#im not saying you cant like these characters by the way

[kirkwallguy]

da2: justice willingly entered the body of someone he liked and trusted and seeing his experiences with oppression (including the time he spent in isolation in an evil mage prison) warped his perception of the world until he became vengeance and formed a single-minded focus on freeing mages. his and anders' experience with this is a whole arc that can change depending on his relationship with hawke.

dav: spite was forced into the body of a man who was being kept in isolation in an evil mage prison. he's unhappy about this probably. he wants revenge maybe? the only thing he's consistently done every time he's spoken is mention what he can smell so maybe he's got some grounding exercises. you can leave lucanis' home to be blighted and he won't even be a little bit spiteful about it.

[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.

[imageingrunge]

A needlessly thorough review of DATV so I can move on with my life:

WHAT I LIKED:

The story pacing flows better without all that open world slog from DAI I am not bombarded by 50 side quests that have no baring on anything other than rp flavor

The game is pretty, CC is nice

They gave you far more opportunities to flesh out your Rook's background than in DAI and da2 but it's not as fun has having a mini origin story from DAO

no fall damage and if u run out of a combat zone ur companions follow u too

Hossberg wetlands really remind me of dragon age awakenings and I like the way the blight looks there, it gave me a nice nostalgic feeling for the older games

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE (IN DETAIL)

Voice Acting & Dialogue

It is really hard to be invested in a game that feels the need to recap everything you just experienced from 5 minutes ago, (verging on insulting my intelligence) and the silliest part is while i do hate this I got so checked out after act 2 I needed the recap 

A lot of the dialogue and banter is just empty small talk and meaningless pleasantries that sucked the life out of me, had me longing for the days of hearing Ohgren's beer belches reverberate off the walls in the deep roads:

 Voice acting is really consistent, I hated it when you never knew how your inquisitor would sound in DAI sometimes too serious for a funny comment or like yelling at Cassandra and cullen over nothing - Rook is more consistent but it comes at a loss of personality every line is uttered in the same annoying tone that had me being like damn can he stfu already (da2 was ideal voice acting for me if they cant deliver that again just go back to a voiceless protagonist)

Me whenever my rook opened his mouth: i was getting violent on that skip button

The dialogue between rook and their companions holds it back from being enjoyable at all really- here's some examples:

Emmerich's personal quest in act 2: "I want to do this immortality rite it's a very high honor in my order but rook I might die in the process permanently, I am an orphan and afraid of dying" Rook: "You could die?!?! That's awful". In Origins you can have a conversation with Wynn about her inevitable death and respond in a manner similar to rook and Wynn teases you by saying "well i'm not going to live for ever dear" it made me smile and sad about not being able to really help her. Did not feel that way Emmerich though, Im so uninterested in him as a character my response and feelings are "old people die all the time" and then 'wait why the fuck haven't you done this immortality ritual yet instead dragging me over here to collect some flowers"

Companions & Romance

the flirt options aren't all that flirty, its just rook being nice, all the romance content seems behind a 'romance locked in' moment (that comes in so late in the game u already forgot who u were even flirting with at times) so you can't hop ur way from one bed to another before deciding on 'the forever one' (remember when I could ride the iron bull then break up and be with Cullen- I don't think that’s an option here)

The companions are all pretty forgettable, I did everyone's personal quest (with the exception of Taash tried to kill a dragon for them n failed so bad i just moved on) and forgot there was even an approval system with them or that I was supposed to pick choices for them. It felt like i was on a train going in one direction where it did not matter what I said or did to them they would be fine. It’s like I've lost and gained nothing by doing these quests. The deepest thing I learned about Emmerich is that he is a 50 yr old orphan scared of dying. And it makes me not care all that much about them beyond “I just need you to function enough to get me to the end of the game sure Taash embrace being Rivaini, yes Harding live peacefully w that Titan shit inside you idc… Lucanis..ahh what was ur issue again I forget”

I made Lucanis live peacefully with Spite (stuck as an abomination that's supposed to be as volatile as Anders & Justice) Let Emmerich become a lich and no one batted an eye. Everyone just heehee haw hawing over Emmerich's new skeleton form and I forget about spite a lot unless he comments on something i've killed. Was there supposed to be some moral quandary? to make Emmerich a lich I had to "kill off" Manfred... the walking skeleton who might as well have been a rock with a pair of googly eyes attached to him for all i care

I don’t want to help Bellara light funeral pyres in a puzzle game play style that isnt a deep message about death. I want Aveline's speech about reading her favorite book to her dying father after hawke lost thier mother.

