#but...what if I'm mature now??
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Happy buffday baby! So thankful you’re back trolling with us so we can celebrate with you
Thank you, Vicky 😁
Today I'll relax with the trolling love, but expect random shenanigans from me in the near future 🌝
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Council of lovefools.
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#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#wei wuxian#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#They don't have an actual sleepover in this scene but the vibes were so sleepover coded...I had to get them cozied up.#Late night talks with friends and family are some of the best conversations.#My siblings and I used to have room sleepovers with each other (Actually an excuse to stay up and talk about runescape)#Currently my flatmates and I also have really great heart to hearts late into the night.#Pondering shit like 'What defines confidence?“ and ”Why are people terrified of letting themselves fall in love?"#All that aside; There is a really great conversation between JC and WWX here. They are so close and yet so far way from each other!#Fundamentally they *agree* about many things - but JC now has to play the role of someone more 'mature'.#His temper is reigned in and he had to take a more nuanced approach. Whereas WWX can be far more reactionary.#JC has changed to become someone more mature (or at least he is trying).#Contrast this attitude with the scene *right* after where WWX literally goes baby mode with JYL. Rolling around going “I'm Fwee years old”.#When children are hurt we comfort them with hugs and warm food and a laugh. It's not enough when you're an adult. It's not simple anymore.#WWX is stuck in the past when everyone else is shifting and moving on! It's a depression allegory (and just...actual depression)#But we also get to see how some things have stayed the same. They still bicker about soup. They still tease. They are still together.#They all care for each other very much but they are struggling against trauma and are not equipped to talk about it.#You can't really blame WWX for being so protective over JYL. But JC is right: “You don't have a say in who she likes.”#It may have started as an arranged marriage but *she* is *choosing* what her heart wants. JC sees that. WWX cannot.#The final act of love is letting go after all.
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Ahaha I missed zutara week again this year :'> I was way busier this week than I thought I would be. Thank god my prof moved the deadline cause ain't no way can I finish an animation by tonight ajskaidlsk anyways, since the deadline got moved I decided to take a break from it and draw some zk :>> happy zutara week!!
#zutara#zuko#katara#atla#zutara week 2023#my art#i drew them in my softer style cause i am soft for them :'>>#i think they always look a bit older and more mature in this style even tho i only really change the brushes i use when i draw in this styl#it's just different brushes but the look and feel to it is different from how i draw now with different brushes i think#or maybe i'm just tripping and my art looks the same regardless of what brushes i use aidlajdlajsk#anyways yeah happy zk week!! sorry for missing it again this year :'>>#thank you to my classmate who talked to our prof for an extension akdjlakdkak#i couldn't have drawn this today and would have been cramming right now :'>>#i'm gonna rb some old zk art later to make up for missing this year's zk week djaldjlaksk
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hotel manager
#zeno's art#i'm not sure if i should tag the show itself as i'm not a fan but i guess its “fan”art so i will#hazbin hotel#charlie hazbin hotel#vivziepop#i was bored and wanted to draw something#my main goal here was to create a design that looked distinct and could (potentially) be moderately easy to animate#of course based on charlie's character i added as many angel images as possible through the hair and bowtie#(i know white on white is a character design sin but i wanted to show the angel wing detail ;w;)#also to express the personality and juxtaposition of a sweet devil her horns are supposed to curve into a heart shape#of course the garterbelts are upside-down/st peters crosses because of her satanic themes#i also tried to go harder into the goat theme but its still subtle i think#i actually think the goat theme is really interesting because of the story of the sheep and the goats in the bible#but i cant remember if it was actually something intended in her original design#i'm not going to draw anyone else so dont even anticipate that#this was basically a cooldown? ok i think i'm rambling now#goodbye#ok edit to say it clearly: i am not a fan of vivziepop or her work. i just wanted to redesign charlie as a cooldown/exercise for fun#because i used to be a fan of the character before i wised up about what vivzie had and has done#and before i matured and noticed the cracks and fundamental flaws in her works#so yea i dont support her at all and this redesign is critical i guess#also the reason why the tag “vivziepop” is there in the first place is so that anyone who has that tag silenced can scroll past#without seeing anything related to her work. in case that clears anything up#its the same reason why i tag “long post” and “food” and the like
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@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.
so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.
a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.
and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.
so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.
beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.
because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.
and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.
and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.
and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.
people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.
it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.
