#rambly DDW

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Dragon Age: Lore reminder

With Veilguard coming out this year, it is time to remind people once more how Dragon Age lore works. Dragon Age lore is written like a historical document, this means that reading ANY piece of lore requires you to do some source criticism. Every piece of lore in DA has an author and that author has a bias. Whether it's the Chantry's take on the Fade, Dalish keeping their mages a secret, Tevinter nobles denying blood magic, etc. When reading DA lore, you must also look at the source of that lore. Who said it? Who or what is it about? What is the relationship between the author and the subject? Is there information you -know- the author got wrong? This applies to the characters as well, they can be wrong, prejudiced, predicting doom, etc. So before you blame Bioware for getting their lore wrong, please make sure the actual lore is wrong and not the source.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Social Darwinistic people are interesting to study, because their thinking relies on a very faulty perception of humanity. Basically, they see living as a competition. Not just survival, everything is a race to the top. Even things that don't actually benefit them.

It is from these people that the whole 'alpha,beta,etc' male thing comes from. What makes it interesting is that the truest alpha is someone who is alone both socially and emotionally. The same people also think the only reason we have a society that cares for the weak is because of the laws. At times those laws are treated as stifling. This is best seen in how in some post-apocalyptic movies/games/comics the lone wanderer is treated as the truest expression of personhood. While any effort to rebuild society is doomed to fail because people are selfish and with no government they don't have to follow laws anymore.

Social Darwinists have more in common with big cats than social predators. They are alone, they want to be alone, and they will remain alone.

them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT

biologist:

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

One of the things that Guild Wars 2 really masters, that I don't often see in other setting, is treating species and an individual as two different things. And that no species is truly evil. You can see this in the core game with how only a few factions are made up of one species. Even then, those are usually the 'evil' faction within the species. All others can have Charr, Asura, Norn, humans and Sylvari as random mooks.

Through the Living World story, we also get to see members of the 'bad' factions redeem themselves. Flame Legion is now trying to be better and Gorrik was a former Inquest member. It doesn't even stop at playable species, because by Living World season 4's end, the Awakened are free from Joko and resume their lives with their families. Cue a lot of complaining from people whose parents are now undead and nagging them. Or, with the latest Living World story over, the Kryptis. What at first seemed like mindless horror hordes are actually just people. You get to see these creatures that look like standard baddies try to paint or get nervous over jumping from a diving board. I think this is great, because it goes into the message of unity the game is about. Every species has their arseholes and saints, even those that at first seem evil.

[purkinje-effect]

I’ve been wanting to redo the cover art for First Instar for some time now, and I finally let myself. Hopefully it scans visually as a high rise office. Rambling under the cut.

If you’re interested in The Anatomy of Melancholy, the most recent chapter’s always pinned on my blog, and a table of contents link is at the top of it. All likes and reblogs welcome. (Extensive CWs for horror esp. body horror, drug use, insects, and miles of characters with grey-to-scalding karma including the MC. I try to label CWs as thoroughly as possible at the beginning of each chapter: do heed them. There’s two DDW chapters in First Instar, and I mean that warning very strongly, especially as I illustrate these things from time to time. This fic is not suitable for minors or the squeamish.)

I didn’t break up AoM by Instar until about halfway through Second Instar. Lexington & Concord was supposed to be a placeholder until I thought of something better. Location wordplay’s going to be the common tie for all five Instars, I think, and I like this subtle change a lot.

I really liked the original 2019 cover when I did it, but I didn’t think it was all too representative of the fic itself. Too, it’s the first book of the pentalogy: it’s deserving of something a little more intense than what I had, now that I’m more capable of putting it together. That, and I really needed to include the visual detail that he’s a wheelchair user. For being one myself, I sure don’t draw them as often as I’d like.

I’d never really been happy calling the DDW chapters “Rexford Press” because it suggests ‘Choly ends up with a printing press in Goodneighbor, and at this point I seriously doubt it. The Rexton Nova’s his typewriter, owing to his Naked Lunch roots.

I promise I’ll do a revision pass soon and add footnotes and author’s notes to the first two Instars. Thanks for sticking with me almost five years now!

[pilotheather]

 idk what crawled into my skull and made me NEED to ramble abt all this again . i need to follow more ddw blogs so i can vent my Nonsense thru here more but i simply dont.... Foolish of me <3

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Well he still wanted to take down the Veil, we just interrupted him moving the Evanuris to a safer spot so they wouldn't come back. Basically making a safety save.

