#reducing machine

[dinosaurwithablog]

I'm watching the old TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. When I was a kid, I loved this show, especially the introduction by Alfred. He's a charming and strange man with a great sense of the dramatic and a great sense of humor. I hope that you enjoy this introduction to the 1961 episode called Deathmate. If it's as good as the introduction was, it's gonna be a great episode. I love Alfred Hitchcock. He's brilliant in so many ways. Thank you, Mr. Hitchcock for all the entertainment you have given to the world.

[messiahzzz]

friendly reminder that creators within fandom (whether it be gifs, edits, meta, fanfiction or fanart) choose to take time out of their day to provide you with new content for free.

it’s easy to take it for granted since it only requires a few seconds/minutes to scroll through your dash, but it’s important to remember that behind that there are often hours, if not even days, of work and dedication.

[ryllen]

summary of me playing love & deepspace

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

“hold on to your heart” // do me a favour live at forest hills stadium new york 08/09/23 ♡

[lizzybeeee]

Me watching my Inquisitor walk off with Solas at the end of the game like :) "aw cute ..hey if Mythal hadn't told you to stop would you have murdered her,," (I haven't played the other endings yet).

This!!!

(Obviously, not murdered her personally, but he absolutely had no qualms about doing the ritual once more - knowing the consequences of it.)

Let me preempt this by saying that I wanted there to be a happy/fulfilling ending to Solas and Lavellan. I'm not a blind hater! Just someone who finds it very hard to put my own Lavellan in the place of the 'Lavellan' provided to us in DATV.

The Solas/Lavellan relationship already was kind of iffy (power imbalance, constantly dragging her culture, removing her vallaslin/then dumping her, constantly lying to her, etc...) but DAI did a great job of making you feel sympathetic towards his plight - especially after Trespasser! He woke up in a world so divorced from his own that it was unrecognizable - the people he had done so much for were suffering from the consequences of his actions, justified as they may have been at the time (stopping the evanuris). His actions led to great suffering in the pursuit of preventing even greater suffering.

Even after we learned of his plans in Trespasser, it was very much: "cool motive, still murder."

I felt sympathetic towards Solas and the implication that we could change his mind, given to us in Trespasser, gave me hope that we would be able to convince him of another path. That he could find a place in Thedas as it is now and look to the future. That was why I chose the option to try and get through to Solas, despite knowing that his plan would lead to mass death/terror if it went ahead.

I always expected the Veil to fall at some point, but i was hoping there'd be some more nuance to it than: veil gone, demons everywhere, lots of people die. Well, I was very wrong lmao.

But, if anything, the game made me entirely unsympathetic towards Solas.

The moment he started his ritual he chose the old elven empire over Lavellan - over her family, friends, home, culture, and anything else she may have loved/valued.

And he did this twice.

He chose to pursue lowering the Veil - knowing that thousands would likely die. For all his insistence of 'minimizing the damage' he went in knowing that many more people would die because of his actions. There was no justification of stopping the evanuris this time either - no excuse of not knowing the potential consequences of his actions like the first time.

He chose to begin the ritual that ended up releasing the Elven Gods - knowing full well the risks it entailed.

He killed Varric - whether by accident or not, it was by his hand.

He chose to use blood magic to manipulate Rook into thinking that Varric was alive - puppeting his corpse around in Rook's eyes and putting his words into Varric's mouth.

He chose to manipulate, mold, and guilt Rook into the old 'switcheroo' in his mind palace/regret prison

He chose to 'free' the elven people by bringing down the Veil - regardless of their feelings about it (elven Rook can call him out on this!), never mind the consequences or ramifications of a bunch of people suddenly having their bodily autonomy overwritten by now being magic/having immortality.

He looked at the devastation caused the by the Gods and still went ahead with trying to bring down the veil again.

These are the thing he does in-game - not even mentioning making the dwarves/titans tranquil, creating the blight, started the chain of events that led to SOUTHERN THEDAS BEING DESTROYED, and taking my good gear from Inquisition!

Aside from the 'all lore leads to Solas' reveal just being really dull it also does nothing to help with making me sympathetic to him as a character. The audacity of this man to say: "it was like walking in a world of tranquil" when he fucking lobotomized the dwarves/titans is wild in retrospect.

