#i try not to get attached to youtubers anymore because of all of this. also i followed alot of blatant assholes at 13 why am i so shocked

[cyanonights]

please never idolize anyone.

itll break your heart if they end up making a mistake, and they will, theyre human after all.

and itll break your soul if they end up being a creep/abuser.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[frogsndogs]

So recently I watched this pilot short: Epilogue of endings. It’s about 12 minutes long, created by a group of animation students over a single summer. I had never heard of the project before it showed up in my youtube recommended.

It changed my brain chemistry. I watched it 9 days ago and I can’t stop thinking about it to save my life. The music? Spectacular. The voice acting? Perfect. The art? astounding. The characters? I’m already emotionally attached. Hotel? Trivago.

Listen, I don’t tend to watch of a lot of things anymore unless I’m with other people, and I have this weird thing about engaging in new media, I think because a lot of what I’ve been watching recently has been kinda disappointing, or very… I don’t know… it’s hard to describe. It just feels like a lot of studios are making characters shallower, relationships strained, and half-assing their world building. A lot of media that I’ve taken in recently is trying very hard to make itself seem edgy and serious and that’s not what I want right now and definitely not what I need.

But this 12 minute pilot? This is everything I never knew I needed. The characters feel like real people, with complex motivations and interpersonal relationships. They’re flawed, but they’re trying their best with the situation that they have. They have things, other people that they care about and would fight for, they have motivations and backstories that you can see the breadcrumbs of, but have not been revealed yet, and the breadcrumbs are so good you can’t wait for the whole loaf. The world-building is exquisite, built up enough that you can see the beginning, but still drawing you in with more questions. 

I have a more detailed review under the cut, with SPOILERS, but I highly recommend that you go watch the pilot. It’s 12 minutes of time well spent in my opinion.

So the first scene. We’re introduced to Lucy, Blu and CG. I think Blu is already my fav, lol. In this scene, we see the three characters playing eye-spy while walking through a forest. It’s a pretty innocuous scene if we didn’t pan up to the sky and see the sun having broken open and Lucy becoming emotional over having to leave town, and presumably the rest of her life behind. Blu doesn’t answer her.

So Lucy clearly doesn’t know what’s going on, and I’m wondering if Blu has limited information himself. Maybe even Blu doesn’t know why or how any of this is happening. Maybe Blu literally can’t answer her question because he doesn’t have the answers. Maybe it hurts, being so helpless and out of control, so he’s in denial to a certain extent, trying to pretend that everything is fine. He’s trying to keep this little girl, happy and safe and alive, while also presumably dealing with his own shit, and no he’s not doing it perfectly, he’s flawed, as people and characters should be, but he’s trying and so far she is alive and safe to a certain extent so way to go Blu! I think this will probably cause some tension between the two down the road, but for now they just keep walking.

I wonder where they’re going, if anywhere specific? Why did they leave town specifically, we see there’s lots of danger pretty much everywhere, did something happen?

Anyways, then we get to this scene of someone fixing what appears to be a subway train. He stops, pulls out a journal and we get some exposition stuff. We find out that the world ended, and how. And WOW. This whole thing was gut-punchingly realistic I feel. People blowing up the competition trying to race off into space when it’s announced that the sun is going to die out? That’s something that unfortunately I can see people doing. I wonder/hope that this will become a plot point again later on, and we’ll find out what happened to all those people. But anyways that’s not even the craziest part; the fact the sun broke open and released a whole bunch of eldritch horror monsters??? Yep here we go. And then the next thing hurts. Like a lot. Because the narrator says that ‘people who hoped to live out their last days in normalcy quickly found out that their life-style was no longer sustainable’. That shit made me want to cry. The want for a peaceful death, a calm death, a painless death, but having even that ripped away from you. This setting that these characters are in is awful and very terrifying, and we can see how it is hurting them, torturing them, but I got to give props to the world building. It’s good writing. They set up the plot, the problem, what’s been going on the past couple yrs, some mysteries, to both the viewers and the characters, and in doing so give us some idea of the characters that we do have. Because the characters that we do have are trapped. The characters that we do have are abandoned. The characters that we do have are survivors. 

And then we pan out to see the narrator having an interaction with one of the Monarchs. And this scene? Gave me chills, man. I was so creeped out by this. Acedia’s ‘I do not like that response,’ Mole’s utter helplessness to do anything, his clear, potent fear of the creature, the way that it just lightly touches him and he flinches. Then the frustration that we see on his face after it leaves, the anger that turns into tiredness and then hopelessness? Someone needs to wrap this man in a blanket stat.

And this is where I’m starting to think that Blu doesn’t really know the full extent of what’s going on. There’s a good chance that Mole knows about the Monarchs because he’s being held prisoner by one. It’s possible that Mole is seeing the world collapse before his very eyes, while Blu is just seeing the aftermath and not knowing why and I can’t say which is more terrifying.

The ‘I have influence?’ line is peak. I love it so much, I can’t even say why. That whole little interaction with Lucy saying that she takes after Blu, Blu being so genuinely touched and CG being low-key offended is perfect and I love it. It shows how close they are, how much they care about each other.

The the… zombie ppl??? I love the detail of how unlike a lot of teenage protagonists, Lucy listens to Blu, and gets out of danger. She trusts him to handle the situation on his own, and knows that the best thing that she can do right now is get to safety. There’s an implicit trust there, in spite of her clear issues with Blu not telling her things, and this is what I’m talking about when I say the character relationships are complex.

Oh fuck. The transitions? The way that it cuts from one character to another, each unintentionally completing one another’s scentences, and unknowingly engaging in conversation. It’s amazing storytelling, an amazing presentation and for some reason it just confirms to me that these characters are family. They fit together like puzzle pieces. I don’t know what else to say.

We get more info on our mysterious narrator, Mole, who is an amnesiac, and clearly going through it. During this scene we see a crumpled newspaper of what seems to be a younger version of him, winning an award for his dedication at being a subway motorman. His name is crossed out in black ink, so we can’t see it. Which makes me question, did he do this to himself? Is his amnesia a trauma response to everything he’s going through? Did something happen to the point that his brain decided shutting down and forgetting everything was better than remembering this one thing? And it hurts, because in the picture in the newspaper he looks so happy. So young. So alive. It’s a stark contrast to the man we see with bags under his eyes, talking to himself and becoming increasingly distressed. I read through the article, and again, props to the team, some other people might have just did random letters or whatever but they put in a whole ass-story, giving the viewers more info about Mole than even he has. We know he was a dedicated subway motorman. We know he was inspired by his father. We know he had a sister. But these answers only serve to bring up more questions? What happened to his sister? Was his father still alive at the time of he end of the world and what was their relationship like? Because there’s a chance that their relationship was really good, and that’s why he went on to become a subway motorman, but there is also the possibility that he was pressured into doing so, and the way that he complains about being on a train when the world ended makes me kinda lean towards that option.

Then we see CG and Lucy walking around the underground tunnels and we get more info on them. We find out that CG was created by Lucy’s mom, which begs the question of where is Lucy’s mom???? What happened to her? Is there a chance that she’s still alive? Does Lucy know what happened to her mother?? Or is this just another thing that Blu is keeping her in the dark about? Does Blu know what happened to Lucy’s mother???? Or— as you can see I am totally normal about this woman. Anyways.

CG is a fun character, optimistic and bringing a lighter atmosphere to the show, but there is just something… off about her in this scene. The disregard for the danger, the naiveté, the joyful voice in such a horrible situation, feels so wrong to me. I wonder though if CG chose to be like this, or a certain amount of it is her programming? Does CG know what happened to Lucy’s mom? I think CG was created to be take care of Lucy but it seems to be the other way around here, why is that? 

