#choose ur character:

[v-poreons]

Been showing a friend taz balance for the first time (we are halfway done with stolen century at the time of this post) which means I'm listening to taz balance all the way through for the first time in like 7 years so I wanted to make myself some wallpapers for my phone's lock screen :] great opportunity to tweak my old designs for these guys and see my progress as a character designer since I was a teenager lol! alt text should have image descriptions if Tumblr logged them properly.

Bonus Fisher under the cut vvv

[rexomi]

Something something. Making Solas a liar in Veilguard actively brings back a problem they fixed working on Inquisition.

On December 20 2019 VGS posted an interview with Trick Weekes about their work on Solas. This whole sentence is a link so its large enough for mobile but also disclaimer this is before they changed their name so deadname warning.

Here's a transcription I found here which is where i took the screenshots above. Since I know not everyone has 40 minutes to listen to an online radio interview.

I however highlighted the main point since most of you are not reading the screenshots anyway but skimming through. Rant under Read-more. Also bc i try to not be too negative on people's dashs but also i wanna ramble some more.

"But he lied a lot more. And it really weakened his character."

You can tell this happened during the game. Solas lies only once within Inquisition. He says something he can't be vague about and you push him so he lies, badly. He usually tells the truth vaguely. Typically Solas lies no more than Blackwall.

I fully believe that if in Inquisition your inquisitor figured out that Solas was Fen’harel and asked him bluntly to his face he'd confess. He might even be impressed. But why would you ever start to think that. No one assumes that their coworker is actually Poseidon regardless of how much they love the beach and ocean.

He hides in your expectations.

You can't ask him about being an ancient elf or being Fen'harel of myth because those aren't very probable. They're astronomically low to be truth within that universe. And outside, no one finished DA2 and went i wonder if one of our next companions is the Dread Wolf. Sera said, impossible things can't be surprises. He doesn't have to lie so when the truth comes out it's becomes obvious on a second playthrough.

They then actively bring back a problem they fixed in Inquisitions development. That they were open about fixing. That having a character that outright lies to you makes you have no intention of even hearing out the character. It retroactively undercuts Inquisition bc i see people trying to find Solas' lies in it when they aren't going to find any beyond the court intrigue.

It undercuts any lore we do get from Solas bc people dismiss it outright as being a lie from Mr "I abhor blood magic". I feel like shaking people's shoulders like no, dont do it.

They retconned him guys i have proof from 2019.

And its like if you hate Solas is this even satisfying? Like that's not Solas. His motivations are gone (that's a whole other post) and so is his core personality trait. It's like they went here's the Dreadwolf but during the ten years they replaced the smug asshole who was insufferably right with a 20 yo senior chihuahua that doesnt have any teeth.

My favorite villains are those that tell the truth. Because nothing hurts more than the truth. Can you imagine if he told you the truth. If he told you horrible things that you dismissed as lies to only be true. Wouldn't Varric’s death have more weight if he told you Varric was dead only for you - for everyone - to see him in the Lighthouse. If it was a spirit who took his shape to help you or even because it saw something worth reflecting in your memories.

So you dismiss him until it's revealed near the end oh he was telling the truth and you have an oh shit maybe he was right about other things but its too late to try and stop any of the truths he told you which could be from allies/companions betraying to stuff about Ghilan'nain and Elgarnan.

Like the only way to redeem Solas was to listen to him and by going out of your way to address problems he sees and you can find the alternative to tearing down the Veil by a series a little puzzle pieces throughout the game.

Have it be he will only listen to you if you listen to him. That he'll reject your other solution bc why the hell would he trust you if you couldnt extend the same.

Like Solas couldve been a great villian and he should've been great for both the haters and those that liked him. Not only the romance but for those who became his friend. Like i keep coming back to if i hated Solas would i be satisfied with Veilguard.

And the answer is no because that isnt Solas.

Tricking him has no weight bc he's an idiot in Veilguard like not even in the ending bc doesn't notice you switch the dagger around like right in front of him but none of his actions make sense. Ppl have mentioned the regret prison makes no sense for Elgarnan and Ghilan'nain bc they don't have regrets.

Attacking Solas has no weight because he literally needs the shit kicked out of him by a dragon for it to even begin to work. They literally need him to be at deaths door before its realistic that Rook could take him in a fight.

Redeem has no weight bc of the massive retcons to his motivations. They had to retcon the post credits scene bc even if Flemythal went hey i don't want you to do this Dai Solas wouldve went okay but that doesnt solve my other problems with the veil including the corruption of spirits and the fact its in literal shambles so i guess is still coming down.

I'm just disappointed. By the end of Trespasser they had a great villian and they just tossed it to the side and reverted him and people are arguing about a character who's sole defining trait in Veilguard is a problem they solved before Inquisition launched.