If he didn't do the ritual at the beginning, if something else went wrong and that resulted in the God's being released, I could understand why a Lavellan would still want to get through to him. It would make sense - she could stop him from doing it again at the end too! You can still have him conflicted and torn between the restoring the past or pursuing the future - but this doesn't happen!

He never chose Lavellan in this game! Hell, it's Mythal who convinces him to stop?!! He owes her nothing! He's learned nothing from this!!! He's only stopped because Mythal 'pardoned/freed' him - once again showing that he values the ancient elves/mythal over her!!!

How impactful would it have been to have him choose Lavellan over Mythal! To show us this! Mythal, who 'crawled through the ages for a reckoning' (which was retconned to her being sad about the elves lmao) telling Solas to go through with the ritual and him touching grass and saying 'no'.

It's something I feel was wildly out of character for him as well - he never came across in DAI as being subservient to Mythal, if anything the ending cutscene gave me the impression they were equals?!

After everything he did in this game - after all we learn about what he did in the past - I had no interest in reasoning/appealing with his ass. None whatsoever. My inquisitor/Lavellan asking if Solas can be reasoned with only made me regret making that choice - perhaps other people's inquisitor's would say that, but mine would not, especially after everything that happened in game.

She came across as delusional: standing on the ruins of a blighted Minrathous, the south blighted to hell, dead all around them, blight tentacles everywhere, a gaping hole in the Fade right next to them:

Lavellan: "I forgive you! All you have to do is stop." Solas: "But I cannot."

Boom! There it is.

At this point it's not romantic, it's just sad! Sad that she's spent 10 years pining after a man who seemed to learn nothing at all from what happened in DAI.

------------------------

There should have been some sort of a dialogue option with Lavellan right before you go into the big fight - she can ask you what you think of Solas, if he's truly regretful for everything that happened, and then you can give her an answer that can 'change' her approach to Solas in the end - giving the player some agency as to how their Inquisitor would actually respond to this.

Ending One: Bye Bye Bye

Rook: "HE'S A GUY."

alternatively, "Look around you! Look at what Solas has done - what he's threatening to do even now after all of this! You gave him every chance to turn away from this path. So did Varric...and look at what he did!"

Lavellan is bitter/angry with Solas: "It seems we never were people to you after all."

Refers to him as 'Fen'harel' and not Solas - dig the knife in deeper, give us angst!

"Just go. You love the Fade, don't you? Enough to do all this - enough to kill Varric for your pride in a dead world that no longer exists. We were never 'real' to you, were we?"

Solas says his goodbyes, expresses his love, and Lavellan steps back.

Solas leaves voluntarily, his 'situation-ship very much over', to stew in his regrets for the rest of his life.

Ending Two: Bittersweet Goodbye

Rook: "Girl, it's been 10 years."

alternatively, "You loved him once, perhaps you still do even now - after all he's done - but love wasn't enough. Love does not excuse this."

Lavellan is firm with Solas, does not excuse his actions, but has a bitter sweet farewell: "I had hoped…it doesn't matter what I hoped. You made your choice - it wasn't me. It wasn't our friends. It wasn't this world. You can make a choice now - if I ever mattered you. If I, if our friends, were ever real to you."

They can have a final goodbye, a goodbye smooch, and then he can go off to the Fade.

Bittersweet ending - acknowledge what they had and then provide closure.

Ending Three: Happy Ending (?)

Rook: "He didn't mean it babe. He's tots sorry."

alternatively, "He seems to regret what's happened - I've seen his memories, his regrets. He believes this is the only path he has. Perhaps you can convince him to find another."

Default Lavellan ending basically

"There is no fate but the love we share" blah blah blah

As happy an ending as it can be when you have Lavellan fuck off to the Fade - leaving behind her life, friends, family, and whatever remains of the world for an eternity.

I'm being mean but I genuinely wanted a happy/fulfilling ending for them both too - despite the fact that this game seems to want that ending as well, it did little to convince me of that. :(

I genuinely liked Solas in DAI - despite his flaws, I thought his romance was compelling and I was hoping to be able to convince him to change/alter his path. I can see what they were trying to do with him in DATV but it's so hard to feel sympathy for him when we see/know the results of his actions. The story in this game is doing anything but convincing me to give him a 'happy ending'.