#necrotic festerings#batfamily#batfamily meta#dc comics#fandom meta#fan studies#fanon vs canon#i deleted paragraphs of this to try to make it shorter. it failed btw.#anyway i got into comics when i was like 12 with the dark knight returns#and if i hadn't been into this medium for a decade i don't think i would be able to get into it as an adult so i get it#bc i'm trying to get into marvel comics and fuck ME am i confused as fuck.#do marvel comics have like. an equivalent to crisis events?#is the ultimates like their version of the new-52? i do NOT know#it's so hard and daunting so trust me i get it#if you never wanna pick up a comic god i respect you you're so right this is fucking miserable#i want to live and let live in fandom but *god* i'm struggling here#i used to bend to the will of fanon fun fact#i wrote my share of tim and jason fics playing into fanon tropes. god i hate them *now* but they did fucking numbers.#and i used to care more about getting attention in fandom than being accurate#i've matured now. it's why i write on anonymous so much to remind myself this should be for me.#anyway i could do a character study on every batfam member as fanon vs canon#ESPECIALLY tim and jason. i know so much about them trust me.#jason todd fans annoyed me so much i once sat and read almost every fucking jason comic. i didn't even like him.#but i tell you what i know that man and he will never leave my top five characters on league of comics.#this is so long. is anyone going to read all of this.#if you do you're a fucking trooper i'm saluting you.#this isn't even all of my thoughts i had to condense myself.#bc i also have thoughts about how this means some characters no longer get to exist outside of the batfam#because they only exist as a member of the unit#ergo we have very little current content of helena bertinelli or onyx adams or duke thomas
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🏠❤️☀️🦋🪶🐛🐾✉️🌸The Neighbourhood!🌸✉️🐾🐛🪶🦋☀️❤️🏠
#Grem Draws!?#okay for anyone wondering why im posting this again for some reason it was tagged as mature???#I have no idea why but I didn't know how to fix it sooooo I'm trying again! away#onto my rambles!#Wanted to draw them in this simplified style I'm working on!#love them sm#I'm gonna do characters outside of home now >:}#the canvas is larger than what I'm showing and it needs to be filled!#if I still have space? OC time!#ok. character tag time! no more rambling!#welcome home#wally darling#welcome home wally#eddie dear#welcome home eddie#howdy pillar#welcome home howdy#poppy partridge#welcome home poppy#frank frankly#welcome home frank#julie joyful#welcome home julie#sally starlet#welcome home sally#barnaby b beagle#welcome home barnaby#home#welcome home home
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so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.
full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.
oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.
i'm starting off with the things i liked
the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.
combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less
the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.
your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.
the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.
speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.
bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.
varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.
the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).
rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.
and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately
the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.
tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???
there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.
i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.
that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.
for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol
in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.
the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.
this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.
when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.
morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.
dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.
on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.
really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.
for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.
rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.
speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.