For Neve's romance, it took the whole world falling part and everyone dying for her to kiss me for a 2 time and then pity fuck me and afterword she’s like I’m leaving don’t want to be too distracting. All these lines carry no weight like bad actors w no chemistry

jaw on the floor comparing this (first time I said "i love you" to neve)

to the first time I said it to cullen and how he treats u before the big battle

I get that she isn't lovey dovey but at 70 hrs in and 2 kisses it feels like she just dont love me </3

Combat - as a spellblade mage*

combat was this weird mix of sometimes fun sometimes a new and unique form of human torture (wydm press shift 4 times n hold down e then press V C and 2 IM ON A KEYBOARD!) Once u make it past level 20 u are immortal but ur enemies are sponges I dreaded every single dragon fight despite that being my favorite thing to do in DAI. Don't ever want to see another Ogre in my life they body me into corners that hitting space can't save me from.

At some point u just gotta run around the place a lot hoping ur companions can do the damage for you bc the mobs aren’t interested in them at all. i was spamming 2 n slamming on that E key hopping it would be over n done with already, If i wanted to play a flashy monster hunter game, well then id play tw3 at least that combat is fun.

Lore & Story building

At the end of Trespasser, I was under the impression that the conflict in DATV would revolve around solas amassing an army of elves all over Thedas to rebel against the Evanuris. He had a whole network of Spies working against the Inquisition and the Antaam, and planned to restore the elven people, upend their religious views, and try to tear down the veil as a way of atonement. So I was understanding of there only being 3 import choices ( 1- who you romanced, 2- Save or redeem Solas 3- Disband or Keep inquisition). But that's not the story we get; instead its this??

The veil jumpers are like engineering mages with no ties to Solas beyond being an elves. There is no religious struggle they just seem to accept that these Gods have always been evil and need to be stopped. Solas is just a one man army trapped in the fade off screen for like 70% of the game. Should I have just kept the inquisition around after all? The only mention I got was my disbanded inquisition choice was inky going "my name still carries weight in southern thedas" and it seemed like disbanding or keeping it would have an affect on how easy or hard it would be to stop Solas but no it really doesn't at all

“It doesn’t feel like a Dragon Age game”

A criticism I rarely take seriously because that can mean so many different things? Like what is it the atmosphere? The aesthetics? The “dArK fAnTasy” none of these things have ever stayed consistent in any dragon age game. And I’d say DA franchise lost its teeth/edge when dai rolled around it was pretty light in the world of dark fantasy

However…theyre kinda right this time around....

It doesn’t feel like a dragon age game because they removed a lot of the lore your were exposed to in the previous games to the point where this might as well be another game all together. (i am not even a lore nerd but i do need something there to feel like i am in a dragon age game)

Yes the city is named Minrathos you were are told of its cultural significance and history as the seat of the empire but looks like a shittier version of kirkwall (and I kept getting lost going around the map so I hated it even more for wasting my time) Honestly the city felt super high tech and out of place in a fantasy setting imo, I missed it when everyone lived in a wooden hovel in the middle of the woods.