'Love' can't excuse what he did and neither would my Lavellan.

Also RIP Sandal's Prophecy about the Fade lmao

[titanfall-yaoi]

oh my god???

if you're in titan mode and sit in front of a grunt for long enough they'll just give up.

did it with another guy. he threw down his gun and everything. entire animations i've never seen in this game cause i always mercilessly slaughter the grunts

[maeamian]

Becoming deeply radicalized against the idea of crewed Mars missions, y'know how the Rovers keep sending back better and better data what if instead of that we made an even bigger one and devoted nearly 90% of its capacity to holding a guy in a bubble on top of it instead of sending back useful data, but wait! They'll eliminate like a half hour of latency and also almost certainly contaminate the landing site and possibly the entire planet, so it's not all downside.

[metamatronic]

Old designs, New clothes!

Finished the end of the game (sorta—i watched a playthrough with no commentary) and…it sure is a game. Still enjoying revisiting the franchise, though.

[ahli-stuff]

I DONT WANT TO SEE VIKTORS GLORIOUS EVOLUTION . PLEASE DO NOT?? GLORIOUSLY EVOLUTE???

Ive been excited to see machine herald viktor since season 1 but . not like this!!!

See i would say this is just like the powder -> jinx transformation and his change is inevitable it’s a tragedy so I shouldn’t feel too upset but. But. There’s a difference in the character arcs which just makes me all the more uneasy

I love powder, but I think arcane’s story functions primarily with jinx in mind. we only ever got to see powder three episodes out of two entire seasons—her character is essentially baked from the beginning to be jinx. The story is more interesting with powder as jinx. Jinx is more fun to pick apart, analyze, laugh with, and watch than powder.

But viktor? He was fun to watch before he was the “machine herald.” We got the whole of season 1 of him kicking around, making noise, and being generally developed and interesting to watch even if he doesn’t shoot lasers out of a third arm.

I just really don’t want to watch an out of touch supervillain emotionless robot terrorize piltover and zaun!! I only hope he’s fun to watch instead of being a generally really sad agency-less bucket of bolts

[andr0nap]

You mentioned the deal w seeds in the plane au — what IS the deal w seeds in this au, if you don’t mind me asking?? 👀

bwah okay its not that much different from canon. they were still a deep space colonization fleet but in this au their mission was technically a success

seeds established an research outpost on no mans land to study the planet and test it for potential permanent habitation in the future. basically the fall doesnt happen. or at least not when and how it does in canon

vash and nai were born when seeds began constructing proper long term facilities on the surface

2 years later the research facilities have turned into small cities, terraforming projects kicked into gear and a decent human population was slowly being woken up from cold sleep. the colonization mission for this fleet was deemed a success

the twins were part of a project testing independent plant capabilities and the utility potential of reality bending (the ability to both power and control machines and expanding the storage capacity of small fast aircraft for transportation efficiency), later named project gemini in their honor. during that time the jets g-01 and g-02 and their prototype engines were constructed

at some point nai found detailed info on the project and noticed the discrepancy in their unit numbers, their engines being numbered 02 and 03 in the blueprints. more digging led to the discovery of tesla and her fate as an integrated part of the fleets onboard ai, knives went mad and began plotting the downfall of humanity. over a few weeks he secretly gained control over the local aircraft fleet and one of the production lines and launched an assault on the main ships in orbit

the one man war against seeds (and poor vash, who was caught in the crossfire, not wanting to fight either of them and trying to stop them from fighting each other) lasts a few decades and only ceases when nai shoots his brother out of the sky by accident

by then little was left of the original seeds project, losing the battle in the end. the sky and desert are a graveyard of ships and aircraft a century later. most of humanity doesnt remember the project or know what happened. a majority of the population abandoned seeds and fled the facilities to establish their own settlements during the war

and thats the deal with seeds! i think? did it explain anything? i got so caught up in writing this that i wrote down some of the early plot dhgfjhdfg

[koifsssh]

LISTEN. LISTEN TO ME. I WATCHED THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS AND I HAD A VISION.

npc rainy...

he is supposed to be friend shaped, acts as a sort of friendly face to make the place less empty and lonely! someone you can talk to whenever you want!

of course such ai has to come from somewhere! let's just say he's "recycled"!

err... don't let him learn that though!

