#highly recommend story

[potatodotpng]

Commissioned Art of Danny From Alien Boys!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Penelope's final gambit, you will always be famous, no matter the subtext.

[raffi-cat]

wanted to do something inverted and glowy and of course it's grian

the second one is how i drew it, the first is inverted

[fluffypotatey]

okay so:

the year is 2021. the month is june. the new season of hermitcraft, season 8, has just started, and everything is great! the hermits are all messing around, having fun, building insane things within the first week of the server being active, and generally having a good time. everyone's collected themselves into little factions, pranking each other, and it's all the fun, lighthearted, mostly-vanilla content hermitcraft is known for.

and then the split between minecraft versions 1.18 and 1.19 is announced. the delay of new terrain, and especially of new mobs like the warden, considerably disrupt several of the hermits' plans. but it's fine, they'll figure something out, they're professionals, and it mostly goes unnoticed.

about two weeks later, on november 9th, grian turns to mumbo jumbo in one of his episodes, and asks the famous question that would seal hermitcraft season 8's fate:

"mumbo, is the moon... big?"

suddenly, the fans panic. they search back through videos and streams, and realize that the moon had been abnormally large and stuck in a full-moon phase since october 30th. the Moon Big event has begun.

this is where the roleplay really starts. once the moon's size has been brought up, the hermits start a weird combination of scrambling to figure out why the moon's growing, and how to stop it- but also of ignoring it, hoping it won't be a problem, hoping someone else will deal with it. the moon keeps getting bigger, more hermits start realizing it's going on, and a creeping sense of dread starts to grow. but it's fine. it's fine, right? they do little plotlines like this all the time. they'll figure something out, the moon will go back to normal, and we'll laugh about it when this is all over. it's fine.

and then, blocks start flying away. just floating up out of the ground, and falling right back down! like for a moment, a square meter chunk of dirt has decided it's a ballerina and leaped out of the ground! but it's fine, right? the blocks are coming back. no lasting harm is done. they're going to fix it all... right?

the moon gets bigger. it's growing every day- local hermit weirdguy joe hills measures it every stream. the blocks start flying higher. gravity starts getting... weird, with players getting the slow falling effect at random, and being lifted off of the earth themselves. the players form cults and rituals and whatnot to try and appease the moon, convince it to leave them alone, making plans to escape. nothing works. things keep getting worse, and the moon keeps getting bigger. but it'll be fine. these storylines never leave lasting harm, or at least they never have before. they'll be fine.

and then the blocks stop coming back, just floating into the sky forever. the players have the slow falling effect more than they don't now. the moon is now so big it's visible even during the day, and fills the entire sky at night. they start planning their escapes in earnest, and say their goodbyes. some hermits jump into a void hole in the overworld (it was the centerpiece of their village). some flee to the End, some to the nether, some just fly with elytras and hope they can get far enough away in time. one brave hermit, tango, flies himself to the moon in a futile attempt to blow the whole thing up before it can crash.

but in the end, the moon crashes into the server, and everything they'd built was destroyed. and the whole time, there'd been nothing any of them could've done. season eight was over, a full six months before anyone had expected it to end, and season nine wouldn't start until about three months later. and im still not okay about it.

(here's a cool animatic of the moon's crash! honestly i dont think you need too much hermitcraft knowledge to get the gist)

(also the moon crash happened on the day before my birthday lmao.)

….

holy shit

[mvmmoney]

if I had a nickel for every time my favorite otome game was shut down, I'd have two nickels

[triaelf9]

Wanted to share my approach to media recently that's been not only healthier on my brain, but also gives me space to create is:

This person may not tell the perfect story for me. But if they can tell a story that entertains me, that's all I need.

If I want a story perfect for me, I'll create it.

And when i don't spend hours angry online about a piece of media, guess what I then have?

OODLES OF TIME TO MAKE THE STORIES I WANT OUT THERE.

So do THAT.

[defira85]

More than a thousand innocents were killed as a result of the Absolute plot which was conceived of and executed by you, the voice said. You are of your Father's flesh, and you have consumed your Father's flesh. And finally, you have sworn a geas against your Father's worship, and in sitting upon the Throne of the Gods, have reached a point wherein you can bring about his downfall as you have pledged.

Speak it thus, and it will be done. Do you, Kassara Bhaal, claim your Father's domain for your own?

Should you succeed, you will become the Lord of Murder. Should you fail, you will be stripped of all divine powers that you have accumulated to date, never to challenge the balance of existence again.

If you become the Lord of Murder, you will be a god. You will be bound to the cosmic order of checks and balances, and your humanity will eventually be subsumed in service to your role. You will simply be Murder.