There is no reason for the venatori to follow Elgarnan and ghilian'nan or for the Qunari either but it all gets hand waved away with "they offered us power"

Reading the Inquisitors letters made me feel like im in a spinoff game and the real story is happening somewhere else. And sad to like baby take me with you!! i want to save u from this nightmare

A lot of the factions are sanitized to the point of being boring Darvin's little 'we're warden we don't do blood magic that's just not right" baby I let the wardens sacrifice elves to Corphyeus 3 weeks ago :/

Qunari Culture

So the whole reason you were fighting the Antaam in DAI was because they believed you were in cahoots with Solas, who's whole plan to them is to sow chaos and disorder- that is a HUGE no no in the Qun so they see it as their sacred duty to stop you. The Qunari we meet in DATV mindless npc mooks who attack you not because your with Solas but because the Evil elven gos promised them uhh power n shit for stopping you. Like I know I did not just waste my time in DAI reading about how egalitarian the Qun is everyone is like a Hive, they depend on each other so selfishness is rooted out so wtf was going on in Treviso with these guys. A whole culture decimated down to being darkspawn mobs part 2

What made me never want to play another DA game ever again:

Everything you ever did in Orlais, Ferelden, Kirkwall is pointless. No matter what the last letter from the Inquistor is "yeah the blight reached the south Denerim is gone, ferelden is blighted beyond repair, we took back Skyhold but barely. The Venatori disposed of whoever you put in charge of Orlais and there's giant leviathans rising out the sea in Ostwick"  There is no conclusion to this it's just the state of the world now

I cant even pretend my non solas romanced Inky is happy and safe after all this? My hof and Alistar might as well be dead for all that it ever mattered. I get that the devs wanted a clean slate but did they have to burn my house down and salt the fields? It feels so spiteful and mean, like they wanted to make a whole separate game and tack on the "dragon age" title to it for money. If they're not interested in the lore or world building why should I? it made me fully checked out of the rest of the story. Like damn idgaf about elgar'nan and the other one give me back Redcliff

TLDR I dont know if i should be sad that I still care about this or glad its over either way im blocking all datv tags n moving on

[ganondoodle]

i have seen people talk about how hard it is to draw anything if you have aphantasia (which is good to talk about and true and valid and also intersting to read and this post isnt to devalue that, two things can coexist etc etc)

i personally struggle with the opposite; i have incredible imagination, i'd say it's my best and only "inate talent", (this is not a brag ..) all stories i think about are movies, i can stop them, change camera angle and poses, rotate ever object however i want, place lighting sound and voices, even styles, i switch from ghibli to botw to fortiches style, even into the style of a comic i recently read which wasnt even animated, the only thing that only works half the time is music-

and that all might sound fantastic, but its a mess, it goes too fast and too quickly, things never play out one way, theres interruption, involuntarily sudden changes to other subjects, i feel like struggling to keep an angry horse on one path, it makes me waste HOURS each day just reversing and redoing a scene like im a movie director wizard in my head, theres no ONE finished version, it changes everytime yet i go back over and over again to make it better, i forget most of it within a few hours anyway; even IRL when someone tells me about a memory and they are not sure if i was with them during it once they start to explain trying to make me remember it instead i will imagine it, in the end i wont be sure if i actually remembered or if i just imagined it too real, it scares me how much i forget and cant remember only for my mind to make shit up, makign me doubt my own memory (its weird how it works, i have horrible geographical memory, when i drive somwhere i have known my entire life i need to remember the path to it by imagining driving it, i remember significant things but not the path to them or how they connect or in what order, i have to go through it in my head every single time)

by far the worst part though is that extreme disconnect between whats in my mind and what i can do, just because i can imagine things like that doesnt mean i can draw it (god i WISH), nothing i have ever drawn is how it was in my head, the few things you get to see are the ones i won the fight against myself with to keep going and say 'good enough' at some point the speed is a problem too, the things playing in my head, sometimes even multiple at the same time, play like, again, a movie, whatever im trying to draw is rarely ONE thing, its a whole scene that plays over and over, i want to draw it all but it wont work bc my mind is too fast and i am too slow, it makes me try to skip ahead and get things done as fast as possible, it NEVER works (also too much, theres so many things in my head, i have almost the entirety of the totk rewrite in my head already, novels worth of lore and story for my other projects, its overwhelming how much is in there that i cannot get out and on paper)

its why comics take me so long to make, why detailed paintings are so rare, its the rare times i can force myself to try and tune out my mind and just work on what is in front of me, usually works for a few hours .. if i can manage to reach that sort of focus at all, its why basic sketches of characters are so much easier to do bc i dont have to fight as hard to just draw a character doing nothing- as soon as i want to make it a sketch page of things and scenes the movies are back and are there to haunt me until i cry and give up after hours of trying to keep up with my mind that i will never be able to catch up to (and this is only about drawing .. )

i know skill and speed increase over time, but i wont ever get to where my mind is, its always ahead and trying to skip and jump towards it only makes me stumble and fall flat on my face- maybe its ADHD, maybe its the autism, maybe its the depression, maybe its just me, maybe its just all of that

what im trying to say is, head full, too much thought, too fast, never able to translate it into viewable things in the way and speed as my head works, i explode

