#college critical

[helleboresoul]

greatest rivalry in exandria

[frownyalfred]

“This fic would be better if—” babe this isn’t your high school English class and my fic isn’t assigned reading. it’s something a stranger wrote on the internet without an explicit request for constructive criticism or suggestions for improvement. you are not grading my smut fic on a rubric (I hope).

if you cannot consume writing without needing to criticize it, that’s a you problem. stop leaving me these kinds of comments — and if you DO: for god’s sake, please make sure you’re actually objectively correct about the criticism you’re leaving.

[autisticrosewilson]

While we're on the topic of De-aging AU's I wanna talk about Jason and Damian if Jason was 14 again real quick.

Do you guys think that Damian looks at this version of Jason, so different from the version he knows, nothing like the person he was told Jason was, and feels uncomfortably seen?

Damian was always told that Jason died because he was reckless, because he disobeyed orders, he was fired as Robin and he got himself killed. A cautionary tale, not a threat to his position. He dismisses Jason because Bruce does, because Dick does, because sometimes even Babs and Alfred do.

That's not the kid that he's looking at now. This Jason is happy, and smart, and full of love that has not yet soured into grief. He hangs on Bruce's every word, trains until his hands bleed and his body gives out to perfect the moves Bruce teaches him. He looks at Bruce with stars in his eyes and he calls him dad.

And Damian can't help but think, that this is the perfect Robin. The perfect son. And if Jason - sweet, loving, strong, Jason - can be fired, can die and have his room locked away and his pictures torn down, can have his last memory as Robin be as A Good Soldier, how could the rest of them ever compete? What could Damian do to stand a chance?

Jason will never grow out of the shadow of Robin, like the rest of them did. As long as Bruce, and Dick, and Babs, and Alfred look at him and see a dead kid who came back wrong, he will never get to be anything else. He will not get to be looked at through who he is now without the shadow of a dead boy looming over him.

And the worst part? Jason is exactly the same person he was back then. Bitter, sure, angry, justifiably, but he is still the boy with too much love in his heart and righteous fury festering in his gut. He is exactly the same boy who threw himself in front of an explosion to save his mother.

(The lines between the mother that betrayed him and the father that disgraced him are so very blurred. Fire or blade or crowbars or fists it does not matter. It ends the same way it always does because Jason Todd always dies, in every universe, in every timeline, Jason dies and crawls out only to be killed again and again and again.)

[tea-cat-arts]

Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will

[bingsoo-jung]

To help folks out with this whole convo about Harrowings and circles.

So canonically it’s been around 12 years since all circles were abolished in game. This was after Rivain’s circle was annulled and the mages decided to rebel. After they were abolished it took at least 2 years for any new circles to be put up. During which, almost harrowings took place.

Now, in DAI, no matter what, circles are then put back up, HOWEVER mage colleges are then created across all of Thedas. Canonically this is where most mages post-rebellion would’ve finished their education as most mages decided to rebel. Furthermore, while circles are put back up, no matter what those circles are being led by Vivienne, who states time and time again, in game, that most circles were not as bad as that of Kirkwall or Kinloch hold, and that that’s how she wants her circles to be. She believes in mages being able to come and go from circles with ease. Vivienne is actually incredibly reasonable when talking about her vision for the circles. She thinks that mages need to be educated, and that they need to be kept apart from the general population because of how dangerous magic can be, but she also fundamentally believes that they should be allowed to come and go at ease. She doesn’t believe that people should be killed willy-nilly or lack basic human rights.

There is no reason to think that 12 years after DAI that people would be constantly put through incredibly traumatic harrowings when literally every option on the table as stated in DAI, is against that as an option. The idea that all the circles would still be like Kirkwall and Kinloch were 20 years later, despite there having been, once more, a giant ass mage rebellion, is wild. Kirkwall and Kinloch were like that not because of the mages, but because of Templar and Chantry abuses of power. However, all instances of the circles and colleges that can exist, are being led either by people who are mages, and believe that mages are people who shouldn’t be killed for being mages. No one, from Vivienne, to Cassandra, to Leliana, to Fiona, approves of that idea.

There’s also the fact that pre-mage rebellion circle’s are also specifically talked about in game. At length. There’s a whole long ass side mission about the annulment of rivain’s circle. It’s

But long story short, there is no reason for anyone under the age of 32-37, to have experienced a harrowing. Harrowings even pre-mage rebellion, often were conducted when the mage was 20-25, any younger than that was considered early. 20 is about the minimum age they harrow someone, so if your Took was a teenager during DAI? Yeah, they probably weren’t harrowed. If they were in their early 20s? Also probably not harrowed. And while yes, your mage’s life would’ve changed quite a lot their continuing education as a mage would’ve been in a world where they were allowed to choose to not be harrowed. Because most mages post-DA2 would’ve not been harrowed.

This is not some insane abandonment of lore, that’s a normal conclusion that requires a handful of minutes of thinking about everything we were told about the consequences of the mage rebellion in DA2. I’m begging people to just like… calm down for a few seconds and like… think? Please?

