#i will never stop writing essays

[mythalism]

more me verbally processing my feelings on this game and it's story that i sent in discord but i know reading these things can be helpful to others processing so im sharing them here <3

even though i think i personally am able to find coherent meaning in solas's ending, specifically the status of the veil, and i do think its good and i like it, i really have to work to do it. the way its written is kind of confusing because the message is like ok. let go of your regrets. but you also have to atone for your mistakes. but solas believes he is atoning by taking the veil back down and bringing immortality back and making sure more spirits are not turned into demons? but the story tells us that version of atonement is Wrong, but why is it wrong? because people will die? but people also die because of the veil? mages are mass incarcerated and lobotimized bc of the veil, elves have been enslaved for millenia, PEOPLE AGE AND DIE, BECAUSE OF THE VEIL? so he isnt supposed to atone for that mistake by fixing it he's just supposed to accept it and let go? so are we supposed to atone for our mistakes or not? what determines whether or not we need to atone? he has to atone for what he did to the titans but not what he did by accident to his own people i guess? and he is going to atone by maintaining the status quo that he created because people have gotten used to it?

i think the answer based on the regret prison scene with rook escaping with varric's help and that banger line of varric's is to take accountability and own up to your choices, they are yours and no one can take them from you. rook says something to one of the regret statues (for me it was harding) thats like "i made a choice and so did you and you knew the risks" or something so i think that is the key. solas cannot accept his choices and so he is desperate to undo them no matter what kind of harm it may do. he is trapped in regret and the past to the point that he cant accept them and move forward, and varric is the perfect contrast of this with how readily he accepts his death as a consequence of his love and hope for his friend. even mythal accepts her own choices when she tells solas that she turned him from his purpose. and she doesnt apologize or even express regret at all, partly because shes a crazy bitch (affectionate) but partly because i think her quiet, cold acceptance is part of the lesson solas needs to learn in that moment. solas is constantly saying, "im sorry, but", "ir abelas, vhenan, but i cannot". mythal just states her actions plainly; i forced you to take a body, i brought you into war, these burdens are ours to bear together, i release you. no apology, no rumination, she is at peace with her decision even though it is wrong. i think this works wonderfully on a personal individual level of personal regrets. it is a good lesson; regret does not serve any purpose other than to hurt you. it brings no one back, it helps nothing, it does not make the world a better place. solas has to let go of his regrets so that he can become the hero that varric sees deep down in him. it is an essential part of his personal journey as a character... but it gets stickier when we are talking about systemic change. obvi a lot of dragon age's modern, young audience is very much in favor of "tear it all down!!" and i am too but i think with solas they are trying to tell a very personal and individual story of a man and his regrets rather than make a social commentary on radical change, but they also dont make that clear enough, so the two get muddied together when it comes to the question of the veil in a way that feels like they are advocating for maintaining the status quo, which i dont think was their intention.

i think this is so muddied because inquisition very much makes clear commentary on systems and institutions with the chantry, the orlesian empire, ferelden monarchy, mages and templars, and the inquisition itself being all vulnerable to corruption, and solas has a lot to say about all of this and he is very much presented as being right (like when he tells you about the corruption in your own ranks in trespasser and how hes spying on you lol) and then veilguard does not do this AT ALL, all of the issues are very personal ones of people and their identity, people and their family, people and their regrets etc. so i think a lot of us are in this mindset from inquisition of like.... yeah disrupt the status quo install a puppetmaster elf to rule an imperialist empire, make leliana pope and radicalize the chantry even if its bloody, dissolve the inquisition, abolish the circles etc. etc. and the question of the veil is very much an extension of these philosophical questions about systems and organizations. and for those of us who leaned towards dissolution of all of those corrupt structures, dissolution of the veil is the logical conclusion to a story thats sending us that message. but then veilguard just. does not even engage with these topics at all. like its not even a question. it takes the question of the veil and translates it into a personal issue of solas's psyche (which is super interesting, just different) and connects it to his past actions, his relationship with mythal, and his perception of himself, rather than a macro-level question of what is best for the world when pursuing change, and the answer for solas on a personal level ends up being different from the answer that inquisition was asking us, but it feels disjointed as a result.

so the veil staying up was the right decision because it forced solas to let go of his regrets and the game is about him. so it was an exercise in his therapy session with his two ex-gfs and some annoying kid who wont leave him alone. but the problem is it doesn't answer or engage with the greater questions and themes about systemic change that the series has been building up to.

veilguard is interesting because it wants to be dragon age 2 so bad while simultaneously being terrified of dragon age 2. solas bringing down the veil would have been the answer to the question that anders blowing up the chantry asked, but veilguard decided to ask a completely different question instead. and i think it did a good job in that specific goal, but it doesnt satisfy 15 years of build up and instead just throws it out the window in favor of something else.

