#i havent seen this one. before

[gorillaxyz]

nixons legs were so skinny ive noticed

OH MY GOD.

[butchvamp]

i finished Harding's quest... whew... i don't like Harding. or i should say i don't like how nice the game treats her. she gets all of the emotional beats around the lore revelations while the elves are left to go kick rocks.

i pointed this out previously in another post, but the dwarves (and Harding specifically, and thus by extension Andrastians, too) get so much more sympathy from the game than any of the elves. you can clearly see it just in these two screenshots-- compare dialogue choices when comforting Harding after the reveal about the Golden City (and also important to note that the game assumes my elf is Dalish multiple times before this choice, but for some reason i can suddenly make her Andrastian):

versus the first real discussion you get to have with Bellara about the truth of the elven gods:

Bellara implies that everyone is right not to trust the elves, actually, because the elven gods (the same ones that enslaved her people btw) are bad and we should all feel bad about it.

and Davrin is unfortunately distanced from the Dalish, remarking that they're too traditional and stuck in the past (a racist trope that Dragon Age really loves for the elves), and only seems to care about how the elven gods make elves "look bad." we do get to see Davrin reconnect with one of the members of his clan later, which is a sweet moment that shows us a new side of him, but it exists more so to push along the griffon storyline than anything to do with Davrin (a problem i find quite annoying when it comes to Davrin's writing... they care more about Assan and "turlum" than him or his feelings. but that's a different post)

when we finally get to Heart of Stone, Harding has her big, emotional confrontation with a titan, and gets granted the memory of the titan's loss and all of their pain. she says some Choice lines, here.

who is thriving? the elves that were enslaved en masse by the Evanuris? the elves that are still enslaved and live in alienages? that are wholly, systemically oppressed throughout Thedas? then to follow it up with both of these lines, spoken to an elven Rook:

and i understand that this is the titan speaking through Harding, and we can be generous and say that they are addressing the Evanuris, and not elf Rook personally. but. uh. why doesn't my elf get to Say Anything. it's repeatedly insinuated that everything is the elves' fault, that the elves should feel guilty and that they should be held responsible for what happened to the dwarves (and by extension, the blight and everything bad that's ever happened including what's happening right now), and that they deserve to suffer because of what "they" did to the titans.... and there's no option to challenge this line of thinking at all.

and it's really frustrating that none of the elven companions are allowed this kind of emotional catharsis with the Evanuris. up until that one (bad) dialogue with Bellara, all of Bellara's comments/her reactions to the gods are treated as comic relief. none of them get to grieve their gods like Harding is allowed to grieve the titans-- they're not even allowed to be as angry with Solas as Harding is in some scenes. even Andrastians, in that one single dialogue choice, were afforded more sympathy and grief than the elves in this game.

it's a baffling choice, considering the plot, that elves are given so little grace or consideration. and i do think part of it has to do with the way this game has tried to distance itself from previously established lore as well as scrub itself clean of anything morally dubious-- it's all black and white and the game needs someone to blame, so the elves are bad because the Evanuris are bad, nevermind all that other stuff, because see, the elves actually deserved it all along! i don’t even think it’s unreasonable that Harding may have these feelings (even if they’re racist lol) but the fact you just have to accept Blame and the narrative never challenges her or Bellara’s guilt or Davrin’s apathy and instead just agrees with all of them and forces Rook to agree as well is shitty and takes it from “this character feels this way” to “the game is implying that everyone feels this way, and also that they’re right.”

it's really unfortunate because i do think this reveal about the titans and why the dwarves can't dream or use magic is exciting, it could cause some compelling conflict between the companions (but that's not allowed in this game at all unfortunately and you especially Cannot be even slightly rude to Harding, ever). and i do like the idea of her quest and what they're trying to convey here-- confronting this old, repressed trauma, and finding a way to reconcile with it and move forward.... but not at the expense of the elves, who also suffered massively at the hands of the Evanuris (and continue to suffer. right now)

bioware has been criticized repeatedly about their depiction of the Dalish, their indigenous coding, and even the mages, too, and i really do not understand what they were thinking with this, because it's just racist (and exactly what people have repeatedly criticized them for). this is why a lot of "fantasy racism" fails. you can't write a marginalized group as being responsible and deserving of their own oppression, that's not how it works!

[justicewasserved]

so I see a lot of people going "hahaha wild that Jon thinks everything (such as the apocalypse) is his fault when it REALLY isn't" and they would be correct but I keep thinking about why it is that he's like that. I think a lot of people simply put it down to "that's just how he is as a person" when I really think it's more of a combination between personality, how he was brought up (not that well) and the web.

in mag 81 he's never that specific about what his grandmother was like, and is very clearly trying to make her sound better than she actually is. but to me it sounds like she instilled a feeling that any and all problems that occurred throughout his childhood was his fault, or made worse by him. I'm thinking something like "I'm feeling so bad right now because I have to pick you up from school every day." and if she did do this, clearly it worked because he is, in his statement as an adult, retroactively pinning the blame for all his childhood problems on himself for being a "deeply annoying child". I really think that it's not normal to think you are to blame for someone else bullying you and that it was probably caused by his grandmother making him think he caused everyone's problems.

the mr spider event shocked him in a lot of ways but one of the main things that shook him was that he felt like he could've prevented what happened and he could've saved the guy's life. obviously this is ridiculous - it's clear to us that the web pulled him down the exact path which would lead someone else to interrupt his reading and get captured themselves. however Jon does not know this and clearly thinks he should've done better. I think that this, along with his upbringing, started the distinct way of thinking that he has where he decides that everything is his fault.

the web knew this would happen and then utilises it to make sure his crushing sense of responsibility causes him to get all 14 marks and then to, unwillingly, play his part in removing the fears from the universe.