[outrunningthedark]

Do you ever get that uncomfy feeling about fandom dissecting cast interviews and heavily interacting and sharing interactions? Like I ship (shipped? Put off by parasocialness and lfj love) bucktommy and buddie but the fandom is so offputting.

Like appreciating the cast ofc is fair and fun but I cant help but feel like, this broken wall of seperation makes finishing or reaolving the bucktommy break up less likely.

I think im overthinking a bit, but this buddie outrage, lfj sharing posts and interacting, people bashing OS about his wording, like the idea that in 8B. Tim and whoever thinks, okay they should come back. The idea of those actors having to interact after all this (in sone ways) overblown drama makes me cringe and i cant properly express why. Maybe its the lack of escapism?

I cant fully express my thoughts on this properly but i have agreeed with most of your posts on the subject. You articulate stuff well.

Dont mean to bash people that love to follow the cast closely but idk when i see it all blur on my page, i get so weirded out. Anyway ignore if this makes no sense or is irrelevant.

I do get what you're trying to say, and that's where the root of the issues with Oliver's behavior stems from. We, as a fandom, should not be able to *notice* when a particular cast member is being left out of cast moments behind the scenes. Yes, he was professional on set and got through his scenes, but the ONLY reason people have started to put two and two together re: his concerns over "backlash" is because of we just saw happen while Lou was on the show. Before, we could tell ourselves "Well maybe Oliver's just tired of these forced hetero relationships that will go nowhere". But now his character is canonically queer. And he chose not to acknowledge the story line outside of one post that got deleted and a couple of stories. (One of which was most definitely advised for good PR given how he recorded it on the fly - Bi Visibility Day). Viewers should have been able to watch the story line with NO preconceived notions of how anybody really felt. Viewers should have been able to feel sad about the break up without Oliver immediately jumping into a story about how HE TEXTS THE GUY WHO WROTE TOMMY OFF to let Buck go back to his 1.0 phase. Viewers should have been able to believe the guy who seemed so excited to celebrate his character's coming out sympathized with the disappointment. But because Oliver only worries about the hate HE receives, because Oliver puts HIS feelings first when telling a queer (potential) love story on tv, fandom is left to wonder whether he even liked the direction of Buck's story line, whether he actually DID have anything to do with Tommy get written off as quickly as he did. Fans look into things because Oliver leaves the door open.

[autisticjoshrusso]

ok ok ok. a post about josh, buck, and maddie at dispatch as promised. (and because i dont feel like writing a whole separate post or repeating myself etc, if im pointing something out as evidence for my autistic josh headcanon, it'll be in parenthesis like this) also this is long because im going basically line by line in some places so just be prepared for that and such.

the first thing i wanna say before anything else is that like... as far as how this conversation fits into the larger narrative, i was fairly disappointed, due to the way that including this scene like this is kinda implying that the racism was fine because of being closeted etc. HOWEVER. luckily for my sanity it is pretty clear that from a character perspective, that's not at all what's being said by josh himself here, and we can be pretty certain that he is not aware of tommy's past behaviors. in fact he has almost no facts or context about the situation, which i'll get into later.

now that the disclaimer is out of the way, im gonna move onto character analysis and will not be touching on what i think the narrative might have meant etc. any further. like this is going to be purely talking about character dynamics and dissecting the dialogue etc.

we start out right away by skipping all the exposition right into a hard cut of maddie reacting to the news that tommy and abby were engaged. LOVE this set up we get right into the important part quickly and we as the audience only have to hear information that is new to us, not the information being repeated back to the character for whom the information is new.