Basically we can sum it up with a screenshot.

[thesunsethour]

i always wish we could have seen jaime and renly interact because their dynamic is so hysterical

jaime: outright says “i rather liked renly”, said it was a pity he died, told a comforting lie to loras to help him in his grief, seems pretty okay about renly being gay

renly: bets against jaime in the tourney of the hand, tells ned stark not to trust any lannisters, makes kingslayer jokes during feasts

[destructo-range]

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

[randomgayapproaches]

Hmgrgsnmghhsgr …. ruksa……. uikass……. ruikasa….

[dykedvonte]

I think Curly being fired a long with the rest of the crew even with the recommendation still invokes he did not get what he wanted through that.

Curly was feeling unfulfilled at work and in his career, yes. He was considering quitting along with sticking it out cause it’s what he’s known and feel secure in, even if not satisfied. You think getting fired would be a great thing for him, that’s a part of Jimmy’s scathing thought process and twisting of the cock pit conversation. However, the most important aspect is that Curly got to make that final decision for himself.

Curly does not get to decide if he’s actually ready to take that step and branch out and it likely worsened whatever was spinning in his head into a spiral because now he has to think of what he’s gonna do. It can’t wait and I believe his misplaced idea of Curly in telling the crew was his way of not invoking the same feeling within them. For him to be able to sit on it for months while they couldn’t, it was not fair the same way it isn’t fair to assume he would wanted that as an excuse to leave piloting.

It’s good to note that no one really got to fully choose what they wanted to do. Just a whole lot of reactions…. And inactions.

[shrikeicee]

that first post was supposed to be a one-off but warden hybrid riley glued himself to the inside of my brain so i had to draw him again

i fuckign love worldbuilding with minecraft as the setting its so fun so anyways i imagine hybrids in general would be uncommon- not rare but you wouldnt see one on the streets every day either. boss hybrids (ender dragon/warden/maybe creaking ??? dont know much about it, could also just be a hostile mob) anyways boss hybrids would be like super rare among hybrids cause in my universe they wouldnt occur naturally. so like normal hybrids (hostile/passive/neutral mobs) could occur thru like maybe genetic mutations?? or mutations brought on by magic??? its minecraft whatever. so like hybrids are born all the time they happen normally is what i mean.

boss hybrids however arent made naturally u have to go thru Some Shit to become a boss hybrid, whether on purpose or not. all this to say riley would become a warden hybrid fully on accident. he and the mining team he was on discovered a deep dark biome but they didnt know what it was cause theyre so rare and the average person doesnt go that far into caves. so theyre fucking around and logging their findings when UH OH warden appears and beats the shit out of them. with riley in particular, the warden keeps attacking him even after hes dead. warden hybrids happen when a bunch of skulk debris gets into the corpse before respawning, so when the warden kept attacking his corpse, that preventing him from respawning for a bit and mixed a bunch of skulk into his corpse. thus, he respawns and hes suddenly blind and taller and uh oh hes a hybrid now. fun times!

so anyways hes not like Completely blind but he sees everything VERY blurry so everythign is just very vague blobs of color. also his pupils are constantly huge so hes very light sensitive. thats why he wears the cloth over his eyes so theyre not randomly hurting cause he looked at a light source without realizing

this couldve been in the tags but View My Wall Of Text Boy

[lottielee-altar]

When i say i like jeff i mean it in an almost satirical way where i do kinda like him but not enough to put him above anyone else and him dying would be kinda funny to me because then shauna is free to be as chaotic as she can be which i love for her, and I thought that we were all in agreement that that’s only how much we all like jeff, but apparently not. Apparently people do, in fact, have him as one of their favorite characters and i am genuinely… baffled (for the lack of a better term). I thought that this was just a lil jokey joke that we all know but uhm

[oceanwithouthermoon]

saiki and nendo are twilight and pinkie and I'm not going to elaborate (I'm too lazy)

I just started thinking abt this and i needed to tell you 😩

BAHNSBWJB$#SJSN$#YBDJ#Y#BEJDNDJ#><%€]?HEHEHSJWBEHNS#\%|€?\<EJJD# IM SHORT CIRCUITING WHY ARE YOU SO RIGHT

^this episode in particular is soooo them😭THE twipie episode.....

[noecoded]

Sometimes obey me has so much potential that it literally does nothing with i wish it was a better more interesting game genuinely

[vampire-mina]

eponine would love hozier's cover of 'do i wanna know?' bc of the sheer yearning and sadness it eminates. also bc she falls in love with one person & will never let them go no matter what

[dinozaurtual]

tiktok is insane actually. ur telling me people are out there saying the stupidest shit you've ever heard AND theyre actually attaching their face to it?????