And then we get info on Blu. Blu was a solider during the war when ppl were trying to get all the resources to race off into space. I wonder if Blu had believed that he would be granted a place on one of these ships. (If he managed to survive of course.) Or had he been in the military prior to all this, and was just pulled along? This makes me want to know more about his belief system before and after the end of the world. Also it is implied by CG that Blu is carrying a lot of pressure, and I wonder how that will be dealt with later on… hmm… 

Also the music that plays when Blu uses his arms to pull down the wall? Amazing, I love it, I love the scene, I love the fact that he’s a cyborg, I am so invested in these characters already it’s killing me.

Then we see Mole almost (accidentally) kill Lucy and CG. He’s out of it, he’s the only person running the trains, he didn’t expect to have to watch out for anyone, I think that we can give him a pass on this. Blu doesn’t think so obviously.

(Sidenote: the way that Lucy curls into Blu, as he protectively shields her is so cute, my heart, help)

Blu is pissed. His tone doesn’t change too much, it’s light, but there’s this threatening undertone there that kinda creeps me out. Mole tells them he doesn’t have a name, before Blu forces him to tell them that its Mole. Wait… is he called that bc Moles live underground? Anyways, Blu wants to leave him to die there, which shows an interesting side of his character. Prior to this we’ve seen him take a protective, fun role as Lucy’s guardian but here we see this apathy towards someone who is obviously not doing so well. A lot of other people would be excited to find another living person in the apocalypse, but he’s fine just walking away. Is this just because he almost killed Lucy? Or is there something more going on here? In Blu’s bio on the rainbott instagram, it says that Blu was ‘left to die in a mysterious incident’ and it’s interesting that he feels fine leaving someone else to die in such horrible conditions. Again - complex character writing, props to the team.

But Lucy doesn’t want to leave him. This shows her compassion and maybe too her want for connection with other people. Blu resists; ‘Lucy that is the most unimpressive man I have ever seen,’ this line has no right to be so funny, esp with Mole just staring at him in the background. Did he hear that or is he too far away, too out of it? Then he relents, perhaps solely because of Lucy, or maybe also because of his own want to do the right thing. He doesn’t like Mole, he makes that obvious, but if Lucy want’s to adopt this strange hobo man, fine, if it makes her happy. He’ll do whatever it takes to make Lucy a little more happy.

Mole’s ‘it doesn’t want me to leave’ scares the shit out of me, and the way that he just freezes up when Acedia shows up… 

The scene when it talks about humans really creeps me out, and makes me worried even more about Mole. Calling him ‘entertaining’ and saying that he ‘belongs’ to them. It sounds like it sees him as a toy at best, and reminds me of the way that Mole said earlier that the Monarchs had the power to ‘turn Earth into their own personal sandbox’. Did Acedia get rid of Mole's memories for that purpose? So that he would 'belong' only to them. I wonder though, why Mole, and if there were others, if Mole had to watch those around him die, or worse when they gave an answer that it didn’t like. I wonder what Mole has had to do to scrape by and survive, what he’s been through. But Blu pulls him along anyways, kind of against Mole’s will. Like obviously being with Blu, Lucy and CG is better than being with a horrifying shadow monster, but aforesaid horrifying shadow monster is going to be pissed at him. I wonder how he’s going to react to that, if he’ll lash out at Blu or worse, Lucy for rescuing him because now it’s gonna be angry and he’s gonna have to be the one to deal with the fallout of that.

Then the scene where Blu pretends to buy tickets to appease CG? It’s for comedic relief, but again it makes me think about Blu. Is he doing it because he knows CG will be annoying if he doesn’t? Or does he genuinely not want her to be hurt? I’m not sure. 

Then the campfire scene. Lucy looks away when Blu removes his mask, Mole tries to lean in to see what’s behind it. Blu doesn’t like this, I assume it’s a sensitive subject, but Mole is again, kind of out of it. Mole is scared of Blu and Blu clearly knows this, even kinda uses it to freak him out. I’m looking forwards to see that relationship developing, maybe one that contrasts Mole’s relationship with Acedia, I dunno, someone who cares about him in this really twisted way that hurts him, and someone who at first doesn’t care at all(at first), but still takes care of him in spite of it. I dunno… just vibes.

And Lucy’s little ‘what if we tell ghost stories around the fire’ breaks my heart. It’s like she too, is in denial to a certain extent. This is just a fun camping trip not the end of the world. Everything is fine. Everything will be fine.

Then the post-credit scene. There’s presumably, something left of the government that is working to try and deal with the Monarchs, which gives me hope that there might be a way to stop them, a way to stop all this death and destruction. I am curious about what’s left of this order, what the gov was like during the war, and how they’re operating now. Also the way the commander calls the droid C21, and the way that CG is called CG, and the way that he says ‘find the girl’ and C21 frowns and does this have something to do with Lucy’s mom??????? What does any of this have to do with Lucy? Does she know more than she’s letting on, or does not even she know what she knows??? Help I need answers.

Also all the characters in the credits. I desperately hope that they find the main cast and all become friends pls.

CG’s little song is beautiful and I think that it embodies the heart of the show. Like I said earlier a lot of the stuff I’ve watched recently tries very hard to be dark and edgy and a dystopian show where all the characters have been trapped and abandoned and tortured is the perfect setup for some grim and gritty TV. But it’s… not. The characters are funny and lighthearted and smiling in spite of all the shit that’s going on around them. The characters are trying to be nice, to be good. They are connected, they are a family. It is a dystopian setting for sure, but I think that the story is about family, about love and caring for each other. The story is about Blu, Lucy and CG playing eye-spy. The story is about Lucy smiling when she tells Blu her mom said he was a bad influence. The story is about CG wanting Blu to get some rest and take a break. The story is about Mole’s desperate panic at trying to stop the train before it hits Lucy, and Lucy not wanting to leave him to die. The story is about four people sitting around a fire, listening to music.

I really love this story, and I hope to see more of it one day. It’s really beautiful.

[katyspersonal]

If you were curious, this song basically sums up everything of why I find Radagon sympathetic (timeline being sometime after the Twins were born)

(Attaching Youtube one with the lyrics just in case)

This is a beautiful song! And no, I agree with your vision that Radagon was not unfeeling nor "divorce selfie" meme when he left Rennala and his children! It is really funny to do all the divorce jokes and exaggerate how much of a bitch he can be for the comedic effect, I love this kind of cruel humour! xD

But in the end, Rennala did charm him enough to opt out for marriage and erasing his war crimes in Liurnia from the collective memory, instead of conquering the continent and erasing Carians instead, right? 🤔 He most likely can and did love her and his children, but he is bound with the problems of divinity as much as Marika if not more, right? Marika is just the latest carrier of Elden Ring, so, Greater Will's vision and Golden Order is just her iteration of it, when previously it were Ancient Dragons!

^^^ @izunias-meme-hole I am bringing your ask to answer here too because I went on this topic's territory here! :p

But Radagon didn't make the Golden Order "manifest" like this, he is Golden Order! His Japanese title is literally 黄金律, ラダゴン ((the) Golden Order, Radagon). His existence is a combination of the divinity and power Marika was given, where Two Fingers were guiding her and her own biases, principles and other things that give Golden Order its "current imperfection"! Let alone the fact that Marika is the dominant alter!

They were both dealing with "caged divinity"! But whereas Marika had the courage to kill herself (or get as close to it as possible, leaving it to Hewg and whoever he helps to maybe find the way to finish this), Radagon clearly liked living more :p And it is hard to blame him because whereas long long time ago Marika was just a traumatised Shaman woman that wished to make a better world where what happened to her village could not happen again, Radagon never existed as such! The divinity and this "better world" is all there was to him!