But to answer your question; The man is not only bad at communicating and letting others in, he is also stubborn and refuses to give up once he has decided he wants to do something. It took Coryfish Blight savescumming, nearly all of the south becoming a warzone, a year with the Inquisition's motley crew and potentially Lavellan romancing him for Solas to go "Wait, these are actually real people!?" And he STILL decided to go off alone, not trusting his friends to help him and then creating a situation where the Inquisitor has to give up their arm powers and gets the worst impression of him. Enough that everyone of the companions, even Spirit!Cole, is like 'we need to stop him.' As far we can see, Solas is alone doing the ritual. He has his spies but he can't trust them to help him. When Varric tries to get him to stop, Solas doesn't even try to say that he is NOT doing that and in fact he is putting the Evanuris into a safer box. He lets Varric and the rest think he is bringing down the Veil at that moment. Which means they will try anything to stop him.

The funny thing is that his two modern tries at destroying the Veil have both gone awry because he didn't consider other people to also have plans.

I'm confused why, if Solas just wanted to move the Evanuris to a stronger prison, why he didn't just SAY that?

[papakennmedia]

PAPAKENN RAMBLES: "MIDNA, SCALPERS, & DDW"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-R6BZlo32Q

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

There is a sort of sad hilarity to how Werewolf the Apocalypse exposes people's indifference towards nature, thinking environmental preservation and such is childish and naive or just outright nihilistic doomerism. I have seen so many takes that boil down to a refusal to believe things can be fixed, feeling fixing things in fantasy is unrealistic or don't want things to be fixed at all. Or they ask what is horrifying about nature and its loss ("Hippie Horror")? Wanting personal horror instead. And often, these reactions are very telling.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Why the Apocalypse in the title matters and how W5 fails to address it

Even if it is by this point a joke, all WoD games have a title what creature it lets you play and then one of the core elements of it.

Yet, it is odd that a werewolf game puts the end of the world as one of its most central concepts. After all, werewolves aren't really associated with the apocalypse in myths. The closest is Fenris-Ulf in Norse myths, but Fenris was a monstrous wolf, not a werewolf. Shouldn't Changing or Fury be a better descriptor?

Well, WtA's werewolves draw from older material than the movies and the focus is not on being a werewolf. The focus is on the state of the world, the way nature is being destroyed and such. In the game, being a werewolf is more akin to a spiritual guardian than a cursed being.

The Apocalypse in the title not only refers to the literal end of existence but to the little apocalypses happening every year. Species dying, people losing touch with their ancestral cultures, etc. WtA is about looking at the state of the world and feeling the horror of just how hard it is to fix it if not impossible. Never mind the sadly now very real horror of greed over care and ennui towards your fellow humans and nature.

This genuine approach and call to action has, of course, created an opposite reaction that calls WtA's tone childish. More recently, as we actually start seeing the effects of climate change, the reactions have also become ones of denial, apathy and fear of doing the wrong thing.

It is the latter that W5 shows the clearest in its depiction of the apocalypse.

The apocalypse in W5 is invisible to normal people and other supernaturals. At most, it is the fall of the garou nation as the climate change happening in the real world. Despite this, W5 is very clear about discouraging its PCs from taking action further than locally.

In effect, W5's apocalypse and what it wants the players to do about it is toothless. The game spends page space detailing what not to do, but very little on what to do and what the apocalypse looks like. Because it is afraid to take a stand, instead focusing on passive-aggressive remarks here and there.

W5, despite its blurb stating it is about striking back at pollution, isn't willing to have its PCs be eco-terrorists (though some do slip through) and actively calls direct action the wrong method.

It isn't just what W5 tells the PCs shouldn't do, it is also how much the PCs don't have to do. It's the end of the world as we know it and you can still go to McDonald's in peace. The world is lost and you still have to go to work. If we weren't told the apocalypse was raging, we'd assume it was still in the future. The game is, intentionally or unintentionally, saying that there is no need to do anything. Even if the world is ending, it won't inconvenience you.

To put things plainly, W5's apocalypse is the way it is so there won't be paid sick days for the employees. It is an end that preserves and protects the status quo.

Of course, an apocalypse that changes nothing is not really an apocalypse. Indeed, W5 wears the apocalypse label more out of legacy than any real intention of addressing it. It wants to focus on werewolf packs and caern tending, not something as serious as the fate of the world.

In fact, I'd say W5 doesn't want to be about the garou at all but instead about werewolves. It wants to be Werewolf the Fury.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

The more I see Tumblr's brand of reading text and its way of handling justice, the more I'm glad my schooling was focused on analysis and making your own conclusions.

Because so many here are so quick to assume the worst and drop any sense of scale if something offends them.

