#now to add in all the everything else

[song-of-the-rune]

[regarding the thing i wrote earlier this morning] i feel like i'm going to explode with excitement i've been waiting to do this for so long oh my god

there's just one problem

while i am having fun i think all i did just now was write edgy cringe >_< eheh...

[voidshrub]

"Follow me!"

[autisticandroids]

CASTIEL: Stop. What's the point if you don't mean it? You fear me - not love, not respect, just fear.

[youtube with closed captions]

a godstiel pity party. i'd like to thank an anon i got way back in february of 2021.

[lizzybeeee]

(Same anon) It's also just a lot harder for me because Solas in Inquisition was trying to take down the Veil in a world that was genuinely shitty to elves, mages, and spirits (nvm that until this game I was 100% sure that he was trying to do this more for the ancient elves, like why else imply there are more out there to Abelas? I guess he was just being polite?) Veilguard depicts Thedas as being largely okay with mages and spirits even outside of Tevinter and pointedly doesn't depict racism against elves outside a handful of throwaway lines. So they had him going at this with the same conviction from DAI, of a man trying to reverse the slow genocide of his people, but they've boiled his motivations down to "The Veil is unnatural" Like. How much more awesome if we could have convinced him not to destroy the world because of a culmination of choices in this game and all the others that made Thedas a kinder place idk man. ngnegnwgnf sorry for ranting in your inbox, I still liked Solas enough in this game but it was really bittersweet that they just dumbed down his motivations. I love your idea for influencing the Inky though, it definitely should have been a choice closer to the end and allowed for more variations (ideally all Inkies should have that, not just the Solavellans)

Hello again, Anon! :)

100% agree that the sanitization of the world and lore absolutely hurts Solas's motivations - especially if you look at it solely from what Veilguard gives us and with no background from previous games. All of the previous games, mostly Origins, were really effective in conveying how shit life could be for an elf - and how inbuilt this prejudice against the elves was in all aspects of Thedas.

The chant of light removing the canticle of Shartan, the march on the Dales, the struggles of the Dalish to simply live, the treatment of elves by the ruling class/chantry/ and others in general...it all painted such a bleak outlook for the elves and showed how ingrained this prejudice was in all aspects of Thedas. They had no way out - the structures of power in Thedas would fight them at every turn - which was why Solas being set up as a way for them to fight against all these systems was so compelling! You want the elves to win - but it will be at the cost of everything else if Solas goes ahead with his plan.

(You can definitely also make an argument that perhaps he's using them just to restore the world from before -> Felassan argued with him about this: to see the world as it was as real and worth improving.)

DATV felt divorced from the previous games, and its reluctance to meaningfully go into issues surrounding the lives of elves in Thedas - all the ugliness that brings - really did nothing to add to Solas's motivations for bringing down the Veil. If anything, I got the impression that he does not see anyone in Thedas as being 'real' and that he's simply doing it out of regret and to soothe his own ego/guilt. If this game wanted me to be sympathetic towards Solas it didn't do a good job of making me feel it, especially when you look at the totality of everything that Solas has done.

What I took from Trespasser was that Solas wanted to heal the wound he had left on the world - the Veil - and what he had inadvertently done to the elves. He had given everything he had to free the elven people from oppression and tyranny, only to inadvertently leave them vulnerable to the same oppression from others -> taking away their magic and long lives in the process. He was so blinded by his goal (stopping the evanuris) that he failed to see what his own actions might have wrought in the process.

Trespasser set up the 'Elven Rebellion 2.0' with a Solas who was torn between the world he once knew and the world it had become in spite of his intentions. Does he truly care about the elven people in current Thedas? Or does he just care about the world that came before? In DAI he was such a fascinating character because he could be so polarizing! People loved him! People hated him! Both were correct!

But starting the game with the ritual, sanitizing the world (no real signs of conflicts about spirits, mages, elves, anything really etc...), and simplifying his motivations to "fix fade -> be immortal/magic -> profit"...it just feels so shallow.

Solas: "Long before we met, I failed my oldest friend. She died for that failure. If I leave the Veil in place, I am destroying the world she wanted."

He spells his motivations out pretty clearly at the end and it's just...Mythal? He doesn't seem to care about the elves that are currently living in Thedas - not even Lavellan. Like you said, in Tresspasser I also got the impression that he wanted stop the slow genocide of his people. But apparently it was 'Mythal All Along'!

The lack of supporters/agents really gives him no credence to say that this is anything that the elves want - elven Rook can even call him out on it and he doesn't care. For a character whose own trauma began with bring coerced into a body he didn't want he doesn't give a shit about doing the same to thousands of other elves.