^^^ All three Mending Runes we get change the Golden Order, and it is no wonder that he is fighting us! At the first glance you'd think it makes no sense; why, if we just want to fix it? Something he himself wanted to do?

But like.. this is the point. :p He is like this because Golden Order is like this. It is not that he is protecting his power and the right to keep oppressing this or that kind of folks like any real world corrupt authority would! He goes beyond, a blend of a 'person' and of a 'concept', and is protecting his existence! Of course he doesn't want to be mended by someone except himself, because then it won't be HIM anymore! It is not that Those Who Live in Death should be condemned or anything- he probably doesn't even have an idea they exist since they appeared after Shattering! It is that Golden Order exists because Death was sealed, and he would get theseus-ship'd if that (or anything else) was changed! As if a law of nature was given the sentence and self-comprehension! I mean it: you won't wish on your worst enemy to be in Marika's OR in his situation!

Greater Will would be content with any Order, it simply created life but wants it to have a coherent form as opposed to primordial chaos!

And it seems like it abandoned everyone over Elden Ring being shattered! I pictured it as Marika shattering the "phone" between the world and itself, but it could've also been a gradual process! Like it seeing that no matter what the new Order doesn't rise from the ruins, nor the former one gets fixed. Maybe it just said "well THIS attempt at creating life with actual rules was a failure, I'll go try again, bye you weeaboo shits" fsdhfdsh The theory about us being an experiment, and a failed one at that that was abandoned by god/gods/aliens/whatever lingers somewhere amongst humanity, and here you can see it manifest.

Nonetheless 1) you'd expect the Two Fingers, its grandchild, to still remember its wishes and wish the same thing and 2) Greater Will possibly was still there long before the Shattering to do this:

I fucking love the "Sorry Rennala, I found someone better than you: myself" jokes and use them at any given chance fhhds But I am just saying, on the serious note, I do not actually think this IS what happened :p. If anything, Marika would be the one to want to hold the Golden Order as close to herself as possible, so it would be kept pure and in contact with the Greater Will like herself! I am considering the idea that she saw something similar to Goldmask's insight, except instead of drastically removing the 'person' from equation (at the time!) she wanted it to be "closer to the stars" for the lack of better term! Back then, maybe it looked like that way, it would never go corrupt, never fail her. After all, regrets and decision to destroy it only came after Godwyn was killed!

And in both cases, it was someone else who wanted Radagon to leave, and nothing really suggests that he was happy or indifferent doing so! He remade the sword Rennala gifted to him to symbolise the change, but nothing says which emotions were behind that process! It could've been any of them, and all interpretations are fair! He had duty to manifest the way things worked even more so than Marika, who at least GOT to live a normal human life long ago, but it doesn't mean he didn't care about how much pain he caused to Rennala in following that duty! On the other hand, bitter irony is that Radagon actually got to live a normal life - with Rennala and the kids! And just like Marika, he experienced leaving it behind to do "bigger" things. It is sad that the cruelty of caged divinity repeated even in her other self! 🤔

____________________

I've side-tracked in validating a more sympathetic reading of him (I just have a dark, immature humour that sometimes poisons my perception of the character on the first glance XD)! There is sadness about him. His one REAL sin is lacking the same courage Marika had, to die so the new, better era begins, but even then this "choice" is made for him when Elden Beast takes his motionless body as its weapon! The territorial aggressions, as well as principles of the Golden Order, are "fault" of Marika's personality as a 'god no better than humans' (which is FAIR), Two Fingers that gave her ideas via broken telephone, and maybe Greater Will in some capacity! "The roots were rotten", so Radagon could also only be rotten!

+ I also think that Radagon came into existence because Marika got cursed during the War with the Giants ( x )! Think of one breaking in two as "defence mechanism", because losing the God itself could not be afforded, however cursing the Order of this God was "fair game"! Marika is a tool of Greater Will to make the order, any order, so the tool could not be ruined yet the tool's creation (the Order) could! So, what if now it is only 90% perfect? Remnants of it are Ulcerated Tree Spirits breathing fire, despite being just malformed Minor Erdtrees! I have a theory that the same happened with Trina, as Miquella came into contact with Frenzied Flame but losing an Empyrean could not be afforded! That comes from the fact this sleep power is conceptual opposite of FF, as well as Torrent having burnt marks, his summon ring already having its part 'drained', him fearing the Abyssal Woods and Miquella being shown to ride in him the Shadow Realm before! It is a long one but you can see where I am going with this!

[sunnist4rs]

Blare White is super misogynistic… he also supports trump. You know the anti abortion, pro rape guy. I think you may be defining who you love/idolize and what you say you think based on who entertains you the most on social media/YouTube and your personal connections rather than really getting into WHY each view is right or wrong factually/ethically, and aiming to be consistent. To be clear I myself am a radfem and (within that) critical of gender ideology I am not trying to convince you to not criticize gender ideology or to not criticize specific trans identified people. Yes: some people Blaire white and that kind of guy opposes are also fucked up people who do harm. But the enemy of an enemy does not alone make a friend and I encourage you to look with a more critical eye at anyone aligned right wing and against women, whether they are novelties or famous on YouTube or whatever else or not

Among other things remember Blaire white is just a man who calls self woman but hates the other men who call themselves women. His critique of them is typically either copied (without him really understanding) from feminist women, or at other times basically rooted in him saying those other trans women are ugly or don’t pass or haven’t done [insert random shit] “Blaire” thinks makes him a real woman and these other trans women into pretenders. It’s just an egotistical man getting attention and money off of this while still claiming he’s a woman and doing so for sexist (“I pass as feminine so that makes me a woman” = sexist) reasons. This issue that is actually impacting women and girls (a category that doesn’t include him)

Thanks for sending me this ask (and being so civil about it). Before I joined the radfem community (and when I wrote my bio) I was pretty conservative but the more evidence of woman’s oppression I’ve seen, the more leftist I’ve become. This has left me feeling kind of lost because the people like Blair White who I used to turn to for comfort on bad days and to hear what I thought were reasonable political opinions no longer click with me. I don’t resonate with her (I’m gonna use she/her even though I’m he’s a dude because I do have that personal attachment right now so it just feels right) beliefs anymore but distancing myself from her feels wrong because she’s been a part of my life for a while, y’know.

I don’t watch YouTube much so I haven’t seen one of her videos since I became a radfem. But, I do remember how my old community used to act so Ik if I did watch another video of hers I’d be disgusted and disappointed by her behaviour (I almost want to avoid watching her at all so that I can keep pretending I align with her side- also I’m aware this is pretty parasocial, I’ll work on that). While I’ve become more aware of this I’ve continued to defend and preach how good her content is as a way of pretending I do still like her to myself. I knew I was doing this but I didn’t really think about it until now.

I’m pretty good at thinking critically about the media I consume, it’s just something I’ve always done when discovering something new to enjoy. But I think Ive developed a blind spot for people I previously loved as while I agreed with them in the past. Now however, me promoting their ideology is hypocritical at best. I’ve been practicing separatism (that’s not the word I want to use Ik it) more and more in my daily life. I now realise the next step I need to take is starting to distance myself from these people as they’re making me into someone I don’t want to be (hypocrites are one of my biggest red flags).

Thanks again for the ask as it’s genuinely helped me uncover a therapeutic break through lol. Whether or not that was your intent it’s definitely gonna help me be a better feminist and improve my life so thanks.