the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything
#datv#datv spoilers#dragon age: the veilguard#oh wow i hit a limit typing this#anyway to tie this up a bit: the good and bad to the environmental design being that well-known architecture like minrathous and dwarven#ruins look fire and remind me a lot of the previous games#but newly added locations are very... generic... very bland#i was very excited for rivain. i thought we'd get to see ships. not a bunch of ruins and a fighting pit and that's it#and why did i say to ignore a certain guy's review? bro because he was complaining about taash being ace and that taking up their screentim#and them being too up in your face about their identity. he did all this while she/her'ing them constantly#but my man they're trans. nb. not ace.#y'all need to be careful about bad reviews. they're coming from people who are upset about gender identity being handled as a topic in this#game. meanwhile they have no clue what they're even talking about. i don't think matty knows the difference between ace and trans#and neither do the hundreds of people who are one star rating this game currently#i liked this game. it's not top tier. it's not something i'll sink hours and hours and hours of my life into#it has tonal issues and it's moving away from what made dragon age stand out for me#but i do think that it's a genuinely fun play and people who are very invested in dragon age will squeeze joy out of it wherever they can#i had a hard time warming up to the new characters (taash and lucanis being the exception because they have an older bioware air about them#but solas's and varric's story (and don't get me wrong that's what veilguard is about) is GOOD. that is how bioware used to be.#and i wish they'd given us that energy all over the game. that direness. that grit. serious and mature writing.#that consistency is lacking#and whether you're gonna enjoy this game or not is entirely dependant on what you came here for and how well the game delivers on it#i think their weakest points are ironically the thing they advertised the most: the new companions and their writing#you won't find nuanced and good enemies here (i already reblogged something about this. you can go scroll around a bit and catch up on that#really the only thing that had me super invested and emotional was the main quest.#so make of that what you will. ultimately i was more frustrated with the game than i got enjoyment out of it. i was close to just put it#aside for now... until i went to minrathous to end ghila'nain's and elgar'nan's ritual. that all blew me away. still on a high off of it.#anyway yeah that review got cut short by the character limit maybe i'll add more to it tomorrow but rn... i am heading to bed#thanks for coming to my ted talk. also i'm sorry. zevran REALLY isn't in this.#dragon age
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Hi. I've calmed down a bit, and I think it's better if I just take a break from Tumblr for a while. Right now, I don't feel the fandom to be the same chill and safe space as I felt it to be, so I'd rather take some time until I can feel comfortable again with posting. All my side blogs will be on hiatus too. I'm terribly sorry for any discomfort this may cause.
A deep, wholehearted thank you to anyone who reached out in the last hours in replies, asks and dms to share their support and love. Seriously, you can't imagine how much it meant to me, how meaningful every single message I got was to me. Yesterday I was really believing my blog didn't bring anything but negativity and hatred to the community; thank you for reaching out to tell me I was able to share a little happiness, too. Words cannot express how indebted I am to you; you made me feel again like the posting I made on my blog was worth it, for you alone.
I don't think I'll deactivate for the time being. The temptation is still very strong, but I've poured so much time and dedication and love on this blog, I don't think it'd be fair to delete it. I hope in the future there'll still be people who my posts can make happy.
Lastly, I want to apologize once again to the people for whom my posts evoked so many negative sentiments. I know it's impossible to avoid, but I'm still sorry that happened. I apologize to you.
Please, be kind to each other. Make some ss/kk posts on my behalf while I'm away :)
#I'm sad because in one year and four whole months I never skipped a day on aktgw-daily. And it was only 12 days till the 1000th Akutagawa.#I've been thinking about what to do to celebrate for forever.#And I'm sorry I won't be rewatching da with everyone. I was really looking forward to it so so much.#Worst of all the fifth guidebook came in the mail today. I was so excited to share it with everyone#But hey maybe now I'll be able to take some time to finally comment the fics I've been meaning to for so long :')#Hopefully I'll be back soon! Wait for me please. Think of Akutagawa for me#random rambles#And finally sorry for not being able to handle this more maturely. Please forgive me
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> sister lanius has entered the field.
#question: do i flag this as mature? this is not a sexy tiddy. this is a powerful tiddy.#all powerful tiddies are sexy tiddies but not all sexy tiddies are powerful tiddies - you know what i'm gonna shut up now#project: radiant#oc: lanius#briarwickart
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sees a post that's like "LOOK, LOOK AT ME I HAVE TERRIBLE MEDIA LITERACY LOOOOK AHAHA ISN'T THAT FUNNY"
Checks bio
"I'm 21"
Ah, yes. You're in the age group to have been hit by the resurgence of purity culture. I'm so sorry.
