#climactic system

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

S2.8 is now on YouTube!

Have you ever thought about how dinosaurs lived on a warm, swampy Earth and how we live on one that’s cold enough to keep pretty much the entirety of Greenland and Antarctica buried under kilometers-thick sheets of solid ice and wondered, hmm, how did we get from there to here? The short answer is that it took 50 million years of declining atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and dropping temperatures, not to mention building an ice sheet or two.

For the longer story of the last 50 million years of climate change, including some of the reasons why, catch this episode of our podcast with Dr De La Rocha! You’ll hear about plate tectonics and continental drift, silicate weathering, carbonate sedimentation, and the spectacular effects the growth of Earth’s ice sheets have had on Earth’s climate. There are also lessons here for where anthropogenic global warming is going and whether or not its effects have permanently disrupted the climate system. Fun fact: the total amount of climate change between 50 million years ago and now dwarfs what we’re driving by burning fossil fuels, and yet, what we’re doing is more terrifying, in that it’s unfolding millions of times faster.

Bonus content: If you want to see sketches and plots of the data discussed in this episode, you can do so at our website here!!

Nerd alert!! If you're interested in the primary scientific literature on the subject, these four papers are a great place to start:

Dutkiewicz et al (2019) Sequestration and subduction of deep-sea carbonate in the global ocean since the Early Cretaceous. Geology 47:91-94.

Müller et al (2022) Evolution of Earth’s plate tectonic conveyor belt. Nature 605:629–639.

Rae et al (2021) Atmospheric CO2 over the last 66 million years from marine archives. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 49:609-641.

Westerfeld et al (2020) An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years. Science 369: 1383–1387.

[outeremissary]

The framing of "what if our guys met and interacted" as "OC playdates" is very cute and sweet and makes me smile, but it also just instills such a sense of "sorry my kid can't come over today she's in trouble for biting again" in me when I think about Carmen. You couldn't have her around for cute, casual interactions because she uh. Changes the tone of things around her quite a bit and is often very unpleasant to be around.

[mymindblindly]

Just read the most underwhelming conclusion to a fantasy series I’ve experienced in recent memory (which is saying something cause I’ve read a LOT of mediocre shit in the past few years) and went on goodreads to revel in hate-reviews only to find that it has over four stars. What a beautiful world we live in where art is so subjective and can have such vastly different meanings to different people.

[felassan]

More on the Varric deaths stuff, two, as well as on DAII Exalted March and DA:I -

"This expansion was going to be called Exalted March, and here, Varric was going to finally step out from the interrogation room so we could play in the present day, so to speak. It was also here that Varric - in a climactic confrontation new villain Corypheus, introduced in Legacy - was going to die. "So what I wanted to do with the expansion was: there's a lot of stuff we cut and I really wanted to put a bowtie on the Dragon Age 2 story," former lead writer David Gaider told me earlier this year while chatting about the creation of the Dragon Age world for a piece about maps. "It had the confrontation with Corypheus and the whole thing. We'd introduced him in a DLC, which I didn't want to do, but we did it, so I wanted to sort of tie that off. And I wanted to kill Varric because he was the viewpoint character and I'm like, 'This is his story, it needs to end with his death.' "He was the unreliable narrator, right?" he added. "I felt like it had to end with him. So we had this great moment where Corypheus is using the Red Lyrium and it's growing out of control, but [Varric is] a dwarf so he's a little bit immune, so he's able to do the Wrath of Khan Spock thing and get in close and destroy it. And he gets Corypheus enough so the party can take him out, but then he's dying from Red Lyrium poisoning so there's this nice moment with him and Hawke as Hawke says goodbye. And with his death, the story ends. And I felt that's appropriate for Dragon Age 2's arc." Exalted March, however, was never released. BioWare cancelled Exalted March to refocus the studio on new game Dragon Age: Inquisition and the move to new engine Frostbite. The expansion was "cannibalised", as Gaider put it, talking to me, and expanded to become Inquisition. Which is how Corypheus suddenly became the main villain in Inquisition, and how Varric managed to stay alive. It didn't stop Gaider trying to kill him again, though. "I tried to kill him in Inquisition," he told me. "I think mainly because I didn't get to do it in [DA2]. And everyone was like, 'But the Inquisitor isn't Hawke! It lacks the same meaning.' And I was like, 'Yeah, I guess you're right.'" Still, it was a difficult thing to let go of. "I was a little bit upset," he said, "and I remember I went and said - because they wanted to start work on Dragon Age 3 immediately - 'Well, you can make me do that, yes, and I will just be the guy in the meetings doing this [he makes a standoffish posture]. Or you can let me go home for a month or so, get this out of my system and grieve, and I will come back. And I swear, when I come back, I will be ready to go.'" He was true to his word, but he still wasn't entirely done trying to kill Varric. In March last year, Gaider revealed there were once plans for Corypheus to attack the Inquisition's mountain castle base, Skyhold. "The threat of Corypheus after Haven was never truly realised," Gaider tweeted. "An attack on Skyhold would have upped the ante. Maybe I could have killed someone finally... but instead, Corypheus remained a remote villain you chased but were rarely chased by. "By the way," he then added, "if you're wondering who I would have killed in Skyhold, given the chance, the answer is obviously Varric. That dwarf was meant to die in the (cancelled) DA2 expansion and escaped his fate despite having been in my crosshairs ever since." Varric survived again. "After Dragon Age Inquisition came out I'd already left the Dragon Age team," he told me."

[source]

what I'm reading, if I understood it right, is that Varric has survived death at least 3 times thus far.. (；・∀・)

[shigarakislittlepet]

Swallow Your Words

Part 1

Incel!Shigaraki. Quirkless/college seniors AU.

I’m doing this as a series not a one shot because in the process of writing it I got attached to the characters and the plot QnQ this will have a positive character arch for Shiggy. This first part ends on a bit of a climactic spot, but hang in there I’m already writing the next part that will have some spice ♡

tw: HEAVY misogyny; like upsettingly so; I read Reddit threads and instagram comments to get into the headspace of an incel for this; yes it did hurt my brain; that’s all for now I think. Future parts will have heavy smut.

———————————————————————————

Okay, so maybe going out on your third date this week with another brand new guy right after your shift at work wasn’t the brightest idea considering you still had abnormal psych homework to finish. You blearily trudged into your campus library, thankfully open 24 hours, and shuffled into the computer lab. Taking out your textbook, you set to work on the writing assignment due in approximately 6 hours. You got this.

As you were furiously typing up your mock evaluation of patient number 3, you heard someone cough. It made you jump, it was nearly 11pm and you could’ve sworn you were in here alone. You looked around the room as calmly as you could and spotted him sitting two rows of computers down, you were facing each other so he caught you looking. Damn it, not him.

Tomura Shigaraki, AKA rich asshole misogynist lives off daddy’s money motherfucker. He caught sight of your decidedly slutty outfit (a tank top push up bra miniskirt combo that never failed to get your dinner covered and a super oversized zip up hoody) and unmistakably doneforadate hair and makeup when you’d walked in, paying him no mind.

-What a bitch, he thought. She probably came here straight from getting fucked over some loser’s coffee table and was so disappointed at how shit he was that she decided maybe she didn’t wanna flunk out senior year and came here to finish her homework.- He rolled his eyes.

