#if this doesn't make sense I blame it on covid

[another-lost-mc]

I really love the idea that fallen angels have uniquely different experiences than other demons.

Sure, they might be demons now, but once upon a time, they used to be something different. Falling doesn't magically erase countless years spent living in a completely different world, eating different foods and wearing different clothes and waking up and falling asleep under a different sky.

Fallen angels have memories about places that used to matter to them a long time ago - my old room, which dining hall had the best view of the gardens, which kitchen was easiest to sneak into for a late-night snack. They talk about places - a flower field or a river or lake - where they shared common experiences and memories they can still think of fondly. Demons that overhear them realize the places they're referring to simply don't exist in the Devildom.

I wonder what they would think about this? It's strange when other angels are mentioned in connection with a memory: perhaps those angels aren't as reputable or powerful as the Seraphim, but they're still once-treasured enough to not yet be forgotten. They're old friends lost in time.

How often do fallen angels revert back to speaking or writing scripture out out habit? How awkward is it to ace a test about Celestial Realm history when they struggle to recall the Devildom-centric events for those same periods in time?

Fallen angels sometimes refer to back home like something from an old memory. Sometimes they refer to Devildom holidays or traditions as things demons do as if they're not demons themselves. They're demons, but they weren't always. They're similar, but not exactly the same, either.

It's almost habit to talk about themselves as if they're an angel and a demon, because they're a unique breed of creature that's lived as both.

[mew-cake]

I've been thinking about this for a couple of days but there's something so beautiful about how from the very beginning, Siffrin is loved.

In the final time loop, after Siffrin has said horrible things to his family, they still go after him. They still go to rescue their friend. Their family. They still say how they want to stay with Siffrin and everyone else.

There was never a need for all the friend quests. There was never a need for Siffrin to solve all of their problems. He never needed to be useful. Because there was already a long journey before the start of the game, the start of the loops. And on that journey these characters grew to know and care for each other.

Siffrin was always loved.

[amphibious-thing]

This is maybe a dumb question, but looking at the portraits of Hervey, I have a hard time noticing anything about how he's dressing that seems out of the ordinary or especially more 'feminine' for the time period (barring that one where he just has his coat buttoned super low and his whole shirt out?). Am I missing some obvious detail (material they were made out of maybe?) or was the his effeminacy/the perception of him as effeminate just more based on behavior than 'presentation'?

Not a dumb question at all. It was combination of his sexuality, his diet, his androgyny as well as his clothes & makeup. While Hervey's femininity was almost certainly exaggerated in satire written by his enemies there was some basis to this satire.

Sexuality

In the 18th century there was an association between effeminacy and sodomy. I don't think we can discount the role the rumours surrounding Hervey's sexuality played in the public's perception of him. William Pulteney's 1731 pamphlet A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel satirises Hervey as Mr. Fainlove. Pulteney describes Fainlove as a "delicate Hermophrodite", a "pretty, little, Master-Miss" and insinuates that he's a pathick who "enjoys every Moment and Fruits of his Guilt". The 1739 pamphlet The State of Rome, Under Nero and Domitian satirises Hervey as Sporus (an allusion to Pope's satire of Hervey) describing him as a "Male-female Thing," who is "Fit only for the Pathicks loathsome Trade".

Pope's choice to satirise Hervey as Sporus in An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735) was itself a comment on Hervey's sexuality. Sporus being the boy that Nero is said to have castrated and taken as a wife.

Diet

Hervey was epileptic and suffered from a chronic colic. He details his medical history in An Account of My Own Constitution and Illness. At the recommendation of his doctor's George Cheyne he adopted a milk and vegetable diet. Cheyne believed that such a diet was "absolutely necessary for the total Cure of the Epilepsy” and also prescribed milk and vegetable diets in cases of “extreme Nervous Cholicts”. (The English Malady, p167 & 254) Hervey ate no meet for three years before reintroducing white meet. This diet was seen as effeminate by his contemporaries. Lady Louisa Stuart cites his refusal to eat beef as an example of the “extreme to which Lord Hervey carried his effeminate nicety”. (Stuart wrote this anonymously in the introductory anecdotes included in the 1837 edition of The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.)

Hervey also drank "ass’s milk with powder of crab’s eyes and oyster-shells" for his heath. This is mocked in the poem The Lord H-r--y's First Speech in the House of Lords (1733-4) that calls him "a perfect curd of ass's milk." Alexander Pope included a similar line in An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735) describing him as a "mere white Curd of Ass's milk".

[Certain City Macaronies drinking Asses Milk, print, c.1772, via The British Museum.]

The association between effeminacy and asses milk features in the satirical dialogue The City Macaronies drinking Asses-milk, at the Lacteum, in St. George's-fields published in the November 1772 edition of the Oxford Magazine which was accompanied by the above illustration. The dialogue mocks macaroni for drinking asses-milk as a treatment for "nervous cases" and "hysterics" claiming that it's "delicate men" such as the macaroni "whose fine feelings are sensible of the slightest pressure, that are acquainted with hysterics". The son of the milk woman wonders aloud whether the macaroni are men or women. His mother tells him "they're neither, they are a kind of half and half breed."

Androgyny

With his slim figure and a bit of a baby-face Hervey was considered to be naturally androgynous. When Lady Deloraine said to him and Miss Fitzwilliams that "in her opinion a woman could never look too much like a woman, nor a man too much like a man" Hervey admitted that "considering the two people she said this to, it was certainly well said; and I can forgive her having bragged of it to every creature she has seen since" (Hervey to Stephen Fox, 18 September 1731)

Satirical descriptions of Hervey liken him to a cherub or a fairy describing him as pretty, little, soft, dainty, delicate.

In A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel (1731) Pulteney satirises Hervey as "pretty Mr. Fainlove" who he describes as a "delicate Hermophrodite", a "pretty, little, Master-Miss", a "pretty, little Scribbler", and comments that he shouldn't "sully those pretty Fingers with Ink" that "a Fan would become them much better than a Pen."

The Lord H-r--y's First Speech in the House of Lords (1733-4) describes him as "the softest, prettiest thing". In An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735) Pope describes him as having a "cherub's face". Tell-tale Cupids (1735) satirises him as the "pretty baby fac'd Lord Dapper".*

In A Fairy Tale (1743) by Horace Walpole depicts Hervey as a literal fairy describing him as a "Dainty little Figure", "most delicately Fair and light" who "would have been vastly Pretty if it’s cherry-lips had ‘nclos’d any Teeth".

*quoted in Lord Hervey: Eighteenth-Century Courtier by Robert Halsband

Clothes & Makeup

Pope didn't describe Sporus as a "bug with gilded wings" and a "Fop at the toilet" because of Hervey's natural androgyny, clothing & makeup absolutely played a role in the public perception of him.

The Duchess of Marlborough described Hervey as a having "a painted face, and not a tooth in his head". Pope described him as "painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings". And the The Court Garland refers to him as "Thou powder-puff, thou painted toy". (see The Opinions of Sarah Duchess-Dowager of Marlborough p42, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot & Lord Hervey: Eighteenth-Century Courtier by Robert Halsband p138)

The fashionable look of the period required pale clear skin, flushed red cheeks and dark eyebrows. While washes and creams were used to achieve clear pale skin, white cosmetic paint could also be used to lighten and smooth the skin. Rouge was used to give colour to the cheeks. Burnt cloves could be used to darken the eyebrows. While some of these cosmetics contained lead or mercury not all of them did.

