#pillowfort crosspost

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Finally got around to watching some post-embargo vids and I have some now updated Veilguard thoughts.

Stuff I liked:

Character creator is a standout as always. This has consistently been the strong point of Bioware's games in the last 10 years so no surprises there. The pronoun and other gender-related options are a welcome addition.

Companions all seem great. I'm sad we haven't got more Davrin or Bellara content yet, since those are the two I'm most interested in learning about. Their initial introduction in that terrible cinematic trailer didn't do these guys any favours, but seeing them in gameplay footage gives a much better impression of them. It's also exciting to see more companion-on-companion interactions and relationships.

I was put off by the voice acting in the 10 minute gameplay reveal months ago, but what I've heard so far has been much better.

Main menu looks pretty.

As an ME fan, I'm pro dialogue wheel; it's unfortunate that Inquisition turned that whole mechanic into a massive drip. This is less a thing I notice but something I hope, that this game's dialogue wheel will have a more DA2 or ME1 vibe.

Hngnggn vfjddjgfnbhn oooowowo o cloaks.

Stuff I didn't like:

The art style is not redeeming itself. Wolfheart made a very insightful point that it might be a holdover from when Veilguard was going to be a live service multiplayer game, and it definitely does give that impression. Everything is still incredibly smooth and it's clear there was a lot of effort put into making things "nice" looking. It's giving very "everyone's beautiful but no one is horny" to me. I'm on the haters' side with the Qunari; where are their textures?

On that note, oh my god. The UI and the VFX. This must have also been a result of live service elements. As someone who hates playing late-game mages in Origins because all of the VFX gives me a headache this game looks actively hostile. Does literally every single ability require flashing neon lights? Why does the UI look like a World of Warcraft meme? Why does every single interactive object glow? Wolfheart noted that even after turning everything off, a bunch of VFX elements were still present, which is tremendously disappointing. Bioware can miss me with this cocomelon for adults visual style; I just do not need all of these annoying tricks to try and keep my attention.

Also on the UI - idk man. Remember when fantasy games weren't embarrassed about looking fantasy? Remember when all of Origins menus opened up in a little book with parchment pages? Character selection took place in a little castle? I just don't get this Thing Bioware has had since 2 to make DA's game UI look cool and slick by taking all the fun out of its visual elements. I've heard it before but I've got to agree, Veilguard's UI looks like a mobile game. And again, it's so busy it's 100% gonna give me headaches.

The combat is.... I won't call it "bad". I just hate it. See above for one of the reasons why. I think I could write a whole essay on how discomfiting it is. The very very clear push (likely from EA) to have the game resemble big name titles like Breath of the Wild and God of War has taken the game in the direction of just kind of a generic hack and slash; at least DA2 married its action elements with its party mechanics and has its own unique voice. There's something in particular that sets my teeth on edge tbh. I'm watching gameplay of warriors and rogues in combat and they're pretty much indistinguishable from mages. Teleporting, fire and lightning flying about in basic attacks, just a ton of stuff that makes me cringe to look at. There's a complete lack of class fantasy there for me - why would I want to play a warrior that isn't just a big guy with a big sword? Is this a result of story elements? Why is my low level rogue demolishing entire groups of enemies ala Dynasty Warriors? In a world where the distinction between a magic person and a non-magic person is incredibly important, could cost you your life, watching a rogue shoot lightning out of their knives makes me groan. Are Bioware's efforts to make the player feel like the coolest specialist person that ever lived going to be addressed in-game? We'll have to see.

Lack of control over your own companions ala Mass Effect. I don't wanna talk about it it's too depressing.

I've noted this in the past but obviously the tonal departure from low/dark fantasy to classic high fantasy. The character backgrounds for the Rooks pretty much lock you into playing a good guy, which is a huge shame. Even if you want to pick a faction that is canonically shady or morally neutral AT BEST like the Crows, they make sure to tell you that the other Crows don't like you because you're just that good-hearted. In a faction like the Grey Wardens, notorious for taking in criminals of all stripes, you spend your background saving helpless villagers. What are the options going to be like for people who want to play morally grey or potentially evil Rooks? It's starting to look like Bioware isn't going to give you a much wiggle room to define your character out of what they need you to be.