He’d had a crush on you since he first saw you freshman year. And he hated himself for it. Just like he hated how soft your hair looked, or how good you smelled sitting at the desk in front of him, or how your eyes sparkled when you laughed at something your friends said. He hated it all. Women were good for nothing cheaters and gold-digging sluts, just like his first stepmother. And the second. And the last. And the current. He’d watched these women sneak around his father after he’d given them everything and it was never enough for them. His father, ever pragmatic, would just get rid of them and find a new one when he finally caught them. Watching this happen over and over again taught him two things. 1) Women are worthless and 2) Women are replaceable. But not you. It didn’t matter how many girls Touya set him up with, he couldn’t get you out of his head. It pissed him off. He should be able to just fuck any bitch and get it out of his system. But he couldn’t. It was torture. And it made him hate you more.

You rolled your eyes, breaking eye contact and he chuckled. You tried your hardest to ignore him, fuck that guy. You could practically hear his internal obnoxious comments from here. He had been in at least one of your classes every semester since freshman year of college. He totally wasn’t stalking you. You had the same major, Forensic Psychology, so you told yourself it made sense you’d be taking similar classes. He’d managed to piss you off for the last four years almost every single day. He and his friend Touya, another trust fund kid that shared your major, would often make crude remarks back and forth to each other during class. Because their fathers donate so much money to the college, the professors can’t say anything without fear of retaliation. You could though, and often did when you couldn’t stand ignoring them any longer. Usually embarrassing them into shutting the fuck up for the day. The blissful peace never lasted long however.

“You get all dressed up like that just for me? I’m touched, but I think I’ll pass. I don’t know where you’ve been.” He sneered, finally deciding to break the silence. You raised an eyebrow at him and took in his relaxed posture. Leaning back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head, shit eating grin splitting his infuriatingly pretty face. You scoffed at him, eyebrow still raised, and went back to doing your homework. “What, no snotty retort? I’m almost offended. Cat got your tongue? Or is that tongue too tired from what it got up to tonight?” He mimed sucking a dick and you sighed deeply. “Oh please, as if I’d get this dressed up just to impress you. All it would take is a T-shirt and jeans anyway, since we both know the last woman you saw in a mini skirt only talked to you cause you paid her.” You snarked back.

He visibly tensed. “I don’t pay whores to spend time with me, so if you’re searching for a summer job keep looking.” You actually laughed. Out loud. “You silly little rich boy, no amount of money is worth stooping low enough to fuck an incel like you.”

Your laugh caught him off guard. It was long and loud and almost musical. It pissed him off. So did everything about you. You were too good at reading people, at reading him. He wanted to listen to you laugh more. Almost as much as he wanted to fuck that stupid beautiful grin off your face. Instead, he just huffed and deflated slightly. “What makes you think I’m an incel? Is it cause I don’t go on 10 dates a week? Not all of us are that desperate, honey.” He threw back at you. Without even looking up, you shot back, “It was only 3, fyi, and don’t call me that. Also, no it’s not that. It’s everything about you. You have never, in 4 years of being unfortunately aware of your existence, ever shown that you hold even a modicum of respect for women. Any woman. And you and your jerk bff do nothing in class but talk over and make sexual comments about the girls sitting around you while making assumptions about their personal lives. God forbid we have a female professor! You dont go on dates because every woman in a 10 mile radius of you knows what a disgusting shitbag you are. You make it exceptionally clear that you don’t want us around other than to occasionally stoke your micro dick while you get off to cartoon porn. Now shut the fuck up and let me finish my homework.” You glanced at the clock, 11:30. Ugh, tomorrow is going to suck.

He seethed. No one spoke to him like that ever. It pissed him off that some dumb slut like you thought you could get away with it. He was going to get even. He was going to find a way to make you his. He was going to be the one to bend you over his coffee table. And his desk. And his car. And anything else he felt like bending you over. He would get you to submit to him. And he would make it painful and humiliating for you, just to prove a point. Let’s see you call him an incel shitbag after that.

He contemplated how he was going to do this for a few minutes. He decided he would start by just playing it cool. Sighing long and loud, he started, “Hey, are you working on the Abnormal or the Physio homework?” He asked, putting effort into making himself sound exasperated. -There is no way this is going to work, he thought.- You raised your brow again, “Abnormal, already did the physio. Why?” You were immediately skeptical. “I missed class yesterday, and this really sucks but I’m stuck on this bullshit.” He wasn’t. “You think you might deign to help me? And let me copy your notes?” He looked at you almost… hopefully. What the fuck? “Uh, are you sure you’d want such a ‘dumb worthless bitch’ to help you with your homework? I’d hate to drop your IQ by breathing the same air as you.” You said flatly, throwing some of his more common insults back in his face. “Oh come on, we both know your GPA is like a 4.2-” “4.5.” You corrected. He sighed in irritation. “Look, will you please just come over here and help me? I’ll even call it tutoring, I’ll pay you.” You regarded him skeptically. Damn it, if you didn’t really really need the cash. “Hmm. Okay, fine. I’ll help you. But only if you promise to leave me alone in class from now on. Stop snapping my bra straps and making gross comments about me to Touya, I mean it. And it’s gonna be 100$ bucks to help you with two classes at midnight the night before the homework is due.”

-Pocket change, he thought.-

-Easy money, you thought.-

That was… shockingly easy. He hadn’t expected you to actually agree to help him. Or to gather your things and gracefully float over to the chair and computer next to his. You pulled up her homework again, continuing to work on it. “So, what did you need help…with…” you trailed off as you looked to his computer to see what he was stuck on. He was watching cartoon porn. On a school computer. He quickly clicked out of it and his homework came into view. Well, you thought, at least he was actually doing his homework. At some point. You gazed at him from the corner of her eye. He really is an incel. He grinned at you almost evilly. Although man, ok, getting caught watching porn on a school computer totally does nothing to refute your incel accusation. But it did make you flush satisfyingly. You held out your hand expectantly. He rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet, handing you a crisp 100$ bill. You gawked at it, “It’s a wonder no one has ever mugged you I swear.” You said, shaking your head. The motion caused your hair to swish prettily, he could smell your shampoo. He pulled his backpack into his lap.

You spent the petter part of the next hour doing your homework together, you “helping” him as you went. He was surprised you actually knew what you were talking about. He was surprised you could retain any information in that wind tunnel you called a skull, even knowing your GPA was as high as it was. You were actually…smart? You didn’t look smart, you looked like every other college whore with dyed hair and winged eyeliner. It made him angrier, for some reason. It made him want to crush you beneath him even more. You on the other hand were surprised that he was able to hold a conversation with you for this long without insulting you. You actually just laughed at one of his jokes. “You know, you’re actually fun to talk to when you’re not constantly putting me down.” You said, smile wide and eyes all sparkly again. Ugh. He hated how it made his stomach flip. “Am I?” He attempted a smile back. “Mhmm. You’re even a little bit funny. JUST a little bit.” You joked back while typing up the last bit of your assignment.

Funny? She thinks I’m funny? And.. ‘fun’ to talk to? Girls didn’t usually think so, even when he wasn’t insulting them. They usually couldn’t get past his face. He had eczema, and even though his father’s very expensive doctors worked hard to keep it under control so it wasn’t angry red and weeping anymore, his skin WAS chronically dry. Even his face and neck, though it was worst around his eyes. The skin there looked stretched and almost flaky, though it wasn’t NEARLY as bad as it had been when he was a child. He had a scar over one of his eyes that started above his eyebrow and fell just above his cheekbone and another scar on his mouth from when he was a kid and couldn’t stop scratching at his face. He looked… deranged maybe? Not pretty. Certainly not pretty, you told yourself over and over while sitting there talking with him like it was a normal thing you did. Certainly not pretty, with his pale shaggy hair and his big eyes that looked almost like shiny rubies this close up and the little beauty mark on his chin. Even his scar made him look… you didn’t know, edgy? Beautiful, a sick twisted part of your mind offered. Oh god no. PLEASE no.

