#gentrifying

[theonion]

Vehemently refuting the suggestion she was contributing to the displacement of the neighborhood’s current residents, local woman Ellen Fuller told reporters Monday that technically she was gentrifying the land of the Potawatomi people. “You say this was a historically marginalized neighborhood, which is strange, because all I see is indigenous land,” said the 30-year-old asset manager, who rolled her eyes and clutched her coffee cup, reportedly exhausted from the effort of once again having to assume the role of educator.

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[gongyussy]

the bear is a comedy

[intheholler]

[chewytoothmeats]

Miami Miku! ¡Azúcar!

[seeker-ophelia]

Ophelia’s Review, Part Two: Thedas, The Dragon Age System

Some things I need to get off my chest.

One. This does not feel like a Dragon Age game.

Two. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it.

Three. I have a lot of feelings right now but I’ll come back when my brain has re-hydrated itself.

(I finished Veilguard at 10PM on Monday, and wrote this the morning after. And its still true, 5 days later.)

TLDR at the bottom

[Read Part 1 Here]

I do miss the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events games.

[Photo Cred: Dumped, Drunk & Dalish]

Because Veilguard is missing all of that.

Listen, it’s good. Great even. I loved it. Cried. Laughed. Dropped my controller and paced around the room for 5 minutes in anger and angst. Drank a bottle of wine in the bathtub after Solavellan’s happy ending (and my Rooks sad one). But this is not a Dragon Age game.

It is Dragon Age ADJACENT. Similar of course. The backbone is there. The direction, the vector, is there. But the execution…

Dragon Age (Origins through Inquisition) for me, was A Song of Ice and Fire. I love that series.

It was deep. It was harsh. It was MEAN. If offered me hope and then snatched it away. The world-building, the lore crafting, was intense and deep and required attention and critical thought. The characters were nuanced and troubled and real.

Veilguard, for me, is Eragon.

I also loved that series. It is pure and good and takes me on a journey through a fantastical land of dragons and heroes, of good versus evil, of mysteries and magic. But, it is juvenile. Its simple. It doesn’t try to be anything other than it is. Veilguard, is shallow.

The essence is there, beneath the surface Veil, pressing and bursting at the seams to escape, but is being held back by a gentrification of Thedas, the Tranquility of the Dragon Age world, if you would.

The Lore

I don’t want to go into to much about it (its going to be its own post, I think), but I love the lore of Dragon Age. I love learning about it. I love the questions, the pervasive theme that history is only as true as the historians who write it; things get lost, muddled, confused through and over time. And Veilguard, kind of feels like I’m being spoonfed? Like I’m a baby.

I think EA did BioWare a disservice by making this game for new players, instead of assuming that RPG players have the intelligence and wherewithal to comprehend at least a little bit of lore and history, or at the very least, introduce a cannon world state. You can have your cake and eat it to, but, as Veilguard shows, it diminishes the quality of the cake as a whole.

This game is an Action RPG. This is a game about combat. For the record, the first, second, third, 17th time I saw my Rook in their Takedown Animation, I said, out loud, ‘Dragon Age, G.O.T.Y.’ I swore at my inability to time dodges properly, I planned and schemed with primers and detonators and damage types. This is very reminiscent of The Witcher and Assassins Creed, for me (I have not played a ton of games, im sure there are others more like it). It was fun, it was challenging. But. This is not Dragon Age. Its Something Else™.

Dragon Age: Dark Origins

When people say Dragon Age is a dark game, they’re not talking about the gameplay, or the graphics, or the art direction.

Dragon Age deals with dark subject matter. Slavery. Racism. Religion. Politics. Power dynamics. Mages versus Templars. Addiction. Death. War. An unstoppable contagion that deals death indiscriminately. THAT’S what makes Dragon Age Dark.

These stories are deep. They’re hard. And yeah, they weren’t always handled properly (lookin’ at you, Gaider), but doing something wrong… looks like it might actually be better than pretending it doesn’t exist.

As a Sollavellan, I’m unspeakably glad they didn’t yassify Solas. He is still an unlikable character who has committed unspeakable war crimes. And we got a redemption arc that did not end in death. That’s a win for me.