Lip flap looks like a very mixed bag. Maybe it's just the footage but voices and mouths look out of sync.

Can't make a post without reminding everyone that Bioware isn't our friend; they've fired half the people who worked on this game and greedy producers like EA don't deserve our money.

Update: Only just came across this but phasing out inventory management? Yeah welcome back Mass Effect trilogy :/

Neutral opinions:

Other shit like the Darkspawn and overall mob designs have been a problem since DA2 so I don't see the point in rehashing it here, other than to say that I can't wait for the "DLC with the good Darkspawn designs in it" this time around.

Opening scene gives me huge Mass Effect vibes; the bar fight and the music in that scene felt very "Lair of the Shadow Broker", which I guess is a compliment.

Varric still not dead yet. Kill that old man!

Ultimately, I'm putting in prediction now that Veilguard is going to go the DA2 route of having a decent and well-loved story, but with massive issues regarding its gameplay and aesthetic that players will just have to get over in order to enjoy the game.

I'm not gonna be buying on release - first time that's been the case for a Dragon Age game since Origins; the current plan is to wait until the Christmas sales, which gives plenty of time for the fandom to either assuage my fears or implode cos the game is shit. Either that or the Solavellan content is so crisp and juicy I'll have to learn to pirate.

[socialbunny]

✰ Sims3Melancholic's Bronx Skin 4t2 ✰

skin uploaded for an anon ♥ it's only one swatch since i made it for a particular sim SORRY. tf-ef (naked prev), children and below & men will use your s4 default :)

dl: sfs ✰ mf

creds: sims3melancholic, lilith (nosemask, eyelids), trapping (face details, skin color action), alfredaskew (face details), skell (lips), threehundred (nosemask), pralinesims (cleavage), northernsiberiawinds (cleavage), alkaloid (teeth)

[scarletiswailing347]

all of the skrunkly squad in one!

so from what im getting from the fact the colorcrew is an official channel now is that baablu and fantst arent actually part of the colorcrew -- however! according to baablu's discord server, color crew & co. are called the skrunkly squad so that's what i'll be using for when fantst and baablu are included from now on just to prevent confusion

[citrusinicake]

cinematic parallels

[nimblermortal]

About Four Norse Conspiracy Theories in One

Got some catching up to do in the liveblog department. There's been some interesting moments in Children of Ash and Elm, although I don't trust it fully - there've also been a few points that I don't think were accurate.

Egil and St Paul

There was one brief mention of a theory that conflated Egil Skallagrímsson and St Paul, which. What??? The idea is that the sagas were written by 14th century Christians who were glorifying their ancestors and projecting Christianity back upon them, so saga figures may be representations of Christian figures, but... Egil Skallagrímsson? would not a figure I'd choose for this. He's pretty clearly an anti-hero. As far as I know, St Paul was not known for vomiting in his hosts' faces, murdering children, or... composing really unapologetic poetry about all the murdering he did in the past.

The Murder of Ymir

This one is kinda situational, but it feeds into my current fascination of projecting onto Norse pantheism the idea that the gods weren't gods of natural phenomena, or of anything in particular - that the Norse weren't super into natural representations, but much more invested in how people interact with each other. (I don't fully buy this as an explanation, see: all the discussion of the celestial bodies, for example, plus some stuff from the volcanic eruption section below.) In this interpretation, the gods are archetypes of people you meet, and represent human haecceity, things you're gonna have to work with.

The first gods murdered Ymir, the father of all the giants, whose blood flooded the world such that only two people escaped. (By floating in an object that may be a coffin, or a quern - the word is ambiguous.) Children of Ash and Elm points out that ever after that, the gods and jotuns are at odds. So in this human-archetype projection, it's an idea that if you are going to murder a populace, there are going to be survivors, there are always survivors no matter how careful you are, and they are going to hate you as will all their descendants for the rest of time. (Sort of; not all jotnar are enemies of the gods.)