[mobius-m-mobius]

You wanna hear a good story? Listen to this one.

Mobius + comfort

[gracescoolbeans]

ALSO! i can't believe this moment is real-

the fact that the joke started with an “i like my men…” type of joke but angela went with “partners”, amanda’s instant “no-”, the fucking stare into the camera after “a frappuccino”, the fact that amanda felt the need to swoop in with the “i like men!”, and the way everyone acknowledged the joke/comment EXCEPT angela like what????? this feels like a fever dream. MY fever dream

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

i’m sorry but alex’s reaction to being shown a compilation of nude men and half-clothed male athletes on a french talk show is quite simply one of the best things i’ve ever witnessed

[neproxrezi]

someone else could write it better than me but i love how the fucked up nasty shit you can make harry do/say/be in disco elysium isn't just like, random stuff caused simply by the player having free will and control over him but they're parts of who he is and who he has been

you're not a tabula rasa. you're a sudden shock of blank pages in a big, aged, damaged book and sometimes the paper you're trying to write a better man on is torn and you see something through the gaps nobody needed to see ever again. and it's just there now again, back to the surface

[itwoodbeprefect]

meow. meowmeowmeowmeow. meow! 😾

[matryoshkalex]

i forgot i started this in like april and never finished bc i got super busy with tmaynt but i suddenly remembered and finished it this week!!

i watched 2003 when i was in like? middle school and same as it never was stayed with me and was one of my favorite episodes because ive always been a fan of the darker and more angsty stuff. so i thought about 2012 in the sainw timeline and couldnt get it out of my head so. here they are. two versions because i couldnt decide which background i liked more

[gifti3]

i graduated years ago i shouldnt have to do this...!!!!

[spacedlexi]

girlies post incoming!!! 💜🍊

the way these two had no idea what they were doing (clem raising aj. violet leading the school) yet now they support each other and as a team are trying to help each other figure it out together. theyre making it up as they go but they at least know they have each other to rely on for whatever happens next

clem never had all the answers but she was trying her best to not let that show. violet becomes someone clem knows she can rely on no matter what (standing up for her and aj and their place at the school, "when i heard you call for help i didnt even think"), and clem becomes someone violet can rely on in turn (using her experience to help violet lead and protect the school and helping her take care of all these kids). theyre each others ROCKS!!!!!!! THEYRE A TEAM!!!!!!!!!!

honestly one of the reasons letting vi get taken hurts so much is that no matter what she WAS the leader of ericson!! vi (the wallflower that she was) steps up as soon as aj is in trouble to protect him And clem, then continues to fall into that leadership position because its not like anyone else is trying to keep everyone together. and even though she has no idea what shes doing or going to do about the army coming to take them all away, shes still trying her best, and clem helps her figure it out as they begin to lead together as a TEAM!! neither of them would be where they are without the influence of the other (vi stepping up as leader, clem being allowed back in). and you can just..... let her be taken in spite of all that.......... no wonder she was so heartbroken in that cell how could she not be

but if you save her it just solidifies their building relationship. that theyll always have the others back no matter what. and vi solidifies this even further by shooting minnie to save clem. all the little reassuring smiles they give each other.. making sure the other is holding up ok in moments of stress... im gonna go cry now

[oceans-beloved]

Meme dump yayyy🥳✨️

(off to make more now muhahaha >:3)

[meteortrails]

I know I made a post about this already but I feel like I cannot stress enough how vital nami’s role as a protector is to her character… like she literally spends her entire adolescence protecting her village near entirely on her own. she’s willing to do almost anything, make deals with whatever devils she can, so long as it keeps what’s left of her family safe. and luffy saves them, and she moves past that desperation, but she doesn’t move past that ruthless protective instinct. it comes up constantly; after luffy, nami’s probably the person who impulsively drags the crew into other people’s business trying to save them the most! and especially with her crew, she’s just so fucking persistent in her acceptance and her love and her desire to keep them all safe and happy. she’ll fight women so sanji doesn’t have to; she’ll take charge in the haunted castle so usopp doesn’t freak out; she’ll lay down her life before she denounces luffy’s dream. idk I’m just kinda in love with her about it

[fixielixie]

you know what i always find funny when it comes to how people perceive jin guangyao's actions in the novel, like he truly was powerless to everything that happened and u cant really blame him for the actions of others when we all know jgy wasnt a good cultivator so he couldnt rely on that to secure his position (like wwx whom everyone loves to compare to jgy) especially in a place like the jin sect so he had to play dirty. jin zixuans death i think is the clearest example, if jgy wanted to get anywhere he needed him dead, but jzx absolutely couldn't be killed in any sort of suspicious way bc the blame would automatically fall onto jgys head so it had to be undeniable. so jgy had to have played all of his cards right in trying to set up everything; the perfect circumstances for jin zixun to offend su she, probably leaving the curse out somewhere su she could find it, stirring the pot the it had to have been wwx (maybe he didnt even need to do this), the ambush and then mentioning the entire ordeal to jzx just late enough that hopefully tension would be high by the time jzx, already established as a bad people person, came onto the scene. it was still up in the air, jgy couldnt make wwx kill jzx, but he could craft a scenario where the chances of it happening were very high and he just got lucky. like this absolutely sounds like something jgy would do, the man faked suicide to get out of trouble, surely this was easy in comparison.