But they kept his darkness at the expense of lightening literally EVERYTHING ELSE in Thedas.

What the fuck happened to Zevran’s Crows? I got the Puss-in-Boots-Found-Family Assassin Agency.

Where are the slaves in Minrathous? Where’s the trip to the upper city, gilded and clean, so we can compare it to the slums of Dock Town (which was not bad at all). Where is the “Rescue the Rabbits” Quest? Tevene Politics boils down to Dorian or Mave, “bad” or “good,” change from within, or power to the people.

The whole Qunari are just Bad™ now? The Antaam warriors turned into… what the fuck is even that? You know the advertising theory where women’s bodies are shown but not their heads or faces? This feels like that. Giant Grey Muscular Powerful Bodies with NoFace. THAT’S the Antaam? The Tamassrins really eliminate every embodiment of individuality from them? They’re just Storm Troopers?

And ‘Thal’enaste, what a lost plot thread to not have Lace and Solas meet in the deep roads, or Kal-Sharok, or fucking anywhere. Instead, you give her one little blurb of “companion banter.” Weak.

Where’s the racism towards the Elves? What happened to that? What happened to Dark Thedas? Oh, its actually all in the South, and thats destroyed now (lets put a pin in that for a minute).

The Companions

I have written and re-written this section 3 times. Its too long. I don’t need to mention them all. How to summarize them.

If you read my part 1, you’ll remember how I fell in love with Dragon Age 2, years after its release (after playing Inquisition, in fact), and how I fucking hard I fell for those very real, very troubled, very nuanced characters.

Anders and his quest for freedom, Fenris and his quest for vengeance. Merrill and her quest for knowledge, Isabella and her quest for… other cultures relics, I guess?

I hated the graphics in 2. It was the characters that carried that game. I don’t know how BioWare wrote them, but they failed to do that in VG.

My favourite character in Inquisition? Surprisingly, its not Solas. Its not even Cole, or the Iron Bull, or Dorian.

Its Cassandra.

I love her. Her story is SO complex. Her devotion to the Seekers, to the Andrastian Faith, is so pure, yet it does not impede her friendship with a Dalish elf who believes in gods that she does not. It does not stop her form forming close bonds with other people from different backgrounds, and although she is fearless in calling out the darkness in her own faith, its sins and its rot, she admits to her Herald that she is envious of the Heralds conviction.

Which character in Veilguard has that nuance?

The necromancer afraid of death? The Elvhen Engineer with ADHD? The literal Demon of Vyantium Puss-In-Boots? The smirking detective? The questioning Qunari? Or the gruff monster daddy?

Listen. I read trash. Smut, romantasy... I read objectively bad literature, for fun, all the time. And, I have a fantastic imagination. It is my own personal fleshing out of theses characters that saved me in this game.

But I should not have had to do that.

The Keep

I cannot explain to you, in words, how important those one-off codices and cameos are.

(Don’tThinkAboutIsabela Don’tThinkAboutIsabela Don’tThinkAboutIsabela).

*Grimaces* Okay.

I can speak no more about this. I am already writing a “Keep” DLC for Veilguard.

I would have rather lived in your world state than this abomination. Which leads me to…

‘The Soft Reboot’

So. The South is Gone. That’s the answer. The Hero of Ferelden. Hawke and their siblings. Everything is wiped clean, just as EA asked. All of the South, turned to the Hissings Wastes and the Anderfels, because of the Blight and the hubris of the Gods. What a tragedy. DA5 looks likes its overseas. Cool.

You know what would have been a better reboot?

Spite, taking over Lucanis’ body, walking through the Ossuary, or the catacombs of Minrathous, explaining to Rook how the heavy emotions of People manifest in the fade. The birth of a spirit. Or a demon.

Taash, meeting a spirit face to face in Arlathan, recoiling in disgust, until they help the spirit on its journey, and Taash begins to question their whole worldview surrounding demons. I- I mean spirits.

Emmerich, taking Rook on a lecture-walk through the fade, meeting spirits, solving puzzles, ‘you know, its not so bad in here, what’s the big deal?’

