#i highly recommend reading this book

[tapeworrmart]

"The scars formed a mould waiting for my fingers"

[buttercupshands]

never say never I guess

had a sudden "I want to draw them"

Lyrics from "The Last Goodbye" by Billy Boyd

also a warm up that led to this, wanted to try drawing them again and somehow got inspired a bit

[cockroachesunite]

In the Land of the Penguins by Georges Lecointe

[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.

[aroaceleovaldez]

tbh my latest biggest theory for why HoO and onwards is such a dramatic drop in quality and consistency is just. Rick stopped making teaching guides.

Like, the Lightning Thief teacher's guide is SUPER in-depth with even stuff like sources about middle grade child psychology and exact specifications of where he's applying that, explaining what different character's goals/motivations are, their dynamics with each other and their environments, etc etc. Even specifying which specific myths certain plot elements are supposed to reference or be about.

That stuff just doesn't exist for later books. There's activity guides and smaller, significantly more simple teacher guides for later books but they don't go into anywhere NEAR the same level of depth. The TLT one is a full lesson plan that breaks down the book at every level and explains what's going on and more or less why Rick did that. The others are all basically just glossaries of terminology and some simple question guides.

And they didn't even use the TLT teacher's guide for the Disney+ show because they clearly aren't adhering to any of what's discussed in that breakdown of the book.

By creating a teaching guide alongside writing the actual book, that's forcing you to document what you're doing, why, your sources, and information about your characters and the story they're in. It's like an even more in-depth version of a series bible. But that's lacking for later books (and etc) and it shows because that level of thought and depth and attention just isn't there anymore.

[communistkenobi]

my brother gave this to me for christmas :)

[the-oc-king]

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

[secretlyofthefeywild]

love when i read a book and then i hear/read an interview w the author and they mention being on tumblr, bc it's just like. yea, you wrote a book abt a gay latino trans boy falling in love w a ghost. ofc you're on tumblr

[kosherkept]

does anybody have any books or articles they could recommend about the relationship and/or solidarity between jewish/hindu* and jewish/indigenous north american communities?

*not exclusively jewish- and hindu-american relations, though. anywhere globally is also good

[entropyvoid]

Golden Hour (+ lineart below cut)

I took a picture of the lines for once and did some basic crappy photo editing on my phone, so you could probably print this out and use it as a coloring page or something if you so wish lol. Do with it what you will.

[kat-rose-griffith]

“He smiled. This was a permanent madness. And he couldn’t have been more pleased”

- Colin Bridgerton about how he feels just being in Penelope Featheringtons presence, Romancing Mister Bridgerton pg 282

I am SCREAMING

“She would keep him on his toes, this woman”

- Colin Bridgerton thinking about how hot Penelope Featherington is, Romancing Mister Bridgerton pg 283

The screams that I have scrumpt

“Do I look a mess?” She asked. He nodded. “But you’re my mess,” he whispered. And he was very glad for that.

- Romancing Mister Bridgerton pg 288

And he was very glad for that. And he was very glad for that. And he was very glad for that. I’m on the ground!!!

[deer-watcher]

"For both bonobos and chimpanzees, the bodies of the dead evoke many emotions. Even if the process often begins with trauma and confusion, typically corpses shift to a liminal status; not alive, but equally not a lump of meat. They're more intensively manipulated than hunted animals, and carried for longer. In some – if not all – cases, the eaters must know what and who they're consuming. Cannibalism is very probably a powerful means by which individuals and groups process the impact not only of killings carried out on emotional impulses, but other deaths too. In other words, it's about grieving. [...] "Shift these scenarios to Neanderthals, and add into the mix their far greater cognitive sophistication, and lives that revolved around using lithics. Suddenly it's not difficult to envision how skills in carefully taking apart hunted carcasses might be transposed into a grieving process that involved butchery and cannibalism as acts of intimacy, not violation."

