#maybe i'll find something to do with it

[hannah-heartstrings]

            The last of the rain stops dripping and for a moment the world feels too quiet and still.

[always-a-king-or-queen]

The ache will go away, eventually. 

That was what the Professor told them, the day they got back. When they tumbled from the wardrobe in a heap of tangled limbs, and found that the world had been torn from under their feet with all the kindness of a serpent. 

They picked themselves off of the floorboards with smiles plastered on child faces, and sat with the Professor in his study drinking cup after cup of tea. 

But the smiles were fake. The tea was like ash on their tongues. And when they went to bed that night, none of them could sleep in beds that were too foreign, in bodies that had not been their own for years. Instead they grouped into one room and sat on the floor and whispered, late into the night. 

When morning came, Mrs. Macready discovered the four of them asleep in Peter and Edmund’s bedroom, tangled in a heap of pillows and blankets with their arms looped across one another. They woke a few moments after her entry and seemed confused, lost even, staring around the room with pale faces, eyes raking over each framed painting on the wall and across every bit of furniture as if it was foreign to them. “Come to breakfast,” Mrs. Macready said as she turned to go, but inside she wondered. 

For the children’s faces had held the same sadness that she saw sometimes in the Professor’s. A yearning, a shock, a numbness, as if their very hearts had been ripped from their chests.

At breakfast Lucy sat huddled between her brothers, wrapped in a shawl that was much too big for her as she warmed her hands around a mug of hot chocolate. Edmund fidgeted in his seat and kept reaching up to his hair as if to feel for something that was no longer there. Susan pushed her food idly around on her plate with her fork and hummed a strange melody under her breath. And Peter folded his hands beneath his chin and stared at the wall with eyes that seemed much too old for his face. 

It chilled Mrs. Macready to see their silence, their strangeness, when only yesterday they had been running all over the house, pounding through the halls, shouting and laughing in the bedrooms. It was as if something, something terrible and mysterious and lengthy, had occurred yesterday, but surely that could not be. 

She remarked upon it to the Professor, but he only smiled sadly at her and shook his head. “They’ll be all right,” he said, but she wasn’t so sure. 

They seemed so lost. 

Lucy disappeared into one of the rooms later that day, a room that Mrs. Macready knew was bare save for an old wardrobe of the professor’s. She couldn’t imagine what the child would want to go in there for, but children were strange and perhaps she was just playing some game. When Lucy came out again a few minutes later, sobbing and stumbling back down the hall with her hair askew, Mrs. Macready tried to console her, but Lucy found no comfort in her arms. “It wasn’t there,” she kept saying, inconsolable, and wouldn’t stop crying until her siblings came and gathered her in their arms and said in soothing voices, “Perhaps we’ll go back someday, Lu.” 

Go back where, Mrs. Macready wondered? She stepped into the room Lucy had been in later on in the evening and looked around, but there was nothing but dust and an empty space where coats used to hang in the wardrobe. The children must have taken them recently and forgotten to return them, not that it really mattered. They were so old and musty and the Professor had probably forgotten them long ago. But what could have made the child cry so? Try as she might, Mrs. Macready could find no answer, and she left the room dissatisfied and covered in dust. 

Lucy and Edmund and Peter and Susan took tea in the Professor’s room again that night, and the next, and the next, and the next. They slept in Peter and Edmund’s room, then Susan and Lucy’s, then Peter and Edmund’s again and so on, swapping every night till Mrs. Macready wondered how they could possibly get any sleep. The floor couldn’t be comfortable, but it was where she found them, morning after morning. 

Each morning they looked sadder than before, and breakfast was silent. Each afternoon Lucy went into the room with the wardrobe, carrying a little lion figurine Edmund had carved her, and came out crying a little while later. And then one day she didn’t, and went wandering in the woods and fields around the Professor’s house instead. She came back with grassy fingers and a scratch on one cheek and a crown of flowers on her head, but she seemed content. Happy, even. Mrs. Macready heard her singing to herself in a language she’d never heard before as Lucy skipped past her in the hall, leaving flower petals on the floor in her wake. Mrs. Macready couldn’t bring herself to tell the child to pick them up, and instead just left them where they were. 

More days and nights went by. One day it was Peter who went into the room with the wardrobe, bringing with him an old cloak of the Professor’s, and he was gone for quite a while. Thirty or forty minutes, Mrs. Macready would guess. When he came out, his shoulders were straighter and his chin lifted higher, but tears were dried upon his cheeks and his eyes were frightening. Noble and fierce, like the eyes of a king. The cloak still hung about his shoulders and made him seem almost like an adult. 