[Lord John Hervey, oil on canvas, c.1741–1742, by Jean-Baptiste van Loo, via Art UK.]

It's hard to know how reliable the accounts of Hervey's makeup use are however his portraits do depict him with this fashionable look (in particular the rosy cheeks of the Jean-Baptiste van Loo portraits and the Enoch Seeman portrait). While modern depictions of 18th century fops will sometimes exaggerate makeup depicting men with pure white faces and almost perfectly round red circles on their cheeks, Hervey's portraits are more accurate to the look these cosmetics were trying to achieve.

The use of cosmetics are highlighted in satirical depictions of effeminate men throughout the 18th century century. As early as 1691 Mundus Foppensis: or, the Fop Display’d was mocking men for the "wanton use" of "Spanish Red, and white Ceruse". In 1773 The Old Beau in an Extasy depicts a "Fop at Sixty two" who uses "Chinese Paint for Artificial Bloom". In 1812 Regency A la Mode depicts the Prince Regent applying rouge to his cheeks while he gets laced into stays. The Court Garland's satire of Hervey is just another example of a satirical depiction of a fop in makeup:

Thou powder-puff, thou painted toy, Thou talking trifle, H----y; Thou doubtful he, she, je ne sçai quoy, By G-d, the K--g shall starve ye.

[Left: The Old Beau in an Extasy, print, c.1773, by John Dixon, via Lewis Walpole Library.

Right: 1812, or, Regency A la Mode, print, c.1812, by William Heath, via Lewis Walpole Library]

As for clothing I have to admit I'm better at late-18th century menswear. That being said material and colour seem to have played a role in what was considered effeminate.

A letter to the Read's Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer published on the 8th of May 1731 complains; "Rich and coloured Silks are in themselves effeminate, and unbecoming a Man; as are in short, all Things that discover Dress to have been his Study- 'Tis in vain for a Fop of Quality, to think his Title will protect him." In particular the article criticises poke sleeves and green waistcoats. While poke sleeves are absent from Hervey's portraits the Seeman portrait depicts him wearing a green waistcoat.

Green waistcoats are also mentioned in a story published in the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal on the 18th of October 1729 describing and effeminate man's clothing as follows:

He had a flower’d pink-colour Silk Coat, with a Green-Sattin Waistcoat lac’d with Silver. Velvet Breeches, Clock’d Stockings the Colour of his Coat, Red-heel’d Pumps, a Blue Ribbon at the Collar of his Shirt, and his Sword-Hilt he embrac’d under the Elbow of his Left Arm,

This green waistcoat is laced with silver. In the Jean-Baptiste van Loo portraits you can see a embroidered silver waistcoat peeking out from beneath Hervey's coat.

[Left: Lord John Hervey, oil on canvas, c.1737, by John Fayram, via Art UK.

Right: Lord John Hervey, oil on canvas, by Enoch Seeman, via The Collected Verse of John, Lord Hervey]

While the quality of the photo leaves much to be desired I wonder if the coat from the Seeman portrait is supposed to be silver. The coat he wears in the The Hervey Conversation Piece could also be silver but it might simply be grey. Sarah Osborn thought that silver coats looked effeminate. She wrote to Robert Byng on the 2nd of June 1722:

I believe the gentlemen will wear petticoats very soon, for many of their coats were like our mantuas. Lord Essex had a silver tissue coat, and pink color lutestring waistcoat, and several had pink color and pale blue paduasoy coats, which looked prodigiously effeminate.

Hervey wears a "prodigiously effeminate" pale blue, possibly paduasoy, coat (possibly a long sleeved waistcoat?) in the Fayram portrait.

The low buttoned waistcoat is somewhat interesting and consistent throughout his portraits, buttoned particularly low in the Fayram portrait. The effeminate Captain Whiffle from The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) is described wearing his waistcoat "unbuttoned at the upper part to display a brooch set with garnets" but Hervey is broochless and looking at other portraits from this period the low buttoning doesn't seem to be unusual.

[Left: Detail of The Hervey Conversation Piece, oil on canvas, c.1738-40, by William Hogarth, via Fairfax House.

Right: Lord John Hervey, oil on canvas, c.1741, by Jean-Baptiste van Loo, via Art UK.]

Fur-lined suits like that worn by Hervey in the Jean-Baptiste van Loo portraits were imported from France or Italy and could be very costly. Mary Delany describes Lord Baltimore wearing "light brown and silver, his coat lined quite throughout with ermine" at a ball where "finery was so common it was hardly distinguished". (Mary Delany to Ann Granville, 22 Jan, 1739/40)

Fur-lined suits were somewhat of novelty in England and would become a feature in Grand Tour portraits. Peter McNeil explains in Pretty Gentleman (p123):

The novelty and glamour of new fashion goods generated excited responses to Lyons silk waistcoats, Italian velvets and fur-lined suits. There was a well-established tradition of wealthy men acquiring clothing on the continent and then having themselves painted in them, either in Italy or back in England.

(see Benjamin Lethieullier 1752, Lord Archibald Hamilton 1755-56 & John Scott 1774 all by Pompeo Batoni an artist well know for his Grand Tour portraits)

Hervey's buckles in the Jean-Baptiste van Loo portraits look to be set with paste (glass) or gems (buckles could even be set with diamonds). While it's impossible to tell what Hervey's buckles are set with these buckles could get very expensive. Later in the century macaroni were mocked for their expensive taste in similar buckles. (see McNeil p90)

[Left: Shoe buckle, metal & paste, 18th century, British via The MET (83.1.103).

Right: Detail of Lord John Hervey, oil on canvas, c.1741, by Jean-Baptiste van Loo, via Art UK.]

While Hervey was certainly a fashionably dressed man he doesn't take it to the extent you might imagine of the archetypal fop. Satire exaggerates. Hervey's enemies chose their words deliberately to humiliate him. The amphibious thing of Pope's poetry was in reality a chronically ill queer man with a taste for fashion.

[captainjonnitkessler]

Off-topic but i know you posts about this before: Can I ask why you blame left for Trump? The democrats kept moving right with every successful election so it makes sense to withhold left votes cause they're just going to keep moving further right until they're also far-right and then you might as well have Trump anyway

I primarily blame Trump voters for Trump, but I'm angry at non-voters for three reasons:

The Trump administration is openly fascist. They are openly running concentration camps. Thousands of people are currently suffering through unjust deportations, false imprisonment and legal persecution, and literally being sent to concentration camps, and tens of thousands more will suffer in the future until we can root out this administration. These people are not acceptable losses in order to "teach the Democrats a lesson", and you're goddamn right I'm furious that now we have to dig out an entrenched fascist government because of 'well actually both parties are the same" bullshit.

Refusing to vote doesn't show the Democrats that they need to move left in order to win elections, it shows them that the left doesn't vote so they may as well focus their attention on the centrists who DO vote in every election but who are potentially able to be persuaded to vote differently. That's also not a good strategy imo, but I have to admit I see logic!