and oh maddie. i love you so bad. she's like DAMN thats crazy, and then makes the obvious turning people gay joke. her energy here is sooo like it didn't make sense until looking at it in retrospect, but she's shocked and invested yet not taking it very seriously as a concern for buck, because well, she's having a baby and this is objectively not that serious comparatively <3 but i do love that she sees buck's reaction and quickly reins it in and is like woah im kidding im not actually being homophobic holy smokes. which. it kinda still is a little. but i think she's allowed <3

and then... josh enters the scene. he apparently only walked in as buck was saying "-kissed a boy" so of course he had to be like huh? gay shit? something gay? boys?? what's going on over here? and i love that for him. and i love that maddie immediately is like oh hi bestie i catch u up to speed on the tea <3 the maddiejosh bestieism is so back we never lose <3 and that fact that she's like. feeding in the facts in a way to dramatically amp up the tale i love it. she really said man the things my baby brother gets himself caught up in are wild.... anyway <3 true sibling behavior is finding the perfect balance between being supportive and being so so annoying <3

and she is supportive still. like when it becomes clear that there's something deeper going on here she does try to help him work through it. and its so interesting to me the way she is sort of seriously contemplating his words and is shocked when josh not only speaks up but is being very serious and equally focused on the problem at hand. it's like... she's trying so hard to figure out how to help her brother with something she doesn't fully understand that having someone else speak up to help them kind of shocks her and boy does that say something about their lives and the buckley sibling dynamic!

side note, the way josh is jokingly like "she didn't bring her personal life to work, unlike SOME people" and maddie's little look of mock offense?? they're so cute i cant handle it.

i also really love how the shots are framed during this conversation. at first, even when she's not talking and is just listening to josh talk, maddie is still in frame, we're still getting her reaction, she's an active participant in what's going on. and then there is the one shot where she's talking and josh is out of frame, hidden by buck, because whatever reaction he might be having isn't important, it's a buckley sibling moment. (he's not an active participant at that point; he's entirely observing and reacting and gathering information, not dictating the direction of the conversation whatsoever.)

it's only when josh gets very serious and it starts to turn into a heart to heart moment just between him and buck that maddie is allowed to leave the frame. it still goes back to her in very brief cuts when her reaction is relevant, but she steps back out of focus and let's josh handle the conversation. and i love that so much. thank GOD someone else is helping buck sort out his problems that isn't his parentified sister or just generally someone more marginalized than him. it was kind of getting irritating to watch, as much as i love buck so much. like dude... the emotional labor. watch it.

and man. this conversation guys. everything about it makes me an insane crazy person. ive already mentioned this in the tags of some other posts but like... its so fascinating because on the surface it is such a cohesive conversation, but when you really break it down and analyze both of their expressions and body language alongside what they're saying, you can start to see the cracks in it. what one of them is saying is not what the other one is hearing, in both directions. they are having two different conversations and i think it's critical to analyze both of those conversations and how they are interacting with each other. what josh says, what josh hears, what buck says, and what buck hears are four entirely separate things happening alongside each other.

the first part is josh trying to get a sense for how serious this relationship is to buck. when buck falters at the question of "do you love him?", he elaborates with follow-up questions that, to josh, define "love" or close enough to it. answering "yes" to those questions is close enough to a "yes" to the question of "do you love him?".

(which. ok. the particular choice of questions makes me insane because they do essentially boil down to "do you prefer this person to solitude and grant them an equal or greater importance to yourself?" which is sooo... it's said from the point of view of someone who greatly values their solitude and would not easily grant someone that level of importance.)

unfortunately, well, buck is NOT someone who greatly values his solitude, and puts other people before himself quite easily. buck would answer "yes" to those questions for basically anyone. josh does not know or understand this about buck and takes buck's answers at face value, while buck is taking this as sort of... it's hard to explain, and i think others have done a better job of capturing buck's perspective already tbh. he's convincing himself that he loves tommy here because josh is unknowingly handing him that information and expectation, and buck loves to mold himself to fit an expectation etc.

