Red: satin

Things I'll do (and I reccomend you do if it's within your ability!) if I make another him:

Give him a nosecone in black

Reorientate his tailfin bolts. Small quibble, but I only realized they should be a different direction when the tailfin was sewed into the body lol

Make a new pattern just for his wings, so he can have wings closer to the actual shape of the F-16

Give him those little tube things(?) at the end of the F-16 wings to go with the changed wings

Give him more stuffing!! both in the body and the wings/fins

[crossguild]

one piece as a series actually displays an INCREDIBLE sociopolitical awareness that i think gets undersold because lol shonen and man i was NERVOUS about the slavery plotline with the fishmen but in hindsight mr. oda really hit it out of the park because it's not just about 'slavery bad' or 'heroes good because they oppose the bad thing', it's about an entire system that exists to protect and uphold it for the benefit of those in power and really digs into how those cycles of violence are so difficult to break.

op doesn't try to portray the fishmen as perfect victims who're deserving of not being oppressed because they're all actually good and kind people, and it doesn't try to say that liberation and justice is easy or that it comes without cost, nor does it even say that everyone who participates/has participated in the system as an oppressor is actually irredeemably evil. it's clear in that regardless of the good people in power, regardless of the shitty people being oppressed, people can (& must) do what they can to liberate others even if it's hard, even if it feels small or you face setbacks. and even from drum island, we have the message that kindness isn't enough-- you have to be able to leverage that kindness in a meaningful way, which i know twitter activists hate to hear lol.

a less sophisticated series would position luffy as a Hero who is the First Person who has ever thought that the system is bullshit and who has tried to change things and have him succeed in kicking off the great revolution, but OP could not be clearer about how many gears and levers were already turning, how many people were fighting and struggling and living despite that struggle, how much blood and sweat and tears were shed to bring things to a point where luffy COULD be that catalyst to set things in motion.

it sets up all these players who have been building and doing whatever they could with what they had. whitebeard planting his flag to protect FMI, for example, an imperfect solution that ties their safety to his life rather than true liberation, but it's all he could've done at that point and it was an important & meaningful gesture that made such a huge difference to so many people that the fishmen truly considered him their only true human ally. even by the end of fishman island, it doesn't show that luffy has brought freedom to FMI, but that he's helped to take one step in a series of steps that were taken before him and must be taken after him to repair relations between fishmen and humans.

and obviously all of this is analogous to certain real-world historical events which have repercussions to this day and draws heavily from the actual civil rights era of the USA, and we can quibble about how giving that narrative to a super-powered non-human sentient species to deliver a message about Slavery Wrong is a little tired, and i would agree with those criticisms, but somehow this absurdist action-comedy adventure series for boys 13-15 years old manages to nail those themes and stay on message without being preachy or ham-handed. fishman island isn't even my favorite arc but it definitely lives rent-free in my head

[andyoullhearitagain]

Every Quarkfit Ranked From Worst to Best Part 4

Part 1

5. Space Zebra Print:

Some more top tier pattern mixing. Neither of these are zebra print and yet to me they both read that way? Odd. I LOVE the colors on this one. My only major problem with this one is I oddly want MORE trim? I just wish there was some more detailing down the center front of the vest piece, and maybe something on the sleeves? We hardly ever see it full length from the back (bc like why would we?), but I LOVE the shape of the tails.

4. Red and Blue:

I like the yoke/stripe through the sleeves and the chest a lot, and I like that their contrast is the wrong side of the fabric. Love the little highlights of green and yellow in the bias trim. Love that the sleeves are super short to reveal the sleeve cuffs. The light colored shirt is very nice because it creates nice contrast right next to his face (this is why traditionally your shirt is the lightest part of your suit). It also looks great with the Klingon marriage fur robe thing.

My only real problem with this outfit is that I think cutaway coats in general are a little unflattering tbh. This is the costume that he wears the most without the jacket and he looks like such a little businessman 😭.

3. Mondrian:

Quark is really demonstrating some high-level pattern mixing here but he's following the rules - different scales and similar but not identical color pallets. I love love love the texture of the shirt.

In fact I think this is my favorite of his shirts, and I like that it bears pretty much no resemblance to a modern dress shirt. I love the little double trim on the collar and it's echo on the sleeve.

And I love the weird little Space Fashion shape of the front hemline.