We already have a mechanism in place to force the Democrats to the left. That's what the primary system is for! Progressives are already out there running for office in the Democratic party! But unfortunately progressive policies are not as popular as people on tumblr and bluesky think they are, and most people are not tuned in enough to politics to know or care about voting in primaries. THAT'S what we need to change if we really want to see progressive politics on a national scale.

Ultimately I don't think leftists not voting is what let Trump win. I think it was general political apathy. Lots of people just vote based on name recognition or political identity without knowing or caring about the candidates. And incumbents lost across the world after covid because when inflation rises and supply chains break down, people will vote against whoever was in charge at the time no matter how little control they had over it. Biden did an incredible job of soft-landing the pandemic without causing a recession, and Democrats got punished for it because people just saw grocery prices go up and figured "damn, Democrats suck, next time I'll give the other guys a shot". Now Trump is causing prices to rise and people are already saying "damn, Republicans suck, next time I'll give the other guys a shot".

However, Trump and the MAGA movement didn't spring out of nowhere. They're the result of decades of the far-right organizing and voting en masse in local elections, showing up and being loud at their city council and school board meetings, coalescing around strategic candidates, and ever so slowly pulling the Overton Window in their direction. Until and unless leftists start committing to doing the same then yes, I think they care more about cosplaying as cool rebels who are above the system than they do about effecting actual change.

[miiilowo]

Highlights / Notable info from the second Scott Cawthon Dawko interview for people who don't want to watch it

MISC/START OF INTERVIEW

- scott says the 1 thing he'd wanna go back and change/fix the past 10 years is FNAF world; said a lot of weird/bad decisions were made going into it, that he didn't like the graphics and it Could Have been a good game but he doesn't like it overall & he may consider making an improved sequel

- he was scared to hand FNAF over to steel wool but he thinks he got lucky w/ them

- refuses to play both FNAF VR games because they genuinely scare him too much; didn't want to beta test them (funny)

- he very much knows the fandom prefers pure horror and the supernatural but cant resist leaning into scifi stuff

- doesn't like the names burntrap and glitchtrap and they were supposed to be temporary

SECURITY BREACH

- half blames covid splitting up steel wools workforce for the games lack of quality and delays

- says his "vision of the game" was misaligned with steel wool, that he had a "very specific story in mind" for security breach and it didnt pan out like he wanted

- he takes fault for it, saying he conveyed it in a bad way; "I was trying to tell steel wool to do specific things throughout the game, put specific items in specific places, have specific characters do certain things, meanwhile not TELLING them what the story plot was. Because in my head, I was thinking 'Okay, when people find this, they'll connect this to this to this & it will all be revealed, and I thought I could do that without telling steel wool the story plot. That didn't work out very well because they got all of these pieces, and they thought it was their job to connect them in a way that made sense. And so really what you ended up having were the same pieces telling completely different stories...I don't blame them for that, I blame myself for that, because what I should have done was gone 'hey, heres the story, the pieces are here, here's how theyre supposed to connect'."

- burntrap originally even supposed to move; just supposed to see something you saw in between machinery or in corners, that you werent supposed to know his purpose even though he used to have a very specific one (that the fandom doesnt know)

- he knows it didnt turn out like anyone wanted & thats why they made the RUIN dlc, he hopes it redeemed security breach

- he said hes learned from that mistake with security breach and things should be better in the future

- he cannot share any thoughts on the mimic

- he likes vanny a lot, shes one of his favorites and he thinks that shes underutilized and should get more spotlight in the future

THE BOOKS

- process is 'he has an idea, he proposes it to the writers, they flesh it out'

- he likes bunny call the most, and that it's not entirely made up; he took his family to a summer camp. 2 older kids 2 babies. one of the things you could sign up for was a 'panda call' . a very 'deceiving title', he says. early in the morning, a bunch of the camp counselors dressed as killer clowns would come into your cabin and scare the kids to wake them up early and drag them off to do their daily activities (?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????) and he knew this was the case, & before it happened he started to sort of feel bad that he signed up his two youngest kids for it so he crept outside in the dark and 'started listening for screams' early in the morning. 'somewhere in the dark in these trees theres clowns and theyre coming for my cabin'

- acknowledges the fazgoo is weird and bad.

- the 'creature on the cover of blackbird is my sleep paralysis demon' (quite literally)

- says his least favorite story is the guy getting pregnant with springtrap's baby and that he Doesnt Know What He Was Thinking, that he swears he 'wasnt trying to pick on matpat'

- he says theres potential for the books to be adapted into shorts goosebumps style, but hes afraid it might be 'too much' and oversaturate the franchise

THE MOVIE

- he says a big issue was that there was material thats difficult to translate to the big screen; the nuance of the antagonists being that the animatronics are possessed by the spirits of innocent children, and he wanted to preserve the innocence of the victims while also having the horror and the kills, and thats a big part of why several screenplays got scrapped; he was more picky/cautious about that than anything else

- says the victims are sort of like 'confused, scared animals backed into a corner, who believe that adults are out to get them' & thats part of why they kill people + the manipulation from william afton

- he likes the movie overall but thinks specific things could be improved and they aim to do that with the second movie, but doesn't want to dwell on those shortcomings too much

- hes perfectly happy with critics hating it but the fanbase loving it & that was his goal for it

- when the movie began showing in theatres he said: 'i told myself i wasnt gonna go online i wasnt gonna read any reviews i had already told everybody at blumhouse and i told my legal team DONT talk to me DONT call me DONT email me DONT send me charts DONT send me facts or figures i dont want hear ANYTHING', saw 1 negative review on accident then started reading all of them immediately before the 2nd showing even happened

- 'for a couple of hours there i was distraught, i thought it was a complete disaster' (based off the initial negative critic reviews, before learning how much the fans loved it)

SECOND MOVIE

- Not giving away many details, but following the same formula; 1st movie based on 1st game, 2nd movie based on 2nd game, etc

- Thinks people will like it, that the setup for the 1st movie was the hardest part but now that they have that launch pad to go off of and hes really fond of what they have planned

- Emma Tammi is also directing the second one

INTO THE PIT GAME

- was originally just supposed to be a short novelty game, but they made something really good and he encouraged them to keep going & its turned into a full-fledged game

- he says its going to be a very 'unique experience' and that everyone will like it a lot

- says working with megacat (studio for the game) has been 'weird but good', that theyll vanish for several months and return with a bunch of info

SPINOFFS, GENERAL FRANCHISE STUFF, FUTURE PLANS

- Would want to work on a game based off of Fetch and that he thinks it'd be really cool

- Says he feels like he's sort of lost touch with the fanbase as things have gotten bigger

- Wants to have a better structure for managing a twitter page, official news feed, etc., wants more management than just Himself because it'd better service the fanbase

- He says theres another game planned with steel wool (not the mimic game) way down the line that hasnt been announced yet

- Making more choose-your-adventure fnaf book stuff

- He's 'very careful' with collaborations because he wants to preserve the fact its fnaf and he doesnt want it to be distorted or tainted, & even if he really really likes a game he won't do a collab if the vibes are mismatched, but he's a little more open to things like that now (but we have FNAF X DBD now! yay)

THE BOX.