Peter never went into the wardrobe room again, but Susan did, a few weeks later. She took a dried flower crown inside with her and sat in there at least an hour, and when she came out her hair was so elaborately braided that Mrs. Macready wondered where on earth she had learned it. The flower crown was perched atop her head as she went back down the hall, and she walked so gracefully that she seemed to be floating on the air itself. In spite of her red eyes, she smiled, and seemed content to wander the mansion afterwards, reading or sketching or making delicate jewelry out of little pebbles and dried flowers Lucy brought her from the woods. 

More weeks went by. The children still took tea in the Professor’s study on occasion, but not as often as before. Lucy now went on her daily walks outdoors, and sometimes Peter or Susan, or both of them at once, accompanied her. Edmund stayed upstairs for the most part, reading or writing, keeping quiet and looking paler and sadder by the day. 

Finally he, too, went into the wardrobe room. 

He stayed for hours, hours upon hours. He took nothing in save for a wooden sword he had carved from a stick Lucy brought him from outside, and he didn’t come out again. The shadows lengthened across the hall and the sun sank lower in the sky and finally Mrs. Macready made herself speak quietly to Peter as the boy came out of the Professor’s study. “Your brother has been gone for hours,” she told him crisply, but she was privately alarmed, because Peter’s face shifted into panic and he disappeared upstairs without a word. 

Mrs. Macready followed him silently after around thirty minutes and pressed an ear to the door of the wardrobe room. Voices drifted from beyond. Edmund’s and Peter’s, yes, but she could also hear the soft tones of Lucy and Susan. 

“Why did he send us back?” Edmund was saying. It sounded as if he had been crying.  

Mrs. Macready couldn’t catch the answer, but when the siblings trickled out of the room an hour later, Edmund’s wooden sword was missing, and the flower crown Susan had been wearing lately was gone, and Peter no longer had his old cloak, and Lucy wasn’t carrying her lion figurine, and the four of them had clasped hands and sad, but smiling, faces. 

Mrs. Macready slipped into the room once they were gone and opened the wardrobe, and there at the bottom were the sword and the crown and the cloak and the lion. An offering of sorts, almost, or perhaps just items left there for future use, for whenever they next went into the wardrobe room.  

But they never did, and one day they were gone for good, off home, and the mansion was silent again. And it had been a long time since that morning that Mrs. Macready had found them all piled together in one bedroom, but ever since then they hadn’t quite been children, and she wanted to know why.

She climbed the steps again to the floor of the house where the old wardrobe was, and then went into the room and crossed the floor to the opposite wall. 

When she pulled the wardrobe door open, the four items the Pevensie children had left inside of it were missing. 

And just for a moment, it seemed to her that a cool gust of air brushed her face, coming from the darkness beyond where the missing coats used to hang.

[sergle]

I think I'm going to make a temperature blanket this year

[silusvesuius]

in drawing heads purgatory

[emile-hides]

As I was going to bed last night I realized I designed three costumes and there are three Frankies.. And then this is all I thought about literally all day

[batbabydamian]

Hey, I started reading Robin son of Batman because of your recommendation (I literally have a print of your post on my phone to not forget lol). Honestly? One of the best things I ever read!!!

Thank you for opening my eyes! Damian has been one of my favorite characters for over a year, but I didn't read/watch much of him because of school, life (and probably an executive dysfunction in the mix).

Maya is incredible. I loved her.

I haven't finished all the issues yet, but do you have any other recommendations?

WAH this makes me so happy, i'm glad you still gave it a shot even with how busy life is!! ;v;

i’d love to give reccs, and i’ll try to go a beginner friendly route! tbh you can pick up whatever here, but since you've read R:SOB i’d immediately follow up with Batman and Robin (2011) #1-8! this first arc is what’s referred to in Maya’s introduction, and it's just. so good.

Main Books

Batman and Robin (2009)

Dick as Batman with Damian as his Robin!