2. Red Striped Tails:

Love the color palette on this one, I'm a suckered for red and pink and purple together. Love the little bias panels down the front.

And look at the pattern matching at the back of the collar!

I also love that the tails go all the way down to his ankles!

Cons: Once again it's a little too Earth for Quark. He looks like a regular Terran ringmaster. He also looks like the Mayor of Munchkinland, but I'm pretty sure the Mayor of Munchkinland is on Quark's fashion inspo mood board so that's fine.

1. Aztec Cherry:

Aztec Cherry my beloved ♥️. I love her. Love the fabric. Love the shape of the lapels. Love the lovely soft roll line. Love the trim on the seamlines.

My only quibble is that it's a little close to his skintone, but they balance it out by putting the blue right next to his face. I love how there's like eight fabrics in this costume but they all balance so nicely.

[waitmyturtles]

I stopped writing about Kidnap the Series about a quarter into the series because it was clearly designed to deliver the memeable romantic moments that GMMTV prioritizes these days for its number one goal, social media engagement. [And the series did this so well that many Kidnap-related social media accounts on Twitter got either banned or shadowbanned for explicit (??? get outta here, Elon) content, so the series actually did its damn thing.]

There wasn't enough plot material to actually criticize, which is my priority on this blog, so I gave my writing a rest. But: I did give the series a full watch out of deference to my insatiable stanning of the Series Y king, Ohm Pawat, and...

I'm here to say that I am not complaining about that final episode at all. I'm actually, surprisingly, happy with it!

Before I get into this, let me just first say that Kidnap didn't do something that many of the very big GMMTV series have done lately: it did not tread into disingenuous narrative waters. It didn't make thematic contradictions or leave open plot holes (Wandee Goodday), it didn't punish characters for real-life moral or ethical slips (Only Friends), it didn't jump story beats to design questionable moments without prior established emotional context (Last Twilight, 23.5).

Kidnap was sappy, very often repetitive and boring, but it wasn't offensively disingenuous, and it didn't ask its audience to hold back its understanding and expectations of how humanity generally functions. (Expect for the fact that the series had a very loose grip on the exact definition of "kidnapping," BUT ANYWAY.)

But anyway: I didn't expect the final episode to be rooted in Q's and Mhen's recoveries. And I loved that. The show didn't forget the framework in which it set up its main romance. Min is and was always a caretaker. He allowed that caretaking to obstruct his progress forward in life, whether vis à vis Nong Mhen or his Q. Both Mhen and Q asked Min to move forward from them, by the both of them taking accountability for their health, in part to allow Min to loosen his shackles (heh) on his perceived responsibilities to them.

I liked that! That was a responsible move by the show to not tilt the emotional scales in a direction that would have Min continue to take on a burden of taking care of people who, with a little help, could learn to take care of themselves.

And I'm a sucker for a therapeutic process. I'll take a quibble at the suggestion that Q "throw away" memories (since, cough cough, it could be about re-contextualizing the literal time spent and the value that an individual places on certain memories cough cough, but different strokes for different therapists), but honestly, having the entire episode framed on Q's mental health progress warmed my cockles. More mental health discussions in dramas!

I was baseline hoping for a potentially more campy or comedic take on crime and kidnapping when this show started, a kind of ironic approach that I know the acting of Ohm Pawat could take on, but that's asking a lot from a studio that's pumping out quantity over quality at the moment. I'm just very glad this show didn't end with me tilting my head to the side with question marks flying out in a thought cloud. It was, overall, a pleasant and warm watch, something worth fast-forwarding through during the holidays for the smoochy moments after one too many glasses of wine (heh heh).

And it looks like the branded pair of OhmLeng is permanent now, so I hope for a better script for these guys in the near future. Leng needs a LOT more acting classes -- but these two have chemistry in spades, and that chemistry could be used well in a better script.