- (paraphrased) His process for a lot of the lore in games is that he'll come up with half of a mystery and then come up with an answer as things progress, that he feels something is there and he makes the path for that thing to be revealed

- 'but sometimes when things progress the roads that have been put in place arent the same roads that were there before'

- he had something planned for the box. the progression of the story did not allow for the reveal of whats in the box

- he never pursued whats in the box. and he will never know whats in the box.

[xmsmarvel18]

Vent: My irl bestie hates me coz I love Blue Lock (ft. @spideygirl90 for saving my life)

Back to last year, when we discovered that bllk had animation error... She started to say a lot of horrible things for bllk. That time I didn’t know anything about bllk so I didn’t talk about it. UNTIL I saw a YouTube clip of Yukimiya Kenyu's 3rd selection match and last 2 episode of bllk S2 thats where I started to watch Bllk as my fav anime (Don't get me wrong before that I watched Haikyuu, Demon Slayer, JJK and Sk8 the Infinity).

Y'all remember when my my moots, Jeirin and Vyzoi posted about misconception and hate comments in Tiktok few days ago? Yeah, turns out my bestie was one of them. I don't use Tiktok unless I needed to for my video editing inspiration. She fell for misconceptions of bllk e.g. Nagi working at MacDonald's, Isagi hurting his friend's, Yukimiya did horrible things to Isagi and MORE.

She was mad when she found out I keep posting bllk content in Instagram story. She keep sending me reel of bllk content that has to to hating characters like Nagi and Isagi as she says as a bestie, they should know each other's fav anime or some crap. She was saying WTH and laughing meanwhile I was quiet and pissed off.

She was mad and ignorant when I tried explain the same thing coz she keeps asking WHAT IS BLUE LOCK ABOUT. I know bllk had out of context stuffs but that thing still make sense if you re-read manga (e.g. why Yukimiya was holding sword, Sendou was holding a gun and Shidou skydiving). When I said 2nd fav anime is Haikyuu, she said LETS GOOO! but she didn’t say that to Blue Lock being my no 1 fav anime.

She was mad when I told her that I love Yukimiya and I see him as my boyfriend. WHAT THE? Why is it I didn’t get pissed off when she said Muzan from Demon Slayer is her husband. She's giving me unfair treatment tbh.

Yeah, she left me on seen in Instagram when I tried to answer her qns on bllk (she keep asking me what is blue lock about?)... She is like that one who doesn't wanna listen to other people who is trying their best to ans the qns.

I didn’t block her coz I'm scared she'll use my irl image coz she's took screenshot of my pic in Instagram story and expose to everywhere. (WTH?! I WAS SO FREAKING DUMB!) She's definitely toxic for me.

I cannot tell this to my parents coz they don't have the time to understand situation and jump to conclusion that I did it.

I can't handle her anymore as I suffered from trauma and overthinking. I shared @spideygirl90 (Olivia) all of this thing my bestie did. (I know Olivia lives in US and me and my bestie live in SG)

I know Olivia is busy with her college but she still took the time to check on me. She is that one understanding close friend I've met in covid period. Olivia is not like my bestie who will anyhow talk trash about bllk. She is Shidou and Otoya biggest fan. She is the one who started to watch Blue Lock and read manga after watching my funny YT video on blue lock lol.

Seriously, I cannot handle my bestie whom for 9 years giving me this worst treatment. Yet I blame myself for causing troubles. All this time, it was her making me trouble...

At least, I managed to open this up in safe space like Tumblr coz if I open in other platforms... My bestie gonna attack me alr...

Anyways, I'm happy that Tumblr is a safe place for me to post Bllk content without any issues.

I even met amazing friends/moots here : @vyzoi @i-am-so-strange @sunathetuna and MORE.

[ghostfire]

I finished Veilguard about a day ago, and I have some *thoughts*. I'm coming at this as someone who first played Dragon Age: Origins in 2009 and has loved the series since then. I've got the novels, the artbooks, and I've got two nugs and a mabari plushie guarding my desk right now. It's safe to say that I am a long time fan. I did a full replay of Inquisition immediately before playing Veilguard, so I would have the comparison back to back instead of colored by a decade of shifting memories.

If parts of this are somewhat disorganized, I'll blame covid brain, and hope I at least mostly make sense. There are spoilers for the full game below the cut.

I'll start with some things that I genuinely enjoyed. The number of animals you can pet: A++, no notes. The voice acting, with a few exceptions that I think were simply due to working with the dialogue and timing the actors were given, was excellent. Gareth David-Lloyd (Solas) and Joseph Capp (Elgar'nan) both notably went above and beyond there. The majority of the environmental design - especially Arlathan and the Grand Necropolis - was solid. The stability of the game itself was perfect. In just over 100 hours of gameplay I experienced zero crashes, which is amazing in itself. Unfortunately, this is not a long list for a game of this magnitude.

About the gameplay - I didn't really see it as modernized, just changed. Every time an RPG franchise becomes more of an action RPG I'm saddened. It's not the play style I want. Not what I'm looking for. I think it was an okay example of the play style they went with, but I found myself completely neglecting certain aspects of it, and I think some of it might be that they would feel more natural played with a controller, while I use mouse and keyboard. If this were a different game, in a different series, I wouldn't be disappointed by the gameplay, however, so I guess I have to rate this as neutral.

The music, except for a few tracks that were more clearly playing into themes from previous games, felt somewhat more generic than I'm expecting from Dragon Age. Again, not bad, but still disappointing. Tracks like "Leaving Earth" from Mass Effect 3 or the Dragon Age: Origins theme will bring out the goosebumps and instantly plunge me back into memories with just a few notes. I don't think I got hit hard with that in Veilguard until the Solavellan ending began.

As for the character and creature style - even by the end of the game, I never got used to or liked it. The cartoon tinge to the characters that just doesn't fit Dragon Age world felt distinctly uncomfortable. The new darkspawn and most demon and spirit designs were awful in context and would have ben better in something from Blizzard.

The quality of the writing of various companions varied *wildly* - often toeing the line between character and caricature - just as often falling short as overreaching. One that fell especially flat when it could have been so interesting was the Lucanis/Spite duo. None of Spite's appearances had the emotional impact of Justice, crackling with power when confronted with injustice and becoming part of a greater whole with Anders, riding the line between Justice and Vengeance. While some of that could be put down to Spite simply being a less powerful demon than Vengeance, or Lucanis somehow having a better hold over a demon that was forced into him than Anders had with a spirit that he invited in willingly, neither of those explanations feels satisfying. Spite taking over Lucanis and sleepwalking to the Eluvian felt mildly irritating, not terribly alarming.

Picking still at the writing, I got the impression that this was a young adult game grafted on top of the bones of deep and dark and yawning lore. The out of place tone to the language chosen made some parts feel very "Guardians of the Galaxy" style whacky, with far too many modern colloquialisms. Characters don't have to be serious all the time, but whether they're acting funny or acting stern, the way they do it should fit the world and feel genuine.

Emmrich, whose whole story line is rooted in existential dread of mortality, did not seem like he was sacrificing anything to save Manfred in the way that he reacted. There should have been a real opportunity for him to break down, either in the moment as the decision is made, and an opportunity for Rook's decisions up to that point to influence him, or afterward, in private, and to need real comfort from his friend or partner.