#20-22 Tree of Blood: Dark Knight vs White Knight arc is done by Tomasi and Gleason, the team for the next Batman and Robin series

*Batman and Robin (2011)

Bruce and Damian figuring out their relationship as both Batman & Robin and father & son

imo you can enjoy the ride and read straight through this but i’ll add context to avoid as much confusion as possible since there’s the occasional tie-in or offscreen events, like Damian’s death nbd

Batman Incorporated (2012) #1-10

events leading to Damian's death - affects Batman and Robin (2011) from issue #18

kind of a tough read especially with how Talia's written, but a lot of iconic bits like Batcow, Damian's vegetarian declaration, Alfred the cat, "We Were the Best, Richard."

Robin (2021)

another self-discovery adventure, particularly after Alfred’s death and a fallout with Bruce (and questionable writing choices from his last Teen Titans run)

Batman and Robin (2023)

currently ongoing! after a number of events, Bruce and Damian are back as a duo

Damian Dynamics!

Batman: Streets of Gotham (2009) #7, 10-12

arc where Damian meets one of his first Gotham friends, Colin Wilkes

Batgirl (2009) #5-7, #17

Steph and Damian dynamic! "the bad cop, worse cop" dysfunctional duo

Red Robin (2009) #13-14

early Tim and Damian dynamic that of course includes fighting haha. funny enough, accidentally my first intro to Damian LOL

Teen Titans (2003) #89-92

Dick!Batman has Damian join the Teen Titans. Start of Damian and Rose Wilson dynamic that’s extended in Robin (2021)

Batman: Gates of Gotham (2011)

Damian meets Cass and has a brief team up

Gotham Academy (2015) #7

Damian meets Maps Mizoguchi! they have a few other meetings, but outside of that the series itself is a great read!

Robin War Event (2015)

Robin War (2015) #1, Grayson (2014) #15, Detective Comics (2011) #47, We Are Robin (2015) #7, Robin: Son of Batman (2015) #7, Robin War (2015) #2

Duke and Damian dynamic! not exactly beginner friendly but these are the main issues in order for the event! you can also read the TPB version for everything including Tie-Ins

Nightwing (2016) #16-20, #42, #43

#16-20 Nightwing and Robin arc!

#42 Dick on a mission to save Damian! the one appearance of "Wiggles" the dragon

#43 Dick, Roy, and Damian team-up

New Talent Showcase 2018 "Catwoman: Pedigree"

Selina, Damian, and Alfred the cat

Batman: Prelude to the Wedding - Robin vs. Ra's Al Ghul (2018)

Selina, Damian, and Cheese Viking - Damian's fav game shown in Nightwing: Rebirth (2016)

Monkey Prince (2022) #1-4

Marcus Sun Shugel-Shen's main comic, but Damian features as a fun dynamic here before they're in more serious circumstances in Batman VS Robin (2022)/Lazarus Planet event

Superman (2016) #10 - 11

the beginning of the Super Sons! featuring Maya!

Super Sons (2017)

solitary arcs but there’s a few event tie-in issues later

Adventures of the Super Sons (2018)

literally more Super Sons adventures lol galactic shenanigans yeehaw

Challenge of the Super Sons (2020) 

Super Sons time shenanigans feat. the Justice League

Robin 80th Anniversary (2020)

"Boy Wonders" - brief Damian feature as Tim considers his next step in life

"My Best Friend" - Jon's thoughts on Damian and their dynamic

"Bat and Mouse" - refers to Damian's unfortunate Teen Titans (2016) run at the time of release which follows up with Teen Titans Annual #2 where Damian briefly gives up Robin

Extra Comics!

Superman/Batman (2003) #77

Kara and Damian in a Halloween team-up! also the appearance of "Li'l Matches" lol

DCU Halloween Special '09 "Cavity Search"

Damian out on a solo mission for Halloween night. Immediately after is Tim's Red Robin story "Then and Now: Our Father's Sins" which is more somber in contrast but also a good read!

DCU Halloween Special 2010 "Robin the Vampire Slayer"

a Dick!Batman and Robin story featuring the vampire Andrew Bennett

Cursed Comics Cavalcade (2018) "The Devil You Know"

Halloween themed comic with a sweet short story of Damian alongside Solomon Grundy

DC's Terrors Through Time (2022)

"Trick or Treat" a Super Sons Halloween story

"The Haunting of Wayne Manor" Damian and Deadman story - in the end, Boston kinda refers to Nezha's possession of Damian in Batman VS Robin (2022) which was happening at the time of this release

Batman: Li'l Gotham (2013)

lighthearted series that instantly makes me smile with the silliness and Dustin Nguyen’s art i love this dearly

Secret Origins (2014) #4 "A Boy's Life"

a retelling of Damian's origin story

Detective Comics (2016) #1001-1005

Batman and Robin vs the Arkham Knight (unrelated to the game)

Truth & Justice (2021) #6/#16 - 18 Digital First version

cute story of Damian’s birthday! Juni Ba’s art is so fun!!

