#city of ruins

[in-dire-read]

The Wolf and The Witch - Review

Written by: Charissa Weaks

5 stars/5 stars

*Spoilers ahead*

The story starts with Nephele and Neri in the Summerlands, and they must head back North to warn and protect the Northlanders of what lies ahead. Now bonded through this new curse, readers are privy to a different budding romance.

Readers get a deeper understanding of the eldest Bloodgood’s personality and her overall perspective of the situation unfolding before the group. Weaks’s male characters are phenomenal because they respect and value women as their equals. Typically in fantasy/mythical stories, readers often see the patriarchy within the construct of said book’s world.  Even though City of Ruins is probably my favourite thus far, Weaks did not disappoint with her third book. If you’re looking for a fantasy story to switch elements of George Martin’s “Game of Thrones” but from the female gaze, I highly recommend you try the Witch Walker series!

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Happy Birthday Katherine Wayne! (April 26th)

She wasn’t fragile like a flower, she was fragile like a bomb

Tag List: want to be added?

[stillunusual]

The ruins of Warsaw in 1945 falsely portrayed as a picture of Dresden after allied bombing Source: https://twitter.com/Roger_Moorhouse/status/1663510800927956994?cxt=HHwWhICxldCQ_ZUuAAAA The bombing of Dresden in Germany by the western allies in 1945 caused significant damage to the city and 25-35,000 casualties. However, the image posted by this Twitter user isn't of Dresden and it doesn't show the aftermath of allied bombing. It's actually a picture of Poland's capital city Warsaw, after its total destruction by the Germans during the Second World War. In other words - wrong city, wrong country, wrong perpetrator.... The image is taken from a short film called "Miasto Ruin" ("City Of Ruins"), which was commissioned by the Warsaw Uprising Museum, and shows what the bleak landscape of the destroyed and depopulated city looked like from the perspective of a flight over Warsaw in the spring of 1945. Nazi apologists and holocaust deniers have often used highly inflated estimates of the destruction and death count resulting from the bombing of Dresden in an attempt to establish some kind of moral equivalence between the war crimes committed by the Third Reich and the killing of German civilians by allied bombing raids. However, even these exaggerated tales pale into insignificance compared to what the Germans actually did to Warsaw and its population from 1939 to 1944. It's a shame that people seem to be more interested in the former than the latter....

[aousboom]

Do you think people like me can find eternal love?

LOVE IN THE BIG CITY (2024)

[daisyy345]

aah yes. my favorite hispanic and latina author Sarita Jota Martinez

[cats-obsessions]

If Durge Could Recruit Gortash Headcanons:

Once agreeing to ally with Gortash, Durge can convince him to join the party, but only if they agree to kill Raphael. If Karlach is in the party, this may be done in exchange for Gortash to fix her heart if Durge can pass the persuasion roll on Karlach.

• Upon joining the party, Gortash shows up in a more practical armor set, still gold and black but not as decorated as his robe. There’s scrapes and dents on parts of it, clearly having been worn before. Durge can ask him about it in conversation and discover he has chosen to wear the same armor as he did when they robbed Mephistopheles Vault. He never repaired it and can tell a story for each scratch.

• He does a lot to try to jog Durge’s memories, and it works a some degree. We hear little stories around the city, some more suggestive than others.

• Old habits never die. He’s constantly touching Durge, always walks next to them, has a lot of strong opinions but will only concede to Durge.

• Durge persuasion rolls on Gortash are DC10 and under. Anyone else it’s DC30.

• He absolutely compliments Durge a little too much. And he’s always the first at Durge’s side after the fighting ends. Grumbles if he has to rez anyone else but dotes on Durge.

• Gets along well enough with Astarion, Shadowheart, and Laezel. Respects Minthara and Gale, sees them both as potential allies if they know their places. Absolute bitch to Wyll. Actively the number one Ravengard hater.

• If Durge can convince Karlach to stick around, she will only be in the same party as Gortash once or twice. She’ll confront Durge about it after and either has to be kept separate or leaves the party.