No one should have ever described Veilguard as being Bioware's "most romantic" game. My experience with romance was, at best, "okay". Many of the "flirt" options felt like they were the only way to acknowledge that certain things were happening. Either choose the heart, or feel like you're ignoring something important. After flirting hard with Davrin, Bellara, and Emmrich, I chose Emmrich. His romance is supposedly one of best, but the romance specific scenes there were felt shallow and brief. I liked that characters got together as couples outside of Rook, but can see why people drawn to Lucanis or Neve are complaining.

Plenty has been said about whitewashing some of the darker and more uncomfortable aspects of the Dragon Age world, and I agree to varying levels. The Crows, for instance. I'm well aware of Zevran's efforts over the previous twenty or so years, and maybe this is the best of the houses, and you don't see much of other houses or fledglings, but *someone* on your team should express misgivings over working with brutal, child abusing assassins, even if Rook is unaware. There was plenty of opportunity for Lucanis (or Teia and Viago) to explain the change over time or between houses if asked. Not acknowledging this more obviously feels wrong.

Slavery in Tevinter - it's not true that it's completely glossed over - you see a few among the Venatori, and you rescue one in the Grand Necropolis, again brought in by the Venatori. But where the slavery common in Tevinter, practiced by citizens and normalized, could have been used as a parallel with the slavery perpetuated by the Evanuris, it was instead largely downplayed as an issue. The few lines talking about Dorian and Maevaris's failed political movement is such a tantalizing glimpse at acknowledging this tremendous injustice, but it's easily lost, and if you didn't already know the background, wouldn't have much of an impact.

Lords of Fortune - absolute shit. My Isabela ran away with artifact and learned nothing, but it's not like other past decisions you've made in the games made any difference either, so... The whole way it's presented reeks of out of place modern sensibilities. Could it have been explained in a different way somehow? Maybe. But still, shit.

Diving deeper still, the "Elven Gods" are cartoon villains with no subtlety. While some degree of this has been a common thing with Dragon Age villains, it's usually easy to see their side or at least how they got there. Corypheus wanted to raise himself to fill what he thought was an empty godhood and restore the "glory" of Tevinter. Meredith's experience with her mage sister lead her to see magic as a dangerous threat, justifying her cruel measures in the name of safety for all.

Ghilan'nain felt somewhat understandable because at least she was teetering on the edge of satisfying madness. She genuinely believed her creations and blighted nature were beautiful - so much so she altered herself accordingly.

Elgar'nan had real opportunity to be a deep complex villain, but instead he is wishy washy, confused, watered down. Where was his rage at modern peoples over the loss of his other fellow gods? He seemed to genuinely care about Ghilan'nain, but they aren't really mentioned, and it's not as if the passage of time soothed any of his other perceived slights. He could have been a persuasive Satan figure. The times he was in Rook's head were some of the most interesting in the game. Rook was becoming powerful, and that's one of the few things Elgar'nan respected, because that is an aspect of himself. More persuasively tempting Rook would have been nice. There should have been some way to give in, to fail. A chance to fall to corruption if you're not strong enough, maybe. A bad end if you've been an asshole, but you can't be an asshole because this is a young adult game.

As presented, Rook is the blandest hero in the Dragon Age series. Either that, or the most railroaded. Even though I came to like my Rook, a lot of that was pure, behind the scenes, headcanon character building. Often, all of the dialogue options felt the same - like I was being forced to play her one way. After a certain point, I had to imagine that she was lying her way through a number of scenes, because I had no options that felt even remotely close to what I was looking for. When pulled into the prison of regret, it was like the writers couldn't imagine a Rook who did not regret their part in the loss of their companions - who was proud of them for their sacrifice, and who, if they have rage and sorrow, direct it at the gods who caused the harm. This lack of agency was especially egregious when it came to Solas. I wanted the option to say I understood and agreed with a lot of what he did and wanted, even if I couldn't let him go all the way tear down Veil. Nearly every option came across as some degree of antagonistic. Once it came down to some of the endgame lines, talking directly to him, any amount of judgement on Rook's part felt wholly unearned and inappropriate for the way I was playing.

If I hadn't played the previous games for context, I don't think Veilguard would have given me a fraction of the perception I needed to see how things have changed, including the awful conditions of elves and mages, and despite directly seeing his memories, Solas would seem so much less sympathetic in his desire to fix his mistakes.

I could write this much again, just on Solas, but there was clearly a deep and compelling story there, a promise that was imprisoned just as surely as the character. It's painful to see hints of what could have been.

[siratonin]

ُ

Okay this turned out longer than i expected, i just needed to talk a little hehe..... cw death , and super personal like it's just me talking, it probably doesn't even makes sense

Today is my brother's birthday

And exactly 3 months ago i found out i have a brain tumor (it's benign I'm fine, something to blame my personality on lmao)—btw it's the first time I'm saying this outside of the doctors office, you who's reading this are the first person to know, wow haha

My brother was the best person ever, great son, awesome friend, incredible loving supporting brother.. everyone loved him and he loved the life. He loved me, he supported me. He is my person in this life.

The first book i wrote/published was when i was 15, he was my number 1 supporter, he found a publisher for me, he paid lots of the expenses needed, when it was out he was the first buying it. Now 10 years later (ah yes the book completed 10 years now wow) anyway, it's the most successful thing I've ever done, and it's all because of my brother, i still get awards about it, because of my brother—i wish he could know that

One day i was sitting and my other brother came to me and told me "sami died" it was an afternoon, and my response was "huh", then the burial, then the funeral... and till now every death anniversary, every birthday of him.... i never cried, never do.. and it just feels weird

I think i always had some sort of depression in my mind (accompanied by my adhd? Probably) and he was the person who would push me out of that sadness, out of every traumatic event we went through, out of every cage my mind put me through...

everything he promised me, everything we were supposed to do.. he wasn't sick, he wasn't reckless, he didn't have enemies, he just.. poof vanished

When someone tell me "he is in a better place!" I think sure, but he is supposed to be in this hell of life with me for now, thats what are siblings meant for. Not for him to be in a "better place"—selfish of me right?

In this exact moment that is what I'm thinking about, because when i went to the doctor, when i had my biopsy, the results.. and now when I'm supposed to make a decision.. all of this i did it alone, will continue doing it alone, when it was supposed to be him by my side, being his supportive loving self... but noooo he has to be in a better place 🙄

I never had time to process it, he died when i was 16 without any warnings and now I'm 25, and it still doesn't feel real.. at 17 i graduated high-school and went straight to college, at 20 i was helping in covid wards—surrounding my self with more deaths and tragedies, seeing how families mourn their loved ones, and had to wonder, did i even love him? .. i had 2 degrees, one of them being doctoral degree before the age of 22 (who does that get a life gurl), I'm doing a residency now that i started before the age of 25, and i don't know if i ever will allow myself time to actually process this—apparently i cope with grief by achieving things, it's exhausting, 0/10, do not recommend

The whole thing is just me thinking.. why is he not here to make the hardest decision of my life with me... i love him, i hope he knows that.. but I'm just so angry..