It's currently relevant in the context of, of course, Israel and Palestine. I read A Thing of Vikings last year (How to Train Your Dragon fanfic with a Jewish subplot) and one thing that struck me was the portrayal of Jewish characters in the year 1040 as people displaced from their homes... a thousand years ago, for whom that displacement is still real and emotional, even to people who have never seen it and whose parents and grandparents have never seen it. That connection does not go away, and there's no reason to suspect it would suddenly vanish from Palestinians either. (Truly; I've also heard of Palestinians who can tell you exactly where the shoes were kept in their grandmother's house before it was taken by Israeli settlers when said grandmother was a child.) So this remains a fact: If you are going to kill people, some of them will survive, and they will continue to hate you. There isn't a solution to that, it's just a reality.

(The Hávamál does not really offer solutions, just realities. Keep an eye on your enemies, it says. That doesn't stop them from attacking you or surprising you, but it does make it more difficult.)

Hámingja and the Fourfold Person

This one I'm going to get into more directly with the text, partly because I read it more recently, partly because it's somewhat in-depth, partly because... it's not something I can vouch for or not. I've heard of ohámingja translated as "misfortune" and of course I've heard of family fetches, but exactly what a fetch/fylgja is I can't say for sure.

Neil Price, as author of Children of Ash and Elm, tells us that there is a "fourfold division of being and an extremely complex notion of what might loosely be called the soul."

1. Hamr: Essentially the body, the shape people see, but as Price puts it, "crucially, it could alter*". There's plenty of stories where someone changes their shape, and the word used is hamr. It's also possible to put on the shape of something else (see: Völsungasaga. or Niebelungenlied if you're into that sort of thing). It's also possible to just sort of have a family gift or curse that causes you to change shape in certain situations, such as Egil Skallagrímsson's father Kveldulf (Evening Wolf). This latter reads to me as a description of depression/bipolarism/other mental health issue, which of course complicates the idea of the hamr as being the meat suit.

*trans vikings ftw!

2. Hugr: Price claims no modern translation really suffices, but I have my doubts. It's the mind, guys. You can be hugsjukr, mind-shaky, anxious. You can be hugkvæmr, crafty (I don't know what kvæmr is yet). But Price says it "[combines] elements of personality, temperament, character, and especially mind" and if "who someone really was, the absolute essence of you, free of all artifice or surface affect."

(Incidentally, the Norse conception of drunkenness was that it made you a truer representation of yourself, and as such drunkenness was not an exoneration of some tragic accident but a condemnation of the person who screwed up. Do with that what you will.)

Price also says that insofar as the afterlife was concerned, what moved on was the hugr, and that some witches (Odin) could see and bespell the hugr - and separate hamr and hugr, or at least separate the self from the home-shape (heimhamr) and home-mind (heimhugr).

3. Hamingja: This is where I got really excited, because of The Long Ships. Price talks about the hamingja as a person's luck. Note this is not a generalized concept of luck, people can have a specific luck for a specific thing - if you're going into battle, you want as many people as possible present who have victory luck, if you're going raiding you want loot-luck and woman-luck and sailing-luck. Price mentions saga accounts of people retreating from battle because their opponent had too many "luck spirits" with them. He also says it's possible for the luck to get separated from the person, or rather to be cast out or leave for some other reason - and that the English phrase "my luck ran out" is derived from this concept.

4. Fylgja: This is where I got turned back on to the Norse as people interested in the realities of interpersonal interaction. The fylgja is a family spirit, it is always female, it accompanies someone everywhere they go in life, it is passed down through families. Price says "the fylgja was a guardian - a protector - but also the embodied link to one's ancestors... she moved on at death, continuing down the family line... everyone carried with them - through them - the spirit of their family, watching over them and guiding their steps."