[shimp]

I love the way the pit fighter viktor makeup looks but unfortunately other than the superficial aspect of it I simply cannot get down with a pit fighter viktor au. Get that sick man outta the ring

[quietwingsinthesky]

the thing is that i do not care if someone wants to steer clear of the whole mess of sam & dean and the dynamics of abuse going on there, because fandom is supposed to be fun and hell knows even though i like thinking about it, it's always on the knife's edge of risking a panic attack lmao.

but i do care if someone's reasoning for it is 'actually, dean can't be abusive towards sam because sam is an adult who can leave whenever he wants.'

i feel like you are perhaps saying more about yourself than you might think if you claim that.

[thegreatyin]

honestly part of the reason i've been really looking forward to finally playing light fingers (aside from the obvious horrors and whatnot) is because it, alongside bag a legend, contains a Choice™ i to this day am Extremely Torn About Making. like i've known for ages that the Choice™ exists in this ambition and STILL i am undecided about it. this Choice™ is of course. well. let's just say that by the time this ambition ends, caeru may not be the only catboy around town

[nanapples]

unlucky / caleb x mc reader tags: angst, unrequited love, unhealthy relationship/dynamic word count: 1.8k

summary: caleb starts dating someone and you take it pretty well... or do you? :p

"what are you smiling about over there?" you giggle, nudging your shoulder against caleb's side. he's been staring at his phone with this huge, annoying grin on his face for about an hour now. you had held back from asking until you just couldn't take it anymore.

caleb looks at you, something shy and secretive in his sweet lavender eyes. "oh, it's nothing." he casually responds.

"yeah right." you deadpan.

"you've been on your phone for the entire movie," you huff, slumping into the back of the couch with a big frown pressed onto your lips. "this is supposed to be our movie night, you know."

"i know, i know." his large, warm hand wraps right around your wrist.

"i'm sorry, pip. i didn't mean to ruin our movie night, it's just…" he trails off with cheeks slowly flushing into a deep red.

"what?" you reach over and pinch those apple red cheeks. "it's just what, huh?"

"ugh…" he brushes your hand away, his eyes falling from yours. he seems oddly conflicted. it's not usually to this extent and it only makes you more curious.

"sorry, it's not nothing." he says after composing himself.

in one swift motion, he turns to you, facing you head on.

"i've been talking to someone." he confesses in one go.

you're left stunned by the suddenness of it all.

"huh?" you stare at his face, making note of the sincerity that mixes into his nervousness.

"she's, um. she's a nurse. in skyhaven." he swallows the knot in his throat. "we didn't get along at first, but after a while… i dunno, i just feel like we've connected somehow," he chuckles, eyes flashing with memories you aren't privy to.

what?

all of the incidents leading up to this moment have changed caleb. in a way, you felt it had killed the caleb you knew, but you were willing to accept him regardless of the facts. even if he was different, so far out of reach, he was still somehow by your side.

but with his confession, the distance has grown exponentially. he suddenly seems oceans away.

it was unbelievable. unfathomable. this was caleb. your caleb. the same person that promised to always be by your side. you had long considered him yours, body and soul. he took care of you, made you feel safe, loved you, cherished you… and now he was suddenly no longer yours?

no. that's not true. he's still yours no matter what, isn't he?

some random woman will never be able to compete with the years that solidified your place in caleb's heart. just as his existence, his presence, has haunted you all your life, you have done the exact same to him. you can't escape him just as much as he can't escape you.

this is just a phase. that's all it is.

"this is amazing, caleb!" you beam after a few seconds of silence, calm after you had soothed the worries that almost broke you into two.

"i can't believe it— when was the last time you pursued a serious relationship like this?"

relief spills onto his face. you see his shoulders relax alongside the corners of his eyes. "this is the first time," he bashfully admits.

"i never really had time for it, y'know?"

he ruffles your hair playfully. "i was way too busy takin' care of a certain someone."

"don't blame me for your lack of a love life!" you stick out your tongue at him. "you're the one that had me pretend to be your girlfriend all the time," you snicker.

"yeah, well. you won't have to do that anymore."

you flinch at how conclusive his tone is. 

"say that after you actually ask her out," you laugh, brushing it off.

caleb grins. "just you wait, pipsqueak."

"i'll win her over in no time!" he confidently exclaims, radiant in a way you've never seen before.

you hold your smile, spewing a few more words of support. you can't let him know you're secretly praying on his downfall. that you're waiting for him to fall back down from his high and come crawling back to you like he always does. you won't let him know what's already written in the stars.

no matter how far away he goes, caleb will always be yours.