• If taken to Astarion and Shadowhearts’ personal quests, he’ll be surprisingly respectful, and will tell them they’d make good Banites, particularly if Shadowheart resists Shar. (Kinda think he would tell Astarion not to Ascend but for his own advantage of not having to deal with an Ascended Vampire and not wanting the hells to gain power from 7,000 souls)

• Random gifts pop up in Durge’s inventory. He says nothing about them. One is definitely the hand of an enemy.

• When in the House of Hope, Gortash will only allow Durge to enter the prison with him until the warden is dead. He’ll tell them everything, but won’t let the others see it.

• Killing Raphael is very emotional. He’s proud, happy, relieved, but being there shakes him up. Durge can hug him in private when they talk about it.

• If Durge chooses to save Hope, she tries to hug ‘little Enver, all grown up’ before they leave. He does not like it, but part of him is happy to see her free.

• Durgetash romance can initiate after Raphael is dead. Sceleritas is so fuckin' pissed. Like, he kinda ships it, but he CANNOT handle Durge getting labotomized again for this Banite fool.

• He has random little personal quests and pop-up events like his formal coronation celebration ball, taking Durge to a fancy dinner, dealing with fans, and assassinating a rude journalist who called him not-so-young-and-handsome.

• If taken to Lady Jannath's estate, she flirts with him. Durge has an option to stab her for this- just once. Just a little. She'll be fine! Gortash approves. He apologizes to her, but he's absolutely into it.

• His two allied pathways at the end are to remain fully evil and control the brain/Faerun with Durge or absolutely still be, ya know, Gortash but destroy the brain and become archduke without the tadpoles' help as he’s now viewed as the city’s hero. This is his least evil option and requires a Durge romance or at least a Durge that will remain by his side regardless and saving Hope as pivotal moments.

• Durge's alliance or resistance of Bhaal would significantly influence this. Resisting Bhaal lowers the DC on any persuasion. Failing the duel with Orin would block any option except controlling the brain with Gortash as he sees it as the only way to protect Durge. Because controlling the absolute would offer them a large enough following to grant them literal ascension to godhood, freeing Durge from Bhaal's control. Plus, you know killing a god would only inflate Gortash's ego more, and that would be his new goal.

[oriato]

Doodling Caleb because Aeor is for lovers 💜

(the counterpart to the essek version)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

you open my Super Important Documents and its just pictures of charles xavier

[vulcansalute]

SEX AND THE CITY (1998-2004) 4.01: The Agony and the Ex-tacy

[kataraavatara]

dare I dip my toes into acotar fandom discourse….

[in-dire-read]

Some of my faves that I've read so far!

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Happy Birthday Katherine Wayne! (April 26th)

Tag List: @airwolf92 – want to be added?

[trek-tracks]

Episodes of TOS where the solution is to get the crew drunk or high: The Tholian Web, Wolf in the Fold

Episodes of TOS where the solution is to get the crew to stop being drunk or high: The Naked Time, This Side of Paradise

[lizzybeeee]

Calling it now:

If there's ever any future installments of Dragon Age there will be no mention of the differentiation between the Dalish or City Elves.

Like in DATV they will simply all be 'elves' and the vallaslin will be reduced to 'cool looking tattoo's that some veil jumpers have' - no mention of the elven pantheon either, because why bother! They're all dead now!

They're all dead and responsible for every lore plot point in Thedas, and there's nothing of mystery or substance left in the world now.

No mention of the culture in the alienage, of the vhenadahl tree, of the horrific racism and systematic abuse the elves have been through...now its just elves. With the way the Veil Jumpers have been set up, and the fact that the elven gods were the enemy in DATV, I find it extremely unlikely that the Dalish will even exist as a group either. Why would they? Their Gods returned and blighted the world - not that the fact is even truly discussed in the game. Elves are just elves, and the notable elves are Veil Jumpers.