[kskbli]

(□_□)

04.11.2024 (1)

there is a strong smell of trash in my apartment . . . it's because i haven't taken out the trash in days

i don't even own a garbage bin anymore, everything's just laying around

i haven't gone to work in a week . . . i went to my doctor and she gave me a note for the whole week + 3 days till the sixth of november

i promised myself i'd try and work on myself those last days but i didn't do anything

why go outside or cook, when it doesn't even feel rewarding? there's no point

i have to go to the vet tomorrow with my cat, i wish i could go today but i myself have a doctors appointment

i also have an appointment at the bank today, it's about taking a loan so i can pay for my course

i don't know why i'm doing things . . . my body is on autopilote

i really wish i spent less time on social media, tiktok to be exact

everytime i feel sad, mad, bored, anything negative i find myself scrolling through tiktok... i hate it so much

but i know that if i deleted tiktok, i'd move to instagram and if i delete instagram i'd move to youtube etc. etc. ........................

at this point all i want to do is get rid of my phone . nowadays you need it for everything though

i think i'm going to delete tiktok now, i have to break some sort of pattern with all the strength i have left in my body or else i'll turn into a hollow shell

there's still some drops left in me, i know it.. sometimes i wish there weren't though

it's hard holding onto them, when letting go seems so much easier but theyre there and i can't get rid of them, which is a good thing i guess

i don't know what to say. . .

it's so sad how everyone looks the same, i wish there were still people who like being weird

people will judge you, they will and always have but that's part of being you and it's sad seeing peoples fears take over them and their individuality

wear cool makeup, or don't, dye your hair bright blue, wear bright red tights or 6 bracelets on each arm ! people will care and some will not but that's none of your concern

imagine having the privilige of being alive, having the opportunity to be and do whatever and whoever you want and you choose not to

i'm just babbling at this point

i have a japanese radio station attached to my browser , i downloaded it 2 years ago but it never worked

i've been getting worse and worse, everytime i open up about my feelings people tell me i have to stay alive, for them, for upcoming memories, for happiness that has yet to come

why not for myself? why can't i stay alive for me? i can't anymore and don't want to anymore ...

good night zz

[ink-flavored]

Song Pic Saying Tag Game

Thank you to @vacantgodling for tagging me!

Rules: Pick an OC and post a song you relate to them, an image that represents them in some way (aesthetic, picrew, art, etc), and a quote of dialogue or narration from them. Totally feel free to expand and explain!

This got long so I'll do the tagging right up front: @duelistkingdom @liv-is @hallwriteblr @mjjune @zeenimf and anyone else who wants to!

I have the perfect combo for this in the form of Justice, everyone's favorite emotionally conflicted angel

Song

For non-Spotify users, here is a Youtube link to Songbirds by Ben Thornewill, and just the lyrics if you don't feel like listening to audio.

I picked this song for Justice because throughout the story he struggles with his perfectionism, a sort of "holy imposter syndrome" (i.e. not being good enough of an angel), and a crisis of faith once Heaven has made clear he's no longer welcome. He's still loyal to God, he wants to continue being an angel and do what he's been created for (serving humanity and being a literal embodiment of justice), but now he's been told he doesn't belong. And on Earth, he's the "songbird in the city air" as mentioned in the song. He feels like he's never going to "make it" -- never be good enough to get in Heaven's good graces again. He has a stubborn sense of morality and refuses to compromise on his ideals, which is exactly the thing they rejected in him. He starts to realize... maybe they were right. He doesn't belong. Obviously that's a bit of a downer for him.

When it comes to "playing the part," he still acts the part of an angel even though he's as close to being a fallen angel as he can be while keeping his wings attached. Being able to literal sense human pain and suffering, he is programmed by God to help every person on the street no matter what. And despite doing this, he doesn't really get the sense he's actually materially helping, at all. No matter how many problems he solves, there's never a dip in the grand scheme of things. He cares so deeply that it hurts, and despite his estrangement from Heaven, he's more than willing to bend over backwards for humanity, doing whatever anyone needs. To his own detriment, sometimes.

In a way, he doesn't really belong anywhere anymore. Not in Heaven, not in Hell, not on Earth. He's in a perfect in-between, everywhere he goes. Like a bird in the city.

Pic

This art was a commission from @auroblaze and also directly inspired by the song above!

We can get the obvious symbolism out of the way right now - Justice, large wings, sitting and watching some birds, who are flying merrily into the sky. Free to go wherever they please, while Justice can't. He's kept all the holy signifiers, his wings and halo, but is unable to use them the way he wants to. He's up high, closer to Heaven, but will never be able to reach as high as the birds can.

Also please take note of the grandma sweater. That has nothing to do with this symbolism, but it is a very important part of his character.

Saying

Okay so. Most of these thoughts are in my head instead of on the page, but there is ONE I can use.

Context: Justice invites Pride to a church event and when they get home, they have this conversation.

“I know, I guess I…” Justice leaned against the wall, brow furrowed. “I was trying to prove something to myself.” “Like what?” He didn’t answer right away, picking at his nails. “I know you don’t want a relationship with God,” he said, slow and deliberate, “and that’s fine. I would never ask you to. But I don’t think that means you have to be abandoned by me—by us. We can still get along, we don’t have to be separate to coexist. Does that make sense?”

Justice is both trying to prove to himself that Pride's demon status doesn't preclude him being able to hang out with humans (and at least one angel) in a civil way, and in turn that the eternally suffering that God prescribes for sinners to be illegitimate. Justice, deeply faithful even after being thrown out by Heaven, feels like it's wrong for him to be cast out, but for his many thousands of years of life, he's been told demons deserve it. If that's wrong too... maybe all of it's wrong.

And also he invited Pride because Justice liiiiikes himmmmmm~~~~

[kisskisskys]

Hey, hope you’re doing better… time will make things better, believe me. Just here to give some advice ig, I don’t if it’ll be useful or not, but here I go.

First of all, you are not a bad person. You couldn’t know he was an abuser at all, none of us could… Even if there were signs or not; abusers tend to be good at hiding them… Also we never really know a content creator/celebrity/influencer/etc. We just don’t. The person who they show us can be just a part of them or a completely made up “show” persona. So, it’s not your fault for not knowing and admiring/loving him while you didn’t know. You did nothing wrong at all.

Now that you know, you can do smth abt it. If you want you can give away stuff you have of him (like merch) or use it in privately (as to not show any more support for him). Please don’t burn stuff or throw it away in the trash just to make a point; it really helps no one, you’ve already payed for it, you can’t take the money back, so better give it another use—reuse, reduce and recycle pretty much.

This will be controversial, but you aren’t a bad person for liking something that was made by a bad person. I know this is the “separate the art from the artist” conversation… but just here me out: sometimes I think it’s really not the sin everyone is making it out to be, as long as you try not to support the “artist” (content creator and his music in this case) any longer and acknowledge that the artist is bad, I think you are okay.

You aren’t tainted, bad or somehow it means you are an apologist. It really doesn’t. Just be cautious with it; not saying this like in a “hide that you like him so ppl don’t realize you like him and so /know/ or think you are bad person”, but more in the “some people might be triggered by him and because of what was reveled it’s probably best to try not to support him anymore”.

Support always meaning giving him more money, expanding his voice, introducing more ppl to him and his music, etc.

That said. You can still listen to his music if you want. Again, it’s not a sin or reflection of who you are; it doesn’t make you bad by association or bad at all. Just try to listen it in other ways to not give him any more money or any more of a platform.

You could listen to his music on ytb, many channels have uploaded his stuff and since they are not official acc’s I don’t think he gets any money from it. You could download his music and listen to it outside Spotify or whatever; you can do so from ytb with YouTube Convertors :) You could also listen him from SoundCloud, just make sure the /file/ you listening wasn’t uploaded by the official band (if they even have a SoundCloud acc?).

I wanna add. Just like this could be a “separate the art from the artist” conversation, ig it could also be a “death of the author” one. You are free to take whatever you want from his art, it is yours now and having that doesn’t make you bad because he is bad. Doesn’t really work like that.