#nuance is lost on them#9 times out of 10 it's this#I'm so crushed that a whole generation of queer younglings got poisoned#all you have to do is be mature enough to look at a piece of media and say “this isn't my jam”#and not be like IT'S BAD B/C THIS IS PRoBlEmATIC REP or whatevs#maybe something didn't speak to you#but it's okay#if the non queer crowd can have garbage reality TV and shitty dramas#we can have garbage too#just don't watch it if you don't like it#There are a few things out there right now that I can look at and say“eh”#I see what it's doing and that's great for it#but it's not up my alley#and I move on and create what I want to see out there#my tags are longer than my post LOL#to be clear this is not scorn#this is genuine disappointment and sadness
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Part of why I hate this fandom's take on Autobots vs Decepticons is ppl (mainly 'con fans honestly) who can't have any nuance of the situation whatsoever and love to write plots like "oh the humans are racist and abusive towards Cybertronians so this is how Megatron is right" no actually I don't think colonialism/imperialism and racism are justified so long as you can point the finger and say "they were the aggressors first" or "their hands are no cleaner than ours bc their society sucks too" sorry. Please come up with better sociopolitical narratives in your war story.
#squiggposting#i'm too tired to like actually care about this any more#and ppl's fandom takes don't necessarily represent their IRL views#but i'm just like. oh so i see that you want to write mature stories with politics and dealing with bigotry. that's cool!#now do it in a way that actually refutes bigotry and makes some sort of attempt at resolution#bc 'oh humans are just as bad and evil so it's fine if we colonize them' isn't the pro-con take ppl think it is lkdsfjlsdkfs#honestly this is what john barber got right in his story even tho the politics in his became overbearing#at least he's like the one dude who rightfullly pointed out 'uhhh organics have history with cybertronians that makes them very justified#'in not trusting them'#but my mistake is expecting the average 'con fan to disengage from the 'revolution' part to talk about the racism and imperialism lmao#if ppl weren't cowards they would be able to write characters as problematic and bigots and imperialists#but still show their humanity and point out how the cycle of retribution needs to end at some point#and how killing everyone who ever did anything bad (esp for a race as long lived as theirs) isnt a sustainable model of society#that's my PROBLEM man like stop being COWARDS acknowledge that your heroes can be shitty ppl#instead of framing things as good guys vs bad guys and then framing absolution as being only for the good guys#what if good and bad didn't exist and we were all shitty in some way and none of us inherently deserve forgiveness. what then#what if you wrote a story where you had to deal with the reality of rehabilitating ppl who have genuinely done horrible things#what if you wanted to rehabilitate society but realized the majority of ppl in it are monsters. what then?#do you only extend forgiveness and peace to the ppl who got thru with no moral compromises?#do you want to kick the majority/almost all of your race to the curb and give them no mercy/second chances?#what if ppl wrote stories where sociopolitical issues had no good/bad guys and no easy solutions#what if ppl had the courage and ethical fortitude to say 'everyone here sucks actually'#anyways sorry for the rant
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Fuck I hate being an adult. I need a more adult adult to help with the volatile emotional situation.
