#i do have some gripes with the game

[ruairy]

.

[galedekarios]

you know what i'll be eternally grateful for?

that larian made it entirely possible to have that happy ending.

there are so many games that lead you on and that make you think you can actually save the characters you have come to care for over the course of many, many hours, that you can be a hero and live, despite it all--only for the game to pull out the rug from under you at the last second for a miserable grimdark ending that's so often seen as more 'mature' or 'realistic.'

but not here. you can have your lotr-level happy ending where everyone lives and no one dies, the people begin to rebuild what was lost, and you get to feel like it was all worth it, after all that blood and tears.

it doesn't leave you hollowed and depressed and it shouldn't feel as novel to me, but the truth is that it does.

[thefirstknife]

Hi Bel,

I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?

I don't know!

Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.

Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...

Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.

Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.

Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.

Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.

Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!

But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:

Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.

Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).

I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.

I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.

I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.

I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.

[nguyenfinity]

guess who racked up 11-12 hours on genshin today

[antirepurp]

kieran over the course of indigo disk: it's not fair that Player gets everything and i get nothing after i've tried and worked so hard to get somewhere, i want to have something this once

kieran at the end: no it's ok Player can have the legendary pokemon it's okay they have everything i want to have and i get nothing like im some kind of npc or something

[woiwais]

I have several ideas for HSR fanart but their detailed and complicated designs are making me postpone them, I have no clue how other artists do it I want to oversimplify them or just straight up change their outfits so it doesn't hurt my brain everytime I pull up the refs

[fefairys]

funniest part of posting all these homestuck book annotation quotes is people being so surprised that hussie like… understands their own story. lmao

[0fps]

really loving wuwa so far, it still lags a bit here and there but it kinda feels like it just has to marinate for a while? first 10 minutes are painful but after it seems like it has its assets cached or something and it isn't as much a problem anymore. it also looks like kuro games has been working overtime putting in patch fixes asfdjlkadfsj god speed to the devs fr

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

If there is at least one thing I can credit FE for doing better than Tales in localization, it's not trying to actively go out of their way for an entire game to avoid subtext or direct text between two men that is romantic or implied romantic. Funny when it's so present that the attempt doesn't even work; infuriating that it was attempted to begin with.

So as much as I often have issues with some of FE's localizations, at least they have a leg up on loc Tales for that.

[enlichened]

i will say i have some GRIPES with fallout (the tv show. and in general) but its really capturing some specific horrors VERY well. in particular im thinking 1. nuclear war/bombs. the first scene of the show really conveys just how terrifying and inescapable something like that is. and 2. learning the whole system you grew up in is false, specifically learning about a vault experiment while living in it.

[ozcarma]

Trying to watch 999 let’s plays is such hell to me - NO ONE PLAYS THE GAME RIGHT just shutupshutupshutupshutup and play the game!! Stop trying to make jokes!!!!

I’m too autistic for this, I cannot bear hearing let’s players doing their own voice acting when I adore the game’s VAs too much. Everyone always fucks up Santa’s and Lotus’s voices especially.

I understand the draw of Let’s Plays are largely the people playing them who have gained their own following, but as someone who just loves the game I don’t wanna hear ur stupid banter 💥💥💥 play the game and be intrigued but not TOO intrigued because give it a fuckin minute it’ll explain what’s going on 🙄‼️

[lupismaris]

Apparently "you know I'll just do what you tell me" is not the appropriate answer to your captain asking if you feel up to being rostered for a match

[gen-kenobi]

Photos of my Rook and general gushing about Veilguard under the cut!

Tentatively showing off my Rook - Keres Ingellvar, Mourn Watch cavalier and Tall King!

In LOVE with the variety of options in the character creator, and I am absolutely in LOVE with my big butch warrior (sidenote: his hair physics is insane).

[moonsidesong]

i like pokemon diamond and pearl's soundtrack but im also eternally mad at it because the super music collection is sorted in the most annoying manner physically possible and it makes you actively bored of music you otherwise liked

[beatcroc]

WHAT DO YOUE MEAN YOURE ALSO HYPERFIXATED ON BOTH ANNIE AND PIZZA TOWER SMILES REALLY BIG AT YOU

i literally ran an annie askblog for two straight years 😭

it's been awhile by now but to this Day whenever i reblog one of those 'what character do you associate with me' posts i still get like 3 people saying annie each time. never beating the allegations!!!!!! but i dont mind because i was funny as fuck on that blog and it was, up until pizza tower came along, by far some of my best stuff and the most 'involved' i'd ever gotten in 'fandom'. basically everything i'm using now in pizza comics i learned and honed for annieblog, haha.

my Stuff from that era is still very much around and evident too lol

[bookwyrminspiration]

💙: Which character is not as hot as everyone else seems to think?

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

💙: Hornet's nest here maybe, but I do not think Fintan, Vespera, or Gisela are hot. I know morally dubious characters are appealing but they are not appealing physically, y'all. I don't personally get the mommy gisela stuff, and fintan is ALL personality I think. vespera's there too, I guess (again, all MY opinion, do your own thing!)

🧡: I am not at all a believer in the Fitz isn't Della's son, he's actually Alina's thing. Though I don't know that counts as serious enough. I see it popping up from time and time and I always think that doesn't match either of their characters. Nor does it make sense for Alina? She seems like someone who lets power go to her head, but not that wanting it would drive her to malice/coercion like that. I just don't see it being true