…is what you had initially thought.

a month after he had confessed to you about his newfound love interest, they actually got together. he was the happiest you had ever seen when he told you. you could almost taste the joy from him. it was a different kind of caleb, like he had become someone else entirely.

you weren't worried when they got together. you were sure it wouldn't be forever. how could it be? caleb may be infatuated with her, but she will never be you. you and caleb share a special bond. he was basically made for you. he could never live without you, that was an obvious fact. 

you were so confident that he couldn't, but then you saw it. you saw how your days with him dwindled. no more sporadic hang out sessions or movie nights. he wouldn't sleep over at your place, no longer dropped everything for you, and even rejected a few of your dinner invites. these small but important things were no longer yours.

he began giving it all to his girlfriend.

were you… being replaced? seriously?

no. not you. caleb would never do that to you.

it's just a phase. it's not real.

no, no, no.

denial was quick to settle in the space under your chest. you refused the reality right before your eyes. you didn't want it. you could accept anything else other than caleb leaving you. anything else at all.

turning a blind eye to the truth kept you sane for a few months. and when winter rolled around, you were sick of it. both mentally and physically.

for the first time since caleb began dating his partner, he chose to run to you the moment he heard you were sick in bed. you gloated about it the entire time, falling back into the steady rhythm of his tender care. it felt like things had gone back to normal.

finally.

"it looks like you're a bit better now." caleb chuckles, brushing some hair out of your face. "your fever has definitely gone down," he thoughtfully comments, the skin of his palm flat against your forehead, a familiar sensation that leaves you aching for more.

"mhm." you lean into his touch. "it's all thanks to you, caleb."

"obviously." he grins, pleased with himself.

you roll your eyes, falling backwards onto your bed. "there's a blanket in the hallway closet." you tell him, confident that he'll spend the night on the couch.

there's no way he would leave you home alone when you're sick—

"oh." he awkwardly rubs the back of his neck. "i've actually gotta get back home," he says.

"what? why?" you sit up, frowning, eyebrows furrowed.

he averts his gaze. "my girlfriend is waiting for me."

silence surrounds you.

"haha," you can't help but laugh. "really?"

"pip—"

"get out!" you throw a pillow at him. "go back to your girlfriend since she's so much more important to you!" you shout, your tone venomous with vitriol.

"hey, c'mon!" he holds the pillow between his hands. "you're both important to me, pipsqueak. please don't be like this," he nearly begs.

"am i, caleb?" you narrow your eyes and glare at him. "because i've felt less and less important to you the more this goes on," you huff.

"we used to do everything together. we were inseparable." you clutch at the fabric of your blanket, keeping his eyes locked on you. "you used to be here, caleb. with me."

caleb digests your words for a few seconds. then, he sits on the edge of your bed.

"i didn't know my relationship was affecting you like this." he whispers, staring at you the entire time he speaks. "i had no idea. i thought everything was okay."

"it's not okay." you frown. "how could it be? it's all so different now."

he opens his mouth to respond, but hesitates. it takes a few seconds before he actually talks again. "isn't that the point?"

"change is good, you know," he carefully says, keeping his tone soft. "i know it's scary, but this is just how it's supposed to go."

you scoff. "no, it's not."

"you're not supposed to have gone so far away from me." you reach over and grab his hand.

he pulls away.

caleb, the one person you relied on more than anyone else, pulled his hand away from yours. it wasn't harsh, but the gesture was extremely apparent. it was unusual. he has never, in the many years you've shared with him, rejected your touch like this.

"i'm not going anywhere." he promises, keeping his hand just out of reach from yours. "you know that, pipsqueak. i would never leave you behind."

your eyes grow wet.

"you already have..."

there's a pause. something slithers around you and caleb, leaving you both staring at each other with a pile of words left unsaid.

he takes in  a deep breath, but eventually stops himself before he could actually say anything. what he wanted to say, you don't know, and you weren't sure you even wanted to. it's useless. he won't say the things you want to hear. he won't make this any better.

you can only hang your head in defeat, swallowing a sob you refuse to let him hear.

"thanks for taking care of me today," you say, voice raw and raspy.

"pipsqueak…"

"you can go now." you shuffle back under the blanket. the things you want to say remain buried deep within you, chained down by resentment, spite, and fear.

he stops and stares. just for a few seconds, he lingers. before you could have hope, it's squashed when he stands up from your bed.

"i'll check in on you tomorrow." he pats you on your head. "don't shut me out, okay? i won't let you."

you shift away from his hand. "see you later." you whisper in a small and unsure voice.

how much longer will he be here for you? you don't know.

"see you later." he says through a heavy exhale.

the door to your bedroom opens and closes, your room growing cold and empty the moment he slips away. you sink into silence, hugging your arms close to your chest as if to comfort the heart shattering beneath your flesh. like a child throwing a tantrum, you bury your face into your pillow and sob, left struggling to accept the fact that caleb is no longer yours.