Lastly I guess, it takes time to grow out of an attachment to someone. So please give yourself time, be kind to yourself… It will happen eventually, believe me.

In the meanwhile, specially if you feel too guilty about listening to him or watching his content, you can look for alternatives. There’s plenty of recommendations going around rn, both for similar music and streamers to listen/watch instead; so you could look into those. Yk what they say: nothing like a new hyperfixation to replace another B) haha Idk if anyone has ever said that but sometimes it works like that.

Hope you feel better soon. I do. Hope you get to forgive yourself if you need to? I don’t think you did anything bad, but sometimes we feel like we did regardless… so I hope you found forgiveness if you need it. Remember to be kind to yourself and give it time.

Best of luck. Sending good vibes to you too 🌟✨💫🌸🌻🌱

Thanks so much Anon, that is actually really helpful advice. Luckily, I have other content creators, it’s just hard to go from being obsessed and worshipping him to crying in bed because he is a bad person. I don’t have any merch, but I wanted the records for record day, but I kinda didn’t think it was a good idea anymore… At first, I was trying to distance myself, ignore it cause it hurt to much to think. What I was doing yesterday was keeping myself constantly busy so I didn’t get the chance to think at all. Now I’m kinda accepting it and a little step forward I’ve seen myself take is instead ignoring videos bashing Wilbur on TikTok, I watch them and not avoid them. It’s baby steps but it’s something. I used to use YCGMA to fall asleep, but stopped two nights ago coincidentally, I haven’t dreamed, or haven’t had as vivid of dreams that I’m used to. I basically conditioned myself to be obsessed with him, and not I need unconditioned myself.

[frogofalltime]

26.02.2024

i woke up at 10am and i was still So Exhausted and felt truly Awful but i forced myself to get up before 11. i ate breakfast and watched a youtube video by @strange-aeons that made me laugh and cheered me up a little. thank you strange we love you <3

then it was midday and i really needed to take a shower. but i couldn't do it and i was just getting increasingly upset. my mother messaged me to say sorry for upsetting me and that made me feel Even Worse. i just felt like i was stuck, like i had to detransition immediately, like i had no choice, like i needed to stop being selfish and hurting her through my own desires, etc

when i finally got in the shower i just ended up overthinking and feeling even worse. i was completely panicking. i didn't know how i could live like this.

alhamdulillah, thank God, i wasn't all alone. i have the best boyfriend in the universe. @etherealspacejelly talked to me and calmed me down. i cried a bit, but in the end i felt like it wasn't all so hopeless anymore. i ate some lunch, and then took a short walk outside, because the sun was out and i needed to clean out my brain. while walking i listened to some very angry emo music which helped somehow. and i also saw a very beautiful pigeon.

(look at her !! an angel !!)

then i had therapy at 4pm, which helped a lot. my therapist said it seems like my gender identity isn't actually the root problem; my mother struggles a lot with her attachment to and understanding of me, so she would probably be upset to see me growing up away from her no matter what that growth looked like. and they also told me i don't have to make any decisions just yet. i don't have to rush into anything that makes me unhappy just to put a temporary bandage over our relationship. so that was really useful to know.

after therapy i was exhausted so i just sat at my desk for half an hour. but a fire alarm started going off in a nearby building and it was making me overwhelmed so i went out to buy some groceries from the store just down the street (i really couldn't handle going to the actual supermarket). i bumped into my friend's boyfriend there, which was kinda awkward because he kept trying to talk to me but i was really not in the mood / didn't have the energy to talk.

when i got home the fire alarm was still going and it was Autism Hell. i put away my shopping and cooked a proper meal for dinner just to drown out the noise. eventually it stopped and i was able to eat in peace.

after eating i washed my dishes, prayed, and went to bed. for some reason someone was setting off fireworks nearby, which were so loud that it really sounded like bombs. i have always hated fireworks, but especially since last october it has felt extremely wrong and terrifying every time i hear them. i couldn't stop thinking about the people whose lives are destroyed by those same sounds every day.

i must have finally gotten to sleep, because i had bad dreams and woke up at 7am to my alarm. i'm still really tired, but i am going to try my best to make it through all my classes today.

[iwillburn]

I’ve put myself in a prison of my own creation I did this to myself I over share, I tell my plans thinking people are in my corner or have my best interest at heart

I’m constantly self sabotaging pushing the people I love the most away I something do know what real anymore idk who wants me I’ve realized so much about myself this year and I’m disgusted with myself I promised my self I’d be strong I never thought I’d turn into this when I telling the truth it’s looked at as lies and when I’ve lied it was to protect myself from more pain I’m not a victim I haven’t been a good person I must accept my wrongs and take accountability all year has felt like one big reaction …… reacting to people throwing jabs at me trying to destroy my mental …. Reacting to people pull at my heart going for my soft spot using me because they know how I love and how much I have to give and my reactions are my fault as a man I should have control over how I engage with people I should know better and I’m so disappointed and how much control I have people over me, I’ve been cruel I’ve been dishonest, I’ve been cold, I’ve been angry, and over all ive been a loser when i look i. the mirror idk what looking at anymore ive been called every name in the book for incel to narcissist, self absorbed, bipolar, autistic, slow dumb, know it all, lame, goofy fucboy, burnout, junkie clunker….like make up your mind i wont pretend like i dont have issues but i know now i have to be careful and who i allow to come in my energy give theyre opinion of who i am i almost started to believe them i have so much work to do and i cant let anyone in rn i to be sure im doing whats best for me and i wish this year didnt happen but i needed very lesson every step of the way i lost my person ik she was my person and it scares me to think ill never have a connection like that ever again we had so much in common it was wild at some point i thought she was copying my every move just to get attached in reality i got caught uo in my head inlet the people around me and my past hold me back from letting this person in….. all the plans we had all the places i wanted to take her all the self improvement we did together she has been the only person in the past 10 years thats help me in ways i didnt know i needed she made me want be a better man not only for myself but for everyone around me i fucked it up but how i did is so dumb paranoia and letting other people get in between us i was gang stalked my her ex and his friends and i should kept it to myself but at some point i thought she was in on it she would pull away at random and treat me as if i was a stranger all the things we told each other started to feel as if they've never been said at all she made me feel weird or creepy for check up on her or comforting her for sub tweets i knew were aimed at me all of a sudden im a stalker or im not respecting boundaries i deactivated all my accounts not only because of the gang stalking but also because i never wanted anyone to feel like im watching them that shit made me feel gross and i care so much about her feeling and her privacy i respect this person they've go me through the tuffest time in my life they dam near brought me back to life bur i cant accept the treatment anymore i found out they had 6 profiles and they would watch me on them so the projection is crazy i started making profiles to get away i had a youtube channel input alot of work into ive learned to keep they things i hold dear to myself now my accounts kept getting reported on all platforms she use my new accounts as proof that i watching her from them but i was trying to get away from her ex and continue my career well wanna be career ive been dealing with this so long i almost started to believe her i became scared to long in anything because i felt like many im the problem i havent been perfect but wtf is going on my mental was really tested this time im still trying to understand what was real this hurt me to my core she knows how much power she has over me and i wasnt afraid to hide how important she was to me i still dont want to believe she did any of this on purpose i dont want to believe her and her ex we in on it together but ill truly never know

[starified-lizzy]

I figured I should redo my intro to my blog-

ELLO >:DDDD

(Edit/Update:) First of all, because my friend and I just had to deal with an art tracer;

YOU CANNOT TRACE, REPOST, CLAIM MY ART AS YOUR OWN OR *WHATEVER*. MY ART IS *MY ART*. MAKE YOUR OWN. ITS NOT THAT HARD AND EVERYONE STARTS SOMEWHERE.