And this, I think, is not so much a supernatural element as an embodiment of culture and trauma. Your parents gift you some portion of their own trauma as well as some extra - well, just read this, it's a short poem. Or my story. Or "The Paper Menagerie". Your family shapes you and that influence will follow you all your days, protecting in some ways, sabotaging in others. It's a Hávamál sort of a reality.

Volcanic Eruptions

This was last night's reading!

A bit of a preface: Ragnarök, which we've all heard of, starts out with Fimbulvetr, a three-year-long winter with no sun. It's the end of the world.

In the 400s Rome fell. 476 is the number in my head. For much of Europe this was a cultural end of the world. Scandinavia was less influenced, except by all of the prosperity and trade - they just weren't outright conquered with baths built in all their cities. When Rome fell, for all kinds of reasons various opportunistic or unfortunate people were moving all over the place, and this is called the Migration Period. Just... keep that in your back pocket.

In 536, a volcano erupted somewhere in the tropics, we're not sure where yet. In 539/540, at Lake Ilopango in El Salvador, another volcano exploded. That lake is where a mountain used to be. 87 km3 of ejecta. Sulphate emissions up to 2 megatonnes. Big. As in, effects recorded in China big. And then, possibly, a third major eruption in 547.

Lots of dust in the atmosphere. "The sun's light was blocked in a hazy mist that allowed no heat to penetrate, while at night the heavens were filled with wavering curtains of fiery colour, like a sunset that went on for months" or like The Scream, according to Price.

You may have noticed that Scandinavia is fairly arctic. Survival was a bit marginal already. In Norway, only 3% of the land is suitable for farming. Temperatures fell by at least two degrees Celsius, possibly as many as four - compare that to figures you're familiar with from climate change. Add in some acid rain. Fish... are less affected, but if you were thinking to substitute for grain entirely, you are thinking wrong. "The worst of these effects went on for three years. In 2016 a team of climate scientists suggested that the long-term, cumulative ecological impact of the dust veil persisted in varying degrees for up to eighty years."

This solves handily the mystery Price set up in the previous pages, of why in the sixth century a bunch of settlements in Scandinavia just... vanished. Tree growth and pollen counts show that woodland covered areas that once had been farmed. Dramatic decrease not just in the markers of human activity, but the number of graves. "I many regions of central and southern Sweden, for example, there was an almost total abandonment of settlement sites that had been occupied in some cases for millennia." There's a change to what sort of art we find - a "rapid disappearance of styles and decorative schemes that had persisted for centuries," and with them, a lot of the meaning laden in that art.

Price estimates that 50% of the population of Scandinavia died. He compares this to the Black Death (45-60%, depending on who you ask) and the Hundred Year's War (roughly a third of the population). Apocalyptic. And, uh, the stories of Ragnarök have always been ambiguous about whether the end of the world is coming or whether it already happened. (Or both! Both is good!)

I read into some of his earlier data that. Art died out because no one was left to pass on the meanings and methods. Entire settlements died off. No one was left to bury the dead, or beat back the trees. And one of the more interesting things - Price says that prior to this period, there were a lot of depictions of a burning disc we generally interpret as the sun, possibly implying sun worship, fairly standard among humans. After this event, none. We gave up on the sun.

He also compares excerpts from the Eddas on Ragnarök and Fimbulvetr to excerpts from the Kalevala, which has a section discussing a winter lasting 5-8 years. (I have no experience with the Kalevala and cannot comment.)

All of this in a time when Europe as a whole was experiencing the Migration Period, and a lot of violent migration. People taking over settlements by force. People raiding them for food. The development of a culture that says you just do take what you need from other settlements? The eradication of a pre-existing culture, replaced with a philosophy that led to the viking age, once population levels recovered (generally about a hundred years)?

I'm not suggesting that people never fought or warred or raided prior to this event, but the idea that the eruption of volcanos resulted in a markedly more violent raiding society that developed into the vikings we know and love today is... kinda compelling.