You started packing up your things and getting ready to go. “Well, this wasn’t the worst end to a night I’ve ever had. Thanks for keeping me company, I’ll see you in class in… god, 4 hours?” You smiled at him, getting up from your chair. It was nearly 2:30 in the morning. He laughed a bit, “Ah, yeah. Thank you for helping me finish.” Even HE cringed a bit and that double entendre. “But uh, hey, you live off campus right? Just come crash on my couch, I’ll take you to class after we both get a power nap. That way you don’t have to wake up even earlier just to come back.” He casually suggested way more confidently than he felt. (Now listen, if you’ve never pulled an all nighter right before a 6am class, you might think this is insane. But this… this was like the dove and the olive branch.)

-Thank god, you thought. And he’s really not so bad honestly, maybe you just had to get to know him. Famous last words. -

You practically beamed up at him, now standing at his full height, “That would be so nice actually, thank you!” You paused. “As long as you don’t try to do anything to me in my sleep.” You narrowed your eyes at him. He laughed.

You got to his dorm and your jaw dropped. It wasn’t a dorm. It was a dedicated on campus villa for his family to use when visiting or attending classes. His whole family were alumni of this college it seemed. Apparently Touya’s family had one too, right next door, which is how they’d met as freshman. It was… adorable. Landscaping clearly took care of the outside, the grass was immaculate and the garden in front was lousy with flowers and shrubbery and meticulously kept ivy that climbed latticework around the windows. Above the door was a gold plaque, “In honor of family Shigaraki for their generous donations throughout the history of this campus.” The Shigaraki was the largest thing in the plaque, written in elegant swirling cursive.

“It’s beautiful.”, you said in awe. You’d never imagined a person like him would live in a place that looked like this. How is he so miserable? You wondered. He has money and a beautiful house and his college is payed for in full. He’ll never have to worry about student loan debt or whether he’ll eat or not or his parents medical bills or his siblings needing new clothes and shoes for school. He’ll never have to go on dates just to eat because his whole paycheck goes to his family to make sure they survive until he’s making enough money to support all of them. You just… couldn’t understand. It seemed like he had everything.

He seemed surprised by your compliment of the place. “Oh, thanks. Yeah it’s pretty old now, but the school keeps it in great condition. The past four generations of Shigarakis have lived in this place. I didn’t think much of it at first, just a place to pass out and do homework. But a year ago I went into the attic and found an old picture album my grandmother made while she went here. It made it feel… more important.” He rambled on while he fumbled with the keys in the lock, not sure why he was telling you this. “Ahg, this damn thing always sticks.” He finally unlocked it and ushered you inside.

[tinytablepodcast]

Help Us Choose Our Next Game!

We received so many wonderful submissions from the indie ttrpg community of games to play next on Tiny Table. We need your help to narrow them down! We will be taking the top 3 games to Patreon for our patrons in the Mini and Micro tier to vote on.

Reactors and Romance: Reactors and Romance is a rules-light RPG about flirting while piloting a giant robot. You only have one stat, and that is your HEAT 🔥. Your HEAT measures how hot your mech's reactor is getting, and how hot of a pilot you are 😉 Will you fight or flirt your way through battle? Can you keep your mech from overheating? What will it be hotshot?

To Infinity...: Inspired by Alien and The Thing, "To Infinity..." is a tabletop social deduction game where up to 4 players and 1 GM need to escape on a spaceship from an alien monster who killed the rest of the crew. What none of the survivors know is that this isn't just a monster, the alien could be any one of them...

Hellborn Descended: Hellborn Descended is an infernal TTRPG set in a modern Hell, inspired by comics and shows such as Hellboy and Helluva Boss. In Hellborn, players take on the role of sinners, demons, and fallen angels, working together as mercenaries to attain wealth, fame, and power, or gloriously die trying. Check out their kickstarter!

Darkest Hour: Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game inspired by horror movies of all kinds, featuring a group of monster hunters attempting to put a stop to a malicious supernatural entity in a single night. Over the course of six rounds, known as the Hours, the hunters must use their abilities to establish benefits that will aid them even as the haunt grows in strength and the hunters become less effective. As Blackest Night envelops them, the haunt feels insurmountable -- will the hunters find the haunt's true weakness and destroy it for good, or be whittled down until only a Final Girl remains? Featuring six haunts, six locations ripe for the haunting, and six unique hunter archetypes, Darkest Hour is perfect for one-shots for 2-5 players, and can either be run by a GM, or communally without a GM.

Dawn of the Orcs: Dawn of the Orcs is a GMless dark fantasy worldbuilding and roleplaying game. Play the magical technocrats who create the first orcs as living weapons and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. It can be played seriously as a fantasy transhumanist Dr. Strangelove, or as a wacky game of Saruman by committee.

The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People: The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People is a tabletop RPG where players take on the roles of a train crew in a fictional 1930s totalitarian state. Your mission is simple: get yourselves and your unique train from point A to point B though things are never that easy on the tracks of the Glorious Republic. The game requires only d6s, pen, paper, and, above all, your loyalty to the party.

Paratype: Paratype takes place in the aftermath of an apocalypse where giant bugs have reclaimed the earth. For humans survival is a challenge-one helped by the invention of a device that grants strange new buggy abilities. Paratype is a game about survival, humanity and so, so many bugs.

Broke Wizards: Broke Wizards is a light, silly game about working class sorcery. Play as students of the prestigious Audment's Academy of the Arcane who must go delving for treasure in order to pay tuition. To cast magic, wizards must use items found around their dormitory as makeshift spell ingredients - and then use their real-life argumentative skills to convince the living force of magic that yes, actually, a dirty shot glass is a great ingredient for casting a spell of water breathing, thank you very much.

RiskTaker: RiskTaker is a GM-less system built around players making big moves with big risks. Each sessions revolves around "The Scene," a climactic event like an episode's final battle in a superhero TV show, or the aftermath of a heist gone wrong. Players take turns either doing exposition scenes to give context to The Scene and built character relationships, or Influencing The Scene, which means they take a decisive action and decide how effective that action will be. But watch out - the more impactful your action, the more things can go wrong, and the more likely it is that they will. But what's a good story without a few Risks?

'til it kills us: in ‘til it kills us, you play as a group of young, reckless queer activists fighting to make a difference in the world. you’re angry, and you’re scared, and rightfully so. not to mention, you’re all a little bit fucked up. whether you’re dealing with issues at home, struggling with mental illness, or just learning to stand on your own two feet, life isn’t easy. but you’re also in love with the world, and with each other, so you keep fighting anyway. it’s the only thing you can do. the only problem is your magic. sure, it protects you. sure, it helps you fight. but you can feel it – feeding on the most unpleasant parts of you. and the longer you have this magic, the more you fear by those feelings. you worry it might be powering but you keep fighting. what else is there? remember what you always said: we’re going to keep on fighting ‘til it kills us.