[itslilacokay]

a what if

paralleling this

[pinazee]

Has this theory circulated before?

Richie actually wasn’t a nerdy prude- well, not exactly. He used to be part of the cool crowd because he was on the swim team. Thats why Kyle asked if he wanted to join and not try out; he already knew he could swim. Then Max discovered what a huge anime nerd he was and his ass was kicked off the team and demoted to nerdy prude.

It’s also why Jason and Kyle only apologize to him (because he used to be their friend), and why Max had such a grip on them- Richie’s social exile was the example of Max’s power.

[vinegar-rights]

Seymour x Audrey doodle dump post

[ganondoodle]

i find it funny that echoes of wisdoms big bad is called 'Null' in english (which is .. german for zero) and hes called 'Nihil' in german (which is, im pretty sure, 'nothing' or also 'zero' in latin) and leads me to assume every language is just calling them some form of zero/nothing just in another language than the rest of the games translation xD

also calling the triforce 'prime energy' in english is on the same level of bad as calling the enigma stones in totk 'secret' stones to me ... perhaps even worse .....

[hindahoney]

Wild and revolutionary concept: maybe don't treat converts like trash just because they're converts? And also don't ask someone if they're a convert in a public setting?

[nostalg1a-bait]

Be still, my foolish heart.

[ups3tti]

The dragonian symbol in the storm village set looks real similar to the new dragon emblem on Morros gi. I will be chewing on that

[volvolts]

Celebrity Paradox idea: Belos & the hexsquad are watching something starring Matthew Rhys, and they comment that his voice sounds quite familiar.

i havent drawn in a few days so i can only draw a minimum of two people right now sorry

i think the kids would have a whiplash of hearing that voice sound genuinely kind and friendly especially since everything belos says sounds vaguely threatening/authoritative even when he's not trying to be. i also think it would be funny if belos doesn't recognize it either, both because he's probably never heard his own voice via recording and also he never talks like that and can't associate it as his own. man's never not put on an act in his 4oo years so of course it sounds weird hearing that voice when its relaxed

[moltensmusings]

I really think Gorgug breaking up with Zelda is part of why Gorgug is so quick to act on his anger and emotions this season. Now when I say this I'm not saying it to blame Zelda or say they should get back together. Gorgug is going through it and putting him in a relationship to "fix" that where all of the burden of his emotional regulation falls on his SO's shoulders is toxic and not what he needs.

But it does mean that I desperately need someone to actually talk about what happened between Gorgug and Zelda/a proper moment of someone sitting Gorgug down and making sure he's good. As funny as constantly aggrevated Gorgug is and as likely as it is that he maybe just finally snapped, I think there's a chance more is going on.

He's fully not rolled on almost any relationship tracks this season and we barely see him interacting with anyone at all. Could this just be Gorgug focusing in on studies and forgetting friendships/relationships? Sure. Could he also be isolating leading to more anger and pent up feelings that have gone unchecked leading to him not wanting to interact with other people because he gets angry so quickly? Yes.

[kithj]

i've been playing veilguard lately and i have to say the dialogue in this game is some of the most frustrating i think i've ever seen in a choice RPG like this. Rook is locked as a friendlier character, which isn't a problem, but this lock out has resulted in a lot of the dialogue lacking in variation.

i chose the "Block it out" option here only for my Rook to say "Block it out. You're safe" but "You're safe" was already its own separate option-- this isn't how you write dialogue choices. again, i don't have an issue with Rook being friendly, but you shouldn't railroad players into certain dialogue.

if they wanted "You're safe" to be the common/reconvening dialogue, then it shouldn't have been made a choice at all. the wheel could have been something like this:

nice: "I'm right here with you."

aggressive: "Block it out."

panicked/confused: "Shit. Talk to me. Please."

-> all reconvene at "You're safe."

and this is a repeated problem. i've favored the aggressive options this entire time (which aren't really aggressive to begin with) but Rook will almost always still wind up saying the nice option instead. another example is early on:

again i chose the more aggressive "Maybe you should have" choice only for Rook to say something along the lines of "Maybe you should have [...] But we have to support each other now." (it's been a minute since i played this part so it may not be exactly word for word but i remember even then at the start of the game being annoyed that she still worked her way back around to saying option 1)

it's not that Rook is friendly, it's that she's literally saying dialogue options that i did not pick. it's fine for there to be a common dialogue repeated across choices/flavor texts, but not when it's the literal choice text itself. it feels like i'm being railroaded with every dialogue.

[moeblob]

Thank you, Mr Krabs.

[moominvalley-state-of-mind]

Hey

Hey guys

Hey

What if bills hat is his dad's

[sonknuxadow]

i genuinely dont get how so many people are uncritically excited for The Movie and have no issue with anything going on here i feel like im losing my mind a little bit . the trailers did not look good to me at all is everyone excited about it posting from an alternate dimension or something what are people seeing in this movie that im not .