and then comes the second part, which... i think this is where it is most critical to realize that josh has none of the context about tommy, abby, and buck and those respective relationships. by his own admission, he didn't really know much about abby or about her breakup with tommy beyond the fact that it was upsetting. he didn't hear the way tommy talked about abby to buck at dinner, and he definitely didn't get to see any of the real fallout and damage to her psyche that tommy leaving her caused.

but buck did! im not inclined to rewatch s1 to get any exact quotes or anything but from what i remember, she either outright said or implied that she was so heartbroken because tommy left her because of her mother's illness. buck is understandably very upset because he understands exactly what she went through and how, unless abby was lying to not out him, he didn't exactly come clean with the breakup, and left her feeling like it was her fault, like there was something wrong with her or she was being weighed down by caring for her mother. he calls tommy's behavior exactly what it is: dishonest and cruel.

but josh doesn't know this. all he is hearing is a young, freshly out bisexual calling a gay man "dishonest and cruel" for having been engaged to a woman for his own protection. and he responds exactly how you'd expect! he reminds him of queer history and the fact that he doesn't really have a right to judge the people who grew up and had to survive in a world that was much less safe to come out in.

(and i said in my other post that's still doing numbers that "pre-Glee/post-Glee" is an actual queer discourse talking point and makes sense that it'd be used here, as awkward and cheesy as it seems, but it's also a win for my television/film/popular media/hollywood culture/etc. as a special interest headcanon. <3 we love to see it)

and it kills me because of course buck is just going to take this at face value and decide he needs to stop feeling the discomfort he's feeling, leading to the subsequent doubling down and over committing that is typical of his unhealthy relationship patterns.

(and then at the end of the speech josh has to literally announce that he's leaving DSJFHJKDSKJ. because walking away/ending conversations is so awkward and difficult and the easiest way to mitigate that is to lean into the Dramatic Homosexual Stereotype mask or whatever <3 i've long been of the opinion that josh is someone who uses the behaviors associated with queer men and queer masculinity as the blueprint for his neurotypical mask, which is why he often comes across as being just a little bit off from the Funny and Bitchy Gay vibes that it seems like he's going for. and boy did his exit from this scene just reinforce that headcanon so hard!)

they wrap the scene with a little bit more levity too which is kind of nice to like. move on from that. because it got kind of heavy there for a second.

overall i do like what this scene accomplished, but like i said at the start, i think it has some really unfortunate implications that weigh it down for me. still, always nice to get more josh content, especially when it's pretty consistent with his character as established AND not at all related to doing his job. we got to see him and maddie being goofy and maddie being allowed to let someone else deal with buck's problems for a second. and the whole thing was very well shot! excellent camera work going on throughout.

i don't actually know how to end this post so yknow. im gonna make a dramatic exit now or whatever <3

[hoplesshipper]

Genuinely what is it with mxtx's works that it garners so many abuse-apologists.

They are the most delusional people I've had the displeasure of talking to. There are literally people saying shen Jiu isn't a monster because he didn't beat binghe- as much as he could have. Hello??? Are we all there in the head???

It makes me so angry and sad at the same time because how can you think like that. How can you relate so much to an abuser. You can relate to his abused side, but then to say that he wasn't a monster and that he was actually just misunderstood all along?? Do you even like the character at that point?? Or the fucked up version of it you made in your head.

That's actually just what you want people to say about you, isn't it?

I have no choice but to think that you're a horrible person too.

[foundfamilywhump]

see like the thing with 'carewhumpers' as a concept to me is it just like... i know this is prrrrobably not really how it's meant but something skeeves me out about the idea that kindness or caretaking mixed in with hurting someone can somehow meaningfully complicate or dilute the harm done to the point of making that character no longer a 'whumper' whereas someone doing the same 'bad' things but not ever being gentle or caring for them would just be a straight-out whumper. when like... that's how 90% of irl abuse dynamics work? so i just... don't really get the point, i guess. like to me it implies something about the 'care' provided somehow mitigating or combating the harm done that. i just do not personally appreciate or enjoy.

[feymaid]

The recent zevran disrespect has honestly pissed me off so bad no one talk to me for a week.