He should be 33 today, but he'll always be 24—and funny enough this year I'm older than him, and it just made me realize how young he was

I'll post this, not because i want sympathy or 'I'm sorry 🥺' <- thats something i really hate to get... idk why I'm posting this okay? Lmao, i just needed to get it out of my system, and this is the only place i have (kinda pathetic i know 💀)

I'll post it, drive home, probably sleep, then wake up and be fine 🥰 If not, I'll at least be functional, which is basically the same thing, right? 🙄

Oh also I'm sitting here, pretty yeah?

[luhafraser]

Anons in my inbox... Sorry... I'm not ignoring you, but what do you want me to say? Nothing new here...

New Blah Blahlands?!

Another blah blah blah book... Nothing new in this "I had Covid" speech or have you guys already forgotten the Xmas 2021 - QT LA playlist on Spotify?! ... He's just unfolding a script that he created in December 2021... There was his "wee" accident too... A series of misfortunes... True or not?! Believe what you want... 😜🤣 Fact is that at the beginning of January 2022 he no longer had anything (or he wouldn't have gone to the Chargers game with Marina and Alex), he was in LA and I don't need to mention where Caitríona was, right?!

(The best part was Cait giving her location in a interview, where she was supposedly at the end of 2021 - London -, and this article being published on January 1, 2022... Because it's very common for Cait to give her location! 😜🤣)

All the "clans" in this fandom are fed with these books... We already had "the gardener" Sam, the bluebell flower thing, and now even the believers in gay theory are well served with this pathetic description of Sam and his flirtations.

Oh... And the article in The Telegraph? He should be ashamed of that. But tell me... How many thousands of people, from outside this fandom, are going to read and/or pay attention to that?

Of course, one or other will read it because of the usual bait...

Oh and of course, JJ...

Regarding this "I don't have time for relationships because of my work", I already gave my opinion in another post.

It doesn't make any sense... After all, he supposedly had relationships years ago while filming Outlander.

---

Years ago (2019) a well-known shipper stopped believing that Sam and Caitríona had children (in secret)... One of her statements to stop believing is exactly what Sam has been using for a while to justify why he doesn't have a relationship/family. She even said that Sam would never deny his child...

Well, I don't blame this shipper, far from it... But let's be honest, SC use a lot of what we talk about here... Very little in favor and much more against shippers' beliefs.

Sam for Philippine Daily Inquirer magazine, in early 2020:

He probably added "the trauma of his father's absence" in Waypoints book, to cause commotion and be a slightly better excuse than that lame one used first?!

And the announcement of the blonde child, in August 2021, was a blow delivered using what that and other shippers started to claim. We are often our own worst enemies, even if unintentionally.

---

And what Sam said about "his daughter"... Well... He didn't lie. He doesn't have a daughter WITH MM...

😜🤣

---

It's as if the SC is always on the defensive, justifying something... Which seems strange at first, but... If Sam just said "I'm single because I want to be"... That wouldn't tease us, right? Maybe not in the same way... It probably wouldn't cause a buzz talk (here)... Anyone outside of this fandom will see just another unknown actor, who is not romantically involved with his co-star (and that's what they want).

It's been years of the same....

All of this crossed the line of ridiculousness, and when the world outside is so chaotic, sometimes it is impossible to have fun and be distracted by this circus. Sorry, Anons.

[lindszeppelin]

Re: the previous anon. I think Austin Butler's issue is that he IS so nice. No shade at all to him, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But people have a weird issue with nice people, particularly celebrities. We're primed to believe the worst of everyone, so when someone who seems genuinely nice comes along, people either try to find some dirt on them, and if they can't, they find something 'cringe' or 'fake' or 'annoying' about them. Austin Butler was earnest about his love for Elvis as a person, the difficulty of filming during COVID, and how much the movie meant to him, and people thought it was fake because they couldn't imagine someone (especially a good-looking, rich actor) being sincere about that. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but the bottom line is that people don't mind Timothee Chalamet being pretentious and self-important, because we're used to it by now. We also expect actors to be like him, so I think we all just collectively lean into his bullshit. Whereas Austin Butler seems like a nice, regular guy who doesn't act like an Actor, so people nitpick him because they're looking for something to criticize. Just my two cents, anyway!

You left me with heaps of great thought provoking points to chew on, i love these two cents!

I suppose maybe people are used to seeing celebrities putting on a fake humility, but i like to think most can read through when someone is coming across as genuine in their kindness or fake. Or maybe i'm giving people too much credit lol. Austin is a nice man, and his abundant kindness needs to be adopted by everyone. Instead of trying to appeal to the Hollywood elite that votes during award season, or drawing brownie points from the online peanut gallery, celebs should just be grateful for the opportunities they have and stop trying to make it in this race of who the next lineup of Greats will be. Is Hollywood and an Oscar really that seductive that some actors will lose the plot just for a taste of this fame? I can't support any celeb that will sell their soul for any of that nonsense. Where has the genuine love for the craft of making movies gone? It's in people like Austin who is keeping it alive, thankfully.

If we're so used to fakeness in Hollywood that everyone goes crazy when a genuine man like Austin steps up to the plate, then we've got a problem. And I don't know who to directly blame for this problem, but favoritism is clearly so skewed it's not even funny. People will prop up the wrong celebs every time, but the good ones always have to try harder to prove themselves. Like you said. People love to find anything to criticize someone for. And I hate that's the way it is sometimes.

What Timmy is doing right now is just such a bad look. He's way too hungry for this Oscar and it's very off putting. It's like the more fame someone gets the more their true personality comes out. Or, the more fame someone gets can change them fundamentally.

Anyway, there are my two cents back lol <3

[marta-bee]

It's the weekend so I finally have the time for deep thoughts. And I've been thinking about a line I saw on someone's posts. I'm paraphrasing it, but it was something like "the more I learn about ______, the further I move from soup kitchen progressive to Molotov-throwing progressive."

Not to call that particular person out. The way they phrased it stuck with me, but it's not the first time I've seen the thought. And that's the point.

I've been wondering where this sense of hopelessness came from. Things are really dark right now, the news is legitimately horrifying if you're a progressive or even just have basic empathy for people. And while it got worse after the election and worse still after the inauguration, it wasn't all sunshine and roses before that. Things like the rule of law and preserving basic American civic institutions weren't enough to get people to vote for Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. And while we're all learning there was a whole heck of a lot else going on with Joe especially, I do think for a lot of people those things for some reason weren't worth saving. Whereas for me, they were of course imperfect but the kind of thing we needed to fight to preserve even as we improved them.

I keep thinking that I've been through economically tough times before. Job loss from globalization has been a concern my whole life. I lived through the recession in 2008 where there just weren't jobs to be found and no one could afford their mortgage. So this sense that the world is, like, uniquely on fire now is odd to me. Not that there aren't real problems, but that they're suddenly so bad, they demand a more urgent solution. Usually some sort of revolution if not full-scale destruction of the status quo.

It's weird. I didn't love a lot of the old institutions. I wasn't blind to their limitations. But at the same time there were a lot of things I used to be able to say ".... you just don't get to do that," and I miss that. It's like the Overton Window has been blown to smithereens, and I'm still a bit mystified about just why it's happening now. Not how things are bad, but how they're so much worse to the point they're more of an emergency.

I could blame COVID, the fear and isolation (for those of us who could isolate).