[revvethasmythh]

obsessed with the fact that ludinus continues to talk even after orym very much stabs him in the throat. you know those bits where people are dramatically dying and they just keep monologuing, even though it doesn't make sense? him

[gorgynei]

chetney does his best to help imogen with math when theyre working together (at ihop) (graveyard shift warriors)

[g1ngerbeer]

a couple modern au perc'ahlia shitposts

[biggest-vi-defender]

“vi is dumb/illiterate.”

she literally quotes english literature/poetry (“oil and water”, “inking poison in your ear”) and enjoys reading books, please be fucking fr lmao. 😭

[callahanisms]

a small note before today's episode of slocg airs: i want people to not forget the way taylor weaponized white woman tears against bela.

just because taylor's a woman, queer, and has issues doesn't mean she's absolved from racism—which is what the narrative seems to think. it's actually a very common thing, as if these other marginalized identities and personal issues makes racism moot. i hope that from here out, they actually address this issue rather than lean into the dangerous narrative that woc should adjust their emotions and responsibilities to the comfort of white women—especially in the current american political climate.

s2 rejected the notion that black women should cater their emotions and responses to white tears especially at a pwi. s3 should allow bela the same thing.

and if you ship bela and taylor, i think you're weird. because why are you shipping bela with a white woman who actively caused harm against her? please be more critical. if bela is to have a queer awakening it should not be with a racist character like taylor.

[willowbirds]

I don’t normally do doodles while the episode is going, but I am UNWELL RIGHT NOW!

[grayintogreen]

I’m so glad Grog is handling the divorce worse than the actual kids.

[marblerose-rue]

click for better quality!

requests from twitter ^_^

adderfang, goosefeather, dawnpelt

crowfeather, heathertail, frostpaw, sandynose

[jesncin]

Spirit World nitpick but I do think it matters. Xanthe always refers to John as "Constantine" as if they're contractually obligated to say his surname like it's his registered superhero name when it's just his name. Why can't they ever refer to him as "John"?

A really weird side effect to the superhero-ification of John Constantine and making his surname essentially his hero title is that in stories like this, it accidentally and definitely unintentionally enforces a racist and sexist dynamic to how you refer to other characters in the story. Cassandra Cain is called either "Batgirl" or "Cass", but never "Cain". Xanthe Zhou is called "Xanthe" but never "Zhou". In a story where Johnstantine is the token white guy, it's kinda weird that he's the only one consistently referred to by his surname.

It even continues into the Pride comic the two appeared in. I know it can be argued that Xanthe is referring to John this way because he's older, but it's not consistent with how they've referred to other Asian adult or elder characters in Spirit World. It also makes it harder to buy that John and Xanthe are friends when they're not even on a first name basis. Idk, I think it would be cute if Xanthe had familial honorifics for John in some way or a cultural nickname. Make it fun outside of calling John "old man" all the time. Where's the imagination.

[ts-crit]

All the sanders sides fans who were around at like the HEIGHT of the fandom I’m talking like sweating while waiting for part 2 of Accepting Anxiety to drop I need you help me out

I need every single fandom controversy that you can think of documented here on this post or sent to me in my asks or dms I’m trying to reminisce the old sanders sides drama to my friends 💀

I know for a fact I don’t have all of it but I distinctly remember:

- The unsympathetic!Patton drama

- That one long post with all bunch of the popular fanders about how “if you think we’re a perfect fandom then you are very misguided”

- I feel like there was SOME kinning drama that was swept under the rug

But yeah please add or shoot me an ask or something just like any like wild posts/blogs/whatever you remember

[aeoris4lovers]

the quiet tragedy of verin being the one who never quite made it out.

for most of their lives, essek was the one who was entrenched in expectations, in the politics of their den. while verin was stationed far from the heart of the dynasty, ostensibly free from the eyes of his elders, essek was sitting beside their mother in court and speaking before the queen. and it made sense, because essek had always been better at all of it — the posturing, the sweet-talking, the ladder-climbing. his brother the black sleep was still his brother the prodigy; his brother the heretic was still his brother the shadowhand.

but then, essek meets new people and they get through to him and change him and make him softer, make him better (and why them? what is it about them, that they could do what verin never could?) and he runs. he gives up the title and the status and the power and leaves it all (leaves verin) behind.

suddenly, verin is the lone newsoul of den thelyss, the one with all eyes on him, with the expectations meant for two brothers falling squarely on his shoulders and only his in the absence of their other target. he is still the youngest of his den, the one they all watch and wait to be disappointed by, but there is no one to share that burden with anymore and all at once it becomes painfully clear that distance never really was freedom.

essek has a family, then — not a den but a family, with love and trust and care and warmth and all the things essek once called verin childish for craving — and a welcoming home to go to with someone who loves him waiting there and a garden in the front yard, and verin is left still fighting demons under the banner of a god (of a family, of a home) he only half-believes in.

and maybe they see each other more often then. maybe bazzoxan is remote enough that it’s safe for essek to visit in disguise. maybe essek’s friends come too and are kind enough to offer a taste of what essek has now and verin can almost believe it’s his too. maybe essek doesn’t even fight it anymore when verin insists on hugging him. but how much can that really fix? how much can it really change?

an unloved man leaves no one behind when he finally makes a better life for himself, but essek was never an unloved man. not really.