Bonus round: National Identity

Oh, and he commented on something that I've been confused about for a while - why didn't Sweden, which has a lot more farmland and... people, just take over Norway?

Apparently the problem is that while Norway had a single ethnic identity and was unified relatively early, Sweden had a lot of competing identities and didn't think of itself as one country for a long time. On top of that, southern Sweden "was considered to be culturally and politically part of Denmark until well after the Middle Ages" - which, one, explains why there was a three-way balance of power, and two, wow, really impressed by a Denmark that manages to maintain political power and cultural identity across a water barrier like that.

[agentwrongcat]

My prediction for the Sims 4 Life & Death pack is that the team will announce that Nervous Subject's "real" name is Ned Specter.

[enbycupcake]

when will the bluetooth voice in my ear be the deep dulcet tones of a lovely man–

[pinkanonwrites]

I'm going to get started crossposting my longform fics on Pillowfort. it is a TREMENDOUSLY long process crossposting all my work but you gotta start sometime, right? If anyone is in need of a Pillowfort key feel free to message me, and current Pillowfort users can find me right here!

[professional-jaywalker]

G. californianus is widely present in mexico and the south of the USA. Today, one of our teacher spoke of his experiences in mexico, specifically in a region where Peyote, a hallucinogenic cacti, grows and is cultivated/used by the Huichol, a native group. 

Some of the descriptions absolutely thrilled me, other less. I knew roadrunners coexisted with zones where cold and snow could be a thing, but it always somewhat bothers me. I suppose that if i had a past life, it was not in one of these zones. I fare much better with warmer winters. It's always interesting, when in my studies, someone mention my specie. It's a strange little secret and i'm always afraid of being almost... arrogant, in seeing myself as an animal while studying them. I see my nature as psychological, a strange neurotype i developed. How could i claim to know enough through my own personal madness to see myself as an animal? Each things i get wrong when talking about my theriotype feels frustrating, because i should know better. I suppose it's just something to let go off, i dislike seeing my therianthropy as mimicry, as much as i find it unrealistic there's something so comforting about the idea of a truth, a spiritual you that you can claim thoroughly. 

It's why i can't fully decide between spiritual and psychological, I think. Just can't let go of the possibility i was more right than i even claim, even when faced with the fractures in the facade. 

[kit-o-nine-tales]

Aelita Mahariel: she/they, in love with Tamlen. A rogue who likes to dive right in and slice things up (even when maaaaybe they should be more cautious, considering their weak constitution.)

Am I stalling on filing out job applications? Yes. But... I wanted to be Tamlenposting, so that's what I'm doing.

I'm very soft for when they look at each other. Q_Q

I'm mildly bothered bc her skin tone looked warmer in the CC than it does outside the CC >_> (why does this always happen to me?)

(Also, I forgot to change their eyeshadow. whoops.)

Thanks to Dalishious for the remastered environment! And SarahCousland for the A Flower from Tamlen mod, and Be More Elfy

other mods are da2 triple mix and Dalish armor replacement (idr which mod Aelita’s hair comes from, sorry!)

[eruscreaminginthedistance]

Seen lots of talk about this going around lately so thought I'd put the sparknotes of this interview here for posterity.

Baldur's Gate-specific questions:

Swen reconfirms they don't plan to make any DLC or sequels to BG3; they made a start but didn't feel like their hearts were in it. They now have two other games they want to make instead.

When asked if they had plans for a Divinity: Original Sin 3, Swen replied: "Yeah, I can't tell you. No, it will have its proper moment. Hopefully nobody's going to leak it for us, but it's different than what you think it is, but it is still familiar enough for you to recognize that it's something that we are making."

Astarion was originally planned to be a Tiefling.

Ketheric Thorm was intended to be a companion.

Locations that got cut included Hell, Vlaakith's Palace, and Candlekeep (Dx).

BG3 characters now belong to Wizards of the Coast, not Larian.

There were apparently 24 different variations of Shadowheart getting the artifact to you (not sure if this refers to development or the release version of the game).