Bellara, instead of discovering Cyrian only to lose him, meets the demon formed of his death, and how to help him back into a spirit.

Neve, following a trail of wisps in the fade, learning things, memories, feelings, songs. Neve, reveling in the pure beauty of the wisps, until they lead her to Vir Dirthara, and her eyes grow wide, what is this place?

Davrin and Assan, after hard training in the High Anderfels, take a break, and while Rook and Davrin flirt, or joke, Assan finds a long string, and begins to play, the string growing and lengthening and thickening until a soft, feminine whisper fills the air, I Am So Sorry… And Rook and Davrin meet a strange spirit, a perfect combination of protection and regret, and they help her find her way home.

Harding, palms flat on the stone, pushing, working, threading her magic into a titan, tilting her face up to Rook, eyes shining blue, speaking in a thousand voices at once, let me show you what was lost, and for a millisecond, we FEEL Isatunoll.

The Dwarvhen was tranquil’d from their Memories, but the Elvhen were tranquil’d from the Fade.

And when Solas turns from Rook in Minrathous, I am sorry for this final betrayal, he is puzzled at the lack of retaliation, and turns to see the Veilguard, standing behind Rook, eyes locked on the giant eye-shaped rift in the sky.

Why are you not stopping me? He asks the group of misfits.

And Rook answers, I can admit when I was wrong. Tear it the fuck down.

And Solas, battered, bruised, and bloody, smiles, brandishes his ritual dagger with a flashy flip, banishes the blight, and tears down the Veil.

When I learned there were only going to be 3 choices carried over from the rest of the series into Veilguard, I tagged my complaint posts with something.

#You Cannot Dangle A Carrot In Front Of Me For 10 Years And Then Not Be Surprised At My Anger In Discovering It Was A Painted Dowel

Let me reiterate. I enjoyed this game. It was fun for me. I’m in the middle of my second playthrough and am planning a third, and a fourth. But this is NOT a Dragon Age game.

This is an EA game. And its good. But it could have been everything.

Bellanaris.

TLDR;

How torn I feel; lobotomized, rendered tranquil, separated from the memories, lore, and spirits, of the old Dragon Age, while still, like the Veilguard, wanting this world to endure.

Var lath vir suledin, BioWare.

For now.

[piropoi]

Perona behaving badly in Mihawks gay little castle

[punkeropercyjackson]

Hobie Brown just looks like Percy Jackson as an animated character but y'all not ready for that

[padawansuggest]

I don’t have anything against a mullet but I’m so fucking angry right now and you guys need to stop. You don’t KNOW what a mullet is and you’re insulting them by constantly saying Obi-Wan ever had one.

A mullet is a specific hairstyle where you cut the top of the head into a short style, while letting the back grow long. Obi-Wan never had that. He literally didn’t. He just hadn’t had a haircut in a long ass time. ‘Oh but the back was def longer’ IT WASNT YOU JUST HAVE BAD EYESIGHT AND COULDNT SEE THE LAYERS THAT SHOW THE HAIR IS ALL GROWING AT THE SAME LENGTH AS THE TOP OF HIS HEAD

Here we can see that the top of his head has hair about 3 inches long (guesstimate, but my guess is also that all of it’s the same length so that doesn’t change much I promise) which means if I’m right, it should all be only about 3 inches in the back as well.

‘But Bam, it’s clearly all down to his shoulders in the back-‘ it’s not. Sit it’s really not. Thing is????? Copper hair is a light hair colour, and it blends into itself very well. This is good because it acts as it’s own highlight so it can hide any layering you have done to thin it or make it look fuller than it is.

He has THIN hair. He has a full head of it, don’t get me wrong, but that is THIN hair. I am the queen of hating long hair and getting short cuts and having hair so thin you can see the light through it even from a distance like in the first pic over his left shoulder.

If you zoom into the second pic these are the layers you can see. You can see these little long wisps that come to a curling point, and guess what!! That’s a new layer!

Also his hair is a natural wave, which means if you look you can def find them because naturally wavy hair will try and ( against your head at the end.