If you submitted a game to us and don't see it on the list, don't fret! We will be hosting many polls like this and your game is still in consideration. If you game is on here and isn't chosen to move on to our next poll, also don't fret! We may add it on to the next poll again.

[elodieunderglass]

Just dropping in too say, really enjoying the Killieposting lately! As someone who was never a horsegirl but did read a lot of books about them, I love it.

Anyways, since i know you are also a Diana Wynne Jones enjoyer, I was wondering if you'd ever read Enchanted Glass? feat. an old retired jockey living with a disability caused by an injury from his racing days! It's actually one of my favorite DWJ stories but no one else ever seems to have heard of it (also featuring weredogs, vegetable growing, grief, romance, the failures of the foster system, the king and queen and queen of faerie, and a couple of slightly cringefail wizards types(for anyone interested in such things))

I’m really glad! I start to feel embarrassed but then people send me lovely asks!

I wish I’d written Enchanted Glass(2010), but she got there first.

On balance it’s decent Jockey Representation, with a joke just for me:

“Tarquin’s small, bearded face looked to Andrew to be showing agony. But he reminded himself that the man had been a jockey and that jockeys were used to pain.”

— Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones

(Killie offscreen plaintively saying that that doesn’t mean they want to be in pain)

DWJ 🤝 Dick Francis with the content, of course, but note the stylistic lack of comma!!! That’s not DWJ’s cadence, that’s a Francis signature. That is LITERALLY a joke just for me. One point for that.

Unfortunately, I do have to condemn this as Problematic, even if it’s Aidan (feral orphan failed by foster system)POV and intended to reveal Aidan’s character:

“Aidan was astonished all over again at the little man with one leg, who energetically heaved himself into the room with his crutches. He should have had the hat, Aidan thought.”

Oh Aidan no -

“He was surely a gnome, beard and all. But his greying head was bare and slightly bald. “You know my brother-in-law, Tarquin O’Connor,” Mr Stock announced.”

Do not -

“Ah, no. He’s Irish. He’s a leprechaun, Aidan thought.”

Why do English people exist? Really? I do understand that this is a feral foster child POV of course, but come on, kid.

“He had been right to think leprechaun about the brave, shrewd little man with one leg. He almost was one. He was full of gifts.”

No you were not right Aidan, that’s plain racism, argh.

I like this shoutout to the Injured Jockeys Fund:

“Tark, as Mr Stock heard it, had been lucky to live, trampled and broken in all directions as he was. He’d never ride again. Nowadays, Tarquin lived on his savings and what he got from the Injured Jockey (sic) Fund…”

Still relevant today and a nice touch. Here’s the webpage for the IJF with some up-to-date statistics.

Quick edit to show how DWJ is very good with POV here in Andrew POV:

“Though the life of a jockey was something Andrew could barely imagine himself, he could tell it had been as thrilling and absorbing as his own work on his book.”

Yeah I reckon it might be Andrew lmao. Lmao it is as thrilling as writing an academic text for SURE. So empathetic of you to notice that.

(Love a good DWJ unreliable narrator)

on the whole, not bad Jockey Representation and a book that contains competitive flower and vegetable growing.

Me 🤝 Tarquin having to console ourselves for winning prizes for our cakes instead, due to blatant FUCKING AROUND FROM THE JUDGES. I saw you, Tark, you deserved that win, and I completely understand that cake prizes ain’t shit really, anyone can bake a cake. I don’t care that the fucking king of the elves himself is fucking us around in some kind of climactic scene or something, trust me, that kind of thing takes care of itself, narratively speaking. it’s the fact that you look back at your records for years afterwards and have to remember that ONE year, that ONE YEAR where they DELIBERATELY DICKED YOU OVER - “oh that’s the year that the elf king guy or whatever got mad” FORGET THAT? SO WHAT? GEOPOLITICS?? - I’ll be noticing the blank spot where my prize should’ve gone for the rest of my LIFE?

On balance I do appreciate this book! Thank you!!

[piosplayhouse]

Some thoughts on the narrative parallels between Scum Villain's climactic Maigu Ridge arc and TGCF's stabbing of Xie Lian + the difference in fan reaction between the two (copy pasted mostly from Twitter with quick edits) :

Some people reject the conflation of scum villain and tgcf's themes of sexual violence due to the idea that because tgcf has an explicit physical antagonist who becomes the vehicle for the idea of an aggressor and therefore can be safely vilified in a way that very blatantly subverts romanticization without much need for literary analysis. And so raises the argument that "scum villain is different because it was between the main characters", with the implication that because both characters were participants and neither of them are strictly cordoned off as an antagonistic aggressor who can be written off as indefensible that must mean the scene is intended to be romanticized or excused. But you can very obviously tell in the book that maigu ridge is not intended to be erotic, it's uncomfortable and both parties visibly hate it which is why you the reader feel so uncomfortable about reading it too.

Maigu ridge should provide a feeling of visceral and violating horror just as strong as xl's stabbing does, but it's treated with a double standard because it's explicitly rather than implicitly sexual. Sure bai wuxiang is the villain orchestrating, but he's not the one physically violating the protagonist. He instead made a bunch of innocent people hurt xl under extreme duress- which is actually exactly the same as what Maigu ridge is! A villain (xin mo/the system) forcing 2 parties into a gruesomely violating act for their own sadistic satisfaction under threat of death and destruction.

Despite the similarities in theme, tgcf is praised for "lacking" sexual content as a whole (which isn't even true if you remove the metaphorical violence-power-sex connection but besides the point) despite having very implicit scenes of sexual violence, while sv has explicit scenes that aren't really about the sex, but rather about the nuances of bodily autonomy and ironically the media glorification of sexuality as an end all be all to relationships, but are reduced to preconceived notions of what ppl think sex scenes should be (erotic and for enjoyment).

[direquail]

My specific read on John is not that he's a nice guy, either. It's that, like any good character (specifically a tragic character, which, TM has said that he is modeled on a mythical tragic hero, so) he has a flaw that dooms him. And what that means is, when he has the choice to change what he's doing, that flaw either prevents him from taking the option he's aware of, or prevents him from being aware that there is another option altogether.

And so as a writer, what I look for are moments where either:

something good about a character becomes an excess that harms themselves or others

we receive information that shows a persistent blind spot a character has

we look for times when a character gives their view of the world/a situation and it Does Not Match Up with reality, or is hinted that it doesn't

we look for evidence of something simmering under the surface that clashes with their outward, agreeable presentation

What fills that role for John?

Yep.

When this first pops up, it's pretty easily dismissed as yet another layer on the falsehood he's propped up. Admittedly, he's been doing it for ten thousand years, so it's probably got a few layers to it.

However:

This one, to me, gives us a hint about what John is blind to: That his friends see his vindictiveness and his failings and that they could still love him. This is where it crosses into tragedy, for me; where his own inability to forgive blinds him to the capacity that other people have for generosity--and so, to a world where "justice" means more than "vengeance for the dead".

And this illuminates the whole chain of events that leads him to that climactic scene in Harrow the Ninth, telling Mercy that she never would have forgiven him anyways:

John is, at heart, deeply angry--like most characters in the series, and like a lot of people who grew up in poverty, especially if they managed to escape it. He also has some deep sense of justice, and deep sense of judgment.

So we have this cycle of related emotions and ideas: Justice, judgment, outrage. And a human measure of selfishness, amorality, double standards, etc.