#I've sort of made a new friend? Like we met at the same art group and he's also trans which was like pleasantly surprising in our small town#but like. We have Differences Of Opinion#and it's not totally his fault because it sounds like he's had a Lot of bad shit in his past that's obviously made him wary and closed off#but like. He's slightly older than me (only 4 years) and keeps blaming a load of his problems on other trans folks?#like you know the type. The like 'all these nonbinary/other identities the kids are doing are complicating shit'#the 'it hurts to see people younger than me inc. kids get hormones thrown at them when I still can't get 'em' (which... yeah not even true)#and he's told me himself he doesn't engage much with the queer community bc it's too 'toxic'#and like. I can absolutely understand why he could've had some bad experiences esp. since he has some mental health shit going on#but he wants to be friends bc he doesn't know anyone else going through the medical shit and it's like. Yeah no shit you don't?#you decided the community you'd find them in is toxic? and that people in them are doing being trans wrong?#and I think if he was just some guy online I'd like roll my eyes and ignore him#but he's a real person in my vicinity and I feel fucking bad for him#and I can see how much self loathing he has and how much that probably informs the bullshit#like he told me he thinks that trans men and cis men are fundamentally different categories and trans men will never be cis men#but not in a 'the experiences are just different and come with different perspectives way'#in like a self defeating way. Like a I just have to settle for being a trans man way.#and it made me SO SAD#like bro#I'm so sorry for whoever the fuck made you feel like you're fighting an unwinnable battle#and I want to be a friend to him. I want him to feel like there's other queer people out there and there's friends and hope#but also I genuinely could see him being the kind of person who would get really angry at you for no fault of your own#like I already get the distinct feeling he resents me a little#like obviously not too much since he still wants to hang#but he's been trying and failing to get HRT for years and I got it super quickly basically by sheer luck/a doctor who looks out for me#like I'm so fucking lucky. And I just genuinely feel like he's the kind of person who might take that personally.#I just do not think I have the fucking. Emotional tool kit to salvage this shit#But I also can't exactly text him and say sorry I don't think we should hang out so. What do.#.....I wasn't even LOOKING for a new friend! I have enough friends!!! I wanted to make clay faces and look at pretty buildings dammit!!!#now I have to be the emotionally mature one who goes hmmm maybe let's not blame other depressed trans kids for our problems buddy#I'm just gonna have to be like. Upfront about my stance and if he doesn't like it well he doesn't have to hang out with me
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like why did they change where Vegeta was when Cell announced the cell games in the anime
why did they make this vegeta starting shit with yamcha instead of chillin in the lab with his family? why did they take Bulma out of the lab? Why'd they say she was Out while Dr Brief was repairing 16? Why did they change Bulma working on advanced robotics to running in late with her baby?
it's the same scene except: - Bulma's actively at work being a scientist - Vegeta's not being rude to her (or anyone else!) - Vegeta waits for Trunks instead of leaving the room - Cell interrupted the airwaves, which means Trunks and Vegeta were just hanging out with Bulma and Dr B while they were working
Those are all Great Character Details!! That the anime rails against!!
#these cowards afraid of showing Vegeta actively choosing to be around his wife and child even when he's Bad#Because Goku who is Good never ever even once makes that choice onscreen outside of filler#and then they justify that choice by making Chi-Chi seem horrid and unreasonable for (checks notes) Not Wanting Her Child to Die#anyway I am once again being bitter about anime vs manga klasjdklasd#I can't believe I let the anime convince me I hated Goku man Goku's SUCH a good and ridiculous character in the manga#the anime just SUCKS at letting him be who he's always been#and has to reframe and recontextualize and reword everything he does so that it seems like he's Actually Quite Mature and Thoughtful nO#THAT's VEGETA YOU COWARDS#also the fact that bulma said she wouldn't live with him at the beginning of this arc to him casually hanging out with her and trunks#after cell beat his ass and humbled him is REALLY GOOD SUBTEXT for their shared relationship having improved without showing it#it's great subtext for all three of them and toei just went 'nah' and decided to make it a whole group shot so ...? Master Roshi could sit#and explain how ??? Tournaments Work??? Just so Cell could log on and also explain how tournaments work?? God it's been so long#since I've watched the anime and now when I do it just makes me mad aklsdjskja the manga is SOOOOO much better#there are some spots where the pacing is more ideal in the anime like goku turning ssj for the first time but like man. everything else is.