Reblogs and comments are appreciated tho :3

Also- if you wish to use my art as a profile picture, you MUST give me credit as the first thing in your Bio/About me.

(Back to the original post)

Name’s Lizzy! Or Star! I really don’t give a fuck which you use!

Here’s my pronouns card! https://en.pronouns.page/@starified_lizzy

I draw shit for FANDOMS

I write shit for FANDOMS

I got OCS whom I LOVE and ADORE.

“Can I draw fanart of your fics?” My sibling in Christ, we are married. /pos

“Can I draw fanart of your fanart(like DTIYS)?” My sibling in Christ. /pos

“Can I draw fanart of your OCs?” CHRIST. /pos

RAHHHHHH (it’s really fucking early I shouldn’t be doing this now ;-;)

Here’s a list of my socials, it is very limited because I hate the “standard” socials like Twitter and Insta and stuff like that. So it’s more like- fanfic sites, and any other blogs I own for you guys to check out >.>

My AO3

My Art Fight

My YouTube

My TikTok (basically dead at this point, I only ever like/favorite things on it, but I might start up again with my FNF au instead)

My Pinterest

My Spotify because sure

My FNF au blog

My demonpocalypse blog ([possibly] forever retired due to a severe issue in the community it was for)

Blog for food/recipes I want to try because MMMMMMMMMMM FOOOOD

Wow that’s actually not limited like I thought- hot damn I need to touch some grass.

HERES A LIST OF FANDOMS IM EITHER CURRENTLY IN, OR HAVE RETIRED FROM (Also CCs):

Retired-

DSMP (and MCYT as a whole for the most part), dude our community is in *shambles*. I’m so glad I left when I did, but at the same time O W.

ATLA. Technically I’m still in this fandom, but I only really get back into it/brainrot about it if I get a reminder, otherwise I kinda forget about it

FNAF. Same with ATLA, still technically in it, but I gotta be reminded it exists sometimes.

BATIM. Ditto

Wings of Fire. Ditto

Undertale. Ditto. Lizzy, my main persona, was actually an OC created from Undertale, who just ended up becoming her own person, and then ended up being associated with mine and my friend’s Minecraft au instead.

Onto CCs I no longer watch:

Any of the DSMP ppl, with very few exceptions

Jacksepticeye. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still watch a video of his if it pops up and spikes my interest, but I don’t actively seek his content out anymore.

Any of the old Minecrafters. Like DanTDM, Stampy, Tiny Turtle & Little Lizard. Hell, I don’t even think any of the ones I listed even do YT at all anymore. I’ll still watch their old videos tho.

Current-

FNF. I really could give less of a fuck if y’all think it’s “bad” or “for kids (it’s not, I promise you)”. The music slaps, and quite a few mods are really well made, so eat my ass.

Day of Dragons. The dragons are cool. I don’t care about any drama in the community. I’m here for the cool fucking dragons.

The Isle. Once again, I don’t care about any drama in the community. I’m here for the cool ass dinosaurs because you can customize your own skins and they just look and sound cool (Dilo, Herarra, and Ptera are my faves)

Lethal Company. Do it for the Company.

RainWorld. Scugs and Scups. Need I say more?

Hollow Knight. Sorta falling out of this one, but until I beat the entire game (P5) I am not finished.

Minecraft. Technically in “the fandom”, but not really attached to a specific YTer or anything like that anymore. I just like the game.

CCs I still watch:

Astral Spiff. Sprog is a good gamer.

Smii7y and his friends like Grizzy, Droid, Puffer, Blarg, etc.

Jack Manifold. I only watch his You Laugh You Loose and Ghost Sighting Compilation videos. I don’t even know if he still does Minecraft anymore.

8-BitRyan. While he doesn’t swear in his videos, it’s kinda a breath of fresh air. Plus his edits are quite funny.

Markiplier. Yes. Just… yes…

IGP. His content is just interesting. The way he freaks out over shit is funny as hell. Does he do content with IcyCaress anymore? Their banter was funny, but idk if something happened, cuz I just don’t see much stuff with Icy in it anymore.

As of right now, that’s all I can think of. It’s nice to meet you!

[ei-mugi]

i have this incredibly specific headcanon that aira had a phase where he went super hard into being a trans Woman but detransitioned after like a couple months, and is now gnc.

like not too long after he becomes an idol hes struggling a lot with his blossoming sense of adolescent identity and clear insecurity-complex, and of course he's in Ensemble Square which is full of gay people, and he's online a lot too in queer twitter communities and it kinda all accumulates into him thinking, MAYBE I AM A WOMAN? so he tries it.

but he has this very narrow and specific idea of what it means to Be Transgender, and to Be a Transwoman by extension, so he just throws himself in the deep end and goes full social & clothing transition immediately. tatsumi and mayoi are supportive (tatsumi is an Ally and mayoi is genderqueer in some form) and this is probably hiiro's first introduction to it but he doesnt care either and is enthusiastically supportive. pretty much everyone he knows is on board with it (except subaru and hokuto are weird about it probably but who cares about them). the Pretty 5 are overjoyed and help by taking him shopping, Arashi especially.

but while aira has an initial euphoric burst of freedom by doing this he very quickly feels very WRONG. but hes fucking committed to it now and like he knows hes not a dude, right?, and he doesnt want to be NonBinary (which is a single third gender identity and not an umbrella term at all, as everyone knows /s). and like, he does like wearing skirts sometimes, and long socks are cute. and he was already kinda feminine, he is ALKALOID's Cute One. so he's probably just not feeling anything at all and he isn't going to address it.

but arashi can fucking tell something is off and tries talking to him. he deflects and denies everything and at someone else bringing it up he only doubles down.

he is wearing FEMALE MAKEUP now! he is looking at tutorials on youtube on how to apply makeup just-so, so he can look like the Cis-Like and Conforming Trans Woman he is. and he is OWNING IT, he is a Girlboss and is now making Activist Twitter Posts talking about his transfem (because that isn't its own thing, either, it's just a synonym for trans Woman! also /s) experience which he is now suddenly an expert on.

and he is fucking miserable just having trapped himself into another stupid binary and now eichi is accounting for this in StarPro's marketing or whatever and now all of ALKALOID's fans are getting it into their heads about being special trans allies and all these things are happening and and and and.

mika tentatively comes up to him one day. he says that hes too nervous to go to pretty 5 or arashi about it, as irrational as it is considering it's fucking arashi, but he just wants aira's help to like, try on some skirts or something like he sees aira doing. no strings attached it doesnt mean anything, just to try.

aira is trying not to have a meltdown in the store while he waits for mika in the changing room. writing twitter posts with hands sweatier than they are after a live is one thing but having to physically be there and act as this ideal image of THE Trans Woman feels like he's standing there waiting for an axe to swing at his fucking head and that it's going to happen any second now. he gets these chills all down his back like some creepypasta character is about to get him. (he's still scared of the creepypastas).

mika says that he thinks the skirt is cute on him, but that he doesn't think he likes it. he says he doesn't know. he says that he doesn't like how it impedes on his masculinity.

"isn't that the point, though? you wanted to be a girl?" aira asks, hair actually wet with how much he's sweating.