He doesn’t have a mullet. You don’t know what a mullet is. You haven’t lived that life so stop saying it’s a mullet, he just hasn’t had a haircut in a while. You are insulting mullets by saying this is a mullet. I have nothing against mullets I love them, but stop.

[communistkenobi]

I’m sure there’s a term for this, but in the same way homonationalism describes the process of using the guise of lgbtq rights to further western imperial aims, something similar happens with gentrification - I walk down gentrified streets and all the small business owned shops have gay pride stickers in their windows, often with explicit attention called to being trans inclusive

[socialistexan]

Very interesting trend I've been noticing.

Conservative Californians have been moving to the more conservative Texas in huge numbers the past I'd say 7-8 years or so and really a large reason why the state has stayed red despite trending purple before then (and why housing prices have spiked)

Now all of the conservatives born in Texas who hate seeing even a single out of state plate are moving to the even more conservative Oklahoma to get away from the "Commie-fornia Libs" who ruined their glorious conservative utopia

I guess the next step is for the conservatives born in Oklahoma to move to, idk, Wyoming? North Dakota? Florida? to get away from the Dall-assholes from the Peoples Republic of Austin who ruined their glorious conservative utopia

Anyway, my queer communist throuple is moving to the Northeast to escape all this shit.

[jhonskii]

... do you think Gideon would rock the budots dance trend before the shopping episode

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

There are some Dimension 20 campaigns that you can explain to people who haven't watched them and then there's The Unsleeping City.

[meroniichan]

i've advanced past toxic yaoi. now im at stage four lethal yaoi and im going to die

[jesncin]

How terrible and/or unloving Lex Luthor's childhood is a sliding scale with every interpretation of him. In his twisted mind he probably rationalizes that he did Conner a favor by having him never be vulnerable and small. I think no one would be more qualified than Lena Luthor to blow that idea to smithereens. Because she would have been there during the worst of their childhood; whatever you decide what 'worst' consists of.

Truly! I wanna do more Lex research because I really want to flesh out the Luthor side of Conner's family. I fee like it gets pushed to the side in hand-wavy "Don't worry Superboy you're not like him!" plots. And it leaves his thematic mixed heritage unresolved, especially since there's been stories where he tries to find the good in Lex.

The tension between them would be so much more interesting if it didn't constantly end with, "well Lex sure sucks, I'm not gonna be like him". The idea that even though Lex recognizes Conner as a means-to-an-end-chess-piece, he can't help but also impose twisted generational parental trauma on him is so fascinating to me!

Part of why I prefer having Conner move in with Lena (instead of the Kents) is that she's the missing nuance in their family story. Conner's often talking to Clark about Lex since they know each other as rivals, but imagine how much insight he could have if he talked to someone who knew Lex personally. Lena's (at least her CW Supergirl version) someone who survived much of what her brother did and didn't come out the same way. Conner would be intrigued by that, surely.

[pjharvey]

salt lake city has apparently the seventh largest lgbt population of any of the top 50 major cities in the united states and i think the main reason for this is that a lot of people here are essentially like me and multiple of my friends where they've moved to salt lake city because the homophobia in other parts of utah made life unbearable. like utah is one of the worst states in the country to be an LGBT youth specifically a trans youth, but salt lake city at least for its size and the state it unfortunately happens to be in is a pretty good place to be an LGBT adult. then as soon as you leave salt lake city people give you weird looks in public because you have a gay haircut. very interesting thing happening here

[professor-doc-emeritus]

Review of the Tumblr incel tag:

- lots of fandoms/artists doing incel aus as an excuse to draw their oc/blorbo in glasses and getting bullied, here 'incel' is more used as a synonym for 'nerd'

- women/feminists posting screenshots of incel posting and saying they want to kill men underneath them

- lots of tongue-in-cheek posts of girls posting cute selfies and going "nooooooo I'm such an incel 🤪"

-a frankly concerning amount of posts fantasizing about raping/getting raped by an incel. I'd say this is the majority of the tag by a comfortable margin.

- <1% actual incels posting incel things