I could blame the news ecosystem, the way misinformation is so much more weaponized and we're not getting our facts from the same place. I mean, Walter Cronkite was before even my time but we seem to get further and further from that ideal. It doesn't help people don't seem to be learning critical thinking any more, how to interrogate their information.

I could blame virtue signaling, the drive on both the left and the right to tap into the moral purity that comes with outrage. And the way the social media algorithms feed into all that.

But more and more, I'm taken by the idea that there's just not much local "space" left, so whenever something horrible is happening somewhere in the world, so much of us feel it as keenly as if it was happening in our own corner of the world. There's a lot to be said for that, but I don't think humans are hard-wired to bear up under all that bad news.

Maybe things really are worse than they used to be. I don't know. I like to think they'd be a little more mitigated if we actually used the tools that could make things better in an incremental, step-by-step way. But maybe I'm just fooling myself.

Whatever the cause, I do find myself longing for a ball-bearing to help the world rotate a little easier. Not to be cliche, but the constant tilt is starting to feel like vertigo.

[kidspawn]

glad to hear you have masks that fit, but sorry to hear about the immune response. i know immunosuppression + retail can be an absolute beast, and a lot of people with “normal” disease resistance think it’s for lack of effort and not biology+circumstances. i wanted to make sure you had all the knowledge you needed to protect yourself as best as possible to the extent that is possible within an individual’s control, since disinformation makes it reaalllly hard for people to access info and i still come across people who were misguided by their doctors about how to best protect themselves (ie they are told to wear surgical masks and to take them off if 6 feet apart despite being indoors) and end up confused and disheartened. appreciate you being kind even though you’re probably tired of hearing it and/or are used to people blaming you instead of blaming society’s unwillingness to control illness, and hope you have a good one!

You're absolutely fine! I can tell you were coming at it from a genuine place - which says quite a bit, in my opinion. Frankly, I attribute it to most people knowing that someone who struggles with healthcare (especially in terms of covid) is probably from the USA and as such we tend to be criminally uneducated in regards to health, prevention, etc. It is important to make sure people are educated, and I think it's generous of you to send out resources to (i presume) a complete stranger who made a few snide comments about collecting viruses like pokemon cards.

I didn't pay much attention to my health, when I was a teenager, but it bit me in the butt when I found out my unwillingness to stay home from work when I'm sick (several holiday horror stories related to getting very sick but hey those are time and a half so it just made sense to work and stay very far away from others and wear gloves) just made me feel worse then I got other people sick. I'm not proud of it by any means, and knowing that my stubbornness surrounding ignoring my own health needs has hurt others has made me more cognizant of how my personal handling of my immune system can affect others. The USA work force (can't speak for any other countries) actively punishes you for, say, going "hey I am running a fever/have an illness/etc, and should not come in because it'll put others at risk." It puts your position in jeopardy, can cut your hours severely, etc. We've been forced into an expectation that we need to shelf our own needs to function in society.

(Also I'm just... used to being sick. I don't notice I'm sick until it's too late, most times. I digress. I've now become the bastard who tells coworkers to stay the hell away from me if they have so much as a sniffly nose bc I'm not missing out on work because you're irresponsible, my friend.)

That's not what you were touching on at all, but I do think it warrants a perspective for others to consider. I don't have much regard for my health, frankly. If it didn't affect others, I'd probably just keep working through a cold because I'd rather be miserable and paid than stay home and risk reducing my job or paycheck. But it doesn't just affect me. It affects customers, coworkers, even my family at the time. I'm lovingly coined patient zero because I pick up illnesses all the damn time. Once again, because retail + an (probably) undiagnosed immunosuppresive disorder clashes horribly with USA work culture and just how impossible it is to live and consider your health. Most people, including myself, chose their job over their health.

I don't know what to round out here. Am I warning people to prioritize themselves because I know several teenagers who follow me? Am I just pointing out it's a tragic collision of miseducation and the brutal work culture of this gradually decaying country? Who knows. Maybe I haven't slept in three days and as such I'm losing all capacity to regulate my word count.

(Anyway, now I just tell my colds to wait a few days until my usual day off. Do they listen? Not really, but I am quite skilled at gaslighting myself.)

Disregarding everything I said because it's frankly nonsense and unrelated to your ask (squirrel brain!), thank you. I appreciate your grace and composure. You were calm, professional, and very gentle with how you delivered information. I'm not the type to snap easily, so no worries there. Have a lovely day!

[wellofdean]

the trap anon here! i wanna second your post about enjoying sharing different thoughts about things. i really appreciate some of the more positive posts i’ve seen about the trap, like yours, reframing it to emphasize the beauty of love, compassion, and forgiveness. i do really like that.

unfortunately i’ve come to the realization that my issue with the trap feels bigger cause it relates to one of my issues with s15 overall—there’s just not enough time. thinking it through more, i’m not so much bitter about what dean says (in some part thanks to all the positive takes i’ve seen :)), but it still feels incomplete. like it goes back to the fact that yeah they don’t ever get that time to decompress. i def agree that they couldn’t get into it all then, with everything still going on and on and on. and yeah i guess ‘calmly’ was the wrong word haha, but i do think, if they had that chance, dean would be able to be a little more clear about his needs. but he never gets the chance. or rather, dean and cas don’t get to have a bigger conversation without all the weight of the world on their shoulders—they’re not allowed to by the time constraints of the season, and it seems like dean gets the short end of the stick, even with cas’s confession (cause then cas is gone 🥺), and it’s not so much the in-world or watsonian explanation but the doylist effects that disappoint me … and idk i guess this is one of those situations where i’m just not satisfied by assuming that they talked more off-screen, if that makes sense.

ahh anyway, sorry for rambling even more in your asks! i hope this isn’t weird, or like responding too much, and ofc, no pressure to respond back. but i am enjoying talking about this topic so cordially :)

First, let me say that yes! Cordial discussion! I think there is a climate of being...I dunno, afraid to disagree. I wonder if it felt like a vague-post call-out, that I made my own post and referenced things on my dash without naming any names or reblogging something, but I did that so as not to muck up anyone's notes and to not argue directly with anyone. If that was wrong, mea culpa everyone! I really just love you all for being here, four years later, still obsessed with my TV boyfriends. If not for you I would be all alone in this, losing my damn mind. And like, this is a TV show we are talking about! It's totally fine to disagree, or to feel like what you're seeing in it is more important for you! Thanks for these asks, and for being willing to discuss.

I will say that I am, generally speaking, less interested in Doylist commentary. My background is in literary theory, and even there, I am more interested in closely reading what's on the page than I am in a writer's biography or intention. I am more interested in the story they actually told than anything else. That said, I think there are genuine and in fact catastrophic Doylist issues with the end of SPN. If we are generous? COVID. If we suspect foul play? The Network PTB. For me, the ones least to blame are the writers and the actors, because what's on the screen makes it pretty clear what story they wanted to tell.