DC Festival of Heroes: The Asian Superhero Celebration (2021) “Special Delivery”

short story about Damian! and poisoned pizzas. completely forgot the artist Sami Basri drew Rebirth Damian here before catboy Damian lol Cass’s story “Sounds” is also cute! Marcus makes his first appearance in "The Monkey Prince Hates Superheroes"

DC VS Vampires (2021)

Damian makes appearances throughout this elseworlds book, but the one-shot DC VS Vampires: Hunters (2022) is vampire Damian-centric!

Batman: Black and White (2021) #5

“Father & Son Outing” short story written and drawn by Jorge Jimenez!

Batman: Urban Legends (2021) #20-23

#20 “My Son” Talia and Bruce focus

#20 - 23 “The Murder Club” 4 Parts

Tiny Titans (2008) #33, #39, #45, #47

a few appearances but SO CUTE, LOOK AT HIM

*Batman and Robin (2011) reading guide

i'm mostly trying to avoid the "what did i just walk in on?" kinda feeling when i first started reading comics LOL i'll list the comics where events take place, but you don't necessarily have to read them to go through this book since things are usually explained as quickly as possible in the first page or so

#0 Someday Never Comes

Talia and baby Damian before he grows up to meet Bruce

#1-8 Born to Kill

just an incredibly solid arc for Bruce and Damian!

#9 Court of Owls Tie-In Issue

Damian VS a Court of Owls Talon. While Bruce is occupied with a home invasion of Talons, Alfred makes a call for allies to protect targeted Gotham public figures from Talons. During Batman (2011) #1-11

#10-12 Terminus

Damian challenges the previous Robins sans Steph

Batman Incorporated (2012) is occurring at this time where Talia has placed a bounty on Damian and there's small mentions of that

#13-14 Eclipsed/Devoured

mostly solitary arc! end of it leads into the Death of the Family event

#15-16 Death of the Family Tie-In Issues

Damian and Joker face-off... Alfred's been kidnapped by the Joker, and Damian goes looking for him. During Batman (2011) #13-17

#17 Life is but a Dream - Death of the Family Epilogue

a sort of subconscious check-in through the dreams of Damian, Alfred, and Bruce. Nightwing (2011) #17 features Damian encouraging Dick after Death of the Family events

#18 Undone "Requiem"

Bruce dealing with Damian's death from Batman Incorporated #8

other reactions to Damian's death: Dick in Nightwing (2011) #18, Tim in Teen Titans (2011) #18

#19-23 Denial, Rage, The Bargain, Despair, Acceptance

Bruce through the stages of grief with some batfam appearances in each. also introduces Carrie Kelley into continuity as Damian's acting tutor.

Batman (2011) #19-20 also addresses Bruce's loss

#23.1-23.4

these could be skipped - villain stories, also related to Forever Evil event.

#24-28 The Big Burn

optional Batman and Two-Face/Harvey Dent arc, #23.1 is part of this story!

Damian's resurrection and return

#29-32 The Hunt for Robin

Ras took Talia and Damian's bodies from their graves, and Bruce goes after him.

-> Robin Rises: Omega

continues events from #32. if you don't want to jump to this, basically, Glorious Godfrey and a bunch of parademons from Apokolips are here for a chaos shard which Ra's put in Damian's sarcophagus. at some point, Bruce gets a hold of the shard where he sees a vision that leads him to believe Damian can be resurrected. Godfrey ends up taking the shard, along with Damian's body since it was emitting the same energy.

#33-37 Robin Rises

Bruce hellbent on retrieving Damian from Apokolips and reviving him

-> Robin Rises: Alpha

necessary to read and continues events from #37! Damian's back with a bang lol

#38-40 Superpower

Damian adjusting to having superpowers and being alive again

Annual #1 2013 Batman Impossible

sweet (and funny) one-shot of Damian sending Bruce on a meaningful scavenger hunt around the world while Damian gets to be the cutest Batman for a bit

Annual #2 2014 Batman and Robin: Week One

one-shot takes place during Damian's absence. after Bruce and Alfred find a mystery gift left for Dick, Dick recounts a story he had told Damian from his Robin days.