In one situation, this allows him to throw himself completely into the cryo project, something that (if it hadn't been sabotaged politically) could have made a difference to humanity. He brings in people who work to make it even better, who demonstrably want to make the outcome as just and humane as possible. It's also implied that this is part of why he received those powers; "I chose you to change."

(And, I'll be honest, one of the other things that I see that chafes me is the implication that there was nothing about John to recommend him to the Earth. I'm actually of the opinion that there was; she chose him, and I don't think she just rolled a d100 or drew a card off a tarot deck and called him up. John is also still a human, flawed person.)

Then, the situation changes. It's no longer an issue of dedicating expertise to solve a problem; this is a political issue, and specifically of rich people using their resources to shift outcomes towards the one they think will benefit them the most, that will secure their survival, explicitly at the expense of everyone else.

And their strategy is, profoundly: short-sighted and unnecessary (pooling resources would help create a better outcome for everyone, including the rich, by reducing global trauma and preserving more of the systems that already structure their world); bigoted and uninformed (many rich people think that the world has to be a certain way, generally that the world is violent, competitive, dog-eat-dog, etc., and someone has to be "on top", and there will always have to be a loser, or lots of losers); and utterly cruel, unjust, and pointless.

And John--John, who grew up poor, who grew up aware of the despair around him and the injustice of his position and more than likely made use of that anger to achieve what he had up to this point--John is so angry.

Because they're all the same. They're all the same. It's the same song, over and over again, no matter how stupid and pointless and unnecessary. He is certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it doesn't have to be this way. He passes judgment.

But John is losing to them, because he doesn't have the resources they do. He can hate them and fight them all he wants, and it doesn't matter, because he's nowhere near in the same league as they are politically.

And then, after the cryo project is cancelled, he gains his powers.

The thing about anger and judgment is that the deeper it runs, often, the more invested the person who holds that anger in themselves is in not seeing what they hate in themselves. E.g: John has conceptualized the people he's resisting as fundamentally unjust, cruel, amoral, and bigoted. There's a very good chance--to different degrees, depending on the person--that becoming aware of similar traits in himself might wake up those feelings he has towards those other people--aimed at himself (that is, cognitive dissonance). He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function. He's not like them; he's trying to fix things, to bring about justice.

Of course, there's justice as in "living in a just society", and justice as in "justice for the dead". But that's a later realization, because right now, everyone is still alive.

So John hides those parts of himself; from himself, from other people. So thoroughly he can exclude it from his consciousness and pretend it doesn't exist. He thinks no one sees the real depth of his own rage, his own cutthroat pursuit of a solution. And then, when he can't pretend it doesn't exist, he can still pretend to be the man he thinks they need him to be. He can "fool" them. He can say--he's trying. He screwed up. He doesn't know what he's doing.

And then, Casseiopeia says, No, actually, we know you, and we know you're horribly vindictive. And we're on your side--we're on the same side--our fight is your fight--and we love you. But your drive for revenge is seriously limiting your ability to imagine and create a living, just world, and that's what we're fighting for. Remember? That's what we set out to create.

And John's brain can't quite handle this; he can't imagine that they could actually see him and still be on his side. Because he couldn't see that and still be on his side. He can't forgive; he can't imagine forgiveness.

He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function.

And, by this stage, in some ways, it's already too late to change course. But this is one of several "come to Jesus" (no pun intended) moments where John could become aware of alternatives, or could change his behavior--and doesn't.

And I think this is where we get that self-awareness from, the thing that makes him creepy and tragic but also infuriating: He is aware, but apparently that's not enough to stop him from being his worst self--so is he just pretending to be moral? Capable of making different choices but choosing not to? And the weird statements he makes later:

This is, imo, not a power-hungry dictator who genuinely doesn't care about the cost of his throne, or a gleefully predatory abuser. This is a dude who's committed to a course of action and doesn't feel great about it. This is a guy who has violated his own sense of justice and has to live with it.

This is a guy who set out to save the world, killed it, and now the only thing that's left to him is to avenge it.

And like, from a mythology standpoint, that is exactly what the Erinyes are, like the Furies and Alecto. They are not the justice of Apollo or Athena. They are screaming for blood. They are hunting their quarry to the ends of the universe. They are chthonic.

Again: This isn't what Cassieopeia or Christabel said to him. This is what John has said to himself. This came from him. This is a reflection of what he believes.

And it encapsulates, exactly, why he erased their memories. Why he took away their agency.

The difference between him and many, many people is he had the power of a god and no one to check him when he was struggling with his own worst impulses. And then, he created a world where no one could, not just because then he could do what he wanted and pretend to be kind and loving and moral, but so that he would never have to lose the love of the people he needed.

Because, unfortunately, he still needed them.

It just took ten thousand years for the lie to unravel.

[thethirdromana]

Grey 17 Is Missing!

Just realised that on Babylon 5, they spell grey the British way.

I enjoy the guy trying to blag his way into being recruited as a telepath. Would love to know what his plan was for seeing that through.

So Garibaldi is into 350-year-old guns as well as 270-year-old motorbikes. It gives a very different impression of the kind of guy that he is if you imagine that's the equivalent of being into 17th-century muskets and horse-drawn carriages.

Franklin's storyline feels like an impressively sympathetic view of addiction to me.

I hope we see a bit of the Minbari worker caste at some point. Until now I thought there were only two castes: religious and warrior, but apparently we've only been seeing the Minbari upper crust. (You might wonder who I thought did all the work. I have to admit I assumed that everyone was doing work, just religiously or warriorishly).

Obviously I'm sympathetic to Delenn but the way Neroon makes his case, he kind of has a point? The correct answer is clearly "dismantle the caste system" but since that's not on offer, it does seem like an inappropriate power grab for Delenn to command a military force.

Oh, it's fun when Garibaldi gets to to some good old-fashioned deduction.

Lennier and Marcus are charming together. "Did this come naturally, or did you attend some special martial arts class for the philosophically inclined?"

I have to admit I am a bit less interested in whatever weird stuff is going on in Grey 17. It feels a bit anti-climactic.

The thing about Marcus is that he's both a massive dweeb and very cool. He breaks the dweeb/cool scale at both ends. And I found Neroon's grudging respect very enjoyable as well.

[alexanderwales]

Pitchposting: The Waves

Here's the logline: a hero flits between universes where everything is different and yet all characters recur. The love interest is the same, whether she's a pirate captain, a cubicle worker, a bard, whatever. The villain is the same, whether he's a rear admiral, a corporate tyrant, or an evil overlord.

Multiverse stories are often about the path not traveled, the way that the world might be different. This would be a story about commonality, everything staying the same.

So there are some number of stories being told here, and the shape of all of them is exactly identical, all hitting the beats at the same time. A death in one means a death in the other, but our protagonist is only in one place at a time, so we see each beat only once and infer the rest. A car chase in one story is a ship chase in another. The climactic battle where soldiers crash against the castle walls becomes a climactic battle where the pirate horde smashes against the walls of a fort, and that turns into a modern cityscape where rioters smash against the walls of a towering skyscraper.

My vision here is that we do grand changes as we move between stories, only to find that everything is equivalent.

So what do you do with this? What's this sort of structure for? What cool stories or scenes does it lend itself to?

My first thought is to break it, naturally. If there are five or six realities that we're cycling through, maybe our protagonist can get just one of them onto a different track, one where fate has something else in store. I don't know how you would do this, there's this neat scene in my head where we go "all is lost -> all is lost -> all is lost -> all is ... wait, what's that?!".