Keep Telling Me To Breath, Chapter 10

I had the distinct pleasure several months ago of commissioning @lokorum to draw Kass in her darkest timeline. It was my birthday present to me, and although my birthday is still two weeks away, I wanted to post it in time for the Patch 7 Evil Endings. I've genuinely cried over it, it's so extraordinary. Presenting Kassara Bhaal, the new God of Murder

[thatdragonzeek]

Blorbos acquired

Thank you @bamsara

[lizzybeeee]

DATV is overly reliant on Supplemental Media - especially if you are a returning player

TL;DR: Supplemental material should not be required reading in order to understand what's going on in the main game -> it's additional material that enhances what we were given. If what we were given is lacking and unable to coherently tell us a story, then the writers and those in charge did not prioritize what was important.

Not a take that's unique to Dragon Age, but one that is very relevant when talking about DATV. I've made a few posts about plot/story points that either make no sense or have been dropped entirely in the lead up from DAI to DATV. Every now and then I get a few comments or messages about how certain points I made were addressed in supplemental material released in the lead up to this games release.

This isn't a call out post, by the way! But it's frustrating, to me, that this games writing is so lacking that my understanding is being inhibited because I can't remember details from a book I read two years ago - not to mention various podcasts, comics, and short stories. My understanding of a video game in a video game series should not be reliant on additional/optional content.

DATV is a weird game in that it is absolutely a 'soft/scorched earth' reboot while also marketing itself as a continuation to what was set up in Inquisition and Trespasser. Personally, I think that if you are up to number 4 in a game series, one with a continuous story-line, it should be expected that new players won't be able to catch up to everything -> it's the game developers job to make the world and story intriguing enough that the new players will go back to previous games in the series and fill in the blanks themselves.

Veilguard, as a sequel, is overly reliant on content that comes from outside the games themselves (including DLC's) if you want to make sense of the world and story. Trespasser left us with an epilogue that set up some plot points for the next game: Solas & the Veil, the Elven Rebellion, and War with the Qun - plot points that have been built up since the time of Origins. But when we get into DATV two of these points have been dropped and resolved, off-screen.

There are more questions, but these are the ones that bothered me the most while playing the game:

What happened to the Agents of Fen'harel/ Elven Rebellion? -> answered in a cursed reddit AMA.

What happened to the Qunari following Trespasser -> addressed in Tevinter Nights, and a codex entry you can pick up (optional).

Why is Skyhold infested with demons? -> mentioned in Tevinter Nights.

How did the Dalish go from worshiping their own pantheon to knowing they are false gods? (specifically those we meet in the Veil Jumpers) -> mentioned in the Missing comic series.

What's up with Nevarra's Royals? -> Tevinter Nights addresses that there is a power struggle in the Pentaghast family and the role of the Mortalitasi in making it worse - though it does not address the whole 'mage puppeting a corpse' issue and all the implications it has.

This is a video game series -> the bulk of the information required for me to understand the story and its relation to previous entries needs to be included in the final game version. I am playing a video game and not attending a uni class - I should not need to have a required reading list in order to understand what the fuck is going on. I should definitely not need to go onto a reddit AMA to understand what happened in-game, either.

What makes this stand out the most is that DAI was very successful in tying in previous games, DLC's, movies, and books! Inquisition did a great job in getting you up to speed on the events of the previous games early on, providing personalization if you played those games, and giving the player the opportunity to inquire into these events.

Hiding away the answers in additional material or a codex entry that may be missed is not good game design or good writing. DAI didn't assume that you had bought and played the Legacy DLC -> it made certain you experienced the conversation with Varric and Hawke if you wanted to proceed in the game. It didn't hide away imperative information in codex entries - it had characters talk about it in scripted scenes and encourage the player to ask more. You would actively need to avoid interacting with characters for you to not experience this information in DAI.

Leliana talks about her role during the Blight, her calling by the Maker, and her relationship with Dorothea/Justinia -> DAO and Leliana's Song DLC.

Cullen talks about his time as a templar at Kinloch & Kirkwall -> DAO and DA2.

Cassandra speaks about her history, investigation into Hawke, and the Seekers -> Dawn of the Seeker movie, DA2, & Asunder novel.

Varric talks about Hawke, Kirkwall, and Corypheous -> DA2 and Legacy DLC.

Cole talks about how he discovered he was a 'demon' - it leads to further conversations about Rhys, Evangeline, and Lord-Seeker Lambert -> Asunder novel.

Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts -> the game literally continues what the Masked Empire novel sets up, the Orlesian Civil War. The game does a decent job of telling us about the players (Celene, Gaspard, Briala etc...) and the reasoning behind the conflict through dialogue, the ability to explore the battlefields, quests, ambient dialogue, etc... The book is not required reading - though it greatly adds to the complexity of the characters, motivations, and political intrigue!

I never once, playing DA2 or DAI, felt penalized or like my experience was lacking because I had not engaged with supplemental material or DLC's. I got into Dragon Age when I was in high school, it wasn't until I graduated and began working after that I had the disposable income available for experiencing the extra material. I cannot say that for DATV - If you have played Inquisition and go into DATV straight from that you will, absolutely, be confused about how we got from A to B.

Which is especially strange to me!? Why is it that new players will be less confused than those that are returning players? It's like the game is actively punishing you for playing and caring about previous games in the series.

Supplemental media is bought because the main product has earned your investment, love, or interest. Not everyone has the income available to buy it with their own money - especially if you live outside the US and have to pay additional shipping costs. Not everyone has the ability to buy or 'obtain' the digital versions either. My understanding of the main story of a video game in a video game series should not require additional monetary investment into other mediums.

The game itself should be enough and DATV is not enough.

[sunatsubu]

Mafia boss Hank and his #1 enforcer

I don't know why but no matter how far I got with this, I still liked the original rough more so including it under the cut

[prydon]

Juno Steel and the Things We Buried [get it here!]

I think there's a kind of fear that always comes with being in love. When letting someone else hold so much of you all at once. They could let you fall at any second if they wanted to. So how the hell do you get over that fear? Trust that they won't let you go, that they will hold you up, the same way that you hold them? And then I thought about a hotel on Mars a long time ago. A place where, to be honest, I let Nureyev fall. No wonder he was scared, no wonder I was too. But how the hell are we supposed to get past that?

[jeeliebeeliegoomiebear]

On Isolde and Many Doors (and One Key)

Thinking about Isolde and how she feels like she is constantly trapped in a small cramped room full of 1 million doors. Each door represents a presence that haunts her, an identity that lives inside her that calls to her from beyond the grave, a new mask to dawn.

If every person in the world were to have a room, most would have just one door, their own. But not Isolde.

Isolde feels like an empty vessel who is only there to serve as a point of entry for other people and their spirits. She has been forced to become so repressed by her environment, upbringing, and her nature as a medium that she finds it easy to forget herself. Her “self” is not someone she has ever been allowed to know.

The room grows increasingly smaller, claustrophobic and strangling her with pressure as the amount of doorways in it only increase, every new person she meets a new doorway she is plagued with, a new voyeur who has granted themselves full access to her life and her body. Something she is now willing to let them do. It is easier that way. Easier to let someone else command her vessel, something that never solely belonged to her to begin with. An escape from all the pressure, the expectations, the perfection demanded from her. It is something she should do. The duty of someone like her. Something to hide her wretched face from view, to give the people what they want, to uphold her family’s legacy. A performance that was never allowed to end. Each new door lead right back to that.

The only exception is Kakania. The only person Isolde believes has ever really seen her as more than a host for other identities or something to mold into shape, prop up as a set piece. A perfect lady. The star of Vienna. A tragic heroine. A dangerous hysteric witch. A curse manifested. The only one who was ever interested in finding Isolde’s door and that door alone. When she is with Kakania, a new door does not appear in that ever shrinking empty room, although at first she expects it to. For the first time she meets someone and is not greeted with a new ghost to haunt her. Not a door. But a key. A key that Isolde knows can unlock her own door, even when she herself cannot find it.

[t-u-i-t-c]

Toku Pride Month Challenge │ LGBTQ+ Characters

Ichika Sakurai

[ink--theory]

dress up game good 👍

if you happen to find me out in the wild (adding ppl manually sucks ngl) feel free to add me! :3c

[triaelf9]

Dealing with Dragons: Cimorene sketch ^_^

Been re-listening to Dealing with Dragons recently (anyone who knows me knows I will not shut up about how formative this series was for me re: many things but mostly dragons) and so I got the urge to draw Cimorene again (I sketched her like a year or so ago, but can't find it, so I thought a redesign with my new style was perfect!)

Also, my fav book reviewer (I have one of those now?? What??) Just covered the first book of the series, so if you want to check out a great reviewer AND my favorite book of all time, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMaKkwHQQKM

Not me trying to speak into existence an Enchanted Forest Chronicles graphic novel series that I get to adapt, whatttt noooo... ^_-

[the-oc-king]

Here have some Dwarf doodles, because they're so damn cute and there's not enough love for them around here