I grew up online, I was 13 when we got broadban in my house. I say this as someone who knows what it is be a minor in a very hostile world.

We need to stop leaning onto violence so easily. We need to stop assuming and start questioning our own conclusions. We need to start accepting that our experiences are not universal and that it is a good thing they are not.

I've been through a lot of shit for something that was purely fictional being taken as personal opinion. I've literally been made to choose between friends and a membership to a server.

We need to start having empathy on general.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Poppy Playtime: Why Catnap is such a good antagonist

There are plenty of characters who have a gray morality, especially these days. But sometimes we need villains who just are villains and convincing them to change is hard or impossible. (I am not saying any redemption AUs for Catnap aren't valid, I am only talking about canon here.) First of all, Catnap is given a backstory the explains his motives. He was basically a labrat to the scientists at Playcare and the ARG shows he also had trouble fitting in. So we can assume he was not an infant when he lost his parents. The only person who gave him any attention was the Prototype, enough that Theo/Catnap was willing to risk his life for it. He messed up and the Prototype, instead of leaving him to die, saved him at the cost of its freedom. This act made Catnap's loyalty to the Prototype iron-clad. He would do anything for it, even kill. Being turned into not only a Bigger Bodies creature but one that limited his ability to express himself, made the already simmering hatred for Playcare into an inferno. In short, Catnap was the perfect follower for the Prototype. At least, for the Hour of Joy. Despite his tragic past, Catnap is far from a good person. For one, he took part in the Hour of Joy and still reminds his followers of it. Second, Catnap is incredibly cruel. While this stems from his undying loyalty to the Prototype, Catnap's actions are his own and how he handles his prey and heretics is telling. Through chapter 3, Catnap could kill you at any point. But he prefers to stalk you and make you squirm. Like a cat, he loves the chase and he loves the power he has over his prey. Then there is the way he treated Dogday. While the common headcanon is that Catnap cut his legs off, the game indicates a worse fate. Catnap tied Dogday and possibly other Smiling Critters into their cells where they could not move and then let the smaller critters use them as a food source. Dogday wasn't bisected as much as he was slowly eaten alive. Catnap also ensured he would stay alive as long as possible by tying that belt around his waist. So his guts wouldn't fall out and kill Dogday prematurely. Nothing indicates the Protype ordered Catnap to punish the heretics this way, it is all Catnap's own zealous and twisted invention. He could have taken Dogday out fast, instead he lets the dog suffer for his heresy. Ironically, I think this is why Catnap became a liability to the Prototype. Catnap was content starving and playing his twisted games and praying to the Prototype. The Prototype needs those who still want out, not a high priest performing sermons in its name. This is why I think Catnap is one of the best villains in modern media. Sure he has a tragic past, but he is Judge Frollo levels of cruel and zealous.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

W5 critical: Absence is not inclusivity

Critical of Werewolf the Apocalypse 5th edition, please don't read if you like the edition.

Few weeks ago, I saw a post stating that the removal of the cultural ties from (almost) all of the tribes is a good thing, because it means anyone can now be a member of any tribe.

What this mentality misses, however, is that the absence of culture is not the same as being inclusive. Sure, everyone can be anything, but from my experience, that freedom does not result in actual diverse depiction. After all, we have data that you can be as diverse as you want in your character creation options, most players will still make a white brown-haired cismale character.

In the same vein, all of the released adventures for W5 have been set in the US. Even though anyone can be anything, we have fallen back to treating the US as the default setting. Paradox is a Swedish company and Sweden has plenty of stories that fit WtA. This is no longer the case of a US company writing for a US audience.

What is worse, now that there are no specific tribes from Turtle Island, they don't have to be included in the stories set on their own lands. Instead, all characters can be white and the ST doesn't have to consider how the native people of the land see the white characters.

Even though the Legacy books often fell on their face when it came to depicting anything not a WASP American, the presence of cultural ties had a purpose.

Garou are creatures of community, they are people who band together not out of desperation or survival but because they like to have people around them. Unlike Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse is about honesty. Garou want friends, they want allies and a family without ulterior motives.

What this means is that each tribe was not just a group selected by a specific patron. They were communities of shifter and kin who all shared a culture and had for generations. A tribe is a garou's support network, their source of history and so on.

Of course, Werewolf the Forsaken's tribes aren't culturally tied. But the difference between the W5 tribes and those of The Moon is that there are only 8 or so base tribes and even then three of those are the 'bad guys'. The tribes in Forsaken are archetypes, werewolves of similar goals. But the game has always made a point that there are cultural differences depending on the country and there are plenty of lodges that are local to a specific area.