When asked about how Act 1 was very polished and well-received, but Act 3 had issues, he responded "Yeah. I know. Yeah, one day I'll figure that one out.".

They're currently working with Microsoft and Sony to start rolling out curated mods for console versions of the game.

Epilogue content is still being worked on. They plan to give each ending a full cinematic, and are currently working on the evil endings.

Cross-platform play is still in the works, but it's difficult to implement.

Swen's opinions on the current state of the games industry and general development under the cut:

Lots of righteous rage from Swen about the mass firings in the games industry and how they don't contribute to making good games.

"But because the ones that are making those decisions don't play the games, don't understand the ethos, they don't care about it. They don't understand that fundamental truth that that's in there. It's just, oh, well, it's a technical artist, we can get another technical artist, whatever. Also, who fires their technical artists?!"

He believes that AAA games with massive budgets can be sustainable for the industry because the audience is there, and because these types of games can fuel progression and innovation.

Believes the lists of upsides to early access is way longer than the list of downsides; "it is the model of the future. I mean, it's not only for your mechanics and your balancing, but even your story gets better. You see how players resonate, what they're after."

Swen's stance on AI is that it is a tool to speed up certain processes, but that it couldn't replace the creative elements of development. His current approach to speeding up artistic development is to hire more concept artists and writers, rather than using generative AIs. He does believe that it has a place in the future of game development, though: "I don't buy the full NPC being generated, but most likely everything will feel the same. So I buy more that there's going to be something that's crafted, and then you'll have AI that plugs into it to augment it. And it should be done in such a way that it's invisible, so you don't know that it's shifting around."

Remote work doesn't seem to be feasible for a game of BG3's scale. In their period of working from home, Swen noted that it was a much easier time for senior devs than for the juniors, who needed mentoring, and they had communication issues during this time as well.

[reaja]

ftr im actually not planning on leaving tumblr, they will indeed need to scrape me off their dead servers with a bbq brush when the time comes, but I will no longer be financially supporting them and I will be continuing to contribute to the stress on their servers and the unprofitability of the site until it crumbles under their terrible choices.

[zoekrystall]

Since I remembered I have a pillowfort if this site crashes or you just want to leave thx to continuous changes find me on there. Also under zoekrystall (tbf if you see that username anywhere there is a 99.9% it's me. minus on twt where it's flammelune. so yes if you want to connect on discord or smth it's also this name. would just prefer a heads up). Will likely stay primarily active on here tho until this place is no more.

For now will I also use this to point to other blogs

@savedbylove - my lovecore blog (which I continuously forget to fill the queue of)

@macabredeity - which is for horror stuff n fanart of primarily horror rpg maker games. a blog I spontaneously finally made after watching a lp of the repairing mantis which you should check out

I also got a v personal + more blog but you either stumble across it or off anon ask for it if you want to know

[taniushka12]

truly looking at my ao3 and wondering just How much i like these stories to crosspost em here + in pillowfort 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

[liquidstar]

I have Thoughts about trans character design wrt some recent stuff I might just crosspost from pillowfort about it tho

[yinza]

Places to find me!

General places where you can find my work:

Archive of Our Own - All my FF7 fic is here, sans abandoned work and a few ancient one-shots.

Pillowfort - I crosspost everything here! Pillowfort is in beta but free to join via their rolling waitlist.

Plurk - I have an art plurk, if that's something you want to get into.

Yinza.com - Updated infrequently, but I also host my fic and my favorite art pieces here. Home to a pretty comprehensive and navigable version of the OG FF7 script, for all your reference needs.

yinzanii - My Tumblr reblog blog. For reblogs.

Places where you can throw money at me:

Commissions - I am usually open for commission!

Etsy - Art prints, stickers, pins, and handmade plushies that ship directly from me. Includes fanart.

Inprnt - Art prints on demand, original works only.

Ko-fi - Tip jar.

Patreon - Monthly subscription with varying rewards. All patrons have at least some input on what I draw.