#like why are you making Goku snarky with Vegeta dude his clapbacks are SO much funnier when they're just Tactless Honesty#like Vegeta's not insulted by Snark bitch he grew up in the Freeza force that man was raised by THE bitchiest drag queens#Vegeta's insulted by someone saying something deeply and insultingly True to his face as if it's the fucking weather#Goku in the anime is like 'a battle of wits hoho' but Goku's purity is part of the joke he's not snippy he's just got no social etiquette#He's just honest! He's not trying to be insulting. That's what MAKES it insulting! That's the WHOLE GAG of why Vegeta can't stand him#Goku is always just telling the truth and it's always the rudest shit Vegeta's ever heard in his life#'it's a sunny day! i'm way stronger than you! see you out there bud!' 10000% Genuinely Friendly. Golden Retriever-Ass Pure.#Infuriating. Hilarious.#anyway I looked at anime clips to make sure I remembered things right and that was a mistake#as someone who has a soft spot for it and grew up on it -- compared to the manga it's bad and it's always been bad#and toriyama was right to be disinterested in watching it jesus christ they BUTCHERED his work#anyway this has been another shot of haterade with sketches thank you for scrolling my rambletags askljdask#dbtag#i just truly can't get over how they make Vegeta call her 'woman' in the anime and he literally only ever calls her Bulma in the manga#except for on namek when he refers to her as 'the/that woman' because she is a complete stranger#why is he calling her woman like he's a 1940s american husband and not an extraterrestrial from a deeply advanced society toei
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can i change the fact that mia is apparently pregnant when her and harry get married? yeah lets pretend that never fucking happened i don't know what i was thinking
#let me actually tell you what i was thinking#i wrote harry and mia when i was YOUNG#and i thought the ages that they were were sooooo mature and crazy and old#now that i'm that age#BROTHER WHAT#18 year old me was clinically insane#sorry#laila hold off for a few more years yeah#harry and mia
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and I think child modelling should be illegal I'm not even joking
#I dodged it but like it truly felt like we were pigs raised to slaughter. slaughter being prostitution#every little detail I remember now as adult with basic child psychology education from my teacher background is just. how#I'm not brave enough to say 'jail to mother' (yet) but honestly...#what wrong could come from making a bunch of girls used to lying about their age ignoring being made uncomfortable and disrespected#especially by adults who can make all sorts of rules and claims on their bodies and schedules that are treated as secrets#I had the best experience possible and I am certain I did get pimps approaching me my mother and contractors#and even then I felt very weird that I was often sent to nightclubs that only allowed adults as clients but since I was there to get on#stage as work then I could get in and actually I got instructed to keep on 'vip areas' that typically had a lot more drugs circulating#the heels the clothing and makeup I got put on were also so wrong#I didn't hate it at the time some things made me uncomfortable but I liked dancing I liked fashion and I liked how the fact I was 'making#money' made me more respected in my house and I started getting more independence (that I probably shouldn't have been given either)#but ugh the existing photographs already make me want to throw up and I am glad there aren't photographs of the worse 'dance' jobs I did#very strange little universe#I also feel like I was the only girl that didn't have an eating disorder but mostly cuz I already had problems with alcohol that did the jo#but also I got in much older than the other girls and out pretty fast#crazy that 13 is old but like you genuinely hear of 6 year old who are responsible for a considerable portion of the household income#YIKES#the compliments I got on managing to look older and 'being so mature'. yikes#anything that allows a child to be the one making most of the family's income is a receipt for disaster#.txt
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Episode 7 is once again the Theo episode! This is not a drill! And he'll be framed as a potential love interest for Mabel, too.
#i have mixed feeling about how much i'm choosing to seek out spoilers for this show#but this time i wasn't even seeking it out! it was just there!#omitb spoilers#only murders in the building#theo dimas#theobel#theo now has facal hair and glasses to indicate that he has matured in his father's absence#also from the full imdb summary they're going to be investigating dickie#with that in mind there's no way theo and will won't have some kind of a storyline this season (right. right?!)#and another thing: i am reserving judgement on the love trangle framing until i see what they actually do#only murders in the building spoilers#omitb
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