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

As much as I joke, I should note that I don't actually see Bill as a sweet little innocent baby who couldn't do no harm.

It's hard to explain but: Do I still feel bad that I now know he didn't intend to destroy his dimension and carries that grief, and that truly he's a desperate person trying to find him and his friends a home to stay in so they don't disintegrate when the edge of the world approaches them? Yeah. Does that mean id be totally fine if he had taken over earth and turned it into the nightmare realm? HELL NO! Get that dorito bastard away from my dirt!!!

Do I feel bad that he's suffering in theraprism? Kinda, yeah. Do I find it hilarious that he's suffering in theraprism. Absolutely. Is that a question? That's fucking awesome. These coexist simultaneously in my mind.

[jay-wasreblogging]

At first I was like 'LMFAO HE FUNNY ASF WHY HE DOING ANGELS VOICE!!' cause bruh ain't no way he devious like that 😂

Then I got confused because ??? Wait is he fucking around or being serious right now? Huh?? Like I genuinely did not process that it was anything mentally/psychologically related until Watson started pleading. 😐

[ratatatastic]

my favourite part of hockey being back is that i get to caption this guy and so i bring you the "bad attitude" bit from last season finally being put to rest because we've beat this poor horse to death... only to be revived once more! if theres anything we like around these parts its living for the bit!

Training Camp 24 | 9.19.24 (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

[raindrvq]

Spoilers for The Outsiders Musical

Dallas jumping in front of the train in the musical really made me think of this part of the book. (Disclaimer I have not watched the musical yet, this is just my opinion on this one change so)

In the book, while his death *is* a suicide, to an outside perspective, it doesn't seem so. To anyone outside the gang, he died a juvenile delinquent who got in a shoot out with the police, who robbed a grocery store and then ran away and pulled out a gun. To anyone else he had it coming, he deserved it. Only really to the gang was his death tragic and desperate. People weren't mourning him in the papers like they did Johnny. And that's how Dallas wanted to die. And by having him jump in front of a train, his death is now explicitly a suicide to anyone who didn't know him. Anyone simply reading about it in the news would feel pity and sorrow for this boy they never knew, they probably wouldn't see him as a criminal or a hood. He didn't want to be seen as a poor, troubled young boy who took his own life, and that is ignored in the musical by changing how he dies. Not to mention how it strips away the themes of police brutality in a story where that is so important. So not only is Dallas' death very important, but the way in which he dies as well.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

why do people pick and choose what definition of canon they use for which situation and then get angry that anyone disagrees with any part of it 😭

personally, im much less interested in going strictly by the definition that appearances are the things that make canon and much more in what the authors intentions behind those appearances were... and like i feel that i should be allowed to do that without people screaming about how "well this is what i SEE when i watch the show so ur STUPID" LIKE PLEASEEE IM ALLOWED TO THINK DEEPER THAN THAT 😭

like... if i took EVERYTHING at face value, the scene where aiura tries to fake a lucky feel would just actually be attempted sexual assault 😭 but its an out of character moment and im 100% sure that the author didnt intend to make her creepy or an assaulter (more likely, it was one of those "sa isnt sa when its by a woman" moments by the author, so its not supposed to come off as sa and instead just her being a sexual person) ... so i dont see her as one 🤷🏻‍♀️ but again, if you see canon as only whats seen on screen then thats what it was, so you cant just like... refuse to see it that way and then get mad that there are similar things that OTHER people choose to do the same thing with just because you dont do it for those particular things

[stupidrant]

im seeing the pattern of being an atreus/angrboda fan (or u just like them) and having to go through this weird initiation process of: liking them in the game (wether its themselves, their relationship or both), then trying to find content of them only to be shocked to see a bunch of haters (on both sides but angrboda gets it the worst and thrud is often times oddly used against her), only to then get severely disappointed and realize u probably have to do a bit of contribution yourself which isnt bad but it sucks when its characters that are ridiculously hated 😭😭😭

[puppyeared]

i feel like. theres designing a character with certain themes and motifs in mind, and then theres making a gijinka for the water bottle on my nightstand