Maybe you'll walk in a city, pick up a codex, and get a copy and pasted explanation of history from a DAO codex - a reminder of what we used to have and what BioWare absolutely demolished in their attempt to build a new IP on the bones of Dragon Age. The absolute whiplash in writing, story, and character between DAI and DATV is staggering. How on earth could the studio that made such a gorgeous, rich world of lore surrounding the elves in one game end up utterly bastardizing and reducing it to nothing?

How can you look at a place like the Temple of Mythal and go from those gorgeous golden murals and emerald tiled roofs that reached to the heavens to a place like the Lighthouse? From the Emerald Graves to the ruins of Arlathan - devoid of halls that reach to the heavens and golden murals replaced with stained glass? The entirety of the Trespasser DLC had more character and reverence for what the elven empire once was, and DATV feels as though it's approaching it with the perspective of 'generic elven bullshit with triangles everywhere'. All that unique architecture has been obliterated by adding in World of Warcraft focus crystals and automatons.

How can you go from the atmospheric/environmental storytelling of the Lost Temple of Dirthamen to Solas just blurting everything out? No weight, no double truths or hidden meanings - just blurting it out, getting it said and done with no gravitas? That was Solas' entire thing! People have made threads literally dissecting what Solas says and does not say - now he spits lore out as though it were common, everyday knowledge.

How can anyone justify the sudden emergence of magical automatons everywhere in old elven ruins? As if Dragon Age didn't have a host of enemies/creatures available to use in their stead - or the ability to create something unique to the forest of Arlathan. What happened to the spirit guardians? What happened to the lingering echoes of the elves slaughtered by humans in wars ages past like in DAO? Magic was their very existence - spells taking years or centuries to cast, weaving in and about each other - and you're telling me the ancient elves spent their time creating magical transformers?! It feels/looks so utterly seperate from everything we know of the elves from Dragon Age.

Or look at the Crossroads - listen to how Morrigan speaks of it - the reverence for the past, the misty atmosphere, and the heaviness of this pocket of the world that carries the fading memories of a world and people that no longer exists...now it's reduced to a hub world! People are just popping in and out of it at will!

In Trespasser, the few eluvians that we were available to travel to led to the most lonely, desolate spots of Thedas, which ensured their survival over the past millennia. The mirror in the Deep Roads, the mirror in the ancient stronghold in Ferelden...now they're everywhere!The 'few surviving' eluvians are in every major settlement of Thedas and all are in operating order! More than that, everyone who sees an eluvian knows what it is - this ancient marvel of a world long gone has lost all worth and is reduced to a 'world building' justification for fast travel.

Poor Merrill, slaving for a near decade to try and restore a small sliver of her history, only to have all gravitas and wonder of her discovery utterly made void. All that accomplishment wasted, especially when Bellara can wave her magic omni-tool and fix an eluvian in a matter of hours.

If you took every specific Dragon Age terminology out of the Veilguard and replaced it with generic fantasy bullshit you would never be able to tell the difference. The world of DATV is so divorced from its predecessors its astounding.

[darkfrog24]

He sounds better now. I didn't used to like his voice.

Also, this is a 21st-century, post-pandemic song.

My dad always said, "The younger you are, the more athletic you are. The older you are, the more artistic you are." He said it of an Olympic-level gymnast who was very old for a gymnast. I remembered it when we went to a concert and it took Springsteen two jumps to get to the top of the piano. He feels like almost-family the way mischief describes Joel.

They wrote about their own generations. "Jungleland" and feels like a time capsule. E Street wrote about my generation. They worked for my attention, and I came to love them for it.

Okay look

I know that with how old i am and where I'm from, you basically have to like Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen or you'll get chased out of town while people throw fucking D batteries at you, but

Billy Joel has a new single, and it's really fucking good.

[kafkasapartment]

'Wild Concrete #58' Hong Kong, 2013. Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze. Chromogenic print. (however long I’ve been posting here, that’s how long every spell checker says ‘chromogenic’ is either not a real word or it’s spelled incorrectly).