Annual #3 2015 Moonshot

one-shot Batman and Robin adventure on the moon!

...and of course after Batman and Robin (2011), Damian's story continues in his first solo Robin: Son of Batman (2015)!

[grimmweepers]

˚˖𓍢ִ໋🦢˚ 𝓻𝔂𝓾𝓱𝓪𝓲𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓶

there was an ache in my heart when i awoke in a strange, beautiful world that wasn’t my own. even as months turned to years, i still missed the familiar skies, the voice of loved ones and the home i had left behind. i wrote letters that went nowhere and whispered silent prayers that reached no one. it was like i was plucked from my own reality and placed in a world where i didn’t quite belong.

yet, as much as i longed for home, i was determined to learn in this new life. sumeru became my sanctuary and the akademiya, my solace. i learned their languages, customs, and secrets while sharing stories of the stars, landmarks, and beauty of my own world. the scholars listened, fascinated by the similarities and differences, but none more than al-haitham—a student assigned to guide me through this foreign land. he was a quiet presence. thoughtful and curious. he did not pity me.

and over time, he went from guide to peer to something more. over time, i wasn’t just seeking knowledge but also him. but what was the point? what was the point of falling for him if one day, i could just disappear—vanish back to my world, leaving him and teyvat behind? this could slip away at any moment. this might be as fleeting as a dream.

despite all reason, i still found myself loving him deeply. in a world that wasn’t my own, he had become my home.

𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐬: very slow burn, mutual pining, friends to lovers

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐔𝐒: 22.10.22 | playlist | genshinverse ryu

𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐌𝐒: modern au | season of love

[cobaltfluff]

happy april fools' from your big brothers, dumbass (affectionate)

[daily-pilby]

Can we all give Pilby a hug? Like a group hug! :3

day 17

group hug!

oh no

[alongtidesoflight]

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

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

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

i'm starting off with the things i liked

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[ailithnight]

I'm not thinking about it. I am making the active decision to not think about it. If I think about it, I will spiral. I cannot spiral right now. There is work to do and life to live. So for now, I am not thinking about it.

I will remember this though. There are approx 345 million people in the US. 71 million is a lot. It's a scary lot. But it is not half. Not even a quarter.

I believe, I have to believe, that most people did not want this. That most people are kinder than this.

[king-candybug-backup]

I'm noticing an uptick in comments complaining that most of the current WIR fandom content is Turbo instead of the other characters and, like... you guys know you can search other characters by their specific tags, right??? Or exclude Turbo from search results by temporarily blacklisting him in your filtered tags?

Idk, it's just weird to me to be discouraging towards people making fandom content just because it's not the specific content you want to see, like, it's ok to want to see other content, but complaining about how other people aren't catering to your tastes enough instead of just making the content you want to see yourself is kinda bad vibes, y'know?? (And that's not to say that I think those comments are intended out of malice of course, I really don't think they are, I just wanted to point out that it can come off as a little entitled, as well as discouraging towards people who just want to draw Turbo, which is something that should be fine if that's what they want to do. Fandom should be fun for everybody, and there's lots of tools available to curate your experience with it!)

[covertblizzard]

jaykyle au where they're theatre kids in the same school but they're not the actors jason's the scriptwriter/director and kyle is the prop manager (i don't know the official terms sorry) and they'd probably do an amazing job on the backstage setting if they could stop arguing for 5 whole seconds about their artistic visions and ideas and how "this would obviously work better this way"

[fictionadventurer]

Potential September Reading

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (ideally in audio)

An English Squire by Christabel R. Coleridge

A Sherlock Holmes story (and/or a screen adaptation)

C.S. Lewis nonfiction

A sensation or mystery novel

A piece of one of the Psmith stories

Some kind of nonfiction book

[grolia]

An early idea Tsubaki had for Seo according to the GSNK fanbook:

“She’s actually super bad at singing but for some reason only Wakamatsu falls asleep” was also an idea.

However, nothing good came out of it, so it was scrapped.

[crastle]

i love thinking of mcyt universes in actual video game minecraft terms. like servers are a thing and the world is made of code and all that. always very fun to me. lately i've been thinking some about quackity, once las nevadas is ready to open, finding some way to bust the dsmp open to the wider public so he can actually get visitors to the city. and since the server has always been invite-only and relatively small it's this huge culture shift once anyone can join and there's always a crowd.