My second thought is that having multiple realities moving in perfect synchronicity with each other allows for a way to really underscore a character, say something about them with thick red marker. The elemental thing that's supposed to define a tragedy is that the bad ending is something that came from within the character, right? Something that they could have stopped, if only they had been a different kind of person. The seeds of their downfall laying within them. So isn't there something nice about seeing that this is invariant? That the worlds are different, circumstances are different, but the choices are the same? You'd have to be incredibly careful with this (and the whole thing, really), because I think in constructing different parallels you might end up with something that the audience doesn't consider parallel. But it could work, layering the emotional beats on top of each other.

My third thought is what I think should have been my first thought: the story is one about mastery, coming to know and understand the rules, "winning" across all realities because of understanding, ideally with some kind of character synthesis along the way. I think this is ... well, difficult, given the rules as I've been talking about them. If there's a "twist", then it should be a twist that happens across all realities simultaneously. If there's something gained or lost, it should always have a parallel. I cannot immediately think of some clever way of breaking this system - something that the reader would understand to be clever or at least worthwhile. (I say reader, but this would be better in a visual medium.) Maybe "breaking it" in a different way is the ideal, pulling the realities into each other, swapping conceits and genres. But this, too, would take a lot of planning to pull off, and you'd need to be careful about these set pieces.

So if I were serious about this (which I'm not, this is pitchposting,) I would start out with our characters, then build some worlds around them, trying for maximum variation in those worlds. The plotting is also pretty vital, particularly the "standard" plot whether you're going to break that or not. I do really like the idea of having a single "mundane" world, a place of office buildings and stakes that are measured in lunch breaks and water cooler conversations. I want the swings to be extreme, but the parallels blindingly obvious when they're put in front of you.

To be clear, I'm not sure that this structure/gimmick could actually work. In a text medium, which is what I primarily work with, I think you'd have to spend too much time on blocking and descriptions and detail whenever you switched realities. Switching scenes can be rough even in the best of circumstances.

But it's an idea that I've had rolling around in my head, and if I can't do something with it, then I hope it can at least spark something in someone else.

[the-indigo-symphony]

I love (fiction) stories about someone finding out they're a system because there's so many different ways you can take it. Was it dramatic? Was it anti-climactic? Was it a slow realization? Were there bumps along a drawn-out journey, or was there near instant acceptance? Did they realize because they heard the voice of another headmate? Because they were diagnosed with something? Because someone else had a suspicion after some of the things they said lined up a little too closely to plurality and had to confront them about it? What if a different headmate realized before them? What if they realized before their other headmates? What if all of them realized at the same time and had different reactions? Do they tell anyone? Is anyone there for them? Is there conflict over keeping it secret, or was it understood by all that this wasn't something to share – whether that meant just for the time being, or at all? What if they can't hide it, but somehow still didn't know? Did they think all of it was normal? Did they never question it? Did they suppress or forget all of the signs? Did this only come on recently, leaving them little to recontextualize? What do they think about the future, now that their life has a new, very important factor to consider?

Endless possibilities. Endless potential. Endless entertainment!

[zones-spinterest-corner]

Oh no I’m creating another au

This time I’m just trying to incorporate my main ocs into TPC for shits and giggles as a separate storyline to my main one

First off here’s a Zone ref-ish thing, no more joy and whimsy just angst

Second off here’s some info/brainstorming doodles featuring a new guy I made purely to make Decep go through the horrors (Zone’s design and the rebellion’s name has changed but the tidbits in the doodle are the same)

Lore shit under the cut

The Scalene Rebellion is against Dub, and isn’t affiliated with the caretakers, but goes around dismantling Dub’s anti-purification systems so they can purify things easier while also giving them a little nudge* if they feel they’re dawdling for too long

*They send someone to scare the caretakers into getting a move on

They only help the caretakers because they can’t purify anything themselves

They have members all over Paradise, but their main camp is in the CubeLands, where their captain resides, and there’s a good mix of both pure shapes and corrupted shapes involved (the majority is corrupts though)

Significant members of the rebellion include:

Zone (Captain)

Decep (Captain’s right hand)

Circubit and Cyanide (the unofficial caretaker/hero duo of the rebellion)

Ajacent (the IsoceLands’ scout)

Quintagon (the PolyLands’ scout)

…Barracuda? (Joined the rebellion after his climactic revival and subsequent realisation of just how far Dub had taken the corruption and how catastrophic the effects of that ended up being, no longer wanting to be affiliated with either side)

Quintagon and Ajacent joined the rebellion due to extreme dissatisfaction of how the caretakers were handling saving the world (and also boredom in Ajacent’s case), and kind of have to live a double life until the caretakers become aware of the rebellion’s existence

God why am I already fleshing this out a whole bunch

[bonefall]

a couple of leafstar questions! 1) is the process of selecting her to be new!skyclan’s leader changed at all by the fact that brokenstar is now firestar’s travelling buddy? 2) is billyleaf sticking around as a ship, and how will it change, if at all? 3) is leafstar going to be as… notably dumb in her reactions to everything happening so far in ASC?

The list of SkyClan changes is probably longer than the list of things that are staying the same. Cultural expansions, a very different culture, unique politics, even an alternate Warrior Code. Real fans of SkyClan want them to be completely different <3

Leafstar's not an exception. I HATE canon Leafstar. Every action they've taken with her has felt absolutely awful since Firestar's Quest so I'm just overwriting her completely.

SkyClan's Leadership

The part of Firestar's Quietus where Firestar and Brokenstar actually CHOOSE who the new leader is going to be is a bit up in the air. I have the beginning and end with the rats figured out-- but the middle has been evading me.

I know that Brokenstar prefers Sharpclaw, at first. Probably because Sharpclaw is so aggressive and dedicated to the old ways.

So it makes sense that Firestar prefers Leafdapple. She's making him realize things about his own way of ruling, parts of Clan culture he's come to accept uncritically.

She straight up blows past his thought-terminating cliches;

Firestar: "You see, Leafdapple... you can't live with a paw in both worlds."

Leafdapple: "Pardon? I don't understand what that means?"

Firestar: "It means... um... hmm ._."

In the end, she's probably chosen exactly because she's not committed to bringing back the past. SkyClan has not been the Clan of Skystar for a long time. It's the Clan of Skywatcher.

It is no longer the Clan-in-the-Canopy, it is the Clan-in-the-Stones.

I feel that the first Leader and Deputy were chosen by Firestar and Brokenstar. Though Brokenstar's mind changes over the course of Firestar's Quietus, I think they ultimately still agree that there were two "sides" of SkyClan that should live in balance.

Leafstar, committed to fairness, abides this. Until Sharpclaw ultimately betrays her for The Kin. (Repeat link from above but if your eyes just popped out of your head it explains everything about how PROFOUNDLY differently I'm approaching The Kin lmaoo)

I hadn't planned explicitly for the deputy system to work a bit differently here, BUT it does also feel in line for Leafstar to decide it on a whim after regrouping. Surrounded by the remnants of her Clan, deputy having just turned half of their warriors against them, SkyClan's protector oak ripping itself off the cliffside and destroying their camp, she jumps up on top of a rock like, "Ok team, that sure was a doozy. Let's try to pick a better deputy this time 8)"

It feels better that deputies are popularly "elected," or at the very least nominated by the Clan. Might make for a nice climactic moment in a rework of Hawkwing's Journey.