Rebecca Wragg Sykes, Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art

[silverskye13]

Someone left a comment for R&S on my last Helsknight oneshot so I've come to hand deliver it to you like some kind of messager pigeon 🙏

Really funny experience opening my email and being like 'oh new comment! .... Wait. I don't think that's my line. Isn't that from yesterday's r&s chapter?' Laughed my ass off. Someone got their ao3 tabs mixed up apparently

pfffhaha oh no! I'm sorry you got randomly pounced on!

Though since you're here I adored? Evildoers? You are fantastic at characterization anyway, but the way you wrote Helsknight's cynicism, and Evil X's manic, just a little off energy was fantastic.

Also, adore a pair of villains working together, for better or worse.

Fantastic work dude!

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City TV Series Episodes 3 & 4: Found Family

[Thank you again to @lurkingshan for organizing and to @bengiyo for the discussion questions in this week's discussion post ]

I talked in my non-book-club post on this section about the t-aras at the hospital after Yeong's suicide attempt moved me. A lot of us have reflected on the t-aras and how their presence in this part of the novel changes the feeling. For me, their presence really complicates my emotions. I love that they are here, and here for Yeong, especially after his suicide, but also through his confusion about Yeong Su. And at the hospital, I love how they function as a foil to his mother in that moment. When people ask about found family vs family, this scene will come to mind in future. Family is who you are raised with who have a legal obligation as well as legal privileges. Found family are those who do not have those legal privileges or obligations but who have chosen to care about and be there for us without them in place. That glass holding the t-aras back, and the t-aras being the ones who make Yeong cry, is what made me cry.

Yeong’s mother in both versions of this story tells him not to be in such a rush to die, which is such an excellent line for her. It accomplishes so much in so little; it could be interpreted as “I'm dying of cancer and fighting so hard to live, and you're trying to die? How dare you” while also saying “I don't want you to die” and even “don't worry, whatever is so hard will not last forever”. But in the adaptation, the impact of the t-aras being there right after she said that line made it so that it also felt like a reminder that he has good things and good people in his life who do love him. And that's why my emotions are so mixed up and complex about their presence, because while the t-aras being here in parts 1 and 2 make Yeong feel less alone than Young felt in the novel, it wrecks me that Yeong still clearly feels that loneliness in spite of their presence. That is so real, and so painful a truth, that the presence of people who love you are not enough to make you not feel so lonely and miserable that you want to die. When I read the novel, the later sections revealing these friendships made me feel the impact of that loneliness later, removed from the moment, but in the series I got it in real-time (even as their presence made seeing the moment play out a little easier to bear; because in the novel we had the benefit of Young's wry hindsight to aid in emotional distance).

I was also thinking about how, in this adaptation of the scene, we see Yeong's mother clock the t-aras in the hospital, and how it feels like they performed the function that Yeong wanted Yeong Su to perform in his attempt to make Yeong Su and his mother meet: they demonstrated that as a gay man, Yeong has people who love him and who are good for him in his life. I would like to think that it's their presence in the series that softens Yeong’s mother to Yeong’s queerness to the point where she kept the polaroid of Yeong and Yeong Su when she found it and let him see it in the binder of her clippings of articles about him; as though it's something she can't engage with or talk to him about but can now tacitly acknowledge. In the book, that polaroid is left out intentionally for Young to find as (at least as he interpreted it) a punishment and a warning. In the series, it felt like the closest thing to acceptance she could offer while saving face: putting that photo of him and Yeong Su in this binder of positive articles about his writing (which is all about his life as a queer man) feels like an acknowledgement that other people can love this part of him that she can't.

I've been dragging my heels on writing this because I'm not ready for Part 3. Holding all of your hands as we all dive in to getting emotionally wrecked this week!

[garlandedspirits]

love it when I read 18th century chinese collections about the supernatural and the author just slaps some of the most timeless and profound sentences ever written in my face

[melisusthewee]

Rafael Federman as Eduardo Strauch in La Sociedad de la Nieve/Society of the Snow (2023)

requested by Anon