In W5, you have 11 tribes that were originally built to have ties to certain culture or broad concepts. Now, with most of the context removed, there are multiple tribes in W5 that could be cut and the setting would not change.

More than that, the tribes of W5 (aside from Cult of Fenris for some reason) are alone. Even the Uratha in Forsaken need to have contact with their potential tribe to join one, but in W5 the tribe patrons simply choose a fitting garou with no input from others of the tribe. This loneliness is further shown in how little thought is dedicated to a pack having a patron. Unlike every other WtA book, W5 does not come with a list of patrons. Instead the book, in a sidebar, recommends picking a tribal patron among the tribes of the pack. With an added mention to do contrition to other patrons who did not get picked. Even then, each PC is still expected to follow their tribal patron's ban on top of their pack patron's.

Meanwhile, in Legacy, the ties to various real life cultures give direction and community to the garou. When the pack chooses a patron, that patron is often not from any tribal brood. The pack, in Legacy, is important.

In W5, community, pack, family and all that are not only gone but also treated as the source of the garou's evils. Better be alone, better be without roots, it says.

No person is an island, yet that is what W5 wants things to be.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

Ooh, I've actually thought about this myself. But looking at the episodes and how they are framed and comparing it to a show focused on redemption (Steven Universe), I feel Hazbin isn't actually interested in redemption stories. For one, look how Charlie is framed. Despite being the princess of Hell she is shown to be extremely sheltered and disgusted by the actions of her subjects. More than that, her efforts to redeem the sinners or even help them are framed with her being naive, that she shouldn't have tried or as a patsy. If Charlie steps up, it's usually portrayed as the wrong thing to do or to benefit someone else's plans. If the writing itself doesn't believe in Charlie, why should we? The first successful redemption we see comes from a selfless sacrifice, not through the long growth of personality. In fact, we are shown that growth in itself is not enough and dying is required. Then there is the lack of time dedicated to redemption. We see only 5% of Angel Dust's growth with the rest being implied. Then we come to the whole angel business, which serves to undermine the theme of redemption even more. From the first episode onwards, we are shown that going to Heaven might not even be worth it. In episode 6 the writing ignores Adam and Lute's behaviour entirely to keep the status quo. The two exorcists curse and scream and threaten a peaceful envoy and reveal to the WHOLE COURT that they all but killed another angel in cold blood. It isn't even framed as something the council is fine at, it is ignored entirely for the finale to happen. The way the exorcists are killed in the finale also shows the lack of commitment to redemption. If Vaggie showed mercy (which is a virtue even to your enemies per The Book), then surely there would be others like her who'd want to do it? Nope, the rest are all evil and their lives don't mean anything. They are collateral.

If we switch to Steven Universe, which is a children's show, while the characters might doubt Steven the writing never does. Steven is not made into a joke for trying to reach out to Lapis, Jasper or Peridot. Also, there is no collateral. In fact, a massive part of the show is dedicated to saving the damaged rank and file from the war. No one is treated as cannon fodder by the writing. If someone refuses to be redeemed, it is treated as a personal choice.

Hazbin Hotel, The Death of a Misogynist, and The Issue with Aesthetics of Redemption

Now that we have the pretentious psuedo-intellectual caption, let me clarify that I love Hazbin Hotel, Adam is a horrific (fictional) person whos actions shouldn’t be belittled in an actual discussion. I’ve been thinking about this horrible, horrible man alot though!

So, the baseline. The hook and pitch of Hazbin Hotel is that its a show about demons being redeemed and working through their issues while the world dismisses the idea of change. The actual story of Hazbin Hotel is a constant uphill battle against an unfair, fascist bureaucracy and the status quo of complacency its created, while the world dismisses the idea of change. My issue is I don’t think Hazbin Hotel is truly interested in discussions about redemption. I enjoy its discussions on status quo and complacency, but all its shown is that its entirely uninterested in talking about redemption in any meaningful way.

The character of Adam, from his first to near-last moments on screen is consistently characterized as an entitled, misogynistic, dangerous man-child who firmly believes himself above the concept of making mistakes. The first man thinks that he was made perfect and thus acts above those around him. (Despite this he is a delight to have on screen, hes hilarious, don’t @ me). In the final episode of Season 1, Adam is killed in an anticlimactic way after his third act breakdown. Perhaps its the shows own evident pacing issues, but I find it very strange that a show with the aesthetics of rehabilitation portrays Adam as beyond it, and a joke. (Which he very well might be, but it conflicts with the shows aesthetics). Why is a show which claims to be about second chances so disconnected to its pure-evil villains? This critique somewhat extends to Valentino, but I consider him to be more of a plot device for Angel’s own arc (which I love) rather than his own character (it would be extreme tonal whiplash to try to humanize him so soon after Poison) While Adam exists as an extension of heaven and one of the shows many embodiments of an evil status quo.