"no... nyaghhhg, i don't wanna be a girl. i didn't think just putting it on would make me one, but if it does then i don't wanna wear it anymore."

aira thinks that is a weird fucking thing to say because of course if you're trying on skirts and trying to be feminine it means you're trying to be a transgirl, and he also thinks that if he has to hear mika talk for a second longer he's going to explode from fucking anger. he doesn't think to question why he's so angry, but he says something snappy at mika and it makes mika give up so it all works out and he can go home.

hiiro can tell aira isn't doing well but hiiro can go fuck himself for all aira cares. aira can't even practice anymore, he's just getting angrier and angrier with each day.

eventually he tears off all his clothes in a rage and throws out all his makeup, even the ones he'd been using before his transition. rei comes into their dorm and is alarmed to find aira burning a pile of clothes in the middle of the room. he's attempted to protect the carpet by putting it on top of cardboard. rei has to use the fire extinguisher.

after aira's calmed down a bit rei laughs out of nowhere. aira asks him what. rei says that he thinks aira is the first amab trans guy he's met. aira says he's had enough of all these fucking labels. rei asks if he wants him to inform eichi for him, in regards to the marketing. aira says yeah, thank you...

with touch of feather, aira grows more comfortable in his own skin.

sometime later, mika nervously announces to the pretty 5 that he's genderqueer. arashi helps him come out, and the rest express their support. tori says welcome to the club. (aira wonders how he didn't already know this about tori.)

"in what way?" aira asks mika after congratulating him.

"errr..." mika looks confused for a moment before realisation dawns on his face. "oh. nah, just genderqueer. i don't like all those expectations 'n all that. i just wanna do whatever feels right. that's what humans are, ain't it? just a lotta nonsense feelings."

"oh," says aira.

in retrospect, aira supposes that arashi isn't completely gender conforming and hyper-feminine either. and later, after he and hiiro get together (finally), he asks hiiro if he was still interested in him while he was trans. hiiro says yeah, he doesn't see why that would affect it, and really he was worried about him more than anything else. before aira can make some inquiry about his hometown, hiiro continues that he's been talking a lot to the other idols, so he knows a bit about the city's queer labels (and the variance & nuance in identity) now, and that he's bisexual --- well, he doesn't really like calling himself the labels very much, but that it's the best way to communicate it. aira says huh. he wasn't really expecting to hear that from him.

i think after all that aira would be comfortable just being gnc occasionally, and not worry too hard about being a Boy or a Girl.

[foxgirltail]

I like shitting on tears of the kingdom. I'm gonna do that some more. I'm not gonna touch the garbage fire of a story because that's a whole other essay, this is just from a gameplay perspective.

This is also based off of patch 1.1.0, because I haven't touched any of the later ones

Reader bereader you're in for a sceader I guess:

Starting off kinda funny we have: I have seen a YouTuber who largely did botw based videos (challenge runs and documenting glitches) dip their toe into totk, doing a playthrough and a couple videos in that. And then going back to making botw videos. Incredibly funny

Next off we have: changes I think Nintendo made specifically to spite returning players, speed runners, and glitch hunters (most of the glitches "patched out" were not things people were going to encounter in regular playthrough anyway. I say "patched out" because seemingly rather than tweaking the physics engine to prevent them, they removed the mechanic enabling them)

Armor upgrade costs: the amount of materials and cost of upgrading them is significantly higher in totk, while the amount of rupees and materials gained has not increased. This feels like a buffer to keep people playing longer to 100% the game, rather than anything purposeful

Whistle sprinting (and, I believe, other stamina regen techniques like spamming B while climbing) removal: while technically a glitch that could be patched out, it really only made traversal a little faster, so it seemed unnecessary. Also the game punishes you for trying it by having a steeper stamina cost AND slower run speed at the start of the animation, so attempting to whistle sprint will make you slower and use stamina faster than just regular sprinting

Removing cryonis: people used cryonis and bullet time to get places they couldn't, so they removed it. Water traversal is slightly easier in totk anyway, with the ability to make a boat wherever you want, but more than once during my playthrough I found myself wishing for it

Changing magnesis to ultrahand: while technically a direct upgrade, the animation and appearance have changed in such a way to prevent a handful of glitches from occurring

Removing remote bombs: ok this one feels the most egregious of the runes to me. While it's true you can pick up bombs just on the ground now it's not the same. For nonglitch reasons I found myself wanting remote bombs quite regularly. The only reason I think this was removed was because of wind bombing, which is silly

All in all, I found the changes in powers somewhat lacking. Fuse can't be done in the inventory, ascend is kinda finicky, and ultra hand has a new currency system

mini game changes: I think the overall number of minigames was reduced, the value of their rewards were reduced, and the notable ones that I know were removed were attached to baseline glitches (aka glitches that make other glitches possible)

I also think the changes to sage/champion powers are bad from a gameplay perspective:

Surrounding yourself with water and splashing water for a single water attack was hardly useful. There's a single boss fight where it's necessary and I guess you can do elden easier with it, but there's already fire suppressants in game. I'd rather have a free heal periodically

The fire charge is. Eh? It's nice for clearing rocks (since you don't have unlimited bombs anymore), but otherwise not super helpful outside of the requisite bossfights

The lightning blast is. Well it's a direct downgrade from botw's. The area of damage is smaller, you have to wait for Riju to charge it up right, and you have to shoot an arrow near or at the target for it to hit (costing an arrow and a bow durability point). Vs just charging up a normal attack and having it hit in an area around you

Tulin's wind blast is good. I'd prefer if on ground you could have it go vertical as well though (but vertical wind can be used in certain glitches, so that had to go)

Mineru's robot form is kinda cool from a mechanical standpoint, but not very fun to control or do combat in

Also utilizing the sages abilities is. Bad. Because you have to be standing next to them to activate it and they're always running around in combat, making it hard to intentionally activate it. and activating an ability supercedes stuff like picking up items and other interactions, making it easy to unintentionally activate it. 2/10 make it a whistle menu or something instead

Damage numbers being hidden or outright lying:

The master sword does not list its damage (base or fused, though it does show the +fused damage). This is the only weapon in the game to not show the base damage value [it follows the same rules as botw by the way, 30 by default, 60 under certain conditions]

The damage number of spears and two handed weapons do not match their actual damage output. The (unaltered) display value of spears is 33% more than the actual (unaltered) damage (rounded up to seem higher). The (unaltered) display value of two handed weapons is 5% less than the actual (unaltered) damage (rounded down to seem lower). The way this affects modifiers and fuse damage is even more complicated. This change appears to be to incentivize spear usage and disincentivize two handed weapons (in botw two handed weapons were greatly favored over one handed weapons and spears, in that order), but I think it's a bad decision to try and appear transparent about the damage you're dealing, while also lying about it

The champions tunic ability to see health bars was removed, further obfuscating how much damage is being dealt. I assume this was done so that it takes longer for people to notice (and then complain) about the lying numbers and the master sword numbers

Also the elemental damage outfit abilities are kinda silly. Doing ice damage only when it's snowy out seems rather pointless when you're most often fighting ice-based enemies in those conditions. Fire is similar. Lightning gets a pass because it can thunderstorm most other places, and those enemies aren't always going to be lightning based

I think totk did a lot of things well, and I enjoyed my playthrough of it. There were also a lot of things that frustrated me! But it feels like some things were changed specifically to spite a certain category of player, while making the experience worse for everyone else

I'll probably add more to this when I remember other stuff lol

[colorfuldream]

Rare Miraculous post but YouTube is a cesspit of Adrien stans and I cannot stand it anymore

Like I was watching a video that aimed at analyzing the show as a whole and I got hit with a whole rant about how "Chat didn't know Ladybug's boundaries", "being persistent is a good thing (even if she said no)", "she's "flirting" with him so she's asking for him to keep hitting on her" (even though she's friendly and made it clear she wasn't into him), "he even had a whole new cute relationship" (he cheated on Kagami all the while and was using her to try to get over Ladybug but I guess it's cute)

Just because he's depressed and sheltered doesn't give him the right to do any of that and he should damn well know his behavior wasn't okay. Ffs, Kuro Neko isn't a cute episode, it's Adrien throwing yet ANOTHER temper tantrum and had a whole cheating allegory when... She was trying to rely on people to fight a literal terrorist? It's every problem with Chat Noir compiled in one episode.