[crimeronan]

first post I've seen that's got me genuinely interested in leverage... do you think I'd like it

HMMM I THINK IT DEPENDS. i can wholeheartedly recommend it as a pretty leftist show about insane characters being insane and maladaptive, the slowest-burn polyamory i've ever seen, character dynamics off the CHARTS, super clever writing, incredibly done arcs, and episodes that all feel fresh and important despite also being semi-formulaic (the vast majority focus on one heist of the week, robbing one shitty rich person).

my one caveat is that one of the main characters is ex-US-military and gets in his feelings about it and there's some pro-military messaging and occasional imperialism-related jokes that make me cringe hard. it's not unexpected for an american TV show from 2008 and it's certainly not as relentless/overt as with a lot of other shows from the same time period (it's not even relevant in the majority of episodes), but like...... i know that This In Specific Is A Personal Turnoff so i wouldn't rec the show without mentioning it.

amazingly though, that's the Only major criticism i have of the show. (not counting occasional minor quibbles with individual episodes -- again, none of which i dislike at all.) overall every single plot is about finding a new completely fucking evil rich person modeled off of real life completely fucking evil rich people, and terrorizing them not just financially but also psychologically. the team Breaks their targets of the week. they don't do murder, but mostly Because their focus is on ruining these people's lives and making them Sit In It. instead of getting the mercy of dying.

so like, power fantasies about taking down corrupt politicians, oil barons, fascists, mega-corporations, wellness influencers, and more, all while creating entertaining satirical caricatures of the Worst People On This Earth. in this, and in the characters being SO FUCKING CRAZY, i think you would have a Great time.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/763890079115689984/i-know-reading-comprehension-is-at-an-all-time-low?source=share

anon here again.

bold of you to assume I didn't tag it as infanticide. because I did. my fic was tagged as infanticide. which only adds to my annoyance.

maybe I worded that clumsily, but my point was that I was very annoyed that, in a fic focusing on my main character being put through the torture of forced pregnancy and birth, very overtly pointing out that people care more about the potential baby than the person being tortured by being forced to have it... a commenter did exactly that. prioritize the baby, when the fic wasn't about it at all. I could not care less about the semantics of whether it is considered a character or not. it gets born and it dies, and quibbling about whether it is a character or not also misses the point. It is only a character insofar that it makes my mc suffer by virtue of both just existing AND being a rape baby, and the catharsis that comes from killing it when it has ruined your mind, your body, and your life. Something you obviously can't do in real life, but with the benefit of it being fiction, it was the most happy outcome for my mc.

I literally just wanted to complain about people missing the point of my fic so hard they loop around to the opposite of my point, and in doing so proving my point.

--

[ell-vellan]

A random collection of Veilguard Thoughts after completing the game, because I need to vent some feelings. spoilers below!

Firstly: I was going to love this game regardless. I came into it with the fewest amount of spoilers possible. I do love this game. I won't argue with anyone - if we have different opinions, that's fine! I won't tolerate hate, though.

This is my messy stream of consciousness, but let's start with the good stuff!

The Good:

-Gameplay was fun! Combat was fun and inventive, for someone who plays on Storyteller mode and tries to get through combat as fast as possible so I can get back to the story, it rarely aggravated me.

-The maps/puzzles are fun. They were usually easy enough to figure out on my own without looking it up, but just complex enough I felt smart when I got it. I like that the game almost always rewards you for looking around and exploring off the beaten path a bit.

-It felt like a spiritual successor to Mass Effect 2 in the way that you have to build your team up in order to save the world. I loved that.

-The griffons coming back is one of the best things in the Dragon Age universe ever, and I love that we could decide what to do with them. (But I'm kind of concerned that there's only 12, and they're...related? I feel like that's not enough individuals to grow the species back...)

-Letting us pet and hug Assan (with different animations!) over and over was one of the best things they ever did. Also, photo mode was a great idea.

-The little hints about Those Beyond The Sea we keep getting?! Dear God, I hope we get another game and get more lore. I'm dying to know. They've teased this for so long, I really, really wanna know what's up with this part of the world.

-i loved being able to choose our body proportions.

-I'm so thankful we got to make our Inquisitor and keep the same vallaslin and voice actor. I hate the outfit they gave them and how we had no choice in it, and I would have also preferred to have a choice in their prosthetic, but I'm grateful for what we did get. The missives from them were also a nice touch, and seeing the letter from the Inquisitor's love interest was SO HEALING. Tbh, in reality, I think the Inquisitor would have been involved WAY more, especially since the crossroads would have made travel basically instant across Thedas. But I get why Rook needed to stand on their own two feet.

-Morrigan/Mythal was a great touch. It made sense logically, there was character growth, and I'm glad Mythal wasn't gone entirely, but I wish we could know what's become of Kieran.

-All the VAs are so good. the world felt lush, magical, twisted, and fun, with just the right amount of tragedy and horror balanced with hope and love. Arlathan was gorgeous and tragic and horrific and I took SO MANY photos.