It's far less compelling, to me at least, than what I felt was set up in DAI: the Dread Wolf, god of rebellion, rallying elves after ages of systematic abuse and oppression with the goal of liberating his people and restoring the world that was - the world he inadvertantly denied them with the consequences of his actions. Instead it's just Solas doing his own thing because he's right and he needs to fix what he did wrong for Mythal.

It would have been great to be able to convince him to change his mind/ pursue another path as a result of the culmination of our actions throughout the series. It could be a nice nod to our past decisions and a nice conclusion to see the results of those choice in missives/codex entries. Same as the 'south can repel the blight' counter idea, have their be some kind of 'convince Solas to pursue another option' tally that demonstrates that this world is willing to change and he should be too.

[skeletoninthemelonland]

never lay down in bed right after eating. don't think about staying on your phone for nearly two hours in that position. don't sleep either. acid reflux is real and i hate that guy

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[circusk]

just spent HOURSS!!!!! of my day . making fop family tree. its got 63 people rn uhmmm yeah

i think i have everyone . maybeee missing a cousin or two idk

[hassianlovebot]

sorry i haven't posted much lately! tbh i've been feeling kind of burnt out and massively unmotivated with palia. don't get me wrong, i still really love the game (especially the characters and the worldbuilding) and i have tried to log in and play but tbh the game itself just isn't keeping my attention rn.

i don't blame the devs at all since i know they're going Through It rn what with the massive layoffs, california fires, and losing money. that being said, the little story progression, constant game breaking bugs every update, and Way too high prices for things,,, it got to me. it sucks because i do really love this game and i Want to devote more time to it but i've lost the motivation to do that.

i'm hoping that i'll gain at least some of it back with the elderwoods update but i also can't help but feel some trepidation at the thought of the release getting pushed back and what kind of bugs will inevitably come with it.

anyway, ik i don't have to explain myself or anything, but i just wanted to let you guys know i guess? i Do still love the game and i anticipate future updates (and hopefully getting sucked back into it) but for now, i'm not devoting a lot of time to it. i'm thinking of doing some art for the characters just so i don't lose interest completely but the game itself is taking a massive backseat :/

[august--and-everything-after]

I bought myself some CDs :3

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

the amount of effort that goes into figuring out what to cook and eat every day is RIDICULOUS. i used to think people were so weird and boring for eating the same thing every single day but it truly does make life so much easier

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 4 :)

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

At long last…

I was able to do something that I’ve always wanted to do…

Talk about Ephemera for 20+ pages straight!!!

(half of it’s actually images but it feels good to say 20+ pages)

I hope you learn and feel things while reading it 🥰

no images version | most of the images in the document

[heyclickadee]

Something I sort of just realized that I’m not really communicating in my arguments that Tech is alive and could come back in the next show is that I’m not arguing that season three was supposed to be the end of the whole clone era, got screwed up, and that the creatives might decide to revisit the characters later. I’m arguing that season three went the way it did—all setup, narrowing the focus to Omega, adding extra plot points late to facilitate that focus while not resolving any of the plot points that were already in play, leaving most of the character arcs unfinished, refusing to do anything to allow for processing or closure on Tech, a bittersweet (happiest the circumstances, which were bad, would allow) ending at best, closing up Hunter and Omega’s relationship while leaving everything else, the family stuff included, up in the air—because another show had already been greenlit before season three went into production (early on in that production at the latest). I’m arguing that the stuff that didn’t get closure did so because all that stuff already had somewhere else to go. Think a sort of monkey’s paw renewal situation where they get more seasons but those seasons are its own production and may come with a POV shift that justifies the split. TBB being an ESB, a great show with an ending that’s only the end of a chapter rather than the end of a story, and not being able to fully stand on its own as a result, but intentionally so. Whether or not that was a good idea is another question, but that’s the framework for my theorizing.

[ferdihound]

OUGHH im nervous about posting this here..

ion wanna bring chipspeech "me lore" onto my tumblr/the chipspeech tags but like

i should probably bring this up DASGHASDGH, as some of yall know, i used to be friends with.... [person] (/neg)

sorry new followers yall gon learn some me lore LMAO <3

[cacturne]

playing buzzard and having her be like relatively normal and put together is so fucking funny compared to hawk who looks chill as fuck but is the equivalent of a nervous italian greyhound underneath

[shreddeddescent]

hey. so like remember in that snippet i shared how i said they had a session w a therapist who wasnt human?

anyway what if that therapist was actually big mama. how much would you trust that?