My argument about The Trap is just this: it's a beautiful scene, and Dean said things he needed to say, not because of any culpability he bears, but for the health of his own heart. It's in-character, beautifully acted, and the things he says sound right in Dean's voice. Jensen, keeper of Dean, clearly believed in it. I like the writing in that episode a lot. I think that scene is really moving, and that expecting it to be the thing that fixes them is putting too much weight on it. What I see in it is Dean unburdening his heart and needing to not let himself dwell on grievances because time is short, and love is more important, and he LOVES that angel. I love that. I love DEAN for that. It would have ruined the scene if he was saying "I'm sorry it took me until now to say it...but, Cas, man...you gotta..." Dean doesn't even know if Cas is ALIVE in that scene. He is making a desperate, last ditch effort to get himself right and tell Cas he loves him; that he forgave him a long time ago. It has to be pure grace. They were right to write it that way, imho. And then Cas doesn't let him say more, and it's because he is afraid to let himself be happy.

Can an argument be made that Cas should have told Dean about his deal with the empty? Sure! Could they have done a million other things than the things they did? INFINITELY! So, to your other point about there not being enough time in the end of SPN? and their not doing enough to let Dean say his piece, I mean... I agree? I would have preferred it if SPN never ended? Like, please let it continue literally forever? Please show me every single minute of Dean's life? I love him so, so much and I never want to live without him? Of course I wanted them to finally communicate directly about their relationship! And, make out! And then go to bed in Dean's sweet, gun be-decked room! And then have Sam burst into their room for some reason, and find them sleepily spooning (Dean's the little spoon! He deserves it!) and obviously naked! And they spring apart and Sams says "Oh, so...this is happening?" and Dean says "AND HOW!" with a big, shit-eating grin he can't suppress... Like... yes! ALL THAT. PLEASE AND THANK YOU! I will confess, though, that I don't think healthy relationship/therapy-type talks about their feelings appeal to me in the context of these characters or this story, but otherwise? Yes! I wanted it resolved.

And, Anon, I most fervently agree with you that Dean gets the short end of the stick. Like, quite literally, where, like, the stick is a piece of fucking rebar and I make no secret of the fact that the end of Supernatural, especially the last episode, is the biggest narrative shit sandwich I have ever been served and somehow choked down in all my life. It's fucking MALPRACTICE, and seriously, after Cas's beautiful goodbye, it would really have taken VERY LITTLE to satisfy me. They could have just had Cas be there in Dean's heaven, and have Dean look at him with those fucking big, wet eyes of his and hug him tight, and I would have been like...ok. I can live with that! But they did not do that. They sent my baby Dean to boring drive heaven and made him meet Sam on a bridge. I mean...fuck that. I am ready with my pitchfork!

Just...The Trap was still beautiful. It was a shining moment. Dean had never looked prettier. What he said was important FOR HIM. The forest sucked in the end, but that was a fucking beautiful tree. That's really all I'm saying.

[therese-lokidottir]

You know I definitely realize when I see loki series for first time that tva definitely bunch of bullshit. You know why?

It's simple, they literally only made peoples only have one choice, basically multiverse didn't allowing to have free will, they make multiverse only one one 'story' DNA it's multiverse literally not in fault but them all workers blame variants for the choice that tva made for them. I am sorry what?

Let's recap mobius blame loki for new York and well everything that happens by tva decision that ' this story must like this and there's no alternative' . In reality loki can be something sles but tva not allowed and then tva /mobius blame him for event that tva decided?

WTF?!! Seriously what's wrong with them, you know what I know what's wrong with them. It's bunch of bullshit, and many claims that tva is only make sure fate keep happens but that not how fate work. Fate is something that keep exist even you take different path that is fate. Fate not taken choices and paths.fate is something that keep exist.

From all tv series in COVID time, loki season 2 definitely many problems like many, the reason peoples just realized how problematic the series was because well it's tom, and people felt bored in COVID and they will take anything in that time.

Something that annoys me about the Loki series is the personal reason, that I am a pedantic nerd and I don't like how the series fundamental doesn't understand the Marvel multiverse. Marvel has done so many multiverse stories, Spiderverse came out three years prior to Loki. So the series annoys me when it's trying to claim it's the most important thing when it's so unimpressive and confused in its lore.

I've discussed this plenty of times. Mobius's character makes no sense. Because from his perspective Loki is just acting out a script and he'll be killed if he doesn't. Mobius is someone who wants to judge others but never wants to think for himself or consider the full implications of what he's doing. What he is supposed to believe is people are just acting out the timekeepers' will.

The TVA are the ones stomping out free will and forcing things to only happen one way. That is what is stated in the show. Even if Waldron tried to fill in the blanks in an interview it still makes no sense.

The series never makes the distinction between fate and the way people truly are vs what is the results of Kang's meddling.

[destinyc1020]

I completely agree with you and your anons. You have young, award-winning celebs who have no social media presence, like Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, and Ruth Negga. They don’t have any trouble booking roles. Social media certainly helps with brand deals, but at this point in her career, Z wouldn’t need it at all for acting. She’s huge, well-known, and in demand. To me, reducing her online activity makes sense. She doesn’t find it fun anymore and I don’t blame her for putting up boundaries surrounding it.

THANK YOU!!! Someone on Z's level does NOT need social media...at all in fact lol. 😊She's not an up-and-coming actress who barely anybody knows that needs to drum up excitement for her or her work. I agree with you too Anon. Reducing her online activity actually makes sense/? 😄

And I totally agree, if she's not finding any fun in it anymore (which, I personally have not been either since Covid tbh), then she doesn't have to post anything!

She might be under obligation from her team to post for certain large projects of hers, but other than that? She really doesn't need to post.

[crossdressingdeath]

how do you feel about veilguard taking place ten years after dai? it seems like a weird decision for me. (at first i even thought they did this purely to match the amount of real world time that passed, before i realized that gamedev doesn't happen instantly and there probably were delays due to covid so it's probably not that)

like, as you said when answering another ask, it's been so long that there is little reason for people to care or to mention things that happened. and personally, trespasser gave me kind of a sense of urgency, that we have little time left before solas does whatever he does, but apparently it takes at least a decade. i don't know, i just feel like a shorter timeskip (3-5 years) would have been better for this.

I think it might actually be because it's been so long since the last game. They might have increased the timeskip when it became clear that it was going to be a long time before the game was ready to ship (between them basically completely starting over when they escaped EA multiplayer hell and Covid this game is definitely coming out way later than it was originally supposed to); separating DAV from the previous games means the players don't need to have super clear memories of those previous games, because no one in-universe would either.

I'm pretty neutral on the ten year jump, personally. It's good in terms of simplifying the worldstate (which... okay I don't like how Bioware handled it but I really don't blame them for wanting to slim down the variables, just thinking about writing in variations for every single mentioned event across all three previous games is giving me a headache), and since we know from Tevinter Nights that Solas has been active throughout it doesn't feel to me like he was just sitting around doing nothing; he wasn't immediately prepared and it took him some time to get moving, I can run with that. Also, it justifies none of our new companions appearing in DAI; they're all highly regarded in their respective fields, many of them are well known, and I'd argue most of them would have been useful during DAI. Hell, Lucanis is even a specialized Venatori killer. By making the timeskip ten years instead of 3-5 Bioware has created a situation where most of them would've been at the very least way less experienced and well known, and possibly too young to be active in their field at all for the youngest among them (like Taash, who I think is confirmed early-mid twenties and so would've been a teenager during DAI).