-we got more Dalish and more Qunlat words!!

-THE LORE. So many questions finally answered. I kind of thought we would learn that the Black City was actually the prison Solas made for the gods, but hey, maybe next time? I also still want to know if Andraste was real and more about the origins of elves as spirits, but alas...

-i loved the inventory system. I wish we could have sold equipment we didn't need instead of just the valuables, but it's a minor quibble. It was so much easier to manage, I didn't have to waste a bunch of time going through everything to find the best items for everyone

-ARCHON DORIAN PAVUS !! He was barely in the game which made me sad, but the fact that he was there at all and so glorious was wonderful. I wonder if people new to the game know or care about the significance of him being in charge of Tevinter, though, since we didn't even really get to have a conversation with him

About Solas:

I played thru DAI on release day. My first Inquisitor romanced him. When Everything Happened(tm) I was PISSED. I wanted revenge on Solas, I wanted to hunt him down. I've thought about him for 10 years, and now I am so wistful for more of him. I want to give him a hug. Moreover I want Lavellan to hug him.

Solas was INCREDIBLE in this. I loved, loved getting to see his memories firsthand - this was more than I'd hoped for - and the banter with Rook was one of the best parts of the game. Seeing him with hair - seeing him change into Fen'harel and fight a DRAGON? him helping us in the fade by baiting Elgar'nan and getting all bloody and beat up trying to help us, thinking he was going to trick us one final time? My wildest dreams came true. He was layered, he was complex, he was incredibly heroic and sympathetic and tortured and clever and absolutely ruthless. He was at turns heartbreakingly sincere and infuriatingly traitorous.

He showed a wide range of emotion; we got to see the real Solas, not the polite pretender of Inquisition. He was the shining star of the game for me. And he was sorely lacking.

We hardly got to speak to him!! It drove me nuts that we couldn't talk to him as much as our other companions. He literally knows the most about our enemies and how to defeat them. And we know he's probably planning some trickery in his lil mind prison. Why are we not checking on Solas at every chance we get?

Learning more about and speaking with Mythal? Chef's kiss. But I so, so wish that a romanced Inquisitor, along with Mythal's release of Solas, was what prompted Solas to realize there could be more to his life than rebellion and penance. He's betrayed everyone he's ever loved, and killed his closest friends, but he didn't kill her. Mythal represents his past, she's the origin of where it all went wrong - I wanted Solas to see a Lavellan that understands and forgives, even after everything, and that universal acceptance is the thing he needs to finally let go of trying to make up for what he's done. (It's fine, I'll just write a fanfic about it, whatever)

My Complaints:

-That we only can choose 3 possible variables for worldbuilding to keep from Inquisition. I think this the biggest, most egregious and disrespectful thing they did in the game, and I'm sure it's been talked about to death, but I'll just add that I hate it. I'll live with it - I'd rather they be vague than ret-con or kill off beloved characters off-screen - but still, what's the point of all of our previous choices if we don't get to see how they shape this world?

-The relationships felt SHALLOW. For a game that revolves around your companions, everything felt surface level. While I loved that almost every time you went to the Lighthouse, people were somewhere different and talking to each other, I HATED that Rook couldn't participate in their conversations. We only listened. I hate that we couldn't really ever initiate any long, deep conversations where we got to ask our companions strings of questions about themselves and their histories. I feel like I barely know Neve or Lucanis. I did like getting a bit more in depth with characters during their missions, but still...I feel like I barely know them, not the deep closeness I've felt with Dragon Age companions in the past. Nobody ever argues or disagrees with you, not really, just a couple times and it doesn't truly matter. I loved the companions. Their designs are so cool. I wanted to know everything about them and talk to them more. Why can't we ask Davrin about his vallaslin (it's obviously Ghilan'nain) and how he feels about it now that we are fighting her, especially if we're also an elf? And Bellara, why can't we ask about her tattoo and where her clan is and how she joined the Veil Jumpers? Why can't we ask Neve about her prosthetic? I loved the references to Inquisition in Harding's design, but since we couldn't import more than 3 things, she couldn't even talk about the Inquisition beyond the most vague things. Taash barely speaks at all. Emmrich has no life beyond the dead.