Is Billyleaf sticking around?

Yes! But it's actually a bit different.

First of all, Leafstar is actually in a constellation with Billystorm and Echosong, the Cleric. Leafstar is mates with Billystorm and a partner of Echosong. Echosong is not romantically involved with Billystorm. SkyClan actually split off from the main Clans before the Cleric's Vow was codified by Larkstripe's strike. They don't have the same taboo against Clerics having mates or raising kittens.

Billystorm is also a massive himbo now lmao, I'm not a huge fan of him in-canon. I'm still reworking stuff here though-- I'm planning to change SkyClan and the Stranger into Sol's Game, a darker story diving into Sol, the Entity, and Harry, the vessel it courts.

But it's been a while and I need to revamp my old drafts, so that's on the backburner for now.

Is Leafstar going to remain an idiot?

absolutely not. christ. I Don't Rewrite Arcs Until They Are Done but if I ever produce something as brainless as "An entire society believes that a child is lying because her accused murderer says he heard her mother snoring evil manipulation plans in her sleep" then explode me to bits with 10000 pounds of nitroglycerin

instead of just having her and everyone else be dumb, it's an easy enough small change to just have Splashstar already be in power and show the beginning of his reign having gone smoothly. Everyone's desperate for RiverClan to have a leader again. Have Leafstar's bias be against ShadowClan specifically, because Heartstar's nephew Juniperclaw mass-poisoned her entire Clan.

Even before then, too. I don't like how the Erins seem to treat Leafstar as this "unreasonable" character who's usually some shade of wrong. I don't like how she just has to accept that Sharpclaw was undermining her for her own good in SkyClan's Destiny. I don't like how Dodge dragged SkyClan into his stupid conflict. Or how she went back to the Gorge after Juniperclaw's poisoning, only to be herded back by the noble Clan cats when a sudden flood makes their old home unsafe for some reason.

I don't like how she only seems to get a "win" when she's accepting or asserting that the Clans have the perfect way of life and she should resemble it more-- see the opening of AVoS, where it's strongly implied that Daylight Warriors being unable to fight to defend the camp at night was how The Kin was able to throw everyone out, and thus the practice has been abolished since then. I think these conflicts are frustrating in the way they're written and presented.

So quite frankly I'm tossing a lot of it. First and foremost, SkyClan's primary conflicts should be trying to keep its unique cultural identity. Secondary conflicts should be based around its political interactions with the other Clans at the lake, particularly ShadowClan and ThunderClan, which it shares borders with.

BB!Leafstar's personality is that she's assertive, fair, and polite. In my head I lovingly imagine her always speaking in the tone of a corporate manager trying to keep control of her team as the office goes up in flames around her. While she always tries to consider all perspectives and stay approachable to all her warriors, she's often misinterpreted as being passive-aggressive or not genuine.

In a nutshell: I am personally making sure she's not the sort of dumb she is in canon. I have a vision for this version of SkyClan.

[felassan]

Just poring over some of the new images. ◕‿◕

Combat shot, with the Ability Wheel open. Elf sword and shield Warrior Rook (cape and flowing hair!!!), Harding and Bellara fight a red lyrium ogre. Compared to early game, like here, more abilities and parts of the ability wheel are unlocked. The display advises that the ogre is vulnerable to fire damage and resistant to what looks like necrotic[?] damage, which we know is a thing (and it makes sense why that wouldn't affect darkspawn much). The purple and bronze color theme of the game is evident in the display. The bottom three icons must be Rook's current skills. The icons on the right are Bellara's, the left Harding's. I wonder if the bar at the bottom is Rook's 'special resource' bar? (the one that is Momentum for rogues) Then, in the bottom left, I guess the green bar is Rook's HP, along with notification that Rook currently has three health potions[?]. It looks like right on the d-pad consumes a health potion, while down on the d-pad could maybe be swap weapon set? We can see that both Harding and Bellara have access to a healing skill. In the bottom right, we have the option to navigate, change target, select, close and cancel.

It's interesting looking at the buttons for different skills and actions and trying to figure out what they are based on what the symbols could represent. ^^ Highlighted is a skill of Harding's called "Shred". The display advises the damage amount, cooldown time and general effects applied by that skill. It staggers enemies and looks like it sunders armor. I wonder if in this shot, the player has hovered over Shred on the wheel (purple light highlighting it, info popup on that specific skill). Then, the system helpfully auto-advises what other skills the party have right now that would make a combo with Shred (amber arrow, top skill of Bellara's being highlighted in amber) - a handy suggestion. It also explains why it makes a combo, namely that a certain effect of that skill of Bellara's combines with the sunder effect of Harding's Shred. With the symbol and name of Shred, I guess the idea is that Harding fires a shot that shreds through an enemy's flesh. :>

As for where they are fighting in.. the growths on the walls and black tentacle-looking things could be rubble and roots, but they remind me of Blight corruption in general and such as we see here, and well, there is an ogre. The gold on the floor and the shape of the gold patterns on the wall gives ancient elvhen ruins. There is also a plinth of some kind in the middle of the room. I wonder if this could be this area and battle mentioned in the Game Informer cover article:

"After a few more combat sections, including against a Frenzied sentinel, we reach the center of the temple. In there is an artifact called the Nadas Dirthalen. Bellara knows that this means “the inevitability of knowledge”. Before we can progress, a darkspawn ogre boss attacks, hitting hard with unblockable, red-coded attacks and a massive shield that you need to take down first. It is weak to fire After defeating it (it’s a climactic arena fight), Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from the pedestal, which destroys the Veil Bubble."

This ogre has a shield next to its HP-type bar and this room could feasibly be an 'arena'-like area. The plinth in the room could be the pedestal. Bellara is present at that point in the game as here, and the aforementioned temple is an ancient elvhen space.

Btw, Bellara's backpack is so cute.

Harding's party icon has her staring off to the distance, scout-like, ever looking forward, while I feel like Bellara is looking into my soul!

Combat shot. Mage qunari Rook, Bellara and Neve. The Ability Wheel is not opened. It looks to me like Rook here has the same overcoat on as qunari Rook here. The party are fighting red lyrium darkspawn. In the bottom left, the possible 'change weapon' button has a different symbol; where previously it was a sword and shield because warrior Rook, here it looks like a staff (for mage Rook). At the bottom, in the possible 'Rook's special resource' bar, where previously in the prior shot it was empty, for this shot it looks to be fully charged. (and here it would be mana as Rook is a mage)

It looks like a meteor has just struck the earth, sending darkspawn flying. Rook, here a mage, has an ability where its symbol looks like an asteroid or meteor. I think this Rook has just cast the new spell Meteor, which was mentioned in the June 14th Discord Q&A:

"Fireball and Cone of Cold do not specifically return as spells in this game, but their successors do: Meteor and Frost Nova. These two abilities serve the exact same combat role and function as the previous two, only “with quite the glow-up”, especially Meteor. It is “so satisfying nuking a group of darkspawn with a well-placed Meteor”."

And in this screenshot, we can see why. :D

It also looks like there is a skill that can only be cast when Rook has two 'blue bubbles'-worth full on their Mana bar. And, I wonder what the purple bird symbol skill is?

To the right, next to the wagon and crates, it looks like there may be a chest we could loot. Crates and wagon left from previous Veil Jumper excursions?

