#depressing cat game

[ballsalsda]

Lets revive the cats are liquid fandom... Together

[lotus-pear]

nothing can best the bond between a boy and his cat (ref)

[pininiu]

Been looping the menu song on seekL and the bonus track after getting all the endings cuz it’s so good (elimf is my bestie now btw)

I think I drew the wrong fanart though

Something something cable management

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[greywitchproject]

Thg kids

[Johanna, Annie, Finnick, Prim, Katniss, Peeta]

[skellydun]

I just want someone to show me a house and say this is yours now congrats ! instead of making the most indecisive non-opinionated person make a big ass decision

[moeblob]

Look, I just think it's VERY funny and on brand that I thought of an entire premise of colorful characters for half the cast and immediately drew the only one void of color.

[mdoesitmatter]

I think, Andreil™️ chose the cats based on how ugly they were in a shelter. I can see Andrew walking into that place and pointing at the cat that makes everyone go what the actual fuck is that. And Neil just rolled with that.

One of them has to be black, have bold spots, chipped ear, always pukes randomly after eating too much dust in her hiding spot + the other one is orange, old, half blind, sheds like crazy and is very vocal. Both of them absolutely despise Kevin and unconditionally love chewing houseplants.

[minakoshoe]

Happy birthday to one of the greatest video games ever made

[ministarfruit]

comfy catsudan, thank you!

[maskenwelt]

„If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lay with me and just forget the world?“

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

[morgana-artt]

That's it, I'm taking P, Romeo and Sophia (and a few others) with me, we're gonna live in a nice house and be loved and NO ONE is going to hurt them. Old man Geppy can back off 🤺🤺 and Simeon too 🤺

Everyone's happy, no ones hurt or in pain and everyone is petting the cat >:(!!!

[introvert-celeste]

Welp, I can safely say that October and Halloween have been ruined for me. I envy everyone who can actually look forward to the festivities because my heart is just not in it this year :/

[stellaclaw]

1, 5, and 24?

1. the character everyone gets wrong

frecklewish oh my goooood. i hate the woobification of frecklewish so bad. let my girl be angry. i am so passionate about her angry grief and cycles of regret i literally wrote a fic about it She Is My Angel!!!!

besides her, theres obvious candidates like nightcloud, crowfeather, and gray wing

5. worst discord server and why

i fear ill see a stupid take and seethe about it so i actually dont use fandom discord servers lol. i am free.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

theres a lot to pick from. the first and most obvious is mapleshade. that well was poisoned by a video that came out a while ago. crowfeather and his relationships also tend to have abuse apologists crawling out of the woodwork to defend their emo sadboy. from what i hear mentioning gray wing sucks on twitter is like dropping a live grenade.

my pick for #1 though is people earnestly arguing about the politics of the series. at least when i see a stupid take about gray wing i can tell myself its people misremembering the book. when people are arguing that disabled people are a burden on society or that its morally okay to socially outcast people for breaking the law, i feel myself actively withering inside.

[pynkhues]

I'm the anon talking about Louis's eating. I agree that his eating is probably still disordered. But eating disorders are not necessarily going to cause you to lose or gain weight. I agree with your thoughts that there is a ritualistic element in his eating in Dubai that probably indicates an unhealthy relationship with his food still. It's so interesting to think about. I want to know about the farm too! One of my favourite things about Louis is his hypocrisy. When I hear "farm" I find it hard to think it can possibly be ethical.

(x)

Very true, anon, I actually was thinking earlier too that better eating would probably have less of an impact on Louis at this point (given he's off the street rat diet at least and Lestat's the one now on it) than having to presumably fend off hoards of vampires, haha. In theory though, their physicalities can't and won't change all that much since they've been turned, of course - that's even part of the trauma of it all for both Claudia and soon Gabrielle with the new season - so in a lot of ways it probably is a bit of a moot point to discuss.

And yes! I love Louis' hypocrisy too, I feel like it's often a part of characters, but usually for the nature of plot, whereas the writers really lean into it as just being a part of his personality. Same with him being a snob / enjoying wealth - I mentioned it briefly in the last post, but I'm kind of obsessed with him getting Daniel to watch him eat like, this exotic animal after talking about eating rats and feral cats? It's such a pointed way to demonstrate both class elevation but also just a complete show of both wealth and power.

But then, his access to blood in the way that he consumes it is too, which ties back into what, exactly, the farm is. I totally agree with you that there's no way that it can be ethical, but whatever it is - - I am just. Very Curious to find out, haha.

[orange-foxes]

we might be hollow (but we're brave) by stttmsbwa @clubbingattheclub

Length: 41k

Andrew is looking to live his life in peaceful nothingness, but his new neighbor's cat won't stop sneaking onto his balcony. As much as he tries to not make it into something, Andrew finds himself drawn to the mysterious and tempting man next door. Neil is just trying to find a reason to not leave Palmetto after everyone else has moved on. But he never thought he would want to run toward something in favor of running away. (In a slightly different world, two people find themselves meeting in a softer setting and in just as much need of each other. A story about dealing with pasts, sharing secrets and a cat who is an asshole yet manages to charm everyone around it.)

Ao3, Chaptered, Completed