-The companions are so...one-note. Taash brings up being non-binary at every. single. quest, even though their adaari-ness and crossroads between being Qun and being Rivani was super interesting to me. (more on Taash in a minute.) Lucanis likes coffee. Davrin's personal quests mention "torlum" ad nauseum and the fact that Assan eats a lot. Bellara at least talks about other interests, but everyone else is so predictable. Even their banter doesn't seem to give them a lot of individual personality.

-the body models for female elves felt..a bit odd? My Rook always looked bow-legged. And do bras not exist in Thedas anymore? Lol

-The choice of who dies? HEART-WRENCHING. why was it between those two?! Why isn't the romance scene until AFTER this choice? Why doesn't the thing that happens with Harding and The Stone protect her (I thought it would!) and why don't we get any resolution to that if we lose her? I understand that Davrin was prepared to sacrifice himself as a Grey Warden, but making us lose Assan too...? Cruelty. That's what it is.

-I don't like that there are permanent deaths that happen regardless of our choices. That sucks. I know it's realistic, but this is a game, and I want my happily ever after for everyone, DAMN IT! The twist truly shook me, and I didn't see it coming. I didn't think I'd be caught by surprise and I was.

-The characterization of Rook is all over the place. I played an elven Rook with non-traditional vallaslin (figuring that the newer generation of Dalish Veil Jumpers might blend tradition with their new focus of exploring the Veil.) At various times, my Rook has said these things: "I didn't grow up with the Dalish." "I'm Dalish where it counts. "As a fellow Dalish--" WHICH IS IT? I'm in the most elfy faction, it's not even that I picked something unlikely for an elf with a face tattoo. I don't know what you have to do, what flags you have to trigger in the code, but the game still seems so confused about who our characters are. Pick a lane, Rook!

-While I'm on this subject: it would have been so nice to be able to know from the character creator what every kind of tattoo, body paint, and scar pattern went with what faction. And for the Dalish, which god matched to which vallaslin. It would have blown my mind in a good way if our choice of vallaslin came up in any way shape or form

-I would have loved if our race and faction actually like..mattered more. Walking around the Veil Jumper camp at the beginning and nobody talking to me except Strife and Irelin, that was so boring! Nobody recognizes you or asks how you've been. Just silence. Like everyone around you is a cardboard cutout. I expected more from Bioware.

-We got so much amazing lore in this game, and I'm really happy about it! But why did Bioware have to take the most marginalized group of people in Thedas, who were barely clinging to their own language and culture and freedom to begin with, and make everything bad that ever happened THEIR FAULT? What was the thought process there? That they used to have power but their leaders were in fact so terrible that they tore themselves apart and now live on the fringes of society? It makes it feel like the elves deserved their present fate, which is...pretty sucky. I'm glad they did not massacre the elves in this game as they have in the past, and that the elves didn't become even MORE the enemy by joining with the gods, but it really feels like the humans are only going to kill more elves in retribution for their gods almost ending the whole world. Also, related: nobody ever gives us sass about being an elf, not even in Minrathous, where elves are almost entirely slaves?!

-i know everything's changing with the lore stuff we typically know, but why did it seem that existing physically in the Fade is just no big deal anymore?

-at no point does Harding mention Varric dying? They don't have a funeral, a memorial? The Inquisitor says nothing, Morrigan says nothing? I know Solas messed with rook's mind, but even after...?

-the fact that the romance scenes don't happen until after the deaths. So it's possible for your love interest to die before that? Cruelty. Also, weird places to hook up, right after I just found out someone I thought has been alive this whole time DIED AT THE BEGINNING, and another dear friend sacrificed themselves, and we aren't sad at all during this? I understand sex after loss is perfectly normal and I understand that. But at least for the scene I saw, there was no "celebration of being alive" feel, it felt...more lustful than loving? Just an abrupt tonal shift.

-it just...ends. there's the typical little wrap up slides, but they're, again, shallow. A few lines here and there. Apparently the whole of Thedas was nearly destroyed, and not a single country went unscathed, but it's all gonna be ok! The bit of hope was nice, but...I don't feel settled at all. And it seems like we won't get DLC? which...ugh. and they fired the writers, which, again, cruel. If they make another Dragon Age, I can't see it being truly Dragon Age without them.

-i decided to make Taash's whole deal and the Qun a separate post lol

All in all - so thankful we got this game, so thankful we got what we did, I'm still processing a lot of it, and the past 3 weeks of my life I have done little else but live inside this story, but I just really need to scream into the void now!!