[goldengodcannibal]

my concept and general existence of gender doesn't exist but i'll watch or see something that just roots me firmly in loving being a gay man

[glassrunner]

i didn't understand at first what viktor meant by the "failures in the commune." he's so devoted to healing others and caring for them, i could not have possibly fathomed that he would do what i think will happen in act 3: discard humanity and all its flaws of emotion

[stayatsam]

im glad that veilguard turned away from the broodmother thing in favor of darkspawn literally spawning from pools of blight now

[britisharmymilitaryintelligence]

TERRAN RELATED LIFE SUPPORT AND DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS IMMEDIATELY DEPORT OR KILL OR CAPTURE INTRUDERS OR INVADERS AS A GENERAL RULE AND ARE ENTIRELY AUTOMATED OR AUTOMATIC AND REQUIRE NO ORDERS TO FUNCTION OR EVEN KNOWLEDGE AMONG PERSONS AS TO THE PARTICULAR DETAILS OF THOSE TYPES OF FUNCTIONS. IT WOULD NEVER MAKE SENSE THAT SOMEONE WOULD BE GIVEN ACCESS TO TERRAN RELATED SYSTEMS BASED UPON AN INDIVIDUAL'S ASSENT AND INDIVIDUAL ORDERS MIGHT ADD TO TERRAN RELATED SYSTEMS FUNCTIONS BUT THEY ARE ALL ESSENTIALLY ROOTED IN MASSIVE BRAIN EMULATING COMPUTERS AND SO TYPICALLY ACT AS THOUGH ALL MEMBERS OF A SOCIETY HAD VOTED IN RELATION TO EVERYTHING DONE. PLEASE RESEARCH WIRELESS BRAIN MEMORY BACKUP TECHNOLOGY FOR FURTHER INSIGHT.

[mittensmorgul]

There’s another post going around about this, but tumblr won’t let me reblog it but...

When I read a story written by a human being, I’m not just reading it because I want to read a coffee shop AU with a specific plot description. I’m reading it because it’s making a connection to another human storyteller and seeing a piece of them carved into the words. Storytelling is a human act of sharing joy, angst, tension, resolution, satisfaction. It’s an act of love.

Writing and reading a story isn’t just an act of creation and consumption. I hate that commercialism and AI are reducing it to that sort of transaction. Like oh, you need words on this subject and that’s the end of it. Like what we really needed was just a vending machine we can push buttons on to get a fix, as if the human creating the story wasn’t a factor. That the author’s life experience and views and feelings haven’t infused the words with their own unique touches.

I’ve read hundreds of coffee shop AU’s over the years (and thousands of fics in general). I’ve seen many similar tropes reused across stories, and just like an AI would, I’ve learned things about writing them that I will always carry with me. But unlike an AI, a human author is not just the sum total of coffee shop AU’s we’ve consumed. Even if we used the same prompt, the same sets of tropes, the same characters. I will always choose the human-crafted story over the computer generated one.

Because again, I’m not just looking for a very specific fix via a series of words. I’m looking for a human connection through story.

Unlike an AI, I have BEEN to a coffee shop. I’ve had experiences in coffee shops. I’ve had funny little meet-cutes with people. I’ve accidentally spilled coffee on myself and knocked heads with someone as we both rushed to wipe it up. I know what it FEELS like. The machine doesn’t.

I’ve also read millions of things that aren’t fanfic, or coffee shop AU’s. I’ve experienced things OTHER than going to coffee shops and having meet-cutes. And I know what all those things feel like when processed through my personal human lens of experience, which is different from every other personal human lens of experience.

All the machine can do is spit out what it THINKS a human experience is, and I honestly don’t care about that at all. Fic is not a “product” to be “generated.” It’s an art form that connects us to other people who share the same love of a thing that we do.

People who, even when all writing the same characters in the same setting to the exact same prompt, will all add something or have a viewpoint about something or bring a completely different personality and life experience to the story that no one else on the planet could. That’s what I’m actually reading.