jgy trying to absolve himself of having influenced any of this at the end of the novel is very in character to, his core belief is that anyone who dares to speak too loudly, or freely speak their mind or pushes back against the majority is just gonna end up being scorned, and it makes sense why he thinks that, it's all he's ever been taught or known of the world- him benefitting from this is what he considers to be fair, considering it's gonna happen anyway. hes someone who has learned to never be courageous or daring, so he instead cuts down the type to speak out bc of some twisted type of revenge for every time the world did it to him.

jgy and wwx are the complete opposite in this regard, bc no matter how many times wwx is thrown down for speaking up for what he believes in, he's gonna get back up and fight back and he has always been like that. wwxs strength as a character is his resilience, and jgys weakness is his cynicism

[fromtheseventhhell]

Seeing awful takes about Arya is even wilder knowing that people would lose their minds if we said the same things about their fave. Can you imagine if we were genuinely theorizing that Sansa's story ended with her dying, warging into a bird, and becoming a pet for one of her siblings? They would have a fit and call us all kinds of misogynistic, but they'll never explain why their logic is suddenly wrong when it's used for anyone except Arya

[houseswife]

Residence reference spotted in my coursework 😨🫵

[felifeltfrog]

I will never stop talking about how reading A Little Princess as an adult radically awakened a part of me that I thought was long dead; the unapologetic ability to play pretend and to romanticize the smallest things in my life.

It makes the most menial and boring everyday tasks into something worth doing, and frankly? It helps a lot with the executive dysfunction.

Cooking? I am a hobbit preparing a feast!

Cleaning the house? I live in a fairy cottage and I'm doing a huge spring cleaning!

Getting groceries? I am a villager getting ingredients for tonights dinner at the local marketplace!

There's always a scenario you can imagine to make things more interesting, less mundane. And thanks to rereading one of my childhood comfort books I have yet again discovered just how great the power of imagination really is, even for adults.

[old-skyguy]

Look.

Ace Attorney fandom.

I know why people don't like Turnabout Bigtop. I am among the people who dislike Turnabout Bigtop.

But I GET why people like the case. I'm not going to be one of those annoying people who just blindly dump on it because I hate those mfs too.

Thing about Bigtop isn't that it sucks. Thing isn't the weird grooming stuff (though that is a huge part of it). It's not that it could've been good.

It's that - in my personal OPINION - it could have been *great*.

I think it had the potential to be one of the best third cases in the trilogy. It had everything; a fun and goofy setting fit for a pretty dang goofy lawyer game - where the environment itself had jokes and quips and one-liners and mishaps and tomfoolery written all over it, it had the previous case introducing a very interesting and important plotline that gave background for one of the more well-loved characters while also introducing an equally fucked up and lovable new one who was a child forced into a shit childhood of naivete in a CIRCUS with another character who was very naive and childish - whose interactions could have been funny and cute and reflective of said shit from the previous case (seriously she becomes such an important character in the 4th case, WHY would they not include her in this one for some character development? How did they fuck up letting a CHILD explore a CIRCUS?? That would have made the interactions flow MUCH better).

They had a pretty good, sympathetic killer imo, a morally dubious victim, an asshole of a client (who was pretty flat admittedly in-game, but I like his weird, topsy-turvy reasoning for it in the anime. Also, I think Max being kinda a dick would have bode well for the themes of Farewell since most of his clients up to this point have been like...nice? Not nice, but sympathetic, but him having to defend someone who's innocent but a prick would have shown him that just because someone is an asshole, doesn't mean they deserve to suffer for it and that they have the potential to grow as people, which is almost a complete foil to what Matt was. Ultimately, I would have loved the contrast of them as clients and I think it would have also served as character development for Phoenix, especially with his low-empathy tendencies).

They just didn't think that far ahead. They just didn't execute it well enough. They just decided to make three of the adult characters fight for the hand in marriage of a teenage girl. (Bat's part of the story was actually kinda good if he was just YOUNGER, I think him doing that for Regina would have been a stupid thing someone in the circus would do to impress their crush. Damn you Ace Attorney and your weird treatment of underage girls!!)

It just flopped and that's ok.

Even though it kinda sucked, it can still mean something to me.

Also I'm a Moe Curls apologist. I liked him, shut up.