#ship: fire's out anyway

[wolfsgravity]

This screenshot always makes me want to go feral

I want to suck his soul out through his [beep]

[weirdglassthing]

LOA Shiptober Day 4: How They Met

October content month was ambitious..

This one took me. Shockingly long. Whoops! I’ll probably end up jumping around the prompt list and it might extend into November 😋

I’ll try to do day 31 on the actual date of Halloween though 🫡

[art-is-kayos]

Manager and their Knight.

[umbrellainkart]

i gave doffy too much pro wrestler swag

[marsbotz]

you scare me. you’re… different.

[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

[apollo-just-ice]

Textpost time yay! :-)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

My Accolades

[sun-marie]

I was looking through my blog and I realized I don't think I ever? actually posted my Azulow zine piece here? so. oops! 😅

But yeah, last year I had the pleasure to be part of this amazing Azulow zine, Pas de Deux, a digital zine dedicated to the FE Fates pairing Azura/Laslow, which is still available for download!

Please enjoy some Azulow Family fluff in this no-deeprealms AU <3

[brinkle-brackle]

family

(a/n: SURPRISE FIC!!!!!!!! I wrote this prose poem thingy for a class writing exercise last semester and I'm very proud of it, and I wanted to put something out for bttf day so here it is now :) I hope yall enjoy it!!)

- - - - -

I have a father. A father who I am unsure if I will ever truly know in any real way. His eyes have been fixed to the television every night for as long as I can remember. He blinks in tandem with the static. He is wired, he laughs along with the laugh track. He is wired to cringe and cower beneath and stutter and laugh and laugh and laugh. His laugh, what a shaky, unsure laugh. He laughs and nods and laughs, full of fear. "Yes, sir, of course, sir, I know, sir-- hah, ouch-- yes, sir, I know, sir. You can- can count on me, sir." I ask him why he does what he does. He tells me he can do nothing else.

I have a mother, although I wonder if I ever truly had a mother. I wonder if this was something that developed as I grew up. Maybe it is just that I cannot remember her for who she used to be, or maybe she has always been like this. So jaded, so distant. A haze lies over her eyes, they are glass. Every evening they become glass. Tonight she is two vodkas in.

I have a brother who does not take his life as seriously as he should. Ever since graduating he has sat in the same place, flipping and frying. He does not like effort. He tells me that he is content as he is. A lazy smile, the stench of grease lingering from the spot he stands in even long after he has left. It is everywhere in his room. It creeps out in the wash and corrupts the rest of our clothes and bedsheets. He is turning gray before my eyes. Any longer, and I fear he will become a stone.

I have a sister, and she is miserable. Wanting and yearning, yet stifled. Aware, though. She is aware of what our parents have and what they do not have, and what they do not have she wants for herself. Her heart calls out. It tires of living in such a perpetual state of stillness, it wants to beat. A companion. A dinner for two, caring not if it will work out, just to try. That is what she wants: to try.

I have a family, and they are not you.

I have a girlfriend and she is my world. She is the sun when the clouds get thick and the clouds when the sun gets hot. She is musical laughter and stolen kisses before algebra class. She is planned-out road trips and a walk hand in hand through the town square. She is off-key, loudly-sung ABBA under the stars after leaving the cinema. She is a ride through the neighborhood, a skateboard date to 7-Eleven at twilight. She has been in the front row of every gig I have ever done (exactly two). She sings along when I practice my guitar-- not loudly, not off-key-- but just right. From her heart. She is solace.

She is everything to me, but not in the same way you are.

I sit down at the dinner table. My brother eats, but my sister prefers talking over chewing. I do not blame her, I am not hungry either. My fork becomes a rake on my plate with its slow and languid movements. Our mother speaks of her brother who will be visiting tomorrow. My sister makes a snarky comment, a blunt knife shot from between her teeth. Our mother just laughs, and it is the closest thing to genuinity I have heard from her in a long time, although it is not quite there. She calls out to our father. He does not answer, he has wired himself up to the television the way he does every night. Our mother waits, but he does not answer. He laughs along with the laugh track.

I have a father, and he is not you.

Stomach turning, I retreat to my room for the evening. I play my guitar until I hear my sister snap through the wall for me to quiet down. I prop my guitar against the wall and dial on my landline, and it rings one, two times before you answer. You greet me with warmth in your voice, you ask me how my day was. I tell you. You ask me about algebra, and I make a strange noise. You help me with my homework, we are on the phone for hours as numbers clash and meld together in my mind's eye. It is late now, and you can hear the tiredness in my voice. The math book is long gone, but we are still talking, although there are more pauses in our voices. Tomorrow is my audition, I say. You know, you remember. Come by my garage in the morning before school, you tell me-- I made something for you that might help you out with practicing. You can play without having to worry about waking your family up.

I have a father, and he is not you. But he does not ask me about my day with genuine interest. He does not help me with my algebra homework. He does not tell me his dreams and aspirations, and he does not encourage mine with equal enthusiasm. He does not give me pep talks. He does not get Burger King and offer to watch cheesy older movies with me when I have had a bad day. He does not put his heart into everything he does and include me in all of it. He does not stay on the line with me until I fall asleep, smile on my face and phone resting limply in my hand.

I am not in his world and he is not in mine. But you and I, we are engrained, woven into each others'.

I have a father, and he is not you. But family is not always the thing written in one's blood.

[sieglinde-freud]

worst yaoi youve ever seen

[wolfsgravity]

I can't explain why

but I am barking at the stills i see of dabi in the new episodes

including/especially this one

cocksure looking prick <3

[epicfirestormer]

Guess who's playing Steamworld Heist 2 and isn't being normal about it

[gaylactic-fire]

If you or a loved one has been affected by The Insane Zelink Anon please call this number

[spineless-lobster]

I have made a Financial Purchase that cost A Lot Of Money but it’s Okay because it’s my Birthday Present and I am allowed to make a Large Purchase to celebrate and it’s Alright because I will Earn The Money Back in due time

[alangdorf]

Listened to Eternal Dance Engine ~ Shall We Dance!! one too many times (and then like a hundred more times afterwards for good measure) and dropped everything to go draw this. Also tried out a new shading process which kinda did what I wanted it to but I’ll keep experimenting