In the show’s current state, it doesn’t treat the residents of the hotel as “that bad” of people. Which is good for a show supposedly about rehabilitation! But it clashes so hard with how it (and to a worse degree its fandom, but I digress) treat characters who’re meant to be hated.

This post might not be entirely honest, as in Adam’s very last moments he smiles to his lieutenant in an admittedly heartfelt scene, humanizing him in a way the show didn’t care to before. And while I enjoy this, unless Adam and Lute’s possible remnants of humanity are explored in season 2, the show’s aesthetics are hypocritical with how it treats pure-evil.

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Also Guitarspear😭

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

WtA: Red Talon mindset

(Wrote this to the official forums but I like it enough to post it here.)

Consider this; There is an alien species that is higher tech than you. It has taken vast amounts of space that once belonged to humans and made it impossible to live there. They have also taken over stores and made it so a human cannot buy anything from there legally. In hunger, your brother tries to steal from the store but gets caught and shot. Later you find his skin in the alien living room.

These aliens also hunt humans for sport, from their spaceships. They at times go into houses and kill parents, leaving the kids to starve.

And all the while, they are poisoning everything so it gets harder and harder for humans to survive while they thrive. The aliens have also made this pseudo-human that is eternally around 14 and keep it as a pet.

How hard would it be for you to not see these aliens as evil? How much sympathy could you have for them?

This is what Red Talons face with humanity. So it is not that they are psychotic misanthropes hellbent on killing every human, they just wouldn't shed a tear for us. The 'every human must die NOW' Red Talons are badly played and don't really address WHY Talons hate humanity.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

HH Critique: Zero Impact

Warning: Critical of Hazbin Hotel, please do not read if you do not like that.

One thing that keeps bothering me about Vaggie's 'fall from grace', is how she basically did nothing to 'earn' it. She chased a sinner but stopped and looked at them more closely. This sinner was a child of the cannibal town. It isn't that hard to guess that Vaggie stopped and went "Hey, wait, IS this a sinner?" since they aren't allowed to kill hellborn.

Now, Lute's reaction is perfectly in character for her. Lute is a zealot and an extremist, she would see any hesitation from the exorcists as a betrayal. Adam, for his part, is very much just into killing sinners for the lols. Neither would care if some hellborn were 'accidentally' killed.

Here's the thing, though, the situation Vaggie's fall is revealed in is during a court hearing regarding whether a sinner deserves to enter heaven. Adam and Lute, happily, just showed how they intended to kill a fellow angel for stopping even just a bit. The same fallen angel is present at the court, having been healed by a hellborn.

In essence, Adam and Lute just showed their asses to the court. The purges were already a secret to most of heaven, but now the two people running it are also shown to also be willing to hurt fellow angels if they aren't extreme enough.

Yet none of that matters and Charlie is 'defeated' and sent back to hell. Even after Adam, who isn't supposed to kill hellborn, outright said he'd target the hotel he is only verbally warned. The scene happened in a vacuum with no impact outside Vaggie being revealed as a fallen angel.

The irony is that if the court had reacted and actually made Adam and Lute face the music, their attack on the hotel would have made more sense. Rather than an officially sanctioned extermination, Adam and Lute attack the hotel in revenge before they are convicted. That would explain why Lucifer had to step in and why the stakes were so high; Adam and Lute weren't playing by the rules anymore.

The court not reacting to the revelation and just letting Adam and Lute do whatever doesn't feel like a depiction of its double standards. It feels like the scene only mattered as far as a shocker. If the goal is to present heaven as an actual end goal, it needs to be shown with some positives outside Emily.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

I find it incredibly funny that Solas isn't aware/refuses to acknowledge his role as a trickster god. He might play it up a bit, but he is very much not vibing with what a trickster god does. A trickster god breaks things and creates something new. From Coyote to Loki, a trickster god is often defined by seeking a selfish desire only to mess it up and something new is born from that mess. Solas created the Veil and plunged the world into chaos and into a wildly new way of living. Then he tried to undo that and the Inquisition cleaned house in a massive way. And this third time? Hello elven gods! What makes this funny is that Solas is so desperate to play things straight. To be a saviour of the elves and undoing his mistake. But he is and always will be, a catalyst of chaotic change.