Oh and don't get me started on the double standards between Marinette and Adrien. He can't be the butt of the joke (despite Chat being the "jokester") and him sacrificing himself almost every fight is the writers hating him (lmao) and not a part of his character (even though it aligns with everything we know about him and has consequences, namely Ladybug relying on other heroes who will be useful in a fight). But Marinette's (unfunny) gags are 100% serious and indicating of her character. The over-the-top teenage girl in love antics (common in old shojos which were the inspiration even though they do suck) are her being a crazy stalker. (And to be fair to her, it's more of a weird celebrity crush). (Also the person claimed that one of her friends should intervene which is true but they also claimed they were bystanders when her friends have actively encouraged her to pursue Adrien, pushed them together even when Marinette was trying to move on, and generally participated in her bullshit. Have we watched the same show?!) Marinette being friendly with people she meet and her classmates? Mary Sue, the show is forcing everyone to love her... Even though it's normal friendliness between people and her classmates hate her at the drop of a hat. Of course, Adrien staying friends with Chloé even after he's witnessed her bullying anyone in her sight is because he was isolated and attached to her and not him showing he was passive and naive to the point of stupidity (to be fair again, it would be good flaws especially with how he can't lead/take charge and how sheltered he is if only the show had decent writing). And so on, and so on.

I mean... I'm not calling it internalized misogyny but... Come on.

At first, I was going to keep listening but around the end of the Adrien section, I just couldn't. Who actually writes down something along the lines of "she was touching him, smiling at him, retorting with one liners so she was reciprocating to his advances", read it out, edit footage over it and not realize how victim-blamy it is??

I'm not saying Marinette doesn't have flaws of course. But holy shit. I just want someone who can see both characters for what they are: old problematic tropes that shouldn't be in shows anymore. And while the writing hates both just as much, it has a trend of hating teenage girls and Marinette suffers so much bullshit it's obvious the writers have a bias against her. (+It's obvious from Astruc's Twitter that he loves Adrien and he's stated that Adrien has no flaws while the show revolves around Marinette's mistakes which explains why she's blames for everything even when it's not her fault!)

[soullikethesea]

I feel sad. Saw T yesterday and it went better than it did last time. I could tell she was really trying and she seemed open to connection. She also asked about parts and that felt nice, because sometimes many sessions go by without ever talking about parts and it does make some of us feel unseen at times. (I know we should just bring it up ourselves in those cases).

T asked if I felt like therapy feels like a repetition of something (like earlier therapy). And yeah, in some ways. It does remind me of L and Old T, near the end, right before I stopped seeing them. I told T that we have gotten to know each other really well and now that seems to make it progressively harder for me.

It feels stuck. I get knots in my shoulders as I approach the terrain. Mentioned that, and then T asked a whole bunch about "what the knots would say if they could talk". Lol. The only thing I could imagine them saying was "go away". Not to T, I think, but to me. T proposed taking a walk, but I was scared of seeing other people outside. So then she said to just imagine taking a walk. I couldn't bring myself to follow her in imagining, unfortunately. I just had Wuss yelling at me inside.

Whenever I felt myself being pulled into emotions, getting upset, he yelled that it's bullshit and that I need to snap out of it. The fear of getting upset for like three days again, losing precious energy I need to cope with work.

T also asked if I was upset with her, but I just can't find the words! I just don't know. Am I upset with her? Maybe??? But why???? And is it not just me being horrible and ruining everything? T said she wondered if it was "attachment stuff", and yeah, probably, who knows... She said that I could imagine a perfect session with a perfect therapist and then we would know what to do. I kind of snapped at her that she still expects *me* to know everything, but I actually don't. I think it would be something like a T proposing some exercises and guiding me through it by giving options.

It's probably transference or just me being stupid, but I do think I need more structure. And yes, this feels like being back at Old T and how she came to telling me that she can't help me.

The T I have now is a bit more solid, but yeah, maybe I'm already driving her towards that as well.

I just feel so overwhelmed and I want the world to make sense and not to lead my own therapy. I already lead so much while I'm teaching. And man, I feel so freaking lonely.

I'm holding on at work, but I'm sacrificing my ability to connect.

Wuss kind of blocks all possible therapy work as well. He says that it's bullshit to focus on the past, because it's over and it's just a pity party to think about it. He says that about any and all emotions, basically. It's wearing me down. It's true, I don't want to think about the past anymore. It feels too heavy. But I also want to live a life that has a certain quality of life to it. Being all alone and not even in touch with myself hurts that QoL.

I sent T an analysis video of the 8 Passengers case on Youtube. It reminds me so much of how my dad and stepmum were, their mindset. I hope it shows how you get an overcontrolled child. But it also feels so pointless to share. Who even cares, why should it matter what happened. I've thought about it for 10 years and I'm still struggling.

I wish I could go back to some inner softness and some connection. I'll take connection with T if that's all that's available. I just can't seem to handle it. Even breathing in therapy scares me.

[reel-fear]

honest to god the whole lackadaisy viv situation has just proved to me viv has not changed a bit [that was already kinda proven since she still thinks its okay to use slurs and bigotry as comedy in her shows despite her history with them, we're all supposed to ignore that bc now she labelled it a "Joke" and slapped a red filter on her shitty designs and said they're "in hell so they're bad people"]

Like, having her donation rejected should've been, obvious to her, why is nobody bringing up that by donating 5000 dollar SPECIFICALLY GETS YOU THIS:

What Viv did was not a selfless kind donation, she wanted something out of it, specifically to be able to slap her name on this project. And Viv [no matter what your opinion of her is, if you think she's changed or not] is a controversial figure! Having her name attached to anything brings controversy! No matter how you try to paint it, this is entirely within the Lackadaisy's team right to deny!

Not to mention Viv has had a history of mistreating her artists, drawing fanart of transphobic youtubers, one who did blackface, made an AWFUL apology for all the horrific stuff she did and despite the fact she has """"""""Changed"""""""" can't handle people not wanting her name on their projects because she HASN'T CHANGED.

When you grow to become a better person and move on from your past bad actions, part of that process HAS to be realizing some people just aren't gonna be comfortable being around you because of your history! You have to be able to accept that, respect it and understand that! You fucked up and some people don't want to be around you anymore!

But Viv doesn't actually think any of her past actions were that bad, she's still defensive over her history and she CANNOT handle the most professional of rejections. The fact the lackadaisy team clarified the viv situation was PERSONAL, further shows how awful viv is for tweeting about it, BECAUSE SHE MADE SOMETHING THE LACKADAISY TEAM DIDNT WANT TO TALK ABOUT PUBLIC PURELY FOR THE REASON OF GETTING HER RABID FANBASE TO HOUND THEM ABOUT WHY THEY REJECTED THEIR QUEEN.

And now we're all supposed to be distracted by some transphobic tweets one of the lackadaisy team members [of which there are very, very many] liked on twitter forever ago and ignore the fact that person was ALSO the one who was slightly mean to the woman who hates just about every minority on the planet whose fanbase loves to rapidly try to tear down [Viv].

Viv's fans just really REALLY care about transphobia, that's why the same person they ALREADY HATED bc they said smth mean to their GODDESS, just so happened to be the one who, [with enough harassment and scrubbing] they found a reason to hate. How kind of them to bring this to our attention, truly they are acting so selflessly while they deny the screenshots of Viv being transphobic with foaming mouths. But the person who was slightly mean to their queen? Oh they're transphobic, we know bc viv's fans instantly went into stalker mode but now it's okay to stalk them bc we found a good reason to right? =] the ends justify the means.

if ur a fan of viv or her work, I don't mean this lightly.

Get the fuck away from me or die. Either works.

Sincerely, a trans person <3