The enemies here just have plain old HP bars (red color), no armor or barrier or anything on top of it. Compare the ogre in the previous shot which has an 'armor' bar with a yellow-orange color.

Location: This is Arlathan Forest. In the distance is ancient elvhen ruins and architecture, the floating rocks in areas with Fade 'warping', and trees, some which look to have the orange foliage of that area. The pink iridescent hazy light gives a whimsical feel like Game Informer described, and recalls the iridescence you see on soap bubbles. It makes me think that 'wall' of light is the edge of this particular Veil bubble. I think this shot is set in the opening four hours of the game, after the gameplay reveal video and in the section following that described by Game Informer. In the distance is the elven temple that the team are fighting towards (inside there would be Nadas Dirthalen and the ogre fight).

One question I have is is what is the blue orb thing in the distance, just beyond the fiery arc of the meteor? A piece of ancient elven tech? Part of how Veil Jumpers navigate around?

To reach it, we must remove the floating rock rings, and Bellara’s unique ability, Tinker, can do just that by interacting with a piece of ancient elven technology nearby

I wonder if this orb thing is one of those pieces of tech Bellara can perform tinker on. ^^

Combat shot. Human rogue rook and Harding fight in the streets of Minrathous in the opening section of the game. Look at the water effects of raindrops hitting the ground, and the reflections!! They are fighting demons, which are redesigned in this game. You can see the raw veins of their exposed 'nervous systems'. Maybe these are what Shades look like now? ^^ their lil swords are new.

Looking at the arrangement of five skills in this shot and the last one, I wonder if the button on the bottom left is the 'auto-attack' one? Here it's just some arrows (archer Rook), in the previous shot with mage Rook it looks like it could be a mage staff or a mage staff in the process of doing a basic attack.

In the upper background in the center of this picture, that blue light icon is the Inquisition hairy eyeball. What does this indicate? The critpath we need to follow to progress?

The vases and hanging pots make this street feel lived in. The height of the buildings and slant of them make the streets feel closed-in and claustrophobic. It's a neat vibe, living in Minrathous if you aren't one of the upper classes probably feels quite hemmed in and oppressive like that.

The team has taken the lore and art direction seriously and with care, you can tell. :) down to things like the shape of Tevinter doorways and the shape and red glow of Tevinter windows. It's very cool!!

Arlathan Forest, known from a file name. Qunari Rook (looks like a mage), Bellara, and Emmrich explore an overgrown ancient elvhen ruin. Beautiful golden light, sun dapples and beams through leaves, branches or vines hanging down, crumbling cobbles, broken walls, the shiny gold patterning and curving shapes and arches of ancient elvhen architecture (even the cobbles were laid in curves). This shot is beautiful, the game looks beautiful. ^^ I'm so looking forwards to exploring ancient elven places in this game and finding out more elf lore, and I can't wait to hear what insights and thoughts Bellara has to offer in these locales. Emmrich looks so polite here hh.

In the foreground is a statue of a hart or halla. As with here, it looks to be an asset from DA:I (example of one in Ghilan'nain's Grove in that game).

Arlathan Crater, known from a file name. A beautiful scenic shot, no party visible. (If Photo Mode does indeed end up being a thing in this game.. think of the potential :D) Ancient elven ruins and two halla, in a way that reminds me of the elven ruin Bellara appears in during the character trailer.

Mage qunari Rook, Davrin (yayy!!) and Bellara. I'm sounding like a broken record here but just look at all the fine details. Scratches on Davrin's shield, detailing on clothes like textures, patterns and stitches.. how cool Rook's staff is (could this staff be a Warden mage staff? the feathery design reminds me of Davrin's Warden griffon shield), Bellara's many pouches, the magical particle effects lighting up Bellara's gauntlet-bow. ^^ The team here are in some dark, overgrown, ominous and twisted looking place, and they are threatened again by the red lyrium darkspawn. To the right of Bellara's head and behind her bow, you can see pustules of Blight/Taint corruption. It also looks like there is a lantern near Bellara's head hanging from a post, a lantern with grey metal wings. Maybe this shot was taken in a Warden locale, like the outskirts of Weisshaupt or something?

A beautiful shot of Bellara using her magical gauntlet. Comparing the vegetation here (with the red patches) to that in the 'two halla' shot, it looks like this shot is also taken in Arlathan Forest / Crater somewhere. I wonder if this shot shows Bellara in the middle of using her ability "Tinker"? She's looking at something and the gauntlet is lit up like its magic is interacting with something.

[nicnevans]

Hey! GW2 fandom!

I'm semi-new here, though (since you guys seem friendly) a few of my screenshots and doodles have done the rounds so my characters might not be entirely unfamiliar to you. Anyway, I want more GW2 on my dash! with some caveats due to being New TM I'm looking for folks to follow who;

post a fair bit of GW2; other games and fandoms in the mix is fine, I myself am pretty multifandom over here (I don't have the braincells to separate everything out lmao)

have a spoiler-tagging system I can reference; I've just finished HoT and I'm absolutely not rushing through GW2's storyline (experience has taught me that the best way to enjoy an MMO is slowly) If you don't have a spoiler tagging system but still wanna chat, that's also great! hmu I wanna interact and meet the fandom! I just don't wanna hit a spoiler for content that, to most other people, is ancient lmao

I'm especially interested in seeing fanworks, whether you're a creator of them or a chronic reblogger. I miss the good old days of tumblr when my dash was 90% peoples' fanart and OCs and everyone hyping each other up 🥺

A bit about me (and my characters)

I'm not a single-fandom blog. My blog runs mostly on a queue, and in that queue goes basically everything I enjoy with anything cool that crosses my dash in between.

I'm a Millennial TM. I make Millennial TM jokes (puns) like my life depends on it. I'm sorry. I can't change.

I post art over on @ilmhist sometimes. Doodles and portraits and such. (That's also the blog I like/follow from.)

I have... a lot of OCs. A lot. My OC page is packed and in a constant state of "oh god I still need to write so-and-so's bio..."

idk how to play GW2 I'm just here for the blorbosis, I'm certifiably Bad At It and I die constantly. This has become a character trait for my comm, it's a running joke at this point that he never walks away from a fight under his own strength, he's always getting carried or dragged out when it's all said and done.

I'm... kind of obsessed with sylvari. I support everyone who has brainrot for the other races and I'd love to hear thoughts on them, I just have none, it's all plant people all time in my one singular braincell.

(pictured above, left to right: Duilliche (main comm), Callainn, Lusanaisig, Dreaghann)

These lil guys are my current pride and joy. Lus and Drea are twins, but all four of them awoke during different times of the same day, and (mostly) had connected Dreams. Cal is the odd one out in this, she never got a Wyld Hunt and her calling in life is much more mundane than the others, but she sort of gets swept along with them anyway. Her running gag is that, for one reason or another, she never seems to make it to the Big Climactic Fight at the end of any given journey. Dill is very much in the wrong genre and should have been a Disney prince. He even sings. He also has a godawful sense of direction and if left in charge of Leading The Group, he will blithely lead the group in circles for hours. As is evident, they're season-coded. Autumn, winter, spring, summer. I thought it was a fun idea for a group of sylvari sharing a plotline :>

This post is getting really long. Okay, so, intro done, like/reblog/comment/something if you post GW2 and I can avoid spoilers if I follow you, if I can't avoid spoilers if i follow you feel free to drop me a message or something if you want?